FRENCH STRATEGIST ON THE OBJECT OF THE WAR.

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

FRENCH STRATEGIST ON THE OBJECT OF THE WAR.

WRESTING THE WHOLE OF SOUTH AFRICA FROM ENGLAND. Colonel Villebois Marcuil, who is General Joubert's chief of the staff, has written to a friend in London the following interesting and instructive letter, which has just been published : — Lonrenso Marques, DelngOA Bay, 23rd November. — My Dear Friend — To-morrow I shall be rolling on towards Pretoria. Everything is settled. My luggage is at the station, I have my pissport in my pocket, and I can say that everyone has done his best to make things easy for me. I am starting with a Boer who came with me from Marseilles. lam already preceded hy five accredited German officers, but' I shall try not to leave the reputation of the French military service in abeyance. What is going on is almost improbable, and I am happy at having seen through the situation, and after having, to my sorrow, predicted the misfortunes of the French army, arrived at a correct appreciation of the quality of these troops. The natural plan of Sir Buller was to concentrate on the Orange river, to invade the Free State, which lay open to him, to avail himself of the Capetown-Bloemfontein and Capetown Kimberley lines to beat the Free Staters, and either to take in the flank the Transvaal troops if they persisted in occupying Natal, or to compel them to seek refuge at Pretoria. But events have marched so rapidly, and public opinion in its alarm has exercised so much pressure that Sir Buller has been obliged to despatch reinforcements to Durban for the relief of Laiysmith, so that at the present moment 10,000 Englishmen are advancing to the succor of that town, which is almost at the last gasp, and beyond which, Boers have pushed to within sixty miles of Pietermaritzburg. It is the system of the little detachments to save time, and the plan which has been most condemned by experience. Ab an excuse for the English, it must, however, be said that the north of the Cape is rising and Natal as well. The Boers are organising and carrying on the administration in the places which they occupy. They have an implacable method in everything. They have taken five mines, which they are working in order to keep up their supply of cash. The English prisoners are treated with the utmost consideration — the public monuments are even show to them by way of proving that the Boers are not savages. But, on the other baud, the English give way to excesses like those of the 4th (sic) Lancers, who despatched wounded men, whom they surrounded and destroyed in spite of all appeals to the white flag, only five being spared to tell the tale. A very curious military study is to be made here, end I shall endeavor to note it down as well as I can in spite of my service. Do not, however, expect .... because letters are opened On these shores we are still good for something, and we should get on well if we only had a Government of intelligence. What a pity it is that all France can give is notdrawn from her. lam going to try to serve her to the best of my ability. It is simply a question of wresting the whole of South Africa from England— it is the cut into the big oak. I have thrown myoelf into a very exciting adventure, but that will last a long time. — Yours, ever (signed), Villebois Marcuil.