on's retreat to Zeerust on August 5 and Baden-Powell's to
Rustenburg on the 6th, Lord Roberts had given up all hope of saving this
garrison. But on the 13th a runner from Colonel Hore had arrived at
Crocodile Pools, announcing that he had not surrendered. On hearing this
the Field Marshal ordered Kitchener to take part of his force to relieve
him. Kitchener started on the 16th. from Quaggafontein with Little's,
Broadwood's, and Smith-Dorrien's brigades. After Carrington had come up
and gone away again on August 5, the garrison, though apparently left to
their fate, would hear nothing of surrender, but made up their minds to
fight as long as they had ammunition and strength to use it. Luckily
they were well provided with food, and the Boers, as usual in their
sieges, were content to sit round and fire at them without seriously
attempting to rush the place as they should have done. The garrison also
kept up their spirits by sudden raids at night on adventurous Boers or
guns that came too near. Thus, as at Wepener, it became a game of
patience for the garrison, dissimilar only in this, that at Elands River
there was no promise of support to buoy up the garrison with hope.

However, on August 16, after eleven days' siege, De la Rey moved away on
the news of the approaching relief columns, and Lord Kitchener rode in
to set free the garrison.

This siege, like that of Wepener, was especially a Colonial triumph;
there the garrison had been chiefly Cape Colonials, here the majority
were Australians of Carrington's first Brigade, the rest being
Rhodesians, and it would be difficult to praise overmuch the
determination and fine spirit shown by these Colonials in their first
opportunity of distinguishing themselves as a corps. Every soldier who
saw the place afterwards expressed surprise that they could have held
out so long, and it is therefore the more creditable to them to have
done so when every hope of relief seemed entirely cut off; while, at a
time when surrenders and retreats were not sufficiently rare, the
example shown by these splendid men was even more important than the
position they held.

THE GREAT WAR

+Source.+--The Times History of the War and Encyclopaedia, Vol. I, p.
161; Vol. II, p. 31; Vol. III, p. 126

The aggressive policy of Germany led to the outbreak in 1914 of the
greatest war in history; for nearly every country in the world
ultimately became involved in the struggle.