ABSTRACT

At its meeting of 8 August 1913, the Army Council deliberated that ‘the presence of such men [reservists] in the ranks of the Mounted Infantry would undoubtedly be a source of danger in the event of a European campaign’. 1 The ensuing discussion cast doubt on the continued existence of the Mounted Infantry force caused by the vicissitudes and limitations of its source of manpower. By the end of the meeting, the Mounted Infantry had been abolished. Therefore, this chapter reviews the Mounted Infantry’s apparently precipitous implosion occurring at a time when it remained a recognised and officially sanctioned arm replete with a designated role at mobilisation. 2

Current historical orthodoxy postulates multiple explanations for the Mounted Infantry’s demise, often indicating a gradual decline rather than a sudden implosion. The factors cited include lack of senior army patronage, disloyalty to the arm from its commanders through prior regimental allegiances, institutional failure to train a numerically adequate force, the cavalry’s renaissance, closure of the Mounted Infantry schools and replacement of the Mounted Infantry as divisional troops by a combination of repatriated cavalry regiments and cyclist companies. 3 Some of these factors have already been discussed and arguably discounted as major determinant factors. For instance, although Roberts had been removed from his post in 1904, there remained enough influential senior officers with Mounted Infantry experience supportive of the arm such as Hutton, Alderson, Ian Hamilton and Godley. Hutton had lost some of his influence through service abroad particularly in Australia from 1902 and had retired from the active list in December 1907. Certainly Roberts and Wolseley, ardent supporters of both the Mounted Infantry and the regimental system, had by the mid-1900s seen their own authorities waning. In terms of loyalty and doctrine, Edward Spiers considers that Mounted Infantry commanders returning from the South African War had capitulated to the prevailing belief of the cavalry’s social and military superiority and thus willingly subjugated the Mounted Infantry to performing limited protective duties rather than retaining more wide-ranging and independent strategic roles as it had on the veldt. 4 Against this argument is the designation of Mounted Infantry in mixed mounted brigades that inher-

This allegation of the disloyalty of Mounted Infantry officers to the arm has been discussed previously when the issue of the Mounted Infantry’s identity was examined. The evidence for such an accusation seems tenuous. Peter Robinson also rejects this interpretation of events questioning which Mounted Infantry commanders guiltily chose extemporisation over peacetime permanence with organisational stability for their own purposes. 6 Seeking internal factors in causation, the Mounted Infantry has been implicated in its own downfall through its painfully slow development prior to 1899 and its inadequate training for war, which had serious repercussions for its continued existence thereafter. However, it is difficult to reconcile this view with the ultimately successful expansion of the Mounted Infantry paradigm after 1900 into a comparatively well-regarded mounted force that helped secure victory in South Africa and which could be enacted if needed in the future despite its manifest drawbacks. 7 Regarding institutional friction with the cavalry, despite Haig’s scathing views, his cavalry colleague French was considered by Godley to be largely favourable to the Mounted Infantry, with Godley writing that ‘Sir John French was one of the many cavalry soldiers who were very good friends to the Mounted Infantry’. 8 Cavalry reform had certainly yielded variable improvements in dismounted musketry, yet this in itself was insufficient evidence for the abolition of the Mounted Infantry, as shown by the prevailing opinions voiced by both infantry and cavalry officers. 9 Moreover, although cyclists were proving, at least during peacetime manoeuvres, to be promising mobile troops who could perform many of the orderly duties of divisional mounted troops, their limitations off metalled roads remained a weakness as much as their numerical paucity. Even if capable newcomers, their deployment was not mutually exclusive of the Mounted Infantry, as shown by their joint presence in manoeuvres and inspections of 1904, 1905, 1906, 1909, 1912 and the Cavalry Division’s training exercise in 1912. Nonetheless, lack of integration or at least defined cooperation between these mobile forces remained a flaw, in terms of both training and, by extension, doctrine. This then leaves the Mounted Infantry’s numerical weakness, inextricably linked to abstraction and the politics around the closure of the Mounted Infantry schools, as critical factors implicated in the abolition of the Mounted Infantry.