CRONJE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8760, 26 February 1900, Page 3

CRONJE.

• Tha correspondent of the London Times at Modder river, writes as follows of General Cronje, under date December 20th :- It iB possible to estimate the influence of "* Cronje on the present force opposing us from reports of prisoners and others It has had a great effect upon the Laodicean Free Staters, who have responded well lo the. leaders of the Tranavaalers, though leave is seldom allowed to the former by Cronje, whose assumption of the absolute Command of the coalition is deeply resented ■f by many Free Staters. The latter allege ' that Delarey, the Free State Commandant, conceives the strategy .of overy encounter, and that Cronje, with the aid of sjamboks, " carries it oat. The use of sjamboks is undoubted. One Boer asked an English doctor if much sjamboking was necessary among us also, CroDJe haa on several occasions lately refused to carry out President Steyn's instructions, notably in the matter of the release of Major Burtchaell. On another occasion Cronje's uife and daughter, who ■ accompany him on the campaign, insisted on releasing Brown, of Brown's Drift, who was captured last week, his young children being left untended. He has developed a silent morose nature, and on Saturday replied to courteous letters from Lord Methuen, refusing to continue any correspondence nntil the close of the war. There is no doubt as to his Btrength of character, but he is not very intellectual. A FKO-BOEK VIEW OF THE MAN. Mr Douglas Story, who until lately was editor of a pro-Boer paper, contributes to the Daily Mail the following article on Commandant Cronje, whose forces are now in retreat to Bloemfontein, pursued by the British : — 'I see Cronje now as I saw him standing by the graveside of the Republic's "Fighting General," Nicnlaas Smit, in the silent God's-acre above Pretoria. It was a heavy South African evening, with the sun just Btoking, hot and dusty, to the westward, whereabout Doornkop lies. The slow wail of Chopin's " Dead March " had ceased, and the ieaders of the Boer people gathered round the narrow, brick-lined pit where lay the last of him who won * Majuba. On whom has the warrior's mantle fallen? Without doubt the chosen of the burghera is Cronje. Joubert they admire as a tactician and an organiser, but to them he ia ever "SlimPiet," the man with heterodox views of progression and political development, the man who opposes Kruger and has held pßrley with the strauger within the gates. Cronje — rough, burly, asking no man's friendship, and gaining that of few, with steely grey eyes peering out from below Bhaggy eyebrows— is the man the burghers trust when the commandos are out. He has beep with them at Bronhorst Spruit ► — and MAJUBA. HILL. He sqved tliß Republic at Doornkop, and no man ever yet suspected him of traffic with the Uitlanders. Bj[ force of a popular vote that never required a poll, Cronje has been, since the day of Smit'a death, tacitly acknowledged the people's General of the Transvaal. Wily and far-seeing, as is Piet Joubert, no man of them all can handle troops in the field as Cronje. He has the eye of a hawk for position, the nose of a jackal for signs of weakness in an enemy. His manoeuvring of Jameson was that of an Oliver Cromwell. Cronjo was commandant at Potchef- ■ stroom, 70 miles to the south of Krugersdorp, when Jameson crossed the border. He' co-operated with Malan and Potgieter, but the conduct of the fight lay with tho cool head of Cronje. I rode out to the Bcene of Jameson's defeat some time after tho battle, ami " realised how much of the hunter there is still io the Boer fighting man. No mere soldier would have herded his enemy so patiently into a position as did Cronje into the fatal corral at Doornkop. - All; through the night succeeding Jameson's attack on Krugersdorp, Cronje kept warily hustling his enemy into the Elace of death. The brave, foolish troopers, eavy with sleep, were driven LIKE SHEEP INTO A SHAMBLES. When the morning broke, to the right, to the left, and in front of them Boer marksmen kept their rifles trained upon the raiders. Escape there was none. But the battle was won inthe night hours, while Jameson was helplessly blundering on in front of his remorseless enemy. Cronjo could afford to wait until tho troopers came within a hundred yards before he . gave the mercy blow. And yet there was a time in the darkness when Jameson almost escaped lrom his hunters. Cronje's son was badly wounded in the early skirmish. For the moment - *?• the father's instinct overcame the general's discretion. He bore his boy back to Krugeredorp, and left him with Dr Viljnen there. It was a father's act, and one strangely unlike the rough farmer's exterior of the man who mastered Sir John Wiiloughby. The lesson learned that pitiful night dictated Cronje's courteous assurance to the defender of Mafeking that the Bed Cross was safe from him and his. While Cronje was gone somebody blundered ; and the troopers in their blindness very nearly wandered round the flank of the beaters into safety. But it was not to be, and long ere daylight Cronjo was back to repair damage and ARRANGE HIS FISAL BATTL?;. That drizzly, misty night mado Cronje a wargod among tho Boers. And yet these stolid vcldtmen give little demonstration of their admiration. The Boers are not a grateful nation, as the ' Americans with their Dewey or we British with our Kitchener are grateful. Days after the battle I saw Cionje riding heavily down the Kekstraat in Pretoria, v heavy, ' big-boned peasant, upon a shaggy, tiippliug pony. No man touched his hat to him ; few accosted him. And yet it is significant that Cronje, among the Boers, is always known as " Commandant " Cronje. There is v rude dignity about the man that compels so much of respect. Other men are known by their Christian names— " Slim Piet" Joubert, "Oom Christian" Joubert, "Oom Jan " Hofmeyr— occasionally, but rarely nowadays, "Oom Paul" Kruger. In a place apart stands "Commandant" Cronje. So far as my memory carries, Cronje was not even specifically thanked by tho Yolks-

raad for his great services to the State at Doornkop. He was a burgher ; it was his duty to repel the invader ; he repelled him, and there the matter ended. THEY WOULD HAVE CENSURED Hilt had he failed ; they refrained from comment when be succeeded. Cronje, riding back to Pretoria, bad no guard of honor to receive him, no great civic function to fete him, no sword of honor to adorn him. tie was plain Peasant Cronje, returning, heavy-hearted, from his wounded son's pallet in Krugersdorp Hospital, somewhat wenry in the bones from those long hours in the steaming saddle, nowise elated, nowise altered from his everyday demeanor. Since then Cronje has received a seat in the Executive Council, and is now a personage with a substantial State salary ; but the man is in no way changed. He was thought to be a supporter of the President when he joined the Executive Council, but neither Kruger nor Jonbert has found him amenable. He is not of the race that makes the party man. He is individual as Kruger, strong in the faith of h ; s own generalship as Joubcrt. A eoldier and a leader of men, he somewhat despises politics. For him the capture of prisoners is everything ; their disposal a matter for the stay at-homes. In the early days of 1898 it was thought Cronje might oppose Kruger for the Presidency. But his ambitions lie elsewhere. To be immured in Pretoria were to Cronjo an imprisonment. He is a. man of the veldt, born there, and asking no better Fate than to die there, rifle in hand, as becomes a hunter and a soldier.