There Is One Subject Which Cannot Be Ignored In Discussing This
Battle, However Repugnant It May Be.
That is the shooting of some
of the British wounded who lay round the guns.
There is no question
at all about the fact, which is attested by many independent
witnesses. There is reason to hope that some of the murderers paid
for their crimes with their lives before the battle was over. It is
pleasant to add that there is at least one witness to the fact that
Boer officers interfered with threats to prevent some of these
outrages. It is unfair to tarnish the whole Boer nation and cause
on account of a few irresponsible villains, who would be disowned
by their own decent comrades. Very many - too many - British soldiers
have known by experience what it is to fall into the hands of the
enemy, and it must be confessed that on the whole they have been
dealt with in no ungenerous spirit, while the British treatment of
the Boers has been unexampled in all military history for its
generosity and humanity. That so fair a tale should be darkened by
such ruffianly outrages is indeed deplorable, but the incident is
too well authenticated to be left unrecorded in any detailed
account of the campaign. General Dixon, finding the Boers very
numerous all round him, and being hampered by his wounded, fell
back upon Naauwpoort, which he reached on June 1st.
In May, Sir Bindon Blood, having returned to the line to refit,
made yet another cast through that thrice-harried belt of country
which contains Ermelo, Bethel, and Carolina, in which Botha,
Viljoen, and the fighting Boers had now concentrated.
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