ps to protect them. I had no
thought, however, of attempting to destroy the provisions there, for I
felt sure that the British troops, who had but just now put us to
flight, would make for Kroonstad. They would know that the stores stood
in need of a stronger guard, and moreover they would naturally think
that we should be very likely to make an attack at a point where the
defence was so weak.

Obviously, under these circumstances, it would never do for us to go to
Kroonstad.

Accordingly, as soon as darkness came on, I turned suddenly to the west,
and arrived at Wonderheuve late at night. I found there Veldtcornet De
Vos with the prisoners of war.

Meanwhile, as I had anticipated, the vast English army marched up along
thirty-four miles of railway to Kroonstad. Lord Kitchener, as I heard
later on, arrived there shortly after noon on the following day.

We left Wonderheuve early in the morning, and advanced along Rietspruit
until we reached the farm of Vaalbank, where we remained until the
evening of the next day, June the 13th. That night I saw clearly that it
was necessary for us to cross the line if we wanted to keep ourselves
and our prisoners out of the clutches of Lord Kitchener; he had failed
to find us at Kroonstad, and would be certain to look for us in the
country to the west of the line.

I also felt myself bound to wreck this line, for it was the only railway
which Lord Roberts could now utilize for forwarding the enormous
quantities of stores which his vast forces required.[56] I resolved
therefore to cross it at Leeuwspruit, north of Rhenoster River bridge
(which the English had recently repaired), and then, in the morning, to
attack the English garrisons which had again occupied Roodewal and
Rhenoster River bridge.

I had given orders that all the cattle along the railway line should be
removed; General Louis Botha had made the same regulation in regard to
the country round Pretoria and Johannesburg. If only our orders had been
carried out a little more strictly, and if only the most elementary
rules of strategy had been observed in our efforts to break the English
lines of communication, Lord Roberts and his thousands of troops in
Pretoria would have found themselves in the same plight as the
Samaritans in Samaria--they would have perished of hunger. It was not
their Commander-in-Chief's skill that saved them, not his habit of
taking into account all possible eventualities--no, they had to thank