By
a process of elimination Buller hoped in time to find the road to Ladysmith.
He had tried in succession, but without success, Colenso, Potgieter's Drift,
and Trickhardt's Drift. He now informed White that he intended to make
another attempt, but Lord Roberts advised him to postpone it until his own
advance should draw off the Free Staters and weaken the barrier on the line
of the Tugela.
The situation in the besieged town was growing worse every day, but a
proposal made by White as well as by the War Office that the garrison should
endeavour to break out, was not sanctioned by Lord Roberts. White also was
opposed to Buller's making another attempt to cross the Tugela, as he
considered that the force would be more usefully employed in preventing the
enemy from concentrating on Ladysmith.
[Map, p. 98.]
Buller's new plan was an advance by way of Vaalkrantz. Here the river winds
in two salient loops towards the north, with a re-entrant loop between them,
and there is a slight break in the heights on the left bank. The Brakfontein
ridge slopes down towards Vaalkrantz Hill, between which and Green Hill
there is a dip through which a road passes on to the open ground towards
Ladysmith, eleven miles distant.
Buller proposed to occupy the ridge of Vaalkrantz with artillery, and after
a feint attack on the Boer position on Brakfontein, to push through under
cover of the guns. It was believed that the enemy's extreme left lay on
Vaalkrantz, which was commanded by Mount Alice and Zwart Kop. Lord Roberts
when informed of the project was not hopeful of its success, but did not
veto it, although he thought that Buller would be better advised to abstain
from offensive tactics.
The feint attack on Brakfontein was to be made by seven Field Batteries and
a Brigade of Infantry, and was to be continued long enough to convince the
enemy that it was "meant". It was then to be withdrawn and the real attack
set in motion. The advance of the feint would be covered by heavy guns
posted on Mount Alice, and concealed batteries on Zwart Kop would open on
Vaalkrantz in support of the real attack.
The bulk of the infantry was posted in the east loop, so as to appear ready
to cross the river and support the feint attack between the loops. As soon
as the guns had driven the enemy into their trenches on Brakfontein, a
pontoon bridge was to be thrown across the river south of Hunger's Drift,
and the guns on Zwart Kop were to open on
Vaalkrantz, and when this had been sufficiently bombarded, it would be
carried by the infantry, and guns would be brought up to enfilade the Boer
line; while the cavalry "when feasible" would push through under the ridge
and threaten it from the rear.
It
was a pretty tactical scheme, with much of the War-Game about it, and it
depended for its success upon the practicability of using Vaalkrantz as an
artillery position, and upon the correctness of the assumption that the
enemy was not in force eastward of it.
Buller was not successful in placing his guns on Zwart Kop unnoticed by the
enemy, who was warned in time. After Spion Kop, Botha went to Pretoria, and
Schalk Burger took furlough. B. Viljoen was now in command. He saw the
danger and applied to Joubert at Ladysmith for help, who thought he was
over-anxious but sent him a heavy gun. Little however would have been done
but for the intervention of the two civilian Presidents. Steyn appealed to
Kruger who, having tried without success to induce Joubert to take command
on the Upper Tugela, fell in with Steyn's suggestion that Martin Prinsloo, a
Free Stater, should go there; and Botha was ordered back from Pretoria.
Prinsloo took command of the Brakfontein position, Viljoen remaining on
Vaalkrantz.
At
sunrise on February 5 began Buller's third attempt to relieve Ladysmith.
Wynne, who had succeeded Woodgate in command of the 11th Brigade, advanced
in two lines up the slope towards Brakfontein, supported by the fire of
forty-four guns. Nearly six hours passed before any reply was vouchsafed by
the enemy. At mid-day some guns on Wynne's left front opened on the
batteries, but not a shot was fired by the Boers in the trenches.
Already one field battery had been detached from the left of the line of
guns, the first movement in the real attack, and had taken up a position to
cover the pontoon troop which was throwing a bridge across the Tugela near
Hunger's Drift. At noon the completion of the bridge was signalled to the
feint attack. The batteries fronting the Brakfontein ridge were withdrawn,
and Wynne's brigade which, having been marched up the slope, was now marched
down again, came under a heavy but almost innocuous infantry fire, which at
last broke out on Brakfontein.
To
the Boers it appeared that another attack, determined while it lasted, but
devoid of backbone, had been kept at bay. The guns on Zwart Kop opened on
Vaalkrantz as soon as the detached battery was seen to be in motion; and the
other batteries came into action as they arrived from the Brakfontein
demonstration. There was some annoyance from casual rifle fire and a Maxim
posted on the heights S.E. of the loop, but it did not seriously interfere
with the work of the bridge-builders.
The rules of the game were strictly obeyed, and there was "a thorough
preparation by artillery" before the infantry was allowed to advance. The
movement was delayed until half a hundred guns were playing upon Vaalkrantz
and the chance of a celer et audax exploit was lost. At 2 p.m. Lyttelton
with two battalions of the 4th Brigade was permitted to cross the pontoon
and with these he worked up under the protection of the left bank, and
emerging upon Munger's Farm, rose thence to the southern edge of Vaalkrantz,
and took hold of the ridge. Here he was joined by a battalion of Hildyard's
Brigade, whose original orders to occupy Green Hill were cancelled, and
later on by the remaining battalions of his own brigade; which Buller,
wavering for a time, had held back, as the pontoon and the open ground were
under fire from the right flank. At 4 p.m. Lyttelton was established on the
main hill of Vaalkrantz, and during the night the position was entrenched.
The occupation, however, brought two facts to light. Half a mile to the
north of the main hill was another hill, only a few feet lower,
unapproachable and in the enemy's possession; and it was not practicable, as
Buller had hoped, to bring up artillery on to the position seized by
Lyttelton.
At
daylight on February 6, the situation was favourable to the Boers. Botha had
arrived and had taken over the command from Prinsloo. The heavy gun sent
from Ladysmith had been mounted on Doom Kop, which was now held by
reinforcements under L. Meyer; other good positions east of Vaalkrantz had
been strengthened; and some of the guns on the Brakfontein position had been
moved round. Vaalkrantz standing between Doorn Kop and the Twin Peaks, was
shelled simultaneously from the left front, and the right rear, as well as
from Green Hill;28 it seemed as if Spion Kop were about to be
repeated.
Buller opened on Green Hill with artillery, and on the hill north of the
main hill of Vaalkrantz, in the hope of making the North Hill assailable. In
view of a retirement, a pontoon bridge was, at Lyttelton's request, thrown
across the river under the main ridge. He discouraged a proposal made by
Buller to attack the North Hill by a force creeping along the foot of the
westward slope of Vaalkrantz, covered by fire from the ridge.
Buller was now stalemated. The artillery fire had not cleared the way to the
North Hill, and Lyttelton was unable to move on it, but he said that he
could hold on for the rest of the day if no more artillery were brought to
bear on him from the S.E.
Finally Buller determined to shift the responsibility. He reported the
capture of Vaalkrantz to Lord Roberts, and in effect asked what he should do
with the white elephant. To carry out his plan would "cost from 2,000 to
3,000 men," and he was "not confident of success." Was Ladysmith worth it?
Yes, replied Lord Roberts without hesitation, Ladysmith was worth it and it
must be done.
In
the evening Lyttelton, having thwarted an attempt by the enemy to recover
Vaalkrantz, was relieved by Hildyard. On the following afternoon, Buller, in
spite of Lord Roberts' message, made up his mind to withdraw. Further
reconnaissances had shown that the North Hill, even if taken, could hardly
be held. A council of war was summoned, at which, as might have been
anticipated, Hart alone was for persevering, and at which Warren again put
forward the scheme rejected by Buller at Frere, but now gladly adopted by
him, of advancing on Ladysmith by way of Hlangwhane.
Orders were issued for the withdrawal of the force from Vaalkrantz during
the night. It was skilfully carried out, and Buller was once more ferrying
his men across the Tugela, having for the third time failed to reach
Ladysmith.
On
February 8 the Army was retracing its steps on the road by which four weeks
before it had marched from Springfield to Potgieter's Drift; and on the 11th
it was concentrated at Chieveley, from which eight weeks before it had been
thrown at the Colenso heights. All the Tugela operations had been conducted
in a rarified medium. Want of determination, want of system, the absence of
maps, the lack of a sufficient staff, were responsible for two months of
misadventure. Buller, like the Boers, was easily discouraged by failure, but
unlike them was unable to quicken himself readily for a renewed effort. He
lost confidence in himself, and then in his subordinates. Like a nervous
child, he opened the door of a dark chamber, but was afraid to enter. The
terror of the unknown drove him back in a panic. When his plans, which were
usually well thought out, miscarried, he became peevish, and scarcely made
an attempt to reconstruct them. Only an Army of which the backbone was the
stolid, unimaginative Englishman of the lower classes, and which believed
that its leader was doing his best, could have remained undemoralized by the
campaign on the Tugela.
Buller possessed one quality which to a great extent outweighed his
shortcomings as a military commander: namely the power of inspiring
confidence. His men believed in him, and would do anything for him. They
liked him for his bluff, John-Bullish, and rampant manner. The enlisted man
is a curious differentiation from the class to which he belongs. His
democratic instincts become less acute when he shoulders the Lee-Metford,
and he readily accommodates himself to the will of a benevolent despot of
robust appearance, and blunt and somewhat contemptuous address; whom in fact
he prefers to the ascetic, dispassionate General Officer of quiet habit and
speech.
The criticisms passed upon Buller were far more friendly in the men's than
in the officers' bivouacs. Possibly the men's opinions, as being the more
natural and spontaneous, were also the more correct. The enemy conducted the
war upon principles which were strange to the British Army, and to which it
had to adapt itself painfully; and the men seem to have recognized sooner
than the professors the difficulties of the situation, and to have been less
intolerant of ill-success.
Few general officers have ever revealed in their official communications
more of the workings and the moods of their minds than did Buller in Natal.
His telegrams and despatches always reflected the thoughts of the moment.
After the Colenso fight, he candidly referred to it as my "unfortunate
undertaking of to-day." Six days before the Vaalkrantz affair he told Lord
Roberts that "this time I feel fairly confident of success"; and on the eve
of the attack he said that "while I have every hope of success, I am not
quite certain of it."
After the retirement, it was, "wherever I turn I come upon the enemy in
superior force to my own." He subjected his personal and individual ideas
and feelings to no restraint, and they incontinently leavened all his
messages which were now confident, now diffident, and now querulous, and
which read as if they were quotations from his private diary. From
Vaalkrantz he heliographed to White that the enemy was too strong for him,
and that the "Bulwana big gun is here"; and could White suggest anything
better than an advance by way of Hlangwhane? In his telegrams from Chieveley
to Lord Roberts, he complained of want of support, and of the feebleness of
the resistance made by the Ladysmith garrison, which he professed to believe
did not detain more than 2,000 men. Yet in recording his weakness, it must
in justice be said that he gained and never lost the confidence of the rank
and file of the relieving force, and that under any other leader it would
probably have succumbed to its misfortunes.
On
February 12 the re-concentration of Buller's Army at Chieveley was complete.
The enemy's front had been greatly strengthened since the attack on Colenso.
The Boers saw what Buller could not be persuaded to believe, that Hlangwhane
was the key of the position, and extended their line thence in a curve
through Green Hill and Monte Cristo, with a detached post outside it on
Cingolo. These four hills and the ground between them Buller proposed to
occupy, and then pass between Cingolo and Monte Cristo to a drift of the
Tugela N.E. of Monte Cristo, cross the river and advance by the Klip Riyer
on Bulwana. The two "iron bridges" at Colenso were impassable, but the Boers
had thrown a bridge across near Naval Hill by which, and also by a ferry
higher up, communication was kept up with their left flank.
The initial movement on February 12 was made appropriately enough by
Dundonald, who two months before had seen the value of the Hlangwhane
position, and who now perhaps as he marched out, realized the truth of the
proverb tout vient à ce qui sait attendre. He occupied Hussar Hill
temporarily as a reconnaissance to give Buller an opportunity of surveying
the ground over which he was about to operate. The Intelligence officers
reported that the enemy was strongly posted at several points within the
area and unmasked some of his slim tricks. In order to conceal the line of
the trenches, the excavated earth was piled up some distance towards the
front, and tents not intended for occupation were pitched to divert fire
from the positions in which he lay. The war-craft which comes by instinct to
nationalities not in an advanced state of civilization and leading simple
lives face to face with wild animals and native tribes, and which the
conventionally trained European soldier only learns by experience,
strengthened the Boer commandos without an augmentation of individuals
liable to be killed or wounded. The veld trenches which kept Methuen at
arm's length at Magersfontein and the Boer devices on the Tugela seem to
show that War is not a Science, but an Art, easily acquired by
unprofessional soldiers.
On
February 14 the movement began and a front at Hussar Hill was taken up, but
owing to the heat and the scarcity of water, little was done during the next
two days, except a bombardment of the Boer trenches and gun positions. The
advance of the relieving force has been likened to the deliberate
progression of a steam roller.
Clery having been invalided, the IInd Division was temporarily under the
command of Lyttelton, whose orders for February 17 were to move upon Cingolo
Nek and Green Hill. Dundonald was instructed to work in rear of the infantry
and outflank any detachment of the enemy that might appear on the Nek. But
Dundonald was not a military pedant devoid of initiative and tied to the
letter of his instructions, and when the difficulties of the ground broke
the touch between him and Lyttelton he was perhaps not sorry to find himself
disengaged; and when he saw that the Boers were entrenched on Cingolo Ridge,
he attacked instead of outflanking it.
While the commando on the ridge was occupied with the infantry, it was
suddenly surprised from the flank by Dundonald's men, and was driven out of
the trenches. Meanwhile one of Lyttelton's battalions, which in ignorance of
Dundonald's movement, had been sent to clear Cingolo of some Boers who were
firing on the advance and checking it, found when it reached the ridge that
it had been forestalled in the capture.
When Lyttelton became aware that the enemy had been expelled, he proposed to
avail himself of the success without delay, and push on to the Nek and Monte
Cristo, while Warren's Vth Division attacked Green Hill; but Buller objected
to an advance which could not be completed before nightfall. Lyttelton
bivouacked S.W. of the ridge and Dundonald on the detached hill at its
northern end. During the night, field guns were brought up the slopes and
with much difficulty emplaced in a position from which shell fire could be
directed on Monte Cristo.
If
the movement of the day was not remarkable for speed and enterprise, it was
at least directed with skill and without excessive caution; and Dundonald
showed that his military spirit had not been chilled by previous rebuffs,
one of them administered almost on the spot where he was now in activity.
At
daylight on February 18, the movement was resumed, the immediate objective
being the capture of Monte Cristo and Green Hill. One brigade was sent
through the Nek on to the eastward slopes of Monte Cristo, while the other
attacked the hill from the south. With the help of the ever-ready Dundonald
the IInd Division established itself on the main hill of the ridge early in
the afternoon. The Fusilier Brigade of the Vth Division was meanwhile acting
in support; and advancing as soon as Monte Cristo was seen to be occupied,
easily took hold of Green Hill. The enemy was now expelled from all the
positions commanding the proposed line of advance over the Nek, and was
retreating westward towards the positions near the right bank of the Tugela,
but no attempt was made to pursue him. The motto of Buller's Army was
festina lente and its track towards Ladysmith was in zigzag.
On
the following day Hlangwhane was occupied by the British troops, and before
noon on February 20, all the Boers had withdrawn to the left bank of the
Tugela, and Buller was favourably placed for the advance by way of the Klip
River on Bulwana. A reconnaissance, however, caused him to change his mind
and to resume the movement at an acute angle by doubling back towards
Hlangwhane and crossing the river by a pontoon bridge west of the hill.
His new plan was to capture a position between the Onderbroek and Langewacht
Spruits, which appeared from a distance to be one hill, but which in reality
was two, Wynne's Hill and Horseshoe Hill, which were separated by a donga.
On the morning of February 21 he signalled his intentions to White, saying
that he thought he had "only a rearguard before him"29 and that
he hoped to be in Ladysmith next day.
After the capture of Monte Cristo and the Hlangwhane position, some of the
commandos seem to have trekked away towards the north, and even Botha for a
time appears to have lost heart and to have suggested to Joubert that the
siege of Ladysmith should be raised. The Boer leaders had already, like King
Arthur,
Heard the steps of Modred in the west,
and their army in Natal had been weakened, before Buller's final advance, by
the departure of commandos going to succour their brethren not only on the
Modder, but also in the Cape Colony.
The situation on the Tugela was reported to Pretoria almost simultaneously
with the news that Cronje was hemmed in at Paardeberg. But owing it may be
to the distance which intervened between Kruger and the scene of action, the
dour old voortrekker of Colesberg would not hear of any voluntary retirement
before the enemy who had driven him out of the Cape Colony sixty years
before. He sent an appeal to the Boers of the Tugela which, in an intense
human document, displayed his steadfast and touching faith, and which might
have been addressed by his prototype Cromwell to the Ironsides.
He
rebuked the burghers for their cowardice, which he attributed to the waning
of their trust in the power of the Almighty to help them in their distress,
and with many instances and quotations from Holy Writ, he adjured them to
stand fast in faith. He was confident that the cause which he in all
sincerity believed to be the cause of the Church of Christ would prevail in
the end, and justifiably encouraged by successes in the field against
superior numbers he exhorted the commandos to endure without flinching the
purification by fire. Kruger's passionate appeal availed, and the waverers
returned to their posts. The incident disclosed the power of the factor of
moral force, wherein the Boer strength lay; and it will in a great measure
account for the prolongation of the war. When their cause seemed hopeless,
they comforted themselves with the honest and irradicable belief that its
righteousness was the assurance of final success. Though most of their
leaders were incompetent, though they themselves were easily discouraged;
disobeyed orders; often malingered and mutinied; quitted the field with
their wagons which they were reluctant to abandon, under such frivolous
pretexts that the verlafpest or leave-plague became a bye-word; though time
after time their power of resistance seemed to be exhausted; though in their
thousands they were distributed over the British Empire as prisoners of war;
though their confident expectation of European intervention was not
realized; though they were always greatly outnumbered; they continued
stubbornly to defy for the space of two years and seven months the most
numerous and the most efficient Army which has ever left the shores of Great
Britain, until at last they were worn down by mechanical friction and
attrition, and not by the stroke of war. When the Boers were driven out of
the Hlangwhane positions, they took up a new position facing S.E. on the
left bank of the Tugela. Their right was near the head of Hart's loop, and
their centre came within a few hundred yards of the river at Wynne's Hill,
whence the line was carried on towards Pieter's Hill.
At
noon on February 21 Buller began once more to send his men across the
Tugela, intending to content himself that day with establishing his force
"comfortably" on the position north of the railway bridge enclosed by the
bend of the river, which was now free of the enemy. He ordered Talbot Coke
with the 10th Brigade of Warren's Division to pass over the Colenso Kopjes
on to the open ground beyond, from which the Onderbroek valley could be
enfiladed by artillery. He had received information that the enemy were
there in force, and in the belief that "what Boers there were, were hiding
in that kloof," he changed his plan of moving northwards at once on Wynne's
Hill.
On
February 21 Coke advanced in three lines, but soon after he had cleared the
hilly ground, his scouting line came under fire from the Grobelaar slopes,
and his right flank was also involved from the direction of Wynne's Hill.
His Brigade was pinned to the ground by rifle and shell fire until
nightfall, when it was retired to the Colenso Kopjes, where Wynne's Brigade
of Warren's Division had arrived during the afternoon.
The route march to Ladysmith was checked. Instead of a mere rearguard to be
driven in, as Buller had fondly believed, a strongly posted line, extending
nearly four miles S. W. from Wynne's Hill, had to be attacked. The enemy had
been so much encouraged by the failure of Coke's movement, that Botha
telegraphed to Kruger that he had hopes of a "great reverse."
Warren thought that it would be necessary to diverge from the advance and
take the Grobelaar slopes, and White reported that Boer reinforcements were
coming in from the north. Towards evening on February 21, it seemed not
unlikely that another Colenso, Spion Kop, or Vaalkrantz would soon be
debited to Buller. The line of approach to Ladysmith was held by the enemy,
and the British Army of relief, the greater part of which had crossed to the
left bank of the Tugela, was entangled in the Colenso Kopjes, and the river
loop.
Warren's general idea for the 22nd, of which Buller approved, was to attack
Wynne's Hill with the 11th Brigade, leaving Horseshoe Hill to be dealt with
by the artillery. Although the Boers on the Grobelaar slopes had been well
pounded for some hours by the field batteries, Wynne considered that it
would be unsafe to advance unless these slopes were actually taken, but he
was overruled. He had also been promised support on his left rear, but only
two of the battalions detailed for the purpose were at hand and these were
fully occupied in offering a front to the Boers on Grobelaar, while the
movement was in progress; and he advanced against the enemy's centre
unsupported except by the long range fire of a brigade on Naval Hill across
the river.
He
had expected that the promised supports would secure his left flank by
seizing Horseshoe Hill, and in default he was compelled to detach a portion
of his own scanty force against it. At sunset the cutting edge of the
advancing wedge was touching the enemy, but was unable to break into him,
and Briton and Boer were face to face on Wynne's Hill and on Horseshoe Hill.
Reinforcements were brought up and defences were constructed during the
night, while the Boers continually fired upon the confused units labouring
in the darkness. The enemy had an entrenched position on Hart's Hill which
enfiladed Wynne's Hill, and which Warren had not been able to take, as
Buller hoped, with the 11th Brigade.
Next morning the 5th Brigade under Hart, which was in reserve near the river
loop,
was sent against Hart's Hill. He advanced, wherever possible, under cover of
the steep left bank of the river along a trail so narrow that the men were
compelled often to move in single file; and at one place, where the
Langewacht Spruit enters the Tugela, it was necessary to make a detour and
cross the spruit by the railway bridge, and to quit the dead ground and
emerge on to a defile under heavy fire. The advance of the Brigade was
retarded by the stringing out of the battalions, and from time to time
Hart's Hill was shelled without seriously harming the enemy, who as usual
was not posted on the apparent crest, but some distance in rear of it.
Two battalions of the 4th Brigade, which had been lent to Hart, were so far
behind that as only two or three hours of daylight remained, he decided to
attack without them. For impetuous gallantry the advance of the Irish
regiments was not surpassed by any other exploit in the War. Working up on
difficult ground to the sound of the Regimental calls, and then almost
brought to a standstill by the barbed wire fences of the railway, which
became a trap of death, they rushed the slope, pushing the enemy's outposts
before them, and won the crest: and then in the failing light which
compelled the supporting artillery to discontinue the bombardment and
relieve the enemy from the pressure of shrapnel, they saw the Boer positions
still above them. The crest was false.
It
was a cruel disappointment to brave men who had struggled so well, but they
did not flinch. A charge was made across the plateau, but it soon was
withered by fire and few of the men reached the Boer trenches. Two more
battalions of the 4th Brigade arrived at dawn, but the reinforcement came
too late. The troops were reorganized, as far as possible, on the slope
leading down from the crest, but were eventually compelled to retire across
the railway to the lower ground by flanking fire, which Hart succeeded in
silencing, and was able to reoccupy the dead ground below the false crest
with fresh troops.
The failure of the attack did not deter Buller from pursuing his plan, and
on February 24 he proposed to renew it and to operate against Railway Hill,
which stands fourth in the line of hills running in a N.E. direction from
Horseshoe Hill to Pieter's Hill; but by Hart's suggestion the movement was
postponed, and in the end, abandoned. The greater part of his Brigade was
dangerously and densely posted on the lower ground, and when during the
night a surprise party of Boers opened fire, there was some fear of a
general panic. The situation was precarious. The Boer line had not been
pierced: on each side it outflanked Buller and fronted the Tugela loops in
which the greater portion of his force was huddled. It was fortunate for him
that DeWet had gone to the Modder.
On
the night of February 24 began the third movement in zigzag. The general
direction of the first was N.E.; of the second W.S.W.; of the third East. It
was discovered that there was a path by which troops could pass east of
Naval Hill down to the right bank out of the enemy's reach, and that they
could cross the Tugela by pontoon. Buller then determined to transfer the
bulk of his force back to the Hlangwhane side of the river over the pontoon
bridge by which he had crossed to the left bank three days before. The plan
involved not only the concentration of a clubbed and unwieldy force on the
right bank, but also the necessity of keeping it there until the passage of
the last detail allowed the pontoon bridge to be taken up and moved to the
new place of crossing, three miles below.
An
armistice, restricted to the arena of the recent fighting, was granted by
the Boers on February 25, for the purpose of bringing away the wounded and
burying the dead; and during the barter of news on the very narrow strip
which separated the British fallen from the enemy's positions, the burghers
refused to believe that Cronje was surrounded at Paardeberg, and retorted
that Lord Roberts had lost all his transport and supplies at Waterval Drift,
and was helpless.
The cessation of the music of war during the armistice dismayed the garrison
of Ladysmith, which feared that it must indicate another failure; for owing
to spies and the leakage of plans, Buller was afraid of informing White
fully of his position and intentions, and during the final advance he
usually restricted himself in his heliograms to the expression of his hopes
or to the reasons for their non-fulfilment.
On
the enemy's side, in spite of a strong line held in sufficient numbers, the
moral position was weak. Botha, who commanded the Boer right, distrusted
Meyer, who was in charge of the threatened left. The war-sick burghers
skulked in their laagers, and it is said that even necessary movements
within the line were not ordered, from a fear lest the burgher, when once on
his feet, would march in the direction which soonest took him out of his
enemy's reach. To Botha, Buller's retirement across the Tugela came as a
gleam of hope. If it did not signify a retreat, as he suggested to Joubert,
it at least indicated that the attack on the line of hills would not be
immediately renewed.
On
February 26, the preparations for the fifth attempt to relieve Ladysmith
were completed. Horse, Field, Howitzer, Mountain, and Naval Guns, to the
number of nearly three score and ten, were in position on the northern
features of Hlangwhane, Naval Hill and Fuzzy Hill, and also on Clump Hill,
N.W. of Monte Cristo. The relieving force was arranged in two commands; the
troops west of the Langewacht Spruit being placed under Lyttelton, the rest
being assigned to Warren. On Hlangwhane was Barton with the 6th Fusilier
Brigade; and W. Kitchener, now in command of the 11th Brigade, was also on
the right bank. On the left bank near Hart's Hill were Norcott and Hart with
the 4th and 5th Brigades. Under Lyttelton was the 2nd Brigade, the 10th
Brigade, though in his section, being placed under Warren's orders.
On
the previous day, a mounted brigade had been sent to the east to deal with
an expedition under Erasmus against the British lines of communication south
of Colenso. He led it timidly, and it was easily checked, and the brigade
was brought back to the river.
Buller's scheme for the operations of February 27, was an attack on Pieter's
Hill by Barton, followed in succession by attacks on Railway Hill by
Kitchener, and on Hart's Hill by Norcott, supported by artillery fire from
the positions on the right bank. By the evening of February 26 the troops
for the main attack had recrossed the Tugela, and the pontoon bridge west of
Hlangwhane could now be removed. Early in the forenoon of February 27, it
was thrown over the river S.E. of Hart's Hill, where the left bank afforded
a covered way of approach to Pieter's Hill, and the fourth and final member
of the zigzag advance was traced, on this occasion towards the north. For
the seventh time Buller ferried the Tugela with his men, who impelled
alternately by the impulse of his initiative and by the resilience of the
enemy, had been tossed like a tennis ball from bank to bank at Trickhardt's
Drift, Vaalkrantz, and Hlangwhane, yet whom nothing could dishearten. As
they heard the news of Cronje's surrender at Paardeberg, they were crossing
the newly placed pontoon bridge, and on it they set up a signpost bearing
the legend "To Ladysmith."
Barton led the way across the bridge, then turning to the right, crept down
the left bank of the river for two miles, and mounted the slopes of Pieter's
Hill, when he became aware of the great strength of the Boer position. It
was hedged in by a river, a wooded donga, and a valley; along its westward
face ran a line of kopjes, ending in a detached rocky hill; and it was
supported by fire from Railway Hill. The nearer kopjes were carried without
much difficulty, but a sweeping movement to clear the plateau as with the
swing of a scythe, was checked by heavy fire from the east, and failed to
gather in the rocky hill which commanded the outlying kopjes, and which the
enemy succeeded in reinforcing during the fight, and in holding for several
hours.
Until the development of the attack on Railway Hill by Kitchener, Barton's
Fusiliers were able to do little more than maintain themselves, as their
reserves had been absorbed and their ammunition was running short. A final
attempt was made, with partial success, at the close of the day, to occupy
the rocky hill, but at the cost of many casualties. The enemy was not
entirely expelled, but those who remained disappeared during the night.
Kitchener followed in Barton's track as far as the gorge which separates
Pieter's from Railway Hill. In spite of the Boer rifles and of the shrapnel
of the British gunners on the right bank playing upon the Hill, whose
attention was eventually drawn to the situation by the bold advance of two
companies to a position from which they could be seen and recognized through
the gunners' telescopes, the eastward edge of Railway Hill was won. But a
portion of Kitchener's command in rear was magnetically attracted away from
the direction of the advance by a flanking fire from Hart's Hill and, by
diverging towards it, broke the continuity of the line facing the position
entrenched by the Boers. Kitchener was, however, able to fill the gap, and
he expelled the burghers, most of whom fled before the charge got home; and
Railway Hill was won.
Norcott's Brigade was nearer to its objective than either of the brigades
which had preceded it, as it was lying south of Hart's Hill between the
railway and the river; and although deprived of a considerable portion of
his command by a demand for help which purported to have come from Railway
Hill, he finished his task in three hours. He toiled up the dead ground to
the apparent crest of Hart's Hill, and then came face to face with the
higher position, which three days before had so cruelly baffled the Irish
Brigade. But the Boers were not now in a mood to stay. The shrapnel from the
right bank, which they had not to meet when Hart charged across from the
crest in the failing light, was now hailing on them. All but a few stalwarts
took to flight, and Hart's Hill was taken before sunset on February 27.
The capture of the hills supervening on the bad news from Paardeberg
shattered the Boer Armies in Natal. Botha's left had been defeated; and
although his right had not been seriously attacked by Lyttelton, but only
prevented from effectively reinforcing the hill positions, it fell away
towards the north. He was not able to stay the general retreat, but he hoped
at least to join Joubert and cover it with the aid of the besieging force.
Joubert, however, had already raised the Siege and was retreating towards
Elandslaagte.
Next morning Barton on Pieter's Hill vainly appealed for permission to press
forward, but Buller would only put the two mounted Brigades under Dundonald
and Burn-Murdoch on to the enemy's trail. Dundonald made for Ladysmith, and
Burn-Murdoch was instructed to act on the right front towards Bulwana, but
was soon called upon to assist Dundonald in driving in a Boer rearguard. He
then resumed his advance, and from the east covered Dundonald, who being
fired on from Bulwana thought it advisable to send his Brigade to a safer
position in rear, and having done so, rode on at the head of a body of
colonial troops, and as the sun was setting on February 28, marched into
Ladysmith and ended the four months' Siege. It was a fitting exploit to be
performed by the grandson of that Lord Cochrane who at Aix Roads nearly a
century before had similarly chafed and strained at the leash of a superior
officer's reluctance.30 Burn-Murdoch came into action with a
rearguard covering Bulwana, which was evacuated during the night. He
bivouacked near the Klip River, and next morning proposed to pursue the
enemy, but Buller whistled him to heel. The relieving force advanced with
deliberation, and on March 3, entered Ladysmith, and unravelled the Natal
entanglement which at one time seemed likely to wreck the South African
Campaign.
The flight of the Boers continued for three days. Ladysmith, which lay
directly in the line of the retreat, divided it into two streams, one of
which flowed towards the Drakensberg, while the other went in the direction
of Elandslaagte and Glencoe, some of the fugitives not outspanning until
they reached Newcastle. So great was the demoralization that Kruger hurried
down from Pretoria to Glencoe in the hope of staying it. He succeeded in
persuading the burghers to hold the line of the Biggarsberg, but was almost
immediately summoned away to the arena in the west; and only a few hours
after he was upbraiding the fugitives from Ladysmith and the Tugela for
their irresolution and want of faith, the fugitives of the Modder were
streaming past him at Poplar Grove.
Buller has been severely criticized for allowing the Boers to retreat
unpursued, taking with them all but two of their guns. Assuming however that
his appreciation of the situation was correct, he probably acted wisely. He
thought that his first duty was to put food into Ladysmith. All his guns,
except one Field Battery at Colenso and one Horse Artillery Battery with
Burn-Murdoch, as well as all his supply and regimental transport, were still
on the right bank of the Tugela, for the crossing of which he had but one
pontoon bridge. He therefore decided that the wagons must have precedence,
and that the army must wait.
He
was misled by his recollections and by his experience of the Parthian
tactics of the burghers whom he commanded during the Zulu War of 1879, and
from whom he says he learnt "all that he knew" about rearguards. He believed
"that an attempt to force a Boer rearguard is merely a waste of men." Yet
only a week had passed since he told White that he thought there was "only a
rearguard" between him and Ladysmith.
Thus in the glamour of an ancient rearguard reputation the enemy
disappeared.
Footnote 28:
Not the Green Hill near Spion Kop. There were several Green Hills on the
left bank of the Tugela.
Footnote 29:
White, however, said that he saw no signs of a general retreat.
Footnote 30:
The Cochrane daring and resourcefulness were not confined to the men of the
clan. During the Jacobite troubles Grizel Cochrane, when her father was
sentenced to death for treason, turned highway-woman, and held up the coach
which was bringing his death warrant from London, and abstracted it from the
mail-bag.
