Finally, I repeat once more that, for Englishmen, one of the best practical criteria of the steel theory, in regard both to reconnaissance and battle functions, lies in the existence of our Mounted Infantry force. Their revised Manual (1909), reticent and incomplete as it is sometimes in the interests of the sacred shock theory, is, in effect, a crushing indictment of that theory. They are trained to do precisely the same work as the Cavalry. They are not only to act as purely divisional mounted troops, but, like the German divisional Cavalry, are intended to co-operate with and, in circumstances which must constantly happen, act as substitutes for the Independent Cavalry. This is criminal folly if, from the lack of a sword or lance, they are "trussed chickens," whose morale, in the words of Colonel Repington, will be "destroyed" by steel-armed Cavalry. Thank Heaven, they listen with indifference to this language--language which would indeed be calculated to destroy the morale of any force with less self-respect and less splendid war traditions behind it. They know in their hearts that their methods are in reality not despised but feared by Continental Cavalry, for the reasons frankly and honestly set forth by General von Bernhardi. Their leaders now are the sole official repositories of what is really our great national tradition for mounted troops in civilized war; for the steel tradition is a legend dating from Balaclava, a battle which is scarcely more relevant to modern needs than Crécy--and Crécy, by the way, was one of the greatest of all the historic triumphs of missile weapons over shock. It was not the lack of swords and lances, but the possession of swords and lances, which tended to turn men into "trussed chickens" in South Africa and Manchuria. It was the rifle in both cases which made Cavalry mobile and formidable. It is melancholy to think that our true principles and sound traditions of mounted warfare are embodied in so small a force, organized on such an illogical system, provided with a training of altogether inadequate length, and hampered by nominal subservience to a steel-armed Cavalry whose theories of action have been proved in two long and bloody wars to be obsolete. It is perhaps even more melancholy to see so many Yeomanry officers agitating for an opportunity to ape the worst features of the Cavalry, while neglecting the best features of the very force whose exact tactical counterpart they are; dreaming sentimental nonsense about Bredow's charge at Vionville, while under their eyes lie the pitiless records of idleness and failure on the part of those whose aim it was to imitate Bredow, and the still sadder story of the penalties paid in South Africa for inexperience in the rifle by the Yeomanry themselves.