The task set to Smuts was, to all appearance, impossible of fulfilment.

Not only had he to collect a sufficient force in the Gatsrand under the eyes of British columns, but he had also to conduct it through the whole length of the Orange River Colony, and run the gauntlet of Elliott, C.

Knox, Rundle, and Bruce Hamilton. By the middle of July he had recruited 340 burghers, who travelled south in four parties with British columns at their heels and mustered near Hoopstad on August 1.

Here they entered the precincts of the area into which Lord Kitchener was endeavouring in one grand drive to sweep the Boer remnants of the S.W. Transvaal and the Orange River Colony. Elliott was wheeling round from Reitz through Vredefort and Klerksdorp and advancing on the line of the Modder River, behind which stood Bruce Hamilton.[59] A considerable amount of transport and live stock was taken; also 500 Boers, among whom Smuts and his commando were not.

He had succeeded on August 3 in wriggling by night through Elliott's driving line and was now in rear of it. He now divided his force into two commandos, one of which, under Van der Venter, made for the south by way of Brandfort. With the other he boldly trailed behind Elliott and followed him to the Bloemfontein-Jacobsdal line of Constabulary posts, through which he passed without injury. He then found himself entangled in Bruce Hamilton's columns, and although he succeeded in reaching Springfontein, he was soon forced to retreat nearly seventy miles in the direction of Bloemfontein. Nothing daunted, he made another dash for the south, and having evaded two pursuing columns entered Zastron on August 27, where he found Van der Venter waiting for him. His daring and adventurous ride ranks as one of the most notable personal exploits of the war. He had not only cut Elliott's line from front to rear, but had afterwards enfranchised himself amid the swarm of Bruce Hamilton's columns. The lawyer Smuts was the De Wet of the Transvaal.

Kritzinger after fifteen weeks' activity in the Cape Colony had returned to Zastron a few days before Smuts' arrival. His incursion into the Colony in May occurred at an opportune moment, for the local rebels were being severely worried. He made at first for the Zuurberg, but being soon expelled from it and from the adjacent mountainous district north of Sterkstroom, circled back to the Orange and snapped up Jamestown. He now flung his grenades on all sides. One rebel leader reached the Transkei districts; others prowled between Graaff Reinet and the Capetown Railway. Kritzinger himself captured a small British detachment near Maraisburg.

As in February when Lyttelton was brought down, so again in July the situation in the Cape Colony was sufficiently serious to call for outside assistance. French was sent down from the Transvaal; Lord Kitchener himself came to Middelburg. The measures concerted between them, a series of northward drives by the operation of which the rebels would be plastered against the railways, which were rapidly blockhoused for the purpose, met with indifferent success. The disaffected midland districts were swept, but the leaders escaped. Kritzinger crossed the Orange in August, and at Zastron awaited the arrival of J.C. Smuts with new schemes for mischief.

The presence of these leaders attracted columns from several quarters and they were betimes theoretically surrounded. Kritzinger, however, refused to consider himself surrounded and even worked freely in co-operation with Brand: nor had J.C. Smuts any intention of resigning his commission. He crossed the Orange on September 3. A fortnight later, Kritzinger and Brand parted company. Kritzinger marched on the Orange, and near a drift of that river pounced upon and overwhelmed a weak detail of the force under Hart, who was acting as warden of the Cape Colony marches. Brand made for the Bloemfontein-Thabanchu line of posts, which was the sport of every Boer leader who chose to hack at it, and which recently had scarcely impeded the progress of Van der Venter to the south for an hour. On September 19, near Sannah's Post, he ambushed and destroyed a party of mounted infantry engaged in raiding a farm. Two guns and nearly 100 prisoners of war were taken by Brand.

Smuts' arrival in the Cape Colony, like Kritzinger's four months before, stimulated a waning cause. Lotter, who had escaped French's drives, had just been taken; the other rebel leaders were isolated and comparatively innocuous. Fresh hopes were kindled, activities were renewed, when it was noised among the rebel bands that Smuts the Transvaaler had swooped down like an eagle from the north.

These hopes were not delusive. Smuts made for the south, pursued by some of French's columns. Near Tarkastad on September 17 he ambushed and overwhelmed a detachment of regular cavalry and won a footing in the midlands, where rebellion again raised its head from the ground.

Smuts noticed and encouraged the promising movement and returned to the Zuurberg, out of which, however, he was soon hustled. He went away to join a rebel leader named Scheepers, who had been working freely 200 miles away to the S.W. in the districts bordering the sea. Scheepers, however, was taken prisoner near Prince Albert Road Station on the Capetown Railway before Smuts reached him; but Smuts continued his movement. Smuts had entrusted the inflammatory work in the midlands to local leaders before he left the district, and now set himself to trespass beyond the furthest point reached by Scheepers, and to make a bold entry into the extreme S.W. corner of the Cape Colony. Early in November he penetrated into the Ceres district, where he was less than 100 miles in a direct line from Capetown. He had brilliantly performed the task set to him by Botha and Steyn at Standerton in June. He had been in contact with and had evaded the majority of the units of Lord Kitchener's widely disseminated army at one time or another during his ride of 1,100 miles, and in fourteen weeks had passed from the Gatsrand in the Transvaal to within a few days' march of Capetown.

Meanwhile Lord Kitchener was doing his best to deal with the accruing winter discontent. He had a plan of his own; and he was also furnished with a plan that had been drawn up by the civilian authorities in Downing Street and South Africa, who thought that the walls of Jericho would fall to the sound of a Proclamation. In August, 1901, a legal document was served on the Boers, much in the same way that a writ is served upon a debtor. In it they were declared to be helpless and incapable of carrying on the struggle, and their leaders were threatened with perpetual banishment. It had little effect on the enemy, except to brace him up for further efforts; and Lord Kitchener, it is believed, had no faith in it.

Lord Kitchener's plan was the extension across the veld of the system of blockhouse lines which at first ran only along the railways, and the formation of pens or enclaves into which the attenuated roving bands of Boers were to be herded and dealt with severally and severely. The work of extension was taken in hand in July, 1901. The Boers in the veld watched it with the detachment and unconcern of a wild bird on the branches looking down upon the fowler laying his snares in the field below.

Another drive by Elliott during August and September, this time through the eastern districts of the Orange River Colony, affected little.

Kritzinger remained in his corner between the Orange and the Caledon and could not be extracted from it; De Wet was still at large. In the Transvaal the leaders were marking time. Viljoen after the Standerton conference withdrew beyond the Delagoa Bay Railway, but was soon driven out of the mountains. He lost heart, handed over his command to Muller, and went down to the low veld adjoining the Pietersburg Railway.

In the Western Transvaal Delarey and Kemp were alert. Kemp in the Zwartruggens foiled an attempt to cast a net around him, and in conjunction with Delarey attacked Methuen on the Marico River without success on September 5. A pale of blockhouses denied them access to the "protected area."[60] Muller effected a trifling success in the middle north. Beyers in the Pietersburg district was unable to prevent Grenfell reaching a point but sixty miles from the Limpopo and there making prisoners of a local commando.

No organized attempt was made to disturb Botha in the Ermelo district. A column under Benson did indeed set out from the Delagoa Bay Railway in August, but it was recalled by the alarm of a Boer raid on the line at Bronkhorst Spruit. Benson subsequently did useful raiding work in the Carolina district, but was not strong enough to tackle Botha.

Botha had never abandoned the scheme of an invasion of Natal which was drawn up at the end of 1900. His first attempt to carry it out was frustrated by French, but it was uppermost in his mind during the winter of 1901. Early in September he left the Ermelo district, in which Lord Kitchener had never been able to operate effectively, and made for Piet Retief with 1,000 men. Columns, faint yet pursuing, started from each railway, and ignorant of his movements trudged wearily across the veld to the S.E. Botha, after passing through the defile between the Swaziland border and the Slangapiesberg, turned to the south, his ultimate objective being Dundee. In the corner abutting on Zululand were commandos under Emmett and Grobler of Vryheid.

Lyttelton on his return from leave took over the Natal command from Hildyard. He disposed his columns as best he could, having regard to the contradictory reports which reached him of Botha's movements and intentions. The first encounter occurred on September 17 at Blood River Poort. A mounted column under Gough and Stewart had been sent out from Dundee across the Buffalo to bring away a convoy from Vryheid. Gough soon came into touch with a body of the enemy. It was, he thought, only a local commando, and when he saw it off-saddle he left Stewart in support and went out to surprise it. The nature of the ground prevented a complete surprise, but he partially effected it, only to be surprised himself by the sudden charge of Botha's main body, which was supposed to be a day's march distant. After a brief combat, in which Stewart was unable to intervene, Gough lost the whole of his command of nearly 300 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, as well as three guns. Stewart escaped to the Buffalo.

The crick-crack of Botha's Mausers at Blood River Poort echoed throughout South Africa. Troops from all quarters were hurried to the spot; search parties discovered some columns under W. Kitchener which had lost themselves on the high veld; and so rarified was the military atmosphere, that not only columns but even general officers were scarce.

Bruce Hamilton and Clements were brought in.

Botha seems to have regarded his success as unreal. He hesitated to follow it up, and soon the Buffalo in flood effectually barred the way to Dundee. He now proposed to enter Natal through Zululand, below the junction of the Tugela and the Buffalo. On the point of the angle which, at that time, the Transvaal thrust into Zululand were two British posts, Forts Prospect and Itala. Botha was beginning to be doubtful about the eventual success of his Natal raid, but thought that as he was on the spot he might as well be doing something. He therefore ordered these posts to be taken, entrusting to his brother C. Botha the attack on Itala, and to Emmett and Grobler the attack on Prospect. The failure of each attack with considerable loss on September 26 made Botha reconsider his position. There was no more thought of another campaign on the Tugela, and he determined to retire.

Lyttelton's dispositions continued for some days to be directed against the Natal raid upon which Botha was supposed to be still engaged, and the discovery that he had abandoned it was not made until October 1. His capture did not seem to be a very difficult task, as his only way of escape was the Piet Retief defile by which he had entered the district three weeks before.

There was, however, an intermediate barrier, the irregular Pondwana range lying eastward of Vryheid, where he might be arrested. Lyttelton's plan was that Clements and B. Hamilton should press towards this barrier from the S.W., while W. Kitchener acted as a stop on the north side of it. The range is pierced by several neks, at one of which, lying between the main heights and the Inyati spur, Botha was checked by Kitchener on October 2. He then made a cast eastward to another nek and by abandoning his transport succeeded three nights later in getting round Kitchener's left. He easily kept Kitchener off in a rearguard action and made for Piet Retief. Neither Clements nor B. Hamilton was ever in the running, and Kitchener was hampered by the necessity of watching several neks along a front of twenty miles.

There was, however, one more barrier for Botha to cross or to turn, the Slangapiesberg between Wakkerstroom and Piet Retief; but it scarcely delayed him for an hour. Except one column, which was covering the building of a blockhouse line and which he evaded without difficulty, there was nothing to oppose him. When a column under Plumer came upon the scene he had passed away on October 11 through Piet Retief towards Ermelo. His movements had bewildered his opponents, who intent on frustrating a raid on Natal, had omitted to bar and bolt the door by which he had entered. His capture would, in all probability, have ended the war.

When Botha left for the south he instructed B. Viljoen to carry on for him; but when he joined the itinerant Transvaal Government at Amsterdam he was disappointed to find that little or nothing had been done in his absence, thanks chiefly to the mobile energy of Benson, who hovered like a hawk over the terrorized laagers. Moreover, the pale of Constabulary posts which formed the eastward section of the great ring fence enclosing the "protected area" had been advanced. It now ran from Greylingstad to Wilge River Station on the Delagoa Bay Railway, and encroached upon the area in which Botha could act with reasonable hope of success.

The return of Botha, however, infused some spirit into the hustled commandos of the high veld, and he gladly accepted a suggestion that Benson should be attacked. The Ermelo and Carolina men who had accompanied him to Natal returned to find that their districts had been roughly handled by Benson and were eager for reprisals. On October 25 Botha narrowly escaped capture by two columns which had been sent after him from Standerton.

Benson left Middelburg, the base to which he returned from time to time, on October 20, with a column 1,600 strong, to renew his operations on the high veld. When he reached the Bethal district he noticed ominous signs of the revived spirit. He was hampered with a considerable transport, his supplies were dwindling, and he did not think himself justified in risking an encounter. He therefore decided to return to the Delagoa Bay Railway. H. Grobler of Bethal, who had suggested to Botha the attack on Benson, was in the vicinity with 700 burghers, and Botha himself was again in the field.

Benson began to retire before sunrise on October 30. Bad weather and Grobler pressing in rear worried the forenoon march, and ere the midday halt had been called Botha came up with 500 men after a forced march.

While the convoy was being parked at Bakenlaagte, the pressure on the rearguard increased, and it was forced back to a ridge about two miles S.E. of the park. Benson came up and ordered a second retirement of the rearguard to a position, to which the name of Gun Hill has been given, nearer the park, and posted two field guns on the hill.

Botha soon occupied the ridge, and then charged Gun Hill with his main body under Grobler, at the same time sending parties to attack the flanking posts. Two detachments of British infantry stranded between the ridge and the hill were overwhelmed by the charge. Most of the mounted sections got away to the hill, hotly pursued by the Boers, who leaving their horses at the foot, at once began to climb the slope. They clutched each shoulder of the hill, swarmed up the front, and soon silenced the guns. An attempt to bring up the teams from the reverse slope failed.

In less than half an hour Grobler had won Gun Hill with a loss of 100 men. Benson was mortally wounded. The flanking posts were too much engaged in defending themselves to be able to assist the defenders of Gun Hill. An attempt to intervene made by a few companies on the march to the camp where the convoy was parked was unsuccessful. The Boers, as usual, were satisfied with a casual tactical success, and made no effort to follow it up strategically. They were soon driven off Gun Hill by shell fire from the camp, but after nightfall returned to bring away the guns. In the British casualties were 120 prisoners of war.

Wools-Sampson, who succeeded Benson in command, maintained himself for two days, and was then relieved by columns from the south. He returned to the Delagoa Bay Railway.

The exigences of the military situation called for the withdrawal of most of the troops operating against Kemp and Delarey in the Western Transvaal; and by the middle of September, 1901, these leaders had practically but one column to evade, namely the force formerly commanded by Dixon and now by Kekewich. He left Naauwpoort on September 13, and after some preliminary work on the Magaliesberg passed through Magato Nek, and with a force of less than 1,000 men advanced into the Zwartruggens, a wild, difficult, and confusing district admirably adapted to Boer _guerilla_.

On September 29 Kekewich took up a position at Moedvil near the right bank of the Selous River. He was compelled to place all his westward outposts, except one double picket, on the right bank, as the veld on the left bank was bushy and rose gradually from the river and would have absorbed more men than he could spare for outpost duty.

Delarey was accurately informed of Kekewich's movements, and it is said had actually reconnoitred the camp unobserved a few hours after Kekewich's arrival. He quickly formulated his plan of attack, in which he seems to have followed, on a smaller scale, the familiar tactics of the British leaders whom he had met in battle, notably at Diamond Hill, but with a certain innovation of his own.

He divided his force into four columns, two of which were told off to grapple Kekewich's flanks and command his line of retreat, and two to make a frontal but not merely holding attack on his centre. Early in the morning of September 30 Delarey put his columns in motion. He started with certain points in his favour. All Kekewich's outposts save one were on the right bank and in the vicinity of the camp, and in fact Delarey took him by surprise. The movements of the Boer columns were, however, not well co-ordinated. The flanking columns were not in position when the centre columns, which do not seem to have been challenged by the post on the left bank, reached the river and concealed themselves in the deep bed. This might not have marred the success of Delarey's plan if the columns in the river-bed had not been discovered by a patrol which gave the alarm and brought them prematurely into action.

The situation now resolved itself into an attempt to storm the position.

The centre columns sprang out of the river while it was still dark, mounted the steep bank and opened fire up the slope on to the camp on the skyline above. A stampede of the horses ensued, but a resolute front was quickly formed and the attack was checked. An alarm that the enemy was threatening the rear of the camp was proved to be unfounded by a scratch gathering of details which was hastily mustered; it then wheeled round, and picking up reinforcements on the way charged the Boer left at the river. The charge was irresistible, and the sun had hardly risen when Delarey's whole line fell away.

No limit can be assigned to the British soldier's power of resistance when he finds himself in a tight place, but it would probably have gone hard with him if Delarey's tactical scheme had been accurately carried out, and if the flanking columns, one of which was under the command of Kemp, had been further in advance when the centre columns were discovered. A panic among the horses which threw the camp into confusion, supervening on an unexpected attack while the dawn had scarcely shown above the Magaliesberg, was soon followed by a cry that the position had been turned. Yet at that critical moment of the dark hours, when animal courage is supposed to be at its lowest ebb, Kekewich's men never wavered, and although they were only called upon to deal with a blundered manoeuvre, yet it exacted from them a toll in casualties of nearly one fourth of their strength. Kekewich was wounded, and the loss of horses and transport pinned him to the ground until he was relieved by a column from the south, which had marched to the sound of the battle.

A few days later Kekewich went to Rustenburg, out of which he again sallied forth on October 13 into the Zwartruggens in search of Delarey.

Methuen had already left Mafeking on the same errand. On October 24 Delarey fell in with one of Methuen's columns on its way to Zeerust. The column, which was impeded by wagons slowly progressing along a bad road in a defile, was pounced upon unexpectedly and hewn in twain; but if, as usual, the scouting was poor the defence was excellent. After a struggle which lasted two hours Delarey was driven off, the severed portions of the column were re-united, and not one of the seven guns was lost.

By the end of 1901 all the precedents of European warfare had been discredited. Tactics and strategy, as practised by the experts, had done their best, and were now in bankruptcy. The war had drifted into its final mechanical phase: the coercion of brute force by brute force of higher potential. It was now mainly a question of putting as many men as possible on horseback to ride down the enemy. Field guns not being needed, the Royal Artillery was formed into a corps of Mounted Rifles.

Ian Hamilton, who had gone home with Lord Roberts, returned to South Africa a year later as Chief of the Staff to Lord Kitchener.

Notes:

[Footnote 55: These posts, however, were small entrenched forts at considerable distances apart for the protection of the road to Basutoland, rather than blockhouses.]

[Footnote 56: See p. 326.]

[Footnote 57: Lyttelton went to the Cape Colony in February, 1901, to direct the operations against De Wet, and was subsequently sent into the Orange River Colony. After a few months' leave he returned to South Africa in September and took over Hildyard's command in Natal.]

[Footnote 58: He was next heard of at the abortive peace conference held at Middelburg, where he met Lord Kitchener at the end of February.]

[Footnote 59: Bruce Hamilton succeeded Lyttelton in the Orange River Colony when the latter went home on leave.]

[Footnote 60: The "protected area" was a district round Pretoria and Johannesburg which was enclosed by a ring of blockhouses and Constabulary posts in August, 1901.]