Historically,cavalry (from the French wordcavalerie, itself derived fromcheval meaning "horse") aresoldiers orwarriors whofight mounted onhorseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of thecombat arms, operating aslight cavalry in the roles ofreconnaissance,screening, andskirmishing, or asheavy cavalry for decisiveshock attacks. An individual soldier in the cavalry is known by a number of designations depending on era and tactics, such as acavalryman,horseman,trooper,cataphract,knight,drabant,hussar,uhlan,mamluk,cuirassier,lancer,dragoon, orhorse archer. The designation ofcavalry was not usually given to anymilitary forces that used other animals for mounts, such ascamels orelephants.Infantry who moved on horseback, but dismounted to fight on foot, were known in the early 17th to the early 18th century asdragoons, a class ofmounted infantry which in most armies later evolved into standard cavalry while retaining their historic designation.

• Halfway down the trail to Hell,
  In a shady meadow green
  Are the Souls of all dead Troopers camped,
  Near a good old-time canteen.
  And this eternal resting place
  Is known as Fiddlers’ Green.
  Marching past, straight through to Hell
  The Infantry are seen,
  Accompanied by the Engineers,
  Artillery and Marines,
  For none but the shades of Cavalrymen
  Dismount at Fiddlers’ Green.
  • Anonymous,"Fiddler's Green" (c. 1689), st. 1, associated with the U.S.1st Cavalry Division; reported as a favourite poem ofJonathan M. Wainwright by Duane P. Schultz,Hero of Bataan (1981), p. 433; see also"Fiddler’s Green – Poem",1st Cavalry Division Association (2024)

• If you want to have a good time, jine the cavalry!
  Jine the cavalry! Jine the cavalry!
  If you want to catch the Devil, if you want to have fun,
  If you want to smell Hell, jine the cavalry!
  • Anonymous,"Join the Cavalry", chorus (August 1862), celebratingJeb Stuart's troopers

• At dawn the drums of war were beat,
    Proclaiming, “Thus saith Mohtasim,
  ‘Let all my valiant horsemen meet,
    And every soldier bring with him
  A spotted steed.’” So rode they forth,
    A sight of marvel and of fear;
  Pied horses prancing fiercely north,
    Threelakhs—the cup borne in the rear!
  • SirEdwin Arnold, "The Caliph’s Draught"
  • Indian Poetry (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd, 1904)

• [T]he cavalry will never be scrapped to make room for the tanks; in the course of time cavalry may be reduced as the supply of horses in this country diminishes. This greatly depends on the life of fox-hunting, for which the class of horse required in the cavalry is used.
  • Neil Haig, "Substance or Shadow",Journal of the Royal United Service Institution (March 1921), p. 119; quoted byNiall Ferguson,The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), p. 386, in connection with the ideas ofLiddell Hart on the development of armoured warfare after theFirst World War. Neil Haig'smore famous brother likewise dismissed motorisedweapons as mere "accessories to theman and horse".

• Если хочешь быть красивым, поступи в гусары.
  • If you want to be beautiful, enroll in theHussars.
  • Kozma Prutkov,Fruits of Reflection (1853-1854), No. 16.

• ‘With burnish’d brand and musketoon
    So gallantly you come,
  I read you for a bold Dragoon,
    That lists the tuck of drum.’
  • SirWalter Scott,"Brignall Banks"; reported inThe Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1918 (1939)

• Half a league, half a league,
    Half a league onward,
  All in the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.
  "Forward, the Light Brigade!
  Charge for the guns!" he said:
  Into the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.
  • Alfred Tennyson,"The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1854), st. 1

• There is no freer man alive than a captain of cavalry in command of his own troop.
  • GeneralJonathan M. Wainwright; reported in Duane Schultz,Hero of Bataan (1981), p. 434

• Philip Sheridan
• J. E. B. Stuart
• Jonathan M. Wainwright

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Cavalry

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