Cavalry From Hoof to Track (review)

Cavalry From Hoof to Track is an attempt to produce a comprehensive single-volume history of mounted warfare from the ancient world to the modern era. The author, Roman J. Jarymowycz, is a retired high school teacher and Canadian Land Force Reserve lieutenant colonel who now serves as a lecturer at the Royal Military College of Canada. Jarymowycz holds a doctorate from McGill University in Canada, and his doctoral dissertation (“Quest for Operational Maneuver in the Normandy Campaign: Simonds and Montgomery Attempt the Armoured Breakout”) formed the basis for his first book, Tank Tactics: From Normandy to Lorraine (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001).

The 18 chapters of Cavalry From Hoof to Track begin in the ancient world and conclude with the Global War on Terrorism. To say that Jarymowycz tries to produce a comprehensive history of mounted warfare is an understatement when one considers that he mentions the horse’s evolution from the Eohippus, a 10-inch-tall, four-toed mammal that lived one million years ago. While this attention to detail is admirable, it also demonstrates the greatest failure of the book – trying to do too much in too few pages (a mere 276). For instance, cavalry in the ancient world receives only 14 pages of coverage (unless one also includes the chapter on Mongol cavalry, which adds only 13 more pages), while the chapter on the Eastern Front in World War II amounts to only four pages.

Jarymowycz also has a problem with his use of military organizational terms. In Chapter 1, he states, “A troop is the horsy equivalent of the platoon.” That might be true in the British Commonwealth, but in the U.S. Army, a troop is the cavalry equivalent of a company or battery, not a platoon. Jarymowycz then states, “The American cavalry squadron is equivalent to a battalion or regiment.” While a squadron is equivalent to a battalion in the U.S. Army, a regiment contains at least two battalions when it is used as a tactical unit. Since Praeger is an American publisher, the book’s Canadian/British slant is rather odd.

The book has other problems. Jarymowycz precedes each chapter by a cartoon of his own design, which is not necessarily a problem, but makes it difficult to treat the volume as a serious scholarly work. Lastly, the author often uses untranslated foreign terms or phrases which might cause confusion for the average reader. This tendency seems like nothing more than an effort to produce a certain je ne sais quoi for the book.

Despite Jarymowycz’s noteworthy coverage of mounted warfare in the Global War on Terrorism, there are several other one-volume histories available which provide a much more thorough description of the development of the cavalry through the ages than Cavalry From Hoof to Track. Therefore, I can only recommend this book to those who are completely new to the topic.