I Make Lord Kitchener's Acquaintance
On the morning of June the 10th my anticipations were realized by the
approach of a large English force from Vredefortweg and Heilbron.
Commanded by Lord Kitchener, and numbering, as I estimated, from twelve
to fifteen thousand men, this force was intended to drive us from the
railway line.
I gave orders that the few waggons which we had with us should proceed
in the direction of Kroonstad, to the west of the line; once out of
sight, they were to turn sharply to the west, and continue in that
direction. This manoeuvre, I hoped, would serve to mislead the enemy,
who was on the look-out for us.
So much for the waggons. For the rest, I felt that it would never do for
us to withdraw without having fired a shot, and I therefore got my men
into position on some kopjes (where Captain Wyndham Knight had been four
days previously, and which lay to the north of Rhenosterriviersbrug) on
my farm Roodepoort, and on the Honingkopjes.
The English, with their well known predilection for a flank attack on
every possible opportunity, halted for an hour, and shelled our
positions with Lyddite and other guns. This did _not_ have the desired
effect of inspiring terror in the burghers who were under my command at
Honingkopjes.
Then the enemy began to move. I saw masses of their cavalry making for a
piece of rising ground to the north of Roodepoort. As the burghers there
were hidden from me, I was unable to observe from where I stood the
effect of this flank movement. Knowing that if they were able to give
way and to retreat along the river we should have no means of
discovering the fact until it was too late and we were surrounded, I
came to the conclusion that it was essential for me to go to Roodepoort
to assure myself that the cavalry had not yet got round. But it was most
important that no suspicion of the danger which threatened us should be
aroused in the burghers--anything calculated to weaken their resistance
was to be avoided on such an occasion. Accordingly I merely told them
that I was going to see how affairs were progressing at Roodepoort, and
that in the meantime they must hold their position.
I rode off, and discovered that the English were already so close to our
troops at Roodepoort that fighting with small arms had begun. I had just
reached an eminence between Roodepoort and the Honingkopjes when I saw
that the burghers in the position furthest towards the north-west were
beginning to flee. This was exactly what I had feared would happen.
Immediately afterwards the men in the centre position, and therefore the
nearest to me, followed their comrades' example. I watched them
loosening their horses, which had been tethered behind a little hill;
they were wild to get away from the guns of the English and from the
advance of this mighty force.
It was impossible for me now to go and tell the burghers on the
Honingkopjes that the time had come when they too must retreat. My only
course was to order the men near me not to effect their escape along the
well protected banks of the river, but to the south, right across the
stream, by a route which would be visible to burghers on the
Honingkopjes. They obeyed my orders, and rode out under a heavy gun and
rifle fire, without, however, losing a single man. The men on the
Honingkopjes saw them in flight, and were thus able to leave their
position before the enemy had a chance of driving them into the river or
of cutting them off from the drift.
Unfortunately, seven burghers from Heilbron were at a short distance
from the others, having taken up their position in a _kliphok_.[53]
Fighting hard as they were, under a deafening gun-fire from the enemy,
who had approached to within a few paces of them, they did not observe
that their comrades had left their positions. Shortly afterwards,
despairing of holding the _kliphok_ any longer, they ran down to the
foot of the hill for their horses, and saw that the rest of the burghers
were already fleeing some eight or nine hundred paces in front of them,
and that their own horses had joined in the flight. There was now only
one course open to them--to surrender to the English.[54]
I ordered the burghers to retreat in the direction of Kroonstad, for by
now they had all fled from Roodepoort and Honingkopjes--a name which,
since that day, has never sounded very _sweet_ to me.[55]
During the morning I received a report informing me that there were
large stores at Kroonstad belonging to the English Commissariat, and
that there was only a handful of troops to protect them. I had no
thought, however, of attempting to destroy the provisions there, for I
felt sure that the British troops, who had but just now put us to
flight, would make for Kroonstad. They would know that the stores stood
in need of a stronger guard, and moreover they would naturally think
that we should be very likely to make an attack at a point where the
defence was so weak.
Obviously, under these circumstances, it would never do for us to go to
Kroonstad.
Accordingly, as soon as darkness came on, I turned suddenly to the west,
and arrived at Wonderheuve late at night. I found there Veldtcornet De
Vos with the prisoners of war.
Meanwhile, as I had anticipated, the vast English army marched up along
thirty-four miles of railway to Kroonstad. Lord Kitchener, as I heard
later on, arrived there shortly after noon on the following day.
We left Wonderheuve early in the morning, and advanced along Rietspruit
until we reached the farm of Vaalbank, where we remained until the
evening of the next day, June the 13th. That night I saw clearly that it
was necessary for us to cross the line if we wanted to keep ourselves
and our prisoners out of the clutches of Lord Kitchener; he had failed
to find us at Kroonstad, and would be certain to look for us in the
country to the west of the line.
I also felt myself bound to wreck this line, for it was the only railway
which Lord Roberts could now utilize for forwarding the enormous
quantities of stores which his vast forces required.[56] I resolved
therefore to cross it at Leeuwspruit, north of Rhenoster River bridge
(which the English had recently repaired), and then, in the morning, to
attack the English garrisons which had again occupied Roodewal and
Rhenoster River bridge.
I had given orders that all the cattle along the railway line should be
removed; General Louis Botha had made the same regulation in regard to
the country round Pretoria and Johannesburg. If only our orders had been
carried out a little more strictly, and if only the most elementary
rules of strategy had been observed in our efforts to break the English
lines of communication, Lord Roberts and his thousands of troops in
Pretoria would have found themselves in the same plight as the
Samaritans in Samaria--they would have perished of hunger. It was not
their Commander-in-Chief's skill that saved them, not his habit of
taking into account all possible eventualities--no, they had to thank
the disobedience of our burghers for the fact that they were not all
starved to death in Pretoria.
I arranged with General Froneman that he should cross the line at the
point I had already selected, that is to say, north of Rhenoster River
bridge, and that in the morning he should attack, from the eastern side,
the English who were posted at Leeuwspruit Bridge. I, in the meanwhile,
would make my way with a Krupp to the west side of the line, and having
found a place of concealment near Roodepoort, would be ready to fall
upon the English as soon as I heard that the other party had opened fire
on them from the east.
But my plan was to come to nothing. For when, during the night, Froneman
reached the line, a skirmish took place then and there with the English
outposts at Leeuwspruit railway bridge. At the same time a train arrived
from the south, on which the burghers opened such a fierce fire that it
was speedily brought to a standstill. General Froneman at once gave
orders to storm the train, but his men did not carry out his orders.
_Had they done so, Lord Kitchener would have fallen into our hands!_
Nobody knew that he was in the train, and it was only later that we
heard how, when the train stopped, he got a horse out of one of the
waggons, mounted it, and disappeared into the darkness of the night.
Shortly afterwards the train moved on again, and our great opportunity
was gone!
General Froneman succeeded in overpowering the garrison at the railway
bridge, and took fifty-eight prisoners. He then set fire to the bridge,
which was a temporary wooden structure, having been built to replace
another similar one, which had been blown up with gunpowder.
Three hundred Kaffirs were also made prisoners on this occasion. They
protested that they had no arms, and had only been employed in work upon
the railway line. This absence of rifles was their saving. Possibly they
had really been in possession of arms, and had thrown them away under
cover of the darkness; but the burghers could not know this, and
therefore acted upon the principle that it is better to let ten culprits
escape than to condemn an innocent man to death.
General Froneman went on towards the east of Doorndraai. He was very
well satisfied with his bridge-burning and his capture of prisoners, and
in his satisfaction he never gave thought to me.
I waited in my hiding-place, expecting that, as we had agreed, the
firing would begin from the east, but nothing happened. I did not care
to make an attack on my own account from the west, for my positions were
not practicable for the purpose, and being short of men, I feared that
such an attempt might end in disaster.
It was now ten o'clock.
A few English scouts appeared on the scene, and four of my men attacked
them. One of the enemy was shot, and the rest taken prisoners. And still
I did not hear anything from General Froneman.
At last I came to the conclusion that he must have misunderstood my
instructions. If that were the case, I must do the best I could myself.
Accordingly I opened fire on the English with my Krupp.
Still no news of General Froneman!
Then I ordered my burghers to advance. Our first movement was over the
nearest rise to the north-west; we halted for a moment, and then made a
dash for Leeuwspruit Bridge--but we found nothing there.
Late in the evening I met General Froneman, and heard from him the
narrative which I have given above.
The following day I sent well on to twelve hundred prisoners of
war--including Kaffirs--to the President's camp, which lay east of
Heilbron. We then advanced to a point on the Rhenoster River, near
Slootkraal, remaining in concealment there until the night of the 16th
of June. The following morning we occupied some ridges at Elandslaagte,
on the look-out for a large English force which was marching from
Vredefortweg to Heilbron.
My intention was to give them battle at Elandslaagte, and to hold on to
our positions there as long as possible; and then, if we could not beat
them off, to retire. If only the burghers had carried out my orders
strictly, we should certainly have inflicted heavy losses on the
English, even if we had not won a complete victory.
The English had not sent out their scouts sufficiently far in advance,
and came riding on, suspecting nothing. We occupied positions on the
right and left of the road along which they were advancing, and my
orders were that the burghers should let the troops get right between
our ridges, which were about three hundred paces from each other, and
then fire on them from both sides at once.
Instead of doing this, however, the burghers began to fire when the
English were five hundred paces from them--before, that is to say, they
had got anywhere near the door of the trap which I had set for them.
The enemy wheeled round, and galloped back for about fifteen hundred
paces. They then dismounted, and fired on us. But, having no sort of
cover, they were soon compelled to mount their horses again and retire
to their guns, which were about three thousand yards from us. These guns
now opened a heavy fire upon our ridges; we replied with our three
Krupps, with which we made such good practice that we might have been
able to hold out there indefinitely, had not a Lyddite and an Armstrong
gun happened just then to arrive from Heilbron, which lay about ten
miles behind us. Thus attacked both in front and rear, there was nothing
to do but retire. Fortunately, we had not lost a single man.
First we rode in a southerly direction, but as soon as we got into cover
we struck off to the east, setting our faces towards Heilbron.
Then, to our immense relief, the sun went down. How often during our
long struggle for independence had not the setting of the sun seemed to
lift a leaden weight from my shoulders! If, on a few occasions, the
approach of night has been to our disadvantage, yet over and over again
it has been nothing less than our salvation.
We got back safely, under cover of the darkness, to our little camp near
Slootkraal, and there remained in hiding until the following day. It was
there that Commandant Nel handed in his resignation. In his place the
burghers of Kroonstad chose Mr. Frans Van Aard as their Commandant.
That night we set out for Paardenkraal, twenty miles to the north-east
of Kroonstad, staying there until the evening of the 19th.
The time for my attack on the railway line having now come, I divided my
men into three parties for that purpose. I sent on Commandant J.H.
Olivier, who had joined me at Paardenkraal, to Honingspruit Station,
General Froneman to America Siding, while I myself made my way to
Serfontein Siding.
At daybreak General Froneman wrecked the line near America Siding, and I
did the same at other places, also destroying the telegraph poles. Each
pole was first shot through with the Mauser, and then pulled until it
snapped at the point where the bullet had pierced it.
Things did not go so well with Commandant Olivier. He attacked the
station, but, unfortunately, not so early as had been arranged.
Consequently he was not able to bring his gun into action before the
enemy had observed him. When I came up to him there was a strong English
reinforcement from Kroonstad close at hand. We had too few men with us
to be able to offer resistance, and had to retreat, returning to
Paardenkraal at nightfall.
[Footnote 53: I.e. the ruins of Kaffir stone huts, built in the time of
Moselekatze.]
[Footnote 54: Among these seven burghers were Willie Steyn, Attie Van
Niekerk, and a certain young Botha. It was Steyn and Botha, with two men
of the name of Steytler, and two other Free-Staters whose names I have
forgotten, who managed to escape from the ship that lay anchored in the
harbour of Ceylon. They swam a distance of several miles to a Russian
ship, by which they were carried to one of the Russian ports, where they
received every hospitality. I shall always be grateful to the Russians
for this. They then travelled through Germany into Holland, being
subsequently conveyed in a German ship to German West Africa. Thence
they made their way through Boesmansland to Cape Colony, and, after many
adventures, joined General Hermanus Maritz's commando. Botha,
unfortunately, was killed in a skirmish some time later. What will the
world say of these young burghers? Surely, that more valiant and
faithful men than they have never lived. I regret that I do not remember
the names of all Willie Steyn's comrades. I travelled with him by train
from the Free State to Cape Town, where I had to join General Louis
Botha and J.H. De la Rey, so as to accompany them to Europe on my
nation's behalf. He promised then to give me all the particulars of his
escape, but I suppose there has been some obstacle in the way.]
[Footnote 55: The word _honing_ means honey.]
[Footnote 56: At that time the Natal and Delagoa Bay railways were still
in our possession.]