Anglo-Boer War: Koedoe’sberg Drift on the Riet River is 30 kilometers along the Douglas road. During the Anglo-Boer War era, The battle, between the Highland Brigade in their first engagement after Magersfontein and the Boers, raged close to the Drift and on the summit of the mountain from 5-8 February 1900. Champion British Golfer, Freddie Tait, wounded at Magersfontein, was killed here.
Anglo-Boer War: The 10 day battle of Paardeberg, was the largest and bloodiest battle of the Anglo-Boer War. Paardeberg (Perdeberg on Maps) is on the Modder River 40 kilometers along the Petrusburg/Bloemfontein road. The battlefield is immense, but is superbly complemented by a field museum. The roofed museum with two dioramas is at the railway station at Cronjes lager and Oskoppies (Kitcheners Kop). De Wet breached the British lines at the latter, creating a breakout point fot the surrounded Boers. The Battle of Paardeberg lasted from 17 to 27 February.
Anglo-Boer War: Boshof – ten kilometers east of Boshof, a wild olive tree grows on the crest of the largest hill of a low ridge. Reputedly, it is the tree under which famous French Soldier Colonel Comte de Villebois-Mareuil, was killed while fighting for the Boers on 5 April 1900 against a force under Lord Mathuen. Sargent Patrick Campbell, estranged husband of Mrs Patrick Campbell, famous as an actress and as George Bernard Shaw’s mistress, also died in the battle.
Three main Battles took place:
24 October : fought around McFarlane’s siding and Dronfield’s Ridge to the north of Kimberley, This was the first battle in which wounded soldiers were evacuated in railway coaches, and the firs time since the American Civil War that reinforcements were taken by train to the battlefield.
25 November: ” a demonstration of strength” to the south-west of Kimberley and Carters Ridge (between the Douglas and Schmidtsdrift roads). Boers must have been taken by surprise as their shooting was atrocious.
28 November: the toughest, and last serious, garrison fight was intended to divert Boer attentions from the approaching relief column, who fought the Modder River Battle that day. The three-pronged attack was launched to the south and again to Carter’s Ridge. Carter’s farm and a Boer lager were captured, but there was general chaos and Lt Col Henry Scott-Turner, a Black Watch officer commanding Kimberley mounted troops was killed.
