Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 29, 2025
At meetings held with these commandos the following representatives were chosen: General Nieuwouwdt, and the Commandants Munnik Hertzog, J. Van der Merwe, C. Van Niekerk, Flemming, A.J. Bester, F. Jacobsz, H. Pretorius, and Veldtcornet Kritzinger. At these meetings also the burghers were unanimous in their decision not to give up their independence.
They are to be shot. Put down your billies, and go and be shot also, and then at once to have changed his mind: 'Never mind, my boy, get the water. It is an improbable story. Jan Jonkers does not appear to have heard the conversation at all. None of Kritzinger's men appear to know of it, and I submit it was not said by Kritzinger, if said at all.
"I now come to the 4th Charge; the only charge in which Kritzinger was said to have been present at the shooting. In the first two charges, Kritzinger did not appear until hours after the natives had been shot. The only witnesses who say that Kritzinger was present at the shooting of the natives mentioned in this charge are natives. There appear to have been no white men present.
The main Boer force under Kritzinger was in the midlands, however, and had concentrated to such an extent in the Cradock district that it was clear that some larger enterprise was on foot.
War is brutal and damnable. It is indeed "hell let loose." On the 20th of April, 1870, the arrival of a little Kritzinger was announced on the farm Wildeman's-Kraal, Port Elizabeth District. That little fellow happened to be myself.
That they arrived there unmolested is due to the forbearance of the enemy and to the tact and energy of Surgeon-Captain Porter, who commanded the convoy. Encouraged by this small success, and stimulated by the news that Hertzog and Kritzinger had succeeded in penetrating the Colony without disaster, De Wet now prepared to follow them.
Well, after that, one can understand why Jan Louw identifies Kritzinger in Court. He has had a photo shown to him in town, and of course he naturally identifies Kritzinger at once. The wonder is that Jan Jonkers did not identify Kritzinger. It only shows what small reliance can be placed on the evidence of natives, and that is the sole evidence on which the 4th Charge is based.
At the close of the evidence in chief there was something which looked like implicating Kritzinger, but of that by Van Aswegen there is very little left to-day. At first the evidence re Mijnhardt was taken, but the Court has ruled that this evidence cannot be accepted. Now there is the evidence of Boltman.
On the 19th Kritzinger was at Bethesda, with Gorringe and Lowe at his heels. On the 23rd an important railway bridge at Fish River, north of Cradock, was attacked, but the attempt was foiled by the resistance of a handful of Cape Police and Lancasters. On March 6th a party of Boers occupied the village of Pearston, capturing a few rifles and some ammunition.
Kritzinger himself captured a small British detachment near Maraisburg. As in February when Lyttelton was brought down, so again in July the situation in the Cape Colony was sufficiently serious to call for outside assistance. French was sent down from the Transvaal; Lord Kitchener himself came to Middelburg.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking