Stump electronic books

No
doubt he had private information as to the dangerous hold which the
Boers were getting upon the colonial Dutch, and it is possible that
while Buller and Methuen were attacking east and west they urged
Gatacre to do something to hold the enemy in the centre. On the
night of December 9th he advanced.
The fact that he was about to do so, and even the hour of the
start, appear to have been the common property of the camp some
days before the actual move. The 'Times' correspondent under the
date December 7th details all that it is intended to do. It is to
the credit of our Generals as men, but to their detriment as
soldiers, that they seem throughout the campaign to have shown
extraordinarily little power of dissimulation. They did the
obvious, and usually allowed it to be obvious what they were about
to do. One thinks of Napoleon striking at Egypt; how he gave it
abroad that the real object of the expedition was Ireland, but
breathed into the ears of one or two intimates that in very truth
it was bound for Genoa.


Pages:
254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278