COLD STEEL v. HOT LEAD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2396, 1 February 1900, Page 60

COLD STEEL v. HOT LEAD .

WOUNDS SOLDIERS DREAD MOST. To those who have dear ones fighting in the war in South Africa — indeed, to all who have the interest of the gallant British soldiers and volunteers at heart — it must be welcome news that our men stand not the remotest chance of receiving wounds of a kind which they have reason to dread most.

It is well known that the Boers rely almost entirely upon firing arms, rifles, and artillery, at which game it will be found they will receive as much as they can give, and that such a thing as a bayonet charge is unknown in Boer warfare.

This is grateful and comforting, for if there is one thing Tommy Atkins dreads more than anything eke it is a bayonet wound, for the simple reason that it is almost invariably fatal. Men have been known to fight for hours with bullets in their flesh ; but a bayonet wound, being received in nine cases out of ten in the body, puts a man out of action at once, if it does not prove fatal immediately. Moreover a bayonet-wound most commonly inflicts agonising injuries, from which there is little or no hope of recovery.

It is the bayonet of the British soldier that is more dreaded by dervishes and restless tribes on the Indian frontier than anj--thing else. Again and again has a grand bajonet charge disorgani&ed an army, and sent them howling and rushing from a position they have occupied with the utmost coolness in the face of our shot and shell. As the result of a small bayonet charge on one occasion 84 Afridis fell, 21 dying instantly, 60 dying within a few minutes, two dying in hospital, and one (wounded in the thigh) recovering. In contradistinction to this come the facts of nearly an hour's sharp musketry fire, in which dum-dum bullets were used. Fortytwo tribesmen were thrown upon the field ; of that total, eight were instantly killed, three mortally wounded, nine died as the result of complications arising from their wounds, and 22 recovered. And it was not that the British fire was bad ; for close upon an hour a steady, deliberate fire had been kept ivp, and the dum-dums were condemned by the Peace Conference as being too savagely fatal for modern warfare. It is scarcely to be wondered at that Tommy Atkins dreads bayonet business more than shot or .shell, and feels much satisfaction at knowing the Boers do not carry such Arms, and would not probably use them it they carried them.

The Boers have no liking for hand-to-hand combats ; they feel safer and stronger sniping from the hills, and, needless to say, the baA'onet can only come into use at very close quarters. But when bayonet charges have occurred they have invariably ended in the victory of our troops, for nothing can stand up against a solid charge Avith bayonets.

The next most deadly weapon is the heavy cavalry sword. This would take the palm, because it can be used more swiftly, and in many more "cuts" than a bayonet. But it cannot be used with the same weight, and therefore is not so deadly, nor are its wounds so dreadful, as in the case of the bayonet. The main weight of a blow with a sword is in the handle, not at the point; and, while it can be swung or thrust with immense force, the bayonet has the weight of a rifle behind it, and the weight and strength of a whole man behind the rifle, and the combined weight of rifle and man is focussed at the poh t of the bayonet. Moreover, to a bayonet a man's whole trunk is exposed, while, to a sword, the head, shoulders, and right arm are generally the only parts a cavalryman can attack with the edge. of his sword, and the point cannot be used without much risk, as the contraction of the arm immediately before a thrust throws a man off his guard.

Of bullet-wounds but little can be said. It all depends upon where the bul^t strikes whether the wound is fatal or a scratch. But such wounds, while they are often extremely painful, cannot be mentioned in the same breath as bayonet wounds, from which most agonising injuries accrue : and the impossibility of our tioops in South Africa receiving the wounds they dread the most is very gratifying at this moment.