CHAPTER 32.
THE SECOND INVASION OF CAPE COLONY.
(DECEMBER 1900 TO APRIL 1901.)
During the whole war the task of the British had been made very
much more difficult by the openly expressed sympathy with the Boers
from the political association known as the Afrikander Bond, which
either inspired or represented the views which prevailed among the
great majority of the Dutch inhabitants of Cape Colony. How strong
was this rebel impulse may be gauged by the fact that in some of
the border districts no less than ninety per cent of the voters
joined the Boer invaders upon the occasion of their first entrance
into the Colony. It is not pretended that these men suffered from
any political grievances whatever, and their action is to be
ascribed partly to a natural sympathy with their northern kinsmen,
and partly to racial ambition and to personal dislike to their
British neighbours. The liberal British policy towards the natives
had especially alienated the Dutch, and had made as well-marked a
line of cleavage in South Africa as the slave question had done in
the States of the Union.
With the turn of the war the discontent in Cape Colony became less
obtrusive, if not less acute, but in the later months of the year
1900 it increased to a degree which became dangerous. The fact of
the farm-burning in the conquered countries, and the fiction of
outrages by the British troops, raised a storm of indignation. The
annexation of the Republics, meaning the final disappearance of any
Dutch flag from South Africa, was a racial humiliation which was
bitterly resented. The Dutch papers became very violent, and the
farmers much excited. The agitation culminated in a conference at
Worcester upon December 6th, at which some thousands of delegates
were present. It is suggestive of the Imperial nature of the
struggle that the assembly of Dutch Afrikanders was carried out
under the muzzles of Canadian artillery, and closely watched by
Australian cavalry. Had violent words transformed themselves into
deeds, all was ready for the crisis.
Fortunately the good sense of the assembly prevailed, and the
agitation, though bitter, remained within those wide limits which a
British constitution permits. Three resolutions were passed, one
asking that the war be ended, a second that the independence of the
Republics be restored, and a third protesting against the actions
of Sir Alfred Milner. A deputation which carried these to the
Governor received a courteous but an uncompromising reply. Sir
Alfred Milner pointed out that the Home Government, all the great
Colonies, and half the Cape were unanimous in their policy, and
that it was folly to imagine that it could be reversed on account
of a local agitation. All were agreed in the desire to end the war,
but the last way of bringing this about was by encouraging
desperate men to go on fighting in a hopeless cause. Such was the
general nature of the Governor's reply, which was, as might be
expected, entirely endorsed by the British Government and people.
Had De Wet, in the operations which have already been described,
evaded Charles Knox and crossed the Orange River, his entrance into
the Colony would have been synchronous with the congress at
Worcester, and the situation would have become more acute. This
peril was fortunately averted. The agitation in the Colony
suggested to the Boer leaders, however, that here was an untouched
recruiting ground, and that small mobile invading parties might
gather strength and become formidable. It was obvious, also, that
by enlarging the field of operations the difficulties of the
British Commander-in-chief would be very much increased, and the
pressure upon the Boer guerillas in the Republics relaxed.
Therefore, in spite of De Wet's failure to penetrate the Colony,
several smaller bands under less-known leaders were despatched over
the Orange River. With the help of the information and the supplies
furnished by the local farmers, these bands wandered for many
months over the great expanse of the Colony, taking refuge, when
hard pressed, among the mountain ranges. They moved swiftly about,
obtaining remounts from their friends, and avoiding everything in
the nature of an action, save when the odds were overwhelmingly in
their favour. Numerous small posts or patrols cut off, many
skirmishes, and one or two railway smashes were the fruits of this
invasion, which lasted till the end of the war, and kept the Colony
in an extreme state of unrest during that period. A short account
must be given here of the movement and exploits of these hostile
bands, avoiding, as far as possible, that catalogue of obscure
'fonteins' and 'kops' which mark their progress.
The invasion was conducted by two main bodies, which shed off
numerous small raiding parties. Of these two, one operated on the
western side of the Colony, reaching the sea-coast in the
Clanwilliam district, and attaining a point which is less than a
hundred miles from Cape Town. The other penetrated even more deeply
down the centre of the Colony, reaching almost to the sea in the
Mossel Bay direction. Yet the incursion, although so far-reaching,
had small effect, since the invaders held nothing save the ground
on which they stood, and won their way, not by victory, but by the
avoidance of danger. Some recruits were won to their cause, but
they do not seem at that time to have been more than a few hundreds
in number, and to have been drawn for the most part from the
classes of the community which had least to lose and least to
offer.
The Western Boers were commanded by Judge Hertzog of the Free
State, having with him Brand, the son of the former president, and
about twelve hundred well-mounted men. Crossing the Orange River at
Sand Drift, north of Colesberg, upon December 16th, they paused at
Kameelfontein to gather up a small post of thirty yeomen and
guardsmen under Lieutenant Fletcher, the wellknown oar. Meeting
with a stout resistance, and learning that British forces were
already converging upon them, they abandoned the attack, and
turning away from Colesberg they headed west, cutting the railway
line twenty miles to the north of De Aar. On the 22nd they occupied
Britstown, which is eighty miles inside the border, and on the same
day they captured a small body of yeomanry who had been following
them. These prisoners were released again some days later. Taking a
sweep round towards Prieska and Strydenburg, they pushed south
again. At the end of the year Hertzog's column was 150 miles deep
in the Colony, sweeping through the barren and thinly-inhabited
western lands, heading apparently for Fraserburg and Beaufort West.
The second column was commanded by Kritzinger, a burgher of
Zastron, in the Orange River Colony. His force was about 800
strong. Crossing the border at Rhenoster Hoek upon December 16th,
they pushed for Burghersdorp, but were headed off by a British
column. Passing through Venterstad, they made for Steynsberg,
fighting two indecisive skirmishes with small British forces. The
end of the year saw them crossing the rail road at Sherburne, north
of Rosmead Junction, where they captured a train as they passed,
containing some Colonial troops. At this time they were a hundred
miles inside the Colony, and nearly three hundred from Hertzog's
western column.
In the meantime Lord Kitchener, who had descended for a few days to
De Aar, had shown great energy in organising small mobile columns
which should follow and, if possible, destroy the invaders. Martial
law was proclaimed in the parts of the Colony affected, and as the
invaders came further south the utmost enthusiasm was shown by the
loyalists, who formed themselves everywhere into town guards. The
existing Colonial regiments, such as Brabant's, the Imperial and
South African Light Horse--Thorneycroft's, Rimington's, and the
others--had already been brought up to strength again, and now two
new regiments were added, Kitchener's Bodyguard and Kitchener's
Fighting Scouts, the latter being raised by Johann Colenbrander,
who had made a name for himself in the Rhodesian wars. At this
period of the war between twenty and thirty thousand Cape colonists
were under arms. Many of these were untrained levies, but they
possessed the martial spirit of the race, and they set free more
seasoned troops for other duties.
It will be most convenient and least obscure to follow the
movements of the western force (Hertzog's), and afterwards to
consider those of the eastern (Kritzinger's). The opening of the
year saw the mobile column of Free Staters 150 miles over the
border, pushing swiftly south over the barren surface of the Karoo.
It is a country of scattered farms and scanty population; desolate
plains curving upwards until they rise into still more desolate
mountain ranges. Moving in a very loose formation over a wide
front, the Boers swept southwards. On or about January 4th they
took possession of the small town of Calvinia, which remained their
headquarters for more than a month. From this point their roving
bands made their way as far as the seacoast in the Clanwilliam
direction, for they expected at Lambert's Bay to meet with a vessel
with mercenaries and guns from Europe. They pushed their outposts
also as far as Sutherland and Beaufort West in the south. On
January 15th strange horsemen were seen hovering about the line at
Touws River, and the citizens of Cape Town learned with amazement
that the war had been carried to within a hundred miles of their
own doors.
Whilst the Boers were making this daring raid a force consisting of
several mobile columns was being organised by General Settle to
arrest and finally to repel the western invasion. The larger body
was under the command of Colonel De Lisle, an officer who brought
to the operations of war the same energy and thoroughness with
which he had made the polo team of an infantry regiment the
champions of the whole British Army. His troops consisted of the
6th Mounted Infantry, the New South Wales Mounted Infantry, the
Irish Yeomanry, a section of R battery R.H.A., and a pom-pom. With
this small but mobile and hardy force he threw himself in front of
Hertzog's line of advance. On January 13th he occupied Piquetburg,
eighty miles south of the Boer headquarters. On the 23rd he was at
Clanwilliam, fifty miles south-west of them. To his right were
three other small British columns under Bethune, Thorneycroft, and
Henniker, the latter resting upon the railway at Matjesfontein, and
the whole line extending over 120 miles--barring the southern path
to the invaders.
Though Hertzog at Calvinia and De Lisle at Clanwilliam were only
fifty miles apart, the intervening country is among the most broken
and mountainous in South Africa. Between the two points, and nearer
to De Lisle than to Hertzog, flows the Doorn River. The Boers
advancing from Calvinia came into touch with the British scouts at
this point, and drove them in upon January 21st. On the 28th De
Lisle, having been reinforced by Bethune's column, was able at last
to take the initiative. Bethune's force consisted mainly of
Colonials, and included Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, the Cape
Mounted Police, Cape Mounted Rifles, Brabant's Horse, and the
Diamond Field Horse. At the end of January the united forces of
Bethune and of De Lisle advanced upon Calvinia. The difficulties
lay rather in the impassable country than in the resistance of an
enemy who was determined to refuse battle. On February 6th, after a
fine march, De Lisle and his men took possession of Calvinia, which
had been abandoned by the Boers. It is painful to add that during
the month that they had held the town they appear to have behaved
with great harshness, especially to the kaffirs. The flogging and
shooting of a coloured man named Esan forms one more incident in
the dark story of the Boer and his relations to the native.
The British were now sweeping north on a very extended front.
Colenbrander had occupied Van Rhyns Dorp, to the east of Calvinia,
while Bethune's force was operating to the west of it. De Lisle
hardly halted at Calvinia, but pushed onwards to Williston,
covering seventy-two miles of broken country in forty-eight hours,
one of the most amazing performances of the war. Quick as he was,
the Boers were quicker still, and during his northward march he
does not appear to have actually come into contact with them. Their
line of retreat lay through Carnarvon, and upon February 22nd they
crossed the railway line to the north of De Aar, and joined upon
February 26th the new invading force under De Wet, who had now
crossed the Orange River. De Lisle, who had passed over five
hundred miles of barren country since he advanced from Piquetburg,
made for the railway at Victoria West, and was despatched from that
place on February 22nd to the scene of action in the north. From
all parts Boer and Briton were concentrating in their effort to aid
or to repel the inroad of the famous guerilla.
Before describing this attempt it would be well to trace the
progress of the eastern invasion (Kritzinger's), a movement which
may be treated rapidly, since it led to no particular military
result at that time, though it lasted long after Hertzog's force
had been finally dissipated. Several small columns, those of
Williams, Byng, Grenfell, and Lowe, all under the direction of
Haig, were organised to drive back these commandos; but so nimble
were the invaders, so vast the distances and so broken the country,
that it was seldom that the forces came into contact. The
operations were conducted over a portion of the Colony which is
strongly Dutch in sympathy, and the enemy, though they do not
appear to have obtained any large number of recruits, were able to
gather stores, horses, and information wherever they went.
When last mentioned Kritzinger's men had crossed the railway north
of Rosmead on December 30th, and held up a train containing some
Colonial troops. From then onwards a part of them remained in the
Middelburg and Graaf-Reinet districts, while part moved towards the
south. On January 11th there was a sharp skirmish near Murraysburg,
in which Byng's column was engaged, at the cost of twenty
casualties, all of Brabant's or the South African Light Horse. On
the 16th a very rapid movement towards the south began. On that
date Boers appeared at Aberdeen, and on the 18th at Willowmore,
having covered seventy miles in two days. Their long, thin line was
shredded out over 150 miles, and from Maraisburg, in the north, to
Uniondale, which is only thirty miles from the coast, there was
rumour of their presence. In this wild district and in that of
Oudtshoorn the Boer vanguard flitted in and out of the hills,
Haig's column striving hard to bring them to an action. So
well-informed were the invaders that they were always able to avoid
the British concentrations, while if a British outpost or patrol
was left exposed it was fortunate if it escaped disaster. On
February 6th a small body of twenty-five of the 7th King's Dragoon
Guards and of the West Australians, under Captain Oliver, were
overwhelmed at Klipplaat, after a very fine defence, in which they
held their own against 200 Boers for eight hours, and lost nearly
fifty per cent of their number. On the 12th a patrol of yeomanry
was surprised and taken near Willowmore.
The coming of De Wet had evidently been the signal for all the Boer
raiders to concentrate, for in the second week of February
Kritzinger also began to fall back, as Hertzog had done in the
west, followed closely by the British columns. He did not, however,
actually join De Wet, and his evacuation of the country was never
complete, as was the case with Hertzog's force. On the 19th
Kritzinger was at Bethesda, with Gorringe and Lowe at his heels. On
the 23rd an important railway bridge at Fish River, north of
Cradock, was attacked, but the attempt was foiled by the resistance
of a handful of Cape Police and Lancasters. On March 6th a party of
Boers occupied the village of Pearston, capturing a few rifles and
some ammunition. On the same date there was a skirmish between
Colonel Parsons's column and a party of the enemy to the north of
Aberdeen. The main body of the invading force appears to have been
lurking in this neighbourhood, as they were able upon April 7th to
cut off a strong British patrol, consisting of a hundred Lancers
and Yeomanry, seventy-five of whom remained as temporary prisoners
in the hands of the enemy. With this success we may for the time
leave Kritzinger and his lieutenant, Scheepers, who commanded that
portion of his force which had penetrated to the south of the
Colony.
The two invasions which have been here described, that of Hertzog
in the west and of Kritzinger in the midlands, would appear in
themselves to be unimportant military operations, since they were
carried out by small bodies of men whose policy was rather to avoid
than to overcome resistance. Their importance, however, is due to
the fact that they were really the forerunners of a more important
incursion upon the part of De Wet. The object of these two bands of
raiders was to spy out the land, so that on the arrival of the main
body all might be ready for that general rising of their kinsmen in
the Colony which was the last chance, not of winning, but of
prolonging the war. It must be confessed that, however much their
reason might approve of the Government under which they lived, the
sentiment of the Cape Dutch had been cruelly, though unavoidably,
hurt in the course of the war. The appearance of so popular a
leader as De Wet with a few thousand veterans in the very heart of
their country might have stretched their patience to the
breaking-point. Inflamed, as they were, by that racial hatred which
had always smouldered, and had now been fanned into a blaze by the
speeches of their leaders and by the fictions of their newspapers,
they were ripe for mischief, while they had before their eyes an
object-lesson of the impotence of our military system in those
small bands who had kept the country in a ferment for so long. All
was propitious, therefore, for the attempt which Steyn and De Wet
were about to make to carry the war into the enemy's country.
We last saw De Wet when, after a long chase, he had been headed
back from the Orange River, and, winning clear from Knox's pursuit,
had in the third week of December passed successfully through the
British cordon between Thabanchu and Ladybrand. Thence he made his
way to Senekal, and proceeded, in spite of the shaking which he had
had, to recruit and recuperate in the amazing way which a Boer army
has. There is no force so easy to drive and so difficult to
destroy. The British columns still kept in touch with De Wet, but
found it impossible to bring him to an action in the difficult
district to which he had withdrawn. His force had split up into
numerous smaller bodies, capable of reuniting at a signal from
their leader. These scattered bodies, mobile as ever, vanished if
seriously attacked, while keenly on the alert to pounce upon any
British force which might be overpowered before assistance could
arrive. Such an opportunity came to the commando led by Philip
Botha, and the result was another petty reverse to the British
arms.
Upon January 3rd Colonel White's small column was pushing north, in
co-operation with those of Knox, Pilcher, and the others. Upon that
date it had reached a point just north of Lindley, a district which
has never been a fortunate one for the invaders. A patrol of
Kitchener' s newly raised bodyguard, under Colonel Laing, 120
strong, was sent forward to reconnoitre upon the road from Lindley
to Reitz.
The scouting appears to have been negligently done, there being
only two men out upon each flank. The little force walked into one
of those horse-shoe positions which the Boers love, and learned by
a sudden volley from a kraal upon their right that the enemy was
present in strength. On attempting to withdraw it was instantly
evident that the Boers were on all sides and in the rear with a
force which numbered at least five to one. The camp of the main
column was only four miles away, however, and the bodyguard, having
sent messages of their precarious position, did all they could to
make a defence until help could reach them. Colonel Laing had
fallen, shot through the heart, but found a gallant successor in
young Nairne, the adjutant. Part of the force had thrown
themselves, under Nairne and Milne, into a donga, which gave some
shelter from the sleet of bullets. The others, under Captain
Butters, held on to a ruined kraal. The Boers pushed the attack
very rapidly, however, and were soon able with their superior
numbers to send a raking fire down the donga, which made it a
perfect death-trap. Still hoping that the laggard reinforcements
would come up, the survivors held desperately on; but both in the
kraal and in the donga their numbers were from minute to minute
diminishing. There was no formal surrender and no white flag, for,
when fifty per cent of the British were down, the Boers closed in
swiftly and rushed the position. Philip Botha, the brother of the
commandant, who led the Boers, behaved with courtesy and humanity
to the survivors; but many of the wounds were inflicted with those
horrible explosive and expansive missiles, the use of which among
civilised combatants should now and always be a capital offence. To
disable one's adversary is a painful necessity of warfare, but
nothing can excuse the wilful mutilation and torture which is
inflicted by these brutal devices.
'How many of you are there?' asked Botha. 'A hundred,' said an
officer. 'It is not true. There are one hundred and twenty. I
counted you as you came along.' The answer of the Boer leader shows
how carefully the small force had been nursed until it was in an
impossible position. The margin was a narrow one, however, for
within fifteen minutes of the disaster White's guns were at work.
There may be some question as to whether the rescuing force could
have come sooner, but there can be none as to the resistance of the
bodyguard. They held out to the last cartridge. Colonel Laing and
three officers with sixteen men were killed, four officers and
twenty-two men were wounded. The high proportion of fatal
casualties can only be explained by the deadly character of the
Boer bullets. Hardly a single horse of the bodyguard was left
unwounded, and the profit to the victors, since they were unable to
carry away their prisoners, lay entirely in the captured rifles. It
is worthy of record that the British wounded were despatched to
Heilbron without guard through the Boer forces. That they arrived
there unmolested is due to the forbearance of the enemy and to the
tact and energy of Surgeon-Captain Porter, who commanded the
convoy.
Encouraged by this small success, and stimulated by the news that
Hertzog and Kritzinger had succeeded in penetrating the Colony
without disaster, De Wet now prepared to follow them. British
scouts to the north of Kroonstad reported horsemen riding south and
east, sometimes alone, sometimes in small parties. They were
recruits going to swell the forces of De Wet. On January 23rd five
hundred men crossed the line, journeying in the same direction.
Before the end of the month, having gathered together about 2500
men with fresh horses at the Doornberg, twenty miles north of
Winburg, the Boer leader was ready for one of his lightning treks
once more. On January 28th he broke south through the British net,
which appears to have had more meshes than cord. Passing the
Bloemfontein-Ladybrand line at Israel Poort he swept southwards,
with British columns still wearily trailing behind him, like honest
bulldogs panting after a greyhound.
Before following him upon this new venture it is necessary to say a
few words about that peace movement in the Boer States to which
some allusion has already been made. On December 20th Lord
Kitchener had issued a proclamation which was intended to have the
effect of affording protection to those burghers who desired to
cease fighting, but who were unable to do so without incurring the
enmity of their irreconcilable brethren. 'It is hereby notified,'
said the document, 'to all burghers that if after this date they
voluntarily surrender they will be allowed to live with their
families in Government laagers until such time as the guerilla
warfare now being carried on will admit of their returning safely
to their homes. All stock and property brought in at the time of
the surrender of such burghers will be respected and paid for if
requisitioned.' This wise and liberal offer was sedulously
concealed from their men by the leaders of the fighting commandos,
but was largely taken advantage of by those Boers to whom it was
conveyed. Boer refugee camps were formed at Pretoria, Johannesburg,
Kroonstad, Bloemfontein, Warrenton; and other points, to which by
degrees the whole civil population came to be transferred. It was
the reconcentrado system of Cuba over again, with the essential
difference that the guests of the British Government were well fed
and well treated during their detention. Within a few months the
camps had 50,000 inmates.
It was natural that some of these people, having experienced the
amenity of British rule, and being convinced of the hopelessness of
the struggle, should desire to convey their feelings to their
friends and relations in the field. Both in the Transvaal and in
the Orange River Colony Peace Committees were formed, which
endeavoured to persuade their countrymen to bow to the inevitable.
A remarkable letter was published from Piet de Wet, a man who had
fought bravely for the Boer cause, to his brother, the famous
general. 'Which is better for the Republics,' he asked, 'to
continue the struggle and run the risk of total ruin as a nation,
or to submit? Could we for a moment think of taking back the
country if it were offered to us, with thousands of people to be
supported by a Government which has not a farthing?. . .Put
passionate feeling aside for a moment and use common-sense, and you
will then agree with me that the best thing for the people and the
country is to give in, to be loyal to the new government, and to
get responsible government. . .Should the war continue a few months
longer the nation will become so poor that they will be the working
class in the country, and disappear as a nation in the future. . .
The British are convinced that they have conquered the land and its
people, and consider the matter ended, and they only try to treat
magnanimously those who are continuing the struggle in order to
prevent unnecessary bloodshed.'
Such were the sentiments of those of the burghers who were in
favour of peace. Their eyes had been opened and their bitterness
was transferred from the British Government to those individual
Britons who, partly from idealism and partly from party passion,
had encouraged them to their undoing. But their attempt to convey
their feelings to their countrymen in the field ended in tragedy.
Two of their number, Morgendaal and Wessels, who had journeyed to
De Wet's camp, were condemned to death by order of that leader. In
the case of Morgendaal the execution actually took place, and seems
to have been attended by brutal circumstances, the man having been
thrashed with a sjambok before being put to death. The
circumstances are still surrounded by such obscurity that it is
impossible to say whether the message of the peace envoys was to
the General himself or to the men under his command. In the former
case the man was murdered. In the latter the Boer leader was within
his rights, though the rights may have been harshly construed and
brutally enforced.
On January 29th, in the act of breaking south, De Wet's force, or a
portion of it, had a sharp brush with a small British column
(Crewe's) at Tabaksberg, which lies about forty miles north-east of
Bloemfontein; This small force, seven hundred strong, found itself
suddenly in the presence of a very superior body of the enemy, and
had some difficulty in extricating itself. A pom-pom was lost in
this affair. Crewe fell back upon Knox, and the combined columns
made for Bloemfontein, whence they could use the rails for their
transport. De Wet meanwhile moved south as far as Smithfield, and
then, detaching several small bodies to divert the attention of the
British, he struck due west, and crossed the track between
Springfontein and Jagersfontein road, capturing the usual supply
train as he passed. On February 9th he had reached Phillipolis,
well ahead of the British pursuit, and spent a day or two in making
his final arrangements before carrying the war over the border. His
force consisted at this time of nearly 8000 men, with two
15-pounders, one pom-pom, and one maxim. The garrisons of all the
towns in the south-west of the Orange River Colony had been removed
in accordance with the policy of concentration, so De Wet found
himself for the moment in a friendly country.
The British, realising how serious a situation might arise should
De Wet succeed in penetrating the Colony and in joining Hertzog and
Kritzinger, made every effort both to head him off and to bar his
return. General Lyttelton at Naauwpoort directed the operations,
and the possession of the railway line enabled him to concentrate
his columns rapidly at the point of danger. On February 11th De Wet
forded the Orange River at Zand Drift, and found himself once more
upon British territory. Lyttelton's plan of campaign appears to
have been to allow De Wet to come some distance south, and then to
hold him in front by De Lisle's force, while a number of small
mobile columns under Plumer, Crabbe, Henniker, Bethune, Haig, and
Thorneycroft should shepherd him behind. On crossing, De Wet at
once moved westwards, where, upon February 12th, Plumer's column,
consisting of the Queensland Mounted Infantry, the Imperial
Bushmen, and part of the King's Dragoon Guards, came into touch
with his rearguard. All day upon the 13th and 14th, amid terrific
rain, Plumer's hardy troopers followed close upon the enemy,
gleaning a few ammunition wagons, a maxim, and some prisoners. The
invaders crossed the railway line near Houtnek, to the north of De
Aar, in the early hours of the 15th, moving upon a front of six or
eight miles. Two armoured trains from the north and the south
closed in upon him as he passed, Plumer still thundered in his
rear, and a small column under Crabbe came pressing from the south.
This sturdy Colonel of Grenadiers had already been wounded four
times in the war, so that he might be excused if he felt some
personal as well as patriotic reasons for pushing a relentless
pursuit. On crossing the railroad De Wet turned furiously upon his
pursuers, and, taking an excellent position upon a line of kopjes
rising out of the huge expanse of the Karoo, he fought a stubborn
rearguard action in order to give time for his convoy to get ahead.
He was hustled off the hills, however, the Australian Bushmen with
great dash carrying the central kopje, and the guns driving the
invaders to the westward. Leaving all his wagons and his reserve
ammunition behind him, the guerilla chief struck north-west, moving
with great swiftness, but never succeeding in shaking off Plumer's
pursuit. The weather continued, however, to be atrocious, rain and
hail falling with such violence that the horses could hardly be
induced to face it. For a week the two sodden, sleepless,
mud-splashed little armies swept onwards over the Karoo. De Wet
passed northwards through Strydenburg, past Hopetown, and so to the
Orange River, which was found to be too swollen with the rains to
permit of his crossing. Here upon the 23rd, after a march of
forty-five miles on end, Plumer ran into him once more, and
captured with very little fighting a fifteen-pounder, a pom-pom,
and close on to a hundred prisoners. Slipping away to the east, De
Wet upon February 24th crossed the railroad again between Krankuil
and Orange River Station, with Thorneycroft's column hard upon his
heels. The Boer leader was now more anxious to escape from the
Colony than ever he had been to enter it, and he rushed
distractedly from point to point, endeavouring to find a ford over
the great turbid river which cut him off from his own country. Here
he was joined by Hertzog's commando with a number of invaluable
spare horses. It is said also that he had been able to get remounts
in the Hopetown district, which had not been cleared--an omission
for which, it is to be hoped, someone has been held responsible.
The Boer ponies, used to the succulent grasses of the veld, could
make nothing of the rank Karoo, and had so fallen away that an
enormous advantage should have rested with the pursuers had ill
luck and bad management not combined to enable the invaders to
renew their mobility at the very moment when Plumer's horses were
dropping dead under their riders.
The Boer force was now so scattered that, in spite of the advent of
Hertzog, De Wet had fewer men with him than when he entered the
Colony. Several hundreds had been taken prisoners, many had
deserted, and a few had been killed. It was hoped now that the
whole force might be captured, and Thorneycroft's, Crabbe's,
Henniker's, and other columns were closing swiftly in upon him,
while the swollen river still barred his retreat. There was a
sudden drop in the flood, however; one ford became passable, and
over it, upon the last day of February, De Wet and his bedraggled,
dispirited commando escaped to their own country. There was still a
sting in his tail, however; for upon that very day a portion of his
force succeeded in capturing sixty and killing or wounding twenty
of Colenbrander's new regiment, Kitchener's Fighting Scouts. On the
other hand, De Wet was finally relieved upon the same day of all
care upon the score of his guns, as the last of them was most
gallantly captured by Captain Dallimore and fifteen Victorians, who
at the same time brought in thirty-three Boer prisoners. The net
result of De Wet's invasion was that he gained nothing, and that he
lost about four thousand horses, all his guns, all his convoy, and
some three hundred of his men.
Once safely in his own country again, the guerilla chief pursued
his way northwards with his usual celerity and success. The moment
that it was certain that De Wet had escaped, the indefatigable
Plumer, wiry, tenacious man, had been sent off by train to
Springfontein, while Bethune's column followed direct. This latter
force crossed the Orange River bridge and marched upon Luckhoff and
Fauresmith. At the latter town they overtook Plumer, who was again
hard upon the heels of De Wet. Together they ran him across the
Riet River and north to Petrusburg, until they gave it up as
hopeless upon finding that, with only fifty followers, he had
crossed the Modder River at Abram's Kraal. There they abandoned the
chase and fell back upon Bloemfontein to refit and prepare for a
fresh effort to run down their elusive enemy.
While Plumer and Bethune were following upon the track of De Wet
until he left them behind at the Modder, Lyttelton was using the
numerous columns which were ready to his hand in effecting a drive
up the south-eastern section of the Orange River Colony. It was
disheartening to remember that all this large stretch of country
had from April to November been as peaceful and almost as
prosperous as Kent or Yorkshire. Now the intrusion of the guerilla
bands, and the pressure put by them upon the farmers, had raised
the whole country once again, and the work of pacification had to
be set about once more, with harsher measures than before. A
continuous barrier of barbed-wire fencing had been erected from
Bloemfontein to the Basuto border, a distance of eighty miles, and
this was now strongly held by British posts. From the south Bruce
Hamilton, Hickman, Thorneycroft, and Haig swept upwards, stripping
the country as they went in the same way that French had done in
the Eastern Transvaal, while Pilcher's column waited to the north
of the barbed-wire barrier. It was known that Fourie, with a
considerable commando, was lurking in this district, but he and his
men slipped at night between the British columns and escaped.
Pilcher, Bethune, and Byng were able, however, to send in 200
prisoners and very great numbers of cattle. On April 10th Monro,
with Bethune's Mounted Infantry, captured eighty fighting Boers
near Dewetsdorp, and sixty more were taken by a night attack at
Boschberg. There is no striking victory to record in these
operations, but they were an important part of that process of
attrition which was wearing the Boers out and helping to bring the
war to an end. Terrible it is to see that barren countryside, and
to think of the depths of misery to which the once flourishing and
happy Orange Free State had fallen, through joining in a quarrel
with a nation which bore it nothing but sincere friendship and
goodwill. With nothing to gain and everything to lose, the part
played by the Orange Free State in this South African drama is one
of the most inconceivable things in history. Never has a nation so
deliberately and so causelessly committed suicide.
