ABSTRACT
For several decades before the 1880s, the British Army’s concerns about the future and doctrines of cavalry were chiefly a matter for a few military theorists, predominantly retired officers or their intelligent and ambitious juniors. In 1859 a Prussian quarterly journal gave its opinion that Prussia and the rest of Germany produced 50 per cent of all didactic military literature, France 25 per cent, and Great Britain perhaps one per cent, a reflection both of the lack of formal or written doctrine in British military thinking, and of a strong German sense of their own superiority in such matters.1 The British Army had considerable experience of the role of cavalry and other mounted troops in colonial warfare, as well as observing wars fought in Europe and North America. But it was the political changes, from the 1870s onwards, in the way that Great Britain and its Empire was defended, together with a re-structuring of the Army to conform to these changes, which made the future role and value of the cavalry such an important issue.2 In particular, the actions and views of Sir Garnet Wolseley (Lord Wolseley from 1882) played a significant part in determining cavalry doctrine, and in shaping the debate. Affectionately known at the time as ‘our only general’, Wolseley’s reputation has fluctuated over time; but he was widely recognised by contemporaries as the Army’s leading reformer, and the unofficial leader of the ‘Wolseley Ring’ of heroic officers, first formed in the Ashanti War of 1873-1874 and otherwise known as the ‘Ashanti Ring’, or to its denigrators as ‘The Mutual Admiration Society’.3
