The British Cavalry 1920-1940

This thesis examines the British cavalry 1920-40. It investigates the issues facing the cavalry and General Staff during the period. To do this it takes several methodological approaches. Firstly, using War Office files and other primary sources it looks at the political, economic and doctrinal issues affecting the army and how these impacted upon the cavalry. The time frames for analysing these factors arc built around the creation of the DRC in 1934. This year saw a watershed when the likelihood of the cavalry being mechanised moved from being a possibility to a certainty. It shows that there were cavalrymen who supported modernisation but the General Staff were hampered in their efforts by politicians and, to a lesser extent, tank advocates themselves. An analysis of the Yeomanry cavalry is also undertaken which reveals that the General Staff at the beginning of this period tried to undertake a radical restructuring of its Territorial Force. The selfish outlook of amateur military men of social influence along with the political dalliances of Churchill forced the General Staff to virtually abandon its plans. This was to have repercussions upon mobilisation and beyond. The thesis utilises the large oral testimony held at the IWM, to investigate the cultural nature of the cavalry of this period. This reveals a service arm frequently lacking in professionalism; a source of enmity between services branches, in particular, the RTC, who mistook lack of focus for a resistance to change. Yet, longer-serving officers were committed to modernisation and it was the ‘bright young things’ of the 20s and 30s who were especially enamoured with the cult of the horse. Then, using 23, Cavalry Journal along with other primary records, an analysis is made of how the British cavalry saw itself in comparison to other nations’ mounted units. It shows how the cavalry and the General Staff believed that they were in advance of other nations in their perceptions on cavalry. However, by the late 1930s, this confidence was misplaced as the Germans, the French with their DLMs and the US cavalry began to overtake the British. The conclusions drawn show that the cavalry did not retard the mechanisation of the British army but it did not advance it either. The failings of mechanisation lay in factors often beyond the control of the army and for the cavalry’s part when it asked to mechanise it did so with far more zeal than it is given credit for.