‘Equine Battering Rams? A Reassessment of Cavalry Charges in the English Civil War’, Journal of Military History, 75:3 (2011), pp. 719-731.

The post above is nearly 5 years old now. Since then I’ve refined my arguments and found some new evidence.

Now that have read your articles I am unclear about the purpose of a cavalry charge against infantry. If it was designed to stop before reaching its target whether at the canter or gallop then surely the infantry would have come to realize this and not have all feared it. Moreover did the charge stop before a line of infantry as well as a square. I cannot understand how a charge would have worked against infantry with fixed bayonets, but I could see that a charge could reek havoc on the flanks and creating holes in the line. I recall reading how at the battle of Waterloo some Cuirassiers went as far as trying to back their horses in against a square! There are also numberous examples of cavalry running down routed infantry in the American Civil War most notably during the battle of the First Bull Run. I would very much appreciate your response to the questions I have raised as I have much respect for your opinion.

But enough about cavalry-infantry interaction. Going back to the original subject of cavalry vs. cavalry combats, another thing worth noting is the looseness of the Polish hussars’ formation. Instead of packing themselves together into a wall of horseflesh and armored men, they seem to have preserved substantial intervals between the ranks and files. This implied that they sought to “thread” through opposing cavalry formations in a manner reminiscent of medieval men-at-arms, and indeed this was probably the way to extract the most advantage out of their lances since it would allow the rear ranks to break their lances upon the enemy as well without losing the momentum of their charge. Even 16th-century Gendarmes seemed to prefer threading as well since accounts of their clashes against each other generally mention them passing through to the other side rather than stopping to slog it out in a stationary fight.

BTW I can tell you right now that in fight a stallion is your best bet.

As for the word ‘through’ it seems to be a pretty straight forward term and by ‘through’ I meant ‘through’ as in: In one side and out the other.

Actually I was, but that’s not very important now. The main point I want to make is that even if horses could be trained to run into solid objects, it would be counter-productive. If a horse hits anything at more than a slow canter it will be knocked over, injured or killed (see here for some video evidence). Getting your horses stabbed in the chest by pikes is not a successful outcome.

The arguments I’m making against physical shock are specifically about 17th-century and later cavalry, armed with swords and pistols, and riding unarmoured horses. Things might well have been different with the heavy lancers of the 16th century and earlier, but in that case it would have been the point of the lance doing the colliding, not the body of the horse. These posts are specifically arguing against Frank Jones who described 17th century cavalry charges as “equine battering rams”.

The word “through” can mean lots of different things. It’s hard to draw any conclusions from it. Has any more recent research been published on those battles? Oman’s work is very old.

I’m very suspicious of the idea that stallions made better warhorses. I need to do a lot more work on this before I can take a definite position on whether they were or weren’t. But at this stage it would be naive not to suspect gender ideology at work. If the Spanish Riding School only uses stallions, that tradition could be full of ideological assumptions. Classical dressage doesn’t prove or disprove anything related to shock. I don’t think the Spanish Riding School tries to crash horses into each other. If they did the losses would be very expensive.

Here are the names

There are 2 sources (That I know of) which state that horses chests hit piks:

1. Diariusz drogi Króla JMci Zygmunta III od szczęśliwego wyjazdu z Wilna pod Smoleńsk w roku 1609 a die 18 Augusta i fortunnego powodzenia przez lat dwie do wzięcia zamku Smoleńska w roku 1611.
2. Wiadomość o porażce Dymitrego

The above sources were about Klusyn

What’s your opinion on this?

At the Battle of Ceresole in 1544, the French gendarmes under the leadership of the Duc d’Enghien repeatedly charged the Imperialist pike square (made up of several thousand Landsknechts), and in fact going right THROUGH the pike square on occasion. This after the cheveaux léger on the Right, under des Thermes had smashed into the Imperialist pike square formed of Italian troops, forcing them to halt long enough for the French infantry (made up of Swiss and Gascons) to converge simultaneously on the center Imperialist square, slaughtering them to a man. The Italians chose to leave the field (with des Thermes a captive, he made it to the center of the Italian square before his horse was killed), where upon the victorious Swiss and Gascons went to the aid of the gendarmes fighting the remaining Germans, and while the gendarmes held the German in check, slaughtered them, too. (The Landsknechts tried to surrender to the gendarmes, but were generally “unsuccessful”.)

At the battle of Dreux in 1562, the Huguenot gendarmes repeatedly charged the Royalist Swiss regiments, also repeatedly going all the way THROUGH the square. The Swiss held together, and through their discipline allowed the Royalists to “win” the battle. But everyone acknowledged that if not for the Swiss, the Royalists would have been the one’s trounced.

Check out Sir Charles W.C. Oman’s “History of the Art of War in the 16th Century” for full descriptions of these battles.

I think that the primary reasons that later Horse were generally unsuccessful at “breaking” Infantry squares was not just a lack of training (that could have been a part of it). It was also that what passed for “Heavy Horse” in the 18th and early 19th Century (such as Cuirassiers) were but a pale shadow of the old compagnies d’ordonnance insofar as horse-flesh goes, and with little armour their horses had little hope of survival anyway. Secondly, they were using mere swords, rather than heavy lances. I don’t care WHAT the later Cavalry Enthusiasts like Nolan or Patton said, a sword is hardly the “shock” weapon, certainly against Infantry, that a Lance is. Thus Napoleon’s Poles made quite a splash with their lances. Thirdly, by the 18th Century and later, due to the needs of having LOTS of horses and all of them getting along with poorly trained Cavalrymen, and all at government expense, the ratio of Stallions to Geldings was extremely low. But if you want aggressiveness, boldness and pure courage, you need a Stallion, not a Gelding. Geldings are far, far better troop horses than Stallions, believe me. But they aren’t the same animals in a fight. Think “Spanish Riding School” activities for what a real war-horse has to know how to perform in battle, and you have some idea of the demands upon 15th and 16th Century war-horses.

(translation: ‘thanks to the brave attack, in which fences were broken and horses chests’ were runing into piks.)

Whats is your opinion on that?

Atkyns is probably the most detailed account of them in action. They do seem to have been good in close combat, and it could be that they eventually decided to run away because the rest of Waller’s cavalry had gone and left them outnumbered by the royalists. Barry Denton’s biography of Haselrig would be expected to includee most of what is known about the regiment, but I haven’t read it myself.

I think the main reason why so few cuirassiers were used in the First Civil War is that they were only useful in big battles, whereas most cavalry operations consisted of scouting and raiding.