Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1900 — CLEVER BOER RUSE. [ARTICLE]

CLEVER BOER RUSE.

SOUNDED THE “RECALL" FOR BRITISH TROOPS. English Obeyed the Bugle and Left Their Comrades to Be Surrounded— General Gatacre Promptly Shoots a False Guide—Wauchope's Death. There was no cause for London to complain of lack of news from South Africa Monday morning. The most important dispatches that had come over the cables in many days were given out Sunday night by the war office. One piece of information contained the details of another British blunder, or which amounts to the same thing—of the success of a brilliant bit of Boer strategy. During the progress of an attack on the Boers at Colesburg by some of Gen. French's command the Boers demonstrated their acquaintance with the British bugle calls. They sounded the "recall,” and three companies of four of the Suffolks, which had just been ordered to charge, obeyed the order, leaving the remaining company unsupported. These were surrounded and taken prisoners by the Boers. Telegrams from Rensbnrg say seven officers and thirty men of the Suffolks were killed and that about fifty were captured. Gen. French’s announcement that the Essex regiment has been sent to replace the Suffolks is more bitter to the latter's friends than the list of casualties, as the only inference deducible from this fact is that the Suffolks disgraced themselves and their flirg by bolting and leaving a few of their more stanch comrades to fill the Pretoria jails. Lord De La Warr, in a graphic description of the battle of Magersfoutein, says: ,

"It is useless to disguise the fact that a large percentage of the troops are losing heart for a campaign comprised of a succession of frontal attacks on an invisible foe. securely intrenched and unreachable. Our men fought admirably, but they were asked to perform miracles. Don’t blame them and don't blame the gallant general, who was the first

victim of the terrible disaster which overcame the Highland brigade. They marched in quarter column to thetr doom. Gen. Wauchope's last words: ‘For God’s sake, men. do not blame me for this,’ will gladden the hearts of his numberless friends. There was no accord between Gen. Methuen and Gen. Wauehope in regard to the best methods of attack. Gen. Methuen’s plan prevailed, and the mistake lost 700 men. A private of the Irish Rifles who fought at Stormberg, in a letter to his home, says that when Gen. Gatacre saw the position the guide had led the troops into he shot the guide dead with his own revolver.