Whatever that system
was, it was extremely rudimentary, and was never developed to any extent
by the discipline and training which any system necessarily requires in
order to make it effective. There was a natural system or manner used by
the Boers when hunting for lion or buck, and it was identically the same
which they applied against the British army. Every Boer was expert in the
use of his rifle; he had an excellent eye for country and cover; he was
able to tell at a glance whether a hill or an undulation in the ground was
suitable for fighting purposes, whether it could be defended and whether
it offered facilities for attack or retreat. Just as every Boer was a
general, so it was that every burgher had in his mind a certain military
plan fashioned after the needs and opportunities of the country, and this
was their system--a sort of national as well as natural military system.
In the British army, as well as in the other modern armies, the soldier is
supposed to understand nothing, know nothing, and do nothing but give
obedience to the commands of his officers. The trained soldier learns
little, and is supposed to learn little, of anything except the evolutions
he is taught on the drill-grounds. It is presumed that he is stupid, and
the idea appears to be to prevent him from being otherwise in order that
he may the better fulfil his part in the great machine to which a trained
army has been likened. The soldier is regarded as an animal of low mental
grade, whose functions are merely to obey the orders of the man who has
been chosen by beings of superior intelligence to lead him.
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