parts sparsely inhabited, and excellently adapted to the burghers' style of warfare. Kitchener's force available at any one point can scarcely have been larger than the total with which Lord Roberts entered Bloemfontein-27,000 men and 7,600 horses, or than his total at Pretoria-24,000 men and 6,000 horses. Camps for the Veldt Folk. The guerilla phase into which the war has degenerated had compelled an entire change in the British plan. A regular military campaign would be futile against an enemy whose army had finally been broken into two or three bands of considerable size which, with a few smaller ones, all consisting only of mounted men not in uniform, were scouring the country in all directions, constantly finding opportunities for great damage. The Boer bands needed no army train of provisions: they could pick up their supplies and fresh horses in any little village or in the scattered farm houses far apart on the veldt. gar To meet this style of irregular warfare which threatened confusion without end-also to liberate his troops for active pursuit of the Boer forcesGeneral Kitchener has been gathering the scattered Boer population from some thinly settled regions into risoned posts, into which the British troops also have driven all horses and cattle. The people who are brought in to these posts are housed and fed at British expense, being largely refugees who have made submission, and whom the British are bound to protect from the vengeance which the Boer generals have threatened against those whom they deem traitors to their country. The effect is equivalent to capturing an enemy's supply train. The Boer chieftains thus are missing their accustomed commissariat and relays of horses in the eastern and western Transvaal and in the northern part of the Orange River Colony. The dwellers in these camps now were reported, February 25, as num bering about 15,000. Their administration is in the hands of civilians. Opposite Judgments. The antagonist judgments pronounced early in this contest as to which was the side of right have as yet shown little modification. In the United States the same sympathies as before are evident on one or the other side, and the same arguments are still advanced (Vol. 10, pp. 25-27). The fervor of the Boer advocates, however, on both sides of the Atlantic, has increased in view of the slow progress of the British in either subjugation or pacification since the only formidable armies of the burghers were broken up and the governments of the two republics were disorganized. The Question of Success. Some prominent European journals, especially in Holland, Germany, and France, have shown some hope of ultimate Boer success through an expected exhaustion of the British military resources available to meet the harassing modes of conflict which the Boers are declared able to prolong indefinitely. Not a few papers in the United States have been showing the same expectation, in effect, that even though Lord Kitchener may for many months keep up the fight and make occasional gains, the English and Scotch taxpayers will soon be heard demanding an end of such enormous and fruitless expenditure-the total British expenditure in the war being stated at more than £130,000,000. But though the Boers have in recent weeks succeeded in greatly annoying and mortifying their foe, it is evident that the present style of warfare must soon wear itself out. Their truest friends are now hoping that they will give their attention speedily to securing the best terms of peace. Their only conceivable help would be through some scarcely conceivable in tervention. now HER MAJESTY QUEEN ALEXANDRA OF ENGLAND, THE ELDER OF THESE CHILDREN WAS CUT OUT OF THE DIRECT LINE OF SUCCESSION TO THE THRONE BY INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, It is to be noted also that the two Boer peoples, never having had a seaport of their own, are now completely shut in from commercial access. Without a supply of various war material, war cannot long persist. Moreover, Mr. Kruger's government is no longer collecting from the foreign owners and operators of the rich mines the heavy taxes which formerly poured wealth into the public chest. Indeed, the two governments themselves have ceased to be operative, so far as is known to the world. The Question of Intervention. While much of the Boer advocacy in America and in Europe is to be ascribed to a generous sympathy with the weaker side in a fight and to admiration for a brave and tenacious struggle for national independence, much of it, especially in Europe, is evidently due to a desire to see English pride humbled and England's ambition for international leadership and for commercial pre-eminence on all seas countervailed. This desire exists and has long existed, and has expressed itself without qualification during the whole South African conflict. It is known also, however, that this popular feeling has not had the slightest effect on the action or the attitude of any of the great powers. The governments have seen strong reasons for refusing to bring from Africa a firebrand to kindle a general European war. It has become fully evident that intervention would be such a firerrand, even though it were to appear first in the guise of an insistent demand on Great Britain to accept a mediation. A mediation whose proposal is not joined in by both parties in dispute is in reality an intervention, and, if persisted in, means war for all outside parties that thus persist. At the beginning the powers could not have failed to note that on twenty-four hours' notice-that notice a threat from the little South African republics--war had been opened on April, 1901 Great Britain with immediate invasion of her territory and capture of her unprepared towns; and the powers could not but see that whether Britain's cause were just or unjust such a case was not in the least propitious for mediation. It is no more propitious to-day. Military Movements. GENERAL BRITISH PLANS. At the beginning of February, four general British movements were in progress. One was near the castern boundary of the Transvaal under General French, to disperse Botha's main force, which had threatened the communication to Lourenco Marques. The second, 300 miles away, was a small operation under General Cunningham against Delarey's 2,000 men in the southwestern part of the Transvaal. The third was an operation combining seven columns under Generals Charles Knox, Bruce Hamilton, and Maxwell, Colonels W. L. White and Pilcher, and Major Crowe. They moved first southward, keeping in touch with DeWet's rearguard, aiming to drive him upon the British corps at the Orange river. This concentration the Boers evaded by divid ing and swinging westward. The fourth movement was for clearing Cape Colony, and was not as early developed as the others. With these extended movements in view the War Office in London decided on a further reinforcement of 30,000 mounted troops. VARIOUS EVENTS. About February 1 a British outpost of 200 men at Modderfontein, about fifty miles southwest of Pretoria, was suddenly attacked and captured in a pitch dark night during heavy rain, by about 1,400 Boers. The captured men were subsequently released. The British killed and wounded numbered twentyeight. In the southeast of the Transvaal, British columns February 5 were driving eastward a force estimated at 7,000 under General Botha. The British attacked and occupied Ermelo. Fifty Boers surrendered. An unofficial report states the Boer loss at forty killed and 200 prisoners. About 800 wagons with families and very large quantities of stock, passed eastward. The Boers took with them a peace envoy sentenced to death. All accounts show the Boers exceedingly bitter. Botha on February 6 made a night attack with 2,000 men on a British force at Bothwell, and after severe fighting was repulsed, losing one general and two field-cornets killed, one general severely wounded, and leaving on the field twenty dead and many wounded. The British casualties were twenty-four killed, fifty-three wounded. At Petrusburg, February 7, a British column destroyed Boer supplies and without casualty brought in 3,500 horses and cattle. Lord Methuen, east of Vryburg, near the western boundary of the Transvaal, reported on February 7 that he had scattered the Boer force there, capturing 200 cattle. About 400 miles to the east, General French captured, about February 11, sixty-five wagons and carts and forty-five prisoners; one of his men was wounded. His columns were converging, forcing the enemy toward the southeastern corner of the Transvaal. cattle and horses, and 9,800 sheep; also 300 Boers had surrendered. From the most trustworthy reports, it is gathered that in the Cape Colony, though the Dutch farmers are submitting to the provisions of martial law and are bringing in horses and rifles, there is no doubt that they still cherish a strong though latent spirit of rebellion. On February 21 Lord Methuen's force reached Klerksdorp, having cleared the Boers out of the southwestern part of the Transvaal. The only severe fighting was in driving 1,400 Boers under two generals out of a strong position. On the same day a long and violent proclamation "to all men" from Steyn and De Wet was made public, charging every kind of outrageous violence on the British forces, declaring the Boers innocent of such offenses, and announcing that the war would go on. From Lydenburg was reported an address to the burghers by Acting-President Schalkburger, telling them that their cause was hopeless and a prolongation of fighting quite futile. While he would not take it on himself to advocate surrender, he would say that if surrender was inevitable it would better be not by individuals but as a nation. DE WET'S INCURSION. At the end of January, General DeWet's mobile force was in the vicinity of Thaba Nchu east of Bloemfontein. He was attacked by General Charles From the southeastern Transvaal, General French reported, February 22, that his columns moving eastward were driving Botha's force to the number of four or five thousand in scattered and disorganized parties. French added that heavy rains were hindering him in the pursuit; and on February 25 it was reported at Cape Town that Botha with 2,000 of his men had made their way northward. Up to February 25, French had captured three guns, a large quantity of war material, great droves of Vol. 11-7. MAJOR-GENERAL FRENCH, COMMANDING A CAVALRY DIVISION UNDER LORD Knox, and moved southward. He was reported, February 2, with 2,400 men, two fifteen-pounders, one Maxim gun, and a pom-pom, moving in the direction of Cape Colony; and the next day near Dewetsdorp, eighty miles north of the Orange river. On February 7, he was said to be north of Smithfield (forty miles from the river), moving east. Two days ìater, having failed to effect a crossing of the river near Bethulie, he appeared to be moving westward. His plan, doubtless, was to effect a junction with the parties of Boers that were in the western parts of Cape Colony. It had by this time become evident, however, that a Boer invasion was not likely to result in anything beyond local damage. Scattered commandos of Boers were reported during the next few days as having crossed at one place or another into the Colesberg or other districts of Cape Colony. The mode of these small commandos was to live on the country, to avoid the troops, and not to attack any place prepared for resistance. DeWet, who appears to have crossed the Orange river about February 12, was closely followed and attacked on February 15, north of De Aar, by British forces under Plumer, but escaped with the loss of more than twenty of his ammunition and other wagons, a Maxim gun, twenty prisoners, and more than 100 horses. Colonel Plumer reports that Colonel Owen again attacked DeWet, February 23, capturing two guns, much ammunition, and fifty-three prisoners; there were no British casualties. The Boers were in full retreat and dispersing, seeking to escape across the Orange river. DeWet and Steyn, and 1,400 of their men, succeeded in evading their pursuers, and on February 28 swam their horses across the Orange river north of Colesberg. Thus ended the Boer invasion of Cape Colony as a failure, but with a disappointment to the British in not capturing the two leaders. Soon, however, the pursuers were again close on the track of the fugitives. Other bands of Boers which entered the thinly settled western part of Cape Colony several weeks ago have shown great cruelty and brutality, especially toward the natives. The "British Outrages." Stories of frightful British outrages have had extensive circulation, and seem to have gained the considerable credence for which a widespread sym pathy with the Boers prepares the way, notwithstanding the most unqualified denial from British commanders in the field and by the highest officials both in the War Office and in parliament. The only basis for these stories seems to be in immensely exaggerated accounts of possible rare acts of violence, strictly forbidden by British army rules as in all armies of civilized nations, and sternly punished whenever discovered. Particular accounts of the violence of a few lawless men are sent to the news columns of such journals as welcome them in distant lands. Thus, General French, about to middle of February, found the population in the southeastern districts of the Transvaal, which he had recently entered, stimulated to fierce resistance by the republication in a Dutch paper at Ermelo of frightful stories of customary British outrages of women, and of secret orders by some of their generals, notably Lord Kitchener, to "bring in no prisoners." These republished stories were traced back to some papers in England opposed to the war, as well as to some colonial Boer papers. General French declares them utterly false. At Pretoria, the Rev. Mr. Bosman, the leading Dutch minister at the Transvaal capital, felt it requisite to investigate the accusations of rape and other brutalities as committed by British troops. As a result he has made a report that there is in them no truth whatever. On a different line may be taken for what it is worth, whether less or more, an open letter in the Bloemfontein "Post," published February 6, by the Reverend Mr. Du Plessis, Dutch minister at Lindley, who seems to be literally "carrying the war into Africa," in declaring that war uncivilizes, and that the Boers have now become desperate and fanatical and are committing actions against the laws of Christianity and civilization. Following is the testimony of an observer in an official position who sympathizes with the Boer cause. The Swiss consul at Pretoria in a letter published in a Swiss journal, the "Gazette de Lausanne," deals thus with the charges circulated by De Wet and Steyn of the constant misconduct of British soldiers, especially toward the Boer women: "I cannot express my indignation in strong enough terms when I see such base calumnies put into circulation in |