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Updated: June 28, 2025
And all this within hearing, as you may say, of the main British army. These disasters come most inopportunely for us. Many of the Orange Free State Burghers, when their capital was taken, seem to have thought it was all up and some of them took the oath. But this right and left of De Wet's has changed that impression. It comes just in time to fan into a fresh blaze embers that seemed dying out.
"With an overcrowded boat we were at last on the stream, and finally reached the opposite bank, just as the enemy was beginning to shell De Wet's forces on the other side. It was indeed a relief to me, but we had to march another fifteen miles without water, exposed to scorching heat. At length we found some muddy water.
Had the Boer of June been the Boer of December, the odds would have been against the British. There had been some negotiations for peace between Lord Roberts and Botha, but the news of De Wet's success from the south had hardened the Boer general's heart, and on June 9th the cavalry had their orders to advance.
They had also heard of the reception accorded to Sir Jacobus de Wet's despatch and the High Commissioner's proclamation, so that it was abundantly clear that the incursion had been made in defiance of the wishes of the leaders, whatever other reasons there might have been to prompt it. But the public who constituted the movement were still under the impression that Dr.
Many of the commanding officers had as little knowledge of Kitchener's purpose as the pawns which are moved by the hands of the chess player. The conclusion seems to be that but for De Wet's intrusion the brute force of the investors might possibly have prevailed.
He did not see, however, that the Boers derived little or no strength from their towns, which were rather a source of weakness; they were men of the veld and the veld was their strength. De Wet's guerilla advanced Chermside to the command of the IIIrd Division, in place of Gatacre sent home.
According to De Wet's account, he considered it a point of honour to remain with the women, children, and wagons in the laager, which every hour was growing more unfit for occupation. The ejectment of De Wet, to be followed by an advance on Bloemfontein by French's cavalry, was substituted by Lord Roberts for the assault on the laager, which was to be left to starve itself out.
So I sez to myself, 'Ef a six-shooter ain't of no account, wet's the use of carryin' it? So I just put my shooting-iron in my valise when I travel, and fill my holster with my gold dust, so! It's a deuced sight heavier than a revolver, but they don't feel its weight, and don't keer to come nigh it.
As we have little faith in newspaper war-reports, I shall take the trouble to give you a full account of our short-lived colonial invasion. "You will be surprised, and perhaps sorely disappointed, to hear that De Wet's and Hertzog's commandoes are all back in the Orange Free State.
So thorough were the operations that it is recorded that the angle which formed the apex of the drive was one drove of game upon the last day, all the many types of antelope, which form one of the characteristics and charms of the country, having been herded into it. More important even than the results of the drive was the discovery of one of De Wet's arsenals in a cave in the Vrede district.
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