The Times of Monday notices a very interesting Dutch pamphlet
on the lessons of the war lately published by Captain Ram, one of the Dutch Military Attaches who accompanied General Botha's army. The pamphlet is in the main an answer to the objection that the British could not really have fought well because their attacks were so often driven off with comparatively little loss of life,—i.e., they did not persist when the percentage of loss was far less than in the Franco-Prussian War. Captain Ram's explanation is moat curious, interesting, and, we believe, correct. It is, in fact, that it is not the actual number of killed that affects men's minds, but the vast possi- bilities of death that are, so to speak, e broad and in the field. Captain Ram argues, in effect, that the influence of casualties on the morale of a force is really secondary, and that the chief immediate demoralising power of an enemy's fire lies in that portion of it which is without material effect. Modern weapons, he goes on, "have this advantage for the defence, and consequent disadvantage for the attack, that the latter begins to feel the threat of danger while still at a very great distance from the enemy whose exact position cannot be made out. In con- sequence he feels himself for a long period helplessly exposed to a danger he can do nothing to avert." Very interesting also is Captain Ram's declaration that it is positively dangerous to increase too greatly the number of men in the firing line in a defensive position. Was it not the neglect of this that lost us Spion Kop ? It might have been held by hundreds, but not by thousands.
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