The Defence of Duffer's DriftSwinton, E. D. (Ernest Dunlop)
History
The Defence of Duffer's Drift
Swinton, E. D. (Ernest Dunlop)
Guerrilla warfare; Military art and science; South African War, 1899-1902; Tactics
11. For a small isolated post and an active enemy, there are no
_flanks_, no _rear_, or, to put it otherwise, it is _front all round_.
12. Beware of being taken in _reverse_; take care, when placing and
making your defences, that when you are engaged in shooting the enemy
to the front of your trench, his pal cannot sneak up and shoot you in
the back.
13. Beware of being _enfiladed_. It is nasty from one flank--far worse
from both flanks.
Remember, also, that though you may arrange matters so that you cannot
be enfiladed by rifle-fire, yet you may be open to it from long range,
by means of gun or pompom fire. There are few straight trenches that
cannot be enfiladed from somewhere, if the enemy can only get there.
You can sometimes prevent being enfiladed by so placing your trench
that no one can get into prolongation of it to fire down it, or you
can "wiggle" it about in many ways, so that it is not straight, or
make "traverses" across it, or dig separate trenches for every two or
three men.
14. Do not have your trench near rising ground over which you cannot
see, and which you cannot hold.
15. Do not huddle all your men together in a small trench like sheep
in a pen. Give them air.
16. As once before--cover from sight is often worth more than cover
from bullets.
For close shooting from a non-concealed trench, _head cover_ with
_loopholes_ is an advantage. This should be bullet-proof and not be
conspicuously on the top of the parapet, so as to draw fire, or it
will be far more dangerous than having none.
17. To surprise the enemy is a great advantage.
18. If you wish to obtain this advantage, _conceal_ your position.
Though for promotion it may be sound to advertise your position, for
defence it is not.
19. To test the concealment or otherwise of your position, look at it
from the enemy's point of view.
FIFTH DREAM.
"A trifling sum of misery
New added to the foot of thy account."
DRYDEN.
"Jack Frost looked forth one still clear night,
And he said, 'Now I shall be out of sight;
So over the valley and over the height
In silence I'll take my way.'"
GOULD.
Again I faced the same task with a fresh mind and fresh hopes, all
that remained with me of my former attempts being _nineteen_ lessons.
Having detailed the two patrols and the guard on Waschout Hill as
already described, I spent some twenty minutes--whilst the stores,
etc., were being arranged--in walking about to choose a position to
hold in the light of my nineteen lessons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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