"Ten days after the war began, the Imperial Light Horse rode out of Ladysmith in northern Natal with 3000 soldiers under Major-General John French, a bow-legged, bull-necked cavalry general, to clear 800 Boers from Elandslaagte (Elands Dale) station on the railway line to the Transvaal. With the force was Rupert Hornabrook, an Adelaide doctor who had come to South Africa before the war to help prevent an outbreak of the plague. There would be no Australian uniforms in action that day, 21 October 1899, but Elandslaagte would be the scene of the first significant fighting by Australians wearing uniform (in the Boer War)."[1]
[1] Wilcox, Craig. Australia's Boer War. The War In South Africa 1899-1902. Oxford University Press in conjunction with AWM, Australia, 2002, ISBN 0 19 551637 0
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Major John Baines RFD - 2010
