The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1902-12-05
GENERAL DENET'S NEW BOOK
REMARKABLE BOOK BY A MOST
REMARKABLE LEADER.
He Claims Many Burghers Proved
False to Their Own Colors-Hls
Story of the Late South African War
Stamped With the Trunth-Recom-
mends Loyalty to New Government.

London-"Had not so many of our
burghers proved false to their own col
ors, England, as the great Bismarck
foretold, would have found her grave
in South Africa"
That is the keynote of the Boer gen
eral Dewets book, entitled Three
Years War;" published by Archibald
Constantable q Co. in London and
dedicated 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 war has produced. The
concise, simply told tale of the extra
ordinary campaign is marked through
out with the stamp of truth. The bold
ness of the narrative only serves to
bring into strong relief the fiery pas
sages over which a strong man literal
ly 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 criticism 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
stronger positions than any other Brit
ish general. Throughout the work the
Boer general 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 military genius. For
Tommy Atkins" he has many kindly
words to say, and he declares.
"The British were far from being
bad Shots"
The comparative immunity of the
Bears from harm Dewet constantly and
most fervently attributes to the inter
position of God.
IF any reader" he says, sis eager
to know how it was l kept out of the
enemy's hands, can instantly answer,
although | may not be understood, that
| ascribe it to nothing else than this
it was not Gods will that | should fall
into the enemy's hands. Let those who
rejoice at my miraculous escapes give
all the praise to God"
Nevertheless, the book teens with
accounts of military and other strate-
gems by which Dewet outwitted his
pursuers.
Frequently he recounts cases of de-
sertion and pane among his own men,
WI 10 So,
ing" were all of no avail. Dewet pays
a tribute to General Cronje for his
bravery, but declares he lost at
Paardeburg only on account of his fatal
obstinacy not to leave the laager, as
he was advised to do by General Botha
and by the writer himself.
Regarding his own forces Dewet
writes:
1T was far easier to fight against
the great English army than against
the treachery among my own people,
and an iron will was required to fight
against both. Once, if only orders had
been carried out a little more strictly
and if only the most elementary 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.
1t was not the skill of their command
er in chief that saved them"
OF the blockhouses Dewet is frank
ly contemptuous. "The blockhouse
policy" he says, might 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 de-
clares he never missed an opportunity
to do so. The so called war against
women and the misuse of the white
flag by British is denounced by the
Boer general, who says: "That such
direct and indirect murders have been
committed against defenseless women
and children is a thing l should have
staked my head could never have hap
pened in a 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, pays best in 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 Sargent.