THE CORRUPTION OF OUR ARMY.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3559, 11 May 1901, Page 4

THE CORRUPTION OF OUR ARMY.

! ■- When anyone asks what factor operated most to lower the reputation of the British i Army in South Africa, the average Britisher answers, the distances-and the : want of roads, and the average foreigner,- Generate Botha, and De Wet. "Colonel N. F. Maude is of a different opinion. The I real enemy : of the British Army, who has led to most, of our humiliations, is neither tne Boer nor the veldt track —it is 'Monsieur Jean de ; Bloch. In an article -in the "National Beview," Colonel Maude says -that in-the earlier battles of the war the /British Army did splendidly. The attacks at Talana Hill, at Belmont, and at Eslin, were excellent ; if the losses were considerable, well, the principle that you cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs is the first of all principles of war. But the newspapers were horrified at !the bloodshed, which Colonel Maude justly shows was not heavy when compared with that of past wars. So they took up M. de Block. And by the use of his theories, in a short month they destroyed the efficiency of the British Army. For weeks the papers were deluged with letters and articles, all with theories based - on M. de Bloch's, as' how to avoid losses. • The people, and through them the Army, J got these theories on the brain. Tbe : reinforcements were provided with huge stoeksof this nerve-destroying trash to -digest onthe voyage,- they stepped on board the transports, ■ and, in due course arrived at the scene of action, where they found men busily engaged in- painting their horses khaki and were themselves duly drilled in the new formation for "taking advantage of ant-heaps,"-as General Hildyard wittily i.bristened it. So-the Army got a "fit of nerves," which ultimately developed to such- portentous dimensions that oh one occasion " a ! -whole British brigade of 3000 were held up by a Boer commando of ;300." The men i got under the impression that they were facing M. de Bloch's "galling and unprecedented" fire, and-that they were astonishing heroes. From this time forward they persisted in taking cover, and avoiding losses, with the result that they never gained a decisive victory. Thus M. de Bloch destroyed the British Army as a fighting machine. The essence of his article is that whether losses are heavy or small, the men must be taught to bear them. The test of a battle, he says, does not depend upon the avoidance of losses, but upon the capacity for sustaining them.