With Nothing To Gain And Everything To Lose, The Part
Played By The Orange Free State In This South African Drama Is One
Of The Most Inconceivable Things In History.
Never has a nation so
deliberately and so causelessly committed suicide.
CHAPTER 33.
THE NORTHERN OPERATIONS FROM JANUARY TO APRIL, 1901.
Three consecutive chapters have now given some account of the
campaign of De Wet, of the operations in the Transvaal up to the
end of the year 1900, and of the invasion of Cape Colony up to
April 1901. The present chapter will deal with the events in the
Transvaal from the beginning of the new century. The military
operations in that country, though extending over a very large
area, may be roughly divided into two categories: the attacks by
the Boers upon British posts, and the aggressive sweeping movements
of British columns. Under the first heading come the attacks on
Belfast, on Zuurfontein, on Kaalfontein, on Zeerust, on
Modderfontein, and on Lichtenburg, besides many minor affairs. The
latter comprises the operations of Babington and of Cunningham to
the west and south-west of Pretoria, those of Methuen still further
to the south-west, and the large movement of French in the
south-east. In no direction did the British forces in the field
meet with much active resistance. So long as they moved the gnats
did not settle; it was only when quiet that they buzzed about and
occasionally stung.
The early days of January 1901 were not fortunate for the British
arms, as the check in which Kitchener's Bodyguard was so roughly
handled, near Lindley, was closely followed by a brisk action at
Naauwpoort or Zandfontein, near the Magaliesberg, in which De la
Rey left his mark upon the Imperial Light Horse.
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