For This Reason Lord Kitchener Had Called For The
Considerable Reinforcements Which Have Been Already Mentioned, But
On The Other Hand He Was Forced To Lose Many Thousands Of His
Veteran Yeomanry, Australians, And Canadians, Whose Term Of Service
Was At An End.
The volunteer companies of the infantry returned
also to England, and so did nine militia battalions, whose place
was taken however by an equal number of new-comers.
The British position was very much strengthened during the winter
by the adoption of the block-house system. These were small square
or hexagonal buildings, made of stone up to nine feet with
corrugated iron above it. They were loopholed for musketry fire and
held from six to thirty men. These little forts were dotted along
the railways at points not more than 2000 yards apart, and when
supplemented by a system of armoured trains they made it no easy
matter for the Boers to tamper with or to cross the lines. So
effective did these prove that their use was extended to the more
dangerous portions of the country, and lines were pushed through
the Magaliesberg district to form a chain of posts between
Krugersdorp and Rustenburg. In the Orange River Colony and on the
northern lines of the Cape Colony the same system was extensively
applied. I will now attempt to describe the more important
operations of the winter, beginning with the incursion of Plumer
into the untrodden ground to the north.
At this period of the war the British forces had overrun, if they
had not subdued, the whole of the Orange River Colony and every
part of the Transvaal which is south of the
Mafeking-Pretoria-Komati line. Through this great tract of country
there was not a village and hardly a farmhouse which had not seen
the invaders. But in the north there remained a vast district, two
hundred miles long and three hundred broad, which had hardly been
touched by the war. It is a wild country, scrub-covered,
antelope-haunted plains rising into desolate hills, but there are
many kloofs and valleys with rich water meadows and lush grazings,
which formed natural granaries and depots for the enemy. Here the
Boer government continued to exist, and here, screened by their
mountains, they were able to organise the continuation of the
struggle. It was evident that there could be no end to the war
until these last centres of resistance had been broken up.
The British forces had advanced as far north as Rustenburg in the
west, Pienaar in the centre, and Lydenburg in the east, but here
they had halted, unwilling to go farther until their conquests had
been made good behind them. A General might well pause before
plunging his troops into that vast and rugged district, when an
active foe and an exposed line of communication lay for many
hundreds of miles to the south of them. But Lord Kitchener with
characteristic patience waited for the right hour to come, and then
with equally characteristic audacity played swiftly and boldly for
his stake. De Wet, impotent for the moment, had been hunted back
over the Orange River. French had harried the burghers in the
South-east Transvaal, and the main force of the enemy was known to
be on that side of the seat of war. The north was exposed, and with
one long, straight lunge to the heart, Pietersburg might be
transfixed.
There could only be one direction for the advance, and that must be
along the Pretoria to Pietersburg railroad. This is the only line
of rails which leads to the north, and as it was known to be in
working order (the Boers were running a bi-weekly service from
Pietersburg to Warm Baths), it was hoped that a swift advance might
seize it before any extensive damage could be done. With this
object a small but very mobile force rapidly assembled at the end
of March at Pienaar River, which was the British rail-head forty
miles north of Pretoria and a hundred and thirty from Pietersburg.
This column consisted of the Bushveld Carbineers, the 4th Imperial
Bushmen's Corps, and the 6th New Zealand contingent. With them were
the 18th battery R.F.A., and three pom-poms. A detachment of the
invaluable mounted Sappers rode with the force, and two infantry
regiments, the 2nd Gordons and the Northamptons, were detached to
garrison the more vulnerable places upon the line of advance.
Upon March 29th the untiring Plumer, called off from the chase of
De Wet, was loosed upon this fresh line, and broke swiftly away to
the north. The complete success of his undertaking has obscured our
estimate of its danger, but it was no light task to advance so
great a distance into a bitterly hostile country with a fighting
force of 2000 rifles. As an enterprise it was in many ways not
unlike Mahon's dash on Mafeking, but without any friendly force
with which to join hands at the end. However from the beginning all
went well. On the 30th the force had reached Warm Baths, where a
great isolated hotel already marks the site of what will be a rich
and fashionable spa. On April 1st the Australian scouts rode into
Nylstroom, fifty more miles upon their way. There had been
sufficient sniping to enliven the journey, but nothing which could
be called an action. Gleaning up prisoners and refugees as they
went, with the railway engineers working like bees behind them, the
force still swept unchecked upon its way. On April 5th Piet
Potgietersrust was entered, another fifty-mile stage, and on the
morning of the 8th the British vanguard rode into Pietersburg.
Kitchener's judgment and Plumer's energy had met with their reward.
The Boer commando had evacuated the town and no serious opposition
was made to the British entry. The most effective resistance came
from a single schoolmaster, who, in a moment of irrational frenzy
or of patriotic exaltation, shot down three of the invaders before
he met his own death.
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