A West Pointer with the Boers /

by John Y. Fillmore Blake

I say all this with the best intentions, General Botha, for you are a young man, and in the future possibly your services will be needed. To your tact, courage and generalship, add energy and foresight, and I assure you that you will prove yourself a star of the first magnitude in the eyes of the military world; but remember that you can not ignore and allow to remain undestroyed the enemy's line of communications, when all is in your own hands. Make your plans to win, but also prepare for disaster, and your name will go down in history as a great general. Of General de lay Rey and De Wet, I have but one criticism to make, and that is they must tell their burghers less of religion and more of the duties they owe to their Country.

The burghers know their bibles as well as the officers, can pray as well and preach as well; then why should their officers keep trying to drive more bible into the burghers? When the officers tell them that God has ordained that all men shall be free, and that all burghers who submit to live as slaves to an English Sovereign can never hope to pass St. Peter and enter the gates of heaven, they have said enough on the bible question. In contending with such an unscrupulous and God-banished government as the British, they must remember that their rifles and artillery must take first place. The Boers are by nature intensely humane and religious, and command the respect and admiration of all who know them, but they must remember that when at war with the English, they are fighting a lot of savages, and that by way of retaliation they must play the savage, too. The civilized christian preaches of humane war, but has any one ever taken part in or witnessed a humane war, or can any one mention a humane war since the world was created? When two civilized nations go to war, each strains every nerve to mow the other down, to cut his throat, to mutilate and kill him,—by fair means or foul,—and when the battle is lost and won, they commiserate and sympathize with them, and grieve to see so many hundreds of their fellowmen writhing in agony on the battlefield. This is what they call humane war in modern times. If the greedy, ambitious and unscrupulous politicians who draw the people into war were forced to shoulder the rifle and take position in the front line of battle, then we would have a truly humane war, because they would then find a way to settle all differences without resorting to force of arms.

Had the English law required Joe Chamberlain, Alfred Milner and C.J. Rhodes, to go into the front line of battle as proof of their earnestness and sincerity and of their love for their country, it is certain that the pages of history would never have been stained by the account of the bloody war in South Africa.

Now a few words on the Anglo-Boer, a class of men in my opinion far more contemptible than such men as Roberts, Kitchener, Milner and Chamberlain who had burned down the Boer homes and left the Boer women to starve to death, because they did not make their men come in and surrender. The Anglo-Boers deserted their people, took up arms with the British and materially helped them to destroy their own people's farms and make the women and children suffer death, if possible. These Anglo-Boers were organized into a military force and christened by Lord Kitchener as National Scouts. To show their great loyalty to the British Crown they endeavored to prove themselves more cruel to the Boer women and children than the English ever were, and they made thousands of them suffer. The Boers were fortunate enough to capture a few of them and they were promptly shot. All of them would have been shot had they been captured. After the general surrender any one of those National Scouts who dared to go back to his own farm would promptly meet his just doom. The English would bury him and ask no questions. Within the first two months after the surrender, twenty-two of them were buried, and I learn that occasionally one or two of them are buried now. They have to live under the protection of the British troops to avoid being killed. It is hoped that in time the entire 3000 will have died unnatural deaths. In hundreds of instances their own wives and children deserted them and would not allow them to come near them. Many of them wanted to go to Somaliland and help the English fight the Mad Mullah and his negroes, but the English Government felt that they could not be trusted. They are now ignored and despised both by the English and the Boers, and the most commendable act they could do would be for each to cut his own throat and thus earn the thanks and approval of present and coming generations.

The traitor is the most despicable of all the animal creation, and of the National Scouts I say with Tom Moore "May the blood that courses through their dastardly veins and recoils at the very sound of Freedom's call, stagnate in chains!"

I will now sum up the reasons why the Boers lost their independence and country, and then throw in a few scraps which are worth recording. In the first place, the Boers lost because they made the fatal mistake of laying siege to Ladysmith, Kimberly and Mafeking. Had they driven ahead and take possession of the capitals of Natal and Cape Colony, all three of these depots of supplies and ammunition would have fallen into their hands without a shot being fired; and besides they would have received at least 75,000 recruits from the Colonies. Mafeking was absolutely of no importance to them. Of course, Baden-Powell was there and thousands of dum-dum bullets, and three or four years' supply of food, but all this in the beginning was not wanted. Baden-Powell would never have ventured a day's march from his prairie-dog-holes had there been Boers present, because he did not wish to take any chances of being captured. In the second place, the Boers lost because so many thousands of them surrendered voluntarily on the occupation of Bloemfontein and Pretoria. The Boer generals I hold entirely responsible for this. Had they met and talked to them and explained Roberts' proclamations, they would have prevented at least 35,000 men from surrendering.

SOME OF THE IRISH BOYS JUST AFTER THE GENERAL SURRENDER
Mike Halley, Sidney Blake, Jerry O'Leary, Dr. Worthington, Jack McGlew, Dick Hunt, Jim French, John Langtry, Pete O'Hare, Joe Kennedy, George Waldeck, Dave Norris, Colonel Blake, Lieutenant Malan, Joe Wade.

In the third place even after the voluntary surrender of so many thousands of men, had the three generals, Chris De Wet, de la Rey and Louis Botha, concentrated their forces and carried the war into Cape Colony, they would have won, because they would have received as many thousand recruits as they had lost in men who had voluntarily surrendered, and more, too. They could have taken complete possession of the English lines of communication, and this would have forced the English to abandon both the Free State and the Transvaal. But with a hammer and a spike one could not drive into a Boer general's head the real importance of his enemy's line of communication and the necessity of its destruction.

In the fourth place, the Boers lost because the English Government in Washington, D.C., allied itself with the English Government in London, England, and allowed British officers to establish a military camp at Chalmette, New Orleans, for recruiting horses, mules and men for the British army in South Africa. This was a most damnable piece of business. More than 200,000 horses and mules were sent, and I don't know how many thousand men.