The earliest introduction of what would finally, after considerable refinement, become the modern doctrine occurred in the Boer War of 1899-1902 and not in the battles of 1850-1870.1 The rate of fire of infantry small arms decisively influenced the development of the new tactics in the 20th century. British experience in the Boer War demonstrates this point. British and Boer infantry were armed with modern bolt action rifles. Its true that British infantry were formed in close battalion columns and thus easy targets. This does not explain the far superior volume of fire developed by the Boers since their forces were much smaller. How did such a small force defeat larger professional troops fighting in their preferred formation? This was largely because even a small force of Boers was able to put out a volume of fire the British could not equal – why? Two reasons, first while British troops were limited to volley fire, Boer marksmen fired independently. Second, the Boers carried their cartridges in clips, a five round clip could be inserted quickly by a push of the thumb. The magazine of the British rifles had to be loaded one cartridge at a time and the soldiers carried their bullets lose in ammunition pouches. While a British soldier could fire five rounds as fast as a Boer, the Boer could fire fifty rounds faster than the British soldier could fire twenty because of the speed at which he could reload. The superiority of the quick firing Mausers made a decisive difference on the battlefield. It was the volume of fire that made the old tactics in effective.2
A British officer recounted the soldier’s experience while campaigning against the Boers.
The infantry soldier sees nothing except the men on either side of him and the enemy in front. He hears the crackle of the enemy’s fire somewhere – he does not know where – and he hears the whit! whit! of the bullets, and every now and then he knows vaguely some one near him is hit – he feels the smell of the powder and the hot oily smell of his rifle. He fires the range given, and at the given direction, and every now and then hears ‘Advance!’ He stands up and goes on and wonders why he is not hit as he stands up. And that is all.3
Its clear that in the 1890’s the experience of European and American soldiers fighting in close formations had changed little since the early 1800’s.
According to The Times History “the British soldier was well disciplined but ill-trained.” Though often regarded as the best of European professional infantry, their training in close order tactics with an emphasis on steady discipline above all, made them ill suited to modern tactics and slow to adapt. Against the Boers they showed the tendency to be poor shots, “careless of cover, slow to comprehend what was taking place or to grasp the whereabouts of the enemy, always getting surprised or lost, helpless without their officers.”4 Such a description is not compatible with the claim of “a revolution in tactics.” Infantry trained to close order formations simply did not have the skills required by modern soldiers.
The British artillery establishment had only completed the change to breech loading guns by 1899. It was only the inpractibility of large muzzle loading guns in castmates that forced the change.5 British artillery tactics against the Boers was hide-bound and thoughtless. They frequently brought their guns into action in regular lines of six guns, and with drill book spacing. Prominent exposed positions were like a magnet to British batteries where they were frequently cut down before getting in to action. In contrast the few Boer guns where cleverly dispersed and conceled.6 Boer gunners dug concealed gun pits two hundred yards forward of the low hills and had dug alternative pits to which his guns could move the moment their positions were discovered.7
At Magersfontein, Stormberg and Colenso infantry commanders launched some of the finest troops in the world into hopeless frontal assaults against carefully prepared positions in formations not much different from those of the Imperial Guard at Waterloo.8 The 1890’s doctrine of the British general staff: A formal and properly conducted assault by fully trained regulars must inevitably prevail against volunteers or conscripts. To train first class infantry to entrench, would encourage a defensive-minded mentality, which would sap their morale.9 Again we see that “modern” commanders did not welcome the idea of entrenchments as an advance in tactics. At the battle of Magersfontein “the Highlanders advanced as densely packed as possible in quarter-column to ensure cohesion and direction, the regiments in column with the left guides carrying ropes to preserve perfect alignment”10 At the battle of Modder River November 28, 1899 the Guards Brigade and the 9th Brigade “both were nailed down in the veld by the fire from the Boer’s invisible Mausers.”11 Here, at ast, we begin to see what was suggested by civil war writers but not realized until the 1890’s.
In 1914 none of the “modern” European armies had understood nor tried to adjust their tactics and doctrine to the realties of new weapons and massive forces.12 French theory of war up to 1914 largely continued from the strategic and tactical principles that governed operations of Napoleon and his marshals. Napoleon’s principle that morale was pre-eminent in strategy and tactics remained dominant in the French high command right upto 1914.13 During the 1914 advance through France, the German Army used tactical formations little changed since Napoleon and virtually unchanged since Moltke. On August 22, 1914 the German 53rd Brigade with the 124th and 127th regiments of six battalions, totaling about 6800 men, attacked Bleid on a front of about 3500 yards, front of 2 men per yard, over open country, enemy not entrenched. An attack in close formation and consistent with the linear tactics of the preceding century.14
Dupuy in The Encyclopedia of Military History delivers the decisive evidence on the evolution of tactics from traditional linear to modern infiltration tactics. He explains the British experience in south Africa and why it took a modern force of some 500,000 men two years to subdue a force of volunteer farmers that never exceeded a total field force of 40,000 men.
The experience of some 85 years of formal and little wars in Europe and around the world went into the discard, and an entire new system of tactics and techniques had to be evolved on the battlefield.15
Therefore, it is clear that there had been no revolution in tactics prior to 1900. In fact, the real change in tactics was just beginning at the opening of the twentieth century and it would take from 1900 to about 1917 for the first features of infiltration tactics to take root.
NOTES PART 4
PART 2 - TACTICS
PART 3 - ENTRENCHMENTS
PART 4 - BOER TACTICS
PART 5 - RAILROADS
PART 6 - CIVILIAN VIOLENCE
PART 7 - DRAFT
List of figures and tables
WORKS CITED
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