At
Bloemfontein Were Kelly-Kenny's Division (The 6th) And Chermside's
(The 3rd), With A Force Of Cavalry And Guns.
Methuen, working from
Kimberley towards Boshof, formed the extreme left wing of the main
advance, though distant a hundred miles from it.
With excellent
judgment Lord Roberts saw that it was on our right flank that
danger was to be feared, and here it was that every precaution had
been taken to meet it.
The objective of the first day's march was the little town of
Brandfort, ten miles north of Karee. The head of the main column
faced it, while the left arm swept round and drove the Boer force
from their position. Tucker's Division upon the right encountered
some opposition, but overbore it with artillery. May 4th was a day
of rest for the infantry, but on the 5th they advanced, in the same
order as before, for twenty miles, and found themselves to the
south of the Vet River, where the enemy had prepared for an
energetic resistance. A vigorous artillery duel ensued, the British
guns in the open as usual against an invisible enemy. After three
hours of a very hot fire the mounted infantry got across the river
upon the left and turned the Boer flank, on which they hastily
withdrew. The first lodgment was effected by two bodies of
Canadians and New Zealanders, who were energetically supported by
Captain Anley's 3rd Mounted Infantry. The rushing of a kopje by
twenty-three West Australians was another gallant incident which
marked this engagement, in which our losses were insignificant. A
maxim and twenty or thirty prisoners were taken by Hutton's men.
The next day (May 6th) the army moved across the difficult drift of
the Vet River, and halted that night at Smaldeel, some five miles
to the north of it. At the same time Ian Hamilton had been able to
advance to Winburg, so that the army had contracted its front by
about half, but had preserved its relative positions. Hamilton,
after his junction with his reinforcements at Jacobsrust, had under
him so powerful a force that he overbore all resistance. His
actions between Thabanchu and Winburg had cost the Boers heavy
loss, and in one action the German legion had been overthrown. The
informal warfare which was made upon us by citizens of many nations
without rebuke from their own Governments is a matter of which
pride, and possibly policy, have forbidden us to complain, but it
will be surprising if it does not prove that their laxity has
established a very dangerous precedent, and they will find it
difficult to object when, in the next little war in which either
France or Germany is engaged, they find a few hundred British
adventurers carrying a rifle against them.
The record of the army's advance is now rather geographical than
military, for it rolled northwards with never a check save that
which was caused by the construction of the railway diversions
which atoned for the destruction of the larger bridges.
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