he great
tactical opportunity characteristic of Napoleon's later method, for
there then existed no means of overwhelming the enemy with a sufficient
hail of projectiles to render the penetration of the cavalry feasible.
The latest improvement in artillery, viz. the perfected shrapnel and the
quick-firing guns, have, however, enormously facilitated the attainment
of this primary fire superiority, and, moreover, it has simplified the
procedure to such a degree that Napoleon is no longer needed to direct.
The battles of the future will thus, in civilized countries, revert to
the Napoleonic type, and the side which possesses the most highly
trained and mobile force of cavalry will enjoy a greater relative
superiority over its adversary than at any period since the days of
Frederick.

The whole experience of the past thus goes to show that no nation in
peace has ever yet succeeded in maintaining a highly trained cavalry
sufficiently numerous to meet all the demands of a great war. Hence at
the outbreak of hostilities there has always been a demand for some kind
of supplementary force which can relieve the regular squadrons of those
duties of observation and exploration which wear down the horses most
rapidly and thus render the squadrons ineffective for their culminating
duty on the battle-field. This demand has been met by the enrolment of
men willing to fight and rendered mobile by mounts of an inferior
description, and the greater the urgency the greater has been the
tendency to give them arms which they can quickly learn to use. To make
a man an expert swordsman or lancer has always taken years, but he can
be taught to use a musket or rifle sufficiently for his immediate
purpose in a very short time. Hence, to begin with, arms of this
description have invariably been issued to him. But once these bodies
have been formed, and they have come into collision with trained
cavalry, the advantages of mobility, combined with the power of shock,
have become so apparent to all, that insensibly the "dragoon" has
developed into the cavalry soldier, the rate of this evolution being
conditioned by the nature of the country in which the fighting took
place.

This evolution is best seen in the American Civil War. The men of the
mounted forces engaged had been trained to the use of the rifle from
childhood, while the vast majority had never seen a sword, hence the
formation of "mounted rifles"; and these "mounted rifles" developed
pre