The Fighting Fell Principally
Upon Pole-Carew And Hutton, The Corps Chiefly Engaged Being The
Royal Irish Fusiliers, The New Zealanders, The Shropshires, And The
Canadian Mounted Infantry.
The enemy tried repeatedly to assault
the position, but were beaten back each time with a loss of nearly
a hundred killed and wounded.
The British loss was about sixty, and
included two gallant young Canadian officers, Borden and Birch, the
former being the only son of the minister of militia. So ended the
last attempt made by Botha upon the British positions round
Pretoria. The end of the war was not yet, but already its futility
was abundantly evident. This had become more apparent since the
junction of Hamilton and of Buller had cut off the Transvaal army
from that of the Free State. Unable to send their prisoners away,
and also unable to feed them, the Freestaters were compelled to
deliver up in Natal the prisoners whom they had taken at Lindley
and Roodeval. These men, a ragged and starving battalion, emerged
at Ladysmith, having made their way through Van Reenen's Pass. It
is a singular fact that no parole appears on these and similar
occasions to have been exacted by the Boers.
Lord Roberts, having remounted a large part of his cavalry, was
ready now to advance eastward and give Botha battle. The first town
of any consequence along the Delagoa Railway is Middelburg, some
seventy miles from the capital. This became the British objective,
and the forces of Mahon and Hamilton on the north, of Pole-Carew in
the centre, and of French and Hutton to the south, all converged
upon it.
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