Reconnaissance part two
The reconnaissance patrols also came in three types: close-distance, long-distance, and officer patrols. Close-distance patrols were the primary method used in cavalry reconnaissance. They scouted terrain and situations close to the front of the reconnaissance squadron, and the reconnaissance squadron could easily reinforce them.
Long-distance patrols routinely operated forty to fifty kilometers away from the reconnaissance squadron but could go farther. As these patrols were independent from reinforcement; they had to be of some strength. They usually comprised a platoon with an officer in charge. Long-distance patrols supported raids and infrastructure destruction. They were doctrinally limited to the most important missions because of an ongoing debate about how difficult it was to get the report all the way back to the cavalry division staff using relay riders. Clearly, this was a very dangerous and unreliable reporting method. A long-distance patrol could take the light radio set and thus, theoretically, report to the division staff’s heavy radio set. However, patrol leaders and theoreticians resisted having a radio with the patrol because a wagon-mounted radio system would slow down a fast-moving patrol. The net result was doctrinal limiting of long-distance missions that were considered exceptions to the rule in the reconnaissance manual. Radios also made reporting reconnaissance results much faster but less secure. Although reports were supposed to be encrypted before sending, they were very often sent not coded to allegedly save time—and the enemy was eager and able to read them.
Officer patrols consisted of two to three lieutenants together with a few noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and troopers. These officer patrols were sent to accomplish special missions, mainly to clearly identify strength and probable intention of an enemy believed to be in a certain location. After the battle of Halen (August 12), patrolling also changed dramatically. It was found that the dispatch of mixed-arms patrols supplied with guns, machine guns, and bicyclists did far better than did cavalry-pure reconnaissance squadrons. In addition, officer patrols were eliminated due to the high loss of leaders.
Army-level reconnaissance orders were issued in writing and delivered to cavalry staff by horse-mounted dispatch riders. The cavalry patrol leaders noted reconnaissance results in pencil on response forms. The HKK or the cavalry division combined these forms into reconnaissance reports and delivered them—again by messenger—to Army HQ. The Army HQ condensed them into a picture about the enemy situation. Reconnaissance results delivered that way were usually between six and eight, sometimes even twelve, hours old.
Cavalry reconnaissance in 1914 was considered far superior to any kind of aviation reconnaissance. The mounted orderly or messenger, not the aircraft, was still the primary method of transmitting orders and reports. However, strategists considered aerial reconnaissance a useful complement to the cavalry reconnaissance, especially behind enemy lines in a war of position. “On the other hand, it is only the powerful cavalry units which are able to give the reconnaissance the necessary persistence and drive capable of sweeping back the enemy reconnaissance organs and thus achieving a superiority on the advanced battlefront.” This argument was included in an endeavor to keep aviation assets out of the cavalry formations and assigned directly to the army command.
Compared with the French Army, the Germans started late building up their air power and when the war came, they were relatively weak. By 1914, the active corps had an aviation section that for the first time allowed the commander of the corps to reconnoiter in depth. The resulting information was available but it had to be synthesized and passed up and down the chain of command. The army commander also had an aviation section that could reconnoiter independently. That information had to be digested along with the information presented by the army corps aviation elements. This army command position did not exist in peacetime. This staff that had to do the analysis did not exist in peacetime. As an added complication, the cavalry divisions and the HKK had no aircraft. These type units also did not exist in peacetime. Any ground generated reconnaissance reports coming from the HKK had also to be analyzed by the staff of the numbered army. There was no integrated analysis—a guaranteed source of delay in a situation where speed was of the essence. As you can see, there was no practice in peacetime before the war.
Reconnaissance improved with experience but in general during the initial operations failed the German requirements. One usually ignored fact is that the larger cavalry formations tasked to provide reconnaissance were either assigned to report to the Oberste Heeresleitung(OHL) or to an army command. Nothing that the cavalry did went directly to the army corps commander. Each army corps had a small organic contingent of cavalry but these were not the formations tasked to form reconnaissance squadrons. On the other hand, the active army corps had a squadron of six mainly Gotha and Albatros biplanes for reconnaissance, as did each numbered army HQ. The aircraft had a flight endurance of two to three hours and mounted two 25-centimeter cameras for surveillance. Reports from the higher cavalry formations had to be sent down to the army corps. Reports from aviation assets had to be sent up to the army when gathered by the army corps. Who got the initial report and the actions that could be taken often revolved around what level the reconnaissance report came in at? No mechanism was in place to share information between the aviation assets of the different army corps. The army corps had no radio. So that the primary way an aviation report could be spread up to the army HQ or to the adjacent HQ was through messenger. There was supposed to be telephone communication with the higher army HQ, but as we shall see, that link was tenuous at best.
Cavalry reconnaissance in large scale and long range was further complicated by logistics. A German army corps required 280 railroad trains and more than twelve thousand railway cars to move to the deployment area. Of these, 2,960 railway cars were outfitted to transport only horses. The standard ration for a horse was twenty-two pounds (ten kilograms) of feed and fodder. In First Army alone, this required 840 tons of feed for its eighty-four thousand horses—compared to the 555 tons of daily rations required for the troops of the same army, 260,000 heads. To make that sink in, First Army needed 50 percent more food for the horses than for the men—even though there were three times as many men needed for the initial campaign on the western front.