With the Boer Forces

With the Boer Forces

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Title: With the Boer Forces
Author: Howard C. Hillegas
Release Date: August 7, 2005 [EBook #16462]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BOER FORCES ***

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WITH THE BOER FORCES
BY
HOWARD C. HILLEGAS
AUTHOR OF "OOM PAUL'S PEOPLE," AND CORRESPONDENT
OF "THE NEW YORK WORLD"

WITH TWENTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS AND A PLAN
METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON 1900
[Illustration: COMMANDANT-GENERAL LOUIS BOTHA]

PREFACE
In the following pages I have endeavoured to present an accurate
picture of the Boers in war-time. My duties as a newspaper
correspondent carried me to the Boer side, and herein I depict all that I
saw. Some parts of my narrative may not be pleasing to the British
reader; others may offend the sensibilities of the Boer sympathisers. I
have written truthfully, but with a kindly spirit and with the intention of
presenting an unbiased account of the struggle as it was unfolded to the
view from the Boer side. I shall be criticised, no doubt, for extolling
certain virtues of the Boers, but it must be noticed that their
shortcomings are not neglected in these lines.
In referring to Boer deeds of bravery I do not mean to insinuate that all
British soldiers were cowards any more than I mean to imply that all
Boers were brave, but any man who has been with armies will
acknowledge that bravery is not the exclusive property of the peoples
of one nation. The Boers themselves had thousands of examples of the
bravery of their opponents, and it was not an extraordinary matter to
hear burghers express their admiration of deeds of valour by the
soldiers of the Queen. The burghers, it may be added, were not bitter
enemies of the British soldiers, and upon hundreds of occasions they
displayed the most friendly feeling toward members of the Imperial
forces. The Boer respected the British soldier's ability, but the same
respect was not vouchsafed to the British officer, and it was not
unreasonable that a burgher should form such an opinion of the leaders
of his enemy, for the mistakes of many of the British officers were so
frequent and costly that the most unmilitary man could easily discern
them. On that account the Boers' respect for the British soldier was not
without its mixture of pity.

There are those who will assert that there was no goodness in the Boers
and that they conducted the war unfairly, but I shall make no attempt to
deny any of the statements on those subjects. My sympathies were with
the Boers, but they were not so strong that I should tell untruths in
order to whiten the Boer character. There were thieves among them--I
had a horse and a pair of field-glasses stolen from me on my first
journey to the front--but that does not prove that all the Boers were
wicked. I spent many weeks with them, in their laagers, commandos,
and homes, and I have none but the happiest recollections of my
sojourn in the Boer country. The generals and burghers, from the late
Commandant-General Joubert to the veriest Takhaar, were extremely
courteous and agreeable to me, and I have nothing but praise for their
actions. In all my experiences with them I never saw one maltreat a
prisoner or a wounded man, but, on the contrary, I observed many of
their acts of kindness and mercy to their opponents.
I have sought to eliminate everything which might have had a bearing
on the causes of the war, and in that I think I have succeeded. In my
former book, dealing with the Boers in peaceful times, I gave my
impressions of the political affairs of the country, and a closer study of
the subject has not caused me to alter my opinions. Three years before
the war began, I wrote what has been almost verified since--
"The Boers will be able to resist and to prolong the campaign for
perhaps eight months or a year, but they will finally be obliterated from
among the nations of the earth. It will cost the British Empire much
treasure and many lives, but it will satisfy those who caused it, the
South African politicians and speculators."
The first part of the prediction has been realised, but at the present time
there is