The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-02-27
SHALL SUCH MEN PERISH?
Widespread Sympathy Aroused in
Europe by Cronjes Heroic Stand.

A special cablegram from London to
the New York Sum of Sunday, said:
General Cronje and his Spartan army
still hold out in that terrible valley of
death on the Modder river. All Europe
looks on in mingled horror and admira-
ton at the magnificent, but heart-rend-
ing tragedy Already a mighty voice of
protest is rising up from one end of the
Continent to the other. French and
Germans and Russians unite in the cry:
These men deserve to be free; Great
Britain shall not crush such a nation Of
heroes"
England herself is aghast at the spec
tacIe. She suddenly realizes that she
will have no friend left on earth least
of all America if she permits the delib-
crate slaughter of these 5000 helpless
patriots. No Boer victory, however
great, could so damage the British cause
in the eyes of mankind as the compile
ton of this wholesale execution with
lyddite.
Some realization of this fact has
reached Roberts and Kitchener, for the
Commandment at last accounts had
slackened ard become almost desultory.
The green fumes of lyddite no longer
st.fle the survivors, if survivors there be
in that awful valley.
\ new problem confronts England-a
problem so humliating that nowhere can
be found its like. What shall be done
with an enemy which carries out to the
bitterest and literal end the motto ''In-
dependence or DeathF' Alexander or
Caesar. with cold-blooded stoicism,
might put adj relentlessly to the sword.
England, the boasted champion of lib
erty, cannot do this. She dares not.
She is defeated-hopelesSly and com
pletely defeated-in her scheme of conr
quest in Africa so long as the spirit
which prompted Cronje's army to choose
almost certain death at PaardebeTg con-
tinues to animate the Boer nation.
Few Engiishmen have yet realized this
truth. but it will soon come home to
them. When it does-when this most stu
pendous dilemma of the age stares them
in the face--they viii turn alone, among
the nations of the earth, for suggestion
or advice to America. What word WI
come from over the sea? Much depends
upon that message.
Information of the utmost interest re-
garding the Boer situation and plans has
DCtU ItCplNGu DH the sun - I<OIOpiL OLilNC
in mail and cable advices. from official
and other sources in Pretoria. The pres
emit extraordinary crisis juStifies the pub
lication of portion of this news, al
though it was originally intended only
for private information.
The Boer authorities realized. even af
ter three great successes III md Decem-
her, that they would be unable to hold
their advanced positions outside the bor-
ders of the two republics after the inn
mense British achievements reached
the front. 1t was believed that the
Federal troops could act aggressively, or
at least macmillan a successful defense, so
long as the British force did not much
exceed 100000. The leaders of the Boer
campaign decided that as their opponents
increased in numbers and strength, the
Federal troops would withdraw under
pressure, to a second line of defense
where ii would be possible to reinforce
the endangered points, an action which
was not feasible when the operations
were so far separated as Kimberley and
Natal.
1t was deliberately decided that when
the British overwhelmingly outnumbered
them they would abandon the siege of
Ladysmith if General White still held
out and transfer General Joubert's army
to the defense of the Orange Free State,
leaving only the small force necessary
to hold the impregnable passes west of
Ladysmith Should overpowering num-
bers still drive them back the Beers
planned n third line of defense which
they expect to hold until England. and
the whole world also. is tired of the
war, or until the remnants of the Boer