The Spaniards might have done better if they had not been so impressed with the unknown in the tactics and strategy of the American invaders. The Boers erred in having too much contempt for the British methods. After their series of extraordinary victories over superior forces at the beginning of the war, it was a common saying in Pretoria, “Fifteen or twenty of you men come up here; a British regiment is coming.” The echo of this jeer was at the evacuation, when a burgher said to me, as he swung himself on his pony, “If we only had even terms, like fifteen or twenty to one, we could lick them; but when they come forty to one we can’t do anything.” It is a mortal mistake either to overestimate or underestimate your enemy.

Tactics and strategy extend into technical military science, and can be treated in nice detail only by expert students. The following observations are offered accordingly, not from any technical point of view, but as the witness of one who on the field has watched the operations of a number of campaigns, and who has tried to see things not merely as they seem at the hour, but also as they look afterwards.

Tactics are not to be confounded with strategy. Strategy, speaking largely, is the planning of the thing which an army has to do; tactics is the manner in which an army does it. The strategy of a campaign may be carefully planned by the wise men of the War Department or by the commanding general. It may be infallible on paper; but if the tactics of the general officers in the field cannot follow the lines thus laid down, the strategy is a drag anchor on the success of the army. On the other hand, the tactics according to which the troops are disposed, moved, and fought may be so unpractical, so poorly adapted to the conditions of the country and of the hostile force, that the best conceived strategy will be made foolish.

In strategy the conditions of the Cuban and African campaigns were so dissimilar that a comparison is less significant than in tactics. The American War Department planned an invasion of Cuba near Havana. The spot actually selected was Mariel, a few miles west of Havana. Here, under cover of the fleet, a fortified camp, as a base of operations, was to be established, and Havana was to be invested. Admiral Cervera’s fleet, however, was first to be destroyed, the equipment of the army gathering at Tampa was to be completed, and the unhealthy summer season was to be escaped as far as possible by the delay. There seemed to be no other objective than Havana, for there were over 100,000 Spanish troops behind fortifications, the strength of which was never known until they were evacuated at last without a blow. Had those formidable works been attempted, the carnage would have been more frightful than the worst of the South African battles.

But the unexpected happened, and changed the entire strategy of the campaign. Cervera sailed into Santiago Harbor and refused to come out. To aid the navy in destroying him an army corps was despatched to Santiago, and the capture of that stronghold, together with the annihilation of the Spanish fleet, led Spain to acknowledge defeat. Thus the first strategic plan, which was both correct and costly, was abandoned in a sudden exigency for a diversion on a small scale, which turned out to be decisive. In all this development of strategy there was nothing histrionic; there was only an obvious common sense which suggests the method of sound business men going at a problem with determination and yet deliberation, with economy and yet quickness of adaptation. The first blow of the war at Manila was dramatic enough, but it was also plain, business-like strategy, which had been for silent months in preparation; and the final blow in Porto Rico was likewise very good business. Upon the whole, a survey of the problem offered by the conditions of the Spanish war reveals a shrewd and unerring strategy on the part of the United States. On the other hand, while we came to respect the Spanish in the highest degree as brave and dutiful men, we cannot regard the strategy of the Spanish War Office as anything but puerile. Spain saw the war coming before we did, and she might have put up a far better fight with no greater loss.

In overcoming the Boers Great Britain had a problem of appalling magnitude. Her soldiers were to be transported from the ends of the earth to the Cape, and then to march as far as from New York to Denver before they could reach the enemy’s capital. Their line of communication was to be guarded in force at every bridge, trestle, and causeway for the whole of that immense distance. Cape Colony, the base of operations, was itself almost a hostile country. Three besieged British garrisons were to be relieved, and they required three diverging armies of rescue. The keeping up of the soldiers’ spirits over such a prodigious march, and the maintenance of the trains that fed them, constituted a problem such as no other army of this century has had to face. That the War Office in London did undertake it, and did actually overcome the natural obstacles which were more formidable than any fighting force that could meet the British in the field, showed a mental comprehension and perspicacity, as well as a perfection of organization, that has properly engaged the admiration of every strategist in Europe. Whatever blunders of tactics in the field were thrown up by incompetent officers, there was a big, clear brain behind it all, that knew the immense business, kept it going, saw beyond the diverging armies, effected a concentration, captured the capitals of two states, and accomplished military results that seemed impossible. The strategy accomplishing all this is of the very first order, and is a power which the warrior nations of the world must take into account.

In the tactics displayed by the American and British armies there is naturally a more proper ground for comparison than in the strategy of the two recent campaigns. Strategy is necessarily the variable quantity depending on combinations of conditions; but tactics, as the immediate methods of accomplishing the requirements of strategy, are to be judged by the invariable gauge of practicalness.

The tactics of the American soldier have been the outcome of generations of Indian wars and of fighting in woods and mountains. Our colonial forefathers established the general principles of our present fighting methods when they learned the art of warfare from the natives of the wilderness. When Colonel Washington saved General Braddock’s defeated British regulars from annihilation by the Indians, he employed, in the main, the same tactics we now use. Washington implored the British general to dispose his men like the pioneer volunteers, as individual fighters; but the Royal officer disdained to take lessons from a colonial. The British stubbornness was in the end fortunate for the colonies, for the American victories of the War of Independence were won by the common-sense tactics natural to men who had handled long rifles from their boyhood, and who had learned to hide first and shoot afterwards. The slaughter of the retreat from Concord to Boston, the terrible losses at Bunker Hill, the defeats at Bennington and Saratoga, were the work of men who sighted their foe with the same precision that they aimed at wildcats, and took as few chances as possible themselves.

During that war an attempt was made by Washington to introduce the Prussian tactics into the continental army. Baron Steuben drilled the raw frontiersmen according to the rules of the Great Frederick, and the result was unquestionably advantageous, as the men gained military form and learned discipline. Had the Boers submitted themselves to such discipline and obedience to commanders, had they been content to do more “team work” and less determined to fight as individuals, they might not have lost their positions. But the American continental, with all his new-fangled discipline, never forgot that he was out to kill rather than to drill; he was a hunter, and the pomp of volley firing never led him to waste powder and ball. He kept his head, and his finger stayed on the trigger until the sights on the rifle had a perfect alignment on a red coat.

But while the colonial idea of war has ever been a persistent influence upon the tactics of the army of the United States, the troops of King George sailed back to England without an idea that their methods needed mending. Their success against Napoleon was not due to reformed tactics, but because in fighting quality, man for man, they were better than the French, and because they had plenty of allies. Barring the Crimea, the wars of Great Britain since Waterloo have not been against white men until they attacked the Boers. Whatever adaptations of method were made in fighting Asiatic tribesmen, the general tactics of the army in the field seemed to experience no radical change until the world was horrified to see General Buller charging up kopjes against magazine rifles and machine guns in not far from the same formation in which Howe had led his men to slaughter on Bunker Hill.

There was a vast difference between those South African frontal attacks at the beginning of the war and the charges up the hill of El Caney and San Juan in Cuba. The American assault was sanguinary enough, and the resistance was more desperate than that offered by the Boers. But had the blue shirts marched up in columns of fours, or swept up in the old-fashioned line of battle of the Civil War, the carnage would have turned to annihilation. They scattered, they abandoned all formation, they crawled, they sprinted from one poor shelter to another; they knew what the Mauser rifle would do, and they adapted their offensive tactics to it.

On the other hand, the traditions of Waterloo and Balaklava prevailed at Spion Kop, Colenso, and along the Tugela and Modder rivers. To “get in with cold steel” seemed to be the ruling thought among the officers during the terrible first months of the campaign.

But the lesson was learned, eventually, that the long-range rifle, with its incessant fire and the Boer precision of aim, required a complete change in offensive operations. After the disasters to Buller and Methuen the tactics developed into operations more creditable from a modern point of view. With the advent of Lord Roberts, flanking became the feature of the British advance. The Boer forces have never been of sufficient strength to withstand a flanking movement by the British; they have always been compelled to withdraw whenever the flanking columns reached a point that would menace their retreat. When the British came into Pretoria, the officers and correspondents all complained of what they called lack of pluck in the Boer as a fighter, as shown in the operations north of Bloemfontein; but in no instance at that part of the campaign did they have an opportunity to defend themselves against purely frontal attack, like those in which General Buller made himself conspicuous for his fatal old-fashioned tactics. Lord Roberts’s army was in sufficient strength, so that he could employ a main force of infantry and artillery of from 30,000 to 40,000, and could send out flanking columns, of cavalry and mounted infantry with a few horse batteries, of about 10,000 each.

Thus, when a Boer position was developed, the main advance took an artillery position at long range and maintained an incessant shell fire, while the mounted troops were sent out on either flank in an attempt to cut off the retreat of the burghers. As soon as these flanking columns reached a certain point from which a junction of the two forces might be made, the Boers were compelled to withdraw, in many cases without firing a shot. Sometimes this column of cavalry or mounted infantry would be fifteen or twenty miles away on their flank; but owing to their admirable signal service and their perfect scouting they were able to keep informed as to the enemy’s whereabouts, and at the last moment, just before a junction was made to cut off their retreat, they would slip through. Cronje’s capture at Paardeburg was due to the fact that he misjudged the movements of the troops on his flank. His officers begged him to retire, but he insisted on holding the position one day longer. That delay of one day proved to be fatal; on the next morning he was surrounded by about 40,000 of the enemy, with overwhelming batteries. After twelve days of the most heroic defense, when his ammunition was expended, and the action of the heat on the dead bodies in his laager made it intolerable, he was compelled to surrender. That was the only time the British succeeded in capturing any large number by the flanking movement, although they always succeeded in preventing any serious opposition to their advance.

The country which has been the scene of operations in South Africa seemed designed by nature for defensive operations. In the Orange Free State the veldt stretches away for miles and miles, broken by single kopjes and short ranges of mountains, from which a sentinel can note the approach of a hostile force in the far distance. In the Transvaal, although the country is more broken, it is easy to watch the enemy’s approach; and with the excellent signal service of the Boers it has been practically impossible for an advancing column to surprise the defending force.

The drifts or fords of the rivers were the most serious difficulty that had to be overcome by the British in transportation of their wagon-trains and artillery. By long action of the water in the rivers they have been cut deep, so that the descent from the ordinary level of the country to the bed of the stream is at most places very sharp. Strangely, there was no attempt, except at the railway bridges, to improve in any manner these difficult fords, although in many cases an hour’s work by a company of engineers, or by any kind of a company, would have saved many hours’ delay in the transportation.

I stood at one ford for over three hours, watching the passage of a wagon-train which might have been taken over in a single hour had the bed of the river been cleared of stones and rocks, as would have been done by the first American officer to pass that way. The water was not more than eighteen inches deep, and the obstructing rocks could easily have been picked up by hand, and a way cleared by a dozen men. Instead of that, a long wagon-train was taken over, with every wheel in the train in jeopardy, and with a total wrecking of two wagons. At some drifts the descent into the river and the ascent of the opposite bank was so steep that the animals had to be assisted by a company of men with a long rope attached to the wagon, to ease it down and haul it out. This was the regular custom at a drift within twelve miles of Pretoria, where there was every facility for bridging, and where a company of sappers could have constructed a span in a few hours that would have stood during the rest of the occupation of the district.

At the foot of San Juan hill, in Cuba, there was a ford of a river where the bottom was perfectly hard and smooth, and after the barbed wire entanglements laid by the Spaniards had been removed, it could have been used without bridging and without any serious loss of time. But as the river banks were steep the engineers quickly threw a span across, using the thick bamboo which abounds in the jungle; and this adequate bridge allowed the men to be sent forward on the advance in better time and in better condition. Similar tactics could have been employed at many passages in South Africa that would have greatly assisted in the operations, but for some reason, and at great cost, they were neglected.

In the use of the balloon the British showed high proficiency and effectiveness throughout the entire campaign. The huge silken bag was attached to a heavy wagon, and was drawn, fully inflated, by a span of thirty or forty oxen. The successful use of this auxiliary was facilitated by the open nature of the country. The information obtained thus was exceedingly valuable to Lord Roberts during his advance towards Pretoria. Not only, however, is it a material advantage to a force to possess this direct method of getting information, it also has a certain moral effect upon the enemy that is in itself powerful. This is somewhat similar to the effect that a heavy artillery fire has upon well-intrenched infantry; the shells are not apt to hurt anybody—indeed, a heavy artillery bombardment of field intrenchments is usually as harmless as a political pyrotechnic display, except for the trying effect on the imagination and nerves of the men who are being fired at. But the Boers were bothered more by the balloon than by ballooning shells.

One day I was lying in the Boer trenches under an exceedingly heavy artillery fire, which the burghers did not mind more than a hailstorm. They were well under cover of the schanzes which they had built along the ridge of the kopje, and they were calmly awaiting the British advance, smoking and chatting in nonchalant fashion, without a trace of nervousness. Suddenly some one spied the balloon as it slowly rose in front of us, and its apparition created a perceptible consternation for some moments. This agitation was not fear, for the Boers knew perfectly well that danger was no more imminent than before; but the thought that the enemy from whom they were concealing themselves could see them as perfectly as though the mountain were not there certainly got on their nerves.

The work of the balloon corps was valuable in that it could discover to the artillery the position not only of the fighting line, but also of the reserves and of the horses, and of the line of retreat. The mid-air observer before Pretoria found and pointed out the range of the railway line leading towards Middleburg, by which the retreat was being made, so that the naval guns began to shell the line, hoping to break it by a lucky shot, or to disable a train. As it happened, however, the trajectories did not strike the narrow lines of rails, but they did cause the American Consul, Mr. Hay, some inconvenience, as they filled his consulate full of holes, though he kept on calmly at his work; finally a sympathetic neighbor sent over his compliments and suggested that they have tea together in the lee of his house; everybody else in that vicinity had fled. But if the balloon was an important feature of tactics in South Africa, it cannot be said that the Americans in Cuba made a brilliant success of it. The balloon before Santiago proved a boomerang, since the officer in charge was a trifle too enthusiastic and too anxious to keep his toy on the firing line. The advance towards San Juan hill was made through a jungle through which only one road led by which the troops could move forward. Just below the hill along the military crest of which the Spanish trenches were built, the undergrowth stopped, leaving an open area several hundred yards wide across which the final charge was to be made. The regiments moved forward along this narrow road, and deployed as best they could through the undergrowth. The reserves were held at a fork of the river, about half a mile back, huddled together in a very small space. Just in front of the reserves was an open ground. Thinking only of the balloon’s convenience, but thoughtless of the danger to the reserves, the signal-service men planted their apparatus here and began to inflate the mounting bag.

As soon as the balloon was prepared it was ordered into the air, and instantly it became the target of the Spanish artillerists. It was hit several times, though without apparent effect; but the shells that missed it broke into the crowds of the reserves. Shell after shell found that unseen target, killing and wounding large numbers. Thus the Spaniards inflicted their greatest injury upon our troops without knowing they were doing so. Aides were rushed forward to get the fatal thing somewhere else; but it was already winged and sinking to the earth. After that melancholy fiasco it was folded away and not used again. This unfortunate blunder should not, however, be permitted to discredit the use of the balloon in our army. The notable success of the British in operating it, and its helpfulness to them, amply demonstrate its practicality.

The tactics of Lord Roberts at the capture of Pretoria were badly at fault. The taking of that city was attended by a glaring military blunder unexpected from that great leader. It seemed to be the commander’s only idea to get into the town and to occupy it, rather than to cut off the enemy’s retreat and capture him. The advance was made along the road from Johannesburg, the main force being composed almost entirely of infantry and artillery. The customary flanking movements were commenced. Hutton’s division of mounted infantry swung around one flank for a short distance. French’s cavalry division started around the other flank, but did not get very far before the fighting ceased. It happened that General Botha had not defended Pretoria, and the action that lasted during the entire day of June 4th was merely a rear-guard action, to cover the retirement of the main force. Consequently, no matter what course Lord Roberts might have pursued, he could not have captured more than 1,500 prisoners. But the British commander did not know the state of affairs in Pretoria, and was led to believe that he would be opposed by the concentrated commandoes of General Botha and General de la Rey. Had such been the case his tactics would have allowed the escape of the entire force, as they did allow the slipping away of the rear guard. Had the field marshal delayed the attack of the main body for another day, or even two days, and allowed his mounted troops to get well into the rear, he could have cut off the retreat of the burghers. Instead, his premature frontal attack in force compelled them to retire under the cover of darkness long before their flanks were even threatened.

The miscarriage seemed like another case of British superciliousness towards their foe, which has repeatedly cost them so dear. After Bloemfontein the Boers had been kept so on the run that, to some minds, the employment of costly strategy on the part of the British might seem needless. They were in such tremendous force compared to the number of Boers opposing them that they rolled down over the veldt, a flood of khaki, irresistible in power. If they were opposed at one point of the advance, they merely kept on marching either side of the threatened position, until the flanking movement compelled the Boers to withdraw. The British did not seem to attempt actually surrounding and cutting off the retreat of the Boers, but were content with merely driving them back. The inadequacy of this plan was clearly manifest after Pretoria had been reached, for the force of their enemy was not in the least broken. On the contrary, the burghers showed conclusively that they were the strategic masters of the situation. Nothing but their masterly movements saved them from defeat and capture early in the war; and after Pretoria, when the London press began to call the Boers guerrillas, wandering brigands, and outlaws, there was just as clever strategy shown in the manner in which the Transvaal and Orange Free State leaders handled their men as though a mighty army had been at their command.

I asked General Botha why he did not concentrate all the forces in the field, so that he could make some decided stands. He answered: “We have talked the matter well over, and have made a definite form of campaign for the remaining portion of the war. Should we gather all our fighting men together into one force we could undoubtedly make some very pretty fights; but there would be only a few of them, for with the overwhelming force against us they could soon surround any position we could take, and there would be an end to our cause. As it is, we will split up into four or five commands, continue operations independently of each other, but keep absolutely in touch, and confer on the general plan of campaign at all times. It took your colonial troops seven years of that sort of work to gain independence against the same country, and we can do the same thing. We can fight seven years without being crushed, and should we gain our independence at the end of that time we would consider the time well spent.”

General Botha pointed to the facts that his troops were in better condition and had greater resources than Washington’s ever had; that there was more accord among his burghers than there was among the American colonial troops; and that, more important still, the entire population of the country was in absolute sympathy with the cause. This shows why a campaign can develop into what the British call guerrilla warfare and still be a part of a splendid strategical plan. In my mind, the operations in South Africa cannot be called guerrilla warfare so long as the Boer commands of 3,000 or 4,000 men move on regular marches, with heavy and light artillery, baggage-trains, and assisted by signal corps. From these commands small detachments are sent out for the various duties of blowing up a bridge or a culvert, attacking a force sufficiently small in number, or capturing a supply train. All of these operations are done under a system of regular order, and are not, as the British reports would lead us to believe, the work of mere bands of robbers or outlaws.

The strategy shown in these movements, and, in the main, the tactics and their execution, have been of a superlative order, although not developed from military text-books, but rather from the natural brain of a lion-hunter. It is to be regretted that more of the movements have not been chronicled, so that the military world might have been benefited by a study of these operations.

The facts that at last the British overwhelmed the Boers with their inexhaustible supplies of troops, and that the general strategy of the campaign proved successful, do not justify their careless tactics in the routine of the campaign. If matched against a larger and more aggressive army than that of the Boers, this characteristic carelessness might have been very fatal.

Here is a curious instance of this inexplicable heedlessness. The first important engagement after the occupation of Pretoria was the battle of Diamond Hill, about sixteen miles north of the capital, and it was fought by Lieutenant-General French, who commanded the cavalry division. His command had been very much weakened by drafts upon it for duty about army headquarters in Pretoria, so that he did not have more than 3,000 men at his call. This cavalry command, with a few guns, went out to ascertain the position taken by the retreating burghers. They found them strongly entrenched on a range of hills commanding the valley through which the British were to advance. The battle lasted three days, the fighting going on all that time. General French told me, on the third night, when we were at dinner, that it had been the hardest fight he had had during the campaign, and that he doubted whether he could hold the position until noon the next day, when Lord Roberts had promised him reËnforcements. General French was surrounded on three sides with what he said was an overwhelming force of the enemy, and yet he did not station any pickets or outposts even on his headquarters camp. Captain Beech brought a wagon-train into the center of the camp, through the lines, without so much as a challenge. The bitter cold of the high veldt kept me awake that night, and about three o’clock in the morning I heard horsemen riding through the lines. They took no especial care to keep their movements secret, so I imagined them to be friends, but lay waiting for the expected challenge. None came, and the party of horse rode nearer and nearer until it came quite up to General French’s headquarters, near a little farmhouse. Dawn was just breaking, and in the gray light I recognized Captain Beech as he rode up to headquarters. Captain Beech is an old campaigner in experience if not in years, and such negligence of the most ordinary and primary needs of campaigning seemed to him outrageous. He expressed himself with highly-colored vehemence.

“Why,” he exclaimed, “the Boers could ride in here and take the whole outfit, for there isn’t an outpost on the camp; and you are the only one who heard me coming on with a whole wagon-train.”

It staggers an American to comprehend such a situation; and if the Boers had had a little energy that night they might easily have taken the whole command. It is an instinct of animals and birds to have their pickets. When a herd of deer is grazing on the plains, a few are always left on the outskirts to watch for danger; when a flock of birds is feeding on the ground, sentries are left in the trees; but the ordinary British officer does not seem to share that useful instinct. I asked one of General French’s staff if it was the custom of all commands to ignore the necessity of placing outposts, and he said:

“Oh, what’s the use? They never attack at night.”

The fact that they do not make night attacks and are not more keenly alive to such possibilities does not justify the British neglect of outposts and pickets. I have ridden in and out of Pretoria at all times of day and night without once being challenged, although it was well known at headquarters that the residents of the town were communicating with the Boer commanders every day. A little Afrikander girl of sixteen told me as a jolly joke that she had ridden out on her bicycle to see her father, who had a command in the hills within five miles of the center of Pretoria. She said that she rode part of the way with a mounted picket, with whom she chatted as they rode along. An order was issued by the military governor that every one who wished to ride a bicycle or a horse, or to drive in a carriage, must get a permit to do so; and the fair young patriot said that after this it was easier than ever, for she used the permit as a pass, and none of the Tommies ever knew the difference.

The conclusion of my observations is that in every-day tactics the British officer still commits the radical error of taking too much for granted. This is almost a racial error, for it has always been his besetting sin to despise his foe and to be surprised by clever tricks. Herein he is thoroughly unlike the American officer, as well as unlike his own allies from Canada and Australia. The nimble wit of the newer countries and the expert training of the West Pointer lead both Americans and colonials to keep thinking what the enemy may be doing and to take no bravado chances.

After these criticisms of certain features of British tactics it is a pleasure to recall a piece of work by the Royal Horse Artillery on the last day of that battle, which would win the respect and admiration of every American soldier. Diamond Hill is a very high kopje, rising directly out of a plain, and from the beginning of the rise it is fully half a mile to the summit, the latter part of the ascent being very steep. The sides of the kopje are covered with huge rocks, some of them ten feet high, and standing in every conceivable position, just as they rested at the time of a great upheaval that broke the earth’s strata. It was almost impossible to walk over the rocks, they were so rough and jagged, yet the officers and men of this battery brought their guns to the very top of the kopje and commanded the entire valley. It was a magnificent thing to do, and almost incredible; I never before saw soldiers bring to pass such an apparently impossible attempt. But it evidently was not an unusual achievement in that campaign of titanic labors, for it occasioned no comment.

Perhaps no better illustration can be given of the new military conditions which modern strategy and tactics have to meet than a picture that shows how an actual battlefield looks. During the third day the fighting had been very severe, and in one place in the line the British had been compelled to charge a position several times in order to prevent being completely surrounded. There were eight Maxim one-pounder machine guns, several Colts’ machine guns, and a large number of heavy guns in action during the entire day, and at one time they were all concentrated at one point. I took a photograph, which shows better than anything else how modern warfare has lost all picturesque features. This picture shows nothing but a placid landscape that might have been taken on any farm, instead of which thousands of men were fighting desperately. At the time the photograph was taken there was a charge going on, but the khaki clothing makes the men invisible to the camera. Bullets were singing across the plain like sheets of rain, and shells were screeching overhead; along the ridge there was a constant crackling of small arms; but the landscape itself was as quiet as that of a New England farm.