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English soldiers stumbled over boulders as they made their slow and bloody ascent up a steep slope in South Africa. Above them, Boer soldiers protected themselves behind the crest of the ridge and shot at the gleaming British helmets as they came into view. The soldiers kept coming, and by sheer force of numbers, they overwhelmed the Boers. But the loss of life was extravagant; the English suffered far more casualties than the Boers, and all they gained was a few more feet of territory in the slow, grinding Anglo-Boer War. As they surveyed the wounded and the dead, a shot rang out. A wounded Boer with a shattered knee had shot the British Colonel Crabbe at close range and mortally injured him. Major Alexander Kinloch, next in command, took charge.
In his years of service, Kinloch saw action again and again. He proved his mettle. Many of the men in the Scottish Grenadiers were untested recruits from Britain’s best families. Major Kinloch had as illustrious a pedigree as anyone: He came from an old and landed Scottish family with centuries-long roots at Gilmerton, went to Eton with the sons of royalty, and studied at Oxford before joining Her Majesty’s forces. But he could also boast (although he was too gentlemanly to boast) of an impressive military career and proven military skill. He was a brave soldier in an inglorious war. The British army had grown over-confident as it collected easy victories against poorly armed enemies in its other colonies. The Boer War made Britainites doubt themselves and the strength of their empire. It began when prospectors struck gold in the Boer Republics, small, independent states governed by Dutch-speaking farmers.
The scrappy Boers of present-day South Africa stymied Downing Street’s plans with guerilla tactics that killed off many of the sons of Britain’s best families.
Throughout the controversies of the war, Major Kinloch served with distinction. He was promoted to Lieutenant and commanded the Scottish Grenadiers, an elite group of soldiers who counted many of Britain’s best-born in its ranks. His superiors respected him, and he was well-liked by the men under his command. When he prepared to return home on leave in 1902, he had no inclination that he was about to be the central figure of one of the greatest military scandals of the Edwardian period.
The Scottish Grenadiers harbored the same vicious hazing that characterized the British elite’s boarding schools. Several young soldiers had been brutally “ragged”—or beaten bloody—because they had transgressed minor regimental rules by such trivial offenses like getting their hair cut in uniform or taking an actress out to dinner. The victims also happened to be the sons of some of the most powerful families in England, and their fathers were furious. Powerful nobles demanded his dismissal, declaring him unfit to lead the Grenadiers. Kinloch had no knowledge of the bullying in his ranks, but the army’s reform-minded Commander in Chief decided that he had to go.
Kinloch was a scapegoat in a schism far bigger than the scandal. A new, egalitarian force within the army wanted to purge it of its aristocratic airs. They saw the losses in the Boer War as a consequence of decades of the aristocracy treating the British army as its plaything. In the English army, the men who could pay the most and came from the best families were officers, while only men who had no other options chose to be uncommissioned soldiers. As Rudyard Kipling complained, the aristocracy never even bothered to learn their job. Ragging, as the reformers saw it, was one of the customs of an army steeped in the corrupt traditions of the elite.
The first tribunal determined that Kinloch had no knowledge of his Grenadiers’ misdeeds. He was exonerated, and yet he was punished and demoted to half-pay. He never had the opportunity to defend himself. But Kinloch had powerful friends, and the scandal dragged on. The King intervened on his behalf, but without success. The case was debated in both houses of Parliament and every British newspaper. As his defenders saw it, his punishment was a gross intrusion into the army’s autonomy. As his detractors saw it, he was culpable because he should have made sure he knew all that happened among his men. After four months, Kinloch’s full military privileges were restored and he returned to his post. He continued to have a long, untarnished military career and served during World War I.
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