On The 18th
Rundle Captured A Gun At Bronkhorstfontein.
Hart at Potchefstroom,
Hildyard in the Utrecht district, Macdonald in the Orange River
Colony, everywhere the British Generals were busily stamping out
the remaining embers of what had been so terrible a conflagration.
Much trouble but no great damage was inflicted upon the British
during this last stage of the war by the incessant attacks upon the
lines of railway by roving bands of Boers. The actual interruption
of traffic was of little consequence, for the assiduous Sappers
with their gangs of Basuto labourers were always at hand to repair
the break. But the loss of stores, and occasionally of lives, was
more serious. Hardly a day passed that the stokers and drivers were
not made targets of by snipers among the kopjes, and occasionally a
train was entirely destroyed. [Footnote: It is to be earnestly
hoped that those in authority will see that these men obtain the
medal and any other reward which can mark our sense of their
faithful service. One of them in the Orange River Colony, after
narrating to me his many hairbreadth escapes, prophesied bitterly
that the memory of his services would pass with the need for them.]
Chief among these raiders was the wild Theron, who led a band which
contained men of all nations - the same gang who had already, as
narrated, held up a train in the Orange River Colony. On August
31st he derailed another at Flip River to the south of
Johannesburg, blowing up the engine and burning thirteen trucks.
Almost at the same time a train was captured near Kroonstad, which
appeared to indicate that the great De Wet was back in his old
hunting-grounds. On the same day the line was cut at Standerton. A
few days later, however, the impunity with which these feats had
been performed was broken, for in a similar venture near
Krugersdorp the dashing Theron and several of his associates lost
their lives.
Two other small actions performed at this period of the war demand
a passing notice. One was a smart engagement near Kraai Railway
Station, in which Major Broke of the Sappers with a hundred men
attacked a superior Boer force upon a kopje and drove them off with
loss - a feat which it is safe to say he could not have accomplished
six months earlier. The other was the fine defence made by 125 of
the Canadian Mounted Rifles, who, while guarding the railway, were
attacked by a considerable Boer force with two guns. They proved
once more, as Ladybrand and Elands River had shown, that with
provisions, cartridges, and brains, the smallest force can
successfully hold its own if it confines itself to the defensive.
And now the Boer cause appeared to be visibly tottering to its
fall. The flight of the President had accelerated that process of
disintegration which had already set in. Schalk Burger had assumed
the office of Vice-President, and the notorious Ben Viljoen had
become first lieutenant of Louis Botha in maintaining the struggle.
Lord Roberts had issued an extremely judicious proclamation, in
which he pointed out the uselessness of further resistance,
declared that guerilla warfare would be ruthlessly suppressed, and
informed the burghers that no fewer than fifteen thousand of their
fellow-countrymen were in his hands as prisoners, and that none of
these could he released until the last rifle had been laid down.
From all sides in the third week of September the British forces
were converging on Komatipoort, the frontier town. Already wild
figures, stained and tattered after nearly a year of warfare, were
walking the streets of Lourenco Marques, gazed at with wonder and
some distrust by the Portuguese inhabitants. The exiled burghers
moodily pacing the streets saw their exiled President seated in his
corner of the Governor's verandah, the well-known curved pipe still
dangling from his mouth, the Bible by his chair. Day by day the
number of these refugees increased. On September 17th special
trains were arriving crammed with the homeless burghers, and with
the mercenaries of many nations - French, German, Irish-American,
and Russian - all anxious to make their way home. By the 19th no
fewer than seven hundred had passed over.
At dawn on September 22nd a half-hearted attempt was made by the
commando of Erasmus to attack Elands River Station, but it was
beaten back by the garrison. While it was going on Paget fell upon
the camp which Erasmus had left behind him, and captured his
stores. From all over the country, from Plumer's Bushmen, from
Barton at Krugersdorp, from the Colonials at Heilbron, from
Clements on the west, came the same reports of dwindling resistance
and of the abandoning of cattle, arms, and ammunition.
On September 24th came the last chapter in this phase of the
campaign in the Eastern Transvaal, when at eight in the morning
Pole-Carew and his Guardsmen occupied Komatipoort. They had made
desperate marches, one of them through thick bush, where they went
for nineteen miles without water, but nothing could shake the
cheery gallantry of the men. To them fell the honour, an honour
well deserved by their splendid work throughout the whole campaign,
of entering and occupying the ultimate eastern point which the
Boers could hold. Resistance had been threatened and prepared for,
but the grim silent advance of that veteran infantry took the heart
out of the defence. With hardly a shot fired the town was occupied.
The bridge which would enable the troops to receive their supplies
from Lourenco Marques was still intact. General Pienaar and the
greater part of his force, amounting to over two thousand men, had
crossed the frontier and had been taken down to Delagoa Bay, where
they met the respect and attention which brave men in misfortune
deserve. Small bands had slipped away to the north and the south,
but they were insignificant in numbers and depressed in spirit. For
the time it seemed that the campaign was over, but the result
showed that there was greater vitality in the resistance of the
burghers and less validity in their oaths than any one had
imagined.
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