Use of ground.
The combinations of scattered bands at a given rendezvous for a common purpose were not seldom marvellous, effected as they often were by rides of extraordinary speed and directness by night, when the men had to feel with their hands for the goat and Kaffir tracks if astray, but rarely astray, even in the most tangled maze of kopjes, or, still more wonderful, on the broadest savannah of featureless grass. With the Boer, direction had become a sense; not only were topographical features, once seen, engraved indelibly on his memory, but many which would be utterly invisible to untrained eyes were often detected at once by inference so unconscious as to verge on instinct. He knew "ground" and its secrets as intimately as the seaman knows the sea, and his memory for locality was that of the Red Indian scout.
Mixed qualities.
Thus the Boer riflemen possessed many of the characteristics of the same formidable type of irregular soldier as the backwoodsmen of America or the picked warriors of the Hindustan border. Yet an exact prototype of qualities so contradictory as those which composed this military temperament is not to be recalled. No fighting men have been more ready for war, yet so indifferent to military glory, more imbued with patriotism, yet so prone to fight for themselves alone, more courageous, yet so careful of their lives, more lethargic, or even languid by nature, and yet so capable of the most strenuous activity. Such were the Boers of the veld. In one particular they had never been surpassed by any troops. No Boer but was a bold horseman and a skilled horsemaster, who kept his mount ready at any moment for the longest march or the swiftest gallop, in darkness, or over the roughest ground. In camp the ponies grazed each one within reach of its master; in action every burgher took care that his perfectly trained animal stood, saddled and bridled, under cover within a short run to the rear. In remote valleys great herds of ponies, some fresh, some recouping their strength after the fatigues of a campaign, roamed at pasture until they should be driven to the front as remounts.
Mobility.
The unrivalled mobility of the Boer armies, therefore, and the vastness of its theatre of action, gave to them strength out of all proportion to their numbers. A muster roll is little indication of the fighting power of a force which can march three or four times as fast as its opponent, can anticipate him at every point, dictating the hour and place of the conflict, can keep him under constant surveillance, can leave its communications without misgivings, and finally, which can dispense with reserves in action, so quickly can it reinforce from the furthest portions of its line of battle. Yet in this particular again, the Boers' constitutional antipathy to the offensive robbed them of half their power. They employed their mobility, their peculiar strength, chiefly on the defensive and on tactics of evasion, often, indeed, resigning it altogether, to undertake a prolonged and half-hearted investment of some place of arms. Amongst their leaders there appeared some who did all that was possible, and much more than had seemed possible, with a few hundreds of devoted followers. But the Republics possessed no Sheridan. Men who foresaw that in this mobility might lie the making of a successful campaign, that the feats of the raider might be achieved tenfold by large well-mounted armies, were missing from their councils.
Organisation.
The Boer forces which took the field in 1899 were composed of two divisions:—
- (I.) The Burgher Commandos.
- (II.) The Regular Forces.
Of the former the whole male population, black and white, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, formed the material,[66] the "Wyk" or Ward, the lowest electoral unit, the recruiting basis. Upon the Field Cornet, the chief officer of a Ward, elected by its votes for a term of three years, devolved many responsibilities besides the civil duties of collecting the taxes, administering the law, and maintaining order in his small satrapy. He was also the sole representative of Army Headquarters. One of the most important of his functions was that of compiling the registers of burghers liable to war service.[67]