THE PRESENT POSITION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6727, 23 February 1900, Page 4

THE PRESENT POSITION.

i OPINIONS OF AN EX-MILITARY OFFICER, (By RHAMABIDIKWI.) NOTES. A l ' Contrary to expectations, the cable ne»/s yesterday was extremely meagre and slightly disappointing, although . it is certain we may hear very important news both from Natal and the western province at any moment.. Qn. Sunday, tbe second New Zealand' Contingent arrived at Durban, and Major ii^f' announces that all the men are well, that only, four horses were lost during -.he y.oyage, and that the Waiwera is lying in .the, i;oads off Durban awaiting orders. rM General Buller has with him 2500 n^ouj^-ted men under the immediate command of, General Dundonald, the larger pro■portion , of whom are cavalry, and General .White has a very fair force of mounted men .also in, the beleaguered garrison, which we .trust we should hear to-day has been relieved it is hardly probable that our ; becond Contingent will be landed at Durban. . We may probably have further infor-. mation as to their destination some time' to : day. It is to be hoped that they may -have- received orders to proceed to East London,, and landing there, be conveyed by rail to > Sterkstroom, where they would prob-ably-remain for a week or so to allow of the men and horses getting into shape before joining the fighting line. If this is done, it is quite on the cards that they will be moved round to Dordrecht, to join Briga-dier-General Brabant's colonial column, which consists almost entirely of mounted men, with, of course, a proportionate force of artillery; Should they not be sent there, they may receive orders tb procSed to Capetown, where the Hotchkiss Battery would probably have arrived yesterday or to-day, and in that case, they m_iy be sent up to join the forces under the immediate command of General Roberts, and if this should be their destination, we may hear that the Second Contingent .has been associated with the weather-beaten soldiers now under the command of Major Robin. New Zealand will then have a force of 500 mounted men and a battery engaged in active fighting for the Empire. •;.' As there is ho further information from "Natal, 1 we may conclude that there has been no contact of any moment between the rearguard of the retiring Boers and the fdrces under General Buller, so that for some reason at present unexplained, the cavalry and mounted brigade of 2500 men under Lord Dundonald are not being used, as is customary in modern warfare, to harass the retreat; of the enemy. It may turn out, of course, that General Buller is using them to the eastward of Colenso. Therefore, in the absence of news, it is quite permissible to presume that General Buller is moving his men forward over the Tugela at Colenso as rapidly as possible, and that he will content himself with a steady forward movement of the nature of a military promenade, to the relief of Ladysmith. One or two correspondents of the "Lyttelton Times," lately, while' good enough to express** some little appreciation of the writer's work in general, have taken exception to his expressing any opinion upon the geawfalship displayed by . General Bul-

ler. To attempt to traverse their remarks and justify the opinions expressed would take more time and occupy more space than . it would be worth, as it would mean a recapitulation of the whole story of the British reverses in Natal at Spionkop and "^aalkrantz, which the writer, in his humble opinioh, considered were certainly avoidable. If either of these correspondents would read through the " Admiralty and Horse Guards Gazette " of Jan. 11, and peruse the American and Continental opinions on these same movements, they would find that Monsieur Bloch, and several military experts of undoubted knowledge and acumen, the report of whose opinions came to hand considerably after the writer's remarks were penned, were much more severe in their criticisms than he was. Would the readers of the " Lyttelton Times " wish the digest of the war news to be. a a mcre colourless, resume of the cablegrams? General Roberts, in his latter movements, has clearly demonstrated only what the writer repeatedly insisted upon, namely, the futility and .hopelessness of continually hurling infantry at strongly entrenched positions by frontal attacks. Supposing the correspondents' contentions were right, that Buller was acting on a pre-arranged scheme, the object of which was to keep Joubert and his large force on the gui vive in Natal, where did the necessity come in for a waste of time and a fruitless attack on a position like Spionkop, or an attack almost foredoomed to failure such as that on Vaalkrantzr? If my critics sincerely desire to be just in their remarks, they should have admitted that the writer clearly predicted, before the news of the reverse arrived, "thatthe British forces would find Spionkop un--1 tenable, and would be compelled to retire. Surely they would not have tlie writer of . cpmmentsjon.jtjie, present position of the. war a mere jelly-fish without backbone, or the courage to express his.opinions. Everyman has a right to his opinions. The writer accepts those of Mr Stopford in the spirit in whioh they were penned, and does not feel in the slightest degree hurt by them, but. he certainly does take exception to those of Mr Blackburne en Feb. 21, when Mr Blackburne concludes his remarks with a distinct inference that the^ writer of these articles has been ungenerous, unfair, untrue, impolitic and unpatriotic. Anybody who is not a Little Enghinder, and almost a pro-Boer, and who has followed the criticisms in this column, cannot, in the writer's opinion, take any reasonable exception to his remarks, as his forcecasts of events have generally proved fairly correct, and anything in the nature of strictures upon the actions of our statesmen have in the main applied to Mr Gladstone's unfortunate and mistaken generosity to tlie Boers in 1881. After consideration, the writer is not prepared to recall or regrel a' single line that he has written in regard to the operations in Natal. Reverting to the cable messages, it is unfortunate, and with the meagre information to hand, inexplicable,, .that General Cronje, especially if he has only 5000 men, hampered as he is irith heavy guns, should have been able to " evade notice." General French has with him, we were told, 6000 mounted men, and a very considerable force of guns, and it is certainly disappointing to learn that these have not been able to block the progress of Cronje. His rearguard, we learn, is being incessantly harassed, but all the same, so far, he is making good his retreat, and if not soon " bailed up," may be joined by the Boers advancing to his help from the Transvaal and Natal Prisoners are said to accuse Cronje of deceit in alleging that the British were sustaining reverses daily, but to anybody who understands the Boer character, this is only what might have been expected. The cables give us no clear indication of how far General Cronje has proceeded on his line of retreat arid it is therefore impossible to form a correct opinion of the exact extent of country over which the various columns acting under General Roberts are spread, and there is* just a danger, which must not be ignored, that our forces may become rather too scattered. In Wednesday's cables we were told that General Roberts had reached Paardeberg, thirty miles north-east, of Jacobsdal, and yesterday's cables stated that

sdW*s te%Kenny;s and Macdo^ i/V-f 4 «?* cn S a g^ in severe, fiffht-in* in che direction of the same lowkliw aj! , that tilß Boer sharpshooters killed JevS and wounded many officers. Where tV force of the enemy can have Sprung f rom {J not easy, to arrive afc, r.s the position md cated is jusfc south of the Moddsr \Xm* whereas CronjVs force was, accord...?*, g the cables, supposed to be retl'eftthw ; n " north-easterly direction, And two other di, tincfc bodies of Boers wel-ft supposed to lm™ been moving .a an easterly direction from Jacobsdal towards Bloemfontein, while 3 Mother which was in Wednesday's cables said to have been dispersed mid driven h<ko\by the fire of the naval- guns, had retired in a direction north of Kimberley. It loot' as though De La Rey, with his 10,000 men from Colesberg, had junctioned with the two columns of Boer_s moving towards Bloem fontem, and had moved up in a northerly direction to Paardeberg, as in no other waV can we account for a slifiieiently strong Boer force, -able tp engage so considerable a body of British, bfrni^in thafc neighbourhood Further news, therefore, of the fighting j n this particular -spot must be awaited before it. is poss;ole to form any correct opinion as we know nothing of the relative numbers °f c-fte forces engaged. The residents of Kimberley evidently had a .hard time of ifc, tha women and children suffering very considerable privations, having for weeks together to live underground in the mining levels, and it is not surprising to learn thafc the unexpected relief was hailed with great thankfulness, -as it came not a day too soon. The last reliable news cf the Boer forces in the Colesberg district, reilated the fact that they were in comsiderable strength at Reiidsberg, and -the British were at Arundel.- Whether the main body of our. forces' are still at the latter, place, ... . y? e . do nob know for certain,' but if they are, one or two of the latter cables, which appeared in yesterday's " Star," would cerj tainly indicate that a considerable force ~of I Boers had either. worked round their flanks or had worked over in a westerly direction from the neighbourhood 1 of Burghersdorp and Stormberg. as wo are told that the West Australian contingent, when reconnoitring eastward of Naauwpoort, became engaged with the enemy on Tuesday, Feb. 20. Only one of the contingent is reported as wounded and this small loss is accounted for by the* clever and careful way in which the men made use of every available bib of cover Then we are told, also, that a British force consisting of detachments of the various colonial troops, were fighting all day Tuesday, and succeeded in repelling an attack on Naauwpoort. Altogether, therefore, the news from this position is not of a satisfactory nature, as it shows that through the .weakness of the British in the neighbourhood, the Boers are pushing thie fighting, and there is not the slightest doubt that the British are overweighted and in need of immediate strong reinforcements. It is with sincere regret that we learn of the death of Lieutenant Neave, of New Zealand, who had been appointed subaltern in the Yorkshire Light Infantry and was killed in the operations near Kimberley. It is also disappointing to learn from the AgentGeneral's cables that Colonel Plumer's Rhodesian force was defeated by the Boers at Crocodile River. We were told a few days ago that they were engaged in a lively artillery duel at this place, and can only conjecture that the Boers were supplied with a more numerous artillery force. LATEST CABLES. Latest cables to hand inform us as surmised earlier in these notes, that General Buller is gradually and steadily pushing forward to Ladysmith. On Wednesday, Feb. 21, he spanned the Tugela with a pontoon bridge, presumably between the second waterfall and where the Klip River joins the Tugela, and passing his troops over, drove the enemy's rearguard before him, the .naval guns silencing those of the Boers, and the British taking possession of ■*• several abandoned laagers. The enemy in, their retreat, left quantities of stores, ammunition, blankets etc., and appear to have retired precipitately, abandoning their laagers with dead and wounded. The remainder of the cable is filled with a number of disconnected details relating to the fighting, and it is distracting to hear of the losses of the Canadians ab Koodoos Rand, nortbl of the Klip River, and also of the serious casualties amongst the commanding officers in some of the recent fighting. The writer will delay further comments until the receipt of more news, which must arrive some time to-day.