Still, it is a fortunate circumstance. We have a body of doctrine to grapple with and controvert. If we succeed in dissipating the myth of German superior intelligence on Cavalry matters, we go a long way towards dissipating the whole of the _arme blanche_ myth, which in the opinion of our greatest living soldier, Lord Roberts--an opinion founded on lifelong experience of war--is as mischievous a superstition as ever fettered a mounted military force. The whole of the material is here--and it is unexceptionable material for controversy--for Sir John French himself contributes his own views on the subject in the form of laudatory Introductions to both of General von Bernhardi's works. I propose in the following pages (1) to criticize General Sir John French's views, so expressed; (2) to analyze and criticize General von Bernhardi's recently published work, "Cavalry in War and Peace," and to contrast his teaching with that of our own Service Manuals; (3) to try to show that each General refutes himself, that both refute one another, and that Sir John French is, by a strange irony, far more reactionary than the German officer to whom he directs us for "progressive" wisdom; (4) to expose the backwardness and confusion in every department of Cavalry thought, here and in Germany, as a direct consequence of the attempt to found a tactical system upon obsolete weapons; and (5) incidentally to put forward what I venture to suggest is true doctrine. This doctrine, briefly, is that the modern Cavalry soldier is, for practical purposes, represented by three factors--man, horse, and rifle--and that it is only by regarding him strictly and constantly as a mounted, that is to say, an especially mobile, rifleman, as distinguished from the less mobile foot-rifleman, that we can establish his war functions on a simple, sound, and logical basis. I ask the reader to hold that clue firmly as a guide through the perplexities and obscurities of the topic and the obsolete terminology and phraseology which not only disturb reasoning but distort and enfeeble practice. At the outset let the reader grasp the following historical facts as to the efficacy of swords and lances in civilized war: 1. Franco-German War of 1870-71: Six Germans killed and 218 wounded by the sabre and clubbed musket counted together. No separate figures for the lance. [Total German casualties from all weapons, 65,160.][1] 2. South African War, 1899-1902: No statistics as to _death_. About fifty Boer casualties through lance and sword together, and about fifty more prisoners taken. [Total Boer and British deaths, and wounds from all weapons, about 40,000.] 3. Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05: No exact figures, but apparently not more than fifty casualties from lance and sword together. [Total casualties in action, over 400,000.] II. "CAVALRY IN FUTURE WARS."