10 Oct 00

Magersfontein, South Africa, December 1899:

When the crusty president of the Transvaal, Paul Kruger, told the British to remove their troops from the Transvaal border and turn back their reinforcements, saying, "... or with great regret I'll be compelled to regard your actions as a declaration or war," his warning was greeted back in England with contemptuous disdain and laughter. Transvaal was not even a third-rate military power. They had a lot of nerve challenging the mighty British Empire!

However, the laughter abruptly stopped when Kruger's mounted "commandos" suddenly swept into British-controlled Natal, easily seizing key towns and casually brushing aside British defenders. The second Anglo-Boer War in a decade had begun in earnest!

Back at the Cape, newly arriving British troops were told the whole "misunderstanding" would be over in a few weeks. Neither side had machine guns or automatic rifles, but they did have artillery and rifle-armed infantry. The British soon learned, to their sorrow, how devastatingly effective Boer farmers could be with their Mauser M95 rifles and their uncanny individual marksmanship, refined from many years of hunting big game on the African plane.

Like Daniel Morgan's Green Mountain Boys during the American Revolution, Boer marksman were trained to immediately identify and pick off enemy officers and NCOs at the beginning of every battle. Leaderless enemy formations would then disintegrate and lose both momentum and cohesiveness. That is exactly what happened at Magerfontein.

At Magerfontein, the British planned a crushing charge at daybreak into Boer positions at the base of a line of hills, lead by the vaunted Black Watch or other elite units of the Scottish Highlanders. During the Napoleonic wars, the extraordinarily successful Russian General, Suvorov, who had repeatedly outwitted the cream of French field commanders, in his famous book, The Science of Victory, influenced an entire generation of European generals to believe that "speed and violence," particularly the use of shock infantry troops in bayonet attacks, was the key to victory in land battle. Indeed it was, until, a mere fifteen years later, the advent of machine guns and other automatic weapons would usher in an end to the age of infantry charges. However, tactical beliefs die slowly. Even many years later in WWII, Japanese infantry units during the Pacific Campaign still relied upon "Bonzi" charges, until they finally and reluctantly conceded that the tactic was ineffective against American firepower.

However, at Magerfontein the British would learn that the tactic was also ineffective against expert marksman who were dug in and who were using rapid-fire Mauser rifles which could be reloaded and returned to action more or less instantaneously after the last round was fired. In addition, the British discovered that massed artillery preparations were also highly overrated.

With the assurance that the entire Boer contingent had be decimated by artillery fire, the Black Watch confidently advanced in the early morning of 11 Dec 1899. Suddenly, it looked as if, "someone turned on a million lights," as the entire Boer line, apparently unaffected by the artillery preparation, erupted in rifle fire. One of the last words out of the mouth of General "Red Mick" Wauchope leading the Black Watch was, "This is fighting, lads!"

They didn't fight for long! Highlander formations precipitously disintegrated into a disorganized rout. British losses were staggering. Most were shot in the back. Christmas parties all over England and Scotland were canceled that year!

The bitterness of Black Watch survivors toward British field commander, Methuen, would last for decades. Said one many years later, "We were led into a butcher's shop and bloody well left there!"

Methuen was sacked. The entire British effort had to go back to square one. The Anglo-Boer War would drag on for several more years, not weeks!"

Lessons:

>Think, don't "feel." Always ask yourself, "How can I use this information to improve my situation?" Never ask yourself, "How does this information make me feel?" Those who are enslaved by their emotions and "feelings" are perpetual losers. They are universally regarded as weaklings, and are thus consistently selected for victimization. They only care about "feeling good," and they are deathly afraid of "feeling bad." They therefore always act exclusively according to that interest.

At every turn of a card, you have a choice. You can deal with the new information rationally and use it logically to plan your next move, or, like the British in Africa, you can "feel" your way to calamity. You have a choice: You can use the information to improve your play, or you can use it to alter your mood. You can think your way to victory, or you can wallow in a fantasyland where everything that makes you feel bad is displayed on an imaginary scoreboard, labeled "How I feel right now!"

"Feeling good about yourself" is something which must be earned; earned over the long haul. Instant "good feelings" are fleeting. If you chase them, the way an addict chases his next fix, you're blunder into one disaster after another. Runaway emotions are like fire. If you don't put it out, it will burn itself out!

>Artillerymen consistently overestimate the effectiveness of their bombardments. Ultimately, enemy soldiers must be located, closed with, and killed one at a time. Masterful leadership may render enemy armies irrelevant but, when the fight starts, competent riflemen are still the key to victory, even today-especially today!

/John