Born on Doornfontein Farm in the Winburg District of the Orange Free State, Koos was the son of Adrianus Johannes Gijsbertus de la Rey and Adriana Wilhelmina van Rooyen.

He had formidable looks - a long neatly trimmed brown beard and a high forehead with deep-set eyes that gave him a prematurely patriarchal appearance.

A supporter of the progressive faction under General Piet Joubert, he opposed Paul Kruger's policies against the uitlanders, the foreigners who flocked to the Transvaal gold-rush, and warned it would lead to war with Britain[3].

This incident made De la Rey famous, but exacerbated his conflicts with the cautious and unimaginative Cronjé, who sent him to block the advance of the British forces moving to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.

Lieutenant General Lord Methuen, commander of the 1st Division, was tasked with raising the Boer siege of Kimberley and moved his force by rail to Belmont station in the northern Cape Province.

Having realised that the traditional Boer tactic of fighting from higher ground exposed them to the superior British artillery, De la Rey insisted that his men and Prinsloo's Free-Staters dig in on the banks of the Modder and Riet Rivers, the first use of trench warfare in the war.

A series of British rushes pushed the Free-Staters back across the ford, and only a counter-attack led by De la Rey enabled the Boers to hold the field until dusk, when they slipped away.

After nine hours taking heavy losses, including the brigade commander, Major General Wauchope, without managing to advance at all, they finally broke and retreated in disorder.

At Paardeberg (8 February 1900), while De la Rey was away rallying resistance to Major General French's advance in the Colesberg area of the Cape, the helpless Cronjé was trapped by Roberts and surrendered with his entire army.

The Western Transvaal fell to De la Rey, and for the next two years he led a mobile campaign, winning battles at Moedwil, Nooitgedacht, Driefontein, Donkerhoek and other places, and inflicting large losses of men and material on the British at Ysterspruit on 25 February 1902, where enough ammunition and supplies were captured to reinvigorate the Boer forces.

Albeit ragged and often hungry, De la Rey's men roamed at will over vast areas and tied down tens of thousands of British troops.

De la Rey had an uncanny knack for avoiding ambush, leading many to believe that he was advised by the prophet Siener van Rensburg, who accompanied him.

[4] The Boers, promised eventual self-government (granted in 1906 and 1907 for the Transvaal and Orange Free State respectively), received £3,000,000 compensation, while acknowledging the sovereignty of Edward VII.

[6] With the outbreak of the First World War, a crisis ensued when Louis Botha agreed to send troops to take over the German colony of South West Africa (now Namibia).

On 2 August he told of a dream in which he saw General De la Rey returning home bare-headed in a carriage adorned with flowers, while a black cloud with the number 15 on it poured down blood.

On 15 September 1914 Christian Frederick Beyers, Commandant-General of the armed forces and an old comrade of De la Rey, resigned his commission and sent his car to fetch the latter from Johannesburg to Pretoria as he wished to consult with him.

[7] At Langlaagte the police fired on the speeding car and a bullet struck De la Rey's back, ending his life;[7] his last words were dit is raak ('It hit').

The song concerns an Orange Free State partisan facing impending defeat, the loss of his farm, and the incarceration of his family in a concentration camp during the Second Boer War.

The Department of Arts and Culture responded to a request for a statement on van Blerk's potentially subversive lyrics,[9][10] insisting that the song was "in danger of being hijacked by a minority of right-wingers", and warning that "those who incite treason, whatever methods they employ, might well find themselves in difficulties with the law.

"[9] The Democratic Alliance opposition party has retorted that De la Rey was not nearly as potentially subversive as ANC president Jacob Zuma's song Umshini wami (Zulu for "bring me my machine [gun]").