SOUTH AFRICA. 



619 



having broken up Botha's army, and expected to 

 be able to run them down or drive them into 

 the arms of another column by swift pursuit. 

 Kritzinger was several times almost hemmed in 

 between two or three British columns and the 

 flooded Orange river. These tactics failed. The 

 Boers succeeded in gaining the mountains that 

 cross the center of the colony. Lord Kitchener 

 formed a plan of surrounding them there and 

 barring the passage of the Orange river. But the 

 British soldiers could not penetrate these moun- 

 tains nor even keep the Boers from making raids 

 in various directions. At the end of two months 

 the commandoes were much stronger and the spirit 

 of rebellion in the colony more implacable. Lord 

 Kitchener then sent more brigades to Cape Colony 

 and entrusted operations there to Gen. French. 



The Boers employed Kaffirs as drivers and in all 

 manual work. When the English began in the 

 course of the guerrilla war to use them as spies, 

 guides, and scouts they raised a protest, and when 

 they caught natives who were aiding the British 

 in this way they punished them terribly. It was 

 understood on both sides that the blacks were to 

 take no part in the warfare. To South Africans, 

 British as well as Dutch, the idea of drawing the 

 black populations into the conflict seemed repug- 

 nant and dangerous in the last degree. The Brit- 

 ish military authorities, wishing to deprive the 

 Boers of the supplies and the labor which they 

 were accustomed to draw from the Kaffir tribes, 

 sought to gain these over by gifts and promises 

 and gave them firearms to defend themselves 

 against the Boers. In Rhodesia the beleaguered 

 garrison of Mafeking put rifles into the hands 

 of the natives, and could not have held out with- 

 out their aid. In the guerrilla warfare Cape boys 

 and Hottentots with the British columns were 

 frequently furnished with weapons when a body 

 of British troops was in a tight place. The Boers 

 less frequently armed their trustiest servants in 

 similar circumstances. Mr. Chamberlain more 

 than once intimated the intention of raising col- 

 ored corps to fight the Boers, denying that there 

 was any agreement to the contrary. A few com- 

 panies w r ere actually recruited. When the policy 

 of clearing the country was put into active opera- 

 tion corps of cattle-rangers were recruited who 

 received 10 per cent, of the value of all the cattle 

 and horses they brought in. A burgher corps was 

 enlisted at Bloemfontein for this and for police 

 and defensive duties, and tempting inducements 

 were offered to attract surrendered burghers to 

 the British service. When in the operations 

 against Botha it was desired to clear the eastern 

 Transvaal, Zulus were employed in bringing in 

 the live stock, of which they received a share. 

 The Natal Government protested strenuously 

 against the employment of armed Zulus for such 

 or any warlike business. Botha after the British 

 brigades were withdrawn sent commandoes into 

 .Zululand which stripped the Zulus of their own 

 cattle and property and the arms that the British 

 had given them. 



After the dispersal of the armies of Botha and 

 De Wet the campaign was carried on by means 

 of drives, in which a number of columns swept 

 through the country in parallel or convergent 

 lines, clearing the country at the same time by 

 burning all the farm-buildings and the stores of 

 grain, fodder, and other movables, capturing the 

 cattle and horses, and taking the women and chil- 

 dren off to the concentration camps. The men on 

 commando were invariably able to dodge between 

 two columns and get in the rear of the Brit- 

 ish, excepting small unmounted parties or insig- 

 nificant commandoes that were caught by surprise 



with the aid of informers or Kaffir scouts. Some 

 of the Boer families left I heir farms and took 

 refuge in caves or built huts in the 1< loot's of the 

 mountains, where they wore s.ite unless some 

 native spy revealed their hiding-place. The east- 

 ern Transvaal was partly cleared (luring the oper- 

 ations against Botha. The first active operations 

 with mounted troops were undertaken !,\ Hying 

 columns carrying rations for ton days. Tliey were 

 directed against De Wet, whose commando scat- 

 tered when it passed the Orange river- in the 

 retreat from Cape Colony and assembled a^nin 

 a week later, and against the commandoes of 

 Brand and Hertzog in the southwest, Piet Fouric, 

 Kritzinger, and Scheepers in the southeast, and 

 Hasbroeck and Theron in the northeast of Cape 

 Colony. De Wet, who had passed with his whole 

 force unperceived through the defensive line 

 stretching from Bloemfontein to Thabanchu, was 

 not to be caught by flying columns of raw troops. 

 The convergent movement of troops with regular 

 commissariat, which had failed in Gen. French's 

 advance upon Ermelo, was successful in the Zout- 

 pansberg, the bush veld of the northeastern 

 Transvaal, where the routes are few and the 

 Boers could only flee before the British columns, 

 not slip through as Botha's troops were able to 

 do in the high veld. The seat of the Transvaal 

 Government was removed from Pietersburg to 

 Bothasberg and thence to Roos Senekal when 

 Gen. Louis Botha developed his movement in the 

 eastern Transvaal. Simultaneously with Gen. 

 French's pursuit of the scattered bands of Botha's 

 army to the Swaziland frontier Gen. Plumer was 

 sent up to occupy Pietersburg and the drifts of 

 the Olifants river in order to prevent the escape 

 of the hunted Boers into the Zoutpansberg and 

 Waterberg districts. He occupied Pietersburg on 

 April 7, the Boers having evacuated it during 

 the night. This town had been the chief base of 

 supplies for all the Boer commandoes in the Trans- 

 vaal, supplying meal and flour ground there in 

 large mills, salt from the Zoutpansberg, clothing 

 and saddlery, even powder manufactured by the 

 Boers, so poor though that it was not used when 

 Lee-Metfords and English cartridges could be 

 captured. While at Pietersburg the Boers oper- 

 ated the railroad for 120 miles to Warmbaths. 

 The winter grazing was good in this district. So 

 long as the Boers remained there in force the 

 British were afraid to advance on account of the 

 supposed danger and difficulty of campaigning in 

 the bush veld. Non-combatant burghers surren- 

 dered in Pietersburg, but through an error a 

 gap was left in the cordon on the Olifants river, 

 through which Commandant Beyers with about 

 2,000 men escaped to join Delarey. Gen. Sir Bin- 

 don Blood had command of the entire encircling 

 movement, the main object of which was designed 

 to drive in the Boer forces south of the railroad 

 and capture the Transvaal Government and the 

 principal army still in the field. The niain divi- 

 sions of that army under Louis Botha and Gen. 

 Viljoen had no difficulty in doubling out of the 

 drive. Many small bodies which remained were 

 caught in the strengthened cordon on the Olifants 

 river and in a convergent movement in Tan- 

 tesberg and Bothasberg. The Boer Government 

 fled from Roos Senekal, which was captured on 

 April 22, to Ermelo, and thence toward Carolina, 

 hiding when the British columns were present, 

 and boldly coming out into public operation when 

 they were gone. Every town taken by the British 

 was reoccupied by the burghers after their col- 

 umns had passed on, so that Botha was as fully 

 in command of the district as he was before the 

 drive. Gen. Blood's columns were successful,' how- 



