Thus three times within the space of a single week had the British Dec. 1899.] The Empire in Peril. columns marched forth to defeat. The Army Corps, the much-trusted Generals, had gone out to South Africa, and yet there was nothing of that irresistible tide of success which, it was fondly hoped, would sweep away the Boer oligarchy. The results of the week's battles were 2,600 British soldiers dead, wounded, or in the enemy's hands, and complete checkmate in every field of the war. Kimberley, Mafeking, and Ladysmith had not been relieved; far from it, the forces which were to have achieved this eagerly desired result were themselves, it seemed, in grave danger. Lord Methuen might at any time be cut off from his base; General Gatacre might be driven back to the sea; even General Buller, with 20,000 British troops on the line of the Tugela, might be in peril, if only the Boers were equal to their opportunities. And dangers even more terrible than these loomed upon the stormy horizon. How if the Cape burst into rebellion and the Dutch there threw in their lot with their victorious kinsmen? How if our enemies of the Continent seized upon the occasion to overthrow the Empire? Nowhere had Britain a friend. France, Russia, and Germany were equally outspoken in bitter and contemptuous criticism. Not the Governments, but the nations of the Continent hated and envied us in equal degree, and if only the signal for attack had been given, would have rushed upon us with malignant ardour. But the Governments, though they bore us no goodwill, waited and hesitated. Much depended upon Russia, and the Czar, the young Nicholas, played a part at this juncture which the British nation will remember with gratitude. He set his face firmly against any treacherous attack. He restrained his war party and declined to profit by our troubles. He may have felt that war with England would have brought our one friend, Japan, into the field with consequences not altogether pleasant for Russia, but none the less we may honour him for his chivalrous attitude.
Her prestige in danger.
And the most grievous feature of our defeats was that they were inflicted by a people numerically weak, without an army in the true sense;—by a number of peasants and farmers, upon the very flower of the British Army. The strongest, the best appointed, and, it was hoped, the best led force that had ever left our shores, equipped with all the contrivances of modern war, with field telegraphs, war balloons, howitzers, naval guns, and lyddite shells, had failed. It had failed completely—almost beyond repair—and it could place to its credit not a single great success. One or two battles in which we had gained the day, with heavy loss and without inflicting proportionate damage upon the enemy, had, indeed, been paraded as glorious victories, but their very insignificance, in relation to the task to be accomplished, was a sad commentary upon the depths to which we had fallen. It was not that the British soldier had failed in courage. That "last validity of noble veins" he still retained. Upon every field of the war his demeanour had compelled the enemy's admiration. Our military annals, splendid though these are, contain nothing finer than the advance of the Dublin Fusiliers at Colenso, of the Guards at Belmont, and of the Marines at Enslin, or the conduct of General Pole-Carew and his devoted band in the anxious hours when the Modder River fight swayed to and fro and the balance inclined against us. And yet, though hundreds of brave men now lay festering in the sun or in their shallow graves on the far-off veldt, and hundreds more filled those homes of silent agony, the hospitals, nothing had been accomplished. The fame of the Army, the prestige of the nation, the very existence of the Empire, were in grievous peril.
F. J. Waugh.]
It is clear now that the earlier victories of the Boers were largely due to their prudent habit of keeping out of sight.
[Dec. 1899.
Thus in a few short days had the British people been brought face to face with the tragic realities of war. The scales fell from all eyes; it was clear to every man that this was a struggle for life or death, a struggle in which defeat must mean the loss of South Africa and the shaking of the British Empire to its very foundations, and in which victory at the best could never regain for us what we had forfeited—our reputation before the world. Not yet did the nation know, or it might well have shivered, the hesitation, the doubts, the ignorance of the true meaning of events which marked its leading men. Not yet did it fully comprehend the grave defects which had characterised its army in the field. It had illusions still of which two more months of unsuccess were at last to deprive it; it had yet to learn how all precautions had been neglected; and blind animal courage substituted for skilful leading.
TWO OF THE GUNS CAPTURED FROM DR. JAMESON, IN A FORT AT PRETORIA.