Battle of Rooiwal

Part of Second Boer War

Date	11 April 1902
Location	Rooiwal, South African Republic 25°33′6″S 28°12′11″E / 25.55167°S 28.20306°E / -25.55167; 28.20306Coordinates: 25°33′6″S 28°12′11″E / 25.55167°S 28.20306°E / -25.55167; 28.20306
Result	British victory

Belligerents

United Kingdom

South African Republic

Commanders and leaders

Robert Kekewich

Ian Hamilton

Henry Rawlinson

Ferdinandus Jacobus Potgieter †

Jan Kemp

Strength

3,000

1,700

Casualties and losses

c.70 killed and wounded

230, of whom: 50 dead, 130 wounded, 50 men, 3 field guns and a pom pom captured

The Battle of Rooiwal was an engagement of the Second Boer War. It took place on 11 April 1902 and resulted in a victory by a British force commanded by Colonel Robert Kekewich over a Boer commando led by Generals Ferdinandus Jacobus Potgieter and Jan Kemp.

The action consisted of a Boer attack on horseback on an entrenched British hillside position in the valley of Rooiwal, near Klerksdorp in the Western Transvaal. The Boers were attempting to break out of a British encircling manoeuvre. Their attack was repulsed at some cost to the Boers in killed and injured.

This was the end of the war in the Western Transvaal and also the last major battle of the Anglo-Boer War.

By 1902, there were roughly 3,000 Boer guerrillas operating in Western Transvaal. There were three separate Boer commandos under the overall command of De La Rey. By this time, many Boer fighters had surrendered and some were now working for the British as scouts. Those who remained in the field were referred to as, 'bitter-einders'. Their situation was very difficult as the British had stripped the veld of food and supplies and had systematically burned Boer farms and homes to deny the guerrillas shelter. Nevertheless, De La Rey's men were able to supply themselves with weapons, food and clothing which they had captured from the British.

They also remained a dangerous enemy and on a number of occasions they had scored victories against British troops. On 24 February 1902, for example, they had mauled a British column at Yser Spruit and on 7 March had captured a British general (Lord Methuen) and six field guns at Tweebosch, after routing his command. One reason for the continued Boers successes was the poor quality of some of the British troops in the theatre. Herbert Kitchener had over 16,000 troops operating in the Western Transvaal, but many of them were not regulars, but poorly trained Imperial Yeomanry.

Kitchener's strategy for bringing the war to an end was to build fortified blockhouses across the veld and to mount 'drives' or sweeps of the countryside with mobile columns. The first such sweep in the spring of 1902 lasted from 23 March to 30 March, but produced few results in terms of destroying the Boer commandos. Indeed, the British troops suffered a reverse at Boschbult, taking 178 casualties.

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