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Updated: June 15, 2025
As we found no rest either for ourselves or our animals in the south-eastern districts of the Orange Free State, we resolved to go to the Winburg and Ladybrand districts. The enemy had pitched their camps all along the main road from Reddersburg to Dewetsdorp, and from there to Wepener. These stations were from six to eight miles apart, and formed a kind of fence.
The story of the Thabanchu column has already been told. Other columns were detached from Gatacre's and Brabant's commands, and Smithfield, Wepener, and Dewetsdorp, and smaller towns were occupied. Lord Roberts' orders for the occupation of Dewetsdorp were conditional on Gatacre's having enough troops for the purpose at his disposal.
Rundle with his 8th division was brought swiftly up from the south, united with Chermside to the east of Reddersberg, and the whole force, numbering 13,000 rifles with thirty guns, advanced upon Dewetsdorp, Rundle, as senior officer, being in command. As they marched the blue hills of Wepener lined the sky some twenty miles to the south, eloquent to every man of the aim and object of their march.
His subsequent movements showed that he was not a General who feared to strike. The Boers had, however, occupied a strong position at Leeuw Kop, which barred his path, so that the Dewetsdorp Boers were covering the Wepener Boers, and being in turn covered by the Boers of Leeuw Kop. Before anything could be done, they must be swept out of the way.
There was evidence, however, that this kindness had been construed as weakness by some of the burghers, and during the Boer incursion to Wepener many who had surrendered a worthless firearm reappeared with the Mauser which had been concealed in some crafty hiding-place.
If the advance on the Transvaal was delayed by them and the subsequent operations arising out of the siege of Wepener, more time was given to prepare for it; and the British Army was usefully informed of a fact which hitherto had hardly been suspected, namely, that the enemy derived much of his power from mobility, resourcefulness, and aptitude for guerilla.
On the 15th, Kritzinger with the main body of the invaders passed the Orange River near Bethulie, and made his way to the Wepener district of the Orange River Colony.
The echoes of that battle had hardly subsided when he fell upon another British column at Moester's Hoek with results almost as great as at Sannaspost, and two days later he was besieging a third British column in his own native heath of Wepener.
At Constantia Farm, where he found them in position, it is difficult to imagine that there were more than three thousand men. Their left flank was their weak point, as a movement on that side would cut them off from Wepener and drive them up towards our main force in the north.
Once surrounded the length of their resistance was limited by three things: their cartridges, their water, and their food. When they had all three, as at Wepener or Mafeking, they could hold out indefinitely. When one or other was wanting, as at Reddersberg or Nicholson's Nek, their position was impossible. They could not break away, for how can men on foot break away from horsemen?
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