The Public At Home Chafed At This Sudden And Unexpected
Turn Of Affairs; But The General, Constant To His Own
Fixed
purpose, did not permit his strength to be wasted, and his cavalry
to be again disorganised, by flying excursions,
But waited grimly
until he should be strong enough to strike straight at Pretoria.
In this short period of depression there came one gleam of light
from the west. This was the capture of a commando of sixty Boers,
or rather of sixty foreigners fighting for the Boers, and the death
of the gallant Frenchman, De Villebois-Mareuil, who appears to have
had the ambition of playing Lafayette in South Africa to Kruger's
Washington. From the time that Kimberley had been reoccupied the
British had been accumulating their force there so as to make a
strong movement which should coincide with that of Roberts from
Bloemfontein. Hunter's Division from Natal was being moved round to
Kimberley, and Methuen already commanded a considerable body of
troops, which included a number of the newly arrived Imperial
Yeomanry. With these Methuen pacified the surrounding country, and
extended his outposts to Barkly West on the one side, to Boshof on
the other, and to Warrenton upon the Vaal River in the centre. On
April 4th news reached Boshof that a Boer commando had been seen
some ten miles to the east of the town, and a force, consisting of
Yeomanry, Kimberley Light Horse, and half of Butcher's veteran 4th
battery, was sent to attack them. They were found to have taken up
their position upon a kopje which, contrary to all Boer custom, had
no other kopjes to support it. French generalship was certainly not
so astute as Boer cunning. The kopje was instantly surrounded, and
the small force upon the summit being without artillery in the face
of our guns found itself in exactly the same position which our men
had been in twenty-four hours before at Reddersberg. Again was
shown the advantage which the mounted rifleman has over the
cavalry, for the Yeomanry and Light Horsemen left their horses and
ascended the hill with the bayonet. In three hours all was over and
the Boers had laid down their arms. Villebois was shot with seven
of his companions, and there were nearly sixty prisoners. It speaks
well for the skirmishing of the Yeomanry and the way in which they
were handled by Lord Chesham that though they worked their way up
the hill under fire they only lost four killed and a few wounded.
The affair was a small one, but it was complete, and it came at a
time when a success was very welcome. One bustling week had seen
the expensive victory of Karee, the disasters of Sanna's Post and
Reddersberg, and the successful skirmish of Boshof. Another chapter
must be devoted to the movement towards the south of the Boer
forces and the dispositions which Lord Roberts made to meet it.
CHAPTER 23.
THE CLEARING OF THE SOUTH-EAST.
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