These disadvantages might indeed be partially mitigated if the squadrons were raised in Peace to their full War establishment and somewhat above it--say to 160 horses. But, on the one hand, this would mean a not inconsiderable increase in the Cavalry; on the other, our Peace conditions would be difficult to adapt to such an organization. Without going closer into these details, it will be sufficient to point out that all our barracks and riding-schools are designed for five squadrons; and further, that we do not need numerically stronger regiments, but a greater number, in order to satisfy all requirements. Hence, if it is admitted that swamping our squadrons with thirty or more augmentation horses must diminish most seriously the efficiency of our Cavalry, then it follows that a still further increase in their number will make matters still worse. Such proposals have no doubt been made, and it certainly would be convenient if our Cavalry could thus easily on mobilization be increased by one-third to one-half its strength; but after what has been said, above all such suggestions must be seen to be impracticable, for squadrons which consisted, for instance, of one-half augmentation horses would be simply useless for War purposes. A proceeding, therefore, which brought such results in its train would imply no increase of the Arm, but rather the destruction of the existing standard of Peace-time efficiency. Even as Divisional Cavalry such squadrons would be useless, for these require good individual horsemanship even more than those of the Independent Division for the performance of their special duties, and the necessary standard can never be attained with untrained horses. All who put forward proposals of this nature are labouring under the dominion of a fundamental fallacy. They overlook the fact I have explained in the foregoing section, that Cavalry by its very nature can never be other than a highly-specialized Arm, and hence that the system adopted by the Infantry of raising the cadres to War strength by the absorption of reserve men is for the Cavalry fundamentally impossible. For in the Infantry the ranks are filled by the addition of trained men; in the Cavalry they must be completed with untrained horses, and the untrained horses break down under service conditions much more rapidly than the men. Our experience in 1870-1871 was conclusive on this point. Already towards the end of August--_i.e._, in less than six weeks from the outbreak of the War--the greater part of the augmentation horses were quite useless for field purposes. If one looks up the reports in the War Archives, everywhere this complaint about the untrained animals is recurrent.