nd
Hill. On July 30th Prinsloo and 4,000 burghers surrendered to Hunter;
on August 27th the main Transvaal army, under Louis Botha, was again
defeated at Dalmanutha, and on September 1st the Transvaal was
annexed. On the 11th President Krueger fled the Transvaal; Komati
Poort, the eastern frontier town on the railway line to Delagoa Bay,
was entered on the 24th, and two days later railway communication was
re-opened between Delagoa Bay and Pretoria.

[Footnote 197: Lord Roberts had asked Col. Baden-Powell how
long he could hold out at Mafeking, and then promised that
the relief of the town should be effected within the required
period.]

In spite of the vast area and harassing conditions of the war, in
spite of its own military unpreparedness, and the unexpected strength
of the Boer attack, the Power which created the Republics had
destroyed them within less than a twelvemonth from the day on which
they had defied it.

At this point it will be convenient to place on record certain general
conclusions which arise out of the events and circumstances of the
South African War, and to consider certain military criticisms which
have been offered upon the conduct of the British Army in the field.

We have seen that the initial losses of the campaign were due, not to
any defects in the Army as a fighting force, but to the position in
which the Army was placed by the irresolution of the nation. We have
seen also that within less than a year of the ultimatum the capitals
of the two Republics were occupied, and their power of "organised
resistance" was destroyed. During this stage of the war the regular
Army, small as it was, supplemented by selected reinforcements from
the auxiliary services, and by the colonial contingents, sufficed to
do the work required of it. In the second stage, when the work to be
accomplished was nothing less than the disarmament of the entire Dutch
population of South Africa, the character of the reinforcements
supplied had greatly depreciated,[198] and the prolongation of the war
was in part to be attributed to this circumstance. For the present,
however, it will be sufficient to confine our observations to the
period of "organised resistance."

[Footnote 198: One fighting British general stated that one
of the first stage force was equal to five of the men
supplied after the reserves had been used up in April,
1900.]

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