that he hunted or played cricket or polo at home. He enjoyed the sport
and the game, did his best for his own side, and rejoiced if he was
successful, but was not greatly disturbed when he lost. A dictum
attributed to the Duke of Wellington says that the Battle of Waterloo
was won upon the Playing Fields at Eton. It would not be so very far
from the truth to say that the guns at Sannah's Post were captured on
the polo-ground at Hurlingham; that Magersfontein was lost at Lord's;
that Spionkop was evacuated at Sandown; and that the war lingered on for
thirty-two months in the Quorn and Pytchley coverts.

The sporting view of War was recognized and confirmed in Army Orders and
official reports, in which the words "bag," "drive," "stop," and some
other sporting terms not infrequently appeared. No one would reasonably
object to the judicious and illuminating use of metaphor, but there are
metaphors which impair the dignity of a cause and degrade it in the eyes
of those whose duty is to maintain that cause. When the advance of a
British Division at a critical period in the operations is frivolously
termed a "drive," and when the men extended at ten paces' interval over
a wide front are called "beaters," it is natural that the leaders should
look upon their work as analogous to the duties of a gamekeeper; and
when an artillery officer is instructed to "pitch his shells well up,"
he is encouraged to regard failure as no worse than the loss of a
cricket-match.

It was at least to be expected that in the use, care, and management of
horses upon which the success of a campaign, in which mounted men formed
an unusually large proportion of the troops engaged, so much depended,
the sporting instincts of the British officer would have made him
particularly efficient; yet the evidence given by General officers
before the Royal Commission showed that it was otherwise. They are