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Wet, Christiaan Rudolf de (1854–1922)
Boer general and guerrilla fighter
Christiaan de Wet, the sixth of 14 children, was born
in Leeuwkop, the Orange Free State, in what is now
South Africa, on 7 October 1854. His ancestor Jacobus
de Wet emigrated from Amsterdam to southern Africa
in 1693; his father, a farmer, moved to what was called
the Orange Free State—composed of “Orange,” or Eu-
ropean-descended farmers—settling in a village called
Dewetsdorp, named after the family. Christiaan de Wet
was 11 when he joined his father in guarding Orange
farms from Basuto natives, a conflict that culminated in
open warfare in 1865. In 1868, de Wet’s mother died,
and, owing to his having to help support his family on
the farm, he never received a formal education and only
learned how to read and write.
In 1880, de Wet was one of the leaders resisting
British interference in the Orange Free State. When
conflict broke out with Britain (the Anglo-Boer War of
1880–81), de Wet led Orange forces into the battles
of Bronkhorstspruit (20 December 1880), Laingsnek
(or Laing’s Neck, 28 January 1881), and Amajuba (also
Majuba, 26–27 February 1881), among others. Follow-
ing the war (which ended in a stalemate), he was elected
to the Volksraad, or Orange parliament, in 1885. Al-
though he served only a single parliamentary session,
he was strongly opposed to the policies of the Orange
president Stephanas Johannes Paulus (Paul) Kruger. In
1889, he was again elected to the Volksraad, serving
until 1898.
Starting in October 1899, in what is usually called
the Boer War—also the second Anglo-Boer War—de
Wet left his farm to take a leadership role in defending
his homeland. Serving first as a commander in the prov-
ince of Natal and later with the rank of general under
Piet Cronjé in the western part of the Orange Free State,
he conducted a remarkable mobile war against Brit-
ish forces. At Ladysmith on 30 October 1899, he and
a small force of only 300 men besieged British forces
of over 1,000 and took more than 800 prisoners. For
this single battlefield victory, he was promoted to field
general. He tried to get Cronjé to attack the main Brit-
ish force, but Cronjé held back, leaving de Wet and his
men exposed at Paardeburg, where they were attacked
on 16 December 1899. De Wet’s army slipped away be-
fore they could be defeated, but Cronjé was forced to
surrender on 27 February 1900.
Cronjé’s removal as the leading military officer of
the Boer forces forced de Wet to take command of the
Orange Free State army. His main goal was to halt Lord
roberts’s march on the Free State’s capital, Bloem-
fontaine. Several small skirmishes occurred at Abraha-
mskraal and Reitfontein, but the overwhelming British
presence forced de Wet and his men to abandon Bloem-
fontaine, which fell to the British on 13 March 1900.
Despite the loss of their capital, de Wet’s forces con-
tinued their warfare, taking the military post known as
Sannapos or Sanna’s Post (31 March 1900), a battle in
which some 500 British were killed and wounded and an
equal number taken prisoner. At Mostertshoek (4 April
1900), he attacked a British force under General Wil-
liam Forbes Gatacre, again winning a stunning victory,
and he fought to a standoff at Jammersbergdrif (7 April
1900). Nevertheless, de Wet realized that the Free State’s
chances of victory were becoming slimmer as more
British troops flooded into the area. His forces took up
guerilla tactics, hitting supply lines, communications
stations, and transportation sectors such as bridges in a
vain attempt to slow the British advance. One of these
was a massive attack on the Rooiwal train station (7 June
1900), in which a huge amount of British ammunition
and supplies was destroyed. This latter attack forced
Lord Roberts to change his tactics from seeking a major
land battle to cutting off the separate detachments of
Free State forces. Although Roberts encircled a major
Boer force at the Brandwater Basin in July 1900, de
Wet and some of his men managed to escape. However,
General Michael Prinsloo and 3,000 Boer fighters sur-
rendered, and de Wet’s brother, Piet de Wet, went over
to the British side and aided them in containing the Free
State army. Utilizing Piet de Wet’s information, Roberts
tracked the Boer general to the Vaal River and encircled wet, chRiStiAAn RuDolF De