Buller: A Scapegoat?

Book Review

reviewed by Ian Knight


'Buller; A Scapegoat?' By Geoffrey Powell, published by Leo Cooper, ISBN 0-85052-279-X, price £ 2l.00

To many, General Redvers Buller came to represent all that was bad about the late Victorian Army. He was a fierce bull-dog of a man, possessed of a fearsome temper, often blunt to the point of rudeness, and renowned for the comforts he enjoyed (in campaign, comforts which included legendary quantities of champagne. Looking at portraits of him in later life, it is easy to see the in them the mark of 'Buller the Blunderer', the archetypal old duffer whose stupidity, stubbornness and mental atrophy was directly responsible for a string of disasters in Natal in the early part of the Boer War - Colenso, Spioenkop, Vaalkranz. So easy, indeed, that this image has passed into the popular imagination, and surfaces almost without question when new books on the Boer War appear. Yet this image sits uneasily with even the most superficial examination of Buller's career.

This was a man whose experience reads like a check-list of Victorian military campaigns; China in 1860, the Red River expedition in Canada, Ashanti (Asante) in West Africa 1873, Zululand in 1879, Egypt 1882, the Sudan 1883-85, and the Boer War. Buller had won his VC in Zululand, riding up and down the terrible 'Devil's Pass' at Hlobane, rescuing wounded and unhorsed men in the very teeth of a Zulu attack. His energy and drive had not only earned him an enviable reputation amongst his superiors, but the undying respect of his men - something lie never lost, even in the darkest days of the Boer War.

As the title suggests, Geoffrey Powell's Buller; A Scapegoat? attempts to reconcile these two very different pictures by suggesting that Buller's folly in the Boer War has been much exaggerated. It is true that Buller was perhaps a little too old to take to the field in 1899, after a long spell in charge at Aldershot. it is equally true that he had doubts about his own ability to be in sole command, and that at times lack of confidence and excessive care for his men made him indecisive.

Yet the tactical problems which Buller faced were very real, and it is one of history's ironies that Buller was one of the few who realised it. He was required to deploy an essentially nineteenth-century army against one whose methods were forerunners of the twentieth; in confronting a secure foe, concealed in strong defensive positions masked by natural obstacles, and armed with accurate undetectable smallarms, Buller was facing the same problems which would bedevil a commanders a generation later on the Western Front. Powell's book provides a readable summary of Buller's career, and a perceptive study of his character; it suggests that his fall from grace was not due to his military failures alone, but in part due to his unfortunate manner with war correspondents, whom he despised, and who took their revenge by mercilessly exposing his failings.

Butler was, perhaps, made a scapegoat for the shortcomings of the Army establishment, yet in many ways it was a role in which he cast himself. It is about time Buller's reputation received a new appraisal, and this book does the job well, although marred by a couple of careless mistakes; Louis Botha is called Piet Botha the first time he appears, and a photograph of the Transvaal's President Kruger is inaccurately caption 'General Kronje'. Nevertheless, Buller; A Scapegoat? should be read by anyone with an interest in Victorian campaigns.

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