Hardly. The world-wide strife of capital and labour must presently extend to the Transvaal also; and then the Dutch minority, being equally indifferent to the particular aims of both, will naturally sell its Parliamentary support to the one of the two that will in return pledge the larger measure of support to Afrikander policy. Afrikander statecraft then need not despair. For unless our own statecraft should be able to devise a remedy, Mr. Hofmeyr and his coadjutors may reckon on the Parliamentary control of two, and perhaps three, of the five future Governments of South Africa.

The other essential to the restoration of the Dominion of Afrikanderdom' is the segregation of the Dutch element; and to this end their leaders will be quick to turn to account any flaws in the settlement and any blunders on the part of the Imperial officers charged with its administration, transmuting them into the 'wrongs of a martyr race.' The conservation of the racial integrity of the South African Dutch as the indispensable basis of an Independent Dutch South Africa is, as we have seen, the prime purpose of the Afrikander Bond; and in nothing has Mr. Hofmeyr displayed so much astuteness as in his practical recognition of the value of grievances' as an aid to this conservation. Though himself cultivated and even scholarly, one of his earliest undertakings was to stir up among his compatriots a sense of wrong done them as a race in the non-recognition of their debased patois, the 'taal.' He used all the powers of the Afrikander Bond to secure the official equality of the 'taal' with English; and there now stands in the public gardens of Burghersdorp-a rebel centre-a marble statue emblematic of the 'taal,' with this inscription on the pedestal :'Erkend is nu der Moedertaal

In Raad, Kantoor, en Schoollokaal.'

How much survives of the spirit of which the statue and the rebellion at Burghersdorp are equally the expression, and to what length it is prepared to go, we may expect to learn presently, when the Cape Parliament and the proposed Congress of the Afrikander Bond assemble, and when the trial of the rebels has been held. We may then return to the subject.

ART. XIII.-THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA. II.

THE first period of the war in South Africa ended in the

of ther with the unsuccessful attempt of

the British force in Natal to pass the Tugela at Colenso. The close of the second period is marked by the British occupation of Bloemfontein in the middle of March. We dealt in January with the former period, and propose now to attempt a general survey of the course of events between the middle of December and the middle of March.

The conditions under which our sketch is undertaken prescribe certain limitations in the objects at which it can aim. The despatches of the British generals, giving their deliberate account of the actions which they have directed, are not yet published; the text of the orders which they have issued from time to time is not yet accessible; the composition and distribution of their forces are still, to observers at home, at least partly, matters of conjecture; the minute topography of most of the battle-fields, without which no full insight into the tactical conditions is possible, has yet to be ascertained and recorded. Of the composition and distribution of the Boer forces and the intentions of their commanders no trustworthy account exists. We are compelled to rely, first, on those official telegrams from the British generals which it has been thought expedient to publish, and in which, therefore, no information is given which it would have been at the time imprudent to communicate to the enemy; and, secondly, on the telegrams and letters of the press correspondents, written and transmitted under the supervision of the military censorship, and therefore in many cases restricted, both as regards their substance and their form. The survey of a war based upon such materials will resemble rather the rough experimental map of a region which the mapmaker cannot enter, and in regard to which he has to rely upon the reports of travellers, than the finished and accurate product of a regular and scientific survey. Yet even the first rough sketch of an unsurveyed country may be useful.

We know the dates, the general nature, and the results of the principal engagements which furnish the skeleton or outline of the campaign, and we may, therefore, safely make such deductions as can be drawn from the general scope of the operations. But we must avoid such inferences as depend upon an intimate knowledge of local conditions or of the motives governing the decisions of commanders, except in the special cases where the necessary facts have been the subject of authentic record.

The war began on the 11th of October, the day on which Sir George White arrived at Ladysmith. The Boer armies were then ready for operations and at full strength; while the British forces, except the small garrisons imprisoned at Mafeking and Kimberley, and the small field force assembling in Natal, were still at home. The Boer plan was to take advantage of the length of time which must elapse before any considerable British force could be conveyed to the theatre of war and be in readiness for operations, in order to overpower the small British detachments, and to conquer as much territory as possible in the British Colonies, where the help of the malcontent Dutch population was to be expected. The principal Boer army was employed in Northern Natal, where the only considerable organised British force was to be met with, while smaller Boer contingents, proportionate to the magnitude of the several tasks, were devoted to the observation of the southern frontier of Rhodesia, to the attacks upon Mafeking and Kimberley, and to the invasion of Cape Colony, or, what was perhaps not quite the same thing, to the encouragement of rebellion among the Dutch farmers in the extensive borderland lying to the south of the Orange River, from the Basuto frontier on the east as far as Douglas and Prieska on the west. It seems probable that this plan was dictated as much by political as by military considerations. The ambition of the Boer leaders to found a great Boer State led them to pose as the champions of a new order, both to the Dutch settlers in Northern Natal and to the Dutch farmers in the northern portion of Cape Colony; while the possession of Kimberley, Vryburg, and Mafeking would have been a means of preventing or delaying the advance of a British army along the line of railway which connects those towns. But the direct influence of a political motive has, almost invariably, a bad effect upon strategical decisions. No great political result is secured in war, except by decisive victory in the field; and decisive victory can seldom be obtained except by the concentration of military effort upon one objective at a time. Had the Boers at the beginning devoted their whole energy to offensive operations upon one frontier, contenting themselves meanwhile on the other frontiers with those simple measures of observation which, in the almost entire absence of British forces, would have been quite sufficient for purposes of protection, some definite success might have been attained. The attempt to carry on offensive operations upon three frontiers at once absorbed the entire forces of the two Republics, and subjected them, as the British forces successively arrived upon the scene, to a constantly increasing strain, while it left no sufficient reserve of power for resistance

to sudden and unexpected pressure at any point. This widely dispersed offensive movement of the Boers, met as it was during the first period of the war by a corresponding dispersion of British efforts, gave to the Boer army for the time the appearance of very great strength, but resulted, in the second period, in the complete collapse of the Boer offensive so soon as the first blow was struck through the circumference of their enormously extended cordon.

The principal effect, at home and in the Colonies, of the unfavourable course of the war, in October, November, and December, was to arouse among all classes the determination that the war should be carried on, no matter at what sacrifice, until success should have been achieved. This national resolve was reflected in the measures announced by the Government in the course of the autumn and winter. On the 9th of November was issued the order for the mobilisation of a fifth division, followed on the 3rd of December by an order for the mobilisation of a sixth division, and on the 8th by the announcement that a seventh division would also be prepared.

Two days after the battle of Colenso Lord Roberts was appointed to the command-in-chief of the forces in South Africa, and Lord Kitchener to be Chief of his Staff. Lord Roberts sailed from England on the 23rd of December, was joined on the voyage by Lord Kitchener, and landed at Cape Town on the 10th of January. During the interval further arrangements for the increase of the forces had been made. The British Colonies in both hemispheres were invited to increase their contingents in the field, and responded with enthusiasm to the call. The Government at home called for volunteers to form a new corps of Imperial Yeomanry, to be organised and drilled as mounted infantry, and the Volunteer force was at the same time invited to furnish a number of companies, one from each of the territorial regiments: each company on reaching South Africa to be attached to the line battalion of the territorial regiment which had raised it. A number of militia battalions had been embodied at the time of the mobilisation of the first army corps, and in the middle of January a beginning was made of the despatch of some of these battalions to the Cape. About the same time sixteen additional batteries of artillery were mobilised and successively sent off, and an extra battery of horse artillery from India was also added to the force in South Africa.

The increase of forces sent across the sea was accompanied by the determination to encourage the raising of local forces among the loyal population of the South African Colonies, and

by the close of January there were in Natal more than 7,000 local volunteers of different categories in the field, while at the same time the contingent furnished to the Imperial army by the inhabitants of the Cape Colony amounted to not less than 12,500 men. Some idea of the numerical increase of the British forces may be gathered from the following figures, which are approximate only, and are not official :—

British regular troops in South Africa before) 24,000

Nov. 9, 1899

Troops landed in South Africa after Nov. 9, 1899—

Thus the total force in South Africa, at the time of the entry of Lord Roberts into Bloemfontein, including British and Colonial troops of all categories, was not less than 163,000.

The fifth division began to sail from England on the 20th of November, and its last detachment reached Cape Town in the first days of January. Six out of eight battalions composing this division were sent on to Natal as they arrived. The sailing of the sixth division began on the 16th of December, and its transport was not completed till the end of the third week in January. The transport of the seventh division began on the 4th of January, and was completed in the second week of February.

On the 10th of January, when Lord Roberts reached Cape Town, he found in the theatre of war something like a condition of equilibrium. The Boers were besieging Mafeking and Kimberley with little prospect of speedy success. Between Kimberley and the Modder River Lord Methuen, with three brigades, was confronted by the force of General Cronje, estimated at about the same strength. Each of these opposing generals felt perfectly well able to defend his own position; neither of them felt equal to an attack on his enemy. In the district to the west of the Cape-Bulawayo Railway there were, on a small scale, raids and counter-raids. Thus on the 1st of January the Boers captured Kuruman, and on the same day Colonel Pilcher, with a small column from Belmont, defeated a party of Boers at Sunnyside, near Douglas. At the same time General French, who had collected a small mixed detachment of the three arms at Naauwport, and had manœuvred the Boers out of Arundel, was able to push forward and threaten their flank, so as to bring their offensive to a standstill, and