The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-11-12
GENERAL DE WET.

I first met Christian De Wet on the
march to Sanna's Post, says Douglas
Story in the London Mail.
We had started away back about
Winburg and were pushing rapidly,
purpOsefulIy south. What reason there
was in the movement no man among
US knew. All we-the foreign military
attaches and couple Of correspondents
could say was that we had been
warned that an important movement
was on foot and we had received inVi-
tati0ns to accompany the commandment
generals advance.
Such breathing spaces as we had were
! italicized with queries.
Where was De Wet bound?" Was
he going to cut the line?" Was the
Boer mad dream of an attack upon
Bl0emfOntein to be put to the test?'
We asked and wondered, but none
/ found an answer. The attaches began
to be FESTIVE as the third sun fell on
! our forced march, and my friend and
travelling cOmTade, Captain RichmanD,
! the United States attache. rode forward
to ask the silent man at the head OF
l the struggling cavalcade his intentions.
I do not know was the only reply;
and we jerked at our brides as we rode
on into the daTkening night.
Christian De Wet is a man of Moltke-
like tGcituTnity. Long since his govern
ment ceased to ask him for dispatches,
and the news of his victory was COM
! mUnicated to KrOnstad and Pretoria
! by a chance sergeant of scouts.
Middle aged. middle sized, middle
! broad and middle COmplexiOned, De
! Wet attracts one only by the bright
reStleSsnesS of his eye. Like a bird, he
notes everything within a circumferen-
tial horizon. He is the highest deVel-
| Opment OF the BOer hunter, as Louis
BOtha is the higest development of the
BOer soldier
He knows nothing of the maneuvering
/ of troops, of the marshalling of bri-
! grades, of the handling of an army. He
( is but blunt BOer peasant, who knows
| every yard of his native country and
can adjudge the strengths and weak
nessee of q position at a glance. He
/ fights always on the passive often
sive' waiting for his enemy to make
I a move, and bouncing upon him at the
place and time of his greatest weak
ness.
He has no orderly idea of his own tao
/ tics. Days after a battle I have waited
upon him and failed utterly to recog-
| nize his plans and descriptions OF a
/ fight we have seen together. To him
/ an opposing army is herd of spring
! box, with a capacity for infiicting in
/ jury This latter quality redOubles his
/ watchfulness, but does not alter his
( strategy. He has all the qualities of q
! Robin Hood. learned in the same hard
school under q similar master.
! CuriOusly enough, no account Of De
I Wet I have read has been written by
/ a man who has seen the hero of the
/ Free State. When I last saw him he
/ wore a beard. and I doubt if the ext
! gencies of his later experience have led
! his dlscarding that national trade
/ mark. never heard him utter a word
! OF English, and I know he was never
( further from BlOemfOntein than Pre-
/ toTia in his life.
/ The Christian De Wet who took B.
1 A. at Cambridge is a much younger
| man, a member of a totally different
/ family, from the colony who acted as
/ press censor in Pretoria, and left there
/ on June 4 for the east. To him I have
] to render much thanks for journalistic
| enterprise gone to waste