Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1900 — ANOTHER BRITISH REVERSE. [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER BRITISH REVERSE.

Surrounded Near Redder* burg and Forced to Surrender. The reports of the recent operation* in South Africa are full of suggestion as to the nature of the difficulties with which Lord Roberts is now contending and the renewed vigor of the resistance offered by the Boers. Instead of falling back to strongholds farther north and waiting in their intrenchinents the burghers evidently are acting ou the aggressive on all sides of Bloemfontein. Withih a week there, have been engagements to the southeast, to the south and to the northwest of the Free State capital. It would appear that so far from having accepted Lord Roberts’ proffered terms of pacification, the Boers are determined to make his present position very difficult, even if they do not undertake to hem him in. According to Friday’s dispatches an engagement at Boshof, a town to the north and west of Bloemfontein, resulted in a Boer loss of fifty men and the death of Ren. Villebois do Mareuil, the well-known French strategist. But simultaneously came the report of the capture of five companies of British infantry to the south of Bloemfontein at a town named -Reddersbtirg. The sudden appearance upon Lord Roberts’ rear and near his main line of communication of a force large enough to carry off half a British regiment is suggestive, and the news of the reverse cannot fail to create considerable uneasiness in London. It is true that Lord Roberts was able to communicate with Gen. Gatacre at Springfontein, ordering him to advance upon Reddersburg, and presumably the main British army is by no means, cut off from its base. But why Roberts should have called troops from Springfputein instead of detaching some of his owu men at Bloemfontein, and how the Boers come to be operating in such force near the British line of communication, are puzzles which cgnnot be solved in the light of the dispatches. The death of Gen. Villebois de Mareuil will be a serious loss to the Boers, but it is more- than offset by the British loss at Redderslturg. The moral effect of the Boer success in trapping five British companies will be reflected both in the activity of the encouraged burghers and the chagrin and disappointment shown in England.