cavalleria

Latin had two words for horse. Equus was the literary, formal word — it gave English 'equestrian' and 'equine.' Caballus was colloquial, originally meaning a packhorse or workhorse, possibly borrowed from a Gaulish or Thracian language. As Latin evolved into the Romance languages, caballus won. French cheval, Spanish caballo, Italian cavallo — all descend from the workhorse, not the noble steed. When Italian military terminology reached English as cavalry, it carried the working horse's name.

Medieval cavalry — mounted knights in heavy armor — was the dominant military force in Europe from roughly the eighth to the fifteenth century. Charles Martel's victory at Tours in 732 CE is sometimes credited with establishing heavy cavalry as the primary arm of Frankish warfare. The stirrup, adopted from Central Asian nomads, allowed mounted warriors to fight with lances and swords without falling off. The cavalier — a cavalryman — was an armored aristocrat on a trained warhorse.

Gunpowder ended the dominance of heavy cavalry. The Battle of Crécy in 1346, where English longbowmen devastated French mounted knights, was an early signal. By the sixteenth century, the cavalryman had lighter armor and carried pistols. By the nineteenth century, cavalry charges were becoming suicidal — the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in 1854 killed or wounded over 250 of 670 horsemen. The horse was becoming obsolete on the battlefield.

The last significant cavalry charge in Western military history may have been the Polish 18th Lancers' charge against German infantry in 1939 — though the famous myth of Polish cavalry charging German tanks is largely fiction. Modern 'cavalry' units use armored vehicles and helicopters. The 1st Cavalry Division of the US Army has no horses. The word survives as a title, a tradition, and a metaphor for swift rescue. The workhorses are engines now.