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Updated: May 16, 2025
Some four miles out French came upon their position, two hills with a long low nek between, from which came a brisk rifle fire supported by artillery. But French was not only not to be stopped, but could not even be retarded. Disregarding the Boer fire completely the cavalry swept in wave after wave over the low nek, and so round the base of the hills.
Their numbers and dispositions so far made were observed; but the approaching powerlessness of the British for decisive offensive action was also shown. These were quickly got into position and soon silenced a Boer 40-pounder, which at daybreak had opened fire on the town from a hill between two and three miles to the northward. A few hours later news came in of the reverse at Nicholson's Nek.
Rundle, who for two months had been painfully, but not with unnecessary deliberation, pushing his force up the right bank of the Caledon, was at first ordered by Hunter to watch Slabbert's Nek, but on a report that the Boers were about to come out through Commando Nek, he was sent back.
The southern ridge was taken, and when the northern ridge was turned by Ian Hamilton, who was recalled from acting at large in support of French, the Boers retired. French passed through Zilikat's Nek and marched on Pretoria north of the Magaliesberg. On June 5 the capital of the South African Republic surrendered to Lord Roberts. The Boers streamed away towards the east.
I was told off to take up a position in the Nek where the wagon-road runs to the east across the railway-tunnel, and here we made preparations for digging trenches and placing our guns. Soon after we had completed our entrenchments we once more saw the enemy. They were lying at Schuinshoogte on the Ingogo, and had sent a mounted corps with two guns to the Nek.
On the 13th February, however, negotiations were reopened by Paul Kruger, one of the Triumvirate, who offered, if all the troops were ordered to withdraw from the Transvaal to give them a free passage through the Nek, to disperse the Boers and to consent to the appointment of a Commission.
He had been at Bronkhorst, and Laing's Nek, and Ingogo and Amajuba, and supposed that the English did not run up their flag excepting at the end of a fight. Garrett's estimate of Jameson's total loss in killed and wounded for the two days: "When they gave in they were minus some 20 per cent. of combatants. There were 76 casualties. There were 30 men hurt or sick in the wagons.
The Boer loss is estimated at fifty, but it is impossible to know. About 3 p.m. about eighty Boers came down the deep ravine or donga at the further end of the ridge. A mounted infantry picket of three men was away across the donga, watching the road towards Lombard's Nek. Instead of retiring, they calmly lay down and fired into the thick of the Boers whenever they saw them.
Buller's operations in the Free State lasted two days only. On June 10 he engaged a small body of the retreating enemy and entered the Transvaal. In front of him was the Versamelberg, a spur of the Drakensberg, over which the road from Vrede to Volksrust passes at Alleman's Nek, where 2,000 Boers with four guns had taken up a very strong position.
The situation seemed awkward, as the only way out of it was the shallow valley leading up to the nek, and exposed to a converging fire from the ridges on which two guns were posted.
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