The Anaconda standard., 1899-11-17
WHAT WAR MAY SOLVE,

WHAT WAR MAY SOLVE.
Several Military Problems Are Awaiting
Solution-Attacking Formations.
BY military experts the world over
the first pitched battle between the
Beers and English-the first fight in
which as many as 10000 men on a side
are regularly engaged-is expected to
| solve numerous military problems and
| to set at rest numerous military dis
putes. Our own war with Spain was
expected to do the same things, but it
| was such a jughandled affair, was so
ones sided and SO short that beyond es-
| tablishing the tremendous advantage
| gained from the use of smokeless pow
| der it did nothing toward fixing stand
ards. The trouble with the Spanish was
that they had the Latin inability to
shoot straight and it was impossible to
| say from their performance just what
| modern arms would or would not do
| against attacking troops. Whatever
| the faults and shortcomings of the
| Beers, nobody has ever denied that they
hold rife properly If the English at
tack them the world will be furnished
with demonstration of just what is
the zone of fire of the modern small
calibered arm, just what is it's effective
distance and just what percentages of
hits may be expected from it. There
Will ue luIIllSHeu at IHe same IliQe Il
demonstration of the value or lack of
value of modern formation in at
tack. ...
Since Plevna 1t has been a dictum
that closely packed troops cannot live
against breech-loading fire. The re-
suits there seemed to show that the old
style of charging in column or mass
was simple murder, a waste of human
life, destructive of the morale of troops
and utterly valueless in the achieve
ment of any military purpose. In con-
sequence tactics were gone over and so
thoroughly revised that there was lit
tie left of the old order. The theory has
been that troops should charge in brok
en- detachments of from five to fifteen
men. under the command of non
commissioned officer; that they should
advance simultaneously, but with wide
intervals. and that they should take
advantage of every rise of ground. of
every rock, of every clump of grass,
of every ditch, to obtain for themselves
as much of protection as possible.
There has been since Plevna, however,
no war between white men worthy to
be called war. and so the dictum has
remained merely dictum. Against
Boer fire it may be shown that chaig
ing in broken detachments is little more
protective of life than charging by com
panies and that-snce the men lose the
injury to the morale may more than
offset the advantage to be gained
| by slightly smaller number of casual
| ties.
In our one land battle with Spain
but little attention seems to have been
paid to the. new style of formation in
attack. At El Caney and at San Juan
hill the troops went at the enemy he'll
ter skelter, in any sort of fashion. car
ing little apparently how they got
there, SO that they got there. The dis
mounted black cavalry and the rough
riders, as well as the white regulars
of the line. stumbled up the hill in ir-
regular formation, it is true, but with
little care to the establishment of in
tervals. The ending of that battle. in
fact, was more of melee than any
thing else, and of small account from
a scientific point of view Whether the
Beers deliver the test charge in the
coming battle or the English deliver
it makes little difference, because the
modern style of attacking in small
bodies and taking advantage of every
possible cover is natural to the Afr-
kanders. They do instinctively the
thing which the European troops have
been carefully instructed in doing.
Beers Are Fine Marksmen.
Like all the Teutonic races, the Beers
are excellent marksmen. They are bet
ter shots than the English, for the
reason that for 100 years, from ia ther
to son, their life on the veldt has
trained them in the use of small arms.
AT Majuba hill in 1881 they used ele-
phant guns and other large calibered
weapons designed to slay South Afr-
can game. These guns had an eff
fective range approximately of 800
yards, and, owing to the size of their
projectiles, their shocking capacity was
great. The accuracy with which they
were handled was attested by the fact
that of the many British dead on top
of the hill when the fight was ended
large majority had been shot in the
head, in many instances the front of
the skull having been lifted off. OF
late months, however, thousands of
Mausers have been imported to the
Transvaal and the burghers have been
armed with them. The Mauser,
though it is a rejected German gun,
has proved its right to use by width
of zone, fiatness of trajectory and cor
rectness 1t seems to be every whit as
good as the Krag-Jorgensens. the Lee
Metfords, the Lebels and other small
calibers now adopted and manufac-
tured by various governments after
years of experiment and expense In
the hands of the Beers, used in their
guerrilla warfare. where it is sought
to find billet for every bullet, the
colt ;s