DE WET’S RECORD.

Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 90, 24 June 1902, Page 5

DE WET’S RECORD.

In view of the prominent position occupied by General De Wet both during the war and since the conclusion of peace, a brief record by a Times correspondent of his work in the field will be interesting. No commandant (says the writer) has had a more varied record of bold surprises and hair-broadth escapes than Christian De Wet. Together with his brother, Piet De Wet, who surrendered a few months later, De Wet was engaged in the attack on Sanna’s Post at the end of March, 1900. It was he, again, who captured the Derbyshires at Roodeval and the Irish Yeomanry at Lindley. Shut up with Prinsloo and Olivier in Broadwater Basin by Sir Archibald Hunter’s force at the end of July ;of the same year, he succeeded in making good his escape, and joined forces for some time with Botha in the north. Pursued by Lord Methuen and practically surrounded once more in the Hekpoort Valley by a number of columns ; he once more escaped through the gap left open by the withdrawal of the garrison from Commando’s Nek. Thereupon he broke back to his old haunts in the Orange River Colony, and organised a fresh force to raid Johannesburg. His attack on Barton’s column failed, and retracing steps, he made preparations for the invasion of Cape Colony, which he entered in February, 1901, with a force of some 2400 men, with two 15pounders, a pompom, and a Maxim. A rapid concentration of British columns not only barred his southern progress, but ultimately drove him back across the Orange River with only the slender remnants of his commando. But though he himself escaped, it was many months before he was in a position 'to strike again. It was not till after the South African winter had come to an end that he ventured to take the .field once more, with' what daring and with what success the actions at Tafelkop and at T .veefontein on last Christmas night have again brought home to us. On 6th February he realised that the toils had closed round him, and after ordering his men to disperse, he consulted his own safety. With a band of followers and a herd of cattle, he made for the Kroonstad-Lindley blockhouse line, which shut him in from the south The night was very dark, and at one o’clock on the 7th'he rushes the cattle at the wire fence, breaking it down by the weight of the beasts, and broke through, mixed up with the herd. This was his last work in the field.