lying to the west of the railway
from De Aar to Orange River, broke out into rebellion. Although Lord
Roberts at once directed certain columns to concentrate upon this new
area of disaffection, the situation had become so serious that on
March 8th--_i.e._, the day after Poplar Grove, and in the course of
the rapid march upon Bloemfontein--Lord Roberts--

"desired Major-General Lord Kitchener to proceed to De Aar with
the object of collecting reinforcements, and of taking such steps
as might be necessary to punish the rebels and to prevent the
spread of disaffection."[205]

[Footnote 205: Despatch dated "Government House,
Bloemfontein, March 15th, 1900."]

That is to say, the disclosure of a new centre of active rebellion in
the Colony deprived the Commander-in-Chief of the services of Lord
Kitchener, his Chief-of-Staff, when he was in the act of executing one
of the most critical movements of the campaign.

[Sidenote: The Boer peace overtures.]

The complete revolution in the military situation produced by Lord
Roberts's victorious advance into the Free State elicited from
Presidents Krueger and Steyn the "peace overtures" cabled to Lord
Salisbury on March 5th, 1900. In this characteristic document the two
Presidents remark that--

"they consider it [their] duty solemnly to declare that this war
was undertaken solely as a defensive measure to safeguard the
threatened independence of the South African Republic, and is
only continued in order to secure and safeguard the incontestable
independence of both Republics as sovereign international states,
and to obtain the assurance that those of Her Majesty's subjects
who have taken part with [them] in this war shall suffer no harm
whatever in person or property."

They further declare that "on these conditions, but on these
conditions alone," they are now, as in the past, desirous of seeing
peace re-established in South Africa; and they add considerately that
they have refrained from making this declaration "so long as the
advantage was always on their side," from a fear lest it "might hurt
the feelings of honour of the British people." They conclude:

"But now that the prestige of the British Empire may be
considered to be assured by the capture of one of our forces by
Her Majesty's troops, and that we are thereby forced to evacuate
other positions which our forces had