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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
.Article – Online Historic Information | Military
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Creusot Guns
See Artillery, Boer.
Cronjé, Vecht-General Andries P. J.
Andries Cronjé was the brother of Assistant Commandant-general Piet Cronjé and, in April 1900,
was in command of 1,500 Boers at Fourteen Streams, north of Kimberley where the railway to
Mafeking crosses the River Vaal. After his capture by the British at Reitz on 13 July 1901 Cronjé
took the part of the peace-makers and worked with the British. From October 1901 he recruited for
the National Scouts, a formation of “joiner” Boers.
See also:
Hands-uppers; Joiners.
Reference:
Pretorius, Fransjohan, The Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902 (Cape Town, Don Nelson, 1985).
Cronjé, Assistant Commandant-General Piet,
1836–1911
Piet Cronjé was the senior Boer commander in the western theatre in the opening months of the war.
Most successes were, however, the work of others, and Cronjé led his army to defeat at Paardeberg
in February 1900.
Pieter Arnoldus Cronjé was born in Colesberg and was at the Battle of Boomplaats in 1848,
when Sir Harry Smith defeated the Boers who rose in protest at the creation of the Orange River
Sovereignty. He was Commandant at the siege of Potchefstroom in the First Boer War and in 1896
forced Dr Jameson and his raiders to surrender at Doornkop. At the outbreak of war in 1899 he was
in command of the Western Transvaal and initiated the siege of Mafeking. In November 1899 he went
to resist the attempt of Lord Methuen to relieve the besieged town of Kimberley and fought at Modder
River and Magersfontein. His leadership was not admired by the then Vecht-general Christiaan De
Wet who was at that time under his command. Shortly after the victory at Magersfontein in December,
De Wet was keen to take the battle to the British by attacking the railway line to the south, but Cronjé
did not agree. He was content to sit things out behind the augmented trenches while De Wet, as he
reports, warned that they would be outflanked: “Cronjé would not listen to me . . . Meanwhile the
inevitable results of Cronjé’s policy became more and more apparent to me, and before long we had
to suffer for his obstinacy in keeping us to our trenches and schanzes.”
In February 1900 the new British Commander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts, conducted a great
flanking sweep to relieve Kimberley and the Magersfontein position was compromised. Cronjé
moved east with a huge wagon train that included the families of his men, until they were surrounded
at Paardeberg. He was unable to persuade his men to take advantage of the escape route offered by
De Wet and, on the anniversary of the Battle of Majuba, surrendered. He and his wife were
imprisoned on St Helena until the end of the war. In 1904 he brought ridicule upon himself by reenacting
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