3 MARCH 1901 - LICHTENBURG

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The town of Lichtenburg and the district surrounding it furnished two Boer commandos, under Commandant H C W Vermaas and Commandant J G Celliers respectively. The town was occupied by the British for a few days in June 1900 and then on a permanent basis from late November 1900.

 

It became an important supply depot and the British garrison of 620 men comprised infantry, artillery and Yeomanry, specifically the 10th Company, 3rd Battalion, IY, and two companies of Paget’s Horse, or the 19th Battalion, IY.

On 3 March 1901, Lichtenburg was attacked in a three-pronged assault on the town by an estimated 300 Boers. From the west, Commandant Vermaas assailed the fortified British redoubt in the market square, while the second and third attacks from the east and west were directed against the British pickets on the edge of the town.

 

After facing determined resistance for 24 hours, the Boers were forced to withdraw, General de la Rey coming to the assistance of Vermaas.

 

An Imperial Yeomanry man recounts the action as the Boers rushed the British trenches: ‘How those pickets did fight! The picket trenches never contained more than 7 men, and in one trench only two were left, the others being killed or wounded.

 

When relief arrived, a sergeant was just saying to one comrade “Fix bayonets, we’ll  keep the ... back”.

 

The defenders lost 21 men killed and died of wounds (two of them Yeomanry men), and 24 wounded. The Boers lost fourteen men killed and forty wounded.