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In a disastrous week, dubbed Black Week, from 10–17 December 1899, the British Army suffered three devastating defeats by the Boer Republics at the battles of Stormberg (690), Magersfontein (948) and Colenso (1,138), with 2,776 men killed, wounded and captured. The events were an eye opener for the government and troops, who had thought that the war could be won very easily.〔.〕 The biggest problem that the British troops had at the beginning of the war was the antiquity of their weaponry. The Boer troops had very advanced modern weapons, which helped them win battles where they were greatly outnumbered. One of the keys to success at the Battle of Colenso was the use of smokeless powder in their rifles, which hid their locations from the British troops returning fire.〔Judd, The Boer War, 126.〕 This was just one of the many ways in which the Boers had superior weaponry at the beginning of the war. The first of many reforms in the modernization of the British military following Black Week was with the cavalry. With new, modernized troops came new tactics; only a few months after Black Week, one of the main cavalry divisions led a flanking march that ended with a victory. Besides equipping the cavalry with rapid-firing rifles instead of lances, the new British military doctrine also started using artillery as a defensive unit of the army, and saw innovation in the use of machine guns.〔Deborah D. Avant, "The Institutional Sources of Military Doctrine: Hegemons in Peripheral Wars," International Studies Quarterly, Dec. 1993, Vol. 37, No. 4 in Jstor (online ), accessed November 9, 2009.〕 These new volunteers served as a "new face, untainted by defeat and accusations of defeatism…to breathe life back into the campaigns and restore hope at home."〔 Other changes enacted by the British immediately following the Black Week disaster were the mobilization of two more divisions, the calling up of the army reserves, raising a force of mounted cavalry for better mobility, and most importantly by sending volunteers from home overseas which added more than one hundred thousand additional troops by the end of the war.〔 ==Political situation== During Black week, the War Office took primacy, as the Colonial secretary took a back seat in the cabinet, the Boer War raged on.〔Chamberlains's record Chapter LXX, Black Week. pp.518-536.〕 Chamberlain was eclipsed in Cabinet during December 1899. It must have been a blessing in disguise for the man himself: had he accepted Salisbury's initial offer he would have been at the War Office dealing with the difficulties in the Cape. The unionist was not going to be a scapegoat for Conservative policy. The reverses and humiliations for the Army hit the London government hard. Arthur Balfour was acting Prime Minister, and Lord Lansdowne, Secretary for War. Salisbury, grieving at Hatfield for his lost wife, was incapacitated. Cometh the hour, and Chamberlain was hailed as a great statesman, raised to the occasion by the debility of Lord Salisbury, the titan of foreign policy. Chamberlain wanted a tolerant liberal civilized Empire, and a generous reconstruction of South Africa. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Black Week」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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