Colonel Knox now set about clearing the country to the east, between the Pivaan and Pongola Rivers, to prevent the Boers breaking back south of the Pongola, while General French, continuing his march with the columns of General Dartnell and Colonel Pulteney, moved on Vryheid, where he established his headquarters on the 25th of March. Here General Hildyard had accumulated a large reserve of supplies for the whole force, thus materially facilitating the progress of further operations.
The movement to clear the angle between the Swazi and Zulu frontiers began on the 27th of March and terminated on the 15th of April. General Dartnell, with ten days’ supplies, moved east from Vryheid, with Pulteney east-south-east on his right rear, and Alderson (who started two days later from some four miles south of the Pivaan Bridge) on his left rear. Colonel Pulteney speedily came in contact with Grobelaar’s commando, drove it north, where it came in collision with General Dartnell, who, after some skirmishing, killed and wounded some twenty Boers. The General was now forced to push on with mounted troops and a few guns only, for the country was impassable for wheeled transport, and therefore it had to be left behind in charge of the infantry. He formed a depôt some thirty miles east-south-east of Vryheid, while Colonel Alderson formed his about twenty-five miles north-east of Vryheid.
More fighting took place on the 31st between the Boers and General Dartnell some twelve miles north of his depôt, in which engagement four Boers were slain, ten taken prisoners, and waggons, cattle, and sheep were captured. Their pom-pom—previously destroyed to prevent it being of service to us—was thrown over a precipice by the flying foe. The troops moving on east through the low-lying bush veldt came on more Boers on the 2nd, engaged them, cleared the country, returned to Toovernsaarsrust on the 4th, and moved on the 5th and 6th to Vryheid, where General Dartnell for five days took a well-earned rest.
Colonel Alderson had meanwhile taken a prodigious share in the work. He had sped hot foot after a party of Boers that had broken northwards, caught them on the 3rd near the junction of the Pivaan and Pongola Rivers, and succeeded in effecting the capture of their cattle, waggons, and mules. On the following day he rested at Nooitgadacht, a place six miles east of Vryheid. He then (on the 6th) passed Vryheid, and proceeded, in three columns, to sweep the country south of that place, while General Dartnell acted as a stop on the line Vryheid-Toovernsaarsrust. By the 13th Colonel Alderson had fulfilled his mission, and “accomplished all that was feasible.” He then returned to Vryheid, and the difficult and fatiguing operations were practically concluded.
The various columns now left from this part of the theatre of war in the following order: Colonel Pulteney, being urgently needed by the Commander-in-Chief for use in the north of Middelburg, left Vryheid on the 1st, and entrained from Glencoe on the 4th. General Dartnell on the 12th, from Vryheid, marched viâ Newcastle to Volkrust, there to rest and refit. General Alderson passed through Vryheid on the 13th, reaching the rail at Glencoe on the 16th, and General Smith-Dorrien with his own, Colonel Campbell’s, and Colonel Allenby’s columns, marched north from Piet Retief on the 14th towards the Delagoa Railway.
The results of the prodigious energy of General French’s force during the two and a half months, from the 27th of January to the 16th of April, were amazing. These zealous and untiring warriors had entirely swept the country between the Delagoa and Natal railway lines, from Johannesburg to the Swazi and Zulu frontiers, travelling across the most difficult country, rendered doubly so by tempest and flood, and living almost on starvation fare.
Nevertheless 1332 Boers had been placed hors de combat (369 killed and wounded, 233 taken prisoners, 730 surrendered), while an incalculable amount of supplies had been removed or destroyed, including 11 guns, 1280 rifles, 218,249 rounds of ammunition, 2281 waggons and carts, and 272,752 head of stock (7303 horses, 377 mules, 7653 trek oxen, 42,328 cattle, and 215,089 sheep). How much farther the work might have proved successful had it not been for the negotiations between Botha and the Commander-in-Chief which took place during the movement, cannot be stated. Certain it is that General French was much hampered by the palaver which ended in air, for Botha’s ruse or so-called negotiations enabled the Boers to slip northwards unmolested. As the pacific nature of the negotiations has been the subject of much comment, it is as well to append the origin and substance of them.
On February 23 a telegram was received by Sir Alfred Milner from the Commander-in-Chief, Pretoria, which stated, under date of the 22nd February, that Mrs. Botha had come back from meeting her husband, bringing from him an answer to a verbal message from the Commander-in-Chief, that if he desired it, he (General Botha) would meet him as to the means of bringing the war to an end, but on the express understanding that the question of the independence of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony should not be discussed in any way. The meeting would probably take place at Middelburg.
This telegram was sent to Mr. Chamberlain, who replied, February 23:—
“I am glad to hear of Botha’s desire to treat, and I hope that it is genuine. He will find us most anxious, in that case, to meet him on all points affecting individual position. We have already made clear the policy we intend to pursue as to future government.”