The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-12-01
Beers PROVED
TREACHER0US
General Dewet Tells the Story
of the South African War.
BOOK BEARS STAMP OF TRUTH
LITTLE PRAISE FOR EITHER
ROBERTS OR KITCHENER.

many of our burghers proven false
to their own colors, England, as
the great Bismarck foretold. would
have found her grave in South Africa
That is the keynote of General Dewet's
book entitled Three Years War" pub
lished by Archibald Constable & Co.
in London and dedicated by the Boer
general ITO my fellow subjects of the
British empire"
1t is perhaps the most remarkable
book, by the most remarkable leader.
that any recent war has produced. The
concise, simply told tale of the extraor-
binary campaign is marked throughout
with the stamp of truth. The badness
OF the narrative only serves to bring
into strong relief the fiery passages
over which a strong man literally pours
out his soul in pathetic regret or bitter
denunciatiOn.
In thus taking the public into his
confidence Dewet loses nothing of the
glamOr with which his exploits in the
field surround him. In criticising he
spares no one; Beer and Briton come
equally under the lash. Dewet declares
that, whatever the English people may
have to say in discredit of General Bull
Ter. he had to operate against stronger
positions than any other British gen
eral. Throughout the work the Boer
general has but slight praise for Lord
Roberts and little more for Lord Kitch-
eRer. General Knox is almost the only
British general who seems to have
struck Dewet as a commander with
real military genius.
Tommy Atkins" Shot Well.
OF Tommy Atkins he has many
kindly words to say. and he declares
The British were far from being bad
shots"
IF any reader he says. lis eager TO
know how it was 1 kept out of the
enemy's hands. 1 can instantly answer,
although 1 may not be understood that
/ ascribed it to nothing else than this
lit was not Gods viii that 1 should
fall into the enemy's hands. Let those
who rejoice at my miraculous escapes
give all the praise to Cod
Nevertheless. the books teens with
accounts of military and other STRAIT
gems by which Dewet outwitted his
pursuers.
Frequently he recounts cases of de-
Eertion and panic among his own men,
to whom his entreaties and 'sjambok-
ing were all of no avail. Dewet pays
a tribute to General Crenje for his
bravery, but declares he lost at Paar-
debdrg only on account of his fatal OBJ
stinacy not TO leave the lager. as he
was advised to do by General Botha
and by the writer himself
Boer Treachery.
Regarding his own forces, Dewet
writes:
TT was Tar easier to fight against the
great English army than against
treachery among my own people, and
an iron will was required to fight
against both. Once. if only our orders
strictly. and if only the most elemental
~ rules of strategy had been observed
in our efforts to break the British lines
of communication, Lord Roberts and
his thousands of troops would have
found themselves shut UP in Pretoria.
where they would have persisted of
hunger It was not the skill of their
conmander-in-chi that saved them. -
OF the blockhouses Dewet is frankly
cOntemptuous. THE blockhouse poll
cy.' he says, might equally well have
been called the policy of the block
head
British outrages.
The writer emphaticaIly defends the
right to blow up railroad lines and
trains as the usage of war, and he de-
clares he never missed an opportunity
to do So The sO-called war against
women and the misuse of the white flag
ny the BIlJlSn Is denounced Dy the BOef
general. who says: That such direct
and indirect murders have been COM
mitted against defenseless women and
children is a thing, I should have
staked my head, could never have hap
pened in war waged by the civilized
English nation. and yet it happened"
His last word is an injunction to his
fellow cOuntrymen to be loyal to the
new government. Loyalty" he says,
sDaVS hest i'm the end and LOYALTY alone
IS worthy of a nation which has shed
its blood for freedom
The book contains a magnificent por-
trait of the author by the American
painter. John S. Sargent.