May I be permitted to say that your Excellency's jurisdiction is limited by the range of your Excellency's guns. If your Excellency will look on the matter from a military point of view then it must be acknowledged that notwithstanding the enormous forces that are brought against us in the field, our cause, in the past year, has made wonderful progress. Therefore we need be in no way discouraged, and, if your Proclamation is based on the assumption that we are so, then it has now even less justification than it had a year ago. I am sorry that anything I say should appear boastful, but the assertions in your Excellency's Proclamation compel me to speak in this manner.

With regard to the 35,000 men which your Excellency says are in your hands, I cannot speak as to the numbers, but this much I will say, I am not referring to those men who were led astray by the Proclamation of your Excellency's predecessor, and so failed in their duty to their Government; nor to those—thank God they are but few—who from treachery or other cause have gone over to the enemy; but of the remainder who have been taken, not too honestly, as prisoners of war, and are still kept as such. Of these I will say that they are either old men and feeble, or young boys not yet of age, who were carried off by force from their farms by your Excellency's troops, and shut up against their will in your Excellency's camps. To say of these therefore, that they are "dwelling peacefully with you," is an assertion which can hardly be taken seriously. I am able to say with perfect truth, that except the prisoners, and the few who have gone over to the enemy, the overpowering majority of the fighting burghers are still under arms. As regards those who have gone over from us to the enemy—a rare occurrence now—I can only say that our experience is not unique, for history shows that in all wars for freedom, as in America and elsewhere, there were such: and we shall try to get on without them.

As regards the 74,000 women and children who, as your Excellency alleges, are maintained in the camps, it appears to me that your Excellency must be unaware of the cruel manner in which these defenceless ones were dragged away from their dwellings by your Excellency's troops, who first destroyed all the goods and property of their wretched captives. Yes, to such a pass had it come, that whenever your men were seen approaching, the poor sacrifices of the war, in all weathers, by day and by night, would flee from their dwellings in order that they might not be taken.

Does your Excellency realize that your troops have not been ashamed to fire (in the full knowledge of what they were doing) with guns and small arms on our helpless ones when they, to avoid capture, had taken flight, either alone or with their waggons, and thus many women and children have been killed and wounded. I will give you an instance. Not long ago, on the 6th of June, at Graspan, near Reitz, a camp of women, falsely reported as a convoy to your Excellency, was taken by your troops. This was rescued again by us, whilst your troops took shelter behind our women, and when your reinforcement came up, they opened fire with guns and small arms on that camp, notwithstanding the fact that they knew it contained women only.

I can quote hundreds of cases of this kind, but I do not think it necessary, because if your Excellency will take the trouble to ask any soldier who respects the truth, he will be compelled to confirm my assertion. To say that the women are in your camps of their own free will is not in accordance with the facts, and for any one to assert that they are brought to the camps because the Boers are unwilling to provide for the maintenance of their families as it is said that His Excellency the Minister for War has asserted in Parliament, is to make himself guilty of calumny, that will do more harm to the calumniator than to us, and is a statement which I am sure can never meet with your Excellency's approval.

Now, as regards the Proclamation itself, I can give your Excellency the assurance as far as I am myself concerned, that it will make no difference to my fulfilling my duty faithfully to the end, for I shall be guided by my conscience and not by the enemy. Our country is ruined; our hearths and homes are wrecked; our cattle are looted, or killed by the thousand; our women and children are made prisoners, insulted, and carried away by the troops and armed Kaffirs; and many hundreds have already given their lives for the freedom of their fatherland. Can we now—when it is merely a question of banishment—shrink from our duty? Can we become faithless to the hundreds of killed and prisoners, who, trusting in our firmness, offered their lives and freedom for the fatherland? Or can we lose faith in a just God, who has so wonderfully upheld us till now? I am convinced that should we do so, we should be despised not only by your Excellency and all honest men, but also by ourselves.

I will close by giving your Excellency the assurance that no one is more anxious than I to see peace restored, and I am therefore ready to meet your Excellency at any time in order to discuss the terms on which this peace can be arranged; but in order that I may not mislead your Excellency, I have to say that no peace will be accepted by us which imperils the independence of the two Republics, or which does not take into consideration the interests of our Colonial brethren who have joined us. If it is a crime to fight in one's self-defence, and if such a crime is to be punished, then I am of opinion that His Majesty's Government should be satisfied with the annihilation of the country, the misery of women and children and the general desolation which this war has already caused. It is in your Excellency's power more than in that of any one else, to put a stop to this, and by doing so, to restore this unfortunate part of the world to its former happiness. We ask no magnanimity, we only demand justice. I enclose a translation of my letter in order to avoid any misinterpretation of it by your Excellency, as this happened not long ago when a letter which I had written to the Government of the South African Republic, and which at Reitz fell into your hands, was published in such a way that it was nearly unrecognizable, as not only was it wrongly interpreted in some places, but sentences were inserted which had never been written, and other parts were left out altogether, so that an entirely wrong meaning was given to the letter.

I have the honour, etc.,

M.T. STEYN, State-President of the Orange Free State.

[Footnote 98: Nobody dies of fright.]

[Footnote 99: The report of the Commission of which he was a member.]

[Footnote 100: Resident Magistrates.]



CHAPTER XXXI

Blockhouses and Night Attacks

While the great events recorded at the end of my last chapter were in progress, I paid a visit to the Harrismith burghers, who were under the command of Commandant Jan Jacobsz, and also to some of the Bethlehem men. On my return I learnt that the enemy were occupied in building a line of blockhouses from Heilbron to Frankfort.

It has always seemed to me a most unaccountable circumstance that England—the all-powerful—could not catch the Boers without the aid of these blockhouses. There were so many other ways in which the thing might have been done, and better done; and the following incident, which occurred during the war, serves to show that this policy of the blockhouse might equally well have been called the policy of the blockhead.

On the 27th of February, 1902, the English made one of their biggest "catches" in the Free State. They had made a great "kraal"—what they themselves call a "drive"—and stood, "hand in hand," one might almost say, in a ring around us, coming from Heilbron, Frankfort, Bethlehem, and Harrismith, and stretching, on the Transvaal side, from Vrede to the Drakensberg.

Narrower and narrower did the circle become, hemming us in more closely at every moment. The result was that they "bagged" an enormous number of men and cattle, without a solitary burgher (or, for the matter of that, a solitary ox) having been captured by means of their famous blockhouse system.

The English have been constantly boasting in the newspapers about the advantages of their blockhouses, but they have never been able to give an instance of a capture effected by them. On the contrary, when during the last stages of the war it happened, as it often did, that they drove some of our men against one or other of the great blockhouse lines which then intersected the country, and it became necessary for us to fight our way through, we generally succeeded in doing so. And that, with fewer casualties than when, as in the instance I have just given, they concentrated their forces, and formed a circle around us.

The English then were busy when I returned from the south in building a blockhouse line from Heilbron to Frankfort. They accomplished this speedily, and then proceeded to the construction of other similar lines, not being contented until they had "pegged out" the country as follows:—

On the Natal frontier there was a line from Vrede to Bothaspas, continued westward by a series of forts to Harrismith, whence the line went on, still westward, to Bethlehem, and thence down to the Basutoland border at Fouriesburg.

Kroonstad was made, so to speak, the "axle," whence a series of "spokes" proceeded; one to the north-east, to Vrede; a second to the north-west, through Driekopjes Diamond Mine, to Winkledrift, and thence down the Rhenoster River to its confluence with the Vaal; a third, to the south-east, to Lindley; and a fourth, to the south-west, along the railway line, to the frontier of Cape Colony.

In the western districts there was a line along the left bank of the Valsch River to the point where it joins the Vaal, and another (also terminating at the Vaal River) starting from Zand River railway bridge, and running parallel to the Zand River. There was also a line from Boshof, across the Cape Colony frontier, to Kimberley.

Last, but not least, came the "White Elephant" with which the reader is already acquainted—the line from Bloemfontein to Ladybrand, through Thaba'Nchu.

All these lines were in the Free State. I make no mention here of the thousands of miles of similar blockhouse lines, which made a sort of spider's web of the South African Republic.

The blockhouses themselves were sometimes round, sometimes angular, erections. The roofs were always of iron. The walls were pierced with loop-holes four feet from the ground, and from four to six feet from one another. Sometimes stone was used in the construction of these walls, at other times iron. In the latter case the wall is double, the space of from six to nine inches between the inner and the outer wall being filled with earth.

These buildings stood at a distance of from a hundred to a thousand paces from one another; everything depended upon the lie of the ground, and the means at the enemy's disposal; a greater distance than a thousand paces was exceptional. They were always so placed that each of them could be seen by its neighbours on both sides, the line which they followed being a zigzag.

Between the blockhouses were fences, made with five strands of barbed wire. Parallel with these was a trench, three feet deep and four to five feet across at the top, but narrower at the bottom. Where the material could be procured, there was also a stone wall, to serve as an additional obstacle. Sometimes there were two lines of fences, the upper one—erected on the top of the earth thrown up from the trench—consisting of three or four strands only.

There was thus a regular network of wires in the vicinity of the blockhouses—the English seemed to think that a Boer might be netted like a fish. If a wild horse had been trapped there, I should like to have been there to see, but I should not have liked to have been the wild horse.

The building of these blockhouses cost many thousands of pounds, and still greater were the expenses incurred in providing the soldiers in them with food, which had to be fetched up by special convoys. And it was all money thrown away! and worse than thrown away! for when I come to describe how I broke through these blockhouse lines (see next page), the reader will see that this wonderful scheme of the English prolonged the war for at least three months.

Let us turn now to another, and a more successful device of the enemy.

From the first weeks of the winter, 1901—the reader must remember that our winter commences in May—the English began to make night attacks upon us; at last they had found out a way of inflicting severe losses upon us, and these night attacks grew more and more frequent during the last period of the war. But they would never have thought of them at all, if they had not been instructed in them by the National Scouts—our own flesh and blood!

These tactics were not always successful. It sometimes happened that the English got "cornered"; sometimes they had to "right about turn" and run for their lives. The latter was the case at Witkopjes, five miles to the south of Heilbron, and again, near Makenwaansstad. But on only too many occasions they managed to surprise troops of burghers on their camping places, and, having captured those who could not run away, they left the dead and wounded on the ground.

We soon discovered that these night attacks were the most difficult of the enemy's tactics with which we had to deal.

Sometimes the burghers, surprised by a sudden visit from the English at such an unconventional hour, found it necessary to run away at once as fast as their legs would carry them, so that they often arrived at the nearest camp without their hats. Indeed a series of these attacks produced such a panic among our men that I have known a Boer lose not only his hat, but also his head.

I come now, in the regular course of my narrative, to an engagement between my burghers and an English force which had marched from Bethlehem to Reitz, a distance of thirty miles. This force was guided by a son of one of the Free State Members of Parliament, and, marching all night, reached Reitz just as the day began to dawn. This was a smart piece of business; and though the guide to whom its success was due was my enemy, I fully appreciated the skill which he then displayed.

The English captured ten or twelve burghers at Reitz, whither they had perhaps gone in search of the President.

I was ten miles to the west, on the farm of Blijdschap, and did not receive reports of what had happened until towards noon.

What was I to do? I could not call up men from Heilbron, Bethlehem, Vrede, or Harrismith: it would have been at least twenty-four hours before they could have arrived. All I could do was to summon Veldtcornet Vlok with some of the Parijs commandos and Veldtcornet Louwrens, and Matthijs De Beer, and the men. With these and my staff we would not number more than sixty or seventy all told.

I at once gave orders to these veldtcornets to meet me at a certain place, and they were there by the appointed hour.

My intention was to deliver a flank attack upon the English while they retreated during the night; for, as they only numbered five hundred men, I felt sure that they would not care to remain thirty miles away from their column, but would fall back upon Bethlehem.

In the afternoon I marched to within a short distance of Reitz, in order to discover the enemy's plans; then, immediately after sunset, I sent a few burghers quite close to the town, with orders to meet me again at a certain point about two thousand paces to the south, and to inform me whither the enemy were going to march. The scouts returned at ten o'clock that night, and reported that the enemy was on the march towards Harrismith. In order to reach this town they would have to start by the Bethlehem road, from which the Harrismith road forks, at about eight thousand paces from the town.

Our horses stood ready up-saddled; I had only to give the order to mount.

I meant to cross the Bethlehem road and go to a deep hollow which I knew of near the Harrismith road; then, when the English appeared against the horizon, we would fire at them.

But my scouts had blundered. The English were not going to Harrismith after all. For as we came to the Bethlehem road, we nearly stumbled over them. They were riding quietly along only a short distance from us. As we were galloping they knew of our proximity before we were aware of theirs, and when we were less than two hundred paces from them they opened fire.

"Charge, burghers!"

They all heard me, but they did not all obey. About fifty of the most valiant of them galloped straight at the enemy. The rest fled.

After a short but fierce engagement we were forced to retire, as six of our men had been hit. Fortunately, their wounds were but slight, the most severe being that of my son Isaac, who had been shot through the leg below the knee.

We rode away a short distance, and saw looming through the darkness a company of horsemen approaching us from Reitz. I thought at first that they were some of my own burghers—the ones who had taken to their heels—but it turned out to be General Wessel Wessels, who was nearer than I knew with his staff, in all some twenty men. I, however, could muster seventy, and we decided to cut off the retreat of the enemy. But they had, in the meantime, been riding on so fast that we did not reach them until it had grown quite light. An engagement, short and fierce as the last, ensued, but as the enemy was from six to seven times as strong as we were, and had a gun and a Maxim-Nordenfeldt with them, we could not stand against them, and had to let them go on their road.

We were fortunate in suffering no loss there, and while the English marched on to Bethlehem we rode off in the opposite direction.

We had now a short period of repose. The English were so busy building blockhouses that they had no time to fight us. Our poor horses were in a miserable condition, for so little rain had fallen that the grass was very dry and sapless. But at least we could now give them the rest which they sorely needed.



CHAPTER XXXII

My Commando of Seven Hundred Men

Towards the end of September Commandant F.E. Mentz had an engagement with Colonel Byng's column near Heilbron. A portion of this officer's force had held a ridge where there were some Kaffir kraals for cover; and Commandant Mentz had with fifty burghers stormed this ridge, shooting down from thirty to forty of the enemy, and taking twenty-five prisoners. We lost two killed and three wounded. The Frankfort burghers under Commandant Ross had also not been idle, for they had attacked a division of Colonel Rimington's troops with the result that sixteen killed and wounded fell into their hands—among these were seven of the National Scouts.

Thus fighting was taking place all over the country. I do not give any report of the various engagements, as I was not present at them, and, as I have already said, I only wish to record my own experiences. But it will be easily seen, even from the scanty information I can give of these skirmishes, that our small commandos had a splendid record of success.

It is my intention to ask all my Vice-Commanders-in-Chief to narrate their experiences. And when the whole story is told I am convinced that the world will be astonished at what we were able to accomplish.

But however well these small commandos had fought, I myself believed that the time had now come to make a great stroke. With this object in view I gave orders that a number of the burghers should come to Blijdschap, in the district of Bethlehem, under the command of the following officers:—General Michal Prinsloo with Commandants Olivier, and Rautenbach of the Bethlehem Commando; Commandant David Van Coller, who was in command of the Heilbron burghers in the place of Commandant Steenekamp, who had resigned; Commandant Hermanus Botha of Vrede; Commandant Roen of Ladybrand; and Commandant Jan Cilliers of Kroonstad.

By the beginning of November I had a force of seven hundred burghers under me at Blijdschap.[101]

Although the spring was now far advanced, the veldt was in a very backward condition. I therefore ordered the various subdivisions of my commando to go and camp on the different farms in the neighbourhood. I spread the horses over a large area, as they would thus find better pasture and so the sooner recover their strength.

When November was drawing to a close I had an engagement with the English to the south of Lindley. I had with me at that time General Hattingh, General Wessel Wessels, and General Michal Prinsloo.

An English force had encamped two days previously on the farm of Jagersrust, which lies some ten miles to the south-east of Heilbron, and about the same distance from Blijdschap. I had wished to make an attack on them the night they arrived, but they were too near to Heilbron for me to venture on it.

The previous week three columns which came from Winburg and Kroonstad had been operating near the Liebenbergsvlei, and driving a large laager of women before them towards the north-east of the Liebenbergsvlei. But they had now left the laager alone and returned to Kroonstad. The women had arrived at Blijdschap at noon on November 28th on their way back to Lindley.

The morning following, two hours after sunrise, I received a report from General Hattingh, who with Commandant Cilliers and a hundred men was stationed close to Blijdschap. The General reported that the English from Jagersrust were hotly pursuing the women's laager. And it soon appeared that the women were being driven to the west of Blijdschap.

When General Hattingh heard that the English were hard by, he was some twenty minutes' ride from Blijdschap, but he mounted his horse at once and rode there as quickly as he could. On his arrival he immediately gave orders to up-saddle, and, having sent me a second report, he started in pursuit of the enemy.

As soon as I had received General Hattingh's reports, I followed him with General Wessels and a force of only a hundred men. I was at least five miles from General Hattingh, and the English were twelve miles ahead. General Michal Prinsloo was unfortunately a considerable distance away; and thus it was that I could not at once get together my whole force of six hundred burghers.

But General Michal Prinsloo had spent the time in attacking the English force on their left front. Shortly after he had engaged the enemy I came up behind them and delivered an attack on their right. But the veldt was very uneven and high hills and intervening hollows made any co-operation between us impossible, for one force could not tell where the other force was.

Meanwhile General Hattingh had attacked the enemy in the rear and thus compelled them to withdraw their vanguard, which was then not far from the women's laager and had nearly succeeded in capturing it. But now that the whole force of the enemy was opposed to General Hattingh, he was forced to give way and leave his positions. We lost two killed and three wounded. Among the dead was the valiant F.C. Klopper of Kroonstad.

When I, with General Wessels and Commandant Hermanus Botha hurried up, Commandant Hattingh was just on the point of retreating.

The English I saw numbered about a thousand mounted men and they had three guns with them. I determined to make a flank attack, and accordingly marched round to their right, at the same time sending orders to General Prinsloo to get in the rear, or if he preferred in front of the enemy, so that we might make a united attack upon them as they marched in the direction of Lindley.

It now began to rain and a little later a very heavy thunderstorm burst on our heads. This forced the English to halt on the farm of Victoriespruit.

The rain continued to fall in torrents and hindered General Prinsloo carrying out my orders.

And now the sun went down.

As our horses were quite exhausted by the hot pursuit after the English, and the burghers wet through to the skin, I decided to postpone the attack to the following day. I was also influenced in my decision by the consideration that as the English were so far from any point from which reinforcements could come, it was quite safe to let them alone until the morning. Nobody could have foreseen that they would escape that night.

We slept about five miles from them to the north-east, whilst General Prinsloo and his men were not very far away to the south-east.

That night we placed the ordinary outposts, but no "brandwachten."

When on the next morning I sent my scouts out to discover the movements of the enemy, what was my surprise when they reported that they had fled. They had gone, my scouts informed me, towards Heilbron, which was about eighteen miles off, and they had left behind them five laden waggons and one cart; and where they had crossed Karoospruit they had, very naturally, lightened their waggons, and flour, seed, oats, tarpaulins, and tents marked the point where they had crossed the spruit. The enemy were already so far ahead when I received this report that it was quite out of the question to catch them before they reached Heilbron; so all idea of pursuing them had to be abandoned.

So far as I was able to find out, this column was under the command of Colonel Rimington.

As I was unable now to get in touch with the enemy, I set off with my commando to what was once the town of Lindley. Alas! it could not any more be called a town. Every house was burnt down; not even the church and parsonage were spared.

We found the veldt in very good condition; the early spring rains and the downpours of the previous day had quite revived the grass. And so I decided to remain at Lindley as long as possible, to give our horses a chance of recovering their condition. It was impossible to provide them with forage, for the amount the English had left behind was entirely insufficient as a supply for the large number of horses we had with us.

For ten or twelve days we remained at Lindley, and so the horses had a short breathing time, but not long enough to give the poor animals time fully to regain their strength. In addition to being overworked, some of our horses were suffering from a skin disease which we were quite unable to cure. This disease had never before been known in the Republics.

When I was at Lindley I sent Commandant Johannes Meijer, one of my staff, with forty men, to Cape Colony. With him went that brave soldier, Captain Willem Pretorius, of whom I have made mention previously. If Commandant Meijer had had sufficient time to collect a commando in the Colony, I am sure that he would have proved that the younger generation of Free-Staters, to whom he and Willem Pretorius belonged, possess qualities which were entirely unsuspected before the war began.

On the 8th of December three columns of the enemy appeared from Kroonstad.

It had been my plan to remain at Lindley and wait my chance of dealing with Colonel Baker, for he had under him a certain National Scout, who constantly made raids from Winburg with a band of four or five hundred Kaffirs. A few months previously a division of Commandant Hasebroek's commando had been attacked at Doornberg by this man's Kaffirs, and four burghers had been murdered in a horrible manner. More cases of this nature had taken place, and I only mention this one in passing. I am not in a position to give all the instances, but many of them were sworn to in affidavits, of which copies were sent to Lord Kitchener. The original affidavits fell into the hands of the English; but fresh ones shall be drawn up on my return to South Africa, so that I may be able to prove the statements I have made. The narration of these brutalities I prefer to leave to persons more conversant With the facts than myself. I have only alluded to the subject so as to make it clear why I like to keep my eye on Colonel Baker's column.

I must now continue my story where I left it.

I took up my position to the north-west of Lindley, in front of the columns which approached from Kroonstad. But after a few skirmishes with them, I returned to the east till darkness came on. When night had fallen I went round to the south, behind Kaffirskop, expecting to receive the news that Colonel Baker was coming up from Winburg, for he generally carried on his operations in conjunction with the forces at Kroonstad.

On the following day the enemy marched to Liebenbergsvlei, between Bethlehem and Reitz. Thence they took the road between Lindley and Reitz to Kroonstad.

Piet de Wet, of the National Scouts, was with these columns.

After we had remained two days at Kaffirskop, we crossed the Valsch River. The news then came that a column with a convoy was on the march from Harrismith to Bethlehem.

I felt that it was my duty to attack this column, but, although I advanced with all haste, I was not in time to catch the enemy before they reached Bethlehem. When I saw this, I decided to wait, at a distance of some fifteen miles to the north-east of Bethlehem, for I expected that the column would return to Harrismith.

The troops remained in Bethlehem till the morning of the 18th of December; they then marched out towards Harrismith.

I at once divided my commando into two parts, each consisting of two hundred and fifty men. One of these divisions I posted behind the eastern end of the Langberg, about forty miles from Bethlehem; the other on the banks of the Tijgerkloofspruit, at the point where the road to Harrismith crosses the stream.

I gave strict orders to both divisions that as soon as I opened fire on the English with the Maxim-Nordenfeldt, they were to charge down on them from both sides at the same time.

The enemy, I may mention, were about six or seven hundred men strong, and had two guns.

I myself, with the Maxim-Nordenfeldt, was now on a high round hill, on the eastern side of Tijgerkloof. I was very careful to be out of sight of the English, so that they might get quite close to the burghers before the gun disclosed my presence.

I succeeded in hiding my burghers so successfully that the English did not observe them until they were within about twelve hundred paces of my men in Tijgerkloof.

Some of the enemy's scouts rode on ahead, and when I judged that they must almost immediately see the burghers, I ordered Captain Muller, who was standing behind a rise, to come out of cover and open fire; then I jumped on my horse, and down the hill I went, at full gallop, to my burghers.

I had scarcely covered half the distance, when Captain Muller opened fire on the enemy.

As the sound fell on my ears, it seemed to me that nothing now could save them!

What was now my bitter disappointment when I saw that only one-third of my burghers were charging. The others were keeping under cover, and do what I would I could not drive them out.

Everything went wrong.

When the burghers who were charging the English discovered that the greater part of their comrades had remained, they turned round and retreated. But before this had happened they had attacked the English at four different points.

It had been a short but a very hot engagement.

There was no possibility of inducing my men to charge, and so I thought it wisest to retreat, swallowing my disappointment as best I could.

The burghers re-assembled to the south of the Langberg; and we found that our loss was two killed and nine wounded, of whom two subsequently died.

We could not ascertain the English losses, but we saw their ambulances very busy. We heard afterwards that they had suffered much more severely than we had done.

[Footnote 101: A court-martial was held at this place, and several persons appeared before it. A certain De Lange was condemned to death for high treason.]



CHAPTER XXXIII

A Success at Tweefontein

The column had marched to Harrismith.

It was time that I accomplished something further, and I determined that the next blow I struck should be a heavy one. I therefore retired to the north-east of Bethlehem, and concealed my men in the veldt round Tijgerkloof (which was suited to the purpose) whilst I made my plans.

Colonel Firman's brigade was camped between Bethlehem and Harrismith, at Elands River bridge, where he was building the line of blockhouses between the two towns. This camp was so well entrenched that there was no possibility of storming it, and I knew that so long as Colonel Firman thought I was still in the neighbourhood he would not dare to come out and give me an opportunity of attacking him.

I saw that a ruse was necessary to entice him out of his fortress. With this object in view I sent for Commandant Jan Jacobsz, with his fifty men from Witzeshoek. When he joined me I confided my secret to him, and ordered him to go back with his fifty men, and to let Colonel Firman see him doing so. He also had instructions to let some of his veldtcornets ride to the Kaffir kraals, which were close to the English camp, in order to tell these Kaffirs that he had had orders to come to me with fifty men, but that when he arrived I had commanded him to return to his district, because I was going to march with my commando to Winburg.

The following day Colonel Firman's scouts were, as might have been expected, informed by the Kaffirs of what they had heard from the burghers under Commandant Jacobsz; and the day after—that is, the 22nd of December—Colonel Firman's column, about six to seven hundred men strong, marched from Elands River to Tweefontein, half-way between Elands River and Tijgerkloof. On the farm of Tweefontein there was a mountain called Groenkop—which has since, for a reason which will soon be apparent to the reader, received the name of "Christmas Kop."



I gave Commandant Jacobsz orders to come to me with his fifty men on Christmas Eve, but this time with the strict injunction that he must conceal his march from the enemy. I also called up Veldtcornet Beukes, with his fifty men, from Wilge River, in the district of Harrismith. Veldtcornet Beukes was a brave man and trustworthy; he was shortly afterwards promoted to the command of a division of the Harrismith burghers.

My intention was to attack Colonel Firman early on Christmas morning.

Two days previously I had, with General Prinsloo and the Commandant, reconnoitred the neighbourhood of Groenkop, on which Colonel Firman was encamped. I approached as near as possible to the mountain, but could only inspect it from the west, north, and east, but on the following day I reconnoitred it also from the south.

My plan of making the attack early the next morning was somewhat spoilt by the fact that the English had already, on the 21st of December, quitted their camp on the mountain. Thus they had had four days in which to entrench themselves.

Whilst we were reconnoitring the mountain from the south, we saw three horsemen coming cautiously out of the camp, riding in a north-easterly direction, and thus giving us no chance to intercept them. Commandant Olivier and Captain Potgieter now made a detour, so that they could cut off the unsuspecting scouts from their camp, and could also get nearer to the mountain themselves. I knew that by doing so they would draw the fire of the two guns, which would tell me precisely where Colonel Firman's battery stood.

Before these officers could accomplish their purpose they were observed, and seeing that they could not cut off the three men, they turned their horses and galloped back. But when they saw that the three scouts had the temerity to pursue them, they faced round at the first rise and suddenly confronted them. The three (who were Kaffirs), seeing that the tables were turned, hastily wheeled round towards their own camp, but before they could reach it one of their number was caught and shot down. One gun and the Maxim-Nordenfeldt now fired upon our two officers as long as they were in sight, and thus we learnt that the guns were placed on the high western point of the mountain, from which they could shoot in all directions.

Let me describe Groenkop. On its western side was a precipice, on the north and south a steep descent, and on the east a gentle slope which ran down to the plain.

From which side should the attack take place?

Some of the officers were of the opinion that this should take place on the east, where it was the least steep, but I differed from them, for through our field-glasses we could see that the walls of the fort were so built that it was quite clear the enemy had thought that, should they be attacked, it would be from the east. The forts were built in a semicircle towards that side, and although this would be of little importance once the fight had begun (because the defenders had only to jump over the wall to find themselves still entrenched), still it was to the advantage of the attacking party to come from a side where they would not be expected.

These reasons brought me to the conclusion that the English would not be on the look-out for us from the west, and I therefore decided to make the attack from this side, the steep side of the mountain. But I did not then know how steep it really was.

On the western point there were four forts close to each other. Each was sufficient to give shelter to about twenty five men. To the south there were four forts, and to the east three.

The top of the mountain was not more than three to four hundred paces in diameter. To the east in a hollow the convoy was placed, and from every schanze we could rake it with our fire.

I remained on the spot from which I was reconnoitring, and sent word to the commando, in the afternoon of the 24th of December, to come to a certain place at Tijgerkloof, which they could do without being observed. I ordered them to remain there until nightfall, and then to advance within four miles of Groenkop, to the north, where I would meet them.

This was done. I found the commando at the appointed place, and also General Brand and Commandant Karel Coetzee, who had come on a visit that day to my commando. They also took part in the attack. My men consisted of burghers from General Michal Prinsloo, Commandants Hermanus Botha, Van Coller, Olivier, Rautenbach, Koen, Jan Jacobsz and Mears, in all six hundred men. Of these I left one hundred in charge of the Maxim-Nordenfeldt and the pack-horses.

We had not a single waggon with us; every man put what he had with him on his pack-horse, for long we had made it a rule not to be hampered with waggons. Yet whenever we picked up reports of engagements in the camping places of the English we repeatedly saw that they had taken a Boer camp—and their greatest delight was to say that it was one of De Wet's convoys.

They could not have been convoys of mine, because for the last fifteen months I had had no waggon-camp with me. If a waggon-camp was taken, it could only have been one consisting of women, who were flying in order to escape capture by the English, and to avoid being sent to the concentration camps. Everywhere in the State the women were taking to flight, and their terror was increased tenfold when the news came that many a woman and child had found an untimely grave in these camps.

The troops which had not remained with the pack-horses now advanced towards the mountain. Each commando was ordered to ride by itself, and to leave in single file. My orders were that they were to march quietly to the western foot of the mountain; here the horses were to be left behind, and the climb made on foot, the burghers keeping the same order as that in which they had been riding. Should the English, however, discover us before we reached the mountain, we must then storm it altogether, and leave the horses wherever we had dismounted.

We succeeded in coming to the mountain unobserved, and at once began the climb. It was exactly two o'clock in the morning of December 25th, 1901.

When we had gone up about half-way we heard the challenge of a sentry:—

"Halt; who goes there?"

Then followed a few shots.

My command rang out through the night—

"Burghers, Storm!"

The word was taken up by the burghers themselves, and on all sides one heard "Storm! Storm!"

It was a never-to-be-forgotten moment. Amidst the bullets, which we could hear whistling above and around us, the burghers advanced to the top, calling out, "Storm! Storm!"

The mountain, however, was so steep that it can scarcely be said that we stormed it; it was much more of a climb. Often our feet slipped from under us, and we fell to the ground; but in an instant we were up again and climbed on, and on, to gain the summit.

I think that after the sentry heard us, three or four minutes must have elapsed before the troops, who were lying asleep in their tents or on the veldt, were awakened and could come out, because their camp was about a hundred paces distant from our point of attack.

Directly we reached the top the deafening roar of a heavy fight began, and lasted from fifteen to twenty minutes. Shortly before this the Armstrong gun and the Maxim-Nordenfeldt had each fired two shots, but they fired no more; as we reached the top the gunners were shot down at their guns.

After a short but desperate struggle the English gave way, or surrendered, and we took possession of the Armstrong and Maxim-Nordenfeldt.

We continued to fire on the troops, who had retreated to a short distance. Again they gave way, and took up another position a little further on, and so it went on for about two thousand paces, and then the English took to flight.

As we had no horses with us and it was dark, we did not pursue the fleeing enemy, but returned to the camp. The whole engagement lasted, so far as I could judge, for about an hour. I cannot say for certain, because I made no note of the time.

It was a party of Yeomanry with whom we had been dealing, and I must say they behaved very gallantly under exceptionally trying circumstances; for it is always to be expected that when men are attacked during the night a certain amount of confusion must ensue.

It was heartrending to hear the moaning of the wounded in the dark. The burghers helped the doctors to bring the wounded into the tents, where they could be attended to; I gave the doctors as much water as they liked to take for the wounded.

It was greatly to be deplored that the ambulance had been placed in the centre of the camp, for this was the cause of Dr. Reid being fatally wounded.

When the day began to dawn we brought the waggons and guns down the mountain. I sent them in the direction of Langberg, to the west of Groenkop.

The enemy lost about one hundred and sixteen dead and wounded, and two hundred and forty prisoners of war.

Our loss was also heavy—fourteen dead and thirty wounded; among the dead were Commandant Olivier from Bethlehem and Vice-Veldtcornet Jan Dalebout from Harrismith; among the wounded was one of my own staff, Gert de Wet. Later on two more died, one of them being Veldtcornet Louwrens. I appointed Mr. A.J. Bester as Commandant in the place of Commandant Olivier.

Besides one Armstrong and one Maxim-Nordenfeldt, our booty consisted of twenty waggons, mostly ox-waggons, a great quantity of rifle and gun ammunition, guns, tents, five hundred horses and mules, and one waggon laden with spirits, so that the burghers, who were not averse to this, could now satisfy their thirst.

The sun had hardly risen when the enemy opened fire from a mountain two miles to the north-east of Groenkop, where there was a little camp with one gun. If I still had had the same numbers as were with me at the storming of Groenkop, then I could also have taken this little camp. But it was not to be thought of, for some of my men had been sent away with the waggons, and the others—well, every one had a horse that he had taken from the English, and as these horses were in the pink of condition for rapid retreat, I thought it wiser not to call upon the burghers to attack. I ordered them, therefore, to go back after the waggons, and in the evening we camped to the north of Bethlehem. From here, on the following day, I sent the prisoners of war through Naauwpoort into Basutoland.

On the same day I gave orders to General Michal Prinsloo to take the commando and to strike a course between Reitz and Heilbron. I myself paid a visit to President Steyn and General Wessel Wessels, after which I put matters straight in our hospital at Bezuidenhoutsdrift, which was under the charge of Dr. H.J. Poutsma.



CHAPTER XXXIV

I Cut my Way Through Sixty Thousand Troops

The English could not endure the thought that we had their guns in our possession. And, accordingly, when General Michal Prinsloo came near the Liebenbergsvlei, on the road between Reitz and Heilbron, he met a strong force of the enemy which had come from Kroonstad. The English then had a taste of what it was like to be under the fire of our artillery; and so well did the gunners do their work that the enemy were forced to retreat. This occurred shortly before sunset on the afternoon of the 28th of December.

But the forces in front of General Prinsloo were too strong for him, and so when night came he marched past, and the following morning was twelve miles to the south-west of them.

The enemy advanced against the position which General Prinsloo had occupied the previous day, quite unaware that he was now in their rear. In the meantime the General was watching their movements from behind, and quietly enjoying their mistake.

I left the hospital that afternoon, and crossing the Liebenbergsvlei to the rear of the English, I joined the Heilbron commando.

The following day the enemy retreated to the farm of Groenvlei, which lies just to the north of Lindley. They remained there for a few days awaiting large reinforcements.

"I quite understand your plan," I said to myself, as I set to work to split up the great force which the enemy were concentrating. And with this object in view I sent each Commandant to his own district, believing that by dispersing my own men I should again induce the English to divide their troops into smaller parties. Commandant Mears, with his fifty men, I ordered to remain with the guns and the artillery, and to guard them by very careful scouting.

In less than a fortnight seven large columns of the enemy were operating in the district between Heilbron and Bethlehem and Harrismith. These columns burnt all the houses within their reach, and those which had been spared before were now given over to the flames. And not only were the houses destroyed, but every head of cattle was taken.

Towards the end of January, 1902, still more columns arrived and a "drive" began.

I remained in the neighbourhood until the 2nd of February and stationed Commandant Mears with the guns to the east of the Wilge River. The English formed a circle round him, but he succeeded in getting the guns away in safety. When he was out of their clutches, I sent him orders to bring the guns through the blockhouse line between Lindley and Bethlehem, and then to push on towards Winburg.

It was my intention, on arriving there, to collect as rapidly as possible a commando from the men of Bethlehem, Kroonstad, and Winburg, and to attack the first column that gave me a chance of doing so.

Commandant Mears carried out my orders at once. A force of the enemy had been waiting for him for three or four days at the farm of Fanny's Home, on the Liebenbergsvlei. But before the sun had risen, a strong force under Colonel Byng had surrounded him and forced him to abandon the guns. And not only were the guns lost, but Captain Muller and thirteen gunners were taken prisoner.

Thus the guns had not been of much benefit to us, for the English had kept us so constantly on the move that it had been impossible to use them.

The forces of the enemy between Harrismith and Vrede had formed a line extending from the Harrismith-Bethlehem blockhouses to the blockhouses between Vrede, Frankfort and Heilbron. And now the troops were advancing in close contact with each other, hoping thus to force us against one or other line of blockhouses.

Nearer and nearer they came, until at noon on February the 5th we saw them to the east of Liebenbergsvlei. As I was watching their movements from the top of Elandskop, I was informed by heliogram[102] from Blaauwkop and Verkijkerskop that there was a cordon of the English from Frankfort to a spot between Bethlehem and Lindley.

The intention of the enemy appeared to be to drive us against the Heilbron-Kroonstad blockhouses and the railway line. We had therefore to be prepared to fight our way through the blockhouses. And these, as I found out lately, had been greatly strengthened.

On the 6th of February I was on the march, intending to advance to Slangfontein, to the west of Heilbron. I sent orders to Commandants Mentz, Van der Merwe, and Van Coller, to take a portion of Commandant Bester's burghers, telling them to go to Slangfontein. For I hoped to break through at some point or other that night.

Still nearer the enemy came, marching almost shoulder to shoulder.

The Commandants Van Coller and Van der Merwe did not go to Slangfontein. They broke through the English columns near Jagersrust, and crossed the Heilbron-Frankfort blockhouse line, where they put a few soldiers to flight, not, however, without a loss of two burghers, who were killed.

Neither did the burghers under Veldtcornets Taljaart and Prinsloo arrive. They preferred to go their own way—and all were captured with the exception of twenty-eight men. But this misfortune was not due to the blockhouses. On the contrary, they were taken prisoners when they were attempting to hide themselves in small bodies. In this way more than a hundred burghers fell into the hands of the English.

There were now with me Commandant Mentz, and portions of the commandos of Commandants Bester, Cilliers, and Mears.

That afternoon we marched to a farm which was twelve miles from the Lindley-Kroonstad line of blockhouses. When it was quite dark, we left the farm with the intention of breaking through this line before daybreak. There had been five or six hundred head of cattle with us, but, without my being aware of it, they had gone astray in the darkness.

We intentionally left the path, because we thought that the English would be most vigilant at points where paths crossed the line.

Suddenly we found ourselves at a wire fence. The darkness was so thick, that it was only after we had cut the wire that we discovered that we were close to a blockhouse. Although the house was not more than a hundred paces from us, we could hear and see nothing. When we were some four hundred paces on the other side of the line of the blockhouses, I sent a burgher back to see if all the men and cattle had crossed safely—for we were riding in a long trail, and amongst us were old men and youngsters of only ten years, or even less. These boys would have been taken away from their mothers had they stayed at home; and thus the only way to keep them from captivity was to let them join the commandos.

The burgher soon returned, and told me that the whole commando and all the cattle had crossed the line. Then I marched forward again.

At break of day we were close to the Valsch River. Here I made a short halt, in order to allow the stragglers to come up. It was then that a man came to me who had been riding far behind, and had thus not seen that we had cut the wire. He was probably one of those who quite needlessly feared a blockhouse line.

"General, when shall we come to the blockhouses?" he asked me.

"Oh! we are through long ago!" I answered.

It did not require any deep insight, I can assure you, to see how delighted this burgher was that we were safely out of it!

We discovered now that the cattle had not crossed the line. When I investigated the matter more closely, I found that they had gone astray before we reached the blockhouses. But it was impossible to wait for them, and there was nothing left but to proceed without them.

When we arrived at the Valsch River, there was a sound of shouting behind us, and presently the cattle appeared coming over a rise. I heard from the drivers that they had lost their way, and had only reached the blockhouses at daylight. But they had succeeded in breaking through under a fierce rifle fire. Twenty head of cattle had been killed or wounded, and one of the men's horses had been shot under him.

The burghers who had accomplished this valiant deed were: Jan Potgieter, Gert Potgieter, Jzoon, and Wessel Potgieter—all from the district of Heilbron.

I have, myself, seen a report in an English paper of my breaking through the blockhouse line. This paper declared that I had driven a great herd of cattle in front of me to break down the fencing!... This is the way the English write the reports.

This breaking through of my cattle inspired the English, at least so I thought, to dig trenches everywhere. But they were again wrong; for although a vehicle might have some difficulty before the trench was filled in, no riders, pedestrians, or cattle would have been stopped for a moment.

And now we marched on, till we reached a spot about fourteen miles to the south of the blockhouse line; and there we remained for three days.

Whilst we were waiting here, I sent two burghers back to the blockhouse line, to discover in what direction the English columns had marched, so that I might know where I should go myself. Now, less than ever, was it advisable to make night marches, for our horses were in a very poor condition.

The day following I received a heliographic message from these burghers, who were now on the other side of the line. They signalled that I could come on with my commando, since the English columns had returned to Kroonstad and Heilbron.

When night came I started on my way back. I did not go (as before) to the east of Lindley, but to the farm of Palmietfontein, which lies to the west. When we were close to the line, I sent some burghers in advance to cut the wire. But this time there was a reception ready for us, which we certainly would rather have been without! This was to be ascribed to the fact that instead of only two scouts, as I had ordered, about ten had gone to reconnoitre. So large a number had attracted the attention of the enemy, and the guards had concentrated at the spot where we wished to break through.

Thus before my commando reached the line a fierce fire was opened on it from two sides. Yet notwithstanding this the wires were cut and we reached the other side, but not without loss. One of my burghers was killed, and one wounded. A boy of ten was also killed, and another of seven severely wounded. We could not ascertain the losses of the enemy.

It was terrible that children should be exposed to such dangers; but, as I have already said, if we had not taken them with us they would have been captured. During the very "drive" I have just described, two children who had remained at home with their mothers were taken prisoner by the English. One of these was a boy of nine, the little son of Jacobus Theron. Notwithstanding the prayers and entreaties of the poor mother, he was torn from her and carried away. In the same way another boy, twelve years old, whose name I do not know, was dragged from his mother's arms.

The chronicling of such inexplicable cruelties I leave to other pens. I have drawn attention to them to make it clear that it was not without good cause that children joined the commandos. Some of these little ones became a prey to the bullets of the enemy, and the South African soil is stained by the blood of children slain by England.

With the exception of the sad incidents I have described, we came through in safety.

I afterwards heard that Lord Kitchener had on this occasion gone to Wolvehoek Station in order to see President Steyn and myself carried away in the train to banishment! But his calculations were not altogether correct.

A Higher Power had willed it otherwise.

The burghers had now returned to their own districts. I myself went to a farm in the neighbourhood of Elandskop belonging to Mr. Hendrick Prinsloo—the rooije.[103] After I had been there a few days I heard that a strong column was approaching Lindley from Kroonstad. During the night of the 17th of February this column attacked some burghers who were posted less than four miles from Elandskop, with the object—as I heard later—of catching me. And they would have been quite successful in their attempt had I been sleeping in the house where their information led them to believe they would find me. But as a matter of fact, I seldom, if ever, slept in a house, for to tell the truth, there were scarcely any houses left to sleep in! The women who had escaped capture lived in narrow shelters, which had been made by placing corrugated iron sheets on what was left standing of the walls that remained.

I crossed the Liebenbergsvlei on the 18th of February, and proceeded to the farm of Rondebosch, which stands to the north-east of Reitz. There I met the Government.

And now another big "drive" took place. The English columns marched to the south of the Kroonstad-Lindley blockhouse line in the direction of Bethlehem. Other troops came from Heilbron, and advanced to the north of the Heilbron-Frankfort line, driving Commandant Ross across this line to the south.

Nearer and nearer these two great divisions approached each other, until at last they stretched without any break from the Bethlehem-Lindley to the Frankfort-Vrede line of blockhouses. On the 21st of February the whole column moved towards Vrede and Harrismith.

It seemed to me that my best plan would be to go with President Steyn and the Government to the Witkopjes, which lay between Harrismith and Vrede, and then to break through the English columns near Vrede or Harrismith, or, if it proved impossible to do so at these points, at least to force a way through somewhere.

On this occasion we had a great deal more difficulty in escaping from the English than we had had during the previous "drive." Not only had we to deal with these large forces behind, but also with thousands of troops which were now approaching from Villiersdorp, Standerton, Volksrust, and Laingsnek, and which were extended across the country in one continuous line. The whole cordon thus formed consisted, as the English themselves acknowledge, of sixty thousand men.

And again on this occasion they did not attempt to drive us against one or other of the blockhouse lines, but they came, column on column, from all sides, and formed a big circle round us. They thus made it quite apparent that they had lost all faith in their blockhouses.

I only received news of the approach of these reinforcements on the evening of the 22nd of February, after they had passed the blockhouses. The report was brought to me by Commandant Hermanus Botha, a party of whose burghers had been driven across the Vrede-Frankfort line during the previous night. I have already stated that some of the burghers under Commandant Ross had shared the same experience, and now they were retreating before the English. I also heard that Commandant Mentz had gone eastwards, in the belief that the forces behind him would move to the west, but that unfortunately the columns also moved to the east, so that he jumped into the lion's mouth, which was only too ready to close!

We marched that night to Cornelius River, and the day following to Mr. James Howell's farm at Brakfontein. It was my intention to break through somewhere between Vrede and Bothaspas.

But my scouts brought me word in the evening that there was a very poor chance of success in that neighbourhood, for the columns had concentrated there. Other scouts, however, reported that there was a small opening at Kalkkrans, on the Holspruit; and so I decided to march to Kalkkrans.

When the sun had set I left Brakfontein and started on my road to Kalkkrans, with the firm determination to force my way through there, cost what it might. If I failed in the attempt I knew that it would mean an irretrievable loss, for not only should I myself be captured, but also President Steyn and the whole Government.

I had with me a portion of the Harrismith burghers, the commandos from Vrede and Frankfort, and sections of the commandos from Standerton and Wakkerstroom, these latter under Commandant Alberts. This Commandant had come to these districts to obtain horses for his burghers; he was obliged to be content with the wild horses of the veldt, for there were no others to be had.

Beside the above burghers, I had with me old men and children, and others who were non-combatants. These had joined the commando to escape falling into the enemy's hands.

Altogether I had well-nigh two thousand persons with me. Commandant Mentz was, like myself, enclosed in the "drive," but some distance away. General Wessels, Commandant Beukes, and some of the Bethlehem burghers were in the same predicament to the west of us. I did not know for certain where these officers were placed, and therefore I could not inform them of my plan to break through that night, for I had only come to this determination after the sun had set. But I felt sure that they would at all costs make their way through the cordon.[104]

Commandant Jan Meijer had met me at Brakfontein, but one party of his burghers was still six miles to the south. When I decided to break through, I sent him orders to follow me; and this he was quite capable of doing, as he was well acquainted with this part of the country. My orders were that the mounted men were to proceed in advance, taking with them my little waggon drawn by eight mules.

This waggon had accompanied me into Cape Colony, and since that time—for fourteen weary months—had never left me. I had even taken it with me when, a fortnight previously, I had broken through the blockhouse lines.

Behind the horsemen came the aged and the sick, who occupied the remaining vehicles, and lastly the cattle, divided into several herds.

In this order we rode on.

When we were approaching the spot at which I expected to find the enemy, I ordered Commandant Ross and one hundred men, with Hermanus Botha and Alberts, and portions of their commandos, to go on ahead of us.

After passing through Holspruit we inclined to the west, as the road to the east would, according to my scouts, have led us right into the English camp. But it was not with one camp only that we had to deal: the English were everywhere: a whole army lay before us—an army so immense that many Englishmen thought that it would be a task beyond the stupid and illiterate Boer to count it, much less to understand its significance. I will pander to the English conception of us and say, "We have seen them: they are a great big lot!"

We had hardly moved three hundred paces from where we had crossed Holspruit, when the English, lined up about three hundred yards in front of us, and opened fire. We saw that they did not intend our flight to be an easy one.

Before we had reached the "spruit,"[105] and while crossing it, the burghers had kept pushing ahead and crowds had even passed us, but the enemy's fire checked them and they wheeled round.

Only the men under Commandants Ross, Botha, and Alberts did not waver. These officers and their veldtcornets with less than one hundred men stormed the nearest position of the enemy, who were occupying a fort on the brow of a steep bank.

I shouted to my command: "Charge."

I exerted all my powers of persuasion to arrest the flight of my burghers; even bringing the sjambok into the argument.

Two hundred and fifty were all that I could bring back to the fight, whilst, as I have said, the Commandants had a hundred with them when they charged; the rest, regardless of my attempts to stop them, fled.

I was also without my staff, some of whom had remained under the fire of the enemy awaiting my orders as to what was to be done with my little waggon. Others, amongst whom was my son Kootie, who was then acting as my secretary, had followed me, but had got lost in the confusion of the moment.

This confusion arose from the fact that the burghers imagined that they had got through at the first attempt, but had found themselves again fired at from the front. Meanwhile, I hurried to and fro, encouraging the burghers in their attempts to break through. When thus engaged I came across two of my staff, Albertus Theunissen and Burt Nissey. To them I gave the order: "Get the waggon through at all costs." I also found my son, Isaac, and kept him with me. The English now were firing not only from in front but also on our right, and there was nothing for it but to clear a road for ourselves, and this we eventually succeeded in doing, and in about forty minutes had at last broken through.

The enemy had dug trenches, thirty to forty paces from each other, which served as schanzes. In each of these trenches were placed ten to thirty men. They had also a Maxim-Nordenfeldt, which, at first, kept up a hot fire; but soon was silenced as the gunners were shot down. The rest of the troops retired with the gun, but had to leave the caisson behind them. It was evident to me from the way in which they fired that the English were retreating, and so I dispatched two men to tell the burghers, who had gone back, to come on; but this they did not do, thinking perhaps that they could discover a safer route on the following evening. This was short-sighted policy on their part, for the circle within which they were caught was daily becoming narrower, and it was plain that on the third day the enemy would be so close that all hope of escape would be gone.

The two burghers did not return, and we went on without them, taking with us our wounded—twelve in number. Two of these, whose injuries were serious, had been placed by some of my staff on my waggon; one was Van der Merwe, a member of President Steyn's bodyguard; the other was a boy of thirteen years old, named Olivier.

We hurried on, and came, shortly after sundown, to the farm called "Bavaria," on the Bothasberg. There Van der Merwe died.

The boy had already been relieved from his sufferings. Thus, once again, the soil drank the blood of a child.

Eleven of my men were left dead on the battlefield. We had to leave them there, for to recover their bodies might have meant the sacrifice of more lives.

When the burghers and I forced our way through the storm of bullets, we had with us President Steyn, the Members of the Government, and the Rev. D. Kestell, minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at Harrismith.

The greater part of the English, indeed all of them, so far as we could observe, remained, during the 24th, on the spot where we had left them. We found out, later on, that we had broken through their lines at the point where Colonel Rimington's force was stationed.

The following day the columns departed. We then went to bury our dead, but found that the enemy had already done so. But as the graves which they had made were very shallow, we dug them deeper.

During that night (the 25th) another force of burghers, to the number of about three hundred and fifty, broke through the English cordon. Our men only lost two killed, and eleven wounded.

Besides those already mentioned, the burghers under General Wessel Wessels and Commandant Mentz were also among those who escaped of the two thousand troops surrounded by the enemy.

With the others it fared but ill.

The English closed in, and the circle became narrower and narrower.

On the 27th of February, 1902—"Majuba Day"—Commandant Van Merwe and four hundred men fell into the hands of the enemy.[106]

On that very day, in the year 1881, the famous battle of Majuba had been fought. Nineteen years afterwards, on the same day of the same month, we suffered a terrible defeat at Paardeberg, where we lost General Piet Cronje and a great force of burghers.

And now the 27th of February had come round again, and this time it was the twenty-first anniversary of Majuba that we were celebrating. The day of our coming of age had thus arrived, if I may be allowed to say so. But instead of the Republics now attaining their majority—as they should have done, according to all precedent—minority would have been a more fitting word to describe the condition in which we now found ourselves—for, through the losses which we had just sustained, we were minus not only a large number of burghers, but also an enormous quantity of cattle, which ought to have served as food to our commandos and families, but which the enemy had captured.

The cattle which had just been taken from us had formed the greater part of our cattle in this district. We had always been able, until now, to get them safely away; the unevenness of the veldt here was greatly in our favour. This time we could not. How am I to explain the inexplicable? We had sinned—but not against England!

[Footnote 102: We had heliographic communication between Elandskop and Blaauwkop, which formed a connecting link between Bethlehem and Lindley; and from Blaauwkop we had communication with Verkijkerskop. There was also heliographic communication between Bethlehem and Lindley, and Biddulphsberg, across the line of blockhouses.]

[Footnote 103: "Rooije" is the Taal for "red."]

[Footnote 104: In this I was correct. They contrived to break through where the enemy were more scattered.]

[Footnote 105: Spruit—rivulet.]

[Footnote 106: Also my son, Jacobus (Kootie). He has now returned from St. Helena, whither he had been sent as a prisoner, and we have met. He tells me that on the night when I broke through, he wanted to come with me, but was unable to do so, because his horse had been shot under him.]



CHAPTER XXXV

I go to the Transvaal with President Steyn

On the 26th of February I went with the Government to Duminys Drift, on the Wilge River, and we thus found ourselves again at the farm of Rondebosch.

The Government remained there for a few days, and then President Steyn decided to go into the western parts of the State, where Generals Badenhorst and Nieuwouwdt were then operating. He thought that if he absented himself from the north-eastern districts the English would cease their devastations in that part of the country, for it was well known that the enemy's concentration of forces was principally aimed at the President and myself.

I, however, did not intend to follow his example, but, on the contrary, got myself ready to join the Heilbron commando. By March 22nd all my preparations were made, and I had, alas! to say farewell to my trusty friend—my little waggon! I saw that it must be relinquished—that I could not carry it about with me any longer. I left it at a farm, first taking out my documents and papers; I ordered these to be concealed for greater safety, in a cave on the farm of General Wessels.

The clothes and ammunition of myself and staff had been hidden in this cave for some time.

The following day I joined President Steyn, who told me that he wished me to accompany him in his march to the west. And although it did not agree with my own ideas—principally, because I did not want the enemy to think that I was running away from them—I consented to this plan, and the more willingly because it was some time since I had visited the western commandos.

It was a long journey that lay before us, and I had only the clothes that I was then wearing. I would have sent for another suit had I not heard that the enemy were encamped close to the cave where our treasures lay hidden.[107]

I had therefore to do the best I could with what I had. There was no clothing to be got in the western districts, so that when my present outfit was worn out, I should be compelled to put on "khaki"—although there was nothing I relished less than to rob a prisoner of war.

We started out that same evening in the direction of the railway line. Our party consisted of about two hundred men, composed as follows: the President, with his bodyguard of thirty men, under Commandant H. Van Niekerk, the Government, Commandant Van de Merwe, of Vredefort, my staff and myself.

Before daybreak we got through the Heilbron-Frankfort line of blockhouses without accident; and on the following night (March 5th) we crossed the railway line, between Wolvehoek and Viljoensdrift. Whilst we were occupied there in cutting the telegraph wires, the enemy fired a few rounds on us, at a distance of five hundred or six hundred paces. We approached nearer, and they then opened fire with a Maxim—but without doing any damage.

We continued on our road, past Parijs and Vredefort, towards Bothaville, and we came upon a blockhouse line which extended from Kroonstad to the Vaal River. We rested for two days, to the north of Bothaville; during this time my scouts captured from the enemy eighteen horses, most of which were in good condition.

On the night of March 12th we broke through the blockhouse line, some five miles to the west of Bothaville. When we were about fifty paces from the line, somebody to our left challenged us:

"Halt! Who goes there?"

He challenged us a second time, and then fired.

At once seven or eight sentries fired upon us. Shots also were directed at us from the right. Nevertheless we cut through the barbed wire and crossed in safety, the firing still continuing, until we were about fifteen hundred paces on the far side of the line. Fortunately no one was hit.

Having thus escaped from the last "White Elephant" that we should have to reckon with, the next obstacle to be encountered was the Vaal River. For the President, since we had crossed the Valsch River, had decided to visit De la Rey, in order to place himself under medical advice. His eyes had become very weak during the last fortnight or so, and he thought that Dr. Van Rennenkampf might be able to do something for them.

Thus we had to cross the Vaal River.

But we heard that there was a military post at Commandodrift, where we wanted to cross, and further, that all the other fords were occupied by the English. We should have been in a great difficulty had not one of our burghers, Pietersen, who knew this district thoroughly, brought us across the river by a footpath ford.

We crossed on March 15th. The current was so strong that in places the horses were almost swimming; in other places the river-bed was strewn with huge boulders, over which our steeds had to climb. However, we all managed to get safely over, and arrived at Witpoort on the evening of the 16th. On the following day we joined General De la Rey.

It was a most interesting occasion. We had a hearty reception, several impromptu "addresses" being presented to the President, who in turn spoke to the burghers with much fire and enthusiasm. They were already in the best of spirits, as they might well be, for their General had but recently won victories over Von Donop and Lord Methuen.

Dr. Van Rennenkampf, having examined the President's eyes, said that he must remain for some time under his care. Accordingly I left President Steyn with De la Rey, and, on the third day after our arrival, set out with my staff to join General Badenhorst, who was then in the neighbourhood of Boshof. It was becoming more and more important that I should see Badenhorst and Nieuwouwdt, and discuss with them how best they might collect their forces, for I wished to be able to attack the first English column that should enter the western district of the State.

I had received reports that, with the exception of the garrison at Boshof, the west, for the moment, was free from the enemy; and this information caused me no surprise, for I could well believe that they had just "packed up their trunks" in the north.

On the 25th of March I joined General Badenhorst on the Gannapan,[108] thirty miles to the north-east of Boshof. I at once sent an express to General Nieuwouwdt, ordering him to come to me with all speed, and to bring about four hundred and fifty of his men with him. Meanwhile, General Badenhorst received instructions from me to get all his scattered commandos together.[109]

Before there had been time for these orders to be carried out I received, on March 28th, a letter from President Steyn, giving me the following information:

Mr. S.W. Burger, Vice-States President of the South African Republic, had written to President Steyn, saying that he was at Kroonstad, and that he wished to meet the Government of the Orange Free State. He also said that a copy of the correspondence between the Governments of the Queen of the Netherlands and of the King of England had been sent to him by Lord Kitchener.

From this correspondence it appeared that the Netherlands Government (considering the condition of affairs to be exceptional, in that the Boers who were still fighting were unable to negotiate either with the British Government or with the Deputation in Europe) felt justified in offering to act as an intermediary. In this capacity they were prepared to ask the Deputation if they were willing—supposing that a safe conduct could be obtained from England—to go to South Africa, and discuss matters with the Boers, in order to be able subsequently to return to Europe, empowered to conclude a Treaty of Peace, which would be binding both in South Africa and in Europe.

Lord Lansdowne, in the name of the British Government, replied that his Government highly appreciated the humane intentions of the Government of the Netherlands, but that they had made up their minds to abide by their former decision, and not to accept any foreign intervention. Further, that the Deputation could, if they wished, address a request for a safe conduct to the British Government, but that the matter could not be decided in England, until the precise nature of the request, and the grounds on which it was preferred, were fully understood.

Lord Lansdowne also said that the British Government was not quite clear as to whether the Deputation still retained any influence over the Boer leaders in South Africa; that they thought that the power to negotiate for the Orange Free State lay with President Steyn, and, for the Transvaal, with President Burger; and that they considered that the most satisfactory arrangement would be for the leaders of the Boers to negotiate directly with the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in South Africa, who had been ordered to transmit at once to the British Government any offers or proposals which might be made to him.

Lord Lansdowne concluded by saying that, if the Boers wished to negotiate, it must be in South Africa, and not in Europe. For, if the Deputation were to go to South Africa, at least three months must elapse before anything could be effected, and, as hostilities must continue during this delay, much suffering would be caused.

Vice-President Burger went on to say that when he received a copy of this correspondence he could only conclude that Lord Kitchener, indirectly at least, if not directly, was asking the Boer leaders to negotiate with him. Accordingly, he wrote to Lord Kitchener for a free pass, and, having obtained it, came with his Government by rail to Kroonstad. He now, accordingly, requested President Steyn to let him know when and where the two Governments could meet. He also intimated that he had written to Lord Kitchener, informing him that he wished—after consulting the Government of the Orange Free State—to make a Peace Proposal.

President Steyn told me that when the Free State Government received this letter from President Burger, they had not been able to see their way to refuse what the latter asked, as the promise of a Peace Proposal had already been sent. They had regretted, however, that the Transvaal Government had made use of a safe conduct, and gone through the English lines—not that they had for one moment distrusted the Government—but simply because the proceeding had seemed to have been ill-advised. Nevertheless the Free State, finding itself not only obliged to discuss the matters in question with the Transvaal, but also, conjointly with the Transvaal, to make a Proposal to Lord Kitchener, had appointed a place of meeting in accordance with the request which had been addressed to it.

This was what I learnt from President Steyn's letter.

On the 5th of April the President received another letter from President Burger, arranging that the meeting should take place at Klerksdorp. A safe conduct for the President and Government of the Orange Free State was sent at the same time.

[Footnote 107: Shortly afterwards I heard that it was Colonel Rimington's column who were encamped there. They discovered the cave, and removed the documents and wearing apparel, leaving me with only a suit of clothes—which I should have liked to preserve as a curiosity!]

[Footnote 108: A salt lake.]

[Footnote 109: Commandant Jacobsz was somewhere not very far from Kimberley; Commandant Bester, close to Brandfort; Commandant Jacobus Theron, near Smaldeel; Commandant Flemming, near Hoopstad; and Commandant Pieter Erasmus, near the Gannapan.]



CHAPTER XXXVI

Peace Negotiations

General De la Rey, who, as a Member of the Transvaal Government, had to be present at the coming deliberations, accompanied the President to Klerksdorp, where they arrived on the 9th of April, and found the Transvaal Government already there awaiting them.

The two Governments held their first meeting in the afternoon of the same day. The South African Republic was represented by:—Vice-States-President S.W. Burger; Commandant-General Louis Botha; Secretary of State F.W. Reitz; General De la Rey; Ex-General L.J. Meijer; and Mr. J.B. Krogh. Although not a member of the Government, the States-Procureur, L. Jacobsz, was also present.

On behalf of the Orange Free State appeared:—States-President M.T. Steyn; Commander-in-Chief C.R. de Wet; Vice-Commander-in-Chief Judge J.B.M. Hertzog; States-Secretary W.J.C. Brebner; and General C.H. Olivier.

It was decided that no minutes should be taken. Accordingly, I am only able to give a summary of the proceedings.

The meeting having been opened with prayer, the Vice-President of the South African Republic said that the fact that Lord Kitchener had sent in a copy of the correspondence between the Governments of the Netherlands and England, was looked upon by himself and his Government as an invitation on the part of England to the two States to discuss the matter dealt with in that correspondence, and to see if peace could not be concluded. Before, however, the meeting could make a proposal, it would be necessary to hear what the state of affairs really was.

Thereupon, firstly, Commandant-General Louis Botha, then I, and lastly, General De la Rey, gave a report of how matters stood.

President Burger now asked whether an interview with Lord Kitchener should be asked for, and (in case Lord Kitchener acceded to this) what we were to demand, and what we should be prepared to sacrifice. He went on to ask President Steyn what he thought of the proposal which the Transvaal had made to the Free State Government in the October of the previous year.

President Steyn answered that he was still of the same opinion as in June, 1901, when the two Governments had agreed to stand by Independence. If the English now refused to grant Independence, then the war must continue. He said that he would rather surrender to the English unconditionally than make terms with them.

The remainder of the day was occupied in listening to speeches from State-Secretary Reitz and President Burger.

On the following day the speakers were:—L.J. Meijer, J.B. Krogh, myself, State-Secretary Reitz, and Judge Hertzog. The last-named made a proposal, which was seconded by General C.H. Olivier. This proposal, after it had been subjected for revision to a Commission, consisting of the two Presidents, Mr. Reitz, and Judge Hertzog, was accepted on the following day. It ran as follows:—