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Updated: June 5, 2025
We then marched, with about fifteen hundred men, in the direction of Springhaansnek, to the east of Thaba'Nchu. At the northern point of Korannaberg, Commandant Hasebroek remained behind, waiting for some of his men to join him. We took with us one Krupp with sixteen rounds that was our whole stock of gun ammunition! By the afternoon of the 16th we had advanced as far as Springhaansnek.
My object in making this arrangement was that when on the following morning we were crossing the mountains, he might be able to hinder the enemy at Thaba'Nchu from either checking our advance, or sending reinforcements to the Springhaansnek forts.
If I had allowed the English to discover what I was doing they would have brought up troops from Thaba'Nchu, Sanna's Post and Bloemfontein; and these troops in combination with the force behind me might have put me into a very awkward position. My old friend, General Knox, whose duty it had been to prevent me entering Cape Colony on a previous occasion, was again entrusted with the same task.
I was the last of the Generals to leave Thaba'Nchu.
He came into touch with it at Boesmanskop, and a slight skirmish took place. In the meanwhile I received a report from General Piet de Wet, who was at Dewetsdorp, notifying me that the English forces outnumbered his own so enormously that he could not withstand their advance. He suggested that I ought at once to relinquish the siege and proceed in the direction of Thaba'Nchu.
My commandos numbered some four thousand men, and I decided that it was time to concentrate my forces. Lord Roberts was about to carry out the plans which he had formed at Bloemfontein, namely, to outflank us with large bodies of mounted troops. He attempted to do this to the north-east of Thaba'Nchu, but at first was not successful.
And in point of fact, Prinsloo's commando proved to be our salvation; for the English, from their high position at Thaba'Nchu, spied us as soon as day broke, and indeed sent troops to reinforce the point for which we were making.
There was also a line from Boshof, across the Cape Colony frontier, to Kimberley. Last, but not least, came the "White Elephant" with which the reader is already acquainted the line from Bloemfontein to Ladybrand, through Thaba'Nchu. All these lines were in the Free State.
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