december, 1899, to february, 1900.
the immediate effects of these events may be put under four heads:
1. a national and imperial awakening to the greatness of the emergency.
2. the appointment of lord roberts to the supreme command in south africa.
3. large additional reinforcements of regular troops of all three arms, and of militia.
4. the improvisation of large numbers of additional mounted troops. these belonged to three categories:
(a) three thousand additional regular mounted infantry, improvised by abstraction from every infantry battalion in south africa, with additions from great britain.
(b) the enlistment and gradual despatch of large bodies of volunteer mounted riflemen; from great britain (in the shape of 10,000 yeomanry), and from canada, australia, new zealand, and india.
(c) the enlistment in south africa of a quantity of new irregular corps of mounted riflemen, including a local militia for the defence of cape colony, the latter force being backed by town guards partly composed of infantry.
no question ever arose of training the mounted irregulars to the use of the steel weapon. the long postponed decision to raise yeomanry, for example, was 86directly inspired by a telegram from buller after colenso, asking for “8,000 irregular mounted infantry.” this view of present requirements did not represent any radical change of military theory. there was a general impression abroad, first, that this was a “peculiar” war demanding peculiar expedients; second, that it was a comparatively simple and easy matter to improvise mounted riflemen. the first proposition was a misleading half-truth, the second a profound fallacy, but the net result, however arrived at, was good. outside the cavalry itself, it was already generally recognized that the rifle must, in this war at any rate, be the dominant arm for mounted troops. even among the cavalry, reliance upon the carbine and upon the support of mounted riflemen had intensified with every day of hostilities.
as i explained in the previous chapter, the natal entanglement, with the wholesale diversion of troops which it entailed, had left cape colony in mid-november almost defenceless against invasion, slowly and timidly as that invasion was proceeding. it came at two principal points: in the north-east by way of aliwal north and burgersdorp to stormberg; and in the centre by way of norval’s pont to colesberg, and on towards naauwpoort. the former advance threatened only the east london railway-line. the latter advance was the more serious in that it endangered, not only methuen’s communications with the south, but the whole of the railway system from our two major ports, cape town and port elizabeth, with its three cardinal junctions—de aar, naauwpoort, and rosmead. the three serious defeats of mid-december, and especially that of gatacre at stormberg, increased the danger. at least six weeks must elapse before sufficient reinforcements could be gathered for the great projected advance under roberts. torpid as the boer strategy was, pusillanimity on our part might encourage them at any moment to greater efforts. our 87one resource for the time being was “bluff.” buller had realized this from the first, and given instructions accordingly to french, who had taken up the command at naauwpoort on november 20, with orders to “worry” the enemy, and make, if he could, a bold show of operating towards colesberg.
french performed the difficult r?le allotted to him with complete success. his operations lasted ten weeks, and included a multitude of small schemes and enterprises, which it is impossible for me to recount in detail. i can only sketch his doings and methods in broad outline, with a special view to their bearing on the question of weapons for mounted men.
aggression, perpetual but never rash, was the keynote of his action. as the handful of troops with which he started work slowly grew, by accretion from the base, to a substantial force, he steadily pushed forward, first to arundel, then to rensburg, then to a line immediately threatening colesberg, all the time widening his protective net to right and left over the adjacent country. his system was to harass, surprise, impose upon the enemy constantly, with forays, reconnaissances, and stratagems. except for the unhappy failure of an infantry night attack, no sensational fights occurred, but a great number of small engagements, which would repay close study.
the troops employed were of all arms—infantry, horse artillery, regular mounted infantry, australasian and south african mounted riflemen, and regular cavalry. numbers and composition varied from time to time. the total force at french’s disposal for active operations rose from about 1,200, mainly infantry, on november 20, to 2,000, half of them mounted, in the second week of december, and to 4,500 in the second week of january, 1900, when all immediate danger to the colony was at an end, and he was firmly established in the positions round colesberg, with his rear quite secure. 88this force included four batteries of artillery, and no less than 2,000 mounted men (an unusually high proportion), of whom some 1,200 were regular cavalry.
the boers, who were under the very poor leadership of d. schoemann, were also progressively reinforced. their available fighting strength at any given time is impossible to measure, since it varied from day to day, and week to week, with the energy or indifference of the burghers. but it is fairly safe to say that at the outset they outnumbered the british force by nearly two to one, held a distinct though lessening superiority for about three weeks—the really critical period of the operations—and in the second week of january were approximately equal to french’s forces. at a somewhat later stage they were considerably reinforced.
because french was a cavalryman, and because more than half the mounted troops engaged were regular cavalry, it has often been too lightly assumed that the colesberg operations proved the value of the training peculiar to cavalry—that is, in the arme blanche. mr. goldman, for example, in the course of a contrast between the types of cavalry and mounted riflemen, cites these operations as an example of the “successful use of cavalry when properly employed.”[19]
observe the confusion caused by nomenclature. the arme blanche was not and could not have been used, though the terrain was perfect for it.[20] i think i am right in saying that only on one occasion, the fight of january 3 near maeder’s farm, was there any question of sabres, even in pursuit. the 10th hussars and a squadron of inniskilling dragoons, with two horse batteries, were engaging a force under piet de wet, which had just failed 89in a surprise attack on an infantry position. suddenly the boers lost heart, and bolted across the plain; the cavalry followed in pursuit, but were checked by the fire of a small party who stopped to take cover in some rocky ground. by the time these men had been turned out their comrades were safe. this is a typical illustration of the weakness of cavalry in pursuit.
the cavalry, like the irregulars, acted throughout as mounted riflemen, and though, like all the troops engaged, they did well, they would have done much better if they had carried rifles instead of carbines, and had spent their professional life in practising rifle-tactics. in the same way the regular mounted infantry would have done better if in peace they had been regarded, not as a cross between infantry and cavalry, but as fully-fledged mounted troops, capable, with time and the proper education, of being of as much general practical utility as cavalry. the 400 new zealand mounted rifles, who formed the majority of the unprofessional mounted troops engaged, stood from the first on a footing of equality with the regulars, because they had nothing to unlearn, though, like everyone else, much to learn.
i must add three remarks upon the colesberg operations:
1. unlike the formal actions or battles we have hitherto been considering, these operations presented a multitude of minor tactical problems arising from the daily contact of small bodies of troops on a wide front. in all these small encounters down to those of patrols, the rifle, not the steel, governed tactics. if only those of our present yeomanry officers who are asking for the sword, not so much for shock action on a big scale as for this very class of small encounters, would take the trouble to study the work of their own countrymen in such operations as those around colesberg, they would, i believe, be converted to implicit faith in their rifles.
902. the operations, so far from being abnormal, bear a strong resemblance to the kind of work which, under our present system, cavalry, unhelped by infantry or mounted riflemen, will have to do in any european war, particularly during the initial stage of mobilization and concentration for a united advance. during this stage it is the duty of the cavalry to form a screen, both protective and aggressive in character. this was exactly what french, with his composite force, did. besides assisting to cover the rear of an existing force—methuen’s—he was in the position of covering the front of a hitherto partially mobilized and unconcentrated army. at first most of the army he was screening was still in england, his and its primary base. gradually it collected in force behind him, at the cape peninsula or secondary base, until it swelled into the force which marched under roberts to bloemfontein. that an ocean intervened between the primary and secondary bases does not affect the analogy. in the light of the colesberg operations, how grotesque seems the theory of the great preliminary shock duel which, according to “cavalry training” and the german theorists, is to be sought by the rival cavalry screens!
3. the “spirit” which actuated our operations around colesberg was not the “cavalry spirit,” which means essentially the spirit of fighting on horseback with a steel weapon. it was the spirit which should actuate all troops, but particularly mounted troops, simply because they possess horses—the spirit of aggressive mobility, backed by resource, stratagem, and dash. in french this spirit, not only now but throughout the war, was admirably exemplified, and we can only regret profoundly that it did not rest on a radical belief in the firearm as distinguished from the steel weapon, and that the cavalry he led was not trained upon that principle.
4. that french’s personality as an able and vigorous officer was a decisive factor in the success of the colesberg 91operations is proved by the narrative of other mounted work at the same period. the best mounted enterprise done by methuen’s troops during the long halt at the modder was pilcher’s sunnyside raid of january 1, 1900, by queenslanders and mounted infantry. the cavalry work, both in the reconnaissance of january 8, and at the koedoesberg on february 7, was the reverse of vigorous.
the relief of kimberley.
we now approach the principal cavalry achievements in the south african war. to explain their origin i must refer to the general military situation at the beginning of february, 1900. the only substantial change which had occurred in the boer dispositions since their successes of mid-december, 1899, was the gradual reinforcement of the colesberg force, which french had been containing, from a strength of 2,000 to 7,000; elsewhere they had stood in an attitude of passive defence. cronje had sat in his trenches at magersfontein facing methuen at modder river. the stormberg force, facing gatacre, had been almost inactive, and behind cronje the sieges of kimberley and mafeking had been carried on with no great vigour. in natal the siege of ladysmith had been maintained with diminished energy and steadily diminishing numbers, while louis botha held the line of the tugela against the repeated attacks in ever-increasing strength of buller’s relieving force. at the beginning of february the third of these attacks, that by way of vaal krantz, had just failed.
behind the screen so skilfully maintained by french the new army had been steadily collected. at the beginning of february it was sufficient for an advance.
by this time the last opportunity for aggressive boer strategy on the grand scale had completely passed away. for general, not merely local aggression, brain and 92mobility combined could not have availed to counteract the numerical superiority which we had now gained, and were increasing daily. our strength on paper in south africa at that moment (about 130,000 men on a conservative estimate) approximately trebled the paper strength of the boers, including their foreign and rebel auxiliaries.
our effective fighting strength—100,000 men and 270 guns—was between double and treble the effective fighting strength of the boers at the same period. our “effective fighting men” in cape colony alone, given by roberts in his despatch of february 4 as 51,900 (exclusive, as he said, of the garrisons of mafeking and kimberley and of seven militia battalions, and evidently exclusive also of all auxiliary non-combatant units), considerably exceeded the enemy’s entire field-force, reckoned on a gross, not on a net, basis.[21]
93but, although it was distinctly our turn for aggressive strategy, the problem which faced roberts was one of extreme difficulty. the fall of any one of the three besieged towns, especially that of ladysmith, would have involved a grave loss of prestige, and ladysmith was hard pressed. kimberley, in a far from heroic spirit, was actually threatening surrender, if not relieved immediately. roberts had to operate on exterior lines with a hastily improvised army, deficient in staff arrangements, transport, commissariat, and, above all, trained and experienced mounted troops. he rose to the height of a great occasion.
his scheme, briefly, was to leave a skeleton force under clements in front of colesberg; to turn the left flank of the stormberg commandos with brabant’s corps of 3,000 cape colony mounted volunteers; and, with the bulk of his own army, to march by the western flank on bloemfontein, smashing cronje and relieving kimberley 94in one stroke. this stroke, he was well aware, would automatically lessen the pressure upon natal.
all the cavalry in cape colony, and, under the original scheme, nearly all the regular mounted infantry, together with colonial mounted contingents, were to be formed into a semi-independent unit under french for the relief of kimberley.
the preliminary movements were consummated with extraordinary secrecy and skill. by february 10 an army of 45,000 men and 118 guns[23] had been collected behind the modder, of whom 37,000, representing approximately 30,000 combatant troops, afterwards took part in the invasion of the free state.
the infantry divisions, including that of methuen, were four, with a gross strength of nearly 30,000, and 76 guns. the cavalry division, which is our particular concern, with a gross strength of 8,000 men and 42 horse artillery guns, was divided into four brigades—three consisting of regular cavalry, one consisting of regular mounted infantry and colonial mounted riflemen. the regular cavalry brigades contained altogether seven regiments and portions of two others, a total of about 3,000 sabres. the brigade of mounted riflemen was 2,250 strong.
a word about the force of regular mounted infantry, totalling 3,500, now under roberts. most of this force had been raised during the last two months, and was very raw and crude, a large proportion of the men being scarcely able to ride, while a few still wore trousers or kilts. the horses, too, were ill-trained and in bad condition. but the force had at last been given the outline of a regular organization, and was now distributed in eight battalions of 450 each, grouped in three divisions, under colonels alderson, hannay, and ridley. roberts 95had intended all of these to form part of the independent mounted force, but this plan, through lack of time, proved not to be feasible. alderson’s division alone, 870 strong, went with french, brigaded, as i have shown, with 1,400 colonials. the rest of the regular mounted infantry stayed with the main army, in company with other volunteer mounted units (city imperial volunteers and colonials), making up a total mounted reserve with roberts of some 3,600 men.
cronje’s forces, including the men investing kimberley and a detachment in the west under liebenberg, numbered at the utmost 11,000, with 20 guns. of these 7,500 were under his immediate control. numerically, therefore, he was barely a quarter as strong as roberts, without counting in the latter’s force (as it should properly be counted) part at least of the kimberley garrison. in respect of mounted men, if all cronje’s troops, including the kimberley investing force, had been mounted, and all available for purely combatant duties, they would have been barely more than equal, numerically, to the mounted troops under roberts—that is to say, to the cavalry division and the mounted reserve reckoned together. or, to put the case in another way, if we set off the kimberley garrison against the boer investing force, the cavalry division, with its horse-gunners included, was equal to cronje’s main force. behind the cavalry division lay the mounted reserve, four divisions of infantry, and 76 guns.
in point of fact, cronje’s main force was not all mounted, much less well mounted. sandy soil and burning heat had played havoc among his horses during the last two months. not more than a quarter of his burghers were well enough mounted to perform long and rapid marches; about half were poorly mounted, and the rest were actually on foot. regarded as a whole, moreover, his army was no more mobile than our own. it 96was supplied, like ours, through the agency of heavy ox-transport, in motion slow and cumbrous to the last degree.
i have to insist on these figures and facts because, obviously, they have a close bearing on our inquiry into the relative merits of the steel weapon and the firearm. on the whole the cavalry division, when the operations began, was approximately as well off in the matter of horses as cronje’s force. they were in as good condition, probably, as the horses of an invading army coming 6,000 miles by sea to a different hemisphere can expect to be. the division was given a laborious task, though a strictly normal task, in the shape of a raid. the weather was very hot, water scarce, and the conditions exceedingly trying. the horses succumbed in hundreds, mainly from unpreventable causes. but we have to recognize a preventable cause. we may pass over the vexed question of overloading. most contemporary critics seem to have agreed that the horses of all our mounted troops were overloaded; but the light load is a counsel of perfection exceedingly difficult to work out in practice. i refer to faults under the heading of horse management, which was admittedly not up to the war standard. the defect was common to all our mounted troops, but in the case of the professionally trained cavalry we can trace the indirect influence of the shock theory, which in time of peace had encouraged artificial man?uvre as opposed to work under real field conditions. and yet, by perverse reasoning, the destruction of horse-flesh has been twisted by some writers into a negative argument for the arme blanche. as we shall see, steel weapons at no period of the war had any combat-value, whatever the condition of the horses.
it is depressing to reflect that the short raid now proposed under the trying conditions described was not strategically necessary. kimberley stood in no material danger. roberts, in overwhelming force, only twenty 97miles away, and ready to strike at cronje, would have been justified in disregarding the demands made by the civil population for immediate relief. practically he could scarcely take this course. facing the situation boldly and generously, he included the immediate, physical relief of the town in his scheme of attack on cronje, asked the cavalry division to perform the task, and was enthusiastically and energetically obeyed. we must remember, however, that under normal conditions the situation could scarcely have arisen. faced by 45,000 men, of whom, guns apart, a fifth were mounted, cronje must have raised the siege, and, if he risked a battle, have concentrated every man for it. even as it was, had our large mounted force been not only as mobile but as highly trained in the rifle as the enemy, it would surely have been used to secure the envelopment and defeat of cronje where he stood, in the magersfontein position. but it was not so highly trained. that was the governing factor and the true “abnormality.” kimberley could be given immediate relief only by a long, circuitous march which in the end wrecked the mobility of the division.
the position was this: the modder separated cronje from roberts. twenty miles north of the modder, and behind cronje, lay kimberley; but cronje’s communications did not lie in this direction. though the force investing kimberley was still supplied by rail from the transvaal—that is, from the north—cronje himself was now based by road on bloemfontein, nearly 100 miles to the east—towards his left flank, that is—a thoroughly false and dangerous strategical position for the boer leader. it lay with roberts to cut this line of communication and envelop cronje. north he must have operated, for cronje might decide at any moment to cut adrift from bloemfontein and retire north; but there was nothing to be gained by operating as far north as kimberley.
cronje, stubborn in spirit, but slow in thought and 98action, and, on this occasion, badly served by his scouts, was thoroughly mystified by the secrecy and suddenness of his enemy’s stroke. until the last moment he clung to the belief that he was to be attacked in the magersfontein trenches, which he had defended so successfully two months earlier. when threatening symptoms appeared to his left front, he did his best to watch this quarter by despatching successively three small bodies of his best-mounted burghers, under a. cronje, lubbe, and christian de wet, some 1,200 in all; but he made no effort to set in motion his partly dismounted main force of about 6,000 men, with its unwieldy laager.
ramdam, twenty miles south of the modder, and forty miles by air-line from kimberley, was the british point of concentration. french and the cavalry division left this point for the north early on february 12, with the main army slowly following, less methuen’s division, which remained to confront cronje. two days’ march brought french to the modder, with his troops and gun-horses already much spent. according to the “official history,” forty horses were dead and 326 unfit to march. there had been barely more than a show of opposition at the crossing of the riet and the modder. de wet, if he had chosen, might have done more to delay the advance with the 800 men whom at one moment he had under his hand, but he was daunted by the imposing array of horsemen and guns, and left lubbe with only 250 men to dispute the passage of the modder. he himself hung on the rear of the grand army, where he soon found his opportunity for a formidable stroke.
from the modder at klip drift to kimberley is twenty miles. cronje, though he did not yet suspect french’s objective, was beginning to be alarmed, and now detached another 800 men and 2 guns, under froneman and 99de beer, who were joined by 100 men under lubbe, to oppose him. french, on the morning of the 15th, after a day’s rest, swept this little force aside by one abrupt and vigorous stroke, which has become famous as the “klip drift charge.” a mountain of error has been heaped upon this event. let us examine the circumstances.
french, on the night of the 14th, had been joined, thanks to some splendid forced marching, by the sixth infantry division and by most of hannay’s brigade of mounted infantry—that is to say, by about 6,000 infantry, 20 guns, and 1,500 mounted men—a force in itself numerically superior to the whole of the main body now remaining with cronje. with the cavalry division added there were now at klip drift some 13,000 men and sixty-two guns. cronje’s communications with the east were definitely severed, the point of severance was held in force, and french was free for his independent spring on kimberley. as it happened, cronje on the same afternoon, dimly alarmed, had moved his headquarters and main laager a little east, so that it actually lay only six and a half miles west of klip drift, though the cavalry, in spite of a day’s rest, were too tired for the reconnaissance necessary to discover this fact. if the fact had been discovered, it would have shed a curious light on the proposal to relieve kimberley.
however, the immediate problem was to open the road for french to that town. nine hundred boers (with 100 of lubbe’s men reckoned in) and two guns faced the large force at klip drift. they were disposed in an arc, concave from the british point of view, occupying two converging ridges, between which ran an expanse of open ground about a mile in width at the narrowest point, and gently rising to a “nek.” both valley and nek were good galloping ground, without wire or obstacles of any kind. very few boers were on the nek—perhaps 100a hundred; the majority were on the two ridges. instead of clearing them out in the manner usual at this period, by a slow preliminary assault, french resolved to rush his whole division through the valley and over the nek, under cover of artillery fire.
it was a sensible resolve, promptly made and admirably executed. at the moment when french formed it he was about a mile distant from the modder and about two miles from the nek. his division, in column of brigade masses, had been checked by the fire of the two boer guns posted on the western or left-hand ridge, about 3,000 yards away, and by rifle-fire from the nearest part of the eastern ridge, about 1,500 yards away. all seven batteries of horse artillery, supported by two batteries of the infantry division and two naval guns—fifty-six guns in all—had opened on the two ridges and the devoted pair of boer guns, and had temporary silenced the latter. it was now that french ordered the charge, and while it lasted, all but two horse batteries, which were kept in reserve, continued to bombard the boer positions. gordon’s brigade, less two squadrons, which were engaged on the flanks, led the way, deployed in extended order—eight yards between files, twenty yards between front and rear rank—pace, fourteen miles an hour. broadwood’s brigade came next, 800 yards behind, and the other two brigades (one of cavalry, the other of mounted riflemen) followed, though exactly at what interval and in what formation we are not told precisely. but i think we may assume that the fully deployed charge was made only by gordon’s brigade, and that, at any rate, this was enough to secure the object in view.[24]
101it must be clearly understood that the objective of the charge was the lightly-held nek, to reach which the division had to run the gauntlet of the flank fire from the two converging ridges. all went well. as the official account says: “the squadrons of the leading brigade came at once under a shower of bullets, both from front and flanks, yet few fell. the extended formation, the pace of the charge, and thick clouds of dust, puzzled the burghers, while the supporting fire of the batteries shook their aim.” the nek was reached and won, the burghers who held it fled, only a few remaining to “be struck down or made prisoners.” (the times history says about a score were “speared or made prisoners.”) their comrades on the flank ridges appear to have ridden off before the charge was well over. with only fifteen casualties, the whole division and its seven horse batteries passed the danger-point, and went on that same day to kimberley. ferreira and the investing force beat an immediate retreat, and the town was relieved.
such was the charge at klip drift. what can we learn from it? in the first place, let us try to grasp the realities that lie behind conventional phraseology. the movement was not a “charge” in the commonest sense of the word, as applied either to cavalry, infantry, or any other troops. though offensive in character, it was not even in absolute strictness an attack; for upon the nek, which was the objective of the movement, there was nothing worth the attack of a division. least of all, as the times history truly points out, was it a “cavalry charge” in the sense of a shock charge with the steel weapon, for there was nothing substantial upon which to exert shock. this was perfectly realized by french, who was intentionally taking the line of least resistance, in accordance with his primary object, which was to get to kimberley, not to defeat these boers. with that end in view, he ran the gauntlet of fire, pierced the boer line, 102and proceeded. there was no possibility or intention of producing shock, for the leading brigade charged with files eight yards apart, a formation which excludes anything approaching shock. nor had the result anything to do with the steel weapon: necessarily not, for shock is the only real raison d’être of the steel weapon. the threat of any weapon would have served to drive the handful of boers from the nek in the face of such a deluge of horsemen. their actual losses were as insignificant as our own. there was no pursuit of any part of the boer force, for, as the official historian dryly remarks, “the british troopers, riding seventeen stone, and mounted on weak and blown horses, had no chance of catching an enemy riding fourteen stone on fresh animals.” that should surely give cause for reflection. this was only the fourth day out from ramdam: it had been preceded by a day’s rest, and this was the first operation of the morning. difficulties apart, in order to have converted the movement into such an attack as would have constituted a test of weapons, it would have been necessary for french either to pursue as best he could, or to use the position gained in order to turn upon cronje’s main laager, which now lay defenceless only six miles to his rear, or even upon the rear of cronje’s combatant force at magersfontein. but, even if he had known that cronje’s transport was so near, his orders were explicit—to relieve kimberley instantly. by an ironical coincidence, at this very moment de wet was raiding the main army’s transport at waterval.
the direct result of neglecting the boers who were driven away from klip drift was that a number of them returned shortly after the repulse, and took up an entrenched position north of the sixth division, where they curtailed the reconnaissances of our mounted infantry, and enabled cronje’s main force to march across our front during a bright moonlight night.
103as far as weapons are concerned, the whole interest of the day centres in the rifle—the boer rifle. for the first time in the war a large body of our mounted troops had deliberately entered and penetrated a fire-zone on horseback. that was the new fact. how had they done it? what were the conditions? what light is thrown on the age-old physical problem of vulnerability and mobility as modified by the modern magazine rifle? these are the questions of really serious interest to students of mounted action. it must be admitted that klip drift by itself does not afford much foundation for argument. with every boer rifle on the field reckoned as an effective factor, the disparity in the size of the forces engaged was so abnormal as to preclude far-reaching conclusions. of course, every boer rifle on the field was not effective. all the 900 burghers present cannot have been in the immediate firing-line, and the firing-line by no means wholly commanded the masses of moving horsemen. unfortunately, none of the accounts are precise on these important points—volume of fire and range. one can make only rough inferences from a comparison of narratives and maps.
the official map represents the enemy’s arc-shaped firing-line as covering five miles of ground. the times history makes it nearer seven; while the german official historian calls it two and a half. at any rate, it was a very thin, widely extended skirmishing-line, a part of which must have been out of range of the charge. i should imagine that half of the men on the western or left-hand ridge, which ran at right angles to the line of our advance, could not have fired an effective shot at the cavalry. with the eastern or right-hand ridge it was different. this was the more strongly held, and ran parallel to the line of our advance; but here, too, the average range must have been great, for the boers (as on the western ridge) lined the summit, not the slopes, 104and (according to the official map) only the northerly half of the ridge directly overlooked the narrow part of the valley, or, rather, the exit from the amphitheatre. what was the width of this valley or amphitheatre? again we are left in doubt. the contours of the official map represent it roughly as diminishing from three miles to one and a half; the narrative says that the nek—that is, the narrowest point—was from 1,200 to 1,500 yards broad. no estimate is anywhere given of the average range and volume of the flank fire from the two converging ridges. one thing only is certain, that the direct frontal fire—that is, from the nek—was insignificant. so few were the boers at this point that the official map does not mark them at all.
out of these scanty and conflicting data we may perhaps conclude that, allowing for the frontal extension of the cavalry and for the position of the boers on the summits of the ridges, the range was at no point less than 1,100 yards, and averaged about 1,300 from first to last, while the number of rifles brought into more or less effective play for a few minutes may be conjectured at 500 or 600. the ranges were long, therefore, and the rifles few, in consideration of the short time allowed for their use.
the next point to discover is: what were the physical and moral conditions under which the boer fire was delivered? let us note three main circumstances, all normal in character, but—in two cases, at any rate—abnormal in degree.
1. artillery fire.—bombardment by fifty-six guns, although it appears to have caused little or no loss to the boer riflemen, must have rendered accurate and steady shooting almost impossible. the german historian quotes a boer present as saying that “the fire from the english guns was such that we were scarcely able to shoot at all at the advancing cavalry.”
1052. dust.—this may be regarded as a normal circumstance, rightly to be counted on by any leader of horse who plans a mounted movement under fire. in later stages of the war the boers used to fire the grass for a similar purpose.
3. surprise.—this, everywhere and always, is the soul of offensive mounted action. it baulks the aim and daunts the spirit of the defence. french, by sure and rapid insight, obtained a tactical surprise here, and gained his object. but surprise by an approximately equal force is one thing, and surprise supported by the numbers at french’s command another. most of the boers present seem to have taken to their horses precipitately before the charge was over—and no wonder! the first brigade was backed by three others; these were backed by a division of infantry and guns and a quantity of mounted infantry. of the presence of this large force the boers were perfectly aware. in giving way before the charge, they can scarcely be convicted of the “demoralization” with which some writers charge them.
at klip drift, then, the conditions were abnormally favourable to the offence, and when we are seeking evidence concerning the effect of modern rifle-fire upon mounted troops in rapid movement, we must be careful to have these conditions in mind. still, the facts are there, to be noted: complete success of the horsemen, practically no loss. if klip drift stood alone, we should at least be justified in assuming that, under certain circumstances, a large body of troops on horseback, boldly and skilfully led, could face rifle-fire with impunity. but klip drift does not stand alone. it is only one—and by no means the most interesting—of a great number of episodes illustrating the same problem, and proving that, under far less favourable conditions—whether of numbers, ground, dust, or surprise, and without support from artillery—mounted men not only can pass a fire-zone 106unscathed, but make genuine destructive assaults upon riflemen and guns. but—and upon this reservation hangs the whole thesis i am upholding—the mounted men who do these things must be mounted riflemen, trained to rely on rifle and horse combined, and purged of all leanings towards shock. otherwise they will not get their opportunities, or, if they accidentally get them, will not be able to use them.
this revolution in mounted tactics was not to come from the cavalry. it should have come from them. with the exception of our raw mounted infantry, the boer police, and the small permanent corps maintained by the south african colonies, they were the only professional mounted troops in the field of war. in them alone lay the tradition of the mounted charge in any shape or form. they alone had, in fact, put the mounted charge into practice. theories apart, they alone were endowed by years of training with the drill and discipline requisite for that orderly deployment and swift united movement which were exhibited at klip drift, and which are the essential characteristics of any charge, under fire or not under fire, by whomsoever made, with whatsoever weapon, and for whatsoever purpose. unique as the conditions were at klip drift, it seems strange that the true lesson did not enter the minds of french and the other cavalry officers present. they cannot have imagined that shock had anything to do with success. the widely extended formation deliberately adopted was not peculiar to cavalry, nor was speed peculiar to cavalry: both were the natural attributes of all mounted troops. they must have realized, one would have thought, that the rifle was dominating the battle-field, causing those extended formations on both sides, preventing shock, and—because it was united with the horse—enabling the enemy to get away, alarmed, but without pursuit or appreciable loss, and ready to return 107shortly afterwards and to put up a good fight on the following day, again against superior numbers.
the bewildering paradox is that at bottom they did realize these things, though they did not reach the point of drawing the logical inference. otherwise it is impossible to explain either cavalry action up to this point or the general impression prevalent at the time of this charge, that it was an extraordinarily perilous and daring performance. why perilous and daring if the cavalry, with their steel weapon, are superior to mounted riflemen? if these boer mounted riflemen had been represented by an equal or even a much greater number of continental cavalry, armed with short carbines like our own cavalry, and relying mainly on the sword, would the performance have been then considered extraordinarily perilous and daring?
questions of this sort ought, i submit, to expose to any unprejudiced mind the fallacies underlying the arme blanche theory. but what does the old school say? let us turn to the german official critic’s remarks on klip drift, remembering the praise which has been showered upon his work, and that it is germany which, even at this hour, inspires our cavalry ideas. i quote the paragraph in full, as an example of the workings of the cavalry mind and of its blindness to realities:
“this charge of french’s cavalry division was one of the most remarkable phenomena of the war; it was the first and last occasion during the entire campaign that infantry was attacked by so large a body of cavalry, and its staggering success shows that, in future wars, the charge of great masses of cavalry will be by no means a hopeless undertaking, even against troops armed with modern rifles, although it must not be forgotten that there is a difference between charging strong infantry in front and breaking through small and isolated groups of skirmishers.”[25]
108it will be seen that the writer’s method of evading the true moral is to call the boers “infantry.” in other words, he shuts his eyes to the whole point at issue. the boers were not infantry. they were mounted riflemen corresponding to german cavalry, but with many added functions, and possessing the offensive and defensive power of infantry. they had reached the field on horses—it might well have been that they could not have reached it in time without horses—they were acting in defence, dismounted, against crushing odds; but their horses were not far behind them, available for retreat, vulnerable also to attack. they left the field safely on these horses, and a number of them soon returned on these same horses to fulfil the vitally important function of masking the flank march of their own main body. meanwhile, few as they were, they had compelled the cavalry to conform to conditions imposed by the rifle and to take the line of least, not of most, resistance. if they had been german cavalry of that date, trained primarily for shock, with poor firearms and little practice in skirmishing, they would not, in the first place, have had the confidence to take up the extended position which these men took up, unsupported and facing an army. and if they had taken it up, they could not possibly have rendered even a direct frontal attack, however conducted, in any degree dangerous except to cavalry of exactly their own stamp. if, on the other hand, they had been infantry, nothing but a miracle could have saved them from complete destruction without any charging at all. the most indifferent operations on their rear and flanks, either by our cavalry or mounted infantry or colonials, would have sufficed to pin them to their ground, while the infantry, six times their strength, disposed of them. but, of course, the whole supposition is visionary. if they had been infantry, they would not have been there at all.
109in any case, had they been either infantry or cavalry, no critic would permit himself to speak of the “staggering success” of the day’s operations. but what becomes of sanity when that unfashionable type, the mounted rifleman, is in question, particularly if he is an “irregular”? let the reader only take the trouble to substitute the words “mounted riflemen” for the word “infantry” wherever it occurs in the german paragraph, and note the disastrous effect upon the cavalry theories of the writer. it is like finding the key-word to a cipher.
but i may be misleading the reader by taking advantage of the german writer’s unconsciously ambiguous use of the word “cavalry.” to him, as to all germans, that word means mounted troops whose distinguishing feature is a steel weapon and the capacity for shock. as i have already explained, french’s troops were not acting as “cavalry” in this sense. if they had been, there might be some ground for the tameness and caution of the german inference—namely, that in future wars such charges will be “by no means a hopeless undertaking”; an inference further qualified by the remark (perfectly true) that this was only a case of “breaking through small and isolated groups of skirmishers,” by a whole division, be it remembered. surely a most damaging admission for an upholder of shock! we may wonder what the critic would have thought if he had stopped to the end of the war, and had seen the situation at klip drift reversed—800 boers making a direct frontal charge upon three thousand stationary troops and several batteries of guns, and coming within measurable distance of success.
such is cavalry comment on cavalry action. it is typical and authoritative, or i should not spend so much space on it. mr. goldman[26] speaks of the “madness” of the charge “according to all military rules,” of the “climax of daring” which prompted it, and of the 110justification it gave to “the advocates of bold cavalry action.” note the implied syllogism: cavalry carry the arme blanche; this was a successful charge by cavalry; therefore the arme blanche is justified. this is not to misinterpret mr. goldman, for in a special appendix devoted to proving the superiority of cavalry over mounted riflemen, and under the heading “shock action,” he expressly instances this charge as testimony. the “official history” is scarcely less misleading.[27] without any instructional analysis of the physical and moral factors, it describes the charge as the most “brilliant stroke of the whole war.” such indiscriminating extravagance of praise does a world of harm. the critic, in his hazy enthusiasm, mixes up two distinct aspects of the attack—its strategical and its tactical aspects. on the assumption, upon which french acted and was compelled to act, that kimberley needed relief, and that it was worth while to wreck the cavalry horses and neglect cronje’s main force in order to effect this relief, he may truly be said to have carried out his strategical task brilliantly, even with allowance for the numbers under his control and for the co-operation of the infantry. tactically, too, upon the same assumption, he did the right thing promptly and well, and deserves all the higher credit because he was a pioneer in the experiment of subjecting horses to modern rifle-fire. but in a serious history uncoloured by the emotions of the day, to call the charge, regarded as a tactical feat, the most brilliant stroke in the war is an abuse of language which would not be tolerated for an instant if any other class of troops but cavalry were in question. judged by a reasonable standard of risks, numbers, and achievements, either set of combatants in any one of the bloody and stubborn fights at this date just beginning in natal for the final relief of ladysmith deserved more praise. among mounted operations the 111attack at bothaville (october, 1900), many other british attacks, and many boer attacks, were more admirable.
what must follow logically from such exaggerated laudation? that it takes a division of cavalry to pierce merely—not to roll up or shatter—a thin skirmishing line, and even then it is a brilliant feat. what, then, of future wars—continental wars? at klip drift we can scarcely dissociate the leading brigade from the three following brigades. practically the whole division was acting as a unit for one purpose. in the whole of the crimean, franco-prussian, and austro-prussian wars of the last century, there is not, so far as i am aware, a single instance of a division of cavalry charging as one homogeneous unit. rare were the charges of more than one regiment; rarer still those of more than one brigade.[28] in these wars large armies, approximately equal, were arrayed against one another. and the method was shock—exerted upon substantial bodies of men—true physical shock, for which mass cannot be too dense or coherence too close. even if we cling to shock, and persuade ourselves that klip drift was an example of it, where are our standards?
what, we may ask lastly, is the explanation of all this confused reasoning, and the strange conclusions to which it leads? nothing but the fascination of the arme blanche. while giving unstinted admiration to the brave men who faced unknown dangers so steadily and resolutely in this ride at klip drift, we must look here for the comparative failure of their branch of the service during the war. they had felt what the training-book calls the “magnetism of the charge,” the exhilaration of swift, victorious onset under fire—sensations which they had always been taught to associate solely with the steel weapon and solely with the arm of the service to which they were proud to belong—the cavalry. the old tradition, 112somewhat shaken by months of bickering with firearms and for the most part on foot, seemed at last to have been triumphantly justified. it was an error. they mistook both the causes and the extent of the triumph, and remained in the old groove of thought, which this charge, properly construed, should have taught them to discard. in reality the best part of their tradition lived in all its pristine splendour; the rest was obsolete. clinging to the obsolete, they missed the vital part.
from this time onwards they were to do much hard and good work, not, in the cavalry sense, as cavalry, save on a few insignificant occasions, but as mounted carbineers, and, in the last phase, as fully developed mounted riflemen. but their hearts were never wholly in it. there were arrières-pensées; vain longings for situations which obstinately refused to recur; a tendency to throw the blame on the horses, on the higher command, on anything but their own inability to read the signs of the times and vitalize their own traditions by recognizing the uselessness of the steel weapon and the predominance of the rifle.
