TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE BOERS IN THE FIELD.
IT seems now practically certain that war will come in a few hours, and will come, not by an advance of our forces into the Transvaal, but by the invasion of Natal by the Boers. We do not insist on this in order to prejudice the Boers in the eyes of the British public. Granted that they are determined not to yield to our demands, and that they therefore believe war to be inevitable, they are well within their rights in attacking us. To mean war as they mean it, and yet to wait till our reinforcements arrive, would be most foolish. But though the merits of the struggle cannot fairly be said to be affected by the fact that war seems destined to come in the shape of an invasion of Natal by the Boers, the military situation is very considerably affected by the way in which the war will begin. If the Boers, instead of defending their own borders, and making their own country the theatre of the first act of the war, make the triangular wedge of Natal which runs up between the Free State and the Transvaal the place of battle, they will have given a very definite and special complexion to the campaign. It is on the assumption that they will do so that we shall attempt to discuss the military situation. Doubtless before long we shall hear that Boer columns are converging from Laing's Nek, from the Free State border, and from Zululaud upon Lady- smith, and that the struggle is beginning in earnest. Now, of course, if the Boers beat us at once, and so thoroughly that they can, after taking Pietermaritzburg, proceed safely to the coast, hold Durban, and oppose the landing of reinforcements, we shall be for a time in a position of grave difficulty. The bold policy of invasion will, that is, have been justified. But suppose, on the other hand, that our troops, though not able, by want of numbers; to drive the Boers back into the Transvaal, are quite able to hold their own and to keep the Boers in check for another fortnight,—i.e., until the Indian rein- foreements have not only all been landed but have reached the theatre of war. In that case the effect of having chosen a policy of invasion will very possibly be by no means so favourable. If what we suggest happens, the Boers will find themselves at a distance from their base and face to face with an unconquered and augmenting force. This is not necessarily a hopeless position. and might give no anxiety whatever to some armies. But unless we are mistaken, it would be a very formidable position for a force like that which is now threatening Natal. In the first place, the Boers, though individually brave, are not a disciplined force. After their fifteen or twenty thousand farmers have been a fortnight in the field many of them will be extremely anxious to get home. Their excitement and their zeal will have largely died out, and that rest- lessness which comes to all soldiers who are "stuck up" and not engaged in decisive action will be sure to take possession of them. These feelings have their effect even on a highly disciplined and organised force of professional soldiers, but in regular armies they are easily kept down by the strict organisation of the force. In an army like that of the Boers, where there is practieally no organisation, and so no cohesion, even though there may be willing obedience when an actual command is given, there is, however, little to check the centri- fugal forces that begin to work among troops worried by not being able to beat their enemy or to get on with their main object. We do not, of course, mean to suggest that the Boers will ride home in thousands if they are kept in the field, but we do think that a large number of men will melt away by twos and threes on various excuses, and that those who remain will be dis- contented, and pressing either for retreat or for im- mediate action. What will be likely to increase these difficulties is the fact that there will be little or no possibility of getting fresh supplies. All soldiers know that an army in the field has a perfectly insatiable maw, and that everything, from biscuits to bombs and from men to horses, is perpetually being asked for, and ought to be sent up in endless supplies. But, unless we are greatly mistaken, the Transvaal Executive will find it extremely difficult to keep sending up these supplies for an army of twenty thousand mounted men. In the first place, they,wilt not find it possible to send more men to stop the unavoidable and normal leakage of war, for practically all the able-bodied Boers will be in the field already. Next, we very much doubt whether it will be possible to send down horses to supply the place of those which will be used up at the beginning of the campaign. But even if the horses can be found, what is to be done about their fodder ? The grass within reach of the camps—and, remember, camps there must be when twenty thousand men are in the field—such as it is, will soon be used up or spoiled, and then recourse will have to be had to compressed hay and so forth. Now the Boers may develop into good organisers, but we shall be greatly sur- prised if we do not hear of horses starving because the waggons of hay meant for them have got stuck in a drift, or gone in the wrong direction, or met with some other of the thousand and one casualties that occur in a campaign. In all probability, then, there will be a great mortality among the horses. That is the experience of all former wars, and we do not see why this one should be an excep- tion. A distinguished cavalry officer who served in the American Civil War on the Northern side once said to the present writer: " You need not trouble that your troop horses can't do all the tricks done in the German regiments. After the first fortnight of really hard cavalry fighting half the men are riding anything they can get hold of." But we doubt whether the Boer will care to fight without his pony, and hence every horse lost risks also the lose of a man. In a word, we think that if after the first fortnight is passed the Boers are held in check by our troops and can make no quick or sensational movements, their army will get into.consider- able difficulties from the withering of its force, and from its inability to get fresh supplies on an adequate scale.
No doubt we shall be told that all these surmises are worthless, because in 1880 the Boers managed to keep the field for a fairly long period, and got on very well with- out supplies or extra horses. We admit it, but then in the late war they were campaigning on a perfectly different system from that which they must now adopt. To begin with, they fought, not with an army of fifteen thousand to twenty thousand men, but with one of about two thousand. But two thousand men, especially when they are split up, as a rule, into bodies of only two or three hundred, can supply themselves and their horses through their own exertions. Furthermore, the Beers then had no artillery, and consequently had no need for horses to drag the guns and the supplies of shell and powder. People talk lightly about a battery or two of field-pieces, but they forget all the wheeled carriages that a battery involves, and without which it is useless. We may depend upon it that the military problem changes in kind when the numbers change in degree. Two thousand. farmers may fight with splendid results on a system which if applied when there are twenty thousand of them in the field will mean something very like ruin. You may work a small office of four clerks without any regular system, and achieve much better results than are achieved by a rigid organisation. Try, however, to run an office of fifty clerks without a strict organisation, and the whole thing is certain to break down.
But if the Boer army does get into the difficulties which we have suggested, we should not be surprised if it very rapidly fell into a condition which would either cause its retreat or else would expose it to being attacked by us and driven back. If so, its resisting power would be gone, and we should find the road to Johannesburg and Pretoria open to us. If things go like that, the invasion of Natal may prove a blessing in disguise, and may prevent the forcing of the passes in the teeth of a fierce Boer opposition, which would neces. sarily be a difficult task. We do not, however, want to talk as if the war were going to prove an easy task. It is very possible that things may go much worse than we have supposed, that the Boers will, prove to have staying power as well as courage, and that we shall have a long and uphill fight. In any case, our duty is absolutely clear. The fight once begun, we must carry it through to the bitter end. When the sword has been drawn, it can- not be sheathed till absolute racial equality is established from the Cape to the Zambesi.
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