There must be two parties to every combat, and, unless there is perfect equilibrium in combat, one side or the other must definitely be playing an offensive rôle; and, even in equilibrium, both sides may be said to be as much in offence as in defence, whatever weapons they are using. The facts mainly illustrate the abstract principle. The Boers could not have taken guns and prisoners while acting on the defensive. Talana Hill, Nicholson's Nek, Spion Kop, Stormberg, Sannah's Post, Nooitgedacht, Zilikat's Nek, Bakenlaagte, were not defensive operations from the Boer point of view. Nor were Magersfontein, Colenso, Elandslaagte, Paardeberg defensive operations from the British point of view. Whether the rifles were in the hands of Infantry or mounted troops is immaterial. A rifle is a rifle, whoever holds it. It is just as absurd to say that the Boers who rode to and stormed on foot Helvetia and Dewetsdorp belonged to a defensive class of soldiers as it is to say that the Infantry who walked to and stormed Pieter's Hill belonged to a defensive class of soldiers. It is still more absurd to say that the Boers who charged home mounted at Sannah's Post, Vlakfontein, Bakenlaagte, Roodewal, Blood River Poort, and many other actions, and the British mounted riflemen who did similar things at Bothaville, were performing a defensive function, while the Cavalry who pursued at Elandslaagte were performing an offensive function. Take this action of Elandslaagte, the solitary genuine example of a successful charge with the _arme blanche_. By whom was the real offensive work done? By the Infantry and by the Imperial Light Horse acting dismounted, and by the Artillery. After hours of hard and bloody fighting, these men stormed the ridge and forced the Boers to retreat. In the act of retreat they were charged by the Cavalry, who had hitherto been spectators of the action. It might be objected that I am taking a verbal advantage of Sir John French. He is guilty, it may be argued, only of the lesser fallacy--that of thinking that the rifle is a defensive weapon for mounted men as distinguished from Infantry. Not so. He perceives the logical peril of admitting that the rifle is an offensive weapon for any troops, and in another passage, when deprecating attacks on the "Cavalry spirit" (p. vii), makes use of the following words: "Were we to seek to endow Cavalry with the _tenacity and stiffness_ of Infantry, or take from the mounted arm the _mobility and the cult of the offensive_ which are the breath of its life, we should ruin not only the Cavalry, but the Army besides." (The italics are mine.) It may be pointed out that, but for their firearms and the mobility and offensive power derived from them, the Cavalry in South Africa would indeed have been "ruined" beyond hope of rehabilitation.