Episode 58 - De Wet experiences a terrible misfortune as his scouts bungle

This is episode 58 and there’s much excitement, General Knox catches up with de Wet for a second time and all hell breaks loose. Nothing damages you more in war than a lack of proper intelligence gathering. With information that is accurate and dispassionate, you can improve morale, skirmish successfully, offset equipment shortfalls, plan forward, restrict enemy incursions and avoid pitfalls. Victory is possible. Without proper scouts, victory is uncertain. So its the last week of October 1900 and General Christiaan de Wet has begun to really miss the scouts under command of Danie Theron. He’d been blown up in a British attack back in September. As I’ve prepared this series, there have been many characters that have come and gone, some survived this terrible war, others avoided capture, some succeeded, many died. But none, dear listener, has been as effective as part of de Wet’s commando as this one person. Danie Theron had a relatively small force under his command, between 60 and 80 men. But this organisation as its known in military terms, was imbued with a remarkable ability. The company could read the landscape and the enemy. And they did it surrupticiously. They could survive for months on end with one meal every three days, and water intermittantly. They understood the enemy more profoundly than themselves and were able to report unemotionally and with certainty at any time day or night. It was these men that Christiaan de Wet missed and in the space of a fortnight, almost cost him his life and freedom.