Having Joined Hands With
Fetherstonhaugh, He Moved Through The South-West And Finally Halted
At Klerksdorp.
The harried Boers moved a hundred miles north to
Rustenburg, followed by Methuen, Fetherstonhaugh, Hamilton,
Kekewich, and Allenby, who
Found the commandos of De la Rey and
Kemp to be scattering in front of them and hiding in the kloofs and
dongas, whence in the early days of September no less than two
hundred were extracted. On September 6th and 8th Methuen engaged
the main body of De la Rey in the valley of the Great Marico River
which lies to the north-west of Rustenburg. In these two actions he
pushed the Boers in front of him with a loss of eighteen killed and
forty-one prisoners, but the fighting was severe, and fifteen of
his men were killed and thirty wounded before the position had been
carried. The losses were almost entirely among the newly raised
Yeomanry, who had already shown on several occasions that, having
shed their weaker members and had some experience of the field,
they were now worthy to take their place beside their veteran
comrades.
The only other important operation undertaken by the British
columns in the Transvaal during this period was in the north, where
Beyers and his men were still harried by Grenfell, Colenbrander,
and Wilson. A considerable proportion of the prisoners which
figured in the weekly lists came from this quarter. On May 30th
there was a notable action, the truth of which was much debated but
finally established, in which Kitchener's Scouts under Wilson
surprised and defeated a Boer force under Pretorius, killing and
wounding several, and taking forty prisoners. On July 1st Grenfell
took nearly a hundred of Beyers' men with a considerable convoy.
North, south, east, and west the tale was ever the same, but so
long as Botha, De la Rey, Steyn, and De Wet remained uncaptured,
the embers might still at any instant leap into a flame.
It only remains to complete this synopsis of the movements of
columns within the Transvaal that I should add that after the
conclusion of Blood's movement in July, several of his columns
continued to clear the country and to harass Viljoen in the
Lydenburg and Dulstroom districts. Park, Kitchener, Spens, Beatson,
and Benson were all busy at this work, never succeeding in forcing
more than a skirmish, but continually whittling away wagons,
horses, and men from that nucleus of resistance which the Boer
leaders still held together.
Though much hampered by the want of forage for their horses, the
Boers were ever watchful for an opportunity to strike back, and the
long list of minor successes gained by the British was occasionally
interrupted by a petty reverse. Such a one befell the small body of
South African Constabulary stationed near Vereeniging, who
encountered upon July 13th a strong force of Boers supposed to be
the main commando of De Wet. The Constabulary behaved with great
gallantry but were hopelessly outnumbered, and lost their
seven-pounder gun, four killed, six wounded, and twenty-four
prisoners. Another small reverse occurred at a far distant point of
the seat of war, for the irregular corps known as Steinacker's
Horse was driven from its position at Bremersdorp in Swaziland upon
July 24th, and had to fall back sixteen miles, with a loss of ten
casualties and thirty prisoners. Thus in the heart of a native
state the two great white races of South Africa were to be seen
locked in a desperate conflict. However unavoidable, the sight was
certainly one to be deplored.
To the Boer credit, or discredit, are also to be placed those
repeated train wreckings, which cost the British during this
campaign the lives and limbs of many brave soldiers who were worthy
of some less ignoble fate. It is true that the laws of war sanction
such enterprises, but there is something indiscriminate in the
results which is repellent to humanity, and which appears to
justify the most energetic measures to prevent them. Women,
children, and sick must all travel by these trains and are exposed
to a common danger, while the assailants enjoy a safety which
renders their exploit a peculiarly inglorious one. Two Boers,
Trichardt and Hindon, the one a youth of twenty-two, the other a
man of British birth, distinguished, or disgraced, themselves by
this unsavoury work upon the Delagoa line, but with the extension
of the blockhouse system the attempts became less successful. There
was one, however, upon the northern line near Naboomspruit which
cost the lives of Lieutenant Best and eight Gordon Highlanders,
while ten were wounded. The party of Gordons continued to resist
after the smash, and were killed or wounded to a man. The painful
incident is brightened by such an example of military virtue, and
by the naive reply of the last survivor, who on being questioned
why he continued to fight until he was shot down, answered with
fine simplicity, 'Because I am a Gordon Highlander.'
Another train disaster of an even more tragic character occurred
near Waterval, fifteen miles north of Pretoria, upon the last day
of August. The explosion of a mine wrecked the train, and a hundred
Boers who lined the banks of the cutting opened fire upon the
derailed carriages. Colonel Vandeleur, an officer of great promise,
was killed and twenty men, chiefly of the West Riding regiment,
were shot. Nurse Page was also among the wounded. It was after this
fatal affair that the regulation of carrying Boer hostages upon the
trains was at last carried out.
It has been already stated that part of Lord Kitchener's policy of
concentration lay in his scheme for gathering the civil population
into camps along the lines of communication. The reasons for this,
both military and humanitarian, were overwhelming. Experience had
proved that the men if left at liberty were liable to be persuaded
or coerced by the fighting Boers into breaking their parole and
rejoining the commandos. As to the women and children, they could
not be left upon the farms in a denuded country.
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