Episode 97 - Bandits at the Southern border

The Anglo-Boer War

This week we will hear about bandits at the Southern Border who are making the most of the guerrilla war raging around the Transvaal, parts of the Cape and the Free State. These motley laggards lurked close to towns and sometimes waylaid unfortunate men and women who passed by as they in turn were fleeing from the British - or the Boers. Of both. The small town of Fauresmith is a classic desert town on the edge of the karoo close to where the Free State and Cape colony border lay. This town had seen its fair share of skirmishes and battles during the first phase of the war and its residents were now exhausted by the ongoing fighting swirling around the veld. Riding towards this small town was Deneys Reitz and his new friend, Jacobus Bosman. Little did they know that also riding towards this part of the Free State was General Jan Smuts who was to meet up with his initially small commando of 350 men and launch a lightning raid into the Cape Colony. Meanwhile, Lord Kitchener was aware of the Smut’s commando plans and had mobilised another 15 000 men to march onto the semi-desert southern plains of the Free State in an attempt to surround this commando and once and for all deal a terminal blow to Boer sentiment. But we’ll start this week riding with Reitz and Bosman. They had begun their ride after bidding good bye to their commando led by Field Cornet Botha who had turned back saying it was impossible to cross into the Cape now. And disappointingly, his two German friends Haase and Pollatchek had decided to turn back as well. The Dirty dozen members had been reduced to two idealist youngsters - Reitz almost Quixotic in his belief in some divine order that was calling him to the Cape - Bosman equally motivated which was to be a terrible miscalculation as we’ll hear in later podcasts. So after spending the night at a graveyard where British soldiers were killed in an shootout with Boers in 1848 - the two awoke to a real problem. That night the little Shetland Pony that had wondered into the Boers camp shortly before had taken off again - and this time Bosman’s horse joined it on the expedition. Reitz and Bosman spent five hours on foot, hunting for the horses. Finally they located the two and rode them back to the graveyard to collect their saddles and other belongings. But these had disappeared. Bandits were busy and they obviously had spied on the two - perhaps even tried stealing their horses. They had made a big mistake however, as Reitz was by now more than an expert tracker. They had lost their bridles, saddles, cooking tins, blankets.