The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-12-05
HIS BOOK IS PUBLISHED
It Was Easier to Fight the British
Army Than Treachery-Now
Advises Loyalty.

OWu COlOiS, EuSldIlu, DIS Lu6 great DIS
marck foretold, would have found her
grave in South Africa"
That is the keynote of the Boer
General DeWet's book. entitled ''Three
Years War" published by Archibald
Constable 4 Co.. in London, and dedi-
GATED by the Boer general, "To my
fellow subjects of the British empire"
1t is perhaps the most remarkable
book by the most remarkable leader
that any recent al has produced. The
concise, simply told, tale of the ex-
traordinary campaign is marked
throughout with the stamp of truth.
The badness of the narrative only
to bring into strong relief the
fiery passages in which a strong man
literally blurts 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 criticizing he spares
no one, Boer and British come equally
under the lash. DeWet declares that
Whatever English people may have
to say in discredit Of General Butler
he had to operate against stronger po-
sitions than any other British general.
Throughout the work the Boer gen
eral has but slight praise for Lord
Roberts and little more for Lord
Kitchener. General Knox is almost
the only British general who seems
to have struck DeWet as a command.
er with real military genius.
OF Thomas Atkins he has many
kindly words to say and declares 1.-The
British were far from being bad
Shots"
The comparative immunity Of the
Beers from harm, DeWet constantly
and most fervently attributes to the
interposition of God.
"If any reader" he says, sis eager
to know how it was | kept out of the
enemy's hands, I can only answer,
although | may not be understood,
that l 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 praise to Cod"
Nevertheless the book teens with
accounts of military and other state
gies by which DeWet outwitted his
pursuers. Frequently he recounts
cases of desertion and panic among
his own men when his entreaties and
"sjamboking'' were all of no avail.
DeWet pays a tribute to General
Crcnje for his bravery, but declares
he lost at ~Paardeberg on account Of
his fatal obstinacy in refusing to leave
the lager as he was advised to do
by General Botha and by the writer
himself.
Regarding his own forces, DeWet
writes:
ut was far easier to fight against
the great English army than against
t~reachery among my W people and
an iron will was required against both.
Once, if only our orders had been car
ried out a little more strictly and If
only the most elementary rules OF
strategy had been observed in his Ell
forts 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 command
er-in-chief hat saved them
Of the blockhouses DeWet is frank
ly contemptuous.
THE blockhouse policy" he says,
might equally we'll have been called
the policy of the blockroad."
The writer emphatically defends
the right to blow up railway lines and
trains as usuages 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 by the British is denounced by
the Boer general, who says:
THAT such direct and indirect MUIR
der should have been committed
against d~efenseless women and chill
dren is a thing I should have staked
my head could never have happened
in a war waged by a civilized English
nation, and yet it happened"
His last words is injunction to his
fellow countrymen to be loyal to the
new government. Loyalty" he says,
"pays better in the end and loyalty
is worthy of a nation which has shed
it's blood for freedom"