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.

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Episode 103 - A porcupine causes a stampede & General Smuts makes a big mistake at Murderer's Way

Episode 103 - A porcupine causes a stampede & General Smuts makes a big mistake at Murderer's Way

We continue to rid4 with General Jan Smuts and he has just entered the Cape Colony, an invasion that has been planned to coincide with Spring in early September 1901. The master guerrilla fighter and ...

8 Syys 201919min

Episode 102 - General Smuts enters the Cape and rides straight into a Basutho ambush

Episode 102 - General Smuts enters the Cape and rides straight into a Basutho ambush

Spring is upon is in this podcast - so too the long-awaited invasion of the Cape Colony by General Jan Smuts and his commando. It has taken him almost a month of zig-zagging across the Free State from...

1 Syys 201919min

Episode 101 - De Wet’s son shot by English special forces & Jan Smuts rides into view

Episode 101 - De Wet’s son shot by English special forces & Jan Smuts rides into view

This week we hear about the Dandy Fifth and Deneys Reitz. It’s also time to ride with General Christiaan de Wet as he sums up the Blockhouses. Reitz has fallen in with “this little band” as he calls t...

25 Elo 201918min

Episode 100 - “Send the Boers to Mexico” & Scheepers rides from Desolation Valley

Episode 100 - “Send the Boers to Mexico” & Scheepers rides from Desolation Valley

It’s an amazing to think that back in 2017 I was thinking about this podcast and whether I should go ahead and cover a topic that was missing on both iTunes and general podcasting. Jumping in and star...

18 Elo 201916min

Episode 99 - A Devil's Gorge, an executed priest, and the madness of Breaker Morant

Episode 99 - A Devil's Gorge, an executed priest, and the madness of Breaker Morant

It’s early August 1901 and a series of events in a far off corner of the war would end up resonating internationally for the next one hundred and 18 years. These involved the Bushveld Carbineers, th...

11 Elo 201924min

Episode 98 - Lord Kitchener issues an exile proclamation and de Wet lays an IED

Episode 98 - Lord Kitchener issues an exile proclamation and de Wet lays an IED

It’s time for an exchange of letters and a proclamation or two. General Jan Smuts and his commando have broken into smaller units and are traveling from the Transvaal to the Free State / Cape border. ...

4 Elo 201918min

Episode 97 - Bandits at the Southern border

Episode 97 - Bandits at the Southern border

This week we will hear about bandits at the Southern Border who are making the most of the guerrilla war raging around the Transvaal, parts of the Cape and the Free State. These motley laggards lurke...

28 Heinä 201917min

Episode 96 - Blundering into a British blockhouse, the Dirty Dozen break up

Episode 96 - Blundering into a British blockhouse, the Dirty Dozen break up

It’s the third week of July 1901 and this winter has been cold even by the standards of South Africa’s high plains. As I’m writing this, snow has blanketed parts of the semi-desert known as the Karoo ...

21 Heinä 201919min

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