British stupidity

    Although in the past week alone they had already lost two battles to an invisible and devastatingly effective enemy, the British army had continued to fight in line formation. Even Atkins marveled at the lines' uncompromising precision. "Each man [was] the appointed distance from his neighbour," he wrote, "and each row the appointed distance from the next." For the Boers, the sight was utterly bewildering,  bearing no resemblance to their battles with the Zulu, from whom they had learned how to hide.

(from Hero of the Empire, by Candice Millard)