Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-06-20
B0erS Would Cause Trouble
For the British
In THE EVENT OF WAR,
Lord Compton, An Authority on the
Matter, Says it Would be a Most
ArduOuS Undertaking to Defeat
Dom Paul'S Subjects.

Chicago, June 20.-Lord Cecil Douglass
Compton, an English chaplain Of Lances-
ter after brief stay in Chicago, left for
| the east last night with his wife. Lord
Compton served in South Africa for five
years. He did not participate in the
Jameson raid, but he was in the country
at that time and Immediately after that
untoward enterprise he entered the
Transvaal country and traversed much
of it, He knows the Beers and their
country, and he considered both crit
lcally from the standpoint Of military
officer and student He spoke of the
Transvaal problem entirely as a military
man. He said
There aAe motives of fair play and
humanity which make Great Britain ex-
ceedingly reluctant to interfere in South
Africa by force. But it is only candid to
say that considerations Of a military
character also operate TO make US chary
about rushing into a campaign which
must put the most formidable obstacles
and involve questions of transport, sup
ply and strategy that might stagger a
military experience.
In the first place. the Beers from the
Transvaal are magnificent guerrilla SOL
diers Their history has proven it, and
they are fully up to their standard today.
They are expert marksmen, born rough
riders, such as your own cowboys, and
their courage and tenacity is undeniable.
individually they are as good military
stuff as the world possesses. They also
axe thoroughly convinced of the justice
of their cause and would die to a man at
the word Of Dom Paul. But, aside from
their morals and their fitness, the Trans
*hal country is one admirably adapted
fo: the purpose of defense. 1t is a land
with a large uninha bited space An
army invading it must have a distant
base, and its supplies must be brought
through a semi-tropical country under
the most disadvantageous conditions
Cape Town is thousand miles from the
Valley river, and if an attack were to be
made from Natal there would be much
tropical growth to work through. The
question of transportation would be Sc
rious. We would need thousands of
mules. which must be brought from South
America. The ocean distance and the
adverse climate would kill the animals
off by the hundreds, and the actual work
would entail even greater losses.
There is a question Of strategy as well.
Tile Beers would be difficult to hit in
mass. Indeed they might not be mo-
hfiZed in European sense at all In an
arid, rocky country, filled with splendid
shots, with no real objective point to
capture, with a disaffected or actively
hostile population on your flank or rear,
the conquest of the Transvaal would be
one of the most arduous UNDERTAKINGS
we ever entered upon. In my opinion,
no less than 10000 men would be required.
Your own Philippines people were not so
difficult. Indeed, it is folly to under
estimate the military strength of the
Transvaal, which proceeds not alone
from the material character of the popu-
lat.on, but also from the nature of the
country itself. And the Beers are armed
to the teeth. The money raised by tax
alton from the Uitlanders has been spent
in arms and artillery, so that the repub-
lie repeats on small scale the military
camp which the continental powers ex-
hbit on a great scale"