I was exceedingly disappointed, and also somewhat indignant with
Mr. Keeley, who firmly believed, and was much cast down by, some
telegrams he had read out in the laager, relating the utter defeat of
15,000 English at the Modder River;[31] 1,500 Boers, he stated, had
surrounded this force, of which they had killed 2,000. I stoutly refused
to credit it till I had seen it in an English despatch. But all this was
enough to subdue the bravest spirit; we had received practically nothing
but Dutch information during the last six weeks, telling of their
successes and English disasters; we had seen nobody but our enemies.
Even if one did not allow oneself to believe their tales, there was
always a sort of uncomfortable feeling that these must contain some
element of truth. Fortunately, however, I was reading an account of the
Franco-German War in 1870, and there I found that the same system of
inventing successes was carried on by the French press right up to, and
even after, the Emperor's capitulation at Sedan. So it was comforting to
think that, if it had been necessary to keep up the spirits of paid and
regular soldiers, it must be a thousand times more essential for the
Transvaal authorities to do so, as regards their unpaid mixed army, who
had no encouragement to fight but knowledge of successes and hopes of
future loot.
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