ilitary
authorities found it necessary to adopt entirely new tactics. But
subsequent events showed that no greater strategical error was ever
committed.

Let me explain briefly for the benefit of those of my readers who have
forgotten the details of the great South African war.

The Boer Republics had no organised force. In the event of war against
natives or against some foreign Power, the burghers were called up
from their farms, the husbands, fathers, sons of the nation, to fight
for home and fatherland. This left the women and children unprotected
on the farms, but not unprovided for, for it is an historical fact
that the Boer women in time of war carried on their farming operations
with greater vigour than during times of peace. Fruit trees were
tended, fields were ploughed, and harvests brought in with redoubled
energy, with the result that crops increased and live-stock
multiplied.

From the natives they had nothing to fear--in fact, their work was
carried on with the help of native servants only. It soon became
evident to the British military authorities that the Boer forces were
being supplied with necessaries in the way of food and clothing by the
women on the farms.

From the Boer point of view this was right and good, but it was
perfectly natural that the English should resent it, and, in isolated
cases, where it was known beyond doubt to have taken place, the houses
were destroyed, and the women and children removed to the towns as
prisoners of war.

As time went on and the women continued to provide their men with the
necessaries of life, the British authorities decided to lay the entire
country waste, with the intention of depriving the Boer commandos of
all means of subsistence and forcing them, through starvation, into a
speedy surrender.

A systematic devastation of the two Boer Republics then took place.
Only the towns were spared; for the rest, the farms and homesteads
and even small villages, throughout the length and breadth of the
country, were laid waste. Trees were cut down, crops destroyed, homes,
pillaged of valuables, burnt with everything they contained, and the
women and children removed to camps in the districts to which they
belonged.

Now, we are well aware that a savage foe would have left these
helpless victims of the unavoidable circumstances of war on the veld
to die, but the English are not only not savages and heathens, but
they are one of the most civilised and humane C