I need not dwell on the significance of these figures. If we dismiss from our minds the existence of an irresistible backing of Infantry and Artillery on our side, it is quite possible, and from an instructional standpoint very interesting, to contemplate in vacuo the conflict of the two opposed mounted forces, supposing them, if we will, to have been the mounted 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 actual fact here was no matter of screens. The Boer troops were small armies in themselves, depending on and limited strategically by the speed of heavy transport, for which they were the sole protection. Our own mounted troops—or, at least, the bulk of them—cannot be regarded otherwise than as an independent mobile weapon of high general utility, whose mission it was in concert with the other arms to secure the destruction, not merely the repulse, of the enemy.
This is how Lord Roberts had always regarded his mounted troops. Ever since the middle of February he had called upon them, and particularly upon the Cavalry, for decisive efforts, but only once with decisive results. Disillusioned gradually, he continued, nevertheless, to pursue the same policy wherever, during the long march to Pretoria, opportunity offered. He inculcated 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 of more dashing, if more costly, tactics might have schooled the troops rapidly to higher efficiency, but, as I indicated in dealing with the moral issue, the supreme stimulus to such a policy was wanting. Victory in the medium degree was only too easy, thanks to weight of numbers. Roberts himself appears gradually to have expected less and asked less of his mounted force.
Let us first of all summarize what happened. Starting on May 3, Roberts took Pretoria on June 5. He had marched 300 miles in thirty-four days, sixteen of which (for the central column) were marching days. Hamilton, who midway made a détour to the east, marched a good deal farther. Let us not forget that, whatever its shortcomings, this march, regarded as a military feat, was a very remarkable 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-manœuvred 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 Botha made his most resolute stand on the hills covering Johannesburg—namely, the Klipriviersberg and Doornkop. Here on the 29th there was something in the nature of a pitched battle, Doornkop being finally stormed by Infantry. Hitherto this arm had come into action only at Zand River. On the 30th Johannesburg fell, and Pretoria, which was not seriously defended, shared the same fate on June 5.
To this record we must add the battle of Diamond Hill, fought sixteen miles from Pretoria on June 11 and 12, with the object of finally driving Botha away from the neighbourhood of the capital. It was a genuine pitched battle, in which Roberts achieved his object, though he inflicted no loss of any consequence upon the enemy, and suffered little himself.
The Boers had lost their capital and railway, but their losses in men and material were negligible.
Now let us look for mounted lessons.
The first and clearest is that it is useless for a superior force to confine itself to combating the wide extensions of an inferior force by still wider extensions. This is what was constantly happening. The Boer fronts, in proportion to the numbers employed to defend them, were, as usual, enormously 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 he held eighteen miles of hilly country with about 4,000 men. Outside Pretoria an equally extensive front was held, though very weakly. Finally, at Diamond Hill, Botha held thirty miles with only 6,000 men during two days of continuous fighting. Here, however, the position was unusually strong. Let us note in passing:
(1) The proof afforded by these greatly extended positions of the revolutionary effect of the modern rifle upon mounted tactics, for it was only by the close union of the rifle and the horse that such dispositions were possible.
(2) That, given this close union, no ordinary skill is required to choose the cardinal points of defence, and maintain the field discipline and field intelligence requisite for 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. In the whole course of these operations, and in the whole course of the subsequent advance from Pretoria to Komati Poort, only one small detachment was cut off and overwhelmed.
(3) That the Boer system admitted of no reserves. Practically every man was in the front fighting-line.