Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/328

 3 1 8 A British Officer and Lord Roberts's enveloping tactics at Poplar Grove and subse- quent actions. The Times historian accepts in these respects the German Staff's criticism, but, while the latter state their views in quiet professional language, which is helpful without being offensive, the former cannot resist scourging his victims with whips steeped in acid brine. For absolute disregard of the feelings both of the living and of the friends of the dead no more striking example can be found in modern English literature than the manner in which Hannay's ill-timed charge at Paardeberg is portrayed by the Times historian. A mistake was of course made, and a badly worded order was badly interpreted, but it is rank brutality to depict the gallant Hannay as a mad fool, uselessly driven to death by a relentless taskmaster. The German General Staff's history of the South African War is confined to two volumes which deal in detail with the campaign down to the seizure of Bloemfontein, although a brief strategical precis of the after course of the war is appended. Its fairness of tone has already been noted. The criticisms are throughout the criticisms of professional soldiers with a just appreciation of the difficulties of the tasks confronting a commander in the field. When censure is pronounced, there is a certain graceful reluctance to con- demn a comrade. The charges of inhumanity, so freely levelled at one time by Continental critics against the British army, are repudiated emphatically. The courage and devotion to duty dis- played by officers and men are handsomely acknowledged. The German account is thus a work which all British soldiers can read without offense and which the soldiers of all armies may read with profit. Its translation — the first volume by Colonel Waters, and the second by Lieutenant-colonel Du Cane — is admirably done : the maps and plans which illustrate the two, although inferior to those of the Times History, sufifice for their purpose. It cannot be held that either of these three histories forms an adequate record of the South African struggle. That war is, it is true, not to be compared either in strategical importance or in immediate political results with the Civil War in America, the Franco-German War, or the Manchurian campaign. Yet it was the first example of a combat in which both sides were armed with magazine-rifles and smokeless powder. On the Boer side it repre- sents a gallant struggle made by two little communities against great odds. To Englishmen, although the strain of the combat was not so great as to test fully the strength of the empire, it pre- sents both a warning and an encouragement : a warning of the