Blue Shirt and Khaki: A Comparison

by James F. J. Archibald

But while the colonial idea of war has ever been a persistent influence upon the tactics of the army of the United States, the troops of King George sailed back to England without an idea that their methods needed mending. Their success against Napoleon was not due to reformed tactics, but because in fighting quality, man for man, they were better than the French, and because they had plenty of allies. Barring the Crimea, the wars of Great Britain since Waterloo have not been against white men until they attacked the Boers. Whatever adaptations of method were made in fighting Asiatic tribesmen, the general tactics of the army in the field seemed to experience no radical change until the world was horrified to see General Buller charging up kopjes against magazine rifles and machine guns in not far from the same formation in which Howe had led his men to slaughter on Bunker Hill.

There was a vast difference between those South African frontal attacks at the beginning of the war and the charges up the hill of El Caney and San Juan in Cuba. The American assault was sanguinary enough, and the resistance was more desperate than that offered by the Boers. But had the blue shirts marched up in columns of fours, or swept up in the old-fashioned line of battle of the Civil War, the carnage would have turned to annihilation. They scattered, they abandoned all formation, they crawled, they sprinted from one poor shelter to another; they knew what the Mauser rifle would do, and they adapted their offensive tactics to it.

On the other hand, the traditions of Waterloo and Balaklava prevailed at Spion Kop, Colenso, and along the Tugela and Modder rivers. To “get in with cold steel” seemed to be the ruling thought among the officers during the terrible first months of the campaign.

Boer fighting men watching a British flanking movement during the battle of Pretoria, while building defenses.

But the lesson was learned, eventually, that the long-range rifle, with its incessant fire and the Boer precision of aim, required a complete change in offensive operations. After the disasters to Buller and Methuen the tactics developed into operations more creditable from a modern point of view. With the advent of Lord Roberts, flanking became the feature of the British advance. The Boer forces have never been of sufficient strength to withstand a flanking movement by the British; they have always been compelled to withdraw whenever the flanking columns reached a point that would menace their retreat. When the British came into Pretoria, the officers and correspondents all complained of what they called lack of pluck in the Boer as a fighter, as shown in the operations north of Bloemfontein; but in no instance at that part of the campaign did they have an opportunity to defend themselves against purely frontal attack, like those in which General Buller made himself conspicuous for his fatal old-fashioned tactics. Lord Roberts’s army was in sufficient strength, so that he could employ a main force of infantry and artillery of from 30,000 to 40,000, and could send out flanking columns, of cavalry and mounted infantry with a few horse batteries, of about 10,000 each.

Thus, when a Boer position was developed, the main advance took an artillery position at long range and maintained an incessant shell fire, while the mounted troops were sent out on either flank in an attempt to cut off the retreat of the burghers. As soon as these flanking columns reached a certain point from which a junction of the two forces might be made, the Boers were compelled to withdraw, in many cases without firing a shot. Sometimes this column of cavalry or mounted infantry would be fifteen or twenty miles away on their flank; but owing to their admirable signal service and their perfect scouting they were able to keep informed as to the enemy’s whereabouts, and at the last moment, just before a junction was made to cut off their retreat, they would slip through. Cronje’s capture at Paardeburg was due to the fact that he misjudged the movements of the troops on his flank. His officers begged him to retire, but he insisted on holding the position one day longer. That delay of one day proved to be fatal; on the next morning he was surrounded by about 40,000 of the enemy, with overwhelming batteries. After twelve days of the most heroic defense, when his ammunition was expended, and the action of the heat on the dead bodies in his laager made it intolerable, he was compelled to surrender. That was the only time the British succeeded in capturing any large number by the flanking movement, although they always succeeded in preventing any serious opposition to their advance.

The country which has been the scene of operations in South Africa seemed designed by nature for defensive operations. In the Orange Free State the veldt stretches away for miles and miles, broken by single kopjes and short ranges of mountains, from which a sentinel can note the approach of a hostile force in the far distance. In the Transvaal, although the country is more broken, it is easy to watch the enemy’s approach; and with the excellent signal service of the Boers it has been practically impossible for an advancing column to surprise the defending force.

The drifts or fords of the rivers were the most serious difficulty that had to be overcome by the British in transportation of their wagon-trains and artillery. By long action of the water in the rivers they have been cut deep, so that the descent from the ordinary level of the country to the bed of the stream is at most places very sharp. Strangely, there was no attempt, except at the railway bridges, to improve in any manner these difficult fords, although in many cases an hour’s work by a company of engineers, or by any kind of a company, would have saved many hours’ delay in the transportation.