Battles of the nineteenth century . THE BOER WAR. somewhat strangely. Thus, he says, endedan expedition which I think ought to have suc-ceeded. We have suffered very heavy losses andlost many whom we can ill spare ; but, on theother hand, we have inilicted as great or greaterlosses upon the enemy than they have on us, andthey are by all accounts thoroughly disheartened ;whilst our troops are, I am glad and jiroud to say,in excellent fettle. In an earlier message he had claimed creditfor having effected the retreat across the Tugela of the failure, which was not fully known until afew da)-s lat
Battles of the nineteenth century . THE BOER WAR. somewhat strangely. Thus, he says, endedan expedition which I think ought to have suc-ceeded. We have suffered very heavy losses andlost many whom we can ill spare ; but, on theother hand, we have inilicted as great or greaterlosses upon the enemy than they have on us, andthey are by all accounts thoroughly disheartened ;whilst our troops are, I am glad and jiroud to say,in excellent fettle. In an earlier message he had claimed creditfor having effected the retreat across the Tugela of the failure, which was not fully known until afew da)-s later, was a terrible blow. Earlj- onThursday morning the anxious watchers hadgone to the hills and turned their telescopes onto Spion Kop. They heard the reports of guns,and saw some of Warrens shells bursting on theBlack Mountain. On Spion Kop itself they sawa crowd of men, but they clung to the hope thatthey were British—and the fact that trains ofBoer waggons were moving back across theplain, and some of them heading towards the. GENEKAL LOUIS BOTHA. without losing even a pound of stores. Heleft out of account the obvious fact that he hadeffected the retirement so easily, thanks to theforbearance of Louis Botha. The British troopsdeserved all praise for the splendid way in whichthey bore up under their trying experiences andunder this great reverse ; but all that we havesubsequently learned tends to show that Bullerwas mistaken in his impression that the enemyhad suffered at all heavily, while no one canbelieve that they were in any sense disheartened ;they were exulting in a second great victory,won by a judicious use of the ground againstsuperior the heroic garrison of Ladjsiniih the news Drakensberg passes, was taken to be anothersign of success. At eight oclock the firingceased. There must be an armistice ! —forsuch was the confidence in BuIIer that theaccepted theory was that the Boers were aboutto surrender. The morning was dull and rainy,and for many hour
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