avalry, already, as I have shown, so inadequate, must fall off
very rapidly at the commencement of a campaign, because its rapid
reinforcement with satisfactory material is, under the circumstances,
quite out of the question.

From this conclusion there is no escape; and in view of the increased
importance I have above assigned to the due performance of all Cavalry
duties, its recognition carries with it, as its corollary, the
absolute need for the numerical augmentation of this branch of the
service.

The enormous mechanism of our modern Armies can only work normally and
successfully when its constituent 'power factors'--_i.e._, the three
Arms--have been apportioned with due regard to the work to be
accomplished. If driving-power fails any one portion, the danger lies
near that at some critical moment the whole apparatus will suffer in
sympathy, and fail to respond to the strain it is called upon to
endure.

The question of this increase in the Cavalry has, indeed, often before
been raised, but never with the weight of concentrated conviction the
situation, in my opinion, deserves. For the most part, only expedients
to avoid the bitter necessity of a serious augmentation have been
suggested. Thus it has been proposed to form new regiments of four
squadrons each by taking away from the existing ones their fifth
squadron, and the suggestion has been supported by an appeal to the
fact that in War-time only four squadrons per regiment take the field.

No expert, however, can fail to agree with Lieutenant-General von
Pelet-Narbonne, who maintains in his 'Cavalry Regiments of Four
Squadrons' (_Kreuz Zeitung_, January 17, 1899) that such a measure
would entail the ruin of our Cavalry, and would destroy with one blow
all that the reorganizations of 1859 and 1860 have done for the War
efficiency of our regiments by entailing a depreciation of the value
of the squadrons at the very moment when called on to move out and
face the enemy.

Thus he writes: 405 squadrons are in Peace retained on the lower
establishment of 133, or the middle one of 137. Their numbers are 170
of the former, 235 of the latter, and the War strength averages 150
per squadron. To attain this figure those on the lower establishment
need 17 horses, those on the middle 13.

With no fifth squadron to draw upon for horses, as at present, these
vacancies would have to be filled by 'augmentation horses'--_i.e._,
animals straight from the country, thoroughl