British Lancers on manoeuvres, c1902

The main task of the lancers was to charge enemy infantry and cavalry formations. They were also used for typical light cavalry tasks such as skirmishing and scouting.
Part of the 'War Horse: Fact & Fiction' exhibition running at the National Army Museum, London until March 2013.
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[@nickhanlon9331]

Speidel, Rommel's chief of staff, started his career carrying a lance and ended it commanding nuclear weapons.

[@dorianphilotheates3769]

Nick Hanson - ...and through it all still somehow managed to earn a PhD - incredible, absolutely incredible.

[@kakalimukherjee3297]

Absolutely incredible times. The worst of times, the best of times.

[@dochteur1886]

It is fascinating to realize just 4 years prior british lancers charged through sizeable Dervish unit an Omdurman. While this was no longer their primary mode of combat at this point, this might be perhaps the most recent footage of a unit still trained and capable of performing a charge in actual combat with a tradition to back it up.

[@peteredwards338]

Was Winston Churchill in that charge ?

[@dochteur1886]

@@peteredwards338 Yes, his memoirs provide one of the more detailed descriptions of the charge.

[@peteredwards338]

@@dochteur1886 Thank you .

[@mjxw]

@@peteredwards338 I wrote it out in a comment to this video, if you care to read it. :)

[@colinharbinson8284]

@@peteredwards338 In the film "young Winston" you see him pull out an automatic pistol rather than a sword, something he mentions in his early biography as he had injured his arm (I think on his arrival in the Sudan).

[@tomhatton3303]

Amazing footage. Soon to be obsolete, but disciplined and lethal warriors.

[@philip48230]

30 years ago I watched close up as a 25 horse police mounted unit demonstrated a charge. Appreciated what it felt like as an infantryman facing down a cavalry charge

[@internetomatic]

absolutely beautiful

[@mjxw]

Churchill's description of the British charge at Omdurman in 1898, the last ever British cavalry charge: "The only course was plain and welcome to all. The Colonel, nearer than his regiment, already saw what lay behind the skirmishers. He ordered, 'Right wheel into line' to be sounded. The trumpet jerked out a shrill note, heard faintly above the trampling of the horses and the noise of the rifles. On the instant all the sixteen troops swung round and locked up into a long, galloping line, and the 21st Lancers were committed to their first charge of the war. Two hundred and fifty yards away the dark-blue men were firing madly into a thin film of light-blue smoke. Their bullets struck the hard gravel into the air and the troopers, to shield their faces from the stinging dust, bowed their helmets forward, like the Cuirassiers at Waterloo. The pace was fast and the distance short. Yet, before it was half covered, the whole aspect of the affair changed. A deep crease in the ground - a dry watercourse, a khor - appeared where all had seemed smooth, level plain; and from it there sprang, with the suddenness of a pantomime effect and a high-pitched yell, a dense white mass of men nearly as long as our front and about twelve deep. A score of horsemen and a dozen bright flags rose as if by magic from the earth. Eager warriors sprang forward to anticipate the shock. The rest stood firm to meet it. The Lancers acknowledged the apparition only by an increase in pace. Each man wanted sufficient momentum to drive through such a solid line. The flank troops, seeing that they overlapped, curved inwards like the horns of a moon. But the whole event was a matter of seconds. The riflemen, firing bravely to the last, were swept head over heels into the khor, and jumping down with them, at full gallop and in the closest order, the British squadrons struck the fierce brigade with one loud furious shout. The collision was prodigious. Nearly thirty Lancers, men and horses, and at least two hundred Arabs were overthrown. The shock was stunning to both sides, and for perhaps ten wonderful seconds no man heeded his enemy. Terrified horses wedged in the crowd, bruised and shaken men, sprawling in heaps, struggled, dazed and stupid, to their feet, panted, and looked about them. Several fallen Lancers had even time to re-mount. Meanwhile the impetus of the cavalry carried them on. As a rider tears through a bullfinch, the officers forced through way through the press; and as an iron rake might be drawn through a heap of shingle, so the regiment followed. They shattered the Dervish array, and their pace reduced to a walk, scrambled out of the khor on the further side, leaving a score of troopers behind them, and dragging on with the charge more than a thousand Arabs. Then, not till then, the killing began; and thereafter each man saw the world along his lance, under his guard, or through the back-sight of his own pistol; and each had his own strange tale to tell."

[@ianb5682]

The 7th Sept 1914 was actually the last charge by the lancers and of the British Army during World War 1.

[@lashah7495]

@@ianb5682 actually the last charge by the British army was led by bernard freyberg on the 11 of the 11 1918 as he wished to make his reputation for the history books. High casualty rate for vainglory and nothing more.

[@barrypope4358]

@@lashah7495 This is true. At Lessines with 7th Drgoons( I think), about 10:59am, 1 minute before the Armistice.

[@Ffhjle]

@@barrypope4358 The last cavalry charge in the First World War was in 1918. Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) were the main unit involved. One member of the regiment, Lt. Flowerdew, was awarded the VC for this action. Granted this was a Canadian regiment and not a British one.

[@barrypope4358]

@@Ffhjle Canadians won that War for the British !

[@ernestpimlott]

My Great Grandfather was in a Lancer Regiment at this time- Royal Empress of India Regiment

[@artfuldodger9312]

Wonderful video.

[@carausiuscaesar5672]

I wonder how many of these brave British men survived the First World War? And the poor horses too.

[@rashidahmad7830]

The cavalry were kept pretty much on reserve after the war of movement was over. They took turns in the trenches in the early part but did not suffer as badly as the infantry for the next four years. Read about the Polish cavalry against the Red Army in 1920. A lot of cavalry action over open spaces.

[@pparker768]

Did bugger all for 4 years

[@yakchirscarlson]

THANKS FOR THE CLIPS!!!!

[@olive216]

The machine gun did not bring about the end of cavalry. It was barbed wire.

[@paulhomsy2751]

It was the tank that mostly brought the end to cavalry and it was also field canons and the machine gun. You can't exclude firepower from the equation.

[@ErieRadio]

Canadian Cavalry and Mounted Units (light horse, mounted rifles, etc) performed as expected in WW1 and their role is mostly misunderstood by recounting historians. Their primary role was not charges and “cold arms” (although they had that ability if opportunity arose and ordered) but to fight dismounted using their mobility behind the trenches to arrived where needed at a decisive moment (particularly with units that were self supported with their own hotchkiss gun or other rapid or field artillery firepower). Beyond that, they scouted roads for passibility and security for large infantry movements, kept infantry units/armies in contact with one another on advances across tens of miles of front when visual and wired communications where not possible or practical, provided communications in all battle conditions (including what we might think of today as forward artillery observers), and provided security behind lines especially for supply for the massive amount of provisions and ammunition required at the front which crossed large tracts of occupied ground that could only have security maintained through patrols with mobility - freeing up infantry for the front. To think of only cavalry and not of the full scope of mounted units and to think they did not perform well and as intended in WW1 is a misunderstanding of the many roles they were deployed in. Many advances in technology would make cavalry/mounted units no longer needed in those roles…. But it was not just “the charge”. To think of only the charge is not a full view.

[@thesavagelifestyle332]

A visible representation of what the charge of the light brigade might/would have looked like only 50 years or so prior to this film. Amazing footage and I love the way they 'turn about' at 0:08 could see this happening in the Crimean campaign or on a Napoleonian battlefield! Waterloo was less than 90 years before this film.

[@monumentstosuffering2995]

Yes indeed. I have some action men dressed very similarly. Lol.

[@jdewitt77]

Very valuable film. Quite amazing. Shows how it was actually done.

[@retro1937]

The last glory days of the Empire where the sun never set

[@alimohammad1934]

Okay boys, bring out the barb wires

[@dougie1968]

Got a first person perspective of what the Russian artillery gunners saw when the light brigade charged straight at their position at the battle of balaclava. 😁

[@AlternityGM]

Fascinating. They’re wearing parade uniforms which they haven’t worn for many years having transitioned to khaki especially in warm climates like Africa & India. I was always curious how lancers were used in actual combat

[@playtime.5526]

They are armoured vehicles now.

[@maxwellfan55]

Astonishing footage (worth upgrading and colourising). If only to see British Cavalry "at ease" within their historic barracks at Aldershot. This unit looks like a troop of 17th Lancers, the leading officer at the head. Imagine the abject fear of having to face this formidable array of highly trained men and horses on the charge in battle! You'd want to turn and run, or simply pray.

[@curiousmonster8221]

One galloping across a field at you for a bucket of food is enough to make most people shit themselves

[@maxwellfan55]

@@curiousmonster8221 Haha, you're right.

[@maxwellfan55]

@@Makethemostofit1 17th from the uniforms and headgear. My apologies. Without closer identification I also accept they might be from the 5th Irish, 9th, 16th or 21st. Would anyone like to clarify further? Maybe Nation Army Museum sources might help.

[@Makethemostofit1]

@@maxwellfan55 ah cool thanks for that they look spectacular whoever they may be. 👍😎

[@JP-mz8xd]

Awesome video. Makes my mind go places. Imagine this with sound….

[@frederickthegreat4098]

The camera effects are better than today

[@TaterChip91]

Strange to think about people were still using spears in warfare and having a video camera to record them doing it.

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

The bayonet is really just a spear, or rather a spear tip added to a rifle. Also, this was a film camera: video was not invented until more than half a century later.

[@PhD777]

Not "spears", but rather, "lances". There was/is a difference.

[@johngibson2884]

Beautiful turkman steeds.... brought over by Colonel Valentine Baker in the early 1800s ...beautiful breed

[@tub19]

Wish they kept this tradition up on Trooping the colour holding the Lance.

[@CB-fz3li]

Pretty much the same as the cavalry of Alexander the Great in terms of technology and purpose.

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

Shame we don’t know more about their drill and formation: they fought in wedges rather than lines.

[@inregionecaecorum]

Such gallant horsemen, such colourful uniforms, such rousing military bands, and what did the generals do with them, they ruined it all by sending them to war. I am pretty sure that those on the other end of the lance, don't like it up 'em.

[@cambs0181]

You can understand why just over a decade later they would lose millions of men in a war that would bring new technologies onto the battlefield.

[@jaads7910]

Form a square

[@LaHayeSaint]

The age of the British Lancer against any European army had eclipsed by the turn of the twentieth century due to the advent of rapid, accurate breach firing rifles and especially the machine gun. An enemy who could and would stand a charge by Lancers could choose to fire at both man or beast, or even indiscriminately. So they could easily be engaged at 300 m. At longer ranges you would use artillery to break up the charge. Closer than 300 m, they were sitting ducks, especially when machine guns were laying down accurate aimed fire. By 1914, Lancers had almost vanished. Notwithstanding, the Lancer could be used to great effect in the days of smooth-bore muskets, and in the days of colonialism, to quell unrest among the natives. But the Lancer was of a fashion, and fashion changes. The reality of modern war would soon render the Lancer obsolescent. In 1914 they were stopped by wire -- barbed wire, which the horses would not traverse.

[@laraschauble]

This is too cool 😎😁

[@icky_mack]

Amazing!!!!

[@Rustsamurai1]

It was not so long ago, that planting a sharp stick in an enemy's abdomen, was a primary action in battle.

[@reccerat4446]

This appears to be maybe the 17th Lancers as far as I can tell, very similar lines and dress, pennants and headgear. I joined the regiment in the 80's, that's 1980's and not 1880's you understand! Finest cavalry regiment in the British Army, going back to the light brigade and Balaklava.

[@jmm2740]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uhlan Have a look at the nineteenth century, there it is explained where Polish formations, uniforms in the British army came from.

[@danrooc]

The camera operator was as brave and skillful as the warriors.

[@ltjamescoopermason8685]

So nice to see instead of actors like Flynn in Hollywoods movie where the amount of horses sacrificed in the name of excitement I'm glad to say won't happen again. As you watch the old black and white movie you actually can see which horse could ever rise again. In fact fewer horses died in the real charge of the light bregade!

[@michaeljoseph741]

Then came machine guns.

[@peterakoshorvath4905]

fantastic bygone era

[@monumentstosuffering2995]

I suspect that the noble horse knows that it is the one really in charge.

[@garychynne1377]

interesting

[@CrazyLeiFeng]

So 19th century...

[@rachdarastrix5251]

Me: "Also, there is something you should know." Them: "Yes?" Me: 0:00

[@colerainfan1143]

The horses deserved better. The people pretty much got what they deserved.

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

The horses were doubtless bred for war - they wouldn’t exist otherwise. Their fate was sad, for sure, but war is literally about survival. Can’t agree with your Malthusian hatred of people - many of these soldiers were innocent lads of 18, barely out of nappies, with little understanding of the world and the machinations of career politicians and greedy businessmen.

[@Isbatooraha]

@@sirrathersplendid4825 "many of these soldiers were innocent lads" they're so innocent invading and looting random countries 🥰🥰🥰

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

@@Isbatooraha - Most soldiers signed up to escape grinding poverty and a complete lack of perspectives at home. There’s a good reason most of Britain’s troops were recruited in the most economically blighted regions like Scotland and Ireland.

[@Isbatooraha]

@@sirrathersplendid4825 still doesn't justify what they did

[@adam-uy6qg]

@@Isbatooraha Yeah it does, completely different time back then. You can go throughout history and find much worse things happening.

[@unbearifiedbear1885]

❤❤❤

[@robnewman6101]

Wow.

[@kaiserkoko8734]

that would of been a fearsome sight to the untrained natives

[@Joe_Peroni]

I was hoping they knew what a camera was, & didn't just "run over it"!

[@steffenb.jrgensen2014]

Cavalry in 1902 is something like flow TV in 2021

[@tudyk21]

Kind of like trench warfare in the American Civil War. Outdated while it was happening.

[@jspee1965]

Any idea what Regiment? They look like they might be the 17th or the 21st Lancers. The so called "Old Deaths".

[@jmm2740]

During the Napoleonic wars, the Polish Lancers gained such recognition that most armies created such formations at home. The English lanciers regiments were a faithful copy of the Polish lanciers from the armament and uniforms to the regulations. They had no equal. The film shows Polish lanciers.

[@reichreenactor4874]

I literally listened to one iron maiden song and this is on my recommended

[@smartassist9700]

I would like to see real footage of Waterloo! Entire battle from all angles.. etc. (even stool / ladder Napoleon used to mount his miniature pony! Lol

[@davidbeiler7520]

Napoleon was 5-6, average for the time.

[@danrooc]

@@davidbeiler7520 Albeit Marengo, his magnificent horse, at 1.45m was slightly smaller than average.

[@anselmdanker9519]

The Indian Cavalry used the lance in Iraq and Palestine.The accounts suggest that more open formations were used there.

[@sirrathersplendid4825]

If your opponent is more dispersed and on foot then it would make sense to spread out the cavalry formation somewhat. I imagine the lance is most deadly when the rider has plenty of space to wield it without worrying about accidentally impaling his mates.

[@florinivan6907]

William:How do you think we would fare against an army equipped and trained similarly to us? John: Never happen. Last time it happened we weren't even born. We've been chasing savages for decades now can't see that changing. William: You might be right but sometimes I wonder. John:You worry too much.

[@Tiwaz81]

Apart from the Boers. And Sikhs. And Afghans. And Fenians… And Baluchis. And the answer to Bill’s first question would be. Better than expected.

[@zayaanzayaan9684]

Just literally done loads of research and found my grand dads brothers grave in France ! They both fought under the 19th lancers fanes horse from the British Indian army at that time ! Died 15 June 1917 rank was a sower which in English means horseman ! Originally from a village in todays Azad Kashmir / Pakistan ! The question I would like to ask being new to all this how do I go about tracing where he joined the British army , which unit and the rest ! It must be recorded , I’ve looked under the death register of commonwealth army’s that died at the battle of Somme but it’s limited info. Pls if somebody can help it would be appreciated , I found a picture of both of them from a family member in uniform ! Also seen loads of videos etc about the Somme battle and will be travelling to France as I have the grave number for reference! There must be info in British army archives from the empire days in India and about where they joined and were located in India at that time , oldies from the family have limited knowledge or are dead ! If you can help pls reply to this comment , thank you !

[@raymondmichael3077]

Was told my great-great-grandmother was killed by a British lancer while trying to escape through a hedgerow, in Ireland.

[@peterellis6862]

Great shame they fell like nine-pins at Balaclava.

[@timphillips9954]

Nob!

[@Harry-nn4px]

'Failure to communicate' has it's consequences in warfare, more so now than back in the mid 19th century.

[@petperthecommenter3364]

one mg42 would make short work of them

[@ppppugh7892]

Get this AI enhanced yeah?

[@syshisteryogabagabaaa5099]

*Sad no iPhones :(*

[@createdeccentricities6620]

"Let's charge those Maxim guns, laddies!"

[@whiteknightcat]

You know ... every living thing in that video is dead now. Yup.

[@jonathanbelanger6574]

You would think that by 1902 or earlier they would have learned that this type of head on and static warfare was useless ,the death toles were astonishing especially during the great war . Leadership had no problems with this as long as it made the top brass look good literally.

[@youarewhatyouare]

Could do with them here now deal with our paid provocatiers

[@brianmccarthy5557]

I don't think American Cavalry even carried sabres in 1902. The last lancer units, which were strictly self funded militias, were in the pre-Civil War 1850's and never got near combat. There were American lancers in the Mexican American War of 1845-1847 but they weren't significant units. The last American cavalry charges against Western style armies were at the end of the Civil War in 1865. American practice had long been to normally fight cavalry dismounted, using the horses as transport vehicles. When General Sheridan was sent as an observor to watch the Prussians in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War he was anused by European cavalry units and thought them trained for the wrong tactics and generally obsolescent. The only cavalry units fighting in a major military campaign that I know to have been generally successful were the Bulgarians under their future King Boris and the German General Mackensen against the Romanians, Serbs, French and British in the Balkans. Yes, I am aware of the Australian cavalry charge near the war's end in northern Israel, but that was a singular incident that very easily could have turned into a total disaster.

[@davidcampbell2477]

Take the knee and thank god for the British empire 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

[@Isbatooraha]

No thanks

[@41hijinx22]

Give me one machine gun and a roll of barbed wire and I'll wipe them out.