United States or Dominican Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was not long after they were notified to hold themselves ready that the burghers were called up for active service. On the 2nd of October, 1899, the order came. On that day the Veldtcornets, or their lieutenants, visited every farm and commandeered the men. Amongst the commandeered was I; and thus, as a private burgher, I entered on the campaign.
Shortly after he had given up his arms, he sent a letter to one of the Veldtcornets, asking him to come to such and such a spot on a certain evening, to meet an English officer and himself. The letter never reached the hands of the person to whom Vilonel had addressed it; and instead of the Veldtcornet, it was Captain Pretorius with a few burghers, who went to the appointed place.
I at once gave orders to these veldtcornets to meet me at a certain place, and they were there by the appointed hour. My intention was to deliver a flank attack upon the English while they retreated during the night; for, as they only numbered five hundred men, I felt sure that they would not care to remain thirty miles away from their column, but would fall back upon Bethlehem.
"I, Horatio Herbert Baron Kitchener, of Khartoum, G.C.B., K.C.M.G., General Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's forces in South Africa; High Commissioner in South Africa, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, proclaim and make known as follows: "All Commandants, Veldtcornets and leaders of armed bands being burghers of the late Republics still resisting His Majesty's forces in the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal, or in any part of His Majesty's South African possessions, and all members of the Government of the late Orange Free State and of the late South African Republic, shall, unless they surrender before the 15th September of this year, be banished for ever from South Africa; and the cost of maintaining the families of such burghers shall be recoverable from, and become a charge on, their properties, whether landed or movable, in both Colonies.
He excused himself by assuring us that he had been under the impression that one of his Veldtcornets and a number of burghers were occupying the hill. What could we do now? Commandant Steenekamp and I decided that we must storm the hill with the three hundred men whom we had at our disposal. And this we did, and were sufficiently fortunate to capture the northern point of the kop.
As regards justices and veldtcornets of the Cape Colony, and all other persons who had occupied official positions under the Government of Cape Colony, and all who held the rank of commandant in the rebel or burgher forces, they shall be brought on the charge of high treason before the ordinary Courts of the country, or before such special Courts as later on may legally be constituted.
He also had instructions to let some of his veldtcornets ride to the Kaffir kraals, which were close to the English camp, in order to tell these Kaffirs that he had had orders to come to me with fifty men, but that when he arrived I had commanded him to return to his district, because I was going to march with my commando to Winburg.
They broke through the English columns near Jagersrust, and crossed the Heilbron-Frankfort blockhouse line, where they put a few soldiers to flight, not, however, without a loss of two burghers, who were killed. Neither did the burghers under Veldtcornets Taljaart and Prinsloo arrive. They preferred to go their own way and all were captured with the exception of twenty-eight men.
These officers and their veldtcornets with less than one hundred men stormed the nearest position of the enemy, who were occupying a fort on the brow of a steep bank. I shouted to my command: "Charge." I exerted all my powers of persuasion to arrest the flight of my burghers; even bringing the sjambok into the argument.
Among the dead were Veldtcornets Jan Viljoen, of Heilbron, and Van Zijl, of Cape Colony; and among the wounded, Staats-Procureur Jacob De Villiers and Jan Rechter, the latter of whom subsequently died. The wounded who managed to escape included General Froneman, who was slightly wounded in the chest; Mr.
Word Of The Day