The Most Sacred Cow of them all

There is / was a much-loved myth that the Tommies of the BEF were uniquely capable of such incredibly rapid (yet devastatingly accurate) rifle fire that, at the Battle of Mons (23 August 1914), the Germans reported they were facing a mass of machine guns. It’s something I enjoyed being told many years ago when I was a kid, and – I would imagine – something that many other Brits have taken a degree of pride in over the decades. Except no one has ever produced the evidence that the Germans ever stated this,[1] and, while not denying the professional soldiers of the BEF were capable of very effective rifle fire, it would seem the story has grown arms and legs over the decades.

As one recent debunking of ‘The Mons Myth’ declares:

‘Rapid rifle fire’ was not the battle-winning wonder weapon that British historians have made it out to be. Repeatedly German infantry, supported by artillery and MG fire, was able to cross hundreds of metres of open ground in the face of ‘rapid rifle fire’, close with the British infantry and throw it out of its position or destroy it in place. The idea that ‘rapid rifle fire’ was so effective that the Germans took it for MG fire finds no support in German sources.[2]

Oh well, it was fun to believe while it lasted. But even the most patriotic Brit would have to accept that, even though there is a kernel of truth to the legend, the whole 1914 ‘mad minute’ thing seems to have been ever-more greatly exaggerated with each telling.[3] Indeed, any decent, objective and mature observer would now, if not dismiss it, then surely accept that the awesome fire power of the BEF has been hammed-up a little over the years for reasons of national pride. That is what open-minded, intelligent people do when new facts are presented, and when a pleasing myth is shown to be based largely on wishful thinking and embellishment.

If only we could find any such open-mindedness, maturity and objectivity when it comes to the similarly comforting myths of ‘phenomenal’ Boer marksmanship.

‘But! But! But… that’s different!’, the True Believers will be screaming already.

One of the main ways that the myths of the Boer War are kept alive is through the endless use of completely subjective statements. I have lost count of the number of times I have been assured, for example, that the Boers were ‘all good shots’, or that they ‘were exceptional marksmen’ or other, similar, variations on this self-serving theme. Likewise, making a pointless, wishy-washy, completely unsubstantiated statement like, ‘some of the Boers were brilliant shots’ is just weasel words, and means nothing; of course some were – just as some of the British troops (or troops of every army) of the period were brilliant shots. But unless any of this is quantifiable and testable, they are simply meaningless statements – as much as they make a certain type of person feel much better about himself when he says them.

Needless to say, the True Believers (and indeed, many normal intelligent people too) will say: ‘but everyone knows the Boers were good shots! This doesn’t need to be proved! – except it does. Everyone ‘knew’ the Mons Myth was true for decades… except it isn’t, and nothing should be accepted as fact simply because it makes us feel better about ourselves. Besides, all the myths which still shroud the Boer War with a dense haze of Apartheid-era propaganda are things that ‘everyone knows’ – except they are all nonsense, or, at least, gross exaggerations. So there is no logical reason to claim that the myth of the Boers being ‘the best marksmen ever’ is different, or, indeed, that this is so undeniably true that no one should dare even examine it objectively.

The language which surrounds the myth reminds one of that used by strange, Far Right, unemployable incel types, when they argue about which was ‘the best tank of WW2’ on the internet. Sitting in their vests in their mum’s basement, they invariably scream that it can only possibly have been the Tiger or the Panther (yes, bizarrely it always seems to be a Nazi tank) – as if there is a provable, falsifiable and definitive answer to this question. Firstly, who gets to decide how one defines ‘best’? Biggest calibre gun? Cheapest to produce? Thickest armour? Fastest off-road speed? Most confirmed tank-on-tank kills? Best reliability? Easiest to repair a track? Lightest? Fuel efficiency? Quickest to train a crew to operate? Lowest silhouette?

And even if we go for, say, ‘most confirmed tank-on-tank kills’ (which might seem reasonable at first glance), it is virtually impossible that this data will be complete and 100% accurate. But – more importantly – even if we had completely accurate data of all the kills attained by all the various models of tanks during the war, are we comparing apples with apples, or apples with oranges? If our data shows that a certain tank has the most kills, this could easily be for many other reasons than it being ‘the best’ tank. Was that type in service much longer than others? Did more of them see action than other rival contenders? Was this type mainly up against an inferior enemy? Did it operate under air supremacy? Did it fight mainly in terrain suitable for tanks? Did it fight in defensive actions more often than other contenders? Did other rival models mainly face infantry? etc etc etc. Simply put, and as much as it will upset the rivet counters and Waffen-SS fanboys out there, there is no testable scientific way to ‘prove’ any such childish claim.

Just as there is no logical, testable way to ‘prove’ the claims of Boer marksmanship brilliance. Firstly, how would one define these amorphous terms? How would one class someone as being a ‘good shot’, for example, and what would make another fellow an ‘exceptional marksman’? And how would we prove (as in, actually prove – not just make unsubstantiated, feel good, claims) what percentage of the Boers made these grades? And how could we then prove that this was a higher percentage than in British or Colonial units of the war?

Let’s say – purely for the sake of argument – that we define a ‘good shot’ as someone who can hit a man-sized target at 400 yards with nine rounds out of ten when firing from a prone position. Where is the raw data that, when tested on the range in the same weather conditions, 73% of all the Boers who fought in the war attained this (for example), but only, say, 52% of all the British and Colonial troops who served in South Africa did? Obviously, no such data exists (not could it), so none of the self-congratulatory claims of brilliant Boer marksmanship are provable in any sort of recognisably objective fashion.

Which is why the myth instead relies entirely on anecdotes – many of which are either simply made up on the spot (usually something like, ‘my grandfather shot 20 Tommies through the head at 1,500 yards’); or else are cherry-picked from the accounts of the Boers themselves. Such anecdotes are supported by the (incorrect) claim that ‘they were all hunters and farmers!’ (which even if this was true, why would it automatically make them all better shots than a trained soldier?). Basically, all this is about as unscientific, subjective and, often, dishonest as it is possible to be.

All the claims one hears round the braai of the Boers cheerfully picking off officers at 1,000 yards are – quite simply – hogwash; modern-day British army doctrine gives a max effective range for the section sharpshooter[4] as 600m (or harassing fire out to 800m). Similarly, for a sniper with a proper, state-of-the-art Accuracy International sniper rifle fitted with arguably the best telescopic sight in the world today,[5] and firing the .338 Lapua Magnum (8.59mm) round – supported by a spotter who handles the ballistic calculations (wind, range, air density, and angle) – British army doctrine gives max effective range for kills as 900m – or just 600m for a first round kill.[6] Anyone who – after a few too many Klippies – boasts about the Boers routinely picking men off at ranges well in excess of this (using a Mauser with iron sights, nogal) has either never held a rifle, or has watched a few too many Hollywood films.

Alas, there will always be some – even (especially?) in academia – who will unthinkingly present as Gospel the memoirs of Boers who claim incredible prowess with the Mauser. Prof Pretorius, for example, uncritically presents this account by Izak Meyer, a Boer who fought at Modder River:

‘Now I am deadly calm, and with deadly calm I pick my man, pick them one by one. I pick him, my Mauser drops, my left eye closes, I get him in my sights and my Mauser cracks. The Englishman totters, drops his rifle, grabs his chest … I shoot them down, one after another, one after another’.[7]

Stirring stuff! But are we being asked to believe that this is typical of what happened that day? And, indeed, is there any reason to simply believe it is even true? No one is likely to leave an account in which they say they sat at the bottom of a trench, crying in terror as artillery shells burst above him. And, if Meyer is being held up some sort of exemplar of how the Boers steadily massacred the blundering Tommies that day, how did they lose the battle? Besides, General Colvile, who commanded the Guards Brigade at Modder River, noted the Boers were ‘weak in ‘fire discipline’ and wasteful of ammunition’.^[8] So who was correct? Leaving subjective opinions (and unprovable anecdotes) aside, what we do know for sure is that, after the Boers opened fire (far too prematurely, due to lack of discipline)^[9], most of the Tommies spent much of the rest of the battle on their belt buckles,[10] while others forced their way through the river, turned the Boer flank, and made them flee the battlefield. So who, one wonders, were these rows of Englishmen who were still obligingly plodding forward, only to ‘totter’ when they were shot down by ole ‘Dead-Eye’ Meyer?

Unthinkingly trusting to a partisan, worm’s eye view account by a very junior player is not a logical way to prove anything, yet the memoirs of Deneys Reitz are another source which is uncritically waved about the ‘prove’ the myth. But indignantly squawking, ‘But Deneys Reitz says it!’ is hardly the same as presenting an objective set of data, especially given how utterly inaccurate parts of his book are. Reitz was one of the Boers who tried to trap the men of the Rifle Brigade after their successful raid against the artillery on Surprise Hill, for example, and claimed that he and just ten others ‘accounted for more than eighty opponents’.^[11] But, in reality, only 16 riflemen were killed in the whole raid.^[12] However, let’s be charitable and – rather than call him out for lying – excuse this (ahem) ‘extreme exaggeration’ as being due to the confusion of a night action. Either way, it shows that personal anecdotes (even greatly appealing ones) have to be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

Furthermore, and rather at odds with the pleasing myths of the Boers all being hunters and frontiersmen, Reitz described his comrades in the Pretoria Commando as, ‘mostly young fellows from the civil service and the legal offices and shops in the town. Few of them had ever seen war, or undergone military training’.^[13] General Ben Viljoen wrote similarly, ‘…immediately martial law is promulgated the entire Boer adult male population is amenable for military service. In the ranks of a commando one finds men of every profession, from the advocate and doctor to the blacksmith and plumber.’^[14]

Long before the war, Commandant-General Joubert had recognised that the standard of marksmanship was certainly not on par with today’s myths, and – in an attempt to remedy this – pushed to have the burghers take part in shooting competitions.[15] Not all seemed terribly interested in this however, and Joubert complained that ‘burghers had sold their arms, or taken them outside the State, or given them to Kaffirs’ – he even tried to get laws passed to control this, but to little avail.[16] So what would lead the unbiased observer to automatically assume that all these men were nevertheless, and without exception, brilliant shots, and far better marksmen than the trained British Tommies? Indeed, to blithely make such an assumption would appear both illogical and arrogant.

And this is where we get down to the nub of the myth: leaving aside bizarre fantasies about racial supremacy, what makes any rational, intelligent person genuinely believe that the Boers were all born with some sort of God-given, inherent brilliance at marksmanship? They were barely even recognisable as a distinct group, being made-up of a hotchpotch of relatively recently-arrived settlers from various European nations (including Britain, and with a significant dash of rather more exotic, if always hushed-up, blood). So why the assumption – and widely-held belief – that simply moving to the republics (or being born in them) transformed a normal man into a supreme marksman?[17] Are we meant to believe that there are other groups of people out there who are all born as brilliant helicopter pilots? Or as naturally brilliant veterinary surgeons?

As every burgher was liable for commando service (and unless one is conceited and stupid enough to believe that, simply by living in the republics, men were transformed into a master race of natural snipers), one has to accept that – just as in any other nation – plenty of burghers proved unsuited to military life; whether due to being cowardly, reluctant, lazy, disruptive, short-sighted, asthmatic, flat-footed, pigeon-chested, over-weight, or – wait for it – a terrible shot.

The British army, on the other hand, was rather different. For a start, most applicants were rejected: of the 77,648 men who applied to join the British Army in 1897, only 33,771 were finally accepted.^[18] Unlike the unavoidable dragnet which hauled men – however completely unsuitable or unwilling – into the Boer commandos, British army recruits had to comply with strict limits on age, height, chest measurement, and weight—all of which varied depending on the branch of service.^[19] It was noted that recruits into the British Army were generally bigger and more sturdily built than those of European armies^[20] —which should not be surprising, given they (like the Boers) generally practised conscription. Any picked, volunteer force is likely to end up with men of a higher average quality than a ‘come one, come all’ set up.

Unlike the Boers, who could be a completely untrained civilian one day, and off to war the next, all British infantry recruits went through at least twelve weeks of well-structured basic training upon joining the army. Eight days of this was spent on the range, judging distance and doing target practice under a sergeant instructor. The course was broken into four parts, part one of which was individual firing at different targets and at distances of 200, 300, and 400 yards. Recruits were required to fire from prone, kneeling, and standing positions, and needed to score 175 points to pass—if the recruit failed, he had to re-take part one before moving on.

Part two also covered individual firing, out to ranges of 800 yards, while part three involved rapid individual firing at ranges of up to 500 yards. Despite the widely believed myth that British troops were only ever taught to fire volleys, only part four of the training included sectional[21] volley fire, as well as rapid individual fire—both kneeling and prone—out to ranges of 600 yards.^[22] Each recruit fired a minimum of 189 rounds during this basic training—more if he had to re-sit any stage.^[23]

Once the new recruit joined his battalion, this training in marksmanship was refreshed every year. This was usually done over two days, with part one comprising individual firing up to ranges of 800 yards, and part two comprising a mix of rapid individual firing, rapid volleys, and deliberate volleys. Attack practice by sections was also done using live rounds^[24] and there were also movable and vanishing targets available for field training.^[25] 150 rounds were allocated to each trained soldier for target practice each year—by no means a lot, but a good deal better than nothing—with the best shots qualifying as marksmen. The Victorian Era was famous for ‘small wars’, but the 1890s featured a couple that were rather bigger than most. One should bear in mind that many battalions had thus put their training into practice during recent service in the Sudan, or, even more tellingly, out on the NW Frontier – in a theatre, and against a foe, which were among the toughest imaginable.

Despite all this, it is nevertheless de rigueur to pretend that the British army only became interested in marksmanship due to ‘being taught a lesson by the Boers’. Though undoubtedly it is comforting to assure like-minded people of this at a braai, it simply does not fit with those inconvenient things known as ‘facts’. The annual ammunition allowance was indeed increased after the Boer War, but only to 300 rounds a year – which was reduced to 250 rounds in 1906. Hardly a revolutionary change, and even the pre-war allotment of 150 rounds was already well in excess of that assigned by her European rivals.[26] Besides, and in reality, the British army had been focused on marksmanship long before the Boer War, and had established a school of musketry at the Kent town of Hythe way back in 1853. This was staffed by a corps of expert marksmen who trained regimental instructors to pass these skills on to the men of their regiments—each battalion was obliged to send two officers and two sergeants to Hythe each year.^[27] Indeed, so well respected were the marksmen produced by the establishment that ‘Hythe trained’ became a byword for the highest of standards. By 1880, a thousand men a year were passing through the School of Musketry,^[28] all of whom returned to their regiments and passed on their skills.

There was also a monetary incentive: each year, brigade commanders were allotted 1/- for each recruit who passed his basic training target practice, and 2/6 for every trained soldier, money that was used by battalion commanders to give prizes to good shots. Additionally, any soldier who qualified as a marksman was allowed to wear the coveted ‘crossed rifles’ badge, while the best shot in each company wore a similar badge with a gold star added.^[29]

Driven by two men who would be play prominent roles in the Boer War—Lord Roberts and Colonel Ian Hamilton—a similar school was established at Simla in India. Roberts stressed straight shooting and fire control, and was so impressed by the results achieved by Hamilton at Simla that he made him the Indian Army’s Assistant Adjutant General for Musketry in 1889.^[30] Ian Hamilton’s experience of having faced the Boers at Majuba, and elusive tribesmen armed with modern rifles on the NW Frontier, prompted him to write the ground-breaking The Fighting of the Future as early as 1884. Hamilton made a well-argued case that, thanks to new technology, the days of men acting implicitly on command had been superseded by a need for individual skill, personal initiative, and marksmanship.^[31]

Hamilton oversaw the introduction of more ‘realistic’ targets, including the ‘Jumping Jenny’ (a head-and-shoulders target which popped up in different locations for just two seconds) and the ‘charging tiger’ (a barrel which rolled down a slope towards the riflemen).^[32] In 1892, Hamilton organized a field firing exercise which took realism to a whole new level: markers, hidden in trenches, braved the storm of fire to work disappearing and moving targets. When the attacking troops got to within 50 yards of the trenches, these brave souls threw out balls made of canvas stretched over bamboo (about 3’ in diameter) towards the troops, who blew them to pieces with accurate and sustained rapid fire.^[33]

Roberts pressed to have Hamilton’s skills taught to all units stationed in India rather than just those of the Indian army, and – at a time we are constantly assured it was ‘hidebound by tradition’ – British Army training regulations were brought into line within two years.^[34] When Lord Roberts returned to London, he continued to push the War Office to keep the training at Hythe relevant and tirelessly lobbied for good ranges and plenty of practice ammunition.^[35] It is worth noting that the innovative training practices Hamilton introduced at Simla impressed the top brass sufficiently enough that he was brought home to Britain to run the School of Musketry at Hythe.

So, given all this, where is the logic in arrogantly assuming that Reitz’s ‘young fellows from the civil service and the legal offices and shops in the town’ and Viljoen’s ‘advocate and doctor… blacksmith and plumber’ would all automatically be far better marksmen than trained, and in many cases, veteran Tommies? Where were the equivalents of Hythe and Simla in the republics? The best Joubert – who was increasingly concerned about the standard of marksmanship of the burghers – managed was to secure a few thousand pounds each year to be distributed as prize money for rifle contests.[36]

Did the Boers gain a reputation as good shots? Undoubtedly so, and several senior officers – including Roberts and Kitchener[37] – made this point at the post-war Royal Commission.[38] But, then again, the BEF also gained the reputation for firing as fast as machine guns at Mons, and we now know that is largely a work of fiction, embellishment and wishful thinking. Besides, several witnesses at the Royal Commission took a very different view, with the well-regarded Lieutenant-General Hunter stating that he believed the effectiveness of the Boers’ long range fire was ‘mythical’, and adding that he had regularly patrolled the Ladysmith perimeter, secure in the knowledge that none of the besieging Boers would be capable of hitting him.[39]

Hunter did concede that, ‘There are certain shots who have earned their living as professional hunters, and from 200 yards to 300 yards they are undoubtedly marvellous shots’[40] – so a rather more realistic take: ‘certain shots’ among the Boers were ‘marvellous’ out to just 300 yards. Damning with faint praise, one might almost say. Hildyard, MacBean, and Colvile all stated there was no difference in the marksmanship between the two sides,[41] while Buller – who ultimately defeated the Boers in Natal, then again at Bergendal – believed the British were the better of the two.[42] General Brabazon gave what was possibly the most insightful take of all, telling the Commission: ‘If you pump lead in a certain direction at a proper distance you must hit somebody’.^[43]

So rather than just blindly trusting to unprovable, contradictory and, in some cases, self-serving, anecdotes, we need to examine how well-deserved the Boer reputation actually was – which brings us back to the apples and oranges aspect of the ‘best tank of WW2’ argument again.

Because they had started the war by invading British territory, virtually all the major battles of the conventional war saw the Boers holding defensive positions, and the British infantry assaulting to turn them out of these. Talana Hill, Elandslaagte, Belmont, Graspan, Modder River, Nicholson’s Nek, Willow Grange, Magersfontein, Stormberg, Colenso, Tugela Heights, Helpmekaar, Botha’s Pass, Alleman’s Nek, Driefrontein, Diamond Hill, Bergendal etc, all involved British troops advancing to contact – and (despite what some like to tell one another) doing so successfully more often than not. Spion Kop and Vaal Krantz were somewhat different, in that they saw British troops successfully take and hold positions, but then voluntarily abandon them.

But the point is that we are not comparing like with like. When one side is, in the overwhelming number of examples, attempting to drive the other from defensive positions, it stands to reason that the side which generally enjoys all the benefits and advantages of holding entrenchments will consistently inflict more casualties, and thus can (disingenuously) be portrayed as the better marksmen.[44] General Colvile made this point at the post war Royal Commission, only to be mocked for it by modern-day writers: ‘[Colvile argued] that the British shooting was as good as the Boers, but that the hitting was worse, due to the Boers’ ubiquitous use of cover!’[45] To put Colvile’s point more simply: if two men are shooting in totally different circumstances at very different sized targets, it would be illogical to trumpet that the one lands more hits on the (much) bigger target is the better shot.

Equally, there is no reason to scoff at General Buller for stating he thought the British infantry were better shots than the Boers[46] – with that caveat that this was as long as they knew the range. The civilian reader might chuckle at this, but that is to misunderstand just what a critical advantage this is in a fire fight. If they have established their positions correctly, the side holding defences will have checked and logged the ranges to certain features – which gives them an enormous advantage over the side which has to attack these positions, and thus has no way of doing the same. And as the side doing the attacking was overwhelmingly the British, they did not generally get this significant benefit. Again, before declaring one side was so much better, one has to consider if they are being tested on a level playing field.

With this in mind, surely both Buller and Colvile had valid points: how can one fairly compare the marksmanship of the two sides, when one was overwhelmingly firing from defensive positions? As we have seen, not only did the side holding these present a much smaller target, and mark ranges in advance, but also, thanks to the recent introduction of smokeless powder, they also had the enormous advantage of near-invisibility: ‘The disappearance of black powder has exerted a far more potent influence in moulding tactics into a new shape than the increased power and accuracy or the rapid fire of the modern rifle and gun. Concealment has been so greatly facilitated by this that it has gained a new and commanding importance. It was a standing grievance in South Africa that the Boers could only be heard and not seen’.[47]

So all in all, even those who think they are comparing Boer marksmanship to that of the British, are actually comparing the difference in the effectiveness of fire of troops holding prepared positions, to that of troops crossing open terrain to try and storm these positions. As touched on above, this is never going to be a fair or even meaningful comparison; the former are not only firing from trenches / cover, but they are doing so most likely at known ranges, from braced positions, with plentiful ammo stocks at hand, and at much easier targets… and without the disadvantage attacking troops have of being winded by dashing forwards, and – more often than not – facing a nigh-on invisible enemy. Even in a situation when the enemy defences were spotted, the defending troops – crouching in trenches or behind natural cover – presented a far, far smaller target than a man in the open. No matter the nationality of the troops involved, it would thus be utterly astounding if those manning defences did not take a significant toll on the assaulting troops in such situations – it was by far the easiest facet of war.[48]

And none of this came as much of a surprise. This new reality of warfare was acknowledged in the British Army’s 1889 edition of Infantry Drill, which stated that, when attacking entrenched troops with a three-to-one advantage and artillery support, even if successful, the assaulting infantry could still expect losses of 25%.^[49] These were the sort of loss-rates Britain military theorists predicted as the norm, but how many examples are there in the Boer War of the Tommies taking 25% losses in a successful attack?

At Talana Hill – the first significant battle of the war – the Boers were not entrenched, but the British 8th Brigade attacked without a 3-to-1 advantage. Nevertheless, the Tommies chased the Boers from their positions, sparking a general retreat back over the border, and sustaining total losses (killed and wounded) of only 226 men^[50] (or about 5%) in the process.[51] Nevertheless, one paper – which appears to have been written for the sole purpose of keeping the myths alive – sagely declared that ‘From a comparison of the casualties suffered by the British (223) and the Boers (130)… the Battle of Talana Hill thus proved Boer musketry skills to be superior to that of the British’.[52]

Leaving aside the inconvenient fact that this (ahem) ‘superior musketry’ completely failed to beat off the British attack, or win the Boers the battle, did the writer of this really expect that the attacking British would inflict higher casualties against a virtually invisible enemy, which was firing at them from behind cover… and which then legged it as soon as the Tommies got too close? One might as well state, ‘From a comparison of the casualties suffered by the Americans (2400+) and the Germans (1200), the Battle at Omaha Beach thus proved German musketry skills to be superior to that of the Americans’. Does this fellow really have zero concept that assaulting troops are at a massive disadvantage?

Still, if nothing else, at least he has provided us a perfect example of the mind-set we are dealing with: even when the Boers fail to repel an assault, lose a battle, and flee the field, this is still shamelessly trumpeted as ‘proof’ of their superior marksmanship.

But anyway, let’s return to the real world.

The next day, at Elandslaagte, a smaller force of British infantry (about 1,620 men, supported by four dismounted squadrons of the Imperial Light Horse[53] – maybe another 350 men) completed one of the most comprehensive victories of the whole war. And this despite only having about a 2:1 advantage.[54] As part of a brilliantly coordinated infantry attack, seven companies of the 1st Devonshires emerged almost completely unscathed despite advancing frontally to pin the Boers in place: ‘During the three hours it was under fire, the battalion kept line and intervals carefully throughout, and adjusted sights and fired as steadily as if on parade. It is to the perfect steadiness of the men and the absence of crowding that the very small losses from the enemy’s fire, which at all times was heavy, can be attributed.’ ^[55]

Indeed, the Devons did not lose a single man killed in the action, and only four officers and 29 men were wounded^[56] – or total casualties of only about 4%. While the Devons fixed the Boers in place, elements of the Gordons, Manchesters and Imperial Light Horse turned their flank, routing them. As mentioned, just under 2,000 infantry and dismounted light horse took part in the highly successful attack, and sustained total casualties of 263^[57] in the process[58] – or, about 13%. Furthermore, of the British casualties at Elandslaagte, only 50 were killed. So where were all the ‘head shots at 1,000 yards’? How was it possible that the British infantry – even without a 3-to-1 advantage – were able to advance against such allegedly incredible marksmen, rout them, and somehow suffer far less severely than their own military theorists predicted should happen?

The Gordons and Devons had both been rushed in from the NW Frontier, but it was the same over on the Western Front. At Belmont, fought on 23 November 1899, Lord Methuen drove some 2,000 Boers from their prepared positions, sustaining just 297 causalities[59] from his infantry force of about 7,200[60] – OK, so an advantage of a little over 3:1, but losses of only about 3%. A couple of days later, Methuen’s men repeated the trick, chasing a somewhat reinforced Boer force (by then about 2,300 strong) out of their defences at Graspan. In so doing, Methuen’s infantry sustained total losses of just 168[61] or about 2.5%.

Continuing to defy the myths, Methuen then defeated a well-entrenched and further-reinforced Boer force (by then, about 3,500 strong with six guns and several pom-poms) at Modder River on 28 November.[62] Everything was against the British: even having been reinforced by the 1st Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, thus making good his earlier losses, Methuen still only had 7,700 infantry,[63] so had only about a 2-to-1 advantage. Furthermore, the Boers were holding what they boasted as being ‘impregnable’[64] positions on the far side of a river, and True Believer favourite / ‘clairvoyant military genius’, De La Rey, was even on hand to help. Nevertheless, total British causalities in the victory were still only 460[65] – or just some 6%.

So, in all these British victories at the start of the war, the Boers actually performed far more poorly than the War Office military theorists had assumed would be the standard for the new age of warfare. Where is the evidence of the ‘phenomenal marksmanship’ that we hear so much about?

Maybe this will become more apparent a little later in the war, once all these ‘naturally brilliant marksmen’ had warmed up a little?

And yet, when Lord Roberts unleashed his brilliant flank move to both relieve Kimberley, and cut off Cronjé at Paardeberg, there was still little sign of it – even against what should have been easier targets. The final, dramatic flourish of the great flanking manoeuvre was performed by the men of General French’s Cavalry Division. Led by two regiments of lancers,[66] the cavalry charged^[67] Boer positions which blocked the valley to the north of Klip Drift. What should (presumably) have been another ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ style disaster was vividly described by one witness as:

‘…[a] spectacle such as no man of this generation had ever witnessed, or probably will witness ever again—some 3,000 cavalry charging a set position defended by guns and strongly held by concealed riflemen… One held one’s breath, expecting to see a whole squadron moved down by shrapnel or case, but though the rattle of the Mauser was continuous, our men swept on. The dust rising under the horses’ feet was punctuated with little spits kicked up by rifle bullets, and to the crackle of the Mauser was added the reverberating thunder of some 12,000 hooves…… [most fled, but some] continued to fight the ridge against the advancing lancers… the Boers, who, having then emptied their magazines, promptly put up the white flag, but our men were too close for this to avail. The main Boer position, though evacuated more promptly, was in such difficult ground that their forces had by no means cleared it when our squadrons swept over the nek, and our men galloped into the flying burghers, who jettisoned everything they could cast away in the effort to escape, carrying off, nevertheless, a few ugly wounds.’^[68]

Despite the ‘continuous rattle of the Mauser’, and the ‘emptying of magazines’, at the cost of just two killed and 17 wounded^[69] (or less than 1% total casualties) the cavalry had shattered the position, cleared the way to Kimberley, and sealed Cronjé’s fate. At yet, at the post-war Royal Commission, General Warren declared that the ‘Boers had only to keep at 2,000 yards from our cavalry in the hills and could shoot them down with impunity’.’^[70] Needless to say, there are some who prefer to simply seize upon this statement, rather than wondering how true it was.

With Kimberley relieved and after the subsequent crushing victory at Paardeberg, Roberts continued his war-winning advance. An attempt by De Wet to resist this at Poplar Grove, fought on 7 March 1900, saw the Boers fleeing their positions as soon as they saw Lord Roberts cavalry. This meant the infantry hardly had to break sweat, and routed De Wet’s men for total losses of just 49[71] – or well under 1% of Roberts’ force. In De Wet’s account of the war, he named the chapter on the battle ‘The Wild Flight from Poplar Grove’, while Conan Doyle scathingly summed up what a dismal effort the Boers had made at holding their meticulously-prepared entrenchments: ‘[Roberts’] plan of action was based, however, upon one supposition which proved to be fallacious. It was that after having prepared so elaborate a position the enemy would stop at least a little time to defend it’.[72] Again, if the myths were true and Warren’s testimony was accurate, why were Roberts’ horsemen not all simply picked off with headshots at over a mile? Why, instead, the unseemly panic and rout?

At Driefontein, fought three days later, Roberts triumphed again. De Wet and De la Rey’s men were yet again turned out of well-prepared positions, despite Roberts not enjoying a 3-to-1 advantage – and with total British losses of 438^[73] – or just 4% of his force.

The Battle of Doornkop took place couple of months later, on 28 May 1900. The most significant act of the battle was the Charge of the 1st Gordons, and this is often held up as an example of heavy casualties being sustained. The charge saw the battalion advance (as part of larger British attack) across a couple of miles of completely open ground. Despite the myths, virtually no casualties were taken in the first mile-and-a-half of the advance, but ‘when they were at 800 yards’ distance from the ridge the Boers began to pour out their heaviest fire. The Gordons then changed their slow swaggering pace for the double’. Despite lacking artillery support,[74] the attack was entirely successful with the Boers fleeing rather than face the bayonets of the Gordons. Losses were 21 killed, and 85 wounded[75] – heavy enough, for sure, but still only 14% of the attacking force[76] – despite everything being in the favour of the Boers.

If any battle should have been a showcase for the allegedly brilliant Boer marksmanship (and the claims of General Warren), surely it would have been Kalkheuwel. Fought on 3 June 1900, this saw lead elements of French’s Cavalry Division (about 4,500 strong)^[77] ambushed while tightly jammed in a mountain pass. However, and while there was initial panic and confusion, rather than being shot to pieces, the troopers instead quickly dismounted, and launched a counter-attack. Despite everything being against them, the cavalry troopers stormed the slopes, drove the Boers off and took their positions – losing only 3 killed and 6 wounded in the process.^[78] Kalkheuwel really should have been an absolute turkey shoot – with the cavalry trapped like fish in a barrel well inside effective rifle range.[79] But the simple, undeniable reality is that the Boers hardly hit any of them – either in the ambush, or the subsequent counter-attack. And not only did the cavalry rout their ambushers, they inflicted heavier losses on them than the British suffered, and captured some of their wagons.[80] If even an ambush against mounted troops packed in a mountain pass can only generate a handful of kills, where does this leave the myth? It is one thing to keep assuring each other that the Boers were all amazing marksmen… so why are we not seeing any real evidence of this?

And there are many more examples. Across the two days of fighting at their victory at Diamond Hill (fought on the 11 and 12 of June 1900, and again without a 3-to-1 advantage^[81]), the British only took total causalities of 176 men^[82] – or just over 1%. A couple of months later, it was a similar story at Bergendal – an action generally considered to be the final battle of the conventional phase of the war. Though most accounts tend to focus entirely on the over-running of the ZARPs on 27 August, the battle was much larger than just this, and was actually fought from 21 to 27 August 1900. Defying the myths once more, Boer forces were again driven from prepared positions, despite the British (yet again) not enjoying a 3-to-1 advantage.[83] And across a week of fighting, total British losses (killed and wounded, remember) were only 120[84] – less than 20 a day – or well under 1% of the force involved.

And so on, and so on.

So where, one wonders, is the actual, real-world evidence of this ‘incredible’ marksmanship? If they were all such extraordinary marksmen, why were the Boers unable to fight off so many attacks? I understand that for a certain type of person, it is important to be able to claim that, even though the Boers lost to the British, they were still (somehow) far better soldiers than them. It is an outlook which reminds me of the more blinkered type of rugby supporter who, after his team is beaten 45 – 12, still maintains they played better, deserved to win, and were cheated by the referee. Of course, the go-to excuse for the Boer War is that (yawn) the British ‘overwhelmed them with sheer weight of numbers’, but how does that square with so many British attacks succeeding without a 3-to-1 advantage? And why did the Tommies keep losing far fewer men in their victories than their own military theorists said should have been expected?

Besides, as we have seen, it is not as though any of these battles had left the British formations victorious, but so shot to pieces as to no longer be effective military units.[85] There is no hard-and-fast rule as to what level of casualties render a battalion ineffective, but a 1954 study by Dr Dorothy Clark provides a decent rule-of-thumb. In the paper called ‘Casualties as a Measure of the Loss of Combat Effectiveness of an Infantry Battalion’, Clark examined 43 infantry battalions which had broken / been rendered combat ineffective in WW2, and reported an average casualty rate of 40% – though there was a very wide spread, and there is obviously no magic number for such things.[86] Nevertheless, the US Army considered there was enough in the study to adopt a version of these findings, and charts in the 1964 Maneuver Control field manual showed a curve with the probability of units breaking based on percentages of combat casualties – and interestingly, this differentiated between attacking and defending formations. They concluded that, once a defending battalion reached around 40% casualties, the chance of breaking approached 100%. However, in the case of an attacking battalion, once it reached around 20% casualties, the chance of it being halted (designated a ‘type I break’) approached 100%,[87] while the chance of it breaking (a ‘type II break’) reached 40%.[88] And as we have seen, not even in the case of the Gordons at Doornkop did the casualties get close to 20%.[89]

OK, but how about a British defeat – surely that should prove the point for the True Believers? In fact, let’s throw them a bone and pick a pretty heavy one. Maybe this will let them wrap their soothing comfort blanket of fables around their shoulders a little longer.

Due to no fault of their own, the advance of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers at Colenso was about as unsuccessful as it is possible to be. And yet, despite being caught in close order and under fire from three sides, the massively over-strength battalion (no less than eleven companies, rather than the normal eight^[90], so around 1300 men or so^[91]) emerged with total causalities of ‘only’ 219, of whom just 52 were killed.^[92] Basically, and even with every conceivable advantage in their favour, and in a scene which is held up as (pretty much the only) example of the ‘blundering Brits marching forwards shoulder-to-shoulder to be mown down’, the allegedly brilliant Boer marksman could still only inflict total casualties of about 16% on the Dublins. Furthermore, and despite also being trapped in ‘the loop’, caught initially in close order, and under fire from three sides, none of the other battalions of the 5th (Irish) Brigade suffered anywhere near as seriously.

And the British defeat at Colenso is useful to explore the alleged brilliance of Boer marksmanship in other ways. The battle is often held up as the archetypal example of the ham-fisted Tommies being scythed down by the incredible marksmanship of the Boers. But, as the losses of the Dublins suggest, it is remarkable just how inaccurate the Boer rifle fire was that day. Instead, and as much as it pains some to hear it, the battle was more noteworthy for the sheer weight of fire[93] that ‘modern’ magazine rifles could lay down, rather the myths of superhuman accuracy some like to tell one another.^[94] As one commentator put it, ‘That the loss was not far heavier is surprising, in view of the intensity and volume of the enemy’s fire. The casualty list at least proved that the Boers were not the marksmen they had been supposed to be.’^[95]

And, as churlish at that may sound, it is undeniable he had a point: the Battle of Colenso lasted about five hours, and roughly 5,000 Boers were involved. As well as the prime targets presented by the men of the 5th Brigade being caught in the loop, a pair of RA batteries (the 14th and 66th) mistakenly deployed within rifle range, and it has been estimated that they (and the troops who tried to recover them) were taking fire from up to 2,000 Boers.^[96] For the sake of argument, let us assume that each of the 5,000 burghers present fired an average of 50 rounds that day[97] (ie. just 10 rounds an hour) – or some 250,000 rounds in total. Only 143 British soldiers were killed, but let’s be generous and also consider the 750 who were wounded (thus bringing the total up to just some 4.5% of Buller’s force). Statistically, 50 per cent of wounded troops are only very lightly hurt, and can be expected to ‘RTD’ (return to duty) within 72 hours.^[98] Based on this, we can expect that 375 of the Tommies WIA at Colenso were swiftly ready for action again.

This means that, despite all the advantages they enjoyed – a brigade being caught in quarter-column and then stuck on the loop of the river, repeated attempts to rescue the abandoned guns etc – the intense Boer rifle and artillery fire (firing at troops in the open, at known ranges) only managed to remove about 500 troops from Buller’s ORBAT that day – some of which would be back in action within a few weeks.

Despite the fact that artillery accounted for most combat deaths in the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, and World War II,^[99] let us again be generous, and assume that it would only have caused 20 per cent of British losses that day. This means that our estimate of a quarter of a million Mauser rounds only removed some 400 British troops from the ORBAT. Or, to put it another way, about 625 rounds per ‘kill’ – or 2,192 per actual kill. Where were all the ‘head shots at 1,000 yards’, one wonders? If the Boers couldn’t even match up to the myths at Colenso – with absolutely everything in their favour – it is hard to see much mileage left in the National Party fables of Boer super-human marksmanship.

Those who will (automatically and unthinkingly) dismiss my figures should note that, by way of comparison, some 10,000 British infantry and mounted troops fired 433,247 rounds of .303 ammunition at the Battle of Nicholson’s Nek.[100] At Wagon Hill, the men of the Imperial Light Horse picquet line each fired an average of 100 rounds in just the first half-hour of that action.^[101] Over on Caesar’s Camp, that same day, the decidedly understrength battalion of Manchesters fired off about 45,000 rounds.^[102] At Spion Kop, and despite only arriving as reinforcements relatively late in the action, the 2nd Middlesex contingent fired 69,012 rounds^[103] – or about 100 apiece. Similarly, at the famous and gallant defence of Rorke’s Drift back in 1879, the garrison fired an average of over 200 rounds apiece during the action – and this (like the ILH at Wagon Hill) from single-shot rifles. During Botha’s utterly botched attempt to invade Natal in 1901, the defenders of Itala fired an average of about 230 rounds per man. I know the fairy stories are hard to give up on, but even if one wants to use a figure of just half of my ‘back of an envelope’ computations, suddenly the myths of Boers all being able to shoot a farthing at a mile seem very far-fetched – as appealing as they will always remain in certain quarters (and to hell with any actual hard evidence).

And what is the reason to believe that, if the situations were reversed, and the British infantry had spent most of the war holding trenches and fighting off Boer attacks, they would have done any worse? In reality, on the rare occasions where the Boers could be persuaded to assault British defences, they proved far less effective at this than the Tommies did when the boot (veldskoen?) was on the other foot; meaning either the Boers were very poor assaulting troops, or the British troops could shoot them down even more readily than the Boers managed against the advancing Tommies. Either way, the myths don’t look great for the True Believers. Cannon Kop, for example, saw an assault by some 1,000 Boers driven off by just 50-odd Imperial police.^[104] 4,000 Boers were tasked to Wagon Hill on 6 January 1900, but failed utterly, suffering terribly in their defeat.^[105] Though De Wet did well at Nicholson’s Nek, this was with an advantage of about 4-to-1,[106] and against hastily prepared positions of isolated troops who ran out of ammunition. More noteworthy is that his attempts to storm Wepener all ended in abject failure^[107] – despite his numerical advantage of 5-to-1.^[108]

In one of the few accurate statements in his book, and after several hundred pages of giggling over tales of Imperial ‘humiliation’,[109] even Pakenham belatedly admits:

‘…the reason for those humiliating reverses was not the marksmanship of the Boers, not their better guns or rifles, not the crass stupidity of the British generals… It was that the smokeless, long-range, high-velocity, small-bore magazine bullet from rifle or machine gun—plus the trench—had decisively tilted the balance against the attack and in favour of defence.’^[110]

Simply put, in the age of the magazine rifle, it was far easier to occupy a trench and shoot at targets in the open, than it was to try to storm said trench. As even Pakenham belatedly admitted, the scales had tipped hugely in favour of the side holding defensive positions – no matter what nationality they were. By the late 1890s,[111] advances in weapon technology meant that things had changed out of all recognition, and magazine rifles firing smokeless powder, backed by machine guns and artillery, could put down an unprecedented weight of fire.

In his 1903 work, The Tactics of Today, Charles Callwell[112] – a Boer War veteran and one of the foremost military theorists of the age – made it clear that he considered tales of the ‘incredible marksmanship’ of the Boers were actually far more to do with weight of fire than anything else. With the advent of the magazine rifle, ‘a mere handful of men, lying down under shelter, can bring such a hail of bullets to bear upon ground extending for a considerable distance to their front that hostile troops attempting to cross this will suffer appalling losses in doing so, even if they succeed in the venture’.[113]

This is what really mattered – not old wives’ tales of someone’s grandad shooting a general through the eye at 2,000 yards.

So am I saying the Boers were bad shots? Obviously not: just as no one who presents evidence to dispute the ‘Myth of Mons’ is saying the BEF weren’t good soldiers. I am simply pointing out that, rather than just blindly accepting much-cherished myths that the Boers were all exceptional marksmen (or equally subjective assertions that they were – on average – so much better than the Tommies), I would like to see some actual, apples and apples, data to support this. I know from past experience that my objective approach to the study of the Boer War greatly upsets the sort of fellow who frantically needs this myth to be true, but if anyone can supply actual hard data – not just a couple of self-aggrandising / make-belief anecdotes – then do please feel free to share it. Just constantly squealing that ‘everyone knows’ this to be the case simply isn’t good enough; if ‘everyone knows’ it, then surely it should be child’s play to present some hard data on the subject. Until then, there is simply no evidence to believe that, just because they lived in the republics, the Boers had all been magically transformed into fully-trained snipers.

NOTES:

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/981bd938-2d4f-11df-9c5b-00144feabdc0

[2] https://warhistory.org/article/the-mons-myth

[3] One prosaic reason why the myth might have started is due to the confusion of battle. The British troops mistakenly thought German troops were falling from being hit, whereas they were actually dropping to take cover. For more, read ‘The Mons Myth: A Reassessment of the Battle’, by Terence Zuber

[4] Firing the state-of-the-art L129A1 sharpshooter rifle, equipped with the world-class TA648-308 6×48 Trijicon ACOG scope

[5] Schmidt & Bender 5-25×56 mm PM II

[6] British army Staff Officer’s Hand Book (SOHB), Section 4.3.1 – Infantry Weapons. Obviously, kills have been made at longer ranges, but we are dealing with what can be reasonably expected, not the occasional one off

[7] Pretorius, Life on Commando, p.141

[8] Colvile, The Work of the Ninth Division, p.12

[9] Carver, The National Army Museum Book of the Boer War, p.26

[10] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.1, p.251

[11] Reitz, Commando, p.59

[12] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.2, p.549

[13] Reitz, Commando, p.20

[14] Viljoen, My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War, p.275

[15] Slocum and Reichmann, Boer War Operations in South Africa, 1899-1901, p.119

[16] Slocum and Reichmann, Boer War Operations in South Africa, 1899-1901, p.120

[17] It is interesting that this supposed natural brilliance has not translated into incredible success in shooting events at the Olympic Games. South Africa has never won a Gold Medal in a shooting event, with their best showing being in the 1920 games in Antwerp, where South Africa won a Silver in the ‘Men’s Team 600m military rifle’ – an event which the myths would suggest the Boers should have been amazing at. Interestingly, however, the South African teammates had the distinctly non-Boer sounding names of Smith, Bodley, Buchanan, Harvey and Morgan. Two of these (Smith and Harvey) had been born in Britain, while Bob Bodley had served in the Boer War as one of Lord Roberts’ bodyguards

[18] Grierson, Scarlet into Khaki, p. 20

[19] Grierson, Scarlet into Khaki, p. 21

[20] Grierson, Scarlet into Khaki, p. 23

[21] One should note that at the time of the Boer War, a battalion was made up of eight infantry companies. These were each divided into half-companies, commanded by a Subaltern. Each half-company was divided into two sections, commanded by a Sergeant. Thus a section of the period was about 25-30 strong, rather than today’s 8-man unit

[22] Grierson, Scarlet into Khaki, p. 174

[23] Grierson, Scarlet into Khaki, p. 175

[24] Grierson, Scarlet into Khaki, p. 176

[25] Grierson, Scarlet into Khaki, p. 174

[26] Jones, ‘Shooting Power’: A Study of the Effectiveness of Boer and British Rifle Fire, 1899 – 1914, p.20

[27] Grierson, Scarlet into Khaki, p. 178

[28] Blackpowder, Winter 2007, p. 37

[29] Grierson, Scarlet into Khaki, p. 176

[30] Hamilton, The Happy Warrior, p. 79

[31] Hamilton, The Happy Warrior, p. 51

[32] Hamilton, The Happy Warrior, p. 52

[33] Hamilton, The Happy Warrior, p. 81

[34] Hamilton, The Happy Warrior, p. 80

[35] Hamilton, The Happy Warrior, p. 81

[36] Slocum and Reichmann, Boer War Operations in South Africa, 1899-1901, p.120

[37] Jones, ‘Shooting Power’: A Study of the Effectiveness of Boer and British Rifle Fire, 1899 – 1914, p.19

[38] Jones, ‘Shooting Power’: A Study of the Effectiveness of Boer and British Rifle Fire, 1899 – 1914, p.12-13

[39] Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, vol.2, Q 14587, Q 14588, p.138

[40] Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, vol.2, Q 14585, p.138

[41] Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, vol.2, Q 15982, p. 241; Q 16988, p. 292; Q 19593, p .415

[42] Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, vol.2, Q 14383, p. 212.

[43] Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, vol.1, Q 6860, p.294

[44] Similarly, in the last three years or so of WW2, the Axis were generally on the defensive, which inflated their level of performance

[45] Jones, ‘Shooting Power’: A Study of the Effectiveness of Boer and British Rifle Fire, 1899 – 1914, p.18

[46] Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Q 14383, p.212

[47] Callwell, The Tactics of Today, p.7

[48] I can assure the reader that, even in the 1990s, being on a ‘section in defence’ range was a far, far easier way to spend a day than doing section or platoon attacks

[49] Infantry Drill (1889), p.409

[50] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, 1899–1902, Vol.2, p.174

[51] The later capture of 187 men of the 18th Hussars and MI took some of the gloss of the victory, but cannot be considered when discussing the losses sustained in the successful infantry attack

[52] Ellis, Musketry, The Anglo-Boer War Experience, p.14

[53] Five squadrons (B, C, D, E and F) of the ILH were present at Elandslaagte, but one was detached the guard the guns, so only four took part in the assault. The sixth squadron of the regiment (A Squadron) was patrolling south of the Tugela at the time, and would be the only squadron of the Imperial Light Horse which would not end up stuck in Ladysmith during the Siege

[54] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.1, p.161

[55] Jacson, A Record of a Regiment of the Line, p. 18

[56] Jacson, A Record of a Regiment of the Line, p. 18

[57] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.1, p.464

[58] These are actually the total British casualties for the battle, rather than just the infantry assault, but should be close enough as few other casualties will have been sustained

[59] Pakenham, The Boer War, p.188

[60] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.1, p.466

[61] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.1, p.467

[62] Rather laughably, Professor Nasson frantically assures his readers that the Boers were not ‘panicked into flight’ when large numbers of Free-Staters quite clearly had been, and that ‘the Boers can hardly be said to have been beaten in battle’ when quite clearly they had — being driven from an ‘impregnable’ position after a large chunk of your army has run away is generally considered a loss. If this is the standard of teaching at the History Department at Stellenbosch University, it is easy to see why it sits at such a low rating in the Times Higher Education world university rankings

[63] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.1, p.467

[64] Phillips, A Tiger on Horseback, p.42

[65] Carver, The National Army Museum Book of the Boer War, p.27

[66] The 9^th Lancers and 16^th Lancers formed the first line. Other regiments who charged were the Household Cavalry, 10^th Hussars, 12^th Lancers, the Carabineers, Scots Greys and 6^th Inniskillings, plus the Australians and some Rimington Guides and Mounted Infantry thrown in too

[67] Technically, as many were at pains to point out at the time, it was not really a cavalry charge as such: it was aimed, not at shattering an enemy force but at breaking through a weak point in the enemy line – either way, there was little evidence of the legendary Boer marksmanship that day

[68] Maydon, French’s Cavalry Campaign, p.86

[69] Holmes, The Little Field Marshal: A Life of Sir John French, p.91

[70] Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Vol.2, Q15850, p.233

[71] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.2, p.591

[72] Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War, p.78

[73] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.2, p.591

[74] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.4, p.145

[75] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.4, p.145

[76] Only six companies of the battalion took part in the charge, as the other two were attached to the Canadians in the attack

[77] SAMHS, Military History Journal Vol 9 No 4 – December 1993, Ambush at Kalkheuwel Pass, 3 June 1900

[78] https://www.chrisash.co.za/2022/08/04/kalkheuwel/

[79] SAMHS, Military History Journal Vol 9 No 4 – December 1993, Ambush at Kalkheuwel Pass, 3 June 1900

[80] SAMHS, Military History Journal Vol 9 No 4 – December 1993, Ambush at Kalkheuwel Pass, 3 June 1900

[81] Some 14,000 Imperial troops vs about 6,000 Boers

[82] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.3, p.542

[83] British forces totaled some 19,000, Boer forces were some 7,000. See Pakenham, p.454-455

[84] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.3, p.542

[85] Even those who begrudgingly accept that the British won at Modder River often try to pretend it was ‘only a Pyrrhic victory’. As we have seen, and like everything else these types mindlessly spout, this is simply not borne out by the facts: Methuen’s infantry only took 6% total casualties that day

[86] In 15 of the 43 cases of the study, the battalions suffered more than 40% casualties before they broke

[87] Any significant loss of junior officers and NCOs will cause most battalion attacks to falter

[88] Headquarters, Department of the Army, FM 105-5 Maneuver Control, p.128-133

[89] These figures can be compared to those suffered by the 4^th Worcestershires on 6^th August 1915 in the Gallipoli Campaign. Attacking Turkish positions known the Krithia Nullah and the Gully Ravine, the battalion lost 16 officers (five killed, four wounded and six missing) plus 752 other ranks killed, wounded or missing – or about 90% casualties. 366 of these were KIA. Almost a year later, the average loss rate of the British infantry battalions on the First Day of the Somme was about 57%. Suddenly the losses inflicted upon attacking infantry by ‘expert marksmen’ in the Boer War look rather less devastating

[90] The 2^nd battalion had been reinforced by three companies of the 1^st battalion

[91] Romer, The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War, p.32

[92] Romer, The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War, p.40

[93] It is interesting to note that, the assault rifle in British army service today, the SA80, has different official effective ranges for ‘individual’ fire (300m) and ‘section’ fire (600m). Basically, when firing as a section, the same rifle is still ‘effective’ at a longer range for the simple reason that more rounds are being fired at a given target. Accuracy is important of course, but at longer ranges, weight of fire becomes ‘importanter’. See, British army Staff Officer’s Hand Book (SOHB), Section 4.3.1 – Infantry Weapons

[94] O’Conner, A Short Guide to the History of South Africa, 1652–1902, p.287

[95] Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, Vol.1, p.108

[96] Griffith, Thank God We Kept the Flag Flying, p.183

[97] This is obviously an arbitrary, thumb suck figure, and obviously some Boers would not have fired a single round that day. Many others, however, would have blazed away at 10–12 rounds per minute for lengthy periods of the battle. The standard load for a British Tommy was 150 rounds, and at Nicholson’s Nek, for example, many of Colonel Carleton’s men fired off all their ammunition – so I do not feel that an average expenditure of 50 rounds per burgher over five hours of battle is a completely unreasonable figure to work with. As always, True Believers, do please feel free to provide me the ‘real’ figure rather than just squealing that I am ‘wrong’

[98] ‘Understanding Combat Casualty Care Statistics’, Trauma Journal, Vol.60, Number 2

[99] Bellamy, ‘Artillery’. Oxford Companion to Military History

[100] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.1, p.465

[101] Gibson, The Story of the Imperial Light Horse, p.83

[102] Marden & Newbigging, Rough Diary of the doings of the 1st Manchester Regiment, p.35

[103] Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, Vol.2, p.443

[104] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.2, p.270

[105] Durand, Life of Sir George White, Vol.2, p.167

[106] Gibson, The Story of the Imperial Light Horse in the South African War 1899-1902, p.48

[107] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.2, p.319

[108] Maurice, History of the War in South Africa 1899‒1902, Vol.2, p.319

[109] The True Believers like to claim that whenever the British lost a battle, they had been ‘humiliated’ – whereas, whenever the Boers lost a battle, they either studiously ignore this, or – incredibly – somehow even spin the defeat into a victory

[110] Pakenham, The Boer War, p.574

[111] Had the war been fought 50 years earlier (before smokeless ammunition and magazine rifles, and when the volley, the bayonet, and the cavalry charge still ruled the battlefield) or 50 years later (when the Imperial forces would doubtless have quickly established air-supremacy and utilized Centurion tanks, paratroopers, helicopters, Bren guns, napalm, and the like to smash through defensive positions) there can be little doubt that the British would easily have won the conventional war. Instead, and just like the generals of the First World War, the Imperial commanders found themselves fighting battles at a time when the scales were decidedly tipped in favour of a defending force, yet also before the industrialisation of warfare massively favoured the side with the biggest economy—but they had to make do with what they had

[112] Later, Major-General Sir Charles Edward Callwell, KCB (1859–1928). Yet another of the Anglo-Irish ‘Junker class’, Callwell was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1878 and saw service in Afghanistan and the First Boer War. He then flitted between the artillery and Intelligence/staff appointments, and, in 1896, wrote a book called Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice – a ground-breaking work which became a widely adopted textbook on asymmetric warfare. Still relevant, it was reissued in the 1990s, and the preface referred to Callwell as ‘the Clausewitz of colonial warfare’. He came out of retirement in the Great War, and was promoted to major-general, serving in operations and intelligence

[113] Callwell, The Tactics of Today, p.31-32