In this variety of battle, airplanes and observation balloons play a
prominent part. Once the enemy is driven out of its trenches, the
message is flashed by wireless to the artillery and slaughter at long
range begins. If there have been no intrenchments, as was the case in
the first battle of the Marne, massed artillery send a plunging fire
into the columns moving in open order and prepare the way for machine
gunners and infantry to finish the rout.
In previous wars, cavalry played a heroic role in open warfare; only
rarely has it been possible to use cavalry in the Great War. The Germans
sent a screen of Uhlans before its advancing hordes into Belgium and
Northern France in 1914. The Uhlans also were in the van in the Russian
invasion, but with these exceptions, German cavalry was a negligible
factor.
British and French cavalry were active in pursuit of the fleeing Teutons
when the Hindenburg line was smashed in September of 1918. Outside of
that brief episode, the cavalry did comparatively nothing so far as the
Allies were concerned. It was the practice on both sides to dismount
cavalry and convert it into some form of trench service. Trench mortar
companies, bombing squads, and other specialty groups were organized
from among the cavalrymen. Of course the fighting in the open stretches
of Mesopotamia, South Africa and Russia involved the use of great bodies
of cavalry.
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