ot more than twenty-six hundred men fought for more than a week
against ten times that number of soldiers under General Buller; while the
greatest disparity between the opposing forces was at Paardeberg, where
Cronje spent a week in trying to lead his four thousand men through the
encircling wall of forty or fifty thousand British soldiers.

Sannaspost was not a decisive battle of the war, since no point of great
strategical importance was at stake, but it was more in the nature of a
demonstration of what the Boers were able to do when they were opposed to
a force of equal strength. It was a test which was equally fair to both
contestants, and neither of them could reasonably claim to have possessed
an advantage over the other a day before the battle was fought. The
British commander, Colonel Broadwood, had seventeen hundred men in his
column, and General De Wet was at the head of about two hundred and fifty
less than that number, but the strength of the forces was equalised by the
Boer general's intimate knowledge of the country. Colonel Broadwood was
experienced in Indian, Egyptian, and South African warfare, and the
majority of his soldiers were seasoned in many battles. De Wet and his men
were fresh from Poplar Grove, Abraham's Kraal, and the fighting around
Kimberley, but they were not better nor worse than the average of the Boer
burghers. The British commander was hampered by a large transport train,
but he possessed the advantage of more heavy guns than his adversary. All
in all, the two forces were equally matched when they reached the
battlefield.

The day before the battle General De Wet and his men were in laager
several miles east of Brandfort, whither they had fled after the fall of
Bloemfontein. His scouts brought to him the information that a small
British column was stationed in the village of Thaba N'Chu, forty miles to
the east, and he determined to march thither and attack it. He gave the
order, "Opzaal!" and in less than eight minutes every one of his burghers
was on his horse, armed, provided with two days' rations of biltong,
biscuit, coffee, and sugar, and ready to proceed. De Wet himself leaped
into a light, ramshackle four-wheeler, and led the advance over the dusty
veld. Without attempting to proceed with any semblance of military order,
the burghers followed in the course of their leader, some riding rapidly,
others walking beside their horses, and a few skirmishing far away on the
veld for b