De Wet now saw that he was not destined to enter the Cape Colony on this occasion, and that he would have much difficulty in saving himself.  On December 6 he determined to retreat by the way he came.  He did not, however, wholly abandon the scheme of a Cape Colony raid, for he detached Kritzinger and Scheepers with instructions to hover and watch their opportunity of breaking into it.  The opportune falling of the Caledon opened to him a postern towards the north, and on December 7 he crossed the river and made for Helvetia, where again he was entangled.  The line of least resistance seemed to run westwards towards the railway, and he put himself upon it, soon to find that Kitchener’s dispositions had obstructed it.  He doubled back, and trailing Knox after him in a night march, shook himself free.  Knox, confident that the Bloemfontein-Ladybrand line of posts would be an effectual barrier to De Wet’s retreat, had waited to pull his straggling columns together.  De Wet, reinforced by a commando under Michael Prinsloo, who had been with him in his first Transvaal incursion when Steyn was put over the border, rushed at the blockhouse line and again cut it at Springhaan’s Nek, for although it had been attended to recently, there was an aneurism in it which yielded at the critical moment, and on December 14 De Wet passed freely through the lesion.  He arrived by way of Ficksburg at Tafelberg, S.E. of Senekal, on December 25.

The failure of the raid was almost as disconcerting to the British plan of campaign as its success would have been.  It showed that the troops were unable to prevent a mobile and well-led commando from traversing the Free State from end to end; it put new spirit into the burghers, and destroyed the hopes of peace which the operations of Lord Roberts in the Transvaal had kindled.  De Wet was still at large, and although he had not accomplished all that he intended, he had good reason to be satisfied, and was stimulated for fresh efforts.  He could boast that he was beaten not by columns but by two rivers in spate.  His movements were so little obstructed that after reaching the Senekal district he was able to pay a flying visit to the railway at Roodeval, where he recovered the Lee-Metford ammunition which he had buried in June, and with which he hoped soon to have an opportunity of charging the rifles captured at Dewetsdorp.

When De Wet, Hertzog, and Kritzinger parted company near the Orange early in December, their tracks formed the letter Y inverted.  De Wet marched along the stem towards the N.E.; Kritzinger struck in the direction of the midland districts of the Cape Colony; Hertzog made for the west.  Martial law was at last proclaimed in the Colony, the greater part of which was, in spite of innumerable columns slipped at them, traversed by Hertzog and Kritzinger.  The former, after an adventurous march of over 400 miles, reached Lambert’s Bay on the shore of the Atlantic, and gave to most of his men their first sight of the sea; and to all of them a unique experience in the war, for they were shelled by a British cruiser at anchor in the haven.[53]