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Updated: May 8, 2025
I found the commando at the appointed place, and also General Brand and Commandant Karel Coetzee, who had come on a visit that day to my commando. They also took part in the attack. My men consisted of burghers from General Michal Prinsloo, Commandants Hermanus Botha, Van Coller, Olivier, Rautenbach, Koen, Jan Jacobsz and Mears, in all six hundred men.
The Commandants present were Steenekamp, of Heilbron; Anthonie Lombaard, of Vrede; C.J. De Villiers, of Harrismith; Hans Nandé, of Bethlehem; Marthinus Prinsloo, of Winburg; and C. Nel, of Kroonstad. The result of the voting was that Prinsloo was chosen for the supreme command. Then the burghers of Winburg selected Mr. Theunissen as their Commandant.
It appears by telegram received this morning that the Burghers started firing on Mafeking with the big cannon. The town is on fire and is full of smoke. The British troops in Natal met the Burghers at Elandslaagte. The battle-field was kept by the Burghers under General Prinsloo. Two were killed, four wounded.
When some of his men came up to him and asked him for directions to repel the advancing British force Prinsloo trembled, rubbed his hands, and replied: "God only knows; I don't," and fled with all his men at his heels.
We remained where we were until the 2nd of August. On that day we had to drink a cup of bitterness. It was on the 2nd of August that I received the news that Prinsloo had surrendered near Naauwpoort. A letter arrived from General Broadwood in which he told me that a report from General Marthinus Prinsloo addressed to me had arrived through his lines.
Only when it was finished the Heer Meyer, whose natural gloom had been deepened by all these events, said: "Allemachte! but you have luck, Allan, to be left when everyone else is taken. Now, did I not know you so well, like Hernan Pereira I should think that you and that devil Dingaan had winked at each other." The Vrouw Prinsloo turned on him furiously.
General Philip Botha and I were with the rearguard, and did not expect to reach the line of forts until ten o'clock on the following morning. We had not advanced very far before we were joined by Commandant Michal Prinsloo, who had with him three hundred of the Bethlehem burghers.
Prinsloo surrendered soon after, in doing which he did his people his greatest service; it was, however, unfortunate that he should have succeeded in leading with him 900 burghers into the hands of the enemy. In the Biggarsbergen we had nothing to do but to sleep and eat and drink. On two separate occasions, however, we were ordered to join others in attacking the enemy's camp at Elandslaagte.
With General Hertzog things went even better. He had soon twelve hundred men under arms. General Fourie had not succeeded in getting together an equally large force in his division, because many burghers from these districts had been taken prisoner at the time of the surrender of Prinsloo. General Hertzog also fought more than one battle at Jagersfontein and Fauresmith.
Far, far above in that infinite sea of blue there appeared a tiny speck, which his sharp sight had already discerned, a speck that grew larger and larger as it descended with terrific and ever-growing speed. It was the king vulture falling from the heavens dead! Down it came between the Vrouw Prinsloo and the slayers, smashing the lifted assegai of one of them and hurling him to the earth.
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