War and the Arme Blanche

by Erskine Childers

The constant changes and fluctuations make it exceedingly difficult to obtain accurate numerical estimates of our total mounted strength (regular and irregular) at any given time during this period. But we may say with approximate accuracy that in June, 1901, when all the volunteer mounted troops first appealed for in December, 1900, were in the field, and when the professional element had been reinforced, the total mounted strength was about 80,000, of whom 14,000 were regular Cavalry, and 12,000 regular Mounted Infantry (now divided into 27 battalions). The new contingent of Yeomanry numbered about 16,000; the South African Constabulary 7,500, and the Australasian contingents 5,000. Exclusive of the Cape Colony militia (District Mounted Troops and Town Guards), South Africa itself provided about 24,000 men enrolled in active corps. These are the full nominal figures. The effective fighting strength of the same units, on June 19 (according to an official state), was, within a man or two, 60,000.

The total strength of the whole army at the same period was about 244,000; “effective fighting strength” (according to the same official state), 164,000.

During the last year of the war, from June, 1901, to June, 1902, the regular Cavalry increased, in round numbers, to 16,000; the regular Mounted Infantry to 15,000; the Australasian and Canadian contingents to 13,000; and the South African Constabulary to 9,500; while in the last five months a wholly new mounted corps, eventually 2,300 strong, was formed from the personnel of the Royal Artillery. By this time the second contingent of Yeomanry had dwindled considerably, and a third was formed, 7,000 strong, most of whom did not arrive in time to fight. At the end of the war, with the active South African corps and the District Mounted Troops reckoned in, there must have been 100,000 mounted men in the field, without counting the Boer levies, known as National Scouts and Orange River Colony Volunteers. The whole army numbered about a quarter of a million.

While this progressive increase went on in British strength, and predominantly in mounted strength, the Boers steadily diminished. Here, too, periodical estimates are extraordinarily difficult. Within the two annexed states, not only enrolled burghers of fighting age, but every surviving male, except boys below, say, fourteen, and infirm old men, now had to be reckoned as potential enemies. The rebel element in Cape Colony was an indeterminate quantity. The foreign element gradually disappeared. If we accept the calculation of the Official Historians, that from first to last in the whole war, with the inclusion of rebels and foreigners, a grand total of 87,365 persons took arms against us at one time or another; if, at the other end of the scale, we bear in mind the number of men who laid down their arms at the conclusion of the war—namely, 21,256, and if we examine the intermediate statistics of surrenders, captures, and casualties, the rough conclusion may be drawn that at Christmas, 1900, we had still about 55,000 potential enemies to reckon with, and in June, 1901, about 45,000. During the last year the average monthly reduction was about 2,000.

But, apart from estimates of potential strength, the numbers actually on a war-footing at any given moment were very small—rarely more than 15,000—and sometimes as low probably as 9,000. No single body of men larger than 3,000—and this figure was exceedingly rare—ever again took the field.

The reduction in total numbers was one of quantity, not of quality. The weakest, morally or physically, were weeded out. The fittest survived and became continuously more formidable. That is what gives such extraordinary interest to the mounted operations of the guerilla war. How the small nucleus of veterans with limited resources and without external help managed to hold out for a year and three-quarters after the crash at Komati Poort against an Empire drawing upon inexhaustible resources of men, money, and material, and how, though losing their independence, they succeeded in obtaining terms which ensured to them in the near future political equality with their conquerors, is a story I have endeavoured elsewhere to take my share in telling. In these pages I have to confine myself, as closely as possible, to my own narrow issue. But it is necessary, once more, to say a few words on the larger aspects of the campaign.

First let us rid our minds of the fallacy that guerilla war is a wholly distinct thing in kind from regular war. It is nothing of the sort. War is a science whose fundamental principles are constant, however wide and numerous the variations of circumstance under which it is conducted. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote what I wrote on this point in my preface to vol. v. of the Times History:

“Whether the enemy be based on rich and populous towns, linked by a network of railways, or on nomadic knots of waggons, filled from half-ravaged mealy fields, whether he draws ammunition from well-equipped arsenals, or gleans it from deserted camping-grounds, whether he manœuvres in armies 100,000 strong, or in commandos 500 strong, the problem of grappling with that enemy and forcing him to admit defeat is in essentials the same. Moreover, it is the peculiar interest of guerilla war that it illuminates much that is obscure and difficult in regular war. Just as the Röntgen rays obliterate fleshy tissues, and reveal the bony structure, so in the incidents of guerilla war there may be seen, stripped of a mass of secondary detail, the few dominant factors which sway the issue of great battles and great campaigns. Subjected to close analysis, one of Kitchener’s combinations may be perceived to have succeeded or failed from the same causes which dictated the success or failure of Marlborough’s combinations. It is equally true that in many of the short and sharp actions described in this volume there may be distinguished, following one another with kinematographic rapidity and vividness, the same phases through which long struggles on historic battle-fields have passed.”

I repeat these words here because, among the many perversions of history for which the arme blanche school is indirectly responsible, none is more widespread than the vague idea, for it cannot be called a reasoned opinion, that the guerilla war may be ignored for instructional purposes. This is only an insidious extension of the proposition that the whole war was so “peculiar” as to afford no condemnation of the arme blanche; but the guerilla war is supposed to lend itself especially well to the propagation of that fallacy. So mercurial and intangible was the enemy (the suggestion is), so incalculable and irresponsible his movements, so numerous and safe the lairs from which he could gather, and to which he could disperse, so complete his independence of bases and communications, that it is useless to look for strategical, much less for tactical and technical lessons. To speak plainly, all this is pernicious nonsense. Every soldier knows in his heart that no success in action was ever gained on either side but by high individual efficiency in the men, by clever and spirited leading, and by putting into practice ordinary military principles. When we compare the Boers, in the way of legitimate metaphor, to wasps or mosquitoes, do not let us vainly imagine that their tactical methods were no more highly developed than those of that class of insect. A fortiori let us reject Mr. Goldman’s strange delusion that they practised evasion so perpetually and successfully as not to give our Cavalry—to say nothing of our mounted riflemen—a fair chance for the “discharge of Cavalry duties.” Neither sporadic sniping nor persistent evasion would have enabled the Boers to maintain their long resistance. They needed victories, however small, not only to replenish their ammunition, but to sustain their spirit and they could only obtain them by careful preparation, bold execution, and disciplined tactical methods. In war you can get nothing for nothing. However familiar the ground to you, and however great the disabilities under which your enemy labours, if you are going to do damage of any consequence you must concentrate a disciplined force, however small; feed it when concentrated; make plans, often concerted plans needing accurate co-operation; scout boldly and intelligently; hold your force well in hand and in close order up to the limit of prudence; and when the hour for action comes, rely on the valour and skill of your men to execute a definite tactical scheme in a coherent, disciplined fashion. In this way only—a way old as war itself—were actions, small or great, won in South Africa either by ourselves or by the Boers.

As to the arme blanche, whatever opportunities, if any, the past had afforded, those opportunities still existed. If it had been possible to exert shock in the past, it was equally possible now. That the numbers engaged on either side in any given action were on the average smaller made no difference. Nor did the Boer way of fighting, though it improved greatly in vigour, change in any essential particular. They had always fought and still fought in such a way as to make the rifle absolute arbiter of tactics. The secondary characteristics which lend such peculiar difficulties to guerilla war had not the remotest bearing on this question of weapons for horsemen. What bearing could they conceivably have? The problem still was to thrash the enemy whether he sought action or declined action. If it was a case of finding and forcing to battle an evasive foe, the weapon which inspired most ardour and nerve in the search was the best weapon. If the foe chose to accept action, or himself forced an action, the weapon which decided the issue was the best weapon. Combat is the one and only test, and combats were innmerable. Whether the Boers came to the scene of combat by train, or from some base-town, or whether they had been summoned suddenly from the farms of a certain limited district, was immaterial to the efficacy of weapons. In accepting combat, whether with little or great ardour, they accepted all the risks and penalties of combat. That is the only healthy way to look at the matter if we are to gain true instruction from the war, and not merely to drug our minds with the complacent thought that the difficulties were immense, and that on the whole we did as well as we could be expected to do.