Having Reached The River Which Marked
The Line Which He Was To Hold, Plumer, Upon April 17th, Spread His
Force Over Many Miles, So As To Block The Principal Drifts.
The
flashes of his helio were answered by flash after flash from many
points upon the southern horizon.
What these other forces were, and
whence they came, must now be made clear to the reader.
General Bindon Blood, a successful soldier, had confirmed in the
Transvaal a reputation which he had won on the northern frontier of
India. He and General Elliot were two of the late comers who had
been spared from the great Eastern dependency to take the places of
some of those Generals who had returned to England for a
well-earned rest. He had distinguished himself by his systematic
and effective guardianship of the Delagoa railway line, and he was
now selected for the supreme control of the columns which were to
advance from the south and sweep the Roos-Senekal district. There
were seven of them, which were arranged as follows:
Two columns started from Middelburg under Beatson and Benson, which
might be called the left wings of the movement. The object of
Beatson's column was to hold the drifts of the Crocodile River,
while Benson's was to seize the neighbouring hills called the
Bothasberg. This it was hoped would pin the Boers from the west,
while Kitchener from Lydenburg advanced from the east in three
separate columns. Pulteney and Douglas would move up from Belfast
in the centre, with Dulstoom for their objective.
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