 |
| CAPETOWN
HIGHLANDERS General F. W. E. Forestier-Walker, commanding lines of communication, inspecting volunteers on Green Point common; Capetown Highlanders. |
H.
W. Wilson
With the Flag to Pretoria: A History of the Boer War,
1899-1900
Harmsworth Brothers, London, 1901.
CHAPTER XI.
PART ONE.
Critical position of Great Britain-Her prestige in danger-Crass ignorance of military affairs-German system-Responsibility of Statesmen and Generals-Government unprepared-Necessity of reorganisation-Former national crises-Measures taken for defence-Change of Generals-Lord Roberts' military career-Lord Kitchener in the Sudan-Embarkation for South Africa-General Hector Macdonald-Offers of the Colonies-Australian and Canadian contingents-Mr. Seddon's loyal speech-Volunteers from Asiatic dependencies -London's contribution- Imperial Yeomanry-Gloomy outlook.
Critical position of Great
Britain.
THUS three times within the space of a single week had the British
columns marched forth to defeat. The Army Corps, the much-trusted
Generals, had gone out to South Africa, and yet there was nothing of that
irresistible tide of success which, it was fondly hoped, would sweep away
the Boer oligarchy. The results of the week's battles were 2,600 British
soldiers dead, wounded, or in the enemy's hands, and complete checkmate in
every field of the war. Kimberley, Mafeking, and Ladysmith had not been
relieved; far from it, the forces which were to have achieved this
eagerly desired result were themselves, it seemed, in grave danger. Lord
Methuen might at any time be cut off from his base; General Gatacre might
be driven back to the sea; even General Buller, with 20,000 British troops
on the line of the Tugela, might be in peril, if only the Boers were equal
to their opportunities. And dangers even more terrible than these loomed
upon the stormy horizon. How if the Cape burst into rebellion and the
Dutch there threw in their lot with their victorious kinsmen? How if our
enemies of the Continent seized upon the occasion to overthrow the Empire?
Nowhere had Britain a friend. France, Russia, and Germany were equally
outspoken in bitter and contemptuous criticism. Not the Governments, but
the nations of the Continent hated and envied us in equal degree, and if
only the signal for attack had been given, would have rushed upon us with
malignant ardour. But the Governments, though they bore us no goodwill,
waited and hesitated. Much depended upon Russia, and the Czar, the young
Nicholas, played a part at this juncture which the British nation will
remember with gratitude. He set his face firmly against any treacherous
attack. He restrained his war party and declined to profit by our
troubles. He may have felt that war with England would have brought our
one friend, Japan, into the field with consequences not altogether
pleasant for Russia, but none the less we may honour him for his
chivalrous attitude.
 |
| WHY
THE BOERS WERE ABLE TO HOLD US IN CHECK It is clear now that the earlier victories of the Boers were largely due to their prudent habit of keeping out of sight. By F. J. Waugh |
Her prestige in danger.
And the most grievous feature of our defeats was that they were
inflicted by a people numerically weak, without an army in the true
sense;--by a number of peasants and farmers, upon the very flower of the
British Army. The strongest, the best appointed, and, it was hoped, the
best led force that had ever left our shores, equipped with all the
contrivances of modern war, with field telegraphs, air balloons,
howitzers, naval guns, and lyddite shells, had failed. It had failed
completely--almost beyond repair--and it could place to its credit not a
single great success. One or two battles in which we had gained the day,
with heavy loss and without inflicting proportionate damage upon the
enemy, bad, indeed, been paraded as glorious victories, but their very
insignificance, in relation to the task to be accomplished, was a sad
commentary upon the depths to which we had fallen. It was not that the
British soldier had failed in courage. That "last validity of noble
veins" he still retained. Upon every field of the war his demeanour
had compelled the enemy's admiration. Our military annals, splendid though
these are, contain nothing finer than the advance of the Dublin Fusiliers
at Colenso, of the Guards at Belmont, and of the Marines at Enslin, or the
conduct of General Pole-Carew and his devoted band in the anxious hours
when the Modder River fight swayed to and fro and the balance inclined
against us. And yet, though hundreds of brave men now lay festering in the
sun or in their shallow graves on the far-off veldt, and hundreds more
filled those homes of silent agony, the hospitals, nothing had been
accomplished. The fame of the Army, the prestige of the nation, the very
existence of the Empire, were in grievous peril.
Thus in a few short days had the British people been brought face to face with the tragic realities of war. The scales fell from all eyes; it was clear to every man that this was a struggle for life or death, a struggle in which defeat must mean the loss of South Africa and the shaking of the British Empire to its very foundations, and in which victory at the best could never regain for us what we had forfeited-our reputation before the world. Not yet did the nation know, or it might well have shivered, the hesitation, the doubts, the ignorance of the true meaning of events which marked its leading men. Not yet did it fully comprehend the grave defects which bad characterized its army in the field. It had illusions still of which two more months of unsuccess were at last to deprive it; it had to learn how all precautions had been neglected; and animal courage substituted for skilful leading.
 |
| A
6-IN HOWITZER BATTERY. The first two guns are shown elevated to an angle of thirty-five degrees, which is the position in which they are usually fired, |
Crass ignorance of military
affairs.
Terrible, indeed, is the price which a nation must pay for neglecting
the study of war. "Above all for empire and greatness," said our
own immortal Bacon, "it importeth most that a nation do profess arms
as their principal honour, study, and occupation." But the people bad
never troubled about such things; it was taught and it knew nothing of the
conduct of war; its press gave space to the trivialities of sport, none
to the serious business of arms; its Parliament emptied as if by magic
when naval and military affairs were discussed; its Government and Cabinet
were composed without exception of men ignorant of war. For generations
attention bad been riveted upon the question which of two parties was to
govern, regardless of the consideration that there can be no country to
rule unless there is an armed force prepared to overcome the enemies who
may assail that country's existence. We had told one another that we were
a great, a strong, an invincible people. We had come to believe--or the
less instructed of us had come to believe--that an Englishman was far more
than a match for any foreigner. We had been ruled by "majorities of
politicians, without the knowledge requisite in the governors of a great
empire, believing ,that every interest should be subordinated to their
preservation of place." In the words of Lord Charles Beresford, in
twenty years there had been but three men in the House of Commons who
understood the problem of national defence. One of these--perhaps the
ablest--Sir Charles Dilke, had met the common fate of men who strive to
warn their country; he had been quietly brushed aside by the politicians
as a mere alarmist. Yet he had steadily predicted the breakdown of the
Army in its first serious war, and his prophecy had come true.
German system.
And now when defeat came no one was responsible. "In
Germany," said a German commentator, "had the Army failed as
the British Army has failed, had the War Minister organised defeat and
been caught unprepared, that minister would have been execrated as a
traitor and imprisoned in a fortress for the rest of his natural
life." But, then, though we had copied much from Germany--all the
trifles which do not go to make success--we had neglected the real virtues
of the German system: its magnificent education, its careful study of war,
its unceasing preparation, its constant maneuvers, its lofty sense of duty
to the nation, and its organisation by which there is a man to hang if
things go wrong.
|
|
|
FIELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT WOLSELEY, K.P., &c.; |
|
|
||
Responsibility of Statesmen and
Generals.
The mistakes of generals in the field kill hundreds, the ignorance of
ministers in the Cabinet slays thousands. And for the terrible roll of
wasted lives, for the long-drawn agony of the heroic defenders of
Ladysmith and Mafeking, it is needful that someone should be hereafter
called to account. Our soldiers, we have seen, did their duty. They faced
death and mutilation because they had learnt in a noble school to offer up
the last and greatest sacrifice-life itself-sooner than face dishonour. To
men who bear themselves thus, both statesmen and the nation owe a duty in
their turn. They must provide the best weapons, the best training, the
best leadership, the best equipment, that the sacrifice may not be made in
vain; they are responsible in the sight of posterity and of God, if they
needlessly waste human lives or bring sorrow and bereavement upon
thousands of homes; they are not asked, like our devoted reservists,
private soldiers, and officers, to face the scorching heat and the
devouring thirst of the march, the chills of the sodden bivouac, the blood
and torture of battle; they have not to confront death:--the one has only
to be ready to resign place and power, and the other to watch carefully
and intelligently and to be prepared to make pecuniary sacrifice. Yet how many statesmen have
resigned for the Army's sake, and how many of the public have troubled
about or interested themselves in the Army's efficiency?
|
|
GENERAL SIR EVELYN WOOD,
V.C.
|
The Government unprepared.
It was urged, indeed, as an excuse for our failures that other armies
had made deplorable mistakes--notably the German in the war Of 1870. This
no one will deny. But the point is that in spite of these mistakes the
German Army won every battle, and that the German government and nation
had taken every step which science and the sense of duty could suggest to
prepare for war. Could as much be said of Britain? Those who have followed
the story will have marked the lack of transport and of cavalry, the
insufficient proportion of artillery, the want of maps, and the delay in
the preparation of troopships. They will have noted that the reports of
the Intelligence Department as to the enemy's strength were put on one
side and neglected. They will know that the strenuous warnings of Sir
Alfred Milner and of the Natal Government as to the imminence of war were
calmly disregarded. They will remember that defects in the Army, pointed
out year after year by critics in the House of Commons and in the press,
had remained unremedied. They should reflect that the Army and its leaders
had been denied the inestimably valuable exercise of annual maneuvers
until the last year before the war. Even then the maneuvers were not of a
nature to yield real instruction. And the mere fact that in the gravest
emergency ministers turned to Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener, showed that
they had not chosen, as they ought to have chosen, the generals who were
believed by all to be best qualified for a difficult campaign.
Necessity of reorganisation.
Nor are these small things, nor has their importance passed away. Far
greater conflicts may lie before us in the near future, and we may have to
encounter, not undisciplined peasants, but are amply supplied with cavalry
and artillery--armies which can attack as well as defend. The future
safety of the Empire depends upon our so organising and constituting our
military system that we shall never again be taken by surprise, and never
again be found inferior in the field.
Our Army, our generals, had become the slaves of routine, as a wise foreign officer wrote. They had failed to understand what the Boers had fully grasped--the need of high intelligence as well as brute courage in the fighting man, and the immense potentialities of modern weapons. It is not the least unsatisfactory reflection that the fighting men whom we recruited at the eleventh hour for war from the ranks of our Colonists, proved themselves as good as our professional soldiers. That this should be so illustrated the inefficiency of our military training. For in what other profession could thousands of tyros hope to vie with the experts?
"War is an affair of the immortal soul," it has been said. It is the final test of the greatness of a nation. The Power which cannot hold its own upon the field of battle has deserved humiliation, and has been "weighed in the balance and found wanting." It is character which gives victory in war; and the whole purpose of life is to create and refine character.
Character is required in the soldier to carry him through the dangers of the battlefield and the hardships of campaigning; in the nation to enable it to face temporary reverses with courage, and to accept the loss of those near and dear with resignation; and in the statesman to enable him to resist injudicious clamour for economy, and to make sure that the preparations for war are adequate and complete. The statesman must foresee and lead; if he does neither he is unfit for his post of trust.
Former national crises.
Not since the far-off times of Trafalgar had the national danger been
so great. In the Crimea it could truthfully be said that the British Army
was a uniformly successful, and that the horrors of the winter of 1854-5
were due simply and solely to a defective commissariat. Besides, there we
had been outnumbered by the enemy; here we outnumbered them. Then we had
had the alliance of France, Sardinia, and Turkey, the friendship of
Austria, and the not unfriendly neutrality of Prussia; now we were
assailed and vilified by the people of every great nation in Europe. The
Indian Mutiny as a crisis could not be compared with this, for in India,
when once reinforcements had arrived, there was a continuous series of
successes. Not since the time of the American War of Independence, more
than a hundred years back, had we encountered such frequent reverses. Yet
though it was accustomed to easy victories, the English race did not quail
under the blow. No voice outside the ranks of the least of the Little
Englanders was raised for a surrender. With one accord men called upon the
Government to take the fullest measures to restore the fortunes of the war
Everything demanded would be granted; nay, the press, with a wise
foresight which deserves the gratitude of the country, urged the Ministry
to far greater armaments than those which the Cabinet had in mind. It
would have been well in this matter if the press had had its way.
 |
| THE
MOST HONOURABLE THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, K.G. Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs |
Measures taken for
defence.
To take steps to meet the danger, the Committee of the Cabinet for
National Defence--a committee which had the radical defect of being
composed wholly of civilian ministers without military knowledge or
experience--was held on December 16, the morning after the final news of
General Buller's defeat at Colenso reached London. The members of the
committee were Lord Salisbury, Mr. Balfour, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord
Lansdowne, and Mr. Goschen. Their deliberations were secret; the measures
upon which they finally decided were in no way heroic--were, indeed, hardly
adequate to the perils of the situation. It had been expected that they
would call for 40,000 or 50,000 volunteers, place under arms the
Volunteers and Militia, and mobilise a good part of the fleet, at the same
time despatching to South Africa the largest possible number of trained
soldiers, and making the utmost use of the zeal of the colonies.
Actually the steps taken were these: All the Reserves not yet embodied were called out. The Fifth Division was already on its way out, and a Sixth Division had been offered General Buller upon November 30. Now it was definitely announced that both a Sixth and a Seventh Division would as soon as possible proceed to the front, and be followed, probably, by an Eighth Division. Strong reinforcements of artillery, including five batteries of horse artillery, nine of field artillery, and three batteries of the invaluable 5-inch howitzers were to be despatched as fast as they could be mobilised, thus almost doubling our strength of guns in the field, and adding 102 more field-guns to the 114 Pieces sent out with the Army Corps. Besides these, it was intimated that more siege guns, including huge 6-inch howitzers and heavy weapons of position, would be provided when they could be supplied by the manufacturers and the Royal Arsenal. The Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, whose action had hitherto, if report could be believed, been restricted by the Treasury and financial considerations, was to be given a free hand to raise as many colonial volunteers as possible in the Cape and Natal. Of the Militia, two battalions had already volunteered for service outside the British Isles, and were about to embark for Malta, whilst a third was destined for service in the Channel Islands; nine more battalions were to be asked to tender their help for garrison purposes in our coaling stations and imperial fortresses, and an additional number of battalions was to be called up for home service to supply the places of those who, under this arrangement, would be sent abroad. A corresponding number of regular troops would thus be released for service in the field. And now at last the Volunteers, whose patriotic self-sacrifice had hitherto received such scant acknowledgment at the hands of the War Office, were to be called upon to show what stuff they were made of. They were to be asked to furnish contingents for more serious work than Easter "reviews" or Hyde Park parades.
|
|
A DISTINGUISHED GROUP. This group, photographed on board the Carisbrooke Castle, which arrived at Capetown, November 14, 1899, includes several men who have distinguished themselves in the war. The foremost officer is Capt. Manus; seated immediately behind him is the Earl of Dundonald, the inventor of the "Dundonald Galloping Carriage" for light guns, and grandson of Lord Cochrane, the naval hero of the beginning of the century. Next to him: the end figure in the seated row, is Col. Martin, who commanded the 21St Lancers in their celebrated charge at Omdurman. Next to the Earl of Dundonald on the other side is Capt. French, employed at the base drilling the South African Light Horse, and sitting close beside, and a little behind him, is the Duke of Hamilton, whilst the Hon. G. Saumarez sits with his face partly hidden behind the chain. In the standing row the officer on the extreme right is Major Hoare; next to him is Carlisle Carr, who swam the Tugela under fire and brought over the ferry-boat. The gentleman standing with his hands in his pockets is A. P. Bailey, of Johannesburg, who gave a complete ambulance to the Government. |
Two distinct volunteer forces were to be raised in England for work in South Africa: the first, to be known as Imperial Yeomanry, was to provide 8,000 mounted infantry. It was to be organised in battalions 464 strong, each composed of four companies of 116 officers and men. The second force, recruited from the ranks of the Volunteers, was to supply an infantry company for each regular battalion in the field, or, in all, a total of about 9,000 men. The City of London was itself to organise and equip a small force of four guns of the Honourable Artillery Company, two companies of mounted infantry, and a battalion of infantry. Finally it Was announced that the patriotic offers of our great colonies would no longer be declined.
 |
|
LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR
CHARLES WARREN, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., R.E. |
Change in Generals.
But even more important than these additions to the material strength of our forces in South Africa was the change in generals. Sir Redvers Buller himself is believed to have suggested to the Home Government after his Colenso defeat that it would be well to place Lord Roberts in supreme command, and this step was now taken by the Committee of
Defence. If such advice were given, it was a fine, magnanimous and disinterested action to General Buller's credit, and one for which the nation may well honour him. As Lord Roberts' chief of the staff, the ablest and the greatest of our younger generals was selected, the
Sirdar, Lord Kitchener
of Khartoum.
He was in the Sudan, but, when asked by telegraph whether he would take this anxious and difficult post under the new commander-in-chief, he replied, with alacrity: "Delighted to serve in any capacity under Lord Roberts."
 |
H. W.
Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria: A History of the Boer War,
1899-1900, London, 1901. Chapter XI. The Nation Under Defeat. Part Two: Lord Roberts. |
|
 |
Perspectives
on the South African War. A collection of links to primary and contemporary resources on the war in South Africa. |
|
 |
Return to the Baden-Powell Home Page | |
The Pine Tree Web Home Page: A Collection of the
Author's Links
Your feedback, comments and suggestions are appreciated.
Please write to: Lewis P. Orans
Copyright ©
Lewis P. Orans, 1999
Last Modified: 10:07 PM on October 9, 1999
