Episode 104 - A hunchback leads Smuts to safety & Captain Gough's fatal cavalry charge
The Anglo-Boer War15 Syys 2019

Episode 104 - A hunchback leads Smuts to safety & Captain Gough's fatal cavalry charge

It’s mid September 1901 and Jan Smuts is about to face one of the most challenging moments in his illustrious career. He was only 28 at this point, yet was to achieve so much in the next few weeks and would forever be remembered as the remarkable soldier who led a tiny group of men into the mouth of the British Empire lion. His immediately challenge, however, involved the weather, rather than the British. In an event which became known in Boer storytelling as The Big Rain, his commando was caught on high ground and hammered by a biblical deluge that threatened to destroy his force A few days after crossing into the Cape Colony and being attacked by the Basotho, Smuts survived a second ambush by a British patrol that killed his three scouts as they rode to investigate reports of a large column nearby. That was at the aptly named Moordenaars Poort or Murderers Way. Among the dead was Neethling who was a friend of our narrator, Deneys Reitz, who has warned us how many of the members of the Rijk Section, the Rich section as they ironically called themselves, were going to die. Ironic because they were dressed in rags - one of the ten went further describing the band of brothers as the Dandy Fifth. By around mid-September they were riding into more hills, which of course is where moist air rises and it rains more particularly on the Southerly facing mountains of South Africa. It may be the first month of Spring, but it can still snow on the high ground and Smuts’ commando was caught in freezing weather. It rained constantly, sometimes sleeted, and the wind never abated. The continued lack of any sunshine made them even more dispirited, and Reitz began to wish he’d never left the Free State.

Jaksot(143)

Episode 127 -A treacherous spy meets his Nemesis and Jan Smuts heads for the beach

Episode 127 -A treacherous spy meets his Nemesis and Jan Smuts heads for the beach

We’ll kick off where we left off last week – where Jan Smuts’ commando was near Calvinia in the northern Cape evading the English. But its also where commandant Bouwer was surprised by a mounted infan...

23 Helmi 202019min

Episode 126 - Jan Smuts makes a remarkable speech & we meet the treacherous colonial Lambert Colyn

Episode 126 - Jan Smuts makes a remarkable speech & we meet the treacherous colonial Lambert Colyn

This week we’ll find out what happened to Jan Smuts and his commando as they combine forces with Kommandant van Deventer who is in the middle of a major skirmish with the British near Calvinia in the ...

16 Helmi 202020min

Episode 125 - A sleepy blockhouse stymies Kitchener’s New Model Drive & Jan Smuts leaves Kakamas

Episode 125 - A sleepy blockhouse stymies Kitchener’s New Model Drive & Jan Smuts leaves Kakamas

February 1902 is full of surprises, not least for Lord Kitchener who has designed his great Drives which are similar to hunting Grouse on the moors of England. Lines of men walk side by side, twenty y...

9 Helmi 202018min

Episode 124 -The incredible tale of the seven foot tall Coenraad de Buys and his independent clan

Episode 124 -The incredible tale of the seven foot tall Coenraad de Buys and his independent clan

This week we’ll concentrate on surely one of the more unique southern africans of the 18th Century, who’s descendents feature as a small independent people in modern South Africa, and who found themse...

2 Helmi 202019min

Episode 123 - Major Vallentin eats his last lunch & General Botha fights his last Transvaal battle

Episode 123 - Major Vallentin eats his last lunch & General Botha fights his last Transvaal battle

This is episode 123 and its January 1902. The war has four months to run, and there are still a few big shocks. One would be Lord Methuen’s capture by General Koos de la Rey. More about that in just...

26 Tammi 202018min

Episode 122 - The dishonourable ex-fiancé Karel de Kock & the Witwatersrand Rifle Regiment

Episode 122 - The dishonourable ex-fiancé Karel de Kock & the Witwatersrand Rifle Regiment

This is episode 122 and we will take a close look at the love-life of a Boer spy – who’s tale is laced with an unusual irony that involves a regiment called the Witwatersrand Rifles. The nature of the...

19 Tammi 202019min

Episode 121 - – The Kenyan Trek Boers of Eldoret & Smuts goes swimming

Episode 121 - – The Kenyan Trek Boers of Eldoret & Smuts goes swimming

General Jan Smuts is making merry in the Cape, trying to stoke uprisings, while Lord Kitchener’s been more successful in clearing the Eastern Transvaal, forcing General Louis Botha to shift towards Vr...

12 Tammi 202022min

Episode 120 - Reitz meets a Swiss Family Robinson & Kitchener rethinks the Concentration Camp system

Episode 120 - Reitz meets a Swiss Family Robinson & Kitchener rethinks the Concentration Camp system

Its new year – the first week of January 1902 and we continue to ride, or rather walk, with Deneys Reitz as he and seven other colleagues have been separated from General Jan Smuts who is on a mission...

5 Tammi 202018min

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