THE GERMAN OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA.*
WITH this admirable translation of the concluding half of the story of the South African War, as compiled under Major Baick in the Historical Section of the Berlin Great General Staff, Colonel Du Cane completes the work begun by Colonel Waters, whose English version of the first volume has already been noticed in these columns. The, tale is taken up after Paardeberg on the western and Colenso on the eastern side of the theatre of war, and is brought down to the entry into Komati Poort, when the importance of the war from the European standpoint, if not the war itself, was over. As might be expected, the main interest centres in Buller's operations in Natal, though the instruction to be derived from this story of faulty leading and lost opportunities is valuable to the military student only for the negative lessons it teaches, and as an example of mistakes that must be avoided. The only two among Lord Roberts's later engagements which are selected for detailed examination are the actions at Poplar Grove and at Driefontein. Poplar Grove was an attempt to bring about a second Paardeberg, which failed, not only owing to the exhaustion of General French's horses, whole regiments of which could not be got out of a walk, but also, according to the German view, because Lord Roberts was unwilling to risk great losses in a resolute infantry attack. The battle of Driefontein, which was undertaken without the sanction of the Commander-in-Chief, but which for all that opened the gates of Bloemfontein to his advance, receives long and highly appreciative notice, and is classed by the Germans, as it has already been classed by our own " Times" History, as a model of tactical perfection. For the rest of Lord Roberts's campaign the Germans limit themselves to a mere outline of his strategical dispositions, on the ground that "the battles of this period furnish in their details but little instruc- tion of tactical value." On the whole, they approve the Field- Marshal's strategy, and more particularly his determination not to be distracted by the precarious state of affairs on his lines of communication from his purpose of entering Pretoria. They consider him all the more a great general for deli- berately taking great risks, which were none the less terrible because they were justified in the result; whilst his success- ful and rapid advance on the Transvaal capital is un- grudgingly admired as " a performance which furnishes a striking and eloquent proof of the energy of the chief com- mand, and of the devotion and endurance of the troops, and which must ever remain remarkable in the history of war."
Nevertheless, they hold that as a tactician Lord Roberts was overcautious, and condemn his plan, which had become stereotyped after Poplar Grove, of merely holding, and not resolutely attacking, the enemy in front while the enveloping movement of the mon ted troops was in progress. " To cause the enemy to evacuate his positions merely as the consequence
The War in South Africa—VOL II., The Advance to Pretoria, the Upper Tugela Campaign, &c. Prepared in the Historical Section of the Great General Stall, Berlin. Translated by Colonel Hubert Du Cane. B.A., Military Attaché at sou With Maps and Illustrations. London : John Murray. [15e. net.] of a threat on his flanks and rear no doubt tended to a reduc- tion of the butcher's bill, but could never culminate in the delivery of a knockdown blow. The occupation of the country and of the towns, not the destruction of the living hostile forces, became the objective of the operations, and manoeuvres took the place of battles." Consequently the success which at first attended this method of making war was only apparent and not real, and the British attempt " to gain decisive victories without suffering bloody losses " resulted in a prolongation of partisan fighting, which, as the casualty list shows only too plainly, was far more costly in life and presented far greater difficulties than the defeat of the organised Boer forces world have done. It is pointed out that "the number of victims to disease and exhaustion during the last twelve months of the campaign was more than fonr times the number of those lost in action, a proportion but seldom reached in any war in which raging epidemics did not thin the ranks." On this question of the general unwillingness to face losses, an unwillingness which was never more evident than in the guerilla stage of the war, which was inordinately prolonged in consequence, it is only fair to recall the serious disadvantages under which our generals laboured in common with all British generals in all wars. Like Sir John Moore, Lord Roberts and General Buller were leading, not a British army, but the British Army, and we know what a strain was pat upon the resources of the whole Empire even by the comparatively trifling losses which that Army suffered. " Our little Army," writes Lord Roberts in his despatch of February 10th to General Buller, "cannot last out long under the repeated heavy casualties entailed on the Tugela for no definite result." Herein lies the gist of the whole matter. We had an Army, but we had no proper Reserve ; and it is, at least, far more likely that Lord Roberts was prompted to avoid losses where possible, not by tactical misconceptions or failure to realise that decisive victories are worth heavy losses, but by the knowledge that he could never hope to replace the trained officers and men he might lose. If we want bolder tactics, we must provide our Army with an efficient reservoir from which to draw our Reserves.
It is, however, when we turn to the pages which deal with Natal that we realise the crushing nature of the verdict which a foreign tribunal of experienced soldiers is obliged to pass upon a war in which it is true that we gained our ends in the long run, but—for the utter want of that promptness and resolution which the Germans rightly hold to be of the essence of generalship--at the cost of all our military prestige. Not that this official history is animated by any partisan spirit; it is scrupulously fair to the British side, and, as the work of military men, is indeed prejudiced in favour of the side which put a disciplined European army into the field. Nor is there any of the oratory and the pointing of a moral which make of the Natal chapters of the " Times " History a jeremiad rather than a narrative. Not one superfluous epithet is used ; but the effect of this moderation of tone is absolutely overwhelming, and goes far to justify the long delay that has taken place in the preparation of our own official history of the war. It has been rumoured that the preliminary chapters of that history, as prepared by Colonel Henderson, showed the ungarbled truth to be so unpalatable that the late Government absolutely forbade their publication, and went so far as to have the entire manuscript burned. As most of the actors in the drama are still living, it might probably be better for all parties, and would do no very great harm to the cause of efficiency, if the preparation of our official history were postponed, not for five, but for five- and-twenty years.
The main outlines of the Natal campaign need no recapitulation. The Germans refrain altogether from criticising the disastrously ill-managed affair of Spion Kop. They are satisfied with the justice of Lord Roberts's observa- tions on the subject, which they quote in full. But the pro- ceedings at Spion Kop were but too terribly typical of most of the subsequent operations. Whether there, or at Vaal Krantz, or at Monte Christo, or even in the final operations them- selves, General Buller seems to have entered upon the fighting apparently without any coherent or properly thought out idea as to what his ulterior purpose should be. Stereotyped attacks were made against single positions in the long line of Boer defences without anything more
than a mere futile simultaneous demonstration at other points in the line, which more often than not were con- cluded before the real attack began. In every case the troops proved equal to the demands that were made upon them, but after achieving a measure of success the General commanding lost heart and abandoned all that had been already won, and, as if he were a Chief Umpire of Manamvres instead of a fighting General, sounded the " Cease fire " and marched the men back to their dinners. Except at Pieters Hill, where, indeed, largely for this reason, we were ultimately successful,
"there was a complete want of combination between the infantry and the artillery, the artillery and infantry engagements formed two distinct operations as regards time, and the artillery even went so far as to begin one or two days before the attack, and as the silence of the enemy's guns precluded all knowledge of their whereabouts, the British guns swept a large extent of generally unoccupied ground at random and without effect. When the infantry attack was launched, and just when the enemy's rifle fire began to produce the maximum of effect upon it, the guns behind them ceased fire owing to anxiety lest any shell should by accident fall in its ranks."
Had General Buller insisted upon a more literal interpreta- tion of his famous order of January 12th, " There must be no turning back," and employed nearly his whole force, instead of only a mere fraction of it, in a resolute attack upon several points simultaneously in the long and thinly held Boer positions, there is little doubt but that, at any time after the check at Colenso, be could, with less than a week's fighting, and with losses not exceeding those he actually sustained in all his abortive attempts put together, not only have relieved Ladysmith, but inflicted heavy loss, and even annihilation, upon his enemy. The regimental officers and men are rightly judged by the Germans to have been capable of any demands that might have been made of them, but we failed because the commander in Natal, and, if we must know the truth, the two Generals next senior to him also, conducted the campaign with wills half formed and plans half laid, and without any of that inflexible will-power which, as Lord Roberts was illus- trating at the very same time in the Free State, is the one essential element in the making of a successful general.
Instead, excessive confidence alternated with excessive despair, actions were broken off when scarce begun, the leaders ceased to believe in themselves or the men in the leaders, and Lady- smith was only ultimately relieved, not, as it seemed, by General Buller, but by the indirect action upon the Boer nerves of Lord Roberts's successes three hundred miles away. The history of the Natal campaign and the "Tactical Retrospect" with which this volume concludes will go far to destroy any lingering confidence that the British Army still reposes in certain of the seniors among those who are still responsible for its leading in war. Fortunately signs are not wanting that among the more junior leaders, and notably amongst the regimental officers and men, "the rigid fettering with forme and rules " to which a false system of peace training con- demned our generals, a system which avenged itself so bitterly in South Africa, is a nightmare of the 'past. As a con- sequence largely of that war, which will not have been fought in vain if it brings us only this benefit, a new Army is growing up after the ideal formulated by our German critics, "whose ranks, released from the burden of dead forms, are controlled by natural, untrammelled, quickening common- sense."
The Germans do not remind themselves, though it is worthy of notice, that the " dead forms" which they con- demn had their origin in a system of tactics which was an imitation, though, we admit, a bad one, of what was believed to be the system that gave Germany the victory in the Franco-Prussian War. But as we have already pointed out, we cannot profitably imitate German tactics, nor can we ever aspire to victory at all, unless we are prepared to face losses, and are enabled to do so by the existence, outside the Regular Army itself, of large numbers of men who are willing and competent to take the places of those who fall. If we would really profit by the losses of South Africa, it is upon the formation of a large and efficient National Reserve Army that we should concentrate our energies to-day.
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