THE RELIEF OF LADYSMITH
BY
JOHN BLACK ATKINS
AUTHOR OF “THE WAR IN CUBA”
WITH AN INTRODUCTION, MAPS, PLANS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36, ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON 1900
PREFACE
I AM indebted to the proprietors of the Manchester Guardian for permission to reproduce the following letters and several of the plans and sketches which illustrate them. I have thought it better to leave the letters as nearly as possible in their original form ; they are simply unofficial dispatches, written in camp under all the difficulties that oppress the pen in the neighbourhood of the sword. If in speculations or assertions I have gone astray, I venture to let the mistakes stand. The reader, recognising them, will allow them a certain historical value as the common beliefs of the moment, or will pin his faith to them only until he finds them rebuked in later chapters. In this way the letters may perhaps preserve an “ actuality ” of which industry might rob them ; if the reader perseveres he will, I hope, find sooner
or later the natural explanation of every error, and the campaign will unfold itself before his eye as it did before my own. The letters, with the introduction contributed by one of my colleagues, form a continuous narrative of events from the beginning of the war to the relief of Ladysmith.
J. B. A.
Ladysmith, March 4, 1900
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: HOW LADYSMITH CAME TO BE BESIEGED CHAP.
I. BOUND FOR THE SEAT OF WAR
II. ON TO THE FRONT
III. EXCURSIONS AND ALARMS
IV. THE WILLOW GRANGE ENGAGEMENT
V. FORWARD, BY THE GRACE OF THE ENEMY
VI. WE COLLECT OUR STRENGTH
VII. THE EVE OF THE FIRST ASSAULT
VIII. THE BATTLE OF COLENSO
IX. WAITING AGAIN : WITH A CAMP INTERLUDE
X. WE TRY ONE WAY ROUND
XI. ACROSS THE TUGELA
XII. THE BATTLES OF VENTER’S SPRUIT AND SPION KOP
XIII. WE ATTACK VAAL KRANTZ, AND FAIL AGAIN
XIV. THE “FIGHTING MARCH” ON MONTE CHRISTO
XV. THE BATTLE OF RAILWAY HILL
XVi. THE BATTLE OK PIETER'S
APPENDICES
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS MAPS AND PLANS
GENERAL RT. HON. SIR R. H. BULLER
Frontispiece GENERAL SIR GEORGE STEWART WHITE
THE ARMOURED TRAIN DISASTER (from a description by MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL) {by F. A. STEWART)
MAJOR-GEN. SIR C. F. CLERY
SAVING THE GUNS AT COLENSO (by F. A. STEWART)
THE LATE GENERAL JOUBERT (by MISS SCHWARTZR)
PLAN ILLUSTRATING WARREN’S OPERATIONS
THE NIGHT ATTACK ON SPION KOP (by F. A. STEWART)
SKETCH PLANS OF THE BATTLE OK SPION KOP
THE SURGEONS BEGIN THEIR NIGHT’S WORK (by F. A. STEWART)
PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF VAAL KRANTZ
CAPTURE OF VAAL KRANTZ BY DURHAM LIGHT INFANTRY (by F. A. STEWART)
PLAN OK THE BATTLE OF PIETER'S
DISTRICT BETWEEN COLENSO AND LADYSMITH
MEETING OF GENERAL BULLER AND GENERAL WHITE IN LADYSMITH (by F. A. STEWART)