1st Reserve Regiment of Cavalry in training, Aldershot, 1914 (c)

Photograph, 1914 (c).

Cavalry duties consisted largely of protection: forming a screen some 1.5-3 km ahead of the advancing infantry and making first contact with the enemy, then discovering and reporting his dispositions and movements. Cavalry could also be moved quickly to a threatened point to strengthen the firing line, or to occupy a position before the enemy could do so and hold it until the infantry arrived. Most of this was mounted infantry work in which the horse was used for mobility only.

One of 116 photographs from an album compiled by Colonel G F Milner, Life Guards and 5th (Royal Irish) Lancers, 1895 (c)-1914.