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 and it was no different then. And Deneys Reitz is close to this region. He had found a bolt hole near the Lesotho border where he’d been hiding out with a handful of fellow travellers and his German colleagues. They’d been able to bathe for the first time in months having found a copper cistern. Reitz recovered during his short stint of R&R and was itching to rejoin the war. By the end of June the small band led by Field Cornet Botha started back down the mountains heading towards the Orange River which is the border between the Free State and the Cape Colony. AS they descended they saw a rider approaching. It was a young man named Jacobus Bosman. He would have been shot as a traitor. But Mr Bosman said it was worth the risk, so Reitz and his German troop enlisted him. Unfortunately for Bosman, he should have listened to the advice for as we’ll see, his is not a happy ending. After three days of progress the Quixotic group, or the dirty dozen as Dutch historian Martin Bossenbroek calls them, are back on the flat open plains within sight of the Johannesburg-Bloemfontein railway line. By now Lord Kitchener’s blockhouse system is causing the Boer guerrilla army some problems because these are close together and crossing the railway line has become very difficult during the day.

Episoder(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 Feb 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 Feb 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 Feb 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 Feb 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 Jan 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 Jan 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 Jan 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 Jan 202018min

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