The Free State frontier—English forces under Gatacre and French—Disposition of Boer forces—Boers restrained from invading Cape Colony by political reasons—Colonials join Boers—English confidence in Gatacre—His severe military measures—Night expedition of British against Stormberg—Their reception by the Boers—Panic flight of the British—Comparison of British with Boer losses—Sketch of General Ollivier—Roll of Colonial recruits of the Boers.
While Joubert and his commandoes were driving the British troops before them in Natal, and Cronje and De la Rey were holding a second British force in check at Modder River, two other English armies were advancing from the south to the Free State frontier. The objects of these forces were to defend certain strategic positions south of the Orange River, and to compel the Federal Governments to detach burghers from the two main Boer forces operating in the east and west to defend the way to Bloemfontein. One of these was commanded by General Gatacre, and had its base at East London. From this port a railway runs northwest to the Orange Free State border, a distance of some 150 miles, reaching at about two-thirds of that way the Stormberg range of hills. South of this range, at Queenstown, the British camp was formed. The line crosses the hills from thence, and reaches Molteno and Stormberg junctions. From this latter place one branch line goes west-ward, to Rosmead, where it connects with the main line from Port Elizabeth, which, in turn, branches out at Naauwpoort; one line going west, to join the Cape Town to Kimberley line at De Aar, and the other striking due north and crossing the Orange River at Norvals Pont, running in a straight course from thence to Bloemfontein. The other branch from Stormberg Junction goes north and divides again at Albert Junction, some twenty miles nearer the river; one branch going east to Aliwal North, where it ends, and the other going northwest over the river at Bethulie, and joining the line from Naauwpoort at Springfontein in the Free State.
There were three positions of importance ahead of General Gatacre's camp which were occupied by British troops in October: Stormberg, Albert Junction, and Aliwal North, all in a strong pro-Boer district, which, being immediately south of the Orange River, contained a large percentage of Dutch colonists who had intermarried with their kindred over the border.
The fourth British army, which was largely composed of mounted men, was under the command of General French, who had succeeded in breaking away from Ladysmith after the battle of Modderspruit; narrowly escaping the experiences of the siege of that town which followed on White's defeat on the 30th of October. This force had Port Elizabeth as its base, and held the railways at Rosmead Junction, some 80 miles south of the Orange River, and a similar distance west of Gatacre's headquarters ¦ at Queens-town. Between the river and French's camp there was Norvals Pont, with its' bridge over the stream, Colesberg, Arundel, and the important Junction of Naauwpoort; each place being in the occupation of small British forces during October, and containing, as in the corresponding districts in front of Gatacre's division, numbers of active sympathizers with the cause of the Republics.
On the north side of the Orange River the Boer forces were situated as follows:
The Free State Government, as pointed out in a previous chapter, had to divide its small army into three main divisions: one under Martinus Prinsloo, defending the northeastern border at Van Reenan's Pass, and cooperating with Joubert in Natal; another in the west, subdivided into the force besieging Kimberley, under Wessels, and the commando under Jacobus Prinsloo, in front of Methuen; the third being in the south, guarding the Orange River and the two lines of railway from East London and Port Elizabeth where they crossed into the Free State at Bethulie and Norvals Pont, respectively.
I have dealt with the operations of the eastern and western Free State commandoes up to the victories of- Modderspruit and Magersfontein, and I purpose in this chapter to give a brief account of the doings of the remaining division of the little Free State army up to the brilliant triumph of Stormberg.
The southern commandoes were mainly recruited from the country south of Fauresmith and Wepener, and consisted of burghers from the Caledon River, Bouxville, Bethulie, and Philippolis districts. There were some 500 Transvaalers with these commandoes, I while volunteers from the Cape Colony joined in large numbers after the Boers had crossed the river. The total force of the division before the invasion of the Colony was 3,500 men, with a mixed battery of Krupp guns and Maxim-Nordenfelts. The head command was vested in General E. E. Grobler, Vice-Chairman of the Free State Volksraad, while Commandants John Hendrik Ollivier of Rouxville, Swanepoll of Smithfield, and Du Plooy of Bethulie, were the chief officers of their respective commandoes. General Schoeman of the Potchefstroom district, with J. D. Celliers of Pretoria, as adjutant, was in charge of the Transvaal burghers included in this third or southern division of the Free State forces.
From the declaration of war until the 12th of November, fully a whole month, this strong body of fighting burghers lay immediately north of the Orange River, doing nothing, while the British were sending troops forward from East London and Port Elizabeth on the landing of every contingent from England. Naauwpoort and De Aar could have been taken in a week by 1,500 men up to the 20th of October, and by Grobler's force any time before the 1st of November. No move, however, was made on either of these strategically important junctions, and the enemy was permitted, unmolested, to strengthen his weak garrisons in the two most vital points for him to be able to hold south of the Orange River. I have referred to the cause of this most culpable act of irresolute policy m previous chapters, as being found in the existence of the Schreiner Ministry at the Cape. This Government attempted to sit on a British and a Boer stool, and thereby to keep in office. Unfortunately for the Boer cause they succeeded in the performance long enough to induce the Free State Government, through an over-scrupulous regard for Boer political kinship with the Afrikander Bond, to allow the English to rescue De Aar and Naauwpoort, by large reenforcements, from their perilous weakness. To every request made by the burghers on the river for permission to cross in October, the reply from Bloemfontein was—"Wait."
The English fell back from their garrisons immediately south of the Free State border after the Boer victories in Natal, and the Colony to the north of Stormberg and Naauwpoort was left without a single British soldier. This evidence of British weakness impressed the population greatly, and the prestige of the Republics increased correspondingly. During the previous occupation of Aliwal North, Albert, Colesberg, and other places, the British had played havoc with the fences and crops of both Dutch and Colonial farmers, and their departure south, on the strength of growing rumors of a Boer invasion, gave satisfaction to most of the people in these districts. Young Afrikanders had commenced to cross the river and to join the commandoes on the other side, and finally, on the 12th of November, orders were sent at last from Bloemfontein to General Grobler to march across and occupy the places vacated by the enemy's troops.
On the 13th, Commandant Ollivier took possession of Aliwal North, Commandant Du Plooy of Burghersdorp, while Generals Grobler and Schoeman crossed over the bridge at Norvals Pont, and hoisted the Free State flag at Colesberg. The invaders were received without protest by the Afrikander colonists, no opposition of any kind being offered, even by the British farmers, whose property was in no way interfered with. The Free State officers formally commandeered the available Afrikander youth, and others of maturer years, for the service of the Republican armies, and during the months of November and December a splendid fighting force of over 3,000 men were thus added to the strength of the Federal ranks. The whole northern region of the Cape Colony, from Barkly East to Prieska in the west, gave a passive recognition to the cause of the allied Republics. Schoeman was elected General for the Colesberg district, and found himself at the head of 2,000 men. He was urged to advance on Naauwpoort and to attack the growing, but as yet weak, garrison in charge of that important junction before it was reenforced with more troops. He dallied at Colesberg, wasted time, and allowed General French with 10,000 men to secure the place against any attack from the Free State. This inaction of Schoeman created much discontent among the burghers and Colonial volunteers, and, when General French began the offensive against his most irresolute adversary, it became necessary for the Free State Government to summon to the aid of the Colesberg Boers the sound military judgment and splendid fighting qualities of De la Rey. A record of the brilliant campaign waged by this great general against French and his legions will, however, require a separate chapter, and I must turn back again to this part of my story after dealing with the battles of Stormberg, Colenso, and Spion Kop.
Commandants Ollivier, Swanepoll, Du Plooy, and Steenekamp, with the Bouxville, Smithfield, Bethulie, and Burghersdorp men, moved forward in the latter part of November upon Stormberg Junction, which was distant only seventeen miles due north from Putterskraal, where General Gatacre's headquarters were then located. Three weeks before the advent of Ollivier, a garrison of 700
British troops had held Stormberg. These fell back on Molteno and then on Putterskraal, and Ollivier advanced from Burghersdorp and occupied the place which Gatacre resolved to attack on the 10th of December.
General Gatacre's expedition along the shortest and most direct line from the coast to Bloemfontein excited very sanguine hopes in England. He was spoken of as one of the ablest of British officers, and, in view of the demands made upon the Boer armies by the operations in Natal and south of Kimberley, it was felt as likely, and believed in as probable, that the prize of Bloemfontein might be snatched by a dash on the Free State capital, while Buller and Methuen were engaging the two most capable generals of the Federal forces. One Jingo paper spoke enthusiastically of what the Gatacre column was destined to achieve, in the following glowing terms:
" This is perhaps the most important expedition in the campaign, and, as the Boers have spent their strength upon the eastern and western frontiers, General Gatacre may be able to make a dash over the open country upon Bloemfontein, which, if it does not stagger humanity will at least astonish the world."
That was one week before Stormberg.
Before the advance was decided upon, which certainly did astonish the world in its result, General Gatacre had resorted to the sternest military measures for the intimidation of Dutch sympathizers with his foes on the line of his progress north. A letter received from one of the soldiers in this expedition, published after the news of the battle of the 10th of December had reached England, related: " Somehow the place is alive with spies, and almost every day one or two are shot. Not much time is wasted with them. Once captured, they are brought in, tried by drumhead court-martial, and are almost invariably shot at once." All this was proof that the general who sanctioned these executions was a most capable officer, and would leave his mark on the records of the war. So he has. His measures of justice to alleged spies were the best recruiting agencies south of the Orange River for the Federal armies, and the men who were driven by such brutal and unwarranted military executions into the Boer commandoes from Cape Colony were among those who chased this great British general and his troops out of Stormberg and put an end to the English hope of a capture of Bloemfontein by the Gatacre genius and dash.
Around very few of the series of British " mishaps " in this war has the war correspondent's fertile inventiveness woven a greater number of plausible theories with which to account for a stagger-ing defeat otherwise than how and why it was really inflicted, than that of Stormberg. The world was told of an unknown and difficult country to march over; a wild, dark night; a wretched road; overworked Tommies; too rigid discipline; treacherous guides; plans revealed to the Boers, and all the rest; all with the patent purpose of concealing the truth for a time which was bound to assert itself in the publication of the real facts some day. The circumstance that 700 British troops had been for six weeks in Stormberg itself, and had remained there until twenty-one days previous to the attack by Gatacre, and had built the very sangars and fortifications used by the Boers on the 10th of December, never found any mention in the English reports of the battle. These details were not interesting; they were all concealed from the public, so as to lessen the significance of the defeat, and to minimize the consequent injury to British military prestige.
Early in the month of October a correspondent of the (Cape Colony) " East London Despatch " visited the then British camp at Stormberg, and duly recorded his impressions of the soldiers who were garrisoned there, under Colonel Gordon's command, as follows:
" They have been actively exercised at scouting work, and report has it that they have been drilled into the most perfect efficiency. As nearly as I can gather, there are between 700 and 800 men in camp, including infantry, mounted infantry, artillery, Army Service Corps, Medical Corps, and either engineers or sappers. The sur-rounding country has been carefully examined, and, should hostilities suddenly break out, the Berks would be able to find their way everywhere. The disposal of guns and the ground plan of the camp is such that the situation, to all intents and purposes, is strongly fortified, and certainly the line cannot be turned to inimical ad-vantage by the enemy while the Berks remain where they are."
This was the place and position which was so difficult for British forces to discover just twenty-one days after the Berkshire Regiment had retired on Gatacre's camp, seventeen miles south!
The British general had a choice of three roads for his movement on Stormberg from Molteno, and he selected the best one for his purpose. The old road, to the right, leaves the railway track after a mile from Molteno, and passes on three or four miles east of Stormberg, through some mountain gorges and kloefs, and continues to Burghersdorp. That route would have presented great difficulties in a night march, and would have made a " surprise " attack on the Boer positions impossible. The new road, constructed twenty years ago, runs almost straight from Molteno to Stormberg Junction, crossing the railway track twice in its course, and skirting for the last two miles the base of the hills on which General Ollivier and Commandant Swanepoll were posted with their men. This road would have been even more hazardous for the object of the midnight march of the English than the old road, as it passed in between two of the very ridges guarded by the Boers. The third way was by the main road from Molteno to Steynsburg, and for every object of Gataere's purpose, strategical and otherwise, it was the best and only practicable route to take. When three miles outside of Molteno, it turns suddenly to the west, dipping south at the bend and sweeping round in a semicircle the farm of Klipfontein. approaching again to Stormberg, almost at right angles, and going within a mile of the railway station before bending west again, and then south, to Steynsburg. The farm of Klipfontein is southwest of the hills on which the burghers were placed, and it was on this farm where the English were themselves surprised, but not before they had reached within 500 yards of the ridge on which the Smithfield burghers were posted; a fact demonstrating that the troops had been well and accurately guided all the way. This route was three miles longer than the new or center road, owing to the semicircular detour round Klipfontein, and it is manifest that it was this extra distance by way of the longer and safer route for the advance from Molteno which tended to disarrange the plan for a surprise through the miscalculated time-duration of the march.
The story of the false guides is a pure invention, and only one of the many sorry expedients resorted to by the English war correspondent when a disaster has to be explained away in any or every manner which may for a time tend to disguise the ugly facts of a defeat. That Gatacre and his men should have reached their objective without observation disposes completely of the theory of treachery. As already pointed out, the whole locality of the Boer position was known to officers of Gatacre's staff, who had themselves been located at Stormberg for six weeks, and had actually built its fortifications. The extra guides selected for the column were Kaffir policemen of the Fingo and Tambu tribes, who were friendly to the English and hostile to the Boers, and who knew every inch of the road. There were only a few pro-Boers at Molteno, which was a strong English center, and it is the lunacy of absurdity to suppose that Gatacre dispensed with the services of his own officers and of the British Colonial Police in order to get a Boer sympathizer as a guide for his column on such an occasion. As a matter of fact, one of the Kaffir Police guides was killed in the fight by the Boer fire; the other fired on the Boers after the British had hoisted the white flag, and would have been shot had not General Ollivier saved his life, and sent him as a prisoner to Pretoria. Like a similar story about treacherous guides at Nicholson's Nek, this one was invented with the object of hiding the ugly facts, which would tell a plain tale of crass stupidity on the part of British officers, and of panic and a white flag on the side of men who are trained to look to such officers for every order and direction in every contingency and situation in the soldier's disciplinary life, from barrack-room existence to the actualities of a battle-field.
The Boer forces at Stormberg when Gatacre's attack was delivered comprised 400 men of the Rouxville commando, under General Ollivier, and 350 men of the Smithfield burghers, under Commandant Swanepoll. Of the latter body, only sixty actually participated in the engagement all through; the others being some miles east of the hill guarding the left of the Boer positions against possible surprise by the old road to Burghersdorp. Swanepoll held the crest of the hill looking down upon the Klipfontein Farm. A hundred of those of his men who were eastward watching for the enemy's movements in that direction arrived after the enemy had been knocked into confusion by Ollivier's and Swanepoll's first attack, and only helped to drive the British back on their line of march.
West of Stormberg, a distance of nine miles, at a place called De Kop, on the road from the Junction to Steynsburg, the Burghersdorp (Colonial) contingent, 400 strong, was in laager, under Commandant P. A. Steenekamp. There were also 300 of the Bethulie commando in the same place, under Field Cornet Du Plooy, General Grobler being in chief command.
The four commandoes were in two divisions; the one in occupation of Stormberg being composed of the Rouxville and Smithfield burghers; and the other, at De Kop, comprising the Bethulie men and the Burghersdorp volunteers. The separation of the two laagers by that distance was the result of a quarrel as to which division should have the solitary gun, a Krupp twelve-pounder, in possession of the entire force; the Smithfield men claiming and holding it, whereupon the Burghersdorp and Bethulie burghers moved away nine miles nearer Steynsburg, where they were in laager, and asleep, when Gataere's guns were heard in the early morning of the 10th of December at the Stormberg Junction.
A report of the differences between the two Boer laagers probably reached the British camp, and may have induced General Gatacre to plan the bold stroke for the 10th of December, which so signally failed when so near success. In any case, it was a movement which both military and political considerations fully justified the English general in planning. Stormberg was a very important position, standing as it did right across the line which was the shortest and most direct route by rail from the coast to Bloemfontein. It was also near Burghersdorp, the chief center of active pro-Boer sympathy in the north of Cape Colony. A stunning blow delivered at such a spot, at that particular period, would have all but arrested the recruiting for the Federal armies which the ignominious failure of the attack only correspondingly stimulated.
On the night of December 9 the British column which was to surprise the Boers at Stormberg marched north from Molteno. The force consisted of Northumberland Fusiliers, Irish Rifles, mounted infantry, and Cape Mounted Bines. There were also the men and guns of two batteries of field artillery and two Maxims; in all, close upon 3,000 troops, and fourteen guns. A local newspaper eulogist of the Gatacre division, who, by an intelligent anticipation of events, had heralded the preparations for this formidable expedition, added that "five special war correspondents" were to accompany the conquering column. There was, therefore, nothing left undone to inspire a confident anticipation of a brilliant British triumph.
The night was pitch dark, and thus favored the purposes of the first aggressive movement of Gatacre's force. The gun carriages were provided with muffled tires, and all other precautions against alarming the Boers too soon were taken. The road for three-fourths of the distance wras well sheltered by ridges and kopjes against observation from the direction of the Junction, and, excepting the miscalculation as to distance, there had been no mistake in the march of the column.
During the last two miles of the journey the road, in approaching the Junction, passed near to a farm which, fortunately for the burghers who were asleep in their laagers ahead, possessed a dog. The animal barked at the passing troops and awoke two men, who, on looking out on the veldt, beheld the moving masses of Tommies. They rushed with their guns to a stone wall some 200 yards from the road, and opened fire into the rear of the column. Half the troops had passed on before this incident occurred. The sixty Smithfield burghers with their Krupp were on the crest of the hill about a mile away, to the right front of the column, and were aroused by the shooting. So were the Bouxville burghers further ahead, to the left, at the Junction, who rushed from their laager up the side of the same hill a little to the west, and placed themselves in position behind the fortifications built by the British soldiers when in possession of the ridge.
The Northumberlands were "at the. head' of the column, and had passed on nearer to the Junction when the two Afrikanders had fired upon the Irish Rifles, who were near the rear. The front part of the column was, therefore, only some 500 or 700 yards from Commandant Swanepoll's position on the top of the ridge when the two shots, ringing out their warnings in the morning air, told the tale of the enemy's stealthy advent right on to the farm at Klipfontein. On the Smithfield men firing down on the more or less massed Tommies, a panic was created; the belief obtaining among them that the shots from behind came from a large concealed force in that direction, and that the column had landed itself into a trap. The panic, however, did not last long. The true state of things in the rear was soon discovered, and the enemy's guns were brought up and trained upon the ridge to the right front, some 1,500 yards distance. This steadied the Britishers for a time, but, as they failed to secure any adequate cover, where, strange to say, an abundance of it obtained, the Mausers from the heights where the Rouxville men were now in secure position began to tell with terrible effect upon the enemy. Men dropped all round, while not a single Boer was visible at any point. It finally occurred to some of Gatacre's officers to attempt to get round the ridge by going a little west of the road, below where it bends sharply to the left and turns again due west to Steynsburg, and, by taking the road again after the turn, come on to the Junction from the direction of Steynsburg. Whoever thought of this movement must have been accurately informed of the topography of the place, and were it not for the rapid riding of Du Plooy from De Kop, along this very road, the troops would have turned the position held by Ollivier, and probably have captured Stormberg.
What prevented this and saved the situation was the arrival on the scene of some of the Bethulie burghers. The guns at Stormberg were heard at De Kop, and the Burghersdorp and Bethulie men were roused with orders of " Opsal!" which soon saw them flying along the Steynsburg road; 50 of the Bethulie men, with Du Plooy at their head, galloping in advance, and arriving at the bend of the road west of the Junction just as the Northumberlands had reached the same point from across the Molteno branch of the same road. These Tommies were thrown into utter confusion by this unexpected encounter, and by the fierceness of the Bethulie men's assault. Finding themselves between two fires, and thinking, in the confusion and the semi-darkness of the early morning, that the 50 men were a bigger force, they hoisted the white flag and went through the unprecedented battle-field ceremony of surrendering their arms—8 officers and 300 men—to Commandant Du Plooy and his 50 burghers!
Some of the Bethulie and Burghersdorp burghers, coming on behind Du Plooy, had crossed from the Steynsburg to the Molteno road, below where the Northumberlands had surrendered, and attacked the Irish Rifles in the flank. This, together with the number of troops who had already been shot down, re-created the panic of the first contact with the Smithfield men, and Gatacre and his utterly broken column fled back to Molteno, pursued for five miles by the Burghersdorp men, who succeeded in capturing two of the enemy's Armstrong guns and an ammunition wagon on the way. These guns had been most clumsily handled in the fight, and were fired in the most disorderly manner; Colonel Eager being mortally wounded, along with several more of his men, by the wild fire of their own artillery. The solitary Boer Krupp, in charge of Sergeant Muller, had, on the other hand, played havoc with its shells down among the enemy during their confusion and flight. Had the whole of the Smithfield men been with the sixty burghers who were with this gun on the hill above the Klipfontein Farm, Gat-acre's loss would have been much heavier in killed and wounded than it turned out to be.
What was absolutely astounding in the conduct of the British was their hopeless and helpless demoralization, even after the full light of the morning had revealed the true positions of their foes, and had shown Gatacre a choice of strong counter positions on the west side of the Molteno road, where the nature of the ground afforded ample cover. No stand worthy of the name was made by the enemy after the white flag had been hoisted by the first batch of troops, and Du Plooy, who took their surrender, then dashed down the road and helped in the capture of the two Armstrongs with 150 men.
The actual Boer combatants in the fight numbered less than 800 men, and to these 618 soldiers and 14 officers surrendered, out of a total British force of near 3,000 troops. Gatacre's losses in killed and wounded were very slight in comparison with the loss in prisoners. He had 26 dead and 70 disabled, only.
The Boer casualties amounted to 4 killed and 13 wounded in General Ollivier's commando; 1 killed and 3 wounded of General Grobler's contingent (from De Kop), and Commandant Swanepoll, of the Smithfield burghers, slightly wounded; total, 5 killed and 17 wounded. With a loss of less than 25 men, 800 actual Boer combatants, out of a total force of 1,100, killed and wounded 96 of their enemies, captured 632, pursued over 2,000 more for several miles, and secured in the chase two guns which were abandoned by the flying column.
In an envelope addressed to a British resident at Stormberg and found on the battle-field, there was a letter which was to be forwarded to one of the English prisoners at Pretoria, which read as follows:
"Dear Henry—The Boers seem afraid of us. One good fight will demoralize them completely. In my opinion they have the courage of women, and can fight all right when they are safe themselves; and, when their courage fails, they have to resort to strategy."
Commandant Swanepoll wrote the following across the letter, and ordered it to be sent to its owner:
"I trust you will disillusion this lady now, as regards our courage. Very striking that on the very day the letter was addressed to you (10th December) the courageous English were hidden behind the rocks at Stormberg and taken prisoners. Do let the lady know that we were only a few hundred against 3,000."
GENERAL OLLIVIER
John Hendrik Ollivier, who took a prominent part in the infliction of this smashing blow on Gatacre, was 47 years old when the war broke out. He is of French origin, and was born at Rouxville, in the south of the Orange Free State. He was a wealthy farmer, and immensely popular with the burghers in that beautiful region of the Republic. Being a neighbor of the Basutos, whose lovely country adjoins the district of Rouxville on the east, General Ollivier had acquired considerable influence over the former native allies of the English against the Boers. This influence was successfully utilized when war had been declared to counteract the British intrigues which attempted to incite the Basuto chiefs to harass the Free State frontier.
Ollivier is a very fine type of manhood, standing over six feet, athletically built, with a strong, handsome face, large black beard, and jovial expression. He had three sons fighting by his side at Stormberg. His grandfather had married three times, and left to the Boer nation a fine legacy of thirty-six children. His grandson, John Hendrik, like almost all the Boer generals, was a member of the Volksraad when hostilities began.
As with most other contentions and statements anent the Federal forces, various and conflicting estimates have been given of the number of Afrikanders who went over as combatants to the Boer side during the war. These estimates were based chiefly on sensational statements in the earlier stages of the conflict. It became necessary to account for the alleged presence of from " seventy to one hundred thousand Boers " and allies in the field in December, and, as not more than half these numbers could be found in the male population of the two Republics, auxiliaries from Cape Colony and Europe were thrown in by the exertions of a liberal imagination, in order to make up the conjectured Republican strength. " Ten thousand" volunteer and commandeered Afrikanders were declared by English and Colonial critics to have thus joined the Federal standards. In the light of the figures given below, and which are from a most reliable source, that of one of the chief organizers of these " rebels," this estimate is a great exaggeration. The number of actual combatants from each district in the north and northwest of Cape Colony, up to the date of the battle of Stormberg, were as follows:
Colesberg, town and district 150 men
Venterstad 120 men
Burghersdorp 480 men
Aliwal North, and Lady Grey 500 men
Barkly East and Dordrecht (district of Wodehouse) 550 men
Griqualand West, comprising Barkly West, and districts of Hay, Herbert, and Vryberg 1,000 men
Casual Afrikander volunteers 500 men
3,300 men
About 2,000 more fighters could have been " commandeered " in the Steynsburg, Somerset East, Craddock, Middelburg, and other districts had these places been proclaimed. Boer sympathizers in Cape Colony and Natal wanted this kind of " coercion" as a justification for their enlistment. They were nominal British subjects, and unless their desire to help the Federals was assisted in this way they refused to volunteer. No such encouragement as that suspected was at first tendered by the Free State authorities to these potential allies across the Orange River. On the contrary, the tendency during the early weeks of the war was to prevent the combat from penetrating too .far from the Free State border, and the conditions of proclamation and commandeering required by the political consciences of Cape Colony Afrikanders were only sanctioned in places and districts lying close to where the Free State expected its territory would be first attacked by the British.
The estimated number of casual volunteers (500) includes the men, chiefly young Afrikanders, who went over in small bodies from Steynsburg, Molteno, Middelburg, Somerset, East, Craddock, and other places, without the stimulus of commandeering. The total number thus made up will come very near the actual figure where absolute accuracy is in the nature of things impossible. No record of these auxiliary forces exists, but the information upon which this statement of their numbers is based is obtained from sources which are most reliable. Subsequent to the victories of Colenso and Spion Kop, probably 700 or 1,000 more volunteers found their way over the Orange River. Griqualand West districts supplied the largest number of Afrikander allies of any portion of the Colony. The men from this locality fought with Cronje at Magersfontein, and joined De Wet when he assumed command of a section of the western forces. The volunteers from the Colesberg districts joined Schoeman's commandoes, while those from the more eastern localities of Burghersdorp, Aliwal North, Barkly East, and Wodehouse ranged themselves with Ollivier's army. Of Colonial Volunteers who may have joined Christian De Wet, following the disaster of Paardeberg, and Hertzog, George Brand, Kritzinger, Scheepers, Lotter, and other leaders subsequently, after Lord Roberts had issued his home-burning proclamation, no reliable data can yet be obtained. It is probable that the resort to British Weylerism brought 10,000 more Cape volunteers to the Boer commandoes during 1900-1901.
