Eighty-seven years before the outbreak of the South African War, the British
Army was besieging the city of Badajoz, in Spain. When it was taken by
assault, a Spanish matron and her sister were molested and came for
protection to the British Camp, where they were received by Harry Smith, a
young Captain in the 95th Regiment, who when the Peninsular War was over,
married the girl fugitive, Juana Maria de los Dolores de Leon.
After a distinguished military career in the East Indies and elsewhere, Sir
Harry Smith went out to South Africa in 1848 as Governor of the Cape Colony,
and its dependencies; and in that year he proclaimed the country between the
Orange and the Vaal to be British Territory.
The Boers of the Great Trek resented the annexation, and one Pretorius took
the field, but was beaten on August 29 at the battle of Boomplatz by Smith,
who had under his command six companies of infantry and two squadrons of
cavalry; a force which strangely contrasts with the masses of soldiery
opposed to Pretorius' successors, Joubert, Botha, Cronje, De Wet, and
Delarey.
Harrismith, in the Free State, was named after him; his services in the Sikh
War were commemorated by an Aliwal on the Orange; while upon a new township
in Natal, she who was once Donna Juana Maria de los Dolores de Leon of
Badajoz on the Guadiana, bestowed the commonplace designation for which she
had exchanged her retinue of tuneful Spanish, and it was called Ladysmith.
After fifty years of obscurity, Ladysmith suddenly became the pivot upon
which the fortunes of the British Empire were poised. Its loss, at least
during the early weeks of the siege, would not only have thrown a British
Army into captivity, but would have left an encouraged and very mobile
enemy, replenished with the spoils of war, free to march irresistibly
towards the sea.
In
November, Buller was prepared, if Ladysmith should fall, to abandon the
whole of Natal except Durban. He had private information that, if the Boers
reached the coast, a certain European power would intervene. There was also
the fear that another reverse would call out the disaffected Dutch in the
Cape Colony, and the danger lest the British nation, treacherously harassed
by the cries of the disaffected at home, who sympathize with the misfortunes
of every nation but their own, would again write off South Africa as a bad
debt, and offer peace on ignominious terms. In India the news of the capture
of White, a former Commander in Chief, and of his removal as a prisoner of
war, would have seriously, if not fatally, impaired the British raj.
At
a later period, when the reinforcements had arrived and the plan of campaign
had been altered to suit the situation in Natal, the loss of Ladysmith would
not have so vitally affected the position in South Africa; and, in fact,
Buller on December 16, authorized White to surrender.
On
November 1, the commanders of the allied forces, Joubert and A.P. Cronje,
decided to invest and bombard Ladysmith, confidently expecting that the only
obstacle in the way of the procession to the sea would soon be removed by
the fall of the intimidated town. They were even urged by some of the
subordinate leaders, who, as a rule, were never so venturesome as when there
was no immediate prospect of meeting the enemy, to mask White and march at
once upon Durban, but Joubert would only sanction a minor effort in that
direction which was postponed until it was too late to be effective.
The last man to leave Ladysmith was French. He was ordered to Capetown to
meet Buller, who was persuaded by his report on the situation that White's
force was insufficient to keep Natal from being overrun, and that the worst
might be feared. The escape of French, by a margin of a few minutes only,
made him available for employment in an arena more suited to his capacity
than a besieged town; and his subsequent good work in the Cape Colony, south
of the Orange River, and during the advance on Kimberley and Bloemfontein,
showed how ill the fortune of war served the Boers, when they just failed to
capture the train which was taking out of their clutches the soldier who was
to relieve Kimberley and head off Cronje at Paardeberg before the relief of
Ladysmith was effected.
White has been blamed for keeping the whole of his strong force of cavalry
in Ladysmith. He had with him four regiments of regular cavalry besides five
irregular colonial corps. For the space of three months the action of the
British Army was hampered by the absence of the mounted troops interned in
Ladysmith and engaged in garrison duties, until at last the horses were
either killed for food, or, when forage was exhausted, turned out on the
bare veld under the enemy's fire, to support themselves as they could. White
justified, or it may be, excused, his retention of the cavalry, by its
mobility, which virtually increased the effective strength of the garrison,
and enabled him to reinforce rapidly any threatened section of the defence,
as for example, during the attack on Caesar's Camp. It is no doubt arguable
that cavalry was more useful within the lines of investment than it would
have been, if squandered over the whole area of the concurrent operations
elsewhere; and if so, the limits of its tactical employment have been
considerably extended.31
White's force, which numbered about 13,000 men, occupied a perimeter of
fourteen miles on the hills and kopjes nearest to the town, and was
enveloped by an outer perimeter of thirty six miles held by 23,000 Boers.
The positions N.E. of the Klip River were occupied by the Transvaalers, and
the opposite semi-circle by the Free Staters.
On
November 2, began the bombardment, which the enemy fondly hoped would bring
White on his knees within a week; the first death casualty during the siege
being a naval officer who had reached Ladysmith only a few hours before the
investment with a re-inforcement of long-range naval guns from the fleet;
and during the next two days it was continued from Pepworth, Bulwana, and
elsewhere, with such effect as to induce White to ask, at the instigation of
the civilian authorities, permission to send away the women, children, and
other non-combatants. This somewhat naive request was naturally disallowed
by Joubert, who, however, consented to the formation of a neutral camp for
them and the sick and wounded at Intombi, within the area of the siege, and
dependent for its supplies and maintenance upon the resources of the
garrison. Joubert put into Ladysmith 200 derelict Indian coolies from the
Natal collieries, an act which was perhaps justified by the code of war,
which sanctions the employment of any means by which the difficulties of a
besieged town can be increased; but a subsequent attempt made by Schalk
Burger during Joubert's advance on the raid towards the south, to saddle
White with the Indian refugees from the Transvaal was successfully resisted.
On
November 9, the enemy was foiled in an attack on Observation Hill and Wagon
Hill which were not then held in force, and for eight weeks the siege was
carried on with so little vigour, and confronted with so much skill, that
the British casualties in killed and wounded during that period numbered
less than 250. When the Boers found that the walls of Ladysmith did not at
once fall to the sound of the artillery, they began with equal confidence to
rely upon the indirect casualties caused by sickness and privation, and
awaited the result without impatience in their laagers. During the last
fortnight of November a strong column under Joubert was detached to raid
into Southern Natal. It was prudently but not enterprisingly led, did little
harm, and returned with slight loss.
Meanwhile the enemy's artillery had been considerably re-inforced, and the
British gun ammunition was beginning to run short. The capture of a large
herd of cattle by the Boers, who neatly drew the animals away from the town
by exploding shells behind them, entailed a reduced meat ration. In order to
co-operate with the relieving force under Clery, who at the end of November
was within signalling distance, White exercised a part of the garrison as a
striking column, which, when the time came, he proposed to take out under
his own command, and to clear the line of approach from the South.
Three weeks after the abortive attack of November 9, Joubert returned from
his expedition to Estcourt. A council of war was held, and an assault on the
Platrand32 was determined on for the 30th. On the previous
evening the commandos detailed as covering parties on the left flank went
into position on Rifleman's Ridge, and awaited the main attack. Meanwhile
much had happened in the laagers. The decisions of the Boer Krijgsraad seem
to have been subject to confirmation by a minor convention composed of the
subordinate officers. These took counsel during the night, and resolved that
"the plan was too dangerous to attempt." When the covering parties opened
fire at dawn there was no assaulting column to cover.
The activity during December was confined to the defence. On the night of
the 7th a raid on Gun Hill, an underfeature of Lombard's Kop, silenced—at
least in Natal—two heavy guns which were worrying the garrison. By the rules
of the game the pieces were injured beyond repair by the gun-cotton charges
which the sappers had fired in the breeches and muzzles; but the heavier gun
was removed to Pretoria, where it was made serviceable. It was eventually
sent to Kimberley, and its arrival greatly alarmed the timid and irresolute
diamond men, whose life was easy and almost luxurious when compared with the
privations which the steadfast garrison of Ladysmith endured for four
months. On the same night Limit Hill, which the enemy seized a few days
after the investment, was recovered.
A
heavy gun was emplaced by the Boers to the front of the northward section of
the defence, on a hill in the angle between the Bell Spruit and the railway
to Harrismith. The approach to it was commanded by Bell's Kopje and
Thornhill's Kopje, but a Battalion of Rifles under Metcalfe wriggled in
between them at midnight on December 11, without alarming the enemy, and
almost reached the crest of the eminence which was thereafter known as
Surprise Hill, before the Boers opened fire. The assaulters encircled the
emplacement, but could not find the gun. In a little time it was discovered
outside the work, and disabled, but not permanently. The Boers on the
flanking kopjes were now on the alert; and the battalion as it withdrew down
the slope met in the darkness a small but determined detachment which had
formed up athwart the line of retirement. The obstacle was rushed with the
bayonet, and the expedition returned to Ladysmith with a loss exceeding 12
per cent of its strength.
The gun raids were almost the only offensive action taken by the defence
during the siege, and though successful as far as they went, they did not
greatly reduce the strength of the enemy's artillery and were not continued.
He had still more than a score of pieces with which he daily bombarded the
town; but no attempt to assault it by a moving force was made for some
weeks. His confidence in the final issue was unimpaired; he had but to squat
in his trenches worrying the garrison with shell fire, and the inevitable
surrender must come.
His complacent view of the situation was manifested by his use of the
besieging force as a depot which was from time to time called upon to
furnish drafts for service elsewhere. Joubert's absence on the raid towards
the south did not sensibly diminish the retaining power of the attack, and
although the loss of several thousand Free State burghers who were
transferred to Cronje's command on the Modder or to Delarey's at Colesberg
was in part made up by a reinforcement of Transvaalers, the force sitting
round Ladysmith had to assist in the defence of the line of the Tugela
against Duller; yet, albeit weakened by that necessity, it was still able
without much effort to pin White down to the banks of the Klip River. The
inactivity of the garrison, as well as the daily increasing hospital camp at
Intombi under the shadow of Bulwana and the mournful processions to the
cemetery hard by, showed that sickness, the waning physical and moral
strength of those who were still on duty, and the expenditure of stores,
supplies, and ammunition, were slowly impairing White's power of resistance;
and that the numbers of the besieging force, which later on Buller believed
did not exceed 2,000 men, could be safely reduced.
The Boers believed that "their strength was to sit still," and they were not
far wrong.
Early in the New Year, however, external pressure emanating from Pretoria
and Bloemfontein was brought to bear upon Joubert, and he sanctioned another
assault on the Platrand, which was from the first considered to be the key
to Ladysmith. It is a series of plateaux, about two miles long and varying
in breadth from half a mile to a few hundred yards. Its chief features are
Caesar's Camp and Wagon Hill. A mile north of the centre of the position is
Maiden's Castle. The contours on Caesar's Camp and Wagon Hill are pinched in
in three places and divide the Platrand into four positions of unequal area,
the smallest being Wagon Point, an underfeature on the extreme right of
Wagon Hill. The latter is joined by a nek to Caesar's Camp, the plan of
which owing to the contraction of the contours somewhat resembles the
outline of a dumb-bell. The highest point of the position is a knoll on
Wagon Hill, and the front slopes southwards down to Bester's Valley and
Fourie's Spruit. On each flank were hills occupied by the enemy's artillery.
The strength of the assaulting column as detailed was composed of
approximately equal numbers of Free Staters and Transvaalers and amounted to
upwards of 4,000 burghers. To the former Wagon Hill was assigned as their
objective, to the latter Caesar's Camp, which was held in greater strength.
Early on the morning of January 6, the sentry of the picket posted on the
nek between Wagon Hill and Wagon Point, became aware of movement on the
slope and gave the alarm. Soon after, a party of Engineers and Infantry
preparing gun positions on Wagon Point in view of a contemplated operation
in support of Buller's expected advance by way of Potgieter's Drift, were
fired on at short range by a body of Free Staters, who had succeeded in
climbing to the nek, and who then threatened a redoubt in the western
shoulder of the knoll on Wagon Hill, which commanded Wagon Point. The first
rush was checked by the Natal Volunteers, who opened with a Hotchkiss gun
from the knoll at a range of less than 100 yards, and threw the leading
ranks of the enemy into confusion. The working parties were thus given time
to take up their rifles, and to organize themselves more effectively for
defence.
A
counter-attack was made from the adjacent post on the eastern shoulder, but
it failed to dislodge the enemy, a small party of whom diverged towards
their left, and circled round Wagon Point to the rear of the position
between Wagon Hill and Maiden's Castle. Here they lighted upon the heavy gun
at the foot of the northward slope for which an emplacement had just been
made on Wagon Point, and although the gun was successfully defended by the
escort, the insecurity of the Platrand position was shown by the attempt.
While the Free Staters were assaulting Wagon Hill and Wagon Point, the
Transvaalers obtained a footing on the edge of the Caesar's Camp position;
but their supports failed them. A considerable proportion of the burghers
detailed for the attack on Caesar's Camp, most of them Transvaalers, again
either refused, as on November 9, to take part in it, or shirked during the
advance. But at dawn, after a struggle in the dark at such close quarters
that the face of each combatant was often for the first time revealed by the
flash of his adversary's rifle, the enemy had his finger on the key to
Ladysmith; and was clinging, like swallows on the eaves, to the whole length
of the Platrand from Wagon Point along a sinuous contour line which curved
round the eastern shoulder of Caesar's Camp, and awaiting the supporting
bombardment which, as soon as there was light enough for the alignment of
the sights, would be opened upon the position from the flanking guns on
Bulwana and Rifleman's Ridge, and from Middle Hill on the front.
The normal garrison of the Platrand, which, since the attack on November 9
had been entirely included in the perimeter of the defence, numbered not
more than about 1,000 men, but it was under the command of Ian Hamilton.
When the firing began he was in his bivouac near Caesar's Camp. He quickly
collected what troops he could lay his hands on, and went to Wagon Hill,
where he found the situation so serious that he asked White to re-inforce
him. At daybreak the Boer artillery opened upon the position, and it is
probable that it would have been lost, but for the action of two field
batteries which, at a critical moment, came out of Ladysmith and diverged so
as to protect each flank.
Already on the Wagon Point flank, the enemy had worked round and had
threatened the heavy gun, and on the other flank he was holding the eastern
shoulder of Caesar's Camp. Wagon Point was saved from a turning movement by
one battery, while the other, though itself under artillery fire from
Bulwana, opened on the Boers clinging on to the eastern shoulder, and by
checking the advance of their supports, caused them to withdraw the hook
with which they were grappling that flank. But more than this the British
guns could not do, and the Boers holding on to the front crest could not be
touched by shrapnel, and were maintaining themselves against the defenders
of Caesar's Camp; while a combat of even greater intensity was being waged
on Wagon Hill.
Here an attempt made by a few companies of Highlanders to outflank the Boer
line on the crest by working round the shoulder of Wagon Point, had failed,
as the men were exposed to an irresistible fire as they turned the corner.
On Wagon Hill the enemy was holding on to the front of the redoubt on the
knoll and each attempt to dislodge him was unsuccessful.
Towards noon there was a lull in the storm. After nine hours' fighting, the
combatants were face to face on the plateau and the advantage lay apparently
with the attacking Boers, who, in spite of the strong re-inforcements which
had been sent up by White, were still clinging to the southern crest of
Caesar's Camp, and who on their left had won a footing close to the knoll on
Wagon Hill, and were effectively checking the details on Wagon Point. White
having used up all the infantry which he could safely spare from the other
positions on the perimeter, now sent the cavalry to the rescue.
The pause in the fight, which seems to have been occasioned by the
exhaustion and discouragement of the enemy, and which, perforce, had to be
acquiesced in by the defence, led White to report to Buller soon after noon,
that the Boers had been beaten off for the time being, but that a renewal of
the attack was probable. It came at the moment when he was sending the
despatch from his Head Quarters on Convent Hill, and when Ian Hamilton was
preparing a counter-attack round the shoulder of Wagon Point. A small body
of Free Staters rushed the summit of Wagon Point, and by their impact drove
many of the defenders down the reverse slope. But those who remained were
resolute. After a hand to hand fight between Boer commandants and British
officers around the emplacement which had been prepared for the heavy gun,
the position was recovered and a reinforcement of dismounted Hussars came up
in time to secure it.
On
Wagon Hill also the struggle was renewed, and here also the defence was
strengthened by some dismounted cavalry which had been waiting in support in
rear of Caesar's Camp. It was evident that if the enemy were not dislodged
from Wagon Hill during daylight, he would be able to establish himself
irremovably after dark, when all the waverers would come up under the
protection of the night. At 3 in the afternoon White reported to Buller that
the attack had been renewed and that he was "very hard pressed." He called
the Devons to his aid from their post on the northern section of the
perimeter, and in a storm of rain and thunder, themselves a resistless
tempest, they cleared Wagon Hill with magazine and bayonet.
On
Caesar's Camp the enemy had already wavered, and the crest was in possession
of the defence; and now all along the line from Wagon Point to the eastern
shoulder the Boers were scuttling down the slopes toward the flooded dongas
below under a hail of rifle fire. The battle, which had begun soon after
midnight, was continued until near sunset and resulted in the discomfiture
of the only serious attempt made by the Boers to capture Ladysmith by
offensive action. The success was due primarily to the determination of an
enfeebled garrison, which had already undergone a siege of nine weeks; and
secondarily to the tactical mistakes of the enemy, who had allowed troops to
concentrate upon the Platrand which should have been contained and pinned to
their posts at other sections of the perimeter of defence. Not a few of the
commandos detailed for the assault on the Platrand flinched, yet it almost
succeeded; and if these had been distributed to positions elsewhere, they
would not have incurred great danger, and their presence would probably have
prevented the transfer of the Devons and of the mounted troops to Wagon Hill
at the critical moment.
The battle casualties of January 6 outnumbered in the proportion of 6 to 4
the entire losses due to the acts of the enemy during the whole four months'
investment before and after that date. Twice Wagon Point was occupied only
by the wounded and the dead. Much of the fighting was either hand to hand or
at such short range that the effect of the bullet could be almost read in
the expression on the face of the stricken opponent; now of anguish,
despair, or hatred, now of a gentle sinking to sleep after toil. The homely
name of Wagon Hill, far away from the fatherland under the southern sun,
will abide for all time in the chronicles of the deeds of the British
private soldier. It was his own battle, by which he saved Ladysmith. Next
day a message from home reached White.
"Heartily congratulate you and all under your command for your brilliant
success. Greatly admire conduct of Devonshire Regiment." The Sender was
Queen Victoria.
The failure of the attack on the Platrand deterred the Boers from further
attempts to break into Ladysmith, which was left like Paris thirty years
before to "stew in its own juice." An ingenious but impracticable method of
bringing the place to its senses by damming the Klip River below the town in
the hope of isolating it by flood was put in hand, and some alarm was
created, but the loyal stream refused to rise. The garrison was too much
weakened by disease and famine to be able to assist effectively Buller's
promised advance by way of Potgieter's Drift, and in fact he never came near
enough to Ladysmith to make co-operation possible. A mobile column was for
the second time organized by White, but it is doubtful whether it could have
taken the field.
Perhaps some poet of a future generation may follow the example of the
Homeric syndicate and select the Siege of Ladysmith as the theme of a great
Epic, romantically but unhistorically interwoven with the legend of Juana
Maria of Badajoz. On the Boer side the struggle was carried on with much of
the simplicity of Homeric times and the Siege of Troy. The debates in the
war councils; the doubts of the subordinate commanders; the devices and
stratagems, such as the attempt to dam the Klip River, and the proposal to
disguise an assaulting commando in the helmets and accoutrements of the
slain opponents; the abstinence of some of the leaders from the fray; the
single combats on Wagon Point; the democratic organization of the Boer
forces; the difficulty of keeping the burghers to their duty when the
attraction of a domestic and pastoral life presented themselves in an
alluring form; were not of these days nor even of the Puritan period, but
belonged to a remoter age when every man was a soldier or a shepherd
according to the exigences of the moment. Many a Boer leader, like Ajax,
defied the lightning—when it was not playing directly upon him. Not one of
them comes prominently into the foreground in the great South African siege.
De
Wet's brief service in Natal came to an end before the investment, and in
the light of his exploits elsewhere, it is interesting to speculate upon
what might have happened if he had been in command of the attack on January
6. In all probability it would have succeeded. The Boers rarely failed when
commanded by a resolute leader who knew his own mind and was able to impose
his own will upon them. In isolated enterprises daringly conducted, they
were usually efficient, and sometimes irresistible, but like most primitive
communities in which the military instinct is individual rather than
collective, they were incapable of forming themselves into a coherent and
unified Army for action in mass. De Wet, in his Three Years' War, protests
against the British theory that the burghers were only fit to engage in
guerilla, which, possibly from ignorance of the meaning of the word, he
seems to regard as an unworthy term of reproach; but the theory was in
reality a grudging recognition of a suppressed factor in the problem of the
war which the professors had overlooked. His own exploits go far to prove
its soundness.
Like mariners adrift upon the ocean in an open boat, their food and their
water dwindling hour by hour, who eagerly watch a white topsail or a faint
wreath of smoke which seems for a time to be approaching, yet soon sinks
beneath the horizon and leaves them alone upon the waste; the garrison of
Ladysmith was cruelly tantalized by Buller's fitful appearances on the
Tugela. Again and again the boom of his guns growing clearer and clearer and
his heliographs sparkling more distinctly deluded the defenders with the
hope that the day of their deliverance was at hand. During the Spion Kop
affair, the confidence was so great that for a day or two full rations were
issued. The summit could be seen crowded with people on January 25 who
surely must be Buller's men. Not so; they were the Boers who, to their
astonishment, had found the summit unoccupied, and were burying the dead and
collecting the wounded. The roar of war died away; was heard again from
Vaalkrantz, soon to sink into silence on February 7, when Buller announced
that the enemy was too strong for him. It was renewed at Hlangwhane, Monte
Cristo, and Pieter's Hill, but former disappointments had made the garrison
insensible to hope and it fell upon apathetic ears. When at last Dundonald's
little band was seen approaching, the chilled and dazed soldiers of the
garrison could scarcely realize that they were saved.
After January 6 the increasing sickness and the deficiency of food became
the chief facts of the Siege. More than three-score horses were sacrificed
daily to provide a meat ration for the garrison. The men slaked their thirst
with the turbid water of the Klip River, and munched a makeshift biscuit
made of Indian corn and starch. "Chevril" soup and potted horse were
luxuries. At Intombi nearly 2,000 sick and wounded were lying without
hospital diet or comforts.
On
January 27 the situation was so grave that White, when he heard from Buller
that the attempt on Spion Kop had failed, proposed as a last and desperate
resource, but one which, at least, would not involve the moral effect of a
surrender, to abandon Ladysmith, his sick and wounded, and his heavy guns,
and with about 7,000 men and 36 field guns to endeavour to join Buller. Even
if another Buller failure did not sooner doom the garrison he could only
hold out until the end of February.
With this proposal Buller temporized and communicated it to Lord Roberts,
who sent an encouraging message to White, in which he asked the garrison to
accept his congratulations for its heroic defence and expressed his regret
at the delay of the relief and his hope that the term would not be the limit
of possible endurance; though he fully expected that his own operations in
the Free State would before its expiration relieve the pressure on
Ladysmith. Buller doubted Lord Roberts' forecast and preferred to "play his
hand alone," and nothing came of the proposed break out of Ladysmith. White
in his acknowledgment of Lord Roberts' message said that by sacrificing most
of his horses, he could hold out for six weeks.
There was good reason to believe that by this time the besieging force
numbered not more than 4,000 men, who, however, could be reinforced in a few
hours from the 16,000 burghers standing up to Buller on the Tugela. The
enfeebled garrison was, however, not in a condition to act against the
attenuated cordon from which a constant bombardment was maintained. As the
month of February wore on, the news of Lord Roberts' entry into the Orange
Free State infused more hope into the garrison than the too familiar sound
of Buller once more in action on the Tugela, and so little was expected of
Buller that the lull in the fire during the Sunday armistice on February 25
was interpreted as another repulse; and the rations which had been
increased, when a message came that he would be in Ladysmith on February
22—which he soon found was a too confident expectation—were again reduced.
The darkness before the dawn was very black. The news of Paardeberg reached
Ladysmith on the afternoon of the 27th; towards sunset next day Dundonald
marched in. White endeavoured to organize a column to pursue the commandos
retreating before Buller, but found that the toll of war had been paid so
heavily by the Natal Field Force that little more than the strength of one
company in each battalion was fit for service.
Not the least of the trials undergone by the Ladysmith staff were the
heliograms from the Tugela and the constant surprises of the déchiffrage.
Sometimes pessimistic, sometimes the reverse and frequently trivial, there
was scarcely an occasion on which they were helpful. The troubles of the
relieving force figured largely in them.
The sequel to the Colenso disaster was a suggestion that White after burning
his ciphers33—a precaution which he naturally would take—and
firing away his ammunition, should negotiate with the enemy for the
surrender of the town. To this White made the manly and dignified reply that
there was no thought of surrender; and to his own men he issued a
soldier-like order of the day, in which he told them that they must not
expect relief as early as had been anticipated, and expressed his confidence
that the defence would be continued in the same spirited manner in which it
had hitherto been conducted; and dutifully he applied himself to his task.
A
few days later he was bidden by Buller to "boil all his water." From
Potgieter's Drift, Buller heliographed that "somehow he thought he was going
to be successful this time"; that it was "quite pleasant to see how keen the
men were"; that he hoped to be "knocking at Lancer's Hill" in six days'
time; but after Spion Kop it was, "we had awful luck on the 25th."
Footnote 31:
As
the officer in command of the Naval Brigade neatly put it: "the proof of the
pudding is in the eating. The cavalry soldiers did excellent service in the
lines—and we ate their horses."
Footnote 32:
The Boer name for Caesar's Camp—Wagon Hill Position.
Footnote 33:
This instruction was not included in the original heliogram, but was annexed
to it as an afterthought in a supplementary message.
