He rarely used a rifle,
as one of his eyes was affected, but the short, stoop-shouldered,
grey-bearded man, with the long riding-whip, was always in the thick of a
fight, encouraging his men and pointing out the positions for attack. He
was a fatalist when in battle, if not in times of peace, and it is told of
him that at Modder River he was warned by one of the burghers to seek a
less exposed position. "If God has ordained me to be shot to-day," the
grim old warrior replied, "I shall be shot, whether I sit here or in a
well." Cronje was one of the strictest leaders in the Boer army, and that
feature made him unpopular with the men who constantly applied to him for
leaves-of-absence to return to their homes. They fought for him in the
trenches at Paardeberg not because they loved him, but because they
respected him as an able leader. He did not have the affection of his
burghers like Botha, Meyer, De Wet, or De la Rey, but he held his men
together by force of his superior military attainments--a sort of
overawing authority which they could not disobey.
Personally, Cronje was not an extraordinary character. He was urbane in
manner and a pleasant conversationalist. Like the majority of the Boers he
was deeply religious, and tried to introduce the precepts of his religion
into his daily life. Although he was sixty-five years old when the war
began he had the energy and spirit of a much younger man, and the terrors
and anxieties of the ten days' siege at Paardeberg left but little marks
on the face which has been described as Christlike.
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