GENERAL CRONJE THE BURLY FIGHTER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue VII, 17 February 1900, Page 312

GENERAL CRONJE THE BURLY FIGHTER.

While Joubert ia the cunning schemer of the Transvaal army, Cronje is its rough and burly fighter. Of the two he is the more representative Boer. Joubert, possibly from his French ancestry, is a man of a certain polish, and can be indirect when policy requires. Cronje is blunt and always to the point. His craft is that of the hunter, and thinly disguises the force that awaits only the opportunity.

General Cronje is greatly admired by the Boers. They think Joubert is a wonderful tactician and organiser, but they love Cronje. the silent man, of sudden and violent action. He is no man’s friend. His steel grey eyes peer out from under huge, bushy brows. He never speaks unless necessary, and then in the fewest words. He never asks a favour. When time for action comes he acts, and that with the force of fate and with no consideration for himself or his men. That is the way he handled the Jameson raid. He saved the republic then, in the opinion of the Republic. He is a man after the Boer’s own heart

Cronje is a soldier and nothing He hates form. He hates politics.

though a born leader of men. He was strongly urged to oppose Kruger for the I’residency in 1898, but he would not. He will have none of any rule but that of the rifle. He despises cities. He is a man of the veldt.

These two men, Joubert and Cronje, hold in their hands the fate of the Boer Republics. The one is com-niander-in-chief, the other is second in command. Of Joubert we have heard much; of Cronje little. The <most descriptive picture of Cronje is from the pen of Douglas Story, the editor of the late Boer newspaper, the “Standard and Diggers’ News.” It was published in the London “Daily Mail” of October 30, and the following is an extract:—

"Wily and far-seeeing 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 Jamesom was that of an Oliver Cromwell.

"Cronje was commandant at Potchefstroom, seventy 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 the cool head of Cronje. “I rode out to the scene of Jameson’s defeat some time after the battle and realized how much of the hunter there is still in 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 place of death. The brave, foodless troopers, heavy with sleep, were driven like sheep into -a shambles.

“When the morning broke, to the right, to the left, and m front of them Boer marksmen kept their rifles trained upon the raiders. Escape there was none. But the battle was wou in the night hours, while Jameson was helplessly blundering on in front of his remorseless enemy. Cronje could afford to wait until the troopers came within a hundred yards before he gave the mercy blow. “And yet there was a time in the darkuess when Jameson almost escaped from 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 Krugerdorp and left him with Dr. Viljoen there. It was a father’s act, and one strangely unlike the rough farmer’s exterior of the man who mastered Sir John Willoughby. “The lesson learned that pitiful night dictated Cronje’s courteous assurance to the defender of Mafeking that the Red Cross was safe from him and his. “While Cronje was gone, somelxvdy 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 Cronje was back to repair damage and arrange his final battle. “That drizzly, misty night made Cronje a war god among the Boers. “And yet these stolid veldt men give little demonstration of their admiration. The Boers are not a grateful nation as the Americans with their Dewey, or we British with ouwKitchener are grateful. Days after the battle 1 saw Cronje riding heavily down tlhe Kerk straat in Pretoria, a heavy, big boned peasant upon a shaggy, trippling 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 a rude dignity about the man that compels so much of respect. Other men are known by their Christian names, ‘Slim Piet’ Joubert, ‘Oom Christiaan’ Joubert, ‘Oom Jan’ Hofmeyer—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 the Volksraad for his great service to the State, at Doornkop. He was a burgher. It was his duty to repel the invader. He repelled him. and there the matter rested. “They would have censured him had he failed. They refrained from comment when he succeeded. “Cronje, riding back to Pretoria, (had no guard of honour to receive 'him, no great civic function to fete him, no sword of honour to adorn him. He was plain Peasant Cronje. returning heavy hearted from his wounded son’s pallet in Krugersdorp Hospital, somewhat weary in ths bones from those long hours in the steaming saddle, nowise elated, nowise altered from his everyday demeanour.

“Since then Cronje has received a seat in the Executive Council, and is now a personage with a substantia! State salary; but the man is no way changed. He was thought to be a supporter of the President’s when he joined the Executive Council, but neither Kruger nor Joubert has found him amiable. He is not of the race that makes the party man. “He is as individual as Kruger, strong in the faith of his own generalship as Joubert.”

STORY OF A BOER SPY. “Here is a story of a Transvaal spy that well illustrates the shrewdness and pertinacity which have made the Boer such a tactfid and able ejiemy in the present war It was just before the erection of the Johannesburg forts. The spy was ordered to report on the defences of Chatham. While employed in collecting materials he came upon a certain secret subterranean passage connecting Fort Pitt with—somewhere. He tried hard to find out where that “somewhere” might be, but without avail. Rumour said it was Fort Clarence. But Fort Clarence was then and is now, for that matter—used as a provost prison, and access to its interior was strictly prohibited. One way of getting within the walls there was, and the spy took it. He committed a somewhat serious offence against military discipline, for which he was reduced to the ranks and imprisoned. As he had foreseen, he was consigned to Fort Clarence. The provost sergeant in charge kept rabbits, which were shut "1‘ at night in a sort of underground passage that opened into the moat— at least, so the other prisoners affirmed. The spy ingratiated himself with the warders,, and after a week or two he was taken off shot drill, and promoted to the post of rabbit keeper in ordinary to the provost sergeant. aforesaid. He looked carefully and conscientiously after his four-footed charges, lu fact, he spent the greater part of his time cleaning out and whitewashing their underground apartment, with the result that, on his release, he was able to forward full plans and details to Pretoria.