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Nicolaas Van Rensburg
Nicolaas Pieter Johannes ("Niklaas" or "Siener") Janse van Rensburg (3 August 1864 – 11 March 1926) was a Boer from the South African Republic – also known as the Transvaal Republic – and later a citizen of South Africa who was considered by some to be a prophet of the Boers. Consequently, his nickname became "Siener" (Afrikaans for "seer"). Van Rensburg's visions were typically wrapped in a patriotic, religious format, and have been interpreted by believers as predictions of future events. During the Boer War he became a trusted companion, if not advisor to General de la Rey and President Steyn. The extent of his influence with these figures is disputed, though the devoutly religious de la Rey seemed to have considered him a prophet of God. Early life Van Rensburg was born on the farm Palmietfontein in the Potchefstroom district, the son of Willem Jacobus Janse van Rensburg and Anna Catharina Janse van Rensburg. He only received 20 days of formal school training at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Potchefstroom
Potchefstroom (, colloquially known as Potch) is an academic city in the North West Province of South Africa. It hosts the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University. Potchefstroom is on the Mooi Rivier (Afrikaans for "pretty river"), roughly west-southwest of Johannesburg and east-northeast of Klerksdorp. Etymology Several theories exist about the origin of the city's name. According to one theory, it originates from ''Potgieter'' + ''Chef'' + ''stroom'' (referring to Voortrekker leader and town founder Andries Potgieter; "chef" indicates the leader of the Voortrekkers, and "stroom" refers to the Mooi River). Geoffrey Jenkins writes, "Others however, attribute the name as having come from the word 'Potscherf', meaning a shard of a broken pot, due to the cracks that appear in the soil of the Mooi River Valley during drought resembling a broken pot". M. L. Fick suggests that Potchefstroom developed from the abbreviation of "Potgieterstroom" to "Potgerstroom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piet Cronjé
Pieter Arnoldus "Piet" Cronjé (4 October 1836 – 4 February 1911) was a South African Boer general during the Anglo-Boer Wars of 1880–1881 and 1899–1902. Biography Born in the Cape Colony but raised in the South African Republic, Cronjé had a distinctive appearance, being short with a black beard and was reputed to have considerable personal courage. He made his reputation in the First Boer War, besieging the British garrison at Potchefstroom. He was unable to force their surrender until after the conclusion of the general armistice, and was at this time accused of withholding knowledge of this armistice from the garrison. Cronjé was in command of the force that rounded up Leander Jameson at Doornkop at the conclusion of the Jameson Raid on 2 January 1896. During the Second Boer War, Cronjé was general commanding in the western theatre of war. He began the sieges of Kimberley and Mafeking. At Mafeking, with a force between 2,000 and 6,000 he laid siege ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Harts River
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force commitment. An engagement with only limited commitment between the forces and without decisive results is sometimes called a skirmish. The word "battle" can also be used infrequently to refer to an entire operational campaign, although this usage greatly diverges from its conventional or customary meaning. Generally, the word "battle" is used for such campaigns if referring to a protracted combat encounter in which either one or both of the combatants had the same methods, resources, and strategic objectives throughout the encounter. Some prominent examples of this would be the Battle of the Atlantic, Battle of Britain, and Battle of Stalingrad, all in World War II. Wars and military campaigns are guided by military strategy, whereas ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Kemp (South African)
Jan Christoffel Greyling Kemp (10 June 1872 – 31 December 1946) was a South African Boer officer, rebel general, and politician. Early life Jan Kemp was born in the present Amersfoort district, Transvaal on 10 June 1872, the younger son of Jurie Johannes Kemp and Maria Aletta Greyling. His maternal grandfather, Abraham Carel Greyling, a stepson of the Voortrekker leader, Piet Retief, was killed with Retief in 1838. His paternal grandfather, Petrus Johannes Kemp, emigrated from Belgium between 1830 and 1840. He was educated at the Staatsgymnasium (State Gymnasium) in Pretoria. He became a clerk in the Transvaal department of education in 1889. He soon transferred to the mining commissioner's office in Krugersdorp and achieved the position of chief clerk by 1899. Military career He served in the Magato War, against the Basuto chief, in 1895 and helped to suppress the Jameson Raid. At the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War he joined the Krugersdorp Commando. As a burg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Molopo River
The Molopo River ( af, Moloporivier) is one of the main rivers in Southern Africa. It has a length of approximately 960 kilometres and a catchment area of 367,201 km2 with Botswana, Namibia and South Africa sharing roughly about a third of the basin each. Course Its source is in the Molopo Oog ( Eye of Molopo in Afrikaans), and the river generally flows first to the west, and then to the southwest from its source. In its middle course the Molopo River forms a significant section of the border between Botswana and South Africa. River flow is intermittent and when it flows, its water flows very slowly owing to a gradient of only 0.76 m/km. Floods are rare because the vast sandveld areas of the Kalahari Desert on the Namibian side of its basin absorb all water from the seasonal rains. In case of exceptionally heavy and continuous precipitation the flow discharges into the Orange River, which it meets downstream of Augrabies Falls National Park at . It is believed that this las ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Methuen, 3rd Baron Methuen
Field Marshal Paul Sanford Methuen, 3rd Baron Methuen, (1 September 1845 – 30 October 1932) was a British Army officer. He served in the Third Anglo-Ashanti War in 1873 and then in the expedition of Sir Charles Warren to Bechuanaland in the mid-1880s. He took a prominent role as General Officer Commanding the 1st Division in the Second Boer War. He suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Magersfontein, during which he failed to carry out adequate reconnaissance and accordingly his artillery bombarded the wrong place leading to the Highland Brigade taking heavy casualties. He was later captured by the Boers at Tweebosch. After the war, he became General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in South Africa in 1908, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Natal in 1910 and then Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Malta in 1915. Early life Paul Sanford Methuen was born at Corsham Court, Wiltshire, the eldest of three sons of Frederick Methuen, 2nd Baron Methuen and his wife Anna Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harts River
The Harts River ( af, Hartsrivier) is a northern tributary of the Vaal River, which in turn is the largest tributary of the Orange River (also known as the Gariep River, the largest river in South Africa). Its source is in the North West Province, but the greater part of its basin is located in the Northern Cape Province, which it enters a few kilometers downstream from the Taung Dam. The Harts forms a natural boundary for the Ghaap Plateau, located between the Harts River and the Kuruman Hills. Course It rises near Lichtenburg on the far southwestern slopes of the Witwatersrand and flows for 320 km (about 200 miles) in a southwesterly direction, mostly through very flat areas of the North West and Northern Cape Provinces before flowing into the Vaal River about 100 km above the confluence of that river with the Orange River. The Little Harts River which rises near Coligny joins the Great Harts River, which rises near Lichtenburg, to form the main river. Near Taung, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Tweebosch
In the Battle of Tweebosch or De Klipdrift on 7 March 1902, a Boer commando led by Koos de la Rey defeated a British column under the command of Lieutenant General Lord Methuen during the final months of the Second Boer War. Background In order to trap the Boer guerrillas in the Orange Free State, Lord Kitchener built lines of blockhouses connected with barbed wire. But there was not enough water in the Western Transvaal to employ the blockhouse system. Instead, he unleashed nine columns to hunt down De la Rey and the other Boer commanders in the area. On 24 February 1902, De la Rey pounced on a wagon convoy commanded by Lieutenant Colonel S. B. Von Donop. For the loss of 51 Boers, De la Rey killed, wounded or captured 12 officers and 369 men.Pakenham, p 583 In response, Methuen tried to track the Boer leader down. Battle Less than two weeks later, De la Rey ambushed Methuen's column at Tweebosch on the Little Harts River. The British force numbered 1250, including nearly 100 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Missing In Action
Missing in action (MIA) is a casualty classification assigned to combatants, military chaplains, combat medics, and prisoners of war who are reported missing during wartime or ceasefire. They may have been killed, wounded, captured, executed, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave have been positively identified. Becoming MIA has been an occupational risk for as long as there has been warfare. Problems and solutions Until around 1912, service personnel in most countries were not routinely issued with ID tags. As a result, if someone was killed in action and their body was not recovered until much later, there was often little or no chance of identifying the remains unless the person in question was carrying items that would identify them, or had marked their clothing or possessions with identifying information. Starting around the time of the First World War, nations began to issue their service personnel with purpose-made identification tags. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mafikeng
Mafikeng, officially known as Mahikeng and previously Mafeking (, ), is the capital city of the North West province of South Africa. Close to South Africa's border with Botswana, Mafikeng is northeast of Cape Town and west of Johannesburg. In 2001 it had a population of 49,300. In 2007 Mafikeng was reported to have a population of 250,000, of which the CBD constituted between 69,000 and 75,000. It is built on the open veld at an elevation of , by the banks of the Upper Molopo River. The Madibi goldfields are some south of the town. Name The town was renamed Mahikeng in 2012, which was the name of the town until 1885. Mahikeng literally means “place among rocks”. It refers to volcanic rocks that provided temporary shelter for Stone Age humans in order to more easily hunt animals drinking water in the Molopo River. History Establishment Mafikeng is the headquarters of the Barolong Boo Ratshidi people. The town was founded by Molema Tawana (c. 1822 – January 1882 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vredefort
Vredefort is a small farming town in the Free State province of South Africa with cattle, peanuts, sorghum, sunflowers and maize being farmed. It is home to 3,000 residents. The town was established in 1876 on a farm called Visgat, on the Vredefort impact structure, the largest and oldest visible bolide impact crater in the world (with a diameter of ). It was this approximately wide bolide that led to the preservation of the gold-bearing reefs of the Free State some 2.02 billion years ago. The town's name, which translates to "peace fort" in Afrikaans and Dutch, was derived from the peaceful conclusion to a threatened war between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The British built a concentration camp here during the Second Boer War to house Boer women and children. The Vredefort Dome is currently the largest and one of the oldest known asteroid impact sites in the world. It is South Africa's seventh World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schalk Willem Burger
Schalk Willem Burger (6 September 1852 – 5 December 1918) was a South African military leader, lawyer, politician, and statesman who was acting president of the South African Republic from 1900 to 1902, whilst Paul Kruger was in exile.Nathan, Manfred (1937). ''The Voortrekkers of South Africa: From the Earliest Times to the Foundation of the Republics''. Gordon and Gotch, ltd. At the age of 21, Burger worked as a clerk in the office of the field coronet. He married his wife, Alida Claudina de Villiers during this time. Military service He served in a number of military conflicts such as the Sekhukhune Wars of 1876, and later during the First Boer War of 1881, he served as acting field cornet. He was elected as commandant of the Lydenburg Commando in 1885. When the Second Boer War started, he served as commandant-general in a number of military conflicts, including the battle of Spion Kop and battle of Modder River on 30 October 1899. Burger was criticized for his la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
