New Iberia enterprise. (New Iberia, La.) 1885-1902, 1899-12-23
BOERS WERE PREPARED.

New York. Dec. 1.-THE World
prints letter written by Gen.
,JOubert. commander of the BOer
armies. under date of Oct. p. to a
friend in Berlin. in which the Gen
eral says:
Even since the Infamous Jane
son raid of 1896 our government
was convinced that some diSrepu-
table characters would urgeEngland
to war. Its meaning could not be
mistaken. 1t could have for its
sole object only the annihilation of
the Boer republic.
1--WE were equally sure that we
would have to depend on our own
resources, for although we knew
that this war would meet with the
unanimous condemnation of all
European powers, we did not anti
cipate that any of them would sum
mon strength to come to our rescue.
England's S arrogance and her strong
navy have so cowed the European
powers that they did not bid her
stop in her despicable land grab
bing, not even where their own in
terests are involved. Knowing
these circumstances we depended
solely on ourselves, improved our
means of defense and tried to keep
the English i'll the dark as to our
real preparations.
"'To this purpose we gave their
disguised spies access to our anti
quated guns and artillery, but were
very carefnl to conceal from them
our modern artillery parks. Our
calculations proved to be correct.
The English public credited these
misleading reports.
"Their cry, 'On to Pretoria is
on level of intelligence with the
Partisan cry of 1870, TO Berlin
"Your letter lays much stress on
the numerical superiority of the
English, but in my opinion Eng
land cannot send more than IS, 900
soldiers to the Transvaal without
withdrawing all her troops from
the colonies. This in itself is an
imposing army, but only half of
them will be available.
"Granting that England will
have effected the landing of her
troops by the middle of December,
she will have lost in the meantime
at least 10000 through death, cas-
ualties, desertions and captures,
this number would accordingly be
reduced to $1,000. We will try to
prevent the junction of the English
forces under Butler, but even If we
should not succeed the English will
be unable to get more than $4,000
men in the field against us. The
rest will be needed for garrisOns
and protection Of their bases of
operations.
"The scene of war will cover Ma
and Cape Colony, an area of say
700 kilometres. Our own camp
is protected by three mountain
ranges, and 500 men are amply
sufficient for its protection. Our
manner of communication is excel
lent The outposts have command
of and facilities for destroying pro-
visions in case Of their positions
becoming untenable.
GA war Of defense, of which we
need not think for considerable
time, would present far greater ad-
vantages than an offensive war.
We are at home in the highlands
of the Transvaal and the Orange
Free State.
"The British will have to con-
test every step under incOnceivable
difficulties and will have to be pre-
pared every moment to fight on two
or three fronts. Then will begin
a guerrilla war which the British
will not be able to endure.
ALREADY we have $4,000 men
in the field, SO we need not calcu-
late upon rising Of Beers in Cape
Colony and Natal. Nevertheless,
if the British stir up the natives
and employ them to fight us ris-
ing of the whole of Afrikanderdom
is certain"
A person named DR.. s. G.. Swal-