The Project Gutenberg EBook of Four Months Besieged, by H. H. S. Pearse

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Title: Four Months Besieged
The Story of Ladysmith

Author: H. H. S. Pearse

Release Date: August 7, 2005 [EBook #16466]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: SIR GEORGE STEWART WHITE, V.C., G.C.S.I.

_From a Photograph by Window & Grove_]

Four Months Besieged

THE STORY OF LADYSMITH

BEING UNPUBLISHED LETTERS

FROM

H.H.S. PEARSE
THE 'DAILY NEWS' SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

_WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SKETCHES AND PHOTOGRAPHS MADE BY THE
AUTHOR_

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1900
_All rights reserved_

PREFACE

The siege of Ladysmith will long remain in the memories of the age. The
annals of war furnish the record of many fierce struggles, in which men
and women have undergone sufferings more terrible and possibly shown a
devotion rising to sublimer heights. But the Boer War of 1899-1900 will
mark an epoch, and throughout its opening stage of four months the minds
of men, and the hopes and fears of the whole British race, centred upon
the little town in mid-Natal where Sir George White with his army
maintained a valiant resistance against a strenuous and determined foe
without, and disease and hunger and death within, until, to use his own
words, that slow-moving giant John Bull should pass from his slumber and
bestir himself to take back his own. For that reason alone the story of
Ladysmith will remain memorable. But it is a story which is brilliant in
brave deeds, which tells of danger boldly faced, of noble self-sacrifice
to duty, in calm endurance of many and growing evils--a story worth the
telling. Yet so far it has been told only in the necessarily disjointed
telegrams and letters of the press correspondents in the town. Native
runners who were captured and otherwise went astray, and the ruthless
pencil of the censor, were accountable for many gaps. Two or three of
the letters contained in t