They told me there that Commandant Weilbach had deserted his post early in the evening.

What was I to do?
It was impossible to search for him during the night, and I was compelled to take burghers away from other commandos, and to place them in the abandoned positions.

On their arrival there, they discovered that no sooner had Weilbach failed us than the enemy had seized his post--the key to Bloemfontein! We did all that we could, but our situation had been rendered hopeless by the action of a Commandant who ought to have been dismissed out of hand for his conduct at Poplar Grove.
That night I did not close an eye.
* * * * * The morning of the 13th of March dawned.
Hardly had the sun risen, when the English in the entrenchments which Commandant Weilbach had deserted, opened a flank fire on our nearest positions.
First one position and then another was abandoned by our burghers, who followed one another's example like sheep; few made any attempt to defend their posts, and in spite of my efforts and those of the officers under me, they retreated to the north.
Thus, without a single shot being fired, Bloemfontein fell into the hands of the English.
[Footnote 24: This correspondence will be found in Chapter XXX.] [Footnote 25: Member of the Free State Volksraad and Executive Council.] [Footnote 26: Member of the Free State Volksraad and Executive Council, and also President of the Volksraad.] [Footnote 27: Member of the first Volksraad of the South African Republic.] [Footnote 28: This harbour, then the only harbour in South Africa open to us, was subsequently forbidden us by the Portuguese Government, whose officials even went so far as to arrest eight hundred of our burghers (who, for want of horses, had taken refuge in Portuguese territory), and to send them to Portugal.

The ports of German West Africa cannot be counted among those which were available for us.

Not only were they too far from us to be of any service, but also, in order to reach them, it would have been necessary to go through English territory, for they were separated from us by Griqualand West, Bechuanaland, and isolated portions of Cape Colony.