Chapter 26

DIAMOND HILL -- RUNDLE'S OPERATIONS

THE military situation at the time of the occupation of Pretoria was
roughly as follows. Lord Roberts with some thirty thousand men was in
possession of the capital, but had left his long line of
communications very imperfectly guarded behind him. On the flank of
this line of communications, in the eastern and northeastern corner of
the Free State, was an energetic force of unconquered Freestaters who
had rallied round President Steyn. They were some eight or ten
thousand in number, well horsed, with a fair number of guns, under the
able leadership of De Wet, Prinsloo, and Olivier. Above all, they had
a splendid position, mountainous and broken, from which, as from a
fortress, they could make excursions to the south or west. This army
included the commandos of Ficksburg, Senekal, and Harrismith, with all
the broken and desperate men from other districts who had left their
farms and fled to the mountains. It was held in check as a united
force by Rundle's Division and the Colonial Division on the south,
while Colvile, and afterwards Methuen, endeavoured to pen them in on
the west. The task was a hard one, however, and though Rundle
succeeded in holding his line intact, it appeared to be impossible in
that wide country to coop up altogether an enemy so mobile. A strange
game of hide-and-seek ensued, in which De Wet, who led the Boer raids,
was able again and again to strike our line of rails and to get back
without serious loss. The story of these instructive and humiliating
episodes will be told in their order. The energy and skill of the
guerilla chief challenge our admiration, and the score of his
successes would be amusing were it not that the points of the game are
marked by the lives of British soldiers.

General Buller had spent the latter half of May in making his way from
Ladysmith to Laing's Nek, and the beginning of June found him with
twenty thousand men in front of that difficult position. Some talk of
a surrender had arisen, and Christian Botha, who commanded the Boers,
succeeded in gaining several days' armistice, which ended in nothing.
The Transvaal forces at this point were not more than a few thousand
in number, but their position was so formidable that it was a serious
task to turn them out. Van Wyk's Hill, however, had been left
unguarded, and as its possession would give the British the command of
Botha's Pass, its unopposed capture by the South African Light Horse
was an event of great importance. With guns upon this eminence the
infantry were able, on June 8th, to attack and to carry with little
loss the rest of the high ground, and so to get the Pass into their
complete possession. Botha fired the grass behind him, and withdrew
sullenly