in which hundreds of regiments of unfamiliar title the 'Young Guard' of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand-will stand side by side with those whose names are household words. With the establishment, the efficiency, and the maintenance of the new army public opinion is intimately concerned. It is of importance, therefore, that the public should not be misled into believing that the revolution wrought by the new weapon is purely mythical, that voluntary service has broken down, and that salvation is only to be found in an imitation of the tactics and organisation of armies that have no experience of modern war. It is on this account that Graf Sternberg's book is chiefly welcome. It is something more than a lively record of military adventure. The author is an experienced soldier, who saw a great deal of South Africa, and quite enough of the campaign to give his opinions weight. His Dugald Dalgetty-like indifference as to which side he fought for, so long as he did fight, is a strong proof of his impartiality; and the delightful simplicity of his narrative makes it impossible to doubt its truthfulness. His ideas of English political morality may be passed by with a smile; but his comments on both tactics and organisation are worth attention; while his admiration of the British soldier, together with his ample recognition of the abnormal difficulties of the theatre of war, supply a wholesome corrective to the criticisms dealt with in the preceding pages. It will be considered, I think, that the Translator has done well to keep close to the original. Nor will it detract from the reader's amusement that the Author's lapses into poetical description, the incidents of his voyage to Cape Town, and his naïve confessions of his catholic taste in liquor have been left untouched. G. F. R. HENDERSON. MY EXPERIENCES OF THE BOER WAR CHAPTER I THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE TRANSVAAL IN 1896 (Communicated by the Author to the Neue Freie Presse' on his first visit to South Africa after the Jameson Raid) THE year 1895 may be designated as the year of gold craze, although the mania was less prevalent in Austria than in England and France, or, more generally speaking, in the west of Europe. The promised land of gold, with its countless millions, became the foster-mother of an army of idlers, who were now able to live, with very little trouble to themselves, in the lap of luxury. B |