MARKET SQUARE, JOHANNESBURG, TRANSVAAL COLONY.
Photo by G. W. Wilson & Co., Aberdeen.
Indeed day after day, before French and his hard-worked warriors in the neighbourhood of Piet Retief, Botha was suffering severely, and some 5000 Dutchmen were dispersing in disorganised gangs, having lost already over 280 in killed and wounded. Of their number 183 had surrendered, while 56 were made prisoners. They had lost a 15-pounder gun, 462 rifles, 160,000 rounds of small-arm ammunition, 3600 horses, 70 mules, 3530 trek oxen, 18,700 cattle, 155,400 sheep, and 1070 waggons and carts! But this was not all. A few days later, on the 25th, came additional captures in the form of a 19-pounder Krupp gun, a howitzer, a Maxim, 20,000 rounds of small-arm ammunition, 153 rifles, 388 horses, 52 mules, 834 trek oxen, 5600 cattle, 9800 sheep, and 287 waggons and carts! Three hundred of the enemy now surrendered, while their losses in killed and wounded were about nine. No British casualties were reported. Further operations were delayed by torrents of rain, which converted the country into a swamp; but Boers surrendered daily, and Botha’s whole force was now represented only by scattered bands of malcontents.
The plight of the Dutchmen was equally sorry elsewhere. Lord Methuen, who was marching from Taungs to Klerksdorp with the object of clearing the Masakani Range at Haartbeestfontein, engaged De Villiers and Liebenberg with a band of 400 and defeated them, losing in the encounter 16 killed (among them 3 officers) and 34 wounded, while 18 Dutchmen bit the dust. The 10th Yeomanry, Victoria Bushmen, and the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment came out of the fray with flying colours. De Wet also, after a really magnificent venture south, was forced back to his old haunts discomfited.
The tale of his audacious invasion of Cape Colony can but be outlined here. Briefly, the Dutchman with his force succeeded, despite the resistance of the troops before-mentioned, in getting across the Orange River by Zand Drift on the 11th, with a view to following in the track of Hertzog, and fulfilling the programme already described. Ever active, he sped on, made a lunge at the garrison of Philipstown on the 14th, and, after a three hours’ tussle, was repulsed, and bolted (followed closely by General Plumer) in the direction of Hout Kraal. Here he arrived on the 15th, with the intention of pushing on to De Aar, but he was frustrated by the timely arrival there of Lord Kitchener, who bore down on the scene from Pretoria and made dispositions which finally forced the foe into more northerly hunting-grounds. Meanwhile, Colonel Crabbe, thundering in rear of the Dutchman, caught up his convoy, seized twenty waggons, a score of Boer tatterdemalions, a Maxim, and over 200 horses. Still De Wet continued to flee, his aim being to cross the Brak River and reach Britstown; but Nature frustrated him, for the swollen river had become impassable, and there was nothing left but to turn tail and scurry northwards and escape the hunters Knox and Plumer, who were still in full chase. Dividing his forces, De Wet steered them between the Brak River and the rail, pounding on from the keen pursuit of the converging columns as fast as floods and quagmires would permit. His sole object now was to recross the Orange River with a whole skin, and rushing breathlessly first to Read’s Drift, then to Mark’s Drift (near Douglas), both of which were impassable, he found himself again frustrated and forced to twist downwards—clinging ever to the river bank, with the indomitable Plumer hanging to his coat-tails.
At last, near Hopetown, on the 23rd, he was overtaken by Colonel Owen, one of Plumer’s lieutenants, who relieved him of fifty of his gang, some carts full of ammunition, a gun and a pom-pom. The wily one himself veered off in the direction of Petrusville with a following of some 400 men, the rest having dispersed before the avenging K.D.G.’s, Victorians, and Imperial Light Horse, according to custom, like the fragments of a bursting shell, leaving behind them steaming cooking-pots and horses ready saddled. The affair was another plume in the cap of the man who so unostentatiously had harried and fought and skirmished around Mafeking for the relief of Colonel Baden-Powell, but he had to pay for his hard work in persistently chasing and eventually turning the foe, by a spell of complete exhaustion. The pursuit was then carried forward by Colonels Henniker and Crabbe. General Plumer entrained and moved to Springfontein in order to await developments and be ready on the north of the river should De Wet succeed in evading the pursuit and in getting across. The fugitive at this time (24th) was in no enviable position. Chased by Henniker and Crabbe, worn, weary, and dropping shattered horses as he went, he found himself again within the same square hunting-ground he had left, bounded on the north by the Orange, on the south by the De Aar-to-Naauwpoort line, on the east by the line connecting Naauwpoort with Norval’s Pont, on the west by that leading from De Aar up to Orange River Station.
But there were now stern limitations. Coming down from Hopetown towards Petrusville he was conscious of his cramped position and of his danger, for he had fled into a ring which was growing smaller and smaller as he rushed across country for an outlet. At the back of him was a half hoop, like an incoming wave, created by the troops of Henniker and Crabbe, supported by those of Thorneycroft, who guarded the region from Krankuil to the bank of the river. Coming up from Hanover Road on the south (to prevent him doubling back) were Colonels Hickman, Haig, and Williams; and waiting for him towards the east, with his arms open as it were, was Colonel Byng, moving from Colesberg. Thus all along the line of the Zeekoe River was guarded, or supposed to be. As De Wet’s luck would have it, Colonel Byng, under orders, made a temporary move to Hamilfontein, causing a gap, of which the slim Dutchman was not slow to avail himself. He tore along towards the bank of the river, found the loophole at Lilliefontein (some four miles west of Colesberg Road bridge), and was over the river like a rocket! Space does not admit of a detailed account of this exciting chase, of Captain Dallimore’s prodigious haul of twenty-seven Boers by fifteen Victorians, and of the part taken by all the splendid troops, that knew no rest night nor day for over a fortnight. Disappointment was great at the loss of the quarry, but there was at least the consolation of knowing that the projected invasion was a disastrous failure from beginning to end, and the brilliant guerilla chief was crippled for a good time to come.
On the 27th, a meeting took place at Middelburg between Lord Kitchener and Botha, with the object of making terms which would induce the Dutchman and his allies to surrender. A most liberal offer was made, but the Boers clamouring only for “independence,” the one thing which it was impossible they could have, failed to come to terms, and after a lengthy correspondence of some weeks’ duration, the proceedings fell through, and it was understood, both at home and abroad, that the enemy had decided to fight to the finish.
This decision was received by many with unfeigned thanksgiving. Though all were weary of war, of the ruin and sacrifice involved, they yet preferred to suffer and endure rather than run the risk of a magnanimous compromise which would “shame the living and cheat the dead,” which must assuredly be regarded by the Boers as a demonstration of weakness, and might eventually bring about a recurrence of the terrible war drama that is now drawing to a close. Patience and pluck and determination are needed—they will be required for some months to come—but the end is in view. The bold, dogged, and doughty enemy will have to learn the lesson that the British are equally bold, dogged, and doughty—that they mean not only to have, but to hold, that which they have earned by a vast expenditure of blood and treasure; to maintain the avowed policy of the British nation, to establish British suzerainty from the Cape to the Zambesi, and make South Africa “indisputably and for ever one country under one flag, with one system of Government, and that system the British.” The lesson once taught, the vista will grow clear. Into the newly acquired territory will be introduced the true meaning of the word Justice; of the phrase “liberty and equality for all white men.” Then, slowly—by infinitesimal degrees, perhaps—but surely, will liberty and equality develop into fraternity, and the stalwarts who, like ourselves, have passed bravely through the fiercest ordeal of Manhood, will, with us, work shoulder to shoulder to bring about an era of prosperous peace and abiding amity.
London, March 1901.