The Great Boer War eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 793 pages of information about The Great Boer War.

The Great Boer War eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 793 pages of information about The Great Boer War.

One of these was the action at Faber’s Put, by which Sir Charles Warren crushed the rebellion in Griqualand.  In that sparsely inhabited country of vast distances it was a most difficult task to bring the revolt to a decisive ending.  This Sir Charles Warren, with his special local knowledge and interest, was able to do, and the success is doubly welcome as bringing additional honour to a man who, whatever view one may take of his action at Spion Kop, has grown grey in the service of the Empire.  With a column consisting mainly of colonials and of yeomanry he had followed the rebels up to a point within twelve miles of Douglas.  Here at the end of May they turned upon him and delivered a fierce night attack, so sudden and so strongly pressed that much credit is due both to General and to troops for having repelled it.  The camp was attacked on all sides in the early dawn.  The greater part of the horses were stampeded by the firing, and the enemy’s riflemen were found to be at very close quarters.  For an hour the action was warm, but at the end of that time the Boers fled, leaving a number of dead behind them.  The troops engaged in this very creditable action, which might have tried the steadiness of veterans, were four hundred of the Duke of Edinburgh’s volunteers, some of Paget’s horse and of the 8th Regiment Imperial Yeomanry, four Canadian guns, and twenty-five of Warren’s Scouts.  Their losses were eighteen killed and thirty wounded.  Colonel Spence, of the volunteers, died at the head of his regiment.  A few days before, on May 27th, Colonel Adye had won a small engagement at Kheis, some distance to the westward, and the effect of the two actions was to put an end to open resistance.  On June 20th De Villiers, the Boer leader, finally surrendered to Sir Charles Warren, handing over two hundred and twenty men with stores, rifles, and ammunition.  The last sparks had for the time been stamped out in the colony.

There remain to be mentioned those attacks upon trains and upon the railway which had spread from the Free State to the Transvaal.  On July 19th a train was wrecked on the way from Potchefstroom to Krugersdorp without serious injury to the passengers.  On July 31st, however, the same thing occurred with more murderous effect, the train running at full speed off the metals.  Thirteen of the Shropshires were killed and thirty-seven injured in this deplorable affair, which cost us more than many an important engagement.  On August 2nd a train coming up from Bloemfontein was derailed by Sarel Theron and his gang some miles south of Kroonstad.  Thirty-five trucks of stores were burned, and six of the passengers (unarmed convalescent soldiers) were killed or wounded.  A body of mounted infantry followed up the Boers, who numbered eighty, and succeeded in killing and wounding several of them.

On July 21st the Boers made a determined attack upon the railhead at a point thirteen miles east of Heidelberg, where over a hundred Royal Engineers were engaged upon a bridge.  They were protected by three hundred Dublin Fusiliers under Major English.  For some hours the little party was hard pressed by the burghers, who had two field-pieces and a pom-pom.  They could make no impression, however, upon the steady Irish infantry, and after some hours the arrival of General Hart with reinforcements scattered the assailants, who succeeded in getting their guns away in safety.

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The Great Boer War from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.