Note 7 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTORY

An American, writing in 1899, delivered the following prophecy: “Cavalry may be an expensive arm to organize, equip, and subsist, but if it comes to a matter of dollars and cents the security of the British Army in recent reverses would have been worth a million times what an effective cavalry screen might have cost. From the moral effect of the recent defeats the war in South Africa is expected to cost the British Government between 100 million and 300 million dollars.” Later he adds: “Let not our legislators forget in the coming reorganization of our army the importance, nay the economy in money and lives which cannot be measured by money, of maintaining an adequate force of cavalry. Cavalry cannot be made in a month from militia. The transformation process is slow. Given brave and fearless men, well-bred horses, expert marksmen, improved arms and equipments, it is not necessarily cavalry. Training is necessary and training takes time, but when war begins, time is the one element which is most in demand.”