I think we must attribute the defeat of the federated troops mainly to their absolute lack of military organization, for in spite of the legend of the volunteers of 1792, no undisciplined force, however brave, will ever prove a match for a regular army.
Resistance may be more or less prolonged, phases more or less heroic, but the issue is foredoomed.
This lack of organization, of discipline--that is the great thing--explains the absence of cohesion, of combined action, of rational leadership.
I have already sufficiently pointed out the evils of suffrage as applied to the election of commanders. In addition to this, what enthusiasm or confidence can these feel, when they know that half the men of their commando will leave them on the road if they feel so inclined? And even if they do not actually do so, the leader's confidence is put to a rude test!
Yet these same Boers who have fought like lions on occasion, and on occasion have fled without firing a shot, are capable of education in the art of war.
The Johannesburg Politie is a striking proof of this. With the elementary discipline that obtains among them, this corps held their own for a whole day against Lord Roberts's 40,000 men on two occasions, at Abraham's Kraal on March 10, and near Machadodorp on August 27, almost unsupported. And each time at the price of a third of their number!
To this chief and primordial cause we must add another, not altogether inexcusable, but very harmful under the circumstances. I mean the dread and hatred of the foreigner.
Not inexcusable, I say, for, for nearly a century, the foreigner has been to the Boer the invader, the robber, and the enemy!
The Boers therefore, as a whole, could never believe that for love of a noble cause, or a passion for adventure, men of every nation should have come to espouse their cause against the United Kingdom quite disinterestedly.
In the unfortunate state of mind that prevailed among them, the eulogies of a well-intentioned but maladroit press had the most disastrous effect.
What sort of respect, indeed, could these primitive people feel for Europeans when Lombroso and Kuyser had written in all good faith: 'As 63 per cent. of Boer blood is Dutch, 12 per cent. French, 12 per cent. Scotch, and 3 per cent. German, this mixture of the best nations of Europe ought to constitute a centre of liberty and civilization, a race superior to any in Europe!'