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Posted by Bob on 09/25/20 11:48
On Tue, 23 May 2006 15:01:51 +0000 (UTC),
credmond@admmail.uwaterloo.ca (Chris Redmond) wrote:
>>Doyle and Rudyard Kipling were active together in establishing a
>>network of firearms marksmanship ranges all over England.
>You can, of course, give us some documentation for
>this most interesting assertion?
"assertion"? It is not an assertion - it is a fact of reality.
I read about it in an NRA publication about gun confiscation in
Britain. It was published about 10 years ago. There so happens to be a
reprint on the web:
http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?ID=76
"Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle both witnessed the lethal fire
that Boer farmer-riflemen rained on British troops in 1899. They
returned home to promote civilian marksmanship through the expansion
of rifle clubs in England."
[full article below]
Does that help remove any doubt you may have had about my credibility?
---
THE civilian rifle club movement in England grew out of the disasters
of the first months of the Anglo-Boer War late in 1899. The British
Army suffered a series of reverses at the hands of outnumbered
civilians unlike anything the nation had witnessed in the prior years.
One of the shocking revelations of the war was the poor standard of
marksmanship in the army compared to that of the Boers. The Boers grew
up hunting and riding; each burgher provided his own horse and rifle
when he joined his commando. These expert game shots, partial to the
bolt-action Mauser repeater, took a heavy toll on British troops often
ordered to advance in long lines as if fighting lightly armed
tribesmen.
Two men who would later found rifle clubs early in the movement were
among the many who followed the course of the war with great anxiety:
Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Kipling, the poet laureate of the British Army, was appalled to read
in the papers how the regulars he had glorified in his stories and
poems were mauled repeatedly by a handful of farmers. He tried to help
on the home front, first by a failed attempt to start a volunteer
company in the resort town of Rottingdean where he lived, then by
writing ''The Absent Minded Beggar."
The poem was critically reviled but extremely successful in its
purpose of raising money for the wives and families of soldiers
serving in South Africa. Finally on Jan. 20, 1900, Rudyard Kipling
left for Cape Town to see the situation firsthand.
Sherlock Holmes creator Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle had been turned down by
the Middlesex Yeomanry when he applied for a commission early in the
war, but he was subsequently offered a position on the staff of a
private field hospital due to leave for the front in the spring of
1900. In the intervening months, Conan Doyle experimented with an
idea: since the Boers often fought from trenches, why not drop bullets
on their heads via "high angle" rifle fire? Conan Doyle made and
tested a prototype high angle sight and wrote several letters to the
War Office promoting his idea, which was rejected as impractical.
The tide of the war had already turned in favor of the British when
Conan Doyle arrived at Lord Roberts' headquarters in the city of
Bloemfontein on April 2, 1900. Kipling, who had just spent six weeks
working on the staff of the military newspaper The Bloemfontein
Friend, returned to Cape Town on April 3. Although the two authors
were mutual admirers and casual friends--Conan Doyle had been a house
guest of the Kiplings in Vermont in 1894--apparently they just missed
one another in South Africa.
Dr. Conan Doyle and the staff of the Langman Hospital were soon
swamped by a massive outbreak of typhoid fever among the troops after
the Boers cut off the city's fresh water supply. Nevertheless, Conan
Doyle found time to go briefly into combat with the army during its
advance on the town of Brandfort. He was as impressed with the scale
of the modern battlefield and the range of the weapons as Kipling had
been when he witnessed the battle of Karee Siding in March. At one
point during the fighting, Kipling wrote: ". . . (we) move(d) forward
to the lip of a large hollow where sheep were grazing. Some of them
began to drop and kick. 'That's both sides trying sighting shots' said
my companion. 'What range do you make it?' I asked. 'Eight hundred at
the nearest. That's close quarters nowadays. You'll never see anything
closer. Modern rifles make it impossible. ' ''
Although the Boer War offered firsthand proof to the British that
accurate rifles had changed the nature of warfare, a tremendous
enthusiasm had surrounded the rifle since the authorization of the
volunteer rifle companies in 1859. The volunteers, a Victorian fad for
amateur soldiering, were popularized by periodic rumors of a French
ironclad battle fleet. The National Rifle Association of Great Britain
was founded in 1859 as well, to promote a national taste for rifle
shooting and thereby sustain interest among the volunteers between
invasion scares. The association's stated aim was to make the rifle
"what the bow was in the days of the Plantagenets"--a national weapon.
For the history-conscious Victorians, the parallels between the rifle,
a weapon requiring far more skill and practice than the smoothbore
musket it replaced, and the longbow, were irresistible.
Queen Victoria, whose reign stretched into the Boer War, fired the
opening shot at the British NRA's first meeting at Wimbledon on July
1, 1860. The British NRA's birth preceded the American NRA's by 12
years.
"What the 'clothyard shaft and grey goose-wing' effected, when guided
by an English eye and an English hand at Crecy and Agincourt, the
rifle bullet will do in any future contest...." wrote Hans Busk in The
Rifle and How to Use it.
The London Times went so far as to editorialize: "The change from the
old musket to the modern rifle has acted on the very life of the
nation, like the changes from acorn to wheat and stone to iron are
said to have revolutionized the primitive races of men."
Despite the NRA's best efforts during the previous 40 years, the war
in South Africa demonstrated clearly that England was not yet a nation
of marksmen. In May 1900 Prime Minister Lord Salisbury called for the
formation of civilian rifle clubs to redress the shortcoming. In a
speech to the Primrose League, he stated his goal was no less than
that "a rifle should be kept in every cottage in the land." In
response the NRA formulated its guidelines for the affiliation of
civilian clubs. Ninety-two were formed that first year, among them
Rudyard Kipling's club at Rottingdean and Arthur Conan Doyle's
Undershaw Rifle Club.
Kipling had returned home to Rottingdean convinced that the English
people had grown too soft and complacent to defend their empire. Not
only had the regular army had a difficult time with the Boers, it had
compared poorly to its colonial allies; the Australians and New
Zealanders had adapted easily to the irregular warfare of their
opponents. Kipling was then at the height of his fame and popularity,
and he was determined to use his status as a platform for moral
leadership, both through his writing, and in the summer of 1900, by
example.
The first task facing Kipling as he started the rifle club was in many
ways the most difficult: securing space for a 1000-yd. range. On a
small island nation such space was at a premium; even the royally
supported NRA had been forced to move its annual meeting from
Wimbledon to Bisley when stray bullets began striking the Duke of
Cambridge's property. Nothing less than a full-size range would do for
Kipling, however, and in July he was able to write to his American
friend Dr. James Conland: "... the bulk of my efforts have been in
trying to get a rifle range over these open downs. At last I think I
have succeeded and after untold bothers the landowners have given
their consent to our putting up targets and butts. It was a weary
business corresponding with lawyers and land-agents and generally
making oneself agreeable to everyone--but now [that] we have started a
village rifle club I begin to see a reward for my labors."
It was not the Boer War that motivated Kipling but the continental war
with Germany that he already foresaw. He threw himself into club
activities, serving as president, personally paying for new targets to
replace the old windmill type, presenting the club with a Nordenfeldt
gun that had been used in South Africa and taking his turn as musketry
instructor, familiarizing club members with the .303 Enfield service
rifle. ". . . my real work this summer has been connected with our new
rifle range," he wrote to Dr. Conland in December. "The men are just
as keen as can be and turn up every week to put in their firing. Can
you imagine me in corduroy clothes and a squash hat with the Club
ribbon around it in charge of a firing party of four on the ground; an
hour of standing over the rifles with one eye on the targets and the
other on the men (Some of 'em have queer notions about shooting)."
President Kipling oversaw the construction of a drill shed for winter
training. Although Kipling spent the winter of 1900- 01 in Cape Town,
the instructions he left behind testify to his seriousness about the
club's activities:
Instructions for the use of shed during my absence:
Men to have two evenings a week for MT (Morris Tube) practice and
such other evenings as the Sergeant shall see fit for
Gardner Gun Drill
Signalling
Guard Drill, etc.
Boys to have two evenings a week. One for MT practice and one for
gymnastics.
Boys evenings are not to be Monday and Wednesday.
Men and Boys evenings to be kept separate.
Men to be instructed in gym work if Sergeant thinks fit.
Fatigue parties must be told off to clear up the shed, every night
as there will be no allowance for caretakers.
All damage must be paid for by offender.
The Rifle Club may hold meetings and concerts in the shed under
Sergeant's supervision. No intoxicating drinks under any
circumstances.
Smoking is permitted.
Cst. Gd. Wells is to be in charge of the Gardner Gun with right of
way and free entry into shed for that purpose.
Rudyard Kipling
Arthur Conan Doyle drew a different lesson from the Boer War than did
Rudyard Kipling. Recognizing the English peoples' aversion to
conscription, and opposed to compulsory service himself, Conan Doyle
saw the war as proof that civilian marksmen could effectively resist
invasion. He founded the Undershaw Rifle Club and explained his
purpose in a letter to the Glasgow Evening News entitled ''Burghers of
the Queen" in December of 1900. Conan Doyle wrote: ". . . the idea I
am working with is simply riflemen drawn from the resident civilians.
The men are quite eager to pay for their own cartridges which, with
the Morris Tube system, can be sold at three for a penny. I made
ranges for them at 50, 75 and 100 yds., the latter representing 600
yds. without the Morris Tube system . . . on Holidays I will give them
a prize to shoot for . . . the whole expense of targets (5), mantlets,
rifles (3), with tubes is not more than 30.''
For the pragmatically minded Conan Doyle, the "miniature'' or .22
rimfire smallbore range seemed a more practical solution to the
problem of space than a full-size 1000-yd. range like the one at
Rottingdean. (The Morris Tube was a barrel insert for the service
rifle that allowed it to chamber the .297/.230 short or long, a
center-fire equivalent of the .22 rimfire.)
"Miniature Club" .22 rimfire or .297/.230 center-fire rifles were
favored by Arthur Conan Doyle for marksmanship training because the
requirements for ranges were more easily met than for large bores.
Conan Doyle further proposed that all men between the ages of 16 and
60 (not coincidentally the age limits for Boer soldiers) should train
in rifle clubs. Those reaching a certain level of proficiency would be
awarded a distinctive broad-brimmed hat and a rifle and bandolier to
keep at home, a "uniform" remarkably like that worn by the Boers.
When the military correspondent for the Westminster Gazetteer
criticized his ideas, Conan Doyle responded: "I have stood all day
today marking for our own corps of civilian riflemen. Gentlemen,
shopboys, cabmen, carters and peasants were all shooting side by side.
The prize, at a range which was equivalent to 600 yds., was taken by a
top score of 83 out of 90; 82, 81 and 80 were next. Fifty men spent
their bank holiday at my butts, and the scene was like a village
competition in Switzerland. Conceive the stupidity that would refuse
military material such as that when all it will ever ask of its
country is a rifle and a bandolier!"
By January 1901, Conan Doyle was ready to pronounce the club a
success, and he wrote to the local paper, the Farnham, Haslemere and
Hindhead Gazette: "I hope to see similar clubs started at Headley,
Churt, Tilford, Witley, Chiddingfold and especially at Haslemere. If
any gentleman desires to organize one, and so help in what is a very
urgent public duty, I will be happy to furnish him with full
information as to the methods by which we have brought our own
success. "
At the end of that summer, Kipling also had reason to be pleased with
the results of his work. He wrote again to Dr. Conland: ". . . the end
of the season shows we have forty very fair shots and about thirty men
who at least know something of shooting. We've won every match so far
(six in all) that we've shot against outside teams; and some of the
teams were fairly strong ones.''
Unfortunately, we have no better account of Kipling's marksmanship
other than that he shot "adequately" despite his poor eyesight and
that he scored a bullseye at the opening ceremonies of the Winchester
Drill Hall. He was, however, a fierce competitor, shooting in all of
the club's matches, serious to the point of surliness. When a member
of the visiting Newhaven Volunteers expressed his interest in meeting
the great man at a match in Rottingdean, Kipling snapped "Well, now
you can see the animal on his own ground."
Kipling eschewed special treatment, insisting that everyone must "muck
in together" in the important business of preparing for war.
Unfortunately his celebrity drove him away from the resort town of
Rottingdean and the rifle club. Curious sightseers continuously
invaded his privacy, and a local tour bus line made his house one of
its most popular stops. Late in the summer of 1902, the Kiplings moved
to a house in the country. The Islanders was published shortly
thereafter. In the scathingly sarcastic poem, Kipling made plain his
scorn for the English people he felt would rather play games than
prepare for war, and ridiculed the Duke of Wellington's notion that
wars were won on the playing fields of Eton:
Will ye pitch some white pavillion and lustily even the odds
With nets and hoops and mallets, with rackets and bats and
rods?
Will the rabbit war with your foeman-- the red deer horn him
for hire?
Your kept cock pheasant keep you-- he is master of many a
shire
Arid, aloof, incurious, unthinking, unthanking, gelt
Will ye loose your schools to flout them, till their brow beat
columns melt?
Kipling's proposed solution was simple and true to form:
Each man born to the Island, broke to the matter of war
Soberly and by custom taken and trained for the same
Each man born to the Island entered at youth to the game
As it were almost cricket, not to be mastered in haste.
Although by then Kipling's hands-on work with the rifle club movement
had ended, he continued to support any cause that he believed would
promote strength and readiness. He wrote the "Patrol Song" for Boer
War hero Baden-Powell's newly formed Boy Scouts and spoke out on
behalf of the National Service League's efforts to implement
conscription. "The Parable of Boy Jones," written by Kipling in 1910
for The Rifleman, official organ of the Society of Miniature Rifle
Clubs, gave a detailed fictional account of rifle club shooting
indoors and out.
Arthur Conan Doyle, knighted in 1902 for his wartime service as a
doctor and two books, The Great Anglo-Boer War and The War in South
Africa: Its Cause and Conduct, left the healthy Undershaw Rifle Club
in other hands and turned his attentions elsewhere. In 1905, however,
he was prompted to write again on the subject of miniature rifle clubs
in support of Lord Roberts, who had become the president of the
Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs.
Writing to the London Times in June 1905, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
presented his case, making the inevitable comparison to the Middle
Ages: "The first point which is worth insisting upon is that a man
trained at a miniature range (whether Morris Tube or otherwise) does
become an efficient shot almost at once when he is allowed to use a
full range. What with the low trajectory and absence of recoil in a
modern rifle the handling of the weapon is much the same in either
case. I am speaking now of an outdoor range where a man must allow for
windage and raise his sights to fire . . . It was skill at the parish
butts which made England first among military powers during the
fourteenth century. My suggestion is that the parish butts be restored
in the form of the parish miniature range."
The renewed appeal helped to bring about a large increase in the
number of rifle clubs. By 1906 there were 302 miniature and 307
full-range clubs affiliated with the NRA. The government forgave the
excise tax on firearms purchased for all but sporting use, and the
Conan Doyle Cup was presented by Dr. Langman of the Langman Hospital
to be shot for with the miniature rifle at Bisley. The rifle club
movement peaked during the years 1914-18 with more than 1,900
affiliated clubs, most of them miniature clubs.
At the beginning of the Great War, Lord Roberts wrote in his
president's message to the Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs: "Proud as
I am of rifle clubs I shall be prouder still if, when the war is over,
it can be said they helped to win the victory we know is certain." It
is difficult to judge what effect the membership of 1,900 clubs may
have had in a war that ultimately saw 5.7 million men serve in the
army.
Before the end of the First World War, Kipling already warned of a
second war with Germany. Although subsequent events proved Kipling
right, the after math of the "War to End All Wars" saw instead an
understandable spirit of pacifism and a corresponding drop in rifle
club activity. The government, alarmed by acts of postwar violence and
the large number of surplus weapons brought into the country, reversed
its previous course of encouraging the private ownership of rifles and
passed the Firearms Control Act of 1920. In 1938, on the eve of the
Second World War, only 471 rifle clubs remained.
The author wishes to thank members of the Kipling Society who were
kind enough to help him with his research.
Posted: 11/29/2001
--
"First and last, it's a question of money. Those men who own the
earth make the laws to protect what they have. They fix up a sort
of fence or pen around what they have, and they fix the law so the
fellow on the outside cannot get in. The laws are really organized
for the protection of the men who rule the world. They were never
organized or enforced to do justice. We have no system for doing
justice, not the slightest in the world."
--Clarence Darrow
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