BULLER’S DEFENCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 267, 20 November 1901, Page 3

BULLER’S DEFENCE.

A REMARKABLE CONFESSION. General Sir Redvebs Buller, as the CEbles have informed us, seized the occasion of a volunteer luncheon given in the Queen’s Hall, Westminster, to make a remarkable reply to his critics. He entered into details regarding his famous message to Sir George White suggesting the surrender of Ladysmith, and described the circumstances which induced him to write that message. The following is a report of his speech : Sir Redvers Buller dealt at length with the attacks that had been made on himself since his appointment to the First Army Corps. He related the story of an international detective or spy who had called on him at Aldershot and advised him to give up the post. The man had been in the service of the Transvaal, and he said Sir Redvers Buller had let him out of prison.

He tame down, said the Genera], and told me a' lot of interesting stories about the secret service of the Transvaal. Then he said : —“ The other day you published a paper about artillery, didn’t you ? ” I said, “ Yes, I did.” “And you were told to withdraw it?" I said, “ Yes, I was.” He said, “ You have got money to live upon ; give up the Aldershot command.” 1 1 said, “ Thank you very much, but Ido not know that I need. I asked, “ Why?” He said, “ I will tell you. You have got enemies; not exactly enemies, but men who mean to get you out of the way, and they will do so. You had better get out quietly and happily.” I said, “ I do not know what you think. I am a fighting man, and what you have told me will make me more likely to stay.” Of course, I did not ask him for names. It is a curious thing, the General continued, that a fortnight previously’ a few of the London papers brought out on the same day articles against me. The t v were all on the same day, and they’ all attacked mo in the same manner. I have only read the attack in the Times, which said I was unfit to be commanding the Ist Army Corps at Aldershot. WHO IS THE JUNIOR? |

The editor of the Spectator said one j thing for which I thank him—he accused me of reckless courage. Reckless courage is a quality I should like to possess, but unfortunately I have never been gifted with it all my life. If ever I displayed reckless courage in my life, I assert, and possibly some day I may prove, that I displayed reckless courage in having in my pocket the very telegram that he talked about, in which I was ordered to do something which would have involved the loss of 2000 and 8000 men. I withdrew the men because I thought they could not get through, and I would not lose a man unless I thought I could get | something for it. The Times has attacked me by way of a letter from “ A Reformer,” who may be, for all I know, a penny-a-liner or the greatest man iu the world. At any rate he is the anonymous scribe. The Times says I am not fitted to be in command of the Ist Army Corps. I assert that there is nobody at this time in England, junior to me, who is as fit as I am. I challenge the Times to say who is the man they have in their eye more fit than I am. They say that I wrote a telegram in which I ordered Sir George White to give up Ladysmith and destroy his books, and so forth. They say that. I wrote a great many telegrams, and I certainly wrote one telegram which admits partially of that description.

I attacked Colenso on December loth. I was unsuccessful. It was a very trying day. I was at work thirty-six hours, and in the saddle fourteen hours. It was the hottest day of tho whole year, and I had rank bad luck. I still believe, and hope to show, that if I had not had bad luck I had enough men to get in. But that is another story.

AFTER COLENSO. I attacked Colenso and failed, and having failed, I had to consider not myself but the people in front of me—the garrison of Ladysmith.

As far as I knew then, my appreciation of the situation was this : There was a very good man holding Ladysmith. In the report I made to the War Office of my opinion about him the very day he was shut up I said I did not know that there was another man iu the British

Army I woujd sooner have selected to hold a beleaguered garrison. 1 know that horse sickness was almost certain to come very heavily and strongly in the Tugela Valley. I knew that enteric fever was epidemic, and almost continuously becoming epidemic in the Tugela valley at that time of the year. I knew (or thought I knew) that the Boers were putting dead horses in the water which tho garrison of Ladysmith were obliged to drink. I was in great fear that whatever other misfortune happened to that garrison they would have immense trouble with those of their garrison who were sick.

The whole of the staff were shut up in Ladysmith. I thought—l knew—that I had official information in writing that the garrison could not bo fed beyond the end of the year. I was wrong, I have found out since. At that time, I thought that, and believed it. It was then December 16th ; the end of the year was fifteen days off. THE SUGGESTION TO SURRENDER.

The message I had to send to Sir George White was that I had made the attack, that I had failed, that I could not possibly make another attempt for a month, and then I was certain I could only do it by slow fighting, and not by rushing. That was tho message I had to send, and I had to ask him certain questions. I wrote a telegram out, and looked at it two or three times, and said: “Itis a mean thing to send a telegram like that. He is a gallant fellow. He will sit still to the end.”

I was in command. Whatever responsibility there was there was mine, and I thought: “ Ought I not to give him some help, some assistance, and some lead—something which, if it came to tho last absolute moment, would have enabled him to say, ‘ Well, after all, I have Sir Redvers Buffer's (as my commander's) opiuion in favor of this.’ ” Therefore I “ spatchcocked" into the middle of the telegram a sentence in which I suggested that it would be necessary to abandon—to surrender—what he should do when he surrendered, and how he should do it. I put it after one question he had to answer, and followed it with another question. I did uot like to suggest to a man I believed to be a bravo man and a good soldier —I did not like to suggest that he should do this, or that, or the other thing ; but I stuck that into the thing sirnpiy because, if he ever had to give up, it might be some sort of cover to a man whom I thought in much greater difficulty than 1 was myself. That was the telegram. Now I challenge the Times fairly to put forward their scribe “Reformer,” to bring him down iuto the ring. Let- us know who he is, by what right he writes, what his name is, and what authority he has. Let him publish this telegram. 1 know where it is, 1 believe. It is in the hands of the editor of a magazine who some years ago made himself remarkable —notorious, not, I should think, popular—by raking over the garbage of a fifty-year-old story and dishing it up hot, and insulting an old and valuable public servant. That is where it is. It must have been stolen, because it was a cypher telegram addressed to Sir George White, and perfectly secret. I challenge them to produce it and say hpyv they got it, and when they do that I will publish a certain copy of the telegram I sent, and the public shall judge me. I am quite ready to be judged, Let it be understood that I make the challenge as a whole. It hurts no one but me. I make this statement to save my friends. I have not been drawn as regards myself, but I want to keep my own people out of the newspapers. UNFAIR CRITICISM. Sir Redvers Buffer condemned in vigorous forms the general attitude of the leading newspapers, and especially those in London, to the Army throughout the war. They were more ready to criticise, than to praise, and the result in his opinion was one of the causes of the continuance of the war. General Buffer cited as an example the comments made after Major Gough was

ambuscaded at Scbeepers’ Nek. Some newspapers, forgetting his splendid work, over two years as a leader of mounted infantry, described this as “ another instance of the extraordinary manner in which officers throw their men away by neglect of ordinary precautions.” Now that was not fair.

Two-and-twenty years ago Sir Redvers Buller was in command of mounted infantry at that very place, and he declined to go through with a convoy unless he had 500 men. His general examined the country, agreed with that view, and placed a fort there in consequence. Ho did not care who the cavalry leader was, unless he had got a very large force with him he could not possibly safeguard a convoy through that country in a fair attack.