FROM his general remarks on the action of Cavalry, mounted or dismounted, against the various Arms, mounted or dismounted, the author passes to "IV.--The Fight of the Independent Cavalry" (p. 141), and the reader almost at once finds himself straying in a fog caused by the author's refusal to face straightforwardly the simple dominant fact that "Cavalry" are also riflemen. What does "Independent" mean? One would naturally assume it to mean what it means in our own Cavalry's phraseology, the "strategical" Cavalry which operates on a self-supporting independent basis, as distinguished from the divisional Cavalry, which is attached to, and dependent on, the various Infantry divisions. And this is the signification which the author gives to it in the opening words of the chapter. "Such fights," he says, "will occur during the offensive reconnaissance of the Cavalry, in screening, and in enterprises against the enemy's communication and lines of approach" (that is, in raids), functions which are classified in the same order in the early part of the book as the normal functions of the Independent Cavalry, operating, in the first instance at any rate, against a hostile Independent Cavalry of the same stamp and vested with corresponding functions. We expect, accordingly, to hear a great deal about the "purely Cavalry fight," or shock-combat; but, to our bewilderment, after less than a page of exceedingly obscure reference to the "exceptional cases," where, owing to the absence of "other arms," such combats occur, the author proceeds to examine what he evidently regards as the normal case, "when the co-operation of other arms can seriously be counted on," and the whole of the forty-eight pages which follow implicitly assume that other Arms, whether in the shape of Artillery, Infantry, cyclists, or what he vaguely calls "partisans," are present. Artillery alone are enough, he says, to scatter to the winds "purely Cavalry tactical principles," and "to set the stamp of fire upon the development of the fight" (p. 144). The unfortunate Cavalry subaltern must feel the ground sinking under his feet. The book he is studying, "Cavalry in War and Peace," is a treatise for Cavalry on purely Cavalry tactical principles, and yet these principles cease to exist if even Artillery are on the scene, as in most normal cases it is assumed to be on the scene. Both in Germany and in England Horse Artillery is a recognized and integral part of the Independent Cavalry force whose functions the author is now considering. What is more, rifles are an invariable factor in the same force, German or English, or, indeed, in any force of Cavalry of whatever size, and however engaged, because they are carried by the Cavalry troopers themselves. And rifles, as the author will soon explain, make still worse havoc of purely Cavalry tactical principles. In other words, there _are_ no such principles.