In ordinary circumstances this summary would open the book, but any account of the part played by a British Cavalry regiment in the late war must of necessity have some bearing upon the larger question of the part likely to be played by the mounted arm in any wars of the future; and just now this question is of special interest, for it has been freely asserted that recent changes in military conditions, notably the vast increase in the size of armies and the development of the aeroplane, have made Cavalry an obsolete and useless arm; and it is important for us to know whether they have done so, or are likely to do so. Therefore it has been thought desirable to give at the beginning a brief review of the history of Cavalry before this war, and at the close a few remarks upon the lessons of the war with regard to the value of the arm under present conditions. Perhaps the services of the Thirteenth Hussars will not lose in interest if considered to some extent from this point of view. CHAPTER II. CAVALRY BEFORE THE GREAT WAR. For thousands of years the horse has been the companion of man in war. It is significant that when Job gives us his wonderful description of the strong things of earth and sea and air, he speaks of the horse in this connection, as rejoicing in the sound of the trumpet, and smelling the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. “He goeth out to meet the armed men. He mocketh at fear, and is not dismayed; neither turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the flashing spear and the javelin. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage.” And in many passages of the Bible, in poetry and in narrative, we have mention of the chariot and the horseman. Representations of them are to be found in the carvings and tablets of long-vanished dynasties and nations. To take a single instance, they are shown in Assyrian carvings dating nearly a thousand years before Christ, which can be seen now in the British Museum. Apparently the chariot came into the field earlier than the horseman usually so called, and the first use of the horse in war was to take up to the front in chariots warriors who got down to fight on foot, as the Greek chiefs did in the siege of Troy. But ere long Scythians or other nomads learned to mount the horse himself, and then began that close conjunction and sympathy between man and horse which made the two almost one creature, the Centaur of the fable.