"L'art de la guerre
n'est que l'art d'augmenter les chances pour soi." Napoleon.
ENEMY FORCES INVEST
THE DIAMOND FIELDS: KEKEWICH LEARNS THAT ALARMIST REPORTS HAVE REACHED THE
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
WESSELS' ULTIMATUM TO
KEKEWICH
On the morning of 4th
November, it was reported from the Premier Mine that a flag of truce,
accompanied by a large party of the enemy, was approaching the redoubt
there; instructions were sought. It was at first thought that an attack was
about to be made on the post, but, if this had been the original intention,
the Boers changed their minds; before the party had come within range of our
guns, the main escort halted and the flag of truce came forward with a small
staff. Instructions were sent to the O.C. (O'Brien) that the parlementaire
should be taken, with the usual precautions, to the military Headquarters
(in Lennox Street). This was done. The parlementaire was the bearer of a
communication (in Dutch) from Head Commandant Wessels, of the Orange Free
State, to Kekewich, who was called upon to surrender Kimberley
unconditionally. Wessels, in his ultimatum, which expired at 6 a.m. on
Monday, 6th November, requested Kekewich, should he not accede to the
request therein contained, to remove all women and children from Kimberley.
It was further intimated that the Boer Head Commandant was willing to
receive into his camp Afrikander families, who might desire to leave
Kimberley.
Kekewich had from the
earliest days of the siege recognized that Rhodes occupied an exceptional
position, not only by virtue of his rank as a Privy Councillor, but also by
reason of the high offices he had held under the Crown; he had, therefore,
ever been willing and ready to consult him on all matters which affected the
defence of Kimberley on the civil, as distinct from the strictly military,
side. Consequently, after the notice (which it was intended to publish in
the local newspaper) announcing that a demand for the surrender of Kimberley
had been received from the Head Commandant of the Boer Forces had been
drafted, Kekewich sent a staff officer to the Sanatorium Hotel, with
instructions that the draft was to be shown to Rhodes. An officer
accordingly went off there and placed the draft notice before Rhodes; the
latter, after reading the document, stated that he did not approve the terms
of the notice as drafted. Rhodes thought that it would be unwise to make the
announcement that the ultimatum contained a request for the removal of all
women and children from Kimberley, such an announcement might, he said,
cause unnecessary alarm; he agreed, however, that the special invitation to
the Afrikander families should be published, expressing, at the same time,
strong views on the subject of the differentiation in the treatment offered
to the two classes of the white population. The draft was accordingly at
once modified in such a way as to conform with the views on the subject
expressed by Rhodes' who signified his approval of the alterations made and
of the final draft. This was taken back to the Kimberley Club, where
Kekewich was at the moment; he approved of the alterations made at Rhodes'
suggestion. The Editor of the Diamond Fields Advertiser, as was his wont,
called at the Press Censor's office (in the Kimberley Club) during the
afternoon, and he was shown the draft notice approved by Rhodes, and also
the translation of the ultimatum and, indeed, the original document too.
Authority was given for an announcement to appear in the paper that a "flag
of truce" had come into the besieged town from the Boer headquarters; the
announcement appeared in the issue for 6th November. Next day, a fair copy
of the notice relating to the "ultimatum was sent to the Diamond Fields
Advertiser in normal course; it was published, together with a "leader" on
the subject, in the issue of the 8th. So it will be seen that Kekewich made
neither a secret nor a mystery of the communication received by him from
Head Commandant Wessels at the time. Three weeks later, the Kimberley
troops, during one of their sorties, found a copy of the Volkstem, a Dutch
newspaper, in the enemy's trenches and brought it into the town with them.
The paper was sent to the Intelligence Office and was found to contain the
full text of the correspondence between Wessels and Kekewich. By this time
the public had grown accustomed to the Boer shelling, and, the military
authorities having reason to believe that the actual text of Wessels'
ultimatum had become widely known in the town, Kekewich decided that nothing
was to be gained by keeping from the public the actual terms of Wessels'
ultimatum and his reply thereto. In these circumstances, the copy of the
Volkstem in question was sent to the Editor of the Diamond Fields Advertiser
and he was given authority to reproduce the correspondence, should he so
desire; he took advantage of the offer and the copies of the letters in
question were published in the issue of the paper for 28th November.
A rather fuller
account of this incident is given here than perhaps its importance deserves.
The reason for this is that later in the siege, and also after the relief of
Kimberley, Rhodes' partisans tried to make mischief out of the fact that the
full text of Wessels' ultimatum was not published immediately on its
receipt. They, further, tried to create prejudice against Kekewich and his
Staff for the manner in which the matter had been handled, alleging that to
their wrong methods was it due that British women and children had lost
their lives during the Boer bombardment of the town. Some of Rhodes'
partisans even went so far as to suggest that Rhodes himself had prompted
them to attack the military in relation to this matter: their action is
reminiscent of the deception practised, by other partisans of Rhodes, on the
Times newspaper in connection with the Jameson Raid. On that occasion, in
the letter of invitation to Jameson, the cry was also raised of the peril in
which "women and children of our race" were placed.
It may be of interest to place on record here that one family only (five
persons in all) accepted Wessels' special invitation to the Afrikanders;
they were given permits as soon as they applied for them. It should further
be stated that it was not feasible for many reasons to form a "women's
laager" outside Kimberley; of the localities suitable for such a laager, the
choice lay between Barkly West and Modder River—at least twenty-four miles
away. In view of the fact that a number of the women in Kimberley had
deliberately come into the town for protection, it was hardly likely that
they would have gone out again voluntarily. And so far as a compulsory
removal is concerned, it will be seen later that Rhodes and the De Beers
Board strongly opposed the proposal which was made a few weeks later for the
removal from the Diamond Fields of the civil population on the arrival of
the Relief Column in Kimberley.
A TRYING SITUATION
In order presumably
to signal the fact that the time limit laid down in Wessels' ultimatum had
expired, the Boers fired two shells into the Premier Mine Redoubt at 7 p.m.
on the 6th. No damage was done by these projectiles, but next morning, as
day broke, the situation to the north-east of Kimberley appeared to be
serious. The officer on watch in the Conning Tower called Kekewich's
attention to a large mass of men scattered to the north-eastward of
Kenilworth— one of the weak points in our defence line; they appeared to be
advancing against our positions in that locality, and were already within
some 1,500 yards of our works. As soon as the R.A. officer in command of the
guns at the "Crusher Redoubt" observed the living mass which was approaching
the Kimberley defences, he brought his guns into action and opened fire.
Fortunately, it was soon discovered that our shells were being fired not at
Boers but at unarmed natives; Kekewich quickly ascertained that this was so,
and immediately ordered the "cease fire" to be sounded. It was afterwards
learnt that 3,000 natives had been released from the De Beers compounds
during the night under Rhodes' orders, but no notification of the fact had
been sent to the military authorities, and accordingly the troops had not
been warned. The intention was that these natives should return to their
homes in Basutoland, in order thus to reduce the number of mouths to be fed.
This project Kekewich was in every way willing to assist the De Beers
Company to carry out; but; it could only succeed if small numbers were sent
out at a time. The farms in the Orange Free State were in many cases
inhabited by women and children only, so that, quite apart from military
reasons for preventing the exodus from Kimberley, the Boers were not likely
to allow us to turn these natives loose into their territory. Consequently,
as soon as they reached the enemy's lines they were turned back. In this
instance the whole affair was badly managed and the incident had a
disturbing effect on the minds of the free natives in the town. Further,
very considerable difficulty was experienced in again compounding these
3,000 "boys." It was indeed fortunate that the Boers were not enterprising
enough to make an attempt to rush Kenilworth under cover of the screen
formed by the returning natives.
Nevertheless, in
order to show how deadly in earnest they were, the Boers began at 5.30 on
the morning of the 7th, to bombard the south-western defences of Kimberley
from a position on the Wimbledon Ridge, which lay to the north of the
Spytfontein position. The shelling continued until 11 a.m. and then ceased
for a few hours; probably the Boer gunners wanted a rest after their
strenuous exertions which resulted in the wasting of a good deal of
ammunition, for no serious damage was done. The bombardment recommenced at 5
p.m. and continued until dusk. The enemy's artillery occupied a position
approximately 9,000 yards from our nearest work, "Fort Kumo." The people
treated the whole thing as a huge joke, while some of the more daring of the
youngsters lay in wait in positions close to where the shells were falling
and scrambled for the fragments of the projectiles after their explosion.
Orders were, of course, issued immediately to prevent a recurrence of such
acts of recklessness on the part of the juvenile population.
The Boer artillery
was silent on the 8th, but it was observed that the enemy was particularly
active on Carter's Ridge, some 5,500 yards west of the Reservoir Redoubt.
This seemed to point to the fact that the Boers realized that their guns on
Wimbledon Ridge were too distant to do any effective shooting and had
probably decided to move a part, at least, of their artillery into a
position from which it could be sure of doing some execution.
BULLER CALLS FOR AN
APPRECIATION OF THE SITUATION
As soon as the
telegraph lines to the south were cut, Kekewich's Intelligence Department
organized a communication service, and despatch-riders (generally men of the
Cape Police) and native "runners" were sent from Kimberley to the nearest
British post south of the town. These men were employed in a three-fold
capacity: they carried official despatches from and to Kimberley; they acted
as intelligence agents and endeavoured to locate the Boer laagers and
ascertain the number of burghers and guns in each; and they played the part
of mounted postmen taking private letters out of Kimberley and bringing
private letters, and sometimes newspapers, into the besieged town. In the
early days of the siege, the " runners " went out in pairs every night, but
when the enemy closed in, they were often unable to get out and occasionally
were shot dead by the Boers.
The newspapers
brought into Kimberley in this way gave us news of the course of events in
Natal and the arrangements being made by the Home Government for the conduct
of the war. Information concerning Sir Redvers Buller's departure from
England and of his arrival at Cape Town at the end of October also reached
Kimberley in this way. The despatch-riders and "runners" who returned to
Kimberley during the first weeks of the siege reported that Boer commandos
had taken up positions at Honey Nest Kloof and at Belmont; according to the
best estimate that could be made, there appeared to be between 4,000 and
5,000 burghers with 9-pdr. guns—numbers not ascertained—along the stretch of
railway extending from Spytfontein to Belmont railway station. All the
information relating to the enemy collected in Kimberley was always reported
to the nearest British post south of the town, with a request that it should
be compared with that received from other sources.
Some minor
differences had taken place between Rhodes and Kekewich after the first week
of the siege but they had not been allowed to interfere with their personal
relations and Kekewich continued to consult Rhodes on many matters,
imparting to him all information obtained concerning the enemy. However,
Rhodes was now becoming more and more impatient at the delay which was
taking place in the relief of Kimberley, and particularly so as Kekewich
could give him no information as to what was being done in this matter by
the Commander-in-Chief. The fact is that Kekewich was himself completely in
the dark as to the intentions of his military superiors. From the beginning
of November, the investment of Kimberley had become so close that it was
difficult to get the native "runners" either out of or into the town and for
several consecutive days Kimberley was completely isolated. However, on the
night of 9th/10th November, a knock was heard at the door of the hut at the
foot of the Conning Tower; its occupants were dozing— it was then about
midnight. The door of the hut was quickly opened and outside it stood a
non-commissioned officer with a native "runner"; the latter had come in from
the Orange River railway bridge with a despatch, having managed to elude the
Boer patrols owing to the darkness of the night. The despatch was a short
one and was quickly deciphered; it had been sent by the Commander-in-Chief
himself and ran as follows: "Civilians in Kimberley representing situation
there as serious. Have heard nothing about this from you. Send appreciation
of the situation immediately."
The tenour of Sir R.
Buller's message took Kekewich completely by surprise. It was evident that
the signatories to the communications referred to by the Commander-in-Chief
were important personages, otherwise no notice would have been taken of
their representations in relation to the military situation. It also seemed
clear that they had kept Kekewich deliberately in the dark in connection
with their intention to get their views known in the highest quarters in
Cape Town. Kekewich had had frequent interviews with Rhodes since 21st
October, the date upon which he had received the High Commissioner's message
for Rhodes, and he was in the closest touch . with the then Mayor
(Henderson); but neither of them had given him the smallest hint that they
were proposing to send, or had actually sent, messages to the High
Commissioner as to the situation in Kimberley, or indeed on any other
subject. It was much later that it leaked out that, at the instigation of
Rhodes, messages had been sent to the High Commissioner by Rhodes, by the De
Beers Board, by the Mayor (Henderson), by the Members of the Cape
Legislative Assembly then in Kimberley, and by certain highly placed
Government officials.
As in the case of the first message sent by Rhodes to the High Commissioner,
so also in these instances, no permit was obtained for the despatch-riders
sent south with the batches of messages referred to here.
In view of the fact
that Kekewich and his Staff were ignorant of the character of the
representations made by Rhodes and his friends, and that it was not even
hinted by Buller in his message to Kekewich that these series of telegrams
were "all crying out loudly for relief, and one of them hinting at surrender
if relief were withheld,"
it was somewhat difficult to prepare a reply to the Commander-in-Chief's
message. Kekewich might have delayed his reply for twenty-four hours and
endeavoured to obtain copies of the communications which, it is now known,
were sent to the High Commissioner, but it was as likely as not that Rhodes
might have taken up the attitude, as, indeed, he did later, that Kekewich
had no right to interfere in respect of communications passing between
himself and the High Commissioner. In these circumstances, it would have
been impossible to see the text of his message, and the friction, which was
already bad enough, would have been increased. Further, the night appeared
to be a good one for the "runners" to elude the vigilance of the Boer
patrols and the opportunity of getting them through the enemy lines was one
not to be lost. After fully considering the situation as a whole, an
appreciation was drafted; the first thing to be done was to assure the
Commander-in-Chief that the dangers threatening Kimberley were not so
immediate as the messages from the civilians seemed to indicate. Therefore
in the opening sentence, it was definitely stated: "Situation in Kimberley
not critical." However, Kekewich recognized that a rapid change in the
situation might occur, and he thought it right to let the Commander-in-Chief
know that there were certain important factors which would have to be
reckoned with. Consequently, he explained that the situation might become
critical if the enemy should show more activity and bring heavier guns, and
a larger number of them, into action against our defences; if the
expenditure of ammunition should be greater than heretofore, and if
continuous duty in the trenches should tell on the health of the Town Guard.
The reason for the
amplification of the opening statement in the appreciation was due to the
fact that (a) a rumour had reached Kimberley that Cronje was coming south
from Mafeking and bringing siege guns with him for an attack on Kimberley;
(b) when the siege started there were only 2,600 rounds of 7-pdr. ammunition
and some two million rounds only of S.A.A. in Kimberley; and (c) although
the men enrolled in the Town Guard had shown an excellent spirit and had
responded most cheerfully to all calls made on them, yet Kekewich realized
that many of them had passed the prime of life and were men who had not been
accustomed to roughing it, and he feared that the exposure in the trenches
in all kinds of weather, by night as well as by day, might injuriously
affect their health.
The appreciation
containing Kekewich's views having been put into cipher, as there still
remained a sufficient period of darkness to enable "runners" to pass through
the Boer lines without being detected, a couple of them, who had been held
in readiness, were started off on their perilous journey to the Orange River
railway bridge. It was later learnt that they had reached their destination
safely. Kekewich was naturally disturbed by the fact that messages could be
sent out of Kimberley without his knowledge, and that of his Staff, not only
by Rhodes, but also by others, owing to the barrier guards failing to comply
with their orders. He felt that should messages containing information, en
clair, of a military character be sent out of Kimberley and fall into enemy
hands, harm might be done; accordingly fresh regulations were drawn up with
a view to ensuring greater strictness being observed in the matter.
BOER ARTILLERY
OCCUPIES CARTER'S RIDGE
It had been
suspected, as already mentioned, that the activity shown by the enemy on
Carter's Ridge was due to a desire on his part to bring his guns closer to
our defences than was the case in the positions hitherto occupied on
Wimbledon Ridge. This surmise proved to be correct. At 5.15 a.m. on 11th
November, enemy guns began shelling Kimberley from positions on Carter's
Ridge. The bombardment was very brisk for the first hour and then slackened;
shells fell in the streets of the town as well as in the redoubts—one of the
first of them killed an unfortunate Kaffir woman in the main street at a
point not far from the Kimberley Club. The fire of the 7-pdr. guns at the
Reservoir Redoubt, it was evident, was quite ineffective against the
superior Boer artillery in action on Carter's Ridge; consequently a
detachment of mounted men was sent out under Scott Turner to harass the Boer
gunners, and, taking up a position within 1,200 yards of their guns, they
succeeded by well-aimed long-range rifle fire in slowing down the rate of
fire of the Boer artillery.
From very early days
after Kimberley was isolated, it had been Labram's practice to join Kekewich
in the Conning Tower shortly after daybreak. Labram was a great favourite
with all the soldiers; he had a great admiration for Kekewich, who on his
part, had a great regard for De Beers' Chief Mechanical Engineer, not alone
on account of his very valuable work in connection with the defence works on
the Diamond Fields, but also on account of his amiable disposition and his
ever-willing readiness to help. Labram possessed many of the qualities of
the best Americans; he was most discreet, and Kekewich felt that he could be
trusted with all our secrets. Further, his humorous ways and sayings did
much to brighten the dreary morning watches in the Conning Tower. The
insufficiency of our ammunition supplies had often been discussed with
Labram in the Conning Tower, where many a scheme in connection with the
defence of the Diamond City saw birth. On Labram's arrival in the Conning
Tower on the morning of 12th November, the conversation at once turned to
the subject of the new Boer artillery position on Carter's Ridge. It was
evident that the new situation necessitated an increase in the daily
allowance of ammunition to our guns, and this caused the conversation to
drift on to the question of the replenishment of our stock, should the
consumption be at such a rate as to exhaust our supplies before relief came.
Labram at once came to the rescue. He had not previously had any experience
in relation to the manufacture of war material, and consequently proceeded
to make inquiries as to the various types of projectiles and fuzes in use in
the British Army. This information was supplied by one of Kekewich's staff
officers, who also showed him some of the shells fired into Kimberley the
previous day, which were almost intact. A few Boer percussion fuzes, also
only slightly damaged, were also given to him. After making a careful
examination of them, he remarked: "I guess I can make things like these all
right; I only want a requisition from you now." The requisition was, it is
needless to say, sent at once, and four days later, the moulders in De Beers
workshop were busy casting segment shell for our artillery. The difficulty
of providing suitable cartridges for use with the De Beers shell was also
ingeniously overcome by Labram. Powder of a description suitable for
artillery purposes was naturally unobtainable on the Diamond Fields;
however, large quantities of blasting powder and also of sporting powder
were procurable in the town. Labram mixed the two kinds of powder in
different ratios and carried out a number of experiments to ascertain the
pressures generated on explosion by the different blends. He thus
ascertained in exactly what proportions the two sorts of powders should be
mixed together to propel the shell being manufactured by him with the proper
muzzle velocity to suit the sighting of our guns and without producing
dangerous pressures in the gun-tubes. Labram also designed and manufactured
a very effective percussion fuse for our new 7-pdr. ammunition. Kekewich's
anxieties on the score of the possible failure of artillery ammunition
supply were therefore entirely removed owing to the genius of Labram.
TWO EXTRAORDINARY
PROPOSALS
Kekewich's anxieties
as regards his artillery ammunition supply certainly ceased to trouble him,
but this did not mate our 7-pdr. guns a match for the Boer 9-pdr. and
15-pdr. guns. From now onwards, the Boer gunners paid Kimberley and
Beaconsfield quite a lot of attention. As our guns were handicapped in the
matter of range and the destroying power of their projectiles, Kekewich
resorted to the tactics that had proved so successful on 11th November. He
made it a practice to push small parties of dismounted men to within long
rifle-range of the enemy's artillery positions; these men harassed the Boer
gunners with their volleys all day long and succeeded in keeping down the
rate of fire of their artillery.
The absence of
information in Kimberley as to the intentions of the Commander-in-Chief
began by the middle of November to cause Rhodes some uneasiness. Kekewich
was as much in the dark on the subject of relief measures as were the
privates serving under him; he was therefore unable to answer Rhodes'
repeated inquiries as to what was being done in the matter. The latter had
now become extremely irritable and at one of his interviews with Kekewich he
made it appear that his chief concern was now for the safety of Mafeking. No
information had been received by Kekewich suggesting that this place was in
any serious jeopardy; it was, of course, known that a tolerably large force
of Boers, estimated at between 5,000 and 6,000 burghers, was engaging
Baden-Powell's attention, but he appeared to be more than holding his own.
Consequently, Kekewich's surprise was great when he was told by Rhodes that
it seemed unlikely that British troops would be sent up from the Orange
River in time to save Mafeking and therefore it was Kekewich's duty to
undertake the task. Rhodes now wanted the Kimberley mounted troops to be
utilized for this purpose. Kekewich quietly pointed out to Rhodes that the
operation suggested by him was not a feasible one for many reasons: the
troops would require to take supplies with them for the journey of 220
miles—at least ten days' march—and he had not transport for this; there was,
too, the risk of the Kimberley troops meeting, whilst on the march, an enemy
force superior in numbers, and even provided with artillery; the mere
addition to the Mafeking garrison of some 800 mounted men, even supposing
that they were successful in fighting their way into the place, might prove
inconvenient to Baden-Powell should he be situated as regards food supplies
as we were in Kimberley—Kekewich was entirely without information on this
subject; and, most important of all, Kimberley could not even temporarily do
without its mounted troops, forming as they did the most valuable part of
its reserve—the march to Mafeking and back, even if successful, was likely
to deprive Kimberley of one-sixth of its small garrison for the space of at
least twenty days. But Rhodes would not accept any of Kekewich's reasons as
being sound; in his view, it was not necessary for the troops to take either
food or forage, they should live on the country; the troops could march a
good deal to the west of the frontier and thus make sure of avoiding Boer
Commandos; with Baden-Powell's help the Kimberley troops could easily fight
their way into as well as out of Mafeking, and so on. Kekewich was very
patient, but Rhodes found that where purely military policy was concerned,
the Commandant of Kimberley was not to be moved into undertaking hazardous
enterprises, so Rhodes ended by completely losing his temper and became
violently abusive; as a parting shot, he shouted: "You are afraid of a mere
handful of farmers armed with rifles. You call yourselves soldiers of an
Empire-making nation. I do believe you will next take fright at a pair of
broomsticks dressed up in trousers. Give it up; give it up." And away he
went; it was obvious he had learnt no lesson from the fiasco of Jameson's
ride with his troopers to Doornkop in 1896.
A few days later,
Rhodes came to see Kekewich again. He was now in a different mood; it was
the safety of Kimberley that was uppermost in his mind. Rhodes complained
that the number of mounted men in Kimberley was insufficient for the needs
of the situation—yet only a few days earlier he had been immensely annoyed
with Kekewich for refusing to send this part of his command to Mafeking—and
he, therefore, wanted a mounted force of 2,000 men raised at once in Cape
Colony, the whole expense in connection with which he offered personally to
bear. He demanded that these 2,000 men should immediately be "thrown into
Kimberley," and requested Kekewich to communicate with the General at Cape
Town at once for the purpose of placing his (Rhodes') views before him.
Kekewich pointed out that he would naturally be delighted to have such an
addition to the troops already under his command; at the same time, he
explained that a force such as that mentioned by Rhodes took time to raise,
equip and train, and, further, trained officers were required as leaders.
The matter seemed to Kekewich one in which he could not well move, as a
representation of this kind might not be favourably received by his military
superiors, who were, Kekewich thought, fully alive to the needs of the
situation and probably had their hands already full in raising just the kind
of force Rhodes wanted. Kekewich was of opinion that Rhodes could place such
a suggestion before the High Commissioner direct and told him so. Rhodes was
not well pleased with the attitude Kekewich had taken up in this matter; he
was not willing to admit that some weeks must elapse even before so small a
force as 2,000 mounted men could be got ready for the field; he also
expressed the opinion that Kekewich was exaggerating the difficulties of
moving a force of 2,000 mounted men from the Orange River railway bridge to
Kimberley, a trifling distance of some seventy miles only. It was no good
trying to argue the point with Rhodes, and Kekewich, having listened to him
and, out of politeness, explained that certain important factors would have
to be considered before effect could be given by the military authorities at
Cape Town to Rhodes' suggestion, left the matter there— later, the proposal
that 2,000 volunteers should be raised for duty in Kimberley was put forward
by the De Beers Board in a letter addressed to the High Commissioner on 8th
December.
