On the day after his arrival at Ladysmith, French led a small force of cavalry on a reconnaisance up the railway line towards Dundee. Two small Boer patrols were captured, and from the prisoners it was learned that the enemy was at Elandslaagte. The following day General White in Ladysmith, having heard of the battle of Talana and being anxious to keep his communications with Yule open, ordered French to clear the Boers out of Elandslaagte and to repair the railway and telegraph lines. French advanced to within sight of the town and was surprised to discover the Boer force there so large. Nevertheless, he ordered up the Natal Volunteer Field Battery, which began to shell the town, their second round inadvertently hitting the Boer field hospital. The Boers returned the fire with two Krupps. In the short artillery duel that followed, the Boers gave the British a sharp lesson in modern gunnery: with their second shot they found the range and pounded the wretched little battery of the Natal Volunteers, whose miserable muzzle-loading 7-pounder screw guns were no match for the efficient Krupps. French wisely decided to withdraw his men and guns out of range and call for help.
White at once sent up sizable reinforcements under Colonel Ian Hamilton, the same Ian Hamilton whose wrist had been shattered by a Boer bullet at Majuba eighteen years earlier. The sensitive, soft-voiced, and literate Hamilton and the moody, reckless French now began together to lay the foundations for their future great reputations and to become the victors of the last battle the British would win for many weeks.
Elandslaagte sits on the level veld, but just south of it is an irregular horseshoe-shaped piece of high ground, its toe, broad and low, facing south. On the eastern side of this horseshoe the ground is higher and a hogsback ridge runs along it, ending in a kopje that rises 300 feet above the veld. It was on this eastern ridge and kopje that the Boers took up their positions to wait for the British attack. Within sight of the ridge, now backed by a dark storm cloud, Hamilton called his men together and explained to them what they were to do. He was an advocate of a new school of military thought which believed that attacks should be made in extended order in short rushes. This was the way he wanted them to storm the Boer positions. It was already the middle of the afternoon, but he assured them that their work would be done before sunset, and he ended with the rousing words that the next morning newsboys in the streets of London would be calling out the news of their victory. The men waved their helmets and cheered.
Hamilton threw his men at the Boers: the Devonshire Regiment in a frontal attack while the Manchesters and Gordon Highlanders went round the south side of the ridge to roll back the flank. The Imperial Light Horse dismounted and joined the flankers, taking a position to the right of the Manchesters. The ILH was a locally formed unit. Two of its majors were W. D. “Karri” Davies and Aubrey Woolls-Sampson, who had helped to organize it. Most of its troopers were Johannesburg uitlanders. On the hill above, lying in wait for them, was the Johannesburg Commando, and it, too, had a number of uitlanders from the town: it was to be neighbour against neighbour.
In the wings, hawklike, watching the infantry and waiting for them to flush their prey, sat a squadron each of the 5th Lancers and the 5th Dragoon Guards under the command of Major St. John Corbet Gore.
In the open formation Hamilton had ordered, the infantry moved to the attack. It was not the comforting shoulder-to-shoulder formation the men had been taught, but they were cheered by the pipes of the Highlanders playing “Cock o’ the North,” the familiar tune sounding bravely above the crack of Boer musketry, the shriek of the shells, and the thunder that now rolled through the hills. The men cheered as they advanced; there were cries of “Remember Majuba!” A heavy rain fell briefly and drenched them, but their enthusiasm remained undampened as they climbed the rock-strewn slope.
A contingent of German volunteers dashed out from behind a farm house at the ILH and were mowed down. Colonel John Scott-Chisholme, in command of the ILH, led his men forward holding a red silk scarf tied on a stick. “To see that little red rag going on and on and on without a falter was the bravest sight I have ever seen in my life,” said Ian Hamilton. Here and there the advance was slowed down by farmers’ wire fences. The intensity of the Boers’ fire increased; so, too, did their accuracy. Men fell singly and, where they bunched up at gaps in the wire, in batches. Of the Highlanders’ officers, half were dead or seriously wounded by the time the Gordons were halfway to the top. In the face of the increasingly intense fire the troops wavered for a critical moment. Hamilton scrambled towards the front of the line, he and his staff sweeping up all those who had dropped back or were hesitating, the cautious and the frightened; these he pushed forward, providing needed reinforcement to the line. He ordered a bugler to sound “Charge.” Other buglers took up the call, and the British infantry, shouting and cheering, bayonets bared, charged and cleared the crest, killing or capturing all of the Boers who had not fled.
CARRYING A MESSAGE FROM SIR GEORGE WHITE, A MESSENGER WAS
BLINDFOLDED BEFORE ENTERING THE BOER OUTPOST OUTSIDE
LADYSMITH.
Hamilton ordered the “Cease Fire” when a small group of Boers holding up a white flag was pointed out to him. Minutes later there was a furious burst of musketry as some 50 Boers who had lain hidden just below the crest of the ridge leaped to their feet and fired into the cheering soldiers. Led by old Kock himself in his black frock coat and his tall hat, they ran forward, firing as they came. The confused soldiers reeled and fell back; for a moment it seemed that the ridge, won with such gallantry, was now to be lost. Colonel Scott-Chisholme was one of the first to fall, still holding his little red flag, a bullet in his leg and one in his chest. “My fellows are doing well,” he was heard to gasp, and then a third bullet crashed into his skull. A soldier in the Gordons fell mortally wounded, crying, “And me a time-expired man!” Some men panicked.
An officer of the ILH called out, “For God’s sake, men, don’t retire!” But some heard only the word “retire” and began to fall back. Lieutenant Mathew Meiklejohn of the Gordons sprang forward to rally the disorganized mass but fell with half a dozen bullets in his body. Other officers, and Hamilton too, rushed to stem the rout; the troops were steadied and, aided by the timely arrival of several companies of Devons, the crest was cleared for a second time, Kock falling mortally wounded and his remaining men fleeing in disorder. The Devons, Manchesters, Gordons, and ILH dashed for the Boer laager below shouting “Majuba!”
A few of the Boers in the laager surrendered, but most mounted their ponies and galloped off. The lancers and dragoons on the flank still watched and waited as single men, then small groups of burghers left the field of battle and made off across the veld. Now there was a steady stream of fugitives. Daylight was fast fading. It was time to strike. Major Gore sang out the orders: sabres were drawn and lances lowered as in extended order they walked their horses over the rise which had concealed them. Three hundred yards in their front was a straggling group of mounted Boers in retreat. With a yell the troopers thundered down the slope and crashed into them.
A few of the victims tried to defend themselves by shooting from the saddle; others threw up their hands; some, unhorsed, fell on the ground and begged for mercy. Charging cavalry has no mercy. The lancers and dragoons on their long-striding heavy cavalry horses bowled them over. After riding through the fugitives, Major Gore rallied his men, re-formed them, and turned them around. Then they rode at the Boers again. A lancer who took part wrote: “We charged them and they went on their knees, begging us to shoot them rather than stab them with our lances, but in vain. The time had come for us to do our work and we did it.” The Boers were horrified; one Boer prisoner said, “Men on horses carrying sticks with spikes on top, came galloping at us as we were running to our horses. They pushed us up on the spikes like bundles of hay. They came through us once, then again, altogether five times. And you English call yourselves civilised people!” Even when the Boers fell, the lancers continued to stick them; one lancer wrote home: “We gave them a good dig as they lay
. Next day most of the lances were bloody.” One young Boer, still alive, was found to have sixteen lance wounds.
The charge had accomplished its purpose: the orderly retreat was turned into a rout of panic-stricken men. The cavalry now began to take prisoners, rounding them up with sabres and dripping lances into frightened groups.
To pursue fleeing foes and demoralise them was one of the purposes of cavalry, and the dragoons and lancers had done their duty with éclat. But the Boers never forgave them for their bloody work at Elandslaagte. Their hatred was particularly directed at the 5th Lancers, for they regarded the lance as a barbarous weapon—a long-handled assegai—not to be used by civilised men. Some vowed they would kill any lancer who fell into their hands. There was also a feeling shared by many Boers, including Commandant-General Joubert, that it was un-Christian to attack a fleeing foe. But waging war in such a fashion was beyond the understanding of the British—or, for that matter, any other nationality.
Not all of the British soldiers were as bloody-minded as the cavalrymen. One said: “They were dressed in black frock coats and looked like a lot of rather seedy businessmen. It seemed like murder to kill them.” Ian Hamilton saw a dozen Boers continue to fire on the Gordons until the Highlanders with their bayonets were on top of them; then they threw up their arms to surrender. According to the rules by which the British fought, these men had no right to mercy, but, as Hamilton later told it:
Several of the Highlanders, being new to the bloody game, drew back their rifles for the lunge but could not drive the bayonet home. I have a perfect picture still in the eye of memory which shows me a fair-haired young Boer with the down on his cheek, wearing a grey felt hat from which dangled a bunch of coloured ribands. Two Gordons could not, between them, find the heart to kill him.1
Night fell on a battlefield littered with the remains of bleeding, broken men lying on the cold, stony ground in the rain. Some were still alive. A noncommissioned officer of the 5th Dragoon Guards volunteered to help look for the wounded:
The lamps of search parties—Briton and Boer—flickered out in many places, and the calls to attract the attention of the wounded could be heard in every direction. We had a whistle and blew it occasionally, then listened; we were some time before we found anyone, and then near a wire fence we came across a few who had fallen quite close together. All the wounded had been attended to so that we could do no more than to give them a drink, and, if possible, cover them over. There were no complaints; one fellow asked me for a cigarette, and an officer in the Manchesters, though shot in the groin and in terrible pain, only said what a grand fight it had been. The wounded seemed to suffer from the cold more than their wounds, and one poor fellow of the Gordons asked me to take the cloak off a dead man, he was so cold. We did all we coutd—which was, I’m afraid, very little —and made our way back to the bivouac.... We sat over the fires most of the night, but though our faces were scorched by the fire our backs were cold, and I thought of those on the field.2
One of those left on the field was a young officer who had been hit in the shoulder by a dumdum fired from an elephant gun. (Some Boers preferred their more familiar hunting rifles to the new Mausers, and most of the illegal bullets fired by them came from these weapons.)
I shall never forget the horrors of that night as long as I live. In addition to the agony which my wound gave me, I had two sharp stones running into my back, I was soaked to the skin and bitterly cold, but had an awful thirst; the torrents of rain never stopped. On one side of me was a Gordon Highlander in raving delirium, and on the other a Boer who had had his leg shattered by a shell, and who gave vent to the most heart-rending cries and groans. War is a funny game, mother.... I lay out in the rain the whole of the night.3
Captain Donald Paton of the Manchester Regiment also lay on the rain-swept hill that night, but one of his men, Private Rogers, watched over him, trying to shield him from the rain and to keep him warm by lying through the night with his arm around him.
Woolls-Sampson of the ILH, wounded in the leg, was carried back on a litter sometime during the night. The soldiers carrying him stumbled frequently over the rough ground in the dark, and once even fell and dropped him. His leg had been roughly spliced on the battlefield with a rifle used as a splint; the next day it was found that the rifle was still loaded, the muzzle pointing towards his armpit.
Among the severely wounded was the aged father of General Johannes Kock, shot in the shoulder and groin. When found by the British high up on the hill the old man said in a strong voice and with simple dignity, “Take me down the hill and lay me in a tent. I am wounded by three bullets.” The dying have a right to command. General Kock’s wife, meanwhile, was searching for news of her husband among the defeated and dispirited burghers returning from the battle. Deneys Reitz saw her the next morning when she was trying to find a way to reach the British lines, “the memory of her tear-stained face giving me my first hint of what women suffer in time of war.”4 Four members of the Kock family fell this day at Elandslaagte.
G. W. Steevens of the Daily Mail described the scene at a makeshift hospital:
The tent was carpeted now with limp bodies.... In the rain-blurred light of the lanterns—could it not cease, that piercing drizzle, to-night of all nights at least? The doctor, the one doctor, toiled buoyantly on. Cutting up their clothes with scissors, feeling with light firm fingers over torn chest or thigh, cunningly slipping round the bandage, tenderly covering up the crimson ruin of strong men —hour by hour, man by man, he toiled on.5
British losses were 55 killed and 205 wounded; Boer losses were 46 killed, 105 wounded, and 181 missing or taken prisoner. It should be noted that all figures for Boer losses are approximate, for this battle and all others; accurate records were not kept.
Elandslaagte marked the beginning of what was to become a bitter running controversy in the conduct of the war: Kock’s attack after the white flag had been shown was the first of many infractions of the rules concerning its use by both Boer and Briton, each side accusing the other of misuse and abuse of the flag in battle after battle. In principle, only the commanding officer of a unit could order a white flag to be raised, and then the entire unit was assumed to have surrendered. In earlier wars, when units were kept in tight formations, there had been few problems, but the magazine-fed rifle and quick-firing guns had now ended that type of fighting. Isolated groups that chose to surrender created problems on both sides, the victors not knowing the size of the group surrendering and perhaps exposing themselves to the fire of other members of the unit who either did not see the white flag or did not choose to surrender themselves; commanding officers, faced by an unauthorized white flag raised by their own men, were often unsure whether they should honour it.
In the Bantu wars the white flag had never been used, and many Boers were unfamiliar with the conventions attached to it. Lucas Meyer telegraphed Joubert about an incident in which the British had “twice hoisted the white flag, but our burghers continued to fire, not understanding that one must cease fire as soon as a white flag is raised.”6 However, even when its meaning became known, the individualism and lack of discipline among the Boers led to its abuse; a burgher frequently saw no reason why he should not use it to indicate that he and the group with him were willing to surrender even if the rest of his commando wanted to continue fighting.
J. A. Hobson said: “A conscientious reader of the Cape Times and the Argus during the opening days of hostilities would have come to the conclusion that Boers divided their time pretty equally between firing upon the white flag and upon the red cross.”7 H. H. S. Pearse of the Daily News (London) wrote:
It is ... impossible to find excuses, or to give the Boers credit for good intentions always in their use of the white flag. They seem to regard it as an emblem to be hoisted for their own convenience or safety, and to be put aside when its purpose has been served, without any consideration for the other party.8
Similar accusations were brought against the Br
itish in a telegram Louis Botha sent to General Schalk Burger on 5 November 1899:
The messenger was shot at from the dense bush while he was still carrying the white flag.... The enemy twice used the white flag in order to take up better positions.... the enemy put out the white flag, and while negotiating, they re-commenced firing, resulting in two of our men being killed; Dum-dum bullets were removed from their wounds by the doctor.
Both sides charged that the red cross was fired on, and the truth is that both sides did inadvertantly fire on hospitals and ambulances, particularly artillerymen, who could not distinguish from a distance the red cross from the Union Jack or the Vierkleur. From photographs it would appear that the red crosses painted on the sides of ambulances were too small and the flags in front of hospital tents were certainly inadequate as markers. Both bullets and shells could go beyond the range of normal eyesight, and there were mishaps, but there is no proof that either side deliberately fired on the wounded.
10
THE BATTLE OF LADYSMITH
Great Boer War Page 11