Besides their sixteen Krupps, they dragged with them two heavy
six-inch Creusot guns, which were destined to have a very important
effect in the earlier part of the campaign. In addition to these
native forces there were a certain number of European auxiliaries.
The greater part of the German corps were with the Free State
forces, but a few hundred came down from the north. There was a
Hollander corps of about two hundred and fifty and an Irish--or
perhaps more properly an Irish-American-corps of the same number,
who rode under the green flag and the harp.
The men might, by all accounts, be divided into two very different
types. There were the town Boers, smartened and perhaps a little
enervated by prosperity and civilisation, men of business and
professional men, more alert and quicker than their rustic
comrades. These men spoke English rather than Dutch, and indeed
there were many men of English descent among them. But the others,
the most formidable both in their numbers and in their primitive
qualities, were the back-veld Boers, the sunburned, tangle-haired,
full-bearded farmers, the men of the Bible and the rifle, imbued
with the traditions of their own guerrilla warfare.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143