The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

WITH THE FLAG TO PRETORIA.

S. Begg.]

The Queen has throughout the war shown the greatest solicitude for the wounded. On March 22, 1900, Her Majesty paid a visit to the Herbert Hospital at Woolwich, and personally handed gifts of flowers to over a hundred wounded men, in each case accompanying the gift with a few words of sympathy, which often had reference to the services of the particular man whom she addressed. The patients included survivors from Colenso, Spion Kop, &c. The Irish soldiers, whose gallantry had been specially noteworthy, were favoured with special notice. The Queen was accompanied by the Princess Christian and the Princess Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein.

With the Flag
to Pretoria
A History of the Boer War of 1899-1900

By H. W. WILSON
Author of "Ironclads in Action," &c. &c.

ILLUSTRATED MAINLY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND AUTHENTIC SKETCHES TAKEN IN SOUTH AFRICA

Vol. I.

LONDON
Published by HARMSWORTH BROTHERS, Limited
1900

[PREFACE.]

The chief point of interest in the South African war, apart from its political aspect, will always be that it was the first great struggle fought out under the new conditions which smokeless powder has introduced. No invention has made a greater change in the art of war than this; the revolution is so profound that it can only be compared with that brought about by the general adoption of firearms four hundred years or more ago. So late as the Spanish-American war of 1898 a large part of the United States army was equipped with the Springfield rifle, firing smoke-producing powder, so that in that war, in spite of the fact that the Spanish Army was supplied with the Mauser, the full consequences of the revolution could not be observed and ascertained. The British Army, when it took the field in October, 1899, was face to face with factors the precise effect of which could only be conjectured. Magazine, or, to give them their older name, "repeating," rifles had been employed as far back as the American Civil War of 1861-5, though they were in every way vastly inferior to our modern Mausers and Lee-Metfords. But smokeless powder was a distinctly novel element.

It is easy to ascribe our defeats in the early part of the war, as some have ascribed them, to the "stupidity" of the British officers and generals. At bottom, however, it would seem that much of this unsuccess was due to the new conditions of war, coupled with the Boer's inherited capacity for taking cover and his absolute knowledge of the country. Again and again our men came suddenly and almost without notice under a deluge of bullets from perfectly invisible rifles. When once engaged in this manner it was difficult for them to go forward and dangerous to retreat. There was no means of guessing the strength of the foe. No dense clouds of smoke revealed at once his location and the exact volume of his fire. It was uncertain whether we had to deal with 500 men using magazine fire, or with 5,000 firing in a leisurely manner. There may have been a neglect of reconnaissance, yet against troops thus concealed personal reconnaissance repeatedly failed. On their side the Boers had no such difficulty to face in fighting us. All through our earlier battles we disdained the use of cover and often advanced to the attack in comparatively close formations—a splendid target.

The same invisibility which marked the Boer riflemen marked also their artillery, which was not massed, but scattered gun by gun, wide apart and artfully concealed. As one result of this disposition, we seldom succeeded in silencing the Boer weapons; but, on the other hand, except at Spion Kop, they inflicted trivial loss upon us. The enemy's most effective gun was the "Pom-Pom," which, though it caused infinitesimal loss of life, was especially dreaded by our soldiers for the great rapidity of its discharge. The frequent flashes from its muzzle, however, rendered it comparatively easy to locate and to put out of action.

It has been often debated whether as science progresses war grows more bloody. A learned Russian, M. Bloch, had argued, before this struggle began, that the deadliness of modern weapons rendered mutual annihilation of the two combatants probable. It need scarcely be said that this forecast has been disproved by events. There has been nothing in the present war in the least comparable with the hideous butchery of Borodino, when, in 1812, with the old flint-lock smooth-bore musket and smooth-bore cannon, over 30,000 French were killed or wounded out of 125,000, and over 40,000 Russians out of 110,000.

Excluding prisoners, in no case did the British losses in battle reach one tenth of the force engaged, and in the Spion Kop fighting, where the heaviest casualties were incurred, they were spread over a week. Another striking feature is the low proportion of killed. Usually in the past the killed have numbered one-third to one fourth of the total wounded. In this war they have generally been from one fifth to one tenth, and sometimes an even lower fraction, as a result of the use of the small-bore bullet. Not only so, but an enormous number of the wounded have recovered. Thus, taking the Casualty Return of July 11, we find that of over 12,000 wounded only 695 have died. In Napoleon's day the proportion would have been more like 5,000, and in the era of the Franco-Prussian war 3,000. Clearly, then, the risk to life in war is not increasing. Disease is as deadly as ever, but it may safely be said that much of our loss would have been preventable with a better hospital organisation.

We have been asked by several correspondents to set forth in a short table the losses in the battles recorded in the present volume, and we take the opportunity of doing so, adding a rough estimate of the Boer force opposed. The Boer losses, unhappily, cannot be ascertained with the slightest accuracy, and even the estimates of their armies are largely conjectural. It should be noted that only combatants—cavalry, artillery, and infantry—are included in our figures, and that deductions are made for details absent at the base, for the sick, and for men not present for duty. The numbers in one or two instances differ slightly from those of the text of the work, the latest official returns necessarily differing in some cases from the figures obtained on the battlefield.

Battle ofDate.Killed.Wounded.Prisoners and Missing.Total Cas­u­al­tiesBritish Force En­gagedBoer Force En­gaged
Of­fi­cers.Men.Of­fi­cers.Men.Of­fi­cers.Men.
DundeeOct. 20.8401184253064743,4007,000
Elandslaagte Oct. 21.55030169042583,5002,000
Rietfontein Oct. 24.111698021185,1007,000?
Farquhar's Farm and Nicholson's Nek Oct. 30.6579244439251,28410,00020,000
Belmont Nov. 23.35025220002988,0003,000?
Willow Grange Nov. 23.01116618873,5002,000
Enslin Nov. 25.3136163091947,5002,500
Modder River Nov. 28.46620393024859,0008,000
Stormberg Dec. 10.032751136197222,5001,000?
Magersfontein Dec. 11.2314845646010897012,50010,000
Colenso Dec. 15.712843719212071,12515,00010,000
Week of Battles and Spion KopJan. 17-24.27245531,05073511,73317,50012,000
Vaal Krantz Feb. 5-7.223183260537415,00010,000

Some remarks appear to be called for as to the lessons to be derived from the war, and the directions in which some modification of our present military system and methods may seem desirable. These remarks will fitly find a place at the conclusion of our work. In the meantime let us not forget that if errors of judgment have been committed, they have been committed by men whose zeal and patriotism has never been doubted. We cannot refrain, however, from alluding here to the greatest of all the lessens which this war has taught, not us alone, but all the world—the solidarity of the Empire. And for that great demonstration what sacrifice was not worth making!

ERRATA.

p. [4], note beneath top illustration, for "February 26" read "February 27."

p. [6], note beneath illustration at foot of page, for "74th regiment" read "94th regiment."

p. [16], note beneath second illustration, for "£250,000" read "£25,000."

p. [35], line 4 from bottom, for "Dublin Fusiliers" read "Royal Irish Fusiliers."

p. [108], note beneath portrait of Col. Long, for "mortally wounded" read "severely wounded."

p. [129], line 15, for "1st Worcesters" read "2nd Berkshires."

p. [151], line 15, for "Lieutenant Taylor of the Navy" read "Lieutenant Taylor of the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry."

p. [204], first paragraph: The identity of the prisoner here referred to has not been established, but the Editor has received statements which have satisfied him that ex-Sergeant-Major Greener, of the Royal Engineers, was never with the Boer army, and that the strong expression used with regard to him was misapplied.

p. [248], line 39, for "ankle-deep" read "axle-deep."

p. [275], lines 3 and 4, delete the words, "Grey though he was, this was his first action." (Major Childe, whose age was 46, had served in the Egyptian campaign of 1882.)

p. [277], note beneath portrait, for "Sir Reginald Clare Hart, K.C.B., &c." read "Major-General A. FitzRoy Hart, C.B., commanding the 5th Brigade of the 10th Division" and cancel remainder of note.

[CONTENTS OF VOL. I.]

PAGES
Chapter I.—THE EXPLOSION. Oct. 11, 1899. And events previous thereto.
The Boer Ultimatum—Intrigues against British supremacy—Great Britain's interest in the Dutch Republics—Common interests of the white peoples—Early history of Cape Colony—Unpopularity of the Dutch East India Company—British capture Capetown—"The Great Trek"—England recognises the Republics—Their attitude towards us—Sir Bartle Frere—Majuba—The Outlanders—The Jameson raid—Kruger—His character—Sir Alfred Milner—The Bloemfontein conference—Transvaal refuses England's demands—War[3]-16
Chapter II.—THE OVERRUNNING OF NORTHERN NATAL. Oct. 11-Oct. 27, 1899.
Hurried Preparations for War—The Reserves Mobilised—Enthusiasm of the British Public—Strength of the Forces in Natal and Cape Colony—Strength of the Enemy—The Attack Delayed—Disposition of the Boer Forces—Positions of the British at Dundee and Ladysmith—Battle of Dundee—Symons wounded—Storming of Talana Hill—The Treacherous White Flag—Yule's March—Battle of Elandslaagte—British and Boer Losses—"Remember Majuba!"—Action at Rietfontein—The Boer Tactics—White decides to hold Ladysmith[17]-34
Chapter III.—THE INVESTMENT OF LADYSMITH, MAFEKING, AND KIMBERLEY. Oct. 27-Nov. 1899.
The Boers seize the heights dominating Ladysmith—The Battle of Farquhar's Farm—White withdraws to save the town—The guns brought off—Dramatic advent of the Bluejackets—Loss of Carleton's column—Neglect of precautions at Ladysmith—The town beleaguered—Condition of affairs on the Western Frontier—Doubtful attitude of the Schreiner Ministry—First act of war—Attempts to capture Mafeking—The Boers seize Vryburg—Kimberley isolated—Bombardment commenced—Stormberg district abandoned by the British—Attitude of the Cape Dutch[35]-56
Chapter IV.—THE DISPATCH OF THE ARMY CORPS. Oct. 25-Dec. 9, 1899.
Dilatoriness of the Government—Full notice to the enemy—Mobilisation begins—Small proportion of cavalry—Loyal action of the Colonies—The greatest Expeditionary Force ever sent over seas—Embarkation of the troops—Food supplies—The voyage out—The plan of campaign—Character of the country—New tactics required—Despatch of the Fifth and Sixth Divisions[57]-69
Chapter V.—THE BEGINNING OF THE ADVANCE IN NATAL AND CAPE COLONY. Oct. 30-Dec. 14, 1899.
Natal threatened—Armoured trains—Ladysmith bombarded—Assault on the town—The Boers at Chieveley— Armoured train wrecked near Chieveley—Endeavours to clear the obstruction—Capture of Mr. Winston Churchill—The Estcourt garrison in danger—Shelling of Mooi River Camp—Boer advance checked at Nottingham Road—The Willow Grange fight—Arrival of Lord Dundonald and General Buller—Comparison of the opposing armies—The forward movement begins—Boer position at Colenso—Buller determines to attack[70]-89
Chapter VI.—THE FIRST BATTLE OF COLENSO. Dec. 15, 1899.
The battle begins—Bombardment of Fort Wylie—Artillery pushed forward—The Boers open fire—The guns abandoned—General Hart's position—The Dublin Fusiliers attempt to ford the Tugela—Their retirement ordered—Failure to carry Hlangwane—Advance of Hildyard's Brigade—General withdrawal ordered—Death of Lieutenant Roberts—Guns and men captured by the Boers—Retirement effected in good order—Our losses—Scarcity of water—Bravery of the Army Medical Corps—Impressions of an eye-witness—Armistice—A day of blunders[90]-109
Chapter VII.—THE BATTLE OF STORMBERG. Nov. 2-Dec. 10, 1899.
Mistakes of the Boer Generals—British withdraw from Naauwpoort and Stormberg—General Gatacre takes command—Advance of the Boers—Omnibus Horses for the Artillery—Conditions of successful attack—Gatacre moves upon Stormberg—The forces detrain at Molteno—The wrong road taken—The column surprised—The fight—Fatigue of the British troops—A gun abandoned—Order to retreat given—The dead and wounded left—Narrow escape of the armoured train—The return to Molteno—British losses—Disastrous results—The Boers seize Colesberg—British re-occupy Naauwpoort—Arrival of General French[110]-129
Chapter VIII.—LORD METHUEN'S ADVANCE. Nov. 10-23, 1899.
Lord Methuen takes charge of the Western Campaign—Reconnaissance towards Belmont—Heavy loss of officers—Lord Methuen reinforced—Advance to Fincham's Farm—British victory at Belmont—Chaplain Hill's bravery—Contraventions of usages of war—Boers retreat—Frontal attack criticized—Lord Methuen congratulates the troops[130]-144
Chapter IX.—LORD METHUEN'S ADVANCE—continued. Nov. 23-Dec. 2, 1899.
March to Swinks Pan—Advance of Ninth Brigade—Battle of Enslin—Bombardment of the Boer position—Reinforcements sent for—The Bluejackets and Marines take the kopje—British losses—The Queen congratulates the Naval Brigade—Boer losses—Lack of water at Enslin—Lord Methuen's address to the troops—March to Klokfontein—Lord Methuen's available forces—The Boers in force at the Modder River—Disposition of troops—Scene of the battle—Boer preparations—Battle of the Modder—The torture of thirst—Sleep during battle—Arrival of an additional Field Battery—Attempts to cross the river—Retreat of the Boers—Comparison of British and Boer losses—British artillery fire—Characteristics of the fighting—The Boers fire on the Red Cross—Conduct of the Free Staters impugned—Kruger's remonstrances [145]-171
Chapter X.—THE BATTLE OF MAGERSFONTEIN. Nov. 29-Dec. 12, 1899.
New bridge over the Modder—Lord Methuen reinforced—British communications threatened—Position of Magersfontein—Boer defences—Boer methods—Difficulty of relieving Kimberley—Skirmishing—Lord Methuen's plans—Choice of Sunday—Disposition of troops—Attack on Magersfontein kopjes—General Wauchope's premonitions—Night march—Boers open fire—Demoralisation of Highland regiments—Accounts of the fighting—General Wauchope's death—Collapse of Highland Brigade—Artillery support—Reinforcements—Heroism on the field—Protest against Lord Methuen's orders—Artillery cover Highlanders' retreat—Incidents of the battle—British retirement to Modder River—British losses—Cronje's account—Criticism of Lord Methuen's tactics—Burial of General Wauchope[172]-204
Chapter XI.—THE NATION UNDER DEFEAT. Dec. 12, 1899-Jan. 1900.
Critical position of Great Britain—Her prestige in danger—Crass ignorance of military affairs—German system—Responsibility of Statesmen and Generals—Government unprepared—Necessity of reorganisation—Former national crises—Measures taken for defense—Change of Generals—Lord Roberts' military career—Lord Kitchener in the Sudan—Embarkation for South Africa—General Hector Macdonald—Offers of the Colonies—Australian and Canadian contingents—Mr. Seddon's loyal speech—Volunteers from Asiatic dependencies—London's contribution—Imperial Yeomanry—Gloomy outlook[205]-234
Chapter XII.—THE FLANK MOVEMENT IN NATAL. Dec. 15, 1899-Jan. 16, 1900.
Further preparations for the relief of Ladysmith—Burial of Lieutenant Roberts—Destruction of Colenso road-bridge—Picket surprised by Boers—Fifth Division reaches Natal—Want of howitzers—Arrival of a balloon and traction engines—Christmas in camp—Disposition of relief force—Boer positions—Mr. Winston Churchill escapes—Boer attack on Cæsar's Camp—Messages from Ladysmith—Relief force attacks Colenso—Advances on Springfield and Hussar Hill—Fail to draw the Boers—Further message from Ladysmith—Storm ends a desultory movement—The flag still flying in Ladysmith—Heroes in rags—Mud everywhere—Composition of the relief force—The army moves—Hampered by baggage—Difficulties of the march—Dundonald seizes Zwart Kop—The pont intact—The Boers entrenching—General Buller's plan of attack—The crossing of Potgieter's Drift[235]-262
Chapter XIII.—SPION KOP. Jan. 16-27, 1900.
Warren's Divisions cross the Tugela—The enemy entrenching—The artillery and transport cross—A long delay—Spion Kop bombarded—Lyttelton's feigned attack—The cavalry seize Acton Homes—Desultory movements before Spion Kop—Change of plan—Advance on the left ordered—Capture of Three-tree Hill and Bastion Hill—Death of Major Childe—Assault ordered and countermanded—Lyttelton's advance—Warren telegraphs for howitzers—Rumoured relief of Ladysmith—Another day of little progress—Pathetic humour—Assault ordered and postponed—Another council of war—Warren reinforced—The storming force—Ascent of Spion Kop—A Boer picket surprised—The storming force halts too soon—Tardy reinforcements—Botha determines to recapture the hill—Positions of the opposing forces—The Boers bombard the British position—Woodgate wounded—Thorneycroft put in command—A frightful struggle—Lack of artillery support—Boer attempts to rush the position—The King's Royal Rifles storm a ridge—Desperate straits—Confusion of commands—Thorneycroft determines to withdraw—Scene on the hill after the battle—Losses in the action—The retreat—Causes of the defeat[263]-307
Chapter XIV.—VAAL KRANTZ. Jan. 30-Feb. 7, 1900.
Substantial reinforcements—Guns taken to summit of Zwart Kop—Plan of attack on Vaal Krantz—Lie of the land—Another crossing of the Tugela—Demonstration towards Brakfontein—Bombardment of Vaal Krantz—Infantry storm the height—Difficulty of holding the position—Disappearing guns—Renewed attacks—Council of war—Evacuation of the ridge—Losses—Disappointment in Britain[308]-319
Chapter XV.—COLESBERG AND THE WEST. Dec. 1899-Feb. 10, 1900.
General French's position—Engagements near Arundel and Rensburg—The Boers fall back on Colesberg—British camp moved to Rensburg—Fighting round Coles Kop—French's mobility—Loss of a commissariat train—Both sides reinforced—General Schœman repulsed—Death of Major Harvey—Boers driven back—Disaster to the Suffolks—Occupation of Slingersfontein—Guns and supplies hauled up Coles Kop—Small actions near Colesberg—Boer attack near Slingersfontein—Guarding the railway junctions—Gradual withdrawal of British forces—A ride for life—Accuracy of Australian shooting—Coles Kop and Slingersfontein evacuated—British retire to Arundel—Seizure of German steamers—Lord Roberts conciliates the Colonials—Reorganisation of transport—Roberts and Kitchener leave Capetown—Lord Methuen keeps the enemy busy—Demonstrations towards Koodoesberg Drift—Roberts in camp—Preparations for the great blow—Composition of the Grand Army[320]-345
Chapter XVI.—THE GRAND ARMY RELIEVES KIMBERLEY. Feb. 10-16, 1900.
Lord Roberts addresses the officers—Cavalry leaders—Advance to Ramdam—French at Waterval Drift—De Kiel's Drift secured—Sunset on the veldt—Cronje's optimism—The cavalry push forward—Heat and thirst—Veldt on fire—Rondeval and Klip Drifts seized—Advance of the infantry—Halt at the Modder—Cavalry opposed—Lancers clear a nek—In touch with Kimberley—Capture of Alexandersfontein—Entry into Kimberley—Bivouac in a Boer camp—C.I.V.s' baptism of fire—Seizure of Jacobsdal—Convoy attacked by De Wet—Waggons abandoned—Cronje's retreat—The Boers carry off their big gun—Orders to head Cronje[346]-364

[SOUTH AFRICA]

WITH THE FLAG TO PRETORIA.

"He is out on active service,
Wiping something off a slate."—Kipling.

From a photograph by Bassano.

Born at Cawnpore, India, 1832; son of General Sir Abraham Roberts, G.C.B.; educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and Addiscombe; Second Lieutenant (Bengal Artillery), 1851; Lieutenant, 1857; Captain, 1860; Brev. Major, 1860; Brev. Lieut.-Colonel, 1868; Brev. Colonel, 1875; Major-General, 1878; Lieut.-General, 1883; General, 1890; raised to the peerage, 1892; Field-Marshal, 1895. D.A.Q.M.G. throughout the Indian Mutiny; served in Abyssinia, 1867-8; commanded the Kuram Field Force, 1879, Kabul Field Force, 1879-80, Kabul-Kandahar Field Force, 1880; in Afghanistan, 1880; in Burma, 1886. Commander-in-Chief (Madras), 1881; Commander-in-Chief in India, 1885-93; Commander of the Forces in Ireland, 1895, and in South Africa, December, 1899.

PRETORIA.

WITH THE FLAG TO PRETORIA

[CHAPTER I.]
THE EXPLOSION.

The Boer Ultimatum—Intrigues against British supremacy—Great Britain's interest in the Dutch Republics—Common interests of the white peoples—Early history of Cape Colony—Unpopularity of the Dutch East India Company—British capture Capetown—"The Great Trek"—England recognizes the Republics—Their attitude towards us—Sir Bartle Frere—Majuba—The Outlanders—The Jameson raid—Kruger—His character—Sir Alfred Milner—The Bloemfontein conference—Transvaal refuses England's demands—War.

On October 11, 1899, began what was to prove the greatest struggle in which England has engaged since the peace that followed Waterloo. For at 5 p.m. on that day the forty-eight hours allowed by the Transvaal Government for a favourable answer to its ultimatum expired, and the forces of the two Boer Republics put themselves in motion to carry out their favourite threat of sweeping the English from South Africa into the sea.

The Boer Ultimatum.

Thus came the explosion—the culminating catastrophe of a decade of race-hatred in South Africa, the inevitable and certain result of British moral cowardice and surrender in the past. Twenty years back it had been foreseen and foretold by the prophets; for the last five years before the hour of conflict the British nation had felt instinctively that it was drawing steadily nearer; had watched with apprehension the enormous armaments of the Transvaal, and heard with rage and shame the story of the persistent oppression by the Boers of thousands of loyal British citizens.

"A GENTLEMAN IN KHAKI."

Khaki, originally used in India only, but now universal in foreign campaigns, is a canvas-like fabric, cool in summer and warm in winter. It is precisely the colour of the dusty, yellow-brown veldt, and its name is derived from the Persian word for dust.

[1652-1709.

All men had dreaded it; many had striven to avert it; many more had prayed that it might not come in their day. But it had come at last and found Great Britain utterly unprepared, still clinging against hope to the hope of peace, confused and distracted by false predictions that the Boers would never fight, and by the ignorant assurance of partisans who declared that Britain must never resort to force, but must be contented with talk and threats alone, however grave her grievances.

Intrigues against British Supremacy.

Napoleon once said that France and England would never remain at peace; their peace would be only suppressed war. And it might as truly be said of the Transvaal that, since the great betrayal of British interests which followed Majuba and which gave self-government back to the Dutch Republic, it had never been at peace with Britain, but had for eighteen years maintained barely concealed hostilities against all things British. It had armed, plotted, lied, conspired, intrigued, oppressed, prevaricated for the one great end of domination in South Africa at whatever cost. Like the upas tree of the fable, it had corrupted the soil of South Africa with its poison; it had blasted loyalty to Great Britain in the surrounding territories; it had become a centre, and a rallying point for all that was most bitterly opposed to British supremacy and to the ideals which have made our race so great. The one principle upon which its power was founded was the inequality of the white races—the servitude of the Englishman to the Dutch.

MAJUBA HILL.

The scene of the disastrous defeat which we suffered at the hands of the Boers on February 27, 1881. At that time there was no railway in this portion of Natal, and the country was even more sparsely populated than at present.

The great principle upon which the British Empire has been built up is that all men are equal before the law, and that all civilised races stand upon precisely the same footing. As we profoundly believe, not that we English are the favoured people of God, but that so long as we are faithful to the noblest call of duty and to the highest instincts which are in us as a race, we are helping the cause of progress, which is the cause of God, we know that, whatever checks, whatever vicissitudes, whatever disappointments may befall, we march to victory. Our cause is the cause of liberty and of the right.

FIGURE-HEAD ROCK, MAJUBA.

If we look at the map of South Africa as it stood in the days before the war, we shall observe that in the centre of British territories, cut off from all access to the sea, lay two states, one independent of England—the Orange Free State; the other, the Transvaal, in a position of quasi-independence. For a few miles, it is true, the Transvaal boundary on the east is conterminous with Portuguese possessions; indeed, it approaches very close to the magnificent harbour of Delagoa Bay.

KAFFIR WOMEN CARRYING BEER.

The natives make a fermented drink from mealies (Indian corn) which is known as Kaffir beer. It is carried from one kraal to another by strings of women walking in Indian file and carrying on their heads great yellow gourds containing their favourite drink.

1652-1709.] Conflict of Races in South Africa.

Great Britain's Interest in the Dutch Republics.

But with this exception the two Boer States are closely shut in by British colonies. Hence of necessity the British Empire must always have been profoundly interested in the internal condition of these two Dutch republics. Had they been peaceful and orderly States, as was the Orange Free State up to that evil day when it became demoralised by the gold lavished from the Transvaal secret service funds, they might have existed in perfect amity. Had they been content to accept things as they were, there could have been no quarrel.

In the British colonies of Natal and Cape Colony, the one to the south-east of the Boer Republics, the other to the west and south-west, were many thousands of Dutch, closely connected by family and by race with the inhabitants of those republics. It was the one desire of the Government of the Transvaal to unite these Dutch against the English, and to sap their loyalty, though they had no grievances and had been given in every respect the same privileges as the Englishmen.

No other theory will explain the conduct of the Transvaal. It had assumed the title of "South African Republic," and taken to itself a four-coloured flag as emblem of the future union of Transvaal, Orange Free State, Cape Colony, and Natal under its sovereign influence.

O'NEILL'S HOUSE.

Temporary hospital for wounded men brought from Majuba; the house where the Anglo-Boer Convention was held in 1881 and the treaty signed.

O'NEILL'S HOUSE.

The room in which the Convention of 1881 was signed.

VIEW ON THE ORANGE RIVER, FROM THE RAILWAY BRIDGE.

The Orange River divides Cape Colony from the Orange Free State. This view is taken from a railway bridge connecting the two, and looking up stream. The Orange River is one of the few South African rivers that rarely, if ever, dries up.

[1652-1709

The conflict of races in South Africa was complicated by the presence of the Bantu peoples, who gradually overcame the original inhabitants of South Africa, the Hottentots and Bushmen, and are themselves a conquering race, who increase in numbers with the peace which civilisation brings, and who do not suffer, as do many dark-skinned peoples, from the white man's vices and diseases.[1]

[1] Bantu is the generic name for the native tribe, of which the Zulus, Swazies, Amatongas, and Matabele are the off-shoots. There are no pure Bantus left in South Africa, but it is the root-race from which all the more warlike tribes have sprung.

Common Interests of the White Peoples.

Though accurate statistics of the proportion of English and Dutch-speaking inhabitants in the various South African states cannot be obtained, it is probable that in British and Dutch South Africa there were, in 1899, 400,000 Englishmen or men of English descent, 500,000 Dutch, and 3,500,000 Indians, Malays, Hottentots, and natives of the various Kaffir tribes. In Cape Colony and the Orange Free State of the white races the Dutch preponderated; in the Transvaal, Natal, and Rhodesia, the British. Instinct should have united the white peoples, for, dwelling amidst a vast number of Bantus, warlike by nature and intelligent above the common run of negro, both white peoples were face to face with a common danger—a danger which the many fierce struggles with the great tribes of the Zulus, Matabele, and Basutos, had in the past proved to be a very real and ever-present one.

Here were the very conditions which should have produced peace and amity—two kindred white races of the same faith, and almost of the same blood, confronted by hourly peril from the blacks.

Why, then, was it that Englishmen and Dutchmen could not dwell in peace? Hereafter we shall have to follow the whole sad story out in detail; in this place it may suffice briefly to recapitulate the most essential facts.

OLD DUTCH HOUSE IN PAPENDORP IN WHICH THE CAPITULATION OF THE CAPE FROM HOLLAND TO GREAT BRITAIN WAS SIGNED IN 1806.

PRETORIA NACHTMAAL.

Four times a year the country Boers come into Pretoria for Nachtmaal (Holy Communion). They outspan their waggons on the Church Square, camp out for a week with their wives and families, and do their shopping for the ensuing three months.

BATTLEFIELD OF BRONKHORST SPRUIT.

The scene of the battle between the Boers and the English in 1881, when a detachment of the 94th regiment was surprised by a party of the enemy in ambush and nearly annihilated.

Early History of Cape Colony.

1709-1833.] Early History of Cape Colony.

Capetown was first occupied by the Dutch East India Company in 1652 as a naval station on the road to India. At first it was only a military post; five years later a dozen men were allowed to settle outside the limits of the Dutch fortress, buying and selling under most stringent regulations laid down by the Company. The Dutch forcibly took the land from the Hottentots where they could not obtain its cession for a consideration. Gradually they increased in numbers and spread inland; at the close of the seventeenth century they were reinforced by a number of Huguenots, exiled from France on account of their religion, and for the most part men of high birth and noble character. The new comers attempted to keep their tongue and identity, but in 1709 the Dutch Company forbade all use of French in official communications, and the language rapidly became obsolete.

A homogeneous Dutch community grew up in this remote region—for the Cape was, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one of the least-explored and most out-of-the-way parts of the earth—which knew no literature but the Bible, which preserved the manners and traditions of the seventeenth century, and which from its frequent disputes with the Dutch East India Company's tyrannical government imbibed a rooted aversion to all laws and restraints.

It was a strong, old-world community, which retrograded rather than advanced as time went on, which in its utter isolation escaped the soothing influence of civilisation, and in which every man, as far as he could, did that which was right in his own eyes.

THE PAARDEKRAAL COMMEMORATION.

The Paardekraal (Horse-pound) Monument erected near Krugersdorp by the Boers to commemorate their independence. Periodically great meetings are held here, when prayers are offered and patriotic speeches made. Beneath the monument is a sort of cellar, into which every Boer in passing throws a stone as a token of his visit.

Unpopularity of the Dutch East India Company. British capture Capetown.

The colonists were perpetually in conflict with the hated Dutch East India Company; they were in open revolt when in 1795 a British force appeared off Table Bay and captured Capetown. There was at first no antagonism between the conquerors and the colonists. When the Cape was re-occupied in 1806, it having been restored to Holland in the peace of 1802, Sir Home Popham was able to trust very largely to the colonists for the defence of the place. He lays emphasis on their dislike for the Dutch Company and on their loyalty to the Union Jack.

A LAAGER, SHOWING THE LONG CAPE WAGGONS USED IN A "TREK."

When Boers are trekking, or travelling from one place to another, they outspan their waggons at night and put them end-on in the form of an oblong. The cattle are tethered in the centre, and the interstices of the wheels filled up with wacht-een-beitje or wait-a-bit thornbush.

[1837-1854

It was not until England began to interfere with the treatment of the natives by the Dutch colonists that Dutch discontent first showed itself. The prohibition of the use of the Dutch language in official documents and in the law courts, the abolition of slavery in 1834—for which most inadequate compensation was made by England—and the meddling in the government of the colony by doctrinaires in England who knew and cared little or nothing for the peculiar circumstances, familiar to the men on the spot, caused general irritation amongst a people always averse to law and order, and by nature inclined to nomadic habits.

"The Great Trek."

The abolition of slavery was the immediate cause which led to "the Great Trek" in 1837, when many hundreds of Dutch colonist-farmers or "Boers," as they now came to be called, went forth with their waggons and women and children and belongings into the vast, unknown, mysterious, remote lands which then bordered upon the colony. They settled down in what is now Natal, the Orange Free State, and the southern Transvaal.

Natal was annexed by England in 1843; the Orange Free State in 1848, after the Boers had been defeated at Boomplaats in the first real engagement fought in South Africa between the English and the Dutch colonists.

"STUCK" ON THE DRAKENSBERG.

The Drakensberg Mountains form the northern boundary of Natal, dividing that colony from the Orange Free State. The passes are of a difficult and often dangerous nature for waggon-transit.

FORDING A RIVER IN THE TRANSVAAL.

Except after heavy rains all the rivers are easily crossed at the different drifts or fords, and after a long, dusty trek, the team of sixteen oxen enjoy the coolness of the water, and linger in the stream for as long as their drivers will permit.

England recognises the Republics.

In 1852 the independence of the Transvaal was recognised by the Sand River Convention, with the express stipulation that slavery should never be permitted within the territories of the Republic. Two years later England abandoned the Orange Free State for no reason whatever, except her dislike for onerous responsibilities.

All this while war with the Kaffir tribes had continued, in which British soldiers did most of the work and the British people paid most of the cost. All this while, too, one able man after another was going out from England to govern South Africa, and, because his ways were not the home government's ways, was returning in disgrace. Sir Benjamin D'Urban, Sir Harry Smith, Sir George Grey, all walked the same sad road; all did what was wise, far-sighted, and just; all gained the respect of the English and the Dutch in the colony, and all alike were over-ruled, interfered with, or recalled. Jerusalem stoned the prophets; England preferred not to listen to them: either had in the end to pay bitterly for this refusal to hear and learn the truth.

1854-1877.] The Zulu War.

And thus there grew up in South Africa two independent Dutch communities, outside the pale of our Empire, and this, too, in a country which nature clearly meant to be one organic whole.

Their attitude toward us.

These two republics differed much in their attitude to England. The Orange Free State was always on friendly terms; the Transvaal always more or less hostile. The Orange State was reasonably well governed; the Transvaal became an anarchic, loosely compacted, lawless, bankrupt country, where decent government was unknown. Its chequered existence ended for a time in 1877, when, with treasury empty, and threatened on the one hand by Cetewayo and the Zulus and on the other by the Bantu chief Secocoeni, it was annexed in the name of Great Britain by Sir Theophilus Shepstone.

Having taken over the Transvaal, England proceeded to break up the power of the Zulus and to subdue Secocoeni. Trade revived, and everything looked well, though there was still a good deal of veiled discontent, due to the British failure to grant self-government, when for party purposes, to eject Lord Beaconsfield from office, Mr. Gladstone began to declaim against the "invasion of a free people," as he called the annexation of the Transvaal. He was followed by Mr. John Morley and Mr. Leonard Courtney, and by most of his party in this kind of talk.

A BOER COMMANDANT IN FIGHTING KIT.

BOER CANNON USED IN THE WAR OF 1881.

These are old Boer cannon made by inexperienced workmen, and said to be fashioned from the iron rims of wheels taken off the British waggons captured at Bronkhorst Spruit. They form a remarkable contrast with the modern guns with which the Boers are now armed.

Never have rash and foolish words so swiftly come home to harass the speakers, as in this case. Mr. Gladstone achieved his object, and attained power for what afterwards proved to be the most disastrous and humiliating period in British history. His speeches had been reprinted in the Transvaal, and had inspired hopes which the Boers now expected him to fulfil. They were disappointed. On June 8, 1880, he wrote to a Transvaal deputation, "Our judgment is that the Queen cannot be advised to relinquish the Transvaal," and that "obligations have been contracted which cannot now be set aside."

A BOER "LONG TOM" AT PRETORIA STATION, EN ROUTE FOR THE SCENE OF WAR.

This powerful weapon, a Creusot gun of 5·9 inches calibre, has a range of 10,000 yards. It was christened "Long Tom" by our men at Ladysmith, where one of these guns was disabled in a night sortie. With equal aptness a Boer gun whose shells constantly fell short was nicknamed "Weary Willie."

[1877-1881

Sir Bartle Frere.

But though outwardly Mr. Gladstone's attitude was the attitude of a strong man, he took no precautions to meet Boer discontent. The warnings of Sir Bartle Frere, the British governor at the Cape, were unheeded. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had thrown him over once because he had not been able to prevent the Zulu war; Mr. Gladstone now recalled him at the very time when a brave, loyal, far-sighted, single-hearted man, such as Bartle Frere undoubtedly was, was most needed in South Africa. Abandoned by both parties, betrayed, and treated with a contumelious contempt which his noble services had never deserved, he turned his face sadly towards England. Two months later the Transvaal rose in revolt.

FREE STATE ARTILLERY AT BLOEMFONTEIN.

The standing armies of both the Orange Free State and the Transvaal consist of a few hundred State Artillery, largely recruited and officered by Germans and Hollanders. This picture shows the Orange Free State Artillery in gala uniform on the way to parade. They are commanded by Major Albrecht, a German.

Majuba.

In quick succession three checks, or positive defeats, were inflicted upon a small British force, the most serious that of Majuba. The British government had announced that, come what might, it would suppress the insurrection, but losing heart and terrified by the prospect of a Dutch rising in the Cape, it conceded to the insurgents a limited measure of self-government, and strove to delude the world by talk of magnanimity. It explained that there was real nobility in receding from its pledges and giving way to a small but victorious force of Boers. Many people at the time doubted this nobility, and by an explicit statement of Lord Kimberley on November 14, 1899, the surrender is now known to have been due to cowardice, and to cowardice alone.

SIR BARTLE FRERE (the centre figure at the table), STAFF, CHAPLAIN, AND SECRETARY OUTSIDE THE BRITISH RESIDENCY IN PRETORIA, 1880.

A settlement based upon cowardice could never last, could never prove satisfactory. The Transvaal Government used Mr. Gladstone's fears as a lever to extort a fresh convention and get fresh concessions. Its attitude to England was almost openly hostile.

The Outlanders.

1881-1896.] The English a Subject Race.

And now the discovery of gold brought immense wealth and a large British population into its midst. The rights of that British population, known as Uitlanders or Outlanders, had been very inadequately guaranteed by Mr. Gladstone, who foresaw nothing, and thus failed hopelessly in the greatest department of statesmanship. The Transvaal Boers remained what they had been in the days of the Great Trek and in the early forties. They kept all the power in their own hands and made of the English—from whose wealth, however, and from whose energy they took ample toll—a subject race, excluded from all voice in the management of affairs, deprived of the rights of free speech and of free press, unable to obtain justice in the Boer courts, openly insulted and outraged without hope of redress. Corruption was rampant in the governing circles.

JOHANNESBURG.

Up to September 1886 there was not a single house on the site of the now flourishing town of Johannesburg. It owes its existence entirely to the discovery of gold, of which a reef 130 miles long runs through the town and district.

A DUST STORM IN JOHANNESBURG.

This is a very cloudy view of Goldopolis. Periodically, especially in winter, vast dust storms prevail, which obscure everything with an opaque gritty haze as thick as a London fog, and far more unpleasant.

The tone of the Dutch Parliament or Raad reflected the temper of the whole Boer community, which may have been suited to the seventeenth century, but was wholly out of place at the close of the nineteenth. Pillar-boxes were effeminate; locusts were a plague sent from God, and might not be interfered with; railways had not the divine blessing and brought all manner of calamity; the firing of bombs to bring down rain was impious profanity; the size of neckties ought to be regulated by the authorities. At every turn there were fierce expressions of hatred for England and Englishmen. Foreigners were called in to help hold down the English; the government openly and undisguisedly coquetted with Germany and with any power which it believed hostile to the British Empire.

The Jameson Raid.

Then came the Jameson Raid, provoked by misgovernment and by the growing exasperation throughout the British Empire, but in itself indefensible. It failed signally, and left no heroic memory of resolute fighting to the end against overpowering odds, but only shame and sorrow in its trail. Yet it at least served to rivet the gaze of England upon what was happening in South Africa. Even before the raid the Transvaal Government had begun to arm; it now proceeded to build up a great military power, purchasing cannon literally by the hundred and rifles by the thousand, erecting immense fortifications at Pretoria and Johannesburg, and concluding a secret alliance with the Orange Free State. The money for these armaments was wrung from the Outlanders. By the lavish use of secret service funds the press of Continental Europe was set yelling against England, and treason was fomented in Cape Colony.

1881-1896.

The treatment of the Outlanders went from bad to worse, till Englishmen and Englishwomen were murdered, like Edgar and Mrs. Applebee, without redress. No great nation could permit its subjects to suffer continued humiliation in a country over which that nation had certain rights—however shadowy—and it grew monthly more certain that Great Britain must at last intervene.

COLESBERG: PRESIDENT KRUGER'S BIRTH-PLACE.

Seventy-four years ago Paul Kruger was born in the neighbourhood of Colesberg in Cape Colony. He left it with his parents in 1837, at the time of "the Great Trek," and travelled northwards to the wild country, which eventually became the South African Republic.

Kruger.

The president and the evil genius of the Transvaal through this epoch was Stephanus Paulus Johannes Kruger, born in Cape Colony on October 10, 1825. He was a man of indomitable courage and extraordinary force of character—a fighting man from his youth up. His coolness was shown on one occasion, when, out hunting, he suddenly one day, from the top of a kopje—a hillock such as cover the surface of the upland plains of South Africa—saw a large number of Kaffirs evidently advancing to attack him. He sat calmly down without betraying the slightest trepidation, shook the sand from his rough raw-hide shoes, and then waved and signalled with his rifle as if to a considerable force of Boers behind him under shelter of the kopje. The Kaffirs, convinced by his show of boldness that he was not alone, precipitately retreated.

His character.

As a diplomatist, Mr. Kruger earned Bismarck's commendation. The great German, who had met him, saw in him the strongest man of our time. He was, however, destitute of that noble instinct without which statesmanship builds upon the shifting sands—the instinct of justice and fair play. Personally corrupt, since he was not above charging very heavy travelling expenses for a certain trip in which he was the guest of Cape Colony; winking at or openly justifying corruption in others; laying up a colossal fortune out of the stealings of himself and his friends from the State, he had all the uncouthness and all the iron determination of an Abraham Lincoln, but lacked the great American's cleanness of hand and love of justice and of right.

PRESIDENT KRUGER.

Born at Rustenberg, near Colesberg, Cape Colony, October 10, 1825. Emigrated across the Vaal, 1837. Member of Executive Council under President Burghers, 1872. President of Transvaal since 1883; re-elected 1888, 1893, 1898.

DOPPER CHURCH, PRETORIA.

The Dopper or Quaker Church, Pretoria, where President Kruger very often preached. It stood directly opposite his house, and has quite recently been replaced by a more modern structure.

1881-1896.] Character of President Kruger.

Mr. Kruger was by birth a peasant, and remained to the end a peasant in ideas. His will power was coupled with a subtle cunning; his horizon was narrow, and limited and never expanded; his mind was always filled with suspicion and jealousy of all that he could not understand. His patriotism had not prevented him from taking office under the British Government, and asking from that government higher pay. His attitude to the Outlanders, were these of British nationality, was one of insolent contempt. When Johannesburg presented a petition asking for reforms, he remarked, "Ah! that's just like my monkey. You know I keep a monkey in my back yard, and the other day, when we were burning some rubbish, the monkey managed to get his tail burnt, whereupon he bit me. That's just like these people in Johannesburg. They burn their tails in the fire of speculation and then they come and bite me."

THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE, PRETORIA.

This house was given to Paul Kruger by a man named Nellmapius, the original liquor concessionaire, as a small token of gratitude. The only outward signs of its purpose are the flagstaff and a lazy sentry.

"Protest! protest!" he said on another occasion, "what is the good of protesting? You have not got the guns! I have."

A MONSTER ANT-HILL.

The veldt throughout South Africa, but particularly in parts of the Transvaal, is dotted at frequent intervals by ant-heaps, some of which are as large as the one shown above. The natives use the smaller ones as ovens, first driving out the ants by smoke, and then hollowing out the inside.

THE RAADZAAL, PRETORIA.

After the General Election to the Volksraad or Parliament of the Transvaal in 1898, the new members were formally sworn in, and President Kruger made a speech from the balcony under the awning to the crowd waiting in Church Square. The soldiers are the Pretoria Volunteers in their gala uniform.

The outward appearance of Mr. Kruger is in keeping with his sinister personality. A shabby frock coat deluged with coffee stains, a seedy silk hat without gloss, an immense scarf of office which sorts grotesquely with this apparel, and ill-fitting trousers barely long enough to meet the boots, are his familiar habiliments. He smokes and drinks coffee incessantly. He has the fervent piety of a Torquemada; believes himself under the peculiar protection of God; and interlards his discourse with religious ejaculations, as if God could smile upon tyranny and corruption. He has exaggerated the outward roughness of Cromwell, forgetting, however, that, to complete the picture, the vast tolerance, which is Cromwell's greatest merit, is required.

[1896-1899.

Sir Alfred Milner.

To meet this man in a duel of giants, England sent out her greatest and ablest administrator. Sir Alfred Milner went to his arduous task with the solid approval—even with the prayers—of the whole nation. Messrs. Morley and Courtney, and all the faint hearts that masquerade in the party of Little Englanders, blessed the choice. He was known to be wise, moderate, restrained, strong. An Oxford man, he had learnt, in a school which imparts character even more than learning, that the Englishman's duty is not to seek wealth, luxury, or ease, but, in the highest sense, to live well. He did not parade religion, but then it was in his heart. He did not talk of patriotism, but then he had never been in foreign pay, like Mr. Kruger. His manners were not uncouth, his dress was that of the ordinary world. No act of meanness, of corruption, of unscrupulousness can be imputed to him. His career had been one of unsullied brilliance. He was "straight," as he was brave.

At Cape Colony he was welcomed by all. He made no move, but sat still and studied the country, studied the situation, studied Mr. Kruger and Mr. Kruger's policy. He followed impassively the machinations of the Bond, the Dutch party which had organised itself in Cape Colony. Mr. Kruger fancied that here was another man who could be twisted round his thumb, but he was greatly mistaken. Sir Alfred Milner was only striving to discover the truth before he took action.

OOM PAUL AND TANT' SANNIE.

Paul Kruger and Mrs. Kruger, after whom Mr. Chamberlain enquired on a memorable occasion. The President has been twice married; the present Mrs. Kruger was a Miss Malan. The couple are familiarly known in South Africa as "Uncle Paul and Aunt Sannie."

The Bloemfontein Conference.

The crisis drew nearer when an immense petition to the Queen was forwarded by the Outlanders, praying for redress of their grievances. A conference was arranged between President Kruger and Sir Alfred Milner at Bloemfontein, and at it Sir Alfred put forward minimum demands—for a reform of the franchise in the Transvaal, by which the Outlanders would be able to obtain votes, and for a redistribution of seats. The demands were refused, Mr. Kruger offering very much less, and the conference broke up.

SIR A. MILNER AND PRESIDENT KRUGER LEAVING THE CONFERENCE AT BLOEMFONTEIN, June, 1899.

No greater contrast can be imagined than the young, dapper, cultured diplomatist, and the rugged, wily, and uncultured old President.

Sept. 1899.] British Demands Refused.

Then followed a long diplomatic battle between the British Government and Mr. Kruger. Something on our part was conceded of Sir Alfred's minimum, but not by Sir Alfred; nothing was conceded by the Transvaal, which at every turn asserted its right to be considered a "sovereign independent state." Mr. Kruger, as he had always prophesied, was aided and encouraged in his resistance by a certain party of Englishmen which denounced Sir Alfred Milner, pretended that England was aiming at "the destruction of the Transvaal Republic," and asserted that England must concede, and ought to concede, because the nation would never go to war.

BLOEMFONTEIN, CAPITAL OF THE ORANGE FREE STATE.

Finally, on September 8, a British note was despatched demanding a franchise attainable after five years' residence, a greater representation for the Outlander majority in the Volksraad—the Transvaal parliament—and equality of the Dutch and English languages in that Parliament. An early answer was required. At the same time 5,000 troops were ordered from England and 5,000 from India to South Africa, where our garrison did not much exceed 7,000 men.

[Photo by Elliott & Fry.

Son of a doctor of medicine; was educated in Germany, and at King's College, London, and Balliol College, Oxford; barrister, 1881; engaged in journalism, 1882-5; Private Secretary to Mr. Goschen, 1887-9; Under Secretary for Finance in Egypt, 1889-92; Chairman of Board of Inland Revenue, 1892-7; K. C. B., 1895; Governor of the Cape, and High Commissioner of South Africa since 1897.

[Photo by Elliott & Fry.

Born in London, 1836; son of a Birmingham screw manufacturer; Chairman of Birmingham School Board, 1873; Mayor, 1874-5-6; M. P. for Birmingham since 1876; President of the Board of Trade, 1880; President of the Local Government Board, 1886, both under Mr. Gladstone. He differed from that leader on the question of Home Rule, and resigned, 1886. In 1895 he became Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord Salisbury's administration.

Transvaal refuses England's demands.

On the 16th the Transvaal replied with a flat refusal of the vital demands. At the same time came news of immense military preparations in the Transvaal and of a general exodus of British subjects from Johannesburg. Yet England still waited in hope of a peaceful settlement, and the government even now failed to take the steps which should have been taken at once; it did not engage transports, mobilise an army, and with all possible speed despatch it to South Africa.

[Oct. 7-9, 1899.

How terrible was the danger, how near the British Empire in South Africa to its fall in the days which followed the 16th, was not at the time apprehended by the public. Yet the government knew, or should have known. Not till October 7, in face of the hourly growing peril, was mobilisation ordered in England.

REFUGEES LEAVING JOHANNESBURG.

Owing to the immense crowds of refugees leaving Johannesburg, the rolling stock of the Netherlands South African Railway was unequal to the demands made upon it, and very many hapless Uitlanders had to travel hundreds of miles in cattle trucks, amid terribly trying discomforts.

War!

On the 9th, the Boer ultimatum was handed in, demanding the withdrawal of the troops which had reached South Africa since June 1, 1899, and of all troops on their way. There was only one possible answer to this insolent missive—War.

REFUGEES WAITING TO EMBARK AT LOURENÇO MARQUES.

Lourenço Marques is the nearest seaport to Pretoria, and belongs to Portugal. The photograph was taken on the occasion when many refugees from the Transvaal waited all night on the jetty for the ship Avondale Castle, which had been stopped by H. M. S. Philomel and compelled to discharge at Durban £25,000 in specie consigned to the Transvaal Government.

BRITISH SUBJECTS LEAVING JOHANNESBURG AFTER THE PRESENTATION OF THE ULTIMATUM.

[Photo by Gregory.

"His regiment didn't need to send to find him."

[CHAPTER II.]
THE OVERRUNNING OF NORTHERN NATAL.

Hurried Preparations for War—The Reserves Mobilised—Enthusiasm of the British Public—Strength of the Forces in Natal and Cape Colony—Strength of the Enemy—The Attack Delayed—Disposition of the Boer Forces—Positions of the British at Dundee and Ladysmith—Battle of Dundee—Symons wounded—Storming of Talana Hill—The Treacherous White Flag—Yule's March—Battle of Elandslaagte—British and Boer Losses—"Remember Majuba!"—Action at Rietfontein—The Boer Tactics—White decides to hold Ladysmith.

Hurried preparations for war.

The Transvaal ultimatum for the moment united all Englishmen. No one was found to suggest the idea of surrender to such monstrous and treasonable demands. The calling out of the reserves began amidst an excitement which has never been paralleled in our day. Time, unfortunately, was required to get the troop-ships ready, for the Admiralty had not been given a fair chance. Time was also required for the collection of transport, without which no army can move. Horses, mules, tinned meat and food of all kinds, had to be purchased hurriedly in every direction. The sense of public anxiety was augmented by the knowledge that the army sent out could not be in South Africa, ready for work, within six weeks from the date when mobilisation began. And very much might happen in that time.

ARMOURED TRAIN FIRED UPON BY THE BOERS.

This train was attacked by the Boers near Spyfontein, October 15. An attack on a similar train three days earlier, at Kraaipan, near Mafeking, was the first overt act of war.

The Reserves mobilised.

Yet there was outward calm. The reservists answered the call like Englishmen; like men, that is to say, who know a painful duty lies before them and will do it. Scarcely one was missing when the time given them to rejoin had elapsed. Deserters, who had shipped for America, of their own free will came back to fight the Boers. Men rose from beds of sickness that they might serve with the old colours and not betray the confidence reposed in them. There was no exultation, no desire to fight for fighting's sake, only a calm determination to end the twenty years' purgatory of misrule in the Transvaal by coming to the aid of brother Englishmen.

[Oct. 1899.

Enthusiasm of the British public.

The nation, too, began to feel that it had a solemn duty to its soldiers. Vast crowds followed the reservists to the points of mobilisation; eyes were dim at the thought of the sacrifice these brave men were making. For they were going to adventure "life and love and youth for the great prize of death in battle," at their country's call. They were exchanging, many of them, comfort and comparative ease for the hunger and rain and cold of the dreary bivouac, for the toilsome march beneath the burning sun of the veldt, for torture by wounds, and death in its most terrifying forms. They were leaving behind them women and children who looked to them for daily bread. Yet they came with a single heart; came cheerfully, and gave to their country all that they had to give as the choicest offering of their love and devotion.

[Photo by Elliott & Fry.

née Miss Jennie Jerome. Of American parentage; she is the mother of two sons, one of whom, Mr. Winston Churchill, was recently a prisoner in Pretoria, having displayed conspicuous bravery in a small fight at which he was present as a newspaper correspondent. Lady Randolph was instrumental in organising the hospital ship Maine as a token of American brotherhood with Great Britain.

[Photo by Gregory.

[Photo by Gregory.

DEPARTURE OF THE 1st BATTALION, RIFLE BRIGADE: H.R.H. THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT LIGHTING THE MEN'S CIGARETTES.

Oct. 1899.] Hospital Ships and Relief Funds.

Those who at home and in ease were to reap the fruits of their love and devotion responded to the best of their power. Employers announced that they would pay half wages to the women and children whose bread-winners had been called away; enormous funds were raised to support the widowed and the fatherless of those who should fall, and to keep in comfort the families of the soldiers. Workmen subscribed their shillings; the well-to-do their guineas; the rich their thousands of pounds. The most intensely national of poets, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, appealed in touching verse to the nation's heart. In answer to his appeal women sent their rings, children their pence, and the poor and humble gifts in kind. No names were published; the giving was simple and unostentatious, and therefore all the nobler. Thus our soldiers were made to feel that they went forth to battle with the nation's love and with its fervent prayers.

[Photo by W. & D. Downey, Ebury Street.

The latest photograph of H. R. H. the Princess of Wales in Drawing-room dress.

THE "PRINCESS OF WALES" HOSPITAL SHIP; FORMERLY THE "MIDNIGHT SUN" EXCURSION STEAMER.

Her Royal Highness, ever to the front in the cause of suffering humanity, has taken the keenest and most earnest interest in the fitting-up of this hospital ship towards the cost of which she has made a large private grant of funds.

[Photo by Gregory.

Nor were these schemes all. The Princess of Wales—Princess of Pity she has rightly been called—at the head of the Red Cross Society, with private effort, equipped hospitals and hospital ships; Lady Randolph Churchill, widow of a man who loved England, who strove for honest reform, and whose name will not soon be forgotten, of American birth herself, raised, with the aid of other American ladies in London, a fund for a hospital ship; Lady White, the wife of the British general in Natal, collected a great sum to furnish the soldiers of the heroic Natal Field Force with Christmas gifts; every steamer carried away to the Cape presents of provisions, dainties, clothing, tobacco and cigarettes, for the men fighting in the field. From the Queen on her throne to the peasant in his cottage all gave liberally. The flood gates of generosity were opened; a universal impulse of patriotism moved the nation.

[Oct. 1899.

Strength of the forces in Natal and Cape Colony.

Meantime in South Africa the situation was one of the utmost peril. The Transvaal had originally intended to despatch its ultimatum on September 17 or 18, and then to begin the war. At this date none of the reinforcements from England or from India had arrived. The British troops available were four battalions of infantry,[2] two regiments of cavalry, three batteries of field artillery, and one mountain battery in Natal, under the orders of Major-General Sir Penn Symons, a total of about 5,000 men and 18 guns. In Cape Colony were only two-and-a-half battalions, or 2,000 men all told, under General Sir F. Walker.

[2] A battalion of infantry numbers from 800 to 1010 men. A regiment of cavalry is 480 men. A battery of artillery has 6 guns and 180 men. The guns are: in field artillery, 15-pounders (i.e., they fire a shell weighing 15 lb.); in horse artillery, 12-pounders; and in mountain artillery, 7-pounders.

[Photo Window & Grove.

Born 1835; son of J. R. White, Esq., of Whitehall, co. Antrim; educated at Sandhurst; entered the Army, 1853; served in Indian Mutiny; captain, 1863; Major, 1873; was in the Afghan War of 1878-80, and present at the occupation of Kabul, and in the expedition to Maidan, Sharpur; Military Secretary to Viceroy of India; Lieut.-Colonel, Gordon Highlanders, 1881; Colonel, 1885; Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster-General in Egypt; commanded a brigade in Burmah, 1885-86 (for which service he was promoted Major-General, and thanked by Indian Government), and an expedition into Zhob; Commander-in-Chief in India, 1893-8; Quartermaster-General to the Forces, 1898.

[Photo by Gunn & Stuart.

Strength of the Enemy.

Against these the Transvaal alone could put into the field 40,000 or 50,000 men with 70 or 80 guns. The Orange Free State could dispose of 10,000 to 15,000 men with 30 or more guns. Thus, if the Boer forces had advanced in the third week of September, they could unquestionably have swept the British out of Natal, and have made themselves masters of the whole of northern Cape Colony. With the fighting qualities which they have since displayed, they must have surrounded and captured the diminutive British detachments which kept vigil close to the frontiers of a formidable military power. Why, then, was the attack delayed?

[Photo by Gregory.

Bidding farewell to the Army Service Corps at Southampton.

The attack delayed.

Oct. 1899.] The Boer Forces Mobilised.

In the first place the Orange Free State was not at that date ready to throw in its lot with the Transvaal. It had no quarrel whatever with England, and many Englishmen lived happily within its borders. Only a prodigal use of Mr. Kruger's secret service funds, and the desperate exertions of the Free State President, Mr. Steyn, obtained the consent of its Volksraad to the war. Moreover, when that consent had been obtained its armaments were incomplete. Ammunition was wanting; and so, reluctantly, all movement was postponed by the plotters against the British Empire till the first day of October. Even then, it was calculated, it would be easy to sweep the "rooineks" into the sea, as but few of the Indian troops would have arrived. By October 1 the Transvaal completed its mobilisation, and was ready to attack. It was expected that the first Boer victory would be followed by a tremendous uprising of the Cape Dutch, the disloyal of whom had been armed and were in constant correspondence with Pretoria.