Corralling Cacophonous Cavalry

Can we fathom the perplexing complexity of Victorian horse-soldiery?

Édouard Detaille Carabinier de la Garde impériale du Second Empire (1911)

If, Gentle Reader, you wish to take leave of your senses, I suggest that begin your journey into madness by diving, head first, into the world of nineteenth-century cavalry, a realm in which you will encounter, among many other violations of the usual laws of logic, carbine-free carbineers. What is worse, you will quickly find yourself adrift, with neither compass nor map, in an ocean of idiosyncrasies, a seemingly endless sea of distinctions (with and without difference) guaranteed to drive you to, and, indeed, well beyond, distraction.

The express lane to this brain-busting bedlam runs through places where bakers make the best pastry. Thus, when, 1855, George B. McClellan found himself in Vienna, he learned that the ordre de bataille of Francis Joseph included:

• eight regiments of dragoons

• eight regiments of cuirassiers

• twelve regiments of lancers

• twelve regiments of hussars

A few months later, when visiting France, Captain McClellan observed that, not to be outdone by the Emperor of Austria (the grandson of the former father-in-law of his famous uncle), Napoleon III maintained:

• thirteen regiment of dragoons

• thirteen regiments of chasseurs

• twelve regiments of cuirassiers

• nine regiments of lancers

• nine regiments of hussars

• four regiments of African chasseurs

• three regiments of spahis

• two regiments of carbineers

• one regiment of guides

Happily for the likes of us, the cuirassiers, lancers, and hussars of the army of the younger Bonaparte looked a lot like their respective Austrian counterparts. That is, regardless of the Caesar they served, horsemen of each category rode steeds of the same sort, carried comparable weapons, and, had they wrestled in a league, would have grappled in the same weight class.

Similar similarities connected the cuirassiers, lancers, and hussars of France and Austria to those of the kingdom of Prussia. Alas, this delightful degree symmetry stopped at the sign marked ‘dragoons’.