Blue Shirt and Khaki: A Comparison

by James F. J. Archibald

The British soldier in the field is by far more attentive to his personal and military appearance than is the American soldier when on a hard campaign. All the men in South Africa wore their heavy cross-belts and pouches when, had they been our men, it is quite likely they would have been lost, for they were of no great importance to the comfort of the soldier. The Britisher keeps well shaven at all times in the field, and, although he is burned as only an African sun can burn, he looks well groomed. It does not seem to be compulsory to shave, as some of the men are whiskered, but the large majority of the men keep their faces free from a beard. Naturally, however, their uniforms get very dirty, especially as they do not have any shelter tents to protect them from the rain, and frequently the regiments on the march look as though they were uniformed in black or a dark brown.

One thing in which the British soldiers are far behind the American is in ordinary entrenching work in the field; they do not seem to understand the first principles of construction of trenches, either temporary or permanent. The sappers or engineers are, of course, proficient in the work, but the ordinary infantrymen or cavalrymen do not go at the work with the same intelligence that the Americans display. This is not because they lack the intelligence, but because they have never been trained for that obviously necessary work, always having been taught to rely upon the engineer corps. Nearly all the men carry an entrenching tool, but they have not had the necessary practice and instruction in its use to make it a useful implement in their hands. The American soldiers can do more and better work in protecting themselves in a temporary trench with the top of a mess tin than the British soldiers can do with their special tools. This is not the fault of the British soldiers, but that of the officers who have neglected to train them in this most important self-protection in the field. Dr. Conan Doyle calls the infantry especially to account for their ignorance in digging trenches in the South African war, and says that the work they did were mere rabbit-scratchings in comparison with the work of the amateur soldiers opposed to them.

To compare the relative bravery of the American soldier and Tommy Atkins is very difficult; there is a difference, but it is undoubtedly due to the training and not to the actual courage of the men. There could be no better or braver soldier desired than the British when he knows what to do and when he is properly led; but the trouble is that he has not been taught to think for himself, and the majority of his officers do not take the trouble to think for him. The consequence has been that the Boers took more prisoners than they could feed. There are instances, shamefully numerous, where a greatly superior force has surrendered to the Boers after very slight resistance. Howard C. Hillegas gives a number of cases, in his book on the Boer war, where from three to sixty men have been captured by one or two Boers, without firing a shot in defense. It is true that they were surprised in a mountainous or rocky place, where they could not tell how many of the enemy were opposed to them, but even this would not excuse a bloodless surrender. I know of one case where over seven hundred regular soldiers surrendered to a few more than a hundred burghers, after a loss of eight killed and twenty-three wounded, and with their belts half full of ammunition. They were not in the open, but were well covered, and in as good a position as were the Boers. General Methuen’s despatch to the War Office after one of his first engagements, in which he described it as “the bloodiest battle of the century,” after he had sustained a ridiculously small loss, shows that to the British mind losses are more disturbing than to the American.

The Fifth Army Corps never would have reached Santiago, and never would have driven out the Spanish fleet, had they ever allowed themselves to be checked as the British did in South Africa before Lord Roberts came. At Guasimas the dismounted cavalry, under General Young and Colonel Roosevelt, attacked more than four times their number of Spaniards, who were carefully entrenched in perfectly constructed works, in a mountainous pass that was thick with a tropical undergrowth. The enemy’s fire was well directed and very heavy, and at one time the cavalry attacking were fought almost to a standstill; in order to save themselves they charged the works, with a loss of sixteen killed and thirty-two wounded. At El Caney and San Juan the fighting quality of soldiers was shown on both sides; and it was on those fields that the American gained his first deep respect for the Spaniard as a fighting man. All day long General Lawton’s division fought every inch of the ground toward the little suburb of El Caney under the stone fort, and General Kent’s division advanced steadily, until there came the final rush up San Juan hill. At the latter place the Spaniards waited and fought until the bayonet drove them out, and at the former they stayed and gallantly died. Very few prisoners were taken at El Caney, and almost every one of these was badly wounded. The scene inside the stone fort was beyond description. Captain Capron’s battery had hit it forty-eight times during the day, and the little force inside was literally shot to pieces; the walls and roof had fallen in, and the floor was strewn with the wreck, covering the bodies of the dead and wounded. Blood was spattered over the walls that were still standing, and the terrible tropical sun had caused a sickening odor. There was not a man in the fort that was not hit, and only two or three were still alive. Even after this fort was taken, which was late in the afternoon, and we were busy burying the enemy’s dead and caring for the wounded, the Spaniards were still fighting at the thatched fort on the other side of the town. The thought of surrendering never seemed to enter their minds.

I was reminded of their bravery at Santiago by Cronje’s noble stand at Paardeburg, where he withstood the combined attack of forty thousand British soldiers with many guns for twelve days. Although he was in a defenseless position, and although the number of men and animals killed caused a frightful condition within his lines, still he held out until his ammunition was entirely expended. Both the Spaniards and the Boers went to the opposite extreme from the British in the matter of surrendering, for there is no doubt that in many instances the latter gave up far too easily. So many of them surrendered during the latter part of the war, that the Boers were compelled, after they had disarmed them, to set them free, as they had no accommodations or means of caring for the thousands captured.

There is a significant contrast in the action of the British and American governments regarding men who are lost by capture. It is the policy of the British government to make no effort to rescue them; all the prisoners are made to pay allowances, and promotion ceases from the date of their capture. On the contrary, whenever any handful of American soldiers have been captured in the Philippines, no possible efforts have been spared to release them; in the case of the capture of Lieutenant-Commander Gilmore and his men, a force of cavalry followed them for several hundred miles, until finally, when they overtook them, the rescuing party were in almost as miserable a condition as were the prisoners themselves. The circumstances in the Philippines and South Africa are quite dissimilar, however, and it was possibly good strategy on the part of Lord Roberts to allow the prisoners to remain in the hands of the Boers, as the responsibility for them was necessarily a serious embarrassment for a small force; and on this account he would not exchange any prisoners.

It is astonishing that the death rate from disease among the men in the British army while in the field is not greater, for, not having a shelter tent of any description, the men are compelled to sleep in the open unless they happen to be able to provide a temporary shelter for themselves. I have frequently seen a rain storm of several days’ duration, where the men were wet day and night and had no opportunity whatever of drying their clothes. The English army uses regular tents as much as we do in our service, but in the actual field work, where the company tents must be left at the base of supplies, they are shelterless.

Not only are the British lacking in the giving of shelter and comfort to the men while in the field, but all the other European armies are also very backward in this respect—none of them using the shelter tent as it is used by United States forces. This is a simple and light portion of an equipment, which produces more comfort for the men than anything else they could possibly carry, for it is used in other ways than as a shelter. In light marching order it is wrapped around the blanket, forming the blanket-roll, the sticks and pegs being wrapped inside; two men, each carrying a half, sharing the tent.

In the out-of-door life of campaign, our men again have the advantage of the training which is bound to come from a new country where sleeping in the open is not unusual. In the German army the men are billeted upon the various towns or cities near which they happen to make their night’s halt. The German War Department has statistics showing the capacity of every house in the empire, and wherever a body of troops is moved, information is given to the officers regarding the accommodations to be found. Consequently, when a command marches into a village or town, they are told off into squads and sent to their respective quarters as easily as though they were in their own barracks.

During the autumn manœuvres of the German army in 1899, after watching the operations for the day, I was sitting in a hotel, talking with some of the staff officers, when one of them said in a most mysterious manner, “Ah, but you must wait until Thursday night!”