'19th Feb.
Owine partly to the late delivery of our papers by the French mail of the "12th ult, and partly to the pressure on our space, we are obliged to make our notice of the mail news this morning very brief; The papers are full of the war, and the illustrated papers are full of more or less imadinary sketches as well as some actual photographs of operations in South Africa; even Punch is made more melancholy that it often is by very badly drawn cartoons, of which the war is the subject. So absorbed in this topic is everybody at home that Mr. Burnand has not time to keep out of the columns he edits jokes which must have been musty when the volume that bears Joe Miller's name was compiled for the benefit of his widow.
The chronicles of the war that reach us by the mail are not very pleasant reading, and w+ should be melancholy indeed but for the more cheering reports that have reached us by wire in the last two days. The arrival of Lord Roberts on the scene has put new life into Lord Methuen's force, which was sitting down on the Modder, apparently waiting till the Boer entrenchments on the other side melted away of themselves, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener come on the scene, and the bubble bursts. The Boers dissolve away on the west and Kimberley is thrown open as if it were a transformation scene in a pantomime, while on the cast the redoubtable Cronje is seen flying with his 10,000 veterans towards his stores and ammunition behind Bloemfontein and the north, leavin;
him, because the best ox-teams can only make about fifteen miles a day. There can be very little question now that Lord Methuen has not been a success. With a splendid reputation as a hardworking practical soldier, not a carpet-knight by any means, but very highly respected by all who have worked with and under him, he has shown that he could not adapt himself to the peculiar problems presented by the Boers' method of warfare. It has been denied that General Wauchope before he died threw blame on Lord Methuen; but the letter of a soldier quoted in the Evening News says:—
Major-General Wauchope was our commander, and was found in the trenches with seven wounds. When he fell, he said: 'Rally round, boys, and do your duty. This is not' my order" (referring to the way in which we advanced, suppose).
he Evening News says:—''It will be noticed in the above letter that the last words of General Wauchope are given as 'This is not my order.' Whose was the order to which he and so many gallant men were sacrificed—the order to march in close formation to within 200 yards of Boer trenches, the existence of which was not suspected, and had not been revealed by carefal scouting "The order was Lord Methuen's, and here are some extracts from soldiers' letters showing the effect of that order "General Lord Methuen addressed us, and sympathised with us in the loss we had sustained. He ssid:—The advance was executed exactly to the time and place that IT had given orders for, and we were within an ace of carrying the position in a short and decisive engagement. Everything depended on one word. That word was 'Forward.' A nice speech, continues the writer, but why did the brigade advance in quarter column formation? It was not fighting; it was simply suicide. Men were hung on the wire like crows, and were simply riddled with bullets. When the enemy opened fire General Wauchope, our brave general who was killed, turned to us and said: 'Don't blame me, lads.' We hear that he remonstrated with Lord Methuen before we left camp about the plans, but Methuen only told him to obey orders."
"They marched the whole of the Highland Brigade into the enemy's hands in column without having out skirmishers or scouts."
"Had we been handled properly the result would have been different. Every man, and officer too, is heartsick of the whole affair. All throwrh cfnpid blundering and bad generalshyy we move lost confidence."
The story which appeared in an American paper of Colonel Bloom-field Gough, commanding the 9th Lancers, having been sent home by Lord Methuen for refusing to obey orders, is confirmed by " Marmaduke" in Truth, who say: case in which a well-known officer has obviously been ill-treated will have public attention directed uj it in. the near future. Colonel—is an exceptionally able officer, and a man whose bravery is absolutely beyond question. Lord Me-thuan ordered Colonel—to charge the enemy, an order which it was physically impossible for him to obey as the horses of his men were prostrate. Colonel—reported to Lord Methuen that this was the case, and, being unable to obey the order, eventually disobeyed it. The matter was reported to Sir Redvers Buller, and Colonel was instructed to return' to England. That he has done.
The ineptitude of the Government and the inelasticity of our Generals were depressing people at home a
january; but, as the Overland Mail deal in the second week of says:—" The true cause of the gloomy feelings that settled down upon us all last Monday was the conviction that so many brave soldiers and such a wealth of material should have been endangered or sacrificed through want of foresight and grasp of conditions at home, and of capacity on the part of those conducting the operations in South Africa to realise, and accommodate themselves to, the novel system of warfare which the Boers have so ably invented and applied."
The following extract is from the "Mammon" columns in Truth, and is probably trustworthy Rumours of foreign complications have been started in interested quarters, but these do not appear worth crediting. There is no indication of any continental combination against this country, and the rumoured advance by Russis on Herat is bardy annual. Unless the British Army in South Africa collapses completely we shall have no foreign troubles apart from some friction concerning the capture of vessels carrying euntraband of war, Mr. F. C. Gould's caricatures in the Westminster Budget are as usual excellent. The two " Amateur Strategists" are delightful, and so is "The Tugela Problem," with a barbed wire fence and a ditch, with a lion on one side and an armour-plated tortoise on the other. The legend is:—
"The Lion: Come out!
"The Oom Tortoise:. Come on!"
We shall, we hope, hear before long that somebody has shown General Buller, as Lord Roberts showed General Methuen, that straight ahead is not the only way to a given point, though it may be the way he was taught when he was a youn; officer. It is to be hoped that Lor Roberts's success will incline the Cape Dutch to stay at home and keep what rags of loyalty they still have about them. Mr, Spenser Wilkinson, writing in the London Letter of the 12th ult., If Sir Redvers Buller can win his battle in al while Sir George White is still unconquered, the military power of the Boers will receive a great shock, and the issue of the war will no longer be doubtful, though its end may be distant, But if Sir Redvers Buller should again fail, the result must be to" leave Sir George White's force in extreme peril, to give the Boer forces the spirit of a veteran and victorious army, and to encourage the Dutch clement at the Cape to take an active pave against the British." We see ow necessary it was that Lord Roberts should have an impressive success. There is a delightful little sketch of him in Punch as Tommy Atkins's Indian Idol.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.