The failure of the raid was almost as disconcerting to the British plan of campaign as its success would have been. It showed that the troops were unable to prevent a mobile and well-led commando from traversing the Free State from end to end; it put new spirit into the burghers, and destroyed the hopes of peace which the operations of Lord Roberts in the Transvaal had kindled. De Wet was still at large, and although he had not accomplished all that he intended, he had good reason to be satisfied, and was stimulated for fresh efforts. He could boast that he was beaten not by columns but by two rivers in spate. His movements were so little obstructed that after reaching the Senekal district he was able to pay a flying visit to the railway at Roodeval, where he recovered the Lee-Metford ammunition which he had buried in June, and with which he hoped soon to have an opportunity of charging the rifles captured at Dewetsdorp.
When De Wet, Hertzog, and Kritzinger parted company near the Orange early in December, their tracks formed the letter Y inverted. De Wet marched along the stem towards the N.E.; Kritzinger struck in the direction of the midland districts of the Cape Colony; Hertzog made for the west. Martial law was at last proclaimed in the Colony, the greater part of which was, in spite of innumerable columns slipped at them, traversed by Hertzog and Kritzinger. The former, after an adventurous march of over 400 miles, reached Lambert's Bay on the shore of the Atlantic, and gave to most of his men their first sight of the sea; and to all of them a unique experience in the war, for they were shelled by a British cruiser at anchor in the haven.[53]
While Hertzog was watching the setting of the sun upon an Atlantic horizon, Kritzinger was at Willowmore, almost within sight of the Indian Ocean, having in spite of all the columns pushed his way from Rouxville down into the S.E. districts of the Cape Colony. Neither Kritzinger nor Hertzog, however, effected much by their raids except to show in the Colony what De Wet had already shown in the Transvaal and the Free State, the impotence of even the best-laid schemes of pursuit, and they returned towards the centre in February. De Wet and Hertzog had between them in the course of a few months succeeded in ploughing, through the heart of the country occupied by the British Army, a lonely furrow which stretched from the northward slopes of the Magaliesberg in the Transvaal through the Free State to a haven on the South Atlantic Ocean.
Meanwhile De Wet was waiting until the moment should come for him to take part in the wide-reaching plan of campaign which had been devised by the Boer Governments. They saw the uselessness of attempting to withstand the British forces in the Republics, and they determined to bring the war back into the Cape Colony and Natal. The general idea was that L. Botha should march on Pietermaritzburg from the Eastern Transvaal, while De Wet followed Hertzog and Kritzinger across the Orange, and then, having effected a junction with them, should advance on Capetown. The scheme was not so extravagant and quixotic as it might appear to be, as recent events had shown the difficulty of restraining the movements of a Boer leader of dash and enterprise; and there was no reason why De Wet should not be as successful in eluding pursuit in the future as he had been in the past.
Again the Doornberg, although within sight of the railway between Bloemfontein and Kroonstad, was available as a meeting place. Here on November 16, 1900, he had assembled his burghers for his first attempt on the Cape Colony; and here on January 25, 1901, he brought them together for his second. Steyn was with him, and all the available Free State commandants with more than 2,000 men mustered on the mountain unmolested. His intentions were not unknown to the British Intelligence Staff, and when he quitted the rendezvous he had a column under B. Hamilton on his right rear and a column under C. Knox on his left front.
The situation was not novel, and he dealt with it with his customary good luck and success. He passed across Knox's front, who fortunately for him had been ordered not to act before Hamilton came up, and reached the Tabaksberg, between Winburg and Brandfort, next day. On the following morning he shook off an attack made by a portion of Knox's column, and went for the Bloemfontein Thabanchu line of posts, which he had already twice cut. Hamilton, distanced in the chase, had been put on the railway and sent to Bloemfontein to strengthen the line, but he arrived too late to prevent De Wet crossing it on January 30 at Israel's Poort. The sorely-tried pale had again failed.[54]
De Wet, having shaken off the columns which had been pursuing him from the Doornberg, had now a free course of 100 miles to the next obstacle, the Orange. It was evident that the speed of the columns must be increased and Knox was put upon the railway for the first time and Hamilton for the second and dispatched to Bethulie. The energy of a considerable portion of the British Army was devoted to an attempt to make the barrier of the Orange impassable.
North of the river was De Wet; south of it Hertzog and Kritzinger were waiting for him. There was every reason to fear that should he succeed in joining either of them, the smouldering embers of rebellion would again break out in the Cape Colony. Troops were hurried by train from the Transvaal, from Kimberley, and from Capetown. Lyttelton was brought down from the Delagoa Bay line to Naauwpoort to take general charge of the operations, and to build as rapidly as possible a wall that could not be scaled or breached.