Blue Shirt and Khaki: A Comparison

by James F. J. Archibald

Never was keener disappointment pictured on a man’s face, and he staggered as though he had been struck; but after an instant, making an effort to recover himself, he half extended his hands with a gesture denoting resignation, shrugged his shoulders, and simply said, “Oh, I’m sorry!” and turned away.

1. Released British officers in Pretoria after the entry of Lord Roberts.

2. Native East Indian servants of British officers in South Africa.

A few moments later I delivered the letter to Colonel Kelly’s son, who was that day probably the happiest man in the prison. He courteously invited me to remain for a time and meet some of his brother officers; but after having witnessed the exhibition near the entrance I felt that I wanted to get away from the place as soon as possible.

Not many days after, the boom of the British guns resounded in the valley; shells shrieked over the prison and fell into the little city; and on a day early in June a horde of khaki poured over every mountain side, from every hill-top, and flowed through the valley from every direction. Pretoria was in the hands of the British, and these prisoners were released after many weary months of captivity. There was a wild scene of rejoicing about the prison, and the captives embraced their rescuers, fairly dancing for joy at the regaining of their liberty. That afternoon, in the public square, when Lord Roberts raised the Union Jack over the State House, five of the English officers came up to me and apologized for the conduct of their companions in captivity on the occasion of my visit to their prison.

“It was a shabby thing for them to do,” said one of them, “but then you know there are bound to be cads in every lot.” I could not help thinking, however, that there was a singularly large number of cads in this particular lot, and also of the many tales that I had heard from the Boers of similar conduct on the part of other English officers when they were first captured.

My friend, Mr. Richard Harding Davis, went to South Africa in complete sympathy with the British cause, and joined General Buller’s army, seeing much of the hardest campaigning on the Natal side. He was fully convinced as to the rights of the English cause, and equally firm in his opinion that the Boers were all they had been depicted by the press of Great Britain. A little later he had occasion to withdraw from the British forces and transfer his observations to the opposite side. He did so with the full consent of the British authorities, and without unfriendly disagreement. He had not been with the Afrikanders very long before he was persuaded of their cause, seeing how grossly they had been misrepresented by men who wrote without knowledge of the true state of affairs, or who wrote in revenge after having been crossed in some manner by the Transvaal authorities. Mr. Davis saw that the men of these two South African Republics were not the dirty, ignorant, bewhiskered settlers that had been pictured, but that they were clubmen, professional men, and business men of every description and many nationalities, as well as the typical farmers of the veldt known to illustrated papers, and they were all fighting in a just cause and defending their rights against territorial aggression. This was also, I am safe in saying, the impression of all the correspondents who had the opportunity of observing the war from the Boer side, no matter how warm had been their early prejudice in favor of Great Britain.

Mr. Davis went to the war as heartily prejudiced in favor of the British officers as of the cause of England; but because he has had sufficient strength of character and love of fair play to change his sentiments and the tenor of his writing completely, he has been malignantly attacked for making the same statement that I have just made regarding the personal conduct of the British officers. Nevertheless, this statement is a fact that remains absolutely true. It seems incredible that such demeanor could have been manifested, and I am free to confess that had I not been a witness I would not have believed it.