Kelly-Kenny, for the first time able to fight a battle in his own way, now set himself to clear the enemy out of the Driefontein ridge. Reinforcements were ordered up to him from the centre column, but he won his victory without their aid, and after a struggle which lasted till sunset, Delarey was expelled from Driefontein. The Boers were still in occupation of the other positions on the line, but De Wet, although strongly urged by Delarey to hold on, found it advisable to withdraw from them. The burghers drifted away in the darkness, after the exhausted cavalry had made a formal attempt at pursuit. Two of the field guns which had been taken three months before at Colenso fought on the Boer side at the Battle of Driefontein, which though but a passing incident in the war, has been favoured by the German critics with their cordial approval. "Driefontein was fought substantially on the principles evolved by the experiences of the campaign of 1870-1871." Kelly-Kenny's wilful and successful "use of deep formations, limited front, and of a wasting fire to obtain ascendancy before crushing the enemy with a simultaneous charge" is considered to uphold the correctness of the German theory of attack, which thirty years of new conditions of warfare have not modified.[38] Next day the advance on Bloemfontein was resumed, and French's column was merged in the centre column under Lord Roberts. The column under Tucker was marching on the Free State capital by way of Petrusburg, twenty miles to the south, as there was a possibility that some of the commandos in retreat from beyond the Orange might be approaching. De Wet did his best to organize a final stand N.W. of the city, but it was soon evident that Lord Roberts' movements could not be checked, and President Steyn fled to Kroonstad. The cavalry was pushed on, and on the afternoon of March 12 the railway was cut at Ferreira's Siding, a few miles south of Bloemfontein. Some resistance was offered at a ridge commanding the approach to the capital, but the defenders withdrew during the night. Soon after midnight, a small party of pioneers, under Hunter-Weston of the Royal Engineers, started to circle eastwards round the city, and having with much difficulty in the darkness found the railway on the north side, destroyed a culvert on the line and thereby entrapped a considerable amount of rolling stock. Next morning Lord Roberts came to the line, and at midday the municipality and leading citizens of Bloemfontein waited on him at Ferreira's Siding, and tendered the submission of the city. It was a notable episode in the military history of Great Britain, and there was a touch of a vanished mediaevalism in the ceremony.