23 NOVEMBER 1899 - BELMONT

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On 21 November Methuen moved off from his forward base on the Orange River, with the Naval Brigade, the Guards Brigade, the 9th Brigade, the 9th Lancers, 2 batteries of artillery and Rimington’s Guides. Arriving at 
Belmont station it was apparent that the Boers were in position on the range of Belmont Kopje behind the road to the North. Methuen directed the Guards Brigade to the Boer positions.

 

Delays caused by agricultural fencing and defective maps found the Guards well short of the line of Kopjes at dawn; the Boers opening fire on the exposed lines of Guardsmen stretching across the open ground at the bottom of the hillside. 

 

The 9th Brigade also found them in open veldt when dawn broke. The two brigades launched their attack from the open ground up onto the hills under heavy rifle fire from the Boers entrenched on the crest.

 

The Boers did not wait for the final bayonet attack, hurrying away down the far hillside to where their ponies were tethered and riding back to the next line of kopjes, pursued for some distance by a small force of 9th Lancers and Mounted Infantry.

British casualties at Belmont: 53 killed and more than 200 wounded.

David Hermanus Jacobs served in the Boshof Commando. In applying for his ABO medal in April 1943 (when he was 78 years old) he claimed that he was wounded and taken prisoner at Belmont on 23 November, sent to India as PoW and only returned on 27 August 1902.

His wound and capture are confirmed by an entry in the ZAR Government Gazette of 27 December 1899, p1825, where he is listed as one of the wounded burghers who were in the British Camp at Belmont on the day following the battle.

The relevant entry in the PoW Register (No 5690) confirms his capture at Belmont, but states that he was paroled on 10 July 1900: if this information had been revealed to the Medal Advisory Board, he would never have received the ABO Medal.