The inference to be drawn from the South African War seems to be that
the value of those military qualities which are created by Discipline
and training has been over-rated, and that a passionate bigoted belief
in the justice of a cause is a more potent factor in the making of a
soldier. Even if every allowance be made for the strategical advantages
possessed by the Boers, of fighting in their own land on interior lines
in a sparsely populated country peculiarly adopted for _guerilla_, it is
difficult to account for their success if the tests by which the
efficiency of a European army is measured are applied to them. It may be
that war has hitherto been regarded too exclusively as a statical and
dynamical problem and that the moral element has been overlooked. It
certainly was overlooked in South Africa; for the war which Lord Roberts
in October, 1900, believed was practically at an end had in fact then
run little more than one-third of its course.



III. WAR CONSIDERED AS A BRANCH OF SPORT


The astonishment, distress, chagrin and bewilderment caused by want of
success, "regrettable incidents," and disasters, sometimes found
consolation during the South African War in the foolish remark--The
Germans would have done no better. What the German Army, which had not
been actively employed for twenty-eight years, might have accomplished
under the same conditions is a matter for sterile speculation which has
little bearing on the case. But the German Army certainly had not been
accustomed to look upon War as a branch of Sport or Athletics.