CONDENSED CABLEGRAM

Manawatu Herald, 15 March 1902, Page 2

CONDENSED CABLEGRAM

The Transvaal. PARTICULARS OF THE VREDE ENGAGEMENT. A Reuter’s message gives details o' the fight at Vrede. The Boers twice tried without success to rush through the outpost line of the Queensland Bushmen, and then attacked the New Zealanders. Led by General De Wet and Commandants Wessels and Manie Botha they rushed the left post, killing five and wounding six. They then worked along the flank and captured a post after the men forming the posts on the right flank had fallen back on Colonel Rimington’s column. Rimington’s pompom servers being killed, two New Zealanders under a heavy fire wheeled the pompom down a gully and overturned it, thus saving it from capture. Lord Kitchener addressing the New Zealanders, praised their gallant resistance against overwhelming odds. METHUEN’S FIGHT WITH DE LA REY. A partial casualty list of the Tweobosch engagement has been issued. This shows that four officers and sixty men were killed ; ten officers and a hundred and eight men were wounded ; two hundred are missing. General De la Roy captured at Tweebosch much clothing, rifles, and artillery ammunition. Lady Methuen, on reaching Maderia, on her voyage homewards, heard of the disaster, and returned south. The reverse has not affected South African stocks on the Paris market. Major-General Sir E. T. H. Mutton, Commander of the Federal Forces, in the course of an interview, paid a high tribute to Lord Methuen’s gallantry and perseverance in the face of difficulties. • CLOSE TO DE WET. Advices from Heilbron, iu the east of Orange Colony state that on the night of the 9th inst. General De Wet and Mr Steyn crossed the main line of railway at Wolveboek, sixty miles south of Johannesburg, travelling westward. British columns are almost in touch. BOTHA’S TACTICS.

“The Standard’s” Brussels correspondent states that General Botha’s move southwards and his order to De la Key to advance was done to divert attention from Da Wet, and was intended to enable the latter to reorganise. 'I he correspondent adds that if Botha is attacked by a superior force, he will enter Swaziland under a secret treaty. MISCELLANEIHJS. Among the contents of Genera! De Wet’s cave, near Eeitz, captured by Colonel Rimington’s column, were forty waggon loads of ammunition—y

Krupp, pompom and Nordenfeldt and half a million sheaves of wheat. A commission in the Yeomanry, with the temporary rank of lieutenant in the army, has been granted to H. Scott, late sergeant in the New Zealand Volunteers.