Situation in February, 1900
An earlier British attempt to relieve Kimberley, led by Lieutenant General Lord Methuen, had been opposed by Boers under Cronjé and Koos de la Rey. Although the Boers had failed to prevent the British crossing the Modder River on 28 November, they had fought them to a standstill at the Battle of Magersfontein 13 days later, inflicting heavy casualties.
Over the next two months, the front south of Kimberley stagnated. A substantial Boer detachment under De la Rey was sent to Colesberg where, in contrast to the situation elsewhere, the Boers were being driven back by a roughly equal British force. Cronjé's remaining forces were weakened by lack of grazing for their horses. Many of the Boer fighters' families joined Cronjé's main encampment at Jacobsdal. The presence of large numbers of non-combatants with their slow-moving ox-drawn wagons would later prove a fatal handicap to Cronjé.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Paardeberg
Famous quotes containing the words situation in and/or situation:
“Much poetry seems to be aware of its situation in time and of its relation to the metronome, the clock, and the calendar. ... The season or month is there to be felt; the day is there to be seized. Poems beginning “When” are much more numerous than those beginning “Where” of “If.” As the meter is running, the recurrent message tapped out by the passing of measured time is mortality.”
—William Harmon (b. 1938)
“... the task of youth is not only its own salvation but the salvation of those against whom it rebels, but in that case there must be something vital to rebel against and if the elderly stiffly refuse to put up a vigorous front of their own, it leaves the entire situation in a mist.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)