If the reader is puzzled by this curiously superfluous insistence on the "overthrow" of the enemy analogous to the equally superfluous insistence on the "offensive" character of the Cavalry Arm, he will once more find an explanation in the anomalous status of the _arme blanche_. No one would dream of repeatedly impressing upon Infantry, for example, as though it were a principle they might otherwise overlook, that their primary aim must be the absolute and complete overthrow of the hostile Infantry. But the advocate of the _arme blanche_ is always on the horns of a dilemma. He dare not admit that the rifle in the hands of Cavalry is as formidable a weapon as in the hands of Infantry, if not a far more formidable weapon. He therefore instinctively tends to picture steel-armed Cavalry as perpetually pitted against steel-armed Cavalry. Both sides are always in offence until the moment when one is "completely and absolutely overthrown." Then some other rôles, very vaguely delineated, open up to the victor. Needless to say, this picture bears no resemblance to war. Troops are not, by mutual agreement, sorted out into classes, like competitors in athletic sports. Every Arm must be prepared to meet at any moment any other Arm, _and any other weapon_. Nor do these "complete and absolute" obliterations of one Arm by its corresponding Arm ever, in fact, happen. That they could ever happen through the agency of the lance and sword is the wildest supposition of all. Compared with rifles, these weapons are harmless. Even the most backward and ignorant Cavalry, trained to rely absolutely on the lance and sword, would, if it found itself beaten in trials of shock, or, like the Japanese Cavalry, greatly outnumbered, resort to the despised firearm, imitate the tactics and vest itself with something of the "tenacity and stiffness," as well as with the aggressive potency, of those "other Arms," which, by hypothesis, must be attacked with the rifle; and in doing so it would force its antagonist to do the same. CHAPTER IV CAVALRY IN COMBAT I. INSTRUCTION FROM HISTORY. I HAVE gone at considerable length into the opinions of Sir John French, as expressed in his Introduction to von Bernhardi's work--partly because it is more important for us to know what our own Cavalrymen think than what German Cavalrymen think, and partly because it will be easier for the reader to estimate the value of the German writer's views if he is already familiar with Sir John French's way of thinking. We should expect, of course, to find identity between the views of the two men, since Sir John French acclaims the German author as the fountain of all wisdom; but on that point the reader would be well advised to reserve judgment. I shall now discuss "Cavalry in War and Peace," and first let me say a few more words on a very important point--the circumstances of its composition.