TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE COURSE OF THE WAR. THE most striking thing about the course of the war hitherto has not been so much the splendid bravery shown by our men, though that has been beyond all praise, but the exceedingly able, and yet daring, way in which they have been handled by their commanders. We never expected our soldiers to show anything but the highest courage and the strongest sense of duty and discipline, and we are not the least surprised that they stormed almost impregnable hillsides defended by artillery and lined by the best marksmen in the world.—The young Boers clearly shoot quite As well as the old, and show the same soldierly virtues of pluck and endurance.— The truth is that the fighting qualities of the Anglo- Saxon are just as well marked as they ever were ; witness the ridge at Santiago and Talana. Hill. But though we had a right to take for granted the courage of officers and men, we may legitimately show, not merely pride and pleasure, but a sense of special satisfaction in • the masterly way in which our troops were led. It is very common for Continental critics to assert that British officers know nothing of the conditions of modern warfare, and can only win battles against blacks. 'If they ever have to face modern weapons in the hands of white men who know how to shoot and use their. heads as well as their bands we shall hear much less about British successes.' That has been the attitude of the Continental soldier. Well, we have met a white force of exceptional merit led by able commanders who know the country and understand their own very effective system of fighting to perfection, and we have been able to do a good deal more than hold our own. The test of good general- ship is the employment of all three arms—infantry, cavalry, and artillery—in their appropriate work, and this our commanders have succeeded in doing. The history of the three actions at Glencoe, at Elandslaagte, and at Rietfontein shows that our officers, from the General to the Lieutenant, exactly realised the nature of the work before them, and did it with scarcely a blunder. In all three cases we anticipated general attacks by the Boers in force by carefully conducted assaults,—always the safest form of defence for a small force when confronted by a superior one, and obliged to stand, in the larger sense, on the defensive. On each occasion we found the Boers in position on the crown of a ridge,—i.e., with the ground sloping away behind them. On this ridge were posted their guns, and its edges and sides, generally thickly strewn with boulders, were lined with riflemen,—and, remember, the best riflemen in the world. In the hollow behind the ridge were picketed the Boers' horses, for practically the whole Boer Army con- sists of mounted infantry. Our first act in attacking these positions was to shell the ridge till the Boer artillery was silenced, or sufficiently silenced to allow our infantry to advance in long thin liner. While the Boer artillery was still active our infantry could not have advanced without courting absolute destruction. But even after the enemy's guns bad been silenced our artillery continued to shell the ridge in order to keep down the Boer rifle-fire, our troops meantime working up towards the Boers' position on both flanks, and also in front. Meantime our cavalry and mounted infantry, supported by guns, had been sent to make a wide detour round the flank with the object of getting to the enemy's rear. As soon as these operations had developed sufficiently and the moment was ripe, our guns ceased firing, and the infantry regiments on flank and front, which had previously crept up as near as they could, sprang forward and carried the ridge with a rush,—a rush in which, alas I many brave men fell dead or wounded. This rush was never really met by the Boers. Except in individual cases, they began to stream away from the ridge as soon as it was actually crested by our men ; their object being to get to their horses, for it is the Boer's first instinct in a difficulty to find his horse. But here a surprise awaited them. They found to their dismay that the horses on which they had relied to make good their retreat had been stampeded by our Lancers and Hussars. Worse, they found troops of cavalry, who charged through and through them, using their lances with deadly effect. Now nothing is more terrifying to a fugitive or retreating force—for the Boers, of course, did not regard themselves as fugitives, but merely as un- beaten men retiring to take up new and better ground—. than to be ridden down by men with "pointed sticks." Meantime, for those who got free from the cavalry there were the shells of the artillery, which had been brought up to support our troopers. This is, of course, only a very rough sketch of the general character of the fighting hitherto. In each of the three battles, for instance, there were plenty of special circumstances. At the same time, the plan of operations we have described shows the general character of the fighting adopted. "Very simple," will be the comment of many of our readers, and very simple no doubt these tactics seem on paper. When, how- ever, they have to be carried out, not on a map, but on a rough and broken country, with a hundred modifications and exceptions, they are anything but simple. The fact, then, that they were in each case acted on and pressed to a successful conclusion does immense credit to the general officers in command—and chief among them to General Symons, who was the master of quick and ready disciples—and to the regimental officers who carried out the actual evolutions. No doubt the officers had splendid material to deal with, and knew that if they gave an order to storm an apparently impregnable bit of rock- work it would be stormed if the thing were physically possible, but that does not detract from the precision and ability with which they were led. It used to be said a generation ago, though not very fairly, that the British Army consisted of lions led by asses. It now consists of lions led by cool, shrewd, and able men who, while they have developed their brains, have lost nothing in physical courage, or in the sense of loyalty and duty.
We have spoken of the able tactics displayed by our officers in the actual moment of battle. The strategy of the campaign up till now strikes us as no less bold and successful. General White, with a force of some twelve thousand men, has been engaged in the task of holding in check a Boer force of some thirty thousand men, occupied in invading Natal from the North, East, and West. Our troops held the Dundee-Lady- smith line, and were anxious to hold it as long as possible, in order to prevent the enemy pene- trating too far into Natal. But to do this required very high qualities of generalship, for the position gave great opportunities to the Boers to take us in detail, and to envelop and crush, first the force at Glencoe, and then that at Laclystnith. Our generals ran that risk, however, and, instead of being taken in detail, managed to take the Boers in detail, delivering three successive blows against portions of the enemy's armies. Strategy might not too inexactly be defined as the art of putting at any particular moment a larger force into the field than that possessed by the enemy,—for the cardinal rule of war is that, other things being equal, the bigger army wins, and a general must always assume that other things—i.e.' courage, supplies of ammunition, skilful firing, be equal. Now we managed at Glencoe to attack one of the three columns of the Boers who were advancing to attack us in unison, before the other two came up. Again, at Elandslaagte we were able to attack a column which wanted to join in a second attack on Glencoe, and not to be attacked in force. Lastly, at Rietfontein we were able to hit, and hit hard, a force of Boers which had not yet met the bodies with which it was attempting to get into connection. Again, we managed to get our force out of Glencoe and to join it to that at Ladysmith without the smaller force being called on to meet an overwhelming body of Boers. We trust that as we write the Ladysmith force now in combination with that from Glencoe may be attacking the Free State Boers before their junction with General Joubert's northern column. But that is hope, not fact. It may be, of course, that during the next few days the fortune or the skill of our com- manders may prove at fault, but be that as it may one thing is certain. Our officers of all ranks have shown themselves as able and resourceful in command as they and the soldiers under them have proved bold and resolute.
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