Bloemfontein, President Kruger himself arriving on the scene to give confidence to his burghers; but the demoralization was so great that neither the military genius of the few nor the personal influence of the president could bolster up an adequate resistance, Capture of Bloemfontein.and on the 13th of March 1900 Lord Roberts’s army marched into the Free State capital. This great move was persevered in and accomplished, in spite of the fact that at the very outset of the cross-country march (February 13) the great body of transport which had been collected at Ramdam had been cut off by De Wet (who had stayed on the Riet after French had shaken him off). It was therefore only made possible at all by reducing the rations of the fighting men to a minimum and by undertaking the risks of changing the line of communication three times. Naturally and necessarily the capture of Bloemfontein was followed by a period of reaction. It was not until the 29th of March that the new railway communication recommenced to feed the army. In the meantime rebellion had broken out in the Prieska district of Cape Colony, which was promptly quelled by Lord Kitchener. The halt at Bloemfontein was marked by the publication of proclamations, offering protection to the burghers, which, however, the invaders had not yet the power to fulfil. The enforced halt was unfortunate; it not only resulted in a bad outbreak of enteric, but it gave the Boers time to recuperate, and by the beginning of April they again took the initiative. The death of their commandant general, Piet Joubert, on the 28th of March, seemed to mark a change in the fortunes of the Republican army. Christian De Wet, who had first come into prominence as the captor of Lord Roberts’s convoy at Waterval, and was now operating east and south-west of Bloemfontein in order to counteract the influence of Roberts’s numerous flying columns which rode hither and thither offering peace, added to his laurels by ambushing Broadwood’s mounted brigade and horse artillery at Sannah’s Post, just outside Bloemfontein, on the 31st of March. Four days later he reduced a detachment at Reddersburg, and then went south and invested Colonel Dalgety and a mixed force at Wepener, which was relieved after ten days by General Hunter’s Ladysmith division, brought round to Aliwal North from Natal.
These successes, if they retarded Roberts’s progress, at least enabled him to rearrange his forces in accordance with the new situation at leisure, and to re-establish his transport, rail and wheeled, and on the 1st of May the main army moved northwards upon the Transvaal capital. Relief of Mafeking.The main advance was taken with one cavalry and three infantry divisions (the cavalry commanded by French, and the infantry divisions by Generals Tucker, Pole-Carew and Ian Hamilton). Rundle’s division took the right of the advance; Methuen and Hunter moving from Kimberley, formed the left. Kelly Kenny, Colvile and Chermside held the communications based on Bloemfontein. A flying column detached from Hunter, under Mahon, in conjunction with Colonel H. C. O. Plumer’s Rhodesian levies from the north, on the 17th of May relieved Mafeking, where Colonel (Lieut.-General Sir) R. S. S. Baden-Powell had throughout shown a bold front and by his unconventional gaiety as well as his military measures had held off the assault until the last. The same day the Natal Field Force under Buller moved up into the Biggarsberg and occupied Dundee. On the 10th of May Lord Roberts had crossed the Sand River; on the 12th of May he entered Kroonstad. After a halt of eight days at Kroonstad, the main army again moved forward, and, meeting but small resistance, marched without a halt into Johannesburg, which was occupied on the 31st of May, the Orange Free State having been formally annexed by proclamation three days earlier. Capture of Pretoria.On the 30th of May President Kruger fled with the state archives, taking up his residence at Waterval Boven on the Komati Poort line. The gold mines were now securely in the possession of the British, and on the 5th of June Lord Roberts’s army occupied the capital of the Transvaal practically Without resistance, setting free about 3000 British prisoners of war detained there.
It had been anticipated that the occupation of both the capitals would have brought the hostilities to a close, but this was not the case, and though after the 5th of June regular resistance was at an end, the army of occupation had still to face two years of almost unprecedented partisan warfare. Diamond Hill.On the 8th of June Sir Redvers Buller, who had made a long halt after the relief of Ladysmith and reorganized his army and its line of communication, forced his way over Alleman’s Nek, and on the following day occupied Laing’s Nek, the Natal gate to the Transvaal, while the field marshal fought a widespread battle against Botha, De la Rey and Kemp at Diamond Hill, 20 m. east of Pretoria. The object of this action was to push back the Boers from the neighbourhood of Pretoria, but no sooner was this done than the north-western Transvaal became active, in spite of Hunter’s and Baden-Powell’s advance from Mafeking through this district. As the British line of operations now extended eastward from Pretoria, the advance of these Boers to the Magaliesberg threatened their rearward communications, and as Buller had moved far more slowly than the main army there was not as yet an alternative line through Natal. Most serious of all was the pressure between Bloemfontein and the Vaal, where the Free Staters, under De Wet and other commanders, had initiated the guerrilla as soon as Botha and the Transvaalers retired over the Vaal and ceased to defend them by regular operations. Prinsloo’s Surrender.Large forces had been left behind during the advance on Johannesburg for the protection of the railway and the conquered territory, and these were now reinforced from Kimberley and elsewhere as well as from detachments of the main army. These, under Sir Archibald Hunter and Sir Leslie Rundle, successfully herded Prinsloo with 4000 Free Staters into the Brandwater Basin (July 29)—a very satisfactory result, but one seriously marred by the escape of De Wet, who soon afterwards raided the Western Transvaal and again escaped between converging pursuers under Kitchener, Methuen, Smith-Dorrien, Ian Hamilton and Baden-Powell.
Before this Lord Roberts had initiated a movement from Pretoria to sweep down to Komati Poort on the Portuguese frontier, in which Buller, advancing across country from the south, was to co-operate. On the 26th to 27th of August the combined forces engaged and defeated Botha in the action of Belfast or Bergendal, with the result that the enemy dispersed into the bush-veld north of the Middelburg railway. On the 30th of August the remainder of the British prisoners were released at Nooitgedacht. On the 6th of September Buller, crossing the track of the main army at right angles, occupied Lydenburg in the bush-veld, and five days later the aged president of the republic took refuge in Lourenço Marques. Flight of Kruger.On the 13th of September Barberton was occupied by French, and on the 25th Komati Poort by Roberts’s infantry. From October the military operations were confined to attempts to reduce guerrilla commandos which had taken the field. Mr Kruger, deserting his countrymen, left for Europe in a Dutch man-of-war, and General Buller sailed for Europe. The Boer leaders definitely decided upon a guerrilla and a wearing policy, deliberately dispersed their field army, and then swelled and multiplied the innumerable local commandos. On the 25th of the month the ceremony of annexing the Transvaal was performed at Pretoria.
