As An Enterprise It Was In Many Ways Not
Unlike Mahon's Dash On Mafeking, But Without Any Friendly Force
With Which To Join Hands At The End.
However from the beginning all
went well.
On the 30th the force had reached Warm Baths, where a
great isolated hotel already marks the site of what will be a rich
and fashionable spa. On April 1st the Australian scouts rode into
Nylstroom, fifty more miles upon their way. There had been
sufficient sniping to enliven the journey, but nothing which could
be called an action. Gleaning up prisoners and refugees as they
went, with the railway engineers working like bees behind them, the
force still swept unchecked upon its way. On April 5th Piet
Potgietersrust was entered, another fifty-mile stage, and on the
morning of the 8th the British vanguard rode into Pietersburg.
Kitchener's judgment and Plumer's energy had met with their reward.
The Boer commando had evacuated the town and no serious opposition
was made to the British entry. The most effective resistance came
from a single schoolmaster, who, in a moment of irrational frenzy
or of patriotic exaltation, shot down three of the invaders before
he met his own death. Some rolling stock, one small gun, and
something under a hundred prisoners were the trophies of the
capture, but the Boer arsenal and the printing press were
destroyed, and the Government sped off in a couple of Cape carts in
search of some new capital. Pietersburg was principally valuable as
a base from which a sweeping movement might be made from the north
at the same moment as one from the south-east.
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