The Present Mode of Infantry Attack Examined. With Practical Suggestions. By Brigadier-General W. Gordon, C.I.E., April, WASTE AND WANT OF AMMUNITION IN ACTION. By Captain O'Hea, THE PHANTOM. A Christmas Story THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN: Considered from a French and Russian Point of View. From the French, by General Knox, C.B, Chap. V., VI. (Conclusion.) NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF HER MAJESTY'S ELEVENTH (NORTH-DEVON) REGIMENT OF INFANTRY FROM ITS FORMATION TO THE PRESENT CAPTAIN KINKS. Chaps. XVIII., XIX. By the Author of " A Modern MEMOIR OF MAJOR-GENERAL SIR FREDERICK SLEIGH ROBERTS, BART., 55 74 90 Staff Officers of Pensioners-Modern Heroes-Transport Estab- lishments-Barbadoes Postage-Royal Marines-Mr. Trevelyan and the Army-The Efficiency of H.M.S. 'Inflexible'—The In- 102 . 113 122 The EDITOR requests that the following rules may be attended to. All MSS. are to be addressed to the EDITOR of Colburn's United Service Magazine, 3, St. Martin's Place, Trafalgar Square, London, W.C. 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It is specially adapted for Ships, Camps, Sportsmen and Travellers, being in a highly concentrated form made instantaneously with boiling water. Keeps in all climates, and palatable without milk. Four times the strength of Cocoas thickened yet weakened witty starch, &c. A teaspoonful to a breakfast cup, costing less than a halfpenny. The Faculty pronounce it "the most nutritious perfectly digestible Beverage for Breakfast, Luncheon or Supper," and invaluable for Invalids and Children. Cocoatina a la Vanille is the most delicate, digestible. cheapest Vanilla Chocolate, and may be taken when richer Chocolate is prohibited. Sold by Chemists, Grocers, in Air-tight Tin Canisters, 1s. 6d., 3s., 5s. 6d. &c. Samples free by post. COLBURN'S UNITED SERVICE MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1882. WASTE AND WANT OF AMMUNITION By Captain O'HEA, late 25th Regiment. Within the past three years the British system of army organisation and tactics has sustained reverses in South-west Africa of a character sufficiently severe to attract to its shortcomings considerable attention in military circles, and doubtless to cause some uneasiness to the military authorities, if not to the civilian. element, at the War Office. The massacre-for there is really no other name for it-at Isandula of a portion of our troops, representing two, if not the three arms. of the Service, equipped and armed with field artillery, and the approved infantry rifle, and this by Zulu natives using chiefly a primitive weapon; later on, the destruction, at Brunker Spruit of a wing of the 94th Regiment; then the repulse, to use a mild term, of a considerable force of British troops, composed of two of the three arms, at Laing's Nek, by imperfectlydisciplined and unequally-armed Boer settlers-unequally armed in every way when compared with our soldiers, and totally unarmed in point of artillery; and more recently still the attack and capture of our position on Majuba mountain, and the utter rout of our infantry by these same Boers-here also without the aid of field guns or Mitrailleuses-would appear to have at length aroused the attention of the responsible U.S. MAG. NO. 638 B authorities to some of the faults of that system, and reorganisation reorganised is the result. In the engagements referred to, the conduct of the troops, as far as pluck and discipline are concerned, cannot, it is presumed, be questioned; indeed, the devoted courage of the 24th Regiment, and of the others who fought and fell at Isandula, must ever be the one bright paragraph in the story of that lamentable encounter. But the gallantry of our soldiers ought to make it the more imperative on those who accept the responsibility of army administration, to take timely note of and remedy without delay, not only the more glaring faults in the system, but also to seek out and correct other serious defects which had no inconsiderable share in assisting repulse and disaster; for, notwithstanding that want of stamina in the rank and file, and rashness, or what is equally regrettable, contempt for the enemy on the part of commanders, were but too evident in three of the four engagements referred to, there were other auxiliaries to defeat equally palpable, which, up to the present time, have escaped reforming notice, and it is to the most prominent of these latter that attention is nowinvited. It is not intended, and, indeed would be needless, to enter here on the result of Lord Cardwell's mistaken army scheme, to repair the effects of which will require careful recruiting for years to come, as it has rendered necessary another reorganization, and consequent temporary unsettling of the Service; or to offer more than a passing reference to the injury which this unprofessional experiment has inflicted on the Army in filling the fighting line with boy soldiers and inexperienced non-commissioned officers, who proved, even when in a choice position, to be unequal to resist the assault of an adversary, more numerous to be sure, but inferior in training and arming, and having in addition to overcome all the difficulties attending the attack. The patriotic speech of Sir Frederick Roberts at the Mansion House on the 14th of last February, and the letters and articles in the leading journals on the subject must have fixed attention to these grave faults. The present purpose is to point to another |