After This One Sharp Engagement There Ensued Several Weeks During
Which The Absence Of Historical Events, Or The Presence Of The
Military Censor, Caused A Singular Lull In The Account Of The
Operations.
With so many small commandos and so many pursuing
columns it is extraordinary that there should not have been a
constant succession of actions.
That there was not must indicate a
sluggishness upon the part of the pursuers, and this sluggishness
can only be explained by the condition of their horses. Every train
of thought brings the critic back always to the great horse
question, and encourages the conclusion that there, at all seasons
of the war and in all scenes of it, is to be found the most damning
indictment against British foresight, common-sense, and power of
organisation. That the third year of the war should dawn without
the British forces having yet got the legs of the Boers, after
having penetrated every portion of their country and having the
horses of the world on which to draw, is the most amazingly
inexplicable point in the whole of this strange campaign. From the
telegram 'Infantry preferred' addressed to a nation of
rough-riders, down to the failure to secure the excellent horses on
the spot, while importing them unfit for use from the ends of the
earth, there has been nothing but one long series of blunders in
this, the most vital question of all. Even up to the end, in the
Colony the obvious lesson had not yet been learnt that it is better
to give 1000 men two horses each, and to let them reach the enemy,
than give 2000 men one horse each, with which they can never attain
their object.
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