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Updated: August 31, 2025
The sorely-tried pale had again failed. De Wet, having shaken off the columns which had been pursuing him from the Doornberg, had now a free course of 100 miles to the next obstacle, the Orange. It was evident that the speed of the columns must be increased and Knox was put upon the railway for the first time and Hamilton for the second and dispatched to Bethulie.
This force seems to have skirted Wepener without attacking a place of such evil omen to their cause. Their subsequent movements are readily traced by a sequence of military events. On October 1st Rouxville was threatened. On the 9th an outpost of the Cheshire Militia was taken and the railway cut for a few hours in the neighbourhood of Bethulie.
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.
Moreover, some of our horses had to be left behind, being too exhausted to go any further. We marched on towards Bethulie. When in the neighbourhood of this town, and of the farm of "Klein Bloemfontein," I fell in with General Piet Fourie and Captain Scheepers, and took them with me.
My witnesses proved that at that particular time I had no blue horse in my possession. Neither was there such a man as Van der Walt in my commando; and the natives in question had been shot by another commandant without my instructions. 4th Charge: Murder. At Biscuitfontein, Bethulie, I had killed and murdered two natives on the 14th of August, 1901.
They were, of course, on the safe side. But many committed themselves, if not in deeds, then in words. To cite a few cases: One of our officers, Captain Pretorius, dismounted one evening at the farm of a Mr. B. in the district of Bethulie. The farmer, hearing a tap at the door, went and opened it. Pretorius, who posed as an English officer, asked Mr. B., "Where are the Boers?"
As late as the end of September the Premier and the War Minister scouted the idea of war with the Free State, and the official plan of a central advance on Bloemfontein by way of Bethulie and Norval's Pont, which held good until some little time after Lord Roberts' arrival, must therefore have been subterraneously drawn up without their knowledge.
Near Bethulie he was reinforced by Hertzog and other leaders, but by this time he had been headed by Knox at Bethulie and was compelled to draw off eastwards into the angle between the Orange and the Caledon. He left Hertzog with instructions to make his way across the river west of Norval's Pont, intending to cross with his own force higher up.
I gave instructions to Vice-Commander-in-Chief Piet Fourie to take under his charge the districts of Bloemfontein, Bethulie, Smithfield, Rouxville, and Wepener, and to permit the burghers there, who had remained behind, to join us again.
The Colesberg bridge across the Orange River has been seized by the enemy, the line between Bethulie and Colesberg has just been cut, and each train from De Aar to Stormberg is expected to be the last to pass unassailed. We, however, slept peacefully through the night, and, passing Colesberg safely, arrived at Stormberg, beyond which all is again secure.
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