facilities were much less than they were in the
several harbours of South Africa, it became a very serious point that
the stores required by the Army at once on landing were at the bottom
of the holds. The ample landing capacities of Cape Town, of Durban,
and almost, relatively to Ismailia, of East London and Port Elizabeth,
made this in the present war less serious; but even in this case it
drew a strongly-worded telegram of remonstrance. It would be
impossible to reckon upon our having always at our disposal
conveniences so great as these for disembarking an army. It becomes,
therefore, for future expeditions, important to note that the trouble
which became so grave in 1882 was not removed at the ports of
embarkation when this war began. To say the least, it was not the
universally established practice to give to the naval officer in
charge or to any one else a list showing the order in which the
material embarked would be required on landing; and to ask that those
things which would be first needed should be put in last, so that they
might be on the top.

[Sidenote: Co-operation in forcing a landing.]

The army in South Africa had not to land against an opposing enemy. It
is obviously important that in conjoint practice of the two services
the possibility of an opposed landing should be taken into account. It
was unfortunate, therefore, that as a consequence of the limited time
at disposal, the other duties of the fleet, and the cost of demurrage,
it became necessary for the Admiralty, when it was wisely decided to
have combined manoeuvres of navy and army in the autumn of 1904, in
order to practise embarkation and disembarkation, to direct that the
landing should be carried out under peace conditions. As a consequence
of this the first party landed on a shore, supposed to be hostile, was
one of unarmed sailors; and orders, at least in one instance, filled
the foremost boats with the clerks and clerkly paraphernalia of a
divisional Headquarters. That may have been the routine rightly
followed in many cases at Cape Town, but the true application of the
lessons of history does not consist in blind imitation of precedent
from the past in those respects in which the conditions have changed.
Joint action in manoeuvre will be valueless unless it is used to
familiarise each service with the work of the other as it will be in
the actual fighting of the time. During the great war at the end of
the eighteenth and beginning o