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Updated: July 29, 2025
Commandant Kritzinger and Captain Scheepers also assured me that the sympathies of the Colonial burghers were strongly with us. Like every other right-minded man, I had expected this to be the case, for "blood is thicker than water."
Then taking the report out of his pocket he said: "Just read this 'Kritzinger surrounded, will be captured and brought in to-morrow." Imagine his astonishment on learning that he was then addressing the very man whom he had hoped to meet as a prisoner-of-war. He handed me his rifle. After that we had a long conversation, and enjoyed a drink together, as though we had never been at war.
The chief leaders of separate commandos were Kritzinger, Scheepers, Malan, Myburgh, Fouche, Lotter, Smuts, Van Reenen, Lategan, Maritz, and Conroy, the two latter operating on the western side of the country.
Malan reported on his doings in the Cape Colony, while Kritzinger advised that the war should be discontinued. General Du Toit then spoke, emphasizing the responsibility of the delegates and the importance of the occasion.
Kritzinger, however, refused to consider himself surrounded and even worked freely in co-operation with Brand: nor had J.C. Smuts any intention of resigning his commission. He crossed the Orange on September 3. A fortnight later, Kritzinger and Brand parted company.
Kritzinger after fifteen weeks' activity in the Cape Colony had returned to Zastron a few days before Smuts' arrival. His incursion into the Colony in May occurred at an opportune moment, for the local rebels were being severely worried.
The motive energy was stored up in accumulators, and when these were discharged in succession, there was no means of re-charging them. Hertzog and Kritzinger, who had been relied on for this purpose, were not at hand; more than a third of the force with which De Wet had originally left the Doornberg had declined to leave the Free State; and the transport had been lost.
At the end of the year Hertzog's column was 150 miles deep in the Colony, sweeping through the barren and thinly-inhabited western lands, heading apparently for Fraserburg and Beaufort West. The second column was commanded by Kritzinger, a burgher of Zastron, in the Orange River Colony. His force was about 800 strong.
"It must be remembered that the witnesses Hugo, Matthijsen, Van Wijk and de Klerk are all accomplices, and therefore their evidence must be received with caution, especially after the curiously minute details they give on some points. It is also worthy of note that Matthijsen was not examined on the fourth charge, though he was present with Kritzinger at the time.
The British, realising how serious a situation might arise should De Wet succeed in penetrating the Colony and in joining Hertzog and Kritzinger, made every effort both to head him off and to bar his return. General Lyttelton at Naauwpoort directed the operations, and the possession of the railway line enabled him to concentrate his columns rapidly at the point of danger.
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