War and the Arme Blanche

Trans

practical significance. There emerges a single military type-the mounted rifleman-the man, that is, who can ride and shoot. Whether in reconnaissance, tactics, or strategy, in defence or offence, in

st do the same duties, alike relying on the union of firearm and the horse, and judged invariably by the same inexorable and unvarying tests. So with the numerous other categories of mounted corps, Home and Colonial, which from this time forward begin to exceed in number the horsemen drawn from professional sources. Wide distinctions, indeed, are constantly visi

h of the service, the theory and practice of the arme blanche. It would be idle to underrate the magnitude of the requisite revolution, which primarily was one of thought, rather than of action. Still, five months of fighting had taught a lesson which could scarcely be mistaken, a lesson which at this period of the war would have amply justified, if it did not render imperative, the systematic and universal re-arming of the Cavalry with the magazine rifle, and the return of all steel weapons to store. These changes could not have been imposed upon the Cavalry from without, they must have proceeded from within by the initiative of Cavalry leaders. French alone, perhaps, had the authority and prestige to secure t

t was among some of the younger men, where habit was weaker and enthusiasm stronger, that the new régime was warmly and sincerely welcomed. These men

and inspiring progressive mounted action. In common with all other corps they improved greatly as time went on, and always, as befitted their standing in the professional army, set a good example of the prime soldierly virtues. Their staff work, to

ness in the Boer character and organization begin to assume clearer shape. Two contrary streams of tendency declare themselves: on the one hand, a progressive decline in corporate strength; on the other, new and marked symptoms of i

the old body politic perished with it, the immediate military results were fatal. It became increasingly difficult for the Boers to maintain organized forces of any size in the field. Only one so considerable even as Cronje's at Magersfontein ever appeared again. The opposition to our central march up the railway to Pretoria, to Buller's advance through Natal, and to the other parallel movements, was made with miserably small forces. In the centre, before

lled upon as a member of his ward and commando. Centralized forces melt, only to reappear as local bands inspired by a local patriotism, and summoned into sudden activity at the call of some trusted leader. Through the chequered drama flits the restless figure of Christian de Wet, the first Boer leader to teach his countrymen the real meaning and potency of aggressive mobility. Behind him is the s

to us, instead of such limited successes as resulted in the occupation of towns, positions, and railways, but left the heart and will of the foe daunted, indeed, and depressed, but unsubdued. These crushing blows we 173never succeeded in attaining. Paardeberg, the nearest approach to such a victory, was robbed by the nine days' investment of much of its moral value. Prinsloo's surrender in the Brandwater basin in July of the same year produced as many prisoners as Paardeberg, but was marred by the escape of De Wet and Steyn, with the most resolute elements of the Boer forces present. Reviewing the combats of the period, we see one pattern of action recurring again a

ld Napoleonic axiom that the moral forces in war count in the proportion of three to one to the physical; but when we see one weapon palpably outmatched by another let us recognize the fact as a fact. When we call the war "peculiar," from the peculiar moral factors underlying it, let us not erase its technical lessons from our memory on the same ground. I remarked an example of this perverse tendency in the official comments on Poplar Grove, but Mr. Goldman is its most outspoken and sincere exponent. He has honestly convinced himself that the Cavalry never had any real chance of grappling with the enemy, and, consequently, no chance of proving the pre-eminent value of the arme blanche.[42] The picture he suggests is one of the Boers continually on the run, and running so fast that the exhausted troopers can never catch them. Their oxen, it would seem, run equally fast, or else take the most unsportsmanlike course of beginning to retreat prematurely. These are rear-guard actions, it is true, but these do not count. In some mysterious way they "make pursuit all but impracticable." The Boers, in short, who "had no Cavalry in the proper and technical sense of the word," by their aggravating pusillanimity did not supply the "primary conditi

e at least a passing account of moral factors. I need not spend any more words in proving that there was, in fa

ational fibre. We were not only unprepared for war, but forgetful of the grim meaning of war. In a general r

the enemy encouraged the delusion that the war was an ordinary war, whose events were to be estimated by ordinary standards. Signs of strength were undervalued and misinterpreted. Lord Roberts, the soul of generosity and humanity, after the fall of Bloemfontein, initiates an exceedingly indulgent civil policy which defeats its own end. He is comp

e really in our hearts desire such crushing victories as would shatter the spirit of our opponents and lay the foundation for a racial ascendancy, as opposed to a racial fusion, in South Africa? The question becomes of absorbing practical interest in later phases of the war, when the antagonistic schools of thought

n both on the popular mind and on the leaders in the field which subsequent successes could not wholly obliterate. Fresh reverses, on a smaller scale, were soon to mar the onward progress of success. From this time forward every action, however feebly or strongly contested, shows the Boers still highly formidable. Until the actual débacle on the Portug

And here we return again to the solid ground of our inquiry. Giving their due weight and proportion to the broader moral factors which affected both sets of bellig

attacks of Infantry and Artillery and for retaliation against those stinging little raids and counter-strokes which so often at critical times turned the scale in the higher Boer counsels. Foot-riflemen will n

7

alt at Bl

ies, were collected in great volume. The supply system and hospital system were reformed, communications strengthened, garrisons organized. Durin

emy effectually enough to give the Infantry their full chance. In principle the Poplar Grove tactics were employed, with variations of detail. The mounted troops, riding well in advance, were to turn both hostile flanks, and, when the Infantry attacks had been driven home, cut in upon the retreat. The engagement was a dull example of the now too common type. Both flanks were duly turned without opposition, and in good time (10 a.m.), by the mounted troops, but then a sort of paralysis set in. The Cavalry brigade, which was now somewhat behind the Boer right flank and within eight miles of the r

rps. There seems, from the official and other narratives, to have been no valid reason against attempting an interception, though we must make allowance for the divi

the first genuine feat of independent aggression on the part of the Boers which the war had as yet produced. The same leader was again the guiding spirit, and he bega

game afoot, in the shape of an independent British force under Broadwood, who was retiring westward before a greatly superior force of Free Staters under Olivier and others. Broadwood was safely ahead, however, and his pursuers do not come into the story.

ched into the ambush, and were captured. "Q" battery managed to escape, with the loss of a gun and many men. Piet de Wet meanwhile began his attack upon the rear, though as yet only with stationary fire upon the troops holding the Modder drifts. Broadwood acted with coolness and resolution. While the greater part of Alderson's brigade kept Piet de Wet in check, the regular Cavalry and two companies of Mounted Infantry were sent across the Korn Spruit to take the 400 Boers who lined it in reverse. Dangerous as Broadwood's own position was, the position of those Boe

ysis not due in the remotest degree to moral weakness, and certainly not in this case to weak horseflesh. There is nothing that we need talk about with bated breath or tactful reticence: neither o

ant little episode by itself. When the guns were out of immediate danger, the general retreat began. Piet de Wet's men instantly poured across the Modder drifts and pursued hotly. The behaviour of Alderson's brigade-Colonials and Englishmen alike-in this their first defensive engagement was very steady, though they suffered greatly from inexperience in man?uvre and fire. T

hood, including some Mounted Infantry, who were very feebly handled; b

ote certain poi

of charging on horseback up to close quarters, accompanied in some instances by a wholly new practice-fire from the saddle. Sometimes the burghers dismounted, and, with the rein over the a

ficiency, together with several faults: indifferent marksmanship; lack of adroitness in the handling of led horses; lack of judgment in deciding upon the right moment to retire (several detachments were cut

tandards. In essence, De Wet's intercepting ambush in the Korn Spruit was the same kind of work as that done by the Cavalry themselves on the day before Paardeberg, and the same as that which they should have tried to d

a good example of the true Cavalry spirit. Whether we call De Wet a "partisan" or not makes no difference. If his

no comment. There were some exceptional reasons, which I need not

ions of the main army, which would undoubtedly have been his best course, he succumbed to the Boer craving for sieges, and wasted more than a fortnight in investing Wepener with a force which increased to m

to clear it, but to make the relief of Wepener the starting-point for an enveloping movement of great magnitude, and with overwhelming force. Three Infantry divisions joined directly or indirectly in the operations and large numbers of mounted men of all classe

Siding schemes, and was made to hinge on the intercepting action of the two Cavalry brigades upon the Boer line of retreat. Inevitably, and from the same unvarying cause, the intercepting movement came to nothing, the Cavalry b

y did tolerably well, considering their rawness and inexperience, and I think it is generally agreed that Rundle, in his original attack upon D

the end of April that portion of the country was wholly in British hands, and on May

Advance t

a, of whom 50,000 were on the lines of communications. With a moderate allowance for abse

Roberts; fresh battalions of regular Mounted Infantry, suffering from a serious scarcity of officers, were hastily formed, and fresh contingents of Colonial troops, both from overseas and within South A

mounted riflemen were organized anew in one big division, 11,000 strong, divided into two brigades of four corps each, each corps being composed jointly of regular Mounted Infantry and Colonial mounted riflemen. Neither of these organizations proved to be permanent. The latter wa

o were sent round with Hunter's Division to Kimberley, possessed, owing to the union of the Tugela and Ladysmith armies, between 5,000 and 6,000 mounted

rations for the assistance of Mafeking and the security of the Rhodesian border. In the far north the Rhodesian Field Force, some 4,000 strong, mainly consisting of Australasian mounted riflemen and partly of Yeo

,300 were Cavalry, still armed with carbine and lance or sword, and the rest, in the generic sense, mounted riflemen. Numerically, therefore, our mounted strength, viewed apart from the great masses of Infantry and Artillery, was greater by several thousand than the Boer strength actually in the field, eve

ight, Buller, with 45,000 men, was to march through Natal; on the extreme left, Hunter, starting from Kimberley with 10,000 men, was to penetrate the Western Transvaal, and, incidentally, to relieve Mafeking. Methuen, starting with another 10,000 from the same point, was to ma

stern Free State, which was the most formidable region of all, sweeping up arrears, and making good the ground won. Warren, with 2,000 men, was to qu

eginning of the advance. Having been employed almost continuously since the capture of Bloemfontein, and having received only small instalments of fresh horses, they had to spend the first days of May in a thorough refit. Their Horse Artillery had been wisely reduced to one battery for each brigade. The remaining brigade of Cavalry, under Broadwood, and

t in the war where it is necessary only to summarize events, to select from a vast number of operations conducted over a vast expanse o

ne over the whole force of their opponents. Until May 8, when French's three brigades of Cavalry came up, not more than 5,500 Boers in all opposed both columns, which at that time had 9,200 mounted men between them. At the Zand River fight on May 9 and 10 the Boers, reinforced by 3,000 Transvaalers under Botha, who thenceforth took over the supreme control from De 189la Rey, reached their highest numerical fighting strength of about 8,000. At the same moment, reinforced by French's Cavalry, our own mounted strength also reached its highest point of nearly 13,000.[45] After this, and until the fall of Pretoria, the enemy never appear to have mustered more than 5,000 men in opposition to the combined col

ounted screens of two great European armies. Even on that restricted plane the inquiry teems with absorbing practical interest for future wars, and abounds in illustration of the functions of the mounted arm. But I need not remind the reader that in 190actual fact here was no matter of screens. The Boer troops were small armies in themselves, depending on a

ed the right spirit. So did Ian Hamilton, so did French; and both these Generals were endowed with a large measure of independence. The trouble was that in actual contact on the field the superiority in fighting power of the individual Boer to the individual Britisher invariably caused the best-laid plans to fall short of the desired achievement. A continual instigation o

kable and memorable performance, especially for the Infantry. At Brandfort and the Vet River (May 3 to 5) the Boers made but a very slight stand; at Zand River (May 9 to 10) they offered battle, and were out-man?uvred into retreat. At Kroonstad, which was not defended, Roberts halted for ten days (May 12 to 22). The Vaal was crossed without opposition on the 24th, and from May 27 to 29 Both

object of finally driving Botha away from the neighbourhood of the capital. It was a genuine pitched battle, in which

and railway, but their losses in

ook for moun

ormously extensive. At Brandfort, for example, De la Rey occupied a front of some fifteen miles with 2,500 men; at Zand River Botha stood on a front of twenty-five miles-half the distance from London to Brighton-with 8,000 men; at the fighting outside Johannesburg 192he held eighteen miles of

ary effect of the modern rifle upon mounted tactics, for it was only by the

r the elastic and orderly handling of detachments so widely dispersed. No narrative that I have seen does full justice to the Boers for their efficiency in these particulars.

of no reserves. Practically every

of the hostile flanks, with the view (as at Poplar Grove) of intercepting the enemy's retreat. These movements never led to interception, though they were generally successful as turning movements which led to the enemy's retreat-a

men in support, but was then held up for several hours by small detachments, and suffered considerable loss. He covered thirty miles on the 10th, and could not, owing to the condition of his horses, respond on the same night to a suggestion by Roberts for raiding Kroonstad. Broadwood's turning movement was abortive, partly through an accidental withdrawal of his horse battery, but mainly through the circumstance that the Bo

thirty-five miles, without any allowance for interruptions or détours. Broadwood, with 3,000 men, was to turn the enemy's left and support our right attack. The centre was to be withheld until one or both of these movements should succeed. Botha had anticipated

l was unusually small-14,000 men in all, of whom 4,800 wer

orcing tactics against so formidable a foe as the Boers. Our crying need all along was tackling power with the horse and rifle combined-high, mobile tackling power, based on surprise and speed, and taking the form, where need be, of mounted charges into or through the enemy, on the lines afterwards taught us by the Boers, and already exhibited by them at Sannah's Post. Again and again, in reviewing the South African combats, we look back to the Klip Drift charge of February 15, 19

to hand. His frequent attempts to encircle far-flung fronts were an instinctive recognition of inadequate aggressive power in his mounted troops. The prejudice, so general in South Africa, against "frontal attacks" by Infantry was often a reflection of the same instinct, that is, of an instinct to avoid heavy losses which cou

ustained, the horses, already tried to the limit of endurance, would have suffered from that very over-exhaustion of which there had been so much complaint in the past. But, in fact, such raids, on the scale of those made by Stuart, Wilson, and the Civil War leaders, entailed complete independence of the main army, an object never attained in South Africa without

ces often brought them about. Generally, however, they tended, even locally, to take a too circuitous form, the tenden

orly in others. The Australians and New Zealanders seem always to have shown the most tactical vigour. Hutton's fight on May 5 to secure the passage of the Vet on the left of the main army was a good

French was in his best mood. There was no lack of vigorous will on the spot, but the turning movements by the Cavalry (except the last, which followed the Infantry assaults), a

nd reference, is that of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles on May 24, at

lry endeavoured to ride down another detachment. The lance disposed of a few Boers in the former case, but the enemy retaliated as successfully with fire. In the latter case the Cavalry drove the Boers away, but caught only one, and lost twenty-one horses from rifle-fire, many burghers dropping down amo

where a gun was captured. The Boer talent-not exactly for pursuit, but for pressing hard upon a rear-guard-was strikingly displayed in the course of Ian Hamilton's evacuation o

n of overloading, and from defective horse-management, which seems to have been universal among our mounted troops, this difference in loss of horses was probably the result of longer distances ridden by the Cavalry. In the whole of this question we have to recognize, in the case of all mounted troops, the close relation between horse-wastag

mplished its object. Buller had traversed Natal and entered the Transvaal. Methuen had traversed the Western Free State. Hunter had relieved Mafeking, and had occupied towns in the Western Tran

n that the Natal army, nearly 45,000 strong, and the largest in the field of war, was disproportionately weak in mounted troops. The irregular mounted brigade, about 3,000 strong, under 199Dundonald, together with Bethune's Mounted Infantry, about 600 strong, took a prominent part in all the actions, and did very well. Eight thousand Boers faced Buller originally on the Biggarsberg, but they must have dwindled to something like half that number in the later stages of the advance. No

advance, there are two pr

), and, in defence, at Faber's Put (May 29), though on the latter occasion we have to recognize an early inst

region, with two fairly hot engagements en route. Hunter, with his main body, rendered skilful support by distracting the attention of the Boers in the neighbourhood, and, in the final phase, Plumer, who for many months had been tirelessly worrying 200the besiegers, co-operated with Mahon. On the penultimate day of the march, May 16, De la Rey and Liebenberg managed to bar the road with

vile, and Brabant, acting on the right rear of the central armies, had had to cope with constant opposition in the Eastern Free State. Rundle met with a sharp check at the Biddulphsberg on May 29, and two days later a detached force of Yeomanry, 500 strong, surrendered to Piet de Wet near Lindley, after an investment of some days. This was the first serious reverse whi

onvoy near Heilbron on June 4, he attacked and captured simultaneously three posts on the railway between Kroonstad and Pretoria at daybreak on June 7, and a fortnight later, with varying success, carried out other raids upon the railway or upon convoys. Trivial as the direct military results of these exploits were, their moral effect was enormous, not only in

all the subsidiary operations during the year 1900. "Subsidiary," indeed, is the wrong term. It was capital, in the sense that it actually removed from the field a large body of fighting burghers, a result which no other operations, those of Paardeberg alone excepted, had achiev

o August 6), occupying himself with little raids upon the railway. Roberts, who had just completed his eastward advance to Middelburg, determined to run to earth the irrepressible Boer

around the quarry that there seemed to be no hope of escape. But De Wet got through, dodging and doubling over the Vaal, across the Western Transvaal, and through the Magaliesberg Range to the district north of Pretoria, having achieved-w

suading them to adopt his view. With our vastly superior resources for forming advanced bases we should have been able to make our mounted troops far more independent, but we never succeeded in overcoming the transport difficulty. Our "net" speed 203was less than De Wet's on this occasion. Mounted interest from the Boer standpoint is confined: (a) To their customary skill in handling small protective screens, so as to check pursuit, and compel us to waste time in the preparatory shelling of positions; (b) to the brilliant scouting of Theron's corps of 200 picked sco

t, and performed marvels of endurance. During the last three days Methuen dropped his Infantry, and followed the trail with 600 Yeomanry, 600 Colonials, and 11 guns, and with these men on the 12th made the only effective

ements of success in these feats of evasion. If they 204seem to be wholly defensive in character, we must remember that they could not have been otherwise. To stand and fight it out meant envelopment by overwhelming numbers, and the loss of men who could never be repl

vance to K

o the last scene in the first great phase of the war. He came too late to be of use in averting the final dissolution of the Transvaal forces befo

ifteen to twenty miles east of Pretoria. Meanwhile the south-eastern men opposed Buller's advance from the Natal border to Heidelberg, the northern men prepared to defend the Pietersburg Railway, and De la Rey organized the first of many formidable offensive revivals in his own district, the Western Transvaal, culminating on July 11 in 205the capture of the post at Zilikat's Nek, in other small attacks, and in a general threat to Pretoria from the west. Botha, who had just been driven off the Tigerpoort range by a well-managed movement of mo

ere was a halt of another three weeks, rendered necessary by the hunt of De Wet and many other minor elements of disturbance. During this period French, with several thousand mounted troops (his own Cavalry and Hutton's mounte

trength of nearly 19,000 men (of whom 4,800 were mounted), Roberts fought the last pitched battle of the regular war at Bergendal. Strange and characteristic climax it was! Exceeding all previous 206records in extension, Botha, with about 7,000 men, on an extreme estimate, and 20 guns, held a li

, was crowned with boulders, which made it a natural fort. It was bombarded with lyddite and shrapnel for three hours by thirty-eight guns, including heavy naval pieces and howitzers, until, as an historian puts it, it looked like Vesuvius in eruption. Then it was assaulted in the most intrepid style by a brigade of Infantry (1st Inniskilling Fusiliers and 2nd Rifle Brigade), who, before storming the crest, lost 120 officers and men, mainly, but not wholly, from the fire of the Bergendal burghers; for two or three other small detachments co-operated at long-range from neighbouring hill-tops. When all was over

f battle it may be called-to an end. French could not pu

nd with the support of the most sturdy and patriotic burghers, they were able to present a decent show of resistance on the immense front from Lydenburg to Barberton and onwards; to avert anything in the nature of a decisive defeat in the field; and finally, when the crash came on th

arch to the north across the British front, at first over the fever-stricken "low veld," then over precipitous mountains whose spurs for a long distance were already held by our troops. Steyn, travelling light with 250 men, and starting on September 11, got through with ease. Botha and Viljoen, with 2,500 men, starting on the 17th, only just rounded Buller's extreme left flank at a point thi

r too extensive and elaborate-which had characterized our operations in the past, we had not ready at this crisis, when its pr

andoned guns, stores, and rolling-stock; of burghers flying into foreign territory; of Kruger and his officials flying to Europe. The army, from Roberts downwards, and the whole outside world, seems to hav

and auxiliary troops, had been employed since the 8th in marching on parallel routes through the mountains on the southern flank in order to clear this side for the central advance of the Infantry up the railway. On September 13 both arrived at their respective goals-Hutton at Kaapsche Hoop, French at Barberton, the terminus of a small branch railway. Both these marches, but especially the southernmost-that of French-though they met with slight opposition, merit high praise, and were a worthy culmination of the efforts of the mounted troops during the regular war. It is