1870 To 1905 British Military Training

During the period 1870 to 1905 the tactics and training within the British Army was an outdated system, comprising of poor doctrine that did not learn from failure. Although there were several conflicts that could have influenced British military strategy and doctrine this essay will look at the key elements learnt from the Boer War from 1899 to 1902. It was the combat experience in this period that prompted the development of improved tactical doctrine in the main teeth arm, the infantry. It also highlighted to commanders, the importance of tactical skills and individual initiative above drill and discipline at unit level, this later informed the success of the British Expeditionary Force at the beginning of the Great War in 1914. The

This was due for the most part because the majority of the infantry in the British Army was present from the early stages of the war in 1899 until the end of the war in 1902. The failures in fighting a very mobile opponent armed with smokeless and magazine fed rifles made the British realise that reform was needed and urgently. The fact that Great Britain had previously fought against the Boer in earlier conflicts should have appraised the Army of the excellent capabilities of the enemy, especially its skills with fire arms and small unit skirmishing. However, there was a complacency in British thinking that treated the Boers with contempt, with British Intelligence publishing a secret report that believed the Boers would only deploy raiders against the British and also assumed that they only had minimal armaments. These views quickly changed during the opening salvoes of combat in what was later to be known as the ‘Black Week’ of December 1899. During the Battle of Talana Hill on 20th October 1899 The Boer forces used their Mausers to great effect and were able to take many British lives due to the skill of marksmanship and the ineffective British doctrine of close order marching and formation. During Lord Methuen’s march to relieve Kimberly an officer described the infantry fighting as “…an honest, straightforward

The requirements of the length of the essay has prevented any inclusion or discussion of the use of earthen works, accurate rifle skills, camouflage, artillery tactics and the use of the machine gun, and so has concentrated on one of the key reforms of tactics and doctrine that has influenced future battlefields since the Boer War and continues to do so. There has been much written about the Boer War and its influence on the reform of the British Army prior to 1914, however, much of the work concentrates on the strategic and management level of the army and the General staff . Other writers have treated the Boer War as having a negative impact on British tactical thinking such as GR Searle who argued that due to the difference in fighting during the Boer War in comparison to the Great War that measures instigated from the lessons learnt were irrelevant and to some extent harmful . There is a serious gap in the historiography of the influence on tactics of the Boer War this has led to a failure of historians to consider the tactical level changes that came about from the period as an example the tactical doctrine of fire and manoeuvre has few detractors and is still used today with combined arms operations as well as single unit