ited voices of friend
and foe singing--

"It's the soldiers of the Queen, my lads,
Who've been, my lads--who've seen, my lads,
* * * * *
We'll proudly point to every one
Of England's soldiers of the Queen."

CHAPTER VII

THE GENERALS OF THE WAR

The names and deeds of the men who led thirty thousand of their
fellow-peasants against almost a quarter of a million of the trained
troops of the greatest empire in the world, and husbanded their men and
resources so that they were enabled to continue the unequal struggle for
the greater part of a year will live for ever in the history of the Dark
Continent. When racial hatred and the bitternesses of the war have been
forgotten, and South Africa has emerged from its long period of bloodshed
and disaster, then all Afrikanders will revere the memory of the valiant
deeds of Cronje, Joubert, Botha, Meyer, De Wet, and the others who fought
so gallantly in a cause which they considered just and holy. Such noble
examples of heroism as Cronje's stand at Paardeberg, Botha's defence of
the Tugela and the region east of Pretoria; De Wet's warfare in the Free
State, and Meyer's fighting in the Transvaal will shine in African history
as long as the Southern Cross illumes the path of civilised people in that
region. When future generations search the pages of history for deeds of
valour they will turn to the records of the Boer-British war of 1899-1900,
and find that the military leaders of the farmers of South Africa were not
less valorous than those of the untrained followers of Cromwell or William
of Orange, the peace-loving mountaineers of Switzerland, or the patriotic
countrymen of Washington.

The leaders of the Boer forces were not generals in the popular sense of
the word. Almost without exception, they were men who had no technical
knowledge of warfare; men who were utterly without military training of
any nature, and who would have been unable to pass an examination for the
rank of corporal in a European army. Among the entire list of generals who
fought in the armies of the two Republics there were not more than three
who had ever read military works, and Cronje was the only one who ever
studied the theory and practice of modern warfare, and made an attempt to
apply the principles of it to his army. Every one of the Boer generals was
a farmer who, before the war, paid more attention to his crops a