44 THE WAR IN SOUTH AFliICA [1900 CHAPTER II THE AWAKENING IN THE TRANSVAAL (September-November, 1900) The organ- In the Transvaal the organised Boer revival naturally came ised Boer revival came later than in the Orange Free State. It was on Transvaal soil later in the that the last regular battles of the war were fought ; and it Transvaal. was not till the end of September, when de Wet was already taking the field with the first genuine guerilla force, that the issue of these battles was decided and the regular Boer army finally dissolved. Escape of the It was a very natural, but a very costly error by which, leaders and in the last stage of the advance, the main British energies one organised force, were devoted to forcing a passage direct to the Portuguese Sept. 1900. border and not to the more important object of cutting the one line of retreat open to the one organised Boer force still * in existence. This matter was dealt with in the last volume ; but it is necessary to remind the reader that in the middle of September Louis Botha, with the aid of Ben Viljoen, collected from the wrecks of the melting army 2,000 of the staunchest spirits in the Boer ranks, and, accompanied by Acting-President Schalk Burger and the members of the Transvaal Government, cut himself adrift from the railway, with all its attendant scenes of confusion and de- moralisation, and inarched north for Pietersburg. Though there was full warning of this important movement, and ample time to defeat it, Botha was allowed to effect his purpose almost unchallenged. He had, it is true, to divide his force, for the only direct route lay across the rugged heights of the Drakensberg, and Buller, who had garrisons from Machadodorp to Lydenburg and thence round to Spitz- * See vol. iv. pp. 477-8. 1900] THE AWAKENING IN THE TRANSVAAL 45 kop, was closely threatening the one pass by which the Boers could cross the range. Botha, therefore, and the Govern- They reach pietersbur ment, together with a small escort, slipped across the pass g» just before it was blocked and reached Pietersburg early in October. Viljoen was left with the main body to execute an immense and laborious detour through the fever-stricken jungles of the low country, and so round the northern spurs of the mountains, by Leydsdorp and Agatha to Pietersburg, which he reached on October 19. Steyn and the Free State Government, who had made which their dash for safety even earlier than Botha, were present ^imSS* Joint here too. And now a still earlier defect in the British and resting- lace - strategy, Carrington's failure to invade the Transvaal P from the north, told its tale. Pietersburg and the sur- rounding districts, as far south as Pienaar's Eiver Station, where the nearest British column was posted, were a secure retreat. Beyers, the leader whose courageous counsels had turned the scale in the dark hours which followed the capture of Pretoria, had retreated hither with the Water- berg and Zoutpansberg commandos ; Kemp, another and yet more ardent spirit, was present with the Krugersdorp commando ; De la Eey, who had fallen back on his own country in the west, which was scarcely less secure, was within easy reach of communication ; and thus both Govern- ments and the most influential leaders of the Transvaal found leisure to rest both brain and body, to communicate with Europe and with distant parts of the two republics, and to make plans for a revival of the war. But it was not till Elsewhere e 3 the end of November that these plans matured, and in the jack enTer^ ri se but are meantime most districts were leaderless and their men P > . y deficient in enterprise. And yet, beneath the surface exactly the^ame the same tendencies were at work as in the Orange Free State. gue"Ha spirit Many disheartened burghers had surrendered ; but the great staters. majority had jogged quietly back to their farms and resumed their normal avocations. Animated by the same spirit of local patriotism, they were quite ready to unite in small bodies for the opposition of hostile columns, for the worrying of convoys and for the wrecking of railways, though as yet there was no union of effort for any common purpose. 46 THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA [1900 The British The greater part of the British forces were disseminated hold railway lines of railway, towns and along the which required an immense number little else. of men for their protection. The system of garrisons initiated in the Free Stato at the end of August had been followed also in the Transvaal, but, owing to the lack of troops to occupy the large area theoretically under British control, it was found impracticable to do much more than hold the chief towns on the railways, and to organise columns at some of these points for the purpose of breaking up any bodies of the enemy which might concentrate within striking distance. The greater part of the territory and of its natural resources were still in the hands of the Boers. Vast districts remained where the invaders had never penetrated and where the burghers, with their families and belongings, found rest and sanctuary. No change in As in the Free State, the British columns were still the system of organised for regular war and still adhered rigidly to an warfare. already obsolete system. Although, in the aggregate, the number of mounted men was still inferior to that on the Boer side, there were mounted corps which, by constant service in the field, had been brought to a high state of efficiency, and there were many young leaders of horsemen who had proved their worth. The time, moreover, was rapidly approaching when the first period of service of many Colonials and Yeomen would expire. But no material change was introduced into the system of warfare; so that the greater part of the mounted men were still chained to ponderous columns of infantry and their activities restricted to what they could accomplish between daylight and dusk. The various commanders of divisions and districts claimed some- thing of a vested interest in their mounted men, and the rigid traditions of a regular army prevented interference with the hide-bound rules of routine. Thus, at a highly critical period of the war, the Transvaal, like the Free State, was given the necessary respite to recuperate its strength. The troops The general course of the war had automatically dis- stand in tributed the British forces in the Transvaal into seven seven main groups. main groups. (1) To guarantee security at Pretoria and Johannesburg an entire division of infantry was needed. 1900] THE AWAKENING IN TEE TRANSVAAL 47 (2) To the east, Lyttelton, with the troops Buller had brought up from Natal and other forces accumulated during the eastern advance, held the Delagoa railway from the capital to Waterval Onder, while French still held Barber- ton and the remaining section of the railway. (3) To the south-east, Clery and Hildyard, with the old Second and Fifth Divisions of the Natal army, occupied Natal and the railway to Heidelberg. (4) West of Pretoria, Clements, Ridley, Broadwood and Cunningham operated in the Maga- liesberg and the districts stretching to Eustenburg. (5) To the south-west, Hart and Barton held the railway to Klerks- dorp, and were actively engaged in the neighbouring districts. (6) In the remotest west, Methuen at Mafeking and Settle further south had the difficult task of controlling an im- mense area of country with fewer troops and under greater difficulties of supply than in any other region. (7) Finally, to the north, Paget, with Plumer and Hickman, operated on the Pietersburg railway. We propose to survey in turn the history of these groups. At Pretoria and Johannesburg Tucker's Seventh Division Pretoria ana nneS~ has an uneventful story. The 14th Brigade held Pretoria ^, and the 15th Johannesburg with a total effective strength, Sept.-Nov. at the end of September, of 6,000 men and 32 guns; and at the end of October, of 5,000 men and 25 guns. But Alderson's Mounted Infantry, which was in course of organisation within the command, was making rapid pro- gress, and by the 25th November had grown to a strength of 3,000. In the eastern theatre the most important event during The last * the October was the march of the cavalry division, under General J^valry French, from Machadodorp to Heidelberg. Early in the division, Oct. month French was directed to hand over the command at Barberton to Major-General Stephenson and to return to Machadodorp. Thence he was to march diagonally across the " high veld " to Heidelberg, with the view of clearing the district of hostile inhabitants. For this purpose there were placed under his command Mahon's cavalry column and the 1st and 4th Cavalry Brigades under Generals Dickson and Gordon, with a total effective strength of 3,000 mounted s; 48 THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA [1900 men, 300 infantry, 16 guns and four pom-poms. The full ration strength of the column, inclusive of transport, amounted to 4,800 men, 3,950 horses and 3,100 mules.* Difficulties of The length of the proposed march, from railway to railway, was 173 miles, over a country destitute of supply-depots. French, therefore, in addition to his regimental baggage of several hundred vehicles, was forced to march with a supply park of 155 wagons drawn by 2,480 oxen and stretching over 4£ miles of road.