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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
.Article – Online Historic Information | Military
.Page 199
Olivier, Commandant J. H.
In 1863, at the age of fifteeen, Olivier joined the Orange Free State Border Police and was promoted
to field cornet two years later. He fought in the last war against the Basotho. He commanded the
Rouxville and Thaba ‘Nchu commandos at the outbreak of the war and fought in the Battle of
Stormberg. He avoided capture in the Brandwater Basin in July 1900, slipping away with the
Harrismith commando through the Golden Gate before Major-general Bruce Hamilton’s force could
close the gap. He moved west in the direction of Winburg on the Bloemfontein to Kroonstad road and,
some ten miles (16km) north-east of the town, happened upon a British patrol at a farm called
Helpmakaar on the Vet River. The approach of a relieving force allowed the British to escape, but
Olivier’s insistence in proceeding, on 26 August, to attack Winburg itself led to his capture and that of
his three sons. They were sent as prisoners-of-war to Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
See also:
Brandwater Basin, Surrender at; Stormberg, Battle of.
Reference:
Hall, Darrell, ed. Fransjohan Pretorius and Gilbert Torlage, The Hall Handbook of the Anglo-Boer
War (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1999); Wilson, H. W., After Pretoria: the
Guerilla War (London, Amalgamated Press, 1902).
O’Okiep, Siege of,
4 April–4 May 1902
The long ride of Assistant Commandant-general Jan Smuts through Cape Colony ended in the far
north-west where he besieged the copper-mining town of O’Okiep (Okiep). The British were forced
to respond with the creation of a relieving force, but already moves towards peace had been made
towards Boer leaders in the Transvaal. Although the siege continued after Smuts had left to attend the
peace talks and only ceased on the arrival of the Namaqualand Field Force, it had no influence on the
outcome of the war.
Lieutenant-colonel W. A. D. Shelton of the Queen’s Royal Regiment was appointed Commandant
of Namaqualand, the north-western region of Cape Colony, in January 1901. Here there were
valuable copper mines worked by people of Cornish origin and located around the three towns of
Concordia, Nababeep and O’Okiep. Jan Smuts began his invasion of the colony in September 1901
and, by April, had evaded capture and invested the copper towns. Shelton had made provision for
their defence with blockhouses and barbed wire, manned partly by regular troops but mostly by
volunteers. The towns were hotly disputed. Concordia fell, but on 26 April Smuts left for the
Vereeniging conference taking his brother-in-law, Tottie Krige, and the young Deneys Reitz with him.
The continuing siege was left in the hands of Senior Commandant S. G. Maritz. The British relief
expedition under Colonel H. Cooper
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