2nd Cavalry Brigade (United Kingdom)

2nd Cavalry Brigade
Active	1815 1899–1902 1914–1919
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Type	Cavalry
Size	Brigade
Part of	1st Cavalry Division (World War I)
Engagements	Napoleonic Wars Battle of Waterloo Second Boer War Battle of Paardeberg World War I Western Front
Commanders
Notable commanders	Sir William Ponsonby John French, 1st Earl of Ypres Cecil Edward Bingham Beauvoir De Lisle

The 2nd Cavalry Brigade was a brigade of the British Army. It served in the Napoleonic Wars (2nd Union Cavalry Brigade), the Boer War and in the First World War when it was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division.

Prior to World War I the brigade was based at Tidworth Camp in England; and originally consisted of three cavalry regiments and a Royal Engineers signal troop. After the declaration of war in August 1914, the brigade was deployed to the Western Front in France, where an artillery battery joined the brigade the following September and a Machine Gun Squadron in February 1916.^[1]

History

Napoleonic Wars

Charge of the Scots Greys at Waterloo.

From June 1809, Wellington organized his cavalry into one, later two, cavalry divisions (1st and 2nd) for the Peninsular War.^[2] These performed a purely administrative, rather than tactical, role;^[3] the normal tactical headquarters were provided by brigades commanding two, later usually three, regiments.^[4] The cavalry brigades were named for the commanding officer, rather than numbered.^{[lower-alpha 1]} For the Hundred Days Campaign, he numbered his British cavalry brigades in a single sequence, 1st to 7th.^{[lower-alpha 2]} The 2nd Cavalry Brigade consisted of:

• 1st (Royal) Regiment of Dragoons
• 2nd Regiment of Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys)
• 6th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Dragoons

As the brigade consisted of regiments from England (1st Dragoons), Scotland (2nd Dragoons) and Ireland (6th Dragoons), it was known as the 2nd (Union) Cavalry Brigade.

Boer War

The brigade was reformed for the Boer War. During the Battle of Paardeberg, the brigade commanded:^[11]

6th Dragoon Guards (Carabiners)

2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys)

6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons

New Zealanders

Australians

G and P Batteries, Royal Horse Artillery^[12]

World War I

A patrol of the 18th Hussars attempting to obtain information from the local population, 21 August 1914.

Commander Brigadier-General Desmond Beale-Browne

4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards

9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers

18th (Queen Mary’s Own) Hussars

2nd Signal Troop Royal Engineers

H Battery, Royal Horse Artillery from 28 September 1914

2nd Cavalry Brigade Machine Gun Squadron Machine Gun Corps^[1]

See also

• Order of battle of the Waterloo Campaign
• British Army during World War I
• British Cavalry Corps order of battle 1914
• British cavalry during the First World War

Notes

1. This could be a source of confusion as brigades acquired new commanders, or they moved between brigades. For example, Fane's Brigade became De Grey's Brigade from 13 May 1810 when Henry Fane went to Estremadura;^[5] De Grey's Brigade was broken up 29 January 1812.^[6] On 20 May 1813, Fane took over Slade's Brigade;^[7] the second Fane's Brigade was unrelated to the original one although coincidentally, and to add to the potential confusion, the 3rd Dragoon Guards served in both.^[8]
2. The British cavalry included five regiments of the King's German Legion.^[9][10]

References

1. "1st Cavalry Division". The Long Long Trail. Retrieved 30 August 2012.
2. Reid 2004, p. 79
3. Haythornthwaite 1990, p. 103
4. Reid 2004, p. 75
5. Reid 2004, p. 80
6. Reid 2004, p. 83
7. Reid 2004, p. 85
8. Reid 2004, pp. 79–86
9. The Anglo-Allied Army at napoleonic-literature.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 17 July 2012)
10. "Wellington's Army in 1815". Retrieved 25 August 2014.
11. "Battle of Paardenburg". British Battles.com. Retrieved 30 August 2012.
12. Clarke 1993, p. 55

Bibliography

• Becke, Major A.F. (1935). Order of Battle of Divisions Part 1. The Regular British Divisions. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office. ISBN 1-871167-09-4.
• Clarke, W.G. (1993). Horse Gunners: The Royal Horse Artillery, 200 Years of Panache and Professionalism. Woolwich: The Royal Artillery Institution. ISBN 09520762-0-9.
• Haythornthwaite, Philip J. (1990). The Napoleonic Source Book. London: Guild Publishing.
• Reid, Stuart (2004). Wellington's Army in the Peninsula 1809–14. Volume 2 of Battle Orders Series. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-517-1.
• Smith, Digby (1998). The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book. London: Greenhill Books. ISBN 1-85367-276-9.

External links

• Baker, Chris. "The 1st Cavalry Division in 1914-1918". The Long, Long Trail. Retrieved 24 June 2015.
• 1st Cavalry Division on The Regimental Warpath 1914 - 1918 by PB Chappell at the Wayback Machine (archived 8 January 2008)