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Updated: June 20, 2025
Methuen's orders were unfortunately known only to Hughes-Hallett and the movement was interpreted as an order from the brigadier for a general retirement. The wave of retreat beginning on the right passed rapidly down the line, and soon all but a few score of men who held on gallantly as long as there was light were streaming back in confusion to the field batteries in rear.
When this task had been accomplished, General De la Rey and I asked General Cronje's permission to take fifteen hundred men, and carry on operations in the direction of Hopetown and De Aar with the intention of breaking Lord Methuen's railway communications. But Cronje would hear nothing of the scheme. Say what we would, there was no moving him.
The Guards he had left under Methuen in front of the lines of Magersfontein to contain the Boer force. With them he had also left those regiments which had fought in the 9th Brigade in all Methuen's actions. These, as will be remembered, were the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, the 2nd Northamptons, and one wing of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment.
At Rhenoster River was Methuen to prevent a break out towards the west. As soon as Hunter, who was put in general charge of all the troops engaged, entered the Free State, Macdonald was ordered to join him with the Highland Brigade. Methuen's force at Rhenoster River was soon found to be unnecessary, as the enemy was retreating in the opposite direction, and it was sent into the Transvaal.
Methuen's information had led him to believe that the Modder was not held in force, and that he would meet his next serious opposition at Spytfontein, where the Boers would make their last stand; the country between it and Kimberley, a dozen miles further on, being open and unfavourable to their defensive tactics.
At two o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, the 6th of the month, the reveille sounded, and the Australians commenced their preparations for the march to join Methuen's army. By 4 a.m. the mounted rifles led the way out of camp, and the toilsome march over rough and rocky ground commenced.
Methuen's presence: that estimable lady gave it as her opinion that there were plenty of ways of spending money foolishly without having recourse to a book-catalogue for suggestion.
It will be well, however, to say a word about their objective, Kimberley, its conditions, its defences, and its defenders, as well as about the country through which runs the railroad that marks the general line of Methuen's proposed operation. Lieutenant-Colonel Kekewich, who had been ordered to command the forces in Kimberley, had arrived there on the 13th of September.
Including the Transvaalers we had lost 68 killed and 135 wounded." One instance more to show that the Boers behaved gallantly not only under cover or when scaling mountains or hills occupied by the enemy, but also when they met the foe on the plain without any cover at all. Lord Methuen's column, 1,500 strong, was charged in broad daylight on the open veldt by about 700 burghers.
Thence an advance of three-quarters of a mile up the river-side was made, the general of the brigade having now crossed; but this ground could not be held, and the British were forced back. Reinforcements were sent, and in performing this service Methuen's chief-of-staff, Colonel Northcott, was killed, the battle raging along the front in full severity.
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