Meeting
With A Stout Resistance, And Learning That British Forces Were
Already Converging Upon Them, They Abandoned The Attack, And
Turning Away From Colesberg They Headed West, Cutting The Railway
Line Twenty Miles To The North Of De Aar.
On the 22nd they occupied
Britstown, which is eighty miles inside the border, and on the same
day they captured a small body of yeomanry who had been following
them.
These prisoners were released again some days later. Taking a
sweep round towards Prieska and Strydenburg, they pushed south
again. At the end of the year Hertzog's column was 150 miles deep
in the Colony, sweeping through the barren and thinly-inhabited
western lands, heading apparently for Fraserburg and Beaufort West.
The second column was commanded by Kritzinger, a burgher of
Zastron, in the Orange River Colony. His force was about 800
strong. Crossing the border at Rhenoster Hoek upon December 16th,
they pushed for Burghersdorp, but were headed off by a British
column. Passing through Venterstad, they made for Steynsberg,
fighting two indecisive skirmishes with small British forces. The
end of the year saw them crossing the rail road at Sherburne, north
of Rosmead Junction, where they captured a train as they passed,
containing some Colonial troops. At this time they were a hundred
miles inside the Colony, and nearly three hundred from Hertzog's
western column.
In the meantime Lord Kitchener, who had descended for a few days to
De Aar, had shown great energy in organising small mobile columns
which should follow and, if possible, destroy the invaders. Martial
law was proclaimed in the parts of the Colony affected, and as the
invaders came further south the utmost enthusiasm was shown by the
loyalists, who formed themselves everywhere into town guards. The
existing Colonial regiments, such as Brabant's, the Imperial and
South African Light Horse - Thorneycroft's, Rimington's, and the
others - had already been brought up to strength again, and now two
new regiments were added, Kitchener's Bodyguard and Kitchener's
Fighting Scouts, the latter being raised by Johann Colenbrander,
who had made a name for himself in the Rhodesian wars. At this
period of the war between twenty and thirty thousand Cape colonists
were under arms. Many of these were untrained levies, but they
possessed the martial spirit of the race, and they set free more
seasoned troops for other duties.
It will be most convenient and least obscure to follow the
movements of the western force (Hertzog's), and afterwards to
consider those of the eastern (Kritzinger's). The opening of the
year saw the mobile column of Free Staters 150 miles over the
border, pushing swiftly south over the barren surface of the Karoo.
It is a country of scattered farms and scanty population; desolate
plains curving upwards until they rise into still more desolate
mountain ranges. Moving in a very loose formation over a wide
front, the Boers swept southwards. On or about January 4th they
took possession of the small town of Calvinia, which remained their
headquarters for more than a month.
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