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Updated: June 18, 2025
We had been told there that a column would start for the relief of Mafeking on March 20th, but when we arrived at Kimberley on the 18th we found that no movement was to take place for several days. The date was constantly shifted farther into the future, and the days of waiting had grown into weeks before an order came that Lord Methuen with his force of about 10,000 men was to march on Boshof.
When Lord Methuen had moved from Boshof we had been sure that Mafeking was the goal, and I think that Lord Methuen himself had at least expected to conduct a turning movement on the Boer position at Fourteen Streams.
Accordingly I left President Steyn with De la Rey, and, on the third day after our arrival, set out with my staff to join General Badenhorst, who was then in the neighbourhood of Boshof.
There was also a line from Boshof, across the Cape Colony frontier, to Kimberley. Last, but not least, came the "White Elephant" with which the reader is already acquainted the line from Bloemfontein to Ladybrand, through Thaba'Nchu. All these lines were in the Free State.
Lord Methuen had been brought across from Boshof, and was available with six thousand men. Colvile was on that side also, with the Highland Brigade. A few details were scattered up and down the line, waiting to be gathered up by an enterprising enemy. Kroonstad was held by a single militia battalion; each separate force had to be nourished by convoys with weak escorts.
A warrant was issued for my immediate arrest. Every train was strictly searched. Everyone was on the watch. The worthy Boshof, who knew my face well, was hurried off to Komati Poort to examine all and sundry people "with red hair" travelling towards the frontier.
A Boer vrouw named Boshof, sent to each one through her son not a gown, but a pair of trousers and a shirt of her husband's, which she had been able to hide from the English, who had passed there, and who generally took away, or burnt, all male attire. The enemy had, in the meantime, approached quite close to us, and we were again obliged to look for a drift up stream.
On the relief of that town, one part of the besieging force went to Viertienstroomen, another in the direction of Boshof, while a small party, in which was the Commander-in-Chief himself, set out towards Koedoesrand, above Paardeberg. It was while I was engaged in my efforts to relieve Cronje, that a gun accident occurred in which General Ferreira was fatally wounded.
That when the men arrived at the Amphitheatre, about 2 p.m., a man who was either Mr. Bosman, Second Landdrost's Clerk, or Mr. Boshof, Registrar of the Second Criminal Court, and perhaps both of them, told them to go to the Police Station. That on arriving at the Police Station, they were addressed by Mr.
The free-rein given to the foreign legionaries was withdrawn shortly after Villebois-Mareuil and his small band of Frenchmen met with disaster at Boshof, and thereafter all the foreigners were placed under the direct command of General De la Rey. The man in search of the spoils of war was not so numerous, but he made his presence felt by stealing whatever was portable and saleable.
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