Lance - Decline

Decline

The Crimean War saw the most infamous though ultimately unsuccessful use of the lance, the Charge of the Light Brigade.

After the Western introduction of the horse to Native Americans, the Plains Indians also took up the lance, probably independently, as American cavalry of the time were sabre- and pistol-armed, firing forward at full gallop. The natural adaptation of the throwing spear to a stouter thrusting and charging spear appears to be an inevitable evolutionary trend in the military use of the horse, and a rapid one at that.

American cavalry and Canadian North-West Mounted Police used a fine lance as a flagstaff. In 1886, the first official musical ride was performed in Regina, with this fine ceremonial lance playing a significant role in the choreography. The world's oldest continuous mounted police unit in the world, being the New South Wales Mounted Police, housed at Redfern Barracks, Sydney, Australia, carries a lance with a navy blue and white pennant in all ceremonial occasions.

During the Second Boer War, British troops successfully used the lance on one occasion - against retreating Boers at the Battle of Elandslaagte (21 October 1899). However the Boers made effective use of trench warfare, field artillery and long range rifles from the beginning of the war. The combined effect was devastating, so that British cavalry were remodelled as high mobility infantry units ('dragoons') fighting on foot.

Lances were still in use by the British, French, Russian, Belgian, Turkish, Italian and German armies at the outbreak of World War I. In initial cavalry skirmishes in France this antique weapon proved ineffective, German uhlans being "hampered by their long lances and a good many threw them away". With the advent of trench warfare lances, and the cavalry that carried them, ceased to play any significant role.

Those armies which still retained lances as a service weapon at the end of World War I generally discarded them for all but ceremonial occasions during the 1920s. An exception was the Polish cavalry which retained the lance until 1936 but contrary to popular legend did not make use of it in World War II.