TOPIC:

Van Zyl’s Die Helde Album (pge 379, 381) contains the following paragraph (the time period is around February 1902):

“After the breakthrough at Kalkkrans General de Wet, with a force of 200 Burgers, took President Steyn through the English positions to General Delarey in the West Transvaal and then went on to see General Stoffel Badenhorst near Boshof. Around this time the English located General De Wet’s hiding place in Reitz and took possession of a large quantity of ammunition as well as De Wet’s documents and clothing”. Van Zyl then wrote: “Will these documents one day come to light?”

Does anyone know which British forces made this discovery in Reitz and what happened to De Wet’s documents?

This particular event is not known to me and so I started to search the internet. I stumbled across this on EBay. It is a page from a book which is for sale. The title is “Boer War Capture of De Wet Convoy at Reitz 6th Mounted Infantry”. The image is unclear but mentions June. 6th.



Could this be the same event?

Ian

Ian, there was no image with your post but I assume you refer to the events of July 11, 1901 when Brigadier General Broadwood in charge of 400-strong force of Dragoon Guards and Yeoman surprised a Boer Laager at Reitz. At the Camp were President Steijn and the entire OVS government. Broadwood managed to take General J.B. Wessels and Loffie Davel, head of of Steijn’s bodyguard prisoner, but President Steijn himself got away with the help of his Agterryer (and life-long friend) Jan Ruiter.

On this occasion Broadwood came into possession of a trunk of official OVS documents and the entire Free State treasury among which the batch of Gouvernement’s Noten that Kruger had given Steijn. These noten were cancelled by the British Department of military Intelligence (DMI).







So while this event on July 11, 1901 is well documented, a similar event at the same place that purportedly took place in early 1902 (as mentioned by van Zyl) was not known to me. Perhaps van Zyl got his dates mixed up and was referring to same?

Here is the photo.

I’m currently in an area with poor WiFi.

I now remember that I have read about this possible ‘other’ incident. I’m not sure, is it the same incident, in which case Broadwood/6th MI took the documents or are they separate incidents?

According to Amery, De Wet crossed the Hol Spruit at Kalkkrans during the night of 23 February 1902, leading to the action at Langverwacht. Although De Wet broke through, Amery states "The rest - faint-hearted burghers, occupants of vehicles and the whole multitude of cattle - were left behind, and for the most part fell eventually into British hands".

There is no mention of Reitz in the Times History after the Boradwood encounter.

Kalkkrans (just east of Kalkfontein on Google Maps) is 56km east of Reitz.