.To settle all details of the proposed tribunal of
arbitration. . .If, however, as they most anxiously hope will not
be the case, the reply of the South African Republic should be
negative or inconclusive, I am to state that her Majesty's
Government must reserve to themselves the right to reconsider the
situation de novo, and to formulate their own proposals for a final
settlement.'
Such was the message, and Great Britain waited with strained
attention for the answer. But again there was a delay, while the
rain came and the grass grew, and the veld was as a mounted
rifleman would have it. The burghers were in no humour for
concessions. They knew their own power, and they concluded with
justice that they were for the time far the strongest military
power in South Africa. 'We have beaten England before, but it is
nothing to the licking we shall give her now,' cried a prominent
citizen, and he spoke for his country as he said it. So the empire
waited and debated, but the sounds of the bugle were already
breaking through the wrangles of the politicians, and calling the
nation to be tested once more by that hammer of war and adversity
by which Providence still fashions us to some nobler and higher
end.
CHAPTER 4.
THE EVE OF WAR.
The message sent from the Cabinet Council of September 8th was
evidently the precursor either of peace or of war. The cloud must
burst or blow over. As the nation waited in hushed expectancy for a
reply it spent some portion of its time in examining and
speculating upon those military preparations which might be needed.
The War Office had for some months been arranging for every
contingency, and had made certain dispositions which appeared to
them to be adequate, but which our future experience was to
demonstrate to be far too small for the very serious matter in
hand.
It is curious in turning over the files of such a paper as the
'Times' to observe how at first one or two small paragraphs of
military significance might appear in the endless columns of
diplomatic and political reports, how gradually they grew and grew,
until at last the eclipse was complete, and the diplomacy had been
thrust into the tiny paragraphs while the war filled the journal.
Under July 7th comes the first glint of arms amid the drab monotony
of the state papers. On that date it was announced that two
companies of Royal Engineers and departmental corps with reserves
of supplies and ammunition were being dispatched. Two companies of
engineers! Who could have foreseen that they were the vanguard of
the greatest army which ever at any time of the world's history has
crossed an ocean, and far the greatest which a British general has
commanded in the field?
On August 15th, at a time when the negotiations had already assumed
a very serious phase, after the failure of the Bloemfontein
conference and the dispatch of Sir Alfred Milner, the British
forces in South Africa were absolutely and absurdly inadequate for
the purpose of the defence of our own frontier.
