The Boer system of electing military
leaders by vote of the people may have had certain advantages, but it had
the negative advantage of effacing all traces of authority between
officers and men. The burgher who had assisted in electing his
field-cornet felt that that official owed him a certain amount of
gratitude for having voted for him, and obeyed his orders or disobeyed
them whenever he chose to do so. The field-cornet represented authority
over his men, but of real authority there was none. The commandants were
presumed to have authority over the field-cornets and the generals over
the commandants, but whether the authority was of any value could not be
ascertained until after the will of those in lower rank was discovered. By
this extraordinary process it happened that every burgher was a general
and that no general was greater than a burgher.
[Illustration: ELECTING A FIELD-CORNET]
The military officers of the Boers, with the exception of the
Commandant-General, were the same men who ruled the country in times of
peace. War suddenly transformed pruning-hooks into swords, and
conservators of peace into leaders of armies. The head of the army was the
Commandant-General, who was invested with full power to direct operations
and lead men.
Directly under his authority were the Assistant Commandant-Generals, five
of whom were appointed by the Volksraad a short time before the beginning
of hostilities.
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