680 



TRANSVAAL. 



to the hilly Lydenberg district of northern Trans- 

 vaal, where great quantities of ammunition and 

 provisions had been accumulated. Commandant 

 Krauss surrendered Johannesburg to Lord Roberts 

 on May 31. The mines, which it was feared might 

 be destroyed by the Boers, were found intact, some 

 of them having been in continuous operation dur- 

 ing the war. The rapid movement of Lord Rob- 

 ci't-'s army, which entirely disconcerted the Boer 

 generals and gave them no chance to offer any 

 formidable resistance, was mainly due to the trans- 

 port service organized by Lord Kitchener. Johan- 

 nesburg was completely surrounded by various 

 I'.riti-h divisions before the Boers had completed 

 their dispositions for the defense of the Rand, and 

 the overwhelming numbers of the British, holding 

 the roads, compelled the commandos that were 

 posted in points of vantage to make their escape 

 with their artillery before it was too late. Sev- 

 eral guns were captured, with many wagons of 

 stores and ammunition, and numbers of burghers 

 gave up their rides and horses. The foreigners 

 who had been fighting with the Boers or working 

 in the arsenals crowded the trains for Delagoa Bay. 

 The Boers after evacuating the Rand took up 

 a position at Six Miles Spruit to contest the ad- 

 vance to Pretoria. The leading column of the 

 British arrived there on June 4, cleared one bank 

 of the spruit with a swarm of mounted infantry 

 and the other with a few rounds from A he heavy 

 guns which had been placed in the fore part of 

 the column for the purpose, and frustrated the 

 efforts of the Boers to get at the flank and rear 

 by deploying a great force of mounted troops. The 

 first attempt of the British to chase the Boers 

 was foiled by a heavy fire from masked guns, but 

 before night the Boers were driven from all their 

 positions and sent fleeing through Pretoria, and the 

 British artillery began to bombard the Pretoria 

 forts, upon which Gen. Botha offered to surrender 

 the capital. Lord Roberts entered and took pos- 

 session on June 5. The commissariat and supplies 

 of Gen. Botha's army were completely disorgan- 

 ized, and the Boers were disheartened because their 

 resistance had been so easily brushed away by the 

 overwhelming British force. The annexation of 

 the Orange Free State stirred up a spirit of resist- 

 ance and resentment among all the Dutch of South 

 Africa that was destined to put new life in the 

 defense of the republics, since it was now clearly 

 apprehended that they had to fight for their polit- 

 ical existence. The Afrikanders of Cape Colony 

 held a people's congress at Graaff Reinet, at which 

 they atlirmed that the majority of the colony as- 

 cribed the war to the intolerable, unwarrantable, 

 and unconstitutional action of the British minis- 

 ters, mid condemned the annexation of the con- 

 quered territories, asserting that the only means 

 of securing peace and tranquillity in South Africa 

 was to re-tore the unqualified freedom of the 

 republics and to give the Cape Colonists a voice 

 in the choice of their governor, so as to abolish 

 the need of standing armies to control the people. 

 hy the capture oi Pretoria Lord Roberts released 

 l.'il officers and :i.."><)0 men who were held there 

 as prisoners of war, but 10 officers and 900 men 

 were taken away by the Boers and placed in con- 

 finement at N'ooitgcdacht. The prisoners had fared 

 far better than the Boer captives at Simonstown, 

 who were confined in prison ships and in cramped, 

 dirty, insanitary quarters in the fortress, where as 

 many as 40 deaths occurred in one week from 

 typhoid fever and filth diseases. Such treatment 

 of the men who stood the bombardment of Paarde- 

 1'iTg with lyddite shells for ten days and the exile 

 of the prominent ones to St. Helena and Ce\ Ion 

 helped to embitter the feelings of the Dutch toward 



the British Government. The sentiments of the 

 colonists were aggravated still further by the de- 

 termination of Sir Alfred Milner to punish as trait- 

 ors those of their numbers who had volunteered 

 to aid their brothers in the republics in the de- 

 fense of their independence. When Lord Roberts 

 adopted later the mistaken policy of burning farm- 

 houses and deporting the women and children as 

 a means of bringing pressure upon the men in the 

 field he only prolonged the conflict, because the 

 Boers whose possessions were destroyed and whose 

 families were broken up had no motive to cease 

 fighting, but a deep motive to continue the conflict 

 to the last. As soon as he entered the Transvaal 

 Lord Roberts issued a proclamation to the effect 

 that burghers who had not taken a prominent part 

 in the policy that led to the war and were willing 

 to lay down their arms and bind themselves by 

 oath to take no further part in the war would 

 be allowed to return to their homes, and after the 

 occupation of Pretoria he announced that such 

 burghers would be allowed to retain possession of 

 their stock or would receive the current market 

 value for it if it were required for the troops. 

 The stock of burghers still under arms could there- 

 fore be seized as spoils of war. 



The northward advance of the British from 

 Bloemfontein drew the Boers away from Natal in 

 great numbers, weakening the line that had held 

 the Biggarsberg range against the repeated as- 

 saults of Gen. Bullers greatly superior force. The 

 Boers could not be held in Xatal when their homes 

 in the rear were exposed to the Hying columns of 

 Lord Roberta's army, and when railroad communi- 

 cation with Pretoria was threatened. On May 7 

 Gen. Sir Redvers Buller began the advance which 

 had been planned in combination with the move- 

 ment of Lord Roberts in the Free State. Moving 

 out from around Elandslaagte, the van of Gen. 

 Buller's army reached the drift of Sunday river on 

 May 9, and Thorneycroft's mounted infantry oc- 

 cupied the high hill of Indoda, which for two 

 months had been the Boer advanced post and out- 

 look. With Lord Dundonald's cavalry guarding 

 the flanks, the army wheeled around, with Tn- 

 doda as the pivot of the movement. Gen. Buller 

 planned a simultaneous attack on the Biggars- 

 berg position by the main column from the south 

 and southeast and by Col. Bethune's mounted 

 column from the east. The Boers expected a 

 frontal attack near Beith, but not a circuitous 

 movement flanking their position from beyond 

 Helpmakaar and from Pomeroy. On May !."> 1 lie- 

 battle was opened by artillery in the vicinity of 

 Beith, and the British naval guns continued firing 

 after the Boers had taken their guns away. The 

 hill of Uithoek, near Helpmakaar, was sei/ed by 

 Thorneycroft's mounted men. who moved eastward 

 and formed a junction with Col. Bethune's cavalry. 

 When the Boers saw the British on their extreme 

 left they moved eastward, racing on the crest of 

 the range with the mounted British troops in the 

 valley, both striving to occupy first the 1-igh 

 ground about halfway between Pomeroy and 

 Helpmakaar. Col. Bethune's men reached the goal 

 first. The Boers evacuated Helpmakaar in the 

 night and Dundee the next day. 



Gen. Buller had been instructed merely to keen 

 the enemy occupied in Biggarsberg. His turning 

 movement compelled the defenders who were left 

 to abandon their line of defense, which was im- 

 pregnable if strongly held. The Boers retreated 

 by railroad from Glcncoc. which was occupied by 

 the British on May Hi. They followed up the 

 lloers to Newcastle, where they were kept in check 

 by artillery and infantry fire until the burghers 

 departed on the cars. A squadron of mounted in- 



