What the Horsemen Did: 1815

Steve Muhlberger picks up on David Lloyd-Jones's comment on my website:

Muhlberger's Early History: The crucial military role of horses -- 1815: In the Chivalry seminar I've been teaching this year, I've emphasized the crucial role of chevaux in chevalerie. So of course I perked up when David Lloyd-Jones, in the continuing discussion of Mr. Darcy's wealth at Brad DeLong's blog, said:

David Friedman and I conducted roughly this discussion online a couple of years ago, tied to the intelligence that the Duke of Wellington (who incidentally owned the two fastest horses in England and, by my estimate, rode them an astonishing 54 miles on the day of Waterloo) paid his farrier 4,500 pounds a year. We agreed on this being roughly $300K.

I can't vouch for the mileage figure, but if it's in the right ballpark, it means you couldn't be Wellington at Waterloo without fabulous horses. And that the Iron Duke had an iron bottom.

Comments

[Mike Huben]

Was that salary, or salary plus the gross amount required to care for a large stable of horses?

It makes a difference.

[anne]

So nicely done, David Lloyd-Jones and Steve Muhlberger. Notice how strikingly Tolstoy describes the use and strategic integration of cavalry through "War and Peace."

[John Emerson]

According to "The Role of the Horse in Man's Culture" by Harold B. Barclay, toward the end of the XIX century the most prosperous nations had the most horses (with such exceptions as Iceland and Mongolia). Before the automobile, the horse was still the modern state- of- the- art form of transport (except where railway, canals, or ships could be used.)

[MQ]

Well, the horse was critical military technology. Top military contractors make plenty of money today too.

[Porlock Junior]

An iron botom indeed.
There don't seem to be many book about the inflence of hemorrhoids on history, but Napoleon was suffering from them, and it may have affected his performance in battle.

[sm]

In an article whose name and author I didn't note, but which appeared in Horses in European Economic History: A preliminary canter (Reading: British Agricultural History Society, 1983), it was argued that the invention of some kind of motorized road transport was practically inevitable because, in the case of Britain industry and the use of rail had created so much traffic -- anything transported by rail was also transported by horse -- that the country was reaching by the beginning of the 20th c. the limit of horses it could support.

If anyone knows other books or articles on the economics of horses, especially for the medieval period, I love to hear about it.

[andres]

MQ: "Well, the horse was critical military technology. Top military contractors make plenty of money today too."

The horse may have been critical, but not on the battlefield itself, at least not since the time of Crecy. Time and again in decisive battles since 1346, trained infantry broke up cavalry charges and cavalry was definitely the overrated and overglorified branch of the armies. (Which also points to Ney's/Napoleon's misuse of cavalry at Waterloo--if they had deployed the cavalry far out on the right to slow down the arrival of the Prussians while the infantry slugged it out with the British, France might have won. Instead, the French cavalry was wasted in useless charges against British infantry squares).

I have a suspicion that the generals of that era invested in the best horses simply so that they could get their ass away from the battlefield as rapidly as possible if things went badly. By staying mounted at all times, Wellington may have inspired his troops and been able to go where he was needed, but I think he was also hedging his bets...

[gordon]

Iron bottoms will be needed again by Army generals when the oil runs out.

[prostratedragon]

"Iron bottoms will be needed again by Army generals when the oil runs out."

Perhaps the absurdity of that full cycle will help bring about an end of large-scale warmaking. 'Course, if for instance Candide's son would not have been content to keep tending the garden ... (sigh)

[Ian Whitchurch]

Coupla points.

Firstly, professional infantry bounce professional cavalary. Amateur cavalry ride down amateur infantry.

Good infantry - Italian or Flemish civic militia, Scottish and so on - had a decent record against cav.

As a side point, the cav at the Crimea were pretty much the same as light cav of four hundred years ealier - some lances, lots of swords and a complete inability to break good-order infantry.

Next, oil isnt going to 'run out', particularily not for military uses. You;ve been Beyond Thunderdome - that works. Get pigshit, turn into methane, run vehicles.

Or for something better and safer, turn it into synthetic diesel via Fischer-Tropsch, and then run your military vehicle on that.

Because horse cavalry really, really have had their day.

Ian Whitchurch

[John Emerson]

Andres, cavalry never lost their utility for things like scouting, raiding, shock attacks, and internal communications. But the armored knight and the massed cavalry charge increasingly lost their effect over the centuries.

Mongol cavalry were archers and didn't charge and engage the enemy until they thought he was already defeated. The Mongol ethic of warfare was the exact opposite of the one Victor Davis Hansen admires. Hansen is like a WWI general for whom the manly bayonet charge and hand-to-hand combat are the real meaning of war. The Mongols were technicians who picked away at the enemy from a distance until they'd lost their strength. Avoiding the macho man-to-man "moment of truth" confrontation was one of their main rules.

[Kate G.]

"I say [he] is *fundamentally* sound..."

Samuel Johnson

Kate G.

[anne]

http://tolstoy.thefreelibrary.com/War-and-Peace/9-2

1863 - 1869

War and Peace
By Leo Tolstoy

1812

On the thirteenth of June a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse was brought to Napoleon. He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of the bridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and rapturous acclamations which he evidently endured only because it was impossible to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such shouting, but the shouting which accompanied him everywhere disturbed him and distracted him from the military cares that had occupied him from the time he joined the army. He rode across one of the swaying pontoon bridges to the farther side, turned sharply to the left, and galloped in the direction of Kovno, preceded by enraptured, mounted chasseurs of the Guard who, breathless with delight, galloped ahead to clear a path for him through the troops. On reaching the broad river Viliya, he stopped near a regiment of Polish Uhlans stationed by the river.

"Vivat!" shouted the Poles, ecstatically, breaking their ranks and pressing against one another to see him.

Napoleon looked up and down the river, dismounted, and sat down on a log that lay on the bank. At a mute sign from him, a telescope was handed him which he rested on the back of a happy page who had run up to him, and he gazed at the opposite bank. Then he became absorbed in a map laid out on the logs. Without lifting his head he said something, and two of his aides-de-camp galloped off to the Polish Uhlans.

"What? What did he say?" was heard in the ranks of the Polish Uhlans when one of the aides-de-camp rode up to them.

The order was to find a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the Polish Uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his speech from excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be permitted to swim the river with his Uhlans instead of seeking a ford. In evident fear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a horse, he begged to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor's eyes. The aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor would not be displeased at this excess of zeal.

As soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old mustached officer, with happy face and sparkling eyes, raised his saber, shouted "Vivat!" and, commanding the Uhlans to follow him, spurred his horse and galloped into the river. He gave an angry thrust to his horse, which had grown restive under him, and plunged into the water, heading for the deepest part where the current was swift. Hundreds of Uhlans galloped in after him. It was cold and uncanny in the rapid current in the middle of the stream, and the Uhlans caught hold of one another as they fell off their horses. Some of the horses were drowned and some of the men; the others tried to swim on, some in the saddle and some clinging to their horses' manes. They tried to make their way forward to the opposite bank and, though there was a ford one third of a mile away, were proud that they were swimming and drowning in this river under the eyes of the man who sat on the log and was not even looking at what they were doing. When the aide-de-camp, having returned and choosing an opportune moment, ventured to draw the Emperor's attention to the devotion of the Poles to his person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up and, having summoned Berthier, began pacing up and down the bank with him, giving him instructions and occasionally glancing disapprovingly at the drowning Uhlans who distracted his attention.

For him it was no new conviction that his presence in any part of the world, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy alike, was enough to dumfound people and impel them to insane self-oblivion. He called for his horse and rode to his quarters.

Some forty Uhlans were drowned in the river, though boats were sent to their assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from which they had started. The colonel and some of his men got across and with difficulty clambered out on the further bank. And as soon as they had got out, in their soaked and streaming clothes, they shouted "Vivat!" and looked ecstatically at the spot where Napoleon had been but where he no longer was and at that moment considered themselves happy.

That evening, between issuing one order that the forged Russian paper money prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as quickly as possible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a letter containing information about the orders to the French army had been found, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish colonel who had needlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled in the Legion d'honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head.

Quos vult perdere dementat.*

*Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.

[anne]

No one has ever done cavalry like Tolstoy and possibly even the madness of war which should be especially telling now. I remember thinking of this story during the days of embedded reporters riding about on armor through Iraq almost 4 years ago. Madness, sad madness.

[anne]

Quos vult perdere dementat.*

*Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.

[H. Haller]

The 54 miles sounds like the kind of detail that ought to be in Keegan's "The Face of Battle," but I don't find it on a quick check. He does recount Wellington's itinerary through the day, which is impressive enough that the figure is plausible. All this on a front of about 1.75 miles.

[linnen]

Since no one else has offered this;

"Forty Miles in The Saddle"

By Major Assburns

[DILBERT DOGBERT]

Western States Trail Race (Tevis): 100miles, one horse, one rider and 24hrs to complete. Starts at Robie Park, 12 miles east of Squaw Valley and ends in Alburn at the county fairgrounds. Winners complete in 10 to 18 hours on the trail. Around 200 horses and riders start and some 100 or less finish under the time limit. Vertical elevation change about 25000 feet. High temperatures of over 100 degrees are common near the end of the race.
We know who has the hard asses - women. Women win most of the time. Many of the women are in their 50s and 60s. A woman friend of ours has completed over 25 races and she is now in her 80s.
A lot of riders are endurance runners and get off and run the uphill portions sometimes for at least 1/2 the mileage.
The things crazy people do just for fun and a belt buckle. Economize that Prof!

[Dave]

The relative merits of the interfaces to all our modern gadgets mean that the first part of AN Whitehead's quote still bears cultural relevance, and hence is often found today:

"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them."

but the analogy he goes on to make doesn't seem to have survived the onset of mechanization, and is less often seen:

"Operations of thought are cavalry charges in a battle - they are limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments."