to have produced an especially disquieting and paralyzing impression on the immovable defender, who was tied to his position, because of his inability to inflict perceptible losses on these small, prone targets, and because, moreover, he himself was continually under a galling fire. As no assault was made, no opportunity was offered the defender for using his rifles against targets the height of a man. The British infantrymen were, however, insufficiently trained in handling their weapons independently. As to rise and to retreat meant annihilation, the determination to resist weakened gradually during the long fire fight, and, in order to escape from this seemingly unendurable situation, which grew more and more acute with every minute, and which paralyzed every energetic decision, one avenue of escape only seemed open, that of surrender.[1]
One who fought on the Boer side writes as follows: "After we had crept up, in this manner, constantly firing and crawling, to within about 300 m. of the enemy, we saw many white handkerchiefs waving over in his lines, as a signal of surrender. As we placed little credence in these signs of surrender, however, on account of many a bad experience, we continued the advance by crawling. But, as soon as we saw that most of the men in the enemy's ranks were throwing away their weapons, we rose to make the British prisoners. When we came up with them, I noticed that a great many of the men were weeping like children. Later, when I voiced my astonishment over the morale of their troops to some English officers, they stated that it was due to the uncnany manner of our advance.
"These officers stated, moreover, that the sight of danger approaching ever closer without their being able to ward it off effectively, caused great depression and alarm among their troops; for the Boers, utilizing every available rock in crawling over the plain, presented such an unfavorable target that the British fire had had very little effect, while they themselves had been constantly exposed to the Boer fire. All this, they claimed, had contributed to unnerve their troops."[2]
Lessons of the Boer War: "The rushes * * *
were of variable length, according to the intensity of the
hostile fire; they varied from 30 to 80 m. According to the
opinion of many British officers it was exceedingly difficult
to induce skirmishers to rise and rush forward under hostile
fire; but that once upon their feet, it became necessary to
