Victoria's Generals

by Steven J Corvi

  On the allied right, where stood the Egyptian army, the Green Standard had climbed the Kereri hills and driven off the Egyptian cavalry and camel corps with a sustained and unwavering charge. The Egyptians, heavily outnumbered, beat a hasty retreat: the camel corps, being slower, fled towards the allied main position covered by the timely fire of five gunboats. Broadwood, meanwhile, took the cavalry north, luring the Dervishes away from the main battlefield for some 4 or 5 miles before they realised they were needed elsewhere and headed back.

  By 0800, the Dervishes’ attacks had been beaten off with heavy losses. The bravery of these men earned high praise from the British officers and soldiers who had shot them down. Corporal Skinner believed that: ‘Nothing could possibly stand against such a store of lead, in fact no European would ever think of facing it in the daring way these fanatics did.’28 After a break of about an hour, Kitchener began the second phase of the battle by ordering the army out of its position and on to the plain. The brigades were meant to move southwards towards Omdurman in echelon in the hope of meeting all eventualities and to be mutually supporting. Thus the British Brigades were in the front and the Egyptians on the right and rear. Meanwhile, the 21st Lancers had been sent ‘to clear the ground on our left front and head off any retreating Dervishes from the direction of Omdurman’. The Dervish survivors were apparently fleeing into the desert and Kitchener wanted to encourage the rest to do so.29 The subsequent charge of the 21st Lancers, during which they were effectively ambushed by the forces of Osman Digna concealed in the dried river bed, the Khor Abu Sunt, has been well recounted, not least by its famous participant, Winston Churchill. Kitchener did not order the charge and though successful it ended the usefulness of the 21st Lancers for the rest of the day. They might have informed Kitchener that there was still a large body of Dervishes – the Black Standard – in the vicinity.

  The second phase of the battle, for it was far from over, in spite of 2,000 to 3,000 Dervish dead, was the most controversial part and called into question Kitchener’s tactical judgement. As the army moved towards the Jebel Surgham ridge the various brigades became separated and the cohesion of the army lost. The brigade of Lieutenant Colonel Hector MacDonald was out on the right flank when a serious gap emerged between it and the forward brigades so that it became isolated on the plain. This was far too tempting for the men of the Black Standard who surged from around the western end of the Jebel Surgham and headed straight for MacDonald. The Khalifa did not lead the attack himself, having already moved off towards Omdurman. Although heavily outnumbered, MacDonald’s force was supported by eighteen guns and eight Maxims and held its own against the Dervish onslaught. MacDonald was not in great danger as he had seen the enemy early and was prepared. Nevertheless, when Kitchener received word of MacDonald’s predicament he acted decisively by ordering one British brigade to support him. However, what might seem a decisive act also revealed one of Kitchener’s shortcomings because he gave the orders to the brigade commander directly, without having consulted Gatacre. Thankfully for the allied cause the Dervish attack was repulsed with heavy losses, but MacDonald’s travails were not over. No sooner had the Black Standard begun to waver then the Green Standard, the force that had chased off Broadwood’s cavalry, returned to the battlefield right behind MacDonald’s embattled brigade. With quick thinking, MacDonald demonstrated his brigade’s superb training and discipline and turned them round in parade-ground fashion to face the new enemy. With Kitchener alert enough to send a British battalion to help, MacDonald’s brigade fought off this new adversary with the same coolness and determination that it had shown earlier. In his dispatch after the battle, Kitchener readily praised MacDonald’s brilliant handling of his troops.30

  With the destruction of the Black and Green Standards the Dervish army was annihilated. The enormity of the victory and the huge losses sustained by the Dervishes were soon appreciated by the British. Captain Cameron admitted to his father that: ‘It seems to me that as far as the British Division was concerned it was mostly a question of superiority of weapons for the Dervishes showed splendid courage.’31 Dervish losses were huge: Wingate stated that 10,800 were killed, while the number of wounded was estimated at 16,000. British and Egyptian losses amounted to 48 dead and 434 wounded.32

  The British victory was certainly helped by the Khalifa smashing his army against the shells and bullets of the allied forces, revealing his ignorance of modern weapons. Of the Dervish commanders only Osman Digna had real experience of what British firepower could do, having experienced it in 1884–85. Osman Digna, however, was from the north-east and was of the Beja people, who were better known to the British as the ‘fuzzy-wuzzies’. As an outsider his opinions did not carry much weight in the Dervish council because it was dominated by the Khalifa’s family and tribe, the Ta’aisha of the Baqqara. The Khalifa was determined to fight the battle his way and paid the price.33

  A succinct summary of the battle was provided later by à Court and he certainly identified the fact the Khalifa played a major part in his own downfall:

  We were a very fortunate army. The Dervishes had many chances and availed themselves of none. Had they held Shabluka, they would have forced us to fight in a difficult and waterless country where our gunboats were useless. Had they given battle in the thick scrub, they would have placed themselves almost on equal terms with us, and the weight of their 60,000 fighting men would have told. Had they attacked our widely extended line on the night of September 1–2, it is almost certain, considering their reckless gallantry, that their masses must have broken in somewhere. Had they held the mud houses, forts, and walls of Omdurman, we should hardly have turned them out with a loss of less than 3,000 men.34

  Thus the old adage that victories are won because of the mistakes of the enemy was certainly applicable to the Khalifa and his generals.

  Kitchener, then, did not need to exert direct control of the allied army during the battle. The placement of the troops and the actual conduct of the fighting he left to the more experienced men – Hunter and Gatacre. Nevertheless, the incident involving MacDonald’s brigade showed Kitchener’s judgement to be at fault. Hunter said he was too impatient, which was true; but the Dervishes could be handled out in the open. À Court criticised Kitchener for not having stated the required distances between the brigades as they moved off, but added ‘What K needed was a good infantry drill man, and he did not have one.’ Moreover, it seems the 1st British Brigade was too eager to get to Omdurman and marched far too quickly. ‘They marched upon our heels [the 2nd British Brigade detailed to lead the advance] in spite of my protests.’35 Consequently, the army moved off far too rapidly, which left MacDonald’s brigade, as the last to deploy, isolated out on the right rear of the formation. Furthermore, if the 21st Lancers had done their job properly they might have given early warning of the Black Standard and enabled Kitchener to alter his movements and deployment.

  Thus Kitchener’s control of the Sudan expedition revealed his command of logistics; the key to the objective – Omdurman. In this respect the campaign was a triumph: the army was well fed and watered and the building of the desert railway a brilliant piece of engineering. The need to defeat the desert was foremost in Kitchener’s planning. Yet, Kitchener revealed some alarming faults for a commander who would have to fight battles: particularly, his desire to control every aspect of the campaign and his failure to take his officers into his confidence. Had he been incapacitated things might have turned out differently. Or would they? Arguably, the Sudan campaign and its objectives were straightforward enough for any commander of proven ability. Even so, Kitchener’s personal style of command, which was in keeping with Victorian practice, can also be explained by the two severe restraints under which he laboured. First, his fear of the generals and politicians of the War Office, who might have replaced him at any moment; and secondly, the financial constraints imposed by Cromer. Together, these, certainly in 1898, caused Kitchener acute anxiety relieved only by total victory.
Kitchener was not a great battlefield tactician, but he handled the ‘early Victorian formations’ needed to combat a known enemy well enough.36

  South Africa, 1900–2

  On 11 October 1899, the South African War broke out following an ultimatum presented to the British by the president of the semi-independent Boer republic of the Transvaal. On 18 December 1899, Kitchener, along with Field Marshal Lord Roberts, was sent to the war zone to eradicate the mess created by the British military authorities.

  Kitchener was made Roberts’s Chief of Staff, a rather ambiguous post that lacked definition and for which, in the ordinary sense, he did not have the necessary training. Consequently, Kitchener was obliged to perform many different tasks: first, he reorganised the transport system in a way that suited his experience but not that of the British forces. Secondly, he took control of the army when Roberts was ill and fought a major engagement against the Boers at the battle of Paardeberg on 18 February 1900. Here his old faults resurfaced: he took complete control and bypassed the various British generals present by issuing orders directly to individual units – as he had done at Omdurman. This time there was no brilliant victory, and although the Boers were surrounded and pinned down, they had inflicted what for the British amounted to huge losses. It was the most controversial battle he ever fought and while he was lauded later for injecting an energy that few commanders had shown beforehand, the results appalled the other generals, including possibly Roberts who was too polite to say.37

  Kitchener’s credibility as a battlefield commander was questioned and he never fought a battle on this scale again. Roberts sent him away to tidy up other areas but Kitchener was back with him for the march into the Boer republics. From May 1900, the Boers, who would not face the British in open battle, opted for guerrilla warfare. While Roberts occupied their towns and cut them off from the outside world the Boer commandos hit at his precarious supply line, a single railway. Eventually, a tired Roberts, having declared the war to be at an end, left South Africa, leaving Kitchener to mop up and bring the guerrilla war to an end.

  On 29 November 1900, Kitchener was appointed Commander in Chief in South Africa. Many felt that he would now provide the necessary leadership that Roberts lacked. Captain R J Marker believed that once Kitchener was in charge and given a free hand ‘it [the war] will be over in a very short time’. However, not all were impressed by the change in regime: Captain Colin Ballard wrote, ‘Personally, I don’t expect that Kitchener will do any better. Of course, I don’t know him personally, but he is said to be very harsh and unfeeling – and all his old Egyptian lot expect him to take very stern measures.’38

  The South African War, 1899–1902.

  The task before Kitchener, however, was becoming more complicated by the hour. The guerrilla war, hitherto confined to the former Boer republics, eventually spread into the British territory of Cape Colony, where the majority of white inhabitants were Boers themselves and many had already risen up in revolt before fading into the background when the British appeared to be winning. Indeed, some 10,000 had rebelled between 1899 and 1900 and the Boer high command decided that another rebellion, hopefully on a larger scale, would tip the balance in their favour. A further complication for Kitchener was the British government’s desire for cuts in troop numbers and expenditure. Their hopes, however, proved illusory once several Boer commandos invaded Cape Colony in late 1900. Although the great uprising never occurred, with only a few rebelling again, these commandos, particularly those under the most implacable Boer commander, Christiaan De Wet, caused the British numerous problems. Kitchener made it clear to the new Secretary of State for War, William St John Brodrick, that it was premature to speak of cuts when more troops and resources were needed. Thus began a battle between Kitchener and the political authorities over control of the war, which provided a major backdrop to the military events.39

  Kitchener would eventually employ several methods to defeat the commandos. First he launched numerous columns to chase them down. Initially, the main effort was against De Wet, who was subjected to three ‘hunts’. The third was led by Kitchener himself who, in February 1901, tried to coordinate seventeen columns in what turned out to be a vain pursuit. The military aspect of the war thus saw Boer commandos being chased all over South Africa by British columns. The Boers occasionally inflicted embarrassing defeats on their pursuers and while these did not affect the overall situation, they increased the pressure on Kitchener, particularly from the press, leading him to complain to Roberts, ‘I only wish the English papers would take a sounder line, they do all in their power to encourage the Boers and to dishearten our troops.’ The strain told on Kitchener and his old anxieties resurfaced. For instance, when Lord Methuen’s column was ambushed and Methuen himself captured on 7 March 1902, Kitchener sulked in his room for two days, something he had done in the Sudan when a new gunboat went wrong.40 At one point he even urged Brodrick to sack him: ‘If you think someone else could do better out here, I hope you will not hesitate for a moment in replacing me. I try all I can but it is not like the Soudan [sic] and disappointments are frequent.’41 Moreover, when a major ‘hunt’ was underway Kitchener could not help interfering and would send orders direct to columns thus upsetting the cohesion of the operation. As one promising officer Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Allenby explained to his wife, Kitchener ‘tries to run the whole show from Pretoria – a quite impossible job – and fails’. Douglas Haig, promoted a local colonel and operating in Cape Colony, confided in his diary that ‘Lord K seems to meddle rather, and does not give French [Lieutenant General John French, who was appointed on 1 June 1901 to oversee operations in Cape Colony] quite a free hand’. And although Haig never suffered interference from Kitchener, ‘Periodically he used to get a fit of the funks and think De Wet was going to invade the Colony.’42

  Only when Lieutenant General Ian Hamilton returned to South Africa in late 1901, having been appointed by London to be Kitchener’s Chief of Staff, was the burden lifted somewhat from Kitchener’s shoulders. Hamilton was also meant to report on Kitchener’s mental health, but he proved to be a loyal subordinate and worked well with his chief. Kitchener was pleased with the appointment having already tried Neville Lyttelton and told the War Office. ‘Hamilton will I am sure do the work extremely well and relieve me of a good deal of worry’. When Hamilton arrived he was impressed by the measures Kitchener had taken to combat the commandos. Indeed, Kitchener had complemented his mobile columns by dividing the former Boer republics into zones with barbed wire and blockhouses of stone and corrugated iron. The commandos, consequently, were being squeezed into smaller areas already devoid of supplies:

  I never could have imagined, [wrote Hamilton] such a gigantic system of fortifications, barriers, traps and garrisons as actually exists. This forms the principal character of operations, supplying them with a solid backbone and involving permanent loss of territory to the enemy, which former operations did not. Thus, certain treacherous areas are now permanently under our control. Subsidiary areas are consequently now giving less and less trouble.43

  To man the blockhouse line Kitchener used mainly local Africans who were armed for the purpose. Moreover, Africans were also being used as scouts for the columns and made a great contribution to the intelligence gathered. It is estimated that 50,000 black Africans and those of mixed race were armed by the British, while a further 100,000 served in British transport units. For these men, especially when uniformed and armed, capture by the Boers often meant certain death. On learning that De Wet and his government had ordered this fate for those captured, Kitchener indignantly informed him, ‘I am very much astonished at the barbarous instructions you have given as regards the murder of natives, who, although placed in a very difficult position, have … behaved, in my opinion, in an exemplary manner during the war.’ Any captured Boer commander found guilty of murdering non-whites faced the death penalty and some were executed, most famously Commandant Gideon Scheepers.44

  The secon
d method Kitchener used to defeat the commandos was the most controversial. This was the war against the Boer civilians that culminated in the concentration camps. Under Roberts, the British had retaliated against raids on the railway line by destroying local farms. The ‘displaced people’, alongside those who wished to surrender, were placed in encampments that were poorly protected from marauding commandos. Under Kitchener, the process of retaliation became systematic. At first, in response to government enquiries, Kitchener issued orders that farm-burning should be undertaken only as a punishment, as Roberts had earlier stated, but this proved difficult to enforce and soon it became policy to remove civilians anyway as the destruction of farms became part of an unfolding strategy. Kitchener had quickly identified Boer women as the heart of the resistance: ‘There is no doubt the women are keeping up the war and are far more bitter than the men.’ And later, ‘The women left on the farms give complete intelligence to the Boers of all our movements and feed the commandos in their neighbourhood.’45 To deny the commandos civilian help Kitchener issued Circular Memorandum No. 29 on 21 December 1900, which began ‘[I am] desirous that all possible means should be taken to stop the present guerrilla warfare.’46Thus troops were ordered to remove all civilians from their homes in areas where Boer commandos were prevalent. They were to be housed in camps near the railway line and separated according to whether their men remained on commando or not: surrendered men joined their wives and children. Any Africans living on Boer farms were to be sent to their own camps. The Memorandum made clear that this procedure was recommended by surrendered Boers as a way of forcing those on commando to capitulate.