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Updated: July 7, 2025
Brown-faced, grey-haired man. There are no troops, and the better for you. The strength of Aliwal is in its weakness. Thin-faced man, thick-set man, and general chorus. Yes, put it away. Thin-faced man. But I want to know why the Boers are armed and we aren't? Why does our Government Brown-faced man. Are you accustomed to shoot? No. But where do you come from? Brown-faced man.
My advance was steady, my troops well in hand; and if he had anticipated me on the Jugraon road, I could have fallen upon his centre with advantage. "From the tops of the houses of the village of Poorein, I had a distant view of the enemy. He was in motion, and appeared directly opposite my front on a ridge, of which the village of Aliwal may be regarded as the centre.
Harrismith, in the Free State, was named after him; his services in the Sikh War were commemorated by an Aliwal on the Orange; while upon a new township in Natal, she who was once Donna Juana Maria de los Dolores de Leon of Badajoz on the Guadiana, bestowed the commonplace designation for which she had exchanged her retinue of tuneful Spanish, and it was called Ladysmith.
As soon as Sir Harry Smith had returned from Aliwal, and the heavy artillery had arrived from Delhi, Sir Hugh Gough determined to attack the Sikh position his army now consisting of 6533 Europeans and 9691 natives, making a total of 16,224 rank and file, and 99 guns.
By the end of November we met him with his forces, about 1500 strong, in the district of Bethulie. After a few days' fighting with the forces of General Knox on the farms Goede Hoop and Willoughby, we left for the Orange River, which we intended to ford at Odendaal's Stroom, a drift fifteen miles below Aliwal North.
These, and the one in the middle of the river, were gallantly spiked by Lieutenant Holmes, of the 11th irregular cavalry, and Gunner Scott, of the 1st troop 2nd brigade horse artillery, who rode into the stream, and crossed for the purpose, covered by our guns and light infantry. "Thus ended the battle of Aliwal, one of the most glorious victories ever achieved in India.
They tell me the Times has pronounced the war over. I would be glad to pay £5 out of my own pocket to have the man who wrote that out here on the veldt with us for a week. We have just heard that Dewetsdorp has fallen, and that there is a rising in the Colony near Aliwal North. Vogue la galère! We are encamped close to the Vaal, which is here a fine stream, as wide as the Thames at Richmond.
With Roberts at Bloemfontein, Gatacre at Springfontein, Clements in the south-west, and Brabant at Aliwal, the pacification of the southern portion of the Free State appeared to be complete.
The most conspicuous feature of the war on this frontier has hitherto been its absence. The Free State forces about Bethulie, which is just over the Free State border, and Aliwal North, which is on our side of the frontier, make no sign of an advance. The reason for this is, doubtless, that hostilities here would amount to civil war.
Some were killed, but the greater part made their escape; and although many were murdered on the way, either by villagers or by bodies of mutineers, the majority reached Meerut or Aliwal. The sufferers of Delhi did not die wholly unavenged. Inside the city walls was an immense magazine containing vast stores of powder, cartridges, and arms.
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