A great meeting of the burghers was summoned to meet August 15, 1914, at Treurfontein. This date had been fixed because Van Rensburg in a "vision" had seen "a dark cloud, with blood flowing from it, inscribed with number 15, and General Delarey, the uncrowned king of western Transvaal, returning home without his hat, followed by a carriage full of flowers." Eight hundred burghers attended the meeting, but Delarey, who spoke, had been warned by General Botha, and therefore spoke calmly, urging the burghers to remain cool and await events. Such was Delarey's influence over the assembly, who had come expecting to make a fiery speech, that a resolution expressing confidence in the Government was passed.
On September 15, 1914, General Christian Beyers resigned his position of commandant general of the defense force in a letter which was practically a declaration of war against the British Empire. It developed that for some weeks he had been organizing rebellion. He was secretly arranging a scheme of operations in which the German forces were to take part, while making plans for the Union Government. He hoped to win over General Delarey, leader of the Boers in the western Transvaal, but this officer was accidentally killed by the police near Johannesburg. The patrol out looking for the notorious Jackson gang of bandits, then in the neighborhood, had orders to examine any motor car and fire at once, if when summoned to stop their challenge was ignored. The car bearing Generals Beyers and Delarey had been twice challenged while passing through the town. The third time a policeman fired at the wheel to disable the car, and the bullet ricocheted and killed Delarey.
A thousand armed Boers at this time were encamped at Potchefstroom in Delarey's district. Colonel Kemp, who had sent in his resignation to the Union Government, and was working here for Delarey, had won over their officers, and on parade urged the men to refuse to volunteer for German Southwest Africa. He also collected in his tent such ammunition as he could lay his hands upon.
The death of General Delarey disconcerted General Beyers, and his fellow conspirators, and Colonel Kemp withdrew his resignation from the Union army. Over the grave of Delarey General Beyers, in the presence of General Botha, declared that he had no intention of advising or causing a rebellion, yet the following day, with General De Wet and others, he was urging the Boers who had come to the funeral of their dead leader to revolt against active service should the commandos be called out under the Defense Act.