enote: General conclusions.]

The first of these conclusions is the fact that the real evil revealed
by the South African War is not the inefficiency, or unpreparedness of
the War Office, but the ignorance,[199] and therefore unpreparedness,
of the country. From this unreadiness for war on the part of the
nation as a whole there sprang two results: (1) the refusal of the
Salisbury Cabinet to allow the War Office to make adequate military
preparations in June, and the disregard of the advice alike of Lord
Milner and Lord Wolseley; (2) the insufficient supply of reserves for
the forces in the field, arising ultimately from the small percentage
of men in the nation trained to the use of arms.

[Footnote 199: For the direct part played by the Liberal
leaders in the production of this ignorance, see p. 256.]

The second conclusion to which we are led is that the specific result
of the absence of effective preparations for War in June was to throw
the War Office scheme of a fighting force out of gear. Twenty-two
thousand defensive troops, with a striking force of fifty thousand in
South Africa, would have proved sufficient to attain the ends of
British policy. As it was, the Army Corps being in England when
hostilities commenced, and not arriving in its entirety until December
4th, the fifty thousand offensive force was absorbed in the work of
extricating the twenty-two thousand defensive force. In other words,
the British Army was not put in the position contemplated by Lord
Wolseley's scheme until an entirely new fighting force had been
organised and advanced from Modder River in the beginning of February,
1900. This new striking force was identical in numbers with the
original striking force, the Army Corps,[200] provided by Lord
Wolseley's scheme.

[Sidenote: Criticisms examined.]

Among criticisms on the British Army in the field there are two that
claim attention. The first of these is the allegation that military
efficiency was sacrificed to a desire to spare life. In so far as this
criticism is concerned with the handling of their troops by British
commanders, it is strenuously denied that either Lord Roberts, or any
of his subordinates, allowed a desire to spare the lives of the troops
under their command to interfere with the successful execution of any
military operation. The specific example of the alleged interference
of this motive, usually cited, is the conduct of the attack upon the
Boe