On the following day Lord Roberts transferred the bulk of the Army to a fresh camping ground at Osfontein, and remained there for seven days.  The halt was rendered necessary by the exhaustion of the cavalry and artillery horses, on whom the greater stress of the advance had fallen, and whose rations had been docked even more than those of their riders; and it gave Lord Roberts an opportunity of drawing supplies for the advance from the Kimberley line, from which he was about to sever himself.  The halt also enabled the Army of the Modder to pull itself together for a fresh effort, after a fortnight of harassing marches and weary investment work on stinted rations.

What might almost be called a Select Committee of the House of Lords met at Kimberley on March 1.  Lord Roberts rode over from Osfontein to consult Lord Methuen, and they were joined by Lord Kitchener, who returned from his brief visit of inspection to Naauwpoort and De Aar.

Mafeking was in greater embarrassment than ever had come upon Kimberley, and there was trouble in the spacious area of Cape Colony lying west of the Capetown-Kimberley railway.  Lord Roberts’ hopes that a force raised locally in Kimberley might be available for the relief of Mafeking were disappointed; and after his return to Osfontein with Kitchener, he instructed Methuen to see to it with a Yeomanry brigade, which would be sent to him.  To check the risings in Cape Colony, which for the time being were confined to the Prieska district, Kitchener had already sent out flying columns from De Aar.

The tenacity and resolution of De Wet were never more conspicuous than during the disheartening days which followed his retirement from Kitchener’s Kopje.  Neither Cronje’s surrender, nor the news of the relief of Ladysmith and of the British working steadily towards the Orange River bridges, nor the despondency of his own men, diverted him from his purpose of interposing between Lord Roberts and the Free State capital.  President Steyn came over from Bloemfontein to stimulate the discouraged, and President Kruger was brought round from Joubert’s Head Quarters in Natal, where he had been successful in persuading the burghers dismayed by the relief of Ladysmith to hold on to the Biggarsberg positions.  After a conference with Steyn, he went on to Poplar Grove, arriving there in time to hear the opening shots of the battle of March 7.

[Illustration:  Map.]

De Wet’s force at Poplar Grove was at first sufficient for the occupation of a position on the left bank of the Modder only, but subsequent reinforcements brought it up to a number which was estimated by the British Intelligence not to exceed 14,000 and which was probably much less.  The position was then prolonged across the river, the front being divided into two unequal portions by the Drift at Poplar Grove.

To drive away De Wet, and to entangle him as Cronje had been fatally entangled in the Drifts of the Modder River, and cut off his retreat to Bloemfontein, was the tactical scheme of Lord Roberts, who had twice as many men, and at least five times as many guns, as his opponent.