By Michael Davitt
Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York, 1902
Contents
Introduction
I. The Transvaal Government at the Outbreak of the War
II. The Boer "Oligarchy"
III. Who Provoked the War?
IV. The Boer at Bay
V. Transvaal Preparations
VI. Boer Artillery and Commandoes
VII. British and Boer Patriotism
VIII. Disposition of British and Federal Forces
IX. Kraaipan
X. The Advance on Dundee
XI. Battle of Talana Hill
XII. Capture of Dundee
XIII. Battle of Elandslaagte
XIV. Battle of Modderspruit
XV. England's Kaffir Allies
XVI. Mafeking and Kimberley
XVII. Battle of Belmont
XVIII. Battles of Rooilaagte (Enslin) and Modder River
XIX. Battle of Magersfontein
XX. Battle of Stormberg
XXI. The Dash on Estcourt
XXII. Battle of Colenso
XXIII. Botha's Great Victory
XXIV. The Siege of Ladysmith
XXV. Foreign Volunteers
XXVI. Blake's Irish Brigade
XXVII. Spion Kop
XXVIII. Campaign around Colesberg
XXIX. Siege of Ladysmith Abandoned
XXX. Paardeberg
XXXI. After Paardeberg
XXXII. Sannas Post
XXXIII. The Last Meeting of the Volksraad
XXXIV. Evacuation of Pretoria
XXXV. Mafeking and Elands River
XXXVI. Diary of the War June to December, 1900
XXXVII. Diary of the War—January to June, 1901
XXXVIII. Diary of the War—July to December, 1901
XXXIX. Diary of the War—January to March, 1902
XL. Summary and Estimates
XLI. Conclusion—England's Cowardly and Unchristian Warfare
Dedication
To the memory of GENERAL PHILIP BOTHA OFS Army who nobly died fighting for Boer independence against the arch-enemy of his race and country; as an humble tribute of admiration, and in grateful recollection of the hospitality and courtesies of Osspruit camp, OFS 1900
Preface
AFTER resigning membership of the British House of Commons in October, 1899, as a personal and political protest against a war which I believed to be the greatest infamy of the nineteenth century, I proceeded, a short time afterwards, to the Transvaal to see and learn more about the little nation against whose liberty and land this crime had been planned and executed.
This book embodies the facts and information which I obtained in my intercourse with the leaders and people of both Republics. It also contains the impressions which followed from a few months' close contact with them during their unparalleled struggle to retain their independence.
I owe the expression of grateful acknowledgments for the facilities given and the assistance willingly tendered to me by members . of both governments during my stay in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, and to numerous officers and officials who supplied mo with authentic details of the earlier battles of the campaign in Natal and on the western borderland.
My thanks are specially due to Dr. Reitz, State Secretary of the S. A. R.; Attorney-General (now Commandant) Smuts; and to Mr. Piet Grobler, also of the Administration. To Commandant-General Louis Botha, his military secretary Adjutant Sandberg, Adjutant Robert Emmet, Field Cornet Cherrie Emmet, General De la Key, General Tobias Smuts, Colonel Trichardt (head of the Transvaal artillery), Colonel Blake, the Hollander officers in charge of the English prisoners at Pretoria, the Landrosts of Pretoria and Johannesburg, and to the editors and proprietors of the " Volksstem " and of the " Standard and Diggers' News."
I am likewise under similar obligations to President Steyn and the members of his administration in Kroonstad, O. F. S.; to the late General Philip Botha, and to all the officers of his staff at Osspruit Camp; to Judge (now Commandant) Hertzog, Commandant George Brand, the Landrosts of Kroonstad and Hoopstad, and to many more minor officials, officers and burghers who were my traveling and tent companions in my visits to the various camps, laagers and localities embraced in my journeys through the two Republics and north Natal.
The late Count Villebois-Mareuil, and M. Leon Grunberg, of Paris, also supplied me with most interesting statements based upon their unique experience during the initial stages of the war., in which both had played conspicuous and romantic parts.
M. D.
Dalkey, Ireland, February, 1902.
