The American online publication "Wars oh The Rocks" published interesting material by Spencer Jones "The British Army And The Lessons of The Boer War" ("The British Army and the lessons of the Boer War") about how the British army learned lessons and conclusions from its not very successful actions during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.
(c) Imperial War Museums
In January 2024, the chief of the British General Staff, General Sir Patrick Sanders, warned that British youth were now part of the "pre-war" generation. Pointing to the threat from Russia, he drew a direct parallel with 1914, when British politicians failed to recognize the international tensions that led to the First World War.
The parallels become even more noticeable if we compare the British army of 2024 with the British army of 1914. In 2024, the number of the British army in peacetime will be the smallest since the 1700s. Although the army prides itself on its high standards of training and professionalism, it is hampered by budget constraints, unsuccessful procurement programs (most notably the catastrophic epic with Ajax armored fighting vehicles), recruitment problems and uncertainty about its role in British defense policy. Will it be a flexible force focused on hybrid warfare? Should the army focus its efforts on creating real expeditionary capabilities? Or should she prepare for a large-scale war using conventional weapons against an equal opponent? Defining a clear role was hampered by the lack of guidance from the government, which has been going through an exceptionally unstable period since the Brexit referendum in 2016. Rishi Sunak is Britain's fifth prime minister in eight years, and neither he nor his predecessors have shown much interest in setting a clear policy direction.
This leaves the army with the opportunity to independently make decisions on how to reform and develop. The situation is complicated by the confusing and often contradictory lessons it has learned from recent wars. The opposite information from the army's own experience in Iraq and Afghanistan is mixed with observations of other conflicts, especially the French operation Serval in Mali and the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Extracting and implementing the right conclusions to prepare the British army for the 2020s and beyond proved to be a difficult task, and some commentators despaired of the opportunity to carry out serious reform.
But the British army has been in this position before. Let's take a look at the state of the army in 1914. Then, as now, the army was a small professional force that prided itself on its high standards of training and leadership. However, she also experienced a number of problems. She was still learning lessons from the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, a long and bitter conflict characterized by years of guerrilla warfare. At the same time, the army tried to analyze the often contradictory information obtained from observations of the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905, while some commentators argued that this conventional war was a better model for future conflicts than the army's own experience of fighting the Boers. In the early 1900s, Britain's political parties were determined to keep spending low and cut the army budget to a minimum. The situation was exacerbated by frequent political upheavals, including two deeply controversial elections in 1910 and growing unrest in Ireland, which made it difficult for the Government to establish a clear and consistent policy towards the army. Meanwhile, rising wages in Britain have made army life less attractive to young people, which has created problems recruiting military personnel. There were constant complaints that the recruits of the 1900s were not as sturdy, strong and determined as the men of previous generations. Similar problems haunt the British army in the modern era.
Those who are concerned about the problems of the British army today can draw inspiration from its experience between 1902 and 1914. During this period, the British army was able to achieve something very rare in its history: a long-term peacetime reform of training and tactics, which served it well in future major conflicts.
Several key lessons follow from this. Some of these were characteristic of the period, including the need for heavier artillery pieces and cavalry that could fight on horseback and dismount. Others are more resilient, such as the need for superior individual training and, most importantly, the need to train officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers to take more initiative in combat. At this transitional moment, the British Army also realized the value of providing veterans with a platform where they could share their experiences and knowledge of previous conflicts. Western armies today should contribute to the creation of such platforms.
The Boer Experience
The British army had a bloody and difficult experience in the Boer War. War broke out in South Africa in October 1899, when the Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, angered by years of British political pressure and military threats, launched a preventive war to secure their independence. Most of the British press greeted this with patriotic glee, and some journalists confidently predicted that the war would "end by Christmas."
But the war destroyed these expectations. This was largely due to the nature of the Boer army. Although the Boers did not have a standing army, they had an effective militia system that gathered white citizens into detachments based on their local district. These people had no formal education, but came from a frontier culture that nurtured strong people, many of whom were excellent marksmen and experienced horsemen. Most Boers went to war with their rifles and horses, and the government provided them with equipment and harness if necessary. These harsh people of the frontier turned out to be hardy and very mobile fighters. It is not surprising that Winston Churchill, himself a veteran of this war, later decided to name the first British special forces "Commandos", taking this word from the Boer term for military units.
The Anglo-Boer War is divided into three separate stages. The Boers dominated the period of conventional warfare from October to December 1899, winning a number of battlefield victories over the British. However, the very success of the Boers may have doomed their cause to failure, as it prompted the British to redouble their military efforts. The second phase of the war began in February 1900, when reinforced British troops were ready to strike. There was little the Boers could do to slow the advance of British power. The Boer forces were dispersed, and the British felt confident enough to declare complete victory on September 1, 1900.
But after that, the war entered the third phase. Starting in March 1901, Boer units began to carry out guerrilla attacks on the British rear, targeting the railways, which were crucial for supplying the invading forces. The success of the guerrilla operations convinced many Boer commanders that the way to continue the war was to organize a prolonged uprising that would make South Africa ungovernable. The Boers used their mobility and knowledge of the terrain to strike at the British where they were weakest. British attempts to destroy the Boers through large-scale sweeps of the countryside turned into costly failures. Frustrated British troops instead turned to a brutal scorched earth campaign, destroying Boer farms and villages and driving displaced civilians into concentration camps, which eventually killed more than 50,000 Boer and African civilians.
In the end, it was military decisions that broke the back of the Boer resistance. Since mid-1901, the British have adopted a new approach aimed at ensuring the safety of urban areas and restoring normal life. British forces then slowly extended their control from city to city, creating a series of interconnected urban centers where civilian life returned to normal. At the same time, British engineers built a huge chain of blockhouses - small makeshift pillboxes capable of accommodating a garrison of six people - that protected railway tracks and protected urban areas. Together, these methods reduced the mobility of the Boers and their access to resources and gradually pushed the guerrillas into the lifeless wastelands of South Africa. By May 1902, the Boer resistance had been exhausted, and the remaining fighters finally agreed to lay down their arms.
The price of victory was huge. The British army lost 120,000 men, including 22,000 killed, making this the bloodiest conflict for Britain since the Napoleonic Wars. In addition to human casualties, the army's reputation was severely damaged. The press hastened to condemn its low combat effectiveness. Influential journalist Leo Emery spoke out with a particularly fierce barb, writing that the army is "pretty much a dummy" when it comes to actual combat operations against determined opponents. A Royal Commission was quickly assembled to investigate the causes of the failures, which led to uncomfortable questions from her side to senior British officers.
Learning lessons
It is important to note that the army emerged from this sad period with the determination to learn from its mistakes. The mood was typically conveyed by Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Lesson", which began with the words:
Let's face it honestly, as befits a business person.,
We had an endless lesson: it will bring us endless benefits.
The difficulty was to determine which lessons were relevant to future conflicts and which were unique to the recently concluded war. This process was complicated by the fact that the British army was a global force that needed to be prepared for conflicts in a wide variety of places, as well as plan to counter the impending threat of a major land war in Europe.
Nevertheless, by the time the reforms began, the army had a number of advantages. First, it was the scale of the experience. Most of the army's officer corps participated in the Anglo-Boer War. It was a ruthless school where the casualty rate among junior officers was more than double that of soldiers. Those who survived in the sniper-infested veldt had to prove themselves in front of senior commanders, who, stung by press criticism, were intolerant of any hint of incompetence or inefficiency. During the three years of the Boer War, more British officers were dismissed than in the previous 50 years combined. Those who suffered such a fate were exiled to the town of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape Province. This practice was so widespread that the phrase "becoming a stellenbosch" entered the English language as a slang term for suspension.
The officers who came out of this crucible with an intact reputation showed themselves in action. The army was now actively interested in their opinion. The process of "lessons learned" was informal by 21st century standards: officers were sent short questionnaires asking their opinion on a number of tactical and technical issues. The results were collected in "Blue Books", which included general recommendations based on the responses of the officers. This work was supported by the growing military periodicals. Officers of all ranks were invited to write articles for these publications, and they did so with enthusiasm. The readership of military periodicals has grown significantly in the years after the Boer War, and editors have been inundated with materials. Fierce debates unfolded on the pages of major publications such as the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute. Officers of all ranks were invited to contribute, and generous prizes were offered for the best articles.
The combination of experience-based documents, internal discussions and ongoing debates has allowed several key lessons to be learned from the experience of the Boer War. The most significant was the need for initiative. The British army went to war largely adhering to Victorian principles that emphasized strict control, strict and often thoughtless obedience, as well as a cult of ranks and ranks in which junior officers were not expected or encouraged to make decisions. This system proved to be completely inadequate to the conditions of the Anglo-Boer War. On the vast plains of South Africa, young officers found that they had no one to ask for instructions (this topic is brilliantly reflected in Ernest Swinton's book "The Defense of Duffer's Ford"), and they had to solve problems on the spot.
It was noted that the high command did not fully understand the problems faced by units operating in the wilderness, far from the support forces. Young officers were often unfairly dismissed for failures on the ground, which meant that survivors preferred to be safe rather than make decisions that could get them into trouble. This was the main reason for the many defeats and missed opportunities suffered by British counterinsurgency operations.
The army had no choice but to recognize that initiative was necessary in any form of war, whether it was fighting insurgents in South Africa or a conflict with the great powers in Europe. Training was soon revised to encourage officers to take initiative, and training errors were seen as training exercises rather than an opportunity to embarrass or discipline the perpetrator.
It wasn't just the officers who had to take the initiative. The Army noted that non-commissioned officers played a crucial role in South Africa and that the best sergeants and corporals became leaders of units in the field who could continue fighting even when officers were out of commission. As a result, for the first time in its history, the British Army established a Non-Commissioned Officer School to spread these lessons. The school did an "excellent job" but ultimately failed due to budget cuts. Since then, the army has not had a specialized peacetime non-commissioned officer school, although the British Army Non-Commissioned Officer Academy, which is scheduled to open in 2024, is designed to make up for this absence.
The desire to encourage individual initiative culminated in the publication in 1909 of the Field Service Charter, which consolidated the authority of the "man on the spot" to make decisions, even if it meant disobeying orders. It was a revolution in British military thought. Such a doctrine would have been unthinkable before the Boer War. And this doctrine has stood. The updated versions of the Field Service Charter served as army doctrine in the First and Second World Wars.
The importance of the initiative has become a self-reinforcing concept. Officer training contributed to creative problem solving, and the huge popularity of military magazines led to the exchange of ideas. As a result, the army thought deeply about tactics and how the experience of counterinsurgency operations could be used in a potential conflict with great powers. Although there has been fierce debate, the army has managed to determine what is universal for modern warfare and what is specific for the Boer War. For example, several tactical concepts that arose during the fighting in the bush were eventually abandoned. These included the use of so-called "sniper" artillery pieces and overly dispersed infantry formations. Both tactics were valuable in dealing with small groups of guerrillas in the savannah, but it was recognized that they were not suitable for waging war against a strong opponent.
Lessons not learned
Nevertheless, the British army was not without weaknesses. Apart from budget cuts and constant recruitment problems, the emphasis on tactical skills and individual initiative meant that relatively little attention was paid to large-scale operations. Army maneuvers were characterized by noticeable differences in the ways divisions operated. Concerns about these inconsistencies were raised at the highest level, but were dismissed with the casual assumption that in the event of a major war, the commander-in-chief would impose unity of doctrine on his subordinates.
The lack of clear operational concepts meant that the army had mobilization plans, but did not have a campaign plan in case of a European war. Even the mobilization plan was considered as an option, and not as a final planning decision. With the outbreak of the First World War, the British government was forced to convene an emergency meeting, at which Prime Minister Herbert Asquith asked the assembled experts what should be done. Eventually, a modified version of the mobilization plan was implemented, but the army entered the war unsure of its goals and burdened with a confusing set of contradictory government orders.
The 1914 campaign was bloody and desperately stubborn. The German invasion of Belgium and France forced the British and French armies to retreat to the gates of Paris, before an incredible counterattack at the Battle of the Marne in September turned the tide. At that time, the British army had experienced the longest combat retreat in its history (surpassed only by the retreat from Burma in 1942), covering more than 200 miles in the most dangerous conditions. The high command was often absent, and the fact that she could fight so effectively testified to the good training, tactics and tenacity of the army. The worst army would not have survived such trials. Unsurprisingly, one veteran later recalled that Paul Kruger, the president of the Transvaal who declared war on the British in 1899, "was the best friend the British army ever had."
But it also contains a warning, which Sanders hinted at in his recent speech. In August 1914, the British army was able to field about 120,000 troops. By the end of the same year, it had lost 95,000 people and was virtually destroyed. Its place will be taken by a brave but inexperienced volunteer New army, which will have to go through a bloody training path until the Allies finally prevail. Sanders may have had these people in mind when he noted that "regular armies start wars, and citizen armies win them."
The echoes of 1914 are clear for the British Army in 2024. The army has emerged from a long period of counterinsurgency and is now facing the threat of a major land war in Europe. Its budget and size have been reduced by the Government, which still requires global capacity. It would be nice to look at the example of your predecessors a century ago and understand how you can make the most of your counterinsurgency experience. Although not all lessons will be applicable to future conventional conflict, the discussion creates an opportunity to synthesize useful lessons. This process in the post-Boer War era highlighted the importance of not just encouraging the initiative, but also actively preparing for its implementation. Whatever the task facing the British army in the 21st century, it will require officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted men to demonstrate the same intelligence and approach to solving problems that their ancestors showed so well in 1914.
Dr. Spencer Jones is a senior lecturer in the Department of Armed Forces and Military Studies at the University of Wolverhampton and author of regimental histories of the Royal Artillery. His key works include "From Boer War to World War: Tactical Reform of the British Army" and "Stemming the Tide: Officers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary Force 1914".
Well, Rudyard Kipling's beautiful poem "The Lesson" - unfortunately, all his famous Russian translations are very inaccurate and suffer from severe deviations in detail
The Lesson
1899-1902 (Boer War)
Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should,
We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good.
Not on a single issue, or in one direction or twain,
But conclusively, comprehensively, and several times and again,
Were all our most holy illusions knocked higher than Gilde- roy's kite.
We have had a jolly good lesson, and it serves us jolly well right !
This was not bestowed us under the trees, nor yet in the shade of a tent,
But swingingly, over eleven degrees of a bare brown continent.
From Lamberts to Delagoa Bay, and from Pietersburg to Sutherland,
Fell the phenomenal lesson we learned-with a fullness accorded no other land.
It was our fault, and our very great fault, and not the judgment of Heaven.
We made an Army in our own image, on an island nine by seven,
Which faithfully mirrored its makers' ideals, equipment, and mental attitude-
And so we got our lesson: and we ought to accept it with gratitude.
We have spent two hundred million pounds to prove the fact once more,
That horses are quicker than men afoot, since two and two make four;
And horses have four legs, and men have two legs, and two into four goes twice,
And nothing over except our lesson-and very cheap at the price.
For remember (this our children shall know: we are too near for that knowledge)
Not our mere astonied camps, but Council and Creed and College-
All the obese, unchallenged old things that stifle and overlie us-
Have felt the effects of the lesson we got-an advantage no money could by us!
Then let us develop this marvellous asset which we alone command,
And which, it may subsequently transpire, will be worth as much as the Rand.
Let us approach this pivotal fact in a humble yet hopeful mood-
We have had no end of a lesson, it will do us no end of good!
It was our fault, and our very great fault-and now we must turn it to use.
We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.
So the more we work and the less we talk the better results we shall get-
We have had an Imperial lesson; it may make us an Empire yet!