February 10, 2003

REASON NO. 263 WHY I

REASON NO. 263 WHY I HAVE NO CONFIDENCE IN A U.S.-LED IRAQI RECONSTRUCTION

"In addition to being the point man for "Free Iraqis," [Zalmay] Khalilzad is also the White House's envoy to Afghanistan and the person charged with the Iran portfolio... When he's in Afghanistan, who is handling Iraq?" asks one Defense Department official. "And, when he's dealing with Iraq, who is dealing with Afghanistan? In between you have riots in Iran, and who is dealing with that?"

--The New Republic, today.

Posted by BruceR at 02:21 PM

CIVIL WAR CAVALRY CHARGES In

CIVIL WAR CAVALRY CHARGES

In case anyone's wondering, I'm running the basic course for new officers for Toronto army reserve units. It does eat up the time.

My absence is not letting me take up some interesting recent threads, but one cannot pass without comment: once again, the venerable Den Beste:

If anyone ever attempted a cavalry charge against infantry on the battlefield in the Civil War, I've never heard of it.

Okay, this isn't an exhaustive list, but here's a couple that come to mind:

1) The regimental charge that restored the Union line and saved McClellan's army at Gaines' Mill. Not big enough? How about:
2) The brigade-level charge at Opequon Creek, which ended the war in the Shenandoah Valley? And surely Den Beste must have heard of:
3) The charges by the cavalry brigades on either end of the Union line at Gettysburg, that played a major role in the fighting of the third day.

Yes, cavalry charges were rare. Yes, they were more costly in terms of lives than in past wars, and the proportion of cavalry to infantry in modern armies was in the decline even before the civil war. And yes, they were often a last resort (Den Beste might want to look up the cavalry charge that covered the retreat of the Austrian army at Sadowa, in 1866.). But charges by mounted cavalry in large formations were not only a factor in Civil War battles, but in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War (although by that time the cost to the cavalry units was becoming prohibitive). And of course Den Beste will know about the successful use of mounted cavalry by Allenby and Lawrence against the Turks in World War One, with the charge by an Australian mounted brigade against prepared positions at Beersheba forming a large part of that country's national military myth (and the subject of the famous Aussie war movie The Light Horsemen).

Anything after the infantry were widely equipped with breechloaders is a statistical outlier, of course: regardless of the outcome, you'd still lose your cavalry unit in the attempt. And Den Beste's larger point about armoured fighting vehicles is one I have referred in the past on this site, as well. But the historical cut off for successful cavalry shock action by a modern army is somewhere after 1865, not before.

Posted by BruceR at 10:27 AM