12 October 1899 was where the first shots were fired that marked the start of the Second Anglo-Boer War.
That night 800 men of the Potchefstroom and Lichtenburg commandos under General Koos de la Rey, one of General Piet Cronjé’s field generals, attacked and captured the British garrison and railway siding at Kraaipan between Vryburg and Mafeking, some 60 kilometres south west of Mafeking. Thus began the Second Anglo-Boer War. Under the orders of Cronjé the Mafeking railway and telegraph lines were cut on the same day.
De la Rey and his kommando derailed an armoured train carrying British supplies.
