After yet more digging for evidence of horse collisions I’ve found some new examples and more sources for some that I already knew about. Maybe in a perfect world I wouldn’t need to do this because everyone would just accept that shock charges are a stupid idea (as I’ve argued in lots of blog posts before, although I’ve changed my mind about some of the details), but maybe a world in which everyone accepted things without evidence wouldn’t really be all that perfect. I’m increasingly aware that old arguments against shock (eg John Keegan in The Face of Battle) are just as prone to woolly thinking, special pleading and vague appeals to “common sense” as the arguments for it. Instead of appealing to the authority of one historian’s common sense to disprove another historian’s common sense I need to appeal to the authority of science and real-world examples. Speculation about what “would” happen looks pretty worthless next to video footage of what did happen. In any case I find this research interesting and fun (despite the fact that it focuses on horrible things happening to horses and people!).

First, a new one that I haven’t mentioned before. Thursday 16 June 1994 (ladies’ day) at Royal Ascot. In the fifth race (the Ribblesdale Stakes), Papago ridden by Mick Kinane was trailing the field at the furlong post when a drunk spectator (James Florey) ran across course. The horse ran into him, knocked him down and rolled over, unseating the jockey. Although horse and jockey ended up on the floor they weren’t injured. Florey was taken to hospital. Initial reports said that his condition was serious, and he was later said to have suffered cuts and bruises, but apparently the only long-term result of the incident was that he was warned off British racecourses for five years by the Jockey Club.

YouTube has BBC footage of the accident in slow motion looking down the course, which gives a good view of what happened. It looks like the horse saw the spectator coming in from his right and tried to duck out to the left but this just kept him going towards the spectator who hadn’t seen the horse and carried on running straight across the track. The horse hit him and tripped over head first. There are also a couple of reports in The Independent from 17 June and 9 September.

A weird thing about this one is that I must have known about it at the time but I’d completely forgotten about it. I was really into racing at that time, watched it on TV whenever I could, and bought the Racing Post quite frequently. I even went to Ascot the day after the accident – I was there when Lochsong won the King’s Stand Stakes. And this was just after I’d started work on my undergraduate dissertation, which was all about cavalry, so it’s not like I wasn’t primed to look out for collisions. It just shows that memories are unreliable.

Churchill Downs, Kentucky, 26 April 2009. During an exercise period at the Kentucky Derby meeting, Doctor Rap unseated his rider and galloped into Raspberry Kiss, who was standing on the track. Raspberry Kiss was knocked over and was later put down because of a broken pelvis (or possibly died of shock just before she was due to be put down – reports are contradictory); Doctor Rap fell on top of her and suffered a bone bruise which will probably stop him from racing again. I tried to find out about this accident last year but things got confusing because many news reports got the names of one or both horses wrong! Thanks to the Thoroughbred Database, which gives pedigrees for thoroughbred horses, I’ve confirmed the correct names of the horses:

• Raspberry Kiss (USA) foaled 2007, by Champali (USA), out of Lucky Sheikh (USA)
• Doctor Rap (USA) foaled 2006, by Smarty Jones (USA), out of Carly’s Crown (USA)

Some sources gave the names as Dr Rap and Raspberry Miss, but there are no records of any thoroughbred racehorses with these names.

NBC Chicago has a video of the accident which gives a good view of what happened. Doctor Rap approached Raspberry Kiss from behind and hit her left side. She fell and rolled over, throwing her jockey off. Doctor Rap came down on top of her and neither horse could get up. They are still lying on the ground at the end of the video, over 30 seconds after the impact. The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) and New York Daily News give reports of the accident which seem to have the facts straight.

Prescott Downs, Arizona, 26 August 2000. I’ve written about this one before but now I have some reports from the Prescott Daily Courier from 30 November 2000 and16 July 2003 giving reliable details. This is the one where Pacific Wind unseated his rider, galloped the wrong way around the track, and collided head on with Lot O Love, ridden by Stacey Burton. Both horses were knocked over and killed, and Burton was in coma for 23 days and suffered permanent brain damage. That’s what happens when you maximize the shock of impact.

Finally, I came across a YouTube video of an accident in Turkey. I haven’t been able to find any background information about this, and it’s not likely that I will because there isn’t much to go on. It seems to be some kind of display related to the history of the Ottomans. The grey horse gallops into the black horse which is standing still. The grey is knocked over and doesn’t get up. I’d guess it probably had to be put down. The video shows horse and rider lying on the ground for nearly two minutes after the collision, and at the end they don’t look like they’re going to get up and walk away. The black horse did walk away and doesn’t seem to be too badly hurt. Because the accident is a long way from the camera, and the quality of the video isn’t too good, it’s hard to see exactly what happened. It looks like the black horse probably regained its balance, but it’s very clear that its rider was knocked off very suddenly. I don’t think anyone could have sat on through that.

So, more proof that crashing horses into each other, or into people, is a bad idea. Don’t do it kids…

Back in December 2006 I posted about cavalry charges. Inspired by John Keegan and Frank Tallett, I argued that the idea that cavalry horses crashed into each other in a “shock” charge was completely spurious because horses won’t willingly crash into a solid object, and if they could be made to the outcome would be disastrous because they would be killed or seriously injured by the impact. Physics and common sense are both on my side, but empirical evidence of horse collisions is very difficult to get. The best I could do back then was the footage of Anmer hitting Emily Davison in the 1913 Derby.

Now Peter at That’s Pretty Lame has found exactly what I needed: YouTube footage of two horses colliding head-on at a full gallop. According to the commentary this happened at Prescott Downs, Arizona on 26 August 2000. Both horses were killed and jockey Stacy Burton suffered severe brain injury. I shouldn’t be pleased about such a tragedy, but it’s the perfect empirical evidence to prove my point.

If only I’d thought of searching YouTube for horse collisions, but I assumed they were so rare that I wouldn’t find one. In fact that isn’t the only one. This is another – it looks like the collision is at a slower speed than the Prescott Downs accident but both horses are brought down. In this one the collision is at a very slow canter – looks like no-one was hurt but the riders only just stayed on. This is about as close as you can get to knocking the enemy out of the way with your momentum, but I think it supports my point that the effects of a collision are equally bad for both parties (just as Isaac Newton predicted – who’d have thought it?). So the bay barged past the grey and kept going, but if this was a cavalry charge I don’t think you could really say that the bay won. Both sides would be disordered and neither would have gained an advantage.

Previously in cavalry charges: I got as far as what happened when cavalry charged each other. In the English Civil War the two most common outcomes were: one side or the other ran away before they got near each other; or they stopped and fought hand to hand. Hand to hand combat usually resulted in one side giving up and running away sooner or later. This post is about what happened after one side had started running away.

In his history of the wars, the Earl of Clarendon made a very famous generalisation, which I was going to quote but I can’t find a copy of it because Google books has some volumes of his work on full view but not the one I need. His generalisation was that the royalist cavalry usually made successful charges which caused the enemy to run away, but after that they always failed to reform for a second charge, whereas parliamentarian cavalry were more disciplined and could always reform. Therefore royalist cavalry were a one shot weapon which couldn’t do much more than negate their opposite numbers, whereas Cromwell’s cavalry were able to help deal with enemy infantry once the cavalry were out of the way. Some, but by no means all, historians have taken Clarendon’s view too literally. As a summary of what happened at the battles of Edgehill (23 October 1642) and Naseby (14 June 1645), it’s reasonably accurate, and those two battles were arguably among the royalists’ most significant failures. However, most other battles were different.

There were several occasions when royalist cavalry did manage to reform and attack the enemy infantry. At Roundway Down (13 July 1643) the royalist cavalry played the leading role in wiping out Waller’s army. Although their initial charge had little effect, they got the better of the parliamentarian cavalry in the ensuing hand to hand fight. The royalists pursued but then came back to deal with the infantry. This resulted in a stand off because the cavalry couldn’t get through the infantry’s pikes, but the infantry couldn’t move without getting cut up by the cavalry. When the royalist infantry arrived from Devizes, the parliamentarian infantry surrendered.

The royalists suffered one of their most serious defeats at Marston Moor (2 July 1644) but their defeat had nothing to do with a failure of the cavalry to reform after a successful charge. The right wing under Byron put up a hard fight (again neither side was routed during the charge, and the issue was decided by close combat) but eventually ran. As might be expected, Cromwell kept his cavalry under control and they were able to make a second charge later. However, the circumstances of that charge do not support Clarendon’s generalisation at all. After Goring’s cavalry on the royalist left had routed Fairfax’s cavalry with their first charge, some of them pursued and some of them successfully charged the infantry in the parliamentarian centre. After this they reformed in the position initially occupied by Fairfax, to face the second charge from Cromwell, who had brought his cavalry into the position that Goring had started in. Goring’s men were defeated in this second charge, leaving the royalist infantry isolated like Waller’s foot at Roundway Down (although in this case, some of them fought to the death rather than surrender).

Hardly any of the major battles in the First Civil War fit Clarendon’s model of royalist cavalry throwing away their initial success by not reforming soon enough. In every other large engagement that I can think of the royalist cavalry either did reform after their initial success, or didn’t have any initial success to throw away. The Earl of Northampton’s cavalry pursued the defeated parliamentarian cavalry from Hopton Heath (19 March 1643) and then came back to attack the infantry. At Cheriton (29 March 1644), Hopton’s cavalry lost their fight against the parliamentarian cavalry (all drawn from Essex’s and Waller’s armies, so we can even account for it by the genius of Cromwell!). At First Newbury (20 September 1643) the royalist cavalry were on hand to attack Essex’s infantry several times, although without much success.

Edgehill fits Clarendon’s view perfectly, and it might not be a coincidence that this was the only battle he is known to have witnessed himself. The royalist cavalry on both wings routed Essex’s cavalry wings very easily. All of the royalist cavalry, including the reserves who were not intended to take part in the first charge, went off in pursuit of the defeated enemy. It’s likely that the inexperience of both men and horses made the wings difficult to keep under control. If the charge turned into a stampede it would have been difficult to pull up the horses. Men who hadn’t been in a major battle before would have been easily confused in the chaos (see Ludlow’s and Bulstrode’s accounts of Powicke Bridge in Cavalry Charges: Practice for some examples). There might also have been an element of material self interest as some of the royalists went to plunder the baggage train, killing some of the wagoners and setting fire to their wagons. While the royalist cavalry failed to exploit their initial success by reforming and turning on Essex’s infantry, there were up to two regiments of parliamentarian cavalry which had been kept in reserve and which were able to attack the royalist infantry in the rear. What could have been an instant win for the King turned into a draw, and led to a long war.

With this experience behind them, it’s surprising that Rupert and his cavalry apparently made the same mistake at Naseby. It’s even more surprising when you consider that this was the first time since Edgehill that it had happened. While the royalist left was eventually defeated after hand to hand combat with Cromwell’s wing, the right, led by Rupert in person, routed Ireton’s wing in the first charge, pursued them off the field, and then went to attack the New Model Army’s baggage. This doesn’t even look like a case of Rupert letting his men get out of control, as at least one account of the battle says that Rupert himself summoned the train to surrender. I often get impatient with historians whose analysis is based on an assumption that people in the past must have always acted rationally. People do stupid things. Prince Rupert made some decisions which look questionable with the benefit of hindsight. Maybe he shouldn’t have decided to fight at Marston Moor, for example. However, I find it difficult to believe that he would have been as stupid is sometimes implied. I suggested an alternative interpretation in my PhD thesis.

It could be that there was method in the apparent madness of leaving the infantry alone at both Edgehill and Naseby. Attacking the baggage train might not have been all about plunder for personal gain. If my PhD has any value, it emphasises just how vital horses were to the war efforts of both sides, and how difficult it could be to get enough of them. Taking away all the draught horses from the enemy camp and destroying their wagons would have been a crippling blow. Without sufficient transport it would be impossible to move artillery, ammunition, and other supplies. Horses brought away by soldiers would have been their prize goods, but it was usually possible for armies to buy prize horses at less than the market price, and sometimes they were used to replace lost before soldiers could claim them. It’s interesting to note that when Essex’s artillery surrendered at Lostwithiel (2 September 1644), the infantry were disarmed and allowed to march away, but the royalists kept the artillery, including all of its draught horses. When Rupert went for the baggage, he might have been thinking in terms of immobilising the New Model train and gaining more horses for the royalist train. If he was, hindsight suggests that he made the wrong decision. However, if he had brought his men back to the battlefield and reformed them for a second charge against Cromwell, as Goring had done at Marston Moor, he might just have been defeated, as Goring had been at Marston Moor.

In the previous posts I discussed the historiography and theory of cavalry charges in the English Civil War. Now I’m going to try to get at what really happened. What did cavalry try to do in practice? How successful was it? How did it work, or why didn’t it work?

(Warning: this one is even longer than yesterday’s.)

I can’t cover every battle in detail in one post, so I’ll be picking a few examples. Although I have thoroughly investigated the primary sources, that was over 10 years ago and I can’t remember everything. For now I’ve just picked out a few accounts which best illustrate the points I’m trying to make. Therefore you should be suspicious, because it’s possible that the sources could be interpreted in different ways or contradicted by other sources. I haven’t attempted a comprehensive account of how tactics developed over the course of the First Civil War or how they might have differed between armies. It has to be remembered that there was no fixed or well-defined tactical doctrine in this period, and so tactics could vary according to circumstances and individual officers. The empirical premise applies here: I’m assuming for the purposes of this discussion that the sources I’ve quoted can tell us something about the reality of the past. Most of the sources are available on EEBO or ECCO if you have access, but they are also frequently quoted in secondary works and/or available in printed editions.

I’m going to follow historiographical tradition by starting with the battle of Edgehill (23rd October 1642). This was the first major battle of the war, and is usually a central part of the narrative in which Swedish tactics easily defeat Dutch tactics, thereby proving the genius of both Prince Rupert and Gustavus Adolphus, and the stupidity of relying on firearms instead of shock. Sir Richard Bulstrode, who was in the Prince of Wales’s horse regiment on the royalist right wing, gives the impression of a stereotypically Swedish approach. After noting that the royalist cavalry were three deep, he describes Prince Rupert’s orders and how they were carried out (Sir Richard Bulstrode, Memoirs and reflections upon the reign and government of King Charles the Ist. and K. Charles the Iid, 1721, pp. 81-82):

Just before we began our March, Prince Rupert passed from one Wing to the other, giving positive Orders to the Horse, to march as close as possible, keeping their Ranks with Sword in Hand, to receive the Enemy’s Shot, without firing either Carbin or Pistoll, till we broke in amongst the Enemy, and then to make use of our Fire-Arms as need should require; which Order was punctually observed. The Enemy stayed to receive us, in the same Posture as was formerly declared; and when we came within Cannon Shot of the Enemy, they discharged at us three Pieces of Cannon from their left Wing, commanded by Sir James Ramsey; which Cannon mounted over our Troops, without doing any Hurt, except that their second Shot killed a Quarter-Master in the Rear of the Duke of York’s Troop. We soon after engaged each other, and our Dragoons on our Right beat the Enemy from the Briars, and Prince Rupert led on our right Wing so furiously, that, after a small Resistance, we forced their left Wing, and were Masters of their Cannon;

There are always question marks over memoirs and memories but I generally believe what Bulstrode says. His is the most detailed description of orders given to cavalry during the First Civil War. The fact that he remembered Prince Ruperts instructions and wrote them down in his memoirs could suggest that he found them particularly unusual (cognitive psychologists call this “schema-inconsistent”; see Mixing Memory for an explanation of schematic memory). However, it’s difficult to tell whether Bulstrode found Rupert’s orders novel because they were a break with established practice, or because Bulstrode himself had little military experience. It could be that other authors had less to say about cavalry charges because the found the details schema-irrelevant. Things are complicated because memoirs are written with the benefit of hindsight, but it could be that Bulstrode was using his former inexperience as a narrative device, constructing a plot in which he went from new recruit to veteran. And there’s always the possibility that he was adding spurious details to create a truth effect.

If we take the passage at face value, it roughly fits in with the shock myth, but on closer examination there are some significant gaps and differences. Notice that there is no mention of the cavalry being “knee to knee” or “cheek by jowl”. Rupert’s order was a more realistic “march as close as possible”. Breaking in amongst the enemy might imply a shock, but it might not. If you need to use your firearms when you get in among the enemy, that implies that they haven’t been swept away by an “equine battering ram” and are still a potential threat.

The thing I find most striking is that the pace of the charge is not explicitly mentioned. Was it at a trot, canter, or gallop? Bulstrode is not unusual in this respect, because hardly any accounts of civil war battles make any mention of the pace used by cavalry. This has not stopped later writers from making assumptions. When I was involved in wargaming, the orthodox view among wargamers was that royalists always galloped and parliamentarians always trotted. While C. H. Firth did not believe that “modern” (ie late 19th/early 20th century) shock tactics were in use during the civil wars, and cautioned against reading too much into imperfect records, he was convinced that charges were not “as rapid as a modern cavalry charge. At its fastest the pace seemed to have been a trot rather than a gallop” (Cromwell’s Army, p. 142 in the 1962 reprint). Wanklyn and Jones are equally convinced that the Swedish tactics called for a full gallop: “They would advance towards the enemy at a steadily quickening pace, and 50 yards from contact the flank squadrons would raise the pace to a full gallop and charge home” (p. 34). Curiously they cite Cruso as one of the sources for this, even though there is little evidence of any new Swedish ideas in his work.

It seems reasonably clear that by 1658 English cavalry were using the trot while the French were using the canter, and that contemporaries found this schema-inconsistent enough to remark on (see Firth, p. 142). That doesn’t necessarily tell us what happened in the 1640s. Furthermore, the ambiguity of the word “charge” (see previous post) can create problems, especially where historians are already convinced that they are going to find shock rather than firing. Cromwell once mentioned his men advancing at “a pretty round trot” (cited in Firth, p. 137) but starting at a trot doesn’t necessarily imply staying at the trot. From the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, when the concept of shock was at its strongest, cavalry were usually instructed to advance at the trot, speed up to a canter at a certain point, and only break into a full gallop towards the end of the charge. There is no proof that Cromwell was doing this in 1643, but there’s equally little proof that he wasn’t. The evidence is far too vague and ambiguous to draw any reliable conclusions. The evidence for the royalists is equally problematic. Richard Atkyns mentions charging at a gallop at Little Dean in 1643 (p. 20):

The Charge was seemingly as desperate as any I was ever in; it being to beat the Enemy from a Wall which was a Strong Breast Work, with a Gate in the middle; possest by above 200 Musqueteers, besides Horse: We were to charge down a Steep plain Hill, of above 12 score Yards in length; as good a Mark as they could wish: Our party consisting of between Two and Three Hundred Horse, not a man of them would follow us; So the Officers, about 10 or 12 of us, agreed to Gallop down in as good Order as we could, and make a desperate Charge upon them; the Enemy seeing our resolutions, never Fired at us at all, but run away;

This doesn’t look like a typical engagement for cavalry, and it could be that Atkyns remembered and wrote about galloping because it was equally schema-inconsistent. Also note the potential ambiguity the first time he uses the word “charge”. At Chewton, Atkyns was involved in a more usual fight against enemy cavalry: “when we came within 6 score of them, we mended our pace, and fell into their left Division” (p. 27). This might describe advancing at a slower pace then breaking into a gallop for the last 120 yards. Or it might not. In his account of Roundway Down, all Atkyns says about pace is: “we advanc’d a full Trot 3 deep, and kept in order” (p. 37). Really we’re clutching at straws here. That most sources say even less about the pace of the charge could suggest that it was so schema-irrelevant that nobody remembered it or considered it worth writing about.

Whatever pace Rupert’s cavalry used at Edgehill, we know that his charge was successful. It’s difficult to know what the parliamentarians were trying to do, because most of them ran away before they could do it. Sir James Ramsey, commanding the left wing, was court-martialled as a result of their failure, but found to have done nothing wrong. The report of these findings was published, and seems to be concerned with establishing Ramsey’s ideological credentials as much as his military competence, but there is not much reason to disbelieve the witnesses’ description of the action (Thomason Tracts: 669.f.6.88):

the said Sir James, having the command of the left Wing of our Horse, did so place and order the severall Squadrons of Horse of the Wing at best advantage for fight, and did place severall Rankes of Musqueteers betwixt the Squadrons of Horse, and interlarded them so well for offending of the enemy, and for defending of themselves, as could be desired, and did also lay upon the left hand of the Horse, in a hedge two or three hundred Musqueteers, for to Flanke the Front of our Horse, and give fire to the Enemies at their charging of our Horse, and all those three above named Gentlemen affirme that the said Sir James did before the Combatte exhort and entreate all the Troopes that stood thus imbattailed to stand firme yet notwithstanding all this, they affirme that at the approach of the Enemy our Troopes did discharge their long peeces afarre of, and without distance, and immediately thereafter wheeled all about, and ranne disorderly, leaving the Musqueteers to be cut in peeces by the Enemy, so did their Officers shew them the way

Interlining the cavalry with musketeers is usually associated with the Swedish school, but cavalry standing and firing is associated with the Dutch school. Ramsey himself apparently had some Swedish experience, but he said at his trial that he was following orders from his superiors:

After I had Orders from his Excellency the Lord Generall of our Army, and others my Superiours, for ordering and commanding the left Wing of the Cavallery, I did accordingly put them in Posture Defensive, and Offensive, interlining the Squadrons with a convenient number of Musqueteers, and likewise did place three hundred Musqueteers on a Hedge on the Left hand of the left Wing; which did Flanke the whole Front of the left Wing. . . . and after desiring, and heartily exhorting them to give the enemy a brave meeting, who were advancing to charge us, and commanding ours to receive them resolutely; (contrary to my expectation, and to my perpetuall regrate) ours discharged their Carbines at a long distance, and thereafter basely runne away, and that in mighty confusion

Note another use of charge meaning aiming or firing weapons. [Edit: somehow I'd seriously misquoted Ramsey, but I've fixed it now] It’s easy to take a teleological view that because of the outcome of the combat, the royalists must have chosen the right tactics and the parliamentarians the wrong ones. But at Marston Moor in 1644, things were very different. Rupert interlined his cavalry with musketeers and ordered them to wait for the enemy to advance to them, knowing that they would have to cross difficult ground. It didn’t work on the right wing, where Byron is usually blamed for advancing too soon. However, the tactic was a success on the left wing, where most of Fairfax’s cavalry, having been hampered by furze bushes and suffered casualties from the volley of musket shot, were routed by the royalist counter charge. By 1644, the royalists evidently had the experience to pull it off, but in 1642 tactical options might have been more limited. The tactics of both sides at Edgehill could be seen as attempts to work with men and horses who lacked training and experience.

Inexperience is very evident in Edmund Ludlow’s account of the skirmish at Powick Bridge in September 1642, the first time that the regular cavalry of the newly raised armies met in combat (Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, 1698, pp. 45-6 — ie the dodgy original version which was heavily altered by its editor, but I think this passage is reliable [Edit: it probably isn't because the surviving MS doesn't cover this period]):

The Body of our routed Party returned in great Disorder to Parshot, at which place our LifeGuard was appointed to quarter that Night; where, as we were marching into the Town, we discovered Horsemen riding very hard towards us with drawn Swords, and many of them without Hats, from whom we understood the Particulars of our Loss, not without Improvement, by reason of the Fear with which they were possessed, telling us, that the Enemy was hard by in pursuit of them: whereas it afterwards appeared, they came not within four Miles of that place. Our Life-Guard being for the most part Strangers to things of this nature, were much alarm’d with this Report; yet some of us unwilling to give credit to it till we were better informed, offered our selves to go out upon a further Discovery of the matter. But our Captain Sir Philip Stapylton not being then with us, his Lieutenant one Bainham, an old Souldier (a Generation of Men much cried up at that time) drawing us into a Field, where he pretended we might more advantageously charge if there should be occasion, commanded us to wheel about; but our Gentlemen not yet well understanding the difference between wheeling about, and shifting for themselves, their Backs being now towards the Enemy, whom they thought to be close in the Rear, retired to the Army in a very dishonourable manner, and the next Morning rallied at the Head-quarters, where we received but cold Welcome from the General, as we well deserved.

Ludlow was a member of the Earl of Essex’s Lifeguard. They were the best armed and best mounted unit in the army, but they apparently didn’t know what they were doing. Richard Bulstrode and his mount were similarly inexperienced at the same engagement (Bulstrode, Memoirs, p. 74):

This was the first Action I was ever in, and being upon an unruly Horse, he ran away with me amongst the Enemy, while we pursued them to the Bridge, in which Hurly I lost my Hat; but my Horse’s Courage being somewhat abated, I stopp’d him before we came to the Bridge, and so returned with our own Troops.

Standing still and firing, or quickly moving towards the enemy and fighting them at close range, were both reasonably simple concepts that inexperienced men could grasp. With the addition of dragoons and musketeers, and with obstacles in front of them (according to Lord Bernard Stuart the royalist cavalry had to cross several hedges and ditches, see Firth, p. 133), the parliamentarian tactics at Edgehill might have been expected to be more successful, but as it turned out, most of their cavalry fled.

You might have noticed that most of the examples I’ve cited so far involve one side or the other running away before the enemy gets near. That’s no accident, as like any historian I’ve selected evidence which fits with my point of view. It didn’t happen in every battle, but it was at least common enough that it can’t be ignored. Obviously if the two sides didn’t even meet, there couldn’t have been any equine battering going on, but on the other hand it could account for the growth of the shock myth. If the enemy turned and ran in the face of a charge, then cavalrymen might have believed that it was the result of a physical shock.

But if shock existed at all after the abandonment of the lance, it was purely a psychological phenomenon. Seeing a large number of horses (which weigh about half a ton each) coming towards you at any speed (a gallop might be 20 to 30 miles per hour, and even a trot could be over 10 miles per hour) would be quite intimidating. Even if they knew that a physical collision was impossible or unlikely, men might still have lost their nerve and decided to get out of the way. If drill books had any influence on practice (debatable, but let’s suppose they did) then the recurrence of Walhausen’s manoeuvre would only have increased the impression that getting out of the way was the best option. Equine psychology adds another twist, because horses are herd animals. Horses standing still and seeing another herd of horses running towards them might feel a strong urge to run in the same direction. The noise of battle might have scared some horses enough to make them bolt, causing them to gallop uncontrollably. Chris Scott and Alan Turton compared the charges at Edgehill to stampedes (Edgehill: The Battle Reinterpreted, 2004, ISBN: 1844151336). [Edit: no they didn't. I was looking for the quote I thought I remembered from this book and couldn't find it. Did someone else say it, or did I just imagine it?]

This is interesting because the things which are spuriously claimed to cause physical shock would be likely to have a big psychological impact. A solid line is more intimidating than one with gaps in it. A fast charge is more intimidating than a slow advance. Supposing you could get your cavalry galloping knee to knee it would be a very effective way of making the enemy lose their nerve. Of course I still don’t believe that it could be done, but trying to achieve it doesn’t look quite so stupid now. One of the reasons why the perfect shock charge is unattainable is the trade-off between speed and cohesion. The faster the horses go, the harder it is to keep them together and the more gaps appear in the formation. If you want to keep a closer formation you have to go slower. It’s often assumed that Prince Rupert preferred speed and Cromwell preferred cohesion, but as there’s so little evidence of how fast charges were I don’t think we can ever know for sure.

There were many times when neither side ran away. In these cases one of two things could happen, and neither of them was a head on collision between missiles or battering rams. If both sides kept going they would simply pass through each other. The difficulty of keeping a close formation, and the propensity of horses to avoid collisions with solid objects, would result in the horses steering through the gaps even if their riders wanted a shock. Sometimes the riders wanted to go through the gaps as well. After he was deserted by most of his wing at Marston Moor, Fairfax and the remainder of his men saved themselves by going straight through the royalist lines. John Keegan cites more examples of cavalry passing each other at Waterloo (Face of Battle, pp. 147-8) but it seems to have been relatively rare in the English Civil War.

The other, more common, outcome was that both sides would stop and engage in hand to hand combat. Again, Keegan finds this happening a lot at Waterloo, noting that “we are back with single combat again” (p. 149). If things got to this point, then the charge itself would have achieved nothing. Both sides had to decide to stop and fight, otherwise one side would pass through the other. “Consent — the vital precondition for single combat proper — is thus made to appear equally necessary if cavalry formations were to fight each other in any effective fashion. When they did so, of course, they did not fight as formations, but as individuals or small groups” (Keegan, p. 149). This is exactly what happened when Cromwell’s and Byron’s wings met at Marston Moor (as Firth points out — although he believed that shock existed in his own time he placed more emphasis on close combat in the seventeenth century). There was prolonged close combat before the royalists ran away. Similarly, at Roundway Down speed and formation had little influence as neither side lost its nerve before they met. There was a hard fight, in which Haselrigg’s cuirassiers seemed to be in their element, but eventually the parliamentarians fled.

In the light of this, Rupert’s instructions at Edgehill might not be all that shock obsessed. Breaking into the enemy could just mean moving into the gaps in their formation and engaging individuals in hand to hand combat. Reserving pistol fire until after the charge also makes sense because pistols would be much more effective in close combat than at range. If Rupert knew what he was doing then he might have hoped that the enemy would run before contact was made, but prepared to fight them if they didn’t.

This leaves us with the impression that cavalry combat was chaotic in both the ordinary and scientific sense. The outcome was wildly unpredictable. We shouldn’t ever assume that the results of battles were inevitable, or that they reflect on the competence of the men or their leaders. This is illustrated by the experience of the parliamentarian left wing at Naseby in 1645. Unlike the infantry, which had been reinforced with new conscripts, the cavalry of the New Model Army were mostly veterans. Those who had served under Manchester, with Cromwell as their Lieutenant General, had usually been successful, while many of those from Essex’s and Waller’s armies had got the better of the royalists at Cheriton. In spite of all this experience, and the confidence you might expect it to engender, and supporting fire from Okey’s dragoons, Ireton’s wing was routed by Rupert’s charge.

So, to sum up another absurdly long post, in nearly every engagement between cavalry, at least one side charged. There were three possible outcomes of a charge: one side or the other ran away before contact was made; both sides kept going and passed through each other; both sides stopped and fought hand to hand. In the first case, the charge can be considered a success for the side which didn’t run away, but in the other two cases it didn’t really do anything. There was certainly no physical shock. The idea falls down on empirical as well as rational grounds because there simply isn’t any evidence of it happening. There doesn’t seem to be much influence from pre-war drill books. A more detailed examination of battle accounts would turn up some things which agreed with some parts of the books, but there’s no sign of any coherent doctrines based on written theory. This is partly because none of the books has its own coherent doctrine, being more a synthesis of disparate ideas from other texts. I haven’t tried to work out how the result of hand to hand combat was determined, because there isn’t enough evidence, and there are too many potential complications. Next week I’ll be looking at what happened afterwards.

Bibliography

1. Anon, The vindication and clearing of Sir Iames Ramsey from those base aspersions cast upon him through mis-information, &c. Concerning his carriage in the fight at Kyneton, 23 October 1642. (1642).
2. Richard Atkyns, The Vindication of Richard Atkyns (London, 1669).
3. Richard Atkyns, ‘The Praying Captain’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 35 (1957).
4. Richard Bulstrode, Memoirs and reflections on the reign and government of King Charles Ist and king Charles IId (London, 1721).
5. Charles Harding Firth, Cromwell’s Army (Methuen: London, 1962).
6. John Keegan, The Face of Battle (Penguin Books Ltd, August 1978).
7. Edmund Ludlow, Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow Esq; lieutenant general of the horse, commander in chief of the forces in Ireland, one of the council of state, and a member of the Parliament which began on November 3, 1640 (1698).
8. Christopher L. Scott, Alan Turton, and Eric Gruber von Arni, Edgehill (Leo Cooper Ltd, 2004).
9. Maclolm D. G. Wanklyn and Frank Jones, A Military History of the English Civil War (Pearson: Harlow, 2005).

In the last post, I looked at “shock”, a common myth in the historiography of cavalry tactics. Having established that it’s unlikely that cavalrymen would have been able (or even willing) to crash their horses into the enemy, I now want to look at where the idea came from, and how common it was in seventeenth-century drill books.

(Warning: this post is very long and esoteric. Having managed to keep myself down to 1,000 words yesterday I’ve now come out with nearly 3,500, although a lot of that is blockquotes from the books.)

I’ll be referring to books written by Gervase Markham (1625), John Cruso (1632), Robert Ward (1639), and John Vernon (1644). You can find more background on the authors and some observations about their styles and influences in my previous post Which War Horse. The most important things to remember are that these are prescriptive books which claimed to set out how things should be done, and that they are not necessarily based on any practical experience. In the next post I’ll be trying to get at what really happened in practice and whether it was influenced by any of these books, but for this post I’ll be taking a more literary and intellectual approach. This is about the idea of “shock”, more than the reality.

If shock was a spurious idea, these authors would be prime suspects for perpetuating it. John Cruso seems to confirm my suspicion, using the word “shock” in four places:

This kinde of arming [the lance] was first invented to pierce and divide a grosse body, and therefore requires force and velocitie for the shock. (p. 28)

presenting his lance (from the advance) at the half of that distance, and charging it for the shock as occasion serveth (p. 37)

Some authors (for the disposing of the Cuirassiers for fight) hold that they ought to be ordered in grosse bodies, that so (by their soliditie and weight) they may entertain and sustain the shock of the enemie. They are also fit for troops of reserve, to give courage to the other Cavallrie, and to give them opportunitie to re-assemble themselves behinde them (p. 42)

If the Lances were to fight against Cuirassiers, they were (by two ranks together) to fetch their careers, and so to charge them, especially on the flanks and reare: every second rank forbearing the shock, till the first had done it, and was wheeled off. (p. 97)

But my expectations are confounded here. Three out of four times, Cruso is explicitly talking about lancers, and for lancers shock was a real physical thing. While the horses themselves were not missiles or battering rams, the point of the lance would collide with enemy men or horses, and the force of the collision would be mostly determined by the momentum of the horse. Where Cruso mentions cuirassiers, they are only receiving a charge, never giving one. If lancers charged cuirassiers, the Newtonian physics of the collision would work largely in favour of the lancers, as long as their great saddles held them in place (the great saddle was designed primarily for lancers/men-at-arms, having a very high pommel and cantle to support the rider during a charge). So Cruso is not really inventing or perpetuating a spurious idea. Shock logically follows from use of the lance, and Cruso never explicitly claims that any other troop types can or should charge and shock the enemy. He acknowledges that lancers are no longer in use, and apparently writes about them more because of his interest in Classical culture (ironic, since the kind of lance charge he describes, relying on stirrups and great saddle to support the rider during impact, belongs firmly in the post-classical period usually denigrated by Renaissance men as “medieval”!).

This being the case, I would expect Gervase Markham, with his apparent nostalgia for “the old ways, speed of horse”, to be equally enthusiastic about shock. My expectations were confounded again. Although he devotes several pages to lancers and men-at-arms, and even mentions tournaments, he doesn’t seem to use the word shock at all (there’s always the possibility that I missed it). John Vernon doesn’t use the word either, and Robert Ward only uses it once, in a passage that is probably derived from Cruso or a common source (p. 302):

Our Moderne Generalls thinke it best to order the Cuirassiers in grosse Bodies, by which meanes they are more powerfull and strong, against the shocke of the enemie, they are for the most part reserved to second the light armed; so that when they are broken they may have shelter, and time to reunite themselves behinde the Cuirassiers.

So none of the theorists envisaged the modern types of cavalry (cuirassiers, arquebusiers, and carbines) battering their enemy down with shock. How did they think charges were supposed to work? We have a problem here, because the word charge could have several different meanings in seventeenth-century military terminology. The meaning we’re most familiar with is the one associated with shock, but the verb to charge could also mean to load or fire a firearm, or to level a pike or lance. The noun charge can refer to a particular duty or task, so that “it was a most desperate charge” might just mean “it was difficult to accomplish” without giving any clue about what was accomplished or how. This potential for ambiguity hasn’t often been recognised. Robert Ward’s assertion that “a Cuirassiere usually giveth his charge upon the trot and very seldome upon the Gallop” (p. 301) has usually been taken refer to a shock charge carried out at slow speed. Things are not so clear cut when you put the sentence in context:

you are also to observe that the armes of the Cuirassiers are Pistoll proofe; wherefore that Souldier that incounters against them must bee sure not to shot until he be within three or foure paces: the Hollanders use to discharge their Pistols at the enemies eare, as a place most certain to speede them; others at the lower part of the Belly, or his arme Pits or about the necke or throate; a Cuirassiere usually giveth his charge upon the trot and very seldome upon the Gallop, if you misse the speeding of the man, then you are to direct your next charge against the Horse, where you shall be sure to speed him either upon the head or brest; the sword is to be managed after you have done your indeavours with the Pistoll

It looks to me like “giveth his charge” is more likely to mean “fires his pistol”. Here the cuirassier is expected to fire both his pistols at close range and then start using his sword in close combat, but elsewhere, Ward is much less equivocal (p. 315):

But our manner of charging the Enemy differs from theirs [ie ancient cavalry]; for wee are to give fire upon the Enemy by Rankes, and so fall off into the Reare, so that all the Rankes shall come up and give fire by degrees upon the Enemy, whereas their Troopes gave a firme close charge, and wheeled off together; this was the use both of their Archers and Spearmen.

Note that firing pistols and falling to the rear is still counted as a “manner of charging”. Ward, Cruso, and Markham all seem to see modern cavalry relying almost entirely on firepower. For Markham, the increased firepower of modern weapons, particularly the infantry musket, is the main reason why lancers and men-at-arms have fallen out of use (p. 41, see Which War Horse for quote), and “Now for as much as the principall Weapons on Horsebacke, are Pistolls, Petronells, or Dragons” (p. 53). Cruso (p. 98) and Ward (p. 317) both instruct arquebusiers to give fire by ranks and don’t even mention the possibility of them getting into close combat. This kind of thinking is usually associated with the Dutch school of tactics. Dutch tactics, based on firepower rather than shock, are sometimes seen as an old fashioned way of doing things, which was swept away by the new Swedish shock tactics. However, Markham, Cruso, and Ward all consider firepower to be thoroughly modern and shock to be obsolete! Nevertheless, they might have been a bit too optimistic about the new tactics and technology. Ward did acknowledge some potential problems (p. 315):

Now our moderne Captaines, although they have abandoned the use of their Speares, yet they have detained their forme of ordering their Troopes, five deepe in file; and because each horseman hath two Pistolls, therefore they suppose that they may charge and discharge as well as the foote Troopes that are tenne deepe (with one Musquet for their armes) but let the ablest horseman of them all say what he please; he shall finde it another businesse, especially if both sides stand to their tackling, untill all the Rankes have given fire; for the small distance of time, and the ordering of their unruly horses, will make them fall short of their expectations: but indeede our horse Troopes, seldome stand so long in competition for the victory; but that one side either retreates, or doe worse; for if they should, it should be easily seene that that Troope whose Files were ordered sixe in deepth, would soone weare through the adverse part, whose extent is but five.

So he realises that keeping up constant fire was unrealistic because of the problems of reloading, but his only solution is to have more ranks than the enemy! The system of firing by ranks and retiring to reload is usually referred to by historians as a “caracole”, but Markham, Ward, and Vernon don’t use the word at all. Meanwhile, Cruso uses it for something very different (pp. 97-8):

If one companie of Cuirassiers be to fight against another, your enemie charging you in full career, you are to make a [note b: so Walhausen would have it] Carracoll, that is, you divide your body by the half ranks, and so suddenly open to the right and left; so as the enemie passeth through you, and you (facing inward) charge him on the flanks, as is shewed in Fig. 6. Part. 4. Or if two companies fight against two other, then they observe the same manner, but keeping each companie entire, as may be seen in the same figure. It is also to be done by the Carracoll first, and then (the enemie being within you) to wheel to the right and left inward, and so to charge him on the reare, in full career. These forms (in Walhausens opinion) are of [note c: So the said author conceiveth; but it is very doubtfull. For by this opening to the right & left, you must turn troop, and then make a whole turn again, & so give advantage to your enemie... ] speciall advantage, for the enemie (having charged you in full carrere while you went on upon the trot, onely on the sudden opening to the right and left) either (saith he) must run through and effect little or nothing, or (staying himself in the career) [note d: The principall strength of Cuirassiers consisteth in keeping themselves close serried together; for this the Germanes are commended.] disorder his troop, and loose the force of his charge: as by Fig. 7. part. 4. appeareth.

Once again, charging at a gallop is not something to be initiated: it’s something the enemy might do, and which might need to be countered, although in this case a countercharge at the gallop is recommended once the enemy has passed through the gap. It should be noted that Cruso is very sceptical about Walhausen’s idea. Robert Ward was much less critical when he repeated the same thing in 1639:

If it should so happen that one company of Cuirassirs should be to fight against another, if the enemy doth charge you in full carriere, your safest way is to devide your Troope by half rankes, opening a large distance to the right and left hand, so as the Enemy may passe through: then facing your Troope inwards, you are to charge them upon the Flankes; you are to performe the like if you have a Battalia made of two Troopes; and being charged by the Enemy, they are to divide themselves as before, but keepe each Troope whole and entire;

John Vernon, writing in 1644, might be expected to have more practical experience and/or be more heavily influenced by the newer Swedish tactics, and yet he repeats the same old idea even more credulously (pp. 43-4):

If one single Troop met another, your Enemy charging you in full career, you are sodainly to divide your Troop in the middle: on Flank from the other, and so the Enemie being in his full career, must either passe through and effect little, or else stopping sodainly disorder his Troops, and thereby give you a fit occasion to wheel both your Flanks inward, to charge him in the Reer. In full career, and then in all probabilitie, you will utterly rout him.

This casts some doubt on the assumption that Vernon was an experienced cavalry officer, and that his writing was a break from the more esoteric and impractical ideas of earlier years, although there were some significant differences. Vernon is the only one of the four authors to recommend a charge at the gallop as a standard tactic for both cuirassiers and arquebusiers, rather than firing by ranks or waiting to be charged, but this is not quite a radical break from the books of the 1630s, nor an attempt at reviving the idea of shock (p. 43):

In grosse bodies if you have field room enough, all the Troops are to be drawn up into battalia, each being not above three deepe, likewise each troop must be at least a hundred paces distance behind each other for the better avoiding of disorder, those troops that are to give the first charge being drawn up into battail as before, are to be at their close order, every left hand mans right knee must be close locked under his right hand mans left ham, as hath bin shown before. In this order they are to advance toward the Enemy with an easie pace, firing their Carbines at a convenient distance, always aiming at their Enemies brest or lower, because that powder is of an elevating nature, then drawing neere the Enemy, they are with their right hands to take forth one of their Pistols out of their houlsters, and holding the lock up are most firing as before, always reserving on Pistoll ready charged, spann’d and primed in your houlsters, in case of a retreat as I have shown before, having thus fired the troops are to charge the Enemy in a full career, but in good order with their swords fastend with a Riband, or the like unto their wrists, for feare of losing out of their hand, if they should chance to misse their blow, placing the pomel on their thigh, keeping still in their close order, close locked as before.

This is not so very different from Ward’s cuirassier trotting up, firing his pistols at close range, then using his sword. The main difference is that the horses are to accelerate to a gallop after the first two shots, which could imply firing slightly further away than Ward’s three or four paces. The three deep formation suggests a Swedish influence and is in contrast to Ward’s preference for six ranks. Vernon is also notable for specifying a tight knee to knee formation, which is a standard part of the shock myth, although he doesn’t say anything about why he thinks such close order is necessary. Ward doesn’t say anything similar, but Cruso mentions cuirassiers “close serried together” (p. 98, see above), and Markham is more explicit (p. 55):

Close order in Fyles, is Cuish to Cuish, or knee to knee, and Open order in Fyles, is six foote (which is accounted an Horse length)

This predates the widespread fame of Gustavus Adolphus. Although Markham accepts (perhaps with some regret) that firearms now rule the battlefield, he also includes instructions on how to train a horse to charge at the gallop (p. 52):

Passe a Cariere and stop close: This the Souldier shall doe by thrusting the horse violently forward both with his legs and bodie, and giving libertie to the Bridle. As soone as the Horse is started into his Gallop, hee shall give him the even stroake of his Spurres, once or twice together, and make the Horse runne to the hight of his full speede, then being at the end of the Cariere (which will not bee above sixe score or eight score yards) he shall then draw up his Bridle-hand very hard and constantly, and laying the calues of both legges gently to the Horses sides, make the Horse stop close to the ground, with onely a comely Advancement. And this serveth for all manner of Charges, whether it bee Horse against Horse, or Horse against Foote.

I’m not sure what this passage is for. It comes after he says that lancers and men-at-arms are no longer in use because of modern firearms, but a few pages later he re-emphasises that firearms are the main weapons of the cavalry. On p. 54 he goes on to say that pistols are presented during the charge and fired in the face of the enemy. It could be that stopping at the end of the gallop is meant to allow pistol shots at close range. That the rider has to make the horse stop certainly doesn’t imply any attempt to create a physical shock.

This doesn’t lead to a simple picture, and four books is too small a sample to be the basis of generalisations, but the are some common themes in English writing on cavalry before the First Civil War. Shock was seen as an old idea associated with heavy lancers, which were no longer in use. Markham, Cruso, and Ward all looked to the past in their own ways, but also acknowledged that, whether they liked it or not, current practice was based on firearms. There was a consensus that in practice recent improvements in firepower had brought about a significant break with the past even though Markham might have regretted this, and Cruso tried to gloss over it in places. Charging is something that the enemy might do to you, but which you aren’t supposed to do yourself.

There is a paradox here, because on the one hand pre-war theorists seem to have enough confidence in firepower that they don’t recommend charging, but on the other hand they seem to have a certain anxiety about what happens if the enemy charges. You shouldn’t use lancers because nobody uses them any more, but you might still get charged by them! There seems to be a fear of shock which gets more intense as the lancer becomes a more distant memory. This comes out most clearly in the reappearance of Walhausen’s implausible manoeuvre in which the troop is divided to make a gap in the centre through which the enemy can pass harmlessly. Although shock isn’t explicitly mentioned in any of the recurring descriptions, it seems likely that the idea is to avoid a head on collision at all costs. As the idea is repeated in subsequent works, the authors get less and less sceptical about it. Cruso is doubtful, Ward accepts it but also suggests Cruso’s alternative, and John Vernon seems to be the most enthusiastic exponent, despite also being the only exponent of charging the enemy first rather than relying solely on firearms. Each author affects confidence in his chosen tactics, but doubts show through the cracks. Reading the texts against themselves reveals the shock charge as a potent and threatening other, which is to be avoided more than harnessed.

I’ve presented a more nuanced reading of the texts here, but overall I’d agree with the majority of historians who see pre-war theory in England being dominated by firing rather than charging, a doctrine usually associated with the Dutch. This is usually said to have been swept away by the experience of war, in which Swedish shock tactics proved more effective. It’s true that John Vernon, writing in 1644, had more noticeable Swedish influences (or at least what are usually characterised as Swedish influences — I don’t have the language skills to check for myself), but he was hardly an unequivocal exponent of aggressive charges. I even have some doubts about whether Vernon really was an experienced cavalryman as has often been assumed. These books give an interesting insight into how their authors imagined war, and how ideas could be transmitted from text to text, but I don’t think that they represent contemporary reality. However, as prescriptive literature, they might have been intended to influence reality. In the next post I’ll be trying to assess what cavalry did in practice.

Bibliography

1. John Cruso, Militarie instructions for the cavallrie: ([Cambridge] : Printed by the printers to the Universitie of Cambridge [[i.e. Thomas Buck and Roger Daniel] and are to besold [sic] by Ni: Alsope at the Angell in Popes Head Alley [, London]], MDCXXXII. [1632], 1632).
2. Gervase Markham, The souldiers accidence ([London] : Printed by I. D[awson] for Iohn Bellamie, and are to be sold at his shop at the three golden Lyons neere the Royall Exchange, 1625., 1625).
3. John Vernon, The young horse-man, or, The honest plain-dealing cavalie (London : printed by Andrew Coe, 1644., 1644).
4. Robert Ward, Anima’dversions of vvarre; (London : Printed by Iohn Dawson [, Thomas Cotes, and Richard Bishop], and are to be sold by Francis Eglesfield at the signe of the Marigold in Pauls Church-yard, 1639., 1639).

This is the first part of an analysis of the way cavalry fought in battles. It mostly focuses on the English Civil War, but I’ll be drawing some examples from other places and periods. To start with, I’m going to discuss a concept known as “shock”, which is very frequently mentioned in histories of cavalry tactics.

There are many variants of this concept, but they all generally imply that cavalry charges resulted in a collision between two tightly packed bodies of men and horses, with the losers ridden down by the speed and/or weight of the winners. This kind of thinking is very noticeable in one of the most recent military histories of the civil war, Malcolm Wanklyn and Frank Jones, A Military History of the English Civil War (2004; ISBN: 0582772818). This is how they describe the Swedish tactics associated with Gustavus Adolphus (p. 34):

The charge was always made in a tightly packed formation… Close order turned the whole squadron into a single missile, maximising the shock of impact and preventing individual horses from turning away before contact.

The context makes it clear that Wanklyn and Jones believe this is how it actually happened. They use an even more emphatic metaphor to describe Oliver Cromwell’s tactics (p. 272, my emphasis):

At the next engagement, at Gainsborough two months later, both sides charged, but Cromwell’s men, although surprised, were able to deploy quickly from column into line while ‘keeping close order’, that is each man keeping cheek by jowl with his neighbour, thus creating an equine battering ram that would gain momentum as the horse picked up speed in the charge.

Time for my favourite Wick Murray quote again:

There is only one problem with this theory. It is wrong.

It’s really quite worrying that anyone could be repeating those old myths and cliches in 2004, because John Keegan convincingly refuted the whole idea of shock in The Face of Battle (first published 1976; I’m working from the 1978 Penguin paperback, ISBN: 0140048979). Jeremy Black has a point when he says we need to move beyond Keegan’s horizons, but there are apparently some military historians who haven’t even caught up with him yet. (I realise that I’m appealing to a metanarrative of progress in which some points of view are delegitimated just because they’re old, but in subsequent posts I’ll be showing that the shock issue isn’t really a simple binary opposition between new and old.)

In his analysis of Waterloo, Keegan points out that getting two solid walls of cavalry to collide with each other at speed would have been impossible for a number of reasons (pp. 147-151). Although I’m now suspicious of his appeal to “common sense” (at best intellectually lazy, and at worst a cover for insidious ideology), some rational deductions based on my empirical experiences (which include years of riding horses and watching equestrian sports, as well as studying documents which recount early modern battles) lead me to the same conclusion. Even at the best of times it’s incredibly difficult to arrange large numbers of horses into a solid straight line. When horses are packed close together and under stress, they are likely to kick and bite each other or back away. The more stressful the situation, and the more highly strung the horses, the worse it gets. The start of the Aintree Grand National, especially the notorious fiasco of 1993, would be a good example here, but I can’t find any video footage online. While 40 horses is a large field for a horse race, it’s a trivial number compared to civil war armies. The New Model Army had an establishment of 6,000 cavalry (not including officers), divided into regiments of 600, which were then divided into troops of 100. Imagine trying to get all of them into textbook formations.

You might get your horses standing more or less still in something like a line while waiting for the order to advance, but things would get even more tricky once you started to move as you would have to keep every horse going dead straight at exactly the same speed. From the mid-eighteenth century well-drilled infantry were capable of doing this by marching in step to the beat of a drum, but cavalry almost certainly didn’t have the necessary degree of control over their horses. Well trained horses and riders can do dressage to music, but getting that kind of skill and experience in a force of 6,000 on top of weapons training and with constant attrition seems unlikely, and being able to carry it out under fire seems even more unlikely. Terrain would further disrupt charges. Going uphill would tire the horses more quickly, while walls, hedges, ditches, sunken roads, furze bushes, and even rabbit holes were all potential obstacles. Many horses might be tired from marching, poorly fed, and suffering from diseases.

Assuming the two bodies of cavalry even got near each other and were going at any kind of speed, shock obsessed cavalrymen could have tried to steer their horses towards enemy horses in order to batter them down. But horses aren’t like cars or tanks, they are living creatures with minds of their own. They tend to have a strong and justifiable fear of crashing into solid objects, causing them to try and lunge away from threatening objects or stop dead before they get to them (I once had to go to hospital with concussion because of this, but anyway…). In any case, if horses could be made to crash into each other head on, it would just end up with both horses dead or crippled (which basically means being shot anyway). More speed or weight wouldn’t increase your chances of survival, it would just make the collision more deadly for both sides. This bit isn’t conjecture: it’s basic Newtonian physics.

The idea that fleeing infantry could be “ridden down” is no more plausible. When Anmer collided with Emily Davison during the 1913 Derby, he fell over (watch film of the incident). His jockey was injured in the fall, and the horse was lucky to escape with only bruised shins. This is not really what you want to happen to your cavalry if you’re trying to win a battle.

Considering that the best case outcome would be equal losses on both sides, shock starts to look undesirable as well as unattainable. Maybe you could pursue an attritional doctrine of a horse for a horse, but that would be counterproductive. During the First Civil War, troop horses usually cost between £5 and £10 each (some were even more valuable), with saddles starting out at £2.10s in 1642 and falling to 15s by 1646. In contrast the price of an infantry musket went from £1 to 10s in the same period (see Peter Edwards, Dealing in Death, 2000, ISBN: 0750914963, p.72). Frank Tallett wasn’t exaggerating when he said that cavalry were “ruinously expensive” (War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1992, ISBN: 0415024765). Civil war armies didn’t always have the money to pay for enough remounts, and schemes to get them without paying proved unsustainable. Losses of horses from gunshots, disease, starvation, exhaustion, lameness, and theft were difficult enough to make up.

You have to wonder how many people with military experience actually believed that shock could and should happen. Was it just something that was made up by theorists who were out of touch with reality? In the next post I’ll be looking at how drill books said cavalry should fight.

Bibliography

1. Peter Edwards, Dealing in Death (Sutton, 2000).
2. John Keegan, The Face of Battle (Penguin Books Ltd, August 1978).
3. Frank Tallett, War and Society in Early Modern Europe (Routledge: London, 1992).
4. Maclolm D. G. Wanklyn and Frank Jones, A Military History of the English Civil War (Pearson: Harlow, 2005).