16. Keeping Up the Ruses to Keep the Boers at Bay
Another of Robert Baden-Powell’s bluffs revolved around barbed wire, of which the Boy Scouts’ founder had none. Barbed wire was known to be effective in slowing down a charge, and since he wanted to discourage the numerically superior Boers from charging and overrunning his defenses, Baden-Powell set out to convince them that he had plenty of barbed wire.
He had no barbed wire, but he did have plenty of the wooden posts from which barbed wire was strung. So Baden-Powell directed that they be hammered into the ground all around the defensive perimeter. From a distance, even with binoculars, barbed wire is difficult to see, but the wooden posts from which it is usually strung are readily visible, and the sight of a line of such posts in the distance is indicative of barbed wire fences. Seeing the wooden posts, the Boers assumed that they were strung with barbed wire.
