Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1901-07-09
matasa1a pi1nt.
TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1901.
Published weekly and entered al the Post Offic
atWsusau as seeond class matter.
The South African War.

Since the day when Great Britain
haughtily gave the little Transvaal Re-
public the ultimatum you must let
subjects of Great Britain vote and hold
office in your republic without renounc-
ing their allegiance to the queen" the
prospect for the final success of the lit
tie Dutch republic was never so bright
as it is today. The embattled farmers
of South Africa still stand with ranks
unbrOken, and with almost as great
military strength in the field as they
ever had, and with a force of veteran
fighters such as the world has never
before seen, led by commander who
had no military training, and yet has
shown greater skill in war than any
general now living. The Beers have
again invaded Cape Colony, this time
in much stronger force than before
about 5000 What a force of 5000 of
these African farmers means,-descen-
dents of the Dutch who fought against
Ava, and of the French HerguenOtS
who made Henry of Navarro invinci-
BILE, can be guessed by any one who has
closely watched the war up to this time.
On the other hand Great Britain is
much weaker than when the war broke
out. A London paper, recently, in
commenting upon this new invasion of
the Cape Colony, said it would interest
the British public to know where the
100000 British soldiers reported to be in
South Africa are at the present time.
This is a greater force than we thought
the British ever had in South Africa.
How can they possibly have so many
Let us see. The entire force there
when Lord Roberts took command was
225,OO0, as claimed by British news
papers at that time. Allowing
for the ordinary difference be-
tween an army on paper and
an army on dress parade, which
excludes those in hospital or on the
sick list, this should be cut down at
least $4,000. Then allow for the ordi-
nary difference between an army on
dress parade and an army in line of
battle which excludes those who prefer |
to feign sickness rather than fight, "a |
large contingent this would be among
lot of raw recruits drawn from such |
classes as the British recruits come
from; must we not allow $4,000 more |
for this contingent? Then allow for the |
large number who manage, through |
having pull of some sort, to get soft |
job of some kind where they can draw
pay and be out of danger. Then
allow for those who have been killed |
and permanently disabled by wounds
since Roberts took command A re-
cent British war office report stated the
number of killed since that time. We
have mislaid the figures, and can only
remember that it was between 5000
and 10, 900 killed. Suppose the perman-
emily disabled to be half as many as the
killed-that makes say $4,000. The ratio
of loss by disease exceeded the ratio of
loss in battle during our civil war five
to one. Suppose in South Africa it is
no greater among these British recruits
and there are 10000 more gone. Now
let anyone figure mp these items and
see how much there will be left of the
%, geo outside of hospital. Of course
there have been rciufcrcements sent,
quite number-we have seen no state
ment of the number, but recall occasion
al news items that vessels had sailed to
South Africa with troops. The total of
these could not have been very large
considering the great difficulty there
was in raising the first regiments of
recruits. In fact there is no probabih-
ty whatever that Great Britain can
have now in South Africa more than
100000 effective men, and, doubtless,
about all of these are needed for garri-
son duty to guard the railroads. The
railroads, rs far north as Pretoria, are
in the possession of the British. All