Identifier: reportsonmilitar00unit (find matches)
Title: Reports on military operations in South Africa and China
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: United States. Adjutant-General's Office
Subjects: South African War, 1899-1902
Publisher: Washington : G.P.O.
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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obsdal to Paardeberg Drift, arriving at 10.30 a.m. Fourteenth brigade, seventh division, from Klip Drift to Paardeberg. Guards brigade from Modder River railway station to Klip Drift, increasing Lord Roberts's infantry to about 21,000 men, though this brigade and the fifteenth did not join the forces engaged at Paardeberg Drift until after General Cronje's surrender. BATTLE OF FEBRUARY 18. The annexed sketch shows the relative positions of the two armies on the day of General Cronjes surrender. The Modder River is about 120 feet wide, with steep banks of about 20 feet. It can only be forded by wagons at the drifts, but mounted men at ordinary stages of the water can ford it anywhere. The current is swift, and with a rise of 2Cccl the river becomes unfordable even at the drifts. The ordinary depth of the fords is about 3 feet. The artillery opened on the Boer laager about 6 a.m., two battalions of the fourteenth brigade going above the laager to the river in the clump of trees northeast of laager.
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OPERATIONS OF THE BRITISH ARMY. 29 One brigade, the nineteenth, crossed Paardeberg Drift to the north of the river under heavy fire from the hills west of the ford and the kopje just above it. The enemy was found to be occupying also the river bed from just above the drift to the laager. The nineteenth brigade, after turning the hills and kopje by moving north of them, the enemy retiring up toward the laager, moved toward the river to a position about 3,000 yards below and west of the laager. The third brigade attacked the enemy from the south side of the river and drove him from just above the drift up the river. The sixth division, less the two regiments sent to the river above the laager, attacked the river bed from the south, their line being in prolongation of the third brigade up the river. The enemy's wagons were parked, or rather bunched, on the plain on the north side of the river as marked in sketch. Kitcheners Kopje, which proved to be the key of the position, commanding both the plain

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