Pretoria seemed to have but one mood during the war.  It was never deeply despondent nor gay.  There was a sort of funereal atmosphere throughout the city, whether its residents were rejoicing over a Spion Kop or suffering from the dejection of a Paardeberg.  It was the same grim throng of old men, women, and children who watched the processions of prisoners of war and attended the funerals at the quaint little Dutch church in the centre of the city.  The finest victories of the army never changed the appearance of the city nor the mood of its inhabitants.  There were no parades nor shouting when a victory was announced, and there was the same stoical indifference when the news of a bitter defeat was received.  A victory was celebrated in the Dutch church by the singing of psalms, and a defeat by the offering of prayers for the success of the army.

The thousands of British subjects who were allowed to remain in the Transvaal, being of a less phlegmatic race, were not so calm when a victory of their nation’s army was announced, and when the news of Cronje’s surrender reached them they celebrated the event with almost as much gusto as if they had not been in the enemy’s country.  A fancy dress ball was held in Johannesburg in honour of the event, and a champagne dinner was given within a few yards of the Government buildings in Pretoria, but a few days later all the celebrants were transported across the border by order of the Government.

One of the pathetic features of Pretoria was the Boers’ expression of faith in foreign mediation or intervention.  At the outset of hostilities it seemed unreasonable that any European nation or America would risk a war with Great Britain for the purpose of assisting the Boers, yet there was hardly one burgher who did not cling steadfastly to the opinion that the war would be ended in such a manner.  The idea had evidently been rooted in their mind that Russia would take advantage of Great Britain’s entanglement in South Africa to occupy Herat and Northern India, and when a newspaper item to that effect appeared it was gravely presumed to indicate the beginning of the end.  Some over-zealous Irishmen assured the Boers that, in the event of a South African war, their fellow-countrymen in the United States would invade Canada and involve Great Britain in an imbroglio over the Atlantic in order to save British America.  For a few weeks the chimera buoyed up the Boers, but when nothing more than an occasional newspaper rumour was heard concerning it the rising in Ashanti was then looked upon as being the hoped-for boon.  The departure of the three delegates to Europe and America was an encouraging sign to them, and it was firmly believed that they would be able to induce France, Russia, or America to offer mediation or intervention.  The two Boer newspapers, the Pretoria Volksstem and the Johannesburg Standard and Diggers’ News, dwelt at length upon every favourable token of foreign assistance, however trifling, and attempted to strengthen hopes which at hardly any time seemed capable of realisation.  It was not until after the war had been in progress for more than six months that the Boers saw the futility of placing faith in foreign aid, and afterwards they fought like stronger men.