On July 27th A
Small Party Of Twenty-One Imperial Yeomanry Was Captured, After A
Gallant Resistance, By A Large Force Of Boers At The Doorn River On
The Other Side Of The Colony.
The Kaffir scouts of the British were
shot dead in cold blood by their captors after the action.
There
seems to be no possible excuse for the repeated murders of coloured
men by the Boers, as they had themselves from the beginning of the
war used their Kaffirs for every purpose short of actually
fighting. The war had lost much of the good humour which marked its
outset. A fiercer feeling had been engendered on both sides by the
long strain, but the execution of rebels by the British, though
much to be deplored, is still recognised as one of the rights of a
belligerent. When one remembers the condonation upon the part of
the British of the use of their own uniforms by the Boers, of the
wholesale breaking of paroles, of the continual use of expansive
bullets, of the abuse of the pass system and of the red cross, it
is impossible to blame them for showing some severity in the
stamping out of armed rebellion within their own Colony. If stern
measures were eventually adopted it was only after extreme leniency
had been tried and failed. The loss of five years' franchise as a
penalty for firing upon their own flag is surely the most gentle
correction which an Empire ever laid upon a rebellious people.
At the beginning of August the connected systematic work of
French's columns began to tell. In a huge semicircle the British
were pushing north, driving the guerillas in front of them.
Scheepers in his usual wayward fashion had broken away to the
south, but the others had been unable to penetrate the cordon and
were herded over the Stormberg to Naauwport line. The main body of
the Boers was hustled swiftly along from August 7th to August 10th,
from Graaf-Reinet to Thebus, and thrust over the railway line at
that point with some loss of men and a great shedding of horses. It
was hoped that the blockhouses on the railroad would have held the
enemy, but they slipped across by night and got into the Steynsburg
district, where Gorringe's colonials took up the running. On August
18th he followed the commandos from Steynsburg to Venterstad,
killing twenty of them and taking several prisoners. On the 15th,
Kritzinger with the main body of the invaders passed the Orange
River near Bethulie, and made his way to the Wepener district of
the Orange River Colony. Scheepers, Lotter, Lategan, and a few
small wandering bands were the only Boers left in the Colony, and
to these the British columns now turned their attention, with the
result that Lategan, towards the end of the month, was also driven
over the river. For the time, at least, the situation seemed to
have very much improved, but there was a drift of Boers over the
north-western frontier, and the long-continued warfare at their own
doors was undoubtedly having a dangerous effect upon the Dutch
farmers. Small successes from time to time, such as the taking of
sixty of French's Scouts by Theron's commando on August 10th,
served to keep them from despair. Of the guerilla bands which
remained, the most important was that of Scheepers, which now
numbered 300 men, well mounted and supplied. He had broken back
through the cordon, and made for his old haunts in the south-west.
Theron, with a smaller band, was also in the Uniondale and
Willowmore district, approaching close to the sea in the Mossel Bay
direction, but being headed off by Kavanagh. Scheepers turned in
the direction of Cape Town, but swerved aside at Montagu, and moved
northwards towards Touws River.
So far the British had succeeded in driving and injuring, but never
in destroying, the Boer bands. It was a new departure therefore
when, upon September 4th, the commando of Lotter was entirely
destroyed by the column of Scobell. This column consisted of some
of the Cape Mounted Rifles and of the indefatigable 9th Lancers. It
marked the enemy down in a valley to the west of Cradock and
attacked them in the morning, after having secured all the
approaches. The result was a complete success. The Boers threw
themselves into a building and held out valiantly, but their
position was impossible, and after enduring considerable punishment
they were forced to hoist the white flag. Eleven had been killed,
forty-six wounded, and fifty-six surrendered - figures which are in
themselves a proof of the tenacity of their defence. Lotter was
among the prisoners, 260 horses were taken, and a good supply of
ammunition, with some dynamite. A few days later, on September
10th, a similar blow, less final in its character, was dealt by
Colonel Crabbe to the commando of Van der Merve, which was an
offshoot of that of Scheepers. The action was fought near
Laingsburg, which is on the main line, just north of Matjesfontein,
and it ended in the scattering of the Boer band, the death of their
boy leader (he was only eighteen years of age), and the capture of
thirty-seven prisoners. Seventy of the Beers escaped by a hidden
road. To Colonials and Yeomanry belongs the honour of the action,
which cost the British force seven casualties. Colonel Crabbe
pushed on after the success, and on September 14th he was in touch
with Scheepers's commando near Ladismith (not to be confused with
the historical town of Natal), and endured and inflicted some
losses. On the 17th a patrol of Grenadier Guards was captured in
the north of the Colony, Rebow, the young lieutenant in charge of
them, meeting with a soldier's death.
On the same day a more serious engagement occurred near Tarkastad,
a place which lies to the east of Cradock, a notorious centre of
disaffection in the midland district. Smuts's commando, some
hundreds strong, was marked down in this part, and several forces
converged upon it.
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