CAPTAIN MAHAN ON THE WAR

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4259, 19 January 1901, Page 3 (Supplement)

CAPTAIN MAHAN ON THE WAR

With regard to the much-debated frontal attack by Lord Kitchener when Cronj© was trapped at Paardeberg, Captain Mahan, without pronouncing’ a decided judgment inclines apparently to approve the action! He says:—The question is one of expediency, upon which the author does not presume to give a. certain opinion. It may be remembered that the Boer position had been hastily assumed, under conditions not long foreseen, and therefore quite possibly not very solid. The fact could be tested only by trial. So severe an assault unquestionably tends to benumb the victim, and to make less probable his escape, quite independent of his actual loss. Moreover, the flanking gains, which ultimately hastened and determined the inevitable surrender, could scarcely have been secured except under stress of the frontal attack. The professional appreciation of this great movement, which dislodged the enemy from Magersfontein, relieved Ktimbejrley and cleared the way to the occupation of Bloemfontein, is brief and impressive: The larger force, to compass its object, had to reach secretly and rapidly positions which interposed decisively between the inferior and its line of communications and retreat. To do this secretly, a. large circuit must be made, that is, a road must he taken far beyond the enemy's ken. therefore much longer than that he himself would traverse to pass the same decisive points and thereby evade interception. The question is one of exterior and interior lines, and therefore of speed. Speed in a country without resources, and especially when opposed to an enemy notoriously mobile, means not only hard legging and much privation. but high organisation of transport, to ensure even a bare sufficiency of support. By virtue of the interior line, notwithstanding the rapidity with which Roberts’s men and horses moved, Cronje got past the decisive points; but for French he might have escaped. His success in this changed instantly the whole direction, of the British operation. Trains directed upon one expectation had to be diverted elsewhere, which means not the mere turning round of waggons, but the reversal of a complicated machinery working at high pressure: perhaps rather the redistribution of parts in an engine while in actual operation. That the transport system under this extreme test stood the strain without dislocation, though with necessarily lessened output, is as /creditable as the patient fortitude of the hosts, who. lacking full food and water, toiled uncomplainingly in pursuit, under the burning sun. not knowing but that after all their labour would be in vain. The mishaps of Eoddersburg and TCroonsnruit do not detract from Captain Malian s admiration of the rest of the campaign. These things he looks upon as "the bruises and barked limbs that men get in any rough sport,” and nothing more, as "mosquito bindings about Lord Roberts’s ears or on his trail.” not nreventing him from making his "second long lean” when necessary. Captain Mahan’s rem’e<r of the situation wa a completed on 2°th .Tulv. when hr concluded (hns;—"At +he present moment. ?ftth .Tnlv, the British have communicatin' 1 from Johannesburg and Pretoria to the sea. coast by two routes—-to Capetown and to Pm-ban. The actions of Cm Boers show tlmt it is not on them power pp'-i oilCv to incommode either the ono or the other. The t-ivml raids mu' formed hv their mounted men nnror_ m® Wet and Botha mav nrotemt the sufferings nf fK* Tvnr. *»tul fn olOP© nr fnr struggle-a certain lustre of persistent resistance- hnt herring events now oofm-e. seen and scarcely to he then cannot change the issue, which has become sinmlv a question of endurance between combatants immeasurably unequal in re sources.”