BOOKS.
WITH THE EYES OF DE WET.*
IT has long been acknowledged (that the lessons of the war would not be rightly read until we had their own view of the stubborn struggle and its possibilities from the pens of the Boer generals themselves. The story of our own plans and their success or failure was already pretty well known to most of us, but there remained unanswered an immense number of problems, our own answers to which, until our enemy himself could speak, were pure conjectures. How did our enemy live without commissariat in a country where our chief problem was to feed our armies ? How did they organise their matchless system of intelligence P By what miracle of laorsemastership were they ever able to outpace the fleetest of our mounted columns ? Whence did they draw their unending supply of ammunition ? Why, when engaged with our troops, were their casualties but a tithe of ours on every occasion, and their escape again and again effected almost without loss when an exit from the ring of converging columns seemed a sheer impossibility? Why, in short, did they so long maintain an apparently hopeless struggle, and • Three Years' War. By Christian De Wet. London: Constable and Co. [10s. 6c1.] how in the world were they enabled to do so P Some of such questions all the leading figures on the Boer side may be asked; of De Wet we would ask them all. As to our own failures, we are aware how our generals explain them,— as "unfortunate misunderstandings" or "strokes of rank bad luck " ; but when we are in a generous mood we attribute some of their successes to the prowess of our enemies; if we wish to be spiteful, we hint that De Wet might be offered a British cavalry command. We all agree that our soldiers have much to learn from him. Now that we have his book before us, therefore, we are at last to be aided to see things as he saw them, and to follow him through a tale of daring and adventure unequalled in any romance. So great have our expectations been that we confess at first to a sense of dis- appointment. This must always be the case when romance is turned into solemn fact. The pen of fiction is mightier than the sword of reality. And the guerilla chief has not been gifted with quite that journalistic flair which was not the least of Napoleon's titles to fame.
Nevertheless, the book is on closer inspection amazingly interesting, even more so perhaps as a human document than as a treatise on war. Many authors, more especially new authors on their trial trip, read like anything but themselves. But De Wet's first raid into literature is a true reproduction of himself. Of course the writer's own medium is the Taal, and our English edition is merely a translation. This heightens the vividness of the impression, for never was any language more characteristic of the people that use it. It is an epitome alike of the history and of the temper of the race, with its sturdy independence and its strange blend of Kaffir cunning, of back-country prejudice, and religious fatalism. Every page of the book bears the impress of the weird, monotonous plains, the lonely sentinel kopjes, and the solemn starry nights of South Africa. But the phraseology is not the only thing in the book which is De Wet's. One is struck at the outset by the solemn earnestness of the man, his almost fanatical conviction of the justice of his cause, the grim hatred he bears towards his conquerors during the progress of the struggle. We rise with an uneasy fear that these feelings must survive, despite what we believe to be the honest attempt of the writer to reconcile himself and his followers to the new Government, which inspires the con- cluding sentences of the book:—"Be loyal to the new Govern- ment. Loyalty pays best in the end. Loyalty alone is worthy of a Nation, which has shed its blood for Freedom." The surrender is admittedly a "miserable business," opposed to the very last by De Wet himself, forced upon him less by the prowess of his enemies than by the "treason" of the National Scouts. In the very wording of his message of reconciliation there is a hint of an " end " which is yet to come. He is constantly recurring to the proud memories of Majuba Hill, and we feel that the memory of the greater struggle is to be to the "Nation" at once an inspiration and a hope. We do not fear, however, for the future of the new Colonies if the war has taught us, as, indeed, it should have, to understand and to respect the Dutchman of South Africa. In time the Boer will remember the war as the Highlander remembers Prince Charlie : the glory will remain without the bitterness, and the deeds of his ancestors will be a spur to a larger patriotism. But to-day and during the lifetime of the present generation the justifiable pride in their achievements must be one with the bitterness of defeat, and the Boers cannot think of them- selves but as something apart from and superior to the Empire into which they were forced against their will.
So cautioned, English readers may read the book and admire the man. They can pass over the repeated tales of British cruelty and oppression, and the protests against the wicked- ness of our statesmen, which are the burthen of the whole story, without stooping to angry arguments or resenting the repetition of accusations we know to be unfounded, on the evidence of the book itself, were none other forthcoming. They can even admire a man who is a patriot, and even a politician, first, and a soldier, not by choice or profession, but by force of conviction, and yet for all that, or perhaps because of that, so hard a hitter.
• The limitations of the book, viewed from the military stand- point, are the measure of De Wet himself as a man of war. There is from the first little or no grasp of the strategical problem. After the failure to relieve Cronje or to check the
advance upon Bloemfontein, his whole energies are directed towards a guerre de course, towards harassing tactics rather than towards decisive engagements. Insufficiently protected convoys, isolated bodies of men, and the railway line are the objects at which he aims. Even at Sauna's Post the intention was merely to overwhelm the little garrison of the waterworks. The enterprise against Broadwood's column was a daring after- thought prompted by circumstances, and only rendered success- ful by the serious failure at Bloemfontein (upon which he com- ments) to despatch a force to the scene of action, only seventeen miles away. De Wet protests against being considered as a guerilla chief, and appears, by his definition of guerillas as those who continue the strife "when a country is so completely con- quered that any resistance is out of the question," to consider the term as equivalent to brigands. In one of his proclama- tions Lord Roberts did indeed call them brigands, but the use of the term is undoubtedly open to objection. After the second rising of the Free State in September, 1900, President Steyn was perfectly justified in saying that "Lord Kitchener's jurisdiction was limited by the range of his Excellency's guns." If either side could claim jurisdiction over the open country, it was the Boers with their organised system of local government in any district not at the moment in the occupa- tion of our troops. But De Wet was surely nothing if not a guerilla chief. We attach no sort of stigma to the name, though the policy of guerilla warfare is questionable, and as events have proved, could not in the end succeed. De Wet by his own account expected two results therefrom. His first expectations were over-sanguine. He hoped that as the result of his efforts on the railway lines "Lord Roberts and his thousands of troops in Pretoria would have found themselves in the same plight as the Samaritans in Samaria, and have perished of hunger." Yet he appears to have anticipated the despatch of an overwhelming force from Pretoria as a result of his exploit at Roodeval.
But there is much to be said for the second object of his system. Lord Roberts's rapid advance on Pretoria had almost cowed the Free State into submission. (We learn from De Wet himself that but eight thousand Free - Staters remained under arms at the end of May, 1900.) But he had swept not like a fire, but like a snow-plough through the land, and a few Boer successes and the influence of a few stalwarts would soon undo the moral effects of his advance. In Septem- ber, 1900, De Wet tells us that he "conceived the great plan of bringing under arms all the burghers who had laid down their weapons, and taken the oath of neutrality, and of sending them to operate in every part of the State." From De Wet's point of view, the action was justifiable. Lord Roberts had promised protection to those who surrendered and lived quietly on their farms. Not only was he unable to afford this protection against the Boer stalwarts, but his own troops, so De Wet alleges broke the contract by seizing cattle, and in some eases by burn- ing farms. De Wet argues accordingly that they were under no obligation to abide by their contracts, while they were under obligation to their Government and their country. Right or wrong, this was his great work; and from Septem- ber, 1900, to the conclusion of the war in 1902 not only were the mass of the Free State population under arms, but they had men to spare for the formidable raising of the Cape Dutch. The undue prolongation of the war was thus, it may be argued, the work of Lord Roberts, who neglected the Free State in his anxiety to press forward upon Pretoria; and of De Wet, who so promptly took advantage of this neglect. Peace was brought about by the final exhaustion of the Transvaalers, and there is evidence that these would have surrendered long before but for the stubborn determination and the constant successes of the Free State. In that country De Wet figures as the heart and soul of resistance. And at the final Con- ference of all it was the Free-Staters who, through De Wet, their mouthpiece, were still unconquered and the least willing to give in.
The details of the struggle in the Free State, though in. complete and disproportioned, and often inaccurate, will be fall of interest to the ordinary reader. To the military expert
they are of the greatest value. As a leader of mounted troops De Wet takes high rank indeed. He possessed, apparently
by instinct, all the attributes for such a role. Secrecy of movement, perfect knowledge of the movements and in- tentions of the enemy, mobility, daring, and horsemastership, —such were the causes of his success. Elaborate schemes were laid to deceive the enemy. Sanna's Post, the capture of Dewetsdorp, the escape from General Charles Knox, and the victory at Tweefontein are the most brilliant instances of his success in this respect. His system of scouting was perfect. There was probably never so small a force which habitually used so large a proportion of scouts, or scattered them over so wide an area. His short way with the ox- waggons is a striking commentary upon our pianofortes and cooking-stoves, and his horsemastership is the more remarkable when we remember that, although his force was largely mounted on animals captured from the British, lie was invariably able to outpace our troops. And his success in keeping all his burghers mounted affords a sad contrast to our blockhouse system. His contempt for that system fully bears out what we understand is the view of many of our own soldiers, who could not conceive bow the blockhouses came into being, except to provide occupation for our infantry, those " voetgangers " whom the Boer leader regarded as so useless in his own forces. There is much to be said for this view, though it is not, perhaps, that of all the Boer leaders. At all events, both mounted men and riflemen will agree how easy a matter it is, even in the day-time, to gallop past a rifle-fire at five hundred yards distance without serious risk, and the blockhouses were a thousand yards apart. Small wonder, then, that De Wet should pass them unscathed at night. Besides the expense they entailed in building, and the endless labour of their provisioning, their building so occupied the army during many months of the year 1901 that it had no time to fight the Boers. The result was a much-needed rest for the Boers, horses as well as men, and the consequent prolongation of the war. Far otherwise was De Wet's opinion of the drives. It was these and the night marches and the systematic devastation of the country that put an end to the struggle. The drives "with their ever- narrowing circles of men hand in hand,' hemming us in more closely at every moment, bagged an enormous number of men and of cattle." The night marches and their consequent sur- prises were effected largely by the aid of the National Scouts. It is indeed arguable whether these were not truer, though less attractive, patriots than the stalwarts; but we should not expect a stalwart to admit it. De Wet does not conceal his opinion of them. But as he is almost as violent against Brabant's Horse and the Cape Mounted Rifles, on the ground that, being Afrikanders, they should not have fought on our side, we need pay no serious attention to his very natural disgust with the Scouts.
De Wet's estimate of the soldierly qualities of our forces is not a very flattering one. Perhaps he is too fresh from the passion which he undoubtedly threw into the war to be able to do us justice; and much of his strength as a fighter came from his strength as a hater. He never praises our prudence ; our scouting was execrable; our intelli- gence defective; our choice of positions bad. Very rarely he praises our courage. He admired the bravery of Colonel Le Gallais and the firm courage of Captain Knight, and he praises the defenders of Dewetsdorp and (pace the military authorities at home) the conduct of the Yeomanry at Tweefontein. But these are isolated instances. In general he has simply to attack, or sometimes to threaten only, and surrender follows. His experience of British surrenders was
a large one; we hope that no enemy of the future will ever break his record. The disaster at Sanna's Post was due in a large measure to the cowardice of the leading files. "Directly they heard the words 'Hands up,' a forest of hands rose in the air." At Roodeval two hundred British troops in a fortified position surrendered to three hundred and fifty Boers, with casualties of but twenty-seven killed and wounded. Near Reitz, Philip Botha with fifty burghers charged one hundred and fifty of the Bodyguard and took them prisoners. On the Orange River one Willem Pretorius and three men caused the surrender without loss of twenty British in a fort ! The list is long enough already, but it can be added to at will from the book. It is unfottunately impossible to dispute the facts. They are galling enough, but it is better that they should be known. There has been too much hushing up in the South African War, and far too much leniency to troops who sur- rendered. No doubt, being chiefly infantry, they were unable, • on th. Heals of like the Boers, to retire before being surrounded; but the casualty Blackwood and Sons. lists cannot justify a course which is rarely defensible in war. To urge that they had expended their ammunition is in itself a condemnation; they fired in a panic without waiting for a target. Had they reserved but twenty rounds for the final moment, the tax demanded of the attackers on the first occasion would have been so severe as to make any second attempt of the sort too costly, even with the chance of success. As a matter of fact, the Boer losses were always absurdly small, and the game was consequently worth the candle. De Wet bad been present at Majuba Hill ; be was also in command at Nicholson's Nek, where over a thousand British troops surrendered to two hundred Boers. Can we be surprised if he thought that Majuba Hill and Nicholson's Nek were fair samples of our fighting powers, and acted accordingly ?
But whatever his opinion of us, we have no two opinions of him and of his faithful Free-Staters as fighting men. In that capacity, at any rate, they are a credit to the Empire.
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