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.