Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/415

* SOUTH APKICAN WAR. 361 SOUTH AFRICAN WAR. being cut off from Bloemfontein, abandoned his position at Magersfontein, and retreated rapidly to the northeast. He was pursued by the British cavalry and mounted infantrj', and from the 16th to the 18th carried on a fierce rear -guard fight. On the 19th he was finally brought to a stand- still at Paardeberg, on tile Jlodder River. There the Boers intrenched themselves in the bed of the stream. From the 19th to the 27th the Boer position was bombarded by the British artillery, and Cronje's men found shelter largely by bur- rowing into the banks of the river. The British lines were finally advanced within eighty yards of the Boer position, and on the morning of the 27th Cronje surrendered with 4UUU men and six guns. The British advance on Bloemfontein was quicklv begun, the cavalry and mounted infantry operating in advance and on the wings, the in- fantry holding the centre. On the fiat level of the veldt the British sujieriority in numbers was decisive, and the Boers could make no effective stand. On March 7th they offered battle at Pop- lar Grove' some 60 miles west of Bloemfontein, but were outfianked and driven from behind their intrenchments. On JIarch 10th a hard figlit occurred at Driefontein, about 30 miles from Bloemfontein. On March 13th Roberts entered the capital. President Steyn having Hed on the preced- ing day to Kroonstadt. For more than a month and a half Lord Roberts remained at Bloemfon- tein before resuming the advance upon Pre- toria, the chief reason being the lack of horses for the moimted troops. The Boers for a time made no attempt at any demonstration in force, but contented themselves with carrying on an active guerrilla warfare which inflicted consider- able loss on the British. On May 1st the British began the advance on Pretoria. On May 12th they entered Kroonstadt after encountering the Boers under General Louis Botha on the Vet River Jlay .5th, and on tlie Zand River on the 10th. From Kroonstadt the British army ad- vanced in the form of a crescent forty miles across, driving the Boer forces before them. The Vaal River was crossed between the 24th and 27th of May, Johannesburg was entered on May 31st, and on June 5th Pretoria was occupied. President Kruger fled to Machadodorp, while General Botha with about eight thousand men took up a strong position fifteen miles east of the capital. On June llth-12th he was attacked by the British advance guard and slowly driven back. On July 23d Lord Roberts set out from Pretoria for the final campaign. In Natal, meanwhile. General Buller, on Feb- ruary 5th, had made a third attempt to cross the Tugela and to break through the Boer lines. He failed, and on the 7th was driven back across the river. On the 14th the fourth and final dash for Ladysmith was begun. The Boer positions at Horsar Hill, Cingolo, Monte Cristo, Hlongwane. and Colenso were taken between the 14th and the 20th ; the Tugela was crossed on the 21st; Peter's Hill, the key of the enemy's posi- tion, was taken on the 27th ; and on the following day the British cavalry entered Ladysmith. Gen- eral Buller's forces advanced northward into the Transvar.l, where they cooperated with Lord Roberts in the final campaign. On May 18th Mafeking. the last of the three towns invested by the Boers at the outbreak of the war, was relieved. In the Eastern Transvaal the main Boer force under General Botha was rapidly driven into the mountains bordering on the Portuguese frontier. The Boers made a desperate stand at Bergendal. August 27th, but were driven from their position by General Bullcr. At Spitzkop, southea.st of Lydenberg, General Botha fought the last set battle of the war on September Sth. The Boers were defeated, and the greater part of them, about 3000 in number, crossed into Portu- guese territory on September 14th and surren- dered to the authorities there. On October 19th President Kruger sailed for Holland from Lou- renco Marques on a Dutch man-of-war. From this time until the termination of the war in May, 1902, the struggle on Ihe part of the Boers took on the form of a desperate re- sistance waged by the guerrilla bands against im- mensely superior forces and inevitable defeat. It was the task of the British under Lord Kitch- ener, who succeeded Lord Roberts in the com- mand of the British forces, November 29, 1900, to pacify the country they bad overrun, and for this purpose was employed a iihin of campaign adapted to the conditions under which the con- lliet was now to be fought out. Flying columns traversed the Orange Free State and the Western Transvaal in an effort to hunt down the Boer commandos, which, under leaders like Christian De Wet and Jacob Hendrik De la Rey ( qq.v. ) , displayed suflicient ability to cfluse the British forces much annoyance, if not actual harm. De Wet especially evinced splendid talents as a partisan leader, and his astonishing rapidity of movement, boldness in attack, and marvelous good fortune in eluding captui'e served to make the end of the South African War dramatic. The activity of the Boers was limited to the repeated capture of isolated outposts or of comparatively small detachments of the enemy, whom, however, they were invariably compelled to release for absolute lack of facilities to keep them captive. At times, indeed, the danger of a rising among the Dutch inhabitants of Cape Colony seemed imminent, as when a nvnnber of Boer commandos entered Cape Colony in the winter of 1900-01, and threw the inhabitants of Cape Town into alarm, but probably the lead- ing motive that actuated the Boer leaders in continuing their resistance was the hope of for- eign intervention as the result of some imtoward event. To a less degree they may have depended on the strong sentiment of opposition to the war which prevailed among a large portion of the English people. The struggle ultimately resolved itself into a campaign of so-called 'attrition' on the part of the English, a process, that is, of steadily weeding out the enemy by the unceasing pursuit and capture of one Boer commander after another. The task of the British was made more difficult by the active assistance rendered the Boers by the non-belligerent population, and because of this concentriition camps were estab- lished in the Transvaal, Cape Colony, and the Orange River Colony, into which were gathered all Boer non-combatants, as well as those Brftish loyalists who desired the protection of the au- thorities. The high rate of mortality that pre- vailed among the children in the concentration camps aroused bitter criticism of British methods in the foreign press. The uselessness of protracting the struggle was recognized by a number of the Boer leaders be-