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Updated: June 5, 2025
F. W. Reitz, in the field, although the translation will hardly give an adequate idea of the peculiar treatment of the subject: "Hurrah for General Muller, hurrah for Ben Viljoen, They went for 'Lady Roberts' and caught her very soon. They caught her at Helvetia, great was Helvetia's fall! Come up and see 'The Lady, you Ooms and Tantes all.
It will be best to continue to follow the movements of Plumer's force, and then to give some account of the little armies which were operating from the south, with the results of their enterprise. It was known that Viljoen and a number of Boers were within the district which lies north of the line in the Middelburg district.
Meanwhile the men examined my correspondence and papers almost microscopically. Needless to say, they found nothing. They had barely finished their researches, when a messenger came from the General to say, if Colonel Baden-Powell would exchange me for a Dutchman imprisoned in Mafeking, a certain Petrus Viljoen, he would consent to my going in.
On their right front they were supported by three columns acting from Lydenburg, under Park, W. Douglas, and W. Kitchener. Douglas was the only leader destined to encounter Viljoen, who on April 10 struck at him near Dullstroom, but was handsomely beaten and compelled to return to the place from which he came.
As far as we are concerned, they might even take cannon along with them to guard us, if only they would take us out oftener. Here, too, the moral tone of the burghers is kept up by religious services, and by the great devotion of the Rev. Mr. Viljoen, clergyman of Reitz, in the Orange Free State, who is a fellow-prisoner of ours.
When matters had been explained, however, the commandant, as he turned out to be, introduced himself, saying: "My name is Viljoen. You have probably heard a great deal about me, if not much that is good.
Drake knocking at my door, and telling me I was to be ready in half an hour, as Colonel Baden-Powell had consented to exchange me for Petrus Viljoen. This exchange had placed our Commanding Officer in an awkward position. The prisoner was, as I stated before, a criminal, and under the jurisdiction of the civil authorities, who would not take upon themselves the responsibility of giving him up.
I had now with me only 100 men, under Field-Cornet R. D. Young; the remainder I had left behind near Bethel in charge of General Muller and Commandants Viljoen and Groenwald, with instructions to keep on the alert and to fall on any column that ventured a little ahead of the others.
The next morning communication was established with headquarters, and I had the pleasure of eating a decent breakfast with Ben Viljoen, then commandant, now general, whose acquaintance I had made during the Swaziland expedition. A fiery politician and a reckless writer, his pet aversions were Hollanders and Englishmen, and it was hard to say which he detested the most.
Several skirmishes with the commandos of Muller and Trichardt gave no very decisive result, but a piece of luck befell the British on January 25th in the capture of General Viljoen by an ambuscade cleverly arranged by Major Orr in the neighbourhood of Lydenburg.
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