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Their own resistance and the advance of Brabant to their rescue had caused a hasty retreat of the enemy. Wepener, Mafeking, Kimberley, the taking of the first guns at Ladysmith, the deeds of the Imperial Light Horse it cannot be denied that our irregular South African forces have a brilliant record for the war. They are associated with many successes and with few disasters.
Chermside was at Dewetsdorp, and had detached a force under Lord Castletown to garrison Wepener. Hart occupied Smithfield, whence he and his brigade were shortly to be transferred to the Kimberley force. Altogether there could not have been fewer than thirty thousand men engaged in clearing and holding down this part of the country.
The troops at Wepener were one thousand seven hundred in number, and formidable in quality. The place had been occupied by part of Brabant's Colonial division, consisting of hardy irregulars, men of the stuff of the defenders of Mafeking. Such men are too shrewd to be herded into an untenable position and too valiant to surrender a tenable one.
Barkly East, Herschel, Lady Grey, and other villages were visited by small detachments of the colonial horsemen, who pushed forward also into the south-eastern portion of the Free State, passing through Rouxville, and so along the Basutoland border as far as Wepener.
With the second party I rode off to join the burghers who were under General J.B. Wessels. I came up with Wessels' division on the 6th of April at Badenhorst, on the road from Dewetsdorp to Wepener.
They were strong in guns two seven-pounders, two naval twelve-pounders, two fifteen-pounders and several machine guns. The position which they had taken up, Jammersberg, three miles north of Wepener, was a very strong one, and it would have taken a larger force than De Wet had at his disposal to turn them out of it.
He was recalled from Ladysmith, and after taking part from the Bloemfontein side in the Wepener operations, was given command of a column which was sent on, a few days before the general movement, in the direction of Winburg to protect the right flank of the central advance and to fend off from it the hovering Boer commandos which had been pressed northwards by the April operations.
Kimberley, Mafeking, and Wepener, more than the operations at large, demonstrated the anomalous character of the war. Hitherto, invaders had been accustomed to besiege the invaded, in South Africa the invaded besieged the invaders. Such a reversal of the order of things military had rarely before occurred.
General Fourie set to his task at once and did excellent work. He had not been long in his division before he had collected seven hundred and fifty men, and had had several skirmishes with the enemy. It was on account of his acting so vigorously that the English again put garrisons into some of the south-eastern townships, such as Dewetsdorp, Wepener, and others.
At mid-day, the 13th of December, we took up excellent positions placed in a line of about eight miles from end to end on the farm called "Rietfontein," which is in the district of Wepener, north-east of Daspoort. We were so strongly posted that the enemy had to halt and wait for the arrival of the rearguard.
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