Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1900 — WAR’S NEW ASPECT. [ARTICLE]

WAR’S NEW ASPECT.

KRUGER'S FORCES ARE NOT YET CONQUERED. Eonth African Struggle Haa Entered Upon a Stage Which Perplexe* the British—Roberta Attacks Botha, but Fail* to Whip Him. ..Interest in the Transvaal war has been greatly increased by the surprising turn events have taken since Lord Roberts entered Pretoria, remarks the Chicago News in reviewing the South African situation. The day after that event, which was generally accepted in Europe and in America as heralding the close of the struggle, Lord Roberts’ line of communication was cut at Roodeval and the militia battalion of the Derbyshire regiment guarding the railway was compelled after heavy loss to surrender. This wiping out' of a battalion and the news that Lord Methuen was engaged iu fierce fighting near Heilbrou at once gave a new aspect to the war. It was perceived that the taking of Bloemfontein and Johannesburg and Pretoria were incidents, not crises, to the mobile forces of the Boers, and that in turn they were applying Lord Roberts’ tactics to himself. Whether this rear attack and severing of the line of communication by destruction of the railway for twenty miles will have the result of compelling Lord Roberts to a retrograde movement remains to be seen. The later reports that Bloemfontein had been retaken by the Boers and that Dewet at the head of 13,000 men was marching against Johannesburg lack confirmation. j Gen. Kelly-Kenny has in part retrieved the disaster at Roodeval by defeating the force of burghers who cut the British line of communications, but the fact remains that the war has entered upon a new and perplexing stage to the British. This new phase cannot properly be called guerrilla warfare any more than the movements of the American forces after the British capture of Washington in 1814 could be so called. In each case the fighting forces remained intact —the scene only of the conflict was changed. In the case of the Transvaal it is evident that British occupation of Pretoria and Bloemfontein will be precarious until the main body of the Boers has been met and defeated in battle. That would, probably, not be a difficult thing for the British to accomplish with their enormously superior forces, but the tactics of the Boers are wisely to prevent such a pitched battle. By breaking up into comparatively small but effective detachments and striking swiftly as at Roodeval the Boers may lie able to prolong the war for some months yet. Their success in this direction is likely to inspire them with renewed hope and energy. It is this fact, rather than the actual loss of a battalion of men, that disturbs London and England to-day. Gen. Kelly-Kenny's success and the fact that Gen. Buller has at last pierced the Drakensberg mountains and entered the Orange Free State with the result of making the Boer position at Laing’s Nek untenable, are the relieving features in the situation from the British point of view. Lord Roberts has fought a battle with Gen. Botha, at the end of which, though the British gained considerable ground, the Boers were not beaten. Roberts’ line of communication was partially restored by a victory gained by Gens. Methuen and Kitchener over Gen. Dewet. The Borr camp was captured and the burghers, it is added, were scattered. As matters now stand it looks as if the Boers might maintain the unequal struggle for a long time, and this consideration, in connection with the grave events occurring in China, has brought the English people to a more serious mood than it has known since the earlier and darker days of the war.