BAMBAATA AND “JOHN BULL.”

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 29, 9 April 1907, Page 7

BAMBAATA AND “JOHN BULL.”

BIG LESSONS OF ‘'LITTLE” WARS, ,i, * The Briton is ovor-prona to despise his enemy, and lie has had to swallow some pretty sharp lessons in consequence. The coloured gentleman known as Bambaata seems to have made a lot of trouble for the South African authorities ; and it is “up to them”—as the expressive poker phrase goes—(o see that a force adequate in all tilings takes the field against such rebels. Jahn Bull has a habit of starting his military operations with a force too ridiculously small to lie oflective. It is only when disaster opens his eyes to the character of the foe that a really adequate supply of men and munitions is despatched.

Take the previous Zulu war, for instance. At first tho British general. Lord Chelmsford, remarked that the only thing lie was afraid of was that the Zulus would not fight. The raising of native levies was cried out against, although Lord Chelmsford pointed out that the regular troops at his disposal were too few for the work to bo done. The inadequacy of the British force, and the commander’s contempt for tho fighting qualities of Cctowayo’s warriors—persisted in despite the warnings of John Dunn and other experts—was bloodily commented on in the disastrous field of Isandula. A Zulu army, 25,000 strong, rushed the British camp, and assogaied all but a few fugitives. Five hundred men and thirty officers perished in the slaughter.

Of course, directly the disaster became known in England, reinforcements were hurried out, including cavalry, for which the British commander had vainly begged. Eight thousand men were despatched from England, and before the reinforcements from homo could laud, troops came from Ceylon and St. Helena, Sir Garnet (now Viscount) Wolseley was later sent out to supersede Lord Cholmslord ; but before lie arrived the decisive battle of Uluudi had been fought, and the Zulu War of 1879 was at an end. Instead of lasting two months, ns- would have happened had a British victory instead of a Zulu triumph opened the campaign, the war had ' been prolonged for over half a year, with much sheer waste of British lives and treasure.

'T shall eat my Christmas dinner in Pretoria,” General Duller said, as he sailed away to command the South African lield-force on October 11 tli, 1800. Or, rather, perhaps some imaginative reporter put this boast into the month of tho stern and silent soldier. Anyhow, everybody thought the war would be over in three months. It was another instance of'" the Briton’s ineradicable habit of despising his enemy. The Investments of Ladysmith, Mafeking, and Kimberley, the disasters of Stromberg, Nicholson’s Nek, and Magersfontein in quick succession, wore so many hard slaps in the face of complacent John Bull, and made tho worthy gentleman set his tcetli and realise with a half-angry bewilderment that he was in for a bigger job than he anticipated. And so it proved ; for tho war lasted two and a half years, and the “fifty thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay” had swollen into a gigantic army of nearly 400,000 before peace was restored.