After these criticisms of certain features of British tactics it is a pleasure to recall a piece of work by the Royal Horse Artillery on the last day of that battle, which would win the respect and admiration of every American soldier. Diamond Hill is a very high kopje, rising directly out of a plain, and from the beginning of the rise it is fully half a mile to the summit, the latter part of the ascent being very steep. The sides of the kopje are covered with huge rocks, some of them ten feet high, and standing in every conceivable position, just as they rested at the time of a great upheaval that broke the earth’s strata. It was almost impossible to walk over the rocks, they were so rough and jagged, yet the officers and men of this battery brought their guns to the very top of the kopje and commanded the entire valley. It was a magnificent thing to do, and almost incredible; I never before saw soldiers bring to pass such an apparently impossible attempt. But it evidently was not an unusual achievement in that campaign of titanic labors, for it occasioned no comment.
[Illustration: 1. The Unpicturesqueness of Modern War. In the range of this photograph of the battle of Diamond Hill the hardest fighting is going on. Twenty cannon and 3,000 rifles are firing, and two regiments are charging; but no more could be seen than is shown above.
2. A difficult kopje; two hundred men are hiding behind the rocks.]
Perhaps no better illustration can be given of the new military conditions which modern strategy and tactics have to meet than a picture that shows how an actual battlefield looks. During the third day the fighting had been very severe, and in one place in the line the British had been compelled to charge a position several times in order to prevent being completely surrounded. There were eight Maxim one-pounder machine guns, several Colts’ machine guns, and a large number of heavy guns in action during the entire day, and at one time they were all concentrated at one point. I took a photograph, which shows better than anything else how modern warfare has lost all picturesque features. This picture shows nothing but a placid landscape that might have been taken on any farm, instead of which thousands of men were fighting desperately. At the time the photograph was taken there was a charge going on, but the khaki clothing makes the men invisible to the camera. Bullets were singing across the plain like sheets of rain, and shells were screeching overhead; along the ridge there was a constant crackling of small arms; but the landscape itself was as quiet as that of a New England farm.