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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
.Article – Online Historic Information | Military
.Page 196
of supply, prevented a more comprehensive victory. It became clear to the new Commander-inChief, Lord Kitchener, that the war was not yet over.
Clements’s camp was close under the hills on the northern side of the valley with the
Northumberland Fusiliers on the edge of the heights above. Deneys Reitz was with the forces of
Assistant Commandant-general C. F. Beyers on the hills while the men of Assistant Commandantgeneral Koos De la Rey were to attack at dawn along the valley. As dawn broke Beyers’s men,
approaching on foot, were seen by the Northumberlands, who opened fire. From behind a rock,
looking down, Reitz saw: “. . .from behind a jutting shoulder of the mountain came swinging into view
a force of mounted men who galloped hard for the English camp”. The British fought off the attack and
their companions on the hills then, according to Reitz, made a mistake: they cheered. Beyers’s
burghers rose and, quite uncharacteristically, charged the British. They took the position with heavy
losses – twenty-five dead and some seventy wounded. The British casualties were similar, with men
taken prisoner in addition. Reitz and his companions then went on to clear the ravine which
communicated with the camp below, and this is when Reitz unintentionally made use of an
“explosive” bullet.
In the valley the attack was renewed by De la Rey’s men and by burghers coming down the
ravine. The British fell back to a hill south of the river near Hartebeestfontein, now called Yeomanry
Hill in honour of the 20th (Fife and Forfar) Imperial Yeomanry who fought so well here. They
retrieved the heavy gun and covered the retreat westwards to Reitfontein. Clements may have chosen
a poor position originally, but he acted decisively to get his men out of trouble. On the British side
around 250 men were killed or wounded compared to the Boers’ 100 and in addition over 300 British
were made prisoner. If the Boers had not ransacked the camp, much to their commanders’ fury, they
might have done even greater damage. Reitz remarks: “We considered that the object of the attack
was to capture supplies, and not soldiers, as soldiers would have to be liberated for want of
somewhere to keep them . . . we loaded our [horses] with spoil in the shape of tea, coffee, salt, sugar,
food, clothing, books and other luxuries of which we had long been deprived . . . We were refitted
from head to heel, we carried a Lee-Metford rifle apiece. . .”.
See also:
Boer Tactics; Dum-dum Bullets.
Reference:
Gilmour, John, ed. Patrick Mileham, Clearly My Duty (East Linton, Tuckwell Press, 1996); Marix
Evans, Martin, The Boer War: South Africa 1899–1902 (Oxford, Osprey Publishing, 1999);
Reitz, Deneys, Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War (London, Faber & Faber, 1929;
Prescott, Arizona, Wolfe Publishing, 1994).
Norval’s Pont
The railway from the Cape to Bloemfontein crosses the Orange River at Norval’s Pont. The place
was taken by
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