German cavalry and modern warfare, 1870-1945 * The history of the
German cavalry, a combat arm that not only survived World War I but also rode to
war again in 1939
Despite the enduring popular image of the blitzkrieg of the Second
World War, the German Army always depended on horses and could not have waged
war without them. While the Army’s reliance on draft horses to pull artillery,
supply wagons, and field kitchens is now generally acknowledged, David Dorondo’s
Riders of the Apocalypse examines the history of the German cavalry. Though
concentrating on the period between 1939 and 1945, the book places that history
firmly within the larger context of the mounted arm’s development from the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to the Third Reich’s surrender.
Driven by both internal and external constraints to retain mounted
forces after 1918, the German Army effectively did nothing to reduce, much less
eliminate, the preponderance of non-mechanised formations during its breakneck
expansion under the Nazis after 1933. Instead, politicised command decisions,
technical insufficiency, industrial bottlenecks, and, finally, wartime attrition
meant that Army leaders were compelled to rely on a steadily growing number of
combat horsemen throughout Second World War. These horsemen were best
represented by the 1st Cavalry Brigade which saw combat in Poland, the Netherlands, France, Russia, and Hungary. Their
service, however, came to be cruelly dishonoured by the horsemen of the 8th
Waffen-SS Cavalry Division, a unit whose troopers spent more time killing
civilians than fighting enemy soldiers.
