Three Years' War

by Christiaan Rudolf De Wet

I remained late that evening in the town. It was somewhat risky to do so, as the place was full of English inhabitants, and of Afrikanders who did not favour our cause. In fact, I was surrounded by men who would have been only too pleased to do me an injury.

I said farewell to Kroonstad at ten o'clock that night, and was carried to Rhenosterriviersbrug, thirty-four miles from Kroonstad, by the last train that left the town. But before I departed, I took care that the bridge over the Valsch River should be destroyed by dynamite.

In the meantime, those portions of the Heilbron and Kroonstad commandos which had gone into Natal at the beginning of the war, received orders to leave the Drakensberg. Obeying these orders they joined me, and, with my other troops, had occupied splendid positions on either side of the railway line. Commandant General Louis Botha was also there with his Transvaal burghers, having arrived in the Free State a few days previously. Captain Danie Theron was still with me as my trustworthy scout, and he constantly kept me informed of Lord Roberts' movements.

For a few days Lord Roberts remained at Kroonstad, but about the 18th of May he again began to move his enormous forces. He sent out four divisions. The first he despatched from Kroonstad to Heilbron; the second from Lindley to the same destination; the third from Kroonstad to Vredefort and Parijs, and the fourth from Kroonstad along the railway line.

The two Governments had agreed that Commandant General Louis Botha should cross the Vaal River, and that we Free-Staters should remain behind in our own country. And this was carried out, with our full approval.

The Governments had also decided that even if the English entered the Transvaal, the Free State commandos were not to follow them. I had long ago wished that something of this nature should be arranged, so that we might not only have forces in front of the enemy, but also in their rear. Thus the orders of the Governments exactly coincided with my desires.

Lest any one should think that the Transvaalers and the Free-Staters separated here on account of a squabble, or because they found that they could not work harmoniously together, let me state that this decision was arrived at for purely strategic reasons. We had now been reduced to a third of the original number of forty-five thousand burghers with which we had started the campaign. This reduction was due partly to Cronje's surrender, and partly to the fact that many of our men had returned to their farms. How, then, could we think of making a stand, with our tiny forces, against two hundred and forty thousand men, with three or four hundred guns? All we could do was to make the best of every little chance we got of hampering the enemy. If fortune should desert us, it only remained to flee.

To flee—what could be more bitter than that? Ah! many a time when I was forced to yield to the enemy, I felt so degraded that I could scarcely look a child in the face! Did I call myself a man? I asked myself, and if so, why did I run away? No one can guess the horror which overcame me when I had to retreat, or to order others to do so—there! I have poured out my whole soul. If I did fly, it was only because one man cannot stand against twelve.

After the Transvaalers had crossed the Vaal River, I took twelve hundred men to Heilbron, where there was already a party of my burghers. General Roux with other Free-Staters was stationed east of Senekal, and the remainder of our forces lay near Lindley. But the commandos from Vrede and Harrismith, with part of the Bethlehem commando, still remained as watchers on the Drakensberg.

When I arrived at Heilbron, late at night, I received a report that fighting was taking place on the Rhenoster River, between Heilbron and Lindley, and that General J.B. Wessels and Commandant Steenekamp had been driven back. But on the following morning, when the outposts came in, they stated that they had seen nothing of this engagement. I immediately sent out scouts, but hardly had they gone, before one of them came galloping back with the news that the enemy had approached quite close to the town. It was impossible for me to oppose a force of five or six thousand men on the open plain; and I could not move to suitable positions, for that would involve having the women and children behind me when the enemy were bombarding me. I had therefore to be off without a moment's delay. I had not even time to send my wife and my children into a place of safety.