It Must Be Confessed That
There Seems Some Irony In The Fact That, Within Five Days Of The
British Ruling By Which The Boers Were No Longer A Military Force,
These Non-Belligerents Had Inflicted A Loss Of Nearly Six Hundred
Men Killed, Wounded, Or Taken.
Two small commandos, that of Koch in
the Orange River Colony, and that of Carolina, had been captured by
Williams and Benson.
Combined they only numbered a hundred and nine
men, but here, as always, they were men who could never be
replaced.
Those who had followed the war with care, and had speculated upon
the future, were prepared on hearing of Botha's movement upon Natal
to learn that De la Rey had also made some energetic attack in the
western quarter of the Transvaal. Those who had formed this
expectation were not disappointed, for upon the last day of
September the Boer chief struck fiercely at Kekewich's column in a
vigorous night attack, which led to as stern an encounter as any in
the campaign. This was the action at Moedwill, near Magato Nek, in
the Magaliesberg.
When last mentioned De la Rey was in the Marico district, near
Zeerust, where he fought two actions with Methuen in the early part
of September. Thence he made his way to Rustenburg and into the
Magaliesberg country, where he joined Kemp. The Boer force was
followed up by two British columns under Kekewich and
Fetherstonhaugh. The former commander had camped upon the night of
Sunday, September 30th, at the farm of Moedwill, in a strong
position within a triangle formed by the Selous River on the west,
a donga on the east, and the Zeerust-Rustenburg road as a base.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 770 of 842
Words from 206083 to 206367
of 225456
