War and the Arme Blanche

, and not as a series of episodes gradually decreasing in dramatic and technical interest, and ending in a long and dreary period, profitl

dy and progressive development. It would be unnecessary to begin with any such exhortation as this were it not for the sheer ignorance, even in authoritative writers, of actual historical event

, all the work allotted in our own army to Infantry, Mounted Infantry, Mounted 47Rifles, and Cavalry. This must constantly be borne in mind when we compare them with our own categories of troops, either in numbers or in efficiency. We cannot, for example, in comparing them to our regular Cavalry, lay stress on their numerical superiority over the latter arm, considered

uting instinct, being well developed. The habit of riding long distances over a thinly-peopled pastoral country, on short commons, and in all weathers, bore military fruit in endurance and in a skill in the care of horses which was of incalculable value to them. Without any stereotyped system of tactics or formations, there was a generally diffused common sense as to what to do and how to do it in any given military conditions of a tactical character, a fl

ay certainly say that at first they were deficient in offensive impetus, and missed opportunities of victory. Siege-work particularly had a very bad effect on them. In other field-work they seem to have regarded the horse-or rather the pony-as a necessary and prosaic vehicle, without which life on the veld under any circumstances whatever, peaceful or warlike, would have been inconceivable. He was a commonplace means of transport rather than a direct source of tactical, or even of strategical, enterprise. In the tactical sphere, this failure to derive from the horse an aggressive ardour analogous in kind to the "Cavalry spirit" was not due to any embarrassment felt in disposing of led horses during the dismounted phases of a fight, for they were wonderfully expert in this important matter; nor, certainly, a

erprise, set the man above the corps and the province above the State. It promoted selfishness, vacillation, and, in every commando in the field, a habit of desertion, for the most part temporary, but none the less paralyzing. If in all this there was a

heir national spirit had not, in the truest sense, come into being

dered apart from the Boers as citizens of two States fighting for political independence, and it will be 50found that the vivification of their civic patriotism corresponded exactly with the vivification of their mounted tactics. Unhappily, the study of these tactics has generall

l skill and intelligence, especially in the use of the rifle, relatively low. Excessive precision and formalism, the product of long years of peace, characterized the drill and man?uvre of all arms alike. Of the Artillery, which was by no means unaffected, I need say nothing here. The Infantry, by comparison with the Boers, may be said to have been wholly ignorant of the immense power o

in the face of the modern rifle. Individual training inevitably suffered. If fire-power in the enemy, as a hindrance to mass and shock, was under-estimated, fire-power as an auxiliary to the sword or lance was almost ignored. In the current "Drill-Book" (1898), out of 450 pages, five were devoted to "Dismounted Service," as compared with twelve for "Ceremonial Escorts." Fire-action was treated as abnormal, and expressly contrasted with "normal mounted action." An inferior firearm, the short carbine, was carried, but on the saddle, not, as it should be, on the back, and was held in low esteem as essentially a weapon of defence, in contradistinction to the steel, which is purely a weapon of offence. The men, naturally enough, were poor shots and unaccustomed to skirmishing. Their grand r?le was on horseback, no

s truths had been embraced. As it was, the historical outlook was imitative of the Continental methods of the sixties and seventies, which in their turn were imitative of still more antiquated methods. The really great and stimulating Anglo-Saxon precedent, the American Civil War, had had scarcely any effect o

valry, methods being standardized throughout, the important question was, when and in what volume would come the fresh stream of initiative imperatively required? Very naturally, but most unfortunately (for in regular corps influence from the top downwards is of vital consequence), the senior men were the m

on, the "charge"-the noblest ideal of horsemen-to which it could never aspire. In so far as the charge implied "shock" in its true sense of the physical impact of one serried mass upon another serried mass, no fault could be found with this restrictions. But, as I have suggested, to mounted riflemen who realize their full potentialities, the charge implies other things than shock. It denotes the culmination of aggressive mobility. Aggressive mobility, therefore, overclouded by this exterior motive of unattainable shock, was not before the war the supreme ideal which it should have been, and could have been, to the Mounted Infantry. Could have been, that is, if the magnitude of the task involved in the education of riflemen for mounted work, even wi

r were raised within the borders of South Africa itself. Known by a bewildering variety of names-Yeomanry, Sharp-shooters, Horse, Light Horse, Mounted Infantry, Mounted Rifles, Scouts, Borderers, Carbineers, Guides, and even Dragoons and

new Yeomanry, improvised for the war, though they came mainly from totally different classes from the old, and had little in common with them but the name, could not be free from 55the associations linked with the sword. To the Colonials, especially the South Africans, who were deeply imbued with the Boer belief in the rifle, the arme blanche was probably little more than a race tradition, exercising, perhaps, a sort of dim influence which they could not have explained in words, but not consciously brought into line with any practical scheme of mounted duties. The established volunteer corps, from which the first Colonial mounted troops

gly complicated the vicissitudes both of name and composition through which many of the corps went. It is enough for my purpose at this moment to note, first, that all were enlisted originally for limited terms, and, second, that the average excellence of the personnel was highest at the beginning, and underwent a distinct de

da were permitted to join the flag, and of these, in compliance with an intimation that Infantry would be preferred, only 775 officers and men, coming from Queensland, New South Wales, New Zealand, and Victoria, were mounted. Of the British Colonies in South Africa, Cape Colony had a normal volunteer force of about 7,000, but mainly composed of Infantry, together with two permanent mounted corps, the Cape Mounted Rifles and the Cape Mounted Police, of whom

f the Uitlander population of the Rand, this famous corps reached at once a high pitch of military efficiency. Their Colonel was a brave and able Cavalry officer, who under

be truly described as irregulars, dependent mainly on their own native wit for the evolution of a good system of fighting. Behind a great deal of over-confidence on both sides, due t

ds of the arme blanche school. Their normal war is a war against one of the great Continental armies, whose cavalries are penetrated with an even stronger belief in the arme blanche than our own. This is the special eventuality for which we are supposed to prepare. Without pausing to discuss the soundness of this view of "normality," or the logical consequences to which it would necessarily lead us, let us accept the chosen ground of argument. Let us constantly be asking ourselves why this or that set of conditions should not be reproduced in such a war, and if they were so reproduced, which type 58of Cavalry-that relying primarily on the "terror of cold steel," or that relying primarily on th

well on two broad considera

n was our religion. Their democratic instincts were as strong as our own, and stronger than those of the Germans. In spite of a multitude of points of contrast, economic and social, there was in them no fundamental abnormality

of war, including Great Britain, the least open of all. There are mountain ranges, one of which became the scene of Buller's long Natal campaign, and rugged hilly districts, as there are in Europe; but the predominant characteristic is that of vast, undulating plains, varied by sharper inequities, by ridges, isolated heights, and minor ranges of hills. These features frequently became centres of conflict, simply because they supplied strong positions. Of features due to the presenc

is true that in parts of Cape Colony there was a large, and in Natal a small, unfriendly Dutch element. But that is a more favourable state of things than a population entirely 60hostile. And when, later, the task of repulse ended, and that of invasion began, and we were faced with that very problem of a hostile population, even then it was never wholly hostile. Besides a sprinkling of farmers British by birth or sympathy, beside the lower class of Dutch bywoner, which from the first showed signs of pliancy, and as time went on supplied us with an increasing number of spies, besides the native races from whom we ultimately obtained far more aid than the Boers, we derived enormous advantage from the lar

ich is already complete. Though they often differ in criticism, these two histories tally with remarkable closeness in ma