The English officer is a gentleman, always perfectly well bred, often very well educated, and extremely affable; but he is a gentleman, and not an officer. War entered upon by men of this type demands neither serious preliminary study nor effective progress in an army; and as regards military art and science, the English are still at the stage of the pitched battle. It is but just to add that they have also preserved the cool, tenacious courage and the indomitable energy of their race, qualities which none can deny them. I saw some superb charges by English troops in Africa, but they always reminded me of Marechal Pelissier’s remark after the heroic charge at Balaclava: ’C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre!’ I am no Anglophile, as my campaign of over eight months on the Boer side sufficiently proves, but it is the duty of a loyal soldier to recognise the qualities and the courage of his adversaries. After this short digression, let us resume our survey of the English army. During the first months, up to March, their artillery ammunition seems to have been very defective, often exploding imperfectly, or not at all. The fire took a long time to regulate, and was nearly always independent, rarely in salvoes. Nevertheless, I several times saw guns served in a remarkably efficient manner. The horses are superb, and were constantly renewed; throughout the campaign they had from five to six quarterns of oats a day. Their artillery equipment consists of a variety of very ordinary patterns. They have not yet any field-guns with breaks. The mounted artillery (Royal Horse Artillery) is a picked body of men. Its officers must have served four years in the Field Artillery, and must also be possessed of a certain private income. Their guns, Armstrongs of 76.2 millimetres, are called 12-pounders (from the weight of the projectile). The Field Artillery uses 89 millimetre guns with 22-pound shells. The breech-blocks are screwed in. The mountain-guns (1882 pattern) are loaded at the muzzle. The batteries consist of six pieces, with the exception of the volunteer batteries, which have only four. Their shell-guns, of which even during their operations on the open plain they had a certain number of batteries (notably No. 61 Battery at Spion Kop, and No. 65 Battery at Paardeburg), are howitzers of the latest pattern; they are loaded at the breech, and are specially constructed for fire at a high angle of elevation. Their naval guns and siege guns, dragged about by teams of from twenty to thirty oxen, were able to follow the troops in a satisfactory manner. The lyddite shells did not prove very effective. They explode with a loud and violent report. The green smoke has a stupefying effect; objects such as stones or fragments of shell that come in contact with the explosive take on a sulphur-green tint.