CAPE COLONY--PURSUIT OF RAIDERS--MARCH AND APRIL--CHASING KRUITZINGER
While the pursuit of De Wet was going forward, our troops under
General Settle, and subsequently under Colonel Douglas Haig (Colonels
Henniker, Gorringe, Grenfell, Scobell, and Crewe), worked unceasingly
against the Boer raiders who were making themselves obstreperous in
various parts of the Colony. Pearston was occupied by seven hundred of
the enemy with two guns, who captured sixty rifles and 15,000 rounds
of ammunition, in spite of the gallant defence of the tiny garrison.
The invaders, a part of Kruitzinger's commando, were promptly swept
away by Colonel Gorringe, who reoccupied the place on the 5th, and
caused the fugitives to be pursued. Accordingly the commando broke
into three parties and fled eastward over the railway.
About the same time one hundred raiders, under Scheepers, made a
desperate attack upon the village of Aberdeen--an attack which happily
failed owing to the smartness of the garrison. This consisted of a
portion of the 4th Derbyshire Militia, Town Guard, and twenty men of
the 9th Lancers, under Colonel Priestly. The Boers, however, succeeded
in penetrating into the town, and releasing some of their compatriots
who were in gaol. They further tried to loot the stores, but were not
given the opportunity, so promptly did the Town Guard send them to the
right-about. Colonel Parsons arrived on the scene in the afternoon,
followed, the next day, by Colonel Scobell and some Colonials, and
soon, though not without sharp fighting, the kopjes surrounding the
place were purged of the raiders. The sharpshooters of the Imperial
Yeomanry under Major Warden were untiring in the energy of their
pursuit of the enemy from hill to hill, and the detachment of the 6th
Dragoons under Captain Anstice helped in the discomfiture of the foe.
These escaped by means of the thick bush and dongas, which afforded
them timely cover.
It was now necessary to prevent Scheepers and his Boers from entering
Murraysburg. To circumvent him, Colonel Scobell--commanding a force of
Cape Mounted Rifles, Cape Police, Diamond Fields Horse, and Brabant's
Horse, with some guns--marched hot foot at the rate of fifty-nine
miles in less than twenty-five hours. Meanwhile Captain Colenbrander,
commanding the Fighting Scouts, moved promptly from Richmond towards
Murraysburg, located Scheepers' hordes in an adjacent village, and
attacked them. The enemy were repulsed with the loss of five of their
number, while the British party had no casualties.
Kruitzinger's commando, continuing its depredations, seized Carlisle
Bridge with a view to pressing towards Grahamstown, but the activity
of Colonels De Lisle and Gorringe frustrated all effort to get to the
sea. The invaders gave a vast amount of trouble, however, burning
farms and securing horses, and several encounters took place. In one
of these, a few miles from Adelaide, Captain Rennie and some of the
Bedford detachment of the Colonial Defence Corps gave an excellent
account of themselves. The Boers lost one man killed, one taken
prisoner, and three wounded, together with six horses.
The raiders were routed from Maraisburg, which was reoccupied by the
British on the 8th; but in the interval the magistrate had had a
somewhat uncomfortable experience, having been imprisoned in his own
house. The enemy reaped a certain reward of their exertions in the
form of some horses, saddles, and a revolver. They afterwards broke
into small gangs, and were hunted by Colonel Donald's column.
The 15th found Colonels Scobell and Colenbrander's columns still in
pursuit of Scheepers, who, having caused some commotion by burning the
house of a British scout named Meredith, was now hiding in the
mountains around Graf Reinet. Colonel Gorringe at the same time was
dodging about the neighbourhood of Kruitzinger (who had abandoned the
hope of going south, and was now making for Blinkwater) and keeping
him perpetually on the move. Space does not admit of a detailed
account of these continuous activities, but in an engagement on the
15th some smart work was done by Captain Stewart, assisted by Gunner
Sawyer (5th Field Battery). While the guns were being hauled up a
precipitous slope, and most of the gunners were dismounted, they were
assailed by a furious fire from the ambushed foe. With admirable
presence of mind, Sawyer took in the situation, and, with the
assistance of Captain Stewart, unlimbered one of the guns and gave the
Boers a _quid pro quo_. This considerably damped their ardour, and
afforded time for the rest of the guns to come into action. The
position was finally stormed by the Albany defence force under Captain
Currie. In the engagement nine Boers were killed and nine wounded. On
the 17th, after a sharp action, the Boers, abandoning seventy
excellent horses and saddles, besides losing some forty of their
number, were driven across Elands River. Kruitzinger got across the
Elands River in safety, but, while turning an angle of the main road
towards Tarkastad, on the morning of the 18th, he came suddenly in
collision with Colonel de Lisle, who, by night, was marching--a
memorable march in a terrific storm!--from Magermansberg to Tarkastad.
The British force, as surprised at the sudden encounter as that of the
Boers, promptly sprang to action, and succeeded in shelling the
rearguard, while the Mounted Infantry started off in pursuit. From
ridge to ridge went hunted and hunters, the Irish Yeomanry, under
Captain Moore, with Mounted Infantry, under Colonel Knight, doing
splendid work; but at last the wily quarry, through some of the troops
having lost direction, succeeded in getting away through the loophole
of Elands Poort. Kruitzinger, still maintaining a north-easterly
direction, was next traced across the railway at Hemming Station on
the 21st. Scheepers, Fouché, and Malan, who had growing forces, and
had been beaten, with the loss of nine killed and seven wounded, by
Major Mullins on the 15th, were proceeding east from Marais Siding.
Other detached parties gave trouble elsewhere. Some, on the 16th,
attacked at Yeefontein, near Steymburg, a patrol of Prince Alfred's
Guards under Major Court, but left behind them two killed, three
wounded, and three prisoners, while the Guards lost one killed and two
seriously wounded. Fighting was taking place in various other places
daily. On the 20th and 21st Colonel Scobell's force, increased by
Colonel Grenfell's, skirmished in the region north of Jansenville with
excellent effect. Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, under Captain
Colenbrander, Major Mullins, and Colonel Gorringe converged from their
various positions, while the main body made for Blaankrantz. On the
20th, by 9 A.M., a hammer-and-tongs engagement had begun, Captain
Doune's two guns being met by a blizzard from the foe in the
surrounding ridges. The assailants were, however, rapidly silenced and
forced to retire, the British party taking up the vacated position,
and "speeding the parting guest" with a salvo from pom-poms, rifles,
and field-guns. But the enemy could not be entirely netted, for in
ones and twos they squeezed through the bushes and made their escape.
Four, however, were left on the veldt, and four were taken prisoners,
while about one hundred sound horses came in handy at a time when they
were much in demand. The British force lost three killed and four
wounded.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL SIR H. H. SETTLE.
Photo Elliott & Fry, London.]
Kruitzinger at this time was being gradually pressed towards the
Orange River (which was known to be unfordable) by Colonel de Lisle's
column, which formed part of a cordon, composed of the columns of
Colonels Gorringe, Herbert, and Major Crewe on one side, and Colonels
Crabbe, Codrington, and Henniker on the other. Nearly all the
commandos which had invaded the Colony were retracing their sorry
steps after the failure of their expedition. The fact that they had
been able to keep the field so long was attributed to the persistent
way in which they avoided fighting, and their mode of hugging the
sheltering kopjes and bushes, and never emerging from those beneficent
harbours of refuge. According to good authority, the raiders succeeded
in gaining certain recruits among the Colonial Dutch, but not nearly
so many as they had expected. They were amply supplied with food from
the sympathetic rural population, however, and received on all sides
timely information of the movements of the pursuing columns, which
enabled them to double like hares at the very moment when the pursuers
seemed about to pounce on them.
Train-wrecking continued, and of necessity the running of night trains
had to be suspended. Some of the raiders began to drive over the less
known drifts of the Orange and disappear, while certain rebels
contrived to hide themselves in the mountain fastnesses so as to
escape both the Boer bands and the British pursuit. On the 30th of
March a skirmish took place between some of Henniker's troops
(Victorian Bushmen) and a large force of Boers, during which the
Colonials again showed their tenacity and grit. An advanced party of
four only, under a splendid fellow, Sergeant Sandford, were set upon
by the foe in the vicinity of Zuurberg. The enemy succeeded in
wounding a Bushman, who fell beneath his dead horse, and was there
pinned. His companions, under a perpetual sleet from the marauders'
Mausers, with great coolness engaged in the immensely difficult task
of moving the dead animal and drawing out their comrade from his
perilous position. They then managed to mount the rescued man on
Sergeant Sandford's horse and all got away in safety. Reinforcements
arriving now frightened off the Boers, who had lost four of their
number.
* * * * *
On the whole, things were progressing wonderfully. At the headquarters
of General Baden-Powell's Constabulary at Modderfontein 2000 more
recruits were now expected to join the 1000 already on duty there.
Australian and Canadian drafts were to follow. The clerical staff of
the Rand Mines' Corporation was about to proceed from the Cape to
Johannesburg, a sure sign of approaching settlement. A warning to
colonists was soon published stating that acts of rebellion committed
after April 12 would not be tried under the Special Tribunals Act of
last session, but by the old common law, the penalties under which
include capital punishment or any term of imprisonment or fine which
an ordinary court may impose.
On the 6th of April a post, ten miles north of Aberdeen, consisting of
one hundred men of the 5th Lancers, thirty-two Imperial Yeomanry under
Captain Bretherton, and Brabant's Horse, was assailed by a horde of
400 Boers. After fighting vigorously from dawn till 11 A.M. the force
was overpowered. Twenty-five of the number only escaped--one was
killed and six were wounded.
On the 11th, Colonel Byng surprised a laager near Smithfield, captured
thirteen tatterdemalions, who were not loth to rest, and some horses
and stores.
Colonel Haig, on the 12th, reached Rosmead and took command of all the
columns operating in the midlands, and he soon began the hunting of
Scheepers' and Malan's commandos with his flying columns. According to
Reuter's correspondent, the Boer forces in the midlands at this date
comprised Scheepers, with 180 men, in the Sneeuwberg; Malan, with
forty men, reported to be breaking northward; Swanepoel, with sixty
men, near New Bethseda; and Fouché, with a force estimated variously
at several hundreds, in the Zuurberg.
On the 14th of April Colonel Gorringe returned to Pretoria after three
months' of exceptionally hard work and incessant trekking over some of
the worst country in South Africa. His Colonial column had done on an
average a daily trek of some thirty-one and a half miles. On one
occasion, when rushing to the succour of Pearston[2] when it was
overpowered by raiders, these hardy troopers, with guns and
equipments, covered seventy-four miles in forty hours, crossing the
frowning heights of Coelzeeberg by a bridle path.
General MacDonald now proceeded to England in order to take up command
of an important post on the Afghan frontier, and General Fitzroy Hart
succeeded him in command of the 3rd Brigade. Sir Alfred Milner made
preparations to go home on leave.
On the 24th the Dordrecht Volunteer Guard and Wodehouse's Yeomanry
gave an excellent account of themselves. They were attacking raiders
for the most part of the day, and sent the Dutchmen to the
right-about, capturing their horses and forcing them to make good
their escape on Shanks' pony.
On the 29th Major Du Moulin's column, accompanied by Lovat's Scouts
under Major Murray, arrived at Aliwal North from Orange River Colony,
bringing with it 30 prisoners, 60,000 sheep, 6000 head of cattle, 100
waggons, 800 refugees, and 300 horses.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] See page 8.