1870 AND 1900-2.

Evening Star, Issue 11680, 12 February 1902, Page 4

1870 AND 1900-2.

In ' MacmiQan's Magasme' for Janmtf Lieutenant-colonel Maude get* home upon German slanderers by giving a very inconveniently compiled account (from authentic German sources) of the initial fiascos in the ■war of 1870. The accredited military writer —Meckel—evidently speaking of Saarbrnck, says:—" I recalled my first battle in France. We did not arrive on the field until late in the day, and we crossed it where tin fight had been fiercest. I was already used to the sight of the dead and wounded, tot was not prepared for what now met aHT eyes. The field was literally strewn with men who had left the ranks and were dokig nothing.' Whole battalions could have been formed from them. From one position ve could count hundreds. Some were lying down, their rifles pointing to the front—these had evidently remained behind when the more courageous had advanced; others had squatted like, hares in the furrow*. Wherever a bush or ditch gave shelter there were men to be seen who in some cases had made themselves very comfortable indeed. The men nearest me bore on their shoulder-straps the number of a famous regiment. I turned to look at my own men. They began to seem uneasy. Some were pale; I myself was conscious of the depressing effect produced on me by what I saw. If the fire of the breech-loader, which we were now to face for the first time, while already its continuous roD sounded in our ears, had so disorganised this regiment, what wpuld happen to us? During our advance, before we came under any really serious fire, and whilst only the whistle .of an occasional bullet could be heard, we saw six men, one behind the other in a long queue, cowering behind a tree; afterwards I saw this sight so' frequently that I became accustomed to it—who did not? And this, I said to myself, is the result of three years' careful education in the independent use of cover. Would not Frederic the Great's soldiers, who knew nothing of fightins independently, have been ashamed te present such a spectacle to passing troops ?" Pursuing the same line of argument to show that British officers and men need not fear comparison with their critics, Colonel Maude says: " When the FrancTireurs arrived on the scene in 1870 the conditions of warfare became more like those at present rife in South Africa, and the,surprises of patrols and small bodies up to the size of a company or squadron became by no means uncommon. In all, Major Kunz tabulates from official diaries no fewer than forty-six of these incidents, in only six of which did the Germans succeed in beating off their assailants; and the total casualty list' under this heading for six months amounted to thirty officers, 643 men, and 850 horses—figures which compare very unfavorably with our own leases when the far wider area of ground covered by us with the same numbers and. the rapidity of the Boers' movements, added' to their absolute knowledge of every inch of hill and veldt, are brought into consideration."