of Kimberley would, it was thought, suffice to convince the most doubtful and timid. As soon, therefore, as the British troops in Natal had been overwhelmed and Kimberley occupied, the Boer commandos in the western theatre of war were to move south across the Cape frontier to excite a rising in that colony. A situation would thus be created which, as they calculated, would lead to the intervention of one or more European Powers, and terminate in the permanent expulsion of all British authority from South Africa. [Sidenote: Boer Distribution Oct. 11th, /99.] [Sidenote: For Natal.] It was with these designs and based on this far-reaching plan of campaign that the mobilisation of the burghers in both the republics was ordered during the last week of September, and by the 11th of October the following was approximately the constitution, strength and distribution of the field forces.[58] The army for the invasion of Natal was made up of three distinct bodies; the principal and most important of these remained under the personal orders of General P. Joubert, the Commandant-General of the Boer forces, and was concentrated at Zandspruit and Wakkerstroom Nek, in immediate proximity to the northern apex of Natal. It included the Krugersdorp, Bethel, Heidelberg, Johannesburg, Boksburg and Germiston, Standerton, Pretoria, Middelburg, and Ermelo commandos, the Transvaal Staats Artillerie, and small Irish, Hollander and German corps of adventurers; the total strength of this force was about 11,300 men. Its armament included 16 field guns and three 6-inch Creusots. On the eastern border of Natal, facing the British force at Dundee, lay the Utrecht, Vryheid, Piet Retief and Wakkerstroom commandos, under the leadership of General Lukas Meyer; this detachment numbered about 2,870 men. Westward, a Free State contingent, amounting to some 9,500 burghers, and consisting of the Vrede, Heilbron, Kroonstad, Winburg, Bethlehem and Harrismith commandos, occupied Botha's, Bezuidenhout, Tintwa, Van Reenen's, and Olivier's Hoek passes. The republican forces, to whom the task of conquering Natal had been assigned, amounted therefore at the outset of war to about 23,500 men.[59] [Footnote 58: This statement is based on information obtained from Boer sources during and since the war, but the numbers must only be taken as approximately accurate.] [Footnote 59: Reinforcements, amounting in all to about 3,240 men, joined the Boer Natal army during the months November-December; these were made up of 1,300 Johannesburg police and burghers, 290 Swaziland police and burghers and the Lydenburg and Carolina commandos. These reinforcements were, however, counterbalanced by the transfer of detachments of the Free State commandos to the western theatre of war.] [Sidenote: For Mafeking.]