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Updated: May 20, 2025
By evil fortune a force of five hundred Yeomanry, the 18th battalion, including the Duke of Cambridge's Own and the Irish companies, had been sent from Kroonstad to join Colvile at Lindley. Colonel Spragge was in command. On May 27th this body of horsemen reached their destination only to find that Colvile had already abandoned it.
On the 10th of May Lord Roberts attacked us with his united forces; and although his losses were heavy, he succeeded in breaking through our lines near Ventersburg, at two points which were held by General Froneman. And thus the English were free to advance on Kroonstad. I gave orders to my commando to move on to Doornkop, which lies to the east of Kroonstad.
I was told when the battle was over that the firing had continued, because the men on our eastern wing had not observed what their comrades on their left had done. And this explanation I willingly accept. Our force in this engagement consisted only of three hundred men from Heilbron, twenty from Kroonstad, and forty or fifty from the Johannesburg Police, these latter under Captain Van Dam.
I had an experience of that myself one night not so long ago. We had laid a nice little trap near Kroonstad, put a charge of dynamite on the rails, placed the men in position, and waited for a train to come along. After a few hours of suspense the latter appeared, and just as it was going over the charge I pressed the button. What do you think happened?" "The unexpected, I suppose?" "Precisely.
He should have kept his supplies at Kroonstad, or, better still, at Bloemfontein, until he had reconstructed all the railway bridges which we had blown up on the line to Pretoria. Lord Roberts had already begun to trust the Free-Staters too much; and he had forgotten that, whatever else we may have been thinking about, never for a single moment had we thought of surrendering our country.
Obviously, under these circumstances, it would never do for us to go to Kroonstad. Accordingly, as soon as darkness came on, I turned suddenly to the west, and arrived at Wonderheuve late at night. I found there Veldtcornet De Vos with the prisoners of war. Meanwhile, as I had anticipated, the vast English army marched up along thirty-four miles of railway to Kroonstad.
The new "drive" was a bar of steel pushed steadily forward by simultaneous action throughout its length, and with its ends resting on the two completed blockhouse lines running eastward from Heilbron and Kroonstad. The Drive, Mark II, was inaugurated on February 3.
A party of burghers, under Commandant Nel, of Kroonstad, were ordered to station themselves on a kop with a flat top, called Swartbooiskop, an hour and a half to the south of Nicholson's Nek. After the battle which was fought on the 30th of November this kop was christened by us Little Majuba. Just after sunrise on the 30th of November the roaring of cannon came to our ears.
Telegraph wires stretched from the Free State to Natal, but a command sent by such a route never caused a burgher to move an inch nearer to the Free State front, and consequently the Commandant-General was compelled to go personally to the Biggarsberg in search of volunteers to assist the burghers south of Kroonstad.
I was in supreme command of the first division, which was to march under the orders of General Botha. It consisted of burghers from Heilbron, under Commandant Steenekamp, and of Kroonstad men, under Commandant Van Aard.
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