War and the Arme Blanche

by Erskine Childers

With regard to General Buller’s use of Cavalry I need add nothing to my criticisms in Chapters VIII. and IX. His fault was to carry disbelief in the steel for the Boer War to the extent of disbelieving in Cavalry altogether for that war, a wholly unwarrantable point of view, derived from an equally distorted conception of the utility of Cavalry.

(b) Refusal of the Boers to Stand.—The facts speak for themselves. Only by avoiding the whole topic of Boer aggression, and by treating Boer rear-guard skill as a non-Cavalry quality which “made pursuit practically impossible,” is the point even arguable. Indeed, I approach it again with the utmost reluctance; for Mr. Goldman’s idée fixe that the Boers were from first to last mortally afraid of the lance and sword carries him to lengths where no upholder of mounted riflemen who respects and admires the Cavalry and attacks only their weapons and methods can consent to follow him. I shall refrain from making controversial use of these passages, and shall confine myself, briefly, to less difficult ground.

Mr. Goldman is probably thinking mainly of the operations of Lord Roberts, though his proposition is general (p. 420). He would scarcely contend that the Boers did not “stand” from November, 1899, to March, 1900, on the Tugela heights, or that they did not show positively aggressive qualities and outmatch our Cavalry at Talana and the battle of Ladysmith. With all his belief in the steel, he would scarcely in set terms allege that regular Cavalry would have defended or attacked Spion Kop or Pieter’s Hill better than they were in fact defended and attacked. But these were tactical occasion, presumably with no “tactical effects” to be produced. What, then, of Elandslaagte?

As for the main operations under Lord Roberts, has Mr. Goldman ever seriously reflected upon the relative numbers engaged? Of course, the Boers frequently showed moral weakness—we ourselves were not exempt—but they did not fear the sword. Assuredly they “stood” at Paardeberg to their ruin; but was there shock at Paardeberg? Assuredly they may be said to have stood at Dornkop and at the two days’ battle of Diamond Hill, where Cavalry were hotly engaged, and at Bergendal, where seventy-four Boer Cavalry (though Mr. Goldman would never admit they were “Cavalry”) delayed an army and were ejected by Infantry. In the other actions of this period, as I have pointed out, their retreats were conducted in an orderly manner and with small loss.

Let me lay down another proposition, which I believe all Cavalrymen will agree to. No one on behalf of Cavalry has a right to make a general complaint of pusillanimity or insufficient resistance on the part of the enemy, unless (a) that enemy has had something approaching numerical equality; or (b) has been forced into disastrous retreats, with loss of guns, transport, etc.; or unless (c) the Infantry and mounted riflemen associated with the Cavalry have not been seriously engaged. On this latter point the facts of the war and statistics of losses are decisive. There is something that makes the brain a little dizzy about the first two conditions, but the whole case for the arme blanche teems with paradoxes which can only be met by the method of reductio ad absurdum.

Finally, I ask again, as I asked above, what is the real meaning of this complaint about lack of resistance? Simply this, that the Boers would not engage in shock and imposed fire-tactics on the Cavalry. In his remarks on terrain (p. 423) Mr. Goldman reveals the truth. “Favourable on the whole as the ground was in the Free State, in the presence of Cavalry operating on favourable ground the Boers refused to give battle.” Well, I can only ask the reader to study as one example among scores Mr. Goldman’s own example, Zand River, noting (1) that we were nearly five times superior in total strength, and in guns, and that the regular Cavalry, reckoned apart from mounted riflemen and Infantry, amounted to five-eighths of the whole Boer army; (2) that the terrain was as suitable for shock manœuvre as any Cavalry could expect to obtain, and such as they very rarely would obtain in any probable European battle-field; (3) the tactical incidents of the Cavalry turning movement, the offensive strokes by the Boers, and the failure of our charge. How could the Cavalry lose 224 horses and 161 men in casualties and prisoners and fail in their tactical task, unless someone “gave battle”? In other words, “battle” is synonymous with “shock.” Nothing but shock counts.

Time has convinced Mr. Goldman more and more strongly of this truth. In his Preface to Bernhardi he lectures the Boers in a vein of compassionate condescension on their ignorance of the “Art of War.” It is true enough that there was much in the art of war which the Boers did not understand, or understood fatally late. But what does their mentor, for the purposes of his argument in this Preface, mean by the “Art of War”? He means shock, though he gives it the customary name of “mounted action.”

“Had the Boers understood the Art of War and taken advantage of the openings which their superior mobility gave them, or had they been possessed of a body of Cavalry capable of mounted action, say at Magersfontein, they might repeatedly have wrought confusion in our ranks.”

This passage sets the crown upon the case for “peculiarity.” I leave it as it stands without further comment.

Such are Mr. Goldman’s reasons for regarding his South African War as a vindication of the arme blanche. I have not discussed them at excessive length. They are extreme views, but such views, if honestly expounded, as Mr. Goldman expounds them, must be extreme. Many people vaguely entertain similar ideas, but if they take the pains to work them out with facts and maps, they will either be forced to similar extremities or will abandon them altogether. In my next two chapters I shall give further proof of the astounding contradictions in which arme blanche doctrine abounds.