Lord Roberts had almost as much difficulty in bringing Buller out of
Ladysmith as he had had in putting him into it. The relieved garrison,
wasted and enfeebled by the rigours of the siege, was unfit to take the
field, but there does not seem to have been any good reason why the
relieving force, or at least a portion of it, should not have been pushed
forward boldly without delay. The inaction invited the retreating enemy to
halt and occupy the Biggarsberg Range; only a few days after Buller had
informed Lord Roberts that he did not expect that any stand would be made
south of Laing's Nek. Buller did indeed propose on March 3 to advance on
Northern Natal, as well as to attack the Drakensberg passes leading into the
Free State; but Lord Roberts thought the scheme premature and ordered him to
remain on the defensive, to police the country adjacent to the Harrismith
railway with the greater part of his available force, and to send one
division round by way of East London to join the central advance under
Gatacre. Warren's Division therefore left Ladysmith on March 6. White, to
whom Lord Roberts had intended to give a command in the Free State, was
compelled by ill health to return to England. The order to "remain strictly
on the defensive" was afterwards not unreasonably quoted by Buller in
justification of two months of inaction, which, however, Lord Roberts
ascribed to other causes, as he had agreed to subsequent proposals made by
Buller for offensive action.
The Boers on the Biggarsberg at first numbered about 15,000, but by the end
of March many commandos had been attracted away by Lord Roberts' advance to
more strenuous fields. Some time passed without any definite action having
been agreed upon between Lord Roberts and Buller. The latter objected to
almost every proposal made by the former, and sometimes even on
reconsideration criticized his own proposals. He was allowed to recall the
Vth Division, which after a brief absence rejoined his command; but even
with it he protested against an advance on Van Reenen's Pass, which he had
himself proposed and which he was instructed to make at the beginning of
April, because Lord Roberts would consent to the employment of one division
only in it. Lord Roberts did not insist on the movement, as Buller now said
that it would endanger not only his own force, but also Natal; and finding
that Buller had far more troops than he could usefully employ, ordered him
to send the Xth Division under Hunter round to Kimberley. Even after its
departure Buller outnumbered the enemy by more than five to one.
He
was still haunted by the troubles of the Tugela, and was unable to nerve
himself for the risks that every leader must run. The Boers bewildered him.
He could plan no scheme without a conviction that somehow their "knavish
tricks" would frustrate it, and his inactivity made him more prone than ever
to brood over possible mischances. He remained in Ladysmith because it was
the only course open to him after he had by a process of elimination
considered and rejected all the alternatives. Each of them had its
disadvantages and its dangers, therefore it were better to stay where he
was. During a critical period the Natal Army was of as little use to Lord
Roberts as were the Spanish contingents to Wellington in the Peninsula; and
its laggard action retarded the progress of the war. Lord Roberts laid his
plans for the advance on the assumption that it would be in operation on his
right flank when he reached Pretoria, and if L. Botha had found it pressing
on him when he was playing at peace-making in June, instead of engaged in
equally fruitless negotiations with his brother 180 miles away at Laing's
Nek, it is improbable that he would have continued the struggle.
On
May 2 Lord Roberts informed Buller that he was ready to start from
Bloemfontein, and that he expected the Natal Army to co-operate with him by
attacking the Boers on the Biggarsberg, and then advancing towards the
Transvaal. For this movement Buller considered that his force, which
consisted of three divisions of infantry and three brigades of mounted
troops, in all about 45,000 men, was insufficient; but he proceeded to carry
it out. The Boers were in occupation of the whole line of the Biggarsberg
from Helpmakaar westwards, and commanded the roads as well as the railway
running through the range.
Buller on this occasion determined rightly upon a turning movement. All his
previous attacks had either been frontal or had been made so by the enemy.
His plan was to move eastwards with the IInd Division under Clery, while the
Vth Division under Hildyard, who succeeded Warren when the latter was called
away to Bechuanaland, advanced up the railway against the Boer centre. The
IVth Division under Lyttelton, composed of the infantry which had been in
Ladysmith during the siege, was kept in reserve pending the development of
the turning movement, which began on May 11, and was skilfully conducted by
Buller and was entirely successful. Places and rivers which had not been
named in the chronicle of the war since October of the previous year now
emerged from their obscurity. Elandslaagte became the fulcrum of an
aggressive operation. Sunday's River and the Waschbank River after an
interval of seven months were again crossed by British troops, not, like
Yule's force, in hasty retreat, but in confident advance.
The Boers prepared for, and fully expected, a direct advance on Beith by way
of Van Tender's Pass, but Buller made for the extreme flank of the range
near Helpmakaar, which they held but lightly. It was rendered untenable on
May 13, and after dark they retired on Beith, setting fire to the veld to
mask the movement and hinder pursuit. At dawn Dundonald pushed on through
the flames and smoke with his mounted infantry, but was checked by a body of
Irish traitors who were acting as rearguard to their flying employers, and
was unable to come up with the burghers. On the following night his patrols
reported that Dundee was clear, and Buller occupied the town and reached
Newcastle on May 18. The success of the turning movement was due in a great
measure to a small force under Bethune, which had been lying for some months
lower down the Tugela, and which Buller called up to threaten Helpmakaar
from the south while he advanced from the west. It had been originally
detached to protect his right flank during the advance on Ladysmith, and
after long inaction as a watching force was restored to the strenuous
campaign.
Of
the rest of Buller's troops, one portion only, namely Hildyard's Division,
was actively engaged in the movement. Its menace to the Boer centre near
Glencoe, through which passed the railway to the north, attracted commandos
away from the enemy's left flank at Helpmakaar and facilitated the turning
movement. Lyttelton's Division and two cavalry brigades, which although
Buller had informed Lord Roberts that he "was short of his proper strength"
for the advance he had left behind near Ladysmith, took no part in it; and
the absence of the cavalry allowed the enemy to retreat without molestation.
The advance of Hildyard's Division was retarded, not by opposition, but by
the duty which fell upon it of repairing the railway along which it
advanced, and it did not reach Newcastle until May 27. On the 23rd
Lytteltonand most of the cavalry were ordered up from Ladysmith.
As
soon as Buller reached Newcastle he sent on Dundonald to reconnoitre the
Laing's Nek position. On the west it was flanked by Majuba Hill, on the east
by Pougwana, and was found to be strongly held. He therefore decided to make
no further advance until he had concentrated his force at Newcastle. The
cutting edge of the reconstructed Natal wedge had not as yet sufficient
substance behind it to warrant its being put into operation. Pending the
assembly of the Army Buller prodded across the Buffalo at Vryheid and
Utrecht in order to safeguard his right flank. The expedition against the
former town was ambushed and compelled to retire; while the two strong
columns which were sent against Utrecht were hardly more successful. The
town did indeed profess to surrender, but no garrison was left to enforce
the submission, and on the withdrawal of the troops the Boers hovering in
the hills returned like birds who have been temporarily scared out of their
nests.
By
the end of May, Buller's Army was concentrated in the northern corner of
Natal. Towering over his left front was the Drakensberg Range through which
Botha's Pass runs into the Orange Free State; on his right front was the
Buffalo River with a difficult country beyond; and on his front was Majuba
of ill-omened memory and Laing's Nek, over which the road to Volksrust and
the Transvaal passed.
Buller remained at Newcastle for eighteen days, of which three were an
armistice during negotiations for surrender with C. Botha, who was unable to
accept the terms offered. On June 5 the advance was resumed, Laing's Nek
being the immediate objective. At first Buller proposed to attack it
directly, but soon after reaching Newcastle he found that the enemy was
unassailably established on the position, and that it must be turned either
from the east or from the west. The former movement would involve a wider
detour through difficult country to the line of advance which would be taken
up after the Transvaal was entered, and the western movement through Botha's
Pass was therefore selected. Lord Roberts had for some time been in favour
of it, but he had intended that it should be more than a mere turning
operation. His advance from Bloemfontein had driven many of the commandos
into the N.E. corner of the Free State, and he asked Buller to cross the
Drakensberg and take them in rear by passing into the Transvaal by way of
Vrede; but Buller could not be persuaded to remove himself so far from the
railway. He had already missed an opportunity of co-operating with the main
advance by a westward movement from Ladysmith to Van Reenen's Pass along the
railway to Harrismith, where the presence of a division of the Natal Army
would have been of the greatest use. The relations between Lord Roberts and
Buller during the Natal campaign were rather those of leaders commanding the
armies of allied nations than of superior officer and subordinate.
Thus the westward movement, instead of being a helpful operation at large in
support of the main advance, was whittled down to the turning of Laing's Nek.
Between Botha's Pass and Laing's Nek the dominant contours roughly assume
the outline of a sickle and its handle, the Pass being at the end of the
handle and the Nek near the point of the blade. Within the curve of the
blade stands the high Inkwelo Mountain facing Majuba Hill, and at the upper
end of the handle is a mountain of less elevation called Inkweloane. The
Ingogo River, which rises near the Pass, is flanked on its right bank by Van
Wyk's Hill, which commands the eastern approach to the Pass, and on its left
bank by Spitz Kop, a detached hill of the main range.
Inkwelo had been held for some days by a portion of Clery's Division. The
Boers occupied Spitz Kop and the ridge from Inkweloane to the Pass and a
short section beyond it, but their line was thin. The Vryheid and Utrecht
affairs had deceived them into the belief that an eastward turning movement
was in contemplation. On June 6 Van Wyk's Hill was occupied by Hildyard and
held against the enemy on Spitz Kop, who attempted to dislodge him; and by
the following morning artillery had been brought up, and the Pass and the
enemy's position on the adjacent crestline were commanded. These on June 8
were carried by an infantry movement in echelon with loss of two men killed.
Spitz Kop offered no resistance. A fusillade broke out on Inkweloane, but
Dundonald's brigade soon quenched it by a determined ascent up alpine slopes
to the crestline As at Helpmakaar the enemy set fire to the grass and passed
away behind a veil of smoke.
The capture of Botha's Pass was an affair which did credit to Buller. It
showed that since Colenso he had learnt how to use artillery, and his
disposition of his guns was admirable. They rendered the enemy's position
untenable and left little but hard climbing to the infantry. It can hardly
be termed a battle, it was rather an autumn manoeuvre engagement, conducted
on Lord Roberts' principles. A very important position was won and the enemy
driven back with scarcely the shedding of a drop of blood on either side.
Hildyard was in executive charge of the operations.
Thus, after eight months' fighting, the main body of the Natal Army was at
last in bivouac in the enemy's country. Buller had taken Botha's Pass with
three infantry and two cavalry brigades; and with these he made for his next
objective, the town of Volksrust in the Transvaal, a few miles north of
Laing's Nek, which Clery at Ingogo was watching from the south. Lyttelton
was posted on the left bank of the Buffalo watching the right flank of the
advance.
Buller's operations in the Free State lasted two days only. On June 10 he
engaged a small body of the retreating enemy and entered the Transvaal. In
front of him was the Versamelberg, a spur of the Drakensberg, over which the
road from Vrede to Volksrust passes at Alleman's Nek, where 2,000 Boers with
four guns had taken up a very strong position. The road rises to the Nek
between heights, and the initial movements of the attack had to be made
across two miles of open veld. The burghers had not had the time, or did not
think it necessary, to strengthen the position artificially, but they were
observed throwing up some entrenchments when Buller approached.
His bivouac on June 10 was at the Gansvlei Spruit on the Transvaal-Free
State border, and next day at dawn he resumed his march on Volksrust. No
serious opposition was encountered until early in the afternoon, when
Dundonald, who was operating on the right front, came under artillery fire
from the Nek. The infantry, whose left flank was watched by Brocklehurst
with a cavalry brigade, was then ordered to advance, the objective of the
2nd Brigade under E. Hamilton being the ridge on the left of the Nek, and
that of the 10th Brigade under Talbot Coke the ridges on the right of it,
the 11th Brigade under Wynne being kept in reserve.
The advance was made under a heavy and worrying but not very effective fire
from each section of the ridge. The key of the position proved to be a
conical hill on the right of the road at the entrance to the Nek. The
Dorsets of Coke's brigade gallantly climbed the slopes, and aided by
artillery fire carried it with the bayonet. The fight, however, was far from
ended. The Boers beyond remained until the shells which had been pouring on
the conical hill followed them to the crestline. Then again the Dorsets
threw themselves upon the enemy, and by sunset the heights on the right of
the Nek were in possession of Coke. Almost simultaneously E. Hamilton
established himself on the left of it. The resistance offered to Dundonald
on the right flank was more effective; and as between him and his immediate
opponents the day waned upon an uncertain issue. He had driven them out of
successive positions though not actually off the ridge; but the occupation
of the Nek made further opposition useless and they withdrew during the
night.
The capture of Alleman's Nek rendered Laing's Nek untenable, and Clery
closing up from Ingogo next day found it abandoned. The enemy had evacuated
the whole of the Majuba-Laing's Nek-Pougwana position, leaving scarcely so
much as a wagon behind him, and was retreating northwards. The westward
turning movement was tactically a success but strategically a failure. With
three brigades of mounted troops under his orders, including some regiments
of regular cavalry which were lying idle at Ladysmith and elsewhere, Buller
made no attempt to cut off the retreating Boers. A daring raid, such as had
been twice made by French on the Modder four months before, concurrently
with the Botha's Pass operations would have had a good chance of crushing C.
Botha; and Brockleburst's cavalry, which during the attack on the Nek was
working somewhat widely on the left flank, might well have been sent to bar
the way. The ponderous movements of Buller were in strange contrast to the
activity of his ally Lord Roberts. The Natal Army made its way through the
country like an elephant trampling through a sugar-cane plantation.
On
June 13 Buller entered Volksrust and next day established his Head Quarters
at Laing's Nek. Wakkerstroom, a town which threatened his right flank,
surrendered pro formâ to Lyttelton on June 13, and again to Hildyard four
days later; and no doubt would have been equally ready to accommodate itself
to the wishes of any other column sent to it, but after each surrender it
reasserted itself, and Buller was obliged to leave it in charge of the
commandos.
With the occupation of Laing's Nek the Natal campaign, which had lasted
eight months, came to an end, and Buller, having left a strong force under
Lyttelton in charge of Natal, passed up the railway to Heidelberg; where on
July 4 he for the first time came into physical touch with the main Army
under Lord Roberts. By a curious coincidence he here met Hart's Brigade of
the Xth Division, which had left his command three months previously at
Ladysmith, and which had in the meantime marched up from Kimberley.
Lord Roberts' plan for the Natal Army was that it should march across the
veld to the Delagoa Bay railway and co-operate in his movement to clear the
Eastern Transvaal. The Brandwater Basin surrender relieved the railway in
Natal from immediate danger and allowed the ample force holding it to be
reduced. At the end of July Buller was instructed to lead 11,000 of his men
across a sparsely populated country where no railway was. It was for him a
novel phase of warfare. Hitherto he had hardly dared trust himself out of
sight of a culvert. But he was a man from whom the terror of the unknown
very soon passed away when he had no choice but to face it. In Natal he
would have stood aghast at a suggestion that he should cut away his moorings
and be wafted by the winds of war for ten days or more across a strange
ocean. If hitherto he had been nec celer nec audax now he became at least
audax. Lord Roberts had imbued him with the progressive spirit. He raised no
difficulties of his own, and he encountered those arising out of the
situation resolutely and successfully. His army was strung out upon the
railway from Ladysmith to Heidelberg; his transport was still organized
regimentally, a system which had hampered Lord Roberts' movements and was
soon abolished in the main body; and oxen, mules, and wagons were scarce.
For infantry he chose the IVth Division under Lyttelton, and for cavalry the
brigades under Brocklehurst and Dundonald.
On
August 7 Buller's column quitted the Natal line;48 its
destination being Belfast on the Delagoa Bay line, along which Lord Roberts
was now advancing.
Its progress may be compared to the course of a steamer across an unquiet
ocean. The waves raised by a fresh gale on the starboard bow were cleft by
the stem, only to reunite behind the churn of the propeller. They were
powerless to abridge the day's run by many miles, but they could still swing
forwards to the shore. On one occasion the ship was slowed down to a
standstill by a fog.
The waves were the commandos of the district, most of which had retired
under C. Botha from the Laing's Nek positions. Buller had not much
difficulty in dealing with them as obstructions to his advance, and in
succession he occupied Amersfort, Ermelo, and Carolina; but they soon
returned to their stations. His own inclinations would probably have
persuaded him to halt and smash them, but he was marching against time
between two widely separated bases. Near Carolina on August 14 he came in
touch with French, who was acting with Lord Roberts' eastward movement from
Pretoria, and from that date the operations of the Natal Army were merged in
those of the main Army, and came under the immediate direction of the
Commander-in-Chief.
A
scheme proposed by French and sanctioned in substance by Lord Roberts, for
an immediate cavalry turning movement round the left flank of the enemy, who
was strongly posted astride the railway near Belfast; in conjunction with a
central infantry advance to be made by Buller and Pole-Carew, whose Division
was within reach, was discountenanced by Buller, and a simple frontal
movement was substituted for it. Its practicability was doubtful owing to
the marshy character of the ground.
On
August 25 Buller, French, and Pole-Carew entered Belfast, where they were
joined by Lord Roberts.
Footnote 48:
i.e. the section of the railway from Johannesburg to Natal which is in the
Transvaal.
