The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-03-28
His Five Thousand Men an Important
Addition to the Enemy's Force
mt krOOnstad.
ROBERTS UNABLE TO MOVE
HIS TRANSPORT SERVICE MADE
QUATE FOR A LARGE ARMY.
Nine of the Drakenberg Passes De-
Tended by 10000 Boers-situation
at Mafekfng Two Weeks Ago.

LONDON, March 2S. a. m.-The Beers
are having a little good luck and are show
ing some boldness again. as a raiding par
ty estimated at 400 is believed by the Brit
ish forces at Warrenton to have crossed
the Kimberley -Bloemfontein wagon road
on Monday and to have headed for Jacobs
dal with the intention of cutting the rail-
way ten miles west.
Commandant Olivier appears to have got
his 5000 men and twenty-five miles of
wagons into rugged country, where he can
make an easy rear-guard defense. Charles
Williams, the military expert, says: eff
this column gets through substantially,
Commandant Olivier will have carried out
the great feat of the war. seeing that he
ran every chance of being ground between
the upper milestone of Lord Robertss
army and the neither milestone of the
broken Basuto frontier. He will have done
IL within fifty miles or so of Lord Robertss
main strength. Certainly it looked for a
week as though Lord Roberts held Olivier
in the hollow of his hand. If Olivier gets
through to Kroonstad with even 5000 men
it will be an important addition to the Boer
gathering there. His escape Is attributa-
BILE, in part, to the worn-out condition of
the British cavalry horses
Lord Robertss transport appears to have
been badly dislocated by the loss at Reit
river, before Cronje's surrender of the
wagon train, and in addition to this the
army with which he purposes to advance
towarS Pretoria is nearly double that of
the earlier rapid movements. Ten thou
sand transport, cavalry and gun animals
are due to arrive at Cape ports during this
and next week. 1t is given out at Cape
Town that Lord Roberts's advance may be
ments should be received with reserve, it
seems positive that he intends to go to
Cape Town to meet Lady Roberts, who is
due to arrive there in ten days.
Spencer Wilkinson in the Morning Post
says: There is nothing TO indicate the
early move of the main forces in either
theater of war. When it comes 1t will be
unexpected, for Lord Roberts is not in the
habit Of announcing his movements in ad-
vance. The latest kilograms give grounds
for a hopeful view as to Mafeking and
suggest the likelihood that Commandant
Oliviers force will make good its retreat.
The opinion telegraphed from Maseru is
that the Beers at Ladybrand were covering
the retirement of their convoy toward
Soneka. sixty miles north. If the convoy
has escaped, the commanders can scarcely
be prevented from retreating. Small parties
it is next to impossible to stop. Natal tele-
! grams point to a reduction in the Boer
! forces in that quarter and to a concentra-
| tion at Kroonstad, but the positions and
| trenches of the Beers will help them little,
now that the British are organized with a
/ view to mobility and now that the large
bodies of mounted troops, are at the dis
posal of Lord Roberts,
| Lord Roberts wired to the War Office
yesterday from Bloemfontein as follows:
Captain Sloane-Stanley, of the Sixteenth
Lancers. was slightly wounded in an affair
of outposts, north of the Modder river, on
March 25.' This bare statement is all that
comes from the commander-in-chief
| A dispatch from Bloemfontein, dated
Monday, March 26. and published in the
| Times, amplifies Lord Roberts's dispatch as
follows: "A cavalry reconnaissance was
made yesterday towards Brandfort. The
Sixteenth Lancers, by skirmishing, drew
the Beers from their position into the open,
| when the Ninth Lancers attempted to out
flank the enemy while they were engaged
| from the front. by dismounted section of
| the Sixteenth Lancers. Our casualties are
| reported to be few
The War Office has issued another table
| OF British losses, showing an aggregate OF
| 1862, which does not include 4,004 who have
been invalided home