Lieutenant Dease bore a very good character but was young and inexperienced. For several reasons I am pleased to be able to make publicly these statements.
The soldiers we had made prisoners during this fight, as well as those we took at Helvetia, were given up to the British officers a few days afterwards, as we were not in a position to feed them properly, and it would not be humane or fair to keep the soldiers who had the misfortune of falling into our hands without proper food. This, of course, was a very unsatisfactory state of affairs, for we had to fight fiercely, valuable lives had to be sacrificed, every nerve had to be strained to force the enemy to surrender, and to take his positions; and then, when we had captured them, the soldiers were merely disarmed and sent back to the English lines after a little while, only to find them fighting against us once more in a few days.
The Boers asked, "Why are not these "Tommies" required to take the oath before being liberated not to fight against us again?" I believe this would have been against the rules of civilised warfare, and we did not think it chivalrous to ask a man who was a prisoner to take an oath in return for his release.
A prisoner-of-war has no freedom of action, and might have promised under the circumstances what he would not have done if he had been a free man.[Back to Table of Contents]
CHAPTER XXXI.
A "BLUFF" AND A BATTLE.
The last days of February, 1901, were very trying for our commandos on the "Hoogeveld," south of the railway. General French, assisted by half a dozen other generals, with a force of 60,000 men, crossed the "Hoogeveld," between the Natal border and the Delagoa Railway, driving all the burghers and cattle before him, continually closer to the Swazi frontier, in order to strike a "final blow" there.
These operations the English called "The Great Sweep of February, 1901."
Commandant-General Botha sent word that he was in a bad plight on the "Hoogeveld," the enemy having concentrated all his available troops upon him. I was asked to divert their attention as much as possible by repeated attacks on the railway line, and to worry them everywhere.
To attack the fortified entrenchments in these parts, where we had only just been taking the offensive, causing the enemy to be on his guard, would not have been advisable. I therefore decided to make a feint attack on Belfast.