United States or Papua New Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Moreover, the pale of Constabulary posts which formed the eastward section of the great ring fence enclosing the "protected area" had been advanced. It now ran from Greylingstad to Wilge River Station on the Delagoa Bay Railway, and encroached upon the area in which Botha could act with reasonable hope of success.
On capturing a train near Wilge River, Transvaal, on March 11, 1901, the Boers took five unarmed natives on one side and shot them, throwing their bodies into a ditch. Corporal Sutton, of the Hampshire Regiment, saw, after the surrender, a Boer put five shots into a native who was lying down. Other soldiers on the train vouch to seeing one man deliberately shoot five boys in cold blood.
We were, therefore, very soon obliged to move. About this time I received a report to the effect that a number of women and children were wandering about near Rhenosterkop along the Wilge River. Some burghers offered to ride out at night time to try and find them, and the next morning they brought several families into our camp.
Over seventy miles of veld the gleam of the helio by day and the flash of the signal lamps at night marked the steady flow of the British tide. Here and there the columns came in touch with the enemy and swept him before them. French had a skirmish at Wilge River at the end of January, and Campbell another south of Middelburg, in which he had twenty casualties.
After a short rest to restore the columns, the whole pack were full cry upon his heels once more. An acute angle is formed by the Wilge River on one side and the line of blockhouses between Harrismith and Van Reenen upon the other. This was strongly manned by troops and five columns; those of Rawlinson, Nixon, Byng, Rimington, and Keir herded the broken commandos into the trap.
Near the Wilge River they acted on a front too extended; and a portion of Damant's force was deceived by the slim tricks of a party of Boers working in cavalry formations and many of them dressed in khaki uniforms.
And here I got my first slice of luck, potting a brace of elephants, both of them magnificent tuskers, as well as another rhinoceros, three giraffes, and seven cock ostriches in perfect plumage. Then, crossing the Wilge River, and, two days later, the Klip River, we entered the country now known as the Transvaal, the Klip River being, as a matter of fact, the headwater of the Vaal.
Upon November 13th the first of a series of attacks was made upon the posts along the Delagoa Railway line. These were the work of Viljoen's commando, who, moving swiftly from the north, threw themselves upon the small garrisons of Balmoral and of Wilge River, stations which are about six miles apart. At the former was a detachment of the Buffs, and at the latter of the Royal Fusiliers.
The operation may be likened to the sweep of two brooms, one acting with a semicircular and the other with a forward movement. It was begun by Elliott, who started on February 13, and after an abortive attempt to snap up De Wet reached Wilge River on February 22 and awaited the arrival of the other columns; his left being near Tafelkop. Rawlinson and Byng meanwhile were advancing.
The captured guns were sent away beyond the Wilge River under Mears. No blame can be imputed to Rundle for the unsatisfactory issue of the operations. He had little reason to suspect that any considerable force of the enemy was in his vicinity. He was engaged in mechanical work, the laying out of a blockhouse line.
Word Of The Day