In a position covering less than a square mile of territory, hemmed in on all sides by an army almost as great as that which defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, surrounded by a chain of fire from carbines, rapid-fire guns and heavy cannon, the target of thousands of the vaporous lyddite shells, his trenches enfiladed by a continuous shower of lead, his men half dead from lack of food, and stiff from the effect of their narrow quarters in the trenches, General Cronje chose to fight and to risk complete disaster by leading his four thousand men against the forty thousand of the enemy.

The will of the majority prevailed, and on February 27th, the anniversary of Majuba Hill, after ten days of fighting, the white flag was hoisted above the dilapidated laager.  The bodies of ninety-seven burghers lay over the scene of the disaster, and two hundred and forty-five wounded men were left behind when General Cronje and his three thousand six hundred and seventy-nine burghers and women limped out of the river-bed and surrendered to Field-Marshal Lord Roberts.

In many respects General Cronje was the Boers’ most brilliant leader, but he was responsible for many serious and costly reverses.  At Magersfontein he defeated the enemy fairly, and he might have reaped the fruits of his victory if he had followed up the advantage there gained.  Instead, he allowed his army to remain inactive for two months while the British established a camp and base at the river.  General French’s march to Kimberley might readily have been prevented or delayed if Cronje had placed a few thousand of his men on the low range of kopjes commanding French’s route, but during the two days which were so fateful to him and his army General Cronje never stirred from his laager.  At Magersfontein Cronje allowed thirty-six cannon, deserted by the British, to remain on several kopjes all of one night and until ten o’clock next morning, when they were taken away by the enemy.  When he was asked why he did not send his men to secure the guns Cronje replied, “God has been so good to us that I did not have the heart to send my overworked men to fetch them.”

Cronje was absolutely fearless, and in all the battles in which he took part he was always in the most exposed positions.  He rarely used a rifle, as one of his eyes was affected, but the short, stoop-shouldered, grey-bearded man, with the long riding-whip, was always in the thick of a fight, encouraging his men and pointing out the positions for attack.  He was a fatalist when in battle, if not in times of peace, and it is told of him that at Modder River he was warned by one of the burghers to seek a less exposed position.  “If God has ordained me to be shot to-day,” the grim old warrior replied, “I shall be shot, whether I sit here or in a well.”  Cronje was one of the strictest leaders in the Boer army, and that feature made him unpopular with the men who constantly applied to him for leaves-of-absence to return to their homes.  They fought for him in the trenches at Paardeberg not because they loved him, but because they respected him as an able leader.  He did not have the affection of his burghers like Botha, Meyer, De Wet, or De la Rey, but he held his men together by force of his superior military attainments—­a sort of overawing authority which they could not disobey.