A West Pointer with the Boers: $b personal narrative of Colonel J. Y. F. Blake, commander of the Irish brigade — John Shaqi
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
Ordinary readers sicken of long military details of battles and I have
purposely refrained from giving them. During the first nine months of
the war, many American correspondents were present and I think they can
give a pretty correct account of what happened during their time, and
I don't believe my account will in any way conflict with any they may
give. Among many whom I know, are Rev. Peter MacQueen, Richard Harding
Davis, Mr. Unger, Mr. Hillegas, Allen Sangree and E.E. Easton, and
such men as these will not lie because the English are happy to call
themselves our "Cousins across the Sea."
Some criticism has been made of Captain Patrick O'Connor, Lieutenants
John Quinn and Mike Enright, who were in charge of the Chicago
Ambulance Corps, sent by Colonel John F. Finerty and Patrick J. Judge
to South Africa to assist the Boers, for laying aside the Red Crosses
and taking up the mauser. These were all good and true men and had
the Boers asked them to do Red Cross duty, they would have willingly
consented. But they were not needed in this line, so they were equipped
for fighting.
At Spion Kop, General Buller had many of the ambulance men remove their
Red Crosses and take the rifle during the battle. We captured several
of these and they told the whole story. After the battle was over, all
those not captured were required to pin on the Red Cross again and look
after the numerous dead and wounded. If the English ambulance men could
remove their Red Crosses and take up rifles at the pleasure of the
British commander, I can't understand why the Boer ambulance men could
not do the same.
I have not said as much about the English commanders of the war as I
might have said; and now a word about them may not be taken amiss.
The Boers generally acknowledge General Buller as by far the ablest
commander the English had in the field. True it is, he made mistakes
on the Tugela, but it should be remembered that he had but 35,000 or
40,000 men to dislodge some 6,000 Boers intrenched for a distance of
thirty miles along the river. Had Buller been in supreme command, I
firmly believe the war would have been brought to an end within six
months after the relief of Ladysmith.
Lords Roberts and Kitchener had treble the number of men, an open
country and only about 4,000 Boers in front of them; yet Buller
relieved Ladysmith by the time they could relieve Kimberly.
In fighting negroes armed with sticks both Roberts and Kitchener were
enabled to add a list of letters to their names almost equal to the
number in the alphabet; but when confronted with an armed Boer, both
found themselves practically helpless.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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