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Oppenheim, of the Daily News, and another correspondent, rode into Bloemfontein and found that President Steyn had departed during the night, that the Boer forces had retired from the immediate neighbourhood of the town, and that the people were willing to surrender. The Field Marshal was, I believe, sitting on a low hill having breakfast with his staff when the keys were delivered up to him.
It seemed to me that my best course was to allow the burghers, who had now been away from their families for six months, an opportunity to take breath! After everything had been arranged I went to Brandfort and thence to Kroonstad, at which place I was to meet President Steyn, who had left Bloemfontein the evening before it fell.
The British Army was preoccupied with Cronje; and Kitchener's Kopje in De Wet's hands gave a strong flank protection to Steyn, and later on to De Beer, who, when driven out of his position north of Koodoos Drift by a resuscitated cavalry brigade under Gordon, crossed to the kopjes south of the river.
He had tapped the telegraph wire at Zwingkrans, and before General Clements had detected that he was not communicating with Senekal, he had received from that General a full list of the English killed and wounded. We withdrew our commandos in a southerly direction to Retiefsnek, whither President Steyn and the Government had already preceded us. The Surrender of Prinsloo
North, south, east, and west the tale was ever the same, but so long as Botha, De la Rey, Steyn, and De Wet remained uncaptured, the embers might still at any instant leap into a flame.
'Is it possible to imagine that Steyn, Fischer, and the other educated men of the Free State did not know that, following Kruger's hostile policy of eliminating the preponderating Power in South Africa, meant that that Power would be forced either to fight in self-preservation or to disappear ignominiously?
I sent President Steyn a telegram, informing him that our burghers were rejoining, and adding that Lord Roberts was the best recruiting sergeant I had ever had! General Froneman and the men whom he had collected soon found work to do. The enemy was expecting a reinforcement from Aliwal North, and I sent the General, with six hundred troops, to oppose it.
Even before Lord Roberts' occupation of Pretoria Kruger wrote doubtfully to Steyn; and after it Botha was inclined to negotiate with the invader. He was with his commandos at Hatherley, a few miles east of Pretoria. A Council of War was held in the office of a Russian Jew, who was a distiller of whisky.
Alford Moffat, another son, was medical officer to 300 Volunteers occupying the Mangwe Pass, to prevent a Boer raid into Rhodesia at that point. He writes: Had Steyn sat still and minded his own business no one would have meddled with him. Had Kruger confined himself strictly to self-defence, and we had invaded him, we might have had to blame ourselves.
President Steyn himself visited the positions, cheering and encouraging the men, but the strain of attempting to stem the British advance could no longer be sustained. Within a few days we received orders to retire to Lindley. Retire! But how? We were three, our horses two, our luggage heavy. By a stroke of luck we managed to hire a cart and two.
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