TEN MONTHS WITH THE BOERS

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 81, 13 April 1901, Page 4

TEN MONTHS WITH THE BOERS

A FRENCHMAN'S ACCOUNT. It could scarcely be expected that a Frenchman, and an ex-lieutenant- of the celebrated de Yillebois-Mareuil, who as commander of the foreign legion of the Boers was killed at the head of a detach-, ment of his men, would regard our country and its soldiers with a sympathetic eye. He would, indeed, have done nothing unusual if, yielding to the popular outcry of pro-Boers and enemies of our Empire, he had suppressed all that he saw or heard to our credit and enlarged on our blunders and misfortunes, But this French lieutenant, whose book, “ Ten Months in the Field with the Boers,” Mr Hcinemann has published, seems an honourable gentleman, who hits out hard from the shoulder at Briton and Boer alike when he thinks it is duty so to do. For this reason it may be .recommended to the War Office at home end to those people in our own as well as in foreign countries who have worked themselves into such a state of maudlin sentimentality over the poor dear Boers that they cannot see anthing but evil m as gallant, kind-hearted, and long-suffering an army as the world has even seen. OUR DARKEST HOUR,

When the lieutenant arrived upon the scene of operations, our fortunes had sunk to their lowest ebb. Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Colcnso had been fought and lost. But as ho shrewdly puts it, “to judge by the behaviour of the' Boers at this juncture it would have seemed that the siege of the three towns —Mafeking, Kimberley, and Ladysmith—was the end and object of the whole campaign. “ They had at this stage of the war one of the most magnificent opportunities imaginable. Full of confidence, flushed with success, well equipped, and more numerous than they would ever be again, they might have reckoned on the cooperation of the Cape Boers, who, believing in the possible success of their brethren, were preparing to throw in their lot with them.

“Against them they had some 40,000 English, half of them only just disembarked, unacclimatised, untried in warfare, and half-discouraged by recent events and scattered over a vast area.

ONE WEEK OF EFFORT.

“ Order and effort prolonged for one week only .would have overwhelmed and annihilated the English army. Cape Colony and Natal would have thrown off the yoke, associating themselves with the Transvaal and the Orange Free States, and the United States of South Africa would have been a power to reckon with.

“ But no ! Nothing was attempted. Joubert seemed to be hypnotised, before Ladysmith, Du Toit before Kimberley. “ And quietly and undisturbedly England gradually disembarked the 200,000 men Lord Kitchener thought necessary' for the work in hand.” He may speak of possibilities as certainties, but that the danger existed there is not a shadow of doubt. The Empire stood powerless with its fortunes hanging by a single thread, It was only that good luck which seems never quite to desert a British army that saved us, Many a sidelight does the book throw on disputed points over which we have all waxed argumentative. Some have a sentimental, others a practical, importance. THE DUM-DUM BULLET.

Take again the question of the DumDum bullet. He says :—“ The story that the Boers only used those they had captured from the British in quite inadmissible, for the Manser rifles, which were used exclusively in the Transvaal, were largely provided with them ” ; while of that redoubted body, the “Irish Brigade,” he tells how the majority of them \yore made prisoners after getting drunk and breaking the stores ! As to the losses of the Boers he can speak with no certainty. No proper lists were ever supplied. But now and again ho lets drop a few words that show how mnch heavier they were than the authorities at Pretoria would admit. At Kimberley “ a good many” of the English shells “ burst with satisfactory results—to those who fired them ” ; and it is curious to hear that as a result of this the besiegers as well as the besieged dug deep underground shelters, * PRAISE FOR BRITISH INFANTRY. In his criticism of the whole conduct of the campaign, the lieutenant shows himself a careful observer, with a distinct vein of humor. Tommy Atkins he admires, frankly and freely, like the gallant soldier of fortune that he is. Hear his description of the various forces which composed our army:— “ Tommy Atkins, tho regular, cold, calm, advances under a hail of projectiles, marching steadily iu time as if on the parade-ground. Scornful of danger, his head held high, he seems to say: ‘Make way ! lam an Englishman!’ “ The colonial, on the other hand, tho cowboy, the volunteer from the Cape, from Rhodesia, and from Australia, a hunter by profession, fights in the same fashion as the Boors. He has their qualities and their defects —great precision as a marksman, but a lack of cohesion and of discipline. “But a good many militiamen, volunteers from various towns, and Yeomen aro even less brilliant, and exchange perils, privations, and fatigue for a sojourn in a Boer prison with great readiness. Some of the regular regiments, too, brought up to their fighting strength by hasty recruiting at the last moment, are not exempt from the shame of unnecessary capitulations. “ But such proceedings are not characteristic of Tommy. The Englishman knows very little of the art of war, but he is brave —very brave.” Of the officers, he speaks with a professional bitterness. Says he : “ The profession of arms in England is an occupation not at all absorbing, but very fashionable, very ‘ sporting.’ “ War itself is a sport, which has its

special costume, its accidents proper to the soldier, but which is not supposed to engross the man. The fact that a great many officers brought with them, in addition to thoir khaki uniforms and braided tunics, tennis, football, 'and polo costumes, dress-coats, and smokingjackets, is significant of this state of Blind. "'through french glasses.

11 The programme they had mentally drawn up was something of-this sort: From seven to eight a.m., football, breakfast ; from nine to ten, lawn tennis; frc in ten to eleven, a battle ; then a rest, a tub, massage, lunch 1 “The English officer is a gentleman, always perfectly well-bred, often very well educated, and extremely- affable ; but he is a gentleman, and not an officer. “ I am no Anglophile, as my campaign of over eight mqnths on the Boer side sufficiently proves, but it.is the duty of a loyal soldier to recognise the qualities and the courage of his adversaries,” Our lieutenant is one of those men whpm the war has disillusionised as regards our brother Boer, Do Yillcbois; Mareuil, his loved chief, was treated as 'a child, his advice rejected, and his plans thwarted. As the fall of Pretoria drew nigh, the lot of the foreigners grew worse, until finally Lorentz, whp had succeeded Colonel De Villcbois:Mareuil as their chief, finding his men starved, unpaid and neglected, sent in the following manifesto to the authorities : “ As the honorable Government of the Z.A.R. cannot accede to our modest but just demands, we, the foreigners of various nationalities, being without means of livelihood, are no longer in a position to sacrifice our lives for the maintenance of the Federated Republics,” He charges:— “ It is true that, from the highest functionary to the humblest burgher, all were intent on the most shameless pillage. I saw army contractors, on whom no sort of check existed, charged with the provision of every kind of necessary, food, clothing, horses, oxen, etc., and making fine fortunes in no time ; while the honest and worthy Boer received from the State horses and harness which he afterwards sold to it again with the utmost coolness. THE BRIBING OF THE PRESS. “ I know, too, that very large sums were devoted to a press propaganda, in favor of the South African Republics. And how many skilful middlemen, by means of round sums judiciously ’ distributed, secured orders for the most expensive and useless commodities ?"

Two instances of mismanagement, and orruption which he quotes are worth eealling. A 10,000 franc balloon was bought, and an reronaut at 2000 francs a month was engaged. The latter hung about for weeks, drew his pay, aud returned to Paris. As\ he left Lorenzo Marquez he noticed his balloon and apparatus still lying on the quay. Again, a certain Mrs D. had engaged “ to deliver 500 saddles a week at .110 each; ” but a good many of tho burghers to whom the saddles were distributed sold them back to tho worthy lady’s agents for £-i or £5, aud she then sold them again to the State, after changing the more conspicuous of them a little. “ It is not difficult to sec wffiy there was no money for the combatants.”