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Updated: May 24, 2025
With this object in view I gave orders that a number of the burghers should come to Blijdschap, in the district of Bethlehem, under the command of the following officers: General Michal Prinsloo with Commandants Olivier, and Rautenbach of the Bethlehem Commando; Commandant David Van Coller, who was in command of the Heilbron burghers in the place of Commandant Steenekamp, who had resigned; Commandant Hermanus Botha of Vrede; Commandant Roen of Ladybrand; and Commandant Jan Cilliers of Kroonstad.
The morning following, two hours after sunrise, I received a report from General Hattingh, who with Commandant Cilliers and a hundred men was stationed close to Blijdschap. The General reported that the English from Jagersrust were hotly pursuing the women's laager. And it soon appeared that the women were being driven to the west of Blijdschap.
When General Hattingh heard that the English were hard by, he was some twenty minutes' ride from Blijdschap, but he mounted his horse at once and rode there as quickly as he could. On his arrival he immediately gave orders to up-saddle, and, having sent me a second report, he started in pursuit of the enemy.
By the beginning of November I had a force of seven hundred burghers under me at Blijdschap. Although the spring was now far advanced, the veldt was in a very backward condition. I therefore ordered the various subdivisions of my commando to go and camp on the different farms in the neighbourhood.
By the end of November De Wet had collected at Blijdschap a force of 1,000 men undetected by Elliott's columns, which, having taken part in the centripetal failure, were again on the move after a brief rest at Harrismith. Elliott, while on the march to Kroonstad, actually brushed past De Wet. A column under Rimington then came upon the scene.
When the columns reached it on November 12 they found that the enemy had wriggled through the intervals, leaving scarcely a burgher at the place of meeting; and while they were blankly staring at each other, De Wet at Blijdschap, only twenty miles away, was in conference with Steyn and discussing with him a suggestion made by Botha that peace negotiations with Lord Kitchener should be opened.
An English force had encamped two days previously on the farm of Jagersrust, which lies some ten miles to the south-east of Heilbron, and about the same distance from Blijdschap. I had wished to make an attack on them the night they arrived, but they were too near to Heilbron for me to venture on it.
The previous week three columns which came from Winburg and Kroonstad had been operating near the Liebenbergsvlei, and driving a large laager of women before them towards the north-east of the Liebenbergsvlei. But they had now left the laager alone and returned to Kroonstad. The women had arrived at Blijdschap at noon on November 28th on their way back to Lindley.
The English captured ten or twelve burghers at Reitz, whither they had perhaps gone in search of the President. I was ten miles to the west, on the farm of Blijdschap, and did not receive reports of what had happened until towards noon. What was I to do?
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