Lord Methuen And The South African War PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... Chapter XIV Sunday passed uneventfully, and on Monday morning at 4.15 we were off after de Wet, little knowing the dance he was going to lead us. For the next seven days we were to have continual fighting, and the longest marches and roughest fare we had ever had, or were going to have, while I was with Lord Methuen's column. Every man and horse on both sides was to be strained to the utmost, for it was Methuen's great dash after the celebrated leader, and one of the most determined and skilful drives of the war, unhonoured and unsung though it has been. Ninety odd miles were covered by the mounted men and guns in three days. Night and day the Boers fled across the veldt, leaving waggons, stores, ammunition, and prisoners behind them, and night and day the small column (for we were numerically inferior, though we had more guns) clung desperately to their rear. Methuen's task, so we heard afterwards, was to follow de Wet as closely as possible, and drive him towards the Magaliesburg range. Broadwood and Kitchener were supposed to be somewhere near, but we never saw them, and throughout our seven days' chase we were the only British force with which he had to deal. Unless de Wet could get through our old friend Oliphant's Nek, he was a gone coon, for Methuen himself would make for and secure the Magato Pass, close to Oliphant's Nek. This task the general achieved most brilliantly, and if he had been properly backed up by others in this part of the business, de Wet's capers would have come to an abrupt termination in August, 1900. A certain general was supposed to be holding the Nek, but was not there at the precise moment when it ought to have been held at all costs, the precise moment being somewhere about 12 o'clock on the morning of the...