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Show . BOERS AS FIGHTERS. A Writer Estimates Them as an Ex-tremely Ex-tremely Formidable Antagonist. -It is usual, I know; for military men to sneer at the generalship, or want of it, which, a3 they allege, was responsible respon-sible f or the : Majuba disaster these critics are wise after the -event. It is forgotten that the Boers met other officers; than General Colley at Bronk-horst Bronk-horst Spruit in a number of, fights about Pretoria, Potehestroom and other villages, vil-lages, and that in no case were our men and military leaders' able to stand up to the enemy. At Durban, in Natal, In 1843, we got the worsf, of it, as we did at Doornkop, where English officers of-ficers of the ordinary type commanded. command-ed. The only, military success which English officers can claim in. a good many encounters w ith the" -Boers is the battle of BoompJaats, fought in 184S between be-tween artillery and flint-lock guns. It is. therefore, nonsense to take refugre behind the lack of generalship .of our leaders. If such factors as courage and leadership do net come into the con- troversy, except to a very limited extent, ex-tent, in what direction must we look for the explanation of our defeats? At Laing's'Neck the action began by our guns dropping a few shells into the Boer lines, and, as admitted by the Boers themselves, the emall loss they suffered from this fire General Jou-bert Jou-bert was nearly hit by a splinter of a shell induced them to think seriously of abandoning the position. They were about to leave when the attack by a small number of mounted infantry and ! by. a few companies of Colonel Deane's : regiment was made. Only one- of our men reached the Boer lines, the others being stopped a short distance away; and, as they were unsupported, these were driven back. down the hill. Result: 190 killed and wounded on the British side, against twenty-four Boers killed and wounded. At Ingogo, fought a few days afterward, a force of about 300 men and two guns were stopped on a small plateau, and, after an action lasting last-ing all day, our men, with the two guns, were withdrawn during the fight, leaving dead and wounded on the ground. The Boer9 also left the field at night. At this fight the Boers crept up to within sixty yards of Our guns. They lost seventeen killed and .wounded, .wound-ed, while our Ioe-s wa3 142 killed and wounded. ' ' A force of about fSOO infantry set out for the summit of Majuba hill on the night of Feb. 2G, 18S1. There were about ! 550 combatants. 'After leaving some : companies on the road about 400 men reached the summit and were disposed in various positions about the. rim of the mountain. The first shots were fired about 6 o'clock, and the combat ; went on uninterruptedly for hours. In ! the-final stages the main body of the i Boers crept to within forty yards', and I for a considerable time fusilladed our j troops at this distance. . Many of the j men fell in the subsequent flight; but j when the fighting was over,' at 1 o'clock, our casualties were 280 killed and four wounded, while the Boers lost one killed kill-ed and four wounded. At- Bronkhorst we lost 10 killed and wounded within ten minutes, the Boers losing one. In the Jameson raid our losses were about 100 killed and wounded, the Boers having hav-ing five killed and wounded in the actual act-ual fighting. . - - ' It is usually maintained that these Transvaal fights were fought at a disadvantage, dis-advantage, an dthat our men were in each case vastly outnumbered. If we accept the Boer accounts, our forces were not outnumbered. At Majuba hill J they say they had about 400. men. But j even assuming that there were as many j as 1,000 Boers, the result is still ex- j tremely .unsatisfactory. African Re- view. . |