One of our great mobile driving lines of the latest model, organized in three divisions, each about 4,000 strong, under the command of General Ian Hamilton, was sweeping on an immense front across the Western Transvaal. On the early morning of April 10, the right division, under Colonel Kekewich, about 4,000 strong and composed of two columns under Colonels Grenfell and Von Donop, was changing ground to the right (or west) in accordance with orders to widen the front of the driving line prior to the day’s operations. The columns were still in closed-up route formation, Von Donop’s leading, Grenfell’s following, with an advanced screen of 280 mounted riflemen thrown out to the front. Terrain, a level, open plain rising almost imperceptibly for about two miles to a gentle elevation on the farm-lands of Roodewal. Kemp had concentrated in the course of the night behind this elevation, and at about 7.30 a.m. was sighted, by our foremost scouts, marching parallel. Whether, when the action first began, he knew of the massed British columns, is not clear. Probably he did not. There is ground for the view that he had mistaken our advanced mounted screen for the flank of a driving line already fully deployed for the day’s drive in the manner then customary, and had resolved to roll up part of this supposed line by a flank-charge.
However this may be, he deployed and put into motion a number of men variously estimated from 1,000 to 1,500, who, in widely extended order, trotted slowly forward in two very long, arc-shaped lines. As they approached our advanced scouts, they broke into a canter, and began to fire from the saddle. Our screen and the pompom with it retired hastily upon the main body, some forty men being caught and overpowered. The crest of Roodewal once topped, the main British forces, in column of route about a mile and a half away, became visible to the Boers and the Boers to them. Grenfell executed a hurried but fairly orderly deployment to meet the attack, which was directed mainly against his column. The South African Constabulary, Scottish Horse and Yeomanry—about 1,200 mounted men in all—were thrown out in a rough defensive line. Von Donop was slower in deployment, but had to meet only the northerly part of the Boer line, which split off and attempted a wider and more normal and deliberate attack. The centre and right—estimated roughly at 800 men—closed in, corrected the convexity of their line with wonderful precision, and with the brave Commandant Potgieter at their head, charged straight upon Grenfell. In an episode lasting so few minutes, and crammed with such breathless excitement, it is impossible to ascertain relative strength, positions, and formations with positive accuracy; but it may be taken as fairly correct to say that when the charge reached a point 600 yards from the British front, it was exposed to the fire of some 1,500 rifles and 6 guns, and that the Boer formation—at any rate, in portions of the line—was now very close—some say almost solid, or “knee to knee”—and from two to four deep. The pace at this stage, we infer, was the best the small Boer ponies could ever attain to, and that amounted to little more than the canter of a Cavalry horse. The plain would not have sheltered a mouse, and it was a clear day with a bright sun. Under these conditions it would have been strange if the charge had not been checked, high and wild as much of our fire was. It faltered appreciably within 300 yards, and stumbled on in fragments to within 100 yards. Potgieter was shot dead only 70 yards from our line.
The significant thing was not the failure of this piece of brilliant recklessness, but that it came so near success, and met with so little punishment. The Boers retired without disorder, carrying some of their wounded with them, and leaving on the field fifty dead and thirty badly wounded men. Our own losses, besides prisoners taken from the advanced screen, were seven killed and fifty-six wounded, mainly by fire from the saddle, and from those figures the reader may judge of the moral effect of this form of fire, coupled with the spectacle of the charge, in baulking the aim of the defence. It is safe to say that one casualty inflicted in this way has as much moral effect as three inflicted by men on foot. But in the physical sphere there was another important effect of saddle-fire. Grenfell’s column lost, partly from this cause, no less than 150 horses. Many more stampeded. In other words, the column for the time being was demobilized, and deprived of any possibility of a counter-stroke, though a more fruitful opportunity for a counter-stroke can scarcely be imagined.[[61]] The weak points in this charge are apparent. The cardinal factor—surprise—high as it was, was not high enough to counteract the vulnerability due to comparatively low speed, in good light, over a bare plain; and the excessively close formation aggravated this vulnerability. Formation, of course, admits of no dogmatic rules. There is no insuperable objection to a dense line, if the surprise is great enough to justify it, and if, when close quarters are reached, the line is not so dense as to strike too small an area or impede that free use of the rifle on foot which is the object of the charge.
It is never easy to picture an arme blanche charge in direct analogy to any given rifle charge, because the arme blanche never creates for itself the opportunities which the rifle creates; but so far as we can picture an analogy at Roodewal, the advantage is overwhelmingly on the side of the rifle. Saddle-fire, with its power of demobilizing the defence long before contact, is a decisive advantage. But would an arme blanche charge ever have taken place? It is very doubtful. “Cavalry Training” appears to make provision for a charge over a distance as great as 1,800 yards, but that is for a shock charge against “Cavalry,” who are assumed to be in their saddles (pp. 125–128). What of a charge against Infantry? In the ten lines devoted to that subject (p. 129) there is a very natural silence on this and many other points. But were these men of Grenfell’s to be regarded as Cavalry or Infantry? They had horses, deployed with them and dismounted from them. Suppose them Cavalry (in the Cavalry sense) who at the last moment declined to engage in the conventional “shock duel,” and, having brought the charge to a standstill by rifle-fire, and having retained their full mobility owing to the absence of hostile saddle-fire, retaliated with a counter-stroke? But that is not the only perplexity. How were the leaders of the shock charge to know in advance which course the defending troops would take? They must decide before starting, for there is no provision in “Cavalry Training” for changing while in rapid movement from dense shock formation to the “extended formation” recommended for a charge upon “Infantry.” If a charge is not a steel-charge they are bound by the rules of “Dismounted Action,” under which heading, of course, this rifle charge of the Boers would have to be included. One of these rules is that extra ammunition is to be served out when such action is contemplated. Another point: Whichever formation, dense or extended, was adopted at the outset, Grenfell’s advanced scouting screen, whose inrush was accountable for a good deal of wild firing in the defence, would have had little to fear against horsemen using only a steel weapon. They had only to transform themselves into “Infantry,” and let the storm blow over. Acting as skilfully as the Boers at Poplar Grove and many other actions, they would have stopped the charge altogether. For the rest, whatever the weapon relied on in the charge, the vulnerability of the surface exposed was the same and the chance of obtaining contact, judged on a purely physical estimate, no better or worse. On possibilities after hypothetical contact I need scarcely again enlarge. There would have been nothing in the firing-line on which to exert true shock, and palpably men who are doomed to stay in the saddle and execute complicated and difficult “rallies” are worse off than riflemen on foot. The latter, taught not to fear cold steel, and acting as directed in “Infantry Training,” are in the superior position. My argument is not academical. It is based on the living facts of modern war.
Such were the principal examples on the Boer side of the mounted charge. But they do not exhaust the list. There were numerous cases—in the Free State especially (as I remarked above)—of charges for the purpose of piercing driving lines or block-house lines, interesting, if only for the light they throw on the effect of fire upon horsemen in rapid movement. Nor must it ever be forgotten that, in the parlance of mounted riflemen, the “charge” is only a relative term, which does not necessarily imply contact. The more rapid the tactical approach, by a more daring use of the horse, the greater the approximation to the fully developed charge.
These incidents have received far too little attention. Cavalry writers have generally ignored them, or alluded to them in terms of indifference, as curious phenomena in a class of war which scarcely concerns Cavalry. Mr. Goldman, in the 1909 edition of his translation of Von Bernhardi’s “Cavalry in Future Wars,” in the course of a gentle rebuke to his author for venturing to admire these charges, disposes of them in a footnote as the work of mere “Mounted Infantry,” and reveals his imperfect acquaintance with the facts by speaking of the “one or two occasions” on which Boers “brought about a decision by rifle-fire from their horses” (p. 56). He adds, with unconscious irony, that “he can recall no instance where they actually charged—i.e., endeavoured to decide the action by shock.” Those few words, embodied in their complacent little footnote, supply a complete revelation of the mental attitude of the arme blanche advocates towards the tactics of mounted riflemen. Names are everything, results nothing. Attach the label, “Mounted Infantry,” and that disposes of the charges, Boer and British, such as they were, and, since they did not involve “shock,” what were they, after all? It is true that throughout the whole war there was not one solitary instance of “shock” in Mr. Goldman’s implied (and, in this single case, perfectly correct) interpretation of that term. But what matter? In his view, the Boers never gave the Cavalry a chance of “discharging Cavalry duties.” Was I wrong in suggesting that the arme blanche theory dwells in a mental shrine, sacrosanct, unapproachable by argument?
Of a diametrically opposite character, and no less harmful than this contemptuous indifference, is the idea—often enough expressed by those who have never studied them—that these charges were non-military exploits, comparable only to the onslaughts of wild dervishes, a blend of fanaticism and luck, and no model for sensible, serious soldiers. In spite of the fact that saddle-fire is officially enjoined at this moment for “picked men” of the Mounted Infantry, I have heard it spoken of as though it were on a par with the beating of tom-toms, the throwing of stones or poisoned arrows and such unsoldierly pranks. For ignorance of this sort no condemnation can be too strong. Even fanatics may teach us lessons. But the Boers were no more fanatics than the American troopers of Forrest and Morgan. They were shrewd, sober, white men, valuing their lives, parsimonious of their ammunition, for fresh supplies of which during the guerilla war they had no domestic resources, and by no means inclined to extravagance or foolhardiness. Their charges demanded not only dash, but high tactical discipline, a sure instinct for ground and skilled preparatory scouting. Fire from the saddle requires good horsemanship and great manual skill. If these be symptoms of fanaticism, the more fanatics we have in our army, the better.
And what were the results of these charges upon the progress of the war? Whether for their tactical lessons we dismiss them in footnotes or study them seriously, let us remember that they, like other aggressive Boer exploits, cost us many lives, many guns, many prisoners, and an amount of treasure at which we can only dimly conjecture—probably scores of millions of pounds.[[62]] Sannah’s Post in March, 1900, changed the whole outlook of the Free Staters. To Vlakfontein, coupled with the night attack at Wilmansrust, can be definitely traced the decision of the joint Council of War (held on June 20, 1901), to continue hostilities throughout the winter of that year. But for Bakenlaagte, the Transvaalers, always the most inclined to peace, might have forced their will on the sister state, while De la Rey’s successes in the early months of 1902 imperilled gravely the hopes of peace. Had the Roodewal charge, made during the progress of negotiations, succeeded, there might well have been a delay of several more months.
We on our side never succeeded in carrying the charging principle to the point to which the Boer veterans carried it. Saddle-fire was not, I think, in any instance practised. But in aggressive tactical vigour all our mounted men made remarkable strides during the guerilla war, in spite of the somewhat deadening effect of the driving system. The rifle was the inspiration. There was only one instance of an arme blanche charge during that period of the guerilla war in which the Cavalry carried steel weapons. This was at Welgevonden (February 12, 1901), in the course of French’s great drive in the Eastern Transvaal, when Colonel Rimington’s Inniskilling Dragoons got home among a Boer rear-guard, and disposed of some twenty Boers by death, wounds, or capture.[[63]] With this exception, every success we obtained was due to the dashing use of horse and rifle in combination. I have already mentioned the cases of Victoria Nek and Bothaville. Wildfontein (March 24, 1901) was an excellent example of an energetic galloping pursuit, leading to the capture of guns, waggons, and a good many Boers. Roodekraal (February 3, 1902) led to similar results, and was distinguished by several genuine mounted charges of the Boer type, in which New Zealanders and Queenslanders, under Colonel Garratt, took part.[[64]] The systematized night-raids described in the previous chapter generally ended in something of the nature of a charge, in widely extended order, upon the Boer laager. Other small raids, pursuits and encounters, in which our men learnt to ride more boldly into rifle-range, were innumerable.
As I have often pointed out, this bold riding into a fire-zone is the principle which lies at the back of the charge. It is a question of tactical mobility, pure and simple. How far the ride can be carried rests on local circumstances, on the degree of surprise, on the nature of the ground to be traversed, on the quality of the enemy’s troops, on their tactical disposition, and on the character of their defences, if any. But the whole scheme of offensive tactics is one; the object, however attained, is always the same—to use the horse as the means of closing with the enemy as effectively as possible and as quickly as possible. Infantry, without the horse, pursue the same object. They move more slowly, but present less vulnerable surface. The horseman’s problem is to neutralize greater vulnerability by greater speed and a larger measure of surprise. If we review the war as a whole, we cannot escape the conclusion that until the last year of hostilities the vulnerability of horses in rapid movement was exaggerated by both sides, and the effect produced upon the sighting, aim, fire-discipline, and equanimity of the defence underestimated. In our own case the error was aggravated by the fact that we came to the field possessing the tradition of a mounted charge, but in an obsolete form, inspired by the wrong weapon, and incapable of being associated with the right weapon—the rifle. This tradition was destroyed, and never adequately replaced. Outside the charmed circle of the Cavalry it was often too readily assumed that a principle had been discredited, not merely the false application of a right principle. Inside the Cavalry, whatever the various impressions of the time, the net official result now is to regard the tradition of shock as intact, and its failure in South Africa as a negligible incident of an “abnormal” war. The Boers started the war with no tradition, with a strong prejudice, indeed, against the exposure of the horse and an exaggerated reliance on the spade for passive defence and on stalking for offence. Their discipline, moreover, was not good enough for a form of tactics requiring exceptional discipline. Circumstances, moral and military, drove them to develop tactical discipline, and with it a charging tradition, and they attained it in a perfectly healthy, normal way. Our mounted men, Cavalry included, in so far as they approached the Boer standard, worked on the same lines of natural evolution.