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Updated: May 28, 2025
On the following day the enemy marched to Liebenbergsvlei, between Bethlehem and Reitz. Thence they took the road between Lindley and Reitz to Kroonstad. Piet de Wet, of the National Scouts, was with these columns. After we had remained two days at Kaffirskop, we crossed the Valsch River. The news then came that a column with a convoy was on the march from Harrismith to Bethlehem.
This force was guided by a son of one of the Free State Members of Parliament, and, marching all night, reached Reitz just as the day began to dawn. This was a smart piece of business; and though the guide to whom its success was due was my enemy, I fully appreciated the skill which he then displayed.
Reitz and his co-workers are the origin and the cause. Believe me, the day on which F. W. Reitz sat down to pen his ultimatum to Great Britain was the proudest and happiest moment of his life, and one which had for long years been looked forward to by him with eager longing and expectation.
I denied the fact in presence of Manget, with whom I was confronted, and bribed the Auditor with a hundred ducats. By this means Reitz only suffered a year's imprisonment, and the loss of his commission. I was afterwards closely confined in a chamber, for having endeavoured to corrupt the King's officers, and was guarded with greater caution.
He would take no active steps until the independence of the Free State was endangered. His successor in office, President Reitz, was not credited with anything in particular, but it was understood that should the Volksraad decide to co-operate with the Transvaal in any instance, he would willingly give his consent. This was confirmed when Dr. Jameson's entrance into the Transvaal was made known.
The same politician made the same proposal to Mr. Beit. Compare with this the following statement of Mr. Theodore Schreiner, the brother of the Prime Minister of the Cape: 'I met Mr. Reitz, then a judge of the Orange Free State, in Bloemfontein between seventeen and eighteen years ago, shortly after the retrocession of the Transvaal, and when he was busy establishing the Afrikander Bond.
De Wet, who on January 10 had had a hurried interview with Steyn near Reitz, was lying at Elandskop between Heilbron and Reitz, and again concentrating his scattered burghers and planning an escape with them to the south across the Kroonstad-Bethlehem blockhouse line. Mears, on his way to rejoin De Wet, ran into a column under Byng, to whom he lost the guns captured by De Wet at Groen Kop.
S.D. Burger, F.W. Reitz, Louis Botha, J.H. De la Rey, L.J. Meijer, and J.C. Krogh, on behalf of the Government of the South African Republic and its burghers; "Messrs.
The news put everyone in fresher spirits. The charm around the famous guerilla fighter had broken. That the Rebellion was doomed we all knew. But most of us were weary, nevertheless. It furnished a refresher. We left a happier Bethlehem at a rainy dawn the next day. Half way to Reitz we outspanned in the rain. It rained all night.
He said that he would rather surrender to the English unconditionally than make terms with them. The remainder of the day was occupied in listening to speeches from State-Secretary Reitz and President Burger. On the following day the speakers were: L.J. Meijer, J.B. Krogh, myself, State-Secretary Reitz, and Judge Hertzog. The last-named made a proposal, which was seconded by General C.H. Olivier.
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