Mafeking Railway Station—The First Train arriving from the North after the Relief. (Photo by D. Taylor, Mafeking.)
To the Bechuanaland Rifles Colonel Baden-Powell exclaimed:—
“Men, you have turned out trumps. With volunteers one knows that they have been ably drilled, but there is no telling how they will fight. I have been able to use you exactly as Regular troops, and I have been specially pleased with your straight shooting. The other day, when the enemy occupied the Protectorate Fort, they admitted that they were forced to surrender by your straight shooting, under which they did not dare to show a hand above the parapet.”
The chief delighted the juvenile Cadet Corps by giving them their meed of praise for their conduct as soldiers, concluding with, “I hope you will continue in the profession, and will do as well in after life.”
He then turned to the outsiders, the Northern Relief Force under Colonel Plumer, which had borne the brunt of the seven months’ fighting, and expressed his regret that they had been too weak to relieve the town “off their own bat.” But he eulogised the splendid work done in bad country and climate. The Southern Force under Colonel Mahon were congratulated on having made a march which would live in history. Their chief was complimented on the magnificent body of men he commanded, while the Imperial Light Horse, associated as it was with memories of Ladysmith, Colonel Baden-Powell declared he was especially pleased to see, as these would be able, in consequence of their own experience, to sympathise with the people in Mafeking.
So the amazing defence of Mafeking was over! For seven months the gallant little town had withstood every ingenious device of the Boers, and in the end it had come off victorious. The first shot was fired on the 16th of October, and from that day the rumble of bombardment had been the accompaniment of almost every hour between the rising and setting of the sun. And now all was serene and still, and only the battered walls of the once neat little hamlet told the terrible, the glorious tale of British doggedness and British pluck.
| Lord Roberts | Lord Kitchener |