The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-06-20
BRETON AND BOER.
How Imperial Troops Were Outgener-
 alled and Outfought By Dutch Farm

How Imperial Troops Were Outgener-
 alled and Outfought By Dutch Farm.
 CTS.
 Most of US remember only too well
 the sfort-lived English domination ir
 the Transvaal during the later part of
 the seventies, as well as the way ir
 which misfortune seemed to dog the
 steps of those on whose shoulders fell
 the burden of upholdtng it there We
 had found the country in a bankrupt
 condition, and had restored it's finances;
 we had found it threatened by the for
 midable Zulu monarch, with his army of
 fifty thousand fighting savages, thor
 oughly drilled and in state of high
 military efficiency After a desperate
 struggle, in which we suffered some
 very severe losses, including the battle
 of Isandula, where our camp was taken and the whole of it's defenders slaugh-
 tered, the British arms finally achieved
 a complete but hard-won triumph. We had broken the power of Cetewayo, and | dispersed his regiments of "celibate,
 man. destroying gladiators,' to use the phrase in which Sir Bartle Frere once | described his justly dreaded impis. Sub sequently, in the Transyaal itself, we had overthrown Secocoeni powerful
 native chief who had successfully defied
 the Boer government; while enterprislng
 British traders had supplied an abund-
 ance of excellent sporting rifles to the
 people of the country who earned not little money by shooting down the game with them. In brief we had res
 moved one by one every obstacle to
 q H., z
 CTS who made up the bulk of the popu-
 lation of the Transvaal outside the
 towns.
 The revolt followed, as might have
 been expected. It broke out in the
 month of December, 1SSO during the warm summer of the Southern hemi- sphere, and it came to an end with the peace that was concluded after the dis astrous battle of Majuba Mountain on February 28, 18S1., The tale of misfor- tune begins with the affair of Bronker- spruit in December. The Ninety-fourth regiment forming part of the British garrison of the Transvaal, had been or dered to concentrate at Pretoria, and was on the march thither. No actual fighting had as yet taken place; but the Boers had held a mass meeting, pro- claimed a republic, and announced that they were going to begin. At Bronker- spruit they laid carefully prepared ambush along the road by which the Ninety-fourth were advancing, and awaited their victims
 The British colonel had been warned to look out for traps, but, as far as can now be known, he had no idea that these sbarpshooting farmers were real ly in earnest, and he failed to profit by the warning. The Ninety-fourth were strung out for half a mile along the road; the weather was hot and many of the soldiers had put their rifles in the | wagons; in short, the march was con- ducted as if in time of profound | peace At certain spot the long col umn was halted by Boer patrol. There | was a brief colloquy between the colonel | and the Boers; they ordered him to go back, and he refused. Nobody seems to have noticed the ambushed rif1emen, or to have observed the little heaps of stones with which these skilled hunters of wild game, old hands at shooting over the bare veldt, had thoughtfully marked out beforehand at one hundred, one hun dred and fifty and two hundred yards their exact distance from their intended targets.
 The Boer rifles cracked, and in twenty minutes all the officers and half the British troops were shot down, and the est were made prisoners, the loss on the side of the farmers was almost nil. As a western American crudely observ- sd, it was a case of lot of first-claSs 'rontiersmen taking in crowd of ten- Ter feet out of the wet. It was ter-
 bly severe lesson that inthe face of possible enemy a soldier must never be If his guard.
 After the Bronkerspruit disaster the whole country was up. All the British ,arrisons in the Transvaal were beleag- 1 lred by the Boers, and one garrison, ( was known both by hem and by Sir George Pomeroy Col ey, the general in command in Natal, O be short of provisions. Colley gal antly determined to cut his way in, if possible. and relieve it. He knew we'll nough that ere long an army from over $ eas must be sent to retrieve the honor f the British arms; but he was also s ware that it must inevitably arrive too I ate to save Potchefstroom. The Boers ( ad occupied Laing's Nek, the pass ] ading into the Tranvaal from Natal; nd with the small British force he had t t his command he hoped to be able to V islodge them and clear the road, Gen C ral Colley was considered to be one of S 1e very best officers in the British ar 8 ". He had had some experience in ac- | lal fighting in China, and he had ex- V ibited extraordinary skill and courage Il nd resource in the difficult task of or anizing the transport in the Ashanti f lmpaign. He certianly could not be fl llled a novice in war. But, unfortu- D ltely there was one thing of which all b s previous experience had taught him il 1thiug, and that was how to fight u yainst good shots armed with modern g 'eechloaders s On January 21, 1884, Colley moved s pom Laing's Nek with about eleven n lndred men and six guns. The force a