NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER
As before said, General French’s operations in Cape Colony were making substantial progress, and small commandos only continued to rove about the south-east and south-west fringe of the colony. These were harried and worried by the troops, but their presence was now described as a serious inconvenience rather than as a menace of vital consequence. They confined their annoyance to the Barkley East district and the country to the west and north of the Cape Town-De Aar line. In the former area Monro and Scobell continued their hunts after Myburg, Fouché, and Wessels, who now and then skirmished, but who, owing to their losses, preferred to give the British a wide berth. The astute and indefatigable Hunter-Weston spent his time in chasing a gang of Boers under Naude, who, after shifting and doubling, finally burrowed into the Karee Kloof hills north-west of Philipstown.
More columns under General Stephenson had the wearisome task of chasing dispersed gangs over a vast tract of country; and December found Colonel Crabbe at Lambert’s Bay, General Stephenson with Colonel Kavanagh at Clanwilliam, Colonel Capper at Piquetberg, Captain Wormald at Wagon Drift (north of Ceres), Major Lund south of Sutherland, and Colonel Doran between the last place and Matjesfontein. As a result of the month’s united operations of these forces, 29 of the enemy were killed, 21 wounded, and 45 captured. The rinderpest continued to work havoc, but the process of inoculation and the care taken to prevent the spread of the disease prevented the movements of the troops from being seriously impeded. As regards the troops, despite the heavy rains, the incessant marching, the harassing and ticklish nature of outpost work in exposed and isolated positions, the perpetual calls on their patience, their pluck, their sagacity, and their cheerfulness; despite the wet bivouacs and the monotonous food, and sometimes the scarcity of it, the dangers they ran and the meagre amount of publicity their heroism received—despite all these inconveniences, they remained true as steel and full of grim determination “to see the thing through,” or, as the Commander-in-Chief expressed it, “to relax no effort until the campaign had been brought to a successful issue.”
The Boers now, at the end of 1901, found themselves cooped by blockhouse lines into four definite areas: Botha’s attenuated force hovered on the borders of Swaziland and the Brugspruit-Waterval line. Delarey and Kemp hung around the difficult country between the Mafeking Railway line and the Magaliesberg range. Steyn and De Wet with some dauntless desperadoes did their worst in the north-east districts of Orange River Colony, and various bands of rebels and adventurers clung to the north-west regions of the Cape Colony. Elsewhere were only insignificant knots of worn-out and listless stragglers. There was a gratifying increase of voluntary surrenders, and during the month three of the most trusted leaders—Kruitzinger, Opperman, and Haasbroek—disappeared from the fighting scene.