Title: With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back

Author: Edward P. Lowry

Senior Wesleyan Chaplain with the South African Field Force

London, Horace Marshall & Son, Temple House, Temple Avenue, E.C.1902

Dedication

TO
THE OFFICERS,
NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS, AND MEN
OF THE GUARDS' BRIGADE
THIS IMPERFECT RECORD OF THEIR HEROIC DARING, AND OF
THEIR YET MORE HEROIC ENDURANCE IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,
IN TOKEN OF SINCEREST ADMIRATION, AND IN GRATEFUL
APPRECIATION OF NUMBERLESS COURTESIES RECEIVED
BY ONE OF THEIR FELLOW TRAVELLERS AND
CHAPLAINS THROUGHOUT THE BOER
WAR OF 1899-1902

Preface

The story of my long tramp with the Guards' Brigade was in part told through a series of letters that appeared in The Methodist Recorder, The Methodist Times, and other papers. The first portion of that series was republished in "Chaplains in Khaki," as also extensive selections in "From Aldershot to Pretoria." In this volume, therefore, to avoid needless repetition, the story begins with our triumphal occupation of Bloemfontein, and is continued till after the time of the breaking-up of the Guards' Brigade.

No one will expect from a chaplain a technical and critical account of the complicated military operations he witnessed at the seat of war. For that he has no qualifications. Nor, on the other hand, would it be quite satisfactory if he wrote only of what the chaplains and other Christian workers were themselves privileged to do in connection with the war. That would necessitate great sameness, if not great tameness. These pages are rather intended to set forth the many-sided life of our soldiers on active service, their privations and perils, their failings and their heroisms, their rare endurance, and in some cases their unfeigned piety; that all may see what manner of men they were who in so many instances laid down their lives in the defence of the empire; and amid what stupendous difficulties they endeavoured to do their duty.

We owe it to the fact that these men have volunteered in such numbers for military service that Britain alone of all European nations has thus far escaped the curse of the conscription. In that sense, therefore, they are the saviours and substitutes of the entire manhood of our nation. If they had not consented of their own accord to step into the breach, every able Englishman now at his desk, behind his counter, or toiling at his bench, must have run the risk of having had so to do. We owe to these men more than we have ever realised. It is but right, therefore, that more than ever they should henceforth live in an atmosphere of grateful kindliness, of Christian sympathy and effort.

"God bless you, Tommy Atkins, Here's your country's love to you!"

My authorities for the statements made in the introductory chapter are Fitzpatrick's "Pretoria from Within," and Martineau's "Life of Sir Bartle Frere." For the verifying or correcting of my own facts and figures, given later on, I have consulted Conan Doyle's "The Great Boer War," Stott's "The Invasion of Natal," and almost all other available literature relating to the subject.

Edward P. Lowry.

Pretoria, March 1902.

Contents

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

THE ULTIMATUM AND WHAT LED TO IT

Two Notable Dreamers--A Bankrupt Republic--The Man who Schemed as well as Dreamed--The Gold Plague--Hated Johannesburg --Boer preparations for War--Coming events cast their shadows before--The Ultimatum--The Rallying of the Clans--The Rousing of the Colonies.

CHAPTER I - ON THE WAY TO BLOEMFONTEIN, AND IN IT!

A capital little Capital--Famished Men and Famine Prices-- Republican Commandeering--A Touching Story--The Price of Milk.

CHAPTER II - A LONG HALT

Refits--Remounts--Regimental Pets--Civilian Hospitality and Soldiers' Homes--Soldiers' Christian Association Work-- Rudyard Kipling's Mistake--All Fools' Day--Eastertide in Bloemfontein--The Epidemic and the Hospitals--All hands and houses to the rescue--A sad sample of Enteric--Church of England Chaplains at work.

CHAPTER III - THROUGH WORLDS UNKNOWN AND FROM WORLDS UNKNOWN

A Pleasure Jaunt--Onwards, but Whither!--That Pom-Pom again --A Problem not quite solved--A Touching Sight--Rifle Firing and Firing Farms--Boer Treachery and the White Flag--The Pet Lamb still lives and learns--Right about face--From Worlds Unknown--The Bushmen and their Australian Chaplains.

CHAPTER IV - QUICK MARCH TO THE TRANSVAAL

A Comedy--A Tragedy--A Wide Front and a Resistless Force-- Brandfort--"Stop the War" Slanders--A Prisoner who tried to be a Poet--Militant Dutch Reformed Predikants--Our Australian Chaplain's pastoral experiences--The Welsh Chaplain.

CHAPTER V - TO THE VALSCH RIVER AND THE VAAL

The Sand River Convention--Railway Wrecking and Repairing-- The Tale, and Tails, of a Singed Overcoat--Lord Roberts as Hospital Visitor--President Steyn's Sjambok--A Sunday at last that was also a Sabbath--Military Police on the March--A General's glowing eulogy of the Guards--Good News by the way-- Over the Vaal at last.

CHAPTER VI - A CHAPTER ABOUT CHAPLAINS

A Chaplain who found the Base became the Front--Pathetic Scenes in Hospital--A Battlefield Scene no less Pathetic--Look on this Picture, and on that--A third-class Chaplain who proved a first-rate Chaplain--Running in the Wrong Man--A Wainman who proved a real Waggoner--Three bedfellows in a barn--A fourth-class Chaplain that was also a first-rate Chaplain--A Parson Prisoner in the hands of the Boers--Caring for the Wounded--How the Chaplain's own Tent was bullet-riddled--A Sample Set of Sunday Services.

CHAPTER VII - THE HELPFUL WORK OF THE OFFICIATING CLERGY

At Cape Town and Wynberg--Saved from Drowning to sink in Hospital--A Pleasant Surprise--The Soldiers' Reception Committee--The other way about--Our near kinship to the Boers --More good Work on our right Flank.

CHAPTER VIII - GETTING TO THE GOLDEN CITY

An elaborate night toilet--Capturing Clapham Junction--Dear diet and dangerous--No Wages but the Sjambok--The Gold Mines --The Soldiers' Share--The Golden City--Astonishing the Natives.

CHAPTER IX - PRETORIA--THE CITY OF ROSES

Whit-Monday and Wet Tuesday--"Light after Dark"--Why the Surrender?--Taking Possession--"Resurgam"--A Striking Incident--No Canteens and no Crime.

CHAPTER X - PRETORIAN INCIDENTS AND IMPRESSIONS

The State's Model School--Rev. Adrian Hoffmeyer--The Waterfall Prisoners--A Soldier's Hymn--A big Supper Party-- The Soldiers' Home--Mr and Mrs Osborn Howe--A Letter from Lord Kitchener--Also from Lord Roberts--A Song in praise of De Wet--Cordua and his Conspiracy--Hospital Work in Pretoria --The Wear and Tear of War--The Nursing Sisters--A Surprise Packet--Soldierly Gratitude--The Ladysmith Lyre.

CHAPTER XI - FROM PRETORIA TO BELFAST

The Boer way of saying "Bosh"--News from a far Country --Further fighting--Touch not, taste not, handle not--More Treachery and still more--The root of the matter--A Tight Fit --Obstructives on the Rail--Middleburg and the Doppers-- August Bank Holiday--Blowing up Trains--A peculiar Mothers' Meeting--Aggressive Ladies--A Dutch Deacon's Testimony--A German Officer's Testimony.

CHAPTER XII - THROUGH HELVETIA

The Fighting near Belfast--Feeding under Fire--A German Doctor's Confession--Friends in need are Friends indeed--The Invisible Sniper's Triumph--"He sets the mournful Prisoners free"--More Boer Slimness--A Boer Hospital--Foreign Mercenaries--A wounded Australian--Hotel Life on the Trek-- A Sheep-pen of a Prison--Pretty Scenery and Superb.

CHAPTER XIII - WAR'S WANTON WASTE

A Surrendered Boer General--Two Unworthy Predikants--Two Notable Advocates of Clemency--Mines without Men, and Men without Meat--Much Fat in the Fire--More Fat and Mightier Flames--A Welcome Lift by the Way--"Rags and Tatters, get ye gone!"--Destruction and still more Destruction--At Koomati Poort--Two Notable Fugitives--The Propaganda of the Africander Bond--Ex-President Steyn--Paul Botha's opinion of this Ex-President.

CHAPTER XIV - FROM PORTUGUESE AFRICA TO PRETORIA

Staggering Humanity--Food for Flames--A Crocodile in the Koomati--A Hippopotamus in the Koomati--A Via Dolorosa--Over the Line--Westward Ho!--Ruined Farms and Ruined Firms--Farewell to the Guards' Brigade!

CHAPTER XV - A WAR OF CEASELESS SURPRISES

Exhaustlessness of Boer resources--The Peculiarity of Boer Tactics--The Surprisers Surprised--Train Wrecking--The Refugee Camps--The Grit of the Guards--The Irregulars--The Testimony of the Cemetery--Death and Life in Pretoria.

CHAPTER XVI - PRETORIA AND THE ROYAL FAMILY

Suzerainty turned to Sovereignty--Prince Christian Victor--A Royal Funeral--A Touching Story--The Death of the Queen--The King's Coronation.

Illustrations

Rev E P Lowry
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A Magersfontein Boer Trench
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Rev. T. F. Falkner, M.A. Chaplain to the Forces
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Broken Bridge at Modder River
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The Deviation Bridge at Modder River
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Dopper Church Opposite President Kruger's House
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Soldiers' Home at Pretoria
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Boer Families on their Way to a Concentration Camp
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Part of I.Y. Hospital in the Grounds Surrounding Mr T. W. Beckett's Mansion at Pretoria
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Wesleyan Church and Manse, Pretoria
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