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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
.Article – Online Historic Information | Military
.Page 198
O
Olifant’s Nek, De Wet’s Escape at,
August 1900
The road running south from Rustenburg in the western Transvaal passes through the Magaliesberg
hills by way of Olifant’s Nek. When, in August 1900, the Boer Chief-commandant Christiaan De Wet
had been harried out of the Orange Free State, he made for the north, pursued by the British, who
missed the opportunity to trap him at this pass.
While the British were still conducting conventional warfare against the Boers east of Pretoria,
De Wet’s guerrilla war had begun in the Orange Free State with actions such as the Battle of
Roodewal on 7 June 1900. His success encouraged the British to redouble their efforts to catch him
but they failed to do this in the Brandwater Basin in July. The attempt to prevent his crossing the
River Vaal also failed and by 6 August, at Schoeman’s Drift, he entered the Transvaal. The day before
the British Commander-inChief, Lord Roberts, had ordered Colonel R. G. Kekewich to vacate
Olifant’s Nek which had been captured on 21 July.
Lieutenant-general Lord Methuen’s Division gave chase. De Wet fought, ran, and fought again,
burning the veldt both to deny the British grazing and to make the khaki of their uniforms more
prominent. Roberts’s Chief of Staff, Lord Kitchener, was trying to co-ordinate the operation and
telegraphed his superior to ask Lieutenant-general Ian Hamilton to move from Commando Nek on the
Pretoria to Rustenburg road, north of the Magaliesberg, to block Olifant’s Nek. Hamilton elected to
move south of the hills, along the valley bounded by the Witwatersberg to the south and he failed to
make haste. On the afternoon of 14 August De Wet hurried over the pass; Hamilton arrived that
evening.
See also:
De Wet, Chief-commandant Christiaan.
Reference:
De Wet, Christiaan, Three Years War (London, Archibald Constable, 1902); Jones, Huw M. and
Meurig G. M. Jones, A Gazetteer of the Second Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902 (Milton Keynes,
The Military Press, 1999); Marix Evans, Martin, The Boer War: South Africa 1899–1902
(Oxford, Osprey Publishing, 1999); Pakenham, Thomas, The Boer War (London, Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, 1979; Abacus, 1992).
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