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The Great Boer War
by Arthur Conan Doyle
E-text editor's note: It may come as a surprise that the creator of
Sherlock Holmes wrote a history of the Boer War. The then 40-year-old
novelist wanted to see the war first hand as a soldier, but the
Victorian army balked at having popular author wielding a pen in its
ranks. The army did accept him as a doctor and Doyle was knighted in
1902 for his work with a field hospital in Bloemfontein. Doyle's vivid
description of the battles are probably thanks to the eye-witness
accounts he got from his patients. This, the best book on the Boer War
I've encountered, is a long out of print lost classic that I stumbled
across in a Cape Town second-hand bookstore.
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 name~.
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 I
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 Emigrés, 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 p05session
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 bad 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 laud 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 Bent 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 veldt.
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 ~ futile
resistance at Boomplats, 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 II
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 veldt -- 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 Gape 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, lie 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 154,000l. 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 40l. 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 6501. out of 63,0001. 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 600,0001. 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
2,OOOL. 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
212,000L. A certain comic relief was immediately afterwards given to
so grave an episode by the presentation of a bill to Great Britain for
1,677,938L. 3s. 3d.-- 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 III
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 had
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 veldt 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 veldt 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 calling1 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 IV
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 veldt 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. Rut 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 V
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 1,800 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-veldt 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 4,000 men. If
these could be overwhelmed, there were 8,000 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. If 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 3,000, and then at last to 2,300 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 veldt. 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 1,400 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 2,000 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
4,000 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 VI
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 bad
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 veldt, 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 4,400 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. lie 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 2,000 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
glaçis 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 tile 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 VII
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 bad
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-veldt 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 veldt, 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 bad 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
do 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 wore 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 he 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 VIII
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 Boor 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 Capetown-Kimberley Railway,
and the damage done to it by the Boors 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 Boor
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 veldt, 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 veldt.
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 -- ones 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 veldt -- 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 veldt 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 1,200 to a 2,800 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 IX
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
bad 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 veldt, 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 4,000 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
utter]y 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
tho 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.ll.A., each fired over 1,000 rounds
and remained for 30 consecutive hours within 1,500 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 X
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 Capetown-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 Tolilon
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 3,000 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 veldt, 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 backveldt, 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 XI
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 Ruller 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 veldt. 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 1,200 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 XII
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 veldt 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 5,500 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 XIII
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 Cæsar'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 Cæsar'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 Cæsar'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 position1 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 mediævalism 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 2,000 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 has
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. 0 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 veldt, 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 Cæsar'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 Cæsar'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.
Cæsar's Camp was garrisoned by one sturdy regiment, the Manchesters,
aided by a Colt automatic gun. The defence bad 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 Cæsar'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 bad to skim over the heads of
our own men upon the ridge and so pitch upon tho 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 Cæsar'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 XIV
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, 0 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 0 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 0, 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 hill, driving
a Boer picket off it, and the Horse enfiladed the enemy's right flank,
and after a risk 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 Shoemann 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 0 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 9,000 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 0 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 veldt 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 a]l
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
then 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 felt 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 XV
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-lb 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:
Clery's Division
Hildyard's Brigade
2nd West Surrey
2nd Devonshire
2nd West Yorkshire
2nd East Surrey
Hart's Brigade
1st Inniskilling Fusiliers
1st Border Regiment
1st Connaught Rangers
2nd Dublin Fusiliers
Field Artillery, three batteries, 19th, 28th, 63rd;
one squadron 13th Hussars;
Royal Engineers.
Warren's Division
Lyttelton's Brigade
2nd Cameronians
3rd King's Royal Rifles
1st Durham Light Infantry
1st Rifle Brigade
Woodgate's Brigade
2nd Royal Lancaster
2nd Lancashire Fusiliers
1st South Lancashire
York and Lancasters
Field Artillery, three batteries, 7th, 78th, 73rd ;
one squadron 13th Hussars.
Corps Troops
Coke's Brigade
Imperial Light Infantry
2nd Somersets
2nd Dorsets
2nd Middlesex
61st Howitzer Battery; two 4.7 naval guns; eight naval 12-pounder guns;
one squadron 13th Hussars;
Royal Engineers.
Cavalry
1st Royal Dragoons
14th Hussars
Four squadrons South African Horse
One squadron Imperial Light Horse
Bethune's Mounted Infantry
Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry
One squadron Natal Carabineers
One squadron Natal Police
One company King's Royal Rifles Mounted Infantry
Six machine guns
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 veldt 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 he 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 1,500 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,
cronchers, 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 2,000 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 shal]ow
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 tbink 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, whille 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
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