Battle of Nooitgedacht In the Battle of Nooitgedacht on 13 December 1900 , Boer commandos led by Generals Koos de la Rey and Christiaan Beyers combined to deal a defeat to a British brigade under the command of Major General R . A . P . Clements during the Second Boer War . Background . Lord Roberts captured Pretoria on 5 June and the armies soon passed to the east . After the guerrilla war began , a force under Clements harried the Boers in the Moot , a valley in the Magliesberg mountains . By the end of the year , the British grew careless . On 2 December , De la Rey ' s commando ambushed an ox - wagon convoy east of Rustenburg , killing and wounding 64 British soldiers and capturing 54 men and 118 wagons . De la Rey ' s deputy , Jan Smuts had a close call when a bullet intended for him killed another Boer . The raiders appropriated the boots and clothing and burned the rest of the supplies , while setting their prisoners free . De la Rey scouted Clement ' s camp at Nooitgedacht for three days . The camp had good water supply and a nearby mountain allowed communication by heliograph with Major General Robert Broadwood at Rustenburg . However , the site was dominated on the north by a mountain . A 1500 - man commando led by General Beyers soon arrived , giving the Boers numerical superiority over their adversaries . Smuts later wrote , " I do not think it was possible to have selected a more fatal spot for a camp . " Battle . The Boer leaders soon agreed on a plan . Half of Beyers ' men would stay behind to keep Broadwood from marching to the rescue . The remainder , about 1500 men , were split into three attacking groups . Beyers would lead his commando against 300 British pickets on the mountaintop . Beyers detached Commandant Badenhorst to attack the camp from the west . De la Rey would capture several kopjes in the Moot to the south . If all went well , Clements ' brigade would be trapped and destroyed . In the event , Badenhorst ' s column blundered into the British picket lines in the pre - dawn darkness . In a brief fusillade at close range , the Boers were driven back , with losses on both sides . The alerted British now manned their defensive positions . Beyer then launched his attack on the mountaintop , but his tired men were soon stopped by sturdy resistance from the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers . After witnessing De la Rey ' s initial attack being repulsed in the valley below , Beyer ' s men became inspired and stormed the British positions on the mountaintop . After losing about 100 casualties , Captain Yatman surrendered at about 7 : 00 am . Reinforcements climbing the mountain lost heavily when Beyers ' men suddenly poured fire into them . That morning it was too hazy to flash a message to Broadwood , so Clements was entirely on his own . Meanwhile , De la Rey and Smuts had managed to capture all the kopjes in the Moot except one , Yeomanry Hill ( Hartebeestfontein ) . Clements alertly and swiftly concentrated his survivors on this position . At 8 : 00 am , the British drove away a group of Boers who had gained a foothold on Yeomanry Hill . They then worked furiously to make the hill defensible . A 4 . 7 - inch naval gun was even saved by rolling it downhill from its original perch and dragging it back to the main British position . Meanwhile , the men under Beyers turned aside to loot the British camp and nothing the Boer general could do would get them back to the battle . One Boer remarked , " We were refitted from head to heel . " At 4 : 00 pm , Clements and the remnant of his brigade rode off with his artillery toward Pretoria . Their retreat was virtually unopposed because the Boers were exhausted and by this time De la Rey ' s men had joined the other Boers in plundering the enemy camp . Aftermath . Thanks to his quick response to the crisis , Clements saved his brigade from annihilation . However , the general lost half his brigade due to his poor choice for a camp . The Imperial forces suffered no consequences from their defeat aside from the casualties suffered and the supplies lost . Within a short time , a column under Clements was again harassing the Moot .