■ 
 
 Ml 
 MOOT 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
The 
 
 TRANSVAAL 
 OUTLOOK 
 
 WITH MAPS 
 
 by 
 
 Albert Stickney 
 
 DODD, MEAD ftP COMPANY 
 1900 
 
NOTE. 
 
 It is proper to state, that the first part of this paper, 
 that on the Military Situation, was written prior to 
 January 4th, 1900, and is printed as then written. 
 
 Copyright 1900, By Albert Sticknry. 
 
or 
 
 133 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 o T 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Page. 
 
 The Mtlttary Situation 1 
 
 Some General Considebationb 5 
 
 The Impossibility of Solving the Problem of TRANS- 
 portation and supply, foe any large army in 
 South Afeioa, Except by Lines of Railway 8 
 
 The Extreme Ease of Destruction of Railway Com- 
 munications in the Present South African 
 Field of Operations 21 
 
 The Absence of Preparation on the Part of the 
 British Army for the Handling of the Present 
 Problem of Transportation and Supply 28 
 
 The Reason for this Absence of Preparation on 
 
 the Part of the British Army 38 
 
 The Possibility of a Solution of the Problem of 
 Transportation by the British Army, Under 
 Existing Conditions 49 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Political Situation Between Boers and British. 58 
 The Boers, and Their Rights 62 
 
 part in. 
 
 The Present Outlook 86 
 
 The Cause of the Boers 105 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 Postscript 109> 
 
 1201923 
 
LIST OF MAPS. 
 
 Face Page. 
 
 South Africa 1 
 
 Field of Operations Around Ladysmith 8 
 
 Diagram of Mileage and Altitudes on Railway Line 
 
 from Durban to Charlestown 22 
 
 Field of Operations on the Line of Lord Methuen's 
 
 Advance 52 
 
THE TKANSYAAL OUTLOOK. 
 
 i. 
 
 THE MILITAEY SITUATION. 
 
 The thing of most absorbing public interest now before the 
 civilized world is the war between Great Britain and the two 
 South African Republics. 
 
 Its especial importance to the American people is to be found 
 in the value to the British nation of American sympathy. That 
 sympathy, down to the present time, has been largely on the 
 Side of our kinsmen beyond the sea. It has been assumed, with 
 or without reason, that we had, during what has been termed 
 the Spanish War, a manifestation of sympathy on their part, 
 which went virtually to the extent of active intervention and 
 support It has also been generally assumed, that, although in 
 the present contest the purely technical right of the situation 
 <fn legal grounds is with the Boers, yet nevertheless, upon the 
 whole situation, the British nation is entitled to the sym- 
 pathies of the civilized world; that the present contest is 
 really one between progress and stagnation; is a question of 
 the spread of the realm of liberty and order; is, in fact, a 
 struggle between democracy and oligarchic class rule. It has 
 been assumed, in effect, that the Boers are resisting the march 
 of civilization. 
 
 Public opinion seems, however, on these questions, to be 
 gradually verging towards a condition of, at least, doubt. It 
 is not now so generally assumed, as it was a short time ago, that 
 the Boers are an obstacle to progress. It is evident, that we 
 are beginning to examine the facts. The indications are, that 
 the tide of sympathy is turning away from our nearest kinsmen. 
 
 However this may be, large numbers of persons are of the 
 belief that, whichever of the contending parties may hold the 
 meritorious side of the contest, yet there can be no question as 
 to its outcome. It is generally assumed, that victory is sure 
 finally to rest with the British, and after no very long period 
 
2 
 
 of time. Consequently, it is also assumed, that it is more in 
 the interests of mankind that the result should be reached 
 quickly ; and that the war should come to a speedy termination, 
 by a great British triumph, which is generally believed to be 
 a practical certainty. 
 
 It is, therefore, of prime importance to give careful attention 
 to the military situation. If the facts of that situation should 
 warrant the conclusion, either that the British will not succeed 
 at all in the conquest of the South African Republics, or that 
 success will be attained only at the end of a long and 
 costly war, the situation would be essentially changed. If the 
 war must in any event entail upon the British people an enor- 
 mous expenditure of money and life, it will behoove them serious- 
 ly to consider, whether they can, with safety to themselves, and 
 with safety to their empire, afford to prolong the existing con- 
 test ; whether it is not imperatively demanded, by their own in- 
 terests, and the interests of the whole civilized world, that the 
 war with the South African Republics should be brought to an 
 immediate termination, even if that termination should result 
 in the abandonment of the contest by the British Government. 
 
 The military situation, from this point of view, becomes one 
 of principal interest. At all times the operations of war have 
 an absorbing interest. At this particular time, however, the 
 interest which they excite is exceptional; and arises from the 
 fact, that the prospect either of a British failure, or of a 
 British success which would come only at the end of a very long 
 period of hostilities, will have the deepest significance. 
 
 In the Army and Navy Gazette, in the issue of October 14, 
 1899, there appeared an editorial entitled " War at Last." 
 That paper is edited by the Honorable William Howard Russell, 
 correspondent of the London Times during the Crimean War, 
 and during the earlier portion of our own Civil War. The ed- 
 itorial in question amounted to a warm and hearty congratula- 
 tion, to Mr. Chamberlain, on the fact, that his foreign policy had 
 at last attained the object for which he had so strenuously 
 labored, a war with the Transvaal Republic. It would seem 
 natural, and even probable, that any person who had had, even 
 to a slight extent, a personal observation of actual military op- 
 erations would never have had the hardihood to emit a publica- 
 
3 
 
 tion of the nature of the one just mentioned. However, Dr. 
 Kuesell was guilty of that indiscretion. Its nature and extent 
 will appear more fully upon the reading of his language. 
 
 " War at Last. 
 
 " Mr. Reitz, as Secretary of State of the Transvaal Government, has 
 signed the declaration of war, which is to be effective if the Queen's 
 forces are not withdrawn from the frontier and if the reinforcements now 
 on their way are allowed to land, but he is only the instrument of Mr. 
 Kruger's will. It is not in our line to interfere in the process, but it seems 
 to us that the severance of the knot ought not to have been effected at 
 this moment, yet it cannot be regarded by us with dissatisfaction as an 
 untoward event from the political point of view. In fact, if we could 
 read the 'inwards' of Mr. Chamberlain we think there would be found in 
 characters of flame inscribed under his orchid, ' Heaven be praised I 
 Kruger has declared War V From the Pretoria point of view the declara- 
 tion may have been necessary. From the standpoint of the soldier, the 
 politician, or the statesman, it must be regarded as a grievous blunder. 
 It was too late. If the forces of the two Republics could have been set 
 in motion six weeks or a month ago, there could have been an infinity of 
 mischief to Natal and to the Cape Colony for them to inflict and revel in — 
 an immense encouragement to the Boer Afrikanders — a great blow to the 
 loyal colonists — and much possible obstruction to the concentration of the 
 troops destined in case of war to invade the Republics. We were not 
 ready and we were not strong. If there was no threatening movement 
 or concentration of ours on the frontiers to justify the demands of the 
 Republics there was ample evidence that the British Government was pre- 
 paring a great army to operate if necessary against them. * * * 
 It is not too much to say, that the declaration of war by the Republics 
 must have caused the utmost satisfaction to the millions of people who 
 have supported the Colonial Secretary in* the energetic policy he has pur- 
 sued in dealing with the Transvaal Government, and we hope sincerely 
 that the results of the success of our arms in the field will be productive 
 of the benefits which are expected from the overthrow of the Boer Repub- 
 lics, confer honor on our leaders in the council and the field and give 
 peace and prosperity to South Africa.'' 
 
 To us, with our later acquired knowledge from actual events, 
 it seems almost impossible to realize anything more humorous 
 than the preceding utterances, of one who presumably has kept 
 in touch for the last forty years with military operations and 
 current military literature. It is well, however, that we bear 
 in mind the existence of the frank avowal contained in the 
 foregoing paper, which may be deemed almost official, to the 
 
4 
 
 effect that the British troops at the time of the publication of that 
 editorial were near the boundaries of the Transvaal, "destined in 
 case of war to invade the Kepublics." It is also interesting to 
 observe the implied affirmation, that, although the British people 
 six weeks or a month prior to the time of the Transvaal declara- 
 tion "were not ready, and were not strong," nevertheless at 
 the time of the publication, to wit, on the 14th day of October, 
 1899, the British people were " ready," and were " strong." 
 It is equally interesting to note the point made in the next suc- 
 ceeding sentence : " From the standpoint of the soldier, the poli- 
 tician or the statesman, it must be regarded as a grievous 
 blunder. It was too late." Dr. Russell's meaning is that it 
 was the action of the Transvaal which was " too late." The 
 implication is, that, for the purposes of the British Government, 
 the declaration of war by the Transvaal Republic came in the 
 very nick of time. Let us note also the further implication, 
 when Dr. Russell says : " If the forces of the two Republics 
 could have been set in motion six weeks or a month ago, 
 there could have been an infinity of mischief to Natal and 
 to the Cape Colony for them to inflict and revel in — an immense 
 encouragement to the Boer Afrikanders — a great blow to the 
 loyal colonists, and much possible obstruction to the concentra- 
 tion of the troops destined in case of war to invade the Re- 
 publics. 
 
 In view of the fact, now apparent, that the South Af- 
 rican Republic was in the highest state of preparation for 
 the breaking out of hostilities, that this preparation had ex- 
 tended over a period of more than four years, and so far as 
 now appears, had provided for almost every possible con- 
 tingency, it becomes really ludicrous, to consider the state 
 of absolute absence of counter preparation, at every material 
 point, on the part of the British Government, which, as we 
 now know, was forcing a war, virtually at the point of the 
 bayonet, upon a people whom they thought to be much weaker 
 than themselves, whom they thought to coerce by a mere 
 demonstration of superior force, and who, as Mr. Chamberlain 
 fondly imagined, would submit to any extortionate demands that 
 might be conceived, rather than enter upon the prosecution of 
 actual hostilities. 
 
5 
 
 Even under the conditions existing to-day, as to the contest 
 between the British Empire on the one hand, and that apparently 
 feeble power, the South African Republic, on the other, it is a 
 fact that the sympathies of the civilized world will be largely 
 influenced by their opinion of the probable outcome. It is a 
 sad condition of affairs, but it is nevertheless the truth, that a 
 large portion of mankind is inclined in almost any contest 
 to take the side of the strongest, or of the party which they 
 deem to be the strongest, without very much reference to the 
 justice or injustice of the position of either side. In view, 
 however, of this fact of human nature, it becomes desirable to 
 consider, with as much accuracy as conditions permit, the 
 prominent features of the present military situation in the war 
 between the Transvaal and Great Britain, and to figure, as far 
 as is now possible, the probabilities as to the result of this present 
 most unfortunate contest 
 
 Especially will this inquiry be found interesting, if the result 
 should be a conclusion that Great Britain is in this present 
 contest somewhat overmatched, and that it behooves her, with a 
 view simply to the preservation of the Empire within its present 
 limits, to put an end to this most unnatural and unjustifiable 
 struggle at the earliest possible moment. 
 
 SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 It has for a long time been agreed by competent military 
 authorities, that, under ordinary circumstances, the stronger 
 position, in case of invasion, is that of the defense. It need not 
 be said, that, under ordinary circumstances, the strongest de- 
 fense is some form of attack. Bearing that in mind, however, 
 it is quite well conceded among military authorities, that in case 
 of an invasion the stronger position, generally, is that of the 
 defense. 
 
 In this respect there has been no essential change in the prin- 
 ciples or rules of military science during the last one hundred 
 years. Yet the advantages on the side of the defense have been 
 steadily increasing. They were sufficiently strong at the time 
 
6 
 
 of the battle of Bunker Hill, when a handful of minute men, 
 without drill or discipline, posted behind earthworks which had 
 been hastily thrown up in a few hours, were able to defeat, for 
 the time being, and so long as their ammunition lasted, the 
 flower of the British Army. Even in the days of the old- 
 fashioned smooth-bore musket, under ordinary conditions, the 
 defense was much stronger than the attack. Starting only from 
 that point of time, the chief improvement has been in the 
 range and accuracy of weapons. The change has been one of 
 degree, and not of kind. The principles applicable to prob- 
 lems of that nature have not been changed in their essence. No 
 conditions have been introduced which are new in kind. 
 
 To come down a little later, to the days of our own Civil 
 War, and comparing the conditions existing at that point of 
 time with those existing at the present day, the changes between 
 the relative positions of the attack and the defense are hardly 
 worth mentioning. In the days of the Civil War the Springfield 
 rifle was a weapon of fairly long range and accuracy. The in- 
 crease in range and accuracy since that time is one which need 
 have very slight consideration in any study of the principles of 
 military science applicable to the questions of attack and defense. 
 There has been, as said before, merely an increase in range and 
 accuracy. The increase in rapidity of discharge is one to which 
 military critics are inclined to attach great weight But even 
 this is less important than is commonly supposed. The fire of 
 the old Springfield rifle was fast enough — for practical purposes 
 in most cases. Under very exceptional circumstances, it was, 
 no doubt, desirable that the firing should have greater rapidity. 
 But the fire was rapid enough, to serve fairly well the needs of 
 the men who used it. With it they accomplished very satis- 
 factory results, that is, from a professional standpoint From 
 one point of view, the increased rapidity of fire is almost a dis- 
 advantage, in that it tends to cause an enormous waste of ammu- 
 nition, with no adequate corresponding benefit Smokeless 
 powder is, no doubt, a thing of the greatest importance. But 
 many of the advantages resulting from smokeless powder can 
 often be had from the mere withholding of fire, until an enemy 
 gets within easy range, as the Boers always do, as is always 
 done by steady and skillful troops. So that these points of 
 
T 
 
 rapidity of fire, and the use of smokeless powder, are of less 
 importance than is some times supposed. They introduce no 
 substantial change in the principles — of the military art 
 
 The fundamental features which enter into the consideration 
 of any military problem are to-day what they always have been. 
 They are as follows: 
 
 1. Supply and Teanspobtation. 
 
 Strictly speaking, these should come under one heading, that 
 of supply. They concern ordnance, ammunition, clothing, med- 
 ical and surgical appliances, commissary stores; together with 
 what may be called the furniture of transportation, that is, 
 wagons, animals and railways. 
 
 2. The Field of Operations. 
 
 Under this head come, of course, all questions relating to the 
 actual area of the war, the mere surface distances, all 
 matters of topography, such as streams and mountains ; and all 
 features bearing on transportation, such as railways, wagon- 
 roads, paths, and places where railways, wagon-roads, and paths 
 are possible of construction. 
 
 3. The Contending Foboes, 
 
 Under this head are comprised, of course, all facts as to the 
 quality of the individual units of an army; its organization; 
 its discipline; its drill; but above all things, the quality of 
 its commanders. 
 
 From this short statement, it is apparent that, for the solution 
 of any military problem, the facts required are somewhat com- 
 plex, and need very careful study. The omission of any one 
 of them may cause a fatal defect in the conclusion to be deduced. 
 The opinion of the most competent expert, therefore, on any 
 existing military situation, may, in the event, be set at naught 
 by the disclosure of essential features, which were at the time 
 unknown to him, and which it was impossible for him to foresee. 
 
8 
 
 THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SOLVING THE PKOBLEM 
 OF TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLY, FOR ANY 
 LARGE ARMY IN SOUTH AFRICA, EXCEPT BY 
 LINES OF RAILWAY. 
 
 This Transvaal situation is one of the most interesting that 
 has ever fallen under the observation of any military critic. Its 
 controlling features are strongly marked ; and although it is, of 
 course, an impossibility for any man to have a thorough knowl- 
 edge of them all, yet many points in the situation are so clearly 
 beyond dispute, and have such a large military value, that a 
 careful conjecture, at least, can be made as to the probabilities of 
 the situation, and as to the possible result. It need hardly be 
 said, that the entire complexion of a battle, or a war, is liable 
 at any moment to be changed by the events of the hour, or the 
 minute. A thunder storm, or the untimely illness of a com- 
 manding general, witness Waterloo, may easily turn possible 
 victory into a crushing defeat. Contingencies of that sort must 
 always be implied, in any endeavor to discuss any military prob- 
 lem. Bearing carefully in mind, however, the existence at all 
 times of such contingencies, it will be interesting to note some 
 of the features of the military situation in the present war. 
 
 In the first place let us consider the question of supply and 
 transportation. 
 
 Here it is evident, that on one side, that of the Burghers, the 
 question of supply has received the most careful attention, and 
 the provision made therefor has been remarkably complete. 
 We now know, that for several years past the Transvaal author- 
 ities have been importing large quantities of the munitions of 
 war, of all kinds, comprising everything that could be needed 
 in the prosecution of an aggressive or defensive campaign. 
 
 On the other hand, it is equally evident that the absence of 
 
-- 
 
9 
 
 preparation on the part of the British is quite as marked as its 
 completeness on the part of the Burghers. Assuming, as is stated 
 to be the fact, that the British authorities have massed at Lady- 
 smith a considerable quantity of military supplies; assuming 
 also, that they have large quantities of supplies at other 
 points, for instance, Pietermaritzburg, Colenso, and Kim- 
 berley, yet it is very plain that Mr. Chamberlain did not 
 anticipate real hostilities, but supposed that the mere demon- 
 stration of force on his part would be ample to prevent so much 
 as a pretense of resistance on the part of the Transvaal Republic ; 
 and consequently, he deemed it necessary to make no very 
 elaborate preparation for military operations. It is, therefore, 
 fair to assume, that such supplies as may have been accumulated 
 at the points above mentioned have neither the order nor the 
 completeness necessary to make them adequate to the prosecu- 
 tion of military operations on a large scale. 
 
 In considering this question of supply and transportation, it 
 will be necessary to note, at no great length, some features of the 
 situation which more particularly belong to other topics, of 
 the field of operations, and the numbers, and quality, of the 
 two contending forces. 
 
 Let us take first the position in and around Ladysmith. 
 Ladysmith itself is on the railroad leading from Durban through 
 Pietermaritzburg, Newcastle, Charlestown, Standerton, and 
 Elandsfontein to Pretoria. The distance from Durban to Pieter- 
 maritzburg is seventy miles ; from Durban to Ladysmith is one 
 hundred and eighty-nine miles ; from Durban to Charlestown is 
 three hundred and four miles. 
 
 These distances, it is seen, are considerable. They are such 
 as to make the supply of any considerable armed force under 
 existing circumstances impossible except by line of railway. 
 
 The nature and difficulties of the problem of supply, 
 for large bodies of men, is a matter which has apparently 
 had no careful study at the hands of the English army 
 officers. However that may be, the operations of the two 
 contending armies during our Civil War give us the fullest 
 information on the points here involved. The science of 
 transportation was developed during that war to a degree never 
 before approached, or conceived as a possibility. It received 
 
10 
 
 its development at the hand of masters. The matter of supply 
 of large bodies of troops, as practiced by General Sherman in 
 the Atlanta Campaign, just prior to the cross-country march to 
 Savannah, is down to the present time the marvel in military 
 history. To borrow a term from the sporting world, it holds 
 the record. A few facts taken from the history of the military 
 operations of that period will throw a strong light on the prob- 
 lems now to be solved by the British authorities in the South 
 African campaign. 
 
 In fact, one of the chief reasons for the March to the Sea was 
 this matter of transportation and supply. The real reasons and 
 nature of that celebrated march have often been overlooked. 
 One of the main moving considerations, which decided General 
 Sherman to make that movement, was the practical impossibility 
 of keeping open his existing line of railway communication to 
 Nashville. Sherman's telegram to General Grant of October 
 9, 1864, says on this point: 
 
 " It will be a, physical impossibility to protect the roads, now that Hood, 
 Forrest and Wheeler and the whole batch of devils are turned loose with- 
 out home or habitation." 
 
 On November 6th he again telegraphs: 
 
 "That devil Forrest was down by Johnson ville making havoc among the 
 gunboats and transports." 
 
 In another telegram of November 6, Sherman says, apropos 
 of Forrest's ubiquity : 
 
 "Forrest seems to have scattered from Eastport to Johnson ville, Paris 
 and the lower Tennessee. General Thomas reports a capture by him of a 
 gun-boat and five transports." 
 
 As a consequence of what Sherman called the " physical im- 
 possibility" of keeping open his railway communications, he 
 said in one of his despatches to General Grant, " I propose we 
 break up the railroad from Chattanooga and strike out with 
 wagons for Savannah." 
 
 The reason for this impossibility of keeping open railway 
 communication of so great length as General Sherman's line 
 then was, will be more apparent when we look at a few further 
 
11 
 
 facts. The length of that line was as follows : From Louisville 
 to Nashville, 185 miles; from Nashville to Chattanooga, 151 
 miles; from Chattanooga to Atlanta, 137 miles; in all, 473 
 miles. The clearest evidence on this point is to be found in 
 General Sherman's statement, which appears at page 398, Vol- 
 ume 2, of his Memoirs, as to the impossibility of supplying any 
 considerable force of men with a line of such length by any other 
 means than a railroad. His language is : 
 
 " Sherman's Memoirs," II, 398: 
 
 "The value of railways is also fully recognized in war quite as much as 
 if not more so, than in peace. 
 
 "The Atlanta campaign would simply have been impossible without the 
 use of the railroads : from Louisville to Nashville, 185 miles; from 
 Nashville to Chattanooga, 151 miles; from Chattanooga to Atlanta, 187 
 miles." 
 
 Every mile of this ' single track ' was so delicate that one man could 
 in a minute have broken or moved a rail. But our trains usually carried 
 along the tools and means to repair such a break. We had, however, to 
 maintain strong guards and garrisons at each important bridge or 
 trestle, the destruction of which would have necessitated time for re- 
 building. 
 
 • 1 * » * * ******** # 
 
 " Our trains from Nashville forward were operated under military rules, 
 and ran about ten miles an hour in gangs of four trains of ten cars each. 
 Four such groups of trains daily made one hundred and sixty cars, of ten 
 tons each, carrying sixteen hundred tons, which exceeded the absolute 
 necessities of the army, and allowed for the accidents that were common 
 and inevitable. But, as I have recorded, that single stem of railroad, four 
 hundred and seventy-three miles long, supplied an army of one hundred 
 thousand men and thirty-five thousand animals, for the period of one 
 hundred and ninety-six days, viz. : from May 1 to November 12, 1864. To 
 have delivered regularly that amount of food and forage by ordinary 
 wagons, would have required thirty-six thousand eight hundred wagons 
 of six mules each, allowing each wagon to have hauled two tons twenty 
 miles each day, a simple impossibility in roads such as then existed in 
 that region of country. Therefore, I reiterate that the Atlanta campaign 
 was an impossibility without these railroads; and only then, because we 
 had the men and the means to maintain and defend them, in addition to 
 what were necessary to overcome the enemy. Habitually, a passenger-car 
 will carry fifty men with their necessary baggage. Box-cars, and even 
 platform-cars, answer the purpose well enough, but they should always 
 have rough board seats. For sick and wounded men, box-cars filled with 
 
12 
 
 straw or bushes were usually employed. Personally, I saw but little of 
 the practical working of the railroads, for I only turned back once as far 
 as Resaca; but I had daily reports from the engineer in charge, and 
 officers who came from the rear often explained to me the whole thing, 
 with a description of the wrecked trains all the way from Nashville to 
 Atlanta. I am convinced that the risk to life to the engineers and men on 
 that railroad fully equaled that on the skirmish line, called for as high an 
 order of courage, and fully equaled it in importance." 
 
 It is also to be borne in mind that at that time General Sher- 
 man had, so long as his communications were open, not only a 
 line of railway, but the two rivers, the Cumberland and the Ten- 
 nessee; the Cumberland at parts of the year being available 
 for water transportation as high as Nashville ; and the Tennessee 
 as high as Chattanooga, So that, practically, General Sherman, 
 at the time that he speaks of the impossibility of keeping open 
 his communication at Louisville, had not only a line of railway, 
 but two navigable rivers. No such aids are possible for the 
 operations of the British force in South Africa. 
 
 Let us now see how this line of communication was handled. 
 
 General Forrest started from Verona, Mississippi, on the 16th 
 of September, 1864, on his celebrated march into Alabama and 
 Tennessee. He left Cherokee on the morning of the 2 1st of 
 September. He reached that place on his return on the 6th day 
 of October. During that expedition, according to his official 
 report dated October 17, 1864, he accomplished the following 
 results: 
 
 " I captured 86 commissioned officers, 67 Government employees, 1,374 
 non-commissioned officers and privates, and 933 negroes, besides killing 
 and wounding in the various engagements 1,000 more, making an aggre- 
 gate of 3,360, being an average of one to each man I had in the engage- 
 ments. In addition to these I captured about 800 horses, 7 pieces of 
 artillery, 2,000 stand small arms, several hundred saddles, 50 wagons and 
 ambulances, with a large amount of machinery, commissary's and quarter- 
 master's stores, all of which has been distributed to the different commands. 
 The greatest damage, however, done to the enemy was in the complete 
 destruction of the railroad from Decatur to Spring Hill, with the exception 
 of the Duck River Bridge. It will require months to repair the injury 
 done to the road, and may possibly be the means of forcing the evacuation 
 of Pulaski and Columbia, and thus relieve the people from further op- 
 pression." 
 
 The destruction of the railroad was very complete ; it covered 
 
13 
 
 a long distance. General Forrest's anticipation was that its 
 restoration would " require months." 
 
 We will now see how the problem was handled upon the side 
 of the United States Army. The report of General Daniel S. 
 McCallum, Director and Manager of Military Kailroads, dated 
 October 13, 1864 (Official Record, Series 1, Volume 39, Part 1, 
 page 507), reads as follows: 
 
 " Sir : — I have the honor to transmit the following statement in regard to 
 the effect of the late raid by the Rebel General Forrest upon the military 
 railway lines in the Division of the Mississippi : 1 engine and 12 cars, 
 burned on a trestle near Decatur Junction, all destroyed, 3 cars, burned 
 between Huntsville and Stevenson. All the bridges and trestles between 
 Pulaski and Athens, a distance of SO miles, destroyed. This embraces 
 Duck River Bridge and the most formidable trestle on the Decatur and 
 Stevenson Line, 1100 feet long and 90 feet high ; and about two miles and 
 a half of track partially destroyed. Between Spring Hill and Columbia 
 three bridges destroyed and two to three miles of track. The Chattanooga 
 line is uninjured, excepting the tearing up of one or two rails by small 
 guerrilla parties. High water on the Chattanooga and Atlanta line has 
 carried away the bridges over the Chattahooche and Oostenaule Rivers, 
 and two or three between Chattanooga and Dalton. The Rebels have 
 turned up several miles of the track." 
 
 Then follows General McOallum's statement of the time re- 
 quired for reconstructing the railroads, rebuilding the bridges, 
 and restoring the line of communication, a work which General 
 Forrest had estimated would " require months." As to that 
 point General McCallum's statement is: 
 
 " Altogether, it will take until the 20th of the present month [seven days 
 from the date of his report] to restore communication between Chatta- 
 nooga and Atlanta. Many engines have been thrown from the track by 
 the removal of the rails, but no very serious accidents have occurred." 
 
 As to the nature and amount of this work of construction 
 carried on by the Engineers' Department in Sherman's army, we 
 have the report of Captain Poe, Chief Engineer. The report 
 says: 
 
 "Operations connected with the march of General Sherman's Army, 
 extending over a great portion of the Southern States, were of a very 
 rapid character. Such of them as legitimately belonged to the Engineer 
 Department were so intimately confounded with the whole that it is im- 
 possible to separate them. In order to explain clearly why bridges were 
 built and roads made in the locations where they were, it will be neces- 
 
14 
 
 sary to give the movements of the army in detail, when the reasons will 
 generally be evident. The Corps of the Engineers were directed to facili- 
 tate these movements, and always with a distinct idea of their object." 
 
 ********** 
 
 " In the Army of the Cumberland, each corps, division and nearly every 
 brigade, was provided with an officer detailed from among the commis- 
 sioned officers of the infantry regiments, whose duty it was to make such 
 surveys and reconnaissances as might be wanted. The other two armies 
 were not so well provided, but bad a single organization to do all that was 
 requisite. " 
 
 ********** 
 " I may make the general remark here that whenever it was deemed 
 necessary to use a bridge for a greater length of time than 48 hours, pon- 
 toon bridges were invariably replaced by wooden trestle bridges con- 
 structed by the materials at hand, either by the Engineer troops or the 
 pioneer forces. The object of this was to preserve the canvas covers of 
 the batteaux, even at the expense of considerable labor, since we had the 
 latter in greater abundance than the former." 
 
 The quantity of the work done under Captain Poe's directions 
 coming down only to the date of September 2d, 1864, is stated 
 as follows : 
 
 "In describing these operations I have gone somewhat into detail in 
 order that they might be clearly understood, deeming it peculiarly the 
 province of the engineer to call attention to such brilliant manoeuvres as 
 those which enabled a river to be forded in the very face of the enemy 
 with the loss of less than a platoon of men, and those which placed six 
 army corps upon the enemy's line of communication in opposition to a 
 single corps. 
 
 " In accomplishing these results the Engineer Department provided the 
 following special labor : 10 pontoon bridges built across the Chattahoochee 
 River, averaging 350 feet in length, 3,500 feet; 7 trestle bridges, built out 
 of material cut from the bank, across the same stream, of which 5 were 
 double track and two were single, 350 feet long each, 2,450 feet ; 50 miles, 
 estimated, of infantry parapet, with a corresponding length of artillery 
 epaulement ; 6 bridges over Peach Tree Creek, averaging 80 feet long each, 
 480 feet; 5 bridges over Flint River, averaging 80 feet long each, 400 feet; 
 also many smaller bridges built and many miles of road repaired. The 
 topographical branch of the Engineer Department worked efficiently; 
 surveys were made of all the routes passed over by the infantry columns, 
 together with the lines prepared by the Bureau, and a map on the scale of 
 four inches to one mile illustrating the siege, so-called, of Atlanta has been 
 forwarded to the Engineer Bureau, in which these surveys are filed, from 
 the passage of Peach Tree Creek, July 19, to the beginning of the move- 
 ment upon tne enemy's line of communication, August 25, and a general 
 map, photographic copy, illustrating the entire campaign from Chat- 
 
15 
 
 tanooga to Atlanta. I have also forwarded to the Bureau a complete 
 set of photographic views illustrating the military operations about 
 Atlanta. 
 
 " From the Map Department 4,000 copies of maps were issued to the 
 proper officers to facilitate military operations. * * * I can only 
 return my thanks to those officers of Volunteers who did equally well the 
 topographical work. They did their duty, and did it well. I must leave 
 to the Chief Engineers of the several armies to which they belonged to do 
 them justice. " 
 
 Is the British Army organized, equipped, and trained, for 
 work like that 2 Is any European continental army equal to it ? 
 Has anything like it ever been done by any army in the world, 
 other than our own, our army of volunteers, which the European 
 critics have all affected to despise? 
 
 While these engineering operations were going on, it is to be 
 noted, that they were carried on in the face of an active enemy 
 during a completely continuous period of fighting. Erom the 
 many evidences of this fact it is necessary to make a selection 
 of only one, which is taken from the report of General Thomas, 
 dated September 13, 1864, as to the operations of the Army of 
 the Cumberland, one sentence of which are merely specimens 
 of numberless others: 
 
 " During these four months of active campaign, hardly a day has 
 passed that some portion of this army was not engaged either in skirmish- 
 ing or in actual battles with the enemy." 
 
 In this connection it will give us some additional assistance 
 to consider the general bearings of the question of transportation 
 to active military operations as they are stated by General Cox 
 in his history of the Atlanta campaign. At page 9 he says : 
 
 " The difficulty of sustaining an army more than 200 miles from its 
 base, from which it was separated from the rugged mountains over which 
 there were only a few roads, and these scarce better than pack mule 
 tracks, was fully felt by all military men who had studied the prob- 
 lem." 
 
 At page 7 he says: 
 
 " For the experience of war had demonstrated that no considerable 
 army could subsist depending upon the wagons and common country 
 roads for more than a few miles from the railway depots. A rapid march 
 could be made living upon the country if it led to a point where military 
 stores could be reached or captured ; but protracted operations are indis- 
 
16 
 
 solubly tied to the railway and water lines which can be depended on in 
 all weather and to any extent. " 
 
 As to these same matters General Sherman states in his report 
 of September 15, 1864: 
 
 "I must bear full and liberal testimony to the energetic and success- 
 ful management of our railroads during the campaign. No matter when 
 or where a break has been made the repair train seemed on the spot and 
 the damage was repaired, generally before I knew of the break. Bridges 
 have been built with surprising rapidity, and the locomotive whistle was 
 heard in our advance camps almost before the echo of the skirmish fire 
 had ceased. Some of these bridges — those of the Oostenaula, the Etowah 
 and Chattahoochee — were fine substantial structures, and were built in an 
 inconceivably short time, almost out of the material improvised on the 
 spot. 
 
 " Colonel W. W. Wright, who has charge of the construction and re- 
 pairs, is not only a most skillful but a wonderfully ingenious and indus- 
 trious and zealous officer and I can hardly do him justice. In like man- 
 ner the officers charged with running trains have succeeded to my entire 
 satisfaction, and have worked in perfect harmony with the Quartermas- 
 ters and Commissaries bringing forward abundant supplies with such 
 regularity that at no one time have we wanted for provisions, forage, 
 ammunition or stores of any essential kind, 
 
 "Colonel L. C. Easton, Chief Quartermaster, and Colonel'A. Beckwith, 
 Chief Commissary, have also succeeded in a manner surprising to all of 
 us in getting forward supplies. I doubt if ever an army was better sup- 
 plied than this, and I commend them most highly for it, because I know 
 that more solicitude was felt by the Lieutenant-General commanding and 
 by the military at large on this than any other one problem involved in 
 the success of the campaign. Captain C. G. Baylor, Chief Ordnance Of- 
 ficer, has in like manner kept the army supplied at all times with every 
 kind of ammunition. To Captain O. M. Poe, Chief Engineer, I am more 
 than ordinarily indebted for keeping me supplied with maps and informa- 
 tion of roads and topography, as well as in the more important branch of 
 his duties in selecting lines and military positions." 
 
 " My own personal staff has been small but select. Brigadier General 
 W. F. Barry, an officer of undoubted capacity and great experience, has 
 filled the position of Chief of Artillery to perfection, and Lieutenant E. 
 D. Kittoe, Chief Medical Inspector, has done everything possible to give 
 proper aid and direction to the operations of that important department. 
 I have never seen a wounded man removed from the fields of battle, cared 
 for and afterwards sent to the hospitals in the rear with more promptness, 
 system, care and success than during this whole campaign, covering more 
 than 100 days of actual battle and skkmishing. My Aides de Camp, Ma- 
 jor J. C. McCoy, Captain L. M. Dayton and Captain J. C. Audenried, have 
 been very zealous and most efficient, carrying my orders, day and night, 
 
17 
 
 to distant parts of our extended lines, with an intelligence and zeal that 
 ensured the proper working of machinery covering from 10 to 25 miles of 
 ground, when the least error in delivery and explanation of an order 
 would have produced confusion ; whereas, in a great measure owing to 
 the intelligence of these officers, orders have been made so clear that these 
 vast armies have moved side by side, sometimes crossing each other's 
 tracks through a difficult country of over 138 miles in length, without 
 confusion or trouble. * * * 
 
 " My three armies in the field were commanded by able officers, my 
 equals in rank and experience — Major General George H. Thomas, Major 
 General J. M. Schofield and Major General O. O. Howard. With such 
 commanders, I had only to indicate the object desired, and they accom- 
 plished it. I cannot over-estimate their services to the country, and must 
 express my deep and grateful thanks that, coming together from different 
 fields, with different interests, they have co-operated with a harmony that 
 has been productive of the greatest amount of success and good feeling. 
 A more harmonious army does not exist." 
 
 The difficulty of the operations covered by these statements 
 will perhaps appear with some additional clearness if we con- 
 sider the casualties of that army during the months of May, 
 June, July and August, 1864. The total is: 
 
 " Killed, officers, 352; men, 4,636; 
 Wounded, officers, 1,145; men, 22,682; 
 Missing, officers, 123; men, 4,585; 
 Aggregate, 84,514. 
 To which should be added the causualties for September 1st to 15th in 
 the Army of the Cumberland, 2,567, making the aggregate 37,081." 
 
 The result of these operations is stated by General Sherman 
 as follows: 
 
 " We must concede to our enemy that he made these efforts patiently 
 and skillfully, but at last he made the mistake that we had waited for so 
 long, and sent his cavalry to our rear, far beyond the reach of recall. In- 
 stantly our cavalry was on his only remaining road, and we followed 
 quickly with our principal army, and Atlanta fell into our possession as the 
 fruit of well concerted measures, backed by a brave and confident army. 
 This completed the grand task which had been assigned us by our Gov- 
 ernment, and your General again repeats his personal and official thanks 
 to all the officers and men composing this army for the indomitable cour- 
 age and perseverance which alone could give success. We have beaten our 
 enemy on every ground that he has chosen, and have wrested from him 
 bis own Gate City, where were located his founderies, arsenals and work- 
 shops, deemed secure on account of their distance from the base and the 
 seemingly insurmountable obstacles intervening. 
 
 " Nothing is impossible to an army like this." 
 
18 
 
 General Cox states in his history, at page 83 : 
 
 " Foreign officers visiting the army often expressed their amazement at 
 seeing the troops of the line doing the incidental work, and without engi- 
 neering assistance, what was earlier done by a corps of sappers under the 
 direction of a scientific staff." 
 
 The ease, even at that time, of destroying railroad tracks is 
 made evident by a despatch of General Sherman to General 
 Rousseau of July 7, 1864 : 
 
 " When you reach the road, do your work well. Burn the ties in piles ; 
 heat the iron in the middle, and, when red hot, let the men pull the ends 
 so as to give a twist to the rails. If simply bent, the rails may be used, 
 but if they are twisted or wrenched, they cannot be used again." 
 
 The speed with which the work of reconstruction was carried 
 on in Sherman's army, where lines of railway had been de- 
 stroyed, will appear by the following quotations from original 
 documents. On the 10th of July, 1864, in his despatch from 
 Eoswell of that date, General G. M. Dodge advised Sherman 
 as follows: i 
 
 ' ' My troops are arriving and crossing. I have been here three hours 
 and in company with General Newton have thoroughly examined the 
 country. I will occupy and fortify to-night a tete-de pont half a mile 
 from the river and extending on and down one mile, covering the 
 entire ford, bridge and roads leading to them ; the ford is for a mile or 
 two in extent very rough and impracticable except for troops. To bridge 
 the stream I will have to build over 650 feet in length. I shall use the old 
 piers and trestle. We have a strong picket out three miles covering the 
 forks of road leading to McAfee's Bridge, 8 miles up the river and cov- 
 ering the forks of road that leads to Atlanta. It is too far out to take 
 the command until the river is easily passed by the artillery and trains." 
 
 That despatch was sent by telegraph at 1.30 P. M. July 10th. 
 At 8 P. M. General Dodge telegraphs as follows : 
 
 " Major General Sherman : Forces are all over river. Start at work for- 
 tifying. Have got batteries over also. Have built a floating bridge. Road 
 bridge is a pretty big job but will work away on it. No forces in my front 
 that we can hear of. G. M. Dodge, Major General. " 
 
 General Sherman answers in part as follows : 
 
 "I have been out all day. Am just back Have received General 
 Garrard's and your despatches. I design that General McPherson's whole 
 army shall go to that flank, and you are to prepare the way. General 
 
19 
 
 Newton will stay with you till you feel all safe, when he will rejoin his 
 corps, now in support of General Schofield eight miles below you. General 
 Garrard will picket the roads, and I want you to fortify a tete-de-pont 
 and bridge. * * * Keep me well advised by courier to Marietta and 
 telegraph." 
 
 Some light is thrown upon the general nature of the situa- 
 tion by General Sherman's telegram to General Garrard of the 
 same date, July 10: 
 
 "Signal officer reports railroad and wagon road bridges burning. If 
 this be so, of course the enemy is on the other side. The truth will be 
 ascertained at once ; in the meantime be watchful. " 
 
 Further light as to the nature of the construction work then 
 on hand appears from General Dodge's despatch of July 11, 
 to General McPherson, in which he says: 
 
 "I will work hard on the bridge here and finish it as soon as possible. 
 It is a big job, as you will perceive from the length. Everything was 
 burned up here that we could see— houses, mills, lumber and all. " 
 
 On the same date, July 11, General Sherman says in Ms 
 despatch to General Dodge: 
 
 "I know that you have a big job, but that is nothing new for you. 
 * * * I know the bridge at Roswell is important, and you may destroy 
 all Georgia to make it good and strong. " 
 
 On the same date, July 11, General Dodge telegraphs to 
 General Sherman: 
 
 "All quiet this morning. I had no fear about being able to build the 
 bridge, but thought you might expect it finished sooner than possible. As 
 it was twice as long as I expected to find it. and twice as long as the river 
 is wide, down at Santown, I have over 1,000 men at work on it day and 
 night. It is already well under way. I have planking for floors now on 
 the ground, and not one minute shall be lost in pushing it forward. Every 
 man that can work on it shall be kept at it. " 
 
 General Sherman answers on the same day: 
 "I have no doubt you will have the bridge done in time." 
 
 On July 12, General Dodge telegraphs: 
 
 "I pushed my mounted infantry down five miles to-day to the crossing 
 of Nancy's Creek, where we found the enemy's cavalry in force, and they 
 followed us back one-half mile. The bridge at this place is a ferry, and 
 will be a good place to put in a pontoon. We will if you should desire. 
 
20 
 
 The river is about 300 feet wide. I urill have the bridge at this place 
 finished to-morrow. All the bents are up to-night, stringers on and 
 planked one-third the distance across. When done it will take safely over 
 any number of troops and their trains. All quiet here. River 6lowly 
 
 rising." 
 
 The next day, July 13, at 9 P. M., General Dodge tele- 
 graphs : " Bridge is built ; is double track." 
 
 No further notice was taken of the matter in despatches on 
 either side. It was a mere everyday affair. 
 
 But has any other army than ours ever done such work ? Yet 
 that is the kind of work now before the British Army. Have 
 they ever given any indication that they are equal to it ? 
 
 Even laymen are well aware, that the matter of supply, 
 in other words, of transportation, is the vital and essential 
 one, in the conduct of active military operations by any 
 large body of troops. Troops must be well fed, if they are to 
 do good work. Ammunition, in all cases, must come from the 
 rear. In order to have military operations efficient, the supply 
 of food, clothing, ammunition, and all other things needed by 
 troops in the field, must have complete regularity, and great 
 speed. It is obvious, then, that the matter of supplying the 
 wants of a large army depends on having the Quartermaster 
 and Commissary Departments very perfect, in their personnel 
 and organization. In fact, the mere term " organization," if 
 used with accuracy, implies the existence of a sufficient number 
 of men, especially of officers, who have the requisite ability, and 
 experience, for the discharge of their duties, together with such 
 an arrangement and adjustment of those men and officers as 
 will make them a harmonious working force. Assuming, then, 
 that it is possible for a government to command the services of 
 a sufficient number of experienced men and officers in the quar- 
 termaster's and commissary departments, even after that, in 
 order to convert those men and officers into a smoothly working 
 body, requires time. If, however, there is no such previous sup- 
 ply of men of training and experience, if the men for the quar- 
 termaster and commissary service must not only be found, but 
 must be educated, it is quite plain that the time required for 
 organizing those most essential departments of an effective army 
 must be considerable. 
 
21 
 
 THE EXTKEME EASE OF DESTRUCTION OF RAIL- 
 WAY COMMUNICATIONS IN THE PRESENT 
 SOUTH AFRICAN FIELD OF OPERATIONS. 
 
 The field of operations is most remarkable. Especially so, 
 when considered with reference to the military purposes of the 
 South African Republic, and the most admirable choice of 
 military positions which has been made by the commanding 
 officers of their forces. This choice was, of course, to a great 
 extent dictated by the positions and movements of the British 
 troops. Taken in connection with those positions and move- 
 ments, it is difficult to see how anything better could have been 
 devised on the part of General Joubert. 
 
 The South African Republic itself has within its limits a 
 large area of open country, fitted at some times of the year to 
 Ihe movements of cavalry and the easy handling of considerable 
 bodies of troops. The movements of a modern army would, in 
 some respects, be easier within the limits of the Republic itself 
 than at almost any other point in South Africa which can be- 
 come the field of active operations. 
 
 It was, therefore, wise, for that reason, if for no other, that 
 General Joubert decided to conduct his operations on the 
 enemy's territory, that is, in Natal and the Cape Colony, rather 
 than to allow the British troops to have the comparatively open 
 country of the Republic itself, whereon to move and operate. 
 Another reason for his course is doubtless to be found, that the 
 British authorities had accumulated a considerable supply of 
 military stores at Ladysmith, which it would be desirable for 
 fhe Burghers to capture and apply to their own use. Another 
 point to be noticed is, that, for the sake of protecting Mr. 
 Rhodes' diamond mines, a considerable British force had been 
 posted at Kimberley, and another at Mafeking. It was, of 
 course, desirable that these two bodies of troops should be 
 
22 
 
 isolated, and that their capture at no distant date should bo 
 made as certain as possible. Moreover, the nature of the coun- 
 try south of the Transvaal frontier, its mountains, its streams, 
 its lack of available wagon roads, furnished other conclusive 
 reasons, why the Republics should make their first line of de- 
 fense south of their own frontiers. For these reasons, taken in 
 combination, General Joubert evidently decided to make his 
 objective points in the first instance the three bodies of British 
 troops at Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking. The move- 
 ments of Lord Methuen and General French also made it 
 necessary for him to concentrate forces of Burghers to the 
 south of Kimberley ; between Kimberley and Orange River, to 
 meet Lord Methuen; and in and around Naauwport, Steyns- 
 burg, and Molteno, to meet the advance of General French. 
 
 Bearing these facts in mind, we have next to note that the 
 country around Ladysmith, and along the line of the railroad to 
 the north as far as Charlestown, is very mountainous, and that 
 the road, for all practical purposes, runs through one continuous 
 defile. Such a position is the strongest known for the purposes 
 of the defense. At the same time, the roads available for the 
 passage of any considerable number of troops are very few, and 
 almost follow the line of the railway itself. From Ladysmith to 
 Dundee, a station on the railroad forty-seven miles northeast of 
 Ladysmith, there is a road which follows substantially the line of 
 the railroad, crossing it at one point or another, and having a 
 length not very different from that of the railroad line itself. 
 From Dundee to Newcastle the wagon road continues to follow 
 the line of the railroad, crossing it at different points. Between 
 Ladysmith and Newcastle a wagon road goes with comparative 
 directness, forming roughly the diameter of a semicircle, the 
 semicircle itself being the railway track. On the other hand, 
 to the east and right of the railway is another road making a 
 considerable circuit from Ladysmith to Dundee. A very few 
 small and inferior wagon roads go between these main roads just 
 mentioned at a few points; but they hardly deserve considera- 
 tion from the military standpoint. From Newcastle to Charles- 
 town there is for all practical purposes only one wagon road, 
 which follows irregularly the line of the railroad for a distance, 
 and then strikes off to the northeast to Wakkerstroom. 
 
DIAGRAM 
 
 Showing mileage and altitudes of Stations 
 on Main Line between 
 I DURBAN AND CHARLESTOWN. 
 
23 
 
 We will next look at the altitudes. These are especially im- 
 portant, for the reason that they give us some idea of the heavy 
 grades upon the railway, which constitute a very important fea- 
 ture in the question of transportation. At the same time they 
 show the extreme ease of destruction to the railway line. At 
 Pinetown, not over 20 miles from Durban, the railroad already 
 reaches an altitude of 1,125 feet. At Camperdown the altitude 
 is 2,297 feet. Thornville Junction has an altitude of 3,006 feet. 
 Pietermaritzburg, only 70 miles from Durban, has an altitude 
 of 2,218 feet At this point it is to be noted, that from Thorn- 
 ville Junction, the station last mentioned, to Pietermaritzburg, 
 a distance of less than 20 miles by rail, the fall in the altitude 
 is about 800 feet Prom Pietermaritzburg to Howick, a dis- 
 tance of 17£ miles, we have a rise which brings us at Howick 
 to the altitude of 3,439 feet. At Balgowan, only a few miles 
 further on, we have an altitude of 4,183 feet. At Weston we 
 reach 4,506 feet. At Estcourt we are down again to 3,833 feet 
 At Frere station, less than 20 miles further, we have a further 
 descent of 400 feet, taking us down to an altitude of 3,436 feet. 
 At Chieveley the altitude is 3,520 feet At Colenso, 3,106; 
 at Ladysmith, 3,285 feet; at Dundee, 4,100 feet; at Dannhauser, 
 4,430 feet; at Ingagane we reach 3,900 feet; at Newcastle, 
 3,892 feet, and at Charlestown, in the immediate vicinity of 
 Majuba Hill and Laing's ISTeck, we have the altitude of 5,385 
 feet. From these figures it is easy to see how severe must be 
 the grades on the railroad, what a high degree of power must 
 be required in the locomotives, how narrow will be the limits of 
 weight possible for transportation by steam power, and how 
 easy it will be to interfere with the movements of trains. 
 
 Another feature which will be apparent from a glance at the 
 map has almost greater importance; it is the large number of 
 streams, and of rivers of considerable size, which the railway 
 crosses by bridges. This point would be one that we could 
 infer, from the mere fact that the railway line runs through a 
 very mountainous region, even if we had no assistance on the 
 point from the map. An examination of the map, however, 
 makes the fact much more apparent Taking no point nearer 
 Durban than Pietermaritzburg, at that point the railroad crosses 
 the TJmsundizi River. At Howick it crosses the TFmgeni. Kear 
 
24 
 
 Balgowan station it crosses the Lion River. Near Weston it 
 crosses the Mooi River; at Estcourt, Bushman's River; at 
 Erere Station, the Blaauwkraas River ; at Colenso, the Tugela 
 River; at Ladysmith the Sand River; just north of Elands 
 Laagte we have the Sundazi River ; at Waschbank Station, the 
 Waschbank River; at Ingagaxie, the Ingagane River; at New- 
 castle, a branch of the Buffalo River. In addition to these 
 rivers that have been mentioned, the railroad, according to the 
 maps, crosses a considerable number of smaller streams. 
 
 Each one of these rivers and streams, of course, has a bridge. 
 Each bridge is a point of easy destruction. In the days of our 
 Civil War the destruction of bridges, nearly all of them being 
 trestle bridges made of wood, was ordinarily accomplished by 
 burning. To-day the destruction of a bridge is a thing of much 
 greater ease and speed. Two or three cartridges of dynamite ap- 
 plied to the embankment or masonry at either end, will do in a 
 second the work of destruction that under the methods used in 
 our Civil War would require perhaps several hours. At the 
 same time it is to be noted, that a few dynamite cartridges can 
 be carried by a single man, with no addition to his burden, and 
 with no decrease in his ease of movement. A party of four or 
 five men, or even a single man, can destroy any bridge on that 
 line of railway with entire ease. 
 
 Destruction of the British communications, therefore, is for 
 the Burghers a matter of the greatest ease. The derailing of 
 trains, where the line of railway has heavy grades, and many 
 curves, is a matter of comparative ease. If no other means 
 were available, it is not a very difficult matter to roll down large 
 masses of rock at opportune times. But in a region like South 
 Africa the methods of destruction are many and simple. 
 
 On the other hand, the work of construction, or rather re-con- 
 struction, by the British troops, in cases of interruption of 
 the railway line, will be one of extreme difficulty, and is in all 
 human probability one for which they have thus far made not 
 a particle of preparation. 
 
 Even in our Civil War, destruction was comparatively easy. 
 In our Civil War the method in use was the one described in 
 General Sherman's report of September 15, 1864, in the follow- 
 ing language : " I then ordered one day's work to be expended 
 
25 
 
 in destroying that road, and it was done with a will. Twelve 
 and one-half miles were destroyed, the ties burned and the iron 
 rails heated and twisted by the utmost ingenuity of old hands 
 at the work. Several cuts were filled up with trunks of trees, 
 logs, rocks and earth intermingled, with loaded shells prepared 
 as torpedoes to explode in case of an attempt to clear them out." 
 
 Further light on this point is thrown by a few words from 
 the report of a field officer, Col. Ario Pardee, Jr., which reads 
 as follows : " I have the honor to report that in compliance with 
 instructions received yesterday I destroyed the railroad from 
 the City of Atlanta to a point 250 yards beyond the fourth 
 mile post, in all about two miles and three-quarters of track. 
 The ties have been burned and the rails bent and twisted so as 
 to render them useless." 
 
 But the means available to-day for the destruction of rail- 
 roads are vastly more efficacious and speedy than those which 
 were used by our troops in the Civil War. This is due mainly 
 to the recent development of the science of explosives. With 
 the modern explosives, of superior power and greater compact- 
 ness, it is now a comparatively simple and easy matter to 
 destroy many miles of railroad with a comparatively small num- 
 ber of men, moving and operating in very small parties. A 
 few cartridges of dynamite, judiciously applied. at the end of 
 any bridge, will wreck it so as to make its reconstruction a 
 matter of great difficulty and delay The mere moving of 
 the spikes from the outer rail on any curve, leaving the rail 
 undisturbed, will be pretty certain to run a train off the track, 
 destroying the train, and rendering the road impassable for a 
 considerable period of time. Especially is this the case, in any 
 mountainous region, where grades are heavy and curves are 
 numerous. The ease and facility of the destruction of lines 
 of railroad under such conditions is easily apparent 
 
 On the other hand, this increase in ease and rapidity of de- 
 struction makes an immense increase in the burden resting upon 
 any force which must depend for its daily supply on a railway 
 line. 
 
 Taking then into consideration the long line of railway upon 
 which the British forces must depend for their supplies of 
 rations, forage, and ammunition, it is quite plain, that if the 
 
26 
 
 Burghers are handled with reasonable skill and alertness, if 
 they make reasonably good use of the immense advantages of 
 their position, they will be able to cut the British lines of 
 communications almost at will, and without any great expendi- 
 ture of life or material. They will be able to make the problem 
 of supply almost an impossible one. 
 
 The statements already made as to the difficulty of maintain- 
 ing long lines of railway communication in a hostile country 
 have been somewhat general in their character. In South 
 Africa, however, that is, in the portion of it which is for the 
 present to be the field of military operations, the difficulties 
 are exceptional. Their nature and extent will appear from the 
 following consideration of existing conditions. 
 
 The field of operations in South Africa is decidedly different 
 from any that has ever been heretofore used in the handling of 
 large bodies of troops. The European Continent, during the 
 last few centuries during which it has been the scene of so many 
 wars, has been a country thickly settled, having a large number 
 of roads available for the movements of large bodies of troops. 
 It has also had a sufficiently dense population, to make it 
 possible for armies of considerable numbers to live on the 
 country. Requisitions upon large towns and cities can be 
 easily made to supply a reasonably large force for a consider- 
 able period of time. 
 
 So, too, in our Civil War, although the country was rough, 
 and the roads difficult, yet the roads available for wheel trans- 
 portation were sufficient to allow the movement over them of 
 large bodies of troops. For instance, General Sherman had 
 no serious difficulty in supplying his army of 60,000 men 
 during his march to the sea, mainly by foraging on the 
 country. 
 
 As General Howard stated in his despatch to General Sher- 
 man of November 1, 1864: " We marched to this place by two 
 good roads from Cave Spring. Hood took much. But there 
 is -plenty of corn and some pigs." As General Sherman him- 
 self put it, in his despatch to his Commissary, Colonel Beck- 
 with, on November 10, 1864, just before the beginning of the 
 march to Savannah : " When I start I propose to move with 
 great rapidity. Faster than cattle can possibly gain on us.. 
 
27 
 
 They are now five days behind, and could not possibly catch 
 np, as I will break the Etowah and Chattahooche bridges in 
 passing, and those streams are now too high to cross without 
 bridges. We can safely rely on the country for half rations 
 of meat. Where a million of people live I have no fear of 
 getting a share.*' 
 
 He further said, in his despatch to General Thomas of No- 
 vember 11 : " You may act, however, on the certainty that I 
 sally from Atlanta on the 1 6th inst. with about 60,000 men, well 
 provisioned, but expecting to live chiefly on the country." 
 
 But this matter of supplying a large army from the country 
 through which it moves has its limitations. In the first place 
 it must be used with great caution in a friendly country, or in 
 a country where it is desired to keep the inhabitants on friendly 
 terms. In the second place, it is limited in point of time. In 
 an ordinary agricultural region, the amount of supplies that 
 can be collected from any available area is soon exhausted. No 
 dependence therefore can be put upon it as the means of sup- 
 plying the subsistence needs of a large force for any consider- 
 able period. 
 
 We are thrown back, therefore, on this question of the sub- 
 sistence of large bodies of troops, to the impossibility of depend- 
 ing upon anything other than transportation by railroads. 
 
 But, as stated before, the question of supply lies at the foun- 
 dation of all military movements. The matter of transporta- 
 tion lies at the foundation of the question of supply. This 
 fact is now at last becoming understood in England. An ex- 
 tract from the London Times reads as follows : 
 
 "Limitation upon England's Campaign 
 
 " Col. Hanna, who is an eminent military authority, has published what 
 seems to me to be a very sensible letter in TheTimes. Our military authorities 
 meet any check in South Africa by sending out an additional division. The 
 Colonel points out that in all countries, and especially in South Africa, 
 where the distances are enormous and the country that we propose to con- 
 quer so devoid of any supplies on which an invading army can count, we 
 ought to deprecate any large increase on the present number of our soldiers. 
 In support of this he quotes the Duke of Wellington's dictum that war 
 is a question of commissariat, and that commissariat is one of transport. 
 Where everything has to be transported from a distance the Colonel holds 
 
28 
 
 that we cannot trust to railroads, as they may at any time be cut by mo- 
 bile forces like those of the Boers, in which case we should have to fall 
 back on pack animals, bullock carts, &c. The number that we can employ 
 in active war, therefore, is limited by the number that we can feed. 
 
 "I am not a military man, but what Col. Hanna says had occurred to 
 me. Napoleon's expedition to Moscow broke down, not so much from the 
 inclemency of the climate as from the impossibility of feeding such a mass 
 of men as he threw into the country ; and, up to a certain point, our 
 advance on Pretoria is analogous to that of Napoleon on Moscow. Pre- 
 toria, according to all accounts, is so strongly fortified that it could not be 
 taken without a regular siege, It is not likely that the Boers would resist 
 our advance by a battle of Borodino. They would be more likely, after 
 occupying, after their wont, successive positions from which they can kill 
 or wound many of our men, to fall back into the veldt on either side, and 
 then to harass our communications. These we should have to defend along 
 a line as long as the road from London to Newcastle. Even if the railroad 
 were not cut, it is laid down in the German military works that a railroad 
 with two lines of rail can only supply 40,000 men, and no South Afiican 
 railroad beyond the Orange River has more than one line." 
 
 THE ABSENCE OF PREPARATION ON THE PAKT 
 OF THE BRITISH ARMY FOR THE HANDLING 
 OF THE PRESENT PROBLEM OF TRANSPORTA- 
 TION AND SUPPLY. 
 
 We have seen how vital to the operations of any army is the 
 problem of transportation and supply, and how impossible it is 
 to handle this problem, for any large body of troops, especially 
 in such a region as the one which is now the field of operations, 
 except by lines of railway. We have also seen how easy it ii 
 in that region to destroy any line of railway, and how over- 
 whelmingly difficult will be the work of rebuilding destroyed 
 railway lines, and consequently, of keeping open any line of 
 communications for the supply of any large armies. 
 
 Such being the situation, it is easily seen that the only possi- 
 bility of the British Army conducting successfully any cam- 
 paign of invasion depends on the efficiency of their commissary 
 and quartermaster service, and of their engineer service. 
 
 Now it happens to be the fact, that Great Britain to-day is 
 practically destitute of men of experience for service in the 
 
29 
 
 Quartermaster and Commissary Departments, for any new 
 troops which may be now raised for service in South Africa. 
 Upon this point the evidence is very explicit, and is contained 
 in the following article from the Army and Navy Gazette of 
 October 7, 1899. That article may be deemed, for all practical 
 purposes, to be almost equivalent to an official declaration. 
 Moreover, it is an admission against interest, and consequently 
 entitled to the highest weight as evidence. It reads as follows : 
 
 " Transport in South Africa. 
 
 11 The mobilization of the Army Service Corps for supplying one army 
 corps for South Africa will, it is to be hoped, clearly demonstrate how 
 disgracefully under-manned this important branch of the Service is. 
 That the authorities should have permitted such a state of things is to be 
 deplored, for it is culpable neglect, and might involve the country in some 
 dire national disaster. The stations have been drained to the dregs of 
 officers, warrant officers, non commissioned officers and men. The dis- 
 trict staff offices have been denuded of clerks, and companies of the corps 
 left without officers or warrant officers, and all this to supply merely one 
 army corps. What would be done if a second or a third army corps were 
 required, or if mobilization for home defense became suddenly necessary ? 
 Even to secure enough Army Service Corps of varying grades to proceed 
 to South Africa, a special increase to the establishment has had to be re- 
 sorted to. 
 
 "At the commencement of last session, Parliament decided that an 
 augmentation of some forty officers was required, with an increase of a 
 certain number of transport companies. We find, however, that only a 
 few quartermasters have as yet been added, and but four new companies, 
 without the addition of any of the forty officers required. From the 
 Army List it seems that over seventy subalterns are still wanted to com- 
 plete the corps. What is being done to secure and train them ? Is it that 
 candidates are shy of coming forward to fill the vacancies ? And, if so, 
 why ? If the rate of pay is inadequate it should be increased. Candi- 
 dates, and of the right sort, must be found as rapidly as possible, in order 
 to fill the depleted cadres. Surely, by distributing young officers amongst 
 the companies of the corps left at home, they could commence to learn 
 the rudiments of their duties, and their training could be completed as 
 opportunity offers at the technical school of instruction at Aldershot. 
 
 " When the seventy or so officers are found the existing establishment of 
 the Army Service Corps will require to be gradually raised. More com- 
 panies must be created, and each company should always have within its 
 ranks two officers and a warrant officer. For years past the Army Service 
 Corps companies have been starved ; rarely have they had even their full 
 complement of officers. The number of captains has been dangerously 
 weak, and the number of subalterns and warrant officers wholly inade- 
 
30 
 
 quate to meet even peace requirements. The 4 establishment ' of clerks, 
 bakers, and butchers is in the same lamentable condition; practically the 
 whole of the clerks in the home offices have been drained for South Africa, 
 and promotions to higher ranks suddenly made at the moment of mobili- 
 sation. 
 
 "In Indian campaigns good service in supply and transport is done by 
 regimental officers, and seeing that the existing strength of the Army 
 Service Corps is so lamentably weak it would seem desirable to take regi- 
 mental subalterns to serve in South Africa with the transport companies, 
 setting free those of the corps for duties at home, where they are much 
 needed. The administration of the corps is evidently faulty, otherwise 
 such calls as are now made might have been foreseen and provided for. 
 It is far better to spend a certain sum annually in preparation for contin- 
 gencies than for the War Office to be ' found wanting ' at a critical 
 moment, for then money is recklessly spent and no really tangible 
 good results to anybody. The supply and transport bears so important a 
 part in warfare that, cost what it may to maintain it efficiently in peace, 
 a sufficiency of officers should always be available so that they may be 
 able to fall into their places when war comes. To leave companies with- 
 out officers, and stations and districts without either officers or clerks, is 
 reprehensible to a degree, and a department which allows such things to be 
 can scarcely be defended. "We object strongly to the ' we told you so ' 
 form of journalism, but in this particular detail of administration there is 
 literally no excuse for the War Office, as the officials in Pall- Mall have for 
 years past been warned of what would happen if war suddenly came. 
 The difficulty in the Transvaal can scarcely be said to have arisen sud- 
 denly, yet the unpreparedness of our supply and transport arrangements 
 is beyond dispute, admirable as the system is which we owe to the 
 organizing capacity of Sir Redvers Buller. The system, in fact, is so per- 
 fect that the existing breakdown is the less to be excused. We trust, how- 
 ever, that the new quartermaster-general will take steps immediately to 
 represent in the strongest terms the seriousness of our position and obtain 
 permission to fill with all possible despatch the full cadre of officers, so 
 that there may be no repetition of the existing scandal. " 
 
 The only force in the entire British Army at present exist- 
 ing, for the purpose of transportation and supply, consists of the 
 Royal Engineers, the Departmental Corps, and the Army Ser- 
 vice Corps. The figures of those different branches of the 
 service, according to the latest reports, are as follows : 
 
 Non-Commis- 
 Officers. sioned Officers, 
 Drummers, &c. 
 
 Rank and 
 
 file. 
 5,834 
 3,166 
 2,807 
 
 Royal Engineers. ... 
 Departmental Corps. 
 Army Service Corps. 
 
 601 1,312 
 195 1,426 
 245 751 
 
31 
 
 But here we come on another fact of even greater significance. 
 
 Not only is there this total dearth in the British army of 
 men of experience for the branches of the service just mentioned, 
 but, in addition to that, it is a strictly accurate statement, that 
 no officer in the British Army has had any practical experience 
 in handling any difficult problem of transportation in opposition 
 to a modern civilised army. 
 
 The two men, who come nearest to meeting the requirements 
 of the situation, are Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener. 
 
 Let us see what their experience in actual active service has 
 been. 
 
 Lord Roberts' experience in handling any difficult question 
 of transportation may be summed up as consisting in the com- 
 mand of a single small expeditionary force on the Kabul-Kan- 
 dahar march. That march occupied twenty-two days. It was 
 not interrupted by active fighting. He had no opposition. 
 There was no interference whatever with his communications. 
 His entire moving body, including both troops and camp fol- 
 lowers, amounted only to about 21,000 men, including 8,000 
 camp followers, with 8,000 animals. They lived on the country 
 during the whole of the march. There was no practical dif- 
 ficulty in the matter of rations or forage. The distance covered 
 was only 313 miles. At the end of the march Lord Roberts had 
 what has been euphemistically termed a battle, which lasted a 
 few hours, and in which Lord Roberts' force, numbering 
 14,800 men, suffered a loss of 40 killed and 210 wounded. 
 
 From these facts it is easily apparent, that the famous Kabul- 
 Kandahar march, of which so much has been made by English 
 writers, can hardly call for serious consideration as a military 
 operation. It can scarcely be considered as the march of an 
 army in the face of a real enemy, and should be graded almost as 
 the movement of a small body of troops in a friendly country. 
 The experience of Lord Roberts, when we consider the actual 
 problems that confront any commander who has resting upon 
 him the burden of supplying a large army, amounts to practi- 
 cally nothing. 
 
 Lord Kitchener's experience, so far as concerns the question 
 now under consideration, is limited to his expedition up the 
 Nile. His experience, too, is virtually the only one that hasj 
 
32 
 
 been had in recent times by any English. Army officer in the 
 handling of a line of communications of any considerable length. 
 From this experience considerable light will be thrown upon the 
 problem now before the British forces in South Africa. 
 
 The essential fundamental feature of his situation, moreover, 
 is to be found in the entire absence of an enemy capable of caus- 
 ing any serious interruption to the work of construction which 
 is hereafter detailed. 
 
 In a book lately published entitled " The Sudan Campaign, 
 1896 to 1899, by An Officer," (London, Chapman & Hall, Ld., 
 1899), there is the following statement of the problem of trans- 
 portation and supply which Lord Kitchener had to solve: 
 
 " How was the force to be supplied on the march to the battle, and 
 more especially after it? Behind there would be 100 miles of con- 
 tinuous cataract, preventing the supplies being brought by river. To 
 bring them by camel over 100 miles of bad road through the Sahara 
 Desert, where not an ounce of food would be got, would mean a 
 stupendous number of camels for even a small force. A baggage 
 camel will carry 300 pounds 20 miles a day. He eats 10 pounds of 
 food a day; he occupies 10 days in going 100 miles and back, in which 
 time he eats 100 pounds. So he only brings but 200 pounds for the 
 force. He must have rest every now and again, and he will die on 
 the least provocation. To take a month's supply 100 miles for 10,000 
 men, about 15,000 camels are required. And then when a further ad- 
 vance of 1,200 miles is made to Dongola and Merowi, what is to be 
 done then? 
 
 " The Sirdar hit on exactly the right solution. He- determined to 
 take every advantage possible of the river, to carry supplies on it 
 wherever it could be done, to supplement it with camel transportation 
 where it could not be done, and to make a railway. This meant 
 gradual advance at first, an advance to the furthest limit that alter- 
 aate boat and camel service would supply, and as the railway advanced 
 push on the boats and camels." 
 
 It will readily occur to the reader that the problem of original 
 construction of a railway differs in no essential feature from the 
 problem of re-building a railway that has been destroyed. 
 
 "We proceed with the further statement of Lord Kitchener's 
 method of railway construction: 
 
 " The Sirdar's plan, therefore, was to advance to Akasheh a small 
 force and entrench it there to cover the railway construction. This 
 small force could be supplied by camel convoys, which marched every 
 night and entrenched days, and were convoyed by a guard. When the 
 
33 
 
 railway had proceeded as far as safety permitted, he would rapidly 
 bring up his whole force and drive the dervishes out of Ferket and 
 Suarda. As they were just as much governed by the questions of 
 supply, they would then be unable to keep any permanent force north 
 of Hannek, and he could safely continue the construction of his rail- 
 way to Falket, while in the meantime camels worked between rail- 
 head and the force. When the railway reached Ferket, he would bring 
 up a big reserve of supplies, wait till high Nile, then put it into boats 
 which could sail right up to Dongola, Merowi and Kassinger, thus 
 supplying the force. 
 
 " To carry his force across the river, to tow barges on the calm days 
 and scout up the river, to bombard river forts preliminary to landing, 
 to enfilade fortifications, to make life in the river-bank unbearable for 
 the enemy; to do all these things, he would have gunboats drawing 
 two feet of water. When the river rose gunboats lying at Haifa were 
 to be pulled up cataracts to Ferket, and three new ones should be taken 
 in sections by rail to Ferket and launched. Thus he would have com- 
 plete command of the river, and could supply a big force, and when 
 the time came he would move swiftly to the destruction of the Der- 
 vishes. 
 
 " It looks a simple plan, but it needed a man who knew the country 
 and the enemy to make it, and a mistake in the scheme would be 
 heavily paid for. Anyone who has seen the inhospitable, barren, grill- 
 ing Batn el Haggar will understand what a mistake in the supplying 
 of a force would mean. It stopped the Romans, Greeks and Persians. 
 Simple as the plan looks, it was not so simple to execute, but luckily 
 Sir Herbert Kitchener was as capable to execute as he was to plan." 
 
 From what has been said it is apparent that the possibility of 
 interference with the work of construction on the part of the 
 Dervishes was within the contemplation of Lord Kitchener. 
 Moreover, if the Dervishes had been at all conversant with the 
 methods of modern warfare, such interference would no doubt 
 have taken place. It turned out to be the fact, however, that no 
 such interference was had. This appears from a further state- 
 ment contained in the work from which quotation has just been 
 made, at page 14, which reads as follows : 
 
 " It was considered certain that the Dervishes would attack the con- 
 voys, and if they had, they certainly would have done considerable 
 damage. There was no road for the convoys; they had to clamber in 
 long straggling line up and down steep and rocky hills, and it would 
 have been quite possible for the Dervishes to get at one end or other 
 of the convoys before the escort could interfere. The escort could not 
 be scattered too much or they would be beaten if attacked. There 
 
34 
 
 were some splendid opportunities for the Dervishes, but they never 
 took them. No doubt they found it hard to get unobserved through 
 our cavalry and camel screen. Daily the cavalry used a scout from 
 Akasheh towards Ferket, and were in constant touch with the Dervish 
 cavalry scouts. A cavalry officer told me he never had such a good 
 time as during this outpost duty. He said it was like going out hunt- 
 ing every day. One never knew what would turn up; one day they 
 would be trying to outride and catch a weaker patrol; the next they 
 would be dodging and watching a stronger one." 
 
 It is easy to see what the difficulties would have been in the 
 face of an alert and active enemy, conversant with the methods 
 of serious warfare. 
 
 A further quotation from the same book, page 17, shows the 
 difficulty of the work of construction under the comparatively 
 easy conditions which existed at the time: 
 
 " It was necessary, therefore to utilize the railway material on the 
 spot at once, and to supplement it as quickly as possible with the many 
 things that it wanted. Measures were taken to procure engines, trucks, 
 sleepers, rails, machinery for shops, fitters and workmen, foremen, 
 platelayers, and all the various accessories for a railway. The gauge 
 of the existing thirty-three miles was three feet six inches, so this de- 
 termined the gauge of the railway — in many ways a convenient one, 
 but inconvenient for a military railway, because since the railway at 
 the Cape is the only other one in the world, I believe, of the same gauge 
 there is no ready-made supply of locomotives and rolling stock; every- 
 thing had to be made to order, shipped to Alexandria, and then taken 
 1,000 miles up river, the greater part of the way by sailing boats, with 
 three trans-shipments between Alexandria and Haifa. Naturally this 
 took time. In fact the new engines only came into use during the last 
 month of the expedition in September, and then they were very dis- 
 appointing. The new trucks arrived quickly, but in the meantime all 
 the old engines and rolling stock long since condemned were patched 
 up and made to struggle on, to the imminent danger of all concerned. 
 A railway batallion was formed by enlisting under the Conscription 
 Act several hundred of the Fellaheen, who had no more idea of how to 
 lay a railway than to fly. To superintend them several so-called plate- 
 layers were sent up from lower Egypt. Naturally they proved, with 
 few exceptions, to be all the useless scoundrels discharged from the 
 lower Egypt railways; the same with the engine drivers, they were 
 nearly all native stokers with the most limited knowledge of how to 
 drive or look after an engine, and with the most reckless disregard of 
 consequences. "When one puts an ignorant but reckless native engine 
 driver on a patched up condemned locomotive, with no brakes, to drive 
 a train of worn out trucks along a track laid by men who have never 
 
35 
 
 seen a rail and don't understand a straight line or the necessity for 
 exactitude; and when this track climbs up and down and in and out 
 among switchback gradients and sharp corners, then you get all the 
 elements required to produce the most exciting and exhilarating rail- 
 way travelling." 
 
 This is a fair specimen of the kind of difficulties which will 
 exist in the re-construction of the South African railways, when- 
 ever they shall be destroyed at any point by the Burghers at such 
 time as may suit their military necessities. 
 
 The statement continues, page 18 : 
 
 " To lick this mob into shape, to teach them to lay a proper track, 
 and to lay it fast; to make good the accidents caused by these sporting 
 native engine drivers; to put order and organization into the railway, 
 the Sirdar got five Royal Engineer Subalterns, and the one he put in 
 charge of the whole happened to be, with the 'Sirdar's usual luck, the 
 very man for the post Lieutenant Girouard, R. B., knew exactly what 
 was wanted, and had the head and energy and the pluck to do it. He 
 was here, there and everywhere, instructing, swearing, shoving things 
 along, gradually getting organization and system to take the place of 
 vhaos, and under his able guidance everyone became slowly but notice- 
 ably more proficient at the work; but it was real hard work for him, 
 and the officers and men under him." 
 
 The statement then continues as to the matter of transporta- 
 tion during the construction of the railway. It is as follows : 
 
 " While the railway is hammering steadily forward, we will turn to 
 the organization of transport service. As soon as the campaign began, 
 veterinary surgeons were sent to the camel districts to buy camels. 
 The natives soon heard that camels were wanted. It was a bad time of 
 the year to buy, because camels were in great requisition to carry the 
 crops to the railways, but still sufficient were produced, and all day 
 long the veterinary officers were examining and passing camels. They 
 were marched up to Wady Haifa. The personnel of the transport 
 corps was, like the railway battalion, raised by using the Conscription 
 Act to enlist the required number of Fellaheen." 
 
 Then follows a statement of the difficulties of transport ser- 
 vice by means of camels, from which it is here unnecessary to 
 quote. 
 
 The following paragraph gives a statement as to the line of 
 communications of Sir Herbert Kitchener from Cairo to Ferket : 
 " It will be interesting to examine the line of communications at the 
 time that we had advanced to Ferket from the base at Cairo. Stores 
 
36 
 
 were forwarded for 390 miles by rail to Naghamadi. There an English 
 officer was in charge of a gang of men who took them off the railway 
 and put them into boats, which sailed 145 miles to Assouan. There 
 another English officer was in charge, who had the stores loaded on to 
 a train, which took them four miles around the cataract to Shellal, 
 where they were again put into boats. This work was entirely done 
 by convicts. At Shellal some of the boats were lashed alongside the 
 stern-wheel steamers thus loaded, and towed 240 miles to Haifa, while 
 the remaining boats sailed. From Haifa the railway carried them 68 
 miles to Ambigol Wells, where they were loaded on camels and carried 
 about 35 miles to Ferket." 
 
 Prom this statement it is seen that the maintenance of com- 
 munications had difficulties, even under the comparatively easy 
 conditions which actually existed. Those difficulties, however, 
 once surmounted, ceased to be serious, unless there was artive 
 interference with the communications by an active enemy. 
 Throughout the whole of Kitchener's advance, and this is the 
 fundamental fact underlying the nature and difficulty of his 
 entire operations, there was virtually no interference with the 
 work of construction on the part of any hostile force. From 
 the statements already quoted it is quite apparent that the entire 
 situation would have been essentially changed, if the work of 
 construction had been interrupted by any active alert force of 
 men supplied with modern explosives, and at the same time pos- 
 sessing knowledge as to their use. 
 
 ~No doubt Sir Herbert Kitchener showed remarkable capacity 
 and energy, and fertility of resource in surmounting the dif- 
 ficulties of transportation and supply which were the prelimin- 
 aries to his final engagement with the Dervishes. He evidently 
 has the capacity for organization, untiring energy, combined 
 with great skill in the selection and handling of men. Never- 
 theless, it must be borne in mind that the work which he prose- 
 cuted to its successful termination was not seriously interfered 
 with at any point of time. No one knows better than he, how 
 essentially different would be the conditions in case of opposi- 
 tion on the part of an alert and skillful foe. 
 
 Taking the conditions as they existed, however, with the river 
 at his command, which made the problem of construction and 
 supply comparatively simple and easy, Kitchener required from 
 March, 1896, to June, 1898, for the construction of 550 miles 
 
37 
 
 of railway to Atbara. At that point a flotilla of steamers and 
 sailing boats was collected; the Nile was nearly high, and no- 
 thing more was wanted to complete the preparation for the ad- 
 vance on Khartum. The line of communications from Cairo 
 at this point was as follows: From Cairo by rail to Assouan, 
 535 miles (36 hours) ; from Assouan to Haifa, 220 miles, in 
 barges towed by steamers, (4 days) ; from Haifa to Adbara, by 
 rail, 385 miles (36 hours) ; that is to say, from Cairo to Adbara, 
 seven days, sometimes eight or even nine. 
 
 At the end of the British advance came the battle of Omdur- 
 man, in which the Dervishes were so obliging as to attempt a 
 direct front attack on a well-drilled and well-disciplined force 
 of men supplied with all the modern weapons of precision. The 
 description of the situation on the front, given by the officer from 
 whom quotations have already been made, is as follows : 
 
 " The fire discipline of the British throughout the action was a treat 
 to watch; exactly as on parade they changed from volley firing to in- 
 dependent, and back to volley firing, as might be ordered, coolly and 
 without any hurry. Their shooting, too, was admirable; they handily 
 knocked them over at 900 yards, and within 300 nothing could live. 
 The Egyptian troops were as steady, but they cannot shoot so well. 
 Although the Dervishes were falling in hundreds, their advance seemed 
 at first to be unchecked; numbers dropped, but others were rushing on 
 and coming nearer and nearer, till it almost seemed as if they would 
 reach us; but within 300 yards of the British, and within 200 of the 
 Egyptian Brigade, scarcely a Dervish could live, and few camels 
 escaped till within 50 yards or so, and then one or two daring horse- 
 men calmly stood within 100 yards imploring their men to come on. 
 * * * Now and again the enemy would try to rush forward from 
 their cover, always with the same result." 
 
 The officer continues: 
 
 " So rapid was our fire that above the sound of the explosions could 
 be heard the swish of our bullets going through the air, just like the 
 swish of water; it literally swept away the line of charging Dervishes. 
 One or two horsemen got within 100 yards, and it really looked as if 
 they would reach us." 
 
 The real nature of the battle of Omdurman is easily seen 
 from the statements already quoted, and from the following 
 figures of the losses on either side. The entire casualties of the 
 British side were: 
 
38 
 
 "About 500, of which about 150 were killed." * * * " Of the 
 Dervishes quite 15,000 were killed. Officers sent out next day counted 
 11,800 dead on the battle field; to these must be added those killed by 
 the bombardment in Omdurman and in the Desert during pursuit. 
 Several thousand more were wounded and taken prisoners." * * * 
 " The smallness of our loss was due to the facts that the Dervish fire 
 was extraordinarily inaccurate, and that the openness of the ground 
 enabled us to keep the greater part of the enemy at a distance. Had 
 the Dervish stayed in entrenchment and fought there as pluckily as 
 they fought in the open, or had they made a night attack, the casualty 
 list would have been very different." 
 
 In the operations in South Africa thus far, it will be noted 
 the conditions have been reversed. The selection of position has 
 been assigned to the Burghers. The making of a front attack 
 on a force admirably posted, fully equipped with modern arms 
 and ammunition, has been allotted to the British. The result 
 has been what might have been expected — heavy loss to the at- 
 tacking forces, with comparatively slight loss on the part of the 
 defense. 
 
 But the point of principal interest in the story of the Soudan 
 expedition is to be found in the fundamental problem already 
 so many times mentioned — that of transportation and supply. 
 That is the problem which the British forces in South Africa 
 have now to encounter. But the conditions will be essentially 
 different from any that they have heretofore encountered. The 
 reason is the difference in the character of the country, and the 
 character of the enemy. 
 
 THE REASON FOB, THIS ABSENCE OF PREPARA- 
 TION ON THE PART OF THE BRITISH ARMY. 
 
 The reason for this most astounding absence of preparation 
 on the part of the British Army is to be found in the ignorance, 
 and the incompetence, of the British War Office. 
 
 But that statement only takes us back one step. 
 
 What is the reason for the ignorance, and the incompetence, 
 of the British War Office? 
 
39 
 
 The answer to that question is somewhat complex. It is to 
 be found in a number of facts, taken in combination. It is an 
 old story. At its foundation lies the principal fact of the in- 
 capacity of hereditary kings, and hereditary classes, to do the 
 severe steady hard work, which is absolutely essential to the 
 proper handling of affairs of state in general, and of army affairs 
 in particular. To that fact is to be added the further one, that 
 efficient army administration is an absolute impossibility, when 
 it rests in the hands of an ever-shifting group of ignorant lay- 
 men, selected at uncertain times, for uncertain periods, from a 
 legislature, whose time and labor must always be given in the 
 main to the manipulation of a majority in the House of Com- 
 mons. These last are the conditions which exist under what is 
 termed " parliamentary government." 
 
 Let us consider some of the historical facts, as to the conduct 
 of the British War Office, under the royal and parliamentary 
 regimes. For it will be found that they have both been charac- 
 terized by the same essential features. 
 
 From that most interesting book u England at War," by W. 
 H. Davenport Adams, the following quotation is made : 
 
 "The military history of the reign of Charles I begins as that of 
 James I closed, with a record of a failure. 
 
 " Charles and his confederate, the Duke of Buckingham, had com- 
 mitted themselves to a war with Spain; but Parliament showed little 
 inclination to support it, and refused to grant the necessary subsidies 
 until at all events the just grievances of the people had been redressed. 
 After much wrangling it was induced to grant a subsidy, and Charles 
 in a burst of sudden anger dissolved it, declaring that he knew how to 
 govern without its assistance. He proceeded to make good his words. 
 Orders were issued to the Lord Lieutenants of the country to raise by 
 way of loan the money of which he stood in need. They were to apply 
 to the wealthy for contributions and to transmit to the Court the 
 names of those who refused or delayed compliance. The response, 
 nevertheless, was reluctant and limited; but Charles and Buckingham 
 pushed forward their military preparations, and a fleet of 90 sailed 
 carrying 5,000 seamen and 10,000 soldiers, which under Sir Edward 
 Cecil (created Viscount Wimbledon) as General and Admiral, and the 
 Karl of Essex as Vice-Admiral — neither of whom had had any experi- 
 ence of naval warfare, — was despatched to intercept the Spanish treas- 
 ure ships and to attack Cadiz. 
 
 " Ill-officered, ill-manned, ill-provisioned, the expedition brought dis- 
 grace upon the English flag. The men * raised by press,' half starved, 
 
40 
 
 badly paid and without training, had no stomach for fighting, and dis- 
 regarded the orders of their officers; while the officers, though not 
 wanting in bravery, were absolutely devoid of military knowledge." 
 
 The conditions do not at present seem to have been essentially 
 changed. 
 
 Mr. Adams continues: 
 
 " On the 22d of October the fleet arrived in Cadiz Bay. A counsel of 
 war was held at which some gallant spirits proposed an immediate 
 attack on the great Spanish seaport; but the majority were frightened 
 at so daring a venture, and resolved to take the fort of Putnal, which 
 guarded the entrance to the main Harbor where lay the Spanish mer- 
 chantmen, twelve tall ships and fifteen or sixteen galleys. The fort 
 quickly surrendered, but meanwhile the garrison of Cadiz had been 
 largely reinforced. Wimbledon, however, landed his troops and began 
 his march upon Cadiz; but in his haste no thought had been given to 
 the army's supplies, and his men tramping forward under a hot sun 
 began to grow faint with thirst and hunger. Wimbledon good nat- 
 uredly ordered a cask of wine to be brought out of a neighboring house 
 for their refreshment. ' Even a little drop would have been too much 
 for their empty stomachs, but the houses about were stored with sweet 
 wines for the use of the West India fleets. In a few minutes casks 
 were broached in every direction, and well nigh the whole army was 
 reduced to a state of raving drunkenness.' Next morning as the men 
 could not be kept longer without food, Wimbledon marched them back 
 to Ponto, and on the 27th re-embarked." 
 
 Mr. Adams gives a short narration of the next adventure of 
 the King and his Minister. It is as follows : 
 
 " Untaught by this deplorable failure, King and Minister next turned 
 their inglorious arms against France. They found a pretext in the 
 persecution which the Hugenots were undergoing." (The close re- 
 semblance between that feature of the situation and the pretense now 
 put forward for a wholly unprovoked active aggression on the Burgh- 
 ers will appear more clearly from the facts hereafter given.) " Whose 
 last stronghold Rochelle, was besieged by the Royal Army, and its 
 downfall would consummate the ruin of the French. It was hoped 
 that a religious war would be popular with the Nation, and a general 
 loan was therefore ordered. But the anticipated enthusiasm did not 
 show itself; in every county Charles' Commissioners met with refus- 
 als. The refusants were harshly dealt with; but the refusals contin- 
 ued. * * * At length a fleet and an army were got together, and 
 Buckingham took the chief command. His instructions were to main- 
 tain the English dominion of the seas and relieve Rochelle. With 100 
 ships, carrying 6,000 foot and 100 horse he sailed from Stokes Bay on 
 the 27th of June. No enemy appeared, and Buckingham could not ful- 
 
41 
 
 fill the first part of his instructions to sweep the French and the Span- 
 ish from the seas, for the same reason that the audience in Sheridan's 
 Critic could not see the Spanish fleet — because they were not in sight. 
 * * * On the evening of July 10th Buckingham cast anchor off St. 
 Martins, the principal town of the Isle of Rhe, the forts of which hold 
 in check the commerce of Rochelle. He landed his troops on the 12th, 
 though not without loss, and on the 17th laid siege to St. Martins. 
 About the middle of August the work of investment had been com- 
 pleted; but the French garrison maintained a sturdy resistance, and 
 Buckingham soon discovered that he had undertaken a task beyond 
 the means of his rapidly wasting little army. He was wanting neither 
 in courage nor intelligence; but he had no military capability, and 
 could not cope with the difficulties of his position. In fairness it must 
 be said that with some of these a greater commander might not have 
 coped successfully. He asked for re-enforcement, but none were sent. 
 His men were deplorably straightened for provisions, and he had no 
 money with which to purchase supplies. His officers were disaffected 
 and insubordinate. The condition of affairs was thus combining about 
 Sir Edward Conway, with mid-September; ■ the army grows every day 
 weaker; our victuals waste, our purses are empty, ammunition con- 
 sumes, winter grows, our enemies increase in number and power; we 
 have nothing from England.' A month later and things had gone from 
 bad to worse; the weather was cold and wet; the men half starved, 
 and in rags suffered grievously in the trenches. The officers were 
 4 looking themselves blind ' by sweeping the horizon with their tele- 
 scopes for the first signs of re-enforcement from England, as in the 
 old days of the Crete Republics the soldiers of Nicias gazed across the 
 Sicilian Sea for the expected Trirenes of Demosthenes; but the re- 
 enforcement came not, and on the 27th of October Buckingham gave 
 orders that the citadel should be stormed. After suffering a heavy 
 carnage he was compelled to recall his men; and on the 8th of No- 
 vember he re-embarked his army, though not without a sharp attack 
 of the French, in which he sustained cruel loss. The siege had prob- 
 ably cost the lives of nearly 4,000 men. At all events on the 20th of 
 October the muster-roll showed 6,884 soldiers drawing pay; when the 
 fleet arrived at Portsmouth and Plymouth their numbers had sunk to 
 2,989." 
 
 It is interesting to note the close resemblance between the 
 history of that expedition and that of the operations in the 
 Crimea two centuries later. 
 
 " The English public, with grim humor, called the Isle of Rhe, which 
 had swallowed up so many lives, the * Isle of Rue.' ' Every man 
 knows,' wrote Denzil Holies, ' that since England was England it re- 
 ceived not so dishonorable a blow; four Colonels slain, besides the 
 colors lost; thirty-two taken by the enemy.' " 
 
42 
 
 In one of his next chapters Mr. Adams gives the story of a 
 foreign expedition by a British armed force of a very different 
 quality, which gave very different results. It is needless to say 
 that the narration which follows concerns a small force of 6,000 
 auxiliary, " the immortal 6,000," as Sir William Temple calls 
 them, sent out by the Lord Protector, who were engaged in the 
 battle of the Dunes on the 14th of June, 1657. Just before the 
 engagement began the Prince of Conde, who was on the other 
 side, turned to the young Duke of Gloucester, who was serving 
 with him, and asked the Duke if he had ever seen a battle. 
 " No," replied the Duke. " Well, then," continued Conde, " in 
 half an hour you will see one lost." Mr. Adams' narrative is 
 this: 
 
 *' The action was begun by the English, who led by Major-General 
 Morgan — for Lockhart was too ill to leave his carriage — advanced eag- 
 erly against the Spanish right, and climbing the dunes with push of 
 pike swept the foemen clear of the very summits and down their 
 crumbling slopes, exhibiting such a combination of fire and coolness 
 that Don John exclaimed — 'the French fight like men; these English 
 like devils.' * * * The Spaniards ran, andTurenne's victory was 
 complete. In no small measure was it due to the steady courage and 
 fierce attack of the English soldiers." 
 
 From that time to this the record of the achievements of 
 British valor has been unvaried. There has been at the same 
 time complete lack of variety in the record of the incompetence 
 and ignorance of the British War Office. 
 
 Coming down to the time of the Crimean war, we find the 
 following conditions, according to Lord Wolseley. He has 
 written of it as follows (Nineteenth Century, March, 1878, p. 
 436, et seq.) : 
 
 "The history of the Crimean war is still fresh in the memory of those 
 who took part in it. Never was any expedition planned by a home gov- 
 ernment with more reckless ignorance of war and its requirements than 
 that which landed at Eupatoria. At the beginning of the campaign our 
 Treasury was as parsimonious as it was subsequently lavish in expendi- 
 ture. About twenty-four thousand British soldiers— no finer body of men 
 have ever worn Her Majesty's uniform — were hurled ashore without the 
 means of carrying their wounded, and even without sufficient tools to bury 
 their dead. British discipline in two or three hard-fought battles won for 
 England a brilliant but a short-lived success ; and when, through the mili- 
 tary ignorance of those in Downing street, who planned the campaign, 
 
43 
 
 that devoted little army dwindled down almost to a handful of half- 
 starved scarecrows, those who had starved us through their ignorant 
 parsimony sent out commissioners, whose avowed business it was to select 
 a victim from among our generals on whom to cast the blame. They 
 selected the ablest of them as their scape-goat, and held h im up to public 
 opprobrium because he had not made a road from Balaklava to the camp, 
 although they knew full well he had neither the tools nor the labor at his 
 disposal for such an undertaking. '' 
 
 » * * * # 
 
 " I have alluded to the military ignorance of our ministers in the Cri- 
 mean war ; here is an example of it. A letter was read in the House of 
 Parliament one evening from an officer in the field, in which he referred 
 to the want of all means for conveying our sick and wounded to the ships 
 for embarkation, adding that our army had to depend upon the French 
 •acolets lent to us for that purpose. The English minister who was re- 
 sponsible for army affairs at once got up and indignantly denied the state- 
 ment, adding that he knew it to be untrue, because he had the best au- 
 thority for asserting positively that there were a hundred hospital pan- 
 niers at that moment in the Crimea. He might just as well have said 
 there were so many toothpicks there— as a hospital pannier, which he 
 evidently thought was a conveyance of some sort, is nothing more than a 
 wicker-work basket, made in a peculiar manner, for the reception of medi- 
 cines, operating instruments, and other medical appliances. The page of 
 Hansard which records that reply is the gravest of all possible satires 
 upon our war administration of that time." 
 
 ***** 
 
 " Curious stories without end might be told to illustrate my statement 
 as to the inefficiency of many of those who composed the staff which origin- 
 ally embarked in 1854. Here is one as it was told me by an eye-witness : 
 While the army was in Turkey, before it left for the Crimea, an important 
 military operation had to be undertaken. A few days before that named 
 for the operation my friend went to a staff officer in high position, who 
 was his immediate superior, and whose duty it was to make all the neces 
 sary arrangements, and to draw up instructions for all the departments 
 and general officers concerned, and asked if he had any orders to give. 
 The reply was : ' No, I have not yet thought over the matter, but I will 
 see to it by-and-by.' The next day the question was repeated with a 
 similar result, and upon the third day — the day before this very compli- 
 cated and difficult operation was to have taken place — as my friend re- 
 peated his question he saw that his superior was whittling a piece of stick. 
 That superior was an amiable old gentleman and an excellent carpenter. 
 He listened calmly to my friend, who was rather excited, seeing that 
 nothing was ready for the move, and that no attempt had as yet been 
 made to prepare for it. After a pause, the man on whom for the moment 
 a great national responsibility rested, looked up and said : 'Perhaps, Cap- 
 
44 
 
 tain , you do not know what I am doing.' 'No, sir,' replied my 
 
 friend. 'Well/ said the old gentleman, 'upon strolling about here this 
 morning I perceived that there was no latch or bolt to Lord Raglan's cup- 
 board, and I am making one as an agreeable surprise for him. ' Here was 
 an army about to begin a most serious undertaking, the preparations and 
 arrangements for which could only be made by this high official ; but so 
 utterly was he incapable of taking in the serious responsibility that rested 
 on him, so ignorant was he of the duties attached to his position that he 
 employed his time in carpentering when all his intellect, all his energies, 
 should have been devoted to the great duty which devolved upon him." 
 
 Lord Wolseley says further: 
 
 " During the epoch I have referred to (the period before the Crimean 
 war), the army of England was unworthy of being classed as a fighting 
 implement fit to be employed against an enemy more formidable than a 
 Kaffir or an Asiatic, and, even when so engaged, gained its ends always 
 with difficulty, and not always without discredit and disaster. It was a 
 police force dressed in the guise of soldiers. It was a body— a fine muscu- 
 lar body certainly — without a soul. All ranks were full cf courage — with- 
 out doubt the first and greatest factor in military excellence — but all other 
 warlike instincts were wanting. Its generals, men of Peninsular experi- 
 ence, were old in body and old fashioned in mind, while its regimental 
 officers were entirely ignorant of their prof ession. They would have made 
 the finest private soldiers in the world, but they were as little acquainted 
 with the art and science of war as the rank and file they were commissioned 
 to lead." 
 
 It is quite apparent from the events thus far in the South 
 African war, that there has been no substantial change in this 
 respect. 
 
 The British transportation service in the Crimea broke down 
 under a line of communications of the length of seven miles. 
 The reason was, as is very apparent from the quotation from Lord 
 Wolseley already made, the absolute incompetency and ignor- 
 ance of the British War Office, and of British officers. Some 
 further facts will throw light on the condition of things at that 
 time. The English commanding general, as events proved, 
 had practically no knowledge or information as to the numbers 
 of the opposing forces, or the field of operations. After he 
 had been in the Crimea for several months, it was learned that 
 the fortress of Sevastopol, which he was expected to invest and 
 capture, still had regular communications open from the 
 
45 
 
 Crimea to the main land, by a bridge. This bridge had been 
 built for at least four or five years. But no one in the British 
 army, or the War Office, had learned of its existence, until it 
 was found on a map " sent home by the captain of a vessel, who 
 obtained the information from some of the Tartars." 
 
 The dearth of maps in the British Army was the same then 
 as to-day. They have learned nothing. 
 
 Men were dying in the British army from cold and starva- 
 tion, when abundant supplies of food and clothing lay in the 
 Harbor of Balaklava, less than ten miles away. The road from 
 Balaklava to the British camp, on which the army depended 
 for all its supplies, had completely broken down. It was quite 
 apparent to an officer of ordinary intelligence that that condi- 
 tion of affairs was practically certain to come. The result was 
 a degree of suffering and deprivation, which for the time being 
 largely destroyed the efficiency of the British troops as a fight- 
 ing organization. Strange to say, this condition of affairs was 
 officially unknown to the head of the War Office. Such a state- 
 ment would appear incredible, if it were not supported by the 
 most conclusive testimony. Such testimony is to be found in 
 the evidence of the Duke of Newcastle himself, who was at the 
 time the head of the British War Office. 
 
 The Duke of Newcastle testified before the Koebuck Com- 
 mittee : 
 
 "Qu. 14,426. And I am bound to say that some four or five months after- 
 ward we ascertained what was not before known in this country or else- 
 where before that time, that the Russians had another means of access 
 into the Crimea, some miles to the eastward of Perekop, by a bridge 
 * * * a bridge which was commenced by the Russians some four 
 or five years ago, by which they had obtained a good road * * * 
 I have seen apian which was sent home by the captain of a vessel who ob- 
 tained the information from some of the Tartars. * * * 
 * * * "Is there no other information ? A. No." 
 **** * * *** 
 
 " Qu. 14,588. Were you ever informed that the troops were ill-fed, and 
 that the horses had little or insufficient forage ? A. Of course, I received 
 that information. As I said before, in common with the rest of the world. 
 I was painfully aware of it. 
 
 " Qu. 14,589. I mean officially ? A. No, I think not. 
 
 " Qu. 14,590. You obtained all that information from the newspapers, 
 did you ? A. No ; from complaints principally from persons that had 
 suffered. 
 
46 
 
 " Qu. 14,591. You were not informed that the failure on the part of the 
 commissariat to feed the troops was occasionedby the failure of other de- 
 partments in their duties? A. Not officially . 
 
 " Qu. 14,592. "When did you first receive information of the breakup of 
 the road from Balaklava to the camp? A I do not remember the exact 
 date ; it was one of those facts that unfortunately grow upon one as events 
 follow one another ; and it was seen by its consequences that things were 
 not carried to the front. 
 
 " Qu. 14,593. Can you tell whether any information was given you of 
 the probable failure of the road before the failure took place? A. Cer- 
 tainly not. 
 
 '* Qu. 14,594. So that you remained altogether in the dark as to the 
 chance of the non-supply of the troops arising from the failure of the road? 
 A. Tes. 
 
 " Qu. 14,595. So soon as you heard of the failure of the road you took 
 steps, did you not, to have a road made of some sort or another ? A No, 
 I cannot say that I did ; because it was impossible for me to be able to 
 judge whether the thing was practicable then. There are things which it 
 is absolutely necessary to leave to officers on the spot." 
 
 Lord Roberts also gives us in his autobiographical " Eorty- 
 One Years in India," an account of the difficulties which have 
 always surrounded this problem of transportation in India. 
 The first incident, which he narrates, concerns the expedition 
 under Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Napier, to Abyssinia. 
 The expeditionary force numbered a little less than 14,000 
 men.* 
 
 " Profiting by the experience of the Crimean War the Government 
 was determined that the mobility of the force should not be hampered by 
 want of food and clothing. Stores of all descriptions were dispatched 
 in unstinted quantities from England, and three of the steamers in which 
 they were conveyed were fitted up as hospital ships. But food, clothing 
 and stores however liberally supplied would not take the army to Mag- 
 dala without transport. 
 
 "The question as to the most suitable organization for the Land Trans- 
 port Corps occupied a good deal of Sir Robert Napier's attention while the 
 expedition was being fitted out, and caused a considerable amount of cor- 
 respondence between him and the Bombay Government. The Commis- 
 sary-General wished to keep the corps under his own orders, and ob- 
 jected to its being given an entirely military organization. Sir Robert 
 Napier preferred to establish the corps on an independent basis but was at 
 
 * The numbers actually despatched from India were 13,548, of whom 
 3,786 were Europeans. In addition a company of Royal Engineers was 
 sent from England. 
 
47 
 
 first overruled by the Bombay Government. While acting in accordance 
 with their orders, the Commander-in-Chief wrote : ' I believe that the 
 success of systems depends more on the men who work them than on 
 the systems themselves ; but I cannot accept without protest a decision to 
 throw such a body of men as the drivers of our transport animals will be 
 (if we get them) on an expedition in a foreign country without a very com- 
 plete organization to secure order and discipline.' Eventually Sir Robert 
 got his own way, but much valuable time had been lost, and the corps was 
 organized on too small a scale ; * the officers and non-commissioned 
 officers were not sent to -Zula in sufficient time to take charge of the trans- 
 port animals as they arrived. 
 
 " A compact, properly supervised train of 2,600 mules, with serviceable, 
 well-fitting pack-saddles, was sent from the Punjab, and from Bombay 
 came 1,400 mules and ponies, and 5,600 bullocks, but, these numbers prov- 
 ing altogether inadequate to the needs of the expedition, they were supple- 
 mented by animals purchased in Persia, Egypt, and on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean. The men to look after them were supplied from the same 
 sources, but their number, even if they had been efficient, was insufficient, 
 and they were a most unruly and unmanageable lot. They demanded 
 double the pay for which they had enlisted, and struck work in a body 
 because their demand was not at once complied with. They refused to 
 take charge of the five mules each man was hired to look after, and when 
 that number was reduced to three, they insisted that one should be used as 
 a mount for the driver. But the worst part of the whole organization, 
 or, rather, want of organization, was that there had been no attempt to 
 fit the animals with pack-saddles, some of which were sent from England, 
 some from India, and had to be adjusted to the mules after they had been 
 landed in Abyssinia, where there was not an establishment to make the 
 necessary alterations. The consequence was that the wretched animals 
 became cruelly galled, and in a few weeks a large percentage were unfit for 
 work, and had to be sent to the sick depot. 
 
 " Other results of having no properly arranged transport train and no 
 supervision or discipline, were that mules were lost or stolen, starved for 
 want of food, or famished from want of water. The condition of the 
 unfortunate animals was such that, though they had been but a, few weeks 
 in the country, when they were required to proceed to Senafe, only sixty- 
 seven miles, a very small proportion were able to accomplish the march ; 
 hundreds died on the way, and their carcases, quickly decomposing in the 
 hot sun, became a fruitful source of dangerous disease to the force." 
 * * * * * 
 
 It was the same old story — the thing which almost invariably 
 happens, the inevitable breakdown in transportation, that regu- 
 
 * At first it was thought that 10,000 mules with a Coolie corps 
 3,000 strong would suffice, but before the expedition was over it was found 
 necessary to purchase 18,000 mules, 1,500 ponies, 1,800 donkeys, 12,000 
 camels and 8,400 bullocks. 
 
48 
 
 larly takes place with, a British foreign expeditionary force. It 
 arises always from the same cause — the ignorance and the in- 
 competence of the British War Office. 
 
 We come next to Lord Boberts' account of the conditions 
 when he took command of the Kuram field force : 
 
 "It was a proud, albeit a most anxious, moment for me when I assumed 
 command of the Kuram Field Force ; though a local Major-General, I 
 was only a Major in my regiment, and, save for a short experience on one 
 occasion in Lushai, I had never had an opportunity of commanding troops 
 in the field. Earnestly longing for success, I was intensely interested in 
 ascertaining the qualities of those who were to aid me in achieving it. 
 To this end, I lost no time in taking stock of the several officers and corps 
 who were to be associated with me, some of whom were personally known 
 to me, while others I had never met before ; and in endeavoring to satisfy 
 myself as to their qualifications and fitness for their several posts, I could 
 not help feeling that they must be equally anxious as to my capability for 
 command, and that the inspection must be of nearly as great moment to 
 them as to me. 
 
 cc The results of a very close investigation were tolerably satisfactory, 
 but there were weak points in my armour which gave me grave cause for 
 anxiety. 
 
 "I came to the conclusion that the force was not numerically 
 strong for the heavy difficult task before it — in the first instance, the 
 occupation of the Kuram valley and the expulsion of all Afghan garri- 
 sons south of the Shutargardan Pass, and in the second, as opportunity 
 might offer, the pushing my reconnaissances into the Khost valley, and, if 
 military considerations wouldadmit, the dislodging the Amir's adminis- 
 tration from that tract of country, so as to prevent the Kobul govern- 
 ment drawing supplies from it. Finally, I was directed to explore the 
 roads leading to the unknown region beyond Khost. 
 
 "The Shutargarden was not less than 180 miles from Khost, the garri- 
 son of which station would, on my departure, be reduced to a minimum, 
 and Eawal Pindi, the nearest place from which aid could be procured, 
 was 130 miles still further off, separated from Khost by an execrable road 
 and the swiftly flowing river Indus, crossed by a precarious bridge of 
 boats. It had to be taken into account also that the various Afridi tribes 
 were watching their opportunity, and at the first favourable moment, in 
 common with the tribesmen nearer Kuram, they might be expected to 
 take advantage of our weakness and attack our convoys and the small 
 posts which had necessarily to be established along our line of communi- 
 cation. 
 
 "The attitude of the Mahometan sepoys, of whom there were large 
 numbers in four out of my six Native Infantry regiments, was also a 
 cause of considerable anxiety, for I was aware that they were not alto- 
 gether happy at the prospect of taking part in a war against their co- 
 
49 
 
 religionist, the Ruler of Afghanistan, and that the mullas were already 
 urging them to desert our cause. 
 
 " Furthermore, I discovered that my only British Infantry regiment, 
 the 2nd Battalion of the 8th Foot, was sickly to a degree, and therefore in 
 an unserviceable condition. It was largely composed of quite young, 
 unacclimatized soldiers, peculiarly susceptible to fever, that terrible 
 scourge which fills the hospitals of our Punjab stations in the autumn of 
 each year. I rode out to meet the battalion on its way into Kohat, and 
 was horrified to see the long line of doolies and ambulance-carts by which 
 it was accompanied. 
 
 " The inefficient state of the transport added to my anxieties. " Notwith- 
 standing the difficulties experienced in former campaigns from the same 
 cause, the Government had neglected to take any steps for the organization 
 of a proper transport service while we were at peace; consequently, when 
 everything should have been ready for a start, confusion reigned supreme 
 in this all-important department. Large numbers of camels, mules and 
 bullocks arrived daily, picked up at exorbitant prices from anyone who 
 would supply them ; but most of these animals were quite unfit to enter 
 upon the hard work of a campaign, and with a totally inexperienced and 
 quite insufficient staff of officers to supervise them, it was evident that the 
 majority must succumb at an early date." 
 
 THE POSSIBILITY OF A SOLUTION OF THE PROB- 
 LEM OF TRANSPORTATION BY THE BRITISH 
 ARMY, UNDER. EXISTING CONDITIONS. 
 
 Here, of course, all that can be done is to state conditions. 
 
 Results, especially the results of a serious and bitterly eon- 
 tested war, are beyond the knowledge of finite human beings. 
 
 The conditions, however, that we have thus far ascertained 
 to exist in South Africa to-day are these : 
 
 I. The impossibility of handling the problem of transporta- 
 tion and supply, for any large army in South Africa, by any 
 means other than by railway. 
 
 II. The extreme ease of the processes of destruction, with 
 the extreme difficulty of the processes of construction, of rail- 
 way communications, in the present South African field of 
 operations. 
 
50 
 
 III. The absence of preparation, on the part of the British 
 Army, for the handling of the present problem of transportation 
 and supply. 
 
 IV. The fact, that the reason for that absence of preparation 
 is to be found in the immense and dense ignorance, and in- 
 competence, of the British War Office. 
 
 In the face of these existing conditions, we come to a further 
 question: What are the probabilities, as nearly as we can fore- 
 cast them, that the British War Office will be able to solve the 
 transportation and supply problem, within any reasonable period 
 of time ? In case of a prolonged war, they will have many other 
 problems to solve. But what are the probabilities, as to their 
 being able to solve this one, that is, to solve it within any reason- 
 able time ? For it is hardly to be deemed within the reasonable 
 probabilities, that the entire civilised world, especially these 
 United States, will quietly sit by and wait for the British Gov- 
 ernment to pursue to the end a war of extermination, even on 
 the assumption, that the British people would be willing to 
 carry the cost of such a war, in men and money. The British 
 people, be it noted, have not as yet uttered their judgment on 
 the existing situation. Assuming, however, that they are will- 
 ing to pay the cost, in men and money, of a war of extermina- 
 tion against the South African Republics, what are the prob- 
 abilities, even then, of success to the British Government % 
 
 Bearing in mind, at all times, the almost infinite margin, that 
 must be allowed for the contingencies of war, let us look at some 
 of the remaining features of the situation which have not as yet 
 been fully considered. 
 
 The first of these features is to be found in the extreme 
 mobility of the forces of the Burghers, in contrast with the ex- 
 treme immobility of the British. The contrast is overwhelming. 
 On the one hand, the Burghers, most of them mounted men, 
 operating in a friendly population, accustomed to long journeys 
 on short rations, having a thorough knowledge of the country, 
 can move in small bodies, in all directions, almost at will. Es- 
 pecially, they can move with the greatest ease in the small de- 
 tachments, which will be needed for a war on railway com- 
 munications. 
 
51 
 
 On the other hand, the British forces, operating in a hostile 
 population, with their ignorance of the country, without cavalry, 
 compelled to move in comparatively large bodies, will be chained 
 to the lines of railway by the necessities of the problem of trans- 
 portation and supply. ISTo doubt, they can send out recon- 
 noitering and scouting parties for short distances from the rail- 
 road. But for the present, they will be unable to move any 
 considerable bodies of troops for any considerable distance from 
 the line of the railways. 
 
 The situation, in this respect, is almost that of a contest be- 
 tween a man who has complete freedom of movement and one 
 who is weighted by a ball and chain. We may go even further, 
 and say, that it is a contest between a light and agile boxer and 
 a giant chained to a railway track. 
 
 The immobility of the British troops under present condi- 
 tions is made still more clear, if we consider the matter of 
 wagon roads. 
 
 Taking first the situation around Colenso and Ladysmith, if 
 we look at the map, we see that there is only one main road from 
 Colenso to Ladysmith direct. To the west of that there are 
 roundabout roads of an inferior character; one leading 
 through TJnderbroek; another from Frere, through Spring- 
 field and Dewdrop; another by Zunckles and Bethany, 
 through Acton Homes and Dewdrop. Taking the other 
 side of the main road, on the east, the only road of 
 any kind is the circuitous one through Weenen, Weenen 
 being on the main road from Weston to Ladysmith. The 
 distance by this other easterly route from Colenso to Ladysmith 
 through Weenen, according to the map, roughly, must be as 
 much as seventy miles. The region about Colenso and Lady- 
 smith is one of mountains and streams. Movements by troops 
 are a virtual impossibility in such a country, except by roads. 
 Artillery and supply wagons must have roads of good quality, 
 if the movements of troops are to have any reasonable degree 
 of celerity. The roads in Natal are not of good quality. Any 
 body of troops that moves in that country with any considerable 
 number of wagons, or with any considerable force of artillery, 
 must necessarily move slowly. Any attempt at an advance by 
 the British over any road in that district is certain to come im- 
 
52 
 
 mediately to the knowledge of the Boer forces. It is a 
 probability so strong as to amount to a virtual certainty, that 
 every road of importance was long ago blocked by some kind of 
 entrenchment. Even if that be not so, the construction across 
 any road of field-works which if manned by fairly steady troops 
 will make an impassable barrier to any advance from the front, 
 is a thing which can be accomplished in a very short space of 
 time. It is evident, therefore, that the British advance from 
 Colenso to Ladysmith, no matter by what route it may be at- 
 tempted, must of necessity be an advance against entrenchments 
 on the front. We have of late heard much of " traps," set by 
 the Boers for the British troops. That term is an entire mis- 
 nomer, for the reason that no soldier of ordinary intelligence 
 would have supposed that officers in any civilised army would 
 be guilty of the mad indiscretion of plunging their troops 
 against earthworks manned with good steady riflemen in front, 
 without skirmishers thrown out in advance who should apprise 
 the main body of infantry of the conditions which they were 
 approaching. The simple fact is, that a large number of the 
 British army officers, who hold the positions of high com- 
 mand, are so ignorant of the most elementary rules and 
 principles of the art of modern warfare, that they neglect all 
 the ordinary precautions that would be adopted in a campaign 
 against any alert enemy, on any military field. It is not that 
 the Boers have been remarkably wily, but that the British 
 officers have been remarkably stupid and ignorant. It was 
 mere madness to push forward solid lines or solid columns of 
 infantry, without scouts or skirmishers, until they got within 
 very short range of well-manned fieldworks. But the fact that 
 they did so, as before stated, is an evidence not of superior 
 astuteness on the part of the Burghers, but of immense ard in- 
 tense dullness and ignorance on the part of the British officers. 
 
 The fundamental consideration, however, is that the immo- 
 bility of the British troops is a necessary result, not merely of 
 the ordinary impossibility of supplying any large force by any 
 other means than a line of railway, but of the absence of any 
 reasonable number of good roads, in the newly settled country 
 which is the present field of operations. 
 
 Precisely the same considerations apply to the operations on 
 
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53 
 
 Lord Methuen's line of advance at Modder Kiver. At that point 
 the map shows that practically there is no route by which troops 
 can move towards Kimberley except the line of the railroad. 
 The railroad the Burghers have already blocked, so that it is 
 apparently impossible for it to be carried by any British force at 
 present available. The only roads laid down upon the map 
 from the Modder Kiver to Kimberley are two ; the comparatively 
 direct one, east of the railroad, and the more circuitous one, 
 through Jacobsdal. 
 
 It is a virtual certainty, that both of these roads have been 
 strongly entrenched by the Boers. It is evident from the 
 events that have already taken place, that any advance by Lord 
 Methuen is at present a virtual impossibility. In this region, 
 too, as well as in the region around Ladysmith and Colenso, 
 movements of British troops in large bodies are made practi- 
 cally impossible, by reason simply of this fundamental fact, the 
 lack of practicable roads. 
 
 In both these regions, moreover, and in every portion of South 
 Africa which is likely for a considerable time to be the field of 
 military operations, the further point already mentioned is to 
 be noted in this connection, and that is, the large number of 
 rivers and smaller streams. It has already been mentioned, 
 that, as to railways, every stream makes a point of vulnerability 
 in its bridge. 
 
 Quite aside from that fact, however, is the further one, most 
 material, that every stream makes a strong line of defense. 
 Lord Methuen has already found out that fact to his cost at 
 Modder Eiver. But this entire region is a series of rivers. 
 Each one of them will be an obstacle as difficult of passage as 
 the Tugela and the Modder, of which Lord Methuen and Sir 
 Bedvers Buller have already had experience. If we were to 
 assume, that Sir Bedvers Buller could get his army across the 
 Tugela River at Colenso, he would next have to get over the 
 Sand at Ladysmith ; thereafter he would have to force Sundays 
 River north of Elandslaagte ; and thereafter still, the many 
 rivers which have already been mentioned, which appear upon 
 the maps. > 
 
 It is easily seen, that the advance of British troops through 
 the South African country will be one of a greater difficulty 
 than has ever been encountered by any modern army. General 
 
54 
 
 Sherman's advance through Tennessee was through a country 
 which was almost a river bottom, level, and fairly supplied with 
 roads. The roads, no doubt, were inferior. Still they were 
 passable for artillery and wagons. Then, too, as has been before 
 stated, General Sherman had the inestimable advantage of two 
 large rivers as lines of transportation and supply. Nothing of 
 that sort exists in South Africa. It is hardly too much to say, 
 that the region which is now the scene of conflict between the 
 British and Burgher forces, is one almost ideal for the purposes 
 of defense. In fact, the region between the two Republics and 
 the seasoast may be considered almost as a series of natural fort- 
 resses, each one of which has to be carried by an invading force, 
 before actual entry can be made upon the territory either of the 
 Orange Free State or the Transvaal. 
 
 The next point is to be found in the contrast between the de- 
 grees of knowledge possessed by each of the contending armies 
 of the movements of the other. The current discussions of the 
 present South African military situation deal very copiously 
 with the matters of front attacks, flank movements, turning 
 movements, and other things too numerous to mention. Gen- 
 erally, they make an omission of a feature of the military situa- 
 tion, which in actual operations is entitled to some weight ; and 
 that is, the force, and the position, of the enemy. This feature 
 is one generally ignored by British soldiers. Nevertheless, as 
 they are beginning to find out to their cost, it is a feature which 
 cannot be ignored with due regard to safety. 
 
 As to this vital fundamental factor, in every military situa- 
 tion, in all military movements, the force and positions of the 
 enemy, the Burghers have at all times an immense advantage 
 over their adversaries. Every farm house is for the Burghers 
 a bureau of intelligence, is a branch office of their secret service. 
 In any mountainous district, a system of signals is a thing of 
 ease. The Burghers, however, have telegraph lines in abun- 
 dance. At every point, thus far, their knowledge of the move- 
 ments of the British has been apparently most complete. 
 Equally complete has been the British ignorance. 
 
 So far as we can judge, this ratio of equality, between the 
 knowledge of the one side and the ignorance of the other, will 
 continue to the end of the war. 
 
55 
 
 The next point to be noted is as to the fighting capacities of 
 the two contending forces, so far as it concerns the quality of 
 their strategy. 
 
 Here let us ask ourselves two questions : 
 
 What has been the quality of the strategy on the two sides 
 thus far? 
 
 Is there any sufficient reason for thinking that there will be, 
 in this respect, any considerable change in the future ? 
 
 Those two questions every man can answer for himself. 
 
 But let us look at some of the facts, which tend to throw light 
 on the answers to these two questions. 
 
 The most prominent characteristics to-day of the British War 
 Office, and of the ordinary British Army officers, are arrogance, 
 and indocility. Absolutely confident of their own superiority 
 to the rest of the world, civilised and uncivilised, with an innate 
 imbedded conviction impossible to dislodge, of the completeness 
 of their knowledge on all subjects, and of the impossibility of 
 their learning anything from other men, the inability of the 
 British War Office, or of the ordinary British officer, to adapt 
 themselves to the modern methods, of modern warfare, is almost 
 beyond conception. For it must be steadily borne in mind, that 
 the present fighting methods of the British Army are essentially 
 mediaeval. They are antiquated. They are out of date. The 
 sum and substance of the typical British strategy of to-day is a 
 rush with the bayonet. Practically as an army, they have learned 
 nothing since Waterloo, where they won only by a combination of 
 chances. The saying attributed to the Duke of Wellington, that 
 his officers got their training for war at Eton and Harrow, gives 
 the most accurate evidence of the fundamental conception of 
 strategy held by the Duke in his time, and by the average British 
 officer to-day. That idea is that war is a game of football — to be 
 won by a front rush. A rush — at one point or another, that is the 
 present prevalent typical British idea of war. It stands out in 
 nearly every despatch sent home from the present field of 
 operations. 
 
 On the other side, however, it is well understood, that war 
 to-day is a contest, not of brawn, but of brains. Transportation 
 and supply, position, full and accurate information as to the 
 forces and positions of your enemy, — these are the factors that 
 
56 
 
 enter into any problem of modern scientific war. And these 
 problems are to be bandied, not by brawn, but by brains. These 
 facts are well understood, and are made matters of practical 
 study, by the Burghers. 
 
 British valor needs not to be put in evidence. Single 
 individual soldiers, of a high order, are no doubt to be found to- 
 day in considerable numbers in the British Army. But the 
 British Army of to-day, as a fighting organisation, as a machine 
 for the needs of modern scientific warfare, is not a subject of 
 serious consideration. Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener are 
 very able men. Lord Kitchener, according to all the indica- 
 tions, is an admirable organiser, and a most efficient executive. 
 If he were put at the head of the War Office, and were given a 
 free hand, he probably could — in time — convert the British 
 Army into a modern fighting organism. But the time re- 
 quired would be large. First and foremost, he would have to get 
 rid of an enormous mass of excrescences and dead wood. The 
 conditions which he would have to exterminate are those which 
 Lord Roberts describes as existing in the British Army in 
 India. 
 
 " That the long-existing discontent and growing disloyalty in our 
 Native army might have been discovered sooner, and grappled with 
 in a sufficiently prompt and determined manner to put a stop to the 
 Mutiny, had the senior regimental and staff officers been younger, 
 more energetic, and intelligent, is an opinion to which I have always 
 been strongly inclined. Their excessive age, due to a strict system of 
 promotion by seniority which entailed the employment of Brigadiers 
 of seventy, Colonels of sixty, and Captains of fifty, must necessarily 
 have prevented them performing their military duties with the 
 energy and activity which are more the attributes of younger men, 
 and must have destroyed any enthusiasm about their regiments, in 
 which there was so little hope of advancement or of individual merit 
 being recognized. Officers who displayed any remarkable ability were 
 allowed to be taken away from their own corps for the more attractive 
 and better paid appointments appertaining to civil employ or the 
 irregular service. It was, therefore, the object of every ambitious and 
 capable young officer to secure one of these appointments, and escape 
 as soon as possible from a service in which ability and professional 
 zeal counted for nothing." 
 
 Upon the question of the time required to organize, drill and 
 discipline an ordinary force of British soldiery, we may quote 
 
57 
 
 Napier as to the capacities of the British soldier in his day. 
 He says, speaking of the British soldier: "When completely 
 disciplined (and three years are required to accomplish this) 
 
 his port is lofty, and his movement free." 
 What delicious naivete! 
 
 In this connection we may also cite the language put in the 
 mouth of the Earl of Oxford by the great novelist, which ex- 
 presses in the clearest way the actual conditions as they have 
 existed at all times of her military history, with one exception, 
 concerning the organization and maintenance of a British army 
 in any foreign country: 
 
 " Look, therefore, at this English Army. Winter is approaching; where 
 are they to be lodged? how are they to be victualed? by whom are they to 
 be paid? Is your Highness to take all the expense and labor of fitting them 
 for the summer campaign? For, rely on it, an English army never was, nor 
 will be, fit for service, till they have been out of their own island long 
 enough to accustom them to military duty. They are men, I grant, the 
 fittest for soldiers in the world; but they are not soldiers as yet, and must 
 be trained to become such at your Highness' expense. " 
 
 In view of all these facts, what are the reasonable possibilities 
 which can be accomplished in South Africa by Lord Roberts 
 and Lord Kitchener ? Or by any other two or three individuals, 
 even if they were Napoleons. 
 
 The essential difficulties of the situation lie further back — in 
 the British War Office. 
 
 But taking the situation, as it exists in South Africa alone. 
 How long will it take, to organise, equip, and supply an army 
 adequate for a successful invasion of the two Republics ? How 
 much distance in advance have the British Armies surmounted 
 since the opening of the war ? At the same rate of progress, or 
 at any rate of progress which is at all within reasonable prob- 
 ability, how long will it take the British Army to reach Pretoria ? 
 
 Especially, what will be the cost, in money, and in men ? 
 
 Then comes another question, which looms up in the back- 
 ground— WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN INDIA ? 
 
 These are questions, to which the entire British people will 
 do well to give their mind, their best thought. 
 
 It is not the part of prudence to leave them to be decided by 
 a Birmingham ward politician. 
 
58 
 
 II. 
 
 THE POLITICAL SITUATION BETWEEN BOERS 
 AND BRITISH. 
 
 The redress of the grievances of the Uitlanders, of the " in- 
 tolerable grievances" of the Uitlanders — that is the pretext, 
 which has been put forward as the real reason for the latest 
 act of invasion, and attempt at conquest, by the British Gov- 
 ernment of the Transvaal Republic. 
 
 It becomes, therefore, a matter of interest to ascertain who 
 these Uitlanders are. 
 
 Many persons no doubt suppose, that the Uitlanders consist 
 in the main of Englishmen and Americans, who have been al- 
 ways accustomed to liberal institutions, who are intelligent 
 law-abiding citizens, who earnestly desire the most advanced 
 facilities for education, with all the concomitants of the most 
 modern civilisation. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Johannesburg, where the Uitlanders 
 live, is a mining camp, with all that the term implies. Its 
 population is a mining population. Mr. Bryce describee its 
 residents as " a crowd of English, Australian and American 
 miners, employed by capitalists, mostly of Jewish extraction." 
 In another passage Mr. Bryce describes them in this way: 
 " Nearly all of the latter [the recent emigrants] were gathered 
 in the mining district around Johannesburg, which is practically 
 an English, or rather an Anglo- Jewish, city, with a sprinkling 
 of Australians, Americans, Germans and Frenchmen." In 
 these quotations Mr. Bryce has omitted one of the chief ele- 
 ments of the Johannesburg population, that is, a collection of 
 over forty thousand Kaffirs, who are held in what is practically 
 slavery by this collection of liberty loving adventurers. 
 
 The idea, that the denizens of this mining camp care any- 
 thing for religion, or education, or free representative govern- 
 
59 
 
 meat, so long as they are allowed to pursue their regular voca- 
 tion of gold mining, is simply ridiculous. These men went to 
 the Transvaal for gold. They are engaged in digging gold. 
 All that they care for, the large majority of them, is gold. They 
 intend to leave the Transvaal, as soon as each of them has 
 collected his bag of gold. If the Johannesburg mines should 
 cease profitable production, practically the whole of this 
 motley crowd would leave the Transvaal as soon as they could get 
 out of it. They have never signified any wish, or inten- 
 tion, the large majority of them, to take upon themselves any 
 of the burdens of citizenship in the Republic, or to give up the 
 benefits of citizenship in the countries which they have left. 
 All of this talk about the desire of the Uitlanders to be admitted 
 to citizenship in the Transvaal is a mere manufacture for 
 foreign consumption, for the purpose of justifying the aggres- 
 sions of Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Chamberlain. It has no founda- 
 tion in fact. Mr. Chamberlain is well aware of this. So is 
 Mr. Rhodes. 
 
 So late as the 27th day of January, 1899, the British Resident 
 at Pretoria, who was stationed there for the express purpose of 
 protecting the rights of British subjects, who was fully convers- 
 ant with their situation and needs, had written officially of the 
 political conditions of the Uitlander population. It is now well 
 understood, that the real purpose of all this agitation about 
 the Transvaal franchise has been the ultimate overthrow of the 
 present Transvaal government. The purpose has been, to get 
 the franchise for this large number of foreigners who live in 
 Johannesburg, in order thereafter to get the control of the entire 
 government of the Transvaal Republic. In other words, the 
 purpose of Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Chamberlain has been to com- 
 pel a fundamental change in the existing institutions of the 
 Transvaal Republic; to require the government of that Repub- 
 lic to make a complete subversion of its existing constitution 
 in its most important feature, that is, in the conditions on which 
 new-comers can have the rights of citizenship. In view of this 
 fact, it will perhaps be somewhat of a surprise to persons who 
 have not taken the trouble to investigate the official documents, 
 to learn that the British Resident at Pretoria so late as the 27th 
 of January, 1899, in an official letter, gave a statement of the 
 
60 
 
 political desires of the TJitlander population in the following 
 words :* 
 
 ' ' The Acting British Agent, Pretoria, to the High Commissioner, Cape 
 Town. 
 
 Her Majesty's Agency, Pretoria, January 27, 1899. 
 
 Sir : 
 
 I have the honor to enclose a summary of the ]Annual Report of the 
 Transvaal Chamber of Mines for tlie year 1898, as well as an able essay 
 upon the general situation of the gold mining industry and its relations 
 ivith the Government, which was read by the President, M. Rouliot, at the 
 annual meeting on the 26th instant. 
 
 The principal points dealt with in the Report, and by the President, are 
 the regret of the mining industry at the recent refusal by the Volksraad to 
 consider the Chamber's proposal, for the formation of a local board, even 
 composed only of government nominees, to control the workings of the 
 laws dealing with native labour supply, liquor traffic, and gold thefts, 
 although the Chamber acknowledges that it has hopes of better things if 
 the recent proposal to place the control of the detective department under 
 the State Attorney is approved by the JRaad. Suggestions are again made 
 for the reduction of railway rates, and the dynamite monopoly is 
 again attacked at considerable length by M. Rouliot, who warns the 
 Volksraad in the strongest terms against the recent scheme — to be 
 laid again before the Volksraad in February — for prolonging for 
 fifteen years beyond the present concession, what can only bring 
 loss both to the State and to the industry, a proposal which M. Rouliot 
 terms iniquitous. The accusation which has been brought against 
 the mining companies of late, namely, that they keep up depression in 
 trade by ordering their supplies direct from abroad, to the detriment of 
 the Transvaal merchants, is refuted by convincing statistics ; and I may 
 add that I myself have heard no good reason alleged in proof of jthis accu- 
 sation, which I regard as wholly unfounded. The recent gold taxes are 
 likewise discussed, with the conclusion that the principle of a gold tax 
 may be a reasonable one, but not under existing circumstances here, when 
 more revenue is not needed by the State, but only better financial adminis- 
 tration, and when no reductions in existing taxation have been effected 
 in compensation for the increased burden from the gold taxes. The fail- 
 ure of recent State loan proposals is touched upon in connection with the 
 assertion that the industry might have helped the government to obtain the 
 capital it required; and reasons are given why such assistance was not 
 forthcoming, not the least of which was that it was not asked. The sup- 
 posed connection between political agitation and the capitalists is repud- 
 iated, and I myself believe this repudiation and the proofs given to be the 
 
 * British Blue Book, C. 9345, p. 49. 
 
61 
 
 truth, in every respect. The Chamber, in fact, statesjagain emphatically that 
 it takes its stand upon a purely economic platform, and has no desire to al- 
 ter any of the institutions of the country, if only its voice against monopolies, 
 concessions, and other well-known abuses, were listened to. In conclusion, 
 M. Rouliot alludes to a recent campaign carried on by some of the Gov- 
 ernment subsidized organs, against the capitalists, and points out the near 
 connection between this campaign and the existence of the wealthy syndi- 
 cates who support the illicit liquor traffic, which is perliaps at present the 
 chief enemy of the capitalist, and the one they certainly mean to be untir- 
 ing in their efforts to attack. I regret to say that I myself entirely agree 
 with M. Eouliot that all those attacks upon the capitalist here (without 
 whom not one mine in the Transvaal could be worked at a profit) are 
 merely the outcome of the wealthy influence of the Jews, who grow rich in a 
 few years by the enormous profits of the sale of poisonous alcohol to the 
 native labourers on the mines, a traffic which incapacitates perhaps a per- 
 manent twelve per cent, out of 88,000 natives from doing any work. The 
 Volksraad even threatened to introduce a flogging, to help the enforcement 
 of the liquor laws ; and the illicit dealers have now combined to utilize the 
 press, of a certain shade, in order to attack the capitalist who makes their 
 evil deeds so patent. The whole report and speech of the President are very 
 instructive summaries of the industry's position both politically and econom- 
 ically, and the statistics for the last year's gold production being also laid 
 out at considerable length in the enclosed speech. 
 
 I have 
 
 Edmund Fraser. 
 
 His Excellency the High Commissioner. " 
 
 In short, the topics, which engrossed the minds of the 
 Uitlanders, were labor, rum and gold. 
 
 That statement is of authority. It is made by an official of 
 the British government. It is made with complete fullness of 
 knowledge. The fact is, that at no time since the opening of the 
 Johannesburg mining camp has there been the expression of a 
 wish, on the part of any considerable number of the inhabitants 
 of Johannesburg, for any considerable reform of the laws or in- 
 stitutions of the Transvaal Republic, except in the matter of tax- 
 ation. It is no doubt the fact, that they have asserted that taxa- 
 tion pressed unduly upon the mining interests. They have 
 also, at one time and another, complained of the inefficiency 
 of the administration of existing laws. On many occasions, 
 however, they have formally conceded that the laws were reason- 
 ably good, — were as good as could have been expected under 
 existing circumstances, and that the only practical difficulties 
 
62 
 
 of their situation lay in the inadequate enforcement of those 
 laws. 
 
 That fact is one of which complaint has been made in many 
 of the cities of the United States. No one will pretend that a 
 matter of that nature furnishes the slightest ground for the in- 
 terference of a foreign power in the internal affairs of the South 
 African Republic. 
 
 It is time that we heard the last of this talk of the grievances 
 of the Uitlanders. The Uitlanders knew whether or not they 
 had grievances. The British Agent at Pretoria knew whether 
 or not they had grievances. What the Uitlanders wanted was 
 gold. They came to the Transvaal for gold. They were get- 
 ting gold — with rum — to the full measure of their wishes. 
 They cared nothing for the franchise, or religion, or for educa- 
 tion, in either language, English or Dutch. These continued 
 assertions, reiterated month after month by Mr. Chamberlain 
 and Mr. Rhodes, and by many Englishmen who honestly believe 
 the truth of the assertions, are manufactured out of whole 
 cloth. ISTo doubt, there have been petitions and manifestoes, 
 signed by men who have lived in Johannesburg, asking for the 
 franchise, and for many other rights and privileges. No doubt, 
 too, there have been public meetings, in Cape Colony and else- 
 where, protesting against the " intolerable grievances " of the 
 Uitlanders. Those petitions and manifestoes, and those public 
 meetings have been got up by Mr. Rhodes and his friends, aided 
 in London by Mr. Chamberlain, by dishonest means, for dis- 
 honest purposes. They do not represent the genuine wishes, 
 or acts, of any considerable number of honest men. 
 
 THE BOERS, AND THEIR RIGHTS. 
 
 But then we come to other questions: Who are the Boers? 
 What is the nature of their title to the territory which they now 
 inhabit ? Whereon do they rest their right to self-government ? 
 
 The answer to these questions requires a statement, at no 
 
63 
 
 great length, of some historical facts. The statement will be 
 taken entirely from British sources, — from sources of authority. 
 
 To the full consideration of these questions it will be necessary 
 to give a short history of the relations between Briton and Boer 
 during the last century. The facts stated are gathered from 
 British sources. As to the history of the earlier years down to 
 the discovery of the Kand gold mines, the facts stated will be 
 taken in the main from books written by two high British 
 officials— from " The Story of the Great Boer Trek " by the 
 Honorable H. Cloete, LL. D., Her Majesty's High Commissioner 
 for Natal in 1843 and 1844— and the " Story of South Africa," 
 by George M. Theal of the Cape Colonial Civil Service. Both 
 books are recognized as authorities. As to the events since the 
 discovery of the mines, and especially as to the Jameson Raid, 
 the statements of chief importance here made will be based on 
 original documents from the British Blue Books. 
 
 The authorities for the statements, then, would seem hardly 
 open to question. 
 
 The first question, which we must answer, is, Who are the 
 Boers? 
 
 As to ancestry, as to blood, the Boers are Putch^and French 
 Huguenots. Their blood is that of lovers, and defenders, of 
 civil and religious liberty for centuries. In this respect, their 
 record is without a break. It furnishes a striking contrast to 
 the record of the British hereditary official class. Of this last — 
 the record has been one of continuous cruelty and tyranny, in 
 their own land, and in other lands. In this respect, and through- 
 out this study, we must at all times keep clearly before our 
 minds the essential fundamental distinction between the English 
 hereditary official class, and the grand old liberty loving English 
 people. But the Boers, in the persons of their ancestors in 
 Europe, and in their own persons in South Africa, have at all 
 times been the bulwarks of civil and religious freedom. 
 
 We come, then, to the history of the political relations of Boers 
 and Britons. 
 
 Any history, however short, of the relations of the Boers to 
 British rule would omit nearly the most important feature of 
 their story, if it gave no account of the exhibition of British 
 
64 
 
 cruelty and barbarism at the execution at Slagter's Neck in 
 1815. Here is Mr. Theal's account of the scene, when men 
 were put to death, whose only crime had been an attempt to es- 
 cape from British oppression: 
 
 " All, except Martha Taber, widow of Jan Bezindenhout, were to be 
 conveyed to the place on Van Aardt's farm where William Krugel had 
 taken the oath in the name of the men under his command, and there 
 Hendrik Prinsloo, Corneles Taber, Stephanus Botma, Abraham Botma, 
 Thennis de Kleck and William Krugel were to suffer death by hanging. 
 The remaining thirty-two, after witnessing the execution, were to undergo 
 various punishments ranging from banishment for life to imprisonment 
 for one month or a fine of fifty-six dollars. 
 
 " The sentences were in accordance with the letter of the law ; but it 
 was generally supposed that the Governor would use his power of mitiga- 
 tion to prevent the penalty of death being inflicted, as no blood had actu- 
 ally been shed by any of the prisoners. Banishment would have been 
 equally effective as a warning to the others and it seemed to most people 
 then as now that something was due to the burghers who aided the gov- 
 ernment, and who were afterwards horrified at the thought that they had 
 helped to pursue their deluded countrymen to death. There was an op- 
 portunity for the English Government to secure the affections of these peo- 
 ple, by granting to them the lives — though not the liberty — of the chief cul- 
 prits ; but Lord Charles Somerset did not avail himself of it. On the inter- 
 cession of Landdrost Cuyler, who represented the services that Krugel had 
 rendered in the last Kaffir war and his uniform good conduct before he 
 permitted himself to be led astray by the leaders of the insurrection, that 
 individual was spared, but the Governor's fiat was affixed to the sentences 
 of the other five. 
 
 " On the 9th of March, 1816, they were executed at Captain Andrews' 
 post on Van Aardt's farm. The Reverend Mr. Herrold, of George, attended 
 them in their last moments. Before ascending the scaffold they requested 
 to be allowed to sing a hymn with their late companions and friends, and 
 upon permission being granted, their voices were clear and firm. After 
 this Stephanus Botma — whose ancestor of the same name was the first 
 burgher in South Africa — addressed those present, advising them to be 
 cautious in their behaviour, and take warning from his fate. To out- 
 ward appearance, they were all perfectly resigned to die. When the drop 
 fell, four of the ropes snapped, and the condemned men rose from the 
 ground unharmed. The great crowd of people standing round, regarding 
 this as an intervention of God, raised a cry for mercy, which Landdrost 
 Cuyler, who was in command, was powerless to grant. Three hundred 
 soldiers guarded the scaffold, and prevented confusion until all was over. " 
 
 Thereafter came the Great Trek, as it has been called, the 
 exodus of the Boers from Cape Colony. Historians are gener- 
 
65 
 
 ally agreed, that the Boers were driven from their homes into 
 exile by the oppression and cruelty of the British authorities. 
 
 The cause of the emigration is thus stated by Mr. Fitzpatrick, 
 in his book entitled " The Transvaal from Within." Mr. 
 Fitzpatrick was a member of the so-called Johannesburg Reform 
 Committee. He will therefore not be charged with partiality 
 in favor of the Boers in his statements. 
 
 He says (p. 4) : 
 
 " The Boers have produced from their own ranks no literary champion 
 to plead or defend their cause, and their earlier history is therefore little 
 known, and often misunderstood ; but to their aid has come Mr. George 
 McCall Theal, the South African historian, whose years of laborious 
 research have rescued for South Africa much that would otherwise have 
 been lost. In his ' History of the Boers ' Mr. Theal records the causes of 
 the great emigration, and shows how the Boers stood up for fair treatment, 
 and fought the cause, not of Boers alone, but of all colonists. Boers and 
 British were alike harshly and ignorantly treated by high-handed Gov- 
 ernors, and an ill-informed and prejudiced Colonial Office, who made no 
 distinction on the grounds of nationality between the two ; for we read 
 that Englishmen had been expelled the country, thrown in gaol, and had 
 their property confiscated, and their newspapers suppressed for asserting 
 their independence, and for trifling breaches of harsh laws." 
 
 Mr. Theal's statement* of the causes of the Great Trek is as 
 follows : 
 
 " To people in England one of the strangest events of the present cen- 
 tury is the abandonment of their homes by thousands of Cape colonists 
 after 1836, and their braving all the hardships of life in the wilderness for 
 no other cause than to be free of British rule. Yet there is nothing to 
 cause surprise in the matter, if the character of the Dutch people is con- 
 sidered. These colonists were of the same blood as the men who with- 
 stood the great power of Philip II of Spain, who laid the richest part of their 
 country under water rather than surrender it to Louis XIV of France. 
 They were not the men and women to submit to what they believed to be 
 misrule, if there was a possibility of successful resistance or a chance of 
 making their escape. 
 
 ' ' Many of them, as we have seen, were accustomed to live in wagons 
 and to subsist to a large extent upon game, so that moving deeper into the 
 continent was in itself no great difficulty. Before them was a great waste 
 swarming with wild animals. What wonder that they should move into it 
 with such powerful motives to urge them on. 
 
 " Let us look again briefly at the grievances which determined their con- 
 duct. First, there was subjection by a foreign unsympathetic government. 
 
 * "The Story of South Africa, by George M. Theal, of the Cape Colonial 
 Civil Service," p. 195. 
 
66 
 
 Second, there was the prohibition of their language in the public offices 
 and courts of law. Third, there was the superintendent of the London 
 missionary society, their ablest and most relentless opponent, in possession 
 of boundless influence with the British authorities. Fourth, there were 
 the slanderous statements made by the philanthropic societies in England 
 concerning them. Fifth, there was the sudden emancipation of their 
 slaves without adequate compensation. Sixth, there was the whole mass 
 of the coloured people placed upon a political footing with tbem, and that 
 without a vagrant act being put in force. Seventh, there was no security 
 for life or property in the eastern districts, which were exposed to invasion 
 by the Kosas, as the Secretary of State took part with the barbarians. 
 These were the chief causes of their great emigration, and there were 
 many others of less importance. 
 
 " And now all over the frontier districts the great wagons were laden 
 with household goods and provisions and ammunition, and bands of peo- 
 ple set out .to seek a new home in the north. Each party was usually 
 made up of families related to each other, and the man of greatest influ- 
 ence in it was elected its leader, with the title of commandant. The 
 horned cattle, horses, sheep and goats were driven slowly on, and often 
 when the pasture was good the caravans would rest for weeks together. 
 They went up from the grass-covered hills along the coast and the bare 
 Karoo farther inland, till they came to one or other of the steep passes into 
 the elevated basin drained by the Orange and its numerous tributaries. 
 With twenty to thirty oxen before each waggon they struggled up, and 
 then went on without difficulty down the long slope to the river and across 
 the wide plains of the present Orange Free State. 
 
 "North of the Orange the emigrants regarded themselves as beyond 
 English authority, for over and over again it had been officially an- 
 nounced that Great Briain would not enlarge her possessions in South 
 Africa." 
 
 Here is the Declaration issued at the time, of the motives and 
 purposes of the Great Trek. 
 
 " Graham's Town, 
 
 January 22, 1837. 
 
 " 1. We despair of saving the colony from those evils which threaten it 
 by the turbulent and dishonest conduct of vagrants who are allowed to 
 infest the country in every part ; nor do we see any prospect of peace or 
 happiness for our children in a country thus distracted by internal com- 
 motions. 
 
 2. To complain of the severe losses which we have been forced to sus- 
 tain by the emancipation of our slaves, and the vexatious laws which have 
 been enacted respecting them. 
 
 3. We complain of the continual system of plunder which we have for 
 years endured from the Kaffirs and other coloured classes, and particu- 
 larly by the last invasion of the colony, which has desolated the frontier 
 districts, and ruined most of the inhabitants. 
 
67 
 
 4. We complain of the unjustifiable odium which has been cast upon us 
 by interested and dishonest persons, under the name of religion, whose 
 testimony is 3 believed in England, to the exclusion of all evidence in our 
 favor; and we can foresee, as the result of this prejudice, nothing but the 
 total ruin of the country. 
 
 5. We are resolved, wherever we go, that we will uphold the just prin- 
 ciples of liberty ; but, whilst we will take care that no one is brought by 
 us into a condition of slavery, we will establish such regulations as 
 may suppress crime, and preserve proper relations between master and 
 servant. 
 
 6. We solemnly declare that 'we leave this colony with a desire to enjoy 
 a quieter life than we have hitherto had. We will not molest any people, 
 nor deprive them of the smallest property ; but, if attacked, we shall con- 
 sider ourselves fully justified in defending our persons and effects, to the 
 utmost of our ability, against every enemy. 
 
 7. We make known that when we shall have framed a code of laws for 
 our guidance, copies shall be forwarded to this colony for general informa- 
 tion ; but we take the opportunity of stating that it is our firm resolve to 
 make provision for the summary punishment, even with death, of all 
 traitors, without exception, who may be found amongst us. 
 
 8. We purpose, in the course of our journey, and on arrival at the 
 country in which we shall permanently reside, to make known to the na 
 tive tribes our intentions, and our desire to live in peace and friendly inter- 
 course with them. 
 
 9 . We quit this colony under the full assurance that the English gov- 
 ernment has nothing more to require of us, and will allow us to govern 
 ourselves without its interference in future. 
 
 10. We are now leaving the fruitful land of our birth, in which we have 
 suffered enormous losses and continual vexation, and are about to enter a 
 strange and dangerous territory ; but we go with a firm reliance on an 
 all-seeing, just and merciful God, whom we shall always fear, and humbly 
 endeavor to obey. 
 
 In the name of all who leave the colony with me. 
 
 P. Retief." 
 
 Mr, Theal gives us the following account of the original organ- 
 ization of the Transvaal Government : 
 
 ' ' On the 6th of June, 1837, a general assembly of the emigrants was 
 held at Winburg, when a provisional constitution, consisting of nine 
 articles, was adopted. The supreme legislative power was entrusted to a 
 single elective chamber termed the volksraad, the fundamental law was 
 declared to be the Dutch, a court of landdrost and heemraden was 
 created, and the chief executive authority was confided to Mr. Retief with 
 the title of commandant-general. The strong feeling of antagonism that 
 Dr. Philip had roused is shown in one of the articles of the constitution, 
 which provided that every member of the community and all who should 
 thereafter join them must take an oath to have no connection with the 
 
68 
 
 London missionary society. That body was regarded by them as purely a 
 political institution, advocating and spreading principles of anarchy ; and 
 they regarded it as something like blasphemy to speak of its superintend- 
 ent in Capetown as a minister of the gospel. " 
 
 So much for the exodus of 1836 — as to its causes. 
 The Boers took refuge in a wilderness, — in a land that no civil- 
 ized people inhabited, or wished to inhabit, for the reason that it 
 had at that time no known value. It was partially occupied by 
 sporadic and nomadic savages. It may be assumed, that in 
 their treatment of those savages the Boers were themselves 
 guilty of many acts of cruelty and injustice. That is the result 
 of the infirmities of human nature. That is a feature which 
 has disgraced our own conduct towards the North American 
 Indian, and has characterized the conduct of all the dominant 
 races in the world's history, whenever they have come in contact 
 with races weaker than themselves. Whoever may have the 
 right to reproach the Boers on this account, certainly the right 
 does not belong to Americans, or Englishmen. 
 
 Assuming, therefore, that the Boers' treatment of the savages 
 whom they displaced was harsh, and even cruel, the fact still 
 remains, not open to question or criticism on the part of Ameri- 
 cans or English, that the Boers established themselves in a 
 wilderness, opened it, cultivated it, planted there their homes, 
 and have lived there ever since. Their right — to dwell in that 
 land, and to govern themselves, and all newcomers, in their own 
 way, is one not open to question on any reasonable grounds, by 
 any Englishman or American. It never has been seriously 
 questioned by Englishmen. It has on several occasions been 
 formally acknowledged by the British Government by solemn 
 treaties. Eo doubt, Englishmen and Americans who enter the 
 Boer territory are entitled to that degree of protection for life, 
 liberty, and property, which should always be secured by the 
 government of every civilized people to the citizens of other 
 governments who come within its territories. It has not been 
 made matter of serious complaint against the Transvaal Govern- 
 ment, that British citizens have not had due protection for life, 
 liberty, and property. That has not been put forward as a 
 ground for the aggressive action of the British Government. Un- 
 less, therefore, there be other circumstances not yet disclosed, the 
 
69 
 
 right of the Transvaal people to establish and maintain their own 
 government, for themselves and all newcomers in their territory, 
 is fully established by the fact that they opened, and settled, a 
 territory which had theretofore been occupied by no civilized 
 race. Their title to their territory, and their right to independ- 
 ent self government, rests on precisely the same grounds with 
 the same rights vested in the English and American peoples. 
 
 This right of the Boers to self government, however, as 
 against the British Government, rests on additional and stronger 
 grounds. On four distinct occasions it has been guaranteed 
 by the British Government in solemn treaties. That fact has 
 never been questioned. The language of the treaties is clear, 
 and its meaning is free from all possible doubt By the Sand 
 „River Convention, as it is called, made in the year 1852, the 
 [British Government guaranteed to the Boers " the right to man- 
 age their own affairs, and to govern themselves according to their 
 own laws without any interference on the part of the British 
 Vjrovernment." In 1854 this Convention of 1852 was confirmed 
 by another Convention. The Boers' right to complete self 
 government was even then placed beyond legal question. 
 Here is Mr. Theal's statement : 
 
 •* Under these circumstances the governor decided to acknowledge the 
 independence of the Transvaal emigrants, as the imperial ministers had 
 announced their determination not to add another square inch of ground 
 in South Africa to the Queen's dominions, and advantages which could be 
 obtained by a convention were not to be had in any other way. Two 
 assistant commissioners — Major Hogg and Mr. Owen — were therefore 
 sent to make the necessary arrangements with Commandant Pretorius and 
 a number of delegates from the Transvaal people. The conference took 
 place on a farm in the Sovereignty, and there, on the 17th of January, 
 1852, a document — known ever since as the Sand River convention — was- 
 signed, in which the British Government guaranteed to the emigrants north 
 of the Vaal the right to manage their own affairs without interference. 
 The convention was confirmed by the secretary of state for the colonies, 
 and was ratifledi by the Volksraad, so that thereafter the South African 
 Republic — as the country was named — had a legal as well as an actual 
 existenece in the eyes of the British Government. " 
 
 " For some time the imperial government had been undecided whether 
 to retain the Sovereignty of a British possession or not, but as soon as 
 intelligence of the engagement with the Basuto reached England a decision 
 was formed. The next mail brought a despatch from the secretary of state- 
 for the colonies that the territory was to be abandoned. 
 
70 
 
 " To carry this resolution into effect, Sir George Clerk was sent out as 
 special commissioner. He called upon the European inhabitants to elect a 
 body of representatives to take over the government ; but when the repre- 
 sentatives assembled, they objected in the strongest terms to be abandoned 
 by Great Britain, for even while they were debating, Moshesh was crush- 
 ing Sikonyela and another of his opponents, and adding their territory 
 to his own. In effect, the 'representative assembly said to Sir George 
 Clerk that they held England in honour bound to reduce the great bar- 
 baric power she had done so much to build up. When that was done, they 
 would not need military assistance, and would be prepared to take over 
 the government of the country, though they wished to remain perma- 
 nently connected with the British empire. The special commissioner, 
 however, was prevented by his instructions from paying any attention to 
 language of this kind, and was obliged to term those who used it ' obstruc- 
 tionists. ' The assembly then sent two delegates to England to implore the 
 queen's government and the parliament not to abandon them, but those 
 gentlemen met with no success in their mission. 
 
 "Sir George Clerk now encouraged the remnant of the party that was 
 at heart opposed to British rule to assert itself openly. With his concur- 
 rence, one of its ablest leaders returned from beyond the Vaal, and went 
 about the country addressing the people and arguing that connection with 
 England meant nothing but restraint, for no protection whatever was re- 
 ceived. In the special commissioner's phraseology, Mr. Stander and those 
 of his way of thinking, who used language to that effect, were 1 -well dis- 
 posed. ' 
 
 "This party elected a body of delegates, who met in Bloemfontein, and 
 opened negotiations with Sir George Clerk. The ' obstructionist ' assembly 
 protested, and was thereupon dissolved by the special commissioner, when 
 most of its members and supporters, finding resistance to the will of the 
 British government useless, went over to the ' well disposed ' side, and 
 tried to get as good terms as possible. Gold was freely used to suppress 
 complaints — it was termed part compensation for losses — and nothing that 
 was possible to be done was neglected to make the abandonment accept- 
 able to the people generally. The result was that on the 23rd of February, 
 1854, a convention was signed at Bloemfontein by Sir George Clerk and the 
 members of the ' well disposed ' assembly, by which the government of 
 the territory previously termed the Orange River Sovereignty, thereafter 
 the Orange Free State, was transferred, and its future independence was 
 guaranteed. 
 
 " There were now in South Africa five distinct European governments, 
 namely of — 
 
 1. Cape Colony, ) 
 
 2. Natal. 
 
 3. British Kaffraria, 
 
 4. The South African Republic, 
 
 5. The Orange Free State, 
 
 Independent Republics. 
 
71 
 
 P But later, in the year 1873, came the discovery of the Trans- 
 vaal gold fields. Then the territory of the Burghers became 
 more inviting to outsiders. Then came the beginning of a 
 series of acts of unlawful unjustifiable aggression on the part 
 of the British Government. 
 
 In the year 1877 Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the Commissioner 
 of the British Colonial Office, issued a Proclamation, so-called, 
 whereby he stated that he " annexed " the Transvaal Republic to 
 the dominions of the British Crown. Sir Theophilus Shepstone 
 alleged, that this act of his had the secret approval of some of the 
 high officials of the Transvaal Republic. But no official of the 
 Republic had any authority to assent to such an act. Nor was 
 any official action in the way of an assent to the annexation ever 
 taken by any public officer, or authorized body, acting on behalf 
 of the Transvaal Government. So far as concerns any point 
 of legal validity, the Act of Annexation was an act of bald 
 spoliation, an act of purely arbitrary, illegal, and unjusti- 
 fiable aggression, against the sovereignty of a free independent 
 State. So far as concerned any point of law, or right, Sir 
 Theophilus Shepstone might as well have made a proclamation 
 annexing the City or the State of New York. The so-called 
 Proclamation — as matter of law — was not worth the paper on 
 which it was written. No doubt, the Transvaal Government had 
 not at that time become a very efficient working organization. But 
 the doctrine that inefficiency on the part of a government fur- 
 nishes ground for some other government, or unauthorized gov- 
 ernment official, to come in and "annex" an entire people, with 
 their territory, and put them under the dominion of a foreign 
 powerpwould introduce somewhat novel principles and rules of 
 international law. 
 
 A protest was immediately made in London against this high 
 handed lawless act of aggression. 
 
 - Of course, British officials of the time made their statements 
 that this action on their part was taken for the purpose of pro- 
 tecting the Boers against the savages ! But the Boers had con- 
 quered the country from the savages, and had protected them- 
 selves against the savages for forty years, when they were fewer 
 in numbers and weaker than in 1877. Moreover, it is to be 
 noted, that this charitable protecting British hand was not out- 
 
72 
 
 stretched during the time of the trekkers' early struggles, but 
 came most opportunely after the discovery of gold. 
 
 For a time the Boers submitted to superior force. At that 
 time — they were too weak to venture on a contest at arms with 
 the great British Empire. 
 
 But then came a fresh series of abuses at the hands of British 
 officials, of the same kind with those which had originally driven 
 the Boers to leave the Cape and go into the wilderness. Those 
 abuses are thus described by Mr. Fitzpatrick : 
 
 " The real mistakes of the British Government began after the annexa- 
 tion. The failure to fulfil promises ; the deviation from old ways of gov- 
 ernment ; the appointment of unsuitable officials, who did not understand 
 the people or their language ; the neglect to convene the Volksraad, or to 
 hold fresh elections, as definitely promised ; the establishment of personal 
 rule by military men, who treated the Boers with harshness and contempt, 
 and would make no allowance for their simple, old-fashioned ways, their 
 deep-seated prejudices, and, if you like, their stupid opposition to modern 
 ideas ; these things and others caused great dissatisfaction, and gave ample 
 material for the nucleus of irreconcilables to work with." 
 
 Meantime two deputations had been sent to England to protest 
 against the lawless action of Sir Theophilus Shepstone. 
 
 In April, 1879, Sir Bartle Frere held a conference with a 
 deputation of the Boers to consider their grievances at the hands 
 of the British authorities. His account of that conference is as 
 follows : 
 
 "If I may judge from the gentlemen composing the deputation, and 
 others of their class, whom I have had the honour of meeting since com- 
 ing to the Transvaal, the leaders are, with very few exceptions, men who 
 deserve respect and regard for many valuable and amiable qualities as 
 citizens and subjects. * * * * 
 
 "Of the results of our meeting it is impossible at present to say more 
 than that it must have cleared away misconceptions on all sides. If they 
 have learnt anything as to the finality of the act of annexation — that I 
 have no power to undo it, and do not believe that it will ever be undone- 
 in the only sense in which they will ask it — I have, on the other hand, been 
 shown the stubbornness of a determination to be content with nothing else, 
 for which I was not prepared by the general testimony of officials who had 
 been longer in the country, and who professed to believe that the opposi 
 tion of the Boers was mere bluster, and that they had not the courage of 
 their professed opinions. * * * I feel assured that the majority of the 
 Committee felt very deeply what they believed to be a great national 
 wrong." 
 
73 
 
 Then came war. 
 
 Even in those days of their weakness, that war, so far as it 
 went, resulted in signal victories of the Boers. Those victories 
 were followed by the Pretoria Convention, made in August, 
 1881, — by which the British Government again formally and 
 expressly conceded, by solemn treaty, what they never had any 
 right to question, the right of the Boers to self government. 
 The Convention of 1881 also stated that this right was conceded 
 subject to the " suzerainty of Her Majesty." The only clauses 
 of that treaty, which are here important are the following : 
 
 " Her Majesty's Commissions for the Settlement of the Transvaal terri- 
 tory, duly appointed as such by a Commission passed under the Royal 
 Sign Manual and Signet, bearing date the 5th of April, 1881, do hereby 
 undertake and guarantee on behalf of Her Majesty that, from andi after 
 the 8th day of August, 1881, complete self government, subject to the suzer- 
 ainty of Her Majesty, her heirs and successors, will be accorded to the in- 
 habitants of the Transvaal territory, upon the following terms and condi- 
 tions, and subject to the following reservations and limitations : " 
 ***** 
 
 " Her Majesty reserves to herself, her heirs and successors, (a)* the right 
 from time to time to appoint a British Resident in and for the said State 
 with such duties and functions as are hereinafter defined; (b) the right 
 to move troops through the said State in time of war, or in case of the 
 apprehension of immediate war between the Suzerain Power and any 
 Foreign State or Native tribe in South Africa ; and (c) the control of the 
 external relations of the said State, including the conclusion of treaties and 
 the conduct of diplomatic intercourse with Foreign Powers, such inter- 
 course to be carried on through Her Majesty's diplomatic and consular 
 officers abroad." 
 
 ****** * 
 
 "On the 8th day of August, 1881, the Government of the said State, 
 together with all rights and obligations thereto appertaining, and all State 
 property taken over at the time of annexation, save and except munitions 
 of war, will be handed over to Messrs. Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, 
 Martinus Wessel Pretorius and Petrus Jacobus Joubert, or the survivor or 
 survivors of them, who will forthwith cause a Volksraad to be elected and 
 convened, and the Volksraad, thus elected and convened, will decide as to 
 the further administration of the Government of the said State. " 
 
 The right of the Transvaal State to self-government was 
 again recognized, and put on a firm basis, by the later London 
 Convention of 1884. That Convention expressly recognized 
 
74 
 
 the existing government of the Transvaal State under a new 
 title, that of the " South African Republic." All mention of 
 the suzerainty was omitted; and the only clause contained in 
 that Convention of 1884 restricting in any respect the powers 
 of the Republic as an independent government, is to be found 
 in Article 4 in the following words : 
 
 " The South African Republic will conclude no treaty or engagement 
 with any state or nation, other than the Orange Free State, nor with any 
 native tribe to the eastward or westward of the Republic, until the same 
 has been approved by Her Majesty the Queen. 
 
 " Such approval shall be considered to have been granted if Her Majes- 
 ty's government shall not within six months after receiving a copy of 
 such treaty (which shall be delivered to them immediately upon its 
 completion) have notified that the conclusion of such treaty is in conflict 
 with the interests of Great Britain or of any of her Majesty's possession 
 in South Africa." 
 
 The right of the British government to move troops through 
 the Republic in time of war, " and the control of external rela- 
 tions " of the Republic, including the conclusion of treaties and 
 conduct of diplomatic intercourse with foreign powers, which 
 had been reserved under the prior Convention of 1881, were 
 abrogated, as matter of law, by the terms of the later Con- 
 vention, and no right was reserved to the British government, 
 by implication or otherwise, to interfere in any form in the 
 internal administration of the government of the Transvaal 
 State. 
 
 No breach of the obligations of the Republic under that Con- 
 vention has been charged. 
 
 So it is clear, that as to all internal affairs, the right of the 
 Transvaal Republic to complete self government, free from " any 
 interference on the part of the British Government" was, and is, 
 beyond question. It was as undoubted as the same right, of 
 the "United States of America," or any one of our separate 
 States. In those internal affairs the British Government had, 
 and has, no more right to intervene than it has in our affairs. 
 
 That fact has never been questioned by any responsible 
 British official. It has been more than once formally conceded 
 by Mr. Chamberlain. 
 
75 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain has stated in the House of Commons: 
 " I do not say that under the terms of the Convention we are entitled to, 
 force reforms on President Kruger, but we are entitled to give him friend- 
 ly counsel. * * * If this friendly counsel was not well received, there 
 was not the slightest intention on the part of her Majesty's Government to 
 press it. * * * I am perfectly willing to withdraw it, and to seek a 
 different solution if it should not prove acceptable to the President. The 
 rights of our action under the Convention are limited to the offering of 
 friendly counsel, in the rejection of which, if it is not accepted, we must be 
 quite willing to acquiesce." 
 
 On another occasion Mr. Chamberlain said : 
 
 "What is the policy which the honorable gentleman would put forward 
 if he were standing here in my place ? We know what it would be. He 
 would send, in the first place, an ultimatum to President Kruger that un- 
 less the reforms which he was specifying were granted by a particular 
 date the British Government would interfere by force. Then, I suppose, 
 he would come here and ask this House for a vote of £10,000,000 or £20,- 
 000,000 — it does not matter particularly which — and would send an army 
 of 10,000 men, at the very least, to force President Kruger to grant re- 
 forms in regard to which not only this Government, but successive Secre- 
 taries of State, have pledged themselves repeatedly that they would have 
 nothing to do with its internal affairs. That is the policy of the honorable 
 gentleman. That is not my policy. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain is always ready to eat his words. He does 
 not forget them. 
 
 Meantime, however, came fresh discoveries of gold. The 
 diamond mines of Kimberley, too, became known, and fell into 
 the control of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, under the ownership, as com- 
 monly reported, of the Rothschilds. Thereafter Mr. Rhodes 
 formed his scheme for the Cape to Cairo railway. A certain 
 Birmingham ward politician, too, became possessed with the idea 
 of British imperialism. Mr. Rhodes formed the purpose, in 
 which he was afterwards aided and abetted by Mr. Chamberlain, 
 of again attempting the action of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, by 
 making a conquest, and an annexation, of -the Transvaal Re- 
 public. 
 
 The means by which Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Chamberlain sought 
 to accomplish their purpose was the celebrated Jameson raid. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain, with his political friends and supporters, 
 has persistently repeated the statement, that the Jameson raid 
 was really only an incident to a revolution; that there was a 
 
76 
 
 revolution within the Republic, on the part of the Uitlanders, the 
 foreign population of Johannesburg, to redress grievances suf- 
 fered by them at the hands of the Transvaal Government ; that 
 those grievances had then become " intolerable " ; that the people 
 of Johannesburg had exhausted all lawful and peaceable means 
 to get redress ; that those means had failed ; that the Johannes- 
 burghers had resorted to arms only after that failure; and 
 that the Jameson raid was only a movement of sympathy 
 from without — in aid of armed rebellion within — a movement to 
 succor a deeply wronged and suffering people. 
 
 The facts are directly the reverse. The population of Johan- 
 nesburg did not revolt. They did not wish a revolution. They 
 were not in favor of the Jameson Raid. No doubt, there were 
 many things in the Transvaal public administration, which were 
 not thoroughly satisfactory to the Uitlanders. But they did 
 not consider that their grievances were " intolerable." Nor did 
 they consider, that they had exhausted their peaceable and legal 
 remedies. On the contrary, their efforts to get improvement 
 in governmental methods had been very successful. The evils 
 of which they complained were of precisely the same nature, 
 though much less gross, with those endured so patiently for many 
 years by the people of the City of New York. The complaints 
 of the Johannesburg population were almost wholly as to matters 
 of taxation. They thought that the government raised more 
 money than it needed. They charged that some of that money 
 was misused. They even charged, that there were some corrupt 
 officials. But no considerable portion of the people of Johannes- 
 burg went so far as to even allege, that such abuses as existed 
 reached the extent which similar abuses had for many years 
 reached in the City of New York, that the abuses warranted 
 revolution, or that they were " intolerable." We have heard 
 much from Mr. Chamberlain and his supporters, as to the dread- 
 ful injustice which the Uitlanders suffered in the matter of 
 education, in the fact that instruction in the public schools was 
 given only in the Dutch language. The Uitlanders cared 
 nothing for education. That is, no considerable number of them 
 cared for it. Johannesburg was a mining camp — a heterogen- 
 eous collection — of Kaffirs, Chinamen, Japanese, Italians, Ger- 
 mans, Frenchmen, Englishmen and Americans. It is fair to 
 
77 
 
 assume, that some of them wished their children to have some 
 kind of education. But the statement that any considerable 
 number of the Johannesburg miners were willing to have a war, 
 or even a J ameson Raid, over a question whether the instruction 
 in the public schools should be in English or Dutch, if such a 
 statement had been made in Johannesburg, would have produced 
 no result more serious than laughter. Such a statement might 
 easily be made in the British House of Commons by Mr. Cham- 
 berlain. But that any well informed person should make the 
 statement truthfully, in the House of Commons or elsewhere, 
 was quite impossible. No doubt, there was, as an adjunct of the 
 Jameson Raid, the publication of a manifesto, purporting to be 
 from the downtrodden TJitlanders, demanding the franchise, 
 civil and religious liberty, purity of public administration, 
 liberal education, and in general an ideal condition of public 
 affairs far above anything at the time existing in Great Britain 
 or the United States* But that alleged petition was only a 
 special manufacture for the London market. It was never in- 
 tended to be used as a genuine public document. It first saw 
 the light when Dr. Jameson was waiting on the border of the 
 Transvaal Republic, four days before his invasion of the Trans- 
 vaal territory. It was a spurious paper, concocted for use in 
 
 *This remarkable paper, as printed in Mrs. Hammond's "A "Woman's 
 Part in a Revolution," at page 4, is given as follows : 
 
 "The Leonard Manifesto was published, December 26th, setting forth 
 the demands of the Uitlander. 
 
 ' We want,' it reads: — 
 
 ' 1. The establishment of this Republic, as a true Republic. 
 
 ' 2. A Grondwet or constitution which shall be framed by competent 
 persons selected by representatives of the whole people and framed on 
 lines laid down by them ; a constitution which shall be safeguarded against 
 hasty alteration. 
 
 ' 3. An equitable Franchise Law and fair representation. 
 
 ' 4. Equality of the Dutch and English languages. 
 
 ' 5. Responsibility to the Legislature of the Heads of the great Depart- 
 ments. 
 
 ' 6. Removal of religious disabilities. 
 
 ' 7. Independence of the Courts of Justice, with adequate and secured 
 remuneration of the Judges. 
 
 ' 8. Liberal and compreliensive education. 
 
 1 9. An efficient Civil Service, with adequate provision for pay and pen- 
 sion. 
 
 ' 10. Free Trade in South African products.' " 
 
78 
 
 England, as a pretended justification for the overthrow of the 
 Transvaal Government, after the overthrow of that government 
 should have become an acompKshed fact. It was never used, 
 or intended to be used, as a genuine petition for relief against 
 real grievances. 
 
 The Jameson Raid was an operation organized, paid for, and 
 carried out, by Mr. Cecil Rhodes, aided and abetted by Mr. 
 Chamberlain. It was not an operation for the relief of op- 
 pressed Uitlanders. It was merely an attempt on the part of 
 Mr. Rhodes and a few men who were associated with him in 
 his financial enterprises, to overthrow the Transvaal government, 
 and thereby get the control of the Transvaal taxation, and of the 
 laws which should affect mining properties. No evidence has ever 
 been presented, which has come to the knowledge of the writer, 
 that there was any considerable degree of discontent on the 
 part of the Uitlanders in Johannesburg prior to the Jameson 
 Raid. ~No evidence has ever been presented, that any consider- 
 able number of the inhabitants of that town desired a revolu- 
 tion, or a resort to arms. No evidence has ever been presented, 
 that any considerable number of them considered that they 
 were in any respect oppressed by the Transvaal government. 
 The growth of Johannesburg has been very remarkable. Neces- 
 sarily there were in Johannesburg a considerable number of 
 orderly business people, who desired to have perfect political 
 conditions. But the abuses and imperfections of government 
 in Johannesburg, or in the mining region, were only those that 
 exist in every new community, especially in every new mining 
 community. There was a large mass of ignorant disorderly 
 population. It was a matter of course, that there was some 
 degree of inefficiency in the administration of the laws. But 
 the condition of public affairs in Johannesburg at the time of 
 the Jameson Raid was far superior to that in many of the 
 mining camps in the United States. However that may be, 
 and whatever may have been the condition of public administra- 
 tion in and around Johannesburg, the idea that it furnished 
 any legal justification for interference by any outside govern- 
 ment, is simply ridiculously absurd. Even Mr. Chamberlain 
 never ventured to take that position, until he had decided upon 
 the second Raid of 1899, when it became necessary for him to 
 
79 
 
 make excuses for his second attack upon the Transvaal .Republic. 
 
 Prior to the Jameson Raid, moreover, no attempt had been 
 made by any considerable body of men in Johannesburg for 
 any substantial reform in the existing laws, or in the existing 
 administration of those laws. 
 
 The Jameson Raid was organized from outside, by Mr. Rhodes. 
 Mr. Rhodes, as is well known, was at that time Prime Minister of 
 the Cape Colony. The troops that were used in that expedition 
 were almost entirely the Mashonaland Mounted Police and the 
 Bechuanaland Border Police. To all intents and purposes, those 
 troops were part of the British Army. They were under the 
 command of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Willoughby, of the 
 Royal Horse Guards. Associated with him in those operations 
 were Major Hon. Robert White, of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 
 Major C. Hyde Villiers, of the Royal Horse Guards, Captain 
 Kincaid Smith, of the Royal Artillery, Captain Kennedy, of 
 the British South African Company's Service, Captain E. 
 Holden, of the Derbyshire Yeomanry, Surgeon Captain Seaton 
 Hamilton, late 1st Life Guards, Lieutenant Grenfell, of the 
 1st Life Guards, Captain Lindsell, late Royal Scots Fusiliers, 
 Major J. B. Stracey, of the Scots Guards, Lieutenant Harry 
 R. Holden, late Grenadier Guards. In command of the 
 Bechuanaland Border Police was Lieutenant-Colonel Raleigh 
 Grey, 6th Dragoons. 
 
 That these officers in the British regular army took part in 
 this expedition without leave of absence from the War Office, 
 and without the full knowledge and approval of the home gov- 
 ernment, is not for an instant to be believed. They were men 
 of high Army rank. It is not open to reasonable doubt, that 
 the British War Office were fully cognizant of the move these 
 men were then undertaking. It is not open to reasonable doubt, 
 that Mr. Chamberlain, at least, of the British Home Govern- 
 ment was fully apprised of the fact that these officers were 
 going to South Africa for the purpose which they afterwards 
 attempted to execute. Sir John Willoughby made an official 
 Report to the War Office in London, according to the statement 
 of Mr. Fitzpatrick in his book entitled " The Transvaal from 
 Within," of the operations of his command on what is termed 
 the Jameson Raid. So far as has ever appeared, those officers 
 
80 
 
 from the British Regular Army, who have here been named, have 
 never been called to account by the War Office for their act of 
 lawless armed aggression against a friendly government with 
 which Her Majesty was then at peace. !Nor have they received 
 any punishment at the hands of the authorities of the British 
 Army for their act in levying war upon a foreign power. For 
 the Transvaal Republic, as to these questions, was undoubtedly 
 a foreign power. 
 
 Let us now consider the real nature of the operations on 
 which these officers, with Dr. Jameson, embarked in what has 
 been termed the Jameson Eaid. 
 
 Taking that expedition on the simple uncontradicted facts, 
 it was an expedition for the purposes of mere robbery and mur- 
 der. It was so understood by Dr. Jameson, by every one of the 
 officers who were associated with him, by Mr. Cecil Rhodes, and 
 by Mr. Chamberlain. Especially Mr. Chamberlain was well 
 aware, that there was no legal ground, on which the acts of those 
 British officers could be defended. He was well aware of the 
 legal and political nature of their action. Robbery and 
 murder are the strictly accurate terms, and are the only ac- 
 curate terms, which can be used to characterize the action of 
 Dr. Jameson, and the British officers who took part with him in 
 that expedition. Upon the evidence thus far disclosed by Mr. 
 Chamberlain himself, as to those operations, the conclusion of 
 every reasonable man must be that, as to these crimes of rob- 
 bery and murder, Mr. Chamberlain was an accessory before the 
 fact. 
 
 Moreover, until the action of Mr. Chamberlain in regard to 
 the Jameson Raid be disavowed by the British Nation, the 
 British Nation is to-day an accessory before the fact to the 
 crimes of the Jameson Raid, — in other words, to the crimes of 
 robbery and murder. 
 
 The Jameson Raid, as is now a matter of history, met with 
 speedy and crushing defeat. The men who conducted it were 
 children, playing with a giant. They had fondly fancied, that 
 their so-called military operations, petty and contemptible as 
 they must be deemed from one standpoint, were certain of 
 speedy success. As a matter of fact, everything they were do- 
 ing was well known to the Pretoria authorities. Every move 
 
81 
 
 that they made was met with the most careful preparation. 
 They were allowed to go just so far as to make it impossible 
 thereafter to conceal the real character of their action. When 
 it became a pronounced fact, that those men had been engaged 
 in a mere act of lawless aggression, in an unjustifiable attempt 
 at robbery and murder, then the Transvaal military forces were 
 found to be, as they have been in the present war, at precisely 
 the right point, at precisely the right time. Sir John Wil- 
 loughby's Report of those so-called military operations was mere- 
 ly a premonition of the reports that have been made by Sir 
 Eedvers Buller of the operations of this present war. 
 
 The result was the unconditional surrender of the entire 
 force. 
 
 fY The Jameson Raid was merely the culmination — of a series 
 of lawless and unjustifiable aggressions on the part of the 
 British Government; of a series of attempts at bald conquest. 
 It would have been strange, if this last act of British aggression 
 and British brutality had not revived in the minds of the Repub- 
 licans all the memories of previous wrongs ; memories which had 
 to some extent become softened by lapse of time, and which 
 would have entirely disappeared, if the British Government had 
 at any time treated the Republics with common decency and 
 justice. Of course — the Jameson Raid revived all those mem- 
 ories of past oppression and cruelty. Of course — the Jameson 
 Raid revived the recollection of all those old British outrages 
 and injustice. The citizens of the Republics would have been 
 more than human, if they had been able after this latest invasion 
 of their territory to take a calm judicial view of the political 
 situation between them and the British Government. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, however, the treatment by Presi- 
 dent Kruger and his government, and by the entire people of 
 the Transvaal Republic, of the men who had been engaged in 
 this latest attempt to devastate their country, destroy their 
 homes, and take their lives, was characterised by a degree of 
 magnanimity, and delicacy, which it is hard to parallel in the 
 historical records of civilised races. The Jameson invading 
 force were nothing but a band of robbers and murderers. There 
 was no pretense of a justification in law for their action. They 
 were outlaws. Except that the term " pirates " is ordinarily 
 
82 
 
 applied to men who rob and murder on the high seas, they were 
 a band of "pirates." They were well aware of that fact, as 
 will hereafter appear. 
 
 In view of these features of the situation, it would have been 
 lawful, highly natural, and quite reasonable, if the Transvaal 
 government had visited the crimes of the Jameson force, at least 
 in the case of some of its leaders, with the punishment of death. 
 
 On the contrary, however, President Kruger insisted on a 
 policy of clemency; and, with great difficulty, finally accom- 
 plished his purpose, of surrendering all the members of the 
 Jameson force to the British Government, to be dealt with by 
 them in accordance with British law. Undoubtedly President 
 Kruger was conscious at the time, that those men would escape 
 with only a nominal punishment. We may be sure that he was 
 not deceived, as to the results that would follow from this re- 
 markable generosity, on his part, and on the part of his govern- 
 ment It is seldom, however, that any government has adopted 
 a policy so forbearing, so generous, and so magnanimous, under 
 the most extreme provocation, as was adopted by the Trans- 
 vaal Eepublic in the disposition of the prisoners taken at the 
 end of the Jameson K-aid. 
 
 So much for the action of the Transvaal Government. 
 
 But let us see what was the action of the Burghers, the indi- 
 vidual citizens of the Transvaal Republic. Mr. Poultney Bige- 
 low, in his book entitled " White Man's Africa," at page 12, 
 gives us some extracts from the diary of a surgeon who took 
 part in the Jameson Raid. The diary of that surgeon, speaking 
 of the scene immediately after the surrender of Jameson's 
 forces, reads as follows : 
 
 " Nothing could exceed the kindness of the people, both Dutch and 
 English, who came up afterwards. Milk, brandy, meat, and bread were 
 sent for the wounded, and ambulance carts came out from Krugersdorp. 
 On Saturday, 11th January, 1896, about 9 A. M., a guard of the Pretoria 
 Volunteer Cavalry came down, and we were marched up to the railway 
 station in two separate lots, and put into two special trains, which left 
 Pretoria about noon. We were very well treated here, and a Dr. Saxton, 
 Surgeon to the Staats Artillery, was sent with us, as well as a strong escort 
 of Pretoria Volunteer Cavalry. "We officers were put into first class car- 
 riages, and were supplied with fruit and liquor. We were cheered as toe 
 left the station, and at every station as we passed." 
 
83 
 
 Historical records will be searched in vain for many in- 
 stances of forbearance and generosity shown by conquerors to 
 conquered, which can compare with the story here just given. 
 Consider for a moment what would have been the treatment of 
 the Boers by the Jameson bandits, if the result had gone the 
 other way. We know well, from our own experience, what is 
 the treatment of their prisoners by British soldiers, and by the 
 British Home Government. Does any one believe, that there 
 would have been this high degree of courteous consideration, or 
 any consideration, for the comfort of their victims, if Sir John 
 Willoughby and Dr. Jameson, and their titled associates, had 
 succeeded in their attempt at murder and conquest, dealing as 
 a conquering British force with people they deemed their in- 
 feriors, as they deem most people their inferiors? Does any 
 one believe, that Sir John Willoughby and his band of outlaws, 
 would have shown a magnanimity and courtesy for the defeated 
 which would in the slightest degree compare with that shown by 
 the Transvaal Burghers for their captives ? To find a parallel to 
 the tender delicacy of the treatment of the British by the Trans- 
 vaal Burghers, we have to go back to the story of Sidney on the 
 battlefield of Zutphen. But the British of later years, when 
 they have been conquerors, so far as my reading goes, have on no 
 occasion shown any tender consideration for the persons or 
 rights of the conquered. To get the real essence of their treat- 
 ment of the Transvaal Burghers, we are compelled to go back 
 to the scene at Slagter's Neck. 
 
 It is interesting to give the ensuing incidents after the com- 
 pletion of the Burghers' victory, as they are told us by Mr. 
 Bigelow. Those incidents were as follows : 
 
 " When the Boers had silenced the firing of Jameson's men, and had 
 saved their country from what they feared might prove an invasion dis- 
 astrous to their independence, they did not celebrate the event by cheers 
 or bonfires. They fell upon their knees and followed the prayers offered 
 by their elders ; they gave praise to Almighty God for having protected 
 them. They searched their hearts and prayed to be cleansed from the 
 spirit of boasting. They prayed for Jameson and his men, that they 
 might be guided by the light of justice and Christian fellowship; and thus 
 they prayed while some of the dead lay yet unburied about them." 
 
 These are the men who are mediaeval in their natures and 
 
84 
 
 methods, who are a barrier to the movements of civilisation, and 
 the growth of free government. 
 
 Medievalism of that kind — the more we have of it, the 
 better. Barriers of that kind. — the more we have of them, 
 the better. 
 
 When it comes to a choice, between the civilisation of the 
 Transvaal Burghers and that of the English hereditary official 
 class, my vote is in favor of the civilisation of the Burghers. It 
 is more in consonance with the spirit of the nineteenth and 
 twentieth centuries. 
 
 At this point it is interesting to give Mr. BigeloVs account 
 of a Transvaal Burgher whom he met on the railway train, 
 who had taken part in the skirmish with the Jameson bandits. 
 Mr. Bigelow says : " He spoke English well, could repeat 
 Shakespeare and Longfellow by the hour, and loved his native 
 country ; in short I found him an interesting companion." 
 
 How many were there of the men in Dr. Jameson's band, in 
 the Johannesburg mining camp, or even among the titled of- 
 ficers of the British Army who took part in that expedition of 
 robbery and attempted conquest, who could " repeat Shakes- 
 peare and Longfellow by the hour" ? ISTo doubt, they were au- 
 thorities on horses and grouse. 
 
 We are reminded of the account given by Tocqueville of the 
 family that he found in a frontiersman's log cabin on his visit 
 to this country in 1831, the chief furniture of which consisted of 
 copies of Shakespeare and the Bible. 
 
 These peoples that are brought up on the Hebrew Bible are 
 factors of danger, in any political situation whereof the end is 
 oppression and conquest. Mr. Green, if my memory serves me 
 rightly, gives a chief place among the influences which have 
 created the English people, to the King James Bible, and its 
 predecessor versions. 
 
 Thereafter came the present war, which, if it were not already 
 so dreadful, ought to be termed the Chamberlain Raid. It was 
 not brought to redress any grievances, of the TTitlanders, or of 
 any other persons. It is a war of mere lawless conquest, for 
 land and gold. It is a war of the pure mediaeval Spanish type, 
 promoted by a stock jobber and a tawdry politician. It has not 
 yet become a war to which the British people is a party. It 
 
85 
 
 will become such, if they do not speedily disown Mr. Chamber- 
 lain, and disavow his acts. 
 
 When we have seen the action of the British people, then we 
 shall be able to form our final judgment of the merits of the 
 situation between Boers and Britons. 
 
86 
 
 III. 
 
 THE PEE SENT OUTLOOK. 
 
 The British troops at this present writing have fully estab- 
 lished the fact that British valor is what it ever was. That fact 
 hardly needed any further evidence. It was not necessary, 
 in order to establish that fact, that there should have been a war 
 of unprovoked aggressive invasion in South Africa. 
 
 But we have now had a signal British defeat, instead of a 
 series of signal British victories, which were confidently antici- 
 pated by the British War Office, in case there should be anything 
 that deserved the name of war. The British War Office had 
 jauntily assumed, that there would be no serious contest, that 
 the British troops would have a holiday march into Pretoria, 
 followed by a speedy return with flying colors. 
 
 That anticipation has been disappointed. There is now no 
 good reason for anticipating any speedy considerable British 
 success. It is now quite apparent, that the want of prep- 
 aration on one side, taken in connection with the very complete 
 preparation on the other side, together with the wholesale inca- 
 pacity of the officers in high places in the British army, give a 
 very strong probability of further British reverses, with some- 
 thing almost approaching a certainty, that there will be no 
 considerable success to the British arms in South Africa within 
 any reasonable period. 
 
 This being the situation, we may consider some further fun- 
 damental facts, which bear upon the entire outlook. 
 
 The first of those facts to command our attention is the 
 essential quality of the British army, as a fighting organ- 
 ization, as it has been now developed by the operations 
 since the first of October. The preceding pages of this 
 paper on the military situation were written long before 
 the movement of General Buller from Frere and Chieveley to 
 
87 
 
 the westward, from which it was anticipated that there would 
 be such important results. That movement, with its ending, 
 has given us much further light on the real present condition 
 of the British army. Taken in connection with the facts pre- 
 viously known, from the former history of the so-called British 
 wars during the nineteenth century, we can now more confidently 
 analyze the real present condition of the British Army as an 
 organization fitted, or unfitted, for the requirements of modern 
 scientific warfare. 
 
 The first point to be noted in this connection in regard to the 
 British army of to-day is its lack of brains. 
 
 By this is meant the lack of adequate mental power in the 
 men at the head. It is the men at the head, who must 
 in any army always have the control of its active opera- 
 tions. Brains, to be of service, must be in the head. Else they 
 do not serve as brains. It may be conceded, that the British 
 army has among its commissioned officers a considerable num- 
 ber of single individuals, who are men of intellect, who have 
 given time and labor to the study of the principles and 
 practice of modern warfare. At the same time the fact remains, 
 that these men are not the men who are to-day in positions of 
 high command. Especially, the men who hold the high places 
 in the British army now serving in South Africa, with the ex- 
 ception of Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener who alone can 
 accomplish little, have clearly demonstrated their incapacity to 
 conduct active military operations in the field. They have 
 shown their utter ignorance of the most elementary principles 
 and practices of war. 
 
 This fact is due to the practice, which has obtained to a 
 large extent for centuries, of giving the positions of high 
 command in the British army to men who have shown little 
 or no fitness for those positions, but who have received their 
 commissions for purely family reasons. The British Govern- 
 ment, in all its branches, has been a close corporation, in the 
 hands of a few powerful families. !NTo doubt it has at times 
 happened, after months or years of active service in the 
 field, that the meritorious men have gradually fought their 
 way to positions of high command in the British army. Never- 
 theless, it has generally been the rule in the times of peace, and 
 
88 
 
 in the beginning of any war, that the positions of high command 
 have been given, not by reason of the known fitness of men, but 
 from what must be termed, if language is used with accuracy, 
 reasons of mere family favoritism. 
 
 That condition is absolutely fatal to the efficiency of any 
 army, for the elaborate operations of modern scientific warfare. 
 
 The next point to be noted in the British army of to-day is 
 its lack of organization. 
 
 Organization means something more than the mere possession 
 of a large mass of valuable raw material. It means, that, 
 throughout the entire body of individuals who taken together 
 compose an army, the right man must be in the right place ; and 
 every man must have training, for the duties of the place which 
 he holds. More than that, after individuals are thus adjusted, 
 the different smaller bodies of which an army is composed must 
 learn to work together as a harmonious whole. They must have 
 training, and experience, as the component parts of one single 
 organism. Organization, using the term in any correct sense, 
 even with a mass of the finest raw material, is generally the 
 result only of active service in the field for a considerable period, 
 even with the most adaptable and resourceful of men. 
 
 Organization of the kind that has here been stated is, in the 
 British army, only conspicuous by its utter absence. It is 
 practically an unknown quantity. 
 
 Last, and not least, comes the immense dense intense ignor- 
 ance of the British army, as an army, of the principles and 
 practice of modern scientific warfare. 
 
 Here again it may be assumed, that there is a considerable 
 number of single individuals who have made the military art a 
 subject of conscientious study. But the British Army to- 
 day is still full of younger sons, who do not know what study 
 is; or what work is. We have, too, the further fact that 
 no officer of the British army to-day has had any experience de- 
 serving mention in actual modern warfare. Their previous ex- 
 periences in India, in Abyssinia, on the Nile, and in South 
 Africa, have none of them risen to the dignity of war. There 
 have been only contests, with superior weapons and superior 
 organization, against savages, who were wholly unequipped with 
 the machinery, and were ignorant of the methods, of modern 
 
89 
 
 warfara None of the contests in which British troops have 
 heretofore been engaged since the year 1815 deserves to be 
 classed as an operation of war. The Crimean campaign was so 
 limited in its character, and consisted of operations on so small 
 a scale, that it deserves no serious consideration in this respect. 
 Moreover, the Crimean men are nearly all of them superan- 
 nuated. They count for nothing in any practical consideration 
 of the British army of today. 
 
 It is, therefore, the fact, singular as it may at first appear, 
 that the British army, as an army, however high may be the 
 degree of professional accomplishments of some of its individual 
 members, still wholly lacks, as a body, any thorough or systematic 
 knowledge of the principles or practice of modern scientific 
 warfare. 
 
 To these facts must be added the further one, of extreme im- 
 mobility. 
 
 The fighting quality of any army depends on its capacity 
 for quick movement. It is like the case of a boxer; he has no 
 efficiency as a fighter, unless he is a quick hitter and stopper, and 
 unless he is quick, with his hands, and on his feet. Of all things, 
 in order to make an army an efficient fighting organism, it must 
 be a good marcher ; it must have the capacity of covering long 
 distances in a short space of time. 
 
 That capacity the British army essentially lacks, by reason 
 of its complete absence of experience, in any considerable move- 
 ments of troops in large numbers. Especially it has never 
 learned the matter of reducing to the lowest terms its impedi- 
 menta. [No more signal instance of its ignorance in this respect 
 could be given than is found in the Cabul-Kandahar march of 
 Lord Roberts, which has been before alluded to. On that march 
 Lord Roberts' fighting force consisted of 9,986 men of all ranks, 
 and 18 guns. The camp followers numbered 8,13^! Of these 
 only 4,698 are stated to have belonged to the "transport and other 
 departments." Doolie bearers numbered 2,192. Private ser- 
 vants and saices of native cavalry regiments numbered 1,124. 
 Each European officer was allowed a mule; every eight officers 
 for mess was allowed a mule ; to each staff officer for office pur- 
 poses was allowed 80 pounds of baggage ; each native officer was 
 allowed 30 pounds of baggage; each British soldier was allowed 
 
90 
 
 for kit, and camp equipage, including great coat and waterproof 
 sheet, 30 pounds ; each native soldier was allowed 20 pounds. 
 These allowances were in addition to the supplies of all sorts 
 that were taken, including food, spirits, delicacies, ammu nition, 
 hospital equipment, and " carriage for foot-sore soldiers and 
 followers" ! Lord Roberts' force, marching after these methods, 
 required 8,000 animals ! 
 
 It is easily seen that anything like mobility, with habits of this 
 nature, is an impossibility. But that is the method adopted by 
 the British army, and the only one permitted by its present 
 traditions. 
 
 It is quite apparent, that anything that deserves the name of 
 light marching order is a thing wholly unknown to the British 
 troops, as a matter of practical experience. That is a thing they 
 have yet to learn. It is only one of many points, wherein they 
 must have the hard training that comes only from a considerable 
 experience in active operations in the field. They have, in fact, 
 yet to learn nearly everything, as to practical campaigning.. 
 
 We come then to the further most serious fact of all, that the 
 War Office has now exhausted all its resources in the way of 
 men, which are available to-day for operations in South Africa, 
 or which will be available within any reasonable period. They 
 have already taken from India more men than they dared to 
 withdraw. They have taken from Great Britain and Ireland 
 every available regular. As to men — they are at the end 
 of their rope, for a long time to come. The militia and 
 volunteers cannot be taken out of England without their consent. 
 It is already open to grave doubt, whether any considerable 
 number of them will volunteer. Conscription in the present 
 temper of the British people, is a very improbable resort There 
 is no reasonable prospect that the British government will be 
 able to carry on this war by using paid mercenaries, the method 
 which for a considerable time past has been their method of 
 carrying on any large military operations in which they have 
 been engaged in foreign lands. 
 
 Bearing this fact steadily in mind, that there are no more 
 available troops which the British government can place in 
 South Africa within a period of several months, we have the 
 further vital fact, well established by recent events, that the 
 
91 
 
 numbers of the British forces now in the field are entirely in- 
 adequate to any active aggressive operations. 
 
 In addition to the impossibility under which the British gov- 
 ernment labors, of furnishing any adequate number of troops 
 properly equipped, disciplined and organized within the period 
 of several months, we further have the fact, that for any new 
 levies of new men the British government has no trained and 
 experienced officers capable of converting those men into service- 
 able soldiers. 
 
 Any one who remembers the conditions existing at the begin- 
 ning of our Civil War is well aware, that on both sides, North 
 and South, the fact of most importance for the organization 
 and discipline of an army, was the existence of a consider- 
 able number of trained and experienced soldiers. Both North 
 and South had at their disposal a supply of West Point men 
 who had seen active service in the field; men accomplished in 
 their knowledge of the military art, and familiar, at least, with 
 the handling of troops in small numbers. But the British gov- 
 ernment has no such material at its disposal. Officers, as well 
 as men, for any new bodies of troops which they might raise, 
 will have to be educated. With the inadaptability of the British 
 nature, a year is a very moderate estimate of the time that would 
 be required for the organization and discipline of any consider- 
 able number of new troops. 
 
 The probability is very great, that before that time the 
 further reverses of the British army in South Africa would 
 be accompanied by intervention, in one form or another, assum- 
 ing that the British nation were willing to make the expenditure 
 of men and money, which would be absolutely required for the 
 further prosecution of the present war. 
 
 General Buller is now virtually in retreat. His operations 
 of advance have been a failure. There is no reasonable prospect 
 that they will be soon resumed. As has been before shown, any 
 active aggressive movement by him is virtually a military im- 
 possibility, except by a line of railway. On the lines of railway 
 the Boers have a large number of positions of defense, which are 
 under existing conditions practically impregnable. 
 
 The conclusion to which we are led by these facts, — lack of 
 brains, lack of organization, lack of practical knowledge of the 
 
92 
 
 principles and practices of modern scientific warfare, immobility 
 for the purposes of the present conflict in South Africa, — is 
 that the British army, as an organization for the -purposes of 
 modern scientific warfare, has to-day no existence. It is not an 
 army, in any serious sense of the word. It is only a mass of 
 magnificent raw material, which might be made into a superior 
 fighting organization, if it had the right men at the head, if those 
 men should be given an entirely free hand. If, moreover, which 
 is the most serious point of all, they had for the purposes of re- 
 construction and reorganization an unlimited amount of time. 
 
 We come next to the consideration of the military situation 
 in the immediate future, as nearly as the facts can be now ascer- 
 tained. 
 
 Here the first point, which it is important for us to consider, 
 is the one already so many times repeated, of the impossibility 
 of advance for active operations in South Africa otherwise than 
 by a line of railway. 
 
 The ordinary impossibility of supplying troops in large num- 
 bers otherwise than by railway, is immeasureably increased in 
 South Africa by the absence of good wagon roads. The move- 
 ment of troops in large bodies must be on roads. Especially is 
 this the case, in hilly and mountainous regions. Even if the 
 British forces were already amply supplied with wagons and 
 animals, they would be unable to use transportation by wagon 
 for any considerable distance from a railway, by reason of the 
 absence of adequate roads. Army wagons cannot move across 
 lots. Poor roads soon get cut up by heavy wagons. The con- 
 sequence is, that, in the absence of a sufficient number of good 
 roads, the impossibility of moving troops in large bodies with- 
 out railways becomes infinitely increased. 
 
 The combination of these two facts, the impossibility of sup- 
 ply for troops in large numbers except by rail, with the absence 
 of adequate wagon roads in South Africa, adds another feature 
 to the advantages of the defense, in that it gives to the Boers al- 
 most invariably the selection of the positions of conflict. The 
 advance of the invading force being necessarily along a line of 
 railway, or of some existing wagon road, and the movements of 
 troops being practically impossible elsewhere, the defense has 
 the greatest possible latitude in the selection of the positions 
 
93 
 
 where it will make a stand. Especially is this so in a mountain- 
 ous region. So that the combination of these two facts consti- 
 tutes another feature which goes to make the entire position of 
 the Boers well nigh impregnable. 
 
 The Boers are able to convert their opponents' flanking and 
 turning movements into frontal attacks. The reason of it is, 
 that with few and poor roads, the flanking and turning move- 
 ments are necessarily so slow, that the defense is able easily to 
 meet those movements with new fronts and new fieldworks. In 
 effect, the defense can nearly always make its own choice of 
 position where it can turn every flanking movement into an at- 
 tack on its front. 
 
 The next point that we have to consider is the immense dif- 
 ficulty of any substantial advance by either existing line of 
 railway. 
 
 Four lines of railway are the only ones in existence. They 
 are : the line from Lourenco Marquez to Pretoria ; the line from 
 Durban through Colenso, Ladysmith, Charlestown and Stander- 
 ton to Pretoria ; the three lines, which virtually form only one, 
 from East London, Port Alfred and Port Elizabeth, through 
 Middelburg and Molteno, to Springfontein, and thence through 
 the Eree State to Pretoria ; and the fourth line from Cape Town, 
 through DeAar and Hopetown to Kimberley and Maf eking. 
 
 The first line from Lourenco Marquez is not within the im- 
 mediate possibilities, inasmuch as it goes through Portuguese 
 territory. If that fact, however, were absent, that line is 
 essentially like the one on which Sir Bedvers Buller has already 
 been making his futile efforts. It goes through the same kind 
 of country. It admits the same kind of defense. 
 
 The second line, from Durban through Colenso and Lady- 
 smith, has already been demonstrated to be practically impos- 
 sible. Erom Colenso to Charlestown it runs virtually through 
 one continuous defile. General Buller has already found it 
 impossible to advance beyond Colenso. An examination of 
 the map shows that in addition to numerous other difficult posi- 
 tions, there is between Mt. Prospect and Charlestown a long 
 tunnel. Between Mt. Prospect and Ingogo is a reversing 
 station, where the curves are very sharp, for the purpose of 
 carrying the railroad up a very steep incline. At all these points 
 
94 
 
 destruction of the railroad is a matter of the greatest ease, while 
 its re-construction and preservation would be a practical im- 
 possibility. In addition to those points there are many others, 
 where the railroad crosses streams, as has already been men- 
 tioned, any one of which points is a point of vulnerability. 
 
 But the possibilities of the British army on those lines of 
 railway have already been exhausted. Advance along those 
 lines, for any considerable distance, with the present British 
 forces, has already been shown to be a practical impossibility. 
 Even if the British troops had to-day succeeded in relieving the 
 beleaguered forces at Ladysmith, the position as to an advance 
 through Charlestown towards Pretoria would not be changed in 
 its essentials. The distance from Ladysmith to Charlestown by 
 rail is 115 miles. Since the first of October the British troops 
 have hardly advanced a single mile. It is easy to see that the 
 accomplishment of any considerable distance along these lines 
 of railway, with the forces now at the command of the British 
 Government, or with any force which will be at their command 
 within a year, is a practical impossibility. 
 
 The next line to the west through Colesburg and Bloemfon- 
 tein, so far as concerns an advance on Pretoria, is even more 
 impracticable than the shorter line from Durban through Colenso 
 and Ladysmith. On the Bloemfontein line the British troops 
 have not yet succeeded in getting north of the Orange River. In 
 all human probability the Orange River would be found to be a 
 more serious obstacle to their advance than they have already ex- 
 perienced in the Tugela. Assuming, however, that the British 
 troops could succeed in forcing the Orange River, an assumption 
 quite beyond the bounds of reasonable military probabilities, 
 thereafter their advance would be one over a distance of over 
 eight hundred miles. From their experience hitherto, the possi- 
 bility of the British forces accomplishing that distance, within 
 any reasonable time, is a matter upon which every man can 
 form his own opinion. 
 
 The same considerations that have already been presented 
 apply with even greater force to the line of railway from Cape 
 Town through DeAar, Kimberley and Mafeking. If we as- 
 sume that any considerable British force could succeed in reach- 
 ing Mafeking, from that point they would have a march to 
 
95 
 
 Pretoria overland through, a country full of streams, without 
 roads, without any railway line. If the considerations here 
 previously presented are sound, that is a possibility not seriously 
 to be considered. 
 
 The conclusion on this point of our study, then, is that the 
 advance by either line of railway considered separately, is a 
 practical impossibility for any force at the command of the 
 British government 
 
 We have next to consider the possibility of any advance by 
 several lines simultaneously. 
 
 This possibility is one easily comprehended. 
 
 If the available forces at the command of the British govern- 
 ment are inadequate to the accomplishment of any advance, even 
 if those forces be concentrated on a single line of railway, it is 
 evidently a mere matter of mathematical demonstration that 
 the same force distributed on different lines would be even more 
 unable to accomplish any substantial result. 
 
 This statement, of course, is made with the proviso that any 
 military situation may be at any moment completely trans- 
 formed by unforeseen accidents. 
 
 At the same time it is to be noted that nearly all of those 
 accidents will operate in the large majority of cases to the ad- 
 vantage of the defense. 
 
 But here we come on the most vital consideration of all, the 
 unwillingness of the British people to make the expenditure of 
 men and money, which will undoubtedly be necessary in order 
 to complete the Transvaal conquest. 
 
 The British press to-day is full of protestations of the deter- 
 mination of the British public to see this war through to the 
 bitter end. Those protestations, however, go upon the assump- 
 tion, that British success can be achieved within a reasonable 
 time, and with a reasonable expenditure of men and money. So 
 far as the indications have yet gone, the British people have 
 given no practical consideration to the cost in men and money 
 that the war will entail. Thus far there has been one appro- 
 priation of money for purposes of the war, of ten million pounds. 
 It needs a very slight consideration of the existing situation, to 
 see that any such amount will be utterly inadequate to a prosecu- 
 tion of the war for any considerable period, — even with the? 
 
96 
 
 forces now in the field. When, however, we go further, and con- 
 sider the vast expenditure of money alone, that will be required 
 in order to organize and equip any large body of re-enforcements 
 and put those re-enforcements in the field in South Africa, the 
 gross disproportion of any amounts of money that have thus far 
 been mentioned in the English press will strike every reasonable 
 and well-informed person. Two hundred millions of pounds 
 would, in all probability, not cover the expenditure of a single 
 year. A loss of ten thousand men in killed and wounded down 
 to the present day is the cost in men alone, that has already en- 
 sued upon these comparatively small operations, which have 
 only been the preliminaries to the war. Judging from the 
 present accomplished results, and the present existing situation, 
 a loss of fifty thousand men is not at all beyond the reasonable 
 probable requirements of a final British success, — unless the 
 Republics are overwhelmed by the failure of supplies. Such a 
 failure does not now seem probable. The probabilities, there- 
 fore, are that an expenditure of many millions of money and of 
 many thousands of men will be required by the British govern- 
 ment before any conquest of the Republics. 
 
 Will the British people be ready to make that sacrifice for 
 success in a war which has been begun, as the best Englishmen 
 are aware, simply to promote the designs of a great stock specu- 
 lator and a professional politician ? 
 
 That question is one which has not been yet answered. It is 
 one which cannot to-day receive a certain answer. The proba- 
 bility, however, judging from the past of the British people, 
 and from the main features of the present situation, are very 
 large, that the sober second sense of the English people will fol- 
 low the same lines followed in the year 1881. On this point we 
 are to consider the temper existing on the other side. The two 
 Republics are determined to fight this war through to th9 death. 
 Eor them it is a struggle for existence. It is a struggle which 
 has been forced upon them. The war, as they look upon it, and 
 as it actually exists, on the real facts, is a war of unjustifiable 
 aggression. The two Republics rightly look upon it as a war for 
 freedom. Their determination, as nearly as we are able to 
 judge, will suffer no change. The war must be a war of com- 
 plete subjugation, of final and absolute conquest, practically a 
 
97 
 
 war of extermination, before it can be crowned with a British 
 victory. 
 
 But at all times it must be repeated, defense by the Boers de- 
 pends on the adequacy of their supplies, of ammunition, and 
 food. It is understood, that their supply of both is ample. But 
 on this vital essential point, no outsider can have knowledge. 
 This is the key to the entire military situation. If the Boers 
 can hold out on the question of supplies, their position is one of 
 immense strength. 
 
 Any advantages of position may, of course, be thrown away 
 by bad generalship. But the bad generalship thus far has all 
 been on the side of the British. It will probably remain there, 
 until they get rid of their immense superincumbent mass of 
 dead wood. 
 
 But that would require a long time. 
 
 These features of the situation lead us to a consideration of a 
 further point, — the question whether the British Government 
 will be allowed to carry through a war of extermination, without 
 an effectual protest on the part of other nations. 
 
 At this point we start with the well known fact, that all of the 
 continental nations warmly sympathize with the Boers; that 
 they thoroughly desire British failure; and that British mis- 
 fortune will not only satisfy their present sentiments, but will 
 serve, in their opinion, their present and future interests. The 
 public policies of nations are almost invariably dominated by the 
 view that they entertain of their own interests. The view en- 
 tertained of their own interests by all of the continental nations 
 to-day is, that those interests will be best served by British 
 failure. The probability then is very strong, that before allow- 
 ing the completion of a war of extermination against the two 
 Republics, some one or all of the Continental powers will commit 
 themselves to a policy of intervention in one or another form. 
 
 This possibility of foreign intervention is further compli- 
 cated by the possibilities of Russian policy. For more than a 
 century there has been a steady Russian advance over the Asiatic 
 continent. Russian policy has been one of continuous Asiatic 
 absorption. Has that policy yet reached its end ? Even if it has 
 not, has it yet reached a point which satisfies Russian aspira- 
 tions ? The most prominent Russian enterprise of to-day is the 
 
98 
 
 completion of the so-called Trans-Siberian railway. That rail- 
 way, euphemistically termed Trans-Siberian, is at present, so far 
 as concerns Siberia, largely a project of the future. If, on the 
 other hand, we look at the actual accomplished results of to-day, 
 we shall find that actual construction has proceeded up to the 
 borders of India, or, to speak more definitely, up to the borders 
 of Afghanistan. So that, if the great Russian railway enterprise 
 were more correctly named, it would be called the "Railway to 
 India." In this connection is to be noted the fact that very re- 
 cently movements of Russian troops have been reported on the 
 frontier of Afghanistan. Those movements, if accurately re- 
 ported, can have only one purpose. It is extremely improbable, 
 so improbable as to seem almost impossible, that the Russians, 
 if the British government is involved in a long war, and es- 
 pecially if the British government is involved in an unsuccessful 
 war, will lose so promising an opportunity of stirring up revolt 
 in India. In India, the opinion of the highest British authori- 
 ties is that the British people is sleeping on a volcano. Lord 
 Roberts has set forth in his Recollections with great force the 
 serious dangers impending in India. Mr. Steevens, the London 
 correspondent, in his book entitled "In India," has given utter- 
 ance to the almost universal consciousness on the part of the 
 British Indian officials, of the extreme danger of insurrection. It 
 is well known, that there has been widespread discontent among 
 the inhabitants of that country for the last few years. It has 
 been frequently stated by prominent Englishmen, that disaster 
 in the South African war would bring a large probability of 
 revolt in the east. 
 
 What are the probabilities, then, of peace in India, if the 
 British government should become involved in South Africa in 
 a long war, and especially if that war should result in great 
 disaster? These are questions which admit of no certain 
 answer. 
 
 On this branch of our study we have the further fact that 
 the gold and diamond mines in South Africa at present yield 
 no return to their owners; and that it was the owners of those 
 mines who really started this present war, for the purpose of 
 getting control of the government of the Transvaal Republic, 
 and of the Orange Free State. Those mine owners counted on 
 
99 
 
 a speedy success of the British arms. They assumed that victory 
 was certain, and would come quickly; and that the profitable 
 working of their mines would have only a short interruption. 
 
 As soon as the mine owners see that the resumption of the 
 working of their mines will come only at the end of a very long 
 and uncertain war, what are the probabilities as to the direction 
 in which their influence would be exercised? It would seem 
 highly probable that they will make an effort to have a speedy 
 peace. A speedy peace can come apparently only by cessation of 
 the present attempt at conquest. 
 
 Some weight, moreover, must be given to the sentiment of the 
 civilised world. The sentiment of the European Continent is 
 already well known. The only first class power as to which in 
 this respect there is any doubt is the United States. The feeling 
 of the people of the United States is rapidly changing. The 
 indications of that fact are not far to seek. Even with the 
 present widespread ignorance of the real facts of the political 
 situation between Great Britain and the Republics, the sympa- 
 thies of the American people are largely with the Republics. 
 When, however, the real facts of the political situation become 
 known, as those facts exist in the British Blue Books, there can 
 be little doubt that the sympathies of our people, now wavering 
 in the balance, will turn strongly on the side of the Republics. 
 With such turning, it will be a matter of grave doubt whether 
 the British Government will venture to resist for any consider* 
 able time the combined and concentrated sympathy of the entire 
 western world. 
 
 The latest cable advices as to the British operations in South 
 Africa mention the occupation by British troops of a situation 
 at Theebus, just west of Steynsburg, between Steynsburg and 
 Middleburg. This movement, taken in connection with Gen- 
 eral Buller's reported proclamation to his troops of his intention 
 to renew his advance on Ladysmith, would seem to indicate 
 very possibly an attempt on the part of the British forces to 
 operate on another line of invasion, the one through the Orange 
 Free State by Springfontein and Bloemfontein. 
 
 An advance on this line through the Orange Free State ap- 
 pears to present difficulties of precisely the same nature with 
 those attending the advance along the line of railroad through 
 
100 
 
 Colenso and Ladysmith, and quite as insuperable. Bear in 
 mind that General Buller's movement in retreat, or if that be 
 deemed an expression hardly warranted by the facts, his sus- 
 pension of any movement in advance, is virtually equivalent to 
 a confession of failure. It is an admission that an advance 
 along the line of railroad from Colenso is now impracticable. 
 Even if General Buller should succeed in his advance to Lady- 
 smith, and should relieve the force at present confined there, 
 the military situation would not be essentially altered. British 
 prestige would be for the time to a slight extent rehabilitated. 
 The essential fundamental difficulties, however, of an advance 
 on that line of railway into the Transvaal would still remain. 
 It would still be the fact that the advance of the British troops 
 could be resisted at an almost indefinite number of points, by 
 lines of field works well armed and well manned, so that the 
 cost in time and men of a movement into the Transvaal Re- 
 public on that line must be deemed under existing circum- 
 stances to constitute a virtually impossible barrier. 
 
 The military situation with reference to an advance through 
 Springfontein and Bloemfontein is practically identical with 
 the one applicable to the advance by Colenso and Ladysmith. 
 A mere glance at the map makes it evident that concerted co- 
 operation between the forces operating on the Springfontein 
 line and forces on the line between Durban and Charlestown, 
 is an impossibility. There is no communication between those 
 two districts, by rail or road. Any movement of troops from 
 one district to the other is impossible, that is for the purposes 
 of concerted military action. The advance along the Bloem- 
 fontein line, therefore, must stand or fall on its own merits as 
 an independent operation. 
 
 Considering it from this point of view, we have to note the 
 following facts. The line of supply from either Port Eliza- 
 beth, Port Alfred or East London to Middleburg and Molteno 
 is very long, and has heavy grades. Transportation, therefore, 
 will be slow and difficult. The altitude at Queenstown on the 
 line from East London to Molteno is 3,400 feet. The altitude 
 of Cradock on the line from Port Alfred or Port Elizabeth to 
 Middleburg is 3,028 feet. At Colesberg the altitude is 4,000 
 feet. From Colesberg and Burghersdorp the railroads descend 
 
101 
 
 to the Valley of the Orange River. The Orange River without 
 doubt furnishes a line of advance which can be made very 
 strong. If, however, the British troops should succeed in ad- 
 vancing through Molteno and Burghersdorp or through Naauw- 
 port and Colesberg to the Orange River, and should thereafter 
 succeed in forcing a passage across the Orange River, then their 
 advance could be indefinitely delayed by destroying the bridges 
 over the Orange River and over the many streams to the north 
 of it. In this district the British forces would be even more 
 dependent upon the railway for their supplies than elsewhere. 
 The maps at my command indicate no wagon roads whatever in 
 the district from Burghersdorp and Colesberg to the north- 
 ward until we get to Edenburg on the railway line to Bloem- 
 fontein, with the exception of a road from Bethulie through 
 Welkom to Etonburg. Even this is probably a very poor road, 
 inasmuch as it appears on some of the maps as only a telegraph 
 line. The probability therefore is that it is practically worth- 
 less for the purposes of transportation or the movement of 
 troops in any considerable number. An advance along the 
 Colenso and Ladysmith line has at any rate this in its favor, 
 that there is a main wagon road there which has been long in 
 use, which it is fair to assume, therefore, may be available for 
 wagon transportation. On the Bloemfontein line, however, 
 so far as is indicated by the maps, there is an entire absence 
 of ordinary wagon roads. The British forces, therefore, would 
 be entirely dependent upon the railway for supplies, and conse- 
 quently their line of communication could be interrupted with 
 ease at any moment which should suit the convenience of the 
 Republicans. Basing our computations as to the possibility of 
 any advance along the Bloemfontein line within any reasonable 
 period of time on the rapidity of General Buller's operations 
 along the Colenso line, it would seem that there is no sub- 
 stantial ground for apprehending any different result to a move- 
 ment of the British forces into the Orange Free State than has 
 come from General Buller's attempt, which has thus far been 
 a complete failure. 
 
 The fundamental fact which underlies the entire military 
 situation, by whatever line the attempt may be made to invade 
 the Transvaal Republic, is simply the impregnability under 
 
102 
 
 all ordinary circumstances of the Republican position. It 
 is virtually one large fortress. The approaches to that 
 fortress lie through a country impassable for military op- 
 erations on any large scale. This fact seems thus far to be 
 wholly ignored by the British military writers. They vir- 
 tually make no allowance for the peculiar topography of the 
 field of operations. They virtually assume, that movements of 
 troops can be made over any part of the South African terri- 
 tory in almost the same manner, and with almost as much ease, 
 as would be possible in the plains of Flanders. They have not 
 studied topography. It is a matter of common report that the 
 British War Office has been inadequately supplied with maps. 
 This is merely a single point which shows the ignorance and 
 incapacity of the British War Office, and their ignorance of 
 the fundamental conditions of modern warfare. Their methods 
 are still medieval. 
 
 The difficulties of the British situation, so far as any one can 
 judge, are too deep to be eradicated within any period of time 
 which will be practicable for the needs of this present war. 
 The Marquis of Salisbury in his speech in the House of Lords, 
 shows a consciousness of the nature of the real difficulty. His 
 language is reported by cable as follows: 
 
 " The Prime Minister declared that he regarded the British system rather 
 than individuals to be at fault. He did not think the British Constitution 
 as it now worked was a good fighting machine. It was unequalled for 
 producing prosperity and liberty in times of peace, but in times of war, 
 when the great powers, with enormous armies, were watching Great 
 Britain with no gentle or kindly eye, it became Englishmen to think 
 whether they must not in some degree modify existing arrangements so 
 as to enable themselves to meet dangers which might at any moment arise 
 to menace them. " * * * * 
 
 " ' We must all,' he said, ' join together and exercise all our powers in 
 order to extricate ourselves from a situation that is full of humiliation and 
 not free from danger. We must defer the pleasing task of quarrelling 
 among ourselves until the war is satisfactorily concluded ' " 
 
 The Prime Minister has his hand upon the real seat of the 
 trouble. It is a fact that " the British Constitution as it now 
 works is not a good fighting machine." It is the fact that " in 
 times of war when the great powers with enormous armies are 
 watching Great Britain with no gentle or kindly eye, it becomes 
 
103 
 
 Englishmen to think whether they must not in some degree 
 modify existing arrangements so as to enable themselves to 
 meet dangers which may at any moment arise to menace them." 
 
 But in order to make the British Constitution " a good fight- 
 ing machine," will require a fundamental reconstruction, and re- 
 organization, of the entire British political fabric. Govern- 
 ment by the members of a few favored familits will have to be 
 abandoned. The political system under which the control of the 
 army and navy is placed in the hands of a Committee of parlia- 
 mentary politicians, whose members change from year to year, 
 or month to month, whose time and labor must necessarily be 
 given, and always is given, to the retention of their working 
 majority in the House of Commons, must be thoroughly recon- 
 structed. It is not here contended, that the development of 
 democracy on this side of the water has yet reached its final form. 
 It is not here contended that our own national constitution gives 
 us as yet the perfection of administration. We do, however, have 
 one inestimable advantage, that the War Office is in the hands 
 of a single man, who is under a high degree of responsibility 
 for its action, who is under responsibility for nothing else, who 
 has at least a term of four years, on which he can depend as a 
 practical certainly, for the learning and the doing of his of- 
 ficial work. During those four years, at least, he can give his 
 time and thought to the affairs of the army. He 13 not 
 compelled to be answering questions in the House of Com- 
 mons, or looking after a working majority from day to day, in 
 order to prevent the loss of his official place. So it is, therefore, 
 that in spite of the many imperfections of our own present 
 system of government, we have some great advantages which go 
 far towards protecting us from the extreme inefficiency and in- 
 competency that invariably attends the workings of the British 
 War Office. It is the fact, as the Marquis of Salisbury begins 
 dimly to understand, that the parliamentary system will have 
 to go by the board. The British people will have to devise a 
 new regime, under which they can get brains at the head, under 
 which the men at the head of the public administration will 
 be selected for their own ability, and not in the main because 
 they are the sons of their ancestors. In short, government by 
 younger sons, by family favorites, by men who are selected 
 
104 
 
 in the main for birth and not worth, must be thrown overboard, 
 finally and forever in England, if they wish any serious 
 reform in the management of their War Office, their Naval 
 Office, or of any of their great offices of administration. Eou- 
 tine work of a common place order can be done fairly well 
 by country gentlemen who give to public affairs the intervals 
 between golf and grouse. Public work of the highest order 
 calls for men of brains, who have learned how to do hard work, 
 who approach politics with something other than the temper 
 of dilettantes, who take their official work seriously, and give to 
 it their entire energies. The Marquis of Salisbury is undoubt- 
 edly right. His views quite thoroughly coincide with those of 
 Lord Eosebery, who is reported as having very recently delivered 
 himself of the following remarks : 
 
 "The war will be cheap if it teaches the nation that it has lived too 
 much from hand to mouth and that it must place things on a scientific or 
 methodical basis. In commerce, education and war Great Britain is not 
 methodical and not scientific. The task ahead is the greatest which ever 
 lay before a nation, and will occupy the present Government and many 
 future Governments. But it will have to be faced. The country has yet 
 to bring the war to a triumphant conclusion. When that is done, it must 
 set to work and put the Empire on a business footing, and strive to make 
 it realize the British ideal of an Empire, without menace, without oppres- 
 sion — a model State ruled by institutions and inhabited by a model race." 
 
105 
 
 THE CAUSE OF THE BOERS. 
 
 The cause of the Boers is the cause of all that is best in British 
 history. Eor the time — the English people have forgotten their 
 high mission, the diffusion of the blessings of civil and religious 
 freedom. By the strange irony of events, they have allowed the 
 helm of State to get into the hands of a cheap Birming- 
 ham demagogue, who has in his nature nothing whatever that 
 is noble or magnanimous. The English people, in their tempo- 
 rary neglect of public affairs, has allowed itself to drift into a 
 policy of wanton aggression — into an attempt at mere mediaeval 
 Spanish conquest — for land, and gold. It has — in effect — 
 placed its army, and its navy, at the beck and call of a speculator 
 in mining stocks, and a professional machine politician. Eng- 
 land's statesmen have been — for the time — guilty of the crime 
 of abdication. 
 
 England must correct her errors. Those errors cannot be cor- 
 rected by mere persistence in wrongdoing. England must suf- 
 fer — to some extent — the consequences of her own neglect of 
 her own public affairs. By an oversight, she has allowed the 
 supreme control of her foreign policy to fall into unworthy 
 hands. Her Prime Minister has been unduly confiding. The 
 House of Commons leader in Her Majesty's Government has 
 been unduly confiding. Their confidence has been betrayed — 
 by a man who has been using the great powers of his public office 
 for personal ends. It is by no means the first time, that the 
 same man has been guilty of the same offense. It is needless at 
 this moment to recall from the pages of their chosen organ the 
 veracious utterances of the feelings of loathing and disgust, 
 which the Marquis of Salisbury and Mr. Balfour have felt in 
 the past for Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. Those feelings have 
 never changed. The exigencies of party politics have — for the 
 time — compelled the two Conservative statesmen to treat with 
 an appearance of friendliness, in public, and probably in private, 
 a man for whom they have always had feelings of supreme com 
 
106 
 
 tempt. Those feelings were due to the man's real character. 
 That character has never changed. He will sell out any friend, 
 or any cause. 
 
 !No obligations, which the statesmen of the Conservative party 
 in England have any right now to consider, bind them to give 
 a longer support to a man who has betrayed the confidence of his 
 colleagues, of his Sovereign, and of the English people. 
 
 All three of these, the statesmen of the Conservative party, 
 Her Majesty our Sovereign Lady the Queen, and the English 
 people, owe it to themselves, and to the rest of the civilised world, 
 to depose from his high place the man who is — thus far — almost 
 solely responsible for the existence of a war of unprovoked law- 
 less aggression on a poor and small people, a people that has 
 thus far been commonly deemed weak, even for the mere pur- 
 poses of self defense. 
 
 Further persistence in this unholy and unrighteous war, by 
 the English people, will make them accessories to the crimes of 
 Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Rhodes — will make them accessories 
 before the fact. In law, subsequent ratification is equivalent to 
 previous authorisation. If the English people ratifies the ac- 
 tion of Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Chamberlain — and an omission to 
 disavow and undo that action will be a ratification — then the 
 English people will be — in legal effect — the originators — from 
 the outset, and the pursuers — to the close — of this policy of law- 
 less aggression, of wholesale robbery and murder. 
 
 In that case, the rest of the civilised world will know how to 
 deal with England. 
 
 We Americans have good memories. We were willing to 
 forget the past. We were willing to forget the cruelty and bar- 
 barism of the persecution which drove our ancestors into exile, 
 and compelled them in their days of poverty and distress to seek 
 an asylum with the Dutch. We were ready to forget the years 
 of cold neglect, tempered with tyranny, which we endured in 
 our colonial period. We were ready to forget the further periods 
 of oppression and misrule, which drove us into armed re- 
 bellion, into a reluctant declaration of our independence, and 
 a protracted war to achieve our national existence. We were 
 ready to forget the barbarous methods used by England in 
 that contest, and her cruel and inhuman treatment of our cap- 
 
107 
 
 tured prisoners. We were ready to forget the later acts of 
 insolence and cruel barbarity, wbich a second time drove us to 
 take up arms against the mother country. We were ready to 
 forget the occurrences of onr Civil War ; the indecent speed, with 
 which she seized the first opportunity to jump on us when we 
 were down, the alacrity with which she threw aside all her pre- 
 vious protestations against the horrors of slavery, and the glee 
 with which her oflicial class gloated over each fresh misfortune, 
 which they fancied made another step towards the final result of 
 defeat and disruption. All these things we were ready to rele- 
 gate to the realm of the forgotten past — on the first manifesta- 
 tion by the British people of any feeling of genuine f riendliness 
 or affection. 
 
 But when we see the same policy followed, persistently and 
 relentlessly, against another race of kinsmen beyond the sea, 
 the kinsmen who gave us shelter in the time of our weakness and 
 misery, when we remember that the manifestations of friendly 
 feeling for ourselves were delayed till the period when we are 
 rich and strong beyond the dreams of ancient statesmen, then 
 we are compelled to think. Then we are compelled to recall 
 the fact, the never-ceasing fact, that English officialism, the 
 English hereditary governing class, has at all times, with all 
 peoples, been brutal, insolent, and cruel. We are compelled to 
 realise, that the English hereditary governing class to-day — 
 with many noble individual exceptions — is, as a class, precisely 
 what it has been for centuries. The leopard has not changed his 
 spots. To-morrow, if that policy would better serve its in- 
 terests, and especially its money interests — and if it dared — the 
 English hereditary governing class would turn upon us and 
 rend us. 
 
 Let us make no mistake. As to the English people, this 
 American people has always had a longing for its affection. 
 That was the real reason, why we were, in years gone by, some- 
 what unduly sensitive to criticism from the English. Com- 
 paratively speaking, we cared little or nothing for criticism 
 from other sources. But we were hurt by unkind words from 
 Englishmen. The reason was, that we had a longing for their 
 love. We did not get it. We did not get treatment that was 
 
108 
 
 reasonably considerate or decent. And then — in our time of 
 sorest need — we had England on our back. 
 
 Nevertheless, if this war on the part of England had been a 
 war of self defense, a war for freedom, a war in a just cause, our 
 hearts and our sympathies would have gone out, tumultuously, 
 to our ancestral kinsmen. 
 
 But then, when we look at the facts, we are struck with the 
 remarkable resemblance between the story of the Transvaal 
 Burghers and that of certain Englishmen, of the faith of Milton 
 and Cromwell, who came to New England in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. They, too, were driven into exile to escape the cruelty 
 and oppression of the British King, and the British oligarchy, 
 of that day. They took refuge with the Dutch. They found 
 shelter with the Dutch. Thereafter they conquered new homes 
 in a wilderness. Thereafter they suffered continued acts of 
 oppression and tyranny at the hands of the British government 
 of that day. Finally, they, too, were forced by the British 
 oligarchy into war, a war of self defense, a war for liberty. 
 In that war they won, quite contrary to the expectations of the 
 British ministers of the time. That fact, however, did not 
 protect them from further acts of British aggression. 
 
 Really, the two stories have a remarkable resemblance — thus 
 far. ,i 
 
 To the Boers, to-day, is committed the guarding of the 
 Temple of Liberty. To them, to-day, is committed the 
 contest for the right of self government, the struggle for free in- 
 stitutions. They are the representatives, to-day, of the highest 
 traditions of the English people. At present, the British Gov- 
 ernment is engaged in the work, in which it has often engaged 
 outside its own territory, of unholy conquest. It is false to its 
 own highest ideals. 
 
 Are we to-day to give any weight, in matters of international 
 politics, to the question of right and wrong ? 
 
 This unholy and unrighteous war ought to stop. It ought to 
 stop at once. It can come to an end within any reasonable 
 period, only by the withdrawal of the party who is in the wrong. 
 
 If that party persists in a war of lawless wanton aggression, 
 who can say when the war will end, or how it will end ? 
 
 But the British people ought to well comprehend the fact, 
 that they are sitting on a volcano. 
 
109 
 
 IV. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 At the time of this writing the news comes of the relief of 
 Kimberley. 
 
 The hand is the hand of Roberts. The strategy is of Rhodes 
 and Rothschilds. 
 
 .Also, we have a report to the effect that General Cronje is 
 in fall retreat, pursued by the British cavalry, with a strong 
 probability of his capture with an army of several thousand 
 men. 
 
 The latter part of the report is to be scrutinized with care. 
 Evidently, there was an attempt to cut off Cronje's withdrawal 
 towards Bloemfontein. That attempt has — thus far — apparently 
 failed. The British accounts — thus far — make no mention of 
 captured guns, or of prisoners. ISTor do they state with clearness, 
 that there has been any serious engagement. Thus far, then, 
 it would seem, that General Cronje in due season fully appreci- 
 ated Lord Roberts' intentions, made full provision to meet them, 
 decided wisely on a policy of concentration, and proceeded to 
 execute that policy with speed. 
 
 Every mile in advance now made by Lord Roberts only puts 
 him in a position of greater danger — assuming that the Boers 
 are handled with reasonable skill. 
 
 So far, therefore, as is indicated by the reports to the moment 
 of this writing, the result of the first movement on the part of 
 Lord Roberts is to place a large portion of his army in a position 
 of imminent danger, of danger far greater than that of General 
 White at Ladysmith. 
 
 Even if Lord Roberts were to succeed in reaching Bloem- 
 fontein, Bloemfontein might well become another Moscow. 
 
110 
 
 jSTo doubt, there is always the possibility that any situation, 
 the most promising, may be thrown away. Thus far — the 
 Boer generals have not seen fit to interfere with British com- 
 munications to the rear. It is a possibility — that the Boer 
 generals, with their continental advisers, have not in mind 
 the most abundant lessons of our Civil War as to the art of 
 cutting railways. But there is at least one "West Point man 
 in the Boer army. And it is almost incredible, that the Boer 
 generals will now omit an operation of such extreme ease, which 
 would, under all ordinary contingencies, place at their mercy 
 the armies of both Lord Roberts and General Buller, and inflict 
 on the British Army a disaster for which its previous records 
 afford no parallel. 
 
 As a strategic point, Kimberley is not of the slightest im- 
 portance. No doubt, it was desirable, that Colonel Baden- 
 Powell, with the troops in his command, who had been making 
 a very stubborn resistance for a considerable period, should be 
 saved from capture, if that result could be accomplished without 
 a sacrifice of other more important considerations. But as a 
 matter of strategy, at this point of the campaign, it is diffi cult 
 to conceive of a more unwise move, one more full of danger to 
 the British arms, one more likely to result in great disaster, 
 if the Boer commanders now act with skill, than this advance 
 of Lord Roberts on Kimberley with a large force of infantry, 
 cavalry, and artillery. 
 
 Of course, no one who is not on the ground, with a complete 
 and accurate knowledge of actual positions, can venture to 
 state with any degree of confidence the purposes of the com- 
 manding General on either side. A late report, however, 
 is that the Boer forces have been making their appearance 
 near De Aar Junction. The wisest of the English military 
 writers are already expressing grave apprehensions as to the 
 safety of Lord Roberts' communications. As nearly as one can 
 judge at this distance, the opportunity for a brilliant achieve- 
 ment on the part of the Boers would now seem to be presented 
 by the fact, that the only two prominent British soldiers, who 
 have shown any capacity whatever for high command, Lord 
 Roberts and Lord Kitchener, are entirely dependent for sup- 
 plies on a railway line of great length, most easy of severance; 
 
Ill 
 
 a situation which offers the easiest conceivable opportunity 
 for putting the picked officers and picked soldiers of the British 
 army now in South Africa in a state of siege, from which, under 
 ordinary circumstances, and with ordinarily skillful general- 
 ship on the Boer side, it is almost possible that they can be extri- 
 cated. 
 
 It was apparently Lord Roberts' purpose to capture the 
 considerable force of Boers which he supposed was occupy- 
 ing the strong position between Modder River and Kimberley 
 on the line of the railroad and its parallel wagon road. It was 
 for that purpose, apparently, that a portion of his force moved 
 by the way of Jacobsdal. The accomplishment of such a pur- 
 pose, with a commander as alert as General Cronje has shown 
 himself co be thus far, was not reasonably to be expected, 
 with troops so unaccustomed to actual campaigning as General 
 Roberts' command. Nevertheless that was, apparently, his pur- 
 pose. 
 
 That purpose appears, thus far, to have been easily defeated. 
 Inasmuch as we in ]STew York have been apprised for many days 
 of the intention of Lord Roberts to make an advance on the 
 Kimberley line, it was quite too much to expect, that the move- 
 ments of the British general should not have been apprehended 
 by the Boer commander, who has thus far been thoroughly well 
 informed of every movement of his antagonist, and has been 
 remarkably successful in making adequate provision to meet 
 such movements in advance. It was so improbable, as to rise 
 almost into the realm of impossibility, that General Cronje 
 would have been caught napping, and that Lord Roberts would 
 have been able to cut off any considerable portion of Cronje's 
 force between Modder River and Kimberley. Of course, there 
 is the possibility, that Lord Kitchener may succeed in capturing 
 a portion of General Cronje's command. Up to this day, how- 
 ever, there is no indication that there is any reasonable prob- 
 ability of such a result. It is is to be noted, moreover, that the 
 British troops have suffered a loss of only a very few men, which 
 makes it certain, that they have taken no position that Cronje 
 considered it at all important to defend. The probability, there- 
 fore, is extremely large, that Lord Roberts' movement, as has 
 been the case in the former British operations, was apprehended 
 
112 
 
 by General Cronje in advance, that he made very adequate 
 preparations to meet it, and that he has withdrawn the main 
 portion of his forces for operations in other directions, and prob- 
 ably for operations on Lord Roberts' line of communications. 
 It was too much to expect, that even General Cronje should 
 succeed in carrying away absolutely the whole of his supplies. 
 
 In any event, it is evident that Kimberley, the position which 
 Lord Roberts has now taken, was one to which General Cronje 
 attached no considerable military importance. 
 
 In this he was quite correct. 
 
 These features of the military situation are well appreciated 
 by one of the London military writers, by far the ablest among 
 them, Mr. Spencer Wilkinson. Mr. Wilkinson says: 
 
 "The same day the troops from the old camp at Modder River Station 
 opened communication with Jacobsdal, which had already been taken. 
 Thus Lord Roberts had a semi-circle around the Boer position of Magersfon- 
 tein, from Kimberley in the north to Modder River Station on the south, 
 and possibly the line was prolonged from Modder River Station to the 
 northwest so that Gen. French might hope by passing through Kimberley 
 to complete the circle, and thus enable Lord Roberts to envelop and cap- 
 ture Cronje's whole force. 
 
 ' ' This was the result hoped for. The plan was brilliantly conceived and 
 vigorously executed, but Cronje has been able to evade the blow. When 
 Gen. French reached Kimberley it was found that Cronje, with the bulk of 
 his force, had moved off toward Bloemfontein, apparently by the Boshof 
 road, or by a shorter route along the north bank of the Modder. 
 ********** 
 
 " There can be no doubt that Kimberley is relieved, and that the rail- 
 way will soon be reopened. This is a success. But the more valuable 
 result — the destruction of a part of the Boer army — has not been secured. 
 It cannot be said in the circumstances that this is attributable to weakness 
 in British generalship, which seems to have been excellent. 
 
 " There are disquieting features in the neivs. The capture by Boers, 
 said to have come from Colesberg, of a large British convoy, may dimmish 
 the mobility of the British force, and is a proof of the judgment and 
 energy of the Boer leaders. The vigorous attack on the British post at 
 Rensburg shows that the Boers mean to reply to Lord Roberts' advance by 
 striking at his communications. 
 
 " Until the issue of the operations around Kimberley is fairly known it 
 is useless to speculate upon the next move of Lord Roberts. The fact that 
 Kimberley has been relieved and that Cronje has had to make a hasty re- 
 treat are to the good side of the account, but the fact that Cronje has 
 not, at any rate up to the date of the latest telegrams I have seen, been 
 well beaten in a fight, is a disappointment. 
 
113 
 
 " The opinion is widespread that the invasion of the Free State will 
 bring the Boer army or at least the Free State contingent, out of NataL 
 Upon this point I am less sanguine than most of the English observers, 
 even those whose judgment most deserves confidence; but the news of 
 Eoberts' advance -will encourage White and his men to prolong their de- 
 fence." 
 
 It cannot be inferred, from the fact that the Boers have not 
 seen fit to interfere with the British railway communications 
 down to this date, that they have not considered this feature of 
 the military problem, or that they are not prepared to handle it 
 with skill. Any such idea would go upon a radical misunder- 
 standing of the military situation. It is hardly possible that 
 generals of the adroitness and fertility of resource that the Boer 
 commanders have thus far displayed, could have omitted from 
 their catalogue of military operations the cutting of the British 
 communications to the rear. Already they have shown that they 
 know enough to have destroyed the railway at Colenso, for the 
 purpose of preventing a British advance at that point. But 
 we must bear in mind that the policy of the Boers has been 
 thus far, and wisely, to exercise the most careful economy in 
 the loss of men. For that reason, they have thus far avoided 
 any engagements, except when they were behind earthworks, 
 which they could compel the British troops to attack in front. 
 It is probable, too, that they have intended to allow the British 
 generals to collect large numbers of troops at a great distance 
 from the sea, with the express purpose of penning them after- 
 wards in positions such as General White now occupies at 
 Ladysmith, and as Col. Baden-Powell has hitherto occupied at 
 Kimberley. If this be their policy, it is easy to see, that the 
 concentration of any large force by the Boers in front of Lord 
 Roberts' advance would have been a great military mistake. 
 It was much better, for their purposes, that Lord Roberts should 
 be led to collect a large army on that line of advance, at a 
 great distance from Capetown, with the Orange and Modder 
 Rivers in his rear, where his railroad communications can be 
 cut with the utmost ease, whereby the capture of his entire 
 army may well be brought within the range of military pos- 
 sibilities. 
 
 ]STo one, of course, can say what the actual plans of the Boer 
 
114 
 
 commanders are. Moreover the destruction, and reconstruction, 
 of railroad communications is a branch of the military art in 
 which European officers have had no experience. For it has 
 never been practiced by any troops except by our armies in 
 the civil war. As stated before, that class of military opera- 
 tions was discovered, and developed, by the Union and the 
 Confederate armies. The matter of railway reconstruction was 
 developed almost entirely by the Northern army. The great 
 perfection, which it reached, has already been made apparent 
 in these pages. But that branch of military operations is a 
 thing practically unknown to European soldiers. Neither side 
 showed the slightest apprehension of its existence in the Franco- 
 Prussian war. General Sheridan often said, that, with ten 
 thousand of his old cavalrymen, he could have made Moltke's 
 Franco-Prussian campaign an impossibility. Ten thousand of 
 our old cavalrymen would have severed the railways in Moltke's 
 rear, and destroyed his communications, with great ease. Noth- 
 ing of the kind was attempted by the French army. So far as the 
 writer is aware, no preparations were ever made for meeting any 
 such contingency. Certain it is, that no European army then 
 possessed, or now possesses, any considerable body of men who 
 could make the faintest approach to accomplishing the work 
 of railway reconstruction that was done by Sherman's army in 
 the Atlanta campaign. Consequently, it is possible, that the 
 Boer commanders, with their advisers from the French and 
 Prussian armies, have even to-day not realized the possibilities, 
 which easily lie at their command, of making the question of 
 supply for the British troops, now so far from the seaboard, one 
 that is practically an impossibility. 
 
 Thus far, both in the Jameson raid and in the present cam- 
 paign, the completeness of preparation on the part of the Boers 
 has been most remarkable. At every important point, down to 
 this time, they have had an ample supply of men and material. 
 Strategy, according to the late General Forrest, one of the most 
 brilliant soldiers on either side during our Civil War, con- 
 sists mainly in " getting there first, with the biggest number 
 of men." This definition is not altogether complete, in that it 
 omits to give the full significance of the word "there." If 
 the definition be amended, so as to read " getting at the right 
 
115 
 
 point, at the right time, with the right supply of men and 
 material," the requirements of accuracy would be more fully 
 met. Taking for the moment this definition of the term 
 " strategy," we have to notice that down to this time, on every 
 occasion, the Boers have been at the right place, at the right 
 time, with the right supply of men and material. It is, there- 
 fore, somewhat reasonable to assume, that the completeness of 
 preparation, combined with the thoroughness of comprehension 
 of the military situation, which has characterized all of the Boer 
 operations down to date, will continue to characterize them 
 through the remaining period of hostilities. 
 
 "We must always remember, that war is full of unforeseen and 
 unforeseeable contingencies. Bearing that fact fully in mind, 
 however, the cardinal features of the military situation in South 
 x\frica still remain as they have already been stated. The 
 advantages of the situation are overwhelmingly with the 
 Boers. It is almost an impossibility — that the difficulties in 
 face of the British commanders should be surmounted by any 
 practicable combination of men and material, which can be 
 brought about by the British authorities within any reasonable 
 period. 
 
 But here we come to another distinct difficulty in the way 
 of a substantial advance into the Orange Free State or the Trans- 
 vaal at this particular time. 
 
 The arid season in South Africa is now about to begin. In 
 the conditions that will then exist, it is scarcely too much to say, 
 that the larger the numbers of British troops in the interior of 
 South Africa, the greater is their danger of heavy losses, from in- 
 ability to supply food, forage, and water. A London corres- 
 pondent of the New York Times, who is apparently well in- 
 formed as to climatic conditions in South Africa, writes as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 " If the advance of these troops [British] could only be delayed until 
 the dry season had fairly set in (as it has done) then all that would be 
 necessary for the Freestaters and their allies in the south to do, would be 
 to leave the British troops to flounder about among the burning sand hills 
 and valley and the great practically tvaterless desert and devote all their 
 energies to preying upon the British line of communication. " 
 
116 
 
 The success of all military operations depends on speed — in 
 the movement of men and of material. This has always been 
 the key to successful operations, in modern as well as in ancient 
 war. There has been no change in this respect. 
 
 It is for this reason, that so much stress has been laid, in what 
 has been here written, on the absence of good roads in South 
 Africa; and upon the consequent impossibility of conducting 
 military operations, even for only moderate distances, away from 
 the lines of railway. 
 
 These matters, of supply and roads, are so vital, that it is well 
 at this point, at the risk of repetition, to give two extracts from 
 General Hamley's treatise on the " Operations of War." In 
 the first, he gives some utterances of the Duke of "Wellington, 
 p. 18. 
 
 "A starving army," he says to his brother, in narrating the priva- 
 tions of his troops, "is actually worse than none. The soldiers lose 
 their discipline and spirit. They plunder even in the presence of their 
 officers. The officers are discontented and are almost as bad as the men ; 
 and with the army which a fortnight ago beat double their numbers, I 
 should now hesitate to meet a French corps of half their strength. 
 
 " To carry on the contest with France to any good purpose the labor 
 and services of every man and of every beast in the country should be em- 
 ployed in support of the armies, and these should be so classed and ar- 
 ranged as not only to secure obedience to the orders of the Government 
 but regularity and efficiency in the performance of the services required 
 from them. Magazines might then with ease be formed and transported 
 wherever circumstances might require that armies should be stationed. 
 
 " But as we are now situated 50,000 men are collected upon a spot which 
 cannot afford subsistence for 10,000 men and there are no means of send- 
 ing to a distance to make good the deficiency. 
 
 Again he says : " If we had had 60,000 men (British) instead of 20,000, in 
 all probability we should not have got to Talavera to fight the battle for 
 want of means and provisions. But if we had got to Talavera we could 
 not have gone further and the armies would probably have separated for 
 want of means of subsistence, probably without a ^battle but certainly af- 
 terwards." 
 
 And lamenting the opportunities thus lost, he tells Lord Castlereagh : "If 
 we could have fed and have got up the condition of our horses we might 
 probably after some time have struck a brilliant blow with Soult at Pla- 
 cenia or upon Mortier in the centre." "I have no motive," he says to a 
 Spanish minister, "for withdrawing the British army from Spain, whether 
 of a political or military nature, excepting that which I have stated to 
 you in conversation — namely, a desire to relieve it from the privations of 
 food, which it has suffered since the 22d of last month ; privations which 
 
117 
 
 have reduced its strength, have destroyed the health of the soldiers, and 
 have rendered the army comparatively inefficient. 
 
 *****»*#» 
 
 (P- 20). 
 
 The fortified lines of magazines constituting the base being formed, it is 
 indispensable to a sustained and dubious enterprise that good roads should 
 exist between the magazines and the army as it moves away from its base. 
 In mountainous districts where the roads are so rugged and steep as to be 
 unfit for wheeled vehicles, the necessary supplies must be carried on pack- 
 horses or mules. But the quantity which an animal can draw is so much 
 greater than that which it can carry, that the number of animals and the 
 extent of road they occupy must be immensely increased. It is, therefore, 
 very difficult, almost impossible, to supply a very large army, under such 
 circumstances, for a long campaign ; and roads practicable for carriages 
 are indispensable to all operations, except those which aim at attaining 
 results in a brief and definite time. And not only must the roads be good 
 in the ordinary sense, but they must be great main arteries of the region, 
 solidly constructed. Anybody who fives in the neighborhood of a newly- 
 established brick-field, will see how quickly the parish roads are broken 
 and wrought into hollows by the passage of the heavy brick-carts. The 
 trains that follow an army, laden as they are with ammunition, pontoons, 
 platforms for guns, siege-artillery, and other ponderous materials, soon 
 destroy all but the best roads. In order, then, that the enormous streams 
 of supply may not be interrupted, it is necessary that the roads should be 
 of the best construction, like our own highways and the great paved 
 chausses of the continent. The proof of this is found in the difficulties 
 under which armies begin to labour directly they are thrown on bad roads 
 for their supplies. Our own experience in the Crimea shows that even 
 seven miles of soft soil interposed in winter between an army and its 
 depots, may be almost a fatal obstacle; and General McClellan, in his re- 
 port of his campaign in the Yorktown Peninsular, tells us — " On the 15th 
 and 16th, the divisions of Franklin, Smith, and Porter, were with great 
 difficulty moved to Whitehouse, five miles in advance, so bad was the road 
 that the train of one of these divisions required thirty-six hours to pass 
 over this short distance." And again, speaking of the movement from the 
 York River to Williamsburg, he says — "The supply-trains had been forced 
 out of the roads on the 4th and 5th to allow the troops and artillery to 
 pass to the front, and the roads were now in such a state after thirty -six 
 hours' continuous rain that it was almost impossible to pass even empty 
 wagons over them." 
 
 But it is not only on account of the supplies that great armies operate 
 by great roads. It is also because the march of the troops and artillery on 
 bad roads becomes so slow and uncertain that all the calculations on which 
 a general bases, a combined operation, are likely to be falsified, and the 
 rapidity necessary for a movement intended to surprise or foil an adver- 
 sary is lost, so that the design is seen and frustrated by the enemy. An 
 example of the different rate at which troops move over a good and a bad 
 
118 
 
 road is afforded by the campaign of Waterloo. Napoleon followed Wel- 
 lington, and Grouchy followed Blucher ; both quitted the field of Ligny on 
 the afternoon of the 17th June. The Emperor, marching by the great 
 paved chaussees of Namur and of Brussels, assembled his army that night 
 in the position of Waterloo, seventeen miles from Ligny. Grouchy, moving 
 by country roads, had great difficulty in bringing his 30,000 men to Gem- 
 bloux, five miles from Ligny, by ten o'clock the same night. And, to quote 
 a more modern instance, General McClellan says : " On the 14th of March, 
 a reconnaissance of a large body of cavalry with some infantry, under 
 command of General Stoneman, was sent along the Orange and Alexan- 
 dria Railroad to determine the position of the enemy, and, if possible, 
 force his rear across the Rappahannock ; but the roads were in such con- 
 dition that, finding it impossible to subsist his men, General Stoneman was 
 forced to return." 
 
 The conditions in South. Africa are essentially different from 
 those which have existed in European wars ; consequently, from 
 those which have been the chief subjects of study of European 
 writers. We hear much in the discussions of the present war 
 in South Africa of flanking movements and turning movements. 
 The conditions, however, in South Africa are so different from 
 those which have ever existed in European wars, that many of 
 the ordinary military considerations become inapplicable and use- 
 less. Elanking movements, and turning movements, to have 
 any practical value, must be executed so near to the enemy, and 
 with so much celerity, as to make it impossible for him to make 
 new formations to meet the movements on his flank. Generally, 
 this is impossible, where the roads are so few, and so difficult, as 
 they are in South Africa. The principles of war always remain 
 the same. Their application has fundamental differences. Mili- 
 tary operations must always be adapted to the field in which they 
 are carried on. Topography is the first essential in planning 
 those operations. It was invariably the first object of the study 
 of Napoleon in deciding upon the form of his military oper- 
 ations. Topography appears to-day to have been the one thing 
 essentially ignored by the British War Office, and the British 
 officers in high command. 
 
 All these facts must be taken into consideration, in judging 
 of the probable results of the present conflict. It is easily seen, 
 that mere superiority in numbers, however large, becomes al- 
 most wholly immaterial, where the field of operations is of such 
 a character, as to prevent the speedy movement of troops from 
 
119 
 
 point to point. Especially, too, is the matter of numbers of less 
 importance in a mountainous region, with few and poor roads, 
 a situation which gives a position of comparative impregnability 
 to the defense, especially when the defending force is made up of 
 men who are bred to the methods of partisan warfare, who cover 
 long distances with great ease, who are consequently able to 
 make sudden and unexpected attacks on vital points in an 
 enemy's rear, and who will find it especially easy to operate on 
 his lines of communication. 
 
 Events have now gone so far as to make it as near to a cer- 
 tainty as it is often possible to reach in military affairs, that the 
 war will, at any rate, be a long and costly one for the British, 
 and that British final success is a matter of grave doubt. Grave 
 consideration must now be given to the fact, that the sympathies 
 of all the European peoples are against the British Government. 
 The indications are also large, that the sympathies of the 
 American people will soon become pronounced in favor of the 
 Republics. 
 
 Let me add a few words as to the disparity between the two 
 contending powers in numbers and wealth. No doubt the dis- 
 parity is immense. 
 
 The population of the South African Republic proper, com- 
 monly called the Transvaal, according to the latest report for 
 1898, was— Whites, 345,397 (137,947 males and 107,450 fe- 
 males); Natives, 748,759 (148,155 men and 183,280 women, 
 and 417,324 children). Total population, 1,094,156. 
 
 The population of the Orange Free State, according to the 
 census of 1890, which is the latest report at this moment avail- 
 able to me, is stated to be as follows: White population, 
 77,716—40,571 males and 37,145 females. There were, be- 
 sides, 129,787 natives in the Orange Free State — 67,791 males 
 and 61,996 females; making a total population of 207,503. 
 
 On the other hand, the latest report of the population of 
 Great Britain and Ireland at this moment available to me, 
 given for the year 1891, is 
 
 Total for England and Wales 21,413,989 
 
 do for Scotland 4,025,647 
 
 do for Ireland 4,704,750 
 
 Total 
 
 30,144,386 
 
120 
 
 In wealth, the discrepancy is even greater. 
 
 "Wealth alone, however, for the purposes of war, is limited in 
 its power to the bearing which it has on the possibilities in men 
 and material, that can be placed in the field of operations, prop- 
 erly drilled, disciplined, and organized, within a practicable 
 period of time. 
 
 So, too, with population. Population, as an element of 
 strength for any particular actual war, is limited, in its effect, 
 to the number of men who can be placed in the field of opera- 
 tions, properly armed, drilled, disciplined, organized, and 
 officered, within a practicable period of time. 
 
 These considerations tend strongly to show, that the enor- 
 mous preponderance in population and wealth which is held 
 by Great Britain over the two South African Republics 
 is to a great extent unavailable, for the purposes of the present 
 war, within any reasonable period. In many military situations, 
 the larger the number of men, Uhe worse it is for the party em- 
 ploying them. Men must be armed, drilled, disciplined, 
 officered, and organized. In short, they must be converted into 
 an efficient army, before they can have any value whatever 
 for actual military operations. ISTow, will any competent judge 
 venture to assert, that Great Britain can, within six months, 
 add to her forces in South Africa so much as twenty-five thou- 
 sand real soldiers? Will any one go so far as to assert, that 
 she can add fifty thousand real soldiers to her present army 
 in South Africa within a year? Tor it must be borne in mind, 
 that Great Britain has at present practically no available officers, 
 of either technical training or practical experience, who can be 
 used for the purpose of turning new levies into fighting troops. 
 As has been already stated, she is at the end of her available re- 
 sources — as to men — for a considerable period of time. When 
 the term " men " is used in this connection, it is of course 
 understood to mean soldiers; and not merely so many individual 
 soldiers, but soldiers properly drilled, disciplined, organized, 
 and officered. It is to-day an absolute impossibility, for Great 
 Britain to put in South Africa any considerable number of ad- 
 ditional troops that deserve to be called soldiers. It is extremely 
 improbable, that she can add to her forces in South Africa, at 
 
121 
 
 any time within a year, twenty-five thousand troops capable of 
 active aggressive service. 
 
 Even now, the great British Empire is the first of the two 
 combatants to show signs of distress. In the daily press this 
 morning appears the appeal for more men, by Her Majesty 
 Queen Victoria, at present still styled Empress of India, who is 
 "advised that it would be possible to raise for a year an efficient 
 force from her old soldiers who have already served, as officers, 
 non-commissioned officers or privates; and confident in their 
 devotion to the country and loyalty to her throne, the Queen 
 appeals to them to serve her once more in place of those who, 
 for a time, side by side with the peoples of her colonies are 
 nobly resisting the invasion of her South African possessions." 
 
 This " appeal " is the act of the British Government. 
 THEY AKE ALREADY AT THE END OF THEIE RE- 
 SOUECES IN MEN. 
 
 The immense difference, therefore, in population and wealth 
 between Great Britain and the Transvaal Kepublic becomes, 
 under all the circumstances, well nigh unimportant. The 
 Transvaal authorities apparently have, for the present needs, 
 men in abundance. Apparently, too, they have an ample sup- 
 ply of the munitions of war. The question of food supply, so 
 far as now appears, is one of chief danger. But thus far, there 
 are no indications of any serious difficulty on that ground. 
 
 We may therefore dismiss from our minds, for immediate 
 practical purposes, the discrepancy which might seem at first 
 sight to be almost appalling, between the resources of the two 
 contending powers in men and wealth. 
 
 But here we come on the dominating feature of the entire 
 situation, — the large possibility of other complications, and 
 other wars, unless the conquest of the Republics should be 
 accomplished almost immediately. The wisest English poli- 
 ticians are well aware of their danger in this respect. They 
 are well aware of the danger in India. 
 
 The " Transvaal Outlook " cannot limit its range of vision 
 by the confines of Natal and the South African Republics. It 
 must go much further, must extend to the eastward, at least 
 as far as the frontier of India. 
 
 The danger in India is two-fold. It is not limited to the 
 
122 
 
 perils existing from the mere spirit of hatred and revolt on 
 the part of the native population. On the northwest frontier 
 there is already reported the massing of a large body of Russian 
 troops within fifty miles of Herat. What are they there for? 
 ISTo reasonable man can doubt, that it is the present purpose 
 of Russia, whatever may be her pretentions and protestations, 
 to take speedy advantage of British difficulties elsewhere, and 
 especially of British defeats elsewhere, to foment a rising in 
 India, and to intervene actively with troops to assist any such 
 rising. So, again, we must bear in mind, and we may be 
 assured that British statesmen do bear in mind, the dangers in 
 India. 
 
 So vital, so essential, so fundamental, is this feature of the 
 situation in the Transvaal, that it is important to lay before 
 my readers some evidence on the real nature of British rule in 
 India, the real results it has thus far accomplished, and the 
 greatness of the dangers at present there existing. The evi- 
 dence comes from two most competent sources, both British. 
 Those sources are Mr. George W. Steevens, the British corres- 
 pondent of the London papers who died lately in South Africa, 
 and Lord Roberts of Kandahar. 
 
 Mr. Steevens gives us the following statement as to the situ- 
 ation:* 
 
 " It is only natural that the tremendous experience] of 1857 should still 
 be something of a nightmare to the Indian Government. ' We are living 
 on a volcano.' ' It has happened once ; it may again.' You hear such 
 phrases nearly every day. I have' even heard it said thatflif all the ryots 
 were ever to rise in a body British rule^would collapse utterly and in a 
 day. 
 
 "There is no danger of a second mutiny in India unless the British 
 dominion should ever be seriously challenged. But if there should ever 
 come a great and doubtful war in the north — what then ! If Russia came 
 against us on the frontier it is certain she would also do her utmost to stir 
 up risings behind us. Even so, in our own provinces good officers, with 
 police and volunteers, would probably keep their districts together. The 
 critical point would be the rajah. Nearly all native princes to-day are 
 all irreproachably loyal ; but you cannot guarantee a hereditary house 
 against a disloyal son in the moment of supreme temptation." 
 
 ********** 
 
 "India is governed by natives of India. The last word, doubtless, is 
 with us — with the Secretary of State and the Viceroy, and Atkins in his 
 
 * Note—" In India " by G. "W. Steevens, p. 352, et seq. 
 
123 
 
 gray flannel shirt. But then the last word in government is hardly ever 
 said. The first word and the second and the third are those that make the 
 difference to the subject. The minor, every-day machinery of rule is the 
 native's. Nearly all the lesser magistrates are natives, and a large propor- 
 tion of the judges. In the executive part of government — revenue assess- 
 ment and collection, engineering and public works, the medical services, 
 the forest department, the salt department — there are a handful of white 
 men to order, and a host of brown ones, half supervised, to execute. At 
 the centres of Government — the provincial capitals, and Calcutta or Simla 
 itself — where you would expect to find British influence at its strongest, 
 the babu clerks in the Government offices exert a veiled but paramount 
 influence. And the very heads of everything — Lieutenant-Governors, and 
 sometimes very Viceroys — uninfluenced by clerks, bow before the prat- 
 tling philippics of the native press. Theoretically, India is helplessly dom- 
 inated by Britons ; actually, native influence is all but supreme. 
 
 " You will call these assertions preposterous, and I shall not be able to 
 call leading officials of the Indian Government to corroborate them. The 
 cause of the British in India is not a popular one, either there or here ; 
 yet there is hardly a Briton of experience in India, if I may judge by 
 samples, who will not admit privately that these assertions are mainly 
 true. To the stranger from England, it is far the most striking and dis- 
 quieting discovery that India has to offer. The cry of recent years has 
 been for more Indian influence in India's Government. Then you find 
 Englishmen admitting the existence of abuses, incompetence, corruption 
 in the services they are supposed to direct, lamenting them, breaking their 
 hearts over them, but utterly powerless to purge them away. You find 
 men giving orders which they all but know will not be executed, 
 because it is physically impossible to go themselves, and watch over their 
 execution. Higher up you find men longing to get work done for India's 
 benefit, but clogged and strangled by meshes of routine, which exist 
 solely to furnish salaries for more and more brothers and nephews of 
 native clerks. You find a Lieutenant-Governor refusing to take measures 
 against plague solely for fear of abuse in the native press. Then you 
 realize that it is not more native influence that is wanted in India, but 
 less ; not fewer Britons in the services, but more. 
 
 "The white man's say becomes daily less, the black man's daily more. 
 The reasons are not on the surface, but, when stated, they make things 
 clear enough. The first, perhaps the most potent, is the new swiftness of 
 communication between England and India. You would expect that to 
 increase English influence, but in India you soon grow inured to para- 
 doxes. The nearer India comes to England, the less will Englishmen have 
 to do with it. When Warren Hastings went out in 1750, the voyage to 
 Calcutta lasted from January till October. Hastings, once in India, had 
 to make India his home, his career, his life. It was worth his while to 
 study the ways of the natives and to write Persian verses. At this time 
 there were none of the conveniences — the ice, the railways, the hill- 
 stations — which make life in India tolerable to white women ; most of the 
 
124 
 
 Company's servants lived with native mistresses and some married native 
 wives. It was not edifying, but it made for comprehension of the East. 
 Money was plentiful, Europe and retirement were far away ; the Com- 
 pany's servants spent their income in India and lived in style. Old natives 
 will still tell you of residents and collectors who kept more elephants than 
 now men keep polo-ponies. Above all, the white man in the Company's 
 days was something apart and mysterious and worshipful in native eyes. 
 No man knew whence he came or whither he went ; no man pretended to 
 know his ways. He was a strange and superior being — all but a god. 
 
 ' ' Now London is sixteen days from Calcutta. The modern civilian 
 takes three months' leave every third year and a year's furlough every 
 ten or so. He is married to a white wife, and his white children are at 
 home ; he looks forward to reuniting his family when he gets his pension, 
 and then he will be but forty — to letters or politics — a new career. For this 
 and his periodical flights homeward he saves his money, so that the native is 
 less impressed by the white man's magnificence. The British merchant and 
 barrister expect an even shorter period of exile — a competence in five or 
 ten years, and then the beginning of their real work at home. Nowadays 
 the great Indian merchant lives in London ; in Bombay and Calcutta are 
 only salaried partners and managing clerks ; Parsis are far richer and 
 more influential than these. Instead of a man's life, India has become an 
 apprenticeship, a string of necessary, evil interludes between youth, leave, 
 furlough, and maturity. You might imagine a burglar so regarding the 
 intervals which the exigencies of his profession compel him to spend in 
 Dartmoor. 
 
 " The consequences of the new order are inevitable and pernicious. The 
 Anglo-Indian does not shirk his work ; to say so for a moment would be 
 the grossest slander. No class of men in the world toil more heroically, 
 more disinterestedly, more disdainfully of adverse conditions. But while 
 his zeal does not flag, his knowledge fails to keep pace with it. Partly 
 this is due to the dislocation of his work by frequent returns to England ; 
 partly, and more, to the fatal tendency of the Indian departments towards 
 red tape and writing. The officer knows well enough that the more time 
 he spends at his writing-table the less efficient he will be among the men 
 he has to rule. He knows that if ever our rule were in danger, the man 
 who kept his district together would be the man who knew his subordi- 
 nates and whom his people knew ; but he also knows that his future career 
 depends far more on his reports than on his personal influence. Can you 
 wonder that he devotes himself to what pays him best ? He would be 
 more than human if he did not. Being only human, he has to pay for his 
 devotion to forms and minutes in loss elsewhere. The new generation of 
 Anglo-Indians is deplorably ignorant of the native languages; after a 
 dozen years' service the average civil servant can hardly talk to a cultivator 
 or read a village register. Of the life, character, and habits of thought 
 of the peasantry — always concealed by Orientals from those in authority 
 over them — the knowledge groivs more and more extinct year by year. 
 Statistics accumulate and knowledge decays. The longer we rule over India, 
 the less we know of it. 
 
125 
 
 "Summarily, our knowedge of the natives grows less and less, as the 
 natives' knowledge of us grows more and more. * * * 
 
 ' The divinity that hedges a sahib is slowly breaking down. There are so 
 many sahibs nowadays that they have ceased to be wonderful. And they 
 are not all like the old sahibs : there are little sahibs, country bred sahibs, 
 hardly better than Eurasians, globe-trotting sahibs, whom a child can de- 
 ceive, and who let you come into their presence with shod feet. And then 
 remember the other side — that the babu has often been to England. The 
 ' Europe-returned,' as they proudly call themselves, are usually of the 
 inferior native races, and are of small account even among them. Yet 
 they have been received in London or Oxford or Cambridge as equals 
 sometimes, on the strength of bold and undetected claims to social impor- 
 tance in India, almost as superiors. They have lost all respect for the 
 European as a master, and acquired no affection for him as a friend. 
 Every young Hindu who returns from England is a fresh stumbling-block 
 to government in the interests of the Indian people. 
 
 " For the babu does not govern for the people, whom he despises from the 
 height of his intelligence, and whom it is his inherited instinct to fleece, but 
 for himself, his relatives, and his class. To him mainly — helped by British 
 pedantry — India owes the impenetrable buffer of files and dockets and 
 returns which interposes itself between the white ruler and the brown 
 millions of the ruled. The first impulse of the native who gets an appoint 
 ment is to get some of the swarm of brothers and cousins who live in the 
 same house with him to fatten under his shadow. He cares nothing for 
 efficient work — why should he ? But he cares very much for his family. 
 Instead of making less work, he strives always to make more. He sits a 
 lifetime in the office and knows its workings as do few of his fleeting 
 European superiors. Everything — in the public offices, the army, the rail- 
 way offices, it is all the same — must be copied out in the triplicate, in quad- 
 ruplicate, in quintuplicate. If a new and energetic European attempts 
 to cut away the hamper, 'We cannot do this,' he murmurs, ' under 
 rule 12,345, section 67,890.' The Briton sighs, but life, he thinks, is 
 not long enough to try to move the limpet babu. But the babu, when he 
 likes, can easily make out a case for the addition of sub-sections 67,890 a, 
 
 b, c z — and there is more work for his nephews. ' Your accounts 
 
 have come up quite correct, ' wrote the leading clerk at Calcutta to the 
 leading clerk in a provincial government; ' do not let this occur again.' 
 
 " So the white man in the district sits at his desk writing papers which 
 babus will docket and nobody will read ; and, outside, his underlings op- 
 press the poor. * * * 
 
 " Into this maze of contradiction to rule this blend of good and evil, 
 steps Britain. And not content with ruling him — which is easy, for he 
 accepts any master that comes— we have set ourselves to raise him, as 
 we put it. Which means to uncreate him, to disestablish what has grown 
 together from the birth of time, and to create him anew in the image of 
 men whom he considers mad. This is surely the most audacious, the most 
 heroic, the most lunatic enterprise, to which a nation ever set its hand. 
 
126 
 
 " How, now, have we succeeded ! Let it be said first that we have de- 
 served success. If any enterprise in the world's history has deserved success 
 it is the British empire in India. Our connection with the country began 
 as most legitimate and mutually beneficent commerce. It developed 
 into conquest — not through any lust of dominion, but almost accidentally, 
 and certainly against our will ; it was the inevitable consequence of the 
 weakness and dissensions of the Indian races themselves. " * * * 
 "And on this comes in the hideous, if most inevitable irony, that the 
 reward of our work is largely failure, and the thanks for our unselfishness 
 mainly unpopularity. You might almost imagine there ivas a curse on 
 British India, which ever turns good endeavours into bad results. The 
 great gifts which we are supposed to have given India are justice and 
 eternal peace — and each has turned to her distress. The one is driving her 
 peasantry off the land, the other is preventing an effete race from the reno- 
 vation brought in by alien conquerors. 
 
 " When we say we have given justice, we only mean that we have offered 
 it — tried to force it upon peoples which dislike and refuse it. What we 
 have really given is a handful of incorruptible judges, whose experience 
 enables them to strike a rough balance between scales piled up with per- 
 jury on either side. Often and often a litigant comes to the European 
 judge and says, ' You were wrong to give that case against me, Sahib. The 
 other side were all lying, and we — well, of course, we lied too ; but the 
 truth was such and such, and we were right. But of course you could not 
 tell which was lying most, and we knew you did your best to decide rightly, 
 only you were wrong.' The litigant believes absolutely in the honesty of 
 the sahib, and accepts it as part of his inexplicable idiosyncrasy ; he does 
 not seek to emulate it. As for the great mass of native judges, subordi- 
 nate and supreme, who do the greater part of the ordinary business of jus - 
 tice, some are incorruptible ; there were incorruptibles in India before we 
 came. But the mass of them, as of the other native officials, are just as 
 they ever were, and with the whole country leagued to screen them, it is 
 impossible that they shall be otherwise. 
 
 " The difference under our rule is not so much that justice is done, as 
 that the law is enforced. The rich man benefits under this ; for a Rajah's 
 Government would seldom let a rich man get out of a lawsuit with a full 
 pocket ; but the poor man suffers in the same proportion. In the old days 
 the poor debtor was protected by the rapacity of judges and Government. 
 The usurer dared not go before the Rajah for leave to attach the peasant's 
 stock and crops and land. 'Aha,' His Majesty would say, 'you must 
 have been making money, my friend. We must look into this.' But 
 in a British court the sacred contract must be upheld, and the ryot is 
 ruined. 
 
 "The irony of peace is as bitter. Peace is sometimes a blessing, no 
 doubt ; but, then, so sometimes is war. War was the salt that kept India 
 from decay. It caused horrible suffering, presumably, though in India 
 not perhaps much more than peace ; at least, it conspired with famine 
 and pestilence to keep the population down. All three have been greatly 
 
127 
 
 mitigated under our rule ; and now a prodigiously increasing multitude is 
 a dead weight on the general prosperity of native India, and a nightmare 
 to her foreseeing statesmen. But that is not the only, nor the direst, 
 curse of peace. India is effete. It strikes you as very, very old — burned 
 out, sapless, tired. Its people, for the most part, are small, languid, 
 effeminate. Its policies, arts, industries, social systems stagnate ; and the 
 artificial shackles of caste bind down their native feebleness to a com- 
 pleter sterility. Now the old wars periodically refreshed this effeteness 
 with strains of more vigorous blood. Most of the greatest names of 
 Indian history, the wisest policies, the bravest armies, the noblest art, 
 belong to races of newcomers. It seems that the soil and climate of India 
 need but three or four generations to sap the vitality of the most pow- 
 erful breed. 
 
 ♦'Now that Britain keeps the peace in the plains, and guards the passes 
 of the hills, there will come in no invaders to renew the energies of 
 the weakened stocks. With each generation of firm and just rule the ill 
 effects will percolate deeper and deeper. Failing some new process of 
 quickening, the weary races of India must inevitably dwindle and die of 
 sheer good government. 
 
 Whence is the new fife to come ? From us ? The gulf between Briton 
 and native yaivns no less deep to-day— perhaps deeper — than when the first 
 Englishmen set up their factory at Surat. Our very virtues have increased 
 the gap that was in any case inevitable between temperaments so opposite 
 as Britain's and India's. Justice India can do without ; for peace she does 
 not thank us. This, too, will grow worse and wonse with time, instead of 
 better. The men who knew the sufferings of intestine war are long since 
 dead ; their grandsons, not knowing wherefrom we have delivered them, 
 are naturally not grateful for deliverance. Even the best educated natives 
 are very ignorant of Indian history ; they simply do not know from what 
 we have saved them. Even if they did, things would be little better ; for, 
 although it is a silly fiction that no native of India can be grateful, politi- 
 cal and national gratitude is a watery feeling at the best. 
 
 " What else have we to count on for the regeneration of India ? Chris- 
 tianity ? It has made few converts and little enough improvement in the 
 few. Is it not.too exotic a religion to thrive in Indian soil ? Actual fusion 
 of blood has done as little. It is usual to sneer at the Eurasian as com- 
 bining the vices of both parents, but this appears to be a slander. In the 
 days when generals married begums Eurasians counted many men of ability 
 and character ; that you hear of few now is more likely due to the fact that 
 the modern breed is almost necessarily of a low type on both sides. As it 
 is, Eurasians fill a place most creditably which nobody else could fill. 
 Industrially, as overseers, foremen, railway guards, and the like, they are 
 an almost indispensable link between white and native. But to expect them 
 to form a link in a deeper sense, even though a Viceroy expresses the 
 hope, is over-sanguine. It may be unjust, but there remains a prejudice 
 against them among white and native alike. 
 
 "And after all, what link could bind together such opposites ? Lan- 
 
128 
 
 guage and education and assimilation of manners are powerless to bridge 
 so radical a contradiction. What close intercourse can you hope for, 
 when you may not even speak to your native friend's wife ? Native men 
 are antipathetic to European women ; native women must not be so much 
 as seen by European men. A clever and agreeable Brahman told me that 
 he would not let even his own brother see his wife. I do know one 
 white man who did once see his native friend's wife. ' This is my study,' 
 said he ; ' that ' — as a swathed figure shuffled silently and rapidly across 
 the room from door to door — ' is my wife ; that is the presentation clock 
 from my pupils at the college.' And he was an exceptionally broad- 
 minded man. Those who know and like the natives best tell you that you 
 can never speak with the best-known and best-liked of them for any time 
 without a constraint on both sides which forbids intimacy. ' Of all 
 Orientals,' says the one Englishman who has come nearest to knowing 
 tbem, 'the most antipathetical companion to an Englishman is, I believe, 
 an East Indian. * * * Even the experiment of associating with 
 them is almost too hard to bear. * * * I am convinced that the natives 
 of India cannot respect a European who mixes with them familiarly.' 
 Nature seems to have raised an unscalable barrier between West and East. 
 It has lattices for mutual liking, for mutual respect ; but true community 
 of mind it shuts off inexorably. 
 
 " Every loophole of optimism seems closed — except one. When all is 
 said and done, we have only been in India a little over a hundred years — in 
 many parts of it hardly fifty. To immemorial India that is like half an 
 hour ; and when we first went to India we were, after all, not very much 
 less corrupt — whether there or at home — than India is to-day. To move 
 the East is a matter of centuries ; and yet it moves. Often it seems that 
 to mean the right thing only ends in doing the wrong one. We have 
 made, and are making, abundant mistakes ; in administration and 
 education we seem to be running further and further off the right lines." 
 
 Lord Roberts, too, gives us in his "Forty-one years in India" 
 in some detail, evidently carefully considered, with well weighed 
 words, the following diagnosis of Indian conditions: 
 
 " When the Mutiny broke out, the whole effective British force in India 
 only amounted to 36,000 men, against 257,000 native soldiers, a fact which 
 was not likely to be overlooked by those who hoped and strived to gain to 
 their own side this preponderance of numerical strength, and which was 
 calculated to inflate the minds of the Sepoys with a most undesirable sense 
 of independence. An army of Asiatics, such as we maintain in India, is a 
 faithful servant, but a treacherous master; powerfully influenced by social 
 and religious prejudices with which we are imperfectly acquainted, it 
 requires the most careful handling ; above all, it must never be allowed 
 to lose faith in the prestige or supremacy of the governing race. When 
 mercenaries feel that they are indispensable to the maintenance of that 
 authority which they have no patriotic interest in upholding, they begin 
 
129 
 
 to consider whether it would not be more to their advantage to aid in 
 overthrowing that authority, and if they decide that it would be, they 
 have little scruple in transferring their allegiance from the government 
 they never loved, and have ceased to fear, to the power more in accordance 
 with their oion ideas, and from which, they are are easily persuaded, they 
 will obtain unlimited benefits. 
 
 " A fruitful cause of dissatisfaction in our native army, and one which 
 pressed more heavily upon it year by year, as our acquisitions of territory 
 in northern India became more extended, was the Sepoy's liability to ser- 
 vice in distant parts of India, entailing upon him a life among strangers 
 differing from him in religion and in all their customs, and far away from 
 his home, his family, and his congenial surroundings — a liability which he 
 had never contemplated except in the event of war, when extra pay, free 
 rations and the possibility of loot, would go far to counterbalance the dis 
 advantages of expatriation. Service in Burma, which entailed crossing 
 the sea, and, to the Hindu, consequent loss of caste, was especially distaste- 
 ful. So great an objection, indeed, had the Sepoys to this so-called 
 " foreign service ", and so difficult did it become to find troops to relieve 
 the regiments, in consequence of the bulk of the Bengal army not being 
 available for service beyond the sea, that the Court of Directors sanctioned 
 Lord Canning's proposal that, after the 1st of September, 1856, ' no native 
 recruit shall be accepted who does not at the time of his enlistment under- 
 take to serve beyond the sea whether within the territories of the Company 
 or beyond them.' This order, though absolutely necessary, caused the 
 greatest dissatisfaction amongst the Hindustani Sepoys, who looked upon 
 it as one of the measures introduced by the Sirkar for the forcible, or 
 rather fraudulent, conversion of all the natives to Christianity." 
 
 ******** 
 
 " The India of to-day is altogether a different country from the India of 
 1857. Much has been done since then to improve the civil administration, 
 and to meet the legitimate demands of the native races. India is more 
 tranquil, more prosperous, and more civilized than it was before the 
 Mutiny, and the discipline, efliciency, and mobility of the native army have 
 been greatly improved. Much, however, still remains to be done, to secure 
 the contentment of the natives with our rule. 
 
 " Our position has been materially strengthened by the provision of 
 main and subsidiary lines of communication by road and railway ; by the 
 great network of telegraphs which now intersects the country ; and by the 
 construction of canals. These great ;public works have largely increased 
 the area of land under cultivation, minimized the risk of famine, equal- 
 ized the price of agricultural produce, and developed a large and lucrative 
 export trade. Above all, while our troops can now be assembled easily 
 and rapidly at any centre of disturbance, the number of British soldiers 
 has been more than doubled and the number of native soldiers has been 
 materially reduced. Moreover, as regards the native equally with the 
 British army of India, I believe that a better feeling never existed through- 
 out the ranks than exists at present. 
 
130 
 
 ' ' Nevertheless, there are signs that the spirit of unrest and discontent 
 which sowed the seeds of the Mutiny is being revived. To some extent this 
 state of things is the natural result of onr position in India, and is so far 
 unavoidable, but it is also due to old faults reappearing — faults which 
 require to be carefully watched and guarded against, for it is certain that, 
 however well disposed as soldiers the men in our ranks may be, their 
 attitude will inevitably be influenced by the feelings of the people gen- 
 erally, more especially should their hostility be aroused by any question 
 connected with religion. 
 
 ' ' For a considerable time after the Mutiny we became more cautious 
 and conciliatory in administrative and legislative matters, more intent on 
 doing what would keep the chiefs and rulers satisfied, and the masses con- 
 tented and the country quiet, than on carrying out our own ideas. Grad- 
 ually this wholesome caution is being disregarded. The government has 
 become more and more centralized, and the departmental spirit very 
 strong. Each department, in its laudable wish for progress and advance- 
 ment, is apt to push on measures which are obnoxious to the natives, either 
 from their not being properly understood, or from their being opposed to 
 their traditions and habits of life, thus entailing the sacrifice of many 
 cherished customs and privileges. Each department admits in theory the 
 necessity for caution, but in practice presses for liberty of action to further 
 its own particular schemes. 
 
 " Of late years, too, the tendency has been to increase the number of 
 departments and of secretariat offices under the supreme government, and 
 this tendency, while causing more work to devolve on the supreme gov- 
 ernment than it can efficiently perform, results in lessening the responsi- 
 bility of provincial governments by interference in the management of 
 local concerns. It is obvious that a country like India, composed as it is of 
 great provinces and various races differing from one another in interests, 
 customs and religions, each with its own peculiar and distinct necessities, 
 administrative details ought to be left to the people on the spot. The 
 government of India would then be free to exercise a firm and impartial 
 control over the Empire and Imperial interests, while guiding into safe 
 channels, without unduly restraining, intelligent progress. 
 
 In times of peace the administration is apt to fall too exclusively into the 
 hands of officials whose ability is of the doctrinaire type ; they work hard, 
 and can give logical and statistical reasons for the measures they propose, 
 and are thus able to make them attractive to, and believed in by, the 
 authorities. But they lack the more perfect knowledge of human nature, 
 and the deeper insight into, and greater sympathy with, the feelings and 
 prejudices of Asiatics, which those possessed in a remarkable degree who 
 proved by their success that they had mastered the problem of the best 
 form of government in India. I allude to men like Thomas Munro, 
 Mountstuart Elphinstone, John Malcolm, Charles Metcalfe, George Clerk, 
 Henry and John Lawrence, William Sleeman, James Outram, Herbert 
 Edwardes, John Nicholson, and many others. These administrators, while 
 fully recognizing the need for a gradual reform, understood the peculiar- 
 
131 
 
 ities of our position in the East, the necessity, for extreme caution and 
 toleratiou, and a ' live and let live ' policy between us and the natives. 
 The sound and broad views of this class of public servant are not always 
 appreciated either in India or England, and are too often put aside as 
 impracticable, obstructive, and old fashioned. 
 
 "Amongst the causes which have produced discontent of late years, I 
 would mention our forest laws and sanitary regulations, our legislative 
 and fiscal systems measures so necessary that no one interested in the 
 prosperity of In (La could cavil at their introduction, but which are so 
 absolutely foreign to native ideas, that it is essential they should be applied 
 with the utmost gentleness and circumspection. 
 
 " I think, also, that the official idea of converting the young Princes and 
 nobles of India into English gentlemen by means of English tutors and 
 English studies should be carried out with great care and caution. It has 
 not hitherto invariably succeeded and the feeling in many States is strongly 
 opposed to it. The danger of failure lies in the wholesome restraint of the 
 tutor being suddenly removed and in the young Prince being left at too 
 early an age to select his advisers and companions. The former, perhaps 
 not unnaturally, are interested in proving that the training of their young 
 ruler by his European governor or tutor has not resulted in good either to 
 himself or his people, while the latter are too often of the lowest class of 
 European adventurers. 
 
 " The proceedings aad regulations of the Forest Department desirable as 
 they may be from a financial and agricultural point of view, have provoked 
 very great irritation in many parts of India. People who have been ac- 
 customed from time immemorial to pick up sticks and graze their cattle 
 on forest lands, cannot understand why they should now be forbidden to 
 do so, nor can they realize the necessity for preserving the trees from the 
 chance of being destroyed by fire, a risk to which they were frequently 
 exposed from the native custom of making use of their shelter while cook- 
 ing and burning the undergrowth to enrich the grazing. 
 
 " The action taken by tlie Government in sanitary matters has also 
 aroused much ill-feeling aud apprehension. Sanitary precautions are en- 
 tirely ignored in Eastern countries. The great majority of the people can 
 see no good in them, and no harm in using the same tank for drinking 
 purposes and for bathing and washing their clothes. The immediate sur- 
 roundings of their towns and villages are most offensive, being used as the 
 general receptacles for dead animals and all kinds of filth. Cholera, fever 
 and other diseases, which carry off hundreds of thousands every year, are 
 looked upon as the visitation of God, from which it is impossible, even 
 were it not impious to try to escape ; and the precautionary measures in- 
 sisted upon by us in our cantonments, and at the fairs and places of pil- 
 grimage, are viewed with aversion and indignation. Only those who have 
 witnessed the personal discomfort and fatigue to which natives of all ages 
 and both sexes willingly submit in their struggle to reach some holy shrine 
 on the occasion of a religious festival while dragging their weary limbs for 
 many hundreds of miles along a hot, dusty road, or being huddled for 
 
132 
 
 hours together in a cramped and stifling railway carriage can have any 
 idea of the bitter disappointment to the pilgrims caused by their being or- 
 dered to disperse when cholera breaks out at such gatherings, without 
 being given the opportunity of performing their vows or bathing in the 
 sacred waters. 
 
 "Further, our legislative system is based on western ideas, its object 
 being to mete out equal justice to the rich and poor, to the prince and 
 peasant. But our methods of procedure do not commend themselves to the 
 Indian peoples. Eastern races are accustomed to a paternal despotism and 
 they conceive it to be the proper function of the local representatives of 
 the supreme power to investigate and determine on the spot the various 
 criminal and civil cases which come under the cognizance of the district 
 officials. Legal technicalities and references to distant tribunals confuse 
 and harass a population which, with comparatively few exceptions is 
 illiterate, credulous and suspicious of underhand influence. An almost un- 
 limited right of appeal from one Court to another, in matters of even tlie 
 most trivial importance, not only tends to impair the authority of the local 
 magistrate, but gives an unfair advantage to the wealthy litigant whose 
 means enable him to secure the services of the ablest pleader, and to pur- 
 chase the most conclusive evidence in support of his claim. For it must be 
 remembered that in India evidence on almost any subject can be had for 
 the buying, and the difficulty, in the administration of justice, of discrimi- 
 nating between truth and falsehood is hereby greatly increased. Under 
 our system a horde of unscrupulous pleaders has sprung up, and these men 
 encourage useless litigation thereby impoverishing their clients, and creat- 
 ing much ill-feeling against our laws and administration. 
 
 " Another point worthy of consideration is the extent to which, under 
 the protection of our legal system, the peasant proprietors of India are 
 being oppressed and ruined by village shop keepers and money lenders. 
 These men advance money at a most exorbitant rate of interest, taking as 
 security the crops and occupancy rights of the cultivators of the soil. The 
 latter are ignorant, improvident, and in some matters, such as the marriage 
 ceremonies of their families, inordinately extravagant. The result is that 
 a small debt soon swells into a big one, and eventually the aid of the law 
 courts is invoked to oust the cultivator from a holding which, in many 
 cases, has been in the possession of his ancestors for hundreds of years. 
 The money lender has his accounts to produce, and these can hardly be 
 disputed, the debtor as a rule being unable to keep accounts of his own, or, 
 indeed, to read or write. Before the British dominion was established in 
 India, the usurer no doubt existed, but his opportunities were fewer, his 
 position more precarious and his operations more tinder control than they 
 are at present. The money lender then knew that his life would not be 
 safe if he exacted too high interest for the loans with which he accommo- 
 dated his customers, and that if he became too rich, some charge or other 
 would be trumped up against him, which would force him to surrender a 
 large share of his wealth to the officials of the state in which he was living. 
 I do not say that the rough-and-ready methods of native justice in dealing 
 
133 
 
 with money lenders were excusable or tolerable, but at the same time, I 
 am inclined to think that, in granting these men every legal facility for 
 enforcing their demands and carrying on their traffic, we may have 
 neglected the interests of the agriculturists, and that it might be desirable 
 to establish some agency under the control of government, which would 
 enable the poor landholders to obtain, at a moderate rate of interest 
 advances proportionate to the securities they had to offer. 
 
 " Another danger to our supremacy in India is the license allowed to 
 the native press in vilifying the government and its officials, and persist- 
 ently misrepresenting the motives and policy of tne ruling power. In a free 
 country, where the mass of the population is well educated, independent 
 and self reliant, a free press is a most valuable institution, representing as 
 it does, the requirements and aspirations of important sections of the com- 
 munity, and bringing to life defects and abuses in the social and political 
 system. In a country such as Great Britain, which is well advanced in 
 the art of self-government, intolerant and indiscriminate abuse of public 
 men defeats its own object, and misstatements of matters of fact can be at 
 once exposed and refuted. Like most of the developments of civilization 
 which are worth anything, the English press is a plant of indigenous 
 growth, whereas in India the native press is an exotic which, under 
 existing conditions, supplies no general want, does nothing to refine, 
 elevate or instruct the people, and is used by its supporters and promoters 
 — an infinitesimal part of the population — as a means of gaining its selfish 
 ends, and of fostering sedition, and racial and religious animosities. 
 There are, I am afraid, very few native newspapers actuated by a friendly 
 or impartial spirit towards the government of India and to Asiatics it 
 seems incredible that we should permit such hostile publications to be 
 scattered broadcast over the country unless the assertions were too true to 
 be disputed, or unless we were too weak to suppress them. We gain 
 neither credit nor gratitude for our tolerant attitude toward the native 
 press — our forbearance is misunderstood, and while the well-disposed are 
 amazed at our inaction, the disaffected rejoice at being allowed to promul- 
 gate baseless insinuations and misstatements which undermine our author- 
 ity and thwart our efforts to gain the good -will and confidence of the 
 native population. 
 
 " Yet another danger to the permanence of our rule in India lies in the 
 endeavors of well-intentioned faddists to regulate the customs and institu- 
 tions of Eastern races in accordance with their own ideas. The United 
 Kingdom is a highly civilized country and our habits and convictions 
 have been gradually developed under the influences of our religion and our 
 natural surroundings. Fortunately for themselves, the people of Great 
 Britain possess qualities which have made them masters of a vast and still- 
 expanding empire, but these qualities have their defects as well as their 
 merits, and one of the defects is a certain insularity of thought or narrow- 
 mindedness — a slowness to recognize that institutions which are perfectly 
 suitable and right for us may be quite unsuited, if not injurious to other 
 races, and that what may not be right for us to do is not necessarily wrong 
 
134 
 
 for people of a different belief, and with absolutely different traditions 
 and customs. 
 
 "Gradually the form of government in the United Kingdom has become 
 representative and democratic, and it is therefore assumed by some people, 
 who have little, if any, experience in the East that the government of 
 India should be guided by the utterances of self -appointed agitators, who 
 pose as the mouthpieces of an oppressed population. Some of these men 
 are almost as much aliens as ourselves, while others are representatives of 
 a class which, though intellectually advanced, has no influence amongst 
 the races in whom lies the real strength of India. Municipal self-govern- 
 ment has been found to answer well in the United Kingdom, and it is held, 
 therefore, that a similar system must be equally successful in India. We 
 in England consume animal food and alcoholic liquors, but have no liking 
 for opium. An effort has accordingly been made to deprive our Asiatic 
 fellow-subjects, who, as a rule, are vegetarians, and either total abstainers 
 or singularly abstemious in the matter of drink, of a small and inexpensive 
 stimulant, which they find necessary to their health and comfort. British 
 institutions and ideas are the embodiment of what long experience has 
 proved to us to be best for ourselves ; but suddenly to establish these insti- 
 tutions and enforce these ideas on a community which is not prepared for 
 them, does not want them, and cannot understand them, must only lead 
 to suspicion and discontent. The government of India should, no doubt, 
 be progressive in its policy, and in all things be guided by the immutable 
 principles of right, truth and justice ; but these principles ought to be ap- 
 plied, not necessarily as we should apply them in English, but with due 
 regard to the social peculiarities and religious prejudices of the people 
 whom it ought to be our aim to make better and happier. 
 
 "It will be gathered from what I have written that our administration, 
 in my opinion, suffers from two main defects. First, it is internally too 
 bureaucratic and centralizing in its tendencies, and, secondly, it is liable 
 to be forced by the external pressure of well-meaning but irresponsible 
 politicians and philanthropists to adopt measures which may be disap- 
 proved of by the authorities on the spot, and opposed to the wishes, 
 requirements and interests of the people. It seems to me that for many 
 years to come the best form of government for India will be the intelligent 
 and benevolent despotism which at present rules the country. On a small 
 scale, and in matters of secondary importance, representative institutions 
 cannot perhaps do much harm, though I am afraid they will effect but 
 little good. On a large scale, however, such a system of government 
 would be quite out of place in view of the fact that ninety-nine out of 
 every hundred of the population are absolutely devoid of any idea of civil 
 responsibility, and that the various races and religious sects possess no 
 bond of national union. 
 
 "In reply, then, to the question "Is there any chance of a mutiny 
 occurring again ? " I would say that the best way of guarding against 
 such a calamity is : 
 
 "By never allowing the present proportion of British to native soldiers 
 
135 
 
 to be diminished or the discipline and efficiency of the native army to 
 become slack. 
 
 " By taking care that men are selected for the higher civil and military 
 posts, whose self-reliance, activity, and resolution are not impaired by age, 
 and who possess a knowledge of the country and the habits of the peoples. 
 
 "By recognizing and guarding against the dogmatism of theorists and 
 the dangers of centralization. 
 
 ' ' By rendering our administration on the one hand firm and strong, on 
 the other hand tolerant and sympathetic, and last but not least, by doing 
 all in our power to gain the confidence of the various races, and by con- 
 vincing them that we have not only the determination, but the ability to 
 maintain our supremacy in India against all assailants. 
 
 ' ' If these cardinal points are never lost sight of, there is, I believe, little 
 chance of any fresh outbreak disturbing the stability of our rule in India, 
 or neutralizing our efforts to render that country prosperous, contented 
 and thoroughly loyal to the British Crown." 
 
 But here comes a most important question. When was the 
 rule of a subject race by the younger sons of the British 
 hereditary oligarchy ever ''tolerant and sympathetic?" If the 
 permanence of British rule in India depends on Englishmen 
 being " tolerant and sympathetic/' then British rule in India is 
 near its end. 
 
 Certain passages in this quotation from Lord Roberts deserve 
 tie most serious consideration. The first point, which he makes 
 apparent, is the extreme danger arising from the native soldiers 
 unless they are overawed by an adequate number of British 
 regular troops, and especially, unless they are kept in subjuga- 
 tion by the apprehended certainty of British supremacy. Let 
 us carefully note the following most significant words from 
 Lord Roberts: 
 
 "When mercenaries feel that they are indispensable to the maintenance 
 of .that authority which they have no patriotic interest in upholding, they 
 begin to consider whether it would not be more to their advantage to aid 
 in overthrowing that authority and if they decide that it would be, they 
 have little scruples in transferring their allegiance from the government 
 they never loved, and have ceased^'to fear, to the power more in accord- 
 ance with their own ideas and from which they are easiest persuaded they 
 will obtain unlimited benefits." 
 
 Could it be possible to describe more correctly the situation 
 existing in India to-day, with reference to her native army? 
 Russian intrigue, always a most potent influence with Asiatics, 
 
136 
 
 will have little difficulty, in case of British reverses in South 
 Africa, or in case of a delay in large British successes, in per- 
 suading the Indian population, and the Indian army, that "they 
 will obtain unlimited benefits" by "transferring their allegi- 
 ance from the government they never loved, and have ceased 
 to fear, to the power more in accordance with their own ideas." 
 
 We have heard of late utterances on the part of high 
 British officials, of something like a threat, that they would use 
 Indian Sepoys in the South African war. After reading the 
 foregoing extract from Lord Boberts, it is easily apparent, that 
 such a thing is quite impossible. Any attempt to transfer the 
 Sepoys to South Africa would probably be the signal for im- 
 mediate open revolt. Even if such an attempt should succeed, 
 the Sepoys would be practically worthless, for service in a dif- 
 ferent country, and a different climate. Lord Beaconsfield's 
 transfer of seven thousand Sepoys at the time of the Bussian 
 difficulties was quite in keeping with the character of that most 
 sensational parliamentary politician. It answered well enough 
 for the British House of Commons. To the mind of any soldier, 
 it was grotesquely ridiculous. The Sepoys, as a military force, 
 have no value to the British Government outside of India; and 
 within India, at the present day, under present circumstances, 
 they are an element rather of danger than of strength. 
 
 So it will be well for England to be warned. Many promi- 
 nent Englishmen have spoken of the dangers to British prestige, 
 and to British supremacy, which would result from a conces- 
 sion of the independence of the South African Republics. They 
 will do well to consider the probability of far greater dangers, 
 from the other course of conduct. A prudent man will care- 
 fully abstain from prophesies. A wise statesman, however, 
 will make his most earnest effort, to take into consideration all 
 the features of the political and military situation, not merely 
 in the House of Commons at London, and in the present 
 field of military operations in Natal, but all over the world — 
 and especially in India. He will consider, that it is utterly 
 impossible, to tell how the South African military operations 
 will end, unless they end quickly. He will consider, that in 
 South Africa alone, if war could be certainly limited to that 
 region, the war as yet has scarcely had its beginning. 
 
137 
 
 To say that this present contest is one between free institu- 
 tions as represented by England, and an ignorant oligarchy as 
 represented by the Boers, is a gross misuse of language. The gov- 
 ernment of the Transvaal is no doubt agovernment by a few men. 
 In that sense it is an oligarchy. In that sense, the government 
 of every country is an oligarchy, whether its form be monarchic 
 or republican. The few men, however, who now govern the 
 Transvaal, are men selected by the free choice of the Transvaal 
 people. The government is thoroughly republican, in the cor- 
 rect sense of the word. It secures the expression of the 
 will and judgment of the Transvaal people. It is no 
 doubt the fact, that the Boers have not been will- 
 ing to allow the rights of full citizenship to the Johan- 
 nesburg miners. The Transvaal people has, no doubt, 
 been unwilling to be overborne, in the administration of 
 their public affairs, by the denizens of a mining camp, who have 
 come into their territory for the mere purpose of exploiting 
 mines of diamonds and of gold, with a view to extracting wealth 
 from the bowels of the earth in the shortest possible number 
 of years, and then returning to their former homes to enjoy 
 their hastily gotten gains. Those newcomers have no just 
 claim to any voice in the government of the Transvaal Re- 
 public. They have never intended to serve it. They have 
 never intended to take upon themselves citizens' burdens. The 
 present government of the Transvaal Republic, headed by Presi- 
 dent Kruger, is the creation of the people who settled the 
 country; who own the country; who are entitled to all the bene- 
 fits which can be extracted from the soil; who tax the mines 
 heavily, as they ought to be taxed; and who have rightly com- 
 pelled men who have been simply digging gold, and thereby 
 depleting the mineral wealth of the country, to pay the largest 
 share of the revenues of that State. Those revenues have been 
 rightly applied in providing for the national defence. It was a 
 certainty, that Mr. Chamberlain's first attack upon the independ- 
 ence of the Transvaal in January, 1896, would be followed by a 
 second, as soon as he and Mr. Rhodes, backed by the Roths- 
 childs, should find a fitting opportunity. President Kruger 
 and his associates were well aware of this impending assault. 
 They would have been false to their trusts, if they had 
 
138 
 
 not made the fullest provision to meet it. They made 
 full provision therefor, with a wisdom and completeness 
 which must gain the admiration of the entire civilized 
 world. They well deserve our approval, and sympathy with 
 every form of encouragement which we can possibly give 
 them, in making their stand for the cause of freedom and re- 
 publican government, in opposition to a combination between 
 European bankers, a stock speculator, and a venal politician, who 
 have now for the second time embarked upon an enterprise of 
 robbery and murder. Can anything be more grotesquely absurd, 
 than to say that this combination, headed by Mr. Joseph Cham- 
 berlain, represents the cause of freedom so far as England is con- 
 cerned? The success of the British in the present war will 
 forward no real interest of the British people. At most it will 
 continue — for a time — the opportunity for the British heredi- 
 tary oligarchy to provide rich places and salaries for a large num- 
 ber of its members, the salaries to be paid by people whose inter- 
 ests will not be well served to men of another blood unfamiliar 
 with their political methods. It is not denied, that in India and 
 in the British Colonial world there have been many very esti- 
 mable men, who have with all sincerity endeavored to serve the 
 interests of the people over whom they have been placed. But 
 it is easy to see, from the testimony of Lord Roberts and Mr. 
 Steevens, that British rule in India has by no means been the 
 success which it is generally supposed to be. My own individ- 
 ual opinion is, that is has been quite the reverse. Mr. Lincoln 
 said, that no people could wisely govern any other people. It 
 was a saying, the accuracy of which is well established by the 
 facts to-day existing in British India. If the result of the 
 present Transvaal war should be the end of British rule in India, 
 it is at least a matter of great doubt, whether that result would 
 not be better for both India and England. It is not for the 
 highest interests of England, that a large number of her sons 
 should be provided with rich salaries at the expense of subject 
 populations. 
 
 But the main fundamental fact of this entire situation, mili- 
 tary and political, is that this present war, to which for the 
 present the British Government is a party, is an act of pure 
 aggression, a war of mere conquest, waged on two Republics, 
 
139 
 
 who are fighting for their homes, and their right to free demo- 
 cratic government. It is a war, promoted and directed, by the 
 Eothschilds, and their two hired servants, Mr. Rhodes and Mr. 
 Joseph Chamberlain. Mr. Rhodes is a servant of the ordinary 
 kind, bought, and paid, in money. Mr. Chamberlain is a servant 
 of another kind, bought, and paid, by political influence, with 
 money at its back. It is well understood in London — and in 
 New York — by what means the Rothschilds have been able to 
 secure the most powerful family influence, in the highest circles 
 of the British hereditary oligarchy, and thereby enable them- 
 selves to become the dominating factor — for the time — in the 
 action of the British Government. Well informed men are 
 still willing to believe, that the Marquis of Salisbury and Mr. 
 Balfour are — thus far — acting for what they think, on the 
 whole, to be the interests of the British nation. But what a 
 position for the Cecils ! To be doing the work, and serving the 
 bidding, of a stock speculator and a paid political mercenary! 
 
 The end of the whole matter is— THIS WAR OF THE 
 ROTHSCHILDS— IS A WAR FOR GOLD. In the latest 
 map of the Republic that has come to my hand from London, 
 which is stated to have had already a sale of one hundred and 
 forty thousand, there is among the "Explanations" the designa- 
 tion of "Gold Fields" by a patch of yellow. Thereupon, upon ex- 
 amining the part of the map which represents the Transvaal, we 
 find it thickly covered with patches of yellow. The Johannes- 
 burg gold district there appears only as one of many, and one of 
 the less important. 
 
 Here we have the veritable cause of this war, in behalf of 
 what Mr. J oseph Chamberlain now calls " British para- 
 mountcy." A few months ago he called it a war for the civil 
 
 AND RELIGIOUS RIGHTS OF THE UlTLANDER! 
 
 But who ever looked for the truth from Mr. Joseph Chamber- 
 lain? 
 
 GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! 
 
4 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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 1981 
 
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