Their First Engagement, That Of
Sanna's Post, Was A Great And Deserved Success.
Three days later
they secured the five companies at Reddersberg.
Warned in time, the
other small British bodies closed in upon their supports, and the
railway line, that nourishing artery which was necessary for the
very existence of the army, was held too strongly for attack. The
Bethulie Bridge was a particularly important point; but though the
Boers approached it, and even went the length of announcing
officially that they had destroyed it, it was not actually
attacked. At Wepener, however, on the Basutoland border, they found
an isolated force, and proceeded at once, according to their
custom, to hem it in and to bombard it, until one of their three
great allies, want of food, want of water, or want of cartridges,
should compel a surrender.
On this occasion, however, the Boers had undertaken a task which
was beyond their strength. The troops at Wepener were one thousand
seven hundred in number, and formidable in quality. The place had
been occupied by part of Brabant's Colonial division, consisting of
hardy irregulars, men of the stuff of the defenders of Mafeking.
Such men are too shrewd to be herded into an untenable position and
too valiant to surrender a tenable one. The force was commanded by
a dashing soldier, Colonel Dalgety, of the Cape Mounted Rifles, as
tough a fighter as his famous namesake. There were with him nearly
a thousand men of Brabant's Horse, four hundred of the Cape Mounted
Rifles, four hundred Kaffrarian Horse, with some scouts, and one
hundred regulars, including twenty invaluable Sappers.
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