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Show BRITISH ENTER PRETORIA. j i City Surrendered lucoudlllonally. l!ut ltolha and 111 Command Lscaped. Eight mouths after the declaration g of war, Juno i'.h, Lord Roberts entered j Pretoria. Previous dispatches of the occupancy of the P.oer capital were j premature. There were several fights in front of the city, and one by one the j defenders driven back, until evacua- j tion was accomplished. Lord Roberts' ; telegram announcing the result is as follows: "Pretoria. June J, l'J:5f p. m. Just before dark yesterday the enemy were j beaten back from nearly all the posi- i tions they had been holding and Ian Hamilton's mounted infantry followed them to within 2,01)0 yards of Pretoria, through which they retreated hastily. ! Delisle then sent an ollicer with a flag of truce into the town, demanding its surrender in my name. Shortly before midnight I was awakened by two officers offi-cers of the South African republic, Sandberg, military secretary to Commandant Com-mandant Botha and a general officer of the Boer army, who brought me a letter let-ter from Botha, proposing an armistice for the purpose of settling the termsof surrender. "I replied that I would gladly meet the commandant general the next morning, but that I was not prepared to discuss any terms as the surrender of the town must be unconditional. 1 asked for a reply by daybreak, as I had ordered the troops to march on the town as soon as it was light. In his reply, Botha told me that he had decided de-cided not to defend Pretoria, and he trusted women, children and property would be protected. At 1 a. m. today, while on the line of march, I was met by three of the principal otlicials with a flag of truce, stating their wish to surrender the town. "It was arranged that Pretoria should be taken possessiou of by her majesty's troops at o'clock this afternoon. "Mrs. Botha and Mrs. Ivruger are both iu Pretoria. Some few of the British prisoners have been taken away, but the majority are still in Waterval. Over 100 of the officers are in Pretoria. The few I have seen are lookiog well." General Botha and most of his men got away from Pretoria. This is inferred in-ferred from Lord Roberts' message, b'ut the presumption is that the Boer commandant general cannotescape the British dispositions without a fight. Operations elsewhere seem to have dwindled to nothing. General Baden-Powell Baden-Powell joined General Hunter ou Sunday Sun-day at Lich ten burg. |
