The War in South Africa, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [ebook offline TXT] 📗

is at least approximately correct:

+---------+--------------------+----------+------------------------------+ | Number | Place | Date | Reason | +---------+--------------------+----------+------------------------------+ | | | 1901 | | |
2 | De Aar | March 19 | Train-wrecking. | |
2 | Pretoria | June 11 | Boers breaking oath of | |
| | | neutrality. | |
1 | Middelburg | July 10 | Fighting. | |
1 | Cape Town | " 13 | " | |
1 | Cradock | " 13 | " | |
2 | Middelburg | " 24 | " | |
2 | Kenhardt | " 25 | " | |
1 | Pretoria | Aug. 22 | Boer spy. | |
3 | Colesburg | Sept. 4 | Fighting. | |
1 | Middelburg | Oct. 10 | " | |
1 | Middelburg | " 11 | " | |
1 | Vryburg (hanged) | " 12 | " | | Several | Tarkastad | " 12 | " | |
1 | Tarkastad | " 14 | " | |
1 | Middelburg | " 15 | " | |
2 | Cradock (1 hanged, | " 17 | Train-wrecking and murdering | |
| 1 shot) | | native. | |
2 | Vryburg | " 29 | Fighting. | |
1 | Mafeking | Nov. 11 | Shooting a Native. | |
1 | Colesburg | " 12 | Fighting, marauding, and | |
| | | assaulting, &c. | |
1 | Johannesburg | " 23 | Persuading surrendered | |
| | | burghers to break oath. | |
1 | Aliwal North | " 26 | Cape Police Deserter. | |
1 | Krugersdorp | Dec. 26 | Shooting wounded. | |
2 | Mafeking | " 27 | Kaffir murder. | +---------+--------------------+----------+------------------------------+

Allowing 3 for the 'several' at Tarkastad on October 12, that makes a total of 34. Many will undoubtedly be added in the future, for the continual murder of inoffensive natives, some of them children, calls for stern justice. In this list 4 were train-wreckers (aggravated cases by rebels), 1 was a spy, 4 were murderers of natives, 1 a deserter who took twenty horses from the Cape Police, and the remaining 23 were British subjects taken fighting and bearing arms against their own country.

_Hostages upon Railway Trains._

Here the military authorities are open, as it seems to me, to a serious charge, not of inhumanity to the enemy but of neglecting those steps which it was their duty to take in order to safeguard their own troops. If all the victims of derailings and railway cuttings were added together it is not an exaggeration to say that it would furnish as many killed and wounded as a considerable battle. On at least five occasions between twenty and thirty men were incapacitated, and there are very numerous cases where smaller numbers were badly hurt.

Let it be said at once that we have no grievance in this. To derail a train is legitimate warfare, with many precedents to support it. But to checkmate it by putting hostages upon the trains is likewise legitimate warfare, with many precedents to support it also. The Germans habitually did it in France, and the result justified them as the result has justified us. From the time (October 1901) that it was adopted in South Africa we have not heard of a single case of derailing, and there can be no doubt that the lives of many soldiers, and possibly of some civilians, have been saved by the measure.

I will conclude this chapter by two extracts chosen out of many from the diary of the Austrian, Count Sternberg. In the first he describes his capture:

'Three hours passed thus without our succeeding in finding our object. The sergeant then ordered that we should take a rest. We sat down on the ground, and chatted good-humouredly with the soldiers. They were fine fellows, without the least sign of brutality--in fact, full of sympathy. They had every right to be angry with us, for we had spoiled their sleep after they had gone through a trying day; yet they did not visit it on us in any way, and were most kind. They even shared their drinking-water with us. I cannot describe what my feelings were that night. A prisoner!'

He adds: 'I can only repeat that the English officers and the English soldiers have shown in this war that the profession of arms does not debase, but rather ennobles man.'


CHAPTER X

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION

Writing in November 1900, after hearing an expression of opinion from many officers from various parts of the seat of war, I stated in 'The Great Boer War': 'The Boers have been the victims of a great deal of cheap slander in the press. The men who have seen most of the Boers in the field are the most generous in estimating their character. That the white flag was hoisted by the Boers as a cold-blooded device for luring our men into the open, is an