by cutting
in on their line of retreat. The Boers, however, took every precaution
against such an eventuality; and the result was generally, as stated
by the German critics, that the Boers were "manoeuvred" out of their
positions. But this does not prove that the course adopted by Lord
Roberts was wrong; it merely proves the extreme difficulty of
inflicting a severe defeat upon an enemy who declines to risk a
decisive action, and whose mobility gives him the power to do so. The
course advocated by the critics would have been equally barren of
result, while the cost in lives would have been far greater.

[Sidenote: The Boers not in uniform.]

It remains to notice certain definite circumstances which caused the
British Army in South Africa to be confronted by difficulties which no
other army has been required to face. The Boers were accorded all the
privileges of a civilised army, although at the same time they
violated the most essential of the conditions upon the observance of
which these privileges are based. This condition is the wearing, by
the forces of a belligerent, of such a uniform and distinctive dress
as will be sufficient to enable the other belligerent to discriminate
with facility between the combatant and non-combatant population of
his enemy. The fact that the burgher forces were not in uniform and
were yet accorded the privileges claimed by civilised troops, was in
itself a circumstance that increased both the efforts required, and
the losses incurred, by the British Army to an extent which has not as
yet been fully realised. In the operations which Lord Roberts had
conducted in Afghanistan it was not the organised army but the
tribesmen that had proved difficult to overcome. The Afghan army
retreated, or, if it stood its ground, was defeated. But the
tribesmen who "sniped" the British troops from the mountain slopes and
from behind stones and rocks, who assembled from all sides as rapidly
as they melted away, constituted the real difficulty of the campaign.
In South Africa the burgher forces were army and tribesmen alike.
Owing to the absence of any distinctive uniform the combatant Boers
mingled freely with the British soldiers, and went to and fro among
the non-combatant Boer population in the towns and districts occupied
by the British. On one day they were in the British camp as
ox-drivers, or provision-sellers, or what not, and on the next they
were in the burgher fighting line. A single instance