PROGRESS OF THE CAMPAIGN.

New Zealand Mail, 21 February 1901, Page 50

PROGRESS OF THE CAMPAIGN.

(From Our Special Correspondent). CAPETOWN, January 16. • THE BOER INVASION. Since my last letter was written, now some three weeks ago, the situation in South Africa has undergone a complete change. The Cape! Colony hjas once again 'been invaded by the forces or the enemy. The quiet towns and villages of the Mid Karroo, in the very heart of the colony, have been awakened in the morning by the boom of guns and gone to sleep at mght to the accompaniment of the rifle fusillade. From three to four thousand Boers in scattered parties of two or three hundred each are roamino- far and wide through the Queen s territories, and have even penetrated to within a hundred and fifty miles of Capetown itself. These latter forces have so far done' n& mischief beyonct looting the farms of the inhabitants of the country. They have carefully avoided the larger towns Avhere there were any British garrisons, and, living on the land, and aided by the kindly advice ot their sympathisers among the colonial Dutch, they have found no difficulty in geting' as far south as Calvinia in the •west, and Middleburg in the east. The./, result of the invasion has been. a call to arms, which Jia-s .. .echoed right through • the colony, and has met with a splendid response. Every little village, where there are agy loyalists—in some there are n o a& —has equipped itself with a town guard. In the great centres of population mounted men and cyclists corps in numbers have been raised and dispatched to the crucial points of danger with astonishing celerity. Within the past fortnight Capetown has raised over two thousand men for ‘active, service, while nine thousand men here have enrolled themselves as Town Guards, prepared to do battle should emergency arise, and the flame of war eat its way right down into tho Cape Peninsula. So far little authentic news of the invaders lias been obtainable. We know of their advance only by hurried messages from some outlying village reporting that Boers have been seen so many miles away, and then the next thing is that communication with that village is interrupted, and the Boers have arrived. They have pied' 5 half a dozen little villages in the barren wastes i,u the north-west! and 1 west of tho- colony, and it is clear that their object in coming south was to raise up the standard of rebellion once more, and to win as many Cape Afrikanders to their ranks as possible. It is now known that De. Wet was contemplating such a raid long ago, but the determined way in which General Knox dogged his footsteps and kept a. line between him and the colony prevented his doing so earlier. The present invaders ■ are a portion cf his commando, and iar attempting to follow them lie was overtaken in time and forced to retreat to the north of the Orange River Colony. The invading Boers have brought but little equipment with them. They brought plenty of horses,' and they need them, fo-r their extraordinary mobility is only purchased at the sacrifice of much valuable horse-flesh, and their advance is marked by the skeletons of hundreds of their mounts. In themselves the colony has nothing, very serious to fear. It is the possibility of a general rising of the Cape Dutch that has led to such extraordinary precautions being taken by the military and to such enthusiastic recruiting on the part of the colonists themselves. Hitherto, they have' been sadly disappointed in their expectations. So far as is known, they have been joined only by twenty or so riffraff colonial Dutch, loafers on farms, with nothing to lose and the p.oysibiity of a little plunder if they assist their dear brethren from over the Orange River. Upon all the Boer forces in the colony the not is bring rapidly closed. Strong forces are advancing upon them from different directions, and the very desperateness of their mad incursion shows that they are at the last gasp. A SHARP ENGAGEMENT. Up to the beginning of January matters in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony had been very quiet for some weeks. In. the former colony the Boers continued very active in. their attacks upon / trains, conveys, and isolated posts, the number of men engaged being only a few hundreds, and the attacks being invariably in the nature of a surprise. In the great majority of these the attacks were successfully repulsed, but as usual the enemy ’obtained some minor successes. Since then, however, there have been some graver operations, in which the British troops have suffered severely. It must, however, be always remembered that such mishaps are iii the very nature of guerilla war, and though we may lose thirty men here and a hundred there, the Boer cause is not benefited thereby one iota, and the ultimate issue is nob affected in the slightest degree. The most serious of these affairs occurred at Lindley just ten days ago. Bindley will he remembered as the spot made - famous by the unhappy surrender of the Yeomanry in • May last, on account of which General Colvile .has recently been requested to resign his command. . It has been alternately under the British and Boer flag eighteen times during the past twelve months. The tale of the recent fight is one of such heroism that it is worth narrating in detail. Lord Kitchener’s Bodyguard have been attached for some months to Colonel Y/hite’s column, under General Charles

Knox, and have been doing excellent work in chasing De Wet. On the morning of the 3rd instant Colonel White ordered Colonel Laing (the officer commanding the Bodyguard) to take 1.50 men of his force to endeavour to get in touch with the town of Reitz. Early in the day the Boers were seen about five miles on our right and left in small numbers, but on sighting us they appeared to retire suddenly. As we were riding up a valley in column or troops, shots were heard on our right, and one cf our scouts came galloping back to the -main body, his horse being shot dead just as he came up, his comrade being shot through the head by an expanding bullet. a

Colonel Laing gave the order for one squadron to wheel to the right and trot, This was the last word heard, from the gallant Colonel. The enemy,- from a splendid position on a kopje, opened a terrific fire at 600 yards, with the result that many of the Bodyguards’ saddles were emptied. Our men then wheeled, hoping to take up a position on their left, but were met by a hailstorm of bullets from that quarter. Seeing the strength of the enemy, which was known to be 1000, and the excellence of their position, we tried to retire on Colonel White’s column, which was only a. few miles to our rear, hut the enemy had anticipated this movement-, and placed 500 men between us and White. The Bodyguard, seeing the hopelessness of their position, then determined to sell their lives dearly. They galloped to a donga, which afforded some cover, and fought like tigers. When someone suggested .surrender, it caused the others to cry out, <£ Surrender b d •'' Colonel Laing. was shot right through the body about- this time, a MartiniHenry bullet piercing his heart.

Then 'commenced an awful carnage. The enemy, taking heart on seeing the effect of their fire, and the weakened strength of the Bodyguiard, commenced to come closer and closer. The men never flinched, firing with coolness and determination. Our officers, who had taken the dead men’s rifles, and were lending all their aid in the thick of the fight, were falling fast, killed or wounded.

One officer, Lieutenant Bateson, managed to gallop through the Boers, and reached Colonel White, to whom he reported the desperate plight of the Bodyguard. Colonel White despatched a force with guns to the rescue, but it arrived too late, twenty minutes after the remnant of the Bodyguard had been, completely surrounded and taken prisoners.

In spite of tlie fact- of the enemy being only about thirty yards distant, and in overwhelming force, some of our men would not obey the order to cease firing, and the Boer general was heard to say that if they did not stop firing he would take no prisoners, but shoot every man.

When the guns arrived they shelled the enemy most vigorously, and caused them to retreat, leaving many dead, seventeen bodies having been seen in one kraal. Many of the wounds/ received by the Bodyguard were inflicted by Martini-Henry and expanding bullets. By 10 o’clock at night the dead were buried, and the wounded sent to the Kroonstad Hospital, under the Red Cross flag, which the enemy disregarded, firing on the sick convoy, and harassing it nearly all the way to Kroonstad, where the wounded now are, and, from latest reports, are progressing as favourably as oan be expected-

FIGHTING IN THE TRANSVAAL. As a counter-blast to this unfortunate but heroic affair, the British have inflicted a smashing defeat on the enemy’s forces in the Magaliesburg range in the Trans\aal, north of Pretoria. Here the Boers attempted to capture a convoy that was moving to join General Gordon, but the attack was easily beat an off. The same day the enemy in force, under General Beyers, attacked General Gordon’s position, but had the tables turned upon them, and were attacked in turn, being put to flight, and leaving twenty of their dead upon the field, besides taking away several of the bodies with them. Our casualties were practically nil. Two nights previously the Boers made determined attacks on our positions all along the line at Belfast, Wonderfontein, Nooitgedacht and Pan. Under cover of dense fogs they were enabled to creep up close to our positions, and heavy firing was kept up all through the night until daybreak the next morning. Then the Boers sheered off, leaving thirty dead upon the field. Our loss was by no means slight, twenty killed and as many wounded. On the night of January 12 the Boer.s again gave evidence of their proximity to Pretoria by cutting the wire between Irene and Olifant’s Stations. A patrol of sixteen men of the Cheshire Mounted Infantry from Irene reached Kaalfontein, the third station from here, at daybreak, when immediately the alarm' was given that the Boers were approaching. Their force was estimated at 800 .strong, supposed to be under Commandant- Beyers. They at once invested! the station from all sides, and opened a shell-fire from two field-pieces and a Maxim, and poured in a hot rifle fire. The mail train was at Olifantsfontein, and was just about- to proceed, but a. message was received just in time, to the effect that the Boers were there, and the train was saved. Despite the strength of the attack, Private Park, of the Cheshire Mounted Infantry, placidly ran the gauntlet of the Boers, got to

Olifantsfontein, and wired to Pretoria for reinforcements. The armoured train, with a 15-pounder and a company of Rifles, •' was despatched as soon as possible, and another train, under Captain Geddes, followed in support. Meantime, the Boers kept up a perpetual fire, shells falling about the station every minute or so for six hours, besides a heavy rifle fire. Two shells passed through the station, and one burst in the orderlies’ office, completely wrecking it. The 120 men garrisoning the station, under Lieutenant Freeman', assisted by the men of the patrol, gallantly held their own. and by noon had succeeded in driving the enemy off, without a single casualty, while theBoers left- three wounded men on the field. They had a transport train half a- mile long with them, but no cavalry being available, they retired unmolested. The armoured train came up too late to take part in the action, while the supports got no further than Olifantsfontein. The Boers blew up the line beyond Kaalfontein, and the mail train had to put back to Pretoria. Tlie object of the Boers was no doubt- to obtain supplies, of which there is a large quantity at Kaalfontein. Simultaneously with the attack on Kaalfontein the Boers also attacked Zuurfontein, the station beyond. A party oh them in khaki deceived the sentry, and took him prisoner, and behaved in a similar manner with the Cossack outpost. The garrison, consisting of a detachment of Lincolns, under Lieutenant Cordeaux, and a detachment of Norfolks, under Lieutenant Atkinson, .seeing that something was wrong, opened fire. The Boer leader led his men on with a rush to attack the trenches, and was shot down within seven yards 'of the trenches, when his men fled. The attack was continued in other quarters, bait gallantly repulsed, with loss on ora* side of one corporal killed and two men slightly wounded. Eight prisoners were taken by the Boers and l released. The Boer who was killed had papers on him showing him to be a. member of the late Free State Raai.

Lieutenant William Freeman (Cheshire??) who so gallantly resisted the attack upon Kaalfontein, only took command the night before, owing to the illness of his captain. Owing to the abuse of the khaki uniform, stringent regulations regarding the same will he enforced.