After the British defeat at Amajuba,
and the subsequent retrocession of the Transvaal to the victorious Boers,
the ardent loyalty of the colonists of Natal seemed all of a sudden to sink
almost to extinction. But it was alive nevertheless, and as warm as ever..
Its apparent diminution was the result partly of their vexation that, while
they saw clearly what political wisdom required to be done for progress and
freedom in their corner of the Empire, the leaders of the English Parliament
appeared to be blind to it; partly of anger that they and the other
loyalists of South Africa had been so lightly and heartlessly sacrificed to
the Boers. For years, and with growing impatience, they watched the
increasing arrogance and tyranny of the Transvaal oligarchy, in the
expectation, rising at length to certainty, that the time was coming when
the cup of Boer iniquity would be full and the Home Government be forced to
reverse the Gladstonian policy. The accession of Mr. Chamberlain to the
Colonial Office, with his firm and well-known conviction of the importance
of Britain beyond the Seas, and his sympathy with the feelings of colonists,
was the first sign to Natalians that a new order of things would soon begin
in South Africa. Then followed in close succession, and in the same hopeful
direction, the appointment of Sir Alfred Milner, as High Commissioner; his
quick perception of the real object of the Boers of Graaf-Reinet:—"Loyal! it
would be monstrous if you were not"; and his conference with Paul Kruger at
Bloemfontein as the forlorn hope of peace.
The discovery of the rich gold
fields of the Witwatersrand not only saved the Dutch Government of the
Transvaal from fast approaching bankruptcy, but poured into their hands, as
they thought, the means of realising an idea which had taken possession of
their minds since Amajuba, viz., of ousting British rule from South Africa
and erecting a Dutch Republic which should extend from Cape Town to the
Zambezi. With this object in view they spent, but secretly under the name of
public works, a large part of their annual revenue, which in ten years had
increased twentyfold, in the purchase of guns, rifles, .and ammunition, and
the hire of trained artillerymen, from France and Germany. They also built
forts, in Johannesburg to overawe and quell the Uitlanders, and around
Pretoria as bulwarks of that city's protection. The Uitlanders were
forbidden to own firearms of any kind, and though they outnumbered the
Burghers, and contributed at least nine-tenths of the revenue that flowed
into the public treasury, they were denied civil rights and the smallest
voice in the control and distribution of the finances. When they clamoured
for the franchise, it was promised them on their fulfilment of certain
conditions that at first seemed fair and realisable. But as the time drew
near when the conditions would soon be complied with, new laws were again
and again passed which raised the qualifications required for
enfranchisement, till it became clear that there was no intention to admit
the Uitlanders to burgher rights. The promised franchise was like the mirage
of the desert; it vanished as it was approached. Paul Kruger and his clique,
like the witches in Macbeth, paltered with the Uitlanders in a double sense,
they kept the word of promise to the ear but broke it to the hope. Their
determination to keep political power exclusively to themselves was revealed
by the President himself, in an unwary moment, when he replied to an
advocate of the Uitlanders, "You see that flag? If I grant the franchise, I
may as well pull it down." In reality it was not a republic that the
Transvaal was zealous to maintain, but an oligarchy by the Boer minority of
its inhabitants. In the Cape Colony and Natal, Dutch and British colonists
were politically on an •equality; but in the Transvaal Republic, British
subjects were the helots of the Dutch. The injustice of the Boer Government
towards the British advanced so near to the end of human endurance that in
March, 1899, a petition, signed by 21,000 of them, was sent Home containing
a statement of their grievances and a prayer that Her Majesty, as Suzerain
of the Transvaal, would protect her subjects there, secure a reform of the
abuses they complained of, and a recognition of their rights. Sir Alfred
Milner, in a despatch to Mr. Chamberlain, informed him that the position of
the Uitlanders was intolerable and that the case for intervention was
overwhelming. On the 30th May, at Bloemfontein, the High Commissioner met
the Presidents of the two Dutch Republics in conference. He insisted on the
redress of the Uitlanders' grievances, but as President Kruger's concessions
were unsatisfactory, the conference came to nothing.
The propaganda of Dutch
republicanism, which had its headquarters in
Pretoria, was a specially bitter grievance to loyal Natalians, because it
was inciting within their borders to a civil war for which neither they nor
their Government had given the slightest provocation. For more than half a
century Britons and Boers had lived in Natal side by side in amity. In
markets and agricultural shows, sports, and rifle associations, they had
bargained and vied with one another to their mutual advantage and enjoyment.
The Government of Natal had treated both races alike, or, if it had made any
difference between them, the balance of favour had been on the side of the
Boers. The town constituencies, which were almost exclusively British,
returned fewer members of Parliament, in proportion to the number of voters,
than those of the country; and consequently, at the outbreak of the Boer
war, Natal had what was with good reason called a farmers' Parliament. The
system of farmhouse schools carried education, in Dutch as well as in
English, to isolated and outlying families all over the Colony. And it was
the Dutch farmers of Umvoti, Klip River, and Weenen Counties who primarily
enjoyed that security of life and property which the Imperial Government had
won for South Africa when it broke the power of the Zulus in 1879. In short,
Natal had enabled Briton and Boer to live together in peace and comfort in
the only way possible, by treating both alike on a footing of equality. And
what return were the Natal British to get from their Boer fellow-colonists
for having dealt with them as brothers? As time passed on after the
declaration of war, colonial towns, occupied almost entirely by British
tradesmen and artisans, were seized and plundered; the homesteads of British
farmers, as far south as Mooi River,, were singled out by former neighbours
for wanton destruction;. and if the Boers had taken Maritzburg, as they were
confident they would, their intention was, and they did not blush to avow
it, to hold the women and children as hostages for the surrender of Natal.
Within a few weeks from the outbreak of the war there seemed to be nothing,
except the dilatoriness of the Boers themselves, to prevent the greeting,
telegraphed to the Transvaal President by General Louis Botha when he began
his march to invade Natal, from being temporarily fulfilled, "May the
Vierkleur soon wave over a free harbour." And all this misery and
humiliation was intended, and in part accomplished, for the realisation of a
vain dream of an Africander Republic from the Zambezi to Cape Town—a dream
that the leaders of the Africander Bond had beguiled the ignorant and
bigoted Boers with for twenty preceding years.
To appreciate the feelings and aims
of the South African Dutch it is necessary to recall to mind how they
fretted under the stringent rule of the British, their grievances which they
attributed to it, and the sacrifices which they made to escape from it
throughout the whole course of the century which closed with their effort to
expel it from South Africa. The Voortrekkers of 1837 left their homes in the
Cape Colony, thereby renouncing for ever, as they believed, the control of
the British over them, with the purpose, publicly declared by them at their
exodus, to seek peacefully and honestly for a home for themselves in the
wilderness. The fair and fertile land of Natal, swept almost clean of human
beings by Chaka, the Attila of South-East Africa, invited them to end their
wanderings in it, and they claimed to have won a freehold title to it by
their victory over Dingaan at the Blood River. After a fruitless struggle to
retain it, and smarting with the sense that they had been wrongfully
dispossessed, they, relinquished the prize to which Great Britain asserted
and enforced her prior claim. Resuming their trek, they found across the
Vaal River a settlement ample enough to gratify to the full their love of
isolation and individualism, and there for a whole generation they lived
their own manner of life, almost free from authority of any kind and
entirely liberated from alien interference. The Transvaal Boers of 1899,
were the sons and grandsons of the Voortrekkers and the heirs of their
spirit and traditions. At the close of the year 1880, they began what
everybody outside their borders scoffed at as a hopeless war to undo the
British annexation of their country in 1877, and in three months' time they
ended it with a world's wonder—their acquisition of self-government under
the suzerainty of Great Britain. Elated by the result of their successful
skirmish at Amajuba, magnified by them into a Marathonian triumph, and
enriched with the gold which they drew without toil and in ever increasing
volume from the mines of Johannesburg, they would have been more than human
if they had not grown to count their prowess as invincible and their
resources as unfailing, and to arrogate to themselves, a numerically
insignificant band of simple farmers, the right to keep in perpetual
subordination the growing multitude of immigrant Uitlanders from Britain,
America, Germany, and France, the strongest and most enlightened countries
of the world. Their courage might win applause from brave men, but their
infatuation could only be deplored by their best friends. They had to learn
with pain and disappointment the lesson which reason and history should have
taught them, that their endeavours to arrest the onward march of
civilization and enterprise in South Africa would be as futile as Mrs.
Partington's to sweep back the tide of the Atlantic with her mop.
On the 22nd September, Mr.
Chamberlain broke off the unavailing attempts,—which he had continued, with
unexpected patience, much longer than was consistent with prudent
consideration for British supremacy in South Africa,—to persuade the
Transvaal Government to deal justly and fairly with the Uitlanders. In a
despatch of that date he informed President Kruger that it was useless to
continue the discussion which had lasted for months, and that the British
Government would consider the matter afresh and make their own proposals for
the settlement of the question. To that despatch President Kruger replied on
the 9th October, with the concurrence of President Steyn of the Free State,
with an ultimatum which was to be accepted by the British Government, or war
would be declared by the two Dutch Republics, within forty-eight hours. The
ultimatum demanded:—(1) That all British troops near the border should be
instantly withdrawn. (2) That all recently arrived reinforcements should be
removed from South Africa. (3) That the troops then on the sea should not be
landed. Of course the answer to this "audacious defiance" as Lord Salisbury
termed it, could be no other than instant rejection.
The official reply from London,
dated 10th October and despatched through Sir Alfred Milner, was in these
words: — "Her Majesty's Government have received with great regret the
peremptory demands of the Government of the South. African Republic,
conveyed in your telegram of the 9th October. You will inform the Government
of the South. African Republic in reply that the conditions demanded by the
Government of the South African Republic are such as her Majesty's
Government deem it impossible to discuss."
Mr. Conyngham Greene, Her Majesty's
representative in the Transvaal, at once quitted Pretoria, and the Boers
hurried on their preparations for the invasion of Natal.
Natalians, thoroughly convinced that
under Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Alfred Milner there would be no repetition of
the Amajuba surrender, and knowing besides that it was not the Transvaal
only that was at stake now, as in the Boer War of 1881, but the whole of
British South Africa, at once took up arms and entered with grim
determination on the long-foreseen conflict. The whole Empire knows, and has
handsomely-acknowledged, the loyal service rendered by Natal in the three
years' war that began in 1899.
In anticipation of an inevitable war
between the South African Republic and the British Empire, the officer
commanding the Natal Carbineers had taken steps to prepare his regiment to
mobilize at the shortest notice. Mobilization orders, with the date left
blank, had been issued to all squadron officers, and it only required a
telegram of one word to each squadron leader to set the wh.ole regimental
machinery in motion. At last the day arrived when Briton was ordered out to
face Boer, for on the morning of the 29th September, 1899, the day after
President Kruger commandeered his burghers, orders were received for the
Regiment to mobilize for active service. The "one word" was duly wired to
each squadron leader, and the Carbineers were once again buckling on their
armour.
At this time the Natal Carbineers
Regiment was officered, as follows: —
STAFF:
Lieut-Colonel
E. M. Greene, Commanding.
Major C. E. Taunton.
Major D. McKenzie.
Major G. J. Macfarlane.
Major C. B. Addison.
Captain J. Weighton, Adjutant.
Captain A. Lyle, Quartermaster.
SQUADRON OFFICERS:
No. 1 Squadron (Head Quarters).
Lieut.
C. N. H. Rodwell;
Lieut. A. C. Townsend;
Lieut. W. E. C. Tanner.
No, 2
Squadron (Head Quarters).
Capt. W.
S. Shepstone;
Lieut.
W. J. Gallwey;
Lieut.
G. W. Nourse.
No. 3
Squadron (Nottingham Road and Camperdown).
Capt. A.
Hair;
Lieut.
B. Crompton;
Lieut.
W. Bartholomew.
No. 4
Squadron (Richmond and Richmond Road).
Capt. F.
S. Foxon;
Lieut.
E. Lucas;
Lieut.
W. Comrie.
No. 5
Squadron (Estcourt and Weenen,).
Lieut.
D. W. Mackay.
No. 6
Squadron (Ladysmith).
Lieut. G. F. Tatham;
Lieut. D. Sparks.
No. 7
Squadron (Dundee and Newcastle).
Capt. C. G. Willson;
Lieut. W. A. Vanderplank;
Lieut. W. T. Gage.
During the campaign there were
promoted to commissioned rank: —as Lieutenants, A. W. Smallie, T. M. Owen,
R. Ash-burnham, J. P. S. Woods, T. Duff, R. A. Cockburn, and A.
Wylde-Browne; and promotions amongst the officers were: — Capt. Weighton to
be Major; Lieutenants Rodwell, Nourse, Crompton and Lucas to be Captains.
Lieut. T. M. Owen was appointed
Paymaster to the Volunteer Brigade and remained in Maritzburg where he did
excellent service during the campaign.
Captain Crompton, upon promotion,
was given command of No. 3 Squadron, Captain Hair taking over the command of
No. 5 Squadron.
Captain G. F. Tatham was, early in
the siege of Ladysmith, placed on the Volunteer Brigade Staff, and continued
in that position till the relief.
Lieut. Ashburnham obtained leave to
proceed to England in March, 1900, and did not return.
The following officers of the Natal
Medical Corps were attached to the Regiment from time to time, and their
services were very highly appreciated:—Captains O. J. Currie and R. A.
Buntine, and Lieutenants H. B. Currie and J. E. Briscoe (attached to No. 5
Squadron on the Relief Column). There were also attached from time to time
the following Veterinary Surgeons:—Lieutenants J. P. Byrne, F. Verney (No. 5
Squadron, Relief Column), and S. T. Amos.
At the outbreak of the war, and
during the siege of Ladysmith, the Regimental Sergt.-Major was that smart
little soldier "Benny" Bowen, late 3rd Dragoon Guards. When the Regiment
reached Highlands after the siege he fell ill of enteric fever and succumbed
to the disease. He was an excellent warrant officer, and all the time he was
with the Carbineers he was most popular. As his successor the Regiment was
fortunate in securing Staff Sergt. W. Burkimsher of the 9th Lancers, a man
who in every way has proved himself worthy of the responsible position which
he still holds.
By the evening of the 1st October,
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 squadrons were in Ladysmith. Two or three days later
they were joined there by the Newcastle troop, and on the 26th October by
that of Dundee, owing to the evacuation of the towns from which these troops
respectively took their names, The Ladysmith squadron, being composed of
local men, was detailed to
furnish guides for practically every unit in the garrison as well as for
units on outpost duly, and the services rendered by them in that capacity
were highly appreciated. The remaining squadron, No. 5 of Estcourt and
Weenen, kept to their own recruiting ground. Under the command of the
gallant and capable Major Duncan McKenzie, who had hurried back from England
to take his place in the Regiment, the men of that squadron, by their
thorough knowledge of the ground, which for months to come was to be the
scene of the fiercest fighting in the whole course of the war, and their
acquaintance with the ways and wiles of the enemy, could not fail to be of
value in the field out of all proportion to their weakness in number.
Short of abandoning the cause of the
Uitlanders altogether the British Government did everything in their power
to avoid war in South Africa. They indicated their readiness to accept the
least concessions from the Transvaal that would deliver their clients from
degrading subservience; and even when their relations with the Republics
were strained to the breaking point, they purposely refrained from taking
the legitimate and prudential steps necessary for the defence of their South
African colonies, lest such action on their side should be taken on the
other as a challenge. In the middle of August, the total strength of the
Imperial force for the defence of the frontier, marching for hundreds of
miles with the Dutch Republics, was little over 6,000 men, consisting of two
regiments of cavalry, three batteries of field artillery, and six and a half
battalions of infantry. At such a crisis so ill met it is not surprising
that Lord Wolseley, the responsible administrator of the war department,
losing patience with the diplomatists still eagerly straining after a
hopeless peace, wrote to the Secretary of State on the 3rd September:—"We
have committed one of the greatest blunders in war, namely, we have given
the enemy the initiative. He is in a position to take the offensive and, by
striking the first blow, to ensure the great advantage of winning the first
round."
The Home Government's blunder, a
foiling which leaned to virtue's side, was foreseen by South African
loyalists long before it was pointed out by the Commander-in-Chief, and as
early as July, the attention of the Colonial Office was indirectly and
ineffectually called to it by the Government of Natal in a comparative
statement of the weakness of their colony, and the strength of the
Transvaal. On the 6th of September they sent a second and more pressing
appeal for help, which was so far successful that before the end of the
month the Imperial forces in the two South African colonies were raised to
22,000 men by reinforcements from India and the Mediterranean. Thankful for
this small relief, and yet aware of its inadequacy, the Natal Government
unfortunately impaired its insufficiency still further by a blunder of their
own. Sir George White, who had just then come to take supreme command of the
troops in Natal, would have drawn and kept together the army of 12,000 men
allotted to him, but advised by the Civil Government of the importance of
the coal fields, and assured by General Penn Symons that the force of 4,000
under him at Dundee was sufficient for their protection, he courteously
allowed his better Judgement to be overruled for a time. The mistake was
proved and paid for a short while after.
It was on the 20th October that the
first battle of the war was fought. Early in the morning of that day, the
troops, under General Penn Symons, suddenly discovered that Talana Hill,
which overlooked their camp and the town of Dundee, was occupied by the
enemy in force. At once the cavalry were sent round the left flank of the
Boers to intercept their retreat, the guns moved forward, unlimbered and
came into action in front at a range of 2,300 yards, and the infantry were
ordered to the enemy's right to storm the hill on that side. The three lines
of the Dublin Fusiliers, the Rifles, and the Irish Fusiliers passed the
first 1,000 yards of the advance with few casualties and reached the
plantation which stretched half-way up the hill. Between it and a rough
stone wall which ran below the summit, there lay an open space, several
hundreds of yards across. It was a fire zone such as the Gordons rushed
through at Dargai. Starting from the wood their losses were heavy, among
them the brave but over sanguine Penn Symons, before they reached the
shelter of the wall. Under its cover, they sorted themselves, and took
breath to face the 200 yards of boulder-strewn steep that rose above them.
Gallantly led by their officers, and pelted by the Boer riflemen in front
and shrapnell from their own artillery behind them, they scrambled their way
up, and the hill was won and cleared. The British loss was 41 killed and 180
wounded in the engagement, and 200 cavalry—18th Hussars and mounted infantry
of the Dublin Fusiliers and the Rifles—surrounded and taken prisoners by the
Boers in their retreat. And what was gained by the victory of Talana? It had
a two-fold moral gain: the Empire was reassured that as in the post there
was scarcely a task in war too arduous for the British soldier, and the
Boers were undeceived of their delusion that the conquest of Natal was to be
made with, but little trouble.
The day after the battle the Boers
mounted guns, superior in weight and range to those of their enemy, on
Impati, a hill farther than Talana from Dundee, and began, in security to
themselves, to shell the town and the British position. Shifting his camp
out of range, Colonel Yule, who succeeded General Penn Symons, hoped that
with reinforcements from Ladysmith he might still be able to guard the
collieries, and he telegraphed his plan to General White, The answer was:—"I
cannot reinforce you without sacrificing Ladysmith and the Colony behind.
You must try to fall back on Ladysmith, I will do what I may to help you
when nearer." So there was nothing for it but to evacuate Dundee. On the
22nd the retreat began, under the expert guidance of Colonel Dartnell of the
Natal Mounted Police, and by a circuitous route well to the eastward of the
railway, for it was known that the line had been cut by the Boers.
On the 21st October, the day after
Talana, Sir George White sent out General French with a sufficient force to
restore railway communication with his detachment at Dundee, As soon as the
British topped the rise above Elandslaagte the Boers hurriedly left the
station there, and, on the hills behind it, took up a strong position
fortified by the two Maxim-Nordenfelds taken nearly four yours ago from the
Jameson raiders. The Boer stronghold had to be approached over a series of
heights and hollows that alternately exposed and hid General French's
advancing lines, The enemy resisted stoutly to the very end, but the four
attacking battalions, in spite of their serious losses, pressed forward
unflinchingly, each straining emulously of the others, to reach the same
end—the Devons, the Manchesters, the Gordons determined to erase the blot of
Amajuba from their regimental records, and the Imperial Light Horse,
composed of refugees from the Rand. burning to requite their tormentors for
the insults they had had to bear from the failure of Jameson's raid till
their ignominious expulsion from Johannesburg. At the point of the bayonet,
and shouting "Majuba, Majuha !" they carried the summit and drove
off or captured the last of its defenders. The flight of the Boers was
turned into a rout when the Lancers and Dragoons, who had stolen round the
hill-foot to the rear, charged through the scattered fugitives once and
again before the darkness fell. The line of rail between Ladysmith and
Dundee was again clear of obstruction, but except for the capture of the
Boer guns, stores, and prisoners, Elandslaagte, like Talana, was a victory
of the Pyrrhic kind. The day following, owing to the swarming of the Free
State Boers as for the assault of Ladysmith, General White ordered French's
force to return with their utmost speed.
Mindful of his promise to General
Yule, Sir George White on the 24th marched from Ladysmith, with as large a
force as could safely be spared from the garrison there, and drew up his
lines at Rietfontein, about seven miles to the north-east. As usual the
Boers were in a strong posture of defence. They occupied the hill of Tinta
Inyoni on which they had contrived to drag up some of their guns of heavy
calibre. General White on his part had no mind to dislodge the enemy, while
the Boers, conceiving that to be his aim, kept on the defensive most of the
day. His object was to hold them where they were, and so prevent them from
intercepting the Dundee column, now little more than a day's march from
Ladysmith. The affair of Rietfontein should have been only an artillery
duel; but the Gloucester, by some mischance whose explanation was lost by
the death of the Colonel, advancing as if to the assault, exposed themselves
needlessly to the fire of the enemy's riflemen. Their losses were, their
commanding officer and five men killed, and forty wounded. The Natal
Carbineers, too, ordered from the right flank, to counter an outflanking
manoeuvre of the enemy on the British left, came under a destructive fire.
They lost, in killed, Sergt. A. E. Colville and Trooper W. Cleaver, and in
wounded, Troopers E. Taylor, E. Russel, W. J. Freeman, R. A. Richmond, P.
Ballantyne, G. W. Teasdale, R. J. Raw, R. J. Mason, and E. E. Smith. At the
close of a day designedly consumed in Fabian tactics, Sir George White led
his men back to Ladysmith. Early in the morning of the 26th, the column from
Dundee, smeared with mud, hungry, dazed from want of sleep, but not
dispirited, was received with cheers of admiration, and welcome by the
garrison in Ladysmith. The Boers had been staved off, the retreat of the
4,000 skilfully and successfully conducted, and the blunder of the Natal
Government rectified at last; but the achievement of it all had cost a high
price in lives and suffering.
It would have been too much to
expect of brave men that they should submit to a blockade without a
struggle. Besides, they foresaw that in the case of a siege. Long Hill and
Pepworth Hill, each about four miles distant, would be invaluable either as
bulwarks for the defence, or stations for the bombardment of the town. For
these reasons it was decided to offer battle on Monday the 30th. A bold plan
of operations for that day was carefully prepared, but in its execution it
went sadly awry, partly by misfortune and partly owing to an underestimate
of the enemy's strength in position and numbers. On the eve of the battle a
force of 1,100 men, with a battery of mountain guns on pack mules, set out
under the command of Colonel Carleton to occupy Nicholson's Nek and protect
the left flank of the fighting line. About the same time the Natal
Carbineers were sent out to the far right, with orders to hold the Nek
between Lombard's Kop and Bulwana at all costs, so that they might keep, for
General French's cavalry in their rear, a safe passage when the right time
came for the intended charge on the Boer left. With two squadrons Colonel
Greene held Bulwana, and Major Macfarlane with one squadron held Lombard's
Kop. At midnight the infantry and artillery commanded by Colonel Grimwood
moved out to take post for the attack of Long Hill, and a body of reserves
under Colonel Ian Hamilton followed them a few hours later.
On the way to Nicholson's Nek,
Carleton's mules unaccountably took fright and stampeded, carrying with them
the mountain guns and. all the ammunition except what had been served out to
the men. Fearing to press on to the Nek, Carleton climbed the nearest
koppie, and there, surrounded and more than decimated by riflemen under
cover, after fighting till their ammunition was spent, 37 officers and 917
men, the survivors of the party that should have covered General White's
left flank, surrendered to the Boers.
As the battle developed in the
morning General French, on the right wing, was surprised to find that the
enemy's line extended far beyond what was presupposed to be its limit on the
south-east, and it needed all his vigilance and skill to save himself from
being surrounded and cut off. The head of Colonel Grimwood's column marched
straight to the post assigned to it, but in the dark the guns in the middle
and the infantry following them turned off to the left. When daylight came
Colonel Grimwood, without guns and with only half his infantry, found his
task too much, for him, and from that time onward, while the battle lasted,
he had again and again to send for reinforcements, both from the stray part
of his own column and from the reserves, to enable him to hold his own.
Before midday, Sir George White was aware that his plan had miscarried, but
what at last settled his wavering decision was a message from Colonel Knox,
in charge of the small garrison left in Ladysmith, that the Free State Boers
were threatening the town from the south-west. The retreat was ordered, and
the retiring infantry was successfully protected by the energy and
self-sacrifiving heroism of the gunners. If the British had an unpleasant
surprise at the extent of the enemy's line, they got another of quite a
different sort when a shell flew over their heads and exploded far beyond
any that had been shot from their batteries that day. Captain Lambton came
on the field, just in time to cheer the one side and depress the otherf
with a naval gun that was a matxh for the Boer "Long Tom." In Ladysmith the
civilians—most of them refugees from Dundee and elsewhere in northern Natal,
and even from the Transvaal)—were panic-stricken ever since the first shell
from Long Tom on Pepworth Hill burst over them in the morning; and when they
saw the troops returning, wearied and in disarray, they read in the sight
the signs, not merely of an unsuccessful battle, but of a lost cause. The
sinister name of "Mournful Monday," given to the day of the unlucky
engagement indicated the popular view of the situation.
In three days more, the investment
of Ladysmith was complete. During these days of grace stores were hurried
in, and many useless mouths got rid of by rail. Amongst the last who left
before the town was hemmed in was General French; but he to give, on other
scenes of the theatre of war, a splendid display of the knowledge of the
Boers and their method of fighting which he had gained by a few days of
acting in Natal.
The week that followed the closing
of the line of railway running south, the last door of exit from Ladysmith,
was spent by the antagonists within and around the town in making
preparations to accomplish the tasks which they had severally and
deliberately undertaken—by the besiegers, to harass and subdue and by the
besieged, to endure and repel.
On the 9th November, a section of
the enemy, more venturesome and impatient than the rest, exchanged the
security of their entrenchments for the risk of an open attack; but their
onset, feebly supported and due to impulse more than sound judgement was
easily met and driven back. As this abortive essay happened on the birthday
of the Prince of Wales, the garrison showed their loyalty by firing a salute
of 21 shotted guns into the enemy's lines. On both sides there ensued weeks
of lull—the situation relative to each other in which they found themselves
being considered. The Boers contented themselves with keeping a firm grip on
what they complacently regarded as their prize, while they detached spare
commando to raid Natal to the south and east; and Sir George White was
satisfied to detain the bulk of their forces around him in the expectation
of relief before long.
The monotony of the exchange of
shells day after day between the British and the Boers was broken on the
morning of the 8th December. Of all the Boer gunners, those on Gun Hill
seemed to enjoy more than their fair share of the pastime of shelling
Ladysmith, and it was resolved that they should be deprived for a time of
the means of keeping up that sport. For this purpose Sir Archibald Hunter
led out 600 Natal Volunteers and 100 Imperial Light Horse to surprise Gun
Hill; but up to the moment of setting out he kept not only the men but even
the officers in ignorance of the business in hand, for it was suspected that
sometimes military information, which should have been confined to the
garrison, had somehow been conveyed to the enemy. Leaving Ladysmith before
midnight, and guided by Major Henderson of the Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders, they reached the foot of Gun Hill at 2 a.m. There General
Hunter left Major Rethman with 100 of the Border Mounted Rifles to protect
his left flank, and Colonel Royston with 300 men of the Natal Carbineers,
Border Mounted Rifles, and Natal Mounted Rifles, to guard his right. The
rest of his party, 100 of the Imperial Light Horse under Colonel Edwards and
Major Karri Davies, and 100 Natal Carbineers officered by Major Addison,
Captain and Adjutant Weighton, Captain Foxon, and Lieutenants Bartholomew
and Vanderplank, began to scale the almost perpendicular rock that rose
above them. Using the utmost caution, even slipping off their boots, to
creep up in silence, they had climbed to within a few yards of the summit
unnoticed, when there was a faint challenge, "Wie daar?" followed in an
agonized shriek by "Schiet, Stephanus, hier kom de verdomde rooineks,
schiet, schiet!" and then one wild volley was fired on them by the alarmed
and excited guard. "Come on, boys, Fix bayonets" shouted Captain Foxon. The
word "bayonets" alone, for the things it stands for were not there, had a
magical effect; it was the "Hey, presto" at which the Boer piquet vanished
on the instant, leaving everything, even their private documents and
letters, behind them. The Imperial Light Horse rushed on "Long Tom," the
Carbineers found the howitzer; then a charge of gun cotton wrapped round the
breech and muzzle of them and exploded by Captain Fowke and Lieutenant
Turner of the Royal Engineers, and these two guns could harm Ladysmith no
more. Their task accomplished, they left Gun Hill. At daylight they marched
into town in triumph, carrying with them the breech-blocks of the two big
guns, and dragging two maxims which they had captured on their way back, as
the trophies of their night's work. In the course of the day, Sir George
White paraded the whole Volunteer Brigade, and after thanking those of them
who had taken part in the previous night's expedition, he complimented them
all on their conduct generally, which, he said, was "a credit to the
Empire." In addition to this public recognition by the General, the
Carbineers were gladdened with a congratulatory letter from the Gordon
Highlanders with whom they were on excellent terms.
Official reports of the exploit of
the Volunteers, from two sources the most interested in it, Ladysmith and
Pretoria, were published in Maritzburg simultaneously a few days after the
event.
From Sir George White:—"9th
December. Last night I sent out General Hunter with 500 Volunteers under
Royston, and 100 Imperial Light Horse under Edwards, to surprise Gun Hill.
The surprise was admirably carried out and was entirely successful, the Hill
being captured, and a 6 inch gun and a 4.7 inch howitzer destroyed with gun
cotton by Captain Fowke and Lieutenant Turner, R.E., and a maxim was
captured and brought to Ladysmith. Our loss: One man killed; Major
Henderson, Argyll .and Sutherland Highlanders, wounded; two men slightly
wounded."
"Pretoria, 9th December:—The British
at Ladysmith scored a success between one and two in the morning. A body of
men crawled up the ravine and carried one of the Kopjes constituting the
Lombard's Kop Boer position on which one big creusot and one howitzer were
put out of action with dynamite, after which the force retired. Major
Erasmus and Lieutenant Malan will be court-martialed in connection with the
loss of the cannon. Besides the big guns the Boers also lost two maxims."
Those who were in Maritzburg at the
time will not readily forget with what pride these paragraphs were read and
reread by old and young. They struck an exultant chord in the hearts of
Natalians everywhere, for they told of a glorious feat by "Our Boys."
In emulation of the success of the
Volunteers at Gun Hill, four companies of the 2nd Rifle Brigade set out on
the night of the 11th to destroy a 4.7 inch howitzer on Surprise Hill, But
it was hardly to be hoped that the enemy would be taken at unawares again in
a similar fashion, and after so short an interval. The Rifles drove off the
guard from the hill and destroyed the gun, but were waylaid as they were
returning and suffered the loss of 11 killed, 43 wounded, and 6 missing.
As the new year opened there was
evidence of a change of temper in the two belligerents. "Black week," the
10th to the 17th December, in which three British defeats were chronicled,
fixed immovably in the defeated, both the Mother Country and her Colonies,
the determination to fight to a finish this time; and elated the victors
with, the expectation that Magersfontein, Stormberg, and Colenso would be
followed, as Lang's Nek, Ingogo, and Amajuba had been, with an offer of
surrender from the British Government. But when the news spread among them
that Lord Roberts was on the way out to take command of the British, forces
in South Africa, with Lord Kitchener as the chief of his staff, and that Sir
Redvers Buller was recovering strength to force the passage of the Tugela,
the Boers could not but conclude that the end was not yet and that, if it
was necessary for them to repeat, with emphasis, the staggering blows of
Magersfontein and Colenso, their commandos detained around Ladysmith must be
set free without delay. The arguments of the younger and more enterprising
section, urged by General Botha and Commandant De Wet, prevailed over the
caution of General Joubert and the elders, and at a krijgsraad held on the
5th January, it was decided by a majority 'to finish the business of
Ladysmith by assault off-hand instead of the tedious process of starvation.
The Platrand was the name given by
the Boers to a plateau about two miles south of Ladysmith, 600 feet above
the level of the Klip River, stretching more than two miles from east to
west, and divided by two neks into three unequal lengths— Caesar's Camp,
Waggon Hill, and Waggon Point. It was the key to Sir George White's circle
of defence and was chosen by the Boers for the delivery of their attack next
day (6th January), with a force of 4,000 men—2,000 from each of the
Republics. At about three in the morning the sentry of the Imperial Light
Horse on the Nek between Waggon Hill and Waggon Point, hearing some noise
from the donga above which he was posted, challenged and fired. A volley and
a rush of Boers followed. It happened that an extraordinary party of over
100 men, Sappers, Bluejackets, and Gordon Highlanders, were at work all that
night preparing to mount a 4.7 inch naval gun on Waggon Point. On the
outburst of firing these men left their work and hurried forward to the help
of the handful of Imperial Light Horse. About an hour after the attack on
Waggon Hill the other end of the Rand was assailed by the Transvaal storming
party. They had slipped between the Manchester piquet at the east corner of
Caesar's Camp and the patrols of Royston's Volunteer Brigade, and were
making their way by the left flank to the rear of the Manchester position,
when they were faced by a company of the Gordons, under Captain Carnegie,
and gradually pushed back and round to the south front of the Platrand. From
the beginning of the attack till daybreak, close and confused fighting was
kept up all along the south face of the plateau, but fiercest at its
extremities around the naval gun on Waggon Point and Manchester Fort on
Caesar's Camp, each side where it was pressed attracting help from its
supports. When the sun. rose it showed that the assailants had effected a
lodgment on the far edge of the summit from which, covered as they were by
the outcrop of rock there, it would be hard to dislodge them. Soon, however,
it was made manifest that their losses could not be repaired, and far less
their original strength increased, by reinforcements from Bester's Valley
behind them. Two batteries of artillery in rear of the Rand, the 63rd under
Major Abdy at the east end, and the 21st under Major Blewitt at the west,
firing over the heads of their infantry, poured such a storm of shrapnell on
the reverse slope of the Platrand as made it impassable and kept the Boer
reserves all day on the safe side of Fourie Spruit. By midday, though
neither side could yet claim the victory, the Boers were morally defeated.
The firing had almost ceased, and it was believed by the defenders that
their enemy were just waiting for sundown to make a safe retreat. Suddenly,
at one p.m., as if the preceding ten hours had never been, a rush was made
as fresh as at first for the 4.7 inch naval gun at Waggon Point. It was
bravely led by Commandant de Villiers and Field-Cornet de Jagers, but could
only result in a grand spectacle of Homeric fighting and the sacrifice of
brave lives on both sides. General Ian Hamilton, who had charge of the
Platrand section of the Ladysmith defences, would have been content to hold
the enemy where they were till nightfall, as much perhaps to spare the brave
though foiled foe as his own exhausted men; but Sir George White, fearing
that the assault might be prolonged to a two days' battle, gave orders to
drive them from his precincts that day. From the opposite side of the town
three companies of the Devons were summoned to make the final charge. Their
line never wavered, though it showed many gaps before it covered the 130
yards of open ground, and at the point of the bayonet they cleared the
Platrand of those who had clung to it so tenaciously for sixteen hours. The
Boers fled before the bayonets, but not all of them to safety. A terrific
thunderstorm in the afternoon had made a foaming torrent of the usually
insignificant Fourie Spruit, and by its swollen waters many of the
fugitives, too eagerly seeking escape from British bullets, were swept away.
Ladysmith was saved by a part of its thin-drawn line of defenders, but at
the cost of 424 in killed and wounded.
A result of the failure of the Boer
attack on the 6th of January was to satisfy the garrison that their
fortifications, manned by resolute defenders, were impregnable to Boer
assaults. Its disheartening effect on the Boers was attested by the sudden
access of "leave-plague" which raged without intermission, in spite of all
the efforts of the commandants to suppress it, so long as they continued to
laager around Ladysmith, and culminated, when at last the siege was raised,
in the general cry of "Huis toe!"
The following paper, entitled
"Within Beleaguered Ladysmith," was written primarily for the "Ladysmith
Gazette," and appeared as its leading article, 3rd November, 1906, but with
the ulterior object of its republication in these pages: —
"It is now seven years since the
mind and heart of the whole British Empire began to be drawn irresistibly
for a time to Ladysmith. For there the Dutch and British contestants for the
prize of South African supremacy had at last come to grips, and it was felt,
both by the two combatants and the world of onlookers that, whether Boer or
Briton should ultimately win, the palm depended on the issue of that
encounter. British sympathy with, their beleaguered countrymen was of course
but temporary, and the lapse of seven years, it may be hoped, has carried
away with it the last remnants of suffering inflicted in the four months'
siege; but each recurring anniversary revives the memory of both, and will
recall it as long as our pride of race endures. As the siege went on the
feelings of the British people in the Mother Country and the Sister
Colonies—wrath at the sudden blockade, pity for the sufferers by it,
irritated impatience of its long continuance, and delirious joy at its
relief—were fully and freely made known. Not so, however, the innermost
sentiments of those who struggled through and survived the four months'
agony. The noble reticence of the brave man, arising from shame at his own
momentary weakness and the desire to cheer the hearts of his less courageous
fellow-sufferers, has buried in oblivion whatever of bitterness, complaint,
and despair may have been thought or said when temper and patience were
sorest tried; What we are permitted to know of the story of the siege of
Ladysmith from within is not a full, true, and particular account of what
must have been but a sad time throughout. It can hardly be doubted, that for
pity's sake, a veil of forgetfulness is cast over many an instance of
pardonable human frailty, and that much of the dark and gloomy tints
required for a faithful picture has been purposely left out and the most has
been made of the bright and cheerful,
"Just before the little town was
invested train loads of faint hearts and useless mouths were sent down to
Maritzburg. Even then there had to be a second sifting of the feeble from
the strong, and a crowd of undesirables was relegated by Sir George White,
with the consent of General Joubert, to the safety—within the lines of
investment, but beyond the danger zone—of a neutral location which the
garrison christened Fort Funk. After this process of exhaustion, which
recalls that pursued by Gideon when he picked his small band of heroes,
freed of "whatsoever was fearful and trembling," to fight the hosts of
Midian, General White and a company of men, women, and children, all alike
stout of heart though not equally strong of arm, were left within the narrow
circle which was for four long months to be the unpitied target of the Boer
artillery. They say that eels in time get used to skinning, and it was not
long before the shrieking of the shells, at first a general horror, came by
familiarity to be almost unheeded even by timid women and children. When a
bombshell burst there would immediately follow a scramble by relic hunters
for its fragments. Cave dwellings were hollowed out in the high banks of the
Klip River, and when, on Big Ben, Long Tom, Black Jack, Silent Susan, Slim
Piet, The Coughing Machine, Weary Willie, and others of the enemy's
well-known guns becoming unusually troublesome, the townspeople left the
streets temporarily for the river, they would facetiously intimate that they
were gone for a change of scene and air to the Back Beach. Church services
were kept up regularly all through the siege, for the townsfolk, morning and
evening, in the wonted places of worship, and for the military in their
lines. The defenders would have belied their national character and
traditions if they had not beguiled dull care with amusements both
out-of-door and indoor. King Henry V's
soldiers, to while away their idle time at the siege of Rouen, made
themselves a bowling green of which the traces still remain. Sir Francis
Drake, while waiting for the Spanish Armada, amused himself with a game of
bowls, and insisted on finishing his play before he would attend to
business. Their descendants and successors at Ladysmith, in the intervals of
serious duty, sought health and cheerfulness in cricket, polo, athletic
sports, concerts, dances; and on quarter rations and Adam's ale they had the
audacity to celebrate St. Andrew's Day, Christmas, and the New Year, if not
duly, at least in a fashion that was both hearty and exceptional. Among many
other signs of the garrison's determination to keep up their spirits, in
spite of their many discouragements, was the publication of newspapers at
short intervals during the four months. How these tried to sugar over
whatever was essentially bitter may be gathered from the following extract
from the "Ladysmith Bombshell" of 9th December, 1899.
"For
we're waiting, rather weary. Is there such a man as Clery?
Are there any reinforcements? Is there any army corps?
Shall we see our wives and mothers, or our sisters and our brothers?
Shall we ever see those others who went southwards long before?
Shall we ever taste fresh butter? Tell us, tell us, we implore.
Shall be answered—"Nevermore."
"It is sometimes said that most of
Charles Dickens's characters are mere caricatures of real life; that Mark
Tapley, for example, whose extraordinary craze to find himself in
circumstances so miserable as to bring him credit for feeling jolly in them,
had his prototype only in the writer's brain. But, as we grow in years and
experience, to our astonishment we every now and again come across one of
his children of real flesh and blood instead of, as he was to us before,
paper and ink only. Whoever hears or reads the story of the siege, as told
by any of the besieged, will say that not one but many a Mark Tapley must
have been shut up in Ladysmith for four months seven years ago."
John Stalker.
When it was known in Ladysmith,
immediately before the battle of Colenso, that Sir Redvers Buller's
preparations to force his way through the enemy's lines were nearly
complete, Sir George White organized a Flying Column of four regiments of
cavalry, four batteries of Royal Field Artillery, four battalions of
infantry, fifteen mixed companies of infantry, and two detachments of
colonial forces. This mobile column was exercised nightly and held in
readiness to break out as soon as the opportune time should come to join
hands with the column of relief. But in the course of the month of inaction
that followed "Black Week," though the will of the garrison to strike a blow
for their own deliverance continued as firm as ever, hunger and sickness,
affecting horse as well as man, had so reduced the strength and mobility of
his flying column that Sir George White was constrained to disband it, at
least for a time. When General Buller was about ready for his second attempt
to relieve Ladysmith another flying column was constituted, and it was
signalled to him that the besieged would do their best to make a sally
whenever he gave them the word, but that he must not trust too much in their
power to co-operate effectively.
After his unsuccessful battle of
Ladysmith, 30th October, 1899, Sir George White was obliged to admit that he
could not keep the field, and that the best service he could render was to
hold a large part of the Republics' forces around him and thus limit the
extent of the invasion of Natal. Before the siege was ended he had to make
the more painful confession that he could do nothing towards his
extrication. But he would listen to no suggestion of surrender, and when one
was signalled to him by General Buller, despondent after his repulse at
Colenso, he professed to believe that the message had been intercepted by
the Boers and tampered with in its transmission. All through the long siege
he and every man under him, by watchfulness, industry, and ingenuity, did
everything that could be done to hold the Boers at arm's length and keep the
flag flying.
On 2nd November the effective
garrison of Ladysmith was 13,496 men and 51 guns. With the civilian
population of 5,400, and about 2,400 kafirs and Indians, the number to be
provided for reached a total of over 21,000. According to an inventory made
by Colonel E. W. D. Ward, Director of Supplies, there was in store at that
date bread stuff for 65 days, meat 50 days, groceries 46 days, and forage 32
days. But for the careful husbanding of these stores and their distribution
in half and even quarter rations, the siege must have ended to the heart's
content of the enemy early in the now year. Moreover, as the garrison's hope
of breaking through the cordon of investment was gradually relinquished, the
necessity of maintaining their animal means of transport and mobility
proportionally diminished. By the end of the year the transport oxen within
the lines had been converted into biltong. Then came the turn of the horses.
It was hard for the mounted men to see their equine friends and dependents
driven to slaughter, but sentiment had to give way to stern necessity. The
poor horses that could no longer be fed had to be turned into food for the
men. In the preparation of horse flesh for consumption by the sick and the
sound, Colonel Stoneman, Army Service Corps, and his assistants showed
ingenuity and versatility that would have done credit to a Parisian chef.
From their laboratory they issued chevril soup for the troops, condensed
chevril soup for the sick in hospital, chevril jelly for the sick and
wounded, and chevril paste as a substitute for potted meat. The water of the
Klip River, to the amount of 12,000 gallons a day, was filtered in
improvised condensers-as a preventive against enteric fever; and the Indian
Coolies turned their skill as market-gardeners to the benefit of
the-besieged in general and their own profit in particular. By these and
similar devices Sir George White felt justified in sending Lord Roberts this
assuring message on the 28th January:—"By sacrificing the rest of my horses
I can hold out for six weeks, keeping my guns efficiently horsed and 1,000
men mounted on moderately efficient horses."
"Hope deferred maketh the heart
sick," and it was a heartsick garrison that wore through the long days of
February, 1900. Again and again the attention of the besieged was strained
to the signs of battle beyond the high hills south of Ladysmith. They could
hear the roar of General Buller's artillery, and sometimes see the bursting
of his shells on the hill tops, but always their hopes sank as the firing
died down, and were extinguished for the time by the signalled intimation of
the General's failure and change of plan. Their rescuers, notwithstanding
their strenuous efforts to bring succour, seemed only to tantalize. But on
the 14th of the month welcome news, inspiring sure confidence, came to Sir
George White from Lord Roberts:—"I have entered the Orange Free State with a
large force especially strong in cavalry, artillery, and mounted infantry.
Inform your troops of this, and tell them from me I hope the result of the
next few days may lead to the pressure on Ladysmith being materially
lessened," On the 27th Amajuba Day, General Buller signalled Lord Roberta's
capture of General Cronje and his whole army of over 4,000 men; and next day
he heliographed;—"I have thoroughly beaten enemy.
Believe them to be in full retreat.
Have sent cavalry to ascertain what way they have gone." Late in the
afternoon of that day, the 28th, mounted men in khaki were seen riding
rapidly aoross Bester's Valley towards the town. They were the vanguard of
Lord Dundonald's mounted brigade—Major Mc~ Kenzie's Estcourt Squadron of the
Natal Carbineers, Imperial Light Horse under Major Bottomley, and Border
Mounted Rifles commanded by Captain Gough of the 16th Lancets.
It was intolerable to the Ladysmith
garrison to see the enemy, that had kept them in durance for 118 days,
trekking away to the north and west, with all their guns and baggage, on the
morning of the 1st March. With the design of intercepting them a small
flying column moved out consisting of portions of the Liverpool, Devon, and
Gordon infantry, two guns of the 10th Mountain Battery, part of the 53rd and
60th batteries R.F.A., two squadrons of the 5th Dragoon Guards, and as many
of the Natal Carbineers as were thought to be efficient. At Pepworth Hill
they were slightly engaged with the enemy's rearguard, but it was evident
that men who had only with difficulty accomplished a march of four miles
were physically unable to do more than ply the enemy with their artillery.
The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. Next day Sir Redvers Buller
humanely ordered their return to Ladysmith.
For two reasons Sir Redver's Buller
could not pursue the Boers retreating from Ladysmith. After three months of
arduous campaigning he was in need of horses, clothing, and drafts from Home
to make up the wastage of battle and disease; and on the 3rd March, the day
on which with his victorious army he made his triumphal entry into
Ladysmith, Lord Roberts, making for Bloemfontein, telegraphed to him: — "The
Natal Field Force is to act strictly on the defensive until such time as the
operations of this column have caused the enemy to withdraw altogether from,
or considerably reduce their numbers in the Drakensberg Passes." His first
business was to disperse the enfeebled defenders of Ladysmith to recuperate
in clean and healthy camps, and send the sick, numbering upwards of 2,000,
down to the Maritzburg hospitals as fast as his means of conveyance allowed.
Then he began to give his whole attention to the reorganisation of his army,
preparatory to his final advance against the enemy still clinging to
northern Natal. At the same time the Boers, finding that they were not
pursued, set to work to entrench themselves on the Biggarsberg to bar his
way to the north. For more than a month it was as if the generals on both
sides had agreed to an armistice.
North of Ladysmith Natal is roughly
in the shape of an isosceles triangle, of which the base is the Biggarsberg
stretching from the boundary of the Free State to Helpmakaar close to
Zululand, its apex is Lang's Nek leading into the Transvaal, its western
side is the Drakensberg range, and its eastern the Buffalo River separating
it from Zululand, On the 10th May, General Buller set his army in motion to
drive the invaders out of this triangle. His intention was to force the
enemy to the north of Newcastle before attempting the passage of the
Drakensberg. Screened by Lord Dundonald's mounted men he led a strong force
of infantry and artillery towards Helpmakaar with the object of turning the
enemy's left flank and rolling up their whole line of defence on the
Biggarsberg. On the morning of the 13th, Uithoek, which had been neglected
by the Boers though it dominated the extremity of their line resting on
Helpmakaar, was scaled by the mounted men and soon after occupied in force
by Hamilton's brigade of infantry. The mounted brigade then swiftly skirted
the semicircle of the hill of Helpmakaar from Uithoek to the first line of
the enemy's trenches on the Biggarsberg and, joined by Bethune's force,
charged straight for the first entrenchment and drove its occupants to their
second line on the farther side of Helpmakaar Nek. The Boers were taken by
surprise. Hitherto they had been accustomed to select and prepare their
battle-ground, and it was not on Helpmakaar they had fixed for a fusilade of
their adversaries. Stormed at from Uithoek on their front and Helpmakaar Nek
on their left they held their ground till dark. In the night, knowing that
their line of defence on the Biggarsberg was now untenable, they retreated
with their usual rapidity northwards to Beith.
Lord Dundonald's mounted brigade,
with the Natal Carbineers scouting in front, took up the pursuit on the
morning of the 14th. Two or three times that day, in his march of 25 miles,
he came into action with the enemy's rearguard but without bringing them to
a resolute stand. During the night he learned from his patrols that Dundee
was deserted, and at 9 a.m. next day he recovered that town over which the
Vierkleur had been flying for seven months. Here the whole army stayed a day
for a much-needed rest. Resuming the pursuit on the 17th the mounted brigade
entered Newcastle at 1.0 p.m., only twelve hours after the Boers passed
through it on their way to occupy and entrench Lang's Nek and make their
last stand on that spot in Natal which recalled to them the happiest
memories of victory.
By a reconnaissance well to the
north of Newcastle Lord Dundonald discovered that the Boers were already
ranged in large numbers, and with heavy guns posted, on the heights of
Amajuba and Pougwana and on the sides of Lang's Nek. Doubtless they were
looking forward confidently to a day of what they called "splendid shooting"
when, themselves safe by their invisibility, as they had been at
Magersfontein and Colenso, they would mow down our men exposed in the open,
as they would be, in delivering the wonted frontal attack. Sir Redvers
Buller adroitly encouraged them in this hope by ordering Sir F. Clery to
make a feint of preparations for storming their strongholds, while he
himself led, behind the cover of his cavalry, a strong force of artillery
and infantry to Botha's; Pass, about ten miles south-west of Lang's Nek, by
which he meant to turn the enemy's right flank.
Owing to their eagerness to
concentrate their numbers on and about Lang's Nek the Boers had not spared
men enough to protect their right wing. General Buller's first care, as soon
as he reached the scene of his outflanking operations, was to secure the
heights from which it could be dominated. From the summit of Inkwelo, a
lofty and isolated hill situated about, six miles north of the Pass, the
whole field of the coming battle could be overlooked, and guns posted on its
slopes could shell Lang's Nek on the one side and the crest of the
Drakensberg on the other. This commanding height was seized by the Natal
Volunteers without any opposition, for happily the enemy lacked either the
men or the will to occupy it, and heavy guns were quickly dragged into
position on its sides. From Van Wyk hill, facing the mouth of the Pass and
commanding the whole of its southern jaw, the Boer piquets were driven off
by the South African Light Horse. Between these two hills the Boers were
occupying two inferior and less important heights, Spitz Kop and Inkweloane.
The South African Light Horse captured Spitz Kop without having to fight for
it, and it was at once occupied by three battalions of infantry and a
battery of artillery. Of the four hills which stood in a line of seven or
eight miles in front of the Drakensberg, Inkweloane alone was left for a
short time in possession of the Boers. By these preliminary successes and
arrangements General Buller made it impossible for the enemy, with any
regard for their own safety, to contest his advance through the Pass
At 10 a.m. of 8th June the infantry
began their ascent of Botha's Pass and after a stiff climb of four hours
they reached the top. The Drakensberg presents a lofty and precipitous
mountain side only towards Natal. From the summit there begins, not a
reverse and correspondingly steep slope as one would expect but, a tableland
stretching far into Basutoland and the Free State. On the plateau above
Botha's Pass the Boers in a long line of trenches were awaiting the coming
of their enemy. But just as our infantry appeared on the ridge the men of
the 3rd mounted brigade rushed up the steep slopes of Inkweloane, dragging
up with them two guns of the R. H.A. battery and, before their infantry
supports were alongside of them, they had begun enfilading the left of the
Boer lines. The 11th brigade of infantry on the crest swung round on the
enemy's right, and the 2nd brigade charged in upon his front. Two hours
before dark the Boers were in flight, heavily shelled by our artillery, and
setting the grass on fire to hide their retreat. By his brilliant strategy
Sir Redvers Buller had gained a firm footing in the Free State, and turned
the flank of the Boer army in Natal, at a cost of only fifteen casualties,
two killed and thirteen wounded. One can hardly bear to think what his
losses would have been had he tried to dislodge the enemy from Lang's Nek in
the way they expected.
After an entire day spent in the
laborious task of dragging his guns and supplies up Botha's Pass General
Buller, on 10th June, was only two days' march from Volksrust, the first
Transvaal town beyond the northern border of Natal. General Clery's column
was still facing Lang's Nek from the south, and between his and General
Buller's force, when it should reach Volksrust, it seemed possible to entrap
the whole of the Boers still in Natal. Only at Alleman's Nek, which cleft
Verzamel Berg, could the Boers hope to check the British advance on
Volksrust, An encounter here might be avoided by a detour round the northern
end of Verzamel Berg, but time was precious and it was resolved to force the
Nek. Two thousand Boers with a long range field gun and two Vickers-Maxims
were holding the Nek and, though for want of time they were not entrenched,
they found good cover behind boulders and bush. The action began at 1.30 in
the afternoon with an artillery duel and, the enemy's fire having been
subdued in an hour's time, the Dublin Fusiliers, the Dorset, the 2nd
Queen's, and the 2nd Surrey regiments led the attack, supported by the
Middlesex and 2nd West Yorkshire regiments. By a succession of short charges
by the infantry and by the well-timed and accurate firing of the artillery
the defenders were steadily pushed along the Nek from end to end. In the
night the Boers retreated, but they had gained their object. They had fought
what was in reality a rearguard action to give their army on Lang's Nek time
to escape with their guns and waggons. When General Buller marched into
Volksrust next day, the rear ranks of the Boer invaders of Natal were miles
ahead of him on the road to Standerton.
The following order was issued on
16th June:—"The General places on record his high appreciation of the
services rendered by Brigadier-General Dartnell and the Natal Volunteers in
the arduous operations which have resulted in the expulsion of the enemy
from Natal territory. They have borne their full share, and their efforts
throughout the last eight months have largely contributed to the successful
issue. The General fully realises the sacrifices cheerfully made to remain
in the field, and feels the time has come when he ought to release as many
as possible from duty so patriotically undertaken. He therefore asks General
Dartnell to undertake the defence of Dundee and a section of the eastern
frontier, and allow the volunteers not required to return. They have earned
the respect and confidence of every one and, when now leaving, carry the
best wishes of their late comrades."
In obedience to this order the
Regiment left Charlestown for Dundee on the 15th, and arrived there on the
18th, having bivouacked at Ingogo, Newcastle, and Dannhauser on their way
down. Here a tiresome time of more than three months of mounting guard,
patrolling, and scouting dragged slowly to an end, and seemingly with but
little to show for it all, relieved only by an interesting and rather
exciting advance on Vryheid, and it was with more than satisfaction that
orders were received on 8th October to return to their homes. On the
following day the Regiment returned to Maritzburg after an absence on active
service of a year and eight days.
It was generally believed that the
Boers would sue for peace after the loss of their capitals, Bloemfontein and
Pretoria, and Johannesburg, the source of their wealth and arrogance; but
the belief was erroneous, because it was arrived at without the
consideration that they were not an urban but a rural population. The Free
Staters were willing to let their capital go on circuit with the restless
and peripatetic President Steyn, and to the Transvaalers the saloon carriage
which accommodated President Kruger was a good enough substitute for
Pretoria. As for the gold-field, before it was discovered they had lived and
enjoyed the simple life on their isolated farms, and a return to it now
would be no great hardship. To them, therefore the loss of these three
cities did not involve the end of the war, as it should have done if they
had known when they were beaten, but it changed the character of their
warfare from regular and formal to guerrilla. The effect of this obstinate
determination to prolong a hopeless struggle was to keep South Africa in
turmoil for a year and a half after it should have entered into the
enjoyment of rest and peace, till at last the opposition of the Boers was
worn down by Lord Kitchener's "drives" and blockhouses.
The Regiment was again called upon
to take the field in consequence of a threatened inroad of the Boers from
the Zululand border. Orders were received on the 18th September, 1901, and
by the 22nd the whole Regiment, despite the very bad weather prevailing at
the time, had assembled at Maritzburg. The Ladysmith troop were sent back to
their own district on the 22nd, and were employed in watching the western
border. The remainder of the Regiment formed part of a mobile column under
Colonel Mills, and left Maritzburg on the 29th of September for Greytown,
one squadron having gone on by rail. Greytown was reached the following day,
and it was found that the advance squadron had been sent on to Untunjanibili.
On the 1st October the column moved on the Magistracy at Krantzkop, where it
remained until the 13th. During this time the only real work to be done was
frequent patrolling, and outposts were stationed at Solitude, Sir Garnet's
Road, and Untunjambili. The Regiment, recalled to Greytown on the 13th
October, after waiting there one day, returned to Maritzburg. Before being
dismissed the whole of the Volunteer Brigade were thanked by His Excellency
the Governor.
On the 11th March, 1902, the
services of the Ladysmith troop were called upon in consequence of an inroad
of the Boers in the Upper Tugela district, and the troop proceeded in that
direction, but fortunately their services were only required for a few days.
Before the Natal Carbineers were
relieved from their long and faithful service in the field the two Boer
Republics had ceased to exist. On the 28th May, 1900, Lord Roberts, by
proclamation at Bloemfontein, had annexed the Free State and given it the
name of the Orange River Colony; and on the 1st September he had in a
similar way added the Transvaal Republic to the British Empire under the
name of the Transvaal Colony. Yet, although their capitals had been captured
and their armies broken up into fragments, the stubborn Boers kept up a
sullen resistance. But their warfare was now of the guerrilla character and
carried on by marauding bands acting independently of each other. Patience
and hard work, and the extension by Lord Kitchener of lines of blockhouses
that secured district after district as each was cleared by his "drives,"
slowly but surely wore down the remnants of Boer opposition, till the last
of them, exhausted and heartless, with their leaders, Generals Botha,
Delarey, and De Wet, driven at length to surrender, accepted the British
terms of peace at Vereeniging on the 31st May, 1902.
In no war that history tells of has
such humanity been shown by the stronger to the weaker side as in that waged
in South Africa from October, 1899, to May, 1902. While the war went on,
surrendered Boers and their families, and even the wives and children of
enemies still in arms, to the number of 110,000 in August 1901, were
supported at the expense of the British Government in concentration camps
established in the pacified parts of the Transvaal and Orange River
Colonies, and in Natal and the Cape. Short of the restoration of
independence, the terms offered to the Boers at Vereeniging were more than
merciful, they were magnanimous. The crimes of treason and rebellion by
British subjects in Natal and Cape Colony were punished with a leniency
hitherto unheard of anywhere. And to crown its generosity the British
Government made the late Republics a free gift of £3,000,000, and granted
advances in the shape of loans amounting to £5,000,000, free of interest for
two years and afterwards repayable over a period of three years with three
per cent, interest, to repatriate the banished prisoners and assist them and
the impoverished enemies fresh from the field of war to restock their farms
and make a new start in life. By these means, and as her chief intention in
adopting them, Great Britain paved the way for the speedy and lasting
reconciliation of British and Boers in South Africa estranged the one from
the other by the long and devastating war. It remains for the two races to
forget the bitter feelings of the past, and to strive to make their quarter
of the British Empire over the Seas as prosperous and progressive as are the
other three—Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
