The Schools Already Showed A Higher
Attendance Than In The Days Before The War, While A Continual
Stream Of Burghers
Presented themselves to take the oath of
allegiance, and even to join the ranks against their own
irreconcilable countrymen, whom
They looked upon with justice as
the real authors of their troubles.
Towards the end of November there were signs that the word had gone
forth for a fresh concentration of the fighting Boers in their old
haunts in the Heilbron district, and early in December it was known
that the indefatigable De Wet was again in the field. He had
remained quiet so long that there had been persistent rumours of
his injury and even of his death, but he was soon to show that he
was as alive as ever. President Steyn was ill of a most serious
complaint, caused possibly by the mental and physical sufferings
which he had undergone; but with an indomitable resolution which
makes one forget and forgive the fatuous policy which brought him
and his State to such a pass, he still appeared in his Cape cart at
the laager of the faithful remnant of his commandos. To those who
remembered how widespread was our conviction of the
half-heartedness of the Free Staters at the outbreak of the war, it
was indeed a revelation to see them after two years still making a
stand against the forces which had crushed them.
It had been long evident that the present British tactics of
scouring the country and capturing the isolated burghers must in
time bring the war to a conclusion. From the Boer point of view the
only hope, or at least the only glory, lay in reassembling once
more in larger bodies and trying conclusions with some of the
British columns. It was with this purpose that De Wet early in
December assembled Wessels, Manie Botha, and others of his
lieutenants, together with a force of about two thousand men, in
the Heilbron district. Small as this force was, it was admirably
mobile, and every man in it was a veteran, toughened and seasoned
by two years of constant fighting. De Wet's first operations were
directed against an isolated column of Colonel Wilson's, which was
surrounded within twenty miles of Heilbron. Rimington, in response
to a heliographic call for assistance, hurried with admirable
promptitude to the scene of action, and joined hands with Wilson.
De Wet's men were as numerous, however, as the two columns
combined, and they harassed the return march into Heilbron. A
determined attack was made on the convoy and on the rearguard, but
it was beaten off. That night Rimington's camp was fired into by a
large body of Boers, but he had cleverly moved his men away from
the fires, so that no harm was done. The losses in these operations
were small, but with troops which had not been trained in this
method of fighting the situation would have been a serious one. For
a fortnight or more after this the burghers contented themselves by
skirmishing with British columns and avoiding a drive which
Elliot's forces made against them. On December 18th they took the
offensive, however, and within a week fought three actions, two of
which ended in their favour.
News had come to British headquarters that Kaffir's Kop, to the
north-west of Bethlehem, was a centre of Boer activity. Three
columns were therefore turned in that direction, Elliot's,
Barker's, and Dartnell's. Some desultory skirmishing ensued, which
was only remarkable for the death of Haasbroek, a well-known Boer
leader. As the columns separated again, unable to find an
objective, De Wet suddenly showed one of them that their failure
was not due to his absence. Dartnell had retraced his steps nearly
as far as Eland's River Bridge, when the Boer leader sprang out of
his lair in the Langberg and threw himself upon him. The burghers
attempted to ride in, as they had successfully done at
Brakenlaagte, but they were opposed by the steady old troopers of
the two regiments of Imperial Horse, and by a General who was
familiar with every Boer ruse. The horsemen never got nearer than
150 yards to the British line, and were beaten back by the steady
fire which met them. Finding that he made no headway, and learning
that Campbell's column was coming up from Bethlehem, De Wet
withdrew his men after four hours' fighting. Fifteen were hit upon
the British side, and the Boer loss seems to have been certainly as
great or greater.
De Wet's general aim in his operations seems to have been to check
the British blockhouse building. With his main force in the
Langberg he could threaten the line which was now being erected
between Bethlehem and Harrismith, a line against which his main
commando was destined, only two months later, to beat itself in
vain. Sixty miles to the north a second line was being run across
country from Frankfort to Standerton, and had reached a place
called Tafelkop. A covering party of East Lancashires and Yeomanry
watched over the workers, but De Wet had left a portion of his
force in that neighbourhood, and they harassed the blockhouse
builders to such an extent that General Hamilton, who was in
command, found it necessary to send in to Frankfort for support.
The British columns there had just returned exhausted from a drive,
but three bodies under Damant, Rimington, and Wilson were at once
despatched to clear away the enemy.
The weather was so atrocious that the veld resembled an inland sea,
with the kopjes as islands rising out of it. By this stage of the
war the troops were hardened to all weathers, and they pushed
swiftly on to the scene of action. As they approached the spot
where the Boers had been reported, the line had been extended over
many miles, with the result that it had become very attenuated and
dangerously weak in the centre. At this point Colonel Damant and
his small staff were alone with the two guns and the maxim, save
for a handful of Imperial Yeomanry (91st), who acted as escort to
the guns.
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