Piet Cronjé

“ But I must say of General Cronje that he is a man wrapped up in his own conceit. He considered himself the only great fighter in South Africa, and, when captured, he is the very man to say that the Boers should surrender because the great Cronje can no longer lead them. In this respect he is a fool, but fools often become wise men by experience. If I should hear that General Cronje was condemning his fellow countrymen for prolonging the war after his capture, I should not be surprised, because he is so eaten up with his own importance. ”

“ He has been acting as A.D.C. to General Brocklehurst.
Cronje.—Pietrus Arnoldus Cronje. The Commandant of the Boer Army to whom the Jameson Raiders surrendered at Doornkop. He was responsible for withholding from Colonel Winslow, at the Siege of Potchefstroom in 1881, the fact that an armistice existed, thereby causing unnecessary anguish and distress. In spite of his tricks and tyrannies, he has shown himself a first-class fighter, and a remarkable leader of men. He profoundly detests the British, but the British, while returning the compliment, have a generous appreciation of his abilities. ”

“ The heroes of Ladysmith, Mafeking, and Kimberley took every precaution to protect their women, but Cronje could not where he was placed. Therefore, as a brave man, he ought to have yielded. To hold out as he did was the act of a savage monster, not a man. While his character must for ever make him an object of loathing, as we loathe the memory of those black-hearted ruffians of the Spanish Main, his stubborn courage during those ten hellish days can only merit qualified respect. ”

“ He studied foreign military methods and their application to the Boer warfare; he evolved new [186] ideas and improved old ones; he planned battles and the evolutions necessary to win them; he had a natural taste for things military.
Before all the world had heard the blast of the war-trumpet, Cronje had deserted the peaceful stoep and was attacking the enemy on the veld at Mafeking. A victory there, and he was riding at the head of his men toward Kimberley. A skirmish here, a hard-fought battle there, and he had the Diamond City in a state of siege. ”

“ It had been impossible to withhold from Cronje a certain admiration for the masterful manœuvres which extricated him from his impossible position at Majersfontein, or for the stubborn resistance with which his force, outwitted, harassed by the mounted infantry, and fighting a skilful rearguard action, had succeeded in getting at least thirty-five miles to Koodoosrand Drift. It was now equally impossible to overlook the magnificent energy of the man, who, with his means of flight at an end, his 50,000 lbs. ”

“ The Boer leader was at this time accused of withholding knowledge of this armistice from the garrison (see Potchefstroom) . He held various official positions in the years 1881-1899, and commanded the Boer force which compelled the surrender of the Jameson raiders at Doornkop (Jan. 2, 1896) . In the war of 1899 Cronje was general commanding in the western theatre of war, and began the siege of Kimberley. He opposed the advance of the British division under Lord Methuen, and fought, though without success, three general actions at Belmont, Graspan and Modder River. ”

“ General Cronje told me that he was proceeding to the western districts of the Republic to take up the command of the Potchefstroom and Lichtenburg burghers. His instructions, (p. 026) he said, were to protect the Western frontier.
I left General Cronje at Johannesburg on the 29th September, 1899, and never saw him again until I met him at St. Helena nearly two and a half years afterwards, on the 25th March, 1902. When I last saw him we greeted each other as free men, as free and independent legislators and officers of a free Republic. We fought for our rights to live as a nation. ”

“ With his right turned, and the Free Staters utterly demoralized, Cronje felt that he could not hope to prevent the main body of the British from crossing, in which case they would be placed between him and Kimberley, and it would be impossible for him to regain the position he had so carefully prepared. The Boers, therefore, silently left the entrenchments they had occupied and marched away to Spytfontein.
Had the men from the Free State possessed the hardihood of those from the Transvaal, it is morally certain that no passage of the river could have been effected ”

“ Friday and Saturday brought nothing but a message from Froneman, again encouraging them to resist until reinforcements could be brought from Bloemfontein. On Saturday evening Jan Theron, of Krugersdorp, succeeded in breaking through the British lines with despatches from General De Wet and Commandants Cronje and Froneman, urging General Cronje to fight a way through the lines whilst they would engage the enemy from their side. ”

“ Some said that on Tuesday, Majuba Day, the spirits of the community arrived at their nadir. When the barometer of fate registers its lowest, it is bound to rise. It rose in skips and jumps. There came the grand news that Cronje had surrendered to Lord Roberts. It was evident that the Boers too had heard, understood, and decided that they must scuttle the next morning. Signs of disturbance were evident. Long serpentine lines of trekking waggons were throwing up dust columns in the roads leading to Modder Spruit and Pepworth; droves of oxen were hurried along as fast as hoofs would carry them. ”

“ Here we have the position of affairs as they stood on the night of the 17th and on the morning of the 18th, when the trap so ingeniously set for Cronje commenced to close little by little—north, south, east, and west. Everywhere he turned the detestable rooineks menaced him, and he who so lately had eaten his breakfast to the tune of his 100-pounder gun, that belched ruin and mutilation over the whole region of Kimberley, was now constrained to breakfast to a new and disagreeable inversion of an identical melody! ”

“ Much of the travelling was done by night, in order to save the oxen from the trying temperature of the day, though even during the night the heat was equal to that of an ordinary British midsummer. In addition to the painful toil of motion over the heavy, sandy, rugged leagues, there was the hourly danger of attack. Cronje had made known his need for reinforcements, and at the time, from the south, Andries Cronje was moving, and from the north, Commandants Snyman and Fournie, while from other quarters and in the direction of Ladysmith there was the belief that Boer hordes might be advancing. ”

“ An active force led by a determined man could have wriggled out under cover of the night, and joined one or other of the commandos which were known to be hovering. Cronje was in communication with Ferreira; he had sent to Bloemfontein for help; and De Wet was known to be on his way from Koffyfontein. But instead of making an effort to save himself he fatally trusted to relief from outside. He did not realize that Vendutie Drift was not a Magersfontein which he could hold indefinitely, or that during the last few weeks the British Army had been greatly increased. ”

“ The mounted infantry rode in pursuit across the plain, endeavouring to get to the north of the convoy, while General Knox’s Brigade was pushed along the north bank of the river, which makes a large bend to the north between Klip Drift and Klipkraal Drift, to strike the convoy on its southern flank. Cronje sent on his waggons to Drieputs Farm, at the north-eastern end of the bend, where they laagered at about eleven, and maintained a running fight with our troops all day. The skill with which the Boers conducted this rear-guard action extorted unqualified praise from all our officers. ”

“ The part of 9th brigade and use of the balloon on Dec. 11th.
The 9th brigade were unable to play any important part in the battle. Major-General Pole-Carew, hampered by the necessity of leaving a considerable body of men to guard the camp, could only demonstrate along the railway in small force. This feint caused Cronje no anxiety, and did not prevent him from withdrawing many of the Potchefstroom commando from his right to strengthen his left during the action. ”

“ He granted freely all that Cronje asked, and treated him with the same consideration that an honourable enemy might have expected. This is one of the greatest acts in a life covered with glory.
Now began the triumphant march to Bloemfontein, with the joyful tidings of the relief of Ladysmith. In every direction victory favoured our British armies. The Boers fled panic-stricken before them. Their day was over, and it was all in vain that the ogre of Pretoria, Oom Paul Kruger, hurried to the front, with his accomplice Steyn. They could not stop the run. ”

“ At midday on February 11 the Cavalry Division under French reached Ramdam, a farm east of Graspan and fronting the drifts of the Riet, where the Army was being concentrated for the advance. Some hours elapsed before Cronje became aware that French had trekked away to the S.E., and to his slow and sullen spirit the movement did not appear to have much significance. He was persuaded that the British never trusted themselves much more than a day's march away from a railway. ”

“ Our arrival on the previous day had made a way of escape for General Cronje. It is true that he would have been obliged to leave everything behind him, but he and his burghers would have got away in safety. The British had retreated before our advance, thus opening a road between us and the laager. That road was made yet wider by the fire from our guns.
But General Cronje would not move. Had he done so, his losses would not have been heavy. His determination to remain in that ill-fated laager cost him dearly.
The world will honour that great general and his brave burghers ”

“ But already, during the night, he became aware of the presence of the mounted infantry south of Paardeberg Drift, and decided that he could not get his convoy away without fighting. Probably Cronje did not realise that Kelly-Kenny’s infantry could have already marched up and occupied the rising ground not three thousand yards south of Wolveskraal Drift; still less could he know that General Colvile’s division (whose endurance had been extraordinary) was but a few miles behind, and was [Pg 54] to reach Paardeberg Drift before daybreak. ”

“ There was no time for the buckling on of mental and moral armour; only the warrior at soul could have been ready for such a situation. But such an one was here. He gave swift orders. In three hours’ time General Broadwood and his brigade and three batteries of artillery—the only ones available out of seven—sallied forth towards the east, in the dusk of the morning. Their destination—Koodoosrand Drift—was some forty miles off, and once here Cronje’s last loophole of escape would be gone! ”

“ At every post of vantage Cronje, with consummate generalship, had posted his artillery so that it would be almost impossible for our guns to silence them, whilst at the same time he could sweep the plains below should our infantry attempt to storm the heights at the point of the bayonet. At the bottom of the kopjes, right under the muzzle of his guns, he had excavated trenches deep enough to hide his riflemen, but he had thrown up no earthworks, so that our guns could not locate the exact spot where his rifle trenches lay. ”

“ I began by concentrating my commandos, to the best of my ability, at Modderrivierpoort (Poplar Grove) , ten miles east of the scene of Cronje's surrender. I had plenty of time to effect this, for Lord Roberts remained inactive from the 24th of February to the 7th of March, in order to rest a little after the gigantic task he had performed in capturing Cronje's laager. His thoughts must have been busy during that period with even more serious matters than the care of his weary troops; for, if we had had two hundred killed and wounded, he must have lost as many thousands. ”

“ A telegram arrived from Lord Kitchener saying that Cronje, with 10,000 men, was in full retreat from Majersfontein, with all his waggons and equipment and four guns, along the north bank of the Modder River towards Bloemfontein; that he had already fought a rearguard action with him; and that if French, with all available horses and guns, could head him and prevent his crossing the river, the infantry from Klip Drift would press on and annihilate or take the whole force prisoners.
Here was a surprise! Pleasant yet unpleasant, for shattered men in the last stage of fatigue. ”

“ Daily the enemy was squeezed into a smaller space. General Smith Dorrien had now pushed up the river-bed to within two hundred yards of Cronje’s entrenchments. The object lesson in perseverance, both on the part of Boers and British, was becoming almost awe-inspiring—the tension was veritably appalling. Soaked with rain to the very skin—the fevered skin that had been scorched, and toasted, and begrimed with dust—our men, grim and fierce, with the storm-winds piping the pipe of death about their ears, held their ground. ”

“ General Kelly-Kenny with a brigade of the Sixth Division, General French with a large force of cavalry and infantry from Colesberg, and the whole Seventh Division recently landed from England had concentrated at Modder River Camp. As the plain grew white with the tents of 35,000 combatants, Cronje's advisers, watching, grew more and more uneasy. "They will turn your flank" was day by day the warning of Major Albrecht. But Cronje had a firm belief that no British force would ever be able to leave the railway, and a flanking movement on Lord Roberts' part was impossible unless this was done. ”

“ He was made a Peer in 1892, Field-Marshal 1895, and was Commander-in-Chief in Ireland 1895-99. In December of that year he was sent to take command in South Africa, and in February began his great march to Bloemfontein and Pretoria. He enveloped Cronje's army, which surrendered February 27, 1900 at Paardeberg, and on April 13 he entered Bloemfontein and on June 5 Pretoria. He completed his work by defeating the Boers at Machadorp at the end of August, and returned to England to become Commander-in-Chief just before Queen Victoria's death. ”