he attacks of the
enemy. When he is thus equipped and he abandons lion-hunting for the more
strenuous life of war the Boer is a formidable enemy, for he has combined
in him the qualities of a general as well as the powers of a private
soldier. In lion-hunting the harm of having too many men in authority is
not so fatal to the success of the expedition as it is in real warfare,
where the enemy may have less generals but a larger force of men who will
obey their commands. All the successes of the Boer army were the result of
the fact that every burgher was a general, and to the same cause may be
attributed almost every defeat. Whenever this army of generals combined
and agreed to do a certain work it was successful, but it was unsuccessful
whenever the generals disagreed. If the opportunity had given birth to a
man who would have been accepted as general of the generals--a man was
needed who could introduce discipline and training into the rudimentary
military system of the country--the chances of the Boer success would have
been far greater.

The leaders of the Boer army were elected by a vote of the people in the
same manner in which they chose their presidents and civil officials. Age,
ability, and military experience did not have any bearing on the subject
except in so far as they influenced the mind of the individual voter.
Family influences, party affiliations, and religion had a strong bearing
on the result of the elections, and, as is frequently the case with civil
authorities in other countries, the men with the best military minds and
experience were not always chosen. It was as a result of this system that
General Joubert was at the head of the army when a younger, more
energetic, and more warlike man should have been Commandant-General. At
the last election for Commandant-General, Joubert, a Progressive, also
received the support of the Conservatives, so that two years later he
might not be a candidate for the Presidency against Paul Kruger. In the
same manner the commandants of the districts and the field-cornets of the
wards were chosen, and in the majority of the cases no thought was taken
of their military ability at the time of the election. The voters of a
ward, the lowest political division in the country, elected their
field-cornet more with a view of having him administer the laws in times
of peace than with the idea of having him lead them into a battle, and in
like manner the election of a commandant