THE GREAT BOER WAR
By Arthur Conan Doyle
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1. THE BOER NATIONS.
CHAPTER 2. THE CAUSE
OF QUARREL.CHAPTER 3. THE
NEGOTIATIONS.CHAPTER 4. THE
EVE OF WAR.CHAPTER 5. TALANA
HILL.CHAPTER 6. ELANDSLAAGTE
AND RIETFONTEIN.CHAPTER 7. THE
BATTLE OF LADYSMITH.CHAPTER 8. LORD
METHUEN’S ADVANCE.CHAPTER 9. BATTLE
OF MAGERSFONTEIN.CHAPTER 10. THE
BATTLE OF STORMBERG.CHAPTER 11.
BATTLE OF COLENSO.
CHAPTER 12. THE DARK HOUR.CHAPTER 13. THE SIEGE OF
LADYSMITH.CHAPTER 14. THE
COLESBERG OPERATIONS.CHAPTER 15.
SPION KOP.CHAPTER
16. VAALKRANZ.
CHAPTER 17. BULLER’S FINAL ADVANCE.CHAPTER 18. THE SIEGE AND RELIEF
OF KIMBERLEY.CHAPTER 19. PAARDEBERG.
CHAPTER 20. ROBERTS’S
ADVANCE ON BLOEMFONTEIN.CHAPTER 21.
STRATEGIC EFFECTS OF LORD ROBERTS’S MARCH.CHAPTER 22. THE HALT AT
BLOEMFONTEIN.CHAPTER 23. THE
CLEARING OF THE SOUTH-EAST.CHAPTER
24. THE SIEGE OF MAFEKING.CHAPTER 25. THE MARCH ON PRETORIA.
CHAPTER 26. DIAMOND
HILL—RUNDLE’S OPERATIONS.
CHAPTER 27. THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION.CHAPTER 28. THE HALT AT PRETORIA.
CHAPTER 29. THE
ADVANCE TO KOMATIPOORT.CHAPTER 30.
THE CAMPAIGN OF DE WET.CHAPTER 31. THE GUERILLA WARFARE
IN THE TRANSVAAL: NOOITGEDACHT.
CHAPTER 32. THE SECOND INVASION OF CAPE COLONY.CHAPTER 33. THE NORTHERN
OPERATIONS FROM JANUARY TO APRIL, 1901.CHAPTER 34. THE WINTER CAMPAIGN
(APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 1901).CHAPTER
35. THE GUERILLA OPERATIONS IN CAPE COLONY.CHAPTER 36. THE SPRING CAMPAIGN
(SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER, 1901).
CHAPTER 37. THE CAMPAIGN OF JANUARY TO APRIL, 1902.CHAPTER 38. DE LA
REY’S CAMPAIGN OF 1902.CHAPTER 39.
THE END.
PREFACE TO THE FINAL EDITION.
During the course of the war some sixteen Editions of this work have
appeared, each of which was, I hope, a little more full and accurate than
that which preceded it. I may fairly claim, however, that the absolute
mistakes made have been few in number, and that I have never had occasion
to reverse, and seldom to modify, the judgments which I have formed. In
this final edition the early text has been carefully revised and all fresh
available knowledge has been added within the limits of a single volume
narrative. Of the various episodes in the latter half of the war it is
impossible to say that the material is available for a complete and final
chronicle. By the aid, however, of the official dispatches, of the
newspapers, and of many private letters, I have done my best to give an
intelligible and accurate account of the matter. The treatment may
occasionally seem too brief but some proportion must be observed between
the battles of 1899-1900 and the skirmishes of 1901-1902.
My private informants are so numerous that it would be hardly possible,
even if it were desirable, that I should quote their names. Of the
correspondents upon whose work I have drawn for my materials, I would
acknowledge my obligations to Messrs. Burleigh, Nevinson, Battersby,
Stuart, Amery, Atkins, Baillie, Kinneir, Churchill, James, Ralph, Barnes,
Maxwell, Pearce, Hamilton, and others. Especially I would mention the
gentleman who represented the ‘Standard’ in the last year of the war,
whose accounts of Vlakfontein, Von Donop’s Convoy, and Tweebosch were the
only reliable ones which reached the public.
Arthur Conan Doyle, Undershaw, Hindhead: September 1902.
CHAPTER 1. THE BOER NATIONS.
Take a community of Dutchmen of the type of those who defended themselves
for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when Spain was
the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them a strain of those
inflexible French Huguenots who gave up home and fortune and left their
country for ever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The
product must obviously be one of the most rugged, virile, unconquerable
races ever seen upon earth. Take this formidable people and train them for
seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious
beasts, in circumstances under which no weakling could survive, place them
so that they acquire exceptional skill with weapons and in horsemanship,
give them a country which is eminently suited to the tactics of the
huntsman, the marksman, and the rider. Then, finally, put a finer temper
upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion
and an ardent and consuming patriotism. Combine all these qualities and
all these impulses in one individual, and you have the modern Boer—the
most formidable antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial Britain.
Our military history has largely consisted in our conflicts with France,
but Napoleon and all his veterans have never treated us so roughly as
these hard-bitten farmers with their ancient theology and their
inconveniently modern rifles.
Look at the map of South Africa, and there, in the very centre of the
British possessions, like the stone in a peach, lies the great stretch of
the two republics, a mighty domain for so small a people. How came they
there? Who are these Teutonic folk who have burrowed so deeply into
Africa? It is a twice-told tale, and yet it must be told once again if
this story is to have even the most superficial of introductions. No one
can know or appreciate the Boer who does not know his past, for he is what
his past has made him.
It was about the time when Oliver Cromwell was at his zenith—in
1652, to be pedantically accurate—that the Dutch made their first
lodgment at the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese had been there before
them, but, repelled by the evil weather, and lured forwards by rumours of
gold, they had passed the true seat of empire and had voyaged further to
settle along the eastern coast. Some gold there was, but not much, and the
Portuguese settlements have never been sources of wealth to the mother
country, and never will be until the day when Great Britain signs her huge
cheque for Delagoa Bay. The coast upon which they settled reeked with
malaria. A hundred miles of poisonous marsh separated it from the healthy
inland plateau. For centuries these pioneers of South African colonisation
strove to obtain some further footing, but save along the courses of the
rivers they made little progress. Fierce natives and an enervating climate
barred their way.
But it was different with the Dutch. That very rudeness of climate which
had so impressed the Portuguese adventurer was the source of their
success. Cold and poverty and storm are the nurses of the qualities which
make for empire. It is the men from the bleak and barren lands who master
the children of the light and the heat. And so the Dutchmen at the Cape
prospered and grew stronger in that robust climate. They did not penetrate
far inland, for they were few in number and all they wanted was to be
found close at hand. But they built themselves houses, and they supplied
the Dutch East India Company with food and water, gradually budding off
little townlets, Wynberg, Stellenbosch, and pushing their settlements up
the long slopes which lead to that great central plateau which extends for
fifteen hundred miles from the edge of the Karoo to the Valley of the
Zambesi. Then came the additional Huguenot emigrants—the best blood
of France three hundred of them, a handful of the choicest seed thrown in
to give a touch of grace and soul to the solid Teutonic strain. Again and
again in the course of history, with the Normans, the Huguenots, the
Emigres, one can see the great hand dipping into that storehouse and
sprinkling the nations with the same splendid seed. France has not founded
other countries, like her great rival, but she has made every other
country the richer by the mixture with her choicest and best. The Rouxs,
Du Toits, Jouberts, Du Plessis, Villiers, and a score of other French
names are among the most familiar in South Africa.
For a hundred more years the history of the colony was a record of the
gradual spreading of the Afrikaners over the huge expanse of veld which
lay to the north of them. Cattle raising became an industry, but in a
country where six acres can hardly support a sheep, large farms are
necessary for even small herds. Six thousand acres was the usual size, and
five pounds a year the rent payable to Government. The diseases which
follow the white man had in Africa, as in America and Australia, been
fatal to the natives, and an epidemic of smallpox cleared the country for
the newcomers. Further and further north they pushed, founding little
towns here and there, such as Graaf-Reinet and Swellendam, where a Dutch
Reformed Church and a store for the sale of the bare necessaries of life
formed a nucleus for a few scattered dwellings. Already the settlers were
showing that independence of control and that detachment from Europe which
has been their most prominent characteristic. Even the sway of the Dutch
Company (an older but weaker brother of John Company in India) had caused
them to revolt. The local rising, however, was hardly noticed in the
universal cataclysm which followed the French Revolution. After twenty
years, during which the world was shaken by the Titanic struggle between
England and France in the final counting up of the game and paying of the
stakes, the Cape Colony was added in 1814 to the British Empire.
In all our vast collection of States there is probably not one the
title-deeds to which are more incontestable than to this one. We had it by
two rights, the right of conquest and the right of purchase. In 1806 our
troops landed, defeated the local forces, and took possession of Cape
Town. In 1814 we paid the large sum of six million pounds to the
Stadholder for the transference of this and some South American land. It
was a bargain which was probably made rapidly and carelessly in that
general redistribution which was going on. As a house of call upon the way
to India the place was seen to be of value, but the country itself was
looked upon as unprofitable and desert. What would Castlereagh or
Liverpool have thought could they have seen the items which we were buying
for our six million pounds? The inventory would have been a mixed one of
good and of evil; nine fierce Kaffir wars, the greatest diamond mines in
the world, the wealthiest gold mines, two costly and humiliating campaigns
with men whom we respected even when we fought with them, and now at last,
we hope, a South Africa of peace and prosperity, with equal rights and
equal duties for all men. The future should hold something very good for
us in that land, for if we merely count the past we should be compelled to
say that we should have been stronger, richer, and higher in the world’s
esteem had our possessions there never passed beyond the range of the guns
of our men-of-war. But surely the most arduous is the most honourable,
and, looking back from the end of their journey, our descendants may see
that our long record of struggle, with its mixture of disaster and
success, its outpouring of blood and of treasure, has always tended to
some great and enduring goal.
The title-deeds to the estate are, as I have said, good ones, but there is
one singular and ominous flaw in their provisions. The ocean has marked
three boundaries to it, but the fourth is undefined. There is no word of
the ‘Hinterland;’ for neither the term nor the idea had then been thought
of. Had Great Britain bought those vast regions which extended beyond the
settlements? Or were the discontented Dutch at liberty to pass onwards and
found fresh nations to bar the path of the Anglo-Celtic colonists? In that
question lay the germ of all the trouble to come. An American would
realise the point at issue if he could conceive that after the founding of
the United States the Dutch inhabitants of the State of New York had
trekked to the westward and established fresh communities under a new
flag. Then, when the American population overtook these western States,
they would be face to face with the problem which this country has had to
solve. If they found these new States fiercely anti-American and extremely
unprogressive, they would experience that aggravation of their
difficulties with which our statesmen have had to deal.
At the time of their transference to the British flag the colonists—Dutch,
French, and German—numbered some thirty thousand. They were
slaveholders, and the slaves were about as numerous as themselves. The
prospect of complete amalgamation between the British and the original
settlers would have seemed to be a good one, since they were of much the
same stock, and their creeds could only be distinguished by their varying
degrees of bigotry and intolerance. Five thousand British emigrants were
landed in 1820, settling on the Eastern borders of the colony, and from
that time onwards there was a slow but steady influx of English speaking
colonists. The Government had the historical faults and the historical
virtues of British rule. It was mild, clean, honest, tactless, and
inconsistent. On the whole, it might have done very well had it been
content to leave things as it found them. But to change the habits of the
most conservative of Teutonic races was a dangerous venture, and one which
has led to a long series of complications, making up the troubled history
of South Africa. The Imperial Government has always taken an honourable
and philanthropic view of the rights of the native and the claim which he
has to the protection of the law. We hold and rightly, that British
justice, if not blind, should at least be colour-blind. The view is
irreproachable in theory and incontestable in argument, but it is apt to
be irritating when urged by a Boston moralist or a London philanthropist
upon men whose whole society has been built upon the assumption that the
black is the inferior race. Such a people like to find the higher morality
for themselves, not to have it imposed upon them by those who live under
entirely different conditions. They feel—and with some reason—that
it is a cheap form of virtue which, from the serenity of a well-ordered
household in Beacon Street or Belgrave Square, prescribes what the
relation shall be between a white employer and his half-savage,
half-childish retainers. Both branches of the Anglo-Celtic race have
grappled with the question, and in each it has led to trouble.
The British Government in South Africa has always played the unpopular
part of the friend and protector of the native servants. It was upon this
very point that the first friction appeared between the old settlers and
the new administration. A rising with bloodshed followed the arrest of a
Dutch farmer who had maltreated his slave. It was suppressed, and five of
the participants were hanged. This punishment was unduly severe and
exceedingly injudicious. A brave race can forget the victims of the field
of battle, but never those of the scaffold. The making of political
martyrs is the last insanity of statesmanship. It is true that both the
man who arrested and the judge who condemned the prisoners were Dutch, and
that the British Governor interfered on the side of mercy; but all this
was forgotten afterwards in the desire to make racial capital out of the
incident. It is typical of the enduring resentment which was left behind
that when, after the Jameson raid, it seemed that the leaders of that
ill-fated venture might be hanged, the beam was actually brought from a
farmhouse at Cookhouse Drift to Pretoria, that the Englishmen might die as
the Dutchmen had died in 1816. Slagter’s Nek marked the dividing of the
ways between the British Government and the Afrikaners.
And the separation soon became more marked. There were injudicious
tamperings with the local government and the local ways, with a
substitution of English for Dutch in the law courts. With vicarious
generosity, the English Government gave very lenient terms to the Kaffir
tribes who in 1834 had raided the border farmers. And then, finally, in
this same year there came the emancipation of the slaves throughout the
British Empire, which fanned all smouldering discontents into an active
flame.
It must be confessed that on this occasion the British philanthropist was
willing to pay for what he thought was right. It was a noble national
action, and one the morality of which was in advance of its time, that the
British Parliament should vote the enormous sum of twenty million pounds
to pay compensation to the slaveholders, and so to remove an evil with
which the mother country had no immediate connection. It was as well that
the thing should have been done when it was, for had we waited till the
colonies affected had governments of their own it could never have been
done by constitutional methods. With many a grumble the good British
householder drew his purse from his fob, and he paid for what he thought
to be right. If any special grace attends the virtuous action which brings
nothing but tribulation in this world, then we may hope for it over this
emancipation. We spent our money, we ruined our West Indian colonies, and
we started a disaffection in South Africa, the end of which we have not
seen. Yet if it were to be done again we should doubtless do it. The
highest morality may prove also to be the highest wisdom when the
half-told story comes to be finished.
But the details of the measure were less honourable than the principle. It
was carried out suddenly, so that the country had no time to adjust itself
to the new conditions. Three million pounds were ear-marked for South
Africa, which gives a price per slave of from sixty to seventy pounds, a
sum considerably below the current local rates. Finally, the compensation
was made payable in London, so that the farmers sold their claims at
reduced prices to middlemen. Indignation meetings were held in every
little townlet and cattle camp on the Karoo. The old Dutch spirit was up—the
spirit of the men who cut the dykes. Rebellion was useless. But a vast
untenanted land stretched to the north of them. The nomad life was
congenial to them, and in their huge ox-drawn wagons—like those
bullock-carts in which some of their old kinsmen came to Gaul—they
had vehicles and homes and forts all in one. One by one they were loaded
up, the huge teams were inspanned, the women were seated inside, the men,
with their long-barrelled guns, walked alongside, and the great exodus was
begun. Their herds and flocks accompanied the migration, and the children
helped to round them in and drive them. One tattered little boy of ten
cracked his sjambok whip behind the bullocks. He was a small item in that
singular crowd, but he was of interest to us, for his name was Paul
Stephanus Kruger.
It was a strange exodus, only comparable in modern times to the sallying
forth of the Mormons from Nauvoo upon their search for the promised land
of Utah. The country was known and sparsely settled as far north as the
Orange River, but beyond there was a great region which had never been
penetrated save by some daring hunter or adventurous pioneer. It chanced—if
there be indeed such an element as chance in the graver affairs of man—that
a Zulu conqueror had swept over this land and left it untenanted, save by
the dwarf bushmen, the hideous aborigines, lowest of the human race. There
were fine grazing and good soil for the emigrants. They traveled in small
detached parties, but their total numbers were considerable, from six to
ten thousand according to their historian, or nearly a quarter of the
whole population of the colony. Some of the early bands perished
miserably. A large number made a trysting-place at a high peak to the east
of Bloemfontein in what was lately the Orange Free State. One party of the
emigrants was cut off by the formidable Matabeli, a branch of the great
Zulu nation. The survivors declared war upon them, and showed in this,
their first campaign, the extraordinary ingenuity in adapting their
tactics to their adversary which has been their greatest military
characteristic. The commando which rode out to do battle with the Matabeli
numbered, it is said, a hundred and thirty-five farmers. Their adversaries
were twelve thousand spearmen. They met at the Marico River, near
Mafeking. The Boers combined the use of their horses and of their rifles
so cleverly that they slaughtered a third of their antagonists without any
loss to themselves. Their tactics were to gallop up within range of the
enemy, to fire a volley, and then to ride away again before the spearmen
could reach them. When the savages pursued the Boers fled. When the
pursuit halted the Boers halted and the rifle fire began anew. The
strategy was simple but most effective. When one remembers how often since
then our own horsemen have been pitted against savages in all parts of the
world, one deplores that ignorance of all military traditions save our own
which is characteristic of our service.
This victory of the ‘voortrekkers’ cleared all the country between the
Orange River and the Limpopo, the sites of what has been known as the
Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In the meantime another body of the
emigrants had descended into what is now known as Natal, and had defeated
Dingaan, the great Chief of the Zulus. Being unable, owing to the presence
of their families, to employ the cavalry tactics which had been so
effective against the Matabeli, they again used their ingenuity to meet
this new situation, and received the Zulu warriors in a square of laagered
wagons, the men firing while the women loaded. Six burghers were killed
and three thousand Zulus. Had such a formation been used forty years
afterwards against these very Zulus, we should not have had to mourn the
disaster of Isandhlwana.
And now at the end of their great journey, after overcoming the
difficulties of distance, of nature, and of savage enemies, the Boers saw
at the end of their travels the very thing which they desired least—that
which they had come so far to avoid—the flag of Great Britain. The
Boers had occupied Natal from within, but England had previously done the
same by sea, and a small colony of Englishmen had settled at Port Natal,
now known as Durban. The home Government, however, had acted in a
vacillating way, and it was only the conquest of Natal by the Boers which
caused them to claim it as a British colony. At the same time they
asserted the unwelcome doctrine that a British subject could not at will
throw off his allegiance, and that, go where they might, the wandering
farmers were still only the pioneers of British colonies. To emphasise the
fact three companies of soldiers were sent in 1842 to what is now Durban—the
usual Corporal’s guard with which Great Britain starts a new empire. This
handful of men was waylaid by the Boers and cut up, as their successors
have been so often since. The survivors, however, fortified themselves,
and held a defensive position—as also their successors have done so
many times since—until reinforcements arrived and the farmers
dispersed. It is singular how in history the same factors will always give
the same result. Here in this first skirmish is an epitome of all our
military relations with these people. The blundering headstrong attack,
the defeat, the powerlessness of the farmer against the weakest
fortifications—it is the same tale over and over again in different
scales of importance. Natal from this time onward became a British colony,
and the majority of the Boers trekked north and east with bitter hearts to
tell their wrongs to their brethren of the Orange Free State and of the
Transvaal.
Had they any wrongs to tell? It is difficult to reach that height of
philosophic detachment which enables the historian to deal absolutely
impartially where his own country is a party to the quarrel. But at least
we may allow that there is a case for our adversary. Our annexation of
Natal had been by no means definite, and it was they and not we who first
broke that bloodthirsty Zulu power which threw its shadow across the
country. It was hard after such trials and such exploits to turn their
back upon the fertile land which they had conquered, and to return to the
bare pastures of the upland veld. They carried out of Natal a heavy sense
of injury, which has helped to poison our relations with them ever since.
It was, in a way, a momentous episode, this little skirmish of soldiers
and emigrants, for it was the heading off of the Boer from the sea and the
confinement of his ambition to the land. Had it gone the other way, a new
and possibly formidable flag would have been added to the maritime
nations.
The emigrants who had settled in the huge tract of country between the
Orange River in the south and the Limpopo in the north had been recruited
by newcomers from the Cape Colony until they numbered some fifteen
thousand souls. This population was scattered over a space as large as
Germany, and larger than Pennsylvania, New York, and New England. Their
form of government was individualistic and democratic to the last degree
compatible with any sort of cohesion. Their wars with the Kaffirs and
their fear and dislike of the British Government appear to have been the
only ties which held them together. They divided and subdivided within
their own borders, like a germinating egg. The Transvaal was full of lusty
little high-mettled communities, who quarreled among themselves as
fiercely as they had done with the authorities at the Cape. Lydenburg,
Zoutpansberg, and Potchefstroom were on the point of turning their rifles
against each other. In the south, between the Orange River and the Vaal,
there was no form of government at all, but a welter of Dutch farmers,
Basutos, Hottentots, and halfbreeds living in a chronic state of
turbulence, recognising neither the British authority to the south of them
nor the Transvaal republics to the north. The chaos became at last
unendurable, and in 1848 a garrison was placed in Bloemfontein and the
district incorporated in the British Empire. The emigrants made a futile
resistance at Boomplaats, and after a single defeat allowed themselves to
be drawn into the settled order of civilised rule.
At this period the Transvaal, where most of the Boers had settled, desired
a formal acknowledgment of their independence, which the British
authorities determined once and for all to give them. The great barren
country, which produced little save marksmen, had no attractions for a
Colonial Office which was bent upon the limitation of its liabilities. A
Convention was concluded between the two parties, known as the Sand River
Convention, which is one of the fixed points in South African history. By
it the British Government guaranteed to the Boer farmers the right to
manage their own affairs, and to govern themselves by their own laws
without any interference upon the part of the British. It stipulated that
there should be no slavery, and with that single reservation washed its
hands finally, as it imagined, of the whole question. So the South African
Republic came formally into existence.
In the very year after the Sand River Convention a second republic, the
Orange Free State, was created by the deliberate withdrawal of Great
Britain from the territory which she had for eight years occupied. The
Eastern Question was already becoming acute, and the cloud of a great war
was drifting up, visible to all men. British statesmen felt that their
commitments were very heavy in every part of the world, and the South
African annexations had always been a doubtful value and an undoubted
trouble. Against the will of a large part of the inhabitants, whether a
majority or not it is impossible to say, we withdrew our troops as
amicably as the Romans withdrew from Britain, and the new republic was
left with absolute and unfettered independence. On a petition being
presented against the withdrawal, the Home Government actually voted
forty-eight thousand pounds to compensate those who had suffered from the
change. Whatever historical grievance the Transvaal may have against Great
Britain, we can at least, save perhaps in one matter, claim to have a very
clear conscience concerning our dealings with the Orange Free State. Thus
in 1852 and in 1854 were born those sturdy States who were able for a time
to hold at bay the united forces of the empire.
In the meantime Cape Colony, in spite of these secessions, had prospered
exceedingly, and her population—English, German, and Dutch—had
grown by 1870 to over two hundred thousand souls, the Dutch still slightly
predominating. According to the Liberal colonial policy of Great Britain,
the time had come to cut the cord and let the young nation conduct its own
affairs. In 1872 complete self-government was given to it, the Governor,
as the representative of the Queen, retaining a nominal unexercised veto
upon legislation. According to this system the Dutch majority of the
colony could, and did, put their own representatives into power and run
the government upon Dutch lines. Already Dutch law had been restored, and
Dutch put on the same footing as English as the official language of the
country. The extreme liberality of such measures, and the uncompromising
way in which they have been carried out, however distasteful the
legislation might seem to English ideas, are among the chief reasons which
made the illiberal treatment of British settlers in the Transvaal so
keenly resented at the Cape. A Dutch Government was ruling the British in
a British colony, at a moment when the Boers would not give an Englishman
a vote upon a municipal council in a city which he had built himself.
Unfortunately, however, ‘the evil that men do lives after them,’ and the
ignorant Boer farmer continued to imagine that his southern relatives were
in bondage, just as the descendant of the Irish emigrant still pictures an
Ireland of penal laws and an alien Church.
For twenty-five years after the Sand River Convention the burghers of the
South African Republic had pursued a strenuous and violent existence,
fighting incessantly with the natives and sometimes with each other, with
an occasional fling at the little Dutch republic to the south. The
semi-tropical sun was waking strange ferments in the placid Friesland
blood, and producing a race who added the turbulence and restlessness of
the south to the formidable tenacity of the north. Strong vitality and
violent ambitions produced feuds and rivalries worthy of medieval Italy,
and the story of the factious little communities is like a chapter out of
Guicciardini. Disorganisation ensued. The burghers would not pay taxes and
the treasury was empty. One fierce Kaffir tribe threatened them from the
north, and the Zulus on the east. It is an exaggeration of English
partisans to pretend that our intervention saved the Boers, for no one can
read their military history without seeing that they were a match for
Zulus and Sekukuni combined. But certainly a formidable invasion was
pending, and the scattered farmhouses were as open to the Kaffirs as our
farmers’ homesteads were in the American colonies when the Indians were on
the warpath. Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the British Commissioner, after an
inquiry of three months, solved all questions by the formal annexation of
the country. The fact that he took possession of it with a force of some
twenty-five men showed the honesty of his belief that no armed resistance
was to be feared. This, then, in 1877 was a complete reversal of the Sand
River Convention and the opening of a new chapter in the history of South
Africa.
There did not appear to be any strong feeling at the time against the
annexation. The people were depressed with their troubles and weary of
contention. Burgers, the President, put in a formal protest, and took up
his abode in Cape Colony, where he had a pension from the British
Government. A memorial against the measure received the signatures of a
majority of the Boer inhabitants, but there was a fair minority who took
the other view. Kruger himself accepted a paid office under Government.
There was every sign that the people, if judiciously handled, would settle
down under the British flag. It is even asserted that they would
themselves have petitioned for annexation had it been longer withheld.
With immediate constitutional government it is possible that even the most
recalcitrant of them might have been induced to lodge their protests in
the ballot boxes rather than in the bodies of our soldiers.
But the empire has always had poor luck in South Africa, and never worse
than on that occasion. Through no bad faith, but simply through
preoccupation and delay, the promises made were not instantly fulfilled.
Simple primitive men do not understand the ways of our circumlocution
offices, and they ascribe to duplicity what is really red tape and
stupidity. If the Transvaalers had waited they would have had their
Volksraad and all that they wanted. But the British Government had some
other local matters to set right, the rooting out of Sekukuni and the
breaking of the Zulus, before they would fulfill their pledges. The delay
was keenly resented. And we were unfortunate in our choice of Governor.
The burghers are a homely folk, and they like an occasional cup of coffee
with the anxious man who tries to rule them. The three hundred pounds a
year of coffee money allowed by the Transvaal to its President is by no
means a mere form. A wise administrator would fall into the sociable and
democratic habits of the people. Sir Theophilus Shepstone did so. Sir Owen
Lanyon did not. There was no Volksraad and no coffee, and the popular
discontent grew rapidly. In three years the British had broken up the two
savage hordes which had been threatening the land. The finances, too, had
been restored. The reasons which had made so many favour the annexation
were weakened by the very power which had every interest in preserving
them.
It cannot be too often pointed out that in this annexation, the
starting-point of our troubles, Great Britain, however mistaken she may
have been, had no obvious selfish interest in view. There were no Rand
mines in those days, nor was there anything in the country to tempt the
most covetous. An empty treasury and two native wars were the reversion
which we took over. It was honestly considered that the country was in too
distracted a state to govern itself, and had, by its weakness, become a
scandal and a danger to its neighbours. There was nothing sordid in our
action, though it may have been both injudicious and high-handed.
In December 1880 the Boers rose. Every farmhouse sent out its riflemen,
and the trysting-place was the outside of the nearest British fort. All
through the country small detachments were surrounded and besieged by the
farmers. Standerton, Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Lydenburg, Wakkerstroom,
Rustenberg, and Marabastad were all invested and all held out until the
end of the war. In the open country we were less fortunate. At Bronkhorst
Spruit a small British force was taken by surprise and shot down without
harm to their antagonists. The surgeon who treated them has left it on
record that the average number of wounds was five per man. At Laing’s Nek
an inferior force of British endeavoured to rush a hill which was held by
Boer riflemen. Half of our men were killed and wounded. Ingogo may be
called a drawn battle, though our loss was more heavy than that of the
enemy. Finally came the defeat of Majuba Hill, where four hundred infantry
upon a mountain were defeated and driven off by a swarm of sharpshooters
who advanced under the cover of boulders. Of all these actions there was
not one which was more than a skirmish, and had they been followed by a
final British victory they would now be hardly remembered. It is the fact
that they were skirmishes which succeeded in their object which has given
them an importance which is exaggerated. At the same time they may mark
the beginning of a new military era, for they drove home the fact—only
too badly learned by us—that it is the rifle and not the drill which
makes the soldier. It is bewildering that after such an experience the
British military authorities continued to serve out only three hundred
cartridges a year for rifle practice, and that they still encouraged that
mechanical volley firing which destroys all individual aim. With the
experience of the first Boer war behind them, little was done, either in
tactics or in musketry, to prepare the soldier for the second. The value
of the mounted rifleman, the shooting with accuracy at unknown ranges, the
art of taking cover—all were equally neglected.
The defeat at Majuba Hill was followed by the complete surrender of the
Gladstonian Government, an act which was either the most pusillanimous or
the most magnanimous in recent history. It is hard for the big man to draw
away from the small before blows are struck but when the big man has been
knocked down three times it is harder still. An overwhelming British force
was in the field, and the General declared that he held the enemy in the
hollow of his hand. Our military calculations have been falsified before
now by these farmers, and it may be that the task of Wood and Roberts
would have been harder than they imagined; but on paper, at least, it
looked as if the enemy could be crushed without difficulty. So the public
thought, and yet they consented to the upraised sword being stayed. With
them, as apart from the politicians, the motive was undoubtedly a moral
and Christian one. They considered that the annexation of the Transvaal
had evidently been an injustice, that the farmers had a right to the
freedom for which they fought, and that it was an unworthy thing for a
great nation to continue an unjust war for the sake of a military revenge.
It was the height of idealism, and the result has not been such as to
encourage its repetition.
An armistice was concluded on March 5th, 1881, which led up to a peace on
the 23rd of the same month. The Government, after yielding to force what
it had repeatedly refused to friendly representations, made a clumsy
compromise in their settlement. A policy of idealism and Christian
morality should have been thorough if it were to be tried at all. It was
obvious that if the annexation were unjust, then the Transvaal should have
reverted to the condition in which it was before the annexation, as
defined by the Sand River Convention. But the Government for some reason
would not go so far as this. They niggled and quibbled and bargained until
the State was left as a curious hybrid thing such as the world has never
seen. It was a republic which was part of the system of a monarchy, dealt
with by the Colonial Office, and included under the heading of ‘Colonies’
in the news columns of the ‘Times.’ It was autonomous, and yet subject to
some vague suzerainty, the limits of which no one has ever been able to
define. Altogether, in its provisions and in its omissions, the Convention
of Pretoria appears to prove that our political affairs were as badly
conducted as our military in this unfortunate year of 1881.
It was evident from the first that so illogical and contentious an
agreement could not possibly prove to be a final settlement, and indeed
the ink of the signatures was hardly dry before an agitation was on foot
for its revision. The Boers considered, and with justice, that if they
were to be left as undisputed victors in the war then they should have the
full fruits of victory. On the other hand, the English-speaking colonies
had their allegiance tested to the uttermost. The proud Anglo-Celtic stock
is not accustomed to be humbled, and yet they found themselves through the
action of the home Government converted into members of a beaten race. It
was very well for the citizen of London to console his wounded pride by
the thought that he had done a magnanimous action, but it was different
with the British colonist of Durban or Cape Town, who by no act of his
own, and without any voice in the settlement, found himself humiliated
before his Dutch neighbour. An ugly feeling of resentment was left behind,
which might perhaps have passed away had the Transvaal accepted the
settlement in the spirit in which it was meant, but which grew more and
more dangerous as during eighteen years our people saw, or thought that
they saw, that one concession led always to a fresh demand, and that the
Dutch republics aimed not merely at equality, but at dominance in South
Africa. Professor Bryce, a friendly critic, after a personal examination
of the country and the question, has left it upon record that the Boers
saw neither generosity nor humanity in our conduct, but only fear. An
outspoken race, they conveyed their feelings to their neighbours. Can it
be wondered at that South Africa has been in a ferment ever since, and
that the British Africander has yearned with an intensity of feeling
unknown in England for the hour of revenge?
The Government of the Transvaal after the war was left in the hands of a
triumvirate, but after one year Kruger became President, an office which
he continued to hold for eighteen years. His career as ruler vindicates
the wisdom of that wise but unwritten provision of the American
Constitution by which there is a limit to the tenure of this office.
Continued rule for half a generation must turn a man into an autocrat. The
old President has said himself, in his homely but shrewd way, that when
one gets a good ox to lead the team it is a pity to change him. If a good
ox, however, is left to choose his own direction without guidance, he may
draw his wagon into trouble.
During three years the little State showed signs of a tumultuous activity.
Considering that it was as large as France and that the population could
not have been more than 50,000, one would have thought that they might
have found room without any inconvenient crowding. But the burghers passed
beyond their borders in every direction. The President cried aloud that he
had been shut up in a kraal, and he proceeded to find ways out of it. A
great trek was projected for the north, but fortunately it miscarried. To
the east they raided Zululand, and succeeded, in defiance of the British
settlement of that country, in tearing away one third of it and adding it
to the Transvaal. To the west, with no regard to the three-year-old
treaty, they invaded Bechuanaland, and set up the two new republics of
Goshen and Stellaland. So outrageous were these proceedings that Great
Britain was forced to fit out in 1884 a new expedition under Sir Charles
Warren for the purpose of turning these freebooters out of the country. It
may be asked, why should these men be called freebooters if the founders
of Rhodesia were pioneers? The answer is that the Transvaal was limited by
treaty to certain boundaries which these men transgressed, while no
pledges were broken when the British power expanded to the north. The
upshot of these trespasses was the scene upon which every drama of South
Africa rings down. Once more the purse was drawn from the pocket of the
unhappy taxpayer, and a million or so was paid out to defray the expenses
of the police force necessary to keep these treaty-breakers in order. Let
this be borne in mind when we assess the moral and material damage done to
the Transvaal by that ill-conceived and foolish enterprise, the Jameson
Raid.
In 1884 a deputation from the Transvaal visited England, and at their
solicitation the clumsy Treaty of Pretoria was altered into the still more
clumsy Convention of London. The changes in the provisions were all in
favour of the Boers, and a second successful war could hardly have given
them more than Lord Derby handed them in time of peace. Their style was
altered from the Transvaal to the South African Republic, a change which
was ominously suggestive of expansion in the future. The control of Great
Britain over their foreign policy was also relaxed, though a power of veto
was retained. But the most important thing of all, and the fruitful cause
of future trouble, lay in an omission. A suzerainty is a vague term, but
in politics, as in theology, the more nebulous a thing is the more does it
excite the imagination and the passions of men. This suzerainty was
declared in the preamble of the first treaty, and no mention of it was
made in the second. Was it thereby abrogated or was it not? The British
contention was that only the articles were changed, and that the preamble
continued to hold good for both treaties. They pointed out that not only
the suzerainty, but also the independence, of the Transvaal was proclaimed
in that preamble, and that if one lapsed the other must do so also. On the
other hand, the Boers pointed to the fact that there was actually a
preamble to the second Convention, which would seem, therefore, to have
taken the place of the first. The point is so technical that it appears to
be eminently one of those questions which might with propriety have been
submitted to the decision of a board of foreign jurists—or possibly
to the Supreme Court of the United States. If the decision had been given
against Great Britain, we might have accepted it in a chastened spirit as
a fitting punishment for the carelessness of the representative who failed
to make our meaning intelligible. Carlyle has said that a political
mistake always ends in a broken head for somebody. Unfortunately the
somebody is usually somebody else. We have read the story of the political
mistakes. Only too soon we shall come to the broken heads.
This, then, is a synopsis of what had occurred up to the signing of the
Convention, which finally established, or failed to establish, the
position of the South African Republic. We must now leave the larger
questions, and descend to the internal affairs of that small State, and
especially to that train of events which has stirred the mind of our
people more than anything since the Indian Mutiny.
CHAPTER 2. THE CAUSE OF QUARREL.
There might almost seem to be some subtle connection between the
barrenness and worthlessness of a surface and the value of the minerals
which lie beneath it. The craggy mountains of Western America, the arid
plains of West Australia, the ice-bound gorges of the Klondyke, and the
bare slopes of the Witwatersrand veld—these are the lids which cover
the great treasure chests of the world.
Gold had been known to exist in the Transvaal before, but it was only in
1886 that it was realised that the deposits which lie some thirty miles
south of the capital are of a very extraordinary and valuable nature. The
proportion of gold in the quartz is not particularly high, nor are the
veins of a remarkable thickness, but the peculiarity of the Rand mines
lies in the fact that throughout this ‘banket’ formation the metal is so
uniformly distributed that the enterprise can claim a certainty which is
not usually associated with the industry. It is quarrying rather than
mining. Add to this that the reefs which were originally worked as
outcrops have now been traced to enormous depths, and present the same
features as those at the surface. A conservative estimate of the value of
the gold has placed it at seven hundred millions of pounds.
Such a discovery produced the inevitable effect. A great number of
adventurers flocked into the country, some desirable and some very much
the reverse. There were circumstances, however, which kept away the rowdy
and desperado element who usually make for a newly opened goldfield. It
was not a class of mining which encouraged the individual adventurer.
There were none of those nuggets which gleamed through the mud of the
dollies at Ballarat, or recompensed the forty-niners in California for all
their travels and their toils. It was a field for elaborate machinery,
which could only be provided by capital. Managers, engineers, miners,
technical experts, and the tradesmen and middlemen who live upon them,
these were the Uitlanders, drawn from all the races under the sun, but
with the Anglo-Celtic vastly predominant. The best engineers were
American, the best miners were Cornish, the best managers were English,
the money to run the mines was largely subscribed in England. As time went
on, however, the German and French interests became more extensive, until
their joint holdings are now probably as heavy as those of the British.
Soon the population of the mining centres became greater than that of the
whole Boer community, and consisted mainly of men in the prime of life—men,
too, of exceptional intelligence and energy.
The situation was an extraordinary one. I have already attempted to bring
the problem home to an American by suggesting that the Dutch of New York
had trekked west and founded an anti-American and highly unprogressive
State. To carry out the analogy we will now suppose that that State was
California, that the gold of that State attracted a large inrush of
American citizens, who came to outnumber the original inhabitants, that
these citizens were heavily taxed and badly used, and that they deafened
Washington with their outcry about their injuries. That would be a fair
parallel to the relations between the Transvaal, the Uitlanders, and the
British Government.
That these Uitlanders had very real and pressing grievances no one could
possibly deny. To recount them all would be a formidable task, for their
whole lives were darkened by injustice. There was not a wrong which had
driven the Boer from Cape Colony which he did not now practise himself
upon others—and a wrong may be excusable in 1885 which is monstrous
in 1895. The primitive virtue which had characterised the farmers broke
down in the face of temptation. The country Boers were little affected,
some of them not at all, but the Pretoria Government became a most corrupt
oligarchy, venal and incompetent to the last degree. Officials and
imported Hollanders handled the stream of gold which came in from the
mines, while the unfortunate Uitlander who paid nine-tenths of the
taxation was fleeced at every turn, and met with laughter and taunts when
he endeavoured to win the franchise by which he might peaceably set right
the wrongs from which he suffered. He was not an unreasonable person. On
the contrary, he was patient to the verge of meekness, as capital is
likely to be when it is surrounded by rifles. But his situation was
intolerable, and after successive attempts at peaceful agitation, and
numerous humble petitions to the Volksraad, he began at last to realise
that he would never obtain redress unless he could find some way of
winning it for himself.
Without attempting to enumerate all the wrongs which embittered the
Uitlanders, the more serious of them may be summed up in this way.
1. That they were heavily taxed and provided about seven-eighths of the
revenue of the country. The revenue of the South African Republic—which
had been 154,000 pounds in 1886, when the gold fields were opened—had
grown in 1899 to four million pounds, and the country through the industry
of the newcomers had changed from one of the poorest to the richest in the
whole world (per head of population).
2. That in spite of this prosperity which they had brought, they, the
majority of the inhabitants of the country, were left without a vote, and
could by no means influence the disposal of the great sums which they were
providing. Such a case of taxation without representation has never been
known.
3. That they had no voice in the choice or payment of officials. Men of
the worst private character might be placed with complete authority over
valuable interests. Upon one occasion the Minister of Mines attempted
himself to jump a mine, having officially learned some flaw in its title.
The total official salaries had risen in 1899 to a sum sufficient to pay
40 pounds per head to the entire male Boer population.
4. That they had no control over education. Mr. John Robinson, the
Director General of the Johannesburg Educational Council, has reckoned the
sum spent on Uitlander schools as 650 pounds out of 63,000 pounds allotted
for education, making one shilling and tenpence per head per annum on
Uitlander children, and eight pounds six shillings per head on Boer
children—the Uitlander, as always, paying seven-eighths of the
original sum.
5. No power of municipal government. Watercarts instead of pipes, filthy
buckets instead of drains, a corrupt and violent police, a high death-rate
in what should be a health resort—all this in a city which they had
built themselves.
6. Despotic government in the matter of the press and of the right of
public meeting.
7. Disability from service upon a jury.
8. Continual harassing of the mining interest by vexatious legislation.
Under this head came many grievances, some special to the mines and some
affecting all Uitlanders. The dynamite monopoly, by which the miners had
to pay 600,000 pounds extra per annum in order to get a worse quality of
dynamite; the liquor laws, by which one-third of the Kaffirs were allowed
to be habitually drunk; the incompetence and extortions of the State-owned
railway; the granting of concessions for numerous articles of ordinary
consumption to individuals, by which high prices were maintained; the
surrounding of Johannesburg by tolls from which the town had no profit—these
were among the economical grievances, some large, some petty, which
ramified through every transaction of life.
And outside and beyond all these definite wrongs imagine to a free born
progressive man, an American or a Briton, the constant irritation of being
absolutely ruled by a body of twenty-five men, twenty-one of whom had in
the case of the Selati Railway Company been publicly and circumstantially
accused of bribery, with full details of the bribes received, while to
their corruption they added such crass ignorance that they argue in the
published reports of the Volksraad debates that using dynamite bombs to
bring down rain was firing at God, that it is impious to destroy locusts,
that the word ‘participate’ should not be used because it is not in the
Bible, and that postal pillar boxes are extravagant and effeminate. Such
obiter dicta may be amusing at a distance, but they are less entertaining
when they come from an autocrat who has complete power over the conditions
of your life.
From the fact that they were a community extremely preoccupied by their
own business, it followed that the Uitlanders were not ardent politicians,
and that they desired to have a share in the government of the State for
the purpose of making the conditions of their own industry and of their
own daily lives more endurable. How far there was need of such an
interference may be judged by any fair-minded man who reads the list of
their complaints. A superficial view may recognise the Boers as the
champions of liberty, but a deeper insight must see that they (as
represented by their elected rulers) have in truth stood for all that
history has shown to be odious in the form of exclusiveness and
oppression. Their conception of liberty has been a selfish one, and they
have consistently inflicted upon others far heavier wrongs than those
against which they had themselves rebelled.
As the mines increased in importance and the miners in numbers, it was
found that these political disabilities affected some of that cosmopolitan
crowd far more than others, in proportion to the amount of freedom to
which their home institutions had made them accustomed. The continental
Uitlanders were more patient of that which was unendurable to the American
and the Briton. The Americans, however, were in so great a minority that
it was upon the British that the brunt of the struggle for freedom fell.
Apart from the fact that the British were more numerous than all the other
Uitlanders combined, there were special reasons why they should feel their
humiliating position more than the members of any other race. In the first
place, many of the British were British South Africans, who knew that in
the neighbouring countries which gave them birth the most liberal possible
institutions had been given to the kinsmen of these very Boers who were
refusing them the management of their own drains and water supply. And
again, every Briton knew that Great Britain claimed to be the paramount
power in South Africa, and so he felt as if his own land, to which he
might have looked for protection, was conniving at and acquiescing in his
ill treatment. As citizens of the paramount power, it was peculiarly
galling that they should be held in political subjection. The British,
therefore, were the most persistent and energetic of the agitators.
But it is a poor cause which cannot bear to fairly state and honestly
consider the case of its opponents. The Boers had made, as has been
briefly shown, great efforts to establish a country of their own. They had
travelled far, worked hard, and fought bravely. After all their efforts
they were fated to see an influx of strangers into their country, some of
them men of questionable character, who outnumbered the original
inhabitants. If the franchise were granted to these, there could be no
doubt that though at first the Boers might control a majority of the
votes, it was only a question of time before the newcomers would dominate
the Raad and elect their own President, who might adopt a policy abhorrent
to the original owners of the land. Were the Boers to lose by the
ballot-box the victory which they had won by their rifles? Was it fair to
expect it? These newcomers came for gold. They got their gold. Their
companies paid a hundred per cent. Was not that enough to satisfy them? If
they did not like the country why did they not leave it? No one compelled
them to stay there. But if they stayed, let them be thankful that they
were tolerated at all, and not presume to interfere with the laws of those
by whose courtesy they were allowed to enter the country.
That is a fair statement of the Boer position, and at first sight an
impartial man might say that there was a good deal to say for it; but a
closer examination would show that, though it might be tenable in theory,
it is unjust and impossible in practice.
In the present crowded state of the world a policy of Thibet may be
carried out in some obscure corner, but it cannot be done in a great tract
of country which lies right across the main line of industrial progress.
The position is too absolutely artificial. A handful of people by the
right of conquest take possession of an enormous country over which they
are dotted at such intervals that it is their boast that one farmhouse
cannot see the smoke of another, and yet, though their numbers are so
disproportionate to the area which they cover, they refuse to admit any
other people upon equal terms, but claim to be a privileged class who
shall dominate the newcomers completely. They are outnumbered in their own
land by immigrants who are far more highly educated and progressive, and
yet they hold them down in a way which exists nowhere else upon earth.
What is their right? The right of conquest. Then the same right may be
justly invoked to reverse so intolerable a situation. This they would
themselves acknowledge. ‘Come on and fight! Come on!’ cried a member of
the Volksraad when the franchise petition of the Uitlanders was presented.
‘Protest! Protest! What is the good of protesting?’ said Kruger to Mr. W.
Y. Campbell; ‘you have not got the guns, I have.’ There was always the
final court of appeal. Judge Creusot and Judge Mauser were always behind
the President.
Again, the argument of the Boers would be more valid had they received no
benefit from these immigrants. If they had ignored them they might fairly
have stated that they did not desire their presence. But even while they
protested they grew rich at the Uitlander’s expense. They could not have
it both ways. It would be consistent to discourage him and not profit by
him, or to make him comfortable and build the State upon his money; but to
ill-treat him and at the same time to grow strong by his taxation must
surely be an injustice.
And again, the whole argument is based upon the narrow racial supposition
that every naturalised citizen not of Boer extraction must necessarily be
unpatriotic. This is not borne out by the examples of history. The
newcomer soon becomes as proud of his country and as jealous of her
liberty as the old. Had President Kruger given the franchise generously to
the Uitlander, his pyramid would have been firm upon its base and not
balanced upon its apex. It is true that the corrupt oligarchy would have
vanished, and the spirit of a broader more tolerant freedom influenced the
counsels of the State. But the republic would have become stronger and
more permanent, with a population who, if they differed in details, were
united in essentials. Whether such a solution would have been to the
advantage of British interests in South Africa is quite another question.
In more ways than one President Kruger has been a good friend to the
empire.
So much upon the general question of the reason why the Uitlander should
agitate and why the Boer was obdurate. The details of the long struggle
between the seekers for the franchise and the refusers of it may be
quickly sketched, but they cannot be entirely ignored by any one who
desires to understand the inception of that great contest which was the
outcome of the dispute.
At the time of the Convention of Pretoria (1881) the rights of burghership
might be obtained by one year’s residence. In 1882 it was raised to five
years, the reasonable limit which obtains both in Great Britain and in the
United States. Had it remained so, it is safe to say that there would
never have been either an Uitlander question or a great Boer war.
Grievances would have been righted from the inside without external
interference.
In 1890 the inrush of outsiders alarmed the Boers, and the franchise was
raised so as to be only attainable by those who had lived fourteen years
in the country. The Uitlanders, who were increasing rapidly in numbers and
were suffering from the formidable list of grievances already enumerated,
perceived that their wrongs were so numerous that it was hopeless to have
them set right seriatim, and that only by obtaining the leverage of the
franchise could they hope to move the heavy burden which weighed them
down. In 1893 a petition of 13,000 Uitlanders, couched in most respectful
terms, was submitted to the Raad, but met with contemptuous neglect.
Undeterred, however, by this failure, the National Reform Union, an
association which organised the agitation, came back to the attack in
1894. They drew up a petition which was signed by 35,000 adult male
Uitlanders, a greater number than the total Boer male population of the
country. A small liberal body in the Raad supported this memorial and
endeavoured in vain to obtain some justice for the newcomers. Mr. Jeppe
was the mouthpiece of this select band. ‘They own half the soil, they pay
at least three quarters of the taxes,’ said he. ‘They are men who in
capital, energy, and education are at least our equals.
What will become of us or our children on that day when we may find
ourselves in a minority of one in twenty without a single friend among the
other nineteen, among those who will then tell us that they wished to be
brothers, but that we by our own act have made them strangers to the
republic?’ Such reasonable and liberal sentiments were combated by members
who asserted that the signatures could not belong to law-abiding citizens,
since they were actually agitating against the law of the franchise, and
others whose intolerance was expressed by the defiance of the member
already quoted, who challenged the Uitlanders to come out and fight. The
champions of exclusiveness and racial hatred won the day. The memorial was
rejected by sixteen votes to eight, and the franchise law was, on the
initiative of the President, actually made more stringent than ever, being
framed in such a way that during the fourteen years of probation the
applicant should give up his previous nationality, so that for that period
he would really belong to no country at all. No hopes were held out that
any possible attitude upon the part of the Uitlanders would soften the
determination of the President and his burghers. One who remonstrated was
led outside the State buildings by the President, who pointed up at the
national flag. ‘You see that flag?’ said he. ‘If I grant the franchise, I
may as well pull it down.’ His animosity against the immigrants was
bitter. ‘Burghers, friends, thieves, murderers, newcomers, and others,’ is
the conciliatory opening of one of his public addresses. Though
Johannesburg is only thirty-two miles from Pretoria, and though the State
of which he was the head depended for its revenue upon the gold fields, he
paid it only three visits in nine years.
This settled animosity was deplorable, but not unnatural. A man imbued
with the idea of a chosen people, and unread in any book save the one
which cultivates this very idea, could not be expected to have learned the
historical lessons of the advantages which a State reaps from a liberal
policy. To him it was as if the Ammonites and Moabites had demanded
admission into the twelve tribes. He mistook an agitation against the
exclusive policy of the State for one against the existence of the State
itself. A wide franchise would have made his republic firm-based and
permanent. It was a small minority of the Uitlanders who had any desire to
come into the British system. They were a cosmopolitan crowd, only united
by the bond of a common injustice. But when every other method had failed,
and their petition for the rights of freemen had been flung back at them,
it was natural that their eyes should turn to that flag which waved to the
north, the west, and the south of them—the flag which means purity
of government with equal rights and equal duties for all men.
Constitutional agitation was laid aside, arms were smuggled in, and
everything prepared for an organised rising.
The events which followed at the beginning of 1896 have been so thrashed
out that there is, perhaps, nothing left to tell—except the truth.
So far as the Uitlanders themselves are concerned, their action was most
natural and justifiable, and they have no reason to exculpate themselves
for rising against such oppression as no men of our race have ever been
submitted to. Had they trusted only to themselves and the justice of their
cause, their moral and even their material position would have been
infinitely stronger. But unfortunately there were forces behind them which
were more questionable, the nature and extent of which have never yet, in
spite of two commissions of investigation, been properly revealed. That
there should have been any attempt at misleading inquiry, or suppressing
documents in order to shelter individuals, is deplorable, for the
impression left—I believe an entirely false one—must be that
the British Government connived at an expedition which was as immoral as
it was disastrous.
It had been arranged that the town was to rise upon a certain night, that
Pretoria should be attacked, the fort seized, and the rifles and
ammunition used to arm the Uitlanders. It was a feasible device, though it
must seem to us, who have had such an experience of the military virtues
of the burghers, a very desperate one. But it is conceivable that the
rebels might have held Johannesburg until the universal sympathy which
their cause excited throughout South Africa would have caused Great
Britain to intervene. Unfortunately they had complicated matters by asking
for outside help. Mr. Cecil Rhodes was Premier of the Cape, a man of
immense energy, and one who had rendered great services to the empire. The
motives of his action are obscure—certainly, we may say that they
were not sordid, for he has always been a man whose thoughts were large
and whose habits were simple. But whatever they may have been—whether
an ill-regulated desire to consolidate South Africa under British rule, or
a burning sympathy with the Uitlanders in their fight against injustice—it
is certain that he allowed his lieutenant, Dr. Jameson, to assemble the
mounted police of the Chartered Company, of which Rhodes was founder and
director, for the purpose of co-operating with the rebels at Johannesburg.
Moreover, when the revolt at Johannesburg was postponed, on account of a
disagreement as to which flag they were to rise under, it appears that
Jameson (with or without the orders of Rhodes) forced the hand of the
conspirators by invading the country with a force absurdly inadequate to
the work which he had taken in hand. Five hundred policemen and three
field guns made up the forlorn hope who started from near Mafeking and
crossed the Transvaal border upon December 29th, 1895. On January 2nd they
were surrounded by the Boers amid the broken country near Dornkop, and
after losing many of their number killed and wounded, without food and
with spent horses, they were compelled to lay down their arms. Six
burghers lost their lives in the skirmish.
The Uitlanders have been severely criticised for not having sent out a
force to help Jameson in his difficulties, but it is impossible to see how
they could have acted in any other manner. They had done all they could to
prevent Jameson coming to their relief, and now it was rather unreasonable
to suppose that they should relieve their reliever. Indeed, they had an
entirely exaggerated idea of the strength of the force which he was
bringing, and received the news of his capture with incredulity. When it
became confirmed they rose, but in a halfhearted fashion which was not due
to want of courage, but to the difficulties of their position. On the one
hand, the British Government disowned Jameson entirely, and did all it
could to discourage the rising; on the other, the President had the
raiders in his keeping at Pretoria, and let it be understood that their
fate depended upon the behaviour of the Uitlanders. They were led to
believe that Jameson would be shot unless they laid down their arms,
though, as a matter of fact, Jameson and his people had surrendered upon a
promise of quarter. So skillfully did Kruger use his hostages that he
succeeded, with the help of the British Commissioner, in getting the
thousands of excited Johannesburgers to lay down their arms without
bloodshed. Completely out-manoeuvred by the astute old President, the
leaders of the reform movement used all their influence in the direction
of peace, thinking that a general amnesty would follow; but the moment
that they and their people were helpless the detectives and armed burghers
occupied the town, and sixty of their number were hurried to Pretoria
Gaol.
To the raiders themselves the President behaved with great generosity.
Perhaps he could not find it in his heart to be harsh to the men who had
managed to put him in the right and won for him the sympathy of the world.
His own illiberal and oppressive treatment of the newcomers was forgotten
in the face of this illegal inroad of filibusters. The true issues were so
obscured by this intrusion that it has taken years to clear them, and
perhaps they will never be wholly cleared. It was forgotten that it was
the bad government of the country which was the real cause of the
unfortunate raid. From then onwards the government might grow worse and
worse, but it was always possible to point to the raid as justifying
everything. Were the Uitlanders to have the franchise? How could they
expect it after the raid? Would Britain object to the enormous importation
of arms and obvious preparations for war? They were only precautions
against a second raid. For years the raid stood in the way, not only of
all progress, but of all remonstrance. Through an action over which they
had no control, and which they had done their best to prevent, the British
Government was left with a bad case and a weakened moral authority.
The raiders were sent home, where the rank and file were very properly
released, and the chief officers were condemned to terms of imprisonment
which certainly did not err upon the side of severity. Cecil Rhodes was
left unpunished, he retained his place in the Privy Council, and his
Chartered Company continued to have a corporate existence. This was
illogical and inconclusive. As Kruger said, ‘It is not the dog which
should be beaten, but the man who set him on to me.’ Public opinion—in
spite of, or on account of, a crowd of witnesses—was ill informed
upon the exact bearings of the question, and it was obvious that as Dutch
sentiment at the Cape appeared already to be thoroughly hostile to us, it
would be dangerous to alienate the British Africanders also by making a
martyr of their favourite leader. But whatever arguments may be founded
upon expediency, it is clear that the Boers bitterly resented, and with
justice, the immunity of Rhodes.
In the meantime, both President Kruger and his burghers had shown a
greater severity to the political prisoners from Johannesburg than to the
armed followers of Jameson. The nationality of these prisoners is
interesting and suggestive. There were twenty-three Englishmen, sixteen
South Africans, nine Scotchmen, six Americans, two Welshmen, one Irishman,
one Australian, one Hollander, one Bavarian, one Canadian, one Swiss, and
one Turk. The prisoners were arrested in January, but the trial did not
take place until the end of April. All were found guilty of high treason.
Mr. Lionel Phillips, Colonel Rhodes (brother of Mr. Cecil Rhodes), George
Farrar, and Mr. Hammond, the American engineer, were condemned to death, a
sentence which was afterwards commuted to the payment of an enormous fine.
The other prisoners were condemned to two years’ imprisonment, with a fine
of 2000 pounds each. The imprisonment was of the most arduous and trying
sort, and was embittered by the harshness of the gaoler, Du Plessis. One
of the unfortunate men cut his throat, and several fell seriously ill, the
diet and the sanitary conditions being equally unhealthy. At last at the
end of May all the prisoners but six were released. Four of the six soon
followed, two stalwarts, Sampson and Davies, refusing to sign any petition
and remaining in prison until they were set free in 1897. Altogether the
Transvaal Government received in fines from the reform prisoners the
enormous sum of 212,000 pounds. A certain comic relief was immediately
afterwards given to so grave an episode by the presentation of a bill to
Great Britain for 1,677, 938 pounds 3 shillings and 3 pence—the
greater part of which was under the heading of moral and intellectual
damage.
The raid was past and the reform movement was past, but the causes which
produced them both remained. It is hardly conceivable that a statesman who
loved his country would have refrained from making some effort to remove a
state of things which had already caused such grave dangers, and which
must obviously become more serious with every year that passed. But Paul
Kruger had hardened his heart, and was not to be moved. The grievances of
the Uitlanders became heavier than ever. The one power in the land to
which they had been able to appeal for some sort of redress amid their
grievances was the law courts. Now it was decreed that the courts should
be dependent on the Volksraad. The Chief Justice protested against such a
degradation of his high office, and he was dismissed in consequence
without a pension. The judge who had condemned the reformers was chosen to
fill the vacancy, and the protection of a fixed law was withdrawn from the
Uitlanders.
A commission appointed by the State was sent to examine into the condition
of the mining industry and the grievances from which the newcomers
suffered. The chairman was Mr. Schalk Burger, one of the most liberal of
the Boers, and the proceedings were thorough and impartial. The result was
a report which amply vindicated the reformers, and suggested remedies
which would have gone a long way towards satisfying the Uitlanders. With
such enlightened legislation their motives for seeking the franchise would
have been less pressing. But the President and his Raad would have none of
the recommendations of the commission. The rugged old autocrat declared
that Schalk Burger was a traitor to his country for having signed such a
document, and a new reactionary committee was chosen to report upon the
report. Words and papers were the only outcome of the affair. No
amelioration came to the newcomers. But at least they had again put their
case publicly upon record, and it had been endorsed by the most respected
of the burghers. Gradually in the press of the English-speaking countries
the raid was ceasing to obscure the issue. More and more clearly it was
coming out that no permanent settlement was possible where the majority of
the population was oppressed by the minority. They had tried peaceful
means and failed. They had tried warlike means and failed. What was there
left for them to do? Their own country, the paramount power of South
Africa, had never helped them. Perhaps if it were directly appealed to it
might do so. It could not, if only for the sake of its own imperial
prestige, leave its children for ever in a state of subjection. The
Uitlanders determined upon a petition to the Queen, and in doing so they
brought their grievances out of the limits of a local controversy into the
broader field of international politics. Great Britain must either protect
them or acknowledge that their protection was beyond her power. A direct
petition to the Queen praying for protection was signed in April 1899 by
twenty-one thousand Uitlanders. From that time events moved inevitably
towards the one end. Sometimes the surface was troubled and sometimes
smooth, but the stream always ran swiftly and the roar of the fall sounded
ever louder in the ears.
CHAPTER 3. THE NEGOTIATIONS.
The British Government and the British people do not desire any direct
authority in South Africa. Their one supreme interest is that the various
States there should live in concord and prosperity, and that there should
be no need for the presence of a British redcoat within the whole great
peninsula. Our foreign critics, with their misapprehension of the British
colonial system, can never realise that whether the four-coloured flag of
the Transvaal or the Union Jack of a self-governing colony waved over the
gold mines would not make the difference of one shilling to the revenue of
Great Britain. The Transvaal as a British province would have its own
legislature, its own revenue, its own expenditure, and its own tariff
against the mother country, as well as against the rest of the world, and
England be none the richer for the change. This is so obvious to a Briton
that he has ceased to insist upon it, and it is for that reason perhaps
that it is so universally misunderstood abroad. On the other hand, while
she is no gainer by the change, most of the expense of it in blood and in
money falls upon the home country. On the face of it, therefore, Great
Britain had every reason to avoid so formidable a task as the conquest of
the South African Republic. At the best she had nothing to gain, and at
the worst she had an immense deal to lose. There was no room for ambition
or aggression. It was a case of shirking or fulfilling a most arduous
duty.
There could be no question of a plot for the annexation of the Transvaal.
In a free country the Government cannot move in advance of public opinion,
and public opinion is influenced by and reflected in the newspapers. One
may examine the files of the press during all the months of negotiations
and never find one reputable opinion in favour of such a course, nor did
one in society ever meet an advocate of such a measure. But a great wrong
was being done, and all that was asked was the minimum change which would
set it right, and restore equality between the white races in Africa. ‘Let
Kruger only be liberal in the extension of the franchise,’ said the paper
which is most representative of the sanest British opinion, ‘and he will
find that the power of the republic will become not weaker, but infinitely
more secure. Let him once give the majority of the resident males of full
age the full vote, and he will have given the republic a stability and
power which nothing else can. If he rejects all pleas of this kind, and
persists in his present policy, he may possibly stave off the evil day,
and preserve his cherished oligarchy for another few years; but the end
will be the same.’ The extract reflects the tone of all of the British
press, with the exception of one or two papers which considered that even
the persistent ill usage of our people, and the fact that we were
peculiarly responsible for them in this State, did not justify us in
interfering in the internal affairs of the republic. It cannot be denied
that the Jameson raid and the incomplete manner in which the circumstances
connected with it had been investigated had weakened the force of those
who wished to interfere energetically on behalf of British subjects. There
was a vague but widespread feeling that perhaps the capitalists were
engineering the situation for their own ends. It is difficult to imagine
how a state of unrest and insecurity, to say nothing of a state of war,
can ever be to the advantage of capital, and surely it is obvious that if
some arch-schemer were using the grievances of the Uitlanders for his own
ends the best way to checkmate him would be to remove those grievances.
The suspicion, however, did exist among those who like to ignore the
obvious and magnify the remote, and throughout the negotiations the hand
of Great Britain was weakened, as her adversary had doubtless calculated
that it would be, by an earnest but fussy and faddy minority. Idealism and
a morbid, restless conscientiousness are two of the most dangerous evils
from which a modern progressive State has to suffer.
It was in April 1899 that the British Uitlanders sent their petition
praying for protection to their native country. Since the April previous a
correspondence had been going on between Dr. Leyds, Secretary of State for
the South African Republic, and Mr. Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, upon
the existence or non-existence of the suzerainty. On the one hand, it was
contended that the substitution of a second convention had entirely
annulled the first; on the other, that the preamble of the first applied
also to the second. If the Transvaal contention were correct it is clear
that Great Britain had been tricked and jockeyed into such a position,
since she had received no quid pro quo in the second convention, and even
the most careless of Colonial Secretaries could hardly have been expected
to give away a very substantial something for nothing. But the contention
throws us back upon the academic question of what a suzerainty is. The
Transvaal admitted a power of veto over their foreign policy, and this
admission in itself, unless they openly tore up the convention, must
deprive them of the position of a sovereign State. On the whole, the
question must be acknowledged to have been one which might very well have
been referred to trustworthy arbitration.
But now to this debate, which had so little of urgency in it that seven
months intervened between statement and reply, there came the bitterly
vital question of the wrongs and appeal of the Uitlanders. Sir Alfred
Milner, the British Commissioner in South Africa, a man of liberal views
who had been appointed by a Conservative Government, commanded the respect
and confidence of all parties. His record was that of an able,
clear-headed man, too just to be either guilty of or tolerant of
injustice. To him the matter was referred, and a conference was arranged
between President Kruger and him at Bloemfontein, the capital of the
Orange Free State. They met on May 30th. Kruger had declared that all
questions might be discussed except the independence of the Transvaal.
‘All, all, all!’ he cried emphatically. But in practice it was found that
the parties could not agree as to what did or what did not threaten this
independence. What was essential to one was inadmissible to the other.
Milner contended for a five years’ retroactive franchise, with provisions
to secure adequate representation for the mining districts. Kruger offered
a seven years’ franchise, coupled with numerous conditions which whittled
down its value very much, promised five members out of thirty-one to
represent a majority of the male population, and added a provision that
all differences should be subject to arbitration by foreign powers, a
condition which is incompatible with any claim to suzerainty. The
proposals of each were impossible to the other, and early in June Sir
Alfred Milner was back in Cape Town and President Kruger in Pretoria, with
nothing settled except the extreme difficulty of a settlement. The current
was running swift, and the roar of the fall was already sounding louder in
the ear.
On June 12th Sir Alfred Milner received a deputation at Cape Town and
reviewed the situation. ‘The principle of equality of races was,’ he said,
essential for South Africa. The one State where inequality existed kept
all the others in a fever. Our policy was one not of aggression, but of
singular patience, which could not, however, lapse into indifference.’ Two
days later Kruger addressed the Raad. ‘The other side had not conceded one
tittle, and I could not give more. God has always stood by us. I do not
want war, but I will not give more away. Although our independence has
once been taken away, God has restored it.’ He spoke with sincerity no
doubt, but it is hard to hear God invoked with such confidence for the
system which encouraged the liquor traffic to the natives, and bred the
most corrupt set of officials that the modern world has seen.
A dispatch from Sir Alfred Milner, giving his views upon the situation,
made the British public recognise, as nothing else had done, how serious
the position was, and how essential it was that an earnest national effort
should be made to set it right. In it he said:
‘The case for intervention is overwhelming. The only attempted answer is
that things will right themselves if left alone. But, in fact, the policy
of leaving things alone has been tried for years, and it has led to their
going from bad to worse. It is not true that this is owing to the raid.
They were going from bad to worse before the raid. We were on the verge of
war before the raid, and the Transvaal was on the verge of revolution. The
effect of the raid has been to give the policy of leaving things alone a
new lease of life, and with the old consequences.
‘The spectacle of thousands of British subjects kept permanently in the
position of helots, constantly chafing under undoubted grievances, and
calling vainly to her Majesty’s Government for redress, does steadily
undermine the influence and reputation of Great Britain within the Queen’s
dominions. A section of the press, not in the Transvaal only, preaches
openly and constantly the doctrine of a republic embracing all South
Africa, and supports it by menacing references to the armaments of the
Transvaal, its alliance with the Orange Free State, and the active
sympathy which, in case of war, it would receive from a section of her
Majesty’s subjects. I regret to say that this doctrine, supported as it is
by a ceaseless stream of malignant lies about the intentions of her
Majesty’s Government, is producing a great effect on a large number of our
Dutch fellow colonists. Language is frequently used which seems to imply
that the Dutch have some superior right, even in this colony, to their
fellow-citizens of British birth. Thousands of men peaceably disposed, and
if left alone perfectly satisfied with their position as British subjects,
are being drawn into disaffection, and there is a corresponding
exasperation upon the part of the British.
‘I can see nothing which will put a stop to this mischievous propaganda
but some striking proof of the intention of her Majesty’s Government not
to be ousted from its position in South Africa.’
Such were the grave and measured words with which the British pro-consul
warned his countrymen of what was to come. He saw the storm-cloud piling
in the north, but even his eyes had not yet discerned how near and how
terrible was the tempest.
Throughout the end of June and the early part of July much was hoped from
the mediation of the heads of the Afrikander Bond, the political union of
the Dutch Cape colonists. On the one hand, they were the kinsmen of the
Boers; on the other, they were British subjects, and were enjoying the
blessings of those liberal institutions which we were anxious to see
extended to the Transvaal. ‘Only treat our folk as we treat yours! Our
whole contention was compressed into that prayer. But nothing came of the
mission, though a scheme endorsed by Mr. Hofmeyer and Mr. Herholdt, of the
Bond, with Mr. Fischer of the Free State, was introduced into the Raad and
applauded by Mr. Schreiner, the Africander Premier of Cape Colony. In its
original form the provisions were obscure and complicated, the franchise
varying from nine years to seven under different conditions. In debate,
however, the terms were amended until the time was reduced to seven years,
and the proposed representation of the gold fields placed at five. The
concession was not a great one, nor could the representation, five out of
thirty-one, be considered a generous provision for the majority of the
population; but the reduction of the years of residence was eagerly hailed
in England as a sign that a compromise might be effected. A sigh of relief
went up from the country. ‘If,’ said the Colonial Secretary, ‘this report
is confirmed, this important change in the proposals of President Kruger,
coupled with previous amendments, leads Government to hope that the new
law may prove to be the basis of a settlement on the lines laid down by
Sir Alfred Milner in the Bloemfontein Conference.’ He added that there
were some vexatious conditions attached, but concluded, ‘Her Majesty’s
Government feel assured that the President, having accepted the principle
for which they have contended, will be prepared to reconsider any detail
of his scheme which can be shown to be a possible hindrance to the full
accomplishment of the object in view, and that he will not allow them to
be nullified or reduced in value by any subsequent alterations of the law
or acts of administration.’ At the same time, the ‘Times’ declared the
crisis to be at an end. ‘If the Dutch statesmen of the Cape have induced
their brethren in the Transvaal to carry such a Bill, they will have
deserved the lasting gratitude, not only of their own countrymen and of
the English colonists in South Africa, but of the British Empire and of
the civilised world.’
But this fair prospect was soon destined to be overcast. Questions of
detail arose which, when closely examined, proved to be matters of very
essential importance. The Uitlanders and British South Africans, who had
experienced in the past how illusory the promises of the President might
be, insisted upon guarantees. The seven years offered were two years more
than that which Sir Alfred Milner had declared to be an irreducible
minimum. The difference of two years would not have hindered their
acceptance, even at the expense of some humiliation to our representative.
But there were conditions which excited distrust when drawn up by so wily
a diplomatist. One was that the alien who aspired to burghership had to
produce a certificate of continuous registration for a certain time. But
the law of registration had fallen into disuse in the Transvaal, and
consequently this provision might render the whole Bill valueless. Since
it was carefully retained, it was certainly meant for use. The door had
been opened, but a stone was placed to block it. Again, the continued
burghership of the newcomers was made to depend upon the resolution of the
first Raad, so that should the mining members propose any measure of
reform, not only their Bill but they also might be swept out of the house
by a Boer majority. What could an Opposition do if a vote of the
Government might at any moment unseat them all? It was clear that a
measure which contained such provisions must be very carefully sifted
before a British Government could accept it as a final settlement and a
complete concession of justice to its subjects. On the other hand, it
naturally felt loth to refuse those clauses which offered some prospect of
an amelioration in their condition. It took the course, therefore, of
suggesting that each Government should appoint delegates to form a joint
commission which should inquire into the working of the proposed Bill
before it was put into a final form. The proposal was submitted to the
Raad upon August 7th, with the addition that when this was done Sir Alfred
Milner was prepared to discuss anything else, including arbitration
without the interference of foreign powers.
The suggestion of this joint commission has been criticised as an
unwarrantable intrusion into the internal affairs of another country. But
then the whole question from the beginning was about the internal affairs
of another country, since the internal equality of the white inhabitants
was the condition upon which self-government was restored to the
Transvaal. It is futile to suggest analogies, and to imagine what France
would do if Germany were to interfere in a question of French franchise.
Supposing that France contained as many Germans as Frenchmen, and that
they were ill-treated, Germany would interfere quickly enough and continue
to do so until some fair modus vivendi was established. The fact is that
the case of the Transvaal stands alone, that such a condition of things
has never been known, and that no previous precedent can apply to it, save
the general rule that a minority of white men cannot continue indefinitely
to tax and govern a majority. Sentiment inclines to the smaller nation,
but reason and justice are all on the side of England.
A long delay followed upon the proposal of the Secretary of the Colonies.
No reply was forthcoming from Pretoria. But on all sides there came
evidence that those preparations for war which had been quietly going on
even before the Jameson raid were now being hurriedly perfected. For so
small a State enormous sums were being spent upon military equipment.
Cases of rifles and boxes of cartridges streamed into the arsenal, not
only from Delagoa Bay, but even, to the indignation of the English
colonists, through Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Huge packing-cases,
marked ‘Agricultural Instruments’ and ‘Mining Machinery,’ arrived from
Germany and France, to find their places in the forts of Johannesburg or
Pretoria. Men of many nations but of a similar type showed their martial
faces in the Boer towns. The condottieri of Europe were as ready as ever
to sell their blood for gold, and nobly in the end did they fulfill their
share of the bargain. For three weeks and more during which Mr. Kruger was
silent these eloquent preparations went on. But beyond them, and of
infinitely more importance, there was one fact which dominated the
situation. A burgher cannot go to war without his horse, his horse cannot
move without grass, grass will not come until after rain, and it was still
some weeks before the rain would be due. Negotiations, then, must not be
unduly hurried while the veld was a bare russet-coloured dust-swept plain.
Mr. Chamberlain and the British public waited week after week for their
answer. But there was a limit to their patience, and it was reached on
August 26th, when the Colonial Secretary showed, with a plainness of
speech which is as unusual as it is welcome in diplomacy, that the
question could not be hung up for ever. ‘The sands are running down in the
glass,’ said he. ‘If they run out, we shall not hold ourselves limited by
that which we have already offered, but, having taken the matter in hand,
we will not let it go until we have secured conditions which once for all
shall establish which is the paramount power in South Africa, and shall
secure for our fellow-subjects there those equal rights and equal
privileges which were promised them by President Kruger when the
independence of the Transvaal was granted by the Queen, and which is the
least that in justice ought to be accorded them.’ Lord Salisbury, a little
time before, had been equally emphatic. ‘No one in this country wishes to
disturb the conventions so long as it is recognised that while they
guarantee the independence of the Transvaal on the one side, they
guarantee equal political and civil rights for settlers of all
nationalities upon the other. But these conventions are not like the laws
of the Medes and the Persians. They are mortal, they can be
destroyed…and once destroyed they can never be reconstructed in the same
shape.’ The long-enduring patience of Great Britain was beginning to show
signs of giving way.
In the meantime a fresh dispatch had arrived from the Transvaal which
offered as an alternative proposal to the joint commission that the Boer
Government should grant the franchise proposals of Sir Alfred Milner on
condition that Great Britain withdrew or dropped her claim to a
suzerainty, agreed to arbitration, and promised never again to interfere
in the internal affairs of the republic. To this Great Britain answered
that she would agree to arbitration, that she hoped never again to have
occasion to interfere for the protection of her own subjects, but that
with the grant of the franchise all occasion for such interference would
pass away, and, finally, that she would never consent to abandon her
position as suzerain power. Mr. Chamberlain’s dispatch ended by reminding
the Government of the Transvaal that there were other matters of dispute
open between the two Governments apart from the franchise, and that it
would be as well to have them settled at the same time. By these he meant
such questions as the position of the native races and the treatment of
Anglo-Indians.
On September 2nd the answer of the Transvaal Government was returned. It
was short and uncompromising. They withdrew their offer of the franchise.
They re-asserted the non-existence of the suzerainty. The negotiations
were at a deadlock. It was difficult to see how they could be re-opened.
In view of the arming of the burghers, the small garrison of Natal had
been taking up positions to cover the frontier. The Transvaal asked for an
explanation of their presence. Sir Alfred Milner answered that they were
guarding British interests, and preparing against contingencies. The roar
of the fall was sounding loud and near.
On September 8th there was held a Cabinet Council—one of the most
important in recent years. A message was sent to Pretoria, which even the
opponents of the Government have acknowledged to be temperate, and
offering the basis for a peaceful settlement. It begins by repudiating
emphatically the claim of the Transvaal to be a sovereign international
State in the same sense in which the Orange Free State is one. Any
proposal made conditional upon such an acknowledgment could not be
entertained.
The British Government, however, was prepared to accept the five years’
‘franchise’ as stated in the note of August 19th, assuming at the same
time that in the Raad each member might talk his own language.
‘Acceptance of these terms by the South African Republic would at once
remove tension between the two Governments, and would in all probability
render unnecessary any future intervention to secure redress for
grievances which the Uitlanders themselves would be able to bring to the
notice of the Executive Council and the Volksraad.
‘Her Majesty’s Government are increasingly impressed with the danger of
further delay in relieving the strain which has already caused so much
injury to the interests of South Africa, and they earnestly press for an
immediate and definite reply to the present proposal. If it is acceded to
they will be ready to make immediate arrangements…to settle all details
of the proposed tribunal of arbitration…If, however, as they most
anxiously hope will not be the case, the reply of the South African
Republic should be negative or inconclusive, I am to state that her
Majesty’s Government must reserve to themselves the right to reconsider
the situation de novo, and to formulate their own proposals for a final
settlement.’
Such was the message, and Great Britain waited with strained attention for
the answer. But again there was a delay, while the rain came and the grass
grew, and the veld was as a mounted rifleman would have it. The burghers
were in no humour for concessions. They knew their own power, and they
concluded with justice that they were for the time far the strongest
military power in South Africa. ‘We have beaten England before, but it is
nothing to the licking we shall give her now,’ cried a prominent citizen,
and he spoke for his country as he said it. So the empire waited and
debated, but the sounds of the bugle were already breaking through the
wrangles of the politicians, and calling the nation to be tested once more
by that hammer of war and adversity by which Providence still fashions us
to some nobler and higher end.
CHAPTER 4. THE EVE OF WAR.
The message sent from the Cabinet Council of September 8th was evidently
the precursor either of peace or of war. The cloud must burst or blow
over. As the nation waited in hushed expectancy for a reply it spent some
portion of its time in examining and speculating upon those military
preparations which might be needed. The War Office had for some months
been arranging for every contingency, and had made certain dispositions
which appeared to them to be adequate, but which our future experience was
to demonstrate to be far too small for the very serious matter in hand.
It is curious in turning over the files of such a paper as the ‘Times’ to
observe how at first one or two small paragraphs of military significance
might appear in the endless columns of diplomatic and political reports,
how gradually they grew and grew, until at last the eclipse was complete,
and the diplomacy had been thrust into the tiny paragraphs while the war
filled the journal. Under July 7th comes the first glint of arms amid the
drab monotony of the state papers. On that date it was announced that two
companies of Royal Engineers and departmental corps with reserves of
supplies and ammunition were being dispatched. Two companies of engineers!
Who could have foreseen that they were the vanguard of the greatest army
which ever at any time of the world’s history has crossed an ocean, and
far the greatest which a British general has commanded in the field?
On August 15th, at a time when the negotiations had already assumed a very
serious phase, after the failure of the Bloemfontein conference and the
dispatch of Sir Alfred Milner, the British forces in South Africa were
absolutely and absurdly inadequate for the purpose of the defence of our
own frontier. Surely such a fact must open the eyes of those who, in spite
of all the evidence, persist that the war was forced on by the British. A
statesman who forces on a war usually prepares for a war, and this is
exactly what Mr. Kruger did and the British authorities did not. The
overbearing suzerain power had at that date, scattered over a huge
frontier, two cavalry regiments, three field batteries, and six and a half
infantry battalions—say six thousand men. The innocent pastoral
States could put in the field forty or fifty thousand mounted riflemen,
whose mobility doubled their numbers, and a most excellent artillery,
including the heaviest guns which have ever been seen upon a battlefield.
At this time it is most certain that the Boers could have made their way
easily either to Durban or to Cape Town. The British force, condemned to
act upon the defensive, could have been masked and afterwards destroyed,
while the main body of the invaders would have encountered nothing but an
irregular local resistance, which would have been neutralised by the
apathy or hostility of the Dutch colonists. It is extraordinary that our
authorities seem never to have contemplated the possibility of the Boers
taking the initiative, or to have understood that in that case our belated
reinforcements would certainly have had to land under the fire of the republican
guns.
In July Natal had taken alarm, and a strong representation had been sent
from the prime minister of the colony to the Governor, Sir W. Hely
Hutchinson, and so to the Colonial Office. It was notorious that the
Transvaal was armed to the teeth, that the Orange Free State was likely to
join her, and that there had been strong attempts made, both privately and
through the press, to alienate the loyalty of the Dutch citizens of both
the British colonies. Many sinister signs were observed by those upon the
spot. The veld had been burned unusually early to ensure a speedy
grass-crop after the first rains, there had been a collecting of horses, a
distribution of rifles and ammunition. The Free State farmers, who graze
their sheep and cattle upon Natal soil during the winter, had driven them
off to places of safety behind the line of the Drakensberg. Everything
pointed to approaching war, and Natal refused to be satisfied even by the
dispatch of another regiment. On September 6th a second message was
received at the Colonial Office, which states the case with great
clearness and precision.
‘The Prime Minister desires me to urge upon you by the unanimous advice of
the Ministers that sufficient troops should be dispatched to Natal
immediately to enable the colony to be placed in a state of defence
against an attack from the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. I am
informed by the General Officer Commanding, Natal, that he will not have
enough troops, even when the Manchester Regiment arrives, to do more than
occupy Newcastle and at the same time protect the colony south of it from
raids, while Laing’s Nek, Ingogo River and Zululand must be left
undefended. My Ministers know that every preparation has been made, both
in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, which would enable an attack
to be made on Natal at short notice. My Ministers believe that the Boers
have made up their minds that war will take place almost certainly, and
their best chance will be, when it seems unavoidable, to deliver a blow
before reinforcements have time to arrive. Information has been received
that raids in force will be made by way of Middle Drift and Greytown and
by way of Bond’s Drift and Stangar, with a view to striking the railway
between Pietermaritzburg and Durban and cutting off communications of
troops and supplies. Nearly all the Orange Free State farmers in the Klip
River division, who stay in the colony usually till October at least, have
trekked, at great loss to themselves; their sheep are lambing on the road,
and the lambs die or are destroyed. Two at least of the Entonjanani
district farmers have trekked with all their belongings into the
Transvaal, in the first case attempting to take as hostages the children
of the natives on the farm. Reliable reports have been received of
attempts to tamper with loyal natives, and to set tribe against tribe in
order to create confusion and detail the defensive forces of the colony.
Both food and warlike stores in large quantities have been accumulated at
Volksrust, Vryheid and Standerton. Persons who are believed to be spies
have been seen examining the bridges on the Natal Railway, and it is known
that there are spies in all the principal centres of the colony. In the
opinion of Ministers, such a catastrophe as the seizure of Laing’s Nek and
the destruction of the northern portion of the railway, or a successful
raid or invasion such as they have reason to believe is contemplated,
would produce a most demoralising effect on the natives and on the loyal
Europeans in the colony, and would afford great encouragement to the Boers
and to their sympathisers in the colonies, who, although armed and
prepared, will probably keep quiet unless they receive some encouragement
of the sort. They concur in the policy of her Majesty’s Government of
exhausting all peaceful means to obtain redress of the grievances of the
Uitlanders and authoritatively assert the supremacy of Great Britain
before resorting to war; but they state that this is a question of
defensive precaution, not of making war.’
In answer to these and other remonstrances the garrison of Natal was
gradually increased, partly by troops from Europe, and partly by the
dispatch of five thousand British troops from India. The 2nd Berkshires,
the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers, the 1st Manchesters, and the 2nd Dublin
Fusiliers arrived in succession with reinforcements of artillery. The 5th
Dragoon Guards, 9th Lancers, and 19th Hussars came from India, with the
1st Devonshires, 1st Gloucesters, 2nd King’s Royal Rifles and 2nd Gordon
Highlanders. These with the 21st, 42nd, and 53rd batteries of Field
Artillery made up the Indian Contingent. Their arrival late in September
raised the number of troops in South Africa to 22,000, a force which was
inadequate to a contest in the open field with the numerous, mobile, and
gallant enemy to whom they were to be opposed, but which proved to be
strong enough to stave off that overwhelming disaster which, with our
fuller knowledge, we can now see to have been impending.
As to the disposition of these troops a difference of opinion broke out
between the ruling powers in Natal and the military chiefs at the spot.
Prince Kraft has said, ‘Both strategy and tactics may have to yield to
politics ‘; but the political necessity should be very grave and very
clear when it is the blood of soldiers which has to pay for it. Whether it
arose from our defective intelligence, or from that caste feeling which
makes it hard for the professional soldier to recognise (in spite of
deplorable past experiences) a serious adversary in the mounted farmer, it
is certain that even while our papers were proclaiming that this time, at
least, we would not underrate our enemy, we were most seriously
underrating him. The northern third of Natal is as vulnerable a military
position as a player of kriegspiel could wish to have submitted to him. It
runs up into a thin angle, culminating at the apex in a difficult pass,
the ill-omened Laing’s Nek, dominated by the even more sinister bulk of
Majuba. Each side of this angle is open to invasion, the one from the
Transvaal and the other from the Orange Free State. A force up at the apex
is in a perfect trap, for the mobile enemy can flood into the country to
the south of them, cut the line of supplies, and throw up a series of
entrenchments which would make retreat a very difficult matter. Further
down the country, at such positions as Ladysmith or Dundee, the danger,
though not so imminent, is still an obvious one, unless the defending
force is strong enough to hold its own in the open field and mobile enough
to prevent a mounted enemy from getting round its flanks. To us, who are
endowed with that profound military wisdom which only comes with a
knowledge of the event, it is obvious that with a defending force which
could not place more than 12,000 men in the fighting line, the true
defensible frontier was the line of the Tugela. As a matter of fact,
Ladysmith was chosen, a place almost indefensible itself, as it is
dominated by high hills in at least two directions.
Such an event as the siege of the town appears never to have been
contemplated, as no guns of position were asked for or sent. In spite of
this, an amount of stores, which is said to have been valued at more than
a million of pounds, was dumped down at this small railway junction, so
that the position could not be evacuated without a crippling loss. The
place was the point of bifurcation of the main line, which divides at this
little town into one branch running to Harrismith in the Orange Free
State, and the other leading through the Dundee coal fields and Newcastle
to the Laing’s Nek tunnel and the Transvaal. An importance, which appears
now to have been an exaggerated one, was attached by the Government of
Natal to the possession of the coal fields, and it was at their strong
suggestion, but with the concurrence of General Penn Symons, that the
defending force was divided, and a detachment of between three and four
thousand sent to Dundee, about forty miles from the main body, which
remained under General Sir George White at Ladysmith. General Symons
underrated the power of the invaders, but it is hard to criticise an error
of judgment which has been so nobly atoned and so tragically paid for. At
the time, then, which our political narrative has reached, the time of
suspense which followed the dispatch of the Cabinet message of September
8th, the military situation had ceased to be desperate, but was still
precarious. Twenty-two thousand regular troops were on the spot who might
hope to be reinforced by some ten thousand colonials, but these forces had
to cover a great frontier, the attitude of Cape Colony was by no means
whole-hearted and might become hostile, while the black population might
conceivably throw in its weight against us. Only half the regulars could
be spared to defend Natal, and no reinforcements could reach them in less
than a month from the outbreak of hostilities. If Mr. Chamberlain was
really playing a game of bluff, it must be confessed that he was bluffing
from a very weak hand.
For purposes of comparison we may give some idea of the forces which Mr.
Kruger and Mr. Steyn could put in the field, for by this time it was
evident that the Orange Free State, with which we had had no shadow of a
dispute, was going, in a way which some would call wanton and some
chivalrous, to throw in its weight against us. The general press estimate
of the forces of the two republics varied from 25,000 to 35,000 men. Mr.
J. B. Robinson, a personal friend of President Kruger’s and a man who had
spent much of his life among the Boers, considered the latter estimate to
be too high. The calculation had no assured basis to start from. A very
scattered and isolated population, among whom large families were the
rule, is a most difficult thing to estimate. Some reckoned from the
supposed natural increase during eighteen years, but the figure given at
that date was itself an assumption. Others took their calculation from the
number of voters in the last presidential election: but no one could tell
how many abstentions there had been, and the fighting age is five years
earlier than the voting age in the republics. We recognise now that all
calculations were far below the true figure. It is probable, however, that
the information of the British Intelligence Department was not far wrong.
According to this the fighting strength of the Transvaal alone was 32,000
men, and of the Orange Free State 22,000. With mercenaries and rebels from
the colonies they would amount to 60, 000, while a considerable rising of
the Cape Dutch would bring them up to 100,000. In artillery they were
known to have about a hundred guns, many of them (and the fact will need
much explaining) more modern and powerful than any which we could bring
against them. Of the quality of this large force there is no need to
speak. The men were brave, hardy, and fired with a strange religious
enthusiasm. They were all of the seventeenth century, except their rifles.
Mounted upon their hardy little ponies, they possessed a mobility which
practically doubled their numbers and made it an impossibility ever to
outflank them. As marksmen they were supreme. Add to this that they had
the advantage of acting upon internal lines with shorter and safer
communications, and one gathers how formidable a task lay before the
soldiers of the empire. When we turn from such an enumeration of their
strength to contemplate the 12,000 men, split into two detachments, who
awaited them in Natal, we may recognise that, far from bewailing our
disasters, we should rather congratulate ourselves upon our escape from
losing that great province which, situated as it is between Britain,
India, and Australia, must be regarded as the very keystone of the
imperial arch.
At the risk of a tedious but very essential digression, something must be
said here as to the motives with which the Boers had for many years been
quietly preparing for war. That the Jameson raid was not the cause is
certain, though it probably, by putting the Boer Government into a strong
position, had a great effect in accelerating matters. What had been done
secretly and slowly could be done more swiftly and openly when so
plausible an excuse could be given for it. As a matter of fact, the
preparations were long antecedent to the raid. The building of the forts
at Pretoria and Johannesburg was begun nearly two years before that
wretched incursion, and the importation of arms was going on apace. In
that very year, 1895, a considerable sum was spent in military equipment.
But if it was not the raid, and if the Boers had no reason to fear the
British Government, with whom the Transvaal might have been as friendly as
the Orange Free State had been for forty years, why then should they arm?
It was a difficult question, and one in answering which we find ourselves
in a region of conjecture and suspicion rather than of ascertained fact.
But the fairest and most unbiased of historians must confess that there is
a large body of evidence to show that into the heads of some of the Dutch
leaders, both in the northern republics and in the Cape, there had entered
the conception of a single Dutch commonwealth, extending from Cape Town to
the Zambesi, in which flag, speech, and law should all be Dutch. It is in
this aspiration that many shrewd and well-informed judges see the true
inner meaning of this persistent arming, of the constant hostility, of the
forming of ties between the two republics (one of whom had been
reconstituted and made a sovereign independent State by our own act), and
finally of that intriguing which endeavoured to poison the affection and
allegiance of our own Dutch colonists, who had no political grievances
whatever. They all aimed at one end, and that end was the final expulsion
of British power from South Africa and the formation of a single great
Dutch republic. The large sum spent by the Transvaal in secret service
money—a larger sum, I believe, than that which is spent by the whole
British Empire—would give some idea of the subterranean influences
at work. An army of emissaries, agents, and spies, whatever their mission,
were certainly spread over the British colonies. Newspapers were
subsidised also, and considerable sums spent upon the press in France and
Germany.
In the very nature of things a huge conspiracy of this sort to substitute
Dutch for British rule in South Africa is not a matter which can be easily
and definitely proved. Such questions are not discussed in public
documents, and men are sounded before being taken into the confidence of
the conspirators. But there is plenty of evidence of the individual
ambition of prominent and representative men in this direction, and it is
hard to believe that what many wanted individually was not striven for
collectively, especially when we see how the course of events did actually
work towards the end which they indicated. Mr. J.P. FitzPatrick, in ‘The
Transvaal from Within’—a book to which all subsequent writers upon
the subject must acknowledge their obligations—narrates how in 1896
he was approached by Mr. D.P. Graaff, formerly a member of the Cape
Legislative Council and a very prominent Afrikander Bondsman, with the
proposition that Great Britain should be pushed out of South Africa. The
same politician made the same proposal to Mr. Beit. Compare with this the
following statement of Mr. Theodore Schreiner, the brother of the Prime
Minister of the Cape:
‘I met Mr. Reitz, then a judge of the Orange Free State, in Bloemfontein
between seventeen and eighteen years ago, shortly after the retrocession
of the Transvaal, and when he was busy establishing the Afrikander Bond.
It must be patent to every one that at that time, at all events, England
and its Government had no intention of taking away the independence of the
Transvaal, for she had just “magnanimously” granted the same; no intention
of making war on the republics, for she had just made peace; no intention
to seize the Rand gold fields, for they were not yet discovered. At that
time, then, I met Mr. Reitz, and he did his best to get me to become a
member of his Afrikander Bond, but, after studying its constitution and
programme, I refused to do so, whereupon the following colloquy in
substance took place between us, which has been indelibly imprinted on my
mind ever since:
‘REITZ: Why do you refuse? Is the object of getting the people to take an
interest in political matters not a good one?
‘MYSELF: Yes, it is; but I seem to see plainly here between the lines of
this constitution much more ultimately aimed at than that.
‘REITZ: What?
‘MYSELF: I see quite clearly that the ultimate object aimed at is the
overthrow of the British power and the expulsion of the British flag from
South Africa.
‘REITZ (with his pleasant conscious smile, as of one whose secret thought
and purpose had been discovered, and who was not altogether displeased
that such was the case): Well, what if it is so?
‘MYSELF: You don’t suppose, do you, that that flag is going to disappear
from South Africa without a tremendous struggle and fight?
‘REITZ (with the same pleasant self-conscious, self satisfied, and yet
semi-apologetic smile): Well, I suppose not; but even so, what of that?
‘MYSELF: Only this, that when that struggle takes place you and I will be
on opposite sides; and what is more, the God who was on the side of the
Transvaal in the late war, because it had right on its side will be on the
side of England, because He must view with abhorrence any plotting and
scheming to overthrow her power and position in South Africa, which have
been ordained by Him.
‘REITZ: We’ll see.
‘Thus the conversation ended, but during the seventeen years that have
elapsed I have watched the propaganda for the overthrow of British power
in South Africa being ceaselessly spread by every possible means—the
press, the pulpit, the platform, the schools, the colleges, the
Legislature—until it has culminated in the present war, of which Mr.
Reitz and his co-workers are the origin and the cause. Believe me, the day
on which F.W. Reitz sat down to pen his ultimatum to Great Britain was the
proudest and happiest moment of his life, and one which had for long years
been looked forward to by him with eager longing and expectation.’
Compare with these utterances of a Dutch politician of the Cape, and of a
Dutch politician of the Orange Free State, the following passage from a
speech delivered by Kruger at Bloemfontein in the year 1887:
‘I think it too soon to speak of a United South Africa under one flag.
Which flag was it to be? The Queen of England would object to having her
flag hauled down, and we, the burghers of the Transvaal, object to hauling
ours down. What is to be done? We are now small and of little importance,
but we are growing, and are preparing the way to take our place among the
great nations of the world.’
‘The dream of our life,’ said another, ‘is a union of the States of South
Africa, and this has to come from within, not from without. When that is
accomplished, South Africa will be great.’
Always the same theory from all quarters of Dutch thought, to be followed
by many signs that the idea was being prepared for in practice. I repeat
that the fairest and most unbiased historian cannot dismiss the conspiracy
as a myth.
And to this one may retort, why should they not conspire? Why should they
not have their own views as to the future of South Africa? Why should they
not endeavour to have one universal flag and one common speech? Why should
they not win over our colonists, if they can, and push us into the sea? I
see no reason why they should not. Let them try if they will. And let us
try to prevent them. But let us have an end of talk about British
aggression, of capitalist designs upon the gold fields, of the wrongs of a
pastoral people, and all the other veils which have been used to cover the
issue. Let those who talk about British designs upon the republics turn
their attention for a moment to the evidence which there is for republican
designs upon the colonies. Let them reflect that in the one system all
white men are equal, and that on the other the minority of one race has
persecuted the majority of the other, and let them consider under which
the truest freedom lies, which stands for universal liberty and which for
reaction and racial hatred. Let them ponder and answer all this before
they determine where their sympathies lie.
Leaving these wider questions of politics, and dismissing for the time
those military considerations which were soon to be of such vital moment,
we may now return to the course of events in the diplomatic struggle
between the Government of the Transvaal and the Colonial Office. On
September 8th, as already narrated, a final message was sent to Pretoria,
which stated the minimum terms which the British Government could accept
as being a fair concession to her subjects in the Transvaal. A definite
answer was demanded, and the nation waited with sombre patience for the
reply.
There were few illusions in this country as to the difficulties of a
Transvaal war. It was clearly seen that little honour and immense vexation
were in store for us. The first Boer war still smarted in our minds, and
we knew the prowess of the indomitable burghers. But our people, if
gloomy, were none the less resolute, for that national instinct which is
beyond the wisdom of statesmen had borne it in upon them that this was no
local quarrel, but one upon which the whole existence of the empire hung.
The cohesion of that empire was to be tested. Men had emptied their
glasses to it in time of peace. Was it a meaningless pouring of wine, or
were they ready to pour their hearts’ blood also in time of war? Had we
really founded a series of disconnected nations, with no common sentiment
or interest, or was the empire an organic whole, as ready to thrill with
one emotion or to harden into one resolve as are the several States of the
Union? That was the question at issue, and much of the future history of
the world was at stake upon the answer.
Already there were indications that the colonies appreciated the fact that
the contention was no affair of the mother country alone, but that she was
upholding the rights of the empire as a whole, and might fairly look to
them to support her in any quarrel which might arise from it. As early as
July 11th, Queensland, the fiery and semitropical, had offered a
contingent of mounted infantry with machine guns; New Zealand, Western
Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia
followed in the order named. Canada, with the strong but more deliberate
spirit of the north, was the last to speak, but spoke the more firmly for
the delay. Her citizens were the least concerned of any, for Australians
were many in South Africa but Canadians few. None the less, she cheerfully
took her share of the common burden, and grew the readier and the cheerier
as that burden came to weigh more heavily. From all the men of many hues
who make up the British Empire, from Hindoo Rajahs, from West African
Houssas, from Malay police, from Western Indians, there came offers of
service. But this was to be a white man’s war, and if the British could
not work out their own salvation then it were well that empire should pass
from such a race. The magnificent Indian army of 150,000 soldiers, many of
them seasoned veterans, was for the same reason left untouched. England
has claimed no credit or consideration for such abstention, but an
irresponsible writer may well ask how many of those foreign critics whose
respect for our public morality appears to be as limited as their
knowledge of our principles and history would have advocated such self
denial had their own countries been placed in the same position.
On September 18th the official reply of the Boer Government to the message
sent from the Cabinet Council was published in London. In manner it was
unbending and unconciliatory; in substance, it was a complete rejection of
all the British demands. It refused to recommend or propose to the Raad
the five years’ franchise and the other measures which had been defined as
the minimum which the Home Government could accept as a fair measure of
justice towards the Uitlanders. The suggestion that the debates of the
Raad should be bilingual, as they have been in the Cape Colony and in
Canada, was absolutely waived aside. The British Government had stated in
their last dispatch that if the reply should be negative or inconclusive
they reserved to themselves the right to ‘reconsider the situation de novo
and to formulate their own proposals for a final settlement.’ The reply
had been both negative and inconclusive, and on September 22nd a council
met to determine what the next message should be. It was short and firm,
but so planned as not to shut the door upon peace. Its purport was that
the British Government expressed deep regret at the rejection of the
moderate proposals which had been submitted in their last dispatch, and
that now, in accordance with their promise, they would shortly put forward
their own plans for a settlement. The message was not an ultimatum, but it
foreshadowed an ultimatum in the future.
In the meantime, upon September 21st the Raad of the Orange Free State had
met, and it became more and more evident that this republic, with whom we
had no possible quarrel, but, on the contrary, for whom we had a great
deal of friendship and admiration, intended to throw in its weight against
Great Britain. Some time before, an offensive and defensive alliance had
been concluded between the two States, which must, until the secret
history of these events comes to be written, appear to have been a
singularly rash and unprofitable bargain for the smaller one. She had
nothing to fear from Great Britain, since she had been voluntarily turned
into an independent republic by her and had lived in peace with her for
forty years. Her laws were as liberal as our own. But by this suicidal
treaty she agreed to share the fortunes of a State which was deliberately
courting war by its persistently unfriendly attitude, and whose
reactionary and narrow legislation would, one might imagine, have
alienated the sympathy of her progressive neighbour. There may have been
ambitions like those already quoted from the report of Dr. Reitz’s
conversation, or there may have been a complete hallucination as to the
comparative strength of the two combatants and the probable future of
South Africa; but however that may be, the treaty was made, and the time
had come to test how far it would hold.
The tone of President Steyn at the meeting of the Raad, and the support
which he received from the majority of his burghers, showed unmistakably
that the two republics would act as one. In his opening speech Steyn
declared uncompromisingly against the British contention, and declared
that his State was bound to the Transvaal by everything which was near and
dear. Among the obvious military precautions which could no longer be
neglected by the British Government was the sending of some small force to
protect the long and exposed line of railway which lies just outside the
Transvaal border from Kimberley to Rhodesia. Sir Alfred Milner
communicated with President Steyn as to this movement of troops, pointing
out that it was in no way directed against the Free State. Sir Alfred
Milner added that the Imperial Government was still hopeful of a friendly
settlement with the Transvaal, but if this hope were disappointed they
looked to the Orange Free State to preserve strict neutrality and to
prevent military intervention by any of its citizens. They undertook that
in that case the integrity of the Free State frontier would be strictly
preserved. Finally, he stated that there was absolutely no cause to
disturb the good relations between the Free State and Great Britain, since
we were animated by the most friendly intentions towards them. To this the
President returned a somewhat ungracious answer, to the effect that he
disapproved of our action towards the Transvaal, and that he regretted the
movement of troops, which would be considered a menace by the burghers. A
subsequent resolution of the Free State Raad, ending with the words, ‘Come
what may, the Free State will honestly and faithfully fulfill its
obligations towards the Transvaal by virtue of the political alliance
existing between the two republics,’ showed how impossible it was that
this country, formed by ourselves and without a shadow of a cause of
quarrel with us, could be saved from being drawn into the whirlpool.
Everywhere, from over both borders, came the news of martial preparations.
Already at the end of September troops and armed burghers were gathering
upon the frontier, and the most incredulous were beginning at last to
understand that the shadow of a great war was really falling across them.
Artillery, war munitions, and stores were being accumulated at Volksrust
upon the Natal border, showing where the storm might be expected to break.
On the last day of September, twenty-six military trains were reported to
have left Pretoria and Johannesburg for that point. At the same time news
came of a concentration at Malmani, upon the Bechuanaland border,
threatening the railway line and the British town of Mafeking, a name
destined before long to be familiar to the world.
On October 3rd there occurred what was in truth an act of war, although
the British Government, patient to the verge of weakness, refused to
regard it as such, and continued to draw up their final state paper. The
mail train from the Transvaal to Cape Town was stopped at Vereeniging, and
the week’s shipment of gold for England, amounting to about half a million
pounds, was taken by the Boer Government. In a debate at Cape Town upon
the same day the Africander Minister of the Interior admitted that as many
as 404 trucks had passed from the Government line over the frontier and
had not been returned. Taken in conjunction with the passage of arms and
cartridges through the Cape to Pretoria and Bloemfontein, this incident
aroused the deepest indignation among the Colonial English and the British
public, which was increased by the reports of the difficulty which border
towns, such as Kimberley and Vryburg, had had in getting cannon for their
own defence. The Raads had been dissolved, and the old President’s last
words had been a statement that war was certain, and a stern invocation of
the Lord as final arbiter. England was ready less obtrusively but no less
heartily to refer the quarrel to the same dread Judge.
On October 2nd President Steyn informed Sir Alfred Milner that he had
deemed it necessary to call out the Free State burghers—that is, to
mobilise his forces. Sir A. Milner wrote regretting these preparations,
and declaring that he did not yet despair of peace, for he was sure that
any reasonable proposal would be favourably considered by her Majesty’s
Government. Steyn’s reply was that there was no use in negotiating unless
the stream of British reinforcements ceased coming into South Africa. As
our forces were still in a great minority, it was impossible to stop the
reinforcements, so the correspondence led to nothing. On October 7th the
army reserves for the First Army Corps were called out in Great Britain
and other signs shown that it had been determined to send a considerable
force to South Africa. Parliament was also summoned that the formal
national assent might be gained for those grave measures which were
evidently pending.
It was on October 9th that the somewhat leisurely proceedings of the
British Colonial Office were brought to a head by the arrival of an
unexpected and audacious ultimatum from the Boer Government. In contests
of wit, as of arms, it must be confessed that the laugh has been usually
upon the side of our simple and pastoral South African neighbours. The
present instance was no exception to the rule. While our Government was
cautiously and patiently leading up to an ultimatum, our opponent suddenly
played the very card which we were preparing to lay upon the table. The
document was very firm and explicit, but the terms in which it was drawn
were so impossible that it was evidently framed with the deliberate
purpose of forcing an immediate war. It demanded that the troops upon the
borders of the republic should be instantly withdrawn, that all
reinforcements which had arrived within the last year should leave South
Africa, and that those who were now upon the sea should be sent back
without being landed. Failing a satisfactory answer within forty-eight
hours, ‘the Transvaal Government will with great regret be compelled to
regard the action of her Majesty’s Government as a formal declaration of
war, for the consequences of which it will not hold itself responsible.’
The audacious message was received throughout the empire with a mixture of
derision and anger. The answer was dispatched next day through Sir Alfred
Milner.
’10th October.—Her Majesty’s Government have received with great
regret the peremptory demands of the Government of the South African
Republic, conveyed in your telegram of the 9th October. You will inform
the Government of the South African Republic in reply that the conditions
demanded by the Government of the South African Republic are such as her
Majesty’s Government deem it impossible to discuss.’
And so we have come to the end of the long road, past the battle of the
pens and the wrangling of tongues, to the arbitration of the Lee-Metford
and the Mauser. It was pitiable that it should come to this. These people
were as near akin to us as any race which is not our own. They were of the
same Frisian stock which peopled our own shores. In habit of mind, in
religion, in respect for law, they were as ourselves. Brave, too, they
were, and hospitable, with those sporting instincts which are dear to the
Anglo-Celtic race. There was no people in the world who had more qualities
which we might admire, and not the least of them was that love of
independence which it is our proudest boast that we have encouraged in
others as well as exercised ourselves. And yet we had come to this pass,
that there was no room in all vast South Africa for both of us. We cannot
hold ourselves blameless in the matter. ‘The evil that men do lives after
them,’ and it has been told in this small superficial sketch where we have
erred in the past in South Africa. On our hands, too, is the Jameson raid,
carried out by Englishmen and led by officers who held the Queen’s
Commission; to us, also, the blame of the shuffling, half-hearted inquiry
into that most unjustifiable business. These are matches which helped to
set the great blaze alight, and it is we who held them. But the fagots
which proved to be so inflammable, they were not of our setting. They were
the wrongs done to half the community, the settled resolution of the
minority to tax and vex the majority, the determination of a people who
had lived two generations in a country to claim that country entirely for
themselves. Behind them all there may have been the Dutch ambition to
dominate South Africa. It was no petty object for which Britain fought.
When a nation struggles uncomplainingly through months of disaster she may
claim to have proved her conviction of the justice and necessity of the
struggle. Should Dutch ideas or English ideas of government prevail
throughout that huge country? The one means freedom for a single race, the
other means equal rights to all white men beneath one common law. What
each means to the coloured races let history declare. This was the main
issue to be determined from the instant that the clock struck five upon
the afternoon of Wednesday, October the eleventh, eighteen hundred and
ninety-nine. That moment marked the opening of a war destined to determine
the fate of South Africa, to work great changes in the British Empire, to
seriously affect the future history of the world, and incidentally to
alter many of our views as to the art of war. It is the story of this war
which, with limited material but with much aspiration to care and candour,
I shall now endeavour to tell.
CHAPTER 5. TALANA HILL.
It was on the morning of October 12th, amid cold and mist, that the Boer
camps at Sandspruit and Volksrust broke up, and the burghers rode to the
war. Some twelve thousand of them, all mounted, with two batteries of
eight Krupp guns each, were the invading force from the north, which hoped
later to be joined by the Freestaters and by a contingent of Germans and
Transvaalers who were to cross the Free State border. It was an hour
before dawn that the guns started, and the riflemen followed close behind
the last limber, so that the first light of day fell upon the black
sinuous line winding down between the hills. A spectator upon the occasion
says of them: ‘Their faces were a study. For the most part the expression
worn was one of determination and bulldog pertinacity. No sign of fear
there, nor of wavering. Whatever else may be laid to the charge of the
Boer, it may never truthfully be said that he is a coward or a man
unworthy of the Briton’s steel.’ The words were written early in the
campaign, and the whole empire will endorse them to-day. Could we have
such men as willing fellow-citizens, they are worth more than all the gold
mines of their country.
This main Transvaal body consisted of the commando of Pretoria, which
comprised 1800 men, and those of Heidelberg, Middelburg, Krugersdorp,
Standerton, Wakkerstroom, and Ermelo, with the State Artillery, an
excellent and highly organised body who were provided with the best guns
that have ever been brought on to a battlefield. Besides their sixteen
Krupps, they dragged with them two heavy six-inch Creusot guns, which were
destined to have a very important effect in the earlier part of the
campaign. In addition to these native forces there were a certain number
of European auxiliaries. The greater part of the German corps were with
the Free State forces, but a few hundred came down from the north. There
was a Hollander corps of about two hundred and fifty and an Irish—or
perhaps more properly an Irish-American-corps of the same number, who rode
under the green flag and the harp.
The men might, by all accounts, be divided into two very different types.
There were the town Boers, smartened and perhaps a little enervated by
prosperity and civilisation, men of business and professional men, more
alert and quicker than their rustic comrades. These men spoke English
rather than Dutch, and indeed there were many men of English descent among
them. But the others, the most formidable both in their numbers and in
their primitive qualities, were the back-veld Boers, the sunburned,
tangle-haired, full-bearded farmers, the men of the Bible and the rifle,
imbued with the traditions of their own guerrilla warfare. These were
perhaps the finest natural warriors upon earth, marksmen, hunters,
accustomed to hard fare and a harder couch. They were rough in their ways
and speech, but, in spite of many calumnies and some few unpleasant
truths, they might compare with most disciplined armies in their humanity
and their desire to observe the usages of war.
A few words here as to the man who led this singular host. Piet Joubert
was a Cape Colonist by birth—a fellow countryman, like Kruger
himself, of those whom the narrow laws of his new country persisted in
regarding as outside the pale. He came from that French Huguenot blood
which has strengthened and refined every race which it has touched, and
from it he derived a chivalry and generosity which made him respected and
liked even by his opponents. In many native broils and in the British
campaign of 1881 he had shown himself a capable leader. His record in
standing out for the independence of the Transvaal was a very consistent
one, for he had not accepted office under the British, as Kruger had done,
but had remained always an irreconcilable. Tall and burly, with hard grey
eyes and a grim mouth half hidden by his bushy beard, he was a fine type
of the men whom he led. He was now in his sixty-fifth year, and the fire
of his youth had, as some of the burghers urged, died down within him; but
he was experienced, crafty, and warwise, never dashing and never
brilliant, but slow, steady, solid, and inexorable.
Besides this northern army there were two other bodies of burghers
converging upon Natal. One, consisting of the commandoes from Utrecht and
the Swaziland districts, had gathered at Vryheid on the flank of the
British position at Dundee. The other, much larger, not less probably than
six or seven thousand men, were the contingent from the Free State and a
Transvaal corps, together with Schiel’s Germans, who were making their way
through the various passes, the Tintwa Pass, and Van Reenen’s Pass, which
lead through the grim range of the Drakensberg and open out upon the more
fertile plains of Western Natal. The total force may have been something
between twenty and thirty thousand men. By all accounts they were of an
astonishingly high heart, convinced that a path of easy victory lay before
them, and that nothing could bar their way to the sea. If the British
commanders underrated their opponents, there is ample evidence that the
mistake was reciprocal.
A few words now as to the disposition of the British forces, concerning
which it must be borne in mind that Sir George White, though in actual
command, had only been a few days in the country before war was declared,
so that the arrangements fell to General Penn Symons, aided or hampered by
the advice of the local political authorities. The main position was at
Ladysmith, but an advance post was strongly held at Glencoe, which is five
miles from the station of Dundee and forty from Ladysmith. The reason for
this dangerous division of force was to secure each end of the Biggarsberg
section of the railway, and also to cover the important collieries of that
district. The positions chosen seem in each case to show that the British
commander was not aware of the number and power of the Boer guns, for each
was equally defensible against rifle fire and vulnerable to an artillery
attack. In the case of Glencoe it was particularly evident that guns upon
the hills above would, as they did, render the position untenable. This
outlying post was held by the 1st Leicester Regiment, the 2nd Dublin
Fusiliers, and the first battalion of Rifles, with the 18th Hussars, three
companies of mounted infantry, and three batteries of field artillery, the
13th, 67th, and 69th. The 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers were on their way to
reinforce it, and arrived before the first action. Altogether the Glencoe
camp contained some four thousand men.
The main body of the army remained at Ladysmith. These consisted of the
1st Devons, the 1st Liverpools, and the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, with the
1st Gloucesters, the 2nd King’s Royal Rifles, and the 2nd Rifle Brigade,
reinforced later by the Manchesters. The cavalry included the 5th Dragoon
Guards, the 5th Lancers, a detachment of 19th Hussars, the Natal
Carabineers, the Natal Mounted Police, and the Border Mounted Rifles,
reinforced later by the Imperial Light Horse, a fine body of men raised
principally among the refugees from the Rand. For artillery there were the
21st, 42nd, and 53rd batteries of field artillery, and No. 10 Mountain
Battery, with the Natal Field Artillery, the guns of which were too light
to be of service, and the 23rd Company of Royal Engineers. The whole
force, some eight or nine thousand strong, was under the immediate command
of Sir George White, with Sir Archibald Hunter, fresh from the Soudan,
General French, and General Ian Hamilton as his lieutenants.
The first shock of the Boers, then, must fall upon 4000 men. If these
could be overwhelmed, there were 8000 more to be defeated or masked. Then
what was there between them and the sea? Some detachments of local
volunteers, the Durban Light Infantry at Colenso, and the Natal Royal
Rifles, with some naval volunteers at Estcourt. With the power of the
Boers and their mobility it is inexplicable how the colony was saved. We
are of the same blood, the Boers and we, and we show it in our failings.
Over-confidence on our part gave them the chance, and over-confidence on
theirs prevented them from instantly availing themselves of it. It passed,
never to come again.
The outbreak of war was upon October 11th. On the 12th the Boer forces
crossed the frontier both on the north and on the west. On the 13th they
occupied Charlestown at the top angle of Natal. On the 15th they had
reached Newcastle, a larger town some fifteen miles inside the border.
Watchers from the houses saw six miles of canvas-tilted bullock wagons
winding down the passes, and learned that this was not a raid but an
invasion. At the same date news reached the British headquarters of an
advance from the western passes, and of a movement from the Buffalo River
on the east. On the 13th Sir George White had made a reconnaissance in
force, but had not come in touch with the enemy. On the 15th six of the
Natal Police were surrounded and captured at one of the drifts of the
Buffalo River. On the 18th our cavalry patrols came into touch with the
Boer scouts at Acton Homes and Besters Station, these being the
voortrekkers of the Orange Free State force. On the 18th also a detachment
was reported from Hadders Spruit, seven miles north of Glencoe Camp. The
cloud was drifting up, and it could not be long before it would burst.
Two days later, on the early morning of October 20th, the forces came at
last into collision. At half-past three in the morning, well before
daylight, the mounted infantry picket at the junction of the roads from
Landmans and Vants Drifts was fired into by the Doornberg commando, and
retired upon its supports. Two companies of the Dublin Fusiliers were sent
out, and at five o’clock on a fine but misty morning the whole of Symons’s
force was under arms with the knowledge that the Boers were pushing boldly
towards them. The khaki-clad lines of fighting men stood in their long
thin ranks staring up at the curves of the saddle-back hills to the north
and east of them, and straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of the
enemy. Why these same saddle-back hills were not occupied by our own
people is, it must be confessed, an insoluble mystery. In a hollow on one
flank were the 18th Hussars and the mounted infantry. On the other were
the eighteen motionless guns, limbered up and ready, the horses fidgeting
and stamping in the raw morning air.
And then suddenly—could that be they? An officer with a telescope
stared intently and pointed. Another and another turned a steady field
glass towards the same place. And then the men could see also, and a
little murmur of interest ran down the ranks.
A long sloping hill—Talana Hill—olive-green in hue, was
stretching away in front of them. At the summit it rose into a rounded
crest. The mist was clearing, and the curve was hard-outlined against the
limpid blue of the morning sky. On this, some two and a half miles or
three miles off, a little group of black dots had appeared. The clear edge
of the skyline had become serrated with moving figures. They clustered
into a knot, then opened again, and then—
There had been no smoke, but there came a long crescendo hoot, rising into
a shrill wail. The shell hummed over the soldiers like a great bee, and
sloshed into soft earth behind them. Then another—and yet another—and
yet another. But there was no time to heed them, for there was the
hillside and there the enemy. So at it again with the good old murderous
obsolete heroic tactics of the British tradition! There are times when, in
spite of science and book-lore, the best plan is the boldest plan, and it
is well to fly straight at your enemy’s throat, facing the chance that
your strength may fail before you can grasp it. The cavalry moved off
round the enemy’s left flank. The guns dashed to the front, unlimbered,
and opened fire. The infantry were moved round in the direction of
Sandspruit, passing through the little town of Dundee, where the women and
children came to the doors and windows to cheer them. It was thought that
the hill was more accessible from that side. The Leicesters and one field
battery—the 67th—were left behind to protect the camp and to
watch the Newcastle Road upon the west. At seven in the morning all was
ready for the assault.
Two military facts of importance had already been disclosed. One was that
the Boer percussion-shells were useless in soft ground, as hardly any of
them exploded; the other that the Boer guns could outrange our ordinary
fifteen-pounder field gun, which had been the one thing perhaps in the
whole British equipment upon which we were prepared to pin our faith. The
two batteries, the 13th and the 69th, were moved nearer, first to 3000,
and then at last to 2300 yards, at which range they quickly dominated the
guns upon the hill. Other guns had opened from another crest to the east
of Talana, but these also were mastered by the fire of the 13th Battery.
At 7.30 the infantry were ordered to advance, which they did in open
order, extended to ten paces. The Dublin Fusiliers formed the first line,
the Rifles the second, and the Irish Fusiliers the third.
The first thousand yards of the advance were over open grassland, where
the range was long, and the yellow brown of the khaki blended with the
withered veld. There were few casualties until the wood was reached, which
lay halfway up the long slope of the hill. It was a plantation of larches,
some hundreds of yards across and nearly as many deep. On the left side of
this wood—that is, the left side to the advancing troops—there
stretched a long nullah or hollow, which ran perpendicularly to the hill,
and served rather as a conductor of bullets than as a cover. So severe was
the fire at this point that both in the wood and in the nullah the troops
lay down to avoid it. An officer of Irish Fusiliers has narrated how in
trying to cut the straps from a fallen private a razor lent him for that
purpose by a wounded sergeant was instantly shot out of his hand. The
gallant Symons, who had refused to dismount, was shot through the stomach
and fell from his horse mortally wounded. With an excessive gallantry, he
had not only attracted the enemy’s fire by retaining his horse, but he had
been accompanied throughout the action by an orderly bearing a red pennon.
‘Have they got the hill? Have they got the hill?’ was his one eternal
question as they carried him dripping to the rear. It was at the edge of
the wood that Colonel Sherston met his end.
From now onwards it was as much a soldiers’ battle as Inkermann. In the
shelter of the wood the more eager of the three battalions had pressed to
the front until the fringe of the trees was lined by men from all of them.
The difficulty of distinguishing particular regiments where all were clad
alike made it impossible in the heat of action to keep any sort of
formation. So hot was the fire that for the time the advance was brought
to a standstill, but the 69th battery, firing shrapnel at a range of 1400
yards, subdued the rifle fire, and about half-past eleven the infantry
were able to push on once more.
Above the wood there was an open space some hundreds of yards across,
bounded by a rough stone wall built for herding cattle. A second wall ran
at right angles to this down towards the wood. An enfilading rifle fire
had been sweeping across this open space, but the wall in front does not
appear to have been occupied by the enemy, who held the kopje above it. To
avoid the cross fire the soldiers ran in single file under the shelter of
the wall, which covered them to the right, and so reached the other wall
across their front. Here there was a second long delay, the men dribbling
up from below, and firing over the top of the wall and between the chinks
of the stones. The Dublin Fusiliers, through being in a more difficult
position, had been unable to get up as quickly as the others, and most of
the hard-breathing excited men who crowded under the wall were of the
Rifles and of the Irish Fusiliers. The air was so full of bullets that it
seemed impossible to live upon the other side of this shelter. Two hundred
yards intervened between the wall and the crest of the kopje. And yet the
kopje had to be cleared if the battle were to be won.
Out of the huddled line of crouching men an officer sprang shouting, and a
score of soldiers vaulted over the wall and followed at his heels. It was
Captain Connor, of the Irish Fusiliers, but his personal magnetism carried
up with him some of the Rifles as well as men of his own command. He and
half his little forlorn hope were struck down—he, alas! to die the
same night—but there were other leaders as brave to take his place.
‘Forrard away, men, forrard away!’ cried Nugent, of the Rifles. Three
bullets struck him, but he continued to drag himself up the
boulder-studded hill. Others followed, and others, from all sides they
came running, the crouching, yelling, khaki-clad figures, and the supports
rushed up from the rear. For a time they were beaten down by their own
shrapnel striking into them from behind, which is an amazing thing when
one considers that the range was under 2000 yards. It was here, between
the wall and the summit, that Colonel Gunning, of the Rifles, and many
other brave men met their end, some by our own bullets and some by those
of the enemy; but the Boers thinned away in front of them, and the anxious
onlookers from the plain below saw the waving helmets on the crest, and
learned at last that all was well.
But it was, it must be confessed, a Pyrrhic victory. We had our hill, but
what else had we? The guns which had been silenced by our fire had been
removed from the kopje. The commando which seized the hill was that of
Lucas Meyer, and it is computed that he had with him about 4000 men. This
figure includes those under the command of Erasmus, who made halfhearted
demonstrations against the British flank. If the shirkers be eliminated,
it is probable that there were not more than a thousand actual combatants
upon the hill. Of this number about fifty were killed and a hundred
wounded. The British loss at Talana Hill itself was 41 killed and 180
wounded, but among the killed were many whom the army could ill spare. The
gallant but optimistic Symons, Gunning of the Rifles, Sherston, Connor,
Hambro, and many other brave men died that day. The loss of officers was
out of all proportion to that of the men.
An incident which occurred immediately after the action did much to rob
the British of the fruits of the victory. Artillery had pushed up the
moment that the hill was carried, and had unlimbered on Smith’s Nek
between the two hills, from which the enemy, in broken groups of 50 and
100, could be seen streaming away. A fairer chance for the use of shrapnel
has never been. But at this instant there ran from an old iron church on
the reverse side of the hill, which had been used all day as a Boer
hospital, a man with a white flag. It is probable that the action was in
good faith, and that it was simply intended to claim a protection for the
ambulance party which followed him. But the too confiding gunner in
command appears to have thought that an armistice had been declared, and
held his hand during those precious minutes which might have turned a
defeat into a rout. The chance passed, never to return. The double error
of firing into our own advance and of failing to fire into the enemy’s
retreat makes the battle one which cannot be looked back to with
satisfaction by our gunners.
In the meantime some miles away another train of events had led to a
complete disaster to our small cavalry force—a disaster which robbed
our dearly bought infantry victory of much of its importance. That action
alone was undoubtedly a victorious one, but the net result of the day’s
fighting cannot be said to have been certainly in our favour. It was
Wellington who asserted that his cavalry always got him into scrapes, and
the whole of British military history might furnish examples of what he
meant. Here again our cavalry got into trouble. Suffice it for the
civilian to chronicle the fact, and leave it to the military critic to
portion out the blame.
One company of mounted infantry (that of the Rifles) had been told off to
form an escort for the guns. The rest of the mounted infantry with part of
the 18th Hussars (Colonel Moller) had moved round the right flank until
they reached the right rear of the enemy. Such a movement, had Lucas Meyer
been the only opponent, would have been above criticism; but knowing, as
we did, that there were several commandoes converging upon Glencoe it was
obviously taking a very grave and certain risk to allow the cavalry to
wander too far from support. They were soon entangled in broken country
and attacked by superior numbers of the Boers. There was a time when they
might have exerted an important influence upon the action by attacking the
Boer ponies behind the hills, but the opportunity was allowed to pass. An
attempt was made to get back to the army, and a series of defensive
positions were held to cover the retreat, but the enemy’s fire became too
hot to allow them to be retained. Every route save one appeared to be
blocked, so the horsemen took this, which led them into the heart of a
second commando of the enemy. Finding no way through, the force took up a
defensive position, part of them in a farm and part on a kopje which
overlooked it.
The party consisted of two troops of Hussars, one company of mounted
infantry of the Dublin Fusiliers, and one section of the mounted infantry
of the Rifles—about two hundred men in all. They were subjected to a
hot fire for some hours, many being killed and wounded. Guns were brought
up, and fired shell into the farmhouse. At 4.30 the force, being in a
perfectly hopeless position, laid down their arms. Their ammunition was
gone, many of their horses had stampeded, and they were hemmed in by very
superior numbers, so that no slightest slur can rest upon the survivors
for their decision to surrender, though the movements which brought them
to such a pass are more open to criticism. They were the vanguard of that
considerable body of humiliated and bitter-hearted men who were to
assemble at the capital of our brave and crafty enemy. The remainder of
the 18th Hussars, who under Major Knox had been detached from the main
force and sent across the Boer rear, underwent a somewhat similar
experience, but succeeded in extricating themselves with a loss of six
killed and ten wounded. Their efforts were by no means lost, as they
engaged the attention of a considerable body of Boers during the day and
were able to bring some prisoners back with them.
The battle of Talana Hill was a tactical victory but a strategic defeat.
It was a crude frontal attack without any attempt at even a feint of
flanking, but the valour of the troops, from general to private, carried
it through. The force was in a position so radically false that the only
use which they could make of a victory was to cover their own retreat.
From all points Boer commandoes were converging upon it, and already it
was understood that the guns at their command were heavier than any which
could be placed against them. This was made more clear on October 21st,
the day after the battle, when the force, having withdrawn overnight from
the useless hill which they had captured, moved across to a fresh position
on the far side of the railway. At four in the afternoon a very heavy gun
opened from a distant hill, altogether beyond the extreme range of our
artillery, and plumped shell after shell into our camp. It was the first
appearance of the great Creusot. An officer with several men of the
Leicesters, and some of our few remaining cavalry, were bit. The position
was clearly impossible, so at two in the morning of the 22nd the whole
force was moved to a point to the south of the town of Dundee. On the same
day a reconnaissance was made in the direction of Glencoe Station, but the
passes were found to be strongly occupied, and the little army marched
back again to its original position. The command had fallen to Colonel
Yule, who justly considered that his men were dangerously and uselessly
exposed, and that his correct strategy was to fall back, if it were still
possible, and join the main body at Ladysmith, even at the cost of
abandoning the two hundred sick and wounded who lay with General Symons in
the hospital at Dundee. It was a painful necessity, but no one who studies
the situation can have any doubt of its wisdom. The retreat was no easy
task, a march by road of some sixty or seventy miles through a very rough
country with an enemy pressing on every side. Its successful completion
without any loss or any demoralisation of the troops is perhaps as fine a
military exploit as any of our early victories. Through the energetic and
loyal co-operation of Sir George White, who fought the actions of
Elandslaagte and of Rietfontein in order to keep the way open for them,
and owing mainly to the skillful guidance of Colonel Dartnell, of the
Natal Police, they succeeded in their critical manoeuvre. On October 23rd
they were at Beith, on the 24th at Waselibank Spruit, on the 25th at
Sunday River, and next morning they marched, sodden with rain, plastered
with mud, dog-tired, but in the best of spirits, into Ladysmith amid the
cheers of their comrades. A battle, six days without settled sleep, four
days without a proper meal, winding up with a single march of thirty-two
miles over heavy ground and through a pelting rain storm—that was
the record of the Dundee column. They had fought and won, they had striven
and toiled to the utmost capacity of manhood, and the end of it all was
that they had reached the spot which they should never have left. But
their endurance could not be lost—no worthy deed is ever lost. Like
the light division, when they marched their fifty odd unbroken miles to be
present at Talavera, they leave a memory and a standard behind them which
is more important than success. It is by the tradition of such sufferings
and such endurance that others in other days are nerved to do the like.
CHAPTER 6. ELANDSLAAGTE AND RIETFONTEIN.
While the Glencoe force had struck furiously at the army of Lucas Meyer,
and had afterwards by hard marching disengaged itself from the numerous
dangers which threatened it, its comrades at Ladysmith had loyally
co-operated in drawing off the attention of the enemy and keeping the line
of retreat open.
On October 20th—the same day as the Battle of Talana Hill—the
line was cut by the Boers at a point nearly midway between Dundee and
Ladysmith. A small body of horsemen were the forerunners of a considerable
commando, composed of Freestaters, Transvaalers, and Germans, who had
advanced into Natal through Botha’s Pass under the command of General
Koch. They had with them the two Maxim-Nordenfelds which had been captured
from the Jameson raiders, and were now destined to return once more to
British hands. Colonel Schiel, the German artillerist, had charge of these
guns.
On the evening of that day General French, with a strong reconnoitering
party, including the Natal Carabineers, the 5th Lancers, and the 21st
battery, had defined the enemy’s position. Next morning (the 21st) he
returned, but either the enemy had been reinforced during the night or he
had underrated them the day before, for the force which he took with him
was too weak for any serious attack. He had one battery of the Natal
artillery, with their little seven-pounder popguns, five squadrons of the
Imperial Horse, and, in the train which slowly accompanied his advance,
half a battalion of the Manchester Regiment. Elated by the news of Talana
Hill, and anxious to emulate their brothers of Dundee, the little force
moved out of Ladysmith in the early morning.
Some at least of the men were animated by feelings such as seldom find a
place in the breast of the British soldier as he marches into battle. A
sense of duty, a belief in the justice of his cause, a love for his
regiment and for his country, these are the common incentives of every
soldier. But to the men of the Imperial Light Horse, recruited as they
were from among the British refugees of the Rand, there was added a
burning sense of injustice, and in many cases a bitter hatred against the
men whose rule had weighed so heavily upon them. In this singular corps
the ranks were full of wealthy men and men of education, who, driven from
their peaceful vocations in Johannesburg, were bent upon fighting their
way back to them again. A most unmerited slur had been cast upon their
courage in connection with the Jameson raid—a slur which they and
other similar corps have washed out for ever in their own blood and that
of their enemy. Chisholm, a fiery little Lancer, was in command, with
Karri Davis and Wools-Sampson, the two stalwarts who had preferred
Pretoria Gaol to the favours of Kruger, as his majors. The troopers were
on fire at the news that a cartel had arrived in Ladysmith the night
before, purporting to come from the Johannesburg Boers and Hollanders,
asking what uniform the Light Horse wore, as they were anxious to meet
them in battle. These men were fellow townsmen and knew each other well.
They need not have troubled about the uniform, for before evening the
Light Horse were near enough for them to know their faces.
It was about eight o’clock on a bright summer morning that the small force
came in contact with a few scattered Boer outposts, who retired, firing,
before the advance of the Imperial Light Horse. As they fell back the
green and white tents of the invaders came into view upon the
russet-coloured hillside of Elandslaagte. Down at the red brick railway
station the Boers could be seen swarming out of the buildings in which
they had spent the night. The little Natal guns, firing with obsolete
black powder, threw a few shells into the station, one of which, it is
said, penetrated a Boer ambulance which could not be seen by the gunners.
The accident was to be regretted, but as no patients could have been in
the ambulance the mischance was not a serious one.
But the busy, smoky little seven-pounder guns were soon to meet their
master. Away up on the distant hillside, a long thousand yards beyond
their own furthest range, there was a sudden bright flash. No smoke, only
the throb of flame, and then the long sibilant scream of the shell, and
the thud as it buried itself in the ground under a limber. Such judgment
of range would have delighted the most martinet of inspectors at
Okehampton. Bang came another, and another, and another, right into the
heart of the battery. The six little guns lay back at their extremest
angle, and all barked together in impotent fury. Another shell pitched
over them, and the officer in command lowered his field-glass in despair
as he saw his own shells bursting far short upon the hillside. Jameson’s
defeat does not seem to have been due to any defect in his artillery.
French, peering and pondering, soon came to the conclusion that there were
too many Boers for him, and that if those fifteen-pounders desired target
practice they should find some other mark than the Natal Field Artillery.
A few curt orders, and his whole force was making its way to the rear.
There, out of range of those perilous guns, they halted, the telegraph
wire was cut, a telephone attachment was made, and French whispered his
troubles into the sympathetic ear of Ladysmith. He did not whisper in
vain. What he had to say was that where he had expected a few hundred
riflemen he found something like two thousand, and that where he expected
no guns he found two very excellent ones. The reply was that by road and
by rail as many men as could be spared were on their way to join him.
Soon they began to drop in, those useful reinforcements—first the
Devons, quiet, business-like, reliable; then the Gordons, dashing, fiery,
brilliant. Two squadrons of the 5th Lancers, the 42nd R.F.A., the 21st
R.F.A., another squadron of Lancers, a squadron of the 5th Dragoon Guards—French
began to feel that he was strong enough for the task in front of him. He
had a decided superiority of numbers and of guns. But the others were on
their favourite defensive on a hill. It would be a fair fight and a deadly
one.
It was late after noon before the advance began. It was hard, among those
billowing hills, to make out the exact limits of the enemy’s position. All
that was certain was that they were there, and that we meant having them
out if it were humanly possible. ‘The enemy are there,’ said Ian Hamilton
to his infantry; ‘I hope you will shift them out before sunset—in
fact I know you will.’ The men cheered and laughed. In long open lines
they advanced across the veld, while the thunder of the two batteries
behind them told the Boer gunners that it was their turn now to know what
it was to be outmatched.
The idea was to take the position by a front and a flank attack, but there
seems to have been some difficulty in determining which was the front and
which the flank. In fact, it was only by trying that one could know.
General White with his staff had arrived from Ladysmith, but refused to
take the command out of French’s hands. It is typical of White’s
chivalrous spirit that within ten days he refused to identify himself with
a victory when it was within his right to do so, and took the whole
responsibility for a disaster at which he was not present. Now he rode
amid the shells and watched the able dispositions of his lieutenant.
About half-past three the action had fairly begun. In front of the
advancing British there lay a rolling hill, topped by a further one. The
lower hill was not defended, and the infantry, breaking from column of
companies into open order, advanced over it. Beyond was a broad grassy
valley which led up to the main position, a long kopje flanked by a small
sugar-loaf one Behind the green slope which led to the ridge of death an
ominous and terrible cloud was driving up, casting its black shadow over
the combatants. There was the stillness which goes before some great
convulsion of nature. The men pressed on in silence, the soft thudding of
their feet and the rattle of their sidearms filling the air with a low and
continuous murmur. An additional solemnity was given to the attack by that
huge black cloud which hung before them.
The British guns had opened at a range of 4400 yards, and now against the
swarthy background there came the quick smokeless twinkle of the Boer
reply. It was an unequal fight, but gallantly sustained. A shot and
another to find the range; then a wreath of smoke from a bursting shell
exactly where the guns had been, followed by another and another.
Overmatched, the two Boer pieces relapsed into a sulky silence, broken now
and again by short spurts of frenzied activity. The British batteries
turned their attention away from them, and began to search the ridge with
shrapnel and prepare the way for the advancing infantry.
The scheme was that the Devonshires should hold the enemy in front while
the main attack from the left flank was carried out by the Gordons, the
Manchesters, and the Imperial Light Horse. The words ‘front’ and ‘flank,’
however, cease to have any meaning with so mobile and elastic a force, and
the attack which was intended to come from the left became really a
frontal one, while the Devons found themselves upon the right flank of the
Boers. At the moment of the final advance the great black cloud had burst,
and a torrent of rain lashed into the faces of the men. Slipping and
sliding upon the wet grass, they advanced to the assault.
And now amid the hissing of the rain there came the fuller, more menacing
whine of the Mauser bullets, and the ridge rattled from end to end with
the rifle fire. Men fell fast, but their comrades pressed hotly on. There
was a long way to go, for the summit of the position was nearly 800 feet
above the level of the railway. The hillside, which had appeared to be one
slope, was really a succession of undulations, so that the advancing
infantry alternately dipped into shelter and emerged into a hail of
bullets. The line of advance was dotted with khaki-clad figures, some
still in death, some writhing in their agony. Amid the litter of bodies a
major of the Gordons, shot through the leg, sat philosophically smoking
his pipe. Plucky little Chisholm, Colonel of the Imperials, had fallen
with two mortal wounds as he dashed forward waving a coloured sash in the
air. So long was the advance and so trying the hill that the men sank
panting upon the ground, and took their breath before making another rush.
As at Talana Hill, regimental formation was largely gone, and men of the
Manchesters, Gordons, and Imperial Light Horse surged upwards in one long
ragged fringe, Scotchman, Englishman, and British Africander keeping pace
in that race of death. And now at last they began to see their enemy. Here
and there among the boulders in front of them there was the glimpse of a
slouched hat, or a peep at a flushed bearded face which drooped over a
rifle barrel. There was a pause, and then with a fresh impulse the wave of
men gathered themselves together and flung themselves forward. Dark
figures sprang up from the rocks in front. Some held up their rifles in
token of surrender. Some ran with heads sunk between their shoulders,
jumping and ducking among the rocks. The panting breathless climbers were
on the edge of the plateau. There were the two guns which had flashed so
brightly, silenced now, with a litter of dead gunners around them and one
wounded officer standing by a trail. A small body of the Boers still
resisted. Their appearance horrified some of our men. ‘They were dressed
in black frock coats and looked like a lot of rather seedy business men,’
said a spectator. ‘It seemed like murder to kill them.’ Some surrendered,
and some fought to the death where they stood. Their leader Koch, an old
gentleman with a white beard, lay amidst the rocks, wounded in three
places. He was treated with all courtesy and attention, but died in
Ladysmith Hospital some days afterwards.
In the meanwhile the Devonshire Regiment had waited until the attack had
developed and had then charged the hill upon the flank, while the
artillery moved up until it was within 2000 yards of the enemy’s position.
The Devons met with a less fierce resistance than the others, and swept up
to the summit in time to head off some of the fugitives. The whole of our
infantry were now upon the ridge.
But even so these dour fighters were not beaten. They clung desperately to
the further edges of the plateau, firing from behind the rocks. There had
been a race for the nearest gun between an officer of the Manchesters and
a drummer sergeant of the Gordons. The officer won, and sprang in triumph
on to the piece. Men of all regiments swarmed round yelling and cheering,
when upon their astonished ears there sounded the ‘Cease fire’ and then
the ‘Retire.’ It was incredible, and yet it pealed out again, unmistakable
in its urgency. With the instinct of discipline the men were slowly
falling back. And then the truth of it came upon the minds of some of
them. The crafty enemy had learned our bugle calls. ‘Retire be damned!
shrieked a little bugler, and blew the ‘Advance’ with all the breath that
the hillside had left him. The men, who had retired a hundred yards and
uncovered the guns, flooded back over the plateau, and in the Boer camp
which lay beneath it a white flag showed that the game was up. A squadron
of the 5th Lancers and of the 5th Dragoon Guards, under Colonel Gore of
the latter regiment, had prowled round the base of the hill, and in the
fading light they charged through and through the retreating Boers,
killing several, and making from twenty to thirty prisoners. It was one of
the very few occasions in the war where the mounted Briton overtook the
mounted Boer.
‘What price Majuba?’ was the cry raised by some of the infantry as they
dashed up to the enemy’s position, and the action may indeed be said to
have been in some respects the converse of that famous fight. It is true
that there were many more British at Elandslaagte than Boers at Majuba,
but then the defending force was much more numerous also, and the British
had no guns there. It is true, also, that Majuba is very much more
precipitous than Elandslaagte, but then every practical soldier knows that
it is easier to defend a moderate glacis than an abrupt slope, which gives
cover under its boulders to the attacker while the defender has to crane
his head over the edge to look down. On the whole, this brilliant little
action may be said to have restored things to their true proportion, and
to have shown that, brave as the Boers undoubtedly are, there is no
military feat within their power which is not equally possible to the
British soldier. Talana Hill and Elandslaagte, fought on successive days,
were each of them as gallant an exploit as Majuba.
We had more to show for our victory than for the previous one at Dundee.
Two Maxim-Nordenfeld guns, whose efficiency had been painfully evident
during the action, were a welcome addition to our artillery. Two hundred
and fifty Boers were killed and wounded and about two hundred taken
prisoners, the loss falling most heavily upon the Johannesburgers, the
Germans, and the Hollanders. General Koch, Dr. Coster, Colonel Schiel,
Pretorius, and other well-known Transvaalers fell into our hands. Our own
casualty list consisted of 41 killed and 220 wounded, much the same number
as at Talana Hill, the heaviest losses falling upon the Gordon Highlanders
and the Imperial Light Horse.
In the hollow where the Boer tents had stood, amid the laagered wagons of
the vanquished, under a murky sky and a constant drizzle of rain, the
victors spent the night. Sleep was out of the question, for all night the
fatigue parties were searching the hillside and the wounded were being
carried in. Camp-fires were lit and soldiers and prisoners crowded round
them, and it is pleasant to recall that the warmest corner and the best of
their rude fare were always reserved for the downcast Dutchmen, while
words of rude praise and sympathy softened the pain of defeat. It is the
memory of such things which may in happier days be more potent than all
the wisdom of statesmen in welding our two races into one.
Having cleared the Boer force from the line of the railway, it is evident
that General White could not continue to garrison the point, as he was
aware that considerable forces were moving from the north, and his first
duty was the security of Ladysmith. Early next morning (October 22nd),
therefore, his weary but victorious troops returned to the town. Once
there he learned, no doubt, that General Yule had no intention of using
the broken railway for his retreat, but that he intended to come in a
circuitous fashion by road. White’s problem was to hold tight to the town
and at the same time to strike hard at any northern force so as to prevent
them from interfering with Yule’s retreat. It was in the furtherance of
this scheme that he fought upon October 24th the action of Rietfontein, an
engagement slight in itself, but important on account of the clear road
which was secured for the weary forces retiring from Dundee.
The army from the Free State, of which the commando vanquished at
Elandslaagte was the vanguard, had been slowly and steadily debouching
from the passes, and working south and eastwards to cut the line between
Dundee and Ladysmith. It was White’s intention to prevent them from
crossing the Newcastle Road, and for this purpose he sallied out of
Ladysmith on Tuesday the 24th, having with him two regiments of cavalry,
the 5th Lancers and the 19th Hussars, the 42nd and 53rd field batteries
with the 10th mountain battery, four infantry regiments, the Devons,
Liverpools, Gloucesters, and 2nd King’s Royal Rifles, the Imperial Light
Horse, and the Natal Volunteers—some four thousand men in all.
The enemy were found to be in possession of a line of hills within seven
miles of Ladysmith, the most conspicuous of which is called Tinta Inyoni.
It was no part of General White’s plan to attempt to drive him from this
position—it is not wise generalship to fight always upon ground of
the enemy’s choosing—but it was important to hold him where he was,
and to engage his attention during this last day of the march of the
retreating column. For this purpose, since no direct attack was intended,
the guns were of more importance than the infantry—and indeed the
infantry should, one might imagine, have been used solely as an escort for
the artillery. A desultory and inconclusive action ensued which continued
from nine in the morning until half-past one in the afternoon. A
well-directed fire of the Boer guns from the hills was dominated and
controlled by our field artillery, while the advance of their riflemen was
restrained by shrapnel. The enemy’s guns were more easily marked down than
at Elandslaagte, as they used black powder. The ranges varied from three
to four thousand yards. Our losses in the whole action would have been
insignificant had it not happened that the Gloucester Regiment advanced
somewhat incautiously into the open and was caught in a cross fire of
musketry which struck down Colonel Wilford and fifty of his officers and
men. Within four days Colonel Dick-Cunyngham, of the Gordons, Colonel
Chisholm, of the Light Horse, Colonel Gunning, of the Rifles, and now
Colonel Wilford, of the Gloucesters, had all fallen at the head of their
regiments. In the afternoon General White, having accomplished his purpose
and secured the safety of the Dundee column while traversing the dangerous
Biggarsberg passes, withdrew his force to Ladysmith. We have no means of
ascertaining the losses of the Boers, but they were probably slight. On
our side we lost 109 killed and wounded, of which only 13 cases were
fatal. Of this total 64 belonged to the Gloucesters and 25 to the troops
raised in Natal. Next day, as already narrated, the whole British army was
re-assembled once more at Ladysmith, and the campaign was to enter upon a
new phase.
At the end of this first vigorous week of hostilities it is interesting to
sum up the net result. The strategical advantage had lain with the Boers.
They had made our position at Dundee untenable and had driven us back to
Ladysmith. They had the country and the railway for the northern quarter
of the colony in their possession. They had killed and wounded between six
and seven hundred of our men, and they had captured some two hundred of
our cavalry, while we had been compelled at Dundee to leave considerable
stores and our wounded, including General Penn Symons, who actually died
while a prisoner in their hands. On the other hand, the tactical
advantages lay with us. We had twice driven them from their positions, and
captured two of their guns. We had taken two hundred prisoners, and had
probably killed and wounded as many as we had lost. On the whole, the
honours of that week’s fighting in Natal may be said to have been fairly
equal—which is more than we could claim for many a weary week to
come.
CHAPTER 7. THE BATTLE OF LADYSMITH.
Sir George White had now reunited his force, and found himself in command
of a formidable little army some twelve thousand in number. His cavalry
included the 5th Lancers, the 5th Dragoons, part of the 18th and the whole
of the 19th Hussars, the Natal Carabineers, the Border Rifles, some
mounted infantry, and the Imperial Light Horse. Among his infantry were
the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Dublin Fusiliers, and the King’s Royal
Rifles, fresh from the ascent of Talana Hill, the Gordons, the
Manchesters, and the Devons who had been blooded at Elandslaagte, the
Leicesters, the Liverpools, the 2nd battalion of the King’s Royal Rifles,
the 2nd Rifle Brigade, and the Gloucesters, who had been so roughly
treated at Rietfontein. He had six batteries of excellent field artillery—the
13th, 21st, 42nd, 53rd, 67th, 69th, and No. 10 Mountain Battery of screw
guns. No general could have asked for a more compact and workmanlike
little force.
It had been recognised by the British General from the beginning that his
tactics must be defensive, since he was largely outnumbered and since also
any considerable mishap to his force would expose the whole colony of
Natal to destruction. The actions of Elandslaagte and Rietfontein were
forced upon him in order to disengage his compromised detachment, but now
there was no longer any reason why he should assume the offensive. He knew
that away out on the Atlantic a trail of transports which already extended
from the Channel to Cape de Verde were hourly drawing nearer to him with
the army corps from England. In a fortnight or less the first of them
would be at Durban. It was his game, therefore, to keep his army intact,
and to let those throbbing engines and whirling propellers do the work of
the empire. Had he entrenched himself up to his nose and waited, it would
have paid him best in the end.
But so tame and inglorious a policy is impossible to a fighting soldier.
He could not with his splendid force permit himself to be shut in without
an action. What policy demands honour may forbid. On October 27th there
were already Boers and rumours of Boers on every side of him. Joubert with
his main body was moving across from Dundee. The Freestaters were to the
north and west. Their combined numbers were uncertain, but at least it was
already proved that they were far more numerous and also more formidable
than had been anticipated. We had had a taste of their artillery also, and
the pleasant delusion that it would be a mere useless encumbrance to a
Boer force had vanished for ever. It was a grave thing to leave the town
in order to give battle, for the mobile enemy might swing round and seize
it behind us. Nevertheless White determined to make the venture.
On the 29th the enemy were visibly converging upon the town. From a high
hill within rifleshot of the houses a watcher could see no fewer than six
Boer camps to the east and north. French, with his cavalry, pushed out
feelers, and coasted along the edge of the advancing host. His report
warned White that if he would strike before all the scattered bands were
united he must do so at once. The wounded were sent down to
Pietermaritzburg, and it would bear explanation why the non-combatants did
not accompany them. On the evening of the same day Joubert in person was
said to be only six miles off, and a party of his men cut the water supply
of the town. The Klip, however, a fair-sized river, runs through
Ladysmith, so that there was no danger of thirst. The British had inflated
and sent up a balloon, to the amazement of the back-veld Boers; its report
confirmed the fact that the enemy was in force in front of and around
them.
On the night of the 29th General White detached two of his best regiments,
the Irish Fusiliers and the Gloucesters, with No. 10 Mountain Battery, to
advance under cover of the darkness and to seize and hold a long ridge
called Nicholson’s Nek, which lay about six miles to the north of
Ladysmith. Having determined to give battle on the next day, his object
was to protect his left wing against those Freestaters who were still
moving from the north and west, and also to keep a pass open by which his
cavalry might pursue the Boer fugitives in case of a British victory. This
small detached column numbered about a thousand men—whose fate will
be afterwards narrated.
At five o’clock on the morning of the 30th the Boers, who had already
developed a perfect genius for hauling heavy cannon up the most difficult
heights, opened fire from one of the hills which lie to the north of the
town. Before the shot was fired, the forces of the British had already
streamed out of Ladysmith to test the strength of the invaders.
White’s army was divided into three columns. On the extreme left, quite
isolated from the others, was the small Nicholson’s Nek detachment under
the command of Colonel Carleton of the Fusiliers (one of three gallant
brothers each of whom commands a British regiment). With him was Major
Adye of the staff. On the right British flank Colonel Grimwood commanded a
brigade composed of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the King’s Royal Rifles,
the Leicesters, the Liverpools, and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. In the
centre Colonel Ian Hamilton commanded the Devons, the Gordons, the
Manchesters, and the 2nd battalion of the Rifle Brigade, which marched
direct into the battle from the train which had brought them from Durban.
Six batteries of artillery were massed in the centre under Colonel
Downing. French with the cavalry and mounted infantry was on the extreme
right, but found little opportunity for the use of the mounted arm that
day.
The Boer position, so far as it could be seen, was a formidable one. Their
centre lay upon one of the spurs of Signal Hill, about three miles from
the town. Here they had two forty-pounders and three other lighter guns,
but their artillery strength developed both in numbers and in weight of
metal as the day wore on. Of their dispositions little could be seen. An
observer looking westward might discern with his glass sprays of mounted
riflemen galloping here and there over the downs, and possibly small
groups where the gunners stood by their guns, or the leaders gazed down at
that town which they were destined to have in view for such a weary while.
On the dun-coloured plains before the town, the long thin lines, with an
occasional shifting sparkle of steel, showed where Hamilton’s and
Grimwood’s infantry were advancing. In the clear cold air of an African
morning every detail could be seen, down to the distant smoke of a train
toiling up the heavy grades which lead from Frere over the Colenso Bridge
to Ladysmith.
The scrambling, inconsequential, unsatisfactory action which ensued is as
difficult to describe as it must have been to direct. The Boer front
covered some seven or eight miles, with kopjes, like chains of fortresses,
between. They formed a huge semicircle of which our advance was the chord,
and they were able from this position to pour in a converging artillery
fire which grew steadily hotter as the day advanced. In the early part of
the day our forty-two guns, working furiously, though with a want of
accuracy which may be due to those errors of refraction which are said to
be common in the limpid air of the veld, preserved their superiority.
There appears to have been a want of concentration about our fire, and at
some periods of the action each particular battery was firing at some
different point of the Boer half-circle. Sometimes for an hour on end the
Boer reply would die away altogether, only to break out with augmented
violence, and with an accuracy which increased our respect for their
training. Huge shells—the largest that ever burst upon a battlefield—hurled
from distances which were unattainable by our fifteen-pounders, enveloped
our batteries in smoke and flame. One enormous Creusot gun on Pepworth
Hill threw a 96-pound shell a distance of four miles, and several 40-pound
howitzers outweighted our field guns. And on the same day on which we were
so roughly taught how large the guns were which labour and good will could
haul on to the field of battle, we learned also that our enemy—to
the disgrace of our Board of Ordnance be it recorded—was more in
touch with modern invention than we were, and could show us not only the
largest, but also the smallest, shell which had yet been used. Would that
it had been our officials instead of our gunners who heard the devilish
little one-pound shells of the Vickers-Maxim automatic gun, exploding with
a continuous string of crackings and bangings, like a huge cracker, in
their faces and about their ears!
Up to seven o’clock our infantry had shown no disposition to press the
attack, for with so huge a position in front of them, and so many hills
which were held by the enemy, it was difficult to know what line of
advance should be taken, or whether the attack should not be converted
into a mere reconnaissance. Shortly after that hour, however, the Boers
decided the question by themselves developing a vigorous movement upon
Grimwood and the right flank. With field guns, Maxims, and rifle fire,
they closed rapidly in upon him. The centre column was drafted off,
regiment by regiment, to reinforce the right. The Gordons, Devons,
Manchesters, and three batteries were sent over to Grimwood’s relief, and
the 5th Lancers, acting as infantry, assisted him to hold on.
At nine o’clock there was a lull, but it was evident that fresh commandoes
and fresh guns were continually streaming into the firing line. The
engagement opened again with redoubled violence, and Grimwood’s three
advanced battalions fell back, abandoning the ridge which they had held
for five hours. The reason for this withdrawal was not that they could not
continue to hold their position, but it was that a message had just
reached Sir George White from Colonel Knox, commanding in Ladysmith, to
the effect that it looked as if the enemy was about to rush the town from
the other side. Crossing the open in some disorder, they lost heavily, and
would have done so more had not the 13th Field Battery, followed after an
interval by the 53rd, dashed forward, firing shrapnel at short ranges, in
order to cover the retreat of the infantry. Amid the bursting of the huge
96-pound shells, and the snapping of the vicious little automatic
one-pounders, with a cross-fire of rifles as well, Abdy’s and Dawkins’
gallant batteries swung round their muzzles, and hit back right and left,
flashing and blazing, amid their litter of dead horses and men. So severe
was the fire that the guns were obscured by the dust knocked up by the
little shells of the automatic gun. Then, when their work was done and the
retiring infantry had straggled over the ridge, the covering guns whirled
and bounded after them. So many horses had fallen that two pieces were
left until the teams could be brought back for them, which was
successfully done through the gallantry of Captain Thwaites. The action of
these batteries was one of the few gleams of light in a not too brilliant
day’s work. With splendid coolness and courage they helped each other by
alternate retirements after the retreating infantry had passed them. The
21st Battery (Blewitt’s) also distinguished itself by its staunchness in
covering the retirement of the cavalry, while the 42nd (Goulburn’s)
suffered the heaviest losses of any. On the whole, such honours as fell to
our lot were mainly with the gunners.
White must have been now uneasy for his position, and it had become
apparent that his only course was to fall back and concentrate upon the
town. His left flank was up in the air, and the sound of distant firing,
wafted over five miles of broken country, was the only message which
arrived from them. His right had been pushed back, and, most dangerous of
all, his centre had ceased to exist, for only the 2nd Rifle Brigade
remained there. What would happen if the enemy burst rudely through and
pushed straight for the town? It was the more possible, as the Boer
artillery had now proved itself to be far heavier than ours. That terrible
96-pounder, serenely safe and out of range, was plumping its great
projectiles into the masses of retiring troops. The men had had little
sleep and little food, and this unanswerable fire was an ordeal for a
force which is retreating. A retirement may very rapidly become a rout
under such circumstances. It was with some misgivings that the officers
saw their men quicken their pace and glance back over their shoulders at
the whine and screech of the shell. They were still some miles from home,
and the plain was open. What could be done to give them some relief?
And at that very moment there came the opportune and unexpected answer.
That plume of engine smoke which the watcher had observed in the morning
had drawn nearer and nearer, as the heavy train came puffing and creaking
up the steep inclines. Then, almost before it had drawn up at the
Ladysmith siding, there had sprung from it a crowd of merry bearded
fellows, with ready hands and strange sea cries, pulling and hauling, with
rope and purchase to get out the long slim guns which they had lashed on
the trucks. Singular carriages were there, specially invented by Captain
Percy Scott, and labouring and straining, they worked furiously to get the
12-pounder quick-firers into action. Then at last it was done, and the
long tubes swept upwards to the angle at which they might hope to reach
that monster on the hill at the horizon. Two of them craned their long
inquisitive necks up and exchanged repartees with the big Creusot. And so
it was that the weary and dispirited British troops heard a crash which
was louder and sharper than that of their field guns, and saw far away
upon the distant hill a great spurt of smoke and flame to show where the
shell had struck. Another and another and another—and then they were
troubled no more. Captain Hedworth Lambton and his men had saved the
situation. The masterful gun had met its own master and sank into silence,
while the somewhat bedraggled field force came trailing back into
Ladysmith, leaving three hundred of their number behind them. It was a
high price to pay, but other misfortunes were in store for us which made
the retirement of the morning seem insignificant.
In the meantime we may follow the unhappy fortunes of the small column
which had, as already described, been sent out by Sir George White in
order, if possible, to prevent the junction of the two Boer armies, and at
the same time to threaten the right wing of the main force, which was
advancing from the direction of Dundee, Sir George White throughout the
campaign consistently displayed one quality which is a charming one in an
individual, but may be dangerous in a commander. He was a confirmed
optimist. Perhaps his heart might have failed him in the dark days to come
had he not been so. But whether one considers the non-destruction of the
Newcastle Railway, the acquiescence in the occupation of Dundee, the
retention of the non combatants in Ladysmith until it was too late to get
rid of their useless mouths, or the failure to make any serious
preparations for the defence of the town until his troops were beaten back
into it, we see always the same evidence of a man who habitually hopes
that all will go well, and is in consequence remiss in making preparations
for their going ill. But unhappily in every one of these instances they
did go ill, though the slowness of the Boers enabled us, both at Dundee
and at Ladysmith, to escape what might have been disaster.
Sir George White has so nobly and frankly taken upon himself the blame of
Nicholson’s Nek that an impartial historian must rather regard his
self-condemnation as having been excessive. The immediate causes of the
failure were undoubtedly the results of pure ill-fortune, and depended on
things outside his control. But it is evident that the strategic plan
which would justify the presence of this column at Nicholson’s Nek was
based upon the supposition that the main army won their action at
Lombard’s Kop. In that case White might swing round his right and pin the
Boers between himself and Nicholson’s Nek. In any case he could then
re-unite with his isolated wing. But if he should lose his battle—what
then? What was to become of this detachment five miles up in the air? How
was it to be extricated? The gallant Irishman seems to have waved aside
the very idea of defeat. An assurance was, it is reported, given to the
leaders of the column that by eleven o’clock next morning they would be
relieved. So they would if White had won his action. But—
The force chosen to operate independently consisted of four and a half
companies of the Gloucester regiment, six companies of the Royal Irish
Fusiliers, and No. 10 Mountain Battery of six seven-pounder screw-guns.
They were both old soldier regiments from India, and the Fusiliers had
shown only ten days before at Talana Hill the stuff of which they were
made. Colonel Carleton, of the Fusiliers, to whose exertions much of the
success of the retreat from Dundee was due, commanded the column, with
Major Adye as staff officer. On the night of Sunday, October 29th, they
tramped out of Ladysmith, a thousand men, none better in the army. Little
they thought, as they exchanged a jest or two with the outlying pickets,
that they were seeing the last of their own armed countrymen for many a
weary month.
The road was irregular and the night was moonless. On either side the
black loom of the hills bulked vaguely through the darkness. The column
tramped stolidly along, the Fusiliers in front, the guns and Gloucesters
behind. Several times a short halt was called to make sure of the
bearings. At last, in the black cold hours which come between midnight and
morning, the column swung to the left out of the road. In front of them,
hardly visible, stretched a long black kopje. It was the very Nicholson’s
Nek which they had come to occupy. Carleton and Adye must have heaved a
sigh of relief as they realised that they had actually struck it. The
force was but two hundred yards from the position, and all had gone
without a hitch. And yet in those two hundred yards there came an incident
which decided the fate both of their enterprise and of themselves.
Out of the darkness there blundered and rattled five horsemen, their
horses galloping, the loose stones flying around them. In the dim light
they were gone as soon as seen. Whence coming, whither going, no one
knows, nor is it certain whether it was design or ignorance or panic which
sent them riding so wildly through the darkness. Somebody fired. A
sergeant of the Fusiliers took the bullet through his hand. Some one else
shouted to fix bayonets. The mules which carried the spare ammunition
kicked and reared. There was no question of treachery, for they were led
by our own men, but to hold two frightened mules, one with either hand, is
a feat for a Hercules. They lashed and tossed and bucked themselves loose,
and an instant afterwards were flying helter skelter through the column.
Nearly all the mules caught the panic. In vain the men held on to their
heads. In the mad rush they were galloped over and knocked down by the
torrent of frightened creatures. In the gloom of that early hour the men
must have thought that they were charged by cavalry. The column was dashed
out of all military order as effectively as if a regiment of dragoons had
ridden over them. When the cyclone had passed, and the men had with many a
muttered curse gathered themselves into their ranks once more, they
realised how grave was the misfortune which had befallen them. There,
where those mad hoofs still rattled in the distance, were their spare
cartridges, their shells, and their cannon. A mountain gun is not drawn
upon wheels, but is carried in adjustable parts upon mule-back. A wheel
had gone south, a trail east, a chase west. Some of the cartridges were
strewn upon the road. Most were on their way back to Ladysmith. There was
nothing for it but to face this new situation and to determine what should
be done.
It has been often and naturally asked, why did not Colonel Carleton make
his way back at once upon the loss of his guns and ammunition, while it
was still dark? One or two considerations are evident. In the first place,
it is natural to a good soldier to endeavour to retrieve a situation
rather than to abandon his enterprise. His prudence, did he not do so,
might become the subject of public commendation, but might also provoke
some private comment. A soldier’s training is to take chances, and to do
the best he can with the material at his disposal. Again, Colonel Carleton
and Major Adye knew the general plan of the battle which would be raging
within a very few hours, and they quite understood that by withdrawing
they would expose General White’s left flank to attack from the forces
(consisting, as we know now, of the Orange Freestaters and of the
Johannesburg Police) who were coming from the north and west. He hoped to
be relieved by eleven, and he believed that, come what might, he could
hold out until then. These are the most obvious of the considerations
which induced Colonel Carleton to determine to carry out so far as he
could the programme which had been laid down for him and his command. He
marched up the hill and occupied the position.
His heart, however, must have sunk when he examined it. It was very large—too
large to be effectively occupied by the force which he commanded. The
length was about a mile and the breadth four hundred yards. Shaped roughly
like the sole of a boot, it was only the heel end which he could hope to
hold. Other hills all round offered cover for Boer riflemen. Nothing
daunted, however, he set his men to work at once building sangars with the
loose stones. With the full dawn and the first snapping of Boer Mausers
from the hills around they had thrown up some sort of rude defences which
they might hope to hold until help should come.
But how could help come when there was no means by which they could let
White know the plight in which they found themselves? They had brought a
heliograph with them, but it was on the back of one of those accursed
mules. The Boers were thick around them, and they could not send a
messenger. An attempt was made to convert a polished biscuit tin into a
heliograph, but with poor success. A Kaffir was dispatched with promises
of a heavy bribe, but he passed out of history. And there in the clear
cold morning air the balloon hung to the south of them where the first
distant thunder of White’s guns was beginning to sound. If only they could
attract the attention of that balloon! Vainly they wagged flags at it.
Serene and unresponsive it brooded over the distant battle.
And now the Boers were thickening round them on every side. Christian de
Wet, a name soon to be a household word, marshaled the Boer attack, which
was soon strengthened by the arrival of Van Dam and his Police. At five
o’clock the fire began, at six it was warm, at seven warmer still. Two
companies of the Gloucesters lined a sangar on the tread of the sole, to
prevent any one getting too near to the heel. A fresh detachment of Boers,
firing from a range of nearly one thousand yards, took this defence in the
rear. Bullets fell among the men, and smacked up against the stone
breastwork. The two companies were withdrawn, and lost heavily in the open
as they crossed it. An incessant rattle and crackle of rifle fire came
from all round, drawing very slowly but steadily nearer. Now and then the
whisk of a dark figure from one boulder to another was all that ever was
seen of the attackers. The British fired slowly and steadily, for every
cartridge counted, but the cover of the Boers was so cleverly taken that
it was seldom that there was much to aim at. ‘All you could ever see,’
says one who was present, ‘were the barrels of the rifles.’ There was time
for thought in that long morning, and to some of the men it may have
occurred what preparation for such fighting had they ever had in the
mechanical exercises of the parade ground, or the shooting of an annual
bagful of cartridges at exposed targets at a measured range. It is the
warfare of Nicholson’s Nek, not that of Laffan’s Plain, which has to be
learned in the future.
During those weary hours lying on the bullet-swept hill and listening to
the eternal hissing in the air and clicking on the rocks, the British
soldiers could see the fight which raged to the south of them. It was not
a cheering sight, and Carleton and Adye with their gallant comrades must
have felt their hearts grow heavier as they watched. The Boers’ shells
bursting among the British batteries, the British shells bursting short of
their opponents. The Long Toms laid at an angle of forty-five plumped
their huge shells into the British guns at a range where the latter would
not dream of unlimbering. And then gradually the rifle fire died away
also, crackling more faintly as White withdrew to Ladysmith. At eleven
o’clock Carleton’s column recognised that it had been left to its fate. As
early as nine a heliogram had been sent to them to retire as the
opportunity served, but to leave the hill was certainly to court
annihilation.
The men had then been under fire for six hours, and with their losses
mounting and their cartridges dwindling, all hope had faded from their
minds. But still for another hour, and yet another, and yet another, they
held doggedly on. Nine and a half hours they clung to that pile of stones.
The Fusiliers were still exhausted from the effect of their march from
Glencoe and their incessant work since. Many fell asleep behind the
boulders. Some sat doggedly with their useless rifles and empty pouches
beside them. Some picked cartridges off their dead comrades. What were
they fighting for? It was hopeless, and they knew it. But always there was
the honour of the flag, the glory of the regiment, the hatred of a proud
and brave man to acknowledge defeat. And yet it had to come. There were
some in that force who were ready for the reputation of the British army,
and for the sake of an example of military virtue, to die stolidly where
they stood, or to lead the ‘Faugh-a-ballagh’ boys, or the gallant 28th, in
one last death-charge with empty rifles against the unseen enemy. They may
have been right, these stalwarts. Leonidas and his three hundred did more
for the Spartan cause by their memory than by their living valour. Man
passes like the brown leaves, but the tradition of a nation lives on like
the oak that sheds them—and the passing of the leaves is nothing if
the bole be the sounder for it. But a counsel of perfection is easy at a
study table. There are other things to be said—the responsibility of
officers for the lives of their men, the hope that they may yet be of
service to their country. All was weighed, all was thought of, and so at
last the white flag went up. The officer who hoisted it could see no one
unhurt save himself, for all in his sangar were hit, and the others were
so placed that he was under the impression that they had withdrawn
altogether. Whether this hoisting of the flag necessarily compromised the
whole force is a difficult question, but the Boers instantly left their
cover, and the men in the sangars behind, some of whom had not been so
seriously engaged, were ordered by their officers to desist from firing.
In an instant the victorious Boers were among them.
It was not, as I have been told by those who were there, a sight which one
would wish to have seen or care now to dwell upon. Haggard officers
cracked their sword-blades and cursed the day that they had been born.
Privates sobbed with their stained faces buried in their hands. Of all
tests of discipline that ever they had stood, the hardest to many was to
conform to all that the cursed flapping handkerchief meant to them.
‘Father, father, we had rather have died,’ cried the Fusiliers to their
priest. Gallant hearts, ill paid, ill thanked, how poorly do the
successful of the world compare with their unselfish loyalty and devotion!
But the sting of contumely or insult was not added to their misfortunes.
There is a fellowship of brave men which rises above the feuds of nations,
and may at last go far, we hope, to heal them. From every rock there rose
a Boer—strange, grotesque figures many of them—walnut-brown
and shaggy-bearded, and swarmed on to the hill. No term of triumph or
reproach came from their lips. ‘You will not say now that the young Boer
cannot shoot,’ was the harshest word which the least restrained of them
made use of. Between one and two hundred dead and wounded were scattered
over the hill. Those who were within reach of human help received all that
could be given. Captain Rice, of the Fusiliers, was carried wounded down
the hill on the back of one giant, and he has narrated how the man refused
the gold piece which was offered him. Some asked the soldiers for their
embroidered waist-belts as souvenirs of the day. They will for generations
remain as the most precious ornaments of some colonial farmhouse. Then the
victors gathered together and sang psalms, not jubilant but sad and
quavering. The prisoners, in a downcast column, weary, spent, and unkempt,
filed off to the Boer laager at Waschbank, there to take train for
Pretoria. And at Ladysmith a bugler of Fusiliers, his arm bound, the marks
of battle on his dress and person, burst in upon the camp with the news
that two veteran regiments had covered the flank of White’s retreating
army, but at the cost of their own annihilation.
CHAPTER 8. LORD METHUEN’S ADVANCE.
At the end of a fortnight of actual hostilities in Natal the situation of
the Boer army was such as to seriously alarm the public at home, and to
cause an almost universal chorus of ill-natured delight from the press of
all European nations. Whether the reason was hatred of ourselves, or the
sporting instinct which backs the smaller against the larger, or the
influence of the ubiquitous Dr. Leyds and his secret service fund, it is
certain that the continental papers have never been so unanimous as in
their premature rejoicings over what, with an extraordinary want of
proportion, and ignorance of our national character, they imagined to be a
damaging blow to the British Empire. France, Russia, Austria, and Germany
were equally venomous against us, nor can the visit of the German Emperor,
though a courteous and timely action in itself, entirely atone for the
senseless bitterness of the press of the Fatherland. Great Britain was
roused out of her habitual apathy and disregard for foreign opinion by
this chorus of execration, and braced herself for a greater effort in
consequence. She was cheered by the sympathy of her friends in the United
States, and by the good wishes of the smaller nations of Europe, notably
of Italy, Denmark, Greece, Turkey, and Hungary.
The exact position at the end of this fortnight of hard slogging was that
a quarter of the colony of Natal and a hundred miles of railway were in
the hands of the enemy. Five distinct actions had been fought, none of
them perhaps coming within the fair meaning of a battle. Of these one had
been a distinct British victory, two had been indecisive, one had been
unfortunate, and one had been a positive disaster. We had lost about
twelve hundred prisoners and a battery of small guns. The Boers had lost
two fine guns and three hundred prisoners. Twelve thousand British troops
had been shut up in Ladysmith, and there was no serious force between the
invaders and the sea. Only in those distant transports, where the grimy
stokers shoveled and strove, were there hopes for the safety of Natal and
the honour of the Empire. In Cape Colony the loyalists waited with bated
breath, knowing well that there was nothing to check a Free State
invasion, and that if it came no bounds could be placed upon how far it
might advance, or what effect it might have upon the Dutch population.
Leaving Ladysmith now apparently within the grasp of the Boers, who had
settled down deliberately to the work of throttling it, the narrative must
pass to the western side of the seat of war, and give a consecutive
account of the events which began with the siege of Kimberley and led to
the ineffectual efforts of Lord Methuen’s column to relieve it.
On the declaration of war two important movements had been made by the
Boers upon the west. One was the advance of a considerable body under the
formidable Cronje to attack Mafeking, an enterprise which demands a
chapter of its own. The other was the investment of Kimberley by a force
which consisted principally of Freestaters under the command of Wessels
and Botha. The place was defended by Colonel Kekewich, aided by the advice
and help of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who had gallantly thrown himself into the
town by one of the last trains which reached it. As the founder and
director of the great De Beers diamond mines he desired to be with his
people in the hour of their need, and it was through his initiative that
the town had been provided with the rifles and cannon with which to
sustain the siege.
The troops which Colonel Kekewich had at his disposal consisted of four
companies of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment (his own regiment), with
some Royal Engineers, a mountain battery, and two machine guns. In
addition there were the extremely spirited and capable local forces, a
hundred and twenty men of the Cape Police, two thousand Volunteers, a body
of Kimberley Light Horse, and a battery of light seven-pounder guns. There
were also eight Maxims which were mounted upon the huge mounds of debris
which surrounded the mines and formed most efficient fortresses.
A small reinforcement of police had, under tragic circumstances, reached
the town. Vryburg, the capital of British Bechuanaland, lies 145 miles to
the north of Kimberley. The town has strong Dutch sympathies, and on the
news of the approach of a Boer force with artillery it was evident that it
could not be held. Scott, the commandant of police, made some attempt to
organise a defence, but having no artillery and finding little sympathy,
he was compelled to abandon his charge to the invaders. The gallant Scott
rode south with his troopers, and in his humiliation and grief at his
inability to preserve his post he blew out his brains upon the journey.
Vryburg was immediately occupied by the Boers, and British Bechuanaland
was formally annexed to the South African Republic. This policy of the
instant annexation of all territories invaded was habitually carried out
by the enemy, with the idea that British subjects who joined them would in
this way be shielded from the consequences of treason. Meanwhile several
thousand Freestaters and Transvaalers with artillery had assembled round
Kimberley, and all news of the town was cut off. Its relief was one of the
first tasks which presented itself to the inpouring army corps. The
obvious base of such a movement must be Orange River, and there and at De
Aar the stores for the advance began to be accumulated. At the latter
place especially, which is the chief railway junction in the north of the
colony, enormous masses of provisions, ammunition, and fodder were
collected, with thousands of mules which the long arm of the British
Government had rounded up from many parts of the world. The guard over
these costly and essential supplies seems to have been a dangerously weak
one. Between Orange River and De Aar, which are sixty miles apart, there
were the 9th Lancers, the Royal Munsters, the 2nd King’s Own Yorkshire
Light Infantry, and the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, under three thousand
men in all, with two million pounds’ worth of stores and the Free State
frontier within a ride of them. Verily if we have something to deplore in
this war we have much also to be thankful for.
Up to the end of October the situation was so dangerous that it is really
inexplicable that no advantage was taken of it by the enemy. Our main
force was concentrated to defend the Orange River railway bridge, which
was so essential for our advance upon Kimberley. This left only a single
regiment without guns for the defence of De Aar and the valuable stores. A
fairer mark for a dashing leader and a raid of mounted riflemen was never
seen. The chance passed, however, as so many others of the Boers’ had
done. Early in November Colesberg and Naauwpoort were abandoned by our
small detachments, who concentrated at De Aar. The Berkshires joined the
Yorkshire Light Infantry, and nine field guns arrived also. General Wood
worked hard at the fortifying of the surrounding kopjes, until within a
week the place had been made tolerably secure.
The first collision between the opposing forces at this part of the seat
of war was upon November 10th, when Colonel Gough of the 9th Lancers made
a reconnaissance from Orange River to the north with two squadrons of his
own regiment, the mounted infantry of the Northumberland Fusiliers, the
Royal Munsters, and the North Lancashires, with a battery of field
artillery. To the east of Belmont, about fifteen miles off, he came on a
detachment of the enemy with a gun. To make out the Boer position the
mounted infantry galloped round one of their flanks, and in doing so
passed close to a kopje which was occupied by sharpshooters. A deadly fire
crackled suddenly out from among the boulders. Of six men hit four were
officers, showing how cool were the marksmen and how dangerous those dress
distinctions which will probably disappear hence forwards upon the field
of battle. Colonel Keith-Falconer of the Northumberlands, who had earned
distinction in the Soudan, was shot dead. So was Wood of the North
Lancashires. Hall and Bevan of the Northumberlands were wounded. An
advance by train of the troops in camp drove back the Boers and extricated
our small force from what might have proved a serious position, for the
enemy in superior numbers were working round their wings. The troops
returned to camp without any good object having been attained, but that
must be the necessary fate of many a cavalry reconnaissance.
On November 12th Lord Methuen arrived at Orange River and proceeded to
organise the column which was to advance to the relief of Kimberley.
General Methuen had had some previous South African experience when in
1885 he had commanded a large body of irregular horse in Bechuanaland. His
reputation was that of a gallant fearless soldier. He was not yet
fifty-five years of age.
The force which gradually assembled at Orange River was formidable rather
from its quality than from its numbers. It included a brigade of Guards
(the 1st Scots Guards, 3rd Grenadiers, and 1st and 2nd Coldstreams), the
2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, the 2nd Northamptons, the 1st
Northumberlands, and a wing of the North Lancashires whose comrades were
holding out at Kimberley, with a naval brigade of seamen gunners and
marines. For cavalry he had the 9th Lancers, with detachments of mounted
infantry, and for artillery the 75th and 18th Batteries R.F.A.
Extreme mobility was aimed at in the column, and neither tents nor
comforts of any sort were permitted to officers or men—no light
matter in a climate where a tropical day is followed by an arctic night.
At daybreak on November 22nd the force, numbering about eight thousand
men, set off upon its eventful journey. The distance to Kimberley was not
more than sixty miles, and it is probable that there was not one man in
the force who imagined how long that march would take or how grim the
experiences would be which awaited them on the way. At the dawn of
Wednesday, November 22nd, Lord Methuen moved forward until he came into
touch with the Boer position at Belmont. It was surveyed that evening by
Colonel Willoughby Verner, and every disposition made to attack it in the
morning.
The force of the Boers was much inferior to our own, some two or three
thousand in all, but the natural strength of their position made it a
difficult one to carry, while it could not be left behind us as a menace
to our line of communications. A double row of steep hills lay across the
road to Kimberley, and it was along the ridges, snuggling closely among
the boulders, that our enemy was waiting for us. In their weeks of
preparation they had constructed elaborate shelter pits in which they
could lie in comparative safety while they swept all the level ground
around with their rifle fire. Mr. Ralph, the American correspondent, whose
letters were among the most vivid of the war, has described these lairs,
littered with straw and the debris of food, isolated from each other, and
each containing its grim and formidable occupant. ‘The eyries of birds of
prey’ is the phrase with which he brings them home to us. In these, with
nothing visible but their peering eyes and the barrels of their rifles,
the Boer marksmen crouched, and munched their biltong and their mealies as
the day broke upon the morning of the 23rd. With the light their enemy was
upon them.
It was a soldiers’ battle in the good old primeval British style, an Alma
on a small scale and against deadlier weapons. The troops advanced in grim
silence against the savage-looking, rock-sprinkled, crag-topped position
which confronted them. They were in a fierce humour, for they had not
breakfasted, and military history from Agincourt to Talavera shows that
want of food wakens a dangerous spirit among British troops. A
Northumberland Fusilier exploded into words which expressed the gruffness
of his comrades. As a too energetic staff officer pranced before their
line he roared in his rough North-country tongue, ‘Domn thee! Get thee to
hell, and let’s fire!’ In the golden light of the rising sun the men set
their teeth and dashed up the hills, scrambling, falling, cheering,
swearing, gallant men, gallantly led, their one thought to close with that
grim bristle of rifle-barrels which fringed the rocks above them.
Lord Methuen’s intention had been an attack from front and from flank, but
whether from the Grenadiers losing their bearings, or from the mobility of
the Boers, which made a flank attack an impossibility, it is certain that
all became frontal. The battle resolved itself into a number of isolated
actions in which the various kopjes were rushed by different British
regiments, always with success and always with loss. The honours of the
fight, as tested by the grim record of the casualty returns, lay with the
Grenadiers, the Coldstreams, the Northumberlands, and the Scots Guards.
The brave Guardsmen lay thickly on the slopes, but their comrades crowned
the heights. The Boers held on desperately and fired their rifles in the
very faces of the stormers. One young officer had his jaw blown to pieces
by a rifle which almost touched him. Another, Blundell of the Guards, was
shot dead by a wounded desperado to whom he was offering his water-bottle.
At one point a white flag was waved by the defenders, on which the British
left cover, only to be met by a volley. It was there that Mr. E. F.
Knight, of the ‘Morning Post,’ became the victim of a double abuse of the
usages of war, since his wound, from which he lost his right arm, was from
an explosive bullet. The man who raised the flag was captured, and it says
much for the humanity of British soldiers that he was not bayoneted upon
the spot. Yet it is not fair to blame a whole people for the misdeeds of a
few, and it is probable that the men who descended to such devices, or who
deliberately fired upon our ambulances, were as much execrated by their
own comrades as by ourselves.
The victory was an expensive one, for fifty killed and two hundred wounded
lay upon the hillside, and, like so many of our skirmishes with the Boers,
it led to small material results. Their losses appear to have been much
about the same as ours, and we captured some fifty prisoners, whom the
soldiers regarded with the utmost interest. They were a sullen slouching
crowd rudely clad, and they represented probably the poorest of the
burghers, who now, as in the middle ages, suffer most in battle, since a
long purse means a good horse. Most of the enemy galloped very comfortably
away after the action, leaving a fringe of sharpshooters among the kopjes
to hold back our pursuing cavalry. The want of horsemen and the want of
horse artillery are the two reasons which Lord Methuen gives why the
defeat was not converted into a rout. As it was, the feelings of the
retreating Boers were exemplified by one of their number, who turned in
his saddle in order to place his outstretched fingers to his nose in
derision of the victors. He exposed himself to the fire of half a
battalion while doing so, but he probably was aware that with our present
musketry instruction the fire of a British half-battalion against an
individual is not a very serious matter.
The remainder of the 23rd was spent at Belmont Camp, and next morning an
advance was made to Enslin, some ten miles further on. Here lay the plain
of Enslin, bounded by a formidable line of kopjes as dangerous as those of
Belmont. Lancers and Rimington’s Scouts, the feeble but very capable
cavalry of the Army, came in with the report that the hills were strongly
held. Some more hard slogging was in front of the relievers of Kimberley.
The advance had been on the line of the Cape Town to Kimberley Railway,
and the damage done to it by the Boers had been repaired to the extent of
permitting an armoured train with a naval gun to accompany the troops. It
was six o’ clock upon the morning of Saturday the 25th that this gun came
into action against the kopjes, closely followed by the guns of the field
artillery. One of the lessons of the war has been to disillusion us as to
the effect of shrapnel fire. Positions which had been made theoretically
untenable have again and again been found to be most inconveniently
tenanted. Among the troops actually engaged the confidence in the effect
of shrapnel fire has steadily declined with their experience. Some other
method of artillery fire than the curving bullet from an exploding
shrapnel shell must be devised for dealing with men who lie close among
boulders and behind cover.
These remarks upon shrapnel might be included in the account of half the
battles of the war, but they are particularly apposite to the action at
Enslin. Here a single large kopje formed the key to the position, and a
considerable time was expended upon preparing it for the British assault,
by directing upon it a fire which swept the face of it and searched, as
was hoped, every corner in which a rifleman might lurk. One of the two
batteries engaged fired no fewer than five hundred rounds. Then the
infantry advance was ordered, the Guards being held in reserve on account
of their exertions at Belmont. The Northumberlands, Northamptons, North
Lancashires, and Yorkshires worked round upon the right, and, aided by the
artillery fire, cleared the trenches in their front. The honours of the
assault, however, must be awarded to the sailors and marines of the Naval
Brigade, who underwent such an ordeal as men have seldom faced and yet
come out as victors. To them fell the task of carrying that formidable
hill which had been so scourged by our artillery. With a grand rush they
swept up the slope, but were met by a horrible fire. Every rock spurted
flame, and the front ranks withered away before the storm of the Mauser.
An eye-witness has recorded that the brigade was hardly visible amid the
sand knocked up by the bullets. For an instant they fell back into cover,
and then, having taken their breath, up they went again, with a
deep-chested sailor roar. There were but four hundred in all, two hundred
seamen and two hundred marines, and the losses in that rapid rush were
terrible. Yet they swarmed up, their gallant officers, some of them little
boy-middies, cheering them on. Ethelston, the commander of the ‘Powerful,’
was struck down. Plumbe and Senior of the Marines were killed. Captain
Prothero of the ‘Doris’ dropped while still yelling to his seamen to ‘take
that kopje and be hanged to it!’ Little Huddart, the middy, died a death
which is worth many inglorious years. Jones of the Marines fell wounded,
but rose again and rushed on with his men. It was on these gallant
marines, the men who are ready to fight anywhere and anyhow, moist or dry,
that the heaviest loss fell. When at last they made good their foothold
upon the crest of that murderous hill they had left behind them three
officers and eighty-eight men out of a total of 206—a loss within a
few minutes of nearly 50 per cent. The bluejackets, helped by the curve of
the hill, got off with a toll of eighteen of their number. Half the total
British losses of the action fell upon this little body of men, who upheld
most gloriously the honour and reputation of the service from which they
were drawn. With such men under the white ensign we leave our island homes
in safety behind us.
The battle of Enslin had cost us some two hundred of killed and wounded,
and beyond the mere fact that we had cleared our way by another stage
towards Kimberley it is difficult to say what advantage we had from it. We
won the kopjes, but we lost our men. The Boer killed and wounded were
probably less than half of our own, and the exhaustion and weakness of our
cavalry forbade us to pursue and prevented us from capturing their guns.
In three days the men had fought two exhausting actions in a waterless
country and under a tropical sun. Their exertions had been great and yet
were barren of result. Why this should be so was naturally the subject of
keen discussion both in the camp and among the public at home. It always
came back to Lord Methuen’s own complaint about the absence of cavalry and
of horse artillery. Many very unjust charges have been hurled against our
War Office—a department which in some matters has done
extraordinarily and unexpectedly well—but in this question of the
delay in the despatch of our cavalry and artillery, knowing as we did the
extreme mobility of our enemy, there is certainly ground for an inquiry.
The Boers who had fought these two actions had been drawn mainly from the
Jacobsdal and Fauresmith commandoes, with some of the burghers from
Boshof. The famous Cronje, however, had been descending from Mafeking with
his old guard of Transvaalers, and keen disappointment was expressed by
the prisoners at Belmont and at Enslin that he had not arrived in time to
take command of them. There were evidences, however, at this latter
action, that reinforcements for the enemy were coming up and that the
labours of the Kimberley relief force were by no means at an end. In the
height of the engagement the Lancer patrols thrown out upon our right
flank reported the approach of a considerable body of Boer horsemen, who
took up a position upon a hill on our right rear. Their position there was
distinctly menacing, and Colonel Willoughby Verner was despatched by Lord
Methuen to order up the brigade of Guards. The gallant officer had the
misfortune in his return to injure himself seriously through a blunder of
his horse. His mission, however, succeeded in its effect, for the Guards
moving across the plain intervened in such a way that the reinforcements,
without an open attack, which would have been opposed to all Boer
traditions, could not help the defenders, and were compelled to witness
their defeat. This body of horsemen returned north next day and were no
doubt among those whom we encountered at the following action of the
Modder River.
The march from Orange River had begun on the Wednesday. On Thursday was
fought the action of Belmont, on Saturday that of Enslin. There was no
protection against the sun by day nor against the cold at night. Water was
not plentiful, and the quality of it was occasionally vile. The troops
were in need of a rest, so on Saturday night and Sunday they remained at
Enslin. On the Monday morning (November 27th) the weary march to Kimberley
was resumed.
On Monday, November 27th, at early dawn, the little British army, a
dust-coloured column upon the dusty veld, moved forwards again towards
their objective. That night they halted at the pools of Klipfontein,
having for once made a whole day’s march without coming in touch with the
enemy. Hopes rose that possibly the two successive defeats had taken the
heart out of them and that there would be no further resistance to the
advance. Some, however, who were aware of the presence of Cronje, and of
his formidable character, took a juster view of the situation. And this
perhaps is where a few words might be said about the celebrated leader who
played upon the western side of the seat of war the same part which
Joubert did upon the east.
Commandant Cronje was at the time of the war sixty-five years of age, a
hard, swarthy man, quiet of manner, fierce of soul, with a reputation
among a nation of resolute men for unsurpassed resolution. His dark face
was bearded and virile, but sedate and gentle in expression. He spoke
little, but what he said was to the point, and he had the gift of those
fire-words which brace and strengthen weaker men. In hunting expeditions
and in native wars he had first won the admiration of his countrymen by
his courage and his fertility of resource. In the war of 1880 he had led
the Boers who besieged Potchefstroom, and he had pushed the attack with a
relentless vigour which was not hampered by the chivalrous usages of war.
Eventually he compelled the surrender of the place by concealing from the
garrison that a general armistice had been signed, an act which was
afterwards disowned by his own government. In the succeeding years he
lived as an autocrat and a patriarch amid his farms and his herds,
respected by many and feared by all. For a time he was Native Commissioner
and left a reputation for hard dealing behind him. Called into the field
again by the Jameson raid, he grimly herded his enemies into an impossible
position and desired, as it is stated, that the hardest measure should be
dealt out to the captives. This was the man, capable, crafty, iron-hard,
magnetic, who lay with a reinforced and formidable army across the path of
Lord Methuen’s tired soldiers. It was a fair match. On the one side the
hardy men, the trained shots, a good artillery, and the defensive; on the
other the historical British infantry, duty, discipline, and a fiery
courage. With a high heart the dust-coloured column moved on over the
dusty veld.
So entirely had hills and Boer fighting become associated in the minds of
our leaders, that when it was known that Modder River wound over a plain,
the idea of a resistance there appears to have passed away from their
minds. So great was the confidence or so lax the scouting that a force
equaling their own in numbers had assembled with many guns within seven
miles of them, and yet the advance appears to have been conducted without
any expectation of impending battle. The supposition, obvious even to a
civilian, that a river would be a likely place to meet with an obstinate
resistance, seems to have been ignored. It is perhaps not fair to blame
the General for a fact which must have vexed his spirit more than ours—one’s
sympathies go out to the gentle and brave man, who was heard calling out
in his sleep that he ‘should have had those two guns’—but it is
repugnant to common sense to suppose that no one, neither the cavalry nor
the Intelligence Department, is at fault for so extraordinary a state of
ignorance. [Footnote: Later information makes it certain that the cavalry
did report the presence of the enemy to Lord Methuen.] On the morning of
Tuesday, November 28th, the British troops were told that they would march
at once, and have their breakfast when they reached the Modder River—a
grim joke to those who lived to appreciate it.
The army had been reinforced the night before by the welcome addition of
the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which made up for the losses of the
week. It was a cloudless morning, and a dazzling sun rose in a deep blue
sky. The men, though hungry, marched cheerily, the reek of their
tobacco-pipes floating up from their ranks. It cheered them to see that
the murderous kopjes had, for the time, been left behind, and that the
great plain inclined slightly downwards to where a line of green showed
the course of the river. On the further bank were a few scattered
buildings, with one considerable hotel, used as a week-end resort by the
businessmen of Kimberley. It lay now calm and innocent, with its open
windows looking out upon a smiling garden; but death lurked at the windows
and death in the garden, and the little dark man who stood by the door,
peering through his glass at the approaching column, was the minister of
death, the dangerous Cronje. In consultation with him was one who was to
prove even more formidable, and for a longer time. Semitic in face,
high-nosed, bushy-bearded, and eagle-eyed, with skin burned brown by a
life of the veld—it was De la Rey, one of the trio of fighting
chiefs whose name will always be associated with the gallant resistance of
the Boers. He was there as adviser, but Cronje was in supreme command.
His dispositions had been both masterly and original. Contrary to the
usual military practice in the defence of rivers, he had concealed his men
upon both banks, placing, as it is stated, those in whose staunchness he
had least confidence upon the British side of the river, so that they
could only retreat under the rifles of their inexorable companions. The
trenches had been so dug with such a regard for the slopes of the ground
that in some places a triple line of fire was secured. His artillery,
consisting of several heavy pieces and a number of machine guns (including
one of the diabolical ‘pompoms’), was cleverly placed upon the further
side of the stream, and was not only provided with shelter pits but had
rows of reserve pits, so that the guns could be readily shifted when their
range was found. Rows of trenches, a broadish river, fresh rows of
trenches, fortified houses, and a good artillery well worked and well
placed, it was a serious task which lay in front of the gallant little
army. The whole position covered between four and five miles.
An obvious question must here occur to the mind of every non-military
reader—Why should this position be attacked at all? Why should we
not cross higher up where there were no such formidable obstacles?’ The
answer, so far as one can answer it, must be that so little was known of
the dispositions of our enemy that we were hopelessly involved in the
action before we knew of it, and that then it was more dangerous to
extricate the army than to push the attack. A retirement over that open
plain at a range of under a thousand yards would have been a dangerous and
disastrous movement. Having once got there, it was wisest and best to see
it through.
The dark Cronje still waited reflective in the hotel garden. Across the
veld streamed the lines of infantry, the poor fellows eager, after seven
miles of that upland air, for the breakfast which had been promised them.
It was a quarter to seven when our patrols of Lancers were fired upon.
There were Boers, then, between them and their meal! The artillery was
ordered up, the Guards were sent forward on the right, the 9th Brigade
under Pole-Carew on the left, including the newly arrived Argyll and
Sutherland Highlanders. They swept onwards into the fatal fire zone—and
then, and only then, there blazed out upon them four miles of rifles,
cannon, and machine guns, and they realised, from general to private, that
they had walked unwittingly into the fiercest battle yet fought in the
war.
Before the position was understood the Guards were within seven hundred
yards of the Boer trenches, and the other troops about nine hundred, on
the side of a very gentle slope which made it most difficult to find any
cover. In front of them lay a serene landscape, the river, the houses, the
hotel, no movement of men, no smoke—everything peaceful and deserted
save for an occasional quick flash and sparkle of flame. But the noise was
horrible and appalling. Men whose nerves had been steeled to the crash of
the big guns, or the monotonous roar of Maxims and the rattle of Mauser
fire, found a new terror in the malignant ‘ploop-plooping’ of the
automatic quick-firer. The Maxim of the Scots Guards was caught in the
hell-blizzard from this thing—each shell no bigger than a large
walnut, but flying in strings of a score—and men and gun were
destroyed in an instant. As to the rifle bullets the air was humming and
throbbing with them, and the sand was mottled like a pond in a shower. To
advance was impossible, to retire was hateful. The men fell upon their
faces and huddled close to the earth, too happy if some friendly ant-heap
gave them a precarious shelter. And always, tier above tier, the lines of
rifle fire rippled and palpitated in front of them. The infantry fired
also, and fired, and fired—but what was there to fire at? An
occasional eye and hand over the edge of a trench or behind a stone is no
mark at seven hundred yards. It would be instructive to know how many
British bullets found a billet that day.
The cavalry was useless, the infantry was powerless—there only
remained the guns. When any arm is helpless and harried it always casts an
imploring eye upon the guns, and rarely indeed is it that the gallant guns
do not respond. Now the 75th and 18th Field Batteries came rattling and
dashing to the front, and unlimbered at one thousand yards. The naval guns
were working at four thousand, but the two combined were insufficient to
master the fire of the pieces of large calibre which were opposed to them.
Lord Methuen must have prayed for guns as Wellington did for night, and
never was a prayer answered more dramatically. A strange battery came
lurching up from the British rear, unheralded, unknown, the weary gasping
horses panting at the traces, the men, caked with sweat and dirt, urging
them on into a last spasmodic trot. The bodies of horses which had died of
pure fatigue marked their course, the sergeants’ horses tugged in the
gun-teams, and the sergeants staggered along by the limbers. It was the
62nd Field Battery, which had marched thirty-two miles in eight hours, and
now, hearing the crash of battle in front of them, had with one last
desperate effort thrown itself into the firing line. Great credit is due
to Major Granet and his men. Not even those gallant German batteries who
saved the infantry at Spicheren could boast of a finer feat.
Now it was guns against guns, and let the best gunners win! We had
eighteen field-guns and the naval pieces against the concealed cannon of
the enemy. Back and forward flew the shells, howling past each other in
mid-air. The weary men of the 62nd Battery forgot their labours and
fatigues as they stooped and strained at their clay-coloured 15-pounders.
Half of them were within rifle range, and the limber horses were the
centre of a hot fire, as they were destined to be at a shorter range and
with more disastrous effect at the Tugela. That the same tactics should
have been adopted at two widely sundered points shows with what care the
details of the war had been pre-arranged by the Boer leaders. ‘Before I
got my horses out,’ says an officer, ‘they shot one of my drivers and two
horses and brought down my own horse. When we got the gun round one of the
gunners was shot through the brain and fell at my feet. Another was shot
while bringing up shell. Then we got a look in.’ The roar of the cannon
was deafening, but gradually the British were gaining the upper hand. Here
and there the little knolls upon the further side which had erupted into
constant flame lay cold and silent. One of the heavier guns was put out of
action, and the other had been withdrawn for five hundred yards. But the
infantry fire still crackled and rippled along the trenches, and the guns
could come no nearer with living men and horses. It was long past midday,
and that unhappy breakfast seemed further off than ever.
As the afternoon wore on, a curious condition of things was established.
The guns could not advance, and, indeed, it was found necessary to
withdraw them from a 1200 to a 2800-yard range, so heavy were the losses.
At the time of the change the 75th Battery had lost three officers out of
five, nineteen men, and twenty-two horses. The infantry could not advance
and would not retire. The Guards on the right were prevented from opening
out on the flank and getting round the enemy’s line, by the presence of
the Riet River, which joins the Modder almost at a right angle. All day
they lay under a blistering sun, the sleet of bullets whizzing over their
heads. ‘It came in solid streaks like telegraph wires,’ said a graphic
correspondent. The men gossiped, smoked, and many of them slept. They lay
on the barrels of their rifles to keep them cool enough for use. Now and
again there came the dull thud of a bullet which had found its mark, and a
man gasped, or drummed with his feet; but the casualties at this point
were not numerous, for there was some little cover, and the piping bullets
passed for the most part overhead.
But in the meantime there had been a development upon the left which was
to turn the action into a British victory. At this side there was ample
room to extend, and the 9th Brigade spread out, feeling its way down the
enemy’s line, until it came to a point where the fire was less murderous
and the approach to the river more in favour of the attack. Here the
Yorkshires, a party of whom under Lieutenant Fox had stormed a farmhouse,
obtained the command of a drift, over which a mixed force of Highlanders
and Fusiliers forced their way, led by their Brigadier in person. This
body of infantry, which does not appear to have exceeded five hundred in
number, were assailed both by the Boer riflemen and by the guns of both
parties, our own gunners being unaware that the Modder had been
successfully crossed. A small hamlet called Rosmead formed, however, a
point d’appui, and to this the infantry clung tenaciously, while
reinforcements dribbled across to them from the farther side. ‘Now, boys,
who’s for otter hunting?’ cried Major Coleridge, of the North Lancashires,
as he sprang into the water. How gladly on that baking, scorching day did
the men jump into the river and splash over, to climb the opposite bank
with their wet khaki clinging to their figures! Some blundered into holes
and were rescued by grasping the unwound putties of their comrades. And so
between three and four o’clock a strong party of the British had
established their position upon the right flank of the Boers, and were
holding on like grim death with an intelligent appreciation that the
fortunes of the day depended upon their retaining their grip.
‘Hollo, here is a river!’ cried Codrington when he led his forlorn hope to
the right and found that the Riet had to be crossed. ‘I was given to
understand that the Modder was fordable everywhere,’ says Lord Methuen in
his official despatch. One cannot read the account of the operations
without being struck by the casual, sketchy knowledge which cost us so
dearly. The soldiers slogged their way through, as they have slogged it
before; but the task might have been made much lighter for them had we but
clearly known what it was that we were trying to do. On the other hand, it
is but fair to Lord Methuen to say that his own personal gallantry and
unflinching resolution set the most stimulating example to his troops. No
General could have done more to put heart into his men.
And now, as the long weary scorching hungry day came to an end, the Boers
began at last to flinch from their trenches. The shrapnel was finding them
out and this force upon their flank filled them with vague alarm and with
fears for their precious guns. And so as night fell they stole across the
river, the cannon were withdrawn, the trenches evacuated, and next
morning, when the weary British and their anxious General turned
themselves to their grim task once more, they found a deserted village, a
line of empty houses, and a litter of empty Mauser cartridge-cases to show
where their tenacious enemy had stood.
Lord Methuen, in congratulating the troops upon their achievement, spoke
of ‘the hardest-won victory in our annals of war,’ and some such phrase
was used in his official despatch. It is hypercritical, no doubt, to look
too closely at a term used by a wounded man with the flush of battle still
upon him, but still a student of military history must smile at such a
comparison between this action and such others as Albuera or Inkerman,
where the numbers of British engaged were not dissimilar. A fight in which
five hundred men are killed and wounded cannot be classed in the same
category as those stern and desperate encounters where more of the victors
were carried than walked from the field of battle. And yet there were some
special features which will differentiate the fight at Modder River from
any of the hundred actions which adorn the standards of our regiments. It
was the third battle which the troops had fought within the week, they
were under fire for ten or twelve hours, were waterless under a tropical
sun, and weak from want of food. For the first time they were called upon
to face modern rifle fire and modern machine guns in the open. The result
tends to prove that those who hold that it will from now onwards be
impossible ever to make such frontal attacks as those which the English
made at the Alma or the French at Waterloo, are justified in their belief.
It is beyond human hardihood to face the pitiless beat of bullet and shell
which comes from modern quick-firing weapons. Had our flank not made a
lodgment across the river, it is impossible that we could have carried the
position. Once more, too, it was demonstrated how powerless the best
artillery is to disperse resolute and well-placed riflemen. Of the minor
points of interest there will always remain the record of the forced march
of the 62nd Battery, and artillerymen will note the use of gun-pits by the
Boers, which ensured that the range of their positions should never be
permanently obtained.
The honours of the day upon the side of the British rested with the Argyll
and Sutherland Highlanders, the Yorkshire Light Infantry, the 2nd
Coldstreams, and the artillery. Out of a total casualty list of about 450,
no fewer than 112 came from the gallant Argylls and 69 from the
Coldstreams. The loss of the Boers is exceedingly difficult to gauge, as
they throughout the war took the utmost pains to conceal it. The number of
desperate and long-drawn actions which have ended, according to the
official Pretorian account, in a loss of one wounded burgher may in some
way be better policy, but does not imply a higher standard of public
virtue, than those long lists which have saddened our hearts in the halls
of the War Office. What is certain is that the loss at Modder River could
not have been far inferior to our own, and that it arose almost entirely
from artillery fire, since at no time of the action were any large number
of their riflemen visible. So it ended, this long pelting match, Cronje
sullenly withdrawing under the cover of darkness with his resolute heart
filled with fierce determination for the future, while the British
soldiers threw themselves down on the ground which they occupied and slept
the sleep of exhaustion.
CHAPTER 9. BATTLE OF MAGERSFONTEIN.
Lord Methuen’s force had now fought three actions in the space of a single
week, losing in killed and wounded about a thousand men, or rather more
than one-tenth of its total numbers. Had there been evidence that the
enemy were seriously demoralised, the General would no doubt have pushed
on at once to Kimberley, which was some twenty miles distant. The
information which reached him was, however, that the Boers had fallen back
upon the very strong position of Spytfontein, that they were full of
fight, and that they had been strongly reinforced by a commando from
Mafeking. Under these circumstances Lord Methuen had no choice but to give
his men a well-earned rest, and to await reinforcements. There was no use
in reaching Kimberley unless he had completely defeated the investing
force. With the history of the first relief of Lucknow in his memory he
was on his guard against a repetition of such an experience.
It was the more necessary that Methuen should strengthen his position,
since with every mile which he advanced the more exposed did his line of
communications become to a raid from Fauresmith and the southern districts
of the Orange Free State. Any serious danger to the railway behind them
would leave the British Army in a very critical position, and precautions
were taken for the protection of the more vulnerable portions of the line.
It was well that this was so, for on the 8th of December Commandant
Prinsloo, of the Orange Free State, with a thousand horsemen and two light
seven-pounder guns, appeared suddenly at Enslin and vigorously attacked
the two companies of the Northampton Regiment who held the station. At the
same time they destroyed a couple of culverts and tore up three hundred
yards of the permanent way. For some hours the Northamptons under Captain
Godley were closely pressed, but a telegram had been despatched to Modder
Camp, and the 12th Lancers with the ubiquitous 62nd Battery were sent to
their assistance. The Boers retired with their usual mobility, and in ten
hours the line was completely restored.
Reinforcements were now reaching the Modder River force, which made it
more formidable than when it had started. A very essential addition was
that of the 12th Lancers and of G battery of Horse Artillery, which would
increase the mobility of the force and make it possible for the General to
follow up a blow after he had struck it. The magnificent regiments which
formed the Highland Brigade—the 2nd Black Watch, the 1st Gordons,
the 2nd Seaforths, and the 1st Highland Light Infantry had arrived under
the gallant and ill-fated Wauchope. Four five-inch howitzers had also come
to strengthen the artillery. At the same time the Canadians, the
Australians, and several line regiments were moved up on the line from De
Aar to Belmont. It appeared to the public at home that there was the
material for an overwhelming advance; but the ordinary observer, and even
perhaps the military critic, had not yet appreciated how great is the
advantage which is given by modern weapons to the force which acts upon
the defensive. With enormous pains Cronje and De la Rey were entrenching a
most formidable position in front of our advance, with a confidence, which
proved to be justified that it would be on their own ground and under
their own conditions that in this, as in the three preceding actions, we
should engage them.
On the morning of Saturday, December 9th, the British General made an
attempt to find out what lay in front of him amid that semicircle of
forbidding hills. To this end he sent out a reconnaissance in the early
morning, which included G Battery Horse Artillery, the 9th Lancers, and
the ponderous 4.7 naval gun, which, preceded by the majestic march of
thirty-two bullocks and attended by eighty seamen gunners, creaked
forwards over the plain. What was there to shoot at in those sunlit
boulder-strewn hills in front? They lay silent and untenanted in the glare
of the African day. In vain the great gun exploded its huge shell with its
fifty pounds of lyddite over the ridges, in vain the smaller pieces
searched every cleft and hollow with their shrapnel. No answer came from
the far-stretching hills. Not a flash or twinkle betrayed the fierce bands
who lurked among the boulders. The force returned to camp no wiser than
when it left.
There was one sight visible every night to all men which might well nerve
the rescuers in their enterprise. Over the northern horizon, behind those
hills of danger, there quivered up in the darkness one long, flashing,
quivering beam, which swung up and down, and up again like a seraphic
sword-blade. It was Kimberley praying for help, Kimberley solicitous for
news. Anxiously, distractedly, the great De Beers searchlight dipped and
rose. And back across the twenty miles of darkness, over the hills where
Cronje lurked, there came that other southern column of light which
answered, and promised, and soothed. ‘Be of good heart, Kimberley. We are
here! The Empire is behind us. We have not forgotten you. It may be days,
or it may be weeks, but rest assured that we are coming.’
About three in the afternoon of Sunday, December 10th, the force which was
intended to clear a path for the army through the lines of Magersfontein
moved out upon what proved to be its desperate enterprise. The 3rd or
Highland Brigade included the Black Watch, the Seaforths, the Argyll and
Sutherlands, and the Highland Light Infantry. The Gordons had only arrived
in camp that day, and did not advance until next morning. Besides the
infantry, the 9th Lancers, the mounted infantry, and all the artillery
moved to the front. It was raining hard, and the men with one blanket
between two soldiers bivouacked upon the cold damp ground, about three
miles from the enemy’s position. At one o’clock, without food, and
drenched, they moved forwards through the drizzle and the darkness to
attack those terrible lines. Major Benson, R.A., with two of Rimington’s
scouts, led them on their difficult way.
Clouds drifted low in the heavens, and the falling rain made the darkness
more impenetrable. The Highland Brigade was formed into a column—the
Black Watch in front, then the Seaforths, and the other two behind. To
prevent the men from straggling in the night the four regiments were
packed into a mass of quarter column as densely as was possible, and the
left guides held a rope in order to preserve the formation. With many a
trip and stumble the ill-fated detachment wandered on, uncertain where
they were going and what it was that they were meant to do. Not only among
the rank and file, but among the principal officers also, there was the
same absolute ignorance. Brigadier Wauchope knew, no doubt, but his voice
was soon to be stilled in death. The others were aware, of course, that
they were advancing either to turn the enemy’s trenches or to attack them,
but they may well have argued from their own formation that they could not
be near the riflemen yet. Why they should be still advancing in that dense
clump we do not now know, nor can we surmise what thoughts were passing
through the mind of the gallant and experienced chieftain who walked
beside them. There are some who claim on the night before to have seen
upon his strangely ascetic face that shadow of doom which is summed up in
the one word ‘fey.’ The hand of coming death may already have lain cold
upon his soul. Out there, close beside him, stretched the long trench,
fringed with its line of fierce, staring, eager faces, and its bristle of
gun-barrels. They knew he was coming. They were ready. They were waiting.
But still, with the dull murmur of many feet, the dense column, nearly
four thousand strong, wandered onwards through the rain and the darkness,
death and mutilation crouching upon their path.
It matters not what gave the signal, whether it was the flashing of a
lantern by a Boer scout, or the tripping of a soldier over wire, or the
firing of a gun in the ranks. It may have been any, or it may have been
none, of these things. As a matter of fact I have been assured by a Boer
who was present that it was the sound of the tins attached to the alarm
wires which disturbed them. However this may be, in an instant there
crashed out of the darkness into their faces and ears a roar of
point-blank fire, and the night was slashed across with the throbbing
flame of the rifles. At the moment before this outflame some doubt as to
their whereabouts seems to have flashed across the mind of their leaders.
The order to extend had just been given, but the men had not had time to
act upon it. The storm of lead burst upon the head and right flank of the
column, which broke to pieces under the murderous volley. Wauchope was
shot, struggled up, and fell once more for ever. Rumour has placed words
of reproach upon his dying lips, but his nature, both gentle and
soldierly, forbids the supposition. ‘What a pity!’ was the only utterance
which a brother Highlander ascribes to him. Men went down in swathes, and
a howl of rage and agony, heard afar over the veld, swelled up from the
frantic and struggling crowd. By the hundred they dropped—some dead,
some wounded, some knocked down by the rush and sway of the broken ranks.
It was a horrible business. At such a range and in such a formation a
single Mauser bullet may well pass through many men. A few dashed
forwards, and were found dead at the very edges of the trench. The few
survivors of companies A, B, and C of the Black Watch appear to have never
actually retired, but to have clung on to the immediate front of the Boer
trenches, while the remains of the other five companies tried to turn the
Boer flank. Of the former body only six got away unhurt in the evening
after lying all day within two hundred yards of the enemy. The rest of the
brigade broke and, disentangling themselves with difficulty from the dead
and the dying, fled back out of that accursed place. Some, the most
unfortunate of all, became caught in the darkness in the wire defences,
and were found in the morning hung up ‘like crows,’ as one spectator
describes it, and riddled with bullets.
Who shall blame the Highlanders for retiring when they did? Viewed, not by
desperate and surprised men, but in all calmness and sanity, it may well
seem to have been the very best thing which they could do. Dashed into
chaos, separated from their officers, with no one who knew what was to be
done, the first necessity was to gain shelter from this deadly fire, which
had already stretched six hundred of their number upon the ground. The
danger was that men so shaken would be stricken with panic, scatter in the
darkness over the face of the country, and cease to exist as a military
unit. But the Highlanders were true to their character and their
traditions. There was shouting in the darkness, hoarse voices calling for
the Seaforths, for the Argylls, for Company C, for Company H, and
everywhere in the gloom there came the answer of the clansmen. Within half
an hour with the break of day the Highland regiments had re-formed, and,
shattered and weakened, but undaunted, prepared to renew the contest. Some
attempt at an advance was made upon the right, ebbing and flowing, one
little band even reaching the trenches and coming back with prisoners and
reddened bayonets. For the most part the men lay upon their faces, and
fired when they could at the enemy; but the cover which the latter kept
was so excellent that an officer who expended 120 rounds has left it upon
record that he never once had seen anything positive at which to aim.
Lieutenant Lindsay brought the Seaforths’ Maxim into the firing-line, and,
though all her crew except two were hit, it continued to do good service
during the day. The Lancers’ Maxim was equally staunch, though it also was
left finally with only the lieutenant in charge and one trooper to work
it.
Fortunately the guns were at hand, and, as usual, they were quick to come
to the aid of the distressed. The sun was hardly up before the howitzers
were throwing lyddite at 4000 yards, the three field batteries (18th,
62nd, 75th) were working with shrapnel at a mile, and the troop of Horse
Artillery was up at the right front trying to enfilade the trenches. The
guns kept down the rifle-fire, and gave the wearied Highlanders some
respite from their troubles. The whole situation had resolved itself now
into another Battle of Modder River. The infantry, under a fire at from
six hundred to eight hundred paces, could not advance and would not
retire. The artillery only kept the battle going, and the huge naval gun
from behind was joining with its deep bark in the deafening uproar. But
the Boers had already learned—and it is one of their most valuable
military qualities that they assimilate their experience so quickly—that
shell fire is less dangerous in a trench than among rocks. These trenches,
very elaborate in character, had been dug some hundreds of yards from the
foot of the hills, so that there was hardly any guide to our artillery
fire. Yet it is to the artillery fire that all the losses of the Boers
that day were due. The cleverness of Cronje’s disposition of his trenches
some hundred yards ahead of the kopjes is accentuated by the fascination
which any rising object has for a gunner. Prince Kraft tells the story of
how at Sadowa he unlimbered his guns two hundred yards in front of the
church of Chlum, and how the Austrian reply fire almost invariably pitched
upon the steeple. So our own gunners, even at a two thousand-yard mark,
found it difficult to avoid overshooting the invisible line, and hitting
the obvious mark behind.
As the day wore on reinforcements of infantry came up from the force which
had been left to guard the camp. The Gordons arrived with the first and
second battalions of the Coldstream Guards, and all the artillery was
moved nearer to the enemy’s position. At the same time, as there were some
indications of an attack upon our right flank, the Grenadier Guards with
five companies of the Yorkshire Light Infantry were moved up in that
direction, while the three remaining companies of Barter’s Yorkshiremen
secured a drift over which the enemy might cross the Modder. This
threatening movement upon our right flank, which would have put the
Highlanders into an impossible position had it succeeded, was most
gallantly held back all morning, before the arrival of the Guards and the
Yorkshires, by the mounted infantry and the 12th Lancers, skirmishing on
foot. It was in this long and successful struggle to cover the flank of
the 3rd Brigade that Major Milton, Major Ray, and many another brave man
met his end. The Coldstreams and Grenadiers relieved the pressure upon
this side, and the Lancers retired to their horses, having shown, not for
the first time, that the cavalryman with a modern carbine can at a pinch
very quickly turn himself into a useful infantry soldier. Lord Airlie
deserves all praise for his unconventional use of his men, and for the
gallantry with which he threw both himself and them into the most critical
corner of the fight.
While the Coldstreams, the Grenadiers, and the Yorkshire Light Infantry
were holding back the Boer attack upon our right flank the indomitable
Gordons, the men of Dargai, furious with the desire to avenge their
comrades of the Highland Brigade, had advanced straight against the
trenches and succeeded without any very great loss in getting within four
hundred yards of them. But a single regiment could not carry the position,
and anything like a general advance upon it was out of the question in
broad daylight after the punishment which we had received. Any plans of
the sort which may have passed through Lord Methuen’s mind were driven
away for ever by the sudden unordered retreat of the stricken brigade.
They had been very roughly handled in this, which was to most of them
their baptism of fire, and they had been without food and water under a
burning sun all day. They fell back rapidly for a mile, and the guns were
for a time left partially exposed. Fortunately the lack of initiative on
the part of the Boers which has stood our friend so often came in to save
us from disaster and humiliation. It is due to the brave unshaken face
which the Guards presented to the enemy that our repulse did not deepen
into something still more serious.
The Gordons and the Scots Guards were still in attendance upon the guns,
but they had been advanced very close to the enemy’s trenches, and there
were no other troops in support. Under these circumstances it was
imperative that the Highlanders should rally, and Major Ewart with other
surviving officers rushed among the scattered ranks and strove hard to
gather and to stiffen them. The men were dazed by what they had undergone,
and Nature shrank back from that deadly zone where the bullets fell so
thickly. But the pipes blew, and the bugles sang, and the poor tired
fellows, the backs of their legs so flayed and blistered by lying in the
sun that they could hardly bend them, hobbled back to their duty. They
worked up to the guns once more, and the moment of danger passed.
But as the evening wore on it became evident that no attack could succeed,
and that therefore there was no use in holding the men in front of the
enemy’s position. The dark Cronje, lurking among his ditches and his
barbed wire, was not to be approached, far less defeated. There are some
who think that, had we held on there as we did at the Modder River, the
enemy would again have been accommodating enough to make way for us during
the night, and the morning would have found the road clear to Kimberley. I
know no grounds for such an opinion—but several against it. At
Modder Cronje abandoned his lines, knowing that he had other and stronger
ones behind him. At Magersfontein a level plain lay behind the Boer
position, and to abandon it was to give up the game altogether. Besides,
why should he abandon it? He knew that he had hit us hard. We had made
absolutely no impression upon his defences. Is it likely that he would
have tamely given up all his advantages and surrendered the fruits of his
victory without a struggle? It is enough to mourn a defeat without the
additional agony of thinking that a little more perseverance might have
turned it into a victory. The Boer position could only be taken by
outflanking it, and we were not numerous enough nor mobile enough to
outflank it. There lay the whole secret of our troubles, and no
conjectures as to what might under other circumstances have happened can
alter it.
About half-past five the Boer guns, which had for some unexplained reason
been silent all day, opened upon the cavalry. Their appearance was a
signal for the general falling back of the centre, and the last attempt to
retrieve the day was abandoned. The Highlanders were dead-beat; the
Coldstreams had had enough; the mounted infantry was badly mauled. There
remained the Grenadiers, the Scots Guards, and two or three line regiments
who were available for a new attack. There are occasions, such as Sadowa,
where a General must play his last card. There are others where with
reinforcements in his rear, he can do better by saving his force and
trying once again. General Grant had an axiom that the best time for an
advance was when you were utterly exhausted, for that was the moment when
your enemy was probably utterly exhausted too, and of two such forces the
attacker has the moral advantage. Lord Methuen determined—and no
doubt wisely—that it was no occasion for counsels of desperation.
His men were withdrawn—in some cases withdrew themselves—outside
the range of the Boer guns, and next morning saw the whole force with
bitter and humiliated hearts on their way back to their camp at Modder
River.
The repulse of Magersfontein cost the British nearly a thousand men,
killed, wounded, and missing, of which over seven hundred belonged to the
Highlanders. Fifty-seven officers had fallen in that brigade alone,
including their Brigadier and Colonel Downman of the Gordons. Colonel
Codrington of the Coldstreams was wounded early, fought through the
action, and came back in the evening on a Maxim gun. Lord Winchester of
the same battalion was killed, after injudiciously but heroically exposing
himself all day. The Black Watch alone had lost nineteen officers and over
three hundred men killed and wounded, a catastrophe which can only be
matched in all the bloody and glorious annals of that splendid regiment by
their slaughter at Ticonderoga in 1757, when no fewer than five hundred
fell before Montcalm’s muskets. Never has Scotland had a more grievous day
than this of Magersfontein. She has always given her best blood with
lavish generosity for the Empire, but it may be doubted if any single
battle has ever put so many families of high and low into mourning from
the Tweed to the Caithness shore. There is a legend that when sorrow comes
upon Scotland the old Edinburgh Castle is lit by ghostly lights and gleams
white at every window in the mirk of midnight. If ever the watcher could
have seen so sinister a sight, it should have been on this, the fatal
night of December 11, 1899. As to the Boer loss it is impossible to
determine it. Their official returns stated it to be seventy killed and
two hundred and fifty wounded, but the reports of prisoners and deserters
placed it at a very much higher figure. One unit, the Scandinavian corps,
was placed in an advanced position at Spytfontein, and was overwhelmed by
the Seaforths, who killed, wounded, or took the eighty men of whom it was
composed. The stories of prisoners and of deserters all speak of losses
very much higher than those which have been officially acknowledged.
In his comments upon the battle next day Lord Methuen was said to have
given offence to the Highland Brigade, and the report was allowed to go
uncontradicted until it became generally accepted. It arose, however, from
a complete misunderstanding of the purport of Lord Methuen’s remarks, in
which he praised them, as he well might, for their bravery, and condoled
with them over the wreck of their splendid regiments. The way in which
officers and men hung on under conditions to which no troops have ever
been exposed was worthy of the highest traditions of the British army.
From the death of Wauchope in the early morning, until the assumption of
the command of the brigade by Hughes-Hallett in the late afternoon, no one
seems to have taken the direction. ‘My lieutenant was wounded and my
captain was killed,’ says a private. ‘The General was dead, but we stayed
where we were, for there was no order to retire.’ That was the story of
the whole brigade, until the flanking movement of the Boers compelled them
to fall back.
The most striking lesson of the engagement is the extreme bloodiness of
modern warfare under some conditions, and its bloodlessness under others.
Here, out of a total of something under a thousand casualties seven
hundred were incurred in about five minutes, and the whole day of shell,
machine-gun, and rifle fire only furnished the odd three hundred. So also
at Ladysmith the British forces (White’s column) were under heavy fire
from 5.30 to 11.30, and the loss again was something under three hundred.
With conservative generalship the losses of the battles of the future will
be much less than those of the past, and as a consequence the battles
themselves will last much longer, and it will be the most enduring rather
than the most fiery which will win. The supply of food and water to the
combatants will become of extreme importance to keep them up during the
prolonged trials of endurance, which will last for weeks rather than days.
On the other hand, when a General’s force is badly compromised, it will be
so punished that a quick surrender will be the only alternative to
annihilation.
On the subject of the quarter-column formation which proved so fatal to
us, it must be remembered that any other form of advance is hardly
possible during a night attack, though at Tel-el-Kebir the exceptional
circumstance of the march being over an open desert allowed the troops to
move for the last mile or two in a more extended formation. A line of
battalion double-company columns is most difficult to preserve in the
darkness, and any confusion may lead to disaster. The whole mistake lay in
a miscalculation of a few hundred yards in the position of the trenches.
Had the regiments deployed five minutes earlier it is probable (though by
no means certain) that the position would have been carried.
The action was not without those examples of military virtue which soften
a disaster, and hold out a brighter promise for the future. The Guards
withdrew from the field as if on parade, with the Boer shells bursting
over their ranks. Fine, too, was the restraint of G Battery of Horse
Artillery on the morning after the battle. An armistice was understood to
exist, but the naval gun, in ignorance of it, opened on our extreme left.
The Boers at once opened fire upon the Horse Artillery, who, recognising
the mistake, remained motionless and unlimbered in a line, with every
horse, and gunner and driver in his place, without taking any notice of
the fire, which presently slackened and stopped as the enemy came to
understand the situation. It is worthy of remark that in this battle the
three field batteries engaged, as well as G Battery, R.H.A., each fired
over 1000 rounds and remained for 30 consecutive hours within 1500 yards
of the Boer position.
But of all the corps who deserve praise, there was none more gallant than
the brave surgeons and ambulance bearers, who encounter all the dangers
and enjoy none of the thrills of warfare. All day under fire these men
worked and toiled among the wounded. Beevor, Ensor, Douglas, Probyn—all
were equally devoted. It is almost incredible, and yet it is true, that by
ten o’clock on the morning after the battle, before the troops had
returned to camp, no fewer than five hundred wounded were in the train and
on their way to Cape Town.
CHAPTER 10. THE BATTLE OF STORMBERG.
Some attempt has now been made to sketch the succession of events which
had ended in the investment of Ladysmith in northern Natal, and also to
show the fortunes of the force which on the western side of the seat of
war attempted to advance to the relief of Kimberley. The distance between
these forces may be expressed in terms familiar to the European reader by
saying that it was that which separates Paris from Frankfort, or to the
American by suggesting that Ladysmith was at Boston and that Methuen was
trying to relieve Philadelphia. Waterless deserts and rugged mountain
ranges divided the two scenes of action. In the case of the British there
could be no connection between the two movements, but the Boers by a land
journey of something over a hundred miles had a double choice of a route
by which Cronje and Joubert might join hands, either by the
Bloemfontein-Johannesburg-Laing’s Nek Railway, or by the direct line from
Harrismith to Ladysmith. The possession of these internal lines should
have been of enormous benefit to the Boers, enabling them to throw the
weight of their forces unexpectedly from the one flank to the other.
In a future chapter it will be recorded how the Army Corps arriving from
England was largely diverted into Natal in order in the first instance to
prevent the colony from being overrun, and in the second to rescue the
beleaguered garrison. In the meantime it is necessary to deal with the
military operations in the broad space between the eastern and western
armies.
After the declaration of war there was a period of some weeks during which
the position of the British over the whole of the northern part of Cape
Colony was full of danger. Immense supplies had been gathered at De Aar
which were at the mercy of a Free State raid, and the burghers, had they
possessed a cavalry leader with the dash of a Stuart or a Sheridan, might
have dealt a blow which would have cost us a million pounds’ worth of
stores and dislocated the whole plan of campaign. However, the chance was
allowed to pass, and when, on November 1st, the burghers at last in a
leisurely fashion sauntered over the frontier, arrangements had been made
by reinforcement and by concentration to guard the vital points. The
objects of the British leaders, until the time for a general advance
should come, were to hold the Orange River Bridge (which opened the way to
Kimberley), to cover De Aar Junction, where the stores were, to protect at
all costs the line of railway which led from Cape Town to Kimberley, and
to hold on to as much as possible of those other two lines of railway
which led, the one through Colesberg and the other through Stormberg, into
the Free State. The two bodies of invaders who entered the colony moved
along the line of these two railways, the one crossing the Orange River at
Norval’s Pont and the other at Bethulie. They enlisted many recruits among
the Cape Colony Dutch as they advanced, and the scanty British forces fell
back in front of them, abandoning Colesberg on the one line and Stormberg
on the other. We have, then, to deal with the movements of two British
detachments. The one which operated on the Colesberg line—which was
the more vital of the two, as a rapid advance of the Boers upon that line
would have threatened the precious Cape Town to Kimberley connection—consisted
almost entirely of mounted troops, and was under the command of the same
General French who had won the battle of Elandslaagte. By an act of
foresight which was only too rare upon the British side in the earlier
stages of this war, French, who had in the recent large manoeuvres on
Salisbury Plain shown great ability as a cavalry leader, was sent out of
Ladysmith in the very last train which made its way through. His
operations, with his instructive use of cavalry and horse artillery, may
be treated separately.
The other British force which faced the Boers who were advancing through
Stormberg was commanded by General Gatacre, a man who bore a high
reputation for fearlessness and tireless energy, though he had been
criticised, notably during the Soudan campaign, for having called upon his
men for undue and unnecessary exertion. ‘General Back-acher’ they called
him, with rough soldierly chaff. A glance at his long thin figure, his
gaunt Don Quixote face, and his aggressive jaw would show his personal
energy, but might not satisfy the observer that he possessed those
intellectual gifts which qualify for high command. At the action of the
Atbara he, the brigadier in command, was the first to reach and to tear
down with his own hands the zareeba of the enemy—a gallant exploit
of the soldier, but a questionable position for the General. The man’s
strength and his weakness lay in the incident.
General Gatacre was nominally in command of a division, but so cruelly had
his men been diverted from him, some to Buller in Natal and some to
Methuen, that he could not assemble more than a brigade. Falling back
before the Boer advance, he found himself early in December at
Sterkstroom, while the Boers occupied the very strong position of
Stormberg, some thirty miles to the north of him. With the enemy so near
him it was Gatacre’s nature to attack, and the moment that he thought
himself strong enough he did so. No doubt he had private information as to
the dangerous hold which the Boers were getting upon the colonial Dutch,
and it is possible that while Buller and Methuen were attacking east and
west they urged Gatacre to do something to hold the enemy in the centre.
On the night of December 9th he advanced.
The fact that he was about to do so, and even the hour of the start,
appear to have been the common property of the camp some days before the
actual move. The ‘Times’ correspondent under the date December 7th details
all that it is intended to do. It is to the credit of our Generals as men,
but to their detriment as soldiers, that they seem throughout the campaign
to have shown extraordinarily little power of dissimulation. They did the
obvious, and usually allowed it to be obvious what they were about to do.
One thinks of Napoleon striking at Egypt; how he gave it abroad that the
real object of the expedition was Ireland, but breathed into the ears of
one or two intimates that in very truth it was bound for Genoa. The
leading official at Toulon had no more idea where the fleet and army of
France had gone than the humblest caulker in the yard. However, it is not
fair to expect the subtlety of the Corsican from the downright Saxon, but
it remains strange and deplorable that in a country filled with spies any
one should have known in advance that a so-called ‘surprise’ was about to
be attempted.
The force with which General Gatacre advanced consisted of the 2nd
Northumberland Fusiliers, 960 strong, with one Maxim; the 2nd Irish
Rifles, 840 strong, with one Maxim, and 250 Mounted Infantry. There were
two batteries of Field Artillery, the 74th and 77th. The total force was
well under 3000 men. About three in the afternoon the men were entrained
in open trucks under a burning sun, and for some reason, at which the
impetuous spirit of the General must have chafed, were kept waiting for
three hours. At eight o’clock they detrained at Molteno, and thence after
a short rest and a meal they started upon the night march which was
intended to end at the break of day at the Boer trenches. One feels as if
one were describing the operations of Magersfontein once again and the
parallel continues to be painfully exact.
It was nine o’clock and pitch dark when the column moved out of Molteno
and struck across the black gloom of the veld, the wheels of the guns
being wrapped in hide to deaden the rattle. It was known that the distance
was not more than ten miles, and so when hour followed hour and the guides
were still unable to say that they had reached their point it must have
become perfectly evident that they had missed their way. The men were
dog-tired, a long day’s work had been followed by a long night’s march,
and they plodded along drowsily through the darkness. The ground was
broken and irregular. The weary soldiers stumbled as they marched.
Daylight came and revealed the column still looking for its objective, the
fiery General walking in front and leading his horse behind him. It was
evident that his plans had miscarried, but his energetic and hardy
temperament would not permit him to turn back without a blow being struck.
However one may commend his energy, one cannot but stand aghast at his
dispositions. The country was wild and rocky, the very places for those
tactics of the surprise and the ambuscade in which the Boers excelled. And
yet the column still plodded aimlessly on in its dense formation, and if
there were any attempt at scouting ahead and on the flanks the result
showed how ineffectively it was carried out. It was at a quarter past four
in the clear light of a South African morning that a shot, and then
another, and then a rolling crash of musketry, told that we were to have
one more rough lesson of the result of neglecting the usual precautions of
warfare. High up on the face of a steep line of hill the Boer riflemen lay
hid, and from a short range their fire scourged our exposed flank. The men
appear to have been chiefly colonial rebels, and not Boers of the
backveld, and to that happy chance it may be that the comparative
harmlessness of their fire was due. Even now, in spite of the surprise,
the situation might have been saved had the bewildered troops and their
harried officers known exactly what to do. It is easy to be wise after the
event, but it appears now that the only course that could commend itself
would be to extricate the troops from their position, and then, if thought
feasible, to plan an attack. Instead of this a rush was made at the
hillside, and the infantry made their way some distance up it only to find
that there were positive ledges in front of them which could not be
climbed. The advance was at a dead stop, and the men lay down under the
boulders for cover from the hot fire which came from inaccessible marksmen
above them. Meanwhile the artillery had opened behind them, and their fire
(not for the first time in this campaign) was more deadly to their friends
than to their foes. At least one prominent officer fell among his men,
torn by British shrapnel bullets. Talana Hill and Modder River have shown
also, though perhaps in a less tragic degree, that what with the long
range of modern artillery fire, and what with the difficulty of locating
infantry who are using smokeless powder, it is necessary that officers
commanding batteries should be provided with the coolest heads and the
most powerful glasses of any men in the service, for a responsibility
which will become more and more terrific rests upon their judgment.
The question now, since the assault had failed, was how to extricate the
men from their position. Many withdrew down the hill, running the gauntlet
of the enemy’s fire as they emerged from the boulders on to the open
ground, while others clung to their positions, some from a soldierly hope
that victory might finally incline to them, others because it was clearly
safer to lie among the rocks than to cross the bullet-swept spaces beyond.
Those portions of the force who extricated themselves do not appear to
have realised how many of their comrades had remained behind, and so as
the gap gradually increased between the men who were stationary and the
men who fell back all hope of the two bodies reuniting became impossible.
All the infantry who remained upon the hillside were captured. The rest
rallied at a point fifteen hundred yards from the scene of the surprise,
and began an orderly retreat to Molteno.
In the meanwhile three powerful Boer guns upon the ridge had opened fire
with great accuracy, but fortunately with defective shells. Had the
enemy’s contractors been as trustworthy as their gunners in this campaign,
our losses would have been very much heavier, and it is possible that here
we catch a glimpse of some consequences of that corruption which was one
of the curses of the country. The guns were moved with great smartness
along the ridge, and opened fire again and again, but never with great
result. Our own batteries, the 74th and 77th, with our handful of mounted
men, worked hard in covering the retreat and holding back the enemy’s
pursuit.
It is a sad subject to discuss, but it is the one instance in a campaign
containing many reverses which amounts to demoralisation among the troops
engaged. The Guards marching with the steadiness of Hyde Park off the
field of Magersfontein, or the men of Nicholson’s Nek chafing because they
were not led in a last hopeless charge, are, even in defeat, object
lessons of military virtue. But here fatigue and sleeplessness had taken
all fire and spirit out of the men. They dropped asleep by the roadside
and had to be prodded up by their exhausted officers. Many were taken
prisoners in their slumber by the enemy who gleaned behind them. Units
broke into small straggling bodies, and it was a sorry and bedraggled
force which about ten o’clock came wandering into Molteno. The place of
honour in the rear was kept throughout by the Irish Rifles, who preserved
some military formation to the end. Our losses in killed and wounded were
not severe—military honour would have been less sore had they been
more so. Twenty-six killed, sixty-eight wounded—that is all. But
between the men on the hillside and the somnambulists of the column, six
hundred, about equally divided between the Irish Rifles and the
Northumberland Fusiliers, had been left as prisoners. Two guns, too, had
been lost in the hurried retreat.
It is not for the historian—especially for a civilian historian—to
say a word unnecessarily to aggravate the pain of that brave man who,
having done all that personal courage could do, was seen afterwards
sobbing on the table of the waiting-room at Molteno, and bewailing his
‘poor men.’ He had a disaster, but Nelson had one at Teneriffe and
Napoleon at Acre, and built their great reputations in spite of it. But
the one good thing of a disaster is that by examining it we may learn to
do better in the future, and so it would indeed be a perilous thing if we
agreed that our reverses were not a fit subject for open and frank
discussion.
It is not to the detriment of an enterprise that it should be daring and
call for considerable physical effort on the part of those who are engaged
in it. On the contrary, the conception of such plans is one of the signs
of a great military mind. But in the arranging of the details the same
military mind should assiduously occupy itself in foreseeing and
preventing every unnecessary thing which may make the execution of such a
plan more difficult. The idea of a swift sudden attack upon Stormberg was
excellent—the details of the operation are continually open to
criticism.
How far the Boers suffered at Stormberg is unknown to us, but there seems
in this instance no reason to doubt their own statement that their losses
were very slight. At no time was any body of them exposed to our fire,
while we, as usual, fought in the open. Their numbers were probably less
than ours, and the quality of their shooting and want of energy in pursuit
make the defeat the more galling. On the other hand, their guns were
served with skill and audacity. They consisted of commandos from Bethulie,
Rouxville, and Smithfield, under the orders of Olivier, with those
colonials whom they had seduced from their allegiance.
This defeat of General Gatacre’s, occurring, as it did, in a disaffected
district and one of great strategic importance, might have produced the
worst consequences.
Fortunately no very evil result followed. No doubt the recruiting of
rebels was helped, but there was no forward movement and Molteno remained
in our hands. In the meanwhile Gatacre’s force was reinforced by a fresh
battery, the 79th, and by a strong regiment, the Derbyshires, so that with
the 1st Royal Scots and the wing of the Berkshires he was strong enough to
hold his own until the time for a general advance should come. So in the
Stormberg district, as at the Modder River, the same humiliating and
absurd position of stalemate was established.
CHAPTER 11. BATTLE OF COLENSO.
Two serious defeats had within the week been inflicted upon the British
forces in South Africa. Cronje, lurking behind his trenches and his barbed
wire entanglements barred Methuen’s road to Kimberley, while in the
northern part of Cape Colony Gatacre’s wearied troops had been defeated
and driven by a force which consisted largely of British subjects. But the
public at home steeled their hearts and fixed their eyes steadily upon
Natal. There was their senior General and there the main body of their
troops. As brigade after brigade and battery after battery touched at Cape
Town, and were sent on instantly to Durban, it was evident that it was in
this quarter that the supreme effort was to be made, and that there the
light might at last break. In club, and dining room, and railway car—wherever
men met and talked—the same words might be heard: ‘Wait until Buller
moves.’ The hopes of a great empire lay in the phrase.
It was upon October 30th that Sir George White had been thrust back into
Ladysmith. On November 2nd telegraphic communication with the town was
interrupted. On November 3rd the railway line was cut. On November 10th
the Boers held Colenso and the line of the Tugela. On the 14th was the
affair of the armoured train. On the 18th the enemy were near Estcourt. On
the 21st they had reached the Mooi River. On the 23rd Hildyard attacked
them at Willow Grange. All these actions will be treated elsewhere. This
last one marks the turn of the tide. From then onwards Sir Redvers Buller
was massing his troops at Chieveley in preparation for a great effort to
cross the river and to relieve Ladysmith, the guns of which, calling from
behind the line of northern hills, told their constant tale of restless
attack and stubborn defence.
But the task was as severe a one as the most fighting General could ask
for. On the southern side the banks formed a long slope which could be
shaved as with a razor by the rifle fire of the enemy. How to advance
across that broad open zone was indeed a problem. It was one of many
occasions in this war in which one wondered why, if a bullet-proof shield
capable of sheltering a lying man could be constructed, a trial should not
be given to it. Alternate rushes of companies with a safe rest after each
rush would save the troops from the continued tension of that deadly never
ending fire. However, it is idle to discuss what might have been done to
mitigate their trials. The open ground had to be passed, and then they
came to—not the enemy, but a broad and deep river, with a single
bridge, probably undermined, and a single ford, which was found not to
exist in practice. Beyond the river was tier after tier of hills, crowned
with stone walls and seamed with trenches, defended by thousands of the
best marksmen in the world, supported by an admirable artillery. If, in
spite of the advance over the open and in spite of the passage of the
river, a ridge could still be carried, it was only to be commanded by the
next; and so, one behind the other, like the billows of the ocean, a
series of hills and hollows rolled northwards to Ladysmith. All attacks
must be in the open. All defence was from under cover. Add to this, that
the young and energetic Louis Botha was in command of the Boers. It was a
desperate task, and yet honour forbade that the garrison should be left to
its fate. The venture must be made.
The most obvious criticism upon the operation is that if the attack must
be made it should not be made under the enemy’s conditions. We seem almost
to have gone out of our way to make every obstacle—the glacislike
approach, the river, the trenches—as difficult as possible. Future
operations were to prove that it was not so difficult to deceive Boer
vigilance and by rapid movements to cross the Tugela. A military authority
has stated, I know not with what truth, that there is no instance in
history of a determined army being stopped by the line of a river, and
from Wellington at the Douro to the Russians on the Danube many examples
of the ease with which they may be passed will occur to the reader. But
Buller had some exceptional difficulties with which to contend. He was
weak in mounted troops, and was opposed to an enemy of exceptional
mobility who might attack his flank and rear if he exposed them. He had
not that great preponderance of numbers which came to him later, and which
enabled him to attempt a wide turning movement. One advantage he had, the
possession of a more powerful artillery, but his heaviest guns were
naturally his least mobile, and the more direct his advance the more
effective would his guns be. For these or other reasons he determined upon
a frontal attack on the formidable Boer position, and he moved out of
Chieveley Camp for that purpose at daybreak on Friday, December 15th.
The force which General Buller led into action was the finest which any
British general had handled since the battle of the Alma. Of infantry he
had four strong brigades: the 2nd (Hildyard’s) consisting of the 2nd
Devons, the 2nd Queen’s or West Surrey, the 2nd West Yorkshire, and the
2nd East Surrey; the 4th Brigade (Lyttelton’s) comprising the 2nd
Cameronians, the 3rd Rifles, the 1st Durhams, and the 1st Rifle Brigade;
the 5th Brigade (Hart’s) with the 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 1st
Connaught Rangers, 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, and the Border Regiment, this
last taking the place of the 2nd Irish Rifles, who were with Gatacre.
There remained the 6th Brigade (Barton’s), which included the 2nd Royal
Fusiliers, the 2nd Scots Fusiliers, the 1st Welsh Fusiliers, and the 2nd
Irish Fusiliers—in all about 16,000 infantry. The mounted men, who
were commanded by Lord Dundonald, included the 13th Hussars, the 1st
Royals, Bethune’s Mounted Infantry, Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry, three
squadrons of South African Horse, with a composite regiment formed from
the mounted infantry of the Rifles and of the Dublin Fusiliers with
squadrons of the Natal Carabineers and the Imperial Light Horse. These
irregular troops of horse might be criticised by martinets and pedants,
but they contained some of the finest fighting material in the army, some
urged on by personal hatred of the Boers and some by mere lust of
adventure. As an example of the latter one squadron of the South African
Horse was composed almost entirely of Texan muleteers, who, having come
over with their animals, had been drawn by their own gallant spirit into
the fighting line of their kinsmen.
Cavalry was General Buller’s weakest arm, but his artillery was strong
both in its quality and its number of guns. There were five batteries (30
guns) of the Field Artillery, the 7th, 14th, 63rd, 64th, and 66th. Besides
these there were no fewer than sixteen naval guns from H.M.S. ‘Terrible’—fourteen
of which were 12-pounders, and the other two of the 4.7 type which had
done such good service both at Ladysmith and with Methuen. The whole force
which moved out from Chieveley Camp numbered about 21,000 men.
The work which was allotted to the army was simple in conception, however
terrible it might prove in execution. There were two points at which the
river might be crossed, one three miles off on the left, named Bridle
Drift, the other straight ahead at the Bridge of Colenso. The 5th or Irish
Brigade was to endeavour to cross at Bridle Drift, and then to work down
the river bank on the far side so as to support the 2nd or English
Brigade,—which was to cross at Colenso. The 4th Brigade was to
advance between these, so as to help either which should be in
difficulties. Meanwhile on the extreme right the mounted troops under
Dundonald were to cover the flank and to attack Hlangwane Hill, a
formidable position held strongly by the enemy upon the south bank of the
Tugela. The remaining Fusilier brigade of infantry was to support this
movement on the right. The guns were to cover the various attacks, and if
possible gain a position from which the trenches might be enfiladed. This,
simply stated, was the work which lay before the British army. In the
bright clear morning sunshine, under a cloudless blue sky, they advanced
with high hopes to the assault. Before them lay the long level plain, then
the curve of the river, and beyond, silent and serene, like some peaceful
dream landscape, stretched the lines and lines of gently curving hills. It
was just five o’clock in the morning when the naval guns began to bay, and
huge red dustclouds from the distant foothills showed where the lyddite
was bursting. No answer came back, nor was there any movement upon the
sunlit hills. It was almost brutal, this furious violence to so gentle and
unresponsive a countryside. In no place could the keenest eye detect a
sign of guns or men, and yet death lurked in every hollow and crouched by
every rock.
It is so difficult to make a modern battle intelligible when fought, as
this was, over a front of seven or eight miles, that it is best perhaps to
take the doings of each column in turn, beginning with the left flank,
where Hart’s Irish Brigade had advanced to the assault of Bridle Drift.
Under an unanswered and therefore an unaimed fire from the heavy guns the
Irish infantry moved forward upon the points which they had been ordered
to attack. The Dublins led, then the Connaughts, the Inniskillings, and
the Borderers. Incredible as it may appear after the recent experiences of
Magersfontein and of Stormberg, the men in the two rear regiments appear
to have been advanced in quarter column, and not to have deployed until
after the enemy’s fire had opened. Had shrapnel struck this close
formation, as it was within an ace of doing, the loss of life must have
been as severe as it was unnecessary.
On approaching the Drift—the position or even the existence of which
does not seem to have been very clearly defined—it was found that
the troops had to advance into a loop formed by the river, so that they
were exposed to a very heavy cross-fire upon their right flank, while they
were rained on by shrapnel from in front. No sign of the enemy could be
seen, though the men were dropping fast. It is a weird and soul-shaking
experience to advance over a sunlit and apparently a lonely countryside,
with no slightest movement upon its broad face, while the path which you
take is marked behind you by sobbing, gasping, writhing men, who can only
guess by the position of their wounds whence the shots came which struck
them down. All round, like the hissing of fat in the pan, is the
monotonous crackle and rattle of the Mausers; but the air is full of it,
and no one can define exactly whence it comes. Far away on some hill upon
the skyline there hangs the least gauzy veil of thin smoke to indicate
whence the six men who have just all fallen together, as if it were some
grim drill, met their death. Into such a hell-storm as this it was that
the soldiers have again and again advanced in the course of this war, but
it may be questioned whether they will not prove to be among the last of
mortals to be asked to endure such an ordeal. Other methods of attack must
be found or attacks must be abandoned, for smokeless powder, quick-firing
guns, and modern rifles make it all odds on the defence!
The gallant Irishmen pushed on, flushed with battle and careless for their
losses, the four regiments clubbed into one, with all military
organisation rapidly disappearing, and nothing left but their gallant
spirit and their furious desire to come to hand-grips with the enemy.
Rolling on in a broad wave of shouting angry men, they never winced from
the fire until they had swept up to the bank of the river. Northern
Inniskilling and Southern man of Connaught, orange and green, Protestant
and Catholic, Celt and Saxon, their only rivalry now was who could shed
his blood most freely for the common cause. How hateful seem those
provincial politics and narrow sectarian creeds which can hold such men
apart!
The bank of the river had been gained, but where was the ford? The water
swept broad and unruffled in front of them, with no indication of
shallows. A few dashing fellows sprang in, but their cartridges and rifles
dragged them to the bottom. One or two may even have struggled through to
the further side, but on this there is a conflict of evidence. It may be,
though it seems incredible, that the river had been partly dammed to
deepen the Drift, or, as is more probable, that in the rapid advance and
attack the position of the Drift was lost. However this may be, the troops
could find no ford, and they lay down, as had been done in so many
previous actions, unwilling to retreat and unable to advance, with the
same merciless pelting from front and flank. In every fold and behind
every anthill the Irishmen lay thick and waited for better times. There
are many instances of their cheery and uncomplaining humour. Colonel
Brooke, of the Connaughts, fell at the head of his men. Private
Livingstone helped to carry him into safety, and then, his task done, he
confessed to having ‘a bit of a rap meself,’ and sank fainting with a
bullet through his throat. Another sat with a bullet through both legs.
‘Bring me a tin whistle and I’ll blow ye any tune ye like,’ he cried,
mindful of the Dargai piper. Another with his arm hanging by a tendon
puffed morosely at his short black pipe. Every now and then, in face of
the impossible, the fiery Celtic valour flamed furiously upwards. ‘Fix
bayonets, men, and let us make a name for ourselves,’ cried a colour
sergeant, and he never spoke again. For five hours, under the tropical
sun, the grimy parched men held on to the ground they had occupied.
British shells pitched short and fell among them. A regiment in support
fired at them, not knowing that any of the line were so far advanced. Shot
at from the front, the flank, and the rear, the 5th Brigade held grimly
on.
But fortunately their orders to retire were at hand, and it is certain
that had they not reached them the regiments would have been uselessly
destroyed where they lay. It seems to have been Buller himself, who showed
extraordinary and ubiquitous personal energy during the day, that ordered
them to fall back. As they retreated there was an entire absence of haste
and panic, but officers and men were hopelessly jumbled up, and General
Hart—whose judgment may occasionally be questioned, but whose cool
courage was beyond praise—had hard work to reform the splendid
brigade which six hours before had tramped out of Chieveley Camp. Between
five and six hundred of them had fallen—a loss which approximates to
that of the Highland Brigade at Magersfontein. The Dublins and the
Connaughts were the heaviest sufferers.
So much for the mishap of the 5th Brigade. It is superfluous to point out
that the same old omissions were responsible for the same old results. Why
were the men in quarter column when advancing against an unseen foe? Why
had no scouts gone forward to be certain of the position of the ford?
Where were the clouds of skirmishers which should precede such an advance?
The recent examples in the field and the teachings of the text-books were
equally set at naught, as they had been, and were to be, so often in this
campaign. There may be a science of war in the lecture-rooms at Camberley,
but very little of it found its way to the veld. The slogging valour of
the private, the careless dash of the regimental officer—these were
our military assets—but seldom the care and foresight of our
commanders. It is a thankless task to make such comments, but the one
great lesson of the war has been that the army is too vital a thing to
fall into the hands of a caste, and that it is a national duty for every
man to speak fearlessly and freely what he believes to be the truth.
Passing from the misadventure of the 5th Brigade we come as we move from
left to right upon the 4th, or Lyttelton’s Brigade, which was instructed
not to attack itself but to support the attack on either side of it. With
the help of the naval guns it did what it could to extricate and cover the
retreat of the Irishmen, but it could play no very important part in the
action, and its losses were insignificant. On its right in turn Hildyard’s
English Brigade had developed its attack upon Colenso and the bridge. The
regiments under Hildyard’s lead were the 2nd West Surrey, the 2nd Devons
(whose first battalion was doing so well with the Ladysmith force), the
East Surreys, and the West Yorkshires. The enemy had evidently anticipated
the main attack on this position, and not only were the trenches upon the
other side exceptionally strong, but their artillery converged upon the
bridge, at least a dozen heavy pieces, besides a number of quick-firers,
bearing upon it. The Devons and the Queens, in open order (an extended
line of khaki dots, blending so admirably with the plain that they were
hardly visible when they halted), led the attack, being supported by the
East Surrey and the West Yorkshires. Advancing under a very heavy fire the
brigade experienced much the same ordeal as their comrades of Hart’s
brigade, which was mitigated by the fact that from the first they
preserved their open order in columns of half-companies extended to six
paces, and that the river in front of them did not permit that right flank
fire which was so fatal to the Irishmen. With a loss of some two hundred
men the leading regiments succeeded in reaching Colenso, and the West
Surrey, advancing by rushes of fifty yards at a time, had established
itself in the station, but a catastrophe had occurred at an earlier hour
to the artillery which was supporting it which rendered all further
advance impossible. For the reason of this we must follow the fortunes of
the next unit upon their right.
This consisted of the important body of artillery who had been told off to
support the main attack. It comprised two field batteries, the 14th and
the 66th, under the command of Colonel Long, and six naval guns (two of
4.7, and four 12-pounders) under Lieutenant Ogilvy of the ‘Terrible.’ Long
has the record of being a most zealous and dashing officer, whose handling
of the Egyptian artillery at the battle of the Atbara had much to do with
the success of the action. Unfortunately, these barbarian campaigns, in
which liberties may be taken with impunity, leave an evil tradition, as
the French have found with their Algerians. Our own close formations, our
adherence to volley firing, and in this instance the use of our artillery
all seem to be legacies of our savage wars. Be the cause what it may, at
an early stage of the action Long’s guns whirled forwards, outstripped the
infantry brigades upon their flanks, left the slow-moving naval guns with
their ox-teams behind them, and unlimbered within a thousand yards of the
enemy’s trenches. From this position he opened fire upon Fort Wylie, which
was the centre of that portion of the Boer position which faced him.
But his two unhappy batteries were destined not to turn the tide of
battle, as he had hoped, but rather to furnish the classic example of the
helplessness of artillery against modern rifle fire. Not even Mercer’s
famous description of the effect of a flank fire upon his troop of horse
artillery at Waterloo could do justice to the blizzard of lead which broke
over the two doomed batteries. The teams fell in heaps, some dead, some
mutilated, and mutilating others in their frantic struggles. One driver,
crazed with horror, sprang on a leader, cut the traces and tore madly off
the field. But a perfect discipline reigned among the vast majority of the
gunners, and the words of command and the laying and working of the guns
were all as methodical as at Okehampton. Not only was there a most deadly
rifle fire, partly from the lines in front and partly from the village of
Colenso upon their left flank, but the Boer automatic quick-firers found
the range to a nicety, and the little shells were crackling and banging
continually over the batteries. Already every gun had its litter of dead
around it, but each was still fringed by its own group of furious officers
and sweating desperate gunners. Poor Long was down, with a bullet through
his arm and another through his liver. ‘Abandon be damned! We don’t
abandon guns!’ was his last cry as they dragged him into the shelter of a
little donga hard by. Captain Goldie dropped dead. So did Lieutenant
Schreiber. Colonel Hunt fell, shot in two places. Officers and men were
falling fast. The guns could not be worked, and yet they could not be
removed, for every effort to bring up teams from the shelter where the
limbers lay ended in the death of the horses. The survivors took refuge
from the murderous fire in that small hollow to which Long had been
carried, a hundred yards or so from the line of bullet-splashed cannon.
One gun on the right was still served by four men who refused to leave it.
They seemed to bear charmed lives, these four, as they strained and
wrestled with their beloved 15-pounder, amid the spurting sand and the
blue wreaths of the bursting shells. Then one gasped and fell against the
trail, and his comrade sank beside the wheel with his chin upon his
breast. The third threw up his hands and pitched forward upon his face;
while the survivor, a grim powder-stained figure, stood at attention
looking death in the eyes until he too was struck down. A useless
sacrifice, you may say; but while the men who saw them die can tell such a
story round the camp fire the example of such deaths as these does more
than clang of bugle or roll of drum to stir the warrior spirit of our
race.
For two hours the little knot of heart-sick humiliated officers and men
lay in the precarious shelter of the donga and looked out at the
bullet-swept plain and the line of silent guns. Many of them were wounded.
Their chief lay among them, still calling out in his delirium for his
guns. They had been joined by the gallant Baptie, a brave surgeon, who
rode across to the donga amid a murderous fire, and did what he could for
the injured men. Now and then a rush was made into the open, sometimes in
the hope of firing another round, sometimes to bring a wounded comrade in
from the pitiless pelt of the bullets. How fearful was that lead-storm may
be gathered from the fact that one gunner was found with sixty-four wounds
in his body. Several men dropped in these sorties, and the disheartened
survivors settled down once more in the donga.
The hope to which they clung was that their guns were not really lost, but
that the arrival of infantry would enable them to work them once more.
Infantry did at last arrive, but in such small numbers that it made the
situation more difficult instead of easing it. Colonel Bullock had brought
up two companies of the Devons to join the two companies (A and B) of
Scots Fusiliers who had been the original escort of the guns, but such a
handful could not turn the tide. They also took refuge in the donga, and
waited for better times.
In the meanwhile the attention of Generals Buller and Clery had been
called to the desperate position of the guns, and they had made their way
to that further nullah in the rear where the remaining limber horses and
drivers were. This was some distance behind that other donga in which
Long, Bullock, and their Devons and gunners were crouching. ‘Will any of
you volunteer to save the guns?’ cried Buller. Corporal Nurse, Gunner
Young, and a few others responded. The desperate venture was led by three
aides-de-camp of the Generals, Congreve, Schofield, and Roberts, the only
son of the famous soldier. Two gun teams were taken down; the horses
galloping frantically through an infernal fire, and each team succeeded in
getting back with a gun. But the loss was fearful. Roberts was mortally
wounded. Congreve has left an account which shows what a modern rifle fire
at a thousand yards is like. ‘My first bullet went through my left sleeve
and made the joint of my elbow bleed, next a clod of earth caught me smack
on the right arm, then my horse got one, then my right leg one, then my
horse another, and that settled us.’ The gallant fellow managed to crawl
to the group of castaways in the donga. Roberts insisted on being left
where he fell, for fear he should hamper the others.
In the meanwhile Captain Reed, of the 7th Battery, had arrived with two
spare teams of horses, and another determined effort was made under his
leadership to save some of the guns. But the fire was too murderous.
Two-thirds of his horses and half his men, including himself, were struck
down, and General Buller commanded that all further attempts to reach the
abandoned batteries should be given up. Both he and General Clery had been
slightly wounded, and there were many operations over the whole field of
action to engage their attention. But making every allowance for the
pressure of many duties and for the confusion and turmoil of a great
action, it does seem one of the most inexplicable incidents in British
military history that the guns should ever have been permitted to fall
into the hands of the enemy. It is evident that if our gunners could not
live under the fire of the enemy it would be equally impossible for the
enemy to remove the guns under a fire from a couple of battalions of our
infantry. There were many regiments which had hardly been engaged, and
which could have been advanced for such a purpose. The men of the Mounted
Infantry actually volunteered for this work, and none could have been more
capable of carrying it out. There was plenty of time also, for the guns
were abandoned about eleven and the Boers did not venture to seize them
until four. Not only could the guns have been saved, but they might, one
would think, have been transformed into an excellent bait for a trap to
tempt the Boers out of their trenches. It must have been with fear and
trembling that Cherry Emmett and his men first approached them, for how
could they believe that such incredible good fortune had come to them?
However, the fact, humiliating and inexplicable, is that the guns were so
left, that the whole force was withdrawn, and that not only the ten
cannon, but also the handful of Devons, with their Colonel, and the
Fusiliers were taken prisoners in the donga which had sheltered them all
day.
We have now, working from left to right, considered the operations of
Hart’s Brigade at Bridle Drift, of Lyttelton’s Brigade in support, of
Hildyard’s which attacked Colenso, and of the luckless batteries which
were to have helped him. There remain two bodies of troops upon the right,
the further consisting of Dundonald’s mounted men who were to attack
Hlangwane Hill, a fortified Boer position upon the south of the river,
while Barton’s Brigade was to support it and to connect this attack with
the central operations.
Dundonald’s force was entirely too weak for such an operation as the
capture of the formidable entrenched hill, and it is probable that the
movement was meant rather as a reconnaissance than as an assault. He had
not more than a thousand men in all, mostly irregulars, and the position
which faced him was precipitous and entrenched, with barbed-wire
entanglements and automatic guns. But the gallant colonials were out on
their first action, and their fiery courage pushed the attack home.
Leaving their horses, they advanced a mile and a half on foot before they
came within easy range of the hidden riflemen, and learned the lesson
which had been taught to their comrades all along the line, that given
approximately equal numbers the attack in the open has no possible chance
against the concealed defence, and that the more bravely it is pushed the
more heavy is the repulse. The irregulars carried themselves like old
soldiers, they did all that mortal man could do, and they retired coolly
and slowly with the loss of 130 of the brave troopers. The 7th Field
Battery did all that was possible to support the advance and cover the
retirement. In no single place, on this day of disaster, did one least
gleam of success come to warm the hearts and reward the exertions of our
much-enduring men.
Of Barton’s Brigade there is nothing to be recorded, for they appear
neither to have supported the attack upon Hlangwane Hill on the one side
nor to have helped to cover the ill-fated guns on the other. Barton was
applied to for help by Dundonald, but refused to detach any of his troops.
If General Buller’s real idea was a reconnaissance in force in order to
determine the position and strength of the Boer lines, then of course his
brigadiers must have felt a reluctance to entangle their brigades in a
battle which was really the result of a misunderstanding. On the other
hand, if, as the orders of the day seem to show, a serious engagement was
always intended, it is strange that two brigades out of four should have
played so insignificant a part. To Barton’s Brigade was given the
responsibility of seeing that no right flank attack was carried out by the
Boers, and this held it back until it was clear that no such attack was
contemplated. After that one would have thought that, had the situation
been appreciated, at least two battalions might have been spared to cover
the abandoned guns with their rifle fire. Two companies of the Scots
Fusiliers did share the fortunes of the guns. Two others, and one of the
Irish Fusiliers, acted in support, but the brigade as a whole, together
with the 1st Royals and the 13th Hussars, might as well have been at
Aldershot for any bearing which their work had upon the fortunes of the
day.
And so the first attempt at the relief of Ladysmith came to an end. At
twelve o’clock all the troops upon the ground were retreating for the
camp. There was nothing in the shape of rout or panic, and the withdrawal
was as orderly as the advance; but the fact remained that we had just 1200
men in killed, wounded, and missing, and had gained absolutely nothing. We
had not even the satisfaction of knowing that we had inflicted as well as
endured punishment, for the enemy remained throughout the day so cleverly
concealed that it is doubtful whether more than a hundred casualties
occurred in their ranks. Once more it was shown how weak an arm is
artillery against an enemy who lies in shelter.
Our wounded fortunately bore a high proportion to our killed, as they
always will do when it is rifle fire rather than shell fire which is
effective. Roughly we had 150 killed and about 720 wounded. A more
humiliating item is the 250 or so who were missing. These men were the
gunners, the Devons, and the Scots Fusiliers, who were taken in the donga
together with small bodies from the Connaughts, the Dublins, and other
regiments who, having found some shelter, were unable to leave it, and
clung on until the retirement of their regiments left them in a hopeless
position. Some of these small knots of men were allowed to retire in the
evening by the Boers, who seemed by no means anxious to increase the
number of their prisoners. Colonel Thackeray, of the Inniskilling
Fusiliers, found himself with a handful of his men surrounded by the
enemy, but owing to their good humour and his own tact he succeeded in
withdrawing them in safety. The losses fell chiefly on Hart’s Brigade,
Hildyard’s Brigade, and the colonial irregulars, who bore off the honours
of the fight.
In his official report General Buller states that were it not for the
action of Colonel Long and the subsequent disaster to the artillery he
thought that the battle might have been a successful one. This is a hard
saying, and throws perhaps too much responsibility upon the gallant but
unfortunate gunner. There have been occasions in the war when greater dash
upon the part of our artillery might have changed the fate of the day, and
it is bad policy to be too severe upon the man who has taken a risk and
failed. The whole operation, with its advance over the open against a
concealed enemy with a river in his front, was so absolutely desperate
that Long may have seen that only desperate measures could save the
situation. To bring guns into action in front of the infantry without
having clearly defined the position of the opposing infantry must always
remain one of the most hazardous ventures of war. ‘It would certainly be
mere folly,’ says Prince Kraft, ‘to advance artillery to within 600 or 800
yards of a position held by infantry unless the latter were under the fire
of infantry from an even shorter range.’ This ‘mere folly’ is exactly what
Colonel Long did, but it must be remembered in extenuation that he shared
with others the idea that the Boers were up on the hills, and had no
inkling that their front trenches were down at the river. With the
imperfect means at his disposal he did such scouting as he could, and if
his fiery and impetuous spirit led him into a position which cost him so
dearly it is certainly more easy for the critic to extenuate his fault
than that subsequent one which allowed the abandoned guns to fall into the
hands of the enemy. Nor is there any evidence that the loss of these guns
did seriously affect the fate of the action, for at those other parts of
the field where the infantry had the full and unceasing support of the
artillery the result was not more favourable than at the centre.
So much for Colenso. A more unsatisfactory and in some ways inexplicable
action is not to be found in the range of British military history. And
the fuller the light which has been poured upon it, the more extraordinary
does the battle appear. There are a preface and a sequel to the action
which have put a severe strain upon the charity which the British public
has always shown that it is prepared to extend to a defeated General. The
preface is that General Buller sent word to General White that he proposed
to attack upon the 17th, while the actual attack was delivered upon the
15th, so that the garrison was not prepared to make that demonstration
which might have prevented the besiegers from sending important
reinforcements to Botha, had he needed them. The sequel is more serious.
Losing all heart at his defeat, General Buller, although he had been
officially informed that White had provisions for seventy days, sent a
heliogram advising the surrender of the garrison. White’s first reply,
which deserves to live with the anecdote of Nelson’s telescope at his
blind eye, was to the effect that he believed the enemy had been tampering
with Buller’s messages. To this Buller despatched an amended message,
which with Sir George White’s reply, is here appended:
Message of December 16th, as altered by that of December 17th, 1899.
‘I tried Colenso yesterday, but failed; the enemy is too strong for my
force except with siege operations, and these will take one full month to
prepare. Can you last so long?
‘How many days can you hold out? I suggest you firing away as much
ammunition as you can, and making best terms you can. I can remain here if
you have alternative suggestion, but unaided I cannot break in. I find my
infantry cannot fight more than ten miles from camp, and then only if
water can be got, and it is scarce here. Whatever happens, recollect to
burn your cipher, decipher, and code books, and all deciphered messages.’
From Sir G. White to Sir R. Buller. December 16th, 1899.
‘Yours of today received and understood. My suggestion is that you take up
strongest available position that will enable you to keep touch of the
enemy and harass him constantly with artillery fire, and in other ways as
much as possible. I can make food last for much longer than a month, and
will not think of making terms till I am forced to. You may have hit enemy
harder than you think. All our native spies report that your artillery
fire made considerable impression on enemy. Have your losses been very
heavy? If you lose touch of enemy, it will immensely increase his
opportunities of crushing me, and have worst effect elsewhere. While you
are in touch with him and in communication with me, he has both of our
forces to reckon with. Make every effort to get reinforcements as early as
possible, including India, and enlist every man in both colonies who will
serve and can ride. Things may look brighter. The loss of 12,000 men here
would be a heavy blow to England. We must not yet think of it. I fear I
could not cut my way to you. Enteric fever is increasing alarmingly here.
There are now 180 cases, all within last month. Answer fully. I am keeping
everything secret for the present till I know your plans.’
Much allowance is to be made for a man who is staggering under the mental
shock of defeat and the physical exertions which Buller had endured. That
the Government made such allowance is clear from the fact that he was not
instantly recalled. And yet the cold facts are that we have a British
General, at the head of 25,000 men, recommending another General, at the
head of 12,000 men only twelve miles off, to lay down his arms to an army
which was certainly very inferior in numbers to the total British force;
and this because he had once been defeated, although he knew that there
was still time for the whole resources of the Empire to be poured into
Natal in order to prevent so shocking a disaster. Such is a plain
statement of the advice which Buller gave and which White rejected. For
the instant the fate not only of South Africa but even, as I believe, of
the Empire hung upon the decision of the old soldier in Ladysmith, who had
to resist the proposals of his own General as sternly as the attacks of
the enemy. He who sorely needed help and encouragement became, as his
message shows, the helper and the encourager. It was a tremendous test,
and Sir George White came through it with a staunchness and a loyalty
which saved us not only from overwhelming present disaster, but from a
hideous memory which must have haunted British military annals for
centuries to come.
CHAPTER 12. THE DARK HOUR.
The week which extended from December 10th to December 17th, 1899, was the
blackest one known during our generation, and the most disastrous for
British arms during the century. We had in the short space of seven days
lost, beyond all extenuation or excuse, three separate actions. No single
defeat was of vital importance in itself, but the cumulative effect,
occurring as they did to each of the main British forces in South Africa,
was very great. The total loss amounted to about three thousand men and
twelve guns, while the indirect effects in the way of loss of prestige to
ourselves and increased confidence and more numerous recruits to our enemy
were incalculable.
It is singular to glance at the extracts from the European press at that
time and to observe the delight and foolish exultation with which our
reverses were received. That this should occur in the French journals is
not unnatural, since our history has been largely a contest with that
Power, and we can regard with complacency an enmity which is the tribute
to our success. Russia, too, as the least progressive of European States,
has a natural antagonism of thought, if not of interests, to the Power
which stands most prominently for individual freedom and liberal
institutions. The same poor excuse may be made for the organs of the
Vatican. But what are we to say of the insensate railing of Germany, a
country whose ally we have been for centuries? In the days of Marlborough,
in the darkest hours of Frederick the Great, in the great world struggle
of Napoleon, we have been the brothers-in-arms of these people. So with
the Austrians also. If both these countries were not finally swept from
the map by Napoleon, it is largely to British subsidies and British
tenacity that they owe it. And yet these are the folk who turned most
bitterly against us at the only time in modern history when we had a
chance of distinguishing our friends from our foes. Never again, I trust,
on any pretext will a British guinea be spent or a British soldier or
sailor shed his blood for such allies. The political lesson of this writer
has been that we should make ourselves strong within the empire, and let
all outside it, save only our kinsmen of America, go their own way and
meet their own fate without let or hindrance from us. It is amazing to
find that even the Americans could understand the stock from which they
are themselves sprung so little that such papers as the ‘New York Herald’
should imagine that our defeat at Colenso was a good opportunity for us to
terminate the war. The other leading American journals, however, took a
more sane view of the situation, and realised that ten years of such
defeats would not find the end either of our resolution or of our
resources.
In the British Islands and in the empire at large our misfortunes were met
by a sombre but unalterable determination to carry the war to a successful
conclusion and to spare no sacrifices which could lead to that end. Amid
the humiliation of our reverses there was a certain undercurrent of
satisfaction that the deeds of our foemen should at least have made the
contention that the strong was wantonly attacking the weak an absurd one.
Under the stimulus of defeat the opposition to the war sensibly decreased.
It had become too absurd even for the most unreasonable platform orator to
contend that a struggle had been forced upon the Boers when every fresh
detail showed how thoroughly they had prepared for such a contingency and
how much we had to make up. Many who had opposed the war simply on that
sporting instinct which backs the smaller against the larger began to
realise that what with the geographical position of these people, what
with the nature of their country, and what with the mobility, number, and
hardihood of their forces, we had undertaken a task which would
necessitate such a military effort as we had never before been called upon
to make. When Kipling at the dawn of the war had sung of ‘fifty thousand
horse and foot going to Table Bay,’ the statement had seemed extreme. Now
it was growing upon the public mind that four times this number would not
be an excessive estimate. But the nation rose grandly to the effort. Their
only fear, often and loudly expressed, was that Parliament would deal too
tamely with the situation and fail to demand sufficient sacrifices. Such
was the wave of feeling over the country that it was impossible to hold a
peace meeting anywhere without a certainty of riot. The only London daily
which had opposed the war, though very ably edited, was overborne by the
general sentiment and compelled to change its line. In the provinces also
opposition was almost silent, and the great colonies were even more
unanimous than the mother country. Misfortune had solidified us where
success might have caused a sentimental opposition.
On the whole, the energetic mood of the nation was reflected by the
decided measures of the Government. Before the deep-sea cables had told us
the lists of our dead, steps had been taken to prove to the world how
great were our latent resources and how determined our spirit. On December
18th, two days after Colenso, the following provisions were made for
carrying on the campaign.
1. That as General Buller’s hands were full in Natal the supervision and
direction of the whole campaign should be placed in the hands of Lord
Roberts, with Lord Kitchener as his chief of staff. Thus the famous old
soldier and the famous young one were called together to the assistance of
the country.
2. That all the remaining army reserves should be called out.
3. That the 7th Division (10,000 men) should be despatched to Africa, and
that an 8th Division should be formed ready for service.
4. That considerable artillery reinforcements, including a howitzer
brigade, should go out.
5. That eleven Militia battalions be sent abroad.
6. That a strong contingent of Volunteers be sent out.
7. That a Yeomanry mounted force be despatched.
8. That mounted corps be raised at the discretion of the
Commander-in-Chief in South Africa.
9. That the patriotic offers of further contingents from the colonies be
gratefully accepted.
By these measures it was calculated that from seventy to a hundred
thousand men would be added to our South African armies, the numbers of
which were already not short of a hundred thousand.
It is one thing, however, to draw up paper reinforcements, and it is
another, in a free country where no compulsion would be tolerated, to turn
these plans into actual regiments and squadrons. But if there were any who
doubted that this ancient nation still glowed with the spirit of its youth
his fears must soon have passed away. For this far-distant war, a war of
the unseen foe and of the murderous ambuscade, there were so many
volunteers that the authorities were embarrassed by their numbers and
their pertinacity. It was a stimulating sight to see those long queues of
top-hatted, frock-coated young men who waited their turn for the orderly
room with as much desperate anxiety as if hard fare, a veld bed, and Boer
bullets were all that life had that was worth the holding. Especially the
Imperial Yeomanry, a corps of riders and shots, appealed to the sporting
instincts of our race. Many could ride and not shoot, many could shoot and
not ride, more candidates were rejected than were accepted, and yet in a
very short time eight thousand men from every class were wearing the grey
coats and bandoliers. This singular and formidable force was drawn from
every part of England and Scotland, with a contingent of hard-riding Irish
fox-hunters. Noblemen and grooms rode knee to knee in the ranks, and the
officers included many well-known country gentlemen and masters of hounds.
Well horsed and well armed, a better force for the work in hand could not
be imagined. So high did the patriotism run that corps were formed in
which the men not only found their own equipment but contributed their pay
to the war fund. Many young men about town justified their existence for
the first time. In a single club, which is peculiarly consecrated to the
jeunesse doree, three hundred members rode to the wars.
Without waiting for these distant but necessary reinforcements, the
Generals in Africa had two divisions to look to, one of which was actually
arriving while the other was on the sea. These formed the 5th Division
under Sir Charles Warren, and the 6th Division under General Kelly-Kenny.
Until these forces should arrive it was obviously best that the three
armies should wait, for, unless there should be pressing need of help on
the part of the besieged garrisons or imminent prospects of European
complications, every week which passed was in our favour. There was
therefore a long lull in the war, during which Methuen strengthened his
position at Modder River, Gatacre held his own at Sterkstroom, and Buller
built up his strength for another attempt at the relief of Ladysmith. The
only connected series of operations during that time were those of General
French in the neighbourhood of Colesberg, an account of which will be
found in their entirety elsewhere. A short narrative may be given here of
the doings of each of these forces until the period of inaction came to an
end.
Methuen after the repulse at Magersfontein had fallen back upon the lines
of Modder River, and had fortified them in such a way that he felt himself
secure against assault. Cronje, on the other hand, had extended his
position both to the right and to the left, and had strengthened the works
which we had already found so formidable. In this way a condition of
inaction was established which was really very much to our advantage,
since Methuen retained his communications by rail, while all supplies to
Cronje had to come a hundred miles by road. The British troops, and
especially the Highland Brigade, were badly in need of a rest after the
very severe ordeal which they had undergone. General Hector Macdonald,
whose military record had earned the soldierly name of ‘Fighting Mac,’ was
sent for from India to take the place of the ill-fated Wauchope. Pending
his arrival and that of reinforcements, Methuen remained quiet, and the
Boers fortunately followed his example. From over the northern horizon
those silver flashes of light told that Kimberley was dauntless in the
present and hopeful of the future. On January 1st the British post of
Kuruman fell, by which twelve officers and 120 police were captured. The
town was isolated, and its capture could have no effect upon the general
operations, but it is remarkable as the only capture of a fortified post
up to this point made by the Boers.
The monotony of the long wait was broken by one dashing raid carried out
by a detachment from Methuen’s line of communications. This force
consisted of 200 Queenslanders, 100 Canadians (Toronto Company), 40
mounted Munster Fusiliers, a New South Wales Ambulance, and 200 of the
Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry with one horse battery. This singular
force, so small in numbers and yet raked from the ends of the earth, was
under the command of Colonel Pilcher. Moving out suddenly and rapidly from
Belmont, it struck at the extreme right of the Boer line, which consisted
of a laager occupied by the colonial rebels of that part of the country.
Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm of the colonists at the prospect of
action. ‘At last!’ was the cry which went up from the Canadians when they
were ordered to advance. The result was an absolute success. The rebels
broke and fled, their camp was taken, and forty of them fell into our
hands. Our own loss was slight, three killed and a few wounded. The flying
column occupied the town of Douglas and hoisted the British flag there;
but it was decided that the time had not yet come when it could be held,
and the force fell back upon Belmont. The rebel prisoners were sent down
to Cape Town for trial. The movement was covered by the advance of a force
under Babington from Methuen’s force. This detachment, consisting of the
9th and 12th Lancers, with some mounted infantry and G troop of Horse
Artillery, prevented any interference with Pilcher’s force from the north.
It is worthy of record that though the two bodies of troops were operating
at a distance of thirty miles, they succeeded in preserving a telephonic
connection, seventeen minutes being the average time taken over question
and reply.
Encouraged by this small success, Methuen’s cavalry on January 9th made
another raid over the Free State border, which is remarkable for the fact
that, save in the case of Colonel Plumer’s Rhodesian Force, it was the
first time that the enemy’s frontier had been violated. The expedition
under Babington consisted of the same regiments and the same battery which
had covered Pilcher’s advance. The line taken was a south-easterly one, so
as to get far round the left flank of the Boer position. With the aid of a
party of the Victorian Mounted Rifles a considerable tract of country was
overrun, and some farmhouses destroyed. The latter extreme measure may
have been taken as a warning to the Boers that such depredations as they
had carried out in parts of Natal could not pass with impunity, but both
the policy and the humanity of such a course appear to be open to
question, and there was some cause for the remonstrance which President
Kruger shortly after addressed to us upon the subject. The expedition
returned to Modder Camp at the end of two days without having seen the
enemy. Save for one or two similar cavalry reconnaissances, an occasional
interchange of long-range shells, a little sniping, and one or two false
alarms at night, which broke the whole front of Magersfontein into yellow
lines of angry light, nothing happened to Methuen’s force which is worthy
of record up to the time of that movement of General Hector Macdonald to
Koodoosberg which may be considered in connection with Lord Roberts’s
decisive operations, of which it was really a part.
The doings of General Gatacre’s force during the long interval which
passed between his disaster at Stormberg and the final general advance may
be rapidly chronicled. Although nominally in command of a division,
Gatacre’s troops were continually drafted off to east and to west, so that
it was seldom that he had more than a brigade under his orders. During the
weeks of waiting, his force consisted of three field batteries, the 74th,
77th, and 79th, some mounted police and irregular horse, the remains of
the Royal Irish Rifles and the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers, the 1st Royal
Scots, the Derbyshire regiment, and the Berkshires, the whole amounting to
about 5500 men, who had to hold the whole district from Sterkstroom to
East London on the coast, with a victorious enemy in front and a
disaffected population around. Under these circumstances he could not
attempt to do more than to hold his ground at Sterkstroom, and this he did
unflinchingly until the line of the Boer defence broke down. Scouting and
raiding expeditions, chiefly organised by Captain De Montmorency—whose
early death cut short the career of one who possessed every quality of a
partisan leader—broke the monotony of inaction. During the week
which ended the year a succession of small skirmishes, of which the town
of Dordrecht was the centre, exercised the troops in irregular warfare.
On January 3rd the Boer forces advanced and attacked the camp of the Cape
Mounted Police, which was some eight miles in advance of Gatacre’s main
position. The movement, however, was a half-hearted one, and was beaten
off with small loss upon their part and less upon ours. From then onwards
no movement of importance took place in Gatacre’s column until the general
advance along the whole line had cleared his difficulties from in front of
him.
In the meantime General Buller had also been playing a waiting game, and,
secure in the knowledge that Ladysmith could still hold out, he had been
building up his strength for a second attempt to relieve the hard-pressed
and much-enduring garrison. After the repulse at Colenso, Hildyard’s and
Barton’s brigades had remained at Chieveley with the mounted infantry, the
naval guns, and two field batteries. The rest of the force retired to
Frere, some miles in the rear. Emboldened by their success, the Boers sent
raiding parties over the Tugela on either flank, which were only checked
by our patrols being extended from Springfield on the west to Weenen on
the east. A few plundered farmhouses and a small list of killed and
wounded horsemen on either side were the sole result of these spasmodic
and half-hearted operations.
Time here as elsewhere was working for the British, for reinforcements
were steadily coming to Buller’s army. By the new year Sir Charles
Warren’s division (the 5th) was nearly complete at Estcourt, whence it
could reach the front at any moment. This division included the 10th
brigade, consisting of the Imperial Light Infantry, 2nd Somersets, the 2nd
Dorsets, and the 2nd Middlesex; also the 11th, called the Lancashire
Brigade, formed by the 2nd Royal Lancaster, the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers,
the 1st South Lancashire, and the York and Lancaster. The division also
included the 14th Hussars and the 19th, 20th, and 28th batteries of Field
Artillery. Other batteries of artillery, including one howitzer battery,
came to strengthen Buller’s force, which amounted now to more than 30,000
men. Immense transport preparations had to be made, however, before the
force could have the mobility necessary for a flank march, and it was not
until January 11th that General Buller’s new plans for advance could be
set into action. Before describing what these plans were and the
disappointing fate which awaited them, we will return to the story of the
siege of Ladysmith, and show how narrowly the relieving force escaped the
humiliation—some would say the disgrace—of seeing the town
which looked to them for help fall beneath their very eyes. That this did
not occur is entirely due to the fierce tenacity and savage endurance of
the disease-ridden and half-starved men who held on to the frail lines
which covered it.
CHAPTER 13. THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH.
Monday, October 30th, 1899, is not a date which can be looked back to with
satisfaction by any Briton. In a scrambling and ill-managed action we had
lost our detached left wing almost to a man, while our right had been
hustled with no great loss but with some ignominy into Ladysmith. Our guns
had been outshot, our infantry checked, and our cavalry paralysed. Eight
hundred prisoners may seem no great loss when compared with a Sedan, or
even with an Ulm; but such matters are comparative, and the force which
laid down its arms at Nicholson’s Nek is the largest British force which
has surrendered since the days of our great grandfathers, when the
egregious Duke of York commanded in Flanders.
Sir George White was now confronted with the certainty of an investment,
an event for which apparently no preparation had been made, since with an
open railway behind him so many useless mouths had been permitted to
remain in the town. Ladysmith lies in a hollow and is dominated by a ring
of hills, some near and some distant. The near ones were in our hands, but
no attempt had been made in the early days of the war to fortify and hold
Bulwana, Lombard’s Kop, and the other positions from which the town might
be shelled. Whether these might or might not have been successfully held
has been much disputed by military men, the balance of opinion being that
Bulwana, at least, which has a water-supply of its own, might have been
retained. This question, however, was already academic, as the outer hills
were in the hands of the enemy. As it was, the inner line—Caesar’s
Camp, Wagon Hill, Rifleman’s Post, and round to Helpmakaar Hill—made
a perimeter of fourteen miles, and the difficulty of retaining so
extensive a line goes far to exonerate General White, not only for
abandoning the outer hills, but also for retaining his cavalry in the
town.
After the battle of Ladysmith and the retreat of the British, the Boers in
their deliberate but effective fashion set about the investment of the
town, while the British commander accepted the same as inevitable, content
if he could stem and hold back from the colony the threatened flood of
invasion. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the commandoes
gradually closed in upon the south and east, harassed by some cavalry
operations and reconnaissances upon our part, the effect of which was much
exaggerated by the press. On Thursday, November 2nd, the last train
escaped under a brisk fire, the passengers upon the wrong side of the
seats. At 2 P.M. on the same day the telegraph line was cut, and the
lonely town settled herself somberly down to the task of holding off the
exultant Boers until the day—supposed to be imminent—when the
relieving army should appear from among the labyrinth of mountains which
lay to the south of them. Some there were who, knowing both the enemy and
the mountains, felt a cold chill within their hearts as they asked
themselves how an army was to come through, but the greater number, from
General to private, trusted implicitly in the valour of their comrades and
in the luck of the British Army.
One example of that historical luck was ever before their eyes in the
shape of those invaluable naval guns which had arrived so dramatically at
the very crisis of the fight, in time to check the monster on Pepworth
Hill and to cover the retreat of the army. But for them the besieged must
have lain impotent under the muzzles of the huge Creusots. But in spite of
the naive claims put forward by the Boers to some special Providence—a
process which a friendly German critic described as ‘commandeering the
Almighty’—it is certain that in a very peculiar degree, in the early
months of this war there came again and again a happy chance, or a
merciful interposition, which saved the British from disaster. Now in this
first week of November, when every hill, north and south and east and
west, flashed and smoked, and the great 96-pound shells groaned and
screamed over the town, it was to the long thin 4.7’s and to the hearty
bearded men who worked them, that soldiers and townsfolk looked for help.
These guns of Lambton’s, supplemented by two old-fashioned 6.3 howitzers
manned by survivors from No. 10 Mountain Battery, did all that was
possible to keep down the fire of the heavy Boer guns. If they could not
save, they could at least hit back, and punishment is not so bad to bear
when one is giving as well as receiving.
By the end of the first week of November the Boers had established their
circle of fire. On the east of the town, broken by the loops of the Klip
River, is a broad green plain, some miles in extent, which furnished
grazing ground for the horses and cattle of the besieged. Beyond it rises
into a long flat-topped hill the famous Bulwana, upon which lay one great
Creusot and several smaller guns. To the north, on Pepworth Hill, was
another Creusot, and between the two were the Boer batteries upon
Lombard’s Kop. The British naval guns were placed upon this side, for, as
the open loop formed by the river lies at this end, it is the part of the
defences which is most liable to assault. From thence all round the west
down to Besters in the south was a continuous series of hills, each
crowned with Boer guns, which, if they could not harm the distant town,
were at least effective in holding the garrison to its lines. So
formidable were these positions that, amid much outspoken criticism, it
has never been suggested that White would have been justified with a
limited garrison in incurring the heavy loss of life which must have
followed an attempt to force them.
The first few days of the siege were clouded by the death of Lieutenant
Egerton of the ‘Powerful,’ one of the most promising officers in the Navy.
One leg and the other foot were carried off, as he lay upon the sandbag
parapet watching the effect of our fire. ‘There’s an end of my cricket,’
said the gallant sportsman, and he was carried to the rear with a cigar
between his clenched teeth.
On November 3rd a strong cavalry reconnaissance was pushed down the
Colenso road to ascertain the force which the enemy had in that direction.
Colonel Brocklehurst took with him the 18th and 19th Hussars, the 5th
Lancers and the 5th Dragoon Guards, with the Light Horse and the Natal
Volunteers. Some desultory fighting ensued which achieved no end, and was
chiefly remarkable for the excellent behaviour of the Colonials, who
showed that they were the equals of the Regulars in gallantry and their
superiors in the tactics which such a country requires. The death of Major
Taunton, Captain Knapp, and young Brabant, the son of the General who did
such good service at a later stage of the war, was a heavy price to pay
for the knowledge that the Boers were in considerable strength to the
south.
By the end of this week the town had already settled down to the routine
of the siege. General Joubert, with the chivalry which had always
distinguished him, had permitted the garrison to send out the
non-combatants to a place called Intombi Camp (promptly named Funkersdorp
by the facetious) where they were safe from the shells, though the burden
of their support still fell of course upon the much-tried commissariat.
The hale and male of the townsfolk refused for the most part to avoid the
common danger, and clung tenaciously to their shot-torn village.
Fortunately the river has worn down its banks until it runs through a deep
channel, in the sides of which it was found to be possible to hollow out
caves which were practically bomb-proof. Here for some months the
townsfolk led a troglodytic existence, returning to their homes upon that
much appreciated seventh day of rest which was granted to them by their
Sabbatarian besiegers.
The perimeter of the defence had been divided off so that each corps might
be responsible for its own section. To the south was the Manchester
Regiment upon the hill called Caesar’s Camp. Between Lombard’s Kop and the
town, on the north-east, were the Devons. To the north, at what seemed the
vulnerable point, were the Rifle Brigade, the Rifles, and the remains of
the 18th Hussars. To the west were the 5th Lancers, 19th Hussars, and 5th
Dragoon Guards. The rest of the force was encamped round the outskirts of
the town.
There appears to have been some idea in the Boer mind that the mere fact
that they held a dominant position over the town would soon necessitate
the surrender of the army. At the end of a week they had realised,
however, just as the British had, that a siege lay before both. Their fire
upon the town was heavy but not deadly, though it became more effective as
the weeks went on. Their practice at a range of five miles was exceedingly
accurate. At the same time their riflemen became more venturesome, and on
Tuesday, November 7th, they made a half-hearted attack upon the
Manchesters’ position on the south, which was driven back without
difficulty. On the 9th, however, their attempt was of a more serious and
sustained character. It began with a heavy shell-fire and with a
demonstration of rifle-fire from every side, which had for its object the
prevention of reinforcements for the true point of danger, which again was
Caesar’s Camp at the south. It is evident that the Boers had from the
beginning made up their minds that here lay the key of the position, as
the two serious attacks—that of November 9th and that of January 6th—were
directed upon this point.
The Manchesters at Caesar’s Camp had been reinforced by the 1st battalion
60th Rifles, who held the prolongation of the same ridge, which is called
Waggon Hill. With the dawn it was found that the Boer riflemen were within
eight hundred yards, and from then till evening a constant fire was
maintained upon the hill. The Boer, however, save when the odds are all in
his favour, is not, in spite of his considerable personal bravery, at his
best in attack. His racial traditions, depending upon the necessity for
economy of human life, are all opposed to it. As a consequence two
regiments well posted were able to hold them off all day with a loss which
did not exceed thirty killed and wounded, while the enemy, exposed to the
shrapnel of the 42nd battery, as well as the rifle-fire of the infantry,
must have suffered very much more severely. The result of the action was a
well-grounded belief that in daylight there was very little chance of the
Boers being able to carry the lines. As the date was that of the Prince of
Wales’s birthday, a salute of twenty-one shotted naval guns wound up a
successful day.
The failure of the attempt upon Ladysmith seems to have convinced the
enemy that a waiting game, in which hunger, shell-fire, and disease were
their allies, would be surer and less expensive than an open assault. From
their distant hilltops they continued to plague the town, while garrison
and citizens sat grimly patient, and learned to endure if not to enjoy the
crash of the 96-pound shells, and the patter of shrapnel upon their
corrugated-iron roofs. The supplies were adequate, and the besieged were
fortunate in the presence of a first-class organiser, Colonel Ward of
Islington fame, who with the assistance of Colonel Stoneman systematised
the collection and issue of all the food, civil and military, so as to
stretch it to its utmost. With rain overhead and mud underfoot, chafing at
their own idleness and humiliated by their own position, the soldiers
waited through the weary weeks for the relief which never came. On some
days there was more shell-fire, on some less; on some there was sniping,
on some none; on some they sent a little feeler of cavalry and guns out of
the town, on most they lay still—such were the ups and downs of life
in Ladysmith. The inevitable siege paper, ‘The Ladysmith Lyre,’ appeared,
and did something to relieve the monotony by the exasperation of its
jokes. Night, morning, and noon the shells rained upon the town until the
most timid learned fatalism if not bravery. The crash of the percussion,
and the strange musical tang of the shrapnel sounded ever in their ears.
With their glasses the garrison could see the gay frocks and parasols of
the Boer ladies who had come down by train to see the torture of the
doomed town.
The Boers were sufficiently numerous, aided by their strong positions and
excellent artillery, to mask the Ladysmith force and to sweep on at once
to the conquest of Natal. Had they done so it is hard to see what could
have prevented them from riding their horses down to salt water. A few
odds and ends, half battalions and local volunteers, stood between them
and Durban. But here, as on the Orange River, a singular paralysis seems
to have struck them. When the road lay clear before them the first
transports of the army corps were hardly past St. Vincent, but before they
had made up their mind to take that road the harbour of Durban was packed
with our shipping and ten thousand men had thrown themselves across their
path.
For a moment we may leave the fortunes of Ladysmith to follow this
southerly movement of the Boers. Within two days of the investment of the
town they had swung round their left flank and attacked Colenso, twelve
miles south, shelling the Durban Light Infantry out of their post with a
long-range fire. The British fell back twenty-seven miles and concentrated
at Estcourt, leaving the all-important Colenso railway-bridge in the hands
of the enemy. From this onwards they held the north of the Tugela, and
many a widow wore crepe before we got our grip upon it once more. Never
was there a more critical week in the war, but having got Colenso the
Boers did little more. They formally annexed the whole of Northern Natal
to the Orange Free State—a dangerous precedent when the tables
should be turned. With amazing assurance the burghers pegged out farms for
themselves and sent for their people to occupy these newly won estates.
On November 5th the Boers had remained so inert that the British returned
in small force to Colenso and removed some stores—which seems to
suggest that the original retirement was premature. Four days passed in
inactivity—four precious days for us—and on the evening of the
fourth, November 9th, the watchers on the signal station at Table Mountain
saw the smoke of a great steamer coming past Robben Island. It was the
‘Roslin Castle’ with the first of the reinforcements. Within the week the
‘Moor,’ ‘Yorkshire,’ ‘Aurania,’ ‘Hawarden Castle,’ ‘Gascon,’ ‘Armenian,’
‘Oriental,’ and a fleet of others had passed for Durban with 15,000 men.
Once again the command of the sea had saved the Empire.
But, now that it was too late, the Boers suddenly took the initiative, and
in dramatic fashion. North of Estcourt, where General Hildyard was being
daily reinforced from the sea, there are two small townlets, or at least
geographical (and railway) points. Frere is about ten miles north of
Estcourt, and Chieveley is five miles north of that and about as far to
the south of Colenso. On November 15th an armoured train was despatched
from Estcourt to see what was going on up the line. Already one disaster
had befallen us in this campaign on account of these clumsy contrivances,
and a heavier one was now to confirm the opinion that, acting alone, they
are totally inadmissible. As a means of carrying artillery for a force
operating upon either flank of them, with an assured retreat behind, there
may be a place for them in modern war, but as a method of scouting they
appear to be the most inefficient and also the most expensive that has
ever been invented. An intelligent horseman would gather more information,
be less visible, and retain some freedom as to route. After our experience
the armoured train may steam out of military history.
The train contained ninety Dublin Fusiliers, eighty Durban Volunteers, and
ten sailors, with a naval 7-pounder gun. Captain Haldane of the Gordons,
Lieutenant Frankland (Dublin Fusiliers), and Winston Churchill, the
well-known correspondent, accompanied the expedition. What might have been
foreseen occurred. The train steamed into the advancing Boer army, was
fired upon, tried to escape, found the rails blocked behind it, and upset.
Dublins and Durbans were shot helplessly out of their trucks, under a
heavy fire. A railway accident is a nervous thing, and so is an ambuscade,
but the combination of the two must be appalling. Yet there were brave
hearts which rose to the occasion. Haldane and Frankland rallied the
troops, and Churchill the engine-driver. The engine was disentangled and
sent on with its cab full of wounded. Churchill, who had escaped upon it,
came gallantly back to share the fate of his comrades. The dazed shaken
soldiers continued a futile resistance for some time, but there was
neither help nor escape and nothing for them but surrender. The most
Spartan military critic cannot blame them. A few slipped away besides
those who escaped upon the engine. Our losses were two killed, twenty
wounded, and about eighty taken. It is remarkable that of the three
leaders both Haldane and Churchill succeeded in escaping from Pretoria.
A double tide of armed men was now pouring into Southern Natal. From
below, trainload after trainload of British regulars were coming up to the
danger point, feted and cheered at every station. Lonely farmhouses near
the line hung out their Union Jacks, and the folk on the stoep heard the
roar of the choruses as the great trains swung upon their way. From above
the Boers were flooding down, as Churchill saw them, dour, resolute,
riding silently through the rain, or chanting hymns round their camp fires—brave
honest farmers, but standing unconsciously for mediaevalism and
corruption, even as our rough-tongued Tommies stood for civilisation,
progress, and equal rights for all men.
The invading force, the numbers of which could not have exceeded some few
thousands, formidable only for their mobility, lapped round the more
powerful but less active force at Estcourt, and struck behind it at its
communications. There was for a day or two some discussion as to a further
retreat, but Hildyard, strengthened by the advice and presence of Colonel
Long, determined to hold his ground. On November 21st the raiding Boers
were as far south as Nottingham Road, a point thirty miles south of
Estcourt and only forty miles north of the considerable city of
Pietermaritzburg. The situation was serious. Either the invaders must be
stopped, or the second largest town in the colony would be in their hands.
From all sides came tales of plundered farms and broken households. Some
at least of the raiders behaved with wanton brutality. Smashed pianos,
shattered pictures, slaughtered stock, and vile inscriptions, all exhibit
a predatory and violent side to the paradoxical Boer character. [Footnote:
More than once I have heard the farmers in the Free State acknowledge that
the ruin which had come upon them was a just retribution for the excesses
of Natal.]
The next British post behind Hildyard’s at Estcourt was Barton’s upon the
Mooi River, thirty miles to the south. Upon this the Boers made a
half-hearted attempt, but Joubert had begun to realise the strength of the
British reinforcements and the impossibility with the numbers at his
disposal of investing a succession of British posts. He ordered Botha to
withdraw from Mooi River and begin his northerly trek.
The turning-point of the Boer invasion of Natal was marked, though we
cannot claim that it was caused, by the action of Willow Grange. This was
fought by Hildyard and Walter Kitchener in command of the Estcourt
garrison, against about 2000 of the invaders under Louis Botha. The troops
engaged were the East and West Surreys (four companies of the latter), the
West Yorkshires, the Durban Light Infantry, No. 7 battery R.F.A., two
naval guns, and some hundreds of Colonial Horse.
The enemy being observed to have a gun upon a hill within striking
distance of Estcourt, this force set out on November 22nd to make a night
attack and to endeavour to capture it. The hill was taken without
difficulty, but it was found that the gun had been removed. A severe
counter-attack was made at daylight by the Boers, and the troops were
compelled with no great loss and less glory to return to the town. The
Surreys and the Yorkshires behaved very well, but were placed in a
difficult position and were badly supported by the artillery. Martyn’s
Mounted Infantry covered the retirement with great gallantry, but the
skirmish ended in a British loss of fourteen killed and fifty wounded or
missing, which was certainly more than that of the Boers. From this
indecisive action of Willow Grange the Boer invasion receded until General
Buller, coming to the front on November 27th, found that the enemy was
once more occupying the line of the Tugela. He himself moved up to Frere,
where he devoted his time and energies to the collection of that force
with which he was destined, after three failures, to make his way into
Ladysmith.
One unexpected and little known result of the Boer expedition into
Southern Natal was that their leader, the chivalrous Joubert, injured
himself through his horse stumbling, and was physically incapacitated for
the remainder of the campaign. He returned almost immediately to Pretoria,
leaving the command of the Tugela in the hands of Louis Botha.
Leaving Buller to organise his army at Frere, and the Boer commanders to
draw their screen of formidable defences along the Tugela, we will return
once more to the fortunes of the unhappy town round which the interest of
the world, and possibly the destiny of the Empire, were centering. It is
very certain that had Ladysmith fallen, and twelve thousand British
soldiers with a million pounds’ worth of stores fallen into the hands of
the invaders, we should have been faced with the alternative of abandoning
the struggle, or of reconquering South Africa from Cape Town northwards.
South Africa is the keystone of the Empire, and for the instant Ladysmith
was the keystone of South Africa. But the courage of the troops who held
the shell-torn townlet, and the confidence of the public who watched them,
never faltered for an instant.
December 8th was marked by a gallant exploit on the part of the
beleaguered garrison. Not a whisper had transpired of the coming sortie,
and a quarter of an hour before the start officers engaged had no idea of
it. O si sic omnia! At ten o’clock a band of men slipped out of the town.
There were six hundred of them, all irregulars, drawn from the Imperial
Light Horse, the Natal Carabineers, and the Border Mounted Rifles, under
the command of Hunter, youngest and most dashing of British Generals.
Edwardes and Boyston were the subcommanders. The men had no knowledge of
where they were going or what they had to do, but they crept silently
along under a drifting sky, with peeps of a quarter moon, over a
mimosa-shadowed plain. At last in front of them there loomed a dark mass—it
was Gun Hill, from which one of the great Creusots had plagued them. A
strong support (four hundred men) was left at the base of the hill, and
the others, one hundred Imperials, one hundred Borders and Carabineers,
ten Sappers, crept upwards with Major Henderson as guide. A Dutch outpost
challenged, but was satisfied by a Dutch-speaking Carabineer. Higher and
higher the men crept, the silence broken only by the occasional slip of a
stone or the rustle of their own breathing. Most of them had left their
boots below. Even in the darkness they kept some formation, and the right
wing curved forward to outflank the defence. Suddenly a Mauser crack and a
spurt of flame—then another and another! ‘Come on, boys! Fix
bayonets!’ yelled Karri Davies. There were no bayonets, but that was a
detail. At the word the gunners were off, and there in the darkness in
front of the storming party loomed the enormous gun, gigantic in that
uncertain light. Out with the huge breech-block! Wrap the long lean muzzle
round with a collar of gun-cotton! Keep the guard upon the run until the
work is done! Hunter stood by with a night light in his hand until the
charge was in position, and then, with a crash which brought both armies
from their tents, the huge tube reared up on its mountings and toppled
backwards into the pit. A howitzer lurked beside it, and this also was
blown into ruin. The attendant Maxim was dragged back by the exultant
captors, who reached the town amid shoutings and laughter with the first
break of day. One man wounded, the gallant Henderson, is the cheap price
for the best-planned and most dashing exploit of the war. Secrecy in
conception, vigour in execution—they are the root ideas of the
soldier’s craft. So easily was the enterprise carried out, and so
defective the Boer watch, that it is probable that if all the guns had
been simultaneously attacked the Boers might have found themselves without
a single piece of ordnance in the morning. [Footnote: The destruction of
the Creusot was not as complete as was hoped. It was taken back to
Pretoria, three feet were sawn off the muzzle, and a new breech-block
provided. The gun was then sent to Kimberley, and it was the heavy cannon
which arrived late in the history of that siege and caused considerable
consternation among the inhabitants.]
On the same morning (December 9th) a cavalry reconnaissance was pushed in
the direction of Pepworth Hill. The object no doubt was to ascertain
whether the enemy were still present in force, and the terrific roll of
the Mausers answered it in the affirmative. Two killed and twenty wounded
was the price which we paid for the information. There had been three such
reconnaissances in the five weeks of the siege, and it is difficult to see
what advantage they gave or how they are to be justified. Far be it for
the civilian to dogmatise upon such matters, but one can repeat, and to
the best of one’s judgment endorse, the opinion of the vast majority of
officers.
There were heart burnings among the Regulars that the colonial troops
should have gone in front of them, so their martial jealousy was allayed
three nights later by the same task being given to them. Four companies of
the 2nd Rifle Brigade were the troops chosen, with a few sappers and
gunners, the whole under the command of Colonel Metcalfe of the same
battalion. A single gun, the 4.7 howitzer upon Surprise Hill, was the
objective. Again there was the stealthy advance through the darkness,
again the support was left at the bottom of the hill, again the two
companies carefully ascended, again there was the challenge, the rush, the
flight, and the gun was in the hands of the stormers.
Here and only here the story varies. For some reason the fuse used for the
guncotton was defective, and half an hour elapsed before the explosion
destroyed the howitzer. When it came it came very thoroughly, but it was a
weary time in coming. Then our men descended the hill, but the Boers were
already crowding in upon them from either side. The English cries of the
soldiers were answered in English by the Boers, and slouch hat or helmet
dimly seen in the mirk was the only badge of friend or foe. A singular
letter is extant from young Reitz (the son of the Transvaal secretary),
who was present. According to his account there were but eight Boers
present, but assertion or contradiction equally valueless in the darkness
of such a night, and there are some obvious discrepancies in his
statement. ‘We fired among them,’ says Reitz. ‘They stopped and all cried
out “Rifle Brigade.” Then one of them said “Charge!” One officer, Captain
Paley, advanced, though he had two bullet wounds already. Joubert gave him
another shot and he fell on the top of us. Four Englishmen got hold of Jan
Luttig and struck him on the head with their rifles and stabbed him in the
stomach with a bayonet. He seized two of them by the throat and shouted
“Help, boys!” His two nearest comrades shot two of them, and the other two
bolted. Then the English came up in numbers, about eight hundred, along
the footpath’ (there were two hundred on the hill, but the exaggeration is
pardonable in the darkness), ‘and we lay as quiet as mice along the bank.
Farther on the English killed three of our men with bayonets and wounded
two. In the morning we found Captain Paley and twenty-two of them killed
and wounded.’ It seems evident that Reitz means that his own little party
were eight men, and not that that represented the force which intercepted
the retiring riflemen. Within his own knowledge five of his countrymen
were killed in the scuffle, so the total loss was probably considerable.
Our own casualties were eleven dead, forty-three wounded, and six
prisoners, but the price was not excessive for the howitzer and for the
morale which arises from such exploits. Had it not been for that
unfortunate fuse, the second success might have been as bloodless as the
first. ‘I am sorry,’ said a sympathetic correspondent to the stricken
Paley. ‘But we got the gun,’ Paley whispered, and he spoke for the
Brigade.
Amid the shell-fire, the scanty rations, the enteric and the dysentery,
one ray of comfort had always brightened the garrison. Buller was only
twelve miles away—they could hear his guns—and when his
advance came in earnest their sufferings would be at an end. But now in an
instant this single light was shut off and the true nature of their
situation was revealed to them. Buller had indeed moved…but backwards.
He had been defeated at Colenso, and the siege was not ending but
beginning. With heavier hearts but undiminished resolution the army and
the townsfolk settled down to the long, dour struggle. The exultant enemy
replaced their shattered guns and drew their lines closer still round the
stricken town.
A record of the siege onwards until the break of the New Year centres upon
the sordid details of the sick returns and of the price of food. Fifty on
one day, seventy on the next, passed under the hands of the overworked and
devoted doctors. Fifteen hundred, and later two thousand, of the garrison
were down. The air was poisoned by foul sewage and dark with obscene
flies. They speckled the scanty food. Eggs were already a shilling each,
cigarettes sixpence, whisky five pounds a bottle: a city more free from
gluttony and drunkenness has never been seen.
Shell-fire has shown itself in this war to be an excellent ordeal for
those who desire martial excitement with a minimum of danger. But now and
again some black chance guides a bomb—one in five thousand perhaps—to
a most tragic issue. Such a deadly missile falling among Boers near
Kimberley is said to have slain nine and wounded seventeen. In Ladysmith
too there are days to be marked in red when the gunner shot better than he
knew. One shell on December 17th killed six men (Natal Carabineers),
wounded three, and destroyed fourteen horses. The grisly fact has been
recorded that five separate human legs lay upon the ground. On December
22nd another tragic shot killed five and wounded twelve of the Devons. On
the same day four officers of the 5th Lancers (including the Colonel) and
one sergeant were wounded—a most disastrous day. A little later it
was again the turn of the Devons, who lost one officer killed and ten
wounded. Christmas set in amid misery, hunger, and disease, the more
piteous for the grim attempts to amuse the children and live up to the
joyous season, when the present of Santa Claus was too often a 96-pound
shell. On the top of all other troubles it was now known that the heavy
ammunition was running short and must be husbanded for emergencies. There
was no surcease, however, in the constant hail which fell upon the town.
Two or three hundred shells were a not unusual daily allowance. The
monotonous bombardment with which the New Year had commenced was soon to
be varied by a most gallant and spirit-stirring clash of arms. On January
6th the Boers delivered their great assault upon Ladysmith—an onfall
so gallantly made and gallantly met that it deserves to rank among the
classic fights of British military history. It is a tale which neither
side need be ashamed to tell. Honour to the sturdy infantry who held their
grip so long, and honour also to the rough men of the veld, who, led by
untrained civilians, stretched us to the utmost capacity of our endurance.
It may be that the Boers wished once for all to have done at all costs
with the constant menace to their rear, or it may be that the deliberate
preparations of Buller for his second advance had alarmed them, and that
they realised that they must act quickly if they were to act at all. At
any rate, early in the New Year a most determined attack was decided upon.
The storming party consisted of some hundreds of picked volunteers from
the Heidelberg (Transvaal) and Harrismith (Free State) contingents, led by
de Villiers. They were supported by several thousand riflemen, who might
secure their success or cover their retreat. Eighteen heavy guns had been
trained upon the long ridge, one end of which has been called Caesar’s
Camp and the other Waggon Hill. This hill, three miles long, lay to the
south of the town, and the Boers had early recognised it as being the most
vulnerable point, for it was against it that their attack of November 9th
had been directed. Now, after two months, they were about to renew the
attempt with greater resolution against less robust opponents. At twelve
o’clock our scouts heard the sounds of the chanting of hymns in the Boer
camps. At two in the morning crowds of barefooted men were clustering
round the base of the ridge, and threading their way, rifle in hand, among
the mimosa-bushes and scattered boulders which cover the slope of the
hill. Some working parties were moving guns into position, and the noise
of their labour helped to drown the sound of the Boer advance. Both at
Caesar’s Camp, the east end of the ridge, and at Waggon Hill, the west end
(the points being, I repeat, three miles apart), the attack came as a
complete surprise. The outposts were shot or driven in, and the stormers
were on the ridge almost as soon as their presence was detected. The line
of rocks blazed with the flash of their guns.
Caesar’s Camp was garrisoned by one sturdy regiment, the Manchesters,
aided by a Colt automatic gun. The defence had been arranged in the form
of small sangars, each held by from ten to twenty men. Some few of these
were rushed in the darkness, but the Lancashire men pulled themselves
together and held on strenuously to those which remained. The crash of
musketry woke the sleeping town, and the streets resounded with the
shouting of the officers and the rattling of arms as the men mustered in
the darkness and hurried to the points of danger.
Three companies of the Gordons had been left near Caesar’s Camp, and
these, under Captain Carnegie, threw themselves into the struggle. Four
other companies of Gordons came up in support from the town, losing upon
the way their splendid colonel, Dick-Cunyngham, who was killed by a chance
shot at three thousand yards, on this his first appearance since he had
recovered from his wounds at Elandslaagte. Later four companies of the
Rifle Brigade were thrown into the firing line, and a total of two and a
half infantry battalions held that end of the position. It was not a man
too much. With the dawn of day it could be seen that the Boers held the
southern and we the northern slopes, while the narrow plateau between
formed a bloody debatable ground. Along a front of a quarter of a mile
fierce eyes glared and rifle barrels flashed from behind every rock, and
the long fight swayed a little back or a little forward with each upward
heave of the stormers or rally of the soldiers. For hours the combatants
were so near that a stone or a taunt could be thrown from one to the
other. Some scattered sangars still held their own, though the Boers had
passed them. One such, manned by fourteen privates of the Manchester
Regiment, remained untaken, but had only two defenders left at the end of
the bloody day.
With the coming of the light the 53rd Field Battery, the one which had
already done so admirably at Lombard’s Kop, again deserved well of its
country. It was impossible to get behind the Boers and fire straight at
their position, so every shell fired had to skim over the heads of our own
men upon the ridge and so pitch upon the reverse slope. Yet so accurate
was the fire, carried on under an incessant rain of shells from the big
Dutch gun on Bulwana, that not one shot miscarried and that Major Abdy and
his men succeeded in sweeping the further slope without loss to our own
fighting line. Exactly the same feat was equally well performed at the
other end of the position by Major Blewitt’s 21st Battery, which was
exposed to an even more searching fire than the 53rd. Any one who has seen
the iron endurance of British gunners and marvelled at the answering shot
which flashes out through the very dust of the enemy’s exploding shell,
will understand how fine must have been the spectacle of these two
batteries working in the open, with the ground round them sharded with
splinters. Eye-witnesses have left it upon record that the sight of Major
Blewitt strolling up and down among his guns, and turning over with his
toe the last fallen section of iron, was one of the most vivid and
stirring impressions which they carried from the fight. Here also it was
that the gallant Sergeant Bosley, his arm and his leg stricken off by a
Boer shell, cried to his comrades to roll his body off the trail and go on
working the gun.
At the same time as—or rather earlier than—the onslaught upon
Caesar’s Camp a similar attack had been made with secrecy and
determination upon the western end of the position called Waggon Hill. The
barefooted Boers burst suddenly with a roll of rifle-fire into the little
garrison of Imperial Light Horse and Sappers who held the position.
Mathias of the former, Digby-Jones and Dennis of the latter, showed that
‘two in the morning’ courage which Napoleon rated as the highest of
military virtues. They and their men were surprised but not disconcerted,
and stood desperately to a slogging match at the closest quarters.
Seventeen Sappers were down out of thirty, and more than half the little
body of irregulars. This end of the position was feebly fortified, and it
is surprising that so experienced and sound a soldier as Ian Hamilton
should have left it so. The defence had no marked advantage as compared
with the attack, neither trench, sangar, nor wire entanglement, and in
numbers they were immensely inferior. Two companies of the 60th Rifles and
a small body of the ubiquitous Gordons happened to be upon the hill and
threw themselves into the fray, but they were unable to turn the tide. Of
thirty-three Gordons under Lieutenant MacNaughten thirty were wounded.
[Footnote: The Gordons and the Sappers were there that morning to
re-escort one of Lambton’s 4.7 guns, which was to be mounted there. Ten
seamen were with the gun, and lost three of their number in the defence.]
As our men retired under the shelter of the northern slope they were
reinforced by another hundred and fifty Gordons under the stalwart
Miller-Wallnutt, a man cast in the mould of a Berserk Viking. To their aid
also came two hundred of the Imperial Light Horse, burning to assist their
comrades. Another half-battalion of Rifles came with them. At each end of
the long ridge the situation at the dawn of day was almost identical. In
each the stormers had seized one side, but were brought to a stand by the
defenders upon the other, while the British guns fired over the heads of
their own infantry to rake the further slope.
It was on the Waggon Hill side, however, that the Boer exertions were most
continuous and strenuous and our own resistance most desperate. There
fought the gallant de Villiers, while Ian Hamilton rallied the defenders
and led them in repeated rushes against the enemy’s line. Continually
reinforced from below, the Boers fought with extraordinary resolution.
Never will any one who witnessed that Homeric contest question the valour
of our foes. It was a murderous business on both sides. Edwardes of the
Light Horse was struck down. In a gun-emplacement a strange encounter took
place at point-blank range between a group of Boers and of Britons. De
Villiers of the Free State shot Miller-Wallnut dead, Ian Hamilton fired at
de Villiers with his revolver and missed him. Young Albrecht of the Light
Horse shot de Villiers. A Boer named de Jaeger shot Albrecht. Digby-Jones
of the Sappers shot de Jaeger. Only a few minutes later the gallant lad,
who had already won fame enough for a veteran, was himself mortally
wounded, and Dennis, his comrade in arms and in glory, fell by his side.
There has been no better fighting in our time than that upon Waggon Hill
on that January morning, and no better fighters than the Imperial Light
Horsemen who formed the centre of the defence. Here, as at Elandslaagte,
they proved themselves worthy to stand in line with the crack regiments of
the British army.
Through the long day the fight maintained its equilibrium along the summit
of the ridge, swaying a little that way or this, but never amounting to a
repulse of the stormers or to a rout of the defenders. So intermixed were
the combatants that a wounded man more than once found himself a rest for
the rifles of his enemies. One unfortunate soldier in this position
received six more bullets from his own comrades in their efforts to reach
the deadly rifleman behind him. At four o’clock a huge bank of clouds
which had towered upwards unheeded by the struggling men burst suddenly
into a terrific thunderstorm with vivid lightnings and lashing rain. It is
curious that the British victory at Elandslaagte was heralded by just such
another storm. Up on the bullet-swept hill the long fringes of fighting
men took no more heed of the elements than would two bulldogs who have
each other by the throat. Up the greasy hillside, foul with mud and with
blood, came the Boer reserves, and up the northern slope came our own
reserve, the Devon Regiment, fit representatives of that virile county.
Admirably led by Park, their gallant Colonel, the Devons swept the Boers
before them, and the Rifles, Gordons, and Light Horse joined in the wild
charge which finally cleared the ridge.
But the end was not yet. The Boer had taken a risk over this venture, and
now he had to pay the stakes. Down the hill he passed, crouching, darting,
but the spruits behind him were turned into swirling streams, and as he
hesitated for an instant upon the brink the relentless sleet of bullets
came from behind. Many were swept away down the gorges and into the Klip
River, never again to be accounted for in the lists of their field-cornet.
The majority splashed through, found their horses in their shelter, and
galloped off across the great Bulwana Plain, as fairly beaten in as fair a
fight as ever brave men were yet.
The cheers of victory as the Devons swept the ridge had heartened the
weary men upon Caesar’s Camp to a similar effort. Manchesters, Gordons,
and Rifles, aided by the fire of two batteries, cleared the long-debated
position. Wet, cold, weary, and without food for twenty-six hours, the
bedraggled Tommies stood yelling and waving, amid the litter of dead and
of dying.
It was a near thing. Had the ridge fallen the town must have followed, and
history perhaps have been changed. In the old stiff-rank Majuba days we
should have been swept in an hour from the position. But the wily man
behind the rock was now to find an equally wily man in front of him. The
soldier had at last learned something of the craft of the hunter. He clung
to his shelter, he dwelled on his aim, he ignored his dressings, he laid
aside the eighteenth-century traditions of his pigtailed ancestor, and he
hit the Boers harder than they had been hit yet. No return may ever come
to us of their losses on that occasion; 80 dead bodies were returned to
them from the ridge alone, while the slopes, the dongas, and the river
each had its own separate tale. No possible estimate can make it less than
three hundred killed and wounded, while many place it at a much higher
figure. Our own casualties were very serious and the proportion of dead to
wounded unusually high, owing to the fact that the greater part of the
wounds were necessarily of the head. In killed we lost 13 officers, 135
men. In wounded 28 officers, 244 men—a total of 420, Lord Ava, the
honoured Son of an honoured father, the fiery Dick-Cunyngham, stalwart
Miller-Wallnutt, the brave boy sappers Digby-Jones and Dennis, Adams and
Packman of the Light Horse, the chivalrous Lafone—we had to mourn
quality as well as numbers. The grim test of the casualty returns shows
that it was to the Imperial Light Horse (ten officers down, and the
regiment commanded by a junior captain), the Manchesters, the Gordons, the
Devons, and the 2nd Rifle Brigade that the honours of the day are due.
In the course of the day two attacks had been made upon other points of
the British position, the one on Observation Hill on the north, the other
on the Helpmakaar position on the east. Of these the latter was never
pushed home and was an obvious feint, but in the case of the other it was
not until Schutte, their commander, and forty or fifty men had been killed
and wounded, that the stormers abandoned their attempt. At every point the
assailants found the same scattered but impenetrable fringe of riflemen,
and the same energetic batteries waiting for them.
Throughout the Empire the course of this great struggle was watched with
the keenest solicitude and with all that painful emotion which springs
from impotent sympathy. By heliogram to Buller, and so to the farthest
ends of that great body whose nerves are the telegraphic wires, there came
the announcement of the attack. Then after an interval of hours came
‘everywhere repulsed, but fighting continues.’ Then, ‘Attack continues.
Enemy reinforced from the south.’ Then ‘Attack renewed. Very hard
pressed.’ There the messages ended for the day, leaving the Empire black
with apprehension. The darkest forecasts and most dreary anticipations
were indulged by the most temperate and best-informed London papers. For
the first time the very suggestion that the campaign might be above our
strength was made to the public. And then at last there came the official
news of the repulse of the assault. Far away at Ladysmith, the weary men
and their sorely tried officers gathered to return thanks to God for His
manifold mercies, but in London also hearts were stricken solemn by the
greatness of the crisis, and lips long unused to prayer joined in the
devotions of the absent warriors.
CHAPTER 14. THE COLESBERG OPERATIONS.
Of the four British armies in the field I have attempted to tell the story
of the western one which advanced to help Kimberley, of the eastern one
which was repulsed at Colenso, and of the central one which was checked at
Stormberg. There remains one other central one, some account of which must
now be given.
It was, as has already been pointed out, a long three weeks after the
declaration of war before the forces of the Orange Free State began to
invade Cape Colony. But for this most providential delay it is probable
that the ultimate fighting would have been, not among the mountains and
kopjes of Stormberg and Colesberg, but amid those formidable passes which
lie in the Hex Valley, immediately to the north of Cape Town, and that the
armies of the invader would have been doubled by their kinsmen of the
Colony. The ultimate result of the war must have been the same, but the
sight of all South Africa in flames might have brought about those
Continental complications which have always been so grave a menace.
The invasion of the Colony was at two points along the line of the two
railways which connect the countries, the one passing over the Orange
River at Norval’s Pont and the other at Bethulie, about forty miles to the
eastward. There were no British troops available (a fact to be considered
by those, if any remain, who imagine that the British entertained any
design against the Republics), and the Boers jogged slowly southward amid
a Dutch population who hesitated between their unity of race and speech
and their knowledge of just and generous treatment by the Empire. A large
number were won over by the invaders, and, like all apostates,
distinguished themselves by their virulence and harshness towards their
loyal neighbours. Here and there in towns which were off the railway line,
in Barkly East or Ladygrey, the farmers met together with rifle and
bandolier, tied orange puggarees round their hats, and rode off to join
the enemy. Possibly these ignorant and isolated men hardly recognised what
it was that they were doing. They have found out since. In some of the
border districts the rebels numbered ninety per cent of the Dutch
population.
In the meanwhile, the British leaders had been strenuously endeavouring to
scrape together a few troops with which to make some stand against the
enemy. For this purpose two small forces were necessary—the one to
oppose the advance through Bethulie and Stormberg, the other to meet the
invaders, who, having passed the river at Norval’s Pont, had now occupied
Colesberg. The former task was, as already shown, committed to General
Gatacre. The latter was allotted to General French, the victor of
Elandslaagte, who had escaped in the very last train from Ladysmith, and
had taken over this new and important duty. French’s force assembled at
Arundel and Gatacre’s at Sterkstroom. It is with the operations of the
former that we have now to deal.
General French, for whom South Africa has for once proved not the grave
but the cradle of a reputation, had before the war gained some name as a
smart and energetic cavalry officer. There were some who, watching his
handling of a considerable body of horse at the great Salisbury manoeuvres
in 1898, conceived the highest opinion of his capacity, and it was due to
the strong support of General Buller, who had commanded in these peaceful
operations, that French received his appointment for South Africa. In
person he is short and thick, with a pugnacious jaw. In character he is a
man of cold persistence and of fiery energy, cautious and yet audacious,
weighing his actions well, but carrying them out with the dash which
befits a mounted leader. He is remarkable for the quickness of his
decision—’can think at a gallop,’ as an admirer expressed it. Such
was the man, alert, resourceful, and determined, to whom was entrusted the
holding back of the Colesberg Boers.
Although the main advance of the invaders was along the lines of the two
railways, they ventured, as they realised how weak the forces were which
opposed them, to break off both to the east and west, occupying Dordrecht
on one side and Steynsberg on the other. Nothing of importance accrued
from the possession of these points, and our attention may be concentrated
upon the main line of action.
French’s original force was a mere handful of men, scraped together from
anywhere. Naauwpoort was his base, and thence he made a reconnaissance by
rail on November 23rd towards Arundel, the next hamlet along the line,
taking with him a company of the Black Watch, forty mounted infantry, and
a troop of the New South Wales Lancers. Nothing resulted from the
expedition save that the two forces came into touch with each other, a
touch which was sustained for months under many vicissitudes, until the
invaders were driven back once more over Norval’s Pont. Finding that
Arundel was weakly held, French advanced up to it, and established his
camp there towards the end of December, within six miles of the Boer lines
at Rensburg, to the south of Colesberg. His mission—with his present
forces—was to prevent the further advance of the enemy into the
Colony, but he was not strong enough yet to make a serious attempt to
drive them out.
Before the move to Arundel on December 13th his detachment had increased
in size, and consisted largely of mounted men, so that it attained a
mobility very unusual for a British force. On December 13th there was an
attempt upon the part of the Boers to advance south, which was easily held
by the British Cavalry and Horse Artillery. The country over which French
was operating is dotted with those singular kopjes which the Boer loves—kopjes
which are often so grotesque in shape that one feels as if they must be
due to some error of refraction when one looks at them. But, on the other
hand, between these hills there lie wide stretches of the green or russet
savanna, the noblest field that a horseman or a horse gunner could wish.
The riflemen clung to the hills, French’s troopers circled warily upon the
plain, gradually contracting the Boer position by threatening to cut off
this or that outlying kopje, and so the enemy was slowly herded into
Colesberg. The small but mobile British force covered a very large area,
and hardly a day passed that one or other part of it did not come in
contact with the enemy. With one regiment of infantry (the Berkshires) to
hold the centre, his hard-riding Tasmanians, New Zealanders, and
Australians, with the Scots Greys, the Inniskillings, and the Carabineers,
formed an elastic but impenetrable screen to cover the Colony. They were
aided by two batteries, O and R, of Horse Artillery. Every day General
French rode out and made a close personal examination of the enemy’s
position, while his scouts and outposts were instructed to maintain the
closest possible touch.
On December 30th the enemy abandoned Rensburg, which had been their
advanced post, and concentrated at Colesberg, upon which French moved his
force up and seized Rensburg. The very next day, December 31st, he began a
vigorous and long-continued series of operations. At five o’clock on
Sunday evening he moved out of Rensburg camp, with R and half of O
batteries R.H.A., the 10th Hussars, the Inniskillings, and the Berkshires,
to take up a position on the west of Colesberg. At the same time Colonel
Porter, with the half-battery of O, his own regiment (the Carabineers),
and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, left camp at two on the Monday morning
and took a position on the enemy’s left flank. The Berkshires under Major
McCracken seized the hill, driving a Boer picket off it, and the Horse
enfiladed the enemy’s right flank, and after a risky artillery duel
succeeded in silencing his guns. Next morning, however (January 2nd,
1900), it was found that the Boers, strongly reinforced, were back near
their old positions, and French had to be content to hold them and to wait
for more troops.
These were not long in coming, for the Suffolk Regiment had arrived,
followed by the Composite Regiment (chosen from the Household Cavalry) and
the 4th Battery R.F.A. The Boers, however, had also been reinforced, and
showed great energy in their effort to break the cordon which was being
drawn round them. Upon the 4th a determined effort was made by about a
thousand of them under General Schoeman to turn the left flank of the
British, and at dawn it was actually found that they had eluded the
vigilance of the outposts and had established themselves upon a hill to
the rear of the position. They were shelled off of it, however, by the
guns of O Battery, and in their retreat across the plain they were pursued
by the 10th Hussars and by one squadron of the Inniskillings, who cut off
some of the fugitives. At the same time, De Lisle with his mounted
infantry carried the position which they had originally held. In this
successful and well-managed action the Boer loss was ninety, and we took
in addition twenty-one prisoners. Our own casualties amounted only to six
killed, including Major Harvey of the 10th, and to fifteen wounded.
Encouraged by this success an attempt was made by the Suffolk Regiment to
carry a hill which formed the key of the enemy’s position. The town of
Colesberg lies in a basin surrounded by a ring of kopjes, and the
possession by us of any one of them would have made the place untenable.
The plan has been ascribed to Colonel Watson of the Suffolks, but it is
time that some protest should be raised against this devolution of
responsibility upon subordinates in the event of failure. When success has
crowned our arms we have been delighted to honour our general; but when
our efforts end in failure our attention is called to Colonel Watson,
Colonel Long, or Colonel Thorneycroft. It is fairer to state that in this
instance General French ordered Colonel Watson to make a night attack upon
the hill.
The result was disastrous. At midnight four companies in canvas shoes or
in their stocking feet set forth upon their venture, and just before dawn
they found themselves upon the slope of the hill. They were in a formation
of quarter column with files extended to two paces; H Company was leading.
When half-way up a warm fire was opened upon them in the darkness. Colonel
Watson gave the order to retire, intending, as it is believed, that the
men should get under the shelter of the dead ground which they had just
quitted, but his death immediately afterwards left matters in a confused
condition. The night was black, the ground broken, a hail of bullets
whizzing through the ranks. Companies got mixed in the darkness and
contradictory orders were issued. The leading company held its ground,
though each of the officers, Brett, Carey, and Butler, was struck down.
The other companies had retired, however, and the dawn found this fringe
of men, most of them wounded, lying under the very rifles of the Boers.
Even then they held out for some time, but they could neither advance,
retire, or stay where they were without losing lives to no purpose, so the
survivors were compelled to surrender. There is better evidence here than
at Magersfontein that the enemy were warned and ready. Every one of the
officers engaged, from the Colonel to the boy subaltern, was killed,
wounded, or taken. Eleven officers and one hundred and fifty men were our
losses in this unfortunate but not discreditable affair, which proves once
more how much accuracy and how much secrecy is necessary for a successful
night attack. Four companies of the regiment were sent down to Port
Elizabeth to re-officer, but the arrival of the 1st Essex enabled French
to fill the gap which had been made in his force.
In spite of this annoying check, French continued to pursue his original
design of holding the enemy in front and working round him on the east. On
January 9th, Porter, of the Carabineers, with his own regiment, two
squadrons of Household Cavalry, the New Zealanders, the New South Wales
Lancers, and four guns, took another step forward and, after a skirmish,
occupied a position called Slingersfontein, still further to the north and
east, so as to menace the main road of retreat to Norval’s Pont. Some
skirmishing followed, but the position was maintained. On the 15th the
Boers, thinking that this long extension must have weakened us, made a
spirited attack upon a position held by New Zealanders and a company of
the 1st Yorkshires, this regiment having been sent up to reinforce French.
The attempt was met by a volley and a bayonet charge. Captain Orr, of the
Yorkshires, was struck down; but Captain Madocks, of the New Zealanders,
who behaved with conspicuous gallantry at a critical instant, took
command, and the enemy was heavily repulsed. Madocks engaged in a
point-blank rifle duel with the frock-coated top-hatted Boer leader, and
had the good fortune to kill his formidable opponent. Twenty-one Boer dead
and many wounded left upon the field made a small set-off to the disaster
of the Suffolks.
The next day, however (January 16th), the scales of fortune, which swung
alternately one way and the other, were again tipped against us. It is
difficult to give an intelligible account of the details of these
operations, because they were carried out by thin fringes of men covering
on both sides a very large area, each kopje occupied as a fort, and the
intervening plains patrolled by cavalry.
As French extended to the east and north the Boers extended also to
prevent him from outflanking them, and so the little armies stretched and
stretched until they were two long mobile skirmishing lines. The actions
therefore resolve themselves into the encounters of small bodies and the
snapping up of exposed patrols—a game in which the Boer aptitude for
guerrilla tactics gave them some advantage, though our own cavalry quickly
adapted themselves to the new conditions. On this occasion a patrol of
sixteen men from the South Australian Horse and New South Wales Lancers
fell into an ambush, and eleven were captured. Of the remainder, three
made their way back to camp, while one was killed and one was wounded.
The duel between French on the one side and Schoeman and Lambert on the
other was from this onwards one of maneuvering rather than of fighting.
The dangerously extended line of the British at this period, over thirty
miles long, was reinforced, as has been mentioned, by the 1st Yorkshire
and later by the 2nd Wiltshire and a section of the 37th Howitzer Battery.
There was probably no very great difference in numbers between the two
little armies, but the Boers now, as always, were working upon internal
lines. The monotony of the operations was broken by the remarkable feat of
the Essex Regiment, which succeeded by hawsers and good-will in getting
two 15-pounder guns of the 4th Field Battery on to the top of Coleskop, a
hill which rises several hundred feet from the plain and is so precipitous
that it is no small task for an unhampered man to climb it. From the
summit a fire, which for some days could not be localised by the Boers,
was opened upon their laagers, which had to be shifted in consequence.
This energetic action upon the part of our gunners may be set off against
those other examples where commanders of batteries have shown that they
had not yet appreciated what strong tackle and stout arms can accomplish.
The guns upon Coleskop not only dominated all the smaller kopjes for a
range of 9000 yards, but completely commanded the town of Colesberg, which
could not however, for humanitarian and political reasons, be shelled.
By gradual reinforcements the force under French had by the end of January
attained the respectable figure of ten thousand men, strung over a large
extent of country. His infantry consisted of the 2nd Berkshires, 1st Royal
Irish, 2nd Wiltshires, 2nd Worcesters, 1st Essex, and 1st Yorkshires; his
cavalry, of the 10th Hussars, the 6th Dragoon Guards, the Inniskillings,
the New Zealanders, the N.S. W. Lancers, some Rimington Guides, and the
composite Household Regiment; his artillery, the R and O batteries of
R.H.A., the 4th R.F.A., and a section of the 37th Howitzer Battery. At the
risk of tedium I have repeated the units of this force, because there are
no operations during the war, with the exception perhaps of those of the
Rhodesian Column, concerning which it is so difficult to get a clear
impression. The fluctuating forces, the vast range of country covered, and
the petty farms which give their names to positions, all tend to make the
issue vague and the narrative obscure. The British still lay in a
semicircle extending from Slingersfontein upon the right to Kloof Camp
upon the left, and the general scheme of operations continued to be an
enveloping movement upon the right. General Clements commanded this
section of the forces, while the energetic Porter carried out the
successive advances. The lines had gradually stretched until they were
nearly fifty miles in length, and something of the obscurity in which the
operations have been left is due to the impossibility of any single
correspondent having a clear idea of what was occurring over so extended a
front.
On January 25th French sent Stephenson and Brabazon to push a
reconnaissance to the north of Colesberg, and found that the Boers were
making a fresh position at Rietfontein, nine miles nearer their own
border. A small action ensued, in which we lost ten or twelve of the
Wiltshire Regiment, and gained some knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions.
For the remainder of the month the two forces remained in a state of
equilibrium, each keenly on its guard, and neither strong enough to
penetrate the lines of the other. General French descended to Cape Town to
aid General Roberts in the elaboration of that plan which was soon to
change the whole military situation in South Africa.
Reinforcements were still dribbling into the British force, Hoad’s
Australian Regiment, which had been changed from infantry to cavalry, and
J battery R.H.A. from India, being the last arrivals. But very much
stronger reinforcements had arrived for the Boers—so strong that
they were able to take the offensive. De la Rey had left the Modder with
three thousand men, and their presence infused new life into the defenders
of Colesberg. At the moment, too, that the Modder Boers were coming to
Colesberg, the British had begun to send cavalry reinforcements to the
Modder in preparation for the march to Kimberley, so that Clements’s Force
(as it had now become) was depleted at the very instant when that of the
enemy was largely increased. The result was that it was all they could do
not merely to hold their own, but to avoid a very serious disaster.
The movements of De la Rey were directed towards turning the right of the
position. On February 9th and 10th the mounted patrols, principally the
Tasmanians, the Australians, and the Inniskillings, came in contact with
the Boers, and some skirmishing ensued, with no heavy loss upon either
side. A British patrol was surrounded and lost eleven prisoners,
Tasmanians and Guides. On the 12th the Boer turning movement developed
itself, and our position on the right at Slingersfontein was strongly
attacked.
The key of the British position at this point was a kopje held by three
companies of the 2nd Worcester Regiment. Upon this the Boers made a fierce
onslaught, but were as fiercely repelled. They came up in the dark between
the set of moon and rise of sun, as they had done at the great assault of
Ladysmith, and the first dim light saw them in the advanced sangars. The
Boer generals do not favour night attacks, but they are exceedingly fond
of using darkness for taking up a good position and pushing onwards as
soon as it is possible to see. This is what they did upon this occasion,
and the first intimation which the outposts had of their presence was the
rush of feet and loom of figures in the cold misty light of dawn. The
occupants of the sangars were killed to a man, and the assailants rushed
onwards. As the sun topped the line of the veld half the kopje was in
their possession. Shouting and firing, they pressed onwards.
But the Worcester men were steady old soldiers, and the battalion
contained no less than four hundred and fifty marksmen in its ranks. Of
these the companies upon the hill had their due proportion, and their fire
was so accurate that the Boers found themselves unable to advance any
further. Through the long day a desperate duel was maintained between the
two lines of riflemen. Colonel Cuningham and Major Stubbs were killed
while endeavouring to recover the ground which had been lost. Hovel and
Bartholomew continued to encourage their men, and the British fire became
so deadly that that of the Boers was dominated. Under the direction of
Hacket Pain, who commanded the nearest post, guns of J battery were
brought out into the open and shelled the portion of the kopje which was
held by the Boers. The latter were reinforced, but could make no advance
against the accurate rifle fire with which they were met. The Bisley
champion of the battalion, with a bullet through his thigh, expended a
hundred rounds before sinking from loss of blood. It was an excellent
defence, and a pleasing exception to those too frequent cases where an
isolated force has lost heart in face of a numerous and persistent foe.
With the coming of darkness the Boers withdrew with a loss of over two
hundred killed and wounded. Orders had come from Clements that the whole
right wing should be drawn in, and in obedience to them the remains of the
victorious companies were called in by Hacket Pain, who moved his force by
night in the direction of Rensburg. The British loss in the action was
twenty-eight killed and nearly a hundred wounded or missing, most of which
was incurred when the sangars were rushed in the early morning.
While this action was fought upon the extreme right of the British
position another as severe had occurred with much the same result upon the
extreme left, where the 2nd Wiltshire Regiment was stationed. Some
companies of this regiment were isolated upon a kopje and surrounded by
the Boer riflemen when the pressure upon them was relieved by a desperate
attack by about a hundred of the Victorian Rifles. The gallant Australians
lost Major Eddy and six officers out of seven, with a large proportion of
their men, but they proved once for all that amid all the scattered
nations who came from the same home there is not one with a more fiery
courage and a higher sense of martial duty than the men from the great
island continent. It is the misfortune of the historian when dealing with
these contingents that, as a rule, by their very nature they were employed
in detached parties in fulfilling the duties which fall to the lot of
scouts and light cavalry—duties which fill the casualty lists but
not the pages of the chronicler. Be it said, however, once for all that
throughout the whole African army there was nothing but the utmost
admiration for the dash and spirit of the hard-riding, straight-shooting
sons of Australia and New Zealand. In a host which held many brave men
there were none braver than they.
It was evident from this time onwards that the turning movement had
failed, and that the enemy had developed such strength that we were
ourselves in imminent danger of being turned. The situation was a most
serious one: for if Clements’s force could be brushed aside there would be
nothing to keep the enemy from cutting the communications of the army
which Roberts had assembled for his march into the Free State. Clements
drew in his wings hurriedly and concentrated his whole force at Rensburg.
It was a difficult operation in the face of an aggressive enemy, but the
movements were well timed and admirably carried out. There is always the
possibility of a retreat degenerating into a panic, and a panic at that
moment would have been a most serious matter. One misfortune occurred,
through which two companies of the Wiltshire regiment were left without
definite orders, and were cut off and captured after a resistance in which
a third of their number was killed and wounded. No man in that trying time
worked harder than Colonel Carter of the Wiltshires (the night of the
retreat was the sixth which he had spent without sleep), and the loss of
the two companies is to be set down to one of those accidents which may
always occur in warfare. Some of the Inniskilling Dragoons and Victorian
Mounted Rifles were also cut off in the retreat, but on the whole Clements
was very fortunate in being able to concentrate his scattered army with so
few mishaps. The withdrawal was heartbreaking to the soldiers who had
worked so hard and so long in extending the lines, but it might be
regarded with equanimity by the Generals, who understood that the greater
strength the enemy developed at Colesberg the less they would have to
oppose the critical movements which were about to be carried out in the
west. Meanwhile Coleskop had also been abandoned, the guns removed, and
the whole force on February 14th passed through Rensburg and fell back
upon Arundel, the spot from which six weeks earlier French had started
upon this stirring series of operations. It would not be fair, however, to
suppose that they had failed because they ended where they began. Their
primary object had been to prevent the further advance of the Freestaters
into the colony, and, during the most critical period of the war, this had
been accomplished with much success and little loss. At last the pressure
had become so severe that the enemy had to weaken the most essential part
of their general position in order to relieve it. The object of the
operations had really been attained when Clements found himself back at
Arundel once more. French, the stormy petrel of the war, had flitted on
from Cape Town to Modder River, where a larger prize than Colesberg
awaited him. Clements continued to cover Naauwport, the important railway
junction, until the advance of Roberts’s army caused a complete reversal
of the whole military situation.
CHAPTER 15. SPION KOP.
Whilst Methuen and Gatacre were content to hold their own at the Modder
and at Sterkstroom, and whilst the mobile and energetic French was herding
the Boers into Colesberg, Sir Redvers Buller, the heavy, obdurate,
inexplicable man, was gathering and organising his forces for another
advance upon Ladysmith. Nearly a month had elapsed since the evil day when
his infantry had retired, and his ten guns had not, from the frontal
attack upon Colenso. Since then Sir Charles Warren’s division of infantry
and a considerable reinforcement of artillery had come to him. And yet in
view of the terrible nature of the ground in front of him, of the fighting
power of the Boers, and of the fact that they were always acting upon
internal lines, his force even now was, in the opinion of competent
judges, too weak for the matter in hand.
There remained, however, several points in his favour. His excellent
infantry were full of zeal and of confidence in their chief. It cannot be
denied, however much we may criticise some incidents in his campaign, that
he possessed the gift of impressing and encouraging his followers, and, in
spite of Colenso, the sight of his square figure and heavy impassive face
conveyed an assurance of ultimate victory to those around him. In
artillery he was very much stronger than before, especially in weight of
metal. His cavalry was still weak in proportion to his other arms. When at
last he moved out on January 10th to attempt to outflank the Boers, he
took with him nineteen thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry, and
sixty guns, which included six howitzers capable of throwing a 50-pound
lyddite shell, and ten long-range naval pieces. Barton’s Brigade and other
troops were left behind to hold the base and line of communications.
An analysis of Buller’s force shows that its details were as follows:—
This is the force whose operations I shall attempt to describe.
About sixteen miles to the westward of Colenso there is a ford over the
Tugela River which is called Potgieter’s Drift. General Buller’s apparent
plan was to seize this, together with the ferry which runs at this point,
and so to throw himself upon the right flank of the Colenso Boers. Once
over the river there is one formidable line of hills to cross, but if this
were passed there would be comparatively easy ground until the Ladysmith
hills were reached. With high hopes Buller and his men sallied out upon
their adventure.
Dundonald’s cavalry force pushed rapidly forwards, crossed the Little
Tugela, a tributary of the main river, at Springfield, and established
themselves upon the hills which command the drift. Dundonald largely
exceeded his instructions in going so far, and while we applaud his
courage and judgment in doing so, we must remember and be charitable to
those less fortunate officers whose private enterprise has ended in
disaster and reproof. There can be no doubt that the enemy intended to
hold all this tract, and that it was only the quickness of our initial
movements which forestalled them. Early in the morning a small party of
the South African Horse, under Lieutenant Carlisle, swam the broad river
under fire and brought back the ferry boat, an enterprise which was
fortunately bloodless, but which was most coolly planned and gallantly
carried out. The way was now open to our advance, and could it have been
carried out as rapidly as it had begun the Boers might conceivably have
been scattered before they could concentrate. It was not the fault of the
infantry that it was not so. They were trudging, mud-spattered and jovial,
at the very heels of the horses, after a forced march which was one of the
most trying of the whole campaign. But an army of 20,000 men cannot be
conveyed over a river twenty miles from any base without elaborate
preparations being made to feed them. The roads were in such a state that
the wagons could hardly move, heavy rain had just fallen, and every stream
was swollen into a river; bullocks might strain, and traction engines
pant, and horses die, but by no human means could the stores be kept up if
the advance guard were allowed to go at their own pace. And so, having
ensured an ultimate crossing of the river by the seizure of Mount Alice,
the high hill which commands the drift, the forces waited day after day,
watching in the distance the swarms of strenuous dark figures who dug and
hauled and worked upon the hillsides opposite, barring the road which they
would have to take. Far away on the horizon a little shining point
twinkled amid the purple haze, coming and going from morning to night. It
was the heliograph of Ladysmith, explaining her troubles and calling for
help, and from the heights of Mount Alice an answering star of hope
glimmered and shone, soothing, encouraging, explaining, while the stern
men of the veld dug furiously at their trenches in between. ‘We are
coming! We are coming!’ cried Mount Alice. ‘Over our bodies,’ said the men
with the spades and mattocks.
On Thursday, January 12th, Dundonald seized the heights, on the 13th the
ferry was taken and Lyttelton’s Brigade came up to secure that which the
cavalry had gained. On the 14th the heavy naval guns were brought up to
cover the crossing. On the 15th Coke’s Brigade and other infantry
concentrated at the drift. On the 16th the four regiments of Lyttelton’s
Brigade went across, and then, and only then, it began to be apparent that
Buller’s plan was a more deeply laid one than had been thought, and that
all this business of Potgieter’s Drift was really a demonstration in order
to cover the actual crossing which was to be effected at a ford named
Trichard’s Drift, five miles to the westward. Thus, while Lyttelton’s and
Coke’s Brigades were ostentatiously attacking Potgieter’s from in front,
three other brigades (Hart’s, Woodgate’s, and Hildyard’s) were marched
rapidly on the night of the 16th to the real place of crossing, to which
Dundonald’s cavalry had already ridden. There, on the 17th, a pontoon
bridge had been erected, and a strong force was thrown over in such a way
as to turn the right of the trenches in front of Potgieter’s. It was
admirably planned and excellently carried out, certainly the most
strategic movement, if there could be said to have been any strategic
movement upon the British side, in the campaign up to that date. On the
18th the infantry, the cavalry, and most of the guns were safely across
without loss of life. The Boers, however, still retained their formidable
internal lines, and the only result of a change of position seemed to be
to put them to the trouble of building a new series of those terrible
entrenchments at which they had become such experts. After all the
combinations the British were, it is true, upon the right side of the
river, but they were considerably further from Ladysmith than when they
started. There are times, however, when twenty miles are less than
fourteen, and it was hoped that this might prove to be among them. But the
first step was the most serious one, for right across their front lay the
Boer position upon the edge of a lofty plateau, with the high peak of
Spion Kop forming the left corner of it. If once that main ridge could be
captured or commanded, it would carry them halfway to the goal. It was for
that essential line of hills that two of the most dogged races upon earth
were about to contend. An immediate advance might have secured the
position at once, but, for some reason which is inexplicable, an aimless
march to the left was followed by a retirement to the original position of
Warren’s division, and so two invaluable days were wasted. We have the
positive assurance of Commandant Edwards, who was Chief of Staff to
General Botha, that a vigorous turning movement upon the left would at
this time have completely outflanked the Boer position and opened a way to
Ladysmith.
A small success, the more welcome for its rarity, came to the British arms
on this first day. Dundonald’s men had been thrown out to cover the left
of the infantry advance and to feel for the right of the Boer position. A
strong Boer patrol, caught napping for once, rode into an ambuscade of the
irregulars. Some escaped, some held out most gallantly in a kopje, but the
final result was a surrender of twenty-four unwounded prisoners, and the
finding of thirteen killed and wounded, including de Mentz, the
field-cornet of Heilbron. Two killed and two wounded were the British
losses in this well-managed affair. Dundonald’s force then took its
position upon the extreme left of Warren’s advance.
The British were now moving upon the Boers in two separate bodies, the one
which included Lyttelton’s and Coke’s Brigades from Potgieter’s Drift,
making what was really a frontal attack, while the main body under Warren,
who had crossed at Trichard’s Drift, was swinging round upon the Boer
right. Midway between the two movements the formidable bastion of Spion
Kop stood clearly outlined against the blue Natal sky. The heavy naval
guns on Mount Alice (two 4.7’s and eight twelve-pounders) were so placed
as to support either advance, and the howitzer battery was given to
Lyttelton to help the frontal attack. For two days the British pressed
slowly but steadily on to the Boers under the cover of an incessant rain
of shells. Dour and long-suffering the Boers made no reply, save with
sporadic rifle-fire, and refused until the crisis should come to expose
their great guns to the chance of injury.
On January 19th Warren’s turning movement began to bring him into closer
touch with the enemy, his thirty-six field guns and the six howitzers
which had returned to him crushing down the opposition which faced him.
The ground in front of him was pleated into long folds, and his advance
meant the carrying of ridge after ridge. In the earlier stages of the war
this would have entailed a murderous loss; but we had learned our lesson,
and the infantry now, with intervals of ten paces, and every man choosing
his own cover, went up in proper Boer form, carrying position after
position, the enemy always retiring with dignity and decorum. There was no
victory on one side or rout on the other—only a steady advance and
an orderly retirement. That night the infantry slept in their fighting
line, going on again at three in the morning, and light broke to find not
only rifles, but the long-silent Boer guns all blazing at the British
advance. Again, as at Colenso, the brunt of the fighting fell upon Hart’s
Irish Brigade, who upheld that immemorial tradition of valour with which
that name, either in or out of the British service, has invariably been
associated. Upon the Lancashire Fusiliers and the York and Lancasters came
also a large share of the losses and the glory. Slowly but surely the
inexorable line of the British lapped over the ground which the enemy had
held. A gallant colonial, Tobin of the South African Horse, rode up one
hill and signaled with his hat that it was clear. His comrades followed
closely at his heels, and occupied the position with the loss of Childe,
their Major. During this action Lyttelton had held the Boers in their
trenches opposite to him by advancing to within 1500 yards of them, but
the attack was not pushed further. On the evening of this day, January
20th, the British had gained some miles of ground, and the total losses
had been about three hundred killed and wounded. The troops were in good
heart, and all promised well for the future. Again the men lay where they
had fought, and again the dawn heard the crash of the great guns and the
rattle of the musketry.
The operations of this day began with a sustained cannonade from the field
batteries and 61st Howitzer Battery, which was as fiercely answered by the
enemy. About eleven the infantry began to go forward with an advance which
would have astonished the martinets of Aldershot, an irregular fringe of
crawlers, wrigglers, writhers, crouchers, all cool and deliberate, giving
away no points in this grim game of death. Where now were the officers
with their distinctive dresses and flashing swords, where the valiant
rushes over the open, where the men who were too proud to lie down?—the
tactics of three months ago seemed as obsolete as those of the Middle
Ages. All day the line undulated forward, and by evening yet another strip
of rock-strewn ground had been gained, and yet another train of ambulances
was bearing a hundred of our wounded back to the base hospitals at Frere.
It was on Hildyard’s Brigade on the left that the fighting and the losses
of this day principally fell. By the morning of January 22nd the regiments
were clustering thickly all round the edges of the Boer main position, and
the day was spent in resting the weary men, and in determining at what
point the final assault should be delivered. On the right front,
commanding the Boer lines on either side, towered the stark eminence of
Spion Kop, so called because from its summit the Boer voortrekkers had
first in 1835 gazed down upon the promised land of Natal. If that could
only be seized and held! Buller and Warren swept its bald summit with
their field-glasses. It was a venture. But all war is a venture; and the
brave man is he who ventures most. One fiery rush and the master-key of
all these locked doors might be in our keeping. That evening there came a
telegram to London which left the whole Empire in a hush of anticipation.
Spion Kop was to be attacked that night.
The troops which were selected for the task were eight companies of the
2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, six of the 2nd Royal Lancasters, two of the 1st
South Lancashires, 180 of Thorneycroft’s, and half a company of Sappers.
It was to be a North of England job.
Under the friendly cover of a starless night the men, in Indian file, like
a party of Iroquois braves upon the war trail, stole up the winding and
ill-defined path which led to the summit. Woodgate, the Lancashire
Brigadier, and Blomfield of the Fusiliers led the way. It was a severe
climb of 2000 feet, coming after arduous work over broken ground, but the
affair was well-timed, and it was at that blackest hour which precedes the
dawn that the last steep ascent was reached. The Fusiliers crouched down
among the rocks to recover their breath, and saw far down in the plain
beneath them the placid lights which showed where their comrades were
resting. A fine rain was falling, and rolling clouds hung low over their
heads. The men with unloaded rifles and fixed bayonets stole on once more,
their bodies bent, their eyes peering through the mirk for the first sign
of the enemy—that enemy whose first sign has usually been a
shattering volley. Thorneycroft’s men with their gallant leader had
threaded their way up into the advance. Then the leading files found that
they were walking on the level. The crest had been gained.
With slow steps and bated breath, the open line of skirmishers stole
across it. Was it possible that it had been entirely abandoned? Suddenly a
raucous shout of ‘Wie da?’ came out of the darkness, then a shot, then a
splutter of musketry and a yell, as the Fusiliers sprang onwards with
their bayonets. The Boer post of Vryheid burghers clattered and scrambled
away into the darkness, and a cheer that roused both the sleeping armies
told that the surprise had been complete and the position won.
In the grey light of the breaking day the men advanced along the narrow
undulating ridge, the prominent end of which they had captured. Another
trench faced them, but it was weakly held and abandoned. Then the men,
uncertain what remained beyond, halted and waited for full light to see
where they were, and what the work was which lay before them—a fatal
halt, as the result proved, and yet one so natural that it is hard to
blame the officer who ordered it. Indeed, he might have seemed more
culpable had he pushed blindly on, and so lost the advantage which had
been already gained.
About eight o’clock, with the clearing of the mist, General Woodgate saw
how matters stood. The ridge, one end of which he held, extended away,
rising and falling for some miles. Had he the whole of the end plateau,
and had he guns, he might hope to command the rest of the position. But he
held only half the plateau, and at the further end of it the Boers were
strongly entrenched. The Spion Kop mountain was really the salient or
sharp angle of the Boer position, so that the British were exposed to a
cross fire both from the left and right. Beyond were other eminences which
sheltered strings of riflemen and several guns. The plateau which the
British held was very much narrower than was usually represented in the
press. In many places the possible front was not much more than a hundred
yards wide, and the troops were compelled to bunch together, as there was
not room for a single company to take an extended formation. The cover
upon this plateau was scanty, far too scanty for the force upon it, and
the shell fire—especially the fire of the pom-poms—soon became
very murderous. To mass the troops under the cover of the edge of the
plateau might naturally suggest itself, but with great tactical skill the
Boer advanced line from Commandant Prinsloo’s Heidelberg and Carolina
commandos kept so aggressive an attitude that the British could not weaken
the lines opposed to them. Their skirmishers were creeping round too in
such a way that the fire was really coming from three separate points,
left, centre, and right, and every corner of the position was searched by
their bullets. Early in the action the gallant Woodgate and many of his
Lancashire men were shot down. The others spread out and held on, firing
occasionally at the whisk of a rifle-barrel or the glimpse of a
broad-brimmed hat.
From morning to midday, the shell, Maxim, and rifle fire swept across the
kop in a continual driving shower. The British guns in the plain below
failed to localise the position of the enemy’s, and they were able to vent
their concentrated spite upon the exposed infantry. No blame attaches to
the gunners for this, as a hill intervened to screen the Boer artillery,
which consisted of five big guns and two pom-poms.
Upon the fall of Woodgate, Thorneycroft, who bore the reputation of a
determined fighter, was placed at the suggestion of Buller in charge of
the defence of the hill, and he was reinforced after noon by Coke’s
brigade, the Middlesex, the Dorsets, and the Somersets, together with the
Imperial Light Infantry. The addition of this force to the defenders of
the plateau tended to increase the casualty returns rather than the
strength of the defence. Three thousand more rifles could do nothing to
check the fire of the invisible cannon, and it was this which was the main
source of the losses, while on the other hand the plateau had become so
cumbered with troops that a shell could hardly fail to do damage. There
was no cover to shelter them and no room for them to extend. The pressure
was most severe upon the shallow trenches in the front, which had been
abandoned by the Boers and were held by the Lancashire Fusiliers. They
were enfiladed by rifle and cannon, and the dead and wounded outnumbered
the hale. So close were the skirmishers that on at least one occasion Boer
and Briton found themselves on each side of the same rock. Once a handful
of men, tormented beyond endurance, sprang up as a sign that they had had
enough, but Thorneycroft, a man of huge physique, rushed forward to the
advancing Boers. ‘You may go to hell!’ he yelled. ‘I command here, and
allow no surrender. Go on with your firing.’ Nothing could exceed the
gallantry of Louis Botha’s men in pushing the attack. Again and again they
made their way up to the British firing line, exposing themselves with a
recklessness which, with the exception of the grand attack upon Ladysmith,
was unique in our experience of them. About two o’clock they rushed one
trench occupied by the Fusiliers and secured the survivors of two
companies as prisoners, but were subsequently driven out again. A detached
group of the South Lancashires was summoned to surrender. ‘When I
surrender,’ cried Colour-Sergeant Nolan, ‘it will be my dead body!’ Hour
after hour of the unintermitting crash of the shells among the rocks and
of the groans and screams of men torn and burst by the most horrible of
all wounds had shaken the troops badly. Spectators from below who saw the
shells pitching at the rate of seven a minute on to the crowded plateau
marvelled at the endurance which held the devoted men to their post. Men
were wounded and wounded and wounded yet again, and still went on
fighting. Never since Inkerman had we had so grim a soldier’s battle. The
company officers were superb. Captain Muriel of the Middlesex was shot
through the check while giving a cigarette to a wounded man, continued to
lead his company, and was shot again through the brain. Scott Moncrieff of
the same regiment was only disabled by the fourth bullet which hit him.
Grenfell of Thorneycroft’s was shot, and exclaimed, ‘That’s all right.
It’s not much.’ A second wound made him remark, ‘I can get on all right.’
The third killed him. Ross of the Lancasters, who had crawled from a
sickbed, was found dead upon the furthest crest. Young Murray of the
Scottish Rifles, dripping from five wounds, still staggered about among
his men. And the men were worthy of such officers. ‘No retreat! No
retreat!’ they yelled when some of the front line were driven in. In all
regiments there are weaklings and hang-backs, and many a man was wandering
down the reverse slopes when he should have been facing death upon the
top, but as a body British troops have never stood firm through a more
fiery ordeal than on that fatal hill…
The position was so bad that no efforts of officers or men could do
anything to mend it. They were in a murderous dilemma. If they fell back
for cover the Boer riflemen would rush the position. If they held their
ground this horrible shell fire must continue, which they had no means of
answering. Down at Gun Hill in front of the Boer position we had no fewer
than five batteries, the 78th, 7th, 73rd, 63rd, and 61st howitzer, but a
ridge intervened between them and the Boer guns which were shelling Spion
Kop, and this ridge was strongly entrenched. The naval guns from distant
Mount Alice did what they could, but the range was very long, and the
position of the Boer guns uncertain. The artillery, situated as it was,
could not save the infantry from the horrible scourging which they were
enduring.
There remains the debated question whether the British guns could have
been taken to the top. Mr. Winston Churchill, the soundness of whose
judgment has been frequently demonstrated during the war, asserts that it
might have been done. Without venturing to contradict one who was
personally present, I venture to think that there is strong evidence to
show that it could not have been done without blasting and other measures,
for which there was no possible time. Captain Hanwell of the 78th R.F.A.,
upon the day of the battle had the very utmost difficulty with the help of
four horses in getting a light Maxim on to the top, and his opinion, with
that of other artillery officers, is that the feat was an impossible one
until the path had been prepared. When night fell Colonel Sim was
despatched with a party of Sappers to clear the track and to prepare two
emplacements upon the top, but in his advance he met the retiring
infantry.
Throughout the day reinforcements had pushed up the hill, until two full
brigades had been drawn into the fight. From the other side of the ridge
Lyttelton sent up the Scottish Rifles, who reached the summit, and added
their share to the shambles upon the top. As the shades of night closed
in, and the glare of the bursting shells became more lurid, the men lay
extended upon the rocky ground, parched and exhausted. They were
hopelessly jumbled together, with the exception of the Dorsets, whose
cohesion may have been due to superior discipline, less exposure, or to
the fact that their khaki differed somewhat in colour from that of the
others. Twelve hours of so terrible an experience had had a strange effect
upon many of the men. Some were dazed and battle-struck, incapable of
clear understanding. Some were as incoherent as drunkards. Some lay in an
overpowering drowsiness. The most were doggedly patient and
long-suffering, with a mighty longing for water obliterating every other
emotion.
Before evening fell a most gallant and successful attempt had been made by
the third battalion of the King’s Royal Rifles from Lyttelton’s Brigade to
relieve the pressure upon their comrades on Spion Kop. In order to draw
part of the Boer fire away they ascended from the northern side and
carried the hills which formed a continuation of the same ridge. The
movement was meant to be no more than a strong demonstration, but the
riflemen pushed it until, breathless but victorious, they stood upon the
very crest of the position, leaving nearly a hundred dead or dying to show
the path which they had taken. Their advance being much further than was
desired, they were recalled, and it was at the moment that Buchanan
Riddell, their brave Colonel, stood up to read Lyttelton’s note that he
fell with a Boer bullet through his brain, making one more of those
gallant leaders who died as they had lived, at the head of their
regiments. Chisholm, Dick-Cunyngham, Downman, Wilford, Gunning, Sherston,
Thackeray, Sitwell, MacCarthy O’Leary, Airlie—they have led their
men up to and through the gates of death. It was a fine exploit of the 3rd
Rifles. ‘A finer bit of skirmishing, a finer bit of climbing, and a finer
bit of fighting, I have never seen,’ said their Brigadier. It is certain
that if Lyttelton had not thrown his two regiments into the fight the
pressure upon the hill-top might have become unendurable; and it seems
also certain that if he had only held on to the position which the Rifles
had gained, the Boers would never have reoccupied Spion Kop.
And now, under the shadow of night, but with the shells bursting thickly
over the plateau, the much-tried Thorneycroft had to make up his mind
whether he should hold on for another such day as he had endured, or
whether now, in the friendly darkness, he should remove his shattered
force. Could he have seen the discouragement of the Boers and the
preparations which they had made for retirement, he would have held his
ground. But this was hidden from him, while the horror of his own losses
was but too apparent. Forty per cent of his men were down. Thirteen
hundred dead and dying are a grim sight upon a wide-spread battle-field,
but when this number is heaped upon a confined space, where from a single
high rock the whole litter of broken and shattered bodies can be seen, and
the groans of the stricken rise in one long droning chorus to the ear,
then it is an iron mind indeed which can resist such evidence of disaster.
In a harder age Wellington was able to survey four thousand bodies piled
in the narrow compass of the breach of Badajos, but his resolution was
sustained by the knowledge that the military end for which they fell had
been accomplished. Had his task been unfinished it is doubtful whether
even his steadfast soul would not have flinched from its completion.
Thorneycroft saw the frightful havoc of one day, and he shrank from the
thought of such another. ‘Better six battalions safely down the hill than
a mop up in the morning,’ said he, and he gave the word to retire. One who
had met the troops as they staggered down has told me how far they were
from being routed. In mixed array, but steadily and in order, the long
thin line trudged through the darkness. Their parched lips would not
articulate, but they whispered ‘Water! Where is water?’ as they toiled
upon their way. At the bottom of the hill they formed into regiments once
more, and marched back to the camp. In the morning the blood-spattered
hill-top, with its piles of dead and of wounded, were in the hands of
Botha and his men, whose valour and perseverance deserved the victory
which they had won. There is no doubt now that at 3 A.M. of that morning
Botha, knowing that the Rifles had carried Burger’s position, regarded the
affair as hopeless, and that no one was more astonished than he when he
found, on the report of two scouts, that it was a victory and not a defeat
which had come to him.
How shall we sum up such an action save that it was a gallant attempt,
gallantly carried out, and as gallantly met? On both sides the results of
artillery fire during the war have been disappointing, but at Spion Kop
beyond all question it was the Boer guns which won the action for them. So
keen was the disappointment at home that there was a tendency to criticise
the battle with some harshness, but it is difficult now, with the evidence
at our command, to say what was left undone which could have altered the
result. Had Thorneycroft known all that we know, he would have kept his
grip upon the hill. On the face of it one finds it difficult to understand
why so momentous a decision, upon which the whole operations depended,
should have been left entirely to the judgment of one who in the morning
had been a simple Lieutenant-Colonel. ‘Where are the bosses?’ cried a
Fusilier, and the historian can only repeat the question. General Warren
was at the bottom of the hill. Had he ascended and determined that the
place should still be held, he might have sent down the wearied troops,
brought up smaller numbers of fresh ones, ordered the Sappers to deepen
the trenches, and tried to bring up water and guns. It was for the
divisional commander to lay his hand upon the reins at so critical an
instant, to relieve the weary man who had struggled so hard all day.
The subsequent publication of the official despatches has served little
purpose, save to show that there was a want of harmony between Buller and
Warren, and that the former lost all confidence in his subordinate during
the course of the operations. In these papers General Buller expresses the
opinion that had Warren’s operations been more dashing, he would have
found his turning movement upon the left a comparatively easy matter. In
this judgment he would probably have the concurrence of most military
critics. He adds, however, ‘On the 19th, I ought to have assumed command
myself. I saw that things were not going well—indeed, everyone saw
that. I blame myself now for not having done so. I did not, because, if I
did, I should discredit General Warren in the estimation of the troops,
and, if I were shot, and he had to withdraw across the Tugela, and they
had lost confidence in him, the consequences might be very serious. I must
leave it to higher authority whether this argument was a sound one.’ It
needs no higher authority than common-sense to say that the argument is an
absolutely unsound one. No consequences could be more serious than that
the operations should miscarry and Ladysmith remain unrelieved, and such
want of success must in any case discredit Warren in the eyes of his
troops. Besides, a subordinate is not discredited because his chief steps
in to conduct a critical operation. However, these personal controversies
may be suffered to remain in that pigeon-hole from which they should never
have been drawn.
On account of the crowding of four thousand troops into a space which
might have afforded tolerable cover for five hundred the losses in the
action were very heavy, not fewer than fifteen hundred being killed,
wounded, or missing, the proportion of killed being, on account of the
shell fire, abnormally high. The Lancashire Fusiliers were the heaviest
sufferers, and their Colonel Blomfield was wounded and fell into the hands
of the enemy. The Royal Lancasters also lost heavily. Thorneycroft’s had
80 men hit out of 180 engaged. The Imperial Light Infantry, a raw corps of
Rand refugees who were enduring their baptism of fire, lost 130 men. In
officers the losses were particularly heavy, 60 being killed or wounded.
The Boer returns show some 50 killed and 150 wounded, which may not be far
from the truth. Without the shell fire the British losses might not have
been much more.
General Buller had lost nearly two thousand men since he had crossed the
Tugela, and his purpose was still unfulfilled. Should he risk the loss of
a large part of his force in storming the ridges in front of him, or
should he recross the river and try for an easier route elsewhere? To the
surprise and disappointment both of the public and of the army, he chose
the latter course, and by January 27th he had fallen back, unmolested by
the Boers, to the other side of the Tugela. It must be confessed that his
retreat was admirably conducted, and that it was a military feat to bring
his men, his guns, and his stores in safety over a broad river in the face
of a victorious enemy. Stolid and unmoved, his impenetrable demeanour
restored serenity and confidence to the angry and disappointed troops.
There might well be heavy hearts among both them and the public. After a
fortnight’s campaign, and the endurance of great losses and hardships,
both Ladysmith and her relievers found themselves no better off than when
they started. Buller still held the commanding position of Mount Alice,
and this was all that he had to show for such sacrifices and such
exertions. Once more there came a weary pause while Ladysmith, sick with
hope deferred, waited gloomily upon half-rations of horse-flesh for the
next movement from the South.
CHAPTER 16. VAALKRANZ.
Neither General Buller nor his troops appeared to be dismayed by the
failure of their plans, or by the heavy losses which were entailed by the
movement which culminated at Spion Kop. The soldiers grumbled, it is true,
at not being let go, and swore that even if it cost them two-thirds of
their number they could and would make their way through this labyrinth of
hills with its fringe of death. So doubtless they might. But from first to
last their General had shown a great—some said an exaggerated—respect
for human life, and he had no intention of winning a path by mere
slogging, if there were a chance of finding one by less bloody means. On
the morrow of his return he astonished both his army and the Empire by
announcing that he had found the key to the position and that he hoped to
be in Ladysmith in a week. Some rejoiced in the assurance. Some shrugged
their shoulders. Careless of friends or foes, the stolid Buller proceeded
to work out his new combination.
In the next few days reinforcements trickled in which more than made up
for the losses of the preceding week. A battery of horse artillery, two
heavy guns, two squadrons of the 14th Hussars, and infantry drafts to the
number of twelve or fourteen hundred men came to share the impending glory
or disaster. On the morning of February 5th the army sallied forth once
more to have another try to win a way to Ladysmith. It was known that
enteric was rife in the town, that shell and bullet and typhoid germ had
struck down a terrible proportion of the garrison, and that the rations of
starved horse and commissariat mule were running low. With their comrades—in
many cases their linked battalions—in such straits within fifteen
miles of them, Buller’s soldiers had high motives to brace them for a
supreme effort.
The previous attempt had been upon the line immediately to the west of
Spion Kop. If, however, one were to follow to the east of Spion Kop, one
would come upon a high mountain called Doornkloof. Between these two
peaks, there lies a low ridge, called Brakfontein, and a small detached
hill named Vaalkranz. Buller’s idea was that if he could seize this small
Vaalkranz, it would enable him to avoid the high ground altogether and
pass his troops through on to the plateau beyond. He still held the Ford
at Potgieter’s and commanded the country beyond with heavy guns on Mount
Alice and at Swartz Kop, so that he could pass troops over at his will. He
would make a noisy demonstration against Brakfontein, then suddenly seize
Vaalkranz, and so, as he hoped, hold the outer door which opened on to the
passage to Ladysmith.
The getting of the guns up Swartz Kop was a preliminary which was as
necessary as it was difficult. A road was cut, sailors, engineers, and
gunners worked with a will under the general direction of Majors Findlay
and Apsley Smith. A mountain battery, two field guns, and six naval
12-pounders were slung up by steel hawsers, the sailors yeo-hoing on the
halliards. The ammunition was taken up by hand. At six o’clock on the
morning of the 5th the other guns opened a furious and probably harmless
fire upon Brakfontein, Spion Kop, and all the Boer positions opposite to
them. Shortly afterwards the feigned attack upon Brakfontein was commenced
and was sustained with much fuss and appearance of energy until all was
ready for the development of the true one. Wynne’s Brigade, which had been
Woodgate’s, recovered already from its Spion Kop experience, carried out
this part of the plan, supported by six batteries of field artillery, one
howitzer battery, and two 4.7 naval guns. Three hours later a telegram was
on its way to Pretoria to tell how triumphantly the burghers had driven
back an attack which was never meant to go forward. The infantry retired
first, then the artillery in alternate batteries, preserving a beautiful
order and decorum. The last battery, the 78th, remained to receive the
concentrated fire of the Boer guns, and was so enveloped in the dust of
the exploding shells that spectators could only see a gun here or a limber
there. Out of this whirl of death it quietly walked, without a bucket out
of its place, the gunners drawing one wagon, the horses of which had
perished, and so effected a leisurely and contemptuous withdrawal. The
gallantry of the gunners has been one of the most striking features of the
war, but it has never been more conspicuous than in this feint at
Brakfontein.
While the attention of the Boers was being concentrated upon the
Lancashire men, a pontoon bridge was suddenly thrown across the river at a
place called Munger’s Drift, some miles to the eastward. Three infantry
brigades, those of Hart, Lyttelton, and Hildyard, had been massed all
ready to be let slip when the false attack was sufficiently absorbing. The
artillery fire (the Swartz Kop guns, and also the batteries which had been
withdrawn from the Brakfontein demonstration) was then turned suddenly,
with the crashing effect of seventy pieces, upon the real object of
attack, the isolated Vaalkranz. It is doubtful whether any position has
ever been subjected to so terrific a bombardment, for the weight of metal
thrown by single guns was greater than that of a whole German battery in
the days of their last great war. The 4-pounders and 6-pounders of which
Prince Kraft discourses would have seemed toys beside these mighty
howitzers and 4.7’s. Yet though the hillside was sharded off in great
flakes, it is doubtful if this terrific fire inflicted much injury upon
the cunning and invisible riflemen with whom we had to contend.
About midday the infantry began to stream across the bridge, which had
been most gallantly and efficiently constructed under a warm fire, by a
party of sappers, under the command of Major Irvine. The attack was led by
the Durham Light Infantry of Lyttelton’s Brigade, followed by the 1st
Rifle Brigade, with the Scottish and 3rd Rifles in support. Never did the
old Light Division of Peninsular fame go up a Spanish hillside with
greater spirit and dash than these, their descendants, facing the slope of
Vaalkranz. In open order they moved across the plain, with a superb
disregard of the crash and patter of the shrapnel, and then up they went,
the flitting figures, springing from cover to cover, stooping, darting,
crouching, running, until with their glasses the spectators on Swartz Kop
could see the gleam of the bayonets and the strain of furious rushing men
upon the summit, as the last Boers were driven from their trenches. The
position was gained, but little else. Seven officers and seventy men were
lying killed and wounded among the boulders. A few stricken Boers, five
unwounded prisoners, and a string of Basuto ponies were the poor fruits of
victory—those and the arid hill from which so much had been hoped,
and so little was to be gained.
It was during this advance that an incident occurred of a more picturesque
character than is usual in modern warfare. The invisibility of combatants
and guns, and the absorption of the individual in the mass, have robbed
the battle-field of those episodes which adorned, if they did not justify
it. On this occasion, a Boer gun, cut off by the British advance, flew out
suddenly from behind its cover, like a hare from its tussock, and raced
for safety across the plain. Here and there it wound, the horses stretched
to their utmost, the drivers stooping and lashing, the little gun bounding
behind. To right to left, behind and before, the British shells burst,
lyddite and shrapnel, crashing and riving. Over the lip of a hollow, the
gallant gun vanished, and within a few minutes was banging away once more
at the British advance. With cheers and shouts and laughter, the British
infantrymen watched the race for shelter, their sporting spirit rising
high above all racial hatred, and hailing with a ‘gone to ground’ whoop
the final disappearance of the gun.
The Durhams had cleared the path, but the other regiments of Lyttelton’s
Brigade followed hard at their heels, and before night they had firmly
established themselves upon the hill. But the fatal slowness which had
marred General Buller’s previous operations again prevented him from
completing his success. Twice at least in the course of these operations
there is evidence of sudden impulse to drop his tools in the midst of his
task and to do no more for the day. So it was at Colenso, where an order
was given at an early hour for the whole force to retire, and the guns
which might have been covered by infantry fire and withdrawn after
nightfall were abandoned. So it was also at a critical moment at this
action at Vaalkranz. In the original scheme of operations it had been
planned that an adjoining hill, called the Green Hill, which partly
commanded Vaalkranz, should be carried also. The two together made a
complete position, while singly each was a very bad neighbour to the
other. On the aide-de-camp riding up, however, to inquire from General
Buller whether the time had come for this advance, he replied, ‘We have
done enough for the day,’ and left out this essential portion of his
original scheme, with the result that all miscarried.
Speed was the most essential quality for carrying out his plan
successfully. So it must always be with the attack. The defence does not
know where the blow is coming, and has to distribute men and guns to cover
miles of ground. The attacker knows where he will hit, and behind a screen
of outposts he can mass his force and throw his whole strength against a
mere fraction of that of his enemy. But in order to do so he must be
quick. One tiger spring must tear the centre out of the line before the
flanks can come to its assistance. If time is given, if the long line can
concentrate, if the scattered guns can mass, if lines of defence can be
reduplicated behind, then the one great advantage which the attack
possesses is thrown away. Both at the second and at the third attempts of
Buller the British movements were so slow that had the enemy been the
slowest instead of the most mobile of armies, they could still always have
made any dispositions which they chose. Warren’s dawdling in the first
days of the movement which ended at Spion Kop might with an effort be
condoned on account of possible difficulties of supply, but it would
strain the ingenuity of the most charitable critic to find a sufficient
reason for the lethargy of Vaalkranz. Though daylight comes a little after
four, the operations were not commenced before seven. Lyttelton’s Brigade
had stormed the hill at two, and nothing more was done during the long
evening, while officers chafed and soldiers swore, and the busy Boers
worked furiously to bring up their guns and to bar the path which we must
take. General Buller remarked a day or two later that the way was not
quite so easy as it had been. One might have deduced the fact without the
aid of a balloon.
The brigade then occupied Vaalkranz and erected sangars and dug trenches.
On the morning of the 6th, the position of the British force was not
dissimilar to that of Spion Kop. Again they had some thousands of men upon
a hill-top, exposed to shell fire from several directions and without any
guns upon the hill to support them. In one or two points the situation was
modified in their favour, and hence their escape from loss and disaster. A
more extended position enabled the infantry to avoid bunching, but in
other respects the situation was parallel to that in which they had found
themselves a fortnight before.
The original plan was that the taking of Vaalkranz should be the first
step towards the outflanking of Brakfontein and the rolling up of the
whole Boer position. But after the first move the British attitude became
one of defence rather than of attack. Whatever the general and ultimate
effect of these operations may have been, it is beyond question that their
contemplation was annoying and bewildering in the extreme to those who
were present. The position on February 6th was this. Over the river upon
the hill was a single British brigade, exposed to the fire of one enormous
gun—a 96-pound Creusot, the longest of all Long Toms—which was
stationed upon Doornkloof, and of several smaller guns and pom-poms which
spat at them from nooks and crevices of the hills. On our side were
seventy-two guns, large and small, all very noisy and impotent. It is not
too much to say, as it appears to me, that the Boers have in some ways
revolutionised our ideas in regard to the use of artillery, by bringing a
fresh and healthy common-sense to bear upon a subject which had been
unduly fettered by pedantic rules. The Boer system is the single stealthy
gun crouching where none can see it. The British system is the six brave
guns coming into action in line of full interval, and spreading out into
accurate dressing visible to all men. ‘Always remember,’ says one of our
artillery maxims, ‘that one gun is no gun.’ Which is prettier on a
field-day, is obvious, but which is business—let the many duels
between six Boer guns and sixty British declare. With black powder it was
useless to hide the gun, as its smoke must betray it. With smokeless
powder the guns are so invisible that it was only by the detection with
powerful glasses of the dust from the trail on the recoil that the
officers were ever able to localise the guns against which they were
fighting. But if the Boers had had six guns in line, instead of one behind
that kopje, and another between those distant rocks, it would not have
been so difficult to say where they were. Again, British traditions are
all in favour of planting guns close together. At this very action of
Vaalkranz the two largest guns were so placed that a single shell bursting
between them would have disabled them both. The officer who placed them
there, and so disregarded in a vital matter the most obvious dictates of
common-sense, would probably have been shocked by any want of technical
smartness, or irregularity in the routine drill. An over-elaboration of
trifles, and a want of grip of common-sense, and of adaptation to new
ideas, is the most serious and damaging criticism which can be levelled
against our army. That the function of infantry is to shoot, and not to
act like spearmen in the Middle Ages; that the first duty of artillery is
so far as is possible to be invisible—these are two of the lessons
which have been driven home so often during the war, that even our
hidebound conservatism can hardly resist them.
Lyttelton’s Brigade, then, held Vaalkranz; and from three parts of the
compass there came big shells and little shells, with a constant shower of
long-range rifle bullets. Behind them, and as useful as if it had been on
Woolwich Common, there was drawn up an imposing mass of men, two infantry
divisions, and two brigades of cavalry, all straining at the leash,
prepared to shed their blood until the spruits ran red with it, if only
they could win their way to where their half-starved comrades waited for
them. But nothing happened. Hours passed and nothing happened. An
occasional shell from the big gun plumped among them. One, through some
freak of gunnery, lobbed slowly through a division, and the men whooped
and threw their caps at it as it passed. The guns on Swartz Kop, at a
range of nearly five miles, tossed shells at the monster on Doornkloof,
and finally blew up his powder magazine amid the applause of the infantry.
For the army it was a picnic and a spectacle.
But it was otherwise with the men up on Vaalkranz. In spite of sangar and
trench, that cross fire was finding them out; and no feint or
demonstration on either side came to draw the concentrated fire from their
position. Once there was a sudden alarm at the western end of the hill,
and stooping bearded figures with slouch hats and bandoliers were right up
on the ridge before they could be stopped, so cleverly had their advance
been conducted. But a fiery rush of Durhams and Rifles cleared the crest
again, and it was proved once more how much stronger is the defence than
the attack. Nightfall found the position unchanged, save that another
pontoon bridge had been constructed during the day. Over this Hildyard’s
Brigade marched to relieve Lyttelton’s, who came back for a rest under the
cover of the Swartz Kop guns. Their losses in the two days had been under
two hundred and fifty, a trifle if any aim were to be gained, but
excessive for a mere demonstration.
That night Hildyard’s men supplemented the defences made by Lyttelton, and
tightened their hold upon the hill. One futile night attack caused them
for an instant to change the spade for the rifle. When in the morning it
was found that the Boers had, as they naturally would, brought up their
outlying guns, the tired soldiers did not regret their labours of the
night. It was again demonstrated how innocuous a thing is a severe shell
fire, if the position be an extended one with chances of cover. A total of
forty killed and wounded out of a strong brigade was the result of a long
day under an incessant cannonade. And then at nightfall came the
conclusion that the guns were too many, that the way was too hard, and
down came all their high hopes with the order to withdraw once more across
that accursed river. Vaalkranz was abandoned, and Hildyard’s Brigade,
seething with indignation, was ordered back once more to its camp.
CHAPTER 17. BULLER’S FINAL ADVANCE.
The heroic moment of the siege of Ladysmith was that which witnessed the
repulse of the great attack. The epic should have ended at that dramatic
instant. But instead of doing so the story falls back to an anticlimax of
crowded hospitals, slaughtered horses, and sporadic shell fire. For
another six weeks of inactivity the brave garrison endured all the sordid
evils which had steadily grown from inconvenience to misfortune and from
misfortune to misery. Away in the south they heard the thunder of Buller’s
guns, and from the hills round the town they watched with pale faces and
bated breath the tragedy of Spion Kop, preserving a firm conviction that a
very little more would have transformed it into their salvation. Their
hearts sank with the sinking of the cannonade, and rose again with the
roar of Vaalkranz. But Vaalkranz also failed them, and they waited on in
the majesty of their hunger and their weakness for the help which was to
come.
It has been already narrated how General Buller had made his three
attempts for the relief of the city. The General who was inclined to
despair was now stimulated by despatches from Lord Roberts, while his
army, who were by no means inclined to despair, were immensely cheered by
the good news from the Kimberley side. Both General and army prepared for
a last supreme effort. This time, at least, the soldiers hoped that they
would be permitted to burst their way to the help of their starving
comrades or leave their bones among the hills which had faced them so
long. All they asked was a fight to a finish, and now they were about to
have one. General Buller had tried the Boers’ centre, he had tried their
extreme right, and now he was about to try their extreme left. There were
some obvious advantages on this side which make it surprising that it was
not the first to be attempted. In the first place, the enemy’s main
position upon that flank was at Hlangwane mountain, which is to the south
of the Tugela, so that in case of defeat the river ran behind them. In the
second, Hlangwane mountain was the one point from which the Boer position
at Colenso could be certainly enfiladed, and therefore the fruits of
victory would be greater on that flank than on the other. Finally, the
operations could be conducted at no great distance from the railhead, and
the force would be exposed to little danger of having its flank attacked
or its communications cut, as was the case in the Spion Kop advance.
Against these potent considerations there is only to be put the single
fact that the turning of the Boer right would threaten the Freestaters’
line of retreat. On the whole, the balance of advantage lay entirely with
the new attempt, and the whole army advanced to it with a premonition of
success. Of all the examples which the war has given of the enduring
qualities of the British troops there is none more striking than the
absolute confidence and whole hearted delight with which, after three
bloody repulses, they set forth upon another venture.
On February 9th the movements were started which transferred the greater
part of the force from the extreme left to the centre and right. By the
11th Lyttelton’s (formerly Clery’s) second division and Warren’s fifth
division had come eastward, leaving Burn Murdoch’s cavalry brigade to
guard the Western side. On the 12th Lord Dundonald, with all the colonial
cavalry, two battalions of infantry, and a battery, made a strong
reconnaissance towards Hussar Hill, which is the nearest of the several
hills which would have to be occupied in order to turn the position. The
hill was taken, but was abandoned again by General Buller after he had
used it for some hours as an observatory. A long-range action between the
retiring cavalry and the Boers ended in a few losses upon each side.
What Buller had seen during the hour or two which he had spent with his
telescope upon Hussar Hill had evidently confirmed him in his views, for
two days later (February 14th) the whole army set forth for this point. By
the morning of the 15th twenty thousand men were concentrated upon the
sides and spurs of this eminence. On the 16th the heavy guns were in
position, and all was ready for the advance.
Facing them now were the formidable Boer lines of Hlangwane Hill and Green
Hill, which would certainly cost several thousands of men if they were to
take them by direct storm. Beyond them, upon the Boer flank, were the
hills of Monte Christo and Cingolo, which appeared to be the extreme
outside of the Boer position. The plan was to engage the attention of the
trenches in front by a terrific artillery fire and the threat of an
assault, while at the same time sending the true flank attack far round to
carry the Cingolo ridge, which must be taken before any other hill could
be approached.
On the 17th, in the early morning, with the first tinge of violet in the
east, the irregular cavalry and the second division (Lyttelton’s) with
Wynne’s Brigade started upon their widely curving flanking march. The
country through which they passed was so broken that the troopers led
their horses in single file, and would have found themselves helpless in
face of any resistance. Fortunately, Cingolo Hill was very weakly held,
and by evening both our horsemen and our infantry had a firm grip upon it,
thus turning the extreme left flank of the Boer position. For once their
mountainous fortresses were against them, for a mounted Boer force is so
mobile that in an open position, such as faced Methuen, it is very hard
and requires great celerity of movement ever to find a flank at all. On a
succession of hills, however, it was evident that some one hill must mark
the extreme end of their line, and Buller had found it at Cingolo. Their
answer to this movement was to throw their flank back so as to face the
new position.
Even now, however, the Boer leaders had apparently not realised that this
was the main attack, or it is possible that the intervention of the river
made it difficult for them to send reinforcements. However that may be, it
is certain that the task which the British found awaiting them on the 18th
proved to be far easier than they had dared to hope. The honours of the
day rested with Hildyard’s English Brigade (East Surrey, West Surrey, West
Yorkshires, and 2nd Devons). In open order and with a rapid advance,
taking every advantage of the cover—which was better than is usual
in South African warfare—they gained the edge of the Monte Christo
ridge, and then swiftly cleared the crest. One at least of the regiments
engaged, the Devons, was nerved by the thought that their own first
battalion was waiting for them at Ladysmith. The capture of the hill made
the line of trenches which faced Buller untenable, and he was at once able
to advance with Barton’s Fusilier Brigade and to take possession of the
whole Boer position of Hlangwane and Green Hill. It was not a great
tactical victory, for they had no trophies to show save the worthless
debris of the Boer camps. But it was a very great strategical victory, for
it not only gave them the whole south side of the Tugela, but also the
means of commanding with their guns a great deal of the north side,
including those Colenso trenches which had blocked the way so long. A
hundred and seventy killed and wounded (of whom only fourteen were killed)
was a trivial price for such a result. At last from the captured ridges
the exultant troops could see far away the haze which lay over the roofs
of Ladysmith, and the besieged, with hearts beating high with hope, turned
their glasses upon the distant mottled patches which told them that their
comrades were approaching.
By February 20th the British had firmly established themselves along the
whole south bank of the river, Hart’s brigade had occupied Colenso, and
the heavy guns had been pushed up to more advanced positions. The crossing
of the river was the next operation, and the question arose where it
should be crossed. The wisdom which comes with experience shows us now
that it would have been infinitely better to have crossed on their extreme
left flank, as by an advance upon this line we should have turned their
strong Pieters position just as we had already turned their Colenso one.
With an absolutely master card in our hand we refused to play it, and won
the game by a more tedious and perilous process. The assumption seems to
have been made (on no other hypothesis can one understand the facts) that
the enemy were demoralised and that the positions would not be strongly
held. Our flanking advantage was abandoned and a direct advance was
ordered from Colenso, involving a frontal attack upon the Pieters
position.
On February 21st Buller threw his pontoon bridge over the river near
Colenso, and the same evening his army began to cross. It was at once
evident that the Boer resistance had by no means collapsed. Wynne’s
Lancashire Brigade were the first across, and found themselves hotly
engaged before nightfall. The low kopjes in front of them were blazing
with musketry fire. The brigade held its own, but lost the Brigadier (the
second in a month) and 150 rank and file. Next morning the main body of
the infantry was passed across, and the army was absolutely committed to
the formidable and unnecessary enterprise of fighting its way straight to
Ladysmith.
The force in front had weakened, however, both in numbers and in morale.
Some thousands of the Freestaters had left in order to defend their own
country from the advance of Roberts, while the rest were depressed by as
much of the news as was allowed by their leaders to reach them. But the
Boer is a tenacious fighter, and many a brave man was still to fall before
Buller and White should shake hands in the High Street of Ladysmith.
The first obstacle which faced the army, after crossing the river, was a
belt of low rolling ground, which was gradually cleared by the advance of
our infantry. As night closed in the advance lines of Boers and British
were so close to each other that incessant rifle fire was maintained until
morning, and at more than one point small bodies of desperate riflemen
charged right up to the bayonets of our infantry. The morning found us
still holding our positions all along the line, and as more and more of
our infantry came up and gun after gun roared into action we began to push
our stubborn enemy northwards. On the 21st the Dorsets, Middlesex, and
Somersets had borne the heat of the day. On the 22nd it was the Royal
Lancasters, followed by the South Lancashires, who took up the running. It
would take the patience and also the space of a Kinglake in this
scrambling broken fight to trace the doings of those groups of men who
strove and struggled through the rifle fire. All day a steady advance was
maintained over the low kopjes, until by evening we were faced by the more
serious line of the Pieter’s Hills. The operations had been carried out
with a monotony of gallantry. Always the same extended advance, always the
same rattle of Mausers and clatter of pom-poms from a ridge, always the
same victorious soldiers on the barren crest, with a few crippled Boers
before them and many crippled comrades behind. They were expensive
triumphs, and yet every one brought them nearer to their goal. And now,
like an advancing tide, they lapped along the base of Pieter’s Hill. Could
they gather volume enough to carry themselves over? The issue of the
long-drawn battle and the fate of Ladysmith hung upon the question.
Brigadier Fitzroy Hart, to whom the assault was entrusted, is in some ways
as singular and picturesque a type as has been evolved in the war. A dandy
soldier, always the picture of neatness from the top of his helmet to the
heels of his well-polished brown boots, he brings to military matters the
same precision which he affects in dress. Pedantic in his accuracy, he
actually at the battle of Colenso drilled the Irish Brigade for half an
hour before leading them into action, and threw out markers under a deadly
fire in order that his change from close to extended formation might be
academically correct. The heavy loss of the Brigade at this action was to
some extent ascribed to him and affected his popularity; but as his men
came to know him better, his romantic bravery, his whimsical soldierly
humour, their dislike changed into admiration. His personal disregard for
danger was notorious and reprehensible. ‘Where is General Hart?’ asked
some one in action. ‘I have not seen him, but I know where you will find
him. Go ahead of the skirmish line and you will see him standing on a
rock,’ was the answer. He bore a charmed life. It was a danger to be near
him. ‘Whom are you going to?’ ‘General Hart,’ said the aide-de-camp. ‘Then
good-bye!’ cried his fellows. A grim humour ran through his nature. It is
gravely recorded and widely believed that he lined up a regiment on a
hill-top in order to teach them not to shrink from fire. Amid the laughter
of his Irishmen, he walked through the open files of his firing line
holding a laggard by the ear. This was the man who had put such a spirit
into the Irish Brigade that amid that army of valiant men there were none
who held such a record. ‘Their rushes were the quickest, their rushes were
the longest, and they stayed the shortest time under cover,’ said a shrewd
military observer. To Hart and his brigade was given the task of clearing
the way to Ladysmith.
The regiments which he took with him on his perilous enterprise were the
1st Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, the 1st Connaught
Rangers, and the Imperial Light Infantry, the whole forming the famous 5th
Brigade. They were already in the extreme British advance, and now, as
they moved forwards, the Durham Light Infantry and the 1st Rifle Brigade
from Lyttelton’s Brigade came up to take their place. The hill to be taken
lay on the right, and the soldiers were compelled to pass in single file
under a heavy fire for more than a mile until they reached the spot which
seemed best for their enterprise. There, short already of sixty of their
comrades, they assembled and began a cautious advance upon the lines of
trenches and sangars which seamed the brown slope above them.
For a time they were able to keep some cover, and the casualties were
comparatively few. But now at last, as the evening sun threw a long shadow
from the hills, the leading regiment, the Inniskillings, found themselves
at the utmost fringe of boulders with a clear slope between them and the
main trench of the enemy. Up there where the shrapnel was spurting and the
great lyddite shells crashing they could dimly see a line of bearded faces
and the black dots of the slouch hats. With a yell the Inniskillings
sprang out, carried with a rush the first trench, and charged desperately
onwards for the second one. It was a supremely dashing attack against a
supremely steady resistance, for among all their gallant deeds the Boers
have never fought better than on that February evening. Amid such a
smashing shell fire as living mortals have never yet endured they stood
doggedly, these hardy men of the veld, and fired fast and true into the
fiery ranks of the Irishmen. The yell of the stormers was answered by the
remorseless roar of the Mausers and the deep-chested shouts of the
farmers. Up and up surged the infantry, falling, rising, dashing
bull-headed at the crackling line of the trench. But still the bearded
faces glared at them over the edge, and still the sheet of lead pelted
through their ranks. The regiment staggered, came on, staggered again, was
overtaken by supporting companies of the Dublins and the Connaughts, came
on, staggered once more, and finally dissolved into shreds, who ran
swiftly back for cover, threading their way among their stricken comrades.
Never on this earth was there a retreat of which the survivors had less
reason to be ashamed. They had held on to the utmost capacity of human
endurance. Their Colonel, ten officers, and more than half the regiment
were lying on the fatal hill. Honour to them, and honour also to the
gallant Dutchmen who, rooted in the trenches, had faced the rush and fury
of such an onslaught! Today to them, tomorrow to us—but it is for a
soldier to thank the God of battles for worthy foes.
It is one thing, however, to repulse the British soldier and it is another
to rout him. Within a few hundred yards of their horrible ordeal at
Magersfontein the Highlanders reformed into a military body. So now the
Irishmen fell back no further than the nearest cover, and there held
grimly on to the ground which they had won. If you would know the
advantage which the defence has over the attack, then do you come and
assault this line of tenacious men, now in your hour of victory and
exultation, friend Boer! Friend Boer did attempt it, and skilfully too,
moving a flanking party to sweep the position with their fire. But the
brigade, though sorely hurt, held them off without difficulty, and was
found on the morning of the 24th to be still lying upon the ground which
they had won.
Our losses had been very heavy, Colonel Thackeray of the Inniskillings,
Colonel Sitwell of the Dublins, three majors, twenty officers, and a total
of about six hundred out of 1200 actually engaged. To take such punishment
and to remain undemoralised is the supreme test to which troops can be
put. Could the loss have been avoided? By following the original line of
advance from Monte Christo, perhaps, when we should have turned the
enemy’s left. But otherwise no. The hill was in the way and had to be
taken. In the war game you cannot play without a stake. You lose and you
pay forfeit, and where the game is fair the best player is he who pays
with the best grace. The attack was well prepared, well delivered, and
only miscarried on account of the excellence of the defence. We proved
once more what we had proved so often before, that all valour and all
discipline will not avail in a frontal attack against brave coolheaded men
armed with quick-firing rifles.
While the Irish Brigade assaulted Railway Hill an attack had been made
upon the left, which was probably meant as a demonstration to keep the
Boers from reinforcing their comrades rather than as an actual attempt
upon their lines. Such as it was, however, it cost the life of at least
one brave soldier, for Colonel Thorold, of the Welsh Fusiliers, was among
the fallen. Thorold, Thackeray, and Sitwell in one evening. Who can say
that British colonels have not given their men a lead?
The army was now at a deadlock. Railway Hill barred the way, and if Hart’s
men could not carry it by assault it was hard to say who could. The 24th
found the two armies facing each other at this critical point, the
Irishmen still clinging to the slopes of the hill and the Boers lining the
top. Fierce rifle firing broke out between them during the day, but each
side was well covered and lay low. The troops in support suffered
somewhat, however, from a random shell fire. Mr. Winston Churchill has
left it upon record that within his own observation three of their
shrapnel shells fired at a venture on to the reverse slope of a hill
accounted for nineteen men and four horses. The enemy can never have known
how hard those three shells had hit us, and so we may also believe that
our artillery fire has often been less futile than it appeared.
General Buller had now realised that it was no mere rearguard action which
the Boers were fighting, but that their army was standing doggedly at bay;
so he reverted to that flanking movement which, as events showed, should
never have been abandoned. Hart’s Irish Brigade was at present almost the
right of the army. His new plan—a masterly one—was to keep
Hart pinning the Boers at that point, and to move his centre and left
across the river, and then back to envelope the left wing of the enemy. By
this manoeuvre Hart became the extreme left instead of the extreme right,
and the Irish Brigade would be the hinge upon which the whole army should
turn. It was a large conception, finely carried out. The 24th was a day of
futile shell fire—and of plans for the future. The heavy guns were
got across once more to the Monte Christo ridge and to Hlangwane, and
preparations made to throw the army from the west to the east. The enemy
still snarled and occasionally snapped in front of Hart’s men, but with
four companies of the 2nd Rifle Brigade to protect their flanks their
position remained secure.
In the meantime, through a contretemps between our outposts and the Boers,
no leave had been given to us to withdraw our wounded, and the unfortunate
fellows, some hundreds of them, had lain between the lines in agonies of
thirst for thirty-six hours—one of the most painful incidents of the
campaign. Now, upon the 25th, an armistice was proclaimed, and the crying
needs of the survivors were attended to. On the same day the hearts of our
soldiers sank within them as they saw the stream of our wagons and guns
crossing the river once more. What, were they foiled again? Was the blood
of these brave men to be shed in vain? They ground their teeth at the
thought. The higher strategy was not for them, but back was back and
forward was forward, and they knew which way their proud hearts wished to
go.
The 26th was occupied by the large movements of troops which so complete a
reversal of tactics necessitated. Under the screen of a heavy artillery
fire, the British right became the left and the left the right. A second
pontoon bridge was thrown across near the old Boer bridge at Hlangwane,
and over it was passed a large force of infantry, Barton’s Fusilier
Brigade, Kitchener’s (vice Wynne’s, vice Woodgate’s) Lancashire Brigade,
and two battalions of Norcott’s (formerly Lyttelton’s) Brigade. Coke’s
Brigade was left at Colenso to prevent a counter attack upon our left
flank and communications. In this way, while Hart with the Durhams and the
1st Rifle Brigade held the Boers in front, the main body of the army was
rapidly swung round on to their left flank. By the morning of the 27th all
were in place for the new attack.
Opposite the point where the troops had been massed were three Boer hills;
one, the nearest, may for convenience sake be called Barton’s Hill. As the
army had formerly been situated the assault upon this hill would have been
a matter of extreme difficulty; but now, with the heavy guns restored to
their commanding position, from which they could sweep its sides and
summits, it had recovered its initial advantage. In the morning sunlight
Barton’s Fusiliers crossed the river, and advanced to the attack under a
screaming canopy of shells. Up they went and up, darting and crouching,
until their gleaming bayonets sparkled upon the summit. The masterful
artillery had done its work, and the first long step taken in this last
stage of the relief of Ladysmith. The loss had been slight and the
advantage enormous. After they had gained the summit the Fusiliers were
stung and stung again by clouds of skirmishers who clung to the flanks of
the hill, but their grip was firm and grew firmer with every hour.
Of the three Boer hills which had to be taken the nearest (or eastern one)
was now in the hands of the British. The furthest (or western one) was
that on which the Irish Brigade was still crouching, ready at any moment
for a final spring which would take them over the few hundred yards which
separated them from the trenches. Between the two intervened a central
hill, as yet untouched. Could we carry this the whole position would be
ours. Now for the final effort! Turn every gun upon it, the guns of Monte
Christo, the guns of Hlangwane! Turn every rifle upon it—the rifles
of Barton’s men, the rifles of Hart’s men, the carbines of the distant
cavalry! Scalp its crown with the machine-gun fire! And now up with you,
Lancashire men, Norcott’s men! The summit or a glorious death, for beyond
that hill your suffering comrades are awaiting you! Put every bullet and
every man and all of fire and spirit that you are worth into this last
hour; for if you fail now you have failed for ever, and if you win, then
when your hairs are white your blood will still run warm when you think of
that morning’s work. The long drama had drawn to an end, and one short
day’s work is to show what that end was to be.
But there was never a doubt of it. Hardly for one instant did the advance
waver at any point of its extended line. It was the supreme instant of the
Natal campaign, as, wave after wave, the long lines of infantry went
shimmering up the hill. On the left the Lancasters, the Lancashire
Fusiliers, the South Lancashires, the York and Lancasters, with a burr of
north country oaths, went racing for the summit. Spion Kop and a thousand
comrades were calling for vengeance. ‘Remember, men, the eyes of
Lancashire are watching you,’ cried the gallant MacCarthy O’Leary. The old
40th swept on, but his dead body marked the way which they had taken. On
the right the East Surrey, the Cameronians, the 3rd Rifles, the 1st Rifle
Brigade, the Durhams, and the gallant Irishmen, so sorely stricken and yet
so eager, were all pressing upwards and onwards. The Boer fire lulls, it
ceases—they are running! Wild hat-waving men upon the Hlangwane
uplands see the silhouette of the active figures of the stormers along the
sky-line and know that the position is theirs. Exultant soldiers dance and
cheer upon the ridge. The sun is setting in glory over the great
Drakensberg mountains, and so also that night set for ever the hopes of
the Boer invaders of Natal. Out of doubt and chaos, blood and labour, had
come at last the judgment that the lower should not swallow the higher,
that the world is for the man of the twentieth and not of the seventeenth
century. After a fortnight of fighting the weary troops threw themselves
down that night with the assurance that at last the door was ajar and the
light breaking through. One more effort and it would be open before them.
Behind the line of hills which had been taken there extended a great plain
as far as Bulwana—that evil neighbour who had wrought such harm upon
Ladysmith. More than half of the Pieters position had fallen into Buller’s
hands on the 27th, and the remainder had become untenable. The Boers had
lost some five hundred in killed, wounded, and prisoners. [Footnote:
Accurate figures will probably never be obtained, but a well-known Boer in
Pretoria informed me that Pieters was the most expensive fight to them of
the whole war. ] It seemed to the British General and his men that one
more action would bring them safely into Ladysmith.
But here they miscalculated, and so often have we miscalculated on the
optimistic side in this campaign that it is pleasing to find for once that
our hopes were less than the reality. The Boers had been beaten—fairly
beaten and disheartened. It will always be a subject for conjecture
whether they were so entirely on the strength of the Natal campaign, or
whether the news of the Cronje disaster from the western side had warned
them that they must draw in upon the east. For my own part I believe that
the honour lies with the gallant men of Natal, and that, moving on these
lines, they would, Cronje or no Cronje, have forced their way in triumph
to Ladysmith.
And now the long-drawn story draws to a swift close. Cautiously feeling
their way with a fringe of horse, the British pushed over the great plain,
delayed here and there by the crackle of musketry, but finding always that
the obstacle gave way and vanished as they approached it. At last it
seemed clear to Dundonald that there really was no barrier between his
horsemen and the beleaguered city. With a squadron of Imperial Light Horse
and a squadron of Natal Carabineers he rode on until, in the gathering
twilight, the Ladysmith picket challenged the approaching cavalry, and the
gallant town was saved.
It is hard to say which had shown the greater endurance, the rescued or
their rescuers. The town, indefensible, lurking in a hollow under
commanding hills, had held out for 118 days. They had endured two assaults
and an incessant bombardment, to which, towards the end, owing to the
failure of heavy ammunition, they were unable to make any adequate reply.
It was calculated that 16, 000 shells had fallen within the town. In two
successful sorties they had destroyed three of the enemy’s heavy guns.
They had been pressed by hunger, horseflesh was already running short, and
they had been decimated by disease. More than 2000 cases of enteric and
dysentery had been in hospital at one time, and the total number of
admissions had been nearly as great as the total number of the garrison.
One-tenth of the men had actually died of wounds or disease. Ragged,
bootless, and emaciated, there still lurked in the gaunt soldiers the
martial spirit of warriors. On the day after their relief 2000 of them set
forth to pursue the Boers. One who helped to lead them has left it on
record that the most piteous sight that he has ever seen was these wasted
men, stooping under their rifles and gasping with the pressure of their
accoutrements, as they staggered after their retreating enemy. A
Verestschagen might find a subject these 2000 indomitable men with their
emaciated horses pursuing a formidable foe. It is God’s mercy they failed
to overtake them.
If the record of the besieged force was great, that of the relieving army
was no less so. Through the blackest depths of despondency and failure
they had struggled to absolute success. At Colenso they had lost 1200 men,
at Spion Kop 1700, at Vaalkranz 400, and now, in this last long-drawn
effort, 1600 more. Their total losses were over 5000 men, more than 20 per
cent of the whole army. Some particular regiments had suffered horribly.
The Dublin and Inniskilling Fusiliers headed the roll of honour with only
five officers and 40 per cent of the men left standing. Next to them the
Lancashire Fusiliers and the Royal Lancasters had been the hardest hit. It
speaks well for Buller’s power of winning and holding the confidence of
his men that in the face of repulse after repulse the soldiers still went
into battle as steadily as ever under his command.
On March 3rd Buller’s force entered Ladysmith in state between the lines
of the defenders. For their heroism the Dublin Fusiliers were put in the
van of the procession, and it is told how, as the soldiers who lined the
streets saw the five officers and small clump of men, the remains of what
had been a strong battalion, realising, for the first time perhaps, what
their relief had cost, many sobbed like children. With cheer after cheer
the stream of brave men flowed for hours between banks formed by men as
brave. But for the purposes of war the garrison was useless. A month of
rest and food would be necessary before they could be ready to take the
field once more.
So the riddle of the Tugela had at last been solved. Even now, with all
the light which has been shed upon the matter, it is hard to apportion
praise and blame. To the cheerful optimism of Symons must be laid some of
the blame of the original entanglement; but man is mortal, and he laid
down his life for his mistake. White, who had been but a week in the
country, could not, if he would, alter the main facts of the military
situation. He did his best, committed one or two errors, did brilliantly
on one or two points, and finally conducted the defence with a tenacity
and a gallantry which are above all praise. It did not, fortunately,
develop into an absolutely desperate affair, like Massena’s defence of
Genoa, but a few more weeks would have made it a military tragedy. He was
fortunate in the troops whom he commanded—half of them old soldiers
from India—[Footnote: An officer in high command in Ladysmith has
told me, as an illustration of the nerve and discipline of the troops,
that though false alarms in the Boer trenches were matters of continual
occurrence from the beginning to the end of the siege, there was not one
single occasion when the British outposts made a mistake.]—and
exceedingly fortunate in his officers, French (in the operations before
the siege), Archibald Hunter, Ian Hamilton, Hedworth Lambton,
Dick-Cunyngham, Knox, De Courcy Hamilton, and all the other good men and
true who stood (as long as they could stand) by his side. Above all, he
was fortunate in his commissariat officers, and it was in the offices of
Colonels Ward and Stoneman as much as in the trenches and sangars of
Caesar’s Camp that the siege was won.
Buller, like White, had to take the situation as he found it. It is well
known that his own belief was that the line of the Tugela was the true
defence of Natal. When he reached Africa, Ladysmith was already
beleaguered, and he, with his troops, had to abandon the scheme of direct
invasion and to hurry to extricate White’s division. Whether they might
not have been more rapidly extricated by keeping to the original plan is a
question which will long furnish an excellent subject for military debate.
Had Buller in November known that Ladysmith was capable of holding out
until March, is it conceivable that he, with his whole army corps and as
many more troops as he cared to summon from England, would not have made
such an advance in four months through the Free State as would necessitate
the abandonment of the sieges both of Kimberley and of Ladysmith? If the
Boers persisted in these sieges they could not possibly place more than
20,000 men on the Orange River to face 60, 000 whom Buller could have had
there by the first week in December. Methuen’s force, French’s force,
Gatacre’s force, and the Natal force, with the exception of garrisons for
Pietermaritzburg and Durban, would have assembled, with a reserve of
another sixty thousand men in the colony or on the sea ready to fill the
gaps in his advance. Moving over a flat country with plenty of flanking
room, it is probable that he would have been in Bloemfontein by Christmas
and at the Vaal River late in January. What could the Boers do then? They
might remain before Ladysmith, and learn that their capital and their gold
mines had been taken in their absence. Or they might abandon the siege and
trek back to defend their own homes. This, as it appears to a civilian
critic, would have been the least expensive means of fighting them; but
after all the strain had to come somewhere, and the long struggle of
Ladysmith may have meant a more certain and complete collapse in the
future. At least, by the plan actually adopted we saved Natal from total
devastation, and that must count against a great deal.
Having taken his line, Buller set about his task in a slow, deliberate,
but pertinacious fashion. It cannot be denied, however, that the
pertinacity was largely due to the stiffening counsel of Roberts and the
soldierly firmness of White who refused to acquiesce in the suggestion of
surrender. Let it be acknowledged that Buller’s was the hardest problem of
the war, and that he solved it. The mere acknowledgment goes far to soften
criticism. But the singular thing is that in his proceedings he showed
qualities which had not been generally attributed to him, and was wanting
in those very points which the public had imagined to be characteristic of
him. He had gone out with the reputation of a downright John Bull fighter,
who would take punishment or give it, but slog his way through without
wincing. There was no reason for attributing any particular strategical
ability to him. But as a matter of fact, setting the Colenso attempt
aside, the crossing for the Spion Kop enterprise, the withdrawal of the
compromised army, the Vaalkranz crossing with the clever feint upon
Brakfontein, the final operations, and especially the complete change of
front after the third day of Pieters, were strategical movements largely
conceived and admirably carried out. On the other hand, a hesitation in
pushing onwards, and a disinclination to take a risk or to endure heavy
punishment, even in the case of temporary failure, were consistent
characteristics of his generalship. The Vaalkranz operations are
particularly difficult to defend from the charge of having been needlessly
slow and half-hearted. This ‘saturnine fighter,’ as he had been called,
proved to be exceedingly sensitive about the lives of his men—an
admirable quality in itself, but there are occasions when to spare them
to-day is to needlessly imperil them tomorrow. The victory was his, and
yet in the very moment of it he displayed the qualities which marred him.
With two cavalry brigades in hand he did not push the pursuit of the
routed Boers with their guns and endless streams of wagons. It is true
that he might have lost heavily, but it is true also that a success might
have ended the Boer invasion of Natal, and the lives of our troopers would
be well spent in such a venture. If cavalry is not to be used in pursuing
a retiring enemy encumbered with much baggage, then its day is indeed
past.
The relief of Ladysmith stirred the people of the Empire as nothing, save
perhaps the subsequent relief of Mafeking, has done during our generation.
Even sober unemotional London found its soul for once and fluttered with
joy. Men, women, and children, rich and poor, clubman and cabman, joined
in the universal delight. The thought of our garrison, of their
privations, of our impotence to relieve them, of the impending humiliation
to them and to us, had lain dark for many months across our spirits. It
had weighed upon us, until the subject, though ever present in our
thoughts, was too painful for general talk. And now, in an instant, the
shadow was lifted. The outburst of rejoicing was not a triumph over the
gallant Boers. But it was our own escape from humiliation, the knowledge
that the blood of our sons had not been shed in vain, above all the
conviction that the darkest hour had now passed and that the light of
peace was dimly breaking far away—that was why London rang with joy
bells that March morning, and why those bells echoed back from every town
and hamlet, in tropical sun and in Arctic snow, over which the flag of
Britain waved.
CHAPTER 18. THE SIEGE AND RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY.
It has already been narrated how, upon the arrival of the army corps from
England, the greater part was drafted to Natal, while some went to the
western side, and started under Lord Methuen upon the perilous enterprise
of the relief of Kimberley. It has also been shown how, after three
expensive victories, Lord Methuen’s force met with a paralysing reverse,
and was compelled to remain inactive within twenty miles of the town which
they had come to succour. Before I describe how that succour did
eventually arrive, some attention must be paid to the incidents which had
occurred within the city.
‘I am directed to assure you that there is no reason for apprehending that
Kimberley or any part of the colony either is, or in any contemplated
event will be, in danger of attack. Mr. Schreiner is of opinion that your
fears are groundless and your anticipations in the matter entirely without
foundation.’ Such is the official reply to the remonstrance of the
inhabitants, when, with the shadow of war dark upon them, they appealed
for help. It is fortunate, however, that a progressive British town has
usually the capacity for doing things for itself without the intervention
of officials. Kimberley was particularly lucky in being the centre of the
wealthy and alert De Beers Company, which had laid in sufficient
ammunition and supplies to prevent the town from being helpless in the
presence of the enemy. But the cannon were popguns, firing a 7-pound shell
for a short range, and the garrison contained only seven hundred regulars,
while the remainder were mostly untrained miners and artisans. Among them,
however, there was a sprinkling of dangerous men from the northern wars,
and all were nerved by a knowledge that the ground which they defended was
essential to the Empire. Ladysmith was no more than any other strategic
position, but Kimberley was unique, the centre of the richest tract of
ground for its size in the whole world. Its loss would have been a heavy
blow to the British cause, and an enormous encouragement to the Boers.
On October 12th, several hours after the expiration of Kruger’s ultimatum,
Cecil Rhodes threw himself into Kimberley. This remarkable man, who stood
for the future of South Africa as clearly as the Dopper Boer stood for its
past, had, both in features and in character, some traits which may,
without extravagance, be called Napoleonic. The restless energy, the
fertility of resource, the attention to detail, the wide sweep of mind,
the power of terse comment—all these recall the great emperor. So
did the simplicity of private life in the midst of excessive wealth. And
so finally did a want of scruple where an ambition was to be furthered,
shown, for example, in that enormous donation to the Irish party by which
he made a bid for their parliamentary support, and in the story of the
Jameson raid. A certain cynicism of mind and a grim humour complete the
parallel. But Rhodes was a Napoleon of peace. The consolidation of South
Africa under the freest and most progressive form of government was the
large object on which he had expended his energies and his fortune but the
development of the country in every conceivable respect, from the building
of a railway to the importation of a pedigree bull, engaged his
unremitting attention.
It was on October 15th that the fifty thousand inhabitants of Kimberley
first heard the voice of war. It rose and fell in a succession of horrible
screams and groans which travelled far over the veld, and the outlying
farmers marvelled at the dreadful clamour from the sirens and the hooters
of the great mines. Those who have endured all—the rifle, the
cannon, and the hunger—have said that those wild whoops from the
sirens were what had tried their nerve the most.
The Boers in scattered bands of horsemen were thick around the town, and
had blocked the railroad. They raided cattle upon the outskirts, but made
no attempt to rush the defence. The garrison, who, civilian and military,
approached four thousand in number, lay close in rifle pit and redoubt
waiting for an attack which never came. The perimeter to be defended was
about eight miles, but the heaps of tailings made admirable
fortifications, and the town had none of those inconvenient heights around
it which had been such bad neighbours to Ladysmith. Picturesque
surroundings are not favourable to defence.
On October 24th the garrison, finding that no attack was made, determined
upon a reconnaissance. The mounted force, upon which most of the work and
of the loss fell, consisted of the Diamond Fields Horse, a small number of
Cape Police, a company of Mounted Infantry, and a body called the
Kimberley Light Horse. With two hundred and seventy volunteers from this
force Major Scott-Turner, a redoubtable fighter, felt his way to the north
until he came in touch with the Boers. The latter, who were much superior
in numbers, manoeuvred to cut him off, but the arrival of two companies of
the North Lancashire Regiment turned the scale in our favour. We lost
three killed and twenty-one wounded in the skirmish. The Boer loss is
unknown, but their commander Botha was slain.
On November 4th Commandant Wessels formally summoned the town, and it is
asserted that he gave Colonel Kekewich leave to send out the women and
children. That officer has been blamed for not taking advantage of the
permission—or at the least for not communicating it to the civil
authorities. As a matter of fact the charge rests upon a misapprehension.
In Wessels’ letter a distinction is made between Africander and English
women, the former being offered an asylum in his camp. This offer was made
known, and half a dozen persons took advantage of it. The suggestion,
however, in the case of the English carried with it no promise that they
would be conveyed to Orange River, and a compliance with it would have put
them as helpless hostages into the hands of the enemy. As to not
publishing the message it is not usual to publish such official documents,
but the offer was shown to Mr. Rhodes, who concurred in the impossibility
of accepting it.
It is difficult to allude to this subject without touching upon the
painful but notorious fact that there existed during the siege
considerable friction between the military authorities and a section of
the civilians, of whom Mr. Rhodes was chief. Among other characteristics
Rhodes bore any form of restraint very badly, and chafed mightily when
unable to do a thing in the exact way which he considered best. He may
have been a Napoleon of peace, but his warmest friends could never
describe him as a Napoleon of war, for his military forecasts have been
erroneous, and the management of the Jameson fiasco certainly inspired no
confidence in the judgment of any one concerned. That his intentions were
of the best, and that he had the good of the Empire at heart, may be
freely granted; but that these motives should lead him to cabal against,
and even to threaten, the military governor, or that he should attempt to
force Lord Roberts’s hand in a military operation, was most deplorable.
Every credit may be given to him for all his aid to the military—he
gave with a good grace what the garrison would otherwise have had to
commandeer—but it is a fact that the town would have been more
united, and therefore stronger, without his presence. Colonel Kekewich and
his chief staff officer, Major O’Meara, were as much plagued by intrigue
within as by the Boers without.
On November 7th the bombardment of the town commenced from nine 9-pounder
guns to which the artillery of the garrison could give no adequate reply.
The result, however, of a fortnight’s fire, during which seven hundred
shells were discharged, was the loss of two non-combatants. The question
of food was recognised as being of more importance than the enemy’s fire.
An early relief appeared probable, however, as the advance of Methuen’s
force was already known. One pound of bread, two ounces of sugar, and half
a pound of meat were allowed per head. It was only on the small children
that the scarcity of milk told with tragic effect. At Ladysmith, at
Mafeking, and at Kimberley hundreds of these innocents were sacrificed.
November 25th was a red-letter day with the garrison, who made a sortie
under the impression that Methuen was not far off, and that they were
assisting his operations. The attack was made upon one of the Boer
positions by a force consisting of a detachment of the Light Horse and of
the Cape Police, and their work was brilliantly successful. The actual
storming of the redoubt was carried out by some forty men, of whom but
four were killed. They brought back thirty-three prisoners as a proof of
their victory, but the Boer gun, as usual, escaped us. In this brilliant
affair Scott-Turner was wounded, which did not prevent him, only three
days later, from leading another sortie, which was as disastrous as the
first had been successful. Save under very exceptional circumstances it is
in modern warfare long odds always upon the defence, and the garrison
would probably have been better advised had they refrained from attacking
the fortifications of their enemy—a truth which Baden-Powell learned
also at Game Tree Hill. As it was, after a temporary success the British
were blown back by the fierce Mauser fire, and lost the indomitable
Scott-Turner, with twenty-one of his brave companions killed and
twenty-eight wounded, all belonging to the colonial corps. The Empire may
reflect with pride that the people in whose cause mainly they fought
showed themselves by their gallantry and their devotion worthy of any
sacrifice which has been made.
Again the siege settled down to a monotonous record of decreasing rations
and of expectation. On December 10 there came a sign of hope from the
outside world. Far on the southern horizon a little golden speck shimmered
against the blue African sky. It was Methuen’s balloon gleaming in the
sunshine. Next morning the low grumble of distant cannon was the sweetest
of music to the listening citizens. But days passed without further news,
and it was not for more than a week that they learned of the bloody
repulse of Magersfontein, and that help was once more indefinitely
postponed. Heliographic communication had been opened with the relieving
army, and it is on record that the first message flashed through from the
south was a question about the number of a horse. With inconceivable
stupidity this has been cited as an example of military levity and
incapacity. Of course the object of the question was a test as to whether
they were really in communication with the garrison. It must be confessed
that the town seems to have contained some very querulous and unreasonable
people.
The New Year found the beleaguered city reduced to a quarter of a pound of
meat per head, while the health of the inhabitants began to break down
under their confinement. Their interest, however, was keenly aroused by
the attempt made in the De Beers workshops to build a gun which might
reach their opponents. This remarkable piece of ordnance, constructed by
an American named Labram by the help of tools manufactured for the purpose
and of books found in the town, took the shape eventually of a 28 lb.
rifled gun, which proved to be a most efficient piece of artillery. With
grim humour, Mr. Rhodes’s compliments had been inscribed upon the shells—a
fair retort in view of the openly expressed threat of the enemy that in
case of his capture they would carry him in a cage to Pretoria.
The Boers, though held off for a time by this unexpected piece of
ordnance, prepared a terrible answer to it. On February 7th an enormous
gun, throwing a 96 lb. shell, opened from Kamfersdam, which is four miles
from the centre of the town. The shells, following the evil precedent of
the Germans in 1870, were fired not at the forts, but into the thickly
populated city. Day and night these huge missiles exploded, shattering the
houses and occasionally killing or maiming the occupants. Some thousands
of the women and children were conveyed down the mines, where, in the
electric-lighted tunnels, they lay in comfort and safety. One surprising
revenge the Boers had, for by an extraordinary chance one of the few men
killed by their gun was the ingenious Labram who had constructed the
28-pounder. By an even more singular chance, Leon, who was responsible for
bringing the big Boer gun, was struck immediately afterwards by a
long-range rifle-shot from the garrison.
The historian must be content to give a tame account of the siege of
Kimberley, for the thing itself was tame. Indeed ‘siege’ is a misnomer,
for it was rather an investment or a blockade. Such as it was, however,
the inhabitants became very restless under it, and though there were never
any prospects of surrender the utmost impatience began to be manifested at
the protracted delay on the part of the relief force. It was not till
later that it was understood how cunningly Kimberley had been used as a
bait to hold the enemy until final preparations had been made for his
destruction.
And at last the great day came. It is on record how dramatic was the
meeting between the mounted outposts of the defenders and the advance
guard of the relievers, whose advent seems to have been equally unexpected
by friend and foe. A skirmish was in progress on February 15th between a
party of the Kimberley Light Horse and of the Boers, when a new body of
horsemen, unrecognised by either side, appeared upon the plain and opened
fire upon the enemy. One of the strangers rode up to the patrol. ‘What the
dickens does K.L. H. mean on your shoulder-strap?’ he asked. ‘It means
Kimberley Light Horse. Who are you?’ ‘I am one of the New Zealanders.’
Macaulay in his wildest dream of the future of the much-quoted New
Zealander never pictured him as heading a rescue force for the relief of a
British town in the heart of Africa.
The population had assembled to watch the mighty cloud of dust which
rolled along the south-eastern horizon. What was it which swept westwards
within its reddish heart? Hopeful and yet fearful they saw the huge bank
draw nearer and nearer. An assault from the whole of Cronje’s army was the
thought which passed through many a mind. And then the dust-cloud thinned,
a mighty host of horsemen spurred out from it, and in the extended
far-flung ranks the glint of spearheads and the gleam of scabbards told of
the Hussars and Lancers, while denser banks on either flank marked the
position of the whirling guns. Wearied and spent with a hundred miles’
ride the dusty riders and the panting, dripping horses took fresh heart as
they saw the broad city before them, and swept with martial rattle and
jingle towards the cheering crowds. Amid shouts and tears French rode into
Kimberley while his troopers encamped outside the town.
To know how this bolt was prepared and how launched, the narrative must go
back to the beginning of the month. At that period Methuen and his men
were still faced by Cronje and his entrenched forces, who, in spite of
occasional bombardments, held their position between Kimberley and the
relieving army. French, having handed over the operations at Colesberg to
Clements, had gone down to Cape Town to confer with Roberts and Kitchener.
Thence they all three made their way to the Modder River, which was
evidently about to be the base of a more largely conceived series of
operations than any which had yet been undertaken.
In order to draw the Boer attention away from the thunderbolt which was
about to fall upon their left flank, a strong demonstration ending in a
brisk action was made early in February upon the extreme right of Cronje’s
position. The force, consisting of the Highland Brigade, two squadrons of
the 9th Lancers, No. 7 Co. Royal Engineers, and the 62nd Battery, was
under the command of the famous Hector Macdonald. ‘Fighting Mac’ as he was
called by his men, had joined his regiment as a private, and had worked
through the grades of corporal, sergeant, captain, major, and colonel,
until now, still in the prime of his manhood, he found himself riding at
the head of a brigade. A bony, craggy Scotsman, with a square fighting
head and a bulldog jaw, he had conquered the exclusiveness and routine of
the British service by the same dogged qualities which made him formidable
to Dervish and to Boer. With a cool brain, a steady nerve, and a proud
heart, he is an ideal leader of infantry, and those who saw him manoeuvre
his brigade in the crisis of the battle of Omdurman speak of it as the one
great memory which they carried back from the engagement. On the field of
battle he turns to the speech of his childhood, the jagged, rasping,
homely words which brace the nerves of the northern soldier. This was the
man who had come from India to take the place of poor Wauchope, and to put
fresh heart into the gallant but sorely stricken brigade.
The four regiments which composed the infantry of the force—the
Black Watch, the Argyll and Sutherlands, the Seaforths, and the Highland
Light Infantry—left Lord Methuen’s camp on Saturday, February 3rd,
and halted at Fraser’s Drift, passing on next day to Koodoosberg. The day
was very hot, and the going very heavy, and many men fell out, some never
to return. The drift (or ford) was found, however, to be undefended, and
was seized by Macdonald, who, after pitching camp on the south side of the
river, sent out strong parties across the drift to seize and entrench the
Koodoosberg and some adjacent kopjes which, lying some three-quarters of a
mile to the north-west of the drift formed the key of the position. A few
Boer scouts were seen hurrying with the news of his coming to the head
laager.
The effect of these messages was evident by Tuesday (February 6th), when
the Boers were seen to be assembling upon the north bank. By next morning
they were there in considerable numbers, and began an attack upon a crest
held by the Seaforths. Macdonald threw two companies of the Black Watch
and two of the Highland Light Infantry into the fight. The Boers made
excellent practice with a 7-pounder mountain gun, and their rifle fire,
considering the good cover which our men had, was very deadly. Poor Tait,
of the Black Watch, good sportsman and gallant soldier, with one wound
hardly healed upon his person, was hit again. ‘They’ve got me this time,’
were his dying words. Blair, of the Seaforths, had his carotid cut by a
shrapnel bullet, and lay for hours while the men of his company took turns
to squeeze the artery. But our artillery silenced the Boer gun, and our
infantry easily held their riflemen. Babington with the cavalry brigade
arrived from the camp about 1.30, moving along the north bank of the
river. In spite of the fact that men and horses were weary from a tiring
march, it was hoped by Macdonald’s force that they would work round the
Boers and make an attempt to capture either them or their gun. But the
horsemen seem not to have realised the position of the parties, or that
possibility of bringing off a considerable coup, so the action came to a
tame conclusion, the Boers retiring unpursued from their attack. On
Thursday, February 8th, they were found to have withdrawn, and on the same
evening our own force was recalled, to the surprise and disappointment of
the public at home, who had not realised that in directing their attention
to their right flank the column had already produced the effect upon the
enemy for which they had been sent. They could not be left there, as they
were needed for those great operations which were pending. It was on the
9th that the brigade returned; on the 10th they were congratulated by Lord
Roberts in person; and on the 11th those new dispositions were made which
were destined not only to relieve Kimberley, but to inflict a blow upon
the Boer cause from which it was never able to recover.
Small, brown, and wrinkled, with puckered eyes and alert manner, Lord
Roberts in spite of his sixty-seven years preserves the figure and energy
of youth. The active open-air life of India keeps men fit for the saddle
when in England they would only sit their club armchairs, and it is hard
for any one who sees the wiry figure and brisk step of Lord Roberts to
realise that he has spent forty-one years of soldiering in what used to be
regarded as an unhealthy climate. He had carried into late life the habit
of martial exercise, and a Russian traveller has left it on record that
the sight which surprised him most in India was to see the veteran
commander of the army ride forth with his spear and carry off the peg with
the skill of a practised trooper. In his early youth he had shown in the
Mutiny that he possessed the fighting energy of the soldier to a
remarkable degree, but it was only in the Afghan War of 1880 that he had
an opportunity of proving that he had rarer and more valuable gifts, the
power of swift resolution and determined execution. At the crisis of the
war he and his army disappeared entirely from the public ken only to
emerge dramatically as victors at a point three hundred miles distant from
where they had vanished.
It is not only as a soldier, but as a man, that Lord Roberts possesses
some remarkable characteristics. He has in a supreme degree that magnetic
quality which draws not merely the respect but the love of those who know
him. In Chaucer’s phrase, he is a very perfect gentle knight. Soldiers and
regimental officers have for him a feeling of personal affection such as
the unemotional British Army has never had for any leader in the course of
our history. His chivalrous courtesy, his unerring tact, his kindly
nature, his unselfish and untiring devotion to their interests have all
endeared him to those rough loyal natures, who would follow him with as
much confidence and devotion as the grognards of the Guard had in the case
of the Great Emperor. There were some who feared that in Roberts’s case,
as in so many more, the donga and kopje of South Africa might form the
grave and headstone of a military reputation, but far from this being so
he consistently showed a wide sweep of strategy and a power of conceiving
the effect of scattered movements over a great extent of country which
have surprised his warmest admirers. In the second week of February his
dispositions were ready, and there followed the swift series of blows
which brought the Boers upon their knees. Of these we shall only describe
here the exploits of the fine force of cavalry which, after a ride of a
hundred miles, broke out of the heart of that reddish dustcloud and swept
the Boer besiegers away from hard-pressed Kimberley.
In order to strike unexpectedly, Lord Roberts had not only made a strong
demonstration at Koodoosdrift, at the other end of the Boer line, but he
had withdrawn his main force some forty miles south, taking them down by
rail to Belmont and Enslin with such secrecy that even commanding officers
had no idea whither the troops were going. The cavalry which had come from
French’s command at Colesberg had already reached the rendezvous,
travelling by road to Naauwpoort, and thence by train. This force
consisted of the Carabineers, New South Wales Lancers, Inniskillings,
composite regiment of Household Cavalry, 10th Hussars, with some mounted
infantry and two batteries of Horse Artillery, making a force of nearly
three thousand sabres. To this were added the 9th and 12th Lancers from
Modder River, the 16th Lancers from India, the Scots Greys, which had been
patrolling Orange River from the beginning of the war, Rimington’s Scouts,
and two brigades of mounted infantry under Colonels Ridley and Hannay. The
force under this latter officer had a severe skirmish on its way to the
rendezvous and lost fifty or sixty in killed, wounded, and missing. Five
other batteries of Horse Artillery were added to the force, making seven
in all, with a pontoon section of Royal Engineers. The total number of men
was about five thousand. By the night of Sunday, February 11th, this
formidable force had concentrated at Ramdam, twenty miles north-east of
Belmont, and was ready to advance. At two in the morning of Monday,
February 12th, the start was made, and the long sinuous line of
night-riders moved off over the shadowy veld, the beat of twenty thousand
hoofs, the clank of steel, and the rumble of gunwheels and tumbrils
swelling into a deep low roar like the surge upon the shingle.
Two rivers, the Riet and the Modder, intervened between French and
Kimberley. By daylight on the 12th the head of his force had reached
Waterval Drift, which was found to be defended by a body of Boers with a
gun. Leaving a small detachment to hold them, French passed his men over
Dekiel’s Drift, higher up the stream, and swept the enemy out of his
position. This considerable force of Boers had come from Jacobsdal, and
were just too late to get into position to resist the crossing. Had we
been ten minutes later, the matter would have been much more serious. At
the cost of a very small loss he held both sides of the ford, but it was
not until midnight that the whole long column was brought across, and
bivouacked upon the northern bank. In the morning the strength of the
force was enormously increased by the arrival of one more horseman. It was
Roberts himself, who had ridden over to give the men a send-off, and the
sight of his wiry erect figure and mahogany face sent them full of fire
and confidence upon their way.
But the march of this second day (February 13th) was a military operation
of some difficulty. Thirty long waterless miles had to be done before they
could reach the Modder, and it was possible that even then they might have
to fight an action before winning the drift. The weather was very hot, and
through the long day the sun beat down from an unclouded sky, while the
soldiers were only shaded by the dust-bank in which they rode. A broad
arid plain, swelling into stony hills, surrounded them on every side. Here
and there in the extreme distance, mounted figures moved over the vast
expanse—Boer scouts who marked in amazement the advance of this
great array. Once or twice these men gathered together, and a sputter of
rifle fire broke out upon our left flank, but the great tide swept on and
carried them with it. Often in this desolate land the herds of mottled
springbok and of grey rekbok could be seen sweeping over the plain, or
stopping with that curiosity upon which the hunter trades, to stare at the
unwonted spectacle.
So all day they rode, hussars, dragoons, and lancers, over the withered
veld, until men and horses drooped with the heat and the exertion. A front
of nearly two miles was kept, the regiments moving two abreast in open
order; and the sight of this magnificent cloud of horsemen sweeping over
the great barren plain was a glorious one. The veld had caught fire upon
the right, and a black cloud of smoke with a lurid heart to it covered the
flank. The beat of the sun from above and the swelter of dust from below
were overpowering. Gun horses fell in the traces and died of pure
exhaustion. The men, parched and silent, but cheerful, strained their eyes
to pierce the continual mirage which played over the horizon, and to catch
the first glimpse of the Modder. At last, as the sun began to slope down
to the west, a thin line of green was discerned, the bushes which skirt
the banks of that ill-favoured stream. With renewed heart the cavalry
pushed on and made for the drift, while Major Rimington, to whom the
onerous duty of guiding the force had been entrusted, gave a sigh of
relief as he saw that he had indeed struck the very point at which he had
aimed.
The essential thing in the movements had been speed—to reach each
point before the enemy could concentrate to oppose them. Upon this it
depended whether they would find five hundred or five thousand waiting on
the further bank. It must have been with anxious eyes that French watched
his first regiment ride down to Klip Drift. If the Boers should have had
notice of his coming and have transferred some of their 40-pounders, he
might lose heavily before he forced the stream. But this time, at last, he
had completely outmanoeuvred them. He came with the news of his coming,
and Broadwood with the 12th Lancers rushed the drift. The small Boer force
saved itself by flight, and the camp, the wagons, and the supplies
remained with the victors. On the night of the 13th he had secured the
passage of the Modder, and up to the early morning the horses and the guns
were splashing through its coffee-coloured waters.
French’s force had now come level to the main position of the Boers, but
had struck it upon the extreme left wing. The extreme right wing, thanks
to the Koodoosdrift demonstration, was fifty miles off, and this line was
naturally very thinly held, save only at the central position of
Magersfontein. Cronje could not denude this central position, for he saw
Methuen still waiting in front of him, and in any case Klip Drift is
twenty-five miles from Magersfontein. But the Boer left wing, though
scattered, gathered into some sort of cohesion on Wednesday (February
14th), and made an effort to check the victorious progress of the cavalry.
It was necessary on this day to rest at Klip Drift, until Kelly-Kenny
should come up with the infantry to hold what had been gained. All day the
small bodies of Boers came riding in and taking up positions between the
column and its objective.
Next morning the advance was resumed, the column being still forty miles
from Kimberley with the enemy in unknown force between. Some four miles
out French came upon their position, two hills with a long low nek
between, from which came a brisk rifle fire supported by artillery. But
French was not only not to be stopped, but could not even be retarded.
Disregarding the Boer fire completely the cavalry swept in wave after wave
over the low nek, and so round the base of the hills. The Boer riflemen
upon the kopjes must have seen a magnificent military spectacle as
regiment after regiment, the 9th Lancers leading, all in very open order,
swept across the plain at a gallop, and so passed over the nek. A few
score horses and half as many men were left behind them, but forty or
fifty Boers were cut down in the pursuit. It appears to have been one of
the very few occasions during the campaign when that obsolete and absurd
weapon the sword was anything but a dead weight to its bearer.
And now the force had a straight run in before it, for it had outpaced any
further force of Boers which may have been advancing from the direction of
Magersfontein. The horses, which had come a hundred miles in four days
with insufficient food and water, were so done that it was no uncommon
sight to see the trooper not only walking to ease his horse, but carrying
part of his monstrous weight of saddle gear. But in spite of fatigue the
force pressed on until in the afternoon a distant view was seen, across
the reddish plain, of the brick houses and corrugated roofs of Kimberley.
The Boer besiegers cleared off in front of it, and that night (February
15th) the relieving column camped on the plain two miles away, while
French and his staff rode in to the rescued city.
The war was a cruel one for the cavalry, who were handicapped throughout
by the nature of the country and by the tactics of the enemy. They are
certainly the branch of the service which had least opportunity for
distinction. The work of scouting and patrolling is the most dangerous
which a soldier can undertake, and yet from its very nature it can find no
chronicler. The war correspondent, like Providence, is always with the big
battalions, and there never was a campaign in which there was more
unrecorded heroism, the heroism of the picket and of the vedette which
finds its way into no newspaper paragraph. But in the larger operations of
the war it is difficult to say that cavalry, as cavalry, have justified
their existence. In the opinion of many the tendency of the future will be
to convert the whole force into mounted infantry. How little is required
to turn our troopers into excellent foot soldiers was shown at
Magersfontein, where the 12th Lancers, dismounted by the command of their
colonel, Lord Airlie, held back the threatened flank attack all the
morning. A little training in taking cover, leggings instead of boots, and
a rifle instead of a carbine would give us a formidable force of twenty
thousand men who could do all that our cavalry does, and a great deal more
besides. It is undoubtedly possible on many occasions in this war, at
Colesberg, at Diamond Hill, to say ‘Here our cavalry did well.’ They are
brave men on good horses, and they may be expected to do well. But the
champion of the cavalry cause must point out the occasions where the
cavalry did something which could not have been done by the same number of
equally brave and equally well-mounted infantry. Only then will the
existence of the cavalry be justified. The lesson both of the South
African and of the American civil war is that the light horseman who is
trained to fight on foot is the type of the future.
A few more words as a sequel to this short sketch of the siege and relief
of Kimberley. Considerable surprise has been expressed that the great gun
at Kamfersdam, a piece which must have weighed many tons and could not
have been moved by bullock teams at a rate of more than two or three miles
an hour, should have eluded our cavalry. It is indeed a surprising
circumstance, and yet it was due to no inertia on the part of our leaders,
but rather to one of the finest examples of Boer tenacity in the whole
course of the war. The instant that Kekewich was sure of relief he
mustered every available man and sent him out to endeavour to get the gun.
It had already been removed, and its retreat was covered by the strong
position of Dronfield, which was held both by riflemen and by light
artillery. Finding himself unable to force it, Murray, the commander of
the detachment, remained in front of it. Next morning (Friday) at three
o’clock the weary men and horses of two of French’s brigades were afoot
with the same object. But still the Boers were obstinately holding on to
Dronfield, and still their position was too strong to force, and too
extended to get round with exhausted horses. It was not until the night
after that the Boers abandoned their excellent rearguard action, leaving
one light gun in the hands of the Cape Police, but having gained such a
start for their heavy one that French, who had other and more important
objects in view, could not attempt to follow it.
CHAPTER 19. PAARDEBERG.
Lord Roberts’s operations, prepared with admirable secrecy and carried out
with extreme energy, aimed at two different results, each of which he was
fortunate enough to attain. The first was that an overpowering force of
cavalry should ride round the Boer position and raise the siege of
Kimberley: the fate of this expedition has already been described. The
second was that the infantry, following hard on the heels of the cavalry,
and holding all that they had gained, should establish itself upon
Cronje’s left flank and cut his connection with Bloemfontein. It is this
portion of the operations which has now to be described.
The infantry force which General Roberts had assembled was a very
formidable one. The Guards he had left under Methuen in front of the lines
of Magersfontein to contain the Boer force. With them he had also left
those regiments which had fought in the 9th Brigade in all Methuen’s
actions. These, as will be remembered, were the 1st Northumberland
Fusiliers, the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, the 2nd Northamptons, and one
wing of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. These stayed to hold Cronje
in his position.
There remained three divisions of infantry, one of which, the ninth, was
made up on the spot. These were constituted in this way:
With these were two brigade divisions of artillery under General Marshall,
the first containing the 18th, 62nd, and 75th batteries (Colonel Hall),
the other the 76th, 81st, and 82nd (Colonel McDonnell). Besides these
there were a howitzer battery, a naval contingent of four 4.7 guns and
four 12-pounders under Captain Bearcroft of the ‘Philomel.’ The force was
soon increased by the transfer of the Guards and the arrival of more
artillery; but the numbers which started on Monday, February 12th,
amounted roughly to twenty-five thousand foot and eight thousand horse
with 98 guns—a considerable army to handle in a foodless and almost
waterless country. Seven hundred wagons drawn by eleven thousand mules and
oxen, all collected by the genius for preparation and organisation which
characterises Lord Kitchener, groaned and creaked behind the columns.
Both arms had concentrated at Ramdam, the cavalry going down by road, and
the infantry by rail as far as Belmont or Enslin. On Monday, February
12th, the cavalry had started, and on Tuesday the infantry were pressing
hard after them. The first thing was to secure a position upon Cronje’s
flank, and for that purpose the 6th Division and the 9th (Kelly-Kenny’s
and Colvile’s) pushed swiftly on and arrived on Thursday, February 15th,
at Klip Drift on the Modder, which had only been left by the cavalry that
same morning. It was obviously impossible to leave Jacobsdal in the hands
of the enemy on our left flank, so the 7th Division (Tucker’s) turned
aside to attack the town. Wavell’s brigade carried the place after a sharp
skirmish, chiefly remarkable for the fact that the City Imperial
Volunteers found themselves under fire for the first time and bore
themselves with the gallantry of the old train-bands whose descendants
they are. Our loss was two killed and twenty wounded, and we found
ourselves for the first time firmly established in one of the enemy’s
towns. In the excellent German hospital were thirty or forty of our
wounded.
On the afternoon of Thursday, February 15th, our cavalry, having left Klip
Drift in the morning, were pushing hard for Kimberley. At Klip Drift was
Kelly-Kenny’s 6th Division. South of Klip Drift at Wegdraai was Colvile’s
9th Division, while the 7th Division was approaching Jacobsdal. Altogether
the British forces were extended over a line of forty miles. The same
evening saw the relief of Kimberley and the taking of Jacobsdal, but it
also saw the capture of one of our convoys by the Boers, a dashing exploit
which struck us upon what was undoubtedly our vulnerable point.
It has never been cleared up whence the force of Boers came which appeared
upon our rear on that occasion. It seems to have been the same body which
had already had a skirmish with Hannay’s Mounted Infantry as they went up
from Orange River to join the rendezvous at Ramdam. The balance of
evidence is that they had not come from Colesberg or any distant point,
but that they were a force under the command of Piet De Wet, the younger
of two famous brothers. Descending to Waterval Drift, the ford over the
Riet, they occupied a line of kopjes, which ought, one would have
imagined, to have been carefully guarded by us, and opened a brisk fire
from rifles and guns upon the convoy as it ascended the northern bank of
the river. Numbers of bullocks were soon shot down, and the removal of the
hundred and eighty wagons made impossible. The convoy, which contained
forage and provisions, had no guard of its own, but the drift was held by
Colonel Ridley with one company of Gordons and one hundred and fifty
mounted infantry without artillery, which certainly seems an inadequate
force to secure the most vital and vulnerable spot in the line of
communications of an army of forty thousand men. The Boers numbered at the
first some five or six hundred men, but their position was such that they
could not be attacked. On the other hand they were not strong enough to
leave their shelter in order to drive in the British guard, who, lying in
extended order between the wagons and the assailants, were keeping up a
steady and effective fire. Captain Head, of the East Lancashire Regiment,
a fine natural soldier, commanded the British firing line, and neither he
nor any of his men doubted that they could hold off the enemy for an
indefinite time. In the course of the afternoon reinforcements arrived for
the Boers, but Kitchener’s Horse and a field battery came back and
restored the balance of power. In the evening the latter swayed altogether
in favour of the British, as Tucker appeared upon the scene with the whole
of the 14th Brigade; but as the question of an assault was being debated a
positive order arrived from Lord Roberts that the convoy should be
abandoned and the force return.
If Lord Roberts needed justification for this decision, the future course
of events will furnish it. One of Napoleon’s maxims in war was to
concentrate all one’s energies upon one thing at one time. Roberts’s aim
was to outflank and possibly to capture Cronje’s army. If he allowed a
brigade to be involved in a rearguard action, his whole swift-moving plan
of campaign might be dislocated. It was very annoying to lose a hundred
and eighty wagons, but it only meant a temporary inconvenience. The plan
of campaign was the essential thing. Therefore he sacrificed his convoy
and hurried his troops upon their original mission. It was with heavy
hearts and bitter words that those who had fought so long abandoned their
charge, but now at least there are probably few of them who do not agree
in the wisdom of the sacrifice. Our loss in this affair was between fifty
and sixty killed and wounded. The Boers were unable to get rid of the
stores, and they were eventually distributed among the local farmers and
recovered again as the British forces flowed over the country. Another
small disaster occurred to us on the preceding day in the loss of fifty
men of E company of Kitchener’s Horse, which had been left as a guard to a
well in the desert.
But great events were coming to obscure those small checks which are
incidental to a war carried out over immense distances against a mobile
and enterprising enemy. Cronje had suddenly become aware of the net which
was closing round him. To the dark fierce man who had striven so hard to
make his line of kopjes impregnable it must have been a bitter thing to
abandon his trenches and his rifle pits. But he was crafty as well as
tenacious, and he had the Boer horror of being cut off—an hereditary
instinct from fathers who had fought on horseback against enemies on foot.
If at any time during the last ten weeks Methuen had contained him in
front with a thin line of riflemen with machine guns, and had thrown the
rest of his force on Jacobsdal and the east, he would probably have
attained the same result. Now at the rumour of English upon his flank
Cronje instantly abandoned his position and his plans, in order to restore
those communications with Bloemfontein upon which he depended for his
supplies. With furious speed he drew in his right wing, and then, one huge
mass of horsemen, guns, and wagons, he swept through the gap between the
rear of the British cavalry bound for Kimberley and the head of the
British infantry at Klip Drift. There was just room to pass, and at it he
dashed with the furious energy of a wild beast rushing from a trap. A
portion of his force with his heavy guns had gone north round Kimberley to
Warrenton; many of the Freestaters also had slipped away and returned to
their farms. The remainder, numbering about six thousand men, the majority
of whom were Transvaalers, swept through between the British forces.
This movement was carried out on the night of February 15th, and had it
been a little quicker it might have been concluded before we were aware of
it. But the lumbering wagons impeded it, and on the Friday morning,
February 16th, a huge rolling cloud of dust on the northern veld, moving
from west to east, told our outposts at Klip Drift that Cronje’s army had
almost slipped through our fingers. Lord Kitchener, who was in command at
Klip Drift at the moment, instantly unleashed his mounted infantry in
direct pursuit, while Knox’s brigade sped along the northern bank of the
river to cling on to the right haunch of the retreating column. Cronje’s
men had made a night march of thirty miles from Magersfontein, and the
wagon bullocks were exhausted. It was impossible, without an absolute
abandonment of his guns and stores, for him to get away from his pursuers.
This was no deer which they were chasing, however, but rather a grim old
Transvaal wolf, with his teeth flashing ever over his shoulder. The sight
of those distant white-tilted wagons fired the blood of every mounted
infantryman, and sent the Oxfords, the Buffs, the West Ridings, and the
Gloucesters racing along the river bank in the glorious virile air of an
African morning. But there were kopjes ahead, sown with fierce Dopper
Boers, and those tempting wagons were only to be reached over their
bodies. The broad plain across which the English were hurrying was
suddenly swept with a storm of bullets. The long infantry line extended
yet further and lapped round the flank of the Boer position, and once more
the terrible duet of the Mauser and the Lee-Metford was sung while the
81st field battery hurried up in time to add its deep roar to their higher
chorus. With fine judgment Cronje held on to the last moment of safety,
and then with a swift movement to the rear seized a further line two miles
off, and again snapped back at his eager pursuers. All day the grim and
weary rearguard stalled off the fiery advance of the infantry, and at
nightfall the wagons were still untaken. The pursuing force to the north
of the river was, it must be remembered, numerically inferior to the
pursued, so that in simply retarding the advance of the enemy and in
giving other British troops time to come up, Knox’s brigade was doing
splendid work. Had Cronje been well advised or well informed, he would
have left his guns and wagons in the hope that by a swift dash over the
Modder he might still bring his army away in safety. He seems to have
underrated both the British numbers and the British activity.
On the night then of Friday, February 16th, Cronje lay upon the northern
bank of the Modder, with his stores and guns still intact, and no enemy in
front of him, though Knox’s brigade and Hannay’s Mounted Infantry were
behind. It was necessary for Cronje to cross the river in order to be on
the line for Bloemfontein. As the river tended to the north the sooner he
could cross the better. On the south side of the river, however, were
considerable British forces, and the obvious strategy was to hurry them
forward and to block every drift at which he could get over. The river
runs between very deep banks, so steep that one might almost describe them
as small cliffs, and there was no chance of a horseman, far less a wagon,
crossing at any point save those where the convenience of traffic and the
use of years had worn sloping paths down to the shallows. The British knew
exactly therefore what the places were which had to be blocked. On the use
made of the next few hours the success or failure of the whole operation
must depend.
The nearest drift to Cronje was only a mile or two distant, Klipkraal the
name; next to that the Paardeberg Drift; next to that the Wolveskraal
Drift, each about seven miles from the other. Had Cronje pushed on
instantly after the action, he might have got across at Klipkraal. But
men, horses, and bullocks were equally exhausted after a long twenty-four
hours’ marching and fighting. He gave his weary soldiers some hours’ rest,
and then, abandoning seventy-eight of his wagons, he pushed on before
daylight for the farthest off of the three fords (Wolveskraal Drift).
Could he reach and cross it before his enemies, he was safe. The Klipkraal
Drift had in the meanwhile been secured by the Buffs, the West Ridings,
and the Oxfordshire Light Infantry after a spirited little action which,
in the rapid rush of events, attracted less attention than it deserved.
The brunt of the fighting fell upon the Oxfords, who lost ten killed and
thirty-nine wounded. It was not a waste of life, however, for the action,
though small and hardly recorded, was really a very essential one in the
campaign.
But Lord Roberts’s energy had infused itself into his divisional
commanders, his brigadiers, his colonels, and so down to the humblest
Tommy who tramped and stumbled through the darkness with a devout faith
that ‘Bobs’ was going to catch ‘old Cronje’ this time. The mounted
infantry had galloped round from the north to the south of the river,
crossing at Klip Drift and securing the southern end of Klipkraal. Thither
also came Stephenson’s brigade from Kelly-Kenny’s Division, while Knox,
finding in the morning that Cronje was gone, marched along the northern
bank to the same spot. As Klipkraal was safe, the mounted infantry pushed
on at once and secured the southern end of the Paardeberg Drift, whither
they were followed the same evening by Stephenson and Knox. There remained
only the Wolveskraal Drift to block, and this had already been done by as
smart a piece of work as any in the war. Wherever French has gone he has
done well, but his crowning glory was the movement from Kimberley to head
off Cronje’s retreat.
The exertions which the mounted men had made in the relief of Kimberley
have been already recorded. They arrived there on Thursday with their
horses dead beat. They were afoot at three o’clock on Friday morning, and
two brigades out of three were hard at work all day in an endeavour to
capture the Dronfield position. Yet when on the same evening an order came
that French should start again instantly from Kimberley and endeavour to
head Cronje’s army off, he did not plead inability, as many a commander
might, but taking every man whose horse was still fit to carry him
(something under two thousand out of a column which had been at least five
thousand strong), he started within a few hours and pushed on through the
whole night. Horses died under their riders, but still the column marched
over the shadowy veld under the brilliant stars. By happy chance or
splendid calculation they were heading straight for the one drift which
was still open to Cronje. It was a close thing. At midday on Saturday the
Boer advance guard was already near to the kopjes which command it. But
French’s men, still full of fight after their march of thirty miles, threw
themselves in front and seized the position before their very eyes. The
last of the drifts was closed. If Cronje was to get across now, he must
crawl out of his trench and fight under Roberts’s conditions, or he might
remain under his own conditions until Roberts’s forces closed round him.
With him lay the alternative. In the meantime, still ignorant of the
forces about him, but finding himself headed off by French, he made his
way down to the river and occupied a long stretch of it between Paardeberg
Drift and Wolveskraal Drift, hoping to force his way across. This was the
situation on the night of Saturday, February 17th.
In the course of that night the British brigades, staggering with fatigue
but indomitably resolute to crush their evasive enemy, were converging
upon Paardeberg. The Highland Brigade, exhausted by a heavy march over
soft sand from Jacobsdal to Klip Drift, were nerved to fresh exertions by
the word ‘Magersfontein,’ which flew from lip to lip along the ranks, and
pushed on for another twelve miles to Paardeberg. Close at their heels
came Smith-Dorrien’s 19th Brigade, comprising the Shropshires, the
Cornwalls, the Gordons, and the Canadians, probably the very finest
brigade in the whole army. They pushed across the river and took up their
position upon the north bank. The old wolf was now fairly surrounded. On
the west the Highlanders were south of the river, and Smith-Dorrien on the
north. On the east Kelly-Kenny’s Division was to the south of the river,
and French with his cavalry and mounted infantry were to the north of it.
Never was a general in a more hopeless plight. Do what he would, there was
no possible loophole for escape.
There was only one thing which apparently should not have been done, and
that was to attack him. His position was a formidable one. Not only were
the banks of the river fringed with his riflemen under excellent cover,
but from these banks there extended on each side a number of dongas, which
made admirable natural trenches. The only possible attack from either side
must be across a level plain at least a thousand or fifteen hundred yards
in width, where our numbers would only swell our losses. It must be a bold
soldier and a far bolder civilian, who would venture to question an
operation carried out under the immediate personal direction of Lord
Kitchener; but the general consensus of opinion among critics may justify
that which might be temerity in the individual. Had Cronje not been
tightly surrounded, the action with its heavy losses might have been
justified as an attempt to hold him until his investment should be
complete. There seems, however, to be no doubt that he was already
entirely surrounded, and that, as experience proved, we had only to sit
round him to insure his surrender. It is not given to the greatest man to
have every soldierly gift equally developed, and it may be said without
offence that Lord Kitchener’s cool judgment upon the actual field of
battle has not yet been proved as conclusively as his longheaded power of
organisation and his iron determination.
Putting aside the question of responsibility, what happened on the morning
of Sunday, February 18th, was that from every quarter an assault was urged
across the level plains, to the north and to the south, upon the lines of
desperate and invisible men who lay in the dongas and behind the banks of
the river. Everywhere there was a terrible monotony about the experiences
of the various regiments which learned once again the grim lessons of
Colenso and Modder River. We surely did not need to prove once more what
had already been so amply proved, that bravery can be of no avail against
concealed riflemen well entrenched, and that the more hardy is the attack
the heavier must be the repulse. Over the long circle of our attack Knox’s
brigade, Stephenson’s brigade, the Highland brigade, Smith-Dorrien’s
brigade all fared alike. In each case there was the advance until they
were within the thousand-yard fire zone, then the resistless sleet of
bullets which compelled them to get down and to keep down. Had they even
then recognised that they were attempting the impossible, no great harm
might have been done, but with generous emulation the men of the various
regiments made little rushes, company by company, towards the river bed,
and found themselves ever exposed to a more withering fire. On the
northern bank Smith-Dorrien’s brigade, and especially the Canadian
regiment, distinguished themselves by the magnificent tenacity with which
they persevered in their attack. The Cornwalls of the same brigade swept
up almost to the river bank in a charge which was the admiration of all
who saw it. If the miners of Johannesburg had given the impression that
the Cornishman is not a fighter, the record of the county regiment in the
war has for ever exploded the calumny. Men who were not fighters could
have found no place in Smith-Dorrien’s brigade or in the charge of
Paardeberg.
While the infantry had been severely handled by the Boer riflemen, our
guns, the 76th, 81st, and 82nd field batteries, with the 65th howitzer
battery, had been shelling the river bed, though our artillery fire proved
as usual to have little effect against scattered and hidden riflemen. At
least, however, it distracted their attention, and made their fire upon
the exposed infantry in front of them less deadly. Now, as in Napoleon’s
time, the effect of the guns is moral rather than material. About midday
French’s horse-artillery guns came into action from the north. Smoke and
flames from the dongas told that some of our shells had fallen among the
wagons and their combustible stores.
The Boer line had proved itself to be unshakable on each face, but at its
ends the result of the action was to push them up, and to shorten the
stretch of the river which was held by them. On the north bank
Smith-Dorrien’s brigade gained a considerable amount of ground. At the
other end of the position the Welsh, Yorkshire, and Essex regiments of
Stephenson’s brigade did some splendid work, and pushed the Boers for some
distance down the river bank. A most gallant but impossible charge was
made by Colonel Hannay and a number of mounted infantry against the
northern bank. He was shot with the majority of his followers. General
Knox of the 12th Brigade and General Macdonald of the Highlanders were
among the wounded. Colonel Aldworth of the Cornwalls died at the head of
his men. A bullet struck him dead as he whooped his West Countrymen on to
the charge. Eleven hundred killed and wounded testified to the fire of our
attack and the grimness of the Boer resistance. The distribution of the
losses among the various battalions—eighty among the Canadians,
ninety in the West Riding Regiment, one hundred and twenty in the
Seaforths, ninety in the Yorkshires, seventy-six in the Argyll and
Sutherlands, ninety-six in the Black Watch, thirty-one in the
Oxfordshires, fifty-six in the Cornwalls, forty-six in the Shropshires—shows
how universal was the gallantry, and especially how well the Highland
Brigade carried itself. It is to be feared that they had to face, not only
the fire of the enemy, but also that of their own comrades on the further
side of the river. A great military authority has stated that it takes
many years for a regiment to recover its spirit and steadiness if it has
been heavily punished, and yet within two months of Magersfontein we find
the indomitable Highlanders taking without flinching the very bloodiest
share of this bloody day—and this after a march of thirty miles with
no pause before going into action. A repulse it may have been, but they
hear no name of which they may be more proud upon the victory scroll of
their colours.
What had we got in return for our eleven hundred casualties? We had
contracted the Boer position from about three miles to less than two. So
much was to the good, as the closer they lay the more effective our
artillery fire might be expected to be. But it is probable that our
shrapnel alone, without any loss of life, might have effected the same
thing. It is easy to be wise after the event, but it does certainly appear
that with our present knowledge the action at Paardeberg was as
unnecessary as it was expensive. The sun descended on Sunday, February
18th, upon a bloody field and crowded field hospitals, but also upon an
unbroken circle of British troops still hemming in the desperate men who
lurked among the willows and mimosas which drape the brown steep banks of
the Modder.
There was evidence during the action of the presence of an active Boer
force to the south of us, probably the same well-handled and enterprising
body which had captured our convoy at Waterval. A small party of
Kitchener’s Horse was surprised by this body, and thirty men with four
officers were taken prisoners. Much has been said of the superiority of
South African scouting to that of the British regulars, but it must be
confessed that a good many instances might be quoted in which the
colonials, though second to none in gallantry, have been defective in that
very quality in which they were expected to excel.
This surprise of our cavalry post had more serious consequences than can
be measured by the loss of men, for by it the Boers obtained possession of
a strong kopje called Kitchener’s Hill, lying about two miles distant on
the south-east of our position. The movement was an admirable one
strategically upon their part, for it gave their beleaguered comrades a
first station on the line of their retreat. Could they only win their way
to that kopje, a rearguard action might be fought from there which would
cover the escape of at least a portion of the force. De Wet, if he was
indeed responsible for the manoeuvres of these Southern Boers, certainly
handled his small force with a discreet audacity which marks him as the
born leader which he afterwards proved himself to be.
If the position of the Boers was desperate on Sunday, it was hopeless on
Monday, for in the course of the morning Lord Roberts came up, closely
followed by the whole of Tucker’s Division (7th) from Jacobsdal. Our
artillery also was strongly reinforced. The 18th, 62nd, and 75th field
batteries came up with three naval 4.7 guns and two naval 12-pounders.
Thirty-five thousand men with sixty guns were gathered round the little
Boer army. It is a poor spirit which will not applaud the supreme
resolution with which the gallant farmers held out, and award to Cronje
the title of one of the most grimly resolute leaders of whom we have any
record in modern history.
For a moment it seemed as if his courage was giving way. On Monday morning
a message was transmitted by him to Lord Kitchener asking for a
twenty-four hours’ armistice. The answer was of course a curt refusal. To
this he replied that if we were so inhuman as to prevent him from burying
his dead there was nothing for him save surrender. An answer was given
that a messenger with power to treat should be sent out, but in the
interval Cronje had changed his mind, and disappeared with a snarl of
contempt into his burrows. It had become known that women and children
were in the laager, and a message was sent offering them a place of
safety, but even to this a refusal was given. The reasons for this last
decision are inconceivable.
Lord Roberts’s dispositions were simple, efficacious, and above all
bloodless. Smith-Dorrien’s brigade, who were winning in the Western army
something of the reputation which Hart’s Irishmen had won in Natal, were
placed astride of the river to the west, with orders to push gradually up,
as occasion served, using trenches for their approach. Chermside’s brigade
occupied the same position on the east. Two other divisions and the
cavalry stood round, alert and eager, like terriers round a rat-hole,
while all day the pitiless guns crashed their common shell, their
shrapnel, and their lyddite into the river-bed. Already down there, amid
slaughtered oxen and dead horses under a burning sun, a horrible pest-hole
had been formed which sent its mephitic vapours over the countryside.
Occasionally the sentries down the river saw amid the brown eddies of the
rushing water the floating body of a Boer which had been washed away from
the Golgotha above. Dark Cronje, betrayer of Potchefstroom, iron-handed
ruler of natives, reviler of the British, stern victor of Magersfontein,
at last there has come a day of reckoning for you!
On Wednesday, the 21st, the British, being now sure of their grip of
Cronje, turned upon the Boer force which had occupied the hill to the
south-east of the drift. It was clear that this force, unless driven away,
would be the vanguard of the relieving army which might be expected to
assemble from Ladysmith, Bloemfontein, Colesberg, or wherever else the
Boers could detach men. Already it was known that reinforcements who had
left Natal whenever they heard that the Free State was invaded were
drawing near. It was necessary to crush the force upon the hill before it
became too powerful. For this purpose the cavalry set forth, Broadwood
with the 10th Hussars, 12th Lancers, and two batteries going round on one
side, while French with the 9th and 16th Lancers, the Household Cavalry,
and two other batteries skirted the other. A force of Boers was met and
defeated, while the defenders of the hill were driven off with
considerable loss. In this well-managed affair the enemy lost at least a
hundred, of whom fifty were prisoners. On Friday, February 23rd, another
attempt at rescue was made from the south, but again it ended disastrously
for the Boers. A party attacked a kopje held by the Yorkshire regiment and
were blown back by a volley, upon which they made for a second kopje,
where the Buffs gave them an even rougher reception. Eighty prisoners were
marched in. Meantime hardly a night passed that some of the Boers did not
escape from their laager and give themselves up to our pickets. At the end
of the week we had taken six hundred in all.
In the meantime the cordon was being drawn ever tighter, and the fire
became heavier and more deadly, while the conditions of life in that
fearful place were such that the stench alone might have compelled
surrender. Amid the crash of tropical thunderstorms, the glare of
lightning, and the furious thrashing of rain there was no relaxation of
British vigilance. A balloon floating overhead directed the fire, which
from day to day became more furious, culminating on the 26th with the
arrival of four 5-inch howitzers. But still there came no sign from the
fierce Boer and his gallant followers. Buried deep within burrows in the
river bank the greater part of them lay safe from the shells, but the
rattle of their musketry when the outposts moved showed that the trenches
were as alert as ever. The thing could only have one end, however, and
Lord Roberts, with admirable judgment and patience, refused to hurry it at
the expense of the lives of his soldiers.
The two brigades at either end of the Boer lines had lost no chance of
pushing in, and now they had come within striking distance. On the night
of February 26th it was determined that Smith-Dorrien’s men should try
their luck. The front trenches of the British were at that time seven
hundred yards from the Boer lines. They were held by the Gordons and by
the Canadians, the latter being the nearer to the river. It is worth while
entering into details as to the arrangement of the attack, as the success
of the campaign was at least accelerated by it. The orders were that the
Canadians were to advance, the Gordons to support, and the Shropshires to
take such a position on the left as would outflank any counter attack upon
the part of the Boers. The Canadians advanced in the darkness of the early
morning before the rise of the moon. The front rank held their rifles in
the left hand and each extended right hand grasped the sleeve of the man
next it. The rear rank had their rifles slung and carried spades. Nearest
the river bank were two companies (G and H.) who were followed by the 7th
company of Royal Engineers carrying picks and empty sand bags. The long
line stole through a pitchy darkness, knowing that at any instant a blaze
of fire such as flamed before the Highlanders at Magersfontein might crash
out in front of them. A hundred, two, three, four, five hundred paces were
taken. They knew that they must be close upon the trenches. If they could
only creep silently enough, they might spring upon the defenders
unannounced. On and on they stole, step by step, praying for silence.
Would the gentle shuffle of feet be heard by the men who lay within
stone-throw of them? Their hopes had begun to rise when there broke upon
the silence of the night a resonant metallic rattle, the thud of a falling
man, an empty clatter! They had walked into a line of meat-cans slung upon
a wire. By measurement it was only ninety yards from the trench. At that
instant a single rifle sounded, and the Canadians hurled themselves down
upon the ground. Their bodies had hardly touched it when from a line six
hundred yards long there came one furious glare of rifle fire, with a hiss
like water on a red-hot plate, of speeding bullets. In that terrible red
light the men as they lay and scraped desperately for cover could see the
heads of the Boers pop up and down, and the fringe of rifle barrels quiver
and gleam. How the regiment, lying helpless under this fire, escaped
destruction is extraordinary. To rush the trench in the face of such a
continuous blast of lead seemed impossible, and it was equally impossible
to remain where they were. In a short time the moon would be up, and they
would be picked off to a man. The outer companies upon the plain were
ordered to retire. Breaking up into loose order, they made their way back
with surprisingly little loss; but a strange contretemps occurred, for,
leaping suddenly into a trench held by the Gordons, they transfixed
themselves upon the bayonets of the men. A subaltern and twelve men
received bayonet thrusts—none of them fortunately of a very serious
nature.
While these events had been taking place upon the left of the line, the
right was hardly in better plight. All firing had ceased for the moment—the
Boers being evidently under the impression that the whole attack had
recoiled. Uncertain whether the front of the small party on the right of
the second line (now consisting of some sixty-five Sappers and Canadians
lying in one mingled line) was clear for firing should the Boers leave
their trenches, Captain Boileau, of the Sappers, crawled forward along the
bank of the river, and discovered Captain Stairs and ten men of the
Canadians, the survivors of the firing line, firmly ensconced in a crevice
of the river bank overlooking the laager, quite happy on being reassured
as to the proximity of support. This brought the total number of the
daring band up to seventy-five rifles. Meanwhile, the Gordons, somewhat
perplexed by the flying phantoms who had been flitting into and over their
trenches for the past few minutes, sent a messenger along the river bank
to ascertain, in their turn, if their own front was clear to fire, and if
not, what state the survivors were in. To this message Colonel Kincaid,
R.E., now in command of the remains of the assaulting party, replied that
his men would be well entrenched by daylight. The little party had been
distributed for digging as well as the darkness and their ignorance of
their exact position to the Boers would permit. Twice the sound of the
picks brought angry volleys from the darkness, but the work was never
stopped, and in the early dawn the workers found not only that they were
secure themselves, but that they were in a position to enfilade over half
a mile of Boer trenches. Before daybreak the British crouched low in their
shelter, so that with the morning light the Boers did not realise the
change which the night had wrought. It was only when a burgher was shot as
he filled his pannikin at the river that they understood how their
position was overlooked. For half an hour a brisk fire was maintained, at
the end of which time a white flag went up from the trench. Kincaid stood
up on his parapet, and a single haggard figure emerged from the Boer
warren. ‘The burghers have had enough; what are they to do?’ said he. As
he spoke his comrades scrambled out behind him and came walking and
running over to the British lines. It was not a moment likely to be
forgotten by the parched and grimy warriors who stood up and cheered until
the cry came crashing back to them again from the distant British camps.
No doubt Cronje had already realised that the extreme limit of his
resistance was come, but it was to that handful of Sappers and Canadians
that the credit is immediately due for that white flag which fluttered on
the morning of Majuba Day over the lines of Paardeberg.
It was six o’clock in the morning when General Pretyman rode up to Lord
Roberts’s headquarters. Behind him upon a white horse was a dark-bearded
man, with the quick, restless eyes of a hunter, middle-sized, thickly
built, with grizzled hair flowing from under a tall brown felt hat. He
wore the black broadcloth of the burgher with a green summer overcoat, and
carried a small whip in his hands. His appearance was that of a
respectable London vestryman rather than of a most redoubtable soldier
with a particularly sinister career behind him.
The Generals shook hands, and it was briefly intimated to Cronje that his
surrender must be unconditional, to which, after a short silence, he
agreed. His only stipulations were personal, that his wife, his grandson,
his secretary, his adjutant, and his servant might accompany him. The same
evening he was despatched to Cape Town, receiving those honourable
attentions which were due to his valour rather than to his character. His
men, a pallid ragged crew, emerged from their holes and burrows, and
delivered up their rifles. It is pleasant to add that, with much in their
memories to exasperate them, the British privates treated their enemies
with as large-hearted a courtesy as Lord Roberts had shown to their
leader. Our total capture numbered some three thousand of the Transvaal
and eleven hundred of the Free State. That the latter were not far more
numerous was due to the fact that many had already shredded off to their
farms. Besides Cronje, Wolverans of the Transvaal, and the German
artillerist Albrecht, with forty-four other field-cornets and commandants,
fell into our hands. Six small guns were also secured. The same afternoon
saw the long column of the prisoners on its way to Modder River, there to
be entrained for Cape Town, the most singular lot of people to be seen at
that moment upon earth—ragged, patched, grotesque, some with
goloshes, some with umbrellas, coffee-pots, and Bibles, their favourite
baggage. So they passed out of their ten days of glorious history.
A visit to the laager showed that the horrible smells which had been
carried across to the British lines, and the swollen carcasses which had
swirled down the muddy river were true portents of its condition.
Strong-nerved men came back white and sick from a contemplation of the
place in which women and children had for ten days been living. From end
to end it was a festering mass of corruption, overshadowed by incredible
swarms of flies. Yet the engineer who could face evil sights and nauseous
smells was repaid by an inspection of the deep narrow trenches in which a
rifleman could crouch with the minimum danger from shells, and the caves
in which the non-combatants remained in absolute safety. Of their dead we
have no accurate knowledge, but two hundred wounded in a donga represented
their losses, not only during a bombardment of ten days, but also in that
Paardeberg engagement which had cost us eleven hundred casualties. No more
convincing example could be adduced both of the advantage of the defence
over the attack, and of the harmlessness of the fiercest shell fire if
those who are exposed to it have space and time to make preparations.
A fortnight had elapsed since Lord Roberts had launched his forces from
Ramdam, and that fortnight had wrought a complete revolution in the
campaign. It is hard to recall any instance in the history of war where a
single movement has created such a change over so many different
operations. On February 14th Kimberley was in danger of capture, a
victorious Boer army was facing Methuen, the lines of Magersfontein
appeared impregnable, Clements was being pressed at Colesberg, Gatacre was
stopped at Stormberg, Buller could not pass the Tugela, and Ladysmith was
in a perilous condition. On the 28th Kimberley had been relieved, the Boer
army was scattered or taken, the lines of Magersfontein were in our
possession, Clements found his assailants retiring before him, Gatacre was
able to advance at Stormberg, Buller had a weakening army in front of him,
and Ladysmith was on the eve of relief. And all this had been done at the
cost of a very moderate loss of life, for most of which Lord Roberts was
in no sense answerable. Here at last was a reputation so well founded that
even South African warfare could only confirm and increase it. A single
master hand had in an instant turned England’s night to day, and had
brought us out of that nightmare of miscalculation and disaster which had
weighed so long upon our spirits. His was the master hand, but there were
others at his side without whom that hand might have been paralysed:
Kitchener the organiser, French the cavalry leader—to these two men,
second only to their chief, are the results of the operations due.
Henderson, the most capable head of Intelligence, and Richardson, who
under all difficulties fed the army, may each claim his share in the
success.
CHAPTER 20. ROBERTS’S ADVANCE ON BLOEMFONTEIN.
The surrender of Cronje had taken place on February 27th, obliterating for
ever the triumphant memories which the Boers had for twenty years
associated with that date. A halt was necessary to provide food for the
hungry troops, and above all to enable the cavalry horses to pick up. The
supply of forage had been most inadequate, and the beasts had not yet
learned to find a living from the dry withered herbage of the veld.
[Footnote: A battery which turned out its horses to graze found that the
puzzled creatures simply galloped about the plain, and could only be
reassembled by blowing the call which they associated with feeding, when
they rushed back and waited in lines for their nosebags to be put on.] In
addition to this, they had been worked most desperately during the
fortnight which had elapsed. Lord Roberts waited therefore at Osfontein,
which is a farmhouse close to Paardeberg, until his cavalry were fit for
an advance. On March 6th he began his march for Bloemfontein.
The force which had been hovering to the south and east of him during the
Paardeberg operations had meanwhile been reinforced from Colesberg and
from Ladysmith until it had attained considerable proportions. This army,
under the leadership of De Wet, had taken up a strong position a few miles
to the east, covering a considerable range of kopjes. On March 3rd a
reconnaissance was made of it, in which some of our guns were engaged; but
it was not until three days later that the army advanced with the
intention of turning or forcing it. In the meantime reinforcements had
been arriving in the British camp, derived partly from the regiments which
had been employed at other points during these operations, and partly from
newcomers from the outer Empire. The Guards came up from Klip Drift, the
City Imperial Volunteers, the Australian Mounted Infantry, the Burmese
Mounted Infantry and a detachment of light horse from Ceylon helped to
form this strange invading army which was drawn from five continents and
yet had no alien in its ranks.
The position which the enemy had taken up at Poplars Grove (so called from
a group of poplars round a farmhouse in the centre of their position)
extended across the Modder River and was buttressed on either side by
well-marked hills, with intermittent kopjes between. With guns, trenches,
rifle pits, and barbed wire a bull-headed general might have found it
another Magersfontein. But it is only just to Lord Roberts’s predecessors
in command to say that it is easy to do things with three cavalry brigades
which it is difficult to do with two regiments. The ultimate blame does
not rest with the man who failed with the two regiments, but with those
who gave him inadequate means for the work which he had to do. And in this
estimate of means our military authorities, our politicians, and our
public were all in the first instance equally mistaken.
Lord Roberts’s plan was absolutely simple, and yet, had it been carried
out as conceived, absolutely effective. It was not his intention to go
near any of that entanglement of ditch and wire which had been so
carefully erected for his undoing. The weaker party, if it be wise, atones
for its weakness by entrenchments. The stronger party, if it be wise,
leaves the entrenchments alone and uses its strength to go round them.
Lord Roberts meant to go round. With his immense preponderance of men and
guns the capture or dispersal of the enemy’s army might be reduced to a
certainty. Once surrounded, they must either come out into the open or
they must surrender.
On March 6th the cavalry were brought across the river, and in the early
morning of March 7th they were sent off in the darkness to sweep round the
left wing of the Boers and to establish themselves on the line of their
retreat. Kelly-Kenny’s Division (6th) had orders to follow and support
this movement. Meanwhile Tucker was to push straight along the southern
bank of the river, though we may surmise that his instructions were, in
case of resistance, not to push his attack home. Colvile’s 9th Division,
with part of the naval brigade, were north of the river, the latter to
shell the drifts in case the Boers tried to cross, and the infantry to
execute a turning movement which would correspond with that of the cavalry
on the other flank.
The plan of action was based, however, upon one supposition which proved
to be fallacious. It was that after having prepared so elaborate a
position the enemy would stop at least a little time to defend it. Nothing
of the sort occurred, however, and on the instant that they realised that
the cavalry was on their flank they made off. The infantry did not fire a
shot.
The result of this very decisive flight was to derange all calculations
entirely. The cavalry was not yet in its place when the Boer army streamed
off between the kopjes. One would have thought, however, that they would
have had a dash for the wagons and the guns, even if they were past them.
It is unfair to criticise a movement until one is certain as to the
positive orders which the leader may have received; but on the face of it
it is clear that the sweep of our cavalry was not wide enough, and that
they erred by edging to the left instead of to the right, so leaving the
flying enemies always to the outside of them.
As it was, however, there seemed every possibility of their getting the
guns, but De Wet very cleverly covered them by his skirmishers. Taking
possession of a farmhouse on the right flank they kept up a spirited fire
upon the 16th Lancers and upon P battery R.H.A. When at last the latter
drove them out of their shelter, they again formed upon a low kopje and
poured so galling a fire upon the right wing that the whole movement was
interrupted until we had driven this little body of fifty men from their
position. When, after a delay of an hour, the cavalry at last succeeded in
dislodging them—or possibly it may be fairer to say when, having
accomplished their purpose, they retired—the guns and wagons were
out of reach, and, what is more important, the two Presidents, both Steyn
and Kruger, who had come to stiffen the resistance of the burghers, had
escaped.
Making every allowance for the weary state of the horses, it is impossible
to say that our cavalry were handled with energy or judgment on this
occasion. That such a force of men and guns should be held off from an
object of such importance by so small a resistance reflects no credit upon
us. It would have been better to repeat the Kimberley tactics and to sweep
the regiments in extended order past the obstacle if we could not pass
over it. At the other side of that little ill-defended kopje lay a
possible termination of the war, and our crack cavalry regiments
manoeuvred for hours and let it pass out of their reach. However, as Lord
Roberts good-humouredly remarked at the end of the action, ‘In war you
can’t expect everything to come out right.’ General French can afford to
shed one leaf from his laurel wreath. On the other hand, no words can be
too high for the gallant little band of Boers who had the courage to face
that overwhelming mass of horsemen, and to bluff them into regarding this
handful as a force fighting a serious rearguard action. When the stories
of the war are told round the fires in the lonely veld farmhouses, as they
will be for a century to come, this one deserves an honoured place.
The victory, if such a word can apply to such an action, had cost some
fifty or sixty of the cavalry killed and wounded, while it is doubtful if
the Boers lost as many. The finest military display on the British side
had been the magnificent marching of Kelly-Kenny’s 6th Division, who had
gone for ten hours with hardly a halt. One 9-pound Krupp gun was the only
trophy. On the other hand, Roberts had turned them out of their strong
position, had gained twelve or fifteen miles on the road to Bloemfontein,
and for the first time shown how helpless a Boer army was in country which
gave our numbers a chance. From now onwards it was only in surprise and
ambuscade that they could hope for a success. We had learned and they had
learned that they could not stand in the open field.
The action of Poplars Grove was fought on March 7th. On the 9th the army
was again on its way, and on the 10th it attacked the new position which
the Boers had occupied at a place called Driefontein, or Abram’s Kraal.
They covered a front of some seven miles in such a formation that their
wings were protected, the northern by the river and the southern by
flanking bastions of hill extending for some distance to the rear. If the
position had been defended as well as it had been chosen, the task would
have been a severe one.
Since the Modder covered the enemy’s right the turning movement could only
be developed on their left, and Tucker’s Division was thrown out very wide
on that side for the purpose. But in the meanwhile a contretemps had
occurred which threw out and seriously hampered the whole British line of
battle. General French was in command of the left wing, which included
Kelly-Kenny’s Division, the first cavalry brigade, and Alderson’s Mounted
Infantry. His orders had been to keep in touch with the centre, and to
avoid pushing his attack home. In endeavouring to carry out these
instructions French moved his men more and more to the right, until he had
really squeezed in between the Boers and Lord Roberts’s central column,
and so masked the latter. The essence of the whole operation was that the
frontal attack should not be delivered until Tucker had worked round to
the rear of the position. It is for military critics to decide whether it
was that the flankers were too slow or the frontal assailants were too
fast, but it is certain that Kelly-Kenny’s Division attacked before the
cavalry and the 7th Division were in their place. Kelly-Kenny was informed
that the position in front of him had been abandoned, and four regiments,
the Buffs, the Essex, the Welsh, and the Yorkshires, were advanced against
it. They were passing over the open when the crash of the Mauser fire
burst out in front of them, and the bullets hissed and thudded among the
ranks. The ordeal was a very severe one. The Yorkshires were swung round
wide upon the right, but the rest of the brigade, the Welsh Regiment
leading, made a frontal attack upon the ridge. It was done coolly and
deliberately, the men taking advantage of every possible cover. Boers
could be seen leaving their position in small bodies as the crackling,
swaying line of the British surged ever higher upon the hillside. At last,
with a cheer, the Welshmen with their Kent and Essex comrades swept over
the crest into the ranks of that cosmopolitan crew of sturdy adventurers
who are known as the Johannesburg Police. For once the loss of the defence
was greater than that of the attack. These mercenaries had not the
instinct which teaches the Boer the right instant for flight, and they
held their position too long to get away. The British had left four
hundred men on the track of that gallant advance, but the vast majority of
them were wounded—too often by those explosive or expansive missiles
which make war more hideous. Of the Boers we actually buried over a
hundred on the ridge, and their total casualties must have been
considerably in excess of ours.
The action was strategically well conceived; all that Lord Roberts could
do for complete success had been done; but tactically it was a poor
affair, considering his enormous preponderance in men and guns. There was
no glory in it, save for the four regiments who set their faces against
that sleet of lead. The artillery did not do well, and were browbeaten by
guns which they should have smothered under their fire. The cavalry cannot
be said to have done well either. And yet, when all is said, the action is
an important one, for the enemy were badly shaken by the result. The
Johannesburg Police, who had been among their corps d’elite, had been
badly mauled, and the burghers were impressed by one more example of the
impossibility of standing in anything approaching to open country against
disciplined troops, Roberts had not captured the guns, but the road had
been cleared for him to Bloemfontein and, what is more singular, to
Pretoria; for though hundreds of miles intervene between the field of
Driefontein and the Transvaal capital, he never again met a force which
was willing to look his infantry in the eyes in a pitched battle.
Surprises and skirmishes were many, but it was the last time, save only at
Doornkop, that a chosen position was ever held for an effective rifle fire—to
say nothing of the push of bayonet.
And now the army flowed swiftly onwards to the capital. The indefatigable
6th Division, which had done march after march, one more brilliant than
another, since they had crossed the Riet River, reached Asvogel Kop on the
evening of Sunday, March 11th, the day after the battle. On Monday the
army was still pressing onwards, disregarding all else and striking
straight for the heart as Blucher struck at Paris in 1814. At midday they
halted at the farm of Gregorowski, he who had tried the Reform prisoners
after the Raid. The cavalry pushed on down Kaal Spruit, and in the evening
crossed the Southern railway line which connects Bloemfontein with the
colony, cutting it at a point some five miles from the town. In spite of
some not very strenuous opposition from a Boer force a hill was seized by
a squadron of Greys with some mounted infantry and Rimington’s Guides,
aided by U battery R.H.A., and was held by them all that night.
On the same evening Major Hunter-Weston, an officer who had already
performed at least one brilliant feat in the war, was sent with Lieutenant
Charles and a handful of Mounted Sappers and Hussars to cut the line to
the north. After a difficult journey on a very dark night he reached his
object and succeeded in finding and blowing up a culvert. There is a
Victoria Cross gallantry which leads to nothing save personal decoration,
and there is another and far higher gallantry of calculation, which
springs from a cool brain as well as a hot heart, and it is from the men
who possess this rare quality that great warriors arise. Such feats as the
cutting of this railway or the subsequent saving of the Bethulie Bridge by
Grant and Popham are of more service to the country than any degree of
mere valour untempered by judgment. Among other results the cutting of the
line secured for us twenty-eight locomotives, two hundred and fifty
trucks, and one thousand tons of coal, all of which were standing ready to
leave Bloemfontein station. The gallant little band were nearly cut off on
their return, but fought their way through with the loss of two horses,
and so got back in triumph.
The action of Driefontein was fought on the 10th. The advance began on the
morning of the 11th. On the morning of the 13th the British were
practically masters of Bloemfontein. The distance is forty miles. No one
can say that Lord Roberts cannot follow a victory up as well as win it.
Some trenches had been dug and sangars erected to the north-west of the
town; but Lord Roberts, with his usual perverseness, took the wrong
turning and appeared upon the broad open plain to the south, where
resistance would have been absurd. Already Steyn and the irreconcilables
had fled from the town, and the General was met by a deputation of the
Mayor, the Landdrost, and Mr. Fraser to tender the submission of the
capital. Fraser, a sturdy clear-headed Highlander, had been the one
politician in the Free State who combined a perfect loyalty to his adopted
country with a just appreciation of what a quarrel A l’outrance with the
British Empire would mean. Had Fraser’s views prevailed, the Orange Free
State would still exist as a happy and independent State. As it is, he may
help her to happiness and prosperity as the prime minister of the Orange
River Colony.
It was at half-past one on Tuesday, March 13th, that General Roberts and
his troops entered Bloemfontein, amid the acclamations of many of the
inhabitants, who, either to propitiate the victor, or as a sign of their
real sympathies, had hoisted union jacks upon their houses. Spectators
have left it upon record how from all that interminable column of
yellow-clad weary men, worn with half rations and whole-day marches, there
came never one jeer, never one taunting or exultant word, as they tramped
into the capital of their enemies. The bearing of the troops was
chivalrous in its gentleness, and not the least astonishing sight to the
inhabitants was the passing of the Guards, the dandy troops of England,
the body-servants of the great Queen. Black with sun and dust, staggering
after a march of thirty-eight miles, gaunt and haggard, with their clothes
in such a state that decency demanded that some of the men should be
discreetly packed away in the heart of the dense column, they still swung
into the town with the aspect of Kentish hop-pickers and the bearing of
heroes. She, the venerable mother, could remember the bearded ranks who
marched past her when they came with sadly thinned files back from the
Crimean winter; even those gallant men could not have endured more
sturdily, nor have served her more loyally, than these their worthy
descendants.
It was just a month after the start from Ramdam that Lord Roberts and his
army rode into the enemy’s capital. Up to that period we had in Africa
Generals who were hampered for want of troops, and troops who were
hampered for want of Generals. Only when the Commander-in-Chief took over
the main army had we soldiers enough, and a man who knew how to handle
them. The result was one which has not only solved the question of the
future of South Africa, but has given an illustration of strategy which
will become classical to the military student. How brisk was the course of
events, how incessant the marching and fighting, may be shown by a brief
recapitulation. On February 13th cavalry and infantry were marching to the
utmost capacity of men and horses. On the 14th the cavalry were halted,
but the infantry were marching hard. On the 15th the cavalry covered forty
miles, fought an action, and relieved Kimberley. On the 16th the cavalry
were in pursuit of the Boer guns all day, and were off on a thirty-mile
march to the Modder at night, while the infantry were fighting Cronje’s
rearguard action, and closing up all day. On the 17th the infantry were
marching hard. On the 18th was the battle of Paardeberg. From the 19th to
the 27th was incessant fighting with Cronje inside the laager and with De
Wet outside. From the 28th to March 6th was rest. On March 7th was the
action of Poplars Grove with heavy marching; on March 10th the battle of
Driefontein. On the 11th and 12th the infantry covered forty miles, and on
the 13th were in Bloemfontein. All this was accomplished by men on
half-rations, with horses which could hardly be urged beyond a walk, in a
land where water is scarce and the sun semi-tropical, each infantryman
carrying a weight of nearly forty pounds. There are few more brilliant
achievements in the history of British arms. The tactics were occasionally
faulty, and the battle of Paardeberg was a blot upon the operations; but
the strategy of the General and the spirit of the soldier were alike
admirable.
CHAPTER 21. STRATEGIC EFFECTS OF LORD ROBERTS’S MARCH.
From the moment that Lord Roberts with his army advanced from Ramdam all
the other British forces in South Africa, the Colesberg force, the
Stormberg force, Brabant’s force, and the Natal force, had the pressure
relieved in front of them, a tendency which increased with every fresh
success of the main body. A short chapter must be devoted to following
rapidly the fortunes of these various armies, and tracing the effect of
Lord Roberts’s strategy upon their movements. They may be taken in turn
from west to east.
The force under General Clements (formerly French’s) had, as has already
been told, been denuded of nearly all its cavalry and horse artillery, and
so left in the presence of a very superior body of the enemy. Under these
circumstances Clements had to withdraw his immensely extended line, and to
concentrate at Arundel, closely followed by the elated enemy. The
situation was a more critical one than has been appreciated by the public,
for if the force had been defeated the Boers would have been in a position
to cut Lord Roberts’s line of communications, and the main army would have
been in the air. Much credit is due, not only to General Clements, but to
Carter of the Wiltshires, Hacket Pain of the Worcesters, Butcher of the
4th R.F.A., the admirable Australians, and all the other good men and true
who did their best to hold the gap for the Empire.
The Boer idea of a strong attack upon this point was strategically
admirable, but tactically there was not sufficient energy in pushing home
the advance. The British wings succeeded in withdrawing, and the
concentrated force at Arundel was too strong for attack. Yet there was a
time of suspense, a time when every man had become of such importance that
even fifty Indian syces were for the first and last time in the war, to
their own supreme gratification, permitted for twenty-four hours to play
their natural part as soldiers. [Footnote: There was something piteous in
the chagrin of these fine Sikhs at being held back from their natural work
as soldiers. A deputation of them waited upon Lord Roberts at Bloemfontein
to ask, with many salaams, whether ‘his children were not to see one
little fight before they returned.’] But then with the rapid strokes in
front the hour of danger passed, and the Boer advance became first a halt
and then a retreat.
On February 27th, Major Butcher, supported by the Inniskillings and
Australians, attacked Rensburg and shelled the enemy out of it. Next
morning Clements’s whole force had advanced from Arundel and took up its
old position. The same afternoon it was clear that the Boers were
retiring, and the British, following them up, marched into Colesberg,
around which they had manoeuvred so long. A telegram from Steyn to De Wet
found in the town told the whole story of the retirement: ‘As long as you
are able to hold the positions you are in with the men you have, do so. If
not, come here as quickly as circumstances will allow, as matters here are
taking a serious turn.’ The whole force passed over the Orange River
unimpeded, and blew up the Norval’s Pont railway bridge behind it.
Clements’s brigade followed on March 4th, and succeeded in the course of a
week in throwing a pontoon bridge over the river and crossing into the
Orange Free State. Roberts having in the meanwhile seized Bloemfontein,
communication was restored by railway between the forces, and Clements was
despatched to Phillipolis, Fauresmith, and the other towns in the
south-west to receive the submission of the inhabitants and to enforce
their disarmament. In the meantime the Engineers worked furiously at the
restoration of the railway bridge over the Orange River, which was not,
however, accomplished until some weeks later.
During the long period which had elapsed since the repulse at Stormberg,
General Gatacre had held his own at Sterkstroom, under orders not to
attack the enemy, repulsing them easily upon the only occasion when they
ventured to attack him. Now it was his turn also to profit by the success
which Lord Roberts had won. On February 23rd he re-occupied Molteno, and
on the same day sent out a force to reconnoitre the enemy’s position at
Stormberg. The incident is memorable as having been the cause of the death
of Captain de Montmorency [Footnote: De Montmorency had established a
remarkable influence over his rough followers. To the end of the war they
could not speak of him without tears in their eyes. When I asked Sergeant
Howe why his captain went almost alone up the hill, his answer was,
‘Because the captain knew no fear.’ Byrne, his soldier servant (an
Omdurman V.C. like his master), galloped madly off next morning with a
saddled horse to bring back his captain alive or dead, and had to be
forcibly seized and restrained by our cavalry. ], one of the most
promising of the younger officers of the British army. He had formed a
corps of scouts, consisting originally of four men, but soon expanding to
seventy or eighty. At the head of these men he confirmed the reputation
for desperate valour which he had won in the Soudan, and added to it
proofs of the enterprise and judgment which go to make a leader of light
cavalry. In the course of the reconnaissance he ascended a small kopje
accompanied by three companions, Colonel Hoskier, a London Volunteer
soldier, Vice, a civilian, and Sergeant Howe. ‘They are right on the top
of us,’ he cried to his comrades, as he reached the summit, and dropped
next instant with a bullet through his heart. Hoskier was shot in five
places, and Vice was mortally wounded, only Howe escaping. The rest of the
scouts, being farther back, were able to get cover and to keep up a fight
until they were extricated by the remainder of the force. Altogether our
loss was formidable rather in quality than in quantity, for not more than
a dozen were hit, while the Boers suffered considerably from the fire of
our guns.
On March 5th General Gatacre found that the Boers were retreating in front
of him—in response, no doubt, to messages similar to those which had
already been received at Colesberg. Moving forward he occupied the
position which had confronted him so long. Thence, having spent some days
in drawing in his scattered detachments and in mending the railway, he
pushed forward on March 12th to Burghersdorp, and thence on the 13th to
Olive Siding, to the south of the Bethulie Bridge.
There are two bridges which span the broad muddy Orange River, thick with
the washings of the Basutoland mountains. One of these is the magnificent
high railway bridge, already blown to ruins by the retreating Boers. Dead
men or shattered horses do not give a more vivid impression of the
unrelenting brutality of war than the sight of a structure, so graceful
and so essential, blown into a huge heap of twisted girders and broken
piers. Half a mile to the west is the road bridge, broad and
old-fashioned. The only hope of preserving some mode of crossing the
difficult river lay in the chance that the troops might anticipate the
Boers who were about to destroy this bridge.
In this they were singularly favoured by fortune. On the arrival of a
small party of scouts and of the Cape Police under Major Nolan-Neylan at
the end of the bridge it was found that all was ready to blow it up, the
mine sunk, the detonator fixed, and the wire laid. Only the connection
between the wire and the charge had not been made. To make sure, the Boers
had also laid several boxes of dynamite under the last span, in case the
mine should fail in its effect. The advance guard of the Police, only six
in number, with Nolan-Neylan at their head, threw themselves into a
building which commanded the approaches of the bridge, and this handful of
men opened so spirited and well-aimed a fire that the Boers were unable to
approach it. As fresh scouts and policemen came up they were thrown into
the firing line, and for a whole long day they kept the destroyers from
the bridge. Had the enemy known how weak they were and how far from
supports, they could have easily destroyed them, but the game of bluff was
admirably played, and a fire kept up which held the enemy to their rifle
pits.
The Boers were in a trench commanding the bridge, and their brisk fire
made it impossible to cross. On the other hand, our rifle fire commanded
the mine and prevented any one from exploding it. But at the approach of
darkness it was certain that this would be done. The situation was saved
by the gallantry of young Popham of the Derbyshires, who crept across with
two men and removed the detonators. There still remained the dynamite
under the further span, and this also they removed, carrying it off across
the bridge under a heavy fire. The work was made absolutely complete a
little later by the exploit of Captain Grant of the Sappers, who drew the
charges from the holes in which they had been sunk, and dropped them into
the river, thus avoiding the chance that they might be exploded next
morning by shell fire. The feat of Popham and of Grant was not only most
gallant but of extraordinary service to the country; but the highest
credit belongs to Nolan-Neylan, of the Police, for the great promptitude
and galantry of his attack, and to McNeill for his support. On that road
bridge and on the pontoon bridge at Norval’s Pont Lord Roberts’s army was
for a whole month dependent for their supplies.
On March 15th Gatacre’s force passed over into the Orange Free State, took
possession of Bethulie, and sent on the cavalry to Springfontein, which is
the junction where the railways from Cape Town and from East London meet.
Here they came in contact with two battalions of Guards under Pole-Carew,
who had been sent down by train from Lord Roberts’s force in the north.
With Roberts at Bloemfontein, Gatacre at Springfontein, Clements in the
south-west, and Brabant at Aliwal, the pacification of the southern
portion of the Free State appeared to be complete. Warlike operations
seemed for the moment to be at an end, and scattered parties traversed the
country, ‘bill-sticking,’ as the troops called it—that is, carrying
Lord Roberts’s proclamation to the lonely farmhouses and outlying
villages.
In the meantime the colonial division of that fine old African fighter,
General Brabant, had begun to play its part in the campaign. Among the
many judicious arrangements which Lord Roberts made immediately after his
arrival at the Cape was the assembling of the greater part of the
scattered colonial bands into one division, and placing over it a General
of their own, a man who had defended the cause of the Empire both in the
legislative assembly and the field. To this force was entrusted the
defence of the country lying to the east of Gatacre’s position, and on
February 15th they advanced from Penhoek upon Dordrecht. Their Imperial
troops consisted of the Royal Scots and a section of the 79th R.F.A., the
Colonial of Brabant’s Horse, the Kaffrarian Mounted Rifles, the Cape
Mounted Rifles and Cape Police, with Queenstown and East London
Volunteers. The force moved upon Dordrecht, and on February 18th occupied
the town after a spirited action, in which Brabant’s Horse played a
distinguished part. On March 4th the division advanced once more with the
object of attacking the Boer position at Labuschagne’s Nek, some miles to
the north.
Aided by the accurate fire of the 79th R.F.A., the colonials succeeded,
after a long day of desultory fighting, in driving the enemy from his
position. Leaving a garrison in Dordrecht Brabant followed up his victory
and pushed forward with two thousand men and eight guns (six of them light
7-pounders) to occupy Jamestown, which was done without resistance. On
March 10th the colonial force approached Aliwal, the frontier town, and so
rapid was the advance of Major Henderson with Brabant’s Horse that the
bridge at Aliwal was seized before the enemy could blow it up. At the
other side of the bridge there was a strong stand made by the enemy, who
had several Krupp guns in position; but the light horse, in spite of a
loss of some twenty-five men killed and wounded, held on to the heights
which command the river. A week or ten days were spent in pacifying the
large north-eastern portion of Cape Colony, to which Aliwal acts as a
centre. Barkly East, Herschel, Lady Grey, and other villages were visited
by small detachments of the colonial horsemen, who pushed forward also
into the south-eastern portion of the Free State, passing through
Rouxville, and so along the Basutoland border as far as Wepener. The
rebellion in the Colony was now absolutely dead in the north-east, while
in the north-west in the Prieska and Carnarvon districts it was only kept
alive by the fact that the distances were so great and the rebel forces so
scattered that it was very difficult for our flying columns to reach them.
Lord Kitchener had returned from Paardeberg to attend to this danger upon
our line of communications, and by his exertions all chance of its
becoming serious soon passed. With a considerable force of Yeomanry and
Cavalry he passed swiftly over the country, stamping out the smouldering
embers.
So much for the movements into the Free State of Clements, of Gatacre, and
of Brabant. It only remains to trace the not very eventful history of the
Natal campaign after the relief of Ladysmith.
General Buller made no attempt to harass the retreat of the Boers,
although in two days no fewer than two thousand wagons were counted upon
the roads to Newcastle and Dundee. The guns had been removed by train, the
railway being afterwards destroyed. Across the north of Natal lies the
chain of the Biggarsberg mountains, and to this the Transvaal Boers had
retired, while the Freestaters had hurried through the passes of the
Drakensberg in time to make the fruitless opposition to Roberts’s march
upon their capital. No accurate information had come in as to the strength
of the Transvaalers, the estimates ranging from five to ten thousand, but
it was known that their position was formidable and their guns mounted in
such a way as to command the Dundee and Newcastle roads.
General Lyttelton’s Division had camped as far out as Elandslaagte with
Burn Murdoch’s cavalry, while Dundonald’s brigade covered the space
between Burn Murdoch’s western outposts and the Drakensberg passes. Few
Boers were seen, but it was known that the passes were held in some
strength. Meanwhile the line was being restored in the rear, and on March
9th the gallant White was enabled to take train for Durban, though it was
not until ten days later that the Colenso bridge was restored. The
Ladysmith garrison had been sent down to Colenso to recruit their health.
There they were formed into a new division, the 4th, the brigades being
given to Howard and Knox, and the command to Lyttelton, who had returned
his former division, the second, to Clery. The 5th and 6th brigades were
also formed into one division, the 10th, which was placed under the
capable command of Hunter, who had confirmed in the south the reputation
which he had won in the north of Africa. In the first week of April
Hunter’s Division was sent down to Durban and transferred to the western
side, where they were moved up to Kimberley, whence they advanced
northwards. The man on the horse has had in this war an immense advantage
over the man on foot, but there have been times when the man on the ship
has restored the balance. Captain Mahan might find some fresh texts in the
transference of Hunter’s Division, or in the subsequent expedition to
Beira.
On April 10th the Boers descended from their mountains and woke up our
sleepy army corps by a brisk artillery fire. Our own guns silenced it, and
the troops instantly relapsed into their slumber. There was no movement
for a fortnight afterwards upon either side, save that of Sir Charles
Warren, who left the army in order to take up the governorship of British
Bechuanaland, a district which was still in a disturbed state, and in
which his presence had a peculiar significance, since he had rescued
portions of it from Boer domination in the early days of the Transvaal
Republic. Hildyard took over the command of the 5th Division. In this
state of inertia the Natal force remained until Lord Roberts, after a six
weeks’ halt in Bloemfontein, necessitated by the insecurity of his railway
communication and his want of every sort of military supply, more
especially horses for his cavalry and boots for his infantry, was at last
able on May 2nd to start upon his famous march to Pretoria. Before
accompanying him, however, upon this victorious progress, it is necessary
to devote a chapter to the series of incidents and operations which had
taken place to the east and south-east of Bloemfontein during this period
of compulsory inactivity.
One incident must be recorded in this place, though it was political
rather than military. This was the interchange of notes concerning peace
between Paul Kruger and Lord Salisbury. There is an old English jingle
about ‘the fault of the Dutch, giving too little and asking too much,’ but
surely there was never a more singular example of it than this. The united
Presidents prepare for war for years, spring an insulting ultimatum upon
us, invade our unfortunate Colonies, solemnly annex all the portions
invaded, and then, when at last driven back, propose a peace which shall
secure for them the whole point originally at issue. It is difficult to
believe that the proposals could have been seriously meant, but more
probable that the plan may have been to strengthen the hands of the Peace
deputation who were being sent to endeavour to secure European
intervention. Could they point to a proposal from the Transvaal and a
refusal from England, it might, if not too curiously examined, excite the
sympathy of those who follow emotions rather than facts.
The documents were as follow:—
‘The Presidents of the Orange Free State and of the South African Republic
to the Marquess of Salisbury. Bloemfontein March 5th, 1900.
‘The blood and the tears of the thousands who have suffered by this war,
and the prospect of all the moral and economic ruin with which South
Africa is now threatened, make it necessary for both belligerents to ask
themselves dispassionately and as in the sight of the Triune God for what
they are fighting and whether the aim of each justifies all this appalling
misery and devastation.
‘With this object, and in view of the assertions of various British
statesmen to the effect that this war was begun and is carried on with the
set purpose of undermining Her Majesty’s authority in South Africa, and of
setting up an administration over all South Africa independent of Her
Majesty’s Government, we consider it our duty to solemnly declare that
this war was undertaken solely as a defensive measure to safeguard the
threatened independence of the South African Republic, and is only
continued in order to secure and safeguard the incontestable independence
of both Republics as sovereign international States, and to obtain the
assurance that those of Her Majesty’s subjects who have taken part with us
in this war shall suffer no harm whatsoever in person or property.
‘On these conditions, but on these conditions alone, are we now as in the
past desirous of seeing peace re-established in South Africa, and of
putting an end to the evils now reigning over South Africa; while, if Her
Majesty’s Government is determined to destroy the independence of the
Republics, there is nothing left to us and to our people but to persevere
to the end in the course already begun, in spite of the overwhelming
pre-eminence of the British Empire, conscious that that God who lighted
the inextinguishable fire of the love of freedom in our hearts and those
of our fathers will not forsake us, but will accomplish His work in us and
in our descendants.
‘We hesitated to make this declaration earlier to your Excellency as we
feared that, as long as the advantage was always on our side, and as long
as our forces held defensive positions far in Her Majesty’s Colonies, such
a declaration might hurt the feelings of honour of the British people. But
now that the prestige of the British Empire may be considered to be
assured by the capture of one of our forces, and that we are thereby
forced to evacuate other positions which we had occupied, that difficulty
is over and we can no longer hesitate to inform your Government and people
in the sight of the whole civilised world why we are fighting and on what
conditions we are ready to restore peace.’
Such was the message, deep in its simplicity and cunning in its candour,
which was sent by the old President, for it is Kruger’s style which we
read in every line of it. One has to get back to facts after reading it,
to the enormous war preparations of the Republics, to the unprepared state
of the British Colonies, to the ultimatum, to the annexations, to the
stirring up of rebellion, to the silence about peace in the days of
success, to the fact that by ‘inextinguishable love of freedom’ is meant
inextinguishable determination to hold other white men as helots—only
then can we form a just opinion of the worth of his message. One must
remember also, behind the homely and pious phraseology, that one is
dealing with a man who has been too cunning for us again and again—a
man who is as wily as the savages with whom he has treated and fought.
This Paul Kruger with the simple words of peace is the same Paul Kruger
who with gentle sayings insured the disarmament of Johannesburg, and then
instantly arrested his enemies—the man whose name was a by-word for
‘slimness’ [craftiness] throughout South Africa. With such a man the best
weapon is absolute naked truth with which Lord Salisbury confronted him in
his reply:—
Foreign Office: March 11th.
‘I have the honour to acknowledge your Honours’ telegram dated March 5th
from Bloemfontein, of which the purport was principally to demand that Her
Majesty’s Government shall recognise the “incontestable independence” of
the South African Republic and Orange Free State as “sovereign
international States,” and to offer on those terms to bring the war to a
conclusion.
‘In the beginning of October last peace existed between Her Majesty and
the two Republics under the conventions which then were in existence. A
discussion had been proceeding for some months between Her Majesty’s
Government and the South African Republic, of which the object was to
obtain redress for certain very serious grievances under which British
residents in the Republic were suffering. In the course of those
negotiations the Republic had, to the knowledge of Her Majesty’s
Government, made considerable armaments, and the latter had consequently
taken steps to provide corresponding reinforcements to the British
garrisons of Cape Town and Natal. No infringement of the rights guaranteed
by the conventions had up to that time taken place on the British side.
Suddenly, at two days’ notice, the South African Republic, after issuing
an insulting ultimatum, declared war, and the Orange Free State with whom
there had not even been any discussion, took a similar step. Her Majesty’s
dominions were immediately invaded by the two Republics, siege was laid to
three towns within the British frontier, a large portion of the two
Colonies was overrun with great destruction to property and life, and the
Republics claimed to treat the inhabitants as if those dominions had been
annexed to one or other of them. In anticipation of these operations the
South African Republic had been accumulating for many years past military
stores upon an enormous scale, which by their character could only have
been intended for use against Great Britain.
‘Your Honours make some observations of a negative character upon the
object with which these preparations were made. I do not think it
necessary to discuss the questions which you have raised. But the result
of these preparations, carried on with great secrecy, has been that the
British Empire has been compelled to confront an invasion which has
entailed a costly war and the loss of thousands of precious lives. This
great calamity has been the penalty which Great Britain has suffered for
having in recent years acquiesced in the existence of the two Republics.
‘In view of the use to which the two Republics have put the position which
was given to them, and the calamities which their unprovoked attack has
inflicted upon Her Majesty’s dominions, Her Majesty’s Government can only
answer your Honours’ telegram by saying that they are not prepared to
assent to the independence either of the South African Republic or of the
Orange Free State.’
With this frank and uncompromising reply the Empire, with the exception of
a small party of dupes and doctrinaires, heartily agreed. The pens were
dropped, and the Mauser and the Lee-Metford once more took up the debate.
CHAPTER 22. THE HALT AT BLOEMFONTEIN.
On March 13th Lord Roberts occupied the capital of the Orange Free State.
On May 1st, more than six weeks later, the advance was resumed. This long
delay was absolutely necessary in order to supply the place of the ten
thousand horses and mules which are said to have been used up in the
severe work of the preceding month. It was not merely that a large number
of the cavalry chargers had died or been abandoned, but it was that of
those which remained the majority were in a state which made them useless
for immediate service. How far this might have been avoided is open to
question, for it is notorious that General French’s reputation as a
horsemaster does not stand so high as his fame as a cavalry leader. But
besides the horses there was urgent need of every sort of supply, from
boots to hospitals, and the only way by which they could come was by two
single-line railways which unite into one single-line railway, with the
alternative of passing over a precarious pontoon bridge at Norval’s Pont,
or truck by truck over the road bridge at Bethulie. To support an army of
fifty thousand men under these circumstances, eight hundred miles from a
base, is no light matter, and a premature advance which could not be
thrust home would be the greatest of misfortunes. The public at home and
the army in Africa became restless under the inaction, but it was one more
example of the absolute soundness of Lord Roberts’s judgment and the quiet
resolution with which he adheres to it. He issued a proclamation to the
inhabitants of the Free State promising protection to all who should bring
in their arms and settle down upon their farms. The most stringent orders
were issued against looting or personal violence, but nothing could exceed
the gentleness and good humour of the troops. Indeed there seemed more
need for an order which should protect them against the extortion of their
conquered enemies. It is strange to think that we are separated by only
ninety years from the savage soldiery of Badajoz and San Sebastian.
The streets of the little Dutch town formed during this interval a curious
object-lesson in the resources of the Empire. All the scattered
Anglo-Celtic races had sent their best blood to fight for the common
cause. Peace is the great solvent, as war is the powerful unifier. For the
British as for the German Empire much virtue had come from the stress and
strain of battle. To stand in the market square of Bloemfontein and to see
the warrior types around you was to be assured of the future of the race.
The middle-sized, square-set, weather-tanned, straw-bearded British
regulars crowded the footpaths. There also one might see the hard-faced
Canadians, the loose-limbed dashing Australians, fireblooded and keen, the
dark New Zealanders, with a Maori touch here and there in their features,
the gallant men of Tasmania, the gentlemen troopers of India and Ceylon,
and everywhere the wild South African irregulars with their bandoliers and
unkempt wiry horses, Rimington’s men with the racoon bands, Roberts’s
Horse with the black plumes, some with pink puggarees, some with birdseye,
but all of the same type, hard, rugged, and alert. The man who could look
at these splendid soldiers, and, remembering the sacrifices of time,
money, and comfort which most of them had made before they found
themselves fighting in the heart of Africa, doubt that the spirit of the
race burned now as brightly as ever, must be devoid of judgment and
sympathy. The real glories of the British race lie in the future, not in
the past. The Empire walks, and may still walk, with an uncertain step,
but with every year its tread will be firmer, for its weakness is that of
waxing youth and not of waning age.
The greatest misfortune of the campaign, one which it was obviously
impolitic to insist upon at the time, began with the occupation of
Bloemfontein. This was the great outbreak of enteric among the troops. For
more than two months the hospitals were choked with sick. One general
hospital with five hundred beds held seventeen hundred sick, nearly all
enterics. A half field hospital with fifty beds held three hundred and
seventy cases. The total number of cases could not have been less than six
or seven thousand—and this not of an evanescent and easily treated
complaint, but of the most persistent and debilitating of continued
fevers, the one too which requires the most assiduous attention and
careful nursing. How great was the strain only those who had to meet it
can tell. The exertions of the military hospitals and of those others
which were fitted out by private benevolence sufficed, after a long
struggle, to meet the crisis. At Bloemfontein alone, as many as fifty men
died in one day, and more than 1000 new graves in the cemetery testify to
the severity of the epidemic. No men in the campaign served their country
more truly than the officers and men of the medical service, nor can any
one who went through the epidemic forget the bravery and unselfishness of
those admirable nursing sisters who set the men around them a higher
standard of devotion to duty.
Enteric fever is always endemic in the country, and especially at
Bloemfontein, but there can be no doubt that this severe outbreak had its
origin in the Paardeberg water. All through the campaign, while the
machinery for curing disease was excellent, that for preventing it was
elementary or absent. If bad water can cost us more than all the bullets
of the enemy, then surely it is worth our while to make the drinking of
unboiled water a stringent military offence, and to attach to every
company and squadron the most rapid and efficient means for boiling it—for
filtering alone is useless. An incessant trouble it would be, but it would
have saved a division for the army. It is heartrending for the medical man
who has emerged from a hospital full of water-born pestilence to see a
regimental watercart being filled, without protest, at some polluted
wayside pool. With precautions and with inoculation all those lives might
have been saved. The fever died down with the advance of the troops and
the coming of the colder weather.
To return to the military operations: these, although they were stagnant
so far as the main army was concerned, were exceedingly and inconveniently
active in other quarters. Three small actions, two of which were
disastrous to our arms, and one successful defence marked the period of
the pause at Bloemfontein.
To the north of the town, some twelve miles distant lies the ubiquitous
Modder River, which is crossed by a railway bridge at a place named Glen.
The saving of the bridge was of considerable importance, and might by the
universal testimony of the farmers of that district have been effected any
time within the first few days of our occupation. We appear, however, to
have imperfectly appreciated how great was the demoralisation of the
Boers. In a week or so they took heart, returned, and blew up the bridge.
Roving parties of the enemy, composed mainly of the redoubtable
Johannesburg police, reappeared even to the south of the river. Young
Lygon was killed, and Colonels Crabbe and Codrington with Captain Trotter,
all of the Guards, were severely wounded by such a body, whom they
gallantly but injudiciously attempted to arrest when armed only with
revolvers.
These wandering patrols who kept the country unsettled, and harassed the
farmers who had taken advantage of Lord Roberts’s proclamation, were found
to have their centre at a point some six miles to the north of Glen, named
Karee. At Karee a formidable line of hills cut the British advance, and
these had been occupied by a strong body of the enemy with guns. Lord
Roberts determined to drive them off, and on March 28th Tucker’s 7th
Division, consisting of Chermside’s brigade (Lincolns, Norfolks,
Hampshires, and Scottish Borderers), and Wavell’s brigade (Cheshires, East
Lancashires, North Staffords, and South Wales Borderers), were assembled
at Glen. The artillery consisted of the veteran 18th, 62nd, and 75th
R.F.A. Three attenuated cavalry brigades with some mounted infantry
completed the force.
The movement was to be upon the old model, and in result it proved to be
only too truly so. French’s cavalry were to get round one flank, Le
Gallais’s mounted infantry round the other, and Tucker’s Division to
attack in front. Nothing could be more perfect in theory and nothing
apparently more defective in practice. Since on this as on other occasions
the mere fact that the cavalry were demonstrating in the rear caused the
complete abandonment of the position, it is difficult to see what the
object of the infantry attack could be. The ground was irregular and
unexplored, and it was late before the horsemen on their weary steeds
found themselves behind the flank of the enemy. Some of them, Le Gallais’s
mounted infantry and Davidson’s guns, had come from Bloemfontein during
the night, and the horses were exhausted by the long march, and by the
absurd weight which the British troop-horse is asked to carry. Tucker
advanced his infantry exactly as Kelly-Kenny had done at Driefontein, and
with a precisely similar result. The eight regiments going forward in
echelon of battalions imagined from the silence of the enemy that the
position had been abandoned. They were undeceived by a cruel fire which
beat upon two companies of the Scottish Borderers from a range of two
hundred yards. They were driven back, but reformed in a donga. About
half-past two a Boer gun burst shrapnel over the Lincolnshires and
Scottish Borderers with some effect, for a single shell killed five of the
latter regiment. Chermside’s brigade was now all involved in the fight,
and Wavell’s came up in support, but the ground was too open and the
position too strong to push the attack home. Fortunately, about four
o’clock, the horse batteries with French began to make their presence felt
from behind, and the Boers instantly quitted their position and made off
through the broad gap which still remained between French and Le Gallais.
The Brandfort plain appears to be ideal ground for cavalry, but in spite
of that the enemy with his guns got safely away. The loss of the infantry
amounted to one hundred and sixty killed and wounded, the larger share of
the casualties and of the honour falling to the Scottish Borderers and the
East Lancashires. The infantry was not well handled, the cavalry was slow,
and the guns were inefficient—altogether an inglorious day. Yet
strategically it was of importance, for the ridge captured was the last
before one came to the great plain which stretched, with a few
intermissions, to the north. From March 29th until May 2nd Karee remained
the advanced post.
In the meanwhile there had been a series of operations in the east which
had ended in a serious disaster. Immediately after the occupation of
Bloemfontein (on March 18th) Lord Roberts despatched to the east a small
column consisting of the 10th Hussars, the composite regiment, two
batteries (Q and U) of the Horse Artillery, some mounted infantry,
Roberts’s Horse, and Rimington’s Guides. On the eastern horizon forty
miles from the capital, but in that clear atmosphere looking only half the
distance, there stands the impressive mountain named Thabanchu (the black
mountain). To all Boers it is an historical spot, for it was at its base
that the wagons of the Voortrekkers, coming by devious ways from various
parts, assembled. On the further side of Thabanchu, to the north and east
of it, lies the richest grain-growing portion of the Free State, the
centre of which is Ladybrand. The forty miles which intervene between
Bloemfontein and Thabanchu are intersected midway by the Modder River. At
this point are the waterworks, erected recently with modern machinery, to
take the place of the insanitary wells on which the town had been
dependent. The force met with no resistance, and the small town of
Thabanchu was occupied.
Colonel Pilcher, the leader of the Douglas raid, was inclined to explore a
little further, and with three squadrons of mounted men he rode on to the
eastward. Two commandos, supposed to be Grobler’s and Olivier’s, were seen
by them, moving on a line which suggested that they were going to join
Steyn, who was known to be rallying his forces at Kroonstad, his new seat
of government in the north of the Free State. Pilcher, with great daring,
pushed onwards until with his little band on their tired horses he found
himself in Ladybrand, thirty miles from his nearest supports. Entering the
town he seized the landdrost and the field-cornet, but found that strong
bodies of the enemy were moving upon him and that it was impossible for
him to hold the place. He retired, therefore, holding grimly on to his
prisoners, and got back with small loss to the place from which he
started. It was a dashing piece of bluff, and, when taken with the Douglas
exploit, leads one to hope that Pilcher may have a chance of showing what
he can do with larger means at his disposal. Finding that the enemy was
following him in force, he pushed on the same night for Thabanchu. His
horsemen must have covered between fifty and sixty miles in the
twenty-four hours.
Apparently the effect of Pilcher’s exploit was to halt the march of those
commandos which had been seen trekking to the north-west, and to cause
them to swing round upon Thabanchu. Broadwood, a young cavalry commander
who had won a name in Egypt, considered that his position was
unnecessarily exposed and fell back upon Bloemfontein. He halted on the
first night near the waterworks, halfway upon his journey.
The Boers are great masters in the ambuscade. Never has any race shown
such aptitude for this form of warfare—a legacy from a long
succession of contests with cunning savages. But never also have they done
anything so clever and so audacious as De Wet’s dispositions in this
action. One cannot go over the ground without being amazed at the
ingenuity of their attack, and also at the luck which favoured them, for
the trap which they had laid for others might easily have proved an
absolutely fatal one for themselves.
The position beside the Modder at which the British camped had numerous
broken hills to the north and east of it. A force of Boers, supposed to
number about two thousand men, came down in the night, bringing with them
several heavy guns, and with the early morning opened a brisk fire upon
the camp. The surprise was complete. But the refinement of the Boer
tactics lay in the fact that they had a surprise within a surprise—and
it was the second which was the more deadly.
The force which Broadwood had with him consisted of the 10th Hussars and
the composite regiment, Rimington’s Scouts, Roberts’s Horse, the New
Zealand and Burmah Mounted Infantry, with Q and U batteries of Horse
Artillery. With such a force, consisting entirely of mounted men, he could
not storm the hills upon which the Boer guns were placed, and his
twelve-pounders were unable to reach the heavier cannon of the enemy. His
best game was obviously to continue his march to Bloemfontein. He sent on
the considerable convoy of wagons and the guns, while he with the cavalry
covered the rear, upon which the long-range pieces of the enemy kept up
the usual well-directed but harmless fire.
Broadwood’s retreating column now found itself on a huge plain which
stretches all the way to Bloemfontein, broken only by two hills, both of
which were known to be in our possession. The plain was one which was
continually traversed from end to end by our troops and convoys, so that
once out upon its surface all danger seemed at an end. Broadwood had
additional reasons for feeling secure, for he knew that, in answer to his
own wise request, Colvile’s Division had been sent out before daybreak
that morning from Bloemfontein to meet him. In a very few miles their
vanguard and his must come together. There were obviously no Boers upon
the plain, but if there were they would find themselves between two fires.
He gave no thought to his front therefore, but rode behind, where the Boer
guns were roaring, and whence the Boer riflemen might ride.
But in spite of the obvious there WERE Boers upon the plain, so placed
that they must either bring off a remarkable surprise or be themselves cut
off to a man. Across the veld, some miles from the waterworks, there runs
a deep donga or watercourse—one of many, but the largest. It cuts
the rough road at right angles. Its depth and breadth are such that a
wagon would dip down the incline, and disappear for about two minutes
before it would become visible again at the crown of the other side. In
appearance it was a huge curving ditch with a stagnant stream at the
bottom. The sloping sides of the ditch were fringed with Boers, who had
ridden thither before dawn and were now waiting for the unsuspecting
column. There were not more than three hundred of them, and four times
their number were approaching; but no odds can represent the difference
between the concealed man with the magazine rifle and the man upon the
plain.
There were two dangers, however, which the Boers ran, and, skilful as
their dispositions were, their luck was equally great, for the risks were
enormous. One was that a force coming the other way (Colvile’s was only a
few miles off) would arrive, and that they would be ground between the
upper and the lower millstone. The other was that for once the British
scouts might give the alarm and that Broadwood’s mounted men would wheel
swiftly to right and left and secure the ends of the long donga. Should
that happen, not a man of them could possibly escape. But they took their
chances like brave men, and fortune was their friend. The wagons came on
without any scouts. Behind them was U battery, then Q, with Roberts’s
Horse abreast of them and the rest of the cavalry behind.
As the wagons, occupied for the most part only by unarmed sick soldiers
and black transport drivers, came down into the drift, the Boers quickly
but quietly took possession of them, and drove them on up the further
slope. Thus the troops behind saw their wagons dip down, reappear, and
continue on their course. The idea of an ambush could not suggest itself.
Only one thing could avert an absolute catastrophe, and that was the
appearance of a hero who would accept certain death in order to warn his
comrades. Such a man rode by the wagons—though, unhappily, in the
stress and rush of the moment there is no certainty as to his name or
rank. We only know that one was found brave enough to fire his revolver in
the face of certain death. The outburst of firing which answered his shot
was the sequel which saved the column. Not often is it given to a man to
die so choice a death as that of this nameless soldier.
But the detachment was already so placed that nothing could save it from
heavy loss. The wagons had all passed but nine, and the leading battery of
artillery was at the very edge of the donga. Nothing is so helpless as a
limbered-up battery. In an instant the teams were shot down and the
gunners were made prisoners. A terrific fire burst at the same instant
upon Roberts’s Horse, who were abreast of the guns. ‘Files a bout!
gallop!’ yelled Colonel Dawson, and by his exertions and those of Major
Pack-Beresford the corps was extricated and reformed some hundreds of
yards further off. But the loss of horses and men was heavy. Major
Pack-Beresford and other officers were shot down, and every unhorsed man
remained necessarily as a prisoner under the very muzzles of the riflemen
in the donga.
As Roberts’s Horse turned and galloped for dear life across the flat, four
out of the six guns [Footnote: Of the other two one overturned and could
not be righted, the other had the wheelers shot and could not be
extricated from the tumult. It was officially stated that the guns of Q
battery were halted a thousand yards off the donga, but my impression was,
from examining the ground, that it was not more than six hundred.] of Q
battery and one gun (the rearmost) of U battery swung round and dashed
frantically for a place of safety. At the same instant every Boer along
the line of the donga sprang up and emptied his magazine into the mass of
rushing, shouting soldiers, plunging horses, and screaming Kaffirs. It was
for a few moments a sauve-qui-peut. Serjeant-Major Martin of U, with a
single driver on a wheeler, got away the last gun of his battery. The four
guns which were extricated of Q, under Major Phipps-Hornby, whirled across
the plain, pulled up, unlimbered, and opened a brisk fire of shrapnel from
about a thousand yards upon the donga. Had the battery gone on for double
the distance, its action would have been more effective, for it would have
been under a less deadly rifle fire, but in any case its sudden change
from flight to discipline and order steadied the whole force. Roberts’s
men sprang from their horses, and with the Burmese and New Zealanders
flung themselves down in a skirmish line. The cavalry moved to the left to
find some drift by which the donga could be passed, and out of chaos there
came in a few minutes calm and a settled purpose.
It was for Q battery to cover the retreat of the force, and most nobly it
did it. A fortnight later a pile of horses, visible many hundreds of yards
off across the plain, showed where the guns had stood. It was the Colenso
of the horse gunners. In a devilish sleet of lead they stood to their
work, loading and firing while a man was left. Some of the guns were left
with two men to work them, one was loaded and fired by a single officer.
When at last the order for retirement came, only ten men, several of them
wounded, were left upon their feet. With scratch teams from the limbers,
driven by single gunners, the twelve-pounders staggered out of action, and
the skirmish line of mounted infantry sprang to their feet amid the hail
of bullets to cheer them as they passed.
It was no slight task to extricate that sorely stricken force from the
close contact of an exultant enemy, and to lead it across that terrible
donga. Yet, thanks to the coolness of Broadwood and the steadiness of his
rearguard, the thing was done. A practicable passage had been found two
miles to the south by Captain Chester-Master of Rimington’s. This corps,
with Roberts’s, the New Zealanders, and the 3rd Mounted Infantry, covered
the withdrawal in turn. It was one of those actions in which the horseman
who is trained to fight upon foot did very much better than the regular
cavalry. In two hours’ time the drift had been passed and the survivors of
the force found themselves in safety.
The losses in this disastrous but not dishonourable engagement were
severe. About thirty officers and five hundred men were killed, wounded,
or missing. The prisoners came to more than three hundred. They lost a
hundred wagons, a considerable quantity of stores, and seven
twelve-pounder guns—five from U battery and two from Q. Of U battery
only Major Taylor and Sergeant-Major Martin seem to have escaped, the rest
being captured en bloc. Of Q battery nearly every man was killed or
wounded. Roberts’s Horse, the New Zealanders, and the mounted infantry
were the other corps which suffered most heavily. Among many brave men who
died, none was a greater loss to the service than Major Booth of the
Northumberland Fusiliers, serving in the mounted infantry. With four
comrades he held a position to cover the retreat, and refused to leave it.
Such men are inspired by the traditions of the past, and pass on the story
of their own deaths to inspire fresh heroes in the future.
Broadwood, the instant that he had disentangled himself, faced about, and
brought his guns into action. He was not strong enough, however, nor were
his men in a condition, to seriously attack the enemy. Martyr’s mounted
infantry had come up, led by the Queenslanders, and at the cost of some
loss to themselves helped to extricate the disordered force. Colvile’s
Division was behind Bushman’s Kop, only a few miles off, and there were
hopes that it might push on and prevent the guns and wagons from being
removed. Colvile did make an advance, but slowly and in a flanking
direction instead of dashing swiftly forward to retrieve the situation. It
must be acknowledged, however, that the problem which faced this General
was one of great difficulty. It was almost certain that before he could
throw his men into the action the captured guns would be beyond his reach,
and it was possible that he might swell the disaster. With all charity,
however, one cannot but feel that his return next morning, after a
reinforcement during the night, without any attempt to force the Boer
position, was lacking in enterprise. [Footnote: It may be urged in General
Colvile’s defence that his division had already done a long march from
Bloemfontein. A division, however, which contains two such brigades as
Macdonald’s and Smith-Dorrien’s may safely be called upon for any
exertions. The gunner officers in Colvile’s division heard their comrades’
guns in ‘section—fire’ and knew it to be the sign of a desperate
situation.] The victory left the Boers in possession of the waterworks,
and Bloemfontein had to fall back upon her wells—a change which
reacted most disastrously upon the enteric which was already decimating
the troops.
The effect of the Sanna’s Post defeat was increased by the fact that only
four days later (on April 4th) a second even more deplorable disaster
befell our troops. This was the surrender of five companies of infantry,
two of them mounted, at Reddersberg. So many surrenders of small bodies of
troops had occurred during the course of the war that the public,
remembering how seldom the word ‘surrender’ had ever been heard in our
endless succession of European wars, had become very restive upon the
subject, and were sometimes inclined to question whether this new and
humiliating fact did not imply some deterioration of our spirit. The fear
was natural, and yet nothing could be more unjust to this the most
splendid army which has ever marched under the red-crossed flag. The fact
was new because the conditions were new, and it was inherent in those
conditions. In that country of huge distances small bodies must be
detached, for the amount of space covered by the large bodies was not
sufficient for all military purposes. In reconnoitring, in distributing
proclamations, in collecting arms, in overawing outlying districts, weak
columns must be used. Very often these columns must contain infantry
soldiers, as the demands upon the cavalry were excessive. Such bodies,
moving through a hilly country with which they were unfamiliar, were
always liable to be surrounded by a mobile enemy. Once surrounded the
length of their resistance was limited by three things: their cartridges,
their water, and their food. When they had all three, as at Wepener or
Mafeking, they could hold out indefinitely. When one or other was wanting,
as at Reddersberg or Nicholson’s Nek, their position was impossible. They
could not break away, for how can men on foot break away from horsemen?
Hence those repeated humiliations, which did little or nothing to impede
the course of the war, and which were really to be accepted as one of the
inevitable prices which we had to pay for the conditions under which the
war was fought. Numbers, discipline, and resources were with us. Mobility,
distances, nature of the country, insecurity of supplies, were with them.
We need not take it to heart therefore if it happened, with all these
forces acting against them, that our soldiers found themselves sometimes
in a position whence neither wisdom nor valour could rescue them. To
travel through that country, fashioned above all others for defensive
warfare, with trench and fort of superhuman size and strength, barring
every path, one marvels how it was that such incidents were not more
frequent and more serious. It is deplorable that the white flag should
ever have waved over a company of British troops, but the man who is
censorious upon the subject has never travelled in South Africa.
In the disaster at Reddersberg three of the companies were of the Irish
Rifles, and two of the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers—the same
unfortunate regiments which had already been cut up at Stormberg. They had
been detached from Gatacre’s 3rd Division, the headquarters of which was
at Springfontein. On the abandonment of Thabanchu and the disaster of
Sanna’s Post, it was obvious that we should draw in our detached parties
to the east; so the five companies were ordered to leave Dewetsdorp, which
they were garrisoning, and to get back to the railway line. Either the
order was issued too late, or they were too slow in obeying it, for they
were only halfway upon their journey, near the town of Reddersberg, when
the enemy came down upon them with five guns. Without artillery they were
powerless, but, having seized a kopje, they took such shelter as they
could find, and waited in the hope of succour. Their assailants seem to
have been detached from De Wet’s force in the north, and contained among
them many of the victors of Sanna’s Post. The attack began at 11 A.M. of
April 3rd, and all day the men lay among the stones, subjected to the pelt
of shell and bullet. The cover was good, however, and the casualties were
not heavy. The total losses were under fifty killed and wounded. More
serious than the enemy’s fire was the absence of water, save a very
limited supply in a cart. A message was passed through of the dire straits
in which they found themselves, and by the late afternoon the news had
reached headquarters. Lord Roberts instantly despatched the Camerons, just
arrived from Egypt, to Bethany, which is the nearest point upon the line,
and telegraphed to Gatacre at Springfontein to take measures to save his
compromised detachment. The telegram should have reached Gatacre early on
the evening of the 3rd, and he had collected a force of fifteen hundred
men, entrained it, journeyed forty miles up the line, detrained it, and
reached Reddersberg, which is ten or twelve miles from the line, by 10.30
next morning. Already, however, it was too late, and the besieged force,
unable to face a second day without water under that burning sun, had laid
down their arms. No doubt the stress of thirst was dreadful, and yet one
cannot say that the defence rose to the highest point of resolution.
Knowing that help could not be far off, the garrison should have held on
while they could lift a rifle. If the ammunition was running low, it was
bad management which caused it to be shot away too fast. Captain
McWhinnie, who was in command, behaved with the utmost personal gallantry.
Not only the troops but General Gatacre also was involved in the disaster.
Blame may have attached to him for leaving a detachment at Dewetsdorp, and
not having a supporting body at Reddersberg upon which it might fall back;
but it must be remembered that his total force was small and that he had
to cover a long stretch of the lines of communication. As to General
Gatacre’s energy and gallantry it is a by-word in the army; but coming
after the Stormberg disaster this fresh mishap to his force made the
continuance of his command impossible. Much sympathy was felt with him in
the army, where he was universally liked and respected by officers and
men. He returned to England, and his division was taken over by General
Chermside.
In a single week, at a time when the back of the war had seemed to be
broken, we had lost nearly twelve hundred men with seven guns. The men of
the Free State—for the fighting was mainly done by commandos from
the Ladybrand, Winburg, Bethlehem, and Harrismith districts—deserve
great credit for this fine effort, and their leader De Wet confirmed the
reputation which he had already gained as a dashing and indefatigable
leader. His force was so weak that when Lord Roberts was able to really
direct his own against it, he brushed it away before him; but the manner
in which De Wet took advantage of Roberts’s enforced immobility, and dared
to get behind so mighty an enemy, was a fine exhibition of courage and
enterprise. The public at home chafed at this sudden and unexpected turn
of affairs; but the General, constant to his own fixed purpose, did not
permit his strength to be wasted, and his cavalry to be again
disorganised, by flying excursions, but waited grimly until he should be
strong enough to strike straight at Pretoria.
In this short period of depression there came one gleam of light from the
west. This was the capture of a commando of sixty Boers, or rather of
sixty foreigners fighting for the Boers, and the death of the gallant
Frenchman, De Villebois-Mareuil, who appears to have had the ambition of
playing Lafayette in South Africa to Kruger’s Washington. From the time
that Kimberley had been reoccupied the British had been accumulating their
force there so as to make a strong movement which should coincide with
that of Roberts from Bloemfontein. Hunter’s Division from Natal was being
moved round to Kimberley, and Methuen already commanded a considerable
body of troops, which included a number of the newly arrived Imperial
Yeomanry. With these Methuen pacified the surrounding country, and
extended his outposts to Barkly West on the one side, to Boshof on the
other, and to Warrenton upon the Vaal River in the centre. On April 4th
news reached Boshof that a Boer commando had been seen some ten miles to
the east of the town, and a force, consisting of Yeomanry, Kimberley Light
Horse, and half of Butcher’s veteran 4th battery, was sent to attack them.
They were found to have taken up their position upon a kopje which,
contrary to all Boer custom, had no other kopjes to support it. French
generalship was certainly not so astute as Boer cunning. The kopje was
instantly surrounded, and the small force upon the summit being without
artillery in the face of our guns found itself in exactly the same
position which our men had been in twenty-four hours before at
Reddersberg. Again was shown the advantage which the mounted rifleman has
over the cavalry, for the Yeomanry and Light Horsemen left their horses
and ascended the hill with the bayonet. In three hours all was over and
the Boers had laid down their arms. Villebois was shot with seven of his
companions, and there were nearly sixty prisoners. It speaks well for the
skirmishing of the Yeomanry and the way in which they were handled by Lord
Chesham that though they worked their way up the hill under fire they only
lost four killed and a few wounded. The affair was a small one, but it was
complete, and it came at a time when a success was very welcome. One
bustling week had seen the expensive victory of Karee, the disasters of
Sanna’s Post and Reddersberg, and the successful skirmish of Boshof.
Another chapter must be devoted to the movement towards the south of the
Boer forces and the dispositions which Lord Roberts made to meet it.
CHAPTER 23. THE CLEARING OF THE SOUTH-EAST.
Lord Roberts never showed his self-command and fixed purpose more clearly
than during his six weeks’ halt at Bloemfontein. De Wet, the most
enterprising and aggressive of the Boer commanders, was attacking his
eastern posts and menacing his line of communications. A fussy or nervous
general would have harassed his men and worn out his horses by
endeavouring to pursue a number of will-of-the-wisp commandos. Roberts
contented himself by building up his strength at the capital, and by
spreading nearly twenty thousand men along his line of rail from
Bloemfontein to Bethulie. When the time came he would strike, but until
then he rested. His army was not only being rehorsed and reshod, but in
some respects was being reorganised. One powerful weapon which was forged
during those weeks was the collection of the mounted infantry of the
central army into one division, which was placed under the command of Ian
Hamilton, with Hutton and Ridley as brigadiers. Hutton’s brigade contained
the Canadians, New South Wales men, West Australians, Queenslanders, New
Zealanders, Victorians, South Australians, and Tasmanians, with four
battalions of Imperial Mounted Infantry, and several light batteries.
Ridley’s brigade contained the South African irregular regiments of
cavalry, with some imperial troops. The strength of the whole division
came to over ten thousand rifles, and in its ranks there rode the hardiest
and best from every corner of the earth over which the old flag is flying.
A word as to the general distribution of the troops at this instant while
Roberts was gathering himself for his spring. Eleven divisions of infantry
were in the field. Of these the 1st (Methuen’s) and half the 10th
(Hunter’s) were at Kimberley, forming really the hundred-mile-distant left
wing of Lord Roberts’s army. On that side also was a considerable force of
Yeomanry, as General Villebois discovered. In the centre with Roberts was
the 6th division (Kelly-Kenny’s) at Bloemfontein, the 7th (Tucker’s) at
Karee, twenty miles north, the 9th (Colvile’s) and the 11th (Pole-Carew’s)
near Bloemfontein. French’s cavalry division was also in the centre. As
one descended the line towards the Cape one came on the 3rd division
(Chermside’s, late Gatacre’s), which had now moved up to Reddersberg, and
then, further south, the 8th (Rundle’s), near Rouxville. To the south and
east was the other half of Hunter’s division (Hart’s brigade), and
Brabant’s Colonial division, half of which was shut up in Wepener and the
rest at Aliwal. These were the troops operating in the Free State, with
the addition of the division of mounted infantry in process of formation.
There remained the three divisions in Natal, the 2nd (Clery’s), the 4th
(Lyttelton’s), and the 5th (Hildyard’s, late Warren’s), with the cavalry
brigades of Burn-Murdoch, Dundonald, and Brocklehurst. These, with
numerous militia and unbrigaded regiments along the lines of
communication, formed the British army in South Africa. At Mafeking some
900 irregulars stood at bay, with another force about as large under
Plumer a little to the north, endeavouring to relieve them. At Beira, a
Portuguese port through which we have treaty rights by which we may pass
troops, a curious mixed force of Australians, New Zealanders and others
was being disembarked and pushed through to Rhodesia, so as to cut off any
trek which the Boers might make in that direction. Carrington, a fierce
old soldier with a large experience of South African warfare, was in
command of this picturesque force, which moved amid tropical forests over
crocodile-haunted streams, while their comrades were shivering in the cold
southerly winds of a Cape winter. Neither our Government, our people, nor
the world understood at the beginning of this campaign how grave was the
task which we had undertaken, but, having once realised it, it must be
acknowledged that it was carried through in no half-hearted way. So vast
was the scene of operations that the Canadian might almost find his native
climate at one end of it and the Queenslander at the other.
To follow in close detail the movements of the Boers and the counter
movements of the British in the southeast portion of the Free State during
this period would tax the industry of the historian and the patience of
the reader. Let it be told with as much general truth and as little
geographical detail as possible. The narrative which is interrupted by an
eternal reference to the map is a narrative spoiled.
The main force of the Freestaters had assembled in the north-eastern
corner of their State, and from this they made their sally southwards,
attacking or avoiding at their pleasure the eastern line of British
outposts. Their first engagement, that of Sanna’s Post, was a great and
deserved success. Three days later they secured the five companies at
Reddersberg. Warned in time, the other small British bodies closed in upon
their supports, and the railway line, that nourishing artery which was
necessary for the very existence of the army, was held too strongly for
attack. The Bethulie Bridge was a particularly important point; but though
the Boers approached it, and even went the length of announcing officially
that they had destroyed it, it was not actually attacked. At Wepener,
however, on the Basutoland border, they found an isolated force, and
proceeded at once, according to their custom, to hem it in and to bombard
it, until one of their three great allies, want of food, want of water, or
want of cartridges, should compel a surrender.
On this occasion, however, the Boers had undertaken a task which was
beyond their strength. The troops at Wepener were one thousand seven
hundred in number, and formidable in quality. The place had been occupied
by part of Brabant’s Colonial division, consisting of hardy irregulars,
men of the stuff of the defenders of Mafeking. Such men are too shrewd to
be herded into an untenable position and too valiant to surrender a
tenable one. The force was commanded by a dashing soldier, Colonel
Dalgety, of the Cape Mounted Rifles, as tough a fighter as his famous
namesake. There were with him nearly a thousand men of Brabant’s Horse,
four hundred of the Cape Mounted Rifles, four hundred Kaffrarian Horse,
with some scouts, and one hundred regulars, including twenty invaluable
Sappers. They were strong in guns—two seven-pounders, two naval
twelve-pounders, two fifteen-pounders and several machine guns. The
position which they had taken up, Jammersberg, three miles north of
Wepener, was a very strong one, and it would have taken a larger force
than De Wet had at his disposal to turn them out of it. The defence had
been arranged by Major Cedric Maxwell, of the Sappers; and though the huge
perimeter, nearly eight miles, made its defence by so small a force a most
difficult matter, the result proved how good his dispositions were.
At the same time, the Boers came on with every confidence of victory, for
they had a superiority in guns and an immense superiority in men. But
after a day or two of fierce struggle their attack dwindled down into a
mere blockade. On April 9th they attacked furiously, both by day and by
night, and on the 10th the pressure was equally severe. In these two days
occurred the vast majority of the casualties. But the defenders took cover
in a way to which British regulars have not yet attained, and they outshot
their opponents both with their rifles and their cannon. Captain Lukin’s
management of the artillery was particularly skilful. The weather was vile
and the hastily dug trenches turned into ditches half full of water, but
neither discomfort nor danger shook the courage of the gallant colonials.
Assault after assault was repulsed, and the scourging of the cannon was
met with stolid endurance. The Boers excelled all their previous feats in
the handling of artillery by dragging two guns up to the summit of the
lofty Jammersberg, whence they fired down upon the camp. Nearly all the
horses were killed and three hundred of the troopers were hit, a number
which is double that of the official return, for the simple reason that
the spirit of the force was so high that only those who were very severely
wounded reported themselves as wounded at all. None but the serious cases
ever reached the hands of Dr. Faskally, who did admirable work with very
slender resources. How many the enemy lost can never be certainly known,
but as they pushed home several attacks it is impossible to imagine that
their losses were less than those of the victorious defenders. At the end
of seventeen days of mud and blood the brave irregulars saw an empty
laager and abandoned trenches. Their own resistance and the advance of
Brabant to their rescue had caused a hasty retreat of the enemy. Wepener,
Mafeking, Kimberley, the taking of the first guns at Ladysmith, the deeds
of the Imperial Light Horse—it cannot be denied that our irregular
South African forces have a brilliant record for the war. They are
associated with many successes and with few disasters. Their fine record
cannot, I think, be fairly ascribed to any greater hardihood which one
portion of our race has when compared with another, for a South African
must admit that in the best colonial corps at least half the men were
Britons of Britain. In the Imperial Light Horse the proportion was very
much higher. But what may fairly be argued is that their exploits have
proved, what the American war proved long ago, that the German conception
of discipline is an obsolete fetish, and that the spirit of free men,
whose individualism has been encouraged rather than crushed, is equal to
any feat of arms. The clerks and miners and engineers who went up
Elandslaagte Hill without bayonets, shoulder to shoulder with the Gordons,
and who, according to Sir George White, saved Ladysmith on January 6th,
have shown for ever that with men of our race it is the spirit within, and
not the drill or the discipline, that makes a formidable soldier. An
intelligent appreciation of the fact might in the course of the next few
years save us as much money as would go far to pay for the war.
It may well be asked how for so long a period as seventeen days the
British could tolerate a force to the rear of them when with their great
superiority of numbers they could have readily sent an army to drive it
away. The answer must be that Lord Roberts had despatched his trusty
lieutenant, Kitchener, to Aliwal, whence he had been in heliographic
communication with Wepener, that he was sure that the place could hold
out, and that he was using it, as he did Kimberley, to hold the enemy
while he was making his plans for their destruction. This was the bait to
tempt them to their ruin. Had the trap not been a little slow in closing,
the war in the Free State might have ended then and there. From the 9th to
the 25th the Boers were held in front of Wepener. Let us trace the
movements of the other British detachments during that time.
Brabant’s force, with Hart’s brigade, which had been diverted on its way
to Kimberley, where it was to form part of Hunter’s division, was moving
on the south towards Wepener, advancing through Rouxville, but going
slowly for fear of scaring the Boers away before they were sufficiently
compromised. Chermside’s 3rd division approached from the north-west,
moving out from the railway at Bethany, and passing through Reddersberg
towards Dewetsdorp, from which it would directly threaten the Boer line of
retreat. The movement was made with reassuring slowness and gentleness, as
when the curved hand approaches the unconscious fly. And then suddenly, on
April 21st, Lord Roberts let everything go. Had the action of the agents
been as swift and as energetic as the mind of the planner, De Wet could
not have escaped us.
What held Lord Roberts’s hand for some few days after he was ready to
strike was the abominable weather. Rain was falling in sheets, and those
who know South African roads, South African mud, and South African drifts
will understand how impossible swift military movements are under those
circumstances. But with the first clearing of the clouds the hills to the
south and east of Bloemfontein were dotted with our scouts. Rundle with
his 8th division was brought swiftly up from the south, united with
Chermside to the east of Reddersberg, and the whole force, numbering
13,000 rifles with thirty guns, advanced upon Dewetsdorp, Rundle, as
senior officer, being in command. As they marched the blue hills of
Wepener lined the sky some twenty miles to the south, eloquent to every
man of the aim and object of their march.
On April 20th, Rundle as he advanced found a force with artillery across
his path to Dewetsdorp. It is always difficult to calculate the number of
hidden men and lurking guns which go to make up a Boer army, but with some
knowledge of their total at Wepener it was certain that the force opposed
to him must be very inferior to his own. At Constantia Farm, where he
found them in position, it is difficult to imagine that there were more
than three thousand men. Their left flank was their weak point, as a
movement on that side would cut them off from Wepener and drive them up
towards our main force in the north. One would have thought that a
containing force of three thousand men, and a flanking movement from eight
thousand, would have turned them out, as it has turned them out so often
before and since. Yet a long-range action began on Friday, April 20th, and
lasted the whole of the 21st, the 22nd, and the 23rd, in which we
sustained few losses, but made no impression upon the enemy. Thirty of the
1st Worcesters wandered at night into the wrong line, and were made
prisoners, but with this exception the four days of noisy fighting does
not appear to have cost either side fifty casualties. It is probable that
the deliberation with which the operations were conducted was due to
Rundle’s instructions to wait until the other forces were in position. His
subsequent movements showed that he was not a General who feared to
strike.
On Sunday night (April 22nd) Pole-Carew sallied out from Bloemfontein on a
line which would take him round the right flank of the Boers who were
facing Rundle. The Boers had, however, occupied a strong position at Leeuw
Kop, which barred his path, so that the Dewetsdorp Boers were covering the
Wepener Boers, and being in turn covered by the Boers of Leeuw Kop. Before
anything could be done, they must be swept out of the way. Pole-Carew is
one of those finds which help to compensate us for the war. Handsome,
dashing, debonnaire, he approaches a field of battle as a light-hearted
schoolboy approaches a football field. On this occasion he acted with
energy and discretion. His cavalry threatened the flanks of the enemy, and
Stephenson’s brigade carried the position in front at a small cost. On the
same evening General French arrived and took over the force, which
consisted now of Stephenson’s and the Guards brigades (making up the 11th
division), with two brigades of cavalry and one corps of mounted infantry.
The next day, the 23rd, the advance was resumed, the cavalry bearing the
brunt of the fighting. That gallant corps, Roberts’s Horse, whose
behaviour at Sanna’s Post had been admirable, again distinguished itself,
losing among others its Colonel, Brazier Creagh. On the 24th again it was
to the horsemen that the honour and the casualties fell. The 9th Lancers,
the regular cavalry regiment which bears away the honours of the war, lost
several men and officers, and the 8th Hussars also suffered, but the Boers
were driven from their position, and lost more heavily in this skirmish
than in some of the larger battles of the campaign. The ‘pom-poms,’ which
had been supplied to us by the belated energy of the Ordnance Department,
were used with some effect in this engagement, and the Boers learned for
the first time how unnerving are those noisy but not particularly deadly
fireworks which they had so often crackled round the ears of our gunners.
On the Wednesday morning Rundle, with the addition of Pole-Carew’s
division, was strong enough for any attack, while French was in a position
upon the flank. Every requisite for a great victory was there except the
presence of an enemy. The Wepener siege had been raised and the force in
front of Rundle had disappeared as only Boer armies can disappear. The
combined movement was an admirable piece of work on the part of the enemy.
Finding no force in front of them, the combined troops of French, Rundle,
and Chermside occupied Dewetsdorp, where the latter remained, while the
others pushed on to Thabanchu, the storm centre from which all our
troubles had begun nearly a month before. All the way they knew that De
Wet’s retreating army was just in front of them, and they knew also that a
force had been sent out from Bloemfontein to Thabanchu to head off the
Boers. Lord Roberts might naturally suppose, when he had formed two
cordons through which De Wet must pass, that one or other must hold him.
But with extraordinary skill and mobility De Wet, aided by the fact that
every inhabitant was a member of his intelligence department, slipped
through the double net which had been laid for him. The first net was not
in its place in time, and the second was too small to hold him.
While Rundle and French had advanced on Dewetsdorp as described, the other
force which was intended to head off De Wet had gone direct to Thabanchu.
The advance began by a movement of Ian Hamilton on April 22nd with eight
hundred mounted infantry upon the waterworks. The enemy, who held the
hills beyond, allowed Hamilton’s force to come right down to the Modder
before they opened fire from three guns. The mounted infantry fell back,
and encamped for the night out of range. [Footnote: This was a remarkable
exhibition of the harmlessness of shell-fire against troops in open
formation. I myself saw at least forty shells, all of which burst, fall
among the ranks of the mounted infantry, who retired at a contemptuous
walk. There were no casualties.] Before morning they were reinforced by
Smith-Dorrien’s brigade (Gordons, Canadians, and Shropshires—the
Cornwalls had been left behind) and some more mounted Infantry. With
daylight a fine advance was begun, the brigade moving up in very extended
order and the mounted men turning the right flank of the defence. By
evening we had regained the waterworks, a most important point for
Bloemfontein, and we held all the line of hills which command it. This
strong position would not have been gained so easily if it had not been
for Pole-Carew’s and French’s actions two days before, on their way to
join Rundle, which enabled them to turn it from the south.
Ian Hamilton, who had already done good service in the war, having
commanded the infantry at Elandslaagte, and been one of the most prominent
leaders in the defence of Ladysmith, takes from this time onwards a more
important and a more independent position. A thin, aquiline man, of soft
voice and gentle manners, he had already proved more than once during his
adventurous career that he not only possessed in a high degree the courage
of the soldier, but also the equanimity and decision of the born leader. A
languid elegance in his bearing covered a shrewd brain and a soul of fire.
A distorted and half-paralysed hand reminded the observer that Hamilton,
as a young lieutenant, had known at Majuba what it was to face the Boer
rifles. Now, in his forty-seventh year, he had returned, matured and
formidable, to reverse the results of that first deplorable campaign. This
was the man to whom Lord Roberts had entrusted the command of that
powerful flanking column which was eventually to form the right wing of
his main advance. Being reinforced upon the morning after the capture of
the Waterworks by the Highland Brigade, the Cornwalls, and two heavy naval
guns, his whole force amounted to not less than seven thousand men. From
these he detached a garrison for the Waterworks, and with the rest he
continued his march over the hilly country which lies between them and
Thabanchu.
One position, Israel’s Poort, a nek between two hills, was held against
them on April 25th, but was gained without much trouble, the Canadians
losing one killed and two wounded. Colonel Otter, their gallant leader,
was one of the latter, while Marshall’s Horse, a colonial corps raised in
Grahamstown, had no fewer than seven of their officers and several men
killed or wounded. Next morning the town of Thabanchu was seized, and
Hamilton found himself upon the direct line of the Boer retreat. He seized
the pass which commands the road, and all next day he waited eagerly, and
the hearts of his men beat high when at last they saw a long trail of dust
winding up to them from the south. At last the wily De Wet had been headed
off! Deep and earnest were the curses when out of the dust there emerged a
khaki column of horsemen, and it was realised that this was French’s
pursuing force, closely followed by Rundle’s infantry from Dewetsdorp. The
Boers had slipped round and were already to the north of us.
It is impossible to withhold our admiration for the way in which the Boer
force was manoeuvred throughout this portion of the campaign. The mixture
of circumspection and audacity, the way in which French and Rundle were
hindered until the Wepener force had disengaged itself, the manner in
which these covering forces were then withdrawn, and finally the clever
way in which they all slipped past Hamilton, make a brilliant bit of
strategy. Louis Botha, the generalissimo, held all the strings in his
hand, and the way in which he pulled them showed that his countrymen had
chosen the right man for that high office, and that his was a master
spirit even among those fine natural warriors who led the separate
commandos.
Having got to the north of the British forces Botha made no effort to get
away, and refused to be hustled by a reconnaissance developing into an
attack, which French made upon April 27th. In a skirmish the night before
Kitchener’s Horse had lost fourteen men, and the action of the 27th cost
us about as many casualties. It served to show that the Boer force was a
compact body some six or seven thousand strong, which withdrew in a
leisurely fashion, and took up a defensive position at Houtnek, some miles
further on. French remained at Thabanchu, from which he afterwards joined
Lord Roberts’ advance, while Hamilton now assumed complete command of the
flanking column, with which he proceeded to march north upon Winburg.
The Houtnek position is dominated upon the left of the advancing British
force by Thoba Mountain, and it was this point which was the centre of
Hamilton’s attack. It was most gallantly seized by Kitchener’s Horse, who
were quickly supported by Smith-Dorrien’s men. The mountain became the
scene of a brisk action, and night fell before the crest was cleared. At
dawn upon May 1st the fighting was resumed, and the position was carried
by a determined advance of the Shropshires, the Canadians, and the
Gordons: the Boers escaping down the reverse slope of the hill came under
a heavy fire of our infantry, and fifty of them were wounded or taken. It
was in this action, during the fighting on the hill, that Captain Towse,
of the Gordons, though shot through the eyes and totally blind, encouraged
his men to charge through a group of the enemy who had gathered round
them. After this victory Hamilton’s men, who had fought for seven days out
of ten, halted for a rest at Jacobsrust, where they were joined by
Broadwood’s cavalry and Bruce Hamilton’s infantry brigade. Ian Hamilton’s
column now contained two infantry brigades (Smith-Dorrien’s and Bruce
Hamilton’s), Ridley’s Mounted Infantry, Broadwood’s Cavalry Brigade, five
batteries of artillery, two heavy guns, altogether 13,000 men. With this
force in constant touch with Botha’s rearguard, Ian Hamilton pushed on
once more on May 4th. On May 5th he fought a brisk cavalry skirmish, in
which Kitchener’s Horse and the 12th Lancers distinguished themselves, and
on the same day he took possession of Winburg, thus covering the right of
Lord Roberts’s great advance.
The distribution of the troops on the eastern side of the Free State was,
at the time of this the final advance of the main army, as follows—Ian
Hamilton with his mounted infantry, Smith-Dorrien’s brigade, Macdonald’s
brigade, Bruce Hamilton’s brigade, and Broadwood’s cavalry were at
Winburg. Rundle was at Thabanchu, and Brabant’s colonial division was
moving up to the same point. Chermside was at Dewetsdorp, and had detached
a force under Lord Castletown to garrison Wepener. Hart occupied
Smithfield, whence he and his brigade were shortly to be transferred to
the Kimberley force. Altogether there could not have been fewer than
thirty thousand men engaged in clearing and holding down this part of the
country. French’s cavalry and Pole-Carew’s division had returned to take
part in the central advance.
Before entering upon a description of that great and decisive movement,
one small action calls for comment. This was the cutting off of twenty men
of Lumsden’s Horse in a reconnaissance at Karee. The small post under
Lieutenant Crane found themselves by some misunderstanding isolated in the
midst of the enemy. Refusing to hoist the flag of shame, they fought their
way out, losing half their number, while of the other half it is said that
there was not one who could not show bullet marks upon his clothes or
person. The men of this corps, volunteer Anglo-Indians, had abandoned the
ease and even luxury of Eastern life for the hard fare and rough fighting
of this most trying campaign. In coming they had set the whole empire an
object-lesson in spirit, and now on their first field they set the army an
example of military virtue. The proud traditions of Outram’s Volunteers
have been upheld by the men of Lumsden’s Horse. Another minor action which
cannot be ignored is the defence of a convoy on April 29th by the
Derbyshire Yeomanry (Major Dugdale) and a company of the Scots Guards. The
wagons were on their way to Rundle when they were attacked at a point
about ten miles west of Thabanchu. The small guard beat off their
assailants in the most gallant fashion, and held their own until relieved
by Brabazon upon the following morning.
This phase of the war was marked by a certain change in the temper of the
British. Nothing could have been milder than the original intentions and
proclamations of Lord Roberts, and he was most ably seconded in his
attempts at conciliation by General Pretyman, who had been made civil
administrator of the State. There was evidence, however, that this
kindness had been construed as weakness by some of the burghers, and
during the Boer incursion to Wepener many who had surrendered a worthless
firearm reappeared with the Mauser which had been concealed in some crafty
hiding-place. Troops were fired at from farmhouses which flew the white
flag, and the good housewife remained behind to charge the ‘rooinek’
extortionate prices for milk and fodder while her husband shot at him from
the hills. It was felt that the burghers might have peace or might have
war, but could not have both simultaneously. Some examples were made
therefore of offending farmhouses, and stock was confiscated where there
was evidence of double dealing upon the part of the owner. In a country
where property is a more serious thing than life, these measures, together
with more stringent rules about the possession of horses and arms, did
much to stamp out the chances of an insurrection in our rear. The worst
sort of peace is an enforced peace, but if that can be established time
and justice may do the rest.
The operations which have been here described may be finally summed up in
one short paragraph. A Boer army came south of the British line and
besieged a British garrison. Three British forces, those of French,
Rundle, and Ian Hamilton, were despatched to cut it off. It successfully
threaded its way among them and escaped. It was followed to the northward
as far as the town of Winburg, which remained in the British possession.
Lord Roberts had failed in his plan of cutting off De Wet’s army, but, at
the expense of many marches and skirmishes, the south-east of the State
was cleared of the enemy.
CHAPTER 24. THE SIEGE OF MAFEKING.
This small place, which sprang in the course of a few weeks from obscurity
to fame, is situated upon the long line of railway which connects
Kimberley in the south with Rhodesia in the north. In character it
resembles one of those western American townlets which possess small
present assets but immense aspirations. In its litter of corrugated-iron
roofs, and in the church and the racecourse, which are the first-fruits
everywhere of Anglo-Celtic civilisation, one sees the seeds of the great
city of the future. It is the obvious depot for the western Transvaal upon
one side, and the starting-point for all attempts upon the Kalahari Desert
upon the other. The Transvaal border runs within a few miles.
It is not clear why the imperial authorities should desire to hold this
place, since it has no natural advantages to help the defence, but lies
exposed in a widespread plain. A glance at the map must show that the
railway line would surely be cut both to the north and south of the town,
and the garrison isolated at a point some two hundred and fifty miles from
any reinforcements. Considering that the Boers could throw any strength of
men or guns against the place, it seemed certain that if they seriously
desired to take possession of it they could do so. Under ordinary
circumstances any force shut up there was doomed to capture. But what may
have seemed short-sighted policy became the highest wisdom, owing to the
extraordinary tenacity and resource of Baden-Powell, the officer in
command. Through his exertions the town acted as a bait to the Boers, and
occupied a considerable force in a useless siege at a time when their
presence at other seats of war might have proved disastrous to the British
cause.
Colonel Baden-Powell is a soldier of a type which is exceedingly popular
with the British public. A skilled hunter and an expert at many games,
there was always something of the sportsman in his keen appreciation of
war. In the Matabele campaign he had out-scouted the savage scouts and
found his pleasure in tracking them among their native mountains, often
alone and at night, trusting to his skill in springing from rock to rock
in his rubber-soled shoes to save him from their pursuit. There was a
brain quality in his bravery which is rare among our officers. Full of
veld craft and resource, it was as difficult to outwit as it was to
outfight him. But there was another curious side to his complex nature.
The French have said of one of their heroes, ‘Il avait cette graine de
folie dans sa bravoure que les Francais aiment,’ and the words might have
been written of Powell. An impish humour broke out in him, and the
mischievous schoolboy alternated with the warrior and the administrator.
He met the Boer commandos with chaff and jokes which were as disconcerting
as his wire entanglements and his rifle-pits. The amazing variety of his
personal accomplishments was one of his most striking characteristics.
From drawing caricatures with both hands simultaneously, or skirt dancing
to leading a forlorn hope, nothing came amiss to him; and he had that
magnetic quality by which the leader imparts something of his virtues to
his men. Such was the man who held Mafeking for the Queen.
In a very early stage, before the formal declaration of war, the enemy had
massed several commandos upon the western border, the men being drawn from
Zeerust, Rustenburg, and Lichtenburg. Baden-Powell, with the aid of an
excellent group of special officers, who included Colonel Gould Adams,
Lord Edward Cecil, the soldier son of England’s Premier, and Colonel Hore,
had done all that was possible to put the place into a state of defence.
In this he had immense assistance from Benjamin Weil, a well known South
African contractor, who had shown great energy in provisioning the town.
On the other hand, the South African Government displayed the same
stupidity or treason which had been exhibited in the case of Kimberley,
and had met all demands for guns and reinforcements with foolish doubts as
to the need of such precautions. In the endeavour to supply these pressing
wants the first small disaster of the campaign was encountered. On October
12th, the day after the declaration of war, an armoured train conveying
two 7-pounders for the Mafeking defences was derailed and captured by a
Boer raiding party at Kraaipan, a place forty miles south of their
destination. The enemy shelled the shattered train until after five hours
Captain Nesbitt, who was in command, and his men, some twenty in number,
surrendered. It was a small affair, but it derived importance from being
the first blood shed and the first tactical success of the war.
The garrison of the town, whose fame will certainly live in the history of
South Africa, contained no regular soldiers at all with the exception of
the small group of excellent officers. They consisted of irregular troops,
three hundred and forty of the Protectorate Regiment, one hundred and
seventy Police, and two hundred volunteers, made up of that singular
mixture of adventurers, younger sons, broken gentlemen, and irresponsible
sportsmen who have always been the voortrekkers of the British Empire.
These men were of the same stamp as those other admirable bodies of
natural fighters who did so well in Rhodesia, in Natal, and in the Cape.
With them there was associated in the defence the Town Guard, who included
the able-bodied shopkeepers, businessmen, and residents, the whole
amounting to about nine hundred men. Their artillery was feeble in the
extreme, two 7-pounder toy guns and six machine guns, but the spirit of
the men and the resource of their leaders made up for every disadvantage.
Colonel Vyvyan and Major Panzera planned the defences, and the little
trading town soon began to take on the appearance of a fortress.
On October 13th the Boers appeared before Mafeking. On the same day
Colonel Baden-Powell sent two truckloads of dynamite out of the place.
They were fired into by the invaders, with the result that they exploded.
On October 14th the pickets around the town were driven in by the Boers.
On this the armoured train and a squadron of the Protectorate Regiment
went out to support the pickets and drove the Boers before them. A body of
the latter doubled back and interposed between the British and Mafeking,
but two fresh troops with a 7-pounder throwing shrapnel drove them off. In
this spirited little action the garrison lost two killed and fourteen
wounded, but they inflicted considerable damage on the enemy. To Captain
Williams, Captain FitzClarence, and Lord Charles Bentinck great credit is
due for the way in which they handled their men; but the whole affair was
ill advised, for if a disaster had occurred Mafeking must have fallen,
being left without a garrison. No possible results which could come from
such a sortie could justify the risk which was run.
On October 16th the siege began in earnest. On that date the Boers brought
up two 12-pounder guns, and the first of that interminable flight of
shells fell into the town. The enemy got possession of the water supply,
but the garrison had already dug wells. Before October 20th five thousand
Boers, under the formidable Cronje, had gathered round the town.
‘Surrender to avoid bloodshed’ was his message. ‘When is the bloodshed
going to begin?’ asked Powell. When the Boers had been shelling the town
for some weeks the lighthearted Colonel sent out to say that if they went
on any longer he should be compelled to regard it as equivalent to a
declaration of war. It is to be hoped that Cronje also possessed some
sense of humour, or else he must have been as sorely puzzled by his
eccentric opponent as the Spanish generals were by the vagaries of Lord
Peterborough.
Among the many difficulties which had to be met by the defenders of the
town the most serious was the fact that the position had a circumference
of five or six miles to be held by about one thousand men against a force
who at their own time and their own place could at any moment attempt to
gain a footing. An ingenious system of small forts was devised to meet the
situation. Each of these held from ten to forty riflemen, and was
furnished with bomb-proofs and covered ways. The central bomb-proof was
connected by telephone with all the outlying ones, so as to save the use
of orderlies. A system of bells was arranged by which each quarter of the
town was warned when a shell was coming in time to enable the inhabitants
to scuttle off to shelter. Every detail showed the ingenuity of the
controlling mind. The armoured train, painted green and tied round with
scrub, stood unperceived among the clumps of bushes which surrounded the
town.
On October 24th a savage bombardment commenced, which lasted with
intermissions for seven months. The Boers had brought an enormous gun
across from Pretoria, throwing a 96-pound shell, and this, with many
smaller pieces, played upon the town. The result was as futile as our own
artillery fire has so often been when directed against the Boers.
As the Mafeking guns were too weak to answer the enemy’s fire, the only
possible reply lay in a sortie, and upon this Colonel Powell decided. It
was carried out with great gallantry on the evening of October 27th, when
about a hundred men under Captain FitzClarence moved out against the Boer
trenches with instructions to use the bayonet only. The position was
carried with a rush, and many of the Boers bayoneted before they could
disengage themselves from the tarpaulins which covered them. The trenches
behind fired wildly in the darkness, and it is probable that as many of
their own men as of ours were hit by their rifle fire. The total loss in
this gallant affair was six killed, eleven wounded, and two prisoners. The
loss of the enemy, though shrouded as usual in darkness, was certainly
very much higher.
On October 31st the Boers ventured upon an attack on Cannon Kopje, which
is a small fort and eminence to the south of the town. It was defended by
Colonel Walford, of the British South African Police, with fifty-seven of
his men and three small guns. The attack was repelled with heavy loss to
the Boers. The British casualties were six killed and five wounded.
Their experience in this attack seems to have determined the Boers to make
no further expensive attempts to rush the town, and for some weeks the
siege degenerated into a blockade. Cronje had been recalled for more
important work, and Commandant Snyman had taken over the uncompleted task.
From time to time the great gun tossed its huge shells into the town, but
boardwood walls and corrugated-iron roofs minimise the dangers of a
bombardment. On November 3rd the garrison rushed the Brickfields, which
had been held by the enemy’s sharpshooters, and on the 7th another small
sally kept the game going. On the 18th Powell sent a message to Snyman
that he could not take the town by sitting and looking at it. At the same
time he despatched a message to the Boer forces generally, advising them
to return to their homes and their families. Some of the commandos had
gone south to assist Cronje in his stand against Methuen, and the siege
languished more and more, until it was woken up by a desperate sortie on
December 26th, which caused the greatest loss which the garrison had
sustained. Once more the lesson was to be enforced that with modern
weapons and equality of forces it is always long odds on the defence.
On this date a vigorous attack was made upon one of the Boer forts on the
north. There seems to be little doubt that the enemy had some inkling of
our intention, as the fort was found to have been so strengthened as to be
impregnable without scaling ladders. The attacking force consisted of two
squadrons of the Protectorate Regiment and one of the Bechuanaland Rifles,
backed up by three guns. So desperate was the onslaught that of the actual
attacking party—a forlorn hope, if ever there was one—fifty-three
out of eighty were killed and wounded, twenty-five of the former and
twenty-eight of the latter. Several of that gallant band of officers who
had been the soul of the defence were among the injured. Captain
FitzClarence was wounded, Vernon, Sandford, and Paton were killed, all at
the very muzzles of the enemy’s guns. It must have been one of the
bitterest moments of Baden-Powell’s life when he shut his field-glass and
said, ‘Let the ambulance go out!’
Even this heavy blow did not damp the spirits nor diminish the energies of
the defence, though it must have warned Baden-Powell that he could not
afford to drain his small force by any more expensive attempts at the
offensive, and that from then onwards he must content himself by holding
grimly on until Plumer from the north or Methuen from the south should at
last be able to stretch out to him a helping hand. Vigilant and
indomitable, throwing away no possible point in the game which he was
playing, the new year found him and his hardy garrison sternly determined
to keep the flag flying.
January and February offer in their records that monotony of excitement
which is the fate of every besieged town. On one day the shelling was a
little more, on another a little less. Sometimes they escaped scatheless,
sometimes the garrison found itself the poorer by the loss of Captain
Girdwood or Trooper Webb or some other gallant soldier. Occasionally they
had their little triumph when a too curious Dutchman, peering for an
instant from his cover to see the effect of his shot, was carried back in
the ambulance to the laager. On Sunday a truce was usually observed, and
the snipers who had exchanged rifle-shots all the week met occasionally on
that day with good-humoured chaff. Snyman, the Boer General, showed none
of that chivalry at Mafeking which distinguished the gallant old Joubert
at Ladysmith. Not only was there no neutral camp for women or sick, but it
is beyond all doubt or question that the Boer guns were deliberately
turned upon the women’s quarters inside Mafeking in order to bring
pressure upon the inhabitants. Many women and children were sacrificed to
this brutal policy, which must in fairness be set to the account of the
savage leader, and not of the rough but kindly folk with whom we were
fighting. In every race there are individual ruffians, and it would be a
political mistake to allow our action to be influenced or our feelings
permanently embittered by their crimes. It is from the man himself, and
not from his country, that an account should be exacted.
The garrison, in the face of increasing losses and decreasing food, lost
none of the high spirits which it reflected from its commander. The
programme of a single day of jubilee—Heaven only knows what they had
to hold jubilee over—shows a cricket match in the morning, sports in
the afternoon, a concert in the evening, and a dance, given by the
bachelor officers, to wind up. Baden-Powell himself seems to have
descended from the eyrie from which, like a captain on the bridge, he rang
bells and telephoned orders, to bring the house down with a comic song and
a humorous recitation. The ball went admirably, save that there was an
interval to repel an attack which disarranged the programme. Sports were
zealously cultivated, and the grimy inhabitants of casemates and trenches
were pitted against each other at cricket or football. [Footnote: Sunday
cricket so shocked Snyman that he threatened to fire upon it if it were
continued.] The monotony was broken by the occasional visits of a postman,
who appeared or vanished from the vast barren lands to the west of the
town, which could not all be guarded by the besiegers. Sometimes a few
words from home came to cheer the hearts of the exiles, and could be
returned by the same uncertain and expensive means. The documents which
found their way up were not always of an essential or even of a welcome
character. At least one man received an unpaid bill from an angry tailor.
In one particular Mafeking had, with much smaller resources, rivalled
Kimberley. An ordnance factory had been started, formed in the railway
workshops, and conducted by Connely and Cloughlan, of the Locomotive
Department. Daniels, of the police, supplemented their efforts by making
both powder and fuses. The factory turned out shells, and eventually
constructed a 5.5-inch smooth-bore gun, which threw a round shell with
great accuracy to a considerable range. April found the garrison, in spite
of all losses, as efficient and as resolute as it had been in October. So
close were the advanced trenches upon either side that both parties had
recourse to the old-fashioned hand grenades, thrown by the Boers, and cast
on a fishing-line by ingenious Sergeant Page, of the Protectorate
Regiment. Sometimes the besiegers and the number of guns diminished,
forces being detached to prevent the advance of Plumer’s relieving column
from the north; but as those who remained held their forts, which it was
beyond the power of the British to storm, the garrison was now much the
better for the alleviation. Putting Mafeking for Ladysmith and Plumer for
Buller, the situation was not unlike that which had existed in Natal.
At this point some account might be given of the doings of that northern
force whose situation was so remote that even the ubiquitous correspondent
hardly appears to have reached it. No doubt the book will eventually make
up for the neglect of the journal, but some short facts may be given here
of the Rhodesian column. Their action did not affect the course of the
war, but they clung like bulldogs to a most difficult task, and
eventually, when strengthened by the relieving column, made their way to
Mafeking.
The force was originally raised for the purpose of defending Rhodesia, and
it consisted of fine material pioneers, farmers, and miners from the great
new land which had been added through the energy of Mr. Rhodes to the
British Empire. Many of the men were veterans of the native wars, and all
were imbued with a hardy and adventurous spirit. On the other hand, the
men of the northern and western Transvaal, whom they were called upon to
face the burghers of Watersberg and Zoutpansberg, were tough frontiersmen
living in a land where a dinner was shot, not bought. Shaggy, hairy,
half-savage men, handling a rifle as a mediaeval Englishman handled a bow,
and skilled in every wile of veld craft, they were as formidable opponents
as the world could show.
On the war breaking out the first thought of the leaders in Rhodesia was
to save as much of the line which was their connection through Mafeking
with the south as was possible. For this purpose an armoured train was
despatched only three days after the expiration of the ultimatum to the
point four hundred miles south of Bulawayo, where the frontiers of the
Transvaal and of Bechuanaland join. Colonel Holdsworth commanded the small
British force. The Boers, a thousand or so in number, had descended upon
the railway, and an action followed in which the train appears to have had
better luck than has usually attended these ill-fated contrivances. The
Boer commando was driven back and a number were killed. It was probably
news of this affair, and not anything which had occurred at Mafeking,
which caused those rumours of gloom at Pretoria very shortly after the
outbreak of hostilities. An agency telegraphed that women were weeping in
the streets of the Boer capital. We had not then realised how soon and how
often we should see the same sight in Pall Mall.
The adventurous armoured train pressed on as far as Lobatsi, where it
found the bridges destroyed; so it returned to its original position,
having another brush with the Boer commandos, and again, in some
marvellous way, escaping its obvious fate. From then until the new year
the line was kept open by an admirable system of patrolling to within a
hundred miles or so of Mafeking. An aggressive spirit and a power of
dashing initiative were shown in the British operations at this side of
the scene of war such as have too often been absent elsewhere. At Sekwani,
on November 24th, a considerable success was gained by a surprise planned
and carried out by Colonel Holdsworth. The Boer laager was approached and
attacked in the early morning by a force of one hundred and twenty
frontiersmen, and so effective was their fire that the Boers estimated
their numbers at several thousand. Thirty Boers were killed or wounded,
and the rest scattered.
While the railway line was held in this way there had been some
skirmishing also on the northern frontier of the Transvaal. Shortly after
the outbreak of the war the gallant Blackburn, scouting with six comrades
in thick bush, found himself in the presence of a considerable commando.
The British concealed themselves by the path, but Blackburn’s foot was
seen by a keen-eyed Kaffir, who pointed it out to his masters. A sudden
volley riddled Blackburn with bullets; but his men stayed by him and drove
off the enemy. Blackburn dictated an official report of the action, and
then died.
In the same region a small force under Captain Hare was cut off by a body
of Boers. Of the twenty men most got away, but the chaplain J.W. Leary,
Lieutenant Haserick (who behaved with admirable gallantry), and six men
were taken. [Footnote: Mr. Leary was wounded in the foot by a shell. The
German artillerist entered the hut in which he lay. ‘Here’s a bit of your
work!’ said Leary good-humouredly. ‘I wish it had been worse,’ said the
amiable German gunner.] The commando which attacked this party, and on the
same day Colonel Spreckley’s force, was a powerful one, with several guns.
No doubt it was organised because there were fears among the Boers that
they would be invaded from the north. When it was understood that the
British intended no large aggressive movement in that quarter, these
burghers joined other commandos. Sarel Eloff, who was one of the leaders
of this northern force, was afterwards taken at Mafeking.
Colonel Plumer had taken command of the small army which was now operating
from the north along the railway line with Mafeking for its objective.
Plumer is an officer of considerable experience in African warfare, a
small, quiet, resolute man, with a knack of gently enforcing discipline
upon the very rough material with which he had to deal. With his weak
force—which never exceeded a thousand men, and was usually from six
to seven hundred—he had to keep the long line behind him open, build
up the ruined railway in front of him, and gradually creep onwards in face
of a formidable and enterprising enemy. For a long time Gaberones, which
is eighty miles north of Mafeking, remained his headquarters, and thence
he kept up precarious communications with the besieged garrison. In the
middle of March he advanced as far south as Lobatsi, which is less than
fifty miles from Mafeking; but the enemy proved to be too strong, and
Plumer had to drop back again with some loss to his original position at
Gaberones. Sticking doggedly to his task, Plumer again came south, and
this time made his way as far as Ramathlabama, within a day’s march of
Mafeking. He had with him, however, only three hundred and fifty men, and
had he pushed through the effect might have been an addition of hungry men
to the garrison. The relieving force was fiercely attacked, however, by
the Boers and driven back on to their camp with a loss of twelve killed,
twenty-six wounded, and fourteen missing. Some of the British were
dismounted men, and it says much for Plumer’s conduct of the fight that he
was able to extricate these safely from the midst of an aggressive mounted
enemy. Personally he set an admirable example, sending away his own horse,
and walking with his rearmost soldiers. Captain Crewe Robertson and
Lieutenant Milligan, the famous Yorkshire cricketer, were killed, and
Rolt, Jarvis, Maclaren, and Plumer himself were wounded. The Rhodesian
force withdrew again to near Lobatsi, and collected itself for yet another
effort.
In the meantime Mafeking—abandoned, as it seemed, to its fate—was
still as formidable as a wounded lion. Far from weakening in its defence
it became more aggressive, and so persistent and skilful were its riflemen
that the big Boer gun had again and again to be moved further from the
town. Six months of trenches and rifle-pits had turned every inhabitant
into a veteran. Now and then words of praise and encouragement came to
them from without. Once it was a special message from the Queen, once a
promise of relief from Lord Roberts. But the rails which led to England
were overgrown with grass, and their brave hearts yearned for the sight of
their countrymen and for the sound of their voices. ‘How long, O Lord, how
long?’ was the cry which was wrung from them in their solitude. But the
flag was still held high.
April was a trying month for the defence. They knew that Methuen, who had
advanced as far as Fourteen Streams upon the Vaal River, had retired again
upon Kimberley. They knew also that Plumer’s force had been weakened by
the repulse at Ramathlabama, and that many of his men were down with
fever. Six weary months had this village withstood the pitiless pelt of
rifle bullet and shell. Help seemed as far away from them as ever. But if
troubles may be allayed by sympathy, then theirs should have lain lightly.
The attention of the whole empire had centred upon them, and even the
advance of Roberts’s army became secondary to the fate of this gallant
struggling handful of men who had upheld the flag so long. On the
Continent also their resistance attracted the utmost interest, and the
numerous journals there who find the imaginative writer cheaper than the
war correspondent announced their capture periodically as they had once
done that of Ladysmith. From a mere tin-roofed village Mafeking had become
a prize of victory, a stake which should be the visible sign of the
predominating manhood of one or other of the great white races of South
Africa. Unconscious of the keenness of the emotions which they had
aroused, the garrison manufactured brawn from horsehide, and captured
locusts as a relish for their luncheons, while in the shot-torn
billiard-room of the club an open tournament was started to fill in their
hours off duty. But their vigilance, and that of the hawk-eyed man up in
the Conning Tower, never relaxed. The besiegers had increased in number,
and their guns were more numerous than before. A less acute man than
Baden-Powell might have reasoned that at least one desperate effort would
be made by them to carry the town before relief could come.
On Saturday, May 12th, the attack was made at the favourite hour of the
Boer—the first grey of the morning. It was gallantly delivered by
about three hundred volunteers under the command of Eloff, who had crept
round to the west of the town—the side furthest from the lines of
the besiegers. At the first rush they penetrated into the native quarter,
which was at once set on fire by them. The first building of any size upon
that side is the barracks of the Protectorate Regiment, which was held by
Colonel Hore and about twenty of his officers and men. This was carried by
the enemy, who sent an exultant message along the telephone to
Baden-Powell to tell him that they had got it. Two other positions within
the lines, one a stone kraal and the other a hill, were held by the Boers,
but their supports were slow in coming on, and the movements of the
defenders were so prompt and energetic that all three found themselves
isolated and cut off from their own lines. They had penetrated the town,
but they were as far as ever from having taken it. All day the British
forces drew their cordon closer and closer round the Boer positions,
making no attempt to rush them, but ringing them round in such a way that
there could be no escape for them. A few burghers slipped away in twos and
threes, but the main body found that they had rushed into a prison from
which the only egress was swept with rifle fire. At seven o’clock in the
evening they recognised that their position was hopeless, and Eloff with
117 men laid down their arms. Their losses had been ten killed and
nineteen wounded. For some reason, either of lethargy, cowardice, or
treachery, Snyman had not brought up the supports which might conceivably
have altered the result. It was a gallant attack gallantly met, and for
once the greater wiliness in fight was shown by the British. The end was
characteristic. ‘Good evening, Commandant,’ said Powell to Eloff; ‘won’t
you come in and have some dinner?’ The prisoners—burghers,
Hollanders, Germans, and Frenchmen—were treated to as good a supper
as the destitute larders of the town could furnish.
So in a small blaze of glory ended the historic siege of Mafeking, for
Eloff’s attack was the last, though by no means the worst of the trials
which the garrison had to face. Six killed and ten wounded were the
British losses in this admirably managed affair. On May 17th, five days
after the fight, the relieving force arrived, the besiegers were
scattered, and the long-imprisoned garrison were free men once more. Many
who had looked at their maps and saw this post isolated in the very heart
of Africa had despaired of ever reaching their heroic fellow-countrymen,
and now one universal outbreak of joybells and bonfires from Toronto to
Melbourne proclaimed that there is no spot so inaccessible that the long
arm of the empire cannot reach it when her children are in peril.
Colonel Mahon, a young Irish officer who had made his reputation as a
cavalry leader in Egypt, had started early in May from Kimberley with a
small but mobile force consisting of the Imperial Light Horse (brought
round from Natal for the purpose), the Kimberley Mounted Corps, the
Diamond Fields Horse, some Imperial Yeomanry, a detachment of the Cape
Police, and 100 volunteers from the Fusilier brigade, with M battery
R.H.A. and pom-poms, twelve hundred men in all. Whilst Hunter was fighting
his action at Rooidam on May 4th, Mahon with his men struck round the
western flank of the Boers and moved rapidly to the northwards. On May
11th they had left Vryburg, the halfway house, behind them, having done
one hundred and twenty miles in five days. They pushed on, encountering no
opposition save that of nature, though they knew that they were being
closely watched by the enemy. At Koodoosrand it was found that a Boer
force was in position in front, but Mahon avoided them by turning somewhat
to the westward. His detour took him, however, into a bushy country, and
here the enemy headed him off, opening fire at short range upon the
ubiquitous Imperial Light Horse, who led the column. A short engagement
ensued, in which the casualties amounted to thirty killed and wounded, but
which ended in the defeat and dispersal of the Boers, whose force was
certainly very much weaker than the British. On May 15th the relieving
column arrived without further opposition at Masibi Stadt, twenty miles to
the west of Mafeking.
In the meantime Plumer’s force upon the north had been strengthened by the
addition of C battery of four 12-pounder guns of the Canadian Artillery
under Major Eudon and a body of Queenslanders. These forces had been part
of the small army which had come with General Carrington through Beira,
and after a detour of thousands of miles, through their own wonderful
energy they had arrived in time to form portion of the relieving column.
Foreign military critics, whose experience of warfare is to move troops
across a frontier, should think of what the Empire has to do before her
men go into battle. These contingents had been assembled by long railway
journeys, conveyed across thousands of miles of ocean to Cape Town,
brought round another two thousand or so to Beira, transferred by a
narrow-gauge railway to Bamboo Creek, changed to a broader gauge to
Marandellas, sent on in coaches for hundreds of miles to Bulawayo,
transferred to trains for another four or five hundred miles to Ootsi, and
had finally a forced march of a hundred miles, which brought them up a few
hours before their presence was urgently needed upon the field. Their
advance, which averaged twenty-five miles a day on foot for four
consecutive days over deplorable roads, was one of the finest performances
of the war. With these high-spirited reinforcements and with his own hardy
Rhodesians Plumer pushed on, and the two columns reached the hamlet of
Masibi Stadt within an hour of each other. Their united strength was far
superior to anything which Snyman’s force could place against them.
But the gallant and tenacious Boers would not abandon their prey without a
last effort. As the little army advanced upon Mafeking they found the
enemy waiting in a strong position. For some hours the Boers gallantly
held their ground, and their artillery fire was, as usual, most accurate.
But our own guns were more numerous and equally well served, and the
position was soon made untenable. The Boers retired past Mafeking and took
refuge in the trenches upon the eastern side, but Baden-Powell with his
war-hardened garrison sallied out, and, supported by the artillery fire of
the relieving column, drove them from their shelter. With their usual
admirable tactics their larger guns had been removed, but one small cannon
was secured as a souvenir by the townsfolk, together with a number of
wagons and a considerable quantity of supplies. A long rolling trail of
dust upon the eastern horizon told that the famous siege of Mafeking had
at last come to an end.
So ended a singular incident, the defence of an open town which contained
no regular soldiers and a most inadequate artillery against a numerous and
enterprising enemy with very heavy guns. All honour to the towns folk who
bore their trial so long and so bravely—and to the indomitable men
who lined the trenches for seven weary months. Their constancy was of
enormous value to the empire. In the all-important early month at least
four or five thousand Boers were detained by them when their presence
elsewhere would have been fatal. During all the rest of the war, two
thousand men and eight guns (including one of the four big Creusots) had
been held there. It prevented the invasion of Rhodesia, and it gave a
rallying-point for loyal whites and natives in the huge stretch of country
from Kimberley to Bulawayo. All this had, at a cost of two hundred lives,
been done by this one devoted band of men, who killed, wounded, or took no
fewer than one thousand of their opponents. Critics may say that the
enthusiasm in the empire was excessive, but at least it was expended over
worthy men and a fine deed of arms.
CHAPTER 25. THE MARCH ON PRETORIA.
In the early days of May, when the season of the rains was past and the
veld was green, Lord Roberts’s six weeks of enforced inaction came to an
end. He had gathered himself once more for one of those tiger springs
which should be as sure and as irresistible as that which had brought him
from Belmont to Bloemfontein, or that other in olden days which had
carried him from Cabul to Candahar. His army had been decimated by
sickness, and eight thousand men had passed into the hospitals; but those
who were with the colours were of high heart, longing eagerly for action.
Any change which would carry them away from the pest-ridden, evil-smelling
capital which had revenged itself so terribly upon the invader must be a
change for the better. Therefore it was with glad faces and brisk feet
that the centre column left Bloemfontein on May 1st, and streamed, with
bands playing, along the northern road.
On May 3rd the main force was assembled at Karee, twenty miles upon their
way. Two hundred and twenty separated them from Pretoria, but in little
more than a month from the day of starting, in spite of broken railway, a
succession of rivers, and the opposition of the enemy, this army was
marching into the main street of the Transvaal capital. Had there been no
enemy there at all, it would still have been a fine performance, the more
so when one remembers that the army was moving upon a front of twenty
miles or more, each part of which had to be co-ordinated to the rest. It
is with the story of this great march that the present chapter deals.
Roberts had prepared the way by clearing out the south-eastern corner of
the State, and at the moment of his advance his forces covered a
semicircular front of about forty miles, the right under Ian Hamilton near
Thabanchu, and the left at Karee. This was the broad net which was to be
swept from south to north across the Free State, gradually narrowing as it
went. The conception was admirable, and appears to have been an adoption
of the Boers’ own strategy, which had in turn been borrowed from the
Zulus. The solid centre could hold any force which faced it, while the
mobile flanks, Hutton upon the left and Hamilton upon the right, could lap
round and pin it, as Cronje was pinned at Paardeberg. It seems admirably
simple when done upon a small scale. But when the scale is one of forty
miles, since your front must be broad enough to envelop the front which is
opposed to it, and when the scattered wings have to be fed with no railway
line to help, it takes such a master of administrative detail as Lord
Kitchener to bring the operations to complete success.
On May 3rd, the day of the advance from our most northern post, Karee, the
disposition of Lord Roberts’s army was briefly as follows. On his left was
Hutton, with his mixed force of mounted infantry drawn from every quarter
of the empire. This formidable and mobile body, with some batteries of
horse artillery and of pom-poms, kept a line a few miles to the west of
the railroad, moving northwards parallel with it. Roberts’s main column
kept on the railroad, which was mended with extraordinary speed by the
Railway Pioneer regiment and the Engineers, under Girouard and the
ill-fated Seymour. It was amazing to note the shattered culverts as one
passed, and yet to be overtaken by trains within a day. This main column
consisted of Pole-Carew’s 11th Division, which contained the Guards, and
Stephenson’s Brigade (Warwicks, Essex, Welsh, and Yorkshires). With them
were the 83rd, 84th, and 85th R.F.A., with the heavy guns, and a small
force of mounted infantry. Passing along the widespread British line one
would then, after an interval of seven or eight miles, come upon Tucker’s
Division (the 7th), which consisted of Maxwell’s Brigade (formerly
Chermside’s—the Norfolks, Lincolns, Hampshires, and Scottish
Borderers) and Wavell’s Brigade (North Staffords, Cheshires, East
Lancashires, South Wales Borderers). To the right of these was Ridley’s
mounted infantry. Beyond them, extending over very many miles of country
and with considerable spaces between, there came Broadwood’s cavalry,
Bruce Hamilton’s Brigade (Derbyshires, Sussex, Camerons, and C.I.V.), and
finally on the extreme right of all Ian Hamilton’s force of Highlanders,
Canadians, Shropshires, and Cornwalls, with cavalry and mounted infantry,
starting forty miles from Lord Roberts, but edging westwards all the way,
to merge with the troops next to it, and to occupy Winburg in the way
already described. This was the army, between forty and fifty thousand
strong, with which Lord Roberts advanced upon the Transvaal.
In the meantime he had anticipated that his mobile and enterprising
opponents would work round and strike at our rear. Ample means had been
provided for dealing with any attempt of the kind. Rundle with the 8th
Division and Brabant’s Colonial Division remained in rear of the right
flank to confront any force which might turn it. At Bloemfontein were
Kelly-Kenny’s Division (the 6th) and Chermside’s (the 3rd), with a force
of cavalry and guns. Methuen, working from Kimberley towards Boshof,
formed the extreme left wing of the main advance, though distant a hundred
miles from it. With excellent judgment Lord Roberts saw that it was on our
right flank that danger was to be feared, and here it was that every
precaution had been taken to meet it.
The objective of the first day’s march was the little town of Brandfort,
ten miles north of Karee. The head of the main column faced it, while the
left arm swept round and drove the Boer force from their position.
Tucker’s Division upon the right encountered some opposition, but overbore
it with artillery. May 4th was a day of rest for the infantry, but on the
5th they advanced, in the same order as before, for twenty miles, and
found themselves to the south of the Vet River, where the enemy had
prepared for an energetic resistance. A vigorous artillery duel ensued,
the British guns in the open as usual against an invisible enemy. After
three hours of a very hot fire the mounted infantry got across the river
upon the left and turned the Boer flank, on which they hastily withdrew.
The first lodgment was effected by two bodies of Canadians and New
Zealanders, who were energetically supported by Captain Anley’s 3rd
Mounted Infantry. The rushing of a kopje by twenty-three West Australians
was another gallant incident which marked this engagement, in which our
losses were insignificant. A maxim and twenty or thirty prisoners were
taken by Hutton’s men. The next day (May 6th) the army moved across the
difficult drift of the Vet River, and halted that night at Smaldeel, some
five miles to the north of it. At the same time Ian Hamilton had been able
to advance to Winburg, so that the army had contracted its front by about
half, but had preserved its relative positions. Hamilton, after his
junction with his reinforcements at Jacobsrust, had under him so powerful
a force that he overbore all resistance. His actions between Thabanchu and
Winburg had cost the Boers heavy loss, and in one action the German legion
had been overthrown. The informal warfare which was made upon us by
citizens of many nations without rebuke from their own Governments is a
matter of which pride, and possibly policy, have forbidden us to complain,
but it will be surprising if it does not prove that their laxity has
established a very dangerous precedent, and they will find it difficult to
object when, in the next little war in which either France or Germany is
engaged, they find a few hundred British adventurers carrying a rifle
against them.
The record of the army’s advance is now rather geographical than military,
for it rolled northwards with never a check save that which was caused by
the construction of the railway diversions which atoned for the
destruction of the larger bridges. The infantry now, as always in the
campaign, marched excellently; for though twenty miles in the day may seem
a moderate allowance to a healthy man upon an English road, it is a
considerable performance under an African sun with a weight of between
thirty and forty pounds to be carried. The good humour of the men was
admirable, and they eagerly longed to close with the elusive enemy who
flitted ever in front of them. Huge clouds of smoke veiled the northern
sky, for the Boers had set fire to the dry grass, partly to cover their
own retreat, and partly to show up our khaki upon the blackened surface.
Far on the flanks the twinkling heliographs revealed the position of the
wide-spread wings.
On May 10th Lord Roberts’s force, which had halted for three days at
Smaldeel, moved onwards to Welgelegen. French’s cavalry had come up by
road, and quickly strengthened the centre and left wing of the army. On
the morning of the 10th the invaders found themselves confronted by a
formidable position which the Boers had taken up on the northern bank of
the Sand River. Their army extended over twenty miles of country, the two
Bothas were in command, and everything pointed to a pitched battle. Had
the position been rushed from the front, there was every material for a
second Colenso, but the British had learned that it was by brains rather
than by blood that such battles may be won. French’s cavalry turned the
Boers on one side, and Bruce Hamilton’s infantry on the other.
Theoretically we never passed the Boer flanks, but practically their line
was so over-extended that we were able to pierce it at any point. There
was never any severe fighting, but rather a steady advance upon the
British side and a steady retirement upon that of the Boers. On the left
the Sussex regiment distinguished itself by the dash with which it stormed
an important kopje. The losses were slight, save among a detached body of
cavalry which found itself suddenly cut off by a strong force of the enemy
and lost Captain Elworthy killed, and Haig of the Inniskillings, Wilkinson
of the Australian Horse, and twenty men prisoners. We also secured forty
or fifty prisoners, and the enemy’s casualties amounted to about as many
more. The whole straggling action fought over a front as broad as from
London to Woking cost the British at the most a couple of hundred
casualties, and carried their army over the most formidable defensive
position which they were to encounter. The war in its later phases
certainly has the pleasing characteristic of being the most bloodless,
considering the number of men engaged and the amount of powder burned,
that has been known in history. It was at the expense of their boots and
not of their lives that the infantry won their way.
On May 11th Lord Roberts’s army advanced twenty miles to Geneva Siding,
and every preparation was made for a battle next day, as it was thought
certain that the Boers would defend their new capital, Kroonstad. It
proved, however, that even here they would not make a stand, and on May
12th, at one o’clock, Lord Roberts rode into the town. Steyn, Botha, and
De Wet escaped, and it was announced that the village of Lindley had
become the new seat of government. The British had now accomplished half
their journey to Pretoria, and it was obvious that on the south side of
the Vaal no serious resistance awaited them. Burghers were freely
surrendering themselves with their arms, and returning to their farms. In
the south-east Rundle and Brabant were slowly advancing, while the Boers
who faced them fell back towards Lindley. On the west, Hunter had crossed
the Vaal at Windsorton, and Barton’s Fusilier Brigade had fought a sharp
action at Rooidam, while Mahon’s Mafeking relief column had slipped past
their flank, escaping the observation of the British public, but certainly
not that of the Boers. The casualties in the Rooidam action were nine
killed and thirty wounded, but the advance of the Fusiliers was
irresistible, and for once the Boer loss, as they were hustled from kopje
to kopje, appears to have been greater than that of the British. The
Yeomanry had an opportunity of showing once more that there are few more
high-mettled troops in South Africa than these good sportsmen of the
shires, who only showed a trace of their origin in their irresistible
inclination to burst into a ‘tally-ho!’ when ordered to attack. The Boer
forces fell back after the action along the line of the Vaal, making for
Christiana and Bloemhof. Hunter entered into the Transvaal in pursuit of
them, being the first to cross the border, with the exception of raiding
Rhodesians early in the war. Methuen, in the meanwhile, was following a
course parallel to Hunter but south of him, Hoopstad being his immediate
objective. The little union jacks which were stuck in the war maps in so
many British households were now moving swiftly upwards.
Buller’s force was also sweeping northwards, and the time had come when
the Ladysmith garrison, restored at last to health and strength, should
have a chance of striking back at those who had tormented them so long.
Many of the best troops had been drafted away to other portions of the
seat of war. Hart’s Brigade and Barton’s Fusilier Brigade had gone with
Hunter to form the 10th Division upon the Kimberley side, and the Imperial
Light Horse had been brought over for the relief of Mafeking. There
remained, however, a formidable force, the regiments in which had been
strengthened by the addition of drafts and volunteers from home. Not less
than twenty thousand sabres and bayonets were ready and eager for the
passage of the Biggarsberg mountains.
This line of rugged hills is pierced by only three passes, each of which
was held in strength by the enemy. Considerable losses must have ensued
from any direct attempt to force them. Buller, however, with excellent
judgment, demonstrated in front of them with Hildyard’s men, while the
rest of the army, marching round, outflanked the line of resistance, and
on May 15th pounced upon Dundee. Much had happened since that October day
when Penn Symons led his three gallant regiments up Talana Hill, but now
at last, after seven weary months, the ground was reoccupied which he had
gained. His old soldiers visited his grave, and the national flag was
raised over the remains of as gallant a man as ever died for the sake of
it.
The Boers, whose force did not exceed a few thousands, were now rolled
swiftly back through Northern Natal into their own country. The long
strain at Ladysmith had told upon them, and the men whom we had to meet
were very different from the warriors of Spion Kop and Nicholson’s Nek.
They had done magnificently, but there is a limit to human endurance, and
no longer would these peasants face the bursting lyddite and the bayonets
of angry soldiers. There is little enough for us to boast of in this. Some
pride might be taken in the campaign when at a disadvantage we were facing
superior numbers, but now we could but deplore the situation in which
these poor valiant burghers found themselves, the victims of a rotten
government and of their own delusions. Hofer’s Tyrolese, Charette’s
Vendeans, or Bruce’s Scotchmen never fought a finer fight than these
children of the veld, but in each case they combated a real and not an
imaginary tyrant. It is heart-sickening to think of the butchery, the
misery, the irreparable losses, the blood of men, and the bitter tears of
women, all of which might have been spared had one obstinate and ignorant
man been persuaded to allow the State which he ruled to conform to the
customs of every other civilised State upon the earth.
Buller was now moving with a rapidity and decision which contrast
pleasantly with some of his earlier operations. Although Dundee was only
occupied on May 15th, on May 18th his vanguard was in Newcastle, fifty
miles to the north. In nine days he had covered 138 miles. On the 19th the
army lay under the loom of that Majuba which had cast its sinister shadow
for so long over South African politics. In front was the historical
Laing’s Nek, the pass which leads from Natal into the Transvaal, while
through it runs the famous railway tunnel. Here the Boers had taken up
that position which had proved nineteen years before to be too strong for
British troops. The Rooineks had come back after many days to try again. A
halt was called, for the ten days’ supplies which had been taken with the
troops were exhausted, and it was necessary to wait until the railway
should be repaired. This gave time for Hildyard’s 5th Division and
Lyttelton’s 4th Division to close up on Clery’s 2nd Division, which with
Dundonald’s cavalry had formed our vanguard throughout. The only losses of
any consequence during this fine march fell upon a single squadron of
Bethune’s mounted infantry, which being thrown out in the direction of
Vryheid, in order to make sure that our flank was clear, fell into an
ambuscade and was almost annihilated by a close-range fire. Sixty-six
casualties, of which nearly half were killed, were the result of this
action, which seems to have depended, like most of our reverses, upon
defective scouting. Buller, having called up his two remaining divisions
and having mended the railway behind him, proceeded now to manoeuvre the
Boers out of Laing’s Nek exactly as he had manoeuvred them out of the
Biggarsberg. At the end of May Hildyard and Lyttelton were despatched in
an eastern direction, as if there were an intention of turning the pass
from Utrecht.
It was on May 12th that Lord Roberts occupied Kroonstad, and he halted
there for eight days before he resumed his advance. At the end of that
time his railway had been repaired, and enough supplies brought up to
enable him to advance again without anxiety. The country through which he
passed swarmed with herds and flocks, but, with as scrupulous a regard for
the rights of property as Wellington showed in the south of France, no
hungry soldier was allowed to take so much as a chicken as he passed. The
punishment for looting was prompt and stern. It is true that farms were
burned occasionally and the stock confiscated, but this was as a
punishment for some particular offence and not part of a system. The
limping Tommy looked askance at the fat geese which covered the dam by the
roadside, but it was as much as his life was worth to allow his fingers to
close round those tempting white necks. On foul water and bully beef he
tramped through a land of plenty.
Lord Roberts’s eight days’ halt was spent in consolidating the general
military situation. We have already shown how Buller had crept upwards to
the Natal Border. On the west Methuen reached Hoopstad and Hunter
Christiana, settling the country and collecting arms as they went. Rundle
in the south-east took possession of the rich grain lands, and on May 21st
entered Ladybrand. In front of him lay that difficult hilly country about
Senekal, Ficksburg, and Bethlehem which was to delay him so long. Ian
Hamilton was feeling his way northwards to the right of the railway line,
and for the moment cleared the district between Lindley and Heilbron,
passing through both towns and causing Steyn to again change his capital,
which became Vrede, in the extreme north-east of the State. During these
operations Hamilton had the two formidable De Wet brothers in front of
him, and suffered nearly a hundred casualties in the continual skirmishing
which accompanied his advance. His right flank and rear were continually
attacked, and these signs of forces outside our direct line of advance
were full of menace for the future.
On May 22nd the main army resumed its advance, moving forward fifteen
miles to Honing’s Spruit. On the 23rd another march of twenty miles over a
fine rolling prairie brought them to Rhenoster River. The enemy had made
some preparations for a stand, but Hamilton was near Heilbron upon their
left and French was upon their right flank. The river was crossed without
opposition. On the 24th the army was at Vredefort Road, and on the 26th
the vanguard crossed the Vaal River at Viljoen’s Drift, the whole army
following on the 27th. Hamilton’s force had been cleverly swung across
from the right to the left flank of the British, so that the Boers were
massed on the wrong side.
Preparations for resistance had been made on the line of the railway, but
the wide turning movements on the flanks by the indefatigable French and
Hamilton rendered all opposition of no avail. The British columns flowed
over and onwards without a pause, tramping steadily northwards to their
destination. The bulk of the Free State forces refused to leave their own
country, and moved away to the eastern and northern portion of the State,
where the British Generals thought—incorrectly, as the future was to
prove—that no further harm would come from them. The State which
they were in arms to defend had really ceased to exist, for already it had
been publicly proclaimed at Bloemfontein in the Queen’s name that the
country had been annexed to the Empire, and that its style henceforth was
that of ‘The Orange River Colony.’ Those who think this measure unduly
harsh must remember that every mile of land which the Freestaters had
conquered in the early part of the war had been solemnly annexed by them.
At the same time, those Englishmen who knew the history of this State,
which had once been the model of all that a State should be, were saddened
by the thought that it should have deliberately committed suicide for the
sake of one of the most corrupt governments which have ever been known.
Had the Transvaal been governed as the Orange Free State was, such an
event as the second Boer war could never have occurred.
Lord Roberts’s tremendous march was now drawing to a close. On May 28th
the troops advanced twenty miles, and passed Klip River without fighting.
It was observed with surprise that the Transvaalers were very much more
careful of their own property than they had been of that of their allies,
and that the railway was not damaged at all by the retreating forces. The
country had become more populous, and far away upon the low curves of the
hills were seen high chimneys and gaunt iron pumps which struck the north
of England soldier with a pang of homesickness. This long distant hill was
the famous Rand, and under its faded grasses lay such riches as Solomon
never took from Ophir. It was the prize of victory; and yet the prize is
not to the victor, for the dust-grimed officers and men looked with little
personal interest at this treasure-house of the world. Not one penny the
richer would they be for the fact that their blood and their energy had
brought justice and freedom to the gold fields. They had opened up an
industry for the world, men of all nations would be the better for their
labours, the miner and the financier or the trader would equally profit by
them, but the men in khaki would tramp on, unrewarded and uncomplaining,
to India, to China, to any spot where the needs of their worldwide empire
called them.
The infantry, streaming up from the Vaal River to the famous ridge of
gold, had met with no resistance upon the way, but great mist banks of
cloud by day and huge twinkling areas of flame by night showed the
handiwork of the enemy. Hamilton and French, moving upon the left flank,
found Boers thick upon the hills, but cleared them off in a well-managed
skirmish which cost us a dozen casualties. On May 29th, pushing swiftly
along, French found the enemy posted very strongly with several guns at
Doornkop, a point west of Klip River Berg. The cavalry leader had with him
at this stage three horse batteries, four pom-poms, and 3000 mounted men.
The position being too strong for him to force, Hamilton’s infantry (19th
and 21st Brigades) were called up, and the Boers were driven out. That
splendid corps, the Gordons, lost nearly a hundred men in their advance
over the open, and the C.I.V.s on the other flank fought like a regiment
of veterans. There had been an inclination to smile at these citizen
soldiers when they first came out, but no one smiled now save the General
who felt that he had them at his back. Hamilton’s attack was assisted by
the menace rather than the pressure of French’s turning movement on the
Boer right, but the actual advance was as purely frontal as any of those
which had been carried through at the beginning of the war. The open
formation of the troops, the powerful artillery behind them, and perhaps
also the lowered morale of the enemy combined to make such a movement less
dangerous than of old. In any case it was inevitable, as the state of
Hamilton’s commisariat rendered it necessary that at all hazards he should
force his way through.
Whilst this action of Doornkop was fought by the British left flank,
Henry’s mounted infantry in the centre moved straight upon the important
junction of Germiston, which lies amid the huge white heaps of tailings
from the mines. At this point, or near it, the lines from Johannesburg and
from Natal join the line to Pretoria. Colonel Henry’s advance was an
extremely daring one, for the infantry were some distance behind; but
after an irregular scrambling skirmish, in which the Boer snipers had to
be driven off the mine heaps and from among the houses, the 8th mounted
infantry got their grip of the railway and held it. The exploit was a very
fine one, and stands out the more brilliantly as the conduct of the
campaign cannot be said to afford many examples of that well-considered
audacity which deliberately runs the risk of the minor loss for the sake
of the greater gain. Henry was much assisted by J battery R.H.A., which
was handled with energy and judgment.
French was now on the west of the town, Henry had cut the railway on the
east, and Roberts was coming up from the south. His infantry had covered
130 miles in seven days, but the thought that every step brought them
nearer to Pretoria was as exhilarating as their fifes and drums. On May
30th the victorious troops camped outside the city while Botha retired
with his army, abandoning without a battle the treasure-house of his
country. Inside the town were chaos and confusion. The richest mines in
the world lay for a day or more at the mercy of a lawless rabble drawn
from all nations. The Boer officials were themselves divided in opinion,
Krause standing for law and order while Judge Koch advocated violence. A
spark would have set the town blazing, and the worst was feared when a
crowd of mercenaries assembled in front of the Robinson mine with threats
of violence. By the firmness and tact of Mr. Tucker, the manager, and by
the strong attitude of Commissioner Krause, the situation was saved and
the danger passed. Upon May 31st, without violence to life or destruction
to property, that great town which British hands have done so much to
build found itself at last under the British flag. May it wave there so
long as it covers just laws, honest officials, and clean-handed
administrators—so long and no longer!
And now the last stage of the great journey had been reached. Two days
were spent at Johannesburg while supplies were brought up, and then a move
was made upon Pretoria thirty miles to the north. Here was the Boer
capital, the seat of government, the home of Kruger, the centre of all
that was anti-British, crouching amid its hills, with costly forts
guarding every face of it. Surely at last the place had been found where
that great battle should be fought which should decide for all time
whether it was with the Briton or with the Dutchman that the future of
South Africa lay.
On the last day of May two hundred Lancers under the command of Major
Hunter Weston, with Charles of the Sappers and Burnham the scout, a man
who has played the part of a hero throughout the campaign, struck off from
the main army and endeavoured to descend upon the Pretoria to Delagoa
railway line with the intention of blowing up a bridge and cutting the
Boer line of retreat. It was a most dashing attempt; but the small party
had the misfortune to come into contact with a strong Boer commando, who
headed them off. After a skirmish they were compelled to make their way
back with a loss of five killed and fourteen wounded.
The cavalry under French had waited for the issue of this enterprise at a
point nine miles north of Johannesburg. On June 2nd it began its advance
with orders to make a wide sweep round to the westward, and so skirt the
capital, cutting the Pietersburg railway to the north of it. The country
in the direct line between Johannesburg and Pretoria consists of a series
of rolling downs which are admirably adapted for cavalry work, but the
detour which French had to make carried him into the wild and broken
district which lies to the north of the Little Crocodile River. Here he
was fiercely attacked on ground where his troops could not deploy, but
with extreme coolness and judgment beat off the enemy. To cover thirty-two
miles in a day and fight a way out of an ambuscade in the evening is an
ordeal for any leader and for any troops. Two killed and seven wounded
were our trivial losses in a situation which might have been a serious
one. The Boers appear to have been the escort of a strong convoy which had
passed along the road some miles in front. Next morning both convoy and
opposition had disappeared. The cavalry rode on amid a country of orange
groves, the troopers standing up in their stirrups to pluck the golden
fruit. There was no further fighting, and on June 4th French had
established himself upon the north of the town, where he learned that all
resistance had ceased.
Whilst the cavalry had performed this enveloping movement the main army
had moved swiftly upon its objective, leaving one brigade behind to secure
Johannesburg. Ian Hamilton advanced upon the left, while Lord Roberts’s
column kept the line of the railway, Colonel Henry’s mounted infantry
scouting in front. As the army topped the low curves of the veld they saw
in front of them two well-marked hills, each crowned by a low squat
building. They were the famous southern forts of Pretoria. Between the
hills was a narrow neck, and beyond the Boer capital.
For a time it appeared that the entry was to be an absolutely bloodless
one, but the booming of cannon and the crash of Mauser fire soon showed
that the enemy was in force upon the ridge. Botha had left a strong
rearguard to hold off the British while his own stores and valuables were
being withdrawn from the town. The silence of the forts showed that the
guns had been removed and that no prolonged resistance was intended; but
in the meanwhile fringes of determined riflemen, supported by cannon, held
the approaches, and must be driven off before an entry could be effected.
Each fresh corps as it came up reinforced the firing line. Henry’s mounted
infantrymen supported by the horse-guns of J battery and the guns of
Tucker’s division began the action. So hot was the answer, both from
cannon and from rifle, that it seemed for a time as if a real battle were
at last about to take place. The Guards’ Brigade, Stephenson’s Brigade,
and Maxwell’s Brigade streamed up and waited until Hamilton, who was on
the enemy’s right flank, should be able to make his presence felt. The
heavy guns had also arrived, and a huge cloud of debris rising from the
Pretorian forts told the accuracy of their fire.
But either the burghers were half-hearted or there was no real intention
to make a stand. About half-past two their fire slackened and Pole-Carew
was directed to push on. That debonnaire soldier with his two veteran
brigades obeyed the order with alacrity, and the infantry swept over the
ridge, with some thirty or forty casualties, the majority of which fell to
the Warwicks. The position was taken, and Hamilton, who came up late, was
only able to send on De Lisle’s mounted infantry, chiefly Australians, who
ran down one of the Boer maxims in the open. The action had cost us
altogether about seventy men. Among the injured was the Duke of Norfolk,
who had shown a high sense of civic virtue in laying aside the duties and
dignity of a Cabinet Minister in order to serve as a simple captain of
volunteers. At the end of this one fight the capital lay at the mercy of
Lord Roberts. Consider the fight which they made for their chief city,
compare it with that which the British made for the village of Mafeking,
and say on which side is that stern spirit of self-sacrifice and
resolution which are the signs of the better cause.
In the early morning of June 5th, the Coldstream Guards were mounting the
hills which commanded the town. Beneath them in the clear African air lay
the famous city, embowered in green, the fine central buildings rising
grandly out of the wide circle of villas. Through the Nek part of the
Guards’ Brigade and Maxwell’s Brigade had passed, and had taken over the
station, from which at least one train laden with horses had steamed that
morning. Two others, both ready to start, were only just stopped in time.
The first thought was for the British prisoners, and a small party headed
by the Duke of Marlborough rode to their rescue. Let it be said once for
all that their treatment by the Boers was excellent and that their
appearance would alone have proved it. One hundred and twenty-nine
officers and thirty-nine soldiers were found in the Model Schools, which
had been converted into a prison. A day later our cavalry arrived at
Waterval, which is fourteen miles to the north of Pretoria. Here were
confined three thousand soldiers, whose fare had certainly been of the
scantiest, though in other respects they appear to have been well treated.
[Footnote: Further information unfortunately shows that in the case of the
sick and of the Colonial prisoners the treatment was by no means good.]
Nine hundred of their comrades had been removed by the Boers, but Porter’s
cavalry was in time to release the others, under a brisk shell fire from a
Boer gun upon the ridge. Many pieces of good luck we had in the campaign,
but this recovery of our prisoners, which left the enemy without a
dangerous lever for exacting conditions of peace, was the most fortunate
of all.
In the centre of the town there is a wide square decorated or disfigured
by a bare pedestal upon which a statue of the President was to have been
placed. Hard by is the bleak barnlike church in which he preached, and on
either side are the Government offices and the Law Courts, buildings which
would grace any European capital. Here, at two o’clock on the afternoon of
June 5th, Lord Roberts sat his horse and saw pass in front of him the men
who had followed him so far and so faithfully—the Guards, the Essex,
the Welsh, the Yorks, the Warwicks, the guns, the mounted infantry, the
dashing irregulars, the Gordons, the Canadians, the Shropshires, the
Cornwalls, the Camerons, the Derbys, the Sussex, and the London
Volunteers. For over two hours the khaki waves with their crests of steel
went sweeping by. High above their heads from the summit of the Raad-saal
the broad Union Jack streamed for the first time. Through months of
darkness we had struggled onwards to the light. Now at last the strange
drama seemed to be drawing to its close. The God of battles had given the
long-withheld verdict. But of all the hearts which throbbed high at that
supreme moment there were few who felt one touch of bitterness towards the
brave men who had been overborne. They had fought and died for their
ideal. We had fought and died for ours. The hope for the future of South
Africa is that they or their descendants may learn that that banner which
has come to wave above Pretoria means no racial intolerance, no greed for
gold, no paltering with injustice or corruption, but that it means one law
for all and one freedom for all, as it does in every other continent in
the whole broad earth. When that is learned it may happen that even they
will come to date a happier life and a wider liberty from that 5th of June
which saw the symbol of their nation pass for ever from among the ensigns
of the world.
CHAPTER 26. DIAMOND HILL—RUNDLE’S OPERATIONS.
The military situation at the time of the occupation of Pretoria was
roughly as follows. Lord Roberts with some thirty thousand men was in
possession of the capital, but had left his long line of communications
very imperfectly guarded behind him. On the flank of this line of
communications, in the eastern and north-eastern corner of the Free State,
was an energetic force of unconquered Freestaters who had rallied round
President Steyn. They were some eight or ten thousand in number, well
horsed, with a fair number of guns, under the able leadership of De Wet,
Prinsloo, and Olivier. Above all, they had a splendid position,
mountainous and broken, from which, as from a fortress, they could make
excursions to the south or west. This army included the commandos of
Ficksburg, Senekal, and Harrismith, with all the broken and desperate men
from other districts who had left their farms and fled to the mountains.
It was held in check as a united force by Rundle’s Division and the
Colonial Division on the south, while Colvile, and afterwards Methuen,
endeavoured to pen them in on the west. The task was a hard one, however,
and though Rundle succeeded in holding his line intact, it appeared to be
impossible in that wide country to coop up altogether an enemy so mobile.
A strange game of hide-and-seek ensued, in which De Wet, who led the Boer
raids, was able again and again to strike our line of rails and to get
back without serious loss. The story of these instructive and humiliating
episodes will be told in their order. The energy and skill of the guerilla
chief challenge our admiration, and the score of his successes would be
amusing were it not that the points of the game are marked by the lives of
British soldiers.
General Buller had spent the latter half of May in making his way from
Ladysmith to Laing’s Nek, and the beginning of June found him with twenty
thousand men in front of that difficult position. Some talk of a surrender
had arisen, and Christian Botha, who commanded the Boers, succeeded in
gaining several days’ armistice, which ended in nothing. The Transvaal
forces at this point were not more than a few thousand in number, but
their position was so formidable that it was a serious task to turn them
out. Van Wyk’s Hill, however, had been left unguarded, and as its
possession would give the British the command of Botha’s Pass, its
unopposed capture by the South African Light Horse was an event of great
importance. With guns upon this eminence the infantry were able, on June
8th, to attack and to carry with little loss the rest of the high ground,
and so to get the Pass into their complete possession. Botha fired the
grass behind him, and withdrew sullenly to the north. On the 9th and 10th
the convoys were passed over the Pass, and on the 11th the main body of
the army followed them.
The operations were now being conducted in that extremely acute angle of
Natal which runs up between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In
crossing Botha’s Pass the army had really entered what was now the Orange
River Colony. But it was only for a very short time, as the object of the
movement was to turn the Laing’s Nek position, and then come back into the
Transvaal through Alleman’s Pass. The gallant South African Light Horse
led the way, and fought hard at one point to clear a path for the army,
losing six killed and eight wounded in a sharp skirmish. On the morning of
the 12th the flanking movement was far advanced, and it only remained for
the army to force Alleman’s Nek, which would place it to the rear of
Laing’s Nek, and close to the Transvaal town of Volksrust.
Had the Boers been the men of Colenso and of Spion Kop, this storming of
Alleman’s Nek would have been a bloody business. The position was strong,
the cover was slight, and there was no way round. But the infantry came on
with the old dash without the old stubborn resolution being opposed to
them. The guns prepared the way, and then the Dorsets, the Dublins, the
Middlesex, the Queen’s, and the East Surrey did the rest. The door was
open and the Transvaal lay before us. The next day Volksrust was in our
hands.
The whole series of operations were excellently conceived and carried out.
Putting Colenso on one side, it cannot be denied that General Buller
showed considerable power of manoeuvring large bodies of troops. The
withdrawal of the compromised army after Spion Kop, the change of the line
of attack at Pieter’s Hill, and the flanking marches in this campaign of
Northern Natal, were all very workmanlike achievements. In this case a
position which the Boers had been preparing for months, scored with
trenches and topped by heavy artillery, had been rendered untenable by a
clever flank movement, the total casualties in the whole affair being less
than two hundred killed and wounded. Natal was cleared of the invader,
Buller’s foot was on the high plateau of the Transvaal, and Roberts could
count on twenty thousand good men coming up to him from the south-east.
More important than all, the Natal railway was being brought up, and soon
the central British Army would depend upon Durban instead of Cape Town for
its supplies—a saving of nearly two-thirds of the distance. The
fugitive Boers made northwards in the Middelburg direction, while Buller
advanced to Standerton, which town he continued to occupy until Lord
Roberts could send a force down through Heidelberg to join hands with him.
Such was the position of the Natal Field Force at the end of June. From
the west and the south-west British forces were also converging upon the
capital. The indomitable Baden-Powell sought for rest and change of scene
after his prolonged trial by harrying the Boers out of Zeerust and
Rustenburg. The forces of Hunter and of Mahon converged upon
Potchefstroom, from which, after settling that district, they could be
conveyed by rail to Krugersdorp and Johannesburg.
Before briefly recounting the series of events which took place upon the
line of communications, the narrative must return to Lord Roberts at
Pretoria, and describe the operations which followed his occupation of
that city. In leaving the undefeated forces of the Free State behind him,
the British General had unquestionably run a grave risk, and was well
aware that his railway communication was in danger of being cut. By the
rapidity of his movements he succeeded in gaining the enemy’s capital
before that which he had foreseen came to pass; but if Botha had held him
at Pretoria while De Wet struck at him behind, the situation would have
been a serious one. Having once attained his main object, Roberts could
receive with equanimity the expected news that De Wet with a mobile force
of less than two thousand men had, on June 7th, cut the line at Roodeval
to the north of Kroonstad. Both rail and telegraph were destroyed, and for
a few days the army was isolated. Fortunately there were enough supplies
to go on with, and immediate steps were taken to drive away the intruder,
though, like a mosquito, he was brushed from one place only to settle upon
another.
Leaving others to restore his broken communications, Lord Roberts turned
his attention once more to Botha, who still retained ten or fifteen
thousand men under his command. The President had fled from Pretoria with
a large sum of money, estimated at over two millions sterling, and was
known to be living in a saloon railway carriage, which had been
transformed into a seat of government even more mobile than that of
President Steyn. From Waterval-Boven, a point beyond Middelburg, he was in
a position either to continue his journey to Delagoa Bay, and so escape
out of the country, or to travel north into that wild Lydenburg country
which had always been proclaimed as the last ditch of the defence. Here he
remained with his gold-bags waiting the turn of events.
Botha and his stalwarts had not gone far from the capital. Fifteen miles
out to the east the railway line runs through a gap in the hills called
Pienaars Poort, and here was such a position as the Boer loves to hold. It
was very strong in front, and it had widely spread formidable flanking
hills to hamper those turning movements which had so often been fatal to
the Boer generals. Behind was the uncut railway line along which the guns
could in case of need be removed. The whole position was over fifteen
miles from wing to wing, and it was well known to the Boer general that
Lord Roberts had no longer that preponderance of force which would enable
him to execute wide turning movements, as he had done in his advance from
the south. His army had decreased seriously in numbers. The mounted men,
the most essential branch of all, were so ill horsed that brigades were
not larger than regiments. One brigade of infantry (the 14th) had been
left to garrison Johannesburg, and another (the 18th) had been chosen for
special duty in Pretoria. Smith-Dorrien’s Brigade had been detached for
duty upon the line of communications. With all these deductions and the
wastage caused by wounds and disease, the force was in no state to assume
a vigorous offensive. So hard pressed were they for men that the three
thousand released prisoners from Waterval were hurriedly armed with Boer
weapons and sent down the line to help to guard the more vital points.
Had Botha withdrawn to a safe distance, Lord Roberts would certainly have
halted, as he had done at Bloemfontein, and waited for remounts and
reinforcements. But the war could not be allowed to languish when an
active enemy lay only fifteen miles off, within striking distance of two
cities and of the line of rail. Taking all the troops that he could
muster, the British General moved out once more on Monday, June 11th, to
drive Botha from his position. He had with him Pole-Carew’s 11th Division,
which numbered about six thousand men with twenty guns, Ian Hamilton’s
force, which included one infantry brigade (Bruce Hamilton’s), one cavalry
brigade, and a corps of mounted infantry, say, six thousand in all, with
thirty guns. There remained French’s Cavalry Division, with Hutton’s
Mounted Infantry, which could not have exceeded two thousand sabres and
rifles. The total force was, therefore, not more than sixteen or seventeen
thousand men, with about seventy guns. Their task was to carry a carefully
prepared position held by at least ten thousand burghers with a strong
artillery. Had the Boer of June been the Boer of December, the odds would
have been against the British.
There had been some negotiations for peace between Lord Roberts and Botha,
but the news of De Wet’s success from the south had hardened the Boer
general’s heart, and on June 9th the cavalry had their orders to advance.
Hamilton was to work round the left wing of the Boers, and French round
their right, while the infantry came up in the centre. So wide was the
scene of action that the attack and the resistance in each flank and in
the centre constituted, on June 11th, three separate actions. Of these the
latter was of least importance, as it merely entailed the advance of the
infantry to a spot whence they could take advantage of the success of the
flanking forces when they had made their presence felt. The centre did not
on this as on several other occasions in the campaign make the mistake of
advancing before the way had been prepared for it.
French with his attenuated force found so vigorous a resistance on Monday
and Tuesday that he was hard put to it to hold his own. Fortunately he had
with him three excellent Horse Artillery batteries, G, O, and T, who
worked until, at the end of the engagement, they had only twenty rounds in
their limbers. The country was an impossible one for cavalry, and the
troopers fought dismounted, with intervals of twenty or thirty paces
between the men. Exposed all day to rifle and shell fire, unable to
advance and unwilling to retreat, it was only owing to their open
formation that they escaped with about thirty casualties. With Boers on
his front, his flank, and even on his rear, French held grimly on,
realising that a retreat upon his part would mean a greater pressure at
all other points of the British advance. At night his weary men slept upon
the ground which they had held. All Monday and all Tuesday French kept his
grip at Kameelsdrift, stolidly indifferent to the attempt of the enemy to
cut his line of communications. On Wednesday, Hamilton, upon the other
flank, had gained the upper hand, and the pressure was relaxed. French
then pushed forward, but the horses were so utterly beaten that no
effective pursuit was possible.
During the two days that French had been held up by the Boer right wing
Hamilton had also been seriously engaged upon the left—so seriously
that at one time the action appeared to have gone against him. The fight
presented some distinctive features, which made it welcome to soldiers who
were weary of the invisible man with his smokeless gun upon the eternal
kopje. It is true that man, gun, and kopje were all present upon this
occasion, but in the endeavours to drive him off some new developments
took place, which formed for one brisk hour a reversion to picturesque
warfare. Perceiving a gap in the enemy’s line, Hamilton pushed up the
famous Q battery—the guns which had plucked glory out of disaster at
Sanna’s Post. For the second time in one campaign they were exposed and in
imminent danger of capture. A body of mounted Boers with great dash and
hardihood galloped down within close range and opened fire. Instantly the
12th Lancers were let loose upon them. How they must have longed for their
big-boned long-striding English troop horses as they strove to raise a
gallop out of their spiritless overworked Argentines! For once, however,
the lance meant more than five pounds dead weight and an encumbrance to
the rider. The guns were saved, the Boers fled, and a dozen were left upon
the ground. But a cavalry charge has to end in a re-formation, and that is
the instant of danger if any unbroken enemy remains within range. Now a
sleet of bullets hissed through their ranks as they retired, and the
gallant Lord Airlie, as modest and brave a soldier as ever drew sword, was
struck through the heart. ‘Pray moderate your language!’ was his last
characteristic remark, made to a battle-drunken sergeant. Two officers,
seventeen men, and thirty horses went down with their Colonel, the great
majority only slightly injured. In the meantime the increasing pressure
upon his right caused Broadwood to order a second charge, of the Life
Guards this time, to drive off the assailants. The appearance rather than
the swords of the Guards prevailed, and cavalry as cavalry had vindicated
their existence more than they had ever done during the campaign. The guns
were saved, the flank attack was rolled back, but one other danger had
still to be met, for the Heidelberg commando—a corps d’elite of the
Boers—had made its way outside Hamilton’s flank and threatened to
get past him. With cool judgment the British General detached a battalion
and a section of a battery, which pushed the Boers back into a less
menacing position. The rest of Bruce Hamilton’s Brigade were ordered to
advance upon the hills in front, and, aided by a heavy artillery fire,
they had succeeded, before the closing in of the winter night, in getting
possession of this first line of the enemy’s defences. Night fell upon an
undecided fight, which, after swaying this way and that, had finally
inclined to the side of the British. The Sussex and the City Imperial
Volunteers were clinging to the enemy’s left flank, while the 11th
Division were holding them in front. All promised well for the morrow.
By order of Lord Roberts the Guards were sent round early on Tuesday, the
12th, to support the flank attack of Bruce Hamilton’s infantry. It was
afternoon before all was ready for the advance, and then the Sussex, the
London Volunteers, and the Derbyshires won a position upon the ridge,
followed later by the three regiments of Guards. But the ridge was the
edge of a considerable plateau, swept by Boer fire, and no advance could
be made over its bare expanse save at a considerable loss. The infantry
clung in a long fringe to the edge of the position, but for two hours no
guns could be brought up to their support, as the steepness of the slope
was insurmountable. It was all that the stormers could do to hold their
ground, as they were enfiladed by a Vickers-Maxim, and exposed to showers
of shrapnel as well as to an incessant rifle fire. Never were guns so
welcome as those of the 82nd battery, brought by Major Connolly into the
firing line. The enemy’s riflemen were only a thousand yards away, and the
action of the artillery might have seemed as foolhardy as that of Long at
Colenso. Ten horses went down on the instant, and a quarter of the gunners
were hit; but the guns roared one by one into action, and their shrapnel
soon decided the day. Undoubtedly it is with Connolly and his men that the
honours lie.
At four o’clock, as the sun sank towards the west, the tide of fight had
set in favour of the attack. Two more batteries had come up, every rifle
was thrown into the firing line, and the Boer reply was decreasing in
volume. The temptation to an assault was great, but even now it might mean
heavy loss of life, and Hamilton shrank from the sacrifice. In the morning
his judgment was justified, for Botha had abandoned the position, and his
army was in full retreat. The mounted men followed as far as Elands River
Station, which is twenty-five miles from Pretoria, but the enemy was not
overtaken, save by a small party of De Lisle’s Australians and Regular
Mounted Infantry. This force, less than a hundred in number, gained a
kopje which overlooked a portion of the Boer army. Had they been more
numerous, the effect would have been incalculable. As it was, the
Australians fired every cartridge which they possessed into the throng,
and killed many horses and men. It would bear examination why it was that
only this small corps was present at so vital a point, and why, if they
could push the pursuit to such purpose, others should not be able to do
the same. Time was bringing some curious revenges. Already Paardeberg had
come upon Majuba Day. Buller’s victorious soldiers had taken Laing’s Nek.
Now, the Spruit at which the retreating Boers were so mishandled by the
Australians was that same Bronkers Spruit at which, nineteen years before,
a regiment had been shot down. Many might have prophesied that the deed
would be avenged; but who could ever have guessed the men who would avenge
it?
Such was the battle of Diamond Hill, as it was called from the name of the
ridge which was opposite to Hamilton’s attack. The prolonged two days’
struggle showed that there was still plenty of fight in the burghers. Lord
Roberts had not routed them, nor had he captured their guns; but he had
cleared the vicinity of the capital, he had inflicted a loss upon them
which was certainly as great as his own, and he had again proved to them
that it was vain for them to attempt to stand. A long pause followed at
Pretoria, broken by occasional small alarms and excursions, which served
no end save to keep the army from ennui. In spite of occasional breaks in
his line of communications, horses and supplies were coming up rapidly,
and, by the middle of July, Roberts was ready for the field again. At the
same time Hunter had come up from Potchefstroom, and Hamilton had taken
Heidelberg, and his force was about to join hands with Buller at
Standerton. Sporadic warfare broke out here and there in the west, and in
the course of it Snyman of Mafeking had reappeared, with two guns, which
were promptly taken from him by the Canadian Mounted Rifles. On all sides
it was felt that if the redoubtable De Wet could be captured there was
every hope that the burghers might discontinue a struggle which was
disagreeable to the British and fatal to themselves. As a point of honour
it was impossible for Botha to give in while his ally held out. We will
turn, therefore, to this famous guerilla chief, and give some account of
his exploits. To understand them some description must be given of the
general military situation in the Free State.
When Lord Roberts had swept past to the north he had brushed aside the
flower of the Orange Free State army, who occupied the considerable
quadrilateral which is formed by the north-east of that State. The
function of Rundle’s 8th Division and of Brabant’s Colonial Division was
to separate the sheep from the goats by preventing the fighting burghers
from coming south and disturbing those districts which had been settled.
For this purpose Rundle formed a long line which should serve as a cordon.
Moving up through Trommel and Clocolan, Ficksburg was occupied on May 25th
by the Colonial Division, while Rundle seized Senekal, forty miles to the
north-west. A small force of forty Yeomanry, who entered the town some
time in advance of the main body, was suddenly attacked by the Boers, and
the gallant Dalbiac, famous rider and sportsman, was killed, with four of
his men. He was a victim, as so many have been in this campaign, to his
own proud disregard of danger.
The Boers were in full retreat, but now, as always, they were dangerous.
One cannot take them for granted, for the very moment of defeat is that at
which they are capable of some surprising effort. Rundle, following them
up from Senekal, found them in strong possession of the kopjes at
Biddulphsberg, and received a check in his endeavour to drive them off. It
was an action fought amid great grass fires, where the possible fate of
the wounded was horrible to contemplate. The 2nd Grenadiers, the Scots
Guards, the East Yorkshires, and the West Kents were all engaged, with the
2nd and 79th Field Batteries and a force of Yeomanry. Our losses incurred
in the open from unseen rifles were thirty killed and 130 wounded,
including Colonel Lloyd of the Grenadiers. Two days later Rundle, from
Senekal, joined hands with Brabant from Ficksburg, and a defensive line
was formed between those two places, which was held unbroken for two
months, when the operations ended in the capture of the greater part of
the force opposed to him. Clements’s Brigade, consisting of the 1st Royal
Irish, the 2nd Bedfords, the 2nd Worcesters, and the 2nd Wiltshires, had
come to strengthen Rundle, and altogether he may have had as many as
twelve thousand men under his orders. It was not a large force with which
to hold a mobile adversary at least eight thousand strong, who might
attack him at any point of his extended line. So well, however, did he
select his positions that every attempt of the enemy, and there were many,
ended in failure. Badly supplied with food, he and his half-starved men
held bravely to their task, and no soldiers in all that great host deserve
better of their country.
At the end of May, then, the Colonial Division, Rundle’s Division, and
Clements’s Brigade held the Boers from Ficksburg on the Basuto border to
Senekal. This prevented them from coming south. But what was there to
prevent them from coming west, and falling upon the railway line? There
was the weak point of the British position. Lord Methuen had been brought
across from Boshof, and was available with six thousand men. Colvile was
on that side also, with the Highland Brigade. A few details were scattered
up and down the line, waiting to be gathered up by an enterprising enemy.
Kroonstad was held by a single militia battalion; each separate force had
to be nourished by convoys with weak escorts. Never was there such a field
for a mobile and competent guerilla leader. And, as luck would have it,
such a man was at hand, ready to take full advantage of his opportunities.
CHAPTER 27. THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION.
Christian de Wet, the elder of two brothers of that name, was at this time
in the prime of life, a little over forty years of age. He was a burly
middle-sized bearded man, poorly educated, but endowed with much energy
and common-sense. His military experience dated back to Majuba Hill, and
he had a large share of that curious race hatred which is intelligible in
the case of the Transvaal, but inexplicable in a Freestater who has
received no injury from the British Empire. Some weakness of his sight
compels the use of tinted spectacles, and he had now turned these, with a
pair of particularly observant eyes behind them, upon the scattered
British forces and the long exposed line of railway.
De Wet’s force was an offshoot from the army of Freestaters under De
Villiers, Olivier, and Prinsloo, which lay in the mountainous north-east
of the State. To him were committed five guns, fifteen hundred men, and
the best of the horses. Well armed, well mounted, and operating in a
country which consisted of rolling plains with occasional fortress kopjes,
his little force had everything in its favour. There were so many tempting
objects of attack lying before him that he must have had some difficulty
in knowing where to begin. The tinted spectacles were turned first upon
the isolated town of Lindley.
Colvile with the Highland Brigade had come up from Ventersburg with
instructions to move onward to Heilbron, pacifying the country as he
passed. The country, however, refused to be pacified, and his march from
Ventersburg to Lindley was harassed by snipers every mile of the way.
Finding that De Wet and his men were close upon him, he did not linger at
Lindley, but passed on to his destination, his entire march of 126 miles
costing him sixty-three casualties, of which nine were fatal. It was a
difficult and dangerous march, especially for the handful of Eastern
Province Horse, upon whom fell all the mounted work. By evil fortune a
force of five hundred Yeomanry, the 18th battalion, including the Duke of
Cambridge’s Own and the Irish companies, had been sent from Kroonstad to
join Colvile at Lindley. Colonel Spragge was in command. On May 27th this
body of horsemen reached their destination only to find that Colvile had
already abandoned it. They appear to have determined to halt for a day in
Lindley, and then follow Colvile to Heilbron. Within a few hours of their
entering the town they were fiercely attacked by De Wet.
Colonel Spragge seems to have acted for the best. Under a heavy fire he
caused his troopers to fall back upon his transport, which had been left
at a point a few miles out upon the Kroonstad Road, where three defensible
kopjes sheltered a valley in which the cattle and horses could be herded.
A stream ran through it. There were all the materials there for a stand
which would have brought glory to the British arms. The men were of
peculiarly fine quality, many of them from the public schools and from the
universities, and if any would fight to the death these with their
sporting spirit and their high sense of honour might have been expected to
do so.
They had the stronger motive for holding out, as they had taken steps to
convey word of their difficulty to Colvile and to Methuen. The former
continued his march to Heilbron, and it is hard to blame him for doing so,
but Methuen on hearing the message, which was conveyed to him at great
personal peril by Corporal Hankey of the Yeomanry, pushed on instantly
with the utmost energy, though he arrived too late to prevent, or even to
repair, a disaster. It must be remembered that Colvile was under orders to
reach Heilbron on a certain date, that he was himself fighting his way,
and that the force which he was asked to relieve was much more mobile than
his own. His cavalry at that date consisted of 100 men of the Eastern
Province Horse.
Colonel Spragge’s men had held their own for the first three days of their
investment, during which they had been simply exposed to a long-range
rifle fire which inflicted no very serious loss upon them. Their principal
defence consisted of a stone kraal about twenty yards square, which
sheltered them from rifle bullets, but must obviously be a perfect
death-trap in the not improbable event of the Boers sending for artillery.
The spirit of the troopers was admirable. Several dashing sorties were
carried out under the leadership of Captain Humby and Lord Longford. The
latter was a particularly dashing business, ending in a bayonet charge
which cleared a neighbouring ridge. Early in the siege the gallant Keith
met his end. On the fourth day the Boers brought up five guns. One would
have thought that during so long a time as three days it would have been
possible for the officer in command to make such preparations against this
obvious possibility as were so successfully taken at a later stage of the
war by the handful who garrisoned Ladybrand. Surely in this period, even
without engineers, it would not have been hard to construct such trenches
as the Boers have again and again opposed to our own artillery. But the
preparations which were made proved to be quite inadequate. One of the two
smaller kopjes was carried, and the garrison fled to the other. This also
was compelled to surrender, and finally the main kopje also hoisted the
white flag. No blame can rest upon the men, for their presence there at
all is a sufficient proof of their public spirit and their gallantry. But
the lessons of the war seem to have been imperfectly learned, especially
that very certain lesson that shell fire in a close formation is
insupportable, while in an open formation with a little cover it can never
compel surrender. The casualty lists (80 killed and wounded out of a force
of 470) show that the Yeomanry took considerable punishment before
surrendering, but do not permit us to call the defence desperate or
heroic. It is only fair to add that Colonel Spragge was acquitted of all
blame by a court of inquiry, which agreed, however, that the surrender was
premature, and attributed it to the unauthorised hoisting of a white flag
upon one of the detached kopjes. With regard to the subsequent controversy
as to whether General Colvile might have returned to the relief of the
Yeomanry, it is impossible to see how that General could have acted in any
other way than he did.
Some explanation is needed of Lord Methuen’s appearance upon the central
scene of warfare, his division having, when last described, been at
Boshof, not far from Kimberley, where early in April he fought the
successful action which led to the death of Villebois. Thence he proceeded
along the Vaal and then south to Kroonstad, arriving there on May 28th. He
had with him the 9th Brigade (Douglas’s), which contained the troops which
had started with him for the relief of Kimberley six months before. These
were the Northumberland Fusiliers, Loyal North Lancashires, Northamptons,
and Yorkshire Light Infantry. With him also were the Munsters, Lord
Chesham’s Yeomanry (five companies), with the 4th and 37th batteries, two
howitzers and two pom-poms. His total force was about 6000 men. On
arriving at Kroonstad he was given the task of relieving Heilbron, where
Colvile, with the Highland Brigade, some Colonial horse, Lovat’s Scouts,
two naval guns, and the 5th battery, were short of food and ammunition.
The more urgent message from the Yeomen at Lindley, however, took him on a
fruitless journey to that town on June 1st. So vigorous was the pursuit of
the Yeomanry that the leading squadrons, consisting of South Notts Hussars
and Sherwood Rangers, actually cut into the Boer convoy and might have
rescued the prisoners had they been supported. As it was they were
recalled, and had to fight their way back to Lindley with some loss,
including Colonel Rolleston, the commander, who was badly wounded. A
garrison was left under Paget, and the rest of the force pursued its
original mission to Heilbron, arriving there on June 7th, when the
Highlanders had been reduced to quarter rations. ‘The Salvation Army’ was
the nickname by which they expressed their gratitude to the relieving
force.
A previous convoy sent to the same destination had less good fortune. On
June 1st fifty-five wagons started from the railway line to reach
Heilbron. The escort consisted of one hundred and sixty details belonging
to Highland regiments without any guns, Captain Corballis in command. But
the gentleman with the tinted glasses was waiting on the way. ‘I have
twelve hundred men and five guns. Surrender at once!’ Such was the message
which reached the escort, and in their defenceless condition there was
nothing for it but to comply. Thus one disaster leads to another, for, had
the Yeomanry held out at Lindley, De Wet would not on June 4th have laid
hands upon our wagons; and had he not recruited his supplies from our
wagons it is doubtful if he could have made his attack upon Roodeval. This
was the next point upon which he turned his attention.
Two miles beyond Roodeval station there is a well-marked kopje by the
railway line, with other hills some distance to the right and the left. A
militia regiment, the 4th Derbyshire, had been sent up to occupy this
post. There were rumours of Boers on the line, and Major Haig, who with
one thousand details of various regiments commanded at railhead, had been
attacked on June 6th but had beaten off his assailants. De Wet, acting
sometimes in company with, and sometimes independently of, his lieutenant
Nel, passed down the line looking fur some easier prey, and on the night
of June 7th came upon the militia regiment, which was encamped in a
position which could be completely commanded by artillery. It is not true
that they had neglected to occupy the kopje under which they lay, for two
companies had been posted upon it. But there seems to have been no thought
of imminent danger, and the regiment had pitched its tents and gone very
comfortably to sleep without a thought of the gentleman in the tinted
glasses. In the middle of the night he was upon them with a hissing sleet
of bullets. At the first dawn the guns opened and the shells began to
burst among them. It was a horrible ordeal for raw troops. The men were
miners and agricultural labourers, who had never seen more bloodshed than
a cut finger in their lives. They had been four months in the country, but
their life had been a picnic, as the luxury of their baggage shows. Now in
an instant the picnic was ended, and in the grey cold dawn war was upon
them—grim war with the whine of bullets, the screams of pain, the
crash of shell, the horrible rending and riving of body and limb. In
desperate straits, which would have tried the oldest soldiers, the brave
miners did well. They never from the beginning had a chance save to show
how gamely they could take punishment, but that at least they did. Bullets
were coming from all sides at once and yet no enemy was visible. They
lined one side of the embankment, and they were shot in the back. They
lined the other, and were again shot in the back. Baird-Douglas, the
Colonel, vowed to shoot the man who should raise the white flag, and he
fell dead himself before he saw the hated emblem. But it had to come. A
hundred and forty of the men were down, many of them suffering from the
horrible wounds which shell inflicts. The place was a shambles. Then the
flag went up and the Boers at last became visible. Outnumbered,
outgeneralled, and without guns, there is no shadow of stain upon the good
name of the one militia regiment which was ever seriously engaged during
the war. Their position was hopeless from the first, and they came out of
it with death, mutilation, and honour.
Two miles south of the Rhenoster kopje stands Roodeval station, in which,
on that June morning, there stood a train containing the mails for the
army, a supply of great-coats, and a truck full of enormous shells. A
number of details of various sorts, a hundred or more, had alighted from
the train, twenty of them Post-office volunteers, some of the Pioneer
Railway corps, a few Shropshires, and other waifs and strays. To them in
the early morning came the gentleman with the tinted glasses, his hands
still red with the blood of the Derbies. ‘I have fourteen hundred men and
four guns. Surrender!’ said the messenger. But it is not in nature for a
postman to give up his postbag without a struggle. ‘Never!’ cried the
valiant postmen. But shell after shell battered the corrugated-iron
buildings about their ears, and it was not possible for them to answer the
guns which were smashing the life out of them. There was no help for it
but to surrender. De Wet added samples of the British volunteer and of the
British regular to his bag of militia. The station and train were burned
down, the great-coats looted, the big shells exploded, and the mails
burned. The latter was the one unsportsmanlike action which can up to that
date be laid to De Wet’s charge. Forty thousand men to the north of him
could forego their coats and their food, but they yearned greatly for
those home letters, charred fragments of which are still blowing about the
veld. [Footnote: Fragments continually met the eye which must have
afforded curious reading for the victors. ‘I hope you have killed all
those Boers by now,’ was the beginning of one letter which I could not
help observing.]
For three days De Wet held the line, and during all that time he worked
his wicked will upon it. For miles and miles it was wrecked with most
scientific completeness. The Rhenoster bridge was destroyed. So, for the
second time, was the Roodeval bridge. The rails were blown upwards with
dynamite until they looked like an unfinished line to heaven. De Wet’s
heavy hand was everywhere. Not a telegraph-post remained standing within
ten miles. His headquarters continued to be the kopje at Roodeval.
On June 10th two British forces were converging upon the point of danger.
One was Methuen’s, from Heilbron. The other was a small force consisting
of the Shropshires, the South Wales Borderers, and a battery which had
come south with Lord Kitchener. The energetic Chief of the Staff was
always sent by Lord Roberts to the point where a strong man was needed,
and it was seldom that he failed to justify his mission. Lord Methuen,
however, was the first to arrive, and at once attacked De Wet, who moved
swiftly away to the eastward. With a tendency to exaggeration, which has
been too common during the war, the affair was described as a victory. It
was really a strategic and almost bloodless move upon the part of the
Boers. It is not the business of guerillas to fight pitched battles.
Methuen pushed for the south, having been informed that Kroonstad had been
captured. Finding this to be untrue, he turned again to the eastward in
search of De Wet.
That wily and indefatigable man was not long out of our ken. On June 14th
he appeared once more at Rhenoster, where the construction trains, under
the famous Girouard, were working furiously at the repair of the damage
which he had already done. This time the guard was sufficient to beat him
off, and he vanished again to the eastward. He succeeded, however, in
doing some harm, and very nearly captured Lord Kitchener himself. A
permanent post had been established at Rhenoster under the charge of
Colonel Spens of the Shropshires, with his own regiment and several guns.
Smith-Dorrien, one of the youngest and most energetic of the divisional
commanders, had at the same time undertaken the supervision and patrolling
of the line.
An attack had at this period been made by a commando of some hundred Boers
at the Sand River to the south of Kroonstad, where there is a most
important bridge. The attempt was frustrated by the Royal Lancaster
regiment and the Railway Pioneer regiment, helped by some mounted infantry
and Yeomanry. The fight was for a time a brisk one, and the Pioneers, upon
whom the brunt of it fell, behaved with great steadiness. The skirmish is
principally remarkable for the death of Major Seymour of the Pioneers, a
noble American, who gave his services and at last his life for what, in
the face of all slander and misrepresentation, he knew to be the cause of
justice and of liberty.
It was hoped now, after all these precautions, that the last had been seen
of the gentleman with the tinted glasses, but on June 21st he was back in
his old haunts once more. Honing Spruit Station, about midway between
Kroonstad and Roodeval, was the scene of his new raid. On that date his
men appeared suddenly as a train waited in the station, and ripped up the
rails on either side of it. There were no guns at this point, and the only
available troops were three hundred of the prisoners from Pretoria, armed
with Martini-Henry rifles and obsolete ammunition. A good man was in
command, however—the same Colonel Bullock of the Devons who had
distinguished himself at Colenso—and every tattered, half-starved
wastrel was nerved by a recollection of the humiliations which he had
already endured. For seven hours they lay helpless under the shell-fire,
but their constancy was rewarded by the arrival of Colonel Brookfield with
300 Yeomanry and four guns of the 17th R.F.A., followed in the evening by
a larger force from the south. The Boers fled, but left some of their
number behind them; while of the British, Major Hobbs and four men were
killed and nineteen wounded. This defence of three hundred half-armed men
against seven hundred Boer riflemen, with three guns firing shell and
shrapnel, was a very good performance. The same body of burghers
immediately afterwards attacked a post held by Colonel Evans with two
companies of the Shropshires and fifty Canadians. They were again beaten
back with loss, the Canadians under Inglis especially distinguishing
themselves by their desperate resistance in an exposed position.
All these attacks, irritating and destructive as they were, were not able
to hinder the general progress of the war. After the battle of Diamond
Hill the captured position was occupied by the mounted infantry, while the
rest of the forces returned to their camps round Pretoria, there to await
the much-needed remounts. At other parts of the seat of war the British
cordon was being drawn more tightly round the Boer forces. Buller had come
as far as Standerton, and Ian Hamilton, in the last week of June, had
occupied Heidelberg. A week afterwards the two forces were able to join
hands, and so to completely cut off the Free State from the Transvaal
armies. Hamilton in these operations had the misfortune to break his
collar-bone, and for a time the command of his division passed to Hunter—the
one man, perhaps, whom the army would regard as an adequate successor.
It was evident now to the British commanders that there would be no peace
and no safety for their communications while an undefeated army of seven
or eight thousand men, under such leaders as De Wet and Olivier, was
lurking amid the hills which flanked their railroad. A determined effort
was made, therefore, to clear up that corner of the country. Having closed
the only line of escape by the junction of Ian Hamilton and of Buller, the
attention of six separate bodies of troops was concentrated upon the
stalwart Freestaters. These were the divisions of Rundle and of Brabant
from the south, the brigade of Clements on their extreme left, the
garrison of Lindley under Paget, the garrison of Heilbron under Macdonald,
and, most formidable of all, a detachment under Hunter which was moving
from the north. A crisis was evidently approaching.
The nearest Free State town of importance still untaken was Bethlehem—a
singular name to connect with the operations of war. The country on the
south of it forbade an advance by Rundle or Brabant, but it was more
accessible from the west. The first operation of the British consisted,
therefore, in massing sufficient troops to be able to advance from this
side. This was done by effecting a junction between Clements from Senekal,
and Paget who commanded at Lindley, which was carried out upon July 1st
near the latter place. Clements encountered some opposition, but besides
his excellent infantry regiments, the Royal Irish, Worcesters, Wiltshires,
and Bedfords, he had with him the 2nd Brabant’s Horse, with yeomanry,
mounted infantry, two 5-inch guns, and the 38th R.F.A. Aided by a
demonstration on the part of Grenfell and of Brabant, he pushed his way
through after three days of continual skirmish.
On getting into touch with Clements, Paget sallied out from Lindley,
leaving the Buffs behind to garrison the town. He had with him
Brookfield’s mounted brigade one thousand strong, eight guns, and two fine
battalions of infantry, the Munster Fusiliers and the Yorkshire Light
Infantry. On July 3rd he found near Leeuw Kop a considerable force of
Boers with three guns opposed to him, Clements being at that time too far
off upon the flank to assist him. Four guns of the 38th R.F.A. (Major
Oldfield) and two belonging to the City Volunteers came into action. The
Royal Artillery guns appear to have been exposed to a very severe fire,
and the losses were so heavy that for a time they could not be served. The
escort was inadequate, insufficiently advanced, and badly handled, for the
Boer riflemen were able, by creeping up a donga, to get right into the
38th battery, and the gallant major, with Lieutenant Belcher, was killed
in the defence of the guns. Captain FitzGerald, the only other officer
present, was wounded in two places, and twenty men were struck down, with
nearly all the horses of one section. Captain Marks, who was brigade-major
of Colonel Brookfield’s Yeomanry, with the help of Lieutenant Keevil Davis
and the 15th I.Y. came to the rescue of the disorganised and almost
annihilated section. At the same time the C.I.V. guns were in imminent
danger, but were energetically covered by Captain Budworth, adjutant of
the battery. Soon, however, the infantry, Munster Fusiliers, and Yorkshire
Light Infantry, which had been carrying out a turning movement, came into
action, and the position was taken. The force moved onwards, and on July
6th they were in front of Bethlehem.
The place is surrounded by hills, and the enemy was found strongly posted.
Clements’s force was now on the left and Paget’s on the right. From both
sides an attempt was made to turn the Boer flanks, but they were found to
be very wide and strong. All day a long-range action was kept up while
Clements felt his way in the hope of coming upon some weak spot in the
position, but in the evening a direct attack was made by Paget’s two
infantry regiments upon the right, which gave the British a footing on the
Boer position. The Munster Fusiliers and the Yorkshire Light Infantry lost
forty killed and wounded, including four officers, in this gallant affair,
the heavier loss and the greater honour going to the men of Munster.
The centre of the position was still held, and on the morning of July 7th
Clements gave instructions to the colonel of the Royal Irish to storm it
if the occasion should seem favourable. Such an order to such a regiment
means that the occasion will seem favourable. Up they went in three
extended lines, dropping forty or fifty on the way, but arriving
breathless and enthusiastic upon the crest of the ridge. Below them, upon
the further side, lay the village of Bethlehem. On the slopes beyond
hundreds of horsemen were retreating, and a gun was being hurriedly
dragged into the town. For a moment it seemed as if nothing had been left
as a trophy, but suddenly a keen-eyed sergeant raised a cheer, which was
taken up again and again until it resounded over the veld. Under the
crest, lying on its side with a broken wheel, was a gun—one of the
15-pounders of Stormberg which it was a point of honour to regain once
more. Many a time had the gunners been friends in need to the infantry.
Now it was the turn of the infantry to do something in exchange. That
evening Clements had occupied Bethlehem, and one more of their towns had
passed out of the hands of the Freestaters.
A word now as to that force under General Hunter which was closing in from
the north. The gallant and energetic Hamilton, lean, aquiline, and
tireless, had, as already stated, broken his collar-bone at Heidelberg,
and it was as his lieutenant that Hunter was leading these troops out of
the Transvaal into the Orange River Colony. Most of his infantry was left
behind at Heidelberg, but he took with him Broadwood’s cavalry (two
brigades) and Bruce Hamilton’s 21st infantry brigade, with Ridley’s
mounted infantry, some seven thousand men in all. On the 2nd of July this
force reached Frankfort in the north of the Free State without resistance,
and on July 3rd they were joined there by Macdonald’s force from Heilbron,
so that Hunter found himself with over eleven thousand men under his
command. Here was an instrument with which surely the coup de grace could
be given to the dying State. Passing south, still without meeting serious
resistance, Hunter occupied Reitz, and finally sent on Broadwood’s cavalry
to Bethlehem, where on July 8th they joined Paget and Clements.
The net was now in position, and about to be drawn tight, but at this last
moment the biggest fish of all dashed furiously out from it. Leaving the
main Free State force in a hopeless position behind him, De Wet, with
fifteen hundred well-mounted men and five guns, broke through Slabbert’s
Nek between Bethlehem and Ficksburg, and made swiftly for the north-west,
closely followed by Paget’s and Broadwood’s cavalry. It was on July 16th
that he made his dash for freedom. On the 19th Little, with the 3rd
Cavalry Brigade, had come into touch with him near Lindley. De Wet shook
himself clear, and with splendid audacity cut the railway once more to the
north of Honing Spruit, gathering up a train as he passed, and taking two
hundred details prisoners. On July 22nd De Wet was at Vredefort, still
closely followed by Broadwood, Ridley, and Little, who gleaned his wagons
and his stragglers. Thence he threw himself into the hilly country some
miles to the south of the Vaal River, where he lurked for a week or more
while Lord Kitchener came south to direct the operations which would, as
it was hoped, lead to a surrender.
Leaving the indomitable guerilla in his hiding-place, the narrative must
return to that drawing of the net which still continued in spite of the
escape of this one important fish. On all sides the British forces had
drawn closer, and they were both more numerous and more formidable in
quality. It was evident now that by a rapid advance from Bethlehem in the
direction of the Basuto border all Boers to the north of Ficksburg would
be hemmed in. On July 22nd the columns were moving. On that date Paget
moved out of Bethlehem, and Rundle took a step forward from Ficksburg.
Bruce Hamilton had already, at the cost of twenty Cameron Highlanders, got
a grip upon a bastion of that rocky country in which the enemy lurked. On
the 23rd Hunter’s force was held by the Boers at the strong pass of
Retief’s Nek, but on the 24th they were compelled to abandon it, as the
capture of Slabbert’s Nek by Clements threatened their rear. This latter
pass was fortified most elaborately. It was attacked upon the 23rd by
Brabant’s Horse and the Royal Irish without success. Later in the day two
companies of the Wiltshire Regiment were also brought to a standstill, but
retained a position until nightfall within stone-throw of the Boer lines,
though a single company had lost 17 killed and wounded. Part of the Royal
Irish remained also close to the enemy’s trenches. Under cover of
darkness, Clements sent four companies of the Royal Irish and two of the
Wiltshires under Colonel Guinness to make a flanking movement along the
crest of the heights. These six companies completely surprised the enemy,
and caused them to hurriedly evacuate the position. Their night march was
performed under great difficulties, the men crawling on hands and knees
along a rocky path with a drop of 400 feet upon one side. But their
exertions were greatly rewarded. Upon the success of their turning
movement depended the fall of Slabbert’s Nek. Retief’s Nek was untenable
if we held Slabbert’s Nek, and if both were in our hands the retreat of
Prinsloo was cut off.
At every opening of the hills the British guns were thundering, and the
heads of British columns were appearing on every height. The Highland
Brigade had fairly established themselves over the Boer position, though
not without hard fighting, in which a hundred men of the Highland Light
Infantry had been killed and wounded. The Seaforths and the Sussex had
also gripped the positions in front of them, and taken some punishment in
doing so. The outworks of the great mountain fortress were all taken, and
on July 26th the British columns were converging on Fouriesburg, while
Naauwpoort on the line of retreat was held by Macdonald. It was only a
matter of time now with the Boers.
On the 28th Clements was still advancing, and contracting still further
the space which was occupied by our stubborn foe. He found himself faced
by the stiff position of Slaapkrantz, and a hot little action was needed
before the Boers could be dislodged. The fighting fell upon Brabant’s
Horse, the Royal Irish, and the Wiltshires. Three companies of the latter
seized a farm upon the enemy’s left, but lost ten men in doing so, while
their gallant colonel, Carter, was severely wounded in two places. The
Wiltshires, who were excellently handled by Captain Bolton, held on to the
farm and were reinforced there by a handful of the Scots Guards. In the
night the position was abandoned by the Boers, and the advance swept
onwards. On all sides the pressure was becoming unendurable. The burghers
in the valley below could see all day the twinkle of British heliographs
from every hill, while at night the constant flash of signals told of the
sleepless vigilance which hemmed them in. Upon July 29th, Prinsloo sent in
a request for an armistice, which was refused. Later in the day he
despatched a messenger with the white flag to Hunter, with an announcement
of his unconditional surrender.
On July 30th the motley army which had held the British off so long
emerged from among the mountains. But it soon became evident that in
speaking for all Prinsloo had gone beyond his powers. Discipline was low
and individualism high in the Boer army. Every man might repudiate the
decision of his commandant, as every man might repudiate the white flag of
his comrade. On the first day no more than eleven hundred men of the
Ficksburg and Ladybrand commandos, with fifteen hundred horses and two
guns, were surrendered. Next day seven hundred and fifty more men came in
with eight hundred horses, and by August 6th the total of the prisoners
had mounted to four thousand one hundred and fifty with three guns, two of
which were our own. But Olivier, with fifteen hundred men and several
guns, broke away from the captured force and escaped through the hills. Of
this incident General Hunter, an honourable soldier, remarks in his
official report: ‘I regard it as a dishonourable breach of faith upon the
part of General Olivier, for which I hold him personally responsible. He
admitted that he knew that General Prinsloo had included him in the
unconditional surrender.’ It is strange that, on Olivier’s capture shortly
afterwards, he was not court-martialled for this breach of the rules of
war, but that good-natured giant, the Empire, is quick—too quick,
perhaps—to let byegones be byegones. On August 4th Harrismith
surrendered to Macdonald, and thus was secured the opening of the Van
Reenen’s Pass and the end of the Natal system of railways. This was of the
very first importance, as the utmost difficulty had been found in
supplying so large a body of troops so far from the Cape base. In a day
the base was shifted to Durban, and the distance shortened by two-thirds,
while the army came to be on the railway instead of a hundred miles from
it. This great success assured Lord Roberts’s communications from serious
attack, and was of the utmost importance in enabling him to consolidate
his position at Pretoria.
CHAPTER 28. THE HALT AT PRETORIA.
Lord Roberts had now been six weeks in the capital, and British troops had
overrun the greater part of the south and west of the Transvaal, but in
spite of this there was continued Boer resistance, which flared suddenly
up in places which had been nominally pacified and disarmed. It was found,
as has often been shown in history, that it is easier to defeat a
republican army than to conquer it. From Klerksdorp, from Ventersdorp,
from Rustenburg, came news of risings against the newly imposed British
authority. The concealed Mauser and the bandolier were dug up once more
from the trampled corner of the cattle kraal, and the farmer was a warrior
once again. Vague news of the exploits of De Wet stimulated the fighting
burghers and shamed those who had submitted. A letter was intercepted from
the guerilla chief to Cronje’s son, who had surrendered near Rustenburg.
De Wet stated that he had gained two great victories and had fifteen
hundred captured rifles with which to replace those which the burghers had
given up. Not only were the outlying districts in a state of revolt, but
even round Pretoria the Boers were inclined to take the offensive, while
both that town and Johannesburg were filled with malcontents who were
ready to fly to their arms once more.
Already at the end of June there were signs that the Boers realised how
helpless Lord Roberts was until his remounts should arrive. The mosquitoes
buzzed round the crippled lion. On June 29th there was an attack upon
Springs near Johannesburg, which was easily beaten off by the Canadians.
Early in July some of the cavalry and mounted infantry patrols were
snapped up in the neighbourhood of the capital. Lord Roberts gave orders
accordingly that Hutton and Mahon should sweep the Boers back upon his
right, and push them as far as Bronkhorst Spruit. This was done on July
6th and 7th, the British advance meeting with considerable resistance from
artillery as well as rifles. By this movement the pressure upon the right
was relieved, which might have created a dangerous unrest in Johannesburg,
and it was done at the moderate cost of thirty-four killed and wounded,
half of whom belonged to the Imperial Light Horse. This famous corps,
which had come across with Mahon from the relief of Mafeking, had, a few
days before, ridden with mixed feelings through the streets of
Johannesburg and past, in many instances, the deserted houses which had
once been their homes. Many weary months were to pass before the survivors
might occupy them. On July 9th the Boers again attacked, but were again
pushed back to the eastward.
It is probable that all these demonstrations of the enemy upon the right
of Lord Roberts’s extended position were really feints in order to cover
the far-reaching plans which Botha had in his mind. The disposition of the
Boer forces at this time appears to have been as follows: Botha with his
army occupied a position along Delagoa railway line, further east than
Diamond Hill, whence he detached the bodies which attacked Hutton upon the
extreme right of the British position to the south-east of Pretoria. To
the north of Pretoria a second force was acting under Grobler, while a
third under De la Rey had been despatched secretly across to the left wing
of the British, north-west of Pretoria. While Botha engaged the attention
of Lord Roberts by energetic demonstrations on his right, Grobler and De
la Rey were to make a sudden attack upon his centre and his left, each
point being twelve or fifteen miles from the other. It was well devised
and very well carried out; but the inherent defect of it was that, when
subdivided in this way, the Boer force was no longer strong enough to gain
more than a mere success of outposts.
De la Rey’s attack was delivered at break of day on July 11th at Uitval’s
Nek, a post some eighteen miles west of the capital. This position could
not be said to be part of Lord Roberts’s line, but rather to be a link to
connect his army with Rustenburg. It was weakly held by three companies of
the Lincolns with two others in support, one squadron of the Scots Greys,
and two guns of O battery R.H.A. The attack came with the first grey light
of dawn, and for many hours the small garrison bore up against a deadly
fire, waiting for the help which never came. All day they held their
assailants at bay, and it was not until evening that their ammunition ran
short and they were forced to surrender. Nothing could have been better
than the behaviour of the men, both infantry, cavalry, and gunners, but
their position was a hopeless one. The casualties amounted to eighty
killed and wounded. Nearly two hundred were made prisoners and the two
guns were taken.
On the same day that De la Rey made his coup at Uitval’s Nek, Grobler had
shown his presence on the north side of the town by treating very roughly
a couple of squadrons of the 7th Dragoon Guards which had attacked him. By
the help of a section of the ubiquitous O battery and of the 14th Hussars,
Colonel Lowe was able to disengage his cavalry from the trap into which
they had fallen, but it was at the cost of between thirty and forty
officers and men killed, wounded, or taken. The old ‘Black Horse’
sustained their historical reputation, and fought their way bravely out of
an almost desperate situation, where they were exposed to the fire of a
thousand riflemen and four guns.
On this same day of skirmishes, July 11th, the Gordons had seen some hot
work twenty miles or so to the south of Uitval’s Nek. Orders had been
given to the 19th Brigade (Smith-Dorrien’s) to proceed to Krugersdorp, and
thence to make their way north. The Scottish Yeomanry and a section of the
78th R.F.A. accompanied them. The idea seems to have been that they would
be able to drive north any Boers in that district, who would then find the
garrison of Uitval’s Nek at their rear. The advance was checked, however,
at a place called Dolverkrantz, which was strongly held by Boer riflemen.
The two guns were insufficiently protected, and the enemy got within short
range of them, killing or wounding many of the gunners. The lieutenant in
charge, Mr. A.J. Turner, the famous Essex cricketer, worked the gun with
his own hands until he also fell wounded in three places. The situation
was now very serious, and became more so when news was flashed of the
disaster at Uitval’s Nek, and they were ordered to retire. They could not
retire and abandon the guns, yet the fire was so hot that it was
impossible to remove them. Gallant attempts were made by volunteers from
the Gordons—Captain Younger and other brave men throwing away their
lives in the vain effort to reach and to limber up the guns. At last,
under the cover of night, the teams were harnessed and the two
field-pieces successfully removed, while the Boers who rushed in to seize
them were scattered by a volley. The losses in the action were thirty-six
and the gain nothing. Decidedly July 11th was not a lucky day for the
British arms.
It was well known to Botha that every train from the south was bringing
horses for Lord Roberts’s army, and that it had become increasingly
difficult for De Wet and his men to hinder their arrival. The last horse
must win, and the Empire had the world on which to draw. Any movement
which the Boers would make must be made at once, for already both the
cavalry and the mounted infantry were rapidly coming back to their full
strength once more. This consideration must have urged Botha to deliver an
attack on July 16th, which had some success at first, but was afterwards
beaten off with heavy loss to the enemy. The fighting fell principally
upon Pole-Carew and Hutton, the corps chiefly engaged being the Royal
Irish Fusiliers, the New Zealanders, the Shropshires, and the Canadian
Mounted Infantry. The enemy tried repeatedly to assault the position, but
were beaten back each time with a loss of nearly a hundred killed and
wounded. The British loss was about sixty, and included two gallant young
Canadian officers, Borden and Birch, the former being the only son of the
minister of militia. So ended the last attempt made by Botha upon the
British positions round Pretoria. The end of the war was not yet, but
already its futility was abundantly evident. This had become more apparent
since the junction of Hamilton and of Buller had cut off the Transvaal
army from that of the Free State. Unable to send their prisoners away, and
also unable to feed them, the Freestaters were compelled to deliver up in
Natal the prisoners whom they had taken at Lindley and Roodeval. These
men, a ragged and starving battalion, emerged at Ladysmith, having made
their way through Van Reenen’s Pass. It is a singular fact that no parole
appears on these and similar occasions to have been exacted by the Boers.
Lord Roberts, having remounted a large part of his cavalry, was ready now
to advance eastward and give Botha battle. The first town of any
consequence along the Delagoa Railway is Middelburg, some seventy miles
from the capital. This became the British objective, and the forces of
Mahon and Hamilton on the north, of Pole-Carew in the centre, and of
French and Hutton to the south, all converged upon it. There was no
serious resistance, though the weather was abominable, and on July 27th
the town was in the hands of the invaders. From that date until the final
advance to the eastward French held this advanced post, while Pole-Carew
guarded the railway line. Rumours of trouble in the west had convinced
Roberts that it was not yet time to push his advantage to the east, and he
recalled Ian Hamilton’s force to act for a time upon the other side of the
seat of the war. This excellent little army, consisting of Mahon’s and
Pilcher’s mounted infantry, M battery R.H.A., the Elswick battery, two
5-inch and two 4.7 guns, with the Berkshires, the Border Regiment, the
Argyle and Sutherlands, and the Scottish Borderers, put in as much hard
work in marching and in fighting as any body of troops in the whole
campaign.
The renewal of the war in the west had begun some weeks before, but was
much accelerated by the transference of De la Rey and his burghers to that
side. There is no district in the Transvaal which is better worth fighting
for, for it is a fair country side, studded with farmhouses and green with
orange-groves, with many clear streams running through it. The first sign
of activity appears to have been on July 7th, when a commando with guns
appeared upon the hills above Rustenburg. Hanbury Tracy, commandant of
Rustenburg, was suddenly confronted with a summons to surrender. He had
only 120 men and one gun, but he showed a bold front. Colonel Houldsworth,
at the first whisper of danger, had started from Zeerust with a small
force of Australian bushmen, and arrived at Rustenburg in time to drive
the enemy away in a very spirited action. On the evening of July 8th
Baden-Powell took over the command, the garrison being reinforced by
Plumer’s command.
The Boer commando was still in existence, however, and it was reinforced
and reinvigorated by De la Rey’s success at Uitval’s Nek. On July 18th
they began to close in upon Rustenburg again, and a small skirmish took
place between them and the Australians. Methuen’s division, which had been
doing very arduous service in the north of the Free State during the last
six weeks, now received orders to proceed into the Transvaal and to pass
northwards through the disturbed districts en route for Rustenburg, which
appeared to be the storm centre. The division was transported by train
from Kroonstad to Krugersdorp, and advanced on the evening of July 18th
upon its mission, through a bare and fire-blackened country. On the 19th
Lord Methuen manoeuvred the Boers out of a strong position, with little
loss to either side. On the 21st he forced his way through Olifant’s Nek,
in the Magaliesberg range, and so established communication with
Baden-Powell, whose valiant bushmen, under Colonel Airey, had held their
own in a severe conflict near Magato Pass, in which they lost six killed,
nineteen wounded, and nearly two hundred horses. The fortunate arrival of
Captain FitzClarence with the Protectorate Regiment helped on this
occasion to avert a disaster. The force, only 300 strong, without guns,
had walked into an ugly ambuscade, and only the tenacity and resource of
the men enabled them ever to extricate themselves.
Although Methuen came within reach of Rustenburg, he did not actually join
hands with Baden-Powell. No doubt he saw and heard enough to convince him
that that astute soldier was very well able to take care of himself.
Learning of the existence of a Boer force in his rear, Methuen turned, and
on July 29th he was back at Frederickstad on the Potchefstroom to
Krugersdorp railway. The sudden change in his plans was caused doubtless
by the desire to head off De Wet in case he should cross the Vaal River.
Lord Roberts was still anxious to clear the neighbourhood of Rustenburg
entirely of the enemy; and he therefore, since Methuen was needed to
complete the cordon round De Wet, recalled Hamilton’s force from the east
and despatched it, as already described, to the west of Pretoria.
Before going into the details of the great De Wet hunt, in which Methuen’s
force was to be engaged, I shall follow Hamilton’s division across, and
give some account of their services. On August 1st he set out from
Pretoria for Rustenburg. On that day and on the next he had brisk
skirmishes which brought him successfully through the Magaliesberg range
with a loss of forty wounded, mostly of the Berkshires. On the 5th of
August he had made his way to Rustenburg and drove off the investing
force. A smaller siege had been going on to westward, where at Elands
River another Mafeking man, Colonel Hore, had been held up by the
burghers. For some days it was feared, and even officially announced, that
the garrison had surrendered. It was known that an attempt by Carrington
to relieve the place on August 5th had been beaten back, and that the
state of the country appeared so threatening that he had been compelled,
or had imagined himself to be compelled, to retreat as far as Mafeking,
evacuating Zeerust and Otto’s Hoop, abandoning the considerable stores
which were collected at those places. In spite of all these sinister
indications the garrison was still holding its own, and on August 16th it
was relieved by Lord Kitchener.
This stand at Brakfontein on the Elands River appears to have been one of
the very finest deeds of arms of the war. The Australians have been so
split up during the campaign, that though their valour and efficiency were
universally recognised, they had no single exploit which they could call
their own. But now they can point to Elands River as proudly as the
Canadians can to Paardeberg. They were 500 in number, Victorians, New
South Welshmen, and Queenslanders, the latter the larger unit, with a
corps of Rhodesians. Under Hore were Major Hopper of the Rhodesians, and
Major Toubridge of the Queenslanders. Two thousand five hundred Boers
surrounded them, and most favourable terms of surrender were offered and
scouted. Six guns were trained upon them, and during 11 days 1800 shells
fell within their lines. The river was half a mile off, and every drop of
water for man or beast had to come from there. Nearly all their horses and
75 of the men were killed or wounded. With extraordinary energy and
ingenuity the little band dug shelters which are said to have exceeded in
depth and efficiency any which the Boers have devised. Neither the repulse
of Carrington, nor the jamming of their only gun, nor the death of the
gallant Annett, was sufficient to dishearten them. They were sworn to die
before the white flag should wave above them. And so fortune yielded, as
fortune will when brave men set their teeth, and Broadwood’s troopers,
filled with wonder and admiration, rode into the lines of the reduced and
emaciated but indomitable garrison. When the ballad-makers of Australia
seek for a subject, let them turn to Elands River, for there was no finer
resistance in the war. They will not grudge a place in their record to the
130 gallant Rhodesians who shared with them the honours and the dangers of
the exploit.
On August 7th Ian Hamilton abandoned Rustenburg, taking Baden-Powell and
his men with him. It was obviously unwise to scatter the British forces
too widely by attempting to garrison every single town. For the instant
the whole interest of the war centred upon De Wet and his dash into the
Transvaal. One or two minor events, however, which cannot be fitted into
any continuous narrative may be here introduced.
One of these was the action at Faber’s Put, by which Sir Charles Warren
crushed the rebellion in Griqualand. In that sparsely inhabited country of
vast distances it was a most difficult task to bring the revolt to a
decisive ending. This Sir Charles Warren, with his special local knowledge
and interest, was able to do, and the success is doubly welcome as
bringing additional honour to a man who, whatever view one may take of his
action at Spion Kop, has grown grey in the service of the Empire. With a
column consisting mainly of colonials and of yeomanry he had followed the
rebels up to a point within twelve miles of Douglas. Here at the end of
May they turned upon him and delivered a fierce night attack, so sudden
and so strongly pressed that much credit is due both to General and to
troops for having repelled it. The camp was attacked on all sides in the
early dawn. The greater part of the horses were stampeded by the firing,
and the enemy’s riflemen were found to be at very close quarters. For an
hour the action was warm, but at the end of that time the Boers fled,
leaving a number of dead behind them. The troops engaged in this very
creditable action, which might have tried the steadiness of veterans, were
four hundred of the Duke of Edinburgh’s volunteers, some of Paget’s horse
and of the 8th Regiment Imperial Yeomanry, four Canadian guns, and
twenty-five of Warren’s Scouts. Their losses were eighteen killed and
thirty wounded. Colonel Spence, of the volunteers, died at the head of his
regiment. A few days before, on May 27th, Colonel Adye had won a small
engagement at Kheis, some distance to the westward, and the effect of the
two actions was to put an end to open resistance. On June 20th De
Villiers, the Boer leader, finally surrendered to Sir Charles Warren,
handing over two hundred and twenty men with stores, rifles, and
ammunition. The last sparks had for the time been stamped out in the
colony.
There remain to be mentioned those attacks upon trains and upon the
railway which had spread from the Free State to the Transvaal. On July
19th a train was wrecked on the way from Potchefstroom to Krugersdorp
without serious injury to the passengers. On July 31st, however, the same
thing occurred with more murderous effect, the train running at full speed
off the metals. Thirteen of the Shropshires were killed and thirty-seven
injured in this deplorable affair, which cost us more than many an
important engagement. On August 2nd a train coming up from Bloemfontein
was derailed by Sarel Theron and his gang some miles south of Kroonstad.
Thirty-five trucks of stores were burned, and six of the passengers
(unarmed convalescent soldiers) were killed or wounded. A body of mounted
infantry followed up the Boers, who numbered eighty, and succeeded in
killing and wounding several of them.
On July 21st the Boers made a determined attack upon the railhead at a
point thirteen miles east of Heidelberg, where over a hundred Royal
Engineers were engaged upon a bridge. They were protected by three hundred
Dublin Fusiliers under Major English. For some hours the little party was
hard pressed by the burghers, who had two field-pieces and a pom-pom. They
could make no impression, however, upon the steady Irish infantry, and
after some hours the arrival of General Hart with reinforcements scattered
the assailants, who succeeded in getting their guns away in safety.
At the beginning of August it must be confessed that the general situation
in the Transvaal was not reassuring. Springs near Johannesburg had in some
inexplicable way, without fighting, fallen into the hands of the enemy.
Klerksdorp, an important place in the south-west, had also been
reoccupied, and a handful of men who garrisoned it had been made prisoners
without resistance. Rustenburg was about to be abandoned, and the British
were known to be falling back from Zeerust and Otto’s Hoop, concentrating
upon Mafeking. The sequel proved however, that there was no cause for
uneasiness in all this. Lord Roberts was concentrating his strength upon
those objects which were vital, and letting the others drift for a time.
At present the two obviously important things were to hunt down De Wet and
to scatter the main Boer army under Botha. The latter enterprise must wait
upon the former, so for a fortnight all operations were in abeyance while
the flying columns of the British endeavoured to run down their extremely
active and energetic antagonist.
At the end of July De Wet had taken refuge in some exceedingly difficult
country near Reitzburg, seven miles south of the Vaal River. The
operations were proceeding vigorously at that time against the main army
at Fouriesberg, and sufficient troops could not be spared to attack him,
but he was closely observed by Kitchener and Broadwood with a force of
cavalry and mounted infantry. With the surrender of Prinsloo a large army
was disengaged, and it was obvious that if De Wet remained where he was he
must soon be surrounded. On the other hand, there was no place of refuge
to the south of him. With great audacity he determined to make a dash for
the Transvaal, in the hope of joining hands with De la Rey’s force, or
else of making his way across the north of Pretoria, and so reaching
Botha’s army. President Steyn went with him, and a most singular
experience it must have been for him to be harried like a mad dog through
the country in which he had once been an honoured guest. De Wet’s force
was exceedingly mobile, each man having a led horse, and the ammunition
being carried in light Cape carts.
In the first week of August the British began to thicken round his
lurking-place, and De Wet knew that it was time for him to go. He made a
great show of fortifying a position, but it was only a ruse to deceive
those who watched him. Travelling as lightly as possible, he made a dash
on August 7th at the drift which bears his own name, and so won his way
across the Vaal River, Kitchener thundering at his heels with his cavalry
and mounted infantry. Methuen’s force was at that time at Potchefstroom,
and instant orders had been sent to him to block the drifts upon the
northern side. It was found as he approached the river that the vanguard
of the enemy was already across and that it was holding the spurs of the
hills which would cover the crossing of their comrades. By the dash of the
Royal Welsh Fusiliers and the exertions of the artillery ridge after ridge
was carried, but before evening De Wet with supreme skill had got his
convoy across, and had broken away, first to the eastward and then to the
north. On the 9th Methuen was in touch with him again, and the two savage
little armies, Methuen worrying at the haunch, and De Wet snapping back
over his shoulder, swept northward over the huge plains. Wherever there
was ridge or kopje the Boer riflemen staved off the eager pursuers. Where
the ground lay flat and clear the British guns thundered onwards and fired
into the lines of wagons. Mile after mile the running fight was sustained,
but the other British columns, Broadwood’s men and Kitchener’s men, had
for some reason not come up. Methuen alone was numerically inferior to the
men he was chasing, but he held on with admirable energy and spirit. The
Boers were hustled off the kopjes from which they tried to cover their
rear. Twenty men of the Yorkshire Yeomanry carried one hill with the
bayonet, though only twelve of them were left to reach the top.
De Wet trekked onwards during the night of the 9th, shedding wagons and
stores as he went. He was able to replace some of his exhausted beasts
from the farmhouses which he passed. Methuen on the morning of the 10th
struck away to the west, sending messages back to Broadwood and Kitchener
in the rear that they should bear to the east, and so nurse the Boer
column between them. At the same time he sent on a messenger, who
unfortunately never arrived, to warn Smith-Dorrien at Bank Station to
throw himself across De Wet’s path. On the 11th it was realised that De
Wet had succeeded, in spite of great exertions upon the part of
Smith-Dorrien’s infantry, in crossing the railway line, and that he had
left all his pursuers to the south of him. But across his front lay the
Magaliesberg range. There are only three passes, the Magato Pass,
Olifant’s Nek, and Commando Nek. It was understood that all three were
held by British troops. It was obvious, therefore, that if Methuen could
advance in such a way as to cut De Wet off from slipping through to the
west he would be unable to get away. Broadwood and Kitchener would be
behind him, and Pretoria, with the main British army, to the east.
Methuen continued to act with great energy and judgment. At three A.M. on
the 12th be started from Fredericstadt, and by 5 P.M. on Tuesday he had
done eighty miles in sixty hours. The force which accompanied him was all
mounted, 1200 of the Colonial Division (1st Brabant’s, Cape Mounted
Rifles, Kaffrarian Rifles, and Border Horse), and the Yeomanry with ten
guns. Douglas with the infantry was to follow behind, and these brave
fellows covered sixty-six miles in seventy-six hours in their eagerness to
be in time. No men could have made greater efforts than did those of
Methuen, for there was not one who did not appreciate the importance of
the issue and long to come to close quarters with the wily leader who had
baffled us so long.
On the 12th Methuen’s van again overtook De Wet’s rear, and the old game
of rearguard riflemen on one side, and a pushing artillery on the other,
was once more resumed. All day the Boers streamed over the veld with the
guns and the horsemen at their heels. A shot from the 78th battery struck
one of De Wet’s guns, which was abandoned and captured. Many stores were
taken and much more, with the wagons which contained them, burned by the
Boers. Fighting incessantly, both armies traversed thirty-five miles of
ground that day.
It was fully understood that Olifant’s Nek was held by the British, so
Methuen felt that if he could block the Magato Pass all would be well. He
therefore left De Wet’s direct track, knowing that other British forces
were behind him, and he continued his swift advance until he had reached
the desired position. It really appeared that at last the elusive raider
was in a corner. But, alas for fallen hopes, and alas for the wasted
efforts of gallant men! Olifant’s Nek had been abandoned and De Wet had
passed safely through it into the plains beyond, where De la Rey’s force
was still in possession. In vain Methuen’s weary column forced the Magato
Pass and descended into Rustenburg. The enemy was in a safe country once
more. Whose the fault, or whether there was a fault at all, it is for the
future to determine. At least unalloyed praise can be given to the Boer
leader for the admirable way in which he had extricated himself from so
many dangers. On the 17th., moving along the northern side of the
mountains, he appeared at Commando Nek on the Little Crocodile River,
where he summoned Baden-Powell to surrender, and received some chaff in
reply from that light-hearted commander. Then, swinging to the eastward,
he endeavoured to cross to the north of Pretoria. On the 19th he was heard
of at Hebron. Baden-Powell and Paget had, however, already barred this
path, and De Wet, having sent Steyn on with a small escort, turned back to
the Free State. On the 22nd it was reported that, with only a handful of
his followers, he had crossed the Magaliesberg range by a bridlepath and
was riding southwards. Lord Roberts was at last free to turn his undivided
attention upon Botha.
Two Boer plots had been discovered during the first half of August, the
one in Pretoria and the other in Johannesburg, each having for its object
a rising against the British in the town. Of these the former, which was
the more serious, involving as it did the kidnapping of Lord Roberts, was
broken up by the arrest of the deviser, Hans Cordua, a German lieutenant
in the Transvaal Artillery. On its merits it is unlikely that the crime
would have been met by the extreme penalty, especially as it was a
question whether the agent provocateur had not played a part. But the
repeated breaches of parole, by which our prisoners of one day were in the
field against us on the next, called imperatively for an example, and it
was probably rather for his broken faith than for his hare-brained scheme
that Cordua died. At the same time it is impossible not to feel sorrow for
this idealist of twenty-three who died for a cause which was not his own.
He was shot in the garden of Pretoria Gaol upon August 24th. A fresh and
more stringent proclamation from Lord Roberts showed that the British
Commander was losing his patience in the face of the wholesale return of
paroled men to the field, and announced that such perfidy would in future
be severely punished. It was notorious that the same men had been taken
and released more than once. One man killed in action was found to have
nine signed passes in his pocket. It was against such abuses that the
extra severity of the British was aimed.
CHAPTER 29. THE ADVANCE TO KOMATIPOORT.
The time had now come for the great combined movement which was to sweep
the main Boer army off the line of the Delagoa railway, cut its source of
supplies, and follow it into that remote and mountainous Lydenburg
district which had always been proclaimed as the last refuge of the
burghers. Before entering upon this most difficult of all his advances
Lord Roberts waited until the cavalry and mounted infantry were well
mounted again. Then, when all was ready, the first step in this last stage
of the regular campaign was taken by General Buller, who moved his army of
Natal veterans off the railway line and advanced to a position from which
he could threaten the flank and rear of Botha if he held his ground
against Lord Roberts. Buller’s cavalry had been reinforced by the arrival
of Strathcona’s Horse, a fine body of Canadian troopers, whose services
had been presented to the nation by the public-spirited nobleman whose
name they bore. They were distinguished by their fine physique, and by the
lassoes, cowboy stirrups, and large spurs of the North-Western plains.
It was in the first week of July that Clery joined hands with the
Heidelberg garrison, while Coke with the 10th Brigade cleared the right
flank of the railway by an expedition as far as Amersfoort. On July 6th
the Natal communications were restored, and on the 7th Buller was able to
come through to Pretoria and confer with the Commander-in-Chief. A Boer
force with heavy guns still hung about the line, and several small
skirmishes were fought between Vlakfontein and Greylingstad in order to
drive it away. By the middle of July the immediate vicinity of the railway
was clear save for some small marauding parties who endeavoured to tamper
with the rails and the bridges. Up to the end of the month the whole of
the Natal army remained strung along the line of communications from
Heidelberg to Standerton, waiting for the collection of forage and
transport to enable them to march north against Botha’s position.
On August 8th Buller’s troops advanced to the north-east from Paardekop,
pushing a weak Boer force with five guns in front of them. At the cost of
twenty-five wounded, principally of the 60th Rifles, the enemy was cleared
off, and the town of Amersfoort was occupied. On the 13th, moving on the
same line, and meeting with very slight opposition, Buller took possession
of Ermelo. His advance was having a good effect upon the district, for on
the 12th the Standerton commando, which numbered 182 men, surrendered to
Clery. On the 15th, still skirmishing, Buller’s men were at Twyfelaar, and
had taken possession of Carolina. Here and there a distant horseman riding
over the olive-coloured hills showed how closely and incessantly he was
watched; but, save for a little sniping upon his flanks, there was no
fighting. He was coming now within touch of French’s cavalry, operating
from Middelburg, and on the 14th heliographic communication was
established with Gordon’s Brigade.
Buller’s column had come nearer to its friends, but it was also nearer to
the main body of Boers who were waiting in that very rugged piece of
country which lies between Belfast in the west and Machadodorp in the
east. From this rocky stronghold they had thrown out mobile bodies to
harass the British advance from the south, and every day brought Buller
into closer touch with these advance guards of the enemy. On August 21st
he had moved eight miles nearer to Belfast, French operating upon his left
flank. Here he found the Boers in considerable numbers, but he pushed them
northward with his cavalry, mounted infantry, and artillery, losing
between thirty and forty killed and wounded, the greater part from the
ranks of the 18th Hussars and the Gordon Highlanders. This march brought
him within fifteen miles of Belfast, which lay due north of him. At the
same time Pole-Carew with the central column of Lord Roberts’s force had
advanced along the railway line, and on August 24th he occupied Belfast
with little resistance. He found, however, that the enemy were holding the
formidable ridges which lie between that place and Dalmanutha, and that
they showed every sign of giving battle, presenting a firm front to Buller
on the south as well as to Roberts’s army on the west.
On the 23rd some successes attended their efforts to check the advance
from the south. During the day Buller had advanced steadily, though under
incessant fire. The evening found him only six miles to the south of
Dalmanutha, the centre of the Boer position. By some misfortune, however,
after dark two companies of the Liverpool Regiment found themselves
isolated from their comrades and exposed to a very heavy fire. They had
pushed forward too far, and were very near to being surrounded and
destroyed. There were fifty-six casualties in their ranks, and thirty-two,
including their wounded captain, were taken. The total losses in the day
were 121.
On August 25th it was evident that important events were at hand, for on
that date Lord Roberts arrived at Belfast and held a conference with
Buller, French, and Pole-Carew. The general communicated his plans to his
three lieutenants, and on the 26th and following days the fruits of the
interview were seen in a succession of rapid manoeuvres which drove the
Boers out of this, the strongest position which they had held since they
left the banks of the Tugela.
The advance of Lord Roberts was made, as his wont is, with two widespread
wings, and a central body to connect them. Such a movement leaves the
enemy in doubt as to which flank will really be attacked, while if he
denudes his centre in order to strengthen both flanks there is the chance
of a frontal advance which might cut him in two. French with two cavalry
brigades formed the left advance, Pole-Carew the centre, and Buller the
right, the whole operations extending over thirty miles of infamous
country. It is probable that Lord Roberts had reckoned that the Boer right
was likely to be their strongest position, since if it were turned it
would cut off their retreat upon Lydenburg, so his own main attack was
directed upon their left. This was carried out by General Buller on August
26th and 27th.
On the first day the movement upon Buller’s part consisted in a very
deliberate reconnaissance of and closing in upon the enemy’s position, his
troops bivouacking upon the ground which they had won. On the second,
finding that all further progress was barred by the strong ridge of
Bergendal, he prepared his attack carefully with artillery and then let
loose his infantry upon it. It was a gallant feat of arms upon either
side. The Boer position was held by a detachment of the Johannesburg
Police, who may have been bullies in peace, but were certainly heroes in
war. The fire of sixty guns was concentrated for a couple of hours upon a
position only a few hundred yards in diameter. In this infernal fire,
which left the rocks yellow with lyddite, the survivors still waited
grimly for the advance of the infantry. No finer defence was made in the
war. The attack was carried out across an open glacis by the 2nd Rifle
Brigade and by the Inniskilling Fusiliers, the men of Pieter’s Hill.
Through a deadly fire the gallant infantry swept over the position, though
Metcalfe, the brave colonel of the Rifles, with eight other officers, and
seventy men were killed or wounded. Lysley, Steward, and Campbell were all
killed in leading their companies, but they could not have met their
deaths upon an occasion more honourable to their battalion. Great credit
must also be given to A and B companies of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, who
were actually the first over the Boer position. The cessation of the
artillery fire was admirably timed. It was sustained up to the last
possible instant. ‘As it was,’ said the captain of the leading company, ‘a
94-pound shell burst about thirty yards in front of the right of our lot.
The smell of the lyddite was awful.’ A pom-pom and twenty prisoners,
including the commander of the police, were the trophies of the day. An
outwork of the Boer position had been carried, and the rumour of defeat
and disaster had already spread through their ranks. Braver men than the
burghers have never lived, but they had reached the limits of human
endurance, and a long experience of defeat in the field had weakened their
nerve and lessened their morale. They were no longer men of the same fibre
as those who had crept up to the trenches of Spion Kop, or faced the lean
warriors of Ladysmith on that grim January morning at Caesar’s Camp. Dutch
tenacity would not allow them to surrender, and yet they realised how
hopeless was the fight in which they were engaged. Nearly fifteen thousand
of their best men were prisoners, ten thousand at the least had returned
to their farms and taken the oath. Another ten had been killed, wounded,
or incapacitated. Most of the European mercenaries had left; they held
only the ultimate corner of their own country, they had lost their grip
upon the railway line, and their supply of stores and of ammunition was
dwindling. To such a pass had eleven months of war reduced that formidable
army who had so confidently advanced to the conquest of South Africa.
While Buller had established himself firmly upon the left of the Boer
position, Pole-Carew had moved forward to the north of the railway line,
and French had advanced as far as Swart Kopjes upon the Boer right. These
operations on August 26th and 27th were met with some resistance, and
entailed a loss of forty or fifty killed and wounded; but it soon became
evident that the punishment which they had received at Bergendal had taken
the fight out of the Boers, and that this formidable position was to be
abandoned as the others had been. On the 28th the burghers were
retreating, and Machadodorp, where Kruger had sat so long in his railway
carriage, protesting that he would eventually move west and not east, was
occupied by Buller. French, moving on a more northerly route, entered
Watervalonder with his cavalry upon the same date, driving a small Boer
force before him. Amid rain and mist the British columns were pushing
rapidly forwards, but still the burghers held together, and still their
artillery was uncaptured. The retirement was swift, but it was not yet a
rout.
On the 30th the British cavalry were within touch of Nooitgedacht, and saw
a glad sight in a long trail of ragged men who were hurrying in their
direction along the railway line. They were the British prisoners,
eighteen hundred in number, half of whom had been brought from Waterval
when Pretoria was captured, while the other half represented the men who
had been sent from the south by De Wet, or from the west by De la Rey.
Much allowance must be made for the treatment of prisoners by a
belligerent who is himself short of food, but nothing can excuse the
harshness which the Boers showed to the Colonials who fell into their
power, or the callous neglect of the sick prisoners at Waterval. It is a
humiliating but an interesting fact that from first to last no fewer than
seven thousand of our men passed into their power, all of whom were now
recovered save some sixty officers, who had been carried off by them in
their flight.
On September 1st Lord Roberts showed his sense of the decisive nature of
these recent operations by publishing the proclamation which had been
issued as early as July 4th, by which the Transvaal became a portion of
the British Empire. On the same day General Buller, who had ceased to
advance to the east and retraced his steps as far as Helvetia, began his
northerly movement in the direction of Lydenburg, which is nearly fifty
miles to the north of the railway line. On that date his force made a
march of fourteen miles, which brought them over the Crocodile River to
Badfontein. Here, on September 2nd, Buller found that the indomitable
Botha was still turning back upon him, for he was faced by so heavy a
shell fire, coming from so formidable a position, that he had to be
content to wait in front of it until some other column should outflank it.
The days of unnecessary frontal attacks were for ever over, and his force,
though ready for anything which might be asked of it, had gone through a
good deal in the recent operations. Since August 21st they had been under
fire almost every day, and their losses, though never great on any one
occasion, amounted in the aggregate during that time to 365. They had
crossed the Tugela, they had relieved Ladysmith, they had forced Laing’s
Nek, and now it was to them that the honour had fallen of following the
enemy into this last fastness. Whatever criticism may be directed against
some episodes in the Natal campaign, it must never be forgotten that to
Buller and to his men have fallen some of the hardest tasks of the war,
and that these tasks have always in the end been successfully carried out.
The controversy about the unfortunate message to White, and the memory of
the abandoned guns at Colenso, must not lead us to the injustice of
ignoring all that is to be set to the credit account.
On September 3rd Lord Roberts, finding how strong a position faced Buller,
despatched Ian Hamilton with a force to turn it upon the right.
Brocklehurst’s brigade of cavalry joined Hamilton in his advance. On the
4th he was within signalling distance of Buller, and on the right rear of
the Boer position. The occupation of a mountain called Zwaggenhoek would
establish Hamilton firmly, and the difficult task of seizing it at night
was committed to Colonel Douglas and his fine regiment of Royal Scots. It
was Spion Kop over again, but with a happier ending. At break of day the
Boers discovered that their position had been rendered untenable and
withdrew, leaving the road to Lydenburg clear to Buller. Hamilton and he
occupied the town upon the 6th. The Boers had split into two parties, the
larger one with the guns falling back upon Kruger’s Post, and the others
retiring to Pilgrim’s Rest. Amid cloud-girt peaks and hardly passable
ravines the two long-enduring armies still wrestled for the final mastery.
To the north-east of Lydenburg, between that town and Spitzkop, there is a
formidable ridge called the Mauchberg, and here again the enemy were found
to be standing at bay. They were even better than their word, for they had
always said that they would make their last stand at Lydenburg, and now
they were making one beyond it. But the resistance was weakening. Even
this fine position could not be held against the rush of the three
regiments, the Devons, the Royal Irish, and the Royal Scots, who were let
loose upon it. The artillery supported the attack admirably. ‘They did
nobly,’ said one who led the advance. ‘It is impossible to overrate the
value of their support. They ceased also exactly at the right moment. One
more shell would have hit us.’ Mountain mists saved the defeated burghers
from a close pursuit, but the hills were carried. The British losses on
this day, September 8th, were thirteen killed and twenty-five wounded; but
of these thirty-eight no less than half were accounted for by one of those
strange malignant freaks which can neither be foreseen nor prevented. A
shrapnel shell, fired at an incredible distance, burst right over the
Volunteer Company of the Gordons who were marching in column. Nineteen men
fell, but it is worth recording that, smitten so suddenly and so terribly,
the gallant Volunteers continued to advance as steadily as before this
misfortune befell them. On the 9th Buller was still pushing forward to
Spitzkop, his guns and the 1st Rifles overpowering a weak rearguard
resistance of the Boers. On the 10th he had reached Klipgat, which is
halfway between the Mauchberg and Spitzkop. So close was the pursuit that
the Boers, as they streamed through the passes, flung thirteen of their
ammunition wagons over the cliffs to prevent them from falling into the
hands of the British horsemen. At one period it looked as if the gallant
Boer guns had waited too long in covering the retreat of the burghers.
Strathcona’s Horse pressed closely upon them. The situation was saved by
the extreme coolness and audacity of the Boer gunners. ‘When the cavalry
were barely half a mile behind the rear gun’ says an eye-witness ‘and we
regarded its capture as certain, the LEADING Long Tom deliberately turned
to bay and opened with case shot at the pursuers streaming down the hill
in single file over the head of his brother gun. It was a magnificent
coup, and perfectly successful. The cavalry had to retire, leaving a few
men wounded, and by the time our heavy guns had arrived both Long Toms had
got clean away.’ But the Boer riflemen would no longer stand. Demoralised
after their magnificent struggle of eleven months the burghers were now a
beaten and disorderly rabble flying wildly to the eastward, and only held
together by the knowledge that in their desperate situation there was more
comfort and safety in numbers. The war seemed to be swiftly approaching
its close. On the 15th Buller occupied Spitzkop in the north, capturing a
quantity of stores, while on the 14th French took Barberton in the south,
releasing all the remaining British prisoners and taking possession of
forty locomotives, which do not appear to have been injured by the enemy.
Meanwhile Pole-Carew had worked along the railway line, and had occupied
Kaapmuiden, which was the junction where the Barberton line joins that to
Lourenco Marques. Ian Hamilton’s force, after the taking of Lydenburg and
the action which followed, turned back, leaving Buller to go his own way,
and reached Komatipoort on September 24th, having marched since September
9th without a halt through a most difficult country.
On September 11th an incident had occurred which must have shown the most
credulous believer in Boer prowess that their cause was indeed lost. On
that date Paul Kruger, a refugee from the country which he had ruined,
arrived at Lourenco Marques, abandoning his beaten commandos and his
deluded burghers. How much had happened since those distant days when as a
little herdsboy he had walked behind the bullocks on the great northward
trek. How piteous this ending to all his strivings and his plottings! A
life which might have closed amid the reverence of a nation and the
admiration of the world was destined to finish in exile, impotent and
undignified. Strange thoughts must have come to him during those hours of
flight, memories of his virile and turbulent youth, of the first
settlement of those great lands, of wild wars where his hand was heavy
upon the natives, of the triumphant days of the war of independence, when
England seemed to recoil from the rifles of the burghers. And then the
years of prosperity, the years when the simple farmer found himself among
the great ones of the earth, his name a household word in Europe, his
State rich and powerful, his coffers filled with the spoil of the poor
drudges who worked so hard and paid taxes so readily. Those were his great
days, the days when he hardened his heart against their appeals for
justice and looked beyond his own borders to his kinsmen in the hope of a
South Africa which should be all his own. And now what had come of it all?
A handful of faithful attendants, and a fugitive old man, clutching in his
flight at his papers and his moneybags. The last of the old-world
Puritans, he departed poring over his well-thumbed Bible, and proclaiming
that the troubles of his country arose, not from his own narrow and
corrupt administration, but from some departure on the part of his fellow
burghers from the stricter tenets of the dopper sect. So Paul Kruger
passed away from the country which he had loved and ruined.
Whilst the main army of Botha had been hustled out of their position at
Machadodorp and scattered at Lydenburg and at Barberton, a number of other
isolated events had occurred at different points of the seat of war, each
of which deserves some mention. The chief of these was a sudden revival of
the war in the Orange River Colony, where the band of Olivier was still
wandering in the north-eastern districts. Hunter, moving northwards after
the capitulation of Prinsloo at Fouriesburg, came into contact on August
15th with this force near Heilbron, and had forty casualties, mainly of
the Highland Light Infantry, in a brisk engagement. For a time the British
seemed to have completely lost touch with Olivier, who suddenly on August
24th struck at a small detachment consisting almost entirely of Queenstown
Rifle Volunteers under Colonel Ridley, who were reconnoitring near
Winburg. The Colonial troopers made a gallant defence. Throwing themselves
into the farmhouse of Helpmakaar, and occupying every post of vantage
around it, they held off more than a thousand assailants, in spite of the
three guns which the latter brought to bear upon them. A hundred and
thirty-two rounds were fired at the house, but the garrison still refused
to surrender. Troopers who had been present at Wepener declared that the
smaller action was the warmer of the two. Finally on the morning of the
third day a relief force arrived upon the scene, and the enemy dispersed.
The British losses were thirty-two killed and wounded. Nothing daunted by
his failure, Olivier turned upon the town of Winburg and attempted to
regain it, but was defeated again and scattered, he and his three sons
being taken. The result was due to the gallantry and craft of a handful of
the Queenstown Volunteers, who laid an ambuscade in a donga, and disarmed
the Boers as they passed, after the pattern of Sanna’s Post. By this
action one of the most daring and resourceful of the Dutch leaders fell
into the hands of the British. It is a pity that his record is stained by
his dishonourable conduct in breaking the compact made on the occasion of
the capture of Prinsloo. But for British magnanimity a drumhead
court-martial should have taken the place of the hospitality of the Ceylon
planters.
On September 2nd another commando of Free State Boers under Fourie emerged
from the mountain country on the Basuto border, and fell upon Ladybrand,
which was held by a feeble garrison consisting of one company of the
Worcester regiment and forty-three men of the Wiltshire Yeomanry. The
Boers, who had several guns with them, appear to have been the same force
which had been repulsed at Winburg. Major White, a gallant marine, whose
fighting qualities do not seem to have deteriorated with his distance from
salt water, had arranged his defences upon a hill, after the Wepener
model, and held his own most stoutly. So great was the disparity of the
forces that for days acute anxiety was felt lest another of those
humiliating surrenders should interrupt the record of victories, and
encourage the Boers to further resistance. The point was distant, and it
was some time before relief could reach them. But the dusky chiefs, who
from their native mountains looked down on the military drama which was
played so close to their frontier, were again, as on the Jammersberg, to
see the Boer attack beaten back by the constancy of the British defence.
The thin line of soldiers, 150 of them covering a mile and a half of
ground, endured a heavy shell and rifle fire with unshaken resolution,
repulsed every attempt of the burghers, and held the flag flying until
relieved by the forces under White and Bruce Hamilton. In this march to
the relief Hamilton’s infantry covered eighty miles in four and a half
days. Lean and hard, inured to warfare, and far from every temptation of
wine or women, the British troops at this stage of the campaign were in
such training, and marched so splendidly, that the infantry was often very
little slower than the cavalry. Methuen’s fine performance in pursuit of
De Wet, where Douglas’s infantry did sixty-six miles in seventy-five
hours, the City Imperial Volunteers covering 224 miles in fourteen days,
with a single forced march of thirty miles in seventeen hours, the
Shropshires forty-three miles in thirty-two hours, the forty-five miles in
twenty-five hours of the Essex Regiment, Bruce Hamilton’s march recorded
above, and many other fine efforts serve to show the spirit and endurance
of the troops.
In spite of the defeat at Winburg and the repulse at Ladybrand, there
still remained a fair number of broken and desperate men in the Free State
who held out among the difficult country of the east. A party of these
came across in the middle of September and endeavoured to cut the railway
near Brandfort. They were pursued and broken up by Macdonald, who, much
aided in his operations by the band of scouts which Lord Lovat had brought
with him from Scotland, took several prisoners and a large number of
wagons and of oxen. A party of these Boers attacked a small post of
sixteen Yeomanry under Lieutenant Slater at Bultfontein, but were held at
bay until relief came from Brandfort.
At two other points the Boer and British forces were in contact during
these operations. One was to the immediate north of Pretoria, where
Grobler’s commando was faced by Paget’s brigade. On August 18th the Boers
were forced with some loss out of Hornies Nek, which is ten miles to the
north of the capital. On the 22nd a more important skirmish took place at
Pienaar’s River, in the same direction, between Baden-Powell’s men, who
had come thither in pursuit of De Wet, and Grobler’s band. The advance
guards of the two forces galloped into each other, and for once Boer and
Briton looked down the muzzles of each other’s rifles. The gallant
Rhodesian Regiment, which had done such splendid service during the war,
suffered most heavily. Colonel Spreckley and four others were killed, and
six or seven wounded. The Boers were broken, however, and fled, leaving
twenty-five prisoners to the victors. Baden-Powell and Paget pushed
forwards as far as Nylstroom, but finding themselves in wild and
profitless country they returned towards Pretoria, and established the
British northern posts at a place called Warm Baths. Here Paget commanded,
while Baden-Powell shortly afterwards went down to Cape Town to make
arrangements for taking over the police force of the conquered countries,
and to receive the enthusiastic welcome of his colonial fellow-countrymen.
Plumer, with a small force operating from Warm Baths, scattered a Boer
commando on September 1st, capturing a few prisoners and a considerable
quantity of munitions of war. On the 5th there was another skirmish in the
same neighbourhood, during which the enemy attacked a kopje held by a
company of Munster Fusiliers, and was driven off with loss. Many thousands
of cattle were captured by the British in this part of the field of
operations, and were sent into Pretoria, whence they helped to supply the
army in the east.
There was still considerable effervescence in the western districts of the
Transvaal, and a mounted detachment met with fierce opposition at the end
of August on their journey from Zeerust to Krugersdorp. Methuen, after his
unsuccessful chase of De Wet, had gone as far as Zeerust, and had then
taken his force on to Mafeking to refit. Before leaving Zeerust, however,
he had despatched Colonel Little to Pretoria with a column which consisted
of his own third cavalry brigade, 1st Brabant’s, the Kaffrarian Rifles, R
battery of Horse Artillery, and four Colonial guns. They were acting as
guard to a very large convoy of ‘returned empties.’ The district which
they had to traverse is one of the most fertile in the Transvaal, a land
of clear streams and of orange groves. But the farmers are numerous and
aggressive, and the column, which was 900 strong, could clear all
resistance from its front, but found it impossible to brush off the
snipers upon its flanks and rear. Shortly after their start the column was
deprived of the services of its gallant leader, Colonel Little, who was
shot while riding with his advance scouts. Colonel Dalgety took over the
command. Numerous desultory attacks culminated in a fierce skirmish at
Quaggafontein on August 31st, in which the column had sixty casualties.
The event might have been serious, as De la Rey’s main force appears to
have been concentrated upon the British detachment, the brunt of the
action falling upon the Kaffrarian Rifles. By a rapid movement the column
was able to extricate itself and win its way safely to Krugersdorp, but it
narrowly escaped out of the wolf’s jaws, and as it emerged into the open
country De la Rey’s guns were seen galloping for the pass which they had
just come through. This force was sent south to Kroonstad to refit.
Lord Methuen’s army, after its long marches and arduous work, arrived at
Mafeking on August 28th for the purpose of refitting. Since his departure
from Boshof on May 14th his men had been marching with hardly a rest, and
he had during that time fought fourteen engagements. He was off upon the
war-path once more, with fresh horses and renewed energy, on September
8th, and on the 9th, with the co-operation of General Douglas, he
scattered a Boer force at Malopo, capturing thirty prisoners and a great
quantity of stores. On the 14th he ran down a convoy and regained one of
the Colenso guns and much ammunition. On the 20th he again made large
captures. If in the early phases of the war the Boers had given Paul
Methuen some evil hours, he was certainly getting his own back again. At
the same time Clements was despatched from Pretoria with a small mobile
force for the purpose of clearing the Rustenburg and Krugersdorp
districts, which had always been storm centres. These two forces, of
Methuen and of Clements, moved through the country, sweeping the scattered
Boer bands before them, and hunting them down until they dispersed. At
Kekepoort and at Hekspoort Clements fought successful skirmishes, losing
at the latter action Lieutenant Stanley of the Yeomanry, the Somersetshire
cricketer, who showed, as so many have done, how close is the connection
between the good sportsman and the good soldier. On the 12th Douglas took
thirty-nine prisoners near Lichtenburg. On the 18th Rundle captured a gun
at Bronkhorstfontein. Hart at Potchefstroom, Hildyard in the Utrecht
district, Macdonald in the Orange River Colony, everywhere the British
Generals were busily stamping out the remaining embers of what had been so
terrible a conflagration.
Much trouble but no great damage was inflicted upon the British during
this last stage of the war by the incessant attacks upon the lines of
railway by roving bands of Boers. The actual interruption of traffic was
of little consequence, for the assiduous Sappers with their gangs of
Basuto labourers were always at hand to repair the break. But the loss of
stores, and occasionally of lives, was more serious. Hardly a day passed
that the stokers and drivers were not made targets of by snipers among the
kopjes, and occasionally a train was entirely destroyed. [Footnote: It is
to be earnestly hoped that those in authority will see that these men
obtain the medal and any other reward which can mark our sense of their
faithful service. One of them in the Orange River Colony, after narrating
to me his many hairbreadth escapes, prophesied bitterly that the memory of
his services would pass with the need for them.] Chief among these raiders
was the wild Theron, who led a band which contained men of all nations—the
same gang who had already, as narrated, held up a train in the Orange
River Colony. On August 31st he derailed another at Flip River to the
south of Johannesburg, blowing up the engine and burning thirteen trucks.
Almost at the same time a train was captured near Kroonstad, which
appeared to indicate that the great De Wet was back in his old
hunting-grounds. On the same day the line was cut at Standerton. A few
days later, however, the impunity with which these feats had been
performed was broken, for in a similar venture near Krugersdorp the
dashing Theron and several of his associates lost their lives.
Two other small actions performed at this period of the war demand a
passing notice. One was a smart engagement near Kraai Railway Station, in
which Major Broke of the Sappers with a hundred men attacked a superior
Boer force upon a kopje and drove them off with loss—a feat which it
is safe to say he could not have accomplished six months earlier. The
other was the fine defence made by 125 of the Canadian Mounted Rifles,
who, while guarding the railway, were attacked by a considerable Boer
force with two guns. They proved once more, as Ladybrand and Elands River
had shown, that with provisions, cartridges, and brains, the smallest
force can successfully hold its own if it confines itself to the
defensive.
And now the Boer cause appeared to be visibly tottering to its fall. The
flight of the President had accelerated that process of disintegration
which had already set in. Schalk Burger had assumed the office of
Vice-President, and the notorious Ben Viljoen had become first lieutenant
of Louis Botha in maintaining the struggle. Lord Roberts had issued an
extremely judicious proclamation, in which he pointed out the uselessness
of further resistance, declared that guerilla warfare would be ruthlessly
suppressed, and informed the burghers that no fewer than fifteen thousand
of their fellow-countrymen were in his hands as prisoners, and that none
of these could be released until the last rifle had been laid down. From
all sides in the third week of September the British forces were
converging on Komatipoort, the frontier town. Already wild figures,
stained and tattered after nearly a year of warfare, were walking the
streets of Lourenco Marques, gazed at with wonder and some distrust by the
Portuguese inhabitants. The exiled burghers moodily pacing the streets saw
their exiled President seated in his corner of the Governor’s verandah,
the well-known curved pipe still dangling from his mouth, the Bible by his
chair. Day by day the number of these refugees increased. On September
17th special trains were arriving crammed with the homeless burghers, and
with the mercenaries of many nations—French, German, Irish-American,
and Russian—all anxious to make their way home. By the 19th no fewer
than seven hundred had passed over.
At dawn on September 22nd a half-hearted attempt was made by the commando
of Erasmus to attack Elands River Station, but it was beaten back by the
garrison. While it was going on Paget fell upon the camp which Erasmus had
left behind him, and captured his stores. From all over the country, from
Plumer’s Bushmen, from Barton at Krugersdorp, from the Colonials at
Heilbron, from Clements on the west, came the same reports of dwindling
resistance and of the abandoning of cattle, arms, and ammunition.
On September 24th came the last chapter in this phase of the campaign in
the Eastern Transvaal, when at eight in the morning Pole-Carew and his
Guardsmen occupied Komatipoort. They had made desperate marches, one of
them through thick bush, where they went for nineteen miles without water,
but nothing could shake the cheery gallantry of the men. To them fell the
honour, an honour well deserved by their splendid work throughout the
whole campaign, of entering and occupying the ultimate eastern point which
the Boers could hold. Resistance had been threatened and prepared for, but
the grim silent advance of that veteran infantry took the heart out of the
defence. With hardly a shot fired the town was occupied. The bridge which
would enable the troops to receive their supplies from Lourenco Marques
was still intact. General Pienaar and the greater part of his force,
amounting to over two thousand men, had crossed the frontier and had been
taken down to Delagoa Bay, where they met the respect and attention which
brave men in misfortune deserve. Small bands had slipped away to the north
and the south, but they were insignificant in numbers and depressed in
spirit. For the time it seemed that the campaign was over, but the result
showed that there was greater vitality in the resistance of the burghers
and less validity in their oaths than any one had imagined.
One find of the utmost importance was made at Komatipoort, and at Hector
Spruit on the Crocodile River. That excellent artillery which had fought
so gallant a fight against our own more numerous guns, was found destroyed
and abandoned. Pole-Carew at Komatipoort got one Long Tom (96-pound)
Creusot, and one smaller gun. Ian Hamilton at Hector Spruit found the
remains of many guns, which included two of our horse artillery
twelve-pounders, two large Creusot guns, two Krupps, one Vickers-Maxim
quick firer, two pompoms and four mountain guns.
CHAPTER 30. THE CAMPAIGN OF DE WET.
It had been hoped that the dispersal of the main Boer army, the capture of
its guns and the expulsion of many both of the burghers and of the foreign
mercenaries, would have marked the end of the war. These expectations
were, however, disappointed, and South Africa was destined to be afflicted
and the British Empire disturbed by a useless guerilla campaign. After the
great and dramatic events which characterised the earlier phases of the
struggle between the Briton and the Boer for the mastery of South Africa
it is somewhat of the nature of an anticlimax to turn one’s attention to
those scattered operations which prolonged the resistance for a turbulent
year at the expense of the lives of many brave men on either side. These
raids and skirmishes, which had their origin rather in the hope of
vengeance than of victory, inflicted much loss and misery upon the
country, but, although we may deplore the desperate resolution which bids
brave men prefer death to subjugation, it is not for us, the countrymen of
Hereward or Wallace, to condemn it.
In one important respect these numerous, though trivial, conflicts
differed from the battles in the earlier stages of the war. The British
had learned their lesson so thoroughly that they often turned the tables
upon their instructors. Again and again the surprise was effected, not by
the nation of hunters, but by those rooineks whose want of cunning and of
veld-craft had for so long been a subject of derision and merriment. A
year of the kopje and the donga had altered all that. And in the
proportion of casualties another very marked change had occurred. Time was
when in battle after battle a tenth would have been a liberal estimate for
the losses of the Boers compared with those of the Briton. So it was at
Stormberg; so it was at Colenso; so it may have been at Magersfontein. But
in this last stage of the war the balance was rather in favour of the
British. It may have been because they were now frequently acting on the
defensive, or it may have been from an improvement in their fire, or it
may have come from the more desperate mood of the burghers, but in any
case the fact remains that every encounter diminished the small reserves
of the Boers rather than the ample forces of their opponents.
One other change had come over the war, which caused more distress and
searchings of conscience among some of the people of Great Britain than
the darkest hours of their misfortunes. This lay in the increased
bitterness of the struggle, and in those more strenuous measures which the
British commanders felt themselves entitled and compelled to adopt.
Nothing could exceed the lenity of Lord Roberts’s early proclamations in
the Free State. But, as the months went on and the struggle still
continued, the war assumed a harsher aspect. Every farmhouse represented a
possible fort, and a probable depot for the enemy. The extreme measure of
burning them down was only carried out after a definite offence, such as
affording cover for snipers, or as a deterrent to railway wreckers, but in
either case it is evident that the women or children who were usually the
sole occupants of the farm could not by their own unaided exertions
prevent the line from being cut or the riflemen from firing. It is even
probable that the Boers may have committed these deeds in the vicinity of
houses the destruction of which they would least regret. Thus, on
humanitarian grounds there were strong arguments against this policy of
destruction being pushed too far, and the political reasons were even
stronger, since a homeless man is necessarily the last man to settle down,
and a burned-out family the last to become contented British citizens. On
the other hand, the impatience of the army towards what they regarded as
the abuses of lenity was very great, and they argued that the war would be
endless if the women in the farm were allowed always to supply the sniper
on the kopje. The irregular and brigand-like fashion in which the struggle
was carried out had exasperated the soldiers, and though there were few
cases of individual outrage or unauthorised destruction, the general
orders were applied with some harshness, and repressive measures were
taken which warfare may justify but which civilisation must deplore.
After the dispersal of the main army at Komatipoort there remained a
considerable number of men in arms, some of them irreconcilable burghers,
some of them foreign adventurers, and some of them Cape rebels, to whom
British arms were less terrible than British law. These men, who were
still well armed and well mounted, spread themselves over the country, and
acted with such energy that they gave the impression of a large force.
They made their way into the settled districts, and brought fresh hope and
fresh disaster to many who had imagined that the war had passed for ever
away from them. Under compulsion from their irreconcilable countrymen, a
large number of the farmers broke their parole, mounted the horses which
British leniency had left with them, and threw themselves once more into
the struggle, adding their honour to the other sacrifices which they had
made for their country. In any account of the continual brushes between
these scattered bands and the British forces, there must be such a
similarity in procedure and result, that it would be hard for the writer
and intolerable for the reader if they were set forth in detail. As a
general statement it may be said that during the months to come there was
no British garrison in any one of the numerous posts in the Transvaal, and
in that portion of the Orange River Colony which lies east of the railway,
which was not surrounded by prowling riflemen, there was no convoy sent to
supply those garrisons which was not liable to be attacked upon the road,
and there was no train upon any one of the three lines which might not
find a rail up and a hundred raiders covering it with their Mausers. With
some two thousand miles of railroad to guard, so many garrisons to
provide, and an escort to be furnished to every convoy, there remained out
of the large body of British troops in the country only a moderate force
who were available for actual operations. This force was distributed in
different districts scattered over a wide extent of country, and it was
evident that while each was strong enough to suppress local resistance,
still at any moment a concentration of the Boer scattered forces upon a
single British column might place the latter in a serious position. The
distribution of the British in October and November was roughly as
follows. Methuen was in the Rustenburg district, Barton at Krugersdorp and
operating down the line to Klerksdorp, Settle was in the West, Paget at
Pienaar’s River, Clements in the Magaliesberg, Hart at Potchefstroom,
Lyttelton at Middelburg, Smith-Dorrien at Belfast, W. Kitchener at
Lydenburg, French in the Eastern Transvaal, Hunter, Rundle, Brabant, and
Bruce Hamilton in the Orange River Colony. Each of these forces was
occupied in the same sort of work, breaking up small bodies of the enemy,
hunting for arms, bringing in refugees, collecting supplies, and rounding
up cattle. Some, however, were confronted with organised resistance and
some were not. A short account may be given in turn of each separate
column.
I would treat first the operations of General Barton, because they form
the best introduction to that narrative of the doings of Christian De Wet
to which this chapter will be devoted.
The most severe operations during the month of October fell to the lot of
this British General, who, with some of the faithful fusiliers whom he had
led from the first days in Natal, was covering the line from Krugersdorp
to Klerksdorp. It is a long stretch, and one which, as the result shows,
is as much within striking distance of the Orange Free Staters as of the
men of the Transvaal. Upon October 5th Barton left Krugersdorp with a
force which consisted of the Scots and Welsh Fusiliers, five hundred
mounted men, the 78th R.F.A., three pom-poms, and a 4.7 naval gun. For a
fortnight, as the small army moved slowly down the line of the railroad,
their progress was one continual skirmish. On October 6th they brushed the
enemy aside in an action in which the volunteer company of the Scots
Fusiliers gained the applause of their veteran comrades. On the 8th and
9th there was sharp skirmishing, the brunt of which on the latter date
fell upon the Welsh Fusiliers, who had three officers and eleven men
injured. The commandos of Douthwaite, Liebenberg, and Van der Merwe seem
to have been occupied in harassing the column during their progress
through the Gatsrand range. On the 15th the desultory sniping freshened
again into a skirmish in which the honours and the victory belonged mainly
to the Welshmen and to that very keen and efficient body, the Scottish
Yeomanry. Six Boers were left dead upon the ground. On October 17th the
column reached Frederickstad, where it halted. On that date six of
Marshall’s Horse were cut off while collecting supplies. The same evening
three hundred of the Imperial Light Horse came in from Krugersdorp.
Up to this date the Boer forces which dogged the column had been annoying
but not seriously aggressive. On the 19th, however, affairs took an
unexpected turn. The British scouts rode in to report a huge dust cloud
whirling swiftly northwards from the direction of the Vaal River—soon
plainly visible to all, and showing as it drew nearer the hazy outline of
a long column of mounted men. The dark coats of the riders, and possibly
the speed of their advance, showed that they were Boers, and soon it was
rumoured that it was no other than Christian De Wet with his merry men,
who, with characteristic audacity, had ridden back into the Transvaal in
the hope of overwhelming Barton’s column.
It is some time since we have seen anything of this energetic gentleman
with the tinted glasses, but as the narrative will be much occupied with
him in the future a few words are needed to connect him with the past. It
has been already told how he escaped through the net which caught so many
of his countrymen at the time of the surrender of Prinsloo, and how he was
chased at furious speed from the Vaal River to the mountains of
Magaliesberg. Here he eluded his pursuers, separated from Steyn, who
desired to go east to confer with Kruger, and by the end of August was
back again in his favourite recruiting ground in the north of the Orange
River Colony. Here for nearly two months he had lain very quiet, refitting
and reassembling his scattered force, until now, ready for action once
more, and fired by the hope of cutting off an isolated British force, he
rode swiftly northwards with two thousand men under that rolling cloud
which had been spied by the watchers of Frederickstad.
The problem before him was a more serious one, however, than any which he
had ever undertaken, for this was no isolated regiment or ill-manned post,
but a complete little field force very ready to do battle with him. De
Wet’s burghers, as they arrived, sprang from their ponies and went into
action in their usual invisible but effective fashion, covered by the fire
of several guns. The soldiers had thrown up lines of sangars, however, and
were able, though exposed to a very heavy fire coming from several
directions, to hold their own until nightfall, when the defences were made
more secure. On the 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th the cordon of the
attack was drawn gradually closer, the Boers entirely surrounding the
British force, and it was evident that they were feeling round for a point
at which an assault might be delivered.
The position of the defenders upon the morning of October 25th was as
follows. The Scots Fusiliers were holding a ridge to the south. General
Barton with the rest of his forces occupied a hill some distance off.
Between the two was a valley down which ran the line, and also the spruit
upon which the British depended for their water supply. On each side of
the line were ditches, and at dawn on this seventh day of the investment
it was found that these had been occupied by snipers during the night, and
that it was impossible to water the animals. One of two things must
follow. Either the force must shift its position or it must drive these
men out of their cover. No fire could do it, as they lay in perfect
safety. They must be turned out at the point of the bayonet.
About noon several companies of Scots and Welsh Fusiliers advanced from
different directions in very extended order upon the ditches. Captain
Baillie’s company of the former regiment first attracted the fire of the
burghers. Wounded twice the brave officer staggered on until a third
bullet struck him dead. Six of his men were found lying beside him. The
other companies were exposed in their turn to a severe fire, but rushing
onwards they closed rapidly in upon the ditches. There have been few finer
infantry advances during the war, for the veld was perfectly flat and the
fire terrific. A mile of ground was crossed by the fusiliers. Three
gallant officers—Dick, Elliot, and Best—went down; but the
rush of the men was irresistible. At the edge of the ditches the supports
overtook the firing line, and they all surged into the trenches together.
Then it was seen how perilous was the situation of the Boer snipers. They
had placed themselves between the upper and the nether millstone. There
was no escape for them save across the open. It says much for their
courage that they took that perilous choice rather than wave the white
flag, which would have ensured their safety.
The scene which followed has not often been paralleled. About a hundred
and fifty burghers rushed out of the ditches, streaming across the veld
upon foot to the spot where their horses had been secreted. Rifles,
pom-poms, and shrapnel played upon them during this terrible race. ‘A
black running mob carrying coats, blankets, boots, rifles, &c., was
seen to rise as if from nowhere and rush as fast as they could, dropping
the various things they carried as they ran.’ One of their survivors has
described how awful was that wild blind flight, through a dust-cloud
thrown up by the shells. For a mile the veld was dotted with those who had
fallen. Thirty-six were found dead, thirty were wounded, and thirty more
gave themselves up as prisoners. Some were so demoralised that they rushed
into the hospital and surrendered to the British doctor. The Imperial
Light Horse were for some reason slow to charge. Had they done so at once,
many eye-witnesses agree that not a fugitive should have escaped. On the
other hand, the officer in command may have feared that in doing so he
might mask the fire of the British guns.
One incident in the action caused some comment at the time. A small party
of Imperial Light Horse, gallantly led by Captain Yockney of B Squadron,
came to close quarters with a group of Boers. Five of the enemy having
held up their hands Yockney passed them and pushed on against their
comrades. On this the prisoners seized their rifles once more and fired
upon their captors. A fierce fight ensued with only a few feet between the
muzzles of the rifles. Three Boers were shot dead, five wounded, and eight
taken. Of these eight three were shot next day by order of court-martial
for having resumed their weapons after surrender, while two others were
acquitted. The death of these men in cold blood is to be deplored, but it
is difficult to see how any rules of civilised warfare can be maintained
if a flagrant breach of them is not promptly and sternly punished.
On receiving this severe blow De Wet promptly raised the investment and
hastened to regain his favourite haunts. Considerable reinforcements had
reached Barton upon the same day, including the Dublins, the Essex,
Strathcona’s Horse, and the Elswick Battery, with some very welcome
supplies of ammunition. As Barton had now more than a thousand mounted men
of most excellent quality it is difficult to imagine why he did not pursue
his defeated enemy. He seems to have underrated the effect which he had
produced, for instead of instantly assuming the offensive he busied
himself in strengthening his defences. Yet the British losses in the whole
operations had not exceeded one hundred, so that there does not appear to
have been any reason why the force should be crippled. As Barton was in
direct and constant telegraphic communication with Pretoria, it is
possible that he was acting under superior orders in the course which he
adopted.
It was not destined, however, that De Wet should be allowed to escape with
his usual impunity. On the 27th, two days after his retreat from
Frederickstad he was overtaken—stumbled upon by pure chance
apparently—by the mounted infantry and cavalry of Charles Knox and
De Lisle. The Boers, a great disorganised cloud of horsemen, swept swiftly
along the northern bank of the Vaal, seeking for a place to cross, while
the British rode furiously after them, spraying them with shrapnel at
every opportunity. Darkness and a violent storm gave De Wet his
opportunity to cross, but the closeness of the pursuit compelled him to
abandon two of his guns, one of them a Krupp and the other one of the
British twelve-pounders of Sanna’s Post, which, to the delight of the
gunners, was regained by that very U battery to which it belonged.
Once across the river and back in his own country De Wet, having placed
seventy miles between himself and his pursuers, took it for granted that
he was out of their reach, and halted near the village of Bothaville to
refit. But the British were hard upon his track, and for once they were
able to catch this indefatigable man unawares. Yet their knowledge of his
position seems to have been most hazy, and on the very day before that on
which they found him, General Charles Knox, with the main body of the
force, turned north, and was out of the subsequent action. De Lisle’s
mounted troops also turned north, but fortunately not entirely out of
call. To the third and smallest body of mounted men, that under Le
Gallais, fell the honour of the action which I am about to describe.
It is possible that the move northwards of Charles Knox and of De Lisle
had the effect of a most elaborate stratagem, since it persuaded the Boer
scouts that the British were retiring. So indeed they were, save only the
small force of Le Gallais, which seems to have taken one last cast round
to the south before giving up the pursuit. In the grey of the morning of
November 6th, Major Lean with forty men of the 5th Mounted Infantry came
upon three weary Boers sleeping upon the veld. Having secured the men, and
realising that they were an outpost, Lean pushed on, and topping a rise
some hundreds of yards further, he and his men saw a remarkable scene.
There before them stretched the camp of the Boers, the men sleeping, the
horses grazing, the guns parked, and the wagons outspanned.
There was little time for consideration. The Kaffir drivers were already
afoot and strolling out for their horses, or lighting the fires for their
masters’ coffee. With splendid decision, although he had but forty men to
oppose to over a thousand, Lean sent back for reinforcements and opened
fire upon the camp. In an instant it was buzzing like an overturned hive.
Up sprang the sleepers, rushed for their horses, and galloped away across
the veld, leaving their guns and wagons behind. A few stalwarts remained,
however, and their numbers were increased by those whose horses had
stampeded, and who were, therefore, unable to get away. They occupied an
enclosed kraal and a farmhouse in front of the British, whence they opened
a sharp fire. At the same time a number of the Boers who had ridden away
came back again, having realised how weak their assailants were, and
worked round the British flanks upon either side.
Le Gallais, with his men, had come up, but the British force was still far
inferior to that which it was attacking. A section of U battery was able
to unlimber, and open fire at four hundred yards from the Boer position.
The British made no attempt to attack, but contented themselves with
holding on to the position from which they could prevent the Boer guns
from being removed. The burghers tried desperately to drive off the
stubborn fringe of riflemen. A small stone shed in the possession of the
British was the centre of the Boer fire, and it was within its walls that
Ross of the Durhams was horribly wounded by an explosive ball, and that
the brave Jerseyman, Le Gallais, was killed. Before his fall he had
despatched his staff officer, Major Hickie, to hurry up men from the rear.
On the fall of Ross and Le Gallais the command fell upon Major Taylor of U
battery. The position at that time was sufficiently alarming. The Boers
were working round each flank in considerable numbers, and they maintained
a heavy fire from a stone enclosure in the centre. The British forces
actually engaged were insignificant, consisting of forty men of the 5th
Mounted Infantry, and two guns in the centre, forty-six men of the 17th
and 18th Imperial Yeomanry upon the right, and 105 of the 8th Mounted
Infantry on the left or 191 rifles in all. The flanks of this tiny force
had to extend to half a mile to hold off the Boer flank attack, but they
were heartened in their resistance by the knowledge that their comrades
were hastening to their assistance. Taylor, realising that a great effort
must be made to tide over the crisis, sent a messenger back with orders
that the convoy should be parked, and every available man sent up to
strengthen the right flank, which was the weakest. The enemy got close on
to one of the guns, and swept down the whole detachment, but a handful of
the Suffolk Mounted Infantry under Lieutenant Peebles most gallantly held
them off from it. For an hour the pressure was extreme. Then two companies
of the 7th Mounted Infantry came up, and were thrown on to each flank.
Shortly afterwards Major Welch, with two more companies of the same corps,
arrived, and the tide began slowly to turn. The Boers were themselves
outflanked by the extension of the British line and were forced to fall
back. At half-past eight De Lisle, whose force had trotted and galloped
for twelve miles, arrived with several companies of Australians, and the
success of the day was assured. The smoke of the Prussian guns at Waterloo
was not a more welcome sight than the dust of De Lisle’s horsemen. But the
question now was whether the Boers, who were in the walled inclosure and
farm which formed their centre, would manage to escape. The place was
shelled, but here, as often before, it was found how useless a weapon is
shrapnel against buildings. There was nothing for it but to storm it, and
a grim little storming party of fifty men, half British, half Australian,
was actually waiting with fixed bayonets for the whistle which was to be
their signal, when the white flag flew out from the farm, and all was
over. Warned by many a tragic experience the British still lay low in
spite of the flag. ‘Come out! come out!’ they shouted. Eighty-two
unwounded Boers filed out of the enclosure, and the total number of
prisoners came to 114, while between twenty and thirty Boers were killed.
Six guns, a pom-pom, and 1000 head of cattle were the prizes of the
victors.
This excellent little action showed that the British mounted infantry had
reached a point of efficiency at which they were quite able to match the
Boers at their own game. For hours they held them with an inferior force,
and finally, when the numbers became equal, were able to drive them off
and capture their guns. The credit is largely due to Major Lean for his
prompt initiative on discovering their laager, and to Major Taylor for his
handling of the force during a very critical time. Above all, it was due
to the dead leader, Le Gallais, who had infected every man under him with
his own spirit of reckless daring. ‘If I die, tell my mother that I die
happy, as we got the guns,’ said he, with his failing breath. The British
total losses were twelve killed (four officers) and thirty-three wounded
(seven officers). Major Welch, a soldier of great promise, much beloved by
his men, was one of the slain. Following closely after the repulse at
Frederickstad this action was a heavy blow to De Wet. At last, the British
were beginning to take something off the score which they owed the bold
raider, but there was to be many an item on either side before the long
reckoning should be closed. The Boers, with De Wet, fled south, where it
was not long before they showed that they were still a military force with
which we had to reckon.
In defiance of chronology it may perhaps make a clearer narrative if I
continue at once with the movements of De Wet from the time that he lost
his guns at Bothaville, and then come back to the consideration of the
campaign in the Transvaal, and to a short account of those scattered and
disconnected actions which break the continuity of the story. Before
following De Wet, however, it is necessary to say something of the general
state of the Orange River Colony and of some military developments which
had occurred there. Under the wise and conciliatory rule of General
Pretyman the farmers in the south and west were settling down, and for the
time it looked as if a large district was finally pacified. The mild
taxation was cheerfully paid, schools were reopened, and a peace party
made itself apparent, with Fraser and Piet de Wet, the brother of
Christian, among its strongest advocates.
Apart from the operations of De Wet there appeared to be no large force in
the field in the Orange River Colony, but early in October of 1900 a small
but very mobile and efficient Boer force skirted the eastern outposts of
the British, struck the southern line of communications, and then came up
the western flank, attacking, where an attack was possible, each of the
isolated and weakly garrisoned townlets to which it came, and recruiting
its strength from a district which had been hardly touched by the ravages
of war, and which by its prosperity alone might have proved the amenity of
British military rule. This force seems to have skirted Wepener without
attacking a place of such evil omen to their cause. Their subsequent
movements are readily traced by a sequence of military events.
On October 1st Rouxville was threatened. On the 9th an outpost of the
Cheshire Militia was taken and the railway cut for a few hours in the
neighbourhood of Bethulie. A week later the Boer riders were dotting the
country round Phillipolis, Springfontein and Jagersfontein, the latter
town being occupied upon October 16th, while the garrison held out upon
the nearest kopje. The town was retaken from the enemy by King Hall and
his men, who were Seaforth Highlanders and police. There was fierce
fighting in the streets, and from twenty to thirty of each side were
killed or wounded. Fauresmith was attacked on October 19th, but was also
in the very safe hands of the Seaforths, who held it against a severe
assault. Phillipolis was continually attacked between the 18th and the
24th, but made a most notable defence, which was conducted by Gostling,
the resident magistrate, with forty civilians. For a week this band of
stalwarts held their own against 600 Boers, and were finally relieved by a
force from the railway. All the operations were not, however, as
successful as these three defences. On October 24th a party of cavalry
details belonging to many regiments were snapped up in an ambuscade. On
the next day Jacobsdal was attacked, with considerable loss to the
British. The place was entered in the night, and the enemy occupied the
houses which surrounded the square. The garrison, consisting of about
sixty men of the Capetown Highlanders, had encamped in the square, and
were helpless when fire was opened upon them in the morning. There was
practically no resistance, and yet for hours a murderous fire was kept up
upon the tents in which they cowered, so that the affair seems not to have
been far removed from murder. Two-thirds of the little force were killed
or wounded. The number of the assailants does not appear to have been
great, and they vanished upon the appearance of a relieving force from
Modder River.
After the disaster at Jacobsdal the enemy appeared on November 1st near
Kimberley and captured a small convoy. The country round was disturbed,
and Settle was sent south with a column to pacify it. In this way we can
trace this small cyclone from its origin in the old storm centre in the
north-east of the Orange River Colony, sweeping round the whole country,
striking one post after another, and finally blowing out at the
corresponding point upon the other side of the seat of war.
We have last seen De Wet upon November 6th, when he fled south from
Bothaville, leaving his guns but not his courage behind him. Trekking
across the line, and for a wonder gathering up no train as he passed, he
made for that part of the eastern Orange River Colony which had been
reoccupied by his countrymen. Here, in the neighbourhood of Thabanchu, he
was able to join other forces, probably the commandos of Haasbroek and
Fourie, which still retained some guns. At the head of a considerable
force he attacked the British garrison of Dewetsdorp, a town some forty
miles to the south-east of Bloemfontein.
It was on November 18th that De Wet assailed the place, and it fell upon
the 24th, after a defence which appears to have been a very creditable
one. Several small British columns were moving in the south-east of the
Colony, but none of them arrived in time to avert the disaster, which is
the more inexplicable as the town is within one day’s ride of
Bloemfontein. The place is a village hemmed in upon its western side by a
semicircle of steep rocky hills broken in the centre by a gully. The
position was a very extended one, and had the fatal weakness that the loss
of any portion of it meant the loss of it all. The garrison consisted of
one company of Highland Light Infantry on the southern horn of the
semicircle, three companies of the 2nd Gloucester Regiment on the northern
and central part, with two guns of the 68th battery. Some of the Royal
Irish Mounted Infantry and a handful of police made up the total of the
defenders to something over four hundred, Major Massy in command.
The attack developed at that end of the ridge which was held by the
company of Highlanders. Every night the Boer riflemen drew in closer, and
every morning found the position more desperate. On the 20th the water
supply of the garrison was cut, though a little was still brought up by
volunteers during the night. The thirst in the sultry trenches was
terrible, but the garrison still, with black lips and parched tongues,
held on to their lines. On the 22nd the attack had made such progress that
the post had by the Highlanders became untenable, and had to be withdrawn.
It was occupied next morning by the Boers, and the whole ridge was at
their mercy. Out of eighteen men who served one of the British guns
sixteen were killed or wounded, and the last rounds were fired by the
sergeant-farrier, who carried, loaded, and fired all by himself. All day
the soldiers held out, but the thirst was in itself enough to justify if
not to compel a surrender. At half-past five the garrison laid down their
arms, having lost about sixty killed or wounded. There does not, as far as
one can learn, seem to have been any attempt to injure the two guns which
fell into the hands of the enemy. De Wet himself was one of the first to
ride into the British trenches, and the prisoners gazed with interest at
the short strong figure, with the dark tail coat and the square-topped
bowler hat, of the most famous of the Boer leaders.
British columns were converging, however, from several quarters, and De
Wet had to be at once on the move. On the 26th Dewetsdorp was reoccupied
by General Charles Knox with fifteen hundred men. De Wet had two days’
start, but so swift was Knox that on the 27th he had run him down at
Vaalbank, where he shelled his camp. De Wet broke away, however, and
trekking south for eighteen hours without a halt, shook off the pursuit.
He had with him at this time nearly 8000 men with several guns under
Haasbroek, Fourie, Philip Botha, and Steyn. It was his declared intention
to invade Cape Colony with his train of weary footsore prisoners, and the
laurels of Dewetsdorp still green upon him. He was much aided in all his
plans by that mistaken leniency which had refused to recognise that a
horse is in that country as much a weapon as a rifle, and had left great
numbers upon the farms with which he could replace his useless animals. So
numerous were they that many of the Boers had two or three for their own
use. It is not too much to say that our weak treatment of the question of
horses will come to be recognised as the one great blot upon the conduct
of the war, and that our undue and fantastic scruples have prolonged
hostilities for months, and cost the country many lives and many millions
of pounds.
De Wet’s plan for the invasion of the Colony was not yet destined to be
realised, for a tenacious man had set himself to frustrate it. Several
small but mobile British columns, those of Pilcher, of Barker, and of
Herbert, under the supreme direction of Charles Knox, were working
desperately to head him off. In torrents of rain which turned every spruit
into a river and every road into a quagmire, the British horsemen stuck
manfully to their work. De Wet had hurried south, crossed the Caledon
River, and made for Odendaal’s Drift. But Knox, after the skirmish at
Vaalbank, had trekked swiftly south to Bethulie, and was now ready with
three mobile columns and a network of scouts and patrols to strike in any
direction. For a few days he had lost touch, but his arrangements were
such that he must recover it if the Boers either crossed the railroad or
approached the river. On December 2nd he had authentic information that De
Wet was crossing the Caledon, and in an instant the British columns were
all off at full cry once more, sweeping over the country with a front of
fifteen miles. On the 3rd and 4th, in spite of frightful weather, the two
little armies of horsemen struggled on, fetlock-deep in mud, with the rain
lashing their faces. At night without cover, drenched and bitterly cold,
the troopers threw themselves down on the sodden veld to snatch a few
hours’ sleep before renewing the interminable pursuit. The drift over the
Caledon flowed deep and strong, but the Boer had passed and the Briton
must pass also. Thirty guns took to the water, diving completely under the
coffee-coloured surface, to reappear glistening upon the southern bank.
Everywhere there were signs of the passage of the enemy. A litter of
crippled or dying horses marked their track, and a Krupp gun was found
abandoned by the drift. The Dewetsdorp prisoners, too, had been set loose,
and began to stumble and stagger back to their countrymen, their boots
worn off, and their putties wrapped round their bleeding feet. It is
painful to add that they had been treated with a personal violence and a
brutality in marked contrast to the elaborate hospitality shown by the
British Government to its involuntary guests.
On December 6th De Wet had at last reached the Orange River a clear day in
front of his pursuers. But it was only to find that his labours had been
in vain. At Odendaal, where he had hoped to cross, the river was in spate,
the British flag waved from a post upon the further side, and a strong
force of expectant Guardsmen eagerly awaited him there. Instantly
recognising that the game was up, the Boer leader doubled back for the
north and safety. At Rouxville he hesitated as to whether he should snap
up the small garrison, but the commandant, Rundle, showed a bold face, and
De Wet passed on to the Coomassie Bridge over the Caledon. The small post
there refused to be bluffed into a surrender, and the Boers, still
dropping their horses fast, passed on, and got over the drift at
Amsterdam, their rearguard being hardly across before Knox had also
reached the river.
On the 10th the British were in touch again near Helvetia, where there was
a rearguard skirmish. On the 11th both parties rode through Reddersberg, a
few hours separating them. The Boers in their cross-country trekking go,
as one of their prisoners observed, ‘slap-bang at everything,’ and as they
are past-masters in the art of ox and mule driving, and have such a
knowledge of the country that they can trek as well by night as by day, it
says much for the energy of Knox and his men that he was able for a
fortnight to keep in close touch with them.
It became evident now that there was not much chance of overtaking the
main body of the burghers, and an attempt was therefore made to interpose
a fresh force who might head them off. A line of posts existed between
Thabanchu and Ladybrand, and Colonel Thorneycroft was stationed there with
a movable column. It was Knox’s plan therefore to prevent the Boers from
breaking to the west and to head them towards the Basuto border. A small
column under Parsons had been sent by Hunter from Bloemfontein, and pushed
in upon the flank of De Wet, who had on the 12th got back to Dewetsdorp.
Again the pursuit became warm, but De Wet’s time was not yet come. He
headed for Springhaan Nek, about fifteen miles east of Thabanchu. This
pass is about four miles broad, with a British fort upon either side of
it. There was only one way to safety, for Knox’s mounted infantrymen and
lancers were already dotting the southern skyline. Without hesitation the
whole Boer force, now some 2500 strong, galloped at full speed in open
order through the Nek, braving the long range fire of riflemen and guns.
The tactics were those of French in his ride to Kimberley, and the success
was as complete. De Wet’s force passed through the last barrier which had
been held against him, and vanished into the mountainous country round
Ficksburg, where it could safely rest and refit.
The result then of these bustling operations had been that De Wet and his
force survived, but that he had failed in his purpose of invading the
Colony, and had dropped some five hundred horses, two guns, and about a
hundred of his men. Haasbroek’s commando had been detached by De Wet to
make a feint at another pass while he made his way through the Springhaan.
Parsons’s force followed Haasbroek up and engaged him, but under cover of
night he was able to get away and to join his leader to the north of
Thabanchu. On December 13th, this, the second great chase after De Wet,
may be said to have closed.
CHAPTER 31. THE GUERILLA WARFARE IN THE TRANSVAAL: NOOITGEDACHT.
Leaving De Wet in the Ficksburg mountains, where he lurked until after the
opening of the New Year, the story of the scattered operations in the
Transvaal may now be carried down to the same point—a story
comprising many skirmishes and one considerable engagement, but so devoid
of any central thread that it is difficult to know how to approach it.
From Lichtenburg to Komati, a distance of four hundred miles, there was
sporadic warfare everywhere, attacks upon scattered posts, usually beaten
off but occasionally successful, attacks upon convoys, attacks upon
railway trains, attacks upon anything and everything which could harass
the invaders. Each General in his own district had his own work of
repression to perform, and so we had best trace the doings of each up to
the end of the year 1900.
Lord Methuen after his pursuit of De Wet in August had gone to Mafeking to
refit. From that point, with a force which contained a large proportion of
yeomanry and of Australian bushmen, he conducted a long series of
operations in the difficult and important district which lies between
Rustenburg, Lichtenburg, and Zeerust. Several strong and mobile Boer
commandos with guns moved about in it, and an energetic though not very
deadly warfare raged between Lemmer, Snyman, and De la Rey on the one
side, and the troops of Methuen, Douglas, Broadwood, and Lord Errol upon
the other. Methuen moved about incessantly through the broken country,
winning small skirmishes and suffering the indignity of continual sniping.
From time to time he captured stores, wagons, and small bodies of
prisoners. Early in October he and Douglas had successes. On the 15th
Broadwood was engaged. On the 20th there was a convoy action. On the 25th
Methuen had a success and twenty-eight prisoners. On November 9th he
surprised Snyman and took thirty prisoners. On the 10th he got a pom-pom.
Early in this month Douglas separated from Methuen, and marched south from
Zeerust through Ventersdorp to Klerksdorp, passing over a country which
had been hardly touched before, and arriving at his goal with much cattle
and some prisoners. Towards the end of the month a considerable stock of
provisions were conveyed to Zeerust, and a garrison left to hold that town
so as to release Methuen’s column for service elsewhere.
Hart’s sphere of action was originally round Potchefstroom. On September
9th he made a fine forced march to surprise this town, which had been left
some time before with an entirely inadequate garrison to fall into the
hands of the enemy. His infantry covered thirty-six and his cavalry
fifty-four miles in fifteen hours. The operation was a complete success,
the town with eighty Boers falling into his hands with little opposition.
On September 30th Hart returned to Krugersdorp, where, save for one
skirmish upon the Gatsrand on November 22nd, he appears to have had no
actual fighting to do during the remainder of the year.
After the clearing of the eastern border of the Transvaal by the movement
of Pole-Carew along the railway line, and of Buller aided by Ian Hamilton
in the mountainous country to the north of it, there were no operations of
importance in this district. A guard was kept upon the frontier to prevent
the return of refugees and the smuggling of ammunition, while General
Kitchener, the brother of the Sirdar, broke up a few small Boer laagers in
the neighbourhood of Lydenburg. Smith-Dorrien guarded the line at Belfast,
and on two occasions, November 1st and November 6th, he made aggressive
movements against the enemy. The first, which was a surprise executed in
concert with Colonel Spens of the Shropshires, was frustrated by a severe
blizzard, which prevented the troops from pushing home their success. The
second was a two days’ expedition, which met with a spirited opposition,
and demands a fuller notice.
This was made from Belfast, and the force, which consisted of about
fourteen hundred men, advanced south to the Komati River. The infantry
were Suffolks and Shropshires, the cavalry Canadians and 5th Lancers, with
two Canadian guns and four of the 84th battery. All day the Boer snipers
clung to the column, as they had done to French’s cavalry in the same
district. Mere route marches without a very definite and adequate
objective appear to be rather exasperating than overawing, for so long as
the column is moving onwards the most timid farmer may be tempted into
long-range fire from the flanks or rear. The river was reached and the
Boers driven from a position which they had taken up, but their signal
fires brought mounted riflemen from every farm, and the retreat of the
troops was pressed as they returned to Belfast. There was all the material
for a South African Lexington. The most difficult of military operations,
the covering of a detachment from a numerous and aggressive enemy, was
admirably carried out by the Canadian gunners and dragoons under the
command of Colonel Lessard. So severe was the pressure that sixteen of the
latter were for a time in the hands of the enemy, who attempted something
in the nature of a charge upon the steadfast rearguard. The movement was
repulsed, and the total Boer loss would appear to have been considerable,
since two of their leaders, Commandant Henry Prinsloo and General Joachim
Fourie, were killed, while General Johann Grobler was wounded. If the rank
and file suffered in proportion the losses must have been severe. The
British casualties in the two days amounted to eight killed and thirty
wounded, a small total when the arduous nature of the service is
considered. The Canadians and the Shropshires seem to have borne off the
honours of these trying operations.
In the second week of October, General French, with three brigades of
cavalry (Dickson’s, Gordon’s, and Mahon’s), started for a cross-country
ride from Machadodorp. Three brigades may seem an imposing force, but the
actual numbers did not exceed two strong regiments, or about 1500 sabres
in all. A wing of the Suffolk Regiment went with them. On October 13th
Mahon’s brigade met with a sharp resistance, and lost ten killed and
twenty-nine wounded. On the 14th the force entered Carolina. On the 16th
they lost six killed and twenty wounded, and from the day that they
started until they reached Heidelberg on the 27th there was never a day
that they could shake themselves clear of their attendant snipers. The
total losses of the force were about ninety killed and wounded, but they
brought in sixty prisoners and a large quantity of cattle and stores. The
march had at least the effect of making it clear that the passage of a
column of troops encumbered with baggage through a hostile country is an
inefficient means for quelling a popular resistance. Light and mobile
parties acting from a central depot were in future to be employed, with
greater hopes of success.
Some appreciable proportion of the British losses during this phase of the
war arose from railway accidents caused by the persistent tampering with
the lines. In the first ten days of October there were four such mishaps,
in which two Sappers, twenty-three of the Guards (Coldstreams), and
eighteen of the 66th battery were killed or wounded. On the last occasion,
which occurred on October 10th near Vlakfontein, the reinforcements who
came to aid the sufferers were themselves waylaid, and lost twenty, mostly
of the Rifle Brigade, killed, wounded, or prisoners. Hardly a day elapsed
that the line was not cut at some point. The bringing of supplies was
complicated by the fact that the Boer women and children were coming more
and more into refugee camps, where they had to be fed by the British, and
the strange spectacle was frequently seen of Boer snipers killing or
wounding the drivers and stokers of the very trains which were bringing up
food upon which Boer families were dependent for their lives. Considering
that these tactics were continued for over a year, and that they resulted
in the death or mutilation of many hundreds of British officers and men,
it is really inexplicable that the British authorities did not employ the
means used by all armies under such circumstances—which is to place
hostages upon the trains. A truckload of Boers behind every engine would
have stopped the practice for ever. Again and again in this war the
British have fought with the gloves when their opponents used their
knuckles.
We will pass now to a consideration of the doings of General Paget, who
was operating to the north and north-east of Pretoria with a force which
consisted of two regiments of infantry, about a thousand horsemen, and
twelve guns. His mounted men were under the command of Plumer. In the
early part of November this force had been withdrawn from Warm Baths and
had fallen back upon Pienaar’s River, where it had continual skirmishes
with the enemy. Towards the end of November, news having reached Pretoria
that the enemy under Erasmus and Viljoen were present in force at a place
called Rhenoster Kop, which is about twenty miles north of the Delagoa
Railway line and fifty miles north-east of the capital, it was arranged
that Paget should attack them from the south, while Lyttelton from
Middelburg should endeavour to get behind them. The force with which Paget
started upon this enterprise was not a very formidable one. He had for
mounted troops some Queensland, South Australian, New Zealand, and
Tasmanian Bushmen, together with the York, Montgomery, and Warwick
Yeomanry. His infantry were the 1st West Riding regiment and four
companies of the Munsters. His guns were the 7th and 38th batteries, with
two naval quick-firing twelve-pounders and some smaller pieces. The total
could not have exceeded some two thousand men. Here, as at other times, it
is noticeable that in spite of the two hundred thousand soldiers whom the
British kept in the field, the lines of communication absorbed so many
that at the actual point of contact they were seldom superior and often
inferior in numbers to the enemy. The opening of the Natal and Delagoa
lines though valuable in many ways, had been an additional drain. Where
every culvert needs its picket and every bridge its company, the
guardianship of many hundreds of miles of rail is no light matter.
In the early morning of November 29th Paget’s men came in contact with the
enemy, who were in some force upon an admirable position. A ridge for
their centre, a flanking kopje for their cross fire, and a grass glacis
for the approach—it was an ideal Boer battlefield. The colonials and
the yeomanry under Plumer on the left, and Hickman on the right, pushed in
upon them, until it was evident that they meant to hold their ground.
Their advance being checked by a very severe fire, the horsemen dismounted
and took such cover as they could. Paget’s original idea had been a
turning movement, but the Boers were the more numerous body, and it was
impossible for the smaller British force to find their flanks, for they
extended over at least seven miles. The infantry were moved up into the
centre, therefore, between the wings of dismounted horsemen, and the guns
were brought up to cover the advance. The country was ill-suited, however,
to the use of artillery, and it was only possible to use an indirect fire
from under a curve of the grass land. The guns made good practice,
however, one section of the 38th battery being in action all day within
800 yards of the Boer line, and putting themselves out of action after 300
rounds by the destruction of their own rifling. Once over the curve every
yard of the veld was commanded by the hidden riflemen. The infantry
advanced, but could make no headway against the deadly fire which met
them. By short rushes the attack managed to get within 300 yards of the
enemy, and there it stuck. On the right the Munsters carried a detached
kopje which was in front of them, but could do little to aid the main
attack. Nothing could have exceeded the tenacity of the Yorkshiremen and
the New Zealanders, who were immediately to their left. Though unable to
advance they refused to retire, and indeed they were in a position from
which a retirement would have been a serious operation. Colonel Lloyd of
the West Ridings was hit in three places and killed. Five out of six
officers of the New Zealand corps were struck down. There were no reserves
to give a fresh impetus to the attack, and the thin scattered line, behind
bullet-spotted stones or anthills, could but hold its own while the sun
sank slowly upon a day which will not be forgotten by those who endured
it. The Boers were reinforced in the afternoon, and the pressure became so
severe that the field guns were retired with much difficulty. Many of the
infantry had shot away all their cartridges and were helpless. Just one
year before British soldiers had lain under similar circumstances on the
plain which leads to Modder River, and now on a smaller scale the very
same drama was being enacted. Gradually the violet haze of evening
deepened into darkness, and the incessant rattle of the rifle fire died
away on either side. Again, as at Modder River, the British infantry still
lay in their position, determined to take no backward step, and again the
Boers stole away in the night, leaving the ridge which they had defended
so well. A hundred killed and wounded was the price paid by the British
for that line of rock studded hills—a heavier proportion of losses
than had befallen Lord Methuen in the corresponding action. Of the Boer
losses there was as usual no means of judging, but several grave-mounds,
newly dug, showed that they also had something to deplore. Their retreat,
however, was not due to exhaustion, but to the demonstration which
Lyttelton had been able to make in their rear. The gunners and the
infantry had all done well in a most trying action, but by common consent
it was with the men from New Zealand that the honours lay. It was no empty
compliment when Sir Alfred Milner telegraphed to the Premier of New
Zealand his congratulations upon the distinguished behaviour of his fellow
countrymen.
From this time onwards there was nothing of importance in this part of the
seat of war.
It is necessary now to turn from the north-east to the north-west of
Pretoria, where the presence of De la Rey and the cover afforded by the
Magaliesberg mountains had kept alive the Boer resistance. Very rugged
lines of hill, alternating with fertile valleys, afforded a succession of
forts and of granaries to the army which held them. To General Clements’
column had been committed the task of clearing this difficult piece of
country. His force fluctuated in numbers, but does not appear at any time
to have consisted of more than three thousand men, which comprised the
Border Regiment, the Yorkshire Light Infantry, the second Northumberland
Fusiliers, mounted infantry, yeomanry, the 8th R.F.A., P battery R.H.A.,
and one heavy gun. With this small army he moved about the district,
breaking up Boer bands, capturing supplies, and bringing in refugees. On
November 13th he was at Krugersdorp, the southern extremity of his beat.
On the 24th he was moving north again, and found himself as he approached
the hills in the presence of a force of Boers with cannon. This was the
redoubtable De la Rey, who sometimes operated in Methuen’s country to the
north of the Magaliesberg, and sometimes to the south. He had now
apparently fixed upon Clements as his definite opponent. De la Rey was
numerically inferior, and Clements had no difficulty in this first
encounter in forcing him back with some loss. On November 26th Clements
was back at Krugersdorp again with cattle and prisoners. In the early days
of December he was moving northwards once more, where a serious disaster
awaited him. Before narrating the circumstances connected with the Battle
of Nooitgedacht there is one incident which occurred in this same region
which should be recounted.
This consists of the determined attack made by a party of De la Rey’s men,
upon December 3rd, on a convoy which was proceeding from Pretoria to
Rustenburg, and had got as far as Buffel’s Hoek. The convoy was a very
large one, consisting of 150 wagons, which covered about three miles upon
the march. It was guarded by two companies of the West Yorkshires, two
guns of the 75th battery, and a handful of the Victoria Mounted Rifles.
The escort appears entirely inadequate when it is remembered that these
stores, which were of great value, were being taken through a country
which was known to be infested by the enemy. What might have been foreseen
occurred. Five hundred Boers suddenly rode down upon the helpless line of
wagons and took possession of them. The escort rallied, however, upon a
kopje, and, though attacked all day, succeeded in holding their own until
help arrived. They prevented the Boers from destroying or carrying off as
much of the convoy as was under their guns, but the rest was looted and
burned. The incident was a most unfortunate one, as it supplied the enemy
with a large quantity of stores, of which they were badly in need. It was
the more irritating as it was freely rumoured that a Boer attack was
pending; and there is evidence that a remonstrance was addressed from the
convoy before it left Rietfontein to the General of the district, pointing
out the danger to which it was exposed. The result was the loss of 120
wagons and of more than half the escort. The severity of the little action
and the hardihood of the defence are indicated by the fact that the small
body who held the kopje lost fifteen killed and twenty-two wounded, the
gunners losing nine out of fifteen. A relieving force appeared at the
close of the action, but no vigorous pursuit was attempted, although the
weather was wet and the Boers had actually carried away sixty loaded
wagons, which could only go very slowly. It must be confessed that from
its feckless start to its spiritless finish the story of the Buffel’s Hoek
convoy is not a pleasant one to tell.
Clements, having made his way once more to the Magaliesberg range, had
pitched his camp at a place called Nooitgedacht—not to be confused
with the post upon the Delagoa Railway at which the British prisoners had
been confined. Here, in the very shadow of the mountain, he halted for
five days, during which, with the usual insouciance of British commanders,
he does not seem to have troubled himself with any entrenching. He knew,
no doubt, that he was too strong for his opponent De la Rey, but what he
did not know, but might have feared, was that a second Boer force might
appear suddenly upon the scene and join with De la Rey in order to crush
him. This second Boer force was that of Commandant Beyers from Warm Baths.
By a sudden and skilful movement the two united, and fell like a
thunderbolt upon the British column, which was weakened by the absence of
the Border Regiment. The result was such a reverse as the British had not
sustained since Sanna’s Post—a reverse which showed that, though no
regular Boer army might exist, still a sudden coalition of scattered bands
could at any time produce a force which would be dangerous to any British
column which might be taken at a disadvantage. We had thought that the
days of battles in this war were over, but an action which showed a
missing and casualty roll of 550 proved that in this, as in so many other
things, we were mistaken.
As already stated, the camp of Clements lay under a precipitous cliff,
upon the summit of which he had placed four companies of the 2nd
Northumberland Fusiliers. This strong post was a thousand feet higher than
the camp. Below lay the main body of the force, two more companies of
fusiliers, four of Yorkshire Light Infantry, the 2nd Mounted Infantry,
Kitchener’s Horse, yeomanry, and the artillery. The latter consisted of
one heavy naval gun, four guns of the 8th R.F.A., and P battery R.H.A. The
whole force amounted to about fifteen hundred men.
It was just at the first break of dawn—the hour of fate in South
African warfare—that the battle began. The mounted infantry post
between the camp and the mountains were aware of moving figures in front
of them. In the dim light they could discern that they were clothed in
grey, and that they wore the broad-brimmed hats and feathers of some of
our own irregular corps. They challenged, and the answer was a shattering
volley, instantly returned by the survivors of the picket. So hot was the
Boer attack that before help could come every man save one of the picket
was on the ground. The sole survivor, Daley of the Dublins, took no
backward step, but continued to steadily load and fire until help came
from the awakened camp. There followed a savage conflict at point
blank-range. The mounted infantry men, rushing half clad to the support of
their comrades, were confronted by an ever-thickening swarm of Boer
riflemen, who had already, by working round on the flank, established
their favourite cross fire. Legge, the leader of the mounted infantry, a
hard little Egyptian veteran, was shot through the head, and his men lay
thick around him. For some minutes it was as hot a corner as any in the
war. But Clements himself had appeared upon the scene, and his cool
gallantry turned the tide of fight. An extension of the line checked the
cross fire, and gave the British in turn a flanking position. Gradually
the Boer riflemen were pushed back, until at last they broke and fled for
their horses in the rear. A small body were cut off, many of whom were
killed and wounded, while a few were taken prisoners.
This stiff fight of an hour had ended in a complete repulse of the attack,
though at a considerable cost. Both Boers and British had lost heavily.
Nearly all the staff were killed or wounded, though General Clements had
come through untouched. Fifty or sixty of both sides had fallen. But it
was noted as an ominous fact that in spite of shell fire the Boers still
lingered upon the western flank. Were they coming on again? They showed no
signs of it. And yet they waited in groups, and looked up towards the
beetling crags above them. What were they waiting for? The sudden crash of
a murderous Mauser fire upon the summit, with the rolling volleys of the
British infantry, supplied the answer.
Only now must it have been clear to Clements that he was not dealing
merely with some spasmodic attack from his old enemy De la Rey, but that
this was a largely conceived movement, in which a force at least double
the strength of his own had suddenly been concentrated upon him. His camp
was still menaced by the men whom he had repulsed, and he could not weaken
it by sending reinforcements up the hill. But the roar of the musketry was
rising louder and louder. It was becoming clearer that there was the main
attack. It was a Majuba Hill action up yonder, a thick swarm of
skirmishers closing in from many sides upon a central band of soldiers.
But the fusiliers were hopelessly outnumbered, and this rock fighting is
that above all others in which the Boer has an advantage over the regular.
A helio on the hill cried for help. The losses were heavy, it said, and
the assailants numerous. The Boers closed swiftly in upon the flanks, and
the fusiliers were no match for their assailants. Till the very climax the
helio still cried that they were being overpowered, and it is said that
even while working it the soldier in charge was hurled over the cliff by
the onrush of the victorious Boers.
The fight of the mounted infantry men had been at half-past four. At six
the attack upon the hill had developed, and Clements in response to those
frantic flashes of light had sent up a hundred men of the yeomanry, from
the Fife and Devon squadrons, as a reinforcement. To climb a precipitous
thousand feet with rifle, bandolier, and spurs, is no easy feat, yet that
roar of battle above them heartened them upon their way. But in spite of
all their efforts they were only in time to share the general disaster.
The head of the line of hard-breathing yeomen reached the plateau just as
the Boers, sweeping over the remnants of the Northumberland Fusiliers,
reached the brink of the cliff. One by one the yeomen darted over the
edge, and endeavoured to find some cover in the face of an infernal
point-blank fire. Captain Mudie of the staff, who went first, was shot
down. So was Purvis of the Fifes, who followed him. The others, springing
over their bodies, rushed for a small trench, and tried to restore the
fight. Lieutenant Campbell, a gallant young fellow, was shot dead as he
rallied his men. Of twenty-seven of the Fifeshires upon the hill six were
killed and eleven wounded. The statistics of the Devons are equally
heroic. Those yeomen who had not yet reached the crest were in a perfectly
impossible position, as the Boers were firing from complete cover right
down upon them. There was no alternative for them but surrender. By seven
o’clock every British soldier upon the hill, yeoman or fusilier, had been
killed, wounded, or taken. It is not true that the supply of cartridges
ran out, and the fusiliers, with the ill-luck which has pursued the 2nd
battalion, were outnumbered and outfought by better skirmishers than
themselves.
Seldom has a General found himself in a more trying position than
Clements, or extricated himself more honourably. Not only had he lost
nearly half his force, but his camp was no longer tenable, and his whole
army was commanded by the fringe of deadly rifles upon the cliff. From the
berg to the camp was from 800 to 1000 yards, and a sleet of bullets
whistled down upon it. How severe was the fire may be gauged from the fact
that the little pet monkey belonging to the yeomanry—a small enough
object—was hit three times, though he lived to survive as a
battle-scarred veteran. Those wounded in the early action found themselves
in a terrible position, laid out in the open under a withering fire, ‘like
helpless Aunt Sallies,’ as one of them described it. ‘We must get a red
flag up, or we shall be blown off the face of the earth,’ says the same
correspondent, a corporal of the Ceylon Mounted Infantry. ‘We had a
pillow-case, but no red paint. Then we saw what would do instead, so they
made the upright with my blood, and the horizontal with Paul’s.’ It is
pleasant to add that this grim flag was respected by the Boers. Bullocks
and mules fell in heaps, and it was evident that the question was not
whether the battle could be restored, but whether the guns could be saved.
Leaving a fringe of yeomen, mounted infantry, and Kitchener’s Horse to
stave off the Boers, who were already descending by the same steep kloof
up which the yeomen had climbed, the General bent all his efforts to
getting the big naval gun out of danger. Only six oxen were left out of a
team of forty, and so desperate did the situation appear that twice
dynamite was placed beneath the gun to destroy it. Each time, however, the
General intervened, and at last, under a stimulating rain of pom-pom
shells, the great cannon lurched slowly forward, quickening its pace as
the men pulled on the drag-ropes, and the six oxen broke into a wheezy
canter. Its retreat was covered by the smaller guns which rained shrapnel
upon the crest of the hill, and upon the Boers who were descending to the
camp. Once the big gun was out of danger, the others limbered up and
followed, their rear still covered by the staunch mounted infantry, with
whom rest all the honours of the battle. Cookson and Brooks with 250 men
stood for hours between Clements and absolute disaster. The camp was
abandoned as it stood, and all the stores, four hundred picketed horses,
and, most serious of all, two wagons of ammunition, fell into the hands of
the victors. To have saved all his guns, however, after the destruction of
half his force by an active enemy far superior to him in numbers and in
mobility, was a feat which goes far to condone the disaster, and to
increase rather than to impair the confidence which his troops feel in
General Clements. Having retreated for a couple of miles he turned his big
gun round upon the hill, which is called Yeomanry Hill, and opened fire
upon the camp, which was being looted by swarms of Boers. So bold a face
did he present that he was able to remain with his crippled force upon
Yeomanry Hill from about nine until four in the afternoon, and no attack
was pressed home, though he lay under both shell and rifle fire all day.
At four in the afternoon he began his retreat, which did not cease till he
had reached Rietfontein, twenty miles off, at six o’clock upon the
following morning. His weary men had been working for twenty-six hours,
and actually fighting for fourteen, but the bitterness of defeat was
alleviated by the feeling that every man, from the General downwards, had
done all that was possible, and that there was every prospect of their
having a chance before long of getting their own back.
The British losses at the battle of Nooitgedacht amounted to 60 killed,
180 wounded, and 315 prisoners, all of whom were delivered up a few days
later at Rustenburg. Of the Boer losses it is, as usual, impossible to
speak with confidence, but all the evidence points to their actual
casualties being as heavy as those of the British. There was the long
struggle at the camp in which they were heavily punished, the fight on the
mountain, where they exposed themselves with unusual recklessness, and the
final shelling from shrapnel and from lyddite. All accounts agree that
their attack was more open than usual. ‘They were mowed down in twenties
that day, but it had no effect. They stood like fanatics,’ says one who
fought against them. From first to last their conduct was most gallant,
and great credit is due to their leaders for the skilful sudden
concentration by which they threw their whole strength upon the exposed
force. Some eighty miles separate Warm Baths from Nooitgedacht, and it
seems strange that our Intelligence Department should have remained in
ignorance of so large a movement.
General Broadwood’s 2nd Cavalry Brigade had been stationed to the north of
Magaliesberg, some twelve miles westward of Clements, and formed the next
link in the long chain of British forces. Broadwood does not appear,
however, to have appreciated the importance of the engagement, and made no
energetic movement to take part in it. If Colvile is open to the charge of
having been slow to ‘march upon the cannon’ at Sanna’s Post, it might be
urged that Broadwood in turn showed some want of energy and judgment upon
this occasion. On the morning of the 13th his force could hear the heavy
firing to the eastward, and could even see the shells bursting on the top
of the Magaliesberg. It was but ten or twelve miles distant, and, as his
Elswick guns have a range of nearly five, a very small advance would have
enabled him to make a demonstration against the flank of the Boers, and so
to relieve the pressure upon Clements. It is true that his force was not
large, but it was exceptionally mobile. Whatever the reasons, no effective
advance was made by Broadwood. On hearing the result he fell back upon
Rustenburg, the nearest British post, his small force being dangerously
isolated.
Those who expected that General Clements would get his own back had not
long to wait. In a few days he was in the field again. The remains of his
former force had, however, been sent into Pretoria to refit, and nothing
remained of it save the 8th R.F.A. and the indomitable cow-gun still
pocked with the bullets of Nooitgedacht. He had also F battery R.H.A., the
Inniskillings, the Border regiment, and a force of mounted infantry under
Alderson. More important than all, however, was the co-operation of
General French, who came out from Pretoria to assist in the operations. On
the 19th, only six days after his defeat, Clements found himself on the
very same spot fighting some at least of the very same men. This time,
however, there was no element of surprise, and the British were able to
approach the task with deliberation and method. The result was that both
upon the 19th and 20th the Boers were shelled out of successive positions
with considerable loss, and driven altogether away from that part of the
Magaliesberg. Shortly afterwards General Clements was recalled to
Pretoria, to take over the command of the 7th Division, General Tucker
having been appointed to the military command of Bloemfontein in the place
of the gallant Hunter, who, to the regret of the whole army, was invalided
home. General Cunningham henceforward commanded the column which Clements
had led back to the Magaliesberg.
Upon November 13th the first of a series of attacks was made upon the
posts along the Delagoa Railway line. These were the work of Viljoen’s
commando, who, moving swiftly from the north, threw themselves upon the
small garrisons of Balmoral and of Wilge River, stations which are about
six miles apart. At the former was a detachment of the Buffs, and at the
latter of the Royal Fusiliers. The attack was well delivered, but in each
instance was beaten back with heavy loss to the assailants. A picket of
the Buffs was captured at the first rush, and the detachment lost six
killed and nine wounded. No impression was made upon the position,
however, and the double attack seems to have cost the Boers a large number
of casualties.
Another incident calling for some mention was the determined attack made
by the Boers upon the town of Vryheid, in the extreme south-east of the
Transvaal near the Natal border. Throughout November this district had
been much disturbed, and the small British garrison had evacuated the town
and taken up a position on the adjacent hills. Upon December 11th the
Boers attempted to carry the trenches. The garrison of the town appears to
have consisted of the 2nd Royal Lancaster regiment, some five hundred
strong, a party of the Lancashire Fusiliers, 150 strong, and fifty men of
the Royal Garrison Artillery, with a small body of mounted infantry. They
held a hill about half a mile north of the town, and commanding it. The
attack, which was a surprise in the middle of the night, broke upon the
pickets of the British, who held their own in a way which may have been
injudicious but was certainly heroic. Instead of falling back when
seriously attacked, the young officers in charge of these outposts refused
to move, and were speedily under such a fire that it was impossible to
reinforce them. There were four outposts, under Woodgate, Theobald,
Lippert, and Mangles. The attack at 2.15 on a cold dark morning began at
the post held by Woodgate, the Boers coming hand-to-hand before they were
detected. Woodgate, who was unarmed at the instant, seized a hammer, and
rushed at the nearest Boer, but was struck by two bullets and killed. His
post was dispersed or taken. Theobald and Lippert, warned by the firing,
held on behind their sangars, and were ready for the storm which burst
over them. Lippert was unhappily killed, and his ten men all hit or taken,
but young Theobald held his own under a heavy fire for twelve hours.
Mangles also, the gallant son of a gallant father, held his post all day
with the utmost tenacity. The troops in the trenches behind were never
seriously pressed, thanks to the desperate resistance of the outposts, but
Colonel Gawne of the Lancasters was unfortunately killed. Towards evening
the Boers abandoned the attack, leaving fourteen of their number dead upon
the ground, from which it may be guessed that their total casualties were
not less than a hundred. The British losses were three officers and five
men killed, twenty-two men wounded, and thirty men with one officer
missing—the latter being the survivors of those outposts which were
overwhelmed by the Boer advance.
A few incidents stand out among the daily bulletins of snipings,
skirmishes, and endless marchings which make the dull chronicle of these,
the last months of the year 1900. These must be enumerated without any
attempt at connecting them. The first is the long-drawn-out siege or
investment of Schweizer-Renecke. This small village stands upon the Harts
River, on the western border of the Transvaal. It is not easy to
understand why the one party should desire to hold, or the other to
attack, a position so insignificant. From August 19th onwards it was
defended by a garrison of 250 men, under the very capable command of
Colonel Chamier, who handled a small business in a way which marks him as
a leader. The Boer force, which varied in numbers from five hundred to a
thousand, never ventured to push home an attack, for Chamier, fresh from
the experience of Kimberley, had taken such precautions that his defences
were formidable, if not impregnable. Late in September a relieving force
under Colonel Settle threw fresh supplies into the town, but when he
passed on upon his endless march the enemy closed in once more, and the
siege was renewed. It lasted for several months, until a column withdrew
the garrison and abandoned the position.
Of all the British detachments, the two which worked hardest and marched
furthest during this period of the war was the 21st Brigade (Derbyshires,
Sussex, and Camerons) under General Bruce Hamilton, and the column under
Settle, which operated down the western border of the Orange River Colony,
and worked round and round with such pertinacity that it was familiarly
known as Settle’s Imperial Circus. Much hard and disagreeable work, far
more repugnant to the soldier than the actual dangers of war, fell to the
lot of Bruce Hamilton and his men. With Kroonstad as their centre they
were continually working through the dangerous Lindley and Heilbron
districts, returning to the railway line only to start again immediately
upon a fresh quest. It was work for mounted police, not for infantry
soldiers, but what they were given to do they did to the best of their
ability. Settle’s men had a similar thankless task. From the neighbourhood
of Kimberley he marched in November with his small column down the border
of the Orange River Colony, capturing supplies and bringing in refugees.
He fought one brisk action with Hertzog’s commando at Kloof, and then,
making his way across the colony, struck the railway line again at
Edenburg on December 7th, with a train of prisoners and cattle.
Rundle also had put in much hard work in his efforts to control the
difficult district in the north-east of the Colony which had been
committed to his care. He traversed in November from north to south the
same country which he had already so painfully traversed from south to
north. With occasional small actions he moved about from Vrede to Reitz,
and so to Bethlehem and Harrismith. On him, as on all other commanders,
the vicious system of placing small garrisons in the various towns imposed
a constant responsibility lest they should be starved or overwhelmed.
The year and the century ended by a small reverse to the British arms in
the Transvaal. This consisted in the capture of a post at Helvetia
defended by a detachment of the Liverpool Regiment and by a 4.7 gun.
Lydenburg, being seventy miles off the railway line, had a chain of posts
connecting it with the junction at Machadodorp. These posts were seven in
number, ten miles apart, each defended by 250 men. Of these Helvetia was
the second. The key of the position was a strongly fortified hill about
three-quarters of a mile from the headquarter camp, and commanding it.
This post was held by Captain Kirke with forty garrison artillery to work
the big gun, and seventy Liverpool infantry. In spite of the barbed-wire
entanglements, the Boers most gallantly rushed this position, and their
advance was so rapid, or the garrison so slow, that the place was carried
with hardly a shot fired. Major Cotton, who commanded the main lines,
found himself deprived in an instant of nearly half his force and fiercely
attacked by a victorious and exultant enemy. His position was much too
extended for the small force at his disposal, and the line of trenches was
pierced and enfiladed at many points. It must be acknowledged that the
defences were badly devised—little barbed wire, frail walls, large
loopholes, and the outposts so near the trenches that the assailants could
reach them as quickly as the supports. With the dawn Cotton’s position was
serious, if not desperate. He was not only surrounded, but was commanded
from Gun Hill. Perhaps it would have been wiser if, after being wounded,
he had handed over the command to Jones, his junior officer. A stricken
man’s judgement can never be so sound as that of the hale. However that
may be, he came to the conclusion that the position was untenable, and
that it was best to prevent further loss of life. Fifty of the Liverpools
were killed and wounded, 200 taken. No ammunition of the gun was captured,
but the Boers were able to get safely away with this humiliating evidence
of their victory. One post, under Captain Wilkinson with forty men, held
out with success, and harassed the enemy in their retreat. As at
Dewetsdorp and at Nooitgedacht, the Boers were unable to retain their
prisoners, so that the substantial fruits of their enterprise were small,
but it forms none the less one more of those incidents which may cause us
to respect our enemy and to be critical towards ourselves. [Footnote:
Considering that Major Stapelton Cotton was himself wounded in three
places during the action (one of these wounds being in the head), he has
had hard measure in being deprived of his commission by a court-martial
which sat eight months after the event. It is to be earnestly hoped that
there may be some revision of this severe sentence.]
In the last few months of the year some of those corps which had served
their time or which were needed elsewhere were allowed to leave the seat
of war. By the middle of November the three different corps of the City
Imperial Volunteers, the two Canadian contingents, Lumsden’s Horse, the
Composite Regiment of Guards, six hundred Australians, A battery R.H.A.,
and the volunteer companies of the regular regiments, were all homeward
bound. This loss of several thousand veteran troops before the war was
over was to be deplored, and though unavoidable in the case of volunteer
contingents, it is difficult to explain where regular troops are
concerned. Early in the new year the Government was compelled to send out
strong reinforcements to take their place.
Early in December Lord Roberts also left the country, to take over the
duties of Commander-in-Chief. High as his reputation stood when, in
January, he landed at Cape Town, it is safe to say that it had been
immensely enhanced when, ten months later, he saw from the quarter-deck of
the ‘Canada’ the Table Mountain growing dimmer in the distance. He found a
series of disconnected operations, in which we were uniformly worsted. He
speedily converted them into a series of connected operations in which we
were almost uniformly successful. Proceeding to the front at the beginning
of February, within a fortnight he had relieved Kimberley, within a month
he had destroyed Cronje’s force, and within six weeks he was in
Bloemfontein. Then, after a six weeks’ halt which could not possibly have
been shortened, he made another of his tiger leaps, and within a month had
occupied Johannesburg and Pretoria. From that moment the issue of the
campaign was finally settled, and though a third leap was needed, which
carried him to Komatipoort, and though brave and obstinate men might still
struggle against their destiny, he had done what was essential, and the
rest, however difficult, was only the detail of the campaign. A kindly
gentleman, as well as a great soldier, his nature revolted from all
harshness, and a worse man might have been a better leader in the last
hopeless phases of the war. He remembered, no doubt, how Grant had given
Lee’s army their horses, but Lee at the time had been thoroughly beaten,
and his men had laid down their arms. A similar boon to the partially
conquered Boers led to very different results, and the prolongation of the
war is largely due to this act of clemency. At the same time political and
military considerations were opposed to each other upon the point, and his
moral position in the use of harsher measures is the stronger since a
policy of conciliation had been tried and failed. Lord Roberts returned to
London with the respect and love of his soldiers and of his
fellow-countrymen. A passage from his farewell address to his troops may
show the qualities which endeared him to them.
‘The service which the South African Force has performed is, I venture to
think, unique in the annals of war, inasmuch as it has been absolutely
almost incessant for a whole year, in some cases for more than a year.
There has been no rest, no days off to recruit, no going into winter
quarters, as in other campaigns which have extended over a long period.
For months together, in fierce heat, in biting cold, in pouring rain, you,
my comrades, have marched and fought without halt, and bivouacked without
shelter from the elements. You frequently have had to continue marching
with your clothes in rags and your boots without soles, time being of such
consequence that it was impossible for you to remain long enough in one
place to refit. When not engaged in actual battle you have been
continually shot at from behind kopjes by invisible enemies to whom every
inch of the country was familiar, and who, from the peculiar nature of the
country, were able to inflict severe punishment while perfectly safe
themselves. You have forced your way through dense jungles, over
precipitous mountains, through and over which with infinite manual labour
you have had to drag heavy guns and ox-wagons. You have covered with
almost incredible speed enormous distances, and that often on very short
supplies of food. You have endured the sufferings inevitable in war to
sick and wounded men far from the base, without a murmur and even with
cheerfulness.’
The words reflect honour both upon the troops addressed and upon the man
who addressed them. From the middle of December 1900 Lord Kitchener took
over the control of the campaign.
CHAPTER 32. THE SECOND INVASION OF CAPE COLONY.
(DECEMBER 1900 TO APRIL 1901.)
During the whole war the task of the British had been made very much more
difficult by the openly expressed sympathy with the Boers from the
political association known as the Afrikander Bond, which either inspired
or represented the views which prevailed among the great majority of the
Dutch inhabitants of Cape Colony. How strong was this rebel impulse may be
gauged by the fact that in some of the border districts no less than
ninety per cent of the voters joined the Boer invaders upon the occasion
of their first entrance into the Colony. It is not pretended that these
men suffered from any political grievances whatever, and their action is
to be ascribed partly to a natural sympathy with their northern kinsmen,
and partly to racial ambition and to personal dislike to their British
neighbours. The liberal British policy towards the natives had especially
alienated the Dutch, and had made as well-marked a line of cleavage in
South Africa as the slave question had done in the States of the Union.
With the turn of the war the discontent in Cape Colony became less
obtrusive, if not less acute, but in the later months of the year 1900 it
increased to a degree which became dangerous. The fact of the farm-burning
in the conquered countries, and the fiction of outrages by the British
troops, raised a storm of indignation. The annexation of the Republics,
meaning the final disappearance of any Dutch flag from South Africa, was a
racial humiliation which was bitterly resented. The Dutch papers became
very violent, and the farmers much excited. The agitation culminated in a
conference at Worcester upon December 6th, at which some thousands of
delegates were present. It is suggestive of the Imperial nature of the
struggle that the assembly of Dutch Afrikanders was carried out under the
muzzles of Canadian artillery, and closely watched by Australian cavalry.
Had violent words transformed themselves into deeds, all was ready for the
crisis.
Fortunately the good sense of the assembly prevailed, and the agitation,
though bitter, remained within those wide limits which a British
constitution permits. Three resolutions were passed, one asking that the
war be ended, a second that the independence of the Republics be restored,
and a third protesting against the actions of Sir Alfred Milner. A
deputation which carried these to the Governor received a courteous but an
uncompromising reply. Sir Alfred Milner pointed out that the Home
Government, all the great Colonies, and half the Cape were unanimous in
their policy, and that it was folly to imagine that it could be reversed
on account of a local agitation. All were agreed in the desire to end the
war, but the last way of bringing this about was by encouraging desperate
men to go on fighting in a hopeless cause. Such was the general nature of
the Governor’s reply, which was, as might be expected, entirely endorsed
by the British Government and people.
Had De Wet, in the operations which have already been described, evaded
Charles Knox and crossed the Orange River, his entrance into the Colony
would have been synchronous with the congress at Worcester, and the
situation would have become more acute. This peril was fortunately
averted. The agitation in the Colony suggested to the Boer leaders,
however, that here was an untouched recruiting ground, and that small
mobile invading parties might gather strength and become formidable. It
was obvious, also, that by enlarging the field of operations the
difficulties of the British Commander-in-chief would be very much
increased, and the pressure upon the Boer guerillas in the Republics
relaxed. Therefore, in spite of De Wet’s failure to penetrate the Colony,
several smaller bands under less-known leaders were despatched over the
Orange River. With the help of the information and the supplies furnished
by the local farmers, these bands wandered for many months over the great
expanse of the Colony, taking refuge, when hard pressed, among the
mountain ranges. They moved swiftly about, obtaining remounts from their
friends, and avoiding everything in the nature of an action, save when the
odds were overwhelmingly in their favour. Numerous small posts or patrols
cut off, many skirmishes, and one or two railway smashes were the fruits
of this invasion, which lasted till the end of the war, and kept the
Colony in an extreme state of unrest during that period. A short account
must be given here of the movement and exploits of these hostile bands,
avoiding, as far as possible, that catalogue of obscure ‘fonteins’ and
‘kops’ which mark their progress.
The invasion was conducted by two main bodies, which shed off numerous
small raiding parties. Of these two, one operated on the western side of
the Colony, reaching the sea-coast in the Clanwilliam district, and
attaining a point which is less than a hundred miles from Cape Town. The
other penetrated even more deeply down the centre of the Colony, reaching
almost to the sea in the Mossel Bay direction. Yet the incursion, although
so far-reaching, had small effect, since the invaders held nothing save
the ground on which they stood, and won their way, not by victory, but by
the avoidance of danger. Some recruits were won to their cause, but they
do not seem at that time to have been more than a few hundreds in number,
and to have been drawn for the most part from the classes of the community
which had least to lose and least to offer.
The Western Boers were commanded by Judge Hertzog of the Free State,
having with him Brand, the son of the former president, and about twelve
hundred well-mounted men. Crossing the Orange River at Sand Drift, north
of Colesberg, upon December 16th, they paused at Kameelfontein to gather
up a small post of thirty yeomen and guardsmen under Lieutenant Fletcher,
the wellknown oar. Meeting with a stout resistance, and learning that
British forces were already converging upon them, they abandoned the
attack, and turning away from Colesberg they headed west, cutting the
railway line twenty miles to the north of De Aar. On the 22nd they
occupied Britstown, which is eighty miles inside the border, and on the
same day they captured a small body of yeomanry who had been following
them. These prisoners were released again some days later. Taking a sweep
round towards Prieska and Strydenburg, they pushed south again. At the end
of the year Hertzog’s column was 150 miles deep in the Colony, sweeping
through the barren and thinly-inhabited western lands, heading apparently
for Fraserburg and Beaufort West.
The second column was commanded by Kritzinger, a burgher of Zastron, in
the Orange River Colony. His force was about 800 strong. Crossing the
border at Rhenoster Hoek upon December 16th, they pushed for Burghersdorp,
but were headed off by a British column. Passing through Venterstad, they
made for Steynsberg, fighting two indecisive skirmishes with small British
forces. The end of the year saw them crossing the rail road at Sherburne,
north of Rosmead Junction, where they captured a train as they passed,
containing some Colonial troops. At this time they were a hundred miles
inside the Colony, and nearly three hundred from Hertzog’s western column.
In the meantime Lord Kitchener, who had descended for a few days to De
Aar, had shown great energy in organising small mobile columns which
should follow and, if possible, destroy the invaders. Martial law was
proclaimed in the parts of the Colony affected, and as the invaders came
further south the utmost enthusiasm was shown by the loyalists, who formed
themselves everywhere into town guards. The existing Colonial regiments,
such as Brabant’s, the Imperial and South African Light Horse—Thorneycroft’s,
Rimington’s, and the others—had already been brought up to strength
again, and now two new regiments were added, Kitchener’s Bodyguard and
Kitchener’s Fighting Scouts, the latter being raised by Johann
Colenbrander, who had made a name for himself in the Rhodesian wars. At
this period of the war between twenty and thirty thousand Cape colonists
were under arms. Many of these were untrained levies, but they possessed
the martial spirit of the race, and they set free more seasoned troops for
other duties.
It will be most convenient and least obscure to follow the movements of
the western force (Hertzog’s), and afterwards to consider those of the
eastern (Kritzinger’s). The opening of the year saw the mobile column of
Free Staters 150 miles over the border, pushing swiftly south over the
barren surface of the Karoo. It is a country of scattered farms and scanty
population; desolate plains curving upwards until they rise into still
more desolate mountain ranges. Moving in a very loose formation over a
wide front, the Boers swept southwards. On or about January 4th they took
possession of the small town of Calvinia, which remained their
headquarters for more than a month. From this point their roving bands
made their way as far as the seacoast in the Clanwilliam direction, for
they expected at Lambert’s Bay to meet with a vessel with mercenaries and
guns from Europe. They pushed their outposts also as far as Sutherland and
Beaufort West in the south. On January 15th strange horsemen were seen
hovering about the line at Touws River, and the citizens of Cape Town
learned with amazement that the war had been carried to within a hundred
miles of their own doors.
Whilst the Boers were making this daring raid a force consisting of
several mobile columns was being organised by General Settle to arrest and
finally to repel the western invasion. The larger body was under the
command of Colonel De Lisle, an officer who brought to the operations of
war the same energy and thoroughness with which he had made the polo team
of an infantry regiment the champions of the whole British Army. His
troops consisted of the 6th Mounted Infantry, the New South Wales Mounted
Infantry, the Irish Yeomanry, a section of R battery R.H.A., and a
pom-pom. With this small but mobile and hardy force he threw himself in
front of Hertzog’s line of advance. On January 13th he occupied
Piquetburg, eighty miles south of the Boer headquarters. On the 23rd he
was at Clanwilliam, fifty miles south-west of them. To his right were
three other small British columns under Bethune, Thorneycroft, and
Henniker, the latter resting upon the railway at Matjesfontein, and the
whole line extending over 120 miles—barring the southern path to the
invaders.
Though Hertzog at Calvinia and De Lisle at Clanwilliam were only fifty
miles apart, the intervening country is among the most broken and
mountainous in South Africa. Between the two points, and nearer to De
Lisle than to Hertzog, flows the Doorn River. The Boers advancing from
Calvinia came into touch with the British scouts at this point, and drove
them in upon January 21st. On the 28th De Lisle, having been reinforced by
Bethune’s column, was able at last to take the initiative. Bethune’s force
consisted mainly of Colonials, and included Kitchener’s Fighting Scouts,
the Cape Mounted Police, Cape Mounted Rifles, Brabant’s Horse, and the
Diamond Field Horse. At the end of January the united forces of Bethune
and of De Lisle advanced upon Calvinia. The difficulties lay rather in the
impassable country than in the resistance of an enemy who was determined
to refuse battle. On February 6th, after a fine march, De Lisle and his
men took possession of Calvinia, which had been abandoned by the Boers. It
is painful to add that during the month that they had held the town they
appear to have behaved with great harshness, especially to the kaffirs.
The flogging and shooting of a coloured man named Esan forms one more
incident in the dark story of the Boer and his relations to the native.
The British were now sweeping north on a very extended front. Colenbrander
had occupied Van Rhyns Dorp, to the east of Calvinia, while Bethune’s
force was operating to the west of it. De Lisle hardly halted at Calvinia,
but pushed onwards to Williston, covering seventy-two miles of broken
country in forty-eight hours, one of the most amazing performances of the
war. Quick as he was, the Boers were quicker still, and during his
northward march he does not appear to have actually come into contact with
them. Their line of retreat lay through Carnarvon, and upon February 22nd
they crossed the railway line to the north of De Aar, and joined upon
February 26th the new invading force under De Wet, who had now crossed the
Orange River. De Lisle, who had passed over five hundred miles of barren
country since he advanced from Piquetburg, made for the railway at
Victoria West, and was despatched from that place on February 22nd to the
scene of action in the north. From all parts Boer and Briton were
concentrating in their effort to aid or to repel the inroad of the famous
guerilla.
Before describing this attempt it would be well to trace the progress of
the eastern invasion (Kritzinger’s), a movement which may be treated
rapidly, since it led to no particular military result at that time,
though it lasted long after Hertzog’s force had been finally dissipated.
Several small columns, those of Williams, Byng, Grenfell, and Lowe, all
under the direction of Haig, were organised to drive back these commandos;
but so nimble were the invaders, so vast the distances and so broken the
country, that it was seldom that the forces came into contact. The
operations were conducted over a portion of the Colony which is strongly
Dutch in sympathy, and the enemy, though they do not appear to have
obtained any large number of recruits, were able to gather stores, horses,
and information wherever they went.
When last mentioned Kritzinger’s men had crossed the railway north of
Rosmead on December 30th, and held up a train containing some Colonial
troops. From then onwards a part of them remained in the Middelburg and
Graaf-Reinet districts, while part moved towards the south. On January
11th there was a sharp skirmish near Murraysburg, in which Byng’s column
was engaged, at the cost of twenty casualties, all of Brabant’s or the
South African Light Horse. On the 16th a very rapid movement towards the
south began. On that date Boers appeared at Aberdeen, and on the 18th at
Willowmore, having covered seventy miles in two days. Their long, thin
line was shredded out over 150 miles, and from Maraisburg, in the north,
to Uniondale, which is only thirty miles from the coast, there was rumour
of their presence. In this wild district and in that of Oudtshoorn the
Boer vanguard flitted in and out of the hills, Haig’s column striving hard
to bring them to an action. So well-informed were the invaders that they
were always able to avoid the British concentrations, while if a British
outpost or patrol was left exposed it was fortunate if it escaped
disaster. On February 6th a small body of twenty-five of the 7th King’s
Dragoon Guards and of the West Australians, under Captain Oliver, were
overwhelmed at Klipplaat, after a very fine defence, in which they held
their own against 200 Boers for eight hours, and lost nearly fifty per
cent of their number. On the 12th a patrol of yeomanry was surprised and
taken near Willowmore.
The coming of De Wet had evidently been the signal for all the Boer
raiders to concentrate, for in the second week of February Kritzinger also
began to fall back, as Hertzog had done in the west, followed closely by
the British columns. He did not, however, actually join De Wet, and his
evacuation of the country was never complete, as was the case with
Hertzog’s force. On the 19th Kritzinger was at Bethesda, with Gorringe and
Lowe at his heels. On the 23rd an important railway bridge at Fish River,
north of Cradock, was attacked, but the attempt was foiled by the
resistance of a handful of Cape Police and Lancasters. On March 6th a
party of Boers occupied the village of Pearston, capturing a few rifles
and some ammunition. On the same date there was a skirmish between Colonel
Parsons’s column and a party of the enemy to the north of Aberdeen. The
main body of the invading force appears to have been lurking in this
neighbourhood, as they were able upon April 7th to cut off a strong
British patrol, consisting of a hundred Lancers and Yeomanry, seventy-five
of whom remained as temporary prisoners in the hands of the enemy. With
this success we may for the time leave Kritzinger and his lieutenant,
Scheepers, who commanded that portion of his force which had penetrated to
the south of the Colony.
The two invasions which have been here described, that of Hertzog in the
west and of Kritzinger in the midlands, would appear in themselves to be
unimportant military operations, since they were carried out by small
bodies of men whose policy was rather to avoid than to overcome
resistance. Their importance, however, is due to the fact that they were
really the forerunners of a more important incursion upon the part of De
Wet. The object of these two bands of raiders was to spy out the land, so
that on the arrival of the main body all might be ready for that general
rising of their kinsmen in the Colony which was the last chance, not of
winning, but of prolonging the war. It must be confessed that, however
much their reason might approve of the Government under which they lived,
the sentiment of the Cape Dutch had been cruelly, though unavoidably, hurt
in the course of the war. The appearance of so popular a leader as De Wet
with a few thousand veterans in the very heart of their country might have
stretched their patience to the breaking-point. Inflamed, as they were, by
that racial hatred which had always smouldered, and had now been fanned
into a blaze by the speeches of their leaders and by the fictions of their
newspapers, they were ripe for mischief, while they had before their eyes
an object-lesson of the impotence of our military system in those small
bands who had kept the country in a ferment for so long. All was
propitious, therefore, for the attempt which Steyn and De Wet were about
to make to carry the war into the enemy’s country.
We last saw De Wet when, after a long chase, he had been headed back from
the Orange River, and, winning clear from Knox’s pursuit, had in the third
week of December passed successfully through the British cordon between
Thabanchu and Ladybrand. Thence he made his way to Senekal, and proceeded,
in spite of the shaking which he had had, to recruit and recuperate in the
amazing way which a Boer army has. There is no force so easy to drive and
so difficult to destroy. The British columns still kept in touch with De
Wet, but found it impossible to bring him to an action in the difficult
district to which he had withdrawn. His force had split up into numerous
smaller bodies, capable of reuniting at a signal from their leader. These
scattered bodies, mobile as ever, vanished if seriously attacked, while
keenly on the alert to pounce upon any British force which might be
overpowered before assistance could arrive. Such an opportunity came to
the commando led by Philip Botha, and the result was another petty reverse
to the British arms.
Upon January 3rd Colonel White’s small column was pushing north, in
co-operation with those of Knox, Pilcher, and the others. Upon that date
it had reached a point just north of Lindley, a district which has never
been a fortunate one for the invaders. A patrol of Kitchener’ s newly
raised bodyguard, under Colonel Laing, 120 strong, was sent forward to
reconnoitre upon the road from Lindley to Reitz.
The scouting appears to have been negligently done, there being only two
men out upon each flank. The little force walked into one of those
horse-shoe positions which the Boers love, and learned by a sudden volley
from a kraal upon their right that the enemy was present in strength. On
attempting to withdraw it was instantly evident that the Boers were on all
sides and in the rear with a force which numbered at least five to one.
The camp of the main column was only four miles away, however, and the
bodyguard, having sent messages of their precarious position, did all they
could to make a defence until help could reach them. Colonel Laing had
fallen, shot through the heart, but found a gallant successor in young
Nairne, the adjutant. Part of the force had thrown themselves, under
Nairne and Milne, into a donga, which gave some shelter from the sleet of
bullets. The others, under Captain Butters, held on to a ruined kraal. The
Boers pushed the attack very rapidly, however, and were soon able with
their superior numbers to send a raking fire down the donga, which made it
a perfect death-trap. Still hoping that the laggard reinforcements would
come up, the survivors held desperately on; but both in the kraal and in
the donga their numbers were from minute to minute diminishing. There was
no formal surrender and no white flag, for, when fifty per cent of the
British were down, the Boers closed in swiftly and rushed the position.
Philip Botha, the brother of the commandant, who led the Boers, behaved
with courtesy and humanity to the survivors; but many of the wounds were
inflicted with those horrible explosive and expansive missiles, the use of
which among civilised combatants should now and always be a capital
offence. To disable one’s adversary is a painful necessity of warfare, but
nothing can excuse the wilful mutilation and torture which is inflicted by
these brutal devices.
‘How many of you are there?’ asked Botha. ‘A hundred,’ said an officer.
‘It is not true. There are one hundred and twenty. I counted you as you
came along.’ The answer of the Boer leader shows how carefully the small
force had been nursed until it was in an impossible position. The margin
was a narrow one, however, for within fifteen minutes of the disaster
White’s guns were at work. There may be some question as to whether the
rescuing force could have come sooner, but there can be none as to the
resistance of the bodyguard. They held out to the last cartridge. Colonel
Laing and three officers with sixteen men were killed, four officers and
twenty-two men were wounded. The high proportion of fatal casualties can
only be explained by the deadly character of the Boer bullets. Hardly a
single horse of the bodyguard was left unwounded, and the profit to the
victors, since they were unable to carry away their prisoners, lay
entirely in the captured rifles. It is worthy of record that the British
wounded were despatched to Heilbron without guard through the Boer forces.
That they arrived there unmolested is due to the forbearance of the enemy
and to the tact and energy of Surgeon-Captain Porter, who commanded the
convoy.
Encouraged by this small success, and stimulated by the news that Hertzog
and Kritzinger had succeeded in penetrating the Colony without disaster,
De Wet now prepared to follow them. British scouts to the north of
Kroonstad reported horsemen riding south and east, sometimes alone,
sometimes in small parties. They were recruits going to swell the forces
of De Wet. On January 23rd five hundred men crossed the line, journeying
in the same direction. Before the end of the month, having gathered
together about 2500 men with fresh horses at the Doornberg, twenty miles
north of Winburg, the Boer leader was ready for one of his lightning treks
once more. On January 28th he broke south through the British net, which
appears to have had more meshes than cord. Passing the
Bloemfontein-Ladybrand line at Israel Poort he swept southwards, with
British columns still wearily trailing behind him, like honest bulldogs
panting after a greyhound.
Before following him upon this new venture it is necessary to say a few
words about that peace movement in the Boer States to which some allusion
has already been made. On December 20th Lord Kitchener had issued a
proclamation which was intended to have the effect of affording protection
to those burghers who desired to cease fighting, but who were unable to do
so without incurring the enmity of their irreconcilable brethren. ‘It is
hereby notified,’ said the document, ‘to all burghers that if after this
date they voluntarily surrender they will be allowed to live with their
families in Government laagers until such time as the guerilla warfare now
being carried on will admit of their returning safely to their homes. All
stock and property brought in at the time of the surrender of such
burghers will be respected and paid for if requisitioned.’ This wise and
liberal offer was sedulously concealed from their men by the leaders of
the fighting commandos, but was largely taken advantage of by those Boers
to whom it was conveyed. Boer refugee camps were formed at Pretoria,
Johannesburg, Kroonstad, Bloemfontein, Warrenton; and other points, to
which by degrees the whole civil population came to be transferred. It was
the reconcentrado system of Cuba over again, with the essential difference
that the guests of the British Government were well fed and well treated
during their detention. Within a few months the camps had 50,000 inmates.
It was natural that some of these people, having experienced the amenity
of British rule, and being convinced of the hopelessness of the struggle,
should desire to convey their feelings to their friends and relations in
the field. Both in the Transvaal and in the Orange River Colony Peace
Committees were formed, which endeavoured to persuade their countrymen to
bow to the inevitable. A remarkable letter was published from Piet de Wet,
a man who had fought bravely for the Boer cause, to his brother, the
famous general. ‘Which is better for the Republics,’ he asked, ‘to
continue the struggle and run the risk of total ruin as a nation, or to
submit? Could we for a moment think of taking back the country if it were
offered to us, with thousands of people to be supported by a Government
which has not a farthing?… Put passionate feeling aside for a moment and
use common-sense, and you will then agree with me that the best thing for
the people and the country is to give in, to be loyal to the new
government, and to get responsible government…Should the war continue a
few months longer the nation will become so poor that they will be the
working class in the country, and disappear as a nation in the future…
The British are convinced that they have conquered the land and its
people, and consider the matter ended, and they only try to treat
magnanimously those who are continuing the struggle in order to prevent
unnecessary bloodshed.’
Such were the sentiments of those of the burghers who were in favour of
peace. Their eyes had been opened and their bitterness was transferred
from the British Government to those individual Britons who, partly from
idealism and partly from party passion, had encouraged them to their
undoing. But their attempt to convey their feelings to their countrymen in
the field ended in tragedy. Two of their number, Morgendaal and Wessels,
who had journeyed to De Wet’s camp, were condemned to death by order of
that leader. In the case of Morgendaal the execution actually took place,
and seems to have been attended by brutal circumstances, the man having
been thrashed with a sjambok before being put to death. The circumstances
are still surrounded by such obscurity that it is impossible to say
whether the message of the peace envoys was to the General himself or to
the men under his command. In the former case the man was murdered. In the
latter the Boer leader was within his rights, though the rights may have
been harshly construed and brutally enforced.
On January 29th, in the act of breaking south, De Wet’s force, or a
portion of it, had a sharp brush with a small British column (Crewe’s) at
Tabaksberg, which lies about forty miles north-east of Bloemfontein; This
small force, seven hundred strong, found itself suddenly in the presence
of a very superior body of the enemy, and had some difficulty in
extricating itself. A pom-pom was lost in this affair. Crewe fell back
upon Knox, and the combined columns made for Bloemfontein, whence they
could use the rails for their transport. De Wet meanwhile moved south as
far as Smithfield, and then, detaching several small bodies to divert the
attention of the British, he struck due west, and crossed the track
between Springfontein and Jagersfontein road, capturing the usual supply
train as he passed. On February 9th he had reached Phillipolis, well ahead
of the British pursuit, and spent a day or two in making his final
arrangements before carrying the war over the border. His force consisted
at this time of nearly 8000 men, with two 15-pounders, one pom-pom, and
one maxim. The garrisons of all the towns in the south-west of the Orange
River Colony had been removed in accordance with the policy of
concentration, so De Wet found himself for the moment in a friendly
country.
The British, realising how serious a situation might arise should De Wet
succeed in penetrating the Colony and in joining Hertzog and Kritzinger,
made every effort both to head him off and to bar his return. General
Lyttelton at Naauwpoort directed the operations, and the possession of the
railway line enabled him to concentrate his columns rapidly at the point
of danger. On February 11th De Wet forded the Orange River at Zand Drift,
and found himself once more upon British territory. Lyttelton’s plan of
campaign appears to have been to allow De Wet to come some distance south,
and then to hold him in front by De Lisle’s force, while a number of small
mobile columns under Plumer, Crabbe, Henniker, Bethune, Haig, and
Thorneycroft should shepherd him behind. On crossing, De Wet at once moved
westwards, where, upon February 12th, Plumer’s column, consisting of the
Queensland Mounted Infantry, the Imperial Bushmen, and part of the King’s
Dragoon Guards, came into touch with his rearguard. All day upon the 13th
and 14th, amid terrific rain, Plumer’s hardy troopers followed close upon
the enemy, gleaning a few ammunition wagons, a maxim, and some prisoners.
The invaders crossed the railway line near Houtnek, to the north of De
Aar, in the early hours of the 15th, moving upon a front of six or eight
miles. Two armoured trains from the north and the south closed in upon him
as he passed, Plumer still thundered in his rear, and a small column under
Crabbe came pressing from the south. This sturdy Colonel of Grenadiers had
already been wounded four times in the war, so that he might be excused if
he felt some personal as well as patriotic reasons for pushing a
relentless pursuit. On crossing the railroad De Wet turned furiously upon
his pursuers, and, taking an excellent position upon a line of kopjes
rising out of the huge expanse of the Karoo, he fought a stubborn
rearguard action in order to give time for his convoy to get ahead. He was
hustled off the hills, however, the Australian Bushmen with great dash
carrying the central kopje, and the guns driving the invaders to the
westward. Leaving all his wagons and his reserve ammunition behind him,
the guerilla chief struck north-west, moving with great swiftness, but
never succeeding in shaking off Plumer’s pursuit. The weather continued,
however, to be atrocious, rain and hail falling with such violence that
the horses could hardly be induced to face it. For a week the two sodden,
sleepless, mud-splashed little armies swept onwards over the Karoo. De Wet
passed northwards through Strydenburg, past Hopetown, and so to the Orange
River, which was found to be too swollen with the rains to permit of his
crossing. Here upon the 23rd, after a march of forty-five miles on end,
Plumer ran into him once more, and captured with very little fighting a
fifteen-pounder, a pom-pom, and close on to a hundred prisoners. Slipping
away to the east, De Wet upon February 24th crossed the railroad again
between Krankuil and Orange River Station, with Thorneycroft’s column hard
upon his heels. The Boer leader was now more anxious to escape from the
Colony than ever he had been to enter it, and he rushed distractedly from
point to point, endeavouring to find a ford over the great turbid river
which cut him off from his own country. Here he was joined by Hertzog’s
commando with a number of invaluable spare horses. It is said also that he
had been able to get remounts in the Hopetown district, which had not been
cleared—an omission for which, it is to be hoped, someone has been
held responsible. The Boer ponies, used to the succulent grasses of the
veld, could make nothing of the rank Karoo, and had so fallen away that an
enormous advantage should have rested with the pursuers had ill luck and
bad management not combined to enable the invaders to renew their mobility
at the very moment when Plumer’s horses were dropping dead under their
riders.
The Boer force was now so scattered that, in spite of the advent of
Hertzog, De Wet had fewer men with him than when he entered the Colony.
Several hundreds had been taken prisoners, many had deserted, and a few
had been killed. It was hoped now that the whole force might be captured,
and Thorneycroft’s, Crabbe’s, Henniker’s, and other columns were closing
swiftly in upon him, while the swollen river still barred his retreat.
There was a sudden drop in the flood, however; one ford became passable,
and over it, upon the last day of February, De Wet and his bedraggled,
dispirited commando escaped to their own country. There was still a sting
in his tail, however; for upon that very day a portion of his force
succeeded in capturing sixty and killing or wounding twenty of
Colenbrander’s new regiment, Kitchener’s Fighting Scouts. On the other
hand, De Wet was finally relieved upon the same day of all care upon the
score of his guns, as the last of them was most gallantly captured by
Captain Dallimore and fifteen Victorians, who at the same time brought in
thirty-three Boer prisoners. The net result of De Wet’s invasion was that
he gained nothing, and that he lost about four thousand horses, all his
guns, all his convoy, and some three hundred of his men.
Once safely in his own country again, the guerilla chief pursued his way
northwards with his usual celerity and success. The moment that it was
certain that De Wet had escaped, the indefatigable Plumer, wiry, tenacious
man, had been sent off by train to Springfontein, while Bethune’s column
followed direct. This latter force crossed the Orange River bridge and
marched upon Luckhoff and Fauresmith. At the latter town they overtook
Plumer, who was again hard upon the heels of De Wet. Together they ran him
across the Riet River and north to Petrusburg, until they gave it up as
hopeless upon finding that, with only fifty followers, he had crossed the
Modder River at Abram’s Kraal. There they abandoned the chase and fell
back upon Bloemfontein to refit and prepare for a fresh effort to run down
their elusive enemy.
While Plumer and Bethune were following upon the track of De Wet until he
left them behind at the Modder, Lyttelton was using the numerous columns
which were ready to his hand in effecting a drive up the south-eastern
section of the Orange River Colony. It was disheartening to remember that
all this large stretch of country had from April to November been as
peaceful and almost as prosperous as Kent or Yorkshire. Now the intrusion
of the guerilla bands, and the pressure put by them upon the farmers, had
raised the whole country once again, and the work of pacification had to
be set about once more, with harsher measures than before. A continuous
barrier of barbed-wire fencing had been erected from Bloemfontein to the
Basuto border, a distance of eighty miles, and this was now strongly held
by British posts. From the south Bruce Hamilton, Hickman, Thorneycroft,
and Haig swept upwards, stripping the country as they went in the same way
that French had done in the Eastern Transvaal, while Pilcher’s column
waited to the north of the barbed-wire barrier. It was known that Fourie,
with a considerable commando, was lurking in this district, but he and his
men slipped at night between the British columns and escaped. Pilcher,
Bethune, and Byng were able, however, to send in 200 prisoners and very
great numbers of cattle. On April 10th Monro, with Bethune’s Mounted
Infantry, captured eighty fighting Boers near Dewetsdorp, and sixty more
were taken by a night attack at Boschberg. There is no striking victory to
record in these operations, but they were an important part of that
process of attrition which was wearing the Boers out and helping to bring
the war to an end. Terrible it is to see that barren countryside, and to
think of the depths of misery to which the once flourishing and happy
Orange Free State had fallen, through joining in a quarrel with a nation
which bore it nothing but sincere friendship and goodwill. With nothing to
gain and everything to lose, the part played by the Orange Free State in
this South African drama is one of the most inconceivable things in
history. Never has a nation so deliberately and so causelessly committed
suicide.
CHAPTER 33. THE NORTHERN OPERATIONS FROM JANUARY TO APRIL, 1901.
Three consecutive chapters have now given some account of the campaign of
De Wet, of the operations in the Transvaal up to the end of the year 1900,
and of the invasion of Cape Colony up to April 1901. The present chapter
will deal with the events in the Transvaal from the beginning of the new
century. The military operations in that country, though extending over a
very large area, may be roughly divided into two categories: the attacks
by the Boers upon British posts, and the aggressive sweeping movements of
British columns. Under the first heading come the attacks on Belfast, on
Zuurfontein, on Kaalfontein, on Zeerust, on Modderfontein, and on
Lichtenburg, besides many minor affairs. The latter comprises the
operations of Babington and of Cunningham to the west and south-west of
Pretoria, those of Methuen still further to the south-west, and the large
movement of French in the south-east. In no direction did the British
forces in the field meet with much active resistance. So long as they
moved the gnats did not settle; it was only when quiet that they buzzed
about and occasionally stung.
The early days of January 1901 were not fortunate for the British arms, as
the check in which Kitchener’s Bodyguard was so roughly handled, near
Lindley, was closely followed by a brisk action at Naauwpoort or
Zandfontein, near the Magaliesberg, in which De la Rey left his mark upon
the Imperial Light Horse. The Boer commandos, having been driven into the
mountains by French and Clements in the latter part of December, were
still on the look-out to strike a blow at any British force which might
expose itself. Several mounted columns had been formed to scour the
country, one under Kekewich, one under Gordon, and one under Babington.
The two latter, meeting in a mist upon the morning of January 5th,
actually turned their rifles upon each other, but fortunately without any
casualties resulting. A more deadly rencontre was, however, awaiting them.
A force of Boers were observed, as the mist cleared, making for a ridge
which would command the road along which the convoy and guns were moving.
Two squadrons (B and C) of the Light Horse were instantly detached to
seize the point. They do not appear to have realised that they were in the
immediate presence of the enemy, and they imagined that the ground over
which they were passing had been already reconnoitred by a troop of the
14th Hussars. It is true that four scouts were thrown forward, but as both
squadrons were cantering there was no time for these to get ahead.
Presently C squadron, which was behind, was ordered to close up upon the
left of B squadron, and the 150 horsemen in one long line swept over a low
grassy ridge. Some hundreds of De la Rey’s men were lying in the long
grass upon the further side, and their first volley, fired at a fifty-yard
range, emptied a score of saddles. It would have been wiser, if less
gallant, to retire at once in the presence of a numerous and invisible
enemy, but the survivors were ordered to dismount and return the fire.
This was done, but the hail of bullets was terrific and the casualties
were numerous. Captain Norman, of C squadron, then retired his men, who
withdrew in good order. B squadron having lost Yockney, its brave leader,
heard no order, so they held their ground until few of them had escaped
the driving sleet of lead. Many of the men were struck three and four
times. There was no surrender, and the extermination of B company added
another laurel, even at a moment of defeat, to the regiment whose
reputation was so grimly upheld. The Boer victors walked in among the
litter of stricken men and horses. ‘Practically all of them were dressed
in khaki and had the water-bottles and haversacks of our soldiers. One of
them snatched a bayonet from a dead man, and was about to despatch one of
our wounded when he was stopped in the nick of time by a man in a black
suit, who, I afterwards heard, was De la Rey himself…The feature of the
action was the incomparable heroism of our dear old Colonel
Wools-Sampson.’ So wrote a survivor of B company, himself shot through the
body. It was four hours before a fresh British advance reoccupied the
ridge, and by that time the Boers had disappeared. Some seventy killed and
wounded, many of them terribly mutilated, were found on the scene of the
disaster. It is certainly a singular coincidence that at distant points of
the seat of war two of the crack irregular corps should have suffered so
severely within three days of each other. In each case, however, their
prestige was enhanced rather than lowered by the result. These incidents
tend, however, to shake the belief that scouting is better performed in
the Colonial than in the regular forces.
Of the Boer attacks upon British posts to which allusion has been made,
that upon Belfast, in the early morning of January 7th, appears to have
been very gallantly and even desperately pushed. On the same date a number
of smaller attacks, which may have been meant simply as diversions, were
made upon Wonderfontein, Nooitgedacht, Wildfontein, Pan, Dalmanutha, and
Machadodorp. These seven separate attacks, occurring simultaneously over
sixty miles, show that the Boer forces were still organised and under one
effective control. The general object of the operations was undoubtedly to
cut Lord Roberts’s communications upon that side and to destroy a
considerable section of the railway.
The town of Belfast was strongly held by Smith-Dorrien, with 1750 men, of
which 1300 were infantry belonging to the Royal Irish, the Shropshires,
and the Gordons. The perimeter of defence, however, was fifteen miles, and
each little fort too far from its neighbour for mutual support, though
connected with headquarters by telephone. It is probable that the leaders
and burghers engaged in this very gallant attack were in part the same as
those concerned in the successful attempt at Helvetia upon December 29th,
for the assault was delivered in the same way, at the same hour, and
apparently with the same primary object. This was to gain possession of
the big 5-inch gun, which is as helpless by night as it is formidable by
day. At Helvetia they attained their object and even succeeded not merely
in destroying, but in removing their gigantic trophy. At Belfast they
would have performed the same feat had it not been for the foresight of
General Smith-Dorrien, who had the heavy gun trundled back into the town
every night.
The attack broke first upon Monument Hill, a post held by Captain Fosbery
with eighty-three Royal Irish. Chance or treason guided the Boers to the
weak point of the wire entanglement and they surged into the fort, where
the garrison fought desperately to hold its own. There was thick mist and
driving rain; and the rush of vague and shadowy figures amid the gloom was
the first warning of the onslaught. The Irishmen were overborne by a swarm
of assailants, but they nobly upheld their traditional reputation. Fosbery
met his death like a gallant gentleman, but not more heroically than
Barry, the humble private, who, surrounded by Boers, thought neither of
himself nor of them, but smashed at the maxim gun with a pickaxe until he
fell riddled with bullets. Half the garrison were on the ground before the
post was carried.
A second post upon the other side of the town was defended by Lieutenant
Marshall with twenty men, mostly Shropshires. For an hour they held out
until Marshall and nine out of his twelve Shropshires had been hit. Then
this post also was carried.
The Gordon Highlanders held two posts to the southeast and to the
south-west of the town, and these also were vigorously attacked. Here,
however, the advance spent itself without result. In vain the Ermelo and
Carolina commandos stormed up to the Gordon pickets. They were blown back
by the steady fire of the infantry. One small post manned by twelve
Highlanders was taken, but the rest defied all attack. Seeing therefore
that his attempt at a coup-de-main was a failure, Viljoen withdrew his men
before daybreak. The Boer casualties have not been ascertained, but
twenty-four of their dead were actually picked up within the British
lines. The British lost sixty killed and wounded, while about as many were
taken prisoners. Altogether the action was a brisk and a gallant one, of
which neither side has cause to be ashamed. The simultaneous attacks upon
six other stations were none of them pressed home, and were demonstrations
rather than assaults.
The attempts upon Kaalfontein and on Zuurfontein were both made in the
early morning of January 12th. These two places are small stations upon
the line between Johannesburg and Pretoria. It is clear that the Boers
were very certain of their own superior mobility before they ventured to
intrude into the very heart of the British position, and the result showed
that they were right in supposing that even if their attempt were
repulsed, they would still be able to make good their escape. Better
horsed, better riders, with better intelligence and a better knowledge of
the country, their ventures were always attended by a limited liability.
The attacks seem to have been delivered by a strong commando, said to have
been under the command of Beyers, upon its way to join the Boer
concentration in the Eastern Transvaal. They had not the satisfaction,
however, of carrying the garrison of a British post with them, for at each
point they were met by a stout resistance and beaten off. Kaalfontein was
garrisoned by 120 men of Cheshire under Williams-Freeman, Zuurfontein by
as many Norfolks and a small body of Lincolns under Cordeaux and Atkinson.
For six hours the pressure was considerable, the assailants of Kaalfontein
keeping up a brisk shell and rifle fire, while those of Zuurfontein were
without artillery. At the end of that time two armoured trains came up
with reinforcements and the enemy continued his trek to the eastward. Knox
‘s 2nd cavalry brigade followed them up, but without any very marked
result.
Zeerust and Lichtenburg had each been garrisoned and provisioned by Lord
Methuen before he carried his column away to the south-west, where much
rough and useful work awaited him. The two towns were at once invested by
the enemy, who made an attack upon each of them. That upon Zeerust, on
January 7th, was a small matter and easily repulsed. A more formidable one
was made on Lichtenburg, on March 3rd. The attack was delivered by De la
Rey, Smuts, and Celliers, with 1500 men, who galloped up to the pickets in
the early morning. The defenders were 600 in number, consisting of Paget’s
Horse and three companies of the 1st battalion of the Northumberland
Fusiliers, a veteran regiment with a long record of foreign service, not
to be confused with that 2nd battalion which was so severely handled upon
several occasions. It was well that it was so, for less sturdy material
might have been overborne by the vigour of the attack. As it was, the
garrison were driven to their last trench, but held out under a very heavy
fire all day, and next morning the Boers abandoned the attack. Their
losses appear to have been over fifty in number, and included Commandant
Celliers, who was badly wounded and afterwards taken prisoner at Warm
Baths. The brave garrison lost fourteen killed, including two officers of
the Northumberlands, and twenty wounded.
In each of these instances the attacks by the Boers upon British posts had
ended in a repulse to themselves. They were more fortunate, however, in
their attempt upon Modderfontein on the Gatsrand at the end of January.
The post was held by 200 of the South Wales Borderers, reinforced by the
59th Imperial Yeomanry, who had come in as escort to a convoy from
Krugersdorp. The attack, which lasted all day, was carried out by a
commando of 2000 Boers under Smuts, who rushed the position upon the
following morning. As usual, the Boers, who were unable to retain their
prisoners, had little to show for their success. The British casualties,
however, were between thirty and forty, mostly wounded.
On January 22nd General Cunninghame left Oliphant’s Nek with a small force
consisting of the Border and Worcester Regiments, the 6th Mounted
Infantry, Kitchener’s Horse, 7th Imperial Yeomanry, 8th R.F.A., and P
battery R.H.A. It had instructions to move south upon the enemy known to
be gathering there. By midday this force was warmly engaged, and found
itself surrounded by considerable bodies of De la Rey’s burghers. That
night they camped at Middelfontein, and were strongly attacked in the
early morning. So menacing was the Boer attitude, and so formidable the
position, that the force was in some danger. Fortunately they were in
heliographic communication with Oliphant’s Nek, and learned upon the 23rd
that Babington had been ordered to their relief. All day Cunninghame’s men
were under a long-range fire, but on the 24th Babington appeared, and the
British force was successfully extricated, having seventy-five casualties.
This action of Middelfontein is interesting as having been begun in Queen
Victoria’s reign, and ended in that of Edward VII.
Cunninghame’s force moved on to Krugersdorp, and there, having heard of
the fall of the Modderfontein post as already described, a part of his
command moved out to the Gatsrand in pursuit of Smuts. It was found,
however, that the Boers had taken up a strong defensive position, and the
British were not numerous enough to push the attack. On February 3rd
Cunninghame endeavoured to outflank the enemy with his small cavalry force
while pushing his infantry up in front, but in neither attempt did he
succeed, the cavalry failing to find the flank, while the infantry were
met with a fire which made further advance impossible. One company of the
Border Regiment found itself in such a position that the greater part of
it was killed, wounded, or taken. This check constituted the action of
Modderfontein. On the 4th, however, Cunningham, assisted by some of the
South African Constabulary, made his way round the flank, and dislodged
the enemy, who retreated to the south. A few days later some of Smuts’s
men made an attempt upon the railway near Bank, but were driven off with
twenty-six casualties. It was after this that Smuts moved west and joined
De la Rey’s commando to make the attack already described upon
Lichtenburg. These six attempts represent the chief aggressive movements
which the Boers made against British posts in the Transvaal during these
months. Attacks upon trains were still common, and every variety of
sniping appears to have been rife, from the legitimate ambuscade to
something little removed from murder.
It has been described in a previous chapter how Lord Kitchener made an
offer to the burghers which amounted to an amnesty, and how a number of
those Boers who had come under the influence of the British formed
themselves into peace committees, and endeavoured to convey to the
fighting commandos some information as to the hopelessness of the
struggle, and the lenient mood of the British. Unfortunately these
well-meant offers appear to have been mistaken for signs of weakness by
the Boer leaders, and encouraged them to harden their hearts. Of the
delegates who conveyed the terms to their fellow countrymen two at least
were shot, several were condemned to death, and few returned without
ill-usage. In no case did they bear back a favourable answer. The only
result of the proclamation was to burden the British resources by an
enormous crowd of women and children who were kept and fed in refugee
camps, while their fathers and husbands continued in most cases to fight.
This allusion to the peace movement among the burghers may serve as an
introduction to the attempt made by Lord Kitchener, at the end of February
1901, to bring the war to a close by negotiation. Throughout its course
the fortitude of Great Britain and of the Empire had never for an instant
weakened, but her conscience had always been sensitive at the sight of the
ruin which had befallen so large a portion of South Africa, and any
settlement would have been eagerly hailed which would insure that the work
done had not been wasted, and would not need to be done again. A peace on
any other terms would simply shift upon the shoulders of our descendants
those burdens which we were not manly enough to bear ourselves. There had
arisen, as has been said, a considerable peace movement among the burghers
of the refugee camps and also among the prisoners of war. It was hoped
that some reflection of this might be found among the leaders of the
people. To find out if this were so Lord Kitchener, at the end of
February, sent a verbal message to Louis Botha, and on the 27th of that
month the Boer general rode with an escort of Hussars into Middelburg.
‘Sunburned, with a pleasant, fattish face of a German type, and wearing an
imperial,’ says one who rode beside him. Judging from the sounds of mirth
heard by those without, the two leaders seem to have soon got upon amiable
terms, and there was hope that a definite settlement might spring from
their interview. From the beginning Lord Kitchener explained that the
continued independence of the two republics was an impossibility. But on
every other point the British Government was prepared to go great lengths
in order to satisfy and conciliate the burghers.
On March 7th Lord Kitchener wrote to Botha from Pretoria, recapitulating
the points which he had advanced. The terms offered were certainly as far
as, and indeed rather further than, the general sentiment of the Empire
would have gone. If the Boers laid down their arms there was to be a
complete amnesty, which was apparently to extend to rebels also so long as
they did not return to Cape Colony or Natal. Self-government was promised
after a necessary interval, during which the two States should be
administered as Crown colonies. Law courts should be independent of the
Executive from the beginning, and both languages be official. A million
pounds of compensation would be paid to the burghers—a most
remarkable example of a war indemnity being paid by the victors. Loans
were promised to the farmers to restart them in business, and a pledge was
made that farms should not be taxed. The Kaffirs were not to have the
franchise, but were to have the protection of law. Such were the generous
terms offered by the British Government. Public opinion at home, strongly
supported by that of the colonies, and especially of the army, felt that
the extreme step had been taken in the direction of conciliation, and that
to do more would seem not to offer peace, but to implore it.
Unfortunately, however, the one thing which the British could not offer
was the one thing which the Boers would insist upon having, and the
leniency of the proposals in all other directions may have suggested
weakness to their minds. On March 15th an answer was returned by General
Botha to the effect that nothing short of total independence would satisfy
them, and the negotiations were accordingly broken off.
There was a disposition, however, upon the Boer side to renew them, and
upon May 10th General Botha applied to Lord Kitchener for permission to
cable to President Kruger, and to take his advice as to the making of
peace. The stern old man at The Hague was still, however, in an unbending
mood. His reply was to the effect that there were great hopes of a
successful issue of the war, and that he had taken steps to make proper
provision for the Boer prisoners and for the refugee women. These steps,
and very efficient ones too, were to leave them entirely to the generosity
of that Government which he was so fond of reviling.
On the same day upon which Botha applied for leave to use the British
cable, a letter was written by Reitz, State Secretary of the Transvaal, to
Steyn, in which the desperate condition of the Boers was clearly set
forth. This document explained that the burghers were continually
surrendering, that the ammunition was nearly exhausted, the food running
low, and the nation in danger of extinction. ‘The time has come to take
the final step,’ said the Secretary of State. Steyn wrote back a reply in
which, like his brother president, he showed a dour resolution to continue
the struggle, prompted by a fatalist conviction that some outside
interference would reverse the result of his appeal to arms. His attitude
and that of Kruger determined the Boer leaders to hold out for a few more
months, a resolution which may have been injudicious, but was certainly
heroic. ‘It’s a fight to a finish this time,’ said the two combatants in
the ‘Punch’ cartoon which marked the beginning of the war. It was indeed
so, as far as the Boers were concerned. As the victors we can afford to
acknowledge that no nation in history has ever made a more desperate and
prolonged resistance against a vastly superior antagonist. A Briton may
well pray that his own people may be as staunch when their hour of
adversity comes round.
The British position at this stage of the war was strengthened by a
greater centralisation. Garrisons of outlying towns were withdrawn so that
fewer convoys became necessary. The population was removed also and placed
near the railway lines, where they could be more easily fed. In this way
the scene of action was cleared and the Boer and British forces left face
to face. Convinced of the failure of the peace policy, and morally
strengthened by having tried it, Lord Kitchener set himself to finish the
war by a series of vigorous operations which should sweep the country from
end to end. For this purpose mounted troops were essential, and an appeal
from him for reinforcements was most nobly answered. Five thousand
horsemen were despatched from the colonies, and twenty thousand cavalry,
mounted infantry, and Yeomanry were sent from home. Ten thousand mounted
men had already been raised in Great Britain, South Africa, and Canada for
the Constabulary force which was being organised by Baden-Powell.
Altogether the reinforcements of horsemen amounted to more than
thirty-five thousand men, all of whom had arrived in South Africa before
the end of April. With the remains of his old regiments Lord Kitchener had
under him at this final period of the war between fifty and sixty thousand
cavalry—such a force as no British General in his happiest dream had
ever thought of commanding, and no British war minister in his darkest
nightmare had ever imagined himself called upon to supply.
Long before his reinforcements had come to hand, while his Yeomanry was
still gathering in long queues upon the London pavement to wait their turn
at the recruiting office, Lord Kitchener had dealt the enemy several
shrewd blows which materially weakened their resources in men and
material. The chief of these was the great drive down the Eastern
Transvaal undertaken by seven columns under the command of French. Before
considering this, however, a few words must be devoted to the doings of
Methuen in the south-west.
This hard-working General, having garrisoned Zeerust and Lichtenburg, had
left his old district and journeyed with a force which consisted largely
of Bushmen and Yeomanry to the disturbed parts of Bechuanaland which had
been invaded by De Villiers. Here he cleared the country as far as
Vryburg, which he had reached in the middle of January, working round to
Kuruman and thence to Taungs. From Taungs his force crossed the Transvaal
border and made for Klerksdorp, working through an area which had never
been traversed and which contained the difficult Masakani hills. He left
Taungs upon February 2nd, fighting skirmishes at Uitval’s Kop,
Paardefontein and Lilliefontein, in each of which the enemy was brushed
aside. Passing through Wolmaranstad, Methuen turned to the north, where at
Haartebeestefontein, on February 19th, he fought a brisk engagement with a
considerable force of Boers under De Villiers and Liebenberg. On the day
before the fight he successfully outwitted the Boers, for, learning that
they had left their laager in order to take up a position for battle, he
pounced upon the laager and captured 10,000 head of cattle, forty-three
wagons, and forty prisoners. Stimulated by this success, he attacked the
Boers next day, and after five hours of hard fighting forced the pass
which they were holding against him. As Methuen had but 1500 men, and was
attacking a force which was as large as his own in a formidable position,
the success was a very creditable one. The Yeomanry all did well,
especially the 5th and 10th battalions. So also did the Australians and
the Loyal North Lancashires. The British casualties amounted to sixteen
killed and thirty-four wounded, while the Boers left eighteen of their
dead upon the position which they had abandoned. Lord Methuen’s little
force returned to Klerksdorp, having deserved right well of their country.
From Klerksdorp Methuen struck back westwards to the south of his former
route, and on March 14th he was reported at Warrenton. Here also in April
came Erroll’s small column, bringing with it the garrison and inhabitants
of Hoopstad, a post which it had been determined, in accordance with Lord
Kitchener’s policy of centralisation, to abandon.
In the month of January, 1901, there had been a considerable concentration
of the Transvaal Boers into that large triangle which is bounded by the
Delagoa railway line upon the north, the Natal railway line upon the
south, and the Swazi and Zulu frontiers upon the east. The bushveld is at
this season of the year unhealthy both for man and beast, so that for the
sake of their herds, their families, and themselves the burghers were
constrained to descend into the open veld. There seemed the less objection
to their doing so since this tract of country, though traversed once both
by Buller and by French, had still remained a stronghold of the Boers and
a storehouse of supplies. Within its borders are to be found Carolina,
Ermelo, Vryheid, and other storm centres. Its possession offers peculiar
strategical advantages, as a force lying there can always attack either
railway, and might even make, as was indeed intended, a descent into
Natal. For these mingled reasons of health and of strategy a considerable
number of burghers united in this district under the command of the Bothas
and of Smuts.
Their concentration had not escaped the notice of the British military
authorities, who welcomed any movement which might bring to a focus that
resistance which had been so nebulous and elusive. Lord Kitchener having
once seen the enemy fairly gathered into this huge cover, undertook the
difficult task of driving it from end to end. For this enterprise General
French was given the chief command, and had under his orders no fewer than
seven columns, which started from different points of the Delagoa and of
the Natal railway lines, keeping in touch with each other and all trending
south and east. A glance at the map would show, however, that it was a
very large field for seven guns, and that it would need all their
alertness to prevent the driven game from breaking back. Three columns
started from the Delagoa line, namely, Smith-Dorrien’s from Wonderfontein
(the most easterly), Campbell’s from Middelburg, and Alderson’s from
Eerstefabrieken, close to Pretoria. Four columns came from the western
railway line: General Knox’s from Kaalfontein, Major Allenby’s from
Zuurfontein (both stations between Pretoria and Johannesburg), General
Dartnell’s from Springs, close to Johannesburg, and finally General
Colville (not to be confused with Colvile) from Greylingstad in the south.
The whole movement resembled a huge drag net, of which Wonderfontein and
Greylingstad formed the ends, exactly one hundred miles apart. On January
27th the net began to be drawn. Some thousands of Boers with a
considerable number of guns were known to be within the enclosure, and it
was hoped that even if their own extreme mobility enabled them to escape
it would be impossible for them to save their transport and their cannon.
Each of the British columns was about 2000 strong, making a total of
14,000 men with about fifty guns engaged in the operations. A front of not
less than ten miles was to be maintained by each force. The first decided
move was on the part of the extreme left wing, Smith-Dorrien’s column,
which moved south on Carolina, and thence on Bothwell near Lake Chrissie.
The arduous duty of passing supplies down from the line fell mainly upon
him, and his force was in consequence larger than the others, consisting
of 8500 men with thirteen guns. On the arrival of Smith-Dorrien at
Carolina the other columns started, their centre of advance being Ermelo.
Over seventy miles of veld the gleam of the helio by day and the flash of
the signal lamps at night marked the steady flow of the British tide. Here
and there the columns came in touch with the enemy and swept him before
them. French had a skirmish at Wilge River at the end of January, and
Campbell another south of Middelburg, in which he had twenty casualties.
On February 4th Smith-Dorrien was at Lake Chrissie; French had passed
through Bethel and the enemy was retiring on Amsterdam. The hundred-mile
ends of the drag net were already contracted to a third of that distance,
and the game was still known to be within it. On the 5th Ermelo was
occupied, and the fresh deep ruts upon the veld told the British horsemen
of the huge Boer convoy that was ahead of them. For days enormous herds,
endless flocks, and lines of wagons which stretched from horizon to
horizon had been trekking eastward. Cavalry and mounted infantry were all
hot upon the scent.
Botha, however, was a leader of spirit, not to be hustled with impunity.
Having several thousand burghers with him, it was evident that if he threw
himself suddenly upon any part of the British line he might hope for a
time to make an equal fight, and possibly to overwhelm it. Were
Smith-Dorrien out of the way there would be a clear road of escape for his
whole convoy to the north, while a defeat of any of the other columns
would not help him much. It was on Smith-Dorrien, therefore, that he threw
himself with great impetuosity. That General’s force was, however,
formidable, consisting of the Suffolks, West Yorks and Camerons, 5th
Lancers, 2nd Imperial Light Horse, and 3rd Mounted Infantry, with eight
field guns and three heavy pieces. Such a force could hardly be defeated
in the open, but no one can foresee the effect of a night surprise well
pushed home, and such was the attack delivered by Botha at 3 A.M. upon
February 6th, when his opponent was encamped at Bothwell Farm.
The night was favourable to the attempt, as it was dark and misty.
Fortunately, however, the British commander had fortified himself and was
ready for an assault. The Boer forlorn hope came on with a gallant dash,
driving a troop of loose horses in upon the outposts, and charging forward
into the camp. The West Yorkshires, however, who bore the brunt of the
attack, were veterans of the Tugela, who were no more to be flurried at
three in the morning than at three in the afternoon. The attack was blown
backwards, and twenty dead Boers, with their brave leader Spruyt, were
left within the British lines. The main body of the Boers contented
themselves with a heavy fusillade out of the darkness, which was answered
and crushed by the return fire of the infantry. In the morning no trace,
save their dead, was to be seen of the enemy, but twenty killed and fifty
wounded in Smith-Dorrien’s column showed how heavy had been the fire which
had swept through the sleeping camp. The Carolina attack, which was to
have co-operated with that of the Heidelbergers, was never delivered,
through difficulties of the ground, and considerable recriminations ensued
among the Boers in consequence.
Beyond a series of skirmishes and rearguard actions this attack of Botha’s
was the one effort made to stay the course of French’s columns. It did not
succeed, however, in arresting them for an hour. From that day began a
record of captures of men, herds, guns, and wagons, as the fugitives were
rounded up from the north, the west, and the south. The operation was a
very thorough one, for the towns and districts occupied were denuded of
their inhabitants, who were sent into the refugee camps while the country
was laid waste to prevent its furnishing the commandos with supplies in
the future. Still moving south-east, General French’s columns made their
way to Piet Retief upon the Swazi frontier, pushing a disorganised array
which he computed at 5000 in front of them. A party of the enemy,
including the Carolina commando, had broken back in the middle of February
and Louis Botha had got away at the same time, but so successful were his
main operations that French was able to report his total results at the
end of the month as being 292 Boers killed or wounded, 500 surrendered, 3
guns and one maxim taken, with 600 rifles, 4000 horses, 4500 trek oxen,
1300 wagons and carts, 24,000 cattle, and 165,000 sheep. The whole vast
expanse of the eastern veld was dotted with the broken and charred wagons
of the enemy.
Tremendous rains were falling and the country was one huge quagmire, which
crippled although it did not entirely prevent the further operations. All
the columns continued to report captures. On March 3rd Dartnell got a
maxim and 50 prisoners, while French reported 50 more, and Smith-Dorrien
80. On March 6th French captured two more guns, and on the 14th he
reported 46 more Boer casualties and 146 surrenders, with 500 more wagons,
and another great haul of sheep and oxen. By the end of March French had
moved as far south as Vryheid, his troops having endured the greatest
hardships from the continual heavy rains, and the difficulty of bringing
up any supplies. On the 27th he reported seventeen more Boer casualties
and 140 surrenders, while on the last day of the month he took another gun
and two pom-poms. The enemy at that date were still retiring eastward,
with Alderson and Dartnell pressing upon their rear. On April 4th French
announced the capture of the last piece of artillery which the enemy
possessed in that region. The rest of the Boer forces doubled back at
night between the columns and escaped over the Zululand border, where 200
of them surrendered. The total trophies of French’s drive down the Eastern
Transvaal amounted to eleven hundred of the enemy killed, wounded, or
taken, the largest number in any operation since the surrender of
Prinsloo. There is no doubt that the movement would have been even more
successful had the weather been less boisterous, but this considerable
loss of men, together with the capture of all the guns in that region, and
of such enormous quantities of wagons, munitions, and stock, inflicted a
blow upon the Boers from which they never wholly recovered. On April 20th
French was back in Johannesburg once more.
While French had run to earth the last Boer gun in the south-eastern
corner of the Transvaal, De la Rey, upon the western side, had still
managed to preserve a considerable artillery with which he flitted about
the passes of the Magaliesberg or took refuge in the safe districts to the
south-west of it. This part of the country had been several times
traversed, but had never been subdued by British columns. The Boers, like
their own veld grass, need but a few sparks to be left behind to ensure a
conflagration breaking out again. It was into this inflammable country
that Babington moved in March with Klerksdorp for his base. On March 21st
he had reached Haartebeestefontein, the scene not long before of a
successful action by Methuen. Here he was joined by Shekleton’s Mounted
Infantry, and his whole force consisted of these, with the 1st Imperial
Light Horse, the 6th Imperial Bushmen, the New Zealanders, a squadron of
the 14th Hussars, a wing each of the Somerset Light Infantry and of the
Welsh Fusiliers, with Carter’s guns and four pom-poms. With this mobile
and formidable little force Babington pushed on in search of Smuts and De
la Rey, who were known to be in the immediate neighbourhood.
As a matter of fact the Boers were not only there, but were nearer and in
greater force than had been anticipated. On the 22nd three squadrons of
the Imperial Light Horse under Major Briggs rode into 1500 of them, and it
was only by virtue of their steadiness and gallantry that they succeeded
in withdrawing themselves and their pom-pom without a disaster. With Boers
in their front and Boers on either flank they fought an admirable
rearguard action. So hot was the fire that A squadron alone had twenty-two
casualties. They faced it out, however, until their gun had reached a
place of safety, when they made an orderly retirement towards Babington’s
camp, having inflicted as heavy a loss as they had sustained. With
Elandslaagte, Waggon Hill, the relief of Mafeking, Naauwpoort, and
Haartebeestefontein upon their standards, the Imperial Light Horse, should
they take a permanent place in the Army List, will start with a record of
which many older regiments might be proud.
If the Light Horse had a few bad hours on March 22nd at the hands of the
Boers, they and their colonial comrades were soon able to return the same
with interest. On March 23rd Babington moved forward through Kafir Kraal,
the enemy falling back before him. Next morning the British again
advanced, and as the New Zealanders and Bushmen, who formed the vanguard
under Colonel Gray, emerged from a pass they saw upon the plain in front
of them the Boer force with all its guns moving towards them. Whether this
was done of set purpose or whether the Boers imagined that the British had
turned and were intending to pursue them cannot now be determined, but
whatever the cause it is certain that for almost the first time in the
campaign a considerable force of each side found themselves in the open
and face to face.
It was a glorious moment. Setting spurs to their horses, officers and men
with a yell dashed forward at the enemy. One of the Boer guns unlimbered
and attempted to open fire, but was overwhelmed by the wave of horsemen.
The Boer riders broke and fled, leaving their artillery to escape as best
it might. The guns dashed over the veld in a mad gallop, but wilder still
was the rush of the fiery cavalry behind them. For once the brave and
cool-headed Dutchmen were fairly panic-stricken. Hardly a shot was fired
at the pursuers, and the riflemen seem to have been only too happy to save
their own skins. Two field guns, one pom-pom, six maxims, fifty-six wagons
and 140 prisoners were the fruits of that one magnificent charge, while
fifty-four stricken Boers were picked up after the action. The pursuit was
reluctantly abandoned when the spent horses could go no farther.
While the vanguard had thus scattered the main body of the enemy a
detachment of riflemen had ridden round to attack the British rear and
convoy. A few volleys from the escort drove them off, however, with some
loss. Altogether, what with the loss of nine guns and of at least 200 men,
the rout of Haartebeestefontein was a severe blow to the Boer cause. A
week or two later Sir H. Rawlinson’s column, acting with Babington, rushed
Smuts’s laager at daylight and effected a further capture of two guns and
thirty prisoners. Taken in conjunction with French’s successes in the east
and Plumer’s in the north, these successive blows might have seemed fatal
to the Boer cause, but the weary struggle was still destined to go on
until it seemed that it must be annihilation rather than incorporation
which would at last bring a tragic peace to those unhappy lands.
All over the country small British columns had been operating during these
months—operations which were destined to increase in scope and
energy as the cold weather drew in. The weekly tale of prisoners and
captures, though small for any one column, gave the aggregate result of a
considerable victory. In these scattered and obscure actions there was
much good work which can have no reward save the knowledge of duty done.
Among many successful raids and skirmishes may be mentioned two by Colonel
Park from Lydenburg, which resulted between them in the capture of nearly
100 of the enemy, including Abel Erasmus of sinister reputation. Nor would
any summary of these events be complete without a reference to the very
gallant defence of Mahlabatini in Zululand, which was successfully held by
a handful of police and civilians against an irruption of the Boers. With
the advent of winter and of reinforcements the British operations became
very energetic in every part of the country, and some account of them will
now be added.
CHAPTER 34. THE WINTER CAMPAIGN (APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 1901).
The African winter extends roughly from April to September, and as the
grass during that period would be withered on the veld, the mobility of
the Boer commandos must be very much impaired. It was recognised therefore
that if the British would avoid another year of war it could only be done
by making good use of the months which lay before them. For this reason
Lord Kitchener had called for the considerable reinforcements which have
been already mentioned, but on the other hand he was forced to lose many
thousands of his veteran Yeomanry, Australians, and Canadians, whose term
of service was at an end. The volunteer companies of the infantry returned
also to England, and so did nine militia battalions, whose place was taken
however by an equal number of new-comers.
The British position was very much strengthened during the winter by the
adoption of the block-house system. These were small square or hexagonal
buildings, made of stone up to nine feet with corrugated iron above it.
They were loopholed for musketry fire and held from six to thirty men.
These little forts were dotted along the railways at points not more than
2000 yards apart, and when supplemented by a system of armoured trains
they made it no easy matter for the Boers to tamper with or to cross the
lines. So effective did these prove that their use was extended to the
more dangerous portions of the country, and lines were pushed through the
Magaliesberg district to form a chain of posts between Krugersdorp and
Rustenburg. In the Orange River Colony and on the northern lines of the
Cape Colony the same system was extensively applied. I will now attempt to
describe the more important operations of the winter, beginning with the
incursion of Plumer into the untrodden ground to the north.
At this period of the war the British forces had overrun, if they had not
subdued, the whole of the Orange River Colony and every part of the
Transvaal which is south of the Mafeking-Pretoria-Komati line. Through
this great tract of country there was not a village and hardly a farmhouse
which had not seen the invaders. But in the north there remained a vast
district, two hundred miles long and three hundred broad, which had hardly
been touched by the war. It is a wild country, scrub-covered,
antelope-haunted plains rising into desolate hills, but there are many
kloofs and valleys with rich water meadows and lush grazings, which formed
natural granaries and depots for the enemy. Here the Boer government
continued to exist, and here, screened by their mountains, they were able
to organise the continuation of the struggle. It was evident that there
could be no end to the war until these last centres of resistance had been
broken up.
The British forces had advanced as far north as Rustenburg in the west,
Pienaar in the centre, and Lydenburg in the east, but here they had
halted, unwilling to go farther until their conquests had been made good
behind them. A General might well pause before plunging his troops into
that vast and rugged district, when an active foe and an exposed line of
communication lay for many hundreds of miles to the south of them. But
Lord Kitchener with characteristic patience waited for the right hour to
come, and then with equally characteristic audacity played swiftly and
boldly for his stake. De Wet, impotent for the moment, had been hunted
back over the Orange River. French had harried the burghers in the
South-east Transvaal, and the main force of the enemy was known to be on
that side of the seat of war. The north was exposed, and with one long,
straight lunge to the heart, Pietersburg might be transfixed.
There could only be one direction for the advance, and that must be along
the Pretoria to Pietersburg railroad. This is the only line of rails which
leads to the north, and as it was known to be in working order (the Boers
were running a bi-weekly service from Pietersburg to Warm Baths), it was
hoped that a swift advance might seize it before any extensive damage
could be done. With this object a small but very mobile force rapidly
assembled at the end of March at Pienaar River, which was the British
rail-head forty miles north of Pretoria and a hundred and thirty from
Pietersburg. This column consisted of the Bushveld Carbineers, the 4th
Imperial Bushmen’s Corps, and the 6th New Zealand contingent. With them
were the 18th battery R.F.A., and three pom-poms. A detachment of the
invaluable mounted Sappers rode with the force, and two infantry
regiments, the 2nd Gordons and the Northamptons, were detached to garrison
the more vulnerable places upon the line of advance.
Upon March 29th the untiring Plumer, called off from the chase of De Wet,
was loosed upon this fresh line, and broke swiftly away to the north. The
complete success of his undertaking has obscured our estimate of its
danger, but it was no light task to advance so great a distance into a
bitterly hostile country with a fighting force of 2000 rifles. As an
enterprise it was in many ways not unlike Mahon’s dash on Mafeking, but
without any friendly force with which to join hands at the end. However
from the beginning all went well. On the 30th the force had reached Warm
Baths, where a great isolated hotel already marks the site of what will be
a rich and fashionable spa. On April 1st the Australian scouts rode into
Nylstroom, fifty more miles upon their way. There had been sufficient
sniping to enliven the journey, but nothing which could be called an
action. Gleaning up prisoners and refugees as they went, with the railway
engineers working like bees behind them, the force still swept unchecked
upon its way. On April 5th Piet Potgietersrust was entered, another
fifty-mile stage, and on the morning of the 8th the British vanguard rode
into Pietersburg. Kitchener’s judgment and Plumer’s energy had met with
their reward.
The Boer commando had evacuated the town and no serious opposition was
made to the British entry. The most effective resistance came from a
single schoolmaster, who, in a moment of irrational frenzy or of patriotic
exaltation, shot down three of the invaders before he met his own death.
Some rolling stock, one small gun, and something under a hundred prisoners
were the trophies of the capture, but the Boer arsenal and the printing
press were destroyed, and the Government sped off in a couple of Cape
carts in search of some new capital. Pietersburg was principally valuable
as a base from which a sweeping movement might be made from the north at
the same moment as one from the south-east. A glance at the map will show
that a force moving from this point in conjunction with another from
Lydenburg might form the two crooked claws of a crab to enclose a great
space of country, in which smaller columns might collect whatever was to
be found. Without an instant of unnecessary delay the dispositions were
made, and no fewer than eight columns slipped upon the chase. It will be
best to continue to follow the movements of Plumer’s force, and then to
give some account of the little armies which were operating from the
south, with the results of their enterprise.
It was known that Viljoen and a number of Boers were within the district
which lies north of the line in the Middelburg district. An impenetrable
bush-veld had offered them a shelter from which they made their constant
sallies to wreck a train or to attack a post. This area was now to be
systematically cleared up. The first thing was to stop the northern line
of retreat. The Oliphant River forms a loop in that direction, and as it
is a considerable stream, it would, if securely held, prevent any escape
upon that side. With this object Plumer, on April 14th, the sixth day
after his occupation of Pietersburg, struck east from that town and
trekked over the veld, through the formidable Chunies Pass, and so to the
north bank of the Oliphant, picking up thirty or forty Boer prisoners upon
the way. His route lay through a fertile country dotted with native
kraals. Having reached the river which marked the line which he was to
hold, Plumer, upon April 17th, spread his force over many miles, so as to
block the principal drifts. The flashes of his helio were answered by
flash after flash from many points upon the southern horizon. What these
other forces were, and whence they came, must now be made clear to the
reader.
General Bindon Blood, a successful soldier, had confirmed in the Transvaal
a reputation which he had won on the northern frontier of India. He and
General Elliot were two of the late comers who had been spared from the
great Eastern dependency to take the places of some of those Generals who
had returned to England for a well-earned rest. He had distinguished
himself by his systematic and effective guardianship of the Delagoa
railway line, and he was now selected for the supreme control of the
columns which were to advance from the south and sweep the Roos-Senekal
district. There were seven of them, which were arranged as follows:
Two columns started from Middelburg under Beatson and Benson, which might
be called the left wings of the movement. The object of Beatson’s column
was to hold the drifts of the Crocodile River, while Benson’s was to seize
the neighbouring hills called the Bothasberg. This it was hoped would pin
the Boers from the west, while Kitchener from Lydenburg advanced from the
east in three separate columns. Pulteney and Douglas would move up from
Belfast in the centre, with Dulstoom for their objective. It was the
familiar drag net of French, but facing north instead of south.
On April 13th the southern columns were started, but already the British
preparations had alarmed the Boers, and Botha, with his main commandos,
had slipped south across the line into that very district from which he
had been so recently driven. Viljoen’s commando still remained to the
north, and the British troops, pouring in from every side, converged
rapidly upon it. The success of the operations was considerable, though
not complete. The Tantesberg, which had been the rallying-point of the
Boers, was occupied, and Roos-Senekal, their latest capital, was taken,
with their State papers and treasure. Viljoen, with a number of followers,
slipped through between the columns, but the greater part of the burghers,
dashing furiously about like a shoal of fish when they become conscious of
the net, were taken by one or other of the columns. A hundred of the
Boksburg commando surrendered en masse, fifty more were taken at
Roos-Senekal; forty-one of the formidable Zarps with Schroeder, their
leader, were captured in the north by the gallantry and wit of a young
Australian officer named Reid; sixty more were hunted down by the
indefatigable Vialls, leader of the Bushmen. From all parts of the
district came the same story of captures and surrenders.
Knowing, however, that Botha and Viljoen had slipped through to the south
of the railway line, Lord Kitchener determined to rapidly transfer the
scene of the operations to that side. At the end of April, after a
fortnight’s work, during which this large district was cropped, but by no
means shaved, the troops turned south again. The results of the operation
had been eleven hundred prisoners, almost the same number as French had
taken in the south-east, together with a broken Krupp, a pom-pom, and the
remains of the big naval gun taken from us at Helvetia.
It was determined that Plumer’s advance upon Pietersburg should not be a
mere raid, but that steps should be taken to secure all that he had
gained, and to hold the lines of communication. With this object the 2nd
Gordon Highlanders and the 2nd Wiltshires were pushed up along the
railroad, followed by Kitchener’s Fighting Scouts. These troops garrisoned
Pietersburg and took possession of Chunies Poort, and other strategic
positions. They also furnished escorts for the convoys which supplied
Plumer on the Oliphant River, and they carried out some spirited
operations themselves in the neighbourhood of Pietersburg. Grenfell, who
commanded the force, broke up several laagers, and captured a number of
prisoners, operations in which he was much assisted by Colenbrander and
his men. Finally the last of the great Creusot guns, the formidable Long
Toms, was found mounted near Haenertsburg. It was the same piece which had
in succession scourged Mafeking and Kimberley. The huge gun, driven to
bay, showed its powers by opening an effective fire at ten thousand yards.
The British galloped in upon it, the Boer riflemen were driven off, and
the gun was blown up by its faithful gunners. So by suicide died the last
of that iron brood, the four sinister brothers who had wrought much
mischief in South Africa. They and their lesson will live in the history
of modern artillery.
The sweeping of the Roos-Senekal district being over, Plumer left his post
upon the River of the Elephants, a name which, like Rhenoster, Zeekoe,
Kameelfontein, Leeuw Kop, Tigerfontein, Elands River, and so many more,
serves as a memorial to the great mammals which once covered the land. On
April 28th the force turned south, and on May 4th they had reached the
railroad at Eerstefabrieken close to Pretoria. They had come in touch with
a small Boer force upon the way, and the indefatigable Vialls hounded them
for eighty miles, and tore away the tail of their convoy with thirty
prisoners. The main force had left Pretoria on horseback on March 28th,
and found themselves back once again upon foot on May 5th. They had
something to show, however, for the loss of their horses, since they had
covered a circular march of 400 miles, had captured some hundreds of the
enemy, and had broken up their last organised capital. From first to last
it was a most useful and well-managed expedition.
It is the more to be regretted that General Blood was recalled from his
northern trek before it had attained its full results, because those
operations to which he turned did not offer him any great opportunities
for success. Withdrawing from the north of the railway with his columns,
he at once started upon a sweep of that portion of the country which forms
an angle between the Delagoa line and the Swazi frontier—the
Barberton district. But again the two big fish, Viljoen and Botha, had
slipped away, and the usual collection of sprats was left in the net. The
sprats count also, however, and every week now telegrams were reaching
England from Lord Kitchener which showed that from three to five hundred
more burghers had fallen into our hands. Although the public might begin
to look upon the war as interminable, it had become evident to the
thoughtful observer that it was now a mathematical question, and that a
date could already be predicted by which the whole Boer population would
have passed into the power of the British.
Among the numerous small British columns which were at work in different
parts of the country, in the latter half of May, there was one under
General Dixon which was operating in the neighbourhood of the Magaliesberg
Range. This locality has never been a fortunate one for the British arms.
The country is peculiarly mountainous and broken, and it was held by the
veteran De la Rey and a numerous body of irreconcilable Boers. Here in
July we had encountered a check at Uitval’s Nek, in December Clements had
met a more severe one at Nooitgedacht, while shortly afterwards Cunningham
had been repulsed at Middelfontein, and the Light Horse cut up at
Naauwpoort. After such experiences one would have thought that no column
which was not of overmastering strength would have been sent into this
dangerous region, but General Dixon had as a matter of fact by no means a
strong force with him. With 1600 men and a battery he was despatched upon
a quest after some hidden guns which were said to have been buried in
those parts.
On May 26th Dixon’s force, consisting of Derbyshires, King’s Own Scottish
Borderers, Imperial Yeomanry, Scottish Horse, and six guns (four of 8th
R.F.A. and two of 28th R.F.A.), broke camp at Naauwpoort and moved to the
west. On the 28th they found themselves at a place called Vlakfontein,
immediately south of Oliphant’s Nek. On that day there were indications
that there were a good many Boers in the neighbourhood. Dixon left a guard
over his camp and then sallied out in search of the buried guns. His force
was divided into three parts, the left column under Major Chance
consisting of two guns of the 28th R.F.A., 230 of the Yeomanry, and one
company of the Derbys. The centre comprised two guns (8th R.F. A.), one
howitzer, two companies of the Scottish Borderers and one of the Derbys;
while the right was made up of two guns (8th R.F.A. ), 200 Scottish Horse,
and two companies of Borderers. Having ascertained that the guns were not
there, the force about midday was returning to the camp, when the storm
broke suddenly and fiercely upon the rearguard.
There had been some sniping during the whole morning, but no indications
of the determined attack which was about to be delivered. The force in
retiring upon the camp had become divided, and the rearguard consisted of
the small column under Major Chance which had originally formed the left
wing. A veld fire was raging on one flank of this rearguard, and through
the veil of smoke a body of five hundred Boers charged suddenly home with
magnificent gallantry upon the guns. We have few records of a more dashing
or of a more successful action in the whole course of the war. So rapid
was it that hardly any time elapsed between the glimpse of the first dark
figures galloping through the haze and the thunder of their hoofs as they
dashed in among the gunners. The Yeomanry were driven back and many of
them shot down. The charge of the mounted Boers was supported by a very
heavy fire from a covering party, and the gun-detachments were killed or
wounded almost to a man. The lieutenant in charge and the sergeant were
both upon the ground. So far as it is possible to reconstruct the action
from the confused accounts of excited eye-witnesses and from the
exceedingly obscure official report of General Dixon, there was no longer
any resistance round the guns, which were at once turned by their captors
upon the nearest British detachment.
The company of infantry which had helped to escort the guns proved however
to be worthy representatives of that historic branch of the British
service. They were northerners, men of Derbyshire and Nottingham, the same
counties which had furnished the brave militia who had taken their
punishment so gamely at Roodeval. Though hustled and broken they re-formed
and clung doggedly to their task, firing at the groups of Boers who
surrounded the guns. At the same time word had been sent of their pressing
need to the Scotch Borderers and the Scottish Horse, who came swarming
across the valley to the succour of their comrades. Dixon had brought two
guns and a howitzer into action, which subdued the fire of the two
captured pieces, and the infantry, Derbys and Borderers, swept over the
position, retaking the two guns and shooting down those of the enemy who
tried to stand. The greater number vanished into the smoke, which veiled
their retreat as it had their advance. Forty-one of them were left dead
upon the ground. Six officers and fifty men killed with about a hundred
and twenty wounded made up the British losses, to which two guns would
certainly have been added but for the gallant counter-attack of the
infantry. With Dargai and Vlakfontein to their credit the Derbys have
green laurels upon their war-worn colours. They share them on this
occasion with the Scottish Borderers, whose volunteer company carried
itself as stoutly as the regulars.
How is such an action to be summed up? To Kemp, the young Boer leader, and
his men belongs the credit of the capture of the guns; to the British that
of their recapture and of the final possession of the field. The British
loss was probably somewhat higher than that of the Boers, but upon the
other hand there could be no question as to which side could afford loss
the better. The Briton could be replaced, but there were no reserves
behind the fighting line of the Boers.
There is one subject which cannot be ignored in discussing this battle,
however repugnant it may be. That is the shooting of some of the British
wounded who lay round the guns. There is no question at all about the
fact, which is attested by many independent witnesses. There is reason to
hope that some of the murderers paid for their crimes with their lives
before the battle was over. It is pleasant to add that there is at least
one witness to the fact that Boer officers interfered with threats to
prevent some of these outrages. It is unfair to tarnish the whole Boer
nation and cause on account of a few irresponsible villains, who would be
disowned by their own decent comrades. Very many—too many—British
soldiers have known by experience what it is to fall into the hands of the
enemy, and it must be confessed that on the whole they have been dealt
with in no ungenerous spirit, while the British treatment of the Boers has
been unexampled in all military history for its generosity and humanity.
That so fair a tale should be darkened by such ruffianly outrages is
indeed deplorable, but the incident is too well authenticated to be left
unrecorded in any detailed account of the campaign. General Dixon, finding
the Boers very numerous all round him, and being hampered by his wounded,
fell back upon Naauwpoort, which he reached on June 1st.
In May, Sir Bindon Blood, having returned to the line to refit, made yet
another cast through that thrice-harried belt of country which contains
Ermelo, Bethel, and Carolina, in which Botha, Viljoen, and the fighting
Boers had now concentrated. Working over the blackened veld he swung round
in the Barberton direction, and afterwards made a westerly drive in
conjunction with small columns commanded by Walter Kitchener, Douglas, and
Campbell of the Rifles, while Colville, Garnett, and Bullock co-operated
from the Natal line. Again the results were disappointing when compared
with the power of the instrument employed. On July 5th he reached Springs,
near Johannesburg, with a considerable amount of stock, but with no great
number of prisoners. The elusive Botha had slipped away to the south and
was reported upon the Zululand border, while Viljoen had succeeded in
crossing the Delagoa line and winning back to his old lair in the district
north of Middelburg, from which he had been evicted in April. The
commandos were like those pertinacious flies which buzz upwards when a
hand approaches them, but only to settle again in the same place. One
could but try to make the place less attractive than before.
Before Viljoen’s force made its way over the line it had its revenge for
the long harrying it had undergone by a well-managed night attack, in
which it surprised and defeated a portion of Colonel Beatson’s column at a
place called Wilmansrust, due south of Middelburg, and between that town
and Bethel. Beatson had divided his force, and this section consisted of
850 of the 5th Victorian Mounted Rifles, with thirty gunners and two
pom-poms, the whole under the command of Major Morris. Viljoen’s force
trekking north towards the line came upon this detachment upon June 12th.
The British were aware of the presence of the enemy, but do not appear to
have posted any extra outposts or taken any special precautions. Long
months of commando chasing had imbued them too much with the idea that
these were fugitive sheep, and not fierce and wily wolves, whom they were
endeavouring to catch. It is said that 700 yards separated the four
pickets. With that fine eye for detail which the Boer leaders possess,
they had started a veld fire upon the west of the camp and then attacked
from the east, so that they were themselves invisible while their enemies
were silhouetted against the light. Creeping up between the pickets, the
Boers were not seen until they opened fire at point-blank range upon the
sleeping men. The rifles were stacked—another noxious military
tradition—and many of the troopers were shot down while they rushed
for their weapons. Surprised out of their sleep and unable to distinguish
their antagonists, the brave Australians did as well as any troops could
have done who were placed in so impossible a position. Captain Watson, the
officer in charge of the pom-poms, was shot down, and it proved to be
impossible to bring the guns into action. Within five minutes the
Victorians had lost twenty killed and forty wounded, when the survivors
surrendered. It is pleasant to add that they were very well treated by the
victors, but the high-spirited colonials felt their reverse most bitterly.
‘It is the worst thing that ever happened to Australia!’ says one in the
letter in which he describes it. The actual number of Boers who rushed the
camp was only 180, but 400 more had formed a cordon round it. To Viljoen
and his lieutenant Muller great credit must be given for this well-managed
affair, which gave them a fresh supply of stores and clothing at a time
when they were hard pressed for both. These same Boer officers had led the
attack upon Helvetia where the 4.7 gun was taken. The victors succeeded in
getting away with all their trophies, and having temporarily taken one of
the blockhouses on the railway near Brugspruit, they crossed the line in
safety and returned, as already said, to their old quarters in the north,
which had been harried but not denuded by the operations of General Blood.
It would take a volume to catalogue, and a library to entirely describe
the movements and doings of the very large number of British columns which
operated over the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony during this
cold-weather campaign. If the same columns and the same leaders were
consistently working in the same districts, some system of narrative might
enable the reader to follow their fortunes, but they were, as a matter of
fact, rapidly transferred from one side of the field of action to another
in accordance with the concentrations of the enemy. The total number of
columns amounted to at least sixty, which varied in number from two
hundred to two thousand, and seldom hunted alone. Could their movements be
marked in red upon a chart, the whole of that huge district would be
criss-crossed, from Taungs to Komati and from Touws River to Pietersburg,
with the track of our weary but indomitable soldiers.
Without attempting to enter into details which would be unbecoming to the
modesty of a single volume, one may indicate what the other more important
groupings were during the course of these months, and which were the
columns that took part in them. Of French’s drive in the south-east, and
of Blood’s incursion into the Roos-Senekal district some account has been
given, and of his subsequent sweeping of the south. At the same period
Babington, Dixon, and Rawlinson were co-operating in the Klerksdorp
district, though the former officer transferred his services suddenly to
Blood’s combination, and afterwards to Elliot’s column in the north of
Orange River Colony. Williams and Fetherstonhaugh came later to strengthen
this Klerksdorp district, in which, after the clearing of the
Magaliesberg, De la Rey had united his forces to those of Smuts. This very
important work of getting a firm hold upon the Magaliesberg was
accomplished in July by Barton, Allenby, Kekewich, and Lord Basing, who
penetrated into the wild country and established blockhouses and small
forts in very much the same way as Cumberland and Wade in 1746 held down
the Highlands. The British position was much strengthened by the firm grip
obtained of this formidable stronghold of the enemy, which was dangerous
not only on account of its extreme strength, but also of its proximity to
the centres of population and of wealth.
De la Rey, as already stated, had gone down to the Klerksdorp district,
whence, for a time at least, he seems to have passed over into the north
of the Orange River Colony. The British pressure at Klerksdorp had become
severe, and thither in May came the indefatigable Methuen, whom we last
traced to Warrenton. From this point on May 1st he railed his troops to
Mafeking, whence he trekked to Lichtenburg, and south as far as his old
fighting ground of Haartebeestefontein, having one skirmish upon the way
and capturing a Boer gun. Thence he returned to Mafeking, where he had to
bid adieu to those veteran Yeomanry who had been his comrades on so many a
weary march. It was not their fortune to be present at any of the larger
battles of the war, but few bodies of troops have returned to England with
a finer record of hard and useful service.
No sooner, however, had Methuen laid down one weapon than he snatched up
another. Having refitted his men and collected some of the more efficient
of the new Yeomanry, he was off once more for a three weeks’ circular tour
in the direction of Zeerust. It is difficult to believe that the oldest
inhabitant could have known more of the western side of the Transvaal, for
there was hardly a track which he had not traversed or a kopje from which
he had not been sniped. Early in August he had made a fresh start from
Mafeking, dividing his force into two columns, the command of the second
being given to Von Donop. Having joined hands with Fetherstonhaugh, he
moved through the south-west and finally halted at Klerksdorp. The harried
Boers moved a hundred miles north to Rustenburg, followed by Methuen,
Fetherstonhaugh, Hamilton, Kekewich, and Allenby, who found the commandos
of De la Rey and Kemp to be scattering in front of them and hiding in the
kloofs and dongas, whence in the early days of September no less than two
hundred were extracted. On September 6th and 8th Methuen engaged the main
body of De la Rey in the valley of the Great Marico River which lies to
the north-west of Rustenburg. In these two actions he pushed the Boers in
front of him with a loss of eighteen killed and forty-one prisoners, but
the fighting was severe, and fifteen of his men were killed and thirty
wounded before the position had been carried. The losses were almost
entirely among the newly raised Yeomanry, who had already shown on several
occasions that, having shed their weaker members and had some experience
of the field, they were now worthy to take their place beside their
veteran comrades.
The only other important operation undertaken by the British columns in
the Transvaal during this period was in the north, where Beyers and his
men were still harried by Grenfell, Colenbrander, and Wilson. A
considerable proportion of the prisoners which figured in the weekly lists
came from this quarter. On May 30th there was a notable action, the truth
of which was much debated but finally established, in which Kitchener’s
Scouts under Wilson surprised and defeated a Boer force under Pretorius,
killing and wounding several, and taking forty prisoners. On July 1st
Grenfell took nearly a hundred of Beyers’ men with a considerable convoy.
North, south, east, and west the tale was ever the same, but so long as
Botha, De la Rey, Steyn, and De Wet remained uncaptured, the embers might
still at any instant leap into a flame.
It only remains to complete this synopsis of the movements of columns
within the Transvaal that I should add that after the conclusion of
Blood’s movement in July, several of his columns continued to clear the
country and to harass Viljoen in the Lydenburg and Dulstroom districts.
Park, Kitchener, Spens, Beatson, and Benson were all busy at this work,
never succeeding in forcing more than a skirmish, but continually
whittling away wagons, horses, and men from that nucleus of resistance
which the Boer leaders still held together.
Though much hampered by the want of forage for their horses, the Boers
were ever watchful for an opportunity to strike back, and the long list of
minor successes gained by the British was occasionally interrupted by a
petty reverse. Such a one befell the small body of South African
Constabulary stationed near Vereeniging, who encountered upon July 13th a
strong force of Boers supposed to be the main commando of De Wet. The
Constabulary behaved with great gallantry but were hopelessly outnumbered,
and lost their seven-pounder gun, four killed, six wounded, and
twenty-four prisoners. Another small reverse occurred at a far distant
point of the seat of war, for the irregular corps known as Steinacker’s
Horse was driven from its position at Bremersdorp in Swaziland upon July
24th, and had to fall back sixteen miles, with a loss of ten casualties
and thirty prisoners. Thus in the heart of a native state the two great
white races of South Africa were to be seen locked in a desperate
conflict. However unavoidable, the sight was certainly one to be deplored.
To the Boer credit, or discredit, are also to be placed those repeated
train wreckings, which cost the British during this campaign the lives and
limbs of many brave soldiers who were worthy of some less ignoble fate. It
is true that the laws of war sanction such enterprises, but there is
something indiscriminate in the results which is repellent to humanity,
and which appears to justify the most energetic measures to prevent them.
Women, children, and sick must all travel by these trains and are exposed
to a common danger, while the assailants enjoy a safety which renders
their exploit a peculiarly inglorious one. Two Boers, Trichardt and
Hindon, the one a youth of twenty-two, the other a man of British birth,
distinguished, or disgraced, themselves by this unsavoury work upon the
Delagoa line, but with the extension of the blockhouse system the attempts
became less successful. There was one, however, upon the northern line
near Naboomspruit which cost the lives of Lieutenant Best and eight Gordon
Highlanders, while ten were wounded. The party of Gordons continued to
resist after the smash, and were killed or wounded to a man. The painful
incident is brightened by such an example of military virtue, and by the
naive reply of the last survivor, who on being questioned why he continued
to fight until he was shot down, answered with fine simplicity, ‘Because I
am a Gordon Highlander.’
Another train disaster of an even more tragic character occurred near
Waterval, fifteen miles north of Pretoria, upon the last day of August.
The explosion of a mine wrecked the train, and a hundred Boers who lined
the banks of the cutting opened fire upon the derailed carriages. Colonel
Vandeleur, an officer of great promise, was killed and twenty men, chiefly
of the West Riding regiment, were shot. Nurse Page was also among the
wounded. It was after this fatal affair that the regulation of carrying
Boer hostages upon the trains was at last carried out.
It has been already stated that part of Lord Kitchener’s policy of
concentration lay in his scheme for gathering the civil population into
camps along the lines of communication. The reasons for this, both
military and humanitarian, were overwhelming. Experience had proved that
the men if left at liberty were liable to be persuaded or coerced by the
fighting Boers into breaking their parole and rejoining the commandos. As
to the women and children, they could not be left upon the farms in a
denuded country. That the Boers in the field had no doubts as to the good
treatment of these people was shown by the fact that they repeatedly left
their families in the way of the columns so that they might be conveyed to
the camps. Some consternation was caused in England by a report of Miss
Hobhouse, which called public attention to the very high rate of mortality
in some of these camps, but examination showed that this was not due to
anything insanitary in their situation or arrangement, but to a severe
epidemic of measles which had swept away a large number of the children. A
fund was started in London to give additional comforts to these people,
though there is reason to believe that their general condition was
superior to that of the Uitlander refugees, who still waited permission to
return to their homes. By the end of July there were no fewer than sixty
thousand inmates of the camps in the Transvaal alone, and half as many in
the Orange River Colony. So great was the difficulty in providing the
supplies for so large a number that it became more and more evident that
some at least of the camps must be moved down to the sea coast.
Passing to the Orange River Colony we find that during this winter period
the same British tactics had been met by the same constant evasions on the
part of the dwindling commandos. The Colony had been divided into four
military districts: that of Bloemfontein, which was given to Charles Knox,
that of Lyttelton at Springfontein, that of Rundle at Harrismith, and that
of Elliot in the north. The latter was infinitely the most important, and
Elliot, the warden of the northern marches, had under him during the
greater part of the winter a mobile force of about 6000 men, commanded by
such experienced officers as Broadwood, De Lisle, and Bethune. Later in
the year Spens, Bullock, Plumer, and Rimington were all sent into the
Orange River Colony to help to stamp out the resistance. Numerous
skirmishes and snipings were reported from all parts of the country, but a
constant stream of prisoners and of surrenders assured the soldiers that,
in spite of the difficulty of the country and the obstinacy of the enemy,
the term of their labours was rapidly approaching.
In all the petty and yet necessary operations of these columns, two
incidents demand more than a mere mention. The first was a hard-fought
skirmish in which some of Elliot’s horsemen were engaged upon June 6th.
His column had trekked during the month of May from Kroonstad to
Harrismith, and then turning north found itself upon that date near the
hamlet of Reitz. Major Sladen with 200 Mounted Infantry, when detached
from the main body, came upon the track of a Boer convoy and ran it down.
Over a hundred vehicles with forty-five prisoners were the fruits of their
enterprise. Well satisfied with his morning’s work, the British leader
despatched a party of his men to convey the news to De Lisle, who was
behind, while he established himself with his loot and his prisoners in a
convenient kraal. Thence they had an excellent view of a large body of
horsemen approaching them with scouts, flankers, and all military
precautions. One warm-hearted officer seems actually to have sallied out
to meet his comrades, and it was not till his greeting of them took the
extreme form of handing over his rifle that the suspicion of danger
entered the heads of his companions. But if there was some lack of wit
there was none of heart in Sladen and his men. With forty-five Boers to
hold down, and 500 under Fourie, De Wet, and De la Rey around them, the
little band made rapid preparation for a desperate resistance: the
prisoners were laid upon their faces, the men knocked loopholes in the mud
walls of the kraal, and a blunt soldierly answer was returned to the
demand for surrender.
But it was a desperate business. The attackers were five to one, and the
five were soldiers of De Wet, the hard-bitten veterans of a hundred
encounters. The captured wagons in a long double row stretched out over
the plain, and under this cover the Dutchmen swarmed up to the kraal. But
the men who faced them were veterans also, and the defence made up for the
disparity of numbers. With fine courage the Boers made their way up to the
village, and established themselves in the outlying huts, but the Mounted
Infantry clung desperately to their position. Out of the few officers
present Findlay was shot through the head, Moir and Cameron through the
heart, and Strong through the stomach. It was a Waggon Hill upon a small
scale, two dour lines of skirmishers emptying their rifles into each other
at point-blank range. Once more, as at Bothaville, the British Mounted
Infantry proved that when it came to a dogged pelting match they could
stand punishment longer than their enemy. They suffered terribly.
Fifty-one out of the little force were on the ground, and the survivors
were not much more numerous than their prisoners. To the 1st Gordons, the
2nd Bedfords, the South Australians, and the New South Welsh men belongs
the honour of this magnificent defence. For four hours the fierce battle
raged, until at last the parched and powder-stained survivors breathed a
prayer of thanks as they saw on the southern horizon the vanguard of De
Lisle riding furiously to the rescue. For the last hour, since they had
despaired of carrying the kraal, the Boers had busied themselves in
removing their convoy; but now, for the second time in one day, the
drivers found British rifles pointed at their heads, and the oxen were
turned once more and brought back to those who had fought so hard to hold
them. Twenty-eight killed and twenty-six wounded were the losses in this
desperate affair. Of the Boers seventeen were left dead in front of the
kraal, and the forty-five had not escaped from the bulldog grip which held
them. There seems for some reason to have been no effective pursuit of the
Boers, and the British column held on its way to Kroonstad.
The second incident which stands out amid the dreary chronicle of
hustlings and snipings is the surprise visit paid by Broadwood with a
small British column to the town of Reitz upon July 11th, which resulted
in the capture of nearly every member of the late government of the Free
State, save only the one man whom they particularly wanted. The column
consisted of 200 yeomen, 200 of the 7th Dragoon Guards, and two guns.
Starting at 11 P.M., the raiders rode hard all night and broke with the
dawn upon the sleeping village. Racing into the main street, they secured
the startled Boers as they rushed from the houses. It is easy to criticise
such an operation from a distance, and to overlook the practical
difficulties in the way, but on the face of it it seems a pity that the
holes had not been stopped before the ferret was sent in. A picket at the
farther end of the street would have barred Steyn’s escape. As it was, he
flung himself upon his horse and galloped half-clad out of the town.
Sergeant Cobb of the Dragoons snapped a rifle at close quarters upon him,
but the cold of the night had frozen the oil on the striker and the
cartridge hung fire. On such trifles do the large events of history turn!
Two Boer generals, two commandants, Steyn’s brother, his secretary, and
several other officials were among the nine-and-twenty prisoners. The
treasury was also captured, but it is feared that the Yeomen and Dragoons
will not be much the richer from their share of the contents.
Save these two incidents, the fight at Reitz and the capture of a portion
of Steyn’s government at the same place, the winter’s campaign furnished
little which was of importance, though a great deal of very hard and very
useful work was done by the various columns under the direction of the
governors of the four military districts. In the south General Bruce
Hamilton made two sweeps, one from the railway line to the western
frontier, and the second from the south and east in the direction of
Petrusburg. The result of the two operations was about 300 prisoners. At
the same time Monro and Hickman re-cleared the already twice-cleared
districts of Rouxville and Smithfield. The country in the east of the
Colony was verging now upon the state which Grant described in the
Shenandoah Valley: ‘A crow,’ said he, ‘must carry his own rations when he
flies across it.’
In the middle district General Charles Knox, with the columns of
Pine-Coffin, Thorneycroft, Pilcher, and Henry, were engaged in the same
sort of work with the same sort of results.
The most vigorous operations fell to the lot of General Elliot, who worked
over the northern and north-eastern district, which still contained a
large number of fighting burghers. In May and June Elliot moved across to
Vrede and afterwards down the eastern frontier of the Colony, joining
hands at last with Rundle at Harrismith. He then worked his way back to
Kroonstad through Reitz and Lindley. It was on this journey that Sladen’s
Mounted Infantry had the sharp experience which has been already narrated.
Western’s column, working independently, co-operated with Elliot in this
clearing of the north-east. In August there were very large captures by
Broadwood’s force, which had attained considerable mobility, ninety miles
being covered by it on one occasion in two days.
Of General Rundle there is little to be said, as he was kept busy in
exploring the rough country in his own district—the same district
which had been the scene of the operations against Prinsloo and the
Fouriesburg surrender. Into this district Kritzinger and his men trekked
after they were driven from the Colony in July, and many small skirmishes
and snipings among the mountains showed that the Boer resistance was still
alive.
July and August were occupied in the Orange River Colony by energetic
operations of Spens’ and Rimington’s columns in the midland districts, and
by a considerable drive to the north-eastern corner, which was shared by
three columns under Elliot and two under Plumer, with one under Henry and
several smaller bodies. A considerable number of prisoners and a large
amount of stock were the result of the movement, but it was very evident
that there was a waste of energy in the employment of such forces for such
an end. The time appeared to be approaching when a strong force of
military police stationed permanently in each district might prove a more
efficient instrument. One interesting development of this phase of the war
was the enrolment of a burgher police among the Boers who had surrendered.
These men—well paid, well mounted, and well armed—were an
efficient addition to the British forces. The movement spread until before
the end of the war there were several thousand burghers under such
well-known officers as Celliers, Villonel, and young Cronje, fighting
against their own guerilla countrymen. Who, in 1899, could have prophesied
such a phenomenon as that!
Lord Kitchener’s proclamation issued upon August 9th marked one more turn
in the screw upon the part of the British authorities. By it the burghers
were warned that those who had not laid down their arms by September 15th
would in the case of the leaders be banished, and in the case of the
burghers be compelled to support their families in the refugee camps. As
many of the fighting burghers were men of no substance, the latter threat
did not affect them much, but the other, though it had little result at
the time, may be useful for the exclusion of firebrands during the period
of reconstruction. Some increase was noticeable in the number of
surrenders after the proclamation, but on the whole it had not the result
which was expected, and its expediency is very open to question. This date
may be said to mark the conclusion of the winter campaign and the opening
of a new phase in the struggle.
CHAPTER 35. THE GUERILLA OPERATIONS IN CAPE COLONY.
In the account which has been given in a preceding chapter of the invasion
of Cape Colony by the Boer forces, it was shown that the Western bands
were almost entirely expelled, or at least that they withdrew, at the time
when De Wet was driven across the Orange River. This was at the beginning
of March 1901. It was also mentioned that though the Boers evacuated the
barren and unprofitable desert of the Karoo, the Eastern bands which had
come with Kritzinger did not follow the same course, but continued to
infest the mountainous districts of the Central Colony, whence they struck
again and again at the railway lines, the small towns, British patrols, or
any other quarry which was within their reach and strength. From the
surrounding country they gathered a fair number of recruits, and they were
able through the sympathy and help of the Dutch farmers to keep themselves
well mounted and supplied. In small wandering bands they spread themselves
over a vast extent of country, and there were few isolated farmhouses from
the Orange River to the Oudtshoorn Mountains, and from the Cape Town
railroad in the west to the Fish River in the east, which were not visited
by their active and enterprising scouts. The object of the whole movement
was, no doubt, to stimulate a general revolt in the Colony; and it must be
acknowledged that if the powder did not all explode it was not for want of
the match being thoroughly applied.
It might at first sight seem the simplest of military operations to hunt
down these scattered and insignificant bands; but as a matter of fact
nothing could be more difficult. Operating in a country which was both
vast and difficult, with excellent horses, the best of information and
supplies ready for them everywhere, it was impossible for the slow-moving
British columns with their guns and their wagons to overtake them.
Formidable even in flight, the Boers were always ready to turn upon any
force which exposed itself too rashly to retaliation, and so amid the
mountain passes the British chiefs had to use an amount of caution which
was incompatible with extreme speed. Only when a commando was exactly
localised so that two or three converging British forces could be brought
to bear upon it, was there a reasonable chance of forcing a fight. Still,
with all these heavy odds against them, the various little columns
continued month after month to play hide-and-seek with the commandos, and
the game was by no means always on the one side. The varied fortunes of
this scrambling campaign can only be briefly indicated in these pages.
It has already been shown that Kritzinger’s original force broke into many
bands, which were recruited partly from the Cape rebels and partly from
fresh bodies which passed over from the Orange River Colony. The more
severe the pressure in the north, the greater reason was there for a trek
to this land of plenty. The total number of Boers who were wandering over
the eastern and midland districts may have been about two thousand, who
were divided into bands which varied from fifty to three hundred. The
chief leaders of separate commandos were Kritzinger, Scheepers, Malan,
Myburgh, Fouche, Lotter, Smuts, Van Reenen, Lategan, Maritz, and Conroy,
the two latter operating on the western side of the country. To hunt down
these numerous and active bodies the British were compelled to put many
similar detachments into the field, known as the columns of Gorringe,
Crabbe, Henniker, Scobell, Doran, Kavanagh, Alexander, and others. These
two sets of miniature armies performed an intricate devil’s dance over the
Colony, the main lines of which are indicated by the red lines upon the
map. The Zuurberg mountains to the north of Steynsburg, the Sneeuwberg
range to the south of Middelburg, the Oudtshoorn Mountains in the south,
the Cradock district, the Murraysburg district, and the Graaf-Reinet
district—these were the chief centres of Boer activity.
In April Kritzinger made his way north to the Orange River Colony, for the
purpose of consulting with De Wet, but he returned with a following of 200
men about the end of May. Continual brushes occurred during this month
between the various columns, and much hard marching was done upon either
side, but there was nothing which could be claimed as a positive success.
Early in May two passengers sailed for Europe, the journey of each being
in its way historical. The first was the weary and overworked Pro-Consul
who had the foresight to distinguish the danger and the courage to meet
it. Milner’s worn face and prematurely grizzled hair told of the crushing
weight which had rested upon him during three eventful years. A gentle
scholar, he might have seemed more fitted for a life of academic calm than
for the stormy part which the discernment of Mr. Chamberlain had assigned
to him. The fine flower of an English university, low-voiced and urbane,
it was difficult to imagine what impression he would produce upon those
rugged types of which South Africa is so peculiarly prolific. But behind
the reserve of a gentleman there lay within him a lofty sense of duty, a
singular clearness of vision, and a moral courage which would brace him to
follow whither his reason pointed. His visit to England for three months’
rest was the occasion for a striking manifestation of loyalty and regard
from his fellow-countrymen. He returned in August as Lord Milner to the
scene of his labours, with the construction of a united and loyal
commonwealth of South Africa as the task of his life.
The second traveller who sailed within a few days of the Governor was Mrs.
Botha, the wife of the Boer General, who visited Europe for private as
well as political reasons. She bore to Kruger an exact account of the
state of the country and of the desperate condition of the burghers. Her
mission had no immediate or visible effect, and the weary war, exhausting
for the British but fatal for the Boers, went steadily on.
To continue the survey of the operations in the Cape, the first point
scored was by the invaders, for Malan’s commando succeeded upon May 13th
in overwhelming a strong patrol of the Midland Mounted Rifles, the local
colonial corps, to the south of Maraisburg. Six killed, eleven wounded,
and forty-one prisoners were the fruits of his little victory, which
furnished him also with a fresh supply of rifles and ammunition. On May
21st Crabbe’s column was in touch with Lotter and with Lategan, but no
very positive result came from the skirmish.
The end of May showed considerable Boer activity in the Cape Colony, that
date corresponding with the return of Kritzinger from the north. Haig had
for the moment driven Scheepers back from the extreme southerly point
which he had reached, and he was now in the Graaf-Reinet district; but on
the other side of the colony Conroy had appeared near Kenhart, and upon
May 23rd he fought a sharp skirmish with a party of Border Scouts. The
main Boer force under Kritzinger was in the midlands, however, and had
concentrated to such an extent in the Cradock district that it was clear
that some larger enterprise was on foot. This soon took shape, for on June
2nd, after a long and rapid march, the Boer leader threw himself upon
Jamestown, overwhelmed the sixty townsmen who formed the guard, and looted
the town, from which he drew some welcome supplies and 100 horses. British
columns were full cry upon his heels, however, and the Boers after a few
hours left the gutted town and vanished into the hills once more. On June
6th the British had a little luck at last, for on that date Scobell and
Lukin in the Barkly East district surprised a laager and took twenty
prisoners, 166 horses, and much of the Jamestown loot. On the same day
Windham treated Van Reenen in a similar rough fashion near Steynsburg, and
took twenty-two prisoners.
On June 8th the supreme command of the operations in Cape Colony was
undertaken by General French, who from this time forward manoeuvred his
numerous columns upon a connected plan with the main idea of pushing the
enemy northwards. It was some time, however, before his disposition bore
fruit, for the commandos were still better mounted and lighter than their
pursuers. On June 13th the youthful and dashing Scheepers, who commanded
his own little force at an age when he would have been a junior lieutenant
of the British army, raided Murraysburg and captured a patrol. On June
17th Monro with Lovat’s Scouts and Bethune’s Mounted Infantry had some
slight success near Tarkastad, but three days later the ill-fated Midland
Mounted Rifles were surprised in the early morning by Kritzinger at
Waterkloof, which is thirty miles west of Cradock, and were badly mauled
by him. They lost ten killed, eleven wounded, and sixty-six prisoners in
this unfortunate affair. Again the myth that colonial alertness is greater
than that of regular troops seems to have been exposed.
At the end of June, Fouche, one of the most enterprising of the guerilla
chiefs, made a dash from Barkly East into the native reserves of the
Transkei in order to obtain horses and supplies. It was a desperate
measure, as it was vain to suppose that the warlike Kaffirs would permit
their property to be looted without resistance, and if once the assegais
were reddened no man could say how far the mischief might go. With great
loyalty the British Government, even in the darkest days, had held back
those martial races—Zulus, Swazis, and Basutos—who all had old
grudges against the Amaboon. Fouche’s raid was stopped, however, before it
led to serious trouble. A handful of Griqualand Mounted Rifles held it in
front, while Dalgety and his colonial veterans moving very swiftly drove
him back northwards.
Though baulked, Fouche was still formidable, and on July 14th he made a
strong attack in the neighbourhood of Jamestown upon a column of Connaught
Rangers who were escorting a convoy. Major Moore offered a determined
resistance, and eventually after some hours of fighting drove the enemy
away and captured their laager. Seven killed and seventeen wounded were
the British losses in this spirited engagement.
On July 10th General French, surveying from a lofty mountain peak the vast
expanse of the field of operations, with his heliograph calling up
responsive twinkles over one hundred miles of country, gave the order for
the convergence of four columns upon the valley in which he knew Scheepers
to be lurking. We have it from one of his own letters that his commando at
the time consisted of 240 men, of whom forty were Free Staters and the
rest colonial rebels. Crewe, Windham, Doran, and Scobell each answered to
the call, but the young leader was a man of resource, and a long kloof up
the precipitous side of the hill gave him a road to safety. Yet the
operations showed a new mobility in the British columns, which shed their
guns and their baggage in order to travel faster. The main commando
escaped, but twenty-five laggards were taken. The action took place among
the hills thirty miles to the west of Graaf-Reinet.
On July 21st Crabbe and Kritzinger had a skirmish in the mountains near
Cradock, in which the Boers were strong enough to hold their own; but on
the same date near Murraysburg, Lukin, the gallant colonial gunner, with
ninety men rode into 150 of Lategan’s band and captured ten of them, with
a hundred horses. On July 27th a small party of twenty-one Imperial
Yeomanry was captured, after a gallant resistance, by a large force of
Boers at the Doorn River on the other side of the Colony. The Kaffir
scouts of the British were shot dead in cold blood by their captors after
the action. There seems to be no possible excuse for the repeated murders
of coloured men by the Boers, as they had themselves from the beginning of
the war used their Kaffirs for every purpose short of actually fighting.
The war had lost much of the good humour which marked its outset. A
fiercer feeling had been engendered on both sides by the long strain, but
the execution of rebels by the British, though much to be deplored, is
still recognised as one of the rights of a belligerent. When one remembers
the condonation upon the part of the British of the use of their own
uniforms by the Boers, of the wholesale breaking of paroles, of the
continual use of expansive bullets, of the abuse of the pass system and of
the red cross, it is impossible to blame them for showing some severity in
the stamping out of armed rebellion within their own Colony. If stern
measures were eventually adopted it was only after extreme leniency had
been tried and failed. The loss of five years’ franchise as a penalty for
firing upon their own flag is surely the most gentle correction which an
Empire ever laid upon a rebellious people.
At the beginning of August the connected systematic work of French’s
columns began to tell. In a huge semicircle the British were pushing
north, driving the guerillas in front of them. Scheepers in his usual
wayward fashion had broken away to the south, but the others had been
unable to penetrate the cordon and were herded over the Stormberg to
Naauwport line. The main body of the Boers was hustled swiftly along from
August 7th to August 10th, from Graaf-Reinet to Thebus, and thrust over
the railway line at that point with some loss of men and a great shedding
of horses. It was hoped that the blockhouses on the railroad would have
held the enemy, but they slipped across by night and got into the
Steynsburg district, where Gorringe’s colonials took up the running. On
August 18th he followed the commandos from Steynsburg to Venterstad,
killing twenty of them and taking several prisoners. On the 15th,
Kritzinger with the main body of the invaders passed the Orange River near
Bethulie, and made his way to the Wepener district of the Orange River
Colony. Scheepers, Lotter, Lategan, and a few small wandering bands were
the only Boers left in the Colony, and to these the British columns now
turned their attention, with the result that Lategan, towards the end of
the month, was also driven over the river. For the time, at least, the
situation seemed to have very much improved, but there was a drift of
Boers over the north-western frontier, and the long-continued warfare at
their own doors was undoubtedly having a dangerous effect upon the Dutch
farmers. Small successes from time to time, such as the taking of sixty of
French’s Scouts by Theron’s commando on August 10th, served to keep them
from despair. Of the guerilla bands which remained, the most important was
that of Scheepers, which now numbered 300 men, well mounted and supplied.
He had broken back through the cordon, and made for his old haunts in the
south-west. Theron, with a smaller band, was also in the Uniondale and
Willowmore district, approaching close to the sea in the Mossel Bay
direction, but being headed off by Kavanagh. Scheepers turned in the
direction of Cape Town, but swerved aside at Montagu, and moved northwards
towards Touws River.
So far the British had succeeded in driving and injuring, but never in
destroying, the Boer bands. It was a new departure therefore when, upon
September 4th, the commando of Lotter was entirely destroyed by the column
of Scobell. This column consisted of some of the Cape Mounted Rifles and
of the indefatigable 9th Lancers. It marked the enemy down in a valley to
the west of Cradock and attacked them in the morning, after having secured
all the approaches. The result was a complete success. The Boers threw
themselves into a building and held out valiantly, but their position was
impossible, and after enduring considerable punishment they were forced to
hoist the white flag. Eleven had been killed, forty-six wounded, and
fifty-six surrendered—figures which are in themselves a proof of the
tenacity of their defence. Lotter was among the prisoners, 260 horses were
taken, and a good supply of ammunition, with some dynamite. A few days
later, on September 10th, a similar blow, less final in its character, was
dealt by Colonel Crabbe to the commando of Van der Merve, which was an
offshoot of that of Scheepers. The action was fought near Laingsburg,
which is on the main line, just north of Matjesfontein, and it ended in
the scattering of the Boer band, the death of their boy leader (he was
only eighteen years of age), and the capture of thirty-seven prisoners.
Seventy of the Boers escaped by a hidden road. To Colonials and Yeomanry
belongs the honour of the action, which cost the British force seven
casualties. Colonel Crabbe pushed on after the success, and on September
14th he was in touch with Scheepers’s commando near Ladismith (not to be
confused with the historical town of Natal), and endured and inflicted
some losses. On the 17th a patrol of Grenadier Guards was captured in the
north of the Colony, Rebow, the young lieutenant in charge of them,
meeting with a soldier’s death.
On the same day a more serious engagement occurred near Tarkastad, a place
which lies to the east of Cradock, a notorious centre of disaffection in
the midland district. Smuts’s commando, some hundreds strong, was marked
down in this part, and several forces converged upon it. One of the
outlets, Elands River Poort, was guarded by a single squadron of the 17th
Lancers. Upon this the Boers made a sudden and very fierce attack, their
approach being facilitated partly by the mist and partly by the use of
khaki, a trick which seems never to have grown too stale for successful
use. The result was that they were able to ride up to the British camp
before any preparations had been made for resistance, and to shoot down a
number of the Lancers before they could reach their horses. So terrible
was the fire that the single squadron lost thirty-four killed and
thirty-six wounded. But the regiment may console itself for the disaster
by the fact that the sorely stricken detachment remained true to the
spirited motto of the corps, and that no prisoners appear to have been
lost.
After this one sharp engagement there ensued several weeks during which
the absence of historical events, or the presence of the military censor,
caused a singular lull in the account of the operations. With so many
small commandos and so many pursuing columns it is extraordinary that
there should not have been a constant succession of actions. That there
was not must indicate a sluggishness upon the part of the pursuers, and
this sluggishness can only be explained by the condition of their horses.
Every train of thought brings the critic back always to the great horse
question, and encourages the conclusion that there, at all seasons of the
war and in all scenes of it, is to be found the most damning indictment
against British foresight, common-sense, and power of organisation. That
the third year of the war should dawn without the British forces having
yet got the legs of the Boers, after having penetrated every portion of
their country and having the horses of the world on which to draw, is the
most amazingly inexplicable point in the whole of this strange campaign.
From the telegram ‘Infantry preferred’ addressed to a nation of
rough-riders, down to the failure to secure the excellent horses on the
spot, while importing them unfit for use from the ends of the earth, there
has been nothing but one long series of blunders in this, the most vital
question of all. Even up to the end, in the Colony the obvious lesson had
not yet been learnt that it is better to give 1000 men two horses each,
and to let them reach the enemy, than give 2000 men one horse each, with
which they can never attain their object. The chase during two years of
the man with two horses by the man with one horse, has been a sight
painful to ourselves and ludicrous to others.
In connection with this account of operations within the Colony, there is
one episode which occurred in the extreme north-west which will not fit in
with this connected narrative, but which will justify the distraction of
the reader’s intelligence, for few finer deeds of arms are recorded in the
war. This was the heroic defence of a convoy by the 14th Company of Irish
Imperial Yeomanry. The convoy was taking food to Griquatown, on the
Kimberley side of the seat of war. The town had been long invested by
Conroy, and the inhabitants were in such straits that it was highly
necessary to relieve them. To this end a convoy, two miles long, was
despatched under Major Humby of the Irish Yeomanry. The escort consisted
of seventy-five Northumberland Fusiliers, twenty-four local troops, and
100 of the 74th Irish Yeomanry. Fifteen miles from Griquatown, at a place
called Rooikopjes, the convoy was attacked by the enemy several hundred in
number. Two companies of the Irishmen seized the ridge, however, which
commanded the wagons, and held it until they were almost exterminated. The
position was covered with bush, and the two parties came to the closest of
quarters, the Yeomen refusing to take a backward step, though it was clear
that they were vastly outnumbered. Encouraged by the example of Madan and
Ford, their gallant young leaders, they deliberately sacrificed their
lives in order to give time for the guns to come up and for the convoy to
pass. Oliffe, Bonynge, and Maclean, who had been children together, were
shot side by side on the ridge, and afterwards buried in one grave. Of
forty-three men in action, fourteen were killed and twenty severely
wounded. Their sacrifice was not in vain, however. The Boers were beaten
back, and the convoy, as well as Griquatown, was saved. Some thirty or
forty Boers were killed or wounded in the skirmish, and Conroy, their
leader, declared that it was the stiffest fight of his life.
In the autumn and winter of 1901 General French had steadily pursued the
system of clearing certain districts, one at a time, and endeavouring by
his blockhouses and by the arrangement of his forces to hold in strict
quarantine those sections of the country which were still infested by the
commandos. In this manner he succeeded by the November of this year in
confining the active forces of the enemy to the extreme north-east and to
the south-west of the peninsula. It is doubtful if the whole Boer force,
three-quarters of whom were colonial rebels, amounted to more than fifteen
hundred men. When we learn that at this period of the war they were
indifferently armed, and that many of them were mounted upon donkeys, it
is impossible, after making every allowance for the passive assistance of
the farmers, and the difficulties of the country, to believe that the
pursuit was always pushed with the spirit and vigour which was needful.
In the north-east, Myburgh, Wessels, and the truculent Fouche were allowed
almost a free hand for some months, while the roving bands were rounded up
in the midlands and driven along until they were west of the main
railroad. Here, in the Calvinia district, several commandos united in
October 1901 under Maritz, Louw, Smit, and Theron. Their united bands rode
down into the rich grain-growing country round Piquetberg and Malmesbury,
pushing south until it seemed as if their academic supporters at Paarl
were actually to have a sight of the rebellion which they had fanned to a
flame. At one period their patrols were within forty miles of Cape Town.
The movement was checked, however, by a small force of Lancers and
district troops, and towards the end of October, Maritz, who was chief in
this quarter, turned northwards, and on the 29th captured a small British
convoy which crossed his line of march. Early in November he doubled back
and attacked Piquetberg, but was beaten off with some loss. From that time
a steady pressure from the south and east drove these bands farther and
farther into the great barren lands of the west, until, in the following
April, they had got as far as Namaqualand, many hundred miles away.
Upon October 9th, the second anniversary of the Ultimatum, the hands of
the military were strengthened by the proclamation of Cape Town and all
the seaport towns as being in a state of martial law. By this means a
possible source of supplies and recruits for the enemy was effectually
blocked. That it had not been done two years before is a proof of how far
local political considerations can be allowed to over-ride the essentials
of Imperial policy. Meanwhile treason courts were sitting, and sentences,
increasing rapidly from the most trivial to the most tragic, were teaching
the rebel that his danger did not end upon the field of battle. The
execution of Lotter and his lieutenants was a sign that the patience of a
long-suffering Empire had at last reached an end.
The young Boer leader, Scheepers, had long been a thorn in the side of the
British. He had infested the southern districts for some months, and he
had distinguished himself both by the activity of his movements and by the
ruthless vigour of some of his actions. Early in October a serious illness
and consequent confinement to his bed brought him at last within the range
of British mobility. On his recovery he was tried for repeated breaches of
the laws of war, including the murder of several natives. He was condemned
to death, and was executed in December. Much sympathy was excited by his
gallantry and his youth—he was only twenty-three. On the other hand,
our word was pledged to protect the natives, and if he whose hand had been
so heavy upon them escaped, all confidence would have been lost in our
promises and our justice. That British vengeance was not indiscriminate
was shown soon afterwards in the case of a more important commander,
Kritzinger, who was the chief leader of the Boers within Cape Colony.
Kritzinger was wounded and captured while endeavouring to cross the line
near Hanover Road upon December 15th. He was put upon his trial, and his
fate turned upon how far he was responsible for the misdeeds of some of
his subordinates. It was clearly shown that he had endeavoured to hold
them within the bounds of civilised warfare, and with congratulations and
handshakings he was acquitted by the military court.
In the last two months of the year 1901, a new system was introduced into
the Cape Colony campaign by placing the Colonial and district troops
immediately under the command of Colonial officers and of the Colonial
Government. It had long been felt that some devolution was necessary, and
the change was justified by the result. Without any dramatic incident, an
inexorable process of attrition, caused by continual pursuit and hardship,
wore out the commandos. Large bands had become small ones, and small ones
had vanished. Only by the union of several bodies could any enterprise
higher than the looting of a farmhouse be successfully attempted.
Such a union occurred, however, in the early days of February 1902, when
Smuts, Malan, and several other Boer leaders showed great activity in the
country round Calvinia. Their commandos seem to have included a proportion
of veteran Republicans from the north, who were more formidable fighting
material than the raw Colonial rebels. It happened that several
dangerously weak British columns were operating within reach at that time,
and it was only owing to the really admirable conduct of the troops that a
serious disaster was averted. Two separate actions, each of them severe,
were fought on the same date, and in each case the Boers were able to
bring very superior numbers into the field.
The first of these was the fight in which Colonel Doran’s column
extricated itself with severe loss from a most perilous plight. The whole
force under Doran consisted of 350 men with two guns, and this handful was
divided by an expedition which he, with 150 men, undertook in order to
search a distant farm. The remaining two hundred men, under Captain
Saunders, were left upon February 5th with the guns and the convoy at a
place called Middlepost, which lies about fifty miles south-west of
Calvinia. These men were of the 11th, 23rd, and 24th Imperial Yeomanry,
with a troop of Cape Police. The Boer Intelligence was excellent, as might
be expected in a country which is dotted with farms. The weakened force at
Middlepost was instantly attacked by Smuts’s commando. Saunders evacuated
the camp and abandoned the convoy, which was the only thing he could do,
but he concentrated all his efforts upon preserving his guns. The night
was illuminated by the blazing wagons, and made hideous by the whoops of
the drunken rebels who caroused among the captured stores. With the first
light of dawn the small British force was fiercely assailed on all sides,
but held its own in a manner which would have done credit to any troops.
The much criticised Yeomen fought like veterans. A considerable position
had to be covered, and only a handful of men were available at the most
important points. One ridge, from which the guns would be enfiladed, was
committed to the charge of Lieutenants Tabor and Chichester with eleven
men of the 11th Imperial Yeomanry, their instructions being ‘to hold it to
the death.’ The order was obeyed with the utmost heroism. After a
desperate defence the ridge was only taken by the Boers when both officers
had been killed and nine out of eleven men were on the ground. In spite of
the loss of this position the fight was still sustained until shortly
after midday, when Doran with the patrol returned. The position was still
most dangerous, the losses had been severe, and the Boers were increasing
in strength. An immediate retreat was ordered, and the small column, after
ten days of hardship and anxiety, reached the railway line in safety. The
wounded were left to the care of Smuts, who behaved with chivalry and
humanity.
At about the same date a convoy proceeding from Beaufort West to
Fraserburg was attacked by Malan’s commando. The escort, which consisted
of sixty Colonial Mounted Rifles and 100 of the West Yorkshire militia,
was overwhelmed after a good defence, in which Major Crofton, their
commander, was killed. The wagons were destroyed, but the Boers were
driven off by the arrival of Crabbe’s column, followed by those of Capper
and Lund. The total losses of the British in these two actions amounted to
twenty-three killed and sixty-five wounded.
The re-establishment of settled law and order was becoming more marked
every week in those south-western districts, which had long been most
disturbed. Colonel Crewe in this region, and Colonel Lukin upon the other
side of the line, acting entirely with Colonial troops, were pushing back
the rebels, and holding, by a well-devised system of district defence, all
that they had gained. By the end of February there were none of the enemy
south of the Beaufort West and Clanwilliam line. These results were not
obtained without much hard marching and a little hard fighting. Small
columns under Crabbe, Capper, Wyndham, Nickall, and Lund, were continually
on the move, with little to show for it save an ever-widening area of
settled country in their rear. In a skirmish on February 20th Judge Hugo,
a well-known Boer leader, was killed, and Vanheerden, a notorious rebel,
was captured. At the end of this month Fouche’s tranquil occupation of the
north-east was at last disturbed, and he was driven out of it into the
midlands, where he took refuge with the remains of his commando in the
Camdeboo Mountains. Malan’s men had already sought shelter in the same
natural fortress. Malan was wounded and taken in a skirmish near Somerset
East a few days before the general Boer surrender. Fouche gave himself up
at Cradock on June 2nd.
The last incident of this scattered, scrambling, unsatisfactory campaign
in the Cape peninsula was the raid made by Smuts, the Transvaal leader,
into the Port Nolloth district of Namaqualand, best known for its copper
mines. A small railroad has been constructed from the coast at this point,
the terminus being the township of Ookiep. The length of the line is about
seventy miles. It is difficult to imagine what the Boers expected to gain
in this remote corner of the seat of war, unless they had conceived the
idea that they might actually obtain possession of Port Nolloth itself,
and so restore the communications with their sympathisers and allies. At
the end of March the Boer horsemen appeared suddenly out of the desert,
drove in the British outposts, and summoned Ookiep to surrender. Colonel
Shelton, who commanded the small garrison, sent an uncompromising reply,
but he was unable to protect the railway in his rear, which was wrecked,
together with some of the blockhouses which had been erected to guard it.
The loyal population of the surrounding country had flocked into Ookiep,
and the Commandant found himself burdened with the care of six thousand
people. The enemy had succeeded in taking the small post of Springbok, and
Concordia, the mining centre, was surrendered into their hands without
resistance, giving them welcome supplies of arms, ammunition, and
dynamite. The latter was used by the Boers in the shape of hand-bombs, and
proved to be a very efficient weapon when employed against blockhouses.
Several of the British defences were wrecked by them, with considerable
loss to the garrison; but in the course of a month’s siege, in spite of
several attacks, the Boers were never able to carry the frail works which
guarded the town. Once more, at the end of the war as at the beginning of
it, there was shown the impotence of the Dutch riflemen against a British
defence. A relief column, under Colonel Cooper, was quickly organised at
Port Nolloth, and advanced along the railway line, forcing Smuts to raise
the siege in the first week of May. Immediately afterwards came the news
of the negotiations for peace, and the Boer general presented himself at
Port Nolloth, whence he was conveyed by ship to Cape Town, and so north
again to take part in the deliberations of his fellow-countrymen.
Throughout the war he had played a manly and honourable part. It may be
hoped that with youth and remarkable experience, both of diplomacy and of
war, he may now find a long and brilliant career awaiting him in a wider
arena than that for which he strove.
CHAPTER 36. THE SPRING CAMPAIGN (SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER, 1901).
The history of the war during the African winter of 1901 has now been
sketched, and some account given of the course of events in the Transvaal,
the Orange River Colony, and the Cape Colony. The hope of the British that
they might stamp out resistance before the grass should restore mobility
to the larger bodies of Boers was destined to be disappointed. By the
middle of September the veld had turned from drab to green, and the great
drama was fated to last for one more act, however anxious all the British
and the majority of the Boers might be to ring down the curtain.
Exasperating as this senseless prolongation of a hopeless struggle might
be, there was still some consolation in the reflection that those who
drank this bitter cup to the very lees would be less likely to thirst for
it again.
September 15th was the date which brought into force the British
Proclamation announcing the banishment of those Boer leaders who continued
in arms. It must be confessed that this step may appear harsh and
unchivalrous to the impartial observer, so long as those leaders were
guilty of no practices which are foreign to the laws of civilised warfare.
The imposition of personal penalties upon the officers of an opposing army
is a step for which it is difficult to quote a precedent, nor is it wise
to officially rule your enemy outside the pale of ordinary warfare, since
it is equally open to him to take the same step against you. The only
justification for such a course would be its complete success, as this
would suggest that the Intelligence Department were aware that the leaders
desired some strong excuse for coming in—such an excuse as the
Proclamation would afford. The result proved that nothing of the kind was
needed, and the whole proceeding must appear to be injudicious and
high-handed. In honourable war you conquer your adversary by superior
courage, strength, or wit, but you do not terrorise him by particular
penalties aimed at individuals. The burghers of the Transvaal and of the
late Orange Free State were legitimate belligerents, and to be treated as
such—a statement which does not, of course, extend to the Afrikander
rebels who were their allies.
The tendency of the British had been to treat their antagonists as a
broken and disorganised banditti, but with the breaking of the spring they
were sharply reminded that the burghers were still capable of a formidable
and coherent effort. The very date which put them beyond the pale as
belligerents was that which they seem to have chosen in order to prove
what active and valiant soldiers they still remained. A quick succession
of encounters occurred at various parts of the seat of war, the general
tendency of which was not entirely in favour of the British arms, though
the weekly export of prisoners reassured all who noted it as to the
sapping and decay of the Boer strength. These incidents must now be set
down in the order of their occurrence, with their relation to each other
so far as it is possible to trace it.
General Louis Botha, with the double intention of making an offensive move
and of distracting the wavering burghers from a close examination of Lord
Kitchener’s proclamation, assembled his forces in the second week of
September in the Ermelo district. Thence he moved them rapidly towards
Natal, with the result that the volunteers of that colony had once more to
grasp their rifles and hasten to the frontier. The whole situation bore
for an instant an absurd resemblance to that of two years before—Botha
playing the part of Joubert, and Lyttelton, who commanded on the frontier,
that of White. It only remained, to make the parallel complete, that some
one should represent Penn Symons, and this perilous role fell to a gallant
officer, Major Gough, commanding a detached force which thought itself
strong enough to hold its own, and only learned by actual experiment that
it was not.
This officer, with a small force consisting of three companies of Mounted
Infantry with two guns of the 69th R.F.A., was operating in the
neighbourhood of Utrecht in the south-eastern corner of the Transvaal, on
the very path along which Botha must descend. On September 17th he had
crossed De Jagers Drift on the Blood River, not very far from Dundee, when
he found himself in touch with the enemy. His mission was to open a path
for an empty convoy returning from Vryheid, and in order to do so it was
necessary that Blood River Poort, where the Boers were now seen, should be
cleared. With admirable zeal Gough pushed rapidly forward, supported by a
force of 350 Johannesburg Mounted Rifles under Stewart. Such a proceeding
must have seemed natural to any British officer at this stage of the war,
when a swift advance was the only chance of closing with the small bodies
of Boers; but it is strange that the Intelligence Department had not
warned the patrols upon the frontier that a considerable force was coming
down upon them, and that they should be careful to avoid action against
impossible odds. If Gough had known that Botha’s main commando was coming
down upon him, it is inconceivable that he would have pushed his advance
until he could neither extricate his men nor his guns. A small body of the
enemy, said to have been the personal escort of Louis Botha, led him on,
until a large force was able to ride down upon him from the flank and
rear. Surrounded at Scheepers Nek by many hundreds of riflemen in a
difficult country, there was no alternative but a surrender, and so sharp
and sudden was the Boer advance that the whole action was over in a very
short time. The new tactics of the Boers, already used at Vlakfontein, and
afterwards to be successful at Brakenlaagte and at Tweebosch, were put in
force. A large body of mounted men, galloping swiftly in open order and
firing from the saddle, rode into and over the British. Such temerity
should in theory have met with severe punishment, but as a matter of fact
the losses of the enemy seem to have been very small. The soldiers were
not able to return an effective fire from their horses, and had no time to
dismount. The sights and breech-blocks of the two guns are said to have
been destroyed, but the former statement seems more credible than the
latter. A Colt gun was also captured. Of the small force twenty were
killed, forty wounded, and over two hundred taken. Stewart’s force was
able to extricate itself with some difficulty, and to fall back on the
Drift. Gough managed to escape that night and to report that it was Botha
himself, with over a thousand men, who had eaten up his detachment. The
prisoners and wounded were sent in a few days later to Vryheid, a town
which appeared to be in some danger of capture had not Walter Kitchener
hastened to carry reinforcements to the garrison. Bruce Hamilton was at
the same time despatched to head Botha off, and every step taken to
prevent his southern advance. So many columns from all parts converged
upon the danger spot that Lyttelton, who commanded upon the Natal
frontier, had over 20,000 men under his orders.
Botha’s plans appear to have been to work through Zululand and then strike
at Natal, an operation which would be the more easy as it would be
conducted a considerable distance from the railway line. Pushing on a few
days after his successful action with Gough, he crossed the Zulu frontier,
and had in front of him an almost unimpeded march as far as the Tugela.
Crossing this far from the British base of power, his force could raid the
Greytown district and raise recruits among the Dutch farmers, laying waste
one of the few spots in South Africa which had been untouched by the
blight of war. All this lay before him, and in his path nothing save only
two small British posts which might be either disregarded or gathered up
as he passed. In an evil moment for himself, tempted by the thought of the
supplies which they might contain, he stopped to gather them up, and the
force of the wave of invasion broke itself as upon two granite rocks.
These two so-called forts were posts of very modest strength, a chain of
which had been erected at the time of the old Zulu war. Fort Itala, the
larger, was garrisoned by 300 men of the 5th Mounted Infantry, drawn from
the Dublin Fusiliers, Middlesex, Dorsets, South Lancashires, and
Lancashire Fusiliers—most of them old soldiers of many battles. They
had two guns of the 69th R.F.A., the same battery which had lost a section
the week before. Major Chapman, of the Dublins, was in command.
Upon September 25th the small garrison heard that the main force of the
Boers was sweeping towards them, and prepared to give them a soldiers’
welcome. The fort is situated upon the flank of a hill, on the summit of
which, a mile from the main trenches, a strong outpost was stationed. It
was upon this that the first force of the attack broke at midnight of
September 25th. The garrison, eighty strong, was fiercely beset by several
hundred Boers, and the post was eventually carried after a sharp and
bloody contest. Kane, of the South Lancashires, died with the words ‘No
surrender’ upon his lips, and Potgieter, a Boer leader, was pistolled by
Kane’s fellow officer, Lefroy. Twenty of the small garrison fell, and the
remainder were overpowered and taken.
With this vantage-ground in their possession the Boers settled down to the
task of overwhelming the main position. They attacked upon three sides,
and until morning the force was raked from end to end by unseen riflemen.
The two British guns were put out of action and the maxim was made
unserviceable by a bullet. At dawn there was a pause in the attack, but it
recommenced and continued without intermission until sunset. The span
betwixt the rising of the sun and its last red glow in the west is a long
one for the man who spends it at his ease, but how never-ending must have
seemed the hours to this handful of men, outnumbered, surrounded, pelted
by bullets, parched with thirst, torn with anxiety, holding desperately on
with dwindling numbers to their frail defences! To them it may have seemed
a hard thing to endure so much for a tiny fort in a savage land. The
larger view of its vital importance could have scarcely come to console
the regimental officer, far less the private. But duty carried them
through, and they wrought better than they knew, for the brave Dutchmen,
exasperated by so disproportionate a resistance, stormed up to the very
trenches and suffered as they had not suffered for many a long month.
There have been battles with 10,000 British troops hotly engaged in which
the Boer losses have not been so great as in this obscure conflict against
an isolated post. When at last, baffled and disheartened, they drew off
with the waning light, it is said that no fewer than a hundred of their
dead and two hundred of their wounded attested the severity of the fight.
So strange are the conditions of South African warfare that this loss,
which would have hardly made a skirmish memorable in the slogging days of
the Peninsula, was one of the most severe blows which the burghers had
sustained in the course of a two years’ warfare against a large and
aggressive army. There is a conflict of evidence as to the exact figures,
but at least they were sufficient to beat the Boer army back and to change
their plan of campaign.
Whilst this prolonged contest had raged round Fort Itala, a similar attack
upon a smaller scale was being made upon Fort Prospect, some fifteen miles
to the eastward. This small post was held by a handful of Durham Artillery
Militia and of Dorsets. The attack was delivered by Grobler with several
hundred burghers, but it made no advance although it was pushed with great
vigour, and repeated many times in the course of the day. Captain Rowley,
who was in command, handled his men with such judgment that one killed and
eight wounded represented his casualties during a long day’s fighting.
Here again the Boer losses were in proportion to the resolution of their
attack, and are said to have amounted to sixty killed and wounded.
Considering the impossibility of replacing the men, and the fruitless
waste of valuable ammunition, September 26th was an evil day for the Boer
cause. The British casualties amounted to seventy-three.
The water of the garrison of Fort Itala had been cut off early in the
attack, and their ammunition had run low by evening. Chapman withdrew his
men and his guns therefore to Nkandhla, where the survivors of his gallant
garrison received the special thanks of Lord Kitchener. The country around
was still swarming with Boers, and on the last day of September a convoy
from Melmoth fell into their hands and provided them with some badly
needed supplies.
But the check which he had received was sufficient to prevent any
important advance upon the part of Botha, while the swollen state of the
rivers put an additional obstacle in his way. Already the British
commanders, delighted to have at last discovered a definite objective,
were hurrying to the scene of action. Bruce Hamilton had reached Fort
Itala upon September 28th and Walter Kitchener had been despatched to
Vryheid. Two British forces, aided by smaller columns, were endeavouring
to surround the Boer leader. On October 6th Botha had fallen back to the
north-east of Vryheid, whither the British forces had followed him. Like
De Wet’s invasion of the Cape, Botha’s advance upon Natal had ended in
placing himself and his army in a critical position. On October 9th he had
succeeded in crossing the Privaan River, a branch of the Pongolo, and was
pushing north in the direction of Piet Retief, much helped by misty
weather and incessant rain. Some of his force escaped between the British
columns, and some remained in the kloofs and forests of that difficult
country.
Walter Kitchener, who had followed up the Boer retreat, had a brisk
engagement with the rearguard upon October 6th. The Boers shook themselves
clear with some loss, both to themselves and to their pursuers. On the
10th those of the burghers who held together had reached Luneburg, and
shortly afterwards they had got completely away from the British columns.
The weather was atrocious, and the lumbering wagons, axle-deep in mud,
made it impossible for troops who were attached to them to keep in touch
with the light riders who sped before them. For some weeks there was no
word of the main Boer force, but at the end of that time they reappeared
in a manner which showed that both in numbers and in spirit they were
still a formidable body.
Of all the sixty odd British columns which were traversing the Boer states
there was not one which had a better record than that commanded by Colonel
Benson. During seven months of continuous service this small force,
consisting at that time of the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, the 2nd
Scottish Horse, the 18th and 19th Mounted Infantry, and two guns, had
acted with great energy, and had reduced its work to a complete and highly
effective system. Leaving the infantry as a camp guard, Benson operated
with mounted troops alone, and no Boer laager within fifty miles was safe
from his nocturnal visits. So skilful had he and his men become at these
night attacks in a strange, and often difficult country, that out of
twenty-eight attempts twenty-one resulted in complete success. In each
case the rule was simply to gallop headlong into the Boer laager, and to
go on chasing as far as the horses could go. The furious and reckless pace
may be judged by the fact that the casualties of the force were far
greater from falls than from bullets. In seven months forty-seven Boers
were killed and six hundred captured, to say nothing of enormous
quantities of munitions and stock. The success of these operations was
due, not only to the energy of Benson and his men, but to the untiring
exertions of Colonel Wools-Sampson, who acted as intelligence officer. If,
during his long persecution by President Kruger, Wools-Sampson in the
bitterness of his heart had vowed a feud against the Boer cause, it must
be acknowledged that he has most amply fulfilled it, for it would be
difficult to point to any single man who has from first to last done them
greater harm.
In October Colonel Benson’s force was reorganised, and it then consisted
of the 2nd Buffs, the 2nd Scottish Horse, the 3rd and 25th Mounted
Infantry, and four guns of the 84th battery. With this force, numbering
nineteen hundred men, he left Middelburg upon the Delagoa line on October
20th and proceeded south, crossing the course along which the Boers, who
were retiring from their abortive raid into Natal, might be expected to
come. For several days the column performed its familiar work, and
gathered up forty or fifty prisoners. On the 26th came news that the Boer
commandos under Grobler were concentrating against it, and that an attack
in force might be expected. For two days there was continuous sniping, and
the column as it moved through the country saw Boer horsemen keeping pace
with it on the far flanks and in the rear. The weather had been very bad,
and it was in a deluge of cold driving rain that the British set forth
upon October 30th, moving towards Brakenlaagte, which is a point about
forty miles due south of Middelburg. It was Benson’s intention to return
to his base.
About midday the column, still escorted by large bodies of aggressive
Boers, came to a difficult spruit swollen by the rain. Here the wagons
stuck, and it took some hours to get them all across. The Boer fire was
continually becoming more severe, and had broken out at the head of the
column as well as the rear. The situation was rendered more difficult by
the violence of the rain, which raised a thick steam from the ground and
made it impossible to see for any distance. Major Anley, in command of the
rearguard, peering back, saw through a rift of the clouds a large body of
horsemen in extended order sweeping after them. ‘There’s miles of them,
begob!’ cried an excited Irish trooper. Next instant the curtain had
closed once more, but all who had caught a glimpse of that vision knew
that a stern struggle was at hand.
At this moment two guns of the 84th battery under Major Guinness were in
action against Boer riflemen. As a rear screen on the farther side of the
guns was a body of the Scottish Horse and of the Yorkshire Mounted
Infantry. Near the guns themselves were thirty men of the Buffs. The rest
of the Buffs and of the Mounted Infantry were out upon the flanks or else
were with the advance guard, which was now engaged, under the direction of
Colonel Wools-Sampson, in parking the convoy and in forming the camp.
These troops played a small part in the day’s fighting, the whole force of
which broke with irresistible violence upon the few hundred men who were
in front of or around the rear guns. Colonel Benson seems to have just
ridden back to the danger point when the Boers delivered their furious
attack.
Louis Botha with his commando is said to have ridden sixty miles in order
to join the forces of Grobler and Oppermann, and overwhelm the British
column. It may have been the presence of their commander or a desire to
have vengeance for the harrying which they had undergone upon the Natal
border, but whatever the reason, the Boer attack was made with a spirit
and dash which earned the enthusiastic applause of every soldier who
survived to describe it. With the low roar of a great torrent, several
hundred horsemen burst through the curtain of mist, riding at a furious
pace for the British guns. The rear screen of Mounted Infantry fell back
before this terrific rush, and the two bodies of horsemen came pell-mell
down upon the handful of Buffs and the guns. The infantry were ridden into
and surrounded by the Boers, who found nothing to stop them from galloping
on to the low ridge upon which the guns were stationed. This ridge was
held by eighty of the Scottish Horse and forty of the Yorkshire M.I., with
a few riflemen from the 25th Mounted Infantry. The latter were the escort
of the guns, but the former were the rear screen who had fallen back
rapidly because it was the game to do so, but who were in no way shaken,
and who instantly dismounted and formed when they reached a defensive
position.
These men had hardly time to take up their ground when the Boers were on
them. With that extraordinary quickness to adapt their tactics to
circumstances which is the chief military virtue of the Boers, the
horsemen did not gallop over the crest, but lined the edge of it, and
poured a withering fire on to the guns and the men beside them. The heroic
nature of the defence can be best shown by the plain figures of the
casualties. No rhetoric is needed to adorn that simple record. There were
thirty-two gunners round the guns, and twenty-nine fell where they stood.
Major Guinness was mortally wounded while endeavouring with his own hands
to fire a round of case. There were sixty-two casualties out of eighty
among the Scottish Horse, and the Yorkshires were practically annihilated.
Altogether 123 men fell, out of about 160 on the ridge. ‘Hard pounding,
gentlemen,’ as Wellington remarked at Waterloo, and British troops seemed
as ready as ever to endure it.
The gunners were, as usual, magnificent. Of the two little bullet-pelted
groups of men around the guns there was not one who did not stand to his
duty without flinching. Corporal Atkin was shot down with all his
comrades, but still endeavoured with his failing strength to twist the
breech-block out of the gun. Another bullet passed through his upraised
hands as he did it. Sergeant Hayes, badly wounded, and the last survivor
of the crew, seized the lanyard, crawled up the trail, and fired a last
round before he fainted. Sergeant Mathews, with three bullets through him,
kept steadily to his duty. Five drivers tried to bring up a limber and
remove the gun, but all of them, with all the horses, were hit. There have
been incidents in this war which have not increased our military
reputation, but you might search the classical records of valour and fail
to find anything finer than the consistent conduct of the British
artillery.
Colonel Benson was hit in the knee and again in the stomach, but wounded
as he was he despatched a message back to Wools-Sampson, asking him to
burst shrapnel over the ridge so as to prevent the Boers from carrying off
the guns. The burghers had ridden in among the litter of dead and wounded
men which marked the British position, and some of the baser of them, much
against the will of their commanders, handled the injured soldiers with
great brutality. The shell-fire drove them back, however, and the two guns
were left standing alone, with no one near them save their prostrate
gunners and escort.
There has been some misunderstanding as to the part played by the Buffs in
this action, and words have been used which seem to imply that they had in
some way failed their mounted companions. It is due to the honour of one
of the finest regiments in the British army to clear this up. As a matter
of fact, the greater part of the regiment under Major Dauglish was engaged
in defending the camp. Near the guns there were four separate small bodies
of Buffs, none of which appears to have been detailed as an escort. One of
these parties, consisting of thirty men under Lieutenant Greatwood, was
ridden over by the horsemen, and the same fate befell a party of twenty
who were far out upon the flank. Another small body under Lieutenant Lynch
was over taken by the same charge, and was practically destroyed, losing
nineteen killed and wounded out of thirty. In the rear of the guns was a
larger body of Buffs, 130 in number, under Major Eales. When the guns were
taken this handful attempted a counter-attack, but Eales soon saw that it
was a hopeless effort, and he lost thirty of his men before he could
extricate himself. Had these men been with the others on the gun ridge
they might have restored the fight, but they had not reached it when the
position was taken, and to persevere in the attempt to retake it would
have led to certain disaster. The only just criticism to which the
regiment is open is that, having just come off blockhouse duty, they were
much out of condition, which caused the men to straggle and the movements
to be unduly slow.
It was fortunate that the command of the column devolved upon so
experienced and cool-headed a soldier as Wools-Sampson. To attempt a
counter-attack for the purpose of recapturing the guns would, in case of
disaster, have risked the camp and the convoy. The latter was the prize
which the Boers had particularly in view, and to expose it would be to
play their game. Very wisely, therefore, Wools-Sampson held the attacking
Boers off with his guns and his riflemen, while every spare pair of hands
was set to work entrenching the position and making it impregnable against
attack. Outposts were stationed upon all those surrounding points which
might command the camp, and a summons to surrender from the Boer leader
was treated with contempt. All day a long-range fire, occasionally very
severe, rained upon the camp. Colonel Benson was brought in by the
ambulance, and used his dying breath in exhorting his subordinate to hold
out. ‘No more night marches’ are said to have been the last words spoken
by this gallant soldier as he passed away in the early morning after the
action. On October 31st the force remained on the defensive, but early on
November 1st the gleaming of two heliographs, one to the north-east and
one to the south-west, told that two British columns, those of De Lisle
and of Barter, were hastening to the rescue. But the Boers had passed as
the storm does, and nothing but their swathe of destruction was left to
show where they had been. They had taken away the guns during the night,
and were already beyond the reach of pursuit.
Such was the action at Brakenlaagte, which cost the British sixty men
killed and 170 wounded, together with two guns. Colonel Benson, Colonel
Guinness, Captain Eyre Lloyd of the Guards, Major Murray and Captain
Lindsay of the Scottish Horse, with seven other officers were among the
dead, while sixteen officers were wounded. The net result of the action
was that the British rear-guard had been annihilated, but that the main
body and the convoy, which was the chief object of the attack, was saved.
The Boer loss was considerable, being about one hundred and fifty. In
spite of the Boer success nothing could suit the British better than hard
fighting of the sort, since whatever the immediate result of it might be,
it must necessarily cause a wastage among the enemy which could never be
replaced. The gallantry of the Boer charge was only equalled by that of
the resistance offered round the guns, and it is an action to which both
sides can look back without shame or regret. It was feared that the
captured guns would soon be used to break the blockhouse line, but nothing
of the kind was attempted, and within a few weeks they were both recovered
by British columns.
In order to make a consecutive and intelligible narrative, I will continue
with an account of the operations in this south-eastern portion of the
Transvaal from the action of Brakenlaagte down to the end of the year
1901. These were placed in the early part of November, under the supreme
command of General Bruce Hamilton, and that energetic commander set in
motion a number of small columns, which effected numerous captures. He was
much helped in his work by the new lines of blockhouses, one of which
extended from Standerton to Ermelo, while another connected Brugspruit
with Greylingstad. The huge country was thus cut into manageable
districts, and the fruits were soon seen by the large returns of prisoners
which came from this part of the seat of war.
Upon December 3rd Bruce Hamilton, who had the valuable assistance of
Wools-Sampson to direct his intelligence, struck swiftly out from Ermelo
and fell upon a Boer laager in the early morning, capturing ninety-six
prisoners. On the 10th he overwhelmed the Bethel commando by a similar
march, killing seven and capturing 131. Williams and Wing commanded
separate columns in this operation, and their energy may be judged from
the fact that they covered fifty-one miles during the twenty-four hours.
On the 12th Hamilton’s columns were on the war-path once more, and another
commando was wiped out. Sixteen killed and seventy prisoners were the
fruits of this expedition. For the second time in a week the columns had
done their fifty miles a day, and it was no surprise to hear from their
commander that they were in need of a rest. Nearly four hundred prisoners
had been taken from the most warlike portion of the Transvaal in ten days
by one energetic commander, with a list of twenty-five casualties to
ourselves. The thanks of the Secretary of War were specially sent to him
for his brilliant work. From then until the end of the year 1901, numbers
of smaller captures continued to be reported from the same region, where
Plumer, Spens, Mackenzie, Rawlinson, and others were working. On the other
hand there was one small setback which occurred to a body of two hundred
Mounted Infantry under Major Bridgford, who had been detached from Spens’s
column to search some farmhouses at a place called Holland, to the south
of Ermelo. The expedition set forth upon the night of December 19th, and
next morning surrounded and examined the farms.
The British force became divided in doing this work, and were suddenly
attacked by several hundred of Britz’s commando, who came to close
quarters through their khaki dress, which enabled them to pass as Plumer’s
vanguard. The brunt of the fight fell upon an outlying body of fifty men,
nearly all of whom were killed, wounded or taken. A second body of fifty
men were overpowered in the same way, after a creditable defence. Fifteen
of the British were killed and thirty wounded, while Bridgford the
commander was also taken. Spens came up shortly afterwards with the
column, and the Boers were driven off. There seems every reason to think
that upon this occasion the plans of the British had leaked out, and that
a deliberate ambush had been laid for them round the farms, but in such
operations these are chances against which it is not always possible to
guard. Considering the number of the Boers, and the cleverness of their
dispositions, the British were fortunate in being able to extricate their
force without greater loss, a feat which was largely due to the leading of
Lieutenant Sterling.
Leaving the Eastern Transvaal, the narrative must now return to several
incidents of importance which had occurred at various points of the seat
of war during the latter months of 1901.
On September 19th, two days after Gough’s disaster, a misfortune occurred
near Bloemfontein by which two guns and a hundred and forty men fell
temporarily into the hands of the enemy. These guns, belonging to U
battery, were moving south under an escort of Mounted Infantry, from that
very Sanna’s Post which had been so fatal to the same battery eighteen
months before. When fifteen miles south of the Waterworks, at a place
called Vlakfontein (another Vlakfontein from that of General Dixon’s
engagement), the small force was surrounded and captured by Ackermann’s
commando. The gunner officer, Lieutenant Barry, died beside his guns in
the way that gunner officers have. Guns and men were taken, however, the
latter to be released, and the former to be recovered a week or two later
by the British columns. It is certainly a credit to the Boers that the
spring campaign should have opened by four British guns falling into their
hands, and it is impossible to withhold our admiration for those gallant
farmers who, after two years of exhausting warfare, were still able to
turn upon a formidable and victorious enemy, and to renovate their
supplies at his expense.
Two days later, hard on the heels of Gough’s mishap, of the Vlakfontein
incident, and of the annihilation of the squadron of Lancers in the Cape,
there was a serious affair at Elands Kloof, near Zastron, in the extreme
south of the Orange River Colony. In this a detachment of the Highland
Scouts raised by the public spirit of Lord Lovat was surprised at night
and very severely handled by Kritzinger’s commando. The loss of Colonel
Murray, their commander, of the adjutant of the same name, and of
forty-two out of eighty of the Scouts, shows how fell was the attack,
which broke as sudden and as strong as a South African thunderstorm upon
the unconscious camp. The Boers appear to have eluded the outposts and
crept right among the sleeping troops, as they did in the case of the
Victorians at Wilmansrust. Twelve gunners were also hit, and the only
field gun taken. The retiring Boers were swiftly followed up by
Thorneycroft’s column, however, and the gun was retaken, together with
twenty of Kritzinger’s men. It must be confessed that there seems some
irony in the fact that, within five days of the British ruling by which
the Boers were no longer a military force, these non-belligerents had
inflicted a loss of nearly six hundred men killed, wounded, or taken. Two
small commandos, that of Koch in the Orange River Colony, and that of
Carolina, had been captured by Williams and Benson. Combined they only
numbered a hundred and nine men, but here, as always, they were men who
could never be replaced.
Those who had followed the war with care, and had speculated upon the
future, were prepared on hearing of Botha’s movement upon Natal to learn
that De la Rey had also made some energetic attack in the western quarter
of the Transvaal. Those who had formed this expectation were not
disappointed, for upon the last day of September the Boer chief struck
fiercely at Kekewich’s column in a vigorous night attack, which led to as
stern an encounter as any in the campaign. This was the action at
Moedwill, near Magato Nek, in the Magaliesberg.
When last mentioned De la Rey was in the Marico district, near Zeerust,
where he fought two actions with Methuen in the early part of September.
Thence he made his way to Rustenburg and into the Magaliesberg country,
where he joined Kemp. The Boer force was followed up by two British
columns under Kekewich and Fetherstonhaugh. The former commander had
camped upon the night of Sunday, September 30th, at the farm of Moedwill,
in a strong position within a triangle formed by the Selous River on the
west, a donga on the east, and the Zeerust-Rustenburg road as a base. The
apex of the triangle pointed north, with a ridge on the farther side of
the river.
The men with Kekewich were for the most part the same as those who had
fought in the Vlakfontein engagement—the Derbys, the 1st Scottish
Horse, the Yeomanry, and the 28th R.F.A. Every precaution appears to have
been taken by the leader, and his pickets were thrown out so far that
ample warning was assured of an attack. The Boer onslaught came so
suddenly and fiercely, however, in the early morning, that the posts upon
the river bank were driven in or destroyed and the riflemen from the ridge
on the farther side were able to sweep the camp with their fire. In
numbers the two forces were not unequal, but the Boers had already
obtained the tactical advantage, and were playing a game in which they are
the schoolmasters of the world. Never has the British spirit flamed up
more fiercely, and from the commander to the latest yeoman recruit there
was not a man who flinched from a difficult and almost a desperate task.
The Boers must at all hazard be driven from the position which enabled
them to command the camp. No retreat was possible without such an
abandonment of stores as would amount to a disaster. In the confusion and
the uncertain light of early dawn there was no chance of a concerted
movement, though Kekewich made such dispositions as were possible with
admirable coolness and promptness. Squadrons and companies closed in upon
the river bank with the one thought of coming to close quarters and
driving the enemy from their commanding position. Already more than half
the horses and a very large number of officers and men had gone down
before the pelting bullets. Scottish Horse, Yeomanry, and Derbys pushed
on, the young soldiers of the two former corps keeping pace with the
veteran regiment. ‘All the men behaved simply splendidly,’ said a
spectator, ‘taking what little cover there was and advancing yard by yard.
An order was given to try and saddle up a squadron, with the idea of
getting round their flank. I had the saddle almost on one of my ponies
when he was hit in two places. Two men trying to saddle alongside of me
were both shot dead, and Lieutenant Wortley was shot through the knee. I
ran back to where I had been firing from and found the Colonel slightly
hit, the Adjutant wounded and dying, and men dead and wounded all round.’
But the counter-attack soon began to make way. At first the advance was
slow, but soon it quickened into a magnificent rush, the wounded Kekewich
whooping on his men, and the guns coming into action as the enemy began to
fall back before the fierce charge of the British riflemen. At six o’clock
De la Rey’s burghers had seen that their attempt was hopeless, and were in
full retreat—a retreat which could not be harassed by the victors,
whose cavalry had been converted by that hail of bullets into footmen. The
repulse had been absolute and complete, for not a man or a cartridge had
been taken from the British, but the price paid in killed and wounded was
a heavy one. No fewer than 161 had been hit, including the gallant leader,
whose hurt did not prevent him from resuming his duties within a few days.
The heaviest losses fell upon the Scottish Horse, and upon the Derbys; but
the Yeomanry also proved on this, as on some other occasions, how
ungenerous were the criticisms to which they had been exposed. There are
few actions in the war which appear to have been more creditable to the
troops engaged.
Though repulsed at Moedwill, De la Rey, the grim, long-bearded fighting
man, was by no means discouraged. From the earliest days of the campaign,
when he first faced Methuen upon the road to Kimberley, he had shown that
he was a most dangerous antagonist, tenacious, ingenious, and indomitable.
With him were a body of irreconcilable burghers, who were the veterans of
many engagements, and in Kemp he had an excellent fighting subordinate.
His command extended over a wide stretch of populous country, and at any
time he could bring considerable reinforcements to his aid, who would
separate again to their farms and hiding-places when their venture was
accomplished. For some weeks after the fight at Moedwill the Boer forces
remained quiet in that district. Two British columns had left Zeerust on
October 17th, under Methuen and Von Donop, in order to sweep the
surrounding country, the one working in the direction of Elands River and
the other in that of Rustenburg. They returned to Zeerust twelve days
later, after a successful foray, which had been attended with much sniping
and skirmishing, but only one action which is worthy of record.
This was fought on October 24th at a spot near Kleinfontein, upon the
Great Marico River, which runs to the north-east of Zeerust. Von Donop’s
column was straggling through very broken and bush-covered country when it
was furiously charged in the flank and rear by two separate bodies of
burghers. Kemp, who commanded the flank attack, cut into the line of
wagons and destroyed eight of them, killing many of the Kaffir drivers,
before he could be driven off. De la Rey and Steenkamp, who rushed the
rear-guard, had a more desperate contest. The Boer horsemen got among the
two guns of the 4th R.F.A., and held temporary possession of them, but the
small escort were veterans of the ‘Fighting Fifth,’ who lived up to the
traditions of their famous north-country regiment. Of the gun crews of the
section, amounting to about twenty-six men, the young officer, Hill, and
sixteen men were hit. Of the escort of Northumberland Fusiliers hardly a
man was left standing, and forty-one of the supporting Yeomanry were
killed and wounded. It was for some little time a fierce and concentrated
struggle at the shortest of ranges. The British horsemen came galloping to
the rescue, however, and the attack was finally driven back into that
broken country from which it had come. Forty dead Boers upon the ground,
with their brave chieftain, Ouisterhuisen, amongst them, showed how
manfully the attack had been driven home. The British losses were
twenty-eight killed and fifty-six wounded. Somewhat mauled, and with eight
missing wagons, the small column made its way back to Zeerust.
From this incident until the end of the year nothing of importance
occurred in this part of the seat of war, save for a sharp and
well-managed action at Beestekraal upon October 29th, in which
seventy-nine Boers were surrounded and captured by Kekewich’s horsemen.
The process of attrition went very steadily forwards, and each of the
British columns returned its constant tale of prisoners. The blockhouse
system had now been extended to such an extent that the Magaliesberg was
securely held, and a line had been pushed through from Klerksdorp and
Fredericstad to Ventersdorp. One of Colonel Hickie’s Yeomanry patrols was
roughly handled near Brakspruit upon November 13th, but with this
exception the points scored were all upon one side. Methuen and Kekewich
came across early in November from Zeerust to Klerksdorp, and operated
from the railway line. The end of the year saw them both in the
Wolmaranstad district, where they were gathering up prisoners and clearing
the country.
Of the events in the other parts of the Transvaal, during the last three
months of the year 1901, there is not much to be said. In all parts the
lines of blockhouses and of constabulary posts were neutralising the Boer
mobility, and bringing them more and more within reach of the British. The
only fighting forces left in the Transvaal were those under Botha in the
south-east and those under De la Rey in the west. The others attempted
nothing save to escape from their pursuers, and when overtaken they
usually gave in without serious opposition. Among the larger hauls may be
mentioned that of Dawkins in the Nylstrom district (seventy-six
prisoners), Kekewich (seventy-eight), Colenbrander in the north
(fifty-seven), Dawkins and Colenbrander (104), Colenbrander (sixty-two);
but the great majority of the captures were in smaller bodies, gleaned
from the caves, the kloofs, and the farmhouses.
Only two small actions during these months appear to call for any separate
notice. The first was an attack made by Buys’ commando, upon November
20th, on the Railway Pioneers when at work near Villiersdorp, in the
extreme north-east of the Orange River Colony. This corps, consisting
mainly of miners from Johannesburg, had done invaluable service during the
war. On this occasion a working party of them was suddenly attacked, and
most of them taken prisoners. Major Fisher, who commanded the pioneers,
was killed, and three other officers with several men were wounded.
Colonel Rimington’s column appeared upon the scene, however, and drove off
the Boers, who left their leader, Buys, a wounded prisoner in our hands.
The second action was a sharp attack delivered by Muller’s Boers upon
Colonel Park’s column on the night of December 19th, at Elandspruit. The
fight was sharp while it lasted, but it ended in the repulse of the
assailants. The British casualties were six killed and twenty-four
wounded. The Boers, who left eight dead behind them, suffered probably to
about the same extent.
Already the most striking and pleasing feature in the Transvaal was the
tranquillity of its central provinces, and the way in which the population
was settling down to its old avocations. Pretoria had resumed its normal
quiet life, while its larger and more energetic neighbour was rapidly
recovering from its two years of paralysis. Every week more stamps were
dropped in the mines, and from month to month a steady increase in the
output showed that the great staple industry of the place would soon be as
vigorous as ever. Most pleasing of all was the restoration of safety upon
the railway lines, which, save for some precautions at night, had resumed
their normal traffic. When the observer took his eyes from the dark clouds
which shadowed every horizon, he could not but rejoice at the
ever-widening central stretch of peaceful blue which told that the storm
was nearing its end.
Having now dealt with the campaign in the Transvaal down to the end of
1901, it only remains to bring the chronicle of the events in the Orange
River Colony down to the same date. Reference has already been made to two
small British reverses which occurred in September, the loss of two guns
to the south of the Waterworks near Bloemfontein, and the surprise of the
camp of Lord Lovat’s Scouts. There were some indications at this time that
a movement had been planned through the passes of the Drakensberg by a
small Free State force which should aid Louis Botha’s invasion of Natal.
The main movement was checked, however, and the demonstration in aid of it
came to nothing.
The blockhouse system had been developed to a very complete extent in the
Orange River Colony, and the small bands of Boers found it increasingly
difficult to escape from the British columns who were for ever at their
heels. The southern portion of the country had been cut off from the
northern by a line which extended through Bloemfontein on the east to the
Basuto frontier, and on the west to Jacobsdal. To the south of this line
the Boer resistance had practically ceased, although several columns moved
continually through it, and gleaned up the broken fragments of the
commandos. The north-west had also settled down to a large extent, and
during the last three months of 1901 no action of importance occurred in
that region. Even in the turbulent north-east, which had always been the
centre of resistance, there was little opposition to the British columns,
which continued every week to send in their tale of prisoners. Of the
column commanders, Williams, Damant, Du Moulin, Lowry Cole, and Wilson
were the most successful. In their operations they were much aided by the
South African Constabulary. One young officer of this force, Major
Pack-Beresford, especially distinguished himself by his gallantry and
ability. His premature death from enteric was a grave loss to the British
army. Save for one skirmish of Colonel Wilson’s early in October, and
another of Byng’s on November 14th, there can hardly be said to have been
any actual fighting until the events late in December which I am about to
describe.
In the meanwhile the peaceful organisation of the country was being pushed
forward as rapidly as in the Transvaal, although here the problems
presented were of a different order, and the population an exclusively
Dutch one. The schools already showed a higher attendance than in the days
before the war, while a continual stream of burghers presented themselves
to take the oath of allegiance, and even to join the ranks against their
own irreconcilable countrymen, whom they looked upon with justice as the
real authors of their troubles.
Towards the end of November there were signs that the word had gone forth
for a fresh concentration of the fighting Boers in their old haunts in the
Heilbron district, and early in December it was known that the
indefatigable De Wet was again in the field. He had remained quiet so long
that there had been persistent rumours of his injury and even of his
death, but he was soon to show that he was as alive as ever. President
Steyn was ill of a most serious complaint, caused possibly by the mental
and physical sufferings which he had undergone; but with an indomitable
resolution which makes one forget and forgive the fatuous policy which
brought him and his State to such a pass, he still appeared in his Cape
cart at the laager of the faithful remnant of his commandos. To those who
remembered how widespread was our conviction of the half-heartedness of
the Free Staters at the outbreak of the war, it was indeed a revelation to
see them after two years still making a stand against the forces which had
crushed them.
It had been long evident that the present British tactics of scouring the
country and capturing the isolated burghers must in time bring the war to
a conclusion. From the Boer point of view the only hope, or at least the
only glory, lay in reassembling once more in larger bodies and trying
conclusions with some of the British columns. It was with this purpose
that De Wet early in December assembled Wessels, Manie Botha, and others
of his lieutenants, together with a force of about two thousand men, in
the Heilbron district. Small as this force was, it was admirably mobile,
and every man in it was a veteran, toughened and seasoned by two years of
constant fighting. De Wet’s first operations were directed against an
isolated column of Colonel Wilson’s, which was surrounded within twenty
miles of Heilbron. Rimington, in response to a heliographic call for
assistance, hurried with admirable promptitude to the scene of action, and
joined hands with Wilson. De Wet’s men were as numerous, however, as the
two columns combined, and they harassed the return march into Heilbron. A
determined attack was made on the convoy and on the rearguard, but it was
beaten off. That night Rimington’s camp was fired into by a large body of
Boers, but he had cleverly moved his men away from the fires, so that no
harm was done. The losses in these operations were small, but with troops
which had not been trained in this method of fighting the situation would
have been a serious one. For a fortnight or more after this the burghers
contented themselves by skirmishing with British columns and avoiding a
drive which Elliot’s forces made against them. On December 18th they took
the offensive, however, and within a week fought three actions, two of
which ended in their favour.
News had come to British headquarters that Kaffir’s Kop, to the north-west
of Bethlehem, was a centre of Boer activity. Three columns were therefore
turned in that direction, Elliot’s, Barker’s, and Dartnell’s. Some
desultory skirmishing ensued, which was only remarkable for the death of
Haasbroek, a well-known Boer leader. As the columns separated again,
unable to find an objective, De Wet suddenly showed one of them that their
failure was not due to his absence. Dartnell had retraced his steps nearly
as far as Eland’s River Bridge, when the Boer leader sprang out of his
lair in the Langberg and threw himself upon him. The burghers attempted to
ride in, as they had successfully done at Brakenlaagte, but they were
opposed by the steady old troopers of the two regiments of Imperial Horse,
and by a General who was familiar with every Boer ruse. The horsemen never
got nearer than 150 yards to the British line, and were beaten back by the
steady fire which met them. Finding that he made no headway, and learning
that Campbell’s column was coming up from Bethlehem, De Wet withdrew his
men after four hours’ fighting. Fifteen were hit upon the British side,
and the Boer loss seems to have been certainly as great or greater.
De Wet’s general aim in his operations seems to have been to check the
British blockhouse building. With his main force in the Langberg he could
threaten the line which was now being erected between Bethlehem and
Harrismith, a line against which his main commando was destined, only two
months later, to beat itself in vain. Sixty miles to the north a second
line was being run across country from Frankfort to Standerton, and had
reached a place called Tafelkop. A covering party of East Lancashires and
Yeomanry watched over the workers, but De Wet had left a portion of his
force in that neighbourhood, and they harassed the blockhouse builders to
such an extent that General Hamilton, who was in command, found it
necessary to send in to Frankfort for support. The British columns there
had just returned exhausted from a drive, but three bodies under Damant,
Rimington, and Wilson were at once despatched to clear away the enemy.
The weather was so atrocious that the veld resembled an inland sea, with
the kopjes as islands rising out of it. By this stage of the war the
troops were hardened to all weathers, and they pushed swiftly on to the
scene of action. As they approached the spot where the Boers had been
reported, the line had been extended over many miles, with the result that
it had become very attenuated and dangerously weak in the centre. At this
point Colonel Damant and his small staff were alone with the two guns and
the maxim, save for a handful of Imperial Yeomanry (91st), who acted as
escort to the guns. Across the face of this small force there rode a body
of men in khaki uniforms, keeping British formation, and actually firing
bogus volleys from time to time in the direction of some distant Boers.
Damant and his staff seem to have taken it for granted that these were
Rimington’s men, and the clever ruse succeeded to perfection. Nearer and
nearer came the strangers, and suddenly throwing off all disguise, they
made a dash for the guns. Four rounds of case failed to stop them, and in
a few minutes they were over the kopje on which the guns stood and had
ridden among the gunners, supported in their attack by a flank fire from a
number of dismounted riflemen.
The instant that the danger was realised Damant, his staff, and the forty
Yeomen who formed the escort dashed for the crest in the hope of
anticipating the Boers. So rapid was the charge of the others that they
had overwhelmed the gunners before the supports could reach the hill, and
the latter found themselves under the deadly fire of the Boer rifles from
above. Damant was hit in four places, all of his staff were wounded, and
hardly a man of the small body of Yeomanry was left standing. Nothing
could exceed their gallantry. Gaussen their captain fell at their head. On
the ridge the men about the guns were nearly all killed or wounded. Of the
gun detachment only two men remained, both of them hit, and Jeffcoat their
dying captain bequeathed them fifty pounds each in a will drawn upon the
spot. In half an hour the centre of the British line had been absolutely
annihilated. Modern warfare is on the whole much less bloody than of old,
but when one party has gained the tactical mastery it is a choice between
speedy surrender and total destruction.
The wide-spread British wings had begun to understand that there was
something amiss, and to ride in towards the centre. An officer on the far
right peering through his glasses saw those tell-tale puffs at the very
muzzles of the British guns, which showed that they were firing case at
close quarters. He turned his squadron inwards and soon gathered up
Scott’s squadron of Damant’s Horse, and both rode for the kopje.
Rimington’s men were appearing on the other side, and the Boers rode off.
They were unable to remove the guns which they had taken, because all the
horses had perished. ‘I actually thought,’ says one officer who saw them
ride away, ‘that I had made a mistake and been fighting our own men. They
were dressed in our uniforms and some of them wore the tiger-skin, the
badge of Damant’s Horse, round their hats.’ The same officer gives an
account of the scene on the gun-kopje. ‘The result when we got to the guns
was this, gunners all killed except two (both wounded), pom-pom officers
and men all killed, maxim all killed, 91st (the gun escort) one officer
and one man not hit, all the rest killed or wounded; staff, every officer
hit.’ That is what it means to those who are caught in the vortex of the
cyclone. The total loss was about seventy-five.
In this action the Boers, who were under the command of Wessels, delivered
their attack with a cleverness and dash which deserved success. Their
stratagem, however, depending as it did upon the use of British uniforms
and methods, was illegitimate by all the laws of war, and one can but
marvel at the long-suffering patience of officers and men who endured such
things without any attempt at retaliation. There is too much reason to
believe also, that considerable brutality was shown by those Boers who
carried the kopje, and the very high proportion of killed to wounded among
the British who lay there corroborates the statement of the survivors that
several were shot at close quarters after all resistance had ceased.
This rough encounter of Tafelkop was followed only four days later by a
very much more serious one at Tweefontein, which proved that even after
two years of experience we had not yet sufficiently understood the courage
and the cunning of our antagonist. The blockhouse line was being gradually
extended from Harrismith to Bethlehem, so as to hold down this turbulent
portion of the country. The Harrismith section had been pushed as far as
Tweefontein, which is nine miles west of Elands River Bridge, and here a
small force was stationed to cover the workers. This column consisted of
four squadrons of the 4th Imperial Yeomanry, one gun of the 79th battery,
and one pom-pom, the whole under the temporary command of Major Williams
of the South Staffords, Colonel Firmin being absent.
Knowing that De Wet and his men were in the neighbourhood, the camp of the
Yeomen had been pitched in a position which seemed to secure it against
attack. A solitary kopje presented a long slope to the north, while the
southern end was precipitous. The outposts were pushed well out upon the
plain, and a line of sentries was placed along the crest. The only
precaution which seems to have been neglected was to have other outposts
at the base of the southern declivity. It appears to have been taken for
granted, however, that no attack was to be apprehended from that side, and
that in any case it would be impossible to evade the vigilance of the
sentries upon the top.
Of all the daring and skilful attacks delivered by the Boers during the
war there is certainly none more remarkable than this one. At two o’clock
in the morning of a moonlight night De Wet’s forlorn hope assembled at the
base of the hill and clambered up to the summit. The fact that it was
Christmas Eve may conceivably have had something to do with the want of
vigilance upon the part of the sentries. In a season of good will and
conviviality the rigour of military discipline may insensibly relax.
Little did the sleeping Yeomen in the tents, or the drowsy outposts upon
the crest, think of the terrible Christmas visitors who were creeping on
to them, or of the grim morning gift which Santa Claus was bearing.
The Boers, stealing up in their stockinged feet, poured under the crest
until they were numerous enough to make a rush. It is almost inconceivable
how they could have got so far without their presence being suspected by
the sentries—but so it was. At last, feeling strong enough to
advance, they sprang over the crest and fired into the pickets, and past
them into the sleeping camp. The top of the hill being once gained, there
was nothing to prevent their comrades from swarming up, and in a very few
minutes nearly a thousand Boers were in a position to command the camp.
The British were not only completely outnumbered, but were hurried from
their sleep into the fight without any clear idea as to the danger or how
to meet it, while the hissing sleet of bullets struck many of them down as
they rushed out of their tents. Considering how terrible the ordeal was to
which they were exposed, these untried Yeomen seem to have behaved very
well. ‘Some brave gentlemen ran away at the first shot, but I am thankful
to say they were not many,’ says one of their number. The most veteran
troops would have been tried very high had they been placed in such a
position. ‘The noise and the clamour,’ says one spectator, ‘were awful.
The yells of the Dutch, the screams and shrieks of dying men and horses,
the cries of natives, howls of dogs, the firing, the galloping of horses,
the whistling of bullets, and the whirr volleys make in the air, made up
such a compound of awful and diabolical sounds as I never heard before nor
hope to hear again. In the confusion some of the men killed each other and
some killed themselves. Two Boers who put on helmets were killed by their
own people. The men were given no time to rally or to collect their
thoughts, for the gallant Boers barged right into them, shooting them
down, and occasionally being shot down, at a range of a few yards. Harwich
and Watney, who had charge of the maxim, died nobly with all the men of
their gun section round them. Reed, the sergeant-major, rushed at the
enemy with his clubbed rifle, but was riddled with bullets. Major
Williams, the commander, was shot through the stomach as he rallied his
men. The gunners had time to fire two rounds before they were overpowered
and shot down to a man. For half an hour the resistance was maintained,
but at the end of that time the Boers had the whole camp in their
possession, and were already hastening to get their prisoners away before
the morning should bring a rescue.
The casualties are in themselves enough to show how creditable was the
resistance of the Yeomanry. Out of a force of under four hundred men they
had six officers and fifty-one men killed, eight officers and eighty men
wounded. There have been very few surrenders during the war in which there
has been such evidence as this of a determined stand. Nor was it a
bloodless victory upon the part of the Boers, for there was evidence that
their losses, though less than those of the British, were still severe.
The prisoners, over two hundred in number, were hurried away by the Boers,
who seemed under the immediate eye of De Wet to have behaved with
exemplary humanity to the wounded. The captives were taken by forced
marches to the Basuto border, where they were turned adrift, half clad and
without food. By devious ways and after many adventures, they all made
their way back again to the British lines. It was well for De Wet that he
had shown such promptness in getting away, for within three hours of the
end of the action the two regiments of Imperial Horse appeared upon the
scene, having travelled seventeen miles in the time. Already, however, the
rearguard of the Boers was disappearing into the fastness of the Langberg,
where all pursuit was vain.
Such was the short but vigorous campaign of De Wet in the last part of
December of the year 1901. It had been a brilliant one, but none the less
his bolt was shot, and Tweefontein was the last encounter in which British
troops should feel his heavy hand. His operations, bold as they had been,
had not delayed by a day the building of that iron cage which was
gradually enclosing him. Already it was nearly completed, and in a few
more weeks he was destined to find himself and his commando struggling
against bars.
CHAPTER 37. THE CAMPAIGN OF JANUARY TO APRIL, 1902.
At the opening of the year 1902 it was evident to every observer that the
Boer resistance, spirited as it was, must be nearing its close. By a long
succession of captures their forces were much reduced in numbers. They
were isolated from the world, and had no means save precarious smuggling
of renewing their supplies of ammunition. It was known also that their
mobility, which had been their great strength, was decreasing, and that in
spite of their admirable horsemastership their supply of remounts was
becoming exhausted. An increasing number of the burghers were volunteering
for service against their own people, and it was found that all fears as
to this delicate experiment were misplaced, and that in the whole army
there were no keener and more loyal soldiers.
The chief factor, however, in bringing the Boers to their knees was the
elaborate and wonderful blockhouse system, which had been strung across
the whole of the enemy’s country. The original blockhouses had been far
apart, and were a hindrance and an annoyance rather than an absolute
barrier to the burghers. The new models, however, were only six hundred
yards apart, and were connected by such impenetrable strands of wire that
a Boer pithily described it by saying that if one’s hat blew over the line
anywhere between Ermelo and Standerton one had to walk round Ermelo to
fetch it. Use was made of such barriers by the Spaniards in Cuba, but an
application of them on such a scale over such an enormous tract of country
is one of the curiosities of warfare, and will remain one of several
novelties which will make the South African campaign for ever interesting
to students of military history.
The spines of this great system were always the railway lines, which were
guarded on either side, and down which, as down a road, went flocks,
herds, pedestrians, and everything which wished to travel in safety. From
these long central cords the lines branched out to right and left, cutting
up the great country into manageable districts. A category of them would
but weary the reader, but suffice it that by the beginning of the year the
south-east of the Transvaal and the north-east of the Orange River Colony,
the haunts of Botha and De Wet, had been so intersected that it was
obvious that the situation must soon be impossible for both of them. Only
on the west of the Transvaal was there a clear run for De la Rey and Kemp.
Hence it was expected, as actually occurred, that in this quarter the most
stirring events of the close of the campaign would happen.
General Bruce Hamilton in the Eastern Transvaal had continued the
energetic tactics which had given such good results in the past. With the
new year his number of prisoners fell, but he had taken so many, and had
hustled the remainder to such an extent, that the fight seemed to have
gone out of the Boers in this district. On January 1st he presented the
first-fruits of the year in the shape of twenty-two of Grobler’s burghers.
On the 3rd he captured forty-nine, while Wing, co-operating with him, took
twenty more. Among these was General Erasmus, who had helped, or failed to
help, General Lucas Meyer at Talana Hill. On the 10th Colonel Wing’s
column, which was part of Hamilton’s force, struck out again and took
forty-two prisoners, including the two Wolmarans. Only two days later
Hamilton returned to the same spot, and was rewarded with thirty-two more
captures. On the 18th he took twenty-seven, on the 24th twelve, and on the
26th no fewer than ninety. So severe were these blows, and so difficult
was it for the Boers to know how to get away from an antagonist who was
ready to ride thirty miles in a night in order to fall upon their laager,
that the enemy became much scattered and too demoralised for offensive
operations. Finding that they had grown too shy in this much shot over
district, Hamilton moved farther south, and early in March took a cast
round the Vryheid district, where he made some captures, notably General
Cherry Emmett, a descendant of the famous Irish rebel, and brother-in-law
of Louis Botha. For all these repeated successes it was to the
Intelligence Department, so admirably controlled by Colonel Wools-Sampson,
that thanks are mainly due.
Whilst Bruce Hamilton was operating so successfully in the Ermelo
district, several British columns under Plumer, Spens, and Colville were
stationed some fifty miles south to prevent the fugitives from getting
away into the mountainous country which lies to the north of Wakkerstroom.
On January 3rd a small force of Plumer’s New Zealanders had a brisk
skirmish with a party of Boers, whose cattle they captured, though at some
loss to themselves. These Boers were strongly reinforced, however, and
when on the following day Major Vallentin pursued them with fifty men he
found himself at Onverwacht in the presence of several hundred of the
enemy, led by Oppermann and Christian Botha. Vallentin was killed and
almost all of his small force were hit before British reinforcements,
under Colonel Pulteney, drove the Boers off. Nineteen killed and
twenty-three wounded were our losses in this most sanguinary little
skirmish. Nine dead Boers, with Oppermann himself, were left upon the
field of battle. His loss was a serious one to the enemy, as he was one of
their most experienced Generals.
From that time until the end these columns, together with Mackenzie’s
column to the north of Ermelo, continued to break up all combinations, and
to send in their share of prisoners to swell Lord Kitchener’s weekly list.
A final drive, organised on April 11th against the Standerton line,
resulted in 134 prisoners.
In spite of the very large army in South Africa, so many men were absorbed
by the huge lines of communications and the blockhouse system that the
number available for active operations was never more than forty or fifty
thousand men. With another fifty thousand there is no doubt that at least
six months would have been taken from the duration of the war. On account
of this shorthandedness Lord Kitchener had to leave certain districts
alone, while he directed his attention to those which were more essential.
Thus to the north of the Delagoa Railway line there was only one town,
Lydenburg, which was occupied by the British. They had, however, an
energetic commander in Park of the Devons. This leader, striking out from
his stronghold among the mountains, and aided by Urmston from Belfast,
kept the commando of Ben Viljoen and the peripatetic Government of Schalk
Burger continually upon the move. As already narrated, Park fought a sharp
night action upon December 19th, after which, in combination with Urmston,
he occupied Dulstroom, only missing the government by a few hours. In
January Park and Urmston were again upon the war-path, though the
incessant winds, fogs, and rains of that most inclement portion of the
Transvaal seriously hampered their operations. Several skirmishes with the
commandos of Muller and Trichardt gave no very decisive result, but a
piece of luck befell the British on January 25th in the capture of General
Viljoen by an ambuscade cleverly arranged by Major Orr in the
neighbourhood of Lydenburg. Though a great firebrand before the war,
Viljoen had fought bravely and honourably throughout the contest, and he
had won the respect and esteem of his enemy.
Colonel Park had had no great success in his last two expeditions, but on
February 20th he made an admirable march, and fell upon a Boer laager
which lay in placid security in the heart of the hills. One hundred and
sixty-four prisoners, including many Boer officers, were the fruits of
this success, in which the National Scouts, or ‘tame Boers,’ as they were
familiarly called, played a prominent part. This commando was that of
Middelburg, which was acting as escort to the government, who again
escaped dissolution. Early in March Park was again out on trek, upon one
occasion covering seventy miles in a single day. Nothing further of
importance came from this portion of the seat of war until March 23rd,
when the news reached England that Schalk Burger, Reitz, Lucas Meyer, and
others of the Transvaal Government had come into Middelburg, and that they
were anxious to proceed to Pretoria to treat. On the Eastern horizon had
appeared the first golden gleam of the dawning peace.
Having indicated the course of events in the Eastern Transvaal, north and
south of the railway line, I will now treat one or two incidents which
occurred in the more central and northern portions of the country. I will
then give some account of De Wet’s doings in the Orange River Colony, and
finally describe that brilliant effort of De la Rey’s in the west which
shed a last glory upon the Boer arms.
In the latter days of December, Colenbrander and Dawkins operating
together had put in a great deal of useful work in the northern district,
and from Nylstrom to Pietersburg the burghers were continually harried by
the activity of these leaders. Late in the month Dawkins was sent down
into the Orange River Colony in order to reinforce the troops who were
opposed to De Wet. Colenbrander alone, with his hardy colonial forces,
swept through the Magaliesburg, and had the double satisfaction of
capturing a number of the enemy and of heading off and sending back a war
party of Linchwe’s Kaffirs who, incensed by a cattle raid of Kemp’s, were
moving down in a direction which would have brought them dangerously near
to the Dutch women and children. This instance and several similar ones in
the campaign show how vile are the lies which have been told of the use,
save under certain well-defined conditions, of armed natives by the
British during the war. It would have been a perfectly easy thing at any
time for the Government to have raised all the fighting native races of
South Africa, but it is not probable that we, who held back our admirable
and highly disciplined Sikhs and Ghoorkas, would break our self-imposed
restrictions in order to enrol the inferior but more savage races of
Africa. Yet no charge has been more often repeated and has caused more
piteous protests among the soft-hearted and soft-headed editors of
Continental journals.
The absence of Colenbrander in the Rustenburg country gave Beyers a chance
of which he was not slow to avail himself. On January 24th, in the early
morning, he delivered an attack upon Pietersburg itself, but he was easily
driven off by the small garrison. It is probable, however, that the attack
was a mere feint in order to enable a number of the inmates of the refugee
camp to escape. About a hundred and fifty made off, and rejoined the
commandos. There were three thousand Boers in all in this camp, which was
shortly afterwards moved down to Natal in order to avoid the recurrence of
such an incident.
Colenbrander, having returned to Pietersburg once more, determined to
return Beyers’s visit, and upon April 8th he moved out with a small force
to surprise the Boer laager. The Inniskilling Fusiliers seized the ground
which commanded the enemy’s position. The latter retreated, but were
followed up, and altogether about one hundred and fifty were killed,
wounded, and taken. On May 3rd a fresh operation against Beyers was
undertaken, and resulted in about the same loss to the Boers. On the other
hand, the Boers had a small success against Kitchener’s Scouts, killing
eighteen and taking thirty prisoners.
There is one incident, however, in connection with the war in this region
which one would desire to pass over in silence if such a course were
permissible. Some eighty miles to the east of Pietersburg is a wild part
of the country called the Spelonken. In this region an irregular corps,
named the Bushveld Carbineers, had been operating. It was raised in South
Africa, but contained both Colonials and British in its ranks. Its wild
duties, its mixed composition, and its isolated situation must have all
militated against discipline and restraint, and it appears to have
degenerated into a band not unlike those Southern ‘bush-whackers’ in the
American war to whom the Federals showed little mercy. They had given
short shrift to the Boer prisoners who had fallen into their hands, the
excuse offered for their barbarous conduct being that an officer who had
served in the corps had himself been murdered by the Boers. Such a reason,
even if it were true, could of course offer no justification for
indiscriminate revenge. The crimes were committed in July and August 1901,
but it was not until January 1902 that five of the officers were put upon
their trial and were found to be guilty as principals or accessories of
twelve murders. The corps was disbanded, and three of the accused
officers, Handcock, Wilton, and Morant, were sentenced to death, while
another, Picton, was cashiered. Handcock and Morant were actually
executed. This stern measure shows more clearly than volumes of argument
could do how high was the standard of discipline in the British Army, and
how heavy was the punishment, and how vain all excuses, where it had been
infringed. In the face of this actual outrage and its prompt punishment
how absurd becomes that crusade against imaginary outrages preached by an
ignorant press abroad, and by renegade Englishmen at home.
To the south of Johannesburg, half-way between that town and the frontier,
there is a range of hills called the Zuikerboschrand, which extends across
from one railway system to the other. A number of Boers were known to have
sought refuge in this country, so upon February 12th a small British force
left Klip River Post in order to clear them out. There were 320 men in
all, composing the 28th Mounted Infantry, drawn from the Lancashire
Fusiliers, Warwicks, and Derbys, most of whom had just arrived from Malta,
which one would certainly imagine to be the last place where mounted
infantry could be effectively trained. Major Dowell was in command. An
advance was made into the hilly country, but it was found that the enemy
was in much greater force than had been imagined. The familiar Boer
tactics were used with the customary success. The British line was held by
a sharp fire in front, while strong flanking parties galloped round each
of the wings. It was with great difficulty that any of the British
extricated themselves from their perilous position, and the safety of a
portion of the force was only secured by the devotion of a handful of
officers and men, who gave their lives in order to gain time for their
comrades to get away. Twelve killed and fifty wounded were our losses in
this unfortunate skirmish, and about one hundred prisoners supplied the
victors with a useful addition to their rifles and ammunition. A stronger
British force came up next day, and the enemy were driven out of the
hills.
A week later, upon February 18th, there occurred another skirmish at
Klippan, near Springs, between a squadron of the Scots Greys and a party
of Boers who had broken into this central reserve which Lord Kitchener had
long kept clear of the enemy. In this action the cavalry were treated as
roughly as the mounted infantry had been the week before, losing three
officers killed, eight men killed or wounded, and forty-six taken. They
had formed a flanking party to General Gilbert Hamilton’s column, but were
attacked and overwhelmed so rapidly that the blow had fallen before their
comrades could come to their assistance.
One of the consequences of the successful drives about to be described in
the Orange River Colony was that a number of the Free Staters came north
of the Vaal in order to get away from the extreme pressure upon the south.
At the end of March a considerable number had reinforced the local
commandos in that district to the east of Springs, no very great distance
from Johannesburg, which had always been a storm centre. A cavalry force
was stationed at this spot which consisted at that time of the 2nd Queen’s
Bays, the 7th Hussars, and some National Scouts, all under Colonel Lawley
of the Hussars. After a series of minor engagements east of Springs,
Lawley had possessed himself of Boschman’s Kop, eighteen miles from that
town, close to the district which was the chief scene of Boer activity.
From this base he despatched upon the morning of April 1st three squadrons
of the Bays under Colonel Fanshawe, for the purpose of surprising a small
force of the enemy which was reported at one of the farms. Fanshawe’s
strength was about three hundred men.
The British cavalry found themselves, however, in the position of the
hunter who, when he is out for a snipe, puts up a tiger. All went well
with the expedition as far as Holspruit, the farm which they had started
to search. Commandant Pretorius, to whom it belonged, was taken by the
energy of Major Vaughan, who pursued and overtook his Cape cart. It was
found, however, that Alberts’s commando was camped at the farm, and that
the Bays were in the presence of a very superior force of the enemy. The
night was dark, and when firing began it was almost muzzle to muzzle, with
the greatest possible difficulty in telling friend from foe. The three
squadrons fell back upon some rising ground, keeping admirable order under
most difficult circumstances. In spite of the darkness the attack was
pressed fiercely home, and with their favourite tactics the burghers
rapidly outflanked the position taken up by the cavalry. The British moved
by alternate squadrons on to a higher rocky kopje on the east, which could
be vaguely distinguished looming in the darkness against the skyline. B
squadron, the last to retire, was actually charged and ridden through by
the brave assailants, firing from their saddles as they broke through the
ranks. The British had hardly time to reach the kopje and to dismount and
line its edge when the Boers, yelling loudly, charged with their horses up
the steep flanks. Twice they were beaten back, but the third time they
seized one corner of the hill and opened a hot fire upon the rear of the
line of men who were defending the other side. Dawn was now breaking, and
the situation most serious, for the Boers were in very superior numbers
and were pushing their pursuit with the utmost vigour and determination. A
small party of officers and men whose horses had been shot covered the
retreat of their comrades, and continued to fire until all of them, two
officers and twenty-three men, were killed or wounded, the whole of their
desperate defence being conducted within from thirty to fifty yards of the
enemy. The remainder of the regiment was now retired to successive ridges,
each of which was rapidly outflanked by the Boers, whose whole method of
conducting their attack was extraordinarily skilful. Nothing but the
excellent discipline of the overmatched troopers prevented the retreat
from becoming a rout. Fortunately, before the pressure became intolerable
the 7th Hussars with some artillery came to the rescue, and turned the
tide. The Hussars galloped in with such dash that some of them actually
got among the Boers with their swords, but the enemy rapidly fell back and
disappeared.
In this very sharp and sanguinary cavalry skirmish the Bays lost eighty
killed and wounded out of a total force of 270. To stand such losses under
such circumstances, and to preserve absolute discipline and order, is a
fine test of soldierly virtue. The adjutant, the squadron leaders, and six
out of ten officers were killed or wounded. The Boers lost equally
heavily. Two Prinsloos, one of them a commandant, and three field-cornets
were among the slain, with seventy other casualties. The force under
General Alberts was a considerable one, not fewer than six hundred rifles,
so that the action at Holspruit is one which adds another name of honour
to the battle-roll of the Bays. It is pleasing to add that in this and the
other actions which were fought at the end of the war our wounded met with
kindness and consideration from the enemy.
We may now descend to the Orange River Colony and trace the course of
those operations which were destined to break the power of De Wet’s
commando. On these we may concentrate our attention, for the marchings and
gleanings and snipings of the numerous small columns in the other portions
of the colony, although they involved much arduous and useful work, do not
claim a particular account.
After the heavy blow which he dealt Firmin’s Yeomanry, De Wet retired, as
has been told, into the Langberg, whence he afterwards retreated towards
Reitz. There he was energetically pushed by Elliot’s columns, which had
attained such mobility that 150 miles were performed in three days within
a single week. Our rough schoolmasters had taught us our lesson, and the
soldiering which accomplished the marches of Bruce Hamilton, Elliot,
Rimington, and the other leaders of the end of the war was very far
removed from that which is associated with ox-wagons and harmoniums.
Moving rapidly, and covering himself by a succession of rearguard
skirmishes, De Wet danced like a will-o’the-wisp in front of and round the
British columns. De Lisle, Fanshawe, Byng, Rimington, Dawkins, and
Rawlinson were all snatching at him and finding him just beyond their
finger-tips. The master-mind at Pretoria had, however, thought out a
scheme which was worthy of De Wet himself in its ingenuity. A glance at
the map will show that the little branch from Heilbron to Wolvehoek forms
an acute angle with the main line. Both these railways were strongly
blockhoused and barbed-wired, so that any force which was driven into the
angle, and held in it by a force behind it, would be in a perilous
position. To attempt to round De Wet’s mobile burghers into this obvious
pen would have been to show one’s hand too clearly. In vain is the net
laid in sight of the bird. The drive was therefore made away from this
point, with the confident expectation that the guerilla chief would break
back through the columns, and that they might then pivot round upon him
and hustle him so rapidly into the desired position that he would not
realise his danger until it was too late. Byng’s column was left behind
the driving line to be ready for the expected backward break. All came off
exactly as expected. De Wet doubled back through the columns, and one of
his commandos stumbled upon Byng’s men, who were waiting on the Vlei River
to the west of Reitz. The Boers seem to have taken it for granted that,
having passed the British driving line, they were out of danger, and for
once it was they who were surprised. The South African Light Horse, the
New Zealanders, and the Queensland Bushmen all rode in upon them. A
fifteen-pounder, the one taken at Tweefontein, and two pom-poms were
captured, with thirty prisoners and a considerable quantity of stores.
This successful skirmish was a small matter, however, compared to the
importance of being in close touch with De Wet and having a definite
objective for the drive. The columns behind expanded suddenly into a spray
of mounted men forming a continuous line for over sixty miles. On February
5th the line was advancing, and on the 6th it was known that De Wet was
actually within the angle, the mouth of which was spanned by the British
line. Hope ran high in Pretoria. The space into which the burgher chief
had been driven was bounded by sixty-six miles of blockhouse and wire on
one side and thirty on the other, while the third side of the triangle was
crossed by fifty-five miles of British horsemen, flanked by a blockhouse
line between Kroonstad and Lindley. The tension along the lines of defence
was extreme. Infantry guarded every yard of them, and armoured trains
patrolled them, while at night searchlights at regular intervals shed
their vivid rays over the black expanse of the veld and illuminated the
mounted figures who flitted from time to time across their narrow belts of
light.
On the 6th De Wet realised his position, and with characteristic audacity
and promptness he took means to clear the formidable toils which had been
woven round him. The greater part of his command scattered, with orders to
make their way as best they might out of the danger. Working in their own
country, where every crease and fold of the ground was familiar to them,
it is not surprising that most of them managed to make their way through
gaps in the attenuated line of horsemen behind them. A few were killed,
and a considerable number taken, 270 being the respectable total of the
prisoners. Three or four slipped through, however, for every one who stuck
in the meshes. De Wet himself was reported to have made his escape by
driving cattle against the wire fences which enclosed him. It seems,
however, to have been nothing more romantic than a wire-cutter which
cleared his path, though cattle no doubt made their way through the gap
which he left. With a loss of only three of his immediate followers be Wet
won his way out of the most dangerous position which even his adventurous
career had ever known. Lord Kitchener had descended to Wolvehoek to be
present at the climax of the operations, but it was not fated that he was
to receive the submission of the most energetic of his opponents, and he
returned to Pretoria to weave a fresh mesh around him.
This was not hard to do, as the Boer General had simply escaped from one
pen into another, though a larger one. After a short rest to restore the
columns, the whole pack were full cry upon his heels once more. An acute
angle is formed by the Wilge River on one side and the line of blockhouses
between Harrismith and Van Reenen upon the other. This was strongly manned
by troops and five columns; those of Rawlinson, Nixon, Byng, Rimington,
and Keir herded the broken commandos into the trap. From February 20th the
troops swept in an enormous skirmish line across the country, ascending
hills, exploring kloofs, searching river banks, and always keeping the
enemy in front of them. At last, when the pressure was severely felt,
there came the usual breakback, which took the form of a most determined
night attack upon the British line. This was delivered shortly after
midnight on February 23rd. It struck the British cordon at the point of
juncture between Byng’s column and that of Rimington. So huge were the
distances which had to be covered, and so attenuated was the force which
covered them, that the historical thin red line was a massive formation
compared to its khaki equivalent. The chain was frail and the links were
not all carefully joined, but each particular link was good metal, and the
Boer impact came upon one of the best. This was the 7th New Zealand
Contingent, who proved themselves to be worthy comrades to their six
gallant predecessors. Their patrols were broken by the rush of wild,
yelling, firing horsemen, but the troopers made a most gallant resistance.
Having pierced the line the Boers, who were led in their fiery rush by
Manie Botha, turned to their flank, and, charging down the line of weak
patrols, overwhelmed one after another and threatened to roll up the whole
line. They had cleared a gap of half a mile, and it seemed as if the whole
Boer force would certainly escape through so long a gap in the defences.
The desperate defence of the New Zealanders gave time, however, for the
further patrols, which consisted of Cox’s New South Wales Mounted
Infantry, to fall back almost at right angles so as to present a fresh
face to the attack. The pivot of the resistance was a maxim gun, most
gallantly handled by Captain Begbie and his men. The fight at this point
was almost muzzle to muzzle, fifty or sixty New Zealanders and Australians
with the British gunners holding off a force of several hundred of the
best fighting men of the Boer forces. In this desperate duel many dropped
on both sides. Begbie died beside his gun, which fired eighty rounds
before it jammed. It was run back by its crew in order to save it from
capture. But reinforcements were coming up, and the Boer attack was beaten
back. A number of them had escaped, however, through the opening which
they had cleared, and it was conjectured that the wonderful De Wet was
among them. How fierce was the storm which had broken on the New
Zealanders may be shown by their roll of twenty killed and forty wounded,
while thirty dead Boers were picked up in front of their picket line. Of
eight New Zealand officers seven are reported to have been hit, an even
higher proportion than that which the same gallant race endured at the
battle of Rhenoster Kop more than a year before.
It was feared at first that the greater part of the Boers might have
escaped upon this night of the 23rd, when Manie Botha’s storming party
burst through the ranks of the New Zealanders. It was soon discovered that
this was not so, and the columns as they closed in had evidence from the
numerous horsemen who scampered aimlessly over the hills in front of them
that the main body of the enemy was still in the toils. The advance was in
tempestuous weather and over rugged country, but the men were filled with
eagerness, and no precaution was neglected to keep the line intact.
This time their efforts were crowned with considerable success. A second
attempt was made by the corraled burghers to break out on the night of
February 26th, but it was easily repulsed by Nixon. The task of the
troopers as the cordon drew south was more and more difficult, and there
were places traversed upon the Natal border where an alpen stock would
have been a more useful adjunct than a horse. At six o’clock on the
morning of the 27th came the end. Two Boers appeared in front of the
advancing line of the Imperial Light Horse and held up a flag. They proved
to be Truter and De Jager, ready to make terms for their commando. The
only terms offered were absolute surrender within the hour. The Boers had
been swept into a very confined space, which was closely hemmed in by
troops, so that any resistance must have ended in a tragedy. Fortunately
there was no reason for desperate councils in their case, since they did
not fight as Lotter had done, with the shadow of judgment hanging over
him. The burghers piled arms, and all was over.
The total number captured in this important drive was 780 men, including
several leaders, one of whom was De Wet’s own son. It was found that De
Wet himself had been among those who had got away through the picket lines
on the night of the 23rd. Most of the commando were Transvaalers, and it
was typical of the wide sweep of the net that many of them were the men
who had been engaged against the 28th Mounted Infantry in the district
south of Johannesburg upon the 12th of the same month. The loss of 2000
horses and 50,000 cartridges meant as much as that of the men to the Boer
army. It was evident that a few more such blows would clear the Orange
River Colony altogether.
The wearied troopers were allowed little rest, for in a couple of days
after their rendezvous at Harrismith they were sweeping back again to pick
up all that they had missed. This drive, which was over the same ground,
but sweeping backwards towards the Heilbron to Wolvehoek line, ended in
the total capture of 147 of the enemy, who were picked out of holes,
retrieved from amid the reeds of the river, called down out of trees, or
otherwise collected. So thorough were the operations that it is recorded
that the angle which formed the apex of the drive was one drove of game
upon the last day, all the many types of antelope, which form one of the
characteristics and charms of the country, having been herded into it.
More important even than the results of the drive was the discovery of one
of De Wet’s arsenals in a cave in the Vrede district. Half-way down a
precipitous krantz, with its mouth covered by creepers, no writer of
romance could have imagined a more fitting headquarters for a guerilla
chief. The find was made by Ross’s Canadian Scouts, who celebrated
Dominion Day by this most useful achievement. Forty wagon-loads of
ammunition and supplies were taken out of the cave. De Wet was known to
have left the north-east district, and to have got across the railway,
travelling towards the Vaal as if it were his intention to join De la Rey
in the Transvaal. The Boer resistance had suddenly become exceedingly
energetic in that part, and several important actions had been fought, to
which we will presently turn.
Before doing so it would be as well to bring the chronicle of events in
the Orange River Colony down to the conclusion of peace. There were still
a great number of wandering Boers in the northern districts and in the
frontier mountains, who were assiduously, but not always successfully,
hunted down by the British troops. Much arduous and useful work was done
by several small columns, the Colonial Horse and the Artillery Mounted
Rifles especially distinguishing themselves. The latter corps, formed from
the gunners whose field-pieces were no longer needed, proved themselves to
be a most useful body of men; and the British gunner, when he took to
carrying his gun, vindicated the reputation which he had won when his gun
had carried him.
From the 1st to the 4th of May a successful drive was conducted by many
columns in the often harried but never deserted Lindley to Kroonstad
district. The result was propitious, as no fewer than 321 prisoners were
brought in. Of these, 150 under Mentz were captured in one body as they
attempted to break through the encircling cordon.
Amid many small drives and many skirmishes, one stands out for its
severity. It is remarkable as being the last action of any importance in
the campaign. This was the fight at Moolman’s Spruit, near Ficksburg, upon
April 20th, 1902. A force of about one hundred Yeomanry and forty Mounted
Infantry (South Staffords) was despatched by night to attack an isolated
farm in which a small body of Boers was supposed to be sleeping. Colonel
Perceval was in command. The farm was reached after a difficult march, but
the enemy were found to have been forewarned, and to be in much greater
strength than was anticipated. A furious fire was opened on the advancing
troops, who were clearly visible in the light of a full moon. Sir Thomas
Fowler was killed and several men of the Yeomanry were hit. The British
charged up to the very walls, but were unable to effect an entrance, as
the place was barricaded and loopholed. Captain Blackwood, of the
Staffords, was killed in the attack. Finding that the place was
impregnable, and that the enemy outnumbered him, Colonel Perceval gave the
order to retire, a movement which was only successfully carried out
because the greater part of the Boer horses had been shot. By morning the
small British force had extricated itself, from its perilous position with
a total loss of six killed, nineteen wounded, and six missing. The whole
affair was undoubtedly a cleverly planned Boer ambush, and the small force
was most fortunate in escaping destruction.
One other isolated incident may be mentioned here, though it occurred far
away in the Vryheid district of the Transvaal. This was the unfortunate
encounter between Zulus and Boers by which the latter lost over fifty of
their numbers under deplorable circumstances. This portion of the
Transvaal has only recently been annexed, and is inhabited by warlike
Zulus, who are very different from the debased Kaffirs of the rest of the
country. These men had a blood-feud against the Boers, which was
embittered by the fact that they had lost heavily through Boer
depredations. Knowing that a party of fifty-nine men were sleeping in a
farmhouse, the Zulus crept on to it and slaughtered every man of the
inmates. Such an incident is much to be regretted, and yet, looking back
upon the long course of the war, and remembering the turbulent tribes who
surrounded the combatants—Swazis, Basutos, and Zulus—we may
well congratulate ourselves that we have been able to restrain those black
warriors, and to escape the brutalities and the bitter memories of a
barbarian invasion.
CHAPTER 38. DE LA REY’S CAMPAIGN OF 1902.
IT will be remembered that at the close of 1901 Lord Methuen and Colonel
Kekewich had both come across to the eastern side of their district and
made their base at the railway line in the Klerksdorp section. Their
position was strengthened by the fact that a blockhouse cordon now ran
from Klerksdorp to Ventersdorp, and from Ventersdorp to Potchefstroom, so
that this triangle could be effectively controlled. There remained,
however, a huge tract of difficult country which was practically in the
occupation of the enemy. Several thousand stalwarts were known to be
riding with De la Rey and his energetic lieutenant Kemp. The strenuous
operations of the British in the Eastern Transvaal and in the Orange River
Colony had caused this district to be comparatively neglected, and so
everything was in favour of an aggressive movement of the Boers. There was
a long lull after the unsuccessful attack upon Kekewich’s camp at
Moedwill, but close observers of the war distrusted this ominous calm and
expected a storm to follow.
The new year found the British connecting Ventersdorp with Tafelkop by a
blockhouse line. The latter place had been a centre of Boer activity.
Colonel Hickie’s column covered this operation. Meanwhile Methuen had
struck across through Wolmaranstad as far as Vryburg. In these operations,
which resulted in constant small captures, he was assisted by a column
under Major Paris working from Kimberley. From Vryburg Lord Methuen made
his way in the middle of January to Lichtenburg, meeting with a small
rebuff in the neighbourhood of that town, for a detachment of Yeomanry was
overwhelmed by General Celliers, who killed eight, wounded fifteen, and
captured forty. From Lichtenburg Lord Methuen continued his enormous trek,
and arrived on February 1st at Klerksdorp once more. Little rest was given
to his hard-worked troops, and they were sent off again within the week
under the command of Von Donop, with the result that on February 8th, near
Wolmaranstad, they captured Potgieter’s laager with forty Boer prisoners.
Von Donop remained at Wolmaranstad until late in February; On the 23rd he
despatched an empty convoy back to Klerksdorp, the fate of which will be
afterwards narrated.
Kekewich and Hickie had combined their forces at the beginning of
February. On February 4th an attempt was made by them to surprise General
De la Rey. The mounted troops who were despatched under Major Leader
failed in this enterprise, but they found and overwhelmed the laager of
Sarel Alberts, capturing 132 prisoners. By stampeding the horses the Boer
retreat was cut off, and the attack was so furiously driven home,
especially by the admirable Scottish Horse, that few of the enemy got
away. Alberts himself with all his officers were among the prisoners. From
this time until the end of February this column was not seriously engaged.
It has been stated above that on February 23rd Von Donop sent in an empty
convoy from Wolmaranstad to Klerksdorp, a distance of about fifty miles.
Nothing had been heard for some time of De la Rey, but he had called
together his men and was waiting to bring off some coup. The convoy gave
him the very opportunity for which he sought.
The escort of the convoy consisted of the 5th Imperial Yeomanry, sixty of
Paget’s Horse, three companies of the ubiquitous Northumberland Fusiliers,
two guns of the 4th R.F.A., and a pom-pom, amounting in all to 630 men.
Colonel Anderson was in command. On the morning of Tuesday, February 25th,
the convoy was within ten miles of its destination, and the sentries on
the kopjes round the town could see the gleam of the long line of
white-tilted wagons. Their hazardous voyage was nearly over, and yet they
were destined to most complete and fatal wreck within sight of port. So
confident were they that the detachment of Paget’s Horse was permitted to
ride on the night before into the town. It was as well, for such a handful
would have shared and could not have averted the disaster.
The night had been dark and wet, and the Boers under cover of it had crept
between the sleeping convoy and the town. Some bushes which afford
excellent cover lie within a few hundred yards of the road, and here the
main ambush was laid. In the first grey of the morning the long line of
the convoy, 130 wagons in all, came trailing past—guns and Yeomanry
in front, Fusiliers upon the flanks and rear. Suddenly the black bank of
scrub was outlined in flame, and a furious rifle fire was opened upon the
head of the column. The troops behaved admirably under most difficult
circumstances. A counter-attack by the Fusiliers and some of the Yeomanry,
under cover of shrapnel from the guns, drove the enemy out of the scrub
and silenced his fire at this point. It was evident, however, that he was
present in force, for firing soon broke out along the whole left flank,
and the rearguard found itself as warmly attacked as the van. Again,
however, the assailants were driven off. It was now broad daylight, and
the wagons, which had got into great confusion in the first turmoil of
battle, had been remarshalled and arranged. It was Colonel Anderson’s hope
that he might be able to send them on into safety while he with the escort
covered their retreat. His plan was certainly the best one, and if it did
not succeed it was due to nothing which he could avert, but to the nature
of the ground and the gallantry of the enemy.
The physical obstacle consisted in a very deep and difficult spruit, the
Jagd Spruit, which forms an ugly passage in times of peace, but which when
crowded and choked with stampeding mules and splintering wagons, under
their terrified conductors, soon became impassable. Here the head of the
column was clubbed and the whole line came to a stand. Meanwhile the
enemy, adopting their new tactics, came galloping in on the left flank and
on the rear. The first attack was repelled by the steady fire of the
Fusiliers, but on the second occasion the horsemen got up to the wagons,
and galloping down them were able to overwhelm in detail the little knots
of soldiers who were scattered along the flank. The British, who were
outnumbered by at least three to one, made a stout resistance, and it was
not until seven o’clock that the last shot was fired. The result was a
complete success to the burghers, but one which leaves no shadow of
discredit on any officer or man among those who were engaged. Eleven
officers and 176 men fell out of about 550 actually engaged. The two guns
were taken. The convoy was no use to the Boers, so the teams were shot and
the wagons burned before they withdrew. The prisoners too, they were
unable to retain, and their sole permanent trophies consisted of the two
guns, the rifles, and the ammunition. Their own losses amounted to about
fifty killed and wounded.
A small force sallied out from Klerksdorp in the hope of helping Anderson,
but on reaching the Jagd Drift it was found that the fighting was over and
that the field was in possession of the Boers. De la Rey was seen in
person among the burghers, and it is pleasant to add that he made himself
conspicuous by his humanity to the wounded. His force drew off in the
course of the morning, and was soon out of reach of immediate pursuit,
though this was attempted by Kekewich, Von Donop, and Grenfell. It was
important to regain the guns if possible, as they were always a menace to
the blockhouse system, and for this purpose Grenfell with sixteen hundred
horsemen was despatched to a point south of Lichtenburg, which was
conjectured to be upon the Boer line of retreat. At the same time Lord
Methuen was ordered up from Vryburg in order to cooperate in this
movement, and to join his forces to those of Grenfell. It was obvious that
with an energetic and resolute adversary like De la Rey there was great
danger of these two forces being taken in detail, but it was hoped that
each was strong enough to hold its own until the other could come to its
aid. The result was to show that the danger was real and the hope
fallacious.
It was on March 2nd that Methuen left Vryburg. The column was not his old
one, consisting of veterans of the trek, but was the Kimberley column
under Major Paris, a body of men who had seen much less service and were
in every way less reliable. It included a curious mixture of units, the
most solid of which were four guns (two of the 4th, and two of the 38th
R.F.A.), 200 Northumberland Fusiliers, and 100 Loyal North Lancashires.
The mounted men included 5th Imperial Yeomanry (184), Cape Police (233),
Cullinan’s Horse (64), 86th Imperial Yeomanry (110), Diamond Fields Horse
(92), Dennison’ s Scouts (58), Ashburner’s Horse (126), and British South
African Police (24). Such a collection of samples would be more in place,
one would imagine, in a London procession than in an operation which
called for discipline and cohesion. In warfare the half is often greater
than the whole, and the presence of a proportion of halfhearted and
inexperienced men may be a positive danger to their more capable
companions.
Upon March 6th Methuen, marching east towards Lichtenburg, came in touch
near Leeuwspruit with Van Zyl’s commando, and learned in the small
skirmish which ensued that some of his Yeomanry were unreliable and
ill-instructed. Having driven the enemy off by his artillery fire, Methuen
moved to Tweebosch, where he laagered until next morning. At 3 A.M. of the
7th the ox-convoy was sent on, under escort of half of his little force.
The other half followed at 4. 20, so as to give the slow-moving oxen a
chance of keeping ahead. It was evident, however, immediately after the
column had got started that the enemy were all round in great numbers, and
that an attack in force was to be expected. Lord Methuen gave orders
therefore that the ox-wagons should be halted and that the mule-transport
should close upon them so as to form one solid block, instead of a
straggling line. At the same time he reinforced his rearguard with mounted
men and with two guns, for it was in that quarter that the enemy appeared
to be most numerous and aggressive. An attack was also developing upon the
right flank, which was held off by the infantry and by the second section
of the guns.
It has been said that Methuen’s horsemen were for the most part
inexperienced irregulars. Such men become in time excellent soldiers, as
all this campaign bears witness, but it is too much to expose them to a
severe ordeal in the open field when they are still raw and untrained. As
it happened, this particular ordeal was exceedingly severe, but nothing
can excuse the absolute failure of the troops concerned to rise to the
occasion. Had Methuen’s rearguard consisted of Imperial Light Horse, or
Scottish Horse, it is safe to say that the battle of Tweebosch would have
had a very different ending.
What happened was that a large body of Boers formed up in five lines and
charged straight home at the rear screen and rearguard, firing from their
saddles as they had done at Brakenlaagte. The sight of those wide-flung
lines of determined men galloping over the plain seems to have been too
much for the nerves of the unseasoned troopers. A panic spread through
their ranks, and in an instant they had turned their horses’ heads and
were thundering to their rear, leaving the two guns uncovered and
streaming in wild confusion past the left flank of the jeering infantry
who were lying round the wagons. The limit of their flight seems to have
been the wind of their horses, and most of them never drew rein until they
had placed many miles between themselves and the comrades whom they had
deserted. ‘It was pitiable,’ says an eye-witness, ‘to see the grand old
General begging them to stop, but they would not; a large body of them
arrived in Kraaipan without firing a shot,’ It was a South African ‘Battle
of the Spurs.’
By this defection of the greater portion of the force the handful of brave
men who remained were left in a hopeless position. The two guns of the
38th battery were overwhelmed and ridden over by the Boer horsemen, every
man being killed or wounded, including Lieutenant Nesham, who acted up to
the highest traditions of his corps.
The battle, however, was not yet over. The infantry were few in number,
but they were experienced troops, and they maintained the struggle for
some hours in the face of overwhelming numbers. Two hundred of the
Northumberland Fusiliers lay round the wagons and held the Boers off from
their prey. With them were the two remaining guns, which were a mark for a
thousand Boer riflemen. It was while encouraging by his presence and
example the much-tried gunners of this section that the gallant Methuen
was wounded by a bullet which broke the bone of his thigh. Lieutenant
Venning and all the detachment fell with their General round the guns.
An attempt had been made to rally some of the flying troopers at a
neighbouring kraal, and a small body of Cape Police and Yeomanry under the
command of Major Paris held out there for some hours. A hundred of the
Lancashire Infantry aided them in their stout defence. But the guns taken
by the Boers from Von Donop’s convoy had free play now that the British
guns were out of action, and they were brought to bear with crushing
effect upon both the kraal and the wagons. Further resistance meant a
useless slaughter, and orders were given for a surrender. Convoy,
ammunition, guns, horses—nothing was saved except the honour of the
infantry and the gunners. The losses, 68 killed and 121 wounded, fell
chiefly upon these two branches of the service. There were 205 unwounded
prisoners.
This, the last Boer victory in the war, reflected equal credit upon their
valour and humanity, qualities which had not always gone hand in hand in
our experience of them. Courtesy and attention were extended to the
British wounded, and Lord Methuen was sent under charge of his chief
medical officer, Colonel Townsend (the doctor as severely wounded as the
patient), into Klerksdorp. In De la Rey we have always found an opponent
who was as chivalrous as he was formidable. The remainder of the force
reached the Kimberley to Mafeking railway line in the direction of
Kraaipan, the spot where the first bloodshed of the war had occurred some
twenty-nine months before.
On Lord Methuen himself no blame can rest for this unsuccessful action. If
the workman’s tool snaps in his hand he cannot be held responsible for the
failure of his task. The troops who misbehaved were none of his training.
‘If you hear anyone slang him,’ says one of his men, ‘you are to tell them
that he is the finest General and the truest gentleman that ever fought in
this war.’ Such was the tone of his own troopers, and such also that of
the spokesmen of the nation when they commented upon the disaster in the
Houses of Parliament. It was a fine example of British justice and sense
of fair play, even in that bitter moment, that to hear his eulogy one
would have thought that the occasion had been one when thanks were being
returned for a victory. It is a generous public with fine instincts, and
Paul Methuen, wounded and broken, still remained in their eyes the heroic
soldier and the chivalrous man of honour.
The De Wet country had been pretty well cleared by the series of drives
which have already been described, and Louis Botha’s force in the Eastern
Transvaal had been much diminished by the tactics of Bruce Hamilton and
Wools-Sampson. Lord Kitchener was able, therefore, to concentrate his
troops and his attention upon that wide-spread western area in which
General De la Rey had dealt two such shrewd blows within a few weeks of
each other. Troops were rapidly concentrated at Klerksdorp. Kekewich,
Walter Kitchener, Rawlinson, and Rochfort, with a number of small columns,
were ready in the third week of March to endeavour to avenge Lord Methuen.
The problem with which Lord Kitchener was confronted was a very difficult
one, and he has never shown more originality and audacity than in the
fashion in which he handled it. De la Rey’s force was scattered over a
long tract of country, capable of rapidly concentrating for a blow, but
otherwise as intangible and elusive as a phantom army. Were Lord Kitchener
simply to launch ten thousand horsemen at him, the result would be a weary
ride over illimitable plains without sight of a Boer, unless it were a
distant scout upon the extreme horizon. De la Rey and his men would have
slipped away to his northern hiding-places beyond the Marico River. There
was no solid obstacle here, as in the Orange River Colony, against which
the flying enemy could be rounded up. One line of blockhouses there was,
it is true—the one called the Schoonspruit cordon, which flanked the
De la Rey country. It flanked it, however, upon the same side as that on
which the troops were assembled. If the troops were only on the other
side, and De la Rey was between them and the blockhouse line, then,
indeed, something might be done. But to place the troops there, and then
bring them instantly back again, was to put such a strain upon men and
horses as had never yet been done upon a large scale in the course of the
war. Yet Lord Kitchener knew the mettle of the men whom he commanded, and
he was aware that there were no exertions of which the human frame is
capable which he might not confidently demand.
The precise location of the Boer laagers does not appear to have been
known, but it was certain that a considerable number of them were
scattered about thirty miles or so to the west of Klerksdorp and the
Schoonspruit line. The plan was to march a British force right through
them, then spread out into a wide line and come straight back, driving the
burghers on to the cordon of blockhouses, which had been strengthened by
the arrival of three regiments of Highlanders. But to get to the other
side of the Boers it was necessary to march the columns through by night.
It was a hazardous operation, but the secret was well kept, and the
movement was so well carried out that the enemy had no time to check it.
On the night of Sunday, March 23rd, the British horsemen passed stealthily
in column through the De la Rey country, and then, spreading out into a
line, which from the left wing at Lichtenburg to the right wing at
Commando Drift measured a good eighty miles, they proceeded to sweep back
upon their traces. In order to reach their positions the columns had, of
course, started at different points of the British blockhouse line, and
some had a good deal farther to go than others, while the southern
extension of the line was formed by Rochfort’s troops, who had moved up
from the Vaal. Above him from south to north came Walter Kitchener,
Rawlinson, and Kekewich in the order named.
On the morning of Monday, March 24th, a line of eighty miles of horsemen,
without guns or transport, was sweeping back towards the blockhouses,
while the country between was filled with scattered parties of Boers who
were seeking for gaps by which to escape. It was soon learned from the
first prisoners that De la Rey was not within the cordon. His laager had
been some distance farther west. But the sight of fugitive horsemen rising
and dipping over the rolling veld assured the British that they had
something within their net. The catch was, however, by no means as
complete as might have been desired. Three hundred men in khaki slipped
through between the two columns in the early morning. Another large party
escaped to the southwards. Some of the Boers adopted extraordinary devices
in order to escape from the ever-narrowing cordon. ‘Three, in charge of
some cattle, buried themselves, and left a small hole to breathe through
with a tube. Some men began to probe with bayonets in the new-turned earth
and got immediate and vociferous subterranean yells. Another man tried the
same game and a horse stepped on him. He writhed and reared the horse, and
practically the horse found the prisoner for us.’ But the operations
achieved one result, which must have lifted a load of anxiety from Lord
Kitchener’s mind. Three fifteen-pounders, two pom-poms, and a large amount
of ammunition were taken. To Kekewich and the Scottish Horse fell the
honour of the capture, Colonel Wools-Sampson and Captain Rice heading the
charge and pursuit. By this means the constant menace to the blockhouses
was lessened, if not entirely removed. One hundred and seventy-five Boers
were disposed of, nearly all as prisoners, and a considerable quantity of
transport was captured. In this operation the troops had averaged from
seventy to eighty miles in twenty-six hours without change of horses. To
such a point had the slow-moving ponderous British Army attained after two
years’ training of that stern drill-master, necessity.
The operations had attained some success, but nothing commensurate with
the daring of the plan or the exertions of the soldiers. Without an
instant’s delay, however, Lord Kitchener struck a second blow at his
enemy. Before the end of March Kekewich, Rawlinson, and Walter Kitchener
were all upon the trek once more. Their operations were pushed farther to
the west than in the last drive, since it was known that on that occasion
De la Rey and his main commando had been outside the cordon.
It was to one of Walter Kitchener’s lieutenants that the honour fell to
come in direct contact with the main force of the burghers. This General
had moved out to a point about forty miles west of Klerksdorp. Forming his
laager there, he despatched Cookson on March 30th with seventeen hundred
men to work further westward in the direction of the Harts River. Under
Cookson’s immediate command were the 2nd Canadian Mounted Infantry,
Damant’s Horse, and four guns of the 7th R.F.A. His lieutenant, Keir,
commanded the 28th Mounted Infantry, the Artillery Mounted Rifles, and 2nd
Kitchener’s Fighting Scouts. The force was well mounted, and carried the
minimum of baggage.
It was not long before this mobile force found itself within touch of the
enemy. The broad weal made by the passing of a convoy set them off at full
cry, and they were soon encouraged by the distant cloud of dust which
shrouded the Boer wagons. The advance guard of the column galloped at the
top of their speed for eight miles, and closed in upon the convoy, but
found themselves faced by an escort of five hundred Boers, who fought a
clever rearguard action, and covered their charge with great skill. At the
same time Cookson closed in upon his mounted infantry, while on the other
side De la Rey’s main force fell back in order to reinforce the escort.
British and Boers were both riding furiously to help their own comrades.
The two forces were fairly face to face.
Perceiving that he was in front of the whole Boer army, and knowing that
he might expect reinforcements, Cookson decided to act upon the defensive.
A position was rapidly taken up along the Brakspruit, and preparations
made to resist the impending attack. The line of defence was roughly the
line of the spruit, but for some reason, probably to establish a cross
fire, one advanced position was occupied upon either flank. On the left
flank was a farmhouse, which was held by two hundred men of the Artillery
Rifles. On the extreme right was another outpost of twenty-four Canadians
and forty-five Mounted Infantry. They occupied no defensible position, and
their situation was evidently a most dangerous one, only to be justified
by some strong military reason which is not explained by any account of
the action.
The Boer guns had opened fire, and considerable bodies of the enemy
appeared upon the flanks and in front. Their first efforts were devoted
towards getting possession of the farmhouse, which would give them a point
d’appui from which they could turn the whole line. Some five hundred of
them charged on horseback, but were met by a very steady fire from the
Artillery Rifles, while the guns raked them with shrapnel. They reached a
point within five hundred yards of the building, but the fire was too hot,
and they wheeled round in rapid retreat. Dismounting in a mealie-patch
they skirmished up towards the farmhouse once more, but they were again
checked by the fire of the defenders and by a pompom which Colonel Keir
had brought up. No progress whatever was made by the attack in this
quarter.
In the meantime the fate which might have been foretold had befallen the
isolated detachment of Canadians and 28th Mounted Infantry upon the
extreme right. Bruce Carruthers, the Canadian officer in command, behaved
with the utmost gallantry, and was splendidly seconded by his men.
Overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers, amid a perfect hail of bullets
they fought like heroes to the end. ‘There have been few finer instances
of heroism in the course of the campaign,’ says the reticent Kitchener in
his official despatch. Of the Canadians eighteen were hit out of
twenty-one, and the Mounted Infantry hard by lost thirty out of forty-five
before they surrendered.
This advantage gained upon the right flank was of no assistance to the
Boers in breaking the British line. The fact that it was so makes it the
more difficult to understand why this outpost was so exposed. The burghers
had practically surrounded Cookson’s force, and De la Rey and Kemp urged
on the attack; but their artillery fire was dominated by the British guns,
and no weak point could be found in the defence. At 1 o’clock the attack
had been begun, and at 5.30 it was finally abandoned, and De la Rey was in
full retreat. That he was in no sense routed is shown by the fact that
Cookson did not attempt to follow him up or to capture his guns; but at
least he had failed in his purpose, and had lost more heavily than in any
engagement which he had yet fought. The moral effect of his previous
victories had also been weakened, and his burghers had learned, if they
had illusions upon the subject, that the men who fled at Tweebosch were
not typical troopers of the British Army. Altogether, it was a well-fought
and useful action, though it cost the British force some two hundred
casualties, of which thirty-five were fatal. Cookson’s force stood to arms
all night until the arrival of Walter Kitchener’s men in the morning.
General Ian Hamilton, who had acted for some time as Chief of the Staff to
Lord Kitchener, had arrived on April 8th at Klerksdorp to take supreme
command of the whole operations against De la Rey. Early in April the
three main British columns had made a rapid cast round without success. To
the very end the better intelligence and the higher mobility seem to have
remained upon the side of the Boers, who could always force a fight when
they wished and escape when they wished. Occasionally, however, they
forced one at the wrong time, as in the instance which I am about to
describe.
Hamilton had planned a drive to cover the southern portion of De la Rey’s
country, and for this purpose, with Hartebeestefontein for his centre, he
was manoeuvring his columns so as to swing them into line and then sweep
back towards Klerksdorp. Kekewich, Rawlinson, and Walter Kitchener were
all manoeuvring for this purpose. The Boers, however, game to the last,
although they were aware that their leaders had gone in to treat, and that
peace was probably due within a few days, determined to have one last
gallant fall with a British column. The forces of Kekewich were the
farthest to the westward, and also, as the burghers thought, the most
isolated, and it was upon them, accordingly, that the attack was made. In
the morning of April 11th, at a place called Rooiwal, the enemy, who had
moved up from Wolmaranstad, nineteen hundred strong, under Kemp and
Vermaas, fell with the utmost impetuosity upon the British column. There
was no preliminary skirmishing, and a single gallant charge by 1500 Boers
both opened and ended the engagement. ‘I was just saying to the staff
officer that there were no Boers within twenty miles,’ says one who was
present, ‘when we heard a roar of musketry and saw a lot of men galloping
down on us.’ The British were surprised but not shaken by this unexpected
apparition. ‘I never saw a more splendid attack. They kept a distinct
line,’ says the eye-witness. Another spectator says, ‘They came on in one
long line four deep and knee to knee.’ It was an old-fashioned cavalry
charge, and the fact that it got as far as it did shows that we have over
rated the stopping power of modern rifles. They came for a good five
hundred yards under direct fire, and were only turned within a hundred of
the British line. The Yeomanry, the Scottish Horse, and the Constabulary
poured a steady fire upon the advancing wave of horsemen, and the guns
opened with case at two hundred yards. The Boers were stopped, staggered,
and turned. Their fire, or rather the covering fire of those who had not
joined in the charge, had caused some fifty casualties, but their own
losses were very much more severe. The fierce Potgieter fell just in front
of the British guns. ‘Thank goodness he is dead!’ cried one of his wounded
burghers, ‘for he sjamboked me into the firing line this morning.’ Fifty
dead and a great number of wounded were left upon the field of battle.
Rawlinson’s column came up on Kekewich’s left, and the Boer flight became
a rout, for they were chased for twenty miles, and their two guns were
captured. It was a brisk and decisive little engagement, and it closed the
Western campaign, leaving the last trick, as well as the game, to the
credit of the British. From this time until the end there was a gleaning
of prisoners but little fighting in De la Rey’s country, the most
noteworthy event being a surprise visit to Schweizer-Renecke by Rochfort,
by which some sixty prisoners were taken, and afterwards the drive of Ian
Hamilton’s forces against the Mafeking railway line by which no fewer than
364 prisoners were secured. In this difficult and well-managed operation
the gaps between the British columns were concealed by the lighting of
long veld-fires and the discharge of rifles by scattered scouts. The newly
arrived Australian Commonwealth Regiments gave a brilliant start to the
military history of their united country by the energy of their marching
and the thoroughness of their entrenching.
Upon May 29th, only two days before the final declaration of peace, a raid
was made by a few Boers upon the native cattle reserves near Fredericstad.
A handful of horsemen pursued them, and were ambushed by a considerable
body of the enemy in some hilly country ten miles from the British lines.
Most of the pursuers got away in safety, but young Sutherland, second
lieutenant of the Seaforths, and only a few months from Eton, found
himself separated from his horse and in a hopeless position. Scorning to
surrender, the lad actually fought his way upon foot for over a mile
before he was shot down by the horsemen who circled round him. Well might
the Boer commander declare that in the whole course of the war he had seen
no finer example of British courage. It is indeed sad that at this last
instant a young life should be thrown away, but Sutherland died in a noble
fashion for a noble cause, and many inglorious years would be a poor
substitute for the example and tradition which such a death will leave
behind.
CHAPTER 39. THE END.
It only remains in one short chapter to narrate the progress of the peace
negotiations, the ultimate settlement, and the final consequences of this
long-drawn war. However disheartening the successive incidents may have
been in which the Boers were able to inflict heavy losses upon us and to
renew their supplies of arms and ammunition, it was none the less certain
that their numbers were waning and that the inevitable end was steadily
approaching. With mathematical precision the scientific soldier in
Pretoria, with his web of barbed wire radiating out over the whole
country, was week by week wearing them steadily down. And yet after the
recent victory of De la Rey and various braggadocio pronouncements from
the refugees at The Hague, it was somewhat of a surprise to the British
public when it was announced upon March 22nd that the acting Government of
the Transvaal, consisting of Messrs. Schalk Burger, Lucas Meyer, Reitz,
Jacoby, Krogh, and Van Velden had come into Middelburg and requested to be
forwarded by train to Pretoria for the purpose of discussing terms of
peace with Lord Kitchener. A thrill of hope ran through the Empire at the
news, but so doubtful did the issue seem that none of the preparations
were relaxed which would ensure a vigorous campaign in the immediate
future. In the South African as in the Peninsular and in the Crimean wars,
it may truly be said that Great Britain was never so ready to fight as at
the dawning of peace. At least two years of failure and experience are
needed to turn a civilian and commercial nation into a military power.
In spite of the optimistic pronouncements of Mr. Fischer and the absurd
forecasts of Dr. Leyds the power of the Boers was really broken, and they
had come in with the genuine intention of surrender. In a race with such
individuality it was not enough that the government should form its
conclusion. It was necessary for them to persuade their burghers that the
game was really up, and that they had no choice but to throw down their
well-worn rifles and their ill-filled bandoliers. For this purpose a long
series of negotiations had to be entered into which put a strain upon the
complacency of the authorities in South Africa and upon the patience of
the attentive public at home. Their ultimate success shows that this
complacency and this patience were eminently the right attitude to adopt.
On March 23rd the Transvaal representatives were despatched to Kroonstad
for the purpose of opening up the matter with Steyn and De Wet. Messengers
were sent to communicate with these two leaders, but had they been British
columns instead of fellow-countrymen they could not have found greater
difficulty in running them to earth. At last, however, at the end of the
month the message was conveyed, and resulted in the appearance of De Wet,
De la Rey, and Steyn at the British outposts at Klerksdorp. The other
delegates had come north again from Kroonstad, and all were united in the
same small town, which, by a whimsical fate, had suddenly become the
centre both for the making of peace and for the prosecution of the war,
with the eyes of the whole world fixed upon its insignificant litter of
houses. On April 11th, after repeated conferences, both parties moved on
to Pretoria, and the most sceptical observers began to confess that there
was something in the negotiations after all. After conferring with Lord
Kitchener the Boer leaders upon April 18th left Pretoria again and rode
out to the commandos to explain the situation to them. The result of this
mission was that two delegates were chosen from each body in the field,
who assembled at Vereeniging upon May 15th for the purpose of settling the
question by vote. Never was a high matter of state decided in so
democratic a fashion.
Up to that period the Boer leaders had made a succession of tentative
suggestions, each of which had been put aside by the British Government.
Their first had been that they should merely concede those points which
had been at issue at the beginning of the war. This was set aside. The
second was that they should be allowed to consult their friends in Europe.
This also was refused. The next was that an armistice should be granted,
but again Lord Kitchener was obdurate. A definite period was suggested
within which the burghers should make their final choice between surrender
and a war which must finally exterminate them as a people. It was tacitly
understood, if not definitely promised, that the conditions which the
British Government would be prepared to grant would not differ much in
essentials from those which had been refused by the Boers a twelvemonth
before, after the Middelburg interview.
On May 15th the Boer conference opened at Vereeniging. Sixty-four
delegates from the commandos met with the military and political chiefs of
the late republics, the whole amounting to 150 persons. A more singular
gathering has not met in our time. There was Botha, the young lawyer, who
had found himself by a strange turn of fate commanding a victorious army
in a great war. De Wet was there, with his grim mouth and sun-browned
face; De la Rey, also, with the grizzled beard and the strong aquiline
features. There, too, were the politicians, the grey-bearded, genial
Reitz, a little graver than when he looked upon ‘the whole matter as an
immense joke,’ and the unfortunate Steyn, stumbling and groping, a broken
and ruined man. The burly Lucas Meyer, smart young Smuts fresh from the
siege of Ookiep, Beyers from the north, Kemp the dashing cavalry leader,
Muller the hero of many fights—all these with many others of their
sun-blackened, gaunt, hard-featured comrades were grouped within the great
tent of Vereeniging. The discussions were heated and prolonged. But the
logic of facts was inexorable, and the cold still voice of common-sense
had more power than all the ravings of enthusiasts. The vote showed that
the great majority of the delegates were in favour of surrender upon the
terms offered by the British Government. On May 31st this resolution was
notified to Lord Kitchener, and at half-past ten of the same night the
delegates arrived at Pretoria and set their names to the treaty of peace.
After two years seven and a half months of hostilities the Dutch republics
had acquiesced in their own destruction, and the whole of South Africa,
from Cape Town to the Zambesi, had been added to the British Empire. The
great struggle had cost us twenty thousand lives and a hundred thousand
stricken men, with two hundred millions of money; but, apart from a
peaceful South Africa, it had won for us a national resuscitation of
spirit and a closer union with our great Colonies which could in no other
way have been attained. We had hoped that we were a solid empire when we
engaged in the struggle, but we knew that we were when we emerged from it.
In that change lies an ample recompense for all the blood and treasure
spent.
The following were in brief the terms of surrender:—
These terms were practically the same as those which had been refused by
Botha in March 1901. Thirteen months of useless warfare had left the
situation as it was.
It had been a war of surprises, but the surprises have unhappily been
hitherto invariably unpleasant ones. Now at last the balance swung the
other way, for in all the long paradoxical history of South African strife
there is nothing more wonderful than the way in which these two sturdy and
unemotional races clasped hands the instant that the fight was done. The
fact is in itself a final answer to the ill-natured critics of the
Continent. Men do not so easily grasp a hand which is reddened with the
blood of women and children. From all parts as the commandos came in there
was welcome news of the fraternisation between them and the soldiers;
while the Boer leaders, as loyal to their new ties as they had been to
their old ones, exerted themselves to promote good feeling among their
people. A few weeks seemed to do more to lessen racial bitterness than
some of us had hoped for in as many years. One can but pray that it will
last.
The surrenders amounted in all to twenty thousand men, and showed that in
all parts of the seat of war the enemy had more men in the field than we
had imagined, a fact which may take the sting out of several of our later
mishaps. About twelve thousand surrendered in the Transvaal, six thousand
in the Orange River Colony, and about two thousand in the Cape Colony,
showing that the movement in the rebel districts had always been more
vexatious than formidable. A computation of the prisoners of war, the
surrenders, the mercenaries, and the casualties, shows that the total
forces to which we were opposed were certainly not fewer than seventy-five
thousand well-armed mounted men, while they may have considerably exceeded
that number. No wonder that the Boer leaders showed great confidence at
the outset of the war.
That the heavy losses caused us by the war were borne without a murmur is
surely evidence enough how deep was the conviction of the nation that the
war was not only just but essential—that the possession of South
Africa and the unity of the Empire were at stake. Could it be shown, or
were it even remotely possible, that ministers had incurred so immense a
responsibility and entailed such tremendous sacrifices upon their people
without adequate cause, is it not certain that, the task once done, an
explosion of rage from the deceived and the bereaved would have driven
them for ever from public life? Among high and low, in England, in
Scotland, in Ireland, in the great Colonies, how many high hopes had been
crushed, how often the soldier son had gone forth and never returned, or
come back maimed and stricken in the pride of his youth. Everywhere was
the voice of pity and sorrow, but nowhere that of reproach. The deepest
instincts of the nation told it that it must fight and win, or for ever
abdicate its position in the world. Through dark days which brought out
the virtues of our race as nothing has done in our generation, we
struggled grimly on until the light had fully broken once again. And of
all gifts that God has given to Britain there is none to compare with
those days of sorrow, for it was in them that the nation was assured of
its unity, and learned for all time that blood is stronger to bind than
salt water is to part. The only difference in the point of view of the
Briton from Britain and the Briton from the ends of the earth, was that
the latter with the energy of youth was more whole-souled in the Imperial
cause. Who has seen that Army and can forget it—its spirit, its
picturesqueness—above all, what it stands for in the future history
of the world? Cowboys from the vast plains of the North-West, gentlemen
who ride hard with the Quorn or the Belvoir, gillies from the Sutherland
deer-forests, bushmen from the back blocks of Australia, exquisites of the
Raleigh Club or the Bachelor’s, hard men from Ontario, dandy sportsmen
from India and Ceylon, the horsemen of New Zealand, the wiry South African
irregulars—these are the Reserves whose existence was chronicled in
no Blue-book, and whose appearance came as a shock to the pedant soldiers
of the Continent who had sneered so long at our little Army, since long
years of peace have caused them to forget its exploits. On the plains of
South Africa, in common danger and in common privation, the blood
brotherhood of the Empire was sealed.
So much for the Empire. But what of South Africa? There in the end we must
reap as we sow. If we are worthy of the trust, it will be left to us. If
we are unworthy of it, it will be taken away. Kruger’s downfall should
teach us that it is not rifles but Justice which is the title-deed of a
nation. The British flag under our best administrators will mean clean
government, honest laws, liberty and equality to all men. So long as it
continues to do so, we shall hold South Africa. When, out of fear or out
or greed, we fall from that ideal, we may know that we are stricken with
that disease which has killed every great empire before us.
