Halen 16 – First Charge-1
The German Cavalry nemesis would be the artillery located on both Bokkenberg and Mettenberg Hills—Artillerie à Cheval. This was the magnet. With visions of the Light Brigade at the battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, the German Cavalry would “charge the guns” by doing what Alfred Lord Tennyson called going “half a league on.” It is difficult to divorce the vision of charging cavalry from another thought: the big bad wolf threatening to blow down the house of the three little pigs. Was there an expectation that, alone, the threat of the German Cavalry charging would cause the Belgian defenders to abandon their positions? Was there such bravado in the German Cavalry psyche that they could do no wrong? A series of eight cavalry charges against a Belgian defensive position was about to unfold. Eight charges. Although many of them happened about the same time, there can be no doubt that follow-on forces saw what happened to the cavalry squadrons that went before them. What were the leaders thinking? A participant’s reflection on the decision in hindsight is instructive:
To my belief, the course of battle shows that the army command’s reflections before the beginning of the battle led to wrong resolutions. When an attack should or must have taken place, this attack had to be carried out dismounted instead of mounted. In that case, probably we would have been spared the heavy losses. Probably even the objective of the breakthrough to Diest would have been accomplished. Though afterward, these are perhaps just pointless considerations. Probably these questions have been answered long since in military reference books unknown to me.
The brigade concept was relatively simple: Dragoner Regt Nr 17 would encircle the artillery from the right, and Dragoner Regt Nr 18 from the left. According to the Dragoner Regt Nr 17 history, the regimental commanders assumed that the artillery on the Mettenberg was withdrawing.
1230 Hours. A patrol under the command of Lt. der Res Graf Bernstorff-Karrin was sent out on reconnaissance. Bernstorff-Karrin was to determine whether the artillery was defended and its exact position. The patrol went along the road to Zelk. At some point, they moved west of the road and found wire obstacles everywhere—and then took fire from the front and half right. After determining that the artillery was defended, Bernstorff-Karrin turned back to report his findings. At this point however, both he and a Gefreiter (German Corporal) from the patrol lost their horses to gunfire. Eventually, Bernstorff-Karrin returned to the regiment on another horse, but the information never reached the hierarchy in time. Dragoner Regt Nr 17 was not alerted to the difficulty of the terrain. Belgian Cav Div Staff officer Capt.-Commandant Tasnier related that there was also a dismounted platoon working its way up to kilometer marker 59 via the ditches along the road. We found no other mention of such an organization. The defense of Zelk was as follows: one platoon of the 4th Lancers Regt at the Vogelzang Farm and three platoons at the Diest-Halen Road; one Cyclist platoon on the Winning Farm (not the IJzerwinning Farm) and another near the Demer River (near the Zelk church).
1300 Hours. The 17th Kav Brigade received the assignment to “force the gap near Halen, a small village that in the meanwhile had been taken by the Jäger in hard, short combat.” The Jäger lay at the west edge of the village in a firefight.
The 2nd and 3rd Squadrons/Dr Nr 17, along with the Regimental Staff, left the village of Halen in marching order. The Regimental Staff was guarded by a single 4th squadron platoon—all that was left after the action near the market town of Waremme. Marching order meant four horses abreast. Our memories trace back to cavalry in motion pictures, moving around in columns of two: marching order was double that width. It was used as a normal movement formation to lessen the amount of road space required by a squadron, as well as to permit easy formation changes to maximize frontage and impact the enemy. Inherent in this is the obvious requirement to change formation into some sort of line prior to charging. The obvious disadvantage of four horses abreast is that it presents a very tightly packed target for both artillery and rifle fire. Therefore, an attacking cavalry endeavored to change formations outside of rifle range; a defending infantry endeavored to catch the cavalry in movement formation before they could make that change.
