Excerpt from Complete History of the South African War, in 1899-1902 In order to publish a work of this kind immediately on the termination of hostilities, it becomes inevitable that the course of events should be recorded chronologically rather than that any department of the campaign should be dealt with consecutively and finally by itself. This imperative method has the advantage of showing the daily development of events over the whole area of the war, while it has what may be considered the drawback of discursiveness from the introduction of innumerable facts and features of the struggle without any immediate connection with each other. When the effort is to present a history of facts as complete as possible for research, rather than a picturesque story of leading battles, this compilation of heterogeneous matter is unavoidable, even if classified under many headings. There is one set off to discursiveness. An exhaustive, sustained, and graphic description of a number of battles, one after the other, is a strain upon the feelings that is neither pleasant nor wholesome. In order to wade through and grasp the whole of the details with intelligence and composure, there must be the mental relief afforded by the admixture of diversified particulars. Many events have been stated in briefest form. To paint everything in strong colours and in mlnutiœ would give scope for fine writing and piquant reading, but the chronicle could not also be compressed into a cheap, single, popular volume for the million. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.