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Updated: June 16, 2025
Memorials to the same effect were read from a large number of farming districts, signed by 993 full burghers, who were anxious that the franchise should be extended to law-abiding citizens. These memorials contained the names of prominent farmers. There were nineteen of these last-named memorials, four of which came from different parts of the Pretoria district and three from Potchefstroom.
Maartens, Field-Cornet of the Ward Gatsrand, District Potchefstroom, and Daniel Johannes Jansen van Vuuren, Assistant Field-Cornet of the Ward Bovenschoonspruit, declare under oath that we were present at everything stated in the foregoing sworn declaration of Commandant P.A. Cronjé, and that that declaration is correct and in accordance with the truth.
"On Sunday we shall hold service in Potchefstroom," announced the commandant. Ah! Something definite at last! The men's hearts grow light as they polish their rifles, for are not they going to behold their dear ones soon? No one thinks of doubting the commandant's word; he is our leader, what he says must be true. How we shall get in none know, but get in we shall, all are sure of that.
It will be remembered that this incident was too much even for Mr. Gladstone, and that on its becoming known after the terms of peace had been settled, the Transvaal Government were required by Sir Evelyn Wood to allow a British force to march up from Natal and re-occupy Potchefstroom as a formal acknowledgment of Cronjé's treachery. Mr.
Travelling as lightly as possible, he made a dash on August 7th at the drift which bears his own name, and so won his way across the Vaal River, Kitchener thundering at his heels with his cavalry and mounted infantry. Methuen's force was at that time at Potchefstroom, and instant orders had been sent to him to block the drifts upon the northern side.
The story of the Potchefstroom revolt is little known in England, but it is told in Theal's 'Standard History of South Africa, and very instructive reading it is. Dr.
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger. Mr. Theal says: 'During the months of September and October, 1856, Commandant-General M. W. Pretorius made a tour through the districts of Rutsenburg, Pretoria and Potchefstroom, and called public meetings at all the centres of population.
They divided and subdivided within their own borders, like a germinating egg. The Transvaal was full of lusty little high-mettled communities, who quarreled among themselves as fiercely as they had done with the authorities at the Cape. Lydenburg, Zoutpansberg, and Potchefstroom were on the point of turning their rifles against each other.
A fight with Roberts's Horse on Thursday, February 15th; a march of ten miles and a victorious rear-guard action with Lord Kitchener on Friday; a repulse of the forces under Lords Roberts and Kitchener on Saturday, and on Sunday morning the discovery that he and his four thousand men in the river-bed at Paardeberg were surrounded by forty thousand troops of the enemy that was a four days' record which caused the Lion of Potchefstroom merely to show his fangs to his enemy.
When war-clouds were gathering and the storm was about to burst over the Transvaal Piet Cronje sat on the stoep of his farmhouse in Potchefstroom, evolving in his mind a system of tactics which he would follow when the conflict began.
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