FLOUNDERING ON THE VELD
SIR,—Many readers of Mr. Edgar Holt's delightful book The Boer War, reviewed in the Spectator on June 13, will be disappointed at the rather inadequate attention paid to the important problems of transport and supply. In the early stages after Lord Roberts's arrival the 'Flounderings on the Veld' were largely due to Lord Kitchener's unfortunate reorganisation of the transport and supply system which Lord Roberts found in operation in January, 1900.
Mr. Holt lists amongst his sources the Right Hon. Leo Amery, CH, author of The Times History of the War in South Africa, but he has apparently not fully appreciated this lamentable story and the reasons for it. They are clearly set out in Chapter V, 'Supply and Transport,' of Part II of Volume VI of Mr. Amery's book. Mr. Holt's opinion that 'the new system was more effective than the old' is dis- proved by the fact that during the long wait at Bloemfonteim, subsequent to the loss at Waterval Drift on February 14 of half the supply park (noticed by Mr. Holt), 'much of the time was spent in quietly reviving under different names the system which had been so thoughtlessly swept away.'
Mr. Holt does not include amongst his sources Sir John Fortescue, the historian of the British Army, who, in Chapter X, Volume I, of his History of the Royal Army Service Corps, from which the above
extract is taken, deals in greater detail with the points made by Mr. Amery. A letter to me from Sir John Fortescue, dated June 11, 1930, opens with the words . . The whole story of Kitchener's muddle with the Transport in South Africa . . It is high time, that this aspect of an unfortunate episode in our military history should receive fair and objective treatm:nt.—Yours faith- fully,
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