[Three Years’ War by Christiaan Rudolf de Wet]@TWC D-Link bookThree Years’ War CHAPTER XIII 3/5
However brave and determined many of our burghers and officers might be, and, in fact, were, our numerical weakness was a fact that was not to be got over, and might prove an insuperable obstacle to our success.
Moreover, the same thing was now going on in the Transvaal after the capture of Pretoria, as we had witnessed in the Free State after the fall of Bloemfontein--nearly all the burghers were leaving their commandos and going back to their farms.
Plenty of officers, but no troops! This was the pass to which we were come. It was only the remembrance of how the tide had turned in the Free State that gave us the strength to hold out any longer. President Steyn and I sent telegram after telegram to the Government and to the chief officers, encouraging them to stand fast.
Meanwhile the two Generals, De la Rey and Louis Botha, were giving us all a splendid example of fortitude.
Gazing into the future unmoved, and facing it as it were with clenched teeth, they prosecuted the war with invincible determination. * * * * * That the reader may the better appreciate the actual condition of our affairs at this time, I think it well to make a short statement as to the various districts of the Orange Free State, and the number of men in each on whom we could still rely! The burghers of Philippolis and Kaapstad had surrendered _en masse_ to the English.
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