NOTE BY THE OFFICIAL HISTORIAN.
Effect on Army.
The record above given of the splendid triumph of the Admiralty administration of Sea Transport during the war has been compiled by Capt. A. H. Limpus, R.N., with the cordial assistance of the Transport department of the Admiralty. The conclusion that the work of carrying the Army by sea could not have been in more competent hands is one which admits of no doubt in the mind of any reader who studies it. There are, nevertheless, Questions of above record. certain deductions to be made in regard to the passengers carried—the greatest army ever delivered by any country over 6,000 miles of sea-way—which closely concern the efficiency of the instrument with which the blow of Britain has to be struck, at points so distant from her shores. It is essential that the management of railways shall be in the hands of the officials of the particular company which conveys an excursion; but in order that the undertaking may be a great success many things are needed besides the perfect management of the trains. No one who has seen the amount of labour and the kind of organisation required by those who yearly send to the country the holiday-children, for instance, will fail to know that the passengers also need to be prepared beforehand for their part in the day. Moreover, some knowledge on the part of the most admirable railway officials of the special needs of those they carry is required; and, further, if any sudden change is made in the carriages themselves, in the sequence of trains, or in other matters strictly belonging to the functions of the company, this, if not communicated to the managers of the excursion, may introduce dire confusion.
A new experience needs special training.
An army has over the holiday travellers the advantage of its long-established unity, its discipline, and its training, but embarkation and disembarkation are entirely outside its ordinary experience. It needs, therefore, being much accustomed to work by habit, to be prepared both for getting on board ship, and, still more, for getting off it, in the manner that will best enable it to fulfil its duties, and, as time is very precious, to do this with the least possible delay, both in order to play completely into the hands of the officers in charge of the ships and in order to be itself at its best when it lands. This is the more easily accomplished because a ship in dock is virtually a part of the mainland. Everything that has to be done by troops in embarking can be imitated perfectly on shore, if the ordinary fittings of a ship are placed in a hut or other building outside which such a gangway is erected as that over which men and horses have to be passed in entering a ship. Now, by the willing assistance of the Admiralty in furnishing the exact fittings used in transports, this practice had been carried out by all arms—cavalry, horse and field artillery, army service corps and infantry—at least in some instances. Practical adaptations in the training of each corps had been made by the experiments conducted on shore by each. Printed regulations embodying these had been framed.
Necessity for mutual understanding shown by incident.
Unfortunately, the sudden improvement in the ship fittings mentioned above, coming as it did at the very moment of war, completely, for the Army, upset the conditions on which the drill had been framed. It had been devised to make the passage of horses on board as rapid as it could be when the horses had to be placed in slings. Men, specially trained in slinging, were in each corps detailed to do the work. To find, when the embarkation began, that there were no slings, naturally involved at the last moment a change in method. Moreover, horses always obey more kindly, especially in strange circumstances, the men to whom they are accustomed, those by whom they are groomed and fed. It was, nevertheless, not surprising that the shipping authorities, unaware that the soldiers were dealing with conditions already familiar to them, should have detailed men of the ship to place the horses in their stalls. The horses did not like the unfamiliar hands; the soldiers were puzzled by their horses being taken from them. In some cases much delay and confusion occurred, and, indeed, it needed all the tact and good-fellowship of the navy and army officers to adjust things satisfactorily. Relatively to other matters the incident was a small one, but it illustrates the importance of a thorough understanding between the two services such as can only be gained by continued practice during peace-time for war.
Importance of the right stores being on top.
In the matter of stores a difficulty, which had been very strongly commented upon in the case of the Egyptian expedition of 1882, again presented itself. In 1882, in the disembarkation at Ismailia in the Suez Canal, where the facilities were much less than they were in the several harbours of South Africa, it became a very serious point that the stores required by the Army at once on landing were at the bottom of the holds. The ample landing capacities of Cape Town, of Durban, and almost, relatively to Ismailia, of East London and Port Elizabeth, made this in the present war less serious; but even in this case it drew a strongly-worded telegram of remonstrance. It would be impossible to reckon upon our having always at our disposal conveniences so great as these for disembarking an army. It becomes, therefore, for future expeditions, important to note that the trouble which became so grave in 1882 was not removed at the ports of embarkation when this war began. To say the least, it was not the universally established practice to give to the naval officer in charge or to any one else a list showing the order in which the material embarked would be required on landing; and to ask that those things which would be first needed should be put in last, so that they might be on the top.
Co-operation in forcing a landing.