being at Poplar's Drift there would be left
the other brigade of the first division, and that may be on its way
towards the north. Resistance was expected at the passage of the Vaal at
Fourteen Streams, but that point must have already been reached.
Probably nothing will be heard of this column until it has accomplished
its task, except in the not very probable event of hard fighting between
Winsorton and Mafeking. Colonel Baden-Powell is known to be very hard
pressed, being short of provisions and of troops. It is certain the
column will make every effort to reach Mafeking in time, but the
distance is great. The best chance of success would be found in the
despatch of a large body of mounted troops to move in the fashion of the
great raiding expeditions of the American Civil War; but it is doubtful
whether sufficient mounted troops were or are available.

Apart from their own resources the Boers may hope for help from outside.
They have from the beginning looked for the intervention of some great
Power, for the assistance of the Dutch party at the Cape, and for such
action by the British Opposition as might embarrass the Government in
its resolve to prosecute the war to its logical conclusion.

Intervention will not be undertaken by any Power that is not prepared to
go to war, and does not see a fair prospect of success in an attack upon
the British Empire. Intervention therefore will be prevented if the Navy
is kept ready for any emergency, and if the Government measures for
arming the Nation are so carried out as to convince continental Powers
that they will produce an appreciable result. That conviction does not
yet exist, but it is not too late to create it.

The Cape Dutch will not be able to embarrass a British Government that
knows its own mind and is resolved to treat them fairly while asserting
its authority in the Transvaal and the Free State. The peace at any
price party at home is trying hard to press its false doctrines, but in
the present temper of the Nation has no chance of success, provided only
that the Government carries out without hesitation or vacillation the
policy to which it is by all its action committed, of bringing the
territories of the Boer Republics under British administration so soon
as the military power of the Boers has been broken.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LESSONS OF THE WAR***

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