Battle of Paardeberg The Battle of Paardeberg or Perdeberg ( " Horse Mountain " ) was a major battle during the Second Anglo - Boer War . It was fought near " Paardeberg Drift " on the banks of the Modder River in the Orange Free State near Kimberley . Lord Methuen advanced up the railway line in November 1899 with the objective of relieving the besieged city of Kimberley ( and the town of Mafeking , also under siege ) . Battles were fought on this front at Graspan , Colenso , Modder River before the advance was halted for two months after the British defeat at the Battle of Magersfontein . In February 1900 , Field Marshal Lord Roberts assumed personal command of a significantly reinforced British offensive . The army of Boer General Piet Cronjé was retreating from its entrenched position at Magersfontein towards Bloemfontein after its lines of communication were cut by Major General John French , whose cavalry had recently outflanked the Boer position to relieve Kimberley . Cronje ' s slow - moving column was intercepted by French at Paardeberg , where the Boer general eventually surrendered after a prolonged siege , having fought off an attempted direct assault by Lieutenant General Horatio Kitchener . Situation in February , 1900 . An earlier British attempt to relieve Kimberley , led by Lieutenant General Lord Methuen , had been opposed by Boers under Cronjé and Koos de la Rey . Although the Boers had failed to prevent the British crossing the Modder River on 28 November , they had fought them to a standstill at the Battle of Magersfontein 13 days later , inflicting heavy casualties . Over the next two months , the front south of Kimberley stagnated . A substantial Boer detachment under De la Rey was sent to Colesberg where , in contrast to the situation elsewhere , the Boers were being driven back by a roughly equal British force . Cronjé ' s remaining forces were weakened by lack of grazing for their horses . Many of the Boer fighters ' families joined Cronjé ' s main encampment at Jacobsdal . The presence of large numbers of non - combatants with their slow - moving ox - drawn wagons would later prove a fatal handicap to Cronjé . British plans . Field Marshal Roberts had been appointed to command the British forces in South Africa in December , 1899 , succeeding General Buller . ( Roberts had just learned that his son Freddy had been mortally wounded at the Battle of Colenso . ) Like Buller , Roberts at first intended to make a direct thrust on the Boer capitals of Bloemfontein and Pretoria , using the central railway line from Cape Town to these two capital cities as his line of communication . Also like Buller , he found on arrival in South Africa that public opinion both in Britain and South Africa was clamouring for the relief of British forces besieged at Ladysmith , Kimberley and Mafeking and was forced to modify his plans . Leaving Buller in command of the attempt to relieve Ladysmith , Roberts collected large numbers of reinforcements which had recently arrived in South Africa along the railway line between the Orange and Modder rivers . He intended to outflank the Boer left and pass his cavalry around them to relieve Kimberley , while his infantry secured vital fords behind them . Roberts had two infantry divisions ( the 6th and the 7th ) each of two infantry brigades , and a mounted division of three brigades under Major General John French . Another infantry division ( the 9th , under Lieutenant General Henry Edward Colville ) was formed during the campaign . Relief of Kimberley . While Methuen ' s 1st Division demonstrated against the Boer entrenchments at Magersfontein and the Highland Brigade under Major General Hector MacDonald marched westward to Koedoesberg and fixed the Boers ' attention to their right flank , Roberts ' s large force began marching east in secret , late on 11 February . By the evening of 12 February , his leading horsemen had secured fords across the first obstacle , the Riet River . The next day , 13 February , the British mounted force made a gruelling march of under a blazing sun to capture fords across the Modder . The effect of the heat was made worse when the dry grass of the veld caught fire from a carelessly discarded match . French ' s division had to wait at the fords ( at Klip Drift ) during the next day until the leading infantry reached them , after making an equally exhausting march . Luckily for the British , the move had taken the Boers by surprise and they did not move in strength to defend the fords or the hills nearby . Early on 15 February , French ' s division began the final march to relieve Kimberley . Only scattered and disorganised Boers opposed them , and the enormous mass of British horsemen broke through their thin line , concealed in the dust cloud they created . Late that evening they reached Kimberley , where they were greeted with cheering crowds . French should by rights have gone to the military commander of the besieged garrison , Lieutenant Colonel Kekewich . Instead he called first on Cecil Rhodes , the former Prime Minister of Cape Colony and foremost Imperialist , at the town ' s chief hotel . The final day ' s ride had crippled most of French ' s division . Most of his British regular cavalry carried too much equipment and their unacclimatised horses ( and those of the seven batteries of horse artillery ) were exhausted . His effective force was reduced to two regiments of New Zealand and Australian light horse , and two " brigades " ( actually battalions ) of mounted infantry . French was to further tire his men on 16 February by futile attempts to intercept one of the Boers ' Creusot 40 - pounder siege gun s ( nicknamed " Long Tom " ) which was withdrawing to the north . Cronjé ' s move to Paardeberg . Also on 15 February , Cronjé ' s men , some 5 , 000 Transvaalers and Freestaters , finally evacuated their laager at Jacobsdal . Their position at Magersfontein was no longer relevant and they were in danger of being besieged in Jacobsdal by the British 7th Division under Lieutenant General Tucker , which had turned west from Klip Drift . On the night of the 15th , the large convoy of Boer ox - wagons passed between the rear of French ' s division and the outposts of Lieutenant General Thomas Kelly - Kenny ' s 6th Division at the Modder fords . Throughout the next day , the Boer mounted rearguards prevented the British 6th Division ( with only one understrength mounted infantry unit ) overtaking them . On the 17th , the large convoy of Boer wagons reached the crossing of the Modder at Paardeberg Drift . They were starting to cross the river when a force of 1 , 500 British mounted troops , almost all of French ' s fit horses and men who had covered the from Kimberley in another desperately tiring march , opened fire on them unexpectedly from the north , causing confusion . Cronjé then inadvisedly decided to form a laager and dig in on the banks of the Modder river . His reasons for doing so are unclear . The British now outnumbered his force significantly and enjoyed overwhelming superiority in artillery . All the British would have to do was lay siege to the Boer position and bombard them at their leisure . On the other hand , the British had insufficient cavalry and it would have been an easy matter for Cronjé to brush them aside and link up other Boers east of the Modder ; those under noted commander Christiaan De Wet who were only away to the south - east and other forces under Chief Commandant Ignatius S . Ferreira a similar distance to the north . Bloody Sunday . Lieutenant General Kelly - Kenny , commanding the British 6th Division , had a sound plan to lay siege to Cronjé and bombard his force into surrender . This would almost certainly have proved successful and cost the British very few casualties . However , Roberts was ill , and his Chief of Staff , Lieutenant General Herbert Kitchener , was now in overall command of the British force . He had different plans , and overruled Kelly - Kenny . Kitchener proceeded to order his infantry and mounted troops into a series of uncoordinated frontal assaults against the Boer laager . This was despite the fact that the cost of frontal assaults against entrenched Boers had been demonstrated time and again the preceding months . It was no different this time . The British were shot down in droves . It is thought that not a single British soldier got within of the Boer lines . By nightfall some 24 officers and 279 men were killed and 59 officers and 847 men wounded . Judged by British casualties it was the most severe reverse of the war and became known as Bloody Sunday . Kelly - Kenny had warned Kitchener not to leave " Kitchener ' s Kopje " undefended . Possession of the kopje was essential to guard the south - east of the British position and prevent Cronjé ' s escape . But Kitchener , in his zeal for an all - out attack , had left the kopje defended by only a handful of " Kitchener ' s Horse " ( volunteer British colonists ) . De Wet was therefore able to take the kopje with little resistance . The strategic picture had now changed dramatically . De Wet could now make the British position on the south east bank of the Modder untenable , and the Boers now commanded a swathe of front stretching from the north east right through to the south east . As darkness fell , Kitchener ordered his troops to dig in where they were . Few received these orders and fewer still obeyed them . Desperately thirsty and exhausted , the surviving British trickled back into camp . Rescue for Cronjé now seemed the likely outcome . But seen from the Boer side , things were also bad . Cronjé and his men had been in headlong retreat for several days with the British snapping at their heels . While casualties from the bombardment had been reduced to around 100 dead and 250 wounded by the soft bank of the Modder , the horses , oxen and wagons had no trenches in which to shelter . Many wagons were destroyed . Ammunition exploded and stores were ruined . For many of the Burghers , these wagons carried all their worldly possessions . The loss of their horses was even worse , for the horse was almost as important to the fighting ability of a Boer as his Mauser rifle . The morale in Cronjé ' s laager was desperate . Siege . As the sun came up on the morning of Monday , 19 February , General Roberts arrived on the scene . He initially urged a resumption of the frontal assaults , but Cronjé requested a cease - fire to bury the dead . The British refused and Cronjé replied " If you are so uncharitable as to refuse me a truce as requested , then you may do as you please . I shall not surrender alive . Bombard as you will . " The truce communications had taken up much of the day and there was no time for any more assaults . The following day Roberts and Kitchener again planned to launch more assaults , but were firmly resisted by the other British senior officers . By 21 February , Roberts was intent on withdrawing , but to do so would have allowed Cronjé to escape . The Boers withdrew first . De Wet , faced with an entire British division who might be reinforced at any time , and fearing for his men ' s safety , withdrew his commandos from the south east . Ferreira ' s forces , which might have supported De Wet , had been left without direction after Ferreira was accidentally shot dead by one of his own sentries . Cronjé had inexplicably refused to abandon his laager . Now De Wet had to abandon Cronjé . Boer surrender . Cronjé ' s encampment was subjected to an increasingly heavy artillery bombardment , as more guns ( including a battery of 5 - inch medium howitzers and another of 1 - pounder " pom - poms " ) joined the besieging British forces . Almost every horse , mule and ox was killed , and the stench and flies became unbearable . On the final day of the battle , the Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry , having lost more than 70 soldiers in an earlier charge against sheltered Boer positions , were again called to take the lead in the routine daily battalion rotation . Instead of another charge the next morning as was expected , the Canadians , with the help of Royal Engineers , advanced at night towards the Boer camp , then set about digging trenches on high ground 65 yards from the Boer lines . On 27 February 1900 , the Boers woke up staring into the muzzles of Canadian rifles and surrendered . Cronjé surrendered with some 4 , 019 men and 50 women ; around 10 % of the Boers ' entire army were now prisoners . The Boer War marked the first ever overseas deployment of the Canadian Army . The Toronto company of the Royal Canadian Regiment had joined the Queensland Mounted Infantry in dispersing a Boer commando at Sunnyside and Belmont in the Western Cape in January . The account of this battle and of Cronje ' s surrender is given in much greater depth by AB Paterson , war correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald , " embedded " with the New South Wales Lancers . Paterson states that Cronje had decided on the previous night to surrender at 6am on 27 February as his supplies were exhausted , but when the Canadians attacked at 4am he refused to be hurried and fought for two hours at a cost to the Canadians of " 15 or 20 shot and many more wounded " , then surrendered at 6am as planned , and with some considerable degree of dignity . This account differs slightly in detail to that above and deserves to be noted .