Africa.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 57, 3 November 1914, Page 5

Africa.

FIVE DAYS' ARMISTICE TO INTER-

VIEW DE WET.

WHITE FLAG TREACHERY.

MANY PROMINENT REBELS UNDER MARiTZ CAPTURED.

Timed and Sydney Sun Sbsviom. (Received 9.15 a.m.)

London, November 2

The Daily Mail's Durban correspondent says that the Government has granted five days' armistice, for a deputation, mostly of loyal Dutch, which has left Harrismith to interview Do Wet.

Alberts sent De Villiers to reconnoitre in the Lichtenburg district. The rebels, under Classens, advanced under a white flag, but suddenly attacked and made prisoners of a hundred %f De Villiers' force. They also attacked Alberts, who defeated them and chased them for twenty miles. Thirteen rebels were killed, thirty-six wounded and 240 taken prisoners.

Nearly all the prominent rebels under Maritz are accounted for.

THE FIRST BATTLE ON LAKE VICTORIA NYANZA.

PLANTING OF THE FLAG.

Times and Sydney Sun Services. (Received 8.0 a.m.) London, November 2.

The first battle ever fought on Lake Vicoria Nyanza is reported. The steamer Winifred with 140 men and a maxim aboard planned to attack Kurung Bay, and got within 2000yds of the German fort and opened fire with her nine-pounders and maxims. Shells struck the Winifred above the water line and damaged her funnel. The steamer retired, but the same night returned with another British vessel and found that the Germans had fled, and, the English flag was planted on the fort,

THE REBEL MARITZ. Hermanus Maritz, the Dutch rebel, is spoken of as a man full of energy and resource. He fought through the South African war, and was one cf the principal lieutenants in Geaeval Smuts' commando. Maritz was in the Boer column which, in 1902, went right through Cape Colony and besieged the town of Ookiep. He was regarded as one of "the most irreconcilable of the Boers, but after he had taken the oath of allegiance he -was. placed in charge of the region close to the German South-West Africab border, which he "knows thoroughly from end to end. When the Herreros rose against the Germans, Maritz apsisted in*crushing them. A thick-set man, full of determination, Maritz is said to, be rather cruel. Although not an old man, he belongs to the old type of Boers, and always carries a sjambok to flog the natives. The men he gathered round him in his rebellion are all old comrades of his, the majority haying been in the same commando during the Boer war.