The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-12-26
THE BRITISH DEF AT.

Inc news OF the ueIe1C OF tlTee DfIS-
AIDES OF General Sir Redvers Buffers
Army Corps. intended for the relief
Of Ladysmith and the capture Of Pre-
toria. comes as a most unacceptable
holiday present 70 the British people
and their Anglo Saxon friends. SO far
as we have the accounts of this dis
aster we can only infer that The British
commander erred. as 50 many British
Generals have done before him. in
going out to fight a guerrilla enemy
with an Army managed by the rules of
European warfare The British never
seem 20 realize that there are times
when all the red tape. all the schooling
and all the clustered theory must be
thrown 10 the winds and fighting be
done by the sort OF individual initia-
tive chat appears in the American
skirmish line. The American soldier
learned his skirmish formation from
dear experience and it is high time
the British solder began TO learn it
also.
General Buffers catastrophe re-
minds one first OF Braddock's celebra-
ted defeat in the Pennsylvania forests
Braddock had Indians 10 fight and he
proposed 20 do it by advancing in
platoons and firing volleys as they did
az Fontenoy Colonel George Washing
ton and other colonial aides told Brad
dock better but he would not listen to
advice Suddenly. as he was march
ing on The enemy he found himself
hemmed and ringed with fire and
stricken with arrows. There was no
enemy in sight but death hurtled
everywhere Vo!ley firing did no good
and the artillery found no mark. After
vain expenditure of heroism Brad
dock retreated. the only portion of his
force escaping with honor being the
colonial.
At Bunker Hill the British made
similar mistake and would have been
beaten finally as they were in several
charges. had not the powder and ball
of the Americans given out. Again in
the war of 1872 the British attacked
Jackson's forces at New Orleans in
compact masses. Jackson had rifle
men who were accustomed to kill
squirrels on the jump by sending their
ri q fhrOJIOh
animals heads. The british General,
Packeaham, brOther-in-law of the
Duke of Wellington and commander of
an army of Peninsular veterans, de-
spised the uncouth bordermen and
hurled his columns against them with
q blind confidence that cost him 2400
men in half an hour. He was up
against the Beers of his time but he
disdained, with true British fidelity to
precedent, to maneuver or TO throw
out skirmish lines or 10 give his lndI
vidual sharpshOoters chance.
In previous Boer wars this absurd
insistence on form and rule cost Great
Britain more than one disaster. Ma
tuba Hill was an avoidable calamity
vet il taught no lesson. Only the Other
dav General White ran into an am
huscade and lost two regiments and a
! battery. Even that taught nothing for
/ we find Gatacre doing the same
7 thing and Sir Redvers Butler
marching three brigades lin squadron
. and right form of war; into another
\ Boer trap losing eleven guns and no
one knows how many men.
( The truth is-and We have empha-
sized. il before--that the machine-made
army is no match for expert guerrilla
. ~ifiemen defending their own soil. The
Guerrilla thus equipped and inspired. Is
the most formidable soldier in the
world. The only way TO equal him Is
to adopt his tactics-to put men IN the
field who can shoot as we'll and are as
cunning as he We very much doubt
whether the Tommy Atkins of Alder
shot fills the bill. Australians. who
shoot rabbits on the jump, and Cana
diaus. who bring down partridges on