A West Pointer with the Boers: $b personal narrative of Colonel J. Y. F. Blake, commander of the Irish brigadeBlake, John Y. Fillmore
History
A West Pointer with the Boers: $b personal narrative of Colonel J. Y. F. Blake, commander of the Irish brigade
Blake, John Y. Fillmore
South African War, 1899-1902
As surely as I live this moment, I firmly believe that the English made
use of poison in the food to destroy those women and children, and many
Englishmen are as convinced as I am, only they have not the nerve to
say so.
I know the Apache Indians, and particularly one of their great war
chiefs, the notorious old Geronimo. He was an Apache General, without
education, without training, utterly unacquainted with all ideas of
civilization, but shrewd and cunning, and, when on the war-path,
would murder every man, woman and child he could lay hands on. I have
travelled with him hundreds of miles, and followed the path along which
lay his many victims, and therefore am acquainted with his method of
doing away with his enemy in time of war. I know of Lord Roberts and
Lord Kitchener, and their orders and proclamations. I know that both
are highly educated, trained soldiers who are thoroughly acquainted
with all the teachings of civilization and humanity, both in peace and
in war. I have fought against them in South Africa, and I therefore am
thoroughly acquainted with their method of fighting their enemy, and of
doing away with men, women and children.
[Illustration: ONE OF KITCHENER'S VICTIMS
A Boer child dying either of starvation or of poison in one of the
English prison-camps. Taken by a young Boer spy in the English
prison-camp at Irene near Pretoria.]
Those who were unfortunate enough to fall into Geronimo's hands,
were killed outright, and without any ceremony or excuse, and his
victims are numbered by the hundreds. Those unfortunate Boer women and
children, who fell into the hands of Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener,
were doomed to slow death by torture, and the victims are numbered by
the thousands.
The old savage chief showed far more humanity in his way of waging war
than was shown by the two civilized lords. The one was open in his
every act, while the others strove to keep all in the dark, by false
reports and deliberate misrepresentations.
Had the war lasted another twelve months, I firmly believe that every
Boer woman and child confined in the English prison camps of the
Transvaal and Free State, would have died a slow death, and the Boers
so believed when they consented to surrender. Three or four hundred
Jews are deliberately murdered in Russia, and the civilized world is
struck with horror. The Government of the United States sends in a
petition of protests and is snubbed.
Thousands of women and children are murdered in South Africa, and the
civilized world is undisturbed. The Government of the United States
refuses to send in a huge petition of protests, and receives English
thanks. I don't know who is Secretary of State for the United States,
but I am sure it is either John Hay or Joe Chamberlain, or possibly
both.
I will now drop the subject of the suffering Boer women and children,
and take the reader to other parts, that he may see how the prisoners
of war were treated on some of the English Islands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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