Basutoland. On the
western frontiers of the Transvaal and the Free State strong commandos
were assembling for the destruction of Baden-Powell's retaining force
at Mafeking and for the capture of Kimberley. Both Kruger and Steyn
aimed at results other than those achieved by the initiatory victories
of 1880-1. They cherished the hope that the time had come for the
establishment of a Boer Republic reaching from the Zambesi to Table
Mountain; but, for the accomplishment of so great an enterprise,
external assistance was necessary, the aid of their kinsmen in the
south, and ultimately, as they hoped, an alliance with other Powers
across the seas. The authorities at Pretoria and Bloemfontein realised
fully that, though they might expect to have sympathisers in the
colonies, active co-operation on any large scale was not to be counted
on until successes in the field should persuade the waverers that, in
casting in their lot definitely with the republican forces, they would
be supporting the winning side. The conquest of Natal and the capture
of Kimberley would, it was thought, suffice to convince the most
doubtful and timid. As soon, therefore, as the British troops in Natal
had been overwhelmed and Kimberley occupied, the Boer commandos in the
western theatre of war were to move south across the Cape frontier to
excite a rising in that colony. A situation would thus be created
which, as they calculated, would lead to the intervention of one or
more European Powers, and terminate in the permanent expulsion of all
British authority from South Africa.

[Sidenote: Boer Distribution Oct. 11th, /99.]

[Sidenote: For Natal.]

It was with these designs and based on this far-reaching plan of
campaign that the mobilisation of the burghers in both the republics
was ordered during the last week of September, and by the 11th of
October the following was approximately the constitution, strength and
distribution of the field forces.[58] The army for the invasion of
Natal was made up of three distinct bodies; the principal and most
important of these remained under the personal orders of General P.
Joubert, the Commandant-General of the Boer forces, and was
concentrated at Zandspruit and Wakkerstroom Nek, in immediate
proximity to the northern apex of Natal. It included the Krugersdorp,
Bethel, Heidelberg, Johannesburg, Boksburg and Germiston, Standerton,
Pretoria, Middelburg, and Ermelo commandos, the Transvaal Staats
Artillerie, and s