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Updated: June 2, 2025
The captured cattle which we had hoped to find at the fort had been sent away to Komati Poort a few days before our attack and according to their "books" it must have numbered about 4,000 heads. Another section of this notorious corps met with a like fate about this time at Bremersdorp in Swaziland.
Giraffe were numerous, but difficult to approach on foot. The Komati and the Crocodile were then wide, swiftly flowing streams; in winter their water was crystal clear. Along their banks the dense, evergreen boskage lay soft and rich as velvet. In these enchanted thickets koodoo, sable, and other beautiful antelopes of the rarer varieties were always to be found.
The total number of columns amounted to at least sixty, which varied in number from two hundred to two thousand, and seldom hunted alone. Could their movements be marked in red upon a chart, the whole of that huge district would be criss-crossed, from Taungs to Komati and from Touws River to Pietersburg, with the track of our weary but indomitable soldiers.
Close upon a thousand Hollanders were brought out from Holland to work for a few months in each year on the line and then be sent back to Holland again at the expense of the Republic. In a country which abounded in stone the Komati Bridge was built of dressed stone which had been quarried and worked in Holland and exported some 7,000 miles by ship and rail. These are a few instances out of many.
When he reached Heidelberg on October 26, he had lost half his oxen and a third of his wagons. After the conclusion of the Komati Poort operations Buller returned to England. No general officer serving in South Africa was regarded by the non-commissioned officers and men under his command with greater affection and admiration.
The objective of the British Army was the railway from Pretoria to Komati Poort, on which the Transvaal Government, covered by Botha at Balmoral, was now dwelling at Machadodorp. The movements of Lord Roberts were for some time controlled by the situation in the Free State and the Western Transvaal, which called more pressingly for attention than the eastward advance.
These he sent under Koetzee to Komati Poort and left to arrange their own destiny; and with the rest, which numbered 4,000 burghers, he broke away in two directions, himself with B. Viljoen leading the northward trek, while T. Smuts endeavoured to escape southward into Swaziland.
A warrant was issued for my immediate arrest. Every train was strictly searched. Everyone was on the watch. The worthy Boshof, who knew my face well, was hurried off to Komati Poort to examine all and sundry people "with red hair" travelling towards the frontier.
It was along this road that General Coetser afterwards fled with a small body of burghers, when the enemy, according to expectations, marched on Komati Poort, and met with no resistance, though there were over 1800 there of our men with guns. A certain Pienaar, who arrogated unto himself the rank of a general on Portuguese territory, fled with 800 men over the frontier.
These, however, were disarmed and sent to Lisbon. The end of the struggle was ignominious, as many a burgher had feared; and to this day I pity the men who, at Hector's Spruit, had to go to Komati Poort much against their will.
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