The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-12-01
Most Remarkable Narrative Any
Recent War Has Produced
DOES NOT SPARE THE LASH
He says Bosr Defeat Was Due More
to Treachery Among the Burghers
Than to England's Strategy.
Little Praise for "8ob."

London, November 80. : Had not so
many of our burghers proved false TO
their own colors, England, as the great
Bismarck foretold, would have found her
grave in South Africa" That Is the Key
note of the Boer General DeWets book,
entitled Three Years War" published
by Archibald, Constable & Co. in Lon
don 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 y-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 blurts out
his soul in pathetic regret or bitter de-
nunciations.
In this taking of the public into his
confidence Dewet loses none of the
glamor with which his exploits in the
field surround him. In criticizing he
spares no one; Boer and Briton come
equally under the lash. DeWet declares
that whatever the English people may
have to say in discredit Of General
Butler, he had to operate against strong
er positions than any other British gem
eral. Throughout the work the Boer gem
eral has but slight praise for Lord Rob-
erts and little more for Lord Kitchener.
General Knox is almost the only British
general who seems to have struck DeWet
as commander with real military genius.
OF Tommy Atkins" he has many kind
" words to say, and declares 1.-The Brit
ish were far from being bad Shots
Interposition of God.
The comparative immunity of the Beers
from harm, DeWet constantly and most
ferventfy Hrrrfbhtes TO -interposition Of
God.
IF any reader,' he saws, sis eager to
know how 1t was | kept out of the
enemy's hands l can only answer, al
though 1 may not be understood, that I
ascribed it to nothing else than this: It
was not Gods will that I should fall into
their hands. Let those who rejoice at my
miraculous escapes give all the praise to
God"
Nevertheless the book teams with ac-
counts of military and other strategies,
by which DeWet outwitted his pursuers.
Frequently he recounts cases of deser-
tion and panic among his own men, when
his entreaties and "sjamboking' were all
of no avail. DeWet pays tribute to Gem
eral Cronje for his bravery, but declares
he lost at Paardeburg only on account of
his fatal bstinacy in refusing to leave
the laager as he was advised to do by
General Botha and by the writer himself.
Regarding his own forces, DeWet
writes:
.sTt vas far easier m fipht AGAINST the
great English army than against treach-
cry among my own people, and iron will
was required to fight against BOTH Once,
If only our orders had been carried out a
little more strictly, and If only the most
elementary rules of strategy had been OBJ
served 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 perished of hunger. 1t
was not the skill of their commander-in-
chif that saved them"
Frankly Contemptuous.
OF the block houses, DeWet is frankly
contem ptous.
''The block house policy" he says,
Knight equally well have been called the
policy of the blockhead."
The writer emphatically defends the
right to blow up railroad lines and trains
as the usage of war, and he declares he
never missed an opportunity to do so.
The so-called war against woman and
the misuse of the white flag by the Brit
ish is denounced by the Boer general,
who says
THAT such direct murder should have
been committed against defenseless wo-
men and children, is a thing l should
have staked my head could never have
happened in a war waged by the civilized
Fnelish nation and vet 1t happened"
His last word is an injunction to his
fellow countrymen to be loyal to the new
government.
Loyalty" he says, pays best in the
end, and loyalty alone is worthy of q
nation which has shed its blood for free
DOM.
The book contains magnificent por-
trait of the author by the American
painter, John S. Sargent.