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Updated: June 26, 2025
A strong rearguard was left by the Boers at Houtnek, ten miles north of Thabanchu. Lord Roberts' position at Bloemfontein, and on the line of communication, had never been seriously endangered. The brilliant affairs of Sannah's Post and Mostert's Hoek were no doubt annoying to the British Army and encouraging to the enemy. At home the importance of them was greatly exaggerated.
After leaving Sannah's Post, De Wet seems to have recognized that he was not exactly carrying out the Krijgsraad policy, for he informed Steyn that he was going to Dewetsdorp to "collect the burghers and to obtain dynamite for our operations" against the railway between Bloemfontein and Bethany.
As at Sannah's Post, so again at Lindley the halation of a word or two in his orders fogged the image on his retina. He doggedly stared at the words Heilbron, May 29, as if the whole issue of the campaign depended upon them. There was nothing in the context to show that they were more than the details of an itinerary which he was expected to follow if circumstances permitted.
Up to this time, Lord Roberts was acting without the cavalry under French, who since the Sannah's Post affair had been working in the Thabanchu district, and who joined the main column on May 9.
De Wet did his best to add Wepener to the scalps of Sannah's Post and Mostert's Hoek; but when two columns detailed for the relief by Lord Roberts under the command of Brabant and Hart, who had come round from Natal with his brigade, reached Wepener from Aliwal North on April 25, they found that the siege had been raised, and that De Wet had trekked away to the north.
After reconnoitring the Waterworks and the Boer positions on the right bank of the Modder, Colvile came to the conclusion that he was not strong enough to attack them. Next day all the troops were ordered by Lord Roberts to fall back upon Bloemfontein. Broadwood was not wholly, not even mainly, responsible for the Sannah's Post disaster.
Thus almost within sight of Sannah's Post and Mostert's Hoek and after six months of apparently successful activity by the British Army, De Wet snatched away another garrison.
Thus, at a cost of less than 200 casualties, Lord Roberts made good the first stage on the road to the north. Soon after his entry into Bloemfontein Lord Roberts sent out a small mounted column under Amphlett to Sannah's Post, where the water which supplied the capital was drawn from the Modder River.
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