Ian Hamilton's March
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Title: Ian Hamilton's March
Creator: Winston Churchill
Release date: November 17, 2012 [eBook #41487]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IAN HAMILTON'S MARCH ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover]
[Illustration: IAN HAMILTON. _From the Picture by_ John S. Sargent,
R.A.]
IAN HAMILTON'S MARCH
BY
WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL
_WITH PORTRAIT, MAPS AND PLANS_
TORONTO
THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY
WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL
_All rights reserved_
THIS COLLECTION OF LETTERS
IS INSCRIBED TO
LIEUT-GENERAL IAN HAMILTON, C.B., D.S.O.
WITH WHOSE MILITARY ACHIEVEMENTS
IT IS LARGELY CONCERNED
PREFACE.
This book is a continuation of those letters to the _Morning Post_
newspaper on the South African war, which have been lately published
under the title 'London to Ladysmith _via_ Pretoria.' Although the
letters had been read to some extent in their serial form, their
reproduction in a book has been indulgently regarded by the public; and
I am encouraged to repeat the experiment.
The principal event with which the second series deals is the march of
Lieutenant-General Ian Hamilton's column on the flank of Lord Roberts's
main army from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. This force, which encountered
and overcame the brunt of the Boer resistance, which, far from the
railway, marched more than 400 miles through the most fertile parts of
the enemy's country, which fought ten general actions and fourteen
smaller affairs, and captured five towns, was, owing to the difficulties
of telegraphing, scarcely attended by a single newspaper correspondent,
and accompanied continuously by none. Little has therefore been heard
of its fortunes, nor do I know of anyone who is likely to write an
account.
The letters now submitted to the public find in these facts their chief
claim to be reprinted. While written in the style of personal narrative
I have hitherto found it convenient to follow, they form a complete
record of the operations of the flank column from the day when Ian
Hamilton left Bloemfontein to attack the Waterworks position, until he
returned to Pretoria after the successful engagement of Diamond Hill.
Although in an account written mainly in the field, and immediately
after the actual events, there must be mistakes, no care has been spared
in the work. The whole book has been diligently revised. Four letters,
which our long marches did not allow me to finish while with the troops,
have been added and are now published for the first time. The rest have
been lengthened or corrected by the light of after-knowledge and
reflection, and although the epistolary form remains, I hope the
narrative will be found to be fairly consecutive.
I do not want the reader to think that the personal incidents and
adventures described in this book are extraordinary, and beyond the
common lot of those who move unrestricted about the field of war. They
are included in the narrative, not on account of any peculiar or
historic interest, but because this method is the easiest, and, so far
as my wit serves me, the best way of telling the story with due regard
at once to detail and proportion.
In conclusion I must express my obligations to the proprietors of the
_Morning Post_ newspaper for the assistance they have given my
publishers in allowing them to set up the copy as each letter arrived
from the war; to the DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, to whom I am indebted for the
details of the strength and composition of the force which will be found
in the Appendix, and for much assistance in the attempt to attain
accuracy; and thirdly, to MR. FRANKLAND, whose manly record of the heavy
days he passed as a prisoner in Pretoria may help to make this book
acceptable to the public.
WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL.
LONDON:
_September_ 10, 1900.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. A Roving Commission
II. Exit General Gatacre
III. At Half-Way House
IV. Two Days with Brabazon
V. Two Days with Brabazon--*Continued*
VI. The Dewetsdorp Episode
VII. Ian Hamilton's March
VIII. Ian Hamilton
IX. The Action of Houtnek
X. The Army of the Right Flank
XI. Lindley
XII. Concerning a Boer Convoy
XIII. Action of Johannesburg
XIV. The Fall of Johannesburg
XV. The Capture Of Pretoria
XVI. "Held By The Enemy"
XVII. Action Of Diamond Hill
APPENDIX
Composition of Lieut.-General Ian Hamilton's Force
PORTRAIT.
IAN HAMILTON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
_From the Picture by_ JOHN S. SARGENT, R.A.
MAPS AND PLANS.
Operations in the Orange Free State, April, 1900
Diagram Explaining Hamilton's Action at Israel's Poorte, the 25th of
April
Diagram Explaining French's Operations Round Thabanchu, the 25th and
27th of April
Diagram Explaining the Action of Houtnek
Diagram to Explain the Passage of the Sand River, 10th of May, 1900
Ian Hamilton's Action at the Sand River, 10th of May, 1900
Ian Hamilton's Action before Johannesburg
Plan of the Operations of 11th and 12th of June, 1900
Diagram Explaining the Action of Diamond Hill
Map of March from Bloemfontein to Pretoria _At end of book_
IAN HAMILTON'S MARCH
CHAPTER I
A ROVING COMMISSION
In the train near Pieters, Natal: March 31.
Ladysmith, her garrison and her rescuers, were still recovering, the one
from the effects of long confinement, the other from over-exertion. All
was quiet along the Tugela except for the plashing of the waters, and
from Hunger's Poorte to Weenen no sound of rifle or cannon shot
disturbed the echoes.
The war had rolled northward: the floods of invasion that had
isolated--almost overwhelmed--Ladysmith and threatened to submerge the
whole country had abated and receded, so that the Army of Natal might
spread itself out to feed and strengthen at its leisure and convenience
on the reconquered territory.
Knox's (Ladysmith) Brigade went into camp at Arcadia, five miles west of
the town. Howard's (Ladysmith) Brigade retired to the breezy plains
south of Colenso. Clery's Division--for the gallant Clery, recovered
from his sickness, had displaced the gallant and successful
Lyttelton--moved north and encamped beyond Elandslaagte along the banks
of Sunday's River. Hunter's Division was disposed with one brigade at
Elandslaagte and one at Tinta Inyoni. Warren, whom it was no longer
necessary to send to the Cape Colony, established himself and his two
brigades north of Ladysmith, along the railway line to the Orange Free
State. Brocklehurst, with the remnants of what had once been almost a
Cavalry Division, and now could scarcely mount three squadrons, occupied
a neighbouring plain, sending his regiments one by one to Colenso, or
even Mooi River, to be re-horsed; and around all this great Army,
resting after its labours and preparing for fresh efforts, the Cavalry
brigades of Dundonald and Burn-Murdoch drew an immense curtain of
pickets and patrols which extended from Acton Homes in the east, through
Bester's Station right round to Wessels Nek and further still, and which
enabled the protected soldiers within to close their eyes by night and
stretch their legs by day.
Meanwhile, the burghers had all retreated to the Drakensburg and the
Biggarsburg and other refuges, from which elevated positions they defied
intrusion or attack, and their scattered line stretched in a vast
crescent even around our widely extended front from the Tintwa Pass,
through Waschbank to Pomeroy.
But with the exception of outpost skirmishes, wholly unimportant to
those not engaged in them, a strange peace brooded over Natal, and
tranquillity was intensified by the recollection of the struggle that
was over and the anticipation of the struggle that impended. It was a
lull in the storm.
All this might be war, but it was not journalism. The tempest for the
moment had passed, and above the army in Natal the sky was monotonously
blue. It was true that dark clouds hung near the northern horizon, but
who should say when they would break? Not, at any rate, for three weeks,
I thought, and so resolved to fill the interval by trying to catch a
little of the tempest elsewhere.
After the relief of Ladysmith four courses offered themselves to Sir
Redvers Buller. To stand strictly on the defensive in Natal and to send
Lord Roberts every gun and man who could be spared; to break into the
Free State by forcing Van Reenen's Pass or the Tintwa; to attack the
twelve thousand Boers in the Biggarsburg, clear Natal, and invade the
Transvaal through the Vryheid district; and, lastly, to unite and
reorganise and co-operate with Lord Roberts's main advance either by
striking west or north.
Which course would be adopted? I made inquiries. Staff officers, bland
and inscrutable--it is wonderful how well men can keep secrets they have
not been told--continued to smile and smile. Brigadiers frankly
confessed their ignorance. The general-in-chief observed pleasantly
that he would 'go for' the enemy as soon as he was ready, but was
scarcely precise about when and where.
It was necessary to go to more humble sources for truth, and after
diligent search I learned from a railway porter, or somebody like that,
that all attempts to repair the bridge across the Sunday's River had
been postponed indefinitely. This, on further inquiry, proved to be
true.
Now, what does this mean? It means, I take it, that no direct advance
against the Biggarsburg is intended for some time; and as the idea of
reducing the Natal Army to reinforce the Cape Colony forces has been
definitely abandoned the western line of advance suggests itself.
It would be absurd to force Van Reenen's Pass with heavy loss of life,
when by waiting until the main Army has reached, let us say, Kroonstad,
we could walk through without opposition; so that it looks very likely
that the Natal troops will do nothing until Lord Roberts's advance is
more developed, and that then they will enter the Free State and operate
in conjunction with him, all of which is strategy and common-sense
besides. At any rate there will be a long delay.
Therefore, I said to myself, I will go to Bloemfontein, see all that may
be seen there and on the way, and rejoin the Natal Army when it comes
through the passes. Such was the plan, and the reader shall be a
witness of its abandonment.
I left the camp of Dundonald's Brigade early in the morning of the 29th
of March, and riding through Ladysmith, round the hill on which stands
the battered convent, now serving as headquarters, and down the main
street, along which the relieving Army had entered the city, reached the
railway station and caught the 10 A.M. down train.
We were delayed for a few minutes by the departure for Elandslaagte of a
train load of Volunteers, the first to reach the Natal Army, and the
officers hastened to look at these citizen soldiers. There were five
companies in all, making nearly a thousand men, fine looking fellows,
with bright intelligent eyes, which they turned inquiringly on every
object in turn, pointing and laughing at the numerous shell holes in the
corrugated iron engine sheds and other buildings of the station.
A few regulars--sunburnt men, who had fought their way in with
Buller--sauntered up to the trucks, and began a conversation with the
reinforcement. I caught a fragment: 'Cattle trucks, are they? Well,
they didn't give us no blooming cattle trucks. No, no! We came into
Ladysmith in a first-class doubly extry Pullman car. 'Oo sent 'em?
Why, President ---- Kruger, of course,' whereat there was much laughter.
I must explain that the epithet which the average soldier uses so often
as to make it perfectly meaningless, and which we conveniently express
by a ----, is always placed immediately before the noun it is intended
to qualify. For instance, no soldier would under any circumstances say
'---- Mr. Kruger has pursued a ---- reactionary policy,' but 'Mr. ----
Kruger has pursued a reactionary ---- policy.' Having once voyaged for
five days down the Nile in a sailing boat with a company of Grenadiers,
I have had the best opportunities for being acquainted with these
idiomatic constructions, and I insert this little note in case it may be
useful to some of our national poets and minstrels.
The train started across the well-known ground, and how fast and easily
it ran. Already we were bounding through the scrub in which a month
before Dundonald's leading squadrons, galloping in with beating hearts,
had met the hungry picket line.
Intombi Spruit hospital camp was reached in a quarter of an hour.
Hospital camp no longer, thank goodness! Since the bridge had been
repaired the trains had been busy, and two days before I left the town
the last of the 2,500 sick had been moved down to the great hospital and
convalescent camps at Mooi River and Highlands, or on to the ships in
the Durban Harbour. Nothing remained behind but 100 tents and marquees,
a stack of iron cots, the cook houses, the drinking-water tanks, and 600
graves. Ghastly Intombi had faded into the past, as a nightmare flies
at the dawn of day.
We sped swiftly across the plain of Pieters, and I remembered how I had
toiled across it, some five months before, a miserable captive, casting
longing eyes at the Ladysmith balloon, and vigilantly guarded by the
Boer mounted escort. Then the train ran into the deep ravine between
Barton's Hill and Railway Hill, the ravine the Cavalry had 'fanned' on
the day of the battle, and, increasing its pace as we descended towards
the Tugela, carried us along the whole front of the Boer position. Signs
of the fighting appeared on every side. Biscuit tins flashed brightly
on the hill-side like heliographs. In places the slopes were
honey-combed with little stone walls and traverses, masking the
sheltering refuges of the Infantry battalions during the week they had
lain in the sun-blaze exposed to the cross-fire of gun and rifle. White
wooden crosses gleamed here and there among the thorn bushes. The dark
lines of the Boer trenches crowned the hills. The train swept by--and
that was all.
I knew every slope, every hillock and accident of ground, as one knows
men and women in the world. Here was good cover. There was a dangerous
space. Here it was wise to stoop, and there to run. Behind that steep
kopje a man might scorn the shrapnel. Those rocks gave sure protection
from the flanking rifle fire. Only a month ago how much these things
had meant. If we could carry that ridge it would command those
trenches, and that might mean the hill itself, and perhaps the hill
would lead to Ladysmith. Only a month ago these things meant honour or
shame, victory or defeat, life or death. An anxious Empire and a
waiting world wanted to know about every one of them--and now they were
precisely what I have said, dark jumbled mounds of stone and scrub, with
a few holes and crevices scratched in them, and a litter of tin-pots,
paper, and cartridge cases strewn about.
The train steamed cautiously over the temporary wooden bridge at Colenso
and ran into the open country beyond. On we hurried past the green
slope where poor Long's artillery had been shot to bits, past Gun Hill,
whence the great naval guns had fired so often, through Chieveley Camp,
or rather through the site of Chieveley Camp, past the wreck of the
armoured train--still lying where we had dragged it with such labour and
peril, just clear of the line--through Frere and Estcourt, and so, after
seven hours' journey, we came to Pietermaritzburg.
An officer who was travelling down with me pointed out the trenches on
the signal hill above the town.
'Seems queer,' he said, 'to think that the Boers might so easily have
taken this town. When we dug those trenches they were expected every
day, and the Governor, who refused to leave the capital and was going to
stick it out with us, had his kit packed ready to come up into the
entrenchments at an hour's notice.'
It was very pleasant to know that those dark and critical days were
gone, and that the armies in the field were strong enough to maintain
the Queen's dominions against any further invasion; yet one could not
but recall with annoyance that the northern part of Natal was still in
the hands of the enemy. Not for long, however, shall this endure.
After waiting in Pietermaritzburg long enough only to dine, I proceeded
by the night train to Durban, and was here so fortunate as to find a
Union boat, the _Guelph_, leaving almost immediately for East London.
The weather was fine, the sea comparatively smooth, and the passengers
few and unobtrusive, so that the voyage, being short, might almost be
considered pleasant.
The captain took the greatest interest in the war, which he had followed
with attention, and with the details and incidents of which he was
extraordinarily familiar. He had brought out a ship full of Volunteers,
new drafts, and had much to say concerning the British soldier and his
comrades in arms.
The good news which had delighted and relieved everyone had reached him
in the most dramatic and striking manner. When they left England
Roberts had just begun his welcome advance, and the public anxiety was
at its height. At Madeira there was an English cable to say that he was
engaging Cronje, and that no news had arrived for three days. This was
supplied, however, by the Spanish wire, which asserted with
circumstantial details that the British had been heavily defeated and
had fled south beyond the Orange River. With this to reflect on they
had to sail. Imagine the doubts and fears that flourished in ten days
of ignorance, idleness, and speculation. Imagine with what feelings
they approached St. Helena. He told me that when the tug-boat came off
no man dared hail them for news. Nor was it until the launch was
alongside that a soldier cried out nervously, 'The war, the war: what's
happened there!' and when they heard the answer, 'Cronje surrendered;
Ladysmith relieved,' he said that such a shout went up as he had never
heard before, and I believed him.
After twenty-four hours of breeze and tossing the good ship found
herself in the roads at East London, and having by this time had quite
enough of the sea I resolved to disembark forthwith.
CHAPTER II
EXIT GENERAL GATACRE
Bethany: April 13.
If you go to sleep when the train leaves East London, you should wake,
all being well, to find yourself at Queenstown.
Queenstown lies just beyond the high water-mark of war. The tide had
flowed strong after Stormburg, and it looked as if Queenstown would be
engulfed, at any rate for a time. But Fortune and General Gatacre
protected it. Sterkstroom entrenched itself, and prepared for daily
attacks. Molteno was actually shelled. Queenstown suffered none of the
horrors of war except martial law, which it bore patiently rather than
cheerfully.
Nothing in the town impresses the traveller, but at the dining-room of
the railway station there is a very little boy, about twelve years old,
who, unaided, manages to serve, with extraordinary dispatch and a grand
air, a whole score of passengers during the brief interval allowed for
refreshments.
Five months earlier I had passed along this line, hoping to get into
Ladysmith before the door was shut, and had been struck by this busy
child, who seemed a product of America rather than of Africa. Much had
happened in the meantime, not so far from where he lived. But here he
was still--the war had not interfered with him, Queenstown was beyond
the limit.
At Sterkstroom a line of empty trenches, the Red Cross flag over a
hospital, and an extension to the cemetery enclosure filled with brown
mounds which the grass had not yet had time to cover, showed that we had
crossed the line between peace and war. Passing through Molteno, the
last resting-place of the heroic de Montmorency, the train reached
Stormburg. Scarcely any traces of the Boer occupation were to be seen;
the marks of their encampments behind the ridge where they had
laagered--a litter of meat tins, straw, paper, and the like, the grave
of Commandant Swanepoole and several nameless heaps, a large stone (in
the station-master's possession) with the words engraved on it: 'In
memory of the Transvaal commando, Stormburg, December 1899,' and that
was all. The floods had abated and receded. This was the only jetsam
that remained.
At Stormburg I changed my mind, or, rather--for it comes to the same
thing and sounds better--I made it up.
I heard that no immediate advance from Bloemfontein was likely or even
possible for a fortnight. Therefore, I said, I will go to Capetown, and
shelter for a week at 'The Helot's Rest.' After all, what is the use of
a roving commission if one cannot rove at random or caprice?
So to Capetown I went accordingly--seven hundred miles in forty-eight
hours of bad trains over sections of the line only newly reopened. But
to Capetown I will not take the reader. Indeed, I strongly recommend
him to stick to the war and keep his attention at the front, for
Capetown at this present time is not an edifying place. Yet, since he
may be curious to know some reason for such advice, let me explain.
Capetown, which stands, as some writers have observed, beneath the
shadow of Table Mountain, has been--and may be again in times of
peace--a pleasant place in which to pursue business or health; but now
it is simply a centre of intrigue, scandal, falsehood, and rumour.
The visitor stays at the Mount Nelson Hotel, if he can be so fortunate
as to secure a room. At this establishment he finds all the luxuries of
a first-class European hotel without the resulting comfort. There is a
good dinner, but it is cold before it reaches him; there is a spacious
dining-room, but it is overcrowded; there are clean European waiters,
but they are few and far between.
At the hotel, in its garden, or elsewhere in the town, all the world and
his wife are residing--particularly the wife.
We used to think, in the Army of Natal, that Lord Roberts's operations
in the Free State had been a model of military skill and knowledge, and,
in a simple way, we regarded French as one of the first cavalry soldiers
of the age.
All this was corrected at Capetown, and I learned with painful
disenchantment that 'it' (the said operations) had all been a shameful
muddle from beginning to end; that the field-marshal had done this and
that and the other 'which no man in his senses,' &c., that French was
utterly ... and as for Lord Kitchener, Capetown--let us be just,
imported social Capetown--was particularly severe on Lord Kitchener.
It was very perplexing; and besides it seemed that these people ought to
know, for they succeeded in making more news in the twenty-four hours
than all the correspondents at the front put together. The whole town
was overrun with amateur strategists and gossiping women. There were
more colonels to the acre than in any place outside the United States,
and if the social aspect was unattractive, the political was scarcely
more pleasing.
Party feeling ran high. Some of the British section, those tremendous
patriots who demonstrate but do not fight--not to be on any account
compared with the noble fellows who fill the Volunteer corps--pot-house
heroes, and others of that kidney, had just distinguished themselves by
mobbing Mr. Schreiner in the streets.
The Dutch section, some of them the men who, risking nothing themselves,
had urged the Republics to their ruin, all of whom had smiled and rubbed
their hands at the British reverses, sat silent in public, but kept a
strict watch on incoming steamers for members of Parliament and others
of more influence and guile, and whispered honeyed assurances of their
devotion to the Empire, coupled with all sorts of suggestions about the
settlement--on the broad general principle of 'Heads I win, tails you
lose.'
British newspapers advocated short shrift to rebels--'Hit 'em hard now
they're down'; 'Give them a lesson this time, the dirty Dutchmen!'
Dutch papers recorded the events of the war in the tone, 'At the end of
the battle the British, as usual, fled precipitately, leaving 2,000
killed, _our_ loss'--no, not quite that, but very nearly; everything, in
fact, but the word 'our'--'one killed, two slightly wounded.'
Let no one stay long in Capetown now who would carry away a true
impression of the South Africans. There is too much shoddy worn there
at present.
Only at Government House did I find the Man of No Illusions, the anxious
but unwearied Proconsul, understanding the faults and the virtues of
both sides, measuring the balance of rights and wrongs, and
determined--more determined than ever; for is it not the only hope for
the future of South Africa?--to use his knowledge and his power to
strengthen the Imperial ties.
All this time the reader has been left on a siding at Naauwpoort; but
does he complain of not being taken to Capetown? We will hasten back
together to the healthier atmosphere of war.
Indeed, the spell of the great movements impending in the Free State
began to catch hold of me before I had travelled far on the line towards
Bloemfontein. Train loads of troops filled every station or siding. A
ceaseless stream of men, horses, and guns had been passing northwards
for a fortnight, and on the very day that I made the journey Lord
Kitchener had ordered that in future all troops must march beyond
Springfontein, because the line must be cleared for the passage of
supplies, so that, besides the trains in the sidings, there were columns
by the side of the railway steadily making their way to the front.
The one passenger train in the day stopped at Bethany. I got out. To
go on was to reach Bloemfontein at midnight. Better, then, to sleep here
and proceed at dawn.
'Are there many troops here?' I asked. They replied 'The whole of the
Third Division.' 'Who commands?' 'Gatacre.' That decided me.
I knew the general slightly, having made his acquaintance up the Nile in
pleasant circumstances, for no one was allowed to pass his mess hungry
or thirsty. I was very anxious to see him and hear all about Stormberg
and the rest of the heavy struggle along the eastern line of rail. I
found him in a tin house close to the station. He received me kindly,
and we had a long talk. The General explained to me many things which I
had not understood before, and after we had done with past events he
turned with a hopeful eye to the future. At last, and for the first
time, he was going to have the division of which he had originally been
given the command.
'You know I only had two and a half battalions at Sterkstroom and a few
colonial horse; but now I have got both my brigades complete.'
I thought him greatly altered from the dashing, energetic man I had
known up the river, or had heard about on the frontier or in
plague-stricken Bombay. Four months of anxiety and abuse had left their
mark on him. The weary task of keeping things going with utterly
insufficient resources, and in the face of an adroit and powerful enemy
in a country of innumerable kopjes, where every advantage lay with the
Boer, had bowed that iron frame and tired the strange energy which had
made him so remarkable among soldiers. But when he thought of the
future his face brightened. The dark days were over. The broken rocky
wilderness lay behind, and around rolled the grassy plains of the Free
State. He had his whole division at last. Moreover, there was prospect
of immediate action. So I left him, for it was growing late, and went
my way. Early next morning he was dismissed from his command and
ordered to England, broken, ruined, and disgraced.
I will not for one moment dispute the wisdom or the justice of his
removal. In stormy weather one must trust to the man at the helm, and
when he is such a man as Lord Roberts it is not a very hard thing to do.
But because General Gatacre has been cruelly persecuted in England by
people quite ignorant of the difficulties of war or of the conditions
under which it is carried on in this country, it is perhaps not out of
place to write a few words of different tenor.
Gatacre was a man who made his way in the army, not through any
influence or favour which he enjoyed, but by sheer hard work and good
service. Wherever he had served he had left a high record behind him.
On the Indian frontier he gained the confidence of so fine a soldier as
Sir Bindon Blood, and it was largely to his reputation won in the
Chitral Expedition that his subsequent advancement was due. At Bombay
in 1897 he was entrusted with the duty of fighting the plague, then
first gripping its deadly fingers into the city. No one who is at all
acquainted with the course of this pest will need to be told how
excellent was his work. After the late Soudan campaign I travelled from
Bombay to Poona with a Parsee gentleman, a wealthy merchant of the
plague-stricken town, and I well remember how he dilated on the good
which Gatacre had done.
'He was our only chance,' said the black man. 'Now he is gone, and the
sickness will stay for ever.'
Gatacre's part in the Soudan campaign has been described at length
elsewhere. His courage has never been questioned, because the savage
critics did not wish to damage their cause by obvious absurdities. If I
were to discuss his tactics in the Boer war here I should soon get on to
ground which I have forbidden myself. It is sufficient to observe that
Gatacre retained the confidence and affection of his soldiers in the
most adverse circumstances. When the weary privates struggled back to
camp after the disastrous day at Stormburg they were quite clear on one
point: 'No one could have got us out but him.' Two days before he was
dismissed the Cameron Highlanders passed through Bethany, and the men
recognised the impetuous leader of the Atbara charge; and, knowing he
had fallen among evil days, cheered him in the chivalry of the common
man. The poor general was much moved at this spontaneous greeting,
which is a very rare occurrence in our phlegmatic, well-ordered British
Army. Let us hope the sound will long ring in his ears, and, as it
were, light a bright lamp of memory in the chill and dreary evening of
life.
Exit General Gatacre. 'Now,' as my Parsee merchant remarked, 'he is
gone'; and I suppose there are, here and there, notes of triumph. But
among them I will strike a note of warning. If the War Office breaks
generals not so much for incapacity as for want of success with any
frequency, it will not find men to fight for it in brigade and
divisional commands. Every man who knows the chances of war feels
himself insecure. The initiative which an unsympathetic discipline has
already killed, or nearly killed, in younger officers, will wither and
die in their superiors. You will have generals as before, but they will
not willingly risk the fruits of long years of service in damnable
countries and of perils of all kinds. They will look at the enemy's
position. They will endeavour to divide responsibility. They will ask
for orders or instructions. But they will not fight--if they can
possibly help it, and then only on the limited liability principle,
which means the shedding of much blood without any result. Besides, as
an irreverent subaltern remarked to me: 'If you begin with Gatacre,
where are you going to end? What about poor old ----?'
But I dare not pursue the subject further.
CHAPTER III
AT HALF-WAY HOUSE
Bloemfontein: April 16.
After a decent interval let the curtain rise on a new act. The scene
and most of the characters are different, but it is the same play. The
town--a town of brick and tin--stands at the apparent edge of a vast
plain of withered grass, from whose inhospitable aspect it turns and
nestles, as if for protection, round the scrub-covered hills to
northward. From among the crowd of one-storied dwelling-houses, more
imposing structures, the seats of Government and commerce, rise
prominently to catch the eye and impress the mind with the pleasing
prospect of wealthier civilisation. Here and there are towers and
pinnacles, and, especially remarkable, a handsome building surrounded in
the classic style by tall white pillars, and, surmounted by a lofty
dome, looks like a Parliament House, but for the Red Cross flag which
flies from the summit and proclaims that, whatever may have been its
former purposes, the spacious hall within is at last devoted to the
benefit of mankind. The dark hills--their uncertain outline marked at
one point by the symmetrical silhouette of a fort--form the background
of the picture: Bloemfontein, April, 1900.
It is five o'clock in the afternoon. The Market-square is crowded with
officers and soldiers listening to the band of the Buffs. Every regiment
in the service, every Colony in the Empire is represented; all clad in
uniform khaki, but distinguished by an extraordinary variety of badges.
Each group is a miniature system of Imperial Federation. The City
Volunteer talks to a Queensland Mounted Infantryman, who hands his
matchbox to a private of the Line. A Bushman from New Zealand, a
Cambridge undergraduate, and a tea-planter from Ceylon stroll up and
make the conversation general. On every side all kinds of men are
intermingled, united by the sympathy of a common purpose and soldered
together in the fire of war. And this will be of great consequence
later on.
The inhabitants--bearded Burghers who have made their peace, townsfolk
who never desired to make a quarrel--stand round and watch complacently.
After all, there are worse things than to be defeated. Demand is keen,
the army is wealthy, and prices are high. Trade has followed hard on
the flag which waves from every building; and, whether it be for
merchandise or farm produce, the market is buoyant.
The officers congregate about the pretentious building of the club, and
here I find acquaintances gathered together from all the sentry beats of
the Empire, for the regular army usually works like a kaleidoscope, and,
new combinations continually forming, scatter old friends in every
direction. But here all are collected once more, and the man we met on
the frontier, the man we met 'up the river,' the man we met at
manoeuvres with the comrade of Sandhurst, the friend or enemy of Harrow
days, and the rival of a Meerut tournament, stand in a row together.
Merry military music, laughing faces, bright, dainty little caps, a
moving throng, and the consciousness that this means a victorious
British Army in the capital of the Free State, drive away all shadows
from the mind.
One cannot see any gaps in the crowd; it is so full of animation that
the spaces where Death has put his hand are not to be seen. The strong
surges of life have swept across them as a sunny sea closes over the
foundered ship. Yet they are not quite forgotten.
'Hullo, my dear old boy, I am glad to see you. When did you get up
here? Have you brought ---- with you? Oh, I am sorry. It must have
been a fever-stricken hole that Ladysmith. Poor chap! Do you remember
how he .... Charlie has gone home. He can never play polo
again--expanding bullet smashed his arm all to bits. Bad luck, wasn't
it? Now we've got to find a new back .... and ---- was killed at
Paardeberg .... spoiled the whole team.' The band struck into a lively
tune. 'How long is it going to last?'
'With luck it ought to be over by October, just a year from start to
finish.'
'I thought you said something about Pretoria the third week in March.'
'Ah, I must have meant May, or, perhaps, June.'
'Or August.'
'Who can tell? But I think this is the half-way house.'
The conversation stops abruptly. Everyone looks round. Strolling
across the middle of the square, quite alone, was a very small
grey-haired gentleman, with extremely broad shoulders and a most
unbending back. He wore a staff cap with a broad red band and a heavy
gold-laced peak, brown riding boots, a tightly-fastened belt, and no
medals, orders, or insignia of any kind. But no one doubted his
identity for an instant, and I knew that I was looking at the Queen's
greatest subject, the commander who had in the brief space of a month
revolutionised the fortunes of the war, had turned disaster into
victory, and something like despair into almost inordinate triumph.
Other soldiers of career and quality mingle with the diversified throng.
Macdonald sits on a bay pony near the club verandah talking to Martyr of
the Mounted Infantry and of Central African repute. Pole-Carew, who
came to the Cape as Sir Redvers Buller's camp commandant, and passed at
a bound to brigadier-general, and by another still greater leap to the
command of the Eleventh Division, canters across the square. General
French and his staff have just ridden up. But the central figure holds
all eyes, and everyone knows that it is on him, and him alone, that the
public fortunes depend.
Such was the scene on the afternoon of my arrival in Bloemfontein. What
of the situation? The first thing to be done after the occupation of
the town was to re-open the railway. The presence of a large army in
their rear and the swift advance of Gatacre and Clements compelled the
invaders to withdraw from Cape Colony, so that Norval's Pont and
Bethulie bridges were once more in British hands. Both were, however,
destroyed or partially destroyed. Besides these, various other smaller
bridges and culverts had been blown up. All these were forthwith
repaired by the engineers, and through communication by rail was
established between the advanced Field Army in the Free State and the
sea bases at East London, Port Elizabeth, and Capetown.
In the meantime the Army at Bloemfontein lived on the reserve of rations
it had carried from Modder River. When the railway was opened the line
from Modder River was dropped. A broad-gauge railway, even though it be
only a single line, is usually capable of supplying an army of at least
50,000 men with considerable ease, and the reader may remember how the
Natal Government Railway was able to support 30,000 men through January
and February, to transport reinforcements and sick, and to run all its
ordinary traffic in addition. But the repaired or provisional bridges
on the Bloemfontein line caused so much delay that the carrying power of
the railway was seriously diminished. When a permanent bridge has been
blown up two alternatives present themselves to the engineers: a high
level or a low level substitute. The high level bridge, such as was
thrown across the Tugela after the relief of Ladysmith, takes much
longer to build, but, when built, trains are run straight over it with
very little diminution of speed. It is, moreover, secure against
floods.
The low level bridge must be approached by zigzag ramps, which impose
frequent shuntings, and cause great delay; and it is, of course, only to
be trusted when there are no floods. But it has this inestimable
advantage in military operations: speed in construction. The Army must
be fed immediately. So the low level bridges were chosen; hence an
early but reduced supply. When this was further minimised by the
passage of reinforcements the commissariat depots could scarcely make
headway, but must be content to feed the Army from day to day and
accumulate at the rate, perhaps, of only one day in three, or even one
in four. It was, therefore, evident that no offensive movement to the
northward could be made for several weeks.
See how the stomach governs the world. By the rapid invasion of their
territories, by the staggering blows which they had been dealt at
Kimberley, Paardeburg, Poplar Grove, and Dreifontein, and by the bad
news from Natal, the Boers in the Free State were demoralised. If we
could have pressed them unceasingly the whole country would have been
conquered to the Vaal River. Encouraged by Lord Roberts's Proclamation,
and believing that all resistance in the Southern Republic was at an
end, great numbers of Free Staters returned to their homes, took the
oath of neutrality, and prepared to accept the inevitable.
But while the Army waited, as it was absolutely forced to wait, to get
supplies, to get horses--to get thousands of horses--to give the
Infantry new boots, and all arms a little breathing space, the Boers
recovered from their panic, pulled themselves together, and, for the
moment, boldly seized the offensive.
Great, though perhaps temporary, were the advantages which they gained.
The belief that the war in the Free State was at an end, which had led
so many of the Burghers to return to their farms, was shared to some
extent by the British commander, and loudly proclaimed by his colonial
advisers. To protect the farmers who had made their peace the Imperial
forces were widely extended. A line was drawn across the Free State
from Fourteen Streams, through Boshof, Bloemfontein, and Thabanchu,
south of which it was assumed that the country was pacified and
conquered.
Meanwhile Olivier and the southern commando, recalled from their
operations in the Cape Colony, were making a hurried, and, as it seemed,
a desperate march to rejoin the main Boer forces. They expected the
attack of the same terrible Army which had already devoured Cronje; nor
was it until they reached Ladybrand and found only Pilcher with a few
hundred men snapping at their heels that they realised that the bulk of
the British troops were for the moment practically immobile at
Bloemfontein. Then they turned.
Pilcher fled warily before them, and fell back on Broadwood's Brigade,
near Thabanchu. With renewed courage and strong reinforcements from
their friends north of the line of occupation they pressed on. Broadwood
was compelled to fall back on the Ninth Division, which was camped west
of the waterworks. He made a twenty-mile march at night and laagered in
the small hours of the morning, thinking, as most people would think,
that pursuit was for the time being shaken off. Morning broke, and with
it a Boer cannonade.
I do not intend to be drawn into a detailed description of the action
that followed. For many reasons it deserves separate and detailed
consideration, chiefly because it shows the Boer at his very best:
crafty in war and, above all things, deadly cool. In a word, what
happened was this: The shells crashed into the laager. Everyone said,
'Take the blasted waggons out of the shell fire. We will cover their
retreat'; which they did most beautifully: Broadwood displaying all the
skill which had enabled him to disentangle the reconnaissance of the 5th
of April near the Atbara from the clutches of the Dervishes. The said
waggons hurried out of the shell fire only to fall into the frying-pan
of an ambuscade. Guns, prisoners, and much material fell into the hands
of the Boers. The Ninth Division retreated suddenly--too suddenly, say
the Army, with other remarks which it is not my business to
transcribe--on Bloemfontein, and the force of the storm fell on Gatacre.
Gatacre had a post at Dewetsdorp: three companies of the Royal Irish
Rifles, two of Mounted Infantry. So soon as he heard of the retirement
of the Ninth Division he sent orders by many routes for his post to fall
back too. They fell back accordingly; but at Reddersburg the net closed
round them. Let us judge no man harshly or in ignorance. Fighting
followed. With a loss of eight killed and thirty-one wounded, the
retreating troops surrendered when relief was scarcely five miles away.
Everything curled back on to Bloemfontein and the railway line, which it
was _vital_ to hold. Reinforcements were thrust to the front to meet
the emergency: Rundle, with the Eighth Division, was diverted from
Kimberley to Springfontein; Hunter, with the Tenth Division (our old
friends the Irish and Fusilier Brigades), started from Natal, thus
condemning Buller to the strict defensive, and the Boers swept
southward.
Now, in accordance with the terms of Lord Roberts's Proclamation, many
farmers of the Free State, fighting men of the Boer Army--that is to
say, who had thought that all was up: deserters, in other words--had
come into the British posts, made their submission, taken the oath, and
returned to their farms. The Boers were very angry with these people.
What protection could we give them? Some, it is said--it may be a
lie--were shot by the enemy. Most of them, from fear or inclination,
rejoined their commandos.
The whole of the right-hand bottom corner of the Free State was overrun.
Southward still hastened the Boer forces. Brabant was the next to feel
the tempest. His garrison in Wepener was assailed, surrounded, fought
well--perhaps is now fighting desperately. Other Boers approached the
rebel districts of Cape Colony. The lately penitent rebels stirred, are
stirring.
Mark, by the way, this sedition is not the result of misplaced
generosity but of military misfortunes. No one expects beaten men to be
grateful; but, under certain conditions, they will be loyal. An enemy
at their throats is not one of those conditions. Southward still sweep
the commandos _with empty carts_, for this is the most fertile of all
the Republican territories; and, in the meanwhile, what are we doing?
Divisions and brigades are being moved by a strong yet deliberate hand.
The hope--general and special idea in one--is to catch these bold
fellows who have thrust their heads thus far into the lion's mouth and
enjoyed until now such immunity. Wepeper making a brave defence;
Brabant marching through Rouxville to bar their advance; Rundle,
Chermside, and Brabazon striking east from Edenburg to shut the door
behind them with two Infantry divisions, twenty-four guns, and 2,000
Yeomanry; and, further north, the great Bloemfontein Army--four Infantry
divisions, Hamilton's 10,000 mounted men, French's four Cavalry
brigades, and many guns--is almost ready to move. Assuredly these Boers
are in a dangerous place. Will they escape? Will they, perhaps, carry
some part of the intercepting lines with them as a trophy of victory?
'Qui vivra verra,' and, if these letters continue, 'who runs may read,'
for I purpose to journey _via_ Edenburg to Reddersburg to-morrow, and
thence on to the point of collision, which must mark the climax of this
extremely interesting event henceforward to be called 'The Operations in
the Right-hand Bottom Corner of the Free State.'
CHAPTER IV
TWO DAYS WITH BRABAZON
Before Dewetsdorp: April 21.
When the incursion of the Boers into the recently pacified districts
became known, the Eighth Division (Rundle) was diverted from Kimberley,
whither it was proceeding, and concentrated at Springfontein. The Third
Division (Chermside, in supersession of Gatacre) massed at Bethany.
Still more troops were needed to guard the line and clear the country.
Sir Redvers Buller was asked whether he could co-operate by forcing Van
Reenen's Pass and bringing pressure on the enemy's line of retreat. His
position in the centre of the triangle of Natal was, however, an
inconvenient one. The strategic advantages possessed by the Boers in
this scene of the war have before been noticed. But it may be worth
while to explain them again.
The enemy possess the superiority of an enveloping frontier. If Sir
Redvers Buller moves west through Van Reenen's Pass to make the
diversion required in the Free State, down will come the Boers from the
Biggarsburg on his communications and into South Natal. If he moves
north to attack the Biggarsburg positions in order to clear Natal he
will cut the Boers on his left flank and line.
According to the best information there are three thousand Boers on the
Drakensburg Passes, and ten thousand on the Biggarsburg. Buller,
therefore, would have preferred to mask Van Reenen's with the Ladysmith
Division (Fourth, Lyttelton), which was getting well and strong again,
and move northwards with the Second, Fifth, and Tenth Divisions. He did
not consider until northern Natal should be cleared that he could safely
move westward. On the other hand, the need in the Free State was urgent,
and it was therefore arranged that the Tenth Division (Hunter) should
come by sea to East London--one brigade to replace the division diverted
from Kimberley, one brigade to Bethulie, and that the rest of the Natal
Field Army should remain strictly on the defensive until the situation
was materially altered.
Practically, therefore, five brigades of troops were available for the
operations in the right-hand bottom corner: Hart, with a brigade of
Hunter's Division at Bethulie, the Third and Eighth Divisions under
Chermside and Rundle at Springfontein and Bethany. Besides these
powerful bodies, which were quite independent of the communication
troops or the Bloemfontein Army, there were fourteen hundred Yeomanry
and Mounted Infantry under General Brabazon, and Brabant's Colonial
Brigade, about two thousand five hundred strong.
It is scarcely necessary to follow all the movements in exact detail.
Rundle formed a column at Edenburg, and, marching to Reddersburg, joined
his force to part of Chermside's Division from Bethany, thus having
under his immediate command eight battalions, four batteries, and
Brabazon's Mounted Brigade. Another brigade was collecting at Edenburg
under Campbell. Hart was moved north-east towards Rouxville, where was
also Brabant with a thousand horse. The rest of Brabant's force, some
fifteen hundred strong, were blockaded in Wepener by the enemy. Such
was the situation when I left Bloemfontein on the morning of the 17th.
I travelled prosperously; came by rail to Edenburg, trekked from there
in drenching rains, most unusual for this time of year, and greatly
increasing the difficulties of supply; and, resting for the night at
Reddersburg, caught up the marching column in its camp, about eleven
miles from Dewetsdorp, on the night of the 19th.
The position of the various troops was then as follows: Rundle, with
eight battalions, four batteries, and fifteen hundred horse at Oorlogs
Poorte, about twelve miles from Dewetsdorp; Campbell, with two
battalions and a battery near Rosendal, marching to join him; the
Grenadier Guards double marching through Reddersburg to catch up the
main force; Hart, with four battalions in Rouxville; Brabant, with one
thousand horsemen eight miles north of Rouxville; Dalgety, with a
garrison of fifteen hundred men, holding Wepener.
[Illustration: Operations in the O.F.S. April, 1900.]
So far as could be learned the enemy had about seven thousand men with
twelve guns south of the Bloemfontein-Thabanchu line under Commandants
Olivier and De Wet, and with this force, which made up in enterprise and
activity what it lacked in numbers or material, they were attempting to
blockade and attack Wepener, to bar the road of Rundle's column to
Dewetsdorp, and to check Brabant and Hart at Smithfield. Besides
proposing this ambitious programme, the Boers sent their patrols riding
about the country commandeering all pacified farmers under threats of
death.
* * * * *
We had a very pleasant ride from Reddersburg, and it was evening when we
rounded the shoulder of a grassy hill and saw the camp of the main
British column before us. It lay about the foot of a prominent knoll
rising from a broad plain, which was in striking contrast to the
mountains of Natal, and seemed to promise ample opportunity to the
regular soldier. 'Camp' is, perhaps, an inaccurate description, for
there were scarcely any tents to be seen, and the rolling ground was
littered with swarms of grazing horses and oxen, and overspread with an
immense canopy of white smoke from the hundreds of gleaming grass fires
lighted to cook the soldiers' suppers. I presented myself to Sir Leslie
Rundle, who received me courteously, and briefly explained the outlines
of the situation. We had arrived in the nick of time. The whole force
would march at dawn. The scouts had exchanged shots during the day.
The Kaffir spies reported that the enemy would fight on the morrow.
What could be better? So with much satisfaction we went to bed.
There was a biting chill in the air when the first light of dawn began
to grow in the sky, nor was I the only one who searched a modest kit for
some of those warm clothes which our friends at home have thoughtfully
been sending out. The South African winter was drawing near. But the
sun soon rose, and we shivered no longer. The Cavalry were early astir.
Indeed their mounted squadrons in silhouette against the morning sky was
my first waking impression, and by half-past five all were in motion. I
started a little later, but it was not long before I overtook them.
Though the command was not a large one it presented several interesting
features.
For the first time I saw the Imperial Yeomanry in the field. Trotting
across the beautiful green pasture land in a most extended formation, to
which they seemed readily to adapt themselves, were seven hundred
Yeomen, all good men and true, who had volunteered to fight because they
understood the main causes of the quarrel, and from personal conviction
earnestly desired to be of some assistance to the State, and who were,
moreover, excellently mounted on smart, short-docked cobs, which they
sat and rode like the sportsmen they mostly were.
We were moving along in a wide formation, which secured us against all
possibilities of surprise, when suddenly I noticed that the scouts far
in front were halted.
'Tit-tat, tit-tat': two shots from a high plateau to the right. Shots
fired towards you, I must explain, make a double, and those fired away
from you a single, report.
We had flushed one of the enemy's outposts. Riding nearer, I could see
their figures--seven in all--exposed on the skyline. This showed they
were only an outpost, and wished to make us believe they were more.
When the Boer is in force he is usually invisible. Still, the position
was a strong one, and it is always a possibility worth considering with
the Boer that he may foresee your line of thought, and just go one step
further, out of contrariness. General Brabazon therefore halted his
centre squadrons and detached a turning force of three companies of
Yeomanry to the right.
We waited, watching the scouts exchange shots with the Boer picket, and
watching--for it was a very pretty sight--the Yeomanry spread out and
gallop away to the flank like a pack of hounds in full cry, each
independent, yet the whole simultaneous. In a quarter of an hour they
were scrambling up the steep sides of the plateau almost in rear of the
obstructive picket, which hurriedly departed while time remained. Then
the centre swung forward, and the whole Cavalry force advanced again,
the greater part of it moving on to the plateau, where a running fight
with the Dutch outposts now commenced at long range.
Several times we thought that we had unmasked their main position, and
that the Cavalry work for the day was over; but each time Brabazon's
turning movement on the right, the execution of which was entrusted to
Colonel Sitwell, a very dashing officer of Egyptian note, compelled them
to fall back. After an hour of this sort of thing we were in possession
of practically the whole of the plateau, which turned out to be of large
extent.
Beyond it, commanding it, essential to it, yet not of it, was a steep
rocky kopje. The swift advance and the necessity of pressing the enemy
had left the Infantry a long way behind. The General felt, however,
that this point must be secured. McNeill made a dash for it with the
scouts. The Yeomanry galloped off to the right again, as if about to
surround it, and the Boers allowed themselves to be bounced out of this
strong and important position, and scampered away to a smooth green hill
a mile in rear. Brabazon made haste to occupy the captured kopje in
force, and did so just in time, for as soon as the turning force--two
companies (I am going to call them squadrons in future) of yeomanry and
a company of Mounted Infantry--approached the green hill, the musketry
suddenly grew from an occasional drip into a regular patter, and there
was the loud boom of a field gun. We had found the main Boer position,
and the Cavalry came to a standstill. The enemy now directed a very
sharp fire on the captured kopje, which, it seems, they originally
intended to hold had they not been hustled out of it as has been
described. They also shelled the Yeomanry--who were continuing the flank
movement--rather heavily as they retired, inflicting some loss.
We had now to wait for the Infantry, and they lagged on the road. The
Boer fire began to take effect. Several soldiers were carried wounded
off the top of the hill--one poor fellow shot through both cheekbones.
Others had to lie where they were struck because it was not possible to
move them while the fire was so accurate.
On the reverse slope, however, there was good cover for man and horse.
Some of the men were engaged for the first time, and though their
behaviour was excellent, the General thought it necessary to walk along
the firing line and speak a few words here and there.
The Infantry still lagged on the road, but at about two o'clock Sir
Leslie Rundle himself arrived. The firing about the kopje had been
loud, and a rumour--who starts these tales?--ran back along the marching
columns that the Cavalry were hard pressed, were running short of
ammunition, and that the Boers were turning both flanks. At any rate, I
found anxious faces in the divisional staff.
Rundle considered that the retention of the kopje was of first
importance, and Sir Herbert Chermside, his second in command, fully
agreed with him. But the Infantry of the advanced guard were alone near
enough. It was decided to push them on. At this moment a reassuring
message arrived from Brabazon engaging that he could hold his own, and
hoping the Infantry would not be hurried so as to lose their breath.
Everyone was very cheerful after this, and when at last the leading
battalion--the Worcester Regiment--marched to the kopje all were able to
admire the fine cool way in which they crossed the dangerous ground
behind it; and I myself saw three pom-pom shells strike all around a
young officer, who waved his rifle thereat in high delight, and shouted
out loudly, 'By the left!' an order the purport of which I am as
uncertain as the reader, but which, doubtless, was encouraging in
spirit. When the Infantry had relieved the mounted men the latter
withdrew to safer positions, and as the evening was drawing on the
action came to an end--by mutual consent and by the effective
intervention of the British Artillery.
The events of the next day, though according to the scale of the war
unimportant, were nevertheless instructive from the military point of
view, and, so far as they concerned me, sufficiently exciting to
require, if not to deserve, a letter to themselves.
CHAPTER V
TWO DAYS WITH BRABAZON (_continued_)
Camp before Dewetsdorp: April 22.
Whether I am to see the white cliffs of Dover again I know not, nor will
I attempt to predict. But it seems that my fortunes in this land are to
be a succession of adventures and escapes, any one of which would
suffice for a personal experience of the campaign. I acquit myself of
all desire to seek for these. Indeed, I have zealously tried to avoid
all danger except what must attend a War Correspondent's precarious
existence. This I recognise as a necessary evil, for the lot of the
writer in the field is a hard and heavy one. 'All the danger of war and
one-half per cent. the glory': such is our motto, and that is the reason
why we expect large salaries. But these hazards swoop on me out of a
cloudless sky, and that I have hitherto come unscathed through them,
while it fills my heart with thankfulness to God for His mercies, makes
me wonder why I must be so often thrust to the brink and then withdrawn.
However, I will tell the tale of the doings of the Army, and what
happened to me shall fill its proper place, so that the reader may
himself be the judge of the matter.
The night of the 20th passed quietly, but the Boers were awake with the
sunrise and saluted us with discharges of the 'pom-pom,' which, as far
as I could see, did no harm to anyone. We could not press the attack on
the previous day because the Infantry were tired out and the enemy's
position of sufficient natural strength to make an assault a serious
business. In the night the Dutchmen had been busy, and the black lines
of entrenchments marked the hill-sides. When I inquired whether there
would be a battle or not that day, staff officers pointed over the veldt
to a column of dust which was coming slowly nearer.
General Campbell, with three battalions (including two of her Majesty's
Guards) and a battery, was marching to join the main column. It was
necessary, in view of the entrenchments and the approaching
reinforcements, to wait until the force was complete. The event would
be decided on the morrow, and meanwhile Brabazon and the mounted
troops--Cavalry, I shall call them--were to make a reconnaissance of the
Boer left.
The brigade, which included the Mounted Infantry, and was about a
thousand strong, moved southward behind the outpost line and, making a
rapid and wide circuit, soon came on the enemy's left flank. Here we
waited while patrols were pushed out and while Brabazon was clearing his
own right by a still wider turning movement. The patrols soon drew the
fire of the Boer pickets, and the rifle shots began to ring out in the
clear cool air of the morning. Presently a party of a dozen Boers
appeared in the distance, galloping down towards a farm whence they
might fire on the gradually advancing Cavalry. The General asked the
subaltern in charge of our two guns whether they were within range. The
young officer was anxious to try. We watched the experiment with
attention.
The practice was extremely good. The first shell burst in the middle of
the Boer horsemen, who at once spread into a looser formation. The next
exploded in front of them, and all the seven shells that were fired fell
within measurable distance of someone.
For the first time in this war I saw the Boers show what I consider
cowardice; for without anyone being killed or wounded the whole party
turned back and, abandoning their intention or duty, scurried away to
cover behind the long swell of ground over which they had come. The
Boer Army in Natal was not thus easily dissuaded from its objects.
Meanwhile the flanking movement was in progress, and as the ground to
our right was gradually made good and secured by Colonel Sitwell,
Brabazon pushed his centre forward until McNeill's scouts were cantering
all over the slopes where the Boers had just been shelled, and hunting
such of the enemy as tarried to safer and more remote positions. At
last we arrived at the edge of the swell of ground. It fell steeply
towards a flat basin, from the middle of which rose a most prominent and
peculiar kopje. Invisible behind this was Dewetsdorp. Round it stood
Boers, some mounted, some on foot, to the number of about two hundred.
Our rapid advance, almost into the heart of their position, had
disturbed and alarmed them. They were doubtful whether this was
reconnaissance or actual attack. They determined to make certain by
making an attempt to outflank the outflanking cavalry; and no sooner had
our long-range rifle fire compelled them to take cover behind the hill
than a new force, as it seemed, of two hundred rode into the open and
passing across our front at a distance of, perhaps, 2,000 yards, made
for a white stone kopje on our right.
Angus McNeill ran up to the General. 'Sir, may we cut them off? I think
we can just do it.' The scouts pricked up their ears. The General
reflected. 'All right,' he said, 'you may try.'
'Mount, mount, mount, the scouts!' cried their impetuous officer,
scrambling into his saddle. Then, to me, 'Come with us, we'll give you
a show now--first-class.'
A few days before, in an unguarded moment, I had promised to follow the
fortunes of the scouts for a day. I looked at the Boers, they were
nearer to the white stone kopje than we, but, on the other hand, they
had the hill to climb, and were probably worse mounted. It might be
done, and if it were done--I thought of the affair of Acton Homes--how
dearly they would have to pay in that open plain. So, in the interests
of the 'Morning Post,' I got on my horse and we all started--forty or
fifty scouts, McNeill and I, as fast as we could, by hard spurring, make
the horses go.
It was from the very beginning a race, and recognised as such by both
sides. As we converged I saw the five leading Boers, better mounted
than their comrades, outpacing the others in a desperate resolve to
secure the coign of vantage. I said, 'We cannot do it'; but no one
would admit defeat or leave the matter undecided. The rest is
exceedingly simple.
We arrived at a wire fence 100 yards--to be accurate 120 yards--from the
crest of the kopje, dismounted, and, cutting the wire, were about to
seize the precious rocks when--as I had seen them in the railway cutting
at Frere, grim, hairy and terrible--the heads and shoulders of a dozen
Boers appeared; and how many more must be close behind them?
There was a queer, almost inexplicable, pause, or perhaps there was no
pause at all; but I seem to remember much happening. First the
Boers--one fellow with a long, drooping, black beard, and a
chocolate-coloured coat, another with a red scarf round his neck. Two
scouts cutting the wire fence stupidly. One man taking aim across his
horse, and McNeill's voice, quite steady: 'Too late; back to the other
kopje. Gallop!'
Then the musketry crashed out, and the 'swish' and 'whirr' of the
bullets filled the air. I put my foot in the stirrup. The horse,
terrified at the firing, plunged wildly. I tried to spring into the
saddle; it turned under the animal's belly. He broke away, and galloped
madly off. Most of the scouts were already 200 yards off. I was alone,
dismounted, within the closest range, and a mile at least from cover of
any kind.
One consolation I had--my pistol. I could not be hunted down unarmed in
the open as I had been before. But a disabling wound was the brightest
prospect. I turned, and, for the second time in this war, ran for my
life on foot from the Boer marksmen, and I thought to myself, 'Here at
last I take it.' Suddenly, as I ran, I saw a scout. He came from the
left, across my front; a tall man, with skull and crossbones badge, and
on a pale horse. Death in Revelation, but life to me.
I shouted to him as he passed: 'Give me a stirrup.' To my surprise he
stopped at once. 'Yes,' he said, shortly. I ran up to him, did not
bungle in the business of mounting, and in a moment found myself behind
him on the saddle.
Then we rode. I put my arms around him to catch a grip of the mane. My
hand became soaked with blood. The horse was hard hit; but, gallant
beast, he extended himself nobly. The pursuing bullets piped and
whistled--for the range was growing longer--overhead.
'Don't be frightened,' said my rescuer; 'they won't hit you.' Then, as
I did not reply, 'My poor horse, oh, my poor ---- horse; shot with an
explosive bullet. The devils! But their hour will come. Oh, my poor
horse!'
I said, 'Never mind, you've saved my life.' 'Ah,' he rejoined, 'but
it's the horse I'm thinking about.' That was the whole of our
conversation.
Judging from the number of bullets I heard I did not expect to be hit
after the first 500 yards were covered, for a galloping horse is a
difficult target, and the Boers were breathless and excited. But it was
with a feeling of relief that I turned the corner of the further kopje
and found I had thrown double sixes again.
The result of the race had been watched with strained attention by the
rest of the troops, and from their position they knew that we were
beaten before we ever reached the wire fence. They had heard the sudden
fierce crackle of musketry and had seen what had passed. All the
officers were agreed that the man who pulled up in such a situation to
help another was worthy of some honourable distinction. Indeed, I have
heard that Trooper Roberts--note the name, which seems familiar in this
connection--is to have his claims considered for the Victoria Cross. As
to this I will not pronounce, for I feel some diffidence in writing
impartially of a man who certainly saved me from a great danger.
Well satisfied with my brief experience with the scouts, I returned to
General Brabazon. While we had been advancing deeply into the Boer
flank, they had not been idle, and now suddenly, from the side of the
solitary kopje behind which they had collected, three guns came into
action against us. For ten minutes the shell fire was really hot. As
these guns were firing with black powder, the smoke springing out in a
thick white cloud from the muzzle warned us whenever a projectile was on
its way, and, I think, added to the strain on the nerves. You could
watch the distant artillery. There was the gun again; four or five
seconds to wonder whether the shell would hit you in the face; the
approaching hiss rushing into a rending shriek; safe over; bang! right
among the horses a hundred yards behind. Here comes the next--two guns
fired together this time. Altogether, the Boers fired nearly thirty
shells--several of which were shrapnel--on this small space of ground.
But fate was in a merciful mood that day, for we had but one man killed
and five or six--including the General's orderly--wounded by them.
It was, however, evident that this could not endure. Brabazon had not
cared to bring his own two guns into such an advanced position, because
they were not horse guns, and might not be able to get away safely if
the Boers should make a strong counter attack. Indeed, so long as the
loss of guns is considered a national disaster instead of only an
ordinary incident of war, Cavalry officers will regard them rather as
sources of anxiety than as powerful weapons.
Without guns it was useless to stay, and as, moreover, Sir Leslie
Rundle's orders were that the Cavalry were not to be severely engaged,
Brabazon decided to withdraw the reconnaissance, and did so most
successfully, after an instructive little rearguard action. He had
penetrated far into the enemy's position; had compelled him to move his
guns and disturb his frontal dispositions; had reconnoitred the ground,
located the laagers, and come safely away with the loss of little more
than a dozen men. Had there been on this day an Infantry support behind
the Cavalry we should have hustled the enemy out of his whole position
and slept triumphantly in Dewetsdorp.
Sir Leslie Rundle was much impressed by the vigour and success of the
Cavalry, whose fortunes were watched from the plateau, and as evening
came the report spread through the camp that a general engagement would
be fought on the next day. He also decided to entrust the direction of
the actual turning attack to General Brabazon, who, besides his Cavalry
force, was to have twelve guns and an Infantry brigade under his
command.
With every feeling of confidence in the issue the Army went to bed,
impatient for the dawn. But in the dead of night a telegram arrived
from Lord Roberts, instructing Rundle not to press his attack until he
was in touch with Pole-Carew and other reinforcements; and it thus
became evident that the operations had grown to an altogether larger
scale.
CHAPTER VI
THE DEWETSDORP EPISODE
Bloemfontein: May 1
Sometimes it happens that these letters are devoted to describing small
incidents, and often personal experiences in a degree of detail which,
if the rest of the campaign were equally narrated, would expand the
account to limits far beyond the industry of the writer or the patience
of the reader. At others many important events must be crowded into a
few pages. But though the proportions of the tale may vary, I shall not
deserve criticism so long as the original object of conveying a lively
impression of the war is strictly pursued; nor should the reader
complain if, for his instruction or amusement, he is made one day to sit
with the map of the Orange Free State spread before him, and move little
flags to show the course of the operations, and on another day is
invited to share the perils of a scout's patrol or try the chances of a
cavalry skirmish. To-day there is much to tell, and we must remain
almost beyond the sound of the cannon watching a distant panorama.
The object of the operations was in any case to relieve Wepener, and to
clear the right hand bottom corner of the Orange Free State of the
Boers, and, if the enterprise prospered and the fates were kind, to cut
off and capture some part of their forces. In all five columns were in
motion. There were to be demonstrations along the east of the railway
line, increasing in earnestness according as they were nearer the south,
and the lowest columns were to actually push the matter through. Ian
Hamilton, with 2,000 Mounted Infantry, was ordered to demonstrate
against the waterworks position. French, supported by Pole-Carew, was
instructed to move on Leeukop. Rundle, in conjunction with Hart and
Brabant from the southward, was to force his way to Dewetsdorp and to
relieve Wepener. What befell his column on April 20 and 21 has already
been described. The attack on the Boer position in front of Dewetsdorp
had not been made on the 20th because Sir Herbert Chermside pointed out
that the Infantry were fatigued with marching. The next morning the
smooth hills were crowned with entrenchments, and it was thought better
to wait for Campbell's Brigade, which would arrive at sundown.
The 22nd was to be the day of battle. Meanwhile Sir Leslie Rundle had
telegraphed to Lord Roberts describing the horseshoe position of the
enemy, and its strength, explaining that with the small mounted force at
his disposal any attack which he might make would develop into something
very like a frontal attack, and would be costly. A strong memorandum
had previously been circulated among divisional and brigade commanders
condemning, almost prohibiting, frontal attacks, and the General, not
unnaturally, wished to assure himself that the price of victory would
not be grudged. When this telegram reached Bloemfontein it was
apparently misunderstood. 'Rundle is hung up,' they said. 'He can't get
on'; and hence the reply which arrived in the dead of night, and
prevented the attack of the 22nd. 'Wait till you get into touch with
Pole-Carew,' or words to that effect. So the powerful force--almost
equal in strength to that with which Sir George White had resisted the
first fury of the Boers when, with 25,000 men under the
Commandant-General himself, they burst into Natal--was relegated to some
days of pusillanimous waiting in front of a position held by scarcely
2,500 men.
After breakfast on the morning of the unfought battle I climbed to the
top of the hill the cavalry had seized two days before, and which the
soldiers had christened "Brab's kopje.' A fifteen hundred yards
musketry duel was proceeding, and it was dangerous to put one's head
over the stone shelters even for a minute to look at the Boer
entrenchments on the green slope opposite. But such was not my purpose.
I scanned the northern horizon. Far away on a peak of the misty blue
hills there flashed a diamond. It was Pole-Carew. Half an hour later
another star began to twinkle further to the eastward. French and his
cavalry were riding steadily forward, 'fighting, too,' said the
heliograph, 'but pushing them back.' The scale of the operations had
grown indeed. No less than five infantry and three cavalry brigades,
with more than seventy guns, were involved in the business of dislodging
2,500 Boers from their position in front of Dewetsdorp.
The 23rd passed quietly, except for an intermittent bombardment of our
camp by the Dutch guns and a Vickers-Maxim and the usual patter of
musketry along the outposts. The diamond points on the distant hills
seemed nearer and more to the east than before, and in the afternoon
Brabazon was sent to reconnoitre towards them. As the Yeomanry emerged
from the shelter of the plateau the Boer Creusot gun espied them.
Brabazon, with half a dozen officers or orderlies, was riding fifty
yards in front of his brigade.
'See there,' said the Dutch gunners, 'there is the Hoofd Commandant
himself; take good aim.' So they did, and from a range of 5,000 yards
burst their shell within two yards of the General's horse. 'Wonderful,'
said Brabazon; 'why can't our forsaken artillery shoot like that?' and
he ordered the brigade to canter by troops across the dangerous ground.
I watched the scene that followed from comparative safety, 600 yards
nearer the Boer gun. Troop by troop the Yeomanry emerged from shelter.
As each did so the men opened out to dispersed order and began to
gallop; and for every troop there was one shell. From where I stood the
spectacle was most interesting. Between the shrieking of the shell
overhead and its explosion among the galloping horsemen there was an
appreciable interval, in which one might easily have wagered whether it
would hit or miss.
The Yeomanry were very steady, and for the most part ran the gauntlet at
a nice, dignified canter, pulling into a walk as soon as the dangerous
space was crossed. After all no one was hurt, except three men who
broke their crowns through their horses falling on the rocky ground.
Indeed, I think, speaking from some experience, that we can always treat
these Creusot 9-pounders with contempt. They fling a small shell an
immense distance with surprising accuracy, but unless they actually hit
someone they hardly ever do any harm. An ordinary bullet is just as
dangerous, though it does not make so much noise.
At Vaal Krantz, in Natal, Dundonald's Brigade and other troops lived
quite comfortably for three days under the fire of a 98-pounder gun,
which in all that time only killed one soldier of the Dublin Fusiliers,
two natives, and a few beasts. The wholesale aspect of artillery fire
is not obtained unless at least a dozen guns are firing percussion shell
or unless shrapnel can be used. At present the Boers often cause us a
great deal of trouble with single guns, which, though they do scarcely
any material harm, disturb every one, so that camps are shifted and
marching columns ordered to make long _detours_; whereas we ought to
shrug our shoulders, as Ladysmith did, pay the small necessary toll, and
go our ways uninterruptedly. But I am being drawn into detail and
discussion, which, if I am ever to catch up the swift march of events,
must be rigorously excluded.
The 23rd passed quietly for times of war, and the Boer riflemen and
artillerists fired busily till dusk without doing much harm. We wondered
how much they knew of the 'increased scale' of the operations. Did they
realise the enormous strength of the forces closing round them? Were
they going to be caught as Cronje was caught? It was hardly likely.
Yet they were certainly holding all their positions in force at
nightfall, and meanwhile the spring of the trap was compressed and the
moment for releasing it arrived.
The morning of the 24th was unbroken by a single shot. Rundle, now in
touch with Pole-Carew, swung his division to the left, pivoting on
Chermside, to whom he entrusted the defence of the plateau. Brabazon
with his Mounted Brigade formed the extreme outer flank of this sweeping
movement. His orders were to join French, who drove inward from the
north, somewhere behind Dewetsdorp on the Modder River. So we started,
and, with much caution and the pomp of war, turned the enemy's left, and
in solemn silence bore down on the flank and rear of his position.
Meanwhile, Chermside on the plateau was struck by the entire cessation
of fire from the Boer lines opposite to him. He sent scouts to
reconnoitre. Single men crept up the hill, looked into the trenches,
and found--nothing. The Boers had retreated swiftly in the night. They
enjoyed good information of all our movements and designs, had foreseen
the impossibility of withstanding the great forces operating against
them. They delayed us with the appearance of strength until the last
minute. On the night of the 22nd they sent off their waggons towards
Thabanchu. On the 23rd they made their effort against Wepener, and
attacked the garrison heavily, and on the night of the 24th, having
failed at Wepener, they performed a masterly retreat, the assailants of
Wepener marching northwards _via_ Ladybrand, the covering force at
Dewetsdorp moving on Thabanchu.
And so it was that when, as directed, Brabazon circled round the enemy's
left flank and struck the Modder River--here only a rocky ditch with
occasional pools of mud--and when French, moving from Leeukop round and
behind their right flank, met him, they found the Dutch already
departed, and Dewetsdorp again under the Union Jack. The strong jaws of
the rat-trap shut together with a snap. I saw them--black across the
open plain--two great horns of cavalry and guns; but the rat had walked
comfortably away some hours before. Chermside moving over the empty
trenches occupied the town. Rundle, reaching it an hour later, owing to
his turning movement, hurried on through it to the Modder, and laid
Brabazon's dusty squadrons on the retreating enemy. Indeed, the latter
officer was already at the trot towards Thabanchu when French himself
arrived--a large and magnificent staff, 'pom-poms,' horse artillery, and
two cavalry brigades--and assumed supreme command.
He immediately stopped the pursuit, sent Brabazon back to relieve
Wepener--which place had by its plucky defence, like Jellalabad,
relieved itself--and entered Dewetsdorp, where he remained until the
next day.
Such is the story of Dewetsdorp, which cannot be contemplated with
feelings of wild enthusiasm. The Wepener situation was cleared up, and
the Boers were persuaded to retire from the right hand bottom corner of
the Free State towards Ladybrand and Thabanchu at an exceedingly small
price in blood. On the other hand, the enemy might boast that 2,500
Burghers with six guns had contained 13,000 troops with thirty guns for
a week, while their brethren worked their wicked will on Wepener, and
had only been dislodged by the setting in motion of more than 25,000 men
and seventy guns.
The movements which followed the occupation of Dewetsdorp need not take
long in the telling. French's occupation of the town instead of
pursuing the enemy was not in accordance with the Commander-in-Chief's
ideas, and the cavalry leader was forthwith ordered to follow the Boers
at his best pace to Thabanchu. He started accordingly at daylight on
the 25th, and Rundle with the Eighth Division followed at noon.
Chermside remained at Dewetsdorp with part of the Third Division, and
was entrusted with the re-establishment of order through the disturbed
districts.
Brabazon marched on Wepener and collected the garrison. Their defence
of seventeen days, under continual rifle and shell fire, in hastily dug
trenches, which they were unable to leave even at night; exposed to
several fierce attacks; in spite of heavy losses and with uncertain
prospects of relief, will deserve careful attention when full accounts
are published, and is a very honourable episode in the history of
Brabant's Colonial Brigade, and particularly in the records of the Cape
Mounted Rifles, who lost nearly a quarter of their strength.
Bringing the defenders with him, and having communicated with Hart and
Brabant, Brabazon returned to Dewetsdorp, and was ordered to move thence
to Thabanchu, which he did in an exceedingly convenient hour, as it
turned out, for a certain convoy with an escort of Scots Guards and
Yeomanry. Pole-Carew and the Eleventh Division returned to Bloemfontein
to take part in the main advance.
The Boers made good their retreat. They took with them twenty-five
prisoners of the Worcester Regiment, who had blundered into their camp
before Dewetsdorp, armed only with cooking pots, which they meant to
carry to their regiment on 'Brab's kopje,' and great quantities of sheep
and oxen. They halted in Ladybrand, and to the north and east of
Thabanchu in a most pugnacious mood. Indeed, they had no reason to be
discontented with the result of their southern incursion.
They had captured seven guns and nearly 1,000 prisoners. They had
arrested and carried off a good many farmers who had laid down their
arms and made their peace with the British Government. They had harried
all who received the troops kindly, had collected large quantities of
supplies which they had sent north, and, lastly, had delayed the main
advance by more than five weeks.
Owing to the great disproportion of the forces the fighting had not been
of a severe nature, and the losses were small. In the skirmishes before
Dewetsdorp about forty men were killed and wounded, mostly in Brabazon's
Brigade. In the action at Leeukop and the subsequent fighting which
attended French's march several officers and fifty men were stricken,
and a squadron of the 9th Lancers, which was required to attack a kopje,
suffered severely, having nearly twenty casualties, including Captain
Stanley, a very brave officer, who died of his wounds, and Victor Brooke
(of whom more will be heard in the future) who had his left hand
smashed. Captain Brasier-Creagh, 9th Bengal Lancers, commanding
Roberts's Horse, was killed at Leeukop, and his many friends along the
Indian frontier will not need to be told that by his death Lord
Roberts's Army suffered a loss appreciable even among the great forces
now in the field.
CHAPTER VII
IAN HAMILTON'S MARCH
Winburg: May 8.
The unsatisfactory course of the operations in the south-eastern corner
of the Free State, and the indecisive results to which they led, were
soon to be arrested and reversed by a series of movements of surprising
vigour and remarkable success. Of all the demonstrations which had been
intended against the enemy to the east of the railway, Hamilton's
advance towards the waterworks position, being the most northerly, was
to have been the least earnestly pressed. The orders were: 'If you find
the waterworks weakly held, which is not likely, you may try to occupy
them, and, in the event of success, may call up Smith-Dorrien's Brigade
to strengthen you.'
On this General Ian Hamilton, who now commanded the imposing, but
somewhat scattered, Mounted Infantry Division, started from Bloemfontein
on the 22nd of April with about 2,000 Light Horse, Australians, and
Mounted Infantry, and one battery of Horse Artillery. On the 23rd he
arrived before the waterworks, reconnoitred them, found them weakly
held, or, at any rate, thought he could take them, attacked, and before
dark made himself master of the waterworks themselves, and of the drift
over the river which led to the hills beyond, into which the enemy had
retired. Smith-Dorrien's Brigade was called up at once, arrived after
dark, and the next morning the force crossed at the drift, and the whole
position was occupied. The enemy offered a slight resistance, which was
attributed by some to a deep design on their part to lure the column
into a trap further to the east, and by others to the manner in which
the attack was delivered. The news o the capture of this strong and
important place, which secures the Bloemfontein water supply, was
received with great satisfaction at headquarters.
Meanwhile the operations round Dewetsdorp came to their abortive
conclusion, and it became evident that the Boers had evaded the
intercepting columns and were making their way northwards by Thabanchu.
What was to be done? Had the officer commanding at the waterworks any
suggestion to make? Most certainly, and the suggestion was that he
should be permitted to advance himself and occupy Thabanchu. This was
the answer that was expected and desired. Permission, and with it a
field battery, was accordingly given, and, on the 25th of April, the
column moved out of the waterworks position towards Thabanchu. It
consisted of Ridley's Brigade of Mounted Infantry, which included a
large proportion of colonials--Australians and New
Zealanders--Smith-Dorrien's Infantry Brigade (Gordons, Canadians,
Shropshires, and Cornwalls), with twelve guns.
The country to the east of Bloemfontein is at first smooth and open.
Great plains of brownish grass stretch almost to the horizon, broken to
the eye only by occasional scrub-covered hills. To any one unaccustomed
to the South African veldt they appear to offer no obstacle to the free
movement of cavalry or artillery; nor is it until one tries to ride in a
straight line across them that the treacherous and unimagined donga and
the awkward wire fence interpose themselves. But beyond the Modder
River, on which the waterworks are situated, the surface of the ground
becomes rocky and hilly, and the features increase in prominence until
Thabanchu Mountain is reached, and thereafter the country uprears itself
in a succession of ridges to the rugged and lofty peaks of Basutoland.
Thabanchu, a small village, as we should regard it in England, a town of
comparative commercial importance in the Orange Free State, and of
undoubted strategic value during this phase of the operations, stands at
the foot of the precipitous feature that bears its name. It is
approached from the direction of Bloemfontein by a long, broad,
flat-bottomed valley, whose walls on either side rise higher and higher
by degrees as the road runs eastward. The eastern end of this wide
passage is closed by a chain of rocky kopjes, whose situation is so
curious and striking that they seem to be devised by nature to resist
the advance of an invader. The kopjes, rising abruptly from the flat
glacis-like ground, are a strong rampart, and the whole position,
resting on apparently secure flanks, creates a most formidable barrier,
which is called locally Israel's Poorte.
Along the valley, on the 25th of April, Hamilton proceeded to march with
his entire force, Ridley and the Mounted Infantry being a considerable
distance in front of the main body. At ten o'clock a heavy fire of
musketry and artillery was opened at an extreme range from the hills on
the left hand side of the column. Ignoring this, which proved
afterwards to be only a Boer demonstration, Ridley continued his march,
and Hamilton followed, until, at a little after eleven o'clock, both
were brought to a stand-still before the Israel's Poorte position, which
was found to be occupied by the enemy, estimated at 800 strong, with
several guns.
After a personal reconnaissance, and in spite of a most disquieting
report that the Boers had just been reinforced by 'two thousand men in
four lines,' the General resolved to attack. His plan was simple but
effective. It resembled very closely Sir Bindon Blood's forcing of the
'Gate of Swat' at Landakai in 1897. The front was to be masked and
contained by a sufficient force of infantry and all the guns. The rest
of the troops were to stretch out to the left and swing to the right,
the infantry along the left hand wall of the valley, the mounted men
actually the other side of the wall.
Accordingly, the Canadian Regiment and the Grahamstown Volunteers
(Marshall's Horse) moved forward in extended order--25 yards interval
between men--to within about 800 yards of the enemy's position, and
here, just out of the range of serious harm, they lay down and opened a
continuous musketry fire. Both batteries came into action forthwith and
shelled the crest line with satisfactory energy. Smith-Dorrien, with
the remaining three battalions of his brigade, moved to the left, and
began working along the ridges. Ridley, breaking out of the valley into
the more open ground beyond, began to move against the enemy's line of
retreat.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM EXPLAINING HAMILTON'S ACTION AT ISRAEL'S POORTE,
THE 25TH OF APRIL.]
Four hours passed, during which the Boers indulged the hope that the
frontal attack would be pushed home, and at the end of which they found
their right flank turned and their rear threatened. Immediately, with
all the hurry of undisciplined troops who feel a hand on their
communications, they evacuated the position, and, running to their
horses, galloped away. The Canadians and Grahamstown Volunteers
thereupon arose and occupied the line of kopjes, and thus the door was
opened and the road to Thabanchu cleared. Our losses in this smart
action were about twenty killed and wounded, among whom were no less
than five officers of the Grahamstown Volunteers. The Dutch left five
corpses on the field, and doubtless carried away a score of wounded.
General Hamilton, pushing on, entered Thabanchu the same night, and the
British flag was again hoisted over the town. The Imperialist section
of the community, who had in the interval between the evacuation and
reoccupation of the town been subjected to much annoyance at the hands
of the Boers, were naturally shy, and afraid to make any sign of
welcome. The southern commandos from Dewetsdorp and Wepener had by hard
marching already passed behind Thabanchu with their convoys. On the
26th French and his Cavalry, covering the march of Rundle's (Eighth)
Division, arrived, and, since he was a lieutenant-general, took the
command out of Hamilton's hands for a time.
I had come northwards from Dewetsdorp with the Cavalry Brigades, and was
an eyewitness of the operations round Thabanchu which occupied the 26th
and 27th. Thabanchu Mountain is a lofty and precipitous feature of
considerable extent, and, towards the south, of indefinite shape. To
the north, however, it presents a wide bay, on whose grassy shores
rising from the more arid plain the Boer laagers were reported to stand.
The enemy held the crest of the crescent-shaped mountain with guns and
riflemen, and in order that no one should pry behind it they extended on
their right a few hundred trustworthy fellows, who, working in the most
scattered formation, gave to their position an enormous front of
doubtful strength.
On the afternoon of the 26th, with a view to further operations on the
following day, a force of Mounted Infantry, supported by galloping
Maxims and a Horse Battery, was sent to reconnoitre, and if possible to
hold the hill, henceforward called 'Kitchener's Horse Hill.' The troops
gained possession of the feature without fighting, though a few Boers
were seen galloping along the ridges to the right and left, and an
intermittent musketry fire began. A garrison to hold the hill was
detailed, consisting of Kitchener's Horse, a company of the Lincoln
Mounted Infantry, and two Maxim guns; but just as the sun sank this plan
was changed by the officer commanding the force, and the whole were
ordered to retire into Thabanchu. On the Indian frontier it is a
cardinal rule to retire by daylight and sit still when overtaken by
night in the best position at hand. In this war experience has shown
that it is usually better to remain on the ground, even at a heavy cost,
until it is quite dark, and then to retreat, if necessary. The reason
of the difference is, that while close contact with an Afridi armed with
a four-foot knife, active as a cat and fierce as a tiger, is to be
avoided as much as possible, no soldier asks better than the closest
contact with a Dutchman. But though the teaching of both wars may seem
contradictory on many points, on one point it is in complete agreement:
twilight is the worst time of all to retire.
The consequences of this ill-timed change of plan were swift. The Boers
saw the retrograde movement, and pressed boldly forward, and Kitchener's
Horse, finding themselves closely engaged, were unable to move. A sharp
and savage little fight followed in the gloom. The Boers crept quite
close to the soldiers, and one fierce greybeard was shot through the
head eight paces from the British firing line, but not until after he
had killed his man. The reports which reached the town, that
Kitchener's Horse were 'cut off' on a kopje four miles from the camp,
induced General French to send the Gordon Highlanders to their relief.
This battalion started at about ten o'clock, and were put on their road
to the northward. But in the darkness and the broken ground they lost
their way, marched five miles to the south, occupied another hill, and
did not rejoin the command until the afternoon of the next day, an
absence which, since no inquiries could discover them, caused much
anxiety. Kitchener's Horse meanwhile, under Major Fowle, of the 21st
Lancers, made a plucky defence, beat off the Boers, and managed at about
eleven o'clock to effect their retreat undisturbed. The losses in the
affair were twelve or fourteen men killed and wounded, including one
officer, who was shot through the head.
Very early the next morning the whole force marched out of the town, and
French's operations were this day designed to compel the enemy to
retreat from his positions in rear of Thabanchu Mountain, and if
possible to surround some part of his force. The information at General
French's disposal could not, however, have been very accurate, for in my
telegram of the 26th I wrote that 'more than 2,000 Boers' were collected
to the north of Thabanchu, and the Press Censor erased this and
substituted the words 'small parties.' If this latter view had been
correct it is probable that the operations of the following day would
have been attended by a greater measure of success.
The plan was clear and vigorous. Gordon's Cavalry Brigade was to move
to the right, round the east of Thabanchu Mountain, and force their way
into the plains behind it. It was hoped that the Lancers, of which this
brigade is entirely composed, would find some opportunity for using
their dreaded weapon. Hamilton was to push back the weak Boer right,
and open the way for Dickson's Cavalry Brigade to pass through and join
hands with Gordon. Rundle, whose infantry were tired from their long
march from Dewetsdorp, was to demonstrate against the Boers' centre and
hold the town.
The action opened with the re-occupation of Kitchener's Horse Hill by
Smith-Dorrien's Infantry Brigade, who advanced in determined style, and
by a sweeping movement of Ridley's Mounted Infantry. Both these
undertakings, which were directed by Hamilton, prospered. The Boer
right, which was very thin, was brushed aside, and the road for the
cavalry was opened. At, and not until, nine o'clock, French's leading
squadrons began to appear on the plain, and by ten the whole of
Dickson's Brigade had passed through the gap and were safely extended in
the undulating plains beyond.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM EXPLAINING FRENCH'S OPERATIONS ROUND THABANCHU,
THE 26TH AND 27TH APRIL.]
Wishing to see, for the first time, Cavalry and Horse Artillery working
in suitable country, I rode down from my post of observation on
Kitchener's Horse Hill and trotted and cantered until I caught up the
squadrons. It was evident that the left enveloping arm was making good
progress. Already we could almost look into the bay behind Thabanchu
Mountain. If Gordon were only getting on as well we might join hands
with him, and enclasp a goodly catch of prisoners. So the brigade
continued to advance from ridge to ridge, and presently Boers began to
gallop across the front to escape, as was thought, from the net we were
drawing round them. At all of these--the Horse Artillery and the
pom-poms--British pom-poms at last--fired industriously. But as the
enemy kept a respectful distance and an open formation, only a few were
seen to fall. The others did not fly very far, but gathered together in
what soon became considerable numbers outside the net, near a peaked
hill, which does not appear in my sketch, but which the reader may bear
in mind as lying to the left rear of the turning Cavalry.
At last Dickson's advance reached a point between Thabanchu Mountain and
the peaked hill, so that no more Boers could escape by that road; and we
saw the others, three or four hundred in number, riding about, up and
down, or round and round in the bay, like newly-caught rats in a cage.
At this everyone became very excited. 'Gordon must have headed them
back,' it was said. 'Only a few more men and we might make a bag.'
Where could men be found? Somebody suggested asking Hamilton. The
helio twinkled: 'Come and help us make a bag,' it said, in somewhat more
formal language. And Hamilton came forthwith, leaving positions which
were of much value; collecting every man he could lay his hands
on--weary mounted Infantry, a tired-out battery, and all of
Smith-Dorrien's Brigade that could march fast at the end of a long
day--he hurried to seize and line the northern spurs of Thabanchu
Mountain, prepared to risk much to strike a heavy blow.
The movement of Infantry and guns to support him encouraged Dickson to
press still further forward, and the whole brigade advanced nearly
another mile. At length we overtopped a smooth ridge, and found
ourselves looking right into the bay or horseshoe of mountains. Now at
last we must see Gordon. 'There he is,' cried several voices, and
looking in the direction shown I saw a majestic body of horse streaming
out of the centre of the bay towards the north-west. But was it Gordon?
At least 4,000 mounted men were riding across our front, hardly two
miles away. Surely no brigade was so numerous. Yet such was the
precision of the array that I could not believe them Boers.
Boers their numbers, however, proved them to be; and not their numbers
alone, for before we had watched this striking spectacle long, two large
puffs of smoke leapt from the tail of the hostile column, and two
well-aimed shells burst near our Horse Battery. At the same time
patrols from the left rear hurried in with the news that the Boers who
had already escaped from our imagined 'trap' were advancing in force,
with two more guns, to cut us from the rest of the army.
As for Gordon, there was no longer any doubt about his fortunes. Far
away to the eastward the horseshoe wall of mountains dipped to a pass,
and on the sides of this gateway little puffs of smoke, dirty brown
against the darkening sky, showed that Gordon was still knocking with
his Artillery at the door, and had never been able to debouch in the
plains behind it. Moreover, the dangerous hour of twilight was not long
distant. Dickson determined to retreat while time remained, and did so
without any unnecessary delay. Whereat the Boers came down on our rear
and flank, opening furious fire at long range, and galloping eagerly
forward, so that the brigade and its guns, so far from entrapping the
enemy, were all but entrapped themselves; indeed, the brigadier's mess
cart, the regimental water carts, and several other little things,
which, being able only to trot, could not 'conform to the general
movement,' were snapped up by the hungry enemy, who now pressed on
exulting.
Meanwhile Hamilton had taken some risks in order to promote the expected
entrapping. He had now to think of himself. First, the Boer advance
must be stopped, and, secondly, the force which had, in the hopes of
grasping the Boers, let go its hold on Kitchener's Horse Hill, must be
withdrawn within the Thabanchu picket line. The General, however, was
equal to both requirements. Judiciously arranging some force of Infantry
and guns, he peppered the advancing Boers heavily, so that at 800 yards
they wheeled about and scurried to the shelter of adjacent kopjes. This
advantage restored the situation. Hamilton remained on the ground till
dark, and then, with the whole of Ridley's and Smith-Dorrien's commands,
returned safely into Thabanchu.
During the day rifle and artillery fire had been constant; but as the
fighting had been conducted at extreme ranges, which neither side showed
much anxiety to diminish, the slaughter was small. Indeed, I do not
think that a dozen men were stricken in either army. So far as the
British were concerned, the result of the day's operations was a
qualified success.
The Boers were evidently prepared to retreat from Thabanchu, but they
proposed to do so in their own time and at their most excellent
discretion, and it was quite evident that we had not succeeded in any
way in hindering or preventing them. It was also clear that, far from
being 'in small parties,' their strength was nearly 6,000, so that on
the whole we might congratulate ourselves on having moved in ignorance
and taken no great hurt, The only point about the action difficult to
understand was the behaviour of the Boers who had ridden about like
caged rats. Why should they do so when they knew that their line of
retreat to the north-east was perfectly secure? I can only conclude
that this particular commando had arranged to retire northwards towards
the peaked hill, and were annoyed at being prevented from joining their
comrades at the point where their waggons, and, consequently, their
dinners, were awaiting them.
On the evening of this instructive, but unsatisfactory, day, Hamilton
received orders from Lord Roberts to march north on Winburg in
conformity with the general advance of the army. For this purpose his
force was to be largely increased, and the operations which followed
require the space of another letter. French remained for some days at
Thabanchu, but attempted no further serious operations against the
enemy.
Only one other incident of interest occurred in the neighbourhood of
Thabanchu. After his relief of Wepener, Brabazon was ordered thither
_via_ Dewetsdorp. On the 28th, dusty and tired at the end of a long
march, he arrived with his Yeomanry at the foot of a pass among the
hills. A Kaffir lounged into the bivouac and asked the General whether
he would like to see some pretty shelling, for that there was a fine
show at the top of the valley. Brabazon, much interested, mounted his
horse forthwith, and, guided by the Kaffir through devious paths,
reached a point which afforded an extensive view.
There, in the twilight, lay a British convoy, stoutly defended by a
company of the kiddies and a few Yeomanry, and shelled--as the Kaffir
had said--with great precision by two Boer guns. The General thereupon
gave the Kaffir a 'fiver' to carry a letter through the Boer lines to
the commander of the convoy, telling that officer to hold out manfully,
and promising that with the dawn Brabazon and the Imperial Yeomanry
would come to his aid.
The Kaffir succeeded in his mission. The convoy was encouraged, and,
good as his word, with the daylight came the General, at whose approach
the Boers fled incontinently, so that Brabazon, the Yeomanry, and the
convoy came in safety and triumph into Thabanchu together.
CHAPTER VIII
IAN HAMILTON
London: August 10, 1900.
Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton was born at Corfu in 1853. His father,
the late Colonel Christian Monteith Hamilton--then a captain, but who
eventually commanded the 92nd Highlanders--was the eldest son of John
George Hamilton and of Christina Cameron Monteith, daughter of Henry
Monteith of Carstairs, sometime Member of Parliament for Lanarkshire.
His mother, the late Maria Corunia Vereker, was daughter of John, third
Viscount Gort, by Maria O'Grady, daughter of Viscount Guillamore.[#] The
Hamilton family is one of the elder branches of the Scottish Hamiltons,
and represents the male line of the Hamiltons of Westport. One of his
ancestors on his father's side, a Colonel Hamilton, was for several
years an aide-de-camp of the first Duke of Marlborough, and it was
therefore something in the nature of a coincidence when Ian Hamilton
found the present Duke of Marlborough serving in a similar capacity on
his staff. It would not be quite correct to call him a pure Celt, but
some notice should be taken by those interested in these questions that
his blood is mostly Celtic: both of his grandmothers, Monteith and
O'Grady, being of Celtic stock, Scottish and Irish respectively.
[#] _Vide_ Peerage, Gort and Guillamore.
When Ian Hamilton was born his father was serving with a detachment of
the 92nd Highlanders at Corfu. His mother died in 1856, and for the
next ten years, the father being constantly on duty with the regiment,
he and his younger brother, Vereker Hamilton, who was born in 1856,
lived with their grandparents at Hapton, in the Holy Loch in
Argyllshire. Such a childhood on moor and loch in a fine wild country
was likely to develop and brace nerve and muscle, and stir the keen
blood inherited from many generations of warlike ancestors. He was
educated first at Cheam, and as he grew sufficiently old at Wellington
College. Here he was very happy, and although he was not especially
noted for industry, his success in the examinations at the end of each
term excused any neglect in its course. In 1872 he passed the tests for
the army, and, according to the system at that time in force, was
offered the choice of going to Sandhurst or living for a year abroad to
learn a foreign language thoroughly. The cadet chose the latter, and
was sent to Germany. Here he had the good luck to make the close
friendship of a most distinguished old man. General Dammers was a
Hanoverian who had fought against the Prussians at Langesalze, and who,
refusing a very high command under the Prussians, lived at Dresden.
Although he himself remained aide-de-camp to the ex-King of Hanover, he
became the centre of a group of Hanoverian officers who had entered the
Saxon service. He was thus in touch with the latest school of military
thought, stimulated to its utmost activity by the lessons of the great
war which had lately been concluded. From General Dammers, Ian Hamilton
learned the German language, military surveying, something of military
history, and something doubtless of strategy and the art of war. The
year thus passed very profitably. On his return to England, however,
the War Office announced that they had changed their minds and that for
the future everybody must go through Sandhurst. Such protests as his
father, himself an officer, was entitled to make were overruled by the
authorities, and Ian Hamilton embarked upon his military career having
lost, through no fault of his own, one year of seniority--a year which
Fortune had perhaps even then determined to restore to him manifold.
In 1873 he entered the 12th Foot, and after some months joined his
father's old regiment, the 92nd. At first with the 92nd, and after 1881
with the 2nd battalion of the regiment, the Gordon Highlanders, Ian
Hamilton followed the drum from garrison to garrison, going through the
military routine, and plodding slowly up the first few steps of the long
ladder of promotion. From the very first he interested himself in
musketry. He became himself a keen and good rifle shot, and not with
the military rifle alone. He spent a long leave in Kashmir on the
fringe of the snows, and made a remarkable bag. Indeed, some of his
heads attained nearly to the record dimensions, and one big
single-horned markhor enjoyed the actual supremacy for several months.
Then came the Afghan war. Ian Hamilton, although only an infantry
soldier, became aide-de-camp, with Brabazon as Brigade Major, to the
unfortunate commander of the British Cavalry Brigade. Early in the
campaign he was stricken down with fever, and so avoided being drawn
into the controversy which raged for several years in military circles
around the actions in the Chardeh valley. It would indeed have been
unfortunate if at this early stage in his career he had been led into
any antagonism to the great General with whom his fortunes were
afterwards so closely associated.
The Boer war of 1881 found Hamilton still a subaltern. He was ordered
to South Africa with his regiment, and went full of eager anticipation.
The regiment, composed almost entirely of soldiers inured to the
hardships and disdainful of the dangers of war, was in the most perfect
condition to encounter the enemy, and, as is usual in British
expeditions on the outward voyage, they despised him most thoroughly.
It was not to be dreamed of that a parcel of ragged Boers should stand
against the famous soldiers of Kabul and Kandahar. They discussed
beforehand the clasps which would be given upon the medal for the
campaign. They were to be Laing's Nek, Relief of Potchefstroom, and
Pretoria 1881. No one had then ever heard the name of Majuba Mountain.
Yet there was to be the first encounter between Highlanders and
Dutchmen.
The dismal story of Majuba is better known than its importance deserves.
Had that action been fought in this war it would perhaps have gone down
to history as the affair of the 27th of February. Instead, it was
accepted as a stricken field, and might, such was the significance that
was attached to it, have changed the history of nations. It needs no
repetition here save in so far as it is concerned with Ian Hamilton.
Majuba Mountain may in general terms be described as a saucer-topped
hill. Sir George Colley and his six hundred soldiers, picked from
various units (that all might share the glory), sat themselves down to
rest and sleep, and dig a well in the bottom of the saucer. One weak
picket of Gordon Highlanders was thrust forward over the rim on to the
outer slope of the hill to keep an eye on those silent grey patches
which marked the Boer laagers far below. Hamilton was the subaltern in
command. As the day gradually broke and the light grew stronger, he saw
from the very lifting of the curtain the course of the tragedy. Boers
awoke, bustled about their encampments; looked up just as Symons'
Brigade looked up on the morning of Talana Hill, and saw the sky-line
fringes with men. More bustle, long delay, much argument and hesitation
below, a little boasting rifle fire from some of the British soldiers:
'Ha, ha! got you this time I think!'--and then, straggle of horsemen
riding in tens and twenties towards the foot of the mountain. Hamilton
reported accordingly. The action of Majuba Hill had begun. Pause.
There was--so it has been described to me--a long donga that led up the
steep slope. Into the lower end of this the Boer horsemen disappeared.
Hamilton moved his score of men a little to their right, where they
might command this zig-zag approach as much as the broken ground would
allow, and reported again to the General or whoever was directing
affairs--for Colley, wearied with the tremendous exertion of the night
climb, was sleeping--'Enemy advancing to attack.' He also made a few
stone shelters. Pause again. Suddenly, quite close, darting forward
here and there among the rocks and bushes of the donga--Boers! Fire on
them, then. The Gordons' rifles spluttered accordingly, and back came
the answer hot and sharp--a close and accurate musketry fire pinning the
little party of Regulars to the earth behind their flimsy shelters. No
one could show his head to fire. Soldiers would hold a helmet up above
the sheltering stone and bring it down with two and three bullets
through it. Could half a company fight a battle by itself? What were
others doing? Hamilton felt bound to send another report. He left the
half company in charge of the sergeant, got up, ran up the slope, and
dropped into safety the other side of the saucer-shaped rim. The
distance was scarcely forty yards, yet two bullets passed through his
kilt in crossing it. Where was the General? A staff officer, ignorant
and therefore undisturbed, said that the General was sleeping. 'He
knew,' said the staff officer, 'what was going on. No need for a
subaltern of Highlanders to concern himself.' Hamilton returned,
running the gauntlet again, to his men. The fire grew hotter. The Boers
began to creep gradually nearer. Their front attack widened and drew
around the contours of the hill. Were all the force asleep? One more
warning at any rate they should have. Again he darted across the open
space with the swish of bullets around him. Again he found the staff.
But this time they were annoyed. It is such a bore when young officers
are jumpy and alarmist. 'It's all right,' they said: and so it was
within the saucer. The bullets piped overhead as the wind howls outside
the well-warmed house. But a sudden change impended.
Hamilton rejoined his men just as the Boers attacked at all points. The
little picket of Highlanders, utterly unable to withstand the weight of
the enemy's advance, ran back to the rim of the saucer intermingled with
the Boers, who fired their rifles furiously at them, even putting the
muzzles to the men's heads and so destroying them. In Sir William
Butler's book, written almost entirely with the view of exonerating Sir
George Colley, it is suggested that his advanced picket fell back in a
panic. The truth is that they were swept backward by overwhelming force
after they had three times reported to the General the development of a
heavy attack. Of the seventeen men under Ian Hamilton in this advanced
position twelve were shot dead.
The survivors of the picket with the pursuing Boers reached the rim
together, and became visible to the main force. Astounded by this
apparition, the troops who were lying down in the saucer rose up
together, and, some accoutred, some with their coats off, Highlanders,
sailors, and linesmen, ran forward and fired a ragged volley. The Boers
immediately lay down and replied, causing heavy loss. A furious
musketry fight followed between the Dutch in cover along the rim and the
British among the rocks across the centre of the saucer. This was ended
by the appearance of other Boers on the high ground at the northern end
of the plateau. Without orders or order, exposed to a terrible fire,
ignorant of what was required of them, the soldiers wavered. One last
chance presented itself. Hamilton rushed up to the General in the
impetuosity of youth: 'I hope you'll forgive my presumption, sir, but
will you let the Gordon Highlanders charge with the bayonet?'
'No presumption, young gentleman,' replied Colley, with freezing
calmness. 'We'll let them charge us, and then we'll give them a volley
and a charge.'
On the word the whole scene broke into splinters. The British troops
abandoned their positions and fled from the ground. The Boers, standing
up along the rim, shot them down mercilessly--sporting rifles, crack
shots, eighty yards' range. Hamilton saw a figure scarcely ten yards
away aiming at him, raised the rifle he found himself somehow possessed
of to reply. Both fired simultaneously. The British officer went down
with his wrist smashed to pieces. He rose again: the rear crest was
near. The last of the fugitives were streaming over it. One dash for
liberty! The fire was murderous. Before the distance was covered his
tunic was cut by one bullet, his knee by another, and finally a splinter
of rock striking him behind the head brought him down half stunned to
the ground--luckily behind the shelter of a small rock.
The firing stopped. The Boers began to occupy the position. Two
discovered the wounded man. The younger, being much excited, would have
shot him. The elder restrained him. 'Are you officer, you damned
Englishman?' said they.
'Yes.'
'Give your sword.'
Now Hamilton's sword had belonged to his father before him. He replied
by offering them money instead.
'Money!' they cried; 'give it up at once,' and were about to snatch it
away when a person of authority--it is said Joubert himself--arrived.
'Voorwarts,' he said to the burghers, and in spite of their desire to
plunder he drove them on. Hamilton thanked him. 'This is a bad day for
us.'
'What can you expect,' was the answer characteristic of the Boer--the
privileged of God--'from fighting on a Sunday?'
Then they collected the prisoners and helped Hamilton to walk back to
the British position. Colley lay dead on the ground. The Boers would
not believe it was the General. 'Englishmen are such liars.' Hector
Macdonald--grim and sad--hero of the Afghan war, now a prisoner in the
enemy's hand, watched the proceedings sullenly. The Boers picked out
the surrendered prisoners. They looked at Hamilton. He was covered
with blood from head to foot They said: 'You will probably die. You may
go.' So he went; staggered, and crawled back to camp, arrived there
delirious the next morning. The wrist joint is composed of eight
separate bones. The bullet, breaking through, had disarranged them
sadly, had even carried one or two away. If he had consented to
amputation he would soon have been convalescent. But a soldier must
preserve all he can. What with fever and shock he nearly died. For six
months he was an invalid. But the hand was saved, so that now the
General can hold an envelope between his paralysed and withered fingers,
and sometimes hold a cigarette. For all other purposes it is useless,
and when he rides it flaps about helplessly--a glorious deformity.
After some months of doubt as to whether he should leave the army and
throw himself entirely into the literary pursuits which had always
possessed for him a keen attraction, Hamilton decided to remain a
soldier.
He next saw service in the Soudan: he was not intended to make this
campaign, for the battalion to which he belonged was serving in India,
and there has always been much jealousy between the Indian and the
Egyptian British officer. But he happened to be coming home on leave,
and when the steamer reached Suez it occurred to him to ask himself why
he should not go up the Nile with the columns which were being formed.
He got out of the ship accordingly and ran across the sands to the train
which was standing in the station. Had he not caught it he would have
returned to the ship. But he was in time. Next day he arrived in
Cairo, and while waiting there for his luggage he applied for
employment. It was refused, officers were not allowed to volunteer.
The Gordon Highlanders, his only hope, had their full complement of
officers. They had no vacancy for him. Hamilton did not, however, give
up his idea easily. He resolved to travel as far as Wady Halfa and renew
his application there. He journeyed south with Colonel Burnaby, and
after a week of train and river-boat arrived at the whitewashed mud huts
in the midst of a vast circle of sand which marked the base of the
British Expeditionary forces, both desert and river columns.
What followed has happened so often that it is well worth the attention
of young officers. Be it always remembered that the regulations of the
army are formed to make all people quite alike one uniform pattern and
on one level of intelligence--not yet the highest. You do not rise by
the regulations, but in spite of them. Therefore in all matters of
active service the subaltern must never take 'No' for an answer. He
should get to the front at all costs. For every fifty men who will
express a desire to go on service in the mess or the club, and will
grumble if they are not selected, there is only about one who really
means business and will take the trouble and run the risk of going to
the front on the chance. The competition is much less keen when you get
there. I know something of this myself, and am convinced of its truth.
The subaltern really stands on velvet in the matter. If he succeeds all
is well. If he gets rebuked and ordered down, he must try again. What
can the authorities do? They cannot very well shoot him. At the worst
they can send him back to his regiment, stop his leave for six months,
and some choleric old martinet who was a young man once, though he had
half forgotten it, will write in some ponderous book in Pall Mall
against the offender's name: 'Keen as mustard--takes his own line--to be
noted for active service if otherwise qualified.'
Of course everyone was delighted to see Hamilton at Wady Halfa. They
appointed him to a vacancy which had meanwhile occurred in the Gordon
Highlanders, and gave him a company and a boat in the River Column.
Through all the hard campaign that followed he served with credit. The
fortunes of the troops who worked their way up the Nile have not been so
closely studied as those of the columns which plunged into the desert
and fought at Abu Klea and Abu Kru. But it was nevertheless one of the
most picturesque enterprises of our military history. The broad boats
toiling forward against the current of the river, making perhaps three
miles a day, obstructed by frequent cataracts and menaced continually by
the enemy, the scouts on the banks, the lines of men on the tow ropes,
the red sand of the desert, the hot steel sky, and the fierce sunlight
slanting in between rocks of the Nile gorge, are materials from which a
fascinating sketch might be painted. Hamilton's boat became somehow the
head of the rear column. At length there came a day when they told of
expected opposition, dervish encampments, and a certain rocky ridge said
to be lined with riflemen. The leading column of boats was hurried
forward. By some mischance Hamilton's boat became the rear boat of the
leading column. At any rate, his company alone of the Gordon
Highlanders fought in the action of Kirbeckan next day. Nothing
succeeds like success. Hamilton received the Distinguished Service Order
for his services.
After the Nile Expedition of 1885 had reached its sad conclusion,
Hamilton returned to India and became an aide-de-camp on the staff of
Lord Roberts, who was then commanding the Madras army. The question of
musketry training for Infantry was at that time much discussed, and Lord
Roberts was determined to do something to improve the shooting of the
British army. In his book 'Forty-one Years in India' he tells us how he
and his staff formed themselves into a team and had many exciting rifle
matches with the regiments in the Madras command. In all this
Hamilton's skill with the rifle and the keen interest he had always
shown for musketry--his first regimental appointment had been to be
Musketry Instructor--stood him in good stead, and when Lord Roberts
became Commander-in-Chief in India his aide-de-camp, who had meanwhile
served in the Burmah campaign, was made Assistant Adjutant-General for
Musketry.
In 1886 he married Jean, daughter of Sir John Muir, Baronet, of
Deanston, Perthshire. He had now determined to persevere in the
military profession, and devoted himself to it with great assiduity. His
literary talents were turned to military subjects. He published a book
on musketry in the army entitled 'The Fighting of the Future.' It was
strong and well written. The introduction of the magazine rifle has
modified many of his conclusions, but at the time the book attracted a
great deal of attention. He found time, however, to write on other
things, and there are still extant from his pen: 'A Jaunt in a Junk,' an
account of a cruise which he made with his brother down the west coast
of India; a volume of verses, 'The Ballad of Hadji and the Boar'; and
one or two other writings. He preserved and extended his acquaintance
with literary men, particularly with Andrew Lang, whom he powerfully
impressed, and who inscribed a volume of poems to him in the following
compulsive lines:
_TO COLONEL IAN HAMILTON_
To you, who know the face of war,
You, that for England wander far,
You that have seen the Ghazis fly
From English lads not sworn to die,
You that have lain where, deadly chill,
The mist crept o'er the Shameful Hill,
You that have conquered, mile by mile,
The currents of unfriendly Nile,
And cheered the march, and eased the strain
When Politics made valour vain,
Ian, to you, from banks of Ken,
We send our lays of Englishmen!
After doing much useful work in the Musketry Department he became one of
the Assistant Quartermaster-Generals in India. From this office he
managed to sally forth to the Chitral Expedition, for his services in
which on the lines of communication he was made Commander of the Bath.
He next became Deputy Quartermaster-General, and it was evident that if
he chose to continue to serve in India he would ultimately become the
head of the Department. In 1897 the Great Frontier War broke out.
Hamilton was appointed to command one of the brigades of the Tirah
Expeditionary Force. He was at the time on leave in England. He
returned at speed, assumed command, and led his brigade through the
Kohat Pass in the first movement of the general advance. It looked as
if his chance in life had come. He had a magnificent force under him. He
enjoyed the confidence of the General-in-chief, Sir William Lockhart,
and only a few miles away the enemy awaited the advancing army on the
heights of Dargai. The next morning his horse shied suddenly. He was
thrown to the ground and broke his leg. They carried the brigadier away
in a doolie, his brigade passed to another, and the campaign in Tirah
was fought without him.
Ian Hamilton took this bitter disappointment with philosophical
composure. 'Perhaps,' he said to me one day in Calcutta, 'I should have
lost my reputation had I held my command.' But it was easy to see how
much he felt the lost opportunity and the enforced inaction. At length
his leg was mended--after a fashion. He persuaded a medical board to
pass him as sound. The campaign continued. There was, however, no
vacancy at the front. For several weeks he waited. Presently Sir
Bindon Blood--who was preparing for his invasion of Buner, and who knew
Hamilton well--applied for him to command his lines of communication.
Obstacles were, however, raised by the Indian War Office, and the
proposal fell through. At last, in February, when it seemed certain
that a spring campaign must be undertaken against the Afridis, Sir
William Lockhart decided to replace General Kempster by some other
brigadier, and Ian Hamilton was again sent to the front. The hopes or
fears of a further campaign proved unfounded. The Afridis gradually
paid their toll of rifles, and their jirgahs made submission. The
fighting was practically over. Yet in much skirmishing as occurred
while Hamilton's brigade were holding the advanced posts in the Bara
valley his care and eagerness attracted attention, and, small as was his
share in the campaign, Sir William Lockhart gave him an honourable
mention in the despatches.
On the restoration of order along the North-West Frontier Hamilton was
offered the temporary position of Quartermaster-General in India.
Anxious, however, for home employment, and fully alive to the importance
of not becoming too closely identified with any particular military set,
he declined this important office and proceeded to England on a year's
leave. After some delay he was appointed commandant of the School of
Musketry at Hythe, and from this post he was twice withdrawn to command
brigades at the Manoeuvres. When Sir George White was sent to Natal in
September 1899 Hamilton accompanied him as Assistant Adjutant-General.
The War Office are therefore entitled to plume themselves upon his
successes, for he is one of the few men originally appointed who have
increased their reputation.
Ian Hamilton's part in the Boer war is so well known that it will be
unnecessary to do more than refer to it here. He displayed a curious
facility for handling troops in close contact with the enemy, and
practically from the beginning of the fighting he held the command of a
brigade. It was Hamilton whose influence went so far to counteract the
astounding optimism of the gallant Penn Symons. It was Hamilton who was
to have led the bayonet attack by night on the Boer laagers two days
before Talana Hill was fought. It was Hamilton to whom French entrusted
the entire disposition of the Infantry and Artillery at Elandslaagte,
who arranged the attack, rallied the struggling line, and who led the
final charge upon the Boer entrenchment. Again after Lombard's Kop, when
the army reeled back in disorder into Ladysmith, it was Hamilton's
brigade which, judiciously posted, checked the onset of the victorious
enemy. During the defence of Ladysmith Hamilton's section of the
defence included Caesar's Camp and Wagon Hill. He has been censured in
the Press for not having fortified these positions on their outer
crests, and it was said in the army after the 6th of January that this
neglect caused unnecessary loss of life. How far this criticism may be
just I do not now propose to examine. The arguments against entrenching
the outer crest were that heavy works there would draw the enemy's
artillery fire, and that the Imperial Light Horse, who were to have
defended this section, said they preferred to avail themselves of the
natural cover of rocks and stones. The reader would be well advised to
defer judgment until some serious and historical work on the campaign in
Natal is published. At present all accounts are based on partial and
imperfect evidence, nor do I think that the whole true account of a
single action has yet been written.
Whatever the rights of this question may be, it is certain that on the
6th of January Ian Hamilton, by his personal gallantry and military
conduct, restored the situation on Wagon Hill. Indeed, the Homeric
contest, when the British General and Commandant Prinsloo of the Free
State fired at each other at five yards' range, the fierce and bloody
struggle around the embrasure of the naval gun, and the victorious
charge of the Devons, may afterwards be found to be the most striking
scene in the whole war.
After the relief of Ladysmith, Roberts, who knew where to find the men
he wanted, sent for Hamilton, much to the disgust of Sir Redvers Buller,
who proposed to keep this good officer for the command of one of his own
brigades. On reaching Bloemfontein he was entrusted with the
organisation of the Mounted Infantry division, a post from which he
could conveniently be drawn for any service that might be required. Of
the rest some account will be found in these letters.
Ian Hamilton is, as the fine portrait by Sargent, reproduced as the
frontispiece of this book, shows him, a man of rather more than middle
height, spare, keen eyed, and of commanding aspect. His highly nervous
temperament animating what appears a frail body imparts to all his
movements a kind of feverish energy. Two qualities of his mind stand
forward prominently from the rest. He is a singularly good and rapid
judge of character. He takes a very independent view on all subjects,
sometimes with a slight bias towards or affection for their radical and
democratic aspects, but never or hardly ever influenced by the set of
people with whom he lives. To his strong personal charm as a companion,
to his temper never ruffled or vexed either by internal irritation or
the stir and contrariness of events, his friends and those who have
served under him will bear witness. He has a most happy gift of
expression, a fine taste in words, and an acute perception of the
curious which he has preserved from his literary days. But it is as a
whole that we should judge. His mind is built upon a big scale, being
broad and strong, capable of thinking in army corps and if necessary in
continents, and working always with serene smoothness undisturbed alike
by responsibility or danger. Add to all this a long experience in war,
high military renown both for courage and conduct, the entire confidence
and affection of the future Commander-in-Chief, the luck that has
carried him through so many dangers, and the crowning advantage of being
comparatively young, and it is evident that here is a man who in the
years that are to come will have much to do with the administration of
the British Army in times of peace and its direction in the field.
CHAPTER IX
THE ACTION OF HOUTNEK
Winburg: May 8
Ian Hamilton's orders were to march north from Thabanchu on Winburg by
the Jacobsrust road, and he was expected, if no opposition was
encountered, to reach his destination by the 7th of May. The column
with which he started from Thabanchu was composed of Smith-Dorrien's
19th Infantry Brigade, Ridley's Mounted Infantry Brigade, and two
batteries of artillery; but at Jacobsrust he would receive a strong
reinforcement, consisting of Bruce-Hamilton's 21st Brigade of Infantry,
Broadwood's Cavalry Brigade, two batteries of field and one of horse
artillery, and two 5-in. guns. This accession would raise his force to
a total of 7,500 Infantry, 4,000 mounted men, and thirty-two guns--an
imposing command for an officer who had not yet had time to take the
badges of a colonel off his shoulders. The first thing, however, was to
reach Jacobsrust, and effect the junction with Bruce-Hamilton's force.
The Thabanchu column started at daybreak on the 30th of April, and when
it was within three or four miles of Houtnek Poorte the enemy suddenly
unmasked field guns and 'pom-poms,' and opened a long range fire with
them from the east on the right flank of the marching troops. Colonel
Bainbridge, with the 7th Corps of Mounted Infantry, wheeled up to
contain this force of the enemy, and at the same time De Lisle--of polo
fame--pushed forward boldly at a gallop with the 6th Corps and the New
Zealanders, and seized a commanding position about 2,000 yards south of
the actual nek. Colonel Legge, meanwhile advancing on the left front,
noticed that Thoba Mountain was weakly held by the enemy, and thereupon
ordered Kitchener's Horse to attack it, thus anticipating the order
which the General was himself about to send. These dispositions, which
were made on their own initiative by the various Mounted Infantry
officers, enabled a deliberate view of the situation to be taken.
The pass of Houtnek consists of two parallel grassy ridges separated by
a smooth shallow valley a little more than a mile across, and devoid of
cover. On the east the pass runs up into sharp rocky kopjes,
strengthened by successive lines of stone walls trailing away towards
the main laagers of the enemy. Both the centre and the left flank of
the Boer position refused all opportunity of attack. The Dutch right
was scarcely more encouraging. On the west of the pass rose the great
mountain of Thoba, an uneven battlefield, better suited to Boers than to
British troops. Yet as it was on Hamilton's safer flank, dominated the
rest of the enemy's position, could be turned by mounted troops making a
very wide detour, and being, moreover, the only way, the General
resolved to attack it.
[Illustration: Diagram Explaining the Action of Houtnek]
At 9.30 the Infantry began to come up, and at ten o'clock the approaches
to the Boer position were strongly occupied. As soon as Kitchener's
Horse were seen to have made good their footing on Thoba Mountain,
Hamilton ordered General Smith-Dorrien to support them with part of his
brigade, which was accordingly done, two companies of the Shropshires,
the Gordon Highlanders, and four companies of the Canadians being
successively worked up on to the hill under a heavy shell fire from the
enemy. This practically disposed of the whole force, which was soon
engaged all along the line, the Mounted Infantry holding the enemy off
the right and right rear, the Cornwalls guarding the baggage, one-half
Smith-Dorrien's Brigade containing the front, and the other half with
Kitchener's Horse pushing the flank attack on Thoba Mountain. As soon
as the Boers understood the designs of the British on Thoba they made a
strong effort to regain and hold that important feature. At first the
troops made good progress; but as the enemy received continual
reinforcements the resistance became more severe, until, presently, far
from gaining ground, they began to lose it. At last, about two o'clock,
some one hundred and fifty of the German corps of the Boer force
advanced from the northern point of Thoba in four lines across the table
top to drive the British off the hill. So regular was their order that
it was not until their levelled rifles were seen pointing south that
they were recognised as foes, and artillery opened on them. In spite of
an accurate shell fire they continued to advance boldly against the
highest part of the hill, and, meanwhile, cloaked by a swell of the
ground, Captain Towse, of the Gordon Highlanders, with twelve men of his
own regiment and ten of Kitchener's Horse, was steadily moving towards
them. The scene on the broad stage of the Thoba plateau was intensely
dramatic. The whole army were the witnesses.
The two forces, strangely disproportioned, drew near to each other.
Neither was visible to the other. The unexpected collision impended.
From every point field glasses were turned on the spectacle, and even
hardened soldiers held their breath. At last, with suddenness, both
parties came face to face at fifty yards' distance. The Germans, who
had already made six prisoners, called loudly on Captain Towse and his
little band to surrender. What verbal answer was returned is not
recorded; but a furious splutter of musketry broke out at once, and in
less than a minute the long lines of the enemy recoiled in confusion,
and the top of the hill was secured to the British. Among the
foreigners wounded in this encounter, was Colonel Maximoff.
Captain Towse, for his conspicuous gallantry, and for the extraordinary
results which attended it, has been awarded the Victoria Cross; but, in
gaining what is above all things precious to a soldier, he lost what is
necessary to a happy life, for in the moment when his military career
was assured by a brilliant feat of arms, it was terminated by a bullet
which, striking him sideways, blinded him in both eyes. Thus do Misery
and Joy walk hand in hand on the field of war.
All this time the rifle and gun fire along the whole front had been
continuous, and as the day wore on without the British making good their
hold on Thoba Mountain the enemy gathered in a more and more threatening
attitude on the right of the column, and by four o'clock at least 1,500
men were collected, with guns and 'pom-poms,' which threw shell into the
rear guard and transport. Hamilton, however, was determined to fight
the matter out. He therefore directed that all troops should post
guards on their front, lie down wherever darkness found them, and
prepare to renew the action at daybreak. He then telegraphed to General
French for some assistance, the need of more mounted troops being
painfully felt.
At dawn on May-day fighting recommenced, and soon after six o'clock
parties of the Gordons and Canadians succeeded in gaining possession of
the two peaks of Thoba Mountain. Besides this, half a company of the
Shropshires, under Colour-sergeant Sconse, managed to seize the nek
between them, and though subjected to a severe cross fire, which caused
in this small party ten casualties out of forty, maintained themselves
stubbornly for four hours. The points which dominate the flat top of
the mountain were thus gained.
Meanwhile reinforcements, consisting of the 8th Hussars, a composite
Lancer regiment, the East Yorkshire, and a field battery, had arrived
from Thabanchu, and the approach of Bruce-Hamilton's force from the
direction of Kranz Kraal was also felt. General Ian Hamilton now ordered
Colonel Clowes, commanding the Cavalry, to move right round Thoba
Mountain and threaten the Boer line of retreat as a preliminary and
accompaniment of the main Infantry assault, which had now become
inevitable. Clowes's force was strengthened by the addition of a horse
battery. The newly-arrived Infantry and the field battery had to be
diverted to support the right and right rear, where the pressure was now
very strong.
At about eight A.M. General Smith-Dorrien had himself gone up to the top
of Thoba Mountain to direct personally the decisive movement when the
time should come. A little before one o'clock, the progress of the
Cavalry being satisfactory, he determined to settle the matter, so that
if successful the force might get its baggage over the pass before dark.
He therefore formed a line of Infantry right across the plateau, two
companies of the Shropshires in the centre, and one and a half company
of the Gordons on either flank. The advance was sounded.
The troops moved forward with alacrity. For a few moments the fire was
heavy, but the Boers knew themselves bested, and on the soldiers raising
the cheer that precedes the actual assault they rushed to their horses,
and the whole of Thoba Mountain was won. The rest of the position now
became untenable, and the enemy, to the number of 4,000, promptly
evacuated it, galloping swiftly back in the direction of Jacobsrust.
A few troops of the 8th Hussars alone got near enough to charge;
half-a-dozen Dutchmen were sabred, and one was shot dead by an officer,
Lieutenant Wylam. The Boers who were making the attack on the right
retreated at the same time as their comrades, and the transport, no
longer molested, passed safely over the pass and parked for the night on
the northern side. No trustworthy estimate can be formed of the enemy's
loss; but a score of prisoners were taken, and an equal number of bodies
were found on the position.
The British casualties were fortunately slight considering the fire and
its duration, and did not exceed a hundred officers and men.
The next day the junction between the columns was effected, and Ian
Hamilton's force formed, with reference to the main advance, the Army of
the Right Flank, and was composed as follows:[#]
Infantry. { 19th Brigade } Smith-Dorrien
{ 21st Brigade } Bruce-Hamilton
Mounted { 1st M. I. } Ridley
Infantry. { Brigade }
Cavalry. { 2nd Cavalry } Broadwood
{ Brigade }
{ 3 Batteries F.A. }
Artillery. { 2 Batteries H.A. } Waldron
{ 2 5-in. Guns. }
[#] For full composition see Appendix.
This force was supported by the Highland Brigade and two 4.7 naval guns,
under General Colvile, who was directed to follow the leading column at
a distance of ten miles. Hamilton proposed to march forward on the 2nd
of May, but an order from headquarters enjoined a halt; nor was it until
the afternoon of the 3rd that the force reached Jacobsrust, as it is
called by the inhabitants; Isabellasfontein, as our maps record. A
little cavalry skirmishing in the neighbourhood of the camp resulted in
the death of one Lancer.
On the 4th of May the whole army moved forward again, Lord Roberts
passing through Brandfort towards Smaldeel, Hamilton continuing his
march on Winburg. This day did not pass without fighting, for scarcely
had the troops left camp when a patter of musketry warned the General
that his Cavalry had become engaged. Riding forward, he was the witness
of a very dashing cavalry exploit. Across the line of advance was drawn
up a strong force of the enemy, estimated at 4,000 men and thirteen
guns. These, in a good position along a range of wooded bluffs, promised
a sufficient task for the troops during the day. But now, suddenly,
from the direction of Brandfort, a new army of Boers began to appear,
riding swiftly down to join hands with their comrades athwart the road,
and fall on the left flank of the column.
The thing was urgent, and perhaps vital. But between the fast converging
Boer forces, at the angle where they would meet, ran a long ridge of
indefinite extent. General Broadwood at once, without a moment's delay,
galloped forward, and with two squadrons of the Guards' Cavalry and two
of the 10th Hussars seized it. The Boers were already scrambling up its
lower slopes. A sharp fight immediately opened. Kitchener's Horse,
hurrying up in support, occupied a further point of the ridge, and the
Dutch, after a determined but futile attempt to clear the hill, fell
back. The junction of the two Boer columns was prevented. It seems
that the whole of their plan for the day was based on this first
condition, and in an army where every individual soldier must have the
details of any plan explained to him it is not easy to make fresh
dispositions on the field.
Indeed, a sort of panic seems to have taken hold of the enemy, for
without waiting for the Infantry attack to develop they fled forthwith
at great speed, galloping madly across the drift--as the British
proprietor of Welcome Farm told me--horsemen and guns, pell-mell, in
downright rout, pursued, so swift was their departure, only by the
shells of the Horse Artillery.
The losses in this brief affair were not large, and almost entirely
among the Cavalry. In those few minutes of firing on the ridge about a
dozen troopers had been hit. Lord Airlie was slightly wounded in the
arm, and Lieutenant Rose, Royal Horse Guards, was killed. He had bee
sent forward to see what lay beyond the further crest of the hill, and
found that deadly riflemen lay there waiting for a certain victim. He
fell pierced by several bullets, and lived only for half an hour.
This officer was a most zealous soldier. Though possessed of private
means which would have enabled him to lead a life of ease and pleasure,
he had for several years devoted himself assiduously to the military
profession. He went to India as a volunteer during the Tirah Campaign,
and served with distinction on Sir Penn Symons' staff--general and
aide-de-camp both vanished now, as the foam fades in the wake of a fast
ship! From India he hastened to West Africa, and in that vile and
pestilential region won a considerable reputation; indeed, he was to
have received the Distinguished Service Order for his part in recent
operations there had not another war intervened. He arrived at the
Cape, scarcely a month ago, full of hope and energy. This is the end;
and while it is one which a soldier must be ready to meet, deep sympathy
will be felt for the father, from whom the public necessities have now
required two gallant sons.
Though the disorderly and demoralised nature of the Boer flight through
Welcome Farm was known throughout the British Army, it was not expected
that so strong a position as the bluffs behind the Vet River would be
yielded without a shot fired. This, nevertheless, proved to be the
case, for when, on the morning of the 6th, Hamilton resumed his advance,
he found that no force of the enemy stood between him and Winburg.
He therefore sent, shortly after noon, a staff officer, Captain Balfour
to wit, under flag of truce, with a letter to the mayor of the town
summoning him forthwith to surrender the town and all stores therein,
and promising that if this were done he would use every effort to
protect private property, and that whatever foodstuffs were required by
the troops should be paid for. This message, which was duly heralded by
the sound of a trumpet, concluded by saying that unless an acceptance
was received within two hours the General would understand that his
offer had been declined.
Thus accredited, Captain Balfour made his way into the town and was soon
the centre of an anxious and excited crowd of burghers and others who
filled the market square. The mayor, the landdrost, and other prominent
persons--indeed, all the inhabitants--were eager to avail themselves of
the good terms, and a satisfactory settlement was almost arranged when,
arriving swiftly from the northeast, Philip Botha and a commando of 500
men, mostly Germans and Hollanders, all very truculent since they were
as yet unbeaten, entered the town.
A violent and passionate scene ensued. Botha declared he would never
surrender Winburg without a fight. Dissatisfied with the attentions
paid him by Captain Balfour, he turned furiously on him and rated him
soundly. Several of the Free Staters had asked what would be done to
them if they laid down their arms. Balfour had replied that they would
be permitted to return to their farms, unless actually captured on the
field. This Botha held to be a breach of the laws of war, and he
thereupon charged the officer with attempting to suborn his burghers.
What had he to say that he should not be made a prisoner? 'I ask
favours of no Dutchman,' replied Balfour, sternly.
'Arrest that man!' shouted Botha, in a fury; 'I shall begin shooting
soon.' At these shameful words a great commotion arose. The women
screamed, the mayor and landdrost rushed forward in the hopes of
averting bloodshed. The Boers raised their rifles in menace, and the
unarmed British envoy flourished his white flag indignantly.
For several minutes it seemed that an actual scuffle, possibly a
tragedy, would occur. But the influence of the townsfolk, who knew that
their liberty and property lay in the hands of the Imperial General, and
that the great siege guns were even then being dragged into effective
range, prevailed, and Philip Botha, followed by his men, galloped
furiously from the square towards the north.
That afternoon General Ian Hamilton entered Winburg at the head of his
troops. Under a shady tree outside the town the mayor and landdrost
tendered their submission and two large silver keys. The Union Jack was
hoisted in the market-place amid the cheers of the British section of
the inhabitants, and, as each battalion marching through the streets saw
the famous emblem of pride and power, bright in the rays of the setting
sun, these feeble or interested plaudits were drowned in the loud
acclamations of the victorious invaders.
Hamilton was expected to arrive on the 7th, if no opposition was
encountered, He had fought nearly every day, and reached the town on the
evening of the 5th.
CHAPTER X
THE ARMY OF THE RIGHT FLANK
Kroonstadt: May 16, 1900.
On the same day that Ian Hamilton's force won their fight at Houtnek, to
wit, the 1st of May, the advance of the main army towards Pretoria, long
expected, long prepared, long delayed, began, and the Eleventh Division
marched north from Bloemfontein to join the Seventh, which was
entrenched at Karree Siding. On the 3rd both Infantry divisions moved
forward along the railway, their left protected by Gordon's Cavalry
Brigade and Hutton's Mounted Infantry, and after a sharp cannonade drove
the Boers from their positions covering Brandfort and entered the town.
The advance was resumed on the 5th, and the enemy were again met with,
this time holding the line of the Vet River. Another artillery action
ensued, in which the British 5-inch and naval 4.7 guns were very
effective, and at the end of which the West Australians and other parts
of Hutton's Mounted Infantry force, pushed across the river in gallant
style and captured an important kopje. The Dutchmen then retreated, and
the Field-Marshal's headquarters on the 6th were fixed in Smaldeel. His
losses since leaving Bloemfontein had not amounted to twenty-five men.
Ian Hamilton, in spite of the long marches his troops had made, was
impatient to push on from Winburg without delay, and, following the
track to Ventersburg, to seize the drifts across the Sand River, twenty
miles to the north. The great speed of his last movement had outpaced
the Boers, and their convoys were struggling along abreast of, and even
behind, the British column, trying vainly to slip across our front, and
join the burgher forces accumulating for the defence of Kroonstadt. By
marching forthwith--great though the strain might be--the General hoped
to secure the bloodless passage of the river, and perhaps cut up some of
these same toiling convoys. Accordingly, having collected from the town
about three days' stores--Sir Henry Colvile helping him unselfishly with
mule waggons--he set his brigades in motion on the afternoon of the 6th,
and marched nine miles towards the Sand.
But Lord Roberts had decided to remain at Smaldeel until his temporary
bridge over the Vet River was made and the trains running, and he did
not choose to run the risk of the Boers concentrating all their forces
upon any single division of his army, such as would be incurred if
Hamilton pushed forward alone. The principle was indisputable; but, of
course, in practice it resolved itself into another instance of
balancing drawbacks, for delay gave the enemy time to get his breath,
and meant that the Sand River passage would be opposed. Besides, if the
Boers had flung all their strength upon Hamilton, we were 7,000
bayonets, 3,000 horse, and nearly forty guns, and would have beat them
off with a shocking slaughter. To us it seemed a great pity to wait;
but to the Chief, in whose eyes the Army of the Right Flank was but one
column of that far-flung line which stretched from Rundle near Senekal,
along the front of the main army to Methuen near Boshof, Hunter at
Warrenton, and Mahon far away on the fringe of the Kalahari desert, it
must have been a very small matter, and certainly not one justifying any
loss of cohesion in the general scheme. So I have no doubt that it was
right to make us halt on the 7th and 8th.
On the former of these two days of rest Lord Roberts sent for General
Hamilton to meet him at a point on the branch railway line mid-way
between Winburg and Smaldeel, and they had a long private conference
together. On the 9th, the whole army marched forward again towards the
Sand River. I rode with the General, who managed somehow to find
himself among the cavalry patrols of the right flank guard, and we
watched with telescopes three long lines of dust in the eastward, which,
under examination, developed into horsemen and waggons marching swiftly
north and turning more and more across our front. It was clear that if
we had pushed on without halting, all these commandos would have been
prevented from reaching Kroonstadt. The General contemplated them
hungrily for some time, but they were too far off to attack, bearing in
mind the great combination of which we were a part. The flanking
patrols, however, exchanged a few shots.
The march was not a long one, and by mid-day we reached the
halting-place, a mile south of the river. The headquarters were fixed
in a large farm which stood close to the waggon-track we followed.
This farmhouse was certainly the best purely Dutch homestead I have ever
seen in the 500 miles I have ridden about the Free State. It was a
large square building, with a deep verandah, and a pretty flower-garden
in front, and half a dozen barns and stables around it. The
construction of a dam across the neighbouring spruit had formed a wide
and pleasant pool, in which many good fat ducks and geese were taking
refuge from the wandering soldier. At the back, indeed, on all sides
but the front of the farm, rose a thick belt of fir-trees. Within the
house the ground-floor was divided into three excellent bedrooms, with
old-fashioned feather-beds and quaint wooden bedsteads, a prim but
spacious parlour, a kitchen, pantry, and storeroom. The parlour
deserved the greatest attention. The furniture was dark and massive.
The boards of the floor were deeply stained. In the middle was a good
carpet upon which an ample oval table stood. The walls were hung with
curious prints or coloured plates, and several texts in Dutch. One pair
of plates I remember represented the ten stages of man's life and
woman's life, and showed both in every period from the cradle to the
grave, which latter was not reached until the comfortable age of one
hundred. The woman's fortunes were especially prosperous. At birth she
sprawled contentedly in a cradle, whilst loving parents bent over her in
rapture, and dutiful angels hung attendant in the sky. At ten she
scampered after a hoop. At twenty she reclined on the stalwart shoulder
of an exemplary lover. At thirty she was engaged in teaching seven
children their letters. At forty, she celebrated a silver wedding. At
fifty, still young and blooming, she attended the christening of a
grandchild. At sixty, it was a great-grandchild. At seventy she
enjoyed a golden wedding. At eighty she was smilingly engaged in
knitting. Even at ninety she was well preserved, nor could she with
reason complain of her lot in life when, at a hundred, the inevitable
hour arrived. 'Be fruitful and multiply,' was the meaning of a Dutch
text on the opposite wall, and a dozen children black and white (little
Kaffirs, the offspring of the servants, playing with the sons and
daughters of the house) showed that the spirit of the injunction was
observed; and these are things with which the statesman will have to
reckon.
The inmates of the farm consisted of the old man, a venerable gentleman
of about sixty years, his dame, a few years younger, three grown-up
daughters, a rather ill-favoured spinster sister, and seven or eight
children or grandchildren of varying ages. There were in all seven sons
or grandsons--two were married and had farms of their own; but all,
including even one of fourteen, were 'on commando' at the wars, some,
perhaps, looking at us and their home from the heights across the river.
The General politely requested shelter for the night, and a bedroom and
the parlour were placed at his disposal; not very enthusiastically,
indeed, but that was only natural. The staff settled down in the
verandah so as not to disturb the family. Ian Hamilton, keenly
interested in everything, began at once to ask the old lady questions
through an interpreter. She gave her answers with no good grace, and
when the General inquired about her youngest fighting son--he of
fourteen--her sour face showed signs of emotion, and the conversation
ended for the day. On the morrow, however, just before he crossed the
river, he had to come back to the telegraph-tent pitched near the farm,
and found time to see her again.
'Tell her,' he said to the interpreter, 'that we have won the battle
to-day.'
They told her, and she bowed her head with some dignity.
'Tell her that the Dutch will now certainly be beaten in the war.'
No response.
'Perhaps her sons will be taken prisoners.'
No answer.
'Now tell her to write down on a piece of paper the name of the
youngest, and give it to my aide-de-camp; and then when he is captured
she must write to me or to the Hoofd-General, and we will send him back
to her, and not keep him a prisoner.'
She thawed a little at this, and expressed a hope that he had been
comfortable while beneath her roof, and then--for the guns were still
firing--he had to hurry away. But the aide-de-camp remained behind for
the paper.
During the time we spent in this homely place I made a thorough
inspection of the farm, especially the parlour, where I found one very
curious book. It was a collection of national songs and ballads,
compiled, and in part written, by Mr. Reitz. I afterwards succeeded in
buying another copy in Ventersburg; indeed, it has been widely
disseminated. The first part consists of patriotic Boer poems--the
Volkslied, the Battle of Majuba, the Battle of Laings Nek, and other
similar themes. The second half of the book is filled with Reitz's
translations of English songs and well-known ditties into the _taal_.
John Gilpin, besides being a burgher of credit and renown, was eke a
Field-Cornet of famous Bloemfontein. Young Lochinvar had come from out
of the Boshof district. The Landdrost's daughter of Winburg found a
lover no less faithful than a famous swain of Islington. The pictures
were mightily diverting. The old Field-Cornet Gilpin--'Jan Jurgens,' as
he called himself now--was shown galloping wildly along, on a pulling
Basuto pony, through the straggling streets of, let us say, Ventersburg,
his slouch hat crammed over his eyes, his white beard flapping in the
wind, while a stately vrouw, four children, and a Kaffir, flung up their
hands in mingled wonder and derision.
One piece began:
Engels! Engels! alles Engels! Engels wat jij siet en hoor.
Ins ons skole, in ons kerke, word ons modertaal vermoor.
I cannot read Dutch, but the meaning and object of the book were
sufficiently clear without that knowledge.
F. W. Reitz, sometime President of the Free State, now State Secretary
of the Transvaal, looked far ahead, and worked hard. This, the
foundation-stone of a vernacular literature, was but one act in the long
scheme of policy, pursued, year in year out, with tireless energy, and
indomitable perseverance, to manufacture a new Dutch nation in South
Africa--the policy which, in the end, had brought a conquering army to
this quiet farm, and scattered the schemers far and wide. But what a
game it must have been to play! Only a little more patience, a little
less pride and over-confidence, concessions here, concessions there,
anything to gain time, and then, some day--a mighty Dutch Republic, 'the
exchange of a wealthier Amsterdam, the schools of a more learned
Leyden,' and, above all--no cursed Engels.
I was considering these matters, only suggested here, when messengers
and the sound of firing came in from the eastward. The news that small
parties of Boers were engaging our right flank guard did not prevent
Hamilton riding over to meet the Chief, nor tempt us to quit the cool
verandah of the farm; but when, suddenly, at about three o'clock, fifty
shots rang out in quick succession, scarcely 500 yards away, every one
got up in a hurry, and, snatching pistols and belts, ran out to see what
mischance had occurred. The scene that met our eyes was unusual. Down
the side of the hill there poured a regular cascade of
antelope--certainly not less than 700 or 800 in number--maddened with
fear at finding themselves in the midst of the camp, and seeking
frantically for a refuge. This spectacle, combined with the hope of
venison, was too much for the soldiers, and forthwith a wild and very
dangerous fire broke out, which was not stopped until fifteen or twenty
antelopes were killed, and one Australian Mounted Infantryman wounded in
the stomach. The injury of the latter was at first thought to be
serious, and the rumour ran that he was dead; but, luckily, the bullet
only cut the skin.
Thus disturbed, I thought it might be worth while to walk up to the
outpost line and see what was passing there. When I reached the two
guns which were posted on the near ridge, the officers were in
consultation. Away across the Sand River, near two little kopjes, was a
goodly Boer commando. They had just arrived from the east of our line
of march, and having skirted round our pickets had set themselves down
to rest and refresh. Spread as they were on the smooth grass, the
telescope showed every detail. There were about 150 horsemen, with five
ox-waggons and two guns. The horses were grazing, but not off-saddled.
The men were lying or sitting on the ground. Evidently they thought
themselves out of range. The subaltern commanding the guns was not
quite sure that he agreed with them. Some Colonial Mounted Infantry
officers standing near were almost indignant that the guns should let
such a chance slip. The subaltern was very anxious to fire--'really
think I could reach the brutes'; but he was afraid he would get into
trouble if he fired his guns at any range greater than artillery custom
approves. His range finders said '6,000.' Making allowances for the
clear atmosphere, I should have thought it was more. At last he decided
to have a shot. 'Sight for 5,600, and let's see how much we fall
short.' The gun cocked its nose high in the air and flung its shell
accordingly. To our astonishment the projectile passed far over the
Boer commando, and burst nearly 500 yards beyond them: to our
astonishment and to theirs. The burghers lost no time in changing their
position. The men ran to their horses, and, mounting, galloped away in
a dispersing cloud. Their guns whipped up and made for the further
hills. The ox-waggons sought the shelter of a neighbouring donga.
Meanwhile, the artillery subaltern, delighted at the success of his
venture, pursued all these objects with his fire, and using both his
guns threw at least a dozen shells among them. Material result: one
horse killed. This sort of artillery fire is what we call waste of
ammunition when we do it to others, and a confounded nuisance when they
do it to us. After all, who is there who enjoys being disturbed by
shells just as he is settling himself comfortably to rest, after a long
march? And who fights the better next day for having to scurry a mile
and a half to cover with iron pursuers at his heels? Even as it was an
opportunity was lost. We ought to have sneaked up six guns, a dozen if
there were a dozen handy, all along the ridge, and let fly with the
whole lot, at ranges varying from 5,000 to 6,000 yards with time
shrapnel. Then there would have been a material as well as a moral
effect. 'Pooh,' says the scientific artillerist, 'you would have used
fifty shells, tired your men, and disturbed your horses, to hit a dozen
scallawags and stampede 150. That is not the function of artillery.'
Nevertheless, function or no function, it is war, and the way to win
war. Harass, bait, and worry your enemy until you establish a funk.
Once he is more frightened of you than you are of him, all your
enterprises will prosper; and if fifty shells can in any way accelerate
that happy condition, be sure they are not wasted.
The afternoon passed uneventfully away, though the outposts were
gradually drawn into a rifle duel with the Dutch sharpshooters in the
scrub across the river. In the evening the General returned from his
conference with Lord Roberts, and told us the passage was to be forced
on the morrow all along the line. The Army of the Right Flank would
cross by the nearest drift in our present front. The Seventh Division
inclining to its right would come into line on our left. The
Field-Marshal, with the Guards and the rest of Pole-Carew's Division,
would strike north along the line of the railway. French, with two
Cavalry brigades and Hutton's Mounted Infantry brigade, was to swing
around the enemy's right and push hard for Ventersburg siding.
Broadwood from our flank, with the Second Cavalry Brigade, and such of
the Second Mounted Infantry Brigade as could be spared, was to be thrust
through as soon as the Boer front was broken, and try to join hands with
French, thus, perhaps, cutting off and encircling the Boer right. The
diagram--it is not a map--on page 172 will help to explain the scheme.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM TO EXPLAIN THE PASSAGE OF THE SAND RIVER, MAY 10,
1900. The dotted lines show what was proposed; the continuous lines show
what was done. The crosses indicate the Boers.]
The operation of the next day was one of the largest and most extended
movements of the war, although, probably from this cause, it was
attended by very little loss of life. Upon the British side six
Infantry and six Mounted brigades, with rather more than 100 guns, were
brought into action along a front of over twenty-five miles. The Boers,
however, still preserved their flanks. Upon the west they succeeded in
holding up French, and on the east they curled round Hamilton's right
and rear so that his action here, which in its early stages resembled
that afterwards fought at Diamond Hill, was of a piercing rather than a
turning nature. But in thus amazingly extending their scanty forces,
which, altogether, did not number more than 9,000 men, with twenty-five
guns, the enemy became so weak all along their front that the attacking
divisions broke through everywhere, as an iron bar might smash thin ice,
with scarcely any shock.
On the evening of the 10th, the British forces, in their extended line,
lay spread along the south bank of the river, just out of cannon-shot of
the Boer positions on the further side. French, indeed, did not rest
content with securing his ford twelve miles to the west of the railway,
but pushed his two brigades across before dark. The wisdom of this
movement is disputed. On the one hand, it is contended that by crossing
he revealed the intention of the Commander-in-Chief, and drew more
opposition against himself the next day. On the other, it is urged that
he was right to get across unopposed while he could, and that his
purpose was equally revealed, no matter which side of the river he
stayed. During the night Ian Hamilton, at the other end of the line,
seized the drift in his front with a battalion, which promptly
entrenched itself. Tucker, who proposed to cross near the same point,
despatched the Cheshire regiment for a similar purpose. The single
battalion was sufficient; but the importance and wisdom of the movement
was proved by the fact that the enemy during the night sent 400 men to
occupy the river bank and hold the passage, and found themselves
forestalled.
At daybreak the engagement was begun along the whole front. I am only
concerned with Ian Hamilton's operations; but, in order that these may
be understood, some mention must be made of the other forces. French
advanced as soon as it was light, and almost immediately became engaged
with a strong force of Boers, who barred his path, and prevented his
closing on the railway as intended. A sharp Cavalry action followed, in
which the Boers fought with much stubbornness; and the Afrikander Horse,
a corps of formidable mercenaries, even came to close quarters with
Dickson's brigade, and were charged. French persevered throughout the
day, making very little progress towards the railway, but gaining ground
gradually to the north. Although his casualties numbered more than a
hundred, he was still some distance from Ventersburg siding at
nightfall. The centre attack properly awaited the progress of the
flanking movements, and was, during the early part of the day, contented
with an artillery bombardment, chiefly conducted by its heavy guns.
Tucker and Hamilton, however, fell on with much determination, and were
soon briskly engaged.
Ian Hamilton began his action at half-past five, with his heavy guns,
which shelled the opposite heights leisurely, while the Infantry and
Cavalry were moving off. The Boer position before us ran along a line
of grassy ridges, with occasional kopjes, which sloped up gradually and
reached their summits about a mile from the river. But besides this
position, which was the objective of the force, the Boers, who held all
the country to the east, began a disquieting attack along our right and
right rear, and although the Mounted Infantry, and principally
Kitchener's Horse, under Major Fowle, held them at arm's length
throughout the day, the firing in this quarter caused the General some
concern, and occupied the greater part of his attention.
At six o'clock the Twenty-first Brigade began to cross the river, and
Bruce-Hamilton, stretching out to his left, soon developed a wide front.
The Boers now opened fire with two or three field-guns and a 'pom-pom,'
which latter was quickly silenced by our heavy pieces. At the same
time, the Nineteenth Brigade, who were containing the enemy's left,
became engaged with their skirmishers in the scrub by the river. The
four batteries of Field Artillery also came into action, and were pushed
forward across the drift as soon as sufficient space was gained by the
Infantry. At a little after seven the head of General Tucker's Division
appeared on the plain to our left, and that determined officer thrust
his men over the river in most vigorous style. Moreover, seeing
Bruce-Hamilton committed to an assault, he swung two of his own
batteries round to the eastward, and so rendered us material assistance.
[Illustration: IAN HAMILTON'S ACTION AT THE SAND RIVER, MAY 10, 1900.
The crosses indicate the Boers.]
Both Smith-Dorrien, who directed the two Infantry brigades, and Ian
Hamilton were fully alive to the grave dangers of crowding too many
troops on to a narrow front, and the Infantry attack was very sparingly
fed with supports, until it became completely extended. This condition
was attained about eleven o'clock, when the Camerons were sent across
the river to clear the scrub and prolong the line to the right.
Bruce-Hamilton now had his deployment completed, and with an admirable
simultaneity the whole of the assaulting Infantry rose up and advanced
together upon the enemy's position, covered by the heavy fire of
twenty-six guns. The panorama was now very extensive. Far away to the
left the smoke of lyddite shells, and the curious speck of the
war-balloon high in the clear air, showed that the centre was engaged.
The whole of the Seventh Division had crossed the Sand, and were now
curving to the north-west amid a crackle of fire. Before us the slopes
were sprinkled with brown dots moving swiftly upwards. The crest of the
ridge was fringed with exploding shells. For a few minutes the Boers
fired steadily, and the dust jumped amid the Sussex Regiment and the
City Imperial Volunteers. But both Infantry and Artillery attacks were
far beyond the capacity of the defence to resist, and by noon the whole
of the heights beyond the Sand were in the British possession.
Ian Hamilton had meanwhile ordered baggage and Cavalry to cross.
Broadwood was over the enemy's position almost as soon as the Infantry.
He proceeded to move in the direction of Ventersburg siding. The enemy,
however, had covered themselves with a strong rearguard, and the Cavalry
were soon opposed by three guns and a force of riflemen of considerable
numbers. Whether Broadwood would have thought it worth while to make
here the effort which he afterwards made in the action of Diamond Hill,
and order a charge, is uncertain; for at this moment a misunderstanding
arose which induced him to change his plans altogether.
The Boer pressure on our right rear had been growing stronger and
stronger all the morning, and at length Hamilton, wishing to check the
enemy sharply, so as to draw his rearguard over the river after his
baggage, told his chief of artillery to find him a battery. Now it
happened that only one of the two horse batteries, 'P,' had been able to
go with the Cavalry, the other, 'Q,' being too tired to keep up. The
chief of artillery therefore proposed to send for the tired battery.
Unfortunately, by some mistake, either in giving or taking the order,
the orderly was sent for 'P' instead of 'Q.' The man, a sergeant-major,
galloped across the river, and, understanding that the matter was
urgent, hurried after Broadwood, overtook him just as he was becoming
engaged, and demanded the battery. Broadwood, who knew that Hamilton
would never deprive him of his guns except for some very urgent reason,
sent them at once, abandoned his movement to the north-west, which
indeed was now impracticable without artillery, and concluding that the
rearguard was seriously involved, turned sharply to the east to assist
them. Explanations arrived too late to make it worth while to revert to
the original plan, and, perhaps, seeing that French was unable to make
Ventersburg siding, it was just as well that Broadwood did not try
alone.
Broadwood's latest movement, or the action of the artillery, or the
knowledge that the British had successfully forced the passage of the
river at all points, induced the Boers who were assailing the rearguard
to desist, and the musketry in that quarter gradually died away.
Meanwhile, by the exertions of Lieutenant-Colonel Maxse, the baggage had
mostly been dragged across the river, and Ian Hamilton made haste to
overtake his victorious Infantry, who had already disappeared into the
valley beyond the enemy's position. By the time that we reached the top
of the high ground, Bruce-Hamilton's leading battalions were nearly a
mile further on, and the tail of Broadwood's brigade was vanishing in a
high cloud of dust to the eastward. The City Imperial Volunteers, who
had lost a few men in the attack, were resting on the hill after their
advance, and eating their biscuits. Several dead Boers had been found
lying among the rocks, and a burial party was at work digging a grave
for these and for four of our own men who had fallen close by. There
were also a few prisoners--Transvaalers for the most part--who had
surrendered when the troops fixed bayonets. Four miles away to the
north-east the trees and houses of Ventersburg rose from a grassy
hollow.
The General decided to bivouac in the valley beyond the enemy's
position, and to set his pickets upon the hills to the northward. He
also sent an officer with a flag of truce into Ventersburg to demand the
surrender of the town, and directed Broadwood to detach a regiment and
some Mounted Infantry to occupy it, should the enemy comply. In case
they should desire to hold the town the 5-inch guns were brought into
position on the captured heights.
Hoping to secure some supplies, particularly bottled beer, before
everything should be requisitioned by the army, I rode forward after the
flag of truce had gone in and waited where I could see what followed.
When, about an hour later, a cavalry force began to advance from the
direction of Broadwood upon the town, I knew that all was well, and
trotted on to join them. My road led me within a few hundred yards of
the town, but, luckily for me, I did not enter it alone, and hurried to
join the troops. All of a sudden the ominous patter of rifle shots broke
the stillness of the evening, and, turning to whence the sound came, I
saw a score of Boers standing on the sky-line about a mile away and
firing at the advancing Cavalry, or, perhaps, for I was much nearer, at
me. The next minute there galloped out of the town about a score of
Dutchmen, who fled in the direction of their friends on the western
sky-line. Had I ridden straight into the town I should have run into
these people's jaws. I lost no time in joining the Cavalry, and entered
the streets with the squadron of Blues. It was a miserable little
place, not to be compared with Winburg. There were a few good stores and
a small hotel, where I found what I sought; but the whole town was very
dirty and squalid. Thirty or forty troopers of Roberts's Horse were
firing at the fugitive burghers from the edge of the buildings and
gardens, while a score of reckless fellows were galloping after them in
excited pursuit. The Boers on the hill kept up a brisk fire to help
their comrades in, and not a few of the bullets kicked up the dust in
the village streets, without in the least disturbing the women and
children who crowded together to look at the war, in blissful ignorance
of their danger. When some of these people were told that they would
perhaps be killed if they came out of their houses while the fighting
was going on, they clutched their children and sought shelter with an
energy at which, since, after all, nobody was hurt, it was pardonable to
laugh.
Night put an end to all skirmishing, and under its cover the Boers
retreated--the greater part to Kroonstadt, which, be it remembered, they
meant to hold to the death; but a considerable proportion to the east,
where they collected with the commandos under Christian de Wet.
Broadwood's brigade had captured about a dozen waggons and thirty
prisoners. In all there were fifty-two unwounded and seven wounded
Boers in our hands at the end of the day. The casualties in Hamilton's
force were under fifty. Tucker and Pole-Carew may have lost the same
number between them. French, who encountered the most stubborn
resistance, had a little over 120. But, in any case, the passage of the
Sand River in this long straggling action was cheaply won at a cost of
under 250 officers and men.
All our beasts were so exhausted by the labour of dragging the waggons
through the steep and rocky drift of the Sand, and by the long pull up
the hills on the opposite side, that few of the regiments got their
baggage that night, and hence it was impossible to make an early start
next morning. But it was known that the Field-Marshal meant to reach
Kroonstadt on the next day, and as all the information at our disposal
indicated that the Boers were entrenching a strong position along a line
of wooded bluffs called the Boschrand, just south of the town, every
minute of halt was grudged.
We moved at eleven o'clock, heading direct for Kroonstadt, and
persevered for two hours after the sun had set, making in all nearly
seventeen miles. The country to our left was flat and open, and as we
converged upon the main army we could see, like red clouds with the
sunset behind them, the long parallel lines of dust, which marked the
marches of the Seventh and Eleventh Divisions; and we knew besides,
that, beyond both columns and west of the railroad, French was driving
his weary squadrons forward upon another wide swoop. The army drew
together in the expectation of a great action. But for all our marching
we could never make up the extra distance we had to cover in coming
diagonally from the flank, and as darkness fell we realised that the
Seventh Division was drawing across our front, and that Pole-Carew with
the guard was striding along ahead of us all. That night Lord Roberts
slept at America Siding, scarcely six miles from the Boschrand position.
Ian Hamilton marched on again at dawn, transport and convoys struggling
along miles behind, and the fine-drawn yet eager Infantry close upon the
heels of the Cavalry screen. At times we listened for the sound of guns,
for if the enemy stood, the Field-Marshal must come into contact with
them by eight o'clock. And when, after nine o'clock, no cannonade was
heard, the rumour ran through the army that the Boers had fled without
giving battle, the pace slacked off, and the Infantry began to feel the
effects of their exertions.
At eleven a message from Lord Roberts reached General Broadwood to say
that it did not matter by which road Hamilton's column marched in, as
the enemy was not holding his positions. Thereupon I determined, since
there was to be no battle, to see the capture of Kroonstadt, and being
mounted on a fresh pony I had bought at Winburg, a beautiful and
tireless little beast, by an English blood sire out of a Basuto mare, I
soon left the Cavalry behind, caught up the rear of Tucker's transport,
pushed on four or five miles along the line of march of his division,
struck the tail of the Eleventh Division, and finally overtook the head
of the Infantry columns about three miles from the town.
Lord Roberts entered Kroonstadt at about mid-day with all his staff.
The Eleventh Division, including the Guards' Brigade, marched past him
in the market square, and then, passing through the town, went into
bivouac on the northern side. The rest of the army halted south of
Kroonstadt. Gordon's Cavalry Brigade a mile from the town; the Seventh
Division and Ian Hamilton's force three miles away, in a wide valley
among the scrub-covered, trench-rimmed hills the Boers had not dared
defend. French, whose turning movement had again been obstinately
opposed, reached the railway line north of the town too late to
intercept any rolling stock. Indeed, Major Hunter Weston, a daring and
enterprising engineer, arrived at the bridge he had hoped to blow up
only to find that it had been blown up by the enemy.
Thus, by one long spring from Bloemfontein, Kroonstadt, the new capital
of the Free State, was captured. It has the reputation of being one of
the prettiest places in the Republic, but even when allowances are made
for the circumstances under which we saw it, it does not seem that its
fame is just. The town looked a little larger than Winburg, though not
nearly so clean and well-kept, and the whole place was smothered in
reddish dust, and dried up by the sun. The Boers retreated northward
along the railway, in spite of all President Steyn's exhortations, which
included the public sjambokking of several unwilling burghers, and did
not stop except to wreck the permanent way until they reached Rhenoster
kopjes. The President, with the members of the Executive Council and the
seat of Government--which needs to have a good pair of legs beneath it
in times like these--withdrew to Lindley, whither, for various reasons,
it soon became desirable to follow them.
CHAPTER XI
LINDLEY
Heilbron: May 22, 1900.
Having arrived thus prosperously at Kroonstadt, Lord Roberts determined
to halt until his supplies were replenished and the railway line from
Bloemfontein in working order. Moreover, in the expectation of a
general action outside the town, he had concentrated all his troops and
had drawn the Army of the Right Flank close in to the main force.
Before he advanced again towards the enemy's position on the Rhenoster
River, he wished to extend his front widely, as he had done in the
previous operation. The scheme of advance by converging columns
required a pause after each concentration before the movement could be
repeated; so that while the Field-Marshal himself remained stationary
his energetic Lieutenant was again on the move.
General Ian Hamilton, with the same troops as before and an addition of
four 'pom-poms,' started from his camp outside Kroonstadt on the 15th,
and after a short march encamped on the eastern side of the town
preparatory to moving on Lindley, whither President Steyn had withdrawn.
The question of supplies was a very troublesome one, and it was no light
matter to thrust out fifty miles into a hostile country with only three
and a half days' food and forage in hand. Suppose anything should
happen to the convoys which were to follow. Meat in plenty could be
found everywhere, but the stores of flour and other farinaceous goods
which the farm-houses might contain were insufficient and precarious.
Even the benefits of the abundant meat supply were to some extent
discounted by the scarcity of wood, for it is not much satisfaction to a
soldier to be provided with a leg of mutton if he has no means of
cooking. The deficiencies were hardly made good by the arrival of a
small convoy, the greater part of which consisted of disinfectants for
standing camps, and the rest--so valuable in a grass country--of
compressed hay.
Nevertheless, being determined, and trusting, not without reason, in his
supply officer, Captain Atcherley, Hamilton started on the 16th, and the
Infantry bivouacked eighteen miles from Kroonstadt on the Lindley
road--it would perhaps be less misleading to write track. The Cavalry
brigade with one corps of Mounted Infantry under Broadwood were pushed
ten miles further on, and seized a fine iron bridge, not marked on any
map, which spans an important spruit at Kaalfontein. Here trustworthy
information was received that a large force of Boers with guns was
retreating before Rundle's column (Eighth Division) northwards upon
Lindley, and deeming it important to occupy the town before they
arrived, Hamilton ordered the Cavalry to hurry on and take possession of
the heights to the north of it. It was a double march when ordinary
marches were long. The result, however, justified the effort.
Broadwood 'surprised'--the word is taken from the Boer accounts--Lindley
on the 17th. Scarcely fifty Boers were at hand to defend it. A waggon
with 60,000*l.* in specie barely escaped from the clutches of the
Cavalry. After a brief skirmish the town surrendered. The British loss
was three men wounded. Broadwood then retired as directed by his chief
to the commanding hill to the north to bivouac. This hill may for
convenience be called 'Lindley Hill' in the subsequent narrative.
The Infantry and baggage also made a long march on the 17th, but as the
road was obstructed by several bad spruits or _dongas_, they were still
fourteen miles from Lindley when night closed in. Even then the
transport was toiling on the road, and a large part of it did not come
in, and then in an exhausted condition, until after midnight. I wonder
how many people in England realise what a _spruit_ is, and how it
affects military operations. Those who live in highly developed
countries, where the surface of the earth has been shaped to our
convenience by the patient labour of many years, are accustomed to find
the road running serenely forward across the valleys, and they scarcely
notice the bridges and culverts over which it passes. All is different
in South Africa. The long column of transport trails across the plain.
The veldt in front looks smooth and easy going. Presently, however,
there is a block. What is the matter? Let us ride forward to see: and
so onward to where the single string of waggons merges in a vast crowd
of transport, twenty rows abreast, mule carts, Cape carts, ox waggons,
ambulances, and artillery, all waiting impatiently, jostling each other,
while drivers and conductors swear and squabble. Here is the spruit--a
great chasm in the ground, fifty feet deep, a hundred yards from side to
side. The banks are precipitous and impassable at all points except
where the narrow single track winds steeply and unevenly down. The
bottom is a quagmire, and though the engineers are doing their best to
level and improve the roadway, it is still a combination of the Earl's
Court water chute and the Slough of Despond. One by one, after a hot
dispute for precedence, the waggons advance. The brakes must be screwed
up to their tightest grip lest the ponderous vehicles rush forward down
the slope and overwhelm their oxen. Even with this precaution the
descent of each is a crash, a scramble, and a bump. At the bottom like
a feather-bed lies the quagmire. Here one waggon in every three sticks.
The mules give in after one effort--unworthy hybrids. The oxen strain
with greater perseverance. But in the end it is the man who has to do
the hauling. Forthwith come fatigue parties of weary men--it has been a
long march already to soldiers fully equipped. Drag ropes are affixed,
and so with sweat, blood, and stretching sinew, long whips cracking and
whistling, white men heaving and natives yelping encouragement, another
waggon comes safely through. And there are seven miles of transport!
On the morning of the 18th the Infantry were about to move off, when a
patter of rifle shots to the north of the road reminded us of the
presence of the enemy. A foraging party of Major Rimington's Guides had
ridden up to a farm, which stood in full view of the camp and flew (or
was it hoisted afterwards?) a white flag. Arrived there, they were
received by a volley from five Boers in hiding near. Conceive the
impudence of these people: five Boers, within a mile of eight thousand
British and a powerful Cavalry force, fire on a foraging party! Luckily
no harm done; Cavalry gallop out angrily; Boers vanish among remoter
kopjes. 'But,' said the General, 'what about my convoys?'
So it was arranged that Smith-Dorrien should be left where he was
(twelve miles west of Lindley) with his own brigade, one battery, and a
corps of Mounted Infantry to help in the expected convoy, and should cut
off the corner and rejoin the column at the end of its first march
towards Heilbron. Ian Hamilton with the rest of the troops then moved on
to Lindley. The march lay through the same class of country hitherto
traversed--a pleasant grassy upland which, if not abundantly supplied
with water by nature, promised a rich reward to man, should he take the
trouble to construct even the simplest irrigation works. Spruits ran in
all directions, and only required an ordinary dam, like the bunds the
peasants build in India, to jewel each valley with a gleaming vivifying
lake. The husbanding of water would repair the scarcity of wood, and
the tenth year might see the naked grass clothed and adorned with
foliage. But at present the country-side is so sparsely populated that
the energies of its inhabitants could not produce much effect upon the
landscape. The unamiable characteristic of the Boer, to shun the sight
of his neighbour's barn, has scattered the farms so widely that little
patches of tillage are only here and there to be seen, and the
intervening miles lie neglected, often not more than twenty acres of a
six thousand acre property being brought into cultivation, which seems
rather a pity.
The fair face of the land under its smiling sky was not unmarked by the
footprints of war. In the dry weather the careless habits of the
soldiers were the constant cause of grass fires. The half-burnt match,
tossed idly aside after a pipe was lighted, or an unguarded spark from a
cooking fire, kindled at once an extensive conflagration. The strong
winds drove the devouring blaze swiftly forward across the veldt,
clouding the landscape by day with dense fumes of smoke and scarring the
scene by night with vivid streaks of flame. So frequent were these grass
fires that they became a serious nuisance, wasting in an hour many acres
of grazing, proclaiming the movement and marking the track of the army,
stifling the marching columns with pungent odours, destroying the field
telegraph, and only extinguished by the heavy dews of the early morning.
But in spite of repeated injunctions in the daily orders, the
accidents--for which, indeed, there was every excuse--continued, and the
plains of brownish grass were everywhere disfigured with ugly patches of
black ashes which, as the fires burnt outwards, would spread and spread,
like stains of blood soaking through khaki.
At length the track, which had been winding among the smooth
undulations, rounded an unusually steep hillock of kopje character, and
we saw before us at the distance of a mile the pretty little town of
Lindley. The Cavalry bivouacs covered the nearer slopes of the high hill
to the northward. The houses--white walls and blue-grey roofs of
iron--were tucked away at the bottom of a regular cup, and partly hidden
by the dark green Australian trees. We rode first of all to Broadwood's
headquarters, following the ground wire which led thither. Arrived
there we learned the news. Boer laagers and Boer patrols had been found
scattered about the country to
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