GENERAL GATACRE'S FORCES.

Evening Post, Volume LVIII, Issue 126, 24 November 1899, Page 5

GENERAL GATACRE'S FORCES.

ADVANCE TOWARDS COLESBERG. CAPETOWN, 23rd November. Major-General Bir W. F. Gatacre, coraraandei' of the eastern division of the Imperial forces at the Cape, has arrived with a strong force at Nnauwpoort. Major-General French, who commanded the British cavalry at. the battle of Elands Laagte on 21st October, and who escaped from Ladysmilh just prior to the isolation of the garrison in order to join Sir Eedvers Buller at Capetown, is at Hanover Road with 3000 sabres. Both these forces threaten Colesberg, which lms been made the headquarters of the invading Republican forces in Northern Cape Colony. [Naauwpoort is the junction station where the railway from the Free State and Colesberg joins that which runs across from Port Elizabeth and connects with the main trunk line at De Aar, where General Buller now has his headquarters. Hanover Road is a station 30 miles north-west of Naauwpoort.] A COLESBERG TRAITOR TO BE ARRESTED. (Received November 24, 9.25 a.m.) CAPETOWN, 23rd November. Major-General Gatacre intends to arrest a man named Naurausburg, a leading resident of Colesberg, on a charge of treason on account of conspicuous acts of disloyalty. " ' Some disaffected residents of the district south of Naauwpoort attempted to destroy a bridge and thus cut off General Gatacre's troops from their base. The scheme was, however, detected by the British and was foiled. A portion of General Gataore's forces has made a reconnaissance at Molteno, a town forty-five miles south-west of Aliwal North, situated on a line of railway that runs from Stormberg to Naauwpoort connecting the East London and Port Elizabeth railway systems.