BOOKS.
THE " TIMES " HISTORY OF THE WAR.* THIS book will cause much argument and give some offence. That it must do so is inevitable from the fact that it tells the truth about the doings of the British Army and generals from October 11th to December 15th, 1899, and tells it with a directness which at times somewhat defeats its own intentions by degenerating into gusto. It will thus lessen the sympathy of many who are by no means of the much over-frequented "wash-your-dirty-linen-in-private" school for the undoubted sincerity of its intentions. The writers of it are friends to the Army, but perfect devotees to the eternal verities. If the rank-and-file would be glad to shake hands with them, Carlyle would have snatched them to his bosom. But the friend is not admitted to the softest corner of your heart who, justifiably lecturing you upon some folly, has nothing better to say by way of peroration than that it is your own fault, and that he hopes it will be a lesson to you. This is doubtless true, but it does not help matters. And this is exactly the attitude in which in this second volume of the history of the Boer War Mr. Amery and his colleagues have approached the misfortunes and misdeeds of the British Army during the fateful period covered by their work.
The book is ostentatiously critical. Were it less so it would be a more valuable contribution than it is to our military literature, for criticism is its weakest point, and occupies space which might have been better filled. The writers, in fact, are far more clever at relating facts than in drawing inferences therefrom, which is so little surprising that were the inferences in less abundance their unsatisfactory presence might be passed over. War is an art, and a complex one; the more it is studied the more remote it gets from the vulgar conception of it as an accomplishment natural to any man with arms in his hand. Very special qualifications are necessary for the imparting of it, and so far as we are
• The " Time!" History of the War in South Africa. Edited by L. S. Amery. VoL IL London : Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. [21s. net.
aware, the writers of this history cannot be possessed of these in sufficient quantities to warrant the pedagogic didactics which figure on too many pages. The book, to be brief, is not the scientific treatise it aspires to be, for the gifted writers who have produced it had not the ample strategical, tactical, and historical knowledge which alone could have made it so. The result is often false military perspective,* the magnify- ing of tactical mistakes, the underestimation of or actual blindness to good work, surprise at the obvious, and indig- nation at the inevitable,—all this presented with a literary skill which renders much of it an actual danger to the many readers incapable of distinguishing between matter and manner. The Times has, in fact, let fly at two birds, the War and War, and it has hit only one. But it has fairly hit one. As a popular history of the opera- tions this book would be difficult to beat. The amount and the trustworthiness of the information possessed by the writers are little short of miraculous considering how recent are the events of which they treat, and how obscured by controversy, and, worse still, by misrepresentation which has not been always involuntary. A lucid and attractive narrative was a foregone conclusion when the names of the contributors became known, and they have more than satisfied anticipations. The stories of the various engagements are all so well told that it is difficult to discriminate between them. Those of the battles of Ladysmith and Elandsla agte are perhaps the best, the former being especially successful in elucidating what to many minds has up to now been such a puzzle that there seemed some grounds for the widely spread suspicion of its intentional mystification. The account of Talana Hill, though excellent on the whole, is disappointing in that it throws so little fresh light on one of the most inexplicable occurrences in the war,—Colonel Pickwoad's refusal to fire upon the flying Boers. The sad tale of Nicholson's Nek is truly and temperately told, and most people will agree with the narrator's conclusions about the ethics of surrender generally, that "as long as there is any possibility by con- tinuing the fight, at whatever cost of life, of inflicting injury on the enemy, or even of only delaying his movements ... . . . the 'struggle should be continued." Chaps. 7 and 8, deal- ing with the confusion attendant on the redistribution of t000ps and the Natal entanglement, are most illuminating, and the evident desire to be fair to the man upon whom all the worry of that momentous time fell renders the terrible indictments the writers find it necessary to bring against the same man later on all the more weighty and less open to sus- picion. General Buller need harbour no bitterness against the historians of the Times, for it is evident that they have none for him, and the army which loved him, reading the unanswerable exposé with which the volume closes, will rage at nothing but the insane stubbornness which rendered it not only possible but necessary. There is something as frightful to an army in the dethronement of its idol as there is to a woman in disillusionment as regards her beloved. Not a member of the army of Natal but would give much to be still able to think of the morose, burly General as the man who, what- ever his professional deficiencies, battered his way to success by his unconquerable determination. It looked like that at the time. It might have looked so now, perhaps for ever. But it can never look so again. Both the defence of Lady- smith and its relief were effected, not by the strength of the General, but in spite of his weakness. "Not only did he despair," says the Times, "of doing anything himself, but he despaired for others," and he bad not the fortitude, which thousands of similarly hopeless commanders have had in the history of warfare, to spare his subordinates the terribly ener- vating effect of that despair. Those who witnessed Sir George White's demeanour in secret within the beleaguered town at that time have little doubt but that he, too, saw no light in the darkness. He, even more than Buller, had been shocked by the unexpected prowess and armaments of the enemy. His two victories had done him no good, his two drawn battles were practically defeats; he was now in a grip of iron with the uneasy doubt continually gnawing at his heart that perhaps he had done wrong after all. That his superior looked
• The writers are especially hard, and justly so, on the underestimation by our commanders of the task in hand. In the face of this it is somewhat strange to read on p. 288 that, in the opinion of the historian, this war was one " which might not have lasted three months if skilfully handled." Such a statement betrays a misconception of the whole military problem more complete and less excusable than that entertained by the authorities in the early and ignurAnt days of the war.
Beside the impasse in Natal, with the peril to the actual integrity of the British Empire attendant on it, the other disasters of the " black week " seem comparatively unim- portant. Neither Magersfontein nor Stormberg was any- thing more than a tactical reverse of purely temporary incon- venience. The danger of invasion resulting from the latter set-back has been, we think, much exaggerated. The tide had already reached its high-water mark on the Stormberg, as it had at Mooi River in Natal, and the Boer material on the Colony stronghold was far less tough and enterprising than that with Jottbert upon the heights of Highlands. The danger of rebellion was more real, but subsequent acquaint- ance with the inconsequential nature of Colonial disloyalty proves that it would have been very little lessened by a victory. The chapter on Stormberg is one of the best in the book, and its tenderness to General Gatacre would almost seem to show that the writer knows what he does not state,—how nearly the enterprise was a success. Chap. 9, descriptive of Lord Methuen's advance towards the Modder, is likewise excellent, the account of the battle of that name being especially good. A truth which many self-constituted critics of the war will do well to bear in mind is noted therein, that "casualties are not the only test of the impression a battle produces upon those who take part in it," nor, it may be added, should they be to those who describe it. Modern war causes more mental than physical casualties. At the close of battles so exhausting to nerves and strength as Modder River and Magersfontein there will be many untouched men as useless for further operations as those who are lying riddled with bullets. But our soldiers notoriously recuperate ,more quickly than those of other nations. Even the Germans considered that a three weeks' rest was necessary for troops who had been roughly handled in action in 1871. Fewer days have seen defeated British battalions moving as steadily into battle as if opposition were a thing undreamt of in their philosophy.
Chaps. 1 and 2, detailing and criticising the British and Boer military systems, we had kept to the last, intending to deal with them at some length, but space forbids anything more than the most cursory of remarks. The mere presence of chap.:1 appears unnecessary in a work of this description, and much in the chapter itself is not only unnecessary but erroneous. It is sheer playing to the gallery to dilate on "mathematically straight lines " or " charging in solid forma- tions" as indestructible fetishes of the British Army. They and similar anachronisms had been discredited long before the Boer War, and a minimum of time instead of a maximum devoted to the cult of them. So, too, with shooting. It was not always at "fixed targets utterly unlike any real target aimed at in battle." But we will not point out categorically the numerous misstatements which mar this well-meant but unsatisfactory diatribe. Sufficient to say that they are em- ployed to prove an assumption which is in itself false,—that the Boer War has " shown up " the British Army as no army was ever shown .up before. Whereas, if weaknesses many and grievous have been brought to light, so have equally numerous and more unsuspected virtues. The chapter on the Boer Army is a much better piece of work, and might well be longer.
The faults of this excellent volume may seem to be unduly emphasised in this brief notice. If so, it is because they are of a nature not easily discoverable by the unprofessional reader, who might therefore attach too much importance to verdicts about which the least that can be said is that they are often doubtful. But the merits vastly outnumber the upon him as the head and front of all the offending in Natal was, no doubt, but a discouraging certainty. No General has ever been in a more unhappy position, or one more conducive to loss of morale. The " spatcbcocked " innuendoes, to give them their least definite form, about surrender might well have been the last straw. The desperate messages were not so " incredible" to their recipient as the Times historian imagines. But instead of breaking, the bowed back straightened in truly splendid style, and with one little trumpet-call of a proclama- tion to call his men to attention, he and they set their teeth and sat down to wait. It is rather a fine sight to see one dis- couraged man encouraging twelve thousand others. And how low the heads of the troops in Ladysmith were drooping at that time none but their officers know.
faults, and are discoverable by all who appreciate accuracy and industry in acquiring, and lucidity and frankness in im- parting, information. The "Times" History is the finest popular history of a war ever offered to the public, both in the high literary standard of its text, and its splendour of production. Owners, editor, and writers alike have reason to be proud of the results of their labours ; for ourselves, we can say nothing better about the book than that the next volume will be as eagerly looked for as this one has been read, and we are much mistaken if we do not speak for the public.
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