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easel and paint-box and all the pictures, finished and unfinished, could easily be carried.

And so, with but little loss of time, they all three rode away that very evening. Konrad was mounted upon a charger, but carried only a mahl stick, instead of a glittering sword, and the old gate-keeper, riding behind him as squire, led the packhorse bearing pic

tures and easel instead of shield and buckler.

Konrad found the group so picturesque and paintable that he begged for a half hour's delay, that he might make a hasty sketch of it, but the Baron stated very firmly that they had a sharp ride before them, and must push forward or they would hardly reach the castle before dark.

(To be continued.)

FIRST LESSONS OF THE WAR.-A BLOW TO GERMANY.

It goes without saying that the course of the war in South Africa is being followed with profound attention by the General Staffs on the Continent. All the powers have attachés or representatives both with the Boer and British forces, and upon their reports very much will depend. It would not be at all surprising to learn that the detailed information transmitted to Berlin by Count von Lüttwitz, the exceptionally able and distinguished German officer who is making the campaign with the British Army, had caused great perturbation of heart at the German headquarters—a fact which would, perhaps, explain the extreme acidity of German instructed comment upon the war.

Will not Count von Lüttwitz have to report that all the experience of the war goes to prove the impossibility of Germany's succeeding in an offensive campaign against France? To understand how this should be a study of the French frontier on the map is necessary. It will be observed that the total length of the French frontier from east of Longwy, where it first touches the Reichsland, to south of Belfort, where the Reichsland ends and Switzerland begins, is only a little over one

hundred and sixty miles. If France acts upon the defensive, and if Germany does not violate the neutrality of Belgium or Switzerland, that is the whole extent which France has to protect. It is a relatively narrow front when we consider the enormous numbers which are placed in line in modern field armies.

As is well known, the French, soon after the war of 1870, constructed two long chains of forts to bar the line of a German invasion. The first begins at Verdun, and runs generally southeast to Nancy. Then succeeds a gap about thirty miles wide, which has been left of set purpose, because an advance by the Germans in this direction would enable both their flanks to be attacked. Finally, the second long chain of works runs south-southeast from Epinal to a point close to the Swiss frontier. The forts in these lines of defence are well supplied with heavy guns of position, and have always caused the Germans a certain amount of concern. Four large fortresses or entrenched camps-Verdun, Toul, Epinal and Belfort-support the flanks of each of the two chains of works; and on the French right, at some distance to the rear, is a second group of great

fortresses, comprising Langres, Dijon and Besançon.

The French have been much decried for constructing these enormous fortifications at the cost of many millions. But, as a matter of fact, at the time when these lines of defence were planned, their Army was in no condition to meet the Germans in the open field. It is true that there is always difficulty in persuading an army, which is fighting behind works, to leave those works and act upon the offensive; but then, on the other hand, it is also true that inferior troops will show great power of resistance behind cover. The French, with the quantitativelyweaker Army and the qualitatively-inferior Army, were right in discerning that they had little hope of success if they took the offensive. Their lines of works, they hoped, would sufficiently delay the enemy to enable them, with their slower mobilization and inferior system, to mass their troops upon the eastern frontier, and would preclude lightning blows such as the German strategists would naturally attempt to deliver.

The Germans devoted much thought to the difficulties caused by these fortifications. Many of their generals were for quietly violating the neutrality of Belgium and marching their Army through that country, thus turning the French defences. Others preferred to debouch through Switzerland, though here fresh troubles would have had to be faced. But as it was felt that it would be unwise to offend public opinion in Europe, and possibly throw England into the arms of a possible combination hostile to Germany, the final decision appears to have been to break through the French line of forts at some selected point. What would have been attempted was this. A large number of German field batteries would have attacked two or more of the forts, and have overwhelmed

them by a perfect storm of shells, and when the defence had been thoroughly beaten down-as in theory it could easily be after a longer or shorter cannonade the works would have been stormed. Thus a gap would have been created sufficient for the passage of the Army.

This plan caused undoubted uneasiness in France. French generals are under no illustions as to the inferiority of their army, even in the present day, opposed to their old enemy. The Army has made vast progress, it is true; alike in numbers, training and equipment it is far superior to the force which went down SO easily and so rapidly before the legions directed by Moltke and the officers educated in his school. But its infantry is much inferior, and its cavalry very much inferior to the German. Consequently every one in France has, for the last thirty years, felt that war with Germany would probably mean a second invasion-another overrunning of the whole northeast and centre of the country with all the suffering which invasion brings in its train.

But now the South African struggle has shown three things very clearly, the bearing of which upon the position of France against Germany will be investigated later. The first is that the power of artillery has not, in actual fact, increased to the extent which every one had supposed. The second is that frontal attacks upon field works are out of the question for any troops except longservice men of exceptional morale, and even with them are prone to fail where they are not supported by turning movements. The third is the capacity of a relatively small force to defend a long line of intrenchments, provided that force be mobile.

It was anticipated before the present war that artillery would show a killing power from five to seven times as

great as that possessed by it at the time

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of the Franco-Prussian War. This was to be expected from the improved methods of teaching shooting, the better sights supplied, the quicker rate of fire attainable, the use of high explosives, and the general employment of shrapnel instead of common shell. In some ways, no doubt, the British artillery was behind the times. It was not numerous enough, the proportion supplied per thousand in the Army Corps first sent out being only two and a half guns to each thousand combatants, whereas in the great Continental armies the proportion is nearer five. It was not supplied with the latest pattern of quick-firing gun, though Sir G. Clarke's ingenious carriage allowed of a very fair rapidity of fire. It was also inferior in range to the weapons which are now being issued on the Continent. On the other hand, the field guns were supported by absolutely modern howitzers and by a small number of good and very heavy position guns. The Boer artillery opposed to us was fairly well up to date, embracing heavy but mobile Krupps and Creusot guns, 15- and 12pounder quick-firers, older pattern Krupps of 7- and 9-pounder, and the famous "Pom-Poms." But it also, perhaps luckily for us, was weak in numbers.

And now let us examine the performance of our artillery. At Belmont it was very ineffective, possibly because the two batteries at Lord Methuen's disposal were numerically too few, and set to work for far too short a time. At Enslin these two batteries and the naval 12-pounders vigorously bombarded the kopjes held by the Boers till "to all who watched, it appeared impossible that any living thing could be left in them. A hailstorm of shrapnel descended upon the stony slopes." Yet, as Lord Methuen reports, "Shrapnel does not kill men in these kopjes; it only frightens," and when the Naval Brigade started to storm, "a strange

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was poured upon our seamen [and marines] so hot that the Staff were horrified to see the front rank going down in the proportion of two men to three." So that the Boers must have recovered from their fright very speedily. Moreover, only twenty-one Boer dead were found upon the battlefield, and of these it is, at least, probable that half had been killed by rifle fire. It must be confessed that the results of this bombardment by two and a half batteries were disappointing, even if we allow for a good many dead carried off the field.

At Modder River two batteries and the four naval 12-pounders bombarded the enemy's position all day; one battery arrived in the afternoon and fired thenceforward till dusk. It does not appear that our twenty-two guns put any of the enemy's guns out of action, or even silenced them, and this is scarcely to be wondered at when we note in all the correspondents' accounts the extreme difficulty of locating the enemy. The Boer trenchesor the supposed position of the Boer trenches-were furiously bombarded; all the houses in Modder River village were wrecked or riddled, and to the rear of the trenches the ground was ploughed up with bullets; yet here, again, there is no real evidence of heavy Boer losses. About fifty dead were found on the field, and it is certainly doubtful if many were carried off. Our own casualties were seventy-two killed, and, as we were attacking, it is, at least, reasonable to suppose that we suffered more than the Boers. So far as the British Army knew at the time, the 3,000 15- and 12-pounder projectiles did not seriously shake the enemy. It has since been ascertained that a certain number of badly-disciplined Free Staters bolted, but the Transvaalers held their ground till nightfall, and then only retired because of their fear

of the bayonet from the party which had turned their right flank.

No fault can be found with the handling of the British artillery. By general agreement it was superb. The guns did all that 15-pounder guns of their pattern and in their number could do, and if they failed to dislodge the enemy it must have been because the anticipations entertained of the results of shrapnel fire were exaggerated. It is known that the Boers lined their trenches with a single row of men, spaced at wide intervals. This and the invisibility of the trenches may account for their small loss. They certainly had not suffered much in morale, if, indeed, they had suffered at all, for they fell back into a fresh position, and continued to offer a determined resistance.

The various shellings of the lines at Magersfontein by guns so heavy as the 4.7-inch naval weapon and the 5-inch howitzer, yield no evidence as we do not know the enemy's losses. There is no reason to think that they were heavy.

In all these actions the British losses from the Boer artillery fire are said to have been insignificant, and General Cronje himself reported that they caused him more trouble than they were worth. But we learn that the "Pom-Pom," by its strange, hollow note, its invisibility, and its rapidity of fire, had a demoralizing effect upon our troops when in the open.

At Colenso the British bombardments, which preceded General Buller's first attempt to cross the Tugela, are said by foreign officers with the Boers, who are fairly trustworthy, to have caused absurdly small loss.1 During the battle itself, though Fort Wylie

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from the frequent explosion of the British lyddite shells looked like “a volcano in full eruption," the Boer guns in the focus of this fire were steadily fought. Stories of a thousand or so Boers killed and wounded in the battle were retailed in camp, but upon what solid foundation they rested it is impossible to discover. They must, I fear, be regarded merely as simple fables.

But the classical example in this war is Paardeberg. Here was a Boer force verging upon 5,000, shut up in a small space of one mile square, and subjected to the converging fire of over forty guns, not counting the naval 4.7's, the field howitzers of 5-inch calibre, and the 6-inch siege howitzers with their 120-lb. lyddite shells. For whole days these weapons fired upon the Boer entrenchments, and most men expected that Cronje's force would be literally annihilated. The aim of the guns could be, and was, regulated from a captive balloon. Yet 4,300 men surrendered, and the total casualties are placed by The Times correspondent at 200! They cannot have been very heavy, or traces of the slaughter would have attracted the correspondents' attention, and the wounded would have numbered far more than 170, which Lord Roberts gives as the correct figure in his despatches. And this, though "the lyddite shells raised great clouds of green smoke which filled the bed of the river, while shrapnel burst along the edge of each bank. . . . Our shells searched every bush and every ravine on the river banks."

As to the fighting in Natal, at Spion Kop, Vaal Krantz, and upon the fourth advance to Ladysmith, we have as yet no information to contradict the con

erally, yet I thought their terrific cannonade must have left marked results." Let us remember this when we read of the tornadoes of shrapnel which are going to produce such marvellous consequences.

clusions to which the above facts seem to point. It is true that at Spion Kop our troops did suffer heavily from the Boer shrapnel, but then they were crowded upon a very exposed position without proper entrenchments, enfiladed, and unsupported by British guns on the summit of the mountain.

At

The effects of the continued Boer bombardment of Ladysmith are familiar to our readers. It is true that this bombardment was never very vigorous, but, such as it was, it seems to have been regarded with something like stoical contempt by our soldiers. Mafeking and Kimberley similar bombardments failed altogether to shake the nerves of the besieged, though at times the shelling was very active, and in the case of Kimberley the civilians tell us plainly that the experience was most unpleasant.

We come now to frontal attacks upon an entrenched force. There is an impression that these must always fail -an impression which, as a matter of fact, the events of the war do not justify. But what is certain is, that for frontal attacks troops of a much higher quality than are to be found in Continental short-service armies are required. We have succeeded in them, and succeeded with comparatively small punishment, because of the superb conduct of our long-service infantry, with which there is nothing on the Continent to compare. How admirable is its fighting power can be seen from the fact that at Belmont the Guards advanced in a single line, the men four paces apart without any supports or reserves. This is a formation which is employed by no other army, and it is more than doubtful if soldiers with only two years' service could be persuaded to advance in it. At Enslin the seamen and marines who covered

2 The German infantry drill book recognizes that infantry can always defend their front by fire alone against frontal attack.

themselves with glory are men who serve for twelve years. Here, again, it is doubtful if any Continental infantry would have succeeded in carrying the hill, in the face of a withering fire from an invisible enemy. The Naval Brigade did, indeed, momentarily retire, but at their commander's order, and at his order they once more advanced and took the hill, after a terrible pause, under a heavy fire.

At Modder River, on the other hand, Lord Methuen's army failed to carry the enemy's position. The conditions were most unnerving. The enemy was absolutely invisible; with the best field glasses few infantry officers saw a single Boer, and the hail of bullets seemed to come from all quarters. Though the causualties were not heavy, considering the nature and duration of the battle, it is agreed by all who were present that the smallest movement on the part of the prone troops drew a terrific fire. A hand lifted, a mess-tin glittering in the sun, a Highlander's kilt ruffled by the wind instantly attracted a shower of bullets. Some officers, indeed, insisted upon walking to and fro in front of their troops, but this display of courage only endangered their own lives and the lives of all near them to little purpose. It was impossible to induce the men to go forward in the centre, where to show oneself was almost certain death, and where the invisible enemy could wound or slay with apparent impunity. The troops were wild with rage at the sheer impossibility of getting at their enemy; probably shortservice men of the Continental pattern would have hurriedly departed to the rear. The British soldier held his ground. Three times, at least, Cronje was entreated to attack, and some of those with the British Army think that he might have done so with success. Be this as it may, it was the flank movement by General Pole-Carew on the Boer right which compelled the

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