Great Boer War

by Farwell, Byron,,

  The problem of the besieged towns was not the only difficulty confronting Buller. On the day of his arrival he had a far from encouraging talk with Milner, who told him, as he also told young Winston Churchill in an interview, that Cape Colony was “trembling on the verge of rebellion.” He wanted Buller to divert some of his troops to northern Cape Colony to prevent the Afrikaners from rising. Buller grumbled that it seemed he was expected to conquer not just the two Boer republics but all of South Africa. The army corps, large as it was, could not provide enough troops to relieve the besieged towns, defend Cape Colony, prevent rebellion, and invade the Orange Free State.

  On the day after Buller’s arrival it appeared that Milner’s worst fears were about to be realized: a Free State commando seized the railway bridge over the Orange at Norval’s Pont; the Bethulie and Smithfield commandos crossed the river at Bethulie. North central Cape Colony had been invaded; eager young Cape Afrikaners were joining the enemy. Buller feared that the British garrisons at Naauwpoort and Stormberg, which lay in the path of the invading commandos, might be overwhelmed or besieged, and although he knew nothing of the strength of the British positions there, he ordered the troops immediately to fall back south along the railway. Major Frederick Heath of the Royal Engineers was at Cape Town, and he knew all about the situation at Stormberg, for he had just returned from inspecting the fortifications there, but he was having his hair cut when the withdrawal decision was being discussed and by the time he returned from the barber the orders had been sent.

  Buller now decided that in view of the deteriorating situations in Natal and Cape Colony his triumphal march through the Boer republics must be postponed and the army corps on its way to Cape ports would have to be broken up to meet the variety of crises which had developed. Lieutenant General Paul Sanford, Lord Methuen, was directed to lead a full division to the relief of Kimberley; Lieutenant General Sir William Gatacre, who was to have commanded a division in the army corps, was left with a bare brigade and told to hold down rebellion and prevent further Boer incursions in north central Cape Colony. The situation in Natal was, Buller decided, the most critical. Louis Botha, Joubert’s protégé, had made some forays south of Ladysmith and Boers were now ranging south of the Tugela, where the British forces were “strung out like beads on a chain, no direction, only a general terror and paralysis.”5 When the first contingent of the army corps reached the Cape on 9-15 November the troops did not disembark; instead the transports were ordered to carry them on up the coast to Natal, where two brigades, together with a force of local volunteers, all under the command of Major General C. F. Clery, were ordered to assemble at Estcourt on the main railway line 30 miles south of Ladysmith.

  The first advance of the British forces, however, was not in Natal but on the western front. Neither Buller nor Methuen expected the relief of Kimberley to be a difficult operation. It lay only 75 miles north of the Orange River, and there were few natural obstacles to bar the way. Methuen had 8,000 men, and it was believed that the Boers, with large forces tied up in the sieges of Kimberley and Mafeking, would not be able to put more than 5,000 men across his path. Buller reported to the Queen that “Sir Redvers does not anticipate that the force will meet with very serious difficulties. 66 Methuen only hoped he would see some action on the way.

  12

  METHUEN

  Paul Sanford (third Baron) Methuen (1845-1932), the youngest lieutenant general in the army, was educated at Eton and commissioned in the Scots Fusilier Guards in 1864 at the age of nineteen. He served as a staff officer with Wolseley in the Ashanti War of 1873-1874 and again in the Egyptian Campaign of 1882. His first and only experience as a commander in the field was as the leader of a regiment of local volunteers in the bloodless Bechuanaland Expedition under Sir Charles Warren in 1884-1885. During the Tirah Campaign on India’s Northwest Frontier he served as press censor at headquarters.

  He was a tall, bony man with a determined chin and a drooping, reddish moustache under a short nose. Always courteous, he was well liked by his fellow officers; he took his profession seriously, and he was conscientious, hard-working, persistent, and brave. He had, perhaps, only one defect: he was not very clever.

  On the banks of the Orange River in the southwestern corner of Griqualand West Methuen assembled his division for the advance on Kimberley. It was a convenient and strategically valuable location: men and supplies could be lifted there by rail from Cape Town, and the very presence of his force gave some security to this portion of Cape Colony. Between Methuen and his objective there was only open veld with, here and there, kopjes standing out like islands on the flat plain. There were only three places on his proposed line of march where kopjes linked by ridges were clustered in such a way as to offer tempting defensive positions that might encourage the Boers to contest his progress, and none was so extensive that it could not be outflanked. The Modder River, which also lay across his path, did not appear to be a formidable obstacle. Methuen sent word to the besieged in Kimberley that they could expect to be relieved in about a week.

  He was pleased with the infantry assigned to him, as well he might be, for it included battalions from some of the most famous regiments in the British army: a 1st or Guards Brigade (Grenadiers, Coldstreams, and Scots) and a 9th Brigade (Northumberlands, Northhamptons, Yorkshires, and Lancashires), with a Highland Brigade (Black Watch, Argylls, Highland Light Infantry, and Seaforths) still on the line of communication when he began his march but soon to join him. He had, too, an armoured train, and a naval brigade of 400 bluejackets and marines with four 12-pounder guns came up after the march had begun. The greatest weakness of the division was its lack of sufficient mounted troops, for there were only the 9th Lancers, three companies of mounted infantry, and two small colonial units, the New South Wales Lancers and Rimington’s Guides.

  It took about a week to assemble the troops, stores, and ordnance and to make all the preparations for the march. Much khaki paint was employed to dull the glitter of the regiments, for the army had already learned one lesson: shiny objects attracted the attention of Boer marksmen. All buttons and gleaming bits of accoutrements were painted; officers were advised to abandon their Sam Browne belts, swords, and brass insignia. A sergeant wrote home: “I believe they will be making us dye our whiskers khaki colour next.” Methuen described himself as looking “like a second-class conductor in a khaki coat with no mark of rank on it and a Boer hat and in Norwegian slippers.”

  Early on the morning of 21 November 1899 Methuen’s khaki-coloured army turned its back on the muddy Orange River and began its march towards Kimberley. Most of the soldiers had been too excited by the prospect of early battle to sleep; they had sat up late around fires of mimosa thorn, talking and singing. Now dawn found the two brigades marching briskly across the level veld; the air was pure and bracing, and the men stepped out with a will, their progress halted only briefly from time to time by wire fences. Methuen did not have a map—not an adequate one—but he could not get lost, for he had only to follow the railway line that led straight to Kimberley. By noon the division had marched 10 miles; then it halted for the day at an ostrich farm where there was a reservoir of water and a patch of green trees.

  Another 10 miles was covered the next day. The Boers, well aware of all Methuen’s movements, saw that he followed the railway track, assumed that he would continue to do so, and prepared themselves accordingly. That evening British cavalry patrols drew fire from Boers positioned on kopjes near Belmont railway station. British and Boer guns exchanged a few rounds, then everyone went to sleep, knowing that the next morning they would be in battle.

  The Boer force in the kopjes across Methuen’s line of march consisted of less than 2,000 Free Staters under Jacobus Prinsloo, but due to the inadequacies of British reconnaissance techniques, Methuen had no way of knowing their strength. It was suggested by several staff officers that the Boer positions be outflanked, but Methuen rejected the idea. To Colonel Willoughby Verner he said, “My good fellow
, I intend to put the fear of God into these people,” and he told Colonel Henry Streatfield that he intended to “attack the position in front, trusting to the courage and stubbornness of our troops to gain the day.”

  The troops left their camp at two o’clock in the morning in order to be close up on the enemy at first light. Their intended positions were indicated on a rough map made the evening before by Colonel Verner, but dawn revealed that Verner had made a mistake: the enemy-held kopjes were still 1,000 yards away. In spite of this, it did not occur to Methuen to recall his troops and fight another day. They marched on. The Scots Guards were within 350 yards of the enemy, their band playing, when the first shots were fired. As Julian Ralph, an American who was serving as the correspondent for the London Daily Mail, described it, “there ran along the crest of the kopje quick, vivid jets of fire like jewels flashing in a coronet ... the rim of fire beads flashed along the crest and died away, and raced along the crest again as tiny gas-jets blow out and re-ignite in a heavy wind.” The infantry, unshaken, pushed on, pausing at the foot of the kopjes only long enough to catch their breath and fix bayonets before throwing themselves on the slopes. The kopjes before them were surprisingly high and steep, rising 100 to 200 feet above the veld, but the troops clawed their way up, sometimes on their hands and knees, while the Boer marksmen leaned over their sangers and fired on the helmeted heads below them. The fire slackened as they neared the crest, and by the time they had heaved themselves to the top the enemy had fled down the hill, mounted their ponies, and ridden off. The troops were well pleased with themselves; it was the first battle for most. When the Grenadier Guards reached the crest of the kopje they had assaulted they proudly raised a chorus of “Soldiers of the Queen,” but in the distance a retreating young burgher was seen to turn in his saddle, raise a hand with extended fingers, and put his thumb to his nose.

  The British had lost 75 officers and men killed. There were also 220 wounded, not counting Mr. E. F. Knight of the Morning Post, who was struck by a dumdum and lost his arm: the first casualty among the war correspondents. In spite of these losses the British considered themselves victors. Methuen was elated and told the Guards, who had borne the brunt of the fighting, “With troops like you, no general can fear the result of his plans.” He was indeed fortunate to have such soldiers, considering that he had made very few plans and such as he had made proved faulty. Belmont has been called a “soldiers’ battle,” and so it was, for as General Sir Henry Colvile, commanding the Guards Brigade, said, “The men did for themselves what no general would have dared ask of them.”

  Prinsloo, who was considerably shaken by the vigour of the British charge, considered himself defeated and reported to Bloemfontein: “Nov. 23rd. This morning there was a terrible fight to our disadvantage, as we had to leave the field. According to Dr. Voortman, who went over the field of battle, we lost about twelve killed and forty wounded.”1 Boer losses were actually higher than this, for the British found some thirty Boer dead, but, whatever the true figures, Boer casualties were certainly less than half those of the British. They would have been higher if Methuen had had a brigade of cavalry and more horse artillery, and if Prinsloo’s retreat had not been covered by a Transvaal force of some 800 men under De la Rey who arrived just in time and successfully ambushed the pursuing lancers and mounted infantry.

  The Boers did not retreat far, and two days later Methuen again found them across his path at a place called Rooilaagte between Enslin and Graspan. Here the combined forces of Prinsloo and De la Rey, just over 2,000 men with five guns, had taken up positions on a series of steep-sloped kopjes. Captain L. March Phillips with Rimington’s Guides described the country as it appeared to him: “A wide plain in front of me, four miles across, flat as the sea, and all along the further side a line of kopjes and hills rising like reefs and detached islands out of it.”2

  On the night before the battle the naval brigade was told that it would have the honour of leading the assault. “By Jove, what sport!” exclaimed a midshipman. “Is it really true, sir?” an excited marine sergeant asked. “The news seemed almost too good to be true,” wrote one officer later, “and it was some short time before we could believe it and realize our luck.”3 Early in the morning the still-elated naval brigade formed into neat lines and stepped out towards the waiting Boers. Colonel Verner watched them and noted how “each hard, clean-cut face was from time to time anxiously turned toward the directing flank, so as to satisfy each individual that the interval and dressing were properly kept.... No better kept line ever went forward to death or glory.” It was impossible for them to stay extended, however, and in places they were soon almost shoulder to shoulder. The Boers waited patiently until they were only 650 yards away and then opened “a fierce hurricane of fire” that swept across their front and, more deadly still, enfiladed them from their left.

  Verner watched as they “were picked off like deer, but they never flinched and fell with their faces to the hill and their officers walked ahead with their swords drawn.” The officers, who had insisted on walking in front, on carrying their swords, and on wearing polished belts, were nearly all hit. Major John Plumbe of the Marines fell dead beside his fox terrier, which had been trotting beside him. Broad, bearded Captain Prothero, commander of the naval brigade, was one of the first to drop, calling as he fell: “Take that hill and be hanged to it!” Midshipman C. Huddart of HMS Doris was twice hit but staggered on until a third bullet killed him. Nearly half the brigade was down before they reached the foot of the kopje; yet, without swerving or changing their pace, the survivors pressed on. Supported by the Yorkshires and North Lancashires, they carried the kopje, but by the time they reached the crest the Boers had once again mounted their ponies and ridden off.

  “Did you watch the naval brigade?” asked Lieutenant Colonel Charles Baxter of a staff officer. “By Heaven, I never saw anything so magnificent in my life!” The Times History said that the charge, now almost forgotten, “will live to all time as one of the most splendid instances of disciplined courage.” It was disciplined, of course, and courageous certainly; it was also tragically anachronistic. The days of stand-up, shoulder-to-shoulder attacks were past. Casualties were almost 50 percent. Nearly all the petty officers and marine noncommissioned officers were killed or wounded.

  The correspondent for The Times reported that the vacated Boer positions were “almost dripping in blood; not a boulder escaped its splash of crimson.” In actual fact, only 21 dead burghers were found on the hills. The men who had done the fighting and who were still alive were tired, hot, and, above all, thirsty. They now retraced their steps, some stopping to help the wounded who had been left in the wake of their charge and who cried out for water. There was none to be had. One man, his arm shattered and unable to pull out the stopper of his water bottle, had in his frenzy bitten off the metal neck. No one seemed to know where the water carts were. On the plain men crowded around the locomotives begging for water from the boilers, but the engine drivers had their orders and refused to part with any. One frantic man crawled under an engine and lay on his back trying to catch drops from a steam pipe.

  Methuen sent such cavalry as he possessed in pursuit of the Boers, but the British horses were thirsty too, and tired, and the Boers fought a skilful rear-guard action.

  The Boers saw no disgrace in being forced to retreat, but they were dispirited by their failure to halt the British advance and they had lost confidence in Prinsloo, who had proved himself an unimaginative and irresolute leader. Determined to stop Methuen at all costs, they pushed Prinsloo into the background and Piet Cronjé and some Transvaalers under Koos de la Rey, drawn from the forces besieging Mafeking and Kimberley, came down to take over the task of blocking Methuen.

  Pieter Arnoldus Cronjé (1835-1911), stubborn and hot-headed, was one of the two Boer leaders (the other was Piet Joubert) with an established military record, and as a result of his part in the First Anglo-Boer War he was called the Lion of Potchefstroom. Attached to h
im as an “adviser” was Jacobus Herculaas de la Rey (1847-1914), called “Koos,” who was to emerge as one of the outstanding generals of the war. He possessed the most engaging and enigmatic personality to be found on either side. He was a handsome man of fifty-two, standing 6 feet 1 inch tall with a large head, hawk nose, shaggy eyebrows, a long square beard beginning to turn grey, and expressive eyes. He did not look like a fighter. Harold Spender said: “Benevolence shone from every feature ... the kindly grandfatherly eyes ... like a warm-hearted Norfolk farmer.” John Buchan said that he had “a face which I have never seen equalled for antique patriarchal dignity.” This kindly, gentle, pipe-smoking man who in the volksraad had voted against the war could be fiercely passionate in battle, lashing his burghers with his sjambok and shouting, “Fight!” and “Fire!” and “God is on our side!” He was speaking the simple truth when he said, “I fear God—and nothing else on earth.” A man with a vast store of sound common sense, he nevertheless believed in visions and prophecies. With him throughout the war was a bizarre character, Niklaas van Rensburg (1862-1926), called the Siener (seer), who, although himself frequently confounded by his visions, was credited by De la Rey and others with the ability to foresee the future.