ley firing which destroys all individual aim. With
the experience of the first Boer war behind them, little was done,
either in tactics or in musketry, to prepare the soldier for the second.
The value of the mounted rifleman, the shooting with accuracy at unknown
ranges, the art of taking cover--all were equally neglected.

The defeat at Majuba Hill was followed by the complete surrender of the
Gladstonian Government, an act which was either the most pusillanimous
or the most magnanimous in recent history. It is hard for the big man
to draw away from the small before blows are struck but when the big man
has been knocked down three times it is harder still. An overwhelming
British force was in the field, and the General declared that he held
the enemy in the hollow of his hand. Our military calculations have been
falsified before now by these farmers, and it may be that the task
of Wood and Roberts would have been harder than they imagined; but on
paper, at least, it looked as if the enemy could be crushed without
difficulty. So the public thought, and yet they consented to the
upraised sword being stayed. With them, as apart from the politicians,
the motive was undoubtedly a moral and Christian one. They considered
that the annexation of the Transvaal had evidently been an injustice,
that the farmers had a right to the freedom for which they fought, and
that it was an unworthy thing for a great nation to continue an unjust
war for the sake of a military revenge. It was the height of idealism,
and the result has not been such as to encourage its repetition.

An armistice was concluded on March 5th, 1881, which led up to a peace
on the 23rd of the same month. The Government, after yielding to force
what it had repeatedly refused to friendly representations, made
a clumsy compromise in their settlement. A policy of idealism and
Christian morality should have been thorough if it were to be tried
at all. It was obvious that if the annexation were unjust, then the
Transvaal should have reverted to the condition in which it was before
the annexation, as defined by the Sand River Convention. But the
Government for some reason would not go so far as this. They niggled
and quibbled and bargained until the State was left as a curious hybrid
thing such as the world has never seen. It was a republic which was
part of the system of a monarchy, dealt with by the Colonial Office,
and included under the heading of 'Colonies' in the new