Mafeking, Relief of

Relief map 1	Relief map 2	Relief map 3

Some of the Officers of the Mafeking Relief Column. Top row (left to right): Major Karri Davis (Imperial Light Horse), Major Baden-Powell (Intelligence Department), Captain Robinson, RA, Major Weil (Transport), Captain Peakman (Kimberley Corps), Prince Alexander of Teck, ADC, Captain Cobb, ASC Second row: Captain Donaldson (Imperial Light Horse), Captain D L Maxwell (Kimberley Corps), Colonel A J King (commanding Kimberley Corps), Colonel Mahon, Colonel Edwards (Imperial Light Horse), Captain Bell-Smyth (Brigade Major), Captain R W R Barnes Adjutant, Imperial Light Horse). Bottom row: Captain Ker (commanding Infantry detachment), Sir John Willoughby (DAAGB), Colonel F. Rhodes, DSO (Chief of Intelligence Department), Captain Smyth (Galloper), Captain Du Plat Taylor (RHA). Photo by Taylor, Mafeking. Missing from this picture is Major H K Jackson, RHA.

The Relief Force and its Commander.

As Lord Roberts' army moved out of Bloemfontein on that great march to Pretoria, a small column in the western field of war struck north from Kimberley upon an even more arduous and incalculably more dangerous enterprise the relief of Mafeking. Colonel Mahon, an officer of Egyptian renown, was in command, and with him rode a force of picked men. There were 900 selected troopers of the Imperial Light Horse and of the Kimberley Mounted Force, 100 infantry from the Scotch, Welsh, Irish, and Royal Fusiliers of Barton's brigade; four guns of M Battery of Horse Artillery; two "Pom-poms"; three Maxims; and 55 wagons laden with forage and supplies for the long journey of 230 miles over the arid veldt. Though attempts had been made to maintain complete secrecy as to the composition and movements of the column, the Boers were, as usual, perfectly informed on every vital point, and the younger Cronje, with a force 1,500 strong, was directed to arrest its march. Since Colonel Mahon could not dispose of more than 1,200 men, the odds were distinctly against him, and it was only by his rapidity of progress and his dexterous tactics that he succeeded in his perilous mission. To support him, General Hunter with the Tenth Division attacked the enemy on the Vaal, near Windsorton, as the march began.

Rapid Advance of the Column.

On May 4 the column crossed the Vaal and left Barkly West, marching through difficult country, bush-covered and abounding in kopjes, towards the far-off village in the north. Great caution was observed, for though the district had already been swept by a mounted column cooperating with General Hunter's division on the Vaal, the Boers might well have returned. The first march was only nine miles long, but on the 5th the column advanced with great speed, covering no less than thirty-one miles. All day the boom of Hunter's guns could be heard; his shells in that clear air could be seen bursting on the kopjes to the right, and his balloon was marked hovering at great height over the battle. But the Boers put in no appearance, though the scouts reported that they were present in force at some distance. Presumably, Hunter's attack was for the time occupying all their attention. At nightfall, the most stringent precautions were enforced; no lights or fires were allowed after 8 p.m., and even pipes and cigarettes were not to be lighted in the dark. For all the men knew the Boers might be all round the column, sheltered by the bush and rocks, and any hour might see the beginning of a fierce attack. At 2 a.m. of the 6th the force silently up-saddled and moved on through pitchy darkness, the men benumbed by the icy cold of the night air. Even as the march began a shot rang out, and for an instant it was taken for the signal of the enemy's presence; fortunately, however, it was found to have been fired by some careless soldier while charging his magazine.

On the 6th again the march was unmolested and uneventful, save for the capture of several Boer wagons on their way westward from Fourteen Streams. They were moving peacefully and happily through country which the burghers had occupied now for seven months without their occupation being disputed by any British force, and their owners had seemingly not been informed of the advance of Colonel Mahon; so they fell an easy prey. The noise of Hunter's guns in action now grew fainter in the right rear, and on the 7th the column was close to Taungs. All the morning its attention was centred upon a dense line of dust, which could be made out moving north-westward; this was the pillar of cloud denoting Cronje's rapid advance to cut off the column from Mafeking. Boers, too, were reported to the south and east; the column was in the midst of the enemy. But here no precautions were neglected. Colonel Mahon was a man who took no unnecessary risks, and exacted the utmost activity from his patrols. "Any little neglect in the matter of patrolling and choosing bivouac positions," writes Mr. Filson Young, a correspondent with the column, "might mean complete disaster to the column, and the frustration of its end. These little things have often been neglected in this campaign; and whenever there has been a convoy captured, it has been because someone has taken for granted that someone else was holding a drift or pass. So we move warily through a placid country that may become at any moment full of menace; travelling may at any moment be exchanged for fighting, and the roadway for the battlefield; even the green slopes that front us may hide the greatest danger, and the river bed, with its grasses and lapping waters, become a pit of death."

On this day a patrol entered Taungs, cut the telegraph wire, destroyed the instruments, and examined the messages; among these an order from Mr. Kruger was found directing a general retreat to Christiana. On the 8th the column hurried through Pudimoe, where several rebel farms were looted and burned, to Brussels Station, only fifteen miles from Vryburg. At Pudimoe the Boers had intended to take up a position astride of Colonel Mahon's route, but the celerity of the British movements prevented the accomplishment of this purpose.

Halt at Vryburg.

Next day the British rode into Vryburg, and found that a Boer outpost there had taken to flight. The few English in the town hurried out to greet the newcomers, who seemed to them to have started suddenly from the earth; the long nightmare of Boer invasion had ended at last. But Colonel Mahon could make no protracted stay; as night of the 10th fell, the troopers with buoyant hearts and the wagons were again faring forward, after the unusual experience of a twenty-four hours' halt. Already the losses in horses and mules had been serious, owing to the forced marching and the exiguity of the supply of forage; nearly 100 had been left behind on the way. The night's journey was a weary one, as the guides mistook the whereabouts of water, and it was not till 2 a.m. that the force bivouacked, waterless and disconsolate. Even then only three hours' rest was conceded; but in the morning the anxiously-looked-for water was reached, and a long halt was called. Again, on the night of the 11th a long march was accomplished, and on May 12 the column stood a little to the west of Kraaipan, where, in the affair of the armoured train, the first blood had been shed in the war. Since then what sufferings and what sacrifices for two peoples!

The Younger Cronje across the Line of Advance.

That day the scouts reported Boers in consider able force to be east, and during the night the enemy pushed forward to a hill on the Metsima Spruit, which bore the familiar name of Koodoesrand, hoping thus to bar the way. But Mahon was by no means eager for a fight. He heard that the enemy were throwing up entrenchments with their usual lightning speed, and decided that it would be best to leave them alone. Accordingly, he turned westward, and marched in that direction nine miles before resuming his northward course. Manoeuvre was met by counter-manoeuvre. The Boer scouts stealthily watched him, crawling through the thick bush in which a stranger without his bearings is as helpless as a ship without compass on the trackless ocean, and, on the information which they gave, Cronje marched swiftly north, and a second time placed himself on the British line of advance. Already runners had come in to the British camp from the north. One, from the brave and steadfast Colonel Plumer, announced that that officer would effect his junction with Mahon north-west of Mafeking; the other, from Colonel Baden - Powell, asked for information as to the numbers, guns, and supplies of the column.

Colonel Rhodes' Ingenious Message.

Such information was not lightly to be entrusted to any messenger; there was no cipher of which Baden-Powell had the key; but in these straits, Colonel Rhodes, the intelligence officer with the column, succeeded in inventing a most ingenious reply, unintelligible to the Boers, but clear as daylight to the British. It is thus given by Mr. Filson Young: "Our numbers are the Naval and Military multiplied by ten; our guns, the number of sons in the Ward family; our supplies, the officer commanding the 9th Lancers." The key to the message was that there were 940 men, 94, Piccadilly being the number of the Naval and Military Club; that the guns were six, that being the number of sons in the house of Dudley; and that the supplies were little.

Skirmish with the Enemy.

All the morning of the 13th the advance continued through the bush veldt, "which consists," says Mr. Young, "of long, rank grass, with thorn bushes at small intervals, and hardwood trees at greater distances-the whole something like an English paddock or park of young trees." The going was so heavy that the wagons straggled, and this in spite of the fact that Boers were from time to time seen on the right flank, and in spite of heavy clouds of dust which were made out, slowly converging on the British route. About 3.30 p.m the "pip-pop " of the Mauser was heard to the south-east, while the column was in the bush; the convoy was at once ordered to close in, and M Battery was called upon to open fire on the nearest dust cloud. The range, however, was too great, and the guns had to wait. Then from the south-east the roar of a heavy rifle fusillade ran with the swiftness of a forest fire along the front. Bullets came in showers; Mr. Hands, the cheerful and capable correspondent of the Daily Mail, was severely wounded, and in a few minutes a dozen men were prostrate. Yet there was nothing whatever to be seen. Of the Boers' presence there was no sign or token except the whistling bullets and the crackling musketry.

The convoy closed up with the troopers around it. There were some narrow escapes, and many casualties. Major Baden-Powell, brother of the famous Colonel, had his watch smashed to pieces, but himself escaped without a scratch. Mahon showed imperturbable coolness with the bullets flicking up the dust at his feet; at an order from him the four horse guns and the two "Pom-Poms " changed position and opened in the direction from which seemed to come the fiercest fire. As if by magic the situation changed. A few fierce blows from the "Pom-Poms," a dozen rounds from the guns, and the Boer fire ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The enemy had had enough, and the fight was over. Yet the casualties in that half hour's skirmish were serious. Six men lay dead, twenty-four were wounded, and one was missing. The force bivouacked where it had fought, though Cronje had the effrontery to pretend that it had only escaped because it took to precipitate flight. He marched north once more, drawing in reinforcements from Snyman's commandos in front of Mafeking, and yet again took post athwart its line of advance.

Junction with Colonel Plumer's Force.

On his part, Mahon rode swiftly north-westward all the 14th and early 15th, and as day of the 15th broke, struck the first outposts of Colonel Plumer's force at the Kaffir kraal known as Jan Masibi's. As the column from the south appeared on one side, that from the north marched in amid clouds of dust from the other. There were the 350 stalwart soldiers of the Rhodesian Regiment, who for seven weary months had been incessantly skirmishing with the Boers, and attempting to relieve Mafeking; there were 200 Queenslanders of enormous stature; there were six quick-firing guns of the C Canadian Battery, manned by the hardy militiamen of the far West, fresh from a journey which is without parallel in the annals of war. In the short space of a month they had travelled by sea from Capetown to Beira, by rail from Beira to Marandellas, by road from Marandellas to Buluwayo, and by rail again from Buluwayo to Ootsi, whence they had marched, covering 70 miles or more in two days, to Jan Masibi's, completing 3,100 miles of journeying by steamer, rail, and road, from Capetown. Their guns were an invaluable reinforcement to Mahon, who could now dispose of 1,500 men and 15 pieces of artillery, two of which, however, were muzzle-loading 7-pounders of little value. No shadow of gloom marred the meeting. Though both forces were eating their last rations, and retreat was out of the question, the men were absolutely determined to force their way into Mafeking or perish. It was neck or nothing.

The Artillery Fight.

On the 16th the combined force struck south-westward down the Molopo, on the last stage of its great march. And now the far-away village, with whose story the whole world was ringing, came into sight. Over the veldt could be seen the sheen of tin roofs and some white specks of houses. At mid-day a halt was called, seven miles from the beleaguered town, on the northern bank of the Molopo, while the mules were watered. The position occupied by the British was not favourable; all around the ground rose considerably, and here, as elsewhere, it was covered with bushes. The artillery took post on a gently swelling eminence to the north; the convoy halted in a saucer-like depression; the Imperial Light Horse watched the left flank, and Colonel Plumer the right; the Kimberley Mounted Corps guarded the rear. Soon after 1.30 several shots put the British on the alert. As yet no thing could be seen of the enemy, and it was not certain where they were Gradually 'their fire swelled and developed on the right front, and the British artillery took position-horse guns on the left, Canadian guns and "Pom-Poms" on the right, ready to open. As they waited, the Boers got to work with three 15-pounders, a 7-pounder, and a "Pom-Pom." Their shells dropped everywhere, but did infinitesimal damage. With a prodigious banging the British pieces replied, and a hot artillery duel, the roar of which dominated the incessant crackle of the rifle fusillade, was immediately in progress. The enemy were now showing in considerable strength in front and on both
flanks.

The British artillery preponderance, however, was overpowering. M Battery speedily cleared its front and forced back the Boers; the Canadian quick-firers, rained shells upon a donga in which the enemy were seen to be hiding, and with some trouble induced them to depart. The last stand was made by them at Israel's Farm, upon the British right front; here they checked Colonel Plumer, but when the guns of M Battery and of the Canadian Battery, as well as the "Pom-Poms," concentrated upon the farm, the fight came abruptly to, an end. It had lasted five long hours with little incident; it was an incessant "sniping" upon a prodigious scale, in which the casualties were by no means heavy. In all, sixty men on the British side were killed or wounded; the Boers suffered far more severely, as was only to be expected in view of the strength of the British artillery. Among the trophies of the victory was a wagon with 2,000 shells for the Boer "Pom-Pom."
The rapidity and energy of the British attack stood Mahon in good stead. Spades and picks were found in numbers just to the rear of the line which the Boers had held, whence it was plain that they had intended to entrench themselves. Behind earthworks, such as they were capable of constructing, with the advantage of superior numbers, their defeat would have been no easy task, especially when it is remembered that the British had not sufficient supplies or provisions to permit of any elaborate maneuvering. Even now the tenacious Cronje did not feel thoroughly beaten.

Cronje Outwitted.

There is good evidence to show that he intended calling up more men from Snyman's commandos before Mafeking, and offering further resistance before Mahon reached the besieged town. But he was outwitted by a stratagem of the British leader.  Mahon had already exchanged heliograph signals with Baden-Powell. He had announced that his force would halt where it had fought, and would march into Mafeking at 4.30 a.m. of the 17th.

The Relief Effected.

Meantime he sent Major Karri Davis with eight of the Light Horse to reconnoitre the road. They sped straight into the besieged town without let or hindrance, and sent him back word to the effect that the way was open. The defenders of Mafeking had watched with sickening anxiety the clouds of dust and flashes of guns on the horizon, all the afternoon and evening of the 16th, and as this handful of men rode into the town they had the first clear evidence, of a British victory. A crowd swiftly gathered; there was tumult and cheering and singing of "God Save the Queen," and after that again three cheers for Baden-Powell, the steadfast, the wily, the invincible.

Nor was the rest of the column long in following in their footsteps, At 11 p.m. Colonel Mahon happened to wake-men thought there was design in this seeming accident-and gave orders for the wagons to inspan. The night was bright with a full moon, and the last stage of the march was accomplished without incident. In absolute silence the train of men and wagons passed through the Boer patrols, who were so careless and unobservant that next day they could not believe that Mahon had stolen through their lines and entered the town till they had ocular demonstration of the fact. At 4 a.m. of the 17th the first of the Mafeking outposts was encountered by the relief force, and amidst general exultation pipes were lighted and conversation opened in tones louder than a whisper. A few minutes later Colonel Baden-Powell rode up. There were no dramatic acts or words. Mahon said, simply "Glad to meet you. How are you? " And Baden-Powell replied: "Good. How are you? It's a long time since we met." As day broke the relief force halted and breakfasted in Mafeking.

For the splendid success of this enterprise Colonel Mahon deserves the highest credit. His leadership was perfect throughout. In ten days of actual marching he covered 223 miles of arid country, though perpetually threatened by a superior enemy. He met that enemy twice in action, and oil each occasion discomfited them. So certain were the Boers that he must fall in reaching Mafeking that some of their number who were prisoners in the town told Baden-Powell that he had not a chance of success. They counted upon capturing him and his whole force. The intense anxiety which Lord Roberts and General Hunter, both admirable judges, are known to have felt for him is, perhaps, the best measure of the difficulty of his task. There was no more brilliant feat of arms in the whole campaign than this meteoric rush through the desert. But while giving all due credit to Mahon for his achievements, Colonel Plumer's energy and decision in moving so swiftly to reinforce the southern column should not be overlooked, nor the patience and caution which he displayed in the weary months when his tiny force was the only bulwark between the Boers and helpless Rhodesia, the only hope in the eyes of beleaguered Mafeking. Molten has said that it is the highest achievement of the General's art to unite two forces in the face of the enemy And before Mafeking this was accomplished with faultless precision under Lord Roberts' guiding hand by his two gallant subordinates, Mahon and Plumer.