While the great events recorded at the end of my last chapter were in
progress, I paid a visit to the Harrismith burghers, who were under the
command of Commandant Jan Jacobsz, and also to some of the Bethlehem men. On
my return I learnt that the enemy were occupied in building a line of
blockhouses from Heilbron to Frankfort.
It
has always seemed to me a most unaccountable circumstance that England—the
all-powerful—could not catch the Boers without the aid of these blockhouses.
There were so many other ways in which the thing might have been done, and
better done; and the following incident, which occurred during the war,
serves to show that this policy of the blockhouse might equally well have
been called the policy of the blockhead.
On
the 27th of February, 1902, the English made one of their biggest "catches"
in the Free State. They had made a great "kraal"—what they themselves call a
"drive"—and stood, "hand in hand," one might almost say, in a ring around
us, coming from Heilbron, Frankfort, Bethlehem, and Harrismith, and
stretching, on the Transvaal side, from Vrede to the Drakensberg.
Narrower and narrower did the circle become, hemming us in more closely at
every moment. The result was that they "bagged" an enormous number of men
and cattle, without a solitary burgher (or, for the matter of that, a
solitary ox) having been captured by means of their famous blockhouse
system.
The English have been constantly boasting in the newspapers about the
advantages of their blockhouses, but they have never been able to give an
instance of a capture effected by them. On the contrary, when during the
last stages of the war it happened, as it often did, that they drove some of
our men against one or other of the great blockhouse lines which then
intersected the country, and it became necessary for us to fight our way
through, we generally succeeded in doing so. And that, with fewer casualties
than when, as in the instance I have just given, they concentrated their
forces, and formed a circle around us.
The English then were busy when I returned from the south in building a
blockhouse line from Heilbron to Frankfort. They accomplished this speedily,
and then proceeded to the construction of other similar lines, not being
contented until they had "pegged out" the country as follows:—
On
the Natal frontier there was a line from Vrede to Bothaspas, continued
westward by a series of forts to Harrismith, whence the line went on, still
westward, to Bethlehem, and thence down to the Basutoland border at
Fouriesburg.
Kroonstad was made, so to speak, the "axle," whence a series of "spokes"
proceeded; one to the north-east, to Vrede; a second to the north-west,
through Driekopjes Diamond Mine, to Winkledrift, and thence down the
Rhenoster River to its confluence with the Vaal; a third, to the south-east,
to Lindley; and a fourth, to the south-west, along the railway line, to the
frontier of Cape Colony.
In
the western districts there was a line along the left bank of the Valsch
River to the point where it joins the Vaal, and another (also terminating at
the Vaal River) starting from Zand River railway bridge, and running
parallel to the Zand River. There was also a line from Boshof, across the
Cape Colony frontier, to Kimberley.
Last, but not least, came the "White Elephant" with which the reader is
already acquainted—the line from Bloemfontein to Ladybrand, through
Thaba'Nchu.
All these lines were in the Free State. I make no mention here of the
thousands of miles of similar blockhouse lines, which made a sort of
spider's web of the South African Republic.
The blockhouses themselves were sometimes round, sometimes angular,
erections. The roofs were always of iron. The walls were pierced with
loop-holes four feet from the ground, and from four to six feet from one
another. Sometimes stone was used in the construction of these walls, at
other times iron. In the latter case the wall is double, the space of from
six to nine inches between the inner and the outer wall being filled with
earth.
These buildings stood at a distance of from a hundred to a thousand paces
from one another; everything depended upon the lie of the ground, and the
means at the enemy's disposal; a greater distance than a thousand paces was
exceptional. They were always so placed that each of them could be seen by
its neighbours on both sides, the line which they followed being a zigzag.
Between the blockhouses were fences, made with five strands of barbed wire.
Parallel with these was a trench, three feet deep and four to five feet
across at the top, but narrower at the bottom. Where the material could be
procured, there was also a stone wall, to serve as an additional obstacle.
Sometimes there were two lines of fences, the upper one—erected on the top
of the earth thrown up from the trench—consisting of three or four strands
only.
There was thus a regular network of wires in the vicinity of the
blockhouses—the English seemed to think that a Boer might be netted like a
fish. If a wild horse had been trapped there, I should like to have been
there to see, but I should not have liked to have been the wild horse.
The building of these blockhouses cost many thousands of pounds, and still
greater were the expenses incurred in providing the soldiers in them with
food, which had to be fetched up by special convoys. And it was all money
thrown away! and worse than thrown away! for when I come to describe how I
broke through these blockhouse lines (see next page), the reader will see
that this wonderful scheme of the English prolonged the war for at least
three months.
Let us turn now to another, and a more successful device of the enemy.
From the first weeks of the winter, 1901—the reader must remember that our
winter commences in May—the English began to make night attacks upon us; at
last they had found out a way of inflicting severe losses upon us, and these
night attacks grew more and more frequent during the last period of the war.
But they would never have thought of them at all, if they had not been
instructed in them by the National Scouts—our own flesh and blood!
These tactics were not always successful. It sometimes happened that the
English got "cornered"; sometimes they had to "right about turn" and run for
their lives. The latter was the case at Witkopjes, five miles to the south
of Heilbron, and again, near Makenwaansstad. But on only too many occasions
they managed to surprise troops of burghers on their camping places, and,
having captured those who could not run away, they left the dead and wounded
on the ground.
We
soon discovered that these night attacks were the most difficult of the
enemy's tactics with which we had to deal.
Sometimes the burghers, surprised by a sudden visit from the English at such
an unconventional hour, found it necessary to run away at once as fast as
their legs would carry them, so that they often arrived at the nearest camp
without their hats. Indeed a series of these attacks produced such a panic
among our men that I have known a Boer lose not only his hat, but also his
head.
I
come now, in the regular course of my narrative, to an engagement between my
burghers and an English force which had marched from Bethlehem to Reitz, a
distance of thirty miles. This force was guided by a son of one of the Free
State Members of Parliament, and, marching all night, reached Reitz just as
the day began to dawn. This was a smart piece of business; and though the
guide to whom its success was due was my enemy, I fully appreciated the
skill which he then displayed.
The English captured ten or twelve burghers at Reitz, whither they had
perhaps gone in search of the President.
I
was ten miles to the west, on the farm of Blijdschap, and did not receive
reports of what had happened until towards noon.
What was I to do? I could not call up men from Heilbron, Bethlehem, Vrede,
or Harrismith: it would have been at least twenty-four hours before they
could have arrived. All I could do was to summon Veldtcornet Vlok with some
of the Parijs commandos and Veldtcornet Louwrens, and Matthijs De Beer, and
the men. With these and my staff we would not number more than sixty or
seventy all told.
I
at once gave orders to these veldtcornets to meet me at a certain place, and
they were there by the appointed hour.
My
intention was to deliver a flank attack upon the English while they
retreated during the night; for, as they only numbered five hundred men, I
felt sure that they would not care to remain thirty miles away from their
column, but would fall back upon Bethlehem.
In
the afternoon I marched to within a short distance of Reitz, in order to
discover the enemy's plans; then, immediately after sunset, I sent a few
burghers quite close to the town, with orders to meet me again at a certain
point about two thousand paces to the south, and to inform me whither the
enemy were going to march. The scouts returned at ten o'clock that night,
and reported that the enemy was on the march towards Harrismith. In order to
reach this town they would have to start by the Bethlehem road, from which
the Harrismith road forks, at about eight thousand paces from the town.
Our horses stood ready up-saddled; I had only to give the order to mount.
I
meant to cross the Bethlehem road and go to a deep hollow which I knew of
near the Harrismith road; then, when the English appeared against the
horizon, we would fire at them.
But my scouts had blundered. The English were not going to Harrismith after
all. For as we came to the Bethlehem road, we nearly stumbled over them.
They were riding quietly along only a short distance from us. As we were
galloping they knew of our proximity before we were aware of theirs, and
when we were less than two hundred paces from them they opened fire.
"Charge, burghers!"
They all heard me, but they did not all obey. About fifty of the most
valiant of them galloped straight at the enemy. The rest fled.
After a short but fierce engagement we were forced to retire, as six of our
men had been hit. Fortunately, their wounds were but slight, the most severe
being that of my son Isaac, who had been shot through the leg below the
knee.
We
rode away a short distance, and saw looming through the darkness a company
of horsemen approaching us from Reitz. I thought at first that they were
some of my own burghers—the ones who had taken to their heels—but it turned
out to be General Wessel Wessels, who was nearer than I knew with his staff,
in all some twenty men. I, however, could muster seventy, and we decided to
cut off the retreat of the enemy. But they had, in the meantime, been riding
on so fast that we did not reach them until it had grown quite light. An
engagement, short and fierce as the last, ensued, but as the enemy was from
six to seven times as strong as we were, and had a gun and a Maxim-Nordenfeldt
with them, we could not stand against them, and had to let them go on their
road.
We
were fortunate in suffering no loss there, and while the English marched on
to Bethlehem we rode off in the opposite direction.
We
had now a short period of repose. The English were so busy building
blockhouses that they had no time to fight us. Our poor horses were in a
miserable condition, for so little rain had fallen that the grass was very
dry and sapless. But at least we could now give them the rest which they
sorely needed.
