Literature of the Soiitli African War 309 mann, United States Army, extracts of which are to be found in Reports on Military Operations in Soutii Africa and China, pub- lished by the Adjutant General's Office at Washington. ' Captain Reichmann gives an excellent and informing sketch of the strength, organization, training, armament, and niobihzation system of the Boers, and is, moreover, a valuable witness as to the facts connected with the actions at which he was present, which include most of the fights after Paardeljerg up to the occupation of Pretoria. It is unnecessary to add that his report, as well as that of his colleague Captain Slocum,^ has been read by British officers with close atten- tion and respect. Next to Captain Reichmann the most valuable foreign witness is Colonel de Mllebois-Mareuil, a retired French officer who took service under President Kruger and was killed in action at the head of his men near Boshof in April, 1900. His JVar Notes ^ were written from day to day while actually at the front, and reveal unsparingly the fatal weakness inherent in ill-disciplined and untrained national forces such as the Boers. Its perusal excites emotions of sympathy for the professional soldier, who landed in South Africa so full of enthusiasm for what he regarded as a just cause, and whose trained eye saw immediately on his arrival at the front the hopelessness of the whole business. Yet Villebois-jNIareuil, having set his hand to the plow, looked not back, but did his duty till the God of Battles gave him his release. Other interesting for- eign testimony to the Boer methods of fighting and the actual condi- tion of afifairs in the ranks of the commandos are to be found in Ten Months in the Field with the Boers,* hy a-lieutenant of Villebois- Mareuil and in a book by a German officer. Captain Otto von Loss- berg, Mit Santa Barbara in Siidafrika. ^ This completes the list of the more important unofficial historical material which has yet appeared. For the student who desires to gather his facts from original sources, the list cannot be said to be satisfactory. Even for the first part of the war, when the dramatic nature of the operations excited profound interest, the unofficial nar- ratives are inadequate and unreliable. On the later phases, the long struggle between Lord Kitchener and De Wet's guerrilla bands, the books which have been written by eve-witnesses mav be counted almost on the fingers of one hand. The regular war correspondents had in fact been recalled home, and the arrangements made for those " drives " which gradually sapped the Boer strength were too in- tricate and too confidential to be fully understood by any but the ' No. XXXIII. (July, 1901), Washington, 1901, pp. 93-259. ^ Ibid.,y-g2. ^ London, 1901. * London, 1901. ' Leipzig, 1903.
