e first line; for, if it is beaten, a gap is left through
which the enemy may penetrate. At the battle of Blenheim, in 1704,
Marlborough owed his victory, in great measure, to the Allies' forcing
back the cavalry forming the centre of the French army; thus turning the
whole of its right wing, and compelling the infantry posted at Blenheim
to surrender.

5. Yet cavalry should always be near enough to the infantry to take
immediate part in the combat; and although it should not be posted in
the intervals between infantry corps, it may _debouch through them_, in
order to attack more promptly.

At the battle of Friedland, the Russian cavalry charged a French
infantry division. Latour Maubourg's dragoons and the Dutch cuirassiers,
riding through the battalion intervals, charged the Russians in turn,
and drove them back on their infantry, throwing many of them into the
river.

6. When _both wings are uncovered_, the best place for the cavalry will
usually be in rear of the centre of the second line; whence it can be
sent in the shortest time to either wing.

7. Cavalry should not be _scattered over the field_ in small
detachments, but be kept massed at one or more suitable points; as
behind the centre, or behind one wing, or both wings. A small cavalry
force should be kept entire; or it will have very little chance of
effecting any thing whatever.

Cavalry of the line, to produce its decisive effects, must be used in
heavy masses. In the beginning of the Napoleonic wars, the French
cavalry was distributed among the divisions. Napoleon's subsequent
experience led him to give it more concentration, by uniting in one mass
all the cavalry belonging to each army corps; and, finally, these masses
were again concentrated into independent cavalry corps; leaving to each
army corps only cavalry enough to guard it.

8. For tactical operations in the field, cavalry insufficient in number
is _scarcely better than none at all_, as it can never show itself in
presence of the enemy's cavalry, which would immediately outflank and
destroy it, and must keep close behind its infantry.

At the opening of Napoleon's campaign of 1813, he had but very little
cavalry to oppose to the overwhelming masses of this arm possessed by
the Allies. In consequence of this, he could make no use of it whatever;
and the tactical results of the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen were far
inferior to those habitually obtained in his former victories, and were
p