(Map p. 50)
The northern section of Natal before the war16 roughly assumed
the shape of a wedge driven in between the Transvaal and the Orange Free
State. The Drakensberg Range on the one side and the Buffalo River on the
other formed the cleaving surfaces, Majuba and Laing's Nek were the cutting
edge, and the base was the Tugela River.
In mechanics a wedge is an instrument which can be usefully employed only
under favourable circumstances. It has many disadvantages. It is easily
jammed. The driving power at the base must be considerable; much of the
force is absorbed by the friction on the surfaces; the progress made is very
slow; and if the surfaces encounter a more tenacious material they will be
perforated. A wedge is intended chiefly for cleavage and disruption when
less clumsy methods are not at hand.
The defects of a wedge as a mechanical power at once became apparent to the
British force which occupied Natal when war became inevitable. The cutting
edge was inaccessible and liable to injury which could not be easily
repaired; much trouble was anticipated from the presence of Boer commandos
in contact with the surfaces; the base did not appear to be sufficiently
well designed to receive the impact of the propelling force; and there were
grave doubts as to the soundness of the material of which an important
section of the wedge, namely Ladysmith, was constructed.
It was therefore proposed by the military authorities that the Natal wedge
should not be used as an instrument in the war. To this the civil government
at Pietermaritzburg strongly objected on account of the evil moral effect
which the abandonment of a considerable proportion of the Colony to the
enemy would exercise upon the general situation in South Africa, and of the
loss of prestige which the evacuation would entail in the minds of the
natives, who numbered three-quarters of a million. Under pressure from the
Colonial Office, and against its own judgment, the Army of Natal set itself
to work upon the Wedge.
The mistake soon became manifest, although the artisans did their best. The
Wedge was not an effective instrument; its cutting edge was never in
operation; and in a very few weeks it was hewn into a mangled, cumbrous and
irregular mass, which could neither be advanced nor withdrawn and which for
nearly five months led a precarious and unhappy existence. Its distress
necessitated the recasting of the plan of the South African campaign and a
pernicious "moral effect" was not avoided. One British Army besieged in an
open town surrounded by heights, while another was lying impotent upon the
banks of the Tugela, eighteen miles distant, was the result of a few weeks'
work with the Natal Wedge, which had been forced by the civilian strategists
into the reluctant hands of the troops.17
When Sir George White arrived in Natal on October 7 he found Sir W. Tenn
Symons carrying out the wedge policy of the Colonial Government. Part of the
latter's force was at Ladysmith and part was protecting the collieries in
the Dundee district. It was his intention to advance northwards to Newcastle
as soon as he was reinforced by the contingent on its way from India, the
full strength of which had not arrived at Durban. The position at Dundee was
strategically defective, as it was exposed to a raid from the Transvaal
border only twelve miles distant, and it was actually further from the
Orange Free State than Ladysmith. Its defects as a tactical position were
still more obvious as it was commanded by hills.
Such, in a few words, was the situation with which White was called upon to
deal. He had two courses before turn; he could accommodate himself to it or
he could endeavour to modify it. He attempted the latter, and failing he
recurred to the former. He saw at once the insecurity of Symons' detached
force, but being unable to convince the Natal Government of the necessity of
withdrawing it he reluctantly allowed it to remain.
Soon the Boer plan of campaign, which aimed at the isolation of the British
Troops in the wedge, began to unroll itself. Fourteen thousand Transvaalers
under Joubert, who had first tested the cutting edge by sending a coal truck
through the tunnel at Laing's Nek and who suspected an ambush when he found
it clear, were moving south on Newcastle, while six thousand Free Staters
under Martin Prinsloo were pouring through the Drakensberg passes west of
Ladysmith. The Natal Government now began to feel uneasy about the safety of
the colonial capital and even of Durban; and informed White that undue
importance had been attached to the occupation of Dundee and that its
retention was no longer desirable. Thus in little more than a week White's
original objection was reconsidered and upheld. But again he allowed his
better judgment to be over-borne. Symons, whom he instructed to withdraw
southwards unless he felt his position to be absolutely secure, was at his
own urgent request allowed to remain. Next day, October 19, Elandslaagte, on
the railway between Ladysmith and Dundee, was occupied by a Boer commando,
and it was reported that 4,000 burghers were ready to cross the Buffalo
River at Jager's Drift during the night.
Symons' camp was pitched about a mile west of Dundee which lay between it
and Talana and Lennox Hills, which commanded the town from the east. Some
hours before sunrise on October 20 a British picket on Talana was attacked.
The incident was reported to Head Quarters, where it was not deemed to be of
much importance and the routine duties of the morning were not interrupted.
The artillery horses had been taken down as usual to water, and some
companies had even fallen in for skirmishing drill, when the curtain of the
morning mist upon the higher ground was raised to the first scene in the
Natal drama. The eastward hills, looming up darkly into the brightening sky,
were seen to be occupied in force by the enemy under L. Meyer, and soon his
shells were falling among the tents.
The troops in camp, though taken by surprise, pulled themselves together
with admirable promptitude. The Boer guns were soon silenced, the figures of
men silhouetted along the sky line vanished, and the infantry was ordered
out to clear the hill. It was a formidable and dangerous task, but it was
facilitated by some of the features of the ground. There was a dry river bed
in which the troops could be formed up for attack, and, half a mile beyond,
a farmhouse and a plantation afforded some cover; while a donga on the left
at right angles to the river bed apparently offered a covered way up the
hill to the crest. In the plantation occurred the first calamity of the war.
Symons, who had come up impatiently from the lower ground to hurry up the
assault, which he thought was being unnecessarily delayed, was mortally
wounded. Three days later he paid with his life for his adherence to a
forward policy in tactics as well as in strategy; and the command devolved
upon Yule.
The donga on the left was found to be useless, as it led nowhere; and the
advance was made directly from the plantation towards a wall running along
the foot of the hill. Here a long halt was made in order to reorganize the
attack, and when the word was given the men pressed forward and
threw-themselves upon the rough front of the acclivity after a rush across
an open slope. The crest was attained and carried without much difficulty;
for all but a few stalwarts had quitted it when they saw the British
bayonets pricking upwards towards their hold.
It seemed now that the victory was won, but an unfortunate mistake postponed
it. The two field batteries on the plain, which had ceased fire before the
final infantry rush, changed position and came under a heavy fire from the
Boers who were still in possession of a section of the Talana ridge. The
light was bad and the guns re-opened upon the crest line in the belief that
the whole of it was still occupied by the enemy. The practice was excellent,
and in a brief space both sides were driven off the hill by the shrapnel. A
subsequent attempt to take it was successful. The result of the battle,
which lasted from sunrise until 2 p.m., might have been reversed but for the
inaction of the main Boer force posted on Lennox Hill under L. Meyer, and of
another force on Impati under Erasmus, who, though he could hear the noise
of battle pealing through the mist which lay upon the hill, abstained from
intervening.
The whole Boer force was now in full retreat along the line by which it had
advanced so silently the night before, and Yule ordered the two field
batteries up to the nek between Talana and Lennox to pound the retreating
burghers as they slowly trekked towards the Buffalo River; but again an
unfortunate misapprehension intervened. The officer in command, being under
the impression that an armistice asked for by Meyer
two hours before had been granted, refrained from opening fire and the Boers
escaped untouched. A serious misadventure marred the success of the day. The
18th Hussars, who at the commencement of the action received orders to hold
themselves in readiness to advance when occasion offers, soon appeared to
the restless general to be losing their opportunity, and were hustled into
activity. They charged in various directions and even made some prisoners;
but one squadron lost its way and was captured in an attempt to ride round
Impati by a detachment of Erasmus' force at a farm where it had taken
refuge.
The fight for Talana Hill encouraged each belligerent. In England it was
received as an indication of the early and successful termination of the
struggle. The Boers regarded it as a reconnaissance in force from which they
had returned with slight loss, and they could boast that they had reaped the
first fruits of the harvest of war; a squadron of British cavalry which,
with the commanding officer of the regiment, was at once dispatched into
captivity at Pretoria, where its arrival was accepted as a proof of a great
Boer victory in Natal.
Talana Hill regarded as an isolated event in the Natal campaign was a
distinctly successful encounter, the credit of which is due entirely to the
infantry engaged in it. Twice the artillery blundered, and the cavalry was
inoperative. The extent of the loss suffered by the Natal Field Force in the
death of Symons must always be a matter for speculation. But it is at least
probable that if he had survived to take part in the subsequent operations,
his ardent, impetuous, Prince Rupert like temperament would have
beneficially impregnated with greater audacity the stolid and ponderous
tactics and strategy of the Natal campaign.
The unreality of the Talana Hill victory soon became apparent. The threat of
Erasmus sitting on Impati still impended, and Yule moved his camp next day
to a site which he believed to be out of range. But in the meantime Erasmus
awoke from his trance and, on the afternoon of October 21, opened fire with
a six-inch gun,18 and again Yule was compelled to shift his camp.
He had already asked for reinforcements, but White was unable to spare them,
and recommended him to fall back upon Ladysmith. Next day Yule was
encouraged by the news of a British success at Elandslaagte; and with the
object of intercepting the Boers who were reported to be retreating on
Newcastle, he endeavoured to seize Glencoe, but Erasmus on Impati forbade
the movement.
Shortly before midnight on October 19, Kock, a Free Stater who commanded a
force chiefly composed of foreign auxiliaries and who was working southwards
from Newcastle, sent on an advanced party to swoop down upon the railway
between Ladysmith and Glencoe, and Elandslaagte station was seized. Early
next morning Kock came in with his main body. White at first made no serious
attempt to clear the line beyond sending out a reconnoitring force which he
soon recalled, as he was reluctant to employ troops away from the immediate
neighbourhood of Ladysmith, which had been already threatened on the N.W. by
Free State commandos.
The news however of Yule's success at Talana changed the situation and
seemed to justify a more forward policy; and early in the morning of October
21 French was sent out to re-occupy Elandslaagte and repair the line.
Although he succeeded in driving the enemy out of the railway station and in
holding it for a very brief period, he found himself outclassed in artillery
and too weak to stand up to the Boers, and withdrew a few miles southward;
at the same time asking White to reinforce him. It was reported that Kock
expected shortly to be reinforced.
The main Boer position was on the northern limb of a horseshoe arrangement
of kopjes which develops close to the railway station and swings round
southwards and westwards, at an elevation generally about 300 feet above the
normal level of the ground. Two posts were also held north of the railway.
The southern limb of the horseshoe was lightly held, and against it French,
without waiting for the arrival of all his reinforcements, moved with his
mounted troops, and easily cleared it. Here he was joined by the Manchester
Regiment, one of the battalions of the brigade of infantry sent out by White
under the command of Ian Hamilton, and established himself on the left flank
of the Boer position on the two kopjes on the northern limb of the
horseshoe.
The other two battalions, the Devonshire Regiment and the Gordon
Highlanders, simultaneously came into position, the former for a frontal
attack, and the latter as a reserve acting in the interval between the
Manchesters and the Devons; while the artillery advanced between the two
limbs and shelled the enemy's position on the kopjes. The artillery
preparation enjoined by the regulations had, however, to be curtailed owing
to the approach of night, but not before the two Boer guns on the southern
kopje were silenced; and then the main attack was delivered.
The Boers on the kopjes were reinforced by a body of German auxiliaries
under Schiel, who had been driven out of a position north of the railway by
the cavalry acting on the left and who circled round to the main position,
but the reinforcement did not avail them. Hardly pressed on their left, they
were unable to withstand the frontal charge of the Devons led by Hamilton in
person. The guns were captured and the position occupied at sunset. By this
time most of the Boers were in retreat and their tracks were made devious by
the cavalry, which so long as light remained harried them hither and
thither.
Suddenly a white flag was seen fluttering near the laager between the
kopjes. There is no reason to believe that it was treacherously raised, but
it compelled Hamilton to order the Cease Fire. Yet at once half a hundred
Boers started up and rushed as a forlorn hope upon the crest: a remnant of
stalwarts, who even succeeded in firing a round or two from the guns which
had just been taken from them. There was a moment or two of doubt and
bewilderment, but Hamilton with the help of a few junior officers rallied
the waverers, and earned the Victoria Cross, which on account of his high
military rank was withheld from him; the guns were recovered, the laager
rushed, and the tactical victory was complete.
Elandslaagte was as unreal a victory as Talana. The troops had not rested
many hours in their bivouacs on the ridge before they received orders to
return without delay to Ladysmith, which was still threatened from the west
by the Free State commandos; and by noon on October 22 not only had
Elandslaagte been hurriedly evacuated, but stores, ammunition and even some
prisoners had been left behind in the scuttle. Next day it passed without
effort into the possession of a small body of Free Staters, who were
astonished to find it abandoned.
Meanwhile Yule after the failure of his movement on Glencoe found his
position insecure and reluctantly resolved to retire on Ladysmith, although
it entailed leaving not only his supplies and ammunition but also his
wounded behind him. The victory of Talana had indeed been won but the
victors were exhausted by it and unfit to stand up to Erasmus on Impati. It
became necessary for Yule to disappear immediately and stealthily.
On October 23 soon after midnight the maimed and harassed force slipped
quietly away and trudged wearily to the south. When the mist rolling aside
next morning disclosed the evacuation the Transvaalers on Impati occupied
the town almost simultaneously with the reoccupation of Elandslaagte by
their allies the Free Staters; and thus the battlefields of two British
victories were redeemed by the defeated. It is no reproach to Yule that
military necessity compelled him to leave behind the wounded of Talana Hill.
The death of Symons on October 23 was a pathetic episode of the Natal
Campaign. He passed away of his mortal wound while the Boers were looting
the camp in which he was lying and wondering, in the rare intervals of
conscious thought, why the troops whom he had led so gallantly had been
taken from him; and for half a year his grave lay lonely in the enemy's
country before another British soldier could stand beside it.
The retreat of Yule's force was effected without more trouble than that
which was caused by the nature of the country and the alternations of the
climate. Van Tonder's Pass—a difficult defile which would have been
impassable under opposition—was crossed, and a sudden spate on the Waschbank
river only temporarily checked the retirement. A column was sent out from
Ladysmith by White to check the Free Staters who had re-occupied
Elandslaagte and to prevent them falling on Yule, and on October 24 they
were engaged with success at Rietfontein. The sound of the artillery in this
action was audible to Yule on the Waschbank, but he was unable to account
for it.
On the afternoon of October 25 Yule was within one day's march of Ladysmith.
He proposed to halt for the night; but suddenly a patrol from a column sent
out by White to help him in appeared, and he received orders to press
forward to Ladysmith.
The exhausted men resumed their march, and the misery of that night's
journey was probably never exceeded during any subsequent movement in the
war. Sodden, hungry, weary, disheartened; men and transport animals
inextricably intermingled; the column plodded onwards in the rain and the
night. A halt at daylight next morning brought in some of the stragglers and
gave a little rest to those who were still in the ranks; and by mid-day the
men of Talana Hill had trudged into Ladysmith.
The urgency of the immediate resumption of the march had arisen from White's
anxiety for the safety of Yule's force. Rietfontein had indeed, like Talana
and Elandslaagte, been a tactically successful engagement and had similarly
been followed by a retreat; but Yule was exposed to an attack by Erasmus, to
whom he had given the slip at Dundee during the night of October 22 and who
was known to be endeavouring to overtake him. Erasmus was believed to be
acting from the direction of Elandslaagte; but fortunately for Yule his
movements were not judiciously directed and his information was imperfect.
(Map, p. 139)
All the detached members of the Natal Wedge had now been driven in and the
reconnaissances sent out by White on October 27 and the following days
showed that the Boers had lost no time in pressing on to Ladysmith. The
Transvaalers were apparently in force N.E. of the town on a section of the
arc in which Lombard's Kop, Long Hill, and Pepworth Hill were the chief
physical features; the Free Staters were approaching from the N.W. and a
small force of them under A.P. Cronje was already in touch with the
Transvaalers; their main body, however, seemed to be making for the Tugela
in order to isolate Ladysmith from the south. On October 29 White assumed
the offensive with the greater part of his command, and endeavoured to cut
through the still unconsolidated investing line and to thwart the
co-operation of the allies.
The general idea was that an infantry brigade, supported on its right flank
by cavalry acting towards Lombard's Kop, should attack the enemy, who was
presumed to be in force on Long Hill and Pepworth Hill. On the left flank of
the attack a column would endeavour to pass through the Boer line, and
having seized Nicholson's Nek due north of Ladysmith would either close it
against the retreating enemy or hold it as a post through which a mounted
force could debouch in pursuit on to the more practicable ground beyond.
Some difficulty in drawing and loading up ammunition delayed the start of
the column, which under the command of Carleton was to secure the left flank
of the operations; and fearing that daylight on October 30 would find his
vulnerable force still on the march he determined soon after midnight to
halt short of Nicholson's Nek, from which he was then two miles distant. He
had succeeded in passing through the enemy's picket line, and was perhaps
not justified in discontinuing his advance, although his instructions were
to take Nicholson's Nek only "if possible." But an error of judgment made by
a commanding officer on a dark night in a strange country acting under
instructions which left him a free hand must not be judged severely, and had
it not been for a disaster which could not be foreseen, he would probably
have been commended for his prudence.
Kainguba Hill, which rises on the left of the road to Nicholson's Nek,
seemed to offer a suitable stage on the journey and towards it the column
was diverted. While the men were climbing the steep and stony hillside a
panic suddenly seized the transport mules. It may have been a spontaneous
emotion, or it may have originated in an alarm raised by the Boers who were
holding the crest. The animals stampeded down the slope, and carrying with
them not only the reserve ammunition but also the signalling equipment, the
water carts, and the component parts of the mountain artillery, charged
through the rear of the column. The timely exertions of the officers checked
the general scare that was imminent; and with the exception of a few score
of infantry men and gunners the column reached the summit before daybreak,
having lost almost everything needed for a successful occupation of it.
Misfortune continued relentlessly to pursue the column. A position was taken
up on the hill on the supposition that it could only be attacked from the
south, but at daylight C. de Wet, who here came upon the stage which
afterwards he often filled so effectively, threatened it from the north with
a Free State commando. A gesture made by an officer in order to attract
attention was interpreted as a signal to retire; another officer thinking
that his company was left alone on the summit, though it was in fact within
seventy yards of an occupied sangar, raised the white flag; and almost at
the same moment a bugle sounded the Cease Fire. Neither the white flag nor
the bugle call was authorized by Carleton; but a glance at the situation
showed him that they could not be repudiated and after a gallant struggle to
maintain an indefensible position he surrendered. Nearly a thousand men were
led away into captivity.
The main infantry attack was made by a force of five battalions with six
field batteries under the command of Grimwood. He marched out of Ladysmith
soon after midnight, but had not covered half the distance to the point of
attack when an unfortunate incident deprived him of all his artillery and of
two of his battalions. The guns marching in the centre of the column and
acting under orders which were not communicated to Grimwood, diverged to the
right and were followed by the two battalions in rear; and the absence of
nearly half the force was not discovered by him until daybreak, and after he
had taken up the position assigned south of Long Hill. Daybreak also
revealed the fact that Long Hill which was assumed to be the Boer left was
not occupied, and that Long Tom from Impati had been emplaced on Pepworth
Hill. The cavalry brigade under French upon whom Grimwood relied to protect
his right flank was two miles away in his rear; and finding himself attacked
on that flank instead of from the front he was compelled to swing round and
almost reverse his front. Thus far the general scheme of attack had signally
failed. Carleton on the left had not reached Nicholson's Nek and was in
trouble; Grimwood with nearly half of his command gone astray, and having
discovered that the enemy's left was not on Long Hill but on Lombard's Kop,
had to improvise a scheme of his own; while French instead of conforming to
Grimwood was compelling Grimwood to conform to him. At 8 a.m. Grimwood was
suffering severely from artillery fire, and French whose cavalry now
prolonged Grimwood's line southwards was with difficulty holding his own.
The enemy, whom the general idea destined to be outflanked and rolled up
towards the north and pursued by mounted troops issuing from Nicholson's Nek,
was instead attacking vigorously from Lombard's Kop on the east and seemed
likely to outflank White; the infantry reserves under Ian Hamilton were
almost expended; and the British artillery was unable to silence the Boer
guns.
All through the forenoon Ladysmith and the little garrison left behind for
its defence was the target of Long Tom on Pepworth Hill. The fugitives from
Kainguba brought in disheartening reports and the Boers seemed to be
threatening from the north. W. Knox, a Horse Artillery officer who had been
left in command, anticipated an attack which he had little chance of meeting
successfully with the scanty force at his disposal and sent an urgent
message to White, who at noon ordered the battle to be broken off and the
troops to retire to Ladysmith.
The retreat was effected in confusion. Grimwood's force was the first to be
withdrawn and was saved from disaster by the gallant stand made by two field
batteries as it crossed the level ground. The cavalry scampered home in
Grimwood's track. A dramatic episode brought the battle of Lombard's Kop to
a close. Just as the baffled troops were entering Ladysmith a battery of
naval guns, which had arrived from Durban that morning and had gone
immediately into action, succeeded in silencing Long Tom and some other guns
on Pepworth Hill, nearly four miles distant. In the evening Joubert sent in
a flag of truce to White to announce Carleton's surrender.
The Natal Wedge disappeared in the smoke of the battle of Lombard's Kop and
was never again heard of as an instrument in the Natal campaign. The Boers
filled the gaps in the investing line without difficulty, and on November 2
the Siege of Ladysmith began. The last man to leave the town was French, who
went forth to win honour on distant fields.
Footnote 16:
In 1902 the Vryheid and Utrecht districts of the Transvaal were annexed to
Natal and the wedge disappeared.
Footnote 17:
They were indeed authorized as early as October 18 to throw it aside but by
that time they were committed to its use.
Footnote 18:
"Long Tom," which was afterwards sent to Ladysmith and subsequently to
bombard Rhodes in Kimberley.
