skills, camouflage, artillery tactics and the use of the machine gun, and so has concentrated on one of the key reforms of tactics and doctrine that has influenced future battlefields since the Boer War and continues to do so. There has been much written about the Boer War and its influence on the reform of the British Army prior to 1914, however, much of the work concentrates on the strategic and management level of the army and the General staff. 14 Other writers, such as GR Searle, have argued that the Boer War had a negative impact on British tactical thinking as the difference in military tactics and requirements when comparing the Boer War and the Great War demonstrate the changes made in the period in between were irrelevant and, to some extent, even harmful. 15 There is a serious gap in the historiography of the influence on tactics of the Boer War, and this has led to a failure of historians to consider the tactical level changes that came about from the period. The tactical doctrine of fire and manoeuvre provides an example of this failure, as it has few detractors and is still used today with combined arms operations as well as single unit combat. In conclusion, the Boer War, as experienced by the British Army culminated in the development of infantry tactics which are still used on the modern battlefield. The Army of the Victorian period – influenced heavily by Frederician and Jominian theory and which had been defeated at Colenso, Stormberg and Magersfontein – had been replaced by a force that recognised the tactical use of terrain and the extended advance to contact, resulting in reduced casualties and 14 J.E. Tyler, The British Army and the Continent, 1904-1914 , (London: E. Arnold and Co, 1938). 15 G.R. Searle, The Quest for National Efficiency: A Study in British Politics and Political Thought, 1899-1914 , (California: University of California Press, 1971).
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