No one but a Boer leader with a supreme contempt for his enemy would have thought of placing himself within striking distance of Pretoria and Johannesburg. Yet on January 11, 1901, he audaciously laagered within a few miles of Johannesburg, unknown to the garrison. Next day he crossed the railway at Kaalfontein, half-way between the two cities, and disappeared in the Eastern Transvaal. That at this stage of the war it was possible for 1,200 men to cut the railway, and with scarcely the loss of a man to cross it, with guns and a long train of wagons, midway between the two chief cities of the Transvaal, showed how much still remained to be done.
The disturbances in the Orange River Colony brought about certain changes and redistributions in the Transvaal commands, by which leaders were, as in the circuits of Wesleyan ministers, removed from spheres familiar to them. Clements went to Pretoria in succession to Tucker, who was sent to Bloemfontein; E. Knox, who, fifteen months previously, had been in command of the squadrons of the 18th Hussars which were not made prisoners of war at Talana, took command of the column of Broadwood, who was sent across the Vaal; Cunningham succeeded Clements in the Magaliesberg district; Hart quitted Klerksdorp for the Orange River Colony; and French went away into the west.
On the Boer side a new name which was destined often to be on men's lips emerged from the crowd in January, 1901. A young lawyer named J.C. Smuts, who had received his legal education in England, and whom Delarey entrusted with a command, soon showed, and not for the first time, that a shrewd, resourceful, energetic and determined civilian was, at least in guerilla, more than a match for highly trained British officers.
A movement towards the south by Cunningham, with a view of checking Delarey, soon brought Cunningham into trouble. After crossing the Magaliesberg he was entangled by the Transvaal leader, and had to be extricated by Babington before he could proceed to his destination at Krugersdorp.
Smuts, the new leader, went to the Gatsrand. His first exploit was to snap up a weak and isolated British detachment at Modderfontein Nek, and to establish his own commando on the position. When Cunningham reached Krugersdorp he received orders to tackle Smuts. On February 2, having an overwhelming superiority in guns and a considerable advantage in numbers, he attacked Smuts; but the apprentice tactician had little difficulty in meeting the regulation frontal holding attack combined with a turning movement, and Cunningham withdrew.
In the Western Transvaal there were now three Boer leaders to be dealt with: Smuts in the Gatsrand, Delarey in the Zwartruggens, and Kemp. The latter had come down from the north with Beyers and had been with him when the line was crossed at Kaalfontein. He had lately returned to his own district of Krugersdorp. With Botha threatening in the east and De Wet raiding in the south, few troops could be spared to help the columns on the spot; but two additional columns, under the command of Shekleton and Benson, and composed mainly of details, were assembled by Lord Kitchener. One of these went astray, but the other joined Cunningham and advanced against Smuts in the Gatsrand, only to find that he had escaped at first towards the south, and had then changed direction and had vanished in the N.W.
Methuen, who towards the end of November, 1900, had gone south from Mafeking in order to deal with apprehended trouble in Griqualand West, pushed up from the S.W. corner of the Transvaal and on February 18, 1901, came upon Delarey, who had escaped from Babington and had reinforced a gathering of weak commandos near Hartebeestfontein. Although outnumbered by more than 4 to 3, Methuen without much difficulty compelled Delarey to withdraw, and went on to Klerksdorp. Smuts reappeared and with Delarey made off to the N.W., the sanctuary to which each of them had in turn repaired. Methuen was sent south to Hoopstad in the Orange River Colony. He had hardly started when news came in that an isolated garrison seventy miles away in the N.W. was threatened.
Delarey had a definite objective in view when he disappeared, his native town of Lichtenburg. The place was one of many for which Methuen, with an attenuated force, was responsible; and now he had been called away to a town in trouble in the opposite direction. Two columns nearer at hand were called upon to relieve Lichtenburg, but in the meantime it had relieved itself; for although Delarey succeeded in winning a footing within it, the obstinate resistance which he encountered disheartened him, and he withdrew on March 4 after twenty-four hours' fighting.