The Career of Christian De Wet.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 16, 19 January 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Career of Christian De Wet.

CIIA R ACT FAX SKETCH OF TH li WILY GUERILLA

(Doug-las Story, in the -Daily Mail.")

F all the Boer leaders Ilie personality of General Christian l)e Wet has seized most potently upon the British imagination. His daring1 coups, his .sudden appearances and rapid disappearances, his übiquity, and his unfailing success have appealed to the British love of sport, so that to-day De Wet occupies a place in the popular mind not fur removed from Unit of Robin Hood and the more modern buccaneers.

What is sport to the fox-hunting British is, however, deadly earnest to the Free State commandant-general. Do Wet from the outset has been a rabid anti-JSrilishor. In the final days of negotiation, before the ultimatum was sent, he was omnipresent in Pretoria-

Time after lime- the advocates of peace sought to waylay the President, seeking to prevail with him againsi war. Always I)e Wet present-silent. unbending,'a stern opponent of conciliation.

In the Kxeeutive Chamber in the Presidency, De Wet was over on guard, stiffening* Kruger's back, counselling young Smuts, appealing to Keitz's patriotism, yombatlng1 the arguments of the peace party. He was in these. days as sleepless in his advocacy of war as he has since been energetic in his prosecution of histilities. ISOIIX AND BRED ON A l\\K.\r.

The war (.'arm.1 and De Wet speedily attested the courage of his convieti.ons. In tlie early Natal campaign lie was the most clashing of Boer leaders, the most reliable in buttle. In the great attack of January •> upon Ladysiniili he and his burghers put up one of the most remarkable fights of the war. Hilt it is in the Free Slate that !)c Wet's most startling contributions to the history of the war have been waged. The ideal "Boer leader, De Wet. was born on a farm and bred on a farm. He was brought up on the vast distances of the Veldt, learning every intricacy of veldt lore, reading the signs of the plain as a European would read a military text book, and inscribing in his memory every fold of the ground he passed over.

vincible determination. The mouth, ■slightly drooped at the corners, is carried tightly closed, and the strong, square jaw is firmly set beneath the straggly beard. The high, square forehead rises steeply from a pair of bushy eyebrows, beneath which the restless, all-seeing- eyes gaze out to (he distance. There is seldom a smile in those eyes, but (here is the gleam of a steady purpose, the cold resourcefulness of a man hunted by his fellows. THE COIL OF SMOKE.

II is out (if those eyes and others such as ihcy that De Wet kept touch with his opponents movements. LV Wot from Ins kopje top looks down at the wide rolling plain on one of the folds of which the railway lies. All of the farm folk there are his friends.

Suddenly from a Kafiir hut, whose uncertain outline can just be discerned through the heat haze, a thin column of smoke rises. It is the signal of »anip in tlu' iH'ijrhbotirliood, a train has I ailed to breast the steep incline In-hind the second row of knolls, an iiisnflich'ntly guarded convoy is windin ir its way anioii"- ihe kopjes, or a picket is pricking' loosely across tin plain.

Whatever •* '>c, "° Wei ami his men ire roai.lv. ami tlirc -.lays later we read in KnglniKl of another convoy ciiptiired or an nut post waylaid. When graver matters nre afoot, ]> Wel can always call to his aid one or two addiiionai bands of 500. and. with the conjoined force, he lights a Sauna's I'ost or a Koodewanl.

If no other commando be available, ho can count on most of the "surrendered" farmers of tin- (listrid for assist ii nee mi a big day. Now. if ever, (ireut ISritain is milling the lull meaning of lighting with long lines ~f communications a determined enemy on his own ground. IV Wut has taught us the lesson tin- Russians taught. '.Napoleon, and the Spaniards impressed in Marshal Xcy. in a smaller way the I'hilipinos are to-day educating the Americans in the extraordinary power a puny race may wield in its own territory against a strong and valiant enemy. J)c Wet. as is now fairly well understood in this country. Is an uneducated man, a peasant, a talker of taal,

The De Wet family is a very large one, and likenesses of many of his relatives have done duty as" our slim enemy. This is the real Christian De Wet, and is From v recent photograph.

To-day the Free State is to him as an open book. He knows every road, every drift, every watering place. More than once he has led his men on the darkest night to within three hundred yards of the British encampment without one false step, and has posted them there in the position most suitable for an ambuscade when the dawn should have delivered his enemy into his hands.

and a Boer in ihe true sense of the term. In the days when he had still a President and a War Office, his despatches were of the scantiest and of the least elucidatory value. AS A WRITER OF DESPATCHES.

It is this unrivalled personal knowledge of the country which has made De Wet the power he has been in the war. He has fought on his own and his brother's farm, and wherever he has challenged an engagement he has had by his side the man on whose land the battle was about to be faught. No map, no survey, no scout's report can possibly equal such first-hand intelligence. DE WET'S FLYING FIVE HUNDRED. For the purpose of his warfare De Wet needs n,o. heavy battalions. He dislikes a force exceeding 500, and the! men he has with him are picked men —men of the soil, hunters every one of them, Boers who possess in a lesser degree the qualities that have made their leader. In my experience of De Wet his men invariably have been native-born and native-bred. With the single exception of a German-American gunner who accompanied him to Sanna's Post and De Wetsdorp, and who in the retreat from Heilbron called De Wet a coward because he abandoned a portion of his ammunition rather than hamper his retreat, I have not known him encourage any of the widely ad, vertised- Continental filibusters to 30m his commando. ' He speaks taal and nothing but taal, and he dislikes all obstacles that interfere with his personal converse with his men. The foreigners who have so grievously retarded Louis Botha s movements have had no place m the flying columns of De Wet 'A man of. middle age, middle height, and middle weight, De Wet is not a man either in bearing or appearance to attract attention. He wears a scrubby, short beard and a thick moustache. His dress used to be a seedy black coat and a pair of striped trousers Nothing anywhere to denote the general, the man who for months has defied the cleverest generaJs, the swiftest troops of the British army. But in his face is the stamp of in-

I have beside me the telegram General de Wet sent to President Steyn on the occasion of his victory over General Broadwood at Sanna's Post. As this was the first success the Boers had recorded since the loss of Ladysmith and Blocmfontein and the surrender of Cronje at Paardeberg, he might have been excused some selflaudation.

Commandant Christiaan de Wet, Klip Kraal, Doornspruit, via Brandfort. To State President, O.T.S. March 31, 1900.—We proceeded last night to the farm Vrede, belonging to Mr Marais, at Oospruit, and there broke up bur commando into two divisions.

I went with Commandants Xel and Fourid to the said farm, .having with us 400 men. Hoofd Commandant Piet de Wet, with Generals Andries Cronje, Wessels, and Froneman, Commandants Theron, of Bethlehem, and Van dor Merwe—who has been nominated in place of Commandant Vilonel as Commandant for the Winburg District —with eleven hundred men, six cannon, one Nordenfeldt and one small Maxim, took up position 300 or 400 yards from the enemy, who had camped near the waterworks on the ridge between Modder Eiver and Koorn Spruit.

The whole British force was there which had retreated from Ladybrand, Thaban'chu, Sauna's Post, and Newberry by night, and of whose movements we were ignorant, except that we knew their waggons had advanced to this position yesterday.

We took up our positions this morning at 4 a.m., having ridden three hours overnight. I took tip position in the bed of the spruit, and along the bank nearest the British, where the big road passes from Bloemfontein to Koorn Spruit. At daybreak we saw the big camp of the British just in front of us, this side of Sanna's Post. As I had no guns I resolved to wait till the cannon from the other side under Commandant Piet de Wet commenced firing, as I was now convinced we had

the enemy which had occupied Tha ban'clni and Xewbervy between us.

Our guns opened fire from the east,' and tin; enemy at once began to retire! towards tiro drift where we lay in iposition. It was fortunate for me that! the burghers withheld Iheir tire,' I neither showed themselves above the [banks of the spruit till the enemy was jut hand.

We let them come quite close to the bank, also Iheir cannon, as they were entirely ignorant of our whereabouts. As soon as we started flrrng they lied with great speed back io about 1500 yards from us, but we managed to kill of the six or seven cannon four or five horses at once, which prevented their withdrawal, so that the gunners had io flee with only two cannon to the distance mentioned —namely, to near the slat ion building's on the over side of Koorn Spruit, from where they carried on a heavy lire —small arms as well as cannon tiro —for 'I hours, when Ihey left also these cannon behind them.

Ail "then Iled with great speed to the. soul]), pursued principally by the Commandants of VVinbnrg and Bethlehem, who had crossed towards me from their positions. The dams of the waterworks in the Moddor River prevented those commandants co-opee-ahng with me more quickly.

W'v look about 200 prisoners. During *hr engagement the enemy removed their dead and wounded; bill between me and the place where the cannon stood over 100 dead and wounded stiil lie.

We took also over 100 loaded mule >.\:n; ; '.';ons. It seems incredible, but on our side were only two dead. five, wounded. Among the v;onnded we have to mourn the. brave Acting-Com-mandant (iert Van der Merwe and Lieutenant Nix. Military Attache, of the Dutch Indian Army.

Kxaet numbers of prisoners, cannons, waggons, mules and oxen will be communicated later, also the names of our dead ami wounded.

Such is Christia^n de Wet's account of the mosi debated engagement of the, war. It contains many inaccuracies— notably, with res))ect to the gnus; but, from his position in the spruit he could not view the whole field, and the telegraphed despatch displays the coolness in victory, the energy Tn the field, ,of the most notable guerilla chief of our time. DOUGLAS STORY.