Great Boer War

by Farwell, Byron,,

  Although Roberts telegraphed to Buller advising him that unless he felt “fairly confident” of success he should not make another attempt to break through at this time, Buller on 28 January announced to his troops that he had at last found “the key to Ladysmith.” Critics later remarked that while he may have found the key he appeared to have lost the lock. Buller did indeed have a plan, and a good one—at this stage almost any reasonable plan, swiftly and resolutely carried forward, had a good chance of succeeding. He sent a message to White telling him that he was going to have another “fair square try” to break through, although he added that he feared he was not strong enough.

  To the right of the British lines, about 5 miles east of Spion Kop, north and east of the sinuous Tugela, was a hill called Vaal Krantz. Northwest of this was a kopje called Brakfontein, while to the northeast rose a larger height called Doornkop, all held by the Boers. Control of Vaal Krantz and Doornkop would enable Buller to break through to the Ladysmith plain to the north. On the morning of 5 February 1900 Buller made a feint towards Brakfontein with artillery and a brigade of infantry. The troops moved about smartly as though they were taking part in a field day at Aldershot, but they did not come within 2,000 yards of the Boers. The Times History neatly summarized this action: “It provided a magnificent spectacle to the rest of the army, and reflected credit on the previous company and battery drill of the troops engaged in it. As a military operation it was ludicrous.”15 Nevertheless, real bullets and shells were fired, and one soldier was killed and thirty-four were wounded in this demonstration.

  The British next began to shell Vaal Krantz and a pontoon bridge was thrown over the Tugela. Buller’s plan called for Lyttelton’s brigade to seize Vaal Krantz, but, just as he was about ready to attack, Buller began, as Lyttelton put it, to “shilly-shally.” It had taken too long to switch from the feint to the real attack, and Buller feared the kopje could not be taken before dark. Lyttelton finally persuaded him to change his mind, and the Durham Light Infantry swarmed across the bridge and stormed the hill. By four o’clock the British were in possession.

  The capture of Vaal Krantz by the British was a discouraging blow to the Boers. General Tobias Smuts, commanding the Boer forces here, telegraphed to Lucas Meyer:

  The round kopje in the Standerton sector captured by the enemy. Reinforcements arrived too late. Do not know if I can regain it. General Burger’s cannon do nothing as far as I can discover. The entire might of the enemy is falling on me and I get no help. I shall do my duty brother but God help me. If I have losses it is not my fault. Think upon what I have said.16

  Lyttelton, having put most of his brigade on Vaal Krantz, now looked around for the reinforcements which were supposed to follow him. He looked in vain. Instead of reinforcements he received an order from Buller to withdraw. He ignored the order, hoping that his success would encourage his chief to proceed with the plan. Buller did not insist, but he took no further offensive action. He left the brigade sitting on Vaal Krantz all the next day while the Boers shot at it. The rest of the army sat idly by while he debated what he should do.

  Unable to decide, he tried to get Roberts to make up his mind for him. In a long telegram he outlined the progress he had made but warned that to continue would cost 2,000 or 3,000 casualties and he was not sure of success. “Do you think the chance of the relief of Ladysmith worth the risk?”17

  Roberts replied:

  Ladysmith must be relieved, even at the cost you anticipate. I would certainly persevere, and my hope is that the enemy will be so severely punished as to enable White’s garrison to be withdrawn without great difficulty. Let your troops know that the honour of the Empire is in their hands, and that I have no possible doubt of their being successful.18

  Still Buller could not bring himself to assume responsibility for all those casualties. He called a council of war that included Warren, Clery, Lyttelton, and Hart. He did not read them Roberts’s telegram with its stirring call to defend the honour of the Empire, although he did tell them that Roberts was in favour of continuing the offensive. He asked his generals for their opinions; only the impetuous Hart was in favour of pressing the attack. Warren suggested that they withdraw from Vaal Krantz and attack elsewhere. Where? Hlangwane, said Warren. Although a miserable general, Warren did have a surveyor’s eye for topography. Buller agreed, and the meeting ended. Buller then telegraphed the decision to Roberts, stating that the Boer positions to the front and sides of Vaal Krantz were too strong, that he was “outclassed” by the Boer guns, and that it would be a useless waste of lives to go on. He would, he said, make another “desperate effort” elsewhere.

  Lyttelton’s brigade, after suffering the loss of 34 officers and men killed and 335 wounded, was withdrawn. Thus ended Buller’s third attempt to pierce the Boer line on the Tugela; it was, said The Times History, “one of the feeblest performances in the history of war.” The withdrawal was carried out at night in good order, and Buller remarked that he thought it was done “uncommonly well.”

  “Yes, sir,” said a staff officer. “We’ve practiced it twice.”

  22

  THE GREAT FLANK MARCH

  On the evening of 6 February 1900 Roberts and Kitchener secretly left Cape Town on the northbound mail train for Methuen’s camp on the Modder River. As Roberts needed to conceal his plans from the enemy for as long as possible, Colonel George Henderson, his chief intelligence officer, told newspaper correspondents in strict confidence that Roberts intended to concentrate his forces in the Colesburg area and then attack the Orange Free State from the south. When this was duly reported in the London papers the War Office telegraphed Roberts that there had been “a serious indiscretion on the part of someone on his staff”; later, when the true line of advance was revealed, the correspondents charged Roberts with “unfair and dishonest treatment.”

  Undeterred by the news of Buller’s difficulties on the Tugela, unruffled by a spate of unrealistic suggestions from the War Office, and unyielding to the persistent demands of Milner that huge garrisons be maintained in Cape Colony, Roberts had vigorously carried forward the preparations for his own campaign. Over Milner’s anguished protests, spoken and written, he had ruthlessly stripped central and eastern Cape Colony of troops. Even French’s cavalry, which had been conducting a number of small but successful operations in the Colesburg area, was skilfully disengaged and sent to the Modder. The men, horses, mules, guns, stores, and supplies pouring off the ships at Cape ports were hustled forward to Methuen’s camp. Every obtainable ox and every wagon was sent north. There were now some 180,000 troops in South Africa—more than double the entire population of the Orange Free State—but Roberts wanted every man and animal that could be spared, for he planned to strike the western flank of the Free State.

  After two hot, dusty days on the train Roberts and Kitchener reached Methuen’s camp, now a huge tent city set on the hot sands beside the Modder. The entire area was jammed with men, guns, wagons; all around were mountains of supplies. It was Roberts’s intention to take the bulk of this army on a wide swing around the eastern end of the Boer positions at Magersfontein, boldly cutting himself off from the railway and launching his army onto the dry, barren veld. His objective was Bloemfontein, capital of the Orange Free State; Kimberley would be relieved on the way. He had to move quickly, and to do so he needed horsemen. He had already ordered as many infantrymen as possible to be mounted, and this was done by a process Kipling described in his poem “M.I.”:

  ... we are the beggars that got

  Three days “to learn equitation” an’ six months o’ bloomin’ well trot! 1

  By scraping together all his cavalry, forming two brigades of mounted infantry, and adding seven batteries of horse artillery he hurriedly formed a cavalry division of three brigades which was placed under French’s command. On the evening of 10 February Roberts assembled his senior cavalry officers and told them that they were about to have “the greatest chance cavalry has ever had.... You will re
member what you are going to do all your lives, and when you have grown to be old men you will tell the story of the relief of Kimberley.”

  A few hours later the cavalrymen stood to their horses in the bright moonlight. At three o’clock in the morning of 11 February they rode out. The Great Flank March had begun. Methuen with only 5,000 men was left sitting on the Modder fronting the Boers at Magersfontein while Roberts took 18,000 infantry, 7,795 cavalry and mounted infantry, plus several thousand noncombatants,h and began his invasion of the Orange Free State.

  Cronjé, thinking that Methuen was simply trying to create a diversion, sent out only a few small forces, including one under Christiaan de Wet, to counter Roberts’s army, and there were several skirmishes. De Wet soon discovered the size and direction of Roberts’s force and dispatched one of his bright young men, Gideon Scheepers, to Cronjé to sound the alarm.

  The British march was an ordeal for men and animals. Many of the horses were newly arrived and had neither recovered from their long ocean voyage nor become acclimated. Within forty-eight hours some 500 horses were dead or too exhausted to move. Those in the artillery and in the ammunition columns, pulling their heavy loads, suffered worst of all; those that stood up best were horses which had come from the great London omnibus companies.

  There were long delays getting men and wagons across the Riet River, but in spite of dust, heat, thunderstorms, and the shortage of water, Roberts’s entire army was on the move. And it kept moving. French’s cavalry was in the lead, pushing aside such groups of the enemy as it found. The first serious opposition was encountered on the morning of 15 February when the cavalry, having crossed the Modder at Klip Drift, found the Boers positioned in a broken semicircle of kopjes directly in front of them. Here John French made a momentous decision. It was an impetuous one, such as he was prone to make, and it might have led to disaster, but in the event it proved to be brilliant and it made his name. Putting his lancers in front and his horse artillery in the rear, he took them at a great thundering gallop right between the kopjes in the middle of the Boer line: “The whole division was set in motion. For nearly five miles in perfect order they galloped on until the head of the plain was reached. It was a thrilling time, never to be forgotten,” said Captain Cecil Boyle. It was called a charge, but it was not; French’s aim was not to attack the Boers, but to escape from them by breaking through their lines. The 5,000 horses and their riders in long lines sweeping across the veld raised such a huge cloud of dust that the Boer riflemen could not clearly see their targets. The entire cavalry division cleared the Boer line with the loss of only one officer killed and twenty of all ranks wounded.

  French was now only 4 or 5 miles away from Cronjé’s main laager, a plum he could have taken had he known of it, but unaware of his chance and obedient to his orders he pressed on towards Kimberley. By two thirty in the afternoon he was within sight of the waste tips of the diamond mines, and he paused to heliograph the news of his arrival to the besieged garrison. The heliograph winked away and those in Kimberley read the message—and refused to believe it. It took French an hour to convince the garrison that his message was not a Boer ruse, and it was not until 6:30 P.M. that he and his staff entered the town.

  While French had been making his “charge” at Klip Drift an infantry brigade had been attacking Jacobsdal and had occupied it by 3 P.M., but Roberts’s main concern this day was centred on the events taking place back at Waterval Drift on the Riet.

  The oxen of the supply park had been overworked for the past two days and needed time to recuperate. They and the great convoy of wagons they pulled had been left behind when the last infantry brigade crossed the drift and marched away. Only about 500 men were detailed to guard them. On the morning of 15 February De Wet came upon them and opened a long-range fire from guns positioned on a kopje east of the drift. The British at once prepared to defend themselves and the convoy: most of the oxen were driven into the shelter of the riverbank, and sacks of oats and boxes of biscuits were hurriedly unloaded to make breastworks.

  As soon as Roberts learned of the attack he ordered back two battalions of infantry and a battery; De Wet was also reinforced and now had about 1,000 men. The British, although immobilized, were able to hold their own without difficulty. They made one attempt to get the convoy away, but as soon as the oxen were brought out from cover, the Boers opened such a hot fire that the beasts stampeded—and made straight for the Boer position. More than half of the teams—1,600 oxen—thus deserted to the enemy and bullets took their toll of others.

  Roberts grew increasingly worried by the messages he received from Waterval Drift throughout the day. Lieutenant General Charles Tucker was sent back with another battery and more infantry to take charge of the situation. He arrived at dusk and soon after reported to Roberts that he could drive off the Boers but would need another battery and two more battalions of infantry. Roberts now had to decide whether the oxen and supplies were worth the loss of time and men the struggle to extricate them would exact. Time was important, and he was reluctant to send more of his battalions back to Waterval Drift. Even if the enemy were driven off, the convoy, with half of its oxen gone, would be immobile and a strong force would have to be left to protect it.

  He called in his supply chief, Colonel Wodehouse D. Richardson, and asked him for an assessment of the damage that would be done if the convoy was abandoned. Richardson told him that the troops had two days’ supplies with them, that there was a good supply of slaughter cattle, and that there were other supply wagons on the way, although it would take some time for them to catch up. Roberts asked if he had enough to ration men and animals until they reached Bloemfontein. Richardson said this was impossible.

  “Can you give them three-quarter rations?”

  “No, sir.”

  Roberts paused and then asked, “You can give them half rations certainly?”

  “Yes, sir, perhaps more.”

  The trim, dapper little general with the neat grey hair and mahogany face paced up and down in the dust beside the covered wagon that served as his headquarters in the field. At last he said, “I’ll do it. I think the men will do it for me.”

  Roberts had arrived at a bold decision. His physical courage was proven—he wore the Victoria Cross on his chest—but it had taken courage of a different order to leave the railway behind and to cast his army onto the veld. It took even more to abandon the convoy. But that is what he did. Just before midnight he sent a messenger galloping off to recall Tucker.

  Abandoned to the Boers were 170 wagons containing 30,000 forage rations and 150,000 men’s rations plus 500 slaughter cattle—four days’ supply for Roberts’s force—plus the heavy loss of his precious oxen. The next morning to his “great surprise” De Wet found the British gone and he hastened to take possession:

  Our booty was enormous.... On some of the waggons we found klinkers [biscuits], jam, milk, sardines, salmon, cases of corned beef, and other such provisions in great variety. Other waggons were loaded with rum; and still others contained oats and horse provender pressed into bales. In addition to these stores, we took one field-piece, which the English had left behind. It was, indeed, a gigantic capture; the only question was what to do with it.2

  Hauling away all this loot consumed much time which De Wet might better have spent elsewhere. It would have been wiser for him to have destroyed it, but the urge to possess all these good things proved irresistible.

  While De Wet was carrying off his plunder the fate of Piet Cronjé and the main Boer army in the Free State was being determined. The news that reached Cronjé’s laager that day was mostly bad—very bad: French and his host of troopers had dashed through the Boer lines into Kimberley, Jacobsdal had been captured, and in the afternoon Methuen’s guns opened a general bombardment of the Boer positions at Magersfontein. The Free Staters were becoming demoralised. The mobility of Roberts’s army and the extent of his operations took them completely by surprise. Cronjé had learned of the buildup of the Br
itish army on the Modder, of course, but he had assumed that the British would again launch a frontal attack, an attack for which he was well prepared. He had built an elaborate system of trenches and other field fortifications protected by barbed wire at Magersfontein. These all faced south. Cronjé could hardly bring himself to believe that the British had cut themselves off from their railway and that all of his careful preparations were useless. The stocky, bearded man sat inert in his tent, his wife gently patting his head, while all day long burghers came in and out, bringing him news and rumours and offering him advice. The advice was uniformly the same: escape while there was still time.

  It was nearly sundown when he at last decided to act. S. P. Du Toit, in charge of the Transvaalers besieging Kimberley, was ordered to retire to Fourteen Streams; J. S. Ferreira, commander-in-chief of the Free State Forces, was asked to join him further up the Modder, where he planned to move in the hope of taking up new positions to protect Bloemfontein; his own men, some 5,000 burghers, were ordered to assemble at once in the main laager.

  During the long stay at Magersfontein the Boers had grown increasingly domestic, and now the laager was crowded with women and children. Many of the burghers had lost their horses—there had been too many horses for the limited grazing—and now nearly a third of Cronjé’s army were on foot (such men were called voetgangers). The laager broke up, oxen were inspanned, and in the bright moonlight they moved out —horsemen, voetgangers, women, and children, and more than 400 ox wagons—in no order, just a straggling mob of people. They travelled east, directly across the front of the British forces concentrated at Klip Drift, and although they passed only 3 miles from the British lines, not a soldier saw them. Methuen did not discover that he was no longer facing an enemy at Magersfontein until noon the next day.