The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1899-12-22
TEE WAR IN soUrH AFRICA.

commenting upon the present critical |
situation in South Africa, are quoted
as saying that the crisis is SO far
reaching that Great Britain stands
where she stood over century ago,
when the American colonists, men of
British and Dutch blood, were in
arms against her. Others, like the
influential London Times, say that
since the days of the Indian Mutiny
the nation has not been confronted
with SO painful and anxious a situa-
ton. We cannot recall any instance
during that period in which the Brit
ish met with such defeats in the field
as have recently been experienced
within the space Of ten days by Gen
eral Gatacre, Lord Methuen and Gen
eral Butler. The days of the mutiny
were, indeed, times that tried mems
souls, and the indomitable pluck and
steadfastness of our British cousins
were never more coDspicuously Illus
trated than in the campaigns under
Sir Colin Campbell, which resulted in
the suppression of the mutiny and the
restoration of British prestige and
supremacy in India.
But for parallel to the present sit
uation it is necessary to go further
back than the days of the mutiny.
Those London Journals are nearer
the mark which liken the present
aspect of affairs to that presented
century and quarter ago, when the
finest troops of Great Britain, COM
manded by some of her best generals,
were defeated by raw levies of Ameri-
can farmers fighting for their liberties
and their rights. The Dutch Beers
are not Hindoo Sepoys, are neither
Mohanmedans nor Brahmins. They
are not fighting because of a slight,
real or fancied, to their religion, or for
the purpose of restoring the tabled
glories of an ancient native empire,
like those of the Moguls. They are
men of kindred stock and of the same
stern religions faith as Cromwell's
Ironsides or the Scotch Covenanters.
They go into battle with prayers and
psalms upon their lips, believing that
they are fighting in the hottest Of
causes-for God and Fatherland.
They are fighting not for empire, but
for independence. Without seaport,
they have no ambition to become or
be thought world power. A simple,
pastoral, agricultural folk, they enter
into no competition with British
manufacturers and do not threaten
British commercial supremacy even
in South Africa. That they are brave
| and stubborn fighters the British
| learned to their cost years ago, when
at Majuba Hill small force of Beers
attacked and routed a superior British
force, occupying position supposed
to be not only impregnable, but I'M
assailable.
There are many points of compar-
ison between the present war for the
subjugation of the Beers and that
waged by former British Ministry
| and Parliament for the subjugatiou
of America, which are calculated to
give serious food for thought to British
statesmen of the present day. The
American War of Independence lasted
seven years, and at the close Great
Britain had to confess herself beaten
and renounce the sovereignty which
had previously been hers without
question over the colonies which her
children had founded. How long the
war in South Africa will last no man
can tell. 1t is hardly two months old,
and so far is an unbroken record of
checks and reverses sustained by the
British. When our furefathers took
up arms at Lexington and Bunker
| Hill, when Washington took command
OF the patriot army at Cambridge, the
colonists had no allies to depend upon,
and their cause no sympathiZers ex-
cept in Great Britain itself. AT home
they were anything but united peo-
| ple--the Tories were and continued to
be, in more than half of the colonies,
influential, active and bitter. The
Beers OF the Trausvaal and Orange
Free State are united to a man in de-
Tense of their country and their homes.
A general rising in their favor of the
Dutch in the British colonies of Natal
and the Cape is already dreaded as
among possibilities that are imminent,
while the sympathy of European ma
tions is open and undisguised. Before
the Revolutionary War was over
foreign complications" arose which
made France, Spain and Holland our
friends and gave us the former ma
ton as powerful and valuable ally.
The dread of similar foreign compli-
cations" with possible similar results
in the present war, ia weighing upon
the minds of British statesmen now.
That farmers can fight, the British
first learned in conflict with our fore
fathers. The last notable lesson of
the kind which they ever received
was administered by General Jackson
and his back woodsmen behind their
rude breastwork of cotton bales at
New Orleans. The troops whom on
that occasion Sir Edward Pakenham
led to defeat, were the flower of We'll
lington's army, fresh from victories
over the troops of Napoleon in Spain.
So, the troops whose advances the
Beers have repulsed in Africa are the
flower of the British army today
oone finer in the world. 1t is impos-
sib!e to say that the valor displayed
on one side has been greater than
upon the other. Both are probably
equally brave. But in the art of de-
fensive fighting in a rough and brok-
en- country the Beers have shown, ap-
arently, superior tactics and skill.
Here one is struck again with the dis
advantage at which the best regular
troops in the world may be placed in
fighting such men. If Sir Redvers
Buffers repulse at the Tugela river
serves to recall Sir Edward Paken-
hams defeat at New Orleans, General
Gatacre's experience was not unlike
that of General Braddock in our own
Western wilderness at still earlier
date. Sun.
CONGRESS COMMITTEES,
On Monday Sneaker Hepderson