There is an interesting Hansard report from 1904 involving Earl Wemyss, Earl Roberts and Lord Lovat.
The key points for me were:
- After Black Week, the need for better reconnaissance was recognised
- Telescopes were advocated due to the better range compared to binoculars
- Lord Lovat initially intended to send out trained deer-stalkers to be spread across units
- The War Office would only accept units of around 120 men
- Lord Lovat changed to composition of Lovat's Scouts, including more sharpshooters and fewer stalkers
- Earl Roberts saw Lovat's Scouts as Yeomanry and kept them together
- Earl Roberts used local men as scouts
THE YEOMANRY AND LOVAT'S SCOUTS. HL Deb 18 July 1904 vol 138 cc231-45
EARL WEMYSS. The other matter I refer to in my notice is the question of the Lovat Scouts. Lord Lovat and I, unconsciously, were working at the same time at the same thing. We had the disadvantage, at the commencement of the war, of experiencing what were called "regrettable incidents," like that at Magersfontein. When these regrettable incidents took place through blind blundering, I had a strong feeling that what was wanted were men who knew how to use the telescope. Your Lordships will hardly believe it, but our Army was sent out to South Africa with hardly a telescope among them. They had, no doubt, field-glasses magnifying twelve times; but my old deer-stalking glass used to magnify thirty-five times. So clear was the atmosphere, a member of Lord Lovat's scouts told me they saw quite a dozen miles away, a body of Boers marching along a hillside. They looked at them with their deer-stalking glasses, and the question was whether these men were twelve or fourteen miles away. That gives your Lordships a notion of what a telescope can do in that climate; but, notwithstanding that, our soldiers, as said, were sent out without telescopes. After Magersfontein a General—I will not say who—wrote to Sir David Gill, the Astronomer Royal at the Cape and said— “For God's sake send me as many telescopes as you can.” I know, as regards Lovat's Scouts, that one General—one of the good Generals out there—after he had inspected these scouts, said— “Until I saw you at work I had no idea of the use that a telescope could be in war.” It was a telescope that enabled the Duke of Wellington to win the battle of Assaye and cross the Douro, and your Lordships know well the picture of him, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, with blue frock coat and telescope in hand. Yet one hundred years afterwards the British Army went to war without telescopes, and a British General admitted that he was not aware of the use of telescopes in war!
Seeing all this, I felt strongly that what was wanted were scouts who knew how to stalk, men who knew the use of the telescope; for, after all, a soldier is nothing but a man-stalker, and the same qualities are necessary to make a man a good soldier and a good scout as are necessary to make him a good deerstalker. I wrote a letter to The Times on this subject, in which I asked— “Why don't they send out Highlanders, scouts accustomed to deer-stalking?” And the next day Lord Lovat, whom I had not the pleasure of knowing before, came to me and said— “What you have suggested I am busy doing. I am already forming such a body of men,” And a very good body of men they proved to be. But my Question refers to another matter. The last thing that came into my head, or into the head of any sensible person, the last thing that could have entered Lord Lovat's head when he was getting this corps together, was that they would be kept together, like any other body of troops, as a fighting unit. The idea was that they should be the eyes of the Army and be scattered about in different directions. But they were kept together. I asked one of these scouts how this came about, and he said it was due to the action of the authorities. I asked which authorities, the authorities here or the authorities out there, and he replied— “The authorities out there.” I have heard since that the authorities here and the authorities in South Africa differed on this point, but the latter had their own way and the men were kept together. A speech was made by my noble friend Lord Lovat in the Highlands which explains the whole thing so far as his knowledge goes, and I had intended quoting it. As however, the noble and gallant Lord is here to-night it would be absurd for me to read extracts from his speech; but I believe I am justified in asking how it happened that the Lovat Scouts were kept together as a fighting unit, and upon whom the responsibility of such a waste of power rests.
LORD LOVAT My Lords, I rise with considerable reluctance to address your Lordships. I have very distinct views, and have not hesitated to express them on this subject, and I should be very sorry if, through not being accustomed to public speaking, I should say one word more than the case justified about any corps with which I have been associated. But as Lord Wemyss has asked me to do so, I will state exactly the manner in which the Lovat Scouts were treated, and how this question arose. Immediately after Magersfontein, in December, 1899, I went to the War Office and offered to raise a body of men, with ten or twelve officers and six or eight trained telescope men, stalkers, and others from the Highlands. This offer was rejected, the War Office informing me that they could only deal with units. They insisted that there should be 116 men, a bugler, two shoeing-smiths, and some farriers; and they declined to deal with any other force except a force thus composed. Accordingly I went out to South Africa with two units such as they desired me to raise.
I would like to put Lord Wemyss right by saying that there was no chance, when once in South Africa, of dividing these units. The responsibility as to their organisation in units rests entirely with the War Office here. I did not take as many stalkers as I would otherwise have taken; I only took sufficient to do the work for these companies. In order to meet the War Office views I went in for picked shots. If the force had been organised as I had intended, and only stalkers had been taken, I consider that they would have been of very much greater use. I say this for two reasons. In the first place, as is well known, on the whole of the Colenso side there were only three officers at one time who were able to use the telescope efficiently. I think that if some thirty or forty good men had been distributed throughout the Army the work would have been done a great deal more efficiently. There is an other reason why I think the men could have done better service if they had been split up. On very many occasions we lent from the Lovat Scouts telescope men to various batteries, and as they asked for these men again in subsequent actions, I take it they were satisfied with the work the men did. On the point brought forward by Lord Wemyss as to the work of advance guards, I can only say this, that in two and half years experience I never knew any advance guard, possessing men with telescopes, which ran into the enemy. On each occasion that traps or ambuscades were laid they were discovered, not at two miles, as was generally the case, but at seven miles.
I have nothing further to add with regard to the regiment with which I am associated, but I would like just to say one or two words on the subject of telescopes in war. I do not believe that the War Office have realised the necessity, especially in an open country, of the telescope in war. It is certain that in the clear atmosphere of South Africa, provided climatic influences were favourable, a single horseman could be detected up to a distance of fourteen miles, a number of troops on the march and camps of white tents could be distinguished up to twenty or twenty-one miles, and a man's head and shoulders above an intrenchment at 7,000 yards. The magnifying power of the stalkers' glass runs to thirty-five times, but with the glass used by the forces in South Africa you cannot see equally well up to half that distance. There is another reason for substituting entirely the telescope for the glass now used. I know the present glass is very much easier learnt, and I do not think any man, unless he has had six months study, can do any good with the telescope. I found on several occasions when I issued telescopes to men who had no previous training that it was necessary to take them back and give them the ordinary glasses. They did better work, untrained, with the latter.
There is great need for increasing our powers of vision in the British Army. We continually blundered, quite unnecessarily, into the enemy in South Africa. Our artillery, on many occasions, fired on our own men, as also did the cavalry and infantry, and on several occasions I saw the artillery wasting hundred of shells in searching positions. Both of these errors would have been avoided by the use of proper telescopes. I would say that the first step for the War Office to take is to entirely abolish the obsolete telescopes that are now in use. The telescope they issued to me during the second year of the war, when drawn out to the full length, was 4 feet 11 inches. It was perfectly useless except on a stage. It weighed three times as much as the ordinary glass, and I understand it cost a good deal more than the glasses that one can buy at the Co-operative Stores. No doubt a man must be trained in the use of the telescope, but it is safe to say that a certain number of men go into the Army every year who have had some training with the telescope, before they join, and if they were discovered and put into the artillery, cavalry, or those branches of the service in which the telescope is most essential, some advantage might be gained. If we are unable to get trained men in the Army, there is no reason why a certain number of trained Scottish stalkers should not be maintained, by paying them a fee or by other means, as a sort of Reserve to be attached to batteries in time of war. There can be no difficulty in maintaining a small force like this. These men, I suggest, could be attached to the Intelligence Department to help the advance guard in the line of march, and they could do outpost work with the troops when halted, or assist the general in seeing at great distances.
EARL ROBERTS My Lords, the noble Earl who began the debate brought forward two points—the equipment of Yeomanry and the employment of Lovat's Scouts. The last point my noble friend Lord Lovat has, I think, explained away. Lovat's Scouts were not employed as scouts in South Africa because they were not sent out to me as scouts. When the Yeomanry came out some were called sharpshooters, some roughriders, and some scouts. I saw Lovat's Scouts for the first time at Kroonstad in May, 1900, and I inspected them there. Lord Lovat never said anything to me about their being scouts, and I gather from what my noble friend has stated that the men were not specially trained as scouts. I would certainly never have thought of employing men sent out as Yeomanry, as they were, who were perfectly unacquainted with the country, on the very difficult work of scouting. I employed men of the country whenever I could get them.
. Here are a couple more from Vol.4 of the same source -
