Episode 109 - Borrius loses an eye and Smuts is forced to split his force

The Anglo-Boer War

This week we pick up where we left General Jan Smuts and his commando as they writhed about in pain having eaten from a plant that they failed to prepare properly and had poisoned about half the 250 men riding with the general. Worse, they were forced to fight off a British attack on the Mountains above Port Elizabeth at the same time. They had managed to escape the British cavalry and mounted infantry unit, but were now deep in badlands country in the mountains of the Eastern Cape region of South Africa. There are steep sided, with deep ravines and thickets, dotted about with thorn bushes ready to rip at the unprepared. Matters were coming to a head in the Eastern Transvaal. General Louis Botha had been forced to retreat from northern Natal where he had launched an invasion with 2500 men. The British and the Zulu were waiting for his commando. Despite shattering Colonel Gough near Dundee as we heard, Botha’s invasion had been a failure. However the British found the task of tracking and destroying Botha was almost impossible. First, Botha left his wagons and resorted to high mobility - Boers on horses. The British were slowed down by having to destroy the farms as they moved through Boer support, and this meant drives through swamps, mountains, caves and forests. Botha was actually succeeding in something else - that was prolonging the dislocation of Kitchener’s troop arrangements. The areas that troops had been drawn from were now more isolated and immediate prey for the guerillas. Of course Louis Botha was still highly active back in the Eastern Transvaal. He had rejoined the government in hiding between the towns of Piet Retief and Ermelo but he was frustrated. In his absence, the man he’d left in charge Commandant Viljoen had been worse than useless. This was unacceptable and Louis Botha was chomping at the bit. What could he dream up to make the British pay for their continued actions in the Eastern Transvaal - and make up for the vacillating Viljoen.