TRANSVAAL. 



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supplies that were landed at Lourengo Marques. 

 A train was wrecked on the Klerksdorp Railroad. 

 Rustenburg was besieged by a Boer force until 

 Methuen's division arrived from the south. While 

 Gen. Smith-Dorrien was driving the Boers from 

 near Krugersdorp Gen. Gro bier's commando cap- 

 tured a squadron of cavalry, three companies of 

 the Lincolnshire regiment, and two guns, the garri- 

 son that was holding Nitral's Nek, 18 miles from 

 Pretoria on the road to Rustenburg, the officers 

 having neglected to occupy the hills commanding 

 the camp. Simultaneously other attacks were 

 made on the British right, which were beaten oil 

 with difficulty. Gen. Pole-Carew's division, guard- 

 ing the railroad to Johannesburg, was attacked 

 vigorously, and Grobler routed the garrison at 

 Derdepoort, 5 miles north of Pretoria. 



On July 24 Lord Roberts began his general ad- 

 vance against Commandant-General Botha's posi- 

 tions on the Delagoa Bay Railroad, which the 

 Boers quickly evacuated. Gen. French occupied 

 Middelburg on July 27. Renewed aggressive tac- 

 tics of De Wet and Grobler led to Lord Methuen's 

 marching to the south again to co-operate with 

 Knox and Broadwood in the attempt to capture 

 De Wet and in defending against his raids the 

 trunk railroad. Gen. Ian Hamilton's mobile 

 column was sent back from Middelburg to check 

 Commandant Grobler, who replenished his sup- 

 plies by upsetting a train near Frederikstad and 

 held Gen. Baden-Powell's command besieged in 

 Rustenbui'g while Commandant de Wet captured 

 a supply train south of Kroonstad. To counteract 

 the British policy of burning farms in order to 

 induce Boers to surrender, President Kruger and 

 Gen. Botha promised to repay such losses if the 

 burghers would remain on commando. Gen. Ham- 

 ilton cleared the Boers from the Magaliesberg and 

 reached Rustenburg, but neither he nor Sir Fred- 

 erick Carrington, marching from Zeerust, had force 

 enough to rescue, the garrison of 300 men at Elands 

 river, which had undergone a ten days' siege by 

 Commandant Delarey. Lord Methuen failed in 

 his efforts to intercept De Wet, who crossed the 

 Vaal and joined Grobler in the bush veldt south- 

 west of Pretoria. Attacks on the Delagoa Bay 

 Railroad in the rear of the column that was ad- 

 vancing to Machadodorp were requited by the 

 burning of all farms in the localities where they 

 occurred. For a plot to kidnap Lord Roberts 15 

 citizens of Pretoria were arrested on Aug. 10. It 

 came out at the trial that the plot had been sug- 

 gested to the ringleader, a paroled Boer lieutenant 

 named Cordua, by a detective in British pay. A 

 plot to overpower the British garrison in Johannes- 

 burg was reported in July, and about 400 Ger- 

 mans, Frenchmen, Swedes, and Americans were de- 

 ported. The employees of the Netherlands Rail- 

 road Company were banished previously. 



Lord Kitchener joined with a large force in an 

 effort to close in on De Wet and President Steyn 

 in the Gatsrand. Gen. Buller marched northward 

 to establish communications with Gen. French's 

 force, which had advanced on the Lourengo Mar- 

 ques Railroad to Wonderfontein, when Buller, 

 after slight resistance from Christian Botha's com- 

 mando, occupied Ermelo on Aug. 11. Comman- 

 dant Delarey increased his force in the western 

 districts of the Transvaal that the British thought 

 they had pacified, until Sir Frederick Carrington's 

 Australian and Rhodesian troopers were compelled 

 to evacuate Zeerust and retreat to Mafeking, and 

 Gen. Ian Hamilton to retire from Rustenburg to 

 Pretoria with his cavalry division and Gen. Baden- 

 Powell's exhausted troops. In this, as in other 

 districts that the British were forced to evacuate 

 after promising protection to the burghers who 



submitted, the Boers wreaked vengeance afterward 

 on those who had given up their rifles. Many Boers 

 when the British were in possession of their dis- 

 trict offered old muskets and shotguns. Lord Rob- 

 erts, suspecting that many of the burghers who 

 subscribed to the oath of neutrality afterward re- 

 joined their commandos when the Boers became 

 active in their neighborhood and the British re- 

 tired, revoked his former proclamation permitting 

 them to remain on their farms, and subsequently 

 he attempted to carry out a plan of interning the 

 civil population in guarded cantonments close to 

 the British camps. It was announced in the 

 proclamation of Aug. 18 that burghers residing in 

 districts occupied by British troops unless they 

 took the oath of neutrality would be deported, 

 and that if they took the oath and afterward 

 broke it they would be punished with death or 

 imprisonment. The Boers were not less rigorous, 

 forcing burghers who had taken the oath to join 

 their commandos on pain of being shot, actually 

 shooting those who gave willing aid or information 

 to the English, and treating all South African 

 volunteers whom they took prisoners with harsh 

 severity, while English soldiers were treated 

 kindly. 



The mounted troops of Gen. Broadwood, the 

 divisions of Lord Methuen and Gen. Smith-Dor- 

 rien, and his own active force of mounted Cape 

 Colonists and Canadians, with which Lord Kitch- 

 ener endeavored to draw a cordon of investment 

 around Commandant de Wet's force, each came in 

 contact with this small but formidable commando, 

 and each of them suffered in a sharp rear-guard 

 action, yet all of them together could not hold 

 this remarkably mobile corps, a part of which 

 dissolved into small bands that roved nearly to 

 the outskirts of Pretoria, while the nucleus that 

 remained with the chief slipped through a gap in 

 the tightening circle and got away with all the 

 guns and the train of supplies and ammunition. 

 Commandant Olivier in the extreme east of the 

 Free State escaped with the other remnant of De 

 Wet's army by doubling back when Gen. Mac- 

 Donald from Ladysmith occupied Harrismith to 

 intercept him. All concentrated bodies of Boers 

 were out of the Free State by the middle of 

 August. Lord Kitchener pursued De Wet till he 

 lost touch of him, then raised the siege of Eland's 

 river. De Wet, passing Commando Nek, demanded 

 its surrender by Gen. Baden-Powell, who with a 

 new command held the position strongly. Gen. 

 Ian Hamilton pushed the Boers out of the Maga- 

 liesberg again, capturing two Krupp guns. De 

 Wet meanwhile crossed to the northeast of Pre- 

 toria, pursued by Baden-Powell and Paget; then, 

 having escorted President Steyn to where he could 

 safely go on to Machadodorp to confer with Pres- 

 ident Kruger, recrossed the Magaliesberg range, 

 and returned to the Orange Free State, slipping by 

 Lord Methuen, who marched his men 40 miles a 

 day in the effort to intercept him. Gen. Buller's 

 force had a hard battle on Aug. 24 at Bergendal 

 with Gen. Louis Botha's troops, which were strong- 

 ly intrenched at Machadodorp, but were pressed 

 at the same time by Gen. Pole-Carew from Belfast, 

 while Gen. French attempted to reach the road 

 north of Machadodorp and cut off their retreat 

 toward Lydenburg. Field-Marshal Lord Roberts 

 was on the field conducting the combined opera- 

 tion. Buller's cavalry rode into a trap and suf- 

 fered from machine guns and shells at short range, 

 and two companies of the Liverpool regiment wan- 

 dered into the enemy's position and were anni- 

 hilated. The position was finally forced by a 

 flanking movement on Aug. 27, and carried by a 

 bayonet charge. Pole-Carew's simultaneous *ad- 





