CAVALRY IN THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WARLessons and Critical Considerations

The author of this study of cavalry operations in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, Count Gustav Wrangel, an Austrian cavalry officer, admits that the performance of the cavalry on both sides was 'poor' being confined to a few raids. His book is really a plea for a greater role for the cavalry and a lament for what he calls 'sins of omission' ie cavalry operations which could have been undertaken but which were not owing to insufficient numbers being available. (He points out that the Japanese were about to double the size of their cavalry to eight divisions). He was not to know, of course, that within a decade of his book's publication the Great War with its mechanisation would make the age-old arm of the cavalry utterly obsolete. Even so, this book is a fascinating period piece.