Richard Harding Davis - WITH BOTH ARMIES (1900)

Anglo-Boer War

Publisher's red cloth binding with the flags of Great Britain and the Transvaal Republic on the front panel.

237pp, frontispiece + 34 plates (all present). Scribner's catalogue at rear.

No inscriptions. Binding solid. A very good copy.

'Some account is given of the Natal campaign and of the relief of Ladysmith, after which event the author decided to "go to Pretoria by way of Lourenco Marquez and to watch the Boers fighting." Mr. Davis was evidently much impressed by the Burghers, whom he designates as "the last of the crusaders," asserting that for them the struggle was "a Holy War," maintained by heroes who were fighting for "the right of self-government, the principle of independence." On the other hand, he speaks in a most disparaging way of the British, and asserts that the imprisoned officers "behaved in a most unsportsmanlike, ungentlemanly, and for their own good, a most foolish manner." He states that "they drew offensive caricatures of the Boers " on the walls of their prison, and "were rude and 'cheeky' to the officials, boasting of what their fellow-soldiers would do to them when they took Pretoria." The opinions held by the writer are exemplified in the following paragraph : "But when Lord Roberts and his army fling out the black flag, and go forth under it on a Jameson Raid, when they murder old men and young boys because they fight for their homes, the best they can ask of every one is silence as to their misdeeds and that their triumph may be crowned with oblivion." - Mendelssohn Vol.I, page 420