In no department or branch of the army was there any military discipline or system, except in the two small bodies of men known as the State Artillery of the Transvaal and the State Artillery of the Free State.  These organisations were in existence many years before the war was begun, and had regular drills and practice which were maintained when they were at the front.  The Johannesburg Police also had a form of discipline which, however, was not strict enough to prevent the men from becoming mutinous when they imagined that they had fought the whole war themselves, and wanted to have a vacation in order that they might visit their homes.  The only vestige of real military discipline that was to be found in the entire Boer army was that which was maintained by Field-Cornet A.L.  Thring, of the Kroonstad commando, who had a roll-call and inspection of rifles every morning.  This extraordinary procedure was not relished by the burghers, who made an indignant protest to General Christian De Wet.  The general upheld the field-cornet’s action, and told the men that if all the officers had instituted similar methods more success might have attended the army’s operations.

With the exception of the instances cited, every man was a disciplinary law unto himself, and when he transgressed that law no one would punish him but his conscience.  There were laws on the subject of obedience in the army, and each had penalties attached to it, but it was extremely rare that a burgher was punished.  When he endured discipline he did it because he cared to do so, and not because he feared those who had authority over him.  He was deeply religious, and he felt that in being obedient he was finding favour in the eyes of the Providence that favoured his cause.  It was as much his religion as his ability to aim unerringly that made the Boer a good soldier.  If the Boer army had been composed of an irreligious, undisciplined body of men, instead of the psalm-singing farmers, it would have been conquered by itself.  The religion of the Boers was their discipline.

CHAPTER V

THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM

The disparity between the British and Boer armies seemed to be so great at the time the war was begun that the patriotic Englishman could hardly be blamed for asserting that the struggle would be of only a month’s duration.  On the one side was an army every branch of which was highly developed and specialised and kept in constant practice by many wars waged under widely different conditions.  Back of it was a great nation, with millions of men and unlimited resources to draw upon.  At the head of the army were men who had the theory and practice of warfare as few leaders of other armies had had the opportunities of securing them.  Opposed to this army was practically an aggregation of farmers, hastily summoned together and utterly without discipline or training.  They were unable to replace with