Ten per cent. of the men
in the commandos were allowed to return to their homes on leave of
absence, and about an equal proportion left the laagers without
permission, so that the officers were never able to keep their forces at
their normal strength.
The War Departments at Pretoria and Bloemfontein and the officers of the
commandos at the front had no means of learning the exact strength of the
forces in the field except by making an actual enumeration of the men in
the various commandos, and this was never attempted. There were no
official lists in either of the capitals and none of the commandos had
even a roll-call, so that to obtain a really accurate number of burghers
in the field it was necessary to visit all the commandos and in that way
arrive at a conclusion.
Early in December the Transvaal War Department determined to make a
Christmas gift to all the burghers of the two Republics who were in the
field, and all the generals and commandants were requested to send
accurate lists of the number of men in their commands. Replies were
received from every commando, and the result showed that there were almost
twenty-eight thousand men in the field. That number of presents was
forwarded, and on Christmas day every burgher at the front received one
gift, but there were almost two thousand packages undistributed. This was
almost conclusive proof that the Boer armies in December did not exceed
twenty-six thousand men.
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