If
dying for one's country is patriotism, then Joubert's death was sweet.
When war-clouds were gathering and the storm was about to burst over the
Transvaal Piet Cronje sat on the stoep of his farmhouse in Potchefstroom,
evolving in his mind a system of tactics which he would follow when the
conflict began. He was certain that he would be chosen to lead his people,
for he had led them in numerous native wars, in the conflict in 1881, and
later when Jameson made his ill-starred entry into the Transvaal. Cronje
was a man who loved to be amid the quietude of his farm, but he was in the
cities often enough to realise that war was the only probable solution of
the differences between the Uitlanders and the Boers, and he made
preparations for the conflict. He studied foreign military methods and
their application to the Boer warfare; he evolved new ideas and improved
old ones; he planned battles and the evolutions necessary to win them; he
had a natural taste for things military.
Before all the world had heard the blast of the war-trumpet, Cronje had
deserted the peaceful stoep and was attacking the enemy on the veld at
Mafeking. A victory there, and he was riding at the head of his men toward
Kimberley. A skirmish here, a hard-fought battle there, and he had the
Diamond City in a state of siege. Victories urged him on, and he led the
way southward. A Magersfontein to his wreath, a Belmont and a Graspan--and
it seemed as if he were more than nominally the South African Napoleon.
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