Author | Ernest Dunlop Swinton, writing as "Backsight Forethought" |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Military art and science |
Publisher | W. Clowes & Sons, London, reprinted from the United Service Magazine |
Publication date | 1904 |
Pages | 39 |
The Defence of Duffer's Drift is a short 1904 book by the British Army officer Ernest Swinton. Lieutenant Backsight Forethought (BF) and his command of fifty men are given the task to defend Duffer's Drift, a natural ford to a river. A large force of Boers, unknown to BF, is moving toward his position. This scenario is played out six separate times, in six "dreams." In the early scenarios, BF and his British troops are ignominiously defeated. After each defeat, BF learns lessons and adapts his strategy for the later encounters. The later dreams end more inconclusively, and in the final dream, BF and his command successfully hold out long enough to be relieved. The book encourages critical thinking and careful use of position and terrain to mount a successful defence.
The book has been imitated many times, both for the British Army and for the US Army, and new adaptations continue to appear in the 21st century.
The Defence of Duffer's Drift was published in 1904 when Swinton was a field officer in the British Army. It appeared in the British United Service Magazine under the pseudonym, Lieutenant N. Backsight Forethought ("BF"), who is the narrator of the book. The book is an exploration of small unit tactics in a fictional encounter in the Second Boer War. Swinton was a captain of the Royal Engineers in South Africa during the Boer War, [2] [3] and the book "embodies some recollections of things actually done and undone in South Africa, 1899–1902." [4]
The Defence of Duffer's Drift was reprinted in the April 1905 edition of the Journal of the United States Infantry Association. The book, especially intended for young lieutenants, has become a military staple on small unit tactics, read far afield in places such as the United States, Russia, and Canada. [5] While some of the advice has become rather dated—notably, BF eventually decides to imprison all nearby locals, shoot any livestock that could be of aid to the enemy, and impress both Boer and black alike into building fortifications for his men, an "approach to the human terrain that would spell disaster" in modern times—the book is still considered relevant and interesting. [6]
Lieutenant Backsight Forethought (BF to his friends) has been left in command of a 50-man reinforced platoon to hold Duffer's Drift, the only ford on the Silliassvogel River available to wheeled traffic. Here is his chance for fame and glory. He has passed his officer courses and special qualifications. "Now if they had given me a job, say like fighting the Battle of Waterloo, or Gettysburg, or Bull Run, I knew all about that, as I had crammed it up..." While BF's task appears simple enough the Boer enemy causes a multitude of problems, but the astute reader, with a sharp mind and quick intellect, will no doubt solve the problem before the first shot is fired. [7]
In his first two dreams, the British force is ambushed without much of a fight. Fortifications are not prepared and the sentries announce their locations, allowing the Boers to easily sneak up and defeat the sleepy British soldiers without resistance. In the third and fourth dreams, BF takes more proactive defensive preparations - digging trenches, arresting the local Boer civilians rather than attempting to trade or communicate with them, and impounding them and local black civilians for forced labour. While able to slow the Boers down some, poor placement of trenches, lack of supplies, obvious fortifications that the enemy can easily detect and plan around, and other problems hamper the British resistance. The fifth and sixth dreams are the most successful; in them, BF creates a spread-out and concealed force that greatly hampers and slows the enemy, even to the point of turning them back in the sixth dream, which allows for BF to obtain reinforcements.
The following are the lessons learned discussed in this book. [7]
The Defence of Duffer's Drift's style of literary fiction has been copied by several authors, making this author an influence upon the writings of others. Some examples are provided below, including: a primer on World War I battalion level combined arms tactics incorporating new types of warfare (tanks, machine guns, and aviation), [9] a mechanized battalion level primer, a military combat service support example, one that is non-military related, and one adopting the parable to operations in Iraq. [10] [11] [12] [13]
The first example is Battle of Booby's Bluffs, originally published in 1921 by an Army officer under the pseudonym Major Single List. It is important for its "lessons-learned" examination of the new weapons introduced in the Great War (most notably tanks, machine guns and aeroplanes) and how these innovations required learning new combined arms tactics. In the style of Duffer's Drift, a hapless battalion commander faces a battle scenario in a series of six dreams. In the first dream, he makes so many mistakes as to prove catastrophic for him and his men. But he learns a few more things about tactics and leadership through each dream, until at last he leads his men to victory through the treacherous terrain of Booby's Bluffs. Included with the dreams are notations to real life mistakes made by American commanders during the War. [9]
Defense of Hill 781, written by James R. McDonough in 1988, deals with a somewhat larger combat element than Duffer's Drift, and having a slightly different reason for the "dreams". [10]
The Defense of Duffer's Drift Brigade Support Area was written by Staff Sergeants Reginald Scott and Steve Newman, along with Sergeants William Baucom, Rodney Weathers, and Louise Chee in the September 2001 edition of NCO Notes, number 01-2, from the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Institute of Land Warfare. Instead of trying to teach infantry tactics, the authors of this story focused upon a supply company of a forward support battalion in an effort to teach units inside of a Brigade Support Area to become more effective in defensive operations during combat. [13]
The winter 2005 edition of the Canadian Army Journal contained the following praise:
The South African War (1899–1902) provided the next opportunity for literary fiction to play a role in future army concepts. The publication of The Defence of Duffer's Drift by Captain (later Major-General Sir) Ernest Swinton, KBE, CB, DSO, in 1905, was extremely well received and became required reading for many subsequent generations of young officers. Set at a river choke point on some generic veldt anywhere in the Transvaal, the story's main character, a young and energetic Lieutenant Backsight Forethought, has a series of nightmares in which he loses battle after battle against his Boer adversaries. After each dream, however, a series of lessons are highlighted, and each of these was incorporated into the next battle, which eventually leads Lieutenant Forethought to victory and relief in the final dream. Although written as a fictional tale, Swinton's aim was to teach tactical lessons as well as generate discussion and debate on the planning and execution of operations.
— Godefroy, Andrew B., Canadian Army Journal [14]
The Defense of Jisr Al Doreaa is a 2009 novella by two US Army captains, based on The Defence of Duffer's Drift, and meant to teach junior officers how to apply the basic principles of counter-insurgency. [11]
The Defense of Battle Position Duffer is a publication created by the Asymmetric Warfare Group and Johns Hopkins University in 2016 that covers how commanders may integrate the cyber domain with tactical operations at the brigade combat team level. It follows Colonel Backsight Forethought V, a student of the Army War College, in a similar series of dreams where his mission as a brigade commander in varying scenarios are hampered by more cyber-proficient enemy commanders. Eventually, after integrating a litany of lessons learned throughout previous dreams, he is able to finally defeat a determined enemy with minimal losses. [12]
Dominating Duffer's Domain is a 2017 report in the Duffer's Drift idiom meant to instruct U.S. Army information operations practitioners. [3]
A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision rifles and high-magnification optics, and often also serve as scouts/observers feeding tactical information back to their units or command headquarters.
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which combatants are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. It became archetypically associated with World War I (1914–1918), when the Race to the Sea rapidly expanded trench use on the Western Front starting in September 1914.
The siege of Port Hudson was the final engagement in the Union campaign to recapture the Mississippi River in the American Civil War. While Union General Ulysses Grant was besieging Vicksburg upriver, General Nathaniel Banks was ordered to capture the lower Mississippi Confederate stronghold of Port Hudson, Louisiana, to go to Grant's aid. When his assault failed, Banks settled into a 48-day siege, the longest in US military history up to that point. A second attack also failed, and it was only after the fall of Vicksburg that the Confederate commander, General Franklin Gardner, surrendered the port. The Union gained control of the river and navigation from the Gulf of Mexico through the Deep South and to the river's upper reaches.
Technology during World War I (1914–1918) reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass-production methods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general. This trend began at least fifty years prior to World War I during the American Civil War of 1861–1865, and continued through many smaller conflicts in which soldiers and strategists tested new weapons.
In military science, suppressive fire is "fire that degrades the performance of an enemy force below the level needed to fulfill its mission". When used to protect exposed friendly troops advancing on the battlefield, it is commonly called covering fire. Suppression is usually only effective for the duration of the fire. It is one of three types of fire support, which is defined by NATO as "the application of fire, coordinated with the maneuver of forces, to destroy, neutralise or suppress the enemy".
In warfare, infiltration tactics involve small independent light infantry forces advancing into enemy rear areas, bypassing enemy frontline strongpoints, possibly isolating them for attack by follow-up troops with heavier weapons. Soldiers take the initiative to identify enemy weak points and choose their own routes, targets, moments and methods of attack; this requires a high degree of skill and training, and can be supplemented by special equipment and weaponry to give them more local combat options.
The Battle of Spioen Kop was a military engagement between British forces and two Boer Republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, during the campaign by the British to relieve the besieged city Ladysmith during the initial months of the Second Boer War. The battle was fought 23–24 January 1900 on the hilltop of Spioen Kop(1), about 38 km (24 mi) west-southwest of Ladysmith and resulted in a Boer victory.
Stormtroopers were specialist infantry soldiers of the German Army. In the last years of World War I, Stoßtruppen were trained to use infiltration tactics – part of the Germans' improved method of attack on enemy trenches. The German Empire entered the war certain that the conflict would be won in the course of great military campaigns, thus relegating results obtained during individual clashes to the background; consequently the best officers, concentrated in the German General Staff, placed their attention on maneuver warfare and the rational exploitation of railways, rather than concentrating on the conduct of battles: this attitude gave a direct contribution to operational victories of Germany in Russia, Romania, Serbia and Italy, but it resulted in failure in the West. Thus the German officers on the Western Front found themselves in need of resolving the static situation caused by trench warfare on the battlefield.
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Major Stewart Walter Loudoun-Shand VC was a British recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was posthumously awarded the VC for his actions during an attack near the French village of Fricourt on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme.
The Battle of Modder River was an engagement in the Boer War, fought at Modder River, on 28 November 1899. A British column under Lord Methuen, that was attempting to relieve the besieged town of Kimberley, forced Boers under General Piet Cronjé to retreat to Magersfontein, but suffered heavy casualties altogether.
Infantry tactics are the combination of military concepts and methods used by infantry to achieve tactical objectives during combat. The role of the infantry on the battlefield is, typically, to close with and engage the enemy, and hold territorial objectives; infantry tactics are the means by which this is achieved. Infantry commonly makes up the largest proportion of an army's fighting strength, and consequently often suffers the heaviest casualties. Throughout history, infantrymen have sought to minimise their losses in both attack and defence through effective tactics.
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Major-General Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton, was a British Army officer who played a part in the development and adoption of the tank during the First World War. He was also a war correspondent and author of several short stories on military themes. He is credited, along with fellow officer Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Dally Jones, with having initiated the use of the word "tank" as a code-name for the first tracked, armoured fighting vehicles.
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George Brenton Laurie was a Nova Scotian army officer and author who distinguished himself in both the Boer War and the First World War. In the latter war, he was killed in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. General Sir John Keir, K.C.B, said of him "I learnt to appreciate his value as a soldier and his many other sterling qualities. … His name remains one held in honour for all time."
B.F.'s approach to his human terrain would have spelled disaster [in the Iraq War]
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