This Was The Surrender Of
Five Companies Of Infantry, Two Of Them Mounted, At Reddersberg.
So
many surrenders of small bodies of troops had occurred during the
course of the war that the public,
Remembering how seldom the word
'surrender' had ever been heard in our endless succession of
European wars, had become very restive upon the subject, and were
sometimes inclined to question whether this new and humiliating
fact did not imply some deterioration of our spirit. The fear was
natural, and yet nothing could be more unjust to this the most
splendid army which has ever marched under the red-crossed flag.
The fact was new because the conditions were new, and it was
inherent in those conditions. In that country of huge distances
small bodies must be detached, for the amount of space covered by
the large bodies was not sufficient for all military purposes. In
reconnoitring, in distributing proclamations, in collecting arms,
in overawing outlying districts, weak columns must be used. Very
often these columns must contain infantry soldiers, as the demands
upon the cavalry were excessive. Such bodies, moving through a
hilly country with which they were unfamiliar, were always liable
to be surrounded by a mobile enemy. Once surrounded the length of
their resistance was limited by three things: their cartridges,
their water, and their food. When they had all three, as at Wepener
or Mafeking, they could hold out indefinitely. When one or other
was wanting, as at Reddersberg or Nicholson's Nek, their position
was impossible.
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