The National tribune., 1901-11-21
BRITISH CAMPAIGNING.
Pessimistic Explanation from a British
Source of Why the War is Protracted.
CThe London Times)

The following extracts are from a pri-
vate letter written at the close of Sep
tember by very competent civilian who
| has been travelling in the theater Of war
i'll South Africa:
THE war drags on unsatisfactory, and
the civilians to a man cannot understand
what 2J0,OOO men are doing with some
10000 Beers at the outside in the field.
At one place there are 25,000 troops with
in a radius of a few miles,~aHd yet peo-
pie are officially informed that we could
not be insured outside a radius of 10
miles. We saw column of ours moving
along a road iInd the roads always fol
low the low ground and the valleys), and
for all they knew and saw the hills
might have been full of Beers, who re-
serve their fire and then catch stragglers
etc, and arm and mount themselves at
our expense. One very bad feature of
giving the soldiers 300 rounds of ammuni-
ton each is that they shed their cart
ridges like leaves when they are tired,
and the Kahrs pick them up in bushels.
This | was often told, but the military
men l spoke to said it was impossible.
However, | crossed a column Of ours the
other day and shortly after | saw two
kafirs who had been following it, and i'm
mediately one of them came up and Of
fered me 80 loaded cartridges for a shfl-
ling. He said he had followed the col
umn and picked them up, They say the
Beers collect these cartridges in tens of
thousands and use them. Nearly all the
Beers are armed with our rifles, mount
ed on our horses. and use our ammuni-
ton. AT -, - lost his head and
ordered the immediate evacuation of the
place on the rumOr of a BOer column
which never came, and we left there LOCO
suits of soldiers clothing and $4,000 of
stores which the Beers have used since.
At - we evacuated again in funk and
left behind US $4,000 rounds of ammuni-
ton ard stores. Now, was sent
away from -, not in disgrace but to u
high post elsewhere. Truly, the ways of
the army are wonderful. The press of
London should insist on disasters being
reported. We have heard, on the author
ity of men and traders who We're near
the sites of the disasters that within the
last month 10 of one regiment have sur
rendered in the colony in batch, 60 of
another in a batch, and so of third,
and another in a batch in the Free State,
aid hundreds OF individual men, and Lo
mention has been made in our papers here.
Why. saw i'll one place that under mar
tial law the commandant had notified
that. if any one was heard openly talking
of or writing about war news which was
not certified and posted up by the mIlI-
tary authorities, he would be fined ami
imprisoned. OF course Wa say nothing
in public but in private we all talk freely.
i have had talks with many Beers,
for under martial law we are all in ad-
versity alike and adversely makes Strang-
ers and enemies friends for the moment.
A Boer told me that martial law would
not be bad if it were administered by
reasonable men, but your officers are 80
stupid they annoy us all because they do
not think. They are not bad, but stupid. |
Along the line as we travel we are ad- |
vised saying. Don't get down at --, at
-, and other places. as the command
ants there are fools, whose one idea of
martial law is harassing friends and foes |
alike Driving, walking about the dis
trict, you have to show your pass to any |
armed man you see, and they are some |
times n nuisance. Once n man almost |
refused to return my pass because L
would not give him whisky. On another
occasion Il sentry made me write down |
all about my wife and children and horse, |
etc, because l would not give him six |
pence Any unarmed men moving about |
the country full of armed soldiers and
sentries is helpless. The soldiers are
good and reasonable as a rule, but there
are blackguards among them, especially |
as we have recruited rum fellows in our |
irregular corps.
When we were going from TO |
- we had gone half way when a man |
met us who said, Stop here and return;
there are 100 Beers in -. about 10 |
miles ahead of YOU / asked him what |
they looked like. He said: The most |
ragged lot you ever saw, all of them but
two colonial rebels, of whom about 40
were riding donkeys, 40 foals, and 40 were
well mounted The well-mounted men |
did the rearguard work, and they Dragged |
that they had cvaded and could evade
a whole British column anywhere. They |
said: The English columns are funked
to rush us, and they will never overtake
us, they are so careful OF themselves | |
mentioned this to a Colonel, and he said
it was not fair at this stage of the war
to rush lot of Beers and sacrifice many
men. l told him that it would mean
less loss of life in the end, but he said |
We'll. I'd never risk it. l met a very
smart intelligence officer the otheg( day.