THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA.*
THE preparation of the Official History of the War in South Africa has been dogged by misfortune throughout. At the outset there was the untimely death of the lamented Colonel Henderson, who had originally been appointed to be the official historian, a task for which he was, of course, pre-eminently fitted. Not only was Colonel Henderson one of the most brilliant writers on war that our Army has ever seen, but in addition he had no small share, as a member of Lord Roberts's. Staff, in initiating the admirable plan which culminated at Paardeberg, and definitely turned the tide of disaster and defeat. A second visit to South Africa to study the terrain of the actions which he was commissioned to describe was terminated only a few weeks before his death, which it is to be feared was greatly hastened by the bard work done during his visit. Colonel Henderson's death thus deprived us of the valuable comments which would undoubtedly have been made on many an incident of the war by a soldier who was universally recognised as a past-master in that "use of ground" in which our troops as a whole proved themselves so inferior to their Boer adversaries. His mantle fell upon the capable shoulders of Sir Frederick Maurice, who, however, found • History of the War in South Africa. Compiled by Direction of M. Government. Vol. I. published June. 190e; Vol. /I. published July. 1907: Vol. IlL published June, 1999. London: Hurst und Bluekett. [21s. net per voL, or 17s. Oa. per vol. to Subscribers.] himself severely handicapped at the outset. He was forced by the late Government to " scrap " nearly all, if not all, of Colonel Henderson's preliminary work, because that officer had given utterance to the unanimous opinion of the Army in basing his defence for the untoward events at the beginning of the war on the steady refusal of the Salisbury Government to allow any military preparations whatever to support their uncompro- misiug diplomacy. It is asserted that Sir Frederick Maurice himself held similar views regarding the real cause of our earlier disasters, with the result that he, in his turn, was delayed for over two years in getting his first chapters passed by the same Government. Next, his own serious illness —from which we are glad to learn that be is now quite recovered—robbed the title-page of the third volume of his name, and for the second time deprived us of a dominating intelligence. What this loss means is obvious at once to those who compare the new volume with that which appeared last year. There is good work in the third volume ; some of the chapters, indeed, rise to a high level ; but, as a whole, it is too clearly the result of painful collaboration, smelling very distinctly of the lamp, and lacking just that high inspira- tion and that unity both of purpose and of arrangement which distinguish a good history from a mere chronicle. Lastly, as we understand, the work of completing the history has now, for reasons that are indeed incomprehensible to the lay mind, been forcibly taken from the Historical Section of the General Staff and handed over to the Committee of Imperial Defence.
In all the circumstances, then, it was not to be expected that, with such a chequered and unsatisfactory career, the Official History should at all approach either the brilliant and inspiring volumes which were prepared under Mr. Amery's direction for the Times, or the careful, though ponderous, Official History in which the Great General Staff of Germany have left on record the facts regarding their conduct of the Franco-German War. In the matter of criticism Sir Frederick Maurice never allowed himself to express blame, though he occasionally so far relented as to show an unmistakable enthusiasm for gallantry or skill The result was, in the first two volumes, a certain air of self-satisfaction which, though no doubt unintentional, was much too English, and this somewhat unpleasing impression is increased in the third volume. The chapter on the siege of Mafeking, for instance, is admirably written, and assuredly does not exaggerate either the peculiar genius of General Baden-Powell, with his "unquenchable and almost exotic attraction towards the unusual in warfare a pro- fessional soldier by training, and a soldier of fortune by predilection," or the merit of a feat of arms which, in a war full of "regrettable incidents," stands out quite untarnished by failure. But the entire absence of any hint of blame for incidents such as Lindley or Rhenoster River or Dewetsdorp throws even the gallantry of Mafeking into disproportionate relief; and if the facts, and these alone, are to be recorded regarding the disaster at Lindley, or De Wet's escape at Olifant's Nek, then similar treatment, uninspiring and dull though it may be, should be meted out also to the most gallant feats of arms. For ourselves, we should be pre- pared to go even further, and to urge that while there might be something to be said for a reference in an Official History to the subsequent fate of the unsuccessful, the insertion, even in a footnote, of the names of those who were fortunate enough to earn the V.C. is altogether out of place. Sir Frederick Manrice's second volume covered all Lord Roberts's operations up to the eve of departure from Bloem- fontein ; it also dealt with the relief of Ladysmith ; in other words, it described what, to Continental soldiers at any rate. is by far the most engrossing period of the war. For this reason alone it rivals in interest both its predecessor and its successor, and, indeed, the narratives of Paardeberg and Spion Kop leave little to be desired. In both narratives one fact stands out : the serious handicap under which both Lord Kitchener and General Buller laboured, first from their in- experience of any but native wars or of handling any really large body of troops, and secondly and above all from the entire absence of a proper Staff. Unquestionably the sad fiasco at Spion Kop, and in a lesser degree the failure of the well- conceived but miserably executed attack on the laager at Paardeberg, were attributable to the fact that both the Eastern and WesternArmies were not armies in the real sense
of the term, but scratch teams of splendid battalions led by gallant officers ignorant of each other's personal equation,
sometimes even of their relative seniority, and so at critical moments unable to decide who was the responsible commander in a given part of the battlefield. The result was what might be
snticipated by any scratch team in games much less formid-
able than war,—confusion, want of cohesion, and disaster more or less severe. We are glad, however, to note that, while regretting its bad execution, Sir Frederick Maurice agrees with the German General Staff in approving Lord Kitchaner's .attempt to storm the laager at once, though he differs from the Germans in approving Lord Roberts's subsequent
decision to gain his object by the slower method, on the
.ground that, as was also the case with Wellington, it VMS not a British army, but the British Army which the
Field-Marshal commanded, and that it seemed almost impossible to replace even relatively small losses with sufficiently trained men from home, and, above all, with well-trained officers.
In the third volume the general narrative, which cora- -mences with an account of the first rebellion in the north- western districts of Cape Colony, carries us on through the advance on Pretoria, with the contemporary advance of Sir R. Buller in Natal, to Komati Poort and to November, 1900, by which date regular operations on the European model had given way to guerilla warfare in excelsis. This volume therefore includes the battles of Diamond Hill and Bergendal, the siege and relief of Mafeking, the surrender of Prinsloo in the Brandsvater Basin, De Wet's brilliant raids upon Lord Roberts's line of communications, and the first Pe Wet hunt.
While the tactical features of the various actions are interesting, and often spirited, there is observable in an aggravated form in the third volume a failing which was already noticeable in the second,.–"there is little, if any, attempt to deal with the strategy of the war. When Lord Roberts entered Bloemfontein on March 13th the Boers had undoubtedly become seriously disheartened. Had immediate advance been possible, the whole war might very well have been ended then and there. Unfortunately there was a long pause at this very critical moment. There were, of course, convincing reasons for this. The invading army had expended every military requisite except its own spirit and physical fitness," and very shortly even the latter was seriously impaired by the pestilence the troops had brought with them from Paardeberg and by the subsequent loss of the water- works. But no attempt is made by the historian even to discuss the possibility of an earlier advance, nor, when the advance took place, to point out how deliberately Lord Roberta neglected the still unconquered and very .formidable commandos in the north-east of the Orange Free State. The immediate consequences were, of coarse, the serious disasters upon an ever-lengthening line ef communications,—disasters which were little less than the turning-point of the war.
We are far from saying that Lord Roberts was wrong in hurrying northward as he did ; on the contrary, we hold emphatically that he was right. But the whole question is undoubtedly worthy of careful examination and discussion, and should not have been treated so scantily in a volume of the weight and authority that one has a right to expect in an Official History. As we have said, the narrative of individual events is detailed enough ; a good part of it is distinctly
• good, both as military history and as literature ; what is lacking is the grand strategic outlook, a eurdinal defect which it is greatly to be feared is characteristic of the entire nation.
As regards the many successes and the marvellous escapes of De Wet, which reach their cnlmivatiog point in this volume, the principal lesson to be derieed from the whole story is again the breakdown of the Staff, a breakdown which was accentuated by the attempt to deal with scattered opera- tions and isolated columns by telegraphic orders from head- ..quarters, often received hours after the euserge,ncy had passed and sometimes never received at all. Where is, however, reason to believe that this lesson at least has btep laid to heart by • those who are responsible for the preparation of pi' Army for war.
We have only to add that the maps with which all three volumes are richly supplied are admirable in all respects.
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