Great Boer War

by Farwell, Byron,,

  When Major Philip Taylor with “U” Battery clattering behind him rode up to the drift, De Wet himself met him with the curt order: “Dismount. You are prisoners. Go to the wagons.” In the moments of confusion which followed, Taylor slipped back to “Q” Battery and warned Major Edmund Phipps-Hornby, its battery commander. At the same time, Colonel H. L. Dawson, commanding Roberts’s Horse, coming up on the left of the batteries, saw what was happening. He reined up sharply, shouting “Files about! Gallop!” Phipps-Hornby also wheeled his guns and teams about and galloped back. De Wet, seeing that his prey was startled and fleeing, called out to his men to open fire.

  A scene of the utmost confusion ensued around the drift. Excited and frightened men and horses and oxen milled about. A gun and two ammunition wagons overturned, and their horses were killed in the flight of “Q” Battery for the shelter of the buildings at Sanna’s Post. The soldiers of “U” Battery had dismounted and were prisoners, but their untended horses panicked when the Boers opened fire so close to them, and they galloped off in all directions, dragging their guns and limbers behind them. The Boers shot down most of them, but one gun team, on its own and without drivers, ran after “Q” Battery and escaped.

  Phipps-Hornby halted his battery at Sanna’s Post, unlimbered his guns in front of the buildings, put his horses and limbers behind, and opened fire. It was a brave show, but the field guns with their flat trajectories had little effect on the Boers in the shelter of the Koornspruit’s high banks, while the gunners, without the protection of shields on their guns, were completely exposed to the Boers’ musketry.

  Broadwood himself arrived on the scene and for the first time realized what was happening. He called off “Q” Battery’s gallant, futile engagement and ordered the guns withdrawn. But by this time only Phipps-Hornby, Captain Gardiner Humphreys, and ten gunners were still left on their feet. They managed to get two guns away by themselves. Then Phipps-Hornby called out for volunteers from the mounted infantry, now dismounted and lying prone along the railway embankment behind Sanna’s Post. As these men left their cover and ran forward they were met by such a sleet of bullets that they involuntarily pressed their helmets down on their heads and bent forward as if running against a strong wind. They tried bringing out the teams, but men and horses were bowled over. A “Q” Battery gunner lying wounded in the hip was a witness: “O! it was an awful sight—dead and wounded all around and the poor horses smothered in blood and struggling about.”3 Driver Horace Glasock had six horses shot from under him.

  Through it all Humphreys and Phipps-Hornby behaved like model Victorian officers, incredibly cool and brave. When a Boer bullet knocked Humphreys’s stick from his hand, he calmly stopped to pick it up and then strolled on. When one of Broadwood’s aides suggested to Phipps-Hornby that he take cover, he replied, “Perhaps it would be as well, but I have been here for some hours now,” and he continued to walk about, apparently in the possession of a charmed life.

  One gun and its limber had to be left in the open for lack of horses, but five guns, including the one brought back by the riderless team of “U” Battery, were brought away. As the mutilated remains of the horse artillery galloped back through the lines of the mounted infantry, the soldiers, careless of the bullets flying about them, rose up and cheered. Phipps-Hornby and three of his men received the Victoria Cross.

  Broadwood sent cavalry around to try to outflank De Wet, but they failed. About noon he managed to extricate nearly all of his remaining men by retiring south and west, crossing the Koornspruit further upstream, but the Boers left their positions to press hard on his rear guard. Broadwood lost 159 officers and men killed or wounded and 421 captured. Boer losses according to De Wet were 3 killed and 5 wounded. In addition to the guns, the Boers captured 83 wagons loaded with stores.

  In the middle of the battle of Sanna’s Post, at about eight o’clock in the morning, Colonel Cyril Martyr with a weak brigade of mounted infantry arrived at Boesman’s Kop, about 5 miles west of the Koornspruit. He had been sent out by Lord Roberts to reinforce Broadwood should he be attacked by Olivier. From the top of the hill Martyr could plainly see the battlefield through his glasses, and although his brigade was weak (about 600 men), he could have moved smartly forward and taken De Wet in the rear. Instead, he divided his force into small units and sent them flying in different directions on futile errands. At 11:15 A.M., as Broadwood was getting his troops away to the southwest, General Sir Henry Colvile,, following Martyr, reached Boesman’s Kop with an entire infantry division. He too could have saved the day by pouncing on De Wet, now struggling to get away with his prisoners and wagons. But Colvile, instead of pressing forward, sat on Boesman’s Kop and sent a staff officer to summon Broadwood to come to him and explain the situation while his troops were given an hour’s rest. Broadwood wisely decided that his place was with his men and that a 10-mile ride to and from Boesman’s Kop to chat with Colvile was nonsense. He sent back a message urging Colvile to make a direct and immediate advance on the Boers. Colvile ignored it. Instead, after his men were rested he marched most of them northeast to Waterval Drift, about 5 miles north of Sanna’s Post where the Koornspruit meets the Modder.

  Colvile finally did send a small force under Colonel T. C. Porter east across the Koornspruit, and the next day he sent Smith-Dorrien’s brigade to join him and to recapture the waterworks. He then changed his mind and ordered Smith-Dorrien to withdraw. Meanwhile, Smith-Dorrien, having learned that the Boers had left 87 of Broadwood’s wounded in the buildings at Sanna’s Post, sent back staff officers to bring up ambulances and carts, but Colvile refused to permit this. It was up to the mounted units to take care of their own wounded, he said; it was not the responsibility of the infantry. Smith-Dorrien later wrote: “I shall never forget the indignation of Porter and his men when they heard of this inhuman order.”4 Smith-Dorrien withdrew as ordered, but reluctantly and slowly, and not before his troops had brought the wounded men back.

  Colvile’s behaviour at Sanna’s Post is difficult to understand, and he appears to have had some difficulty in trying to explain it to Lord Roberts later. The only plausible explanation appears to be that Colvile, a proud as well as stupid man, was unduly piqued that Broadwood, his junior, failed to obey his order to report to him and in retaliation deliberately ignored Broadwood’s request for assistance, refusing to support or help him in any way.

  Even though De Wet was reinforced by Olivier, Colvile and Broadwood had sufficient force to drive off the Boers, but they chose to withdraw, leaving the waterworks in Boer hands. Bloemfontein’s main water supply was thus cut off.

  So impressed were the British officers by the brilliant battle plan of De Wet that they could not at first bring themselves to believe that an “ignorant Boer” had conceived it. A curious rumour spread that the Boers had been led by Captain Carl Reichmann, the American military attaché, who had indeed been present, but only as an observer. During the battle Reichmann appears to have been primarily concerned with attending to Lieutenant Nix, the Dutch attaché, who was severely wounded by British shrapnel.

  Immediately after his victory De Wet left his men with his brother and A. P. Cronjé and rode off with three aides in the direction of Dewetsdorp. There he found such a tempting target for another strike that he sent orders for 1,500 burghers and three guns to join him with all speed. While he waited, he collected an additional 110 men locally, men who had given up the struggle after the fall of Bloemfontein but who now readily took up their arms again at his call.

  Roberts had instructed Gatacre to occupy Dewetsdorp if he had enough troops at his disposal. These instructions were vague (Who knows how many are enough?), and Gatacre sent only 500 infantry under the command of Captain William M‘Whinnie. It was not until 1 April that Roberts discovered how small the force was. Then, knowing the nearness of De Wet and Olivier, he ordered it withdrawn. Gatacre passed on the order to M’Whinnie but neglected to alert him te his danger. M’Whinnie marched his men towards Reddersburg
, unaware of his peril; two days later, 3 April, while still 4 miles northeast of the town, he became aware that he was being pursued. He then quickly made for a horseshoe-shaped ridge known as Mostert’s Hoek and there threw up some stone sangars and sent off a messenger asking for help.

  De Wet had hurried his men on by forced marches. Those who could not keep up the pace or whose horses foundered were left behind. Finding the British brought to bay, he at once sent in a demand for their surrender, to which M’Whinnie replied, “I’m damned if I surrender!” De Wet immediately opened fire with his three Krupp guns while his men, sheltered behind rocks and folds in the ground, crept up on the British position, but it was late in the day and night fell without any decisive action.

  It was seven o‘clock that evening when Gatacre and Roberts learned of M’Whinnie’s difficulties. Roberts at once ordered Gatacre to go to his relief. By ten o‘clock the following morning Gatacre was on a ridge overlooking Reddersburg and could hear the sounds of the battle at Mostert’s Hoek about 5 miles away, but in and about the town of Reddersburg were Boers covering De Wet’s main force. Gatacre, after some indecision, decided not to press forward but to fall back on the railway at Bethany. After moving back about 4 miles he received orders from Roberts to seize Reddersburg. He then countermarched and occupied the town, encountering little resistance, but he was too late to help M’Whinnie and his men at Mostert’s Hoek.

  De Wet had opened fire with his Krupps at 5:30 A.M. About noon M’Whinnie surrendered. His casualties amounted to only 10 killed and 37 wounded, and he was later blamed for not holding out longer, but he was unable to reply to De Wet’s guns and, in view of Gatacre’s timidity, it is difficult to see how further resistance would have saved them. De Wet claimed 470 prisoners.

  Roberts by now had had enough of Gatacre. He relieved him of his command. Gatacre, bitter and resentful, returned to England--to be greeted by cheers from the people and to receive a medal from the Queen. But he never again held a command.

  The week which extended from 29 March to 5 April 1900 had been a bustling one. The score seemed almost even—the British had defeated the foreign volunteers at Boshof and driven off the Boers at Karee Siding; De Wet had scored two striking victories at Sanna’s Post and Mostert’s Hoek—but Boshof had been little more than a skirmish and Karee Siding had been an expensive victory in terms of casualties suffered for results obtained, while De Wet’s two brilliant successes in less than a week, resulting in the capture of a thousand prisoners, seven guns, and a convoy of stores had an electrifying effect on Boer morale. It stiffened the resolve of those in arms, rallied the waverers, and inspired many burghers who had gone home to pick up their Mausers and resume the fight.

  Roberts was now anxious, and rightly so, about his lines of communication. De Wet was in a position to sweep south along the railway line, stranding Roberts and rousing thousands of Cape Afrikaners to the republican cause. This certainly would have been his wisest course. But he became diverted, allowing passion to replace logic—a bad exchange for generals as for others.

  At Wepener, on the Basutoland border, about 1,800 colonials and a few regulars, a part of the Colonial Division, were stationed under the command of Colonel E. H. Dalgety; against these De Wet assembled an army of 6,000 burghers, and on 9 April he attacked. Most of the men in the Colonial Division were South Africans from Cape Colony, and the Boers had a special hatred for these men. De Wet told why:

  To tell the truth, there was not a man amongst us who would have asked better than to make prisoners of the Cape Mounted Rifles and of Brabant’s Horse. They were Afrikaners, although neither Free Staters nor Transvaalers, they ought, in our opinion, to have been ashamed to fight against us.

  The English, we admitted, had a perfect right to hire such sweepings, and to use them against us, but we utterly dispised them for allowing themselves to be hired....5

  The colonials took up excellent defensive positions on some kopjes 3 to 5 miles northeast of the town on the east bank of the Caledon River. De Wet surrounded them, but after wasting seventeen days he gave up the fight and withdrew, just managing to slip past forces sent to their aid.

  The diversion had cost him dear, giving the British time to protect their vital line of communication. He had lost his chance. His decision to attack the colonials instead of the railway was the worst De Wet ever made.

  29

  ON THE MARCH TO PRETORIA

  While sitting in Bloemfontein waiting until he was able to resume his march northward, Roberts had much to occupy his mind: the shortage of men and supplies, the enteric which was carrying off the men he had, the dangers to his long line of communications, his planning for the advance to Johannesburg and Pretoria, the worrying activities of De Wet—and there was Buller.

  After the relief of Ladysmith, Buller’s army in Natal numbered 55,000 men—more than the total number of Boers in the field—but he was doing absolutely nothing with this large force. Roberts wanted to make a two-pronged invasion of the Transvaal—Butter operating on the eastern flank while his own forces pressed up from the south. Between early March and May 1900 more than forty telegrams were exchanged between Roberts and Buller in which Roberts tried everything—except a direct order—to get Buller to move, to do something (even some slight pressure from Buller on the eastern front would have been helpful), and Buller found reasons why he could not budge.

  Buller could not decide what he should do or determine what he could do—whether he should make a western advance over the Drakensberg into the Orange Free State, or advance northward through Natal towards the Transvaal, or do both simultaneously. On 2 March he proposed to attack in both directions; on 5 March he thought he would attack only by the northern route; two days later he proposed the western route. His mood vacillated between extravagant optimism and profound pessimism. Roberts, exasperated, was prepared to agree to anything that would move him out of Ladysmith. Still Buller delayed. His excuses were endless: the Boers were too strong, the Ladysmith garrison was still recovering from the effects of the siege, he did not have enough cavalry or engineers, his men needed boots and other clothing, he needed more remounts. At one point he even suggested that Roberts send his cavalry 200 miles across the Free State to clear the Drakensberg passes for him so that he could safely move his army through. Roberts, ever decisive himself, did not know what to make of him. To Lansdowne he wrote: “He certainly is an extraordinary man. His first intentions are generally correct, but his second thoughts invariably lead him astray.... I can never feel sure that he will carry out anything that has been decided upon, even though the idea may have originated with himself.”1

  Buller, like most timorous commanders, greatly overestimated the difficulties before him. He guessed that 25,000 Boers would block his advance when, in actual fact, there were only about 8,000 on the Biggarsberg under the command of Lucas Meyer, the Boers’ most incompetent general. Botha, with a sizable number of his men, had moved from the Natal front into the Free State to oppose Roberts’s further advance. Buller, with a fighting strength of 45,000 men and 119 guns, ought to have moved inexorably forward, but he remained glued to Natal. Military observers were puzzled. “The slowness of General Buller’s advance in Natal since the relief of Ladysmith over two and one-half months previous is inexplicable,” wrote Captain Slocum in his report to the United States War Department.2

  At last Roberts concluded that it was useless to expect anything from Buller. When he had first suggested that Buller might spare him a division, Buller had protested so vigorously that Roberts had not pressed the point, but finally he ordered one division and the Imperial Light Horse to be sent to him. He also pulled out a few good officers, such as Ian Hamilton and Archibald Hunter, and relieved Warren of his command. Warren, instead of being shipped home as he deserved, was sent to take charge of small operations in northwestern Cape Colony where some Cape rebels were creating disturbances.

  Why Lord Roberts did not relieve Buller of his command or at least give h
im direct orders to follow is difficult to understand. The two men were not friends. Far from it. Buller was the protégé of Wolseley, Roberts’s chief rival in the army, and there had never been any love lost between them. Yet, though Roberts made his dissatisfaction with Buller quite clear to his political superiors at home, and the Cabinet had questioned whether it was wise to retain him in his command, Roberts did not replace him. Six years later Roberts said in a letter to William Blackwood: “I doubt if any one has realized how impossible it was to supersede him.”3

  The Times History guessed that Roberts, who had not personally visited the Natal front, thought that Buller, as the man on the spot, was best able to judge of the military situation there, and also that Roberts had “a chivalrous disinclination to treat a general who had once been commander-in-chief in South Africa in the same way as he treated his other subordinates.” 4 There were perhaps other considerations as well. One was Buller’s immense popularity, not only among his own troops but with the general public at home. In spite of his blunders (not all of which were generally known) they loved him still. Then too there appeared to be no one to replace him; Warren was incompetent, and Sir George White had been invalided home. Finally, there was perhaps a personal consideration: it was Buller who had been responsible for the death of Roberts’s son; he would not want to appear to be taking personal revenge. Still, when all has been considered, it is impossible to justify the retention of Buller in his high command.

  With or without Buller’s cooperation, Roberts was determined to invade the Transvaal. On 3 May 1900 he left Bloemfontein behind, left too all those sick and wounded, and with bands playing began his march north to Pretoria with 38,000 men and more than 100 guns. He marched on a broad front, his troops moving in three columns. He himself commanded the centre column based on the railway while French and his cavalry marched parallel to him on his left and Ian Hamilton (now a general) with a column consisting mostly of mounted infantry was on his right. Brandfort was captured without difficulty, and in ten days Roberts was in Kroonstad, from which Steyn and the Free State government had just fled.