Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 6, 2025
The infantry, streaming up from the Vaal River to the famous ridge of gold, had met with no resistance upon the way, but great mist banks of cloud by day and huge twinkling areas of flame by night showed the handiwork of the enemy. Hamilton and French, moving upon the left flank, found Boers thick upon the hills, but cleared them off in a well-managed skirmish which cost us a dozen casualties.
Peace reigns everywhere save on the banks of the Vaal, but it is an armed peace, an odious peace, a poisoned peace which is eating us up and from which we are all dying." Such hysterical outbursts in France were not taken seriously by the Government, and the feeling which inspired them was possibly more largely due to historic hatred of England than to the inherent justice of the Boer cause.
The "Fifes" crossing the Vaal captured the town of Christiana in the Transvaal the first act of war on Transvaal soil. After the death of Captain Hodge, Captain R. Purvis took command till wounded at Nooitgedacht, when Lieutenant J. Gilmour succeeded him. In May 1901 the first contingent, after having marched 2575 miles and taken part in 85 engagements, proceeded home.
After that we moved northwards in detachments, instead of keeping together as we should have done, with the result that several of our parties were fallen upon and murdered by the warriors of Moselikatse. Our line of march was between where Bloemfontein and Winburg now stand in the Orange Free State, and it was south of the Vaal, not far from the Rhenoster River that Moselikatse attacked us.
Large forces under Hector MacDonald and Bruce Hamilton recrossed the Vaal in order to crush the Free Staters. Then Prinsloo surrendered. Having accompanied the commandos that surrendered under him, we will relate the story of that most sad incident of the War.
A section of these people made no secret of their sympathy with their kindred across the Vaal, nor of their belief that the war was being waged on false issues. They were thus tempted to lend the Boers a little practical assistance. Nor were they long in finding ways and means to negotiate the loan; they arranged a code of signals which enabled them to communicate with their friends.
One of the consequences of the successful drives about to be described in the Orange River Colony was that a number of the Free Staters came north of the Vaal in order to get away from the extreme pressure upon the south.
Not so Moselekatse, a chief who had formerly broken away from Chaka and had set himself up beyond the Vaal, and who subsequently founded the Matabele Kingdom in which he was succeeded by his son Lobengula.
I kept you in luxury you that fed in the cattle-kraal; you that had mealies to eat and a shred of biltong when you could steal it; you that ate a steinbok raw on the Vaal, you were so wild for meat ... I took you out of that, and gave you this."
It would be interesting to know, if these extra men were not sent to assist in the murder, how and why they turned up as they did and joined themselves to the escort. The prisoners were taken to an old and disused drift of the Vaal river and told to cross. It was now dark, and the river was much swollen with rain; in fact, impassable for the cart and horses.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking