The Value Of The Mounted Rifleman, The Shooting With
Accuracy At Unknown Ranges, The Art Of Taking Cover - All Were
Equally Neglected.
The defeat at Majuba Hill was followed by the complete surrender of
the Gladstonian Government, an act which was either the most
pusillanimous or the most magnanimous in recent history.
It is hard
for the big man to draw away from the small before blows are struck
but when the big man has been knocked down three times it is harder
still. An overwhelming British force was in the field, and the
General declared that he held the enemy in the hollow of his hand.
Our military calculations have been falsified before now by these
farmers, and it may be that the task of Wood and Roberts would have
been harder than they imagined; but on paper, at least, it looked
as if the enemy could be crushed without difficulty. So the public
thought, and yet they consented to the upraised sword being stayed.
With them, as apart from the politicians, the motive was
undoubtedly a moral and Christian one. They considered that the
annexation of the Transvaal had evidently been an injustice, that
the farmers had a right to the freedom for which they fought, and
that it was an unworthy thing for a great nation to continue an
unjust war for the sake of a military revenge. It was the height of
idealism, and the result has not been such as to encourage its
repetition.
An armistice was concluded on March 5th, 1881, which led up to a
peace on the 23rd of the same month. The Government, after yielding
to force what it had repeatedly refused to friendly
representations, made a clumsy compromise in their settlement. A
policy of idealism and Christian morality should have been thorough
if it were to be tried at all. It was obvious that if the
annexation were unjust, then the Transvaal should have reverted to
the condition in which it was before the annexation, as defined by
the Sand River Convention. But the Government for some reason would
not go so far as this. They niggled and quibbled and bargained
until the State was left as a curious hybrid thing such as the
world has never seen. It was a republic which was part of the
system of a monarchy, dealt with by the Colonial Office, and
included under the heading of 'Colonies' in the news columns of the
'Times.' It was autonomous, and yet subject to some vague
suzerainty, the limits of which no one has ever been able to
define. Altogether, in its provisions and in its omissions, the
Convention of Pretoria appears to prove that our political affairs
were as badly conducted as our military in this unfortunate year of
1881.
It was evident from the first that so illogical and contentious an
agreement could not possibly prove to be a final settlement, and
indeed the ink of the signatures was hardly dry before an agitation
was on foot for its revision.
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