Meanwhile Lord Kitchener was doing his best to deal with the accruing winter discontent. He had a plan of his own; and he was also furnished with a plan that had been drawn up by the civilian authorities in Downing Street and South Africa, who thought that the walls of Jericho would fall to the sound of a Proclamation. In August, 1901, a legal document was served on the Boers, much in the same way that a writ is served upon a debtor. In it they were declared to be helpless and incapable of carrying on the struggle, and their leaders were threatened with perpetual banishment. It had little effect on the enemy, except to brace him up for further efforts; and Lord Kitchener, it is believed, had no faith in it.
Lord Kitchener's plan was the extension across the veld of the system of blockhouse lines which at first ran only along the railways, and the formation of pens or enclaves into which the attenuated roving bands of Boers were to be herded and dealt with severally and severely. The work of extension was taken in hand in July, 1901. The Boers in the veld watched it with the detachment and unconcern of a wild bird on the branches looking down upon the fowler laying his snares in the field below.
Another drive by Elliott during August and September, this time through the eastern districts of the Orange River Colony, affected little. Kritzinger remained in his corner between the Orange and the Caledon and could not be extracted from it; De Wet was still at large. In the Transvaal the leaders were marking time. Viljoen after the Standerton conference withdrew beyond the Delagoa Bay Railway, but was soon driven out of the mountains. He lost heart, handed over his command to Muller, and went down to the low veld adjoining the Pietersburg Railway.
In the Western Transvaal Delarey and Kemp were alert. Kemp in the Zwartruggens foiled an attempt to cast a net around him, and in conjunction with Delarey attacked Methuen on the Marico River without success on September 5. A pale of blockhouses denied them access to the "protected area."[60] Muller effected a trifling success in the middle north. Beyers in the Pietersburg district was unable to prevent Grenfell reaching a point but sixty miles from the Limpopo and there making prisoners of a local commando.
No organized attempt was made to disturb Botha in the Ermelo district. A column under Benson did indeed set out from the Delagoa Bay Railway in August, but it was recalled by the alarm of a Boer raid on the line at Bronkhorst Spruit. Benson subsequently did useful raiding work in the Carolina district, but was not strong enough to tackle Botha.
Botha had never abandoned the scheme of an invasion of Natal which was drawn up at the end of 1900. His first attempt to carry it out was frustrated by French, but it was uppermost in his mind during the winter of 1901. Early in September he left the Ermelo district, in which Lord Kitchener had never been able to operate effectively, and made for Piet Retief with 1,000 men. Columns, faint yet pursuing, started from each railway, and ignorant of his movements trudged wearily across the veld to the S.E. Botha, after passing through the defile between the Swaziland border and the Slangapiesberg, turned to the south, his ultimate objective being Dundee. In the corner abutting on Zululand were commandos under Emmett and Grobler of Vryheid.
Lyttelton on his return from leave took over the Natal command from Hildyard. He disposed his columns as best he could, having regard to the contradictory reports which reached him of Botha's movements and intentions. The first encounter occurred on September 17 at Blood River Poort. A mounted column under Gough and Stewart had been sent out from Dundee across the Buffalo to bring away a convoy from Vryheid. Gough soon came into touch with a body of the enemy. It was, he thought, only a local commando, and when he saw it off-saddle he left Stewart in support and went out to surprise it. The nature of the ground prevented a complete surprise, but he partially effected it, only to be surprised himself by the sudden charge of Botha's main body, which was supposed to be a day's march distant. After a brief combat, in which Stewart was unable to intervene, Gough lost the whole of his command of nearly 300 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, as well as three guns. Stewart escaped to the Buffalo.
The crick-crack of Botha's Mausers at Blood River Poort echoed throughout South Africa. Troops from all quarters were hurried to the spot; search parties discovered some columns under W. Kitchener which had lost themselves on the high veld; and so rarified was the military atmosphere, that not only columns but even general officers were scarce. Bruce Hamilton and Clements were brought in.
Botha seems to have regarded his success as unreal. He hesitated to follow it up, and soon the Buffalo in flood effectually barred the way to Dundee. He now proposed to enter Natal through Zululand, below the junction of the Tugela and the Buffalo. On the point of the angle which, at that time, the Transvaal thrust into Zululand were two British posts, Forts Prospect and Itala. Botha was beginning to be doubtful about the eventual success of his Natal raid, but thought that as he was on the spot he might as well be doing something. He therefore ordered these posts to be taken, entrusting to his brother C. Botha the attack on Itala, and to Emmett and Grobler the attack on Prospect. The failure of each attack with considerable loss on September 26 made Botha reconsider his position. There was no more thought of another campaign on the Tugela, and he determined to retire.