7. Depôt at Canterbury and Depôts generally in Peace.

It has been shown that, unlike Continental nations, the regimental establishments do not in peace time comprise an additional squadron or cadre destined to become the depôt squadron on mobilization. There is, nevertheless, a partly analogous system in our service, inasmuch that regiments stationed abroad maintain a peace depôt at home. These depôts, comprising each 2 officers and 100 or more non-commissioned officers and men (the numbers continually varying), and 38 horses, are at present united at the Canterbury establishment, and are temporarily grouped together into a regimental organization with a staff of its own-viz., 5 officers, 2 warrant officers, and 20 non-commissioned officers and men with 20 horses.

The object of this establishment is to act as a school and training ground for the recruits enlisted during the year, who are destined, on attaining the age of 20, to embark and join headquarters abroad, and thus replace the depletion caused by the return home of time-expired men, and by the waste attendant on foreign service. The home depôt, again, permits the return to England of men rendered temporarily ineffective by service abroad, who for a period of 2 years can recuperate their health at Canterbury and then rejoin their corps. The instruction of the recruit comprises riding, fencing, gymnastics, and musketry, with a limited amount of mounted work in the field; it is intended that recruits should reach their corps sufficiently effective to enter the ranks at once.

At present Canterbury is the only source from which cavalry recruits are drafted to regiments serving abroad. Some 20 years ago the system partially adopted was the attachment of the depôt of a regiment abroad to a regiment at home. This method was doomed to failure owing to the absence of any bond of union or tactical basis between these units. The organization of cavalry into 4 squadrons, each under its own leader, between whom and his men both in the field and in barracks there should exist an intimate understanding, does not permit of the intermixture of foreign elements in the ranks.

The depôt which must be formed on mobilization, presumably at the then station of the unit, would consist of the non-effective officers and men, such as sick, and undismissed recruits, and of the untrained remounts. This nucleus would be added to by the arrival of the temporarily unfit reservists, and by the enlistment of fresh men and purchase of fresh horses, and thus form a feeder for the mobilized regiment.

8. Terms of Service. Standards.1

Recruits are taken for the cavalry between the ages of 18 and 25, and as a rule are obtained more from towns than from the country. There is 1 For first appointments of officers, see chap. xviii.

generally a good supply forthcoming, the dashing nature of the service, combined with a handsome uniform and slightly higher pay affording extra inducements. As in other arms of the service certificates of education are necessary before promotion to the different grades.

A cavalryman enlists under the same conditions as for the infantry. N.-C. officers, and, if recommended, privates, are allowed the privilege of extending their service up to 21 years.

The standards of height, &c., are

Heavy, 1st and 2nd Dragoons

The chest measurement is a minimum of 34 inches; for men over 5 ft. 10 in. it is 35 inches.

9. Instruction of Soldier. Preparation of Men and Horses.

The first few months may certainly be regarded as the most arduous of a cavalry aspirant's career. He has to learn to use his carbine, his sword or lance, and to practise on foot the different formations of cavalry, before taking his place in the mounted ranks. Simultaneously with this drill under the adjutants superintendence, the fencing instructor is putting him through a course of 70 lessons with the foils and singlesticks, and he attends at the gymnasium during two months for an hour daily. At the termination of the latter course he comes into the riding master's hands, the course being usually completed after from 90-120 lessons, when he is brought before his commanding officer for dismissal, and, if dismissed, merged finally in his squadron. This riding school course is a very thorough one, and includes instruction in the use of his weapons mounted, packing kit, &c. So far he will have spent from six to eight months at these first drills, but an important part of his training remains to complete, viz., his musketry course. In this, after eight days preliminary drill, he fires 200 rounds at different known ranges up to 800 yards, and performs such practices as volley firing, and the attack and defence of posts with horses. The cavalry recruit can now finally call himself a trained soldier.

Remounts equally with recruits join at various times of the year, to the number of about 10 per cent. on the strength of the regiment. Their age on joining is as a rule 4, and for 12 months they should as far as possible be treated as remounts. On their arrival, in bad condition and underfed, they are placed in charge of a selected officer, and with selected men as riders in the proportion of one man to two horses. It is only after they are pronounced fit by the veterinary surgeon that they pass on to the riding-master, and their earlier days of instruction are subject to frequent interruption from sickness, debility, or other causes. The first week is spent in handling and saddling them, until they submit without fear to being mounted. Very gradually they are brought on to understand the bridle, to obey the pressure of the rider's legs, to rein back, to canter correctly, and to leap. About the fourth month they are bitted, and accustomed to the use of the sword or lance. They are worked in close files and in double rank, and when in every

respect they are thoroughly efficient for the ranks, the commanding officer drafts them for regular duty to their squadrons.

Peace remounts and war remounts.-The above detail shows that a recruit becomes a trained soldier in about eight months, but a remount if young, i.e., about four years old on joining, requires a year, and is then hardly fit to rough it on a campaign. Why, then, is such a large deficiency of horses allowed in comparison with the war strength as is observable. This is a question often asked. The answer is that reliance is placed on completing regiments on mobilization with remounts of a different category altogether from those spoken of above. In fact it is necessary to recognise two classes of remounts-the peace remount and the mobilization remount. In peace, for economical and practical reasons remounts are bought very young, unbacked, unbridled, and unfed; thereby higher class animals are secured, which, when matured, are more useful than would be such older animals as could be purchased for the same money. On mobilization the remounts supplied under the recently established registration system (see Chap. X.), or by purchase or requisition, would be older and seasoned horses, backed, and broken perhaps to saddle, or at least to harness. Thus it has been considered possible to avoid the expense of keeping all regiments complete, while a nucleus and comparative efficiency is maintained; and this, in such a costly arm as cavalry, has ever been the aim of the responsible authorities.

The proportion of horses on the peace establishment to what is required for war is directly dependent on the position of the unit concerned on the list for foreign service; thus in the regiments less likely to be called out, who would have time to collect additional horses, the deficiency of horses is greater, and vice versa in the case of those liable to be sooner employed.

These considerations are quite inapplicable to the supply of men. The man cannot be drafted and trained to the many duties of a trooper, to ride, to wield the sword, to shoot and

take care of his horse, not to speak of acquiring the temperament of the soldier, without months of previous and most thorough instruction. True, the reservist, on national emergency, would be available, but would himself require retraining, he not being in the same degree effective as when he left the ranks; therefore it has been judged absolutely necessary to keep up in every unit, whether high or low on the list for service, a supply of trained horsemen although in excess of the number of horses.

Instruction-Courses.-During the winter months the whole body is put through a three weeks' course of equitation and foot drill, under the squadron officers, who also lecture theoretically on detached duties and on the principles of musketry, as preparation for the practical outdoor instruction in these subjects. There are numerous special courses in addition to the squadron field training, which is dealt with in a later paragraph, for instance, musketry, pioneering, reconnaissance, sketching, signalling, Maxim gun and veterinary classes.

(a) Musketry. The course of musketry extends over the whole year, but is principally carried out in the summer, i.e., between Feb. 15 and Oct. 31. Each man armed with a carbine fires 140 rounds, partly at known distances up to 800 yards, partly in field practices, such as section attack with horses, and long range volleys. Those armed with revolvers are allowed 12 rounds, and fire at a range of 30 paces.

(b) Pioneers.—On the 1st March every year an officer and selected sergeant are sent to the School of Military Engineering, Chatham, to undergo a 15 days' course of instruction. On return to their regiments they are required to instruct the regimental pioneers (12 men per squadron) in a fortnight's work, using their own regimental equipment tools, the instruction comprising means of forming roadways over soft or marshy ground, bivouacs and hutting, water supply and arrangement for watering horses, the construction of trestle bridges, powers of the different explosives, and, when possible, the actual destruction of railway plant by guncotton.

(c) Reconnaissance and Sketching.-During the winter months a selected officer instructs two or more classes of non-commissioned officers or men in reconnaissance and sketching. Horseback sketching is practised, and rough representations with useful reports of the country traversed or occupied by moving or fixed parties of cavalry are produced.

(d) Signalling.-Great attention is paid to the training of the 12 regimental signallers belonging to every cavalry regiment under a trained officer as instructor and two non-commissioned officers. Prizes with badges are awarded to qualified signallers. Elementary classes are held during the winter months. Signallers are, as far as possible, treated as a separate unit in the regiment, but included in the ranks of their own squadron in the field. In our various minor campaigns this service has proved itself of great value, particularly where the description of country is unsuitable for horse