Great Boer War

by Farwell, Byron,,

  Gideon Scheepers had been with Cronjé but narrowly escaped capture, as he told his mother in a letter:

  Dearest Mother,

  I am still quite well through the blessings of the Lord. I was nearly also on my way to the Cape today, as just half an hour before the British surrounded the laager, I was called away to lay a cable, and thus escaped.

  Old Cronjé has behaved very badly, and has now been taken captive with nearly 6,000 Boers. It is a hard blow for the Afrikaners, but they deserved it, otherwise it would not have happened. The Lord has helped us for so long, and in the end it was not fighting any more but the looting of cattle, one from the other—truly a disgrace the way they acted. No blessing could be expected here. So much injustice too was done here to the burghers. The poor always had to lie in the trenches, while the rich lay with old Cronjé in the tents. And now they are all going along to the Cape!21

  Already a feeling was developing that Cronjé had dishonoured and disgraced the Afrikaner cause. Although he survived his captivity and lived for nearly a decade after the war, he was never forgiven for his surrender at Paardeberg, and he never regained the respect or trust of his countrymen.

  Adding to the ignominy of surrender, making it more bitter still, was the fact that Cronjé had surrendered on, of all days, the anniversary of the battle of Majuba. Kruger wailed, “The English have taken our Majuba Day away from us.” De la Rey expressed the sentiments of all Boers: “But what shall I say about General Cronje! His stubbornness has cost us dear. ... And why not have surrendered a day earlier, or a day later. Why, oh why, on 27 February! That was the greatest humiliation of all for the Afrikaner people, as henceforth any arrogant Englishman could say, ‘Majuba is avenged!’ ”22

  The significance of the day was not lost on the British. Roberts in his telegram to Lord Lansdowne said: “General Cronje and all his forces capitulated unconditionally at daylight this morning, and is now a prisoner in my camp.... I hope Her Majesty’s Government will consider this event a satisfactory one, occurring as it does on the anniversary of Majuba.”23

  Her Majesty’s government was pleased, and so was Her Majesty, who received the news at breakfast and wrote in her journal: “We are all greatly rejoiced, for it is indeed grand news.” Her Majesty’s loyal subjects were equally pleased. When the news reached the London Stock Exchange there were “rousing cheers” and everyone took off his hat and sang “God Save the Queen.” Madame Tussaud’s wax museum was not slow in offering a tableau depicting the meeting of Cronjé and Roberts. And in far-off Calcutta a statue of Roberts was decorated with flowers, one floral tribute bearing the legend: “Majuba Avenged.”

  There has been much after-the-fact debate as to whether Kitchener’s attack plan or Roberts’s siege plan was the best solution to the military problem presented at Paardeberg. The debate began almost immediately, but curiously it was a debate in which neither Roberts nor Kitchener participated. Although they obviously held opposing views and there were rumours both in South Africa and in England of a rift between them, neither man was ever heard afterwards to criticise the other.

  The Official History and Conan Doyle came down firmly on the side of Roberts. “There was only one thing which apparently should not have been done,” said Conan Doyle, “and that was attack him [Cronjé].” Both The Times History and the officers of the German Great General Staff disagreed. The Times History pointed out the “moral results”: “Paardeberg ... did not teach them to fear the British soldier. Only some direct act like the storming of the laager would have inspired that fear.... a thousand casualties would have produced an ineffaceable impression on them.”24

  The patient tactics of Roberts undoubtedly saved many of his soldiers from death by Boer bullets. Yet, had Kitchener been permitted to pursue his bloody assaults on the 19th and had he been successful, even at the cost of double the number of casualties, fewer men would have died. It is ironic and tragic that the protracted stay at Paardeberg, where the men daily drank the increasingly more polluted water of the Modder, caused more casualties than all the Mauser bullets the Boers had fired.

  25

  THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH

  Kimberley had been relieved, but on the eastern end of the theatre of war, on the Natal front, White was still bottled up in Ladysmith. “We are a victorious army besieged by an inferior enemy.” So said Colonel Frank Rhodes after the British victories at Talana and Elandslaagte when White drew his entire army into Ladysmith and allowed himself to be besieged. True, White had tried to drive the Boers away, but only once, and he had been unsuccessful. He commanded more than an ordinary garrison; it was, at least in the beginning, a strong field army, complete with cavalry and field artillery, and yet, except for two small sorties, he did nothing further with it except to fend off the feeble attempts by the Boers to subdue him. He was much criticised later for not sending away his cavalry, which could have escaped and which, although of little use to the besieged town, would have been most useful to Roberts.

  There were conflicting opinions as to whether Ladysmith was or was not an easily defended location. The Times History said: “The environs of Ladysmith lend themselves to a policy of pure defence far more readily than is generally supposed.”1 This had not been General Butler’s opinion. On the selection of Ladysmith as the British garrison town in northern Natal he said, “Perhaps, in the whole history of modern strategic selection, no more unfortunate choice had been made than ... Ladysmith.” 2 This was also the opinion of Richard Harding Davis: “To anyone who has seen Ladysmith, the wonder grows not only that it was ever relieved, but that it was ever defended.... For a garrison at Ladysmith is in a strategic position not unlike that of a bear in a bear-pit at which the boys around the top of the pit are throwing shells instead of buns.”3

  Sir George White (1835-1912), the commander of the Ladysmith garrison, had had an extraordinary military career. After passing out of Sandhurst at the age of eighteen he had been sent to India, arriving just before the Indian Mutiny. His early career was undistinguished, promotion was slow, and after twenty-seven years’ service he was still only a major in the Gordon Highlanders. Then came the Second Afghan War of 1879-1880, in which he so distinguished himself that he won the Victoria Cross, was made a Companion of the Bath, and was promoted to the rank of brevet lieutenant colonel. From this point on his career was spectacular: ten years later he was a major general and KCB; in 1893 he was given the supreme command in India over the heads of a number of his seniors. Just prior to his appointment in South Africa he had been quartermaster general at the War Office.

  Sir George Younghusband called White “one of the bravest men, and an Irish gentleman to boot.” Valorous on the battlefield he certainly was, but to live with defeat without being disheartened calls for a temperament and a courage he did not possess. After the battle of Ladysmith on 30 October 1899 he wrote to his wife: “I think that after this venture the men will lose confidence in me, and that I ought to be superseded.” He appears to have been completely cowed by his defeat; the disaster near Nicholson’s Nek particularly distressed him. It took much urging by his subordinates to get him to agree in December to two minor sorties to destroy Boer guns, and in spite of their success they were not repeated. Colonel Rawlinson complained: “If Sir George would go out a bit more and talk to the officers and men, he could do a lot to keep their spirits up.” But apathetic and dispirited, White kept to his quarters.

  Although Buller did not, as he could have, order White to attack or attempt to break out, he testified after the war that White had a better force theoretically, a more experienced force, and a larger available force to help himself than I had to help him. The onus of his relief was thrust on me ... to bring the whole force of the Empire to get him out. I am satisfied in my own mind that if I had been in Ladysmith with that force I could have come out any morning or evening that I wished....4

  White was inactive, but so was Joubert. His burghers grew bored, and many were worried by reports that their homes
were being looted. Botha telegraphed to the landdrost at Vryheid demanding that the properties of his soldiers back home be protected; and Assistant General E. Erasmus complained by telegraph to the landdrost in Pretoria over a report that the wife of one of his burghers was suffering from want.

  Disquieting reports have been received by me ... that properties are not suitably protected in your area. Since you are expected to protect everything there without exception, I am most annoyed to hear of this and also that, although evil-doers already accused of plundering have been sent to you for lawful punishment, not only has such not been done but, on the contrary, you have armed them. They don’t come here I notice! Various houses of burghers at the front have been looted .... 5

  Commandant Ben Viljoen complained to Field Cornet De Vries in Fordsburg of the quality of recruits being sent him:

  What the hell do you think I have here, a hospital, a reformatory, or a war on my hands ... ? Among others who have arrived here with chronic and grave diseases are J. Elliot who is blind, G. van der Walt who has a large rupture and J. F. van der Merwe with a gastric ulcer, whereas G. Roestof throws an epileptic fit every day.... Why do you not commandeer plump over-nourished persons like the officials? ...6

  Unlike Kekewich in Kimberley, Sir George White had no trouble with the civil population of his besieged town, for he did not have a Cecil Rhodes to stir them up. He did, however, have the almost equally famous (or infamous) Dr. Jameson, Rhodes’s friend and employee, leader of the Jameson Raid, and the future prime minister of Cape Colony.

  Why Jameson was in Ladysmith and what he did during the siege are equal mysteries. Unlike Rhodes, he made no attempt to interfere with the military operations; neither was he helpful. By all accounts a good doctor and an able administrator, he was asked to serve in neither capacity, and as far as is known he did not volunteer. Lady Edward Cecil mentioned that he came down with enteric while at Ladysmith, but Dr. James Alexander Kay wrote in his journal: “I saw a lot of Jameson. He used to come to the hospital to have a yarn every morning.” There is no evidence that he ever attended the sick and wounded. He stayed at first in the Royal Hotel with Colonel Rhodes, and although he was seldom to be found there during the bombardments, it seemed that the Boers made special efforts to hit this building. The Ladysmith Bombshell, a siege newspaper, ridiculed him for keeping so carefully to the safety of his bomb shelter.

  The town was full of newspaper correspondents. No previous war had ever been so extensively covered by the press. There were “special correspondents” everywhere in South Africa. They were in the besieged towns and with the relieving columns, reporting gossip, describing what they saw or what others told them they had seen, writing conflicting accounts, giving military opinions, passing judgement upon the commanders. It was all read avidly, and in England people began sprinkling their speech with Afrikaans words; kopjes, dorps, the veld, neks, treks, and drifts—all became for the duration of the war part of the English language. The common Afrikaans suffix “fontein” on place names was somehow amusing, particularly “Stinkfontein,” and would-be wits in London spoke of trekking to Kensingtonfontein.

  The war was also covered by swarms of photographers, professional and amateur; no previous war had ever been so extensively photographed. In London several illustrated papers existed almost entirely on photographs, supplemented by a few drawings. Black and White Budget boasted of fifteen correspondents, photographers, and artists in South Africa; its circulation rose to more than half a million. The Illustrated London News sent out its best-known artist, Melton Prior (1845-1910), who was with the besieged in Ladysmith.

  When it became obvious that Ladysmith was to be beleaguered the newsmen were forced to decide whether they would stay or leave. All but one stayed. “How could we ever think of quitting those famous British and Irish regiments gathered there at the centre of peril?” Harry Nevinson of the Chronicle wrote.7 The one who did leave, Bennett Burleigh, famous correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, took the last train out on 2 November 1899, lying under his seat like the other passengers until out of range of the Boers’ Mausers.

  The newsmen did their bit to relieve the tedium of siege life by publishing two humorous newspapers, the Ladysmith Lyre (four numbers printed) and the Ladysmith Bombshell. Two samples from the Bombshell: “For Sale—One hundred Sworn Affidavits by Transvaal Burghers regarding the inhuman treatment they received at the hands of the ‘Verdomde Engelsch’ by being compelled to wash.” “Wanted—a few Dutchmen to enter the Town of Ladysmith. A warm reception guaranteed.”

  It seemed witty at the time. Isabella Craw, a thirty-two-year-old spinster and a volunteer nurse, wrote in her journal: “It is very funny, most amusing.”

  The only real journalistic enterprise was shown by George Lynch, accredited by the Morning Herald, Echo, and Illustrated London News, who once went over to the Boer lines with some copies of the Ladysmith Lyre which he offered to exchange for copies of the Standard and Diggers News, the pro-Boer English-language newspaper from Johannesburg. The bored burghers, grateful for the diversion he created, made him welcome and invited him to spend the night. He was even allowed to send off a telegram to the Morning Herald before he left.

  Not all the burghers were willing to accept Lynch at face value; one suspicious commandant wired the state secretary that he was “a highly dangerous person.” Many Boers were convinced that their laagers had been infiltrated by British spies. The British too had spy fever; Dr. Kay thought he saw one:

  Ladysmith is full of spies. I saw one today, a man who had fought against us in the Boer War of 1880 and I knew him to be bitter towards us. I sent a friend with a message to the Intelligence Department that he had better be arrested; but the reply was, “Ladysmith is so full of spies that one more or less makes no difference.”8

  If there were indeed spies, they were inept, for neither side seemed to know very much about what the other was doing.

  A steady stream of rumours kept people interested and amused until they grew cynical and refused to believe anything. Dr. Kay said, “Lying is becoming quite a fine art now; there are wonderful facilities for practice and it is evident that practice is making many perfect.”9

  Facts were scarce. Everyone, of course, was eager for information about the relief force and, to a lesser extent, for news of the outside world. When the sun shone, the heliographs set up by Captain John Cayzer with Buller’s force winked and blinked continuously. (The large ones, with 14.137-inch mirrors, could be seen 90 miles away on a clear day, and even the smaller ones, with 7.087-inch mirrors, had a range of 48 miles.) Cayzer had had some difficulty at first establishing contact with Ladysmith; after several contacts with Boer helio stations he grew wary, and when at last he actually reached Ladysmith demanded proof, signalling: “Find Captain Brooks of the Gordons and ask him the name of Captain Cayzer’s country place in Scotland.” Captain Brooks, when found, remarked, “Well, I always thought Cayzer was an ass, but I didn’t think he’d forget the name of his own home.” Once, after two days of cloudy skies and rain, shortly before Buller attacked Vaal Krantz, when everyone in town was hungry for news of Buller’s operations, the skies cleared and the sun shone through and Cayzer’s heliograph resumed operations, blinking to the people of Ladysmith the tidings that “Sir Stafford Northcote, governor of Bombay, has been made a peer.”

  After the initial excitement Ladysmith settled down to the siege and the boredom of siege life. George W. Steevens, whom Churchill described as “the most brilliant man in journalism I ever met,” and H. L. Mencken thought “the greatest newspaper reporter who ever lived,” was in Ladysmith and wrote on 26 November:

  We know nothing of the outside; and of the inside there is nothing to know.

  Weary, stale, flat, unprofitable, the whole thing. At first, to be besieged and bombarded was a thrill; then it was a joke; now it is nothing but weary, weary, weary bore. We do nothing but eat and drink and sleep—just exist dismally. We have forgotten when the siege began, and now w
e are begining not to care when it ends.

  For my part, I feel it will never end.10

  For Steevens the siege never did end. Within two months he was dead of enteric fever.

  The people of Ladysmith accepted their fate more calmly than the citizens of Kimberley, although they grumbled about the food, the inconveniences of siege life, and the imposition of martial law. An order that everyone over the age of twelve had to carry a pass caused some bristling: “We felt rather indignant at the idea of having to have passes like kaffirs,” wrote Isabella Craw in her diary. Citizens were also indignant about the soldiers who bathed naked in the river on Sundays, shocking the sensibilities of ladies passing by. A formal complaint was lodged with Colonel Edward Ward, who sensibly suggested that the ladies not look.

  With little excitement and little to do, bored soldiers and civilians spent much time talking about food. It was not until the first days of February that horseflesh began to be eaten, and even then it was usually issued not as a meat but as an extract which was dubbed “chevril” (Bovril was a popular beef extract). H. H. S. Pearse of the London Daily News said, “I have tasted the soup and found it excellent, prejudice notwithstanding.” And Dr. Kay waxed enthusiastic about it and complained, “You can never get enough of it.”11