It Is Amazing To Find That Even The Americans
Could Understand The Stock From Which They Are Themselves Sprung So
Little That Such Papers As The 'New York Herald' Should Imagine
That Our Defeat At Colenso Was A Good Opportunity For Us To
Terminate The War.
The other leading American journals, however,
took a more sane view of the situation, and realised that ten years
of such defeats would not find the end either of our resolution or
of our resources.
In the British Islands and in the empire at large our misfortunes
were met by a sombre but unalterable determination to carry the war
to a successful conclusion and to spare no sacrifices which could
lead to that end. Amid the humiliation of our reverses there was a
certain undercurrent of satisfaction that the deeds of our foemen
should at least have made the contention that the strong was
wantonly attacking the weak an absurd one. Under the stimulus of
defeat the opposition to the war sensibly decreased. It had become
too absurd even for the most unreasonable platform orator to
contend that a struggle had been forced upon the Boers when every
fresh detail showed how thoroughly they had prepared for such a
contingency and how much we had to make up. Many who had opposed
the war simply on that sporting instinct which backs the smaller
against the larger began to realise that what with the geographical
position of these people, what with the nature of their country,
and what with the mobility, number, and hardihood of their forces,
we had undertaken a task which would necessitate such a military
effort as we had never before been called upon to make.
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