CHAPTER XXVI TRANSPORT AND AMMUNITION SUPPLY

The advance to Damascus and Aleppo in September and October 1918 proved with what a small amount of transport cavalry can operate, when local supplies are available. As already explained, during this advance no transport accompanied the divisions, except ammunition wagons and a few motor ambulance cars.

The opportunities for cavalry making a raid such a great distance into enemy country have seldom occurred in the past, and are likely to become even more rare in the future. When they do occur, however, the experience of this campaign points to the conclusion that there can be few countries in which cavalry can operate as such effectively, where they would not be able to dispense almost entirely with transport. The fact that mounted troops can move freely, denotes that the country is not excessively mountainous, and is, therefore (excluding desert land), more or less cultivated, thus providing food for man and horse. It must be remembered that much of the country through which the cavalry passed between the 25th of September and the 28th of October is poorly cultivated, and all of it had been mercilessly laid under requisition by the Turks and Germans for the supply of their armies. Yet it was found possible to secure food and forage for three cavalry divisions, a total of nearly 20,000 men and[Pg 323] a similar number of horses, without extreme difficulty, and without in any way depriving the inhabitants of essential food.

If, however, the country through which it is proposed to advance is incapable of supporting the force, sufficient transport must be taken to carry supplies for such a number of days as may be requisite. The pace of the cavalry will then be, to a great extent, limited by the pace of their transport, and for this reason every effort should be made to increase the mobility of cavalry transport vehicles.

Vehicles.—At the beginning of the 1917 operations the cavalry ammunition columns and supply trains were equipped partly with G.S. and partly with limbered G.S. wagons. During the subsequent operations, both at the beginning, when movement took place over a sandy or dusty plain, and later on, when the whole country was a sea of mud, and vast areas were under water, the G.S. wagons were constantly in trouble. The experience of the whole campaign was overwhelmingly in favour of the L.G.S. wagon. The sole advantage of the G.S. wagon lies in its greater capacity for carrying bulky loads. For this reason it is very suitable for use in barracks or standing camps, where such stuff as hay, straw, etc., have to be carried. As regards weight, however, the L.G.S. wagon holds its own against the G.S. on roads, and is superior in roadless or hilly country. That is to say, the L.G.S. wagon, with two men and four horses, can, in such country, carry more than two-thirds of the load possible for the G.S. wagon, with its three drivers and six horses. Further, the lower centre of gravity, four large wheels and much greater lock angle of the former, enables it to cross country over which the latter cannot move at all. One advantage claimed for the G.S. type is that the wagon body[Pg 324] is supposed to be capable of being used as a pontoon. The writer has tried it as such, in peace time, and his experience has decided him that he would rather swim.

The above remarks are, of course, to be taken as applying to cavalry transport only.

There is one weakness in the L.G.S. wagon which is commended to the notice of the Royal Ordnance Corps. The bolt which fastens the wagon body on to the carriage passes through the axle. Towards the end of the campaign, after several years' hard and continuous work, a number of these axles began to break, and always at the place where the bolt passed through them. It is suggested that, in future manufacture, the fastening might consist of a steel collar over the axle, instead of a bolt through it.

Horses.—The remarks on type, which have been made with regard to the cavalry riding horse, apply with equal force to the cavalry draught horse. Many of our English draught animals were of far too heavy a type, either for horse artillery or for cavalry transport. It is sometimes argued that a proportion of heavy horses is very useful when wagons begin to get stuck in boggy places. But it is not much use having these equine Samsons at all, if they are not available at the time their services are required. And this is what invariably happens. Nothing in the nature of a cart horse can live with cavalry in a march of forty miles, and, in this campaign, there was one of over ninety miles on end, and marches of forty, fifty and sixty miles were comparatively common. If heavy horses are forced to keep up with cavalry over such distances, they very soon give up the unequal fight and die; if they are allowed to go their own pace, they are a day's march in rear[Pg 325] at the end of twenty-four hours, and the transport thus requires an escort of a size that can ill be spared from the fighting forces.

Another advantage of having a lighter-built, better-bred type of horse for transport, is that they then form a reserve for the cavalry. In the artillery it is the rule for riding and draught horses to change places frequently, thus resting both kinds in turn. This custom might profitably be employed occasionally in the cavalry.

The Australians have an admirable type of cavalry draught horse: 15 to 15.2 hands high, short-backed, well-coupled, and showing a good deal of breeding. The disappearance from our English roads first of the coaches and then of the horse-drawn buses, has deprived us almost entirely of our once fine type of light draught horse, and it seems as if we shall, in the future, have to depend more and more on the Dominions for our supply of such horses. There were a certain number of Canadian horses in the Corps transport. They were hard and sound, but of a coarser type, with heavier shoulders and less handy than those from Australia.

Other transport animals.—At different times, camels, mules, and donkeys were used by the cavalry for transport purposes. The first named are, of course, entirely unsuitable, except for work in the desert, but, as we had some 30,000 of them in our possession in 1917, a legacy from Sinai, and there was a shortage of other transport, they were largely used during the 1917 operations. No attempt was made to keep up, or even near, the cavalry on the march, but the camels worked in a system of convoys along defined routes, forming dumps behind the advancing line of cavalry, from which the divisional trains drew supplies. The uselessness and danger of camels in[Pg 326] mountainous country was convincingly demonstrated in the mountains of Jud?a and in the two trans-Jordan raids, and, after the second of these, the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade was disbanded, and the cavalry saw no more of the patient but unlovable beasts that had worked for them for more than two years.

Mules were in use in the transport to a certain extent all through the campaign, but the experience of the 1917 operations led to their being replaced by horses in all transport that was required to keep up with the cavalry. Their hardihood, soundness, and remarkable freedom from disease, no less than their patience and docility, render them admirable for infantry transport, and even, possibly, for field artillery, but they suffer from the serious disability, from the cavalry or horse artillery point of view, that they cannot go the pace. Left to themselves, they can march indefinitely, but, if pushed along faster than their natural gait, they rapidly lose condition, and soon become so debilitated as to be well-nigh useless. As this natural pace is slower than that of horses, they must always be pushed when acting with cavalry, and this fact renders them unsuitable for use with mounted troops.

Donkeys were first used in supply convoys in the Jud?an Hills in the winter of 1917, some 400 being sent up from Egypt for this purpose. They did most excellent work, supplying the troops in the line at a time when there were no roads available. They are admirably adapted for such special work, being small, hardy, and easily handled, and requiring no attention. For any other purpose they are, of course, not to be seriously considered. Owing to the chronic shortage of horses in the country, those details of regiments who did not usually accompany[Pg 327] their units into action were, in 1917, given donkeys to ride. There were about half a dozen in each cavalry regiment or similar unit. Most of these were gradually exchanged for Arab ponies captured from the enemy, but a few carried on right through the campaign, up to the capture of Aleppo. How they kept up through some of the long marches of[Pg 328] 1918, carrying a heavy man and all his kit, is a mystery, but they contrived to do so somehow.

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Ammunition.—Prior to the commencement of the 1917 operations in Palestine, the amount of small arm ammunition laid down to be carried in a cavalry divisional ammunition column was 250,000 rounds per brigade, or 1,000,000 in the column for the four-brigade divisions of that time. This was a ridiculously over-large amount. On the other hand, the amount of gun ammunition was very small. Indeed the divisional column commander who said that he carried in his column three weeks' supply for the small arms and three hours' for the guns, can scarcely be accused of hyperbole.

After the second battle of Gaza, during which the cavalry were engaged all day long dismounted, in a very heavy fire fight, it was found that, after replenishing the regimental reserves, only about one-sixth of the small arm ammunition in the divisional ammunition columns had been issued. The guns, on the other hand, had expended nearly three times the total quantity of ammunition carried in the column.

As a result of this action, the whole question of ammunition supply was considered afresh, and the columns were reorganised with an establishment of 200 rounds of shell per gun, and 120,000 of small arm ammunition per brigade, calculated as to 84,000 rounds for the machine gun squadron and 12,000 rounds for each regiment. These proportions worked satisfactorily, though the gun ammunition might still be somewhat increased, even at the expense of the small arms. The result of the whole series of operations seems to point to the fact that an establishment of 100,000 rounds of small arm ammunition per brigade, or 300,000 per division, and 250 rounds of gun ammunition per gun, or 4500 for a division,[Pg 329] would form the best proportion. This would give a total of 442 rounds of shell per gun, carried in the field, not an unduly large amount for a modern, quick-firing gun, when it is remembered that Napoleon considered that the muzzle-loading, slow-firing field pieces of his day should be supplied with not less than 300 rounds apiece.

Loads.—The weights laid down in the 1914 War Establishments to be carried both in G.S. and L.G.S. wagons were found to be only suitable for transport accompanying infantry along well-metalled roads. After the second battle of Gaza, a new load table was drawn up empirically. A series of experiments, carried out just prior to the commencement of the Beersheba operations, demonstrated that even these reduced loads were far too heavy for G.S. wagons in such country. Unfortunately these experiments were ignored, and the G.S. wagons started the operations with the loads as laid down in the new tables. The result was that, during the march from the Shellal area to Khalasa, the G.S. wagons were strewn over twenty miles of country, and some 200 camels had to be requisitioned at short notice from the supply columns to lighten the wagons.

After the fall of Beersheba, the G.S. wagons of the divisional ammunition column were taken over by the Corps, as already narrated, and they took no further part in the operations until they rejoined their respective divisions on the 19th November.

As a result of the 1917 series of operations, the load question was again reviewed, and the following loads were decided upon.

G.S. wagons, 23 boxes of 13-pounder gun ammunition or 26 boxes of small arm ammunition, a total load behind the 6 horses of about 35 cwt.

L.G.S. wagons, 16 boxes of gun or 18 boxes of[Pg 330] small arm ammunition, a total load behind the 4 horses of about 24 cwt.

These loads were proved by considerable subsequent experience to be the maximum with which wagons could operate efficiently with cavalry in such country. It is to be remarked that practically no sandy country was encountered after the fall of Beersheba, but the unmetalled tracks along which the transport had to march were, in the winters of 1917 and 1918, often almost impassable owing to the mud.

Before leaving the subject of ammunition supply, attention should be drawn to the vital necessity of cavalry regiments replenishing their regimental reserve of small arm ammunition from the ammunition column every day. Obvious as this duty may appear, it is one that is frequently neglected, especially during a time of long marches. It frequently happened that, in spite of repeated applications, the ammunition column commanders could not get indents from the regiments for days at a time. Such delays were often followed by sudden demands for the immediate supply of a large quantity of ammunition, which, perhaps, was not all available at the moment. There ensued mutual recriminations, and much extra work for the tired horses of both the columns and the regimental ammunition wagons, all of which might have been avoided by more forethought and attention to detail.

The End