TOPIC:

1900 - Ladysmith siege day 118 (99%). Mafeking siege day 138 (63%). Surrender of Cronje. Over 4,000 prisoners taken. Boers evacuate Colesberg. Clements re-occupies Rensburg. Battle of Pieter's Hill.
1901 - De Wet and Hertzog join hands at Sand Drift.


Boer camp at Paardeberg

In Ladysmith:

This is Majuba Day, and in the afternoon the garrison was cheered by the news that Roberts had surrounded Cronje and compelled him to surrender. For ourselves, relief seems as far off as ever, though it is said shells were seen bursting not far beyond Intombi Camp. The bread rations are cut down again to half, after a few days' rise; though, indeed, they can hardly be called bread rations, for the maize bread was so uneatable that none is made now. The ration is biscuits and three ounces of mealie meal for porridge.

Towards evening I went for my first drive through old familiar scenes that have come to look quite different now. The long drought has turned the country brown, and it is all the barer for the immense amount of firewood that has been cut. It was decided about a week ago not to issue any more horse as rations till the very last of the oxen had been killed.

In Mafeking:

Being Majuba Day we expected an attack, so I went up to Cannon Kopje before dawn. What attacking there was was in the brickfields and was done by us, but after a fitful splutter of musketry for an hour things quieted down. I went up to Fort Ayr but nothing was doing, and with the exception of musketry fire and a few small shells, it was a quiet day. The Boers blew up the line about two miles north of the town.

From the North-Eastern Daily Gazette (Middlesbrough), Tuesday, February 27, 1900

“MAJUBA DAY”—CRONJE SURRENDERS TO LORD ROBERTS AT PAARDEBERG.

Drawing by R. Caton Woodville, from a Sketch by Frederic Villiers, War Artist.

Hi everybody

The Caton Woodville image is a good rendition of the meeting between Cronje and Roberts.




The actual contact between the two is shown on the Watson photo above.

At the 1999 Spink Boer War Auction I was fortunate in obtaining 3 original framed photos taken shortly after the above one






They confirm the statement made by Byron Farwell on p212 of in "The Great Boer War":
The 65 year old Cronje, who spoke little English, said almost nothing but sat sunk in a chair, his hands buried in his overcoat pockets




The Graphic had a good sketch : it showed Cronje unarmed with his whip and overcoat, similar to the Caton Woodville one.

Other instances mostly portrayed the Surrender with rather fanciful flights of imagination










In a following post I will discuss some aspects of Gen Piet Cronje's life and tragic last years

Henk

Hi

Pardon the skew images : I was too lazy to get a copy stand out of mothballs!

Henk

Nice pics, Henk, thanks for sharing

Iain