In the south-western parts of the Orange Colony the process of clearance continued, the troops bringing to the monotonous labour the utmost patience and cheeriness. In the north-western portion the troops under Major Pack Beresford (South African Constabulary) did a remarkable amount of work. At the end of December they made a dashing raid on Bothaville, which led to the capture of 36 prisoners, 80 horses, and 29 vehicles; and early in the new year, in Ukenaimer, they secured the whole of Field-Cornet Theron’s laager and transport, with 35 prisoners, among them Field-Cornet Le Roux.
CAPE COLONY
In the Cape Colony Major-General Sir H. H. Settle assumed command in succession to Major-General Wynne, who returned to England. Affairs otherwise remained as before, though the bands of Fouché and Myburg were disorganised and broken up by the excellent and continuous work of Colonel Munro and Scobell, and Lovat’s invaluable Scouts. The guerillas were now fewer and farther between, spending their time lurking in the hills around Dordrecht, Jamestown, and Ladygrey, and indulging in acts of brigandage according to the state of their appetites. The great incident of the month was the capture of Kruitzinger. This was effected on the 16th of December. The raider, returning to the Cape Colony with an escort of one hundred men, came into contact near Hanover with the blockhouses held by the Grenadier Guards on the Naauwpoort-De Aar line of railway. The collision was sharp and short, and the commander and twelve of his men were wounded and finally captured. The rest of the escort escaped to the south, and were pursued into the Aberdeen district by troops under Colonel B. Doran and Major Lord W. Cavendish Bentinck.
A gradually widening line of blockhouses running 200 miles (from Lambert’s Bay to Calvinia and Victoria West) threatened shortly to limit the raiders’ sphere of operation, but till this was complete the chases continued. Colonel Doran, on the 9th, surprised and buffeted Nesser’s rebels near Brandwagt, thirty miles east-north-east of Calvinia. One Boer was killed and eight were captured. The rest scuttled in small parties to the Clanwilliam district, in hope to reassemble and pounce on the next convoy coming their way. This much-desired prize at last appeared, and was attacked with intense energy at dawn on the 22nd. It was escorted by columns under Colonels Crabbe and Wyndham, who, despite the strength and desperate determination of the foe, managed to repulse them. But the next day the enemy, hungering after the tantalising supplies, betook themselves to a high ridge commanding the line of advance and there lay ensconced awaiting the precious convoy. But after all they went empty away, for the 16th Lancers, with tremendous dash, rushed the entrenchments and drove them at full gallop into space.
THE SITUATION—JANUARY 1902
The Blockhouse System
Over a year had passed since Lord Kitchener had embarked on the duties of Commander-in-Chief, and it was now possible to examine the system on which the war had been conducted, and the extent of progress made. The great and most important part of the work, which was still continuing, was the dividing of the settled from the unsettled portions of the country. The development of the blockhouse system, which effectually blocked the inroads of the marauders, went on apace, and already some 14,700 square miles of the Transvaal, and 17,000 square miles of the Orange River Colony were entirely shut off from their incursions. The area protected in the Transvaal was bounded on the north by a line from Zeerust to Middelburg, on the east from Middelburg to Standerton, on the south from Standerton to Klerksdorp, on the west from Klerksdorp to Zeerust. The Orange River Colony protected area went right across the colony south of the line from Kimberley to Winburg, Winburg to Bloemfontein, and Bloemfontein to Ladybrand. Within these boundaries the Boer could not exist, and beyond them the task of clearing the country and hunting down the enemy was pursued by means of small mobile columns.
The work and activity of these columns throughout the year had been enormous. Though about 10,000 Boers remained sprinkled in the field, some 53,000 (half of which number had been accounted for during the last year) had been either killed, wounded, imprisoned, or protected in concentration camps. In regard to these camps a great deal had been said by the enemies of the Government for the purpose of raising a cry of inhumanity against the Ministers, but in a speech made by Mr. Brodrick he lucidly and concisely examined and disposed of these charges. “So long,” he said, “as every house in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony was used at once as a telegraph station, a recruiting office, and a refectory for the enemy, it became impossible for Lord Kitchener to ignore the necessity of relieving the country of the population which was rendering futile the exertions of our troops. Under these circumstances you have to consider not what their condition is now as compared with what it would be in time of peace, but what their condition is now as compared with what it would have been if they had been left on their farms. You have not got to consider the difference between luxury and privation, but between starvation and great suffering, and the less suffering we can arrange for.” He further showed that to a large extent the disease in the camp was due to the fact that the majority of persons who came in (some compulsorily, but the greater number voluntarily) were already half-starved, their resources being at an end, and half-clothed, with their bodies in a condition fitted for the reception of disease. Under those circumstances a large death-rate was certain.