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Updated: May 3, 2025
Suggestions were continually being made, and have been and are still being frequently quoted, to the effect that a force should be sent out to create a diversion among the Boer commandoes in Jameson's favour.
The President called me into his tent one morning and asked me a few questions about the roads near Balmoral, where the Transvaal Government was at that time. I happened to have a map with me, and so was able to supply the desired information. He then told me to take a couple of heliographists and try to get into communication with one of the Transvaal commandoes near Potchefstroom.
They were to visit all neighboring farms and kraals and bring in all able-bodied Dutchmen and boys and male Kaffirs by persuasion if possible, but by force if necessary. This would prevent the news of our arrival being carried around to any adjacent commandoes, and would also assist to solve the labor question. A small guard was mounted on the top of Waschout Hill as a look-out.
Creeping up the dead ground on the cliffs face, which is covered with rocks and thick bushes, the Boers lined the left edge of the summit in great numbers. Probably about 1,000 attacked that part alone, and about 200 advanced on to the top. They were all Transvaal Boers, chiefly volunteers from the commandoes of Heidelburg and Wakkerstroom.
"Yes; to men who had always been opposed to the English government, who had twice risen in rebellion against them, and who had tried to bring in the Caffres to destroy the colony. Neither are the commandoes, or excursions against the Caffres, put an end to: Makomo, the son of Gaika, our late ally, has, I hear, been the party now attacked.
The commandoes were really companies of the North Transvaal Volunteers, but the old name had been kept and something of the old loose organization. There were also two four-gun batteries of volunteer artillery, but these were out on the western skirts of the Wolkberg following Beyers's historic precedent.
Defiance, in the circumstances, could only mean annihilation for them. Kimberley reasoned thusly: Kimberley reasoned well. Saturday made it still clearer that the ineffable enemy, so far from being frightened, was obdurate yet. Large commandoes of Boers had joined the besiegers during the night. All day long they toiled like Trojans, digging trenches.
There we should be constantly recruited, and our commandoes would increase rather than decrease. That was an advantage not to be despised, for our forces were getting daily weaker in the states. With such facts before him, General De Wet planned a second invasion of the Cape Colony towards the close of the year 1901.
As I was anxious to return to the commandoes I left behind in the Cape Colony, I thought it feasible to cross the fighting line, and take my commando to Ladybrand district, where the enemy would probably leave us unmolested for a while, and where the veldt provided ample food for our horses. Thither we directed our steps, and for a month we saw no signs of the British.
As so many were concentrated there, it was extremely hazardous and difficult for small commandoes, such as ours, to move during the daytime. The space between the Caledon River and Basutoland in which we could move becoming daily more and more circumscribed and limited, we determined to cross the Caledon River.
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