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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
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ish. However, Reitz’s obvious requirement for clothing merely to survive shows that disguise
was not his primary purpose.
See also:
Cape Colony, Invasions of; O’Okiep, Siege of.
Reference:
Reitz, Deneys, Commando (London, Faber & Faber, 1929; Prescott, Arizona, Wolfe Publlishing,
1994); Pakenham, Thomas, The Boer War (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979; Abacus,
1992).
Elands River Post, Battle of,
4–15 August 1900
Following the relief of Mafeking on 17 May and the fall of Pretoria to the British in June, the mobile
forces of Assistant Commandant-general De la Rey and Chief Commandant De Wet north and south of
the Vaal River threatened communication and supply lines. A British post was set up on the farm of
Brakfontein on the Elands River to protect the Rustenburg to Zeerust and Mafeking road, and was
manned by Australians and Rhodesians. It became clear that they were too exposed and should be
withdrawn, but they were attacked before that could happen and were assumed to have been overrun.
In fact they dug in and held on for eleven days until relieved by a column led by Lord Kitchener. It
was greeted as a considerable Australian achievement.
The command of Elands River Post was given to Lieutenant-colonel C. O. Hore with his 201
Rhodesian Volunteers to which were added, in the period before the siege began, 299 Australians,
mostly New South Wales Bushmen and Queensland Mounted Infantry. When the decision was taken to
withdraw them because of the number of Boers observed in the area, Lieutenant-general Sir Frederick
Carrington set out from Zeerust on 3 August with 1,000 men, six field guns and four Pom-Poms to
cover their retirement. However, the Boers attacked Hore’s post the next morning, inflicting thirtytwo casualties by shelling the inadequate defences. The men dug in. Carrington’s column was also
shelled and turned back. Major-general Baden-Powell started from Rustenburg to assist, but assumed,
on the slightest evidence, that the declining sound of gunfire indicated Carrington’s success and he,
too, turned back.
It was not until British men of Lord Kitchener’s columns, who were in pursuit of De Wet,
intercepted a message from De la Rey at Elands River that they understood that the Australians and
Rhodesians were still holding out. The more they had been shelled, the deeper they had dug, for,
lacking artillery, they could not retaliate. On 15 August the defenders were surprised by the silence;
Boer fire had ceased. The next day the reason was clear: the approach of Kitchener’s column had
been too much of a threat to the Boers. Eighty men had become casualties, of whom twenty lost their
lives. Neither Carrington nor Baden-Powell emerged with credit, and Hore, to whom many attributed
credit for the defence of Mafeking, and his men had showed the British that it was possible to resist
successfully against considerable odds.
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