BOOKS.

A SQUADRON OF YEOMANRY IN SOUTH AFRICA.*

THIS diary of his own participation in a" sort of war" by a "kind of soldier" is a valuable contribution to the literature of the South. African Campaign. It is an unpretending record of the daily duties of a squadron of Yeomanry in the field, told by a gentleman trooper; and though possessing

distinct literary merits, it is chiefly interesting as a plain tale. The appendices, one of which gives a roster of all the men of the squadron, their private occupations and standing on enlist- ment, and their chequered fate in the campaign, and a second, which. gives the camping-grounds and daily marches of the force, are more illuminating than the finest descriptive writing, in very fair samples of which, however, the writer does not fail us when occasion demands. The book is- admirably illus- trated and got up, and we especially commend the Star Map of the Southern Cross to the General of Division who spent the whole of one night with his divisional cavalry in trying to surround a fixed star!

The book itself is a drama without a plot, and its strong dramatic element consists in this very absence of plot.

"So they hunted and they holloa'd, till the setting of the sun, An' they'd nought to bring away at last when th' huntin' day was done.

Then one unto the other said: This huntin' doesn't pay ; But we've povvler'd up an' down a bit, an' had a rattlin' day, Look ye there!"

Such is the author's suggestion for a preface; and the story of the " powlering " is excellent reading from start to finish, while the map at the end of the book, which shows how the five thousand miles of travelling were run up, eclipses the exploits of the commander of our childhood who with twenty thousand men marched up the hill and then marched down again. Mr. Corner very wisely avoids anything like a.criticism of the strategy of the campaign as he saw it. If he had views on the military value of the meanderings in which he took part, he is a-plain trooper, and will not express them. The intelligent reader will draw his own conclusions. But on all that con- cerns the treatment of the men of a unique force by the authorities, and especially on the relations of the officers to their men, he does not hesitate to express his opinion :— "Men came," says Mr. Corner, "to the Imperial Yeomanry prepared to make great sacrifices, and to undergo hardships with- out murmur, but if the regular recruit was punished with whips, their chastisement was with scorpions. They offered to their country, in loyalty and good faith, life, energy, experience, money and time; and all this was accepted through incompetent, hide-bound officers in the worst possible faith. Fifteen months of active service only served to strengthen convictions I formed at this period kin Knightsbridge Barracks) of the wrongs and absurdities there perpetrated."

The officers and 'staff-sergeants of the Regular Army made no distinction between these and any ordinary recruits :—

" They seemed to have an idea that their ancient rights as men of superior day might be encroached upon. It would not do at any price to recognise the value or competence of this new amateur. We'll teach the — what it is to be regulars." Take 'em out in the Park and give the — a leather stretching.' That was the officers' attitude as expressed by the sergeant-instructors. The men were to be licked into shape' in the same old spirit- breaking, blackguard way. 'In the British "Harmy," says the sergeant-major, we tames lions, we does."

We commend the chapters on the training at Knightsbridge Barracks and at Maitland Camp to the advocates for con- scription in England!

In the Conference with the Colonial Premiers Mr. Brodrick, as the spokesman of the War Office, is reported as having said with reference to the Yeomanry, and in a lesser degree to the Colonial troops, that "with the training they-had received

before they landed, there was a considerable number which no general would have had a right to pit against European troops colue,"1":81=440 auk ceniny Middlesex) Imperial Yeomanry. By William : T. Pieher uawin. [21s. netd - without further training." Mr. Corner is evidently of the opinion that the training provided for the Yeomanry by those whose duty it was to fit them for active service was positively harmful, and that they WoUld have been better for having

received none. In this view he is supported by the large majority of the thinking men who served in the first con- tingent. Mr. Sidney Peel, in a book* which errs if any- thing on the side of tolerance, is most emphatic on the point, and any ex-Yeoman whom one meets in private life will concur with more or less warmth. Let us quote Mr. Corner :— "The system upon which we acquired our so-called training, the disposition of our equipment, parts of our equipment and our drill, were so inappropriate, so lacking in common-sense, as rather to have been the means of inviting further disaster than of giving assistance to our forces in the field. It was only when most of the infernal nonsense was shaken from our style, in the relentless and wholesome grip of necessity, that we became a useful body of men."

It is quite clear from the public utterances no less than by the official action of Mr. Brodiick and Lord Roberts with regard to the Yeomanry and Volunteers that they have quite overlooked the special character of these forces and the conse- quent need for a special training. They are resolved to push

them as far as possible through the same mill as the Regular soldier, whose inferior imitations they desire them to be. Convinced as we are of the crucial misconception underlying' this view, we call Mr. Corner's book to the special 'notice of our readers. We rise from it more than ever convinced that the first inquiry that should have been made as a result of the war ought clearly to have been as to the comparative services in that war of the untrained as against the trained troops, with a view to establishing their strength and weakness, and thereby arriving at the proper course of training for each. That they should have had the same faults, which require to be eradicated by the same reform, is a contention so preposterous that we can

hardly believe that " efficiency " is the primary object of reforms whose first effect will be to convert the Auxiliary Forces into bastard Regulars. And certainly our confidence in the Regular officer as a judge of the proper leading of Irregular troops sinks to vanishing point as we peruse these pages. It is an admitted fact that the weak spot of the first

contingent of Yeomanry was its officers, and that those squadrons were the least efficient which were officered by

ex-Regulars. An amazing proportion of the senior appoint- ments made from the Regular Army effected nothing in the field, and left for home months before their regiments. The references in this book to "a leisurely and luxurious

battalion Staff, infrequent visitors to the firing line," and to the rare appearance in the field of a distinguished officer who was so prominent in the home period, are, we fear, but too typical of the larger proportion of Yeo- manry battalions. The 34th Company was no excep- tion to the rule ; even the dashing Dalbiac, who fell at Senekal, having stamped the company "with a measure of

his own individuality, only too soon to leave them but the remembrance of an example of entire regardlessness of danger, of reckless daring and unconquerable gallantry," was utterly unfitted to command a force of men a good quarter of whom were his equals in social position and education at home :—

"He possessed that natural gift of intolerance that is character- istic of a certain type of English gentleman. His contempt for the amateur soldier amounted to an eccentricity. No one could speak with more gentleness if he were so minded, and certainly few could outdo him in freeness and fluency of explanation when he was angered. But what was pardonable in a man of his re- markable personality became an insufferable insolence in officers of inferior calibre when they presumed to follow his cue."

The Regular officer who was subsequently appointed to the command of the squadron, and proved so general a favourite, was trained in the Indian cavalry, where the traditions of the

Service appear to be different. "Considerate and calm, he seemed to have a theory that half-starved men could not do efficient work." "He made it his habit to know every horse in the lines, and to value them accordingly." In times of diffi- culty he was here, there, and everywhere, and though a strict disciplinarian, upon occasion, when manual labour had to be done, took his coat off to it like the rest. "His methods," adds Mr. Corner, "were a relief to us all." But. the most popular figures in the book are those of the amateur

• Trooper 8,006. By the Hon. Sidney Peel. London: Edward Arnold.

soldiers—the sergeant afterwards promoted to a commis- sion, "who had been playing at soldiering for twenty-one years, and now !"—or the corporal who was to meet a soldier's death, "a young, healthy athlete of the best public- school type, hopeful and joyous, and sure that there was nothing very wrong with the world, if only you buck up, you know."

We have quoted sufficiently from the book to show that it is full of suggestion for those who are interested in the present position of the Yeomanry. We will only, in addition, call attention to the accounts of the disaster to Colonel Firman's force of the second contingent on Christmas Day, 1901, which are given in one of the appendices to the book. In view of the organised attempts to decry the military value of the second contingent, and of the accusations brought against this force in the Press, the private letters now printed do much to defend a disaster where the proportion of casual- ties was at any rate heavier than those suffered by any body of Regular troops who surrendered in South Africa. For the general reader the book is full of fighting incidents, relieved by excellent impressions of the country and the people. The broad outlines of the war are familiar to us all, but this record of fifteen months of obscure fighting will be a revelation to many, especially as regards the services rendered by a body of men who volunteered in an emergency. Of the one hundred and eighteen men of the company who sailed in February, 1900, but thirteen returned in July, 1901, "with the company." Eleven had been killed, sixteen had died of disease, nineteen had been wounded, twenty-six invalided borne. Of the balance the larger proportion remained in the country in various capacities. These casualties, though higher than those in most other squadrons, are extremely typical, and in no case did the number who reached home" with their company" exceed 40 per cent. of the original total. Had the first contingent been required, as was at one time intended, to remain till the actual conclusion of hostilities, it is easy to calculate the amount of cabin accommodation that would have been needed !

Finally, it is well to remind our readers that, in spite of Mr. Brodrick's predilection for Regular troops for pitting against a European foe, the Eighth Division was from start to finish supplied with no Regular cavalry, and its commander over and over again repeated that he required no better mounted troops than the three regiments of Imperial Yeo- manry which formed the eyes and ears and outposts of his army. The portraits of the fallen well illustrate the peculiar character of a remarkable corps, and go far to explain General Rundle's contentment with his mounted troops. They also supply an eloquent, if somewhat pathetic, protest against the threatened Germanisation of our military system.