Identifier: battlesofninetee06forb (find matches)
Title: Battles of the nineteenth century
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Forbes, Archibald, 1838-1900 Atteridge, A. Hilliard (Andrew Hilliard)
Subjects: Battles Military history, Modern
Publisher: London New York : Cassell and Company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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Text Appearing Before Image:
took
place in the night, between
October 12th and 13th, on
the western border, and it was
a success for the Boers. Colonel
Baden-Powell held Mafeking
with a garrison formed of a
detachment of the Munster
Fusiliers, and a corps of colo-
nial mounted rifles recruited
in Bechuanaland and Rhodesia just before
the war. In all he had about 1,200 men
with him. His second in command was
Major Lord Edward Cecil, D.S.O., of the
Grenadier Guards, a son of Lord Salisbury.
An important element in the defence was sup-
plied by two armoured trains, the larger
one armed with a 7-pounder gun and some
Maxims; the smaller, known locally as the
"Mosquito," armed with a Maxim gun. The
next posts on the railway were, the station
at Lobatsi, 47 miles to the northward, held
by a small party of volunteers, and Kim-
berley, 223 miles to the southward, where
the great heaps of débris from the diamond
mines had been converted into improvised
fortifications, and armed with field-pieces and
machine - guns, and furnished with electric
Text Appearing After Image:

10 THE BOER WAR.

search-lights. Colonel Kekewich was in com-
mand, and he had a garrison of about 3,000
men, including the 1st Battalion of the North
Lancashire Regiment, some gunners of the
Royal Artillery and a detachment of Royal
Engineers, and a number of colonial volunteers
and armed townsfolk. Still further south there
was a small force of volunteers and regulars hold-
ing the railway bridge at Orange River station.
It had been reported that Commandant
Cronje, one of the
best of the Boer
generals, the man
who had stopped
Jameson at Krugers-
dorp and Dornkop,
was moving across
the veldt to attack
Mafeking. Colonel
Baden-Powell was
anxious to get rid
of as many as pos-
sible of the non-
combatants. On the
12th a last trainload
of refugees started
from Mafeking for
Kimberley. It con-
veyed about 300
women and child-
ren, and was es-
corted by the little
armoured train, the
"Mosquito," with a
crew of fifteen colo-
nial volunteers un-
der Captain Nesbitt,
V.C., a young officer
of the colonial
forces, who had won
the coveted cross
""For Valour" in the Mashonaland War of 1896.

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