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 Roberts had captured Cronje's ambulance wagons and would not
allow any doctor to go and attend to his wounded, and as he was not
permitted to bury his dead, of course, the condition of the camp
became such that the women and children could not endure it; and the
Boers too were suffering on account of it, so Cronje's commandants
and veldcornets forced him to hoist the white flag on February 27th.
The battle was over and Lord Roberts had Cronje and his 4,000 men
as prisoners of war. No doubt General Cronje would have been shot
had there not been about 750 British officers and 4,000 soldiers as
prisoners of war in Pretoria. This alone saved the old patriot's life,
and we all know it.
On receiving the first news of the capture of the great Cronje and his
army by the wonderful Lord Roberts, Commander-in-Chief, A.B.C.D.E.,
etc., all London took a holiday, went crazy mad, and the papers put
out their posters showing that Cronje with 15,000 or 20,000 or 30,000
"dirty" Boers had been captured. When they finally learned that Cronje
had only 4,000 men against Lord Robert's big army, all slunk their
heads and retired to their homes. What Lord Roberts considered his
greatest victory the world at large considered his greatest defeat.
What the English losses were we do not know, and I know that the
English people do not know either, for Mr. Chamberlain says that the
death lists are not yet completed. If the complete returns are ever
made known, I think we shall see that Roberts had as many men put out
of action as Cronje had in his command. General Cronje had about
seventy men killed and about three times that number wounded.
I will now go to Stormberg and Aliwal North, the two really most
important points on the Free State border, for here was the easy and
natural way for the English to reach Bloemfontein.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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