From the horse to the Tank

 

The new Cavalry

Cavalry - 'an army mounted on horseback, which comes from the Italian word Cavalleria which may mean either "Cavalry or Chivalry'. Two earlier meaning of Cavalry in English are now both obsolete were 'horsemanship' and 'Knighthood'. Another word associated with Cavalry is 'Yeomanry' which was the mounted component of the British Volunteer Corp, a military auxiliary established in the late 18th century amid fears of invasion and insurrection during the French revolutionary war.

Usually when we think of the Cavalry our minds are cast to the likes of the failed military action involving the British Light Brigade at the battle of Balaclava on the 25th October 1854 during the Crimean war.
We also remember the US 7th Cavalry with General Custer and his defeat at the battle of Big Horn by the Sioux Native Americans.

During the first world war "British Field Marshal Sir John French apparently stated" The machine gun, has no stopping power against the horse. With their equine mobility, with their swords and lances, and the power of a massed charge, the cavalry could continue to rule the battlefields of the Great war as it had for Napoleon, certainly, generals and cavalrymen believed this in 1914, and the early battles of war saw cavalry squadrons play a role. But the machine-guns did kill horses and their risers, with heavy losses.

The first world war became a war that was fought in trenches, the role of the Cavalry came to an end, those cavalry men were then became placed among the infantry, being sent to the trench and hold the line. Some remaining generals continued to believe in the horse and kept a few regiments ready to ride.

During world war I,  the trenches were fortified with lines of barbed wire, and machine-gunners at the ready. No man's land was a place of craters from exploded shells, that resembled the surface of the
moon. Some very deep holes, with stagnant water, and walls of slippery mud.
This made the Cavalry obsolete in this warfare.

While the war seemed to be a looming stalemate, those deeper thinkers, those employed to busy themselves, and bring about an end to the war, and break the current situation.

The British conceived the idea of the tank, a means that could break the stalemate of trench warfare and bring the make the war shorter. The tank was an armored vehicle that could roll over both wire and trenches, and also be impenatrable to small arms fire

By 1918, many teething problems of the had been ironed out, such as constantly breaking down, and also the heat and fumes inside the vehicle that choked the crew. This is what stopped the breakthrough at Cambrai in 1917.

Enemy artillery specialized as anti tank guns which could knock out a tank. But the confidence, the effect on morale, this huge beast firing its machine guns, and crushing everything in its path.

Even the staunch brave kraut at seeing these on coming metal monsters approaching, and flattening everything in its path, soon ran and fled.
These advancing Tommy's moving forward behind these armored beasts, having the air of being unconquerable.

The great war demonstrated that the age of the horse has had its use, a bygone time of the gallant horse and rider, swords drawn and the charge towards the enemy had come to an end. The as mentioned the riders became lost among the infantry and the horses demoted to pulling wagons, and artillery.

During world war II, Germany still continued to rely on horses, but for the United Kingdom, the Cavalry shed its flesh for a coat of metal armo
r, and the legs became caterpillar tracts. These give the new army versatility over many different terrains on the battlefield.

Cavalry and Yeomanry are still very much used today with the tank replacing the horse. A fine example is the North Irish Horse which was formed in the aftermath
of the second  Boer war. During world war two North Irish had the Churchill tank which can be seen in Carrickfergus, in Northern Ireland.