Marksmanship,Officer–Man Relations,and the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield

Abstract

This article examines the British army’s decision to adopt the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE) in 1903. Historians invariably assume that this weapon was developed in response to demands to modernize and improve the army following the failures and poor marksmanship of British soldiers fighting in the Boer War. Understood this way the SMLE’s selection appears inevitable and as a result is rarely examined in close detail. This stands in contrast to the wealth of attention dedicated to exploring how the cavalry fought to hold onto the arme blanche despite the apparent revolution in machine-gun and artillery firepower. Upon closer examination, however, neither way of thinking about the changes occurring in the British army after the Boer War does justice to the complexities surrounding the development and selection of the SMLE. Rather, by considering the manner in which different communities within the army thought about battle, and in particular how engagements on the North West Frontier shaped perspectives on marksmanship, this article demonstrates how the cavalry and the Indian Army played an important part in the adoption of the SMLE.