It is curious how some doctoral theses can be extensively cited yet never appear in print. It seemed as if this would be the fate of Stephen Badsey's 1982 Cambridge thesis, “Fire and the Sword: The British Army and the Arme Blanche Controversy, 1871–1921.” Fortunately, however, Badsey has now been given the chance to publish his highly original research, suitably updated and revised, as the first volume in Ashgate's new series under the auspices of the Centre for First World War Studies at the University of Birmingham. The series editor, John Bourne, is to be commended on his championing of publication, for the role of horsed cavalry in the Great War remains a matter of considerable debate. It is a debate that goes well beyond scholarly exchange, for the enduring popular image of the conduct of the war on the Western Front—at least in Britain—is one of “lions led by donkeys” with the supposed overrepresentation of cavalry officers in the British high command taken as the epitome of military incompetence.

Thus, it is a given in the popular version of the First World War that the routine condemnation of Field Marshals Sir John French and Sir Douglas Haig must begin with their very adherence to the most conservative and outdated arm of service in an increasingly technological age. Clearly, it could not be possible for horses to survive in an environment of machine guns and barbed wire and, therefore, the maintenance of cavalry divisions in Flanders consuming vast amounts of fodder while awaiting an elusive and impossible breakthrough must represent the height of military folly. After all, David Lloyd George had more or less said this in his War Memoirs in 1934, and even the official historian, Sir James Edmonds, had largely concurred in 1947, remarking of the final months of the war that the “cavalry spirit” had led to expectations incompatible with “siege warfare.” Even within scholarly discourse, increasing acknowledgment of the British Army's perceived “learning curve” on the Western Front has often excluded consideration of the cavalry. Now, however, a number of historians are turning their attention to the mounted arm. It is only appropriate, therefore, that Badsey's pioneering work should receive its due through wider dissemination for, apart from the thesis, his published articles in this field have been relatively few. Curiously, indeed, his bibliography omits the article he contributed on cavalry in the South African War to the now defunct Sandhurst Journal of Military Affairs back in 1991.

Mention of the South African War indicates that this book ranges far more widely than simply the Great War, examining the whole protracted debate on the proper role of the cavalry in the British Army from the late Victorian period to the aftermath of the armistice. Initially, it was one of cavalry versus “mounted infantry,” and Badsey is especially good in plotting a clear course through the often-muddled understanding of the concept of the “charge” among contemporaries themselves. It is apparent that, whatever the nature of battlefield change, one major drawback throughout the Victorian and Edwardian periods in establishing an effective cavalry force was the actual lack of resources available. Provision of mounted troops for colonial campaigns was invariably improvised, and the supply of horses itself a recurring difficulty, not least given the appalling wastage of horses in the South African War. The additional problem, so far as the continuing debate within the army was concerned, however, was the ability of both sides to draw radically different conclusions from the same experience. Thus, while Field Marshal Lord Roberts was apt to conclude that opposition to his proposed modernization of the cavalry after the South African War was largely a matter of misplaced sentiment, cavalrymen like French, Haig, and Edmund Allenby had all participated in the successful divisional charge at Klip Drift. As Badsey demonstrates, concentration upon the admittedly poisonous contemporary debate centered on the successive editions of Cavalry Training in 1904 and 1907 has obscured the fact that, in 1914, alone among the armies of the great European powers, the British cavalry was adequately trained for both mounted and dismounted action.

Badsey's chapter on the Great War is meant to supplement his earlier contribution on “breakthrough doctrine” in Paddy Griffith's edited collection, British Fighting Methods of the Great War (1996). He certainly shows that the cavalry was not overrepresented in the higher command echelons of the British Army, and he also suggests that Haig had an increasing preference for cavalry to be used not for a complete breakthrough to the green fields beyond once the infantry had opened the way but, early on, and in relatively small numbers, to assist in opening up potential opportunities. Along the way Badsey corrects misconceptions regarding the cavalry's role at High Wood on the Somme in July 1916 and at Arras in April 1917. Losses were heavy where the cavalry did get forward. At Cambrai, in November 1917, the cavalry could not cross the Canal de l’Escault, and, in any case, the Tank Corps resisted any effective cooperation and did so again at Amiens in August 1918. Inevitably, as Badsey notes in a judicious albeit brief conclusion, change in the cavalry could only be incremental compared to revolutionary changes in technology.

If Badsey cannot altogether prove the continued utility of the horsed soldier on the modern battlefield, he certainly dispels much of the stigma that has unjustly attached itself to the cavalry's presence on the Western Front. Badsey underestimates the impact of the Curragh Incident in March 1914 on the personal relationships within the cavalry thereafter, and he also misses some work on the cavalry in the South African War by Jean Bou. Nonetheless, this is a most significant contribution to the historiography of the British Army, and its appearance in print is to be welcomed.