The Boer campaign on the Cape Front The fist invasion of the Cape Colony took place three weeks after the war broke out. This invasion followed two routes, the first over Colesberg and the second over Aliwal North, Venterstad and Burgersdorp to Stormberg. With the occupation of these towns, large numbers of Cape Afrikaners joined the Boer commandos. Colesberg On 1 November 1899 the Boers occupied Norvalspont. Two weeks later, on 14 November 1899, Colesberg was occupied. Because no attempts were made to occupy De Aar, or Noupoort, the railway remained in possession of the British, and proved to be of great value to them after they went on the offensive. Stormberg On 13 November 1899 a Boer commando crossed the Orange River at Aliwal North. Two days later Burgersdorp was occupied. With this the invasion came to an end as the commandos took up position in Stormberg without penetrating the Cape Colony further. This allowed the British to gather a number of regiments at Queenstown. In the vicinity of Colesberg only minor skirmishes took place in December 1899 and January 1900. The opposing forces fighting here were so small that large scale battles could not occur. This was not the case at Stormberg. The majority of the Afrikaners living in the northeastern part of the Cape Colony sympathized with the Boer cause, and large numbers of men joined the Boer commandos. This caused the British authorities some concern and the opinion started to grow that if the Republican forces could be dealt a serious blow, any spark of rebellion would be extinguished. With this in mind Gen. Gatacre left Molteno on 9 December 1899 to drive the Boer forces from the Stormberg with a surprise attack. From the outset things however had gone wrong for the British. They got lost in the dark and at first light on 10 December they found themselves too close to the Boer commandos. The Boers immediately opened fire on the unsuspecting British at the foot of the mountain. Within a few hours the British had to fall back. Gatacre had lost 600 men due to injury, death and capture. As seen above the first British offensive ended in disaster for the British. The war was far from over in December 1899 as they had hoped. In one week (known as Black Week) - Stormberg on 10 December, Magersfontein on 11 December and Colenso on 15 December - they had suffered great defeats. In Britain the feeling arose that a new offensive had to be launched against the Boers.