With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train

Chapter 7: FOOTNOTES:

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About This Book

An eyewitness narrative of a military campaign in South Africa that blends travel sketch, frontline reportage, and medical observation. It opens with impressions of Cape Town and colonial society, then follows an ambulance train attached to a campaign column, detailing hospital wards, evacuation and treatment of the wounded, camp routine, and several skirmishes encountered en route. The author records logistical difficulties, the appearance and wear of troops, interactions with local communities, and moments of civilian hospitality, and reflects on the hardship and human cost of campaigning, noting a charitable aim for proceeds to aid officers' families.

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Since these lines were written Lord Roberts has personally testified to the misuse of the white flag in the Paardeberg fighting.

[B] Cf. The River War, by Winston Spencer Churchill, vol. ii., p. 394. "It is the habit of the boa-constrictor to besmear the body of its victim with a foul slime before he devours it; and there are many people in England, and perhaps elsewhere, who seem to be unable to contemplate military operations for clear political objects, unless they can cajole themselves into the belief that the enemy is utterly and hopelessly vile."

[C] Cf. Tacitus, Agricola, xxvii.: Iniquissima haec bellorum condicio est; prospera omnes sibi vindicant, adversa uni imputantur.