Picture of a 17th Lancer in 1829 wearing a 1796 LCS

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fernando

Let me take the advantage of having a few members here who are within the Cavalry issue and ask you guys the following:
How late are Cavalry charges recorded to have taken place; you know, horsemen, lances, sabres and all ... with or without images ?
... Taking that the one at Balaclava wasn't surely the last one.
Thank you.

Excellent question Nando!! and you're right, Balaklava was far from the last one! For anyone so inclined a great reference on this topic is "Charge to Glory" (James D. Lunt, 1960). According to Lunt, one of the last recorded British cavalry charges was with Sikh sowars of the Burma Frontier Force against Japanese machine gun emplacement near Toungoo, Burma in 1942.

I once, as I have told here before, had the honor of visiting Brig. Francis Ingall author of "Last of the Bengal Lancers" (1988). As a young subaltern he led a mounted cavalry charge of the 6th/13th Bengal Lancers on the Kajuri Plain in Khyber Agency in 1930. As he recounted that action to me as we stood in his living room, he occasionally looked wistfully over to the portrait of his charger, Eagerheart, placed in honor over the fireplace.
He described colorfully ordering his men to 'draw swords' as they charged the numbers of Afridi tribesmen, and he handed me the very M1912 British cavalry sword he had carried at high tierce in the charge.

There are so many stories of these cavalrymen, and it would be hard to cover them all here as there were cavalry in virtually all wars and campaigns up to and including WWII. I will never forget the scene in one movie where General George Patton, the stalwart horse soldier, had ordered his men to stack their swords as they reorganized the cavalry units into armored, and stood with tears in his eyes as the men filed by complying with his order.

It is almost impossible to study the history of these units without as much passion. When I visited Brigadier Ingall I had been studying Bengal Lancers already for years, and there was an excitement and rapport indescribable as we talked, which was reflected deeply as he inscribed my copy of his book.
It remains , much in the way of the portrait of his charger, in a place of honor among my books. He passed away in 1998.