[Gutenberg 41488] • Ten Months in the Field with the Boers

**By

An Ex-Lieutenant of

General de Villebois-Mareuil

With a Map and Portrait

London

William Heinemann

1901**

Look inside the book:

'The Volksraad, considering paragraph 2 of the President's speech, and the official documents and correspondence submitted therewith, having regard to the fact that the strained state of affairs throughout the whole of South Africa, which has arisen owing to the differences between the Imperial Government and the Transvaal, threatens to lead to hostilities, the calamitous consequences of which to the white inhabitants would be immeasurable, being connected with the Transvaal by the closest ties of blood and confederacy, and standing in the most friendly relationship with the Imperial Government; fearing that, should war break out, a hatred between European races would be born which would arrest or retard peaceful developments in all States and colonies of South Africa, and produce distrust in the future; feeling that the solemn duty rests upon it of doing everything possible to avoid the shedding of blood; considering that the Transvaal Government during the negotiations with the Imperial Government, which extended over several months, made every endeavour to arrive at a peaceful solution of the differences raised by the aliens in the Transvaal, and taken up by the Imperial Government as its own cause, which endeavours have unfortunately had only this result, that British troops were concentrated on the border of the Transvaal, and are still being strengthened--resolves to instruct the Government still to use every means to maintain and insure peace, and in a peaceful manner to contribute towards a solution of existing differences, provided it be done without violating the honour and independence of the Free State and the Transvaal; and wishes unmistakably to make known its opinion that there exists no cause for war, and that a war against the Transvaal, if now undertaken by the Imperial Government, will morally be a war against the whole white population of South Africa, and in its consequences criminal, for, come what may, the Free State will honestly and faithfully fulfil its obligations towards the Transvaal, by virtue of the political alliance existing between the two Republics.' ...Four or five hundred of Prinsloo's men were seriously engaged; the others (there were 6,000 round the town) took up positions early in the morning, quitted them towards ten o'clock to come back and breakfast in camp, returned to them later, and remained for the rest of the day 1,800 yards from the town, which was no longer defended, without firing a shot, without a thought of throwing themselves against it or of going to the help of their comrades, hotly engaged close by.