De Wet and His Book.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXX, Issue VII, 14 February 1903, Page 440

De Wet and His Book.

In the course of a stirring protest against the too-ready acceptance in some quarters of De Wet's stories to the detriment of British soldiers. Sir A. Conan Doyle gives, in the “Spectator.” some striking instances of the “slim” way De Wet understates the truth in order to damage the reputation of our soldiers. Here are some quotations from De Wet's book and Sir A. Conan Doyle’s comments: —“On the Orange River one Willem Pretorius and three men caused the surrender without loss of twenty British in a fort.” As a bald fact this sounds depressing. But what is the truth? The whole Boer army was round the post, and the garrison knew it. having just received a letter from De Wet himself. Is it not a perversion to say that they surrendered to three men when they knew that 2,000 were round them and that escape was impossible? The original statement is literally true, and yet the inference of cowardice is absolutely false. “Philip Botha with fifty burgher charged 150 of the Bodyguard and took them prisoners.” The British losses—eight officers and thirtyeight men killed and wounded—point not only to a good resistance, but to a resistance against a considerable force. It is possible that the final rush of the Boers which compelled a surrender was carried out by fifty men, but all the letters which I have read from survivors of the action (and I have read several) talk of the fire as coming from several directions, and refer to flanking and covering parties of Boers. I believe, therefore. that even if the number given be literally true, it is none the less, as in the case of Nicholson's Nek. entirely misleading. To show an instance in which he enormously exaggerates the force which was against him. take the battle of Bothaville. where Colonel Le Gallais captured his guns. To read his short narrative of the action one would imagine that it was a contest between eight hundred Boers on one side and twelve hundred British on the other. As a matter of fact, the fight was between about two hundred and fifty British Yeomanry and Mounted Infantry and the Boer force. Only at the end of the action, when De Lisle came up, did the numbers become as stated.