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Updated: September 13, 2025
The expedient was, in the first instance, applied to the railways as a protection against the raids to which they were subject; and after July, 1901, it was extended to the open veld. Subsidiary lines of blockhouses, which in general jutted out at right angles to the railways and in most cases ran along the cross-veld roads changing direction as circumstances required, were built.
The camp extended two miles along a stream that flowed down to the Cove among the low, woody hills that curved around the town and harbor. Redoubts were made to protect its front, and blockhouses to guard its left and rear from the bands of Acadians known to be hovering in the woods.
A soldier added another log, and kicked into the flame those fallen away. Though it was the end of July, Lake Erie cooled the inland forests. Sentinels were posted in the blockhouses. Quiet settled on the camp; and I sat turning many things in my mind besides the impending battle. Napoleon Bonaparte had made a disastrous campaign in Russia.
Rations came up fairly regularly in the advanced areas unless the ration-party becomes lost, drops a portion or makes an appointment with a 9.2. There is a constant daily issue of hard-wearing substance camouflaged as "biscuit," intended originally for the heel of concrete ships and for bomb-proof blockhouses.
It did not require any deep insight, I can assure you, to see how delighted this burgher was that we were safely out of it! We discovered now that the cattle had not crossed the line. When I investigated the matter more closely, I found that they had gone astray before we reached the blockhouses. But it was impossible to wait for them, and there was nothing left but to proceed without them.
I only received news of the approach of these reinforcements on the evening of the 22nd of February, after they had passed the blockhouses. The report was brought to me by Commandant Hermanus Botha, a party of whose burghers had been driven across the Vrede-Frankfort line during the previous night.
My scouts had reported that the best way to get through was on the southern side along Steelpoort, about a quarter of a mile from the enemy's camp at Bothasberg. But even should we succeed in breaking through the cordon around us, we still had to cross the line at Wondersfontein before daybreak, so as not to get caught between the enemy's troops and the blockhouses.
These preparations did not take long to make, since it was merely a matter of marching supplementary troops to the frontier, and the provisioning of the various blockhouses, fortified farms, castles, and strongholds generally; and as the preparations had all been made beforehand, a week sufficed to place the entire nation on the defensive.
This very important work of getting a firm hold upon the Magaliesberg was accomplished in July by Barton, Allenby, Kekewich, and Lord Basing, who penetrated into the wild country and established blockhouses and small forts in very much the same way as Cumberland and Wade in 1746 held down the Highlands.
The plan was to march a British force right through them, then spread out into a wide line and come straight back, driving the burghers on to the cordon of blockhouses, which had been strengthened by the arrival of three regiments of Highlanders. But to get to the other side of the Boers it was necessary to march the columns through by night.
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