Category: Cavalry

The “magnus equus” or “great horse” of the Middle Ages in Europe that helped give heavy cavalry its battlefield preeminence. The name derived from the Anglo-Norman “destrer,” which in turn came from the rough Latin “dexterius,” or “dexterarius,” meaning “right-handed.” This large breed was best known across Europe by the French “destrier.” First bred in […]

By the end of the nineteenth century cavalry operations in European armies had become a matter of some doctrinal uncertainty. More powerful weapons, firing more accurately and at longer ranges, raised the question of the suitability, indeed the survivability, of the cavalry. This was no less the case in Germany than elsewhere. While the Franco-Prussian […]

Ironically, however, the massed cavalry attack was in part made more unlikely by the very masses of infantry that some cavalrymen still confidently intended to drive from the field. Railways proved to be just as efficient as prewar planners had hoped in delivering unprecedented numbers of men and equipment for battle. For example, in approximately […]

The major armies of the era each had formidable mounted forces, and during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) there was a rough parity between the horsemen of the Great Powers. Yet, when Napoleon (1769-1821) launched his Grande Armee on its campaigns of conquest in 1805, the cavalry of France emerged as the best in the […]

In December 1805, brigadier general Jean Rapp led a memorable attack at Austerlitz, when he charged at the head of two squadrons each of the Chasseurs a cheval and the Horse Grenadiers of the Guard and the Guard Mameluks and decimated the Chevalier Guards of the Russian Imperial Guard. Order and Discipline Like all soldiers, […]

Modern-day Knights The armoured warrior on horseback had dominated the battlefields of Europe for a millennium, but the advent of firearms had generally caused the disappearance of armour. By the end of the eighteenth century, most cavalry had abandoned it altogether. However, in the Napoleonic Wars armour made a comeback, especially in the French cavalry. […]

One of the decisions of the Congress of Vienna (1815) was the creation of the kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont), which also encompassed the former republic of Genoa. The House of Savoy soon lost independence and became Austrian vassals, and the desire for freedom put Piedmont at the forefront of the struggle for Italian unification. From […]

Equipment of lancer and reiter, also from Wallshavsen Art Militare a Cheval, 1616. While the French and Spanish stuck with the lance as the weapon of choice of their heavy cavalry, the Germans changed over to pistols. These reiters (or schwartzreiters because of their habit of wearing black armour) became the usual sort of mercenary […]

In the mounted Caracole formation, each rank of a troop of horse goes forwards in turn to fire its pistols at the enemy then retires to the rear of the formation to reload, preferably stationary. This was a complicated action that demanded steadiness of both horse and rider under fire. It was not helped by […]

In an attempt to curb the activities of Confederate guerillas, Brig. Gen. Thomas Ewing ordered that any women aiding and abetting the raiders should be detained in Kansas City. The building in which the women were held collapsed, killing five and injuring many others, and spurring-on Quantrill and his men to their act of ‘revenge’ […]