Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-02-01
THE LATEST BRITISH REVERSE.

Nobody expected any other result from
the so-called turning movement for
it not only had no merit in itself, as
far as can be learned from a study of
the maps and the conditions generally,
but it vas undertaken with an mad
equate force, with imperfect knowledge
| both of the country and the force and
disposition of the Beers, and, finally,
seems to have been more in the ma
ture of giving Butler and Warren a
final chance to retrieve lost reputa-
lions by a forlorn hope than with any
| rational military idea from which sue
cess could be reasonably hoped. The
net result was that five brigades of
good men were pushed into a trap
where they were confronted by a SUI
| perior force in an impregnable posi-
ton, and after the commanders had
| vainly butted their heads against a
| stone wall they were compelled to beat
an ignominious retreat, with a probable
loss of two thousand of the best troops
England possesses.
If the loss was confined to these
men it would be bad enough; but the
manner. The far greater effect is that
upon the morale of the men. in the
added gloom in England, in the in
creased desperation of the Beers, in
the tendency to greatly add to the dis
affection among the Cape Colony
Dutch, and last and more than all, i'll
the increased chance OF. intervention
by some one or more OF the great pow
ers.
In ninety days England has gained
nothing, but has lost ten thousand of
the flower of her army, and has ex-
| pended two hundred million dollars.
| The Beers are doubtless stronger than
when the wal broke out, and a long
| series of victories have not turned
their heads. Calmly and methodically
| they keep on checkmating and de-
| feating their enemies in the field,
while their grasp upon Kimberley and
Ladysmith grows tighter with each
passing day, and both cities appear to
be doomed.
In England the Times voices the SEN
ltiment that yet more troops must be
| sent out. This must indeed be done
if the wal is to be prosecuted, but these
| additional troops must be largely or
entirely militia, and can they hope
for success where the old regular cam
paignefs have failed so disastrously
and repeatedly? This is a matter to
be seriously considered in future OPP
eratioLs. When the Dublins, the
Black Watch, the Highlanders, the
Cold Stream Guards and other famous
veteran regiments cannot command
victory, how can it be won by yeo-
many and militia? Success may yet
come 20 the English by sheer force
of numbers, but as Dom Paul said at
the start, they are paying the price he
predicted would 'startle humanity"
1t as already startled England.
The London Daily Mail voices the
sober second thought of the British
nation when it says:
"The richest and what was hitherto con-
sidered the most powerful nation in the
world stands to-day in the humiliating
position of seeing its armies beaten back
with Lsavy losses at the hands of two
Our ambassadors abroad suffer ignomin-
ously, knowing that DR.. Leyds has during
the pasS week been received at semi-official
entertainments not only in Paris but in
Berlin.
"One would have thought that DR.. Leyds'
reception by foreign governments was al
i ready sufficiently suggestive. One would
have thought the time had come when
some attempt should be made to mobilize
the fleet and the remaining land forces in
order tnat the world may know that, while
bearing our suffering calmly, we have no
intention of subsiding into a second or
third rate power by allowing foreign inter-
ventioE of any kind"
Craze dangers confront the empire
of the Queen. 1t remains to be seen
whether her government and people
will have the energy and self reliance
to cali the male population to arms, to
mobilize the fleets and bid defiance to
a worsd against England in sentiment,
If not in arms, or, whether like Rome
under Honorius and Valentinian, the
results of a thousand years of
Thought, of work, of warfare and of
commercial activity, are to go down
before the relentless march of the
same fate which overwhelmed Persia,
Egypt, Greece, Rome and the almost
continental empire of Napoleon.
/ In n brief sentence: Has Eng
land the dry rot?