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| On horseback |
Medallion
for the Scandinavians at Magersfontein |
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Standing, to the left without bandolier:
Christer Uggla, founder of the Scandinavian Corps and Director of
the Railway works in Pretoria.
Standing, in the middle without bandoliers, from left: (2Lt and QM)
Adolf Claudelin, 2iC company 1Lt Erik Stålberg (black moustache),
Company commander Cpt Johannes Flygare (glasses and beard), 1st
Lt and QM Carl David Appelgren (moustache) and 2lt William
Baerentsen (Danish, moustache)
The Scandinavian Corps was founded
just before the outbreak of hostilities at a meeting in Pretoria. Recruiting
was mainly among Scandinavian miners around Johannesburg, but the corps also
contained a number of sailors. The corps was mounted, and in 1899 they
consisted of 9 officers and NCOs and 104 ORs. (45 Swedes, 24 Danes, 18
Finns, 13 Norwegians and 13 others)
The founder was captain Axel
Christer Helmfrid Uggla (a railway engineer) from Sweden. On 16th
October 1899 about 50 men of the corps paraded for president Krüger before
leaving for the front. Johannes Flygare was chosen as Company Commander (Veldkornet).
His second in command was fellow Swede (from Sundsvall) Erik Ståhlberg
(lieutenant), the only officer who was a trained officer. Lieutenant
Ståhlberg had only about a week to try to give some basic military training
to the force, where previous military- weapons- or equestrian training was
scarce.
The corps tasks were mainly sabotage
operations, but they also took part in the siege of Mafeking and the battles
at Magersfontein and Paardeberg.
The were present at the siege of
Mafeking, were they served as mounted infantry and clearing mines laid by
the defenders. They also demolished railway lines and took horses from the
British. The second in command, Erik Ståhlberg wrote in 1901 after coming
home about the siege: “The bombardment continues day after day. But it is
not impossible getting new friends on the opposite side. Sundays and
holidays hostilities cease and it is possible to meet the British in all
friendliness, swapping meat for whisky!”
At the end of November the
Scandinavian corps were part of the force sent out to meet the relief
column. On 9th December the Boer forces hade entrenched
themselves on a ridge, with the Scandinavians along with two other Boer
detachments entrenched as outposts. The Scandinavian force was 3 officers
and 49 men. Their task was to give warning and delay a British attack.
On 11th December, the
Highland Brigade attacked. Captain J Allum, a Norwegian military attaché in
South Africa, was in the Scandinavian trenches and tells: “It was a rainy,
dark night, the men suffering from the cold, which at this time of the year
can be severe. Everything was quiet until around 4.30 in the morning, when a
few shots were heard on our right. Then silence for a couple of seconds,
perhaps a minute it seemed to us, waiting tensely, as an eternity. It was so
silent you could hear your heartbeats. Suddenly heavy firing broke out at
the foot of the hill on the Boer right flank, and in the next second the
mauser’s began to smatter, the wounded screamed and the English hurrahs and
commands sounded. This went on for about 15 minutes, then silence fell anew.
The first assault was beaten back with heavy losses. The Boers had let the
English, marching in formation, come very close before opening a devastating
fire.”
In front of the Scandinavians were
4000 of the Highland Brigade: Black Watch, Seaforths, Argylls and the HLI.
After the assault had been broken, the British artillery commenced firing.
Before the next infantry attack. The Scandinavians were, according to
captain Ståhlberg, firing 18-20 aimed shots a minute. After half an hour
firing 200 men of the Seaforths had worked around the Scandinavian right
flank, and the losses among the defenders rose. After renewed attacks with
the bayonets the position was overwhelmed. 17 men had tried a countercharge,
but only eight Scandinavians managed to get back in the Boer lines, the rest
killed or wounded. Everyone of the prisoners had been wounded.. It then
appeared that the fight had been the result of a mistake. At 3.00 General
Cronje had ordered the outposts to get back, but this had never reached the
Scandinavians.
Captain Ståhlberg again: “After
three hours our resistance is broken. Our CO, Captain Flygare falls in the
beginning of the battle, shot in the heart. Lieutenant Berentsen is wounded
and man after man falls, drilled through by bullets. The Highland Brigade,
with the Gordons on the right encircles us. In the final act they fell over
us like hungry vultures, and our resistance is over. Carl Albert Olsson from
Gothenburg tries to save his brother Edvin, shot in the head by pulling him
under cover. He is attacked by two scots whose heads he smashes with the
rifle butt, only to fall from several bayonet wounds.
The Swedish nurse Elin Lindblom,
serving with the Scandinavian ambulance with the Boers tells: “Early in the
afternoon came the seven men who had succeeded in escaping in the battle at
Magersfontein, six unscathed, a Dane, Krohn, shot in the heel. The rest of
the 49 Scandinavians who had been sent to the forepost, were dead or wounded
and the wounded were prisoners with the English.
Our ambulance men had gone out with
the wagon and in the evening they brought some of the wounded Scandinavians
with them, among them Appelberg. He was shot in the stomach and died after a
few days and he was buried after a post-mortem examination by a German
surgeon(12). But during the whole day wounded Boers had come in one after
the other, some of them wounded who needed bandaging to return to the
battle, some in such a state that we had to find place for them in the tent
as best as we could. The most seriously wounded man, apart from Appelberg,
was perhaps a Boer, named Sauer, who was shot through the throat, and we
feared that the spine was injured.
We washed and bandaged them as best
as we could and gave them water and food. A mobile ambulance cannot do much
in these cases, but it was better than nothing. Our tent was entirely full
by the evening. The battle continued uninterruptedly and it was impossible
for our ambulance men to go to the battlefield where our men had fallen. It
became quiet only after three o'clock on Tuesday afternoon(13) and then they
could go there, where they found eighteen dead and two wounded; all the
others had been brought by the English to their ambulance. The wounded were
two Finns, Backman and Viklund, who were in such a bad state that the
English had bandaged them provisionally and left them on the battlefield.
They had considered them as hopeless. We also thought this, when they were
brought to us on Tuesday evening. Backman was delirious with three bullets
through the leg, the whole leg bone splintered by a bomb, one bullet in the
breast and out through the back, which was fearfully torn; it was a miracle
that he had not bled to death. Viklund was seriously shot through his tender
parts and had one flesh wound in the arm as well as heatstroke owing to
sunburn. We feared that his spine was injured. They had lain on the
battlefield from 5 o'clock Monday morning to 3 o'clock Tuesday afternoon in
the burning sun and bitter night cold, robbed of all their clothes(14). For
even here pillagers are found. We had a German surgeon who had no ambulance
to work for(15) and helped us to bring those who could be transported, to
the hospital. The nearest hospital was at Jacobsdal, one day's travel away
or a little farther from our spot. They were sent to Jacobsdal with some of
our men. Because Viklund was so seriously wounded we thought it better to
keep him with the ambulance until we could see how his condition developed.”
It is said that the British could
not at first believe that the Scandinavian defenders were so few. The dead
were buried on the battlefield, where a monument was erected in 1908.
After Magersfontein the Scandinavian
Corps was sent to Bloemfontein, where they reorganized and received 80 men
as reinforcements. A Dane named Friis was elected new CO, but shortly after
the Corps lost all horses when it was decided to put them for grass on a
farm that was subsequently raided by the British. They were part of General
Cronje's command, which capitulated at Paardeberg on 27th
February 1900. The Scandinavian POW were sent to St Helena, three of them
escaping before the ship left Simonstown. Two let himself be buried in the
sand while bathing, and a third jumped overboard with a lifebelt and a
knife. All three reached the Boer lines safely. The Scandinavian ambulance
continued to serve until the end of the war.
In 1920 15 members of the
Scandinavian corps received the medal “voor de anglo-Boere oorlog” at a
ceremony in Stockholm, three of them nurses. Another 30 Swedes got their
medal at the South African legation in Stockholm 1937, six of them receiving
a “Dekoratie voor trouwe dienst” as well. In 1925, a special commemorative
medallion was struck for the surviving participants, and in 1932 Sir
Baden-Powell (CO at Mafeking) received a special striking of this medallion
in silver, when in Stockholm for a international Scout meeting.
The monument, which still stands at
Magersfontein, was an initiative of the Swedish officer Erland Mossberg, who
had served with the British forces in the Cape Town Town Guard during the
war. He was an officer originally in “Jämtlands fältjägare” (translates
roughly as “Jämtland Rifles”), the medical officer of Jämtlands fältjägare
was Josef Hammar, who hade served in the Boer forces (Holland ambulance,
Utrecht Kommando). Mossberg started to collect subscriptions for a monument.
The money were quickly raised, with support of national newspapers. The
monument consists of a 6,5 metres high stele, with four corner stones 15
metres high representing the different Scandinavian countries. The names of
the men killed is on the monument, which was inaugurated on 25th
april 1908 by PM (and former Boer general) Louis Botha, an honour guard of
the Kimberley Regiment present. The monument is placed some distance away
from the scene of the actual battle, as the land owner of the battleground (
a scot) didn’t want a monument for the former enemies on his land..
The countries are represented by
different inscriptions:
SWE: De kunde icke vika, blott falla
kunde de (They could not falter, only fall)
DK: Nu hviler deres ben bag höjen Bautasten. (Now their bones are resting
beneath high stele)
FI: På tappra män ser tappra fäders andar ner.
(On
brave men, brave fathers spirits looks down)
NO: Nu tier stridens larm paa valen, I mindet lever
heltens ry (Now the battles din is silent on the rampart, in the memory
lives the heroes reputation)
Sources:
Lars Ericson, Svenska Frivilliga
Lars Gyllenhaal & Lennart Westberg, Svenskar I Krig,
Karl-Gustav Olin, Afrikafeber
Elin Lindblom, Report (1) regarding the activities of the Scandinavian
ambulance during the Anglo-Boer War in 1899-1900, printed in South African
Military History Society Journal, vol 4 no 5
