THE BOER, AS A FIGHTING MAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2401, 8 March 1900, Page 65

THE BOER, AS A FIGHTING MAN.

Writing from Honey Nest Kloof, Julian Ralph, the correspondent who is watching the war "through Yankee glasses," says: — After the Belmont battle I walked over the entire field, and, between what I saw and what was told me by our officers and men who had taken part in the assault", 1 learned more about the Boers as fighting men than I had been able to p.ather all over the Cape Colony in tlie preceding four weeks.

To begin with, the English reader may picture a top-Je or hill in this country as a pile of bouldcuv- — a jjtone hexo. It may be a hill or a small mountain — 50ft or 1500 ft in height, though in the battlefields where we have thus far fought the konjed have not been abo-\e 500 ft or below 150 ft.

All have been heaps of loose boulders, and the practice of the enemy has been to lift and carry the smaller rocks about so as to build breastworks of them.

Behind these, .always built around the tops of the hills, the Boers hide and shoot.

Let me describe the top of one small hill in the Belmonl engagement, the one in storming which the brave Grenadiers suffered part of their fearfully heavy l'iss. All round the edge of the top were circular or semi-circular breastworks of rocks. They were so many forts — one for each fighting man. Being high in air and overlooking a great valley, they were, very like (he lofty eyries of birds of prey.

To look into them, with their rude bedding, scattered food, and general debris, was as if one viewed the nests of so many hawks.

On this kopje the Boer commander had compelled the poorer men of bis commando to live for weeks. T took it that these were men of the per van I and the labourer class. Their dead, whose untidy and neglected bodies I saw seated as thp British bullet.-! and bayonet? found them, confirmed this theory, for they worn poorly clad, unshaven, uncle? n, and hungry-looking. Thpy were of that cla^s of Boer whom Jame: Bryca describes a.- having started at a fcvenleen-oonturv -lindf.rd and deteriorated for 300 year 1 :. T knew whni I saw Mich men among the dead, the wounded, and the prisoners, how it could be that white

men could misuse the white 3ag and racek the sacred purpose of the Geneva Cro s s.

In nearly ovory C)'iip where men had been compelled co stay and live there v. as a tea kettle, an extra coat for night covering. » mek in wliidi foc>d and clolhe? had been broKgii>, and which. i:c.\t had served as v pallet, -ome mea.'ici. unleavenfd biscuits or brcau-Ku.es. junks of biltong or jerked meat, and a kitchen kuii' 1 .

Thp food, the dirt, and the extraordinary profusion of cartridges and cartridge wrappines were al! nii.xed together, but the- earth and ike tli-ordcr were not so offensive as the ijriiK.v- beastly condition of the- dead.

A few commanding breastworks had been built js for ,i citadel on the crest of the kopje ab';\e thp ring of eyries.

In one of these I found a young Boer dead, with a bullet hole in his forehead. He was of a superior type, intelligent of face, neatly dieted, and had been shooting with gloves on his hands. Had he lived to escape he would have been one of the very great many Boors who were seen flying down tho farther side of the range of kopjes and leap'-ig upon their horses or into their Cape carts and " spiders." They had done what damage they could to us, and, now that their own lives were endangered, they commanded their subordinates to remain, and sought their own" safety. This ib according to Boer piinciples — in keeping with the etiquette and conventions of a people who know neither eliquette nor convention in war. It is not by guesswork that I thus describe their methods. It is what our prisoners have told me.

If I could write steadily for a w€ :-k (and if there were no such strict censorship as fetters me) I could not exhaust t v e Us!, of peculiarities, eccentricities, anomalies, and novelties of this war waged against us by an undisciplined force of rabbis who are soldiers by instinct, slayers by training, and farmers or cattle raisers for livelihood. But i could not in all that week slate a more astonishing face than that at some of these battles the. better-class Boers have come to battle in their carriages like gentlemen driving to the Derby at Jio'me, and, having done their best, havo retired in the same way, leaving their vassal to cover their retreat.

More numerous than those who come in carriages to battle are those who sand their .best hqrses ahead and ride to battle on inferior animals. They " knee-halter " their btibt horses, turn out- iraon the veldl the poorer ones they have ridden, and — when retreat is ordered — run down the kopjes and mocnt their best steeds in order to be able to cluck a cavalry chaso. whic'i has thus far been impossible because the horses of our few mounted men have either had too much work earlier in the da} r or have been overwhelmed by fiTe from unexpected quarters.

I have heard that the only uniforms in the Beer ranks are those of the Transvaal Artillery, but if this is true, and any are costumed mililariiv I have not yet 'seen them. All whom I have seen have been clad like the farmers and villppers we have met with all along our line of '.narch. They wear sliorb coats, trousers of pa 1 terns that are often so loud that they alinc^-. scream, and narrowbrimmed soft hats of light-brown felt. The prisoners whom we capture seem to mo a sullen, unpretjossersino lot, wlto ask no favours and take kindnesses very callously. Most of them pretend to understand no English, though I am assured that there are no Free State Boers who do not habitually speak English with the English" and Dutch among themselves.

W^th the far greater number of men who deliver themselves to us or deliberately put themselves in the way of captute the case is different. They are of English, or -partly British, blood, hold their heads high, display bright eyes and frank faces, and say bluntly that they have not beliuved in tl'.R war or taken part in it except under compulsion. They tell us that no notice is given then-. — that the commanders or field cornets ride up to their horses and order them to fall in and follow at once. The legalised penalty for refusal is depth. To compare these men with the one whom we captured after he had ensnared some of our men with a false flag of truce would be like comparing cultivation with barbarism — a Londoner with a cavedweller. This scoundrel wore stiff, bristling hair all round his face, whose features were those of a primitive man.

Jn their kopjes at Belmont the ground was littered with cartridges, every one of which bore the mark of the leading London makers. Thii was true of everything else that was captured or left behind by these " Orange J?ree Staters ; " everything of theirs bo: - e English marks. It was not until we met with a Transvaal commando at the battle of Graspan (otherwise called Enslin and Royslat gte) that we saw a breach of this rule.

That the strategy and tactics of the Bo^rs have been admirable is acknowledged on all sides ; that they are result of foreign guidance is open to question. Surely it is better to admit that we were mistaken in our estimate of ihe fighting qualities of the Boer than to take from him one jot of the credit due to him as a soldier? In his own particular method of warfare he is unsurpassed, and it is these — not the rules of science manuals or the parade ground — which have baffled our generals. Xot s-o long ago the armchair critic was describing the Boors as a poor, insignificant "rabble of farmers," a description which betrayed a depth of ignorance as ridiculous as it was inexcusable. The Boer is a born soldier, the product of over a century's constant warfare against the natives. His theory may be all wrong; but, as he is an apt pupil in the school of experience, he reeks little of that. So admirably dees he adapt his methods to circumstances that it amounts to positive a, emus. Many of them have been borrowed from the Kifflrs : others are the result of the nature of the country, but as we have suffered from them in a orevious war. it might have been supposed that a repetition was impossible. To ascribe Boer successes to the military ability of the foreigner casts a reflection on our officpiv which they do not deserve. — Army and Navy Gazette.