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By Root 3700 0

leaders who had refused to quit their native lands in time of crisisso many, that it had become the honorable tradition. When William the Norman invaded England, Harold the Saxon felt it incumbent upon him to resist, and he did, to the death. When the Muslims invaded Spain, the Spanish king held fast, and from a cave battled back. When Pizarro sacked the Inca empire, the Inca did not flee; and when Cortez attacked Mexico, Montezuma stayed to defend his land. Even in South African history, when Colonel Gordon surrendered Cape Town to the invading English, he felt it necessary in the tradition of military honor to commit suicide, which he did; and when Marthinus Steyn, president of the Orange Free State faced utter defeat, he sent the English a telegram: 'We shall never surrender!' and he fought on with his commandos. It would be difficult to find another major example in which the elected ruler of a country abandoned it, and his old wife, and his trek companions, but Oom Paul Kruger did, and the explanations he gave while wandering futilely from court to court in Europe sounded hollow.

For his strange behavior there might be political justification; an effort did have to be made to keep his nation alive, and help from Europe might have been the only practical solution. But it is impossible to conjure up any explanation as to why an old man like this would abandon his wife of many years. When word reached him in Europe that she had died back in Pretoria, he wept.

Boer intelligence, which was usually good because of a more intimate knowledge of the battle terrain, saw clearly what the English generals were up to: 'Roberts marches east along the railway line. Kitchener reinforces his rear. That's the approach we must protect.'

'What about Buller moving up from the south?'

'He never gets anywhere on time. You can forget that approach.'

So near Bergendal Farm the Boers fortified a big red hill upon which the security of their entire line depended. If that hill was captured, English cannon could destroy the Boer lines, and the war would be over.

It was a formidable target, sloping sides leading up to a plateau about three acres in size and covered with huge scattered boulders, like an untidy playground of giants. It was held by one of the stoutest of the Boer units a group of Johannesburg policemen, the toughest in the nation, who were prepared to die.

With his bumbling instinct for seeing simple solutions to complex problems, General Buller, arriving belatedly as the battle loomed, saw that the big red hill formed the hinge of the Boer forces, and that if it fell, the entire enemy position must collapse. 'It looks like Spion Kop,' he said as his heavy guns swung into position. 'But this time I'll be in charge.' So while Lords Roberts and Kitchener approached from the west with copybook tactics, Buller thundered ahead on his own and invested the hill.

This time his tactics were impeccable, and while Roberts and Kitchener stared with mouths agape, his horde of naval guns blasted the hill with lyddite for three awful hours, blowing entire boulders apart. Then his men stormed the redoubt, slew most of the Johannesburg policemen, and fractured the Boer lines.

It was the last pitched battle of the war, and when it was over, Buller wrote to his wife: 'Here I am, as happy as a pig . . . Today I have a very nice telegram from the Queen ... I defeated the army . . . while Lord Roberts' army, which had got there before me, had missed the chance and had to sit looking on. What a beast I am!'

Redvers Buller had won the war.

In London there were fantastic celebrations. The old queen, fresh from her Sixtieth Jubilee, decided on her own that her personal friend, Lord Roberts, had been responsible for the victory. She insisted that he be elevated to the rank of earl, admitted into the Order of the Garter and promoted to commander-in-chief. As Field Marshal Lord Roberts, he received from a grateful nation a vast estate and a cash gift of £100,000, a huge fortune in those days. He had brought the war to an end, and England rejoiced.