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+Title:  The Great Boer War
+
+Author:  Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+Release Date: February, 2002  [Etext #3069]
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+Edition: 10
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+*Project Gutenberg's The Great Boer War, by Arthur Conan Doyle*
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+Prepared by Robert Laing
+e-mail: zapr@icon.co.za
+
+
+
+
+
+The Great Boer War
+
+by Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+
+
+
+E-text editor's note: It may come as a surprise that the creator of
+Sherlock Holmes wrote a history of the Boer War.  The then 40-year-old
+novelist wanted to see the war first hand as a soldier, but the
+Victorian army balked at having popular author wielding a pen in its
+ranks. The army did accept him as a doctor and Doyle was knighted in
+1902 for his work with a field hospital in Bloemfontein. Doyle's vivid
+description of the battles are probably thanks to the eye-witness
+accounts he got from his patients. This, the best book on the Boer War
+I've encountered, is a long out of print lost classic that I stumbled
+across in a Cape Town second-hand bookstore.
+
+
+Preface To The Final Edition
+
+During the course of the war some sixteen Editions of this work have
+appeared, each of which was, I hope, a little more full and accurate
+than that which preceded it. I may fairly claim, however, that the
+absolute mistakes made have been few in number, and that I have never
+had occasion to reverse, and seldom to modify, the judgments which I
+have formed.  In this final edition the early text has been carefully
+revised and all fresh available knowledge has been added within the
+limits of a single volume narrative.  Of the various episodes in the
+latter half of the war it is impossible to say that the material is
+available for a complete and final chronicle. By the aid, however, of
+the official dispatches, of the newspapers, and of many private
+letters, I have done my best to give an intelligible and accurate
+account of the matter.  The treatment may occasionally seem too brief
+but some proportion must be observed between the battles of 1899-1900
+and the skirmishes of 1901-1902.
+
+My private informants are so numerous that it would be hardly
+possible, even if it were desirable, that I should quote their name~.
+Of the correspondents upon whose work I have drawn for my materials, I
+would acknowledge my obligations to Messrs. Burleigh, Nevinson,
+Battersby, Stuart, Amery, Atkins, Baillie, Kinneir, Churchill, James,
+Ralph, Barnes, Maxwell, Pearce, Hamilton, and others.  Especially I
+would mention the gentleman who represented the `Standard' in the last
+year of the war, whose accounts of Vlakfontein, Von Donop's Convoy,
+and Tweebosch were the only reliable ones which reached the public.
+
+Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+Undershaw, Hindhead:
+
+September 1902.
+
+CHAPTER I
+THE BOER NATIONS
+
+Take a community of Dutchmen of the type of those who defended
+themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time
+when Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them a
+strain of those inflexible French Huguenots who gave up home and
+fortune and left their country for ever at the time of the revocation
+of the Edict of Nantes. The product must obviously be one of the most
+rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen upon earth.  Take this
+formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant
+warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts, in circumstances
+under which no weakling could survive, place them so that they acquire
+exceptional skill with weapons and in horsemanship, give them a
+country which is eminently suited to the tactics of the huntsman, the
+marksman, and the rider.  Then, finally, put a finer temper upon their
+military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an
+ardent and consuming patriotism.  Combine all these qualities and all
+these impulses in one individual, and you have the modern Boer -- the
+most formidable antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial
+Britain.  Our military history has largely consisted in our conflicts
+with France, but Napoleon and all his veterans have never treated us
+so roughly as these hard-bitten farmers with their ancient theology
+and their inconveniently modern rifles.
+
+Look at the map of South Africa, and there, in the very centre of the
+British possessions, like the stone in a peach, lies the great stretch
+of the two republics, a mighty domain for so small a people. How came
+they there? Who are these Teutonic folk who have burrowed so deeply
+into Africa? It is a twice-told tale, and yet it must be told once
+again if this story is to have even the most superficial of
+introductions. No one can know or appreciate the Boer who does not
+know his past, for he is what his past has made him.
+
+It was about the time when Oliver Cromwell was at his zenith -- in
+1652, to be pedantically accurate -- that the Dutch made their first
+lodgment at the Cape of Good Hope.  The Portuguese had been there
+before them, but, repelled by the evil weather, and lured forwards by
+rumours of gold, they had passed the true seat of empire and had
+voyaged further to settle along the eastern coast.  Some gold there
+was, but not much, and the Portuguese settlements have never been
+sources of wealth to the mother country, and never will be until the
+day when Great Britain signs her huge cheque for Delagoa Bay.  The
+coast upon which they settled reeked with malaria.  A hundred miles of
+poisonous marsh separated it from the healthy inland plateau.  For
+centuries these pioneers of South African colonisation strove to
+obtain some further footing, but save along the courses of the rivers
+they made little progress. Fierce natives and an enervating climate
+barred their way.
+
+But it was different with the Dutch.  That very rudeness of climate
+which had so impressed the Portuguese adventurer was the source of
+their success. Cold and poverty and storm are the nurses of the
+qualities which make for empire. It is the men from the bleak and
+barren lands who master the children of the light and the heat. And so
+the Dutchmen at the Cape prospered and grew stronger in that robust
+climate. They did not penetrate far inland, for they were few in
+number and all they wanted was to be found close at hand. But they
+built themselves houses, and they supplied the Dutch East India
+Company with food and water, gradually budding off little townlets,
+Wynberg, Stellenbosch, and pushing their settlements up the long
+slopes which lead to that great central plateau which extends for
+fifteen hundred miles from the edge of the Karoo to the Valley of the
+Zambesi.  Then came the additional Huguenot emigrants -- the best
+blood of France three hundred of them, a handful of the choicest seed
+thrown in to give a touch of grace and soul to the solid Teutonic
+strain. Again and again in the course of history, with the Normans,
+the Huguenots, the Emigrés, one can see the great hand dipping into
+that storehouse and sprinkling the nations with the same splendid
+seed. France has not founded other countries, like her great rival,
+but she has made every other country the richer by the mixture with
+her choicest and best.  The Rouxs, Du Toits, Jouberts, Du Plessis,
+Villiers, and a score of other French names are among the most
+familiar in South Africa.
+
+For a hundred more years the history of the colony was a record of the
+gradual spreading ,of the Afrikaners over the huge expanse of veld
+which lay to the north of them. Cattle raising became an industry, but
+in a country where six acres can hardly support a sheep, large farms
+are necessary for even small herds.  Six thousand acres was the usual
+size, and five pounds a year the rent payable to Government. The
+diseases which follow the white man had in Africa, as in America and
+Australia, been fatal to the natives, and an epidemic of smallpox
+cleared the country for the newcomers. Further and further north they
+pushed, founding little towns here and there, such as Graaf-Reinet and
+Swellendam, where a Dutch Reformed Church and a store for the sale of
+the bare necessaries of life formed a nucleus for a few scattered
+dwellings. Already the settlers were showing that independence of
+control and that detachment from Europe which has been their most
+prominent characteristic.  Even the sway of the Dutch Company (an
+older but weaker brother of John Company in India) had caused them to
+revolt. The local rising, however, was hardly noticed in the universal
+cataclysm which followed the French Revolution. After twenty years,
+during which the world was shaken by the Titanic struggle between
+England and France in the final counting up of the game and paying of
+the stakes, the Cape Colony was added in 1814 to the British Empire.
+
+In all our vast collection of States there is probably not one the
+title-deeds to which are more incontestable than to this one. We had
+it by two rights, the right of conquest and the right of purchase.  In
+1806 our troops landed, defeated the local forces, and took p05session
+of Cape Town.  In 1814 we paid the large sum of six million pounds to
+the Stadholder for the transference of this and some South American
+land. It was a bargain which was probably made rapidly and carelessly
+in that general redistribution which was going on.  As a house of call
+upon the way to India the place was seen to be of value, but the
+country itself was looked upon as unprofitable and
+desert. What would Castlereagh or Liverpool have thought could they
+have seen the items which we were buying for our six million pounds?
+The inventory would have been a mixed one of good and of evil; nine
+fierce Kaffir wars, the greatest diamond mines in the world, the
+wealthiest gold mines, two costly and humiliating campaigns with men
+whom we respected even when we fought with them, and now at last, we
+hope, a South Africa of peace and prosperity, with equal rights and
+equal duties for all men.  The future should hold something very good
+for us in that land, for if we merely count the past we should be
+compelled to say that we should have been stronger, richer, and higher
+in the world's esteem had our possessions there never passed beyond
+the range of the guns of our men-of-war. But surely the most arduous
+is the most honourable, and, looking back from the end of their
+journey, our descendants may see that our long record of struggle,
+with its mixture of disaster and success, its outpouring of blood and
+of treasure, has always tended to some great and enduring goal.
+
+The title-deeds to the estate are, as I have said, good ones, but
+there is one singular and ominous flaw in their provisions.  The ocean
+has marked three boundaries to it, but the fourth is undefined.  There
+is no word of the `Hinterland;' for neither the term nor the idea had
+then been thought of.  Had Great Britain bought those vast regions
+which extended beyond the settlements? Or were the discontented Dutch
+at liberty to pass onwards and found fresh nations to bar the path of
+the Anglo-Celtic colonists? In that question lay the germ of all the
+trouble to come. An American would realise the point at issue if he
+could conceive that after the founding of the United States the Dutch
+inhabitants of the State of New York had trekked to the westward and
+established fresh communities under a new flag. Then, when the
+American population overtook these western States, they would be face
+to face with the problem which this country has had to solve. If they
+found these new States fiercely anti-American and extremely
+unprogressive, they would experience that aggravation of their
+difficulties with which our statesmen have had to deal.
+
+At the time of their transference to the British flag the colonists --
+Dutch, French, and German -- numbered some thirty thousand.  They were
+slaveholders, and the slaves were about as numerous as themselves. The
+prospect of complete amalgamation between the British and the original
+settlers would have seemed to be a good one, since they were of much
+the same stock, and their creeds could only be distinguished by their
+varying degrees of bigotry and intolerance.  Five thousand British
+emigrants were landed in 1820, settling on the Eastern borders of the
+colony, and from that time onwards there was a slow but steady influx
+of English speaking colonists.  The Government had the historical
+faults and the historical virtues of British rule. It was mild, clean,
+honest, tactless, and inconsistent.  On the whole, it might have done
+very well had it been content to leave things as it found them.  But
+to change the habits of the most conservative of Teutonic races was a
+dangerous venture, and one which has led to a long series of
+complications, making up the troubled history of South Africa.  The
+Imperial Government has always taken an honourable and philanthropic
+view of the rights of the native and the claim which he has to the
+protection of the law. We hold and rightly, that British justice, if
+not blind, should at least be colour-blind.  The view is
+irreproachable in theory and incontestable in argument, but it is apt
+to be irritating when urged by a Boston moralist or a London
+philanthropist upon men whose whole society has been built upon the
+assumption that the black is the inferior race.  Such a people like to
+find the higher morality for themselves, not to have it imposed upon
+them by those who live under entirely different conditions.  They
+feel -- and with some reason -- that it is a cheap form of virtue which,
+from the serenity of a well-ordered household in Beacon Street or
+Belgrave Square, prescribes what the relation shall be between a white
+employer and his half-savage, half-childish retainers. Both branches
+of the Anglo-Celtic race have grappled with the question, and in each
+it has led to trouble.
+
+The British Government in South Africa has always played the unpopular
+part of the friend and protector of the native servants.  It was upon
+this very point that the first friction appeared between the old
+settlers and the new administration.  A rising with bloodshed followed
+the arrest of a Dutch farmer who had maltreated his slave.  It was
+suppressed, and five of the participants were hanged. This punishment
+was unduly severe and exceedingly injudicious. A brave race can forget
+the victims of the field of battle, but never those of the scaffold.
+The making of political martyrs is the last insanity of statesmanship.
+It is true that both the man who arrested and the judge who condemned
+the prisoners were Dutch, and that the British Governor interfered on
+the side of mercy; but all this was forgotten afterwards in the desire
+to make racial capital out of the incident. It is typical of the
+enduring resentment which was left behind that when, after the
+Jameson raid, it seemed that the leaders of that ill-fated venture
+might be hanged, the beam was actually brought from a farmhouse at
+Cookhouse Drift to Pretoria, that the Englishmen might die as the
+Dutchmen had died in 1816.  Slagter's Nek marked the dividing of the
+ways between the British Government and the Afrikaners.
+
+And the separation soon became more marked. There were injudicious
+tamperings with the local government and the local ways, with a
+substitution of English for Dutch in the law courts. With vicarious
+generosity, the English Government gave very lenient terms to the
+Kaffir tribes who in 1834 had raided the border farmers. And then,
+finally, in this same year there came the emancipation of the slaves
+throughout the British Empire, which fanned all smouldering
+discontents into an active flame.
+
+It must be confessed that on this occasion the British philanthropist
+was willing to pay for what he thought was right.  It was a noble
+national action, and one the morality of which was in advance of its
+time, that the British Parliament should vote the enormous sum of
+twenty million pounds to pay compensation to the slaveholders, and so
+to remove an evil with which the mother country bad no immediate
+connection. It was as well that the thing should have been done when
+it was, for had we waited till the colonies affected had governments
+of their own it could never have been done by constitutional methods.
+With many a grumble the good British householder drew his purse from
+his fob, and he paid for what he thought to be right.  If any special
+grace attends the virtuous action which brings nothing but tribulation
+in this world, then we may hope for it over this emancipation. We
+spent our money, we ruined our West Indian colonies, and we started a
+disaffection in South Africa, the end of which we have not seen.  Yet
+if it were to be done again we should doubtless do it.  The highest
+morality may prove also to be the highest wisdom when the half-told
+story comes to be finished.
+
+But the details of the measure were less honourable than the
+principle.  It was carried out suddenly, so that the country had no
+time to adjust itself to the new conditions.  Three million pounds
+were ear-marked for South Africa, which gives a price per slave of
+from sixty to seventy pounds, a sum considerably below the current
+local rates. Finally, the compensation was made payable in London, so
+that the farmers sold their claims at reduced prices to middlemen.
+Indignation meetings were held in every little townlet and cattle camp
+on the Karoo.  The old Dutch spirit was up -- the spirit of the men
+who cut the dykes.  Rebellion was useless. But a vast untenanted land
+stretched to the north of them. The nomad life was congenial to them,
+and in their huge ox-drawn wagons -- like those bullock-carts in which
+some of their old kinsmen came to Gaul -- they had vehicles and homes
+and forts all in one. One by one they were loaded up, the huge teams
+were inspanned, the women were seated inside, the men, with their
+long-barrelled guns, walked alongside, and the great exodus was begun.
+Their herds and flocks accompanied the migration, and the children
+helped to round them in and drive them.  One tattered little boy of
+ten cracked his sjambok whip behind the bullocks. He was a small item
+in that singular crowd, but he was of interest to us, for his name was
+Paul Stephanus Kruger.
+
+It was a strange exodus, only comparable in modern times to the
+sallying forth of the Mormons from Nauvoo upon their search for the
+promised laud of Utah.  The country was known and sparsely settled as
+far north as the Orange River, but beyond there was a great region
+which had never been penetrated save by some daring hunter or
+adventurous pioneer. It chanced -- if there be indeed such an element
+as chance in the graver affairs of man -- that a Zulu conqueror had
+swept over this land and left it untenanted, save by the dwarf
+bushmen, the hideous aborigines, lowest of the human race.  There were
+fine grazing and good soil for the emigrants.  They traveled in small
+detached parties, but their total numbers were considerable, from six
+to ten thousand according to their historian, or nearly a quarter of
+the whole population of the colony.  Some of the early bands perished
+miserably.  A large number made a trysting-place at a high peak to the
+east of Bloemfontein in what was lately the Orange Free State. One
+party of the emigrants was cut off by the formidable Matabeli, a
+branch of the great Zulu nation.  The survivors declared war upon
+them, and showed in this, their first campaign, the extraordinary
+ingenuity in adapting their tactics to their adversary which has been
+their greatest military characteristic.  The commando which rode out
+to do battle with the Matabeli numbered, it is said, a hundred and
+thirty-five farmers.  Their adversaries were twelve thousand spearmen.
+They met at the Marico River, near Mafeking.  The Boers combined the
+use of their horses and of their rifles so cleverly that they
+slaughtered a third of their antagonists without any loss to
+themselves.  Their tactics were to gallop up within range of the
+enemy, to fire a volley, and then to ride away again before the
+spearmen could reach them. When the savages pursued the Boers
+fled. When the pursuit halted the Boers halted and the rifle fire
+began anew. The strategy was simple but most effective. When one
+remembers how often since then our own horsemen have been pitted
+against savages in all parts of the world, one deplores that ignorance
+of all military traditions save our own which is characteristic of our
+service.
+
+This victory of the `voortrekkers' cleared all the country between the
+Orange River and the Limpopo, the sites of what has been known as the
+Transvaal and the Orange Free State.  In the meantime another body of
+the emigrants had descended into what is now known as Natal, and had
+defeated Dingaan, the great Chief of the Zulus.  Being unable, owing
+to the presence of their families, to employ the cavalry tactics which
+had been so effective against the Matabeli, they again used their
+ingenuity to meet this new situation, and received the Zulu warriors
+in a square of laagered wagons, the men firing while the women
+loaded. Six burghers were killed and three thousand Zulus.  Had such a
+formation been used forty years afterwards against these very Zulus,
+we should not have had to mourn the disaster of Isandhlwana.
+
+And now at the end of their great journey, after overcoming the
+difficulties of distance, of nature, and of savage enemies, the Boers
+saw at the end of their travels the very thing which they desired
+least -- that which they had come so far to avoid -- the flag of Great
+Britain. The Boers had occupied Natal from within, but England had
+previously done the same by sea, and a small colony of Englishmen had
+settled at Port Natal, now known as Durban.  The home Government,
+however, had acted in a vacillating way, and it was only the conquest
+of Natal by the Boers which caused them to claim it as a British
+colony.  At the same time they asserted the unwelcome doctrine that a
+British subject could not at will throw off his allegiance, and that,
+go where they might, the wandering farmers were still only the
+pioneers of British colonies.  To emphasise the fact three companies
+of soldiers were Bent in 1842 to what is now Durban -- the usual
+Corporal's guard with which Great Britain starts a new empire.  This
+handful of men was waylaid by the Boers and cut up, as their
+successors have been so often since.  The survivors, however,
+fortified themselves, and held a defensive position -- as also their
+successors have done so many times since -- until reinforcements arrived
+and the farmers dispersed. It is singular how in history the same
+factors will always give the same result.  Here in this first skirmish
+is an epitome of all our military relations with these people.  The
+blundering headstrong attack, the defeat, the powerlessness of the
+farmer against the weakest fortifications -- it is the same tale over and
+over again in different scales of importance. Natal from this time
+onward became a British colony, and the majority of the Boers trekked
+north and east with bitter hearts to tell their wrongs to their
+brethren of the Orange Free State and of the Transvaal.
+
+Had they any wrongs to tell? It is difficult to reach that height of
+philosophic detachment which enables the historian to deal absolutely
+impartially where his own country is a party to the quarrel.  But at
+least we may allow that there is a case for our adversary.  Our
+annexation of Natal had been by no means definite, and it was they and
+not we who first broke that bloodthirsty Zulu power which threw its
+shadow across the country.  It was hard after such trials and such
+exploits to turn their back upon the fertile land which they had
+conquered, and to return to the bare pastures of the upland veldt.
+They carried out of Natal a heavy sense of injury, which has helped to
+poison our relations with them ever since. It was, in a way, a
+momentous episode, this little skirmish of soldiers and emigrants, for
+it was the heading off of the Boer from the sea and the confinement of
+his ambition to the land.  Had it gone the other way, a new and
+possibly formidable flag would have been added to the maritime
+nations.
+
+The emigrants who had settled in the huge tract of country between the
+Orange River in the south and the Limpopo in the north had been
+recruited by newcomers from the Cape Colony until they numbered some
+fifteen thousand souls.  This population was scattered over a space as
+large as Germany, and larger than Pennsylvania, New York, and New
+England.  Their form of government was individualistic and democratic
+to the last degree compatible with any sort of cohesion. Their wars
+with the Kaffirs and their fear and dislike of the British Government
+appear to have been the only ties which held them together.  They
+divided and subdivided within their own borders, like a germinating
+egg.  The Transvaal was full of lusty little high-mettled communities,
+who quarreled among themselves as fiercely as they had done with the
+authorities at the Cape.  Lydenburg, Zoutpansberg, and Potchefstroom
+were on the point of turning their rifles against each other.  In the
+south, between the Orange River and the Vaal, there was no form of
+government at all, but a welter of Dutch farmers, Basutos, Hottentots,
+and halfbreeds living in a chronic state of turbulence, recognising
+neither the British authority to the south of them nor the Transvaal
+republics to the north.  The chaos became at last unendurable, and in
+1848 a garrison was placed in Bloemfontein and the district
+incorporated in the British Empire.  The emigrants made ~ futile
+resistance at Boomplats, and after a single defeat allowed themselves
+to be drawn into the settled order of civilised rule.
+
+At this period the Transvaal, where most of the Boers had settled,
+desired a formal acknowledgment of their independence, which the
+British authorities determined once and for all to give them.  The
+great barren country, which produced little save marksmen, had no
+attractions for a Colonial Office which was bent upon the limitation
+of its liabilities. A Convention was concluded between the two
+parties, known as the Sand River Convention, which is one of the fixed
+points in South African history.  By it the British Government
+guaranteed to the Boer farmers the right to manage their own affairs,
+and to govern themselves by their own laws without any interference
+upon the part of the British.  It stipulated that there should be no
+slavery, and with that single reservation washed its hands finally, as
+it imagined, of the whole question.  So the South African Republic
+came formally into existence.
+
+In the very year after the Sand River Convention a second republic,
+the Orange Free State, was created by the deliberate withdrawal of
+Great Britain from the territory which she had for eight years
+occupied.  The Eastern Question was already becoming acute, and the
+cloud of a great war was drifting up, visible to all men. British
+statesmen felt that their commitments were very heavy in every part of
+the world, and the South African annexations had always been a
+doubtful value and an undoubted trouble.  Against the will of a large
+part of the inhabitants, whether a majority or not it is impossible to
+say, we withdrew our troops as amicably as the Romans withdrew from
+Britain, and the new republic was left with absolute and unfettered
+independence. On a petition being presented against the withdrawal,
+the Home Government actually voted forty-eight thousand pounds to
+compensate those who had suffered from the change. Whatever historical
+grievance the Transvaal may have against Great Britain, we can at
+least, save perhaps in one matter, claim to have a very clear
+conscience concerning our dealings with the Orange Free State.  Thus
+in 1852 and in 1854 were born those sturdy States who were able for a
+time to hold at bay the united forces of the empire.
+
+In the meantime Cape Colony, in spite of these secessions, had
+prospered exceedingly, and her population -- English, German, and
+Dutch -- had grown by 1870 to over two hundred thousand souls, the
+Dutch still slightly predominating.  According to the Liberal colonial
+policy of Great Britain, the time had come to cut the cord and let the
+young nation conduct its own affairs.  In 1872 complete
+self-government was given to it, the Governor, as the representative
+of the Queen, retaining a nominal unexercised veto upon
+legislation. According to this system the Dutch majority of the colony
+could, and did, put their own representatives into power and run the
+government upon Dutch lines. Already Dutch law had been restored, and
+Dutch put on the same footing as English as the official language of
+the country.  The extreme liberality of such measures, and the
+uncompromising way in which they have been carried out, however
+distasteful the legislation might seem to English ideas, are among the
+chief reasons which made the illiberal treatment of British settlers
+in the Transvaal so keenly resented at the Cape. A Dutch Government
+was ruling the British in a British colony, at a moment when the Boers
+would not give an Englishman a vote upon a municipal council in a city
+which he had built himself.  Unfortunately, however, 'the evil that
+men do lives after them,' and the ignorant Boer farmer continued to
+imagine that his southern relatives were in bondage, just as the
+descendant of the Irish emigrant still pictures an Ireland of penal
+laws and an alien Church.
+
+For twenty-five years after the Sand River Convention the burghers of
+the South African Republic had pursued a strenuous and violent
+existence, fighting incessantly with the natives and sometimes with
+each other, with an occasional fling at the little Dutch republic to
+the south.  The semi-tropical sun was waking strange ferments in the
+placid Friesland blood, and producing a race who added the turbulence
+and restlessness of the south to the formidable tenacity of the north.
+Strong vitality and violent ambitions produced feuds and rivalries
+worthy of medieval Italy, and the story of the factious little
+communities is like a chapter out of Guicciardini.  Disorganisation
+ensued.  The burghers would not pay taxes and the treasury was empty.
+One fierce Kaffir tribe threatened them from the north, and the Zulus
+on the east.  It is an exaggeration of English partisans to pretend
+that our intervention saved the Boers, for no one can read their
+military history without seeing that they were a match for Zulus and
+Sekukuni combined.  But certainly a formidable invasion was pending,
+and the scattered farmhouses were as open to the Kaffirs as our
+farmers' homesteads were in the American colonies when the Indians
+were on the warpath.  Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the British
+Commissioner, after an inquiry of three months, solved all questions
+by the formal annexation of the country.  The fact that he took
+possession of it with a force of some twenty-five men showed the
+honesty of his belief that no armed resistance was to be feared. This,
+then, in 1877 was a complete reversal of the Sand River Convention and
+the opening of a new chapter in the history of South Africa.
+
+There did not appear to be any strong feeling at the time against the
+annexation. The people were depressed with their troubles and weary of
+contention. Burgers, the President, put in a formal protest, and took
+up his abode in Cape Colony, where he had a pension from the British
+Government.  A memorial against the measure received the signatures of
+a majority of the Boer inhabitants, but there was a fair minority who
+took the other view.  Kruger himself accepted a paid office under
+Government. There was every sign that the people, if judiciously
+handled, would settle down under the British flag.  It is even
+asserted that they would themselves have petitioned for annexation had
+it been longer withheld.  With immediate constitutional government it
+is possible that even the most recalcitrant of them might have been
+induced to lodge their protests in the ballot boxes rather than in the
+bodies of our soldiers.
+
+But the empire has always had poor luck in South Africa, and never
+worse than on that occasion.  Through no bad faith, but simply through
+preoccupation and delay, the promises made were not instantly
+fulfilled.  Simple primitive men do not understand the ways of our
+circumlocution offices, and they ascribe to duplicity what is really
+red tape and stupidity.  If the Transvaalers had waited they would
+have had their Volksraad and all that they wanted. But the British
+Government had some other local matters to set right, the rooting out
+of Sekukuni and the breaking of the Zulus, before they would fulfill
+their pledges.  The delay was keenly resented. And we were unfortunate
+in our choice of Governor. The burghers are a homely folk, and they
+like an occasional cup of coffee with the anxious man who tries to
+rule them. The three hundred pounds a year of coffee money allowed by
+the Transvaal to its President is by no means a mere form. A wise
+administrator would fall into the sociable and democratic habits of
+the people. Sir Theophilus Shepstone did so. Sir Owen Lanyon did
+not. There was no Volksraad and no coffee, and the popular discontent
+grew rapidly. In three years the British had broken up the two savage
+hordes which had been threatening the land. The finances, too, had
+been restored.  The reasons which had made so many favour the
+annexation were weakened by the very power which had every interest in
+preserving them.
+
+It cannot be too often pointed out that in this annexation, the
+starting-point of our troubles, Great Britain, however mistaken she
+may have been, had no obvious selfish interest in view.  There were no
+Rand mines in those days, nor was there anything in the country to
+tempt the most covetous. An empty treasury and two native wars were
+the reversion which we took over. It was honestly considered that the
+country was in too distracted a state to govern itself, and had, by
+its weakness, become a scandal and a danger to its neighbours. There
+was nothing sordid in our action, though it may have been both
+injudicious and high-handed.
+
+In December 1880 the Boers rose. Every farmhouse sent out its
+riflemen, and the trysting-place was the outside of the nearest
+British fort. All through the country small detachments were
+surrounded and besieged by the farmers.  Standerton, Pretoria,
+Potchefstroom, Lydenburg, Wakkerstroom, Rustenberg, and Marabastad
+were all invested and all held out until the end of the war.  In the
+open country we were less fortunate. At Bronkhorst Spruit a small
+British force was taken by surprise and shot down without harm to
+their antagonists. The surgeon who treated them has left it on record
+that the average number of wounds was five per man. At Laing's Nek an
+inferior force of British endeavoured to rush a hill which was held by
+Boer riflemen. Half of our men were killed and wounded.  Ingogo may be
+called a drawn battle, though our loss was more heavy than that of the
+enemy. Finally came the defeat of Majuba Hill, where four hundred
+infantry upon a mountain were defeated and driven off by a swarm of
+sharpshooters who advanced under the cover of boulders.  Of all these
+actions there was not one which was more than a skirmish, and had they
+been followed by a final British victory they would now be hardly
+remembered. It is the fact that they were skirmishes which succeeded
+in their object which has given them an importance which is
+exaggerated. At the same time they may mark the beginning of a new
+military era, for they drove home the fact -- only too badly learned
+by us -- that it is the rifle and not the drill which makes the
+soldier.  It is bewildering that after such an experience the British
+military authorities continued to serve out only three hundred
+cartridges a year for rifle practice, and that they still encouraged
+that mechanical volley firing which destroys all individual aim. With
+the experience of the first Boer war behind them, little was done,
+either in tactics or in musketry, to prepare the soldier for the
+second. The value of the mounted rifleman, the shooting with accuracy
+at unknown ranges, the art of taking cover -- all were equally
+neglected.
+
+The defeat at Majuba Hill was followed by the complete surrender of
+the Gladstonian Government, an act which was either the most
+pusillanimous or the most magnanimous in recent history.  It is hard
+for the big man to draw away from the small before blows are struck
+but when the big man has been knocked down three times it is harder
+still.  An overwhelming British force was in the field, and the
+General declared that he held the enemy in the hollow of his hand.
+Our military calculations have been falsified before now by these
+farmers, and it may be that the task of Wood and Roberts would have
+been harder than they imagined; but on paper, at least, it looked as
+if the enemy could be crushed without difficulty. So the public
+thought, and yet they consented to the upraised sword being stayed.
+With them, as apart from the politicians, the motive was undoubtedly a
+moral and Christian one.  They considered that the annexation of the
+Transvaal had evidently been an injustice, that the farmers had a
+right to the freedom for which they fought, and that it was an
+unworthy thing for a great nation to continue an unjust war for the
+sake of a military revenge.  It was the height of idealism, and the
+result has not been such as to encourage its repetition.
+
+An armistice was concluded on March 5th, 1881, which led up to a peace
+on the 23rd of the same month. The Government, after yielding to force
+what it had repeatedly refused to friendly representations, made a
+clumsy compromise in their settlement.  A policy of idealism and
+Christian morality should have been thorough if it were to be tried at
+all.  It was obvious that if the annexation were unjust, then the
+Transvaal should have reverted to the condition in which it was before
+the annexation, as defined by the Sand River Convention.  But the
+Government for some reason would not go so far as this.  They niggled
+and quibbled and bargained until the State was left as a curious
+hybrid thing such as the world has never seen. It was a republic which
+was part of the system of a monarchy, dealt with by the Colonial
+Office, and included under the heading of `Colonies' in the news
+columns of the `Times.' It was autonomous, and yet subject to some
+vague suzerainty, the limits of which no one has ever been able to
+define. Altogether, in its provisions and in its omissions, the
+Convention of Pretoria appears to prove that our political affairs
+were as badly conducted as our military in this unfortunate year of
+1881.
+
+It was evident from the first that so illogical and contentious an
+agreement could not possibly prove to be a final settlement, and
+indeed the ink of the signatures was hardly dry before an agitation
+was on foot for its revision.  The Boers considered, and with justice,
+that if they were to be left as undisputed victors in the war then
+they should have the full fruits of victory.  On the other hand, the
+English-speaking colonies had their allegiance tested to the
+uttermost.  The proud Anglo-Celtic stock is not accustomed to be
+humbled, and yet they found themselves through the action of the home
+Government converted into members of a beaten race. It was very well
+for the citizen of London to console his wounded pride by the thought
+that he had done a magnanimous action, but it was different with the
+British colonist of Durban or Cape Town, who by no act of his own, and
+without any voice in the settlement, found himself humiliated before
+his Dutch neighbour. An ugly feeling of resentment was left behind,
+which might perhaps have passed away had the Transvaal accepted the
+settlement in the spirit in which it was meant, but which grew more
+and more dangerous as during eighteen years our people saw, or thought
+that they saw, that one concession led always to a fresh demand, and
+that the Dutch republics aimed not merely at equality, but at
+dominance in South Africa.  Professor Bryce, a friendly critic, after
+a personal examination of the country and the question, has left it
+upon record that the Boers saw neither generosity nor humanity in our
+conduct, but only fear. An outspoken race, they conveyed their
+feelings to their neighbours.  Can it be wondered at that South Africa
+has been in a ferment ever since, and that the British Africander has
+yearned with an intensity of feeling unknown in England for the hour
+of revenge?
+
+The Government of the Transvaal after the war was left in the hands of
+a triumvirate, but after one year Kruger became President, an office
+which he continued to hold for eighteen years.  His career as ruler
+vindicates the wisdom of that wise but unwritten provision of the
+American Constitution by which there is a limit to the tenure of this
+office.  Continued rule for half a generation must turn a man into an
+autocrat.  The old President has said himself, in his homely but
+shrewd way, that when one gets a good ox to lead the team it is a pity
+to change him. If a good ox, however, is left to choose his own
+direction without guidance, he may draw his wagon into trouble.
+
+During three years the little State showed signs of a tumultuous
+activity.  Considering that it was as large as France and that the
+population could not have been more than 50,000, one would have
+thought that they might have found room without any inconvenient
+crowding.  But the burghers passed beyond their borders in every
+direction.  The President cried aloud that he had been shut up in a
+kraal, and he proceeded to find ways out of it.  A great trek was
+projected for the north, but fortunately it miscarried.  To the east
+they raided Zululand, and succeeded, in defiance of the British
+settlement of that country, in tearing away one third of it and adding
+it to the Transvaal.  To the west, with no regard to the
+three-year-old treaty, they invaded Bechuanaland, and set up the two
+new republics of Goshen and Stellaland. So outrageous were these
+proceedings that Great Britain was forced to fit out in 1884 a new
+expedition under Sir Charles Warren for the purpose of turning these
+freebooters out of the country. It may be asked, why should these men
+be called freebooters if the founders of Rhodesia were pioneers? The
+answer is that the Transvaal was limited by treaty to certain
+boundaries which these men transgressed, while no pledges were broken
+when the British power expanded to the north.  The upshot of these
+trespasses was the scene upon which every drama of South Africa rings
+down. Once more the purse was drawn from the pocket of the unhappy
+taxpayer, and a million or so was paid out to defray the expenses of
+the police force necessary to keep these treaty-breakers in order. Let
+this be borne in mind when we assess the moral and material damage
+done to the Transvaal by that ill-conceived and foolish enterprise, the
+Jameson Raid.
+
+In 1884 a deputation from the Transvaal visited England, and at their
+solicitation the clumsy Treaty of Pretoria was altered into the still
+more clumsy Convention of London.  The changes in the provisions were
+all in favour of the Boers, and a second successful war could hardly
+have given them more than Lord Derby handed them in time of
+peace. Their style was altered from the Transvaal to the South African
+Republic, a change which was ominously suggestive of expansion in the
+future. The control of Great Britain over their foreign policy was
+also relaxed, though a power of veto was retained. But the most
+important thing of all, and the fruitful cause of future trouble, lay
+in an omission.  A suzerainty is a vague term, but in politics, as in
+theology, the more nebulous a thing is the more does it excite the
+imagination and the passions of men. This suzerainty was declared in
+the preamble of the first treaty, and no mention of it was made in the
+second.  Was it thereby abrogated or was it not? The British
+contention was that only the articles were changed, and that the
+preamble continued to hold good for both treaties.  They pointed out
+that not only the suzerainty, but also the independence, of the
+Transvaal was proclaimed in that preamble, and that if one lapsed the
+other must do so also.  On the other hand, the Boers pointed to the
+fact that there was actually a preamble to the second Convention,
+which would seem, therefore, to have taken the place of the first. The
+point is so technical that it appears to be eminently one of those
+questions which might with propriety have been submitted to the
+decision of a board of foreign jurists -- or possibly to the Supreme
+Court of the United States. If the decision had been given against
+Great Britain, we might have accepted it in a chastened spirit as a
+fitting punishment for the carelessness of the representative who
+failed to make our meaning intelligible.  Carlyle has said that a
+political mistake always ends in a broken head for somebody.
+Unfortunately the somebody is usually somebody else. We have read the
+story of the political mistakes.  Only too soon we shall come to the
+broken heads.
+
+This, then, is a synopsis of what had occurred up to the signing of
+the Convention, which finally established, or failed to establish, the
+position of the South African Republic. We must now leave the larger
+questions, and descend to the internal affairs of that small State,
+and especially to that train of events which has stirred the mind of
+our people more than anything since the Indian Mutiny.
+
+CHAPTER II
+THE CAUSE OF QUARREL
+
+There might almost seem to be some subtle connection between the
+barrenness and worthlessness of a surface and the value of the
+minerals which lie beneath it. The craggy mountains of Western
+America, the arid plains of West Australia, the ice-bound gorges of
+the Klondyke, and the bare slopes of the Witwatersrand veldt -- these
+are the lids which cover the great treasure chests of the world.
+
+Gold had been known to exist in the Transvaal before, but it was only
+in 1886 that it was realised that the deposits which lie some thirty
+miles south of the capital are of a very extraordinary and valuable
+nature. The proportion of gold in the quartz is not particularly high,
+nor are the veins of a remarkable thickness, but the peculiarity of
+the Rand mines lies in the fact that throughout this 'banket'
+formation the metal is so uniformly distributed that the enterprise
+can claim a certainty which is not usually associated with the
+industry.  It is quarrying rather than mining.  Add to this that the
+reefs which were originally worked as outcrops have now been traced to
+enormous depths, and present the same features as those at the
+surface. A conservative estimate of the value of the gold has placed
+it at seven hundred millions of pounds.
+
+Such a discovery produced the inevitable effect. A great number of
+adventurers flocked into the country, some desirable and some very
+much the reverse.  There were circumstances, however, which kept away
+the rowdy and desperado element who usually make for a newly opened
+goldfield.  It was not a class of mining which encouraged the
+individual adventurer.  There were none of those nuggets which gleamed
+through the mud of the dollies at Ballarat, or recompensed the
+forty-niners in California for all their travels and their toils.  It
+was a field for elaborate machinery, which could only be provided by
+capital. Managers, engineers, miners, technical experts, and the
+tradesmen and middlemen who live upon them, these were the Uitlanders,
+drawn from all the races under the sun, but with the Anglo-Celtic
+vastly predominant.  The best engineers were American, the best miners
+were Cornish, the best managers were English, the money to run the
+mines was largely subscribed in England. As time went on, however, the
+German and French interests became more extensive, until their joint
+holdings are now probably as heavy as those of the British.  Soon the
+population of the mining centres became greater than that of the whole
+Boer community, and consisted mainly of men in the prime of life-men,
+too, of exceptional intelligence and energy.
+
+The situation was an extraordinary one.  I have already attempted to
+bring the problem home to an American by suggesting that the Dutch of
+New York had trekked west and founded an anti-American and highly
+unprogressive State.  To carry out the analogy we will now suppose
+that that State was California, that the gold of that State attracted
+a large inrush of American citizens, who came to outnumber the
+original inhabitants, that these citizens were heavily taxed and badly
+used, and that they deafened Washington with their outcry about their
+injuries.  That would be a fair parallel to the relations between the
+Transvaal, the Uitlanders, and the British Government.
+
+That these Uitlanders had very real and pressing grievances no one
+could possibly deny.  To recount them all would be a formidable task,
+for their whole lives were darkened by injustice. There was not a
+wrong which had driven the Boer from Gape Colony which he did not now
+practise himself upon others -- and a wrong may be excusable in 1885
+which is monstrous in 1895.  The primitive virtue which had
+characterised the farmers broke down in the face of temptation. The
+country Boers were little affected, some of them not at all, but the
+Pretoria Government became a most corrupt oligarchy, venal and
+incompetent to the last degree. Officials and imported Hollanders
+handled the stream of gold which came in from the mines, while the
+unfortunate Uitlander who paid nine-tenths of the taxation was fleeced
+at every turn, and met with laughter and taunts when he endeavoured to
+win the franchise by which he might peaceably set right the wrongs
+from which he suffered.  He was not an unreasonable person. On the
+contrary, he was patient to the verge of meekness, as capital is
+likely to be when it is surrounded by rifles. But his situation was
+intolerable, and after successive attempts at peaceful agitation, and
+numerous humble petitions to the Volksraad, lie began at last to
+realise that he would never obtain redress unless he could find some
+way of winning it for himself.
+
+Without attempting to enumerate all the wrongs which embittered the
+Uitlanders, the more serious of them may be summed up in this way.
+
+1. That they were heavily taxed and provided about seven-eighths of
+the revenue of the country. The revenue of the South African
+Republic-which had been 154,000l. in 1886, when the gold fields were
+opened-had grown in 1899 to four million pounds, and the country
+through the industry of the newcomers had changed from one of the
+poorest to the richest in the whole world (per head of population).
+
+2. That in spite of this prosperity which they had brought, they, the
+majority of the inhabitants of the country, were left without a vote,
+and could by no means influence the disposal of the great sums which
+they were providing.  Such a case of taxation without representation
+has never been known.
+
+3. That they had no voice in the choice or payment of officials.  Men
+of the worst private character might be placed with complete authority
+over valuable interests. Upon one occasion the Minister of Mines
+attempted himself to jump a mine, having officially learned some flaw
+in its title.  The total official salaries had risen in 1899 to a sum
+sufficient to pay 40l. per head to the entire male Boer population.
+
+4. That they had no control over education.  Mr. John Robinson, the
+Director General of the Johannesburg Educational Council, has reckoned
+the sum spent on Uitlander schools as 6501. out of 63,0001. allotted
+for education, making one shilling and tenpence per head per annum on
+Uitlander children, and eight pounds six shillings per head on Boer
+children-the Uitlander, as always, paying seven-eighths of the
+original sum.
+
+5. No power of municipal government.  Watercarts instead of pipes,
+filthy buckets instead of drains, a corrupt and violent police, a high
+death~rate in what should be a health resort -- all this in a city
+which they had built themselves.
+
+6. Despotic government in the matter of the press and of the right of
+public meeting.
+
+7. Disability from service upon a jury.
+
+8. Continual harassing of the mining interest by vexatious
+legislation.  Under this head came many grievances, some special to
+the mines and some affecting all Uitlanders.  The dynamite monopoly,
+by which the miners had to pay 600,0001. extra per annum in order to
+get a worse quality of dynamite; the liquor laws, by which one-third
+of the Kaffirs were allowed to be habitually drunk; the incompetence
+and extortions of the State-owned railway; the granting of concessions
+for numerous articles of ordinary consumption to individuals, by which
+high prices were maintained; the surrounding of Johannesburg by tolls
+from which the town had no profit -- these were among the economical
+grievances, some large, some petty, which ramified through every
+transaction of life.
+
+And outside and beyond all these definite wrongs imagine to a free
+born progressive man, an American or a Briton, the constant irritation
+of being absolutely ruled by a body of twenty-five men, twenty-one of
+whom had in the case of the Selati Railway Company been publicly and
+circumstantially accused of bribery, with full details of the bribes
+received, while to their corruption they added such crass ignorance
+that they argue in the published reports of the Volksraad debates that
+using dynamite bombs to bring down rain was firing at God, that it is
+impious to destroy locusts, that the word 'participate' should not be
+used because it is not in the Bible, and that postal pillar boxes are
+extravagant and effeminate.  Such OBITER DICTA may be amusing at a
+distance, but they are less entertaining when they come from an
+autocrat who has complete power over the conditions of your life.
+
+>From the fact that they were a community extremely preoccupied by
+their own business, it followed that the Uitlanders were not ardent
+politicians, and that they desired to have a share in the government
+of the State for the purpose of making the conditions of their own
+industry and of their own daily lives more endurable. How far there
+was need of such an interference may be judged by any fair-minded man
+who reads the list of their complaints. A superficial view may
+recognise the Boers as the champions of liberty, but a deeper insight
+must see that they (as represented by their elected rulers) have in
+truth stood for all that history has shown to be odious in the form of
+exclusiveness and oppression. Their conception of liberty has been a
+selfish one, and they have consistently inflicted upon others far
+heavier wrongs than those against which they had themselves rebelled.
+
+As the mines increased in importance and the miners in numbers, it was
+found that these political disabilities affected some of that
+cosmopolitan crowd far more than others, in proportion to the amount
+of freedom to which their home institutions had made them
+accustomed. The continental Uitlanders were more patient of that which
+was unendurable to the American and the Briton. The Americans,
+however, were in so great a minority that it was upon the British that
+the brunt of the struggle for freedom fell.  Apart from the fact that
+the British were more numerous than all the other Uitlanders combined,
+there were special reasons why they should feel their humiliating
+position more than the members of any other race.  In the first place,
+many of the British were British South Africans, who knew that in the
+neighbouring countries which gave them birth the most liberal possible
+institutions had been given to the kinsmen of these very Boers who
+were refusing them the management of their own drains and water
+supply. And again, every Briton knew that Great Britain claimed to be
+the paramount power in South Africa, and so he felt as if his own
+land, to which he might have looked for protection, was conniving at
+and acquiescing in his ill treatment. As citizens of the paramount
+power, it was peculiarly galling that they should be held in political
+subjection.  The British, therefore, were the most persistent and
+energetic of the agitators.
+
+But it is a poor cause which cannot bear to fairly state and honestly
+consider the case of its opponents. The Boers had made, as has been
+briefly shown, great efforts to establish a country of their own.
+They had travelled far, worked hard, and fought bravely. After all
+their efforts they were fated to see an influx of strangers into their
+country, some of them men of questionable character, who outnumbered
+the original inhabitants.  If the franchise were granted to these,
+there could be no doubt that though at first the Boers might control a
+majority of the votes, it was only a question of time before the
+newcomers would dominate the Raad and elect their own President, who
+might adopt a policy abhorrent to the original owners of the
+land. Were the Boers to lose by the ballot-box the victory which they
+had won by their rifles? Was it fair to expect it?  These newcomers
+came for gold.  They got their gold.  Their companies paid a hundred
+per cent. Was not that enough to satisfy them? If they did not like
+the country why did they not leave it? No one compelled them to stay
+there. But if they stayed, let them be thankful that they were
+tolerated at all, and not presume to interfere with the laws of those
+by whose courtesy they were allowed to enter the country.
+
+That is a fair statement of the Boer position, and at first sight an
+impartial man might say that there was a good deal to say for it; but
+a closer examination would show that, though it might be tenable in
+theory, it is unjust and impossible in practice.
+
+In the present crowded state of the world a policy of Thibet may be
+carried out in some obscure corner, but it cannot be done in a great
+tract. of country which lies right across the main line of industrial
+progress. The position is too absolutely artificial. A handful of
+people by the right of conquest take possession of an enormous country
+over which they are dotted at such intervals that it is their boast
+that one farmhouse cannot see the smoke of another, and yet, though
+their numbers are so disproportionate to the area which they cover,
+they refuse to admit any other people upon equal terms, but claim to
+be a privileged class who shall dominate the newcomers completely.
+They are outnumbered in their own land by immigrants who are far more
+highly educated and progressive, and yet they hold them down in a way
+which exists nowhere else upon earth. What is their right? The right
+of conquest.  Then the same right may be justly invoked to reverse so
+intolerable a situation.  This they would themselves acknowledge.
+'Come on and fight ! Come on!' cried a member of the Volksraad when
+the franchise petition of the Uitlanders was presented.  'Protest!
+Protest! What is the good of protesting?' said Kruger to
+Mr. W. Y. Campbell; 'you have not got the guns, I have.' There was
+always the final court of appeal. Judge Creusot and Judge Mauser were
+always behind the President.
+
+Again, the argument of the Boers would be more valid had they received
+no benefit from these immigrants. If they had ignored them they might
+fairly have stated that they did not desire their presence. But even
+while they protested they grew rich at the Uitlander's expense. They
+could not have it both ways. It would be consistent to discourage him
+and not profit by him, or to make him comfortable and build the State
+upon his money; but to ill-treat him and at the same time to grow
+strong by his taxation must surely be an injustice.
+
+And again, the whole argument is based upon the narrow racial
+supposition that every naturalised citizen not of Boer extraction must
+necessarily be unpatriotic. This is not borne out by the examples of
+history. The newcomer soon becomes 'as proud of his country and as
+jealous of her liberty as the old. Had President Kruger given the
+franchise generously to the Uitlander, his pyramid would have been
+firm upon its base and not balanced upon its apex.  It is true that
+the corrupt oligarchy would have vanished, and the spirit of a broader
+more tolerant freedom influenced the counsels of the State. But the
+republic would have become stronger and more permanent, with a
+population who, if they differed in details, were united in
+essentials. Whether such a solution would have been to the advantage
+of British interests in South Africa is quite another question. In
+more ways than one President Kruger has been a good friend to the
+empire.
+
+So much upon the general question of the reason why the Uitlander
+should agitate and why the Boer was obdurate. The details of the long
+struggle between the seekers for the franchise and the refusers of it
+may be quickly sketched, but they cannot be entirely ignored by any
+one who desires to understand the inception of that great contest
+which was the outcome of the dispute.
+
+At the time of the Convention of Pretoria (1881) the rights of
+burghership might be obtained by one year's residence. In 1882 it was
+raised to five years, the reasonable limit which obtains both in Great
+Britain and in the United States. Had it remained so, it is safe to
+say that there would never have been either an Uitlander question or a
+great Boer war. Grievances would have been righted from the inside
+without external interference.
+
+In 1890 the inrush of outsiders alarmed the Boers, and the franchise
+was raised so as to be only attainable by those who had lived fourteen
+years in the country. The Uitlanders, who were increasing rapidly in
+numbers and were suffering from the formidable list of grievances
+already enumerated, perceived that their wrongs were so numerous that
+it was hopeless to have them set right seriatim, and that only by
+obtaining the leverage of the franchise could they hope to move the
+heavy burden which weighed them down. In 1893 a petition of 13,000
+Uitlanders, couched in most respectful terms, was submitted to the
+Raad, but met with contemptuous neglect. Undeterred, however, by this
+failure, the National Reform Union, an association which organised the
+agitation, came back to the attack in 1894. They drew up a petition
+which was signed by 35,000 adult male Uitlanders, a greater number
+than the total Boer male population of the country. A small liberal
+body in the Raad supported this memorial and endeavoured in vain to
+obtain some justice for the newcomers. Mr. Jeppe was the mouthpiece of
+this select band. 'They own half the soil, they pay at least three
+quarters of the taxes,' said he. 'They are men who in capital, energy,
+and education are at least our equals.
+
+What will become of us or our children on that day when we may find
+ourselves in a minority of one in twenty without a single friend among
+the other nineteen, among those who will then tell us that they wished
+to be brothers, but that we by our own act have made them strangers to
+the republic?' Such reasonable and liberal sentiments were combated by
+members who asserted that the signatures could not belong to
+law-abiding citizens, since they were actually agitating against the
+law of the franchise, and others whose intolerance was expressed by
+the defiance of the member already quoted, who challenged the
+Uitlanders to come out and fight. The champions of exclusiveness and
+racial hatred won the day.  The memorial was rejected by sixteen votes
+to eight, and the franchise law was, on the initiative of the
+President, actually made more stringent than ever, being framed in
+such a way that during the fourteen years of probation the applicant
+should give up his previous nationality, so that for that period he
+would really belong to no country at all.  No hopes were held out that
+any possible attitude upon the part of the Uitlanders would soften the
+determination of the President and his burghers.  One who remonstrated
+was led outside the State buildings by the President, who pointed up
+at the national flag. 'You see that flag?' said he. 'If I grant the
+franchise, I may as well pull it down.' His animosity against the
+immigrants was bitter. 'Burghers, friends, thieves, murderers,
+newcomers, and others,' is the conciliatory opening of one of his
+public addresses.  Though Johannesburg is only thirty-two miles from
+Pretoria, and though the State of which he was the head depended for
+its revenue upon the gold fields, he paid it only three visits in nine
+years.
+
+This settled animosity was deplorable, but not unnatural. A man imbued
+with the idea of a chosen people, and unread in any book save the one
+which cultivates this very idea, could not be expected to have learned
+the historical lessons of the advantages which a State reaps from a
+liberal policy. To him it was as if the Ammonites and Moabites had
+demanded admission into the twelve tribes. He mistook an agitation
+against the exclusive policy of the State for one against the
+existence of the State itself. A wide franchise would have made his
+republic firm-based and permanent. It was a small minority of the
+Uitlanders who had any desire to come into the British system. They
+were a cosmopolitan crowd, only united by the bond of a common
+injustice. But when every other method had failed, and their petition
+for the rights of freemen had been flung back at them, it was natural
+that their eyes should turn to that flag which waved to the north, the
+west, and the south of them -- the flag which means purity of government
+with equal rights and equal duties for all men. Constitutional
+agitation was laid aside, arms were smuggled in, and everything
+prepared for an organised rising.
+
+The events which followed at the beginning of 1896 have been so
+thrashed out that there is, perhaps, nothing left to tell -- except
+the truth. So far as the Uitlanders themselves are concerned, their
+action was most natural and justifiable, and they have no reason to
+exculpate themselves for rising against such oppression as no men of
+our race have ever been submitted to. Had they trusted only to
+themselves and the justice of their cause, their moral and even their
+material position would have been infinitely stronger. But
+unfortunately there were forces behind them which were more
+questionable, the nature and extent of which have never yet, in spite
+of two commissions of investigation, been properly revealed.  That
+there should have been any attempt at misleading inquiry, or
+suppressing documents in order to shelter individuals, is deplorable,
+for the impression left -- I believe an entirely false one -- must be
+that the British Government connived at an expedition which was as
+immoral as it was disastrous.
+
+It had been arranged that the town was to rise upon a certain night,
+that Pretoria should be attacked, the fort seized, and the rifles and
+ammunition used to arm the Uitlanders. It was a feasible device,
+though it must seem to us, who have had such an experience of the
+military virtues of the burghers, a very desperate one. But it is
+conceivable that the rebels might have held Johannesburg until the
+universal sympathy which their cause excited throughout South Africa
+would have caused Great Britain to intervene.  Unfortunately they had
+complicated matters by asking for outside help. Mr. Cecil Rhodes was
+Premier of the Cape, a man of immense energy, and one who had rendered
+great services to the empire.  The motives of his action are obscure
+-- certainly, we may say that they were not sordid, for he has always
+been a man whose thoughts were large and whose habits were simple. But
+whatever they may have been -- whether an ill-regulated desire to
+consolidate South Africa under British rule, or a burning sympathy
+with the Uitlanders in their fight against injustice -- it is certain
+that he allowed his lieutenant, Dr. Jameson, to assemble the mounted
+police of the Chartered Company, of which Rhodes was founder and
+director, for the purpose of co-operating with the rebels at
+Johannesburg.  Moreover, when the revolt at Johannesburg was
+postponed, on account of a disagreement as to which flag they were to
+rise under, it appears that Jameson (with or without the orders of
+Rhodes) forced the hand of the conspirators by invading the country
+with a force absurdly inadequate to the work which he had taken in
+hand.  Five hundred policemen and three field guns made up the forlorn
+hope who started from near Mafeking and crossed the Transvaal border
+upon December 29th, 1895.  On January 2nd they were surrounded by the
+Boers amid the broken country near Dornkop, and after losing many of
+their number killed and wounded, without food and with spent horses,
+they were compelled to lay down their arms.  Six burghers lost their
+lives in the skirmish.
+
+The Uitlanders have been severely criticised for not having sent out a
+force to help Jameson in his difficulties, but it is impossible to see
+how they could have acted in any other manner.  They had done all they
+could to prevent Jameson coming to their relief, and now it was rather
+unreasonable to suppose that they should relieve their reliever.
+Indeed, they had an entirely exaggerated idea of the strength of the
+force which he was bringing, and received the news of his capture with
+incredulity. When it became confirmed they rose, but in a halfhearted
+fashion which was not due to want of courage, but to the difficulties
+of their position.  On the one hand, the British Government disowned
+Jameson entirely, and did all it could to discourage the rising; on
+the other, the President had the raiders in his keeping at Pretoria,
+and let it be understood that their fate depended upon the behaviour
+of the Uitlanders.  They were led to believe that Jameson would be
+shot unless they laid down their arms, though, as a matter of fact,
+Jameson and his people had surrendered upon a promise of quarter.  So
+skillfully did Kruger use his hostages that he succeeded, with the help
+of the British Commissioner, in getting the thousands of excited
+Johannesburgers to lay down their arms without bloodshed. Completely
+out-manoeuvred by the astute old President, the leaders of the reform
+movement used all their influence in the direction of peace, thinking
+that a general amnesty would follow; but the moment that they and
+their people were helpless the detectives and armed burghers occupied
+the town, and sixty of their number were hurried to Pretoria Gaol.
+
+To the raiders themselves the President behaved with great generosity.
+Perhaps he could not find it in his heart to be harsh to the men who
+had managed to put him in the right and won for him the sympathy of
+the world. His own illiberal and oppressive treatment of the newcomers
+was forgotten in the face of this illegal inroad of filibusters.  The
+true issues were so obscured by this intrusion that it has taken years
+to clear them, and perhaps they will never be wholly cleared.  It was
+forgotten that it was the bad government of the country which was the
+real cause of the unfortunate raid. From then onwards the government
+might grow worse and worse, but it was always possible to point to the
+raid as justifying everything.  Were the Uitlanders to have the
+franchise? How could they expect it after the raid? Would Britain
+object to the enormous importation of arms and obvious preparations
+for war? They were only precautions against a second raid. For years
+the raid stood in the way, not only of all progress, but of all
+remonstrance.  Through an action over which they had no control, and
+which they had done their best to prevent, the British Government was
+left with a bad case and a weakened moral authority.
+
+The raiders were sent home, where the rank and file were very properly
+released, and the chief officers were condemned to terms of
+imprisonment which certainly did not err upon the side of
+severity. Cecil Rhodes was left unpunished, he retained his place in
+the Privy Council, and his Chartered Company continued to have a
+corporate existence. This was illogical and inconclusive. As Kruger
+said, 'It is not the dog which should be beaten, but the man who set
+him on to me.' Public opinion -- in spite of, or on account of, a
+crowd of witnesses -- was ill informed upon the exact bearings of the
+question, and it was obvious that as Dutch sentiment at the Cape
+appeared already to be thoroughly hostile to us, it would be dangerous
+to alienate the British Africanders also by making a martyr of their
+favourite leader. But whatever arguments may be founded upon
+expediency, it is clear that the Boers bitterly resented, and with
+justice, the immunity of Rhodes.
+
+In the meantime, both President Kruger and his burghers had shown a
+greater severity to the political prisoners from Johannesburg than to
+the armed followers of Jameson.  The nationality of these prisoners is
+interesting and suggestive.  There were twenty-three Englishmen,
+sixteen South Africans, nine Scotchmen, six Americans, two Welshmen,
+one Irishman, one Australian, one Hollander, one Bavarian, one
+Canadian, one Swiss, and one Turk. The prisoners were arrested in
+January, but the trial did not take place until the end of April. All
+were found guilty of high treason. Mr. Lionel Phillips, Colonel Rhodes
+(brother of Mr. Cecil Rhodes), George Farrar, and Mr. Hammond, the
+American engineer, were condemned to death, a sentence which was
+afterwards commuted to the payment of an enormous fine.  The other
+prisoners were condemned to two years' imprisonment, with a fine of
+2,OOOL. each. The imprisonment was of the most arduous and trying
+sort, and was embittered by the harshness of the gaoler, Du
+Plessis. One of the unfortunate men cut his throat, and several fell
+seriously ill, the diet and the sanitary conditions being equally
+unhealthy. At last at the end of May all the prisoners but six were
+released. Four of the six soon followed, two stalwarts, Sampson and
+Davies, refusing to sign any petition and remaining in prison until
+they were set free in 1897. Altogether the Transvaal Government
+received in fines from the reform prisoners the enormous sum of
+212,000L. A certain comic relief was immediately afterwards given to
+so grave an episode by the presentation of a bill to Great Britain for
+1,677,938L. 3s. 3d.-- the greater part of which was under the heading
+of moral and intellectual damage.
+
+The raid was past and the reform movement was past, but the causes
+which produced them both remained. It is hardly conceivable that a
+statesman who loved his country would have refrained from making
+some effort to remove a state of things which had already caused such
+grave dangers, and which must obviously become more serious with every
+year that passed. But Paul Kruger had hardened his heart, and was not
+to be moved. The grievances of the Uitlanders became heavier than
+ever. The one power in the land to which they had been able to appeal
+for some sort of redress amid their grievances was the law courts. Now
+it was decreed that the courts should be dependent on the
+Volksraad. The Chief Justice protested against such a degradation of
+his high office, and he was dismissed in consequence without a
+pension. The judge who had condemned the reformers was chosen to fill
+the vacancy, and the protection of a fixed law was withdrawn from the
+Uitlanders.
+
+A commission appointed by the State was sent to examine into the
+condition of the mining industry and the grievances from which the
+newcomers suffered. The chairman was Mr. Schalk Burger, one of the
+most liberal of the Boers, and the proceedings were thorough and
+impartial. The result was a report which amply vindicated the
+reformers, and suggested remedies which would have gone a long way
+towards satisfying the Uitlanders.  With such enlightened legislation
+their motives for seeking the franchise would have been less
+pressing. But the President and his Raad would have none of the
+recommendations of the commission. The rugged old autocrat declared
+that Schalk Burger was a traitor to his country for having signed such
+a document, and a new reactionary committee was chosen to report upon
+the report. Words and papers were the only outcome of the affair. No
+amelioration came to the newcomers. But at least they had again put
+their case publicly upon record, and it had been endorsed by the most
+respected of the burghers. Gradually in the press of the
+English-speaking countries the raid was ceasing to obscure the
+issue. More and more clearly it was coming out that no permanent
+settlement was possible where the majority of the population was
+oppressed by the minority. They had tried peaceful means and failed.
+They had tried warlike means and failed. What was there left for them
+to do? Their own country, the paramount power of South Africa, had
+never helped them. Perhaps if it were directly appealed to it might do
+so. It could not, if only for the sake of its own imperial prestige,
+leave its children for ever in a state of subjection. The Uitlanders
+determined upon a petition to the Queen, and in doing so they brought
+their grievances out of the limits of a local controversy into the
+broader field of international politics. Great Britain must either
+protect them or acknowledge that their protection was beyond her
+power. A direct petition to the Queen praying for protection was
+signed in April 1899 by twenty-one thousand Uitlanders. From that time
+events moved inevitably towards the one end. Sometimes the surface was
+troubled and sometimes smooth, but the stream always ran swiftly and
+the roar of the fall sounded ever louder in the ears.
+
+CHAPTER III
+THE NEGOTIATIONS
+
+The British Government and the British people do not desire any direct
+authority in South Africa.  Their one supreme interest is that the
+various States there should live in concord and prosperity, and that
+there should be no need for the presence of a British redcoat within
+the whole great peninsula.  Our foreign critics, with their
+misapprehension of the British colonial system, can never realise that
+whether the four-coloured flag of the Transvaal or the Union Jack of a
+self-governing colony waved over the gold mines would not make the
+difference of one shilling to the revenue of Great Britain.  The
+Transvaal as a British province would have its own legislature, its
+own revenue, its own expenditure, and its own tariff against the
+mother country, as well as against the rest of the world, and England
+be none the richer for the change.  This is so obvious to a Briton
+that he has ceased to insist upon it, and it is for that reason
+perhaps that it is so universally misunderstood abroad. On the other
+hand, while she is no gainer by the change, most of the expense of it
+in blood and in money falls upon the home country.  On the face of it,
+therefore, Great Britain had every reason to avoid so formidable a
+task as the conquest of the South African Republic.  At the best she
+had nothing to gain, and at the worst she had an immense deal to lose.
+There was no room for ambition or aggression. It was a case of
+shirking or fulfilling a most arduous duty.
+
+There could be no question of a plot for the annexation of the
+Transvaal. In a free country the Government cannot move in advance of
+public opinion, and public opinion is influenced by and reflected in
+the newspapers. One may examine the files of the press during all the
+months of negotiations and never find one reputable opinion in favour
+of such a course, nor did one in society ever meet an advocate of such
+a measure.  But a great wrong was being done, and all that was asked
+was the minimum change which would set it right, and restore equality
+between the white races in Africa.  'Let Kruger only be liberal in the
+extension of the franchise,' said the paper which is most
+representative of the sanest British opinion, 'and he will find that
+the power of the republic will become not weaker, but infinitely more
+secure.  Let him once give the majority of the resident males of full
+age the full vote, and he will have given the republic a stability and
+power which nothing else can. If he rejects all pleas of this kind,
+and persists in his present policy, he may possibly stave off the evil
+day, and preserve his cherished oligarchy for another few years; but
+the end will be the same.'  The extract reflects the tone of all of
+the British press, with the exception of one or two papers which
+considered that even the persistent ill usage of our people, and the
+fact that we were peculiarly responsible for them in this State, did
+not justify us in interfering in the internal affairs of the republic.
+It cannot be denied that the Jameson raid and the incomplete manner in
+which the circumstances connected with it had been investigated had
+weakened the force of those who wished to interfere energetically on
+behalf of British subjects.  There was a vague but widespread feeling
+that perhaps the capitalists were engineering the situation for their
+own ends.  It is difficult to imagine how a state of unrest and
+insecurity, to say nothing of a state of war, can ever be to the
+advantage of capital, and surely it is obvious that if some
+arch-schemer were using the grievances of the Uitlanders for his own
+ends the best way to checkmate him would be to remove those
+grievances.  The suspicion, however, did exist among those who like to
+ignore the obvious and magnify the remote, and throughout the
+negotiations the hand of Great Britain was weakened, as her adversary
+had doubtless calculated that it would be, by an earnest but fussy and
+faddy minority.  Idealism and a morbid, restless conscientiousness are
+two of the most dangerous evils from which a modern progressive State
+has to suffer.
+
+It was in April 1899 that the British Uitlanders sent their petition
+praying for protection to their native country. Since the April
+previous a correspondence had been going on between Dr. Leyds,
+Secretary of State for the South African Republic, and
+Mr. Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, upon the existence or
+non-existence of the suzerainty. On the one hand, it was contended
+that the substitution of a second convention had entirely annulled the
+first; on the other, that the preamble of the first applied also to
+the second. If the Transvaal contention were correct it is clear that
+Great Britain had been tricked and jockeyed into such a position,
+since she had received no quid pro quo in the second convention, and
+even the most careless of Colonial Secretaries could hardly have been
+expected to give away a very substantial something for nothing. But
+the contention throws us back upon the academic question of what a
+suzerainty is. The Transvaal admitted a power of veto over their
+foreign policy, and this admission in itself, unless they openly tore
+up the convention, must deprive them of the position of a sovereign
+State. On the whole, the question must be acknowledged to have been
+one which might very well have been referred to trustworthy
+arbitration.
+
+But now to this debate, which had so little of urgency in it that
+seven months intervened between statement and reply, there came the
+bitterly vital question of the wrongs and appeal of the
+Uitlanders. Sir Alfred Milner, the British Commissioner in South
+Africa, a man of liberal views who had been appointed by a
+Conservative Government, commanded the respect and confidence of all
+parties. His record was that of an able, clear-headed man, too just to
+be either guilty of or tolerant of injustice. To him the matter was
+referred, and a conference was arranged between President Kruger and
+him at Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State. They met on
+May 30th.  Kruger had declared that all questions might be discussed
+except the independence of the Transvaal.  'All, all, all!' he cried
+emphatically. But in practice it was found that the parties could not
+agree as to what did or what did not threaten this independence.  What
+was essential to one was inadmissible to the other.  Milner contended
+for a five years' retroactive franchise, with provisions to secure
+adequate representation for the mining districts.  Kruger offered a
+seven years' franchise, coupled with numerous conditions which
+whittled down its value very much, promised five members out of
+thirty-one to represent a majority of the male population, and added a
+provision that all differences should be subject to arbitration by
+foreign powers, a condition which is incompatible with any claim to
+suzerainty. The proposals of each were impossible to the other, and
+early in June Sir Alfred Milner was back in Cape Town and President
+Kruger in Pretoria, with nothing settled except the extreme difficulty
+of a settlement.  The current was running swift, and the roar of the
+fall was already sounding louder in the ear.
+
+On June 12th Sir Alfred Milner received a deputation at Cape Town and
+reviewed the situation.  'The principle of equality of races was,' he
+said, essential for South Africa.  The one State where inequality
+existed kept all the others in a fever. Our policy was one not of
+aggression, but of singular patience, which could not, however, lapse
+into indifference.' Two days later Kruger addressed the Raad. 'The
+other side had not conceded one tittle, and I could not give more. God
+has always stood by us. I do not want war, but I will not give more
+away. Although our independence has once been taken away, God had
+restored it.' He spoke with sincerity no doubt, but it is hard to hear
+God invoked with such confidence for the system which encouraged the
+liquor traffic to the natives, and bred the most corrupt set of
+officials that the modern world has seen.
+
+A dispatch from Sir Alfred Milner, giving his views upon the
+situation, made the British public recognise, as nothing else had
+done, how serious the position was, and how essential it was that an
+earnest national effort should be made to set it right.  In it he
+said:
+
+'The case for intervention is overwhelming. The only attempted answer
+is that things will right themselves if left alone. But, in fact, the
+policy of leaving things alone has been tried for years, and it has
+led to their going from bad to worse. It is not true that this is
+owing to the raid. They were going from bad to worse before the
+raid. We were on the verge of war before the raid, and the Transvaal
+was on the verge of revolution.  The effect of the raid has been to
+give the policy of leaving things alone a new lease of life, and with
+the old consequences.
+
+'The spectacle of thousands of British subjects kept permanently in
+the position of helots, constantly chafing under undoubted grievances,
+and calling vainly to her Majesty's Government for redress, does
+steadily undermine the influence and reputation of Great Britain
+within the Queen's dominions.  A section of the press, not in the
+Transvaal only, preaches openly and constantly the doctrine of a
+republic embracing all South Africa, and supports it by menacing
+references to the armaments of the Transvaal, its alliance with the
+Orange Free State, and the active sympathy which, in case of war, it
+would receive from a section of her Majesty's subjects.  I regret to
+say that this doctrine, supported as it is by a ceaseless stream of
+malignant lies about the intentions of her Majesty's Government, is
+producing a great effect on a large number of our Dutch fellow
+colonists.  Language is frequently used which seems to imply that the
+Dutch have some superior right, even in this colony, to their
+fellow-citizens of British birth. Thousands of men peaceably disposed,
+and if left alone perfectly satisfied with their position as British
+subjects, are being drawn into disaffection, and there is a
+corresponding exasperation upon the part of the British.
+
+'I can see nothing which will put a stop to this mischievous
+propaganda but some striking proof of the intention of her Majesty's
+Government not to be ousted from its position in South Africa.'
+
+Such were the grave and measured words with which the British
+pro-consul warned his countrymen of what was to come.  He saw the
+storm-cloud piling in the north, but even his eyes had not yet
+discerned how near and how terrible was the tempest.
+
+Throughout the end of June and the early part of July much was hoped
+from the mediation of the heads of the Afrikander Bond, the political
+union of the Dutch Cape colonists.  On the one hand, they were the
+kinsmen of the Boers; on the other, they were British subjects, and
+were enjoying the blessings of those liberal institutions which we
+were anxious to see extended to the Transvaal.  'Only treat our folk as
+we treat yours! Our whole contention was compressed into that
+prayer. But nothing came of the mission, though a scheme endorsed by
+Mr. Hofmeyer and Mr. Herholdt, of the Bond, with Mr. Fischer of the
+Free State, was introduced into the Raad and applauded by
+Mr. Schreiner, the Africander Premier of Cape Colony. In its original
+form the provisions were obscure and complicated, the franchise
+varying from nine years to seven under different conditions.  In
+debate, however, the terms were amended until the time was reduced to
+seven years, and the proposed representation of the gold fields placed
+at five.  The concession was not a great one, nor could the
+representation, five out of thirty-one, be considered a generous
+provision for the majority of the population; but the reduction of the
+years of residence was eagerly hailed in England as a sign that a
+compromise might be effected. A sigh of relief went up from the
+country. 'If,' said the Colonial Secretary, 'this report is confirmed,
+this important change in the proposals of President Kruger, coupled
+with previous amendments, leads Government to hope that the new law
+may prove to be the basis of a settlement on the lines laid down by
+Sir Alfred Milner in the Bloemfontein Conference.'  He added that
+there were some vexatious conditions attached, but concluded, 'Her
+Majesty's Government feel assured that the President, having accepted
+the principle for which they have contended, will be prepared to
+reconsider any detail of his scheme which can be shown to be a
+possible hindrance to the full accomplishment of the object in view,
+and that he will not allow them to be nullified or reduced in value by
+any subsequent alterations of the law or acts of administration.'  At
+the same time, the 'Times' declared the crisis to be at an end.  'If
+the Dutch statesmen of the Cape have induced their brethren in the
+Transvaal to carry such a Bill, they will have deserved the lasting
+gratitude, not only of their own countrymen and of the English
+colonists in South Africa, but of the British Empire and of the
+civilised world.'
+
+But this fair prospect was soon destined to be overcast.  Questions of
+detail arose which, when closely examined, proved to be matters of
+very essential importance.  The Uitlanders and British South Africans,
+who had experienced in the past how illusory the promises of the
+President might be, insisted upon guarantees.  The seven years offered
+were two years more than that which Sir Alfred Milner had declared to
+be an irreducible minimum.  The difference of two years would not have
+hindered their acceptance, even at the expense of some humiliation to
+our representative. But there were conditions which excited distrust
+when drawn up by so wily a diplomatist. One was that the alien who
+aspired to burghership had to produce a certificate of continuous
+registration for a certain time. But the law of registration had
+fallen into disuse in the Transvaal, and consequently this provision
+might render the whole Bill valueless.  Since it was carefully
+retained, it was certainly meant for use.  The door had been opened,
+but a stone was placed to block it. Again, the continued burghership
+of the newcomers was made to depend upon the resolution of the first
+Raad, so that should the mining members propose any measure of reform,
+not only their Bill but they also might be swept out of the house by a
+Boer majority.  What could an Opposition do if a vote of the
+Government might at any moment unseat them all? It was clear that a
+measure which contained such provisions must be very carefully sifted
+before a British Government could accept it as a final settlement and
+a complete concession of justice to its subjects.  On the other hand,
+it naturally felt loth to refuse those clauses which offered some
+prospect of an amelioration in their condition. It took the course,
+therefore, of suggesting that each Government should appoint delegates
+to form a joint commission which should inquire into the working of
+the proposed Bill before it was put into a final form. The proposal
+was submitted to the Raad upon August 7th, with the addition that when
+this was done Sir Alfred Milner was prepared to discuss anything else,
+including arbitration without the interference of foreign powers.
+
+The suggestion of this joint commission has been criticised as an
+unwarrantable intrusion into the internal affairs of another
+country. But then the whole question from the beginning was about the
+internal affairs of another country, since the internal equality of
+the white inhabitants was the condition upon which self-government was
+restored to the Transvaal.  It is futile to suggest analogies, and to
+imagine what France would do if Germany were to interfere in a
+question of French franchise.  Supposing that France contained as many
+Germans as Frenchmen, and that they were ill-treated, Germany would
+interfere quickly enough and continue to do so until some fair MODUS
+VIVENDI was established. The fact is that the case of the Transvaal
+stands alone, that such a condition of things has never been known,
+and that no previous precedent can apply to it, save the general rule
+that a minority of white men cannot continue indefinitely to tax and
+govern a majority. Sentiment inclines to the smaller nation, but
+reason and justice are all on the side of England.
+
+A long delay followed upon the proposal of the Secretary of the
+Colonies. No reply was forthcoming from Pretoria.  But on all sides
+there came evidence that those preparations for war which had been
+quietly going on even before the Jameson raid were now being hurriedly
+perfected.  For so small a State enormous sums were being spent upon
+military equipment.  Cases of rifles and boxes of cartridges streamed
+into the arsenal, not only from Delagoa Bay, but even, to the
+indignation of the English colonists, through Cape Town and Port
+Elizabeth. Huge packing-cases, marked 'Agricultural Instruments' and
+'Mining Machinery,' arrived from Germany and France, to find their
+places in the forts of Johannesburg or Pretoria.  Men of many nations
+but of a similar type showed their martial faces in the Boer
+towns. The CONDOTTIERI of Europe were as ready as ever to sell their
+blood for gold, and nobly in the end did they fulfill their share of
+the bargain.  For three weeks and more during which Mr. Kruger was
+silent these eloquent preparations went on. But beyond them, and of
+infinitely more importance, there was one fact which dominated the
+situation. A burgher cannot go to war without his horse, his horse
+cannot move without grass, grass will not come until after rain, and it
+was still some weeks before the rain would be due.  Negotiations,
+then, must not be unduly hurried while the veldt was a bare
+russet-coloured dust-swept plain.  Mr. Chamberlain and the British
+public waited week after week for their answer. But there was a limit
+to their patience, and it was reached on August 26th, when the
+Colonial Secretary showed, with a plainness of speech which is as
+unusual as it is welcome in diplomacy, that the question could not be
+hung up for ever.  'The sands are running down in the glass,' said he.
+'If they run out, we shall not hold ourselves limited by that which we
+have already offered, but, having taken the matter in hand, we will
+not let it go until we have secured conditions which once for all
+shall establish which is the paramount power in South Africa, and
+shall secure for our fellow-subjects there those equal rights and
+equal privileges which were promised them by President Kruger when the
+independence of the Transvaal was granted by the Queen, and which is
+the least that in justice ought to be accorded them.' Lord Salisbury,
+a little time before, had been equally emphatic. 'No one in this
+country wishes to disturb the conventions so long as it is recognised
+that while they guarantee the independence of the Transvaal on the one
+side, they guarantee equal political and civil rights for settlers of
+all nationalities upon the other. But these conventions are not like
+the laws of the Medes and the Persians. They are mortal, they can be
+destroyed... and once destroyed they can never be reconstructed in
+the same shape.' The long-enduring patience of Great Britain was
+beginning to show signs of giving way.
+
+In the meantime a fresh dispatch had arrived from the Transvaal which
+offered as an alternative proposal to the joint commission that the
+Boer Government should grant the franchise proposals of Sir Alfred
+Milner on condition that Great Britain withdrew or dropped her claim
+to a suzerainty, agreed to arbitration, and promised never again to
+interfere in the internal affairs of the republic. To this Great
+Britain answered that she would agree to arbitration, that she hoped
+never again to have occasion to interfere for the protection of her
+own subjects, but that with the grant of the franchise all occasion
+for such interference would pass away, and, finally, that she would
+never consent to abandon her position as suzerain
+power. Mr. Chamberlain's dispatch ended by reminding the Government of
+the Transvaal that there were other matters of dispute open between
+the two Governments apart from the franchise, and that it would be as
+well to have them settled at the same time.  By these he meant such
+questions as the position of the native races and the treatment of
+Anglo-Indians.
+
+On September 2nd the answer of the Transvaal Government was returned.
+It was short and uncompromising.  They withdrew their offer of the
+franchise. They re-asserted the non-existence of the suzerainty. The
+negotiations were at a deadlock.  It was difficult to see how they
+could be re-opened. In view of the arming of the burghers, the small
+garrison of Natal had been taking up positions to cover the frontier.
+The Transvaal asked for an explanation of their presence. Sir Alfred
+Milner answered that they were guarding British interests, and
+preparing against contingencies. The roar of the fall was sounding
+loud and near.
+
+On September 8th there was held a Cabinet Council -- one of the most
+important in recent years. A message was sent to Pretoria, which even
+the opponents of the Government have acknowledged to be temperate, and
+offering the basis for a peaceful settlement.  It begins by
+repudiating emphatically the claim of the Transvaal to be a sovereign
+international State in the same sense in which the Orange Free State
+is one. Any proposal made conditional upon such an acknowledgment
+could not be entertained.
+
+The British Government, however, was prepared to accept the five
+years' 'franchise' as stated in the note of August 19th, assuming at
+the same time that in the Raad each member might talk his own
+language.
+
+'Acceptance of these terms by the South African Republic would at once
+remove tension between the two Governments, and would in all
+probability render unnecessary any future intervention to secure
+redress for grievances which the Uitlanders themselves would be able
+to bring to the notice of the Executive Council and the Volksraad.
+
+'Her Majesty's Government are increasingly impressed with the danger
+of further delay in relieving the strain which has already caused so
+much injury to the interests of South Africa, and they earnestly press
+for an immediate and definite reply to the present proposal. If it is
+acceded to they will be ready to make immediate arrangements... to
+settle all details of the proposed tribunal of arbitration... If,
+however, as they most anxiously hope will not be the case, the reply
+of the South African Republic should be negative or inconclusive, I am
+to state that her Majesty's Government must reserve to themselves the
+right to reconsider the situation DE NOVO, and to formulate their own
+proposals for a final settlement.'
+
+Such was the message, and Great Britain waited with strained attention
+for the answer.  But again there was a delay, while the rain came and
+the grass grew, and the veldt was as a mounted rifleman would have
+it. The burghers were in no humour for concessions.  They knew their
+own power, and they concluded with justice that they were for the time
+far the strongest military power in South Africa.  'We have beaten
+England before, but it is nothing to the licking we shall give her
+now,' cried a prominent citizen, and he spoke for his country as he
+said it.  So the empire waited and debated, but the sounds of the
+bugle were already breaking through the wrangles of the politicians,
+and calling1 the nation to be tested once more by that hammer of war and
+adversity by which Providence still fashions us to some nobler and
+higher end.
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE EVE OF WAR
+
+The message sent from the Cabinet Council of September 8th was
+evidently the precursor either of peace or of war.  The cloud must
+burst or blow over. As the nation waited in hushed expectancy for a
+reply it spent some portion of its time in examining and speculating
+upon those military preparations which might be needed.  The War
+Office had for some months been arranging for every contingency, and
+had made certain dispositions which appeared to them to be adequate,
+but which our future experience was to demonstrate to be far too small
+for the very serious matter in hand.
+
+It is curious in turning over the files of such a paper as the
+'Times' to observe how at first one or two small paragraphs of military
+significance might appear in the endless columns of diplomatic and
+political reports, how gradually they grew and grew, until at last the
+eclipse was complete, and the diplomacy had been thrust into the tiny
+paragraphs while the war filled the journal.  Under July 7th comes the
+first glint of arms amid the drab monotony of the state papers.  On
+that date it was announced that two companies of Royal Engineers and
+departmental corps with reserves of supplies and ammunition were being
+dispatched.  Two companies of engineers!  Who could have foreseen that
+they were the vanguard of the greatest army which ever at any time of
+the world's history has crossed an ocean, and far the greatest which a
+British general has commanded in the field?
+
+On August 15th, at a time when the negotiations had already assumed a
+very serious phase, after the failure of the Bloemfontein conference
+and the dispatch of Sir Alfred Milner, the British forces in South
+Africa were absolutely and absurdly inadequate for the purpose of the
+defence of our own frontier.  Surely such a fact must open the eyes of
+those who, in spite of all the evidence, persist that the war was
+forced on by the British.  A statesman who forces on a war usually
+prepares for a war, and this is exactly what Mr. Kruger did and the
+British authorities did not.  The overbearing suzerain power had at
+that date, scattered over a huge frontier, two cavalry regiments,
+three field batteries, and six and a half infantry battalions -- say
+six thousand men. The innocent pastoral States could put in the field
+forty or fifty thousand mounted riflemen, whose mobility doubled their
+numbers, and a most excellent artillery, including the heaviest guns
+which have ever been seen upon a battlefield.  At this time it is most
+certain that the Boers could have made their way easily either to
+Durban or to Cape Town.  The British force, condemned to act upon the
+defensive, could have been masked and afterwards destroyed, while the
+main body of the invaders would have encountered nothing but an
+irregular local resistance, which would have been neutralised by the
+apathy or hostility of the Dutch colonists. It is extraordinary that
+our authorities seem never to have contemplated the possibility of the
+Boers taking the initiative, or to have understood that in that case
+our belated reinforcements would certainly have had to land under the
+fire of the republican guns.
+
+In July Natal had taken alarm, and a strong representation had been
+sent from the prime minister of the colony to the Governor, Sir
+W. Hely Hutchinson, and so to the Colonial Office. It was notorious
+that the Transvaal was armed to the teeth, that the Orange Free State
+was likely to join her, and that there had been strong attempts made,
+both privately and through the press, to alienate the loyalty of the
+Dutch citizens of both the British colonies.  Many sinister signs were
+observed by those upon the spot.  The veldt had been burned unusually
+early to ensure a speedy grass-crop after the first rains, there had
+been a collecting of horses, a distribution of rifles and ammunition.
+The Free State farmers, who graze their sheep and cattle upon Natal
+soil during the winter, had driven them off to places of safety behind
+the line of the Drakensberg. Everything pointed to approaching war,
+and Natal refused to be satisfied even by the dispatch of another
+regiment.  On September 6th a second message was received at the
+Colonial Office, which states the case with great clearness and
+precision.
+
+'The Prime Minister desires me to urge upon you by the unanimous
+advice of the Ministers that sufficient troops should be dispatched to
+Natal immediately to enable the colony to be placed in a state of
+defence against an attack from the Transvaal and the Orange Free
+State. I am informed by the General Officer Commanding, Natal, that he
+will not have enough troops, even when the Manchester Regiment
+arrives, to do more than occupy Newcastle and at the same time protect
+the colony south of it from raids, while Laing's Nek, Ingogo River
+and Zululand must be left undefended.  My Ministers know that every
+preparation has been made, both in the Transvaal and the Orange Free
+State, which would enable an attack to be made on Natal at short
+notice. My Ministers believe that the Boers have made up their minds
+that war will take place almost certainly, and their best chance will
+be, when it seems unavoidable, to deliver a blow before reinforcements
+have time to arrive.  Information has been received that raids in
+force will be made .by way of Middle Drift and Greytown and by way of
+Bond's Drift and Stangar, with a view to striking the railway between
+Pietermaritzburg and Durban and cutting off communications of troops
+and supplies. Nearly all the Orange Free State farmers in the Klip
+River division, who stay in the colony usually till October at least,
+have trekked, at great loss to themselves; their sheep are lambing on
+the road, and the lambs die or are destroyed.  Two at least of the
+Entonjanani district farmers have trekked with all their belongings
+into the Transvaal, in the first case attempting to take as hostages
+the children of the natives on the farm. Reliable reports have been
+received of attempts to tamper with loyal natives, and to set tribe
+against tribe in order to create confusion and detail the defensive
+forces of the colony.  Both food and warlike stores in large
+quantities have been accumulated at Volksrust, Vryheid and
+Standerton.  Persons who are believed to be spies have been seen
+examining the bridges on the Natal Railway, and it is known that there
+are spies in all the principal centres of the colony. In the opinion
+of Ministers, such a catastrophe as the seizure of . Laing's Nek and
+the destruction of the northern portion of the railway, or a
+successful raid or invasion such as they have reason to believe is
+contemplated, would produce a most demoralising effect on the natives
+and on the loyal Europeans in the colony, and would afford great
+encouragement to the Boers and to their sympathisers in the colonies,
+who, although armed and prepared, will probably keep quiet unless they
+receive some encouragement of the sort.  They concur in the policy of
+her Majesty's Government of exhausting all peaceful means to obtain
+redress of the grievances of the Uitlanders and authoritatively assert
+the supremacy of Great Britain before resorting to war; but they state
+that this is a question of defensive precaution, not of making war.'
+
+In answer to these and other remonstrances the garrison of Natal was
+gradually increased, partly by troops from Europe, and partly by the
+dispatch of five thousand British troops from India. The 2nd
+Berkshires, the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers, the 1st Manchesters, and
+the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers arrived in succession with reinforcements of
+artillery.  The 5th Dragoon Guards, 9th Lancers, and 19th Hussars came
+from India, with the 1st Devonshires, 1st Gloucesters, 2nd King's
+Royal Rifles and 2nd Gordon Highlanders.  These with the 21st, 42nd,
+and 53rd batteries of Field Artillery made up the Indian
+Contingent. Their arrival late in September raised the number of
+troops in South Africa to 22,000, a force which was inadequate to a
+contest in the open field with the numerous, mobile, and gallant enemy
+to whom they were to be opposed, but which proved to be strong enough
+to stave off that overwhelming disaster which, with our fuller
+knowledge, we can now see to have been impending.
+
+As to the disposition of these troops a difference of opinion broke
+out between the ruling powers in Natal and the military chiefs at the
+spot.  Prince Kraft has said, 'Both strategy and tactics may have to
+yield to politics '; but the political necessity should be very grave
+and very clear when it is the blood of soldiers which has to pay for
+it.  Whether it arose from our defective intelligence, or from that
+caste feeling which makes it hard for the professional soldier to
+recognise (in spite of deplorable past experiences) a serious
+adversary in the mounted farmer, it is certain that even while our
+papers were proclaiming that this time, at least, we would not
+underrate our enemy, we were most seriously underrating him.  The
+northern third of Natal is as vulnerable a military position as a
+player of kriegspiel could wish to have submitted to him.  It runs up
+into a thin angle, culminating at the apex in a difficult pass, the
+ill-omened Laing's Nek, dominated by the even more sinister bulk of
+Majuba.  Each side of this angle is open to invasion, the one from the
+Transvaal and the other from the Orange Free State.  A force up at the
+apex is in a perfect trap, for the mobile enemy can flood into the
+country to the south of them, cut the line of supplies, and throw up a
+series of entrenchments which would make retreat a very difficult
+matter.  Further down the country, at such positions as Ladysmith or
+Dundee, the danger, though not so imminent, is still an obvious one,
+unless the defending force is strong enough to hold its own in the
+open field and mobile enough to prevent a mounted enemy from getting
+round its flanks.  To us, who are endowed with that profound military
+wisdom which only comes with a knowledge of the event, it is obvious
+that with a defending force which could not place more than 12,000 men
+in the fighting line, the true defensible frontier was the line of the
+Tugela.  As a matter of fact, Ladysmith was chosen, a place almost
+indefensible itself, as it is dominated by high hills in at least two
+directions.
+
+Such an event as the siege of the town appears never to have been
+contemplated, as no guns of position were asked for or sent.  In spite
+of this, an amount of stores, which is said to have been valued at
+more than a million of pounds, was dumped down at this small railway
+junction, so that the position could not be evacuated without a
+crippling loss.  The place was the point of bifurcation of the main
+line, which divides at this little town into one branch running to
+Harrismith in the Orange Free State, and the other leading through the
+Dundee coal fields and Newcastle to the Laing's Nek tunnel and the
+Transvaal.  An importance, which appears now to have been an
+exaggerated one, was attached by the Government of Natal to the
+possession of the coal fields, and it was at their strong suggestion,
+but with the concurrence of General Penn Symons, that the defending
+force was divided, and a detachment of between three and four thousand
+sent to Dundee, about forty miles from the main body, which remained
+under General Sir George White at Ladysmith.  General Symons
+underrated the power of the invaders, but it is hard to criticise an
+error of judgment which has been so nobly atoned and so tragically
+paid for.  At the time, then, which our political narrative has
+reached, the time of suspense which followed the dispatch of the
+Cabinet message of September 8th, the military situation had ceased to
+be desperate, but was still precarious.  Twenty-two thousand regular
+troops were on the spot who might hope to be reinforced by some ten
+thousand colonials, but these forces had to cover a great frontier,
+the attitude of Cape Colony was by no means whole-hearted and might
+become hostile, while the black population might conceivably throw in
+its weight against us.  Only half the regulars could be spared to
+defend Natal, and no reinforcements could reach them in less than a
+month from the outbreak of hostilities. If Mr. Chamberlain was really
+playing a game of bluff, it must be confessed that he was bluffing
+from a very weak hand.
+
+For purposes of comparison we may give some idea of the forces which
+Mr. Kruger and Mr. Steyn could put in the field, for by this time it
+was evident that the Orange Free State, with which we had had no
+shadow of a dispute, was going, in a way which some would call wanton
+and some chivalrous, to throw in its weight against us.  The general
+press estimate of the forces of the two republics varied from 25,000
+to 35,000 men.  Mr. J. B. Robinson, a personal friend of President
+Kruger's and a man who had spent much of his life among the Boers,
+considered the latter estimate to be too high.  The calculation had no
+assured basis to start from.  A very scattered and isolated
+population, among whom large families were the rule, is a most
+difficult thing to estimate. Some reckoned from the supposed natural
+increase during eighteen years, but the figure given at that date was
+itself an assumption.  Others took their calculation from the number
+of voters in the last presidential election: but no one could tell how
+many abstentions there had been, and the fighting age is five years
+earlier than the voting age in the republics.  We recognise now that
+all calculations were far below the true figure. It is probable,
+however, that the information of the British Intelligence Department
+was not far wrong. According to this the fighting strength of the
+Transvaal alone was 32,000 men, and of the Orange Free State
+22,000. With mercenaries and rebels from the colonies they would
+amount to 60,000, while a considerable rising of the Cape Dutch would
+bring them up to 100,000. In artillery they were known to have about a
+hundred guns, many of them (and the fact will need much explaining)
+more modern and powerful than any which we could bring against them.
+Of the quality of this large force there is no need to speak. The men
+were brave, hardy, and fired with a strange religious enthusiasm. They
+were all of the seventeenth century, except their rifles.  Mounted
+upon their hardy little ponies, they possessed a mobility which
+practically doubled their numbers and made it an impossibility ever to
+outflank them. As marksmen they were supreme. Add to this that they
+had the advantage of acting upon internal lines with shorter and safer
+communications, and one gathers how formidable a task lay before the
+soldiers of the empire. When we turn from such an enumeration of their
+strength to contemplate the 12,000 men, split into two detachments,
+who awaited them in Natal, we may recognise that, far from bewailing
+our disasters, we should rather congratulate ourselves upon our escape
+from losing that great province which, situated as it is between
+Britain, India, and Australia, must be regarded as the very keystone
+of the imperial arch.
+
+At the risk of a tedious but very essential digression, something must
+be said here as to the motives with which the Boers had for many years
+been quietly preparing for war.  That the Jameson raid was not the
+cause is certain, though it probably, by putting the Boer Government
+into a strong position, had a great effect in accelerating matters.
+What had been done secretly and slowly could be done more swiftly and
+openly when so plausible an excuse could be given for it. As a matter
+of fact, the preparations were long antecedent to the raid. The
+building of the forts at Pretoria and Johannesburg was begun nearly
+two years before that wretched incursion, and the importation of arms
+was going on apace. In that very year, 1895, a considerable sum was
+spent in military equipment.
+
+But if it was not the raid, and if the Boers had no reason to fear the
+British Government, with whom the Transvaal might have been as
+friendly as the Orange Free State had been for forty years, why then
+should they arm? It was a difficult question, and one in answering
+which we find ourselves in a region of conjecture and suspicion rather
+than of ascertained fact. But the fairest and most unbiased of
+historians must confess that there is a large body of evidence to show
+that into the heads of some of the Dutch leaders, both in the northern
+republics and in the Cape, there had entered the conception of a
+single Dutch commonwealth, extending from Cape Town to the Zambesi, in
+which flag, speech, and law should all be Dutch.  It is in this
+aspiration that many shrewd and well-informed judges see the true
+inner meaning of this persistent arming, of the constant hostility, of
+the forming of ties between the two republics (one of whom had been
+reconstituted and made a sovereign independent State by our own act),
+and finally of that intriguing which endeavoured to poison the
+affection and allegiance of our own Dutch colonists, who had no
+political grievances whatever. They all aimed at one end, and that end
+was the final expulsion of British power from South Africa and the
+formation of a single great Dutch republic.  The large sum spent by
+the Transvaal in secret service money -- a larger sum, I believe, than
+that which is spent by the whole British Empire -- would give some
+idea of the subterranean influences at work.  An army of emissaries,
+agents, and spies, whatever their mission, were certainly spread over
+the British colonies. Newspapers were subsidised also, and
+considerable sums spent upon the press in France and Germany.
+
+In the very nature of things a huge conspiracy of this sort to
+substitute Dutch for British rule in South Africa is not a matter
+which can be easily and definitely proved.  Such questions are not
+discussed in public documents, and men are sounded before being taken
+into the confidence of the conspirators.  But there is plenty of
+evidence of the individual ambition of prominent and representative
+men in this direction, and it is hard to believe that what many wanted
+individually was not striven for collectively, especially when we see
+how the course of events did actually work towards the end which they
+indicated.  Mr. J. P. FitzPatrick, in 'The Transvaal from Within ' --
+a book to which all subsequent writers upon the subject must
+acknowledge their obligations -- narrates how in 1896 he was
+approached by Mr. D. P. Graaff, formerly a member of the Cape
+Legislative Council and a very prominent Afrikander Bondsman, with the
+proposition that Great Britain should be pushed out of South Africa.
+The same politician made the same proposal to Mr. Beit. Compare with
+this the following statement of Mr. Theodore Schreiner, the brother of
+the Prime Minister of the Cape:
+
+'I met Mr. Reitz, then a judge of the Orange Free State, in
+Bloemfontein between seventeen and eighteen years ago, shortly after
+the retrocession of the Transvaal, and when he was busy establishing
+the Afrikander Bond. It must be patent to every one that at that time,
+at all events, England and its Government had no intention of taking
+away the independence of the Transvaal, for she had just
+"magnanimously" granted the same; no intention of making war on the
+republics, for she had just made peace; no intention to seize the Rand
+gold fields, for they were not yet discovered. At that time, then, I
+met Mr. Reitz, and he did his best to get me to become a member of his
+Afrikander Bond, but, after studying its constitution and programme, I
+refused to do so, whereupon the following colloquy in substance took
+place between us, which has been indelibly imprinted on my mind ever
+since:
+
+'REITZ: Why do you refuse? Is the object of getting the people to take
+an interest in political matters not a good one?
+
+'MYSELF: Yes, it is ; but I seem to see plainly here between the lines
+of this constitution much more ultimately aimed at than that.
+
+'REITZ : What?
+
+'MYSELF: I see quite clearly that the ultimate object aimed at is the
+overthrow of the British power and the expulsion of the British flag
+from South Africa.
+
+'REITZ (with his pleasant conscious smile, as of one whose secret
+thought and purpose had been discovered, and who was not altogether
+displeased that such was the case) : Well, what if it is so?
+
+'MYSELF: You don't suppose, do you, that that flag is going to
+disappear from South Africa without a tremendous struggle and fight?
+
+'REITZ (with the same pleasant self-conscious, self satisfied, and yet
+semi-apologetic smile) : Well, I suppose not; but even so, what of
+that?
+
+'MYSELF: Only this, that when that struggle takes place you and I will
+be on opposite sides; and what is more, the God who was on the side of
+the Transvaal in the late war, because it had right on its side will
+be on the side of England, because He must view with abhorrence any
+plotting and scheming to overthrow her power and position in South
+Africa, which have been ordained by Him.
+
+'REITZ : We'll see.
+
+'Thus the conversation ended, but during the seventeen years that have
+elapsed I have watched the propaganda for the overthrow of British
+power in South Africa being ceaselessly spread by every possible means
+-- the press, the pulpit, the platform, the schools, the colleges, the
+Legislature -- until it has culminated in the present war, of which
+Mr. Reitz and his co-workers are the origin and the cause. Believe me,
+the day on which F. W. Reitz sat down to pen his ultimatum to Great
+Britain was the proudest and happiest moment of his life, and one
+which had for long years been looked forward to by him with eager
+longing and expectation.'
+
+Compare with these utterances of a Dutch politician of the Cape, and
+of a Dutch politician of the Orange Free State, the following passage
+from a speech delivered by Kruger at Bloemfontein in the year 1887:
+
+'I think it too soon to speak of a United South Africa under one flag.
+Which flag was it to be?  The Queen of England would object to having
+her flag hauled down, and we, the burghers of the Transvaal, object to
+hauling ours down.  What is to be done? We are now small and of little
+importance, but we are growing, and are preparing the way to take our
+place among the great nations of the world.'
+
+'The dream of our life,' said another, 'is a union of the States of
+South Africa, and this has to come from within, not from without. When
+that is accomplished, South Africa will be great.'
+
+Always the same theory from all quarters of Dutch thought, to be
+followed by many signs that the idea was being prepared for in
+practice. I repeat that the fairest and most unbiased historian
+cannot dismiss the conspiracy as a myth.
+
+And to this one may retort, why should they not conspire? Why should
+they not have their own views as to the future of South Africa? Why
+should they not endeavour to have one universal flag and one common
+speech? Why should they not win over our colonists, if they can, and
+push us into the sea? I see no reason why they should not. Let them
+try if they will. And let us try to prevent them. But let us have an
+end of talk about British aggression, of capitalist designs upon the
+gold fields, of the wrongs of a pastoral people, and all the other
+veils which have been used to cover the issue.  Let those who talk
+about British designs upon the republics turn their attention for a
+moment to the evidence which there is for republican designs upon the
+colonies.  Let them reflect that in the one system all white men are
+equal, and that on the other the minority of one race has persecuted
+the majority of the other, and let them consider under which the
+truest freedom lies, which stands for universal liberty and which for
+reaction and racial hatred.  Let them ponder and answer all this
+before they determine where their sympathies lie.
+
+Leaving these wider questions of politics, and dismissing for the time
+those military considerations which were soon to be of such vital
+moment, we may now return to the course of events in the diplomatic
+struggle between the Government of the Transvaal and the Colonial
+Office. On September 8th, as already narrated, a final message was
+sent to Pretoria, which stated the minimum terms which the British
+Government could accept as being a fair concession to her subjects in
+the Transvaal. A definite answer was demanded, and the nation waited
+with sombre patience for the reply.
+
+There were few illusions in this country as to the difficulties of a
+Transvaal war.  It was clearly seen that little honour and immense
+vexation were in store for us. The first Boer war still smarted in our
+minds, and we knew the prowess of the indomitable burghers. But our
+people, if gloomy, were none the less resolute, for that national
+instinct which is beyond the wisdom of statesmen had borne it in upon
+them that this was no local quarrel, but one upon which the whole
+existence of the empire hung.  The cohesion of that empire was to be
+tested.  Men had emptied their glasses to it in time of peace.  Was it
+a meaningless pouring of wine, or were they ready to pour their
+hearts' blood also in time of war? Had we really founded a series of
+disconnected nations, with no common sentiment or interest, or was the
+empire an organic whole, as ready to thrill with one emotion or to
+harden into one resolve as are the several States of the Union? That
+was the question at issue, and much of the future history of the world
+was at stake upon the answer.
+
+Already there were indications that the colonies appreciated the fact
+that the contention was no affair of the mother country alone, but
+that she was upholding the rights of the empire as a whole, and might
+fairly look to them to support her in any quarrel which might arise
+from it. As early as July 11th, Queensland, the fiery and
+semitropical, had offered a contingent of mounted infantry with
+machine guns; New Zealand, Western Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, New
+South Wales, and South Australia followed in the order named. Canada,
+with the strong but more deliberate spirit of the north, was the last
+to speak, but spoke the more firmly for the delay. Her citizens were
+the least concerned of any, for Australians were many in South Africa
+but Canadians few. None the less, she cheerfully took her share of the
+common burden, and grew the readier and the cheerier as that burden
+came to weigh more heavily. From all the men of many hues who make up
+the British Empire, from Hindoo Rajahs, from West African Houssas,
+from Malay police, from Western Indians, there came offers of service.
+But this was to be a white man's war, and if the British could not
+work out their own salvation then it were well that empire should pass
+from such a race.  The magnificent Indian army of 150,000 soldiers,
+many of them seasoned veterans, was for the same reason left
+untouched.  England has claimed no credit or consideration for such
+abstention, but an irresponsible writer may well ask how many of those
+foreign critics whose respect for our public morality appears to be as
+limited as their knowledge of our principles and history would have
+advocated such self denial had their own countries been placed in the
+same position.
+
+On September 18th the official reply of the Boer Government to the
+message sent from the Cabinet Council was published in London. In
+manner it was unbending and unconciliatory; in substance, it was a
+complete rejection of all the British demands.  It refused to
+recommend or propose to the Raad the five years' franchise and the
+other measures which had been defined as the minimum which the Home
+Government could accept as a fair measure of justice towards the
+Uitlanders.  The suggestion that the debates of the Raad should be
+bilingual, as they have been in the Cape Colony and in Canada, was
+absolutely waived aside. The British Government had stated in their
+last dispatch that if the reply should be negative or inconclusive
+they reserved to themselves the right to 'reconsider the situation DE
+NOVO and to formulate their own proposals for a final settlement.' The
+reply had been both negative and inconclusive, and on September 22nd a
+council met to determine what the next message should be. It was short
+and firm, but so planned as not to shut the door upon peace.  Its
+purport was that the British Government expressed deep regret at the
+rejection of the moderate proposals which had been submitted in their
+last dispatch, and that now, in accordance with their promise, they
+would shortly put forward their own plans for a settlement. The
+message was not an ultimatum, but it foreshadowed an ultimatum in the
+future.
+
+In the meantime, upon September 21st the Raad of the Orange Free State
+had met, and it became more and more evident that this republic, with
+whom we had no possible quarrel, but, on the contrary, for whom we had
+a great deal of friendship and admiration, intended to throw in its
+weight against Great Britain.  Some time before, an offensive and
+defensive alliance had been concluded between the two States, which
+must, until the secret history of these events comes to be written,
+appear to have been a singularly rash and unprofitable bargain for the
+smaller one. She had nothing to fear from Great Britain, since she had
+been voluntarily turned into an independent republic by her and had
+lived in peace with her for forty years. Her laws were as liberal as
+our own. But by this suicidal treaty she agreed to share the fortunes
+of a State which was deliberately courting war by its persistently
+unfriendly attitude, and whose reactionary and narrow legislation
+would, one might imagine, have alienated the sympathy of her
+progressive neighbour.  There may have been ambitions like those
+already quoted from the report of Dr. Reitz's conversation, or there
+may have been a complete hallucination as to the comparative strength
+of the two combatants and the probable future of South Africa; but
+however that may be, the treaty was made, and the time had come to
+test how far it would hold.
+
+The tone of President Steyn at the meeting of the Raad, and the
+support which he received from the majority of his burghers, showed
+unmistakably that the two republics would act as one. In his opening
+speech Steyn declared uncompromisingly against the British contention,
+and declared that his State was bound to the Transvaal by everything
+which was near and dear. Among the obvious military precautions which
+could no longer be neglected by the British Government was the sending
+of some small force to protect the long and exposed line of railway
+which lies just outside the Transvaal border from Kimberley to
+Rhodesia. Sir Alfred Milner communicated with President Steyn as to
+this movement of troops, pointing out that it was in no way directed
+against the Free State.  Sir Alfred Milner added that the Imperial
+Government was still hopeful of a friendly settlement with the
+Transvaal, but if this hope were disappointed they looked to the
+Orange Free State to preserve strict neutrality and to prevent
+military intervention by any of its citizens.  They undertook that in
+that case the integrity of the Free State frontier would be strictly
+preserved. Finally, he stated that there was absolutely no cause to
+disturb the good relations between the Free State and Great Britain,
+since we were animated by the most friendly intentions towards
+them. To this the President returned a somewhat ungracious answer, to
+the effect that he disapproved of our action towards the Transvaal,
+and that he regretted the movement of troops, which would be
+considered a menace by the burghers.  A subsequent resolution of the
+Free State Raad, ending with the words, 'Come what may, the Free State
+will honestly and faithfully fulfill its obligations towards the
+Transvaal by virtue of the political alliance existing between the two
+republics,' showed how impossible it was that this country, formed by
+ourselves and without a shadow of a cause of quarrel with us, could be
+saved from being drawn into the whirlpool. Everywhere, from over both
+borders, came the news of martial preparations. Already at the end of
+September troops and armed burghers were gathering upon the frontier,
+and the most incredulous were beginning at last to understand that the
+shadow of a great war was really falling across them.  Artillery, war
+munitions, and stores were being accumulated at Volksrust upon the
+Natal border, showing where the storm might be expected to break. On
+the last day of September, twenty-six military trains were reported to
+have left Pretoria and Johannesburg for that point.  At the same time
+news came of a concentration at Malmani, upon the Bechuanaland border,
+threatening the railway line and the British town of Mafeking, a name
+destined before long to be familiar to the world.
+
+On October 3rd there occurred what was in truth an act of war,
+although the British Government, patient to the verge of weakness,
+refused to regard it as such, and continued to draw up their final
+state paper.  The mail train from the Transvaal to Cape Town was
+stopped at Vereeniging, and the week's shipment of gold for England,
+amounting to about half a million pounds, was taken by the Boer
+Government. In a debate at Cape Town upon the same day the Africander
+Minister of the Interior admitted that as many as 404 trucks had
+passed from the Government line over the frontier and had not been
+returned. Taken in conjunction with the passage of arms and cartridges
+through the Cape to Pretoria and Bloemfontein, this incident aroused
+the deepest indignation among the Colonial English and the British
+public, which was increased by the reports of the difficulty which
+border towns, such as Kimberley and Vryburg, had had in getting cannon
+for their own defence.  The Raads had been dissolved, and the old
+President's last words had been a statement that war was certain, and
+a stern invocation of the Lord as final arbiter.  England was ready
+less obtrusively but no less heartily to refer the quarrel to the same
+dread Judge.
+
+On October 2nd President Steyn informed Sir Alfred Milner that he had
+deemed it necessary to call out the Free State burghers -- that is, to
+mobilise his forces. Sir A. Milner wrote regretting these
+preparations, and declaring that he did not yet despair of peace, for
+he was sure that any reasonable proposal would be favourably
+considered by her Majesty's Government.  Steyn's reply was that there
+was no use in negotiating unless the stream of British reinforcements
+ceased coming into South Africa.  As our forces were still in a great
+minority, it was impossible to stop the reinforcements, so the
+correspondence led to nothing.  On October 7th the army reserves for
+the First Army Corps were called out in Great Britain and other signs
+shown that it had been determined to send a considerable force to
+South Africa. Parliament was also summoned that the formal national
+assent might be gained for those grave measures which were evidently
+pending.
+
+It was on October 9th that the somewhat leisurely proceedings of the
+British Colonial Office were brought to a head by the arrival of an
+unexpected and audacious ultimatum from the Boer Government. In
+contests of wit, as of arms, it must be confessed that the laugh has
+been usually upon the side of our simple and pastoral South African
+neighbours.  The present instance was no exception to the rule.  While
+our Government was cautiously and patiently leading up to an
+ultimatum, our opponent suddenly played the very card which we were
+preparing to lay upon the table.  The document was very firm and
+explicit, but the terms in which it was drawn were so impossible that
+it was evidently framed with the deliberate purpose of forcing an
+immediate war.  It demanded that the troops upon the borders of the
+republic should be instantly withdrawn, that all reinforcements which
+had arrived within the last year should leave South Africa, and that
+those who were now upon the sea should be sent back without being
+landed. Failing a satisfactory answer within forty-eight hours, 'the
+Transvaal Government will with great regret be compelled to regard the
+action of her Majesty's Government as a formal declaration of war, for
+the consequences of which it will not hold itself responsible.' The
+audacious message was received throughout the empire with a mixture of
+derision and anger.  The answer was dispatched next day through Sir
+Alfred Milner.
+
+'10th October.-- 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.'
+
+And so we have come to the end of the long road, past the battle of
+the pens and the wrangling of tongues, to the arbitration of the
+Lee-Metford and the Mauser. It was pitiable that it should come to
+this.  These people were as near akin to us as any race which is not
+our own.  They were of the same Frisian stock which peopled our own
+shores.  In habit of mind, in religion, in respect for law, they were
+as ourselves. Brave, too, they were, and hospitable, with those
+sporting instincts which are dear to the Anglo-Celtic race.  There was
+no people in the world who had more qualities which we might admire,
+and not the least of them was that love of independence which it is
+our proudest boast' that we have encouraged in others as well as
+exercised ourselves. And yet we had come to this pass, that there was
+no room in all vast South Africa for both of us. We cannot hold
+ourselves blameless in the matter.  ' The evil that men do lives after
+them,' and it has been told in this small superficial sketch where we
+have erred in the past in South Africa. On our hands, too, is the
+Jameson raid, carried out by Englishmen and led by officers who held
+the Queen's Commission; to us, also, the blame of the shuffling,
+half-hearted inquiry into that most unjustifiable business.  These are
+matches which helped to set the great blaze alight, and it is we who
+held them. Rut the fagots which proved to be so inflammable, they
+were not of our setting.  They were the wrongs done to half the
+community, the settled resolution of the minority to tax and vex the
+majority, the determination of a people who had lived two generations
+in a country to claim that country entirely for themselves.  Behind
+them all there may have been the Dutch ambition to dominate South
+Africa. It was no petty object for which Britain fought. When a nation
+struggles uncomplainingly through months of disaster she may claim to
+have proved her conviction of the justice and necessity of the
+struggle. Should Dutch ideas or English ideas of government prevail
+throughout that huge country? The one means freedom for a single race,
+the other means equal rights to all white men beneath one common
+law. What each means to the coloured races let history declare. This
+was the main issue to be determined from the instant that the clock
+struck five upon the afternoon of Wednesday, October the eleventh,
+eighteen hundred and ninety-nine. That moment marked the opening of a
+war destined to determine the fate of South Africa, to work great
+changes in the British Empire, to seriously affect the future history
+of the world, and incidentally to alter many of our views as to the
+art of war. It is the story of this war which, with limited material
+but with much aspiration to care and candour, I shall now endeavour to
+tell.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+TALANA HILL
+
+It was on the morning of October 12th, amid cold and mist, that the
+Boer camps at Sandspruit and Volksrust broke up, and the burghers rode
+to the war.  Some twelve thousand of them, all mounted, with two
+batteries of eight Krupp guns each, were the invading force from the
+north, which hoped later to be joined by the Freestaters and by a
+contingent of Germans and Transvaalers who were to cross the Free
+State border.  It was an hour before dawn that the guns started, and
+the riflemen followed close behind the last limber, so that the first
+light of day fell upon the black sinuous line winding down between the
+hills.  A spectator upon the occasion says of them : 'Their faces were
+a study.  For the most part the expression worn was one of
+determination and bulldog pertinacity.  No sign of fear there, nor of
+wavering. Whatever else may be laid to the charge of the Boer, it may
+never truthfully be said that he is a coward or a man unworthy of the
+Briton's steel.' The words were written early in the campaign, and the
+whole empire will endorse them to-day.  Could we have such men as
+willing fellow-citizens, they are worth more than all the gold mines
+of their country.
+
+This main Transvaal body consisted of the commando of Pretoria, which
+comprised 1,800 men, and those of Heidelberg, Middelburg, Krugersdorp,
+Standerton, Wakkerstroom, and Ermelo, with the State Artillery, an
+excellent and highly organised body who were provided with the best
+guns that have ever been brought on to a battlefield.  Besides their
+sixteen Krupps, they dragged with them two heavy six-inch Creusot
+guns, which were destined to have a very important effect in the
+earlier part of the campaign. In addition to these native forces there
+were a certain number of European auxiliaries. The greater part of the
+German corps were with the Free State forces, but a few hundred came
+down from the north. There was a Hollander corps of about two hundred
+and fifty and an Irish -- or perhaps more properly an
+Irish-American-corps of the same number, who rode under the green flag
+and the harp.
+
+The men might, by all accounts, be divided into two very different
+types.  There were the town Boers, smartened and perhaps a little
+enervated by prosperity and civilisation, men of business and
+professional men, more alert and quicker than their rustic
+comrades. These men spoke English rather than Dutch, and indeed there
+were many men of English descent among them.  But the others, the most
+formidable both in their numbers and in their primitive qualities,
+were the back-veldt Boers, the sunburned, tangle-haired, full-bearded
+farmers, the men of the Bible and the rifle, imbued with the
+traditions of their own guerrilla warfare. These were perhaps the
+finest natural warriors upon earth, marksmen, hunters, accustomed to
+hard fare and a harder couch.  They were rough in their ways and
+speech, but, in spite of many calumnies and some few unpleasant
+truths, they might compare with most disciplined armies in their
+humanity and their desire to observe the usages of war.
+
+A few words here as to the man who led this singular host.  Piet
+Joubert was a Cape Colonist by birth -- a fellow countryman, like
+Kruger himself, of those whom the narrow laws of his new country
+persisted in regarding as outside the pale.  He came from that French
+Huguenot blood which has strengthened and refined every race which it
+has touched, and from it he derived a chivalry and generosity which
+made him respected and liked even by his opponents.  In many native
+broils and in the British campaign of 1881 he had shown himself a
+capable leader.  His record in standing out for the independence of
+the Transvaal was a very consistent one, for he had not accepted
+office under the British, as Kruger had done, but had remained always
+an irreconcilable.  Tall and burly, with hard grey eyes and a grim
+mouth half hidden by his bushy beard, he was a fine type of the men
+whom he led.  He was now in his sixty-fifth year, and the fire of his
+youth had, as some of the burghers urged, died down within him; but he
+was experienced, crafty, and warwise, never dashing and never
+brilliant, but slow, steady, solid, and inexorable.
+
+Besides this northern army there were two other bodies of burghers
+converging upon Natal.  One, consisting of the commandoes from Utrecht
+and the Swaziland districts, had gathered at Vryheid on the flank of
+the British position at Dundee.  The other, much larger, not less
+probably than six or seven thousand men, were the contingent from the
+Free State and a Transvaal corps, together with Schiel's Germans, who
+were making their way through the various passes, the Tintwa Pass, and
+Van Reenen's Pass, which lead through the grim range of the
+Drakensberg and open out upon the more fertile plains of Western
+Natal.  The total force may have been something between twenty and
+thirty thousand men. By all accounts they were of an astonishingly
+high heart, convinced that a path of easy victory lay before them, and
+that nothing could bar their way to the sea.  If the British
+commanders underrated their opponents, there is ample evidence that
+the mistake was reciprocal.
+
+A few words now as to the disposition of the British forces,
+concerning which it must be borne in mind that Sir George White,
+though in actual command, had only been a few days in the country
+before war was declared, so that the arrangements fell to General Penn
+Symons, aided or hampered by the advice of the local political
+authorities.  The main position was at Ladysmith, but an advance post
+was strongly held at Glencoe, which is five miles from the station of
+Dundee and forty from Ladysmith.  The reason for this dangerous
+division of force was to secure each end of the Biggarsberg section of
+the railway, and also to cover the important collieries of that
+district.  The positions chosen seem in each case to show that the
+British commander was not aware of the number and power of the Boer
+guns, for each was equally defensible against rifle fire and
+vulnerable to an artillery attack.  In the case of Glencoe it was
+particularly evident that guns upon the hills above would, as they
+did, render the position untenable.  This outlying post was held by
+the 1st Leicester Regiment, the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, and the first
+battalion of Rifles, with the 18th Hussars, three companies of mounted
+infantry, and three batteries of field artillery, the 13th, 67th, and
+69th.  The 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers were on their way to reinforce
+it, and arrived before the first action. Altogether the Glencoe camp
+contained some four thousand men.
+
+The main body of the army remained at Ladysmith. These consisted of
+the 1st Devons, the 1st Liverpools, and the 2nd Gordon Highlanders,
+with the 1st Gloucesters, the 2nd King's Royal Rifles, and the 2nd
+Rifle Brigade, reinforced later by the Manchesters.  The cavalry
+included the 5th Dragoon Guards, the 5th Lancers, a detachment of 19th
+Hussars, the Natal Carabineers, the Natal Mounted Police, and the
+Border Mounted Rifles, reinforced later by the Imperial Light Horse, a
+fine body of men raised principally among the refugees from the Rand.
+For artillery there were the 21st, 42nd, and 53rd batteries of field
+artillery, and No.10 Mountain Battery, with the Natal Field Artillery,
+the guns of which were too light to be of service, and the 23rd
+Company of Royal Engineers.  The whole force, some eight or nine
+thousand strong, was under the immediate command of Sir George White,
+with Sir Archibald Hunter, fresh from the Soudan, General French, and
+General Ian Hamilton as his lieutenants.
+
+The first shock of the Boers, then, must fall upon 4,000 men.  If
+these could be overwhelmed, there were 8,000 more to be defeated or
+masked.  Then what was there between them and the sea? Some
+detachments of local volunteers, the Durban Light Infantry at Colenso,
+and the Natal Royal Rifles, with some naval volunteers at Estcourt.
+With the power of the Boers and their mobility it is inexplicable how
+the colony was saved.  We are of the same blood, the Boers and we, and
+we show it in our failings.  Over-confidence on our part gave them the
+chance, and over-confidence on theirs prevented them from instantly
+availing themselves of it. If passed, never to come again.
+
+The outbreak of war was upon October 11th.  On the 12th the Boer
+forces crossed the frontier both on the north and on the west.  On the
+13th they occupied Charlestown at the top angle of Natal. On the 15th
+they had reached Newcastle, a larger town some fifteen miles inside
+the border. Watchers from the houses saw six miles of canvas-tilted
+bullock wagons winding down the passes, and learned that this was not
+a raid but an invasion. At the same date news reached the British
+headquarters of an advance from the western passes, and of a movement
+from the Buffalo River on the east. On the 13th Sir George White had
+made a reconnaissance in force, but had not come in touch with the
+enemy.  On the 15th six of the Natal Police were surrounded and
+captured at one of the drifts of the Buffalo River.  On the 18th our
+cavalry patrols came into touch with the Boer scouts at Acton Homes
+and Besters Station, these being the voortrekkers of the Orange Free
+State force. On the 18th also a detachment was reported from Hadders
+Spruit, seven miles north of Glencoe Camp. The cloud was drifting up,
+and it could not be long before it would burst.
+
+Two days later, on the early morning of October 20th, the forces came
+at last into collision. At half-past three in the morning, well before
+daylight, the mounted infantry picket at the junction of the roads
+from Landmans and Vants Drifts was fired into by the Doornberg
+commando, and retired upon its supports.  Two companies of the Dublin
+Fusiliers were sent out, and at five o'clock on a fine but misty
+morning the whole of Symons's force was under arms with the knowledge
+that the Boers were pushing boldly towards them. The khaki-clad lines
+of fighting men stood in their long thin ranks staring up at the
+curves of the saddle-back hills to the north and east of them, and
+straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of the enemy.  Why these same
+saddle-back hills were not occupied by our own people is, it must be
+confessed, an insoluble mystery.  In a hollow on one flank were the
+18th Hussars and the mounted infantry.  On the other were the eighteen
+motionless guns, limbered up and ready, the horses fidgeting and
+stamping in the raw morning air.
+
+And then suddenly -- could that be they? An officer with a telescope
+stared intently and pointed. Another and another turned a steady field
+glass towards the same place.  And then the men could see also, and a
+little murmur of interest ran down the ranks.
+
+A long sloping hill -- Talana Hill -- olive-green in hue, was
+stretching away in front of them.  At the summit it rose into a
+rounded crest.  The mist was clearing, and the curve was hard-outlined
+against the limpid blue of the morning sky. On this, some two and a
+half miles or three miles off, a little group of black dots had
+appeared.  The clear edge of the skyline had become serrated with
+moving figures.  They clustered into a knot, then opened again, and
+then --
+
+There had been no smoke, but there came a long crescendo hoot, rising
+into a shrill wail.  The shell hummed over the soldiers like a great
+bee, and sloshed into soft earth behind them.  Then another -- and yet
+another -- and yet another.  But there was no time to heed them, for
+there was the hillside and there the enemy.  So at it again with the
+good old murderous obsolete heroic tactics of the British tradition!
+There are times when, in spite of science and book-lore, the best plan
+is the boldest plan, and it is well to fly straight at your enemy's
+throat, facing the chance that your strength may fail before you can
+grasp it.  The cavalry moved off round the enemy's left flank.  The
+guns dashed to the front, unlimbered, and opened fire.  The infantry
+were moved round in the direction of Sandspruit, passing through the
+little town of Dundee, where the women and children came to the doors
+and windows to cheer them.  It was thought that the hill was more
+accessible from that side.  The Leicesters and one field battery --
+the 67th -- were left behind to protect the camp and to watch the
+Newcastle Road upon the west. At seven in the morning all was ready
+for the assault.
+
+Two military facts of importance had already been disclosed.  One was
+that the Boer percussion-shells were useless in soft ground, as hardly
+any of them exploded; the other that the Boer guns could outrange our
+ordinary fifteen-pounder field gun, which had been the one thing
+perhaps in the whole British equipment upon which we were prepared to
+pin our faith. The two batteries, the 13th and the 69th, were moved
+nearer, first to 3,000, and then at last to 2,300 yards, at which
+range they quickly dominated the guns upon the hill. Other guns had
+opened from another crest to the east of Talana, but these also were
+mastered by the fire of the 13th Battery.  At 7.30 the infantry were
+ordered to advance, which they did in open order, extended to ten
+paces.  The Dublin Fusiliers formed the first line, the Rifles the
+second, and the Irish Fusiliers the third.
+
+The first thousand yards of the advance were over open grassland,
+where the range was long, and the yellow brown of the khaki blended
+with the withered veldt.  There were few casualties until the wood was
+reached, which lay halfway up the long slope of the hill. It was a
+plantation of larches, some hundreds of yards across and nearly as
+many deep. On the left side of this wood -- that is, the left side to
+the advancing troops -- there stretched a long nullah or hollow, which
+ran perpendicularly to the hill, and served rather as a conductor of
+bullets than as a cover.  So severe was the fire at this point that
+both in the wood and in the nullah the troops lay down to avoid it. An
+officer of Irish Fusiliers has narrated how in trying to cut the straps
+from a fallen private a razor lent him for that purpose by a wounded
+sergeant was instantly shot out of his hand. The gallant Symons, who
+had refused to dismount, was shot through the stomach and fell from
+his horse mortally wounded. With an excessive gallantry, he had not
+only attracted the enemy's fire by retaining his horse, but he had
+been accompanied throughout the action by an orderly bearing a red
+pennon.  'Have they got the hill? Have they got the hill?' was his one
+eternal question as they carried him dripping to the rear. It was at
+the edge of the wood that Colonel Sherston met his end.
+
+>From now onwards it was as much a soldiers' battle as Inkermann.  In
+the shelter of the wood the more eager of the three battalions had
+pressed to the front until the fringe of the trees was lined by men
+from all of them.  The difficulty of distinguishing particular
+regiments where all were clad alike made it impossible in the heat of
+action to keep any sort of formation. So hot was the fire that for the
+time the advance was brought to a standstill, but the 69th battery,
+firing shrapnel at a range of 1,400 yards, subdued the rifle fire, and
+about half-past eleven the infantry were able to push on once more.
+
+Above the wood there was an open space some hundreds of yards across,
+bounded by a rough stone wall built for herding cattle.  A second wall
+ran at right angles to this down towards the wood.  An enfilading
+rifle fire had been sweeping across this open space, but the wall in
+front does not appear to have been occupied by the enemy, who held the
+kopje above it.  To avoid the cross fire the soldiers ran in single
+file under the shelter of the wall, which covered them to the right,
+and so reached the other wall across their front. Here there was a
+second long delay, the men dribbling up from below, and firing over
+the top of the wall and between the chinks of the stones.  The Dublin
+Fusiliers, through being in a more difficult position, had been unable
+to get up as quickly as the others, and most of the hard-breathing
+excited men who crowded under the wall were of the Rifles and of the
+Irish Fusiliers.  The air was so full of bullets that it seemed
+impossible to live upon the other side of this shelter. Two hundred
+yards intervened between the wall and the crest of the kopje. And yet
+the kopje had to be cleared if the battle were to be won.
+
+Out of the huddled line of crouching men an officer sprang shouting,
+and a score of soldiers vaulted over the wall and followed at his
+heels. It was Captain Connor, of the Irish Fusiliers, but his personal
+magnetism carried up with him some of the Rifles as well as men of his
+own command.  He and half his little forlorn hope were struck down --
+he, alas! to die the same night -- but there were other leaders as
+brave to take his place.  'Forrard away, men, forrard away!' cried
+Nugent, of the Rifles. Three bullets struck him, but he continued to
+drag himself up the boulder-studded hill.  Others followed, and
+others, from all sides they came running, the crouching, yelling,
+khaki-clad figures, and the supports rushed up from the rear.  For a
+time they were beaten down by their own shrapnel striking into them
+from behind, which is an amazing thing when one considers that the
+range was under 2,000 yards.  It was here, between the wall and the
+summit, that Colonel Gunning, of the Rifles, and many other brave men
+met their end, some by our own bullets and some by those of the enemy;
+but the Boers thinned away in front of them, and the anxious onlookers
+from the plain below saw the waving helmets on the crest, and learned
+at last that all was well.
+
+But it was, it must be confessed, a Pyrrhic victory. We had our hill,
+but what else had we? The guns which had been silenced by our fire had
+been removed from the kopje. The commando which seized the hill was
+that of Lucas Meyer, and it is computed that he had with him about
+4,000 men. This figure includes those under the command of Erasmus,
+who made halfhearted demonstrations against the British flank.  If the
+shirkers be eliminated, it is probable that there were not more than a
+thousand actual combatants upon the hill. Of this number about fifty
+were killed and a hundred wounded.  The British loss at Talana Hill
+itself was 41 killed and 180 wounded, but among the killed were many
+whom the army could ill spare.  The gallant but optimistic Symons,
+Gunning of the Rifles, Sherston, Connor, Hambro, and many other brave
+men died that day. The loss of officers was out of all proportion to
+that of the men.
+
+An incident which occurred immediately after the action did much to
+rob the British of the fruits of the victory. Artillery had pushed up
+the moment that the hill was carried, and had unlimbered on Smith's
+Nek between the two hills, from which the enemy, in broken groups of
+50 and 100, could be seen streaming away. A fairer chance for the use
+of shrapnel has never been. But at this instant there ran from an old
+iron church on the reverse side of the hill, which had been used all
+day as a Boer hospital, a man with a white flag.  It is probable that
+the action was in good faith, and that it was simply intended to claim
+a protection for the ambulance party which followed him.  But the too
+confiding gunner in command appears to have thought that an armistice
+had been declared, and held his hand during those precious minutes
+which might have turned a defeat into a rout.  The chance passed,
+never to return.  The double error of firing into our own advance and
+of failing to fire into the enemy's retreat makes the battle one which
+cannot be looked back to with satisfaction by our gunners.
+
+In the meantime some miles away another train of events had led to a
+complete disaster to our small cavalry force -- a disaster which
+robbed our dearly bought infantry victory of much of its
+importance. That action alone was undoubtedly a victorious one, but
+the net result of the day's fighting cannot be said to have been
+certainly in our favour.  It was Wellington who asserted that his
+cavalry always got him into scrapes, and the whole of British military
+history might furnish examples of what he meant.  Here again our
+cavalry got into trouble.  Suffice it for the civilian to chronicle
+the fact, and leave it to the military critic to portion out the
+blame.
+
+One company of mounted infantry (that of the Rifles) had been told off
+to form an escort for the guns. The rest of the mounted infantry with
+part of the 18th Hussars (Colonel Moller) had moved round the right
+flank until they reached the right rear of the enemy. Such a movement,
+had Lucas Meyer been the only opponent, would have been above
+criticism; but knowing, as we did, that there were several commandoes
+converging upon Glencoe it was obviously taking a very grave and
+certain risk to allow the cavalry to wander too far from support.
+They were soon entangled in broken country and attacked by superior
+numbers of the Boers.  There was a time when they might have exerted
+an important influence upon the action by attacking the Boer ponies
+behind the hills, but the opportunity was allowed to pass. An attempt
+was made to get back to the army, and a series of defensive positions
+were held to cover the retreat, but the enemy's fire became too hot to
+allow them to be retained. Every route save one appeared to be
+blocked, so the horsemen took this, which led them into the heart of a
+second commando of the enemy.  Finding no way through, the force took
+up a defensive position, part of them in a farm and part on a kopje
+which overlooked it.
+
+The party consisted of two troops of Hussars, one company of mounted
+infantry of the Dublin Fusiliers, and one section of the mounted
+infantry of the Rifles -- about two hundred men in all.  They were
+subjected to a hot fire for some hours, many being killed and
+wounded. Guns were brought up, and fired shell into the farmhouse. At
+4.30 the force, being in a perfectly hopeless position, laid down
+their arms. Their ammunition was gone, many of their horses had
+stampeded, and they were hemmed in by very superior numbers, so that
+no slightest slur can rest upon the survivors for their decision to
+surrender, though the movements which brought them to such a pass are
+more open to criticism.  They were the vanguard of that considerable
+body of humiliated and bitter-hearted men who were to assemble at the
+capital of our brave and crafty enemy.  The remainder of the 18th
+Hussars, who under Major Knox had been detached from the main force
+and sent across the Boer rear, underwent a somewhat similar
+experience, but succeeded in extricating themselves with a loss of Six
+killed and ten wounded.  Their efforts were by no means lost, as they
+engaged the attention of a considerable body of Boers during the day
+and were able to bring some prisoners back with them.
+
+The battle of Talana Hill was a tactical victory but a strategic
+defeat.  It was a crude frontal attack without any attempt at even a
+feint of flanking, but the valour of the troops, from general to
+private, carried it through. The force was in a position so radically
+false that the only use which they could make of a victory was to
+cover their own retreat.  From all points Boer commandoes were
+converging upon it, and already it was understood that the guns at
+their command were heavier than any which could be placed against
+them.  This was made more clear on October 21st, the day after the
+battle, when the force, having withdrawn overnight from the useless
+hill which they had captured, moved across to a fresh position on the
+far side of the railway. At four in the afternoon a very heavy gun
+opened from a distant hill, altogether beyond the extreme range of our
+artillery, and plumped shell after shell into our camp.  It was the
+first appearance of the great Creusot. An officer with several men of
+the Leicesters, and some of our few remaining cavalry, were bit.  The
+position was clearly impossible, so at two in the morning of the 22nd
+the whole force was moved to a point to the south of the town of
+Dundee.  On the same day a reconnaissance was made in the direction of
+Glencoe Station, but the passes were found to be strongly occupied,
+and the little army marched back again to its original position.  The
+command had fallen to Colonel Yule, who justly considered that his men
+were dangerously and uselessly exposed, and that his correct strategy
+was to fall back, if it were still possible, and join the main body at
+Ladysmith, even at the cost of abandoning the two hundred sick and
+wounded who lay with General Symons in the hospital at Dundee. It was
+a painful necessity, but no one who studies the situation can have any
+doubt of its wisdom.  The retreat was no easy task, a march by road of
+some sixty or seventy miles through a very rough country with an enemy
+pressing on every side.  Its successful completion without any loss or
+any demoralisation of the troops is perhaps as fine a military exploit
+as any of our early victories.  Through the energetic and loyal
+co-operation of Sir George White, who fought the actions of
+Elandslaagte and of Rietfontein in order to keep the way open for
+them, and owing mainly to the skillful guidance of Colonel Dartnell, of
+the Natal Police, they succeeded in their critical manoeuvre. On
+October 23rd they were at Beith, on the 24th at Waselibank Spruit, on
+the 25th at Sunday River, and next morning they marched, sodden with
+rain, plastered with mud, dog-tired, but in the best of spirits, into
+Ladysmith amid the cheers of their comrades.  A battle, six days
+without settled sleep, four days without a proper meal, winding up
+with a single march of thirty-two miles over heavy ground and through
+a pelting rain storm -- that was the record of the Dundee column. They
+had fought and won, they had striven and toiled to the utmost capacity
+of manhood, and the end of it all was that they had reached the spot
+which they should never have left. But their endurance could not be
+lost -- no worthy deed is ever lost.  Like the light division, when
+they marched their fifty odd unbroken miles to be present at Talavera,
+they leave a memory and a standard behind them which is more important
+than success. It is by the tradition of such sufferings and such
+endurance that others in other days are nerved to do the like.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+ELANDSLAAGTE AND RIETFONTEIN
+
+
+While the Glencoe force had struck furiously at the army of Lucas
+Meyer, and had afterwards by hard marching disengaged itself from the
+numerous dangers which threatened it, its comrades at Ladysmith bad
+loyally co-operated in drawing off the attention of the enemy and
+keeping the line of retreat open.
+
+On October 20th -- the same day as the Battle of Talana Hill -- the
+line was cut by the Boers at a point nearly midway between Dundee and
+Ladysmith.  A small body of horsemen were the forerunners of a
+considerable commando, composed of Freestaters, Transvaalers, and
+Germans, who had advanced into Natal through Botha's Pass under the
+command of General Koch.  They had with them the two Maxim-Nordenfelds
+which had been captured from the Jameson raiders, and were now
+destined to return once more to British hands.  Colonel Schiel, the
+German artillerist, had charge of these guns.
+
+On the evening of that day General French, with a strong reconnoitering
+party, including the Natal Carabineers, the 5th Lancers, and the 21st
+battery, had defined the enemy's position.  Next morning (the 21st) he
+returned, but either the enemy had been reinforced during the night or
+he had underrated them the day before, for the force which he took
+with him was too weak for any serious attack. He had one battery of
+the Natal artillery, with their little seven-pounder popguns, five
+squadrons of the Imperial Horse, and, in the train which slowly
+accompanied his advance, half a battalion of the Manchester
+Regiment. Elated by the news of Talana Hill, and anxious to emulate
+their brothers of Dundee, the little force moved out of Ladysmith in
+the early morning.
+
+Some at least of the men were animated by feelings such as seldom find
+a place in the breast of the British soldier as he marches into
+battle.  A sense of duty, a belief in the justice of his cause, a love
+for his regiment and for his country, these are the common incentives
+of every soldier.  But to the men of the Imperial Light Horse,
+recruited as they were from among the British refugees of the Rand,
+there was added a burning sense of injustice, and in many cases a
+bitter hatred against the men whose rule had weighed so heavily upon
+them. In this singular corps the ranks were full of wealthy men and
+men of education, who, driven from their peaceful vocations in
+Johannesburg, were bent upon fighting their way back to them again.  A
+most unmerited slur had been cast upon their courage in connection
+with the Jameson raid -- a slur which they and other similar corps
+have washed out for ever in their own blood and that of their enemy.
+Chisholm, a fiery little Lancer, was in command, with Karri Davis and
+Wools-Sampson, the two stalwarts who had preferred Pretoria Gaol to
+the favours of Kruger, as his majors. The troopers were on fire at the
+news that a cartel had arrived in Ladysmith the night before,
+purporting to come from the Johannesburg Boers and Hollanders, asking
+what uniform the Light Horse wore, as they were anxious to meet them
+in battle.  These men were fellow townsmen and knew each other well.
+They need not have troubled about the uniform, for before evening the
+Light Horse were near enough for them to know their faces.
+
+It was about eight o'clock on a bright summer morning that the small
+force came in contact with a few scattered Boer outposts, who retired,
+firing, before the advance of the Imperial Light Horse.  As they fell
+back the green and white tents of the invaders came into view upon the
+russet-coloured hillside of Elandslaagte.  Down at the red brick
+railway station the Boers could be seen swarming out of the buildings
+in which they had spent the night.  The little Natal guns, firing with
+obsolete black powder, threw a few shells into the station, one of
+which, it is said, penetrated a Boer ambulance which could not be seen
+by the gunners. The accident was to be regretted, but as no patients
+could have been in the ambulance the mischance was not a serious one.
+
+But the busy, smoky little seven-pounder guns were soon to meet their
+master.  Away up on the distant hillside, a long thousand yards beyond
+their own furthest range, there was a sudden bright flash.  No smoke,
+only the throb of flame, and then the long sibilant scream of the
+shell, and the thud as it buried itself in the ground under a limber.
+Such judgment of range would have delighted the most martinet of
+inspectors at Okehampton.  Bang came another, and another, and
+another, right into the heart of the battery.  The six little guns lay
+back at their extremest angle, and all barked together in impotent
+fury. Another shell pitched over them, and the officer in command
+lowered his field-glass in despair as he saw his own shells bursting
+far short upon the hillside.  Jameson's defeat does not seem to have
+been due to any defect in his artillery. French, peering and
+pondering, soon came to the conclusion that there were too many Boers
+for him, and that if those fifteen-pounders desired target practice
+they should find some other mark than the Natal Field Artillery. A few
+curt orders, and his whole force was making its way to the rear.
+There, out of range of those perilous guns, they halted, the telegraph
+wire was cut, a telephone attachment was made, and French whispered
+his troubles into the sympathetic ear of Ladysmith.  He did not
+whisper in vain.  What he had to say was that where he had expected a
+few hundred riflemen he found something like two thousand, and that
+where he expected no guns he found two very excellent ones.  The
+reply was that by road and by rail as many men as could be spared were
+on their way to join him.
+
+Soon they began to drop in, those useful reinforcements -- first the
+Devons, quiet, business-like, reliable; then the Gordons, dashing,
+fiery, brilliant.  Two squadrons of the 5th Lancers, the 42nd R.F.A.,
+the 21st R.F.A., another squadron of Lancers, a squadron of the 5th
+Dragoon Guards -- French began to feel that he was strong enough for the
+task in front of him.  He had a decided superiority of numbers and of
+guns. But the others were on their favourite defensive on a hill. It
+would be a fair fight and a deadly one.
+
+It was late after noon before the advance began.  It was hard, among
+those billowing hills, to make out the exact limits of the enemy's
+position.  All that was certain was that 'they were there, and that we
+meant having them out if it were humanly possible.  'The enemy are
+there,' said Ian Hamilton to his infantry; 'I hope you will shift them
+out before sunset -- in fact I know you will.'  The men cheered and
+laughed. In long open lines they advanced across the veldt, while the
+thunder of the two batteries behind them told the Boer gunners that it
+was their turn now to know what it was to be outmatched.
+
+The idea was to take the position by a front and a flank attack, but
+there seems to have been some difficulty in determining which was the
+front and which the flank. In fact, it was only by trying that one
+could know. General White with his staff had arrived from Ladysmith,
+but refused to take the command out of French's hands. It is typical
+of White's chivalrous spirit that within ten days he refused to
+identify himself with a victory when it was within his right to do so,
+and took the whole responsibility for a disaster at which he was not
+present. Now he rode amid the shells and watched the able dispositions
+of his lieutenant.
+
+About half-past three the action had fairly begun. In front of the
+advancing British there lay a rolling hill, topped by a further
+one. The lower hill was not defended, and the infantry, breaking from
+column of companies into open order, advanced over it.  Beyond was a
+broad grassy valley which led up to the main position, a long kopje
+flanked by a small sugar-loaf one Behind the green slope which led to
+the ridge of death an ominous and terrible cloud was driving up,
+casting its black shadow over the combatants.  There was the stillness
+which goes before some great convulsion of nature.  The men pressed on
+in silence, the soft thudding of their feet and the rattle of their
+sidearms filling the air with a low and continuous murmur.  An
+additional solemnity was given to the attack by that huge black cloud
+which hung before them.
+
+The British guns had opened at a range of 4,400 yards, and now against
+the swarthy background there came the quick smokeless twinkle of the
+Boer reply.  It was an unequal fight, but gallantly sustained. A shot
+and another to find the range; then a wreath of smoke from a bursting
+shell exactly where the guns had been, followed by another and
+another.  Overmatched, the two Boer pieces relapsed into a sulky
+silence, broken now and again by short spurts of frenzied activity.
+The British batteries turned their attention away from them, and began
+to search the ridge with shrapnel and prepare the way for the
+advancing infantry.
+
+The scheme was that the Devonshires should hold the enemy in front
+while the main attack from the left flank was carried out by the
+Gordons, the Manchesters, and the Imperial Light Horse.  The words
+'front' and 'flank,' however, cease to have any meaning with so mobile
+and elastic a force, and the attack which was intended to come from
+the left became really a frontal one, while the Devons found
+themselves upon the right flank of the Boers.  At the moment of the
+final advance the great black cloud had burst, and a torrent of rain
+lashed into the faces of the men.  Slipping and sliding upon the wet
+grass, they advanced to the assault.
+
+And now amid the hissing of the rain there came the fuller, more
+menacing whine of the Mauser bullets, and the ridge rattled from end
+to end with the rifle fire. Men fell fast, but their comrades pressed
+hotly on. There was a long way to go, for the summit of the position
+was nearly 800 feet above the level of the railway.  The hillside,
+which had appeared to be one slope, was really a succession of
+undulations, so that the advancing infantry alternately dipped into
+shelter and emerged into' a hail of bullets.  The line of advance was
+dotted with khaki-clad figures, some still in death, some writhing in
+their agony. Amid the litter of bodies a major of the Gordons, shot
+through the leg, sat philosophically smoking his pipe.  Plucky little
+Chisholm, Colonel of the Imperials, had fallen with two mortal wounds
+as he dashed forward waving a coloured sash in the air.  So long was
+the advance and so trying the hill that the men sank panting upon the
+ground, and took their breath before making another rush. As at Talana
+Hill, regimental formation was largely gone, and men of the
+Manchesters, Gordons, and Imperial Light Horse surged upwards in one
+long ragged fringe, Scotchman, Englishman, and British Africander
+keeping pace in that race of death.  And now at last they began to see
+their enemy.  Here and there among the boulders in front of them there
+was the glimpse of a slouched hat, or a peep at a flushed bearded face
+which drooped over a rifle barrel.  There was a pause, and then with a
+fresh impulse the wave of men gathered themselves together and flung
+themselves forward.  Dark figures sprang up from the rocks in front.
+Some held up their rifles in token of surrender.  Some ran with heads
+sunk between their shoulders, jumping and ducking among the rocks.
+The panting breathless climbers were on the edge of the plateau.
+There were the two guns which had flashed so brightly, silenced now,
+with a litter of dead gunners around them and one wounded officer
+standing by a trail. A small body of the Boers still resisted.  Their
+appearance horrified some of our men. 'They were dressed in black
+frock coats and looked like a lot of rather seedy business men,' said
+a spectator. 'It seemed like murder to kill them.'  Some surrendered,
+and some fought to the death where they stood.  Their leader Koch, an
+old gentleman with a white beard, lay amidst the rocks, wounded in
+three places.  lie was treated with all courtesy and attention, but
+died in Ladysmith Hospital some days afterwards.
+
+In the meanwhile the Devonshire Regiment had waited until the attack
+had developed and had then charged the hill upon the flank, while the
+artillery moved up until it was within 2,000 yards of the enemy's
+position.  The Devons met with a less fierce resistance than the
+others, and swept up to the summit in time to head off some of the
+fugitives.  The whole of our infantry were now upon the ridge.
+
+But even so these dour fighters were not beaten. They clung
+desperately to the further edges of the plateau, firing from behind
+the rocks.  There had been a race for the nearest gun between an
+officer of the Manchesters and a drummer sergeant of the Gordons.  The
+officer won, and sprang in triumph on to the piece. Men of all
+regiments swarmed round yelling and cheering, when upon their
+astonished ears there sounded the 'Cease fire ' and then the 'Retire.'
+It was incredible, and yet it pealed out again, unmistakable in its
+urgency. With the instinct of discipline the men were slowly falling
+back.  And then the truth of it came upon the minds of some of them.
+The crafty enemy had learned our bugle calls.  ' Retire be damned!
+shrieked a little bugler, and blew the 'Advance ' with all the breath
+that the hillside had left him. The men, who had retired a hundred
+yards and uncovered the guns, flooded back over the plateau, and in
+the Boer camp which lay beneath it a white flag showed that the game
+was up. A squadron of the 5th Lancers and of the 5th Dragoon Guards,
+under Colonel Gore of the latter regiment, had prowled round the base
+of the hill, and in the fading light they charged through and through
+the retreating Boers, killing several, and making from twenty to
+thirty prisoners. It was one of the very few occasions in the war
+where the mounted Briton overtook the mounted Boer.
+
+'What price Majuba?' was the cry raised by some of the infantry as
+they dashed up to the enemy's position, and the action may indeed be
+said to have been in some respects the converse of that famous
+fight. It is true that there were many more British at Elandslaagte
+than Boers at Majuba, but then the defending force was much more
+numerous also, and the British had no guns there.  It is true, also,
+that Majuba is very much more precipitous than Elandslaagte, but then
+every practical soldier knows that it is easier to defend a moderate
+glaçis than an abrupt slope, which gives cover under its boulders to
+the attacker while the defender has to crane his head over the edge to
+look down.  On the whole, this brilliant little action may be said to
+have restored things to their true proportion, and to have shown that,
+brave as the Boers undoubtedly are, there is no military feat within
+their power which is not equally possible to the British
+soldier. Talana Hill and Elandslaagte, fought on successive days, were
+each of them as gallant an exploit as Majuba.
+
+We had more to show for our victory than for the previous one at
+Dundee.  Two Maxim-Nordenfeld guns, whose efficiency had been
+painfully evident during the action, were a welcome addition to our
+artillery.  Two hundred and fifty Boers were killed and wounded and
+about two hundred taken prisoners, the loss falling most heavily upon
+the Johannesburgers, the Germans, and the Hollanders.  General Koch,
+Dr. Coster, Colonel Schiel, Pretorius, and other well-known
+Transvaalers fell into our hands.  Our own casualty list consisted of
+41 killed and 220 wounded, much the same number as at Talana Hill, the
+heaviest losses falling upon the Gordon Highlanders and the Imperial
+Light Horse.
+
+In the hollow where the Boer tents had stood, amid the laagered wagons
+of the vanquished, under a murky sky and a constant drizzle of rain,
+the victors spent the night.  Sleep was out of the question, for all
+night the fatigue parties were searching the hillside and the wounded
+were being carried in.  Camp-fires were lit and soldiers and prisoners
+crowded round them, and it is pleasant to recall that the warmest
+corner and the best of their rude fare were always reserved for the
+downcast Dutchmen, while words of rude praise and sympathy softened
+the pain of defeat.  It is the memory of such things which may in
+happier days be more potent than all the wisdom of statesmen in
+welding our two races into one.
+
+Having cleared the Boer force from the line of the railway, it is
+evident that General White could not continue to garrison the point,
+as he was aware that considerable forces were moving from the north,
+and his first duty was the security of Ladysmith. Early next morning
+(October 22nd), therefore, his weary but victorious troops returned to
+the town.  Once there he learned, no doubt, that General Yule had no
+intention of using the broken railway for his retreat, but that he
+intended to come in a circuitous fashion by road. White's problem was
+to hold tight to the town and at the same time to strike hard at any
+northern force so as to prevent them from interfering with Yule's
+retreat. It was in the furtherance of this scheme that he fought upon
+October 24th the action of Rietfontein, an engagement slight in
+itself, but important on account of the clear road which was secured
+for the weary forces retiring from Dundee.
+
+The army from the Free State, of which the commando vanquished at
+Elandslaagte was the vanguard, had been slowly and steadily debouching
+from the passes, and working south and eastwards to cut the line
+between Dundee and Ladysmith. It was White's intention to prevent them
+from crossing the Newcastle Road, and for this purpose he sallied out
+of Ladysmith on Tuesday the 24th, having with him two regiments of
+cavalry, the 5th Lancers and the 19th Hussars, the 42nd and 53rd field
+batteries with the 10th mountain battery, four infantry regiments, the
+Devons, Liverpools, Gloucesters, and 2nd King's Royal Rifles, the
+Imperial Light Horse, and the Natal Volunteers -- some four thousand
+men in all.
+
+The enemy were found to be in possession of a line of hills within
+seven miles of Ladysmith, the most conspicuous of which is called
+Tinta Inyoni. It was no part of General White's plan to attempt to
+drive him from this position -- it is not wise generalship to fight
+always upon ground of the enemy's choosing -- but it was important to
+hold him where he was, and to engage his attention during this last
+day of the march of the retreating column. For this purpose, since no
+direct attack was intended, the guns were of more importance than the
+infantry -- and indeed the infantry should, one might imagine, have
+been used solely as an escort for the artillery.  A desultory and
+inconclusive action ensued which continued from nine in the morning
+until half-past one in the afternoon.  A well-directed fire of the
+Boer guns from the hills was dominated and controlled by our field
+artillery, while the advance of their riflemen was restrained by
+shrapnel. The enemy's guns were more easily marked down than at
+Elandslaagte, as they used black powder.  The ranges varied from three
+to four thousand yards.  Our losses in the whole action would have
+been insignificant had it not happened that the Gloucester Regiment
+advanced somewhat incautiously into the open and was caught in a cross
+fire of musketry which struck down Colonel Wilford and fifty of his
+officers and men. Within four days Colonel Dick-Cunyngham, of the
+Gordons, Colonel Chisholm, of the Light Horse, Colonel Gunning, of the
+Rifles, and now Colonel Wilford, of the Gloucesters, had all fallen at
+the head of their regiments.  In the afternoon General White, having
+accomplished his purpose and secured the safety of the Dundee column
+while traversing the dangerous Biggarsberg passes, withdrew his force
+to Ladysmith.  We have no means of ascertaining the losses of the
+Boers, but they were probably slight.  On our side we lost 109 killed
+and wounded, of which only 13 cases were fatal.  Of this total 64
+belonged to the Gloucesters and 25 to the troops raised in Natal.
+Next day, as already narrated, the whole British army was re-assembled
+once more at Ladysmith, and the campaign was to enter upon a new
+phase.
+
+At the end of this first vigorous week of hostilities it is
+interesting to sum up the net result.  The strategical advantage had
+lain with the Boers.  They had made our position at Dundee untenable
+and had driven us back to Ladysmith.  They had the country and the
+railway for tile northern quarter of the colony in their possession.
+They had killed and wounded between six and seven hundred of our men,
+and they had captured some two hundred of our cavalry, while we had
+been compelled at Dundee to leave considerable stores and our wounded,
+including General Penn Symons, who actually died while a prisoner in
+their hands.  On the other hand, the tactical advantages lay with
+us. We had twice driven them from their positions, and captured two of
+their guns. We had taken two hundred prisoners. and had probably
+killed and wounded as many as we had lost.  On the whole, the honours
+of that week's fighting in Natal may be said to have been fairly equal
+-- which is more than we could claim for many a weary week to come.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE BATTLE OF LADYSMITH
+
+
+Sir George White had now reunited his force, and found himself in
+command of a formidable little army some twelve thousand in number.
+His cavalry included the 5th Lancers, the 5th Dragoons, part of the
+18th and the whole of the 19th Hussars, the Natal Carabineers, the
+Border Rifles, some mounted infantry, and the Imperial Light Horse.
+Among his infantry were the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Dublin
+Fusiliers, and the King's Royal Rifles, fresh from the ascent of
+Talana Hill, the Gordons, the Manchesters, and the Devons who had been
+blooded at Elandslaagte, the Leicesters, the Liverpools, the 2nd
+battalion of the King's Royal Rifles, the 2nd Rifle Brigade, and the
+Gloucesters, who had been so roughly treated at Rietfontein.  He bad
+six batteries of excellent field artillery -- the 13th, 21st, 42nd, 53rd,
+67th, 69th, and No.10 Mountain Battery of screw guns. No general could
+have asked for a more compact and workmanlike little force.
+
+It had been recognised by the British General from the beginning that
+his tactics must be defensive, since he was largely outnumbered and
+since also any considerable mishap to his force would expose the whole
+colony of Natal to destruction.  The actions of Elandslaagte and
+Rietfontein were forced upon him in order to disengage his compromised
+detachment, but now there was no longer any reason why he should
+assume the offensive. He knew that away out on the Atlantic a trail of
+transports which already extended from the Channel to Cape de Verde
+were hourly drawing nearer to him with the army corps from England. In
+a fortnight or less the first of them would be at Durban.  It was his
+game, therefore, to keep his army intact, and to let those throbbing
+engines and whirling propellers do the work of the empire.  Had he
+entrenched himself up to his nose and waited, it would have paid him
+best in the end.
+
+But so tame and inglorious a policy is impossible to a fighting
+soldier. He could not with his splendid force permit himself to be
+shut in without an action.  What policy demands honour may forbid.  On
+October 27th there were already Boers and rumours of Boers on every
+side of him.  Joubert with his main body was moving across from
+Dundee.  The Freestaters were to the north and west.  Their combined
+numbers were uncertain, but at least it was already proved that they
+were far more numerous and also more formidable than had been
+anticipated.  We had had a taste of their artillery also, and the
+pleasant delusion that it would be a mere useless encumbrance to a
+Boer force had vanished for ever.  It was a grave thing to leave the
+town in order to give battle, for the mobile enemy might swing round
+and seize it behind us.  Nevertheless White determined to make the
+venture.
+
+On the 29th the enemy were visibly converging upon the town. From a
+high hill within rifleshot of the houses a watcher could see no fewer
+than six Boer camps to the east and north. French, with his cavalry,
+pushed out feelers, and coasted along the edge of the advancing host.
+His report warned White that if he would strike before all the
+scattered bands were united he must do so at once.  The wounded were
+sent down to Pietermaritzburg, and it would bear explanation why the
+non-combatants did not accompany them.  On the evening of the same day
+Joubert in person was said to be only six miles off, and a party of
+his men cut the water supply of the town.  The Klip, however, a
+fair-sized river, runs through Ladysmith, so that there was no danger
+of thirst.  The British had inflated and sent up a balloon, to the
+amazement of the back-veldt Boers; its report confirmed the fact that
+the enemy was in force in front of and around them.
+
+On the night of the 29th General White detached two of his best
+regiments, the Irish Fusiliers and the Gloucesters, with No.10
+Mountain Battery, to advance under cover of the darkness and to seize
+and hold a long ridge called Nicholson's Nek, which lay about six
+miles to the north of Ladysmith. Having determined to give battle on
+the next day, his object was to protect his left wing against those
+Freestaters who were still moving from the north and west, and also to
+keep a pass open by which his cavalry might pursue the Boer fugitives
+in case of a British victory.  This small detached column numbered
+about a thousand men -- whose fate will be afterwards narrated.
+
+At five o'clock on the morning of the 30th the Boers, who had already
+developed a perfect genius for hauling heavy cannon up the most
+difficult heights, opened fire from one of the hills which lie to the
+north of the town. Before the shot was fired, the forces of the
+British had already streamed out of Ladysmith to test the strength of
+the invaders.
+
+White's army was divided into three columns.  On the extreme left,
+quite isolated from the others, was the small Nicholson's Nek
+detachment under the command of Colonel Carleton of the Fusiliers (one
+of three gallant brothers each of whom commands a British
+regiment). With him was Major Adye of the staff.  On the right British
+flank Colonel Grimwood commanded a brigade composed of the 1st and 2nd
+battalions of the King's Royal Rifles, the Leicesters, the Liverpools,
+and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.  In the centre Colonel Ian Hamilton
+commanded the Devons, the Gordons, the Manchesters, and the 2nd
+battalion of the Rifle Brigade, which marched direct into the battle
+from the train which had brought them from Durban.  Six batteries of
+artillery were massed in the centre under Colonel Downing. French with
+the cavalry and mounted infantry was on the extreme right, but found
+little opportunity for the use of the mounted arm that day.
+
+The Boer position, so far as it could be seen, was a formidable one.
+Their centre lay upon one of the spurs of Signal Hill, about three
+miles from the town.  Here they had two forty-pounders and three other
+lighter guns, but their artillery strength developed both in numbers
+and in weight of metal as the day wore on. Of their dispositions
+little could be seen. An observer looking westward might discern with
+his glass sprays of mounted riflemen galloping here and there over the
+downs, and possibly small groups where the gunners stood by their
+guns, or the leaders gazed down at that town which they were destined
+to have in view for such a weary while.  On the dun-coloured plains
+before the town, the long thin lines, with an occasional shifting
+sparkle of steel, showed where Hamilton's and Grimwood's infantry were
+advancing.  In the clear cold air of an African morning every detail
+could be seen, down to the distant smoke of a train toiling up the
+heavy grades which lead from Frere over the Colenso Bridge to
+Ladysmith.
+
+The scrambling, inconsequential, unsatisfactory action which ensued is
+as difficult to describe as it must have been to direct.  The Boer
+front covered some seven or eight miles, with kopjes, like chains of
+fortresses, between. They formed a huge semicircle of which our
+advance was the chord, and they were able from this position to pour
+in a converging artillery fire which grew steadily hotter as the day
+advanced.  In the early part of the day our forty-two guns, working
+furiously, though with a want of accuracy which may be due to those
+errors of refraction which are said to be common in the limpid air of
+the veldt, preserved their superiority.  There appears to have been a
+want of concentration about our fire, and at some periods of the
+action each particular battery was firing at some different point of
+the Boer half-circle. Sometimes for an hour on end the Boer reply
+would die away altogether, only to break out with augmented violence,
+and with an accuracy which increased our respect for their
+training. Huge shells -- the largest that ever burst upon a
+battlefield -- hurled from distances which were unattainable by our
+fifteen-pounders, enveloped our batteries in smoke and flame.  One
+enormous Creusot gun on Pepworth Hill threw a 96-pound shell a
+distance of four miles, and several 40-pound howitzers outweighted our
+field guns.  And on the same day on which we were so roughly taught
+how large the guns were which labour and good will could haul on to
+the field of battle, we learned also that our enemy -- to the disgrace
+of our Board of Ordnance be it recorded -- was more in touch with modern
+invention than we were, and could show us not only the largest, but
+also the smallest, shell which had yet been used. Would that it had
+been our officials instead of our gunners who heard the devilish
+little one-pound shells of the Vickers-Maxim automatic gun, exploding
+with a continuous string of crackings and bangings, like a huge
+cracker, in their faces and about their ears!
+
+Up to seven o'clock our infantry had shown no disposition to press the
+attack, for with so huge a position in front of them, and so many
+hills which were held by the enemy, it was difficult to know what line
+of advance should be taken, or whether the attack should not be
+converted into a mere reconnaissance.  Shortly after that hour,
+however, the Boers decided the question by themselves developing a
+vigorous movement upon Grimwood and the right flank.  With field guns,
+Maxims, and rifle fire, they closed rapidly in upon him.  The centre
+column was drafted off, regiment by regiment, to reinforce the
+right. The Gordons, Devons, Manchesters, and three batteries were sent
+over to Grimwood's relief, and the 5th Lancers, acting as infantry,
+assisted him to hold on.
+
+At nine o'clock there was a lull, but it was evident that fresh
+commandoes and fresh guns were continually streaming into the firing
+line.  The engagement opened again with redoubled violence, and
+Grimwood's three advanced battalions fell back, abandoning the ridge
+which they had held for five hours.  The reason for this withdrawal
+was not that they could not continue to hold their position, but it
+was that a message had just reached Sir George White from Colonel
+Knox, commanding in Ladysmith, to the effect that it looked as if the
+enemy was about to rush the town from the other side.  Crossing the
+open in some disorder, they lost heavily, and would have done so more
+had not the 13th Field Battery, followed after an interval by the
+53rd, dashed forward, firing shrapnel at short ranges, in order to
+cover the retreat of the infantry.  Amid the bursting of the huge
+96-pound shells, and the snapping of the vicious little automatic
+one-pounders, with a cross-fire of rifles as well, Abdy's and Dawkins'
+gallant batteries swung round their muzzles, and hit back right and
+left, flashing and blazing, amid their litter of dead horses and
+men. So severe was the fire that the guns were obscured by the dust
+knocked up by the little shells of the automatic gun. Then, when their
+work was done and the retiring infantry had straggled over the ridge,
+the covering guns whirled and bounded after them.  So many horses had
+fallen that two pieces were left until the teams could be brought back
+for them, which was successfully done through the gallantry of Captain
+Thwaites.  The action of these batteries was one of the few gleams of
+light in a not too brilliant day's work.  With splendid coolness and
+courage they helped each other by alternate retirements after the
+retreating infantry had passed them. The 21st Battery (Blewitt's) also
+distinguished itself by its staunchness in covering the retirement of
+the cavalry, while the 42nd (Goulburn's) suffered the heaviest losses
+of any.  On the whole, such honours as fell to our lot were mainly
+with the gunners.
+
+White must have been now uneasy for his position, and it had become
+apparent that his only course was to fall back and concentrate upon
+the town. His left flank was up in the air, and the sound of distant
+firing, wafted over five miles of broken country, was the only message
+which arrived from them.  His right had been pushed back, and, most
+dangerous of all, his centre had ceased to exist, for only the 2nd
+Rifle Brigade remained there. What would happen if the enemy burst
+rudely through and pushed straight for the town? It was the more
+possible, as the Boer artillery had now proved itself to be far
+heavier than ours. That terrible 96-pounder, serenely safe and out of
+range, was plumping its great projectiles into the masses of retiring
+troops.  The men had had little sleep and little food, and this
+unanswerable fire was an ordeal for a force which is retreating. A
+retirement may very rapidly become a rout under such circumstances.
+It was with some misgivings that the officers saw their men quicken
+their pace and glance back over their shoulders at the whine and
+screech of the shell. They were still some miles from home, and the
+plain was open. What could be done to give them some relief?
+
+And at that very moment there came the opportune and unexpected
+answer.  That plume of engine smoke which the watcher had observed in
+the morning had drawn nearer and nearer, as the heavy train came
+puffing and creaking up the steep inclines. Then, almost before it had
+drawn up at the Ladysmith siding, there had sprung from it a crowd of
+merry bearded fellows, with ready hands and strange sea cries, pulling
+and hauling, with rope and purchase to get out the long slim guns
+which they had lashed on the trucks.  Singular carriages were there,
+specially invented by Captain Percy Scott, and labouring and
+straining, they worked furiously to get the 12-pounder quick-firers
+into action.  Then at last it was done, and the long tubes swept
+upwards to the angle at which they might hope to reach that monster on
+the hill at the horizon.  Two of them craned their long inquisitive
+necks up and exchanged repartees with the big Creusot.  And so it was
+that the weary and dispirited British troops heard a crash which was
+louder and sharper than that of their field guns, and saw far away
+upon the distant hill a great spurt of smoke and flame to show where
+the shell had struck. Another and another and another-and then they
+were troubled no more.  Captain Hedworth Lambton and his men had
+saved the situation. The masterful gun had met its own master and sank
+into silence, while the somewhat bedraggled field force came trailing
+back into Ladysmith, leaving three hundred of their number behind
+them.  It was a high price to pay, but other misfortunes were in store
+for us which made the retirement of the morning seem insignificant.
+
+In the meantime we may follow the unhappy fortunes of the small column
+which had, as already described, been sent out by Sir George White in
+order, if possible, to prevent the junction of the two Boer armies,
+and at the same time to threaten the right wing of the main force,
+which was advancing from the direction of Dundee, Sir George White
+throughout the campaign consistently displayed one quality which is a
+charming one in an individual, but may be dangerous in a commander. He
+was a confirmed optimist.  Perhaps his heart might have failed him in
+the dark days to come had he not been so.  But whether one considers
+the non-destruction of the Newcastle Railway, the acquiescence in the
+occupation of Dundee, the retention of the non combatants in Ladysmith
+until it was too late to get rid of their useless mouths, or the
+failure to make any serious preparations for the defence of the town
+until his troops were beaten back into it, we see always the same
+evidence of a man who habitually hopes that all will go well, and is
+in consequence remiss in making preparations for their going ill. But
+unhappily in every one of these instances they did go ill, though the
+slowness of the Boers enabled us, both at Dundee and at Ladysmith, to
+escape what might have been disaster.
+
+Sir George White has so nobly and frankly taken upon himself the blame
+of Nicholson's Nek that an impartial historian must rather regard his
+self-condemnation as having been excessive.  The immediate causes of
+the failure were undoubtedly the results of pure ill-fortune, and
+depended on things outside his control. But it is evident that the
+strategic plan which would justify the presence of this column at
+Nicholson's Nek was based upon the supposition that the main army won
+their action at Lombard's Kop.  In that case White might swing round
+his right and pin the Boers between himself and Nicholson's Nek. In
+any case he could then re-unite with his isolated wing. But if he
+should lose his battle-what then?  What was to become of this
+detachment five miles up in the air? How was it to be extricated?  The
+gallant Irishman seems to have waved aside the very idea of defeat. An
+assurance was, it is reported, given to the leaders of the column that
+by eleven o'clock next morning they would be relieved.  So they would
+if White had won his action.  But --
+
+The force chosen to operate independently consisted of four and a half
+companies of the Gloucester regiment, six companies of the Royal Irish
+Fusiliers, and No. 10 Mountain Battery of six seven-pounder
+screw-guns. They were both old soldier regiments from India, and the
+Fusiliers had shown only ten days before at Talana Hill the stuff of
+which they were made.  Colonel Carleton, of the Fusiliers, to whose
+exertions much of the success of the retreat from Dundee was due,
+commanded the column, with Major Adye as staff officer. On the night
+of Sunday, October 29th, they tramped out of Ladysmith, a thousand
+men, none better in the army. Little they thought, as they exchanged a
+jest or two with the outlying pickets, that they were seeing the last
+of their own armed countrymen for many a weary month .
+
+The road was irregular and the night was moonless. On either side the
+black loom of the hills bulked vaguely through the darkness.  The
+column tramped stolidly along, the Fusiliers in front, the guns and
+Gloucesters behind.  Several times a short halt was called to make
+sure of the bearings.  At last, in the black cold hours which come
+between midnight and morning, the column swung to the left out of the
+road.  In front of them, hardly visible, stretched a long black kopje.
+It was the very Nicholson's Nek which they had come to
+occupy. Carleton and Adye must have heaved a sigh of relief as they
+realised that they had actually struck it. The force was but two
+hundred yards from the position, and all had gone without a hitch. And
+yet in those two hundred yards there came an incident which decided
+the fate both of their enterprise and of themselves.
+
+Out of the darkness there blundered and rattled five horsemen, their
+horses galloping, the loose stones flying around them.  In the dim
+light they were gone as soon as seen.  Whence coming, whither going,
+no one knows, nor is it certain whether it was design or ignorance or
+panic which sent them riding so wildly through the darkness.  Somebody
+fired.  A sergeant of the Fusiliers took the bullet through his hand.
+Some one else shouted to fix bayonets.  The mules which carried the
+spare ammunition kicked and reared.  There was no question of
+treachery, for they were led by our own men, but to hold two
+frightened mules, one with either hand, is a feat for a Hercules.
+They lashed and tossed and bucked themselves loose, and an instant
+afterwards were flying helter skelter through the column.  Nearly all
+the mules caught the panic.  In vain the men held on to their heads.
+In the mad rush they were galloped over and knocked down by the
+torrent of frightened creatures.  In the gloom of that early hour the
+men must have thought that they were charged by cavalry. The column
+was dashed out of all military order as effectively as if a regiment
+of dragoons had ridden over them.  When the cyclone had passed, and
+the men had with many a muttered curse gathered themselves into their
+ranks once more, they realised how grave was the misfortune which had
+befallen them.  There, where those mad hoofs still rattled in the
+distance, were their spare cartridges, their shells, and their
+cannon. A mountain gun is not drawn upon wheels, but is carried in
+adjustable parts upon mule-back. A wheel bad gone south, a trail east,
+a chase west.  Some of the cartridges were strewn upon the road. Most
+were on their way back to Ladysmith.  There was nothing for it but to
+face this new situation and to determine what should be done.
+
+It has been often and naturally asked, why did not Colonel Carleton
+make his way back at once upon the loss of his guns and ammunition,
+while it was still dark?  One or two considerations are evident.  In
+the first place, it is natural to a good soldier to endeavour to
+retrieve a situation rather than to abandon his enterprise. His
+prudence, did he not do so, might become the subject of public
+commendation, but might also provoke some private comment.  A
+soldier's training is to take chances, and to do the best he can with
+the material at his disposal. Again, Colonel Carleton and Major Adye
+knew the general plan of the battle which would be raging within a
+very few hours, and they quite understood that by withdrawing they
+would expose General White's left flank to attack from the forces
+(consisting, as we know now, of the Orange Freestaters and of the
+Johannesburg Police) who were coming from the north and west.  He
+hoped to be relieved by eleven, and he believed that, come what might,
+he could hold out until then.  These are the most obvious of the
+considerations which induced Colonel Carleton to determine to carry
+out so far as he could the programme which had been laid down for him
+and his command. He marched up the hill and occupied the position.
+
+His heart, however, must have sunk when he examined it.  It was very
+large -- too large to be effectively occupied by the force which he
+commanded.  The length was about a mile and the breadth four hundred
+yards. Shaped roughly like the sole of a boot, it was only the heel
+end which he could hope to hold.  Other hills all round offered cover
+for Boer riflemen. Nothing daunted, however, he set his men to work at
+once building sangars with the loose stones. With the full dawn and
+the first snapping of Boer Mausers from the hills around they had
+thrown up some sort of rude defences which they might hope to hold
+until help should come.
+
+But how could help come when there was no means by which they could
+let White know the plight in which they found themselves? They had
+brought a heliograph with them, but it was on the back of one of those
+accursed mules.  The Boers were thick around them, and they could not
+send a messenger. An attempt was made to convert a polished biscuit
+tin into a heliograph, but with poor success. A Kaffir was dispatched
+with promises of a heavy bribe, but he passed out of history.  And
+there in the clear cold morning air the balloon hung to the south of
+them where the first distant thunder of White's guns was beginning to
+sound.  If only they could attract the attention of that balloon!
+Vainly they wagged flags at it.  Serene and unresponsive it brooded
+over the distant battle.
+
+And now the Boers were thickening round them on every side.  Christian
+do Wet, a name soon to be a household word, marshaled the Boer
+attack, which was soon strengthened by the arrival of Van Dam and his
+Police.  At five o'clock the fire began, at six it was warm, at seven
+warmer still.  Two companies of the Gloucesters lined a sangar on the
+tread of the sole, to prevent any one getting too near to the heel. A
+fresh detachment of Boers, firing from a range of nearly one thousand
+yards, took this defence in the rear. Bullets fell among the men, and
+smacked up against the stone breastwork. The two companies were
+withdrawn, and lost heavily in the open as they crossed it. An
+incessant rattle and crackle of rifle fire came from all round,
+drawing very slowly but steadily nearer.  Now and then the whisk of a
+dark figure from one boulder to another was all that ever was seen of
+the attackers.  The British fired slowly and steadily, for every
+cartridge counted, but the cover of the Boers was so cleverly taken
+that it was seldom that there was much to aim at.  'All you could ever
+see,' says one who was present, 'were the barrels of the rifles.'
+There was time for thought in that long morning, and to some of the
+men it may have occurred what preparation for such fighting had they
+ever had in the mechanical exercises of the parade ground, or the
+shooting of an annual bagful of cartridges at exposed targets at a
+measured range. It is the warfare of Nicholson's Nek, not that of
+Laffan's Plain, which has to be learned in the future.
+
+During those weary hours lying on the bullet-swept hill and listening
+to the eternal hissing in the air and clicking on the rocks, the
+British soldiers could see the fight which raged to the south of them.
+It was not a cheering sight, and Carleton and Adye with their gallant
+comrades must have felt their hearts grow heavier as they watched.
+The Boers' shells bursting among the British batteries, the British
+shells bursting short of their opponents.  The Long Toms laid at an
+angle of forty-five plumped their huge shells into the British guns at
+a range where the latter would not dream of unlimbering.  And then
+gradually the rifle fire died away also, crackling more faintly as
+White withdrew to Ladysmith. At eleven o'clock Carleton's column
+recognised that it had been left to its fate.  As early as nine a
+heliogram had been sent to them to retire as the opportunity served,
+but to leave the hill was certainly to court annihilation.
+
+The men had then been under fire for six hours, and with their losses
+mounting and their cartridges dwindling, all hope had faded from their
+minds.  But still for another hour, and yet another, and yet another,
+they held doggedly on.  Nine and a half hours they clung to that pile
+of stones.  The Fusiliers were still exhausted from the effect of
+their march from Glencoe and their incessant work since.  Many fell
+asleep behind the boulders. Some sat doggedly with their useless
+rifles and empty pouches beside them.  Some picked cartridges off
+their dead comrades.  What were they fighting for? It was hopeless,
+and they knew it.  But always there was the honour of the flag, the
+glory of the regiment, the hatred of a proud and brave man to
+acknowledge defeat. And yet it had to come.  There wore some in that
+force who were ready for the reputation of the British army, and for
+the sake of an example of military virtue, to die stolidly where they
+stood, or to lead the 'Faugh-a-ballagh' boys, or the gallant 28th, in
+one last death-charge with empty rifles against the unseen enemy. They
+may' have been right, these stalwarts. Leonidas and his three hundred
+did more for the Spartan cause by their memory than by their living
+valour.  Man passes like the brown leaves, but the tradition of a
+nation lives on like the oak that sheds them -- and the passing of the
+leaves is nothing if the bole be the sounder for it. But a counsel of
+perfection is easy at a study table. There are other things to he said
+-- the responsibility of officers for the lives of their men, the hope
+that they may yet be of service to their country.  All was weighed,
+all was thought of, and so at last the white flag went up. The officer
+who hoisted it could see no one unhurt save himself, for all in his
+sangar were hit, and the others were so placed that he was under the
+impression that they had withdrawn altogether.  Whether this hoisting
+of the flag necessarily compromised the whole force is a difficult
+question, but the Boers instantly left their cover, and the men in the
+sangars behind, some of whom had not been so seriously engaged, were
+ordered by their officers to desist from firing. In an instant the
+victorious Boers were among them.
+
+It was not, as I have been told by those who were there, a sight which
+one would wish to have seen or care now to dwell upon.  Haggard
+officers cracked their sword-blades and cursed the day that they had
+been born.  Privates sobbed with their stained faces buried in their
+hands.  Of all tests of discipline that ever they had stood, the
+hardest to many was to conform to all that the cursed flapping
+handkerchief meant to them.  'Father, father, we had rather have
+died,' cried the Fusiliers to their priest.  Gallant hearts, ill paid,
+ill thanked, how poorly do the successful of the world compare with
+their unselfish loyalty and devotion!
+
+But the sting of contumely or insult was not added to their
+misfortunes.  There is a fellowship of brave men which rises above the
+feuds of nations, and may at last go far, we hope, to heal them.  From
+every rock there rose a Boer -- strange, grotesque figures many of
+them -- walnut-brown and shaggy-bearded, and swarmed on to the hill.
+No term of triumph or reproach came from their lips.  'You will not
+say now that the young Boer cannot shoot,' was the harshest word which
+the least restrained of them made use of.  Between one and two hundred
+dead and wounded were scattered over the hill.  Those who were within
+reach of human help received all that could be given.  Captain Rice,
+of the Fusiliers, was carried wounded down the hill on the back of one
+giant, and he has narrated how the man refused the gold piece which
+was offered him.  Some asked the soldiers for their embroidered
+waist-belts as souvenirs of the day.  They will for generations remain
+as the most precious ornaments of some colonial farmhouse.  Then the
+victors gathered together and sang psalms, not jubilant but sad and
+quavering.  The prisoners, in a downcast column, weary, spent, and
+unkempt, filed off to the Boer laager at Waschbank, there to take
+train for Pretoria.  And at Ladysmith a bugler of Fusiliers, his arm
+bound, the marks of battle on his dress and person, burst in upon the
+camp with the news that two veteran regiments had covered the flank of
+White's retreating army, but at the cost of their own annihilation.
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+LORD METHUEN'S ADVANCE
+
+
+At the end of a fortnight of actual hostilities in Natal the situation
+of the Boer army was such as to seriously alarm the public at home,
+and to cause an almost universal chorus of ill-natured delight from
+the press of all European nations. Whether the reason was hatred of
+ourselves, or the sporting instinct which backs the smaller against
+the larger, or the influence of the ubiquitous Dr. Leyds and his
+secret service fund, it is certain that the continental papers have
+never been so unanimous as in their premature rejoicings over what,
+with an extraordinary want of proportion, and ignorance of our
+national character, they imagined to be a damaging blow to the British
+Empire. France, Russia, Austria, and Germany were equally venomous
+against us, nor can the visit of the German Emperor, though a
+courteous and timely action in itself, entirely atone for the
+senseless bitterness of the press of the Fatherland. Great Britain was
+roused out of her habitual apathy and disregard for foreign opinion by
+this chorus of execration, and braced herself for a greater effort in
+consequence. She was cheered by the sympathy of her friends in the
+United States, and by the good wishes of the smaller nations of
+Europe, notably of Italy, Denmark, Greece. Turkey, and Hungary.
+
+The exact position at the end of this fortnight of hard slogging was
+that a quarter of the colony of Natal and a hundred miles of railway
+were in the hands of the enemy.  Five distinct actions had been
+fought, none of them perhaps coming within the fair meaning of a
+battle. Of these one had been a distinct British victory, two had been
+indecisive, one had been unfortunate, and one had been a positive
+disaster.  We had lost about twelve hundred prisoners and a battery of
+small guns. The Boers had lost two fine guns and three hundred
+prisoners. Twelve thousand British troops had been shut up in
+Ladysmith, and there was no serious force between the invaders and the
+sea.  Only in those distant transports, where the grimy stokers
+shoveled and strove, were there hopes for the safety of Natal and the
+honour of the Empire. In Cape Colony the loyalists waited with bated
+breath, knowing well that there was nothing to check a Free State
+invasion, and that if it came no bounds could be placed upon how far
+it might advance, or what effect it might have upon the Dutch
+population.
+
+Leaving Ladysmith now apparently within the grasp of the Boers, who
+had settled down deliberately to the work of throttling it, the
+narrative must pass to the western side of the seat of war, and give a
+consecutive account of the events which began with the siege of
+Kimberley and led to the ineffectual efforts of Lord Methuen's column
+to relieve it.
+
+On the declaration of war two important movements had been made by the
+Boers upon the west.  One was the advance of a considerable body under
+the formidable Cronje to attack Mafeking, an enterprise which demands
+a chapter of its own.  The other was the investment of Kimberley by a
+force which consisted principally of Freestaters under the command of
+Wessels and Botha. The place was defended by Colonel Kekewich, aided
+by the advice and help of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who had gallantly thrown
+himself into the town by one of the last trains which reached it.  As
+the founder and director of the great De Beers diamond mines he
+desired to be with his people in the hour of their need, and it was
+through his initiative that the town had been provided with the rifles
+and cannon with which to sustain the siege.
+
+The troops which Colonel Kekewich had at his disposal consisted of
+four companies of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment (his own
+regiment), with some Royal Engineers, a mountain battery, and two
+machine guns.  In addition there were the extremely spirited and
+capable local forces, a hundred and twenty men of the Cape Police, two
+thousand Volunteers, a body of Kimberley Light Horse, and a battery of
+light seven-pounder guns.  There were also eight Maxims which were
+mounted upon the huge mounds of debris which surrounded the mines and
+formed most efficient fortresses.
+
+A small reinforcement of police had, under tragic circumstances,
+reached the town.  Vryburg, the capital of British Bechuanaland, lies
+145 miles to the north of Kimberley.  The town has strong Dutch
+sympathies, and on the news of the approach of a Boer force with
+artillery it was evident that it could not be held.  Scott, the
+commandant of police, made some attempt to organise a defence, but
+having no artillery and finding little sympathy, he was compelled to
+abandon his charge to the invaders.  The gallant Scott rode south with
+his troopers, and in his humiliation and grief at his inability to
+preserve his post he blew out his brains upon the journey. Vryburg was
+immediately occupied by the Boers, and British Bechuanaland was
+formally annexed to the South African Republic.  This policy of the
+instant annexation of all territories invaded was habitually carried
+out by the enemy, with the idea that British subjects who joined them
+would in this way be shielded from the consequences of treason.
+Meanwhile several thousand Freestaters and Transvaalers with artillery
+had assembled round Kimberley, and all news of the town was cut off.
+Its relief was one of the first tasks which presented itself to the
+inpouring army corps.  The obvious base of such a movement must be
+Orange River, and there and at De Aar the stores for the advance began
+to be accumulated.  At the latter place especially, which is the chief
+railway junction in the north of the colony, enormous masses of
+provisions, ammunition, and fodder were collected, with thousands of
+mules which the long arm of the British Government had rounded up from
+many parts of the world. The guard over these costly and essential
+supplies seems to have been a dangerously weak one.  Between Orange
+River and De Aar, which are sixty miles apart, there were the 9th
+Lancers, the Royal Munsters, the 2nd King's Own Yorkshire Light
+Infantry, and the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, under three thousand
+men in all, with two million pounds' worth of stores and the Free
+State frontier within a ride of them.  Verily if we have something to
+deplore in this war we have much also to be thankful for.
+
+Up to the end of October the situation was so dangerous that it is
+really inexplicable that no advantage was taken of it by the enemy.
+Our main force was concentrated to defend the Orange River railway
+bridge, which was so essential for our advance upon Kimberley. This
+left only a single regiment without guns for the defence of De Aar and
+the valuable stores. A fairer mark for a dashing leader and a raid of
+mounted riflemen was never seen.  The chance passed, however, as so
+many others of the Boers' had done.  Early in November Colesberg and
+Naauwpoort were abandoned by our small detachments, who concentrated
+at De Aar. The Berkshires joined the Yorkshire Light Infantry, and
+nine field guns arrived also.  General Wood worked hard at the
+fortifying of the surrounding kopjes, until within a week the place
+had been made tolerably secure.
+
+The first collision between the opposing forces at this part of the
+seat of war was upon November 10th, when Colonel Gough of the 9th
+Lancers made a reconnaissance from Orange River to the north with two
+squadrons of his own regiment, the mounted infantry of the
+Northumberland Fusiliers, the Royal Munsters, and the North
+Lancashires, with a battery of field artillery.  To the east of
+Belmont, about fifteen miles off, he came on a detachment of the enemy
+with a gun.  To make out the Boer position the mounted infantry
+galloped round one of their flanks, and in doing so passed close to a
+kopje which was occupied by sharpshooters. A deadly fire crackled
+suddenly out from among the boulders. Of six men hit four were
+officers, showing how cool were the marksmen and how dangerous those
+dress distinctions which will probably disappear hence forwards upon
+the field of battle.  Colonel Keith-Falconer of the Northumberlands,
+who had earned distinction in the Soudan, was shot dead.  So was Wood
+of the North Lancashires.  Hall and Bevan of the Northumberlands were
+wounded.  An advance by train of the troops in camp drove back the
+Boers and extricated our small force from what might have proved a
+serious position, for the enemy in superior numbers were working round
+their wings.  The troops returned to camp without any good object
+having been attained, but that must be the necessary fate of many a
+cavalry reconnaissance.
+
+On November 12th Lord Methuen arrived at Orange River and proceeded to
+organise the column which was to advance to the relief of
+Kimberley. General Methuen had had some previous South African
+experience when in 1885 he had commanded a large body of irregular
+horse in Bechuanaland.  His reputation was that of a gallant fearless
+soldier.  He was not yet fifty-five years of age.
+
+The force which gradually assembled at Orange River was formidable
+rather from its quality than from its numbers.  It included a brigade
+of Guards (the 1st Scots Guards, 3rd Grenadiers, and 1st and 2nd
+Coldstreams), the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, the 2nd Northamptons,
+the 1st Northumberlands, and a wing of the North Lancashires whose
+comrades were holding out at Kimberley, with a naval brigade of seamen
+gunners and marines.  For cavalry he had the 9th Lancers, with
+detachments of mounted infantry, and for artillery the 75th and 18th
+Batteries R.F.A.
+
+Extreme mobility was aimed at in the column, and neither tents nor
+comforts of any sort were permitted to officers or men -- no light
+matter in a climate where a tropical day is followed by an arctic
+night. At daybreak on November 22nd the force, numbering about eight
+thousand men, set off upon its eventful journey.  The distance to
+Kimberley was not more than sixty miles, and it is probable that there
+was not one man in the force who imagined how long that march would
+take or how grim the experiences would be which awaited them on the
+way. At the dawn of Wednesday, November 22nd, Lord Methuen moved
+forward until he came into touch with the Boer position at Belmont.
+It was surveyed that evening by Colonel Willoughby Verner, and every
+disposition made to attack it in the morning.
+
+The force of the Boers was much inferior to our own, some two or three
+thousand in all, but the natural strength of their position made it a
+difficult one to carry, while it could not be left behind us as a
+menace to our line of communications. A double row of steep hills lay
+across the road to Kimberley, and it was along the ridges, snuggling
+closely among the boulders, that our enemy was waiting for us.  In
+their weeks of preparation they had constructed elaborate shelter pits
+in which they could lie in comparative safety while they swept all the
+level ground around with their rifle fire.  Mr. Ralph, the American
+correspondent, whose letters were among the most vivid of the war, has
+described these lairs, littered with straw and the debris of food,
+isolated from each other, and each containing its grim and formidable
+occupant.  'The eyries of birds of prey' is the phrase with which he
+brings them home to us. In these, with nothing visible but their
+peering eyes and the barrels of their rifles, the Boer marksmen
+crouched, and munched their biltong and their mealies as the day broke
+upon the morning of the 23rd. With the light their enemy was upon
+them.
+
+It was a soldiers' battle in the good old primeval British style, an
+Alma on a small scale and against deadlier weapons.  The troops
+advanced in grim silence against the savage-looking, rock-sprinkled,
+crag-topped position which confronted them.  They were in a fierce
+humour, for they had not breakfasted, and military history from
+Agincourt to Talavera shows that want of food wakens a dangerous
+spirit among British troops. A Northumberland Fusilier exploded into
+words which expressed the gruffness of his comrades.  As a too
+energetic staff officer pranced before their line he roared in his
+rough North-country tongue, 'Domn thee!  Get thee to hell, and let's
+fire! '  In the golden light of the rising sun the men set their teeth
+and dashed up the hills, scrambling, falling, cheering, swearing,
+gallant men, gallantly led, their one thought to close with that grim
+bristle of rifle-barrels which fringed the rocks above them.
+
+Lord Methuen's intention had been an attack from front and from flank,
+but whether from the Grenadiers losing their bearings, or from the
+mobility of the Boers, which made a flank attack an impossibility, it
+is certain that all became frontal.  The battle resolved itself into a
+number of isolated actions in which the various kopjes were rushed by
+different British regiments, always with success and always with loss.
+The honours of the fight, as tested by the grim record of the casualty
+returns, lay with the Grenadiers, the Coldstreams, the
+Northumberlands, and the Scots Guards.  The brave Guardsmen lay
+thickly on the slopes, but their comrades crowned the heights.  The
+Boers held on desperately and fired their rifles in the very faces of
+the stormers.  One young officer had his jaw blown to pieces by a
+rifle which almost touched him. Another, Blundell of the Guards, was
+shot dead by a wounded desperado to whom he was offering his
+water-bottle. At one point a white flag was waved by the defenders, on
+which the British left cover, only to be met by a volley.  It was
+there that Mr. E. F. Knight, of the 'Morning Post,' became the victim
+of a double abuse of the usages of war, since his wound, from which he
+lost his right arm, was from an explosive bullet.  The man who raised
+the flag was captured, and it says much for the humanity of British
+soldiers that he was not bayoneted upon the spot. Yet it is not fair
+to blame a whole people for the misdeeds of a few, and it is probable
+that the men who descended to such devices, or who deliberately fired
+upon our ambulances, were as much execrated by their own comrades as
+by ourselves.
+
+The victory was an expensive one, for fifty killed and two hundred
+wounded lay upon the hillside, and, like so many of our skirmishes
+with the Boers, it led to small material results. Their losses appear
+to have been much about the same as ours, and we captured some fifty
+prisoners, whom the soldiers regarded with the utmost interest.  They
+were a sullen slouching crowd rudely clad, and they represented
+probably the poorest of the burghers, who now, as in the middle ages,
+suffer most in battle, since a long purse means a good horse. Most of
+the enemy galloped very comfortably away after the action, leaving a
+fringe of sharpshooters among the kopjes to hold back our pursuing
+cavalry.  The want of horsemen and the want of horse artillery are the
+two reasons which Lord Methuen gives why the defeat was not converted
+into a rout. As it was, the feelings of the retreating Boers were
+exemplified by one of their number, who turned in his saddle in order
+to place his outstretched fingers to his nose in derision of the
+victors.  He exposed himself to the fire of half a battalion while
+doing so, but he probably was aware that with our present musketry
+instruction the fire of a British half-battalion against an individual
+is not a very serious matter.
+
+The remainder of the 23rd was spent at Belmont Camp, and next morning
+an advance was made to Enslin, some ten miles further on. Here lay the
+plain of Enslin, bounded by a formidable line of kopjes as dangerous
+as those of Belmont.  Lancers and Rimington's Scouts, the feeble but
+very capable cavalry of the Army, came in with the report that the
+hills were strongly held.  Some more hard slogging was in front of the
+relievers of Kimberley.
+
+The advance had been on the line of the Capetown-Kimberley Railway,
+and the damage done to it by the Boers had been repaired to the extent
+of permitting an armoured train with a naval gun to accompany the
+troops.  It was six o' clock upon the morning of Saturday the 25th
+that this gun came into action against the kopjes, closely followed by
+the guns of the field artillery. One of the lessons of the war has
+been to disillusion us as to the effect of shrapnel fire.  Positions
+which had been made theoretically untenable have again and again been
+found to be most inconveniently tenanted. Among the troops actually
+engaged the confidence in the effect of shrapnel fire has steadily
+declined with their experience.  Some other method of artillery fire
+than the curving bullet from an exploding shrapnel shell must be
+devised for dealing with men who lie close among boulders and behind
+cover.
+
+These remarks upon shrapnel might be included in the account of half
+the battles of the war, but they are particularly apposite to the
+action at Enslin.  Here a single large kopje formed the key to the
+position, and a considerable time was expended upon preparing it for
+the British assault, by directing upon it a fire which swept the face
+of it and searched, as was hoped, every corner in which a rifleman
+might lurk.  One of the two batteries engaged fired no fewer than five
+hundred rounds. Then the infantry advance was ordered, the Guards
+being held in reserve on account of their exertions at Belmont.  The
+Northumberlands, Northamptons, North Lancashires, and Yorkshires
+worked round upon the right, and, aided by the artillery fire, cleared
+the trenches in their front. The honours of the assault, however, must
+be awarded to the sailors and marines of the Naval Brigade, who
+underwent such an ordeal as men have seldom faced and yet come out as
+victors.  To them fell the task of carrying that formidable hill which
+had been so scourged by our artillery.  With a grand rush they swept
+up the slope, but were met by a horrible fire.  Every rock spurted
+flame, and the front ranks withered away before the storm of the
+Mauser. An eye-witness has recorded that the brigade was hardly
+visible amid the sand knocked up by the bullets. For an instant they
+fell back into cover, and then, having taken their breath, up they
+went again, with a deep-chested sailor roar.  There were but four
+hundred in all, two hundred seamen and two hundred marines, and the
+losses in that rapid rush were terrible.  Yet they swarmed up, their
+gallant officers, some of them little boy-middies, cheering them on.
+Ethelston, the commander of the ' Powerful,' was struck down. Plumbe
+and Senior of the Marines were killed.  Captain Prothero of the
+'Doris' dropped while still yelling to his seamen to 'take that kopje
+and be hanged to it!' Little Huddart, the middy, died a death which is
+worth many inglorious years.  Jones of the Marines fell wounded, but
+rose again and rushed on with his men.  It was on these gallant
+marines, the men who are ready to fight anywhere and anyhow, moist or
+dry, that the heaviest loss fell.  When at last they made good their
+foothold upon the crest of that murderous hill they had left behind
+them three officers and eighty-eight men out of a total of 206 -- a
+loss within a few minutes of nearly 50 per cent. The bluejackets,
+helped by the curve of the hill, got off with a toll of eighteen of
+their number. Half the total British losses of the action fell upon
+this little body of men, who upheld most gloriously the honour and
+reputation of the service from which they were drawn. With such men
+under the white ensign we leave our island homes in safety behind us.
+
+The battle of Enslin had cost us some two hundred of killed and
+wounded, and beyond the mere fact that we had cleared our way by
+another stage towards Kimberley it is difficult to say what advantage
+we had from it. We won the kopjes, but we lost our men. The Boer
+killed and wounded were probably less than half of our own, and the
+exhaustion and weakness of our cavalry forbade us to pursue and
+prevented us from capturing their guns.  In three days the men had
+fought two exhausting actions in a waterless country and under a
+tropical sun.  Their exertions had been great and yet were barren of
+result. Why this should be so was naturally the subject of keen
+discussion both in the camp and among the public at home.  It always
+came back to Lord Methuen's own complaint about the absence of cavalry
+and of horse artillery.  Many very unjust charges have been hurled
+against our War Office -- a department which in some matters has done
+extraordinarily and unexpectedly well -- but in this question of the
+delay in the despatch of our cavalry and artillery, knowing as we did
+the extreme mobility of our enemy, there is certainly ground for an
+inquiry.
+
+The Boers who had fought these two actions had been drawn mainly from
+the Jacobsdal and Fauresmith commandoes, with some of the burghers
+from Boshof.  The famous Cronje, however, had been descending from
+Mafeking with his old guard of Transvaalers, and keen disappointment
+was expressed by the prisoners at Belmont and at Enslin that he had
+not arrived in time to take command of them.  There were evidences,
+however, at this latter action, that reinforcements for the enemy were
+coming up and that the labours of the Kimberley relief force were by
+no means at an end. In the height of the engagement the Lancer patrols
+thrown out upon our right flank reported the approach of a
+considerable body of Boer horsemen, who took up a position upon a hill
+on our right rear. Their position there was distinctly menacing, and
+Colonel Willoughby Verner was despatched by Lord Methuen to order up
+the brigade of Guards. The gallant officer had the misfortune in his
+return to injure himself seriously through a blunder of his horse. His
+mission, however, succeeded in its effect, for the Guards moving
+across the plain intervened in such a way that the reinforcements,
+without an open attack, which would have been opposed to all Boer
+traditions, could not help the defenders, and were compelled to
+witness their defeat. This body of horsemen returned north next day
+and were no doubt among those whom we encountered at the following
+action of the Modder River.
+
+The march from Orange River had begun on the Wednesday. On Thursday
+was fought the action of Belmont, on Saturday that of Enslin.  There
+was no protection against the sun by day nor against the cold at
+night. Water was not plentiful, and the quality of it was occasionally
+vile. The troops were in need of a rest, so on Saturday night and
+Sunday they remained at Enslin. On the Monday morning (November 27th)
+the weary march to Kimberley was resumed.
+
+On Monday, November 27th, at early dawn, the little British army, a
+dust-coloured column upon the dusty veldt, moved forwards again
+towards their objective. That night they halted at the pools of
+Klipfontein, having for once made a whole day's march without coming
+in touch with the enemy. Hopes rose that possibly the two successive
+defeats had taken the heart out of them and that there would be no
+further resistance to the advance.  Some, however, who were aware of
+the presence of Cronje, and of his formidable character, took a juster
+view of the situation. And this perhaps is where a few words might be
+said about the celebrated leader who played upon the western side of
+the seat of war the same part which Joubert did upon the east.
+
+Commandant Cronje was at the time of the war sixty-five years of age,
+a hard, swarthy man, quiet of manner, fierce of soul, with a
+reputation among a nation of resolute men for unsurpassed
+resolution. His dark face was bearded and virile, but sedate and
+gentle in expression.  He spoke little, but what he said was to the
+point, and he had the gift of those fire-words which brace and
+strengthen weaker men.  In hunting expeditions and in native wars he
+had first won the admiration of his countrymen by his courage and his
+fertility of resource.  In the war of 1880 he had led the Boers who
+besieged Potchefstroom, and he had pushed the attack with a relentless
+vigour which was not hampered by the chivalrous usages of
+war. Eventually he compelled the surrender of the place by concealing
+from the garrison that a general armistice had been signed, an act
+which was afterwards disowned by his own government.  In the
+succeeding years he lived as an autocrat and a patriarch amid his
+farms and his herds, respected by many and feared by all. For a time
+he was Native Commissioner and left a reputation for hard dealing
+behind him. Called into the field again by the Jameson raid, he grimly
+herded his enemies into an impossible position and desired, as it is
+stated, that the hardest measure should be dealt out to the
+captives. This was the man, capable, crafty, iron-hard, magnetic, who
+lay with a reinforced and formidable army across the path of Lord
+Methuen's tired soldiers.  It was a fair match.  On the one side the
+hardy men, the trained shots, a good artillery, and the defensive; on
+the other the historical British infantry, duty, discipline, and a
+fiery courage.  With a high heart the dust-coloured column moved on
+over the dusty veldt.
+
+So entirely had hills and Boer fighting become associated in the minds
+of our leaders, that when it was known that Modder River wound over a
+plain, the idea of a resistance there appears to have passed away from
+their minds.  So great was the confidence or so lax the scouting that
+a force equaling their own in numbers had assembled with many guns
+within seven miles of them, and yet the advance appears to have been
+conducted without any expectation of impending battle.  The
+supposition, obvious even to a civilian, that a river would be a
+likely place to meet with an obstinate resistance, seems to have been
+ignored.  It is perhaps not fair to blame the General for a fact which
+must have vexed his spirit more than ours -- ones sympathies go out
+to the gentle and brave man, who was heard calling out in his sleep
+that he 'should have had those two guns ' -- but it is repugnant to
+common sense to suppose that no one, neither the cavalry nor the
+Intelligence Department, is at fault for so extraordinary a state of
+ignorance.[Footnote: Later information makes it certain that the
+cavalry did report the presence of the enemy to Lord Methuen.]  On the
+morning of Tuesday, November 28th, the British troops were told that
+they would march at once, and have their breakfast when they reached
+the Modder River-a grim joke to those who lived to appreciate it.
+
+The army had been reinforced the night before by the welcome addition
+of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which made up for the losses
+of the week. It was a cloudless morning, and a dazzling sun rose in a
+deep blue sky.  The men, though hungry, marched cheerily, the reek of
+their tobacco-pipes floating up from their ranks.  It cheered them to
+see that the murderous kopjes had, for the time, been left behind, and
+that the great plain inclined slightly downwards to where a line of
+green showed the course of the river. On the further bank were a few
+scattered buildings, with one considerable hotel, used as a week-end
+resort by the businessmen of Kimberley.  It lay now calm and innocent,
+with its open windows looking out upon a smiling garden; but death
+lurked at the windows and death in the garden, and the little dark man
+who stood by the door, peering through his glass at the approaching
+column, was the minister of death, the dangerous Cronje.  In
+consultation with him was one who was to prove even more formidable,
+and for a longer time.  Semitic in face, high-nosed, bushy-bearded,
+and eagle-eyed, with skin burned brown by a life of the veldt -- it
+was De la Rey, one of the trio of fighting chiefs whose name will always
+be associated with the gallant resistance of the Boers.  He was there
+as adviser, but Cronje was in supreme command.
+
+His dispositions had been both masterly and original. Contrary to the
+usual military practice in the defence of rivers, he had concealed his
+men upon both banks, placing, as it is stated, those in whose
+staunchness he had least confidence upon the British side of the
+river, so that they could only retreat under the rifles of their
+inexorable companions.  The trenches had been so dug with such a
+regard for the slopes of the ground that in some places a triple line
+of fire was secured. His artillery, consisting of several heavy pieces
+and a number of machine guns (including one of the diabolical
+'pompoms'), was cleverly placed upon the further side of the stream,
+and was not only provided with shelter pits but had rows of reserve
+pits, so that the guns could be readily shifted when their range was
+found. Rows of trenches, a broadish river, fresh rows of trenches,
+fortified houses, and a good artillery well worked and well placed, it
+was a serious task which lay in front of the gallant little army.  The
+whole position covered between four and five miles.
+
+An obvious question must here occur to the mind of every non-military
+reader -- ' Why should this position be attacked at all? Why should we
+not cross higher up where there were no such formidable obstacles?'
+The answer, so far as one can answer it, must be that so little was
+known of the dispositions of our enemy that we were hopelessly
+involved in the action before we knew of it, and that then it was more
+dangerous to extricate the army than to push the attack.  A retirement
+over that open plain at a range of under a thousand yards would have
+been a dangerous and disastrous movement.  Having once got there, it
+was wisest and best to see it through.
+
+The dark Cronje still waited reflective in the hotel garden. Across
+the veldt streamed the lines of infantry, the poor fellows eager,
+after seven miles of that upland air, for the breakfast which had been
+promised them. It was a quarter to seven when our patrols of Lancers
+were fired upon.  There were Boers, then, between them and their meal!
+The artillery was ordered up, the Guards were sent forward on the
+right, the 9th Brigade under Pole-Carew on the left, including the
+newly arrived Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. They swept onwards
+into the fatal fire zone -- and then, and only then, there blazed out
+upon them four miles of rifles, cannon, and machine guns, and they
+realised, from general to private, that they had walked unwittingly
+into the fiercest battle yet fought in the war.
+
+Before the position was understood the Guards were within seven
+hundred yards of the Boer trenches, and the other troops about nine
+hundred, on the side of a very gentle slope which made it most
+difficult to find any cover.  In front of them lay a serene landscape,
+the river, the houses, the hotel, no movement of men, no smoke --
+everything peaceful and deserted save for an occasional quick flash
+and sparkle of flame. But the noise was horrible and appalling. Men
+whose nerves had been steeled to the crash of the big guns, or the
+monotonous roar of Maxims and the rattle of Mauser fire, found a new
+terror in the malignant 'ploop-plooping' of the automatic
+quick-firer. The Maxim of the Scots Guards was caught in the
+hell-blizzard from this thing -- each shell no bigger than a large
+walnut, but flying in strings of a score -- and men and gun were
+destroyed in an instant. As to the rifle bullets the air was humming
+and throbbing with them, and the sand was mottled like a pond in a
+shower.  To advance was impossible, to retire was hateful. The men
+fell upon their faces and huddled close to the earth, too happy if
+some friendly ant-heap gave them a precarious shelter. And always,
+tier above tier, the lines of rifle fire rippled and palpitated in
+front of them.  The infantry fired also, and fired, and fired -- but
+what was there to fire at? An occasional eye and hand over the edge of
+a trench or behind a stone is no mark at seven hundred yards. It would
+be instructive to know how many British bullets found a billet that
+day.
+
+The cavalry was useless, the infantry was powerless -- there only
+remained the guns.  When any arm is helpless and harried it always
+casts an imploring eye upon the guns, and rarely indeed is it that the
+gallant guns do not respond. Now the 75th and 18th Field Batteries
+came rattling and dashing to the front, and unlimbered at one thousand
+yards. The naval guns were working at four thousand, but the two
+combined were insufficient to master the fire of the pieces of large
+calibre which were opposed to them. Lord Methuen must have prayed for
+guns as Wellington did for night, and never was a prayer answered more
+dramatically.  A strange battery came lurching up from the British
+rear, unheralded, unknown, the weary gasping horses panting at the
+traces, the men, caked with sweat and dirt, urging them on into a last
+spasmodic trot.  The bodies of horses which had died of pure fatigue
+marked their course, the sergeants' horses tugged in the gun-teams,
+and the sergeants staggered along by the limbers. It was the 62nd
+Field Battery, which had marched thirty-two miles in eight hours, and
+now, hearing the crash of battle in front of them, had with one last
+desperate effort thrown itself into the firing line.  Great credit is
+due to Major Granet and his men.  Not even those gallant German
+batteries who saved the infantry at Spicheren could boast of a finer
+feat.
+
+Now it was guns against guns, and let the best gunners win! We had
+eighteen field-guns and the naval pieces against the concealed cannon
+of the enemy. Back and forward flew the shells, howling past each
+other in mid-air.  The weary men of the 62nd Battery forgot their
+labours and fatigues as they stooped and strained at their
+clay-coloured 15-pounders. Half of them were within rifle range, and
+the limber horses were the centre of a hot fire, as they were destined
+to be at a shorter range and with more disastrous effect at the
+Tugela.  That the same tactics should have been adopted at two widely
+sundered points shows with what care the details of the war had been
+pre-arranged by the Boer leaders.  'Before I got my horses out,' says
+an officer, 'they shot one of my drivers and two horses and brought
+down my own horse. When we got the gun round one of the gunners was
+shot through the brain and fell at my feet.  Another was shot while
+bringing up shell.  Then we got a look in.' The roar of the cannon was
+deafening, but gradually the British were gaining the upper hand. Here
+and there the little knolls upon the further side which had erupted
+into constant flame lay cold and silent.  One of the heavier guns was
+put out of action, and the other had been withdrawn for five hundred
+yards. But the infantry fire still crackled and rippled along the
+trenches, and the guns could come no nearer with living men and
+horses. It was long past midday, and that unhappy breakfast seemed
+further off than ever.
+
+As the afternoon wore on, a curious condition of things was
+established.  The guns could not advance, and, indeed, it was found
+necessary to withdraw them from a 1,200 to a 2,800 yard range, so
+heavy were the losses. At the time of the change the 75th Battery had
+lost three officers out of five, nineteen men, and twenty-two horses.
+The infantry could not advance and would not retire.  The Guards on
+the right were prevented from opening out on the flank and getting
+round the enemy's line, by the presence of the Riet River, which joins
+the Modder almost at a right angle. All day they lay under a
+blistering sun, the sleet of bullets whizzing over their heads.  'It
+came in solid streaks like telegraph wires,' said a graphic
+correspondent.  The men gossiped, smoked, and many of them slept.
+They lay on the barrels of their rifles to keep them cool enough for
+use.  Now and again there came the dull thud of a bullet which had
+found its mark, and a man gasped, or drummed with his feet; but the
+casualties at this point were not numerous, for there was some little
+cover, and the piping bullets passed for the most part overhead.
+
+But in the meantime there had been a development upon the left which
+was to turn the action into a British victory. At this side there was
+ample room to extend, and the 9th Brigade spread out, feeling its way
+down the enemy's line, until it came to a point where the fire was
+less murderous and the approach to the river more in favour of the
+attack. Here the Yorkshires, a party of whom under Lieutenant Fox had
+stormed a farmhouse, obtained the command of a drift, over which a
+mixed force of Highlanders and Fusiliers forced their way, led by
+their Brigadier in person.  This body of infantry, which does not
+appear to have exceeded five hundred in number, were assailed both by
+the Boer riflemen and by the guns of both parties, our own gunners
+being unaware that the Modder had been successfully crossed.  A small
+hamlet called Rosmead formed, however, a POINT D'APPUI, and to this
+the infantry clung tenaciously, while reinforcements dribbled across
+to them from the farther side.  'Now, boys, who's for otter hunting?'
+cried Major Coleridge, of the North Lancashires, as he sprang into the
+water. How gladly on that baking, scorching day did the men jump into
+the river and splash over, to climb the opposite bank with their wet
+khaki clinging to their figures!  Some blundered into holes and were
+rescued by grasping the unwound putties of their comrades. And so
+between three and four o'clock a strong party of the British had
+established their position upon the right flank of the Boers, and were
+holding on like grim death with an intelligent appreciation that the
+fortunes of the day depended upon their retaining their grip.
+
+'Hollo, here is a river!' cried Codrington when he led his forlorn
+hope to the right and found that the Riet had to be crossed.  'I was
+given to understand that the Modder was fordable everywhere,' says
+Lord Methuen in his official despatch.  One cannot read the account of
+the operations without being struck by the casual, sketchy knowledge
+which cost us so dearly.  The soldiers slogged their way through, as
+they have slogged it before; but the task might have been made much
+lighter for them had we but clearly known what it was that we were
+trying to do.  On the other hand, it is but fair to Lord Methuen to
+say that his own personal gallantry and unflinching resolution set the
+most stimulating example to his troops.  No General could have done
+more to put heart into his men.
+
+And now, as the long weary scorching hungry day came to an end, the
+Boers began at last to flinch from their trenches.  The shrapnel was
+finding them out and this force upon their flank filled them with
+vague alarm and with fears for their precious guns. And so as night
+fell they stole across the river, the cannon were withdrawn, the
+trenches evacuated, and next morning, when the weary British and their
+anxious General turned themselves to their grim task once more, they
+found a deserted village, a line of empty houses, and a litter of
+empty Mauser cartridge-cases to show where their tenacious enemy had
+stood.
+
+Lord Methuen, in congratulating the troops upon their achievement,
+spoke of 'the hardest-won victory in our annals of war,' and some such
+phrase was used in his official despatch.  It is hypercritical, no
+doubt, to look too closely at a term used by a wounded man with the
+flush of battle still upon him, but still a student of military
+history must smile at such a comparison between this action and such
+others as Albuera or Inkerman, where the numbers of British engaged
+were not dissimilar. A fight in which five hundred men are killed and
+wounded cannot be classed in the same category as those stern and
+desperate encounters where more of the victors were carried than
+walked from the field of battle. And yet there were some special
+features which will differentiate the fight at Modder River from any
+of the hundred actions which adorn the standards of our regiments. It
+was the third battle which the troops had fought within the week, they
+were under fire for ten or twelve hours, were waterless under a
+tropical sun, and weak from want of food. For the first time they were
+called upon to face modern rifle fire and modern machine guns in the
+open.  The result tends to prove that those who hold that it will from
+now onwards be impossible ever to make such frontal attacks as those
+which the English made at the Alma or the French at Waterloo, are
+justified in their belief.  It is beyond human hardihood to face the
+pitiless beat of bullet and shell which comes from modern quick-firing
+weapons. Had our flank not made a lodgment across the river, it is
+impossible that we could have carried the position. Once more, too, it
+was demonstrated how powerless the best artillery is to disperse
+resolute and well-placed riflemen.  Of the minor points of interest
+there will always remain the record of the forced march of the 62nd
+Battery, and artillerymen will note the use of gun-pits by the Boers,
+which ensured that the range of their positions should never be
+permanently obtained.
+
+The honours of the day upon the side of the British rested with the
+Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Yorkshire Light Infantry, the
+2nd Coldstreams, and the artillery.  Out of a total casualty list of
+about 450, no fewer than 112 came from the gallant Argylls and 69 from
+the Coldstreams.  The loss of the Boers is exceedingly difficult to
+gauge, as they throughout the war took the utmost pains to conceal it.
+The number of desperate and long-drawn actions which have ended,
+according to the official Pretorian account, in a loss of one wounded
+burgher may in some way be better policy, but does not imply a higher
+standard of public virtue, than those long lists which have saddened
+our hearts in the halls of the War Office.  What is certain is that
+the loss at Modder River could not have been far inferior to our own,
+and that it arose almost entirely from artillery fire, since at no
+time of the action were any large number of their riflemen visible.
+So it ended, this long pelting match, Cronje sullenly withdrawing
+under the cover of darkness with his resolute heart filled with fierce
+determination for the future, while the British soldiers threw
+themselves down on the ground which they occupied and slept the sleep
+of exhaustion,
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BATTLE OF MAGERSFONTEIN
+
+Lord Methuen's force had now fought three actions in the space of a
+single week, losing in killed and wounded about a thousand men, or
+rather more than one-tenth of its total numbers. Had there been
+evidence that the enemy were seriously demoralised, the General would
+no doubt have pushed on at once to Kimberley, which was some twenty
+miles distant.  The information which reached him was, however, that
+the Boers had fallen back upon the very strong position of
+Spytfontein, that they were full of fight, and that they had been
+strongly reinforced by a commando from Mafeking. Under these
+circumstances Lord Methuen had no choice but to give his men a
+well-earned rest, and to await reinforcements.  There was no use in
+reaching Kimberley unless he had completely defeated the investing
+force. With the history of the first relief of Lucknow in his memory
+he was on his guard against a repetition of such an experience.
+
+It was the more necessary that Methuen should strengthen his position,
+since with every mile which he advanced the more exposed did his line
+of communications become to a raid from Fauresmith and the southern
+districts of the Orange Free State. Any serious danger to the railway
+behind them would leave the British Army in a very critical position,
+and precautions were taken for the protection of the more vulnerable
+portions of the line.  It was well that this was so, for on the 8th of
+December Commandant Prinsloo, of the Orange Free State, with a
+thousand horsemen and two light seven-pounder guns, appeared suddenly
+at Enslin and vigorously attacked the two companies of the Northampton
+Regiment who held the station. At the same time they destroyed a
+couple of culverts and tore up three hundred yards of the permanent
+way. For some hours the Northamptons under Captain Godley were closely
+pressed, but a telegram had been despatched to Modder Camp, and the
+12th Lancers with the ubiquitous 62nd Battery were sent to their
+assistance.  The Boers retired with their usual mobility, and in ten
+hours the line was completely restored.
+
+Reinforcements were now reaching the Modder River force, which made it
+more formidable than when it had started.  A very essential addition
+was that of the 12th Lancers and of G battery of Horse Artillery,
+which would increase the mobility of the force and make it possible
+for the General to follow up a blow after he had struck it. The
+magnificent regiments which formed the Highland Brigade -- the 2nd
+Black Watch, the 1st Gordons, the 2nd Seaforths, and the 1st Highland
+Light Infantry had arrived under the gallant and ill-fated
+Wauchope. Four five-inch howitzers had also come to strengthen the
+artillery.  At the same time the Canadians, the Australians, and
+several line regiments were moved up on the line from De Aar to
+Belmont.  It appeared to the public at home that there was the
+material for an overwhelming advance; but the ordinary observer, and
+even perhaps the military critic, had not yet appreciated how great is
+the advantage which is given by modern weapons to the force which acts
+upon the defensive. With enormous pains Cronje and De la Rey were
+entrenching a most formidable position in front of our advance, with a
+confidence, which proved to be justified that it would be on their own
+ground and under their own conditions that in this, as in the three
+preceding actions, we should engage them.
+
+On the morning of Saturday, December 9th, the British General made an
+attempt to find out what lay in front of him amid that semicircle of
+forbidding hills.  To this end he sent out a reconnaissance in the
+early morning, which included G Battery Horse Artillery, the 9th
+Lancers, and the ponderous 4-7 naval gun, which, preceded by the
+majestic march of thirty-two bullocks and attended by eighty seamen
+gunners, creaked forwards over the plain.  What was there to shoot at
+in those sunlit boulder-strewn hills in front? They lay silent and
+untenanted in the glare of the African day.  In vain the great gun
+exploded its huge shell with its fifty pounds of lyddite over the
+ridges, in vain the smaller pieces searched every cleft and hollow
+with their shrapnel.  No answer came from the far-stretching hills.
+Not a flash or twinkle betrayed the fierce bands who lurked among the
+boulders.  The force returned to camp no wiser than when it left.
+
+There was one sight visible every night to all men which might well
+nerve the rescuers in their enterprise. Over the northern horizon,
+behind those hills of danger, there quivered up in the darkness one
+long, flashing, quivering beam, which swung up and down, and up again
+like a seraphic sword-blade.  It was Kimberley praying for help,
+Kimberley solicitous for news. Anxiously, distractedly, the great De
+Beers searchlight dipped and rose.  And back across the twenty miles
+of darkness, over the hills where Cronje lurked, there came that other
+southern column of light which answered, and promised, and soothed.
+'Be of good heart, Kimberley. We are here! The Empire is behind us.
+We have not forgotten you.  It may be days, or it may be weeks, but
+rest assured that we are coming.'
+
+About three in the afternoon of Sunday, December 10th, the force which
+was intended to clear a path for the army through the lines of
+Magersfontein moved out upon what proved to be its desperate
+enterprise.  The 3rd or Highland Brigade included the Black Watch, the
+Seaforths, the Argyll and Sutherlands, and the Highland Light
+Infantry.  The Gordons had only arrived in camp that day, and did not
+advance until next morning. Besides the infantry, the 9th Lancers, the
+mounted infantry, and all the artillery moved to the front.  It was
+raining hard, and the men with one blanket between two soldiers
+bivouacked upon the cold damp ground, about three miles from the
+enemy's position.  At one o'clock, without food, and drenched, they
+moved forwards through the drizzle and the darkness to attack those
+terrible lines.  Major Benson, R.A., with two of Rimington's scouts,
+led them on their difficult way.
+
+Clouds drifted low in the heavens, and the falling rain made the
+darkness more impenetrable.  The Highland Brigade was formed into a
+column -- the Black Watch in front, then the Seaforths, and the other
+two behind.  To prevent the men from straggling in the night the four
+regiments were packed into a mass of quarter column as densely as was
+possible, and the left guides held a rope in order to preserve the
+formation.  With many a trip and stumble the ill-fated detachment
+wandered on, uncertain where they were going and what it was that they
+were meant to do. Not only among the rank and file, but among the
+principal officers also, there was the same absolute
+ignorance. Brigadier Wauchope knew, no doubt, but his voice was soon
+to be stilled in death.  The others were aware, of course, that they
+were advancing either to turn the enemy's trenches or to attack them,
+but they may well have argued from their own formation that they could
+not be near the riflemen yet.  Why they should be still advancing in
+that dense clump we do not now know, nor can we surmise what thoughts
+were passing through the mind of the gallant and experienced chieftain
+who walked beside them.  There are some who claim on the night before
+to have seen upon his strangely ascetic face that shadow of doom which
+is summed up in the one word 'fey.'  The hand of coming death may
+already have lain cold upon his soul.  Out there, close beside him,
+stretched the long trench, fringed with its line of fierce, staring,
+eager faces, and its bristle of gun-barrels.  They knew he was
+coming. They were ready.  They were waiting.  But still, with the dull
+murmur of many feet, the dense column, nearly four thousand strong,
+wandered onwards through the rain and the darkness, death and
+mutilation crouching upon their path.
+
+It matters not what gave the signal, whether it was the flashing of a
+lantern by a Boer scout, or the tripping of a soldier over wire, or
+the firing of a gun in the ranks. It may have been any, or it may have
+been none, of these things. As a matter of fact I have been assured by
+a Boer who was present that it was the sound of the tins attached to
+the alarm wires which disturbed them. However this may be, in an
+instant there crashed out of the darkness into their faces and ears a
+roar of point-blank fire, and the night was slashed across with the
+throbbing flame of the rifles. At the moment before this outflame some
+doubt as to their whereabouts seems to have flashed across the mind of
+their leaders. The order to extend had just been given, but the men
+bad not had time to act upon it.  The storm of lead burst upon the
+head and right flank of the column, which broke to pieces under the
+murderous volley. Wauchope was shot, struggled up, and fell once more
+for ever. Rumour has placed words of reproach upon his dying lips, but
+his nature, both gentle and soldierly, forbids the supposition.  'What
+a pity!' was the only utterance which a brother Highlander ascribes to
+him.  Men went down in swathes, and a howl of rage and agony, heard
+afar over the veldt, swelled up from the frantic and struggling crowd.
+By the hundred they dropped -- some dead, some wounded, some knocked
+down by the rush and sway of the broken ranks.  It was a horrible
+business. At such a range and in such a formation a single Mauser
+bullet may well pass through many men.  A few dashed forwards, and
+were found dead at the very edges of the trench. The few survivors of
+companies A, B, and C of the Black Watch appear to have never actually
+retired, but to have clung on to the immediate front of the Boer
+trenches, while the remains of the other five companies tried to turn
+the Boer flank.  Of the former body only six got away unhurt in the
+evening after lying all day within two hundred yards of the enemy. The
+rest of the brigade broke and, disentangling themselves with
+difficulty from the dead and the dying, fled back out of that accursed
+place.  Some, the most unfortunate of all, became caught in the
+darkness in the wire defences, and were found in the morning hung up
+'like crows,' as one spectator describes it, and riddled with bullets.
+
+Who shall blame the Highlanders for retiring when they did? Viewed,
+not by desperate and surprised men, but in all calmness and sanity, it
+may well seem to have been the very best thing which they could do.
+Dashed into chaos, separated from their officers, with no one who knew
+what was to be done, the first necessity was to gain shelter from this
+deadly fire, which had already stretched six hundred of their number
+upon the ground.  The danger was that men so shaken would be stricken
+with panic, scatter in the darkness over the face of the country, and
+cease to exist as a military unit.  But the Highlanders were true to
+their character and their traditions.  There was shouting in the
+darkness, hoarse voices calling for the Seaforths, for the Argylls,
+for Company C, for Company H, and everywhere in the gloom there came
+the answer of the clansmen.  Within half an hour with the break of day
+the Highland regiments had re-formed, and, shattered and weakened, but
+undaunted, prepared to renew the contest. Some attempt at an advance
+was made upon the right, ebbing and flowing, one little band even
+reaching the trenches and coming back with prisoners and reddened
+bayonets.  For the most part the men lay upon their faces, and fired
+when they could at the enemy; but the cover which the latter kept was
+so excellent that an officer who expended 120 rounds has left it upon
+record that he never once had seen anything positive at which to aim.
+Lieutenant Lindsay brought the Seaforths' Maxim into the firing-line,
+and, though all her crew except two were hit, it continued to do good
+service during the day.  The Lancers' Maxim was equally staunch,
+though it also was left finally with only the lieutenant in charge and
+one trooper to work it.
+
+Fortunately the guns were at hand, and, as usual, they were quick to
+come to the aid of the distressed. The sun was hardly up before the
+howitzers were throwing lyddite at 4,000 yards, the three field
+batteries (18th, 62nd, 75th) were working with shrapnel at a mile, and
+the troop of Horse Artillery was up at the right front trying to
+enfilade the trenches.  The guns kept down the rifle-fire, and gave
+the wearied Highlanders some respite from their troubles.  The whole
+situation had resolved itself now into another Battle of Modder
+River. The infantry, under a fire at from six hundred to eight hundred
+paces, could not advance and would not retire. The artillery only kept
+the battle going, and the huge naval gun from behind was joining with
+its deep bark in the deafening uproar.  But the Boers had already
+learned -- and it is one of their most valuable military qualities
+that they assimilate their experience so quickly -- that shell fire is
+less dangerous in a trench than among rocks.  These trenches, very
+elaborate in character, had been dug some hundreds of yards from the
+foot of the hills, so that there was hardly any guide to our artillery
+fire.  Yet it is to the artillery fire that all the losses of the
+Boers that day were due. The cleverness of Cronje's disposition of his
+trenches some hundred yards ahead of the kopjes is accentuated by the
+fascination which any rising object has for a gunner.  Prince Kraft
+tells the story of how at Sadowa he unlimbered his guns two hundred
+yards in front of the church of Chlum, and how the Austrian reply fire
+almost invariably pitched upon the steeple.  So our own gunners, even
+at a two-thousand yard mark, found it difficult to avoid overshooting
+the invisible line, and hitting the obvious mark behind.
+
+As the day wore on reinforcements of infantry came up from the force
+which had been left to guard the camp. The Gordons arrived with the
+first and second battalions of the Coldstream Guards, and all the
+artillery was moved nearer to the enemy's position. At the same time,
+as there were some indications of an attack upon our right flank, the
+Grenadier Guards with five companies of the Yorkshire Light Infantry
+were moved up in that direction, while the three remaining companies
+of Barter's Yorkshiremen secured a drift over which the enemy might
+cross the Modder.  This threatening movement upon our right flank,
+which would have put the Highlanders into an impossible position had
+it succeeded, was most gallantly held back all morning, before the
+arrival of the Guards and the Yorkshires, by the mounted infantry and
+the 12th Lancers, skirmishing on foot.  It was in this long and
+successful struggle to cover the flank of the 3rd Brigade that Major
+Milton, Major Ray, and many another brave man met his end.  The
+Coldstreams and Grenadiers relieved the pressure upon this side, and
+the Lancers retired to their horses, having shown, not for the first
+time, that the cavalryman with a modern carbine can at a pinch very
+quickly turn himself into a useful infantry soldier.  Lord Airlie
+deserves all praise for his unconventional use of his men, and for the
+gallantry with which he threw both himself and them into the most
+critical corner of the fight.
+
+While the Coldstreams, the Grenadiers, and the Yorkshire Light
+Infantry were holding back the Boer attack upon our right flank the
+indomitable Gordons, the men of Dargai, furious with the desire to
+avenge their comrades of the Highland Brigade, had advanced straight
+against the trenches and succeeded without any very great loss in
+getting within four hundred yards of them.  But a single regiment
+could not carry the position, and anything like a general advance upon
+it was out of the question in broad daylight after the punishment
+which we had received. Any plans of the sort which may have passed
+through Lord Methuen's mind were driven away for ever by the sudden
+unordered retreat of the stricken brigade.  They had been very roughly
+handled in this, which was to most of them their baptism of fire, and
+they had been without food and water under a burning sun all day.
+They fell back rapidly for a mile, and the guns were for a time left
+partially exposed.  Fortunately the lack of initiative on the part of
+the Boers which has stood our friend so often came in to save us from
+disaster and humiliation. It is due to the brave unshaken face which
+the Guards presented to the enemy that our repulse did not deepen into
+something still more serious.
+
+The Gordons and the Scots Guards were still in attendance upon the
+guns, but they had been advanced very close to the enemy's trenches,
+and there were no other troops in support.  Under these circumstances
+it was imperative that the Highlanders should rally, and Major Ewart
+with other surviving officers rushed among the scattered ranks and
+strove hard to gather and to stiffen them.  The men were dazed by what
+they had undergone, and Nature shrank back from that deadly zone where
+the bullets fell so thickly.  But the pipes blew, and the bugles sang,
+and the poor tired fellows, the backs of their legs so flayed and
+blistered by lying in the sun that they could hardly bend them,
+hobbled back to their duty.  They worked up to the guns once more, and
+the moment of danger passed.
+
+But as the evening wore on it became evident that no attack could
+succeed, and that therefore there was no use in holding the men in
+front of the enemy's position. The dark Cronje, lurking among his
+ditches and his barbed wire, was not to be approached, far less
+defeated. There are some who think that, had we held on there as we
+did at the Modder River, the enemy would again have been accommodating
+enough to make way for us during the night, and the morning would have
+found the road clear to Kimberley.  I know no grounds for such an
+opinion -- but several against it.  At Modder Cronje abandoned his
+lines, knowing that he had other and stronger ones behind him. At
+Magersfontein a level plain lay behind the Boer position, and to
+abandon it was to give up the game altogether.  Besides, why should he
+abandon it? He knew that he had hit us hard. We had made absolutely no
+impression upon his defences. Is it likely that he would have tamely
+given up all his advantages and surrendered the fruits of his victory
+without a struggle? It is enough to mourn a defeat without the
+additional agony of thinking that a little more perseverance might
+have turned it into a victory.  The Boer position could only be taken
+by outflanking it, and we were not numerous enough nor mobile enough
+to outflank it. There lay the whole secret of our troubles, and no
+conjectures as to what might under other circumstances have happened
+can alter it.
+
+About half-past five the Boer guns, which had for some unexplained
+reason been silent all day, opened upon the cavalry.  Their appearance
+was a signal for the general falling back of the centre, and the last
+attempt to retrieve the day was abandoned.  The Highlanders were
+dead-beat ; the Coldstreams had had enough; the mounted infantry was
+badly mauled. There remained the Grenadiers, the Scots Guards, and two
+or three line regiments who were available for a new attack.  There
+are occasions, such as Sadowa, where a General must play his last
+card. There are others where with reinforcements in his rear, he can
+do better by saving his force and trying once again.  General Grant
+had an axiom that the best time for an advance was when you were
+utter]y exhausted, for that was the moment when your enemy was
+probably utterly exhausted too, and of two such forces the attacker
+has the moral advantage.  Lord Methuen determined -- and no doubt
+wisely -- that it was no occasion for counsels of desperation.  His
+men were withdrawn -- in some cases withdrew themselves -- outside the
+range of the Boer guns, and next morning saw the whole force with
+bitter and humiliated hearts on their way back to their camp at Modder
+River.
+
+The repulse of Magersfontein cost the British nearly a thousand men,
+killed, wounded, and missing, of which over seven hundred belonged to
+the Highlanders. Fifty-seven officers had fallen in that brigade alone,
+including their Brigadier and Colonel Downman of the Gordons. Colonel
+Codrington of the Coldstreams was wounded early, fought through the
+action, and came back in the evening on a Maxim gun.  Lord Winchester
+of the same battalion was killed, after injudiciously but heroically
+exposing himself all day. The Black Watch alone had lost nineteen
+officers and over three hundred men killed and wounded, a catastrophe
+which can only be matched in all the bloody and glorious annals of
+that splendid regiment by their slaughter at Ticonderoga in 1757, when
+no fewer than five hundred fell before Montcalm's muskets. Never has
+Scotland had a more grievous day than this of Magersfontein. She has
+always given her best blood with lavish generosity for the Empire, but
+it may be doubted if any single battle has ever put so many families
+of high and low into mourning from the Tweed to the Caithness
+shore. There is a legend that when sorrow comes upon Scotland the old
+Edinburgh Castle is lit by ghostly lights and gleams white at every
+window in the mirk of midnight. If ever the watcher could have seen so
+sinister a sight, it should have been on this, the fatal night of
+December 11, 1899. As to the Boer loss it is impossible to determine
+it.  Their official returns stated it to be seventy killed and two
+hundred and fifty wounded, but the reports of prisoners and deserters
+placed it at a very much higher figure. One unit, the Scandinavian
+corps, was placed in an advanced position at Spytfontein, and was
+overwhelmed by the Seaforths, who killed, wounded, or took the eighty
+men of whom it was composed.  The stories of prisoners and of
+deserters all speak of losses very much higher than those which have
+been officially acknowledged.
+
+In his comments upon the battle next day Lord Methuen was said to have
+given offence to the Highland Brigade, and the report was allowed to
+go uncontradicted until it became generally accepted.  It arose,
+however, from a complete misunderstanding of the purport of Lord
+Methuen's remarks, in which he praised them, as he well might, for
+their bravery, and condoled with them over the wreck of their splendid
+regiments. The way in which officers and men hung on under conditions
+to which no troops have ever been exposed was worthy of the highest
+traditions of the British army.  From the death of Wauchope in the
+early morning, until the assumption of the command of the brigade by
+Hughes-Hallett in the late afternoon, no one seems to have taken the
+direction.  'My lieutenant was wounded and my captain was killed,'
+says a private. 'The General was dead, but we stayed where we were,
+for there was no order to retire.'  That was the story of the whole
+brigade, until the flanking movement of the Boers compelled them to
+fall back.
+
+The most striking lesson of the engagement is the extreme bloodiness
+of modern warfare under some conditions, and its bloodlessness under
+others.  Here, out of a total of something under a thousand casualties
+seven hundred were incurred in about five minutes, and the whole day
+of shell, machine-gun, and rifle fire only furnished the odd three
+hundred.  So also at Ladysmith the British forces (White's column)
+were under heavy fire from 5.30 to 11.30, and the loss again was
+something under three hundred.  With conservative generalship the
+losses of the battles of the future will be much less than those of
+the past, and as a consequence the battles themselves will last much
+longer, and it will be the most enduring rather than the most fiery
+which will win.  The supply of food and water to the combatants will
+become of extreme importance to keep them up during the prolonged
+trials of endurance, which will last for weeks rather than days.  On
+the other hand, when a General's force is badly compromised, it will
+be so punished that a quick surrender will be the only alternative to
+annihilation.
+
+On the subject of the quarter-column formation which proved so fatal
+to us, it must be remembered that any other form of advance is hardly
+possible during a night attack, though at Tel-el-Kebir the exceptional
+circumstance of the march being over an open desert allowed the troops
+to move for the last mile or two in a more extended formation.  A line
+of battalion double-company columns is most difficult to preserve in
+tho darkness, and any confusion may lead to disaster.  The whole
+mistake lay in a miscalculation of a few hundred yards in the position
+of the trenches.  Had the regiments deployed five minutes earlier it
+is probable (though by no means certain) that the position would have
+been carried.
+
+The action was not without those examples of military virtue which
+soften a disaster, and hold out a brighter promise for the future.
+The Guards withdrew from the field as if on parade, with the Boer
+shells bursting over their ranks. Fine, too, was the restraint of G
+Battery of Horse Artillery on the morning after the battle.  An
+armistice was understood to exist, but the naval gun, in ignorance of
+it, opened on our extreme left.  The Boers at once opened fire upon
+the Horse Artillery, who, recognising the mistake, remained motionless
+and unlimbered in a line, with every horse, and gunner and driver in
+his place, without taking any notice of the fire, which presently
+slackened and stopped as the enemy came to understand the situation.
+It is worthy of remark that in this battle the three field batteries
+engaged, as well as G Battery, R.ll.A., each fired over 1,000 rounds
+and remained for 30 consecutive hours within 1,500 yards of the Boer
+position.
+
+But of all the corps who deserve praise, there was none more gallant
+than the brave surgeons and ambulance bearers, who encounter all the
+dangers and enjoy none of the thrills of warfare. All day under fire
+these men worked and toiled among the wounded. Beevor, Ensor, Douglas,
+Probyn -- all were equally devoted.  It is almost incredible, and yet
+it is true, that by ten o'clock on the morning after the battle,
+before the troops had returned to camp, no fewer than five hundred
+wounded were in the train and on their way to Cape Town.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE BATTLE OF STORMBERG
+
+Some attempt has now been made to sketch the succession of events
+which had ended in the investment of Ladysmith in northern Natal, and
+also to show the fortunes of the force which on the western side of
+the seat of war attempted to advance to the relief of Kimberley.  The
+distance between these forces may be expressed in terms familiar to
+the European reader by saying that it was that which separates Paris
+from Frankfort, or to the American by suggesting that Ladysmith was at
+Boston and that Methuen was trying to relieve Philadelphia. Waterless
+deserts and rugged mountain ranges divided the two scenes of action.
+In the case of the British there could be no connection between the
+two movements, but the Boers by a land journey of something over a
+hundred miles had a double choice of a route by which Cronje and
+Joubert might join hands, either by the
+Bloemfontein-Johannesburg-Laing's-Nek Railway, or by the direct line
+from Harrismith to Ladysmith. The possession of these internal lines
+should have been of enormous benefit to the Boers, enabling them to
+throw the weight of their forces unexpectedly from the one flank to
+the other.
+
+In a future chapter it will be recorded how the Army Corps arriving
+from England was largely diverted into Natal in order in the first
+instance to prevent the colony from being overrun, and in the second
+to rescue the beleaguered garrison.  In the meantime it is necessary
+to deal with the military operations in the broad space between the
+eastern and western armies.
+
+After the declaration of war there was a period of some weeks during
+which the position of the British over the whole of the northern part
+of Cape Colony was full of danger.  Immense supplies had been gathered
+at De Aar which were at the mercy of a Free State raid, and the
+burghers, had they possessed a cavalry leader with the dash of a
+Stuart or a Sheridan, might have dealt a blow which would have cost us
+a million pounds' worth of stores and dislocated the whole plan of
+campaign. However, the chance was allowed to pass, and when, on
+November 1st, the burghers at last in a leisurely fashion sauntered
+over the frontier, arrangements had been made by reinforcement and by
+concentration to guard the vital points. The objects of the British
+leaders, until the time for a general advance should come, were to
+hold the Orange River Bridge (which opened the way to Kimberley), to
+cover De Aar Junction, where the stores were, to protect at all costs
+the line of railway which led from Cape Town to Kimberley, and to hold
+on to as much as possible of those other two lines of railway which
+led, the one through Colesberg and the other through Stormberg, into
+the Free State.  The two bodies of invaders who entered the colony
+moved along the line of these two railways, the one crossing the
+Orange River at Norval's Pont and the other at Bethulie.  They
+enlisted many recruits among the Cape Colony Dutch as they advanced,
+and the scanty British forces fell back in front of them, abandoning
+Colesberg on the one line and Stormberg on the other. We have, then,
+to deal with the movements of two British detachments.  The one which
+operated on the Colesberg line -- which was the more vital of the two, as
+a rapid advance of the Boers upon that line would have threatened the
+precious Capetown-Kimberley connection -- consisted almost entirely of
+mounted troops, and was under the command of the same General French
+who had won the battle of Elandslaagte.  By an act of foresight which
+was only too rare upon the British side in the earlier stages of this
+war, French, who had in the recent large manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain
+shown great ability as a cavalry leader, was sent out of Ladysmith
+in the very last train which made its way through. His operations,
+with his instructive use of cavalry and horse artillery, may be
+treated separately.
+
+The other British force which faced the Boers who were advancing
+through Stormberg was commanded by General Gatacre, a man who bore a
+high reputation for fearlessness and tireless energy, though he had
+been criticised, notably during the Soudan campaign, for having called
+upon his men for undue and unnecessary exertion.  'General Back-acher'
+they called him, with rough soldierly chaff.  A glance at his long
+thin figure, his gaunt Don-Quixote face, and his aggressive jaw would
+show his personal energy, but might not satisfy the observer that he
+possessed those intellectual gifts which qualify for high command. At
+the action of the Atbara he, the brigadier in command, was the first
+to reach and to tear down with his own hands the zareeba of the enemy
+-- a gallant exploit of the soldier, but a questionable position for
+the General.  The man's strength and his weakness lay in the incident.
+
+General Gatacre was nominally in command of a division, but so cruelly
+had his men been diverted from him, some to Buller in Natal and some
+to Methuen, that he could not assemble more than a brigade. Falling
+back before the Boer advance, he found himself early in December at
+Sterkstroom, while the Boers occupied the very strong position of
+Stormberg, some thirty miles to the north of him. With the enemy so
+near him it was Gatacre's nature to attack, and the moment that he
+thought himself strong enough he did so.  No doubt he had private
+information as to the dangerous hold which the Boers were getting upon
+the colonial Dutch, and it is possible that while Buller and Methuen
+were attacking east and west they urged Gatacre to do something to
+hold the enemy in the centre.  On the night of December 9th he
+advanced.
+
+The fact that he was about to do so, and even the hour of the start,
+appear to have been the common property of the camp some days before
+the actual move. The 'Times' correspondent under the date December 7th
+details all that it is intended to do. It is to the credit of our
+Generals as men, but to their detriment as soldiers, that they seem
+throughout the campaign to have shown extraordinarily little power of
+dissimulation. They did the obvious, and usually allowed it to be
+obvious what they were about to do.  One thinks of Napoleon striking
+at Egypt; how he gave it abroad that the real object of the expedition
+was Ireland, but breathed into the ears of one or two intimates that
+in very truth it was bound for Genoa.  The leading official at Tolilon
+had no more idea where the fleet and army of France had gone than the
+humblest caulker in the yard. However, it is not fair to expect the
+subtlety of the Corsican from the downright Saxon, but it remains
+strange and deplorable that in a country filled with spies any one
+should have known in advance that a so-called 'surprise' was about to
+be attempted.
+
+The force with which General Gatacre advanced consisted of the 2nd
+Northumberland Fusiliers, 960 strong, with one Maxim; the 2nd Irish
+Rifles, 840 strong, with one Maxim, and 250 Mounted Infantry. There
+were two batteries of Field Artillery, the 74th and 77th. The total
+force was well under 3,000 men.  About three in the afternoon the men
+were entrained in open trucks under a burning sun, and for some
+reason, at which the impetuous spirit of the General must have chafed,
+were kept waiting for three hours.  At eight o'clock they detrained at
+Molteno, and thence after a short rest and a meal they started upon
+the night march which was intended to end at the break of day at the
+Boer trenches. One feels as if one were describing the operations of
+Magersfontein once again and the parallel continues to be painfully
+exact.
+
+It was nine o'clock and pitch dark when the column moved out of
+Molteno and struck across the black gloom of the veldt, the wheels of
+the guns being wrapped in hide to deaden the rattle.  It was known
+that the distance was not more than ten miles, and so when hour
+followed hour and the guides were still unable to say that they had
+reached their point it must have become perfectly evident that they
+had missed their way.  The men were dog-tired, a long day's work had
+been followed by a long night's march, and they plodded along drowsily
+through the darkness.  The ground was broken and irregular. The weary
+soldiers stumbled as they marched. Daylight came and revealed the
+column still looking for its objective, the fiery General walking in
+front and leading his horse behind him.  It was evident that his plans
+had miscarried, but his energetic and hardy temperament would not
+permit him to turn back without a blow being struck.  However one may
+commend his energy, one cannot but stand aghast at his dispositions.
+The country was wild and rocky, the very places for those tactics of
+the surprise and the ambuscade in which the Boers excelled. And yet
+the column still plodded aimlessly on in its dense formation, and if
+there were any attempt at scouting ahead and on the flanks the result
+showed how ineffectively it was carried out.  It was at a quarter past
+four in the clear light of a South African morning that a shot, and
+then another, and then a rolling crash of musketry, told that we were
+to have one more rough lesson of the result of neglecting the usual
+precautions of warfare. High up on the face of a steep line of hill
+the Boer riflemen lay hid, and from a short range their fire scourged
+our exposed flank.  The men appear to have been chiefly colonial
+rebels, and not Boers of the backveldt, and to that happy chance it
+may be that the comparative harmlessness of their fire was due. Even
+now, in spite of the surprise, the situation might have been saved had
+the bewildered troops and their harried officers known exactly what to
+do.  It is easy to be wise after the event, but it appears now that
+the only course that could commend itself would be to extricate the
+troops from their position, and then, if thought feasible, to plan an
+attack.  Instead of this a rush was made at the hillside, and the
+infantry made their way some distance up it only to find that there
+were positive ledges in front of them which could not be climbed. The
+advance was at a dead stop, and the men lay down under the boulders
+for cover from the hot fire which came from inaccessible marksmen
+above them. Meanwhile the artillery had opened behind them, and their
+fire (not for the first time in this campaign) was more deadly to
+their friends than to their foes.  At least one prominent officer fell
+among his men, torn by British shrapnel bullets. Talana Hill and
+Modder River have shown also, though perhaps in a less tragic degree,
+that what with the long range of modern artillery fire, and what with
+the difficulty of locating infantry who are using smokeless powder, it
+is necessary that officers commanding batteries should be provided
+with the coolest heads and the most powerful glasses of any men in the
+service, for a responsibility which will become more and more terrific
+rests upon their judgment.
+
+The question now, since the assault had failed, was how to extricate
+the men from their position. Many withdrew down the hill, running the
+gauntlet of the enemy's fire as they emerged from the boulders on to
+the open ground, while others clung to their positions, some from a
+soldierly hope that victory might finally incline to them, others
+because it was clearly safer to lie among the rocks than to cross the
+bullet-swept spaces beyond.  Those portions of the force who
+extricated themselves do not appear to have realised how many of their
+comrades had remained behind, and so as the gap gradually increased
+between the men who were stationary and the men who fell back all hope
+of the two bodies reuniting became impossible. All the infantry who
+remained upon the hillside were captured.  The rest rallied at a point
+fifteen hundred yards from the scene of the surprise, and began an
+orderly retreat to Molteno.
+
+In the meanwhile three powerful Boer guns upon the ridge had opened
+fire with great accuracy, but fortunately with defective shells.  Had
+the enemy's contractors been as trustworthy as their gunners in this
+campaign, our losses would have been very much heavier, and it is
+possible that here we catch a glimpse of some consequences of that
+corruption which was one of the curses of the country.  The guns were
+moved with great smartness along the ridge, and opened fire again and
+again, but never with great result. Our own batteries, the 74th and
+77th, with our handful of mounted men, worked hard in covering the
+retreat and holding back the enemy's pursuit.
+
+It is a sad subject to discuss, but it is the one instance in a
+campaign containing many reverses which amounts to demoralisation
+among the troops engaged. The Guards marching with the steadiness of
+Hyde Park off the field of Magersfontein, or the men of Nicholson's
+Nek chafing because they were not led in a last hopeless charge, are,
+even in defeat, object lessons of military virtue. But here fatigue
+and sleeplessness had taken all fire and spirit out of the men.  They
+dropped asleep by the roadside and had to be prodded up by their
+exhausted officers.  Many were taken prisoners in their slumber by the
+enemy who gleaned behind them.  Units broke into small straggling
+bodies, and it was a sorry and bedraggled force which about ten
+o'clock came wandering into Molteno.  The place of honour in the rear
+was kept throughout by the Irish Rifles, who preserved some military
+formation to the end.
+
+Our losses in killed and wounded were not severe -- military honour would
+have been less sore had they been more so.  Twenty-six killed,
+sixty-eight wounded -- that is all.  But between the men on the hillside
+and the somnambulists of the column, six hundred, about equally
+divided between the Irish Rifles and the Northumberland Fusiliers, had
+been left as prisoners. Two guns, too, had been lost in the hurried
+retreat.
+
+It is not for the historian -- especially for a civilian historian --
+to say a word unnecessarily to aggravate the pain of that brave man
+who, having done all that personal courage could do, was seen
+afterwards sobbing on the table of the waiting-room at Molteno, and
+bewailing his 'poor men.'  He had a disaster, but Nelson had one at
+Teneriffe and Napoleon at Acre, and built their great reputations in
+spite of it. But the one good thing of a disaster is that by examining
+it we may learn to do better in the future, and so it would indeed be
+a perilous thing if we agreed that our reverses were not a fit subject
+for open and frank discussion.
+
+It is not to the detriment of an enterprise that it should be daring
+and call for considerable physical effort on the part of those who are
+engaged in it. On the contrary, the conception of such plans is one of
+the signs of a great military mind.  But in the arranging of the
+details the same military mind should assiduously occupy itself in
+foreseeing and preventing every unnecessary thing which may make the
+execution of such a plan more difficult.  The idea of a swift sudden
+attack upon Stormberg was excellent -- the details of the operation
+are continually open to criticism.
+
+How far the Boers suffered at Stormberg is unknown to us, but there
+seems in this instance no reason to doubt their own statement that
+their losses were very slight.  At no time was any body of them
+exposed to our fire, while we, as usual, fought in the open.  Their
+numbers were probably less than ours, and the quality of their
+shooting and want of energy in pursuit make the defeat the more
+galling.  On the other hand, their guns were served with skill and
+audacity.  They consisted of commandos from Bethulie, Rouxville, and
+Smithfield, under the orders of Olivier, with those colonials whom
+they had seduced from their allegiance.
+
+This defeat of General Gatacre's, occurring, as it did, in a
+disaffected district and one of great strategic importance, might have
+produced the worst consequences.
+
+Fortunately no very evil result followed.  No doubt the recruiting of
+rebels was helped, but there was no forward movement and Molteno
+remained in our hands. In the meanwhile Gatacre's force was reinforced
+by a fresh battery, the 79th, and by a strong regiment, the
+Derbyshires, so that with the 1st Royal Scots and the wing of the
+Berkshires he was strong enough to hold his own until the time for a
+general advance should come.  So in the Stormberg district, as at the
+Modder River, the same humiliating and absurd position of stalemate
+was established.
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BATTLE OF COLENSO
+
+
+Two serious defeats had within the week been inflicted upon the
+British forces in South Africa.  Cronje, lurking behind his trenches
+and his barbed wire entanglements barred Methuen's road to Kimberley,
+while in the northern part of Cape Colony Gatacre's wearied troops had
+been defeated and driven by a force which consisted largely of British
+subjects. But the public at home steeled their hearts and fixed their
+eyes steadily upon Natal.  There was their senior General and there
+the main body of their troops.  As brigade after brigade and battery
+after battery touched at Cape Town, and were sent on instantly to
+Durban, it was evident that it was in this quarter that the supreme
+effort was to be made, and that there the light might at last break.
+In club, and dining room, and railway car -- wherever men met and
+talked -- the same words might be heard: 'Wait until Buller moves.'
+The hopes of a great empire lay in the phrase.
+
+It was upon October 30th that Sir George White had been thrust back
+into Ladysmith.  On November 2nd telegraphic communication with the
+town was interrupted. On November 3rd the railway line was cut. On
+November 10th the Boers held Colenso and the line of the Tugela.  On
+the 14th was the affair of the armoured train.  On the 18th the enemy
+were near Estcourt. On the 21st they had reached the Mooi River.  On
+the 23rd Hildyard attacked them at Willow Grange.  All these actions
+will be treated elsewhere.  This last one marks the turn of the tide.
+>From then onwards Sir Redvers Ruller was massing his troops at
+Chieveley in preparation for a great effort to cross the river and to
+relieve Ladysmith, the guns of which, calling from behind the line of
+northern hills, told their constant tale of restless attack and
+stubborn defence.
+
+But the task was as severe a one as the most fighting General Could
+ask for.  On the southern side the banks formed a long slope which
+could be shaved as with a razor by the rifle fire of the enemy.  How
+to advance across that broad open zone was indeed a problem.  It was
+one of many occasions in this war in which one wondered why, if a
+bullet-proof shield capable of sheltering a lying man could be
+constructed, a trial should not be given to it. Alternate rushes of
+companies with a safe rest after each rush would save the troops from
+the continued tension of that deadly never ending fire. However, it is
+idle to discuss what might have been done to mitigate their trials.
+The open ground had to be passed, and then they came to -- not the
+enemy, but a broad and deep river, with a single bridge, probably
+undermined, and a single ford, which was found not to exist in
+practice. Beyond the river was tier after tier of hills, crowned with
+stone walls and seamed with trenches, defended by thousands of the
+best marksmen in the world, supported by an admirable artillery.  If,
+in spite of the advance over the open and in spite of the passage of
+the river, a ridge could still be carried, it was only to be commanded
+by the next; and so, one behind the other, like the billows of the
+ocean, a series of hills and hollows rolled northwards to Ladysmith.
+All attacks must be in the open.  All defence was from under cover.
+Add to this, that the young and energetic Louis Botha was in command
+of the Boers.  It was a desperate task, and yet honour forbade that
+the garrison should be left to its fate.  The venture must be made.
+
+The most obvious criticism upon the operation is that if the attack
+must be made it should not be made under the enemy's conditions.  We
+seem almost to have gone out of our way to make every obstacle -- the
+glacislike approach, the river, the trenches -- as difficult as
+possible. Future operations were to prove that it was not so difficult
+to deceive Boer vigilance and by rapid movements to cross the
+Tugela. A military authority has stated, I know not with what truth,
+that there is no instance in history of a determined army being
+stopped by the line of a river, and from Wellington at the Douro to
+the Russians on the Danube many examples of the ease with which they
+may be passed will occur to the reader. But Buller had some
+exceptional difficulties with which to contend. He was weak in mounted
+troops, and was opposed to an enemy of exceptional mobility who might
+attack his flank and rear if he exposed them.  He had not that great
+preponderance of numbers which came to him later, and which enabled
+him to attempt a wide turning movement.  One advantage he had, the
+possession of a more powerful artillery, but his heaviest guns were
+naturally his least mobile, and the more direct his advance the more
+effective would his guns be. For these or other reasons he determined
+upon a frontal attack on the formidable Boer position, and he moved
+out of Chieveley Camp for that purpose at daybreak on Friday, December
+15th.
+
+The force which General Buller led into action was the finest which
+any British general had handled since the battle of the Alma.  Of
+infantry he had four strong brigades: the 2nd (Hildyard's) consisting
+of the 2nd Devons, the 2nd Queen's or West Surrey, the 2nd West
+Yorkshire, and the 2nd East Surrey; the 4th Brigade (Lyttelton's)
+comprising the 2nd Cameronians, the 3rd Rifles, the 1st Durhams, and
+the 1st Rifle Brigade; the 5th Brigade (Hart's) with the 1st
+Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 1st Connaught Rangers, 2nd Dublin
+Fusiliers, and the Border Regiment, this last taking the place of the
+2nd Irish Rifles, who were with Gatacre. There remained the 6th
+Brigade (Barton's), which included the 2nd Royal Fusiliers, the 2nd
+Scots Fusiliers, the 1st Welsh Fusiliers, and the 2nd Irish Fusiliers
+-- in all about 16,000 infantry.  The mounted men, who were commanded
+by Lord Dundonald, included the 13th Hussars, the 1st Royals,
+Bethune's Mounted Infantry, Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry, three
+squadrons of South African Horse, with a composite regiment formed
+from the mounted infantry of the Rifles and of the Dublin Fusiliers
+with squadrons of the Natal Carabineers and the Imperial Light Horse.
+These irregular troops of horse might be criticised by martinets and
+pedants, but they contained some of the finest fighting material in
+the army, some urged on by personal hatred of the Boers and some by
+mere lust of adventure.  As an example of the latter one squadron of
+the South African Horse was composed almost entirely of Texan
+muleteers, who, having come over with their animals, had been drawn by
+their own gallant spirit into the fighting line of their kinsmen.
+
+Cavalry was General Buller's weakest arm, but his artillery was strong
+both in its quality and its number of guns.  There were five batteries
+(30 guns) of the Field Artillery, the 7th, 14th, 63rd, 64th, and
+66th. Besides these there were no fewer than sixteen naval guns from
+H.M.S.'Terrible ' -- fourteen of which were 12-pounders, and the other
+two of the 4-7 type which had done such good service both at Ladysmith
+and with Methuen. The whole force which moved out from Chieveley Camp
+numbered about 21,000 men.
+
+The work which was allotted to the army was simple in conception,
+however terrible it might prove in execution.  There were two points
+at which the river might be crossed, one three miles off on the left,
+named Bridle Drift, the other straight ahead at the Bridge of
+Colenso. The 5th or Irish Brigade was to endeavour to cross at Bridle
+Drift, and then to work down the river bank on the far side so as to
+support the 2nd or English Brigade, -- which was to cross at Colenso.
+The 4th Brigade was to advance between these, so as to help either
+which should be in difficulties.  Meanwhile on the extreme right the
+mounted troops under Dundonald were to cover the flank and to attack
+Hlangwane Hill, a formidable position held strongly by the enemy upon
+the south bank of the Tugela.  The remaining Fusilier brigade of
+infantry was to support this movement on the right.  The guns were to
+cover the various attacks, and if possible gain a position from which
+the trenches might be enfiladed. This, simply stated, was the work
+which lay before the British army. In the bright clear morning
+sunshine, under a cloudless blue sky, they advanced with high hopes to
+the assault.  Before them lay the long level plain, then the curve of
+the river, and beyond, silent and serene, like some peaceful dream
+landscape, stretched the lines and lines of gently curving hills. It
+was just five o'clock in the morning when the naval guns began to bay,
+and huge red dustclouds from the distant foothills showed where the
+lyddite was bursting.  No answer came back, nor was there any movement
+upon the sunlit hills.  It was almost brutal, this furious violence to
+so gentle and unresponsive a countryside.  In no place could the
+keenest eye detect a sign of guns or men, and yet death lurked in
+every hollow and crouched by every rock.
+
+It is so difficult to make a modern battle intelligible when fought,
+as this was, over a front of seven or eight miles, that it is best
+perhaps to take the doings of each column in turn, beginning with the
+left flank, where Hart's Irish Brigade had advanced to the assault of
+Bridle Drift.
+
+Under an unanswered and therefore an unaimed fire from the heavy guns
+the Irish infantry moved forward upon the points which they had been
+ordered to attack.  The Dublins led, then the Connaughts, the
+Inniskillings, and the Borderers.  Incredible as it may appear after
+the recent experiences of Magersfontein and of Stormberg, the men in
+the two rear regiments appear to have been advanced in quarter column,
+and not to have deployed until after the enemy's fire had opened.  Had
+shrapnel struck this close formation, as it was within an ace of
+doing, the loss of life must have been as severe as it was
+unnecessary.
+
+On approaching the Drift -- the position or even the existence of
+which does not seem to have been very clearly defined -- it was found
+that the troops had to advance into a loop formed by the river, so
+that they were exposed to a very heavy cross-fire upon their right
+flank, while they were rained on by shrapnel from in front.  No sign
+of the enemy could be seen, though the men were dropping fast.  It is
+a weird and soul-shaking experience to advance over a sunlit and
+apparently a lonely countryside, with no slightest movement upon its
+broad face, while the path which you take is marked behind you by
+sobbing, gasping, writhing men, who can only guess by the position of
+their wounds whence the shots came which struck them down. All round,
+like the hissing of fat in the pan, is the monotonous crackle and
+rattle of the Mausers; but the air is full of it, and no one can
+define exactly whence it comes. Far away on some hill upon the skyline
+there hangs the least gauzy veil of thin smoke to indicate whence the
+six men who have just all fallen together, as if it were some grim
+drill, met their death.  Into such a hell-storm as this it was that
+the soldiers have again and again advanced in the course of this war,
+but it may be questioned whether they will not prove to be among the
+last of mortals to be asked to endure such an ordeal.  Other methods
+of attack must be found or attacks must be abandoned, for smokeless
+powder, quick-firing guns, and modern rifles make it all odds on the
+defence!
+
+The gallant Irishmen pushed on, flushed with battle and careless for
+their losses, the four regiments clubbed into one, with all military
+organisation rapidly disappearing, and nothing left but their gallant
+spirit and their furious desire to come to hand-grips with the enemy.
+Rolling on in a broad wave of shouting angry men, they never winced
+from the fire until they had swept up to the bank of the river.
+Northern Inniskilling and Southern man of Connaught, orange and
+green, Protestant and Catholic, Celt and Saxon, their only rivalry
+now was who could shed his blood most freely for the common cause.
+How hateful seem those provincial politics and narrow sectarian creeds
+which can hold such men apart!
+
+The bank of the river had been gained, but where was the ford? The
+water swept broad and unruffled in front of them, with no indication
+of shallows. A few dashing fellows sprang in, but their cartridges and
+rifles dragged them to the bottom.  One or two may even have struggled
+through to the further side, but on this there is a conflict of
+evidence.  It may be, though it seems incredible, that the river had
+been partly dammed to deepen the Drift, or, as is more probable, that
+in the rapid advance and attack the position of the Drift was lost.
+However this may be, the troops could find no ford, and they lay down,
+as had been done in so many previous actions, unwilling to retreat and
+unable to advance, with the same merciless pelting from front and
+flank.  In every fold and behind every anthill the Irishmen lay thick
+and waited for better times.  There are many instances of their cheery
+and uncomplaining humour.  Colonel Brooke, of the Connaughts, fell at
+the head of his men.  Private Livingstone helped to carry him into
+safety, and then, his task done, he confessed to having 'a bit of a
+rap meself,' and sank fainting with a bullet through his throat.
+Another sat with a bullet through both legs. 'Bring me a tin whistle
+and I'll blow ye any tune ye like,' he cried, mindful of the Dargai
+piper. Another with his arm hanging by a tendon puffed morosely at his
+short black pipe.  Every now and then, in face of the impossible, the
+fiery Celtic valour flamed furiously upwards.  'Fix bayonets, men, and
+let us make a name for ourselves,' cried a colour sergeant, and he
+never spoke again.  For five hours, under the tropical sun, the grimy
+parched men held on to the ground they had occupied. British shells
+pitched short and fell among them. A regiment in support fired at
+them, not knowing that any of the line were so far advanced.  Shot at
+from the front, the flank, and the rear, the 5th Brigade held grimly
+on.
+
+But fortunately their orders to retire were at hand, and it is certain
+that had they not reached them the regiments would have been uselessly
+destroyed where they lay.  It seems to have been Buller himself, who
+showed extraordinary and ubiquitous personal energy during the day,
+that ordered them to fall back. As they retreated there was an entire
+absence of haste and panic, but officers and men were hopelessly
+jumbled up, and General Hart -- whose judgment may occasionally be
+questioned, but whose cool courage was beyond praise -- had hard work
+to reform the splendid brigade which six hours before had tramped out
+of Chieveley Camp. Between five and six hundred of them had fallen --
+a loss which approximates to that of the Highland Brigade at
+Magersfontein.  The Dublins and the Connaughts were the heaviest
+sufferers.
+
+So much for the mishap of the 5th Brigade.  It is superfluous to point
+out that the same old omissions were responsible for the same old
+results.  Why were the men in quarter column when advancing against an
+unseen foe? Why had no scouts gone forward to be certain of the
+position of the ford? Where were the clouds of skirmishers which
+should precede such an advance?  The recent examples in the field and
+the teachings of the text-books were equally set at naught, as they
+had been, and were to be, so often in this campaign.  There may be a
+science of war in the lecture-rooms at Camberley, but very little of
+it found its way to the veldt.  The slogging valour of the private,
+the careless dash of the regimental officer -- these were our military
+assets -- but seldom the care and foresight of our commanders.  It is
+a thankless task to make such comments, but the one great lesson of
+the war has been that the army is too vital a thing to fall into the
+hands of a caste, and that it is a national duty for every man to
+speak fearlessly and freely what he believes to be the truth.
+
+Passing from the misadventure of the 5th Brigade we come as we move
+from left to right upon the 4th, or Lyttelton's Brigade, which was
+instructed not to attack itself but to support the attack on either
+side of it. With the help of the naval guns it did what it could to
+extricate and cover the retreat of the Irishmen, but it could play no
+very important part in the action, and its losses were
+insignificant. On its right in turn Hildyard's English Brigade had
+developed its attack upon Colenso and the bridge.  The regiments under
+Hildyard's lead were the 2nd West Surrey, the 2nd Devons (whose first
+battalion was doing so well with the Ladysmith force), the East
+Surreys, and the West Yorkshires.  The enemy had evidently anticipated
+the main attack on this position, and not only were the trenches upon
+the other side exceptionally strong, but their artillery converged
+upon the bridge, at least a dozen heavy pieces, besides a number of
+quick-firers, bearing upon it.  The Devons and the Queens, in open
+order (an extended line of khaki dots, blending so admirably with the
+plain that they were hardly visible when they halted), led the attack,
+being supported by the East Surrey and the West Yorkshires.  Advancing
+under a very heavy fire the brigade experienced much the same ordeal
+as their comrades of Hart's brigade, which was mitigated by the fact
+that from the first they preserved their open order in columns of
+half-companies extended to six paces, and that the river in front of
+them did not permit that right flank fire which was so fatal to the
+Irishmen. With a loss of some two hundred men the leading regiments
+succeeded in reaching Colenso, and the West Surrey, advancing by
+rushes of fifty yards at a time, had established itself in the
+station, but a catastrophe had occurred at an earlier hour to the
+artillery which was supporting it which rendered all. further advance
+impossible.  For the reason of this we must follow the fortunes of the
+next unit upon their right.
+
+This consisted of the important body of artillery who had been told
+off to support the main attack.  It comprised two field batteries, the
+14th and the 66th, under the command of Colonel Long, and six naval
+guns (two of 4.7, and four 12-pounders) under Lieutenant Ogilvy of the
+'Terrible.'  Long has the record of being a most zealous and dashing
+officer, whose handling of the Egyptian artillery at the battle of the
+Atbara had much to do with the success of the action. Unfortunately,
+these barbarian campaigns, in which liberties may be taken with
+impunity, leave an evil tradition, as the French have found with their
+Algerians.  Our own close formations, our adherence to volley firing,
+and in this instance the use of our artillery all seem to be legacies
+of our savage wars.  Be the cause what it may, at an early stage of
+the action Long's guns whirled forwards, outstripped the infantry
+brigades upon their flanks, left the slow-moving naval guns with their
+ox-teams behind them, and unlimbered within a thousand yards of the
+enemy's trenches.  From this position he opened fire upon Fort Wylie,
+which was the centre of that portion of the Boer position which faced
+him.
+
+But his two unhappy batteries were destined not to turn the tide of
+battle, as he had hoped, but rather to furnish the classic example of
+the helplessness of artillery against modern rifle fire.  Not even
+Mercer's famous description of the effect of a flank fire upon his
+troop of horse artillery at Waterloo could do justice to the blizzard
+of lead which broke over the two doomed batteries.  The teams fell in
+heaps, some dead, some mutilated, and mutilating others in their
+frantic struggles. One driver, crazed with horror, sprang on a leader,
+cut the traces and tore madly off the field. But a perfect discipline
+reigned among the vast majority of the gunners, and the words of
+command and the laying and working of the guns were all as methodical
+as at Okehampton.  Not only was there a most deadly rifle fire, partly
+from the lines in front and partly from the village of Colenso upon
+their left flank, but the Boer automatic quick-firers found the range
+to a nicety, and the little shells were crackling and banging
+continually over the batteries.  Already every gun had its litter of
+dead around it, but each was still fringed by its own group of furious
+officers and sweating desperate gunners. Poor Long was down, with a
+bullet through his arm and another through his liver.  'Abandon be
+damned!  We don't abandon guns!' was his last cry as they dragged him
+into the shelter of a little donga hard by.  Captain Goldie dropped
+dead.  So did Lieutenant Schreiber. Colonel Hunt fell, shot in two
+places.  Officers and men were falling fast.  The guns could not be
+worked, and yet they could not be removed, for every effort to bring
+up teams from the shelter where the limbers lay ended in the death of
+the horses.  The survivors took refuge from the murderous fire in that
+small hollow to which Long had been carried, a hundred yards or so
+from the line of bullet-splashed cannon.  One gun on the right was
+still served by four men who refused to leave it. They seemed to bear
+charmed lives, these four, as they strained and wrestled with their
+beloved 15-pounder, amid the spurting sand and the blue wreaths of the
+bursting shells.  Then one gasped and fell against the trail, and his
+comrade sank beside the wheel with his chin upon his breast.  The
+third threw up his hands and pitched forward upon his face; while the
+survivor, a grim powder-stained figure, stood at attention looking
+death in the eyes until he too was struck down.  A useless sacrifice,
+you may say; but while the men who saw them die can tell such a story
+round the camp fire the example of such deaths as these does more than
+clang of bugle or roll of drum to stir the warrior spirit of our race.
+
+For two hours the little knot of heart-sick humiliated officers and
+men lay in the precarious shelter of the donga and looked out at the
+bullet-swept plain and the line of silent guns.  Many of them were
+wounded. Their chief lay among them, still calling out in his delirium
+for his guns.  They had been joined by the gallant Baptie, a brave
+surgeon, who rode across to the donga amid a murderous fire, and did
+what he could for the injured men.  Now and then a rush was made into
+the open, sometimes in the hope of firing another round, sometimes to
+bring a wounded comrade in from the pitiless pelt of the bullets.  How
+fearful was that lead-storm may be gathered from the fact that one
+gunner was found with sixty-four wounds in his body.  Several men
+dropped in these sorties, and the disheartened survivors settled down
+once more in the donga.
+
+The hope to which they clung was that their guns were not really lost,
+but that the arrival of infantry would enable them to work them once
+more. Infantry did at last arrive, but in such small numbers that it
+made the situation more difficult instead of easing it. Colonel
+Bullock had brought up two companies of the Devons to join the two
+companies (A and B) of Scots Fusiliers who had been the original
+escort of the guns, but such a handful could not turn the tide.  They
+also took refuge in the donga, and waited for better times.
+
+In the meanwhile the attention of Generals Buller and Clery had been
+called to the desperate position of the guns, and they had made their
+way to that further nullah in the rear where the remaining limber
+horses and drivers were.  This was some distance behind that other
+donga in which Long, Bullock, and their Devons and gunners were
+crouching.  'Will any of you volunteer to save the guns?' cried
+Buller.  Corporal Nurse, Gunner Young, and a few others responded.
+The desperate venture was led by three aides-de-camp of the Generals,
+Congreve, Schofield, and Roberts, the only son of the famous soldier.
+Two gun teams were taken down; the horses galloping frantically
+through an infernal fire, and each team succeeded in getting back with
+a gun.  But the loss was fearful. Roberts was mortally wounded.
+Congreve has left an account which shows what a modern rifle fire at a
+thousand yards is like.  'My first bullet went through my left sleeve
+and made the joint of my elbow bleed, next a clod of earth caught me
+smack on the right arm, then my horse got one, then my right leg one,
+then my horse another, and that settled us.'  The gallant fellow
+managed to crawl to the group of castaways in the donga. Roberts
+insisted on being left where he fell, for fear he should hamper the
+others.
+
+In the meanwhile Captain Reed, of the 7th Battery, had arrived with
+two spare teams of horses, and another determined effort was made
+under his leadership to save some of the guns.  But the fire was too
+murderous. Two-thirds of his horses and half his men, including
+himself, were struck down, and General Buller commanded that all
+further attempts to reach the abandoned batteries should be given
+up. Both he and General Clery had been slightly wounded, and there
+were many operations over the whole field of action to engage their
+attention.  But making every allowance for the pressure of many duties
+and for the confusion and turmoil of a great action, it does seem one
+of the most inexplicable incidents in British military history that
+the guns should ever have been permitted to fall into the hands of the
+enemy. It is evident that if our gunners could not live under the fire
+of the enemy it would be equally impossible for the enemy to remove
+the guns under a fire from a couple of battalions of our infantry.
+There were many regiments which had hardly been engaged, and which
+could have been advanced for such a purpose. The men of the Mounted
+Infantry actually volunteered for this work, and none could have been
+more capable of carrying it out.  There was plenty of time also, for
+the guns were abandoned about eleven and the Boers did not venture to
+seize them until four.  Not only could the guns have been saved, but
+they might, one would think, have been transformed into an excellent
+bait for a trap to tempt the Boers out of their trenches. It must have
+been with fear and trembling that Cherry Emmett and his men first
+approached them, for how could they believe that such incredible good
+fortune had come to them? However, the fact, humiliating and
+inexplicable, is that the guns were so left, that the whole force was
+withdrawn, and that not only the ten cannon, but also the handful of
+Devons, with their Colonel, and the Fusiliers were taken prisoners in
+the donga which had sheltered them all day.
+
+We have now, working from left to right, considered the operations of
+Hart's Brigade at Bridle Drift, of Lyttelton's Brigade in support, of
+Hildyard's which attacked Colenso, and of the luckless batteries which
+were to have helped him.  There remain two bodies of troops upon the
+right, the further consisting of Dundonald's mounted men who were to
+attack Hlangwane Hill, a fortified Boer position upon the south of the
+river, while Barton's Brigade was to support it and to connect this
+attack with the central operations.
+
+Dundonald's force was entirely too weak for such an operation as the
+capture of the formidable entrenched hill, and it is probable that the
+movement was meant rather as a reconnaissance than as an assault. He
+had not more than a thousand men in all, mostly irregulars, and the
+position which faced him was precipitous and entrenched, with
+barbed-wire entanglements and automatic guns. But the gallant
+colonials were out on their first action, and their fiery courage
+pushed the attack home.  Leaving their horses, they advanced a mile
+and a half on foot before they came within easy range of the hidden
+riflemen, and learned the lesson which had been taught to their
+comrades all along the line, that given approximately equal numbers
+the attack in the open has no possible chance against the concealed
+defence, and that the more bravely it is pushed the more heavy is the
+repulse.  The irregulars carried themselves like old soldiers, they
+did all that mortal man could do, and they retired coolly and slowly
+with the loss of 130 of the brave troopers. The 7th Field Battery did
+all that was possible to support the advance and cover the
+retirement. In no single place, on this day of disaster, did one least
+gleam of success come to warm the hearts and reward the exertions of
+our much-enduring men.
+
+Of Barton's Brigade there is nothing to be recorded, for they appear
+neither to have supported the attack upon Hlangwane Hill on the one
+side nor to have helped to cover the ill-fated guns on the other.
+Barton was applied to for help by Dundonald, but refused to detach any
+of his troops.  If General Buller's real idea was a reconnaissance in
+force in order to determine the position and strength of the Boer
+lines, then of course his brigadiers must have felt a. reluctance to
+entangle their brigades in a battle which was really the result of a
+misunderstanding.  On the other hand, if, as the orders of the day
+seem to show, a serious engagement was always intended, it is strange
+that two brigades out of four should have played so insignificant a
+part.  To Barton's Brigade was given the responsibility of seeing that
+no right flank attack was carried out by the Boers, and this held it
+back until it was clear that no such attack was contemplated. After
+that one would have thought that, had the situation been appreciated,
+at least two battalions might have been spared to cover the abandoned
+guns with their rifle fire. Two companies of the Scots Fusiliers did
+share the fortunes of the guns.  Two others, and one of the Irish
+Fusiliers, acted in support, but the brigade as a whole, together with
+the 1st Royals and the 13th Hussars, might as well have been at
+Aldershot for any bearing which their work had upon the fortunes of
+the day.
+
+And so the first attempt at the relief of Ladysmith came to an end.
+At twelve o'clock all the troops upon the ground were retreating for
+the camp.  There was nothing in the shape of rout or panic, and the
+withdrawal was as orderly as the advance; but the fact remained that
+we had just 1,200 men in killed, wounded, and missing, and had gained
+absolutely nothing. We had not even the satisfaction of knowing that
+we had inflicted as well as endured punishment, for the enemy remained
+throughout the day so cleverly concealed that it is doubtful whether
+more than a hundred casualties occurred in their ranks.  Once more it
+was shown how weak an arm is artillery against an enemy who lies in
+shelter.
+
+Our wounded fortunately bore a high proportion to our killed, as they
+always will do when it is rifle fire rather than shell fire which is
+effective. Roughly we had 150 killed and about 720 wounded. A more
+humiliating item is the 250 or so who were missing. These men were the
+gunners, the Devons, and the Scots Fusiliers, who were taken in the
+donga together with small bodies from the Connaughts, the Dublins, and
+other regiments who, having found some shelter, were unable to leave
+it, and clung on until the retirement of their regiments left them in
+a hopeless position. Some of these small knots of men were allowed to
+retire in the evening by the Boers, who seemed by no means anxious to
+increase the number of their prisoners. Colonel Thackeray, of the
+Inniskilling Fusiliers, found himself with a handful of his men
+surrounded by the enemy, but owing to their good humour and his own
+tact he succeeded in withdrawing them in safety. The losses fell
+chiefly on Hart's Brigade, Hildyard's Brigade, and the colonial
+irregulars, who bore off the honours of the fight.
+
+In his official report General Buller states that were it not for the
+action of Colonel Long and the subsequent disaster to the artillery he
+thought that the battle might have been a successful one.  This is a
+hard saying, and throws perhaps too much responsibility upon the
+gallant but unfortunate gunner.  There have been occasions in the war
+when greater dash upon the part of our artillery might have changed
+the fate of the day, and it is bad policy to be too severe upon the
+man who has taken a risk and failed.  The whole operation, with its
+advance over the open against a concealed enemy with a river in his
+front, was so absolutely desperate that Long may have seen that only
+desperate measures could save the situation. To bring guns into action
+in front of the infantry without having clearly defined the position
+of the opposing infantry must always remain one of the most hazardous
+ventures of war.  'It would certainly be mere folly,' says Prince
+Kraft, 'to advance artillery to within 600 or 800 yards of a position
+held by infantry unless the latter were under the fire of infantry
+from an even shorter range.'  This 'mere folly' is exactly what
+Colonel Long did, but it must be remembered in extenuation that he
+shared with others the idea that the Boers were up on the hills, and
+had no inkling that their front trenches were down at the river.  With
+the imperfect means at his disposal he did such scouting as he could,
+and if his fiery and impetuous spirit led him into a position which
+cost him so dearly it is certainly more easy for the critic to
+extenuate his fault than that subsequent one which allowed the
+abandoned guns to fall into the hands of the enemy. Nor is there any
+evidence that the loss of these guns did seriously affect the fate of
+the action, for at those other parts of the field where the infantry
+had the full and unceasing support of the artillery the result was not
+more favourable than at the centre.
+
+So much for Colenso. A more unsatisfactory and in some ways
+inexplicable action is not to be found in the range of British
+military history. And the fuller the light which has been poured upon
+it, the more extraordinary does the battle appear.  There are a
+preface and a sequel to the action which have put a severe strain upon
+the charity which the British public has always shown that it is
+prepared to extend to a defeated General. The preface is that General
+Buller sent word to General White that he proposed to attack upon the
+17th, while the actual attack was delivered upon the 15th, so that the
+garrison was not prepared to make that demonstration which might have
+prevented the besiegers from sending important reinforcements to
+Botha, had he needed them.  The sequel is more serious. Losing all
+heart at his defeat, General Buller, although he had been officially
+informed that White had provisions for seventy days, sent a heliogram
+advising the surrender of the garrison. White's first reply, which
+deserves to live with the anecdote of Nelson's telescope at his blind
+eye, was to the effect that he believed the enemy had been tampering
+with Buller's messages. To this Buller despatched an amended message,
+which with Sir George White's reply, is here appended:
+
+Message of December 16th, as altered by that of
+	December 17th, 1899.
+
+'I tried Colenso yesterday, but failed; the enemy is too strong for my
+force except with siege operations, and these will take one full month
+to prepare. Can you last so long?
+
+'How many days can you hold out? I suggest you firing away as much
+ammunition as you can, and making best terms you can. I can remain
+here if you have alternative suggestion, but unaided I cannot break
+in. I find my infantry cannot fight more than ten miles from camp, and
+then only if water can be got, and it is scarce here. Whatever
+happens, recollect to burn your cipher, decipher, and code books, and
+all deciphered messages.'
+
+>From Sir G. White to Sir R. Buller.
+     December 16th, 1899.
+
+'Yours of today received and understood.  My suggestion is that you
+take up strongest available position that will enable you to keep
+touch of the enemy and harass him constantly with artillery fire, and
+in other ways as much as possible.  I can make food last for much
+longer than a month, and will not think of making terms till I am
+forced to.  You may have hit enemy harder than you think.  All our
+native spies report that your artillery fire made considerable
+impression on enemy.  Have your losses been very heavy? If you lose
+touch of enemy, it will immensely increase his opportunities of
+crushing me, and have worst effect elsewhere.  While you are in touch
+with him and in communication with me, he has both of our forces to
+reckon with. Make every effort to get reinforcements as early as
+possible, including India, and enlist every man in both colonies who
+will serve and can ride. Things may look brighter. The loss of 12,000
+men here would be a heavy blow to England.  We must not yet think of
+it. I fear I could not cut my way to you. Enteric fever is increasing
+alarmingly here.  There are now 180 cases, all within last month.
+Answer fully. I am keeping everything secret for the present till I
+know your plans.'
+
+Much allowance is to be made for a man who is staggering under the
+mental shock of defeat and the physical exertions which Buller had
+endured.  That the Government made such allowance is clear from the
+fact that he was not instantly recalled.  And yet the cold facts are
+that we have a British General, at the head of 25,000 men,
+recommending another General, at the head of 12,000 men only twelve
+miles off, to lay down his arms to an army which was certainly very
+inferior in numbers to the total British force; and this because he
+had once been defeated, although he knew that there was still time for
+the whole resources of the Empire to be poured into Natal in order to
+prevent so shocking a disaster.  Such is a plain statement of the
+advice which Buller gave and which White rejected. For the instant the
+fate not only of South Africa but even, as I believe, of the Empire
+hung upon the decision of the old soldier in Ladysmith, who had to
+resist the proposals of his own General as sternly as the attacks of
+the enemy. He who sorely needed help and encouragement became, as his
+message shows, the helper and the encourager. It was a tremendous
+test, and Sir George White came through it with a staunchness and a
+loyalty which saved us not only from overwhelming present disaster,
+but from a hideous memory which must have haunted British military
+annals for centuries to come.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE DARK HOUR
+
+The week which extended from December 10th to December 17th, 1899, was
+the blackest one known during our generation, and the most disastrous
+for British arms during the century. We had in the short space of
+seven days lost, beyond all extenuation or excuse, three separate
+actions.  No single defeat was of vital importance in itself, but the
+cumulative effect, occurring as they did to each of the main British
+forces in South Africa, was very great.  The total loss amounted to
+about three thousand men and twelve guns, while the indirect effects
+in the way of loss of prestige to ourselves and increased confidence
+and more numerous recruits to our enemy were incalculable.
+
+It is singular to glance at the extracts from the European press at
+that time and to observe the delight and foolish exultation with which
+our reverses were received. That this should occur in the French
+journals is not unnatural, since our history has been largely a
+contest with that Power, and we can regard with complacency an enmity
+which is the tribute to our success.  Russia, too, as the least
+progressive of European States, has a natural antagonism of thought,
+if not of interests, to the Power which stands most prominently for
+individual freedom and liberal institutions.  The same poor excuse may
+be made for the organs of the Vatican. But what are we to say of the
+insensate railing of Germany, a country whose ally we have been for
+centuries? In the days of Marlborough, in the darkest hours of
+Frederick the Great, in the great world struggle of Napoleon, we have
+been the brothers-in-arms of these people.  So with the Austrians
+also. If both these countries were not finally swept from the map by
+Napoleon, it is largely to British subsidies and British tenacity that
+they owe it. And yet these are the folk who turned most bitterly
+against us at the only time in modern history when we had a chance of
+distinguishing our friends from our foes.  Never again, I trust, on
+any pretext will a British guinea be spent or a British soldier or
+sailor shed his blood for such allies.  The political lesson of this
+writer has been that we should make ourselves strong within the empire,
+and let all outside it, save only our kinsmen of America, go their own
+way and meet their own fate without let or hindrance from us. It is
+amazing to find that even the Americans could understand the stock
+from which they are themselves sprung so little that such papers as
+the 'New York Herald' should imagine that our defeat at Colenso was a
+good opportunity for us to terminate the war. The other leading
+American journals, however, took a more sane view of the situation,
+and realised that ten years of such defeats would not find the end
+either of our resolution or of our resources.
+
+In the British Islands and in the empire at large our misfortunes were
+met by a sombre but unalterable determination to carry the war to a
+successful conclusion and to spare no sacrifices which could lead to
+that end. Amid the humiliation of our reverses there was a certain
+undercurrent of satisfaction that the deeds of our foemen should at
+least have made the contention that the strong was wantonly attacking
+the weak an absurd one. Under the stimulus of defeat the opposition to
+the war sensibly decreased.  It had become too absurd even for the
+most unreasonable platform orator to contend that a struggle had been
+forced upon the Boers when every fresh detail showed how thoroughly
+they had prepared for such a contingency and how much we had to make
+up. Many who had opposed the war simply on that sporting instinct
+which backs the smaller against the larger began to realise that what
+with the geographical position of these people, what with the nature
+of their country, and what with the mobility, number, and hardihood of
+their forces, we had undertaken a task which would necessitate such a
+military effort as we had never before been called upon to make. when
+Kipling at the dawn of the war had sung of 'fifty thousand horse and
+foot going to Table Bay,' the statement had seemed extreme.  Now it
+was growing upon the public mind that four times this number would not
+be an excessive estimate. But the nation rose grandly to the effort.
+Their only fear, often and loudly expressed, was that Parliament would
+deal too tamely with the situation and fail to demand sufficient
+sacrifices.  Such was the wave of feeling over the country that it was
+impossible to hold a peace meeting anywhere without a certainty of
+riot.  The only London daily which had opposed the war, though very
+ably edited, was overborne by the general sentiment and compelled to
+change its line.  In the provinces also opposition was almost silent,
+and the great colonies were even more unanimous than the mother
+country.  Misfortune had solidified us where success might have caused
+a sentimental opposition.
+
+On the whole, the energetic mood of the nation was reflected by the
+decided measures of the Government. Before the deep-sea cables had
+told us the lists of our dead, steps had been taken to prove to the
+world how great were our latent resources and how determined our
+spirit.  On December 18th, two days after Colenso, the following
+provisions were made for carrying on the campaign.
+
+1. That as General Buller's hands were full in Natal the supervision
+and direction of the whole campaign should be placed in the hands of
+Lord Roberts, with Lord Kitchener as his chief of staff. Thus the
+famous old soldier and the famous young one were called together to
+the assistance of the country.
+
+2. That all the remaining army reserves should be called out.
+
+3. That the 7th Division (10,000 men) should be despatched to Africa,
+and that an 8th Division should be formed ready for service.
+
+4. That considerable artillery reinforcements, including a howitzer
+brigade, should go out.
+
+5. That eleven Militia battalions be sent abroad.
+
+6. That a strong contingent of Volunteers be sent out.
+
+7. That a Yeomanry mounted force be despatched.
+
+8. That mounted corps be raised at the discretion of the
+Commander-in-Chief in South Africa.
+
+9. That the patriotic offers of further contingents from the colonies
+be gratefully accepted.
+
+By these measures it was calculated that from seventy to a hundred thousand men would be added to our South African armies, the numbers of which were already not short of a hundred thousand.
+
+It is one thing, however, to draw up paper reinforcements, and it is
+another, in a free country where no compulsion would be tolerated, to
+turn these plans into actual regiments and squadrons. But if there
+were any who doubted that this ancient nation still glowed with the
+spirit of its youth his fears must soon have passed away.  For this
+far-distant war, a war of the unseen foe and of the murderous
+ambuscade, there were so many volunteers that the authorities were
+embarrassed by their numbers and their pertinacity. It was a
+stimulating sight to see those long queues of top-hatted, frock-coated
+young men who waited their turn for the orderly room with as much
+desperate anxiety as if hard fare, a veldt bed, and Boer bullets were
+all that life had that was worth the holding.  Especially the Imperial
+Yeomanry, a corps of riders and shots, appealed to the sporting
+instincts of our race. Many could ride and not shoot, many could shoot
+and not ride, more candidates were rejected than were accepted, and
+yet in a very short time eight thousand men from every class were
+wearing the grey coats and bandoliers.  This singular and formidable
+force was drawn from every part of England and Scotland, with a
+contingent of hard-riding Irish fox-hunters. Noblemen and grooms rode
+knee to knee in the ranks, and the officers included many well-known
+country gentlemen and masters of hounds.  Well horsed and well armed,
+a better force for the work in hand could not be imagined.  So high
+did the patriotism run that corps were formed in which the men not
+only found their own equipment but contributed their pay to the war
+fund. Many young men about town justified their existence for the
+first time.  In a single club, which is peculiarly consecrated to the
+JEUNESSE DOREE, three hundred members rode to the wars.
+
+Without waiting for these distant but necessary reinforcements, the
+Generals in Africa had two divisions to look to, one of which was
+actually arriving while the other was on the sea.  These formed the
+5th Division under Sir Charles Warren, and the 6th Division under
+General Kelly-Kenny. Until these forces should arrive it was obviously
+best that the three armies should wait, for, unless there should be
+pressing need of help on the part of the besieged garrisons or
+imminent prospects of European complications, every week which passed
+was in our favour. There was therefore a long lull in the war, during
+which Methuen strengthened his position at Modder River, Gatacre held
+his own at Sterkstroom, and Buller built up his strength for another
+attempt at the relief of Ladysmith. The only connected series of
+operations during that time were those of General French in the
+neighbourhood of Colesberg, an account of which will be found in their
+entirety elsewhere. A short narrative may be given here of the doings
+of each of these forces until the period of inaction came to an end.
+
+Methuen after the repulse at Magersfontein had fallen back upon the
+lines of Modder River, and had fortified them in such a way that he
+felt himself secure against assault. Cronje, on the other hand, had
+extended his position both to the right and to the left, and had
+strengthened the works which we had already found so formidable.  In
+this way a condition of inaction was established which was really very
+much to our advantage, since Methuen retained his communications by
+rail, while all supplies to Cronje had to come a hundred miles by
+road. The British troops, and especially the Highland Brigade, were
+badly in need of a rest after the very severe ordeal which they had
+undergone. General Hector Macdonald, whose military record had earned
+the soldierly name of 'Fighting Mac,' was sent for from India to take
+the place of the ill-fated Wauchope. Pending his arrival and that of
+reinforcements, Methuen remained quiet, and the Boers fortunately
+followed his example. From over the northern horizon those silver
+flashes of light told that Kimberley was dauntless in the present and
+hopeful of the future.  On January 1st the British post of Kuruman
+fell, by which twelve officers and 120 police were captured.  The town
+was isolated, and its capture could have no effect upon the general
+operations, but it is remarkable as the only capture of a fortified
+post up to this point made by the Boers.
+
+The monotony of the long wait was broken by one dashing raid carried
+out by a detachment from Methuen's line of communications.  This force
+consisted of 200 Queenslanders, 100 Canadians (Toronto Company), 40
+mounted Munster Fusiliers, a New South Wales Ambulance, and 200 of the
+Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry with one horse battery.  This
+singular force, so small in numbers and yet raked from the ends of the
+earth, was under the command of Colonel Pilcher.  Moving out suddenly
+and rapidly from Belmont, it struck at the extreme right of the Boer
+line, which consisted of a laager occupied by the colonial rebels of
+that part of the country.  Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm of the
+colonists at the prospect of action.  'At last!' was the cry which
+went up from the Canadians when they were ordered to advance. The
+result was an absolute success. The rebels broke and fled, their camp
+was taken, and forty of them fell into our hands.  Our own loss was
+slight, three killed and a few wounded.  The flying column occupied
+the town of Douglas and hoisted the British flag there; but it was
+decided that the time had not yet come when it could be held, and the
+force fell back upon Belmont.  The rebel prisoners were sent down to
+Cape Town for trial.  The movement was covered by the advance of a
+force under Babington from Methuen's force.  This detachment,
+consisting of the 9th and 12th Lancers, with some mounted infantry and
+G troop of Horse Artillery, prevented any interference with Pilcher's
+force from the north. It is worthy of record that though the two
+bodies of troops were operating at a distance of thirty miles, they
+succeeded in preserving a telephonic connection, seventeen minutes
+being the average time taken over question and reply.
+
+Encouraged by this small success, Methuen's cavalry on January 9th
+made another raid over the Free State border, which is remarkable for
+the fact that, save in the case of Colonel Plumer's Rhodesian Force,
+it was the first time that the enemy's frontier had been violated. The
+expedition under Babington consisted of the same regiments and the
+same battery which had covered Pilcher's advance. The line taken was a
+south-easterly one, so as to get far round the left flank of the Boer
+position. With the aid of a party of the Victorian Mounted Rifles a
+considerable tract of country was overrun, and some farmhouses
+destroyed.  The latter extreme measure may have been taken as a
+warning to the Boers that such depredations as they had carried out in
+parts of Natal could not pass with impunity, but both the policy and
+the humanity of such a course appear to be open to question, and there
+was some cause for the remonstrance which President Kruger shortly
+after addressed to us upon the subject. The expedition returned to
+Modder Camp at the end of two days without having seen the enemy. Save
+for one or two similar cavalry reconnaissances, an occasional
+interchange of long-range shells, a little sniping, and one or two
+false alarms at night, which broke the whole front of Magersfontein
+into yellow lines of angry light, nothing happened to Methuen's force
+which is worthy of record up to the time of that movement of General
+Hector Macdonald to Koodoosberg which may be considered in connection
+with Lord Roberts's decisive operations, of which it was really a
+part.
+
+The doings of General Gatacre's force during the long interval which
+passed between his disaster at Stormberg and the final general advance
+may be rapidly chronicled.  Although nominally in command of a
+division, Gatacre's troops were continually drafted off to east and to
+west, so that it was seldom that he had more than a brigade under his
+orders.  During the weeks of waiting, his force consisted of three
+field batteries, the 74th, 77th, and 79th, some mounted police and
+irregular horse, the remains of the Royal Irish Rifles and the 2nd
+Northumberland Fusiliers, the 1st Royal Scots, the Derbyshire
+regiment, and the Berkshires, the whole amounting to about 5,500 men,
+who had to hold the whole district from Sterkstroom to East London on
+the coast, with a victorious enemy in front and a disaffected
+population around.  Under these circumstances he could not attempt to
+do more than to hold his ground at Sterkstroom, and this he did
+unflinchingly until the line of the Boer defence broke down.  Scouting
+and raiding expeditions, chiefly organised by Captain De Montmorency
+-- whose early death cut short the career of one who possessed every
+quality of a partisan leader -- broke the monotony of inaction.
+During the week which ended the year a succession of small skirmishes,
+of which the town of Dordrecht was the centre, exercised the troops in
+irregular warfare.
+
+On January 3rd the Boer forces advanced and attacked the camp of the
+Cape Mounted Police, which was some eight miles in advance of
+Gatacre's main position.  The movement, however, was a half-hearted
+one, and was beaten off with small loss upon their part and less upon
+ours. From then onwards no movement of importance took place in
+Gatacre's column until the general advance along the whole line had
+cleared his difficulties from in front of him.
+
+In the meantime General Buller had also been playing a waiting game,
+and, secure in the knowledge that Ladysmith could still hold out, he
+had been building up his strength for a second attempt to relieve the
+hard-pressed and much-enduring garrison.  After the repulse at
+Colenso, Hildyard's and Barton's brigades had remained at Chieveley
+with the mounted infantry, the naval guns, and two field batteries.
+The rest of the force retired to Frere, some miles in the
+rear. Emboldened by their success, the Boers sent raiding parties over
+the Tugela on either flank, which were only checked by our patrols
+being extended from Springfield on the west to Weenen on the east.  A
+few plundered farmhouses and a small list of killed and wounded
+horsemen on either side were the sole result of these spasmodic and
+half-hearted operations.
+
+Time here as elsewhere was working for the British, for reinforcements
+were steadily coming to Buller's army. By the new year Sir Charles
+Warren's division (the 5th) was nearly complete at Estcourt, whence it
+could reach the front at any moment.  This division included the 10th
+brigade, consisting of the Imperial Light Infantry, 2nd Somersets, the
+2nd Dorsets, and the 2nd Middlesex; also the 11th, called the
+Lancashire Brigade, formed by the 2nd Royal Lancaster, the 2nd
+Lancashire Fusiliers, the 1st South Lancashire, and the York and
+Lancaster. The division also included the 14th Hussars and the 19th,
+20th, and 28th batteries of Field Artillery. Other batteries of
+artillery, including one howitzer battery, came to strengthen Buller's
+force, which amounted now to more than 30,000 men. Immense transport
+preparations had to be made, however, before the force could have the
+mobility necessary for a flank march, and it was not until January
+11th that General Buller's new plans for advance could be set into
+action. Before describing what these plans were and the disappointing
+fate which awaited them, we will return to the story of the siege of
+Ladysmith, and show how narrowly the relieving force escaped the
+humiliation -- some would say the disgrace -- of seeing the town which
+looked to them for help fall beneath their very eyes. That this did
+not occur is entirely due to the fierce tenacity and savage endurance
+of the disease-ridden and half-starved men who held on to the frail
+lines which covered it.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH
+
+
+Monday, October 30th, 1899, is not a date which can be looked back to
+with satisfaction by any Briton. In a scrambling and ill-managed
+action we had lost our detached left wing almost to a man, while our
+right had been hustled with no great loss but with some ignominy into
+Ladysmith.  Our guns had been outshot, our infantry checked, and our
+cavalry paralysed. Eight hundred prisoners may seem no great loss when
+compared with a Sedan, or even with an Ulm; but such matters are
+comparative, and the force which laid down its arms at Nicholson's Nek
+is the largest British force which has surrendered since the days of
+our great grandfathers, when the egregious Duke of York commanded in
+Flanders.
+
+Sir George White was now confronted with the certainty of an
+investment, an event for which apparently no preparation had been
+made, since with an open railway behind him so many useless mouths had
+been permitted to remain in the town. Ladysmith lies in a hollow and
+is dominated by a ring of hills, some near and some distant.  The near
+ones were in our hands, but no attempt had been made in the early days
+of the war to fortify and hold Bulwana, Lombard's Kop, and the other
+positions from which the town might be shelled. Whether these might or
+might not have been successfully held has been much disputed by
+military men, the balance of opinion being that Bulwana, at least,
+which has a water-supply of its own, might have been retained.  This
+question, however, was already academic, as the outer hills were in
+the hands of the enemy. As it was, the inner line -- Caesar's Camp,
+Wagon Hill, Rifleman's Post, and round to Helpmakaar Hill -- made a
+perimeter of fourteen miles, and the difficulty of retaining so
+extensive a line goes far to exonerate General White, not only for
+abandoning the outer hills, but also for retaining his cavalry in the
+town.
+
+After the battle of Ladysmith and the retreat of the British, the
+Boers in their deliberate but effective fashion set about the
+investment of the town, while the British commander accepted the same
+as inevitable, content if he could stem and hold back from the colony
+the threatened flood of invasion.  On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
+and Friday the commandoes gradually closed in upon the south and east,
+harassed by some cavalry operations and reconnaissances upon our part,
+the effect of which was much exaggerated by the press.  On Thursday,
+November 2nd, the last train escaped under a brisk fire, the
+passengers upon the wrong side of the seats. At 2 P.M. on the same day
+the telegraph line was cut, and the lonely town settled herself
+somberly down to the task of holding off the exultant Boers until the
+day-supposed to be imminent -- when the relieving army should appear from
+among the labyrinth of mountains which lay to the south of them.  Some
+there were who, knowing both the enemy and the mountains, felt a cold
+chill within their hearts as they asked themselves how an army was to
+come through, but the greater number, from General to private, trusted
+implicitly in the valour of their comrades and in the luck of the
+British Army.
+
+One example of that historical luck was ever before their eyes in the
+shape of those invaluable naval guns which had arrived so dramatically
+at the very crisis of the fight, in time to check the monster on
+Pepworth Hill and to cover the retreat of the army. But for them the
+besieged must have lain impotent under the muzzles of the huge
+Creusots.  But in spite of the naive claims put forward by the Boers
+to some special Providence -- a process which a friendly German critic
+described as `commandeering the Almighty' -- it is certain that in a very
+peculiar degree, in the early months of this war there came again and
+again a happy chance, or a merciful interposition, which saved the
+British from disaster. Now in this first week of November, when every
+hill, north and south and east and west, flashed and smoked, and the
+great 96-pound shells groaned and screamed over the town, it was to
+the long thin 4ˇ7's and to the hearty bearded men who worked them,
+that soldiers and townsfolk looked for help. These guns of Lambton's,
+supplemented by two old-fashioned 6ˇ3 howitzers manned by survivors
+from No.10 Mountain Battery, did all that was possible to keep down
+the fire of the heavy Boer guns. If they could not save, they could at
+least hit back, and punishment is not so bad to bear when one is
+giving as well as receiving.
+
+By the end of the first week of November the Boers had established
+their circle of fire. On the east of the town, broken by the loops of
+the Klip River, is a broad green plain, some miles in extent, which
+furnished grazing ground for the horses and cattle of the
+besieged. Beyond it rises into a long flat-topped hill the famous
+Bulwana, upon which lay one great Creusot and several smaller guns.
+To the north, on Pepworth Hill, was another Creusot, and between the
+two were the Boer batteries upon Lombard's Kop. The British naval guns
+were placed upon this side, for, as the open loop formed by the river
+lies at this end, it is the part of the defences which is most liable
+to assault. From thence all round the west down to Besters in the
+south was a continuous series of hills, each crowned with Boer guns,
+which, if they could not harm the distant town, were at least
+effective in holding the garrison to its lines.  So formidable were
+these positions that, amid much outspoken criticism, it has never been
+suggested that White would have been justified with a limited garrison
+in incurring the heavy loss of life which must have followed an
+attempt to force them.
+
+The first few days of the siege were clouded by the death of
+Lieutenant Egerton of the 'Powerful,' one of the most promising
+officers in the Navy.  One leg and the other foot were carried off, as
+he lay upon the sandbag parapet watching the effect of our fire.
+'There's an end of my cricket,' said the gallant sportsman, and he was
+carried to the rear with a cigar between his clenched teeth.
+
+On November 3rd a strong cavalry reconnaissance was pushed down the
+Colenso road to ascertain the force which the enemy had in that
+direction. Colonel Brocklehurst took with him the 18th and 19th
+Hussars, the 5th Lancers and the 5th Dragoon Guards, with the Light
+Horse and the Natal Volunteers.  Some desultory fighting ensued which
+achieved no end, and was chiefly remarkable for the excellent
+behaviour of the Colonials, who showed that they were the equals of
+the Regulars in gallantry and their superiors in the tactics which
+such a country requires.  The death of Major Taunton, Captain Knapp,
+and young Brabant, the son of the General who did such good service at
+a later stage of the war, was a heavy price to pay for the knowledge
+that the Boers were in considerable strength to the south.
+
+By the end of this week the town had already settled down to the
+routine of the siege.  General Joubert, with the chivalry which had
+always distinguished him, had permitted the garrison to send out the
+non-combatants to a place called Intombi Camp (promptly named
+Funkersdorp by the facetious) where they were safe from the shells,
+though the burden of their support still fell of course upon the
+much-tried commissariat.  The hale and male of the townsfolk refused
+for the most part to avoid the common danger, and clung tenaciously to
+their shot-torn village.  Fortunately the river has worn down its
+banks until it runs through a deep channel, in the sides of which it
+was found to be possible to hollow out caves which were practically
+bomb-proof. Here for some months the townsfolk led a troglodytic
+existence, returning to their homes upon that much appreciated seventh
+day of rest which was granted to them by their Sabbatarian besiegers.
+
+The perimeter of the defence had been divided off so that each corps
+might be responsible for its own section. To the south was the
+Manchester Regiment upon the hill called Cćsar's Camp.  Between
+Lombard's Kop and the town, on the north-east, were the Devons.  To
+the north, at what seemed the vulnerable point, were the Rifle
+Brigade, the Rifles, and the remains of the 18th Hussars.  To the west
+were the 5th Lancers, 19th Hussars, and 5th Dragoon Guards. The rest
+of the force was encamped round the outskirts of the town.
+
+There appears to have been some idea in the Boer mind that the mere
+fact that they held a dominant position over the town would soon
+necessitate the surrender of the army. At the end of a week they had
+realised, however, just as the British had, that a siege lay before
+both.  Their fire upon the town was heavy but not deadly, though it
+became more effective as the weeks went on.  Their practice at a range
+of five miles was exceedingly accurate.  At the same time their
+riflemen became more venturesome, and on Tuesday, November 7th, they
+made a half-hearted attack upon the Manchesters' position on the
+south, which was driven back without difficulty.  On the 9th, however,
+their attempt was of a more serious and sustained character.  It began
+with a heavy shell-fire and with a demonstration of rifle-fire from
+every side, which had for its object the prevention of reinforcements
+for the true point of danger, which again was Cćsar's Camp at the
+south. It is evident that the Boers had from the beginning made up
+their minds that here lay the key of the position, as the two serious
+attacks-that of November 9th and that of January 6th-were directed
+upon this point.
+
+The Manchesters at Cćsar's Camp had been reinforced by the 1st
+battalion 60th Rifles, who held the prolongation of the same ridge,
+which is called Waggon Hill. With the dawn it was found that the Boer
+riflemen were within eight hundred yards, and from then till evening a
+constant fire was maintained upon the hill. The Boer, however, save
+when the odds are all in his favour, is not, in spite of his
+considerable personal bravery, at his best in attack.  His racial
+traditions, depending upon the necessity for economy of human life,
+are all opposed to it. As a consequence two regiments well posted were
+able to hold them off all day with a loss which did not exceed thirty
+killed and wounded, while the enemy, exposed to the shrapnel of the
+42nd battery, as well as the rifle-fire of the infantry, must have
+suffered very much more severely.  The result of the action was a
+well-grounded belief that in daylight there was very little chance of
+the Boers being able to carry the lines. As the date was that of the
+Prince of Wales's birthday, a salute of twenty-one shotted naval guns
+wound up a successful day.
+
+The failure of the attempt upon Ladysmith seems to have convinced the
+enemy that a waiting game, in which hunger, shell-fire, and disease
+were their allies, would be surer and less expensive than an open
+assault. From their distant hilltops they continued to plague the
+town, while garrison and citizens sat grimly patient, and learned to
+endure if not to enjoy the crash of the 96-pound shells, and the
+patter of shrapnel upon their corrugated-iron roofs. The supplies were
+adequate, and the besieged were fortunate in the presence of a
+first-class organiser, Colonel Ward of Islington fame, who with the
+assistance of Colonel Stoneman systematised the collection and issue
+of all the food, civil and military, so as to stretch it to its
+utmost. With rain overhead and mud underfoot, chafing at their own
+idleness and humiliated by their own position1 the soldiers waited
+through the weary weeks for the relief which never came.  On some days
+there was more shell-fire, on some less; on some there was sniping, on
+some none; on some they sent a little feeler of cavalry and guns out
+of the town, on most they lay still -- such were the ups and downs of
+life in Ladysmith. The inevitable siege paper, 'The Ladysmith Lyre,'
+appeared, and did something to relieve the monotony by the
+exasperation of its jokes.  Night, morning, and noon the shells rained
+upon the town until the most timid learned fatalism if not bravery.
+The crash of the percussion, and the strange musical tang of the
+shrapnel sounded ever in their ears. With their glasses the garrison
+could see the gay frocks and parasols of the Boer ladies who had come
+down by train to see the torture of the doomed town.
+
+The Boers were sufficiently numerous, aided by their strong positions
+and excellent artillery, to mask the Ladysmith force and to sweep on
+at once to the conquest of Natal. Had they done so it is hard to see
+what could have prevented them from riding their horses down to salt
+water. A few odds and ends, half battalions and local volunteers,
+stood between them and Durban. But here, as on the Orange River, a
+singular paralysis seems to have struck them. When the road lay clear
+before them the first transports of the army corps were hardly past
+St. Vincent, but before they had made up their mind to take that road
+the harbour of Durban was packed with our shipping and ten thousand
+men had thrown themselves across their path.
+
+For a moment we may leave the fortunes of Ladysmith to follow this
+southerly movement of the Boers. Within two days of the investment of
+the town they had swung round their left flank and attacked Colenso,
+twelve miles south, shelling the Durban Light Infantry out of their
+post with a long-range fire.  The British fell back twenty-seven miles
+and concentrated at Estcourt, leaving the all-important Colenso
+railway-bridge in the hands of the enemy. From this onwards they held
+the north of the Tugela, and many a widow wore crepe before we got our
+grip upon it once more. Never was there a more critical week in the
+war, but having got Colenso the Boers did little more. They formally
+annexed the whole of Northern Natal to the Orange Free State -- a
+dangerous precedent when the tables should be turned. With amazing
+assurance the burghers pegged out farms for themselves and sent for
+their people to occupy these newly won estates.
+
+On November 5th the Boers had remained so inert that the British
+returned in small force to Colenso and removed some stores -- which
+seems to suggest that the original retirement was premature. Four days
+passed in inactivity -- four precious days for us -- and on the
+evening of the fourth, November 9th, the watchers on the signal
+station at Table Mountain saw the smoke of a great steamer coming past
+Robben Island. It was the 'Roslin Castle' with the first of the
+reinforcements. Within the week the 'Moor,' 'Yorkshire,' 'Aurania,'
+'Hawarden Castle,' 'Gascon,' Armenian,' 'Oriental,' and a fleet of
+others had passed for Durban with 15,000 men. Once again the command
+of the sea had saved the Empire.
+
+But, now that it was too late, the Boers suddenly took the initiative,
+and in dramatic fashion. North of Estcourt, where General Hildyard was
+being daily reinforced from the sea, there are two small townlets, or
+at least geographical (and railway) points. Frere is about ten miles
+north of Estcourt, and Chieveley is five miles north of that and about
+as far to the south of Colenso.  On November 15th an armoured train
+was despatched from Estcourt to see what was going on up the
+line. Already one disaster had befallen us in this campaign on account
+of these clumsy contrivances, and a heavier one was now to confirm the
+opinion that, acting alone, they are totally inadmissible. As a means
+of carrying artillery for a force operating upon either flank of them,
+with an assured retreat behind, there may be a place for them in
+modern war, but as a method of scouting they appear to be the most
+inefficient and also the most expensive that has ever been
+invented. An intelligent horseman would gather more information, be
+less visible, and retain some freedom as to route. After our
+experience the armoured train may steam out of military history.
+
+The train contained ninety Dublin Fusiliers, eighty Durban Volunteers,
+and ten sailors, with a naval 7-pounder gun.  Captain Haldane of the
+Gordons, Lieutenant Frankland (Dublin Fusiliers), and Winston
+Churchill, the well-known correspondent, accompanied the
+expedition. What might have been foreseen occurred. The train steamed
+into the advancing Boer army, was fired upon, tried to escape, found
+the rails blocked behind it, and upset. Dublins and Durbans were shot
+helplessly out of their trucks, under a heavy fire. A railway accident
+is a nervous thing, and so is an ambuscade, but the combination of the
+two must be appalling.  Yet there were brave hearts which rose to the
+occasion.  Haldane and Frankland rallied the troops, and Churchill the
+engine-driver.  The engine was disentangled and sent on with its cab
+full of wounded. Churchill, who had escaped upon it, came gallantly
+back to share the fate of his comrades.  The dazed shaken soldiers
+continued a futile resistance for some time, but there was neither
+help nor escape and nothing for them but surrender. The most Spartan
+military critic cannot blame them.  A few slipped away besides those
+who escaped upon the engine.  Our losses were two killed, twenty
+wounded, and about eighty taken. It is remarkable that of the three
+leaders both Haldane and Churchill succeeded in escaping from
+Pretoria.
+
+A double tide of armed men was now pouring into Southern Natal. From
+below, trainload after trainload of British regulars were coming up to
+the danger point, feted and cheered at every station. Lonely
+farmhouses near the line hung out their Union Jacks, and the folk on
+the stoep heard the roar of the choruses as the great trains swung
+upon their way.  From above the Boers were flooding down, as Churchill
+saw them, dour, resolute, riding silently through the rain, or
+chanting hymns round their camp fires -- brave honest farmers, but
+standing unconsciously for medićvalism and corruption, even as our
+rough-tongued Tommies stood for civilisation, progress, and equal
+rights for all men.
+
+The invading force, the numbers of which could not have exceeded some
+few thousands, formidable only for their mobility, lapped round the
+more powerful but less active force at Estcourt, and struck behind it
+at its communications. There was for a day or two some discussion as
+to a further retreat, but Hildyard, strengthened by the advice and
+presence of Colonel Long, determined to hold his ground. On November
+21st the raiding Boers were as far south as Nottingham Road, a point
+thirty miles south of Estcourt and only forty miles north of the
+considerable city of Pietermaritzburg. The situation was
+serious. Either the invaders must be stopped, or the second largest
+town in the colony would be in their hands.  From all sides came tales
+of plundered farms and broken households.  Some at least of the
+raiders behaved with wanton brutality. Smashed pianos, shattered
+pictures, slaughtered stock, and vile inscriptions, all exhibit a
+predatory and violent side to the paradoxical Boer
+character.[Footnote: More than once I have heard the farmers in the
+Free State acknowledge that the ruin which had come upon them was a
+just retribution for the excesses of Natal.]
+
+The next British post behind Hildyard's at Estcourt was Barton's upon
+the Mooi River, thirty miles to the south.  Upon this the Boers made a
+half-hearted attempt, but Joubert had begun to realise the strength of
+the British reinforcements and the impossibility with the numbers at
+his disposal of investing a succession of British posts.  He ordered
+Botha to withdraw from Mooi River and begin his northerly trek.
+
+The turning-point of the Boer invasion of Natal was marked, though we
+cannot claim that it was caused, by the action of Willow Grange.  This
+was fought by Hildyard and Walter Kitchener in command of the Estcourt
+garrison, against about 2,000 of the invaders under Louis Botha.  The
+troops engaged were the East and West Surreys (four companies of the
+latter), the West Yorkshires, the Durban Light Infantry, No.7 battery
+R.F.A., two naval guns, and some hundreds of Colonial Horse.
+
+The enemy being observed to have a gun upon a hill within striking
+distance of Estcourt, this force set out on November 22nd to make a
+night attack and to endeavour to capture it.  The hill was taken
+without difficulty, but it was found that the gun had been removed.  A
+severe counter-attack was made at daylight by the Boers, and the
+troops were compelled with no great loss and less glory to return to
+the town.  The Surreys and the Yorkshires behaved very well, but were
+placed in a difficult position and were badly supported by the
+artillery.  Martyn's Mounted Infantry covered the retirement with
+great gallantry, but the skirmish ended in a British loss of fourteen
+killed and fifty wounded or missing, which was certainly more than
+that of the Boers.  From this indecisive action of Willow Grange the
+Boer invasion receded until General Buller, coming to the front on
+November 27th, found that the enemy was once more occupying the line
+of the Tugela.  He himself moved up to Frere, where he devoted his
+time and energies to the collection of that force with which he has
+destined, after three failures, to make his way into Ladysmith.
+
+One unexpected and little known result of the Boer expedition into
+Southern Natal was that their leader, the chivalrous Joubert, injured
+himself through his horse stumbling, and was physically incapacitated
+for the remainder of the campaign. He returned almost immediately to
+Pretoria, leaving the command of the Tugela in the hands of Louis
+Botha.
+
+Leaving Buller to organise his army at Frere, and the Boer commanders
+to draw their screen of formidable defences along the Tugela, we will
+return once more to the fortunes of the unhappy town round which the
+interest of the world, and possibly the destiny of the Empire, were
+centering. It is very certain that had Ladysmith fallen, and twelve
+thousand British soldiers with a million pounds' worth of stores
+fallen into the hands of the invaders, we should have been faced with
+the alternative of abandoning the struggle, or of reconquering South
+Africa from Cape Town northwards. South Africa is the keystone of the
+Empire, and for the instant Ladysmith was the keystone of South
+Africa. But the courage of the troops who held the shell-torn townlet,
+and the confidence of the public who watched them, never faltered for
+an instant.
+
+December 8th was marked by a gallant exploit on the part of the
+beleaguered garrison. Not a whisper had transpired of the coming
+sortie, and a quarter of an hour before the start officers engaged had
+no idea of it. 0 SI SIC OMNIA! At ten o'clock a band of men slipped
+out of the town. There were six hundred of them, all irregulars, drawn
+from the Imperial Light Horse, the Natal Carabineers, and the Border
+Mounted Rifles, under the command of Hunter, youngest and most dashing
+of British Generals. Edwardes and Boyston were the subcommanders. The
+men had no knowledge of where they were going or what they had to do,
+but they crept silently along under a drifting sky, with peeps of a
+quarter moon, over a mimosa-shadowed plain. At last in front of them
+there loomed a dark mass -- it was Gun Hill, from which one of the
+great Creusots had plagued them. A strong support (four hundred men)
+was left at the base of the hill, and the others, one hundred
+Imperials, one hundred Borders and Carabineers, ten Sappers, crept
+upwards with Major Henderson as guide. A Dutch outpost challenged, but
+was satisfied by a Dutch-speaking Carabineer.  Higher and higher the
+men crept, the silence broken only by the occasional slip of a stone
+or the rustle of their own breathing. Most of them had left their
+boots below. Even in the darkness they kept some formation, and the
+right wing curved forward to outflank the defence. Suddenly a Mauser
+crack and a spurt of flame-then another and another! 'Come on, boys!
+Fix bayonets!' yelled Karri Davies. There were no bayonets, but that
+was a detail. At the word the gunners were off, and there in the
+darkness in front of the storming party loomed the enormous gun,
+gigantic in that uncertain light. Out with the huge breech-block! Wrap
+the long lean muzzle round with a collar of gun-cotton! Keep the guard
+upon the run until the work is done! Hunter stood by with a night
+light in his hand until the charge was in position, and then, with a
+crash which brought both armies from their tents, the huge tube reared
+up on its mountings and toppled backwards into the pit.  A howitzer
+lurked beside it, and this also was blown into ruin. The attendant
+Maxim was dragged back by the exultant captors, who reached the town
+amid shoutings and laughter with the first break of day. One man
+wounded, the gallant Henderson, is the cheap price for the
+best-planned and most dashing exploit of the war. Secrecy in
+conception, vigour in execution -- they are the root ideas of the
+soldier's craft. So easily was the enterprise carried out, and so
+defective the Boer watch, that it is probable that if all the guns had
+been simultaneously attacked the Boers might have found themselves
+without a single piece of ordnance in the morning.[Footnote: The
+destruction of the Creusot was not as complete as was hoped. It was
+taken back to Pretoria, three feet were sawn off the muzzle, and a new
+breech-block provided. The gun was then sent to Kimberley, and it was
+the heavy cannon which arrived late in the history of that siege and
+caused considerable consternation among the inhabitants.]
+
+On the same morning (December 9th) a cavalry reconnaissance was pushed
+in the direction of Pepworth Hill. The object no doubt was to
+ascertain whether the enemy were still present in force, and the
+terrific roll of the Mausers answered it in the affirmative. Two
+killed and twenty wounded was the price which we paid for the
+information. There had been three such reconnaissances in the five
+weeks of the siege, and it is difficult to see what advantage they
+gave or how they are to be justified. Far be it for the civilian to
+dogmatise upon such matters, but one can repeat, and to the best of
+one's judgment endorse, the opinion of the vast majority of officers.
+
+There were heart burnings among the Regulars that the colonial troops
+should have gone in front of them, so their martial jealousy was
+allayed three nights later by the same task being given to them. Four
+companies of the 2nd Rifle Brigade were the troops chosen, with a few
+sappers and gunners, the whole under the command of Colonel Metcalfe
+of the same battalion. A single gun, the 4ˇ7 howitzer upon Surprise
+Hill, was the objective. Again there was the stealthy advance through
+the darkness, again the support was left at the bottom of the hill,
+again the two companies carefully ascended, again there was the
+challenge, the rush, the flight, and the gun was in the hands of the
+stormers.
+
+Here and only here the story varies. For some reason the fuse used for
+the guncotton was defective, and half an hour elapsed before the
+explosion destroyed the howitzer. When it came it came very
+thoroughly, but it was a weary time in coming. Then our men descended
+the hill, but the Boers were already crowding in upon them from either
+side. The English cries of the soldiers were answered in English by
+the Boers, and slouch hat or helmet dimly seen in the mirk was the
+only badge of friend or foe. A singular letter is extant from young
+Reitz (the son of the Transvaal secretary), who was present. According
+to his account there were but eight Boers present, but assertion or
+contradiction equally valueless in the darkness of such a night, and
+there are some obvious discrepancies in his statement. 'We fired among
+them,' says Reitz. 'They stopped and all cried out "Rifle Brigade."
+Then one of them said "Charge!" One officer, Captain Paley, advanced,
+though he had two bullet wounds already. Joubert gave him another shot
+and he fell on the top of us. Four Englishmen got hold of Jan Luttig
+and struck him on the head with their rifles and stabbed him in the
+stomach with a bayonet. He seized two of them by the throat and
+shouted "Help, boys!" His two nearest comrades shot two of them, and
+the other two bolted. Then the English came up in numbers, about eight
+hundred, along the footpath' (there were two hundred on the hill, but
+the exaggeration is pardonable in the darkness), 'and we lay as quiet
+as mice along the bank. Farther on the English killed three of our men
+with bayonets and wounded two. In the morning we found Captain Paley
+and twenty-two of them killed and wounded.' It seems evident that
+Reitz means that his own little party were eight men, and not that
+that represented the force which intercepted the retiring
+riflemen. Within his own knowledge five of his countrymen were killed
+in the scuffle, so the total loss was probably considerable. Our own
+casualties were eleven dead, forty-three wounded, and six prisoners,
+but the price was not excessive for the howitzer and for the MORALE
+which arises from such exploits. Had it not been for that unfortunate
+fuse, the second success might have been as bloodless as the first.
+'I am sorry,' said a sympathetic correspondent to the stricken
+Paley. 'But we got the gun,' Paley whispered, and he spoke for the
+Brigade.
+
+Amid the shell-fire, the scanty rations, the enteric and the
+dysentery, one ray of comfort had always brightened the
+garrison. Buller was only twelve miles away -- they could hear his
+guns -- and when his advance came in earnest their sufferings would be
+at an end. But now in an instant this single light was shut off and
+the true nature of their situation was revealed to them. Buller had
+indeed moved... but backwards. He had been defeated at Colenso, and
+the siege was not ending but beginning. With heavier hearts but
+undiminished resolution the army and the townsfolk settled down to the
+long, dour struggle. The exultant enemy replaced their shattered guns
+and drew their lines closer still round the stricken town.
+
+A record of the siege onwards until the break of the New Year centres
+upon the sordid details of the sick returns and of the price of
+food. Fifty on one day, seventy on the next, passed under the hands of
+the overworked and devoted doctors.  Fifteen hundred, and later two
+thousand, of the garrison were down.  The air was poisoned by foul
+sewage and dark with obscene flies. They speckled the scanty food.
+Eggs were already a shilling each, cigarettes sixpence, whisky five
+pounds a bottle: a city more free from gluttony and drunkenness has
+never been seen.
+
+Shell-fire has shown itself in this war to be an excellent ordeal for
+those who desire martial excitement with a minimum of danger. But now
+and again some black chance guides a bomb -- one in five thousand
+perhaps -- to a most tragic issue.  Such a deadly missile falling
+among Boers near Kimberley is said to have slain nine and wounded
+seventeen. In Ladysmith too there are days to be marked in red when
+the gunner shot better than he knew. One shell on December 17th killed
+six men (Natal Carabineers), wounded three, and destroyed fourteen
+horses. The grisly fact has been recorded that five separate human
+legs lay upon the ground. On December 22nd another tragic shot killed
+five and wounded twelve of the Devons.  On the same day four officers
+of the 5th Lancers (including the Colonel) and one sergeant were
+wounded -- a most disastrous day.  A little later it was again the
+turn of the Devons, who lost one officer killed and ten wounded.
+Christmas set in amid misery, hunger, and disease, the more piteous
+for the grim attempts to amuse the children and live up to the joyous
+season, when the present of Santa Claus was too often a 96-pound
+shell. On the top of all other troubles it was now known that the
+heavy ammunition was running short and must be husbanded for
+emergencies. There was no surcease, however, in the constant hail
+which fell upon the town.  Two or three hundred shells were a not
+unusual daily allowance.
+
+The monotonous bombardment with which the New Year had commenced was
+soon to be varied by a most gallant and spirit-stirring clash of arms.
+On January 6th the Boers delivered their great assault upon Ladysmith
+-- an onfall so gallantly made and gallantly met that it deserves to
+rank among the classic fights of British military history.  It is a
+tale which neither side need be ashamed to tell. Honour to the sturdy
+infantry who held their grip so long, and honour also to the rough men
+of the veldt, who, led by untrained civilians, stretched us to the
+utmost capacity of our endurance.
+
+It may be that the Boers wished once for all to have done at all costs
+with the constant menace to their rear, or it may be that the
+deliberate preparations of Buller for his second advance had alarmed
+them, and that they realised that they must act quickly if they were
+to act at all.  At any rate, early in the New Year a most determined
+attack was decided upon.  The storming party consisted of some
+hundreds of picked volunteers from the Heidelberg (Transvaal) and
+Harrismith (Free State) contingents, led by de Villiers.  They were
+supported by several thousand riflemen, who might secure their success
+or cover their retreat. Eighteen heavy guns had been trained upon the
+long ridge, one end of which has been called Cćsar's Camp and the
+other Waggon Hill.  This hill, three miles long, lay to the south of
+the town, and the Boers had early recognised it as being the most
+vulnerable point, for it was against it that their attack of November
+9th had been directed. Now, after two months, they were about to renew
+the attempt with greater resolution against less robust opponents.  At
+twelve o'clock our scouts heard the sounds of the chanting of hymns in
+the Boer camps. At two in the morning crowds of barefooted men were
+clustering round the base of the ridge, and threading their way, rifle
+in hand, among the mimosa-bushes and scattered boulders which cover
+the slope of the hill. Some working parties were moving guns into
+position, and the noise of their labour helped to drown the sound of
+the Boer advance. Both at Cćsar's Camp, the east end of the ridge, and
+at Waggon Hill, the west end (the points being, I repeat, three miles
+apart), the attack came as a complete surprise.  The outposts were
+shot or driven in, and the stormers were on the ridge almost as soon
+as their presence was detected. The line of rocks blazed with the
+flash of their guns.
+
+Cćsar's Camp was garrisoned by one sturdy regiment, the Manchesters,
+aided by a Colt automatic gun.  The defence bad been arranged in the
+form of small sangars, each held by from ten to twenty men.  Some few
+of these were rushed in the darkness, but the Lancashire men pulled
+themselves together and held on strenuously to those which remained.
+The crash of musketry woke the sleeping town, and the streets
+resounded with the shouting of the officers and the rattling of arms
+as the men mustered in the darkness and hurried to the points of
+danger.
+
+Three companies of the Gordons had been left near Cćsar's Camp, and
+these, under Captain Carnegie, threw themselves into the
+struggle. Four other companies of Gordons came up in support from the
+town, losing upon the way their splendid colonel, Dick-Cunyngham, who
+was killed by a chance shot at three thousand yards, on this his first
+appearance since he had recovered from his wounds at
+Elandslaagte. Later four companies of the Rifle Brigade were thrown
+into the firing line, and a total of two and a half infantry
+battalions held that end of the position. It was not a man too
+much. With the dawn of day it could be seen that the Boers held the
+southern and we the northern slopes, while the narrow plateau between
+formed a bloody debatable ground. Along a front of a quarter of a
+mile fierce eyes glared and rifle barrels flashed from behind every
+rock, and the long fight swayed a little back or a little forward with
+each upward heave of the stormers or rally of the soldiers. For hours
+the combatants were so near that a stone or a taunt could be thrown
+from one to the other.  Some scattered sangars still held their own,
+though the Boers had passed them.  One such, manned by fourteen
+privates of the Manchester Regiment, remained untaken, but had only
+two defenders left at the end of the bloody day.
+
+With the coming of the light the 53rd Field Battery, the one which had
+already done so admirably at Lombard's Kop, again deserved well of its
+country. It was impossible to get behind the Boers and fire straight
+at their position, so every shell fired bad to skim over the heads of
+our own men upon the ridge and so pitch upon tho reverse slope.  Yet
+so accurate was the fire, carried on under an incessant rain of shells
+from the big Dutch gun on Bulwana, that not one shot miscarried and
+that Major Abdy and his men succeeded in sweeping the further slope
+without loss to our own fighting line. Exactly the same feat was
+equally well performed at the other end of the position by Major
+Blewitt's 21st Battery, which was exposed to an even more searching
+fire than the 53rd.  Any one who has seen the iron endurance of
+British gunners and marvelled at the answering shot which flashes out
+through the very dust of the enemy's exploding shell, will understand
+how fine must have been the spectacle of these two batteries working
+in the open, with the ground round them sharded with
+splinters. Eye-witnesses have left it upon record that the sight of
+Major Blewitt strolling up and down among his guns, and turning over
+with his toe the last fallen section of iron, was one of the most
+vivid and stirring impressions which they carried from The fight.
+Here also it was that the gallant Sergeant Bosley, his arm and his leg
+stricken off by a Boer shell, cried to his comrades to roll his body
+off the trail and go on working the gun.
+
+At the same time as -- or rather earlier than -- the onslaught upon
+Caesar's Camp a similar attack had been made with secrecy and
+determination upon the western end of the position called Waggon Hill.
+The barefooted Boers burst suddenly with a roll of rifle-fire into the
+little garrison of Imperial Light Horse and Sappers who held the
+position.  Mathias of the former, Digby-Jones and Dennis of the
+latter, showed that 'two in the morning' courage which Napoleon rated
+as the highest of military virtues.  They and their men were surprised
+but not disconcerted, and stood desperately to a slogging match at the
+closest quarters.  Seventeen Sappers were down out of thirty, and more
+than half the little body of irregulars.  This end of the position was
+feebly fortified, and it is surprising that so experienced and sound a
+soldier as Ian Hamilton should have left it so. The defence had no
+marked advantage as compared with the attack, neither trench, sangar,
+nor wire entanglement, and in numbers they were immensely
+inferior. Two companies of the 60th Rifles and a small body of the
+ubiquitous Gordons happened to be upon the hill and threw themselves
+into the fray, but they were unable to turn the tide.  Of thirty-three
+Gordons under Lieutenant MacNaughten thirty were wounded.[Footnote:
+The Gordons and the Sappers were there that morning to re-escort one
+of Lambton's 4ˇ7 guns, which was to be mounted there. Ten seamen were
+with the gun, and lost three of their number in the defence.] As our
+men retired under the shelter of the northern slope they were
+reinforced by another hundred and fifty Gordons under the stalwart
+Miller-Wallnutt, a man cast in the mould of a Berserk Viking.  To
+their aid also came two hundred of the Imperial Light Horse, burning
+to assist their comrades. Another half-battalion of Rifles came with
+them. At each end of the long ridge the situation at the dawn of day
+was almost identical. In each the stormers had seized one side, but
+were brought to a stand by the defenders upon the other, while the
+British guns fired over the heads of their own infantry to rake the
+further slope.
+
+It was on the Waggon Hill side, however, that the Boer exertions were
+most continuous and strenuous and our own resistance most desperate.
+There fought the gallant de Villiers, while Ian Hamilton rallied the
+defenders and led them in repeated rushes against the enemy's line.
+Continually reinforced from below, the Boers fought with extraordinary
+resolution. Never will any one who witnessed that Homeric contest
+question the valour of our foes.  It was a murderous business on both
+sides.  Edwardes of the Light Horse was struck down.  In a
+gun-emplacement a strange encounter took place at point-blank range
+between a group of Boers and of Britons. De Villiers of the Free State
+shot Miller-Wallnut dead, Ian Hamilton fired at de Villiers with his
+revolver and missed him. Young Albrecht of the Light Horse shot de
+Villiers. A Boer named de Jaeger shot Albrecht. Digby-Jones of the
+Sappers shot de Jaeger.  Only a few minutes later the gallant lad, who
+had already won fame enough for a veteran, was himself mortally
+wounded, and Dennis, his comrade in arms and in glory, fell by his
+side.
+
+There has been no better fighting in our time than that upon Waggon
+Hill on that January morning, and no better fighters than the Imperial
+Light Horsemen who formed the centre of the defence. Here, as at
+Elandslaagte, they proved themselves worthy to stand in line with the
+crack regiments of the British army.
+
+Through the long day the fight maintained its equilibrium along the
+summit of the ridge, swaying a little that way or this, but never
+amounting to a repulse of the stormers or to a rout of the
+defenders. So intermixed were the combatants that a wounded man more
+than once found himself a rest for the rifles of his enemies.  One
+unfortunate soldier in this position received six more bullets from
+his own comrades in their efforts to reach the deadly rifleman behind
+him. At four o'clock a huge bank of clouds which had towered upwards
+unheeded by the struggling men burst suddenly into a terrific
+thunderstorm with vivid lightnings and lashing rain. It is curious
+that the British victory at Elandslaagte was heralded by just such
+another storm. Up on the bullet-swept hill the long fringes of
+fighting men took no more heed of the elements than would two
+bulldogs who have each other by the throat. Up the greasy hillside,
+foul with mud and with blood, came the Boer reserves, and up the
+northern slope came our own reserve, the Devon Regiment, fit
+representatives of that virile county. Admirably led by Park, their
+gallant Colonel, the Devons swept the Boers before them, and the
+Rifles, Gordons, and Light Horse joined in the wild charge which
+finally cleared the ridge.
+
+But the end was not yet. The Boer had taken a risk over this venture,
+and now he had to pay the stakes. Down the hill he passed, crouching,
+darting, but the spruits behind him were turned into swirling streams,
+and as he hesitated for an instant upon the brink the relentless sleet
+of bullets came from behind. Many were swept away down the gorges and
+into the Klip River, never again to be accounted for in the lists of
+their field-cornet. The majority splashed through, found their horses
+in their shelter, and galloped off across the great Bulwana Plain, as
+fairly beaten in as fair a fight as ever brave men were yet.
+
+The cheers of victory as the Devons swept the ridge had heartened the
+weary men upon Cćsar's Camp to a similar effort. Manchesters, Gordons,
+and Rifles, aided by the fire of two batteries, cleared the
+long-debated position. Wet, cold, weary, and without food for
+twenty-six hours, the bedraggled Tommies stood yelling and waving,
+amid the litter of dead and of dying.
+
+It was a near thing. Had the ridge fallen the town must have followed,
+and history perhaps have been changed. In the old stiff-rank Majuba
+days we should have been swept in an hour from the position. But the
+wily man behind the rock was now to find an equally wily man in front
+of him. The soldier had at last learned something of the craft of the
+hunter. He clung to his shelter, he dwelled on his aim, he ignored his
+dressings, he laid aside the eighteenth-century traditions of his
+pigtailed ancestor, and he hit the Boers harder than they had been hit
+yet. No return may ever come to us of their losses on that occasion;
+80 dead bodies were returned to them from the ridge alone, while the
+slopes, the dongas, and the river each had its own separate tale. No
+possible estimate can make it less than three hundred killed and
+wounded, while many place it at a much higher figure. Our own
+casualties were very serious and the proportion of dead to wounded
+unusually high, owing to the fact that the greater part of the wounds
+were necessarily of the head.  In killed we lost 13 officers, 135
+men. In wounded 28 officers, 244 men -- a total of 420, Lord Ava, the
+honoured Son of an honoured father, the fiery Dick-Cunyngham, stalwart
+Miller-Wallnutt, the brave boy sappers Digby-Jones and Dennis, Adams
+and Packman of the Light Horse, the chivalrous Lafone -- we had to
+mourn quality as well as numbers. The grim test of the casualty
+returns shows that it was to the Imperial Light Horse (ten officers
+down, and the regiment commanded by a junior captain), the
+Manchesters, the Gordons, the Devons, and the 2nd Rifle Brigade that
+the honours of the day are due.
+
+In the course of the day two attacks had been made upon other points
+of the British position, the one on Observation Hill on the north, the
+other on the Helpmakaar position on the east. Of these the latter was
+never pushed home and was an obvious feint, but in the case of the
+other it was not until Schutte, their commander, and forty or fifty
+men had been killed and wounded, that the stormers abandoned their
+attempt. At every point the assailants found the same scattered but
+impenetrable fringe of riflemen, and the same energetic batteries
+waiting for them.
+
+Throughout the Empire the course of this great struggle was watched
+with the keenest solicitude and with all that painful emotion which
+springs from impotent sympathy. By heliogram to Buller, and so to the
+farthest ends of that great body whose nerves are the telegraphic
+wires, there came the announcement of the attack. Then after an
+interval of hours came 'everywhere repulsed, but fighting continues.'
+Then, 'Attack continues. Enemy reinforced from the south.'  Then
+'Attack renewed. Very hard pressed.'  There the messages ended for the
+day, leaving the Empire black with apprehension. The darkest forecasts
+and most dreary anticipations were indulged by the most temperate and
+best-informed London papers. For the first time the very suggestion
+that the campaign might be above our strength was made to the
+public. And then at last there came the official news of the repulse
+of the assault. Far away at Ladysmith, the weary men and their sorely
+tried officers gathered to return thanks to God for His manifold
+mercies, but in London also hearts were stricken solemn by the
+greatness of the crisis, and lips long unused to prayer joined in the
+devotions of the absent warriors.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE COLESBERG OPERATIONS
+
+
+Of the four British armies in the field I have attempted to tell the
+story of the western one which advanced to help Kimberley, of the
+eastern one which was repulsed at Colenso, and of the central one
+which was checked at Stormberg. There remains one other central one,
+some account of which must now be given.
+
+It was, as has already been pointed out, a long three weeks after the
+declaration of war before the forces of the Orange Free State began to
+invade Cape Colony. But for this most providential delay it is
+probable that the ultimate fighting would have been, not among the
+mountains and kopjes of Stormberg and Colesberg, but amid those
+formidable passes which lie in the Hex Valley, immediately to the
+north of Cape Town, and that the armies of the invader would have been
+doubled by their kinsmen of the Colony. The ultimate result of the war
+must have been the same, but the sight of all South Africa in flames
+might have brought about those Continental complications which have
+always been so grave a menace.
+
+The invasion of the Colony was at two points along the line of the two
+railways which connect the countries, the one passing over the Orange
+River at Norval's Pont and the other at Bethulie, about forty miles to
+the eastward. There were no British troops available (a fact to be
+considered by those, if any remain, who imagine that the British
+entertained any design against the Republics), and the Boers jogged
+slowly southward amid a Dutch population who hesitated between their
+unity of race and speech and their knowledge of just and generous
+treatment by the Empire. A large number were won over by the invaders,
+and, like all apostates, distinguished themselves by their virulence
+and harshness towards their loyal neighbours. Here and there in towns
+which were off the railway line, in Barkly East or Ladygrey, the
+farmers met together with rifle and bandolier, tied orange puggarees
+round their hats, and rode off to join the enemy. Possibly these
+ignorant and isolated men hardly recognised what it was that they were
+doing. They have found out since.  In some of the border districts the
+rebels numbered ninety per cent of the Dutch population.
+
+In the meanwhile, the British leaders had been strenuously
+endeavouring to scrape together a few troops with which to make some
+stand against the enemy. For this purpose two small forces were
+necessary -- the one to oppose the advance through Bethulie and
+Stormberg, the other to meet the invaders, who, having passed the
+river at Norval's Pont, had now occupied Colesberg. The former task
+was, as already shown, committed to General Gatacre. The latter was
+allotted to General French, the victor of Elandslaagte, who had
+escaped in the very last train from Ladysmith, and had taken over this
+new and important duty. French's force assembled at Arundel and
+Gatacre's at Sterkstroom. It is with the operations of the former that
+we have now to deal.
+
+General French, for whom South Africa has for once proved not the
+grave but the cradle of a reputation, had before the war gained some
+name as a smart and energetic cavalry officer. There were some who,
+watching his handling of a considerable body of horse at the great
+Salisbury manoeuvres in 1898, conceived the highest opinion of his
+capacity, and it was due to the strong support of General Buller, who
+had commanded in these peaceful operations, that French received his
+appointment for South Africa.  In person he is short and thick, with a
+pugnacious jaw.  In character he is a man of cold persistence and of
+fiery energy, cautious and yet audacious, weighing his actions well,
+but carrying them out with the dash which befits a mounted leader. He
+is remarkable for the quickness of his decision -- 'can think at a
+gallop,' as an admirer expressed it.  Such was the man, alert,
+resourceful, and determined, to whom was entrusted the holding back of
+the Colesberg Boers.
+
+Although the main advance of the invaders was along the lines of the
+two railways, they ventured, as they realised how weak the forces were
+which opposed them, to break off both to the east and west, occupying
+Dordrecht on one side and Steynsberg on the other. Nothing of
+importance accrued from the possession of these points, and our
+attention may be concentrated upon the main line of action.
+
+French's original force was a mere handful of men, scraped together
+from anywhere.  Naauwpoort was his base, and thence he made a
+reconnaissance by rail on November 23rd towards Arundel, the next
+hamlet along the line, taking with him a company of the Black Watch,
+forty mounted infantry, and a troop of the New South Wales Lancers.
+Nothing resulted from the expedition save that the two forces came
+into touch with each other, a touch which was sustained for months
+under many vicissitudes, until the invaders were driven back once more
+over Norval's Pont. Finding that Arundel was weakly held, French
+advanced up to it, and established his camp there towards the end of
+December, within six miles of the Boer lines at Rensburg, to the south
+of Colesberg. His mission -- with his present forces -- was to prevent
+the further advance of the enemy into the Colony, but he was not
+strong enough yet to make a serious attempt to drive them out.
+
+Before the move to Arundel on December 13th his detachment had
+increased in size, and consisted largely of mounted men, so that it
+attained a mobility very unusual for a British force. On December 13th
+there was an attempt upon the part of the Boers to advance south,
+which was easily held by the British Cavalry and Horse Artillery.  The
+country over which French was operating is dotted with those singular
+kopjes which the Boer loves -- kopjes which are often so grotesque in
+shape that one feels as if they must be due to some error of
+refraction when one looks at them.  But, on the other hand, between
+these hills there lie wide stretches of the green or russet savanna,
+the noblest field that a horseman or a horse gunner could wish.  The
+riflemen clung to the hills, French's troopers circled warily upon the
+plain, gradually contracting the Boer position by threatening to cut
+off this or that outlying kopje, and so the enemy was slowly herded
+into Colesberg.  The small but mobile British force covered a very
+large area, and hardly a day passed that one or other part of it did
+not come in contact with the enemy.  With one regiment of infantry
+(the Berkshires) to hold the centre, his hard-riding Tasmanians,
+New-Zealanders, and Australians, with the Scots Greys, the
+Inniskillings, and the Carabineers, formed an elastic but impenetrable
+screen to cover the Colony.  They were aided by two batteries, 0 and
+R, of Horse Artillery. Every day General French rode out and made a
+close personal examination of the enemy's position, while his scouts
+and outposts were instructed to maintain the closest possible touch.
+
+On December 30th the enemy abandoned Rensburg, which had been their
+advanced post, and concentrated at Colesberg, upon which French moved
+his force up and seized Rensburg. The very next day, December 31st, he
+began a vigorous and long-continued series of operations. At five
+o'clock on Sunday evening he moved out of Rensburg camp, with R and
+half of 0 batteries R.H.A., the 10th Hussars, the Inniskillings, and
+the Berkshires, to take up a position on the west of Colesberg.  At
+the same time Colonel Porter, with the half-battery of 0, his own
+regiment (the Carabineers), and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, left
+camp at two on the Monday morning and took a position on the enemy's
+left flank.  The Berkshires under Major McCracken seized hill, driving
+a Boer picket off it, and the Horse enfiladed the enemy's right flank,
+and after a risk artillery duel succeeded in silencing his guns.  Next
+morning, however (January 2nd, 1900), it was found that the Boers,
+strongly reinforced, were back near their old positions, and French
+had to be content to hold them and to wait for more troops.
+
+These were not long in coming, for the Suffolk Regiment had arrived,
+followed by the Composite Regiment (chosen from the Household Cavalry)
+and the 4th Battery R.F.A. The Boers, however, had also been
+reinforced, and showed great energy in their effort to break the
+cordon which was being drawn round them.  Upon the 4th a determined
+effort was made by about a thousand of them under General Shoemann to
+turn the left flank of the British, and at dawn it was actually found
+that they had eluded the vigilance of the outposts and had established
+themselves upon a hill to the rear of the position. They were shelled
+off of it, however, by the guns of 0 Battery, and in their retreat
+across the plain they were pursued by the 10th Hussars and by one
+squadron of the Inniskillings, who cut off some of the fugitives. At
+the same time, De Lisle with his mounted infantry carried the position
+which they had originally held. In this successful and well-managed
+action the Boer loss was ninety, and we took in addition twenty-one
+prisoners. Our own casualties amounted only to six killed, including
+Major Harvey of the 10th, and to fifteen wounded.
+
+Encouraged by this success an attempt was made by the Suffolk Regiment
+to carry a hill which formed the key of the enemy's position. The town
+of Colesberg lies in a basin surrounded by a ring of kopjes, and the
+possession by us of any one of them would have made the place
+untenable. The plan has been ascribed to Colonel Watson of the
+Suffolks, but it is time that some protest should be raised against
+this devolution of responsibility upon subordinates in the event of
+failure. When success has crowned our arms we have been delighted to
+honour our general; but when our efforts end in failure our attention
+is called to Colonel Watson, Colonel Long, or Colonel Thorneycroft. It
+is fairer to state that in this instance General French ordered
+Colonel Watson to make a night attack upon the hill.
+
+The result was disastrous. At midnight four companies in canvas shoes
+or in their stocking feet set forth upon their venture, and just
+before dawn they found themselves upon the slope of the hill. They
+were in a formation of quarter column with files extended to two
+paces; H Company was leading. When half-way up a warm fire was opened
+upon them in the darkness. Colonel Watson gave the order to retire,
+intending, as it is believed, that the men should get under the
+shelter of the dead ground which they had just quitted, but his death
+immediately afterwards left matters in a confused condition.  The
+night was black, the ground broken, a hail of bullets whizzing through
+the ranks.  Companies got mixed in the darkness and contradictory
+orders were issued.  The leading company held its ground, though each
+of the officers, Brett, Carey, and Butler, was struck down.  The other
+companies had retired, however, and the dawn found this fringe of men,
+most of them wounded, lying under the very rifles of the Boers. Even
+then they held out for some time, but they could neither advance,
+retire, or stay where they were without losing lives to no purpose, so
+the survivors were compelled to surrender. There is better evidence
+here than at Magersfontein that the enemy were warned and ready. Every
+one of the officers engaged, from the Colonel to the boy subaltern,
+was killed, wounded, or taken. Eleven officers and one hundred and
+fifty men were our losses in this unfortunate but not discreditable
+affair, which proves once more how much accuracy and how much secrecy
+is necessary for a successful night attack.  Four companies of the
+regiment were sent down to Port Elizabeth to re-officer, but the
+arrival of the 1st Essex enabled French to fill the gap which had been
+made in his force.
+
+In spite of this annoying check, French continued to pursue his
+original design of holding the enemy in front and working round him on
+the east.  On January 9th, Porter, of the Carabineers, with his own
+regiment, two squadrons of Household Cavalry, the New-Zealanders, the
+New South Wales Lancers, and four guns, took another step forward and,
+after a skirmish, occupied a position called Slingersfontein, still
+further to the north and east, so as to menace the main road of
+retreat to Norval's Pont.  Some skirmishing followed, but the position
+was maintained.  On the 15th the Boers, thinking that this long
+extension must have weakened us, made a spirited attack upon a
+position held by New-Zealanders and a company of the 1st Yorkshires,
+this regiment having been sent up to reinforce French. The attempt was
+met by a volley and a bayonet charge. Captain Orr, of the Yorkshires,
+was struck down; but Captain Madocks, of the New-Zealanders, who
+behaved with conspicuous gallantry at a critical instant, took
+command, and the enemy was heavily repulsed. Madocks engaged in a
+point-blank rifle duel with the frock-coated top-hatted Boer leader,
+and had the good fortune to kill his formidable opponent. Twenty-one
+Boer dead and many wounded left upon the field made a small set-off to
+the disaster of the Suffolks.
+
+The next day, however (January 16th), the scales of fortune, which
+swung alternately one way and the other, were again tipped against
+us. It is difficult to give an intelligible account of the details of
+these operations, because they were carried out by thin fringes of men
+covering on both sides a very large area, each kopje occupied as a
+fort, and the intervening plains patrolled by cavalry.
+
+As French extended to the east and north the Boers extended also to
+prevent him from outflanking them, and so the little armies stretched
+and stretched until they were two long mobile skirmishing lines. The
+actions therefore resolve themselves into the encounters of small
+bodies and the snapping up of exposed patrols -- a game in which the
+Boer aptitude for guerrilla tactics gave them some advantage, though
+our own cavalry quickly adapted themselves to the new conditions.  On
+this occasion a patrol of sixteen men from the South Australian Horse
+and New South Wales Lancers fell into an ambush, and eleven were
+captured.  Of the remainder, three made their way back to camp, while
+one was killed and one was wounded.
+
+The duel between French on the one side and Schoeman and Lambert on
+the other was from this onwards one of maneuvering rather than of
+fighting. The dangerously extended line of the British at this period,
+over thirty miles long, was reinforced, as has been mentioned, by the
+1st Yorkshire and later by the 2nd Wiltshire and a section of the 37th
+Howitzer Battery. There was probably no very great difference in
+numbers between the two little armies, but the Boers now, as always,
+were working upon internal lines.  The monotony of the operations was
+broken by the remarkable feat of the Essex Regiment, which succeeded
+by hawsers and good-will in getting two 15-pounder guns of the 4th
+Field Battery on to the top of Coleskop, a hill which rises several
+hundred feet from the plain and is so precipitous that it is no small
+task for an unhampered man to climb it. From the summit a fire, which
+for some days could not be localised by the Boers, was opened upon
+their laagers, which had to be shifted in consequence. This energetic
+action upon the part of our gunners may be set off against those other
+examples where commanders of batteries have shown that they had not
+yet appreciated what strong tackle and stout arms can accomplish.  The
+guns upon Coleskop not only dominated all the smaller kopjes for a
+range of 9,000 yards, but completely commanded the town of Colesberg,
+which could not however, for humanitarian and political reasons, be
+shelled.
+
+By gradual reinforcements the force under French had by the end of
+January attained the respectable figure of ten thousand men, strung
+over a large extent of country. His infantry consisted of the 2nd
+Berkshires, 1st Royal Irish, 2nd Wiltshires, 2nd Worcesters, 1st
+Essex, and 1st Yorkshires; his cavalry, of the 10th Hussars, the 6th
+Dragoon Guards, the Inniskillings, the New-Zealanders, the
+N.S.W. Lancers, some Rimington Guides, and the composite Household
+Regiment; his artillery, the R and 0 batteries of R.H.A., the 4th
+R.F.A., and a section of the 37th Howitzer Battery. At the risk of
+tedium I have repeated the units of this force, because there are no
+operations during the war, with the exception perhaps of those of the
+Rhodesian Column, concerning which it is so difficult to get a clear
+impression.  The fluctuating forces, the vast range of country
+covered, and the petty farms which give their names to positions, all
+tend to make the issue vague and the narrative obscure. The British
+still lay in a semicircle extending from Slingersfontein upon the
+right to Kloof Camp upon the left, and the general scheme of
+operations continued to be an enveloping movement upon the
+right. General Clements commanded this section of the forces, while
+the energetic Porter carried out the successive advances. The lines
+had gradually stretched until they were nearly fifty miles in length,
+and something of the obscurity in which the operations have been left
+is due to the impossibility of any single correspondent having a clear
+idea of what was occurring over so extended a front.
+
+On January 25th French sent Stephenson and Brabazon to push a
+reconnaissance to the north of Colesberg, and found that the Boers
+were making a fresh position at Rietfontein, nine miles nearer their
+own border. A small action ensued, in which we lost ten or twelve of
+the Wiltshire Regiment, and gained some knowledge of the enemy's
+dispositions.  For the remainder of the month the two forces remained
+in a state of equilibrium, each keenly on its guard, and neither
+strong enough to penetrate the lines of the other. General French
+descended to Cape Town to aid General Roberts in the elaboration of
+that plan which was soon to change the whole military situation in
+South Africa.
+
+Reinforcements were still dribbling into the British force, Hoad's
+Australian Regiment, which had been changed from infantry to cavalry,
+and J battery R.H.A. from India, being the last arrivals. But very
+much stronger reinforcements had arrived for the Boers -- so strong
+that they were able to take the offensive. De la Rey had left the
+Modder with three thousand men, and their presence infused new life
+into the defenders of Colesberg.  At the moment, too, that the Modder
+Boers were coming to Colesberg, the British had begun to send cavalry
+reinforcements to the Modder in preparation for the march to
+Kimberley, so that Clements's Force (as it had now become) was
+depleted at the very instant when that of the enemy was largely
+increased. The result was that it was all they could do not merely to
+hold their own, but to avoid a very serious disaster.
+
+The movements of De la Rey were directed towards turning the right of
+the position. On February 9th and 10th the mounted patrols,
+principally the Tasmanians, the Australians, and the Inniskillings,
+came in contact with the Boers, and some skirmishing ensued, with no
+heavy loss upon either side. A British patrol was surrounded and lost
+eleven prisoners, Tasmanians and Guides. On the 12th the Boer turning
+movement developed itself, and our position on the right at
+Slingersfontein was strongly attacked.
+
+The key of the British position at this point was a kopje held by
+three companies of the 2nd Worcester Regiment. Upon this the Boers
+made a fierce onslaught, but were as fiercely repelled.  They came up
+in the dark between the set of moon and rise of sun, as they had done
+at the great assault of Ladysmith, and the first dim light saw them in
+the advanced sangars. The Boer generals do not favour night attacks,
+but they are exceedingly fond of using darkness for taking up a good
+position and pushing onwards as soon as it is possible to see.  This
+is what they did upon this occasion, and the first intimation which
+the outposts had of their presence was the rush of feet and loom of
+figures in the cold misty light of dawn. The occupants of the sangars
+were killed to a man, and the assailants rushed onwards. As the sun
+topped the line of the veldt half the kopje was in their
+possession. Shouting and firing, they pressed onwards.
+
+But the Worcester men were steady old soldiers, and the battalion
+contained no less than four hundred and fifty marksmen in its
+ranks. Of these the companies upon the hill had their due proportion,
+and their fire was so accurate that the Boers found themselves unable
+to advance any further. Through the long day a desperate duel was
+maintained between the two lines of riflemen. Colonel Cuningham and
+Major Stubbs were killed while endeavouring to recover the ground
+which had been lost.  Hovel and Bartholomew continued to encourage
+their men, and the British fire became so deadly that that of the
+Boers was dominated. Under the direction of Hacket Pain, who commanded
+the nearest post, guns of J battery were brought out into the open and
+shelled the portion of the kopje which was held by the Boers. The
+latter were reinforced, but could make no advance against the accurate
+rifle fire with which they were met. The Bisley champion of the
+battalion, with a bullet through his thigh, expended a hundred rounds
+before sinking from loss of blood. It was an excellent defence, and a
+pleasing exception to those too frequent cases where an isolated force
+has lost heart in face of a numerous and persistent foe. With the
+coming of darkness the Boers withdrew with a loss of over two hundred
+killed and wounded. Orders had come from Clements that the whole right
+wing should be drawn in, and in obedience to them the remains of the
+victorious companies were called in by Hacket Pain, who moved his
+force by night in the direction of Rensburg. The British loss in the
+action was twenty-eight killed and nearly a hundred wounded or
+missing, most of which was incurred when the sangars were rushed in
+the early morning.
+
+While this action was fought upon the extreme right of the British
+position another as severe had occurred with much the same result upon
+the extreme left, where the 2nd Wiltshire Regiment was stationed. Some
+companies of this regiment were isolated upon a kopje and surrounded
+by the Boer riflemen when the pressure upon them was relieved by a
+desperate attack by about a hundred of the Victorian Rifles. The
+gallant Australians lost Major Eddy and six officers out of seven,
+with a large proportion of their men, but they proved once for a]l
+that amid all the scattered nations who came from the same home there
+is not one with a more fiery courage and a higher sense of martial
+duty than the men from the great island continent. It is the
+misfortune of the historian when dealing with these contingents that,
+as a rule, by their very nature they were employed in detached parties
+in fulfilling the duties which fall to the lot of scouts and light
+cavalry -- duties which fill the casualty lists but not the pages of
+the chronicler. Be it said, however, once for all that throughout the
+whole African army there was nothing but the utmost admiration for the
+dash and spirit of the hard-riding, straight, shooting sons of
+Australia and New Zealand.  In a host which held many brave men there
+were none braver than they.
+
+It was evident from this time onwards that the turning movement had
+failed, and that the enemy had developed such strength that we were
+ourselves in imminent danger of being turned.  The situation was a
+most serious one: for if Clements's force could be brushed aside there
+would be nothing to keep the enemy from cutting the communications of
+the army which Roberts had assembled for his march into the Free
+State. Clements drew in his wings hurriedly and concentrated his whole
+force at Rensburg. It was a difficult operation in the face of an
+aggressive enemy, but the movements were well timed and admirably
+carried out.  There is always the possibility of a retreat
+degenerating into a panic, and a panic at that moment would have been
+a most serious matter.  One misfortune occurred, through which two
+companies of the Wiltshire regiment were left without definite orders,
+and were cut off and captured after a resistance in which a third of
+then number was killed and wounded.  No man in that trying time worked
+harder than Colonel Carter of the Wiltshires (the night of the retreat
+was the sixth which he had spent without sleep), and the loss of the
+two companies is to be set down to one of those accidents which may
+always occur in warfare.  Some of the Inniskilling Dragoons and
+Victorian Mounted Rifles were also cut off in the retreat, but on the
+whole Clements was very fortunate in being able to concentrate his
+scattered army with so few mishaps.  The withdrawal was heartbreaking
+to the soldiers who had worked so hard and so long in extending the
+lines, but it might be regarded with equanimity by the Generals, who
+understood that the greater strength the enemy developed at Colesberg
+the less they would have to oppose the critical movements which were
+about to be carried out in the west. Meanwhile Coleskop had also been
+abandoned, the guns removed, and the whole force on February 14th
+passed through Rensburg and felt back upon Arundel, the spot from
+which six weeks earlier French had started upon this stirring series
+of operations.  It would not be fair, however, to suppose that they
+had failed because they ended where they began.  Their primary object
+had been to prevent the further advance of the Freestaters into the
+colony, and, during the most critical period of the war, this had been
+accomplished with much success and little loss. At last the pressure
+had become so severe that the enemy had to weaken the most essential
+part of their general position in order to relieve it.  The object of
+the operations had really been attained when Clements found himself
+back at Arundel once more.  French, the stormy petrel of the war, had
+flitted on from Cape Town to Modder River, where a larger prize than
+Colesberg awaited him.  Clements continued to cover Naauwport, the
+important railway junction, until the advance of Roberts's army caused
+a complete reversal of the whole military situation.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SPION KOP
+
+
+Whilst Methuen and Gatacre were content to hold their own at the
+Modder and at Sterkstroom, and whilst the mobile and energetic French
+was herding the Boers into Colesberg, Sir Redvers Buller, the heavy,
+obdurate, inexplicable man, was gathering and organising his forces
+for another advance upon Ladysmith.  Nearly a month had elapsed since
+the evil day when his infantry had retired, and his ten guns had not,
+from the frontal attack upon Colenso.  Since then Sir Charles Warren's
+division of infantry and a considerable reinforcement of artillery had
+come to him.  And yet in view of the terrible nature of the ground in
+front of him, of the fighting power of the Boers, and of the fact that
+they were always acting upon internal lines, his force even now was,
+in the opinion of competent judges, too weak for the matter in hand.
+
+There remained, however, several points in his favour. His excellent
+infantry were full of zeal and of confidence in their chief.  It
+cannot be denied, however much we may criticise some incidents in his
+campaign, that he possessed the gift of impressing and encouraging his
+followers, and, in spite of Colenso, the sight of his square figure
+and heavy impassive face conveyed an assurance of ultimate victory to
+those around him.  In artillery he was very much stronger than before,
+especially in weight of metal. His cavalry was still weak in
+proportion to his other arms.  When at last he moved out on January
+10th to attempt to outflank the Boers, he took with him nineteen
+thousand infantry, three thousand cavalry, and sixty guns, which
+included six howitzers capable of throwing a 50-lb lyddite shell, and
+ten long-range naval pieces.  Barton's Brigade and other troops were
+left behind to hold the base and line of communications.
+
+An analysis of Buller's force shows that its details were as follows:
+
+Clery's Division
+	Hildyard's Brigade
+		   2nd West Surrey
+                   2nd Devonshire
+                   2nd West Yorkshire
+                   2nd East Surrey
+        Hart's Brigade
+	           1st Inniskilling Fusiliers
+                   1st Border Regiment
+                   1st Connaught Rangers
+                   2nd Dublin Fusiliers
+        Field Artillery, three batteries, 19th, 28th, 63rd;
+        one squadron 13th Hussars;
+        Royal Engineers.
+
+Warren's Division
+        Lyttelton's Brigade
+                   2nd Cameronians
+                   3rd King's Royal Rifles
+                   1st Durham Light Infantry
+                   1st Rifle Brigade
+        Woodgate's Brigade
+                   2nd Royal Lancaster
+	           2nd Lancashire Fusiliers
+                   1st South Lancashire
+                   York and Lancasters
+        Field Artillery, three batteries, 7th, 78th, 73rd ;
+        one squadron 13th Hussars.
+
+Corps Troops
+        Coke's Brigade
+                   Imperial Light Infantry
+                   2nd Somersets
+                   2nd Dorsets
+                   2nd Middlesex
+        61st Howitzer Battery; two 4.7 naval guns; eight naval 12-pounder guns;
+        one squadron 13th Hussars;
+        Royal Engineers.
+
+Cavalry
+	1st Royal Dragoons
+	14th Hussars
+	Four squadrons South African Horse
+	One squadron Imperial Light Horse
+	Bethune's Mounted Infantry
+	Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry
+	One squadron Natal Carabineers
+	One squadron Natal Police
+	One company King's Royal Rifles Mounted Infantry
+	Six machine guns
+
+This is the force whose operations I shall attempt to describe.
+
+About sixteen miles to the westward of Colenso there is a ford over
+the Tugela River which is called Potgieter's Drift.  General Buller's
+apparent plan was to seize this, together with the ferry which runs at
+this point, and so to throw himself upon the right flank of the
+Colenso Boers.  Once over the river there is one formidable line of
+hills to cross, but if this were passed there would be comparatively
+easy ground until the Ladysmith hills were reached. With high hopes
+Buller and his men sallied out upon their adventure.
+
+Dundonald's cavalry force pushed rapidly forwards, crossed the Little
+Tugela, a tributary of the main river, at Springfield, and established
+themselves upon the hills which command the drift. Dundonald largely
+exceeded his instructions in going so far, and while we applaud his
+courage and judgment in doing so, we must remember and be charitable
+to those less fortunate officers whose private enterprise has ended in
+disaster and reproof.  There can be no doubt that the enemy intended
+to hold all this tract, and that it was only the quickness of our
+initial movements which forestalled them.  Early in the morning a
+small party of the South African Horse, under Lieutenant Carlisle,
+swam the broad river under fire and brought back the ferry boat, an
+enterprise which was fortunately bloodless, but which was most coolly
+planned and gallantly carried out. The way was now open to our
+advance, and could it have been carried out as rapidly as it had begun
+the Boers might conceivably have been scattered before they could
+concentrate.  It was not the fault of the infantry that it was not so.
+They were trudging, mud-spattered and jovial, at the very heels of the
+horses, after a forced march which was one of the most trying of the
+whole campaign. But an army of 20,000 men cannot be conveyed over a
+river twenty miles from any base without elaborate preparations being
+made to feed them.  The roads were in such a state that the wagons
+could hardly move, heavy rain had just fallen, and every stream was
+swollen into a river; bullocks might strain, and traction engines
+pant, and horses die, but by no human means could the stores be kept
+up if the advance guard were allowed to go at their own pace.  And so,
+having ensured an ultimate crossing of the river by the seizure of
+Mount Alice, the high hill which commands the drift, the forces waited
+day after day, watching in the distance the swarms of strenuous dark
+figures who dug and hauled and worked upon the hillsides opposite,
+barring the road which they would have to take. Far away on the
+horizon a little shining point twinkled amid the purple haze, coming
+and going from morning to night. It was the heliograph of Ladysmith,
+explaining her troubles and calling for help, and from the heights of
+Mount Alice an answering star of hope glimmered and shone, soothing,
+encouraging, explaining, while the stern men of the veldt dug
+furiously at their trenches in between.  'We are coming!  We are
+coming!' cried Mount Alice.  'Over our bodies,' said the men with the
+spades and mattocks.
+
+On Thursday, January 12th, Dundonald seized the heights, on the 13th
+the ferry was taken and Lyttelton's Brigade came up to secure that
+which the cavalry had gained. On the 14th the heavy naval guns were
+brought up to cover the crossing.  On the 15th Coke's Brigade and
+other infantry concentrated at the drift.  On the 16th the four
+regiments of Lyttelton's Brigade went across, and then, and only then,
+it began to be apparent that Buller's plan was a more deeply laid one
+than had been thought, and that all this business of Potgieter's Drift
+was really a demonstration in order to cover the actual crossing which
+was to be effected at a ford named Trichard's Drift, five miles to the
+westward. Thus, while Lyttelton's and Coke's Brigades were
+ostentatiously attacking Potgieter's from in front, three other
+brigades (Hart's, Woodgate's, and Hildyard's) were marched rapidly on
+the night of the 16th to the real place of crossing, to which
+Dundonald's cavalry had already ridden. There, on the 17th, a pontoon
+bridge had been erected, and a strong force was thrown over in such a
+way as to turn the right of the trenches in front of Potgieter's. It
+was admirably planned and excellently carried out, certainly the most
+strategic movement, if there could he said to have been any strategic
+movement upon the British side, in the campaign up to that date.  On
+the 18th the infantry, the cavalry, and most of the guns were safely
+across without loss of life.  The Boers, however, still retained their
+formidable internal lines, and the only result of a change of position
+seemed to be to put them to the trouble of building a new series of
+those terrible entrenchments at which they had become such experts.
+After all the combinations the British were, it is true, upon the
+right side of the river, but they were considerably further from
+Ladysmith than when they started.  There are times, however, when
+twenty miles are less than fourteen, and it was hoped that this might
+prove to be among them. But the first step was the most serious one,
+for right across their front lay the Boer position upon the edge of a
+lofty plateau, with the high peak of Spion Kop forming the left corner
+of it.  If once that main ridge could be captured or commanded, it
+would carry them halfway to the goal.  It was for that essential line
+of hills that two of the most dogged races upon earth were about to
+contend. An immediate advance might have secured the position at once,
+but, for some reason which is inexplicable, an aimless march to the
+left was followed by a retirement to the original position of Warren's
+division, and so two invaluable days were wasted. We have the positive
+assurance of Commandant Edwards, who was Chief of Staff to General
+Botha, that a vigorous turning movement upon the left would at this
+time have completely outflanked the Boer position and opened a way to
+Ladysmith.
+
+A small success, the more welcome for its rarity, came to the British
+arms on this first day.  Dundonald's men had been thrown out to cover
+the left of the infantry advance and to feel for the right of the Boer
+position. A strong Boer patrol, caught napping for once, rode into an
+ambuscade of the irregulars. some escaped, some held out most
+gallantly in a kopje, but the final result was a surrender of
+twenty-four unwounded prisoners, and the finding of thirteen killed
+and wounded, including de Mentz, the field-cornet of Heilbron.  Two
+killed and two wounded were the British losses in this well-managed
+affair. Dundonald's force then took its position upon the extreme left
+of Warren's advance.
+
+The British were now moving upon the Boers in two separate bodies, the
+one which included Lyttelton's and Coke's Brigades from Potgieter's
+Drift, making what was really a frontal attack, while the main body
+under Warren, who had crossed at Trichard's Drift, was swinging round
+upon the Boer right. Midway between the two movements the formidable
+bastion of Spion Kop stood clearly outlined against the blue Natal
+sky.  The heavy naval guns on Mount Alice (two 4.7's and eight
+twelve-pounders) were so placed as to support either advance, and the
+howitzer battery was given to Lyttelton to help the frontal
+attack. For two days the British pressed slowly but steadily on to the
+Boers under the cover of an incessant rain of shells. Dour and long-
+suffering the Boers made no reply, save with sporadic rifle-fire, and
+refused until the crisis should come to expose their great guns to the
+chance of injury.
+
+On January 19th Warren's turning movement began to bring him into
+closer touch with the enemy, his thirty-six field guns and the six
+howitzers which had returned to him crushing down the opposition which
+faced him. The ground in front of him was pleated into long folds, and
+his advance meant the carrying of ridge after ridge. In the earlier
+stages of the war this would have entailed a murderous loss; but we
+had learned our lesson, and the infantry now, with intervals of ten
+paces, and every man choosing his own cover, went up in proper Boer
+form, carrying position after position, the enemy always retiring with
+dignity and decorum. There was no victory on one side or rout on the
+other -- only a steady advance and an orderly retirement.  That night
+the infantry slept in their fighting line, going on again at three in
+the morning, and light broke to find not only rifles, but the
+long-silent Boer guns all blazing at the British advance. Again, as at
+Colenso, the brunt of the fighting fell upon Hart's Irish Brigade, who
+upheld that immemorial tradition of valour with which that name,
+either in or out of the British service, has invariably been
+associated. Upon the Lancashire Fusiliers and the York and Lancasters
+came also a large share of the losses and the glory. Slowly but surely
+the inexorable line of the British lapped over the ground which the
+enemy had held. A gallant colonial, Tobin of the South African Horse,
+rode up one hill and signaled with his hat that it was clear.  His
+comrades followed closely at his heels, and occupied the position with
+the loss of Childe, their Major.  During this action Lyttelton had
+held the Boers in their trenches opposite to him by advancing to
+within 1,500 yards of them, but the attack was not pushed further.  On
+the evening of this day, January 20th, the British had gained some
+miles of ground, and the total losses had been about three hundred
+killed and wounded.  The troops were in good heart, and all promised
+well for the future. Again the men lay where they had fought, and
+again the dawn heard the crash of the great guns and the rattle of the
+musketry.
+
+The operations of this day began with a sustained cannonade from the
+field batteries and 61st Howitzer Battery, which was as fiercely
+answered by the enemy. About eleven the infantry began to go forward
+with an advance which would have astonished the martinets of
+Aldershot, an irregular fringe of crawlers, wrigglers, writhers,
+cronchers, all cool and deliberate, giving away no points in this grim
+game of death.  Where now were the officers with their distinctive
+dresses and flashing swords, where the valiant rushes over the open,
+where the men who were too proud to lie down? -- the tactics of three
+months ago seemed as obsolete as those of the Middle Ages. All day the
+line undulated forward, and by evening yet another strip of
+rock-strewn ground had been gained, and yet another train of
+ambulances was bearing a hundred of our wounded back to the base
+hospitals at Frere.  It was on Hildyard's Brigade on the left that the
+fighting and the losses of this day principally fell. By the morning
+of January 22nd the regiments were clustering thickly all round the
+edges of the Boer main position, and the day was spent in resting the
+weary men, and in determining at what point the final assault should
+be delivered.  On the right front, commanding the Boer lines on either
+side, towered the stark eminence of Spion Kop, so called because from
+its summit the Boer voortrekkers had first in 1835 gazed down upon the
+promised land of Natal. If that could only be seized and held!  Buller
+and Warren swept its bald summit with their field-glasses. It was a
+venture.  But all war is a venture; and the brave man is he who
+ventures most.  One fiery rush and the master-key of all these locked
+doors might be in our keeping.  That evening there came a telegram to
+London which left the whole Empire in a hush of anticipation.  Spion
+Kop was to be attacked that night.
+
+The troops which were selected for the task were eight companies of
+the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, six of the 2nd Royal Lancasters, two of
+the 1st South Lancashires, 180 of Thorneycroft's, and half a company
+of Sappers. It was to be a North of England job.
+
+Under the friendly cover of a starless night the men, in Indian file,
+like a party of Iroquois braves upon the war trail, stole up the
+winding and ill-defined path which led to the summit. Woodgate, the
+Lancashire Brigadier, and Blomfield of the Fusiliers led the way. It
+was a severe climb of 2,000 feet, coming after arduous work over
+broken ground, but the affair was well-timed, and it was at that
+blackest hour which precedes the dawn that the last steep ascent was
+reached.  The Fusiliers crouched down among the rocks to recover their
+breath, and saw far down in the plain beneath them the placid lights
+which showed where their comrades were resting. A fine rain was
+falling, and rolling clouds hung low over their heads.  The men with
+unloaded rifles and fixed bayonets stole on once more, their bodies
+bent, their eyes peering through the mirk for the first sign of the
+enemy -- that enemy whose first sign has usually been a shattering
+volley.  Thorneycroft's men with their gallant leader had threaded
+their way up into the advance.  Then the leading files found that they
+were walking on the level.  The crest had been gained.
+
+With slow steps and bated breath, the open line of skirmishers stole
+across it. Was it possible that it had been entirely abandoned?
+Suddenly a raucous shout of `Wie da?' came out of the darkness, then a
+shot, then a splutter of musketry and a yell, as the Fusiliers sprang
+onwards with their bayonets.  The Boer post of Vryheid burghers
+clattered and scrambled away into the darkness, and a cheer that
+roused both the sleeping armies told that the surprise had been
+complete and the position won.
+
+In the grey light of the breaking day the men advanced along the
+narrow undulating ridge, the prominent end of which they had
+captured. Another trench faced them, but it was weakly held and
+abandoned. Then the men, uncertain what remained beyond, halted and
+waited for full light to see where they were, and what the work was
+which lay before them -- a fatal halt, as the result proved, and yet
+one so natural that it is hard to blame the officer who ordered
+it. Indeed, he might have seemed more culpable had he pushed blindly
+on, and so lost the advantage which had been already gained.
+
+About eight o'clock, with the clearing of the mist, General Woodgate
+saw how matters stood.  The ridge, one end of which he held, extended
+away, rising and falling for some miles.  Had he the whole of the end
+plateau, and had he guns, he might hope to command the rest of the
+position.  But he held only half the plateau, and at the further end
+of it the Boers were strongly entrenched. The Spion Kop mountain was
+really the salient or sharp angle of the Boer position, so that the
+British were exposed to a cross fire both from the left and
+right. Beyond were other eminences which sheltered strings of riflemen
+and several guns.  The plateau which the British held was very much
+narrower than was usually represented in the press. In many places the
+possible front was not much more than a hundred yards wide, and the
+troops were compelled to bunch together, as there was not room for a
+single company to take an extended formation.  The cover upon this
+plateau was scanty, far too scanty for the force upon it, and the
+shell fire -- especially the fire of the pom-poms -- soon became very
+murderous. To mass the troops under the cover of the edge of the
+plateau might naturally suggest itself, but with great tactical skill
+the Boer advanced line from Commandant Prinsloo's Heidelberg and
+Carolina commandos kept so aggressive an attitude that the British
+could not weaken the lines opposed to them.  Their skirmishers were
+creeping round too in such a way that the fire was really coming from
+three separate points, left, centre, and. right, and every corner of
+the position was searched by their bullets. Early in the action the
+gallant Woodgate and many of his Lancashire men were shot down. The
+others spread out and held on, firing occasionally at the whisk of a
+rifle-barrel or the glimpse of a broad-brimmed hat.
+
+>From morning to midday, the shell, Maxim, and rifle fire swept across
+the kop in a continual driving shower. The British guns in the plain
+below failed to localise the position of the enemy's, and they were
+able to vent their concentrated spite upon the exposed infantry. No
+blame attaches to the gunners for this, as a hill intervened to screen
+the Boer artillery, which consisted of five big guns and two pom-poms.
+
+Upon the fall of Woodgate, Thorneycroft, who bore the reputation of a
+determined fighter, was placed at the suggestion of Buller in charge
+of the defence of the hill, and he was reinforced after noon by Coke's
+brigade, the Middlesex, the Dorsets, and the Somersets, together with
+the Imperial Light Infantry.  The addition of this force to the
+defenders of the plateau tended to increase the casualty returns
+rather than the strength of the defence.  Three thousand more rifles
+could do nothing to check the fire of the invisible cannon, and it was
+this which was the main source of the losses, while on the other hand
+the plateau had become so cumbered with troops that a shell could
+hardly fail to do damage.  There was no cover to shelter them and no
+room for them to extend. The pressure was most severe upon the shal]ow
+trenches in the front, which had been abandoned by the Boers and were
+held by the Lancashire Fusiliers.  They were enfiladed by rifle and
+cannon, and the dead and wounded outnumbered the hale. So close were
+the skirmishers that on at least one occasion Boer and Briton found
+themselves on each side of the same rock.  Once a handful of men,
+tormented beyond endurance, sprang up as a sign that they had had
+enough, but Thorneycroft, a man of huge physique, rushed forward to
+the advancing Boers.  'You may go to hell!' he yelled.  'I command
+here, and allow no surrender. Go on with your firing.'  Nothing could
+exceed the gallantry of Louis Botha's men in pushing the attack. Again
+and again they made their way up to the British firing line, exposing
+themselves with a recklessness which, with the exception of the grand
+attack upon Ladysmith, was unique in our experience of them. About two
+o'clock they rushed one trench occupied by the Fusiliers and secured
+the survivors of two companies as prisoners, but were subsequently
+driven out again.  A detached group of the South Lancashires was
+summoned to surrender.  'When I surrender,' cried Colour-Sergeant
+Nolan, 'it will be my dead body!'  Hour after hour of the
+unintermitting crash of the shells among the rocks and of the groans
+and screams of men torn and burst by the most horrible of all wounds
+had shaken the troops badly.  Spectators from below who saw the shells
+pitching at the rate of seven a minute on to the crowded plateau
+marvelled at the endurance which held the devoted men to their post.
+Men were wounded and wounded and wounded yet again, and still went on
+fighting.  Never since Inkerman had we had so grim a soldier's battle.
+The company officers were superb. Captain Muriel of the Middlesex was
+shot through the check while giving a cigarette to a wounded man,
+continued to lead his company, and was shot again through the
+brain. Scott Moncrieff of the same regiment was only disabled by the
+fourth bullet which hit him.  Grenfell of Thorneycroft's was shot, and
+exclaimed, 'That's all right.  It's not much.'  A second wound made
+him remark, 'I can get on all right.'  The third killed him. Ross of
+the Lancasters, who had crawled from a sickbed, was found dead upon
+the furthest crest. Young Murray of the Scottish Rifles, dripping from
+five wounds, still staggered about among his men. And the men were
+worthy of such officers. 'No retreat!  No retreat!' they yelled when
+some of the front line were driven in.  In all regiments there are
+weaklings and hang-backs, and many a man was wandering down the
+reverse slopes when he should have been facing death upon the top, but
+as a body British troops have never stood firm through a more fiery
+ordeal than on that fatal hill..
+
+The position was so bad that no efforts of officers or men could do
+anything to mend it.  They were in a murderous dilemma.  If they fell
+back for cover the Boer riflemen would rush the position. If they held
+their ground this horrible shell fire must continue, which they had no
+means of answering.  Down at Gun Hill in front of the Boer position we
+had no fewer than five batteries, the 78th, 7th, 73rd, 63rd, and 61st
+howitzer, but a ridge intervened between them and the Boer guns which
+were shelling Spion Kop, and this ridge was strongly entrenched.  The
+naval guns from distant Mount Alice did what they could, but the range
+was very long, and the position of the Boer guns uncertain. The
+artillery, situated as it was, could not save the infantry from the
+horrible scourging which they were enduring.
+
+There remains the debated question whether the British guns could have
+been taken to the top. Mr. Winston Churchill, the soundness of whose
+judgment has been frequently demonstrated during the war, asserts that
+it might have been done. Without venturing to contradict one who was
+personally present, I venture to tbink that there is strong evidence
+to show that it could not have been done without blasting and other
+measures, for which there was no possible time. Captain Hanwell of the
+78th R.F.A., upon the day of the battle had the very utmost difficulty
+with the help of four horses in getting a light Maxim on to the top,
+and his opinion, with that of other artillery officers, is that the
+feat was an impossible one until the path had been prepared.  When
+night fell Colonel Sim was despatched with a party of Sappers to clear
+the track and to prepare two emplacements upon the top, but in his
+advance he met the retiring infantry.
+
+Throughout the day reinforcements had pushed up the hill, until two
+full brigades had been drawn into the fight. From the other side of
+the ridge Lyttelton sent up the Scottish Rifles, who reached the
+summit, and added their share to the shambles upon the top. As the
+shades of night closed in, and the glare of the bursting shells became
+more lurid, the men lay extended upon the rocky ground, parched and
+exhausted.  They were hopelessly jumbled together, with the exception
+of the Dorsets, whose cohesion may have been due to superior
+discipline, less exposure, or to the fact that their khaki differed
+somewhat in colour from that of the others. Twelve hours of so
+terrible an experience had had a strange effect upon many of the men.
+Some were dazed and battle-struck, incapable of clear understanding.
+Some were as incoherent as drunkards.  Some lay in an overpowering
+drowsiness.  The most were doggedly patient and long-suffering, with a
+mighty longing for water obliterating every other emotion.
+
+Before evening fell a most gallant and successful attempt had been
+made by the third battalion of the King's Royal Rifles from
+Lyttelton's Brigade to relieve the pressure upon their comrades on
+Spion Kop.  In order to draw part of the Boer fire away they ascended
+from the northern side and carried the hills which formed a
+continuation of the same ridge. The movement was meant to be no more
+than a strong demonstration, but the riflemen pushed it until,
+breathless but victorious, they stood upon the very crest of the
+position, leaving nearly a hundred dead or dying to show the path
+which they had taken.  Their advance being much further than was
+desired, they were recalled, and it was at the moment that Buchanan
+Riddell, their brave Colonel, stood up to read Lyttelton's note that
+he fell with a Boer bullet through his brain, making one more of those
+gallant leaders who died as they had lived, at the head of their
+regiments.  Chisholm, Dick-Cunyngham, Downman, Wilford, Gunning,
+Sherston, Thackeray, Sitwell, MacCarthy O'Leary, Airlie -- they have
+led their men up to and through the gates of death. It was a fine
+exploit of the 3rd Rifles.  'A finer bit of skirmishing, a finer bit
+of climbing, and a finer bit of fighting, I have never seen,' said
+their Brigadier.  It is certain that if Lyttelton had not thrown his
+two regiments into the fight the pressure upon the hill-top might have
+become unendurable; and it seems also certain that if he had only held
+on to the position which the Rifles had gained, the Boers would never
+have reoccupied Spion Kop.
+
+And now, under the shadow of night, but with the shells bursting
+thickly over the plateau, the much-tried Thorneycroft had to make up
+his mind whether he should hold on for another such day as he had
+endured, or whether now, in the friendly darkness, he should remove
+his shattered force.  Could he have seen the discouragement of the
+Boers and the preparations which they had made for retirement, he
+would have held his ground. But this was hidden from him, whille the
+horror of his own losses was but too apparent.  Forty per cent. of his
+men were down. Thirteen hundred dead and dying are a grim sight upon a
+wide-spread battle-field, but when this number is heaped upon a
+confined space, where from a single high rock the whole litter of
+broken and shattered bodies can be seen, and the groans of the
+stricken rise in one long droning chorus to the ear, then it is an
+iron mind indeed which can resist such evidence of disaster. In a
+harder age Wellington was able to survey four thousand bodies piled in
+the narrow compass of the breach of Badajos, but his resolution was
+sustained by the knowledge that the military end for which they fell
+had been accomplished. Had his task been unfinished it is doubtful
+whether even his steadfast soul would not have flinched from its
+completion.  Thorneycroft saw the frightful havoc of one day, and he
+shrank from the thought of such another.  'Better six battalions
+safely down the hill than a mop up in the morning,' said he, and he
+gave the word to retire.  One who had met the troops as they staggered
+down has told me how far they were from being routed. In mixed array,
+but steadily and in order, the long thin line trudged through the
+darkness.  Their parched lips would not articulate, but they whispered
+'Water! Where is water?' as they toiled upon their way. At the bottom
+of the hill they formed into regiments once more, and marched back to
+the camp.  In the morning the blood-spattered hill-top, with its piles
+of dead and of wounded, were in the hands of Botha and his men, whose
+valour and perseverance deserved the victory which they had won. There
+is no doubt now that at 3 A.M. of that morning Botha, knowing that the
+Rifles had carried Burger's position, regarded the affair as hopeless,
+and that no one was more astonished than he when he found, on the
+report of two scouts, that it was a victory and not a defeat which had
+come to him.
+
+How shall we sum up such an action save that it was a gallant attempt,
+gallantly carried out, and as gallantly met? On both sides the results
+of artillery fire during the war have been disappointing, but at Spion
+Kop beyond all question it was the Boer guns which won the action for
+them.  So keen was the disappointment at home that there was a
+tendency to criticise the battle with some harshness, but it is
+difficult now, with the evidence at our command, to say what was left
+undone which could have altered the result. Had Thorneycroft known all
+that we know, he would have kept his grip upon the hill.  On the face
+of it one finds it difficult to understand why so momentous a
+decision, upon which the whole operations depended, should have been
+left entirely to the judgment of one who in the morning had been a
+simple Lieutenant-Colonel.  'Where are the bosses? ' cried a Fusilier,
+and the historian can only repeat the question.  General Warren was at
+the bottom of the hill.  Had he ascended and determined that the place
+should still be held, he might have sent down the wearied troops,
+brought up smaller numbers of fresh ones, ordered the Sappers to
+deepen the trenches, and tried to bring up water and guns.  It was for
+the divisional commander to lay his hand upon the reins at so critical
+an instant, to relieve the weary man who had struggled so hard all
+day.
+
+The subsequent publication of the official despatches has served
+little purpose, save to show that there was a want of harmony between
+Buller and Warren, and that the former lost all confidence in his
+subordinate during the course of the operations. In these papers
+General Buller expresses the opinion that had Warren's operations been
+more dashing, he would have found his turning movement upon the left a
+comparatively easy matter.  In this judgment he would probably have
+the concurrence of most military critics. He adds, however, 'On the
+19th, I ought to have assumed command myself.  I saw that things were
+not going well -- indeed, everyone saw that.  I blame myself now for
+not having done so.  I did not, because, if I did, I should discredit
+General Warren in the estimation of the troops, and, if I were shot,
+and he had to withdraw across the Tugela, and they had lost confidence
+in him, the consequences might be very serious.  I must leave it to
+higher authority whether this argument was a sound one.' It needs no
+higher authority than common-sense to say that the argument is an
+absolutely unsound one. No consequences could be more serious than
+that the operations should miscarry and Ladysmith remain unrelieved,
+and such want of success must in any case discredit Warren in the eyes
+of his troops. Besides, a subordinate is not discredited because his
+chief steps in to conduct a critical operation.  However, these
+personal controversies may be suffered to remain in that pigeon-hole
+from which they should never have been drawn.
+
+On account of the crowding of four thousand troops into a space which
+might have afforded tolerable cover for five hundred the losses in the
+action were very heavy, not fewer than fifteen hundred being killed,
+wounded, or missing, the proportion of killed being, on account of the
+shell fire, abnormally high.  The Lancashire Fusiliers were the
+heaviest sufferers, and their Colonel Blomfield was wounded and fell
+into the hands of the enemy.  The Royal Lancasters also lost heavily.
+Thorneycroft's had 80 men hit out of 180 engaged.  The Imperial Light
+Infantry, a raw corps of Rand refugees who were enduring their baptism
+of fire, lost 130 men. In officers the losses were particularly heavy,
+60 being killed or wounded. The Boer returns show some 50 killed and
+150 wounded, which may not be far from the truth. Without the shell
+fire the British losses might not have been much more.
+
+General Buller had lost nearly two thousand men since he had crossed
+the Tugela, and his purpose was still unfulfilled.  Should he risk the
+loss of a large part of his force in storming the ridges in front of
+him, or should he recross the river and try for an easier route
+elsewhere? To the surprise and disappointment both of the public and
+of the army, he chose the latter course, and by January 27th he had
+fallen back, unmolested by the Boers, to the other side of the
+Tugela. It must be confessed that his retreat was admirably conducted,
+and that it was a military feat to bring his men, his guns, and his
+stores in safety over a broad river in the face of a victorious enemy.
+Stolid and unmoved, his impenetrable demeanour restored serenity and
+confidence to the angry and disappointed troops.  There might well be
+heavy hearts among both them and the public. After a fortnight's
+campaign, and the endurance of great losses and hardships, both
+Ladysmith and her relievers found themselves no better off than when
+they started. Buller still held the commanding position of Mount
+Alice, and this was all that he had to show for such sacrifices and
+such exertions.  Once more there came a weary pause while Ladysmith,
+sick with hope deferred, waited gloomily upon half-rations of
+horse-flesh for the next movement from the South.
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+VAALKRANZ
+
+Neither General Buller nor his troops appeared to be dismayed by the
+failure of their plans, or by the heavy losses which were entailed by
+the movement which culminated at Spion Kop.  The soldiers grumbled, it
+is true, at not being let go, and swore that even if it cost them
+two-thirds of their number they could and would make heir way through
+this labyrinth of hills with its fringe of death.  So doubtless they
+might. But from first to last their General had shown a great -- some
+said an exaggerated -- respect for human life, and he had no intention
+of winning a path by mere slogging, if there were a chance of finding
+one by less bloody means.  On the morrow of his return he astonished
+both his army and the Empire by announcing that he had found the key
+to the position and that he hoped to be in Ladysmith in a week.  Some
+rejoiced in the assurance. Some shrugged their shoulders.  Careless of
+friends or foes, the stolid Buller proceeded to work out his new
+combination.
+
+In the next few days reinforcements trickled in which more than made
+up for the losses of the preceding week. A battery of horse artillery,
+two heavy guns, two squadrons of the 14th Hussars, and infantry drafts
+to the number of twelve or fourteen hundred men came to share the
+impending glory or disaster.  On the morning of February 5th the army
+sallied forth once more to have another try to win a way to
+Ladysmith. It was known that enteric was rife in the town, that shell
+and bullet and typhoid germ had struck down a terrible proportion of
+the garrison, and that the rations of starved horse and commissariat
+mule were running low. With their comrades -- in many cases their
+linked battalions -- in such straits within fifteen miles of them,
+Buller's soldiers had high motives to brace them for a supreme effort.
+
+The previous attempt had been upon the line immediately to the west of
+Spion Kop. If, however, one were to follow to the east of Spion Kop,
+one would come upon a high mountain called Doornkloof.  Between these
+two peaks, there lies a low ridge, called Brakfontein, and a small
+detached hill named Vaalkranz. Buller's idea was that if he could
+seize this small Vaalkranz, it would enable him to avoid the high
+ground altogether and pass his troops through on to the plateau
+beyond. He still held the Ford at Potgieter's and commanded the
+country beyond with heavy guns on Mount Alice and at Swartz Kop, so
+that he could pass troops over at his will.  He would make a noisy
+demonstration against Brakfontein, then suddenly seize Vaalkranz, and
+so, as he hoped, hold the outer door which opened on to the passage to
+Ladysmith.
+
+The getting of the guns up Swartz Kop was a preliminary which was as
+necessary as it was difficult. A road was cut, sailors, engineers, and
+gunners worked with a will under the general direction of Majors
+Findlay and Apsley Smith.  A mountain battery, two field guns, and six
+naval 12-pounders were slung up by steel hawsers, the sailors
+yeo-hoing on the halliards. The ammunition was taken up by hand.  At
+six o'clock on the morning of the 5th the other guns opened a furious
+and probably harmless fire upon Brakfontein, Spion Kop, and all the
+Boer positions opposite to them.  Shortly afterwards the feigned
+attack upon Brakfontein was commenced and was sustained with much fuss
+and appearance of energy until all was ready for the development of
+the true one. Wynne's Brigade, which had been Woodgate's, recovered
+already from its Spion Kop experience, carried out this part of the
+plan, supported by six batteries of field artillery, one howitzer
+battery, and two 4.7 naval guns.  Three hours later a telegram was on
+its way to Pretoria to tell how triumphantly the burghers had driven
+back an attack which was never meant to go forward.  The infantry
+retired first, then the artillery in alternate batteries, preserving a
+beautiful order and decorum.  The last battery, the 78th, remained to
+receive the concentrated fire of the Boer guns, and was so enveloped
+in the dust of the exploding. shells that spectators could only see a
+gun here or a limber there. Out of this whirl of death it quietly
+walked, without a bucket out of its place, the gunners drawing one
+wagon, the horses of which had perished, and so effected a leisurely
+and contemptuous withdrawal.  The gallantry of the gunners has been
+one of the most striking features of the war, but it has never been
+more conspicuous than in this feint at Brakfontein.
+
+While the attention of the Boers was being concentrated upon the
+Lancashire men, a pontoon bridge was suddenly thrown across the river
+at a place called Munger's Drift, some miles to the eastward.  Three
+infantry brigades, those of Hart, Lyttelton, and Hildyard, had been
+massed all ready to be let slip when the false attack was sufficiently
+absorbing.  The artillery fire (the Swartz Kop guns, and also the
+batteries which had been withdrawn from the Brakfontein demonstration)
+was then turned suddenly, with the crashing effect of seventy pieces,
+upon the real object of attack, the isolated Vaalkranz.  It is
+doubtful whether any position has ever been subjected to so terrific a
+bombardment, for the weight of metal thrown by single guns was greater
+than that of a whole German battery in the days of their last great
+war.  The 4-pounders and 6-pounders of which Prince Kraft discourses
+would have seemed toys beside these mighty howitzers and 4ˇ7's. Yet
+though the hillside was sharded off in great flakes, it is doubtful if
+this terrific fire inflicted much injury upon the cunning and
+invisible riflemen with whom we had to contend.
+
+About midday the infantry began to stream across the bridge, which had
+been most gallantly and efficiently constructed under a warm fire, by
+a party of sappers, under the command of Major Irvine.  The attack was
+led by the Durham Light Infantry of Lyttelton's Brigade, followed by
+the 1st Rifle Brigade, with the Scottish and 3rd Rifles in support.
+Never did the old Light Division of Peninsular fame go up a Spanish
+hillside with greater spirit and dash than these, their descendants,
+facing the slope of Vaalkranz. In open order they moved across the
+plain, with a superb disregard of the crash and patter of the
+shrapnel, and then up they went, the flitting figures, springing from
+cover to cover, stooping, darting, crouching, running, until with
+their glasses the spectators on Swartz Kop could see the gleam of the
+bayonets and the strain of furious rushing men upon the summit, as the
+Jast Boers were driven from their trenches.  The position was gained,
+but little else.  Seven officers and seventy men were lying killed and
+wounded among the boulders. A few stricken Boers, five unwounded
+prisoners, and a string of Basuto ponies were the poor fruits of
+victory -- those and the arid hill from which so much had been hoped,
+and so little was to be gained.
+
+It was during this advance that an incident occurred of a more
+picturesque character than is usual in modern warfare.  The
+invisibility of combatants and guns, and the absorption of the
+individual in the mass, have robbed the battle-field of those episodes
+which adorned, if they did not justify it.  On this occasion, a Boer
+gun, cut off by the British advance, flew out suddenly from behind its
+cover, like a hare from its tussock, and raced for safety across the
+plain.  Here and there it wound, the horses stretched to their utmost,
+the drivers stooping and lashing, the little gun bounding behind.  To
+right to left, behind and before, the British shells burst, lyddite
+and shrapnel, crashing and riving.  Over the lip of a hollow, the
+gallant gun vanished, and within a few minutes was banging away once
+more at the British advance. With cheers and shouts and laughter, the
+British infantrymen watched the race for shelter, their sporting
+spirit rising high above all racial hatred, and hailing with a 'gone
+to ground' whoop the final disappearance of the gun.
+
+The Durhams had cleared the path, but the other regiments of
+Lyttelton's Brigade followed hard at their heels, and before night
+they had firmly established themselves upon the hill.  But the fatal
+slowness which had marred General Buller's previous operations again
+prevented him from completing his success.  Twice at least in the
+course of these operations there is evidence of sudden impulse to drop
+his tools in the midst of his task and to do no more for the day.  So
+it was at Colenso, where an order was given at an early hour for the
+whole force to retire, and the guns which might have been covered by
+infantry fire and withdrawn after nightfall were abandoned.  So it was
+also at a critical moment at this action at Vaalkranz.  In the
+original scheme of operations it had been planned that an adjoining
+hill, called the Green Hill, which partly commanded Vaalkranz, should
+be carried also. The two together made a complete position, while
+singly each was a very bad neighbour to the other.  On the
+aide-de-camp riding up, however, to inquire from General Buller
+whether the time had come for this advance, he replied, 'We have done
+enough for the day,' and left out this essential portion of his
+original scheme, with the result that all miscarried.
+
+Speed was the most essential quality for carrying out his plan
+successfully.  So it must always be with the attack.  The defence does
+not know where the blow is commg, and has to distribute men and guns
+to cover miles of ground.  The attacker knows where he will hit, and
+behind a screen of outposts he can mass his force and throw his whole
+strength against a mere fraction of that of his enemy.  But in order
+to do so he must be quick.  One tiger spring must tear the centre out
+of the line before the flanks can come to its assistance.  If time is
+given, if the long line can concentrate, if the scattered guns can
+mass, if lines of defence can be reduplicated behind, then the one
+great advantage which the attack possesses is thrown away. Both at the
+second and at the third attempts of Buller the British movements were
+so slow that had the enemy been the slowest instead of the most mobile
+of armies, they could still always have made any dispositions which
+they chose. Warren's dawdling in the first days of the movement which
+ended at Spion Kop might with an effort be condoned on account of
+possible difficulties of supply, but it would strain the ingenuity of
+the most charitable critic to find a sufficient reason for the
+lethargy of Vaalkranz.  Though daylight comes a little after four, the
+operations were not commenced before seven. Lyttelton's Brigade had
+stormed the hill at two, and nothing more was done during the long
+evening, while officers chafed and soldiers swore, and the busy Boers
+worked furiously to bring up their guns and to bar the path which we
+must take.  General Buller remarked a day or two later that the way
+was not quite so easy as it had been. One might have deduced the fact
+without the aid of a balloon.
+
+The brigade then occupied Vaalkranz and erected sangars and dug
+trenches.  On the morning of the 6th, the position of the British
+force was not dissimilar to that of Spion Kop.  Again they had some
+thousands of men upon a hill-top, exposed to shell fire from several
+directions and without any guns upon the hill to support them.  In one
+or two points the situation was modified in their favour, and hence
+their escape from loss and disaster. A more extended position enabled
+the infantry to avoid bunching, but in other respects the situation
+was parallel to that in which they had found themselves a fortnight
+before.
+
+The original plan was that the taking of Vaalkranz should be the first
+step towards the outflanking of Brakfontein and the rolling up of the
+whole Boer position. But after the first move the British attitude
+became one of defence rather than of attack.  Whatever the general and
+ultimate effect of these operations may have been, it is beyond
+question that their contemplation was annoying and bewildering in the
+extreme to those who were present.  The position on February 6th was
+this.  Over the river upon the hill was a singgle British brigade,
+exposed to the fire of one enormous gun -- a 96-pound Creusot, the
+longest of all Long Toms -- which was stationed upon Doornkloof, and
+of several smaller guns and pom-poms which spat at them from nooks and
+crevices of the hills.  On our side were seventy-two guns, large and
+small, all very noisy and impotent.  It is not too much to say, as it
+appears to me, that the Boers have in some ways revolutionised our
+ideas in regard to the use of artillery, by bringing a fresh and
+healthy common-sense to bear upon a subject which had been unduly
+fettered by pedantic rules.  The Boer system is the single stealthy
+gun crouching where none can see it.  The British system is the six
+brave guns coming into action in line of full interval, and spreading
+out into accurate dressing visible to all men. 'Always remember,' says
+one of our artillery maxims, 'that one gun is no gun.' Which is
+prettier on a field-day, is obvious, but which is business -- let the
+many duels between six Boer guns and sixty British declare. With black
+powder it was useless to hide the gun, as its smoke must betray
+it. With smokeless powder the guns are so invisible that it was only
+by the detection with powerful glasses of the dust from the trail on
+the recoil that the officers were ever able to localise the guns
+against which they were fighting. But if the Boers had had six guns in
+line, instead of one behind that kopje, and another between those
+distant rocks, it would not have been so difficult to say where they
+were. Again, British traditions are all in favour of planting guns
+close together. At this very action of Vaalkranz the two largest guns
+were so placed that a single shell bursting between them would have
+disabled them both.  The officer who placed them there, and so
+disregarded in a vital matter the most obvious dictates of
+common-sense, would probably have been shocked by any want of
+technical smartness, or irregularity in the routine drill. An
+over-elaboration of trifles, and a want of grip of common-sense, and
+of adaptation to new ideas, is the most serious and damaging criticism
+which can be levelled against our army.  That the function of infantry
+is to shoot, and not to act like spearmen in the Middle Ages; that the
+first duty of artillery is so far as is possible to be invisible --
+these are two of the lessons which have been driven home so often
+during the war, that even our hidebound conservatism can hardly resist
+them.
+
+Lyttelton's Brigade, then, held Vaalkranz; and from three parts of the
+compass there came big shells and little shells, with a constant
+shower of long-range rifle bullets. Behind them, and as useful as if
+it had been on Woolwich Common, there was drawn up an imposing mass of
+men, two infantry divisions, and two brigades of cavalry, all
+straining at the leash, prepared to shed their blood until the spruits
+ran red with it, if only they could win their way to where their
+half-starved comrades waited for them. But nothing happened. Hours
+passed and nothing happened.  An occasional shell from the big gun
+plumped among them.  One, through some freak of gunnery, lobbed slowly
+through a division, and the men whooped and threw their caps at it as
+it passed. The guns on Swartz Kop, at a range of nearly five miles,
+tossed shells at the monster on Doornkloof, and finally blew up his
+powder magazine amid the applause of the infantry. For the army it was
+a picnic and a spectacle.
+
+But it was otherwise with the men up on Vaalkranz. In spite of sangar
+and trench, that cross fire was finding them out; and no feint or
+demonstration on either side came to draw the concentrated fire from
+their position. Once there was a sudden alarm at the western end of
+the hill, and stooping bearded figures with slouch hats and bandoliers
+were right up on the ridge before they could be stopped, so cleverly
+had their advance been conducted. But a fiery rush of Durhams and
+Rifles cleared the crest again, and it was proved once more how much
+stronger is the defence than the attack.  Nightfall found the position
+unchanged, save that another pontoon bridge had been constructed
+during the day. Over this Hildyard's Brigade marched to relieve
+Lyttelton's, who came back for a rest under the cover of the Swartz
+Kop guns. Their losses in the two days had been under two hundred and
+fifty, a trifle if any aim were to be gained, but excessive for a mere
+demonstration.
+
+That night Hildyard's men supplemented the defences made by Lyttelton,
+and tightened their hold upon the hill. One futile night attack caused
+them for an instant to change the spade for the rifle. When in the
+morning it was found that the Boers had, as they naturally would,
+brought up their outlying guns, the tired soldiers did not regret
+their labours of the night.  It was again demonstrated how innocuous a
+thing is a severe shell fire, if the position be an extended one with
+chances of cover. A total of forty killed and wounded out of a strong
+brigade was the result of a long day under an incessant cannonade. And
+then at nightfall came the conclusion that the guns were too many,
+that the way was too hard, and down came all their high hopes with the
+order to withdraw once more across that accursed river. Vaalkranz was
+abandoned, and Hildyard's Brigade, seething with indignation, was
+ordered back once more to its camp.
+
+281CIIAPTER XVII
+
+BULLER'S FINAL ADVANCE
+
+
+THE heroic moment of the siege of Ladysmith was that which witnessed
+the repulse of the great attack.  The epic should have ended at that
+dramatic instant.  But instead of doing so the story falls back to an
+anticlimax of crowded hospitals, slaughtered horses, and sporadic
+shell fire. For another six weeks of inactivity the brave garrison
+endured all the sordid evils which had steadily grown from
+inconvenience to misfortune and from misfortune to misery.  Away in
+the south they heard the thunder of Buller's guns, and from the hills
+round the town they watched with pale faces and bated breath the
+tragedy of Spion Kop, preserving a firm conviction that a very little
+more would have transformed it into their salvation.  Their hearts
+sank with the sinking of the cannonade, and rose again with the roar
+of Vaalkranz.  But Vaalkranz also failed them, and they waited on in
+the majesty of their hunger and their weakness for the help which was
+to come.
+
+It has been already narrated how General Buller had made his three
+attempts for the relief of the city. The General who was inclined to
+despair was now stimulated by despatches from Lord Roberts, while his
+army, who were by no means inclined to despair, were immensely cheered
+by the good news from the Kimberley side.  Both General and army
+prepared for a last supreme effort.  This time, at least, the soldiers
+hoped that they would be permitted to burst their way to the help of
+their starving comrades or leave their bones among the hills which had
+faced them so long. All they asked was a fight to a finish, and now
+they were about to have one.
+
+General Buller had tried the Boers' centre, he had tried their extreme
+right, and now he was about to try their extreme left.  There were
+some obvious advantages on this side which make it surprising that it
+was not the first to be attempted.  In the first place, the enemy's
+main position upon that flank was at Hlangwane mountain, which is to
+the south of the Tugela, so that in case of defeat the river ran
+behind them. In the second, Hlangwane mountain was the one point from
+which the Boer position at Colenso could be certainly enfiladed, and
+therefore the fruits of victory would be greater on that flank than on
+the other. Finally, the operations could be conducted at no great
+distance from the railhead, and the force would be exposed to little
+danger of having its flank attacked or its communications cut, as was
+the case in the Spion Kop advance. Against these potent considerations
+there is only to be put the single fact that the turning of the Boer
+right would threaten the Freestaters' line of retreat.  On the whole,
+the balance of advantage lay entirely with the new attempt, and the
+whole army advanced to it with a premonition of success. Of all the
+examples which the war has given of the enduring qualities of the
+British troops there is none more striking than the absolute
+confidence and whole hearted delight with which, after three bloody
+repulses, they set forth upon another venture.
+
+On February 9th the movements were started which transferred the
+greater part of the force from the extreme left to the centre and
+right.  By the 11th Lyttelton's (formerly Clery's) second division and
+Warren's fifth division had come eastward, leaving Burn Murdoch's
+cavalry brigade to guard the Westem side. On the 12th Lord Dundonald,
+with all the colonial cavalry, two battalions of infantry, and a
+battery, made a strong reconnaissance towards Hussar Hill, which is
+the nearest of the several hills which would have to be occupied in
+order to turn the position.  The hill was taken, but was abandoned
+again by General Buller after he had used it for some hours as an
+observatory. A long-range action between the retiring cavalry and the
+Boers ended in a few losses upon each side.
+
+What Buller had seen during the hour or two which he had spent with
+his telescope upon Hussar Hill had evidently confirmed him in his
+views, for two days later (February 14th) the whole army set forth for
+this point. By the morning of the 15th twenty thousand men were
+concentrated upon the sides and spurs of this eminence. On the 16th
+the heavy guns were in position, and all was ready for the advance.
+
+Facing them now were the formidable Boer lines of Hlangwane Hill and
+Green Hill, which would certainly cost several thousands of men if
+they were to take them by direct storm. Beyond them, upon the Boer
+flank, were the hills of Monte Christo and Cingolo, which appeared to
+be the extreme outside of the Boer position. The plan was to engage
+the attention of the trenches in front by a terrific artillery fire
+and the threat of an assault, while at the same time sending the true
+flank attack far round to carry the Cingolo ridge, which must be taken
+before any other hill could be approached.
+
+On the 17th, in the early morning, with the first tinge of violet in
+the east, the irregular cavalry and the second division (Lyttelton's)
+with Wynne's Brigade started upon their widely curving flanking march.
+The country through which they passed was so broken that the troopers
+led their horses in single file, and would have found themselves
+helpless in face of any resistance. Fortunately, Cingolo Hill was very
+weakly held, and by evening both our horsemen and our infantry had a
+firm grip upon it, thus turning the extreme left flank of the Boer
+position.  For once their mountainous fortresses were against them,
+for a mounted Boer force is so mobile that in an open position, such
+as faced Methuen, it is very hard and requires great celerity of
+movement ever to find a flank at all.  On a succession of hills,
+however, it was evident that some one hill must mark the extreme end
+of their line, and Buller had found it at Cingolo.  Their answer to
+this movement was to throw their flank back so as to face the new
+position.
+
+Even now, however, the Boer leaders had apparently not realised that
+this was the main attack, or it is possible that the intervention of
+the river made it difficult for them to send reinforcements. However
+that may be, it is certain that the task which the British found
+awaiting them on the 18th proved to be far easier than they had dared
+to hope.  The honours of the day rested with Hildyard's English
+Brigade (East Surrey, West Surrey, West Yorkshires, and 2nd
+Devons). In open order and with a rapid advance, taking every
+advantage of the cover -- which was better than is usual in South
+African warfare -- they gained the edge of the Monte Christo ridge,
+and then swiftly cleared the crest. One at least of the regiments
+engaged, the Devons, was nerved by the thought that their own first
+battalion was waiting for them at Ladysmith.  The capture of the hill
+made the line of trenches which faced Buller untenable, and he was at
+once able to advance with Barton's Fusilier Brigade and to take
+possession of the whole Boer position of Hlangwane and Green Hill.  It
+was not a great tactical victory, for they had no trophies to show
+save the worthless DEBRIS of the Boer camps.  But it was a very great
+strategical victory, for it not only gave them the whole south side of
+the Tugela, but also the means of commanding with their guns a great
+deal of the north side, including those Colenso trenches which had
+blocked the way so long.  A hundred and seventy killed and wounded (of
+whom only fourteen were killed) was a trivial price for such a
+result. At last from the captured ridges the exultant troops could see
+far away the haze which lay over the roofs of Ladysmith, and the
+besieged, with hearts beating high with hope, turned their glasses
+upon the distant mottled patches which told them that their comrades
+were approaching.
+
+By February 20th the British had firmly established themselves along
+the whole south bank of the river, Hart's brigade bad occupied
+Colenso, and the heavy guns had been pushed up to more advanced
+positions. The crossing of the river was the next operation, and the
+question arose where it should be crossed. The wisdom which comes with
+experience shows us now that it would have been infinitely better to
+have crossed on their extreme left flank, as by an advance upon this
+line we should have turned their strong Pieters position just as we
+had already turned their Colenso one. With an absolutely master card
+in our hand we refused to play it, and won the game by a more tedious
+and perilous process.  The assumption seems to have been made (on no
+other hypothesis can one understand the facts) that the enemy were
+demoralised and that the positions would not be strongly held.  Our
+flanking advantage was abandoned and a direct advance was ordered from
+colenso, involving a frontal attack upon the Pieters position.
+
+On February 21st Buller threw his pontoon bridge over the river near
+Colenso, and the same evening his army began to cross. It was at once
+evident that the Boer resistance had by no means collapsed. Wynne's
+Lancashire Brigade were the first across, and found themselves hotly
+engaged before nightfall. The low kopjes in front of them were blazing
+with musketry fire.  The brigade held its own, but lost the Brigadier
+(the second in a month) and 150 rank and file.  Next morning the main
+body of the infantry was passed across, and the army was absolutely
+committed to the formidable and unnecessary enterprise of fighting its
+way straight to Ladysmith.
+
+The force in front had weakened, however, both in numbers and in
+morale.  Some thousands of the Freestaters had left in order to defend
+their own country from the advance of Roberts, while the rest were
+depressed by as much of the news as was allowed by their leaders to
+reach them. But the Boer is a tenacious fighter, and many a brave man
+was still to fall before Buller and White should shake hands in the
+High Street of Ladysmith.
+
+The first obstacle which faced the army, after crossing the river, was
+a belt of low rolling ground, which was gradually cleared by the
+advance of our infantry. As night closed in the advance lines of Boers
+and British were so close to each other that incessant rifle fire was
+maintamed until morning, and at more than one point small bodies of
+desperate riflemen charged right up to the bayonets of our
+infantry. The morning found us still holding our positions all along
+the line, and as more and more of our infantry came up and gun after
+gun roared into action we began to push our stubborn enemy northwards.
+On the 21st the Dorsets, Middlesex, and Somersets had borne the heat
+of the day.  On the 22nd it was the Royal Lancasters, followed by the
+South Lancashires, who took up the running. It would take the patience
+and also the space of a Kinglake in this scrambling broken fight to
+trace the doings of those groups of men who strove and struggled
+through the rifle fire. All day a steady advance was maintained over
+the low kopjes, until by evening we were faced by the more serious
+line of the Pieter's Hills. The operations had been carried out with a
+monotony of gallantry. Always the same extended advance, always the
+same rattle of Mausers and clatter of pom-poms from a ridge, always
+the same victorious soldiers on the barren crest, with a few crippled
+Boers before them and many crippled comrades behind. They were
+expensive triumphs, and yet every one brought them nearer to their
+goal. And now, like an advancing tide, they lapped along the base of
+Pieter's Hill. Could they gather volume enough to carry themselves
+over? The issue of the long-drawn battle and the fate of Ladysmith
+hung upon the question.
+
+Brigadier Fitzroy Hart, to whom the assault was entrusted, is in some
+ways as singular and picturesque a type as has been evolved in the
+war. A dandy soldier, always the picture of neatness from the top of
+his helmet to the heels of his well-polished brown boots, he brings to
+military matters the same precision which he affects in
+dress. Pedantic in his accuracy, he actually at the battle of Colenso
+drilled the Irish Brigade for half an hour before leading them into
+action, and threw out markers under a deadly fire in order that his
+change from close to extended formation might be academically
+correct. The heavy loss of the Brigade at this action was to some
+extent ascribed to him and affected his popularity; but as his men
+came to know him better, his romantic bravery, his whimsical soldierly
+humour, their dislike changed into admiration. His personal disregard
+for danger was notorious and reprehensible. 'Where is General Hart?'
+asked some one in action. 'I have not seen him, but I know where you
+will find him. Go ahead of the skirmish line and you will see him
+standing on a rock,' was the answer. He bore a charmed life. It was a
+danger to be near him. 'Whom are you going to?'  'General Hart,' said
+the aide-de-camp. 'Then good-bye!' cried his fellows. A grim humour
+ran through his nature. It is gravely recorded and widely believed
+that he lined up a regiment on a hill-top in order to teach them not
+to shrink from fire. Amid the laughter of his Irishmen, he walked
+through the open files of his firing line holding a laggard by the
+ear. This was the man who had put such a spirit into the Irish Brigade
+that amid that army of valiant men there were none who held such a
+record. 'Their rushes were the quickest, their rushes were the
+longest, and they stayed the shortest time under cover,' said a shrewd
+military observer. To Hart and his brigade was given the task of
+clearing the way to Ladysmith.
+
+The regiments which he took with him on his perilous enterprise were
+the 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, the 1st
+Connaught Rangers, and the Imperial Light Infantry, the whole forming
+the famous 5th Brigade. They were already in the extreme British
+advance, and now, as they moved forwards, the Durham Light Infantry
+and the 1st Rifle Brigade from Lyttelton's Brigade came up to take
+their place. The hill to be taken lay on the right, and the soldiers
+were compelled to pass in single file under a heavy fire for more than
+a mile until they reached the spot which seemed best for their
+enterprise. There, short already of sixty of their comrades, they
+assembled and began a cautious advance upon the lines of trenches and
+sangars which seamed the brown slope above them.
+
+For a time they were able to keep some cover, and the casualties were
+comparatively few. But now at last, as the evening sun threw a long
+shadow from the hills, the leading regiment, the Inniskillings, found
+themselves at the utmost fringe of boulders with a clear slope between
+them and the main trench of the enemy. Up there where the shrapnel was
+spurting and the great lyddite shells crashing they could dimly see a
+line of bearded faces and the black dots of the slouch hats. With a
+yell the Inniskillings sprang out, carried with a rush the first
+trench, and charged desperately onwards for the second one. It was a
+supremely dashing attack against a supremely steady resistance, for
+among all their gallant deeds the Boers have never fought better than
+on that February evening. Amid such a smashing shell fire as living
+mortals have never yet endured they stood doggedly, these hardy men of
+the veldt, and fired fast and true into the fiery ranks of the
+Irishmen. The yell of the stormers was answered by the remorseless
+roar of the Mausers and the deep-chested shouts of the farmers. Up and
+up surged the infantry, falling, rising, dashing bull-headed at the
+crackling line of the trench. But still the bearded faces glared at
+them over the edge, and still the sheet of lead pelted through their
+ranks. The regiment staggered, came on, staggered again, was overtaken
+by supporting companies of the Dublins and the Connaughts, came on,
+staggered once more, and finally dissolved into shreds, who ran
+swiftly back for cover, threading their way among their stricken
+comrades.  Never on this earth was there a retreat of which the
+survivors had less reason to be ashamed. They had held on to the
+utmost capacity of human endurance. Their Colonel, ten officers, and
+more than half the regiment were lying on the fatal hill. Honour to
+them, and honour also to the gallant Dutchmen who, rooted in the
+trenches, had faced the rush and fury of such an onslaught! Today to
+them, tomorrow to us -- but it is for a soldier to thank the God of
+battles for worthy foes.
+
+It is one thing, however, to repulse the British soldier and it is
+another to rout him. Within a few hundred yards of their horrible
+ordeal at Magersfontein the Highlanders reformed into a military body.
+So now the Irishmen fell back no further than the nearest cover, and
+there held grimly on to the ground which they had won. If you would
+know the advantage which the defence has over the attack, then do you
+come and assault this line of tenacious men, now in your hour of
+victory and exultation, friend Boer! Friend Boer did attempt it, and
+skilfully too, moving a flanking party to sweep the position with
+their fire. But the brigade, though sorely hurt, held them off without
+difficulty, and was found on the morning of the 24th to be still lying
+upon the ground which they had won.
+
+Our losses had been very heavy, Colonel Thackeray of the
+Inniskillings, Colonel Sitwell of the Dublins, three majors, twenty
+officers, and a total of about six hundred out of 1,200 actually
+engaged. To take such punishment and to remain undemoralised is the
+supreme test to which troops can be put. Could the loss have been
+avoided? By following the original line of advance from Monte Christo,
+perhaps, when we should have turned the enemy's left. But otherwise
+no. The hill was in the way and had to be taken. In the war game you
+cannot play without a stake. You lose and you pay forfeit, and where
+the game is fair the best player is he who pays with the best grace.
+The attack was well prepared, well delivered, and only miscarried on
+account of the excellence of the defence. We proved once more what we
+had proved so often before, that all valour and all discipline will
+not avail in a frontal attack against brave coolheaded men armed with
+quick-firing rifles.
+
+While the Irish Brigade assaulted Railway Hill an attack had been made
+upon the left, which was probably meant as a demonstration to keep the
+Boers from reinforcing their comrades rather than as an actual attempt
+upon their lines. Such as it was, however, it cost the life of at
+least one brave soldier, for Colonel Thorold, of the Welsh Fusiliers,
+was among the fallen. Thorold, Thackeray, and Sitwell in one
+evening. Who can say that British colonels have not given their men a
+lead?
+
+The army was now at a deadlock. Railway Hill barred the way, and if
+Hart's men could not carry it by assault it was hard to say who
+could. The 24th found the two armies facing each other at this
+critical point, the Irishmen still clinging to the slopes of the hill
+and the Boers lining the top. Fierce rifle firing broke out between
+them during the day, but each side was well covered and lay low. The
+troops in support suffered somewhat, however, from a random shell
+fire. Mr. Winston Churchill has left it upon record that within his
+own observation three of their shrapnel shells fired at a venture on
+to the reverse slope of a hill accounted for nineteen men and four
+horses. The enemy can never have known how hard those three shells had
+hit us, and so we may also believe that our artillery fire has often
+been less futile than it appeared.
+
+General Buller had now realised that it was no mere rearguard action
+which the Boers were fighting, but that their army was standing
+doggedly at bay; so he reverted to that flanking movement which, as
+events showed, should never have been abandoned. Hart's Irish Brigade
+was at present almost the right of the army.  His new plan -- a
+masterly one -- was to keep Hart pinning the Boers at that point, and
+to move his centre and left across the river, and then back to
+envelope the left wing of the enemy. By this manoeuvre Hart became the
+extreme left instead of the extreme right, and the Irish Brigade would
+be the hinge upon which the whole army should turn. It was a large
+conception, finely carried out. The 24th was a day of futile shell
+fire -- and of plans for the future. The heavy guns were got across once
+more to the Monte Christo ridge and to Hlangwane, and preparations
+made to throw the army from the west to the east.  The enemy still
+snarled and occasionally snapped in front of Hart's men, but with four
+companies of the 2nd Rifle Brigade to protect their flanks their
+position remained secure.
+
+In the meantime, through a CONTRETEMPS between our outposts and the
+Boers, no leave had been given to us to withdraw our wounded, and the
+unfortunate fellows, some hundreds of them, had lain between the lines
+in agonies of thirst for thirty-six hours -- one of the most painful
+incidents of the campaign. Now, upon the 25th, an armistice was
+proclaimed, and the crying needs of the survivors were attended to. On
+the same day the hearts of our soldiers sank within them as they saw
+the stream of our wagons and guns crossing the river once more. What,
+were they foiled again? Was the blood of these brave men to be shed in
+vain? They ground their teeth at the thought. The higher strategy was
+not for them, but back was back and forward was forward, and they knew
+which way their proud hearts wished to go.
+
+The 26th was occupied by the large movements of troops which so
+complete a reversal of tactics necessitated. Under the screen of a
+heavy artillery fire, the British right became the left and the left
+the right. A second pontoon bridge was thrown across near the old Boer
+bridge at Hlangwane, and over it was passed a large force of infantry,
+Barton's Fusilier Brigade, Kitchener's (VICE Wynne's, VICE Woodgate's)
+Lancashire Brigade, and two battalions of Norcott's (formerly
+Lyttelton's) Brigade. Coke's Brigade was left at Colenso to prevent a
+counter attack upon our left flank and communications.  In this way,
+while Hart with the Durhams and the 1st Rifle Brigade held the Boers
+in front, the main body of the army was rapidly swung round on to
+their left flank. By the morning of the 27th all were in place for the
+new attack.
+
+Opposite the point where the troops bad been massed were three Boer
+hills; one, the nearest, may for convenience sake be called Barton's
+Hill. As the army had formerly been situated the assault upon this
+hill would have been a matter of extreme difficulty; but now, with the
+heavy guns restored to their commanding position, from which they
+could sweep its sides and summits, it had recovered its initial
+advantage. In the morning sunlight Barton's Fusiliers crossed the
+river, and advanced to the attack under a screaming canopy of
+shells. Up they went and up, darting and crouching, until their
+gleaming bayonets sparkled upon the summit. The masterful artillery
+had done its work, and the first long step taken in this last stage of
+the relief of Ladysmith. The loss had been slight and the advantage
+enormous. After they had gained the summit the Fusillers were stung
+and stung again by clouds of skirmishers who clung to the flanks of
+the hill, but their grip was firm and grew firmer with every hour.
+
+Of the three Boer hills which had to be taken the nearest (or eastern
+one) was now in the hands of the British. The furthest (or western
+one) was that on which the Irish Brigade was still crouching, ready at
+any moment for a final spring which would take them over the few
+hundred yards which separated them from the trenches. Between the two
+intervened a central hill, as yet untouched. Could we carry this the
+whole position would be ours. Now for the final effort! Turn every gun
+upon it, the guns of Monte Christo, the guns of Hlangwane! Turn every
+rifle upon it -- the rifles of Barton's men, the rifles of Hart's men,
+the carbines of the distant cavalry!  Scalp its crown with the
+machine-gun fire! And now up with you, Lancashire men, Norcott's men!
+The summit or a glorious death, for beyond that hill your suffering
+comrades are awaiting you! Put every bullet and every man and all of
+fire and spirit that you are worth into this last hour; for if you
+fail now you have failed for ever, and if you win, then when your
+hairs are white your blood will still run warm when you think of that
+morning's work. The long drama had drawn to an end, and one short
+day's work is to show what that end was to be.
+
+But there was never a doubt of it. Hardly for one instant did the
+advance waver at any point of its extended line. It was the supreme
+instant of the Natal campaign, as, wave after wave, the long lines of
+infantry went shimmering up the hill. On the left the Lancasters, the
+Lancashire Fusiliers, the South Lancashires, the York and Lancasters,
+with a burr of north country oaths, went racing for the summit. Spion
+Kop and a thousand comrades were calling for vengeance. 'Remember,
+men, the eyes of Lancashire are watching you,' cried the gallant
+MacCarthy O'Leary.  The old 40th swept on, but his dead body marked
+the way which they had taken. On the right the East Surrey, the,
+Cameronians, the 3rd Rifles, the 1st Rifle Brigade, the Durhams, and
+the gallant Irishmen, so sorely stricken and yet so eager, were all
+pressing upwards and onwards. The Boer fire lulls, it ceases -- they
+are running! Wild hat-waving men upon the Hlangwane uplands see the
+silhouette of the active figures of the stormers along the sky-line
+and know that the position is theirs.  Exultant soldiers dance and
+cheer upon the ridge. The sun is setting in glory over the great
+Drakensberg mountains, and so also that night set for ever the hopes
+of the Boer invaders of Natal. Out of doubt and chaos, blood and
+labour, had come at last the judgment that the lower should not
+swallow the higher, that the world is for the man of the twentieth and
+not of the seventeenth century. After a fortnight of fighting the
+weary troops threw themselves down that night with the assurance that
+at last the door was ajar and the light breaking through. One more
+effort and it would be open before them.
+
+Behind the line of hills which had been taken there extended a great
+plain as far as Bulwana -- that evil neighbour who had wrought such harm
+upon Ladysmith. More than half of the Pieters position had fallen into
+Buller's hands on the 27th, and the remainder had become untenable. The
+Boers had lost some five hundred in killed, wounded, and
+prisoners.[Footnote: Accurate figures will probably never be obtained,
+but a well-known Boer in Pretoria informed me that Pieters was the
+most expensive fight to them of the whole war.] It seemed to the
+British General and his men that one more action would bring them
+safely into Ladysmith.
+
+But here they miscalculated, and so often have we miscalculated on the
+optimistic side in this campaign that it is pleasing to find for once
+that our hopes were less than the reality. The Boers had been beaten
+-- fairly beaten and disheartened. It will always be a subject for
+conjecture whether they were so entirely on the strength of the Natal
+campaign, or whether the news of the Cronje disaster from the western
+side had warned them that they must draw in upon the east. For my own
+part I believe that the honour lies with the gallant men of Natal, and
+that, moving on these lines, they would, Cronje or no Cronje, have
+forced their way in triumph to Ladysmith.
+
+And now the long-drawn story draws to a swift close. Cautiously
+feeling their way with a fringe of horse, the British pushed over the
+great plain, delayed here and there by the crackle of musketry, but
+finding always that the obstacle gave way and vanished as they
+approached it. At last it seemed clear to Dundonald that there really
+was no barrier between his horsemen and the beleaguered city. With a
+squadron of Imperial Light Horse and a squadron of Natal Carabineers
+he rode on until, in the gathering twilight, the Ladysmith picket
+challenged the approaching cavalry, and the gallant town was saved.
+
+It is hard to say which had shown the greater endurance, the rescued
+or their rescuers.  The town, indefensible, lurking in a hollow under
+commanding hills, had held out for 118 days.  They had endured two
+assaults and an incessant bombardment, to which, towards the end,
+owing to the failure of heavy ammunition, they were unable to make any
+adequate reply. It was calculated that 16,000 shells had fallen within
+the town.  In two successful sorties they had destroyed three of the
+enemy's heavy guns. They had been pressed by hunger, horseflesh was
+already running short, and they had been decimated by disease. More
+than 2,000 cases of enteric and dysentery had been in hospital at one
+time, and the total number of admissions had been nearly as great as
+the total number of the garrison. One-tenth of the men had actually
+died of wounds or disease. Ragged, bootless, and emaciated, there
+still lurked in the gaunt soldiers the martial spirit of warriors. On
+the day after their relief 2,000 of them set forth to pursue the
+Boers.  One who helped to lead them has left it on record that the
+most piteous sight that he has ever seen was these wasted men,
+stooping under their rifles and gasping with the pressure of their
+accoutrements, as they staggered after their retreating enemy. A
+Verestschagen might find a subject these 2,000 indomitable men with
+their emaciated horses pursuing a formidable foe. It is God's mercy
+they failed to overtake them.
+
+If the record of the besieged force was great, that of the relieving
+army was no less so. Through the blackest depths of despondency and
+failure they had struggled to absolute success. At Colenso they had
+lost 1,200 men, at Spion Kop 1,700, at Vaalkranz 400, and now, in this
+last long-drawn effort, 1,600 more. Their total losses were over 5,000
+men, more than 20 per cent. of the whole army. Some particular
+regiments had suffered horribly. The Dublin and Inniskilling Fusiliers
+headed the roll of honour with only five officers and 40 per cent. of
+the men left standing. Next to them the Lancashire Fusiliers and the
+Royal Lancasters had been the hardest hit. It speaks well for Buller's
+power of winning and holding the confidence of his men that in the
+face of repulse after repulse the soldiers still went into battle as
+steadily as ever under his command.
+
+On March 3rd Buller's force entered Ladysmith in state between the
+lines of the defenders. For their heroism the Dublin Fusiliers were
+put in the van of the procession, and it is told how, as the soldiers
+who lined the streets saw the five officers and small clump of men,
+the remains of what had been a strong battalion, realising, for the
+first time perhaps, what their relief had cost, many sobbed like
+children. With cheer after cheer the stream of brave men flowed for
+hours between banks formed by men as brave. But for the purposes of
+war the garrison was useless. A month of rest and food would be
+necessary before they could be ready to take the field once more.
+
+So the riddle of the Tugela had at last been solved. Even now, with
+all the light which has been shed upon the matter, it is hard to
+apportion praise and blame. To the cheerful optimism of Symons must be
+laid some of the blame of the original entanglement; but man is
+mortal, and he laid down his life for his mistake. White, who had been
+but a week in the country, could not, if he would, alter the main
+facts of the military situation. He did his best, committed one or two
+errors, did brilliantly on one or two points, and finally conducted
+the defence with a tenacity and a gallantry which are above all
+praise. It did not, fortunately, develop into an absolutely desperate
+affair, like Masséna's defence of Genoa, but a few more weeks would
+have made it a military tragedy. He was fortunate in the troops whom
+he commanded -- half of them old soldiers from India -- [Footnote: An
+officer in high command in Ladysmith has told me, as an illustration
+of the nerve and discipline of the troops, that though false alarms in
+the Boer trenches were matters of continual occurrence from the
+beginning to the end of the siege, there was not one single occasion
+when the British outposts made a mistake.] -- and exceedingly
+fortunate in his officers, French (in the operations before the
+siege), Archibald Hunter, Ian Hamilton, Hedworth Lambton,
+Dick-Cunyngham, Knox, De Courcy Hamilton, and all the other good men
+and true who stood (as long as they could stand) by his side. Above
+all, he was fortunate in his commissariat officers, and it was in the
+offices of Colonels Ward and Stoneman as much as in the trenches and
+sangars of Cćsar's Camp that the siege was won.
+
+Buller, like White, had to take the situation as he found it. It is
+well known that his own belief was that the line of the Tugela was the
+true defence of Natal. When he reached Africa, Ladysmith was already
+beleaguered, and he, with his troops, had to abandon the scheme of
+direct invasion and to hurry to extricate White's division. Whether
+they might not have been more rapidly extricated by keeping to the
+original plan is a question which will long furnish an excellent
+subject for military debate. Had Buller in November known that
+Ladysmith was capable of holding out until March, is it conceivable
+that he, with his whole army corps and as many more troops as he cared
+to summon from England, would not have made such an advance in four
+months through the Free State as would necessitate the abandonment of
+the sieges both of Kimberley and of Ladysmith? If the Boers persisted
+in these sieges they could not possibly place more than 20,000 men on
+the Orange River to face 60,000 whom Buller could have had there by
+the first week in December. Methuen's force, French's force, Gatacre's
+force, and the Natal force, with the exception of garrisons for
+Pietermaritzburg and Durban, would have assembled, with a reserve of
+another sixty thousand men in the colony or on the sea ready to fill
+the gaps in his advance. Moving over a flat country with plenty of
+flanking room, it is probable that he would have been in Bloemfontein
+by Christmas and at the Vaal River late in January. What could the
+Boers do then? They might remain before Ladysmith, and learn that
+their capital and their gold mines had been taken in their absence. Or
+they might abandon the siege and trek back to defend their own
+homes. This, as it appears to a civilian critic, would have been the
+least expensive means of fighting them; but after all the strain had
+to come somewhere, and the long struggle of Ladysmith may have meant a
+more certain and complete collapse in the future. At least, by the
+plan actually adopted we saved Natal from total devastation, and that
+must count against a great deal.
+
+Having taken his line, Buller set about his task in a slow,
+deliberate, but pertinacious fashion. It cannot be denied, however,
+that the pertinacity was largely due to the stiffening counsel of
+Roberts and the soldierly firmness of White who refused to acquiesce
+in the suggestion of surrender. Let it be acknowledged that Buller's
+was the hardest problem of the war, and that he solved it. The mere
+acknowledgment goes far to soften criticism. But the singular thing is
+that in his proceedings he showed qualities which had not been
+generally attributed to him, and was wanting in those very points
+which the public had imagined to be charactenstic of him. He had gone
+out with the reputation of a downright John Bull fighter, who would
+take punishment or give it, but slog his way through without
+wincing. There was no reason for attributing any particular
+strategical ability to him. But as a matter of fact, setting the
+Colenso attempt aside, the crossing for the Spion Kop enterprise, the
+withdrawal of the compromised army, the Vaalkranz crossing with the
+clever feint upon Brakfontein, the final operations, and especially
+the complete change of front after the third day of Pieters, were
+strategical movements largely conceived and admirably carried out.  On
+the other hand, a hesitation in pushing onwards, and a disinclination
+to take a risk or to endure heavy punishment, even in the case of
+temporary failure, were consistent characteristics of his generalship.
+The Vaalkranz operations are particularly difficult to defend from the
+charge of having been needlessly slow and half-hearted.  This
+'saturnine fighter,' as he had been called, proved to be exceedingly
+sensitive about the lives of his men -- an admirable quality in
+itself, but there are occasions when to spare them to-day is to
+needlessly imperil them tomorrow.  The victory was his, and yet in the
+very moment of it he displayed the qualities which marred him. With
+two cavalry brigades in band he did not push the pursuit of the routed
+Boers with their guns and endless streams of wagons.  It is true that
+he might have lost heavily, but it is true also that a success might
+have ended the Boer invasion of Natal, and the lives of our troopers
+would be well spent in such a venture. If cavalry is not to be used in
+pursuing a retiring enemy encumbered with much baggage, then its day
+is indeed past.
+
+The relief of Ladysmith stirred the people of the Empire as nothing,
+save perhaps the subsequent relief of Mafeking, has done during our
+generation. Even sober unemotional London found its soul for once and
+fluttered with joy.  Men, women, and children, rich and poor, clubman
+and cabman, joined in the universal delight.  The thought of our
+garrison, of their privations, of our impotence to relieve them, of
+the impending humiliation to them and to us, had lain dark for many
+months across our spirits. It had weighed upon us, until the subject,
+though ever present in our thoughts, was too painful for general
+talk. And now, in an instant, the shadow was lifted. The outburst of
+rejoicing was.not a triumph over the gallant Boers. But it was our own
+escape from humiliation, the knowledge that the blood of our sons had
+not been shed in vain, above all the conviction that the darkest hour
+had now passed and that the light of peace was dimly breaking far away
+-- that was why London rang with joy bells that March morning, and why
+those bells echoed back from every town and hamlet, in tropical sun
+and in Arctic snow, over which the flag of Britain waved.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SIEGE AND RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY
+
+
+It has already been narrated how, upon the arrival of the army corps
+from England, the greater part was drafted to Natal, while some went
+to the western side, and started under Lord Methuen upon the perilous
+enterprise of the relief of Kimberley. It has also been hown how,
+after three expensive victories, Lord Methuen's force met with a
+paralysing reverse, and was compelled to remain inactive within twenty
+miles of the town which they had come to succour.  Before describe how
+that succour did eventual]y arrive, some attention must be paid to the
+incidents which had occurred within the city.
+
+'I am directed to assure you that there is no reason for apprehending
+that Kimberley or any part of the colony either is, or in any
+contemplated event will be, in danger of attack.  Mr. Schreiner is of
+opinion that your fears are groundless and your anticipations in the
+matter entirely without foundation.' Such is the official reply to the
+remonstrance of the inhabitants, when, with the shadow of war dark
+upon them, they appealed for help. It is fortunate, however, that a
+progressive British town has usually the capacity for doing things for
+itself without the intervention of officials. Kimberley was
+particularly lucky in being the centre of the wealthy and alert De
+Beers Company, which had laid in sufficient ammunition and supplies to
+prevent the town from being helpless in the presence of the enemy. But
+the cannon were popguns, firing a 7-pound shell for a short range, and
+the garrison contained only seven hundred regulars, while the
+remainder were mostly untrained miners and artisans. Among them,
+however, there was a sprinkling of dangerous men from the northern
+wars, and all were nerved by a knowledge that the ground which they
+defended was essential to the Empire. Ladysmith was no more than any
+other strategic position, but Kimberley was unique, the centre of the
+richest tract of ground for its size in the whole world.  Its loss
+would have been a heavy blow to the British cause, and an enormous
+encouragement to the Boers.
+
+On October 12th, several hours after the expiration of Kruger's
+ultimatum, Cecil Rhodes threw himself into Kimberley.  This remarkable
+man, who stood for the future of South Africa as clearly as the Dopper
+Boer stood for its past, had, both in features and in character, some
+traits which may, without extravagance, be called Napoleonic.  The
+restless energy, the fertility of resource, the attention to detail,
+the wide sweep of mind, the power of terse comment -- all these recall
+the great emperor.  So did the simplicity of private life in the midst
+of excessive wealth. And so finally did a want of scruple where an
+ambition was to be furthered, shown, for example, in that enormous
+donation to the Irish party by which he made a bid for their
+parliamentary support, and in the story of the Jameson raid. A certain
+cynicism of mind and a grim humour complete the parallel. But Rhodes
+was a Napoleon of peace. The consolidation of South Africa under the
+freest and most progressive form of government was the large object on
+which he had expended his energies and his fortune but the development
+of the country in every conceivable respect, from the building of a
+railway to the importation of a pedigree bull, engaged his unremitting
+attention.
+
+It was on October 15th that the fifty thousand inhabitants of
+Kimberley first heard the voice of war. It rose and fell in a
+succession of horrible screams and groans which travelled far over the
+veldt, and the outlying farmers marvelled at the dreadful clamour from
+the sirens and the hooters of the great mines. Those who have endured
+all -- the rifle, the cannon, and the hunger -- have said that those
+wild whoops from the sirens were what had tried their nerve the most.
+
+The Boers in scattered bands of horsemen were thick around the town,
+and had blocked the railroad.  They raided cattle upon the outskirts,
+but made no attempt to rush the defence.  The garrison, who, civilian
+and military, approached four thousand in number, lay close in rifle
+pit and redoubt waiting for an attack which never came.  The perimeter
+to be defended was about eight miles, but the heaps of tailings made
+admirable fortifications, and the town had none of those inconvenient
+heights around it which had been such bad neighbours to
+Ladysmith. Picturesque surroundings are not favourable to defence.
+
+On October 24th the garrison, finding that no attack was made,
+determined upon a reconnaissance.  The mounted force, upon which most
+of the work and of the loss fell, consisted of the Diamond Fields
+Horse, a small aumber of Cape Police, a company of Mounted Infantry,
+and a body called the Kimberley Light Horse. With two hundred and
+seventy volunteers from this force Major Scott-Turner, a redoubtable
+fighter, felt his way the north until he came in touch with the
+Boers. The latter, who were much superior in numbers, manoeuvred to
+cut him off, but the arrival of two companies of the North Lancashire
+Regiment turned the scale in our favour. We lost three killed and
+twenty-one wounded in the skirmish.  The Boer loss is unknown, but
+their commander Botha was slain.
+
+On November 4th Commandant Wessels formally summoned the town, and it
+is asserted that he gave Colonel Kekewich leave to send out the women
+and children.  That officer has been blamed for not taking advantage
+of the permission -- or at the least for not communicating it to the
+civil authorities. As a matter of fact the charge rests upon a
+misapprehension. In Wessels' letter a distinction is made between
+Africander and English women, the former being offered an asylum in
+his camp. This offer was made known, and half a dozen persons took
+advantage of it. The suggestion, however, in the case of the English
+carried with it no promise that they would be conveyed to Orange
+River, and a compliance with it would have put them as helpless
+hostages into the hands of the enemy. As to not publishing the message
+it is not usual to publish such official documents, but the offer was
+shown to Mr. Rhodes, who concurred in the impossibility of accepting
+it.
+
+It is difficult to allude to this subject without touching upon the
+painful but notorious fact that there existed during the siege
+considerable friction between the military authorities and a section
+of the civilians, of whom Mr. Rhodes was chief. Among other
+characteristics Rhodes bore any form of restraint very badly, and
+chafed mightily when unable to do a thing in the exact way which he
+considered best. He may have been a Napoleon of peace, but his warmest
+friends could never describe him as a Napoleon of war, for his
+military forecasts have been erroneous, and the management of the
+Jameson fiasco certainly inspired no confidence in the judgment of any
+one concerned.  That his intentions were of the best, and that he had
+the good of the Empire at heart, may be freely granted; but that these
+motives should lead him to cabal against, and even to threaten, the
+military governor, or that he should attempt to force Lord Roberts's
+hand in a military operation, was most deplorable.  Every credit may
+be given to him for all his aid to the military -- he gave with a good
+grace what the garrison would otherwise have had to commandeer -- but
+it is a fact that the town would bave been more united, and therefore
+stronger, without his presence. Colonel Kekewich and his chief staff
+officer, Major O'Meara, were as much plagued by intrigue within as by
+the Boers without.
+
+On November 7th the bombardment of the town commenced from nine
+9-pounder guns to which the artillery of the garrison could give no
+adequate reply.  The result, however, of a fortnight's fire, during
+which seven hundred shells were discharged, was the loss of two
+non-combatants.  The question of food was recognised as being of more
+importance than the enemy's fire. An early relief appeared probable,
+however, as the advance of Methuen's force was already known.  One
+pound of bread, two ounces of sugar, and half a pound of meat were
+allowed per head.  It was only on the small children that the scarcity
+of milk told with tragic effect. At Ladysmith, at Mafeking, and at
+Kimberley hundreds of these innocents were sacrificed.
+
+November 25th was a red-letter day with the garrison, who made a
+sortie under the impression that Methuen was not far off, and that
+they were assisting his operations.  The attack was made upon one of
+the Boer positions by a force consisting of a detachment of the Light
+Horse and of the Cape Police, and their work was brilliantly
+successful.  The actual storming of the redoubt was carried out by
+some forty men, of whom but four were killed.  They brought back
+thirty-three prisoners as a proof of their victory, but the Boer gun,
+as usual, escaped us. In this brilliant affair Scott-Turner was
+wounded, which did not prevent him, only three days later, from
+leading another sortie, which was as disastrous as the first had been
+successful.  Save under very exceptional circumstances it is in modern
+warfare long odds always upon the defence, and the garrison would
+probably have been better advised had they refrained from attacking
+the fortifications of their enemy -- a truth which Baden-Powell
+learned also at Game Tree Hill. As it was, after a temporary success
+the British were blown back by the fierce Mauser fire, and lost the
+indomitable Scott-Turner, with twenty-one of his brave companions
+killed and twenty-eight wounded, all belongmg to the colonial corps.
+The Empire may reflect with pride that the people in whose cause
+mainly they fought showed themselves by their gallantry and their
+devotion worthy of any sacrifice which has been made.
+
+Again the siege settled down to a monotonous record of decreasing
+rations and of expectation. On December 10 there came a sign of hope
+from the outside world. Far on the southern horizon a little golden
+speck shimmered against the blue African sky. It was Methuen's balloon
+gleaming in the sunshine.  Next morning the low grumble of distant
+cannon was the sweetest of music to the listening citizens. But days
+passed without further news, and it was not for more than a week that
+they learned of the bloody repulse of Magersfontein, and that help was
+once more indefinitely postponed.  Helio graphic communication had
+been opened with the relieving army, and it is on record that the
+first message flashed through from the south was a question about the
+number of a horse. With inconceivable stupidity this has been cited as
+an example of military levity and incapacity.  Of course the object of
+the question was a test as to whether they were really in
+communication with the garrison. It must be confessed that the town
+seems to have contained some very querulous and unreasonable people.
+
+The New Year found the beleaguered city reduced to a quarter of a
+pound of meat per head, while the health of the inhabitants began to
+break down under their confinement.  Their interest, however, was
+keenly aroused by the attempt made in the De Beers workshops to build
+a gun which might reach their opponents. This remarkable piece of
+ordnance, constructed by an American named Labram by the help of tools
+manufactured for the purpose and of books found in the town, took the
+shape eventually of a 28 lb. rifled gun, which proved to be a most
+efficient piece of artillery. With grim humour, Mr. Rhodes's
+compliments had been inscribed upon the shells -- a fair retort in
+view of the openly expressed threat of the enemy that in case of his
+capture they would carry him in a cage to Pretoria.
+
+The Boers, though held off for a time by this unexpected piece of
+ordnance, prepared a terrible answer to it.  On February 7th an
+enormous gun, throwing a 96 lb. shell, opened from Kamfersdam, which
+is four miles from the centre of the town. The shells, following the
+evil precedent of the Germans in 1870, were fired not at the forts,
+but into the thickly populated city. Day and night these huge missiles
+exploded, shattering the houses and occasionally killing or maiming
+the occupants. Some thousands of the women and children were conveyed
+down the mines, wbere, in the electric-lighted tunnels, they lay in
+comfort and safety. One surprising revenge the Boers had, for by an
+extraordinary chance one of the few men killed by their gun was the
+ingenious Labram who had constructed the 28-pounder. By an even more
+singular chance, Leon, who was responsible for bringing the big Boer
+gun, was struck immediately afterwards by a long-range rifle-shot from
+the garrison.
+
+The historian must be content to give a tame account of the siege of
+Kimberley, for the thing itself was tame.  Indeed 'siege' is a
+misnomer, for it was rather an investment or a blockade. Such as it
+was, however, the inhabitants became very restless under it, and
+though there were never any prospects of surrender the utmost
+impatience began to be manifested at the protracted delay on the part
+of the relief force. It was not till later that it was understood how
+cunningly Kimberley had been used as a bait to hold the enemy until
+final preparations had been made for his destruction.
+
+And at last the great day came.  It is on record how dramatic was the
+meeting between the mounted outposts of the defenders and the advance
+guard of the relievers, whose advent seems to have been equally
+unexpected by friend and foe.  A skirmish was in progress on February
+15th between a party of the Kimberley Light Horse and of the Boers,
+when a new body of horsemen, unrecognised by either side, appeared
+upon the plain and opened fire upon the enemy.  One of the strangers
+rode up to the patrol. 'What the dickens does K.L.H. mean on your
+shoulder-strap?' he asked.  'It means Kimberley Light Horse.  Who are
+you?'  'I am one of the New-Zealanders.'  Macaulay in his wildest
+dream of the future of the much-quoted New-Zealander never pictured
+him as heading a rescue force for the relief of a British town in the
+heart of Africa.
+
+The population had assembled to watch the mighty cloud of dust which
+rolled along the south-eastern horizon. What was it which swept
+westwards within its reddish heart? Hopeful and yet fearful they saw
+the huge bank draw nearer and nearer.  An assault from the whole of
+Cronje's army was the thought which passed through many a mind.  And
+then the dust-cloud thinned, a mighty host of horsemen spurred out
+from it, and in the extended far-flung ranks the glint of spearheads
+and the gleam of scabbards told of the Hussars and Lancers, while
+denser banks on either flank marked the position of the whirling
+guns. Wearied and spent with a hundred miles' ride the dusty riders
+and the panting, dripping horses took fresh heart as they saw the
+broad city before them, and swept with martial rattle and jingle
+towards the cheering crowds.  Amid shouts and tears French rode into
+Kimberley while his troopers encamped outside the town.
+
+To know how this bolt was prepared and how launched, the narrative
+must go back to the beginning of the month. At that period Methuen and
+his men were still faced by Cronje and his entrenched forces, who, in
+spite of occasional bombardments, held their position between
+Kimberley and the relieving army. French, having handed over the
+operations at Colesberg to Clements, had gone down to Cape Town to
+confer with Roberts and Kitchener. Thence they all three made their
+way to the Modder River, which was evidently about to be the base of a
+more largely conceived series of operations than any which had yet
+been undertaken,
+
+In order to draw the Boer attention away from the thunderbolt which
+was about to fall upon their left flank, a strong demonstration ending
+in a brisk action was made early in February upon the extreme right of
+Cronje's position.  The force, consisting of the Highland Brigade, two
+squadrons of the 9th Lancers, No.7 Co. Royal Engineers, and the 62nd
+Battery, was under the command of the famous Hector Macdonald.
+'Fighting Mac' as he was called by his men, had joined his regiment as
+a private, and had worked through the grades of corporal, sergeant,
+captain, major, and colonel, until now, still in the prime of his
+manhood, he found himself riding at the bead of a brigade.  A bony,
+craggy Scotsman, with a square fighting head and a bulldog jaw, he had
+conquered the exclusiveness and routine of the British service by the
+same dogged qualities which made him formidable to Dervish and to
+Boer. With a cool brain, a steady nerve, and a proud heart, he is an
+ideal leader of infantry, and those who saw him manoeuvre his brigade
+in the crisis of the battle of Omdurman speak of it as the one great
+memory which they carried back from the engagement.  On the field of
+battle he turns to the speech of his childhood, the jagged, rasping,
+homely words which brace the nerves of the northern soldier.  This was
+the man who had come from India to take the place of poor Wauchope,
+and to put fresh heart into the gallant but sorely stricken brigade.
+
+The four regiments which composed the infantry of the force -- the
+Black Watch, the Argyll and Sutherlands, the Seaforths, and the
+Highland Light Infantry -- left Lord Methuen's camp on Saturday,
+February 3rd, and halted at Fraser's Drift, passing on next day to
+Koodoosberg. The day was very hot, and the going very heavy, and many
+men fell out, some never to return.  The drift (or ford) was found,
+however, to be undefended, and was seized by Macdonald, who, after
+pitching camp on the south side of the river, sent out strong parties
+across the drift to seize and entrench the Koodoosberg and some
+adjacent kopjes which, lying some three-quarters of a mile to the
+north-west of the drift formed the key of the position. A few Boer
+scouts were seen hurrying with the news of his coming to the head
+laager.
+
+The effect of these messages was evident by Tuesday (February 6th),
+when the Boers were seen to be assembling upon the north bank. By next
+morning they were there in considerable numbers, and began an attack
+upon a crest held by the Seaforths.  Macdonald threw two companies of
+the Black Watch and two of the Highland Light Infantry into the
+fight. The Boers made excellent practice with a 7-pounder mountain
+gun, and their rifle fire, considering the good cover which our men
+had, was very deadly.  Poor Tait, of the Black Watch, good sportsman
+and gallant soldier, with one wound hardly healed upon his person, was
+hit again.  'They've got me this time,' were his dying words. Blair,
+of the Seaforths, had his carotid cut by a shrapnel bullet, and lay
+for hours while the men of his company took turns to squeeze the
+artery. But our artillery silenced the Boer gun, and our infantry
+easily held their riflemen. Babington with the cavalry brigade arrived
+from the camp about 1.30, moving along the north bank of the river. In
+spite of the fact that men and horses were weary from a tiring march,
+it was hoped by Macdonald's force that they would work round the Boers
+and make an attempt to capture either them or their gun.  But the
+horsemen seem not to have realised the position of the parties, or
+that possibility of bringing off a considerable coup, so the action
+came to a tame conclusion, the Boers retiring unpursued from their
+attack. On Thursday, February 8th, they were found to have withdrawn,
+and on the same evening our own force was recalled, to the surprise
+and disappointment of the public at home, who had not realised that in
+directing their attention to their right flank the column had already
+produced the effect upon the enemy for which they had been sent.  They
+could not be left there, as they were needed for those great
+operations which were pending.  It was on the 9th that the brigade
+returned; on the 10th they were congratulated by Lord Roberts in
+person; and on the 11th those new dispositions were made which were
+destined not only to relieve Kimberley, but to inflict a blow upon the
+Boer cause from which it was never able to recover.
+
+Small, brown, and wrinkled, with puckered eyes and alert manner, Lord
+Roberts in spite of his sixty-seven years preserves the figure and
+energy of youth.  The active open-air life of India keeps men fit for
+the saddle when in England they would only sit their club armchairs,
+and it is hard for any one who sees the wiry figure and brisk step of
+Lord Roberts to realise that he has spent forty-one years of
+soldiering in what used to be regarded as an unhealthy climate.  He
+had carried into late life the habit of martial exercise, and a
+Russian traveller has left it on record that the sight which surprised
+him most in India was to see the veteran commander of the army ride
+forth with his spear and carry off the peg with the skill of a
+practised trooper. In his early youth he had shown in the Mutiny that
+he possessed the fighting energy of the soldier to a remarkable
+degree, but it was only in the Afghan War of 1880 that he had an
+opportunity of proving that he had rarer and more valuable gifts, the
+power of swift resolution and determined execution.  At the crisis of
+the war he and his army disappeared entirely from the public ken only
+to emerge dramatically as victors at a point three hundred miles
+distant from where they had vanished.
+
+It is not only as a soldier, but as a man, that Lord Roberts possesses
+some remarkable characteristics.  He has in a supreme degree that
+magnetic quality which draws not merely the respect but the love of
+those who know him.  In Chaucer's phrase, he is a very perfect gentle
+knight.  Soldiers and regimental officers have for him a feeling of
+personal affection such as the unemotional British Army has never had
+for any leader in the course of our history.  His chivalrous courtesy,
+his unerring tact, his kindly nature, his unselfish and untiring
+devotion to their interests have all endeared him to those rough loyal
+natures, who would follow him with as much confidence and devotion as
+the GROGNARDS of the Guard had in the case of the Great Emperor. There
+were some who feared that in Roberts's case, as in so many more, the
+donga and kopje of South Africa might form the grave and headstone of
+a military reputation, but far from this being so he consistently
+showed a wide sweep of strategy and a power of conceiving the effect
+of scattered movements over a great extent of country which have
+surprised his warmest admirers.  In the second week of February his
+dispositions were ready, and there followed the swift series of blows
+which brought the Boers upon their knees. Of these we shall only
+describe here the exploits of the fine force of cavalry which, after a
+ride of a hundred miles, broke out of the heart of that reddish
+dustcloud and swept the Boer besiegers away from hard-pressed
+Kimberley.
+
+In order to strike unexpectedly, Lord Roberts had not only made a
+strong demonstration at Koodoosdrift, at the other end of the Boer
+line, but he had withdrawn his main force some forty miles south,
+taking them down by rail to Belmont and Enslin with such secrecy that
+even commanding officers had no idea whither the troops were going.
+The cavalry which had come from French's command at Colesberg had
+already reached the rendezvous, travelling by road to Naauwpoort, and
+thence by train. This force consisted of the Carabineers, New South
+Wales Lancers, Inniskillings, composite regiment of Household Cavalry,
+10th Hussars, with some mounted infantry and two batteries of Horse
+Artillery, making a force of nearly three thousand sabres.  To this
+were added the 9th and 12th Lancers from Modder River, the 16th
+Lancers from India, the Scots Greys, which had been patrolling Orange
+River from the beginning of the war, Rimington's Scouts, and two
+brigades of mounted infantry under Colonels Ridley and Hannay.  The
+force under this latter officer had a severe skirmish on its way to
+the rendezvous and lost fifty or sixty in killed, wounded, and
+missing. Five other batteries of Horse Artillery were added to the
+force, making seven in all, with a pontoon section of Royal Engineers.
+The total number of men was about five thousand.  By the night of
+Sunday, February 11th, this formidable force had concentrated at
+Ramdam, twenty miles north-east of Belmont, and was ready to
+advance. At two in the morning of Monday, February 12th, the start was
+made, and the long sinuous line of night-riders moved off over the
+shadowy veldt, the beat of twenty thousand hoofs, the clank of steel,
+and the rumble of gunwheels and tumbrils swelling into a deep low roar
+like the surge upon the shingle.
+
+Two rivers, the Riet and the Modder, intervened between French and
+Kimberley.  By daylight on the 12th the head of his force had reached
+Waterval Drift, which was found to be defended by a body of Boers with
+a gun.  Leaving a small detachment to hold them, French passed his men
+over Dekiel's Drift, higher up the stream, and swept the enemy out of
+his position.  This considerable force of Boers had come from
+Jacobsdal, and were just too late to get into position to resist the
+crossing.  Had we been ten minutes later, the matter would have been
+much more serious.  At the cost of a very small loss he held both
+sides of the ford, but it was not until midniglit that the whole long
+column was brought across, and bivouacked upon the northern bank.  In
+the morning the strength of the force was enormously increased by the
+arrival of one more horseman.  It was Roberts himself, who had ridden
+over to give the men a send-off, and the sight of his wiry erect
+figure and mahogany face sent them full of fire and confidence upon
+their way.
+
+But the march of this second day (February 13th) was a military
+operation of some difficulty.  Thirty long waterless miles had to be
+done before they could reach the Modder, and it was possible that even
+then they might have to fight an action before winning the drift.  The
+weather was very hot, and through the long day the sun beat down from
+an unclouded sky, while the soldiers were only shaded by the dust-bank
+in which they rode.  A broad arid plain, swelling into stony hills,
+surrounded them on every side.  Here and there in the extreme
+distance, mounted figures moved over the vast expanse -- Boer scouts
+who marked in amazement the advance of this great array.  Once or
+twice these men gathered together, and a sputter of rifle fire broke
+out upon our left flank, but the great tide swept on and carried them
+with it.  Often in this desolate land the herds of mottled springbok
+and of grey rekbok could be seen sweeping over the plain, or stopping
+with that curiosity upon which the hunter trades, to stare at the
+unwonted spectacle.
+
+So all day they rode, hussars, dragoons, and lancers, over the
+withered veldt, until men and horses drooped with the heat and the
+exertion. A front of nearly two miles was kept, the regiments moving
+two abreast in open order; and the sight of this magnificent cloud of
+horsemen sweeping over the great barren plain was a glorious one.  The
+veldt had caught fire upon the right, and a black cloud of smoke with
+a lurid heart to it covered the flank.  The beat of the sun from above
+and the swelter of dust from below were overpowering. Gun horses fell
+in the traces and died of pure exhaustion. The men, parched and
+silent, but cheerful, strained their eyes to pierce the continual
+mirage which played over the horizon, and to catch the first glimpse
+of the Modder. At last, as the sun began to slope down to the west, a
+thin line of green was discerned, the bushes which skirt the banks of
+that ill-favoured stream.  With renewed heart the cavalry pushed on
+and made for the drift, while Major Rimington, to whom the onerous
+duty of guiding the force had been entrusted, gave a sigh of relief as
+he saw that he had indeed struck the very point at which he had aimed.
+
+The essential thing in the movements had been speed -- to reach each
+point before the enemy could concentrate to oppose them.  Upon this it
+depended whether they would find five hundred or five thousand waiting
+on the further bank. It must have been with anxious eyes that French
+watched his first regiment ride down to Klip Drift.  If the Boers
+should have had notice of his coming and have transferred some of
+their 40-pounders, he might lose heavily before he forced the stream.
+But this time, at last, he had completely outmanoeuvred them.  He came
+with the news of his coming, and Broadwood with the 12th Lancers
+rushed the drift. The small Boer force saved itself by flight, and the
+camp, the wagons, and the supplies remained with the victors.  On the
+night of the 13th he had secured the passage of the Modder, and up to
+the early morning the horses and the guns were splashing through its
+coffee-coloured waters.
+
+French's force had now come level to the main position of the Boers,
+but had struck it upon the extreme left wing.  The extreme right wing,
+thanks to the Koodoosdrift demonstration, was fifty miles off, and
+this line was naturally very thinly held, save only at the central
+position of Magersfontein.  Cronje. could not denude this central
+position, for he saw Methuen still waiting in front of him, and in any
+case Klip Drift is twenty-five miles from Magersfontein.  But the Boer
+left wing, though scattered, gathered into some sort of cohesion on
+Wednesday (February 14th), and made an effort to check the victorious
+progress of the cavalry.  It was necessary on this day to rest at Klip
+Drift, until Kelly-Kenny should come up with the infantry to hold what
+had been gained. All day the small bodies of Boers came riding in and
+taking up positions between the column and its objective.
+
+Next morning the advance was resumed, the column being still forty
+miles from Kimberley with the enemy in unknown force between.  Some
+four miles out French came upon their position, two hills with a long
+low nek between, from which came a brisk rifle fire supported by
+artillery. But French was not only not to be stopped, but could not
+even be retarded. Disregarding the Boer fire completely the cavalry
+swept in wave after wave over the low nek, and so round the base of
+the hills.  The Boer riflemen upon the kopjes must have seen a
+magnificent military spectacle as regiment after regiment, the 9th
+Lancers leading, all in very open order, swept across the plain at a
+gallop, and so passed over the nek. A few score horses and half as
+many men were left behind them, but forty or fifty Boers were cut down
+in the pursuit.  It appears to have been one of the very few occasions
+during the campaign when that obsolete and absurd weapon the sword was
+anything but a dead weight to its bearer.
+
+And now the force had a straight run in before it, for it had outpaced
+any further force of Boers which may have been advancing from the
+direction of Magersfontein. The horses, which had come a hundred miles
+in four days with insufficient food and water, were so done that it
+was no uncommon sight to see the trooper not only walking to ease his
+horse, but carrying part of his monstrous weight of saddle gear.  But
+in spite of fatigue the force pressed on until in the afternoon a
+distant view was seen, across the reddish plain, of the brick houses
+and corrugated roofs of Kimberley.  The Boer besiegers cleared off in
+front of it, and that night (February 15th) the relieving column
+camped on the plain two miles away, while French and his staff rode in
+to the rescued city.
+
+The war was a cruel one for the cavalry, who were handicapped
+throughout by the nature of the country and by the tactics of the
+enemy. They are certainly the branch of the service which had least
+opportunity for distinction.  The work of scouting and patrolling is
+the most dangerous which a soldier can undertake, and yet from its
+very nature it can find no chronicler. The war correspondent, like
+Providence, is always with the big battalions, and there never was a
+campaign in which there was more unrecorded heroism, the heroism of
+the picket and of the vedette which finds its way into no newspaper
+paragraph. But in the larger operations of the war it is difficult to
+say that cavalry, as cavalry, have justified their existence.  In the
+opinion of many the tendency of the future will be to convert the
+whole force into mounted infantry.  How little is required to turn our
+troopers into excellent foot soldiers was shown at Magersfontein,
+where the 12th Lancers, dismounted by the command of their colonel,
+Lord Airlie, held back the threatened flank attack all the morning. A
+little training in taking cover, leggings instead of boots, and a
+rifle instead of a carbine would give us a formidable force of twenty
+thousand men who could do all that our cavalry does, and a great deal
+more besides.  It is undoubtedly possible on many occasions in this
+war, at Colesberg, at Diamond Hill, to say 'Here our cavalry did
+well.' They are brave men on good horses, and they may be expected to
+do well.  But the champion of the cavalry cause must point out the
+occasions where the cavalry did something which could not have been
+done by the same number of equally brave and equally well-mounted
+infantry.  Only then will the existence of the cavalry be justified.
+The lesson both of the South African and of the American civil war is
+that the light horseman who is trained to fight on foot is the type of
+the future.
+
+A few more words as a sequel to this short sketch of the siege and
+relief of Kimberley. Considerable surprise has been expressed that the
+great gun at Kamfersdam, a piece which must have weighed many tons and
+could not have been moved by bullock teams at a rate of more than two
+or three miles an hour, should have eluded our cavalry.  It is indeed
+a surprising circumstance, and yet it was due to no inertia on the
+part of our leaders, but rather to one of the finest examples of Boer
+tenacity in the whole course of the war.  The instant that Kekewich
+was sure of relief he mustered every available man and sent him out to
+endeavour to get the gun.  It had already been removed, and its
+retreat was covered by the strong position of Dronfield, which was
+held both by riflemen and by light artillery. Finding himself unable
+to force it, Murray, the commander of the detachment, remained in
+front of it.  Next morning (Friday) at three o'clock the weary men and
+horses of two of French's higades were afoot with the same object. But
+still the Boers were obstinately holding on to Dronfield, and still
+their position was too strong to force, and too extended to get round
+with exhausted horses. It was not until the night after that the Boers
+abandoned their excellent rearguard action, leaving one light gun in
+the hands of the Cape Police, but having gained such a start for their
+heavy one that French, who had other and more important objects in
+view, could not attempt to follow it.
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+PAARDEBERG
+
+
+Lord Roberts's operations, prepared with admirable secrecy and carried
+out with extreme energy, aimed at two different results, each of which
+he was fortunate enough to aftain.  The first was that an overpowering
+force of cavalry should ride round the Boer position and raise the
+siege of Kimberley: the fate of this expedition has already been
+described.  The second was that the infantry, following hard on the
+heels of the cavalry, and holding all that they had gained, should
+establish itself upon Cronje's left flank and cut his connection with
+Bloemfontein. It is this portion of the operations which has now to be
+described.
+
+The infantry force which General Roberts had assembled was a very
+formidable one.  The Guards he had left under Methuen in front of the
+lines of Magersfontein to contain the Boer force. With them he had
+also left those regiments which had fought in the 9th Brigade in all
+Methuen's actions.  These, as will be remembered, were the 1st
+Northumberland Fusiliers, the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, the 2nd
+Northamptons, and one wing of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment.
+These stayed to hold Cronje in his position.
+
+There remained tbree divisions of infantry, one of which, the ninth,
+was made up on the spot.  These were constituted in this way:
+
+Sixth Division (Kelly-Kenny)
+      12th Brigade (Knox)
+	     Oxford Light Infantry
+             Gloucesters (2nd)
+	     West Riding
+	     Buffs
+      18th Brigade (Stephenson)
+             Essex
+             Welsh
+             Warwicks
+             Yorks
+Seventh Division (Tucker)
+      14th Brigade (Chermside)
+	     Scots Borderers
+             Lincolns
+	     Hampshires
+	     Norfolks
+      15th Brigade (Wavell)
+	     North Staffords
+             Cheshires
+	     S. Wales Borderers
+	     East Lancashires
+Ninth Division (Colvile)
+       Highland Brigade (Macdonald)
+             Black Watch
+	     Argyll and Sutherlands
+	     Seaforths
+	     Highland Light Infantry
+       19th Brigade (Smith-Dorrien)
+	     Gordons
+	     Canadians
+	     Shropshire Light Infantry
+	     Cornwall Light Infantry
+
+With these were two brigade divisions of artillery under General
+Marshall, the first containing the 18th, 62nd, and 75th batteries
+(Colonel Hall), the other the 76th, 81st, and 82nd (Colonel
+McDonnell).  Besides these there were a howitzer battery, a naval
+contingent of four 4.7 guns and four 12-pounders under Captain
+Bearcroft of the ' Philomel.' The force was soon increased by the
+transfer of the Guards and the arrival of more artillery; but the
+numbers which started on Monday, February 12th, amounted roughly to
+twenty-five thousand foot and eight thousand horse with 98 guns-a
+considerable army to handle in a foodless and almost waterless
+country.  Seven hundred wagons drawn by eleven thousand mules and
+oxen, all collected by the genius for preparation and organisation
+which characterises Lord Kitchener, groaned and creaked behind the
+columns.
+
+Both arms had concentrated at Ramdam, the cavalry going down by road,
+and the infantry by rail as far as Belmont or Enslin. On Monday,
+February 12th, the cavalry had started, and on Tuesday the infantry
+were pressing hard after them.  The first thing was to secure a
+position upon Cronje's flank, and for that purpose the 6th Division
+and the 9th (Kelly-Kenny's and Colvils's) pushed swiftly on and
+arrived on Thursday, February 15th, at Klip Drift on the Modder, which
+had only been left by the cavalry that same morning. It was obviously
+impossible to leave Jacobsdal in the hands of the enemy on our left
+flank, so the 7th Division (Tucker's) turned aside to attack the town.
+Wavell's brigade carried the place after a sharp skirmish, chiefly
+remarkable for the fact that the City Imperial Volunteers found
+themselves under fire for the first time and bore themselves with the
+gallantry of the old train-bands whose descendants they are. Our loss
+was two killed and twenty wounded, and we found ourselves for the
+first time firmly established in one of the enemy's towns. In the
+excellent German hospital were thirty or forty of our wounded.
+
+On the afternoon of Thursday, February 15th, our cavalry, having left
+Klip Drift in the morning, were pushing hard for Kimberley. At Klip
+Drift was KellyKenny's 6th Division.  South of Klip Drift at Wegdraai
+was Colvile's 9th Division, while the 7th Division was approaching
+Jacobsdal.  Altogether the British forces were extended over a line of
+forty miles.  The same evening saw the relief of Kimberley and the
+taking of Jacobsdal, but it also saw the capture of one of our convoys
+by the Boers, a dashing exploit which struck us upon what was
+undoubtedly our vulnerable point.
+
+It has never been cleared up whence the force of Boers came which
+appeared upon our rear on that occasion.  It seems to have been the
+same body which had already had a skirmish with Hannay's Mounted
+Infantry as they went up from Orange Biver to join the rendezvous at
+Ramdam.  The balance of evidence is that they had not come from
+Colesberg or any distant point, but that they were a force under the
+command of Piet De Wet, the younger of two famous brothers.
+Descending to Waterval Drift, the ford over the Riet, they occupied a
+line of kopjes, which ought, one would have imagined, to have been
+carefully guarded by us, and opened a brisk fire from rifles and guns
+upon the convoy as it ascended the northern bank of the river.
+Numbers of bullocks were soon shot down, and the removal of the
+hundred and eighty wagons made impossible.  The convoy, which
+contained forage and provisions, bad no guard of its own, but the
+drift was held by Colonel Ridley with one company of Gordons and one
+hundred and fifty mounted infantry without artillery, which certainly
+seems an inadequate force to secure the most vital and vulnerable spot
+in the line of communications of an army of forty thousand men. The
+Boers numbered at the first some five or six hundred men, but their
+position was such that they could not be attacked.  On the other hand
+they were not strong enough to leave their shelter in order to drive
+in the British guard, who, lying in extended order between the wagons
+and the assailants, were keeping up a steady and effective fire.
+Captain Head, of the East Lancashire Regiment, a fine natural soldier,
+commanded the British firing line, and neither he nor any of his men
+doubted that they could hold off the enemy for an indefinite time.  In
+the course of the afternoon reinforcements arrived for the Boers, but
+Kitchener's Horse and a field battery came back and restored the
+balance of power.  In the evening the latter swayed altogether in
+favour of the British, as Tucker appeared upon the scene with the
+whole of the 14th Brigade; but as the question of an assault was being
+debated a positive order arrived from Lord Roberts that the convoy
+should be abandoned and the force return.
+
+If Lord Roberts needed justification for this decision, the future
+course of events will furnish it.  One of Napoleon's maxims in war was
+to concentrate all one's energies upon one thing at one
+time. Roberts's aim was to outflank and possibly to capture Cronje's
+army.  If he allowed a brigade to be involved in a rearguard action,
+his whole swift-moving plan of campaign might be dislocated.  It was
+very annoying to lose a hundred and eighty wagons, but it only meant a
+temporary inconvenience.  The plan of campaign was the essential
+thing.  Therefore he sacrificed his convoy and hurried his troops upon
+their original mission.  It was with heavy hearts and bitter words
+that those who had fought so long abandoned their charge, but now at
+least there are probably few of them who do not agree in the wisdom of
+the sacrifice.  Our loss in this affair was between fifty and sixty
+killed and wounded.  The Boers were unable to get rid of the stores,
+and they were eventually distributed among the local farmers and
+recovered again as the British forces flowed over the country. Another
+small disaster occurred to us on the preceding day in the loss of
+fifty men of E company of Kitchener's Horse, which bad been left as a
+guard to a well in the desert.
+
+But great events were coming to obscure those small checks which are
+incidental to a war carried out over immense distances against a
+mobile and enterprising enemy.  Cronje had suddenly become aware of
+the net which was closing round him.  To the dark fierce man who had
+striven so hard to make his line of kopjes impregnable it must have
+been a bitter thing to abandon his trenches and his rifle pits.  But
+he was crafty as well as tenacious, and he had the Boer horror of
+being cut off -- an hereditary instinct from fathers who had fought on
+horseback against enemies on foot.  If at any time during the last ten
+weeks Methuen had contained him in front with a thin line of riflemen
+with machine guns, and had thrown the rest of his force on Jacobsdal
+and the east, he would probably have attained the same result.  Now at
+the rumour of English upon his flank Cronje instantly abandoned his
+position and his plans, in order to restore those communications with
+Bloemfontein upon which he depended for his supplies. With furious
+speed he drew in his right wing, and then, one huge mass of horsemen,
+guns, and wagons, he swept through the gap between the rear of the
+British cavalry bound for Kimberley and the head of the British
+infantry at Klip Drift.  There was just room to pass, and at it he
+dashed with the furious energy of a wild beast rushing from a trap. A
+portion of his force with his heavy guns had gone north round
+Kimberley to Warrenton; many of the Freestaters also had slipped away
+and returned to their farms.  The remainder, numbering about six
+thousand men, the majority of whom were Transvaalers, swept through
+between the British forces.
+
+This movement was carried out on the night of February 15th, and had
+it been a little quicker it might have been concluded before we were
+aware of it. But the lumbering wagons impeded it, and on the Friday
+morning, February 16th, a huge rolling cloud of dust on the northern
+veldt, moving from west to east, told our outposts at Klip Drift that
+Cronje's army had almost slipped through our fingers.  Lord Kitchener,
+who was in command at Klip Drift at the moment, instantly unleashed
+his mounted infantry in direct pursuit, while Knox's brigade sped
+along the northern bank of the river to cling on to the right haunch
+of the retreating column. Cronje's men had made a night march of
+thirty miles from Magersfontein, and the wagon bullocks were
+exhausted.  It was impossible, without an absolute abandonment of his
+guns and stores, for him to get away from his pursuers.
+
+This was no deer which they were chasing, however, but rather a grim
+old Transvaal wolf, with his teeth flashing ever over his
+shoulder. The sight of those distant white-tilted wagons fired the
+blood of every mounted infantryman, and sent the Oxfords, the Buffs,
+the West Ridings, and the Gloucesters racing along the river bank in
+the glorious virile air of an African morning. But there were kopjes
+ahead, sown with fierce Dopper Boers, and those tempting wagons were
+only to be reached over their bodies.  The broad plain across which
+the English were hurrying was suddenly swept with a storm of
+bullets. The long infantry line extended yet further and lapped round
+the flank of the Boer position, and once more the terrible duet of the
+Mauser and the Lee-Metford was sung while the 81st field battery
+hurried up in time to add its deep roar to their higher chorus. With
+fine judgment Cronje held on to the last moment of safety, and then
+with a swift movement to the rear seized a further line two miles off,
+and again snapped back at his eager pursuers. All day the grim and
+weary rearguard stalled off the fiery advance of the infantry, and at
+nightfall the wagons were still untaken.  The pursuing force to the
+north of the river was, it must be remembered, numerically inferior to
+the pursued, so that in simply retarding the advance of the enemy and
+in giving other British troops time to come up, Knox's brigade was
+doing splendid work.  Had Cronje been well advised or well informed,
+he would have left his guns and wagons in the hope that by a swift
+dash over the Modder he might still bring his army away in safety. He
+seems to have underrated both the British numbers and the British
+activity.
+
+On the night then of Friday, February 16th, Cronje lay upon the
+northern bank of the Modder, with his stores and guns still intact,
+and no enemy in front of him, though Knox's brigade and Hannay's
+Mounted Infantry were behind. It was necessary for Cronje to cross the
+river in order to be on the line for Bloemfontein. As the river tended
+to the north the sooner he could cross the better.  On the south side
+of the river, however, were considerable British forces, and the
+obvious strategy was to hurry them forward and to block every drift at
+which he could get over.  The river runs between very deep banks, so
+steep that one might almost describe them as small cliffs, and there
+was no chance of a horseman, far less a wagon, crossing at any point
+save those where the convenience of traffic and the use of years had
+worn sloping paths down to the shallows.  The British knew exactly
+therefore what the places were which had to be blocked.  On the use
+made of the next few hours the success or failure of the whole
+operation must depend.
+
+The nearest drift to Cronje was only a mile or two distant, Klipkraal
+the name; next to that the Paardeberg Drift; next to that the
+Wolveskraal Drift, each about seven miles from the other.  Had Cronje
+pushed on instant]y after the action, he might have got across at
+Klipkraal. But men, horses, and bullocks were equally exhausted after
+a long twenty-four hours' marching and fighting.  He gave his weary
+soldiers some hours' rest, and then, abandoning seventy-eight of his
+wagons, he pushed on Before daylight for the farthest off of the
+three fords (Wolveskraal Drift).  Could he reach and cross it before
+his enemies, he was safe.  The Klipkraal Drift had in the meanwhile
+been secured by the Buffs, the West Ridings, and the Oxfordshire
+Light Infantry after a spirited little action which, in the rapid rush
+of events, attracted less attention than it deserved.  The brunt of
+the fighting fell upon the Oxfords, who lost ten killed and
+thirty-nine wounded.  It was not a waste of life, however, for the
+action, though small and hardly recorded, was really a very essential
+one in the campaign.
+
+But Lord Roberts's energy had infused itself into his divisional
+commanders, his brigadiers, his colonels, and so down to the humblest
+Tommy who tramped and stumbled through the darkness with a devout
+faith that 'Bobs' was going to catch 'old Cronje' this time.  The
+mounted infantry had galloped round from the north to the south of the
+river, crossing at Klip Drift and securing the southern end of
+Klipkraal.  Thither also came Stephenson's brigade from Kelly-Kenny's
+Division, while Knox, finding in the morning that Cronje was gone,
+marched along the northern bank to the same spot.  As Klipkraal was
+safe, the mounted infantry pushed on at once and secured the southern
+end of the Paardeberg Drift, whither they were followed the same
+evening by Stephenson and Knox.  There remained only the Wolveskraal
+Drift to block, and this had already been done by as smart a piece of
+work as any in the war. Wherever French has gone he has done well, but
+his crowning glory was the movement from Kimberley to head off
+Cronje's retreat.
+
+The exertions which the mounted men had made in the relief of
+Kimberley have been already recorded. They arrived there on Thursday
+with their horses dead beat.  They were afoot at three o'clock on
+Friday morning, and two brigades out of three were hard at work all
+day in an endeavour to capture the Dronfield position. Yet when on the
+same evening an order came that French should start again instantly
+from Kimberley and endeavour to head Cronje's army off, he did not
+plead inability, as many a commander might, but taking every man whose
+horse was still fit to carry him (something under two thousand out of
+a column which had been at least five thousand strong), he started
+within a few hours and pushed on through the whole night.  Horses died
+under their riders, but still the column marched over the shadowy
+veldt under the brilliant stars. By happy chance or splendid
+calculation they were heading straight for the one drift which was
+still open to Cronje. It was a close thing.  At midday on Saturday the
+Boer advance guard was already near to the kopjes which command
+it. But French's men, still full of fight after their march of thirty
+miles, threw themselves in front and seized the position before their
+very eyes.  The last of the drifts was closed. If Cronje was to get
+across now, he must crawl out of his trench and fight under Roberts's
+conditions, or he might remain under his own conditions until
+Roberts's forces closed round him.  With him lay the alternative. In
+the meantime, still ignorant of the forces about him, but finding
+himself headed off by French, he made his way down to the river and
+occupied a long stretch of it between Paardeberg Drift and Wolveskraal
+Drift, hoping to force his way across.  This was the situation on the
+night of Saturday, February 17th.
+
+In the course of that night the British brigades, staggering with
+fatigue but indomitably resolute to crush their evasive enemy, were
+converging upon Paardeberg. The Highland Brigade, exhausted by a heavy
+march over soft sand from Jacobsdal to Klip Drift, were nerved to
+fresh exertions by the word 'Magersfontein,' which flew from lip to
+lip along the ranks, and pushed on for another twelve miles to
+Paardeberg.  Close at their heels came Smith-Dorrien's 19th Brigade,
+comprising the Shropshires, the Cornwalls, the Gordons, and the
+Canadians, probably the very finest brigade in the whole army.  They
+pushed across the river and took up their position upon the north
+bank.  The old wolf was now fairly surrounded.  On the west the
+Highianders were south of the river, and Smith-Dorrien on the north.
+On the east Kelly-Kenny's Division was to the south of the river, and
+French with his cavalry and mounted infantry were to the north of it.
+Never was a general in a more hopeless plight. Do what he would, there
+was no possible loophole for escape.
+
+There was only one thing which apparently should not have been done,
+and that was to attack him. His position was a formidable one.  Not
+only were the banks of the river fringed with his riflemen under
+excellent cover, but from these banks there extended on each side a
+number of dongas, which made admirable natural trenches.  The only
+possible attack from either side must be across a level plain at least
+a thousand or fifteen hundred yards in width, where our numbers would
+only swell our losses.  It must be a bold soldier and a far bolder
+civilian, who would venture to question an operation carried out under
+the immediate personal direction of Lord Kitchener; but the general
+consensus of opinion among critics may justify that which might be
+temerity in the individual.  Had Cronje not been tightly surrounded,
+the action with its heavy losses might have been justified as an
+attempt to hold him until his investment should be complete.  There
+seems, however, to be no doubt that he was already entirely
+surrounded, and that, as experience proved, we had only to sit round
+him to insure his surrender.  It is not given to the greatest man to
+have every soldierly gift equally developed, and it may be said
+without offence that Lord Kitchener's cool judgment upon the actual
+field of battle has not yet been proved as conclusively as his
+longheaded power of organisation and his iron determination.
+
+Putting aside the question of responsibility, what happened on the
+morning of Sunday, February 18th, was that from every quarter an
+assault was urged across the level plains, to the north and to the
+south, upon the lines of desperate and invisible men who lay in the
+dongas and behind the banks of the river. Everywhere there was a
+terrible monotony about the experiences of the various regiments which
+learned once again the grim lessons of Colenso and Modder River. We
+surely did not need to prove once more what had already been so amply
+proved, that bravery can be of no avail against concealed riflemen
+well entrenched, and that the more hardy is the attack the heavier
+must be the repulse. Over the long circle of our attack Knox's
+brigade, Stephenson's brigade, the Highland brigade, Smith-Dorrien's
+brigade all fared alike.  In each case there was the advance until
+they were within the thousand-yard fire zone, then the resistless
+sleet of bullets which compelled them to get down and to keep down.
+Had they even then recognised that they were attempting the
+impossible, no great harm might have been done, but with generous
+emulation the men of the various regiments made little rushes, company
+by company, towards the river bed, and found themselves ever exposed
+to a more withering fire.  On the northern bank Smith-Dorrien's
+brigade, and especially the Canadian regiment, distinguished
+themselves by the magnificent tenacity with which they persevered in
+their attack.  The Cornwalls of the same brigade swept up almost to
+the river bank in a charge which was the admiration of all who saw it.
+If the miners of Johannesburg had given the impression that the
+Cornishman is not a fighter, the record of the county regiment in the
+war has for ever exploded the calumny.  Men who were not fighters
+could have found no place in Smith-Dorrien's brigade or in the charge
+of Paardeberg.
+
+While the infantry had been severely handled by the Boer riflemen, our
+guns, the 76th, 81st, and 82nd field batteries, with the 65th howitzer
+battery, had been shelling the river bed, though our artillery fire
+proved as usual to have little effect against scattered and hidden
+riflemen.  At least, however, it distracted their attention, and made
+their fire upon the exposed infantry in front of them less
+deadly. Now, as in Napoleon's time, the effect of the guns is moral
+rather than material.  About midday French's horse-artillery guns came
+into action from the north.  Smoke and flames from the dongas told
+that some of our shells bad fallen among the wagons and their
+combustible stores.
+
+The Boer line had proved itself to be unshakable on each face, but at
+its ends the result of the action was to push them up, and to shorten
+the stretch of the river which was held by them.  On the north bank
+Smith. Dorrien's brigade gained a considerable amount of ground. At
+the other end of the position the Welsh, Yorkshire, and Essex
+regiments of Stephenson's brigade did some splendid work, and pushed
+the Boers for some distance down the river bank. A most gallant but
+impossible charge was made by Colonel Hannay and a number of mounted
+infantry against the northern bank. He was shot with the majority of
+his followers. General Knox of the 12th Brigade and General Macdonald
+of the Highlanders were among the wounded.  Colonel Aldworth of the
+Cornwalls died at the head of his men.  A bullet struck him dead as he
+whooped his West Countrymen on to the charge. Eleven hundred killed
+and wounded testified to the fire of our attack and the grimness of
+the Boer resistance.  The distribution of the losses among the various
+battalions -- eighty among the Canadians, ninety in the West Riding
+Regiment, one hundred and twenty in the Seaforths, ninety in the
+Yorkshires, seventy-six in the Argyll and Sutherlands, ninetysix in
+the Black Watch, thirty-one in the Oxfordshires, fifty-six in the
+Coruwnlls, forty-six in the Shropshires -- shows how universal was the
+gallantry, and especially how well the Highland Brigade carried
+itself. It is to be feared that they had to face, not only the fire of
+the enemy, but also that of their own comrades on the further side of
+the river. A great military authority has stated that it takes many
+years for a regiment to recover its spirit and steadiness if it has
+been heavily punished, and yet within two months of Magersfontein we
+find the indomitable Highlanders taking without flinching the very
+bloodiest share of this bloody day -- and this after a march of thirty
+miles with no pause before going into action. A repulse it may have
+been, but they hear no name of which they may be more proud upon the
+victory scroll of their colours.
+
+What had we got in return for our eleven hundred casualties? We had
+contracted the Boer position from about three miles to less than
+two. So much was to the good, as the closer they lay the more
+effective our artillery fire might be expected to be. But it is
+probable that our shrapnel alone, without any loss of life, might have
+effected the same thing. It is easy to be wise after the event, but
+it does certainly appear that with our present knowledge the action at
+Paardeberg was as unnecessary as it was expensive.  The sun descended
+on Sunday, February 18th, upon a bloody field and crowded field
+hospitals, but also upon an unbroken circle of British troops still
+hemming in the desperate men who lurked among the willows and mimosas
+which drape the brown steep banks of the Modder.
+
+There was evidence during the action of the presence of an active Boer
+force to the south of us, probably the same well-handled and
+enterprising body which had captured our convoy at Waterval. A small
+party of Kitchener's Horse was surprised by this body, and thirty men
+with four officers were taken prisoners. Much has been said of the
+superiority of South African scouting to that of the British regulars,
+but it must be confessed that a good many instances might be quoted in
+which the colonials, though second to none in gallantry, have been
+defective in that very quality in which they were expected to excel.
+
+This surprise of our cavalry post had more serious consequences than
+can be measured by the loss of men, for by it the Boers obtained
+possession of a strong kopje called Kitchener's Hill, lying about two
+miles distant on the south-east of our position. The movement was an
+admirable one strategically upon their part, for it gave their
+beleaguered comrades a first station on the line of their retreat.
+Could they only win their way to that kopje, a rearguard action might
+be fought from there which would cover the escape of at least a
+portion of the force. De Wet, if he was indeed responsible for the
+manoeuvres of these Southern Boers, certainly handled his small force
+with a discreet audacity which marks him as the born leader which he
+afterwards proved himself to be.
+
+If the position of the Boers was desperate on Sunday, it was hopeless
+on Monday, for in the course of the morning Lord Roberts came up,
+closely followed by the whole of Tucker's Division (7th) from
+Jacobsdal. Our artillery also was strongly reinforced. The 18th, 62nd,
+and 75th field batteries came up with three naval 4.7 guns and two
+naval 12-pounders.  Thirty-five thousand men with sixty guns were
+gathered round the little Boer army.  It is a poor spirit which will
+not applaud the supreme resolution with which the gallant farmers held
+out, and award to Cronje the title of one of the most grimly resolute
+leaders of whom we have any record in modern history.
+
+For a moment it seemed as if his courage was giving way.  On Monday
+morning a message was transmitted by him to Lord Kitchener asking for
+a twenty-four hours' armistice. The answer was of course a curt
+refusal. To this he replied that if we were so inhuman as to prevent
+him from burying his dead there was nothing for him save surrender. An
+answer was given that a messenger with power to treat should be sent
+out, but in the interval Cronje had changed his mind, and disappeared
+with a snarl of contempt into his burrows. It had become known that
+women and children were in the laager, and a message was sent offering
+them a place of safety, but even to this a refusal was given.  The
+reasons for this last decision are inconceivable.
+
+Lord Roberts's dispositions were simple, efficacious, and above all
+bloodless.  Smith-Dorrien's brigade, who were winning in the Western
+army something of the reputation which Hart's Irishmen had won in
+Natal, were placed astride of the river to the west, with orders to
+push gradually up, as occasion served, using trenches for their
+approach.  Chermside's brigade occupied the same position on the
+east. Two other divisions and the cavalry stood round, alert and
+eager, like terriers round a rat-hole, while all day the pitiless guns
+crashed their common shell, their shrapnel, and their lyddite into the
+river-bed. Already down there, amid slaughtered oxen and dead horses
+under a burning sun, a horrible pest-hole had been formed which sent
+its mephitic vapours over the countryside.  Occasionally the sentries
+down the river saw amid the brown eddies of the rushing water the
+floating body of a Boer which had been washed away from the Golgotha
+above.  Dark Cronje, betrayer of Potchefstroom, iron-handed ruler of
+natives, reviler of the British, stern victor of Magersfontein, at
+last there has come a day of reckoning for you!
+
+On Wednesday, the 21st, the British, being now sure of their grip of
+Cronje, turned upon the Boer force which had occupied the hill to the
+south-east of the drift. It was clear that this force, unless driven
+away, would be the vanguard of the relieving army which might be
+expected to assemble from Ladysmith, Bloemfontein, Colesberg, or
+wherever else the Boers could detach men.  Already it was known that
+reinforcements who had left Natal whenever they heard that the Free
+State was invaded were drawing near. It was necessary to crush the
+force upon the hill before it became too powerful.  For this purpose
+the cavalry set forth, Broadwood with the 10th Hussars, 12th Lancers,
+and two batteries going round on one side, while French with the 9th
+and 16th Lancers, the Household Cavalry, and two other batteries
+skirted the other. A force of Boers was met and defeated, while the
+defenders of the hill were driven off with considerable loss. In this
+well-managed affair the enemy lost at least a hundred, of whom fifty
+were prisoners. On Friday, February 23rd, another attempt at rescue
+was made from the south, but again it ended disastrously for the
+Boers.  A party attacked a kopje held by the Yorkshire regiment and
+were blown back by a volley, upon which they made for a second kopje,
+where the Buffs gave them an even rougher reception. Eighty prisoners
+were marched in. Meantime hardly a night passed that some of the Boers
+did not escape from their laager and give themselves up to our
+pickets.  At the end of the week we had taken six hundred in all.
+
+In the meantime the cordon was being drawn ever tighter, and the fire
+became heavier and more deadly, while the conditions of life in that
+fearful place were such that the stench alone might have compelled
+surrender. Amid the crash of tropical thunderstorms, the glare of
+lightning, and the furious thrashing of rain there was no relaxation
+of British vigilance. A balloon floating overhead directed the fire,
+which from day to day became more furious, culminating on the 26th
+with the arrival of four 5-inch howitzers.  But still there came no
+sign from the fierce Boer and his gallant followers.  Buried deep
+within burrows in the river bank the greater part of them lay safe
+from the shells, but the rattle of their musketry when the outposts
+moved showed that the trenches were as alert as ever. The thing could
+only have one end, however, and Lord Roberts, with admirable judgment
+and patience, refused to hurry it at the expense of the lives of his
+soldiers.
+
+The two brigades at either end of the Boer lines had lost no chance of
+pushing in, and now they had come within striking distance.  On the
+night of February 26th it was determined that Smith-Dorrien's men
+should try their luck.  The front trenches of the British were at that
+time seven hundred yards from the Boer lines. They were held by the
+Gordons and by the Canadians, the latter being the nearer to the
+river. It is worth while entering into details as to the arrangement
+of the attack, as the success of the campaign was at least accelerated
+by it. The orders were that the Canadians were to advance, the Gordons
+to support, and the Shropshires to take such a position on the left as
+would outflank any counter attack upon the part of the Boers.  The
+Canadians advanced in the darkness of the early morning before the
+rise of the moon.  The front rank held their rifles in the left hand
+and each extended right hand grasped the sleeve of the man next
+it. The rear rank had their rifles slung and carried spades. Nearest
+the river bank were two companies (G and H.) who were followed by the
+7th company of Royal Engineers carrying picks and empty sand bags. The
+long line stole through a pitchy darkness, knowing that at any instant
+a blaze of fire such as flamed before the Highlanders at Magersfontein
+might crash out in front of them. A hundred, two, three, four, five
+hundred paces were taken.  They knew that they must be close upon the
+trenches.  If they could only creep silently enough, they might spring
+upon the defenders unannounced. On and on they stole, step by step,
+praying for silence. Would the gentle shuffle of feet be heard by the
+men who lay within stone-throw of them?  Their hopes had begun to rise
+when there broke upon the silence of the night a resonant metallic
+rattle, the thud of a falling man, an empty clatter! They had walked
+into a line of meat-cans slung upon a wire. By measurement it was only
+ninety yards from the trench. At that instant a single rifle sounded,
+and the Canadians hurled themselves down upon the ground. Their bodies
+had hardly touched it when from a line six hundred yards long there
+came one furious glare of rifle fire, with a hiss like water on a
+red-hot plate, of speeding bullets. In that terrible red light the men
+as they lay and scraped desperately for cover could see the heads of
+the Boers pop up and down, and the fringe of rifle barrels quiver and
+gleam. How the regiment, lying helpless under this fire, escaped
+destruction is extraordinary.  To rush the trench in the face of such
+a continuous blast of lead seemed impossible, and it was equally
+impossible to remain where they were. In a short time the moon would
+be up, and they would be picked off to a man. The outer companies upon
+the plain were ordered to retire. Breaking up into loose order, they
+made their way back with surprisingly little loss; but a strange
+contretemps occurred, for, leaping suddenly into a trench held by the
+Gordons, they transfixed themselves upon the bayonets of the men. A
+subaltern and twelve men received bayonet thrusts -- none of them
+fortunately of a very serious nature.
+
+While these events had been taking place upon the left of the line,
+the right was hardly in better plight. All firing had ceased for the
+moment -- the Boers being evidently under the impression that the whole
+attack had recoiled. Uncertain whether the front of the small party on
+the right of the second line (now consisting of some sixty-five
+Sappers and Canadians lying in one mingled line) was clear for firing
+should the Boers leave their trenches, Captain Boileau, of the
+Sappers, crawled forward along the bank of the river, and discovered
+Captain Stairs and ten men of the Canadians, the survivors of the
+firing line, firmly ensconced in a crevice of the river bank
+overlooking the laager, quite happy on being reassured as to the
+proximity of support.  This brought the total number of the daring
+band up to seventy-five rifles.  Meanwhile, the Gordons, somewhat
+perplexed by the flying phantoms who had been flitting into and over
+their trenches for the past few minutes, sent a messenger along the
+river bank to ascertain, in their turn, if their own front was clear
+to fire, and if not, what state the survivors were in.  To this
+message Colonel Kincaid, R.E., now in command of the remains of the
+assaulting party, replied that his men would be well entrenched by
+daylight.  The little party had been distributed for digging as well
+as the darkness and their ignorance of their exact position to the
+Boers would permit.  Twice the sound of the picks brought angry
+volleys from the darkness, but the work was never stopped, and in the
+early dawn the workers found not only that they were secure
+themselves, but that they were in a position to enfilade over half a
+mile of Boer trenches.  Before daybreak the British crouched low in
+their shelter, so that with the morning light the Boers did not
+realise the change which the night had wrought. It was only when a
+burgher was shot as he filled his pannikin at the river that they
+understood how their position was overlooked.  For half an hour a
+brisk fire was maintained, at the end of which time a white flag went
+up from the trench.  Kincaid stood up on his parapet, and a single
+haggard figure emerged from the Boer warren.  'The burghers have had
+enough; what are they to do?' said he.  As he spoke his comrades
+scrambled out behind him and came walking and running over to the
+British lines.  It was not a moment likely to be forgotten by the
+parched and grimy warriors who stood up and cheered until the cry came
+crashing back to them again from the distant British camps. No doubt
+Cronje had already realised that the extreme limit of his resistance
+was come, but it was to that handful of Sappers and Canadians that the
+credit is immediately due for that white flag which fluttered on the
+morning of Majuba Day over the lines of Paardeberg.
+
+It was six o'clock in the morning when General Pretyman rode up to
+Lord Roberts's headquarters. Behind him upon a white horse was a
+dark-bearded man, with the quick. restless eyes of a hunter,
+middle-sized, thickly built, with grizzled hair flowing from under a
+tall brown felt hat. He wore the black broadcloth of the burgher with
+a green summer overcoat, and carried a small whip in his hands. His
+appearance was that of a respectable London vestryman rather than of a
+most redoubtable soldier with a particularly sinister career behind
+him.
+
+The Generals shook hands, and it was briefly intimated to Cronje that
+his surrender must be unconditional, to which, after a short silence,
+he agreed. His only stipulations were personal, that his wife, his
+grandson, his secretary, his adjutant, and his servant might accompany
+him.  The same evening he was despatched to Cape Town, receiving those
+honourable attentions which were due to his valour rather than to his
+character.  His men, a pallid ragged crew, emerged from their holes
+and burrows, and delivered up their rifles. It is pleasant to add
+that, with much in their memories to exasperate them, the British
+privates treated their enemies with as large-hearted a courtesy as
+Lord Roberts had shown to their leader. Our total capture numbered
+some three thousand of the Transvaal and eleven hundred of the Free
+State.  That the latter were not far more numerous was due to the fact
+that many had already shredded off to their farms. Besides Cronje,
+Wolverans of the Transvaal, and the German artillerist Albrecht, with
+forty-four other field-cornets and commandants, fell into our hands.
+Six small guns were also secured.  The same afternoon saw the long
+column of the prisoners on its way to Modder River, there to be
+entrained for Cape Town, the most singular lot of people to be seen at
+that moment upon earth -- ragged, patched, grotesque, some with goloshes,
+some with umbrellas, coffee-pots, and Bibles, their favourite baggage.
+So they passed out of their ten days of glorious history.
+
+A visit to the laager showed that the horrible smells which had been
+carried across to the British lines, and the swollen carcasses which
+had swirled down the muddy river were true portents of its condition.
+Strong-nerved men came back white and sick from a contemplation of the
+place in which women and children had for ten days been living. From
+end to end it was a festering mass of corruption, overshadowed by
+incredible swarms of flies.  Yet the engineer who could face evil
+sights and nauseous smells was repaid by an inspection of the deep
+narrow trenches in which a rifleman could crouch with the minimum
+danger from shells, and the caves in which the non-combatants remained
+in absolute safety. Of their dead we have no accurate knowledge, but
+two hundred wounded in a donga represented their losses, not only
+during a bombardment of ten days, but also in that Paardeberg
+engagement which had cost us eleven hundred casualties. No more
+convincing example could be adduced both of the advantage of the
+defence over the attack, and of the harmlessness of the fiercest shell
+fire if those who are exposed to it bave space and time to make
+preparations.
+
+A fortnight had elapsed since Lord Roberts had launched his forces
+from Ramdam, and that fortnight had wrought a complete revolution in
+the campaign. It is hard to recall any instance in the history of war
+where a single movement has created such a change over so many
+different operations.  On February 14th Kimberley was in danger of
+capture, a victorious Boer army was facing Methuen, the lines of
+Magersfontein appeared impregnable, Clements was being pressed at
+Colesberg, Gatacre was stopped at Stormberg, Buller could not pass the
+Tugela, and Ladysmith was in a perilous condition. On the 28th
+Kimberley had been relieved, the Boer army was scattered or taken, the
+lines of Magersfontein were in our possession, Clements found his
+assailants retiring before him, Gatacre was able to advance at
+Stormberg, Buller had a weakening army in front of him, and Ladysmith
+was on the eve of relief. And all this had been done at the cost of a
+very moderate loss of life, for most of which Lord Roberts was in no
+sense answerable. Here at last was a reputation so well founded that
+even South African warfare could only confirm and increase it. A
+single master hand had in an instant turned England's night to day,
+and had brought us out of that nightmare of miscalculation and
+disaster which had weighed so long upon our spirits.  His was the
+master hand, but there were others at his side without whom that hand
+might have been paralysed: Kitchener the organiser, French the cavalry
+leader -- to these two men, second only to their chief, are the
+results of the operations due.  Henderson, the most capable head of
+Intelligence, and Richardson, who under all difficulties fed the army,
+may each claim his share in the success.
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ROBERTS'S ADVANCE ON BLOEMFONTEIN
+
+The surrender of Cronje had taken place on February 27th, obliterating
+for ever the triumphant memories which the Boers had for twenty years
+associated with that date. A halt was necessary to provide food for
+the hungry troops, and above all to enable the cavalry horses to pick
+up.  The supply of forage had been most inadequate, and the beasts had
+not yet learned to find a living from the dry withered herbage of the
+veldt.[Footnote: A battery which turned out its horses to graze found
+that the puzzled creatures simply galloped about the plain, and could
+only be reassembled by blowing the call which they associated with
+feeding, when they rushed back and waited in lines for their nosebags
+to be put on.] In addition to this, they had been worked most
+desperately during the fortnight which had elapsed.  Lord Roberts
+waited therefore at Osfontein, which is a farmhouse close to
+Paardeberg, until his cavalry were fit for an advance. On March 6th he
+began his march for Bloemfontein.
+
+The force which had been hovering to the south and east of him during
+the Paardeberg operations had meanwhile been reinforced from Colesberg
+and from Ladysmith until it had attained considerable
+proportions. This army, under the leadership of De Wet, had taken up a
+strong position a few miles to the east, covering a considerable range
+of kopjes.  On March 3rd a reconnaissance was made of it, in which
+some of our guns were engaged; but it was not until three days later
+that the army advanced with the intention of turning or forcing it. In
+the meantime reinforcements had been arriving in the British camp,
+derived partly from the regiments which had been employed at other
+points during these operations, and partly from newcomers from the
+outer Empire.  The Guards came up from Klip Drift, the City Imperial
+Volunteers, the Australian Mounted Infantry, the Burmese Mounted
+Infantry and a detachment of light horse from Ceylon helped to form
+this strange invading army which was drawn from five continents and
+yet had no alien in its ranks.
+
+The position which the enemy had taken up at Poplars Grove (so called
+from a group of poplars round a farmhouse in the centre of their
+position) extended across the Modder River and was buttressed on
+either side by well-marked hills, with intermittent kopjes between.
+With guns, trenches, rifle pits, and barbed wire a bull-headed general
+might have found it another Magersfontein. But it is only just to Lord
+Roberts's predecessors in command to say that it is easy to do things
+with three cavalry brigades which it is dilficult to do with two
+regiments.  The ultimate blame does not rest with the man who failed
+with the two regiments, but with those who gave him inadequate means
+for the work which he had to do.  And in this estimate of means our
+military authorities, our politicians, and our public were all in the
+first instance equally mistaken.
+
+Lord Roberts's plan was absolutely simple, and yet, had it been
+carried out as conceived, absolutely effective. It was not his
+intention to go near any of that entanglement of ditch and wire which
+had been so carefully erected for his undoing.  The weaker party, if
+it be wise, atones for its weakness by entrenchments. The stronger
+party, if it be wise, leaves the entrenchments alone and uses its
+strength to go round them.  Lord Roberts meant to go round. With his
+immense preponderance of men and guns the capture or dispersal of the
+enemy's army might be reduced to a certainty. Once surrounded, they
+must either come out into the open or they must surrender.
+
+On March 6th the cavalry were brought across the river, and in the
+early morning of March 7th they were sent off in the darkness to sweep
+round the left wing of the Boers and to establish themselves on the
+line of their retreat. Kelly-Kenny's Division (6th) had orders to
+follow and support this movement.  Meanwhile Tucker was to push
+straight along the southern bank of the river, though we may surmise
+that his instructions were, in case of resistance, not to push his
+attack home. Colvile's 9th Division, with part of the naval brigade,
+were north of the river, the latter to shell the drifts in case the
+Boers tried to cross, and the infantry to execute a turning movement
+which would correspond with that of the cavalry on the other flank.
+
+The plan of action was based, however, upon one supposition which
+proved to be fallacious.  It was that after having prepared so
+elaborate a position the enemy would stop at least a little time to
+defend it.  Nothing of the sort occurred, however, and on the instant
+that they realised that the cavalry was on their flank they made off.
+The infantry did not fire a shot.
+
+The result of this very decisive flight was to derange all
+calculations entirly.  The cavalry was not yet in its place when the
+Boer army streamed off between the kopjes.  One would have thought,
+however, that they would have had a dash for the wagons and the guns,
+even if they were past them.  It is unfair to criticise a movement
+until one is certain as to the positive orders which the leader may
+have received; but on the face of it it is clear that the sweep of our
+cavalry was not wide enough, and that they erred by edging to the left
+instead of to the right, so leaving the flying enemies always to the
+outside of them.
+
+As it was, however, there seemed every possibility of their getting
+the guns, but De Wet very cleverly coveved them by his skirmishers.
+Taking possession of a farmhouse on the right flank they kept up a
+spirited fire upon the 16th Lancers and upon P battery R.H.A. When at
+last the latter drove them out of their shelter, they again formed
+upon a low kopje and poured so galling a fire upon the right wing that
+the whole movement was interrupted until we had driven this little
+body of fifty men from their position. When, after a delay of an hour,
+the cavalry at last succeeded in dislodging them -- or possibly it may
+be fairer to say when, having accomplished their purpose, they retired
+-- the guns and wagons were out of reach, and, what is more important,
+the two Presidents, both Steyn and Kruger, who had come to stiffen the
+resistance of the burghers, had escaped.
+
+Making every allowance for the weary state of the horses, it is
+impossible to say that our cavalry were handled with energy or
+judgment on this occasion. That such a force of men and guns should be
+held off from an object of such importance by so small a resistance
+reflects no credit upon us.  It would have been better to repeat the
+Kimberley tactics and to sweep the regiments in extended order past
+the obstacle if we could not pass over it. At the other side of that
+little ill-defended kopje lay a possible termination of the war, and
+our crack cavalry regiments manoeuvred for hours and let it pass out
+of their reach. However, as Lord Roberts good-humouredly remarked at
+the end of the action, 'In war you can't expect everything to come out
+right.'  General French can afford to shed one leaf from his laurel
+wreath.  On the other hand, no words can be too high for the gallant
+little band of Boers who had the courage to face that overwhelming
+mass of horsemen, and to bluff them into regarding this handful as a
+force fighting a serious rearguard action. When the stories of the war
+are told round the fires in the lonely veldt farmhouses, as they will
+be for a century to come, this one deserves an honoured place.
+
+The victory, if such a word can apply to such an action, had cost some
+fifty or sixty of the cavalry killed and wounded, while it is doubtful
+if the Boers lost as many.  The finest military display on the British
+side had been the magnificent marching of Kelly-Kenny's 6th Division,
+who had gone for ten hours with hardly a halt.  One 9 lb. Krupp gun
+was the only trophy.  On he other hand, Roberts had turned them out of
+their strong position, had gained twelve or fifteen miles on he road
+to Bloemfontein, and for the first time shown how helpless a Boer army
+was in country which gave our numbers a chance. From now onwards it
+was only in surprise and ambuscade that they could hope for a success.
+We had learned and they had learned that they could not stand in the
+open field.
+
+The action of Poplars Grove was fought on March 7th. On the 9th the
+army was again on its way, and on the 10th it attacked the new
+position which the Boers had occupied at a place called Driefontein,
+or Abram's Kraal. They covered a front of some seven miles in such a
+formation that their wings were protected, the northern by the river
+and the southern by flanking bastions of hill extending for some
+distance to the rear. If the position had been defended as well as it
+had been chosen, the task would have been a severe one.
+
+Since the Modder covered the enemy's right the turning movement could
+only be developed on their left, and Tucker's Division was thrown out
+very wide on that side for the purpose. But in the meanwhile a
+contretemps had occurred which threw out and seriously hampered the
+whole British line of battle. General French was in command of the
+left wing, which included Kelly-Kenny's Division, the first cavalry
+brigade, and Alderson's Mounted Infantry. His orders had been to keep
+in touch with the centre, and to avoid pushing his attack home. In
+endeavouring to carry out these instructions French moved his men more
+and more to the right, until he had really squeezed in between the
+Boers and Lord Roberts's central column, and so masked the latter.
+The essence of the whole operation was that the frontal attack should
+not be delivered until Tucker had worked round to the rear of the
+position.  It is for military critics to decide whether it was that
+the flankers were too slow or the frontal assailants were too fast,
+but it is certain that Kelly-Kenny's Division attacked before the
+cavalry and the 7th Division were in their place.  Kelly-Kenny was
+informed that the position in front of him had been abandoned, and
+four regiments, the Buffs, the Essex, the Welsh, and the Yorkshires,
+were advanced against it. They were passing over the open when the
+crash of the Mauser fire burst out in front of them, and the bullets
+hissed and thudded among the ranks.  The ordeal was a very severe one.
+The Yorkshires were swung round wide upon the right, but the rest of
+the brigade, the Welsh Regiment leading, made a frontal attack upon
+the ridge.  It was done coolly and deliberately, the men taking
+advantage of every possible cover.  Boers could be seen leaving their
+position in small bodies as the crackling, swaying line of the British
+surged ever higher upon the hillside.  At last, with a cheer, the
+Welshmen with their Kent and Essex comrades swept over the crest into
+the ranks of that cosmopolitan crew of sturdy adventurers who are
+known as the Johannesburg Police.  For once the loss of the defence
+was greater than that of the attack.  These mercenaries had not the
+instinct which teaches the Boer the right instant for flight, and they
+held their position too long to get away. The British had left four
+hundred men on the track of that gallant advance, but the vast
+majority of them were wounded -- too often by those explosive or
+expansive missiles which make war more hideous. Of the Boers we
+actually buried over a hundred on the ridge, and their total
+casualties must have been considerably in excess of ours.
+
+The action was strategically well conceived; all that Lord Roberts
+could do for complete success had been done; but tactically it was a
+poor affair, considering his enormous preponderance in men and
+guns. There was no glory in it, save for the four regiments who set
+their faces against that sleet of lead.  The artillery did not do
+well, and were browbeaten by guns which they should have smothered
+under their fire.  The cavalry cannot be said to have done well
+either. And yet, when all is said, the action is an important one, for
+the enemy were badly shaken by the result. The Johannesburg Police,
+who had been among their CORPS D'ELITE, had been badly mauled, and the
+burghers were impressed by one more example of the impossibility of
+standing in anything approaching to open country against disciplined
+troops, Roberts had not captured the guns, but the road had been
+cleared for him to Bloemfontein and, what is more singular, to
+Pretoria; for though hundreds of miles intervene between the field of
+Driefontein and the Transvaal capital, he never again met a force
+which was willing to look his infantry in the eyes in a pitched
+battle.  Surprises and skirmishes were many, but it was the last time,
+save only at Doornkop, that a chosen position was ever held for an
+effective rifle fire -- to say nothing of the push of bayonet.
+
+And now the army flowed swiftly onwards to the capital.  The
+indefatigable 6th Division, which had done march after march, one more
+brilliant than another, since they had crossed the Riet River, reached
+Asvogel Kop on the evening of Sunday, March 11th, the day after the
+battle.  On Monday the army was still pressing onwards, disregarding
+all else and striking straight for the heart as Blucher struck at
+Paris in 1814. At midday they halted at the farm of Gregorowski, he
+who had tried the Reform prisoners after the Raid.  The cavalry pushed
+on down Kaal Spruit, and in the evening crossed the Southern railway
+line which connects Bloemfontein with the colony, cutting it at a
+point some five miles from the town.  In spite of some not very
+strenuous opposition from a Boer force a hill was seized by a squadron
+of Greys with some mounted infantry and Rimington's Guides, aided by U
+battery R.H.A., and was held by them all that night.
+
+On the same evening Major Hunter-Weston, an officer who had already
+performed at least one brilliant feat in the war, was sent with
+Lieutenant Charles and a handful of Mounted Sappers and Hussars to cut
+the line to the north.  After a difficult journey on a very dark night
+he reached his object and succeeded in finding and blowing up a
+culvert.  There is a Victona Cross gallantry which leads to nothing
+save personal decoration, and there is another and far higher
+gallantry of calculation, which springs from a cool brain as well as a
+hot heart, and it is from the men who possess this rare quality that
+great warriors arise.  Such feats as the cutting of this railway or
+the subsequent saving of the Bethulie Bridge by Grant and Popham are
+of more service to the country than any degree of mere valour
+untempered by judgment.  Among other results the cutting of the line
+secured for us twenty-eight locomotives, two hundred and fifty trucks,
+and one thousand tons of coal, all of which were standing ready to
+leave Bloemfontein station.  The gallant little band were nearly cut
+off on their return, but fought their way through with the loss of two
+horses, and so got back in triumph.
+
+The action of Driefontein was fought on the 10th. The advance began on
+the morning of the 11th.  On the morning of the 13th the British were
+practically masters of Bloemfontein.  The distance is forty miles.  No
+one can say that Lord Roberts cannot follow a victory up as well as
+win it.
+
+Some trenches had been dug and sangars erected to the north-west of
+the town; but Lord Roberts, with his usual perverseness, took the
+wrong turning and appeared upon the broad open plain to the south,
+where resistance would have been absurd.  Already Steyn and the
+irreconcilables had fled from the town, and the General was met by a
+deputation of the Mayor, the Landdrost, and Mr. Fraser to tender the
+submission of the capital. Fraser, a sturdy clear-headed Highlander,
+had been the one politician in the Free State who combined a perfect
+loyalty to his adopted country with a just appreciation of what a
+quarrel A L'OUTRANCE with the British Empire would mean.  Had Fraser's
+views prevailed, the Orange Free State would still exist as a happy
+and independent State.  As it is, he may help her to happiness and
+prosperity as the prime minister of the Orange River Colony.
+
+It was at half-past one on Tuesday, March 13th, that General Roberts
+and his troops entered Bloemfontein, amid the acclamations of many of
+the inhabitants, who, either to propitiate the victor, or as a sign of
+their real sympathies, had hoisted union jacks upon their
+houses. Spectators have left it upon record how from all that
+interminable column of yellow-clad weary men, worn with half rations
+and whole-day marches, there came never one jeer, never one taunting
+or exultant word, as they tramped into the capital of their enemies.
+The bearing of the troops was chivalrous in its gentleness, and not
+the least astonishing sight to the inhabitants was the passing of the
+Guards, the dandy troops of England, the body-servants of the great
+Queen.  Black with sun and dust, staggering after a march of
+thirty-eight miles, gaunt and haggard, with their clothes in such a
+state that decency demanded that some of the men should be discreetly
+packed away in the heart of the dense column, they still swung into
+the town with the aspect of Kentish hop-pickers and the bearing of
+heroes.  She, the venerable mother, could remember the bearded ranks
+who marched past her when they came with sadly thinned files back from
+the Crimean winter; even those gallant men could not have endured more
+sturdily, nor have served her more loyally, than these their worthy
+descendants.
+
+It was just a month after the start from Ramdam that Lord Roberts and
+his army rode into the enemy's capital.  Up to that period we had in
+Africa Generals who were hampered for want of troops, and troops who
+were hampered for want of Generals.  Only when the Commander-in-Chief
+took over the main army had we soldiers enough, and a man who knew how
+to handle them.  The result was one which has not only solved the
+question of the future of South Africa, but has given an illustration
+of strategy which will become classical to the military student.  How
+brisk was the course of events, how incessant the marching and
+fighting, may be shown by a brief recapitulation.  On February 13th
+cavalry and infantry were marching to the utmost capacity of men and
+horses.  On the 14th the cavalry were halted, but the infantry were
+marching hard.  On the 15th the cavalry covered forty miles, fought an
+action, and relieved Kimberley.  On the 16th the cavalry were in
+pursuit of the Boer guns all day, and were off on a thirty-mile march
+to the Modder at night, while the infantry were fighting Cronje's
+rearguard action, and closing up all day.  On the 17th the infantry
+were marching hard.  On the 18th was the battle of Paardeberg. From
+the 19th to the 27th was incessant fighting with Cronje inside the
+laager and with De Wet outside.  From the 28th to March 6th was
+rest. On March 7th was the action of Poplars Grove with heavy
+marching; on March 10th the battle of Driefontein.  On the 11th and
+12th the infantry covered forty miles, and on the 13th were in
+Bloemfontein. All this was accomplished by men on half-rations, with
+horses which could hardly be urged beyond a walk, in a land where
+water is scarce and the sun semi-tropical, each infantryman carrying a
+weight of nearly forty pounds. There are few more brilliant
+achievements in the history of British arms.  The tactics were
+occasionally faulty, and the battle of Paardeberg was a blot upon the
+operations; but the strategy of the General and the spirit of the
+soldier were alike admirable.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+STRATEGIC EFFECTS OF LORD ROBERTS'S MARCH
+
+
+>From the moment that Lord Roberts with his army advanced from Ramdam
+all the other British forces in South Africa, the Colesberg force, the
+Stormberg force, Brabant's force, and the Natal force, had the
+pressure relieved in front of them, a tendency which increased with
+every fresh success of the main body. A short chapter must be devoted
+to following rapidly the fortunes of these various armies, and tracing
+the effect of Lord Roberts's strategy upon their movements.  They may
+be taken in turn from west to east.
+
+The force under General Clements (formerly French's) had, as has
+already been told, been denuded of nearly all its cavalry and horse
+artillery, and so left in the presence of a very superior body of the
+enemy. Under these circumstances Clements had to withdraw his
+immensely extended line, and to concentrate at Arundel, closely
+followed by the elated enemy.  The situation was a more critical one
+than has been appreciated by the public, for if the force had been
+defeated the Boers would have been in a position to cut Lord Roberts's
+line of communications, and the main army would have been in the air.
+Much credit is due, not only to General Clements, but to Carter of the
+Wiltshires, Hacket Pain of the Worcesters, Butcher of the 4th R.F.A.,
+the admirable Australians, and all the other good men and true who
+did their best to hold the gap for the Empire.
+
+The Boer idea of a strong attack upon this point was strategically
+admirable, but tactically there was not sufficient energy in pushing
+home the advance. The British wings succeeded in withdrawing, and the
+concentrated force at Arundel was too strong for attack Yet there was
+a time of suspense, a time when every man had become of such
+importance that even fifty Indian syces were for the first and last
+time in the war, to their own supreme gratification, permitted for
+twenty-four hours to play their natural part as soldiers.[Footnote:
+There was something piteous in the chagrin of these fine Sikhs at
+being held back from their natural work as soldiers. A deputation of
+them waited upon Lord Roberts at Bloemfontein to ask, with msny
+salaams, whether 'his children were not to see one little fight before
+they returned.'] But then with the rapid strokes in front the hour of
+danger passed, and the Boer advance became first a halt and then a
+retreat.
+
+On February 27th, Major Butcher, supported by the Inniskillings and
+Australians, attacked Rensburg and shelled the enemy out of it.  Next
+morning Clements's whole force had advanced from Arundel and took up
+its old position.  The same afternoon it was clear that the Boers were
+retiring, and the British, following them up, marched into Colesherg,
+around which they had manoeuvred so long.  A telegram from Steyn to De
+Wet found in the town told the whole story of the retirement: 'As long
+as you are able to hold the positions you are in with the men you
+have, do so.  If not, come here as quickly as circumstances will
+allow, as matters here are taking a serious turn.'  The whole force
+passed over the Orange River unimpeded, and blew up the Norval's Pont
+railway bridge behind it.  Clements's brigade followed on March 4th,
+and succeeded in the course of a week in throwing a pontoon bridge
+over the river and crossing into the Orange Free State. Roberts having
+in the meanwhile seized Bloemfontein, communication was restored by
+railway between the forces, and Clements was despatched to
+Philippolis, Fauresmith, and the other towns in the south-west to
+receive the submission of the inhabitants and to enforce their
+disarmament. In the meantime the Engineers worked furiously at the
+restoration of the railway bridge over the Orange River, which was
+not, however, accomplished until some weeks later.
+
+During the long period which had elapsed since the repulse at
+Stormberg, General Gatacre had held his own at Sterkstroom, under
+orders not to attack the enemy, repulsing them easily upon the only
+occasion when they ventured to attack him.  Now it was his turn also
+to profit by the success which Lord Roberts had won.  On February 23rd
+he re-occupied Molteno, and on the same day sent out a force to
+reconnoitre the enemy's position at Stormberg.  The incident is
+memorable as having been the cause of the death of Captain de
+Montmorency,[Footnote: De Montmorency had established a remarkable
+influence over his rough followers. To the end of the war they could
+not speak of him without tears in their eyes. When I asked Sergeant
+Howe why his captain went almost alone up the hill, his answer was,
+'Because the captain knew no fear.' Byrne, his soldier servant (an
+Omdurman V.C. like his master), galloped madly off next morning with a
+saddled horse to bring back his captain alive or dead, and had to be
+forcibly seized and restrained by our cavalry.] one of the most
+promising of the younger officers of the British army.  He had formed
+a corps of scouts, consisting originally of four men, but soon
+expanding to seventy or eighty.  At the head of these men he confirmed
+the reputation for desperate valour which he bad won in the Soudan,
+and added to it proofs of the enterprise and judgment which go to make
+a leader of light cavalry. In the course of the reconnaissance he
+ascended a small kopje accompanied by three companions, Colonel
+Hoskier, a London Volunteer soldier, Vice, a civilian, and Sergeant
+Howe.  'They are right on the top of us,' he cried to his comrades, as
+he reached the summit, and dropped next instant with a bullet through
+his heart. Hoskier was shot in five places, and Vice was mortally
+wounded, only Howe escaping. The rest of the scouts, being farther
+back, were able to get cover and to keep up a fight until they were
+extricated by the remainder of the force. Altogether our loss was
+formidable rather in quality than in quantity, for not more than a
+dozen were hit, while the Boers suffered considerably from the fire of
+our guns.
+
+On March 5th General Gatacre found that the Boers were retreating in
+front of him -- in response, no doubt, to messages similar to those
+which had already been received at Colesberg.  Moving forward he
+occupied the position which had confronted him so long.  Thence,
+having spent some days in drawing in his scattered detachments and in
+mending the railway, he pushed forward on March 12th to Burghersdorp,
+and thence on the 13th to Olive Siding, to the south of the Bethulie
+Bridge.
+
+There are two bridges which span the broad muddy Orange River, thick
+with the washings of the Basutoland mountains.  One of these is the
+magnificent high railway bridge, already blown to ruins by the
+retreating Boers.  Dead men or shattered horses do not give a more
+vivid impression of the unrelenting brutality of war than the sight of
+a structure, so graceful and so essential, blown into a huge heap of
+twisted girders and broken piers.  Half a mile to the west is the road
+bridge, broad and old-fashioned.  The only hope of preserving some
+mode of crossing the difficult river lay in the chance that the troops
+might anticipate the Boers who were about to destroy this bridge.
+
+In this they were singularly favoured by fortune. On the arrival of a
+small party of scouts and of the Cape Police under Major Nolan-Neylan
+at the end of the bridge it was found that all was ready to blow it
+up, the mine sunk, the detonator fixed, and the wire laid.  Only the
+connection between the wire and the charge had not been made.  To make
+sure, the Boers had also laid several boxes of dynamite under the last
+span, in case the mine should fail in its effect.  The advance guard
+of the Police, only six in number, with Nolan-Neylan at their head,
+threw themselves into a building which commanded the approaches of the
+bridge, and this handful of men opened so spirited and well-aimed a
+fire that the Boers were unable to approach it.  As fresh scouts and
+policemen came up they were thrown into the firing line, and for a
+whole long day they kept the destroyers from the bridge. Had the enemy
+known how weak they were and how far from supports, they could have
+easily destroyed them, but the game of bluff was admirably played, and
+a fire kept up which held the enemy to their rifle pits.
+
+The Boers were in a trench commanding the bridge, and their brisk fire
+made it impossible to cross.  On the other hand, our rifle fire
+commanded the mine and prevented any one from exploding it.  But at
+the approach of darkness it was certain that this would be done. The
+situation was saved by the gallantry of young Popham of the
+Derbyshires, who crept across with two men and removed the detonators.
+There still remained the dynamite under the further span, and this
+also they removed, carrying it off across the bridge under a heavy
+fire.  The work was made absolutely complete a little later by the
+exploit of Captain Grant of the Sappers, who drew the charges from the
+holes in which they had been sunk, and dropped them into the river,
+thus avoiding the chance that they might be exploded next morning by
+shell fire.  The feat of Popham and of Grant was not only most gallant
+but of extraordinary service to the country; but the highest credit
+belongs to Nolan-Neylan, of the Police, for the great promptitude and
+galantry of his attack, and to McNeill for his support.  On that road
+bridge and on the pontoon bridge at Norval's Pont Lord Roberts's army
+was for a whole month dependent for their supplies.
+
+On March 15th Gatacre's force passed over into the Orange Free State,
+took possession of Bethulie, and sent on the cavalry to Springfontein,
+which is the junction where the railways from Gape Town and from East
+London meet.  Here they came in contact with two battalions of Guards
+under Pole-Carew, who had been sent down by train from Lord Roberts's
+force in the north.  With Roberts at Bloemfontein, Gatacre at
+Springfontein, Clements in the south-west, and Brabant at Aliwal, the
+pacification of the southern portion of the Free State appeared to be
+complete. Warlike operations seemed for the moment to be at an end,
+and scattered parties traversed the country, 'bill-sticking,' as the
+troops called it -- that is, carrying Lord Roberts's proclamation to
+the lonely farmhouses and outlying villages.
+
+In the meantime the colonial division of that fine old African
+fighter, General Brabant, had begun to play its part in the campaign.
+Among the many judicious arrangements which Lord Roberts made
+immediately after his arrival at the Cape was the assembling of the
+greater part of the scattered colonial bands into one division, and
+placing over it a General of their own, a man who had defended the
+cause of the Empire both in the legislative assembly and the field.
+To this force was entrusted the defence of the country lying to the
+east of Gatacre's position, and on February 15th they advanced from
+Penhoek upon Dordrecht. Their Imperial troops consisted of the Royal
+Scots and a section of the 79th R.F.A., the Colonial of Brabant's
+Horse, the Kaffrarian Mounted Rifles, the Cape Mounted Rifles and Cape
+Police, with Queenstown and East London Volunteers.  The force moved
+upon Dordrecht, and on February 18th occupied the town after a
+spirited action, in which Brabant's Horse played a distinguished
+part. On March 4th the division advanced once more with the object of
+attacking the Boer position at Labuschague's Nek, some miles to the
+north.
+
+Aided by the accurate fire of the 79th R.F.A., the colonials
+succeeded, after a long day of desultory fighting, in driving the
+enemy from his position. Leaving a garrison in Dordrecht Brabant
+followed up his victory and pushed forward with two thousand men and
+eight guns (six of them light 7-pounders) to occupy Jamestown, which
+was done without resistance.  On March 10th the colonial force
+approached Aliwal, the frontier town, and so rapid was the advance of
+Major Henderson with Brabant's Horse that the bridge at Aliwal was
+seized before the enemy could blow it up. At the other side of the
+bridge there was a strong stand made by the enemy, who had several
+Krupp guns in position; but the light horse, in spite of a loss of
+some twenty-five men killed and wounded, held on to the heights which
+command the river. A week or ten days were spent in pacifying the
+large north-eastern portion of Cape Colony, to which Aliwal acts as a
+centre.  Barkly East, Herschel, Lady Grey, and other villages were
+visited by small detachments of the colonial horsemen, who pushed
+forward also into the south-eastern portion of the Free State, passing
+through Rouxville, and so along the Basutoland border as far as
+Wepener.  The rebellion in the Colony was now absolutely dead in the
+northeast, while in the north-west in the Prieska and Carnarvon
+districts it was only kept alive by the fact that the distances were
+so great and the rebel forces so scattered that it was very difficult
+for our flying columns to reach them.  Lord Kitchener had returned
+from Paardeberg to attend to this danger upon our line of
+communications, and by his exertions all chance of its becoming
+serious soon passed. With a considerable force of Yeomanry and Cavalry
+he passed swiftly over the country, stamping out the smouldering
+embers.
+
+So much for the movements into the Free State of Clements, of Gatacre,
+and of Brabant.  It only remains to trace the not very eventful
+history of the Natal campaign after the relief of Ladysmith.
+
+General Buller made no attempt to harass the retreat of the Boers,
+although in two days no fewer than two thousand wagons were counted
+upon the roads to Newcastle and Dundee.  The guns had been removed by
+train, the railway being afterwards destroyed. Across the north of
+Natal lies the chain of the Biggarsberg mountains, and to this the
+Transvaal Boers had retired, while the Freestaters had hurried through
+the passes of the Drakensberg in time to make the fruitless opposition
+to Roberts's march upon their capital.  No accurate information had
+come in as to the strength of the Transvaalers, the estimates ranging
+from five to ten thousand, but it was known that their position was
+formidable and their guns mounted in such a way as to command the
+Dundee and Newcastle roads.
+
+General Lyttelton's Division had camped as far out as Elandslaagte
+with Burn Murdoch's cavalry, while Dundonald's brigade covered the
+space between Burn Murdoch's western outposts and the Drakensberg
+passes.  Few Boers were seen, hut it was known that the passes were
+held in some strength.  Meanwhile the line was being restored in the
+rear, and on March 9th the gallant White was enabled to take train for
+Durban, though it was not until ten days later that the Colenso bridge
+was restored. The Ladysmith garrison had been sent down to Colenso to
+recruit their health.  There they were formed into a new division, the
+4th, the brigades being given to Howard and Knox, and the command to
+Lyttelton, who had returned his former division, the second, to Clery.
+The 5th and 6th brigades were also formed into one division, the 10th,
+which was placed under the capable command of Hunter, who had
+confirmed in the south the reputation which he had won in the north of
+Africa.  In the first week of April Hunter's Division was sent down to
+Durban and transferred to the western side, where they were moved up
+to Kimberley, whence they advanced northwards. The man on the horse
+has had in this war an immense advantage over the man on foot, but
+there have been times when the man on the ship has restored the
+balance.  Captain Mahan might find some fresh texts in the
+transference of Hunter's Division, or in the subsequent expedition to
+Beira.
+
+On April 10th the Boers descended from their mountains and woke up our
+sleepy army corps by a brisk artillery fire.  Our own guns silenced
+it, and the troops instantly relapsed into their slumber.  There was
+no movement for a fortnight afterwards upon either side, save that of
+Sir Charles Warren, who left the army in order to take up the
+governorship of British Bechuanaland, a district which was still in a
+disturbed state, and in which his presence had a peculiar
+significance, since he had rescued portions of it from Boer
+dornination in the early days of the Transvaal Republic.  Hildyard
+took over the command of the 5th Division.  In this state of inertia
+the Natal force remained until Lord Roberts, after a six weeks' halt
+in Bloenifontein, necessitated by the insecurity of his railway
+communication and his want of every sort of military supply, more
+especially horses for his cavalry and boots for his infantry, was at
+last able on May 2nd to start upon his famous march to Pretoria.
+Before accompanying him, however, upon this victorious progress, it is
+necessary to devote a chapter to the series of incidents and
+operations which had taken place to the east and south-east of
+Bloemfontein during this period of compulsory inactivity.
+
+One incident must be recorded in this place, though it was political
+rather than military.  This was the interchange of notes concerning
+peace between Paul Kruger and Lord Salisbury.  There is an old English
+jingle about 'the fault of the Dutch, giving too little and asking too
+much,' but surely there was never a more singular example of it than
+this.  The united Presidents prepare for war for years, spring an
+insulting ultimatum upon us, invade our unfortunate Colonies, solemnly
+annex all the portions invaded, and then, when at last driven back,
+propose a peace which shall secure for them the whole point originally
+at issue.  It is difficult to believe that the proposals could have
+been seriously meant, but more probable that the plan may have been to
+strengthen the hands of the Peace deputation who were being sent to
+endeavour to secure European intervention.  Could they point to a
+proposal from the Transvaal and a refusal from England, it might, if
+not too curiously examined, excite the sympathy of those who follow
+emotions rather than facts.
+
+The documents were as follow:--
+
+`The Prsidents of the Orange Free State and of the South African
+Republic to the Marquess of Salisbury.
+	    Bloemfontein March 5th, 1900.
+
+`The blood and the tears of the thousands who have suffered by this
+war, and the prospect of all the moral and economic ruin with which
+South Africa is now threatened, make it necessary for both
+belligerents to ask themselves dispassionately and as in the sight of
+the Triune God for what they are fighting and whether the aim of each
+justifies all this appalling misery and devastation.
+
+`With this object, and in view of the assertions of various British
+statesmen to the effect that this war was begun and is carried on with
+the set purpose of undermining Her Majesty's authority in South
+Africa, and of setting up an administration over all South Africa
+independent of Her Majesty's Government, we consider it our duty to
+solemnly declare that this war was undertaken solely as a defensive
+measure to safeguard the threatened independence of the South African
+Republic, and is only continued in order to secure and safeguard the
+incontestable independence of both Republics as sovereign
+international States, and to obtain the assurance that those of Her
+Majesty's subjects who have taken part with us in this war shall
+suffer no harm whatsoever in person or property.
+
+`On these conditions, but on these conditions alone, are we now as in
+the past desirous of seeing peace re-established in South Africa, and
+of putting an end to the evils now reigning over South Africa; while,
+if Her Majesty's Government is determined to destroy the independence
+of the Republics, there is nothing left to us and to our people but to
+persevere to the end in the course already begun, in spite of the
+overwhelming pre-eminence of the British Empire, conscious that that
+God who lighted the inextinguishable fire of the love of freedom in
+our hearts and those of our fathers will not forsake us, but will
+accomplish His work in us and in our descendants.
+
+`We hesitated to make this  declaration earlier to your Excellency  as
+we feared that, as long  as the advantage was  always on our side, and
+as long  as our forces held  defensive positions  far in Her Majesty's
+Colonies, such a declaration might hurt the  feelings of honour of the
+British people.  But now  that the prestige  of the British Empire may
+be considered to be assured  by the capture  of one of our forces, and
+that we are  thereby forced to  evacuate other positions  which we had
+occupied, that difficulty  is over and  we  can no longer  hesitate to
+inform your Government and people in the sight  of the whole civilised
+world why   we are fighting  and on  what conditions  we  are ready to
+restore peace.
+
+Such was the message, deep in its simplicity and cunning in its
+candour, which was sent by the old President, for it is Kruger's style
+which we read in every line of it.  One has to get back to facts after
+reading it, to the enormous war preparations of the Republics, to the
+unprepared state of the British Colonies, to the ultimatum, to the
+annexations, to the stirring up of rebeflion, to the silence about
+peace in the days of success, to the fact that by 'inextinguishable
+love of freedom' is meant inextinguishable determination to hold other
+white men as helots -- only then can we form a just opinion of the worth
+of his message. One must remember also, behind the homely and pious
+phraseology, that one is dealing with a man who has been too cunning
+for us again and again -- a man who is as wily as the savages with whom
+he has treated and fought.  This Paul Kruger with the simple words of
+peace is the same Paul Kruger who with gentle sayings insured the
+disarmament of Johannesburg, and then instantly arrested his
+enemies -- the man whose name was a by-word for 'slimness' throughout
+South Africa.  With such a man the best weapon is absolute naked truth
+with which Lord Salisbury confronted him in his reply:--
+	   Foreign Office: March 11th.
+
+`I have the honour to acknowledge your Honours' telegram dated March
+5th from Bloemfontein, of which the purport was principally to demand
+that Her Majesty's Government shall recognise the "incontestable
+independence" of the South African Republic and Orange Free State as
+"sovereign international States," and to offer on those terms to bring
+the war to a conclusion.
+
+`In the beginning of October last peace existed between Her Majesty
+and the two Republics under the conventions which then were in
+existence. A discussion had been proceeding for some months between
+Her Majesty's Government and the South African Republic, of which the
+object was to obtain redress for certain very serious grievances under
+which British residents in the. Republic were suffering.  In the
+course of those negotiations the Republic had, to the knowledge of Her
+Majesty's Government, made considerable armaments, and the latter had
+consequently taken steps to provide corresponding reinforcements to
+the British garrisons of Cape Town and Natal.  No infringement of the
+rights guaranteed by the conventions had up to that time taken place
+on the British side.  Suddenly, at two days' notice, the South African
+Republic, after issuing an insulting ultimatum, declared war, and the
+Orange Free State with whom there had not even been any discussion,
+took a similar step.  Her Majesty's dominions were immediately invaded
+by the two Republics, siege was laid to three towns within the British
+frontier, a large portion of the two Colonies was overrun with great
+destruction to property and life, and the Republics claimed to treat
+the inhabitants as if those dominions had been annexed to one or other
+of them.  In anticipation of these operations the South African
+Republic had been accumulating for many years past military stores
+upon an enormous scale, which by their character could only have been
+intended for use against Great Britain.
+
+`Your Honours make some observations of a negative character upon the
+object with which these preparations were made.  I do not think it
+necessary to discuss the questions which you have raised.  But the
+result of these preparations, carried on with great secrecy, has been
+that the British Empire has been compelled to confront an invasion
+which has entailed a costly war and the loss of thousands of precious
+lives.  This great calamity has been the penalty which Great Britain
+has suffered for having in recent years acquiesced in the existence of
+the two Republics.
+
+`In view of the use to which the two Republics have put the position
+which was given to them, and the calamities which their unprovoked
+attack has inflicted upon Her Majesty's dominions, Her Majesty's
+Government can only answer your Honours' telegram by saying that they
+are not prepared to assent to the independence either of the South
+African Bepublic or of the Orange Free State.'
+
+With this frank and uncompromising reply the Empire, with the
+exception of a small party of dupes and doctrin aires, heartily
+agreed.  The pens were dropped, and the Mauser and the Lee-Metford
+once more took up the debate.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE HALT AT BLOEMFONTEIN
+
+
+On March 13th Lord Roberts occupied the capital of the Orange Free
+State.  On May 1st, more than six weeks later, the advance was
+resumed.  This long delay was absolutely necessary in order to supply
+the place of the ten thousand horses and mules which are said to have
+been used up in the severe work of the preceding month. It was not
+merely that a large number of the cavalry chargers had died or been
+abandoned, but it was that of those which remained the majority were
+in a state wbich made them useless for immediate service. How far this
+might have been avoided is open to question, for it is notorious that
+General French's reputation as a horsemaster does not stand so high as
+his fame as a cavalry leader. But besides the horses there was urgent
+need of every sort of supply, from boots to hospitals, and the only
+way by which they could come was by two single-line railways which
+unite into one single-line railway, with the alternative of passing
+over a precarious pontoon bridge at Norval's Pont, or truck by truck
+over the road bridge at Bethulie.  To support an army of fifty
+thousand men under these circumstances, eight hundred miles from a
+base, is no light matter, and a premature advance which could not be
+thrust home would be the greatest of misfortunes.  The public at home
+and the army in Africa became restless under the inaction, but it was
+one more example of the absolute soundness of Lord Roberts's judgment
+and the quiet resolution with which he adheres to it.  He issued a
+proclamation to the inhabitants of the Free State promising protection
+to all who should bring in their arms and settle down upon their
+farms.  The most stringent orders were issued against looting or
+personal violence, but nothing could exceed the gentleness and good
+humour of the troops. Indeed there seemed more need for an order which
+should protect them against the extortion of their conquered enemies.
+It is strange to think that we are separated by only ninety years from
+the savage soldiery of Badajoz and San Sebastian.
+
+The streets of the little Dutch town formed during this interval a
+curious object-lesson in the resources of the Empire.  All the
+scattered Anglo-Celtic races had sent their best blood to fight for
+the common cause. Peace is the great solvent, as war is the powerful
+unifier. For the British as for the German Empire much virtue had come
+from the stress and strain of battle. To stand in the market square of
+Bloemfontein and to see the warrior types around you was to be assured
+of the future of the race.  The middle-sized, square-set,
+weather-tanned, straw-bearded British regulars crowded the footpaths.
+There also one might see the hard-faced Canadians, the loose-limbed
+dashing Australians, fireblooded and keen, the dark New-Zealanders,
+with a Maori touch here and there in their features, the gallant men
+of Tasmania, the gentlemen troopers of India and Ceylon, and
+everywhere the wild South African irregulars with their bandoliers and
+unkempt wiry horses, Rimington's men with the racoon bands, Roberts's
+Horse with the black plumes, some with pink puggarees, some with
+birdseye, but all of the same type, hard, rugged, and alert. The man
+who could look at these splendid soldiers, and, remembering the
+sacrifices of time, money, and comfort which most of them had made
+before they found themselves fighting in the heart of Africa, doubt
+that the spirit of the race burned now as brightly as ever, must be
+devoid of judgment and sympathy.  The real glories of the British race
+lie in the future, not in the past.  The Empire walks, and may still
+walk, with an uncertain step, but with every year its tread will be
+firmer, for its weakness is that of waxing youth and not of waning
+age.
+
+The greatest misfortune of the campaign, one which it was obviously
+impolitic to insist upon at the time, began with the occupation of
+Bloemfontein. This was the great outbreak of enteric among the
+troops. For more than two months the hospitals were choked with
+sick. One general hospital with five hundred beds held seventeen
+hundred sick, nearly all enterics.  A half field hospital with fifty
+beds held three hundred and seventy cases. The total number of cases
+could not have been less than six or seven thousand -- and this not of
+an evanescent and easily treated complaint, but of the most persistent
+and debilitating of continued fevers, the one too which requires the
+most assiduous attention and careful nursing. How great was the strain
+only those who had to meet it can tell.  The exertions of the military
+hospitals and of those others which were fitted out by private
+benevolence sufficed, after a long struggle, to meet the crisis. At
+Bloemfontein alone, as many as fifty men died in one day, and more
+than 1,000 new graves in the cemetery testify to the severity of the
+epidemic.  No men in the campaign served their country more truly than
+the officers and men of the medical service, nor can any one who went
+through the epidemic forget the bravery and unselfishness of those
+admirable nursing sisters who set the men around them a higher
+standard of devotion to duty.
+
+Enteric fever is always endemic in the country, and especially at
+Bloemfontein, but there can be no doubt that this severe outbreak had
+its origin in the Paardeberg water. All through the campaign, while
+the machinery for curing disease was excellent, that for preventing it
+was elementary or absent. If bad water can cost us more than all the
+bullets of the enemy, then surely it is worth our while to make the
+drinking of unboiled water a stringent military offence, and to attach
+to every company and squadron the most rapid and efficient means for
+boiling it -- for filtering alone is useless. An incessant trouble it
+would be, but it would have saved a division for the army. It is
+heartrending for the medical man who has emerged from a hospital full
+of water-born pestilence to see a regimental watercart being filled,
+without protest, at some polluted wayside pool. With precautions and
+with inoculation all those lives might have been saved. The fever died
+down with the advance of the troops and the coming of the colder
+weather.
+
+To return to the military operations: these, although they were
+stagnant so far as the main army was concerned, were exceedingly and
+inconveniently active in other quarters.  Three small actions, two of
+which were disastrous to our arms, and one successful defence marked
+the period of the pause at Bloemfontein.
+
+To the north of the town, some twelve miles distant lies the
+ubiquitous Modder River, which is crossed by a railway bridge at a
+place named Glen. The saving of the bridge was of considerable
+importance, and might by the universal testimony of the farmers of
+that district have been effected any time within the first few days of
+our occupation. We appear, however, to have imperfectly appreciated
+how great was the demoralisation of the Boers. In a week or so they
+took heart, returned, and blew up the bridge. Roving parties of the
+enemy, composed mainly of the redoubtable Johannesburg police,
+reappeared even to the south of the river. Young Lygon was killed, and
+Colonels Crabbe and Codrington with Captain Trotter, all of the
+Guards, were severely wounded by such a body, whom they gallantly but
+injudiciously attempted to arrest when armed only with revolvers.
+
+These wandering patrols who kept the country unsettled, and harassed
+the farmers who had taken advantage of Lord Roberts's proclamation,
+were found to have their centre at a point some six miles to the north
+of Glen, named Karee. At Karee a formidable line of hills cut the
+British advance, and these had been occupied by a strong body of the
+enemy with guns. Lord Roberts determined to drive them off, and on
+March 28th Tucker's 7th Division, consisting of Chermside's brigade
+(Lincolns, Norfolks, Hampshires, and Scottish Borderers), and Wavell's
+brigade (Cheshires, East Lancashires, North Staffords, and South Wales
+Borderers), were assembled at Glen. The artillery consisted of the
+veteran 18th, 62nd, and 75th R.F.A. Three attenuated cavalry brigades
+with some mounted infantry completed the force.
+
+The movement was to be upon the old model, and in result it proved to
+be only too truly so. French's cavalry were to get round one flank, Le
+Gallais's mounted infantry round the other, and Tucker's Division to
+attack in front.  Nothing could be more perfect in theory and nothing
+apparently more defective in practice.  Since on this as on other
+occasions the mere fact that the cavalry were demonstrating in the
+rear caused the complete abandonment of the position, it is difficult
+to see what the object of the infantry attack could be.  The ground
+was irregular and unexplored, and it was late before the horsemen on
+their weary steeds found themselves behind the flank of the
+enemy. Some of them, Le Gallais's mounted infantry and Davidson's
+guns, had come from Bloemfontein during the night, and the horses were
+exhausted by the long march, and by the absurd weight which the
+British troop-horse is asked to carry. Tucker advanced his infantry
+exactly as Kelly-Kenny had done at Driefontein, and with a precisely
+similar result. The eight regiments going forward in echelon of
+battalions imagined from the silence of the enemy that the position
+had been abandoned.  They were undeceived by a cruel fire which beat
+upon two companies of the Scottish Borderers from a range of two
+hundred yards. They were driven back, but reformed in a donga. About
+half-past two a Boer gun burst shrapnel over the Lincolnshires and
+Scottish Borderers with some effect, for a single shell killed five of
+the latter regiment.  Chermside's brigade was now all involved in the
+fight, and Wavell's came up in support, but the ground was too open
+and the position too strong to push the attack home. Fortunately,
+about four o'clock, the horse batteries with French began to make
+their presence felt from behind, and the Boers instantly quitted their
+position and made off through the broad gap which still remained
+between French and Le Gallais. The Brandfort plain appears to be ideal
+ground for cavalry, but in spite of that the enemy with his guns got
+safely away.  The loss of the infantry amounted to one hundred and
+sixty killed and wounded, the larger share of the casualties and of
+the honour falling to the Scottish Borderers and the East Lancashires.
+The infantry was not well handled, the cavalry was slow, and the guns
+were inefficient-altogether an inglorious day. Yet strategically it
+was of importance, for the ridge captured was the last before one came
+to the great plain which stretched, with a few intermissions, to the
+north. From March 29th until May 2nd Karee remained the advanced post.
+
+In the meanwhile there had been a series of operations in the east
+which had ended in a serious disaster. Immediately after the
+occupation of Bloemfontein (on March 18th) Lord Roberts despatched to
+the east a small column consisting of the 10th Hussars, the composite
+regiment, two batteries (Q and U) of the Horse Artillery, some mounted
+infantry, Roberts's Horse, and Rimington's Guides. On the eastern
+horizon forty miles from the capital, but in that clear atmosphere
+looking only half the distance, there stands the impressive mountain
+named Thabanchu (the black mountain). To all Boers it is an historical
+spot, for it was at its base that the wagons of the Voortrekkers,
+coming by devious ways from various parts, assembled. On the further
+side of Thabanchu, to the north and east of it, lies the richest
+grain-growing portion of the Free State, the centre of which is
+Ladybrand. The forty miles which intervene between Bloemfontein and
+Thabanchu are intersected midway by the Modder River. At this point
+are the waterworks, erected recently with modern machinery, to take
+the place of the insanitary wells on which the town had been
+dependent. The force met with no resistance, and the small town of
+Thabanchu was occupied.
+
+Colonel Pilcher, the leader of the Douglas raid, was inclined to
+explore a little further, and with three squadrons of mounted men he
+rode on to the eastward. Two commandos, supposed to be Grobler's and
+Olivier's, were seen by them, moving on a line which suggested that
+they were going to join Steyn, who was known to be rallying his forces
+at Kroonstad, his new seat of government in the north of the Free
+State.  Pilcher, with great daring, pushed onwards until with his
+little band on their tired horses he found himself in Ladybrand,
+thirty miles from his nearest supports.  Entering the town he seized
+the landdrost and the field-cornet, but found that strong bodies of
+the enemy were moving upon him and that it was impossible for him to
+hold the place. He retired, therefore, holding grimly on to his
+prisoners, and got back with small loss to the place from which he
+started.  It was a dashing piece of bluff, and, when taken with the
+Douglas exploit, leads one to hope that Pilcher may have a chance of
+showing what he can do witb larger means at his disposal.  Finding
+that the enemy was following him in force, he pushed on the same night
+for Thabanchu.  His horsemen must have covered between fifty and sixty
+miles in the twenty-four hours.
+
+Apparently the effect of Pilcher's exploit was to halt the march of
+those commandos which had been seen trekking to the north-west, and to
+cause them to swing round upon Thabanchu. Broadwood, a young cavalry
+commander who had won a name in Egypt, considered that his position
+was unnecessarily exposed and fell back upon Bloemfontein.  He halted
+on the first night near the waterworks, halfway upon his journey.
+
+The Boers are great masters in the ambuscade. Never has any race shown
+such aptitude for this form of warfare -- a legacy from a long
+succession of contests with cunning savages. But never also have they
+done anything so clever and so audacious as De Wet's dispositions in
+this action.  One cannot go over the ground without being amazed at
+the ingenuity of their attack, and also at the luck which favoured
+them, for the trap which they had laid for others might easily have
+proved an absolutely fatal one for themselves.
+
+The position beside the Modder at which the British camped had
+numerous broken hills to the north and east of it.  A force of Boers,
+supposed to number about two thousand men, came down in the night,
+bringing with them several heavy guns, and with the early morning
+opened a brisk fire upon the camp.  The surprise was complete.  But
+the refinement of the Boer tactics lay in the fact that they had a
+surprise within a surprise -- and it was the second which was the more
+deadly.
+
+The force which Broadwood had with him consisted of the 10th Hussars
+and the composite regiment, Rimington's Scouts, Roberts's Horse, the
+New Zealand and Burmah Mounted Infantry, with Q and U batteries of
+Horse Artillery. With such a force, consisting entirely of mounted
+men, he could not storm the hills upon which the Boer guns were
+placed, and his twelve-pounders were unable to reach the heavier
+cannon of the enemy. His best game was obviously to continue his march
+to Bloemfontein. He sent on the considerable convoy of wagons and the
+guns, while he with the cavalry covered the rear, upon which the
+long-range pieces of the enemy kept up the usual well-directed but
+harmless fire.
+
+Broadwood's retreating column now found itself on a huge plain which
+stretches all the way to Bloemfontein, broken only by two hills, both
+of which were known to be in our possession.  The plain was one which
+was continually traversed from end to end by our troops and convoys,
+so that once out upon its surface all danger seemed at an
+end. Broadwood had additional reasons for feeling secure, for he knew
+that, in answer to his own wise request, Colvile's Division had been
+sent out before daybreak that morning from Bloemfontein to meet him.
+In a very few miles their vanguard and his must come together.  There
+were obviously no Boers upon the plain, but if there were they would
+find themselves between two fires. He gave no thought to his front
+therefore, but rode behind, where the Boer guns were roaring, and
+whence the Boer riflemen might ride.
+
+But in spite of the obvious there WERE Boers upon the plain, so placed
+that they must either bring off a remarkable surprise or be themselves
+cut off to a man. Across the veldt, some miles from the waterworks,
+there runs a deep donga or watercourse -- one of many, but the
+largest. It cuts the rough road at right angles. Its depth and breadth
+are such that a wagon would dip down the incline, and disappear for
+about two minutes before it would become visible again at the crown of
+the other side.  In appearance it was a huge curving ditch with a
+stagnant stream at the bottom.  The sloping sides of the ditch were
+fringed with Boers, who had ridden thither before dawn and were now
+waiting for the unsuspecting column.  There were not more than three
+hundred of them, and four times their number were approaching; but no
+odds can represent the difference between the concealed man with the
+magazine rifle and the man upon the plain.
+
+There were two dangers, however, which the Boers ran, and, skilful as
+their dispositions were, their luck was equally great, for the risks
+were enormous.  One was that a force coming the other way (Colvile's
+was only a few miles off) would arrive, and that they would be ground
+between the upper and the lower millstone.  The other was that for
+once the British scouts might give the alarm and that Broadwood's
+mounted men would wheel swiftly to right and left and secure the ends
+of the long donga.  Should that happen, not a man of them could
+possibly escape.  But they took their chances like brave men, and
+fortune was their friend.  The wagons came on without any scouts.
+Behind them was U battery, then Q, with Roberts's Horse abreast of
+them and the rest of the cavalry behind.
+
+As the wagons, occupied for the most part only by unarmed sick
+soldiers and black transport drivers, came down into the drift, the
+Boers quickly but quietly took possession of them, and drove them on
+up the further slope.  Thus the troops behind saw their wagons dip
+down, reappear, and continue on their course.  The idea of an ambush
+could not suggest itself.  Only one thing could avert an absolute
+catastrophe, and that was the appearance of a hero who would accept
+certain death in order to warn his comrades.  Such a man rode by the
+wagons -- though, unhappily, in the stress and rush of the moment there
+is no certainty as to his name or rank.  We only know that one was
+found brave enough to fire his revolver in the face of certain death.
+The outburst of firing which answered his shot was the sequel which
+saved the column.  Not often is it given to a man to die so choice a
+death as that of this nameless soldier.
+
+But the detachment was already so placed that nothing could save it
+from heavy loss.  The wagons had all passed but nine, and the leading
+battery of artillery was at the very edge of the donga.  Nothing is so
+helpless as a limbered-up battery.  In an instant the teams were shot
+down and the gunners were made prisoners.  A terrific fire burst at
+the same instant upon Roberts's Horse, who were abreast of the guns.
+'Files a bout! gallop!' yelled Colonel Dawson, and by his exertions
+and those of Major Pack-Beresford the corps was extricated and
+reformed some hundreds of yards further off.  But the loss of horses
+and men was heavy. Major Pack-Beresford and other officers were shot
+down, and every unhorsed man remained necessarily as a prisoner under
+the very muzzles of the riflemen in the donga.
+
+As Roberts's Horse turned and galloped for dear life across the flat,
+four out of the six guns [Footnote:Of the other two one overturned and
+could not be righted, the other had the wheelers shot and could not be
+extricated from the tumult.  It was officially stated that the guns of
+Q battery were halted a thousand yards off the donga, but my
+impression was, from examining the ground, that it was not more than
+six hundred.] of Q battery and one gun (the rearmost) of U battery
+swung round nd dashed frantically for a place of safety. At the same
+instant every Boer along the line of the donga sprang up and emptied
+his magazine into the mass of rushing, shouting soldiers, plunging
+horses, and screaming Kaffirs. It was for a few moments a
+SAUVE-QUI-PEUT. Serjeant-Major Martin of U, with a single driver on a
+wheeler, got away the last gun of his battery.  The four guns which
+were extricated of Q, under Major Phipps-Hornby, whirled across the
+plain, pulled up, unlimbered, and opened a brisk fire of shrapnel from
+about a thousand yards upon the donga. Had the battery gone on for
+double the distance, its action would have been more effective, for it
+would have been under a less deadly rifle fire, but in any case its
+sudden change from flight to discipline and order steadied the whole
+force. Roberts's men sprang from their horses, and with the Burmese
+and New-Zealanders flung themselves down in a skirmish line.  The
+cavalry moved to the left to find some drift by which the donga could
+be passed, and out of chaos there came in a few minutes calm and a
+settled purpose.
+
+It was for Q battery to cover the retreat of the force, and most nobly
+it did it. A fortnight later a pile of horses, visible many hundreds
+of yards off across the plain, showed where the guns had stood. It was
+the Colenso of the horse gunners.  In a devilish sleet of lead they
+stood to their work, loading and firing while a man was left.  Some of
+the guns were left with two men to work them, one was loaded and fired
+by a single officer.  When at last the order for retirement came, only
+ten men, several of them wounded, were left upon their feet. With
+scratch teams from the limbers, driven by single gunners, the
+twelve-pounders staggered out of action, and the skirmish line of
+mounted infantry sprang to their feet amid the hail of bullets to
+cheer them as they passed.
+
+It was no slight task to extricate that sorely stricken force from the
+close contact of an exultant enemy, and to lead it across that
+terrible donga.  Yet, thanks to the coolness of Broadwood and the
+steadiness of his rearguard, the thing was done. A practicable passage
+had been found two miles to the south by Captain Chester-Master of
+Rimington's.  This corps, with Roberts's, the New-Zealanders, and the
+3rd Mounted Infantry, covered the withdrawal in turn.  It was one of
+those actions in which the horseman who is trained to fight upon foot
+did very much better than the regular cavalry. In two hours' time the
+drift had been passed and the survivors of the force found themselves
+in safety.
+
+The losses in this disastrous but not dishonourable engagement were
+severe.  About thirty officers and five hundred men were killed,
+wounded, or missing. The prisoners came to more than three hundred.
+They lost a hundred wagons, a considerable quantity of stores, and
+seven twelve-pounder guns -- five from U battery and two from Q.  Of U
+battery only Major Taylor and Sergeant-Major Martin seem to have
+escaped, the rest being captured EN BLOC.  Of Q battery nearly every
+man was killed or wounded.  Roberts's Horse, the New-Zealanders, and
+the mounted infantry were the other corps which suffered most heavily.
+Among many brave men who died, none was a greater loss to the service
+than Major Booth of the Northumberland Fusiliers, serving in the
+mounted infantry. With four comrades he held a position to cover the
+retreat, and refused to leave it.  Such men are inspired by the
+traditions of the past, and pass on the story of their own deaths to
+inspire fresh heroes in the future.
+
+Broadwood, the instant that he had disentangled himself, faced about,
+and brought his guns into action. He was not strong enough, however,
+nor were his men in a condition, to seriously attack the
+enemy. Martyr's mounted infantry had come up, led by the
+Queenslanders, and at the cost of some loss to themselves helped to
+extricate the disordered force.  Colvile's Division was behind
+Bushman's Kop, only a few miles off, and there were hopes that it
+might push on and prevent the guns and wagons from being
+removed. Colvile did make an advance, but slowly and in a flanking
+direction instead of dashing swiftly forward to retrieve the
+situation.  It must be acknowledged, however, that the problem which
+faced this General was one of great difficulty.  It was almost certain
+that before he could throw his men into the action the captured guns
+would be beyond his reach, and it was possible that he might swell the
+disaster. With all charity, however, one cannot but feel that his
+return next morning, after a reinforcement during the night, without
+any attempt to force the Boer position, was lacking in
+enterprise.[Footnote: It may be urged in General Colvile's defence
+that his division had already done a long march from Bloemfontein. A
+division, however, which contains two such brigades as Macdonald's and
+Smith-Dorrien's may safely be called upon for any exertions. The
+gunner officers in Colvile's division heard their comrades' guns in
+'section-fire' and knew it to be the sign of a desperate situation.]
+The victory left the Boers in possession of the waterworks, and
+Bloemfontein had to fall back upon her wells -- a change which reacted
+most disastrously upon the enteric which was already decimating the
+troops.
+
+The effect of the Sanna's Post defeat was increased by the fact that
+only four days later (on April 4th) a second even more deplorable
+disaster befell our troops.  This was the surrender of five companies
+of infantry, two of them mounted, at Reddersberg.  So many surrenders
+of small bodies of troops had occurred during the course of the war
+that the public, remembering how seldom the word 'surrender' had ever
+been heard in our endless succession of European wars, had become very
+restive upon the subject, and were sometimes inclined to question
+whether this new and humiliating fact did not imply some deterioration
+of our spirit.  The fear was natural, and yet nothing could be more
+unjust to this the most splendid army which has ever marched under the
+red-crossed flag.  The fact was new because the conditions were new,
+and it was inherent in those conditions.  In that country of huge
+distances small bodies must be detached, for the amount of space
+covered by the large bodies was not sufficient for all military
+purposes.  In reconnoitring, in distributing proclamations, in
+collecting arms, in overawing outlying districts, weak columns must be
+used.  Very often these columns must contain infantry soldiers, as the
+demands upon the cavalry were excessive.  Such bodies, moving through
+a hilly country with which they were unfamiliar, were always liable to
+be surrounded by a mobile enemy.  Once surrounded the length of their
+resistance was limited by three things: their cartridges, their water,
+and their food.  When they had all three, as at Wepener or Mafeking,
+they could hold out indefinitely. When one or other was wanting, as at
+Reddersberg or Nicholson's Nek, their position was impossible.  They
+could not break away, for how can men on foot break away from
+horsemen? Hence those repeated humiliations, which did little or
+nothing to impede the course of the war, and which were really to be
+accepted as one of the inevitable prices which we had to pay for the
+conditions under which the war was fought.  Numbers, discipline, and
+resources were with us.  Mobility, distances, nature of the country,
+insecurity of supplies, were with them.  We need not take it to heart
+therefore if it happened, with all these forces acting against them,
+that our soldiers found themselves sometimes in a position whence
+neither wisdom nor valour could rescue them.  To travel through that
+country, fashioned above all others for defensive warfare, with trench
+and fort of superhuman size and strength, barring every path, one
+marvels how it was that such incidents were not more frequent and more
+serious.  It is deplorable that the white flag should ever have waved
+over a company of British troops, but the man who is censorious upon
+the subject has never travelled in South Africa.
+
+In the disaster at Reddersberg three of the companies were of the
+Irish Rifles, and two of the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers -- the same
+unfortunate regiments which had already been cut up at Stormberg.
+They had been detached from Gatacre's 3rd Division, the headquarters
+of which was at Springfontein.  On the abandonment of Thabanchu and
+the disaster of Sanna's Post, it was obvious that we should draw in
+our detached parties to the east; so the five companies were ordered
+to leave Dewetsdorp, which they were garrisoning, and to get back to
+the railway line.  Either the order was issued too late, or they were
+too slow in obeying it, for they were only halfway upon their journey,
+near the town of Reddersberg, when the enemy came down upon them with
+five guns.  Without artillery they were powerless, but, having seized
+a kopje, they took such shelter as they could find, and waited in the
+hope of succour.  Their assailants seem to have been detached from De
+Wet's force in the north, and contained among them many of the victors
+of Sanna's Post.  The attack began at 11 A.M. of April 3rd, and all
+day the men lay among the stones, subjected to the pelt of shell and
+bullet.  The cover was good, however, and the casualties were not
+heavy.  The total losses were under fifty killed and wounded.  More
+serious than the enemy's fire was the absence of water, save a very
+limited supply in a cart. A message was passed through of the dire
+straits in which they found themselves, and by the late afternoon the
+news had reached headquarters.  Lord Roberts instantly despatched the
+Camerons, just arrived from Egypt, to Bethany, which is the nearest
+point upon the line, and telegraphed to Gatacre at Springfontein to
+take measures to save his compromised detachment. The telegram should
+have reached Gatacre early on the evening of the 3rd, and he had
+collected a force of fifteen hundred men, entrained it, journeyed
+forty miles up the line, detrained it, and reached Reddersberg, which
+is ten or twelve miles from the line, by 10.30 next morning.  Already,
+however, it was too late, and the besieged force, unable to face a
+second day without water under that burning sun, had laid down their
+arms. No doubt the stress of thirst was dreadful, and yet one cannot
+say that the defence rose to the highest point of resolution.  Knowing
+that help could not be far off, the garrison should have held on while
+they could lift a rifle.  If the ammunition was running low, it was
+bad management which caused it to be shot away too fast. Captain
+McWhinnie, who was in command, behaved with the utmost personal
+gallantry.  Not only the troops but General Gatacre also was involved
+in the disaster. Blame may have attached to him for leaving a
+detachment at Dewetsdorp, and not having a supporting body at
+Reddersberg upon which it might fall back; but it must be remembered
+that his total foree was small and that he had to cover a long stretch
+of the lines of communication.  As to General Gatacre's energy and
+gallantry it is a by-word in the army; but coming after the Stormberg
+disaster this fresh mishap to his force made the continuance of his
+command impossible.  Much sympathy was felt with him in the army,
+where he was universally liked and respected by officers and men.  He
+returned to England, and his division was taken over by General
+Chermside.
+
+In a single week, at a time when the back of the war had seemed to be
+broken, we had lost nearly twelve hundred men with seven guns.  The
+men of the Free State -- for the fighting was mainly done by commandos
+from the Ladybrand, Winburg, Bethlehem, and Harrismith districts --
+deserve great credit for this fine effort, and their leader De Wet
+confirmed the reputation which he had already gained as a dashing and
+indefatigable leader. His force was so weak that when Lord Roberts was
+able to really direct his own against it, he brushed it away before
+him; but the manner in which De Wet took advantage of Roberts's
+enforced immobility, and dared to get behind so mighty an enemy, was a
+fine exhibition of courage and enterprise.  The public at home chafed
+at this sudden and unexpected turn of affairs; but the General,
+constant to his own fixed purpose, did not permit his strength to be
+wasted, aud his cavalry to be again disorganised, by flying
+excursions, but waited grimly until he should be strong enough to
+strike straight at Pretoria.
+
+In this short period of depression there came one gleam of light from
+the west.  This was the capture of a commando of sixty Boers, or
+rather of sixty foreigners fighting for the Boers, and the death of
+the gallant Frenchman, De Villebois-Mareuil, who appears to have had
+the ambition of playing Lafayette in South Africa to Kruger's
+Washington.  From the time that Kimberley had been reoccupied the
+British had been accumulating their force there so as to make a strong
+movement which should coincide with that of Roberts from
+Bloemfontein. Hunter's Division from Natal was being moved round to
+Kimberley, and Methuen already commanded a considerable body of
+troops, which included a number of the newly arrived Imperial
+Yeomanry. With these Methuen pacified the surrounding country, and
+extended his outposts to Barkly West on the one side, to Boshof on the
+other, and to Warrenton upon the Vaal River in the centre.  On April
+4th news reached Boshof that a Boer commando had been seen some ten
+miles to the east of the town, and a force, consisting of Yeomanry,
+Kimberley Light Horse, and half of Butcher's veteran 4th battery, was
+sent to attack them.  They were found to have taken up their position
+upon a kopje which, contrary to all Boer custom, had no other kopjes
+to support it.  French generalship was certainly not so astute as Boer
+cunning.  The kopje was instantly surrounded, and the small force upon
+the summit being without artillery in the face of our guns found
+itself in exactly the same position which our men had been in
+twenty-four hours before at Reddersberg. Again was shown the advantage
+which the mounted rifleman has over the cavalry, for the Yeomanry and
+Light Horsemen left their horses and ascended the hill with the
+bayonet. In three hours all was over and the Boers had laid down their
+arms.  Villebois was shot with seven of his companions, and there were
+nearly sixty prisoners. It speaks well for the skirmishing of the
+Yeomanry and the way in which they were handled by Lord Chesham that
+though they worked their way up the hill under fire they only lost
+four killed and a few wounded. The affair was a small one, but it was
+complete, and it came at a time when a success was very welcome.  One
+bustling week had seen the expensive victory of Karee, the disasters
+of Sanna's Post and Reddersberg, and the successful skirmish of
+Boshof.  Another chapter must be devoted to the movement towards the
+south of the Boer forces and the dispositions which Lord Roberts made
+to meet it.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE CLEARING OF THE SOUTH-EAST
+
+Lord Roberts never showed his self-command and fixed purpose more
+clearly than during his six weeks' halt at Bloemfontein.  De Wet, the
+most enterprising and aggressive of the Boer commanders, was attacking
+his eastern posts and menacing his line of communications. A fussy or
+nervous general would have harassed his men and worn out his horses by
+endeavouring to pursue a number of will-of-the-wisp commandos.
+Roberts contented himself by building up his strength at the capital,
+and by spreading nearly twenty thousand men along his line of rail
+from Bloemfontein to Bethulie. When the time came he would strike, but
+until then he rested.  His army was not only being rehorsed and
+reshod, but in some respects was being reorganised.  One powerful
+weapon which was forged during those weeks was the collection of the
+mounted infantry of the central army into one division, which was
+placed under the command of Ian Hamilton, with Hutton and Ridley as
+brigadiers. Hutton's brigade contained the Canadians, New South Wales
+men, West Australians, Queenslanders, New-Zealanders, Victorians,
+South Australians, and Tasmanians, with four battalions of Imperial
+Mounted Infantry, and several light batteries. Ridley's brigade
+contained the South African irregular regiments of cavalry, with some
+imperial troops.  The strength of the whole division came to over ten
+thousand rifles, and in its ranks there rode the hardiest and best
+from every corner of the earth over which the old flag is flying.
+
+A word as to the general distribution of the troops at this instant
+while Roberts was gathering himself for his spring.  Eleven divisions
+of infantry were in the field.  Of these the 1st (Methuen's) and half
+the 10th (Hunter's) were at Kimberley, forming really the
+hundred-mile-distant left wing of Lord Roberts's army. On that side
+also was a considerable force of Yeomanry, as General Villebois
+discovered.  In the centre with Roberts was the 6th division
+(Kelly-Kenny's) at Bloemfontein, the 7th (Tucker's) at Karee, twenty
+miles north, the 9th (Colvile's) and the 11th (Pole-Carew's) near
+Bloemfontein.  French's cavalry division was also in the centre.  As
+one descended the line towards the Cape one came on the 3rd division
+(Chermside's, late Gatacre's), which had now moved up to Reddersberg,
+and then, further south, the 8th (Rundle's), near Rouxville.  To the
+south and east was the other half of Hunter's division (Hart's
+brigade), and Brabant's Colonial division, half of which was shut up
+in Wepener and the rest at Aliwal.  These were the troops operating in
+the Free State, with the addition of the division of mounted infantry
+in process of formation.
+
+There remained the three divisions in Natal, the 2nd (Clery's), the
+4th (Lyttelton's), and the 5th (Hildyard's, late Warren's), with the
+cavalry brigades of Burn-Murdoch, Dundonald, and Brocklehurst.  These,
+with numerous militia and unbrigaded regiments along the lines of
+communication, formed the British army in South Africa.  At Mafeking
+some 900 irregulars stood at bay, with another force about as large
+under Plumer a little to the north, endeavouring to relieve them.  At
+Beira, a Portuguese port through which we have treaty rights by which
+we may pass troops, a curious mixed force of Australians,
+New-Zealanders and others was being disembarked and pushed through to
+Rhodesia, so as to cut off any trek which the Boers might make in tbat
+direction.  Carrington, a fierce old soldier with a large experience
+of South African warfare, was in command of this picturesque force,
+which moved amid tropical forests over crocodile-haunted streams,
+while their comrades were shivering in the cold southerly winds of a
+Cape winter. Neither our Government, our people, nor the world
+understood at the beginning of this campaign how grave was the task
+which we had undertaken, but, having once realised it, it must be
+acknowledged that it was carried through in no half-hearted way.  So
+vast was the scene of operations that the Canadian might almost find
+his native climate at one end of it and the Queenslander at the other.
+
+To follow in close detail the movements of the Boers and the counter
+movements of the British in the southeast portion of the Free State
+during this period would tax the industry of the historian and the
+patience of the reader.  Let it be told with as much general truth and
+as little geographical detail as possible.  The narrative which is
+interrupted by an eternal reference to the map is a narrative spoiled.
+
+The main force of the Freestaters had assembled in the north-eastern
+corner of their State, and from this they made their sally southwards,
+attacking or avoiding at their pleasure the eastern line of British
+outposts. Their first engagement, that of Sanna's Post, was a great
+and deserved success.  Three days later they secured the five
+companies at Reddersberg. Warned in time, the other small British
+bodies closed in upon their supports, and the railway line, that
+nourishing artery which was necessary for the very existence of the
+army, was held too strongly for attack.  The Bethulie Bridge was a
+particularly important point; but though the Boers approached it, and
+even went the length of announcing officially that they had destroyed
+it, it was not actually attacked.  At Wepener, however, on the
+Basutoland border, they found an isolated force, and proceeded at
+once, according to their custom, to hem it in and to bombard it, until
+one of their three great allies, want of food, want of water, or want
+of cartridges, should compel a surrender.
+
+On this occasion, however, the Boers had undertaken a task which was
+beyond their strength.  The troops at Wepener were one thousand seven
+hundred in number, and formidable in quality.  The place had been
+occupied by part of Brabant's Colonial division, consisting of hardy
+irregulars, men of the stuff of the defenders of Mafeking. Such men
+are too shrewd to be herded into an untenable position and too valiant
+to surrender a tenable one.  The force was commanded by a dashing
+soldier, Colonel Dalgety, of the Cape Mounted Rifles, as tough a
+fighter as his famous namesake.  There were with him nearly a thousand
+men of Brabant's Horse, four hundred of the Cape Mounted Rifles, four
+hundred Kaffrarian Horse, with some scouts, and one hundred regulars,
+including twenty invaluable Sappers.  They were strong in guns -- two
+seven-pounders, two naval twelve-pounders, two fifteen-pounders and
+several machine guns.  The position which they had taken up,
+Jammersberg, three miles north of Wepener, was a very strong one, and
+it would have taken a larger force than De Wet had at his disposal to
+turn them out of it.  The defence had been arranged by Major Cedric
+Maxwell, of the Sappers; and though the huge perimeter, nearly eight
+miles, made its defence by so small a force a most difficult matter,
+the result proved how good his dispositions were.
+
+At the same time, the Boers came on with every confidence of victory,
+for they had a superiority in guns and an immense superiority in men.
+But after a day or two of fierce struggle their attack dwindled down
+into a mere blockade.  On April 9th they attacked furiously, both by
+day and by night, and on the 10th the pressure was equally severe.  In
+these two days occurred the vast majority of the casualties.  But the
+defenders took cover in a way to which British regulars have not yet
+attained, and they outshot their opponents both with their rifles and
+their cannon.  Captain Lukin's management of the artillery was
+particularly skilful. The weather was vile and the hastily dug
+trenches turned into ditches half full of water, but neither
+discomfort nor danger shook the courage of the gallant colonials.
+Assault after assault was repulsed, and the scourging of the cannon
+was met with stolid endurance.  The Boers excelled all their previous
+feats in the handling of artillery by dragging two guns up to the
+summit of the lofty Jammersberg, whence they fired down upon the camp.
+Nearly all the horses were killed and three hundred of the troopers
+were hit, a number which is double that of the official return, for
+the simple reason that the spirit of the force was so high that only
+those who were very severely wounded reported themselves as wounded at
+all. None but the serious cases ever reached the hands of
+Dr. Faskally, who did admirable work with very slender resources.  How
+many the enemy lost can never be certainly known, but as they pushed
+home several attacks it is impossible to imagine that their losses
+were less than those of the victorious defenders. At the end of
+seventeen days of mud and blood the brave irregulars saw an empty
+laager and abandoned trenches. Their own resistance and the advance of
+Brabant to their rescue had caused a hasty retreat of the
+enemy. Wepener, Mafeking, Kimberley, the taking of the first guns at
+Ladysmith, the deeds of the Imperial Light Horse -- it cannot be
+denied that our irregular South African forces have a brilliant record
+for the war.  They are associated with many successes and with few
+disasters.  Their fine record cannot, I think, be fairly ascribed to
+any greater hardihood which one portion of our race has when compared
+with another, for a South African must admit that in the best colonial
+corps at least half the men were Britons of Britain.  In the Imperial
+Light Horse the proportion was very much higher.  But what may fairly
+be argued is that their exploits have proved, what the American war
+proved long ago, that the German conception of discipline is an
+obsolete fetish, and that the spirit of free men, whose individualism
+has been encouraged rather than crushed, is equal to any feat of arms.
+The clerks and miners and engineers who went up Elandslaagte Hill
+without bayonets, shoulder to shoulder with the Gordons, and who,
+according to Sir George White, saved Ladysmith on January 6th, have
+shown for ever that with men of our race it is the spirit witbin, and
+not the drill or the discipline, that makes a formidable soldier.  An
+intligent appreciation of the fact might in the course of the next
+few years save us as much money as would go far to pay for the war.
+
+It may well be asked how for so long a period as seventeen days the
+British could tolerate a force to the rear of them when with their
+great superiority of numbers they could have readily sent an army to
+drive it away. The answer must be that Lord Roberts had despatched his
+trusty lieutenant, Kitchener, to Aliwal, whence he had been in
+heliographic communication with Wepener, that he was sure that the
+place could hold out, and that he was using it, as he did Kimberley,
+to hold the enemy while he was making his plans for their
+destruction. This was the bait to tempt them to their ruin. Had the
+trap not been a little slow in closing, the war in the Free State
+might have ended then and there. From the 9th to the 25th the Boers
+were held in front of Wepener. Let us trace the movements of the other
+British detachments during that time.
+
+Brabant's force, with Hart's brigade, which had been diverted on its
+way to Kimberley, where it was to form part of Hunter's division, was
+moving on the south towards Wepener, advancing through Rouxville, but
+going slowly for fear of scaring the Boers away before they were
+sufficiently compromised. Chermside's 3rd division approached from the
+north-west, moving out from the railway at Bethany, and passing
+through Reddersberg towards Dewetsdorp, from which it would directly
+threaten the Boer line of retreat.  The movement was made with
+reassuring slowness and gentleness, as when the curved hand approaches
+the unconscious fly. And then suddenly, on April 21st, Lord Roberts
+let everything go.  Had the action of the agents been as swift and as
+energetic as the mind of the planner, De Wet could not have escaped
+us.
+
+What held Lord Roberts's hand for some few days after he was ready to
+strike was the abominable weather. Rain was falling in sheets, and
+those who know South African roads, South African mud, and South
+African drifts will understand how impossible swift military movements
+are under those circumstances.  But with the first clearing of the
+clouds the hills to the south and east of Bloemfontein were dotted
+with our scouts.  Rundle with his 8th division was brought swiftly up
+from. the south, united with Chermside to the east of Reddersberg, and
+the whole force, numbering 13,000 rifles with thirty guns, advanced
+upon Dewetsdorp, Rundle, as senior officer, being in command.  As they
+marched the blue hills of Wepener lined the sky some twenty miles to
+the south, eloquent to every man of the aim and object of their march.
+
+On April 20th, Rundle as he advanced found a force with artillery
+across his path to Dewetsdorp.  It is always difficult to calculate
+the number of hidden men and lurking guns which go to make up a Boer
+army, but with some knowledge of their total at Wepener it was certain
+that the force opposed to him must be very inferior to his own.  At
+Constantia Farm, where he found them in position, it is difficult to
+imagine that there were more than three thousand men.  Their left
+flank was their weak point, as a movement on that side would cut them
+off from Wepener and drive them up towards our main force in the
+north.  One would have thought that a containing force of three
+thousand men, and a flanking movement from eight thousand, would have
+turned them out, as it has turned them out so often before and since.
+Yet a long-range action began on Friday, April 20th, and lasted the
+whole of the 21st, the 22nd, and the 23rd, in which we sustained few
+losses, but made no impression upon the enemy.  Thirty of the 1st
+Worcesters wandered at night into the wrong line, and were made
+prisoners, but with this exception the four days of noisy fighting
+does not appear to have cost either side fifty casualties.  It is
+probable that the deliberation with which the operations were
+conducted was due to Rundle's instructions to wait until the other
+forces were in position.  His subsequent movements showed that he was
+not a General who feared to strike.
+
+On Sunday night (April 22nd) Pole-Carew sallied out from Bloemfontein
+on a line which would take him round the right flank of the Boers who
+were facing Rundle.  The Boers had, however, occupied a strong
+position at Leeuw Kop, which barred his path, so that the Dewetsdorp
+Boers were covering the Wepener Boers, and being in turn covered by
+the Boers of Leeuw Kop.  Before anything could be done, they must be
+swept out of the way.  Pole-Carew is one of those finds which help to
+compensate us for the war. Handsome, dashing, debonnaire, he
+approaches a field of battle as a light-hearted schoolboy approaches a
+football field.  On this occasion he acted with energy and discretion.
+His cavalry threatened the flanks of the enemy, and Stephenson's
+brigade carried the position in front at a small cost. On the same
+evening General French arrived and took over the force, which
+consisted now of Stephenson's and the Guards brigades (making up the
+11th division), with two brigades of cavalry and one corps of mounted
+infantry. The next day, the 23rd, the advance was resumed, the cavalry
+bearing the brunt of the fighting.  That gallant corps, Roberts's
+Horse, whose behaviour at Sanna's Post had been admirable, again
+distinguished itself, losing among others its Colonel, Brazier
+Creagh. On the 24th again it was to the horsemen that the honour and
+the casualties fell.  The 9th Lancers, the regular cavalry regiment
+which bears away the honours of the war, lost several men and
+officers, and the 8th Hussars also suffered, but the Boers were driven
+from their position, and lost more heavily in this skirmish than in
+some of the larger battles of the campaign. The 'pom-poms,' which had
+been supplied to us by the belated energy of the Ordnance Department,
+were used with some effect in this engagement, and the Boers learned
+for the first time how unnerving are those noisy but not particularly
+deadly fireworks which they had so often crackled round the ears of
+our gunners.
+
+On the Wednesday morning Rundle, with the addition cf Pole-Carew's
+division, was strong enough for any attack, while French was in a
+position upon the flank.  Every requisite for a great victory was
+there except the presence of an enemy.  The Wepener siege had been
+raised and the force in front of Rundle had disappeared as only Boer
+armies can disappear.  The combined movement was an admirable piece of
+work on the part of the enemy.  Finding no force in front of them, the
+combined troops of French, Rundle, and Chermside occupied Dewetsdorp,
+where the latter remained, while the others pushed on to Thabanchu,
+the storm centre from which all our troubles had begun nearly a month
+before.  All the way they knew that De Wet's retreating army was just
+in front of them, and they knew also that a force had been sent out
+from Bloemfontein to Thabanchu to head off the Boers. Lord Roberts
+might naturally suppose, when he had formed two cordons through which
+De Wet must pass, that one or other must hold him.  But with
+extraordinary skill and mobility De Wet, aided by the fact that every
+inhabitant was a member of his intelligence department, slipped
+through the double net which had been laid for him.  The first net was
+not in its place in time, and the second was too small to hold him.
+
+While Rundle and French had advanced on Dewets dorp as described, the
+other force which was intended to head off De Wet had gone direct to
+Thabanchu.  The advance began by a movement of Ian Hamilton on April
+22nd with eight hundred mounted infantry upon the waterworks.  The
+enemy, who held the hills beyond, allowed Hamilton's force to come
+right down to the Modder before they opened fire from three guns.  The
+mounted infantry fell back, and encamped for the night out of
+range.[Footnote: This was a remarkable exhibition of the harmlessness
+of shell-fire against troops in open formation.  I myself saw at least
+forty shells, all of which burst, fall among the ranks of the mounted
+infantry, who retired at a contemptuos walk.  There were no
+casualties.]  Before morning they were reinforced by Smith-Dorrien's
+brigade (Gordons, Canadians, and Shropshires -- the Cornwalls had been
+left behind) and some more mounted Infantry.  With daylight a fine
+advance was begun, the brigade moving up in very extended order and
+the mounted men turning the right flank of the defence. By evening we
+had regained the waterworks, a most important point for Bloemfontein,
+and we held all the line of hills which command it.  This strong
+position would not have been gained so easily if it had not been for
+Pole-Carew's and French's actions two days before, on their way to
+join Rundle, which enabled them to turn it from the south.
+
+Ian Hamilton, who had already done good service in the war, having
+commanded the infantry at Elandslaagte, and been one of the most
+prominent leaders in the defence of Ladysmith, takes from this time
+onwards a more important and a more independent position. A thin,
+aquiline man, of soft voice and gentle manners, he had already proved
+more than once during his adventurous career that he not only
+possessed in a high degree the courage of the soldier, but also the
+equanimity and decision of the born leader. A languid elegance in his
+bearing covered a shrewd brain and a soul of fire. A distorted and
+half-paralysed hand reminded the observer that Hamilton, as a young
+lieutenant, had known at Majuba what it was to face the Boer
+rifles. Now, in his forty-seventh year, he had returned, matured and
+formidable, to reverse the results of that first deplorable campaign.
+This was the man to whom Lord Roberts had entrusted the command of
+that powerful flanking column which was eventually to form the right
+wing of his main advance. Being reinforced upon the morning after the
+capture of the Waterworks by the Highland Brigade, the Cornwalls, and
+two heavy naval guns, his whole force amounted to not less than seven
+thousand men. From these he detached a garrison for the Waterworks,
+and with the rest he continued his march over the hilly country which
+lies between them and Thabanchu.
+
+One position, Israel's Poort, a nek between two hills, was held
+against them on April 25th, but was gained without much trouble, the
+Canadians losing one killed and two wonuded.  Colonel Otter, their
+gallant leader, was one of the latter, while Marshall's Horse, a
+colonial corps raised in Grahamstown, had no fewer than seven of their
+officers and several men killed or wounded.  Next morning the town of
+Thabanchu was seized, and Hamilton found himself upon the direct line
+of the Boer retreat. He seized the pass which commands the road, and
+all next day he waited eagerly, and the hearts of his men beat high
+when at last they saw a long trail of dust winding up to them from the
+south.  At last the wily De Wet had been headed off!  Deep and earnest
+were the curses when out of the dust there emerged a khaki column of
+horsemen, and it was realised that this was French's pursuing force,
+closely followed by Rundle's infantry from Dewetsdorp.  The Boers had
+slipped round and were already to the north of us.
+
+It is impossible to withhold our admiration for the way in which the
+boer force was manoeuvred thoughout this portion of the campaign. The
+mixture of circumspection and audacity, the way in which French and
+Rundle were hindered until the Wepener force had disengaged itself,
+the manner in which these covering forces were then withdrawn, and
+finally the clever way in which they all slipped past Hamilton, make a
+brilliant bit of strategy. Louis Botha, the generalissimo, held all
+the strings in his hand, and the way in which he pulled them showed
+that his countrymen had chosen the right man for that high office, and
+that his was a master spirit even among those fine natural warriors
+who led the separate commandos.
+
+Having got to the north of the British forces Botha made no effort to
+get away, and refused to be hustled by a reconnaissance developing
+into an attack, which French made upon April 27th.  In a skirmish the
+night before Kitchener's Horse had lost fourteen men, and the action
+of the 27th cost us about as many casualties.  It served to show that
+the Boer force was a compact body some six or seven thousand strong,
+which withdrew in a leisurely fashion, and took up a defensive
+position at Houtnek, some miles further on. French remained at
+Thabanchu, from which he afterwards joined Lord Roberts' advance,
+while Hamilton now assumed complete command of the flanking column,
+with which he proceeded to march north upon Winburg.
+
+The Houtnek position is dominated upon the left of the advancing
+British force by Thoba Mountain, and it was this point which was the
+centre of Hamilton's attack. It was most gallantly seized by
+Kitchener's Horse, who were quickly supported by Smith-Dorrien's men.
+The mountain became the scene of a brisk action, and night fell before
+the crest was cleared. At dawn upon May 1st the fighting was resumed,
+and the position was carried by a determined advance of the
+Shropshires, the Canadians, and the Gordons: the Boers escaping down
+the reverse slope of the hill came under a heavy fire of our infantry,
+and fifty of them were wounded or taken. It was in this action, during
+the fighting on the hill, that Captain Towse, of the Gordons, though
+shot through the eyes and totally blind, encouraged his men to charge
+through a group of the enemy who had gathered round them. After this
+victory Hamilton's men, who had fought for seven days out of ten,
+halted for a rest at Jacobsrust, where they were joined by Broadwood's
+cavalry and Bruce Hamilton's infantry brigade.  Ian Hamilton's column
+now contained two infantry brigades (Smith.Dorrien's and Bruce
+Hamilton's), Ridley's Mounted Infantry, Broadwood's Cavalry Brigade,
+five batteries of artillery, two heavy guns, altogether 13,000
+men. With this force in constant touch with Botha's rearguard, Ian
+Hamilton pushed on once more on May 4th. On May 5th he fought a brisk
+cavalry skirmish, in which Kitchener's Horse and the 12th Lancers
+distinguished themselves, and on the same day he took possession of
+Winburg, thus covering the right of Lord Roberts's great advance.
+
+The distribution of the troops on the eastern side of the Free State
+was, at the time of this the final advance of the main army, as
+follows -- Ian Hamilton with his mounted infantry, Smith-Dorrien's
+brigade, Macdonald's brigade, Bruce Hamilton's brigade, and
+Broadwood's cavalry were at Winburg.  Rundle was at Thabanchu, and
+Brabant's colonial division was moving up to the same point.
+Chermside was at Dewetsdorp, and had detached a force under Lord
+Castletown to garrison Wepener. Hart occupied Smithfield, whence he
+and his brigade were shortly to be transferred to the Kimberley
+force. Altogether there could not have been fewer than thirty thousand
+men engaged in clearing and holding down this part of the
+country. French's cavalry and Pole-Carew's division had returned to
+take part in the central advance.
+
+Before entering upon a description of that great and decisive
+movement, one small action calls for comment. This was the cutting off
+of twenty men of Lumsden's Horse in a reconnaissance at Karee.  The
+small post under Lieutenant Crane found themselves by some
+misunderstanding isolated in the midst of the enemy. Befusing to hoist
+the flag of shame, they fought their way out, losing half their
+number, while of the other half it is said that there was not one who
+could not show bullet marks upon his clothes or person.  The men of
+this corps, volunteer Anglo-Indians, had abandoned the ease and even
+luxury of Eastern life for the hard fare and rough fighting of this
+most trying campaign. In coming they had set the whole empire an
+object-lesson in spirit, and now on their first field they set the
+army an example of military virtue.  The proud traditions of Outram's
+Volunteers have been upheld by the men of Lumsden's Horse.  Another
+minor action which cannot be ignored is the defence of a convoy on
+April 29th by the Derbyshire Yeomanry (Major Dugdale) and a company of
+the Scots Guards. The wagons were on their way to Rundle when they
+were attacked at a point about ten miles west of Thabanchu. The small
+guard beat off their assailants in the most gallant fashion, and held
+their own until relieved by Brabazon upon the following morning.
+
+This phase of the war was marked by a certain change in the temper of
+the British.  Nothing could have been milder than the original
+intentions and proclamations of Lord Roberts, and he was most ably
+seconded in his attempts at conciliation by General Pretyman, who had
+been made civil administrator of the State.  There was evidence,
+however, that this kindness had been construed as weakness by some of
+the burghers, and during the Boer incursion to Wepener many who had
+surrendered a worthless firearm reappeared with the Mauser which had
+been concealed in some crafty hiding-place.  Troops were fired at from
+farmhouses which flew the white flag, and the good housewife remained
+behind to charge the 'rooinek' extortionate prices for milk and fodder
+while her husband shot at him from the hills.  It was felt that the
+burghers might have peace or might have war, but could not have both
+simultaneously.  Some examples were made therefore of offending
+farmhouses, and stock was confiscated where there was evidence of
+double dealing upon the part of the owner.  In a country where
+property is a more serious thing than life, these measures, together
+with more stringent rules about the possession of horses and arms, did
+much to stamp out the chances of an insurrection in our rear.  The
+worst sort of peace is an enforced peace, but if that can be
+established time and justice may do the rest.
+
+The operations which have been here described may be finally summed up
+in one short paragraph. A Boer army came south of the British line and
+besieged a British garrison.  Three British forces, those of French,
+Rundle, and Ian Hamilton, were despatched to cut it off. It
+successfully threaded its way among them and escaped. It was followed
+to the northward as far as the town of Winburg, which remained in the
+British possession. Lord Roberts had failed in his plan of cutting off
+De Wet's army, but, at the expense of many marches and skirmishes, the
+south-east of the State was cleared of the enemy.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE SIEGE OF MAFEKING
+
+
+This small place, which sprang in the course of a few weeks from
+obscurity to fame, is situated upon the long line of railway which
+connects Kimberley in the south with Rhodesia in the north.  In
+character it resembles one of those western American townlets which
+possess small present assets but immense aspirations.  In its litter
+of corrugated-iron roofs, and in the church and the racecourse, which
+are the first-fruits everywhere of Anglo-Celtic civilisation, one sees
+the seeds of the great city of the future.  It is the obvious depôt
+for the western Transvaal upon one side, and the starting-point for
+all attempts upon the Kalahari Desert upon the other.  The Transvaal
+border runs within a few miles.
+
+It is not clear why the imperial authorities should desire to hold
+this place, since it has no natural advantages to help the defence,
+but lies exposed in a widespread plain.  A glance at the map must show
+that the railway line would surely be cut both to the north and south
+of the town, and the garrison isolated at a point some two hundred and
+fifty miles from any reinforcements.  Considering that the Boers could
+throw any strength of men or guns against the place, it seemed certain
+that if they seriously desired to take possession of it they could do
+so.  Under ordinary circumstances any force shut up there was doomed
+to capture.  But what may have seemed short-sighted policy became the
+highest wisdom, owing to the extraordinary tenacity and resource of
+Baden-Powell, the officer in command. Through his exertions the town
+acted as a bait to the Boers, and occupied a considerable force in a
+useless siege at a time when their presence at other seats of war
+might have proved disastrous to the British cause.
+
+Colonel Baden-Powell is a soldier of a type which is exceedingly
+popular with the British public. A skilled hunter and an expert at many
+games, there was always something of the sportsman in his keen
+appreciation of war.  In the Matabele campaign he had out-scouted the
+savage scouts and found his pleasure in tracking them among their
+native mountains, often alone and at night, trusting to his skill in
+springing from rock to rock in his rubber-soled shoes to save him from
+their pursuit.  There was a brain quality in his bravery which is rare
+among our officers.  Full of veldt craft and resource, it was as
+difficult to outwit as it was to outfight him.  But there was another
+curious side to his complex nature.  The French have said of one of
+their heroes, 'Il avait cette graine de folie dans sa bravoure que les
+Francais aiment,' and the words might have been written of Powell.  An
+impish humour broke out in him, and the mischievous schoolboy
+alternated with the warrior and the administrator.  He met the Boer
+commandos with chaff and jokes which were as disconcerting as his wire
+entanglements and his rifle-pits The amazing variety of his personal
+accomplishments was one of his most striking characteristics. From
+drawing caricatures with both hands simultaneously, or skirt dancing
+to leading a forlorn hope, nothing came amiss to him; and he had that
+magnetic quality by which the leader imparts something of his virtues
+to his men.  Such was the man who held Mafeking for the Queen.
+
+In a very early stage, before the formal declaration of war, the enemy
+had massed several commandos upon the western border, the men being
+drawn from Zeerust, Rustenburg, and Lichtenburg. Baden-Powell, with
+the aid of an excellent group of special officers, who included
+Colonel Gould Adams, Lord Edward Cecil, the soldier son of England's
+Premier, and Colonel Hore, had done all that was possible to put the
+place into a state of defence. In this he had immense assistance from
+Benjamin Weil, a well known South African contractor, who had shown
+great energy in provisioning the town.  On the other hand, the South
+African Government displayed the same stupidity or treason which had
+been exhibited in the case of Kimberley, and had met all demands for
+guns and reinforcements with foolish doubts as to the need of such
+precautions.  In the endeavour to supply these pressing wants the
+first small disaster of the campaign was encountered.  On October
+12th, the day after the declaration of war, an armoured train
+conveying two 7-pounders for the Mafeking defences was derailed and
+captured by a Boer raiding party at Kraaipan, a place forty miles
+south of their destination.  The enemy shelled the shattered train
+until after five hours Captain Nesbitt, who was in command, and his
+men, some twenty in number, surrendered.  It was a small affair, but
+it derived importance from being the first blood shed and the first
+tactical success of the war.
+
+The garrison of the town, whose fame will certainly live in the
+history of South Africa, contained no regular soldiers at all with the
+exception of the small group of excellent officers.  They consisted of
+irregular troops, three hundred and forty of the Protectorate
+Regiment, one hundred and seventy Police, and two hundred volunteers,
+made up of that singular mixture of adventurers, younger sons, broken
+gentlemen, and irresponsible sportsmen who have always been the
+voortrekkers of the British Empire.  These men were of the same stamp
+as those other admirable bodies of natural fighters who did so well in
+Rhodesia, in Natal, and in the Cape. With them there was associated in
+the defence the Town Guard, who included the able-bodied shopkeepers,
+business men, and residents, the whole amounting to about nine hundred
+men.  Their artillery was feeble in the extreme, two 7-pounder toy
+guns and six machine guns, but the spirit of the men and the resource
+of their leaders made up for every disadvantage.  Colonel Vyvyan and
+Major Panzera planned the defences, and the little trading town soon
+began to take on the appearance of a fortress.
+
+On October 13th the Boers appeared before Mafeking. On the same day
+Colonel Baden-Powell sent two truckloads of dynamite out of the place.
+They were fired into by the invaders, with the result that they
+exploded.  On October 14th the pickets around the town were driven in
+by the Boers.  On this the armoured train and a squadron of the
+Protectorate Regiment went out to support the pickets and drove the
+Boers before them. A body of the latter doubled back and interposed
+between the British and Mafeking, but two fresh troops with a
+7-pounder throwing shrapnel drove them off.  In this spirited little
+action the garrison lost two killed and fourteen wounded, but they
+inflicted considerable damage on the enemy. To Captain Williams,
+Captain FitzClarence, and Lord Charles Bentinck great credit is due
+for the way in which they handled their men; but the whole affair was
+ill advised, for if a disaster had occurred Mafeking must have fallen,
+being left without a garrison.  No possible results which could come
+from such a sortie could justify the risk which was run.
+
+On October 16th the siege began in earnest.  On that date the Boers
+brought up two 12-pounder guns, and the first of that interminable
+flight of shells fell into the town.  The enemy got possession of the
+water supply, but the garrison had already dug wells. Before October
+20th five thousand Boers, under the formidable Cronje, had gathered
+round the town.  'Surrender to avoid bloodshed' was his message.
+'When is the bloodshed going to begin?' asked Powell.  When the Boers
+had been shelling the town for some weeks the lighthearted Colonel
+sent out to say that if they went on any longer he should be compelled
+to regard it as equivalent to a declaration of war. It is to be hoped
+that Cronje also possessed some sense of humour, or else he must have
+been as sorely puzzled by his eccentric opponent as the Spanish
+generals were by the vagaries of Lord Peterborough.
+
+Among the many difficulties which had to be met by the defenders of
+the town the most serious was the fact that the position had a
+circumference of five or six miles to be held by about one thousand
+men against a force who at their own time and their own place could at
+any moment attempt to gain a footing. An ingenious system of small
+forts was devised to meet the situation. Each of these held from ten
+to forty riflemen, and was furnished with bomb-proofs and covered
+ways. The central bomb-proof was connected by telephone with all the
+outlying ones, so as to save the use of orderlies.  A system of bells
+was arranged by which each quarter of the town was warned when a shell
+was coming in time to enable the inhabitants to scuttle off to
+shelter. Every detail showed the ingenuity of the controlling mind.
+The armoured train, painted green and tied round with scrub, stood
+unperceived among the clumps of bushes which surrounded the town.
+
+On October 24th a savage bombardment commenced, which lasted with
+intermissions for seven months.  The Boers had brought an enormous gun
+across from Pretoria, throwing a 96-lb. shell, and this, with many
+smaller pieces, played upon the town.  The result was as futile as our
+own artillery fire has so often been when directed against the Boers.
+
+As the Mafeking guns were too weak to answer the enemy's fire, the
+only possible reply lay in a sortie, and upon this Colonel Powell
+decided. It was carried out with great gallantry on the evening of
+October 27th, when about a hundred men under Captain FitzClarence
+moved out against the Boer trenches with instructions to use the
+bayonet only.  The position was carried with a rush, and many of the
+Boers bayoneted before they could disengage themselves from the
+tarpaulins which covered them.  The trenches behind fired wildly in
+the darkness, and it is probable that as many of their own men as of
+ours were hit by their rifle fire.  The total loss in this gallant
+affair was six killed, eleven wounded, and two prisoners.  The loss of
+the enemy, though shrouded as usual in darkness, was certainly very
+much higher.
+
+On October 31st the Boers ventured upon an attack on Cannon Kopje,
+which is a small fort and eminence to the south of the town.  It was
+defended by Colonel Walford, of the British South African Police, with
+fifty-seven of his men and three small guns.  The attack was repelled
+with heavy loss to the Boers. The British casualties were six killed
+and five wounded.
+
+Their experience in this attack seems to have determined the Boers to
+make no further expensive attempts to rush the town, and for some
+weeks the siege degenerated into a blockade.  Cronje had been recalled
+for more important work, and Commandant Snyman had taken over the
+uncompleted task.  From time to time the great gun tossed its huge
+shells into the town, but boardwood walls and corrugated-iron roofs
+minimise the dangers of a bombardment.  On November 3rd the garrison
+rushed the Brickfields, which had been held by the enemy's
+sharpshooters, and on the 7th another small sally kept the game going.
+On the 18th Powell sent a message to Snyman that he could not take the
+town by sitting and looking at it. At the same time he despatched a
+message to the Boer forces generally, advising them to return to their
+homes and their families.  Some of the commandos had gone south to
+assist Cronje in his stand against Methuen, and the siege languished
+more and more, until it was woken up by a desperate sortie on December
+26th, which caused the greatest loss which the garrison had sustained.
+Once more the lesson was to be enforced that with modern weapons and
+equality of forces it is always long odds on the defence.
+
+On this date a vigorous attack was made upon one of the Boer forts on
+the north.  There seems to be little doubt that the enemy had some
+inkling of our intention, as the fort was found to have been so
+strengthened as to be impregnable without scaling ladders.  The
+attacking force consisted of two squadrons of the Protectorate
+Regiment and one of the Bechuanaland Rifles, backed up by three guns.
+So desperate was the onslaught that of the actual attacking party -- a
+forlorn hope, if ever there was one -- fifty-three out of eighty were
+killed and wounded, twenty-five of the former and twenty-eight of the
+latter.  Several of that gallant band of officers who had been the
+soul of the defence were among the injured.  Captain FitzClarence was
+wounded, Vernon, Sandford, and Paton were killed, all at the very
+muzzles of the enemy's guns.  It must have been one of the bitterest
+moments of Baden-Powell's life when he shut his field-glass and said,
+'Let the ambulance go out!'
+
+Even this heavy blow did not damp the spirits nor diminish the
+energies of the defence, though it must have warned Baden-Powell that
+he could not afford to drain his small force by any more expensive
+attempts at the offensive, and that from then onwards he must content
+himself by holding grimly on until Plumer from the north or Methuen
+from the south should at last be able to stretch out to him a helping
+hand.  Vigilant and indomitable, throwing away no possible point in
+the game which he was playing, the new year found him and his hardy
+garrison sternly determined to keep the flag flying.
+
+January and February offer in their records that monotony of
+excitement which is the fate of every besieged town.  On one day the
+shelling was a little more, on another a little less.  Sometimes they
+escaped scatheless, sometimes the garrison found itself the poorer by
+the loss of Captain Girdwood or Trooper Webb or some other gallant
+soldier.  Occasionally they had their little triumph when a too
+curious Dutchman, peering for an instant from his cover to see the
+effect of his shot, was carried back in the ambulance to the
+laager. On Sunday a truce was usually observed, and the snipers who
+had exchanged rifle-shots all the week met occasionally on that day
+with good-humoured chaff.  Snyman, the Boer General, showed none of
+that chivalry at Mafeking which distinguished the gallant old Joubert
+at Ladysmith. Not only was there no neutral camp for women or sick,
+but it is beyond all doubt or question that the Boer guns were
+deliberately turned upon the women's quarters inside Mafeking in order
+to bring pressure upon the inhabitants.  Many women and children were
+sacrificed to this brutal policy, which must in fairness be set to the
+account of the savage leader, and not of the rough but kindly folk
+with whom we were fighting.  In every race there are individual
+ruffians, and it would be a political mistake to allow our action to
+be influenced or our feelings permanently embittered by their
+crimes. It is from the man himself, and not from his country, that an
+account should be exacted.
+
+The garrison, in the face of increasing losses and decreasing food,
+lost none of the high spirits which it reflected from its commander.
+The programme of a single day of jubilee - Heaven only knows what they
+had to hold jubilee over -- shows a cricket match in the morning,
+sports in the afternoon, a concert in the evening, and a dance, given
+by the bachelor officers, to wind up. Baden-Powell himself seems to
+have descended from the eyrie from which, like a captain on the
+bridge, he rang bells and telephoned orders, to bring the house down
+with a comic song and a humorous recitation. The ball went admirably,
+save that there was an interval to repel an attack which disarranged
+the programme.  Sports were zealously cultivated, and the grimy
+inhabitants of casemates and trenches were pitted against each other
+at cricket or football.[Footnote: Sunday cricket so shocked Snyman
+that he threatened to fire upon it if it were continued.] The monotony
+was broken by the occasional visits of a postman, who appeared or
+vanished from the vast barren lands to the west of the town, which
+could not all be guarded by the besiegers.  Sometimes a few words from
+home came to cheer the hearts of the exiles, and could be returned by
+the same uncertain and expensive means. The documents which found
+their way up were not always of an essential or even of a welcome
+character. At least one man received an unpaid bill from an angry
+tailor.
+
+In one particular Mafeking had, with much smaller resources, rivalled
+Kimberley.  An ordnance factory had been started, formed in the
+railway workshops, and conducted by Connely and Cloughlan, of the
+Locomotive Department. Daniels, of the police, supplemented their
+efforts by making both powder and fuses.  The factory turned out
+shells, and eventually constructed a 5ˇ5-in. smooth-bore gun, which
+threw a round shell with great accuracy to a considerable range.
+April found the garrison, in spite of all losses, as efficient and as
+resolute as it had been in October.  So close were the advanced
+trenches upon either side that both parties had recourse to the
+old-fashioned hand grenades, thrown by the Boers, and cast on a
+fishing-line by ingenious Sergeant Page, of the Protectorate Regiment.
+Sometimes the besiegers and the number of guns diminished, forces
+being detached to prevent the advance of Plumer's relieving column
+from the north; but as those who remained held their forts, which it
+was beyond the power of the British to storm, the garrison was now
+much the better for the alleviation. Putting Mafeking for Ladysmith
+and Plumer for Buller, the situation was not unlike that which had
+existed in Natal.
+
+At this point some account might be given of the doings of that
+northern force whose situation was so remote that even the ubiquitous
+correspondent hardly appears to have reached it.  No doubt the book
+will eventually make up for the neglect of the journal, but some short
+facts may be given here of the Rhodesian column.  Their action did not
+affect the course of the war, but they clung like bulldogs to a most
+difficult task, and eventually, when strengthened by the relieving
+column, made their way to Mafeking.
+
+The force was originally raised for the purpose of defending Rhodesia,
+and it consisted of fine material pioneers, farmers, and miners from
+the great new land which had been added through the energy of
+Mr. Rhodes to the British Empire.  Many of the men were veterans of
+the native wars, and all were imbued with a hardy and adventurous
+spirit.  On the other hand, the men of the northern and western
+Transvaal, whom they were called upon to face, the burghers of
+Watersberg and Zoutpansberg, were tough frontiersmen living in a land
+where a dinner was shot, not bought.  Shaggy, hairy, half-savage men,
+handling a rifle as a medićval Englishman handled a bow, and skilled
+in every wile of veldt craft, they were as formidable opponents as the
+world could show.
+
+On the war breaking out the first thought of the leaders in Rhodesia
+was to save as much of the line which was their connection through
+Mafeking with the south as was possible. For this purpose an armoured
+train was despatched only three days after the expiration of the
+ultimatum to the point four hundred miles south of Bulawayo, where the
+frontiers of the Transvaal and of Bechuanaland join. Colonel
+Holdsworth commanded the small British force.  The Boers, a thousand
+or so in number, had descended upon the railway, and an action
+followed in which the train appears to have had better luck than has
+usually attended these ill-fated contrivances.  The Boer commando was
+driven back and a number were killed. It was probably news of this
+affair, and not anything which had occurred at Mafeking, which caused
+those rumours of gloom at Pretoria very shortly after the outbreak of
+hostilities.  An agency telegraphed that women were weeping in the
+streets of the Boer capital. We had not then realised how soon and how
+often we should see the same sight in Pall Mall.
+
+The adventurous armoured train pressed on as far as Lobatsi, where it
+found the bridges destroyed; so it returned to its original position,
+having another brush with the Boer commandos, and again, in some
+marvellous way, escaping its obvious fate.  From then until the new
+year the line was kept open by an admirable system of patrolling to
+within a hundred miles or so of Mafeking.  An aggressive spirit and a
+power of dashing initiative were shown in the British operations at
+this side of the scene of war such as have too often been absent
+elsewhere.  At Sekwani, on November 24th, a considerable success was
+gained by a surprise planned and carried out by Colonel Holdsworth.
+The Boer laager was approached and attacked in the early morning by a
+force of one hundred and twenty frontiersmen, and so effective was
+their fire that the Boers estimated their numbers at several thousand.
+Thirty Boers were killed or wounded, and the rest scattered.
+
+While the railway line was held in this way there had been some
+skirmishing also on the northern frontier of the Transvaal.  Shortly
+after the outbreak of the war the gallant Blackburn, scouting with six
+comrades in thick bush, found himself in the presence of a
+considerable commando.  The British concealed themselves by the path,
+but Blackburn's foot was seen by a keen-eyed Kaffir, who pointed it
+out to his masters. A sudden volley riddled Blackburn with bullets;
+but his men stayed by him and drove off the enemy.  Blackburn dictated
+an official report of the action, and then died.
+
+In the same region a small force under Captain Hare was cut off by a
+body of Boers.  Of the twenty men most got away, but the chaplain
+J. W. Leary, Lieutenant Haserick (who behaved with admirable
+gallantry), and six men were taken.[Footnote: Mr. Leary was wounded in
+the foot by a shell.  The German artillerist entered the hut in which
+he lay. 'Here's a bit of your work!' said Leary good~humouredly.  'I
+wish it had been woise,' said the amiable German gunner.] The commando
+which attacked this party, and on the same day Colonel Spreckley's
+force, was a powerful one, with several guns. No doubt it was
+organised because there were fears among the Boers that they would be
+invaded from the north. When it was understood that the British
+intended no large aggressive movement in that quarter, these burghers
+joined other commandos.  Sarel Eloff, who was one of the leaders of
+this northern force, was afterwards taken at Mafeking.
+
+Colonel Plumer had taken command of the small army which was now
+operating from the north along the railway line with Mafeking for its
+objective.  Plumer is an officer of considerable experience in African
+warfare, a small, quiet, resolute man, with a knack of gently
+enforcing discipline upon the very rough material with which he had to
+deal.  With his weak force -- which never exceeded a thousand men, and
+was usually from six to seven hundred - he had to keep the long line
+behind him open, build up the ruined railway in front of him, and
+gradually creep onwards in face of a formidable and enterprising
+enemy.  For a long time Gaberones, which is eighty miles north of
+Mafeking, remained his headquarters, and thence he kept up precarious
+communications with the besieged garrison.  In the middle of March he
+advanced as far south as Lobatsi, which is less than fifty miles from
+Mafeking; but the enemy proved to be too strong, and Plumer had to
+drop back again with some loss to his original position at
+Gaberones. Sticking doggedly to his task, Plumer again came south, and
+this time made his way as far as Ramathlabama, within a day's march of
+Mafeking.  He had with him, however, only three hundred and fifty men,
+and had he pushed through the effect mighit have been an addition of
+hungry men to the garrison.  The relieving force was fiercely
+attacked, however, by the Boers and driven back on to their camp with
+a loss of twelve killed, twenty-six wounded, and fourteen
+missing. Some of the British were dismounted men, and it says much for
+Plumer's conduct of the fight that he was able to extricate these
+safely from the midst of an aggressive mounted enemy.  Personally he
+set an admirable example, sending away his own horse, and walking with
+his rearmost soldiers.  Captain Crewe Robertson and Lieutenant
+Milligan, the famous Yorkshire cricketer, were killed, and Rolt,
+Jarvis, Maclaren, and Plumer himself were wounded.  The Rhodesian
+force withdrew again to near Lobatsi, and collected itself for yet
+another effort.
+
+In the meantime Mafeking -- abandoned, as it seemed, to its fate --
+was still as formidable as a wounded lion. Far from weakening in its
+defence it became more aggressive, and so persistent and skilful were
+its riflemen that the big Boer gun had again and again to be moved
+further from the town.  Six months of trenches and rifle-pits had
+turned every inhabitant into a veteran. Now and then words of praise
+and encouragement came to them from without.  Once it was a special
+message from the Queen, once a promise of relief from Lord Roberts.
+But the rails which led to England were overgrown with grass, and
+their brave hearts yearned for the sight of their countrymen and for
+the sound of their voices.  'How long, 0 Lord, how long?' was the cry
+which was wrung from them in their solitude.  But the flag was still
+held high.
+
+April was a trying month for the defence.  They knew that Methuen, who
+had advanced as far as Fourteen Streams upon the Vaal River, had
+retired again upon Kimberley.  They knew also that Plumer's force had
+been weakened by the repulse at Ramathlabama, and that many of his men
+were down with fever.  Six weary months had this village withstood the
+pitiless pelt of rifle bullet and shell. Help seemed as far away from
+them as ever.  But if troubles may be allayed by sympathy, then theirs
+should have lain lightly.  The attention of the whole empire had
+centred upon them, and even the advance of Roberts's army became
+secondary to the fate of this gallant struggling handful of men who
+had upheld the flag so long.  On the Continent also their resistance
+attracted the utmost interest, and the numerous journals there who
+find the imaginative writer cheaper than the war correspondent
+announced their capture periodically as they had once done that of
+Ladysmith.  From a mere tin-roofed village Mafeking had become a prize
+of victory, a stake which should be the visible sign of the
+predominating manhood of one or other of the great white races of
+South Africa.  Unconscious of the keenness of the emotions which they
+had aroused, the garrison manufactured brawn from horsehide, and
+captured locusts as a relish for their luncheons, while in the
+shot-torn billiard-room of the club an open tournament was started to
+fill in their hours off duty.  But their vigilance, and that of the
+hawk-eyed man up in the Conning Tower, never relaxed.  The besiegers
+had increased in number, and their guns were more numerous than
+before.  A less acute man than Baden-Powell might have reasoned that
+at least one desperate effort would be made by them to carry the town
+before relief could come.
+
+On Saturday, May 12th, the attack was made at the favourite hour of
+the Boer -- the first grey of the morning.  It was gallantly delivered
+by about three hundred volunteers under the command of Eloff, who had
+crept round to the west of the town -- the side furthest from the
+lines of the besiegers.  At the first rush they penetrated into the
+native quarter, which was at once set on fire by them.  The first
+building of any size upon that side is the barracks of the
+Protectorate Regiment, which was held by Colonel Hore and about twenty
+of his officers and men.  This was carried by the enemy, who sent an
+exultant message along the telephone to Baden-Powell to tell him that
+they had got it.  Two other positions within the lines, one a stone
+kraal and the other a hill, were held by the Boers, but their supports
+were slow in coming on, and the movements of the defenders were so
+prompt and energetic that all three found themselves isolated and cut
+off from their own lines.  They had penetrated the town, but they were
+as far as ever from having taken it.  All day the British forces drew
+their cordon closer and closer round the Boer positions, making no
+attempt to rush them, but ringing them round in such a way that there
+could be no escape for them.  A few burghers slipped away in twos and
+threes, but the main body found that they had rushed into a prison
+from which the only egress was swept with rifle fire.  At seven
+o'clock in the evening they recognised that their position was
+hopeless, and Eloff with 117 men laid down their arms.  Their losses
+had been ten killed and nineteen wounded. For some reason, either of
+lethargy, cowardice, or treachery, Snyman had not brought up the
+supports which might conceivably have altered the result.  It was a
+gallant attack gallantly met, and for once the greater wiliness in
+fight was shown by the British.  The end was characteristic.  'Good
+evening, Commandant,' said Powell to Eloff; 'won't you come in and
+have some dinner?' The prisoners -- burghers, Hollanders, Germans, and
+Frenchmen -- were treated to as good a supper as the destitute larders
+of the town could furnish.
+
+So in a small blaze of glory ended the historic siege of Mafeking, for
+Eloff's attack was the last, though by no means the worst of the
+trials which the garrison had to face.  Six killed and ten wounded
+were the British losses in this admirably managed affair. On May 17th,
+five days after the fight, the relieving force arrived, the besiegers
+were scattered, and the long-imprisoned garrison were free men once
+more.  Many who had looked at their maps and saw this post isolated in
+the very heart of Africa had despaired of ever reaching their heroic
+fellow-countrymen, and now one universal outbreak of joybells and
+bonfires from Toronto to Melbourne proclaimed that there is no spot so
+inaccessible that the long arm of the empire cannot reach it when her
+children are in peril.
+
+Colonel Mahon, a young Irish officer who had made his reputation as a
+cavalry leader in Egypt, had started early in May from Kimberley with
+a small but mobile force consisting of the Imperial Light Horse
+(brought round from Natal for the purpose), the Kimberley Mounted
+Corps, the Diamond Fields Horse, some Imperial Yeomanry, a detachment
+of the Cape Police, and 100 volunteers from the Fusilier brigade, with
+M battery R.H.A. and pom-poms, twelve hundred men in all. Whilst
+Hunter was fighting his action at Rooidam on May 4th, Mahon with his
+men struck round the western flank of the Boers and moved rapidly to
+the northwards.  On May 11th they bad left Vryburg, the halfway house,
+behind them, having done one hundred and twenty miles in five days.
+They pushed on, encountering no opposition save that of nature, though
+they knew that they were being closely watched by the enemy.  At
+Koodoosrand it was found that a Boer force was in position in front,
+but Mahon avoided them by turning somewhat to the westward.  His
+detour took him, however, into a bushy country, and here the enemy
+headed him off, opening fire at short range upon the ubiquitous
+Imperial Light Horse, who led the column.  A short engagement ensued,
+in which the casualties amounted to thirty killed and wounded, but
+which ended in the defeat and dispersal of the Boers, whose force was
+certainly very much weaker than the British.  On May 15th the
+relieving column arrived without further opposition at Masibi Stadt,
+twenty miles to the west of Mafeking.
+
+In the meantime Plumer's force upon the north had been strengthened by
+the addition of C battery of four 12-pounder guns of the Canadian
+Artillery under Major Eudon and a body of Queenslanders.  These forces
+had been part of the small army which had come with General Carrington
+through Beira, and after a detour of thousands of miles, through their
+own wonderful energy they had arrived in time to form portion of the
+relieving column.  Foreign military critics, whose experience of
+warfare is to move troops across a frontier, should think of what the
+Empire has to do before her men go into battle.  These contingents had
+been assembled by long railway journeys, conveyed across thousands of
+miles of ocean to Cape Town, brought round another two thousand or so
+to Beira, transferred by a narrow-gauge railway to Bamboo Creek,
+changed to a broader gauge to Marandellas, sent on in coaches for
+hundreds of miles to Bulawayo, transferred to trains for another four
+or five hundred miles to Ootsi, and had finally a forced march of a
+hundred miles, which brought them up a few hours before their presence
+was urgently needed upon the field.  Their advance, which averaged
+twenty-five miles a day on foot for four consecutive days over
+deplorable roads, was one of the finest performances of the war.  With
+these high-spirited reinforcements and with his own hardy Rhodesians
+Plumer pushed on, and the two columns reached the hamlet of Masibi
+Stadt within an hour of each other. Their united strength was far
+superior to anything which Snyman's force could place against them.
+
+But the gallant and tenacious Boers would not abandon their prey
+without a last effort.  As the little army advanced upon Mafeking they
+found the enemy waiting in a strong position.  For some hours the
+Boers gallantly held their ground, and their artillery fire was, as
+usual, most accurate.  But our own guns were more numerous and equally
+well served, and the position was soon made untenable.  The Boers
+retired past Mafeking and took refuge in the trenches upon the eastern
+side, but Baden-Powell with his war-hardened garrison sallied out,
+and, supported by the artillery fire of the relieving column, drove
+them from their shelter. With their usual admirable tactics their
+larger guns had been removed, but one small cannon was secured as a
+souvenir by the townsfolk, together with a number of wagons and a
+considerable quantity of supplies. A long rolling trail of dust upon
+the eastern horizon told that the famous siege of Mafeking had at last
+come to an end.
+
+So ended a singular incident, the defence of an open town which
+contained no regular soldiers and a most inadequate artillery against
+a numerous and enterprising enemy with very heavy guns. All honour to
+the towns folk who bore their trial so long and so bravely -- and to
+the indomitable men who lined the trenches for seven weary months.
+Their constancy was of enormous value to the empire.  In the
+all-important early month at least four or five thousand Boers were
+detained by them when their presence elsewhere would have been fatal.
+During all the rest of the war, two thousand men and eight guns
+(including one of the four big Creusots) had been held there.  It
+prevented the invasion of Rhodesia, and it gave a rallying-point for
+loyal whites and natives in the huge stretch of country from Kimberley
+to Bulawayo.  All this had, at a cost of two hundred lives, been done
+by this one devoted band of men, who killed, wounded, or took no fewer
+than one thousand of their opponents.  Critics may say that the
+enthusiasm in the empire was excessive, but at least it was expended
+over worthy men and a fine deed of arms.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MARCH ON PRETORIA
+
+
+IN the early days of May, when the season of the rains was past and
+the veldt was green, Lord Roberts's six weeks of enforced inaction
+came to an end. He had gathered himself once more for one of those
+tiger springs which should be as sure and as irresistible as that
+which had brought him from Belmont to Bloemfontein, or that other in
+olden days which had carried him from Cabul to Candahar. His army had
+been decimated by sickness, and eight thousand men had passed into the
+hospitals; but those who were with the colours were of high heart,
+longing eagerly for action. Any change which would carry them away
+from the pest-ridden, evils-melling capital which had revenged itself
+so terribly upon the invader must be a change for the
+better. Therefore it was with glad faces and brisk feet that the
+centre column left Bloemfontein on May 1st, and streamed, with bands
+playing, along the northern road.
+
+On May 3rd the main force was assembled at Karee, twenty miles upon
+their way. Two hundred and twenty separated them from Pretoria, but in
+little more than a month from the day of starting, in spite of broken
+railway, a succession of rivers, and the opposition of the enemy, this
+army was marching into the main street of the Transvaal capital. Had
+there been no enemy there at all, it would still have been a fine
+performance, the more so when one remembers that the army was moving
+upon a front of twenty miles or more, each part of which had to be
+co-ordinated to the rest.  It is with the story of this great march
+that the present chapter deals.
+
+Roberts had prepared the way by clearing out the south-eastern corner
+of the State, and at the moment of his advance his forces covered a
+semicircular front of about forty miles, the right under Ian Hamilton
+near Thabanchu, and the left at Karee.  This was the broad net which
+was to be swept from south to north across the Free State, gradually
+narrowing as it went.  The conception was admirable, and appears to
+have been an adoption of the Boers' own strategy, which had in turn
+been borrowed from the Zulus.  The solid centre could hold any force
+which faced it, while the mobile flanks, Hutton upon the left and
+Hamilton upon the right, could lap round and pin it, as Cronje was
+pinned at Paardeberg.  It seems admirably simple when done upon a
+small scale.  But when the scale is one of forty miles, since your
+front must be broad enough to envelop the front which is opposed to
+it, and when the scattered wings have to be fed with no railway line
+to help, it takes such a master of administrative detail as Lord
+Kitchener to bring the operations to complete success.
+
+On May 3rd, the day of the advance from our most northern post, Karee,
+the disposition uf Lord Roberts's army was briefly as follows.  On his
+left was Hutton, with his mixed force of mounted infantry drawn from
+every quarter of the empire.  This formidable and mobile body, with
+some batteries of horse artillery and of pom-poms, kept a line a few
+miles to the west of the railroad, moving northwards parallel with it.
+Roberts's main column kept on the railroad, which was mended with
+extraordinary speed by the Railway Pioneer regiment and the Engineers,
+under Girouard and the ill-fated Seymour.  It was amazing to note the
+shattered culverts as one passed, and yet to be overtaken by trains
+within a day.  This main column consisted of Pole-Carew's 11th
+Division, which contained the Guards, and Stephenson's Brigade
+(Warwicks, Essex, Welsh, and Yorkshires).  With them were the 83rd,
+84th, and 85th R.F.A., with the heavy guns, and a small force of
+mounted infantry. Passing along the widespread British line one would
+then, after an interval of seven or eight miles, come upon Tucker's
+Division (the 7th), which consisted of Maxwell's Brigade (formerly
+Chermside's -- the Norfoiks, Lincolns, Hampshires, and Scottish
+Borderers) and Wavel's Brigade (North Staffords, Cheshires, East
+Lancashires, South Wales Borderers).  To the right of these was
+Ridley's mounted infantry. Beyond them, extending over very many miles
+of country and with considerable spaces between, there came
+Broadwood's cavalry, Bruce Hamilton's Brigade (Derbyshires, Sussex,
+Camerons, and C.I.V.), and finally on the extreme right of all Ian
+Hamilton's force of Highlanders, Canadians, Shropshires, and
+Cornwalls, with cavalry and mounted infantry, starting forty miles
+from Lord Roberts, but edging westwards all the way, to merge with the
+troops next to it, and to occupy Winburg in the way already described.
+This was the army, between forty and fifty thousand strong, with which
+Lord Roberts advanced upon the Transvaal.
+
+In the meantime he had anticipated that his mobile and enterprising
+opponents would work round and strike at our rear.  Ample means had
+been provided for dealing with any attempt of the kind.  Rundle with
+the 8th Division aud Brabant's Colonial Division remained in rear of
+the right flank to confront any force which might turn it. At
+Bloemfontein were Kelly-Kenny's Division (the 6th) and Chermside's
+(the 3rd), with a force of cavalry and guns.  Methuen, working from
+Kimberley towards Boshof, formed the extreme left wing of the main
+advance, though distant a hundred miles from it.  With excellent
+judgment Lord Roberts saw that it was on our right flank that danger
+was to be feared, and here it was that every precaution had been taken
+to meet it.
+
+The objective of the first day's march was the little town of
+Brandfort, ten miles north of Karee.  The head of the main column
+faced it, while the left arm swept round and drove the Boer force from
+their position. Tucker's Division upon the right encountered some
+opposition, but overbore it with artillery.  May 4th was a day of rest
+for the infantry, but on the 5th they advanced, in the same order as
+before, for twenty miles, and found themselves to the south of the Vet
+River, where the enemy had prepared for an energetic resistance. A
+vigorous artillery duel ensued, the British guns in the open as usual
+against an invisible enemy. After three hours of a very hot fire the
+mounted infantry got across the river upon the left and turned the
+Boer flank, on which they hastily withdrew.  The first lodgment was
+effected by two bodies of Canadians and New-Zealanders, who were
+energetically supported by Captain Anley's 3rd Mounted Infantry.  The
+rushing of a kopje by twenty-three West Australians was another
+gallant incident which marked this engagement, in which our losses
+were insignificant. A maxim and twenty or thirty prisoners were taken
+by Hutton's men.  The next day (May 6th) the army moved across the
+difficult drift of the Vet River, and halted that night at Smaldeel,
+some five miles to the north of it. At the same time Ian Hamilton had
+been able to advance to Winburg, so that the army had contracted its
+front by about half, but had preserved its relative positions.
+Hamilton, after his junction with his reinforcements at Jacobsrust,
+had under him so powerful a force that he overbore all resistance.
+His actions between Thabanchu and Winburg had cost the Boers heavy
+loss, and in one action the German legion had been overthrown. The
+informal warfare which was made upon us by citizens of many nations
+without rebuke from their own Governments is a matter of which pride,
+and possibly policy, have forbidden us to complain, but it will be
+surprising if it does not prove that their laxity has established a
+very dangerous precedent, and they will find it difficult to object
+when, in the next little war in which either France or Germany is
+engaged, they find a few hundred British adventurers carrying a rifle
+against them.
+
+The record of the army's advance is now rather geographical than
+military, for it rolled northwards with never a check save that which
+was caused by the construction of the railway diversions which atoned
+for the destruction of the larger bridges.  The infantry now, as
+always in the campaign, marched excellently; for though twenty miles
+in the day may seem a moderate allowance to a healthy man upon an
+English road, it is a considerable performance under an African sun
+with a weight of between thirty and forty pounds to be carried. The
+good humour of the men was admirable, and they eagerly longed to close
+with the elusive enemy who flitted ever in front of them. Huge clouds
+of smoke veiled the northern sky, for the Boers had set fire to the
+dry grass, partly to cover their own retreat, and partly to show up
+our khaki upon the blackened surface.  Far on the flanks the twinkling
+heliographs revealed the position of the wide-spread wings.
+
+On May 10th Lord Roberts's force, which had halted for three days at
+Smaldeel, moved onwards to Welgelegen.  French's cavalry had come up
+by road, and quickly strengthened the centre and left wing of the
+army. On the morning of the 10th the invaders found themselves
+confronted by a formidable position which the Boers had taken up on
+the northern bank of the Sand River.  Their army extended over twenty
+miles of country, the two Bothas were in command, and everything
+pointed to a pitched battle.  Had the position been rushed from the
+front, there was every material for a second Colenso, but the British
+had learned that it was by brains rather than by blood that such
+battles may be won.  French's cavalry turned the Boers on one side,
+and Bruce Hamilton's infantry on the other. Theoretically we never
+passed the Boer flanks, but practically their line was so over
+extended that we were able to pierce it at any point.  There was never
+any severe fighting, but rather a steady advance upon the British side
+and a steady retirement upon that of the Boers.  On the left the
+Sussex regiment distinguished itself by the dash with which it stormed
+an important kopje.  The losses were slight, save among a detached
+body of cavalry which found itself suddenly cut off by a strong force
+of the enemy and lost Captain Elworthy killed, and Haig of the
+Inniskillings, Wilkinson of the Australian Horse, and twenty men
+prisoners.  We also secured forty or fifty prisoners, and the enemy's
+casualties amounted to about as many more.  The whole straggling
+action fought over a front as broad as from London to Woking cost the
+British at the most a couple of hundred casualties, and carried their
+army over the most formidable defensive position which they were to
+encounter. The war in its later phases certainly has the pleasing
+characteristic of being the most bloodless, considering the number of
+men engaged and the amount of powder burned, that has been known in
+history. It was at the expense of their boots and not of their lives
+that the infantry won their way.
+
+On May 11th Lord Roberts's army advanced twenty miles to Geneva
+Siding, and every preparation was made for a battle next day, as it
+was thought certain that the Boers would defend their new capital,
+Kroonstad. It proved, however, that even here they would not make a
+stand, and on May 12th, at one o'clock, Lord Roberts rode into the
+town.  Steyn, Botha, and De Wet escaped, and it was announced that the
+village of Lindley had become the new seat of government.  The British
+had now accomplished half their journey to Pretoria, and it was
+obvious that on the south side of the Vaal no serious resistance
+awaited them. Burghers were freely surrendering themselves with their
+arms, and returning to their farms. In the south-east Rundle and
+Brabant were slowly advancing, while the Boers who faced them fell
+back towards Lindley. On the west, Hunter had crossed the Vaal at
+Windsorton, and Barton's Fusiller Brigade had fought a sharp action at
+Rooidam, while Mahon's Mafeking relief column had slipped past their
+flank, escaping the observation of the British public, but certainly
+not that of the Boers. The casualties in the Rooidam action were nine
+killed and thirty wounded, but the advance of the Fusiliers was
+irresistible, and for once the Boer loss, as they were hustled from
+kopje to kopje, appears to have been greater than that of the British.
+The Yeomanry had an opportunity of showing once more that there are
+few more high-mettled troops in South Africa than these good sportsmen
+of the shires, who only showed a trace of their origin in their
+irresistible inclination to burst into a 'tally-ho!' when ordered to
+attack. The Boer forces fell back after the action along the line of
+the Vaal, making for Christiana and Bloemhof.  Hunter entered into the
+Transvaal in pursuit of them, being the first to cross the border,
+with the exception of raiding Rhodesians early in the war. Methuen, in
+the meanwhile, was following a course parallel to Hunter but south of
+him, Hoopstad being his immediate objective.  The little union jacks
+which were stuck in the war maps in so many British households were
+now moving swiftly upwards.
+
+Buller's force was also sweeping northwards, and the time had come
+when the Ladysmith garrison, restored at last to health and strength,
+should have a chance of striking back at those who had tormented them
+so long. Many of the best troops had been drafted away to other
+portions of the seat of war.  Hart's Brigade and Barton's Fusilier
+Brigade had gone with Hunter to form the 10th Division upon the
+Kimberley side, and the Imperial Light Horse had been brought over for
+the relief of Mafeking.  There remained, however, a formidable force,
+the regiments in which had been strengthened by the addition of drafts
+and volunteers from home.  Not less than twenty thousand sabres and
+bayonets were ready and eager for the passage of the Biggarsberg
+mountains.
+
+This line of rugged hills is pierced by only three passes, each of
+which was held in strength by the enemy.  Considerable losses must
+have ensued from any direct attempt to force them.  Buller, however,
+with excellent judgment, demonstrated in front of them with Hildyard's
+men, while the rest of the army, marching round, outflanked the line
+of resistance, and on May 15th pounced upon Dundee.  Much had happened
+since that October day when Penn Symons led his three gallant
+regiments up Talana Hill, but now at last, after seven weary months,
+the ground was reoccupied which he had gained. His old soldiers
+visited his grave, and the national flag was raised over the remains
+of as gallant a man as ever died for the sake of it.
+
+The Boers, whose force did not exceed a few thousands, were now rolled
+swiftly back through Northern Natal into their own country.  The long
+strain at Ladysmith had told upon them, and the men whom we had to
+meet were very different from the warriors of Spion Kop and
+Nicholson's Nek.  They had done magnificently, but there is a limit to
+human endurance, and no longer would these peasants face the bursting
+lyddite and the bayonets of angry soldiers. There is little enough for
+us to boast of in this.  Some pride might be taken in the campaign
+when at a disadvantage we were facing superior numbers, but now we
+could but deplore the situation in which these poor valiant burghers
+found themselves, the victims of a rotten government and of their own
+delusions.  Hofer's Tyrolese, Charette's Vendeans, or Bruce's
+Scotchmen never fought a finer fight than these children of the veldt,
+but in each case they combated a real and not an imaginary tyrant.  It
+is heart-sickening to think of the butchery, the misery, the
+irreparable losses, the blood of men, and the bitter tears of women,
+all of which might have been spared had one obstinate and ignorant man
+been persuaded to allow the State which he ruled to conform to the
+customs of every other civilised State upon the earth.
+
+Buller was now moving with a rapidity and decision which contrast
+pleasantly with some of his earlier operations.  Although Dundee was
+only occupied on May 15th, on May 18th his vanguard was in Newcastle,
+fifty miles to the north.  In nine days he had covered 138 miles.  On
+the 19th the army lay under the loom of that Majuba which had cast its
+sinister shadow for so long over South African politics.  In front was
+the historical Laing's Nek, the pass which leads from Natal into the
+Transvaal, while through it runs the famous railway tunnel. Here the
+Boers had taken up that position which had proved nineteen years
+before to be too strong for British troops.  The Rooineks had come
+back after many days to try again. A halt was called, for the ten
+days' supplies which had been taken with the troops were exhausted,
+and it was necessary to wait until the railway should be repaired.
+This gave time for Hildyard's 5th Division and Lyttelton's 4th
+Division to close up on Clery's 2nd Division, which with Dundonald's
+cavalry had formed our vanguard throughout.  The only losses of any
+consequence during this fine march fell upon a single squadron of
+Bethune's mounted infantry, which being thrown out in the direction of
+Vryheid, in order to make sure that our flank was clear, fell into an
+ambuscade and was almost annihilated by a close-range fire.  Sixty-six
+casualties, of which nearly half were killed, were the result of this
+action, which seems to have depended, like most of our reverses, upon
+defective scouting.  Buller, having called up his two remaining
+divisions and having mended the railway behind him, proceeded now to
+manoeuvre the Boers out of Laing's Nek exactly as he had manceuvred
+them out of the Biggarsberg. At the end of May Hildyard and Lyttelton
+were despatched in an eastern direction, as if there were an intention
+of turning the pass from Utrecht.
+
+It was on May 12th that Lord Roberts occupied Kroonstad, and he halted
+there for eight days before he resumed his advance.  At the end of
+that time his railway had been repaired, and enough supplies brought
+up to enable him to advance again without anxiety. The country through
+which he passed swarmed with herds and flocks, but, with as scrupulous
+a regard for the rights of property as Wellington showed in the south
+of France, no hungry soldier was allowed to take so much as a chicken
+as he passed.  The punishment for looting was prompt and stern. It is
+true that farms were burned occasionally and the stock confiscated,
+but this was as a punishment for some particular offence and not part
+of a system.  The limping Tommy looked askance at the fat geese which
+covered the dam by the roadside, but it was as much as his life was
+worth to allow his fingers to close round those tempting white necks.
+On foul water and bully beef he tramped through a land of plenty.
+
+Lord Roberts's eight days' halt was spent in consolidating the general
+military situation.  We have already shown how Buller had crept
+upwards to the Natal Border.  On the west Methuen reached Hoopstad and
+Hunter Christiana, settling the country and collecting arms as they
+went.  Rundle in the south-east took possession of the rich grain
+lands, and on May 21st entered Ladybrand.  In front of him lay that
+difilcult hilly country about Senekal, Ficksburg, and Bethlehem which
+was to delay him so long.  Ian Hamilton was feeling his way northwards
+to the right of the railway line, and for the moment cleared the
+district between Lindley and Heilbron, passing through both towns and
+causing Steyn to again change his capital, which became Vrede, in the
+extreme north-east of the State. During these operations Hamilton had
+the two formidable De Wet brothers in front of him, and suffered
+nearly a hundred casualties in the continual skirmishing which
+accompanied his advance.  His right flank and rear were continually
+attacked, and these signs of forces outside our direct line of advance
+were full of menace for the future.
+
+On May 22nd the main army resumed its advance, moving forward fifteen
+miles to Honing's Spruit. On the 23rd another march of twenty miles
+over a fine roiling prairie brought them to Rhenoster River.  The
+enemy had made some preparations for a stand, but Hamilton was near
+Heilbron upon their left and French was upon their right flank.  The
+river was crossed without opposition.  On the 24th the army was at
+Vredefort Road, and on the 26th the vanguard crossed the Vaal River at
+Viljoen's Drift, the whole army following on the 27th. Hamilton's
+force had been cleverly swung across from the right to the left flank
+of the British, so that the Boers were massed on the wrong side.
+
+Preparations for resistance had been made on the line of the railway,
+but the wide turning movements on the flanks by the indefatigable
+French and Hamilton rendered all opposition of no avail.  The British
+columns flowed over and onwards without a pause, tramping steadily
+northwards to their destination. The bulk of the Free State forces
+refused to leave their own country, and moved away to the eastern and
+northern portion of the State, where the British Generals thought --
+incorrectly, as the future was to prove -- that no further harm would
+come from them. The State which they were in arms to defend had really
+ceased to exist, for already it had been publicly proclaimed at
+Bloemfontein in the Queen's name that the country had been annexed to
+the Empire, and that its style henceforth was that of 'The Orange
+River Colony.' Those who think this measure unduly harsh must remember
+that every mile of land which the Freestaters had conquered in the
+early part of the war had been solemnly annexed by them.  At the same
+time, those Englishmen who knew the history of this State, which had
+once been the model of all that a State should be, were saddened by
+the thought that it should have deliberately committed suicide for the
+sake of one of the most corrupt governments which have ever been
+known. Had the Transvaal been governed as the Orange Free State was,
+such an event as the second Boer war could never have occurred.
+
+Lord Roberts's tremendous march was now drawing to a close.  On May
+28th the troops advanced twenty miles, and passed Klip River without
+fighting.  It was observed with surprise that the Transvaalers were
+very much more careful of their own property than they had been of
+that of their allies, and that the railway was not damaged at all by
+the retreating forces.  The country had become more populous, and far
+away upon the low curves of the hills were seen high chimneys and
+gaunt iron pumps which struck the north of England soldier with a pang
+of homesickness.  This long distant hill was the famous Rand, and
+under its faded grasses lay such riches as Solomon never took from
+Ophir.  It was the prize of victory; and yet the prize is not to the
+victor, for the dust-grimed officers and men looked with little
+personal interest at this treasure-house of the world.  Not one penny
+the richer would they be for the fact that their blood and their
+energy had brought justice and freedom to the gold fields.  They had
+opened up an industry for the world, men of all nations would be the
+better for their labours, the miner and the financier or the trader
+would equally profit by them, but the men in khaki would tramp on,
+unrewarded and uncomplaining, to India, to China, to any spot where
+the needs of their worldwide empire called them.
+
+The infantry, streaming up from the Vaal River to the famous ridge of
+gold, had met with no resistance upon the way, but great mist banks of
+cloud by day and huge twinkling areas of flame by night showed the
+handiwork of the enemy.  Hamilton and French, moving upon the left
+flank, found Boers thick upon the hills, but cleared them off in a
+well-managed skirmish which cost us a dozen casualties. On May 29th,
+pushing swiftly along, French found the enemy posted very strongly
+with several guns at Doornkop, a point west of Klip River Berg.  The
+cavalry leader had with him at this stage three horse batteries, four
+pom-poms, and 3,000 mounted men. The position being too strong for him
+to force, Hamilton's infantry (19th and 21st Brigades) were called up,
+and the Boers were driven out. That splendid corps, the Gordons, lost
+nearly a hundred men in their advance over the open, and the C.I.V.s
+on the other flank fought like a regiment of veterans.  There had been
+an inclination to smile at these citizen soldiers when they first came
+out, but no one smiled now save the General who felt that he had them
+at his back. Hamilton's attack was assisted by the menace rather than
+the pressure of French's turning movement on the Boer right, but the
+actual advance was as purely frontal as any of those which had been
+carried through at the beginning of the war.  The open formation of
+the troops, the powerful artillery behind them, and perhaps also the
+lowered morale of the enemy combined to make such a movement less
+dangerous than of old.  In any case it was inevitable, as the state of
+Hamilton's commisariat rendered it necessary that at all hazards he
+should force his way through.
+
+Whilst this action of Doornkop was fought by the British left flank,
+Henry's mounted infantry in the centre moved straight upon the
+important junction of Germiston, which lies amid the huge white heaps
+of tailings from the mines.  At this point, or near it, the lines from
+Johannesburg and from Natal join the line to Pretoria.  Colonel
+Henry's advance was an extremely daring one, for the infantry were
+some distance behind; but after an irregular scrambling skirmish, in
+which the Boer snipers had to be driven off the mine heaps and from
+among the houses, the 8th mounted infantry got their grip of the
+railway and held it.  The exploit was a very fine one, and stands out
+the more brilliantly as the conduct of the campaign cannot be said to
+afford many examples of that well-considered audacity which
+deliberately runs the risk of the minor loss for the sake of the
+greater gain.  Henry was much assisted by J battery R.H.A., which was
+handled with energy and judgment.
+
+French was now on the west of the town, Henry had cut the railway on
+the east, and Roberts was coming up from the south. His infantry had
+covered 130 miles in seven days, but the thought that every step
+brought them nearer to Pretoria was as exhilarating as their fifes and
+drums.  On May 30th the victorious troops camped outside the city
+while Botha retired with his army, abandoning without a battle the
+treasure-house of his country.  Inside the town were chaos and
+confusion.  The richest mines in the world lay for a day or more at
+the mercy of a lawless rabble drawn from all nations.  The Boer
+officials were themselves divided in opinion, Krause standing for law
+and order while Judge Koch advocated violence.  A spark would have set
+the town blazing, and the worst was feared when a crowd of mercenaries
+assembled in front of the Robinson mine with threats of violence.  By
+the firmness and tact of Mr. Tucker, the manager, and by the strong
+attitude of Commissioner Krause, the situation was saved and the
+danger passed.  Upon May 31st, without violence to life or destruction
+to property, that great town which British hands have done so much to
+build found itself at last under the British flag.  May it wave there
+so long as it covers just laws, honest officials, and clean-handed
+administrators -- so long and no longer!
+
+And now the last stage of the great journey had been reached.  Two
+days were spent at Johannesburg while supplies were brought up, and
+then a move was made upon Pretoria thirty miles to the north. Here was
+the Boer capital, the seat of government, the home of Kruger, the
+centre of all that was anti-British, crouching amid its hills, with
+costly forts guarding every face of it.  Surely at last the place had
+been found where that great battle should be fought which should
+decide for all time whether it was with the Briton or with the
+Dutchman that the future of South Africa lay.
+
+On the last day of May two hundred Lancers under the command of Major
+Hunter Weston, with Charles of the Sappers and. Burnham the scout, a
+man who has played the part of a hero throughout the campaign, struck
+off from the main army and endeavoured to descend upon the
+Pretoria-Delagoa railway line with the intention of blowing up a bridge
+and cutting the Boer line of retreat. It was a most dashing attempt;
+but the small party had the misfortune to come into contact with a
+strong Boer commando, who headed them off.  After a skirmish they were
+compelled to make their way back with a loss of five killed and
+fourteen wounded.
+
+The cavalry under French had waited for the issue of this enterprise
+at a point nine miles north of Johannesburg.  On June 2nd it began its
+advance with orders to make a wide sweep round to the westward, and so
+skirt the capital, cutting the Pietersburg railway to the north of it.
+The country in the direct line between Johannesburg and Pretoria
+consists of a series of rolling downs which are admirably adapted for
+cavalry work, but the detour which French had to make carried him into
+the wild and broken district which lies to the north of the Little
+Crocodile River.  Here he was fiercely attacked on ground where his
+troops could not deploy, but with extreme coolness and judgment beat
+off the enemy.  To cover thirty-two miles in a day and fight a way out
+of an ambuscade in the evening is an ordeal for any leader and for any
+troops. Two killed and seven wounded were our trivial losses in a
+situation which might have been a serious one.  The Boers appear to
+have been the escort of a strong convoy which had passed along the
+road some miles in front.  Next morning both convoy and opposition had
+disappeared.  The cavalry rode on amid a country of orange groves, the
+troopers standing up in their stirrups to pluck the golden fruit.
+There was no further fighting, and on June 4th French had establisbed
+himself upon the north of the town, where he learned that all
+resistance had ceased.
+
+Whilst the cavalry had performed this enveloping movement the main
+army had moved swiftly upon its objective, leaving one brigade behind
+to secure Johannesburg. Ian Hamilton advanced upon the left, while
+Lord Roberts's column kept the line of the railway, Colonel Henry's
+mounted infantry scouting in front. As the army topped the low curves
+of the veldt they saw in front of them two well-marked hills, each
+crowned by a low squat building.  They were the famous southern forts
+of Pretoria. Between the hills was a narrow neck, and beyond the Boer
+capital.
+
+For a time it appeared that the entry was to be an absolutely
+bloodless one, but the booming of cannon and the crash of Mauser fire
+soon showed that the enemy was in force upon the ridge.  Botha had
+left a strong rearguard to hold off the British while his own stores
+and valuables were being withdrawn from the town. The silence of the
+forts showed that the guns had been removed and that no prolonged
+resistance was intended; but in the meanwhile fringes of determined
+riflemen, supported by cannon, held the approaches, and must be driven
+off before an entry could be effected. Each fresh corps as it came up
+reinforced the firing line.  Henry's mounted infantrymen supported by
+the horse-guns of J battery and the guns of Tucker's division began
+the action. So hot was the answer, both from cannon and from rifle,
+that it seemed for a time as if a real battle were at last about to
+take place. The Guards' Brigade, Stephenson's Brigade, and Maxwell's
+Brigade streamed up and waited until Hamilton, who was on the enemy's
+right flank, should be able to make his presence felt.  The heavy guns
+had also arrived, and a huge cloud of DEBRIS rising from the Pretorian
+forts told the accuracy of their fire.
+
+But either the burghers were half-hearted or there was no real
+intention to make a stand. About half-past two their fire slackened
+and Pole-Carew was directed to push on. That debonnaire soldier with
+his two veteran brigades obeyed the order with alacrity, and the
+infantry swept over the ridge, with some thirty or forty casualties,
+the majority of which fell to the Warwicks. The position was taken,
+and Hamilton, who came up late, was only able to send on De Lisle's
+mounted infantry, chiefly Australians, who ran down one of the Boer
+maxims in the open.  The action had cost us altogether about seventy
+men.  Among the injured was the Duke of Norfolk, who had shown a high
+sense of civic virtue in laying aside the duties and dignity of a
+Cabinet Minister in order to serve as a simple captain of
+volunteers. At the end of this one fight the capital lay at the mercy
+of Lord Roberts. Consider the fight which they made for their chief
+city, compare it with that which the British made for the village of
+Mafeking, and say on which side is that stern spirit of self-sacrifice
+and resolution which are the signs of the better cause.
+
+In the early morning of June 5th, the Coldstream Guards were mounting
+the hills which commanded the town.  Beneath them in the clear African
+air lay the famous city, embowered in green, the fine central
+buildings rising grandly out of the wide circle of villas. Through the
+Nek part of the Guards' Brigade and Maxwell's Brigade had passed, and
+had taken over the station, from which at least one train laden with
+horses had steamed that morning.  Two others, both ready to start,
+were only just stopped in time.
+
+The first thought was for the British prisoners, and a small party
+headed by the Duke of Marlborough rode to their rescue.  Let it be
+said once for all that their treatment by the Boers was excellent and
+that their appearance would alone have proved it. One hundred and
+twenty-nine officers and thirty-nine soldiers were found in the Model
+Schools, which had been converted into a prison.  A day later our
+cavalry arrived at Waterval, which is fourteen miles to the north of
+Pretoria. Here were confined three thousand soldiers, whose fare had
+certainly been of the scantiest, though in other respects they appear
+to have been well treated.[Footnote: Further information unfortunately
+shows that in the case of the sick and of the Colonial prisoners the
+treatment was by no meanu good.]  Nine hundred of their comrades had
+been removed by the Boers, but Porter's cavalry was in time to release
+the others, under a brisk shell fire from a Boer gun upon the ridge.
+Many pieces of good luck we had in the campaign, but this recovery of
+our prisoners, which left the enemy without a dangerous lever for
+exacting conditions of peace, was the most fortunate of all.
+
+In the centre of the town there is a wide square decorated or
+disfigured by a bare pedestal upon which a statue of the President was
+to have been placed. Hard by is the bleak barnlike church in which he
+preached, and on either side are the Government offices and the Law
+Courts, buildings which would grace any European capital.  Here, at
+two o'clock on the afternoon of June 5th, Lord Roberts sat his horse
+and saw pass in front of him the men who had followed him so far and
+so faithfully -- the Guards, the Essex, the Welsh, the Yorks, the
+Warwicks, the guns, the mounted infantry, the dashing irregulars, the
+Gordons, the Canadians, the Shropshires, the Cornwalls, the Camerons,
+the Derbys, the Sussex, and the London Volunteers. For over two hours
+the khaki waves with their crests of steel went sweeping by.  High
+above their heads from the summit of the Raad-saal the broad Union
+Jack streamed for the first time. Through months of darkness we had
+struggled onwards to the light.  Now at last the strange drama seemed
+to be drawing to its close. The God of battles had given the
+long-withheld verdict.  But of all the hearts which throbbed high at
+that supreme moment there were few who felt one touch of bitterness
+towards the brave men who had been overborne.  They had fought and
+died for their ideal.  We had fought and died for ours.  The hope for
+the future of South Africa is that they or their descendants may learn
+that that banner which has come to wave above Pretoria means no racial
+intolerance, no greed for gold, no paltering with injustice or
+corruption, but that it means one law for all and one freedom for all,
+as it does in every other continent in the whole broad earth. When
+that is learned it may happen that even they will come to date a
+happier life and a wider liberty from that 5th of June which saw the
+symbol of their nation pass for ever from among the ensigns of the
+world.
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+DIAMOND HILL -- RUNDLE'S OPERATIONS
+
+
+THE military situation at the time of the occupation of Pretoria was
+roughly as follows.  Lord Roberts with some thirty thousand men was in
+possession of the capital, but had left his long line of
+communications very imperfectly guarded behind him.  On the flank of
+this line of communications, in the eastern and northeastern corner of
+the Free State, was an energetic force of unconquered Freestaters who
+had rallied round President Steyn.  They were some eight or ten
+thousand in number, well horsed, with a fair number of guns, under the
+able leadership of De Wet, Prinsloo, and Olivier. Above all, they had
+a splendid position, mountainous and broken, from which, as from a
+fortress, they could make excursions to the south or west.  This army
+included the commandos of Ficksburg, Senekal, and Harrismith, with all
+the broken and desperate men from other districts who had left their
+farms and fled to the mountains.  It was held in check as a united
+force by Rundle's Division and the Colonial Division on the south,
+while Colvile, and afterwards Methuen, endeavoured to pen them in on
+the west. The task was a hard one, however, and though Rundle
+succeeded in holding his line intact, it appeared to be impossible in
+that wide country to coop up altogether an enemy so mobile. A strange
+game of hide-and-seek ensued, in which De Wet, who led the Boer raids,
+was able again and again to strike our line of rails and to get back
+without serious loss.  The story of these instructive and humiliating
+episodes will be told in their order.  The energy and skill of the
+guerilla chief challenge our admiration, and the score of his
+successes would be amusing were it not that the points of the game are
+marked by the lives of British soldiers.
+
+General Buller had spent the latter half of May in making his way from
+Ladysmith to Laing's Nek, and the beginning of June found him with
+twenty thousand men in front of that difficult position.  Some talk of
+a surrender had arisen, and Christian Botha, who commanded the Boers,
+succeeded in gaining several days' armistice, which ended in nothing.
+The Transvaal forces at this point were not more than a few thousand
+in number, but their position was so formidable that it was a serious
+task to turn them out. Van Wyk's Hill, however, had been left
+unguarded, and as its possession would give the British the command of
+Botha's Pass, its unopposed capture by the South African Light Horse
+was an event of great importance.  With guns upon this eminence the
+infantry were able, on June 8th, to attack and to carry with little
+loss the rest of the high ground, and so to get the Pass into their
+complete possession. Botha fired the grass behind him, and withdrew
+sullenly to the north. On the 9th and 10th the convoys were passed
+over the Pass, and on the 11th the main body of the army followed
+them.
+
+The operations were now being conducted in that extremely acute angle
+of Natal which runs up between the Transvaal and the Orange Free
+State.  In crossing Botha's Pass the army had really entered what was
+now the Orange River Colony. But it was only for a very short time, as
+the object of the movement was to turn the Laing's Nek position, and
+then come back into the Transvaal through Alleman's Pass.  The gallant
+South African Light Horse led the way, and fought hard at one point to
+clear a path for the army, losing six killed and eight wounded in a
+sharp skirmish.  On the morning of the 12th the flanking movement was
+far advanced, and it only remained for the army to force Alleman's
+Nek, which would place it to the rear of Laing's Nek, and close to the
+Transvaal town of Volksrust.
+
+Had the Boers been the men of Colenso and of Spion Kop, this stonuing
+of Alleman's Nek would have been a bloody business.  The position was
+strong, the cover was slight, and there was no way round.  But the
+infantry came on with the old dash without the old stubborn resolution
+being opposed to them.  The guns prepared the way, and then the
+Dorsets, the Dublins, the Middlesex, the Queen's, and the East Surrey
+did the rest.  The door was open and the Transvaal lay before us.  The
+next day Volksrust was in our hands.
+
+The whole series of operations were excellently conceived and carried
+out.  Putting Colenso on one side, it cannot be denied that General
+Buller showed considerable power of manoeuvring large bodies of
+troops. The withdrawal of the compromised army after Spion Kop, the
+change of the line of attack at Pieter's Hill, and the flanking
+marches in this campaign of Northern Natal, were all very workmanlike
+achievements. In this case a position which the Boers had been
+preparing for months, scored with trenches and topped by heavy
+artillery, had been rendered untenable by a clever flank movement, the
+total casualties in the whole affair being less than two hundred
+killed and wounded. Natal was cleared of the invader, Buller's foot
+was on the high plateau of the Transvaal, and Roberts could count on
+twenty thousand good men coming up to him from the south-east.  More
+important than all, the Natal railway was being brought up, and soon
+the central British Army would depend upon Durban instead of Cape Town
+for its supplies -- a saving of nearly two-thirds of the distance.
+The fugitive Boers made northwards in the Middelburg direction, while
+Buller advanced to Standerton, which town he continued to occupy until
+Lord Roberts could send a force down through Heidelberg to join hands
+with him.  Such was the position of the Natal Field Force at the end
+of June. From the west and the south-west British forces were also
+converging upon the capital.  The indomitable Baden-Powell sought for
+rest and change of scene after his prolonged trial by harrying the
+Boers out of Zeerust and Rustenburg.  The forces of Hunter and of
+Mahon converged upon Potchefstroom, from which, after settling that
+district, they could be conveyed by rail to Krugersdorp and
+Johannesburg.
+
+Before briefly recounting the series of events which took place upon
+the line of communications, the narrative must return to Lord Roberts
+at Pretoria, and describe the operations which followed his occupation
+of that city. In leaving the undefeated forces of the Free State
+behind him, the British General had unquestionably run a grave risk,
+and was well aware that his railway communication was in danger of
+being cut.  By the rapidity of his movements he succeeded in gaining
+the enemy's capital before that which he had foreseen came to pass;
+but if Botha had held him at Pretoria while De Wet struck at him
+behind, the situation would have been a serious one. Having once
+attained his main object, Roberts could receive with equanimity the
+expected news that De Wet with a mobile force of less than two
+thousand men had, on June 7th, cut the line at Roodeval to the north
+of Kroonstad.  Both rail and telegraph were destroyed, and for a few
+days the army was isolated. Fortunately there were enough supplies to
+go on with, and immediate steps were taken to drive away the intruder,
+though, like a mosquito, he was brushed from one place only to settle
+upon another.
+
+Leaving others to restore his broken communications, Lord Roberts
+turned his attention once more to Botha, who still retained ten or
+fifteen thousand men under his command.  The President had fled from
+Pretoria with a large sum of money, estimated at over two millions
+sterling, and was known to be living in a saloon railway carriage,
+which had been transformed into a seat of government even more mobile
+than that of President Steyn.  From Waterval-Boven, a point beyond
+Middelburg, he was in a position either to continue his journey to
+Delagoa Bay, and so escape out of the country, or to trave] north into
+that wild Lydenburg country which had always been proclaimed as the
+last ditch of the defence.  Here he remained with his gold-bags
+waiting the turn of events.
+
+Botha and his stalwarts had not gone far from the capital.  Fifteen
+miles out to the east the railway line runs through a gap in the hills
+called Pienaars Poort, and here was such a position as the Boer loves
+to hold. It was very strong in front, and it had widely spread
+formidable flanking hills to hamper those turning movements which had
+so often been fatal to the Boer generals. Behind was the uncut railway
+line along which the guns could in case of need be removed.  The whole
+position was over fifteen miles from wing to wing, and it was well
+known to the Boer general that Lord Roberts had no longer that
+preponderance of force which would enable him to execute wide turning
+movements, as he had done in his advance from the south. His army had
+decreased seriously in numbers. The mounted men, the most essential
+branch of all, were so ill horsed that brigades were not larger than
+regiments.  One brigade of infantry (the 14th) had been left to
+garrison Johannesburg, and another (the 18th) had been chosen for
+special duty in Pretoria.  Smith-Dorrien's Brigade had been detached
+for duty upon the line of communications. With all these deductions
+and the wastage caused by wounds and disease, the force was in no
+state to assume a vigorous offensive. So hard pressed were they for
+men that the three thousand released prisoners from Waterval were
+hurriedly armed with Boer weapons and sent down the line to help to
+guard the more vital points.
+
+Had Botha withdrawn to a safe distance, Lord Roberts would certainly
+have halted, as he had done at Bloemfontein, and waited for remounts
+and reinforcements. But the war could not be allowed to languish when
+an active enemy lay only fifteen miles off, within striking distance
+of two cities and of the line of rail.  Taking all the troops that he
+could muster, the British General moved out once more on Monday, June
+11th, to drive Botha from his position. He had with him Pole-Carew's
+11th Division, which numbered about six thousand men with twenty guns,
+Ian Hamilton's force, which included one infantry brigade (Bruce
+Hamilton's), one cavalry brigade, and a corps of mounted infantry,
+say, six thousand in all, with thirty guns.  There remained French's
+Cavalry Division, with Hutton's Mounted Infantry, which could not have
+exceeded two thousand sabres and rifles.  The total force was,
+therefore, not more than sixteen or seventeen thousand men, with about
+seventy guns. Their task was to carry a carefully prepared position
+held by at least ten thousand burghers with a strong artillery.  Had
+the Boer of June been the Boer of December, the odds would have been
+against the British.
+
+There had been some negotiations for peace between Lord Roberts and
+Botha, but the news of De Wet's success from the south had hardened
+the Boer general's heart, and on June 9th the cavalry had their orders
+to advance.  Hamilton was to work round the left wing of the Boers,
+and French round their right, while the infantry came up in the
+centre.  So wide was the scene of action that the attack and the
+resistance in each flank and in the centre constituted, on June 11th,
+three separate actions.  Of these the latter was of least importance,
+as it merely entailed the advance of the infantry to a spot whence
+they could take advantage of the success of the flanking forces when
+they had made their presence felt.  The centre did not on this as on
+several other occasions in the campaign make the mistake of advancing
+before the way had been prepared for it.
+
+French with his attenuated force found so vigorous a resistance on
+Monday and Tuesday that he was hard put to it to hold his own.
+Fortunately he had with him three excellent Horse Artillery batteries,
+G, 0, and T, who worked until, at the end of the engagement, they had
+only twenty rounds in their limbers. The country was an impossible one
+for cavalry, and the troopers fought dismounted, with intervals of
+twenty or thirty paces between the men. Exposed all day to rifle and
+shell fire, unable to advance and unwilling to retreat, it was only
+owing to their open formation that they escaped with about thirty
+casualties. With Boers on his front, his flank, and even on his rear,
+French held grimly on, realising that a retreat upon his part would
+mean a greater pressure at all other points of the British advance. At
+night his weary men slept upon the ground which they had held.  All
+Monday and all Tuesday French kept his grip at Kameelsdrift, stolidly
+indifferent to the attempt of the enemy to cut his line of
+communications. On Wednesday, Hamilton, upon the other flank, had
+gained the upper hand, and the pressure was relaxed. French then
+pushed forward, but the horses were so utterly beaten that no
+effective pursuit was possible.
+
+During the two days that French had been held up by the Boer right
+wing Hamilton had also been seriously engaged upon the left -- so
+seriously that at one time the action appeared to have gone against
+him. The fight presented some distinctive features, which made it
+welcome to soldiers who were weary of the invisible man with his
+smokeless gun upon the eternal kopje.  It is true that man, gun, and
+kopje were all present upon this occasion, but in the endeavours to
+drive him off some new developments took place, which formed for one
+brisk hour a reversion to picturesque warfare.  Perceiving a gap in
+the enemy's line, Hamilton pushed up the famous Q battery -- the guns
+which had plucked glory out of disaster at Sanna's Post.  For the
+second time in one campaign they were exposed and in imminent danger
+of capture. A body of mounted Boers with great dash and hardihood
+galloped down within close range and opened fire.  Instantly the 12th
+Lancers were let loose upon them.  How they must have longed for their
+big-boned long-striding English troop horses as they strove to raise a
+gallop out of their spiritless overworked Argentines!  For once,
+however, the lance meant more than five pounds dead weight and an
+encumbrance to the rider.  The guns were saved, the Boers fled, and a
+dozen were left upon the ground. But a cavalry charge has to end in a
+re-formation, and that is the instant of danger if any unbroken enemy
+remains within range.  Now a sleet of bullets hissed through their
+ranks as they retired, and the gallant Lord Airlie, as modest and
+brave a soldier as ever drew sword, was struck through the heart.
+'Pray moderate your language!' was his last characteristic remark,
+made to a battle-drunken sergeant.  Two officers, seventeen men, and
+thirty horses went down with their Colonel, the great majority only
+slightly injured.  In the meantime the increasing pressure upon his
+right caused Broadwood to order a second charge, of the Life Guards
+this time, to drive off the assailants.  The appearance rather than
+the swords of the Guards prevailed, and cavalry as cavalry had
+vindicated their existence more than they had ever done during the
+campaign.  The guns were saved, the flank attack was rolled back, but
+one other danger had still to be met, for the Heidelberg commando -- a
+corps D'ELITE of the Boers -- had made its way outside Hamilton's
+flank and threatened to get past him.  With cool judgment the British
+General detached a battalion and a section of a battery, which pushed
+the Boers back into a less menacing position.  The rest of Bruce
+Hamilton's Brigade were ordered to advance upon the hills in front,
+and, aided by a heavy artillery fire, they had succeeded, before the
+closing in of the winter night, in getting possession of this first
+line of the enemy's defences.  Night fell upon an undecided fight,
+which, after swaying this way and that, had finally inclined to the
+side of the British.  The Sussex and the City Imperial Volunteers were
+clinging to the enemy's left flank, while the 11th Division were
+holding them in front.  All promised well for the morrow.
+
+By order of Lord Roberts the Guards were sent round early on Tuesday,
+the 12th, to support the flank attack of Bruce Hamilton's infantry. It
+was afternoon before all was ready for the advance, and then the
+Sussex, the London Volunteers, and the Derbyshires won a position upon
+the ridge, followed later by the three regiments of Guards. But the
+ridge was the edge of a considerable plateau, swept by Boer fire, and
+no advance could be made over its bare expanse save at a considerable
+loss.  The infantry clung in a long fringe to the edge of the
+position, but for two hours no guns could be brought up to their
+support, as the steepness of the slope was insurmountable.  It was all
+that the stormers could do to hold their ground, as they were
+enfiladed by a Vickers-Maxim, and exposed to showers of shrapnel as
+well as to an incessant rifle fire.  Never were guns so welcome as
+those of the 82nd battery, brought by Major Connolly into the firing
+line.  The enemy's riflemen were only a thousand yards away, and the
+action of the artillery might have seemed as foolhardy as that of Long
+at Colenso. Ten horses went down on the instant, and a quarter of the
+gunners were hit; but the guns roared one by one into action, and
+their shrapnel soon decided the day.  Undoubtedly it is with Connolly
+and his men that the honours lie.
+
+At four o'clock, as the sun sank towards the west, the tide of fight
+had set in favour of the attack.  Two more batteries had come up,
+every rifle was thrown into the firing line, and the Boer reply was
+decreasing in volume. The temptation to an assault was great, but even
+now it might mean heavy loss of life, and Hamilton shrank from the
+sacrifice.  In the morning his judgment was justified, for Botha had
+abandoned the position, and his army was in full retreat.  The mounted
+men followed as far as Elands River Station, which is twenty-five
+miles from Pretoria, but the enemy was not overtaken, save by a small
+party of De Lisle's Australians and Regular Mounted Infantry.  This
+force, less than a hundred in number, gained a kopje which overlooked
+a portion of the Boer army.  Had they been more numerous, the effect
+would have been incalculable. As it was, the Australians fired every
+cartridge which they possessed into the throng, and killed many horses
+and men.  It would bear examination why it was that only this small
+corps was present at so vital a point, and why, if they could push the
+pursuit to such purpose, others should not be able to do the same.
+Time was bringing some curious revenges. Already Paardeberg had come
+upon Majuba Day. Buller's vietorious soldiers had taken Laing's Nek.
+Now, the Spruit at which the retreating Boers were so mishandled by
+the Australians was that same Bronkers Spruit at which, nineteen years
+before, a regiment had been shot down.  Many might have prophesied
+that the deed would be avenged; but who could ever have guessed the
+men who would avenge it?
+
+Such was the battle of Diamond Hill, as it was called from the name of
+the ridge which was opposite to Hamilton's attack.  The prolonged two
+days' struggle showed that there was still plenty of fight in the
+burghers. Lord Roberts had not routed them, nor had he captured their
+guns; but he had cleared the vicinity of the capital, he had inflicted
+a loss upon them which was certainly as great as his own, and he had
+again proved to them that it was vain for them to attempt to stand. A
+long pause followed at Pretoria, broken by occasional small alarms and
+excursions, which served no end save to keep the army from ENNUI. In
+spite of occasional breaks in his line of communications, horses and
+supplies were coming up rapidly, and, by the middle of July, Roberts
+was ready for the field again. At the same time Hunter had come up
+from Potchefstroom, and Hamilton had taken Heidelberg, and his force
+was about to join hands with Buller at Standerton.  Sporadic warfare
+broke out here and there in the west, and in the course of it Snyman
+of Mafeking had reappeared, with two guns, which were promptly taken
+from him by the Canadian Mounted Rifles.  On all sides it was felt
+that if the redoubtable De Wet could be captured there was every hope
+that the burghers might discontinue a struggle which was disagreeable
+to the British and fatal to themselves.  As a point of honour it was
+impossible for Botha to give in while his ally held out.  We will
+turn, therefore, to this famous guerilla chief, and give some account
+of his exploits.  To understand them some description must be given of
+the general military situation in the Free State.
+
+When Lord Roberts had swept past to the north he had brushed aside the
+flower of the Orange Free State army, who occupied the considerable
+quadrilateral which is formed by the north-east of that State.  The
+function of Rundle's 8th Division and of Brabant's Colonial Division
+was to separate the sheep from the goats by preventing the fighting
+burghers from coming south and disturbing those districts which had
+been settled. For this purpose Rundle formed a long line which should
+serve as a cordon.  Moving up through Trommel and Clocolan, Ficksburg
+was occupied on May 25th by the Colonial Division, while Rundle seized
+Senekal, forty miles to the north-west.  A small force of forty
+Yeomanry, who entered the town some time in advance of the main body,
+was suddenly attacked by the Boers, and the gallant Dalbiac, famous
+rider and sportsman, was killed, with four of his men. He was a
+victim, as so many have been in this campaign, to his own proud
+disregard of danger.
+
+The Boers were in full retreat, but now, as always, they were
+dangerous.  One cannot take them for granted, for the very moment of
+defeat is that at which they are capable of some surprising effort.
+Rundle, following them up from Senekal, found them in strong
+possession of the kopjes at Biddulphsberg, and received a check in his
+endeavour to drive them off. It was an action fought amid great grass
+fires, where the possible fate of the wounded was horrible to
+contemplate.  The 2nd Grenadiers, the Scots Guards, the East
+Yorkshires, and the West Kents were all engaged, with the 2nd and 79th
+Field Batteries and a force of Yeomanry.  Our losses incurred in the
+open from unseen rifles were thirty killed and 130 wounded, including
+Colonel Lloyd of the Grenadiers.  Two days later Rundle, from Seneka],
+joined hands with Brabant from Ficksburg, and a defensive line was
+formed between those two places, which was held unbroken for two
+months, when the operations ended in the capture of the greater part
+of the force opposed to him.  Clements's Brigade, consisting of the
+1st Royal Irish, the 2nd Bedfords, the 2nd Worcesters, and the 2nd
+Wiltshires, had come to strengthen Rundle, and altogether he may have
+had as many as twelve thousand men under his orders.  It was not a
+large force with which to hold a mobile adversary at least eight
+thousand strong, who might attack him at any point of his extended
+line.  So well, however, did he select his positions that every
+attempt of the enemy, and there were many, ended in failure. Badly
+supplied with food, he and his half-starved men held bravely to their
+task, and no soldiers in all that great host deserve better of their
+country.
+
+At the end of May, then, the Colonial Division, Rundle's Division, and
+Clements's Brigade held the Boers from Ficksburg on the Basuto border
+to Senekal.  This prevented them from coming south.  But what was
+there to prevent them from coming west, and falling upon the railway
+line? There was the weak point of the British position.  Lord Methuen
+had been brought across from Boshof, and was available with six
+thousand men.  Colvile was on that side also, with the Highland
+Brigade.  A few details were scattered up and down the line, waiting
+to be gathered up by an enterprising enemy. Kroonstad was held by a
+single militia battalion; each separate force had to be nourished by
+convoys with weak escorts. Never was there such a field for a mobile
+and competent guerilla leader. And, as luck would have it, such a man
+was at hand, ready to take full advantage of his opportunities.
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION
+
+Christian de Wet, the elder of two brothers of that name, was at this
+time in the prime of life, a little over forty years of age. He was a
+burly middle-sized bearded man, poorly educated, but endowed with much
+energy and common-sense.  His military experience dated back to Majuba
+Hill, and he had a large share of that curious race hatred which is
+intelligible in the case of the Transvaal, but inexplicable in a
+Freestater who has received no injury from the British Empire.  Some
+weakness of his sight compels the use of tinted spectacles, and he had
+now turned these, with a pair of particularly observant eyes behind
+them, upon the scattered British forces and the long exposed line of
+railway.
+
+De Wet's force was an offshoot from the army of Freestaters under De
+Villiers, Olivier, and Prinsloo, which lay in the mountainous
+north-east of the State. To him were committed five guns, fifteen
+hundred men, and the best of the horses.  Well armed, well mounted,
+and operating in a country which consisted of rolling plains with
+occasional fortress kopjes, his little force had everything in its
+favour.  There were so many tempting objects of attack lying before
+him that he must have had some difficulty in knowing where to begin.
+The tinted spectacles were turned first upon the isolated town of
+Lindley.
+
+Colvile with the Highland Brigade had come up from Ventersburg with
+instructions to move onward to Heilbron, pacifying the country as he
+passed.  The country, however, refused to be pacified, and his march
+from Ventersburg to Lindley was harassed by snipers every mile of the
+way.  Finding that De Wet and his men were close upon him, he did not
+linger at Lindley, but passed on to his destination, his entire march
+of 126 miles costing him sixty-three casualties, of which nine were
+fatal. It was a difficult and dangerous march, especially for the
+handful of Eastern Province Horse, upon whom fell all the mounted
+work.  By evil fortune a force of five hundred Yeomanry, the 18th
+battalion, including the Duke of Cambridge's Own and the Irish
+companies, had been sent from Kroonstad to join Colvile at Lindley.
+Colonel Spragge was in command.  On May 27th this body of horsemen
+reached their destination only to find that Colvile had already
+abandoned it. They appear to have determined to halt for a day in
+Lindley, and then follow Colvile to Heilbron.  Within a few hours of
+their entering the town they were fiercely attacked by De Wet.
+
+Colonel Spragge seems to have acted for the best. Under a heavy fire
+he caused his troopers to fall back upon his transport, which had been
+left at a point a few miles out upon the Kroonstad Road, where three
+defensible kopjes sheltered a valley in which the cattle and horses
+could be herded. A stream ran through it. There were all the materials
+there for a stand which would have brought glory to the British
+arms. The men were of peculiarly fine quality, many of them from the
+public schools and from the universities, and if any would fight to
+the death these with their sporting spirit and their high sense of
+honour might have been expected to do so.
+
+They had the stronger motive for holding out, as they had taken steps
+to convey word of their difficulty to Colvile and to Methuen. The
+former continued his march to Heilbron, and it is hard to blame him for
+doing so, but Methuen on hearing the message, which was conveyed to
+him at great personal peril by Corporal Hankey of the Yeomanry, pushed
+on instantly with the utmost energy, though he arrived too late to
+prevent, or even to repair, a disaster.  It must be remembered that
+Colvile was under orders to reach Heilbron on a certain date, that he
+was himself fighting his way, and that the force which he was asked to
+relieve was much more mobile than his own.  His cavalry at that date
+consisted of 100 men of the Eastern Province Horse.
+
+Colonel Spragge's men had held their own for the first three days of
+their investment, during which they had been simply exposed to a
+long-range rifle fire which inflicted no very serious loss upon
+them. Their principal defence consisted of a stone kraal about twenty
+yards square, which sheltered them from rifle bullets, but must
+obviously be a perfect death-trap in the not improbable event of the
+Boers sending for artillery.  The spirit of the troopers was
+admirable.  Several dashing sorties were carried out under the
+leadership of Captain Humby and Lord Longford.  The latter was a
+particularly dashing business, ending in a bayonet charge which
+cleared a neighbouring ridge.  Early in the siege the gallant Keith
+met his end.  On the fourth day the Boers brought up five guns. One
+would have thought that during so long a time as three days it would
+have been possible for the officer in command to make such
+preparations against this obvious possibility as were so successfully
+taken at a later stage of the war by the handful who garrisoned
+Ladybrand.  Surely in this period, even without engineers, it would
+not have been hard to construct such trenches as the Boers have again
+and again opposed to our own artillery.  But the preparations which
+were made proved to be quite inadequate. One of the two smaller kopjes
+was carried, and the garrison fled to the other.  This also was
+compelled to surrender, and finally the main kopje also hoisted the
+white flag.  No blame can rest upon the men, for their presence there
+at all is a sufficient proof of their public spirit and their
+gallantry.  But the lessons of the war seem to have been imperfectly
+learned, especially that very certain lesson that shell fire in a
+close formation is insupportable, while in an open formation with a
+little cover it can never compel surrender.  The casualty lists (80
+killed and wounded out of a force of 470) show that the Yeomanry took
+considerable punishment before surrendering, but do not permit us to
+call the defence desperate or heroic.  It is only fair to add that
+Colonel Spragge was acquitted of all blame by a court of inquiry,
+which agreed, however, that the surrender was premature, and
+attributed it to the unauthorised hoisting of a white flag upon one of
+the detached kopjes. With regard to the subsequent controversy as to
+whether General Colvile might have returned to the relief of the
+Yeomanry, it is impossible to see how that General could have acted in
+any other way than he did.
+
+Some explanation is needed of Lord Methuen's appearance upon the
+central scene of warfare, his division having, when last described,
+been at Boshof, not far from Kimberley, where early in April he fought
+the successful action which led to the death of Villebois. Thence he
+proceeded along the Vaal and then south to Kroonstad, arriving there
+on May 28th. He had with him the 9th Brigade (Douglas's), which
+contained the troops which had started with him for the relief of
+Kimberley six months before.  These were the Northumberland Fusiliers,
+Loyal North Lancashires, Northamptons, and Yorkshire Light Infantry.
+With him also were the Munsters, Lord Chesham's Yeomanry (five
+companies), with the 4th and 37th batteries, two howitzers and two
+pom-poms.  His total force was about 6,000 men.  On arriving at
+Kroonstad he was given the task of relieving Heilbron, where Colvile,
+with the Highland Brigade, some Colonial horse, Lovat's Scouts, two
+naval guns, and the 5th battery, were short of food and ammunition.
+The more urgent message from the Yeomen at Lindley, however, took him
+on a fruitless journey to that town on June 1st.  So vigorous was the
+pursuit of the Yeomanry that the leading squadrons, consisting of
+South Notts Hussars and Sherwood Rangers, actually cut into the Boer
+convoy and might have rescued the prisoners had they been supported.
+As it was they were recalled, and had to fight their way back to
+Lindley with some loss, including Colonel Rolleston, the commander,
+who was badly wounded. A garrison was left under Paget, and the rest
+of the force pursued its original mission to Heilbron, arriving there
+on June 7th, when the Highlanders had been reduced to quarter
+rations. 'The Salvation Army' was the nickname by which they expressed
+their gratitude to the relieving force.
+
+A previous convoy sent to the same destination had less good fortune.
+On June 1st fifty-five wagons started from the railway line to reach
+Heilbron.  The escort consisted of one hundred and sixty details
+belonging to Highland regiments without any guns, Captain Corballis in
+command.  But the gentleman with the tinted glasses was waiting on the
+way.  'I have twelve hundred men and five guns.  Surrender at once!'
+Such was the message which reached the escort, and in their
+defenceless condition there was nothing for it but to comply.  Thus
+one disaster leads to another, for, had the Yeomanry held out at
+Lindley, De Wet would not on June 4th have laid hands upon our wagons;
+and had he not recruited his supplies from our wagons it is doubtful
+if he could have made his attack upon Roodeval.  This was the next
+point upon which he turned his attention.
+
+Two miles beyond Roodeval station there is a well-marked kopje by the
+railway line, with other hills some distance to the right and the
+left..  A militia regiment, the 4th Derbyshire, had been sent up to
+occupy this post.  There were rumours of Boers on the line, and Major
+Haig, who with one thousand details of various regiments commanded at
+railhead, had been attacked on June 6th but had beaten off his
+assailants.  De Wet, acting sometimes in company with, and sometimes
+independcntly of, his lieutenant Nel, passed down the line looking fur
+some easier prey, and on the night of June 7th came upon the militia
+regiment, which was encamped in a position which could be complet~y
+commanded by artillery.  It is not true that they had neglected to
+occupy the kopje under which they lay, for two companies had been
+posted upon it. But there seems to have been no thought of imminent
+danger, and the regiment had pitched its tents and gone very
+comfortably to sleep without a thought of the gentleman in the tinted
+glasses.  In the middle of the night he was upon them with a hissing
+sleet of bullets.  At the first dawn the guns opened and the shells
+began to burst among them.  It was a horrible ordeal for raw
+troops. The men were miners and agricultural labourers,who had never
+seen more bloodshed than a cut finger in their lives.  They had been
+four months in the country, but their life had been a picnic, as the
+luxury of their baggage shows.  Now in an instant the picnic was
+ended, and in the grey cold dawn war was upon them -- grim war with
+the whine of bullets, the screams of pain, the crash of shell, the
+horrible rending and riving of body and limb.  In desperate straits,
+which would have tried the oldest soldiers, the brave miners did
+well. They never from the beginning had a chance save to show how
+gamely they could take punishment, but that at least they did.
+Bullets were coming from all sides at once and yet no enemy was
+visible.  They lined one side of the embankment, and they were shot in
+the back.  They lined the other, and were again shot in the back.
+Baird-Douglas, the Colonel, vowed to shoot the man who should raise
+the white flag, and he fell dead himself before he saw the hated
+emblem.  But it had to come.  A hundred and forty of the men were
+down, many of them suffering from the horrible wounds which shell
+inflicts.  The place was a shambles.  Then the flag went up and the
+Boers at last became visible. Outnumbered, outgeneralled, and without
+guns, there is no shadow of stain upon the good name of the one
+militia regiment which was ever seriously engaged during the war.
+Their position was hopeless from the first, and they came out of it
+with death, mutilation, and honour.
+
+Two miles south of the Rhenoster kopje stands Roodeval station, in
+which, on that June morning, there stood a train containing the mails
+for the army, a supply of great-coats, and a truck full of enormous
+shells. A number of details of various sorts, a hundred or more, had
+alighted from the train, twenty of them Post-office volunteers, some
+of the Pioneer Railway corps, a few Shropshires, and other waifs and
+strays. To them in the early morning came the gentleman with the
+tinted glasses, his hands still red with the blood of the Derbies. 'I
+have fourteen hundred men and four guns.  Surrender!' said the
+messenger. But it is not in nature for a postman to give up his
+postbag without a struggle.  'Never!' cried the valiant postmen. But
+shell after shell battered the corrugated-iron buildings about their
+ears, and it was not possible for them to answer the guns which were
+smashing the life out of them.  There was no help for it but to
+surrender. De Wet added samples of the British volunteer and of the
+British regular to his bag of militia.  The station and train were
+burned down, the great-coats looted, the big shells exploded, and the
+mails burned.  The latter was the one unsportsmanlike action which can
+up to that date be laid to De Wet's charge. Forty thousand men to the
+north of him could forego their coats and their food, but they yearned
+greatly for those home letters, charred fragments of which are still
+blowing about the veldt. [Footnote: Fragments continually met the eye
+which must have afforded curious reading for the victors. 'I hope you
+have killed all those Boers by now,' was the beginning of one letter
+which I could not help observing.]
+
+For three days De Wet held the line, and during all that time he
+worked his wicked will upon it. For miles and miles it was wrecked
+with most scientific completeness.  The Rhenoster bridge was
+destroyed. So, for the second time, was the Roodeval bridge. The rails
+were blown upwards with dynamite until they looked like an unfinished
+line to heaven.  De Wet's heavy hand was everywhere.  Not a
+telegraph-post remained standing within ten miles.  His headquarters
+continued to be the kopje at Roodeval.
+
+On June 10th two British forces were converging upon the point of
+danger.  One was Methuen's, from Heilbron.  The other was a small
+force consisting of the Shropshires, the South Wales Borderers, and a
+battery which had come south with Lord Kitchener. The energetic Chief
+of the Staff was always sent by Lord Roberts to the point where a
+strong man was needed, and it was seldom that he failed to justify his
+mission.  Lord Methuen, however, was the first to arrive, and at once
+attacked De Wet, who moved swiftly away to the eastward.  With a
+tendency to exaggeration, which has been too common during the war,
+the affair was described as a victory.  It was really a strategic and
+almost bloodless move upon the part of the Boers.  It is not the
+business of guerillas to fight pitched battles.  Methuen pushed for
+the south, having been informed that Kroonstad had been
+captured. Finding this to be untrue, he turned again to the eastward
+in search of De Wet.
+
+That wily and indefatigable man was not long out of our ken.  On June
+14th he appeared once more at Rhenoster, where the construction
+trains, under the famous Girouard, were working furiously at the
+repair of the damage which he had already done.  This time the guard
+was sufficient to beat him off, and he vanished again to the eastward.
+He succeeded, however, in doing some harm, and very nearly captured
+Lord Kitchener himself.  A permanent post had been established at
+Rhenoster under the charge of Colonel Spens of the Shropshires, with
+his own regiment and several guns. Smith-Dorrien, one of the youngest
+and most energetic of the divisional commanders, had at the same time
+undertaken the supervision and patrolling of the line.
+
+An attack had at this period been made by a cormmando of some hundred
+Boers at the Sand River to the south of Kroonstad, where there is a
+most important bridge. The attempt was frustrated by the Royal
+Lancaster regiment and the Railway Pioneer regiment, helped by some
+mounted infantry and Yeomanry.  The fight was for a time a brisk one,
+and the Pioneers, upon whom the brunt of it fell, behaved with great
+steadiness. The skirmish is principally remarkable for the death of
+Major Seymour of the Pioneers, a noble American, who gave his services
+and at last his life for what, in the face of all slander and
+misrepresentation, he knew to be the cause of justice and of liberty.
+
+It was hoped now, after all these precautions, that the last had been
+seen of the gentleman with the tinted glasses, but on June 21st he was
+back in his old haunts once more.  Honing Spruit Station, about midway
+between Kroonstad and Roodeval, was the scene of his new raid.  On
+that date his men appeared suddenly as a train waited in the station,
+and ripped up the rails on either side of it.  There were no guns at
+this point, and the only available troops were three hundred of the
+prisoners from Pretoria, armed with Martini-Henry rifles and obsolete
+ammunition. A good man was in command, however -- the same Colonel
+Bullock of the Devons who had distinguished himself at Colenso -- and
+every tattered, half-starved wastrel was nerved by a recollection of
+the humiliations which he had already endured. For seven hours they
+lay helpless under the shell-fire, but their constancy was rewarded by
+the arrival of Colonel Brookfield with 300 Yeomanry and four guns of
+the 17th R.F.A., followed in the evening by a larger force from the
+south.  The Boers fled, but left some of their number behind them;
+while of the British, Major Hobbs and four men were killed and
+nineteen wounded.  This defence of three hundred half-armed men
+against seven hundred Boer riflemen, with three guns firing shell and
+shrapnel, was a very good performance.  The same body of burghers
+immediately afterwards attacked a post held by Colonel Evans with two
+companies of the Shropshires and fifty Canadians. They were again
+beaten back with loss, the Canadians under Inglis especially
+distinguishing themselves by their desperate resistance in an exposed
+position.
+
+All these attacks, irritating and destructive as they were, were not
+able to hinder the general progress of the war.  After the battle of
+Diamond Hill the captured position was occupied by the mounted
+infantry, while the rest of the forces returned to their camps round
+Pretoria, there to await the much-needed remounts. At other parts of
+the seat of war the British cordon was being drawn more tightly round
+the Boer forces. Buller had come as far as Standerton, and Ian
+Hamilton, in the last week of June, had occupied Heidelberg.  A week
+afterwards the two forces were able to join hands, and so to
+completely cut off the Free State from the Transvaal armies.  Hamilton
+in these operations had the misfortune to break his collar-bone, and
+for a time the command of his division passed to Hunter -- the one
+man, perhaps, whom the army would regard as an adequate successor.
+
+It was evident now to the British commanders that there would be no
+peace and no safety for their communications while an undefeated army
+of seven or eight thousand men, under such leaders as De Wet and
+Olivier, was lurking amid the hills which flanked their railroad.  A
+determined effort was made, therefore, to clear up that corner of the
+country.  Having closed the only line of escape by the junction of Ian
+Hamilton and of Buller, the attention of six separate bodies of troops
+was concentrated upon the stalwart Freestaters. These were the
+divisions of Rundle and of Brabant from the south, the brigade of
+Clements on their extreme left, the garrison of Lindley under Paget,
+the garrison of Heilbron under Macdonald, and, most formidable of all,
+a detachment under Hunter which was moving from the north.  A crisis
+was evidently approaching.
+
+The nearest Free State town of importance still untaken was Bethlehem
+-- a singular name to connect with the operations of war.  The country
+on the south of it forbade an advance by Rundle or Brabant, but it was
+more accessible from the west. The first operation of the British
+consisted, therefore, in massing sufficient troops to be able to
+advance from this side.  This was done by effecting a junction between
+Clements from Senekal, and Paget who commanded at Lindley, which was
+carried out upon July 1st near the latter place.  Clements encountered
+some opposition, but besides his excellent infantry regiments, the
+Royal Irish, Worcesters, Wiltshires, and Bedfords, he had with him the
+2nd Brabant's Horse, with yeomanry, mounted infantry, two 5-in. guns,
+and the 8th B.F.A.  Aided by a demonstration on the part of Grenfell
+and of Brabant, he pushed his way through after three days of
+continual skirmish.
+
+On getting into touch with Clements, Paget sallied out from Lindley,
+leaving the Buffs behind to garrison the town.  He had with him
+Brookfield's mounted brigade one thousand strong, eight guns, and two
+fine battalions of infantry, the Munster Fusiliers and the Yorkshire
+Light Infantry.  On July 3rd he found near Leeuw Kop a considerable
+force of Boers with three guns opposed to him, Clements being at that
+time too far off upon the flank to assist him.  Four guns of the 38th
+R.F.A. (Major Oldfield) and two belonging to the City Volunteers came
+into action. The Royal Artillery guns appear to have been exposed to a
+very severe fire, and the losses were so heavy that for a time they
+could not be served.  The escort was inadequate, insufficiently
+advanced, and badly handled, for the Boer riflemen were able, by
+creeping up a donga, to get right into the 38th battery, and the
+gallant major, with Lieutenant Belcher, was killed in the defence of
+the guns.  Captain FitzGerald, the only other officer present, was
+wounded in two places, and twenty men were struck down, with nearly
+all the horses of one section.  Captain Marks, who was brigade-major
+of Colonel Brookfield's Yeomanry, with the help of Lieut. Keevil Davis
+and the 15th I.Y. came to the rescue of the disorganised and almost
+annihilated section.  At the same time the C.I.V. guns were in
+imminent danger, but were energetically covered by Captain Budworth,
+adjutant of the battery.  Soon, however, the infantry, Munster
+Fusiliers, and Yorkshire Light Infantry, which had been carrying out a
+turning movement, came into action, and the position was taken.  The
+force moved onwards, and on July 6th they were in front of Bethlehem.
+
+The place is surrounded by hills, and the enemy was found strongly
+posted. Clements's force was now on the left and Paget's on the right.
+>From both sides an attempt was made to turn the Boer flanks, but they
+were found to be very wide and strong.  All day a long-range action
+was kept up while Clements felt his way in the hope of coming upon
+some weak spot in the position, but in the evening a direct attack was
+made by Paget's two infantry regiments upon the right, which gave the
+British a footing on the Boer position.  The Munster Fusiliers and the
+Yorkshire Light Infantry lost forty killed and wounded, including four
+officers, in this gallant affair, the heavier loss and the greater
+honour going to the men of Munster.
+
+The centre of the position was still held, and on the morning of July
+7th Clements gave instructions to the colonel of the Royal Irish to
+storm it if the occasion should seem favourable.  Such an order to
+such a regiment means that the occasion will seem favourable. Up they
+went in three extended lines, dropping forty or fifty on the way, but
+arriving breathless and enthusiastic upon the crest of the ridge.
+Below them, upon the further side, lay the village of Bethlehem.  On
+the slopes beyond hundreds of horsemen were retreating, and a gun was
+being hurriedly dragged into the town.  For a moment it seemed as if
+nothing had been left as a trophy, but suddenly a keen-eyed sergeant
+raised a cheer, which was taken up again and again until it resounded
+over the veldt.  Under the crest, lying on its side with a broken
+wheel, was a gun -- one of the 15-pounders of Stormberg which it was a
+point of honour to regain once more. Many a time had the gunners been
+friends in need to the infantry.  Now it was the turn of the infantry
+to do something in exchange.  That evening Clements had occupied
+Bethlehem, and one more of their towns had passed out of the hands of
+the Freestaters.
+
+A word now as to that force under General Hunter which was closing in
+from the north.  The gallant and energetic Hamilton, lean, aquiline,
+and tireless, had, as already stated, broken his collar-bone at
+Heidelberg, and it was as his lieutenant that Hunter was leading these
+troops out of the Transvaal into the Orange River Colony. Most of his
+infantry was left behind at Heidelberg, but he took with him
+Broadwood's cavalry (two brigades) and Bruce Hamilton's 21st infantry
+brigade, with Ridley's mounted infantry, some seven thousand men in
+all.  On the 2nd of July this force reached Frankfort in the north of
+the Free State without resistance, and on July 3rd they were joined
+there by Macdonald's force from Heilbron, so that Hunter found himself
+with over eleven thousand men under his command.  Here was an
+instrument with which surely the COUP DE GRACE could be given to the
+dying State.  Passing south, still without meeting serious resistance,
+Hunter occupied Reitz, and finally sent on Broadwood's cavalry to
+Bethlehem, where on July 8th they joined Paget and Clements.
+
+The net was now in position, and about to be drawn tight, but at this
+last moment the biggest fish of all dashed furiously out from it.
+Leaving the main Free State force in a hopeless position behind him,
+De Wet, with fifteen hundred well-mounted men and five guns, broke
+through Slabbert's Nek between Bethlehem and Ficksburg, and made
+swiftly for the north-west, closely followed by Paget's and
+Broadwood's cavalry. It was on July 16th that he made his dash for
+freedom.  On the 19th Little, with the 3rd Cavalry Brigade, had come
+into touch with him near Lindley.  De Wet shook himself clear, and
+with splendid audacity cut the railway once more to the north of
+Honing Spruit, gathering up a train as he passed, and taking two
+hundred details prisoners.  On July 22nd De Wet was at Vredefort,
+still closely followed by Broadwood, Ridley, and Little, who gleaned
+his wagons and his stragglers.  Thence he threw himself into the hilly
+country some miles to the south of the Vaal River, where he lurked for
+a week or more while Lord Kitchener came south to direct the
+operations which would, as it was hoped, lead to a surrender.
+
+Leaving the indomitable guerilla in his hiding-place, the narrative
+must return to that drawing of the net which still continued in spite
+of the escape of this one important fish.  On all sides the British
+forces had drawn closer, and they were both more numerous and more
+formidable in quality.  It was evident now that by a rapid advance
+from Bethlehem in the direction of the Basuto border all Boers to the
+north of Ficksburg would be hemmed in. On July 22nd the columns were
+moving. On that date Paget moved out of Bethlehem, and Rundle took a
+step forward from Ficksburg.  Bruce Hamilton had already, at the cost
+of twenty Cameron Highlanders, got a grip upon a bastion of that rocky
+country in which the enemy lurked.  On the 23rd Hunter's force was
+held by the Boers at the strong pass of Retief's Nek, but on the 24th
+they were compelled to abandon it, as the capture of Slabbert's Nek by
+Clements threatened their rear.  This latter pass was fortified most
+elaborately. It was attacked upon the 23rd by Brabant's Horse and the
+Royal Irish without success.  Later in the day two companies of the
+Wiltshire Regiment were also brought to a standstill, but retained a
+position until nightfall within stone-throw of the Boer lines, though
+a single company had lost 17 killed and wounded.  Part of the Royal
+Irish remained also close to the enemy's trenches. Under cover of
+darkness, Clements sent four companies of the Royal Irish and two of
+the Wiltshires under Colonel Guinness to make a flanking movement
+along the crest of the heights.  These six companies completely
+surprised the enemy, and caused them to hurriedly evacuate the
+position.  Their night march was performed under great difficulties,
+the men crawling on hands and knees along a rocky path with a drop of
+400 feet upon one side. But their exertions were greatly rewarded.
+Upon the success of their turning movement depended the fall of
+Slabbert's Nek.  Betief's Nek was untenable if we held Slabbert's Nek,
+and if both were in our hands the retreat of Prinsloo was cut off.
+
+At every opening of the hills the British guns were thundering, and
+the heads of British columns were appearing on every height.  The
+Highland Brigade had fairly established themselves over the Boer
+position, though not without hard fighting, in which a hundred men of
+the Highland Light Infantry had been killed and wounded.  The
+Seaforths and the Sussex had also gripped the positions in front of
+them, and taken some punishment in doing so.  The outworks of the
+great mountain fortress were all taken, and on July 26th the British
+columns were converging on Fouriesburg, while Naauwpoort on the line
+of retreat was held by Macdonald. It was only a matter of time now
+with the Boers.
+
+On the 28th Clements was still advancing, and contracting still
+further the space which was occupied by our stubborn foe.  He found
+himself faced by the stiff position of Slaapkrantz, and a hot little
+action was needed before the Boers could be dislodged.  The fighting
+fell upon Brabant's Horse, the Royal Irish, and the Wiltshires.  Three
+companies of the latter seized a farm upon the enemy's left, but lost
+ten men in doing so, while their gallant colonel, Carter, was severely
+wounded in two places.  The Wiltshires, who were excellently handled
+by Captain Bolton, held on to the farm and were reinforced there by a
+handful of the Scots Guards.  In the night the position was abandoned
+by the Boers, and the advance swept onwards.  On all sides the
+pressure was becoming unendurable.  The burghers in the valley below
+could see all day the twinkle of British heliographs from every hill,
+while at night the constant flash of signals told of the sleepless
+vigilance which hemmed them in.  Upon July 29th, Prinsloo sent in a
+request for an armistice, which was refused.  Later in the day he
+despatched a messenger with the white flag to Hunter, with an
+announcement of his unconditional surrender.
+
+On July 30th the motley army which had held the British off so long
+emerged from among the mountains. But it soon became evident that in
+speaking for all Prinsloo had gone beyond his powers. Discipline was
+low and individualism high in the Boer army. Every man might repudiate
+the decision of his commandant, as every man might repudiate the white
+flag of his comrade.  On the first day no more than eleven hundred men
+of the Ficksburg and Ladybrand commandos, with fifteen hundred horses
+and two guns, were surrendered. next day seven hundred and fifty more
+men came in with eight hundred horses, and by August 6th the total of
+the prisoners had mounted to four thousand one hundred and fifty with
+three guns, two of which were our own.  But Olivier, with fifteen
+hundred men and several guns, broke away from the captured force and
+escaped through the hills.  Of this incident General Hunter, an
+honourable soldier, remarks in his official report: 'I regard it as a
+dishonourable breach of faith upon the part of General Olivier, for
+which I hold him personally responsible. He admitted that he knew that
+General Prinsloo had included him in the unconditional surrender.'  It
+is strange that, on Olivier's capture shortly afterwards, he was not
+court-martialled for this breach of the rules of war, but that
+good-natured giant, the Empire, is quick -- too quick, perhaps -- to
+let byegones be byegones.  On August 4th Harrismith surrendered to
+Macdonald, and thus was secured the opening of the Van Reenen's Pass
+and the end of the Natal system of railways.  This was of the very
+first importance, as the utmost difficulty had been found in supplying
+so large a body of troops so far from the Cape base.  In a day the
+base was shifted to Durban, and the distance shortened by two-thirds,
+while the army came to be on the railway instead of a hundred miles
+from it. This great success assured Lord Roberts's communications from
+serious attack, and was of the utmost importance in enabling him to
+consolidate his position at Pretoria.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE HALT AT PRETORIA
+
+
+Lord Roberts had now been six weeks in the capital, and British troops
+had overrun the greater part of the south and west of the Transvaal,
+but in spite of this there was continued Boer resistance, which flared
+suddenly up in places which had been nominally pacified and disarmed.
+It was found, as has often been shown in history, that it is easier to
+defeat a republican army than to conquer it.  From Klerksdorp, from
+Ventersdorp, from Rustenburg, came news of risings against the newly
+imposed British authority. The concealed Mauser and the bandolier were
+dug up once more from the trampled corner of the cattle kraal, and the
+farmer was a warrior once again.  Vague news of the exploits of De Wet
+stimulated the fighting burghers and shamed those who had submitted.
+A letter was intercepted from the guerilla chief to Cronje's son, who
+had surrendered near Rustenburg. De Wet stated that he had gained two
+great victories and had fifteen hundred captured rifles with which to
+replace those which the burghers had given up.  Not only were the
+outlying districts in a state of revolt, but even round Pretoria the
+Boers were inclined to take the offensive, while both that town and
+Johannesburg were filled with malcontents who were ready to fly to
+their arms once more.
+
+Already at the end of June there were signs that the Boers realised
+how helpless Lord Roberts was until his remounts should arrive.  The
+mosquitoes buzzed round the crippled lion.  On June 29th there was an
+attack upon Springs near Johannesburg, which was easily beaten off by
+the Canadians. Early in July some of the cavalry and mounted infantry
+patrols were snapped up in the neighbourhood of the capital.  Lord
+Roberts gave orders accordingly that Hutton and Mahon should sweep the
+Boers back upon his right, and push them as far as Bronkhorst Spruit.
+This was done on July 6th and 7th, the British advance meeting with
+considerable resistance from artillery as well as rifles.  By this
+movement the pressure upon the right was relieved, which might have
+created a dangerous unrest in Johannesburg, and it was done at the
+moderate cost of thirty-four killed and wounded, half of whom belonged
+to the Imperial Light Horse.  This famous corps, which had come across
+with Mahon from the relief of Mafeking, had, a few days before, ridden
+with mixed feelings through the streets of Johannesburg and past, in
+many instances, the deserted houses which had once been their
+homes. Many weary months were to pass before the survivors might
+occupy them.  On July 9th the Boers again attacked, but were again
+pushed back to the eastward.
+
+It is probable that all these demonstrations of the enemy upon the
+right of Lord Roberts's extended position were really feints in order
+to cover the far-reaching plans which Botha had in his mind.  The
+disposition of the Boer forces at this time appears to have been as
+follows: Botha with his army occupied a position along Delagoa railway
+line, further east than Diamond Hill, whence he detached the bodies
+which attacked Hutton upon the extreme right of the British position
+to the south-east of Pretoria.  To the north of Pretoria a second
+force was acting under Grobler, while a third under Delarey had been
+despatched secretly across to the left wing of the British, north-west
+of Pretoria.  While Botha engaged the attention of Lord Roberts by
+energetic demonstrations on his right, Grobler and Delarey were to
+make a sudden attack upon his centre and his left, each point being
+twelve or fifteen miles from the other.  It was well devised and very
+well carried out; but the inherent defect of it was that, when
+subdivided in this way, the Boer force was no longer strong enough to
+gain more than a mere success of outposts.
+
+De la Rey's attack was delivered at break of day on July 11th at
+Uitval's Nek, a post some eighteen miles west of the capital.  This
+position could not be said to be part of Lord Roberts's line, but
+rather to be a link to connect his army with Rustenburg.  It was
+weakly held by three companies of the Lincolns with two others in
+support, one squadron of the Scots Greys, and two guns of 0 battery
+R.H.A.  The attack came with the first grey light of dawn, and for
+many hours the small garrison bore up against a deadly fire, waiting
+for the help which never came.  All day they held their assailants at
+bay, and it was not until evening that their ammunition ran short and
+they were forced to surrender. Nothing could have been better than the
+behaviour of the men, both infantry, cavalry, and gunners, but their
+position was a hopeless one.  The casualties amounted to eighty killed
+and wounded. Nearly two hundred were made prisoners and the two guns
+were taken.
+
+On the same day that De la Rey made his COUP at Uitval's Nek, Grobler
+had shown his presence on the north side of the town by treating very
+roughly a couple of squadrons of the 7th Dragoon Guards which had
+attacked him. By the help of a section of the ubiquitous 0 battery and
+of the 14th Hussars, Colonel Lowe was able to disengage his cavalry
+from the trap into which they had fallen, but it was at the cost of
+between thirty and forty officers and men killed, wounded, or taken.
+The old 'Black Horse' sustained their historical reputation, and
+fought their way bravely out of an almost desperate situation, where
+they were exposed to the fire of a thousand riflemen and four guns.
+
+On this same day of skirmishes, July 11th, the Gordons had seen some
+hot work twenty miles or so to the south of Uitval's Nek.  Orders had
+been given to the 19th Brigade (Smith-Dorrien's) to proceed to
+Krugersdorp, and thence to make their way north. The Scottish Yeomanry
+and a section of the 78th B.F.A. accompanied them.  The idea seems to
+have been that they would be able to drive north any Boers in that
+district, who would then find the garrison of Uitval's Nek at their
+rear.  The advance was checked, however, at a place called
+Dolverkrantz, which was strongly held by Boer riflemen.  The two guns
+were insufficiently protected, and the enemy got within short range of
+them, killing or wounding many of the gunners.  The lieutenant in
+charge, Mr. A. J. Turner, the famous Essex cricketer, worked the gun
+with his own hands until he also fell wounded in three places.  The
+situation was now very serious, and became more so when news was
+flashed of the disaster at Uitval's Nek, and they were ordered to
+retire.  They could not retire and abandon the guns, yet the fire was
+so hot that it was impossible to remove them.  Gallant attempts were
+made by volunteers from the Gordons -- Captain Younger and other brave
+men throwing away their lives in the vain effort to reach and to
+limber up the guns.  At last, under the cover of night, the teams were
+harnessed and the two field-pieces successfully removed, while the
+Boers who rushed in to seize them were scattered by a volley.  The
+losses in the action were thirty-six and the gain nothing.  Decidedly
+July 11th was not a lucky day for the British arms.
+
+It was well known to Botha that every train from the south was
+bringing horses for Lord Roberts's army, and that it had become
+increasingly difficult for De Wet and his men to hinder their arrival.
+The last horse must win, and the Empire had the world on which to
+draw. Any movement which the Boers would make must be made at once,
+for already both the cavalry and the mounted infantry were rapidly
+coming back to their full strength once more.  This consideration must
+have urged Botha to deliver an attack on July 16th, which had some
+success at first, but was afterwards beaten off with heavy loss to the
+enemy.  The fighting fell principally upon Pole-Carew and Hutton, the
+corps chiefly engaged being the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the
+New-Zealanders, the Shropshires, and the Canadian Mounted Infantry.
+The enemy tried repeatedly to assault the position, but were beaten
+back each time with a loss of nearly a hundred killed and wounded.
+The British loss was about sixty, and included two gallant young
+Canadian officers, Borden and Birch, the former being the only son of
+the minister of militia.  So ended the last attempt made by Botha upon
+the British positions round Pretoria.  The end of the war was not yet,
+but already its futility was abundantly evident.  This had become more
+apparent since the junction of Hamilton and of Buller had cut off the
+Transvaal army from that of the Free State.  Unable to send their
+prisoners away, and also unable to feed them, the Freestaters were
+compelled to deliver up in Natal the prisoners whom they had taken at
+Lindley and Roodeval. These men, a ragged and starving battalion,
+emerged at Ladysmith, having made their way through Van Reenen's
+Pass. It is a singular fact that no parole appears on these and
+similar occasions to have been exacted by the Boers.
+
+Lord Roberts, having remounted a large part of his cavalry, was ready
+now to advance eastward and give Botha battle.  The first town of any
+consequence along the Delagoa Railway is Middelburg, some seventy
+miles from the capital.  This became the British objective, and the
+forces of Mahon and Hamilton on the north, of. Pole-Carew in the
+centre, and of French and Hutton to the south, all converged upon
+There was no serious resistance, though the weather was abominable,
+and on July 27th the town was in the hands of the invaders. From that
+date until the final advance to the eastward French held this advanced
+post, while Pole-Carew guarded the railway line.  Rumours of trouble
+in the west had convinced Roberts that it was not yet time to push his
+advantage to the east, and he recalled Ian Hamilton's force to act for
+a time upon the other side of the seat of the war.  This excellent
+little army, consisting of Mahon's and Pilcher's mounted infantry, M
+battery R.H.A., the Elswick battery, two 5-in. and two 4.7 guns, with
+the Berkshires, the Border Regiment, the Argyle and Sutherlands, and
+the Scottish Borderers, put in as much hard work in marching and in
+fighting as any body of troops in the whole campaign.
+
+The renewal of the war in the west had begun some weeks before, but
+was much accelerated by the transference of De la Rey and his burghers
+to that side.  There is no district in the Transvaal which is better
+worth fighting for, for it is a fair country side, studded with
+farmhouses and green with orange-groves, with many clear streams
+running through it.  The first sign of activity appears to have been
+on July 7th, when a commando with guns appeared upon the hills above
+Rustenburg.  Hanbury Tracy, commandant of Rustenburg, was suddenly
+confronted with a summons to surrender. He had only 120 men and one
+gun, but he showed a bold front.  Colonel Houldsworth, at the first
+whisper of danger, had started from Zeerust with a small force of
+Australian bushmen, and arrived at Rustenburg in time to drive the
+enemy away in a very spirited action. On the evening of July 8th
+Baden-Powell took over the command, the garrison being reinforced by
+Plumer's command.
+
+The Boer commando was still in existence, however, and it was
+reinforced and reinvigorated by Delarey's success at Uitval's Nek.  On
+July 18th they began to close in upon Rustenburg again, and a small
+skirmish took place between them and the Australians. Methuen's
+division, which had been doing very arduous service in the north of
+the Free State during the last six weeks, now received orders to
+proceed into the Transvaal and to pass northwards through the
+disturbed districts en route for Rustenburg, which appeared to be the
+storm centre.  The division was transported by train from Kroonstad to
+Krugersdorp, and advanced on the evening of July 18th upon its
+mission, through a bare and fire-blackened country.  On the 19th Lord
+Methuen manoeuvred the Boers out of a strong position, with little
+loss to either side.  On the 21st he forced his way through Olifant's
+Nek, in the Magaliesberg range, and so established communication with
+Baden-Powell, whose valiant bushmen, under Colonel Airey, had held
+their own in a severe conflict near Magato Pass, in which they lost
+six killed, nineteen wounded, and nearly two hundred horses.  The
+fortunate arrival of Captain FitzClarence with the Protectorate
+Regiment helped on this occasion to avert a disaster. The force, only
+300 strong, without guns, had walked into an ugly ambuscade, and only
+the tenacity and resource of the men enabled them ever to extricate
+themselves.
+
+Although Methuen came within reach of Rustenburg, he did not actually
+join hands with Baden-Powell.  No doubt he saw and heard enough to
+convince him that that astute soldier was very well able to take care
+of himself.  Learning of the existence of a Boer force in his rear,
+Methuen turned, and on July 29th he was back at Frederickstad on the
+Potchefstroom-Krugersdorp railway.  The sudden change in his plans was
+caused doubtless by the desire to head off De Wet in case he should
+cross the Vaal River.  Lord Roberts was still anxious to clear the
+neighbourhood of Rustenburg entirely of the enemy; and he therefore,
+since Methuen was needed to complete the cordon round De Wet, recalled
+Hamilton's force from the east and despatched it, as already
+described, to the west of Pretoria.
+
+Before going into the details of the great De Wet hunt, in which
+Methuen's force was to be engaged, I shall follow Hamilton's division
+across, and give some account of their services.  On August 1st he set
+out from Pretoria for Rustenburg.  On that day and on the next he had
+brisk skirmishes which brought him successfully through the
+Magaliesberg range with a loss of forty wounded, mostly of the
+Berkshires.  On the 5th of August he had made his way to Rustenburg
+and drove off the investing force.  A smaller siege had been going on
+to westward, where at Elands River another Mafeking man, Colonel Hore,
+had been held up by the burghers.  For some days it was feared, and
+even officially announced, that the garrison had surrendered. It was
+known that an attempt by Carrington to relieve the place on August 5th
+had been beaten back, and that the state of the country appeared so
+threatening that he had been compelled, or had imagined himself to be
+compelled, to retreat as far as Mafeking, evacuating Zeerust and
+Otto's Hoop, abandoning the considerable stores which were collected
+at those places.  In spite of all these sinister indications the
+garrison was still holding its own, and on August 16th it was relieved
+by Lord Kitchener.
+
+This stand at Brakfontein on the Elands River appears to have been one
+of the very finest deeds of arms of the war.  The Australians have
+been so split up during the campaign, that though their valour and
+efficiency were universally recognised, they had no single exploit
+which they could call their own.  But now they can point to Elands
+River as proudly as the Canadians can to Paardeberg.  They were 500 in
+number, Victorians, New South Welshmen, and Queenslanders, the latter
+the larger unit, with a corps of Rhodesians. Under Hore were Major
+Hopper of the Rhodesians, and Major Toubridge of the Queenslanders.
+Two thousand five hundred Boers surrounded them, and most favourable
+terms of surrender were offered and scouted.  Six guns were trained
+upon them, and during 11 days 1,800 shells fell within their
+lines. The river was half a mile off, and every drop of water for man
+or beast had to come from there.  Nearly all their horses and 75 of
+the men were killed or wounded.  With extraordinary energy and
+ingenuity the little band dug shelters which are said to have exceeded
+in depth and efficiency any which the Boers have devised. Neither the
+repulse of Carrington, nor the jamming of their only gun, nor the
+death of the gallant Annett, was sufficient to dishearten them.  They
+were sworn to die before the white flag should wave above them. And so
+fortune yielded, as fortune will when brave men set their teeth, and
+Broadwood's troopers, filled with wonder and admiration, rode into the
+lines of the reduced and emaciated but indomitable garrison. When the
+ballad-makers of Australia seek for a subject, let them turn to Elands
+River, for there was no finer resistance in the war.  They will not
+grudge a place in their record to the 130 gallant Rhodesians who
+shared with them the honours and the dangers of the exploit.
+
+On August 7th Ian Hamilton abandoned Rustenburg, taking Baden-Powell
+and his men with him.  It was obviously unwise to scatter the British
+forces too widely by attempting to garrison every single town.  For
+the instant the whole interest of the war centred upon De Wet and his
+dash into the Transvaal.  One or two minor events, however, which
+cannot be fitted into any continuous narrative may be here introduced.
+
+One of these was the action at Faber's Put, by which Sir Charles
+Warren crushed the rebellion in Griqualand.  In that sparsely
+inhabited country of vast distances it was a most difficult task to
+bring the revolt to a decisive ending.  This Sir Charles Warren, with
+his special local knowledge and interest, was able to do, aud the
+success is doubly welcome as bringing additional honour to a man who,
+whatever view one may take of his action at Spion Kop, has grown grey
+in the service of the Empire.  With a column consisting mainly of
+colonials and of yeomanry he had followed the rebels up to a point
+within twelve miles of Douglas. Here at the end of May they turned
+upon him and delivered a fierce night attack, so sudden and so
+strongly pressed that much credit is due both to General and to troops
+for having repelled it.  The camp was attacked on all sides in the
+early dawn.  The greater part of the horses were stampeded by the
+firing, and the enemy's riflemen were found to be at very close
+quarters. For an hour the action was warm, but at the end of that time
+the Boers fled, leaving a number of dead behind them. The troops
+engaged in this very creditable action, which might have tried the
+steadiness of veterans, were four hundred of the Duke of Edinburgh's
+volunteers, some of Paget's horse and of the 8th Regiment Imperial
+Yeomanry, four Canadian guns, and twenty-five of Warren's Scouts.
+Their losses were eighteen killed and thirty wounded.  Colonel Spence,
+of the volunteers, died at the head of his regiment. A few days
+before, on May 27th, Colonel Adye had won a small engagement at Kheis,
+some distance to the westward, and the effect of the two actions was
+to put an end to open resistance. On June 20th De Villiers, the Boer
+leader, finally surrendered to Sir Charles Warren, handing over two
+hundred and twenty men with stores, rifles, and ammunition.  The last
+sparks had for the time been stamped out in the colony.
+
+There remain to be mentioned those attacks upon trains and upon the
+railway which had spread from the Free State to the Transvaal.  On
+July 19th a train was wrecked on the way from Potchefstroom to
+Krugersdorp without serious injury to the passengers. On July 31st,
+however, the same thing occurred with more murderous effect, the train
+running at full speed off the metals.  Thirteen of the Shropshires
+were killed and thirty-seven injured in this deplorable affair, which
+cost us more than many an important engagement. On August 2nd a train
+coming up from Bloemfontein was derailed by Sarel Theron and his gang
+some miles south of Kroonstad.  Thirty-five trucks of stores were
+burned, and six of the passengers (unarmed convalescent soldiers) were
+killed or wounded.  A body of mounted infantry followed up the Boers,
+who numbered eighty, and succeeded in killing and wounding several of
+them.
+
+On July 21st the Boers made a determined attack upon the railhead at a
+point thirteen miles east of Heidelberg, where over a hundred Royal
+Engineers were engaged upon a bridge.  They were protected by three
+hundred Dublin Fusiliers under Major English. For some hours the
+little party was hard pressed by the burghers, who had two
+field-pieces and a pom-pom. They could make no impression, however,
+upon the steady Irish infantry, and after some hours the arrival of
+General Hart with reinforcements scattered the assailants, who
+succeeded in getting their guns away in safety.
+
+At the beginning of August it must be confessed that the general
+situation in the Transvaal was not reassuring.  Springs near
+Johannesburg had in some inexplicable way, without fighting, fallen
+into the hands of the enemy.  Klerksdorp, an important place in the
+south-west, had also been reoccupied, and a handful of men who
+garrisoned it had been made prisoners without resistance.  Rustenburg
+was about to be abandoned, and the British were known to be falling
+back from Zeerust and Otto's Hoop, concentrating upon Mafeking.  The
+sequel proved however, that there was no cause for uneasiness in all
+this. Lord Roberts was concentrating his strength upon those objects
+which were vital, and letting the others drift for a time.  At present
+the two obviously important things were to hunt down De Wet and to
+scatter the main Boer army under Botha. The latter enterprise must
+wait upon the former, so for a fortnight all operations were in
+abeyance while the flying columns of the British endeavoured to run
+down their extremely active and energetic antagonist.
+
+At the end of July De Wet had taken refuge in some exceedingly
+difficult country near Reitzburg, seven miles south of the Vaal
+River. The operations were proceeding vigorously at that time against
+the main army at Fouriesberg, and sufficient troops could not be
+spared to attack him, but he was closely observed by Kitchener and
+Broadwood with a force of cavalry and mounted infantry. With the
+surrender of Prinsloo a large army was disengaged, and it was obvious
+that if De Wet remained where he was he must soon be surrounded.  On
+the other hand, there was no place of refuge to the south of him.
+With great audacity he determined to make a dash for the Transvaal, in
+the hope of joining hands with De la Rey's force, or else of making
+his way across the north of Pretoria, and so reaching Botha's army.
+President Steyn went with him, and a most singular experience it must
+have been for him to be harried like a mad dog through the country in
+which he had once been an honoured guest.  De Wet's force was
+exceedingly mobile, each man having a led horse, and the ammunition
+being carried in light Cape carts.
+
+In the first week of August the British began to thicken round his
+lurking-place, and De Wet knew that it was time for him to go.  He
+made a great show of fortifying a position, but it was only a ruse to
+deceive those who watched him.  Travelling as lightly as possible, he
+made a dash on August 7th at the drift which bears his own name, and
+so won his way across the Vaal River, Kitchener thundering at his
+heels with his cavalry and mounted infantry. Methuen's force was at
+that time at Potchefstroom, and instant orders had been sent to him to
+block the drifts upon the northern side. It was found as he
+approached the river that the vanguard of the enemy was already across
+and that it was holding the spurs of the hills which would cover the
+crossing of their comrades.  By the dash of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers
+and the exertions of the artillery ridge after ridge was carried, but
+before evening De Wet with supreme skill had got his convoy across,
+and had broken away, first to the eastward and then to the north.  On
+the 9th Methuen was in touch with him again, and the two savage little
+armies, Methuen worrying at the haunch, and De Wet snapping back over
+his shoulder, swept northward over the huge plains. Wherever there was
+ridge or kopje the Boer riflemen staved off the eager pursuers.  Where
+the ground lay flat and clear the British guns thundered onwards and
+fired into the lines of wagons.  Mile after mile the running fight was
+sustained, but the other British columns, Broadwood's men and
+Kitchener's men, had for some reason not come up.  Methuen alone was
+numerically inferior to the men he was chasing, but he held on with
+admirable energy and spirit.  The Boers were hustled off the kopjes
+from which they tried to cover their rear.  Twenty men of the
+Yorkshire Yeomanry carried one hill with the bayonet, though only
+twelve of them were left to reach the top.
+
+De Wet trekked onwards during the night of the 9th, shedding wagons
+and stores as he went.  He was able to replace some .of his exhausted
+beasts from the farmhouses which he passed.  Methuen on the morning of
+the 10th struck away to the west, sending messages back to Broadwood
+and Kitchener in the rear that they should bear to the east, and so
+nurse the Boer column between them. At the same time he sent on a
+messenger, who unfortunately never arrived, to warn Smith-Dorrien at
+Bank Station to throw himself across De Wet's path. On the 11th it was
+realised that De Wet had succeeded, in spite of great exertions upon
+the part of Smith-Dorrien's infantry, in crossing the railway line,
+and that he had left all his pursuers to the south of him. But across
+his front lay the Magaliesberg range.  There are only three passes,
+the Magato Pass, Olifant's Nek, and Commando Nek.  It was understood
+that all three were held by British troops.  It was obvious,
+therefore, that if Methuen could advance in such a way as to cut De
+Wet off from slipping through to the west he would be unable to get
+away. Broadwood and Kitchener would be behind him, and Pretoria, with
+the main British army, to the east.
+
+Methuen continued to act with great energy and judgment.  At three
+A.M. on the 12th be started from Fredericstadt, and by 5 P.M. on
+Tuesday he had done eighty miles in sixty hours. The force which
+accompanied him was all mounted, 1,200 of the Colonial Division (1st
+Brabant's, Cape Mounted Rifles, Kaifrarian Rifles, and Border Horse),
+and the Yeomanry with ten guns. Douglas with the infantry was to
+follow behind, and these brave fellows covered sixty-six miles in
+seventy-six hours in their eagerness to be in time.  No men could have
+made greater efforts than did those of Methuen, for there was not one
+who did not appreciate the importance of the issue and long to come to
+close quarters with the wily leader who had baffled us so long.
+
+On the 12th Methuen's van again overtook De Wet's rear, and the old
+game of rearguard riflemen on one side, and a pushing artillery on the
+other, was once more resumed. All day the Boers streamed over the
+veldt with the guns and the horsemen at their heels. A shot from the
+78th battery struck one of De Wet's guns, which was abandoned and
+captured.  Many stores were taken and much more, with the wagons which
+contained them, burned by the Boers.  Fighting incessantly, both
+armies traversed thirty-five miles of ground that day.
+
+It was fully understood that Olifant's Nek was held by the British, so
+Methuen felt that if he could block the Magato Pass all would be
+well. He therefore left De Wet's direct track, knowing that other
+British forces were behind him, and he continued his swift advance
+until he had reached the desired position.  It really appeared that at
+last the elusive raider was in a corner.  But, alas for fallen hopes,
+and alas for the wasted efforts of gallant men!  Olifant's Nek had
+been abandoned and De Wet had passed safely through it into the plains
+beyond, where De la Rey's force was still in possession.  In vain
+Methuen's weary column forced the Magato Pass and descended into
+Rustenburg.  The enemy was in a safe country once more.  Whose the
+fault, or whether there was a fault at all, it is for the future to
+determine. At least unalloyed praise can be given to the Boer leader
+for the admirable way in which he had extricated himself from so many
+dangers. On the 17th,. moving along the northern side of the
+mountains, he appeared at Commando Nek on the Little Crocodile River,
+where he summoned Baden-Powell to surrender, and received some chaff
+in reply from that light-hearted commander. Then, swinging to the
+eastward, he endeavoured to cross to the north of Pretoria. On the
+19th he was heard of at Hebron. Baden-Powell and Paget had, however,
+already barred this path, and De Wet, having sent Steyn on with a
+small escort, turned back to the Free State. On the 22nd it was
+reported that, with only a handful of his followers, he had crossed
+the Magaliesberg range by a bridlepath and was riding southwards.
+Lord Roberts was at last free to turn his undivided attention upon
+Botha.
+
+Two Boer plots had been discovered during the first half of August,
+the one in Pretoria and the other in Johannesburg, each having for its
+object a rising against the British in the town. Of these the former,
+which was the more serious, involving as it did the kidnapping of Lord
+Roberts, was broken up by the arrest of the deviser, Hans Cordua, a
+German lieutenant in the Transvaal Artillery. On its merits it is
+unlikely that the crime would have been met by the extreme penalty,
+especially as it was a question whether the AGENT PROVOCATEUR had not
+played a part. But the repeated breaches of parole, by which our
+prisoners of one day were in the field against us on the next, called
+imperatively for an example, and it was probably rather for his broken
+faith than for his hare-brained scheme that Cordua died. At the same
+time it is impossible not to feel sorrow for this idealist of
+twenty-three who died for a cause which was not his own.  He was shot
+in the garden of Pretoria Gaol upon August 24th. A fresh and more
+stringent proclamation from Lord Roberts showed that the British
+Commander was losing his patience in the face of the wholesale return
+of paroled men to the field, and announced that such perfidy would in
+future be severely punished.  It was notorious that the same men had
+been taken and released more than once.  One man killed in action was
+found to have nine signed passes in his pocket.  It was against such
+abuses that the extra severity of the British was aimed.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE ADVANCE TO KOMATIPOORT
+
+
+The time had now come for the great combined movement which was to
+sweep the main Boer army off the line of the Delagoa railway, Cut its
+source of supplies, and fllow it into that remote and mountainous
+Lydenburg district which had always been proclaimed as the last refuge
+of the burghers. Before entering upon this most difficult of all his
+advances Lord Roberts waited until the cavalry and mounted infantry
+were well mounted again. Then, when all was ready, the first step in
+this last stage of the regular campaign was taken by General Buller,
+who moved his army of Natal veterans off the railway line and advanced
+to a position from which he could threaten the flank and rear of Botha
+if he held his ground against Lord Roberts. Buller's cavalry had been
+reinforced by the arrival of Strathcona's Horse, a fine body of
+Canadian troopers, whose services had been presented to the nation by
+the public-spirited nobleman whose name they bore. They were
+distinguished by their fine physique, and by the lassoes, cowboy
+stirrups, and large spurs of the North-Western plains.
+
+It was in the first week of July that Clery joined hands with the
+Heidelberg garrison, while Coke with the 10th Brigade cleared the
+right flank of the railway by an expedition as far as Amersfoort. On
+July 6th the Natal communications were restored, and on the 7th Buller
+was able to come through to Pretoria and confer with the
+Commander-in-Chief.  A Boer force with heavy guns still hung about the
+line, and several small skirmishes were fought between Vlakfontein and
+Greylingstad in order to drive it away. By the middle of July the
+immediate vicinity of the railway was clear save for some small
+marauding parties who endeavoured to tamper with the rails and the
+bridges.  Up to the end of the month the whole of the Natal army
+remained strung along the line of communications from Heidelberg to
+Standerton, waiting for the collection of forage and transport to
+enable them to march north against Botha's position.
+
+On August 8th Buller's troops advanced to the northeast from
+Paardekop, pushing a weak Boer force with five guns in front of
+them. At the cost of twenty-five wounded, principally of the 60th
+Rifles, the enemy was cleared off, and the town of Amersfoort was
+occupied. On the 13th, moving on the same line, and meeting with very
+slight opposition, Buller took possession of Ermelo. His advance was
+having a good effect upon the district, for on the 12th the Standerton
+commando, which numbered 182 men, surrendered to Clery.  On the 15th,
+st~l skirmishing, Buller's men were at Twyfelaar, and had taken
+possession of Carolina.  Here and there a distant horseman riding over
+the olive-coloured hills showed how closely and incessan~y be was
+watched; but, save for a little sniping upon his flanks, there was no
+fighting. He was coming now within touch of French's cavalry,
+operating from Middelburg, and on the 14th heliographic communication
+was established with Gordon's Brigade.
+
+Buller's column had come nearer to its friends, but it was also nearer
+to the main body of Boers who were waiting in that very rugged piece
+of country which lies between Belfast in the west and Machadodorp in
+the east. From this rocky stronghold they had thrown out mobile bodies
+to harass the British advance from the south, and every day brought
+Buller into closer touch with these advance guards of the enemy.  On
+August 21st he had moved eight miles nearer to Belfast, French
+operating upon his left flank.  Here he found the Boers in
+considerable numbers, but he pushed them northward with his cavalry,
+mounted infantry, and artillery, losing between thirty and forty
+killed and wounded, the greater part from the ranks of the 18th
+Hussars and the Gordon Highlanders.  This march brought him within
+fifteen miles of Belfast, which lay due north of him. At the same time
+Pole-Carew with the central column of Lord Roberts's force had
+advanced along the railway line, and on August 24th he occupied
+Belfast with little resistance.  He found, however, that the enemy
+were holding the formidable ridges which lie between that place and
+Dalmanutha, and that they showed every sign of giving battle,
+presenting a firm front to Buller on the south as well as to Roberts's
+army on the west.
+
+On the 23rd some successes attended their efforts to check the advance
+from the south.  During the day Buller had advanced steadily, though
+under incessant fire.  The evening found him only six miles to the
+south of Dalmanutha, the centre of the Boer position. By some
+misfortune, however, after dark two companies of the Liverpool
+Regiment found themselves isolated from their comrades and exposed to
+a very heavy fire.  They had pushed forward too far, and were very
+near to being surrounded and destroyed.  There were fifty-six
+casualties in their ranks, and thirty-two, including their wounded
+captain, were taken.  The total losses in the day were 121.
+
+On August 25th it was evident that important events were at hand, for
+on that date Lord Roberts arrived at Belfast and held a conference
+with Buller, French, and Pole-Carew.  The general communicated his
+plans to his three lieutenants, and on the 26th and following days the
+fruits of the interview were seen in a succession of rapid manoeuvres
+which drove the Boers out of this, the strongest position which they
+had held since they left the banks of the Tugela.
+
+The advance of Lord Roberts was made, as his wont is, with two
+widespread wings, and a central body to connect them.  Such a movement
+leaves the enemy in doubt as to which flank will really be attacked,
+while if he denudes his centre in order to strengthen both flanks
+there is the chance of a frontal advance which might cut him in two.
+French with two cavalry brigades formed the left advance, Pole-Carew
+the centre, and Buller the right, the whole operations extending over
+thirty miles of infamous country.  It is probable that Lord Roberts
+had reckoned that the Boer right was likely to be their strongest
+position, since if it were turned it would cut off their retreat upon
+Lydenburg, so his own main attack was directed upon their left. This
+was carried out by General Buller on August 26th and 27th.
+
+On the first day the movement upon Buller's part consisted in a very
+deliberate reconnaissance of and closing in upon the enemy's position,
+his troops bivouacking upon the ground which they had won.  On the
+second, finding that all further progress was barred by the strong
+ridge of Bergendal, he prepared his attack carefully with artillery
+and then let loose his infantry upon it. It was a gallant feat of arms
+upon either side.  The Boer position was held by a detachment of the
+Johannesburg Police, who may have been bullies in peace, but were
+certainly heroes in war.  The fire of sixty guns was concentrated for
+a couple of hours upon a position only a few hundred yards in
+diameter.  In this infernal fire, which left the rocks yellow with
+lyddite, the survivors still waited grimly for the advance of the
+infantry.  No finer defence was made in the war.  The attack was
+carried out across an open glacis by the 2nd Rifle Brigade and by the
+Inniskilling Fusiliers, the men of Pieter's Hill.  Through a deadly
+fire the gallant infantry swept over the position, though Metcalfe,
+the brave colonel of the Rifles, with eight other officers, and
+seventy men were killed or wounded. Lysley, Steward, and Campbell were
+all killed in leading their companies, but they could not have met
+their deaths upon an occasion more honourable to their battalion.
+Great credit must also be given to A and B companies of the
+Inniskilling Fusiliers, who were actually the first over the Boer
+position.  The cessation of the artillery fire was admirably timed.
+It was sustained up to the last possible instant.  'As it was,' said
+the captain of the leading company, 'a 94-lb. shell burst about thirty
+yards in front of the right of our lot.  The smell of the lyddite was
+awful.'  A pom-pom and twenty prisoners, including the commander of
+the police, were the trophies of the day.  An outwork of the Boer
+position had been carried, and the rumour of defeat and disaster had
+already spread through their ranks. Braver men than the burghers have
+never lived, but they had reached the limits of human endurance, and a
+long experience of defeat in the field had weakened their nerve and
+lessened their morale.  They were no longer men of the same fibre as
+those who had crept up to the trenches of Spion Kop, or faced the lean
+warriors of Ladysmith on that grim January morning at Caesar's Camp.
+Dutch tenacity would not allow them to surrender, and yet they
+realised how hopeless was the fight in which they were engaged.
+Nearly fifteen thousand of their best men were prisoners, ten thousand
+at the least had returned to their farms and taken the oath.  Another
+ten had been killed, wounded, or incapacitated.  Most of the European
+mercenaries had left; they held only the ultimate corner of their own
+country, they had lost their grip upon the railway line, and their
+supply of stores and of ammunition was dwindling.  To such a pass had
+eleven months of war reduced that formidable army who had so
+confidently advanced to the conquest of South Africa.
+
+While Buller had established himself firmly upon the left of the Boer
+position, Pole-Carew had moved forward to the north of the railway
+line, and French had advanced as far as Swart Kopjes upon the Boer
+right. These operations on August 26th and 27th were met with some
+resistance, and entailed a loss of forty or fifty killed and wounded;
+but it soon became evident that the punishment which they had received
+at Bergendal had taken the fight out of the Boers, and that this
+formidable position was to be abandoned as the others had been. On the
+28th the burghers were retreating, and Machadodorp, where Kruger had
+sat so long in his railway carriage, protesting that he would
+eventually move west and not east, was occupied by Buller.  French,
+moving on a more northerly route, entered Watervalonder with his
+cavalry upon the same date, driving a small Boer force before
+him. Amid rain and mist the British columns were pushing rapidly
+forwards, but still the burghers held together, and still their
+artillery was uncaptured.  The retirement was swift, but it was not
+yet a rout.
+
+On the 30th the British cavalry were within touch of Nooitgedacht, and
+saw a glad sight in a long trail of ragged men who were hurrying in
+their direction along the railway line.  They were the British
+prisoners, eighteen hundred in number, half of whom had been brought
+from Waterval when Pretoria was captured, while the other half
+represented the men who had been sent from the south by De Wet, or
+from the west by De la Rey.  Much allowance must be made for the
+treatment of prisoners by a belligerent who is himself short of food,
+but nothing can excuse the harshness which the Boers showed to the
+Colonials who fell into their power, or the callous neglect of the
+sick prisoners at Waterval. It is a humiliating but an interesting
+fact that from first to last no fewer than seven thousand of our men
+passed into their power, all of whom were now recovered save some
+sixty officers, who had been carried off by them in their flight.
+
+On September 1st Lord Roberts showed his sense of the decisive nature
+of these recent operations by publishing the proclamation which had
+been issued as early as July 4th, by which the Transvaal became a
+portion of the British Empire.  On the same day General Buller, who
+had ceased to advance to the east and retraced his steps as far as
+Helvetia, began his northerly movement in the direction of Lydenburg,
+which is nearly fifty miles to the north of the railway line.  On that
+date his force made a march of fourteen miles, which brought them over
+the Crocodile River to Badfontein. Here, on September 2nd, Buller
+found that the indomitable Botha was still turning back upon him, for
+he was faced by so heavy a shell fire, coming from so formidable a
+position, that he had to be content to wait in front of it until some
+other column should outflank it.  The days of unnecessary frontal
+attacks were for ever over, and his force, though ready for anything
+which might be asked of it, had gone through a good deal in the recent
+operations.  Since August 21st they had been under fire almost every
+day, and their losses, though never great on any one occasion,
+amounted in the aggregate during that time to 365. They had crossed
+the Tugela, they had relieved Ladysmith, they had forced Laing's Nek,
+and now it was to them that the honour had fallen of following the
+enemy into this last fastness.  Whatever criticism may be directed
+against some episodes in the Natal campaign, it must never be
+forgotten that to Buller and to his men have fallen some of the
+hardest tasks of the war, and that these tasks have always in the end
+been successfully carried out.  The controversy about the unfortunate
+message to White, and the memory of the abandoned guns at Colenso,
+must not lead us to the injustice of ignoring all that is to be set to
+the credit account.
+
+On September 3rd Lord Roberts, finding how strong a position faced
+Buller, despatched Ian Hamilton with a force to turn it upon the
+right.  Brocklehurst's brigade of cavalry joined Hamilton in his
+advance.  On the 4th he was within signalling distance of Buller, and
+on the right rear of the Boer position.  The occupation of a mountain
+called Zwaggenhoek would establish Hamilton firmly, and the difficult
+task of seizing it at night was committed to Colonel Douglas and his
+fine regiment of Royal Scots.  It was Spion Kop over again, but with a
+happier ending.  At break of day the Boers discovered that their
+position had been rendered untenable and withdrew, leaving the road to
+Lydenburg clear to Buller. Hamilton and he occupied the town upon the
+6th.  The Boers had split into two parties, the larger one with the
+guns falling back upon Kruger's Post, and the others retiring to
+Pilgrim's Rest.  Amid cloud-girt peaks and hardly passable ravines the
+two long-enduring armies still wrestled for the final mastery.
+
+To the north-east of Lydenburg, between that town and Spitzkop, there
+is a formidable ridge called the Mauchberg, and here again the enemy
+were found to be standing at bay.  They were even better than their
+word, for they had always said that they would make their last stand
+at Lydenburg, and now they were making one beyond it.  But the
+resistance was weakening.  Even this fine position could not be held
+against the rush of the three regiments, the Devons, the Royal Irisb,
+and the Royal Scots, who were let loose upon it.  The artillery
+supported the attack admirably.  'They did nobly,' said one who led
+the advance.  'It is impossible to overrate the value of their
+support.  They ceased also exactly at the right moment.  One more
+shell would have hit us.'  Mountain mists saved the defeated burghers
+from a close pursuit, but the hills were carried.  The British losses
+on this day, September 8th, were thirteen killed and twenty-five
+wounded; but of these thirty-eight no less than half were accounted
+for by one of those strange malignant freaks which can neither be
+foreseen nor prevented. A shrapnel shell, fired at an incredible
+distance, burst right over the Volunteer Company of the Gordons who
+were marching in column. Nineteen men fell, but it is worth recording
+that, smitten so suddenly and so terribly, the gallant Volunteers
+continued to advance as steadily as before this misfortune befell
+them.  On the 9th Buller was still pushing forward to Spitzkop, his
+guns and the 1st Rifles overpowering a weak rearguard resistance of
+the Boers.  On the 10th he had reached Klipgat, which is halfway
+between the Mauchberg and Spitzkop.  So close was the pursuit that the
+Boers, as they streamed through the passes, flung thirteen of their
+ammunition wagons over the cliffs to prevent them from falling into
+the hands of the British horsemen.  At one period it looked as if the
+gallant Boer guns had waited too long in covering the retreat of the
+burghers.  Strathcona's Horse pressed closely upon them.  The
+situation was saved by the extreme coolness and audacity of the Boer
+gunners.  'When the cavalry were barely half a mile behind the rear
+gun' says an eye-witness 'and we regarded its capture as certain, the
+LEADING Long Tom deliberately turned to bay and opened with case shot
+at the pursuers streaming down the hill in single file over the head
+of his brother gun. It was a magnificent coup, and perfectly
+successful.  The cavalry had to retire, leaving a few men wounded, and
+by the time our heavy guns had arrived both Long Toms had got clean
+away.'  But the Boer riflemen would no longer stand. Demoralised after
+their magnificent struggle of eleven months the burghers were now a
+beaten and disorderly rabble flying wildly to the eastward, and only
+held together by the knowledge that in their desperate situation there
+was more comfort and safety in numbers. The war seemed to be swiftly
+approaching its close. On the 15th Buller occupied Spitzkop in the
+north, capturing a quantity of stores, while on the 14th French took
+Barberton in the south, releasing all the remaining British prisoners
+and taking possession of forty locomotives, which do not appear to
+have been injured by the enemy.  Meanwhile Pole-Carew had worked along
+the railway line, and had occupied Kaapmuiden, which was the junction
+where the Barberton line joins that to Lourenço Marques.  Ian
+Hamilton's force, after the taking of Lydenburg and the action which
+followed, turned back, leaving Buller to go his own way, and reached
+Komatipoort on September 24th, having marched since September 9th
+without a halt through a most difficult country.
+
+On September 11th an incident had occurred which must have shown the
+most credulous believer in Boer prowess that their cause was indeed
+lost.  On that date Paul Kruger, a refugee from the country which he
+had ruined, arrived at Lourenço Marques, abandoning his beaten
+commandos and his deluded burghers.  How much had happened since those
+distant days when as a little herdsboy he had walked behind the
+bullocks on the great northward trek. How piteous this ending to all
+his strivings and his plottings!  A life which might have closed amid
+the reverence of a nation and the admiration of the world was destined
+to finish in exile, impotent and undignified.  Strange thoughts must
+have come to him during those hours of flight, memories of his virile
+and turbulent youth, of the first settlement of those great lands, of
+wild wars where his hand was heavy upon the natives, of the triumphant
+days of the war of independence, when England seemed to recoil from
+the rifles of the burghers. And then the years of prosperity, the
+years when the simple farmer found himself among the great ones of the
+earth, his name a household word in Europe, his State rich and
+powerful, his coffers filled with the spoil of the poor drudges who
+worked so hard and paid taxes so readily. Those were his great days,
+the days when he hardened his heart against their appeals for justice
+and looked beyond his own borders to his kinsmen in the hope of a
+South Africa which should be all his own. And now what had come of it
+all? A handful of faithful attendants, and a fugitive old man,
+clutching in his flight at his papers and his moneybags. The last of
+the old-world Puritans, he departed poring over his well-thumbed
+Bible, and proclaiming that the troubles of his country arose, not
+from his own narrow and corrupt administration, but from some
+departure on the part of his fellow burghers from the stricter tenets
+of the dopper sect.  So Paul Kruger passed away from the country which
+he had loved and ruined.
+
+Whilst the main army of Botha had been hustled out of their position
+at Machadodorp and scattered at Lydenburg and at Barberton, a number
+of other isolated events had occurred at different points of the seat
+of war, each of which deserves some mention.  The chief of these was a
+sudden revival of the war in the Orange River Colony, where the band
+of Olivier was still wandering in the north-eastern districts.
+Hunter, moving northwards after the capitulation of Prinsloo at
+Fouriesburg, came into contact on August 15th with this force near
+Heilbron, and had forty casualties, mainly of the Highland Light
+Infantry, in a brisk engagement. For a time the British seemed to have
+completely lost touch with Olivier, who suddenly on August 24th struck
+at a small detachment consisting almost entirely of Queenstown Rifle
+Volunteers under Colonel Ridley, who were reconnoitring near
+Winburg. The Colonial troopers made a gallant defence.  Throwing
+themselves into the farmhouse of Helpmakaar, and occupying every post
+of vantage around it, they held off more than a thousand assailants,
+in spite of the three guns which the latter brought to bear upon them.
+A hundred and thirty-two rounds were fired at the house, but the
+garrison still refused to surrender.  Troopers who had been present at
+Wepener declared that the smaller action was the warmer of the
+two. Finally on the morning of the third day a relief force arrived
+upon the scene, and the enemy dispersed.  The British losses were
+thirty-two killed and wounded. Nothing daunted by his failure, Olivier
+turned upon the town of Winburg and attempted to regain it, but was
+defeated again and scattered, he and his three sons being taken.  The
+result was due to the gallantry and craft of a handful of the
+Queenstown Volunteers, who laid an ambuscade in a donga, and disarmed
+the Boers as they passed, after the pattern of Sanna's Post.  By this
+action one of the most daring and resourceful of the Dutch leaders
+fell into the hands of the British.  It is a pity that his record is
+stained by his dishonourable conduct in breaking the compact made on
+the occasion of the capture of Prinsloo. But for British magnanimity a
+drumhead court-martial should have taken the place of the hospitality
+of the Ceylon planters.
+
+On September 2nd another commando of Free State Boers under Fourie
+emerged from the mountain country on the Basuto border, and fell upon
+Ladybrand, which was held by a feeble garrison consisting of one
+company of the Worcester regiment and forty-three men of the Wiltshire
+Yeomanry.  The Boers, who had several guns with them, appear to have
+been the same force which had been repulsed at Winburg.  Major White,
+a gallant marine, whose fighting qualities do not seem to have
+deteriorated with his distance from salt water, had arranged his
+defences upon a hill, after the Wepener model, and held his own most
+stoutly.  So great was the disparity of the forces that for days acute
+anxiety was felt lest another of those humiliating surrenders should
+interrupt the record of victories, and encourage the Boers to further
+resistance.  The point was distant, and it was some time before relief
+could reach them.  But the dusky chiefs, who from their native
+mountains looked down on the military drama which was played so close
+to their frontier, were again, as on the Jammersberg, to see the Boer
+attack beaten back by the constancy of the British defence. The thin
+line of soldiers, 150 of them covering a mile and a half of ground,
+endured a heavy shell and rifle fire with unshaken resolution,
+repulsed every attempt of the burghers, and held the flag flying until
+relieved by the forces under White and Bruce Hamilton.  In this march
+to the relief Hamilton's infantry covered eighty miles in four and a
+half days.  Lean and hard, inured to warfare, and far from every
+temptation of wine or women, the British troops at this stage of the
+campaign were in such training, and marched so splendidly, that the
+infantry was often very little slower than the cavalry. Methuen's fine
+performance in pursuit of De Wet, where Douglas's infantry did
+sixty-six miles in seventy-five hours, the City Imperial Volunteers
+covering 224 miles in fourteen days, with a single forced march of
+thirty miles in seventeen hours, the Shropshires forty-three miles in
+thirty-two hours, the forty-five miles in twenty-five hours of the
+Essex Regiment, Bruce Hamilton's march recorded above, and many other
+fine efforts serve to show the spirit and endurance of the troops.
+
+In spite of the defeat at Winburg and the repulse at Ladybrand, there
+still remained a fair number of broken and desperate men in the Free
+State who held out among the difficult country of the east. A party of
+these came across in the middle of September and endeavoured to cut
+the railway near Brandfort.  They were pursued and broken up by
+Macdonald, who, much aided in his operations by the band of scouts
+which Lord Lovat had brought with him from Scotland, took several
+prisoners and a large number of wagons and of oxen.  A party of these
+Boers attacked a small post of sixteen Yeomanry under Lieutenant
+Slater at Buitfontein, but were held at bay until relief came from
+Brandfort.
+
+At two other points the Boer and British forces were in contact during
+these operations.  One was to the immediate north of Pretoria1 where
+Grobler's commando was faced by Paget's brigade.  On August 18th the
+Boers were forced with some loss out of Hornies Nek, which is ten
+miles to the north of the capital.  On the 22nd a more important
+skirmish took place at Pienaar's River, in the same direction, between
+Baden-Powell's men, who had come thither in pursuit of De Wet, and
+Grobler's band.  The advance guards of the two forces galloped into
+each other, and for once Boer and Briton looked down the muzzles of
+each other's rifles. The gallant Rhodesian Regiment, which had done
+such splendid service during the war, suffered most heavily. Colonel
+Spreckley and four others were killed, and six or seven wounded.  The
+Boers were broken, however, and fled, leaving twenty-five prisoners to
+the victors. Baden-Powell and Paget pushed forwards as far as
+Nylstroom, but finding themselves in wild and profitless country they
+returned towards Pretoria, and established the British northern posts
+at a place called Warm Baths. Here Paget commanded, while Baden-Powell
+shortly afterwards went down to Cape Town to make arrangements for
+taking over the police force of the conquered countries, and to
+receive the enthusiastic welcome of his colonial
+fellow-countrymen. Plumer, with a small force operating from Warm
+Baths, scattered a Boer cornmando on September 1st, capturing a few
+prisoners and a considerable quantity of munitions of war.  On the 5th
+there was another skirmish in the same neighbourhood, during which the
+enemy attacked a kopje held by a company of Munster Fusiliers, and was
+driven off with loss.  Many thousands of cattle were captured by the
+British in this part of the field of operations, and were sent into
+Pretoria, whence they helped to supply the army in the east.
+
+There was still considerable effervescence in the western districts of
+the Transvaal, and a mounted detachment met with fierce opposition at
+the end of August on their journey from Zeerust to
+Krugersdorp. Methuen, after his unsuccessful chase of De Wet, had gone
+as far as Zeerust, and had then taken his force on to Mafeking to
+refit.  Before leaving Zeerust, however, he had despatched Colonel
+Little to Pretoria with a column which consisted of his own third
+cavalry brigade, 1st Brabant's, the Kaffrarian Rifles, R battery of
+Horse Artillery, and four Colonial guns.  They were acting as guard to
+a very large convoy of 'returned empties.' The district which they had
+to traverse is one of the most fertile in the Transvaal, a land of
+clear streams and of orange groves. But the farmers are numerous and
+aggressive, and the column, which was 900 strong, could clear all
+resistance from its front, but found it impossible to brush off the
+snipers upon its flanks and rear.  Shortly after their start the
+column was deprived of the services of its gallant leader, Colonel
+Little, who was shot while riding with his advance scouts.  Colonel
+Dalgety took over the command.  Numerous desultory attacks culminated
+in a fierce skirmish at Quaggafontein on August 31st, in which the
+column had sixty casualties. The event might have been serious, as De
+la Rey's main force appears to have been concentrated upon the British
+detachment, the brunt of the action falling upon the Kaffrarian
+Rifles.  By a rapid movement the column was able to extricate itself
+and win its way safely to Krugersdorp, but it narrowly escaped out of
+the wolf's jaws, and as it emerged into the open country De la Rey's
+guns were seen galloping for the pass which they had just come
+through. This force was sent south to Kroonstad to refit.
+
+Lord Methuen's army, after its long marches and arduous work, arrived
+at Mafeking on August 28th for the purpose of refitting. Since his
+departure from Boshof on May 14th his men had been marching with
+hardly a rest, and he had during that time fought fourteen
+engagements. He was off upon the war-path once more, with fresh horses
+and renewed energy, on September 8th, and on the 9th, with the
+co-operation of General Douglas, he scattered a Boer force at Malopo,
+capturing thirty prisoners and a great. quantity of stores.  On the
+14th he ran down a convoy and regained one of the Colenso guns and
+much ammunition. On the 20th he again made large captures. If in the
+early phases of the war the Boers had given Paul Methuen some evil
+hours, he was certainly getting his own back again.  At the same time
+Clements was despatched from Pretoria with a small mobile force for
+the purpose of clearing the Rustenburg and Krugersdorp districts,
+which had always been storm centres. These two forces, of Methuen and
+of Clements, moved through the country, sweeping the scattered Boer
+bands before them, and hunting them down until they dispersed. At
+Kekepoort and at Hekspoort Clements fought successful skirmishes,
+losing at the latter action Lieutenant Stanley of the Yeomanry, the
+Somersetshire cricketer, who showed, as so many have done, how close
+is the connection between the good sportsman and the good soldier. On
+the 12th Douglas took thirty-nine prisoners near Lichtenburg. On the
+18th Rundle captured a gun at Bronkhorstfontein. Hart at
+Potchefstroom, Hildyard in the Utrecht district, Macdonald in the
+Orange River Colony, everywhere the British Generals were busily
+stamping out the remaining embers of what had been so terrible a
+conflagration.
+
+Much trouble but no great damage was inflicted upon the British during
+this last stage of the war by the incessant attacks upon the lines of
+railway by roving bands of Boers.  The actual interruption of traffic
+was of little consequence, for the assiduous Sappers with their gangs
+of Basuto labourers were always at hand to repair the break. But the
+loss of stores, and occasionally of lives, was more serious.  Hardly a
+day passed that the stokers and drivers were not made targets of by
+snipers among the kopjes,[Footnote: It is to be earnestly hoped that
+those in authority will see that these men obtain the medal and any
+other reward which can mark our sense of their faithful service. One
+of them in the Orange River Colony, after narrating to me his many
+hairbreadth escapes, prophesied bitterly that the memory of his
+services would pass with the need for them.] and occasionally a train
+was entirely destroyed.  Chief among these raiders was the wild
+Theron, who led a band which contained men of all nations -- the same
+gang who had already, as narrated, held up a train in the Orange River
+Colony.  On August 31st he derailed another at Flip River to the south
+of Johannesburg, blowing up the engine and burning thirteen
+trucks. Almost at the same time a train was captured near Kroonstad,
+which appeared to indicate that the great De Wet was back in his old
+hunting-grounds.  On the same day the line was cut at Standerton. A
+few days later, however, the impunity with which these feats had been
+performed was broken, for in a similar venture near Krugersdorp the
+dashing Theron and several of his associates lost their lives.
+
+Two other small actions performed at this period of the war demand a
+passing notice.  One was a smart engagement near Kraai Railway
+Station, in which Major Broke of the Sappers with a hundred men
+attacked a superior Boer force upon a kopje and drove them off with
+loss -- a feat which it is safe to say he could not have accomplished
+six months earlier. The other was the fine defence made by 125 of the
+Canadian Mounted Rifles, who, while guarding the railway, were attacked
+by a considerable Boer force with two guns.  They proved once more, as
+Ladybrand and Elands River had shown, that with provisions,
+cartridges, and brains, the smallest force can successfully hold its
+own if it confines itself to the defensive.
+
+And now the Boer cause appeared to be visibly tottering to its fall.
+The flight of the President had accelerated that process of
+disintegration which had already set in. Schalk Burger had assumed the
+office of Vice-President, and the notorious Ben Viljoen bad become
+first lieutenant of Louis Botha in maintaining the struggle. Lord
+Roberts had issued an extremely judicious proclamation, in which he
+pointed out the uselessness of further resistance, declared that
+guerilla warfare would be ruthlessly suppressed, and informed the
+burghers that no fewer than fifteen thousand of their
+fellow-countrymen were in his hands as prisoners, and that none of
+these could he released until the last rifle had been laid down.  From
+all sides in the third week of September the British forces were
+converging on Komatipoort, the frontier town. Already wild figures,
+stained and tattered after nearly a year of warfare, were walking the
+streets of Lourenço Marques, gazed at with wonder and some distrust by
+the Portuguese inhabitants.  The exiled burghers moodily pacing the
+streets saw their exiled President seated in his corner of the
+Governor's verandah, the well-known curved pipe still dangling from
+his mouth, the Bible by his chair.  Day by day the number of these
+refugees increased.  On September 17th special trains were arriving
+crammed with the homeless burghers, and with the mercenaries of many
+nations -- French, German, Irish-American, and Russian -- all anxious
+to make their way home.  By the 19th no fewer than seven hundred had
+passed over.
+
+At dawn on September 22nd a half-hearted attempt was made by the
+commando of Erasmus to attack Elands River Station, but it was beaten
+back by the garrison.  While it was going on Paget fell upon the camp
+which Erasmus had left behind him, and captured his stores.  From all
+over the country, from Plumer's Bushmen, from Barton at Krugersdorp,
+from the Colonials at Heilbron, from Clements on the west, came the
+same reports of dwindling resistance and of the abandoning of cattle,
+arms, and ammunition.
+
+On September 24th came the last chapter in this phase of the campaign
+in the Eastern Transvaal, when at eight in the morning Pole-Carew and
+his Guardsmen occupied Komatipoort.  They had made desperate marches,
+one of them through thick bush, where they went for nineteen miles
+without water, but nothing could shake the cheery gallantry of the
+men.  To them fell the honour, an honour well deserved by their
+splendid work throughout the whole campaign, of entering and occupying
+the ultimate eastern point which the Boers could hold. Resistance had
+been threatened and prepared for, but the grim silent advance of that
+veteran infantry took the heart out of the defence.  With hardly a
+shot fired the town was occupied.  The bridge which would enable the
+troops to receive their supplies from Lourenço Marques was still
+intact.  General Pienaar and the greater part of his force, amounting
+to over two thousand men, had crossed the frontier and had been taken
+down to Delagoa Bay, where they met the respect and attention which
+brave men in misfortune deserve.  Small bands had slipped away to the
+north and the south, but they were insignificant in numbers and
+depressed in spirit. For the time it seemed that the campaign was
+over, but the result showed that there was greater vitality in the
+resistance of the burghers and less validity in their oaths than any
+one had imagined.
+
+One find of the utmost importance was made at Komatipoort, and at
+Hector Spruit on the Crocodile River. That excellent artillery which
+had fought so gallant a fight against our own more numerous guns, was
+found destroyed and abandoned. Pole-Carew at Komatipoort got one Long
+Tom (96 lb.) Creusot, and one smaller gun. Ian Hamilton at Hector
+Spruit found the remains of many guns, which included two of our horse
+artillery twelve-pounders, two large Creusot guns, two Krupps, one
+Vickers-Maxim quick firer, two pompoms and four mountain guns.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE CAMPAIGN OF DE WET
+
+
+IT had been hoped that the dispersal of the main Boer army, the
+capture of its guns and the expulsion of many both of the burghers and
+of the foreign mercenaries, would have marked the end of the war.
+These expectations were, however, disappointed, and South Africa was
+destined to be afflicted and the British Empire disturbed by a useless
+guerilla campaign. After the great and dramatic events which
+characterised the earlier phases of the struggle between the Briton
+and the Boer for the mastery of South Africa it is somewhat of the
+nature of an anticlimax to turn one's attention to those scattered
+operations which prolonged the resistance for a turbulent year at the
+expense of the lives of many brave men on either side.  These raids
+and skirmishes, which had their origin rather in the hope of vengeance
+than of victory, inflicted much loss and misery upon the country, but,
+although we may deplore the desperate resolution which bids brave men
+prefer death to subjugation, it is not for us, the countrymen of
+Hereward or Wallace, to condemn it.
+
+In one important respect these numerous, though trivial, conflicts
+differed from the battles in the earlier stages of the war.  The
+British had learned their lesson so thoroughly that they often turned
+the tables upon their instructors. Again and again the surprise was
+effected, not by the nation of hunters, but by those roineks whose
+want of cunning and of veldt-craft had for so long been a subject of
+derision and merriment. A year of the kopje and the donga had altered
+all that. And in the proportion of casualties another very marked
+change had occurred.  Time was when in battle after battle a tenth
+would have been a liberal estimate for the losses of the Boers
+compared with those of the Briton. So it was at Stormberg; so it was
+at Colenso; so it may have been at Magersfontein.  But in this last
+stage of the war the balance was rather in favour of the British. It
+may have been because they were now frequently acting on the
+defensive, or it may have been from an improvement in their fire, or
+it may have come from the more desperate mood of the burghers, but in
+any case the fact remains that every encounter diminished the small
+reserves of the Boers rather than the ample forces of their opponents.
+
+One other change had come over the war, which caused more distress and
+searchings of conscience among some of the people of Great Britain
+than the darkest hours of their misfortunes.  This lay in the
+increased bitterness of the struggle, and in those more strenuous
+measures which the British commanders felt themselves entitled and
+compelled to adopt. Nothing could exceed the lenity of Lord Roberts's
+early proclainations in the Free State.  But, as the months went on
+and the struggle still continued, the war assumed a harsher aspect.
+Every farmhouse represented a possible fort, and a probable depôt for
+the enemy.  The extreme measure of burning them down was only carried
+out after a definite offence, such as affording cover for snipers, or
+as a deterrent to railway wreckers, but in either case it is evident
+tbat the women or children who were usually the sole occupants of the
+farm could not by their own unaided exertions prevent the line from
+being cut or the riflemen from firing. It is even probable that the
+Boers may have committed these deeds in the vicinity of houses the
+destruction of which they would least regret.  Thus, on humanitarian
+grounds there were strong arguments against this policy of destruction
+being pushed too far, and the political reasons were even stronger,
+since a homeless man is necessarily the last man to settle down, and a
+burned-out family the last to become contented British citizens. On
+the other hand, the impatience of the army towards what they regarded
+as the abuses of lenity was very great, and they argued that the war
+would be endless if the women in the farm were allowed always to
+supply the sniper on the kopje.  The irregular and brigand-like
+fashion in which the struggle was carried out had exasperated the
+soldiers, and though there were few cases of individual outrage or
+unauthorised destruction, the general orders were applied with some
+harshness, and repressive measures were taken which warfare may justify
+but which civilisation must deplore.
+
+After the dispersal of the main army at Komatipoort there remained a
+considerable number of men in arms, some of them irreconcilable
+burghers, some of them foreign adventurers, and some of them Cape
+rebels, to whom British arms were less terrible than British law.
+These men, who were still well armed and well mounted, spread
+themselves over the country, and acted with such energy that they gave
+the impression of a large force. They made their way into the settled
+districts, and brought fresh hope and fresh disaster to many who had
+imagined that the war had passed for ever away from them.  Under
+compulsion from their irreconcilable countrymen, a large number of the
+farmers broke their parole, mounted the horses which British leniency
+had left with them, and threw themselves once more into the struggle,
+adding their honour to the other sacrifices which they had made for
+their country. In any account of the continual brushes between these
+scattered bands and the British forces, there must be such a
+similarity in procedure and result, that it would be hard for the
+writer and intolerable for the reader if they were set forth in
+detail. As a general statement it may be said that during the months
+to come there was no British garrison in any one of the numerous posts
+in the Transvaal, and in that portion of the Orange River Colony which
+lies east of the railway, which was not surrounded by prowling
+riflemen, there was no convoy sent to supply those garrisons which was
+not liable to be attacked upon the road, and there was no train upon
+any one of the three lines which might not find a rail up and a
+hundred raiders covering it with their Mausers.  With some two
+thousand miles of railroad to guard, so many garrisons to provide, and
+an escort to be furnished to every convoy, there remained out of the
+large body of British troops in the country only a moderate force who
+were available for actual operations.  This force was distributed in
+different districts scattered over a wide extent of country, and it
+was evident that while each was strong enough to suppress local
+resistance, still at any moment a concentration of the Boer scattered
+forces upon a single British column might place the latter in a
+serious position.  The distribution of the British in October and
+November was roughly as follows.  Methuen was in the Rustenburg
+district, Barton at Krugersdorp and operating down the line to
+Klerksdorp, Settle was in the West, Paget at Pienaar's River, Clements
+in the Magaliesberg, Hart at Potchefstroom, Lyttelton at Middelburg,
+Smith-Dorrien at Belfast, W. Kitchener at Lydenburg, French in the
+Eastern Transvaal, Hunter, Rundle, Brabant, and Bruce Hamilton in the
+Orange River Colony. Each of these forces was occupied in the same
+sort of work, breaking up small bodies of the enemy, hunting for arms,
+bringing in refugees, collecting supplies, and rounding up
+cattle. Some, however, were confronted with organised resistance and
+some were not.  A short account may be given in turn of each separate
+column.
+
+I would treat first the operations of General Barton, because they
+form the best introduction to that narrative of the doings of
+Christian De Wet to which this chapter will be devoted.
+
+The most severe operations during the month of October fell to the lot
+of this British General, who, with some of the faithful fusiliers whom
+he had led from the first days in Natal, was covering the line from
+Krugersdorp to Klerksdorp.  It is a long stretch, and one which, as
+the result shows, is as much within striking distance of the Orange
+Free Staters as of the men of the Transvaal. Upon October 5th Barton
+left Krugersdorp with a force which consisted of the Scots and Welsh
+Fusiliers, five hundred mounted men, the 78th R.F.A., three pom-poms,
+and a 4.7 naval gun. For a fortnight, as the small army moved slowly
+down the line of the railroad, their progress was one continual
+skirmish.  On October 6th they brushed the enemy aside in an action in
+which the volunteer company of the Scots Fusiliers gained the applause
+of their veteran comrades.  On the 8th and 9th there was sharp
+skirmishing, the brunt of which on the latter date fell upon the Welsh
+Fusiliers, who had three officers and eleven men injured.  The
+commandos of Douthwaite, Liebenberg, and Van der Merve seem to have
+been occupied in harassing the column during their progress through
+the Gatsrand range.  On the 15th the desultory sniping freshened again
+into a skirmish in which the honours and the victory belonged mainly
+to the Welshmen and to that very keen and efficient body, the Scottish
+Yeomanry.  Six Boers were left dead upon the ground. On October 17th
+the column reached Frederickstad, where it halted.  On that date six
+of Marshall's Horse were cut off while collecting supplies.  The same
+evening three hundred of the Imperial Light Horse came in from
+Krugersdorp.
+
+Up to this date the Boer forces which dogged the column had been
+annoying but not seriously aggressive. On the 19th, however, affairs
+took an unexpected turn. The British scouts rode in to report a huge
+dust cloud whirling swiftly northwards from the direction of the Vaal
+River -- soon plainly visible to all, and showing as it drew nearer
+the hazy outline of a long column of mounted men.  The dark coats of
+the riders, and possibly the speed of their advance, showed tbat they
+were Boers, and soon it was rumoured that it was no other than
+Christian De Wet with his merry men, who, with characteristic
+audacity, had ridden back into the Transvaal in the hope of
+overwhelming Barton's column.
+
+It is some time since we have seen anything of this energetic
+gentleman with the tinted glasses, but as the narrative will be much
+occupied with him in the future a few words are needed to connect him
+with the past. It has been already told how he escaped through the net
+which caught so many of his countrymen at the time of the surrender of
+Prinsloo, and how he was chased at furious speed from the Vaal River
+to the mountains of Magaliesberg.  Here he eluded his pursuers,
+separated from Steyn, who desired to go east to confer with Kruger,
+and by the end of August was back again in his favourite recruiting
+ground in the north of the Orange River Colony.  Here for nearly two
+months he had lain very quiet, refitting and reassembling his
+scattered force, until now, ready for action once more, and fired by
+the hope of cutting off an isolated British force, he rode swiftly
+northwards with two thousand men under that rolling cloud which had
+been spied by the watchers of Frederickstad.
+
+The problem before him was a more serious one, however, than any which
+he had ever undertaken, for this was no isolated regiment or
+ill-manned post, but a complete little field force very ready to do
+battle with him. De Wet's burghers, as they arrived, sprang from their
+ponies and went into action in their usual invisible but effective
+fashion, covered by the fire of several guns.  The soldiers had thrown
+up lines of sangars, however, and were able, though exposed to a very
+heavy fire coming from several directions, to hold their own until
+nightfall, when the defences were made more secure.  On the 20th,
+21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th the cordon of the attack was drawn
+gradually closer, the Boers entirely surrounding the British force,
+and it was evident that they were feeling round for a point at which
+an assault might be delivered.
+
+The position of the defenders upon the morning of October 25th was as
+follows.  The Scots Fusiliers were holding a ridge to the
+south. General Barton with the rest of his forces occupied a hill some
+distance off. Between the two was a valley down which ran the line,
+and also the spruit upon which the British depended for their water
+supply.  On each side of the line were ditches, and at dawn on this
+seventh day of the investment it was found that these had been
+occupied by snipers during the night, and that it was impossible to
+water the animals. One of two things must follow. Either the force
+must shift its position or it must drive these men out of their cover.
+No fire could do it, as they lay in perfect safety.  They must be
+turned out at the point of the bayonet.
+
+About noon several companies of Scots and Welsh Fusiliers advanced
+from different directions in very extended order upon the
+ditcbes. Captain Baillie's company of the former regiment first
+attracted the fire of the burghers.  Wounded twice the brave officer
+staggered on until a third bullet struck him dead.  Six of his men
+were found lying beside him.  The other companies were exposed in
+their turn to a severe fire, but rushing onwards they closed rapidly
+in upon the ditches. There have been few finer infantry advances
+during the war, for the veldt was perfectly flat and the fire
+terrific. A mile of ground was crossed by the fusiliers.  Three
+gallant officers -- Dick, Elliot, and Best -- went down; but the rush
+of the men was irresistible. At the edge of the ditches the supports
+overtook the firing line, and they all surged into the trenches
+together.  Then it was seen how perilous was the situation of the Boer
+snipers. They had placed themselves between the upper and the nether
+millstone.  There was no escape for them save across the open.  It
+says much for their courage that they took that perilous choice rather
+than wave the white flag, which would have ensured their safety.
+
+The scene which followed has not often been paralleled. About a
+hundred and fifty burghers rushed out of the ditches, streaming across
+the veldt upon foot to the spot where their horses had been
+secreted. Rifles, pom-poms, and shrapnel played upon them during this
+terrible race.  'A black running mob carrying coats, blankets, boots,
+rifles, &c., was seen to rise as if from nowhere and rush as fast as
+they could, dropping the various things they carried as they ran.'
+One of their survivors has described how awful was that wild blind
+flight, through a dust-cloud thrown up by the shells. For a mile the
+veldt was dotted with those who had fallen. Thirty-six were found
+dead, thirty were wounded, and thirty more gave themselves up as
+prisoners.  Some were so demoralised that they rushed into the
+hospital and surrendered to the British doctor.  The Imperial Light
+Horse were for some reason slow to charge.  Had they done so at once,
+many eye-witnesses agree that not a fugitive should have escaped.  On
+the other hand, the officer in command may have feared that in doing
+so he might mask the fire of the British guns.
+
+One incident in the action caused some comment at he time.  A small
+party of Imperial Light Horse, gallantly led by Captain Yockney of B
+Squadron, came to close quarters with a group of Boers.  Five of the
+enemy having held up their hands Yockney passed them and pushed on
+against their comrades.  On this the prisoners seized their rifles
+once more and fired upon their captors.  A fierce fight ensued with
+only a few feet between the muzzles of the rifles.  Three Boers were
+shot dead, five wounded, and eight taken.  Of these eight three were
+shot next day by order of court-martial for having resumed their
+weapons after surrender, while two others were acquitted.  The death
+of these men in cold blood is to be deplored, but it is difficult to
+see how any rules of civilised warfare can be maintained if a flagrant
+breach of them is not promptly and sternly punished.
+
+On receiving this severe blow De Wet promptly raised the investment
+and hastencd to regain his favourite haunts. Considerable
+reinforcements had reached Barton upon the same day, including the
+Dublins, the Essex, Strathcona's Horse, and the Elswick Battery, with
+some very welcome supplies of ammunition. As Barton had now more than
+a thousand mounted men of most excellent quality it is difficult to
+imagine why he did not pursue his defeated enemy. He seems to have
+underrated the effect which he had produced, for instead of instantly
+assuming the offensive he busied himself in strengthening his
+defences. Yet the British losses in the whole operations had not
+exceeded one hundred, so that there does not appear to have been any
+reason why the force should be crippled. As Barton was in direct and
+constant telegraphic communication with Pretoria, it is possible that
+he was acting under superior orders in the course which he adopted.
+
+It was not destined, however, that De Wet should be allowed to escape
+with his usual impunity. On the 27th, two days after his retreat from
+Frederickstad he was overtaken -- stumbled upon by pure chance
+apparently -- by the mounted infantry and cavalry of Charles Knox and De
+Lisle.  The Boers, a great disorganised cloud of horsemen, swept
+swiftly along the northern bank of the Vaal, seeking for a place to
+cross, while the British rode furiously after them, spraying them with
+shrapnel at every opportunity.  Darkness and a violent storm gave De
+Wet his opportunity to cross, but the closeness of the pursuit
+compelled him to abandon two of his guns, one of them a Krupp and the
+other one of the British twelve-pounders of Sanna's Post, which, to the
+delight of the gunners, was regained by that very U battery to which
+it belonged.
+
+Once across the river and back in his own country De Wet, having
+placed seventy miles between himself and his pursuers, took it for
+granted that he was out of their reach, and halted near the village of
+Bothaville to refit. But the British were hard upon his track, and for
+once they were able to catch this indefatigable man unawares. Yet
+their knowledge of his position seems to have been most hazy, and on
+the very day before that on which they found him, General Charles
+Knox, with the main body of the force, turned north, and was out of
+the subsequent action. De Lisle's mounted troops also turned north,
+but fortunately not entirely out of call.  To the third and smallest
+body of mounted men, that under Le Gallais, fell the honour of the
+action which I am about to describe.
+
+It is possible that the move northwards of Charles Knox and of De
+Lisle had the effect of a most elaborate stratagem, since it persuaded
+the Boer scouts that the British were retiring.  So indeed they were,
+save only the small force of Le Gallais, which seems to have taken one
+last cast round to the south before giving up the pursuit.  In the
+grey of the morning of November 6th, Major Lean with forty men of the
+5th Mounted Infantry came upon three weary Boers sleeping upon the
+veldt. Having secured the men, and realising that they were an
+outpost, Lean pushed on, and topping a rise some hundreds of yards
+further, he and his men saw a remarkable scene.  There before them
+stretched the camp of the Boers, the men sleeping, the horses grazing,
+the guns parked, and the wagons outspanned.
+
+There was little time for consideration. The Kaffir drivers were
+already afoot and strolling out for their horses, or lighting the
+fires for their masters' coffee. With splendid decision, although he
+had but forty men to oppose to over a thousand, Lean sent back for
+reinforcements and opened fire upon the camp.  In an instant it was
+buzzing like an overturned hive.  Up sprang the sleepers, rushed for
+their horses, and galloped away across the veldt, leaving their guns
+and wagons behind. A few stalwarts remained, however, and their
+numbers were increased by those whose horses had stampeded, and who
+were, therefore, unable to get away.  They occupied an enclosed kraal
+and a farmhouse in front of the British, whence they opened a sharp
+fire. At the same time a number of the Boers who had ridden away came
+back again, having realised how weak their assailants were, and worked
+round the British flanks upon either side.
+
+Le Gallais, with his men, had come up, but the British force was still
+far inferior to that which it was attacking.  A section of U battery
+was able to unlimber, and open fire at four hundred yards from the
+Boer position.  The British made no attempt to attack, but contented
+themselves with holding on to the position from which they could
+prevent the Boer guns from being removed.  The burghers tried
+desperately to drive off the stubborn fringe of riflemen. A small
+stone shed in the possession of the British was the centre of the Boer
+fire, and it was within its walls that Ross of the Durhams was
+horribly wounded by an explosive ball, and that the brave Jerseyman,
+Le Gallais, was killed. Before his fall he had despatched his staff
+officer, Major Hickie, to hurry up men from the rear,
+
+On the fall of Ross and Le Gallais the command fell upon Major Taylor
+of U battery.  The position at that time was sufficiently alarming.
+The Boers were working round each flank in considerable numbers, and
+they maintained a heavy fire from a stone enclosure in the centre.
+The British forces actually engaged were insignificant, consisting of
+forty men of the 5th Mounted Infantry, and two guns in the centre,
+forty-six men of the 17th and 18th Imperial Yeomanry upon the right,
+and 105 of the 8th Mounted Infantry on the left or 191 rifles in all.
+The flanks of this tiny force had to extend to half a mile to hold off
+the Boer flank attack, but they were heartened in their resistance by
+the knowledge that their comrades were hastening to their assistance.
+Taylor, realising that a great effort must be made to tide over the
+crisis, sent a messenger back with orders that the convoy should be
+parked, and every available man sent up to strengthen the right flank,
+which was the weakest.  The enemy got close on to one of the guns, and
+swept down the whole detachmcnt, but a handful of the Suffolk Mounted
+Infantry under Lieutenant Peebles most galtantly held them off from
+it.  For an hour the pressure was extreme.  Then two companies of the
+7th Mounted Infantry came up, and were thrown on to each flank.
+Shortly afterwards Major Welch, with two more companies of the same
+corps, arrived, and the tide began slowly to turn. The Boers were
+themselves outflanked by the extension of the British line and were
+forced to fall back. At half-past eight De Lisle, whose force had
+trotted and galloped for twelve miles, arrived with several companies
+of Australians, and the success of the day was assured. The smoke of
+the Prussian guns at Waterloo was not a more welcome sight than the
+dust of De Lisle's horsemen. But the question now was whether the
+Boers, who were in the walled inclosure and farm which formed their
+centre, would manage to escape.  The place was shelled, but here, as
+often before, it was found how useless a weapon is shrapnel against
+buildings. There was nothing for it but to storm it, and a grim little
+storming party of fifty men, half British, half Australian, was
+actually waiting with fixed bayonets for the whistle which was to be
+their signal, when the white flag flew out from the farm, and all was
+over.  Warned by many a tragic experience the British still lay low in
+spite of the flag.  'Come out! come out!' they shouted. Eighty-two
+unwounded Boers filed out of the enclosure, and the total number of
+prisoners came to 114, while between twenty and thirty Boers were
+killed. Six guns, a pom-pom, and 1,000 head of cattle were the prizes
+of the victors.
+
+This excellent little action showed that the British mounted infantry
+had reached a point of efficiency at which they were quite able to
+match the Boers at their own game. For hours they held them with an
+inferior force, and finally, when the numbers became equal, were able
+to drive them off and capture their guns.  The credit is largely due
+to Major Lean for his prompt initiative on discovering their laager,
+and to Major Taylor for his handling of the force during a very
+critical time. Above all, it was due to the dead leader, Le Gallais,
+who had infected every man under him with his own spirit of reckless
+daring.  'If I die, tell my mother that I die happy, as we got the
+guns,' said he, with his failing breath.  The British total losses
+were twelve killed (four officers) and thirty-three wounded (seven
+officers).  Major Welch, a soldier of great promise, much beloved by
+his men, was one of the slain. Following closely after the repulse at
+Frederickstad this action was a heavy blow to De Wet.  At last, the
+British were beginning to take something off the score which they owed
+the bold raider, but there was to be many an item on either side
+before the long reckoning should be closed.  The Boers, with De Wet,
+fled south, where it was not long before they showed that they were
+still a military force with which we had to reckon.
+
+In defiance of chronology it may perhaps make a clearer narrative if I
+continue at once with the movements of De Wet from the time that he
+lost his guns at Bothaville, and then come back to the consideration
+of the campaign in the Transvaal, and to a short account of those
+scattered and disconnected actions which break the continuity of the
+story. Before following De Wet, however, it is necessary to say
+something of the general state of the Orange River Colony and of some
+military developments which had occurred there.  Under the wise and
+conciliatory rule of General Pretyman the farmers in the south and
+west were settling down, and for the time it looked as if a large
+district was finally pacified.  The mild taxation was cheerfully paid,
+schools were reopened, and a peace party made itself apparent, with
+Fraser and Piet de Wet, the brother of Christian, among its strongest
+advocates.
+
+Apart from the operations of De Wet there appeared to be no large
+force in the field in the Orange River Colony, but early in October of
+1900 a small but very mobile and efficient Boer force skirted the
+eastern outposts of the British, struck the southern line of
+communications, and then came up the western flank, attacking, where
+an attack was possible, each of the isolated and weakly garrisoned
+townlets to which it came, and recruiting its strength from a district
+which had been hardly touched by the ravages of war, and which by its
+prosperity alone might have proved the amenity of British military
+rule.  This force seems to have skirted Wepener without attacking a
+place of such evil omen to their cause.  Their subsequent movements
+are readily traced by a sequence of military events.
+
+On October 1st Rouxville was threatened.  On the 9th an outpost of the
+Cheshire Militia was taken and the railway cut for a few hours in the
+neighbourhood of Bethulie. A week later the Boer riders were dotting
+the country round Phillipolis, Springfontein and Jagersfontein, the
+latter town being occupied upon October 16th, while the garrison held
+out upon the nearest kopje. The town was retaken from the enemy by
+King Hall and his men, who were Seaforth Highlanders and police.
+There was fierce fighting in the streets, and from twenty to thirty of
+each side were killed or wounded.  Fauresmith was attacked on October
+19th, but was also in the very safe hands of the Seaforths, who held
+it against a severe assault.  Phillipolis was continually attacked
+between the 18th and the 24th, but made a most notable defence, which
+was conducted by Gostling, the resident magistrate, with forty
+civilians. For a week this band of stalwarts held their own against
+600 Boers, and were finally relieved by a force from the railway.  All
+the operations were not, however, as successful as these three
+defences.  On October 24th a party of cavalry details belonging to
+many regiments were snapped up in an ambuscade.  On the next day
+Jacobadal was attacked, with considerable loss to the British.  The
+place was entered in the night, and the enemy occupied the houses
+which surrounded the square. The garrison, consisting of about sixty
+men of the Capetown Highlanders, bad encamped in the square, and were
+helpless when fire was opened upon them in the morning.  There was
+practically no resistance, and yet for hours a murderous fire was kept
+up upon the tents in which they cowered, so that the affair seems not
+to have been far removed from murder.  Two-thirds of the little force
+were killed or wounded.  The number of the assailants does not appear
+to have been great, and they vanished upon the appearance of a
+relieving force from Modder River.
+
+After the disaster at Jacobsdal the enemy appeared on November 1st
+near Kimberley and captured a small convoy.  The country round was
+disturbed, and Settle was sent south with a column to pacify it.  In
+this way we can trace this small cyclone from its origin in the old
+storm centre in the north-east of the Orange River Colony, sweeping
+round the whole country, striking one post after another, and finally
+blowing out at the corresponding point upon the other side of the seat
+of war.
+
+We have last seen De Wet upon November 6th, when he fled south from
+Bothaville, leaving his guns but not his courage behind him. Trekking
+across the line, and for a wonder gathering up no train as he passed,
+he made for that part of the eastern Orange River Colony which had
+been reoccupied by his countrymen. Here, in the neighbourhood of
+Thabanchu, he was able to join other forces, probably the commandos of
+Haasbroek and Fourie, which still retained some guns. At the head of a
+considerable force he attacked the British garrison of Dewetsdorp, a
+town some forty miles to the south-east of Bloemfontein.
+
+It was on November 18th that De Wet assailed the place, and it fell
+upon the 24th, after a defence which appears to have been a very
+creditable one.  Several small British columns were moving in the
+south-east of the Colony, but none of them arrived in time to avert
+the disaster, which is the more inexplicable as the town is within one
+day's ride of Bloemfontein.  The place is a village hemmed in upon its
+western side by a semicircle of steep rocky hills broken in the centre
+by a gully.  The position was a very extended one, and had the fatal
+weakness that the loss of any portion of it meant the loss of it
+all. The garrison consisted of one company of Highland Light Infantry
+on the southern horn of the semicircle, three companies of the 2nd
+Gloucester Regiment on the northern and central part, with two guns of
+the 68th battery.  Some of the Royal Irish Mounted Infantry and a
+handful of police made up the total of the defenders to something over
+four hundred, Major Massy in command
+
+The attack developed at that end of the ridge which was held by the
+company of Highlanders. Every night the Boer riflemen drew in closer,
+and every morning found the position more desperate.  On the 20th the
+water supply of the garrison was cut, though a little was still
+brought up by volunteers during the night.  The thirst in the sultry
+trenches was terrible, but the garrison still, with black lips and
+parched tongues, held on to their lines.  On the 22nd the attack had
+made such progress that the post had by the Highlanders became
+untenable, and had to be withdrawn. It was occupied next morning by
+the Boers, and the whole ridge was at their mercy. Out of eighteen men
+who served one of the British guns sixteen were killed or wounded, and
+the last rounds were fired by the sergeant-farrier, who carried,
+loaded, and fired all by himself.  All day the soldiers held out, but
+the thirst was in itself enough to justify if not to compel a
+surrender. At half-past five the garrison laid down their arms, having
+lost about sixty killed or wounded. There does not, as far as one can
+learn, seem to have been any attempt to injure the two guns which fell
+into the hands of the enemy. De Wet himself was one of the first to
+ride into the British trenches, and the prisoners gazed with interest
+at the short strong figure, with the dark tail coat and the
+square-topped bowler hat, of the most famous of the Boer leaders.
+
+British columns were converging, however, from several quarters, and
+De Wet had to be at once on the move. On the 26th Dewetsdorp was
+reoccupied by General Charles Knox with fifteen hundred men. De Wet
+had two days' start, but so swift was Knox that on the 27th he had run
+him down at Vaalbank, where he shelled his camp.  De Wet broke away,
+however, and trekking south for eighteen hours without a halt, shook
+off the pursuit. He had with him at this time nearly 8,000 men with
+several guns under Haasbroek, Fourie, Philip Botha, and Steyn. It was
+his declared intention to invade Cape Colony with his train of weary
+footsore prisoners, and the laurels of Dewetsdorp still green upon
+him. He was much aided in all his plans by that mistaken leniency
+which had refused to recognise that a borse is in that country as much
+a weapon as a rifle, and had left great numbers upon the farms with
+which he could replace his useless animals.  So numerous were they
+that many of the Boers had two or three for their own use.  It is not
+too much to say that our weak treatment of the question of horses will
+come to be recognised as the one great blot upon the conduct of the
+war, and that our undue and fantastic scruples have prolonged
+hostilities for months, and cost the country many lives and many
+millions of pounds.
+
+De Wet's plan for the invasion of the Colony was not yet destined to
+be realised, for a tenacious man had set himself to frustrate it.
+Several small but mobile British columns, those of Pilcher, of Barker,
+and of Herbert, under the supreme direction of Charles Knox, were
+working desperately to head him off.  In torrents of rain which turned
+every spruit into a river and every road into a quagmire, the British
+horsemen stuck manfully to their work.  De Wet had hurried south,
+crossed the Caledon River, and made for Odendaal's Drift. But Knox,
+after the skirmish at Vaalbank, had trekked swiftly south to Bethulie,
+and was now ready with three mobile columns and a network of scouts
+and patrols to strike in any direction.  For a few days he had lost
+touch, but his arrangements were such that he must recover it if the
+Boers either crossed the railroad or approached the river. On December
+2nd he had authentic information that De Wet was crossing the Caledon,
+and in an instant the British columns were all off at full cry once
+more, sweeping over the country with a front of fifteen miles.  On the
+3rd and 4th, in spite of frightful weather, the two little armies of
+horsemen struggled on, fetlock-deep in mud, with the rain lashing
+their faces. At night without cover, drenched and bitterly cold, the
+troopers threw themselves down on the sodden veldt to snatch a few
+hours' sleep before renewing the interminable pursuit.  The drift over
+the Caledon flowed deep and strong, but the Boer had passed and the
+Briton must pass also.  Thirty guns took to the water, diving
+completely under the coffee-coloured surface, to reappear glistening
+upon the southern bank.  Everywhere there were signs of the passage of
+the enemy. A litter of crippled or dying horses marked their track,
+and a Krupp gun was found abandoned by the drift. The Dewetsdorp
+prisoners, too, had been set loose, and began to stumble and stagger
+back to their countrymen, their boots worn off, and their putties
+wrapped round their bleeding feet.  It is painful to add that they had
+been treated with a personal violence and a brutality in marked
+contrast to the elaborate hospitality shown by the British Government
+to its involuntary guests.
+
+On December 6th De Wet had at last reached the Orange River a clear
+day in front of his pursuers. But it was only to find that his labours
+had been in vain. At Odendaal, where he had hoped to cross, the river
+was in spate, the British flag waved from a post upon the further
+side, and a strong force of expectant Guardsmen eagerly awaited him
+there. Instantly recognising that the game was up, the Boer leader
+doubled back for the north and safety.  At Rouxvilie he hesitated as
+to whether he should snap up the small garrison, but the commandant,
+Rundle, showed a bold face, and De Wet passed on to the Coomassie
+Bridge over the Caledon. The small post there refused to be bluffed
+into a surrender, and the Boers, still dropping their horses fast,
+passed on, and got over the drift at Amsterdam, their rearguard being
+hardly across before Knox had also reached the river.
+
+On the 10th the British were in touch again near Helvetia, where there
+was a rearguard skirmish. On the 11th both parties rode through
+Reddersberg, a few hours separating them.  The Boers in their
+cross-country trekking go, as one of their prisoners observed,
+'slap-bang at everything,' and as they are past-masters in the art of
+ox and mule driving, and have such a knowledge of the country that
+they can trek as well by night as by day, it says much for the energy
+of Knox and his men that he was able for a fortnight to keep in close
+touch with them.
+
+It became evident now that there was not much chance of overtaking the
+main body of the burghers, and an attempt was therefore made to
+interpose a fresh force who might head them off. A line of posts
+existed between Thabanchu and Ladybrand, and Colonel Thorneycroft was
+stationed there with a movable column.  It was Knox's plan therefore
+to prevent the Boers from breaking to the west and to head them
+towards the Basuto border. A small column under Parsons had been sent
+by Hunter from Bloemfontein, and pushed in upon the flank of De Wet,
+who had on the 12th got back to Dewetsdorp. Again the pursuit became
+warm, but De Wet's time was not yet come.  He headed for Springhaan
+Nek, about fifteen miles east of Thabanchu.  This pass is about four
+miles broad, with a British fort upon either side of it.  There was
+only one way to safety, for Knox's mounted infantrymen and lancers were
+already dotting the southern skyline. Without hesitation the whole
+Boer force, now some 2,500 strong, galloped at full speed in open
+order through the Nek, braving the long range fire of riflemen and
+guns. The tactics were those of French in his ride to Kimberley, and
+the success was as complete. De Wet's force passed through the last
+barrier which had been held against him, and vanished into the
+mountainous country round Ficksburg, where it could safely rest and
+refit.
+
+The result then of these bustling operations had been that De Wet and
+his force survived, but that he had failed in his purpose of invading
+the Colony, and had dropped some five hundred horses, two guns, and
+about a hundred of his men. Haasbroek's commando had been detached by
+De Wet to make a feint at another pass while he made his way through
+the Springhaan.  Parsons's force followed Haasbroek up and engaged
+him, but under cover of night he was able to get away and to join his
+leader to the north of Thabanchu. On December 13th, this, the second
+great chase after De Wet, may be said to have closed.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE GUERILLA WARFARE IN THE TRANSVAAL:
+NOOITGEDACHT
+
+Leaving De Wet in the Ficksburg mountains, where he lurked until after
+the opening of the New Year, the story of the scattered operations in
+the Transvaal may now be carried down to the same point -- a story
+comprising many skirmishes and one considerable engagement, but so
+devoid of any central thread that it is difficult to know how to
+approach it. From Lichtenburg to Komati, a distance of four hundred
+miles, there was sporadic warfare everywhere, attacks upon scattered
+posts, usually beaten off but occasionally successful, attacks upon
+convoys, attacks upon railway trains, attacks upon anything and
+everything which could harass the invaders. Each General in his own
+district had his own work of repression to perform, and so we had best
+trace the doings of each up to the end of the year 1900.
+
+Lord Methuen after his pursuit of De Wet in August had gone to
+Mafeking to refit.  From that point, with a force which contained a
+large proportion of yeomanry and of Australian bushmen, he conducted a
+long series of operations in the difficult and important district
+which lies between Rustenburg, Lichtenburg, and Zeerust.  Several
+strong and mobile Boer commandos with guns moved about in it, and an
+energetic though not very deadly warfare raged between Lemmer, Snyman,
+and De la Rey on the one side, and the troops of Methuen, Douglas,
+Broadwood, and Lord Errol upon the other. Methuen moved about
+incessantly through the broken country, winning small skirmishes and
+suffering the indignity of continual sniping.  From time to time he
+captured stores, wagons, and small bodies of prisoners. Early in
+October he and Douglas had successes.  On the 15th Broadwood was
+engaged.  On the 20th there was a convoy action.  On the 25th Methuen
+had a success and twenty-eight prisoners.  On November 9th he
+surprised Snyman and took thirty prisoners. On the 10th he got a
+pom-pom.  Early in this month Douglas separated from Methuen, and
+marched south from Zeerust through Ventersdorp to Klerksdorp, passing
+over a country which had been hardly touched before, and arriving at
+his goal with much cattle and some prisoners. Towards the end of the
+month a considerable stock of provisions were conveyed to Zeerust, and
+a garrison left to hold that town so as to release Methuen's column
+for service elsewhere.
+
+Hart's sphere of action was originaUy round Potchefstroom.  On
+September 9th he made a fine forced march to surprise this town, which
+bad been left some time before with an entirely inadequate garrison to
+fall into the hands of the enemy. His infantry covered thirty-six and
+his cavalry fifty-four miles in fifteen hours.  The operation was a
+complete success, the town with eighty Boers falling into his hands
+with little opposition.  On September 30th Hart returned to
+Krugersdorp, where, save for one skirmish upon the Gatsrand on
+November 22nd, he appears to have had no actual fighting to do during
+the remainder of the year.
+
+After the clearing of the eastern border of the Transvaal by the
+movement of Pole-Carew along the railway line, and of Buller aided by
+Ian Hamilton in the mountainous country to the north of it, there were
+no operations of importance in this district.  A guard was kept upon
+the frontier to prevent the return of refugees and the smuggling of
+ammunition, while General Kitchener, the brother of the Sirdar, broke
+up a few small Boer laagers in the neighbourhood of
+Lydenburg. Smith-Dorrien guarded the line at Belfast, and on two
+occasions, November 1st and November 6th, he made aggressive movements
+against the enemy.  The first, which was a surprise executed in
+concert with Colonel Spens of the Shropshires, was frustrated by a
+severe blizzard, which prevented the troops from pushing home their
+success.  The second was a two days' expedition, which met with a
+spirited opposition, and demands a fuller notice.
+
+This was made from Belfast, and the force, which consisted of about
+fourteen hundred men, advanced south to the Komati River.  The
+infantry were Suffolks and Shropshires, the cavalry Canadians and 5th
+Lancers, with two Canadian guns and four of the 84th battery. All day
+the Boer snipers clung to the column, as they had done to French's
+cavalry in the same district. Mere route marches without a very
+definite and adequate objective appear to be rather exasperating than
+overawing, for so long as the column is moving onwards the most timid
+farmer may be tempted into long-range fire from the flanks or rear.
+The river was reached and the Boers driven from a position which they
+had taken up, but their signal fires brought mounted riflemen from
+every farm, and the retreat of the troops was pressed as they returned
+to Belfast. There was all the material for a South African Lexington.
+The most difficult of military operations, the covering of a
+detachment from a numerous and aggressive enemy, was admirably carried
+out by the Canadian gunners and dragoons under the command of Colonel
+Lessard.  So severe was the pressure that sixteen of the latter were
+for a time in the hands of the enemy, who attempted something in the
+nature of a charge upon the steadfast rearguard.  The movement was
+repulsed, and the total Boer loss would appear to have been
+considerable, since two of their leaders, Commandant Henry Prinsloo
+and General Joachim Fourie, were killed, while General Johann Grobler
+was wounded.  If the rank and file suffered in proportion the losses
+must have been severe. The British casualties in the two days amounted
+to eight killed and thirty wounded, a small total when the arduous
+nature of the service is considered.  The Canadians and the
+Shropshires seem to have borne off the honours of these trying
+operations.
+
+In the second week of October, General French, with three brigades of
+cavalry (Dickson's, Gordon's, and Mahon's), started for a
+cross-country ride from Machadodorp.  Three brigades may seem an
+imposing force, but the actual numbers did not exceed two strong
+regiments, or about 1,500 sabres in all.  A wing of the Suffolk
+Regiment went with them.  On October 13th Mahon's brigade met with a
+sharp resistance, and lost ten killed and twenty-nine wounded.  On the
+14th the force entered Carolina.  On the 16th they lost six killed and
+twenty wounded, and from the day that they started until they reached
+Heidelberg on the 27th there was never a day that they could shake
+themselves clear of their attendant snipers.  The total losses of the
+force were about ninety killed and wounded, but they brought in sixty
+prisoners and a large quantity of cattle and stores. The march had at
+least the effect of making it clear that the passage of a column of
+troops encumbered with baggage through a hostile country is an
+inefficient means for quelling a popular resistance. Light and mobile
+parties acting from a central depôt were in future to be employed,
+with greater hopes of success.
+
+Some appreciable proportion of the British losses during this phase of
+the war arose from railway accidents caused by the persistent
+tampering with the lines.  In the first ten days of October there were
+four such mishaps, in which two Sappers, twenty-three of the Guards
+(Coldstreams), and eighteen of the 66th battery were killed or
+wounded.  On the last occasion, which occurred on October 10th near
+Vlakfontein, the reinforcements who came to aid the sufferers were
+themselves waylaid, and lost twenty, mostly of the Rifle Brigade,
+killed, wounded, or prisoners.  Hardly a day elapsed that the line was
+not cut at some point.  The bringing of supplies was complicated by
+the fact that the Boer women and children were coming more and more
+into refugee camps, where they had to be fed by the British, and the
+strange spectacle was frequently seen of Boer snipers killing or
+wounding the drivers and stokers of the very trains which were
+bringing up food upon which Boer families were dependent for their
+lives. Considering that these tactics were continued for over a year,
+and that they resulted in the death or mutilation of many hundreds of
+British officers and men, it is really inexplicable that the British
+authorities did not employ the means used by all armies under such
+circumstances -- which is to place hostages upon the trains. A
+truckload of Boers behind every engine would have stopped the practice
+for ever.  Again and again in this war the British have fought with
+the gloves when their opponents used their knuckles.
+
+We will pass now to a consideration of the doings of General Paget,
+who was operating to the north and north-east of Pretoria with a force
+which consisted of two regiments of infantry, about a thousand
+horsemen, and twelve guns. His mounted men were under the command of
+Plumer.  In the early part of November this force had been withdrawn
+from Warm Baths and had fllen back upon Pienaar's River, where it had
+continual skirmishes with the enemy.  Towards the end of November,
+news having reached Pretoria that the enemy under Erasmus and Viljoen
+were present in force at a place called Rhenoster Kop, which is about
+twenty miles north of the Delagoa Railway line and fifty miles
+north-east of the capital, it was arranged that Paget should attack
+them from the south, while Lyttelton from Middelburg should endeavour
+to get behind them.  The force with which Paget started upon this
+enterprise was not a very formidable one. He had for mounted troops
+some Queensland, South Australian, New Zealand, and Tasmanian Bushmen,
+together with the York, Montgomery, and Warwick Yeomanry.  His
+infantry were the 1st West Riding regiment and four companies of the
+Munsters. His guns were the 7th and 38th batteries, with two naval
+quick-firing twelve-pounders and some smaller pieces.  The total could
+not have exceeded some two thousand men.  Here, as at other times, it
+is noticeable that in spite of the two hundred thousand soldiers whom
+the British kept in the field, the lines of communication absorbed so
+many that at the actual point of contact they were seldom superior and
+often inferior in numbers to the enemy.  The opening of the Natal and
+Delagoa lines though valuable in many ways, had been an additional
+drain. Where every culvert needs its picket and every bridge its
+company, the guardianship of many hundreds of miles of rail is no
+light matter.
+
+In the early morning of November 29th Paget's men came in contact with
+the enemy, who were in some force upon an admirable position. A ridge
+for their centre, a flanking kopje for their cross fire, and a grass
+glacis for the approach-it was an ideal Boer battlefield. The
+colonials and the yeomanry under Plumer on the left, and Hickman on
+the right, pushed in upon them, until it was evident that they meant
+to hold their ground.  Their advance being checked by a very severe
+fire, the horsemen dismounted and took such cover as they could.
+Paget's original idea had been a turning movement, but the Boers were
+the more numerous body, and it was impossible for the smaller British
+force to find their flanks, for they extended over at least seven
+miles.  The infantry were moved up into the centre, therefore, between
+the wings of dismounted horsemen, and the guns were brought up to
+cover the advance. The country was ill-suited, however, to the use of
+artillery, and it was only possible to use an indirect fire from under
+a curve of the grass land.  The guns made good practice, however, one
+section of the 38th battery being in action all day within 800 yards
+of the Boer line, and putting themselves out of action after 300
+rounds by the destruction of their own rifling. Once over the curve
+every yard of the veldt was commanded by the hidden riflemen.  The
+infantry advanced, but could make no headway against the deadly fire
+which met them. By short rushes the attack managed to get within 300
+yards of the enemy, and there it stuck.  On the right the Munsters
+carried a detached kopje which was in front of them, but could do
+little to aid the main attack.  Nothing could have exceeded the
+tenacity of the Yorkshiremen and the New-Zealanders, who were
+immediately to their left. Though unable to advance they refused to
+retire, and indeed they were in a position from which a retirement
+would have been a serious operation.  Colonel Lloyd of the West
+Ridings was hit in three places and killed. Five out of six officers
+of the New Zealand corps were struck down.  There were no reserves to
+give a fresh impetus to the attack, and the thin scattered line,
+behind bullet-spotted stones or anthills, could but hold its own while
+the sun sank slowly upon a day which will not be forgotten by those
+who endured it.  The Boers were reinforced in the afternoon, and the
+pressure became so severe that the field guns were retired with much
+difficulty.  Many of the infantry had shot away all their cartridges
+and were helpless.  Just one year before British soldiers had lain
+under similar circumstances on the plain which leads to Modder River,
+and now on a smaller scale the very same drama was being enacted.
+Gradually the violet haze of evening deepened into darkness, and the
+incessant rattle of the rifle fire died away on either side. Again, as
+at Modder River, the British infantry still lay in their position,
+determined to take no backward step, and again the Boers stole away in
+the night, leaving the ridge which they had defended so well.  A
+hundred killed and wounded was the price paid by the British for that
+line of rock studded hills -- a heavier proportion of losses than had
+befallen Lord Methuen in the corresponding action.  Of the Boer losses
+there was as usual no means of judging, but several grave.mounds,
+newly dug, showed that they also had something to deplore.  Their
+retreat, however, was not due to exhaustion, but to the demonstration
+which Lyttelton had been able to make in their rear. The gunners and
+the infantry had all done well in a most trying action, but by common
+consent it was with the men from New Zealand that the honours lay. It
+was no empty compliment when Sir Alfred Milner telegraphed to the
+Premier of New Zealand his congratulations upon the distinguished
+behaviour of his fellow countrymen.
+
+>From this time onwards there was nothing of importance in this part of
+the seat of war.
+
+It is necessary now to turn from the north-east to the north-west of
+Pretoria, where the presence of De la Rey and the cover afforded by
+the Magaliesberg mountains had kept alive the Boer resistance. Very
+rugged lines of hill, alternating with fertile valleys, afforded a
+succession of forts and of granaries to the army which held them.  To
+General Clements' column had been committed the task of clearing this
+difficult piece of country. His force fluctuated in numbers, but does
+not appear at any time to have consisted of more than three thousand
+men, which comprised the Border Regiment, the Yorkshire Light
+Infantry, the second Northumberland Fusiliers, mounted infantry,
+yeomanry, the 8th R.F.A., P battery R.H.A., and one heavy gun. With
+this small army he moved about the district, breaking up Boer bands,
+capturing supplies, and bringing in refugees.  On November 13th he was
+at Krugersdorp, the southern extremity of his beat.  On the 24th he
+was moving north again, and found himself as he approached the hills
+in the presence of a force of Boers with cannon.  This was the
+redoubtable De la Rey, who sometimes operated in Methuen's country to
+the north of the Magaliesberg, and sometimes to the south.  He had now
+apparently fixed upon Clements as his definite opponent. De la Rey was
+numerically inferior, and Clements had no difficulty in this first
+encounter in forcing him back with some loss.  On November 26th
+Clements was back at Krugersdorp again with cattle and prisoners. In
+the early days of December he was moving northwards once more, where a
+serious disaster awaited him.  Before narrating the circumstances
+connected with the Battle of Nooitgedacht there is one incident which
+occurred in this same region which should be recounted.
+
+This consists of the determined attack made by a party of De la Rey's
+men, upon December 3rd, on a convoy which was proceeding from Pretoria
+to Rustenburg, and had got as far as Buffel's Hoek.  The convoy was a
+very large one, consisting of 150 wagons, which covered about three
+miles upon the march. It was guarded by two companies of the West
+Yorkshires, two guns of the 75th battery, and a handful of the
+Victoria Mounted Rifles. The escort appears entirely inadequate when
+it is remembered that these stores, which were of great value, were
+being taken through a country which was known to be infested by the
+enemy. What might have been foreseen occurred.  Five hundred Boers
+suddenly rode down upon the helpless line of wagons and took
+possession of them. The escort rallied, however, upon a kopje, and,
+though attacked all day, succeeded in holding their own until help
+arrived.  They prevented the Boers from destroying or carrying off as
+much of the convoy as was under their guns, but the rest was looted
+and burned.  The incident was a most unfortunate one, as it supplied
+the enemy with a large quantity of stores, of which they were badly in
+need. It was the more irritating as it was freely rumoured that a Boer
+attack was pending; and there is evidence that a remonstrance was
+addressed from the convoy before it left Rietfontein to the General of
+the district, pointing out the danger to which it was exposed. The
+result was the loss of 120 wagons and of more than half the escort.
+The severity of the little action and the hardihood of the defence are
+indicated by the fact that the small body who held the kopje lost
+fifteen killed and twenty-two wounded, the gunners losing nine out of
+fifteen. A relieving force appeared at the close of the action, but no
+vigorous pursuit was attempted, although the weather was wet and the
+Boers had actually carried away sixty loaded wagons, which could only
+go very slowly.  It must be confessed that from its feckless start to
+its spiritless finish the story of the Buffel's Hoek convoy is not a
+pleasant one to tell.
+
+Clements, having made his way once more to the Magaliesberg range, had
+pitched his camp at a place called Nooitgedacht -- not to be confused
+with the post upon the Delagoa Railway at which the British prisoners
+had been confined.  Here, in the very shadow of the mountain, he
+halted for five days, during which, with the usual insouciance of
+British commanders, he does not seem to have troubled himself with any
+entrenching.  He knew, no doubt, that he was too strong for his
+opponent De la Rey, but what he did not know, but might have feared,
+was that a second Boer force might appear suddenly upon the scene and
+join with De la Rey in order to crush him.  This second Boer force was
+that of Commandant Beyers from Warm Baths. By a sudden and skilful
+movement the two united, and fell like a thunderbolt upon the British
+column, which was weakened by the absence of the Border Regiment.  The
+result was such a reverse as the British bad not sustained since
+Sanna's Post -- a reverse which showed that, though no regular Boer
+army might exist, still a sudden coalition of scattered bands could at
+any time produce a force which would be dangerous to any British
+column which might be taken at a disadvantage.  We had thought that
+the days of battles in this war were over, but an action which showed
+a missing and casualty roll of 550 proved that in this, as in so many
+other things, we were mistaken.
+
+As already stated, the camp of Clements lay under a precipitous cliff,
+upon the summit of which he had placed four companies of the 2nd
+Northumberland Fusiliers. This strong post was a thousand feet higher
+than the camp. Below lay the main body of the force, two more
+companies of fusiliers, four of Yorkshire Light Infantry, the 2nd
+Mounted Infantry, Kitchener's Horse, yeomanry, and the artillery. The
+latter consisted of one heavy naval gun, four guns of the 8th R.F.A.,
+and P battery R.H.A. The whole force amounted to about fifteen hundred
+men.
+
+It was just at the first break of dawn -- the hour of fate in South
+African warfare -- that the battle began. The mounted infantry post
+between the camp and the mountains were aware of moving figures in
+front of them. In the dim light they could discern that they were
+clothed in grey, and that they wore the broad-brimmed hats and
+feathers of some of our own irregular corps. They challenged, and the
+answer was a shattering volley, instantly returned by the survivors of
+the picket.  So hot was the Boer attack that before help could come
+every man save one of the picket was on the ground. The sole survivor,
+Daley of the Dublins, took no backward step, but continued to steadily
+load and fire until help came from the awakened camp.  There followed
+a savage conflict at point blank-range.  The mounted infantry men,
+rushing half clad to the support of their comrades, were confronted by
+an ever-thickening swarm of Boer riflemen, who had already, by working
+round on the flank, established their favourite cross fire. Legge, the
+leader of the mounted infantry, a hard little Egyptian veteran, was
+shot through the head, and his men lay thick around him. For some
+minutes it was as hot a corner as any in the war. But Clements himself
+had appeared upon the scene, and his cool gallantry turned the tide of
+fight. An extension of the line checked the cross fire, and gave the
+British in turn a flanking position.  Gradually the Boer riflemen were
+pushed back, until at last they broke and fled for their horses in the
+rear. A small body were cut off, many of whom were killed and wounded,
+while a few were taken prisoners.
+
+This stiff fight of an hour had ended in a complete repulse of the
+attack, though at a considerable cost. Both Boers and British had lost
+heavily. Nearly all the staff were killed or wounded, though General
+Clements had come through untouched.  Fifty or sixty of both sides had
+fallen.  But it was noted as an ominous fact that in spite of shell
+fire the Boers still lingered upon the western flank.  Were they
+coming on again? They showed no signs of it.  And yet they waited in
+groups, and looked up towards the beetling crags above them. What were
+they waiting for?  The sudden crash of a murderous Mauser fire upon
+the summit, with the rolling volleys of the British infantry, supplied
+the answer.
+
+Only now must it have been clear to Clements that he was not dealing
+merely with some spasmodic attack from his old enemy De la Rey, but
+that this was a largely conceived movement, in which a force at least
+double the strength of his own had suddenly been concentrated upon
+him.  His camp was still menaced by the men whom he had repulsed, and
+he could not weaken it by sending reinforcements up the hill. But the
+roar of the musketry was rising louder and louder.  It was becoming
+clearer that there was the main attack.  It was a Majuba-Hill action
+up yonder, a thick swarm of skirmishers closing in from many sides
+upon a central band of soldiers.  But the fusiliers were hopelessly
+outnumbered, and this rock fighting is that above all others in which
+the Boer has an advantage over the regular. A helio on the hill cried
+for help.  The losses were heavy, it said, and the assailants
+numerous.  The Boers closed swiftly in upon the flanks, and the
+fusiliers were no match for their assailants.  Till the very climax
+the helio still cried that they were being overpowered, and it is said
+that even while working it the soldier in charge was hurled over the
+cliff by the onrush of the victorious Boers.
+
+The fight of the mounted infantry men had been at half-past four.  At
+six the attack upon the hill had developed, and Clements in response
+to those frantic flashes of light had sent up a hundred men of the
+yeomanry, from the Fife and Devon squadrons, as a reinforcement.  To
+climb a precipitous thousand feet with rifle, bandolier, and spurs, is
+no easy feat, yet that roar of battle above them heartened them upon
+their way.  But in spite of all their efforts they were only in time
+to share the general disaster.  The head of the line of hard-breathing
+yeomen reached the plateau just as the Boers, sweeping over the
+remnants of the Northumberland Fusiliers, reached the brink of the
+cliff. One by one the yeomen darted over the edge, and endeavoured to
+find some cover in the face of an infernal point-blank fire. Captain
+Mudie of the staff, who went first, was shot down. So was Purvis of
+the Fifes, who followed him. The others, springing over their bodies,
+rushed for a small trench, and tried to restore the fight. Lieutenant
+Campbell, a gallant young fellow, was shot dead as he rallied his men.
+Of twenty-seven of the Fifeshires upon the hill six were killed and
+eleven wounded.  The statistics of the Devons are equally heroic.
+Those yeomen who had not yet reached the crest were in a perfectly
+impossible position, as the Boers were firing from complete cover
+right down upon them. There was no alternative for them but surrender.
+By seven o'clock every British soldier upon the hill, yeoman or
+fusilier, had been killed, wounded, or taken.  It is not true that the
+supply of csrtridges ran out, and the fusiliers, with the ill-luck
+which has pursued the 2nd battalion, were outnumbered and outfought by
+better skirmishers than themselves.
+
+Seldom has a General found himself in a more trying position than
+Clements, or extricated himself more honourably.  Not only had he lost
+nearly half his force, but his camp was no longer tenable, and his
+whole army was commanded by the fringe of deadly rifles upon the
+cliff.  From the berg to the camp was from 800 to 1,000 yards, and a
+sleet of bullets whistled down upon it.  How severe was the fire may
+be gauged from the fact that the little pet monkey belonging to the
+yeomanry -- a small enough object -- was hit three times, though he
+lived to survive as a battle-scarred veteran.  Those wounded in the
+early action found themselves in a terrible position, laid out in the
+open under a withering fire, 'like helpless Aunt Sallies,' as one of
+them described it.  'We must get a red flag up, or we shall be blown
+off the face of the earth,' says the same correspondent, a corporal of
+the Ceylon Mounted Infantry.  'We had a pillow-case, but no red paint.
+Then we saw what would do instead, so they made the upright with my
+blood, and the horizontal with Paul's.'  It is pleasant to add that
+this grim flag was respected by the Boers.  Bullocks and mules fell in
+heaps, and it was evident that the question was not whether the battle
+could be restored, but whether the guns could be saved. Leaving a
+fringe of yeomen, mounted infantry, and Kitchener's Horse to stave off
+the Boers, who were already descending by the same steep kloof up
+which the yeomen had climbed, the General bent all his efforts to
+getting the big naval gun out of danger. Only six oxen were left out
+of a team of forty, and so desperate did the situation appear that
+twice dynamite was placed beneath the gun to destroy it. Each time,
+however, the General intervened, and at last, under a stimulating rain
+of pom-pom shells, the great cannon lurched slowly forward, quickening
+its pace as the men pulled on the drag-ropes, and the six oxen broke
+into a wheezy canter.  Its retreat was covered by the smaller guns
+which rained shrapnel upon the crest of the hill, and upon the Boers
+who were descending to the camp.  Once the big gun was out of danger,
+the others limbered up and followed, their rear still covered by the
+staunch mounted infantry, with whom rest all the honours of the
+battle.  Cookson and Brooks with 250 men stood for hours between
+Clements and absolute disaster.  The camp was abandoned as it stood,
+and all the stores, four hundred picketed horses, and, most serious of
+all, two wagons of ammunition, fell into the hands of the victors.  To
+have saved all his guns, however, after the destruction of half his
+force by an active enemy far superior to him in numbers and in
+mobility, was a feat which goes far to condone the disaster, and to
+increase rather than to impair the confidence which his troops feel in
+General Clements. Having retreated for a couple of miles he turned his
+big gun round upon the hill, which is called Yeomanry Hill, and opened
+fire upon the camp, which was being looted by swarms of Boers.  So
+bold a face did he present that he was able to remain with his
+crippled force upon Yeomanry Hill from about nine until four in the
+afternoon, and no attack was pressed home, though he lay under both
+shell and rifle fire all day. At four in the afternoon he began his
+retreat, which did not cease till he had reached Rietfontein, twenty
+miles off, at six o'clock upon the following morning.  His weary men
+had been working for twenty-six hours, and actually fighting for
+fourteen, but the bitterness of defeat was alleviated by the feeling
+that every man, from the General downwards, had done all that was
+possible, and that there was every prospect of their having a chance
+before long of getting their own back.
+
+The British losses at the battle of Nooitgedacht amounted to 60
+killed, 180 wounded, and 315 prisoners, all of whom were delivered up
+a few days later at Rustenburg.  Of the Boer losses it is, as usual,
+impossible to speak with confidence, but all the evidence points to
+their actual casualties being as heavy as those of the British.  There
+was the long struggle at the camp in which they were heavily punished,
+the fight on the mountain, where they exposed themselves with unusual
+recklessness, and the final shelling from shrapnel and from lyddite.
+All accounts agree that their attack was more open than usual.  'They
+were mowed down in twenties that day, but it had no effect.  They
+stood like fanatics,' says one who fought against them.  From first to
+last their conduct was most gallant, and great credit is due to their
+leaders for the skilful sudden concentration by which they threw their
+whole strength upon the exposed force. Some eighty miles separate Warm
+Baths from Nooitgedacht, and it seems strange that our Intelligence
+Department should have remained in ignorance of so large a movement.
+
+General Broadwood's 2nd Cavalry Brigade had been stationed to the
+north of Magaliesberg, some twelve miles westward of Clements, and
+formed the next link in the long chain of British forces.  Broadwood
+does not appear, however, to have appreciated the importance of the
+engagement, and made no energetic movement to take part in it.  If
+Colvile is open to the charge of having been slow to 'march upon the
+cannon' at Sanna's Post, it might be urged that Broadwood in turn
+showed some want of energy and judgment upon this occasion.  On the
+morning of the 13th his force could hear the heavy firing to the
+eastward, and could even see the shells bursting on the top of the
+Magaliesberg.  It was but ten or twelve miles distant, and, as his
+Elswick guns have a range of nearly five, a very small advance would
+have enabled him to make a demonstration against the flank of the
+Boers, and so to relieve the pressure upon Clements. It is true that
+his force was not large, but it was exceptionally mobile. Whatever the
+reasons, no effective advance was made by Broadwood.  On hearing the
+result he fell back upon Rustenburg, the nearest British post, his
+small force being dangerously isolated.
+
+Those who expected that General Clements would get his own back had
+not long to wait. In a few days he was in the field again.  The
+remains of his former force had, however, been sent into Pretoria to
+refit, and nothing remained of it save the 8th R.F.A. and the
+indomitable cow-gun still pocked with the bullets of Nooitgedacht.  He
+had also F battery R.H.A., the Inniskillings, the Border regiment, and
+a force of mounted infantry under Alderson. More important than all,
+however, was the co-operation of General French, who came out from
+Pretoria to assist in the operations. On the 19th, only six days after
+his defeat, Clements found himself on the very same spot fighting some
+at least of the very same men.  This time, however, there was no
+element of surprise, and the British were able to approach the task
+with deliberation and method.  The result was that both upon the 19th
+and 20th the Boers were shelled out of successive positions with
+considerable loss, and driven altogether away from that part of the
+Magaliesberg.  Shortly afterwards General Clements was recalled to
+Pretoria, to take over the command of the 7th Division, General Tucker
+having been appointed to the military command of Bloemfontein in the
+place of the gallant Hunter, who, to the regret of the whole army, was
+invalided home.  General Cunningham henceforward commanded the column
+which Clements had led back to the Magaliesberg.
+
+Upon November 13th the first of a series of attacks was made upon the
+posts along the Delagoa Railway line.  These were the work of
+Viljoen's commando, who, moving swiftly from the north, threw
+themselves upon the small garrisons of Balmoral and of Wilge River,
+stations which are about six miles apart. At the former was a
+detachment of the Buffs, and at the latter of the Royal Fusiliers.
+The attack was well delivered, but in each instance was beaten back
+with heavy loss to the assailants. A picket of the Buffs was captured
+at the first rush, and the detachment lost six killed and nine
+wounded.  No impression was made upon the position, however, and the
+double attack seems to have cost the Boers a large number of
+casualties.
+
+Another incident calling for some mention was the determined attack
+made by the Boers upon the town of Vryheid, in the extreme south-east
+of the Transvaal near the Natal border.  Throughout November this
+district had been much disturbed, and the small British garrison had
+evacuated the town and taken up a position on the adjacent hills.
+Upon December 11th the Boers attempted to carry the trenches.  The
+garrison of the town appears to have consisted of the 2nd Royal
+Lancaster regiment, some five hundred strong, a party of the
+Lancashire Fusiliers, 150 strong, and fifty men of the Royal Garrison
+Artillery, with a small body of mounted infantry.  They held a hill
+about half a mile north of the town, and commanding it.  The attack,
+which was a surprise in the middle of the night, broke upon the
+pickets of the British, who held their own in a way which may have
+been injudicious but was certainly heroic.  Instead of falling back
+when seriously attacked, the young officers in charge of these
+outposts refused to move, and were speedily under such a fire that it
+was impossible to reinforce them.  There were four outposts, under
+Woodgate, Theobald, Lippert, and Mangles. The attack at 2.15 on a cold
+dark morning began at the post held by Woodgate, the Boers coming
+hand-to-hand before they were detected.  Woodgate, who was unarmed at
+the instant, seized a hammer, and rushed at the nearest Boer, but was
+struck by two bullets and killed.  His post was dispersed or taken.
+Theobald and Lippert, warned by the firing, held on behind their
+sangars, and were ready for the storm which burst over them. Lippert
+was unhappily killed, and his ten men all hit or taken, but young
+Theobald held his own under a heavy fire for twelve hours.  Mangles
+also, the gallant son of a gallant father, held his post all day with
+the utmost tenacity.  The troops in the trenches behind were never
+seriously pressed, thanks to the desperate resistance of the outposts,
+but Colonel Gawne of the Lancasters was unfortunately killed.  Towards
+evening the Boers abandoned the attack, leaving fourteen of their
+number dead upon the ground, from which it may be guessed that their
+total casualties were not less than a hundred.  The British losses
+were three officers and five men killed, twenty-two men wounded, and
+thirty men with one officer missing -- the latter being the survivors
+of those outposts which were overwhelmed by the Boer advance.
+
+A few incidents stand out among the daily bulletins of snipings,
+skirmishes, and endless marchings which make the dull chronicle of
+these, the last months of the year 1900.  These must be enumerated
+without any attempt at connecting them.  The first is the
+longdrawn-out siege or investment of Schweizer-Renecke. This small
+village stands upon the Harts River, on the western border of the
+Transvaal.  It is not easy to understand why the one party should
+desire to hold, or the other to attack, a position so insignificant.
+>From August 19th onwards it was defended by a garrison of 250 men,
+under the very capable command of Colonel Chamier, who handled a small
+business in a way which marks him as a leader. The Boer force, which
+varied in numbers from five hundred to a thousand, never ventured to
+push home an attack, for Chamier, fresh from the experience of
+Kimberley, had taken such precautions that his defences were
+formidable, if not impregnable. Late in September a relieving force
+under Colonel Settle threw fresh supplies into the town, but when he
+passed on upon his endless march the enemy closed in once more, and
+the siege was renewed.  It lasted for several months, until a column
+withdrew the garrison and abandoned the position.
+
+Of all the British detachments, the two which worked hardest and
+marched furthest during this period of the war was the 21st Brigade
+(Derbysbires, Sussex, and Camerons) under General Bruce Hamilton, and
+the column under Settle, which operated down the western border of the
+Orange River Colony, and worked round and round with such pertinacity
+that it was familiarly known as Settle's Imperial Circus.  Much hard
+and disagreeable work, far more repugnant to the soldier than the
+actual dangers of war, fell to the lot of Bruce Hamilton and his men.
+With Kroonstad as their centre they were continually working through
+the dangerous Lindley and Heilbron districts, returning to the railway
+line only to start again immediately upon a fresh quest. It was work
+for mounted police, not for infantry soldiers, but what they were
+given to do they did to the best of their ability. Settle's men had a
+similar thankless task. From the neighbourhood of Kimberley he marched
+in November with his small column down the border of the Orange River
+Colony, capturing supplies and bringing in refugees.  He fought one
+brisk action with Hertzog's commando at Kloof, and then, making his
+way across the colony, struck the railway line again at Edenburg on
+December 7th, with a train of prisoners and cattle.
+
+Rundle also had put in much hard work in his efforts to control the
+difficult district in the north-east of the Colony which had been
+committed to his care. He traversed in November from north to south
+the same country which he had already so painfully traversed from
+south to north. With occasional small actions he moved about from
+Vrede to Reitz, and so to Bethlehem and Harrismith.  On him, as on all
+other commanders, the vicious system of placing small garrisons in the
+various towns imposed a constant responsibility lest they should be
+starved or overwhelmed.
+
+The year and the century ended by a small reverse to the British arms
+in the Transvaal.  This consisted in the capture of a post at Helvetia
+defended by a detachment of the Liverpool Regiment and by a 4.7
+gun. Lydenburg, being seventy miles off the railway line, had a chain
+of posts connecting it with the junction at Machadodorp.  These posts
+were seven in number, ten miles apart, each defended by 250 men.  Of
+these Helvetia was the second.  The key of the position was a strongly
+fortified hill about three-quarters of a mile from the headquarter
+camp, and commanding it. This post was held by Captain Kirke with
+forty garrison artillery to work the big gun, and seventy Liverpool
+infantry.  In spite of the barbed-wire entanglements, the Boers most
+gallantly rushed this position, and their advance was so rapid, or the
+garrison so slow, that the place was carried with hardly a shot fired.
+Major Cotton, who commanded the main lines, found himself deprived in
+an instant of nearly half his force and fiercely attacked by a
+victorious and exultant enemy. His position was much too extended for
+the small force at his disposal, and the line of trenches was pierced
+and enfiladed at many points.  It must be acknowledged that the
+defences were badly devised -- little barbed wire, frail walls, large
+loopholes, and the outposts so near the trenches that the assailants
+could reach them as quickly as the supports.  With the dawn Cotton's
+position was serious, if not desperate.  He was not only surrounded,
+but was commanded from Gun Hill. Perhaps it would have been wiser if,
+after being wounded, he had handed over the command to Jones, his
+junior officer. A stricken man's judgement can never be so sound as
+that of the hale. However that may be, he came to the conclusion that
+the position w~s untenable, and that it was best to prevent further
+loss of life. Fifty of the Liverpools were killed and wounded, 200
+taken.  No ammunition of the gun was captured, but the Boers were able
+to get safely away with this humiliating evidence of their victory.
+One post, under Captain Wilkinson with forty men, held out with
+success, and harassed the enemy in their retreat.  As at Dewetsdorp
+and at Nooitgedacht. the Boers were unable to retain their prisoners,
+so that the substantial fruits of their enterprise were small, but it
+forms none the less one more of those incidents which may cause us to
+respect our enemy and to be critical towards ourselves.[Footnote:
+Considering that Major Stapelton Cotton was himself wounded in three
+places during the action (one of these wounds being in the head), he
+has had hard measure in being deprived of his commission by a
+court-martial which sat eight months after the event. It is to be
+earnestly hoped that there may be sowe revision of this severe
+sentence.]
+
+In the last few months of the year some of those corps which had
+served their time or which were needed elsewhere were allowed to leave
+the seat of war. By the middle of November the three different corps
+of the City Imperial Volunteers, the two Canadian contingents,
+Lumsden's Horse, the Composite Regiment of Guards, six hundred
+Australians, A battery R.H.A., and the volunteer companies of the
+regular regiments, were all homeward bound.  This loss of several
+thousand veteran troops before the war was over was to be deplored,
+and though unavoidable in the case of volunteer contingents, it is
+difficult to explain where regular troops are concerned. Early in the
+new year the Government was compelled to send out strong
+reinforcements to take their place.
+
+Early in December Lord Roberts also left the country, to take over the
+duties of Commander-in-Chief. High as his reputation stood when, in
+January, he landed at Cape Town, it is safe to say that it had been
+immensely enhanced when, ten months later, he saw from the
+quarter-deck of the 'Canada' the Table Mountain growing dimmer in the
+distance.  He found a series of disconnected operations, in which we
+were uniformly worsted.  He speedily converted them into a series of
+connected operations in which we were almost uniformly successful.
+Proceeding to the front at the beginiung of February, within a
+fortnight he had relieved Kimberley, within a month he had destroyed
+Cronje's force, and within six weeks he was in Bloemfontein.  Then,
+after a six weeks' halt which could not possibly have been shortened,
+he made another of his tiger leaps, and within a month had occupied
+Johannesburg and Pretoria. From that moment the issue of the campaign
+was finally settled, and though a third leap was needed, which carried
+him to Komatipoort, and though brave and obstinate men might still
+struggle against their destiny, he had done what was essential, and
+the rest, however difficult, was only the detail of the campaign. A
+kindly gentleman, as well as a great soldier, his nature revolted from
+all harshness, and a worse man might. have been a better leader in the
+last hopeless phases of the war.  He remembered, no doubt, how Grant
+had given Lee's army their horses, but Lee at the time had been
+thoroughly beaten, and his men had laid down their arms.  A similar
+boon to the partially conquered Boers led to very different results,
+and the prolongation of the war is largely due to this act of
+clemency.  At the same time political and military considerations were
+opposed to each other upon the point, and his moral position in the
+use of harsher measures is the stronger since a policy of conciliation
+had been tried and failed.  Lord Roberts returned to London with the
+respect and love of his soldiers and of his fellow-countrymen.  A
+passage from his farewell address to his troops may show the qualities
+which endeared him to them
+
+'The service which the South African Force has performed is, I venture
+to think, unique in the annals of war, inasmuch as it has been
+absolutely almost incessant for a whole year, in some cases for more
+than a year. There has been no rest, no days off to recruit, no going
+into winter quarters, as in other campaigns which have extended over a
+long period. For months together, in fierce heat, in biting cold, in
+pouring rain, you, my comrades, have marched and fought without halt,
+and bivouacked without shelter from the elements. You frequently have
+had to continue marching with your clothes in rags and your boots
+without soles, time being of such consequence that it was impossible
+for you to remain long enough in one place to refit. When not engaged
+in actual battle you have been continually shot at from behind kopjes
+by invisible enemies to whom every inch of the country was familiar,
+and who, from the peculiar nature of the country, were able to inflict
+severe punishment while perfectly safe themselves. You have forced
+your way through dense jungles, over precipitous mountains, through
+and over which with infinite manual labour you have had to drag heavy
+guns and ox-wagons.  You have covered with almost incredible speed
+enormous distances, and that often on very short supplies of food. You
+have endured the sufferings inevitable in war to sick and wounded men
+far from the base, without a murmur and even with cheerfulness.'
+
+The words reflect honour both upon the troops addressed and upon the
+man who addressed them. From the middle of December 1900 Lord
+Kitchener took over the control of the campaign.
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE SECOND INVASION OF CAPE COLONY
+
+(DECEMBER 1900-APRIL 1901)
+
+
+During the whole war the task of the British had been made very much
+more difficult by the openly expressed sympathy with the Boers from
+the political association known as the Afrikander Bond, which either
+inspired or represented the views which prevailed among the great
+majority of the Dutch inhabitants of Cape Colony.  How strong was this
+rebel impulse may be gauged by the fact that in some of the border
+districts no less than ninety per cent. of the voters joined the Boer
+invaders upon the occasion of their first entrance into the Colony.
+It is not pretended that these men suffered from any political
+grievances whatever, and their action is to be ascribed partly to a
+natural sympathy with their northern kinsmen, and partly to racial
+ambition and to personal dislike to their British neighbours.  The
+liberal British policy towards the natives had especially alienated
+the Dutch, and had made as well-marked a line of cleavage in South
+Africa as the slave question had done in the States of the Union.
+
+With the turn of the war the discontent in Cape Colony became less
+obtrusive, if not less acute, but in the later months of the year 1900
+it increased to a degree which became dangerous.  The fact of the
+farm-burning in the conquered countries, and the fiction of outrages
+by the Brjtish troops, raised a storm of indignation.  The annexation
+of the Republics, meaning the final disappearance of any Dutch flag
+from South Africa, was a racial humiliation which was bitterly
+resented.  The Dutch papers became very violent, and the farmers much
+excited.  The agitation culminated in a conference at Worcester upon
+December 6th, at which some thousands of delegates were present. It is
+suggestive of the Imperial nature of the struggle that the assembly of
+Dutch Afrikanders was carried out under the muzzles of Canadian
+artillery, and closely watched by Australian cavalry.  Had violent
+words transformed themselves into deeds, all was ready for the crisis.
+
+Fortunately the good sense of the assembly prevailed, and the
+agitation, though bitter, remained within those wide limits which a
+British constitution permits. Three resolutions were passed, one
+asking that the war be ended, a second that the independence of the
+Republics be restored, and a third protesting against the actions of
+Sir Alfred Milner.  A deputation which carried these to the Governor
+received a courteous but an uncompromising reply.  Sir Alfred Milner
+pointed out that the Home Government, all the great Colonies, and half
+the Cape were unanimous in their policy, and that it was folly to
+imagine that it could be reversed on account of a local agitation. All
+were agreed in the desire to end the war, but the last way of bringing
+this aboutwas by encouraging desperate men to go on fighting in a
+hopeless cause. Such was the general nature of the Governor's reply,
+which was, as might be expected, entirely endorsed by the British
+Government and people.
+
+Had De Wet, in the operations which have already been described,
+evaded Charles Kiox and crossed the Orange River, his entrance into
+the Colony would have been synchronous with the congress at Worcester,
+and the situation would have become more acute.  This peril was
+fortunately averted.  The agitation in the Colony suggested to the
+Boer leaders, however, that here was an untouched recruiting ground,
+and that small mobile invading parties might gather strength and
+become formidable.  It was obvious, also, that by enlarging the field
+of operations the difficulties of the British Commander-in-chief would
+be very much increased, and the pressure upon the Boer guerillas in
+the Republics relaxed.  Therefore, in spite of De Wet's failure to
+penetrate the Colony, several smaller bands under less-known leaders
+were despatched over the Orange River.  With the help of the
+information and the supplies furnished by the local farmers, these
+bands wandered for many months over the great expanse of the Colony,
+taking refuge, when hard pressed, among the mountain ranges.  They
+moved swiftly about, obtaining remounts from their friends, and
+avoiding everything in the nature of an action, save when the odds
+were overwhelmingly in their favour.  Numerous small posts or patrols
+cut off, many skirmishes, and one or two railway smashes were the
+fruits of this invasion, which lasted till the end of the war, and
+kept the Colony in an extreme state of unrest during that period.  A
+short account must be given here of the movement and exploits of these
+hostile bands, avoiding, as far as possible, that catalogue of obscure
+'fonteins' and 'kops' which mark their progress.
+
+The invasion was conducted by two main bodies, which shed off numerous
+small raiding parties.  Of these two, one operated on the western side
+of the Colony, reaching the sea-coast in the Clanwilliam district, and
+attaining a point which is less than a hundred miles from Cape Town.
+The other penetrated even more deeply down the centre of the Colony,
+reaching almost to the sea in the Mossel Bay direction. Yet the
+incursion, although so far-reaching, had small effect, since the
+invaders held nothing save the ground on which they stood, and won
+their way, not by victory, but by the avoidance of danger.  Some
+recruits were won to their cause, but they do not seem at that time to
+have been more than a few hundreds in number, and to have been drawn
+for the most part from the classes of the community which had least to
+lose and least to offer.
+
+The Western Boers were commanded by Judge Hertzog of the Free State,
+having with him Brand, the son of the former president, and about
+twelve hundred well-mounted men.  Crossing the Orange Biver at Sand
+Drift, north of Colesberg, upon December 16th, they paused at
+Kameelfontein to gather up a small post of thirty yeomen and guardsmen
+under Lieutenant Fletcher, the wellknown oar. Meeting with a stout
+resistance, and learning that British forces were already converging
+upon them, they abandoned the attack, and turning away from Colesberg
+they headed west, cutting the railway line twenty miles to the north
+of De Aar.  On the 22nd they occupied Britstown, which is eighty miles
+inside the border, and on the same day they captured a small body of
+yeomanry who had been following them.  These prisoners were released
+again some days later.  Taking a sweep round towards Prieska and
+Strydenburg, they pushed south again.  At the end of the year
+Hertzog's column was 150 miles deep in the Colony, sweeping through
+the barren and thinly-inhabited western lands, heading apparently for
+Fraserburg and Beaufort West.
+
+The second column was commanded by Kritzinger, a burgher of Zastron,
+in the Orange River Colony. His force was about 800 strong.  Crossing
+the border at Rhenoster Hoek upon December 16th, they pushed for
+Burghersdorp, but were headed off by a British column. Passing through
+Venterstad, they made for Steynsberg, fighting two indecisive
+skirmishes with small British forces.  The end of the year saw them
+crossing the rail road at Sherburne, north of Rosmead Junction, where
+they captured a train as they passed, containing some Colonial
+troops. At this time they were a hundred miles inside the Colony, and
+nearly three hundred from Hertzog's western column.
+
+In the meantime Lord Kitchener, who had descended for a few days to De
+Aar, had shown great energy in organising small mobile columns which
+should follow and, if possible, destroy the invaders.  Martial law was
+proclaimed in the parts of the Colony affected, and as the invaders
+came further south the utmost enthusiasm was shown by the loyalists,
+who formed themselves everywhere into town guards.  The existing
+Colonial regiments, such as Brabant's, the Imperial and South African
+Light Horse - Thorneycroft's, Rimington's, and the others -- had
+already been brought up to strength again, and now two new regiments
+were added, Kitchener's Bodyguard and Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, the
+latter being raised by Johann Colenbrander, who had made a name for
+himself in the Rhodesian wars.  At this period of the war between
+twenty and thirty thousand Cape colonists were under arms.  Many of
+these were untrained levies, but they possessed the martial spirit of
+the race, and they set free more seasoned troops for other duties.
+
+It will be most convenient and least obscure to follow the movements
+of the western force (Hertzog's), and afterwards to consider those of
+the eastern (Kritzinger's).  The opening of the year saw the mobile
+column of Free Staters 150 miles over the border, pushing swiftly
+south over the barren surface of the Karoo.  It is a country of
+scattered farms and scanty population; desolate plains curving upwards
+until they rise into still more desolate mountain ranges.  Moving in a
+very loose formation over a wide front, the Boers swept southwards.
+On or about January 4th they took possession of the small town of
+Calvinia, which remained their headquarters for more than a
+month. From this point their roving bands made their way as far as the
+seacoast in the Clanwilliam direction, for they expected at Lanmbert's
+Bay to meet with a vessel with mercenaries and guns from Europe.  They
+pushed their outposts also as far as Sutherland and Beaufort West in
+the south.  On January 15th strange horsemen were seen hovering about
+the line at Touws River, and the citizens of Cape Town learned with
+amazement that the war had been carried to within a hundred miles of
+their own doors.
+
+Whilst the Boers were making this daring raid a force consisting of
+several mobile columns was being organised by General Settle to arrest
+and finally to repel the western invasion.  The larger body was under
+the command of Colonel De Lisle, an oficer who brought to the
+operations of war the same energy and thoroughness with which he had
+made the polo team of an infantry regiment the champions of the whole
+British Army. His troops consisted of the 6th Mounted Infantry, the
+New South Wales Mounted Infantry, the Irish Yeomanry, a section of R
+battery R.H.A., and a pom-pom. With this small but mobile and hardy
+force he threw himself in front of Hertzog's line of advance. On
+January 13th be occupied Piquetburg, eighty miles south of the Boer
+headquarters.  On the 23rd he was at Clanwilliam, fifty miles
+south-~vest of them.  To his right were three other small British
+columns under Bethune, Thorneycroft, and Henniker, the latter resting
+upon the railway at Matjesfontein, and the whole line extending over
+120 miles -- barring the southern path to the invaders.
+
+Though Hertzog at Calvinia and De Lisle at Clanwilliam were only fifty
+miles apart, the intervening country is among the most broken and
+mountainous in South Africa.  Between the two points, and nearer to De
+Lisle than to Hertzog, flows the Doorn River.  The Boers advancing
+from Calvinia came into touch with the British scouts at this point,
+and drove them in upon January 21st.  On the 28th De Lisle, having
+been reinforced by Bethune's column, was able at last to take the
+initiative. Bethune's force consisted mainly of Colonials, and
+included Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, the Cape Mounted Police, Cape
+Mounted Rifles, Brabant's Horse, and the Diamond Field Horse.  At the
+end of January the united forces of Bethune and of De Lisle advanced
+upon Calvinia.  The difficulties lay rather in the impassable country
+than in the resistance of an enemy who was determined to refuse
+battle. On February 6th, after a fine march, De Lisle and his men took
+possession of Calvinia, which had been abandoned by the Boers. It is
+painful to add that during the month that they had held the town they
+appear to have behaved with great harshness, especially to the
+kaffirs.  The flogging and shooting of a coloured man named Esan forms
+one more incident in the dark story of the Boer and his relations to
+the native.
+
+The British were now sweeping north on a very extended front.
+Colenbrander had occupied Van Rhyns Dorp, to the east of Calvinia,
+while Bethune's force was operating to the west of it. De Lisle hardly
+halted at Calvinia, but pushed onwards to Williston, covering
+seventy-two miles of broken country in forty-eight hours, one of the
+most amazing performances of the war. Quick as he was, the Boers were
+quicker still, and during his northward march he does not appear to
+have actually come into contact with them. Their line of retreat lay
+through Carnarvon, and upon February 22nd they crossed the railway
+line to the north of De Aar, and joined upon February 26th the new
+invading force under De Wet, who had now crossed the Orange River. De
+Lisle, who had passed over five hundred miles of barren country since
+he advanced from Piquetburg, made for the railway at Victoria West,
+and was despatched from that place on February 22nd to the scene of
+action in the north. From all parts Boer and Briton were concentrating
+in their effort to aid or to repel the inroad of the famous guerilla.
+
+Before describing this attempt it would be well to trace the progress
+of the eastern invasion (Kritzinger's), a movement which may be
+treated rapidly, since it led to no particular military result at that
+time, though it lasted long after Hertzog's force had been finally
+dissipated.  Several small columns, those of Williams, Byng, Grenfell,
+and Lowe, all under the direction of Haig, were organised to drive
+back these commandos; but so nimble were the invaders, so vast the
+distances and so broken the country, that it was seldom that the
+forces came into contact. The operations were conducted over a portion
+of the Colony which is strongly Dutch in sympathy, and the enemy,
+though they do not appear to have obtained any large number of
+recruits, were able to gather stores, horses, and information wherever
+they went.
+
+When last mentioned Kritzinger's men had crossed the railway north of
+Rosmead on December 30th, and held up a train containing some Colonial
+troops. From then onwards a part of them remained in the Middelburg
+and Graaf-Reinet districts, while part moved towards the south.  On
+January 11th there was a sharp skirmish near Murraysburg, in which
+Byng's column was engaged, at the cost of twenty casualties, all of
+Brabant's or the South African Light Horse.  On the 16th a very rapid
+movement towards the south began. On that date Boers appeared at
+Aberdeen, and on the 18th at Willowmore, having covered seventy miles
+in two days.  Their long, thin line was shredded out over 150 miles,
+and from Maraisburg, in the north, to Uniondale, which is only thirty
+miles from the coast, there was rumour of their presence.  In this
+wild district and in that of Oudtshoorn the Boer vanguard flitted in
+and out of the hills, Haig's column striving hard to bring them to an
+action.  So well-informed were the invaders that they were always able
+to avoid the British concentrations, while if a British outpost or
+patrol was left exposed it was fortunate if it escaped disaster.  On
+February 6th a small body of twenty-five of the 7th King's Dragoon
+Guards and of the West Australians, under Captain Oliver, were
+overwhelmed at Klipplaat, after a very fine defence, in which they
+held their own against 200 Boers for eight hours, and lost nearly
+fifty per cent. of their number.  On the 12th a patrol of yeomanry was
+surprised and taken near Willowmore.
+
+The coming of De Wet had evidently been the signal for all the Boer
+raiders to concentrate, for in the second week of February Kritzinger
+also began to fall back, as Hertzog had done in the west, followed
+closely by the British columns.  He did not, however, actually join De
+Wet, and his evacuation of the country was never complete, as was the
+case with Hertzog's force. On the 19th Kritzinger was at Bethesda,
+with Gorringe and Lowe at his heels.  On the 23rd an important railway
+bridge at Fish River, north of Cradock, was attacked, but the attempt
+was foiled by the resistance of a handful of Cape Police and
+Lancasters.  On March 6th a party of Boers occupied the village of
+Pearston, capturing a few rifles and some ammunition.  On the same
+date there was a skirmish between Colonel Parsons's column and a party
+of the enemy to the north of Aberdeen. The main body of the invading
+force appears to have been lurking in this neighbourhood, as they were
+able upon April 7th to cut off a strong British patrol, consisting of
+a hundred Lancers and Yeomanry, seventy-five of whom remained as
+temporary prisoners in the hands of the enemy. With this success we
+may for the time leave Kritzinger and his lieutenant, Scheepers, who
+commanded that portion of his force which had penetrated to the south
+of the Colony.
+
+The two invasions which have been here described, that of Hertzog in
+the west and of Kritzinger in the midlands, would appear in themselves
+to be unimportant military operations, since they were carried out by
+small bodies of men whose policy was rather to avoid than to overcome
+resistance.  Their importance, however, is due to the fact that they
+were really the forerunners of a more important incursion upon the
+part of De Wet. The object of these two bands of raiders was to spy
+out the land, so that on the arival of the main body all might be
+ready for that general rising of their kinsmen in the Colony which was
+the last chance, not of winning, but of prolonging the war.  It must
+be confessed that, however much their reason might approve of the
+Government under which they lived, the sentiment of the Cape Dutch had
+been cruelly, though unavoidably, hurt in the course of the war.  The
+appearance of so popular a leader as De Wet with a few thousand
+veterans in the very heart of their country might have stretched their
+patience to the breaking-point.  Inflamed, as they were, by that
+racial hatred which had always smouldered, and had now been fanned
+into a blaze by the speeches of their leaders and by the fictions of
+their newspapers, they were ripe for mischief, while they had before
+their eyes an object-lesson of the impotence of our military system in
+those small bands who had kept the country in a ferment for so
+long. All was propitious, therefore, for the attempt which Steyn and
+De Wet were about to make to carry the war into the enemy's country.
+
+We last saw De Wet when, after a long chase, he had been headed back
+from the Orange River, and, winnining clear from Knox's pursuit, had
+in the third week of December passed successfully through the British
+cordon between Thabanchu and Ladybrand.  Thence he made his way to
+Senekal, and proceeded, in spite of the shaking which he had had, to
+recruit and recuperate in the amazing way which a Boer army has.
+There is no force so easy to drive and so difficult to destroy.  The
+British columns still kept in touch with De Wet, but found it
+impossible to bring him to an action in the difficult district to
+which he had withdrawn. His force had split up into numerous smaller
+bodies, capable of reuniting at a signal from their leader.  These
+scattered bodies, mobile as ever, vanished if seriously attacked,
+while keenly on the alert to pounce upon any British force which might
+be overpowered before assistance could arrive.  Such an opportunity
+came to the commando led by Philip Botha, and the result was another
+petty reverse to the British arms.
+
+Upon January 3rd Colonel White's small column was pushing north, in
+co-operation with those of Knox, Pilcher, and the others.  Upon that
+date it had reached a point just north of Lindley, a district which
+has never been a fortunate one for the invaders.  A patrol of
+Kitchener' s newly raised bodyguard, under Colonel Laing, 120 strong,
+was sent forward to reconnoitre upon the road from Lindley to Reitz.
+
+The scouting appears to have been negligently done, there being only
+two men out upon each flank. The little force walked into one of those
+horse-shoe positions which the Boers love, and learned by a sudden
+volley from a kraal upon their right that the enemy was present in
+strength.  On attempting to withdraw it was instantly evident that the
+Boers were on all sides and in the rear with a force which numbered at
+least five to one.  The camp of the main column was only four miles
+away, however, and the bodyguard, having sent messages of their
+precarious position, did all they could to make a defence until help
+could reach them. Colonel Laing had fallen, shot through the heart,
+but found a gallant successor in young Nairne, the adjutant.  Part of
+the force had thrown themselves, under Nairne and Milne, into a donga,
+which gave some shelter from the sleet of bullets.  The others, under
+Captain Butters, held on to a ruined kraal.  The Boers pushed the
+attack very rapidly, however, and were soon able with their superior
+numbers to send a raking fire down the donga, which made it a perfect
+death-trap.  Still hoping that the laggard reinforcements would come
+up, the survivors held desperately on; but both in the kraal and in
+the donga their numbers were from minute to minute diminishing.  There
+was no formal surrender and no white flag, for, when fifty per
+cent. of the British were down, the Boers closed in swiftly and rushed
+the position. Philip Botha, the brother of the commandant, who led the
+Boers, behaved with courtesy and humanity to the survivors; but many
+of the wounds were inflicted with those horrible explosive and
+expansive missiles, the use of which among civilised combatants should
+now and always be a capital offence.  To disable one's adversary is a
+painful necessity of warfare, but nothing can excuse the wilful
+mutilation and torture which is inflicted by these brutal devices.
+
+'How many of you are there?' asked Botha.  'A hundred,' said an
+officer.  'It is not true.  There are one hundred and twenty.  I
+counted you as you came along.'  The answer of the Boer leader shows
+how carefully the small force had been nursed until it was in an
+impossible position.  The margin was a narrow one, however, for within
+fifteen minutes of the disaster White's guns were at work.  There may
+be some question as to whether the rescuing force could have come
+sooner, but there can be none as to the resistance of the bodyguard.
+They held out to the last cartridge. Colonel Laing and three officers
+with sixteen men were killed, four officers and twenty-two men were
+wounded. The high proportion of fatal casualties can only be explained
+by the deadly character of the Boer bullets. Hardly a single horse of
+the bodyguard was left unwounded, and the profit to the victors, since
+they were unable to carry away their prisoners, lay entirely in the
+captured rifles.  It is worthy of record that the British wounded were
+despatched to Heilbron without guard through the Boer forces.  That
+they arrived there unmolested is due to the forbearance of the enemy
+and to the tact and energy of Surgeon-Captain Porter, who commanded
+the convoy.
+
+Encouraged by this small success, and stimulated by the news that
+Hertzog and Kritzinger had succeeded in penetrating the Colony without
+disaster, De Wet now prepared to follow them.  British scouts to the
+north of Kroonstad reported horsemen riding south and east, sometimes
+alone, sometimes in small parties They were recruits going to swell
+the forces of De Wet. On January 23rd five hundred men crossed the
+line, journeying in the same direction.  Before the end of the month,
+having gathered together about 2,500 men with fresh horses at the
+Doornberg, twenty miles north of Winburg, the Boer leader was ready
+for one of his lightning treks once more.  On January 28th he broke
+south through the British net, which appears to have had more meshes
+than cord. Passing the Bloemfontein-Ladybrand line at Israel Poort he
+swept southwards, with British columns still wearily trailing behind
+him, like honest bulldogs panting after a greyhound.
+
+Before following him upon this new venture it is necessary to say a
+few words about that peace movement in the Boer States to which some
+allusion has already been made. On December 20th Lord Kitchener had
+issued a proclamation which was intended to have the effect of
+affording protection to those burghers who desired to cease fighting,
+but who were unable to do so without incurring the enmity of their
+irreconcilable brethren.  'It is hereby notified,' said the document,
+'to all burghers that if after this date they voluntarily surrender
+they will be allowed to live with their families in Government laagers
+until such time as the guerilla warfare now being carried on will
+admit of their returning safely to their homes.  All stock and
+property brought in at the time of the surrender of such burghers will
+be respected and paid for if requisitioned.'  This wise and liberal
+offer was sedulously concealed from their men by the leaders of the
+fighting commandos, but was largely taken advantage of by those Boers
+to whom it was conveyed.  Boer refugee camps were formed at Pretoria,
+Johannesburg, Kroonstad, Bloemfontein, Warrenton; and other points, to
+which by degrees the whole civil population came to be transferred.
+It was the reconcentrado system of Cuba over again, with the essential
+difference that the guests of the British Government were well fed and
+well treated during their detention. Within a few months the camps had
+50,000 inmates.
+
+It was natural that some of these people, having experienced the
+amenity of British rule, and being convinced of the hopelessness of
+the struggle, should desire to convey their feelings to their friends
+and relations in the field.  Both in the Transvaal and in the Orange
+River Colony Peace Committees were formed, which endeavoured to
+persuade their countrymen to bow to the inevitable.  A remarkable
+letter was published from Piet de Wet, a man who had fought bravely
+for the Boer cause, to his brother, the famous general. 'Which is
+better for the Republics,' he asked, 'to continue the struggle and run
+the risk of total ruin as a nation, or to submit?  Could we for a
+moment think of taking back the country if it were offered to us, with
+thousands of people to be supported by a Government which has not a
+farthing?... Put passionate feeling aside for a moment and use
+common-sense, and you will then agree with me that the best thing for
+the people and the country is to give in, to be loyal to the new
+government, and to get responsible government...  Should the war
+continue a few months longer the nation will become so poor that they
+will be the working class in the country, and disappear as a nation in
+the future... The British are convinced that they have conquered the
+land and its people, and consider the matter ended, and they only try
+to treat magnanimously those who are continuing the struggle in order
+to prevent unnecessary bloodshed.'
+
+Such were the sentiments of those of the burghers who were in favour
+of peace.  Their eyes had been opened and their bitterness was
+transferred from the British Government to those individual Britons
+who, partly from idealism and partly from party passion, had
+encouraged them to their undoing. But their attempt to convey their
+feelings to their countrymen in the field ended in tragedy. Two of
+their number, Morgendaal and Wessels, who had journeyed to De Wet's
+camp, were condemned to death by order of that leader.  In the case of
+Morgendaal the execution actually took place, and seems to have been
+attended by brutal circumstances, the man having been thrashed with a
+sjambok before being put to death.  The circumstances are still
+surrounded by such obscurity that it is impossible to say whether the
+message of the peace envoys was to the General himself or to the men
+under his command.  In the former case the man was murdered.  In the
+latter the Boer leader was within his rights, though the rights may
+have been harshly construed and brutally enforced.
+
+On January 29th, in the act of breaking south, De Wet's force, or a
+portion of it, had a sharp brush with a small British column (Crewe's)
+at Tabaksberg, which lies about forty miles north-east of
+Bloemfontein; This small force, seven hundred strong, found itself
+suddenly in the presence of a very superior body of the enemy, and had
+some difficulty in extricating itself. A pom-pom was lost in this
+affair.  Crewe fell back upon Knox, and the combined columns made for
+Bloemfontein, whence they could use the rails for their transport. De
+Wet meanwhile moved south as far as Smithfield, and then, detaching
+several small bodies to divert the attention of the British, he struck
+due west, and crossed the track between Springfontein and
+Jagersfontein road, capturing the usual supply train as he passed. On
+February 9th he had reached Philippolis, well ahead of the British
+pursuit, and spent a day or two in making his final arrangements
+before carrying the war over the border. His force consisted at this
+time of nearly 8,000 men, with two 15-pounders, one pom-pom, and one
+maxim.  The garrisons of all the towns in the southwest of the Orange
+River Colony had been removed in accordance with the policy of
+concentration, so De Wet found himself for the moment in a friendly
+country.
+
+The British, realising how serious a situation might arise should De
+Wet succeed in penetrating the Colony and in joining Hertzog and
+Kritzinger, made every effort both to head him off and to bar his
+return.  General Lyttelton at Naauwpoort directed the operations, and
+the possession of the railway line enabled him to concentrate his
+columns rapidly at the point of danger. On February 11th De Wet forded
+the Orange River at Zand Drift, and found himself once more upon
+British territory.  Lyttelton's plan of campaign appears to have been
+to allow De Wet to come some distance south, and then to hold him in
+front by De Lisle's force, while a number of small mobile columns
+under Plumer, Crabbe, Henniker, Bethune, Haig, and Thorneycroft should
+shepherd him behind.  On crossing, De Wet at once moved westwards,
+where, upon February 12th, Plumer's column, consisting of the
+Queensland Mounted Infantry, the Imperial Bushmen, and part of the
+King's Dragoon Guards, came into touch with his rearguard. All day
+upon the 13th and 14th, amid terrific rain, Plumer's hardy troopers
+followed close upon the enemy, gleaning a few ammunition wagons, a
+maxim, and some prisoners.  The invaders crossed the railway line near
+Houtnek, to the north of De Aar, in the early hours of the 15th,
+moving upon a front of six or eight miles.  Two armoured trains from
+the north and the south closed in upon him as he passed, Plumer still
+thundered in his rear, and a small column under Crabbe came pressing
+from the south.  This sturdy Colonel of Grenadiers had already been
+wounded four times in the war, so that he might be excused if he felt
+some personal as well as patriotic reasons for pushing a relentless
+pursuit.  On crossing the railroad De Wet turned furiously upon his
+pursuers, and, taking an excellent position upon a line of kopjes
+rising out of the huge expanse of the Karoo, he fought a stubborn
+rearguard action in order to give time for his convoy to get ahead. He
+was hustled off the hills, however, the Australian Bushmen with great
+dash carrying the central kopje, and the guns driving the invaders to
+the westward. Leaving all his wagons and his reserve ammunition behind
+him, the guerilla chief struck north-west, moving with great
+swiftness, but never succeeding in shaking off Plumer's pursuit.  The
+weather continued, however, to be atrocious, rain and hail falling
+with such violence that the horses could hardly be induced to face it.
+For a week the two sodden, sleepless, mud-splashed little armies swept
+onwards over the Karoo.  De Wet passed northwards through Strydenburg,
+past Hopetown, and so to the Orange River, which was found to be too
+swollen with the rains to permit of his crossing. Here upon the 23rd,
+after a march of forty-five miles on end, Plumer ran into him once
+more, and captured with very little fighting a fifteen-pounder, a
+pom-pom, and close on to a hundred prisoners.  Slipping away to the
+east, De Wet upon February 24th crossed the railroad again between
+Krankuil and Orange River Station, with Thorneycroft's column hard
+upon his heels.  The Boer leader was now more anxious to escape from
+the Colony than ever he had been to enter it, and he rushed
+distractedly from point to point, endeavouring to find a ford over the
+great turbid river which cut him off from his own country. Here he was
+joined by Hertzog's commando with a number of invaluable spare
+horses. It is said also that he had been able to get remounts in the
+Hopetown district, which had not been cleared -- an omission for
+which, it is to be hoped, someone has been held responsible.  The Boer
+ponies, used to the succulent grasses of the veldt, could make nothing
+of the rank Karoo, and had so fallen away that an enormous advantage
+should have rested with the pursuers had ill luck and bad management
+not combined to enable the invaders to renew their mobility at the
+very moment when Plumer's horses were dropping dead under their
+riders.
+
+The Boer force was now so scattered that, in spite of the advent of
+Hertzog, De Wet had fewer men with him than when he entered the
+Colony.  Several hundreds had been taken prisoners, many had deserted,
+and a few had been killed.  It was hoped now that the whole force
+might be captured, and Thorneycroft's, Crabbe's, Henniker's, and other
+columns were closing swiftly in upon him, while the swollen river
+still barred his retreat.  There was a sudden drop in the flood,
+however; one ford became passable, and over it, upon the last day of
+February, De Wet and his bedraggled, dispirited commando escaped to
+their own country.  There was still a sting in his tail, however; for
+upon that very day a portion of his force succeeded in capturing sixty
+and killing or wounding twenty of Colenbrander's new regiment,
+Kitchener's Fighting Scouts. On the other hand, De Wet was finally
+relieved upon the same day of all care upon the score of his guns, as
+the last of them was most gallantly captured by Captain Dallimore and
+fifteen Victorians, who at the same time brought in thirty-three Boer
+prisoners.  The net result of De Wet's invasion was that he gained
+nothing, and that he lost about four thousand horses, all his guns,
+all his convoy, and some three hundred of his men.
+
+Once safely in his own country again, the guerilla chief pursued his
+way northwards with his usual celerity and success.  The moment that
+it was certain that De Wet had escaped, the indefatigable Plumer,
+wiry, tenacious man, had been sent off by train to Springfontein,
+while Bethune's column followed direct.  This latter force crossed the
+Orange River bridge and marched upon Luckhoff and Fauresmith.  At the
+latter town they overtook Plumer, who was again hard upon the heels of
+De Wet. Together they ran him across the Riet River and north to
+Petrusburg, until they gave it up as hopeless upon finding that, with
+only fifty followers, he had crossed the Modder River at Abram's
+Kraal. There they abandoned the chase and fell back upon Bloemfontein
+to refit and prepare for a fresh effort to run down their elusive
+enemy.
+
+While Plumer and Bethune were following upon the track of De Wet until
+he left them behind at the Modder, Lyttelton was using the numerous
+columns which were ready to his hand in effecting a drive up the
+south-eastern section of the Orange Biver Colony. It was disheartening
+to remember that all this large stretch of country had from April to
+November been as peaceful and almost as prosperous as Kent or
+Yorkshire.  Now the intrusion of the guerilla bands, and the pressure
+put by them upon the farmers, had raised the whole country once again,
+and the work of pacification had to be set about once more, with
+harsher measures than before. A continuous barrier of barbed-wire
+fencing had been erected from Bloemfontein to the Basuto border, a
+distance of eighty miles, and this was now strongly held by British
+posts.  From the south Bruce Hamilton, Hickman, Thorneycroft, and Haig
+swept upwards, stripping the country as they went in the same way that
+French had done in the Eastern Transvaal, while Pilcher's column
+waited to the north of the barbed-wire barrier.  It was known that
+Fourie, with a considerable commando, was lurking in this district,
+but he and his men slipped at night between the British columns and
+escaped.  Pilcher, Bethune, and Byng were able, however, to send in
+200 prisoners and very great numbers of cattle. On April 10th Monro,
+with Bethune's Mounted Infantry, captured eighty fighting Boers near
+Dewetsdorp, and sixty more were taken by a night attack at Boschberg.
+There is no striking victory to record in these operations, but they
+were an important part of that process of attrition which was wearing
+the Boers out and helping to bring the war to an end.  Terrible it is
+to see that barren countryside, and to think of the depths of misery
+to which the once flourishing and happy Orange Free State had fallen,
+through joining in a quarrel with a nation which bore it nothing but
+sincere friendship and goodwill. With nothing to gain and everything
+to lose, the part played by the Orange Free State in this South
+African drama is one of the most inconceivable things in history.
+Never has a nation so deliberately and so causelessly committed
+suicide.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE NORTHERN OPERATIONS FROM JANUARY TO APRIL, 1901
+
+Three consecutive chapters have now given some account of the campaign
+of De Wet, of the operations in the Transvaal up to the end of the
+year 1900, and of the invasion of Cape Colony up to April 1901. The
+present chapter will deal with the events in the Transvaal from the
+beginning of the new century.  The military operations in that
+country, though extending over a very large area, may be roughly
+divided into two categories: the attacks by the Boers upon British
+posts, and the aggressive sweeping movements of British columns.
+Under the first heading come the attacks on Belfast, on Zuurfontein,
+on Kaalfontein, on Zeerust, on Modderfontein, and on Lichtenburg,
+besides many minor affairs. The latter comprises the operations of
+Babington and of Cunningham to the west and south-west of Pretoria,
+those of Methuen still further to the south-west, and the large
+movement of French in the south-east.  In no direction did the British
+forces in the field meet with much active resistance.  So long as they
+moved the gnats did not settle; it was only when quiet that they
+buzzed about and occasionally stung.
+
+The early days of January 1901 were not fortunate for the British
+arms, as the check in which Kitchener's Bodyguard was so roughly
+handled, near Lindley, was closely followed by a brisk action at
+Naauwpoort or Zandfontein, near the Magaliesberg, in which De la Rey
+left his mark upon the Imperial Light Horse.  The Boer commandos,
+having been driven into the mountains by French and Clements in the
+latter part of December, were still on the look-out to strike a blow
+at any British force which might expose itself. Several mounted
+columns had been formed to scour the country, one under Kekewich, one
+under Gordon, and one under Babington.  The two latter, meeting in a
+mist upon the morning of January 5th, actually turned their rifles
+upon each other, but fortunately without any casualties resulting. A
+more deadly rencontre was, however, awaiting them.
+
+A force of Boers were observed, as the mist cleared, making for a
+ridge which would command the road along which the convoy and guns
+were moving.  Two squadrons (B and C) of the Light Horse were
+instantly detached to seize the point.  They do not appear to have
+realised that they were in the immediate presence of the enemy, and
+they imagined that the ground over which they were passing had been
+already reconnoitred by a troop of the 14th Hussars. It is true that
+four scouts were thrown forward, but as both squadrons were cantering
+there was no time for these to get ahead. Presently C squadron, which
+was behind, was ordered to close up upon the left of B squadron, and
+the 150 horsemen in one long line swept over a low grassy ridge.  Some
+hundreds of De la Rey's men were lying in the long grass upon the
+further side, and their first volley, fired at a fifty-yard range,
+emptied a score of saddles.  It would have been wiser, if less
+gallant, to retire at once in the presence of a numerous and invisible
+enemy, but the survivors were ordered to dismount and return the fire.
+This was done, but the hail of bullets was terrific and the casualties
+were numerous.  Captain Norman, of C squadron, then retired his men,
+who withdrew in good order.  B squadron having lost Yockney, its brave
+leader, heard no order, so they held their ground until few of them
+had escaped the driving sleet of lead.  Many of the men were struck
+three and four times.  There was no surrender, and the extermination
+of B company added another laurel, even at a moment of defeat, to the
+regiment whose reputation was so grimly upheld. The Boer victors
+walked in among the litter of stricken men and horses. 'Practically
+all of them were dressed in khaki and had the water-bottles and
+haversacks of our soldiers.  One of them snatched a bayonet from a
+dead man, and was about to despatch one of our wounded when he was
+stopped in the nick of time by a man in a black suit, who, I
+afterwards heard, was De la Rey himself... The feature of the action
+was the incomparable heroism of our dear old Colonel Wools-Sampson.'
+So wrote a survivor of B company, himself shot through the body.  It
+was four hours before a fresh British advance reoccupied the ridge,
+and by that time the Boers had disappeared.  Some seventy killed and
+wounded, many of them terribly mutilated, were found on the scene of
+the disaster. It is certainly a singular coincidence that at distant
+points of the seat of war two of the crack irregular corps should have
+suffered so severely within three days of each other.  In each case,
+however, their prestige was enhanced rather than lowered by the
+result.  These incidents tend, however, to shake the belief that
+scouting is better performed in the Colonial than in the regular
+forces.
+
+Of the Boer attacks upon British posts to which allusion has been
+made, that upon Belfast, in the early morning of January 7th, appears
+to have been very gallantly and even desperately pushed.  On the same
+date a number of smaller attacks, which may have been meant simply as
+diversions, were made upon Wonderfontein, Nooitgedacht, Wildfontein,
+Pan, Dalmanutha, and Machadodorp.  These seven separate attacks,
+occurring simultaneously over sixty miles, show that the Boer forces
+were still organised and under one effective control.  The general
+object of the operations was undoubtedly to cut Lord Roberts's
+communications upon that side and to destroy a considerable section of
+the railway.
+
+The town of Belfast was strongly held by Smith-Dorrien, with 1,750 men,
+of which 1,300 were infantry belonging to the Royal Irish, the
+Shropshires, and the Gordons. The perimeter of defence, however, was
+fifteen miles, and each little fort too far from its neighbour for
+mutual support, though connected with headquarters by telephone.  It
+is probable that the leaders and burghers engaged in this very gallant
+attack were in part the same as those concerned in the successful
+attempt at Helvetia upon December 29th, for the assault was delivered
+in the same way, at the same hour, and apparently with the same
+primary object. This was to gain possession of the big 5-inch gun,
+which is as helpless by night as it is formidable by day. At Helvetia
+they attained their object and even succeeded not merely in
+destroying, but in removing their gigantic trophy.  At Belfast they
+would have performed the same feat had it not been for the foresight
+of General Smith-Dorrien, who had the heavy gun trundled back into the
+town every night.
+
+The attack broke first upon Monument Hill, a post held by Captain
+Fosbery with eighty-three Royal Irish. Chance or treason guided the
+Boers to the weak point of the wire entanglement and they surged into
+the fort, where the garrison fought desperately to hold its own. There
+was thick mist and driving rain; and the rush of vague and shadowy
+figures amid the gloom was the first warning of the onslaught.  The
+Irishmen were overborne by a swarm of assailants, but they nobly
+upheld their traditional reputation. Fosbery met his death like a
+gallant gentleman, but not more heroically than Barry, the humble
+private, who, surrounded by Boers, thought neither of himself nor of
+them, but smashed at the maxim gun with a pickaxe until he fell
+riddled with bullets.  Half the garrison were on the ground before the
+post was carried.
+
+A second post upon the other side of the town was defended by
+Lieutenant Marshall with twenty men, mostly Shropshires.  For an hour
+they held out until Marshall and nine out of his twelve Shropshires
+had been hit.  Then this post also was carried.
+
+The Gordon Highlanders held two posts to the southeast and to the
+south-west of the town, and these also were vigorously attacked.
+Here, however, the advance spent itself without result.  In vain the
+Ermelo and Carolina commandos stormed up to the Gordon pickets. They
+were blown back by the steady fire of the infantry. One small post
+manned by twelve Highlanders was taken, but the rest defied all
+attack.  Seeing therefore that his attempt at a COUP-DE-MAIN was
+a failure, Viljoen withdrew his men before daybreak. The Boer
+casualties have not been ascertained, but twenty-four of their dead
+were actually picked up within the British lines.  The British lost
+sixty killed and wounded, while about as many were taken
+prisoners. Altogether the action was a brisk and a gallant one, of
+which neither side has cause to be ashamed. The simultaneous attacks
+upon six other stations were none of them pressed home, and were
+demonstrations rather than assaults.
+
+The attempts upon Kaalfontein and on Zuurfontein were both made in the
+early morning of January 12th. These two places are small stations
+upon the line between Johannesburg and Pretoria.  It is clear that the
+Boers were very certain of their own superior mobility before they
+ventured to intrude into the very heart of the British position, and
+the result showed that they were right in supposing that even if their
+attempt were repulsed, they would still be able to make good their
+escape. Better horsed, better riders, with better intelligence and a
+better knowledge of the country, their ventures were always attended
+by a limited liability.
+
+The attacks seem to have been delivered by a strong commando, said to
+have been under the command of Beyers, upon its way to join the Boer
+concentration in the Eastern Transvaal.  They had not the
+satisfaction, however, of carrying the garrison of a British post with
+them, for at each point they were met by a stout resistance and beaten
+off.  Kaalfontein was garrisoned by 120 men of Cheshire under
+Williams-Freeman, Zuurfontein by as many Norfolks and a small body of
+Lincolns under Cordeaux and Atkinson.  For six hours the pressure was
+considerable, the assailants of Kaalfontein keeping up a brisk shell
+and rifle fire, while those of Zuurfontein were without artillery. At
+the end of that time two armoured trains came up with reinforcements
+and the enemy continued his trek to the eastward.  Knox 's 2nd cavalry
+brigade followed them up, but without any very marked result.
+
+Zeerust and Lichtenburg had each been garrisoned and provisioned by
+Lord Methuen before he carried his column away to the south-west,
+where much rough and useful work awaited him.  The two towns were at
+once invested by the enemy, who made an attack upon each of them.
+That upon Zeerust, on January 7th, was a small matter and easily
+repulsed.  A more formidable one was made on Lichtenburg, on March
+3rd.  The attack was delivered by De la Rey, Smuts, and Celliers, with
+1,500 men, who galloped up to the pickets in the early morning.  The
+defenders were 600 in number, consisting of Paget's Horse and three
+companies of the 1st battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers, a
+veteran regiment with a long record of foreign service, not to be
+confused with that 2nd battalion which was so severely handled upon
+several occasions.  It was well that it was so, for less sturdy
+material might have been overborne by the vigour of the attack.  As it
+was, the garrison were driven to their last trench, but held out under
+a very heavy fire all day, and next morning the Boers abandoned the
+attack.  Their losses appear to have been over fifty in number, and
+included Commandant Celliers, who was badly wounded and afterwards
+taken prisoner at Warm Baths. The brave garrison lost fourteen killed,
+including two officers of the Northumberlands, and twenty wounded.
+
+In each of these instances the attacks by the Boers upon British posts
+had ended in a repulse to themselves. They were more fortunate,
+however, in their attempt upon Modderfontein on the Gatsrand at the
+end of January.  The post was held by 200 of the South Wales
+Borderers, reinforced by the 59th Imperial Yeomanry, who had come in
+as escort to a convoy from Krugersdorp. The attack, which lasted all
+day, was carried out by a commando of 2,000 Boers under Smuts, who
+rushed the position upon the following morning.  As usual, the Boers,
+who were unable to retain their prisoners, had little to show for
+their success. The British casualties, however, were between thirty
+and forty, mostly wounded.
+
+On January 22nd General Cunninghame left Oliphant's Nek with a small
+force consisting of the Border and Worcester Regiments, the 6th
+Mounted Infantry, Kitchener's Horse, 7th Imperial Yeomanry, 8th
+R.F.A., and P battery R.H.A. It had instructions to move south upon
+the enemy known to be gathering there.  By midday this force was
+warmly engaged, and found itself surrounded by considerable bodies of
+De la Rey's burghers.  That night they camped at Middelfontein, and
+were strongly attacked in the early morning. So menacing was the Boer
+attitude, and so formidable the position, that the force was in some
+danger. Fortunately they were in heliographic communication with
+Oliphant's Nek, and learned upon the 23rd that Babington had been
+ordered to their relief. All day Cunninghame's men were under a
+long-range fire, but on the 24th Babington appeared, and the British
+force was successfully extricated, having seventy-five
+casualties. This action of Middelfontein is interesting as having been
+begun in Queen Victoria's reign, and ended in that of Edward VII.
+
+Cunninghame's force moved on to Krugersdorp, and there, having heard
+of the fall of the Modderfontein post as already described, a part of
+his command moved out to the Gatsrand in pursuit of Smuts. It was
+found, however, that the Boers had taken up a strong defensive
+position, and the British were not numerous enough to push the
+attack. On February 3rd Cunninghame endeavoured to outflank the enemy
+with his small cavalry force while pushing his infantry up in front,
+but in neither attempt did he succeed, the cavalry failing to find the
+flank, while the infantry were met with a fire which made further
+advance impossible. One company of the Border Regiment found itself in
+such a position that the greater part of it was killed, wounded, or
+taken. This check constituted the action of Modderfontein. On the 4th,
+however, Cunningham, assisted by some of the South African
+Constabulary, made his way round the flank, and dislodged the enemy,
+who retreated to the south. A few days later some of Smuts's men made
+an attempt upon the railway near Bank, but were driven off with
+twenty-six casualties. It was after this that Smuts moved west and
+joined De la Rey's commando to make the attack already described upon
+Lichtenburg. These six attempts represent the chief aggressive
+movements which the Boers made against British posts in the Transvaal
+during these months.  Attacks upon trains were still common, and every
+variety of sniping appears to have been rife, from the legitimate
+ambuscade to something little removed from murder.
+
+It has been described in a previous chapter how Lord Kitchener made an
+offer to the burghers which amounted to an amnesty, and how a number
+of those Boers who had come under the influence of the British formed
+themselves into peace committees, and endeavoured to convey to the
+fighting commandos some information as to the hopelessness of the
+struggle, and the lenient mood of the British.  Unfortunately these
+well-meant offers appear to have been mistaken for signs of weakness
+by the Boer leaders, and encouraged them to harden their hearts.  Of
+the delegates who conveyed the terms to their fellow countrymen two at
+least were shot, several were condemned to death, and few returned
+without ill-usage.  In no case did they bear back a favourable answer.
+The only result of the proclamation was to burden the British
+resources by an enormous crowd of women and children who were kept and
+fed in refugee camps, while their fathers and husbands continued in
+most cases to fight.
+
+This allusion to the peace movement among the burghers may serve as an
+introduction to the attempt made by Lord Kitchener, at the end of
+February 1901, to bring the war to a close by negotiation. Throughout
+its course the fortitude of Great Britain and of the Empire had never
+for an instant weakened, but her conscience had always been sensitive
+at the sight of the ruin which had befallen so large a portion of
+South Africa, and any settlement would have been eagerly hailed which
+would insure that the work done had not been wasted, and would not
+need to be done again. A peace on any other terms would simply shift
+upon the shoulders of our descendants those burdens which we were not
+manly enough to bear ourselves.  There had arisen, as has been said, a
+considerable peace movement among the burghers of the refugee camps
+and also among the prisoners of war.  It was hoped that some
+reflection of this might be found among the leaders of the people.  To
+find out if this were so Lord Kitchener, at the end of February, sent
+a verbal message to Louis Botha, and on the 27th of that month the
+Boer general rode with an escort of Hussars into Middelburg.
+'Sunburned, with a pleasant, fattish face of a German type, and
+wearing an imperial,' says one who rode beside him. Judging from the
+sounds of mirth heard by those without, the two leaders seem to have
+soon got upon amiable terms, and there was hope that a definite
+settlement might spring from their interview. From the beginning Lord
+Kitchener explained that the continued independence of the two
+republics was an impossibility.  But on every other point the British
+Government was prepared to go great lengths in order to satisfy and
+conciliate the burghers.
+
+On March 7th Lord Kitchener wrote to Botha from Pretoria,
+recapitulating the points which he had advanced.  The terms offered
+were certainly as far as, and indeed rather further than, the general
+sentiment of the Empire would have gone.  If the Boers laid down their
+arms there was to be a complete amnesty, which was apparently to
+extend to rebels also so long as they did not return to Cape Colony or
+Natal.  Self-government was promised after a necessary interval,
+during which the two States should be administered as Crown colonies.
+Law courts should be independent of the Executive from the beginning,
+and both languages be official.  A million pounds of compensation
+would be paid to the burghers -- a most remarkable example of a war
+indemnity being paid by the victors. Loans were promised to the
+farmers to restart them in business, and a pledge was made that farms
+should not be taxed. The Kaffirs were not to have the franchise, but
+were to have the protection of law.  Such were the generous terms
+offered by the British Government.  Public opinion at home, strong]y
+supported by that of the colonies, and especially of the army, felt
+that the extreme step had been taken in the direction of conciliation,
+and that to do more would seem not to offer peace, but to implore it.
+Unfortunately, however, the one thing which the British could not
+offer was the one thing which the Boers would insist upon having, and
+the leniency of the proposals in all other directions may have
+suggested weakness to their minds.  On March 15th an answer was
+returned by General Botha to the effect that nothing short of total
+independence would satisfy them, and the negotiations were accordingiy
+broken off.
+
+There was a disposition, however, upon the Boer side to renew them,
+and upon May 10th General Botha applied to Lord Kitchener for
+permission to cable to President Kruger, and to take his advice as to
+the making of peace.  The stern old man at The Hague was still,
+however, in an unbending mood. His reply was to the effect that there
+were great hopes of a successful issue of the war, and that he had
+taken steps to make proper provision for the Boer prisoners and for
+the refugee women.  These steps, and very efficient ones too, were to
+leave them entirely to the generosity of that Government which he was
+so fond of reviling.
+
+On the same day upon which Botha applied for leave to use the British
+cable, a letter was written by Reitz, State Secretary of the
+Transvaal, to Steyn, in which the desperate condition of the Boers was
+clearly set forth. This document explained that the burghers were
+continually surrendering, that the ammunition was nearly exhausted,
+the food running low, and the nation in danger of extinction. 'The
+time has come to take the final step,' said the Secretary of
+State. Steyn wrote back a reply in which, like his brother president,
+he showed a dour resolution to continue the struggle, prompted by a
+fatalist conviction that some outside interference would reverse the
+result of his appeal to arms. His attitude and that of Kruger
+determined the Boer leaders to hold out for a few more months, a
+resolution which may have been injudicious, but was certainly heroic.
+'It's a fight to a finish this time,' said the two combatants in the'
+Punch' cartoon which marked the beginning of the war. It was indeed
+so, as far as the Boers were concerned. As the victors we can afford
+to acknowledge that no nation in history has ever made a more
+desperate and prolonged resistance against a vastly superior
+antagonist.  A Briton may well pray that his own people may be as
+staunch when their hour of adversity comes round.
+
+The British position at this stage of the war was strengthened by a
+greater centralisation.  Garrisons of outlying towns were withdrawn so
+that fewer convoys became necessary.  The population was removed also
+and placed near the railway lines, where they could be more easily
+fed. In this way the scene of action was cleared and the Boer and
+British forces left face to face. Convinced of the failure of the
+peace policy, and morally strengthened by having tried it, Lord
+Kitchener set himself to finish the war by a series of vigorous
+operations which should sweep the country from end to end.  For this
+purpose mounted troops were essential, and an appeal from him for
+reinforcements was most nobly answered.  Five thousand horsemen were
+despatched from the colonies, and twenty thousand cavalry, mounted
+infantry, and Yeomanry were sent from home.  Ten thousand mounted men
+had already been raised in Great Britain, South Africa, and Canada for
+the Constabulary force which was being organised by
+Baden-Powell. Altogether the reinforcements of horsemen amounted to
+more than thirty-five thousand men, all of whom had arrived in South
+Africa before the end of April. With the remains of his old regiments
+Lord Kitchener had under him at this final period of the war between
+fifty and sixty thousand cavalry-such a force as no British General in
+his happiest dream had ever thought of commanding, and no British war
+minister in his darkest nightmare had ever imagined himself called
+upon to supply.
+
+Long before his reinforcements had come to hand, while his Yeomanry
+was still gathering in long queues upon the London pavement to wait
+their turn at the recruiting office, Lord Kitchener had dealt the
+enemy several shrewd blows which materially weakened their resources
+in men and material.  The chief of these was the great drive down the
+Eastern Transvaal undertaken by seven columns under the command of
+French. Before considering this, however, a few words must be devoted
+to the doings of Methuen in the south-west.
+
+This hard-working General, having garrisoned Zeerust and Lichtenburg,
+had left his old district and journeyed with a force which consisted
+largely of Bushmen and Yeomanry to the disturbed parts of Bechuanaland
+which had been invaded by De Villiers.  Here he cleared the country as
+far as Vryburg, which he had reached in the middle of January, working
+round to Kuruman and thence to Taungs.  From Taungs his force crossed
+the Transvaal border and made for Klerksdorp, working through an area
+which had never been traversed and which contained the difficult
+Masakani hills.  He left Taungs upon February 2nd, fighting skirmishes
+at Uitval's Kop, Paardefontein and Lilliefontein, in each of which the
+enemy was brushed aside. Passing through Wolmaranstad, Methuen turned
+to the north, where at Haartebeestefontein, on February 19th, he
+fought a brisk engagement with a considerable force of Boers under De
+Villiers and Liebenberg. On the day before the fight he successfully
+outwitted the Boers, for, learning that they had left their laager in
+order to take up a position for battle, he pounced upon the laager and
+captured 10,000 head of cattle, forty-three wagons, and forty
+prisoners. Stimulated by this success, he attacked the Boers next day,
+and after five hours of hard fighting forced the pass which they were
+holding against him.  As Methuen had but 1,500 men, and was attacking
+a force which was as large as his own in a formidable position, the
+success was a very creditable one. The Yeomanry all did well,
+especially the 5th and 10th battalions. So also did the Australians
+and tho Loyal North Lancashires.  The British casualties amounted to
+sixteen killed and thirty-four wounded, while the Boers left eighteen
+of their dead upon the position which they had abandoned. Lord
+Methuen's little force ret urnedto Klerksdorp, having deserved right
+well of their country.  From Klerksdorp Methuen struck back westwards
+to the south of his former route, and on March 14th he was reported at
+Warrenton.  Here also in April came Erroll's small column, bringing
+with it the garrison and inhabitants of Hoopstad, a post which it had
+been determined, in accordance with Lord Kitchener's policy of
+centralisation, to abandon.
+
+In the month of January, 1901, there had been a considerable
+concentration of the Transvaal Boers into that large triangle which is
+bounded by the Delagoa railway line upon the north, the Natal railway
+line upon the south, and the Swazi and Zulu frontiers upon the
+east. The buschveldt is at this season of the year unhealthy both for
+man and beast, so that for the sake of their herds, their families,
+and themselves the burghers were constrained to descend into the open
+veldt.  There seemed the less objection to their doing so since this
+tract of country, though traversed once both by Buller and by French,
+has still remained a stronghold of the Boers and a storehouse of
+supplies.  Within its borders are to be found Carolina, Ermelo,
+Vryheid, and other storm centres. Its possession offers peculiar
+strategical advantages, as a force lying there can always attack
+either railway, and might even make, as was indeed intended, a descent
+into Natal.  For these mingled reasons of health and of strategy a
+considerable number of burghers united in this district under the
+command of the Bothas and of Smuts.
+
+Their concentration had not escaped the notice of the British military
+authorities, who welcomed any movement which might bring to a focus
+that resistance which had been so nebulous and elusive. Lord Kitchener
+having once seen the enemy fairly gathered into this huge cover,
+undertook the difficult task of driving it from end to end.  For this
+enterprise General French was given the chief command, and had under
+his orders no fewer than seven columns, which started from different
+points of the Delagoa and of the Natal railway lines, keeping in touch
+with each other and all trending south and east.  A glance at the map
+would show, however, that it was a very large field for seven guns,
+and that it would need all their alertness to prevent the driven game
+from breaking back.  Three columns started from the Delagoa line,
+namely, Smith-Dorrien's from Wonderfontein (the most easterly),
+Campbell's from Middelburg, and Alderson's from Eerstefabrieken, close
+to Pretoria. Four columns came from the western railway line: General
+Knox's from Kaalfontein, Major Allenby's from Zuurfontein (both
+stations between Pretoria and Johannesburg), General Dartnell's from
+Springs, close to Johannesburg, and finally General Colville (not to
+be confused with Colvile) from Greylingstad in the south. The whole
+movement resembled a huge drag net, of which Wonderfontein and
+Greylingstad formed the ends, exactly one hundred miles apart.  On
+January 27th the net began to be drawn.  Some thousands of Boers with
+a considerable number of guns were known to be within the enclosure,
+and it was hoped that even if their own extreme mobility enabled them
+to escape it would be impossible for them to save their transport and
+their cannon.
+
+Each of the British columns was about 2,000 strong, making a total of
+14,000 men with about fifty guns engaged in the operations.  A front
+of not less than ten miles was to be maintained by each force.  The
+first decided move was on the part of the extreme left wing,
+Smith-Dorrien's column, which moved south on Carolina, and thence on
+Bothwell near Lake Chrissie.  The arduous duty of passing supplies
+down from the line fell mainly upon him, and his force was in
+consequence larger than the others, consisting of 8,500 men with
+thirteen guns.  On the arrival of Smith-Dorrien at Carolina the other
+columns started, their centre of advance being Ermelo.  Over seventy
+miles of veldt the gleam of the helio by day and the flash of the
+signal lamps at night marked the steady flow of the British tide.
+Here and there the columns came in touch with the enemy and swept him
+before them.  French had a skirmish at Wilge River at the end of
+January, and Campbell another south of Middelburg, in which he had
+twenty casualties. On February 4th Smith-Dorrien was at Lake Chrissie;
+French had passed through Bethel and the enemy was retiring on
+Amsterdam.  The hundred-mile ends of the drag net were already
+contracted to a third of that distance, and the game was still known
+to be within it.  On the 5th Ermelo was occupied, and the fresh deep
+ruts upon the veldt told the British horsemen of the huge Boer convoy
+that was ahead of them.  For days enormous herds, endless flocks, and
+lines of wagons which stretched from horizon to horizon had been
+trekking eastward.  Cavalry and mounted infantry were all hot upon the
+scent.
+
+Botha, however, was a leader of spirit, not to be hustled with
+impunity.  Having several thousand burghers with him, it was evident
+that if he threw himself suddenly upon any part of the British line he
+might hope for a time to make an equal fight, and possibly to
+overwhelm it.  Were Smith-Dorrien out of the way there would be a
+clear road of escape for his whole convoy to the north, while a defeat
+of any of the other columns would not help him much. It was on
+Smith-Dorrien, therefore, that he threw himself with great
+impetuosity. That General's force was, however, formidable, consisting
+of the Suffolks, West Yorks and Camerons, 5th Lancers, 2nd Imperial
+Light Horse, and 3rd Mounted Infantry, with eight field guns and three
+heavy pieces. Such a force could hardly be defeated in the open, but
+no one can foresee the effect of a night surprise well pushed home,
+and such was the attack delivered by Botha at 3 A.M. upon February
+6th, when his opponent was encamped at Bothwell Farm.
+
+The night was favourable to the attempt, as it was dark and
+misty. Fortunately, however, the British commander had fortified
+himself and was ready for an assault.  The Boer forlorn hope came on
+with a gallant dash, driving a troop of loose horses in upon the
+outposts, and charging forward into the camp.  The West Yorkshires,
+however, who bore the brunt of the attack, were veterans of the
+Tugela, who were no more to be flurried at three in the morning than
+at three in the afternoon. The attack was blown backwards, and twenty
+dead Boers, with their brave leader Spruyt, were left within the
+British lines.  The main body of the Boers contented themselves with a
+heavy fusillade out of the darkness, which was answered and crushed by
+the return fire of the infantry. In the morning no trace, save their
+dead, was to be seen of the enemy, but twenty killed and fifty wounded
+in Smith-Dorrien's column showed how heavy had been the fire which had
+swept through the sleeping camp. The Carolina attack, which was to
+have co-operated with that of the Heidelbergers, was never delivered,
+through difficulties of the ground, and considerable recriminations
+ensued among the Boers in consequence.
+
+Beyond a series of skirmishes and rearguard actions this attack of
+Botha's was the one effort made to stay the course of French's
+columns. It did not succeed, however, in arresting them for an
+hour. From that day began a record of captures of men, herds, guns,
+and wagons, as the fugitives were rounded up from the north, the west,
+and the south.  The operation was a very thorough one, for the towns
+and districts occupied were denuded of their inhabitants, who were
+sent into the refugee camps while the country was laid waste to
+prevent its furnishing the commandos with supplies in the
+future. Still moving south-east, General French's columns made their
+way to Piet Betief upon the Swazi frontier, pushing a disorganised
+array which he computed at 5,000 in front of them. A party of the
+enemy, including the Carolina commando, had broken back in the middle
+of February and Louis Botha had got away at the same time, but so
+successful were his main operations that French was able to report his
+total results at the end of the month as being 292 Boers killed or
+wounded, 500 surrendered, 3 guns and one maxim taken, with 600 rifles,
+4,000 horses, 4,500 trek oxen, 1,300 wagons and carts, 24,000 cattle,
+and 165,000 sheep. The whole vast expanse of the eastern veldt was
+dotted with the broken and charred wagons of the enemy.
+
+Tremendous rains were falling and the country was one huge quagmire,
+which crippled although it did not entirely prevent the further
+operations. All the columns continued to report captures. On March 3rd
+Dartnell got a maxim and 50 prisoners, while French reported 50 more,
+and Smith-Dorrien 80.  On March 6th French captured two more guns, and
+on the 14th he reported 46 more Boer casualties and 146 surrenders,
+with 500 more wagons, and another great haul of sheep and oxen.  By
+the end of March French had moved as far south as Vryheid, his troops
+having endured the greatest hardships from the continual heavy rains,
+and the difficulty of bringing up any supplies.  On the 27th he
+reported seventeen more Boer casualties and 140 surrenders, while on
+the last day of the month he took another gun and two pom-poms.  The
+enemy at that date were still retiring eastward, with Alderson and
+Dartnell pressing upon their rear.  On April 4th French announced the
+capture of the last piece of artillery which the enemy possessed in
+that region.  The rest of the Boer forces doubled back at night
+between the columns and escaped over the Zululand border, where 200 of
+them surrendered.  The total trophies of French's drive down the
+Eastern Transvaal amounted to eleven hundred of the enemy killed,
+wounded, or taken, the largest number in any operation since the
+surrender of Prinsloo. There is no doubt that the movement would have
+been even more successful had the weather been less boisterous, but
+this considerable loss of men, together with the capture of all the
+guns in that region, and of such enormous quantities of wagons,
+munitions, and stock, inflicted a blow upon the Boers from which they
+never wholly recovered.  On April 20th French was back in Johannesburg
+once more.
+
+While French had run to earth the last Boer gun in the south.eastern
+corner of the Transvaal, De la Rey, upon the western side, had still
+managed to preserve a considerable artillery with which he flitted
+about the passes of the Magaliesberg or took refuge in the safe
+districts to the south-west of it.  This part of the country had been
+several times traversed, but had never been subdued by British
+columns.  The Boers, like their own veldt grass, need but a few sparks
+to be left behind to ensure a conflagration breaking out again. It was
+into this inflammable country that Babington moved in March with
+Klerksdorp for his base. On March 21st he had reached
+Haartebeestefontein, the scene not long before of a successful action
+by Methuen.  Here he was joined by Shekleton's Mounted Infantry, and
+his whole force consisted of these, with the 1st Imperial Light Horse,
+the 6th Imperial Bushmen, the New-Zealanders, a squadron of the 14th
+Hussars, a wing each of the Somerset Light Infantry and of the Welsh
+Fusiliers, with Carter's guns and four pom-poms.  With this mobile and
+formidable little force Babington pushed on in search of Smuts and De
+la Rey, who were known to be in the immediate neighbourhood.
+
+As a matter of fact the Boers were not only there, but were nearer and
+in greater force than had been anticipated.  On the 22nd three
+squadrons of the Imperial Light Horse under Major Briggs rode into
+1,500 of them, and it was only by virtue of their steadiness and
+gallantry that they succeeded in withdrawing themselves and their
+pom-pom without a disaster.  With Boers in their front and Boers on
+either flank they fought an admirable rearguard action. So hot was the
+fire that A squadron alone had twenty-two casualties.  They faced it
+out, however, until their gun had reached a place of safety, when they
+made an orderly retirement towards Babington's camp, having inflicted
+as heavy a loss as they had sustained.  With Elandslaagte, Waggon
+Hill, the relief of Mafeking, Naauwpoort, and Haartebeestefontein upon
+their standards, the Imperial Light Horse, should they take a
+permanent place in the Army List, will start with a record of which
+many older regiments might be proud.
+
+If the Light Horse had a few bad hours on March 22nd at the hands of
+the Boers, they and their colonial comrades were soon able to return
+the same with interest. On March 23rd Babington moved forward through
+Kafir Kraal, the enemy falling back before him.  Next morning the
+British again advanced, and as the New-Zealanders and Bushmen, who
+formed the vanguard under Colonel Gray, emerged from a pass they saw
+upon the plain in front of them the Boer force with all its guns
+moving towards them.  Whether this was done of set purpose or whether
+the Boers imagined that the British had turned and were intending to
+pursue them cannot now be determined, but whatever the cause it is
+certain that for almost the first time in the campaign a considerable
+force of each side found themselves in the open and face to face.
+
+It was a glorious moment.  Setting spurs to their horses, officers and
+men with a yell dashed forward at the enemy.  One of the Boer guns
+unlimbered and attempted to open fire, but was overwhelmed by the wave
+of horsemen.  The Boer riders broke and fled, leaving their artillery
+to escape as best it might.  The guns dashed over the veldt in a mad
+gallop, but wilder still was the rush of the fiery cavalry behind
+them.  For once the brave and cool-headed Dutchmen were fairly
+panic-stricken. Hardly a shot was fired at the pursuers, and the
+riflemen seem to have been only too happy to save their own skins.
+Two field guns, one pom-pom, six maxims, fifty-six wagons and 140
+prisoners were the fruits of that one magnificent charge, while
+fifty-four stricken Boers were picked up after the action.  The
+pursuit was reluctantly abandoned when the spent horses could go no
+farther.
+
+While the vanguard had thus scattered the main body of the enemy a
+detachment of riflemen had ridden round to attack the British rear and
+convoy. A few volleys from the escort drove them off, however, with
+some loss.  Altogether, what with the loss of nine guns and of at
+least 200 men, the rout of Haartebeestefontein was a severe blow to
+the Boer cause. A week or two later Sir H. Rawlinson's column, acting
+with Babington, rushed Smuts's laager at daylight and effected a
+further capture of two guns and thirty prisoners.  Taken in
+conjunction with French's successes in the east and Plumer's in the
+north, these successive blows might have seemed fatal to the Boer
+cause, but the weary struggle was still destined to go on until it
+seemed that it must be annihilation rather than incorporation which
+would at last bring a tragic peace to those unhappy lands.
+
+All over the country small British columns had been operating during
+these months -- operations which were destined to increase in scope
+and energy as the cold weather drew in.  The weekly tale of prisoners
+and captures, though small for any one column, gave the aggregate
+result of a considerable victory.  In these scattered and obscure
+actions there was much good work which can have no reward save the
+knowledge of duty done.  Among many successful raids and skirmishes
+may be mentioned two by Colonel Park from Lydenburg, which resulted
+between them in the capture of nearly 100 of the enemy, including Abel
+Erasmus of sinister reputation.  Nor would any summary of these events
+be complete without a reference to the very gallant defence of
+Mahlabatini in Zululand, which was successfully held by a handful of
+police and civilians against an irruption of the Boers.  With the
+advent of winter and of reinforcements the British operations became
+very energetic in every part of the country, and some account of them
+will now be added.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE WINTER CAMPAIGN (APRIL-SEPTEMBER, 1901)
+
+
+The African winter extends roughly from April to September, and as the
+grass during that period would be withered on the veldt, the mobility
+of the Boer commandos must be very much impaired. It was recognised
+therefore that if the British would avoid another year of war it could
+only be done by making good use of the months which lay before
+them. For this reason Lord Kitchener had called for the considerable
+reinforcements which have been already mentioned, but on the other
+hand he was forced to lose many thousands of his veteran Yeomanry,
+Australians, and Canadians, whose term of service was at an end. The
+volunteer companies of the infantry returned also to England, and so
+did nine militia battalions, whose place was taken however by an equal
+number of new-comers.
+
+The British position was very much strengthened during the winter by
+the adoption of the block-house system. These were small square or
+hexagonal buildings, made of stone up to nine feet with corrugated
+iron above it. They were loopholed for musketry fire and held from six
+to thirty men. These little forts were dotted along the railways at
+points not more than 2,000 yards apart, and when supplemented by a
+system of armoured trains they made it no easy matter for the Boers to
+tamper with or to cross the lines. So effective did these prove that
+their use was extended to the more dangerous portions of the country,
+and lines were pushed through the Magaliesberg district to form a
+chain of posts between Krugersdorp and Rustenburg.  In the Orange
+River Colony and on the northern lines of the Cape Colony the same
+system was extensively applied.  I will now attempt to describe the
+more important operations of the winter, beginning with the incursion
+of Plumer into the untrodden ground to the north.
+
+At this period of the war the British forces had overrun, if they had
+not subdued, the whole of the Orange River Colony and every part of
+the Transvaal which is south of the Mafeking-Pretoria-Komati line.
+Through this great tract of country there was not a vilage and hardly
+a farmhouse which had not seen the invaders. But in the north there
+remained a vast district, two hundred miles long and three hundred
+broad, which had hardly been touched by the war.  It is a wild
+country, scrub-covered, antelope-haunted plains rising into desolate
+hills, but there are many kloofs and valleys with rich water meadows
+and lush grazings, which formed natural granaries and depots for the
+enemy.  Here the Boer government continued to exist, and here,
+screened by their mountains, they were able to organise the
+continuation of the struggle. It was evident that there could be no
+end to the war until these last centres of resistance had been broken
+up.
+
+The british forces had advanced as far north as Rustenburg in the
+west, Pienaar in the centre, and Lydenburg in the east, but here they
+had halted, unwilling to go farther until their conquests had been
+made good behind them. A General might well pause before plunging his
+troops into that vast and rugged district, when an active foe and an
+exposed line of communication lay for many hundreds of miles to the
+south of them. But Lord Kitchener with characteristic patience waited
+for the right hour to come, and then with equally characteristic
+audacity played swiftly and boldly for his stake.  De Wet, impotent
+for the moment, had been hunted back over the Orange River. French had
+harried the burghers in the South-east Transvaal, and the main force
+of the enemy was known to be on that side of the seat of war.  The
+north was exposed, and with one long, straight lunge to the heart,
+Pietersburg might be transfixed.
+
+There could only be one direction for the advance, and that must be
+along the Pretoria-Pietersburg railroad. This is the only line of
+rails which leads to the north, and as it was known to be in working
+order (the Boers were running a bi-weekly service from Pietersburg to
+Warm Baths), it was hoped that a swift advance might seize it before
+any extensive damage could be done. With this object a small but very
+mobile force rapidly assembled at the end of March at Pienaar River,
+which was the British rail-head forty miles north of Pretoria and a
+hundred and thirty from Pietersburg.  This column consisted of the
+Bushveldt Carbineers, the 4th Imperial Bushmen's Corps, and the 6th
+New Zealand contingent.  With them were the 18th battery R.F.A., and
+three pom-poms. A detachment of the invaluable mounted Sappers rode
+with the force, and two infantry regiments, the 2nd Gordons and the
+Northamptons, were detached to garrison the more vulnerable places
+upon the line of advance.
+
+Upon March 29th the untiring Plumer, called off from the chase of De
+Wet, was loosed upon this fresh line, and broke swiftly away to the
+north.  The complete success of his undertaking has obscured our
+estimate of its danger, but it was no light task to advance so great a
+distance into a bitterly hostile country with a fighting force of
+2,000 rifles.  As an enterprise it was in many ways not unlike Mahon's
+dash on Mafeking, but without any friendly force with which to join
+hands at the end. However from the beginning all went well.  On the
+30th the force had reached Warm Baths, where a great isolated hotel
+already marks the site of what will be a rich and fashionable spa.  On
+April 1st the Australian scouts rode into Nylstroom, fifty more miles
+upon their way. There had been sufficient sniping to enliven the
+journey, but nothing which could be caled an action.  Gleaning up
+prisoners and refugees as they went, with the railway engineers
+working like bees behind them, the force still swept unchecked upon
+its way.  On April 5th Piet Potgeitersrust was entered, another
+fifty-mile stage, and on the morning of the 8th the British vanguard
+rode into Pietersburg.  Kitchener's judgment and Plumer's energy had
+met with their reward.
+
+The Boer commando had evacuated the town and no serious opposition was
+made to the British entry. The most effective resistance came from a
+single schoolmaster, who, in a moment of irrational frenzy or of
+patriotic exaltation, shot down three of the invaders before he met
+his own death.  Some rolling stock, one small gun, and something under
+a hundred prisoners were the trophies of the capture, but the Boer
+arsenal and the printing press were destroyed, and the Government sped
+off in a couple of Cape carts in search of some new capital.
+Pietersburg was principally valuable as a base from which a sweeping
+movement might be made from the north at the same moment as one from
+the south-east. A glance at the map will show that a force moving from
+this point in conjunction with another from Lydenburg might form the
+two crooked claws of a crab to enclose a great space of country, in
+which smaller columns might collect whatever was to be found.  Without
+an instant of unnecessary delay the dispositions were made, and no
+fewer than eight columns slipped upon the chase.  It will be best to
+continue to follow the movements of Plumer's force, and then to give
+some account of the little armies which were operating from the south,
+with the results of their enterprise.
+
+It was known that Viljoen and a number of Boers were within the
+district which lies north of the line in the Middelburg district.  An
+impenetrable bush-veldt had offered them a shelter from which they
+made their constant sallies to wreck a train or to attack a post. This
+area was now to be systematically cleared up. The first thing was to
+stop the northern line of retreat. The Oliphant River forms a loop in
+that direction, and as it is a considerable stream, it would, if
+securely held, prevent any escape upon that side. With this object
+Plumer, on April 14th, the sixth day after his occupation of
+Pietersburg, struck east from that town and trekked over the veldt,
+through the formidable Chunies Pass, and so to the north bank of the
+Oliphant, picking up thirty or forty Boer prisoners upom the way. His
+route lay through a fertile country dotted with native kraals. Having
+reached the river which marked the line which he was to hold, Plumer,
+upon April 17th, spread his force over many miles, so as to block the
+principal drifts.  The flashes of his helio were answered by flash
+after flash from many points upon the southern horizon. What these
+other forces were, and whence they came, must now be made clear to the
+reader.
+
+General Bindon Blood, a successful soldier, had confirmed in the
+Transvaal a reputation which he had won on the northern frontier of
+India.  He and General Elliot were two of the late comers who had been
+spared from the great Eastern dependency to take the places of some of
+those Generals who had returned to England for a well-earned rest.  He
+had distinguished himself by his systematic and effective guardianship
+of the Delagoa railway line, and he was now selected for the supreme
+control of the columns which were to advance from the south and sweep
+the Roos-Senekal district.  There were seven of them, which were
+arranged as follows:
+
+Two columns started from Middelburg under Beatson and Benson, which
+might be called the left wings of the movement.  The object of
+Beatson's column was to hold the drifts of the Crocodile River, while
+Benson's was to seize the neighbouring hills called the
+Bothasberg. This it was hoped would pin the Boers from the west, while
+Kitchener from Lydenburg advanced from the east in three separate
+columns. Pulteney and Douglas would move up from Belfast in the
+centre, with Dulstoom for their objective.  It was the familiar drag
+net of French, but facing north instead of south.
+
+On April 13th the southern columns were started, but already the
+British preparations had alarmed the Boers, and Botha, with his main
+commandos, had slipped south across the line into that very district
+from which he had been so recently driven. Viljoen's commando still
+remained to the north, and the British troops, pouring in from every
+side, converged rapidly upon it.  The success of the operations was
+considerable, though not complete.  The Tantesberg, which had been the
+rallying-point of the Boers, was occupied, and Roos-Senekal, their
+latest capital, was taken, with their State papers and
+treasure. Viljoen, with a number of followers, slipped through between
+the columns, but the greater part of the burghers, dashing furiously
+about like a shoal of fish when they become conscious of the net, were
+taken by one or other of the columns. A hundred of the Boksburg
+commando surrendered en masae, fifty more were taken at Roos-Senekal;
+forty-one of the formidable Zarps with Schroeder, their leader, were
+captured in the north by the gallantry and wit of a young Australian
+officer named Reid; sixty more were hunted down by the indefatigable
+Vialls, leader of the Bushmen. From all parts of the district came the
+same story of captures and surrenders.
+
+Knowing, however, that Botha and Viljoen had slipped through to the
+south of the railway line, Lord Kitchener determined to rapidly
+transfer the scene of the operations to that side. At the end of
+April, after a fortnight's work, during which this large district was
+cropped, but by no means shaved, the troops turned south again.  The
+results of the operation had been eleven hundred prisoners, almost the
+same number as French had taken in the south-east, together with a
+broken Krupp, a pom-pom, and the remains of the big naval gun taken
+from us at Helvetia.
+
+It was determined that Plumer's advance upon Pietersburg should not be
+a mere raid, but that steps should be taken to secure all that he had
+gained, and to hold the lines of communication.  With this object the
+2nd Gordon Highianders and the 2nd Wiltshires were pushed up along the
+railroad, followed by Kitchener's Fighting Scouts.  These troops
+garrisoned Pietersburg and took possession of Chunies Poort, and other
+strategic positions.  They also furnished escorts for the convoys
+which supplied Plumer on the Oliphant River, and they carried out some
+spirited operations themselves in the neighbourhood of Pietersburg.
+Grenfell, who commanded the force, broke up several laagers, and
+captured a number of prisoners, operations in which he was much
+assisted by Colenbrander and his men. Finally the last of the great
+Creusot guns, the formidable Long Toms, was found mounted near
+Haenertsburg. It was the same piece which had in succession scourged
+Mafeking and Kimberley.  The huge gun, driven to bay, showed its
+powers by opening an effective fire at ten thousand yards.  The
+British galloped in upon it, the Boer riflemen were driven off, and
+the gun was blown up by its faithful gunners.  So by suicide died the
+last of that iron brood, the four sinister brothers who had wrought
+much mischief in South Africa.  They and their lesson will live in the
+history of modern artillery.
+
+The sweeping of the Roos-Senekal district being over, Plumer left his
+post upon the River of the Elephants, a name which, like Rhenoster,
+Zeekoe, Kameelfontein, Leeuw Kop, Tigerfontein, Elands River, and so
+many more, serves as a memorial to the great mammals which once
+covered the land.  On April 28th the force turned south, and on May
+4th they had reached the railroad at Eerstefabrieken close to
+Pretoria. They had come in touch with a small Boer force upon the way,
+and the indefatigable Vialls hounded them for eighty miles, and tore
+away the tail of their convoy with thirty prisoners.  The main force
+had left Pretoria on horseback on March 28th, and found themselves
+back once again upon foot on May 5th.  They had something to show,
+however, for the loss of their horses, since they had covered a
+circular march of 400 miles, had captured some hundreds of the enemy,
+and had broken up their last organised capital.  From first to last it
+was a most useful and well-managed expedition.
+
+It is the more to be regretted that General Blood was recalled from
+his northern trek before it had attained its full results, because
+those operations to which he turned did not offer him any great
+opportunities for success.  Withdrawing from the north of the railway
+with his columns, he at once started upon a sweep of that portion of
+the country which forms an angle between the Delagoa line and the
+Swazi frontier -- the Barberton district.  But again the two big fish,
+Viljoen and Botha, had slipped away, and the usual collection of
+sprats was left in the net.  The sprats count also, however, and every
+week now telegrams were reaching England from Lord Kitchener which
+showed that from three to five hundred more burghers had fallen into
+our hands.  Although the public might begin to look upon the war as
+interminable, it had become evident to the thoughtful observer that it
+was now a mathematical question, and that a date could already be
+predicted by which the whole Boer population would have passed into
+the power of the British.
+
+Among the numerous small British columns which were at work in
+different parts of the country, in the latter half of May, there was
+one under General Dixon which was operating in the neighbourhood of
+the Magaliesberg Range.  This locality has never been a fortunate one
+for the British arms.  The country is peculiarly mountainous and
+broken, and it was held by the veteran De la Rey and a numerous body
+of irreconcilable Boers.  Here in July we had encountered a check at
+Uitval's Nek, in December Clements had met a more severe one at
+Nooitgedacht, while shortly afterwards Cunningham had been repulsed at
+Middelfontein, and the Light Horse cut up at Naauwpoort.  After such
+experiences one would have thought that no column which was not of
+overmastering strength would have been sent into this dangerous
+region, but General Dixon had as a matter of fact by no means a strong
+force with him.  With 1,600 men and a battery he was despatched upon a
+quest after some hidden guns which were said to have been buried in
+those parts.
+
+On May 26th Dixon's force, consisting of Derbyshires, King's Own
+Scottish Borderers, Imperial Yeomanry, Scottish Horse, and six guns
+(four of 8th R.F.A. and two of 28th R.F.A.), broke camp at Naauwpoort
+and moved to the west.  On the 28th they found themselves at a place
+called Vlakfontein, immediately south of Oliphant's Nek.  On that day
+there were indications that there were a good many Boers in the
+neighbourhood.  Dixon left a guard over his canip and then sallied out
+in search of the buried guns.  His force was divided into three parts,
+the left column under Major Chance consisting of two guns of the 28th
+R.F.A., 230 of the Yeomanry, and one company of the Derbys. The centre
+comprised two guns (8th R.F.A.), one howitzer, two companies of the
+Scottish Borderers and one of the Derbys; while the right was made up
+of two guns (8th R.F.A.), 200 Scottish Horse, and two companies of
+Borderers.  Having ascertained that the guns were not there, the force
+about midday was returning to the camp, when the storm broke suddenly
+and fiercely upon the rearguard.
+
+There had been some sniping during the whole morning, but no
+indications of the determined attack which was about to be delivered.
+The force in retiring upon the camp had become divided, and the
+rearguard consisted of the small column under Major Chance which had
+originally formed the left wing. A veldt fire was raging on one flank
+of this rearguard, and through the veil of smoke a body of five
+hundred Boers charged suddenly home with magnificent gallantry upon
+the guns.  We have few records of a more dashing or of a more
+successful action in the whole course of the war. So rapid was it that
+hardly any time elapsed between the glimpse of the first dark figures
+galloping through the haze and the thunder of their hoofs as they
+dashed in among the gunners. The Yeomanry were driven back and many of
+them shot down.  The charge of the mounted Boers was supported by a
+very heavy fire from a covermg party, and the gun-detachments were
+killed or wounded almost to a man.  The lieutenant in charge and the
+sergeant were both upon the ground.  So far as it is possible to
+reconstruct the action from the confused accounts of excited
+eye-witnesses and from the exceedingly obscure official report of
+General Dixon, there was no longer any resistance round the guns,
+which were at once turned by their captors upon the nearest British
+detachment.
+
+The company of infantry which had helped to escort the guns proved
+however to be worthy representatives of that historic branch of the
+British service.  They were northerners, men of Derbyshire and
+Nottingham, the same counties which had furnished the brave militia
+who had taken their punishment so gamely at Roodeval.  Though hustled
+and broken they re-formed and clung doggedly to their task, firing at
+the groups of Boers who surrounded the guns.  At the same time word
+had been sent of their pressing need to the Scotch Borderers and the
+Scottish Horse, who came swarming across the valley to the succour of
+their comrades.  Dixon had brought two guns and a howitzer into
+action, which subdued the fire of the two captured pieces, and the
+infantry, Derbys and Borderers, swept over the position, retaking the
+two guns and shooting down those of the enemy who tried to stand.  The
+greater number vanished into the smoke, which veiled their retreat as
+it had their advance.  Forty-one of them were left dead upon the
+ground.  Six officers and fifty men killed with about a hundred and
+twenty wounded made up the British losses, to which two guns would
+certainly have been added but for the gallant counter-attack of the
+infantry.  With Dargai and Vlakfontein to their credit the Derbys have
+green laurels upon their war-worn colours.  They share them on this
+occasion with the Scottish Borderers, whose volunteer company carried
+itself as stoutly as the regulars.
+
+How is such an action to be summed up? To Kemp, the young Boer leader,
+and his men belongs the credit of the capture of the guns; to the
+British that of their recapture and of the final possession of the
+field. The British loss was probably somewhat higher than that of the
+Boers, but upon the other hand there could be no question as to which
+side could afford loss the better. The Briton could be replaced, but
+there were no reserves behind the fighting line of the Boers.
+
+There is one subject which cannot be ignored in discussing this
+battle, however repugnant it may be.  That is the shooting of some of
+the British wounded who lay round the guns.  There is no question at
+all about the fact, which is attested by many independent witnesses.
+There is reason to hope that some of the murderers paid for their
+crimes with their lives before the battle was over.  It is pleasant to
+add that there is at least one witness to the fact that Boer officers
+interfered with threats to prevent some of these outrages. It is
+unfair to tarnish the whole Boer nation and cause on account of a few
+irresponsible villains, who would be disowned by their own decent
+comrades.  Very many -- too many -- British soldiers have known by
+experience what it is to fall into the hands of the enemy, and it must
+be confessed that on the whole they have been dealt with in no
+ungenerous spirit, while the British treatment of the Boers has been
+unexampled in all military history for its generosity and
+humanity. That so fair a tale should be darkened by such ruffianly
+outrages is indeed deplorable, but the incident is too well
+authenticated to be left unrecorded in any detailed account of the
+campaign.  General Dixon, finding the Boers very numerous all round
+him, and being hampered by his wounded, fell back upon Naauwpoort,
+which he reached on June 1st.
+
+In May, Sir Bindon Blood, having returned to the line to refit, made
+yet another cast through that thrice-harried belt of country which
+contains Ermelo, Bethel, and Carolina, in which Botha, Viljoen, and
+the fighting Boers had now concentrated. Working over the blackened
+veldt he swung round in the Barberton direction, and afterwards made a
+westerly drive in conjunction with small columns commanded by Walter
+Kitchener, Douglas, and Campbell of the Rifles, while Colville,
+Garnett, and Bullock co-operated from the Natal line. Again the
+results were disappointing when compared with the power of the
+instrument employed.  On July 5th he reached Springs, near
+Johannesburg, with a considerable amount of stock, but with no great
+number of prisoners. The elusive Botha had slipped away to the south
+and was reported upon the Zululand border, while Viljoen had succeeded
+in crossing the Delagoa line and winning back to his old lair in the
+district north of Middelburg, from which he had been evicted in
+April. The commandos were like those pertinacious flies which buzz
+upwards when a hand approaches them, but only to settle again in the
+same place.  One could but try to make the place less attractive than
+before.
+
+Before Vujoen's force made its way over the line it had its revenge
+for the long harrying it had undergone by a well-managed night attack,
+in which it surprised and defeated a portion of Colonel Beatson's
+column at a place called Wilmansrust, due south of Middelburg, and
+between that town and Bethel. Beatson had divided his force, and this
+section consisted of 850 of the 5th Victorian Mounted Rifles, with
+thirty gunners and two pom-poms, the whole under the command of Major
+Morris.  Viljoen's force trekking north towards the line came upon
+this detachment upon June 12th.  The British were aware of the
+presence of the enemy, but do not appear to have posted any extra
+outposts or taken any special precautions.  Long months of commando
+chasing had imbued them too much with the idea that these were
+fugitive sheep, and not fierce and wily wolves, whom they were
+endeavouring to catch. It is said that 700 yards separated the four
+pickets. With that fine eye for detail which the Boer leaders possess,
+they had started a veldt fire upon the west of the camp and then
+attacked from the east, so that they were themselves invisible while
+their enemies were silhouetted against the light.  Creeping up between
+the pickets, the Boers were not seen until they opened fire at
+point-blank range upon the sleeping men.  The rifles were stacked --
+another noxious military tradition -- and many of the troopers were
+shot down while they rushed for their weapons.  Surprised out of their
+sleep and unable to distinguish their antagonists, the brave
+Australians did as well as any troops could have done who were placed
+in so impossible a position.  Captain Watson, the officer in charge of
+the pom-poms, was shot down, and it proved to be impossible to bring
+the guns into action. Within five minutes the Victorians had lost
+twenty killed and forty wounded, when the survivors surrendered. It is
+pleasant to add that they were very well treated by the victors, but
+the high-spirited colonials felt their reverse most bitterly.  'It is
+the worst thing that ever happened to Australia!' says one in the
+letter in which he describes it.  The actual number of Boers who
+rushed the camp was only 180, but 400 more had formed a cordon round
+it.  To Viljoen and his lieutenant Muller great credit must be given
+for this well-managed affair, which gave them a fresh supply of stores
+and clothing at a time when they were hard pressed for both.  These
+same Boer officers had led the attack upon Helvetia where the 4.7 gun
+was taken. The victors succeeded in getting away with all their
+trophies, and having temporarily taken one of the blockhouses on the
+railway near Brugspruit, they crossed the line in safety and returned,
+as already said, to their old quarters in the north, which had been
+harried but not denuded by the operations of General Blood.
+
+It would take a volume to catalogue, and a library to entirely
+describe the movements and doings of the very large number of British
+columns which operated over the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony
+during this cold-weather campaign.  If the same columns and the same
+leaders were consistently working in the same districts, some system
+of narrative might enable the reader to follow their fortunes, but
+they were, as a matter of fact, rapidly transferred from one side of
+the field of action to another in accordance with the concentrations
+of the enemy.  The total number of columns amounted to at least sixty,
+which varied in number from two hundred to two thousand, and seldom
+hunted alone.  Could their movements be marked in red upon a chart,
+the whole of that huge district would be criss-crossed, from Taungs to
+Komati and from Touws River to Pietersburg, with the track of our
+weary but indomitable soldiers.
+
+Without attempting to enter into details which would be unbecoming to
+the modesty of a single volume, one may indicate what the other more
+important groupings were during the course of these months, and which
+were the columns that took part in them.  Of French's drive in the
+south-east, and of Blood's incursion into the Roos-Senekal district
+some account has been given, and of his subsequent sweeping of the
+south. At the same period Babington, Dixon, and Rawlinson were
+co-operating in the Klerksdorp district, though the former officer
+transferred his services suddenly to Blood's combination, and
+afterwards to Elliot's column in the north of Orange River Colony.
+Williams and Fetherstonhaugh came later to strengthen this Klerksdorp
+district, in which, after the clearing of the Magaliesberg, De la Rey
+had united his forces to those of Smuts.  This very important work of
+getting a firm hold upon the Magaliesberg was accomplished in July by
+Barton, Allenby, Kekewich, and Lord Basing, who penetrated into the
+wild country and established blockhouses and small forts in very much
+the same way as Cumberland and Wade in 1746 held down the
+Highlands. The British position was much strengthened by the firm grip
+obtained of this formidable stronghold of the enemy, which was
+dangerous not only on account of its extreme strength, but also of its
+proximity to the centres of population and of wealth.
+
+De la Rey, as already stated, had gone down to the Klerksdorp
+district, whence, for a time at least, he seems to have passed over
+into the north of the Orange River Colony. The British pressure at
+Klerksdorp had become severe, and thither in May came the
+indefatigable Methuen, whom we last traced to Warrenton.  From this
+point on May 1st he railed his troops to Mafeking, whence he trekked
+to Lichtenburg, and south as far as his old fighting ground of
+Haartebeestefontein, having one skirmish upon the way and capturing a
+Boer gun. Thence he returned to Mafeking, where he had to bid adieu to
+those veteran Yeomanry who had been his comrades on so many a weary
+march.  It was not their fortune to be present at any of the larger
+battles of the war, but few bodies of troops have returned to England
+with a finer record of hard and useful service.
+
+No sooner, however, had Methuen laid down one weapon than he snatched
+up another.  Having refitted his men and collected some of the more
+efficient of the new Yeomanry, he was off once more for a three weeks'
+circular tour in the direction of Zeerust. It is difficult to believe
+that the oldest inhabitant could have known more of the western side
+of the Transvaal, for there was hardly a track which he had not
+traversed or a kopje from which he had not been sniped. Early in
+August he had made a fresh start from Mafeking, dividing his force
+into two columns, the command of the second being given to Von Donop.
+Having joined hands with Fetherstonhaugh, he moved through the
+south-west and finally halted at Klerksdorp.  The harried Boers moved
+a hundred miles north to Rustenburg, followed by Methuen,
+Fetherstonhaugh, Hamilton, Kekewich, and Allenby, who found the
+commandos of De la Rey and Kemp to be scattering in front of them and
+hiding in the kloofs and dongas, whence in the early days of September
+no less than two hundred were extracted.  On September 6th and 8th
+Methuen engaged the main body of De la Rey in the valley of the Great
+Marico River which lies to the north-west of Rustenburg.  In these two
+actions he pushed the Boers in front of him with a loss of eighteen
+killed and forty-one prisoners, but the fighting was severe, and
+fifteen of his men were killed and thirty wounded before the position
+had been carried. The losses were almost entirely among the newly
+raised Yeomanry, who had already shown on several occasions that,
+having shed their weaker members and had some experience of the field,
+they were now worthy to take their place beside their veteran
+comrades.
+
+The only other important operation undertaken by the British columns
+in the Transvaal during this period was in the north, where Beyers and
+his men were still harried by Grenfell, Colenbrander, and Wilson. A
+considerable proportion of the prisoners which figured in the weekly
+lists came from this quarter.  On May 30th there was a notable action,
+the truth of which was much debated but finally established, in which
+Kitchener's Scouts under Wilson surprised and defeated a Boer force
+under Pretorius, killing and wounding several, and taking forty
+prisoners.  On July 1st Grenfell took nearly a hundred of Beyers' men
+with a considerable convoy. North, south, east, and west the tale was
+ever the same, but so long as Botha, De la Rey, Steyn, and De Wet
+remained uncaptured, the embers might still at any instant leap into a
+flame.
+
+It only remains to complete this synopsis of the movements of columns
+within the Transvaal that I should add that after the conclusion of
+Blood's movement in July, several of his columns continued to clear
+the country and to harass Viljoen in the Lydenburg and Dulstroom
+districts.  Park, Kitchener, Spens, Beatson, and Benson were all busy
+at this work, never succeeding in forcing more than a skirmish, but
+continually whittling away wagons, horses, and men from that nucleus
+of resistance which the Boer leaders still held together.
+
+Though much hampered by the want of forage for their horses, the Boers
+were ever watchful for an opportunity to strike back, and the long
+list of minor successes gained by the British was occasionally
+interrupted by a petty reverse.  Such a one befell the small body of
+South African Constabulary stationed near Vereeniging, who encountered
+upon July 13th a strong force of Boers supposed to be the main
+commando of De Wet. The Constabulary behaved with great gallantry but
+were hopelessly outnumbered, and lost their seven-pounder gun, four
+killed, six wounded, and twenty-four prisoners.  Another small reverse
+occurred at a far distant point of the seat of war, for the irregular
+corps known as Steinacker's Horse was driven from its position at
+Bremersdorp in Swaziland upon July 24th, and had to fall back sixteen
+miles, with a loss of ten casualties and thirty prisoners.  Thus in
+the heart of a native state the two great white races of South Africa
+were to be seen locked in a desperate conflict. However unavoidable,
+the sight was certainly one to be deplored.
+
+To the Boer credit, or discredit, are also to be placed those repeated
+train wreckings, which cost the British during this campaign the lives
+and limbs of many brave soldiers who were worthy of some less ignoble
+fate.  It is true that the laws of war sanction such enterprises, but
+there is something indiscriminate in the results which is repelent to
+humanity, and which appears to justify the most energetic measures to
+prevent them.  Women, children, and sick must all travel by these
+trains and are exposed to a common danger, while the assailants enjoy
+a safety which renders their exploit a peculiarly inglorious one. Two
+Boers, Trichardt and Hindon, the one a youth of twenty-two, the other
+a man of British birth, distinguished, or disgraced, themselves by
+this unsavoury work upon the Delagoa line, but with the extension of
+the blockhouse system the attempts became less successful.  There was
+one, however, upon the northern line near Naboomspruit which cost the
+lives of Lieutenant Best and eight Gordon Highlanders, while ten were
+wounded.  The party of Gordons continued to resist after the smash,
+and were killed or wounded to a man.  The painful incident is
+brightened by such an example of military virtue, and by the naive
+reply of the last survivor, who on being questioned why he continued
+to fight until he was shot down, answered with fine simplicity,
+'Because I am a Gordon Highlander.'
+
+Another train disaster of an even more tragic character occurred near
+Waterval, fifteen miles north of Pretoria, upon the last day of
+August.  The explosion of a mine wrecked the train, and a hundred
+Boers who lined the banks of the cutting opened fire upon the derailed
+carriages.  Colonel Vandeleur, an officer of great promise, was killed
+and twenty men, chiefly of the West Riding regiment, were shot.  Nurse
+Page was also among the wounded.  It was after this fatal affair that
+the regulation of carrying Boer hostages upon the trains was at last
+carried out.
+
+It has been already stated that part of Lord Kitchener's policy of
+concentration lay in his scheme for gathering the civil population
+into camps along the lines of communication.  The reasons for this,
+both military and humanitarian, were overwhelming. Experience had
+proved that the men if left at liberty were liable to be persuaded or
+coerced by the fighting Boers into breaking their parole and rejoining
+the commandos. As to the women and children, they could not be left
+upon the farms in a denuded country.  That the Boers in the field had
+no doubts as to the good treatment of these people was shown by the
+fact that they repeatedly left their families in the way of the
+columns so that they might be conveyed to the camps.  Some
+consternation was caused in England by a report of Miss Hobhouse,
+which called public attention to the very high rate of mortality in
+some of these camps, but examination showed that this was not due to
+anything insanitary in their situation or arrangement, but to a severe
+epidemic of measles which had swept away a large number of the
+children. A fund was started in London to give additional comforts to
+these people, though there is reason to believe that their general
+condition was superior to that of the Uitlander refugees, who still
+waited permission to return to their homes.  By the end of July there
+were no fewer than sixty thousand inmates of the camps in the
+Transvaal alone, and half as many in the Orange River Colony. So great
+was the difficulty in providing the supplies for so large a number
+that it became more and more evident that some at least of the camps
+must be moved down to the sea coast.
+
+Passing to the Orange River Colony we find that during this winter
+period the same British tactics had been met by the same constant
+evasions on the part of the dwindling commandos.  The Colony had been
+divided into four military districts: that of Bloemfontein, which was
+given to Charles Knox, that of Lyttelton at Springfontein, that of
+Rundle at Harrismith, and that of Elliot in the north.  The latter was
+infinitely the most important, and Elliot, the warden of the northern
+marches, had under him during the greater part of the winter a mobile
+force of about 6,000 men, Commanded by such experienced officers as
+Broadwood, De Lisle, and Bethune.  Later in the year Spens, Bullock,
+Plumer, and Rimington were all sent into the Orange River Colony to
+help to stamp out the resistance.  Numerous skirmishes and snipings
+were reported from all parts of the country, but a constant stream of
+prisoners and of surrenders assured the soldiers that, in spite of the
+difficulty of the country and the obstinacy of the enemy, the term of
+their labours was rapidly approaching.
+
+In all the petty and yet necessary operations of these columns, two
+incidents demand more than a mere mention.  The first was a
+hard-fought skirmish in which some of Elliot's horsemen were engaged
+upon June 6th.  His column had trekked during the month of May from
+Kroonstad to Harrismith, and then turning north found itself upon that
+date near the hamlet of Reitz.  Major Sladen with 200 Mounted
+Infantry, when detached from the main body, came upon the track of a
+Boer convoy and ran it down.  Over a hundred vehicles with forty-five
+prisoners were the fruits of their enterprise.  Well satisfied with
+his morning's work, the British leader despatched a party of his men
+to convey the news to De Lisle, who was behind, while he established
+himself with his loot and his prisoners in a convenient kraal.  Thence
+they had an excellent view of a large body of horsemen approaching
+them with scouts, flankers, and all military precautions.  One
+warm-hearted officer seems actually to have sallied out to meet his
+comrades, and it was not till his greeting of them took the extreme
+form of handing over his rifle that the suspicion of danger entered
+the heads of his companions.  But if there was some lack of wit there
+was none of heart in Sladen and his men. With forty-five Boers to hold
+down, and 500 under Fourie, De Wet, and De la Rey around them, the
+little band made rapid preparation for a desperate resistance: the
+prisoners were laid upon their faces, the men knocked loopholes in the
+mud walls of the kraal, and a blunt soldierly answer was returned to
+the demand for surrender.
+
+But it was a desperate business. The attackers were five to one, and
+the five were soldiers of De Wet, the hard-bitten veterans of a
+hundred encounters.  The captured wagons in a long double row
+stretched out over the plain, and under this cover the Dutchmen
+swarmed up to the kraal.  But the men who faced them were veterans
+also, and the defence made up for the disparity of numbers. With fine
+courage the Boers made their way up to the village, and established
+themselves in the outlying huts, but the Mounted Infantry clung
+desperately to their position.  Out of the few officers present
+Findlay was shot through the head, Moir and Cameron through the heart,
+and Strong through the stomach.  It was a Waggon Hill upon a small
+scale, two dour lines of skirmishers emptying their rifles into each
+other at point-blank range.  Once more, as at Bothaville, the British
+Mounted Infantry proved that when it came to a dogged pelting match
+they could stand punishment longer than their enemy.  They suffered
+terribly.  Fifty-one out of the little force were on the ground, and
+the survivors were not much more numerous than their prisoners.  To
+the 1st Gordons, the 2nd Bedfords, the South Australians, and the New
+South Welsh men belongs the honour of this magnificent defence. For
+four hours the fierce battle raged, until at last the parched and
+powder-stained survivors breathed a prayer of thanks as they saw on
+the southern horizon the vanguard of De Lisle riding furiously to the
+rescue. For the last hour, since they had despaired of carrying the
+kraal, the Boers had busied themselves in removing their convoy; but
+now, for the second time in one day, the drivers found British rifles
+pointed at their heads, and the oxen were turned once more and brought
+back to those who had fought so hard to hold them.  Twenty-eight
+killed and twenty-six wounded were the losses in this desperate
+affair.  Of the Boers seventeen were left dead in front of the kraal,
+and the forty-five had not escaped from the bulldog grip which held
+them.  There seems for some reason to have been no effective pursuit
+of the Boers, and the British column held on its way to Kroonstad.
+
+The second incident which stands out amid the dreary chronicle of
+hustlings and snipings is the surprise visit paid by Broadwood with a
+small British column to the town of Reitz upon July 11th, which
+resulted in the capture of nearly every member of the late government
+of the Free State, save only the one man whom they particularly
+wanted.  The column consisted of 200 yeomen, 200 of the 7th Dragoon
+Guards, and two guns. Starting at 11 P.M., the raiders rode hard all
+night and broke with the dawn upon the sleeping village.  Racing into
+the main street, they secured the startled Boers as they rushed from
+the houses.  It is easy to criticise such an operation from a
+distance, and to overlook the practical difficulties in the way, but
+on the face of it it seems a pity that the holes had not been stopped
+before the ferret was sent in. A picket at the farther end of the
+street would have barred Steyn's escape.  As it was, he flung himself
+upon his horse and galloped half-clad out of the town.  Sergeant Cobb
+of the Dragoons snapped a rifle at close quarters upon him, but the
+cold of the night had frozen the oil on the striker and the Cartridge
+hung fire.  On such trifles do the large events of history turn!  Two
+Boer generals, two commandants, Steyn's brother, his secretary, and
+several other officials were among the nine-and-twenty prisoners.  The
+treasury was also captured, but it is feared that the Yeomen and
+Dragoons will not be much the richer from their share of the contents.
+
+Save these two incidents, the fight at Reitz and the capture of a
+portion of Steyn's government at the same place, the winter's
+campaign furnished little which was of importance, though a great deal
+of very hard and very useful work was done by the various columns
+under the direction of the governors of the four military
+districts. In the south General Bruce Hamilton made two sweeps, one
+from the railway line to the western frontier, and the second from the
+south and east in the direction of Petrusburg.  The result of the two
+operations was about 300 prisoners.  At the same time Monro and
+Hickman re-cleared the already twice-cleared districts of Rouxville and
+Smithfield.  The country in the east of the Colony was verging now upon
+the state which Grant described in the Shenandoah Valley: 'A crow,'
+said he, 'must carry his own rations when he flies across it.'
+
+In the middle district General Charles Knox, with the columns of
+Pine-Coffin, Thorneycroft, Pilcher, and Henry, were engaged in the
+same sort of work with the same sort of results.
+
+The most vigorous operations fell to the lot of Generak Elliot, who
+worked over the northern and north-eastern district, which still
+contained a large number of fighting burghers.  In May and June Elliot
+moved across to Vrede and afterwards down the eastern frontier of the
+Colony, joining hands at last with Rundle at Harrismith. He then
+worked his way back to Kroonstad through Reitz and Lindley. It was on
+this journey that Sladen's Mounted Infantry had the sharp experience
+which has been already narrated.  Western's column, working
+independently, co-operated with Elliot in this clearing of the
+north-east.  In August there were very large captures by Broadwood's
+force, which had attained considerable mobility, ninety miles being
+covered by it on one occasion in two days.
+
+Of General Rundle there is little to be said, as he was kept busy in
+exploring the rough country in his own district -- the same district
+which had been the scene of the operations against Prinsloo and the
+Fouriesburg surrender.  Into this district Kritzinger and his men
+trekked after they were driven from the Colony in July, and many small
+skirmishes and snipings among the mountains showed that the Boer
+resistance was still alive.
+
+July and August were occupied in the Orange River Colony by energetic
+operations of Spens' and Rimington's columns in the midland districts,
+and by a considerable drive to the north-eastern corner, which was
+shared by three columns under Elliot and two under Plumer, with one
+under Henry and several smaller bodies. A considerable number of
+prisoners and a large amount of stock were the result of the movement,
+but it was very evident that there was a waste of energy in the
+employment of such forces for such an end.  The time appeared to be
+approaching when a strong force of military police stationed
+permanently in each district might prove a more efficient
+instrument. One interesting development of this phase of the war was
+the enrolment of a burgher police among the Boers who had
+surrendered. These men -- well paid, well mounted, and well armed --
+were an efficient addition to the British forces.  The movement spread
+until before the end of the war there were several thousand burghers
+under such well-known officers as Celliers, Villonel, and young
+Cronje, fighting against their own guerilla countrymen. Who, in 1899,
+could have prophesied such a phenomenon as that!
+
+Lord Kitchener's proclamation issued upon August 9th marked one more
+turn in the screw upon the part of the British authorities. By it the
+burghers were warned that those who had not laid down their arms by
+September 15th would in the case of the leaders be banished, and in
+the case of the burghers be compelled to support their families in the
+refugee camps.  As many of the fighting burghers were men of no
+substance, the latter threat did not affect them much, but the other,
+though it had little result at the time, may be useful for the
+exclusion of firebrands during the period of reconstruction.  Some
+increase was noticeable in the number of surrenders after the
+proclamation, but on the whole it had not the result which was
+expected, and its expediency is very open to question.  This date may
+be said to mark the conclusion of the winter campaign and the opening
+of a new phase in the struggle.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+THE GUERILLA OPERATIONS IN CAPE COLONY
+
+In the account which has been given in a preceding chapter of the
+invasion of Cape Colony by the Boer forces, it was shown that the
+Western bands were almost entirely expelled, or at least that they
+withdrew, at the time when De Wet was driven across the Orange
+River. This was at the beginning of March 1901.  It was also mentioned
+that though the Boers evacuated the barren and unprofitable desert of
+the Karoo, the Eastern bands which had come with Kritzinger did not
+follow the same course, but continued to infest the mountainous
+districts of the Central Colony, whence they struck again and again at
+the railway ljiies, the small towns, British patrols, or any other
+quarry which was within their reach and strength.  From the
+surrounding country they gathered a fair number of recruits, and they
+were able through the sympathy and help of the Dutch farmers to keep
+themselves well mounted and supplied. In small wandering bands they
+spread themselves over a vast extent of country, and there were few
+isolated farmhouses from the Orange River to the Oudtshoorn Mountains,
+and from the Cape Town railroad in the west to the Fish River in the
+east, which were not visited by their active and enterprising scouts.
+The object of the whole movement was, no doubt, to stimulate a general
+revolt in the Colony; and it must be acknowledged that if the powder
+did not all explode it was not for want of the match being thoroughly
+applied.
+
+It might at first sight seem the simplest of military operations to
+hunt down these scattered and insignificant bands; but as a matter of
+fact nothing could be more difficult.  Operating in a country which
+was both vast and difficult, with excellent horses, the best of
+information and supplies ready for them everywhere, it was impossible
+for the slow-moving British columns with their guns and their wagons
+to overtake them. Formidable even in flight, the Boers were always
+ready to turn upon any force which exposed itself too rashly to
+retaliation, and so amid the mountain passes the British chiefs had to
+use an amount of caution which was incompatible with extreme speed.
+Only when a commando was exactly localised so that two or three
+converging British forces could be brought to bear upon it, was there
+a reasonable chance of forcing a fight. Still, with all these heavy
+odds against them, the various little columns continued month after
+month to play hide-and-seek with the commandos, and the game was by no
+means always on the one side.  The varied fortunes of this scrambling
+campaign can only be briefly indicated in these pages.
+
+It has already been shown that Kritzinger's original force broke into
+many bands, which were recruited partly from the Cape rebels and
+partly from fresh bodies which passed over from the Orange River
+Colony. The more severe the pressure in the north, the greater reason
+was there for a trek to this land of plenty.  The total number of
+Boers who were wandering over the eastern and midland districts may
+have been about two thousand, who were divided into bands which varied
+from .fifty to three hundred.  The chief leaders of separate commandos
+were Kritzinger, Scheepers, Malan, Myburgh, Fouché, Lotter, Smuts, Van
+Reenen, Lategan, Maritz, and Conroy, the two latter operating on the
+western side of the country.  To hunt down these numerous and active
+bodies the British were compelled to put many similar detachments into
+the field, known as the columns of Gorringe, Crabbe, Henniker,
+Scobell, Doran, Kavanagh, Alexander, and others.  These two sets of
+miniature armies performed an intricate devil's dance over the Colony,
+the main lines of which are indicated by the red lines upon the map.
+The Zuurberg mountains to the north of Steynsburg, the Sneeuwberg
+range to the south of Middelburg, the Oudtshoorn Mountains in the
+south, the Cradock district, the Murraysburg district, and the
+Graaf-Reinet district-these were the chief centres of Boer activity.
+
+In April Kritzinger made his way north to the Orange River Colony, for
+the purpose of consulting with De Wet, but he returned with a
+following of 200 men about the end of May.  Continual brushes
+occurred during this month between the various columns, and much hard
+marching was done upon either side, but there was nothing which could
+be claimed as a positive success.
+
+Early in May two passengers sailed for Europe, the journey of each
+being in its way historical.  The first was the weary and overworked
+Pro-Consul who had the foresight to distinguish the danger and the
+courage to meet it.  Milner's worn face and prematurely grizzled hair
+told of the crushing weight which had rested upon him during three
+eventful years. A gentle scholar, he might have seemed more fitted for
+a life of academic calm than for the stormy part which the discernment
+of Mr. Chamberlain had assigned to him.  The fine flower of an English
+university, low-voiced and urbane, it was difficult to imagine what
+impression he would produce upon those rugged types of which
+South. Africa is so peculiarly prolific. But behind the reserve of a
+gentleman there lay within him a lofty sense of duty, a singular
+clearness of vision, and a moral courage which would brace him to
+follow whither his reason pointed.  His visit to England for three
+months' rest was the occasion for a striking manifestation of loyalty
+and regard from his fellow-countrymen. He returned in August as Lord
+Milner to the scene of his labours, with the construction of a united
+and loyal commonwealth of South Africa as the task of his life.
+
+The second traveller who sailed within a few days of the Governor was
+Mrs. Botha, the wife of the Boer General, who visited Europe for
+private as well as political reasons.  She bore to Kruger an exact
+account of the state of the country and of the desperate condition of
+the burghers. Her mission had no immediate or visible effect, and the
+weary war, exhausting for the British but fatal for the Boers, went
+steadily on.
+
+To continue the survey of the operations in the Cape, the first point
+scored was by the invaders, for Malan's commando succeeded upon May
+13th in overwhelming a strong patrol of the Midland Mounted Rifles,
+the local colonial corps, to the south of Maraisburg.  Six killed,
+eleven wounded, and forty~one prisoners were the fruits of his little
+victory, which furnished him also with a fresh supply of rifles and
+ammunition.  On May 21st Crabbe's column was in touch with Lotter and
+with Lategan, but no very positive result came from the skirmish.
+
+The end of May showed considerable Boer activity in the Cape Colony,
+that date corresponding with the return of Kritzinger from the
+north. Haig had for the moment driven Scheepers back from the extreme
+southerly point which he had reached, and he was now in the
+Graaf-Reinet district; but on the other side of the colony Conroy had
+appeared near Kenhart, and upon May 23rd he fought a sharp skirmish
+with a party of Border Scouts.  The main Boer force under Kritzinger
+was in the midlands, however, and had concentrated to such an extent
+in the Cradock district that it was clear that some larger enterprise
+was on foot.  This soon took shape, for on June 2nd, after a long and
+rapid march, the Boer leader threw himself upon Jamestown, overwhelmed
+the sixty townsmen who formed the guard, and looted the town, from
+which he drew some welcome supplies and 100 horses.  British columns
+were full cry upon his heels, however, and the Boers after a few hours
+left the gutted town and vanished into the hills once more.  On June
+6th the British had a little luck at last, for on that date Scobell
+and Lukin in the Barkly East district surprised a laager and took
+twenty prisoners, 166 horses, and much of the Jamestown loot. On the
+same day Windham treated Van Reenen in a similar rough fashion near
+Steynsburg, and took twenty-two prisoners.
+
+On June 8th the supreme command of the operations in Cape Colony was
+undertaken by General French, who from this time forward manoeuvred
+his numerous columns upon a connected plan with the main idea of
+pushing the enemy northwards. It was some time, however, before his
+disposition bore fruit, for the commandos were still better mounted
+and lighter than their pursuers.  On Tune 13th the youthful and
+dashing Scheepers, who commanded his own little force at an age when
+he would have been a junior lieutenant of the British army, raided
+Murraysburg and captured a patrol. On Tune 17th Monro with Lovat's
+Scouts and Bethune's Mounted Infantry had some slight success near
+Tarkastad, but three days later the ill-fated Midland Mounted Rifles
+were surprised in the early morning by Kritzinger at Waterkloof, which
+is thirty miles west of Cradock, and were badly mauled by him.  They
+lost ten killed, eleven wounded, and sixty-six prisoners in this
+unfort unate affair.  Again the myth that colonial alertness is
+greater than that of regular troops seems to have been exposed.
+
+At the end of Tune, Fouché, one of the most enterprising of the
+guerilla chiefs, made a dash from Barkly East into the native reserves
+of the Transkei in order to obtain horses and supplies. It was a
+desperate measure, as it was vain to suppose that the warlike Kaffirs
+would permit their property to be looted without resistance, and if
+once the assegais were reddened no man could say how far the mischief
+might go. With great loyalty the British Government, even in the
+darkest days, had held back those martial races -- Zulus, Swazis, and
+Basutos -- who all had old grudges against the Amaboon. Fouché's raid
+was stopped, however, before it led to serious trouble. A handful of
+Griqualand Mounted Rifles held it in front, while Dalgety and his
+colonial veterans moving very swiftly drove him back northwards.
+
+Though baulked, Fouché was still formidable, and on July 14th he made
+a strong attack in the neighbourhood of Jamestown upon a column of
+Connaught Rangers who were escorting a convoy.  Major Moore offered a
+determined resistance, and eventually after some hours of fighting
+drove the enemy away and captured their laager.  Seven killed and
+seventeen wounded were the British losses in this spirited engagement.
+
+On July 10th General French, surveying from a lofty mountain peak the
+vast expanse of the field of operations, with his heliograph calling
+up responsive twinkles over one hundred miles of country, gave the
+order for the convergence of four columns upon the valley in which he
+knew Scheepers to be lurking.  We have it from one of his own letters
+that his commando at the time consisted of 240 men, of whom forty were
+Free Staters and the rest colonial rebels.  Crewe, Windham, Doran, and
+Scobell each answered to the call, but the young leader was a man of
+resource, and a long kloof up the precipitous side of the hill gave
+him a road to safety.  Yet the operations showed a new mobility in the
+British columns, which shed their guns and their baggage in order to
+travel faster.  The main commando escaped, but twenty-five laggards
+were taken. The action took place among the hills thirty miles to the
+west of Graaf-Reinet.
+
+On July 21st Crabbe and Kritzinger had a skirmish in the mountains
+near Cradock, in which the Boers were strong enough to hold their own;
+but on the same date near Murraysburg, Lukin, the gallant colonial
+gunner, with ninety men rode into 150 of Lategan's band and captured
+ten of them, with a hundred horses.  On July 27th a small party of
+twenty-one Imperial Yeomanry was captured, after a gallant resistance,
+by a large force of Boers at the Doorn River on the other side of the
+Colony.  The Kaffir scouts of the British were shot dead in cold blood
+by their captors after the action.  There seems to be no possible
+excuse for the repeated murders of coloured men by the Boers, as they
+had themselves from the beginning of the war used their Kaffirs for
+every purpose short of actually fighting.  The war had lost much of
+the good humour which marked its outset. A fiercer feeling had been
+engendered on both sides by the long strain, but the execution of
+rebels by the British, though much to be deplored, is still recognised
+as one of the rights of a belligerent. When one remembers the
+condonation upon the part of the British of the use of their own
+uniforms by the Boers, of the wholesale breaking of paroles, of the
+continual use of expansive bullets, of the abuse of the pass system
+and of the red cross, it is impossible to blame them for showing some
+severity in the stamping out of armed rebellion within their own
+Colony.  If stern measures were eventually adopted it was only after
+extreme leniency had been tried and failed.  The loss of five years'
+franchise as a penalty for firing upon their own flag is surely the
+most gentle correction which an Empire ever laid upon a rebellious
+people.
+
+At the beginning of August the connected systematic work of French's
+columns began to tell. In a huge semicircle the British were pushing
+north, driving the guerillas in front of them.  Scheepers in his usual
+wayward fashion had broken away to the south, but the others had been
+unable to penetrate the cordon and were herded over the
+Stormberg-Naauwport line.  The main body of the Boers was hustled
+swiftly along from August 7th to August 10th, from Graaf-Reinet to
+Thebus, and thrust over the railway line at that point with some loss
+of men and a great shedding of horses. It was hoped that the
+blockhouses on the railroad would have held the enemy, but they
+slipped across by night and got into the Steynsburg district, where
+Gorringe's colonials took up the running. On August 18th he followed
+the commandos from Steynsburg to Venterstad, killing twenty of them
+and taking several prisoners. On the 15th, Kritzinger with the main
+body of the invaders passed the Orange River near Bethulie, and made
+his way to the Wepener district of the Orange River Colony.
+Scheepers, Lotter, Lategan, and a few small wandering bands were the
+only Boers left in the Colony, and to these the British columns now
+turned their attention, with the result that Lategan, towards the end
+of the month, was also driven over the river. For the time, at least,
+the situation seemed to have very much improved, but there was a drift
+of Boers over the north-western frontier, and the long-continued
+warfare at their own doors was undoubtedly having a dangerous effect
+upon the Dutch farmers.  Small successes from time to time, such as
+the taking of sixty of French's Scouts by Theron's commando on August
+10th, served to keep them from despair.  Of the guerilla bands which
+remained, the most important was that of Scheepers, which now numbered
+300 men, well mounted and supplied.  He had broken back through the
+cordon, and made for his old haunts in the south-west.  Theron, with a
+smaller band, was also in the Uniondale and Willowmore district,
+approaching close to the sea in the Mossel Bay direction, but being
+headed off by Kavanagh.  Scheepers turned in the direction of Cape
+Town, but swerved aside at Montagu, and moved northwards towards Touws
+River.
+
+So far the British had succeeded in driving and injuring, but never in
+destroying, the Boer bands.  It was a new departure therefore when,
+upon September 4th, the commando of Lotter was entirely destroyed by
+the column of Scobell.  This column consisted of some of the Cape
+Mounted Rifles and of the indefatigable 9th Lancers. It marked the
+enemy down in a valley to the west of Cradock and attacked them in the
+morning, after having secured all the approaches, The result was a
+complete success.  The Boers threw themselves into a building and held
+out valiantly, but their position was impossible, aud after enduring
+considerable punishment they were forced to hoist the white
+flag. Eleven had been killed, forty-six wounded, and fifty-six
+surrendered -- figures which are in themselves a proof of the tenacity
+of their defence.  Lotter was among the prisoners, 260 horses were
+taken, and a good supply of ammunition, with some dynamite.  A few
+days later, on September 10th, a similar blow, less final in its
+character, was dealt by Colonel Crabbe to the commando of Van der
+Merve, which was an offshoot of that of Scheepers. The action was
+fought near Laingsburg, which is on the main line, just north of
+Matjesfontein, and it ended in the scattering of the Boer band, the
+death of their boy leader (he was only eighteen years of age), and the
+capture of thirty-seven prisoners.  Seventy of the Beers escaped by a
+hidden road.  To Colonials and Yeomanry belongs the honour of the
+action, which cost the British force seven casualties.  Colonel Crabbe
+pushed on after the success, and on September 14th he was in touch
+with Scheepers's commando near Ladismith (not to he confused with the
+historical town of Natal), and endured and inflicted some losses.  On
+the 17th a patrol of Grenadier Guards was captured in the north of the
+Colony, Rebow, the young lieutenant in charge of them, meeting with a
+soldier's death.
+
+On the same day a more serious engagement occurred near Tarkastad, a
+place ~hich lies to the east of Cradock, a notorious centre of
+disaffection in the midland &~stnct.  Smuts's commando, some hundreds
+strong, was marked down in this part, and several forces converged
+upon it.  One of the outlets, Elands River Poort, was guarded by a
+single squadron of the 17th Lancers.  Upon this the Boers made a
+sudden and very fierce attack, their approach being facilitated partly
+by the mist and partly by the use of khaki, a trick which seems never
+to have grown too stale for successful use. The result was that they
+were able to ride up to the British camp before any preparations had
+been made for resistance, and to shoot down a number of the Lancers
+before they could reach their horses.  So terrible was the fire that
+the single squadron lost thirty-four killed and thirty-six wounded.
+But the regiment may console itself for the disaster by the fact that
+the sorely stricken detachment remained true to the spirited motto of
+the corps, and that no prisoners appear to have been lost.
+
+After this one sharp engagement there ensued several weeks during
+which the absence of historical events, or the presence of the
+military censor, caused a singular lull in the account of the
+operations.  With so many small commandos and so many pursuing columns
+it is extraordinary that there should not have been a constant
+succession of actions.  That there was not must indicate a
+sluggishness upon the part of the pursuers, and this sluggishness can
+only be explained by the condition of their horses.  Every train of
+thought brings the critic back always to the great horse question, and
+encourages the conclusion that there, at all seasons of the war and in
+all scenes of it, is to be found the most damning indictment against
+British foresight, common-sense, and power of organisation.  That the
+third year of the war should dawn without the British forces having
+yet got the legs of the Boers, after having penetrated every portion
+of their country and having the horses of the world on which to draw,
+is the most amazingly inexplicable point in the whole of this strange
+campaign. From the telegram 'Infantry preferred' addressed to a nation
+of rough-riders, down to the failure to secure the excellent horses on
+the spot, while importing them unfit for use from the ends of the
+earth, there has been nothing but one long series of blunders in this,
+the most vital question of all.  Even up to the end, in the Colony the
+obvious lesson had not yet been learnt that it is better to give 1,000
+men two horses each, and EO let them reach the enemy, than give 2,000
+men one horse each, with which they can never attain their object. The
+chase during two years of the man with two horses by the man with one
+horse, has been a sight painful to ourselves and ludicrous to others.
+
+In connection with this account of operations within the Colony, there
+is one episode which occurred in the extreme north-west which will not
+fit in with this connected narrative, but which will justify the
+distraction of the reader's intelligence, for few finer deeds of arms
+are recorded in the war.  This was the heroic defence of a convoy by
+the 14th Company of Irish Imperial Yeomanry.  The convoy was taking
+food to Griquatown, on the Kimberley side of the seat of war. The town
+had been long invested by Conroy, and the inhabitants were in such
+straits that it was highly necessary to relieve them.  To this end a
+convoy, two miles long, was despatched under Major Humby of the Irish
+Yeomanry.  The escort consisted of seventy-five Northumberland
+Fusiliers, twenty-four local troops, and 100 of the 74th Irish
+Yeomanry. Fifteen miles from Griquatown, at a place called Rooikopjes,
+the convoy was attacked by the enemy several hundred in number. Two
+companies of the Irishmen seized the ridge, however, which commanded
+the wagons, and held it until they were almost exterminated.  The
+position was covered with bush, and the two parties came to the
+closest of quarters, the Yeomen refusing to take a backward step,
+though it was clear that they were vastly outnumbered.  Encouraged by
+the example of Madan and Ford, their gallant young leaders, they
+deliberately sacrificed their lives in order to give time for the guns
+to come up and for the convoy to pass.  Oliffe, Bonynge, and Maclean,
+who had been children together, were shot side by side on the ridge,
+and afterwards buried in one grave.  Of forty-three men in action,
+fourteen were killed and twenty severely wounded.  Their sacrifice was
+not in vain, however.  The Boers were beaten back, and the convoy, as
+well as Griquatown, was saved. Some thirty or forty Boers were killed
+or wounded in the skirmish, and Conroy, their leader, declared that it
+was the stiffest fight of his life.
+
+In the autumn and winter of 1901 General French had steadily pursued
+the system of clearing certain districts, one at a time, and
+endeavouring by his blockhouses and by the arrangement of his forces
+to hold in strict quarantine those sections of the country which were
+still infested by the commandos.  In this manner he succeeded by the
+November of this year in confining the active forces of the enemy to
+the extreme northeast and to the south-west of the peninsula.  It is
+doubtful if the whole Boer force, three-quarters of whom were colonial
+rebels, amounted to more than fifteen hundred men.  When we learn that
+at this period of the war they were indifferently armed, and that many
+of them were mounted upon donkeys, it is impossible, after making
+every allowance for the passive assistance of the farmers, and the
+difficulties of the country, to believe that the pursuit was always
+pushed with the spirit and vigour which was needful.
+
+In the north-east, Myburgh, Wessels, and the truculent Fouché were
+allowed almost a free hand for some months, while the roving bands
+were rounded up in the' midlands and driven along until they were west
+of the main railroad.  Here, in the Calvinia district, several
+commandos united in October 1901 under Maritz, Louw, Smit, and Theron.
+Their united bands rode down into the rich grain-growing country round
+Piquetberg and Malmesbury, pushing south until it seemed as if their
+academic supporters at Paarl were actually to have a sight of the
+rebellion which they had fanned to a flame. At one period their
+patrols were within forty miles of Cape Town.  The movement was
+checked, however, by a small force of Lancers and district troops, and
+towards the end of October, Maritz, who was chief in this quarter,
+turned northwards, and on the 29th captured a small British convoy
+which crossed his line of march. Early in November he doubled back and
+attacked Piquetberg, but was beaten off with some loss.  From that
+time a steady pressure from the south and east drove these bands
+farther and farther into the great barren lands of the west, until, in
+the following April, they had got as far as Namaqualand, many hundred
+miles away.
+
+Upon October 9th, the second anniversary of the Ultimatum, the hands
+of the military were strengthened by the proclamation of Cape Town and
+all the seaport towns as being in a state of martial law. By this
+means a possible source of supplies and recruits for the enemy was
+effectually blocked.  That it had not been done two years before is a
+proof of how far local political considerations can be allowed to
+over-ride the essentials of Imperial policy. Meanwhile treason courts
+were sitting, and sentences, increasing rapidly from the most trivial
+to the most tragic, were teaching the rebel that his danger did not
+end upon the field of battle. The execution of Lotter and his
+lieutenants was a sign that the patience of a long-suffering Empire
+had at last reached an end.
+
+The young Boer leader, Scheepers, had long been a thorn in the side of
+the British. He had infested the southern districts for some months,
+and he had distinguished himself both by the activity of his movements
+and by the ruthless vigour of some of his actions. Early in October a
+serious illness and consequent confinement to his bed brought him at
+last within the range of British mobility.  On his recovery he was
+tried for repeated breaches of the laws of war, including the murder
+of several natives.  He was condemned to death, and was executed in
+December. Much sympathy was excited by his gallantry and his youth --
+he was only twenty-three.  On the other hand, our word was pledged to
+protect the natives, and if he whose hand had been so heavy upon them
+escaped, all confidence would have been lost in our promises and our
+justice.  That British vengeance was not indiscriminate was shown soon
+afterwards in the case of a more irnportant commander, Kritzinger, who
+was the chief leader of the Boers within Cape Colony.  Kritzinger was
+wounded and captured while endeavouring to cross the line near Hanover
+Road upon December 15th.  He was put upon his trial, and his fate
+turned upon how far he was responsible for the misdeeds of some of his
+subordinates.  It was clearly shown that he had endeavoured to hold
+them within the bounds of civilised warfare, and with congratulations
+and handshakings he was acquitted by the military court.
+
+In the last two months of the year 1901, a new system was introduced
+into the Cape Colony campaign by placing the Colonial and district
+troops immediately under the command of Colonial officers and of the
+Colonial Government.  It had long been felt that some devolution was
+necessary, and the change was justified by the result.  Without any
+dramatic incident, an inexorable process of attrition, caused by
+continual pursuit and hardship, wore out the commandos. Large bands
+had become small ones, and small ones had vanished. Only by the union
+of several bodies could any enterprise higher than the looting of a
+farmhouse be successfully attempted.
+
+Such a union occurred, however, in the early days of February 1902,
+when Smuts, Malan, and several other Boer leaders showed great
+activity in the country round Calvinia.  Their commandos seem to have
+included a proportion of veteran Republicans from the north, who were
+more formidable fighting material than the raw Colonial rebels. It
+happened that several dangerously weak British columns were operating
+within reach at that time, and it was only owing to the really
+admirable conduct of the troops that a serious disaster was averted.
+Two separate actions, each of them severe, were fought on the same
+date, and in each case the Boers were able to bring very superior
+numbers into the field.
+
+The first of these was the fight in which Colonel Doran's column
+extricated itself with severe loss from a most perilous plight.  The
+whole force under Doran consisted of 350 men with two guns, and this
+handful was divided by an expedition which he, with 150 men, undertook
+in order to search a distant farm.  The remaining two hundred men,
+under Captain Saunders, were left upon February 5th with the guns and
+the convoy at a place called Middlepost, which lies about fifty miles
+south-west of Calvinia.  These men were of the 11th, 23rd, and 24th
+Imperial Yeomanry, with a troop of Cape Police.  The Boer Intelligence
+was excellent, as might be expected in a country which is dotted with
+farms.  The weakened force at Middlepost was instantly attacked by
+Smuts's commando. Saunders evacuated the camp and abandoned the
+convoy, which was the only thing he could do, but he concentrated all
+his efforts upon preserving his guns.  The night was illuminated by
+the blazing wagons, and made hideous by the whoops of the drunken
+rebels who caroused among the captured stores.  With the first light
+of dawn the small British force was fiercely assailed on all sides,
+but held its own in a manner which would have done credit to any
+troops.  The much criticised Yeomen fought like veterans. A
+considerable position had to be covered, and only a handful of men
+were available at the most important points.  One ridge, from which
+the guns would be enfiladed, was committed to the charge of
+Lieutenants Tabor and Chichester with eleven men of the 11th Imperial
+Yeomanry, their instructions being 'to hold it to the death.'  The
+order was obeyed with the utmost heroism. After a desperate defence
+the ridge was only taken by the Boers when both officers had been
+killed and nine out of eleven men were on the ground.  In spite of the
+loss of this position the fight was still sustained until shortly
+after midday, when Doran with the patrol returned.  The position was
+still most dangerous, the losses had been severe, and the Boers were
+increasing in strength.  An immediate retreat was ordered, and the
+small column, af~er ten days of hardship and anxiety, reached the
+railway line in safety.  The wounded were left to the care of Smuts,
+who behaved with chivalry and humanity.
+
+At about the same date a convoy proceeding from Beaufort West to
+Fraserburg was attacked by Malan's commando.  The escort, which
+consisted of sixty Colonial Mounted Rifles and 100 of the West
+Yorkshire militia, was overwhelmed after a good defence, in which
+Major Crofton, their commander, was killed. The wagons were destroyed,
+but the Boers were driven off by the arrival of Crabbe's column,
+followed by those of Capper and Lund.  The total losses of the British
+in these two actions amounted to twenty-three killed and sixty-five
+wounded.
+
+The re-establishment of settled law and order was becoming more marked
+every week in those southwestern districts, which had long been most
+disturbed. Colonel Crewe in this region, and Colonel Lukin upon the
+other side of the line, acting entirely with Colonial troops, were
+pushing back the rebels, and holding, by a well-devised system of
+district defence, all that they had gained. By the end of February
+there were none of the enemy south of the Beaufort West and
+Clanwilliam line.  These results were not obtained without much hard
+marching and a little hard fighting.  Small columns under Crabbe,
+Capper, Wyndham, Nickall, and Lund, were continually on the move, with
+little to show for it save an ever-widening area of settled country in
+their rear.  In a skirmish on February 20th ludge Hugo, a well-known
+Boer leader, was killed, and Vanheerden, a notorious rebel, was
+captured. At the end of this month Fouché's tranquil occupation of the
+north-east was at last disturbed, and he was driven out of it into the
+midlands, where he took refuge with the remains of his commando in the
+Camdeboo Mountains. Malan's men had already sought shelter in the same
+natural fortresB.  Malan was wounded and taken in a skirmish near
+Somerset East a few days before the general Boer surrender. Fouché
+gave himself up at Cradock on June 2nd.
+
+The last incident of this scattered, scrambling, unsatisfactory
+campaign in the Cape peninsula was the raid made by Smuts, the
+Transvaal leader, into the Port Nolloth district of Namaqualand, best
+known for its copper mines. A small railroad has been constructed from
+the coast at this point, the terminus being the township of Ookiep.
+The length of the line is about seventy miles.  It is difficult to
+imagine what the Boers expected to gain in this remote corner of the
+seat of war, unless they had conceived the idea that they might
+actually obtain possession of Port Nolloth itself, and so restore the
+communications with their sympathisers and allies.  At the end of
+March the Boer horsemen appeared suddenly out of the desert, drove in
+the British outposts, and summoned Ookiep to surrender. Colonel
+Shelton, who commanded the small garrison, sent an uncompromising
+reply, but he was unable to protect the railway in his rear, which was
+wrecked, together with some of the blockhouses which had been erected
+to guard it.  The loyal population of the surrounding country had
+flocked into Ookiep, and the Commandant found himself burdened with
+the care of six thousand people.  The enemy had succeeded in taking
+the small post of Springbok, and Concordia, the mining centre, was
+surrendered into their hands without resistance, giving them welcome
+suplies of arms, ammunition, and dynamite.  The latter was used by the
+Boers in the shape of hand-bombs, and proved to be a very efficient
+weapon when employed against blockhouses.  Several of the British
+defences were wrecked by them, with considerable loss to the garrison;
+but in the course of a month's siege, in spite of several attacks, the
+Boers were never able to carry the frail works which guarded the town.
+Once more, at the end of the war as at the beginning of it, there was
+shown the impotence of the Dutch riflemen against a British defence.
+A relief column, under Colonel Cooper, was quickly organised at Port
+Nolloth, and advanced along the railway line, forcing Smuts to raise
+the siege in the first week of May.  Immediately afterwards came the
+news of the negotiations for peace, and the Boer general presented
+himself at Port Nolloth, whence he was conveyed by ship to Cape Town,
+and so north again to take part in the deliberations of his
+fellow-countrymen. Throughout the war he had played a manly and
+honourable part.  It may be hoped that with youth and remarkable
+experience, both of diplomacy and of war, he may now find a long and
+briliant career awaiting him in a wider arena than that for which he
+strove.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+THE SPRING CAMPAIGN (SEPT.-DEC. 1901)
+
+The history of the war during the African winter of 1901 has now been
+sketched, and some account given of the course of events in the
+Transvaal, the Orange River Colony, and the Cape Colony.  The hope of
+the British tbat they might stamp out resistance before the grass
+should restore mobility to the larger bodies of Boers was destined to
+be disappointed.  By the middle of September the veldt had turned from
+drab to green, and the great drama was fated to last for one more act,
+however anxious all the British and the majority of the Boers might be
+to ring down the curtain.  Exasperating as this senseless prolongation
+of a hopeless struggle might be, there was still some consolation in
+the reflection that those who drank this bitter cup to the very lees
+would be less likely to thirst for it again.
+
+September 15th was the date which brought into force the British
+Proclamation announcing the banishment of those Boer leaders who
+continued in arms.  It must be confessed that this step may appear
+harsh and unchivalrous to the impartial observer, so long as those
+leaders were guilty of no practices which are foreign to the laws of
+civilised warfare.  The imposition of personal penalties upon the
+officers of an opposing army is a step for which it is difficult to
+quote a precedent, nor is it wise to officially rule your enemy
+outside the pale of ordinary warfare, since it is equally open to him
+to take the same step against you.  The only justification for such a
+course would be its complete success, as this would suggest that the
+Intelligence Department were aware that the leaders desired some
+strong excuse for coming in -- such an excuse as the Proclamation
+would afford.  The result proved that nothing of the kind was needed,
+and the whole proceeding must appear to be injudicious and
+high-handed.  In honourable war you conquer your adversary by superior
+courage, strength, or wit, but you do not terrorise him by particular
+penalties aimed at individuals.  The burghers of the Transvaal and of
+the late Orange Free State were legitimate belligerents, and to be
+treated as such -- a statement which does not, of course, extend to
+the Afrikander rebels who were their allies.
+
+The tendency of the British had been to treat their antagonists as a
+broken and disorganised banditti, but with the breaking of the spring
+they were sharply reminded that the burghers were still capable of a
+formidable and coherent effort.  The very date which put them beyond
+the pale as belligerents was that which they seem to have chosen in
+order to prove what active and valiant soldiers they still remained. A
+quick succession of encounters occurred at various parts of the seat
+of war, the general tendency of which was not entirely in favour of
+the British arms, though the weekly export of prisoners reassured all
+who noted it as to the sapping and decay of the Boer strength.  These
+incidents must now be set down in the order of their occurrence, with
+their relation to each other so far as it is possible to trace it.
+
+General Louis Botha, with the double intention of making an offensive
+move and of distracting the wavering burghers from a close examination
+of Lord Kitchener's proclamation, assembled his forces in the second
+week of September in the Ermelo district. Thence he moved them rapidly
+towards Natal, with the result that the volunteers of that colony had
+once more to grasp their rifles and hasten to the frontier.  The whole
+situation bore for an instant an absurd resemblance to that of two
+years before -- Botha playing the part of Joubert, and Lyttelton, who
+commanded on the frontier, that of White.  It only remained, to make
+the parallel complete, that some one should represent Penn Symons, and
+this perilous role fell to a gallant officer, Major Gough, commanding
+a detached force which thought itself strong enough to hold its own,
+and only learned by actual experiment that it was not.
+
+This officer, with a small force consisting of three companies of
+Mounted Infantry with two guns of the 69th R.F.A., was operating in
+the neighbourhood of Utrecht in the south-eastern corner of the
+Transvaal, on the very path along which Botha must descend.  On
+September 17th he had crossed De Jagers Drift on the Blood River, not
+very far from Dundee, when he found himself in touch with the enemy.
+His mission was to open a path for an empty convoy returning from
+Vryheid, and in order to do so it was necessary that Blood River
+Poort, where the Boers were now seen, should be cleared.  With
+admirable zeal Gough pushed rapidly forward, supported by a force of
+350 Johannesburg Mounted Rifles under Stewart.  Such a proceeding must
+have seemed natural to any British officer at this stage of the war,
+when a swift advance was the only chance of closing with the small
+bodies of Boers; but it is strange that the Intelligence Department
+had not warned the patrols upon the frontier tbat a considerable force
+was coming down upon them, and that they should be careful to avoid
+action against impossible odds.  If Gough had known that Botha's main
+commando was coming down upon him, it is inconceivable that he would
+have pushed his advance until he could neither extricate his men nor
+his guns.  A small body of the enemy, said to have been the personal
+escort of Louis Botha, led him on, until a large force was able to
+ride down upon him from the flank and rear.  Surrounded at Scheepers
+Nek by many hundreds of riflemen in a difficult country, there was no
+alternative but a surrender, and so sharp and sudden was the Boer
+advance that the whole action was over in a very short time.  The new
+tactics of the Boers, already used at Vlakfontein, and afterwards to
+be successful at Brakenlaagte and at Tweebosch, were put in force. A
+large body of mounted men, galloping swiftly in open order and firing
+from the saddle, rode into and over the British.  Such temerity should
+in theory have met with severe punishment, but as a matter of fact the
+losses of the enemy seem to have been very small.  The soldiers were
+not able to return an effective fire from their horses, and had no
+time to dismount. The sights and breech-blocks of the two guns are
+said to have been destroyed, but the former statement seems more
+credible than the latter. A Colt gun was also captured.  Of the small
+force twenty were killed, forty wounded, and over two hundred taken.
+Stewart's force was able to extricate itself with some difficulty, and
+to fall back on the Drift.  Gough managed to escape that night and to
+report that it was Botha himself, with over a thousand men, wJio had
+eaten up his detachment. The prisoners and wounded were sent in a few
+days later to Vryheid, a town which appeared to be in some danger of
+capture had not Walter Kitchener hastened to carry reinforcements to
+the garrison.  Bruce Hamilton was at the same time despatched to head
+Botha off, and every step taken to prevent his southern advance.  So
+many columns from all parts converged upon the danger spot that
+Lyttelton, who commanded upon the Natal frontier, had over 20,000 men
+under his orders.
+
+Botha's plans appear to have been to work through Zululand and then
+strike at Natal, an operation which would be the more easy as it would
+be conducted a considerable distance from the railway line. Pushing on
+a few days after his successful action with Gough, he crossed the Zulu
+frontier, and had in front of him an almost unimpeded march as far as
+the Tugela.  Crossing this far from the British base of power, his
+force could raid the Greytown district and raise recruits among the
+Dutch farmers, laying waste one of the few spots in South Africa which
+had been untouched by the blight of war.  All this lay before him, and
+in his path nothing save only two small British posts which might be
+either disregarded or gathered up as he passed.  In an evil moment for
+himself, tempted by the thought of the supplies which they might
+contain, he stopped to gather them up, and the force of the wave of
+invasion broke itself as upon two granite rocks.
+
+These two so-called forts were posts of very modest strength, a chain
+of which had been erected at the time of the old Zulu war.  Fort
+Itala, the larger, was garrisoned by 300 men of the 5th Mounted
+Infantry, drawn from the Dublin Fusiliers, Middlesex, Dorsets, South
+Lancashires, and Lancashire Fusiliers -- most of them old soldiers of
+many battles.  They had two guns of the 69th R.F.A., the same battery
+which had lost a section the week before.  Major Chapman, of the
+Dublins, was in command.
+
+Upon September 25th the small garrison heard that the main force of
+the Boers was sweeping towards them, and prepared to give them a
+soldiers' welcome.  The fort is situated upon the flank of a hill, on
+the summit of which, a mile from the main trenches, a strong outpost
+was stationed.  It was upon this that the first force of the attack
+broke at midnight of September 25th. The garrison, eighty strong, was
+fiercely beset by several hundred Boers, and the post was eventually
+carried after a sharp and bloody contest.  Kane, of the South
+Lancashires, died with the words 'No surrender' upon his lips, and
+Potgieter, a Boer leader, was pistolled by Kane's fellow officer,
+Lefroy.  Twenty of the small garrison fell, and the remainder were
+overpowered and taken.
+
+With this vantage-ground in their possession the Boers settled down to
+the task of overwhelming the main position.  They attacked upon three
+sides, and until morning the force was raked from end to end by unseen
+riflemen.  The two British guns were put out of action and the maxim
+was made unserviceable by a bullet. At dawn there was a pause in the
+attack, but it recommenced and continued without intermission until
+sunset.  The span betwixt the rising of the sun and its last red glow
+in the west is a long one for the man who spends it at his ease, but
+how never-ending must have seemed the hours to this handful of men,
+outnumbered, surrounded, pelted by bullets, parched with thirst, torn
+with anxiety, holding desperately on with dwindling numbers to their
+frail defences!  To them it may have seemed a hard thing to endure so
+much for a tiny fort in a savage land. The larger view of its vital
+importance could have scarcely come to console the regimental officer,
+far less the private.  But duty carried them through, and they wrought
+better than they knew, for the brave Dutchmen, exasperated by so
+disproportionate a resistance, stormed up to the very trenches and
+suffered as they had not suffered for many a long month.  There have
+been battles with 10,000 British troops hotly engaged in which the
+Boer losses have not been so great as in this obscure conflict against
+an isolated post.  When at last, baffled and disheartened, they drew
+off with the waning light, it is said that no fewer than a hundred of
+their dead and two hundred of their wounded attested the severity of
+the fight.  So strange are the conditions of South African warfare
+that this loss, which would have hardly made a skirmish memorable in
+the slogging days of the Peninsula, was one of the most severe blows
+which the burghers had sustained in the course of a two years' warfare
+against a large and aggressive army.  There is a conflict of evidence
+as to the exact figures, but at least they were sufficient to beat the
+Boer army back and to change their plan of campaign.
+
+Whilst this prolonged contest had raged round Fort Itala, a similar
+attack upon a smaller scale was being made upon Fort Prospect, some
+fifteen miles to the eastward.  This small post was held by a handful
+of Durham Artillery Militia and of Dorsets.  The attack was delivered
+by Grobler with several hundred burghers, but it made no advance
+although it was pushed with great vigour, and repeated many times in
+the course of the day. Captain Rowley, who was in command, handled his
+men with such judgment that one killed and eight wounded represented
+his casualties during a long day's fighting.  Here again the Boer
+losses were in proportion to the resolution of their attack, and are
+said to have amounted to sixty killed and wounded.  Considering the
+impossibility of replacing the men, and the fruitless waste of
+valuable ammunition, September 26th was an evil day for the Boer
+cause.  The British casualties amounted to seventy-three.
+
+The water of the garrison of Fort Itala had been cut off early in the
+attack, and their ammunition had run low by evening.  Chapman withdrew
+his men and his guns therefore to Nkandhla, where the survivors of his
+gallant garrison received the special thanks of Lord Kitchener.  The
+country around was still swarming with Boers, and on the last day of
+September a convoy from Melmoth fell into their hands and provided
+them with some badly needed supplies.
+
+But the check which he had received was sufficient to prevent any
+important advance upon the part of Botha, while the swollen state of
+the rivers put an additional obstacle in his way.  Already the British
+commanders, delighted to have at last discovered a definite objective,
+were hurrying to the scene of action.  Bruce Hamuton had reached Fort
+Itala upon September 28th and Walter Kitchener had been despatched to
+Vryheid. Two British forces, aided by smaller columns, were
+endeavouring to surround the Boer leader.  On October 6th Botha had
+fallen back to the north-east of Vryheid, whither the British forces
+had followed him.  Like De Wet's invasion of the Cape, Botha's advance
+upon Natal had ended in placing himself and his army in a critical
+position.  On October 9th he had succeeded in crossing the Privaan
+River, a branch of the Pongolo, and was pushing north in the direction
+of Piet Retief, much helped by misty weather and incessant rain.  Some
+of his force escaped between the British columns, and some remained in
+the kloofs and forests of that difficult country.
+
+Walter Kitchener, who had followed up the Boer retreat, had a brisk
+engagement with the rearguard upon October 6th.  The Boers shook
+themselves clear with some loss, both to themselves and to their
+pursuers.  On the 10th those of the burghers who held together had
+reached Luneburg, and shortly afterwards they had got completely away
+from the British columns. The weather was atrocious, and the lumbering
+wagons, axle-deep in mud, made it impossible for troops who were
+attached to them to keep in touch with the light riders who sped
+before them.  For some weeks there was no word of the main Boer force,
+but at the end of that time they reappeared in a manner which showed
+that both in numbers and in spirit they were still a formidable body.
+
+Of all the sixty odd British columns which were traversing the Boer
+states there was not one which had a better record than that commanded
+by Colonel Benson. During seven months of continuous service this
+small force, consisting at that time of the Argyle and Sutherland
+Highlanders, the 2nd Scottish Horse, the 18th and 19th Mounted
+Infantry, and two guns, had acted with great energy, and had reduced
+its work to a complete and highly effective system.  Leaving the
+infantry as a camp guard, Benson operated with mounted troops alone,
+and no Boer laager within fifty miles was safe from his nocturnal
+visits.  So skilful had he and his men become at these night attacks
+in a strange, and often difficult country, that out of twenty-eight
+attempts twenty-one resulted in complete success.  In each case the
+rule was simply to gallop headlong into the Boer laager, and to go on
+chasing as far as the horses could go. The furious and reckless pace
+may be judged by the fact that the casualties of the force were far
+greater from falls than from bullets.  In seven months forty-seven
+Boers were killed and six hundred captured, to say nothing of enormous
+quantities of munitions and stock.  The success of these operations
+was due, not only to the energy of Benson and his men, but to the
+untiring exertions of Colonel Wools-Sampson, who acted as intelligence
+officer. If, during his long persecution by President Kruger,
+Wools-Sampson in the bitterness of his heart had vowed a feud against
+the Boer cause, it must be acknowledged that he has most amply
+fulfilled it, for it would be difficult to point to any single man who
+has from first to last done them greater harm.
+
+In October Colonel Benson's force was reorganised, and it then
+consisted of the 2nd Buffs, the 2nd Scottish Horse, the 3rd and 25th
+Mounted Infantry, and four guns of the 84th battery. With this force,
+numbering nineteen hundred men, he left Middelburg upon the Delagoa
+line on October 20th and proceeded south, crossing the course along
+which the Boers, who were retiring from their abortive raid into
+Natal, might be expected to come.  For several days the column
+performed its familiar work, and gathered up forty or fifty prisoners.
+On the 26th came news that the Boer commandos under Grobler were
+concentrating against it, and that an attack in force might be
+expected. For two days there was continuous sniping, and the column as
+it moved through the country saw Boer horsemen keeping pace with it on
+the far flanks and in the rear.  The weather had been very bad, and it
+was in a deluge of cold driving rain that the British set forth upon
+October 30th, moving towards Brakenlaagte, which is a point about
+forty mi~s due south of Middelburg. It was Benson's intention to
+return to his base.
+
+About midday the column, still escorted by large bodies of aggressive
+Boers, came to a difficult spruit swollen by the rain.  Here the
+wagons stuck, and it took some hours to get them all across.  The Boer
+fire was continually becoming more severe, and had broken out at the
+head of the column as well as the rear.  The situation was rendered
+more difficult by the violence of the rain, which raised a thick steam
+from the ground and made it impossible to see for any distance.  Major
+Anley, in command of the rearguard, peering back, saw through a rift
+of the clouds a large body of horsemen in extended order sweeping
+after them.  'There's miles of them, begob! ' cried an excited Irish
+trooper. Next instant the curtain had closed once more, but all who
+had caught a glimpse of that vision knew that a stern struggle was at
+hand.
+
+At this moment two guns of the 84th battery under Major Guinness were
+in action against Boer riflemen. As a rear screen on the farther side
+of the guns was a body of the Scottish Horse and of the Yorkshire
+Mounted Infantry.  Near the guns themselves were thirty men of the
+Buffs.  The rest of the Buffs and of the Mounted Infantry were out
+upon the flanks or else were with the advance guard, which was now
+engaged, under the direction of Colonel Wools-Sampson, in parking the
+convoy and in forming the camp.  These troops played a small part in
+the day's fighting, the whole force of which broke with irresistible
+violence upon the few hundred men who were in front of or around the
+rear guns.  Colonel Benson seems to have just ridden back to the
+danger point when the Boers delivered their furious attack.
+
+Louis Botba with his commando is said to have ridden sixty miles in
+order to join the forces of Grobler and Oppermann, and overwhelm the
+British column. It may have been the presence of their commander or a
+desire to have vengeance for the harrying which they had undergone
+upon the Natal border, but whatever the reason, the Boer attack was
+made with a spirit and dash which earned the enthusiastic applause of
+every soldier who survived to describe it.  With the low roar of a
+great torrent, several hundred horsemen burst through the curtain of
+mist, riding at a furious pace for the British guns.  The rear screen
+of Mounted Infantry fell back before this terrific rush, and the two
+bodies of horsemen came pell-mell down upon the handful of Buffs and
+the guns.  The infantry were ridden into and surrounded by the Boers,
+who found nothing to stop them from galloping on to the low ridge upon
+which the guns were stationed.  This ridge was held by eighty of the
+Scottish Horse and forty of the Yorkshire M.I., with a few riflemen
+from the 25th Mounted Infantry.  The latter were the escort of the
+guns, but the former were the rear screen who had fallen back rapidly
+because it was the game to do so, but who were in no way shaken, and
+who instantly dismounted and formed when they reached a defensive
+position.
+
+These men had hardly time to take up their ground when the Boers were
+on them.  With that extraordinary quickness to adapt their tactics to
+circumstances which is the chief military virtue of the Boers, the
+horsemen did not gallop over the crest, but lined the edge of it, and
+poured a withering fire on to the guns and the men beside them.  The
+heroic nature of the defence can be best shown by the plain figures of
+the casualties.  No rhetoric is needed to adorn that simple record.
+There were thirty-two gunners round the guns, and twenty-nine fell
+where they stood.  Major Guinness was mortaly wounded while
+endeavouring with his own hands to fire a round of case.  There were
+sixty-two casualties out of eighty among the Scottish Horse, and the
+Yorkshires were practically annihilated. Altogether 123 men fell, out
+of about 160 on the ridge.  'Hard pounding, gentlemen,' as Wellington
+remarked at Waterloo, and British troops seemed as ready as ever to
+endure it.
+
+The gunners were, as usual, magnificent.  Of the two little
+bullet-pelted groups of men around the guns there was not one who did
+not stand to his duty without flinching.  Corporal Atkin was shot down
+with all his comrades, but still endeavoured with his failing strength
+to twist the breech-block out of the gun.  Another bullet passed
+through his upraised hands as he did it.  Sergant Hayes, badly
+wounded, and the last survivor of the crew, seized the lanyard,
+crawled up the trail, and fired a last round before he
+fainted. Sergeant Mathews, with three bullets through him, kept
+steadily to his duty. Five drivers tried to bring up a limber and
+remove the gun, but all of them, with all the horses, were hit.  There
+have been incidents in this war which have not increased our military
+reputation, but you might search the classical records of valour and
+fail to find anything finer than the consistent conduct of the British
+artillery.
+
+Colonel Benson was hit in the knee and again in the stomach, but
+wounded as he was he despatched a message back to Wools-Sampson,
+asking him to burst shrapnel over the ridge so as to prevent the Boers
+from carrying off the guns.  The burghers had ridden in among the
+litter of dead and wounded men which marked the British position, and
+some of the baser of them, much against the will of their commanders,
+handled the injured soldiers with great brutality.  The shell-fire
+drove them back, however, and the two guns were left standing alone,
+with no one near them save their prostrate gunners and escort.
+
+There has been some misunderstanding as to the part played by the
+Buffs in this action, and words have been used which seem to imply
+that they had in some way failed their mounted companions.  It is due
+to the honour of one of the finest regiments in the British army to
+clear this up.  As a matter of fact, the greater part of the regiment
+under Major Dauglish was engaged in defending the camp.  Near the guns
+there were four separate small bodies of Buffs, none of which appears
+to have been detailed as an escort.  One of these parties, consisting
+of thirty men under Lieutenant Greatwood, was ridden over by the
+horsemen, and the same fate befell a party of twenty who were far out
+upon the flank. Another small body under Lieutenant Lynch was over
+taken by the same charge, and was practically destroyed, losing
+nineteen killed and wounded out of thirty. In the rear of the guns was
+a larger body of Buffs, 130 in number, under Major Eales. When the
+guns were taken this handful attempted a counter-attack, but Eales
+soon saw that it was a hopeless effort, and he lost thirty of his men
+before he could extricate himself. Had these men been with the others
+on the gun ridge they might have restored the fight, but they had not
+reached it when the position was taken, and to persevere in the
+attempt to retake it would have led to certain disaster. The only just
+criticism to which the regiment is open is that, having just come off
+blockhouse duty, they were much out of condition, which caused the men
+to straggle and the movements to be unduly slow.
+
+It was fortunate that the command of the column devolved upon so
+experienced and cool-headed a soldier as Wools-Sampson.  To attempt a
+counter-attack for the purpose of recapturing the guns would, in case
+of disaster, have risked the camp and the convoy. The latter was the
+prize which the Boers had particularly in view, and to expose it would
+be to play their game. Very wisely, therefore, Wools-Sampson held the
+attacking Boers off with his guns and his riflemen, while every spare
+pair of hands was set to work entrenching the position and making it
+impregnable against attack. Outposts were stationed upon all those
+surrounding points which might command the camp, and a summons to
+surrender from the Boer leader was treated with contempt. All day a
+long-range fire, occasionally very severe, rained upon the camp.
+Colonel Benson was brought in by the ambulance, and used his dying
+breath in exhorting his subordinate to hold out.  'No more night
+marches' are said to have been the last words spoken by this gallant
+soldier as he passed away in the early morning after the action.  On
+October 31st the force remained on the defensive, but early on
+November 1st the gleaming of two heliographs, one to the north-east
+and one to the southwest, told that two British columns, those of De
+Lisle and of Barter, were hastening to the rescue.  But the Boers had
+passed as the storm does, and nothing but their swathe of destruction
+was left to show where they had been.  They had taken away the guns
+during the night, and were already beyond the reach of pursuit.
+
+Such was the action at Brakenlaagte, which cost the British sixty men
+killed and 170 wounded, together with two guns.  Colonel Benson,
+Colonel Guinness, Captain Eyre Lloyd of the Guards, Major Murray and
+Captain Lindsay of the Scottish Horse, with seven other officers were
+among the dead, while sixteen officers were wounded.  The net result
+of the action was that the British rear-guard had been annihilated,
+but that the main body and the convoy, which was the chief object of
+the attack, was saved.  The Boer loss was considerable, being about
+one hundred and fifty.  In spite of the Boer success nothing could
+suit the British better than hard fighting of the sort, since whatever
+the immediate result of it might be, it must necessarily cause a
+wastage among the enemy which could never be replaced.  The gallantry
+of the Boer charge was only equalled by that of the resistance offered
+round the guns, and it is an action to which both sides can look back
+without shame or regret.  It was feared that the captured guns would
+soon be used to break the blockhouse line, but nothing of the kind was
+attempted, and within a few weeks they were both recovered by British
+columns.
+
+In order to make a consecutive and intelligible narrative, I will
+continue with an account of the operations in this south-eastern
+portion of the Transvaal from the action of Brakenlaagte down to the
+end of the year 1901.  These were placed in the early part of
+November. under the supreme command of General Bruce Hamilton, and
+that energetic commander set in motion a number of small columns,
+which effected numerous captures. He was much helped in his work by
+the new lines of blockhouses, one of which extended from Standerton to
+Ermelo, while another connected Brugspruit with Greylingstad.  The
+huge country was thus cut into manageable districts, and the fruits
+were soon seen by the large returns of prisoners which came from this
+part of the seat of wvar.
+
+Upon December 3rd Bruce Hamilton, who had the valuable assistance of
+Wools-Sampson to direct his intelligcnce, struck swiftly out from
+Ermelo and fell upon a Boer laager in the early morning, capturing
+ninety-six prisoners.  On the 10th he overwhelmed the Bethel commando
+by a similar march, kiling seven and capturing 131.  Williams and
+Wing commanded separate columns in this operation, and their energy
+may be judged from the fact that they covered fifty-one miles during
+the twenty-four hours.  On the 12th Hamilton's columns were on the
+war-path once more, and another commando was wiped out.  Sixteen
+killed and seventy prisoners were the fruits of this expedition.  For
+the second time in a week the columns had done their fifty miles a
+day, and it was no surprise to hear from their commander that they
+were in need of a rest.  Nearly four hundred prisoners had been taken
+from the most warlike portion of the Transvaal in ten days by one
+energetic commander, with a list of twenty-five casualties to
+ourselves.  The thanks of the Secretary of War were specially sent to
+him for his brilliant work.  From then until the end of the year 1901,
+numbers of smaller captures continued to be reported from the same
+region, where Plumer, Spens, Mackenzie, Rawlinson, and others were
+working.  On the other hand there was one small setback which occurred
+to a body of two hundred Mounted Infantry under Major Bridgford, who
+had been detached from Spens's column to search some farmhouses at a
+place called Holland, to the south of Ermelo.  The expedition set
+forth upon the night of December 19th, and next morning surrounded and
+examined the farms.
+
+The British force became divided in doing this work, and were suddenly
+attacked by several hundred of Britz's commando, who came to close
+quarters through their khaki dress, which enabled them to pass as
+Plumer's vanguard.  The brunt of the fight fell upon an outlying body
+of fifty men, nearly all of whom were killed, wounded or taken.  A
+second body of fifty men were overpowered in the same way, after a
+creditable defence.  Fifteen of the British were killed and thirty
+wounded, while Bridgford the commander was also taken.  Spens came up
+shortly afterwards with the column, and the Boers were driven
+off. There seems every reason to think that upon this occasion the
+plans of the British had leaked out, and that a deliberate ambush had
+been laid for them round the farms, but in such operations these are
+chances against which it is not always possible to guard. Considering
+the number of the Boers, and the cleverness of their dispositions, the
+British were fortunate in being able to extricate their force without
+greater loss, a feat which was largely due to the leading of
+Lieutenant Sterling.
+
+Leaving the Eastern Transvaal, the narrative must now return to
+several incidents of importance which had occurred at various points
+of the seat of war during the latter months of 1901.
+
+On September 19th, two days after Gough's disaster, a misfortune
+occurred near Bloemfontein by which two guns and a hundred and forty
+men fell temporarily into the hands of the enemy. These guns,
+belonging to U battery, were moving south under an escort of Mounted
+Infantry, from that very Sanna's Post which had been so fatal to the
+same battery eighteen months before. When fifteen miles south of the
+Waterworks, at a place called Vlakfontein (another Vlakfontein from
+that of General Dixon's engagement), the small force was surrounded
+and captured by Ackermann'n commando. The gunner officer, Lieutenant
+Barry, died beside his guns in the way that gunner officers have. Guns
+and men were taken, however, the latter to be released, and the former
+to be recovered a week or two later by the British columns. It is
+certainly a credit to the Boers that the spring campaign should have
+opened by four British guns falling into their hands, and it is
+impossible to withhold our admiration for those gallant farmers who,
+after two years of exhausting warfare, were still able to turn upon a
+formidable and victorious enemy, and to renovate their supplies at his
+expense.
+
+Two days later, hard on the heels of Gough's mishap, of the
+Vlakfontein incident, and of the annihilation of the squadron of
+Lancers in the Cape, there was a serious affair at Elands Kloof, near
+Zastron, in the extreme south of the Orange River Colony.  In this a
+detachment of the Highland Scouts raised by the public spirit of Lord
+Lovat was surprised at night and very severely handled by Kritzinger's
+commando.  The loss of Colonel Murray, their commander, of the
+adjutant of the same name, and of forty-two out of eighty of the
+Scouts, shows how fell was the attack, which broke as sudden and as
+strong as a South African thunderstorm upon the unconscious camp. The
+Boers appear to have eluded the outposts and crept right among the
+sleeping troops, as they did in the case of the Victorians at
+Wilmansrust. Twelve gunners were also hit, and the only field gun
+taken.  The retiring Boers were swiftly followed up by Thorneycroft's
+column, however, and the gun was retaken, together with twenty of
+Kritzinger's men.  It must be confessed that there seems some irony in
+the fact that, within five days of the British ruling by which the
+Boers were no longer a military force, these non-belligerents had
+inflicted a loss of nearly six hundred men killed, wounded, or taken.
+Two small commandos, that of Koch in the Orange River Colony, and that
+of Carolina, had been captured by Williams and Benson.  Combined they
+only numbered a hundred and nine men, but here, as always, they were
+men who could never be replaced.
+
+Those who had followed the war with care, and had speculated upon the
+future, were prepared on hearing of Botha's movement upon Natal to
+learn that De la Rey had also made some energetic attack in the
+western quarter of the Transvaal.  Those who had formed this
+expectation were not disappointed, for upon the last day of September
+the Boer chief struck fiercely at Kekewich's column in a vigorous
+night attack, which led to as stern an encounter as any in the
+campaign. This was the action at Moedwill, near Magato Nek, in the
+Magaliesberg.
+
+When last mentioned De la Rey was in the Marico district, near
+Zeerust, where he fought two actions with Methuen in the early part of
+September.  Thence he made his way to Rustenburg and into the
+Magaliesberg country, where he joined Kemp.  The Boer force was
+followed up by two British columns under Kekewich and Fetherstonhaugh.
+The former commander had camped upon the night of Sunday, September
+30th, at the farm of Moedwill, in a strong position within a triangle
+formed by the Selous River on the west, a donga on the east, and the
+Zeerust-Rustenburg road as a base.  The apex of the triangle pointed
+north, with a ridge on the farther side of the river.
+
+The men with Kekewich were for the most part the same as those who had
+fought in the Vlakfontein engagement -- the Derbys, the 1st Scottish
+Horse, the Yeomanry, and the 28th R.F.A. Every precaution appears to
+have been taken by the leader, and his pickets were thrown out so far
+that ample warning was assured of an attack.  The Boer onslaught came
+so suddenly and fiercely, however, in the early morning, that the
+posts upon the river bank were driven in or destroyed and the riflemen
+from the ridge on the farther side were able to sweep the camp with
+their fire.  In numbers the two forces were not unequal, but the Boers
+had already obtained the tactical advantage, and were playing a game
+in which they are the schoolmasters of the world. Never has the
+British spirit flamed up more fiercely, and from the commander to the
+latest yeoman recruit there was not a man who flinched from a
+difficult and almost a desperate task.  The Boers must at all hazard
+be driven from the position which enabled them to command the camp.
+No retreat was possible without such an abandonment of stores as would
+amount to a disaster.  In the confusion and the uncertain light of
+early dawn there was no chance of a concerted movement, though
+Kekewich made such dispositions as were possible with admirable
+coolness and promptness. Squadrons and companies closed in upon the
+river bank with the one thought of coming to close quarters and
+driving the enemy from their commanding position. Already more than
+half the horses and a very large number of officers and men had gone
+down before the pelting bullets.  Scottish Horse, Yeomanry, and Derbys
+pushed on, the young soldiers of the two former corps keeping pace
+with the veteran regiment.  'All the men bebaved simply splendidly,'
+said a spectator, 'taking what little cover there was and advancing
+yard by yard. An order was given to try and saddle up a squadron, with
+the idea of getting round their flank.  I had the saddle almost on one
+of my ponies when he was hit in two places.  Two men trying to saddle
+alongside of me were both shot dead, and Lieutenant Wortley was shot
+through the knee. I ran back to where I had been firing from and found
+the Colonel slightly hit, the Adjutant wounded and dying, and men dead
+and wounded all round.'  But the counter-attack soon began to make
+way. At first the advance was slow, but soon it quickened into a
+magnificent rush, the wounded Kekewich whooping on his men, and the
+guns coming into action as the enemy began to fall back before the
+fierce charge of the British riflemen. At six o'clock De la Rey's
+burghers had seen that their attempt was hopeless, and were in full
+retreat -- a retreat which could not be harassed by the victors, whose
+cavalry had been converted by that hail of bullets into footmen.  The
+repulse had been absolute and complete, for not a man or a cartridge
+had been taken from the British, but the price paid in killed and
+wounded was a heavy one.  No fewer than 161 had been hit, including
+the gallant leader, whose hurt did not prevent him from resuming his
+duties within a few days.  The heaviest losses fell upon the Scottish
+Horse, and upon the Derbys; but the Yeomanry also proved on this, as
+on some other occasions, how ungenerous were the criticisms to which
+they had been exposed.  There are few actions in the war which appear
+to have been more creditable to the troops engaged.
+
+Though repulsed at Moedwill, De la Rey, the grim, long-bearded
+fighting man, was by no means discouraged. From the earliest days of
+the campaign, when he first faced Methuen upon the road to Kimberley,
+he had shown that he was a most dangerous antagonist, tenacious,
+ingenious, and indomitable. With him were a body of irreconcilable
+burghers, who were the veterans of many engagements, and in Kemp he
+had an excellent fighting subordinate. His command extended over a
+wide stretch of populous country, and at any time he could bring
+considerable reinforcements to his aid, who would separate again to
+their farms and hiding-places when their venture was accomplished. For
+some weeks after the fight at Moedwill the Boer forces remained quiet
+in that district.  Two British columns had left Zeerust on October
+17th, under Methuen and Von Donop, in order to sweep the surrounding
+country, the one working in the direction of Elands River and the
+other in that of Rustenburg. They returned to Zeerust twelve days
+later, after a successful foray, which had been attended with much
+sniping and skirmishing, but only one action which is worthy of
+record.
+
+This was fought on October 24th at a spot near Kleinfontein, upon the
+Great Marico River, which runs to the north-east of Zeerust. Von
+Donop's column was straggling through very broken and bush-covered
+country when it was furiously charged in the flank and rear by two
+separate bodies of burghers.  Kemp, who commanded the flank attack,
+cut into the line of wagons and destroyed eight of them, killing many
+of the Kaffir drivers, before he could be driven off. De la Rey and
+Steenkamp, who rushed the rear-guard, had a more desperate contest.
+The Boer horsemen got among the two guns of the 4th R.F.A., and held
+temporary possession of them, but the small escort were veterans of
+the 'Fighting Fifth,' who lived up to the traditions of their famous
+north-country regiment. Of the gun crews of the section, amounting to
+about twenty-six men, the young officer, Hill, and sixteen men were
+hit. Of the escort of Northumberland Fusiliers hardly a man was left
+standing, and forty-one of the supporting Yeomanry were killed and
+wounded. It was for some little time a fierce and concentrated
+struggle at the shortest of ranges.  The British horsemen came
+galloping to the rescue, however, and the attack was finally driven
+back into tbat broken country from which it had come. Forty dead Boers
+upon the ground, with their brave chieftain, Ouisterhuisen, amongst
+them, showed how manfully the attack had been driven home. The British
+losses were twenty-eight killed and fifty-six wounded.  Somewhat
+mauled, and with eight missing wagons, the small column made its way
+back to Zeerust.
+
+>From this incident until the end of the year nothing of importance
+occurred in this part of the seat of war, save for a sharp and
+well-managed action at Beestekraal upon October 29th, in which
+seventy~nine Boers were surrounded and captured by Kekewich's
+horsemen. The process of attrition went very steadily forwards, and
+each of the British columns returned its constant tale of prisoners.
+The blockhouse system had now been extended to such an extent that the
+Magaliesberg was securely held, and a line had been pushed through
+from Klerksdorp and Fredericstad to Ventersdorp. One of Colonel
+Hickie's Yeomanry patrols was roughly handled near Brakspruit upon
+November 13th, but with this exception the points scored were all upon
+one side. Methuen and Kekewich came across early in November from
+Zeerust to Klerksdorp, and operated from the railway line.  The end of
+the year saw them both in the Wolmaranstad district, where they were
+gathering up prisoners and clearing the country.
+
+Of the events in the other parts of the Transvaal, during the last
+three months of the year 1901, there is not much to be said.  In all
+parts the lines of blockhouses and of constabulary posts were
+neutralising the Boer mobility, and bringing them more and more within
+reach of the British.  The only fighting forces left in the Transvaal
+were those under Botha in the south-east and those under De la Rey in
+the west.  The others attempted nothing save to escape from their
+pursuers, and when overtaken they usually gave in without serious
+opposition.  Among the larger hauls may be mentioned that of Dawkins
+in the Nylstrom district (seventy-six prisoners), Kekewich
+(seventy-eight), Colenbrander in the north (fifty-seven), Dawkins and
+Colenbrander (104), Colenbrander (sixty-two); but the great majority
+of the captures were in smaller bodies, gleaned from the caves, the
+kloofs, and the farmhouses.
+
+Only two small actions during these months appear to call for any
+separate notice.  The first was an attack made by Buys' commando, upon
+November 20th, on the Railway Pioneers when at work near Villiersdorp,
+in the extreme north-east of the Orange River Colony.  This corps,
+consisting mainly of miners from Johannesburg, had done invaluable
+service during the war.  On this occasion a working party of them was
+suddenly attacked, and most of them taken prisoners.  Major Fisher,
+who commanded the pioneers, was killed, and three other officers with
+several men were wounded.  Colonel Rimington's column appeared upon
+the scene, however, and drove off the Boers, who left their leader,
+Buys, a wounded prisoner in our hands.
+
+The second action was a sharp attack delivered by Muller's Boers upon
+Colonel Park's column on the night of December 19th, at Elandspruit.
+The fight was sharp while it lasted, but it ended in the repulse of
+the assailants.  The British casualties were six killed and
+twenty-four wounded.  The Boers, who left eight dead behind them,
+suffered probably to about the same extent.
+
+Already the most striking and pleasing feature in the Transvaal was
+the tranquillity of its central provinces, and the way in which the
+population was settling down to its old avocations.  Pretoria had
+resumed its normal quiet life, while its larger and more energetic
+neighbour was rapidly recovering from its two years of
+paralysis. Every week more stamps were dropped in the mines, and from
+month to month a steady increase in the output showed that the great
+staple industry of the place would soon be as vigorous as ever.  Most
+pleasing of all was the restoration of safety upon the railway lines,
+which, save for some precautions at night, had resumed their normal
+traffic. When the observer took his eyes from the dark clouds which
+shadowed every horizon, he could not but rejoice at the ever-widening
+central stretch of peaceful blue which told that the storm was nearing
+its end.
+
+Having now dealt with the campaign in the Transvaal down to the end of
+1901, it only remains to bring the chronicle of the events in the
+Orange River Colony down to the same date.  Reference has already been
+made to two small British reverses which occurred in September, the
+loss of two guns to the south of the Waterworks near Bloemfontein, and
+the surprise of the camp of Lord Lovat's Scouts.  There were some
+indications at this time that a movement had been planned through the
+passes of the Drakensberg by a small Free State force which should aid
+Louis Botha's invasion of Natal.  The main movement was checked,
+however, and the demonstration in aid of it came to nothing.
+
+The blockhouse system had been developed to a very complete extent in
+the Orange River Colony, and the small bands of Boers found it
+increasingly difficult to escape from the British columns who were for
+ever at their heels.  The southern portion of the country had been cut
+off from the northern by a line which extended through Bloemfontein on
+the east to the Basuto frontier, and on the west to Jacobsdal. To the
+south of this line the Boer resistance had practically ceased,
+althougb several columns moved continually through it, and gleaned up
+the broken fragments of the commandos. The north-west had also settled
+down to a large extent, and during the last three months of 1901 no
+action of importance occurred in that region.  Even in the turbulent
+north-east, which had always been the centre of resistance, there was
+little opposition to the British columns, which continued every week
+to send in their tale of prisoners.  Of the column commanders,
+Williams, Damant, Du Moulin, Lowry Cole, and Wilson were the most
+successful.  In their operations they were much aided by the South
+African Constabulary.  One young officer of this force, Major
+Pack-Beresford, especially distinguished himself by his gallantry and
+ability. His premature death from enteric was a grave loss to the
+British army.  Save for one skirmish of Colonel Wilson's early in
+October, and another of Byng's on November 14th, there can hardly be
+said to have been any actual fighting until the events late in
+December which I am about to describe.
+
+In the meanwhile the peaceful organisation of the country was being
+pushed forward as rapidly as in the Transvaal, although here the
+problems presented were of a different order, and the population an
+exclusively Dutch one.  The schools already showed a higher attendance
+than in the days before the war, while a continual stream of burghers
+presented themselves to take the oath of allegiance, and even to join
+the ranks against their own irreconcilable countrymen, whom they
+looked upon with justice as the real authors of their troubles.
+
+Towards the end of November there were signs that the word had gone
+forth for a fresh concentration of the fighting Boers in their old
+haunts in the Heilbron district, and early in December it was known
+that the indefatigable De Wet was again in the field.  He had remained
+quiet so long that there bad been persistent rumours of his injury and
+even of his death, but he was soon to show that he was as alive as
+ever.  President Steyn was ill of a most serious complaint, caused
+possibly by the mental and physical sufferings which he had undergone;
+but with an indomitable resolution which makes one forget and forgive
+the fatuous policy which brought him and his State to such a pass, be
+still appeared in his Cape cart at the laager of the faithful remnant
+of his commandos.  To those who remembered how widespread was our
+conviction of the half-heartedness of the Free Staters at the outbreak
+of the war, it was indeed a revelation to see them after two years
+still making a stand against the forces which had crushed them.
+
+It had been long evident that the present British tactics of scouring
+the country and capturing the isolated burghers must in time bring the
+war to a conclusion. From the Boer point of view the only hope, or at
+least the only glory, lay in reassembling once more in larger bodies
+and trying conclusions with some of the British columns.  It was with
+this purpose that De Wet early in December assembled Wessels, Manie
+Botha, and others of his lieutenants, together with a force of about
+two thousand men, in the Heilbron district.  Small as this force was,
+it was admirably mobile, and every man in it was a veteran, toughened
+and seasoned by two years of constant fighting.  De Wet's first
+operations were directed against an isolated column of Colonel
+Wilson's, which was surrounded within twenty miles of Heilbron.
+Rimington, in response to a heliographic call for assistance, hurried
+with admirable promptitude to the scene of action, and joined hands
+with Wilson. De Wet's men were as numerous, however, as the two
+columns combined, and they harassed the return march into Heilbron.  A
+determined attack was made on the convoy and on the rearguard, but it
+was beaten off. That night Rimington's camp was fired into by a large
+body of Boers, but he had cleverly moved his men away from the fires,
+so that no harm was done.  The losses in these operations were small,
+but with troops which bad not been trained in this method of fighting
+the situation would have been a serious one. For a fortnight or more
+after this the burghers contented themselves by skirmishing with
+British columns and avoiding a drive which Elliot's forces made
+against them.  On December 18th they took the offensive, however, and
+within a week fought three actions, two of which ended in their
+favour.
+
+News had come to British headquarters that Kaffir's Kop, to the
+north-west of Bethlehem, was a centre of Boer activity.  Three columns
+were therefore turned in that direction, Elliot's, Barker's, and
+Dartnell's. Some desultory skirmishing ensued, which was only
+remarkable for the death of Haasbroek, a well-known Boer leader.  As
+the columns separated again, unable to find an objective, De Wet
+suddenly showed one of them that their failure was not due to his
+absence. Dartnell bad retraced his steps nearly as far as Eland's River
+Bridge, when the Boer leader sprang out of his lair in the Langberg
+and threw himself upon him. The burghers attempted to ride in, as they
+had successfully done at Brakenlaagte, but they were opposed by the
+steady old troopers of the two regiments of Imperial Horse, and by a
+General who was familiar with every Boer ruse. The horsemen never got
+nearer than 150 yards to the British line, and were beaten back by the
+steady fire which met them. Finding that he made no headway, and
+learning that Campbell's column was coming up from Bethlehem, De Wet
+withdrew his men after four hours' fighting.  Fifteen were hit upon
+the British side, and the Boer loss seems to have been certainly as
+great or greater.
+
+De Wet's general aim in his operations seems to have been to check the
+British blockhouse building. With his main force in the Langberg he
+could threaten the line which was now being erected between Bethlehem
+and Harrismith, a line against which his main commando was destined,
+only two months later, to beat itself in vain.  Sixty miles to the
+north a second line was being run across country from Frankfort to
+Standerton, and had reached a place called Tafelkop. A covering party
+of East Lancashires and Yeomanry watched over the workers, but De Wet
+had left a portion of his force in that neighbourhood, and they
+harassed the blockhouse builders to such an extent that General
+Hamilton, who was in command, found it necessary to send in to
+Frankfort for support. The British columns there had just returned
+exhausted from a drive, but three bodies under Damant, Rimington, and
+Wilson were at once despatched to clear away the enemy.
+
+The weather was so atrocious that the veldt resembled an inland sea,
+with the kopjes as islands rising out of it.  By this stage of the war
+the troops were hardened to all weathers, and they pushed swiftly on
+to the scene of action.  As they approached the spot where the Boers
+had been reported, the line had been extended over many miles, with
+the result that it had become very attenuated and dangerously weak in
+the centre. At this point Colonel Damant and his small staff were
+alone with the two guns and the maxim, save for a handful of Imperial
+Yeomanry (91st), who acted as escort to the guns. Across the face of
+this small force there rode a body of men in khaki uniforms, keeping
+British formation, and actually firing bogus volleys from time to time
+in the direction of some distant Boers.  Damant and his staff seem to
+have taken it for granted that these were Rimington's men, and the
+clever ruse succeeded to perfection.  Nearer and nearer came the
+strangers, and suddenly throwing off all disguise, they made a dash
+for the guns.  Four rounds of case failed to stop them, and in a few
+minutes they were over the kopje on which the guns stood and had
+ridden among the gunners, supported in their attack by a flank fire
+from a number of dismounted riflemen.
+
+The instant that the danger was realised Damant, his staff, and the
+forty Yeomen who formed the escort dashed for the crest in the hope of
+anticipating the Boers. So rapid was the charge of the others that
+they had overwhelmed the gunners before the supports could reach the
+hill, and the latter found themselves under the deadly fire of the
+Boer rifles from above.  Damant was hit in four places, all of his
+staff were wounded, and hardly a man of the small body of Yeomanry was
+left standing. Nothing could exceed their gallantry. Gaussen their
+captain fell at their head.  On the ridge the men about the guns were
+nearly all killed or wounded.  Of the gun detachment only two men
+remained, both of them hit, and Jeffcoat their dyLng captain
+bequeathed them fifty pounds each in a will drawn upon the spot. In
+half an hour the centre of the British line had been absolutely
+annihilated.  Modern warfare is on the whole much less bloody than of
+old, but when one party has gained the tactical mastery it is a choice
+between speedy surrender and total destruction.
+
+The wide-spread British wings had begun to understand that there was
+something amiss, and to ride in towards the centre.  An officer on the
+far right peering through his glasses saw those tell-tale puffs at the
+very muzzles of the British guns, which showed that they were firing
+case at close quarters.  He turned his squadron inwards and soon
+gathered up Scott's squadron of Damant's Horse, and both rode for the
+kopje.  Rimington's men were appearing on the other side, and the
+Boers rode off.  They were unable to remove the guns which they had
+taken, because all the horses had perished. 'I actually thought,' says
+one officer who saw them ride away, 'that I had made a mistake and
+been fighting our own men.  They were dressed in our uniforms and some
+of them wore the tiger-skin, the badge of Damant's Horse, round their
+hats.'  The same officer gives an account of the scene on the
+gun-kopje.  'The result when we got to the guns was this, gunners all
+killed except two (both wounded), pom-pom officers and men all killed,
+maxim all killed, 91st (the gun escort) one officer and one man not
+hit, all the rest killed or wounded; staff, every officer hit.'  That
+is what it means to those who are caught in the vortex of the cyclone.
+The total loss was about seventy-five.
+
+In this action the Boers, who were under the command of Wessels,
+delivered their attack with a cleverness and dash which deserved
+success.  Their stratagem, however, depending as it did upon the use
+of British uniforms and methods, was illegitimate by all the laws of
+war, and one can but marvel at the long-suffering patience of officers
+and men who endured such things without any attempt at retaliation.
+There is too much reason to believe also, that considerable brutality
+was shown by those Boers who carried the kopje, and the very high
+proportion of killed to wounded among the British who lay there
+corroborates the statement of the survivors that several were shot at
+close quarters after all resistance had ceased.
+
+This rough encounter of Tafelkop was followed only four days later by
+a very much more serious one at Tweefontein, which proved that even
+after two years of experience we had not yet sufficiently understood
+the courage and the cunning of our antagonist.  The blockhouse line
+was being gradually extended from Harrismith to Bethlehem, so as to
+hold down this turbulent portion of the country.  The Harrismith
+section had been pushed as far as Tweefontein, which is nine miles
+west of Elands River Bridge, and here a small force was stationed to
+cover the workers.  This column consisted of four squadrons of the 4th
+Imperial Yeomanry, one gun of the 79th battery, and one pom-pom, the
+whole under the temporary command of Major Williams of the South
+Staffords, Colonel Firmin being absent.
+
+Knowing that De Wet and his men were in the neighbourhood, the camp of
+the Yeomen had been pitched in a position which seemed to secure it
+against attack.  A solitary kopje presented a long slope to the north,
+while the southern end was precipitous. The outposts were pushed well
+out upon the plain, and a line of sentries was placed along the
+crest. The only precaution which seems to have been neglected was to
+have other outposts at the base of the southern declivity.  It appears
+to have been taken for granted, however, that no attack was to be
+apprehended from that side, and that in any esse it would be
+impossible to evade the vigilance of the sentries upon the top.
+
+Of all the daring and skilful attacks delivered by the Boers during
+the war there is certainly none more remarkable than this one.  At two
+o'clock in the morning of a moonlight night De Wet's forlorn hope
+assembled at the base of the hill and clambered up to the summit. The
+fact that it was Christmas Eve may conceivably have had something to
+do with the want of vigilance upon the part of the sentries. In a
+season of good will and conviviality the rigour of military discipline
+may insensibly relax.  Little did the sleeping Yeomen in the tents, or
+the drowsy outposts upon the crest, think of the terrible Christmas
+visitors who were creeping on to them, or of the grim morning gift
+which Santa Claus was bearing.
+
+The Boers, stealing up in their stockinged feet, poured under the
+crest until they were numerous enough to make a rush.  It is almost
+inconceivable how they could have got so far without their presence
+being suspected by the sentries -- but so it was. At last, feeling
+strong enough to advance, they sprang over the crest and fired into
+the pickets, and past them into the sleeping camp. The top of the hill
+being once gained, there was nothing to prevent their comrades from
+swarming up, and in a very few minutes nearly a thousand Boers were in
+a position to command the camp. The British were not only completely
+outnumbered, but were hurried from their sleep into the fight without
+any clear idea as to the danger or how to meet it, while the hissing
+sleet of bullets struck many of them down as they rushed out of their
+tents. Considering how terrible the ordeal was to which they were
+exposed, these untried Yeomen seem to have behaved very well. 'Some
+brave gentlemen ran away at the first shot, but I am thankful to say
+they were not many,' says one of their number.  The most veteran
+troops would have been tried very high had they been placed in such a
+position. 'The noise and the clamour,' says one spectator, 'were
+awful. The yells of the Dutch, the screams and shrieks of dying men
+and horses, the cries of natives, howls of dogs, the firing, the
+galloping of horses, the whistling of bullets, and the whirr volleys
+make in the air, made up such a compound of awful and diabolical
+sounds as I never heard before nor hope to hear again. In the
+confusion some of the men killed each other and some killed
+themselves. Two Boers who put on helmets were killed by their own
+people. The men were given no time to rally or to collect their
+thoughts, for the gallant Boers barged right into them, shooting them
+down, and occasionally being shot down, at a range of a few
+yards. Harwich and Watney, who had charge of the maxim, died nobly
+with all the men of their gun section round them. Reed, the
+sergeant-major, rushed at the enemy with his clubbed rifle, but was
+riddled with bullets. Major Williams, the commander, was shot through
+the stomach as he rallied his men. The gunners had time to fire two
+rounds before they were overpowered and shot down to a man. For half
+an hour the resistance was maintained, but at the end of that time the
+Boers had the whole camp in their possession, and were already
+hastening to get their prisoners away before the morning should bring
+a rescue.
+
+The casualties are in themselves enough to show how creditable was the
+resistance of the Yeomanry.  Out of a force of under four hundred men
+they bad six officers and fifty-one men killed, eight officers and
+eighty men wounded. There have been very few surrenders during the war
+in which there has been such evidence as this of a determined
+stand. Nor was it a bloodless victory upon the part of the Boers, for
+there was evidence that their losses, though less than those of the
+British, were still severe.
+
+The prisoners, over two hundred in number, were hurried away by the
+Boers, who seemed under the immediate eye of De Wet to have behaved
+with exemplary humanity to the wounded. The captives were taken by
+forced marches to the Basuto border, where they were turned adrift,
+half clad and without food. By devious ways and after many adventures,
+they all made their way back again to the British lines. It was well
+for De Wet that he had shown such promptness in getting away, for
+within three hours of the end of the action the two regiments of
+Imperial Horse appeared upon the scene, having travelled seventeen
+miles in the time. Already, however, the rearguard of the Boers was
+disappearing into the fastness of the Langberg, where all pursuit was
+vain.
+
+Such was the short but vigorous campaign of De Wet in the last part of
+December of the year 1901. It had been a briliant one, but none the
+less his bolt was shot, and Tweefontein was the last encounter in
+which British troops should feel his heavy hand. His operations, bold
+as they had been, had not delayed by a day the building of that iron
+cage which was gradually enclosing him. Already it was nearly
+completed, and in a few more weeks he was destined to find himself and
+his commando struggling against bars.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+THE CAMPAIGN OF JANUARY-APRIL, 1902
+
+
+At the opening of the year 1902 it was evident to every observer that
+the Boer resistance, spirited as it was, must be nearing its close.
+By a long succession of captures their forces were much reduced in
+numbers. They were isolated from the world, and had no means save
+precarious smuggling of renewing their supplies of ammunition.  It was
+known also that their mobility, which had been their great strength,
+was decreasing, and that in spite of their admirable horsemastership
+their supply of remounts was becoming exhausted.  An increasing number
+of the burghers were volunteering for service against their own
+people, and it was found that all fears as to this delicate experiment
+were misplaced, and that in the whole army there were no keener and
+more loyal soldiers.
+
+The chief factor, however, in bringing the Boers to their knees was
+the elaborate and wonderful blockhouse system, which had been strung
+across the whole of the enemy's country.  The original blockhouses had
+been far apart, and were a hindrance and an annoyance rather than an
+absolute barrier to the burghers.  The new models, however, were only
+six hundred yards apart, and were connected by such impenetrable
+strands of wire that a Boer pithily described it by saying that if
+one's hat blew over the line anywhere between Ermelo and Standerton
+one had to walk round Ermelo to fetch it. Use was made of such
+barriers by the Spaniards in Cuba, but an application of them on such
+a scale over such an enormous tract of country is one of the
+curiosities of warfare, and will remain one of several novelties which
+will make the South African campaign for ever interesting to students
+of military history.
+
+The spines of this great system were always the railway lines, which
+were guarded on either side, and down which, as down a road, went
+flocks, herds, pedestrians, and everything which wished to travel in
+safety. From these long central cords the lines branched out to right
+and left, cutting up the great country into manageable districts.  A
+category of them would but weary the reader, but suffice it that by
+the beginning of the year the south-east of the Transvaal and the
+north-east of the Orange River Colony, the haunts of Botha and De Wet,
+bad been so intersected that it was obvious that the situation must
+soon be impossible for both of them. Only on the west of the Transvaal
+was there a clear run for De la Rey and Kemp. Hence it was expected,
+as actualy occurred, that in this quarter the most stirring events of
+the close of the campaign would happen.
+
+General Bruce Hamilton in the Eastern Transvaal had continued the
+energetic tactics which had given such good results in the past. With
+the new year his number of prisoners fell, but he had taken so many,
+and had hustled the remainder to such an extent, that the fight seemed
+to have gone out of the Boers in this district. On January 1st be
+presented the first-fruits of the year in the shape of.twenty-two of
+Grobler's burghers.  On the 3rd he captured forty-nine, while Wing,
+co-operating with him, took twenty more. Among these was General
+Erasmus, who had helped, or failed to help, General Lucas Meyer at
+Talana Hill.  On the 10th Colonel Wing's column, which was part of
+Hamilton's force, struck out again and took forty-two prisoners,
+including the two Wolmarans.  Only two days later Hamilton returned to
+the same spot, and was rewarded with thirty-two more captures.  On the
+18th he took twenty-seven, on the 24th twelve, and on the 26th no
+fewer than ninety. So severe were these blows, and so difficult was it
+for the Boers to know how to get away from an antagonist who was ready
+to ride thirty miles in a night in order to fall upon their laager,
+that the enemy became much scattered and too demoralised for offensive
+operations. Finding that they had grown too shy in this much shot over
+district, Hamilton moved farther south, and early in March took a cast
+round the Vryheid district, where he made some captures, notably
+General Cherry Emmett, a descendant of the famous Irish rebel, and
+brother-in-law of Louis Botha. For all these repeated successes it was
+to the Intelligence Department, so admirably controlled by Colonel
+Wools-Sampson, that thanks are mainly due.
+
+Whilst Bruce Hamilton was operating so successfully in the Ermelo
+district, several British columns under Plumer, Spens, and Colville
+were stationed some fifty miles south to prevent the fugitives from
+getting away into the mountainous country which lies to the north of
+Wakkerstroom.  On January 3rd a small force of Plumer's New-Zealanders
+had a brisk skirmish with a party of Boers, whose cattle they
+captured, though at some loss to themselves.  These Boers were
+strongly reinforced, however, and when on the following day Major
+Vallentin pursued them with fifty men he found himself at Onverwacht
+in the presence of several hundred of the enemy, led by Oppermann and
+Christian Botha. Vallentin was killed and almost all of his small
+force were hit before British reinforcements, under Colonel Pulteney,
+drove the Boers off.  Nineteen killed and twenty-three wounded were
+our losses in this most sanguinary little skirmish.  Nine dead Boers,
+with Oppermaun himself, were left upon the field of battle. His loss
+was a serious one to the enemy, as he was one of their most
+experienced Generals.
+
+>From that time until the end these columns, together with Mackenzie's
+column to the north of Ermelo, continued to break up all combinations,
+and to send in their share of prisoners to swell Lord Kitchener's
+weekly list. A final drive, organised on April 11th against the
+Standerton line, resulted in 134 prisoners.
+
+In spite of the very large army in South Africa, so many men were
+absorbed by the huge lines of communications and the blockhouse system
+that the number available for active operations was never more than
+forty or fifty thousand men.  With another fifty thousand there is no
+doubt that at least six months would have been taken from the duration
+of the war.  On account of this shorthandedness Lord Kitchener had to
+leave certain districts alone, while he directed his attention to
+those which were more essential.  Thus to the north of the Delagoa
+Railway line there was only one town, Lydenburg, which was occupied by
+the British.  They had, however, an energetic commander in Park of the
+Devons. This leader, striking out from his stronghold among the
+mountains, and aided by Urmston from Belfast, kept the commando of Ben
+Viljoen and the peripatetic Government of Schalk Burger continually
+upon the move.  As already narrated, Park fought a sharp night action
+upon December 19th, after which, in combination with Urmston, he
+occupied Dulstroom, only missing the government by a few hours. In
+January Park and Urmston were again upon the war-path, though the
+incessant winds, fogs, and rains of that most inclement portion of the
+Transvaal seriously hampered their operations. Several skirmishes with
+the commandos of Muller and Trichardt gave no very decisive result,
+but a piece of luck befell the British on January 25th in the capture
+of General Viljoen by an ambuscade cleverly arranged by Major Orr in
+the neighbourhood of Lydenburg. Though a great firebrand before the
+war, Viljoen had fought bravely and honourably throughout the contest,
+and he had won the respect and esteem of his enemy.
+
+Colonel Park had had no great success in his last two expeditions, but
+on February 20th he made an admirable march, and fell upon a Boer
+laager which lay in placid security in the heart of the hills.  One
+hundred and sixty-four prisoners, including many Boer officers, were
+the fruits of this success, in which the National Scouts, or 'tame
+Boers,' as they were familiarly called, played a prominent part.  This
+commando was that of Middelburg, which was acting as escort to the
+government, who again escaped dissolution.  Early in March Park was
+again out on trek, upon one occasion covering seventy miles in a
+single day.  Nothing further of importance came from this portion of
+the seat of war until March 23rd, when the news reached England that
+Schalk Burger, Reitz, Lucas Meyer, and others of the Transvaal
+Government had come into Middelburg, and that they were anxious to
+proceed to Pretoria to treat. On the Eastern horizon had appeared the
+first golden gleam of the dawning peace.
+
+Having indicated the course of events in the Eastern Transvaal, north
+and south of the railway line, I will now treat one or two incidents
+which occurred in the more central and northern portions of the
+country. I will then give some account of De Wet's doings in the
+Orange River Colony, and finally describe that brilliant effort of
+De la Rey's in the west which shed a last glory upon the Boer arms.
+
+In the latter days of December, Colenbrander and Dawkins operating
+together had put in a great deal of useful work in the northern
+district, and from Nylstrom to Pietersburg the burghers were
+continually harried by the activity of these leaders. Late in the
+month Dawkins was sent down into the Orange River Colony in order to
+reinforce the troops who were opposed to De Wet.  Colenbrander alone,
+with his hardy colonial forces, swept through the Magaliesburg, and
+had the double satisfaction of capturing a number of the enemy and of
+heading off and sending back a war party of Linchwe's Kaffirs who,
+incensed by a cattle raid of Kemp's, were moving down in a direction
+which would have brought them dangerously near to the Dutch women and
+children.  This instance and several similar ones in the campaign show
+how vile are the lies which have been told of the use, save under
+certain well-defined conditions, of armed natives by the British
+during the war.  It would have been a perfectly easy thing at any time
+for the Government to have raised all the fighting native races of
+South Africa, but it is not probable that we, who held back our
+admirable and highly disciplined Sikhs and Ghoorkas, would break our
+self-imposed restrictions in order to enrol the inferior but more
+savage races of Africa.  Yet no charge has been more often repeated
+and has caused more piteous protests among the soft-hearted and
+soft-headed editors of Continental journals.
+
+The absence of Colenbrander in the Rustenburg country gave Beyers a
+chance of which he was not slow to avail himself.  On January 24th, in
+the early morning, he delivered an attack upon Pietersburg itself, but
+he was easily driven off by the small garrison. It is probable,
+however, that the attack was a mere feint in order to enable a number
+of the inmates of the refugee camp to escape. About a hundred and
+fifty made off, and rejoined the commandos.  There were three thousand
+Boers in all in this camp, which was shortly afterwards moved down to
+Natal in order to avoid the recurrence of such an incident.
+
+Colenbrander, having returned to Pietersburg once more, determined to
+return Beyers's visit, and upon April 8th he moved out with a small
+force to surprise the Boer laager.  The Inniskilling Fusiliers seized
+the ground which commanded the enemy's position. The latter retreated,
+but were followed up, and altogether about one hundred and fifty were
+killed, wounded, and taken.  On May 3rd a fresh operation against
+Beyers was undertaken, and resulted in about the same loss to the
+Boers.  On the other hand, the Boers had a small success against
+Kitchener's Scouts, killing eighteen and taking thirty prisoners.
+
+There is one incident, however, in connection with the war in this
+region which one would desire to pass over in silence if such a course
+were permissible. Some eighty miles to the east of Pietersburg is a
+wild part of the country called the Spelonken.  In this region an
+irregular corps, named the Bushveld Carbineers, had been operating.
+It was raised in South Africa, but contained both Colonials and
+British in its ranks. Its wild duties, its mixed composition, and its
+isolated situation must have all militated against discipline and
+restraint, and it appears to have degenerated into a band not unlike
+those Southern 'bush-whackers' in the American war to whom the
+Federals showed little mercy.  They had given short shrift to tho Boer
+prisoners who had fallen into their hands, the excuse offered for
+their barbarous conduct being that an officer who had served in the
+corps had himself been murdered by the Boers.  Such a reason, even if
+it were true, could of course offer no justification for
+indiscriminate revenge.  The crimes were committed in July and August
+1901, but it was not until January 1902 that five of the officers were
+put upon their trial and were found to be guilty as principals or
+accessories of twelve murders.  The corps was disbanded, and three of
+the accused officers, Handcock, Wilton, and Morant, were sentenced to
+death, while another, Picton, was cashiered.  Handcock and Morant were
+actually executed.  This stern measure shows more clearly than volumes
+of argument could do how high was the standard of discipline in the
+British Army, and how heavy was the punishment, and how vain all
+excuses, where it had been infringed.  In the face of this actual
+outrage and its prompt punishment how absurd becomes that crusade
+against imaginary outrages preached by an ignorant press abroad, and
+by renegade Englishmen at home.
+
+To the south of Johannesburg, half-way between that town and the
+frontier, there is a range of hills called the Zuikerboschrand, which
+extends across from one railway system to the other. A number of Boers
+were known to have sought refuge in this country, so upon February
+12th a small British force left Klip River Post in order to clear them
+out.  There were 320 men in all, composing the 28th Mounted Infantry,
+drawn from the Lancashire Fusiliers, Warwicks, and Derbys, most of
+whom had just arrived from Malta, which one would certainly imagine to
+be the last place where mounted infantry could be effectively
+trained. Major Dowell was in command.  An advance was made into the
+hilly country, but it was found that the enemy was in much greater
+force than had been imagined. The familiar Boer tactics were used with
+the customary success.  The British line was held by a sharp fire in
+front, while strong flanking parties galloped round each of the wings.
+It was with great difficulty that any of the British extricated
+themselves from their perilous position, and the safety of a portion
+of the force was only secured by the devotion of a handful of officers
+and men, who gave their lives in order to gain time for their comrades
+to get away.  Twelve killed and fifty wounded were our losses in this
+unfortunate skirmish, and about one hundred prisoners supplied the
+victors with a useful addition to their rifles and ammunition. A
+stronger British force came up next day, and the enemy were driven out
+of the hills.
+
+A week later, upon February 18th, there occurred another skirmish at
+Klippan, near Springs, between a squadron of the Scots Greys and a
+party of Boers who had broken into this central reserve which Lord
+Kitchener had long kept clear of the enemy.  In this action the
+cavalry were treated as roughly as the mounted infantry had been the
+week before, losing three officers killed, eight men killed or
+wounded, and forty-six taken. They had formed a flanking party to
+General Gilbert Hamilton's column, but were attacked and overwhelmed
+so rapidly that the blow had fallen before their comrades could come
+to their assistance.
+
+One of the consequences of the successful drives about to be described
+in the Orange River Colony wns that a number of the Free Staters came
+north of the Vaal in order to get away from the extreme pressure upon
+the south.  At the end of March a considerable number had reinforced
+the local commandos in that district to the east of Springs, no very
+great distance from Johannesburg, which had always been a storm
+centre. A cavalry force was stationed at this spot which consisted at
+that time of the 2nd Queen's Bays, the 7th Hussars, and some National
+Scouts, all under Colonel Lawley of the Hussars. After a series of
+minor engagements east of Springs, Lawley had possessed himself of
+Boschman's Kop, eighteen miles from that town, close to the district
+which was the chief scene of Boer activity.  From this base he
+despatched upon the morningg of April 1st three squadrons of the Bays
+under Colonel Fanshawe, for the purpose of surprising a small force of
+the enemy which was reported at one of the farms.  Fanshawe's strength
+was about three hundred men.
+
+The British cavalry found themselves, however, in the position of the
+hunter who, when he is out for a snipe, puts up a tiger. All went well
+with the expedition as far as Holspruit, the farm which they had
+started to search.  Commandant Pretorius, to whom it belonged, was
+taken by the energy of Major Vaughan, who pursued and overtook his
+Cape cart.  It was found, however, that Alberts's commando was camped
+at the farm, and that the Bays were in the presence of a very superior
+force of the enemy.  The night was dark, and when firing began it was
+almost muzzle to muzzle, with the greatest possible difficulty in
+telling friend from foe. The three squadrons fell back upon some
+rising ground, keeping admirable order under most difficult
+circumstances.  In spite of the darkness the attack was pressed
+fiercely home, and with their favourite tactics the burghers rapidly
+outflanked the position taken up by the cavalry.  The British moved by
+alternate squadrons on to a higher rocky kopje on the east, which
+could be vaguely distinguished looming in the darkness against the
+skyline. B squadron, the last to retire, was actually charged and
+ridden through by the brave assailants, firing from their saddles as
+they broke through the ranks.  The British had hardly time to reach
+the kopje and to dismount and line its edge when the Boers, yelling
+loudly, charged with their horses up the steep flanks.  Twice they
+were beaten back, but the third time they seized one corner of the
+hill and opened a hot fire upon the rear of the line of men who were
+defending the other side.  Dawn was now breaking, and the situation
+most serious, for the Boers were in very superior numbers and were
+pushing their pursuit with the utmost vigour and determination. A
+small party of officers and men whose horses had been shot covered the
+retreat of their comrades, and continued to fire until all of them,
+two officers and twenty-three men, were killed or wounded, the whole
+of their desperate defence being conducted within from thirty to fifty
+yards of the enemy. The remainder of the regiment was now retired to
+successive ridges, each of which was rapidly outflanked by the Boers,
+whose whole method of conducting their attack was extraordinarily
+skilful. Nothing but the excellent discipline of the overmatched
+troopers prevented the retreat from becoming a rout. Fortunately,
+before the pressure became intolerable the 7th Hussars with some
+artillery came to the rescue, and turned the tide.  The Hussars
+galloped in with such dash that some of them actually got among the
+Boers with their swords, but the enemy rapidly fell back and
+disappeared.
+
+In this very sharp and sanguinary cavalry skirmish the Bays lost
+eighty killed and wounded out of a total force of 270.  To stand such
+losses under such circumstances, and to preserve absolute discipline
+and order, is a fine test of soldierly virtue. The adjutant, the
+squadron leaders, and six out of ten officers were killed or
+wounded. The Boers lost equally heavily. Two Prinsloos, one of them a
+commandant, and three field-cornets were among the slain, with seventy
+other casualties. The force under General Alberts was a considerable
+one, not fewer than six hundred rifles, so that the action at
+Holspruit is one which adds another name of honour to the battle-roll
+of the Bays.  It is pleasing to add that in this and the other actions
+which were fought at the end of the war our wounded met with kindness
+and consideration from the enemy.
+
+We may now descend to the Orange River Colony and trace the course of
+those operations which were destined to break the power of De Wet's
+commando. On these we may concentrate our attention, for the marchings
+and gleanings and snipings of the numerous small columns in the other
+portions of the colony, although they involved much arduous and useful
+work, do not claim a particular account.
+
+After the heavy blow which he dealt Firmin's Yeomanry, De Wet retired,
+as has been told, into the Langberg, whence he afterwards retreated
+towards Reitz.  There he was energetically pushed by Elliot's columns,
+which had attained such mobility that 150 miles were performed in
+three days within a single week.  Our rough schoolmasters had taught
+us our lesson, and the soldiering which accomplished the marches of
+Bruce Hamilton, Elliot, Rimington, and the other leaders of the end of
+the war was very far removed from that which is associated with
+ox-wagons and harmoniums.
+
+Moving rapidly, and covering himself by a succession of rearguard
+skirmishes, De Wet danced like a will-o'the-wisp in front of and round
+the British columns. De Lisle, Fanshawe, Byng, Rimington, Dawkins, and
+Rawlinson were all snatching at him and finding him just beyond their
+finger-tips.  The master-mind at Pretoria had, however, thought out a
+scheme which was worthy of De Wet himself in its ingenuity. A glance
+at the map will show that the little branch from Heilbron to Wolvehoek
+forms an acute angle with the main line. Both these railways were
+strongly blockhoused and barbed-wired, so that any force which was
+driven into the angle, and held in it by a force behind it, would be
+in a perilous position.  To attempt to round De Wet's mobile burghers
+into this obvious pen would have been to show one's hand too clearly.
+In vain is the net laid in sight of the bird.  The drive was therefore
+made away from this point, with the confident expectation that the
+guerilla chief would break back through the columns, and that they
+might then pivot round upon him and hustle him so rapidly into the
+desired position that he would not realise his danger until it was too
+late. Byng's column was left behind the driving line to be ready for
+the expected backward break.
+
+All came off exactly as expected.  De Wet doubled back through the
+columns, and one of his commandos stumbled upon Byng's men, who were
+waiting on the Vlei River to the west of Reitz.  The Boers seem to
+have taken it for granted that, having passed the British driving
+line, they were out of danger, and for once it was they who were
+surprised.  The South African Light Horse, the New-Zealanders, and the
+Queensland Bushmen all rode in upon them.  A fifteen-pounder, the one
+taken at Tweefontein, and two pom-poms were captured, with thirty
+prisoners and a considerable quantity of stores.
+
+This successful skirmish was a small matter, however, compared to the
+importance of being in close touch with De Wet and having a definite
+objective for the drive. The columns behind expanded suddenly into a
+spray of mounted men forming a continuous line for over sixty miles.
+On February 5th the line was advancing, and on the 6th it was known
+that De Wet was actually within the angle, the mouth of which was
+spanned by the British line.  Hope ran high in Pretoria.  The space
+into which the burgher chief had been driven was bounded by sixty-six
+miles of blockhouse and wire on one side and thirty on the other,
+while the third side of the triangle was crossed by fifty-five miles
+of British horsemen, flanked by a blockhouse line between Kroonstad
+and Lindley.  The tension along the lines of defence was extreme.
+Infantry guarded every yard of them, and armoured trains patrolled
+them, while at night searchlights at regular intervals shed their
+vivid rays over the black expanse of the veldt and illuminated the
+mounted figures who flitted from time to time across their narrow
+belts of light.
+
+On the 6th De Wet realised his position, and with characteristic
+audacity and promptness he took means to clear the formidable toils
+which had been woven round him. The greater part of his command
+scattered, with orders to make their way as best they might out of the
+danger.  Working in their own country, where every crease and fold of
+the ground was familiar to them, it is not surprising that most of
+them managed to make their way through gaps in the attenuated line of
+horsemen behind them.  A few were killed, and a considerable number
+taken, 270 being the respectable total of the prisoners.  Three or
+four slipped through, however, for every one who stuck in the meshes.
+De Wet himself was reported to have made his escape by driving cattle
+against the wire fences which enclosed him.  It seems, however, to
+have been nothing more romantic than a wire-cutter which cleared his
+path, though cattle no doubt made their way through the gap which he
+left.  With a loss of only three of his immediate followers be Wet won
+his way out of the most dangerous position which even his adventurous
+career had ever known. Lord Kitchener had descended to Wolvehoek to be
+present at the climax of the operations, but it was not fated that he
+was to receive the submission of the most energetic of his opponents,
+and he returned to Pretoria to weave a fresh mesh around him.
+
+This was not hard to do, as the Boer General had simply escaped from
+one pen into another, though a larger one. After a short rest to
+restore the columns, the whole pack were full cry upon his heels once
+more. An acute angle is formed by the Wilge Biver on one side and the
+line of blockhouses between Harrismith and Van Reenen upon the other.
+This was strongly manned by troops and five columns; those of
+Rawlinson, Nixon, Byng, Rimington, and Keir herded the broken
+cornmandos into the trap.  From February 20th the troops swept in an
+enormous skirmish line across the country, ascending hills, exploring
+kloofs, searching river banks, and always keeping the enemy in front
+of them.  At last, when the pressure was severely felt, there came the
+usual breakback, which took the form of a most determined night attack
+upon the British line.  This was delivered shortly after midnight on
+February 23rd. It struck the British cordon at the point of juncture
+between Byng's column and that of Rimington.  So huge were the
+distances which had to be covered, and so attenuated was the force
+which covered them, that the historical thin red line was a massive
+formation compared to its khaki equivalent.  The chain was frail and
+the links were not all carefully joined, but each particular link was
+good metal, and the Boer impact came upon one of the best.  This was
+the 7th New Zealand Contingent, who proved themselves to be worthy
+comrades to their six gallant predecessors.  Their patrols were broken
+by the rush of wild, yelling, firing horsemen, but the troopers made a
+most gallant resistance. Having pierced the line the Boers, who were
+led in their fiery rush by Manie Botha, turned to their flank, and,
+charging down the line of weak patrols, overwhelmed one after another
+and threatened to roll up the whole line.  They had cleared a gap of
+half a mile, and it seemed as if the whole Boer force would certainly
+escape through so long a gap in the defences. The desperate defence of
+the New-Zealanders gave time, however, for the further patrols, which
+consisted of Cox's New South Wales Mounted Infantry, to fall back
+almost at right angles so as to present a fresh face to the attack.
+The pivot of the resistance was a maxim gun, most gallantly handled by
+Captain Begbie and his men.  The fight at this point was almost muzzle
+to muzzle, fifty or sixty New-Zealanders and Australians with the
+British gunners holding off a force of several hundred of the best
+fighting men of the Boer forces.  In this desperate duel many dropped
+on both sides. Begbie died beside his gun, which fired eighty rounds
+before it jammed.  It was run back by its crew in order to save it
+from capture.  But reinforcements were coming up, and the Boer attack
+was beaten back. A number of them had escaped, however, through the
+opening which they had cleared, and it was conjectured that the
+wonderful De Wet was among them. How fierce was the storm which had
+broken on the New-Zealanders may be shown by their roll of twenty
+killed and forty wounded, while thirty dead Boers were picked up in
+front of their picket line.  Of eight New Zealand officers seven are
+reported to have been hit, an even higher proportion than that which
+the same gallant race endured at the battle of Rhenoster Kop more than
+a year before.
+
+It was feared at first that the greater part of the Boers migbt have
+escaped upon this night of the 23rd, when Manie Botha's storming party
+burst through the ranks of the New-Zealanders.  It was soon discovered
+that this was not so, and the columns as they closed in had evidence
+from the numerous horsemen who scampered aimlessly over the hills in
+front of them that the main body of the enemy was still in the toils.
+The advance was in tempestuous weather and over rugged country, but
+the men were filled with eagerness, and no precaution was neglected to
+keep the line intact.
+
+This time their efforts were crowned with considerable success. A
+second attempt was made by the corraled burghers to break out on the
+night of February 26th, but it was easily repulsed by Nixon.  The task
+of the troopers as the cordon drew south was more and more difficult,
+and there were places traversed upon the Natal border where an alpen
+stock would have been a more useful adjunct than a horse.  At six
+o'clock on the morning of the 27th came the end.  Two Boers appeared
+in front of the advancing line of the Imperial Light Horse and held up
+a flag.  They proved to be Truter and De Jager, ready to make terms
+for their commando.  The only terms offered were absolute surrender
+within the hour.  The Boers had been swept into a very confined space,
+which was closely hemmed in by troops, so that any resistance must
+have ended in a tragedy. Fortunately there was no reason for desperate
+councils in their case, since they did not fight as Lotter had done,
+with the shadow of judgment hanging over him.  The burghers piled
+arms, and all was over.
+
+The total number captured in this important drive was 780 men,
+including several leaders, one of whom was De Wet's own son.  It was
+found that De Wet himself had been among those who had got away
+through the picket lines on the night of the 23rd. Most of the
+commando were Transvaalers, and it was typical of the wide sweep of
+the net that many of them were the men who had been engaged against
+the 28th Mounted Infantry in the district south of Johannesburg upon
+the 12th of the same month.  The loss of 2,000 horses and 50,000
+cartridges meant as much as that of the men to the Boer army. It was
+evident that a few more such blows would clear the Orange River Colony
+altogether.
+
+The wearied troopers were allowed little rest, for in a couple of days
+after their rendezvous at Harrismith they were sweeping back again to
+pick up all that they had missed.  This drive, which was over the same
+ground, but sweeping backwards towards the Heilbron-Wolvehoek line,
+ended in the total capture of 147 of the enemy, who were picked out of
+holes, retrieved from amid the reeds of the river, called down out of
+trees, or otherwise collected.  So thorough were the operations that
+it is recorded that the angle which formed the apex of the drive was
+one drove of game upon the last day, all the many types of antelope,
+which form one of the characteristics and charms of the country,
+having been herded into it.
+
+More important even than the results of the drive was the discovery of
+one of De Wet's arsenals in a cave in the Vrede district.  Half-way
+down a precipitous krantz, with its mouth covered by creepers, no
+writer of romance could have imagined a more fitting headquarters for
+a guerilla chief.  The find was made by Ross's Canadian Scouts, who
+celebrated Dominion Day by this most useful achievement.  Forty
+wagon-loads of ammunition and supplies were taken out of the cave De
+Wet was known to have left the north-east district, and to have got
+across the railway, travelling towards the Vaal as if it were his
+intention to join De la Rey in the Transvaal.  The Boer resistance had
+suddenly become exceedingly energetic in that part, and several
+important actions had been fought, to which we will presently turn.
+
+Before doing so it would be as well to bring the chronicle of events
+in the Orange River Colony down to the conclusion of peace. There were
+still a great number of wandering Boers in the northern districts and
+in the frontier mountains, who were assiduously, but not always
+successfully, hunted down by the British troops.  Much arduous and
+useful work was done by several small columns, the Colonial Horse and
+the Artillery Mounted Rifles especially distinguishing themselves.
+The latter corps, formed from the gunners whose field-pieces were no
+longer needed, proved themselves to be a most useful body of men; and
+the British gunner, when he took to carrying his gun, vindicated the
+reputation which he had won when his gun had carried him.
+
+>From the 1st to the 4th of May a successful drive was conducted by
+many columns in the often harried but never deserted Lindley-Kroonstad
+district.  The result was propitious, as no fewer than 321 prisoners
+were brought in.  Of these, 150 under Mentz were captured in one body
+as they attempted to break through the encircling cordon.
+
+Amid many small drives and many skirmishes, one stands out for its
+severity. It is remarkable as being the last action of any importance
+in the campaign. This was the fight at Moolman's Spruit, near
+Ficksburg, upon April 20th, 1902.  A force of about one hundred
+Yeomanry and forty Mounted Infantry (South Staffords) was despatched
+by night to attack an isolated farm in which a small body of Boers was
+supposed to be sleeping.  Colonel Perceval was in command.  The farm
+was reached after a difficult march, but the enemy were found to have
+been forewarned, and to be in much greater strength than was
+anticipated. A furious fire was opened on the advancing troops, who
+were clearly visible ill the light of a full moon.  Sir Thomas Fowler
+was killed and several men of the Yeomanry were hit. The British
+charged up to the very walls, but were unable to effect an entrance,
+as the place was barricaded and loopholed.  Captain Blackwood, of the
+Staffords, was killed in the attack. Finding that the place was
+impregnable, and that the enemy outnumbered him, Colonel Perceval gave
+the order to retire, a movement which was only successfully carried
+out because the greater part of the Boer horses had been shot.  By
+morning the small British force had extricated itself, from its
+perilous position with a total loss of six killed, nineteen wounded,
+and six missing.  The whole affair was undoubtedly a cleverly planned
+Boer ambush, and the small force was most fortunate in escaping
+destruction.
+
+One other isolated incident may be mentioned here, though it occurred
+far away in the Vryheid district of the Transvaal.  This was the
+unfortunate encounter between Zulus and Boers by which the latter lost
+over fifty of their numbers under deplorable circumstances. This
+portion of the Transvaal has only recently been annexed, and is
+inhabited by warlike Zulus, who are very different from the debased
+Kaffirs of the rest of the country.  These men had a blood-feud
+against the Boers, which was embittered by the fact that they had lost
+heavily through Boer depredations. Knowing that a party of fifty-nine
+men were sleeping in a farmhouse, the Zulus crept on to it and
+slaughtered every man of the inmates.  Such an incident is much to be
+regretted, and yet, looking back upon the long course of the war, and
+remembering the turbulent tribes who surrounded the combatants --
+Swazis, Basutos, and Zulus -- we may well congratulate ourselves that
+we have been able to restrain those black warriors, and to escape the
+brutalities and the bitter memories of a barbarian invasion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+DE LA REY'S CAMPAIGN OF 1902
+
+
+IT will be remembered that at the close of 1901 Lord Methuen and
+Colonel Kekewich had both come across to the eastern side of their
+district and made their base at the railway line in the Klerksdorp
+section.  Their position was strengthened by the fact that a
+blockhouse cordon now ran from Klerksdorp to Ventersdorp, and from
+Ventersdorp to Potchefstroom, so that this triangle could be
+effectively controlled.  There remained, however, a huge tract of
+difficult country which was practically in the occupation of the
+enemy.  Several thousand stalwarts were known to be riding with De la
+Rey and his energetic lieutenant Kemp.  The strenuous operations of
+the British in the Eastern Transvaal and in the Orauge River Colony
+had caused this district to be comparatively neglected, and so
+everything was in favour of an aggressive movement of the Boers.
+There was a long lull after the unsuccessful attack upon Kekewich's
+camp at Moedwill, but close observers of the war distrusted this
+ominous calm and expected a storm to follow.
+
+The new year found the British connecting Ventersdorp with Tafelkop by
+a blockhouse line.  The latter place had been a centre of Boer
+activity.  Colonel Hickie's column covered this operation.  Meanwhile
+Methuen had struck across through Wolmaranstad as far as Vryburg.
+In these operations, which resulted in constant small captures, he was
+assisted by a column under Major Paris working from Kimberley. From
+Vryburg Lord Methuen made his way in the middle of January to
+Lichtenburg, meeting with a small rebuff in the neighbourhood of that
+town, for a detachment of Yeomanry was overwhelmed by General
+Celliers, who killed eight, wounded fifteen, and captured forty. From
+Lichtenburg Lord Methuen continued his enormous trek, and arrived on
+February 1st at Klerksdorp once more.  Little rest was given to his
+hard-worked troops, and they were sent off again within the week under
+the command of Von Donop, with the result that on February 8th, near
+Wolmaranstad, they captured Potgieter's laager with forty Boer
+prisoners. Von Donop remained at Wolmaranstad until late in FebruaTy;
+On the 23rd he despatched an empty convoy back to Klerksdorp, the fate
+of which will be afterwards narrated.
+
+Kekewich and Hickie had combined their forces at the beginning of
+February.  On February 4th an attempt was made by them to surprise
+General De la Rey.  The mounted troops who were despatched under Major
+Leader failed in this enterprise, but they found and overwhelmed the
+laager of Sarel Alberts, capturing 132 prisoners.  By stampeding the
+horses the Boer retreat was cut off, and the attack was so furiously
+driven home, especialy by the admirable Scottish Horse, that few of
+the enemy got away.  Alberts himself with all his officers were among
+the prisoners.  From this time until the end of February this column
+was not seriously engaged.
+
+It has been stated above that on February 23rd Von Donop sent in an
+empty convoy from Wolmaranstad to Klerksdorp, a distance of about
+fifty miles.  Nothing bad been heard for some time of De la Rey, but he
+had called together his men and was waiting to bring off some coup.
+The convoy gave him the very opportunity for which he sought.
+
+The escort of the convoy consisted of the 5th Imperial Yeomanry, sixty
+of Paget's Horse, three companies of the ubiquitous Northumberland
+Fusiliers, two guns of the 4th R.F.A., and a pom-pom, amounting in all
+to 630 men.  Colonel Anderson was in command. On the morning of
+Tuesday, February 25th, the convoy was within ten miles of its
+destination, and the sentries on the kopjes round the town could see
+the gleam of the long line of white-tilted wagons. Their hazardous
+voyage was nearly over, and yet they were destined to most complete
+and fatal wreck within sight of port.  So confident were they that the
+detachment of Paget's Horse was permitted to ride on the night before
+into the town.  It was as well, for such a handful would have shared
+and could not have averted the disaster.
+
+The night had been dark and wet, and the Boers under cover of it had
+crept between the sleeping convoy and the town.  Some bushes which
+afford excellent cover lie within a few hundred yards of the road, and
+here the main ambush was laid. In the first grey of the morning the
+long line of the convoy, 130 wagons in all, came trailing past-guns
+and Yeomanry in front, Fusiliers upon the flanks and rear.  Suddenly
+the black bank of scrub was outlined in flame, and a furious rifle
+fire was opened upon the head of the column. The troops behaved
+admirably under most difficult circumstances. A counter-attack by the
+Fusiliers and some of the Yeomanry, under cover of shrapnel from the
+guns, drove the enemy out of the scrub and silenced his fire at this
+point.  It was evident, however, that he was present in force, for
+firing soon broke out along the whole left flank, and the rearguard
+found itself as warmly attacked as the van. Again, bowever, the
+assailants were driven off.  It was now broad daylight, and the
+wagons, which had got into great confusion in the first turmoil of
+battle, had been remarshalled and arranged. It was Colonel Anderson's
+hope that he might be able to send them on into safety while he with
+the escort covered their retreat.  His plan was certainly the best
+one, and if it did not succeed it was due to nothing which he could
+avert, but to the nature of the ground and the gallantry of the enemy.
+
+The physical obstacle consisted in a very deep and difficult spruit,
+the Jagd Spruit, which forms an ugly passage in times of peace, but
+which when crowded and choked with stampeding mules and splintering
+wagons, under their terrified conductors, soon became impassable. Here
+the head of the column was clubbed and the whole line came to a stand.
+Meanwhile the enemy, adopting their new tactics, came galloping in on
+the left flank I and on the rear.  The first attack was repelled by
+the steady fire of the Fusiliers, but on the second occasion the
+horsemen got up to the wagons, and galloping down them were able to
+overwhelm in detail the little knots of soldiers who were scattered
+along the flank.  The British, who were outnumbered by at least three
+to one, made a stout resistance, and it was not until seven o'clock
+that the last shot was fired.  The result was a complete success to
+the burghers, but one which leaves no shadow of discredit on any
+officer or man among those who were engaged. Eleven officers and 176
+men fell out of about 550 actually engaged.  The Boers, so the teams
+were shot and the wagons burned before they withdrew.  The prisoners
+too, they were unable to retain, and their sole permanent trophies
+consisted of the two guns, the rifles, and the ammunition. Their own
+losses amounted to about fifty killed and wounded.
+
+A small force sallied out from Klerksdorp in the hope of helping
+Anderson, but on reaching the Jagd Drift it was found that the
+fighting was over and that the field was in possession of the
+Boers. De la Rey was seen in person among the burghers, and it is
+pleasant to add that he made himself conspicuous by his humanity to
+the wounded. His force drew off in the course of the morning, and was
+soon out of reach of immediate pursuit, though this was attempted by
+Kekewich, Von Donop, and Grenfell.  It was important to regain the
+guns if possible, as they were always a menace to the blockhouse
+system, and for this purpose Grenfell with sixteen hundred horsemen
+was despatched to a point south of Lichtenburg, which was conjectured
+to be upon the Boer line of retreat.  At the same time Lord Methuen
+was ordered up from Vryburg in order to cooperate in this movement,
+and to join his forces to those of Grenfell.  It was obvious that with
+an energetic and resolute adversary like De la Rey there was great
+danger of these two forces being taken in detail, but it was hoped
+that each was strong enough to hold its own until the other could come
+to its aid.  The result was to show that the danger was real and the
+hope fallacious.
+
+It was on March 2nd that Methuen left Vryburg. The column was not his
+old one, consisting of veterans of the trek, but was the Kimberley
+column under Major Paris, a body of men who bad seen much less service
+and were in every way less reliable.  It included a curious mixture of
+units, the most solid of which were four guns (two of the 4th, and two
+of the 38th R.F.A.), 200 Northumberland Fusiliers, and 100 Loyal North
+Lancashires.  The mounted men included 5th Imperial Yeomanry (184),
+Cape Police (233), Cullinan's Horse (64), 86th Imperial Yeomanry
+(110), Diamond Fields Horse (92), Dennison' s Scouts (58), Ashburner's
+Horse (126), and British South African Police (24).  Such a collection
+of samples would be more in place, one would imagine, in a London
+procession than in an operation which called for discipline and
+cohesion.  In warfare the half is often greater than the whole, and
+the presence of a proportion of halfhearted and inexperienced men may
+be a positive danger to their more capable companions.
+
+Upon March 6th Methuen, marching east towards Lichtenburg, came in
+touch near Leeuwspruit with Van Zyl's commando, and learned in the
+small skirmish which ensued that some of his Yeomanry were unreliable
+and ill-instructed.  Having driven the enemy off by his artillery
+fire, Methuen moved to Tweebosch, where he laagered until next
+morning.  At 3 A.M. of the 7th the ox-convoy was sent on, under escort
+of half of his little force.  The other half followed at 4.20, 50 as
+to give the slow-moving oxen a chance of keeping ahead.  It was
+evident, however, immediately after the column had got started that
+the enemy were all round in great numbers, and that an attack in force
+was to be expected.  Lord Methuen gave orders therefore that the
+ox-wagons should be halted and that the mule-transport should close
+upon them so as to form one solid block, instead of a straggling line.
+At the same time he reinforced his rearguard with mounted men and with
+two guns, for it was in that quarter that the enemy appeared to be
+most numerous and aggressive.  An attack was also developing upon the
+right flank, which was held off by the infantry and by the second
+section of the guns.
+
+It has been said that Methuen's horsemen were for the most part
+inexperienced irregulars.  Such men become in time excellent soldiers,
+as all this campaign bears witness, but it is too much to expose them
+to a severe ordeal in the open field when they are still raw and
+untrained.  As it happened, this particular ordeal was exceedingly
+severe, but nothing can excuse the absolute failure of the troops
+concerned to rise to the occasion.  Had Methuen's rearguard consisted
+of Imperial Light Horse, or Scottish Horse, it is safe to say that the
+battle of Tweebosch would have had a very different ending.
+
+What happened was that a large body of Boers formed up in five lines
+and charged straight home at the rear screen and rearguard, firing
+from their saddles as they had done at Brakenlaagte.  The sight of
+those wide-flung lines of determined men galloping over the plain
+seems to have been too much for the nerves of the unseasoned troopers.
+A panic spread through their ranks, and in an instant they had turned
+their horses' heads and were thundering to their rear, leaving the two
+guns uncovered and streaming in wild confusion past the left flank of
+the jeering infantry who were lying round the wagons.  The limit of
+their flight seems to have been the wind of their horses, and most of
+them never drew rein until they had placed many miles between
+themselves and the comrades whom they had deserted.  ' It was
+pitiable,' says an eye-witness, 'to see the grand old General begging
+them to stop, but they would not; a large body of them arrived in
+Kraaipan without firing a shot,' It was a South African 'Battle of the
+Spurs,'
+
+By this defection of the greater portion of the force the handful of
+brave men who remained were left in a hopeless position.  The two guns
+of the 38th battery were overwhelmed and ridden over by the Boer
+horsemen, every man being killed or wounded, including Lieutenant
+Nesham, who acted up to the highest traditions of his corps.
+
+The battle, however, was not yet over.  The infantry were few in
+number, but they were experienced troops, and they maintained the
+struggle for some hours in the face of overwhelming numbers.  Two
+hundred of the Northumberland Fusiliers lay round the wagons and held
+the Boers off from their prey. With them were the two remaining guns,
+which were a mark for a thousand Boer riflemen.  It was while
+encouraging by his presence and example the much-tried gunners of this
+section that the gallant Methuen was wounded by a bullet which broke
+the bone of his thigh.  Lieutenant Venning and all the detachment fell
+with their General round the guns.
+
+An attempt had been made to rally some of the flying troopers at a
+neighbouring kraal, and a small body of Cape Police and Yeomanry under
+the command of Major Paris held out there for some hours.  A hundred
+of the Lancashire Infantry aided them in their stout defence.  But the
+guns taken by the Boers from Von Donop's convoy had free play now that
+the British guns were out of action, and they were brought to bear
+with crushing effect upon both the kraal and the wagons. Further
+resistance meant a useless slaughter, and orders were given for a
+surrender.  Convoy, ammunition, guns, horses -- nothing was saved
+except the honour of the infantry and the gunners.  The losses, 68
+killed and 121 wounded, fell chiefly upon these two branches of the
+service.  There were 205 unwounded prisoners.
+
+This, the last Boer victory in the war, reflected equal credit upon
+their valour and humanity, qualities which had not always gone hand in
+hand in our experience of them.  Courtesy and attention were extended
+to the British wounded, and Lord Methuen was sent under charge of his
+chief medical officer, Colonel Townsend (the doctor as severely
+wounded as the patient), into Klerksdorp.  In De la Rey we have always
+found an opponent who was as chivalrous as he was formidable. The
+remainder of the force reached the Kimberley-Mafeking railway line in
+the direction of Kraaipan, the spot where the first bloodshed of the
+war had occurred some twenty-nine months before.
+
+On Lord Methuen himself no blame can rest for this unsuccessful
+action.  If the workman's tool snaps in his hand he cannot be held
+responsible for the failure of his task.  The troops who misbehaved
+were none of his training.  'If you hear anyone slang him,' says one
+of his men, 'you are to tell them that he is the finest General and
+the truest gentleman that ever fought in this war.'  Such was the tone
+of his own troopers, and such also that of the spokesmen of the nation
+when they commented upon the disaster in the Houses of Parliament.  It
+was a fine example of British justice and sense of fair play, even in
+that bitter moment, that to hear his eulogy one would have thought
+that the occasion had been one when thanks were being returned for a
+victory.  It is a generous public with fine instincts, and Paul
+Methuen, wounded and broken, still remained in their eyes the heroic
+soldier and the chivalrous man of honour.
+
+The De Wet country had been pretty well cleared by the series of
+drives which have already been described, and Louis Botha's force in
+the Eastern Transvaal had been much diminished by the tactics of Bruce
+Hamilton and Wools-Sampson.  Lord Kitchener was able, therefore, to
+concentrate his troops and his attention upon that wide-spread western
+area in which General De la Rey had dealt two such shrewd blows within
+a few weeks of each other.  Troops were rapidly concentrated at
+Klerksdorp.  Kekewich, Walter Kitchener, Rawlinson, and Rochfort, with
+a number of small columns, were ready in the third week of March to
+endeavour to avenge Lord Methuen.
+
+The problem with which Lord Kitchener was confronted was a very
+difficult one, and he has never shown more originality and audacity
+than in the fashion in which he handled it.  De la Rey's force was
+scattered over a long tract of country, capable of rapidly
+concentrating for a blow, but otherwise as intangible and elusive as a
+phantom army.  Were Lord Kitchener simply to launch ten thousand
+horsemen at him, the result would be a weary ride over illimitable
+plains without sight of a Boer, unless it were a distant scout upon
+the extreme horizon.  Delarey and his men would have slipped away to
+his northern hiding-places beyond the Marico River.  There was no
+solid obstacle here, as in the Orange River Colony, against which the
+flying enemy could be rounded up.  One line of blockhouses there was,
+it is true -- the one called the Schoonspruit cordon, which flanked
+the De la Rey country.  It flanked it, however, upon the same side as
+that on which the troops were assembled.  If the troops were only on
+the other side, and De la Rey was between them and the blockhouse
+line, then, indeed, something might be done.  But to place the troops
+there, and then bring them instantly back again, was to put such a
+strain upon men and horses as had never yet been done upon a large
+scale in the course of the war.  Yet Lord Kitchener knew the mettle of
+the men whom he commanded, and he was aware that there were no
+exertions of which the human frame is capable which he might not
+confidently demand.
+
+The precise location of the Boer laagers does not appear to have been
+known, but it was certain that a considerable number of them were
+scattered about thirty miles or so to the west of Klerksdorp and the
+Shoonspruit line.  The plan was to march a British force right through
+them, then spread out into a wide line and come straight back, driving
+the burghers on to the cordon of blockhouses, which had been
+strengthened by the arrival of three regiments of Highlanders.  But to
+get to the o~her side of the Boers it was necessary to march the
+columns through by night.  It was a hazardous operation, but the
+secret was well kept, and the movement was so well carried out that
+the enemy had no time to check it.  On the night of Sunday, March
+23rd, the British horsemen passed stealthily in column through the
+Delarey country, and then, spreading out into a line, which from the
+left wing at Lichtenburg to the right wing at Commando Drift measured
+a good eighty miles, they proceeded to sweep back upon their traces.
+In order to reach their positions the columns had, of course, started
+at different points of the British blockhouse line, and some had a
+good deal farther to go than others, while the southern extension of
+the line was formed by Bochfort's troops, who had moved up from the
+Vaal.  Above him from south to north came Walter Kitchener, Rawlinson,
+and Kekewich in the order named.
+
+
+On the morning of Monday, March 24th, a line of eighty miles of
+horsemen, without guns or transport, was sweeping back towards the
+blockhouses, while the country between was filled with scattered
+parties of Boers who were seeking for gaps by which to escape. It was
+soon learned from the first prisoners that De la Rey was not within
+the cordon.  His laager had been some distance farther west.  But the
+sight of fugitive horsemen rising and dipping over the rolling veldt
+assured the British that they had something within their net. The
+catch was, however, by no means as complete as might have been
+desired. Three hundred men in khaki slipped through between the two
+columns in the early morning. Another large party escaped to the south
+wards.  Some of the Boers adopted extraordinary devices in order to
+escape from the ever-narrowing cordon.  'Three, in charge of some
+cattle, buried themselves, and left a small hole to breathe through
+with a tube.  Some men began to probe with bayonets in the new.turned
+earth and got immediate and vociferous subterranean yells.  Another
+man tried the same game and a horse stepped on him.  He writhed and
+reared the horse, and practically the horse found the prisoner for
+us.'  But the operations achieved one result, which must have lifted a
+load of anxiety from Lord Kitchener's mind. Three fifteen-pounders,
+two pom-poms, and a large amount of ammunition were taken.  To
+Kekewich and the Scottish Horse fell the honour of the capture,
+Colonel Wools-Sampson and Captain Rice heading the charge and pursuit.
+By this means the constant menace to the blockhouses was lessened, if
+not entirely removed. One hundred and seventy-five Boers were disposed
+of, nearly all as prisoners, and a considerable quantity of transport
+was captured.  In this operation the troops had averaged from seventy
+to eighty miles in twenty-six hours without change of horses.  To such
+a point had the slow-moving ponderous British Army attained after two
+years' training of that stern drill-master, necessity.
+
+The operations had attained some success, but nothing commensurate
+with the daring of the plan or the exertions of the soldiers.  Without
+an instant's delay, however, Lord Kitchener struck a second blow at
+his enemy.  Before the end of March Kekewich, Rawlinson, and Walter
+Kitchener were all upon the trek once more.  Their operations were
+pushed farther to the west than in the last drive, since it was known
+that on that occasion De la Rey and his main commando had been outside
+the cordon.
+
+It was to one of Walter Kitchener's lieutenants that the honour fell
+to come in direct contact with the main force of the burghers.  This
+General had moved out to a point about forty miles west of Klerksdorp.
+Forming his laager there, he despatched Cookson on March 30th with
+seventeen hundred men to work further westward in the direction of the
+Harts River.  Under Cookson's immediate command were the 2nd Canadian
+Mounted Infantry, Damant's Horse, and four guns of the 7th R.F.A.  His
+lieutenant, Keir, commanded the 28th Mounted Infantry, the Artillery
+Mounted Rifles, and 2nd Kitchener's Fighting Scouts.  The force was
+well mounted, and carried the minimum of baggage.
+
+It was not long before this mobile force found itself within touch of
+the enemy.  The broad weal made by the passing of a convoy set them
+off at full cry, and they were soon encouraged by the distant cloud of
+dust which shrouded the Boer wagons.  The advance guard of the column
+galloped at the top of their speed for eight miles, and closed in upon
+the convoy, but found themselves faced by an escort of five hundred
+Boers, who fought a clever rearguard action, and covered their charge
+with great skill.  At the same time Cookson closed in upon his mounted
+infantry, while on the other side Delarey's main force fell back in
+order to reinforce the escort.  British and Boers were both riding
+furiously to help their own comrades. The two forces were fairly face
+to face.
+
+Perceiving that he was in front of the whole Boer army, and knowing
+that he might expect reinforcements, Cookson decided to act upon the
+defensive. A position was rapidly taken up along the Brakspruit, and
+preparations made to resist the impending attack.  The line of defence
+was roughly the line of the spruit, but for some reason, probably to
+establish a cross fire, one advanced position was occupied upon either
+flank.  On the left flank was a farmhouse, which was held by two
+hundred men of the Artillery Rifles.  On the extreme right was another
+outpost of twenty-four Canadians and forty-five Mounted Infantry.
+They occupied no defensible position, and their situation was
+evidently a most dangerous one, only to be justified by some strong
+military reason which is not explained by any account of the action.
+
+The Boer guns had opened fire, and considerable bodies of the enemy
+appeared upon the flanks and in front.  Their first efforts were
+devoted towards getting possession of the farmhouse, which would give
+them a POINT D'APPUI from which they could turn the whole line.  Some
+five hundred of them charged on horseback, but.were met by a very
+steady fire from the Artillery Rifles, while the guns raked them with
+shrapnel.  They reached a point within five hundred yards of the
+building, but the fire was too hot, and they wheeled round in rapid
+retreat. Dismounting in a mealie-patch they skirmished up towards the
+farmhouse once more, but they were again checked by the fire of the
+defenders and by a pompom which Colonel Keir had brought up. No
+progress whatever was made by the attack in this quarter.
+
+In the meantime the fate which might have been foretold had befallen
+the isolated detachment of Canadians and 28th Mounted Infantry upon
+the extreme right.  Bruce Carruthers, the Canadian officer in command,
+behaved with the utmost gallantry, and was splendidly seconded by his
+men. Overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers, amid a perfect hail of
+bullets they fought like heroes to the end.  'There have been few
+finer instances of heroism in the course of the campaign,' says the
+reticent Kitchener in his official despatch.  Of the Canadians
+eighteen were hit out of twenty-one, and the Mounted Infantry hard by
+lost thirty out of forty-five before they surrendered.
+
+This advantage gained upon the right flank was of no assistance to the
+Boers in breaking the British line. The fact that it was so makes it
+the more difficult to understand why this outpost was so exposed.  The
+burghers had practically surrounded Cookson's force, and De la Rey and
+Kemp urged on the attack; buL~ their artillery fire was dominated by
+the British guns, and no weak point could be found in the defence. At
+1 o'clock the attack had been begun, and at 5.30 it was finally
+abandoned, and Delarey was in full retreat. That he was in no sense
+routed is shown by the fact that Cookson did not attempt to follow him
+up or to capture his guns; but at least he had failed in his purpose,
+and had lost more heavily than in any engagement which he had yet
+fought. The moral effect of his previous victories had also been
+weakened, and his burghers had learned, if they had illusions upon the
+subject, that the men who fled at Tweebosch were not typical troopers
+of the British Army.  Altogether, it was a well-fought and useful
+action, though it cost the British force some two hundred casualties,
+of which thirty-five were fatal.  Cookson's force stood to arms all
+night mitil the arrival of Walter Kitchener's men in the morning.
+
+General Ian Hamilton, who had acted for some time as Chief of the
+Staff to Lord Kitchener, had arrived on April 8th at Klerksdorp to
+take supreme command of the whole operations against De la Rey.  Early
+in April the three main British columns had made a rapid cast round
+without success.  To the very end the better intelligence and the
+higher mobility seem to have remained upon the side of the Boers, who
+could always force a fight when Lhey wished and escape when they
+wished.  Occasionally, however, they forced one at the wrong time, as
+in the instance which I am about to describe.
+
+Hamilton had planned a drive to cover the southern portion of
+Delarey's country, and for this purpose, with Hartebeestefontein for
+his centre, he was manoeuvring his columns so as to swing them into
+line and then sweep back towards Klerksdorp.  Kekewich, Rawlinson, and
+Walter Kitchener were all manoeuvring for this purpose.  The Boers,
+however, game to the last, although they were aware that their leaders
+had gone in to treat, and that peace was probably due within a few
+days, determined to have one last gallant fall with a British column.
+The forces of Kekewich were the farthest to the westward, and also, as
+the burghers thought, the most isolated, and it was upon them,
+accordingly, that the attack was made.  In the morning of April 11th,
+at a place called Rooiwal, the enemy, who had moved up from
+Wolmaranstad, nineteen hundred strong, under Kemp and Vermaas, fell
+with the utmost impetuosity upon the British column.  There was no
+preliminary skirmishing, and a single gallant charge by 1,500 Boers
+both opened and ended the engagement.  'I was just saying to the staff
+officer that there were no Boers within twenty miles,' says one who
+was present, 'when we heard a roar of musketry and saw a lot of men
+galloping down on us.'  The British were surprised but not shaken by
+this unexpected apparition.  'I never saw a more splendid attack.
+They kept a distinct line,' says the eye-witness.  Another spectator
+says, 'They came on in one long line four deep and knee to knee.' It
+was an old-fashioned cavalry charge, and the fact that it got as far
+as it did shows that we have over rated the stopping power of modern
+rifles.  They came for a good five hundred yards under direct fire,
+and were only turned within a hundred of the British line.  The
+Yeomanry, the Scottish Horse, and the Constabulary poured a steady
+fire upon the advancing wave of horsemen, and the guns opened with
+case at two hundred yards.  The Boers were stopped, staggered, and
+turned. Their fire, or rather the covering fire of those who had not
+joined in the charge, had caused some fifty casualties, but their own
+losses were very much more severe. The fierce Potgieter fell just in
+front of the British guns. 'Thank goodness he is dead! ' cried one of
+his wounded burghers, 'for he sjamboked me into the firing line this
+morning.'  Fifty dead and a great number of wounded were left upon the
+field of battle.  Rawlinson's column came up on Kekewich's left, and
+the Boer flight became a rout, for they were chased for twenty miles,
+and their two guns were captured.  It was a brisk and decisive little
+engagement, and it closed the Western campaign, leaving the last
+trick, as well as the game, to the credit of the British.  From this
+time until the end there was a gleaning of prisoners but little
+fighting in De la Rey's country, the most noteworthy event being a
+surprise visit to Schweizer-Renecke by Rochfort, by which some sixty
+prisoners were taken, and afterwards the drive of Ian Hamilton's
+forces against the Mafeking railway line by which no fewer than 364
+prisoners were secured. In this difficult and well-managed operation
+the gaps between the British columns were concealed by the lighting of
+long veldt-fires and the discharge of rifles by scattered scouts. The
+newly arrived Australian Commonwealth Regiments gave a brilliant start
+to the military history of their united country by the energy of their
+marching and the thoroughness of their entrenching.
+
+Upon May 29th, only two days before the final declaration of peace, a
+raid was made by a few Boers upon the native cattle reserves near
+Fredericstad. A handful of horsemen pursued them, and were ambushed by
+a considerable body of the enemy in some hilly country ten miles from
+the British lines.  Most of the pursuers got away in safety, but young
+Sutherland, second lieutenant of the Seaforths, and only a few months
+from Eton, found himself separated from his horse and in a hopeless
+position.  Scorning to surrender, the lad actually fought his way upon
+foot for over a mile before he was shot down by the horsemen who
+circled round him. Well might the Boer commander declare that in the
+whole course of the war he had seen no finer example of British
+courage.  It is indeed sad that at this last instant a young life
+should be thrown away, but Sutherland died in a noble fashion for a
+noble cause, and many inglorious years would be a poor substitute for
+the example and tradition which such a death will leave behind.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+THE END
+
+
+It only remains in one short chapter to narrate the progress of the
+peace negotiations, the ultimate settlement, and the final
+consequences of this long-drawn war. However disheartening the
+successive incidents may have been in which the Boers were able to
+inflict heavy losses upon us and to renew their supplies of arms and
+ammunition, it was none the less certain that their numbers were
+waning and that the inevitable end was steadily approaching. With
+mathematical precision the scientific soldier in Pretoria, with his
+web of barbed wire radiating out over the whole country, was week by
+week wearing them steadily down.  And yet after the recent victory of
+De la Rey and various braggadocio pronouncements from the refugees at
+The Hague, it was somewhat of a surprise to the British public when it
+was announced upon March 22nd that the acting Government of the
+Transvaal, consisting of Messrs. Schalk Burger, Lucas Meyer, Reitz,
+Jacoby, Krogh, and Van Velden had come into Middelburg and requested
+to be forwarded by train to Pretoria for the purpose of discussing
+terms of peace with Lord Kitchener.  A thrill of hope ran through the
+Empire at the news, but so doubtful did the issue seem that none of
+the preparations were relaxed which would ensure a vigorous campaign
+in the immediate future.  In the South African as in the Peninsular
+and in the Crimean wars, it may truly be said that Great Britain was
+never so ready to fight as at the dawning of peace.  At least two
+years of failure and experience are needed to turn a civilian and
+commercial nation into a military power.
+
+In spite of the optimistic pronouncements of Mr. Fischer and the
+absurd forecasts of Dr. Leyds the power of the Boers was really
+broken, and they had come in with the genuine intention of surrender.
+In a race with such individuality.it was not enough that the
+government should form its conclusion.  It was necessary for them to
+persuade their burghers that the game was really up, and that they had
+no choice but to throw down their well-worn rifles and their
+ill-filled bandoliers. For this purpose a long series of negotiations
+had to be entered into which put a strain upon the complacency of the
+authorities in South Africa and upon the patience of the attentive
+public at home.  Their ultimate success shows that this complacency
+and this patience were eminantly the right attitude to adopt.
+
+On March 23rd the Transvaal representatives were despatched to
+Kroonstad for the purpose of opening up the matter with Steyn and De
+Wet.  Messengers were sent to communicate with these two leaders, but
+had they been British columns instead of fellow-countrymen they could
+not have found greater difficulty in running them to earth.  At last,
+however, at the end of the month the message was conveyed, and
+resulted in the appearance of De Wet, De la Rey, and Steyn at the
+British outposts at Klerksdorp.  The other delegates had come north
+again from Kroonstad, and all were united in the same small town,
+which, by a whimsical fate, had suddenly become the centre both for
+the making of peace and for the prosecution of the war, with the eyes
+of the whole world fixed upon its insignificant litter of houses.  On
+April 11th, after repeated conferences, both parties moved on to
+Pretoria, and the most sceptical observers began to confess that there
+was something in the negotiations after all. After conferring with
+Lord Kitchener the Boer leaders upon April 18th left Pretoria again
+and rode out to the commandos to explain the situation to them.  The
+result of this mission was that two delegates were chosen from each
+body in the field, who assembled at Vereeniging upon May 15th for the
+purpose of settling the question by vote.  Never was a high matter of
+state decided in so democratic a fashion.
+
+Up to that period the Boer leaders had made a succession of tentative
+suggestions, each of which had been put aside by the British
+Government.  Their first had been that they should merely concede
+those points which had been at issue at the beginning of the war. This
+was set aside.  The second was that they should be allowed to consult
+their friends in Europe.  This also was refused.  The next was that an
+armistice should be granted, but again Lord Kitchener was obdurate.  A
+definite period was suggested within which the burghers should make
+their final choice between surrender and a war which must finally
+exterminate them as a people.  It was tacitly understood, if not
+definitely promised, that the conditions which the British Government
+would be prepared to grant would not differ much in essentials from
+those which had been refused by the Boers a twelvemonth before, after
+the Middelburg interview.
+
+On May 15th the Boer conference opened at Vereeniging.  Sixty-four
+delegates from the commandos met with the military and political
+chiefs of the late republics, the whole amounting to 150 persons.  A
+more singular gathering has not met in our time.  There was Botha, the
+young lawyer, who had found himself by a strange turn of fate
+commanding a victorious army in a great war.  De Wet was there, with
+his grim mouth and sun-browned face; De la Rey, also, with the
+grizzled beard and the strong aquiline features.  There, too, were the
+politicians, the grey-bearded, genial Reitz, a little graver than when
+he looked upon 'the whole matter as an immense joke,' and the
+unfortunate Steyn, stumbling and groping, a broken and ruined man.
+The burly Lucas Meyer, smart young Smuts fresh from the siege of
+Ookiep, Beyers from the north, Kemp the dashing cavalry leader, Muller
+the hero of many fights -- all these with many others of their
+sun-blackened, gaunt, hard-featured comrades were grouped within the
+great tent of Vereeniging.  The discussions were heated and
+prolonged. But the logic of facts was inexorable, and the cold still
+voice of common-sense had more power than all the ravings of
+enthusiasts.  The vote showed that the great majority of the delegates
+were in favour of surrender upon the terms offered by the British
+Government.  On May 81st this resolution was notified to Lord
+Kitchener, and at half-past ten of the same night the delegates
+arrived at Pretoria and set their names to the treaty of peace.  After
+two years seven and a half months of hostilities the Dutch republics
+had acquiesced in their own destruction, and the whole of South
+Africa, from Cape Town to the Zambesi, had been added to the British
+Empire.  The great struggle had cost us twenty thousand lives and a
+hundred thousand stricken men, with two hundred millions of money;
+but, apart from a peaceful South Africa, it had won for us a national
+resuscitation of spirit and a closer union with our great Colonies
+which could in no other way have been attained. We had hoped that we
+were a solid empire when we engaged in the struggle, hut we knew that
+we were when we emerged from it. In that change lies an ample
+recompense for all the blood and treasure spent.
+
+The following were in brief the terms of surrender
+
+1.      That the burghers lay down their arms and acknowledge themselves
+        subjects of Edward VII.
+2.	That all prisoners taking the oath of allegiance be returned.
+3.	That their liberty and property be inviolate.
+4.	That an amnesty be granted-save in special cases.
+5.	That the Dutch language be allowed in schools and law-courts.
+6.	That rifles be ~lowed if registered.
+7.	That self-government be granted as soon as possible.
+8.	That no fr~nchise be granted for natives until after self-governinent.
+9.	That no special ~nd tax be levied.
+10.	That the people be helped to reoccupy the farms.
+11.	That Ł3,000,000 be given to help the farmers.
+12.     That the rebels be disfranchised and their leaders tried, on
+        condition that no death penalty be inflicted.
+
+These terms were practically the same as those which had been refused
+by Botha in March 1901. Thirteen months of useless warfare had left
+the situation as it was.
+
+It had been a war of surprises, but the surprises have unhappily been
+hitherto invariably unpleasant ones.  Now at last the balance swung
+the other way, for in all the long paradoxical history of South
+African strife there is nothing more wonderful than the way in which
+these two sturdy and unemotional races clasped hands the instant that
+the fight was done. The fact is in itself a final answer to the
+ill-natured critics of the Continent. Men do not so easily grasp a
+hand which is reddened with the blood of women and children. From all
+parts as the commandos. came in there was welcome news of the
+fraternisation between them and the soldiers; while the Boer leaders,
+as loyal to their new ties as they had been to their old ones, exerted
+themselves to promote good feeling among their people.  A few weeks
+seemed to do more to lessen racial bitterness than some of us had
+hoped for in as many years.  One can but pray that it will last.
+
+The surrenders amounted in all to twenty thousand men, and showed that
+in all parts of the seat of war the enemy had more men in the field
+than we had imagined, a fact which may take the sting out of several
+of our later mishaps. About twelve thousand surrendered in the
+Transvaal, six thousand in the Orange River Colony, and about two
+thousand in the Cape olony, showing that the movement in the rebel
+districts had always been more vexatious than formidable.  A
+computation of the prisoners of war, the surrenders, the mercenaries,
+and the casualties, shows that the total forces to which we were
+opposed were certainly not fewer than seventy-five thousand well-armed
+mounted men, while they may have considerably exceeded that number.
+No wonder that the Boer leaders showed great confidence at the outset
+of the war.
+
+That the heavy losses caused us by the war were borne without a murmur
+is surely evidence enough how deep was the conviction of the nation
+that the war was not only just but essential -- that the possession of
+South Africa and the unity of the Empire were at stake. Could it be
+shown, or were it even remotely possible, that ministers had incurred
+so immense a responsibility and entailed such tremendous sacrifices
+upon their people without adequate cause, is it not certain that, the
+task once done, an explosion of rage from the deceived and the
+bereaved would have driven them for ever from public life? Among high
+and low, in England, in Scotland, in Ireland, in the great Colonies,
+how many high hopes had been crushed, how often the soldier son had
+gone forth and never returned, or come back maimed and stricken in the
+pride of his youth. Everywhere was the voice of pity and sorrow, but
+nowhere that of reproach.  The deepest instincts of the nation told it
+that it must fight and win, or for ever abdicate its position in the
+world.  Through dark days which brought out the virtues of our race as
+nothing has done in our generation, we struggled grimly on until the
+light had fully broken once again.  And of all gifts that God has
+given to Britain there is none to compare with those days of sorrow,
+for it was in them that the nation was assured of its unity, and
+learned for all time that blood is stronger to bind than salt water is
+to part.  The only difference in the point of view of the Briton from
+Britain and the Briton from the ends of the earth, was that the latter
+with the energy of youth was more whole-souled in the Imperial cause.
+Who has seen that Army and can forget it -- its spirit, its
+picturesqueness -- above all, what it stands for in the future history
+of the world? Cowboys from the vast plains of the North-West,
+gentlemen who ride hard with the Quorn or the Belvoir, gillies from
+the Sutherland deer-forests, bushmen from the back blocks of
+Australia, exquisites of the Raleigh Club or the Bachelor's, hard men
+from Ontario, dandy sportsmen from India and Ceylon, the horsemen of
+New Zealand, the wiry South African irregulars -- these are the
+Reserves whose existence was chronicled in no Blue-book, and whose
+appearance came as a shock to the pedant soldiers of the Continent who
+had sneered so long at our little Army, since long years of peace have
+caused them to forget its exploits.  On the plains of South Africa, in
+common danger and in common privation, the blood brotherhood of the
+Empire was sealed.
+
+So much for the Empire.  But what of South Africa?  There in the end
+we must reap as we sow. If we are worthy of the trust, it will be left
+to us.  If we are unworthy of it, it will be taken away. Kruger's
+downfall should teach us that it is not rifles but Justice which is
+the title-deed of a nation.  The British flag under our best
+administrators will mean clean government, honest laws, liberty and
+equality to all men.  So long as it continues to do so, we shall hold
+South Africa. When, out of fear or out or greed, we fall from that
+ideal, we may know that we are stricken with that disease which has
+killed every great empire before us.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Great Boer War
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Boer War, by Arthur Conan Doyle
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+Title: The Great Boer War
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+Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
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+Release Date: Feb, 2002  [EBook #3069]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE GREAT BOER WAR ***
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+Project Gutenberg Etext of The Great Boer War by Arthur Conan
+Doyle.
+
+***
+
+E-text editor's note: It may come as a surprise that the creator of
+Sherlock Holmes wrote a history of the Boer War. The then
+40-year-old novelist wanted to see the war first hand as a soldier,
+but the Victorian army balked at having a popular author wielding a
+pen in its ranks. The army did accept him as a doctor and Doyle was
+knighted in 1902 for his work with a field hospital in
+Bloemfontein. Doyle's vivid description of the battles is probably
+thanks to the eye-witness accounts he got from his patients. This,
+the best book on the Boer War I've encountered, is a long out of
+print lost classic that I stumbled across in a Cape Town
+second-hand bookstore.
+
+Robert Laing.
+
+Proofed by Sue Asscher asschers@bigpond.com
+
+***
+
+THE GREAT BOER WAR
+
+BY
+
+ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER 1. THE BOER NATIONS.
+
+CHAPTER 2. THE CAUSE OF QUARREL.
+
+CHAPTER 3. THE NEGOTIATIONS.
+
+CHAPTER 4. THE EVE OF WAR.
+
+CHAPTER 5. TALANA HILL.
+
+CHAPTER 6. ELANDSLAAGTE AND RIETFONTEIN.
+
+CHAPTER 7. THE BATTLE OF LADYSMITH.
+
+CHAPTER 8. LORD METHUEN'S ADVANCE.
+
+CHAPTER 9. BATTLE OF MAGERSFONTEIN.
+
+CHAPTER 10. THE BATTLE OF STORMBERG.
+
+CHAPTER 11. BATTLE OF COLENSO.
+
+CHAPTER 12. THE DARK HOUR.
+
+CHAPTER 13. THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH.
+
+CHAPTER 14. THE COLESBERG OPERATIONS.
+
+CHAPTER 15. SPION KOP.
+
+CHAPTER 16. VAALKRANZ.
+
+CHAPTER 17. BULLER'S FINAL ADVANCE.
+
+CHAPTER 18. THE SIEGE AND RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY.
+
+CHAPTER 19. PAARDEBERG.
+
+CHAPTER 20. ROBERTS'S ADVANCE ON BLOEMFONTEIN.
+
+CHAPTER 21. STRATEGIC EFFECTS OF LORD ROBERTS'S MARCH.
+
+CHAPTER 22. THE HALT AT BLOEMFONTEIN.
+
+CHAPTER 23. THE CLEARING OF THE SOUTH-EAST.
+
+CHAPTER 24. THE SIEGE OF MAFEKING.
+
+CHAPTER 25. THE MARCH ON PRETORIA.
+
+CHAPTER 26. DIAMOND HILL--RUNDLE'S OPERATIONS.
+
+CHAPTER 27. THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION.
+
+CHAPTER 28. THE HALT AT PRETORIA.
+
+CHAPTER 29. THE ADVANCE TO KOMATIPOORT.
+
+CHAPTER 30. THE CAMPAIGN OF DE WET.
+
+CHAPTER 31. THE GUERILLA WARFARE IN THE TRANSVAAL: NOOITGEDACHT.
+
+CHAPTER 32. THE SECOND INVASION OF CAPE COLONY.
+
+CHAPTER 33. THE NORTHERN OPERATIONS FROM JANUARY TO APRIL, 1901.
+
+CHAPTER 34. THE WINTER CAMPAIGN (APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 1901).
+
+CHAPTER 35. THE GUERILLA OPERATIONS IN CAPE COLONY.
+
+CHAPTER 36. THE SPRING CAMPAIGN (SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER, 1901).
+
+CHAPTER 37. THE CAMPAIGN OF JANUARY TO APRIL, 1902.
+
+CHAPTER 38. DE LA REY'S CAMPAIGN OF 1902.
+
+CHAPTER 39. THE END.
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE FINAL EDITION.
+
+During the course of the war some sixteen Editions of this work
+have appeared, each of which was, I hope, a little more full and
+accurate than that which preceded it. I may fairly claim, however,
+that the absolute mistakes made have been few in number, and that I
+have never had occasion to reverse, and seldom to modify, the
+judgments which I have formed. In this final edition the early text
+has been carefully revised and all fresh available knowledge has
+been added within the limits of a single volume narrative. Of the
+various episodes in the latter half of the war it is impossible to
+say that the material is available for a complete and final
+chronicle. By the aid, however, of the official dispatches, of the
+newspapers, and of many private letters, I have done my best to
+give an intelligible and accurate account of the matter. The
+treatment may occasionally seem too brief but some proportion must
+be observed between the battles of 1899-1900 and the skirmishes of
+1901-1902.
+
+My private informants are so numerous that it would be hardly
+possible, even if it were desirable, that I should quote their
+names. Of the correspondents upon whose work I have drawn for my
+materials, I would acknowledge my obligations to Messrs. Burleigh,
+Nevinson, Battersby, Stuart, Amery, Atkins, Baillie, Kinneir,
+Churchill, James, Ralph, Barnes, Maxwell, Pearce, Hamilton, and
+others. Especially I would mention the gentleman who represented
+the 'Standard' in the last year of the war, whose accounts of
+Vlakfontein, Von Donop's Convoy, and Tweebosch were the only
+reliable ones which reached the public.
+
+Arthur Conan Doyle, Undershaw, Hindhead: September 1902.
+
+CHAPTER 1.
+
+THE BOER NATIONS.
+
+Take a community of Dutchmen of the type of those who defended
+themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time
+when Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them
+a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots who gave up home and
+fortune and left their country for ever at the time of the
+revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The product must obviously be
+one of the most rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen upon
+earth. Take this formidable people and train them for seven
+generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious
+beasts, in circumstances under which no weakling could survive,
+place them so that they acquire exceptional skill with weapons and
+in horsemanship, give them a country which is eminently suited to
+the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman, and the rider. Then,
+finally, put a finer temper upon their military qualities by a dour
+fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming
+patriotism. Combine all these qualities and all these impulses in
+one individual, and you have the modern Boer--the most formidable
+antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial Britain. Our
+military history has largely consisted in our conflicts with
+France, but Napoleon and all his veterans have never treated us so
+roughly as these hard-bitten farmers with their ancient theology
+and their inconveniently modern rifles.
+
+Look at the map of South Africa, and there, in the very centre of
+the British possessions, like the stone in a peach, lies the great
+stretch of the two republics, a mighty domain for so small a
+people. How came they there? Who are these Teutonic folk who have
+burrowed so deeply into Africa? It is a twice-told tale, and yet it
+must be told once again if this story is to have even the most
+superficial of introductions. No one can know or appreciate the
+Boer who does not know his past, for he is what his past has made
+him.
+
+It was about the time when Oliver Cromwell was at his zenith--in
+1652, to be pedantically accurate--that the Dutch made their first
+lodgment at the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese had been there
+before them, but, repelled by the evil weather, and lured forwards
+by rumours of gold, they had passed the true seat of empire and had
+voyaged further to settle along the eastern coast. Some gold there
+was, but not much, and the Portuguese settlements have never been
+sources of wealth to the mother country, and never will be until
+the day when Great Britain signs her huge cheque for Delagoa Bay.
+The coast upon which they settled reeked with malaria. A hundred
+miles of poisonous marsh separated it from the healthy inland
+plateau. For centuries these pioneers of South African colonisation
+strove to obtain some further footing, but save along the courses
+of the rivers they made little progress. Fierce natives and an
+enervating climate barred their way.
+
+But it was different with the Dutch. That very rudeness of climate
+which had so impressed the Portuguese adventurer was the source of
+their success. Cold and poverty and storm are the nurses of the
+qualities which make for empire. It is the men from the bleak and
+barren lands who master the children of the light and the heat. And
+so the Dutchmen at the Cape prospered and grew stronger in that
+robust climate. They did not penetrate far inland, for they were
+few in number and all they wanted was to be found close at hand.
+But they built themselves houses, and they supplied the Dutch East
+India Company with food and water, gradually budding off little
+townlets, Wynberg, Stellenbosch, and pushing their settlements up
+the long slopes which lead to that great central plateau which
+extends for fifteen hundred miles from the edge of the Karoo to the
+Valley of the Zambesi. Then came the additional Huguenot
+emigrants--the best blood of France three hundred of them, a
+handful of the choicest seed thrown in to give a touch of grace and
+soul to the solid Teutonic strain. Again and again in the course of
+history, with the Normans, the Huguenots, the Emigres, one can see
+the great hand dipping into that storehouse and sprinkling the
+nations with the same splendid seed. France has not founded other
+countries, like her great rival, but she has made every other
+country the richer by the mixture with her choicest and best. The
+Rouxs, Du Toits, Jouberts, Du Plessis, Villiers, and a score of
+other French names are among the most familiar in South Africa.
+
+For a hundred more years the history of the colony was a record of
+the gradual spreading of the Afrikaners over the huge expanse of
+veld which lay to the north of them. Cattle raising became an
+industry, but in a country where six acres can hardly support a
+sheep, large farms are necessary for even small herds. Six thousand
+acres was the usual size, and five pounds a year the rent payable
+to Government. The diseases which follow the white man had in
+Africa, as in America and Australia, been fatal to the natives, and
+an epidemic of smallpox cleared the country for the newcomers.
+Further and further north they pushed, founding little towns here
+and there, such as Graaf-Reinet and Swellendam, where a Dutch
+Reformed Church and a store for the sale of the bare necessaries of
+life formed a nucleus for a few scattered dwellings. Already the
+settlers were showing that independence of control and that
+detachment from Europe which has been their most prominent
+characteristic. Even the sway of the Dutch Company (an older but
+weaker brother of John Company in India) had caused them to revolt.
+The local rising, however, was hardly noticed in the universal
+cataclysm which followed the French Revolution. After twenty years,
+during which the world was shaken by the Titanic struggle between
+England and France in the final counting up of the game and paying
+of the stakes, the Cape Colony was added in 1814 to the British
+Empire.
+
+In all our vast collection of States there is probably not one the
+title-deeds to which are more incontestable than to this one. We
+had it by two rights, the right of conquest and the right of
+purchase. In 1806 our troops landed, defeated the local forces, and
+took possession of Cape Town. In 1814 we paid the large sum of six
+million pounds to the Stadholder for the transference of this and
+some South American land. It was a bargain which was probably made
+rapidly and carelessly in that general redistribution which was
+going on. As a house of call upon the way to India the place was
+seen to be of value, but the country itself was looked upon as
+unprofitable and desert. What would Castlereagh or Liverpool have
+thought could they have seen the items which we were buying for our
+six million pounds? The inventory would have been a mixed one of
+good and of evil; nine fierce Kaffir wars, the greatest diamond
+mines in the world, the wealthiest gold mines, two costly and
+humiliating campaigns with men whom we respected even when we
+fought with them, and now at last, we hope, a South Africa of peace
+and prosperity, with equal rights and equal duties for all men. The
+future should hold something very good for us in that land, for if
+we merely count the past we should be compelled to say that we
+should have been stronger, richer, and higher in the world's esteem
+had our possessions there never passed beyond the range of the guns
+of our men-of-war. But surely the most arduous is the most
+honourable, and, looking back from the end of their journey, our
+descendants may see that our long record of struggle, with its
+mixture of disaster and success, its outpouring of blood and of
+treasure, has always tended to some great and enduring goal.
+
+The title-deeds to the estate are, as I have said, good ones, but
+there is one singular and ominous flaw in their provisions. The
+ocean has marked three boundaries to it, but the fourth is
+undefined. There is no word of the 'Hinterland;' for neither the
+term nor the idea had then been thought of. Had Great Britain
+bought those vast regions which extended beyond the settlements? Or
+were the discontented Dutch at liberty to pass onwards and found
+fresh nations to bar the path of the Anglo-Celtic colonists? In
+that question lay the germ of all the trouble to come. An American
+would realise the point at issue if he could conceive that after
+the founding of the United States the Dutch inhabitants of the
+State of New York had trekked to the westward and established fresh
+communities under a new flag. Then, when the American population
+overtook these western States, they would be face to face with the
+problem which this country has had to solve. If they found these
+new States fiercely anti-American and extremely unprogressive, they
+would experience that aggravation of their difficulties with which
+our statesmen have had to deal.
+
+At the time of their transference to the British flag the
+colonists--Dutch, French, and German--numbered some thirty
+thousand. They were slaveholders, and the slaves were about as
+numerous as themselves. The prospect of complete amalgamation
+between the British and the original settlers would have seemed to
+be a good one, since they were of much the same stock, and their
+creeds could only be distinguished by their varying degrees of
+bigotry and intolerance. Five thousand British emigrants were
+landed in 1820, settling on the Eastern borders of the colony, and
+from that time onwards there was a slow but steady influx of
+English speaking colonists. The Government had the historical
+faults and the historical virtues of British rule. It was mild,
+clean, honest, tactless, and inconsistent. On the whole, it might
+have done very well had it been content to leave things as it found
+them. But to change the habits of the most conservative of Teutonic
+races was a dangerous venture, and one which has led to a long
+series of complications, making up the troubled history of South
+Africa. The Imperial Government has always taken an honourable and
+philanthropic view of the rights of the native and the claim which
+he has to the protection of the law. We hold and rightly, that
+British justice, if not blind, should at least be colour-blind. The
+view is irreproachable in theory and incontestable in argument, but
+it is apt to be irritating when urged by a Boston moralist or a
+London philanthropist upon men whose whole society has been built
+upon the assumption that the black is the inferior race. Such a
+people like to find the higher morality for themselves, not to have
+it imposed upon them by those who live under entirely different
+conditions. They feel--and with some reason--that it is a cheap
+form of virtue which, from the serenity of a well-ordered household
+in Beacon Street or Belgrave Square, prescribes what the relation
+shall be between a white employer and his half-savage,
+half-childish retainers. Both branches of the Anglo-Celtic race
+have grappled with the question, and in each it has led to trouble.
+
+The British Government in South Africa has always played the
+unpopular part of the friend and protector of the native servants.
+It was upon this very point that the first friction appeared
+between the old settlers and the new administration. A rising with
+bloodshed followed the arrest of a Dutch farmer who had maltreated
+his slave. It was suppressed, and five of the participants were
+hanged. This punishment was unduly severe and exceedingly
+injudicious. A brave race can forget the victims of the field of
+battle, but never those of the scaffold. The making of political
+martyrs is the last insanity of statesmanship. It is true that both
+the man who arrested and the judge who condemned the prisoners were
+Dutch, and that the British Governor interfered on the side of
+mercy; but all this was forgotten afterwards in the desire to make
+racial capital out of the incident. It is typical of the enduring
+resentment which was left behind that when, after the Jameson raid,
+it seemed that the leaders of that ill-fated venture might be
+hanged, the beam was actually brought from a farmhouse at Cookhouse
+Drift to Pretoria, that the Englishmen might die as the Dutchmen
+had died in 1816. Slagter's Nek marked the dividing of the ways
+between the British Government and the Afrikaners.
+
+And the separation soon became more marked. There were injudicious
+tamperings with the local government and the local ways, with a
+substitution of English for Dutch in the law courts. With vicarious
+generosity, the English Government gave very lenient terms to the
+Kaffir tribes who in 1834 had raided the border farmers. And then,
+finally, in this same year there came the emancipation of the
+slaves throughout the British Empire, which fanned all smouldering
+discontents into an active flame.
+
+It must be confessed that on this occasion the British
+philanthropist was willing to pay for what he thought was right. It
+was a noble national action, and one the morality of which was in
+advance of its time, that the British Parliament should vote the
+enormous sum of twenty million pounds to pay compensation to the
+slaveholders, and so to remove an evil with which the mother
+country had no immediate connection. It was as well that the thing
+should have been done when it was, for had we waited till the
+colonies affected had governments of their own it could never have
+been done by constitutional methods. With many a grumble the good
+British householder drew his purse from his fob, and he paid for
+what he thought to be right. If any special grace attends the
+virtuous action which brings nothing but tribulation in this world,
+then we may hope for it over this emancipation. We spent our money,
+we ruined our West Indian colonies, and we started a disaffection
+in South Africa, the end of which we have not seen. Yet if it were
+to be done again we should doubtless do it. The highest morality
+may prove also to be the highest wisdom when the half-told story
+comes to be finished.
+
+But the details of the measure were less honourable than the
+principle. It was carried out suddenly, so that the country had no
+time to adjust itself to the new conditions. Three million pounds
+were ear-marked for South Africa, which gives a price per slave of
+from sixty to seventy pounds, a sum considerably below the current
+local rates. Finally, the compensation was made payable in London,
+so that the farmers sold their claims at reduced prices to
+middlemen. Indignation meetings were held in every little townlet
+and cattle camp on the Karoo. The old Dutch spirit was up--the
+spirit of the men who cut the dykes. Rebellion was useless. But a
+vast untenanted land stretched to the north of them. The nomad life
+was congenial to them, and in their huge ox-drawn wagons--like
+those bullock-carts in which some of their old kinsmen came to
+Gaul--they had vehicles and homes and forts all in one. One by one
+they were loaded up, the huge teams were inspanned, the women were
+seated inside, the men, with their long-barrelled guns, walked
+alongside, and the great exodus was begun. Their herds and flocks
+accompanied the migration, and the children helped to round them in
+and drive them. One tattered little boy of ten cracked his sjambok
+whip behind the bullocks. He was a small item in that singular
+crowd, but he was of interest to us, for his name was Paul
+Stephanus Kruger.
+
+It was a strange exodus, only comparable in modern times to the
+sallying forth of the Mormons from Nauvoo upon their search for the
+promised laud of Utah. The country was known and sparsely settled
+as far north as the Orange River, but beyond there was a great
+region which had never been penetrated save by some daring hunter
+or adventurous pioneer. It chanced--if there be indeed such an
+element as chance in the graver affairs of man--that a Zulu
+conqueror had swept over this land and left it untenanted, save by
+the dwarf bushmen, the hideous aborigines, lowest of the human
+race. There were fine grazing and good soil for the emigrants. They
+traveled in small detached parties, but their total numbers were
+considerable, from six to ten thousand according to their
+historian, or nearly a quarter of the whole population of the
+colony. Some of the early bands perished miserably. A large number
+made a trysting-place at a high peak to the east of Bloemfontein in
+what was lately the Orange Free State. One party of the emigrants
+was cut off by the formidable Matabeli, a branch of the great Zulu
+nation. The survivors declared war upon them, and showed in this,
+their first campaign, the extraordinary ingenuity in adapting their
+tactics to their adversary which has been their greatest military
+characteristic. The commando which rode out to do battle with the
+Matabeli numbered, it is said, a hundred and thirty-five farmers.
+Their adversaries were twelve thousand spearmen. They met at the
+Marico River, near Mafeking. The Boers combined the use of their
+horses and of their rifles so cleverly that they slaughtered a
+third of their antagonists without any loss to themselves. Their
+tactics were to gallop up within range of the enemy, to fire a
+volley, and then to ride away again before the spearmen could reach
+them. When the savages pursued the Boers fled. When the pursuit
+halted the Boers halted and the rifle fire began anew. The strategy
+was simple but most effective. When one remembers how often since
+then our own horsemen have been pitted against savages in all parts
+of the world, one deplores that ignorance of all military
+traditions save our own which is characteristic of our service.
+
+This victory of the 'voortrekkers' cleared all the country between
+the Orange River and the Limpopo, the sites of what has been known
+as the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In the meantime another
+body of the emigrants had descended into what is now known as
+Natal, and had defeated Dingaan, the great Chief of the Zulus.
+Being unable, owing to the presence of their families, to employ
+the cavalry tactics which had been so effective against the
+Matabeli, they again used their ingenuity to meet this new
+situation, and received the Zulu warriors in a square of laagered
+wagons, the men firing while the women loaded. Six burghers were
+killed and three thousand Zulus. Had such a formation been used
+forty years afterwards against these very Zulus, we should not have
+had to mourn the disaster of Isandhlwana.
+
+And now at the end of their great journey, after overcoming the
+difficulties of distance, of nature, and of savage enemies, the
+Boers saw at the end of their travels the very thing which they
+desired least--that which they had come so far to avoid--the flag
+of Great Britain. The Boers had occupied Natal from within, but
+England had previously done the same by sea, and a small colony of
+Englishmen had settled at Port Natal, now known as Durban. The home
+Government, however, had acted in a vacillating way, and it was
+only the conquest of Natal by the Boers which caused them to claim
+it as a British colony. At the same time they asserted the
+unwelcome doctrine that a British subject could not at will throw
+off his allegiance, and that, go where they might, the wandering
+farmers were still only the pioneers of British colonies. To
+emphasise the fact three companies of soldiers were sent in 1842 to
+what is now Durban--the usual Corporal's guard with which Great
+Britain starts a new empire. This handful of men was waylaid by the
+Boers and cut up, as their successors have been so often since. The
+survivors, however, fortified themselves, and held a defensive
+position--as also their successors have done so many times
+since--until reinforcements arrived and the farmers dispersed. It
+is singular how in history the same factors will always give the
+same result. Here in this first skirmish is an epitome of all our
+military relations with these people. The blundering headstrong
+attack, the defeat, the powerlessness of the farmer against the
+weakest fortifications--it is the same tale over and over again in
+different scales of importance. Natal from this time onward became
+a British colony, and the majority of the Boers trekked north and
+east with bitter hearts to tell their wrongs to their brethren of
+the Orange Free State and of the Transvaal.
+
+Had they any wrongs to tell? It is difficult to reach that height
+of philosophic detachment which enables the historian to deal
+absolutely impartially where his own country is a party to the
+quarrel. But at least we may allow that there is a case for our
+adversary. Our annexation of Natal had been by no means definite,
+and it was they and not we who first broke that bloodthirsty Zulu
+power which threw its shadow across the country. It was hard after
+such trials and such exploits to turn their back upon the fertile
+land which they had conquered, and to return to the bare pastures
+of the upland veld. They carried out of Natal a heavy sense of
+injury, which has helped to poison our relations with them ever
+since. It was, in a way, a momentous episode, this little skirmish
+of soldiers and emigrants, for it was the heading off of the Boer
+from the sea and the confinement of his ambition to the land. Had
+it gone the other way, a new and possibly formidable flag would
+have been added to the maritime nations.
+
+The emigrants who had settled in the huge tract of country between
+the Orange River in the south and the Limpopo in the north had been
+recruited by newcomers from the Cape Colony until they numbered
+some fifteen thousand souls. This population was scattered over a
+space as large as Germany, and larger than Pennsylvania, New York,
+and New England. Their form of government was individualistic and
+democratic to the last degree compatible with any sort of cohesion.
+Their wars with the Kaffirs and their fear and dislike of the
+British Government appear to have been the only ties which held
+them together. They divided and subdivided within their own
+borders, like a germinating egg. The Transvaal was full of lusty
+little high-mettled communities, who quarreled among themselves as
+fiercely as they had done with the authorities at the Cape.
+Lydenburg, Zoutpansberg, and Potchefstroom were on the point of
+turning their rifles against each other. In the south, between the
+Orange River and the Vaal, there was no form of government at all,
+but a welter of Dutch farmers, Basutos, Hottentots, and halfbreeds
+living in a chronic state of turbulence, recognising neither the
+British authority to the south of them nor the Transvaal republics
+to the north. The chaos became at last unendurable, and in 1848 a
+garrison was placed in Bloemfontein and the district incorporated
+in the British Empire. The emigrants made a futile resistance at
+Boomplaats, and after a single defeat allowed themselves to be
+drawn into the settled order of civilised rule.
+
+At this period the Transvaal, where most of the Boers had settled,
+desired a formal acknowledgment of their independence, which the
+British authorities determined once and for all to give them. The
+great barren country, which produced little save marksmen, had no
+attractions for a Colonial Office which was bent upon the
+limitation of its liabilities. A Convention was concluded between
+the two parties, known as the Sand River Convention, which is one
+of the fixed points in South African history. By it the British
+Government guaranteed to the Boer farmers the right to manage their
+own affairs, and to govern themselves by their own laws without any
+interference upon the part of the British. It stipulated that there
+should be no slavery, and with that single reservation washed its
+hands finally, as it imagined, of the whole question. So the South
+African Republic came formally into existence.
+
+In the very year after the Sand River Convention a second republic,
+the Orange Free State, was created by the deliberate withdrawal of
+Great Britain from the territory which she had for eight years
+occupied. The Eastern Question was already becoming acute, and the
+cloud of a great war was drifting up, visible to all men. British
+statesmen felt that their commitments were very heavy in every part
+of the world, and the South African annexations had always been a
+doubtful value and an undoubted trouble. Against the will of a
+large part of the inhabitants, whether a majority or not it is
+impossible to say, we withdrew our troops as amicably as the Romans
+withdrew from Britain, and the new republic was left with absolute
+and unfettered independence. On a petition being presented against
+the withdrawal, the Home Government actually voted forty-eight
+thousand pounds to compensate those who had suffered from the
+change. Whatever historical grievance the Transvaal may have
+against Great Britain, we can at least, save perhaps in one matter,
+claim to have a very clear conscience concerning our dealings with
+the Orange Free State. Thus in 1852 and in 1854 were born those
+sturdy States who were able for a time to hold at bay the united
+forces of the empire.
+
+In the meantime Cape Colony, in spite of these secessions, had
+prospered exceedingly, and her population--English, German, and
+Dutch--had grown by 1870 to over two hundred thousand souls, the
+Dutch still slightly predominating. According to the Liberal
+colonial policy of Great Britain, the time had come to cut the cord
+and let the young nation conduct its own affairs. In 1872 complete
+self-government was given to it, the Governor, as the
+representative of the Queen, retaining a nominal unexercised veto
+upon legislation. According to this system the Dutch majority of
+the colony could, and did, put their own representatives into power
+and run the government upon Dutch lines. Already Dutch law had been
+restored, and Dutch put on the same footing as English as the
+official language of the country. The extreme liberality of such
+measures, and the uncompromising way in which they have been
+carried out, however distasteful the legislation might seem to
+English ideas, are among the chief reasons which made the illiberal
+treatment of British settlers in the Transvaal so keenly resented
+at the Cape. A Dutch Government was ruling the British in a British
+colony, at a moment when the Boers would not give an Englishman a
+vote upon a municipal council in a city which he had built himself.
+Unfortunately, however, 'the evil that men do lives after them,'
+and the ignorant Boer farmer continued to imagine that his southern
+relatives were in bondage, just as the descendant of the Irish
+emigrant still pictures an Ireland of penal laws and an alien
+Church.
+
+For twenty-five years after the Sand River Convention the burghers
+of the South African Republic had pursued a strenuous and violent
+existence, fighting incessantly with the natives and sometimes with
+each other, with an occasional fling at the little Dutch republic
+to the south. The semi-tropical sun was waking strange ferments in
+the placid Friesland blood, and producing a race who added the
+turbulence and restlessness of the south to the formidable tenacity
+of the north. Strong vitality and violent ambitions produced feuds
+and rivalries worthy of medieval Italy, and the story of the
+factious little communities is like a chapter out of Guicciardini.
+Disorganisation ensued. The burghers would not pay taxes and the
+treasury was empty. One fierce Kaffir tribe threatened them from
+the north, and the Zulus on the east. It is an exaggeration of
+English partisans to pretend that our intervention saved the Boers,
+for no one can read their military history without seeing that they
+were a match for Zulus and Sekukuni combined. But certainly a
+formidable invasion was pending, and the scattered farmhouses were
+as open to the Kaffirs as our farmers' homesteads were in the
+American colonies when the Indians were on the warpath. Sir
+Theophilus Shepstone, the British Commissioner, after an inquiry of
+three months, solved all questions by the formal annexation of the
+country. The fact that he took possession of it with a force of
+some twenty-five men showed the honesty of his belief that no armed
+resistance was to be feared. This, then, in 1877 was a complete
+reversal of the Sand River Convention and the opening of a new
+chapter in the history of South Africa.
+
+There did not appear to be any strong feeling at the time against
+the annexation. The people were depressed with their troubles and
+weary of contention. Burgers, the President, put in a formal
+protest, and took up his abode in Cape Colony, where he had a
+pension from the British Government. A memorial against the measure
+received the signatures of a majority of the Boer inhabitants, but
+there was a fair minority who took the other view. Kruger himself
+accepted a paid office under Government. There was every sign that
+the people, if judiciously handled, would settle down under the
+British flag. It is even asserted that they would themselves have
+petitioned for annexation had it been longer withheld. With
+immediate constitutional government it is possible that even the
+most recalcitrant of them might have been induced to lodge their
+protests in the ballot boxes rather than in the bodies of our
+soldiers.
+
+But the empire has always had poor luck in South Africa, and never
+worse than on that occasion. Through no bad faith, but simply
+through preoccupation and delay, the promises made were not
+instantly fulfilled. Simple primitive men do not understand the
+ways of our circumlocution offices, and they ascribe to duplicity
+what is really red tape and stupidity. If the Transvaalers had
+waited they would have had their Volksraad and all that they
+wanted. But the British Government had some other local matters to
+set right, the rooting out of Sekukuni and the breaking of the
+Zulus, before they would fulfill their pledges. The delay was
+keenly resented. And we were unfortunate in our choice of Governor.
+The burghers are a homely folk, and they like an occasional cup of
+coffee with the anxious man who tries to rule them. The three
+hundred pounds a year of coffee money allowed by the Transvaal to
+its President is by no means a mere form. A wise administrator
+would fall into the sociable and democratic habits of the people.
+Sir Theophilus Shepstone did so. Sir Owen Lanyon did not. There was
+no Volksraad and no coffee, and the popular discontent grew
+rapidly. In three years the British had broken up the two savage
+hordes which had been threatening the land. The finances, too, had
+been restored. The reasons which had made so many favour the
+annexation were weakened by the very power which had every interest
+in preserving them.
+
+It cannot be too often pointed out that in this annexation, the
+starting-point of our troubles, Great Britain, however mistaken she
+may have been, had no obvious selfish interest in view. There were
+no Rand mines in those days, nor was there anything in the country
+to tempt the most covetous. An empty treasury and two native wars
+were the reversion which we took over. It was honestly considered
+that the country was in too distracted a state to govern itself,
+and had, by its weakness, become a scandal and a danger to its
+neighbours. There was nothing sordid in our action, though it may
+have been both injudicious and high-handed.
+
+In December 1880 the Boers rose. Every farmhouse sent out its
+riflemen, and the trysting-place was the outside of the nearest
+British fort. All through the country small detachments were
+surrounded and besieged by the farmers. Standerton, Pretoria,
+Potchefstroom, Lydenburg, Wakkerstroom, Rustenberg, and Marabastad
+were all invested and all held out until the end of the war. In the
+open country we were less fortunate. At Bronkhorst Spruit a small
+British force was taken by surprise and shot down without harm to
+their antagonists. The surgeon who treated them has left it on
+record that the average number of wounds was five per man. At
+Laing's Nek an inferior force of British endeavoured to rush a hill
+which was held by Boer riflemen. Half of our men were killed and
+wounded. Ingogo may be called a drawn battle, though our loss was
+more heavy than that of the enemy. Finally came the defeat of
+Majuba Hill, where four hundred infantry upon a mountain were
+defeated and driven off by a swarm of sharpshooters who advanced
+under the cover of boulders. Of all these actions there was not one
+which was more than a skirmish, and had they been followed by a
+final British victory they would now be hardly remembered. It is
+the fact that they were skirmishes which succeeded in their object
+which has given them an importance which is exaggerated. At the
+same time they may mark the beginning of a new military era, for
+they drove home the fact--only too badly learned by us--that it is
+the rifle and not the drill which makes the soldier. It is
+bewildering that after such an experience the British military
+authorities continued to serve out only three hundred cartridges a
+year for rifle practice, and that they still encouraged that
+mechanical volley firing which destroys all individual aim. With
+the experience of the first Boer war behind them, little was done,
+either in tactics or in musketry, to prepare the soldier for the
+second. The value of the mounted rifleman, the shooting with
+accuracy at unknown ranges, the art of taking cover--all were
+equally neglected.
+
+The defeat at Majuba Hill was followed by the complete surrender of
+the Gladstonian Government, an act which was either the most
+pusillanimous or the most magnanimous in recent history. It is hard
+for the big man to draw away from the small before blows are struck
+but when the big man has been knocked down three times it is harder
+still. An overwhelming British force was in the field, and the
+General declared that he held the enemy in the hollow of his hand.
+Our military calculations have been falsified before now by these
+farmers, and it may be that the task of Wood and Roberts would have
+been harder than they imagined; but on paper, at least, it looked
+as if the enemy could be crushed without difficulty. So the public
+thought, and yet they consented to the upraised sword being stayed.
+With them, as apart from the politicians, the motive was
+undoubtedly a moral and Christian one. They considered that the
+annexation of the Transvaal had evidently been an injustice, that
+the farmers had a right to the freedom for which they fought, and
+that it was an unworthy thing for a great nation to continue an
+unjust war for the sake of a military revenge. It was the height of
+idealism, and the result has not been such as to encourage its
+repetition.
+
+An armistice was concluded on March 5th, 1881, which led up to a
+peace on the 23rd of the same month. The Government, after yielding
+to force what it had repeatedly refused to friendly
+representations, made a clumsy compromise in their settlement. A
+policy of idealism and Christian morality should have been thorough
+if it were to be tried at all. It was obvious that if the
+annexation were unjust, then the Transvaal should have reverted to
+the condition in which it was before the annexation, as defined by
+the Sand River Convention. But the Government for some reason would
+not go so far as this. They niggled and quibbled and bargained
+until the State was left as a curious hybrid thing such as the
+world has never seen. It was a republic which was part of the
+system of a monarchy, dealt with by the Colonial Office, and
+included under the heading of 'Colonies' in the news columns of the
+'Times.' It was autonomous, and yet subject to some vague
+suzerainty, the limits of which no one has ever been able to
+define. Altogether, in its provisions and in its omissions, the
+Convention of Pretoria appears to prove that our political affairs
+were as badly conducted as our military in this unfortunate year of
+1881.
+
+It was evident from the first that so illogical and contentious an
+agreement could not possibly prove to be a final settlement, and
+indeed the ink of the signatures was hardly dry before an agitation
+was on foot for its revision. The Boers considered, and with
+justice, that if they were to be left as undisputed victors in the
+war then they should have the full fruits of victory. On the other
+hand, the English-speaking colonies had their allegiance tested to
+the uttermost. The proud Anglo-Celtic stock is not accustomed to be
+humbled, and yet they found themselves through the action of the
+home Government converted into members of a beaten race. It was
+very well for the citizen of London to console his wounded pride by
+the thought that he had done a magnanimous action, but it was
+different with the British colonist of Durban or Cape Town, who by
+no act of his own, and without any voice in the settlement, found
+himself humiliated before his Dutch neighbour. An ugly feeling of
+resentment was left behind, which might perhaps have passed away
+had the Transvaal accepted the settlement in the spirit in which it
+was meant, but which grew more and more dangerous as during
+eighteen years our people saw, or thought that they saw, that one
+concession led always to a fresh demand, and that the Dutch
+republics aimed not merely at equality, but at dominance in South
+Africa. Professor Bryce, a friendly critic, after a personal
+examination of the country and the question, has left it upon
+record that the Boers saw neither generosity nor humanity in our
+conduct, but only fear. An outspoken race, they conveyed their
+feelings to their neighbours. Can it be wondered at that South
+Africa has been in a ferment ever since, and that the British
+Africander has yearned with an intensity of feeling unknown in
+England for the hour of revenge?
+
+The Government of the Transvaal after the war was left in the hands
+of a triumvirate, but after one year Kruger became President, an
+office which he continued to hold for eighteen years. His career as
+ruler vindicates the wisdom of that wise but unwritten provision of
+the American Constitution by which there is a limit to the tenure
+of this office. Continued rule for half a generation must turn a
+man into an autocrat. The old President has said himself, in his
+homely but shrewd way, that when one gets a good ox to lead the
+team it is a pity to change him. If a good ox, however, is left to
+choose his own direction without guidance, he may draw his wagon
+into trouble.
+
+During three years the little State showed signs of a tumultuous
+activity. Considering that it was as large as France and that the
+population could not have been more than 50,000, one would have
+thought that they might have found room without any inconvenient
+crowding. But the burghers passed beyond their borders in every
+direction. The President cried aloud that he had been shut up in a
+kraal, and he proceeded to find ways out of it. A great trek was
+projected for the north, but fortunately it miscarried. To the east
+they raided Zululand, and succeeded, in defiance of the British
+settlement of that country, in tearing away one third of it and
+adding it to the Transvaal. To the west, with no regard to the
+three-year-old treaty, they invaded Bechuanaland, and set up the
+two new republics of Goshen and Stellaland. So outrageous were
+these proceedings that Great Britain was forced to fit out in 1884
+a new expedition under Sir Charles Warren for the purpose of
+turning these freebooters out of the country. It may be asked, why
+should these men be called freebooters if the founders of Rhodesia
+were pioneers? The answer is that the Transvaal was limited by
+treaty to certain boundaries which these men transgressed, while no
+pledges were broken when the British power expanded to the north.
+The upshot of these trespasses was the scene upon which every drama
+of South Africa rings down. Once more the purse was drawn from the
+pocket of the unhappy taxpayer, and a million or so was paid out to
+defray the expenses of the police force necessary to keep these
+treaty-breakers in order. Let this be borne in mind when we assess
+the moral and material damage done to the Transvaal by that
+ill-conceived and foolish enterprise, the Jameson Raid.
+
+In 1884 a deputation from the Transvaal visited England, and at
+their solicitation the clumsy Treaty of Pretoria was altered into
+the still more clumsy Convention of London. The changes in the
+provisions were all in favour of the Boers, and a second successful
+war could hardly have given them more than Lord Derby handed them
+in time of peace. Their style was altered from the Transvaal to the
+South African Republic, a change which was ominously suggestive of
+expansion in the future. The control of Great Britain over their
+foreign policy was also relaxed, though a power of veto was
+retained. But the most important thing of all, and the fruitful
+cause of future trouble, lay in an omission. A suzerainty is a
+vague term, but in politics, as in theology, the more nebulous a
+thing is the more does it excite the imagination and the passions
+of men. This suzerainty was declared in the preamble of the first
+treaty, and no mention of it was made in the second. Was it thereby
+abrogated or was it not? The British contention was that only the
+articles were changed, and that the preamble continued to hold good
+for both treaties. They pointed out that not only the suzerainty,
+but also the independence, of the Transvaal was proclaimed in that
+preamble, and that if one lapsed the other must do so also. On the
+other hand, the Boers pointed to the fact that there was actually a
+preamble to the second Convention, which would seem, therefore, to
+have taken the place of the first. The point is so technical that
+it appears to be eminently one of those questions which might with
+propriety have been submitted to the decision of a board of foreign
+jurists--or possibly to the Supreme Court of the United States. If
+the decision had been given against Great Britain, we might have
+accepted it in a chastened spirit as a fitting punishment for the
+carelessness of the representative who failed to make our meaning
+intelligible. Carlyle has said that a political mistake always ends
+in a broken head for somebody. Unfortunately the somebody is
+usually somebody else. We have read the story of the political
+mistakes. Only too soon we shall come to the broken heads.
+
+This, then, is a synopsis of what had occurred up to the signing of
+the Convention, which finally established, or failed to establish,
+the position of the South African Republic. We must now leave the
+larger questions, and descend to the internal affairs of that small
+State, and especially to that train of events which has stirred the
+mind of our people more than anything since the Indian Mutiny.
+
+CHAPTER 2.
+
+THE CAUSE OF QUARREL.
+
+There might almost seem to be some subtle connection between the
+barrenness and worthlessness of a surface and the value of the
+minerals which lie beneath it. The craggy mountains of Western
+America, the arid plains of West Australia, the ice-bound gorges of
+the Klondyke, and the bare slopes of the Witwatersrand veld--these
+are the lids which cover the great treasure chests of the world.
+
+Gold had been known to exist in the Transvaal before, but it was
+only in 1886 that it was realised that the deposits which lie some
+thirty miles south of the capital are of a very extraordinary and
+valuable nature. The proportion of gold in the quartz is not
+particularly high, nor are the veins of a remarkable thickness, but
+the peculiarity of the Rand mines lies in the fact that throughout
+this 'banket' formation the metal is so uniformly distributed that
+the enterprise can claim a certainty which is not usually
+associated with the industry. It is quarrying rather than mining.
+Add to this that the reefs which were originally worked as outcrops
+have now been traced to enormous depths, and present the same
+features as those at the surface. A conservative estimate of the
+value of the gold has placed it at seven hundred millions of
+pounds.
+
+Such a discovery produced the inevitable effect. A great number of
+adventurers flocked into the country, some desirable and some very
+much the reverse. There were circumstances, however, which kept
+away the rowdy and desperado element who usually make for a newly
+opened goldfield. It was not a class of mining which encouraged the
+individual adventurer. There were none of those nuggets which
+gleamed through the mud of the dollies at Ballarat, or recompensed
+the forty-niners in California for all their travels and their
+toils. It was a field for elaborate machinery, which could only be
+provided by capital. Managers, engineers, miners, technical
+experts, and the tradesmen and middlemen who live upon them, these
+were the Uitlanders, drawn from all the races under the sun, but
+with the Anglo-Celtic vastly predominant. The best engineers were
+American, the best miners were Cornish, the best managers were
+English, the money to run the mines was largely subscribed in
+England. As time went on, however, the German and French interests
+became more extensive, until their joint holdings are now probably
+as heavy as those of the British. Soon the population of the mining
+centres became greater than that of the whole Boer community, and
+consisted mainly of men in the prime of life--men, too, of
+exceptional intelligence and energy.
+
+The situation was an extraordinary one. I have already attempted to
+bring the problem home to an American by suggesting that the Dutch
+of New York had trekked west and founded an anti-American and
+highly unprogressive State. To carry out the analogy we will now
+suppose that that State was California, that the gold of that State
+attracted a large inrush of American citizens, who came to
+outnumber the original inhabitants, that these citizens were
+heavily taxed and badly used, and that they deafened Washington
+with their outcry about their injuries. That would be a fair
+parallel to the relations between the Transvaal, the Uitlanders,
+and the British Government.
+
+That these Uitlanders had very real and pressing grievances no one
+could possibly deny. To recount them all would be a formidable
+task, for their whole lives were darkened by injustice. There was
+not a wrong which had driven the Boer from Cape Colony which he did
+not now practise himself upon others--and a wrong may be excusable
+in 1885 which is monstrous in 1895. The primitive virtue which had
+characterised the farmers broke down in the face of temptation. The
+country Boers were little affected, some of them not at all, but
+the Pretoria Government became a most corrupt oligarchy, venal and
+incompetent to the last degree. Officials and imported Hollanders
+handled the stream of gold which came in from the mines, while the
+unfortunate Uitlander who paid nine-tenths of the taxation was
+fleeced at every turn, and met with laughter and taunts when he
+endeavoured to win the franchise by which he might peaceably set
+right the wrongs from which he suffered. He was not an unreasonable
+person. On the contrary, he was patient to the verge of meekness,
+as capital is likely to be when it is surrounded by rifles. But his
+situation was intolerable, and after successive attempts at
+peaceful agitation, and numerous humble petitions to the Volksraad,
+he began at last to realise that he would never obtain redress
+unless he could find some way of winning it for himself.
+
+Without attempting to enumerate all the wrongs which embittered the
+Uitlanders, the more serious of them may be summed up in this way.
+
+1. That they were heavily taxed and provided about seven-eighths of
+the revenue of the country. The revenue of the South African
+Republic--which had been 154,000 pounds in 1886, when the gold
+fields were opened--had grown in 1899 to four million pounds, and
+the country through the industry of the newcomers had changed from
+one of the poorest to the richest in the whole world (per head of
+population).
+
+2. That in spite of this prosperity which they had brought, they,
+the majority of the inhabitants of the country, were left without a
+vote, and could by no means influence the disposal of the great
+sums which they were providing. Such a case of taxation without
+representation has never been known.
+
+3. That they had no voice in the choice or payment of officials.
+Men of the worst private character might be placed with complete
+authority over valuable interests. Upon one occasion the Minister
+of Mines attempted himself to jump a mine, having officially
+learned some flaw in its title. The total official salaries had
+risen in 1899 to a sum sufficient to pay 40 pounds per head to the
+entire male Boer population.
+
+4. That they had no control over education. Mr. John Robinson, the
+Director General of the Johannesburg Educational Council, has
+reckoned the sum spent on Uitlander schools as 650 pounds out of
+63,000 pounds allotted for education, making one shilling and
+tenpence per head per annum on Uitlander children, and eight pounds
+six shillings per head on Boer children--the Uitlander, as always,
+paying seven-eighths of the original sum.
+
+5. No power of municipal government. Watercarts instead of pipes,
+filthy buckets instead of drains, a corrupt and violent police, a
+high death-rate in what should be a health resort--all this in a
+city which they had built themselves.
+
+6. Despotic government in the matter of the press and of the right
+of public meeting.
+
+7. Disability from service upon a jury.
+
+8. Continual harassing of the mining interest by vexatious
+legislation. Under this head came many grievances, some special to
+the mines and some affecting all Uitlanders. The dynamite monopoly,
+by which the miners had to pay 600,000 pounds extra per annum in
+order to get a worse quality of dynamite; the liquor laws, by which
+one-third of the Kaffirs were allowed to be habitually drunk; the
+incompetence and extortions of the State-owned railway; the
+granting of concessions for numerous articles of ordinary
+consumption to individuals, by which high prices were maintained;
+the surrounding of Johannesburg by tolls from which the town had no
+profit--these were among the economical grievances, some large,
+some petty, which ramified through every transaction of life.
+
+And outside and beyond all these definite wrongs imagine to a free
+born progressive man, an American or a Briton, the constant
+irritation of being absolutely ruled by a body of twenty-five men,
+twenty-one of whom had in the case of the Selati Railway Company
+been publicly and circumstantially accused of bribery, with full
+details of the bribes received, while to their corruption they
+added such crass ignorance that they argue in the published reports
+of the Volksraad debates that using dynamite bombs to bring down
+rain was firing at God, that it is impious to destroy locusts, that
+the word 'participate' should not be used because it is not in the
+Bible, and that postal pillar boxes are extravagant and effeminate.
+Such obiter dicta may be amusing at a distance, but they are less
+entertaining when they come from an autocrat who has complete power
+over the conditions of your life.
+
+From the fact that they were a community extremely preoccupied by
+their own business, it followed that the Uitlanders were not ardent
+politicians, and that they desired to have a share in the
+government of the State for the purpose of making the conditions of
+their own industry and of their own daily lives more endurable. How
+far there was need of such an interference may be judged by any
+fair-minded man who reads the list of their complaints. A
+superficial view may recognise the Boers as the champions of
+liberty, but a deeper insight must see that they (as represented by
+their elected rulers) have in truth stood for all that history has
+shown to be odious in the form of exclusiveness and oppression.
+Their conception of liberty has been a selfish one, and they have
+consistently inflicted upon others far heavier wrongs than those
+against which they had themselves rebelled.
+
+As the mines increased in importance and the miners in numbers, it
+was found that these political disabilities affected some of that
+cosmopolitan crowd far more than others, in proportion to the
+amount of freedom to which their home institutions had made them
+accustomed. The continental Uitlanders were more patient of that
+which was unendurable to the American and the Briton. The
+Americans, however, were in so great a minority that it was upon
+the British that the brunt of the struggle for freedom fell. Apart
+from the fact that the British were more numerous than all the
+other Uitlanders combined, there were special reasons why they
+should feel their humiliating position more than the members of any
+other race. In the first place, many of the British were British
+South Africans, who knew that in the neighbouring countries which
+gave them birth the most liberal possible institutions had been
+given to the kinsmen of these very Boers who were refusing them the
+management of their own drains and water supply. And again, every
+Briton knew that Great Britain claimed to be the paramount power in
+South Africa, and so he felt as if his own land, to which he might
+have looked for protection, was conniving at and acquiescing in his
+ill treatment. As citizens of the paramount power, it was
+peculiarly galling that they should be held in political
+subjection. The British, therefore, were the most persistent and
+energetic of the agitators.
+
+But it is a poor cause which cannot bear to fairly state and
+honestly consider the case of its opponents. The Boers had made, as
+has been briefly shown, great efforts to establish a country of
+their own. They had travelled far, worked hard, and fought bravely.
+After all their efforts they were fated to see an influx of
+strangers into their country, some of them men of questionable
+character, who outnumbered the original inhabitants. If the
+franchise were granted to these, there could be no doubt that
+though at first the Boers might control a majority of the votes, it
+was only a question of time before the newcomers would dominate the
+Raad and elect their own President, who might adopt a policy
+abhorrent to the original owners of the land. Were the Boers to
+lose by the ballot-box the victory which they had won by their
+rifles? Was it fair to expect it? These newcomers came for gold.
+They got their gold. Their companies paid a hundred per cent. Was
+not that enough to satisfy them? If they did not like the country
+why did they not leave it? No one compelled them to stay there. But
+if they stayed, let them be thankful that they were tolerated at
+all, and not presume to interfere with the laws of those by whose
+courtesy they were allowed to enter the country.
+
+That is a fair statement of the Boer position, and at first sight
+an impartial man might say that there was a good deal to say for
+it; but a closer examination would show that, though it might be
+tenable in theory, it is unjust and impossible in practice.
+
+In the present crowded state of the world a policy of Thibet may be
+carried out in some obscure corner, but it cannot be done in a
+great tract of country which lies right across the main line of
+industrial progress. The position is too absolutely artificial. A
+handful of people by the right of conquest take possession of an
+enormous country over which they are dotted at such intervals that
+it is their boast that one farmhouse cannot see the smoke of
+another, and yet, though their numbers are so disproportionate to
+the area which they cover, they refuse to admit any other people
+upon equal terms, but claim to be a privileged class who shall
+dominate the newcomers completely. They are outnumbered in their
+own land by immigrants who are far more highly educated and
+progressive, and yet they hold them down in a way which exists
+nowhere else upon earth. What is their right? The right of
+conquest. Then the same right may be justly invoked to reverse so
+intolerable a situation. This they would themselves acknowledge.
+'Come on and fight! Come on!' cried a member of the Volksraad when
+the franchise petition of the Uitlanders was presented. 'Protest!
+Protest! What is the good of protesting?' said Kruger to Mr. W. Y.
+Campbell; 'you have not got the guns, I have.' There was always the
+final court of appeal. Judge Creusot and Judge Mauser were always
+behind the President.
+
+Again, the argument of the Boers would be more valid had they
+received no benefit from these immigrants. If they had ignored them
+they might fairly have stated that they did not desire their
+presence. But even while they protested they grew rich at the
+Uitlander's expense. They could not have it both ways. It would be
+consistent to discourage him and not profit by him, or to make him
+comfortable and build the State upon his money; but to ill-treat
+him and at the same time to grow strong by his taxation must surely
+be an injustice.
+
+And again, the whole argument is based upon the narrow racial
+supposition that every naturalised citizen not of Boer extraction
+must necessarily be unpatriotic. This is not borne out by the
+examples of history. The newcomer soon becomes as proud of his
+country and as jealous of her liberty as the old. Had President
+Kruger given the franchise generously to the Uitlander, his pyramid
+would have been firm upon its base and not balanced upon its apex.
+It is true that the corrupt oligarchy would have vanished, and the
+spirit of a broader more tolerant freedom influenced the counsels
+of the State. But the republic would have become stronger and more
+permanent, with a population who, if they differed in details, were
+united in essentials. Whether such a solution would have been to
+the advantage of British interests in South Africa is quite another
+question. In more ways than one President Kruger has been a good
+friend to the empire.
+
+So much upon the general question of the reason why the Uitlander
+should agitate and why the Boer was obdurate. The details of the
+long struggle between the seekers for the franchise and the
+refusers of it may be quickly sketched, but they cannot be entirely
+ignored by any one who desires to understand the inception of that
+great contest which was the outcome of the dispute.
+
+At the time of the Convention of Pretoria (1881) the rights of
+burghership might be obtained by one year's residence. In 1882 it
+was raised to five years, the reasonable limit which obtains both
+in Great Britain and in the United States. Had it remained so, it
+is safe to say that there would never have been either an Uitlander
+question or a great Boer war. Grievances would have been righted
+from the inside without external interference.
+
+In 1890 the inrush of outsiders alarmed the Boers, and the
+franchise was raised so as to be only attainable by those who had
+lived fourteen years in the country. The Uitlanders, who were
+increasing rapidly in numbers and were suffering from the
+formidable list of grievances already enumerated, perceived that
+their wrongs were so numerous that it was hopeless to have them set
+right seriatim, and that only by obtaining the leverage of the
+franchise could they hope to move the heavy burden which weighed
+them down. In 1893 a petition of 13,000 Uitlanders, couched in most
+respectful terms, was submitted to the Raad, but met with
+contemptuous neglect. Undeterred, however, by this failure, the
+National Reform Union, an association which organised the
+agitation, came back to the attack in 1894. They drew up a petition
+which was signed by 35,000 adult male Uitlanders, a greater number
+than the total Boer male population of the country. A small liberal
+body in the Raad supported this memorial and endeavoured in vain to
+obtain some justice for the newcomers. Mr. Jeppe was the mouthpiece
+of this select band. 'They own half the soil, they pay at least
+three quarters of the taxes,' said he. 'They are men who in
+capital, energy, and education are at least our equals.
+
+What will become of us or our children on that day when we may find
+ourselves in a minority of one in twenty without a single friend
+among the other nineteen, among those who will then tell us that
+they wished to be brothers, but that we by our own act have made
+them strangers to the republic?' Such reasonable and liberal
+sentiments were combated by members who asserted that the
+signatures could not belong to law-abiding citizens, since they
+were actually agitating against the law of the franchise, and
+others whose intolerance was expressed by the defiance of the
+member already quoted, who challenged the Uitlanders to come out
+and fight. The champions of exclusiveness and racial hatred won the
+day. The memorial was rejected by sixteen votes to eight, and the
+franchise law was, on the initiative of the President, actually
+made more stringent than ever, being framed in such a way that
+during the fourteen years of probation the applicant should give up
+his previous nationality, so that for that period he would really
+belong to no country at all. No hopes were held out that any
+possible attitude upon the part of the Uitlanders would soften the
+determination of the President and his burghers. One who
+remonstrated was led outside the State buildings by the President,
+who pointed up at the national flag. 'You see that flag?' said he.
+'If I grant the franchise, I may as well pull it down.' His
+animosity against the immigrants was bitter. 'Burghers, friends,
+thieves, murderers, newcomers, and others,' is the conciliatory
+opening of one of his public addresses. Though Johannesburg is only
+thirty-two miles from Pretoria, and though the State of which he
+was the head depended for its revenue upon the gold fields, he paid
+it only three visits in nine years.
+
+This settled animosity was deplorable, but not unnatural. A man
+imbued with the idea of a chosen people, and unread in any book
+save the one which cultivates this very idea, could not be expected
+to have learned the historical lessons of the advantages which a
+State reaps from a liberal policy. To him it was as if the
+Ammonites and Moabites had demanded admission into the twelve
+tribes. He mistook an agitation against the exclusive policy of the
+State for one against the existence of the State itself. A wide
+franchise would have made his republic firm-based and permanent. It
+was a small minority of the Uitlanders who had any desire to come
+into the British system. They were a cosmopolitan crowd, only
+united by the bond of a common injustice. But when every other
+method had failed, and their petition for the rights of freemen had
+been flung back at them, it was natural that their eyes should turn
+to that flag which waved to the north, the west, and the south of
+them--the flag which means purity of government with equal rights
+and equal duties for all men. Constitutional agitation was laid
+aside, arms were smuggled in, and everything prepared for an
+organised rising.
+
+The events which followed at the beginning of 1896 have been so
+thrashed out that there is, perhaps, nothing left to tell--except
+the truth. So far as the Uitlanders themselves are concerned, their
+action was most natural and justifiable, and they have no reason to
+exculpate themselves for rising against such oppression as no men
+of our race have ever been submitted to. Had they trusted only to
+themselves and the justice of their cause, their moral and even
+their material position would have been infinitely stronger. But
+unfortunately there were forces behind them which were more
+questionable, the nature and extent of which have never yet, in
+spite of two commissions of investigation, been properly revealed.
+That there should have been any attempt at misleading inquiry, or
+suppressing documents in order to shelter individuals, is
+deplorable, for the impression left--I believe an entirely false
+one--must be that the British Government connived at an expedition
+which was as immoral as it was disastrous.
+
+It had been arranged that the town was to rise upon a certain
+night, that Pretoria should be attacked, the fort seized, and the
+rifles and ammunition used to arm the Uitlanders. It was a feasible
+device, though it must seem to us, who have had such an experience
+of the military virtues of the burghers, a very desperate one. But
+it is conceivable that the rebels might have held Johannesburg
+until the universal sympathy which their cause excited throughout
+South Africa would have caused Great Britain to intervene.
+Unfortunately they had complicated matters by asking for outside
+help. Mr. Cecil Rhodes was Premier of the Cape, a man of immense
+energy, and one who had rendered great services to the empire. The
+motives of his action are obscure--certainly, we may say that they
+were not sordid, for he has always been a man whose thoughts were
+large and whose habits were simple. But whatever they may have
+been--whether an ill-regulated desire to consolidate South Africa
+under British rule, or a burning sympathy with the Uitlanders in
+their fight against injustice--it is certain that he allowed his
+lieutenant, Dr. Jameson, to assemble the mounted police of the
+Chartered Company, of which Rhodes was founder and director, for
+the purpose of co-operating with the rebels at Johannesburg.
+Moreover, when the revolt at Johannesburg was postponed, on account
+of a disagreement as to which flag they were to rise under, it
+appears that Jameson (with or without the orders of Rhodes) forced
+the hand of the conspirators by invading the country with a force
+absurdly inadequate to the work which he had taken in hand. Five
+hundred policemen and three field guns made up the forlorn hope who
+started from near Mafeking and crossed the Transvaal border upon
+December 29th, 1895. On January 2nd they were surrounded by the
+Boers amid the broken country near Dornkop, and after losing many
+of their number killed and wounded, without food and with spent
+horses, they were compelled to lay down their arms. Six burghers
+lost their lives in the skirmish.
+
+The Uitlanders have been severely criticised for not having sent
+out a force to help Jameson in his difficulties, but it is
+impossible to see how they could have acted in any other manner.
+They had done all they could to prevent Jameson coming to their
+relief, and now it was rather unreasonable to suppose that they
+should relieve their reliever. Indeed, they had an entirely
+exaggerated idea of the strength of the force which he was
+bringing, and received the news of his capture with incredulity.
+When it became confirmed they rose, but in a halfhearted fashion
+which was not due to want of courage, but to the difficulties of
+their position. On the one hand, the British Government disowned
+Jameson entirely, and did all it could to discourage the rising; on
+the other, the President had the raiders in his keeping at
+Pretoria, and let it be understood that their fate depended upon
+the behaviour of the Uitlanders. They were led to believe that
+Jameson would be shot unless they laid down their arms, though, as
+a matter of fact, Jameson and his people had surrendered upon a
+promise of quarter. So skillfully did Kruger use his hostages that
+he succeeded, with the help of the British Commissioner, in getting
+the thousands of excited Johannesburgers to lay down their arms
+without bloodshed. Completely out-manoeuvred by the astute old
+President, the leaders of the reform movement used all their
+influence in the direction of peace, thinking that a general
+amnesty would follow; but the moment that they and their people
+were helpless the detectives and armed burghers occupied the town,
+and sixty of their number were hurried to Pretoria Gaol.
+
+To the raiders themselves the President behaved with great
+generosity. Perhaps he could not find it in his heart to be harsh
+to the men who had managed to put him in the right and won for him
+the sympathy of the world. His own illiberal and oppressive
+treatment of the newcomers was forgotten in the face of this
+illegal inroad of filibusters. The true issues were so obscured by
+this intrusion that it has taken years to clear them, and perhaps
+they will never be wholly cleared. It was forgotten that it was the
+bad government of the country which was the real cause of the
+unfortunate raid. From then onwards the government might grow worse
+and worse, but it was always possible to point to the raid as
+justifying everything. Were the Uitlanders to have the franchise?
+How could they expect it after the raid? Would Britain object to
+the enormous importation of arms and obvious preparations for war?
+They were only precautions against a second raid. For years the
+raid stood in the way, not only of all progress, but of all
+remonstrance. Through an action over which they had no control, and
+which they had done their best to prevent, the British Government
+was left with a bad case and a weakened moral authority.
+
+The raiders were sent home, where the rank and file were very
+properly released, and the chief officers were condemned to terms
+of imprisonment which certainly did not err upon the side of
+severity. Cecil Rhodes was left unpunished, he retained his place
+in the Privy Council, and his Chartered Company continued to have a
+corporate existence. This was illogical and inconclusive. As Kruger
+said, 'It is not the dog which should be beaten, but the man who
+set him on to me.' Public opinion--in spite of, or on account of, a
+crowd of witnesses--was ill informed upon the exact bearings of the
+question, and it was obvious that as Dutch sentiment at the Cape
+appeared already to be thoroughly hostile to us, it would be
+dangerous to alienate the British Africanders also by making a
+martyr of their favourite leader. But whatever arguments may be
+founded upon expediency, it is clear that the Boers bitterly
+resented, and with justice, the immunity of Rhodes.
+
+In the meantime, both President Kruger and his burghers had shown a
+greater severity to the political prisoners from Johannesburg than
+to the armed followers of Jameson. The nationality of these
+prisoners is interesting and suggestive. There were twenty-three
+Englishmen, sixteen South Africans, nine Scotchmen, six Americans,
+two Welshmen, one Irishman, one Australian, one Hollander, one
+Bavarian, one Canadian, one Swiss, and one Turk. The prisoners were
+arrested in January, but the trial did not take place until the end
+of April. All were found guilty of high treason. Mr. Lionel
+Phillips, Colonel Rhodes (brother of Mr. Cecil Rhodes), George
+Farrar, and Mr. Hammond, the American engineer, were condemned to
+death, a sentence which was afterwards commuted to the payment of
+an enormous fine. The other prisoners were condemned to two years'
+imprisonment, with a fine of 2000 pounds each. The imprisonment was
+of the most arduous and trying sort, and was embittered by the
+harshness of the gaoler, Du Plessis. One of the unfortunate men cut
+his throat, and several fell seriously ill, the diet and the
+sanitary conditions being equally unhealthy. At last at the end of
+May all the prisoners but six were released. Four of the six soon
+followed, two stalwarts, Sampson and Davies, refusing to sign any
+petition and remaining in prison until they were set free in 1897.
+Altogether the Transvaal Government received in fines from the
+reform prisoners the enormous sum of 212,000 pounds. A certain
+comic relief was immediately afterwards given to so grave an
+episode by the presentation of a bill to Great Britain for 1,677,
+938 pounds 3 shillings and 3 pence--the greater part of which was
+under the heading of moral and intellectual damage.
+
+The raid was past and the reform movement was past, but the causes
+which produced them both remained. It is hardly conceivable that a
+statesman who loved his country would have refrained from making
+some effort to remove a state of things which had already caused
+such grave dangers, and which must obviously become more serious
+with every year that passed. But Paul Kruger had hardened his
+heart, and was not to be moved. The grievances of the Uitlanders
+became heavier than ever. The one power in the land to which they
+had been able to appeal for some sort of redress amid their
+grievances was the law courts. Now it was decreed that the courts
+should be dependent on the Volksraad. The Chief Justice protested
+against such a degradation of his high office, and he was dismissed
+in consequence without a pension. The judge who had condemned the
+reformers was chosen to fill the vacancy, and the protection of a
+fixed law was withdrawn from the Uitlanders.
+
+A commission appointed by the State was sent to examine into the
+condition of the mining industry and the grievances from which the
+newcomers suffered. The chairman was Mr. Schalk Burger, one of the
+most liberal of the Boers, and the proceedings were thorough and
+impartial. The result was a report which amply vindicated the
+reformers, and suggested remedies which would have gone a long way
+towards satisfying the Uitlanders. With such enlightened
+legislation their motives for seeking the franchise would have been
+less pressing. But the President and his Raad would have none of
+the recommendations of the commission. The rugged old autocrat
+declared that Schalk Burger was a traitor to his country for having
+signed such a document, and a new reactionary committee was chosen
+to report upon the report. Words and papers were the only outcome
+of the affair. No amelioration came to the newcomers. But at least
+they had again put their case publicly upon record, and it had been
+endorsed by the most respected of the burghers. Gradually in the
+press of the English-speaking countries the raid was ceasing to
+obscure the issue. More and more clearly it was coming out that no
+permanent settlement was possible where the majority of the
+population was oppressed by the minority. They had tried peaceful
+means and failed. They had tried warlike means and failed. What was
+there left for them to do? Their own country, the paramount power
+of South Africa, had never helped them. Perhaps if it were directly
+appealed to it might do so. It could not, if only for the sake of
+its own imperial prestige, leave its children for ever in a state
+of subjection. The Uitlanders determined upon a petition to the
+Queen, and in doing so they brought their grievances out of the
+limits of a local controversy into the broader field of
+international politics. Great Britain must either protect them or
+acknowledge that their protection was beyond her power. A direct
+petition to the Queen praying for protection was signed in April
+1899 by twenty-one thousand Uitlanders. From that time events moved
+inevitably towards the one end. Sometimes the surface was troubled
+and sometimes smooth, but the stream always ran swiftly and the
+roar of the fall sounded ever louder in the ears.
+
+CHAPTER 3.
+
+THE NEGOTIATIONS.
+
+The British Government and the British people do not desire any
+direct authority in South Africa. Their one supreme interest is
+that the various States there should live in concord and
+prosperity, and that there should be no need for the presence of a
+British redcoat within the whole great peninsula. Our foreign
+critics, with their misapprehension of the British colonial system,
+can never realise that whether the four-coloured flag of the
+Transvaal or the Union Jack of a self-governing colony waved over
+the gold mines would not make the difference of one shilling to the
+revenue of Great Britain. The Transvaal as a British province would
+have its own legislature, its own revenue, its own expenditure, and
+its own tariff against the mother country, as well as against the
+rest of the world, and England be none the richer for the change.
+This is so obvious to a Briton that he has ceased to insist upon
+it, and it is for that reason perhaps that it is so universally
+misunderstood abroad. On the other hand, while she is no gainer by
+the change, most of the expense of it in blood and in money falls
+upon the home country. On the face of it, therefore, Great Britain
+had every reason to avoid so formidable a task as the conquest of
+the South African Republic. At the best she had nothing to gain,
+and at the worst she had an immense deal to lose. There was no room
+for ambition or aggression. It was a case of shirking or fulfilling
+a most arduous duty.
+
+There could be no question of a plot for the annexation of the
+Transvaal. In a free country the Government cannot move in advance
+of public opinion, and public opinion is influenced by and
+reflected in the newspapers. One may examine the files of the press
+during all the months of negotiations and never find one reputable
+opinion in favour of such a course, nor did one in society ever
+meet an advocate of such a measure. But a great wrong was being
+done, and all that was asked was the minimum change which would set
+it right, and restore equality between the white races in Africa.
+'Let Kruger only be liberal in the extension of the franchise,'
+said the paper which is most representative of the sanest British
+opinion, 'and he will find that the power of the republic will
+become not weaker, but infinitely more secure. Let him once give
+the majority of the resident males of full age the full vote, and
+he will have given the republic a stability and power which nothing
+else can. If he rejects all pleas of this kind, and persists in his
+present policy, he may possibly stave off the evil day, and
+preserve his cherished oligarchy for another few years; but the end
+will be the same.' The extract reflects the tone of all of the
+British press, with the exception of one or two papers which
+considered that even the persistent ill usage of our people, and
+the fact that we were peculiarly responsible for them in this
+State, did not justify us in interfering in the internal affairs of
+the republic. It cannot be denied that the Jameson raid and the
+incomplete manner in which the circumstances connected with it had
+been investigated had weakened the force of those who wished to
+interfere energetically on behalf of British subjects. There was a
+vague but widespread feeling that perhaps the capitalists were
+engineering the situation for their own ends. It is difficult to
+imagine how a state of unrest and insecurity, to say nothing of a
+state of war, can ever be to the advantage of capital, and surely
+it is obvious that if some arch-schemer were using the grievances
+of the Uitlanders for his own ends the best way to checkmate him
+would be to remove those grievances. The suspicion, however, did
+exist among those who like to ignore the obvious and magnify the
+remote, and throughout the negotiations the hand of Great Britain
+was weakened, as her adversary had doubtless calculated that it
+would be, by an earnest but fussy and faddy minority. Idealism and
+a morbid, restless conscientiousness are two of the most dangerous
+evils from which a modern progressive State has to suffer.
+
+It was in April 1899 that the British Uitlanders sent their
+petition praying for protection to their native country. Since the
+April previous a correspondence had been going on between Dr.
+Leyds, Secretary of State for the South African Republic, and Mr.
+Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, upon the existence or
+non-existence of the suzerainty. On the one hand, it was contended
+that the substitution of a second convention had entirely annulled
+the first; on the other, that the preamble of the first applied
+also to the second. If the Transvaal contention were correct it is
+clear that Great Britain had been tricked and jockeyed into such a
+position, since she had received no quid pro quo in the second
+convention, and even the most careless of Colonial Secretaries
+could hardly have been expected to give away a very substantial
+something for nothing. But the contention throws us back upon the
+academic question of what a suzerainty is. The Transvaal admitted a
+power of veto over their foreign policy, and this admission in
+itself, unless they openly tore up the convention, must deprive
+them of the position of a sovereign State. On the whole, the
+question must be acknowledged to have been one which might very
+well have been referred to trustworthy arbitration.
+
+But now to this debate, which had so little of urgency in it that
+seven months intervened between statement and reply, there came the
+bitterly vital question of the wrongs and appeal of the Uitlanders.
+Sir Alfred Milner, the British Commissioner in South Africa, a man
+of liberal views who had been appointed by a Conservative
+Government, commanded the respect and confidence of all parties.
+His record was that of an able, clear-headed man, too just to be
+either guilty of or tolerant of injustice. To him the matter was
+referred, and a conference was arranged between President Kruger
+and him at Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State. They
+met on May 30th. Kruger had declared that all questions might be
+discussed except the independence of the Transvaal. 'All, all, all!
+' he cried emphatically. But in practice it was found that the
+parties could not agree as to what did or what did not threaten
+this independence. What was essential to one was inadmissible to
+the other. Milner contended for a five years' retroactive
+franchise, with provisions to secure adequate representation for
+the mining districts. Kruger offered a seven years' franchise,
+coupled with numerous conditions which whittled down its value very
+much, promised five members out of thirty-one to represent a
+majority of the male population, and added a provision that all
+differences should be subject to arbitration by foreign powers, a
+condition which is incompatible with any claim to suzerainty. The
+proposals of each were impossible to the other, and early in June
+Sir Alfred Milner was back in Cape Town and President Kruger in
+Pretoria, with nothing settled except the extreme difficulty of a
+settlement. The current was running swift, and the roar of the fall
+was already sounding louder in the ear.
+
+On June 12th Sir Alfred Milner received a deputation at Cape Town
+and reviewed the situation. 'The principle of equality of races
+was,' he said, essential for South Africa. The one State where
+inequality existed kept all the others in a fever. Our policy was
+one not of aggression, but of singular patience, which could not,
+however, lapse into indifference.' Two days later Kruger addressed
+the Raad. 'The other side had not conceded one tittle, and I could
+not give more. God has always stood by us. I do not want war, but I
+will not give more away. Although our independence has once been
+taken away, God has restored it.' He spoke with sincerity no doubt,
+but it is hard to hear God invoked with such confidence for the
+system which encouraged the liquor traffic to the natives, and bred
+the most corrupt set of officials that the modern world has seen.
+
+A dispatch from Sir Alfred Milner, giving his views upon the
+situation, made the British public recognise, as nothing else had
+done, how serious the position was, and how essential it was that
+an earnest national effort should be made to set it right. In it he
+said:
+
+'The case for intervention is overwhelming. The only attempted
+answer is that things will right themselves if left alone. But, in
+fact, the policy of leaving things alone has been tried for years,
+and it has led to their going from bad to worse. It is not true
+that this is owing to the raid. They were going from bad to worse
+before the raid. We were on the verge of war before the raid, and
+the Transvaal was on the verge of revolution. The effect of the
+raid has been to give the policy of leaving things alone a new
+lease of life, and with the old consequences.
+
+'The spectacle of thousands of British subjects kept permanently in
+the position of helots, constantly chafing under undoubted
+grievances, and calling vainly to her Majesty's Government for
+redress, does steadily undermine the influence and reputation of
+Great Britain within the Queen's dominions. A section of the press,
+not in the Transvaal only, preaches openly and constantly the
+doctrine of a republic embracing all South Africa, and supports it
+by menacing references to the armaments of the Transvaal, its
+alliance with the Orange Free State, and the active sympathy which,
+in case of war, it would receive from a section of her Majesty's
+subjects. I regret to say that this doctrine, supported as it is by
+a ceaseless stream of malignant lies about the intentions of her
+Majesty's Government, is producing a great effect on a large number
+of our Dutch fellow colonists. Language is frequently used which
+seems to imply that the Dutch have some superior right, even in
+this colony, to their fellow-citizens of British birth. Thousands
+of men peaceably disposed, and if left alone perfectly satisfied
+with their position as British subjects, are being drawn into
+disaffection, and there is a corresponding exasperation upon the
+part of the British.
+
+'I can see nothing which will put a stop to this mischievous
+propaganda but some striking proof of the intention of her
+Majesty's Government not to be ousted from its position in South
+Africa.'
+
+Such were the grave and measured words with which the British
+pro-consul warned his countrymen of what was to come. He saw the
+storm-cloud piling in the north, but even his eyes had not yet
+discerned how near and how terrible was the tempest.
+
+Throughout the end of June and the early part of July much was
+hoped from the mediation of the heads of the Afrikander Bond, the
+political union of the Dutch Cape colonists. On the one hand, they
+were the kinsmen of the Boers; on the other, they were British
+subjects, and were enjoying the blessings of those liberal
+institutions which we were anxious to see extended to the
+Transvaal. 'Only treat our folk as we treat yours! Our whole
+contention was compressed into that prayer. But nothing came of the
+mission, though a scheme endorsed by Mr. Hofmeyer and Mr. Herholdt,
+of the Bond, with Mr. Fischer of the Free State, was introduced
+into the Raad and applauded by Mr. Schreiner, the Africander
+Premier of Cape Colony. In its original form the provisions were
+obscure and complicated, the franchise varying from nine years to
+seven under different conditions. In debate, however, the terms
+were amended until the time was reduced to seven years, and the
+proposed representation of the gold fields placed at five. The
+concession was not a great one, nor could the representation, five
+out of thirty-one, be considered a generous provision for the
+majority of the population; but the reduction of the years of
+residence was eagerly hailed in England as a sign that a compromise
+might be effected. A sigh of relief went up from the country. 'If,'
+said the Colonial Secretary, 'this report is confirmed, this
+important change in the proposals of President Kruger, coupled with
+previous amendments, leads Government to hope that the new law may
+prove to be the basis of a settlement on the lines laid down by Sir
+Alfred Milner in the Bloemfontein Conference.' He added that there
+were some vexatious conditions attached, but concluded, 'Her
+Majesty's Government feel assured that the President, having
+accepted the principle for which they have contended, will be
+prepared to reconsider any detail of his scheme which can be shown
+to be a possible hindrance to the full accomplishment of the object
+in view, and that he will not allow them to be nullified or reduced
+in value by any subsequent alterations of the law or acts of
+administration.' At the same time, the 'Times' declared the crisis
+to be at an end. 'If the Dutch statesmen of the Cape have induced
+their brethren in the Transvaal to carry such a Bill, they will
+have deserved the lasting gratitude, not only of their own
+countrymen and of the English colonists in South Africa, but of the
+British Empire and of the civilised world.'
+
+But this fair prospect was soon destined to be overcast. Questions
+of detail arose which, when closely examined, proved to be matters
+of very essential importance. The Uitlanders and British South
+Africans, who had experienced in the past how illusory the promises
+of the President might be, insisted upon guarantees. The seven
+years offered were two years more than that which Sir Alfred Milner
+had declared to be an irreducible minimum. The difference of two
+years would not have hindered their acceptance, even at the expense
+of some humiliation to our representative. But there were
+conditions which excited distrust when drawn up by so wily a
+diplomatist. One was that the alien who aspired to burghership had
+to produce a certificate of continuous registration for a certain
+time. But the law of registration had fallen into disuse in the
+Transvaal, and consequently this provision might render the whole
+Bill valueless. Since it was carefully retained, it was certainly
+meant for use. The door had been opened, but a stone was placed to
+block it. Again, the continued burghership of the newcomers was
+made to depend upon the resolution of the first Raad, so that
+should the mining members propose any measure of reform, not only
+their Bill but they also might be swept out of the house by a Boer
+majority. What could an Opposition do if a vote of the Government
+might at any moment unseat them all? It was clear that a measure
+which contained such provisions must be very carefully sifted
+before a British Government could accept it as a final settlement
+and a complete concession of justice to its subjects. On the other
+hand, it naturally felt loth to refuse those clauses which offered
+some prospect of an amelioration in their condition. It took the
+course, therefore, of suggesting that each Government should
+appoint delegates to form a joint commission which should inquire
+into the working of the proposed Bill before it was put into a
+final form. The proposal was submitted to the Raad upon August 7th,
+with the addition that when this was done Sir Alfred Milner was
+prepared to discuss anything else, including arbitration without
+the interference of foreign powers.
+
+The suggestion of this joint commission has been criticised as an
+unwarrantable intrusion into the internal affairs of another
+country. But then the whole question from the beginning was about
+the internal affairs of another country, since the internal
+equality of the white inhabitants was the condition upon which
+self-government was restored to the Transvaal. It is futile to
+suggest analogies, and to imagine what France would do if Germany
+were to interfere in a question of French franchise. Supposing that
+France contained as many Germans as Frenchmen, and that they were
+ill-treated, Germany would interfere quickly enough and continue to
+do so until some fair modus vivendi was established. The fact is
+that the case of the Transvaal stands alone, that such a condition
+of things has never been known, and that no previous precedent can
+apply to it, save the general rule that a minority of white men
+cannot continue indefinitely to tax and govern a majority.
+Sentiment inclines to the smaller nation, but reason and justice
+are all on the side of England.
+
+A long delay followed upon the proposal of the Secretary of the
+Colonies. No reply was forthcoming from Pretoria. But on all sides
+there came evidence that those preparations for war which had been
+quietly going on even before the Jameson raid were now being
+hurriedly perfected. For so small a State enormous sums were being
+spent upon military equipment. Cases of rifles and boxes of
+cartridges streamed into the arsenal, not only from Delagoa Bay,
+but even, to the indignation of the English colonists, through Cape
+Town and Port Elizabeth. Huge packing-cases, marked 'Agricultural
+Instruments' and 'Mining Machinery,' arrived from Germany and
+France, to find their places in the forts of Johannesburg or
+Pretoria. Men of many nations but of a similar type showed their
+martial faces in the Boer towns. The condottieri of Europe were as
+ready as ever to sell their blood for gold, and nobly in the end
+did they fulfill their share of the bargain. For three weeks and
+more during which Mr. Kruger was silent these eloquent preparations
+went on. But beyond them, and of infinitely more importance, there
+was one fact which dominated the situation. A burgher cannot go to
+war without his horse, his horse cannot move without grass, grass
+will not come until after rain, and it was still some weeks before
+the rain would be due. Negotiations, then, must not be unduly
+hurried while the veld was a bare russet-coloured dust-swept plain.
+Mr. Chamberlain and the British public waited week after week for
+their answer. But there was a limit to their patience, and it was
+reached on August 26th, when the Colonial Secretary showed, with a
+plainness of speech which is as unusual as it is welcome in
+diplomacy, that the question could not be hung up for ever. 'The
+sands are running down in the glass,' said he. 'If they run out, we
+shall not hold ourselves limited by that which we have already
+offered, but, having taken the matter in hand, we will not let it
+go until we have secured conditions which once for all shall
+establish which is the paramount power in South Africa, and shall
+secure for our fellow-subjects there those equal rights and equal
+privileges which were promised them by President Kruger when the
+independence of the Transvaal was granted by the Queen, and which
+is the least that in justice ought to be accorded them.' Lord
+Salisbury, a little time before, had been equally emphatic. 'No one
+in this country wishes to disturb the conventions so long as it is
+recognised that while they guarantee the independence of the
+Transvaal on the one side, they guarantee equal political and civil
+rights for settlers of all nationalities upon the other. But these
+conventions are not like the laws of the Medes and the Persians.
+They are mortal, they can be destroyed. . .and once destroyed they
+can never be reconstructed in the same shape.' The long-enduring
+patience of Great Britain was beginning to show signs of giving
+way.
+
+In the meantime a fresh dispatch had arrived from the Transvaal
+which offered as an alternative proposal to the joint commission
+that the Boer Government should grant the franchise proposals of
+Sir Alfred Milner on condition that Great Britain withdrew or
+dropped her claim to a suzerainty, agreed to arbitration, and
+promised never again to interfere in the internal affairs of the
+republic. To this Great Britain answered that she would agree to
+arbitration, that she hoped never again to have occasion to
+interfere for the protection of her own subjects, but that with the
+grant of the franchise all occasion for such interference would
+pass away, and, finally, that she would never consent to abandon
+her position as suzerain power. Mr. Chamberlain's dispatch ended by
+reminding the Government of the Transvaal that there were other
+matters of dispute open between the two Governments apart from the
+franchise, and that it would be as well to have them settled at the
+same time. By these he meant such questions as the position of the
+native races and the treatment of Anglo-Indians.
+
+On September 2nd the answer of the Transvaal Government was
+returned. It was short and uncompromising. They withdrew their
+offer of the franchise. They re-asserted the non-existence of the
+suzerainty. The negotiations were at a deadlock. It was difficult
+to see how they could be re-opened. In view of the arming of the
+burghers, the small garrison of Natal had been taking up positions
+to cover the frontier. The Transvaal asked for an explanation of
+their presence. Sir Alfred Milner answered that they were guarding
+British interests, and preparing against contingencies. The roar of
+the fall was sounding loud and near.
+
+On September 8th there was held a Cabinet Council--one of the most
+important in recent years. A message was sent to Pretoria, which
+even the opponents of the Government have acknowledged to be
+temperate, and offering the basis for a peaceful settlement. It
+begins by repudiating emphatically the claim of the Transvaal to be
+a sovereign international State in the same sense in which the
+Orange Free State is one. Any proposal made conditional upon such
+an acknowledgment could not be entertained.
+
+The British Government, however, was prepared to accept the five
+years' 'franchise' as stated in the note of August 19th, assuming
+at the same time that in the Raad each member might talk his own
+language.
+
+'Acceptance of these terms by the South African Republic would at
+once remove tension between the two Governments, and would in all
+probability render unnecessary any future intervention to secure
+redress for grievances which the Uitlanders themselves would be
+able to bring to the notice of the Executive Council and the
+Volksraad.
+
+'Her Majesty's Government are increasingly impressed with the
+danger of further delay in relieving the strain which has already
+caused so much injury to the interests of South Africa, and they
+earnestly press for an immediate and definite reply to the present
+proposal. If it is acceded to they will be ready to make immediate
+arrangements. . .to settle all details of the proposed tribunal of
+arbitration. . .If, however, as they most anxiously hope will not
+be the case, the reply of the South African Republic should be
+negative or inconclusive, I am to state that her Majesty's
+Government must reserve to themselves the right to reconsider the
+situation de novo, and to formulate their own proposals for a final
+settlement.'
+
+Such was the message, and Great Britain waited with strained
+attention for the answer. But again there was a delay, while the
+rain came and the grass grew, and the veld was as a mounted
+rifleman would have it. The burghers were in no humour for
+concessions. They knew their own power, and they concluded with
+justice that they were for the time far the strongest military
+power in South Africa. 'We have beaten England before, but it is
+nothing to the licking we shall give her now,' cried a prominent
+citizen, and he spoke for his country as he said it. So the empire
+waited and debated, but the sounds of the bugle were already
+breaking through the wrangles of the politicians, and calling the
+nation to be tested once more by that hammer of war and adversity
+by which Providence still fashions us to some nobler and higher
+end.
+
+CHAPTER 4.
+
+THE EVE OF WAR.
+
+The message sent from the Cabinet Council of September 8th was
+evidently the precursor either of peace or of war. The cloud must
+burst or blow over. As the nation waited in hushed expectancy for a
+reply it spent some portion of its time in examining and
+speculating upon those military preparations which might be needed.
+The War Office had for some months been arranging for every
+contingency, and had made certain dispositions which appeared to
+them to be adequate, but which our future experience was to
+demonstrate to be far too small for the very serious matter in
+hand.
+
+It is curious in turning over the files of such a paper as the
+'Times' to observe how at first one or two small paragraphs of
+military significance might appear in the endless columns of
+diplomatic and political reports, how gradually they grew and grew,
+until at last the eclipse was complete, and the diplomacy had been
+thrust into the tiny paragraphs while the war filled the journal.
+Under July 7th comes the first glint of arms amid the drab monotony
+of the state papers. On that date it was announced that two
+companies of Royal Engineers and departmental corps with reserves
+of supplies and ammunition were being dispatched. Two companies of
+engineers! Who could have foreseen that they were the vanguard of
+the greatest army which ever at any time of the world's history has
+crossed an ocean, and far the greatest which a British general has
+commanded in the field?
+
+On August 15th, at a time when the negotiations had already assumed
+a very serious phase, after the failure of the Bloemfontein
+conference and the dispatch of Sir Alfred Milner, the British
+forces in South Africa were absolutely and absurdly inadequate for
+the purpose of the defence of our own frontier. Surely such a fact
+must open the eyes of those who, in spite of all the evidence,
+persist that the war was forced on by the British. A statesman who
+forces on a war usually prepares for a war, and this is exactly
+what Mr. Kruger did and the British authorities did not. The
+overbearing suzerain power had at that date, scattered over a huge
+frontier, two cavalry regiments, three field batteries, and six and
+a half infantry battalions--say six thousand men. The innocent
+pastoral States could put in the field forty or fifty thousand
+mounted riflemen, whose mobility doubled their numbers, and a most
+excellent artillery, including the heaviest guns which have ever
+been seen upon a battlefield. At this time it is most certain that
+the Boers could have made their way easily either to Durban or to
+Cape Town. The British force, condemned to act upon the defensive,
+could have been masked and afterwards destroyed, while the main
+body of the invaders would have encountered nothing but an
+irregular local resistance, which would have been neutralised by
+the apathy or hostility of the Dutch colonists. It is extraordinary
+that our authorities seem never to have contemplated the
+possibility of the Boers taking the initiative, or to have
+understood that in that case our belated reinforcements would
+certainly have had to land under the fire of the republican guns.
+
+In July Natal had taken alarm, and a strong representation had been
+sent from the prime minister of the colony to the Governor, Sir W.
+Hely Hutchinson, and so to the Colonial Office. It was notorious
+that the Transvaal was armed to the teeth, that the Orange Free
+State was likely to join her, and that there had been strong
+attempts made, both privately and through the press, to alienate
+the loyalty of the Dutch citizens of both the British colonies.
+Many sinister signs were observed by those upon the spot. The veld
+had been burned unusually early to ensure a speedy grass-crop after
+the first rains, there had been a collecting of horses, a
+distribution of rifles and ammunition. The Free State farmers, who
+graze their sheep and cattle upon Natal soil during the winter, had
+driven them off to places of safety behind the line of the
+Drakensberg. Everything pointed to approaching war, and Natal
+refused to be satisfied even by the dispatch of another regiment.
+On September 6th a second message was received at the Colonial
+Office, which states the case with great clearness and precision.
+
+'The Prime Minister desires me to urge upon you by the unanimous
+advice of the Ministers that sufficient troops should be dispatched
+to Natal immediately to enable the colony to be placed in a state
+of defence against an attack from the Transvaal and the Orange Free
+State. I am informed by the General Officer Commanding, Natal, that
+he will not have enough troops, even when the Manchester Regiment
+arrives, to do more than occupy Newcastle and at the same time
+protect the colony south of it from raids, while Laing's Nek,
+Ingogo River and Zululand must be left undefended. My Ministers
+know that every preparation has been made, both in the Transvaal
+and the Orange Free State, which would enable an attack to be made
+on Natal at short notice. My Ministers believe that the Boers have
+made up their minds that war will take place almost certainly, and
+their best chance will be, when it seems unavoidable, to deliver a
+blow before reinforcements have time to arrive. Information has
+been received that raids in force will be made by way of Middle
+Drift and Greytown and by way of Bond's Drift and Stangar, with a
+view to striking the railway between Pietermaritzburg and Durban
+and cutting off communications of troops and supplies. Nearly all
+the Orange Free State farmers in the Klip River division, who stay
+in the colony usually till October at least, have trekked, at great
+loss to themselves; their sheep are lambing on the road, and the
+lambs die or are destroyed. Two at least of the Entonjanani
+district farmers have trekked with all their belongings into the
+Transvaal, in the first case attempting to take as hostages the
+children of the natives on the farm. Reliable reports have been
+received of attempts to tamper with loyal natives, and to set tribe
+against tribe in order to create confusion and detail the defensive
+forces of the colony. Both food and warlike stores in large
+quantities have been accumulated at Volksrust, Vryheid and
+Standerton. Persons who are believed to be spies have been seen
+examining the bridges on the Natal Railway, and it is known that
+there are spies in all the principal centres of the colony. In the
+opinion of Ministers, such a catastrophe as the seizure of Laing's
+Nek and the destruction of the northern portion of the railway, or
+a successful raid or invasion such as they have reason to believe
+is contemplated, would produce a most demoralising effect on the
+natives and on the loyal Europeans in the colony, and would afford
+great encouragement to the Boers and to their sympathisers in the
+colonies, who, although armed and prepared, will probably keep
+quiet unless they receive some encouragement of the sort. They
+concur in the policy of her Majesty's Government of exhausting all
+peaceful means to obtain redress of the grievances of the
+Uitlanders and authoritatively assert the supremacy of Great
+Britain before resorting to war; but they state that this is a
+question of defensive precaution, not of making war.'
+
+In answer to these and other remonstrances the garrison of Natal
+was gradually increased, partly by troops from Europe, and partly
+by the dispatch of five thousand British troops from India. The 2nd
+Berkshires, the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers, the 1st Manchesters,
+and the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers arrived in succession with
+reinforcements of artillery. The 5th Dragoon Guards, 9th Lancers,
+and 19th Hussars came from India, with the 1st Devonshires, 1st
+Gloucesters, 2nd King's Royal Rifles and 2nd Gordon Highlanders.
+These with the 21st, 42nd, and 53rd batteries of Field Artillery
+made up the Indian Contingent. Their arrival late in September
+raised the number of troops in South Africa to 22,000, a force
+which was inadequate to a contest in the open field with the
+numerous, mobile, and gallant enemy to whom they were to be
+opposed, but which proved to be strong enough to stave off that
+overwhelming disaster which, with our fuller knowledge, we can now
+see to have been impending.
+
+As to the disposition of these troops a difference of opinion broke
+out between the ruling powers in Natal and the military chiefs at
+the spot. Prince Kraft has said, 'Both strategy and tactics may
+have to yield to politics '; but the political necessity should be
+very grave and very clear when it is the blood of soldiers which
+has to pay for it. Whether it arose from our defective
+intelligence, or from that caste feeling which makes it hard for
+the professional soldier to recognise (in spite of deplorable past
+experiences) a serious adversary in the mounted farmer, it is
+certain that even while our papers were proclaiming that this time,
+at least, we would not underrate our enemy, we were most seriously
+underrating him. The northern third of Natal is as vulnerable a
+military position as a player of kriegspiel could wish to have
+submitted to him. It runs up into a thin angle, culminating at the
+apex in a difficult pass, the ill-omened Laing's Nek, dominated by
+the even more sinister bulk of Majuba. Each side of this angle is
+open to invasion, the one from the Transvaal and the other from the
+Orange Free State. A force up at the apex is in a perfect trap, for
+the mobile enemy can flood into the country to the south of them,
+cut the line of supplies, and throw up a series of entrenchments
+which would make retreat a very difficult matter. Further down the
+country, at such positions as Ladysmith or Dundee, the danger,
+though not so imminent, is still an obvious one, unless the
+defending force is strong enough to hold its own in the open field
+and mobile enough to prevent a mounted enemy from getting round its
+flanks. To us, who are endowed with that profound military wisdom
+which only comes with a knowledge of the event, it is obvious that
+with a defending force which could not place more than 12,000 men
+in the fighting line, the true defensible frontier was the line of
+the Tugela. As a matter of fact, Ladysmith was chosen, a place
+almost indefensible itself, as it is dominated by high hills in at
+least two directions.
+
+Such an event as the siege of the town appears never to have been
+contemplated, as no guns of position were asked for or sent. In
+spite of this, an amount of stores, which is said to have been
+valued at more than a million of pounds, was dumped down at this
+small railway junction, so that the position could not be evacuated
+without a crippling loss. The place was the point of bifurcation of
+the main line, which divides at this little town into one branch
+running to Harrismith in the Orange Free State, and the other
+leading through the Dundee coal fields and Newcastle to the Laing's
+Nek tunnel and the Transvaal. An importance, which appears now to
+have been an exaggerated one, was attached by the Government of
+Natal to the possession of the coal fields, and it was at their
+strong suggestion, but with the concurrence of General Penn Symons,
+that the defending force was divided, and a detachment of between
+three and four thousand sent to Dundee, about forty miles from the
+main body, which remained under General Sir George White at
+Ladysmith. General Symons underrated the power of the invaders, but
+it is hard to criticise an error of judgment which has been so
+nobly atoned and so tragically paid for. At the time, then, which
+our political narrative has reached, the time of suspense which
+followed the dispatch of the Cabinet message of September 8th, the
+military situation had ceased to be desperate, but was still
+precarious. Twenty-two thousand regular troops were on the spot who
+might hope to be reinforced by some ten thousand colonials, but
+these forces had to cover a great frontier, the attitude of Cape
+Colony was by no means whole-hearted and might become hostile,
+while the black population might conceivably throw in its weight
+against us. Only half the regulars could be spared to defend Natal,
+and no reinforcements could reach them in less than a month from
+the outbreak of hostilities. If Mr. Chamberlain was really playing
+a game of bluff, it must be confessed that he was bluffing from a
+very weak hand.
+
+For purposes of comparison we may give some idea of the forces
+which Mr. Kruger and Mr. Steyn could put in the field, for by this
+time it was evident that the Orange Free State, with which we had
+had no shadow of a dispute, was going, in a way which some would
+call wanton and some chivalrous, to throw in its weight against us.
+The general press estimate of the forces of the two republics
+varied from 25,000 to 35,000 men. Mr. J. B. Robinson, a personal
+friend of President Kruger's and a man who had spent much of his
+life among the Boers, considered the latter estimate to be too
+high. The calculation had no assured basis to start from. A very
+scattered and isolated population, among whom large families were
+the rule, is a most difficult thing to estimate. Some reckoned from
+the supposed natural increase during eighteen years, but the figure
+given at that date was itself an assumption. Others took their
+calculation from the number of voters in the last presidential
+election: but no one could tell how many abstentions there had
+been, and the fighting age is five years earlier than the voting
+age in the republics. We recognise now that all calculations were
+far below the true figure. It is probable, however, that the
+information of the British Intelligence Department was not far
+wrong. According to this the fighting strength of the Transvaal
+alone was 32,000 men, and of the Orange Free State 22,000. With
+mercenaries and rebels from the colonies they would amount to 60,
+000, while a considerable rising of the Cape Dutch would bring them
+up to 100,000. In artillery they were known to have about a hundred
+guns, many of them (and the fact will need much explaining) more
+modern and powerful than any which we could bring against them. Of
+the quality of this large force there is no need to speak. The men
+were brave, hardy, and fired with a strange religious enthusiasm.
+They were all of the seventeenth century, except their rifles.
+Mounted upon their hardy little ponies, they possessed a mobility
+which practically doubled their numbers and made it an
+impossibility ever to outflank them. As marksmen they were supreme.
+Add to this that they had the advantage of acting upon internal
+lines with shorter and safer communications, and one gathers how
+formidable a task lay before the soldiers of the empire. When we
+turn from such an enumeration of their strength to contemplate the
+12,000 men, split into two detachments, who awaited them in Natal,
+we may recognise that, far from bewailing our disasters, we should
+rather congratulate ourselves upon our escape from losing that
+great province which, situated as it is between Britain, India, and
+Australia, must be regarded as the very keystone of the imperial
+arch.
+
+At the risk of a tedious but very essential digression, something
+must be said here as to the motives with which the Boers had for
+many years been quietly preparing for war. That the Jameson raid
+was not the cause is certain, though it probably, by putting the
+Boer Government into a strong position, had a great effect in
+accelerating matters. What had been done secretly and slowly could
+be done more swiftly and openly when so plausible an excuse could
+be given for it. As a matter of fact, the preparations were long
+antecedent to the raid. The building of the forts at Pretoria and
+Johannesburg was begun nearly two years before that wretched
+incursion, and the importation of arms was going on apace. In that
+very year, 1895, a considerable sum was spent in military
+equipment.
+
+But if it was not the raid, and if the Boers had no reason to fear
+the British Government, with whom the Transvaal might have been as
+friendly as the Orange Free State had been for forty years, why
+then should they arm? It was a difficult question, and one in
+answering which we find ourselves in a region of conjecture and
+suspicion rather than of ascertained fact. But the fairest and most
+unbiased of historians must confess that there is a large body of
+evidence to show that into the heads of some of the Dutch leaders,
+both in the northern republics and in the Cape, there had entered
+the conception of a single Dutch commonwealth, extending from Cape
+Town to the Zambesi, in which flag, speech, and law should all be
+Dutch. It is in this aspiration that many shrewd and well-informed
+judges see the true inner meaning of this persistent arming, of the
+constant hostility, of the forming of ties between the two
+republics (one of whom had been reconstituted and made a sovereign
+independent State by our own act), and finally of that intriguing
+which endeavoured to poison the affection and allegiance of our own
+Dutch colonists, who had no political grievances whatever. They all
+aimed at one end, and that end was the final expulsion of British
+power from South Africa and the formation of a single great Dutch
+republic. The large sum spent by the Transvaal in secret service
+money--a larger sum, I believe, than that which is spent by the
+whole British Empire--would give some idea of the subterranean
+influences at work. An army of emissaries, agents, and spies,
+whatever their mission, were certainly spread over the British
+colonies. Newspapers were subsidised also, and considerable sums
+spent upon the press in France and Germany.
+
+In the very nature of things a huge conspiracy of this sort to
+substitute Dutch for British rule in South Africa is not a matter
+which can be easily and definitely proved. Such questions are not
+discussed in public documents, and men are sounded before being
+taken into the confidence of the conspirators. But there is plenty
+of evidence of the individual ambition of prominent and
+representative men in this direction, and it is hard to believe
+that what many wanted individually was not striven for
+collectively, especially when we see how the course of events did
+actually work towards the end which they indicated. Mr. J.P.
+FitzPatrick, in 'The Transvaal from Within'--a book to which all
+subsequent writers upon the subject must acknowledge their
+obligations--narrates how in 1896 he was approached by Mr. D.P.
+Graaff, formerly a member of the Cape Legislative Council and a
+very prominent Afrikander Bondsman, with the proposition that Great
+Britain should be pushed out of South Africa. The same politician
+made the same proposal to Mr. Beit. Compare with this the following
+statement of Mr. Theodore Schreiner, the brother of the Prime
+Minister of the Cape:
+
+'I met Mr. Reitz, then a judge of the Orange Free State, in
+Bloemfontein between seventeen and eighteen years ago, shortly
+after the retrocession of the Transvaal, and when he was busy
+establishing the Afrikander Bond. It must be patent to every one
+that at that time, at all events, England and its Government had no
+intention of taking away the independence of the Transvaal, for she
+had just "magnanimously" granted the same; no intention of making
+war on the republics, for she had just made peace; no intention to
+seize the Rand gold fields, for they were not yet discovered. At
+that time, then, I met Mr. Reitz, and he did his best to get me to
+become a member of his Afrikander Bond, but, after studying its
+constitution and programme, I refused to do so, whereupon the
+following colloquy in substance took place between us, which has
+been indelibly imprinted on my mind ever since:
+
+'REITZ: Why do you refuse? Is the object of getting the people to
+take an interest in political matters not a good one?
+
+'MYSELF: Yes, it is; but I seem to see plainly here between the
+lines of this constitution much more ultimately aimed at than that.
+
+'REITZ: What?
+
+'MYSELF: I see quite clearly that the ultimate object aimed at is
+the overthrow of the British power and the expulsion of the British
+flag from South Africa.
+
+'REITZ (with his pleasant conscious smile, as of one whose secret
+thought and purpose had been discovered, and who was not altogether
+displeased that such was the case): Well, what if it is so?
+
+'MYSELF: You don't suppose, do you, that that flag is going to
+disappear from South Africa without a tremendous struggle and
+fight?
+
+'REITZ (with the same pleasant self-conscious, self satisfied, and
+yet semi-apologetic smile): Well, I suppose not; but even so, what
+of that?
+
+'MYSELF: Only this, that when that struggle takes place you and I
+will be on opposite sides; and what is more, the God who was on the
+side of the Transvaal in the late war, because it had right on its
+side will be on the side of England, because He must view with
+abhorrence any plotting and scheming to overthrow her power and
+position in South Africa, which have been ordained by Him.
+
+'REITZ: We'll see.
+
+'Thus the conversation ended, but during the seventeen years that
+have elapsed I have watched the propaganda for the overthrow of
+British power in South Africa being ceaselessly spread by every
+possible means--the press, the pulpit, the platform, the schools,
+the colleges, the Legislature--until it has culminated in the
+present war, of which Mr. Reitz and his co-workers are the origin
+and the cause. Believe me, the day on which F.W. Reitz sat down to
+pen his ultimatum to Great Britain was the proudest and happiest
+moment of his life, and one which had for long years been looked
+forward to by him with eager longing and expectation.'
+
+Compare with these utterances of a Dutch politician of the Cape,
+and of a Dutch politician of the Orange Free State, the following
+passage from a speech delivered by Kruger at Bloemfontein in the
+year 1887:
+
+'I think it too soon to speak of a United South Africa under one
+flag. Which flag was it to be? The Queen of England would object to
+having her flag hauled down, and we, the burghers of the Transvaal,
+object to hauling ours down. What is to be done? We are now small
+and of little importance, but we are growing, and are preparing the
+way to take our place among the great nations of the world.'
+
+'The dream of our life,' said another, 'is a union of the States of
+South Africa, and this has to come from within, not from without.
+When that is accomplished, South Africa will be great.'
+
+Always the same theory from all quarters of Dutch thought, to be
+followed by many signs that the idea was being prepared for in
+practice. I repeat that the fairest and most unbiased historian
+cannot dismiss the conspiracy as a myth.
+
+And to this one may retort, why should they not conspire? Why
+should they not have their own views as to the future of South
+Africa? Why should they not endeavour to have one universal flag
+and one common speech? Why should they not win over our colonists,
+if they can, and push us into the sea? I see no reason why they
+should not. Let them try if they will. And let us try to prevent
+them. But let us have an end of talk about British aggression, of
+capitalist designs upon the gold fields, of the wrongs of a
+pastoral people, and all the other veils which have been used to
+cover the issue. Let those who talk about British designs upon the
+republics turn their attention for a moment to the evidence which
+there is for republican designs upon the colonies. Let them reflect
+that in the one system all white men are equal, and that on the
+other the minority of one race has persecuted the majority of the
+other, and let them consider under which the truest freedom lies,
+which stands for universal liberty and which for reaction and
+racial hatred. Let them ponder and answer all this before they
+determine where their sympathies lie.
+
+Leaving these wider questions of politics, and dismissing for the
+time those military considerations which were soon to be of such
+vital moment, we may now return to the course of events in the
+diplomatic struggle between the Government of the Transvaal and the
+Colonial Office. On September 8th, as already narrated, a final
+message was sent to Pretoria, which stated the minimum terms which
+the British Government could accept as being a fair concession to
+her subjects in the Transvaal. A definite answer was demanded, and
+the nation waited with sombre patience for the reply.
+
+There were few illusions in this country as to the difficulties of
+a Transvaal war. It was clearly seen that little honour and immense
+vexation were in store for us. The first Boer war still smarted in
+our minds, and we knew the prowess of the indomitable burghers. But
+our people, if gloomy, were none the less resolute, for that
+national instinct which is beyond the wisdom of statesmen had borne
+it in upon them that this was no local quarrel, but one upon which
+the whole existence of the empire hung. The cohesion of that empire
+was to be tested. Men had emptied their glasses to it in time of
+peace. Was it a meaningless pouring of wine, or were they ready to
+pour their hearts' blood also in time of war? Had we really founded
+a series of disconnected nations, with no common sentiment or
+interest, or was the empire an organic whole, as ready to thrill
+with one emotion or to harden into one resolve as are the several
+States of the Union? That was the question at issue, and much of
+the future history of the world was at stake upon the answer.
+
+Already there were indications that the colonies appreciated the
+fact that the contention was no affair of the mother country alone,
+but that she was upholding the rights of the empire as a whole, and
+might fairly look to them to support her in any quarrel which might
+arise from it. As early as July 11th, Queensland, the fiery and
+semitropical, had offered a contingent of mounted infantry with
+machine guns; New Zealand, Western Australia, Tasmania, Victoria,
+New South Wales, and South Australia followed in the order named.
+Canada, with the strong but more deliberate spirit of the north,
+was the last to speak, but spoke the more firmly for the delay. Her
+citizens were the least concerned of any, for Australians were many
+in South Africa but Canadians few. None the less, she cheerfully
+took her share of the common burden, and grew the readier and the
+cheerier as that burden came to weigh more heavily. From all the
+men of many hues who make up the British Empire, from Hindoo
+Rajahs, from West African Houssas, from Malay police, from Western
+Indians, there came offers of service. But this was to be a white
+man's war, and if the British could not work out their own
+salvation then it were well that empire should pass from such a
+race. The magnificent Indian army of 150,000 soldiers, many of them
+seasoned veterans, was for the same reason left untouched. England
+has claimed no credit or consideration for such abstention, but an
+irresponsible writer may well ask how many of those foreign critics
+whose respect for our public morality appears to be as limited as
+their knowledge of our principles and history would have advocated
+such self denial had their own countries been placed in the same
+position.
+
+On September 18th the official reply of the Boer Government to the
+message sent from the Cabinet Council was published in London. In
+manner it was unbending and unconciliatory; in substance, it was a
+complete rejection of all the British demands. It refused to
+recommend or propose to the Raad the five years' franchise and the
+other measures which had been defined as the minimum which the Home
+Government could accept as a fair measure of justice towards the
+Uitlanders. The suggestion that the debates of the Raad should be
+bilingual, as they have been in the Cape Colony and in Canada, was
+absolutely waived aside. The British Government had stated in their
+last dispatch that if the reply should be negative or inconclusive
+they reserved to themselves the right to 'reconsider the situation
+de novo and to formulate their own proposals for a final
+settlement.' The reply had been both negative and inconclusive, and
+on September 22nd a council met to determine what the next message
+should be. It was short and firm, but so planned as not to shut the
+door upon peace. Its purport was that the British Government
+expressed deep regret at the rejection of the moderate proposals
+which had been submitted in their last dispatch, and that now, in
+accordance with their promise, they would shortly put forward their
+own plans for a settlement. The message was not an ultimatum, but
+it foreshadowed an ultimatum in the future.
+
+In the meantime, upon September 21st the Raad of the Orange Free
+State had met, and it became more and more evident that this
+republic, with whom we had no possible quarrel, but, on the
+contrary, for whom we had a great deal of friendship and
+admiration, intended to throw in its weight against Great Britain.
+Some time before, an offensive and defensive alliance had been
+concluded between the two States, which must, until the secret
+history of these events comes to be written, appear to have been a
+singularly rash and unprofitable bargain for the smaller one. She
+had nothing to fear from Great Britain, since she had been
+voluntarily turned into an independent republic by her and had
+lived in peace with her for forty years. Her laws were as liberal
+as our own. But by this suicidal treaty she agreed to share the
+fortunes of a State which was deliberately courting war by its
+persistently unfriendly attitude, and whose reactionary and narrow
+legislation would, one might imagine, have alienated the sympathy
+of her progressive neighbour. There may have been ambitions like
+those already quoted from the report of Dr. Reitz's conversation,
+or there may have been a complete hallucination as to the
+comparative strength of the two combatants and the probable future
+of South Africa; but however that may be, the treaty was made, and
+the time had come to test how far it would hold.
+
+The tone of President Steyn at the meeting of the Raad, and the
+support which he received from the majority of his burghers, showed
+unmistakably that the two republics would act as one. In his
+opening speech Steyn declared uncompromisingly against the British
+contention, and declared that his State was bound to the Transvaal
+by everything which was near and dear. Among the obvious military
+precautions which could no longer be neglected by the British
+Government was the sending of some small force to protect the long
+and exposed line of railway which lies just outside the Transvaal
+border from Kimberley to Rhodesia. Sir Alfred Milner communicated
+with President Steyn as to this movement of troops, pointing out
+that it was in no way directed against the Free State. Sir Alfred
+Milner added that the Imperial Government was still hopeful of a
+friendly settlement with the Transvaal, but if this hope were
+disappointed they looked to the Orange Free State to preserve
+strict neutrality and to prevent military intervention by any of
+its citizens. They undertook that in that case the integrity of the
+Free State frontier would be strictly preserved. Finally, he stated
+that there was absolutely no cause to disturb the good relations
+between the Free State and Great Britain, since we were animated by
+the most friendly intentions towards them. To this the President
+returned a somewhat ungracious answer, to the effect that he
+disapproved of our action towards the Transvaal, and that he
+regretted the movement of troops, which would be considered a
+menace by the burghers. A subsequent resolution of the Free State
+Raad, ending with the words, 'Come what may, the Free State will
+honestly and faithfully fulfill its obligations towards the
+Transvaal by virtue of the political alliance existing between the
+two republics,' showed how impossible it was that this country,
+formed by ourselves and without a shadow of a cause of quarrel with
+us, could be saved from being drawn into the whirlpool. Everywhere,
+from over both borders, came the news of martial preparations.
+Already at the end of September troops and armed burghers were
+gathering upon the frontier, and the most incredulous were
+beginning at last to understand that the shadow of a great war was
+really falling across them. Artillery, war munitions, and stores
+were being accumulated at Volksrust upon the Natal border, showing
+where the storm might be expected to break. On the last day of
+September, twenty-six military trains were reported to have left
+Pretoria and Johannesburg for that point. At the same time news
+came of a concentration at Malmani, upon the Bechuanaland border,
+threatening the railway line and the British town of Mafeking, a
+name destined before long to be familiar to the world.
+
+On October 3rd there occurred what was in truth an act of war,
+although the British Government, patient to the verge of weakness,
+refused to regard it as such, and continued to draw up their final
+state paper. The mail train from the Transvaal to Cape Town was
+stopped at Vereeniging, and the week's shipment of gold for
+England, amounting to about half a million pounds, was taken by the
+Boer Government. In a debate at Cape Town upon the same day the
+Africander Minister of the Interior admitted that as many as 404
+trucks had passed from the Government line over the frontier and
+had not been returned. Taken in conjunction with the passage of
+arms and cartridges through the Cape to Pretoria and Bloemfontein,
+this incident aroused the deepest indignation among the Colonial
+English and the British public, which was increased by the reports
+of the difficulty which border towns, such as Kimberley and
+Vryburg, had had in getting cannon for their own defence. The Raads
+had been dissolved, and the old President's last words had been a
+statement that war was certain, and a stern invocation of the Lord
+as final arbiter. England was ready less obtrusively but no less
+heartily to refer the quarrel to the same dread Judge.
+
+On October 2nd President Steyn informed Sir Alfred Milner that he
+had deemed it necessary to call out the Free State burghers--that
+is, to mobilise his forces. Sir A. Milner wrote regretting these
+preparations, and declaring that he did not yet despair of peace,
+for he was sure that any reasonable proposal would be favourably
+considered by her Majesty's Government. Steyn's reply was that
+there was no use in negotiating unless the stream of British
+reinforcements ceased coming into South Africa. As our forces were
+still in a great minority, it was impossible to stop the
+reinforcements, so the correspondence led to nothing. On October
+7th the army reserves for the First Army Corps were called out in
+Great Britain and other signs shown that it had been determined to
+send a considerable force to South Africa. Parliament was also
+summoned that the formal national assent might be gained for those
+grave measures which were evidently pending.
+
+It was on October 9th that the somewhat leisurely proceedings of
+the British Colonial Office were brought to a head by the arrival
+of an unexpected and audacious ultimatum from the Boer Government.
+In contests of wit, as of arms, it must be confessed that the laugh
+has been usually upon the side of our simple and pastoral South
+African neighbours. The present instance was no exception to the
+rule. While our Government was cautiously and patiently leading up
+to an ultimatum, our opponent suddenly played the very card which
+we were preparing to lay upon the table. The document was very firm
+and explicit, but the terms in which it was drawn were so
+impossible that it was evidently framed with the deliberate purpose
+of forcing an immediate war. It demanded that the troops upon the
+borders of the republic should be instantly withdrawn, that all
+reinforcements which had arrived within the last year should leave
+South Africa, and that those who were now upon the sea should be
+sent back without being landed. Failing a satisfactory answer
+within forty-eight hours, 'the Transvaal Government will with great
+regret be compelled to regard the action of her Majesty's
+Government as a formal declaration of war, for the consequences of
+which it will not hold itself responsible.' The audacious message
+was received throughout the empire with a mixture of derision and
+anger. The answer was dispatched next day through Sir Alfred
+Milner.
+
+'10th October.--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.'
+
+And so we have come to the end of the long road, past the battle of
+the pens and the wrangling of tongues, to the arbitration of the
+Lee-Metford and the Mauser. It was pitiable that it should come to
+this. These people were as near akin to us as any race which is not
+our own. They were of the same Frisian stock which peopled our own
+shores. In habit of mind, in religion, in respect for law, they
+were as ourselves. Brave, too, they were, and hospitable, with
+those sporting instincts which are dear to the Anglo-Celtic race.
+There was no people in the world who had more qualities which we
+might admire, and not the least of them was that love of
+independence which it is our proudest boast that we have encouraged
+in others as well as exercised ourselves. And yet we had come to
+this pass, that there was no room in all vast South Africa for both
+of us. We cannot hold ourselves blameless in the matter. 'The evil
+that men do lives after them,' and it has been told in this small
+superficial sketch where we have erred in the past in South Africa.
+On our hands, too, is the Jameson raid, carried out by Englishmen
+and led by officers who held the Queen's Commission; to us, also,
+the blame of the shuffling, half-hearted inquiry into that most
+unjustifiable business. These are matches which helped to set the
+great blaze alight, and it is we who held them. But the fagots
+which proved to be so inflammable, they were not of our setting.
+They were the wrongs done to half the community, the settled
+resolution of the minority to tax and vex the majority, the
+determination of a people who had lived two generations in a
+country to claim that country entirely for themselves. Behind them
+all there may have been the Dutch ambition to dominate South
+Africa. It was no petty object for which Britain fought. When a
+nation struggles uncomplainingly through months of disaster she may
+claim to have proved her conviction of the justice and necessity of
+the struggle. Should Dutch ideas or English ideas of government
+prevail throughout that huge country? The one means freedom for a
+single race, the other means equal rights to all white men beneath
+one common law. What each means to the coloured races let history
+declare. This was the main issue to be determined from the instant
+that the clock struck five upon the afternoon of Wednesday, October
+the eleventh, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine. That moment marked
+the opening of a war destined to determine the fate of South
+Africa, to work great changes in the British Empire, to seriously
+affect the future history of the world, and incidentally to alter
+many of our views as to the art of war. It is the story of this war
+which, with limited material but with much aspiration to care and
+candour, I shall now endeavour to tell.
+
+CHAPTER 5.
+
+TALANA HILL.
+
+It was on the morning of October 12th, amid cold and mist, that the
+Boer camps at Sandspruit and Volksrust broke up, and the burghers
+rode to the war. Some twelve thousand of them, all mounted, with
+two batteries of eight Krupp guns each, were the invading force
+from the north, which hoped later to be joined by the Freestaters
+and by a contingent of Germans and Transvaalers who were to cross
+the Free State border. It was an hour before dawn that the guns
+started, and the riflemen followed close behind the last limber, so
+that the first light of day fell upon the black sinuous line
+winding down between the hills. A spectator upon the occasion says
+of them: 'Their faces were a study. For the most part the
+expression worn was one of determination and bulldog pertinacity.
+No sign of fear there, nor of wavering. Whatever else may be laid
+to the charge of the Boer, it may never truthfully be said that he
+is a coward or a man unworthy of the Briton's steel.' The words
+were written early in the campaign, and the whole empire will
+endorse them to-day. Could we have such men as willing
+fellow-citizens, they are worth more than all the gold mines of
+their country.
+
+This main Transvaal body consisted of the commando of Pretoria,
+which comprised 1800 men, and those of Heidelberg, Middelburg,
+Krugersdorp, Standerton, Wakkerstroom, and Ermelo, with the State
+Artillery, an excellent and highly organised body who were provided
+with the best guns that have ever been brought on to a battlefield.
+Besides their sixteen Krupps, they dragged with them two heavy
+six-inch Creusot guns, which were destined to have a very important
+effect in the earlier part of the campaign. In addition to these
+native forces there were a certain number of European auxiliaries.
+The greater part of the German corps were with the Free State
+forces, but a few hundred came down from the north. There was a
+Hollander corps of about two hundred and fifty and an Irish--or
+perhaps more properly an Irish-American-corps of the same number,
+who rode under the green flag and the harp.
+
+The men might, by all accounts, be divided into two very different
+types. There were the town Boers, smartened and perhaps a little
+enervated by prosperity and civilisation, men of business and
+professional men, more alert and quicker than their rustic
+comrades. These men spoke English rather than Dutch, and indeed
+there were many men of English descent among them. But the others,
+the most formidable both in their numbers and in their primitive
+qualities, were the back-veld Boers, the sunburned, tangle-haired,
+full-bearded farmers, the men of the Bible and the rifle, imbued
+with the traditions of their own guerrilla warfare. These were
+perhaps the finest natural warriors upon earth, marksmen, hunters,
+accustomed to hard fare and a harder couch. They were rough in
+their ways and speech, but, in spite of many calumnies and some few
+unpleasant truths, they might compare with most disciplined armies
+in their humanity and their desire to observe the usages of war.
+
+A few words here as to the man who led this singular host. Piet
+Joubert was a Cape Colonist by birth--a fellow countryman, like
+Kruger himself, of those whom the narrow laws of his new country
+persisted in regarding as outside the pale. He came from that
+French Huguenot blood which has strengthened and refined every race
+which it has touched, and from it he derived a chivalry and
+generosity which made him respected and liked even by his
+opponents. In many native broils and in the British campaign of
+1881 he had shown himself a capable leader. His record in standing
+out for the independence of the Transvaal was a very consistent
+one, for he had not accepted office under the British, as Kruger
+had done, but had remained always an irreconcilable. Tall and
+burly, with hard grey eyes and a grim mouth half hidden by his
+bushy beard, he was a fine type of the men whom he led. He was now
+in his sixty-fifth year, and the fire of his youth had, as some of
+the burghers urged, died down within him; but he was experienced,
+crafty, and warwise, never dashing and never brilliant, but slow,
+steady, solid, and inexorable.
+
+Besides this northern army there were two other bodies of burghers
+converging upon Natal. One, consisting of the commandoes from
+Utrecht and the Swaziland districts, had gathered at Vryheid on the
+flank of the British position at Dundee. The other, much larger,
+not less probably than six or seven thousand men, were the
+contingent from the Free State and a Transvaal corps, together with
+Schiel's Germans, who were making their way through the various
+passes, the Tintwa Pass, and Van Reenen's Pass, which lead through
+the grim range of the Drakensberg and open out upon the more
+fertile plains of Western Natal. The total force may have been
+something between twenty and thirty thousand men. By all accounts
+they were of an astonishingly high heart, convinced that a path of
+easy victory lay before them, and that nothing could bar their way
+to the sea. If the British commanders underrated their opponents,
+there is ample evidence that the mistake was reciprocal.
+
+A few words now as to the disposition of the British forces,
+concerning which it must be borne in mind that Sir George White,
+though in actual command, had only been a few days in the country
+before war was declared, so that the arrangements fell to General
+Penn Symons, aided or hampered by the advice of the local political
+authorities. The main position was at Ladysmith, but an advance
+post was strongly held at Glencoe, which is five miles from the
+station of Dundee and forty from Ladysmith. The reason for this
+dangerous division of force was to secure each end of the
+Biggarsberg section of the railway, and also to cover the important
+collieries of that district. The positions chosen seem in each case
+to show that the British commander was not aware of the number and
+power of the Boer guns, for each was equally defensible against
+rifle fire and vulnerable to an artillery attack. In the case of
+Glencoe it was particularly evident that guns upon the hills above
+would, as they did, render the position untenable. This outlying
+post was held by the 1st Leicester Regiment, the 2nd Dublin
+Fusiliers, and the first battalion of Rifles, with the 18th
+Hussars, three companies of mounted infantry, and three batteries
+of field artillery, the 13th, 67th, and 69th. The 1st Royal Irish
+Fusiliers were on their way to reinforce it, and arrived before the
+first action. Altogether the Glencoe camp contained some four
+thousand men.
+
+The main body of the army remained at Ladysmith. These consisted of
+the 1st Devons, the 1st Liverpools, and the 2nd Gordon Highlanders,
+with the 1st Gloucesters, the 2nd King's Royal Rifles, and the 2nd
+Rifle Brigade, reinforced later by the Manchesters. The cavalry
+included the 5th Dragoon Guards, the 5th Lancers, a detachment of
+19th Hussars, the Natal Carabineers, the Natal Mounted Police, and
+the Border Mounted Rifles, reinforced later by the Imperial Light
+Horse, a fine body of men raised principally among the refugees
+from the Rand. For artillery there were the 21st, 42nd, and 53rd
+batteries of field artillery, and No. 10 Mountain Battery, with the
+Natal Field Artillery, the guns of which were too light to be of
+service, and the 23rd Company of Royal Engineers. The whole force,
+some eight or nine thousand strong, was under the immediate command
+of Sir George White, with Sir Archibald Hunter, fresh from the
+Soudan, General French, and General Ian Hamilton as his
+lieutenants.
+
+The first shock of the Boers, then, must fall upon 4000 men. If
+these could be overwhelmed, there were 8000 more to be defeated or
+masked. Then what was there between them and the sea? Some
+detachments of local volunteers, the Durban Light Infantry at
+Colenso, and the Natal Royal Rifles, with some naval volunteers at
+Estcourt. With the power of the Boers and their mobility it is
+inexplicable how the colony was saved. We are of the same blood,
+the Boers and we, and we show it in our failings. Over-confidence
+on our part gave them the chance, and over-confidence on theirs
+prevented them from instantly availing themselves of it. It passed,
+never to come again.
+
+The outbreak of war was upon October 11th. On the 12th the Boer
+forces crossed the frontier both on the north and on the west. On
+the 13th they occupied Charlestown at the top angle of Natal. On
+the 15th they had reached Newcastle, a larger town some fifteen
+miles inside the border. Watchers from the houses saw six miles of
+canvas-tilted bullock wagons winding down the passes, and learned
+that this was not a raid but an invasion. At the same date news
+reached the British headquarters of an advance from the western
+passes, and of a movement from the Buffalo River on the east. On
+the 13th Sir George White had made a reconnaissance in force, but
+had not come in touch with the enemy. On the 15th six of the Natal
+Police were surrounded and captured at one of the drifts of the
+Buffalo River. On the 18th our cavalry patrols came into touch with
+the Boer scouts at Acton Homes and Besters Station, these being the
+voortrekkers of the Orange Free State force. On the 18th also a
+detachment was reported from Hadders Spruit, seven miles north of
+Glencoe Camp. The cloud was drifting up, and it could not be long
+before it would burst.
+
+Two days later, on the early morning of October 20th, the forces
+came at last into collision. At half-past three in the morning,
+well before daylight, the mounted infantry picket at the junction
+of the roads from Landmans and Vants Drifts was fired into by the
+Doornberg commando, and retired upon its supports. Two companies of
+the Dublin Fusiliers were sent out, and at five o'clock on a fine
+but misty morning the whole of Symons's force was under arms with
+the knowledge that the Boers were pushing boldly towards them. The
+khaki-clad lines of fighting men stood in their long thin ranks
+staring up at the curves of the saddle-back hills to the north and
+east of them, and straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of the
+enemy. Why these same saddle-back hills were not occupied by our
+own people is, it must be confessed, an insoluble mystery. In a
+hollow on one flank were the 18th Hussars and the mounted infantry.
+On the other were the eighteen motionless guns, limbered up and
+ready, the horses fidgeting and stamping in the raw morning air.
+
+And then suddenly--could that be they? An officer with a telescope
+stared intently and pointed. Another and another turned a steady
+field glass towards the same place. And then the men could see
+also, and a little murmur of interest ran down the ranks.
+
+A long sloping hill--Talana Hill--olive-green in hue, was
+stretching away in front of them. At the summit it rose into a
+rounded crest. The mist was clearing, and the curve was
+hard-outlined against the limpid blue of the morning sky. On this,
+some two and a half miles or three miles off, a little group of
+black dots had appeared. The clear edge of the skyline had become
+serrated with moving figures. They clustered into a knot, then
+opened again, and then--
+
+There had been no smoke, but there came a long crescendo hoot,
+rising into a shrill wail. The shell hummed over the soldiers like
+a great bee, and sloshed into soft earth behind them. Then
+another--and yet another--and yet another. But there was no time to
+heed them, for there was the hillside and there the enemy. So at it
+again with the good old murderous obsolete heroic tactics of the
+British tradition! There are times when, in spite of science and
+book-lore, the best plan is the boldest plan, and it is well to fly
+straight at your enemy's throat, facing the chance that your
+strength may fail before you can grasp it. The cavalry moved off
+round the enemy's left flank. The guns dashed to the front,
+unlimbered, and opened fire. The infantry were moved round in the
+direction of Sandspruit, passing through the little town of Dundee,
+where the women and children came to the doors and windows to cheer
+them. It was thought that the hill was more accessible from that
+side. The Leicesters and one field battery--the 67th--were left
+behind to protect the camp and to watch the Newcastle Road upon the
+west. At seven in the morning all was ready for the assault.
+
+Two military facts of importance had already been disclosed. One
+was that the Boer percussion-shells were useless in soft ground, as
+hardly any of them exploded; the other that the Boer guns could
+outrange our ordinary fifteen-pounder field gun, which had been the
+one thing perhaps in the whole British equipment upon which we were
+prepared to pin our faith. The two batteries, the 13th and the
+69th, were moved nearer, first to 3000, and then at last to 2300
+yards, at which range they quickly dominated the guns upon the
+hill. Other guns had opened from another crest to the east of
+Talana, but these also were mastered by the fire of the 13th
+Battery. At 7.30 the infantry were ordered to advance, which they
+did in open order, extended to ten paces. The Dublin Fusiliers
+formed the first line, the Rifles the second, and the Irish
+Fusiliers the third.
+
+The first thousand yards of the advance were over open grassland,
+where the range was long, and the yellow brown of the khaki blended
+with the withered veld. There were few casualties until the wood
+was reached, which lay halfway up the long slope of the hill. It
+was a plantation of larches, some hundreds of yards across and
+nearly as many deep. On the left side of this wood--that is, the
+left side to the advancing troops--there stretched a long nullah or
+hollow, which ran perpendicularly to the hill, and served rather as
+a conductor of bullets than as a cover. So severe was the fire at
+this point that both in the wood and in the nullah the troops lay
+down to avoid it. An officer of Irish Fusiliers has narrated how in
+trying to cut the straps from a fallen private a razor lent him for
+that purpose by a wounded sergeant was instantly shot out of his
+hand. The gallant Symons, who had refused to dismount, was shot
+through the stomach and fell from his horse mortally wounded. With
+an excessive gallantry, he had not only attracted the enemy's fire
+by retaining his horse, but he had been accompanied throughout the
+action by an orderly bearing a red pennon. 'Have they got the hill?
+Have they got the hill?' was his one eternal question as they
+carried him dripping to the rear. It was at the edge of the wood
+that Colonel Sherston met his end.
+
+From now onwards it was as much a soldiers' battle as Inkermann. In
+the shelter of the wood the more eager of the three battalions had
+pressed to the front until the fringe of the trees was lined by men
+from all of them. The difficulty of distinguishing particular
+regiments where all were clad alike made it impossible in the heat
+of action to keep any sort of formation. So hot was the fire that
+for the time the advance was brought to a standstill, but the 69th
+battery, firing shrapnel at a range of 1400 yards, subdued the
+rifle fire, and about half-past eleven the infantry were able to
+push on once more.
+
+Above the wood there was an open space some hundreds of yards
+across, bounded by a rough stone wall built for herding cattle. A
+second wall ran at right angles to this down towards the wood. An
+enfilading rifle fire had been sweeping across this open space, but
+the wall in front does not appear to have been occupied by the
+enemy, who held the kopje above it. To avoid the cross fire the
+soldiers ran in single file under the shelter of the wall, which
+covered them to the right, and so reached the other wall across
+their front. Here there was a second long delay, the men dribbling
+up from below, and firing over the top of the wall and between the
+chinks of the stones. The Dublin Fusiliers, through being in a more
+difficult position, had been unable to get up as quickly as the
+others, and most of the hard-breathing excited men who crowded
+under the wall were of the Rifles and of the Irish Fusiliers. The
+air was so full of bullets that it seemed impossible to live upon
+the other side of this shelter. Two hundred yards intervened
+between the wall and the crest of the kopje. And yet the kopje had
+to be cleared if the battle were to be won.
+
+Out of the huddled line of crouching men an officer sprang
+shouting, and a score of soldiers vaulted over the wall and
+followed at his heels. It was Captain Connor, of the Irish
+Fusiliers, but his personal magnetism carried up with him some of
+the Rifles as well as men of his own command. He and half his
+little forlorn hope were struck down--he, alas! to die the same
+night--but there were other leaders as brave to take his place.
+'Forrard away, men, forrard away!' cried Nugent, of the Rifles.
+Three bullets struck him, but he continued to drag himself up the
+boulder-studded hill. Others followed, and others, from all sides
+they came running, the crouching, yelling, khaki-clad figures, and
+the supports rushed up from the rear. For a time they were beaten
+down by their own shrapnel striking into them from behind, which is
+an amazing thing when one considers that the range was under 2000
+yards. It was here, between the wall and the summit, that Colonel
+Gunning, of the Rifles, and many other brave men met their end,
+some by our own bullets and some by those of the enemy; but the
+Boers thinned away in front of them, and the anxious onlookers from
+the plain below saw the waving helmets on the crest, and learned at
+last that all was well.
+
+But it was, it must be confessed, a Pyrrhic victory. We had our
+hill, but what else had we? The guns which had been silenced by our
+fire had been removed from the kopje. The commando which seized the
+hill was that of Lucas Meyer, and it is computed that he had with
+him about 4000 men. This figure includes those under the command of
+Erasmus, who made halfhearted demonstrations against the British
+flank. If the shirkers be eliminated, it is probable that there
+were not more than a thousand actual combatants upon the hill. Of
+this number about fifty were killed and a hundred wounded. The
+British loss at Talana Hill itself was 41 killed and 180 wounded,
+but among the killed were many whom the army could ill spare. The
+gallant but optimistic Symons, Gunning of the Rifles, Sherston,
+Connor, Hambro, and many other brave men died that day. The loss of
+officers was out of all proportion to that of the men.
+
+An incident which occurred immediately after the action did much to
+rob the British of the fruits of the victory. Artillery had pushed
+up the moment that the hill was carried, and had unlimbered on
+Smith's Nek between the two hills, from which the enemy, in broken
+groups of 50 and 100, could be seen streaming away. A fairer chance
+for the use of shrapnel has never been. But at this instant there
+ran from an old iron church on the reverse side of the hill, which
+had been used all day as a Boer hospital, a man with a white flag.
+It is probable that the action was in good faith, and that it was
+simply intended to claim a protection for the ambulance party which
+followed him. But the too confiding gunner in command appears to
+have thought that an armistice had been declared, and held his hand
+during those precious minutes which might have turned a defeat into
+a rout. The chance passed, never to return. The double error of
+firing into our own advance and of failing to fire into the enemy's
+retreat makes the battle one which cannot be looked back to with
+satisfaction by our gunners.
+
+In the meantime some miles away another train of events had led to
+a complete disaster to our small cavalry force--a disaster which
+robbed our dearly bought infantry victory of much of its
+importance. That action alone was undoubtedly a victorious one, but
+the net result of the day's fighting cannot be said to have been
+certainly in our favour. It was Wellington who asserted that his
+cavalry always got him into scrapes, and the whole of British
+military history might furnish examples of what he meant. Here
+again our cavalry got into trouble. Suffice it for the civilian to
+chronicle the fact, and leave it to the military critic to portion
+out the blame.
+
+One company of mounted infantry (that of the Rifles) had been told
+off to form an escort for the guns. The rest of the mounted
+infantry with part of the 18th Hussars (Colonel Moller) had moved
+round the right flank until they reached the right rear of the
+enemy. Such a movement, had Lucas Meyer been the only opponent,
+would have been above criticism; but knowing, as we did, that there
+were several commandoes converging upon Glencoe it was obviously
+taking a very grave and certain risk to allow the cavalry to wander
+too far from support. They were soon entangled in broken country
+and attacked by superior numbers of the Boers. There was a time
+when they might have exerted an important influence upon the action
+by attacking the Boer ponies behind the hills, but the opportunity
+was allowed to pass. An attempt was made to get back to the army,
+and a series of defensive positions were held to cover the retreat,
+but the enemy's fire became too hot to allow them to be retained.
+Every route save one appeared to be blocked, so the horsemen took
+this, which led them into the heart of a second commando of the
+enemy. Finding no way through, the force took up a defensive
+position, part of them in a farm and part on a kopje which
+overlooked it.
+
+The party consisted of two troops of Hussars, one company of
+mounted infantry of the Dublin Fusiliers, and one section of the
+mounted infantry of the Rifles--about two hundred men in all. They
+were subjected to a hot fire for some hours, many being killed and
+wounded. Guns were brought up, and fired shell into the farmhouse.
+At 4.30 the force, being in a perfectly hopeless position, laid
+down their arms. Their ammunition was gone, many of their horses
+had stampeded, and they were hemmed in by very superior numbers, so
+that no slightest slur can rest upon the survivors for their
+decision to surrender, though the movements which brought them to
+such a pass are more open to criticism. They were the vanguard of
+that considerable body of humiliated and bitter-hearted men who
+were to assemble at the capital of our brave and crafty enemy. The
+remainder of the 18th Hussars, who under Major Knox had been
+detached from the main force and sent across the Boer rear,
+underwent a somewhat similar experience, but succeeded in
+extricating themselves with a loss of six killed and ten wounded.
+Their efforts were by no means lost, as they engaged the attention
+of a considerable body of Boers during the day and were able to
+bring some prisoners back with them.
+
+The battle of Talana Hill was a tactical victory but a strategic
+defeat. It was a crude frontal attack without any attempt at even a
+feint of flanking, but the valour of the troops, from general to
+private, carried it through. The force was in a position so
+radically false that the only use which they could make of a
+victory was to cover their own retreat. From all points Boer
+commandoes were converging upon it, and already it was understood
+that the guns at their command were heavier than any which could be
+placed against them. This was made more clear on October 21st, the
+day after the battle, when the force, having withdrawn overnight
+from the useless hill which they had captured, moved across to a
+fresh position on the far side of the railway. At four in the
+afternoon a very heavy gun opened from a distant hill, altogether
+beyond the extreme range of our artillery, and plumped shell after
+shell into our camp. It was the first appearance of the great
+Creusot. An officer with several men of the Leicesters, and some of
+our few remaining cavalry, were bit. The position was clearly
+impossible, so at two in the morning of the 22nd the whole force
+was moved to a point to the south of the town of Dundee. On the
+same day a reconnaissance was made in the direction of Glencoe
+Station, but the passes were found to be strongly occupied, and the
+little army marched back again to its original position. The
+command had fallen to Colonel Yule, who justly considered that his
+men were dangerously and uselessly exposed, and that his correct
+strategy was to fall back, if it were still possible, and join the
+main body at Ladysmith, even at the cost of abandoning the two
+hundred sick and wounded who lay with General Symons in the
+hospital at Dundee. It was a painful necessity, but no one who
+studies the situation can have any doubt of its wisdom. The retreat
+was no easy task, a march by road of some sixty or seventy miles
+through a very rough country with an enemy pressing on every side.
+Its successful completion without any loss or any demoralisation of
+the troops is perhaps as fine a military exploit as any of our
+early victories. Through the energetic and loyal co-operation of
+Sir George White, who fought the actions of Elandslaagte and of
+Rietfontein in order to keep the way open for them, and owing
+mainly to the skillful guidance of Colonel Dartnell, of the Natal
+Police, they succeeded in their critical manoeuvre. On October 23rd
+they were at Beith, on the 24th at Waselibank Spruit, on the 25th
+at Sunday River, and next morning they marched, sodden with rain,
+plastered with mud, dog-tired, but in the best of spirits, into
+Ladysmith amid the cheers of their comrades. A battle, six days
+without settled sleep, four days without a proper meal, winding up
+with a single march of thirty-two miles over heavy ground and
+through a pelting rain storm--that was the record of the Dundee
+column. They had fought and won, they had striven and toiled to the
+utmost capacity of manhood, and the end of it all was that they had
+reached the spot which they should never have left. But their
+endurance could not be lost--no worthy deed is ever lost. Like the
+light division, when they marched their fifty odd unbroken miles to
+be present at Talavera, they leave a memory and a standard behind
+them which is more important than success. It is by the tradition
+of such sufferings and such endurance that others in other days are
+nerved to do the like.
+
+CHAPTER 6.
+
+ELANDSLAAGTE AND RIETFONTEIN.
+
+While the Glencoe force had struck furiously at the army of Lucas
+Meyer, and had afterwards by hard marching disengaged itself from
+the numerous dangers which threatened it, its comrades at Ladysmith
+had loyally co-operated in drawing off the attention of the enemy
+and keeping the line of retreat open.
+
+On October 20th--the same day as the Battle of Talana Hill--the
+line was cut by the Boers at a point nearly midway between Dundee
+and Ladysmith. A small body of horsemen were the forerunners of a
+considerable commando, composed of Freestaters, Transvaalers, and
+Germans, who had advanced into Natal through Botha's Pass under the
+command of General Koch. They had with them the two
+Maxim-Nordenfelds which had been captured from the Jameson raiders,
+and were now destined to return once more to British hands. Colonel
+Schiel, the German artillerist, had charge of these guns.
+
+On the evening of that day General French, with a strong
+reconnoitering party, including the Natal Carabineers, the 5th
+Lancers, and the 21st battery, had defined the enemy's position.
+Next morning (the 21st) he returned, but either the enemy had been
+reinforced during the night or he had underrated them the day
+before, for the force which he took with him was too weak for any
+serious attack. He had one battery of the Natal artillery, with
+their little seven-pounder popguns, five squadrons of the Imperial
+Horse, and, in the train which slowly accompanied his advance, half
+a battalion of the Manchester Regiment. Elated by the news of
+Talana Hill, and anxious to emulate their brothers of Dundee, the
+little force moved out of Ladysmith in the early morning.
+
+Some at least of the men were animated by feelings such as seldom
+find a place in the breast of the British soldier as he marches
+into battle. A sense of duty, a belief in the justice of his cause,
+a love for his regiment and for his country, these are the common
+incentives of every soldier. But to the men of the Imperial Light
+Horse, recruited as they were from among the British refugees of
+the Rand, there was added a burning sense of injustice, and in many
+cases a bitter hatred against the men whose rule had weighed so
+heavily upon them. In this singular corps the ranks were full of
+wealthy men and men of education, who, driven from their peaceful
+vocations in Johannesburg, were bent upon fighting their way back
+to them again. A most unmerited slur had been cast upon their
+courage in connection with the Jameson raid--a slur which they and
+other similar corps have washed out for ever in their own blood and
+that of their enemy. Chisholm, a fiery little Lancer, was in
+command, with Karri Davis and Wools-Sampson, the two stalwarts who
+had preferred Pretoria Gaol to the favours of Kruger, as his
+majors. The troopers were on fire at the news that a cartel had
+arrived in Ladysmith the night before, purporting to come from the
+Johannesburg Boers and Hollanders, asking what uniform the Light
+Horse wore, as they were anxious to meet them in battle. These men
+were fellow townsmen and knew each other well. They need not have
+troubled about the uniform, for before evening the Light Horse were
+near enough for them to know their faces.
+
+It was about eight o'clock on a bright summer morning that the
+small force came in contact with a few scattered Boer outposts, who
+retired, firing, before the advance of the Imperial Light Horse. As
+they fell back the green and white tents of the invaders came into
+view upon the russet-coloured hillside of Elandslaagte. Down at the
+red brick railway station the Boers could be seen swarming out of
+the buildings in which they had spent the night. The little Natal
+guns, firing with obsolete black powder, threw a few shells into
+the station, one of which, it is said, penetrated a Boer ambulance
+which could not be seen by the gunners. The accident was to be
+regretted, but as no patients could have been in the ambulance the
+mischance was not a serious one.
+
+But the busy, smoky little seven-pounder guns were soon to meet
+their master. Away up on the distant hillside, a long thousand
+yards beyond their own furthest range, there was a sudden bright
+flash. No smoke, only the throb of flame, and then the long
+sibilant scream of the shell, and the thud as it buried itself in
+the ground under a limber. Such judgment of range would have
+delighted the most martinet of inspectors at Okehampton. Bang came
+another, and another, and another, right into the heart of the
+battery. The six little guns lay back at their extremest angle, and
+all barked together in impotent fury. Another shell pitched over
+them, and the officer in command lowered his field-glass in despair
+as he saw his own shells bursting far short upon the hillside.
+Jameson's defeat does not seem to have been due to any defect in
+his artillery. French, peering and pondering, soon came to the
+conclusion that there were too many Boers for him, and that if
+those fifteen-pounders desired target practice they should find
+some other mark than the Natal Field Artillery. A few curt orders,
+and his whole force was making its way to the rear. There, out of
+range of those perilous guns, they halted, the telegraph wire was
+cut, a telephone attachment was made, and French whispered his
+troubles into the sympathetic ear of Ladysmith. He did not whisper
+in vain. What he had to say was that where he had expected a few
+hundred riflemen he found something like two thousand, and that
+where he expected no guns he found two very excellent ones. The
+reply was that by road and by rail as many men as could be spared
+were on their way to join him.
+
+Soon they began to drop in, those useful reinforcements--first the
+Devons, quiet, business-like, reliable; then the Gordons, dashing,
+fiery, brilliant. Two squadrons of the 5th Lancers, the 42nd R.F.A.,
+the 21st R.F.A., another squadron of Lancers, a squadron of the
+5th Dragoon Guards--French began to feel that he was strong enough
+for the task in front of him. He had a decided superiority of
+numbers and of guns. But the others were on their favourite
+defensive on a hill. It would be a fair fight and a deadly one.
+
+It was late after noon before the advance began. It was hard, among
+those billowing hills, to make out the exact limits of the enemy's
+position. All that was certain was that they were there, and that
+we meant having them out if it were humanly possible. 'The enemy
+are there,' said Ian Hamilton to his infantry; 'I hope you will
+shift them out before sunset--in fact I know you will.' The men
+cheered and laughed. In long open lines they advanced across the
+veld, while the thunder of the two batteries behind them told the
+Boer gunners that it was their turn now to know what it was to be
+outmatched.
+
+The idea was to take the position by a front and a flank attack,
+but there seems to have been some difficulty in determining which
+was the front and which the flank. In fact, it was only by trying
+that one could know. General White with his staff had arrived from
+Ladysmith, but refused to take the command out of French's hands.
+It is typical of White's chivalrous spirit that within ten days he
+refused to identify himself with a victory when it was within his
+right to do so, and took the whole responsibility for a disaster at
+which he was not present. Now he rode amid the shells and watched
+the able dispositions of his lieutenant.
+
+About half-past three the action had fairly begun. In front of the
+advancing British there lay a rolling hill, topped by a further
+one. The lower hill was not defended, and the infantry, breaking
+from column of companies into open order, advanced over it. Beyond
+was a broad grassy valley which led up to the main position, a long
+kopje flanked by a small sugar-loaf one Behind the green slope
+which led to the ridge of death an ominous and terrible cloud was
+driving up, casting its black shadow over the combatants. There was
+the stillness which goes before some great convulsion of nature.
+The men pressed on in silence, the soft thudding of their feet and
+the rattle of their sidearms filling the air with a low and
+continuous murmur. An additional solemnity was given to the attack
+by that huge black cloud which hung before them.
+
+The British guns had opened at a range of 4400 yards, and now
+against the swarthy background there came the quick smokeless
+twinkle of the Boer reply. It was an unequal fight, but gallantly
+sustained. A shot and another to find the range; then a wreath of
+smoke from a bursting shell exactly where the guns had been,
+followed by another and another. Overmatched, the two Boer pieces
+relapsed into a sulky silence, broken now and again by short spurts
+of frenzied activity. The British batteries turned their attention
+away from them, and began to search the ridge with shrapnel and
+prepare the way for the advancing infantry.
+
+The scheme was that the Devonshires should hold the enemy in front
+while the main attack from the left flank was carried out by the
+Gordons, the Manchesters, and the Imperial Light Horse. The words
+'front' and 'flank,' however, cease to have any meaning with so
+mobile and elastic a force, and the attack which was intended to
+come from the left became really a frontal one, while the Devons
+found themselves upon the right flank of the Boers. At the moment
+of the final advance the great black cloud had burst, and a torrent
+of rain lashed into the faces of the men. Slipping and sliding upon
+the wet grass, they advanced to the assault.
+
+And now amid the hissing of the rain there came the fuller, more
+menacing whine of the Mauser bullets, and the ridge rattled from
+end to end with the rifle fire. Men fell fast, but their comrades
+pressed hotly on. There was a long way to go, for the summit of the
+position was nearly 800 feet above the level of the railway. The
+hillside, which had appeared to be one slope, was really a
+succession of undulations, so that the advancing infantry
+alternately dipped into shelter and emerged into a hail of bullets.
+The line of advance was dotted with khaki-clad figures, some still
+in death, some writhing in their agony. Amid the litter of bodies a
+major of the Gordons, shot through the leg, sat philosophically
+smoking his pipe. Plucky little Chisholm, Colonel of the Imperials,
+had fallen with two mortal wounds as he dashed forward waving a
+coloured sash in the air. So long was the advance and so trying the
+hill that the men sank panting upon the ground, and took their
+breath before making another rush. As at Talana Hill, regimental
+formation was largely gone, and men of the Manchesters, Gordons,
+and Imperial Light Horse surged upwards in one long ragged fringe,
+Scotchman, Englishman, and British Africander keeping pace in that
+race of death. And now at last they began to see their enemy. Here
+and there among the boulders in front of them there was the glimpse
+of a slouched hat, or a peep at a flushed bearded face which
+drooped over a rifle barrel. There was a pause, and then with a
+fresh impulse the wave of men gathered themselves together and
+flung themselves forward. Dark figures sprang up from the rocks in
+front. Some held up their rifles in token of surrender. Some ran
+with heads sunk between their shoulders, jumping and ducking among
+the rocks. The panting breathless climbers were on the edge of the
+plateau. There were the two guns which had flashed so brightly,
+silenced now, with a litter of dead gunners around them and one
+wounded officer standing by a trail. A small body of the Boers
+still resisted. Their appearance horrified some of our men. 'They
+were dressed in black frock coats and looked like a lot of rather
+seedy business men,' said a spectator. 'It seemed like murder to
+kill them.' Some surrendered, and some fought to the death where
+they stood. Their leader Koch, an old gentleman with a white beard,
+lay amidst the rocks, wounded in three places. He was treated with
+all courtesy and attention, but died in Ladysmith Hospital some
+days afterwards.
+
+In the meanwhile the Devonshire Regiment had waited until the
+attack had developed and had then charged the hill upon the flank,
+while the artillery moved up until it was within 2000 yards of the
+enemy's position. The Devons met with a less fierce resistance than
+the others, and swept up to the summit in time to head off some of
+the fugitives. The whole of our infantry were now upon the ridge.
+
+But even so these dour fighters were not beaten. They clung
+desperately to the further edges of the plateau, firing from behind
+the rocks. There had been a race for the nearest gun between an
+officer of the Manchesters and a drummer sergeant of the Gordons.
+The officer won, and sprang in triumph on to the piece. Men of all
+regiments swarmed round yelling and cheering, when upon their
+astonished ears there sounded the 'Cease fire' and then the
+'Retire.' It was incredible, and yet it pealed out again,
+unmistakable in its urgency. With the instinct of discipline the
+men were slowly falling back. And then the truth of it came upon
+the minds of some of them. The crafty enemy had learned our bugle
+calls. 'Retire be damned! shrieked a little bugler, and blew the
+'Advance' with all the breath that the hillside had left him. The
+men, who had retired a hundred yards and uncovered the guns,
+flooded back over the plateau, and in the Boer camp which lay
+beneath it a white flag showed that the game was up. A squadron of
+the 5th Lancers and of the 5th Dragoon Guards, under Colonel Gore
+of the latter regiment, had prowled round the base of the hill, and
+in the fading light they charged through and through the retreating
+Boers, killing several, and making from twenty to thirty prisoners.
+It was one of the very few occasions in the war where the mounted
+Briton overtook the mounted Boer.
+
+'What price Majuba?' was the cry raised by some of the infantry as
+they dashed up to the enemy's position, and the action may indeed
+be said to have been in some respects the converse of that famous
+fight. It is true that there were many more British at Elandslaagte
+than Boers at Majuba, but then the defending force was much more
+numerous also, and the British had no guns there. It is true, also,
+that Majuba is very much more precipitous than Elandslaagte, but
+then every practical soldier knows that it is easier to defend a
+moderate glacis than an abrupt slope, which gives cover under its
+boulders to the attacker while the defender has to crane his head
+over the edge to look down. On the whole, this brilliant little
+action may be said to have restored things to their true
+proportion, and to have shown that, brave as the Boers undoubtedly
+are, there is no military feat within their power which is not
+equally possible to the British soldier. Talana Hill and
+Elandslaagte, fought on successive days, were each of them as
+gallant an exploit as Majuba.
+
+We had more to show for our victory than for the previous one at
+Dundee. Two Maxim-Nordenfeld guns, whose efficiency had been
+painfully evident during the action, were a welcome addition to our
+artillery. Two hundred and fifty Boers were killed and wounded and
+about two hundred taken prisoners, the loss falling most heavily
+upon the Johannesburgers, the Germans, and the Hollanders. General
+Koch, Dr. Coster, Colonel Schiel, Pretorius, and other well-known
+Transvaalers fell into our hands. Our own casualty list consisted
+of 41 killed and 220 wounded, much the same number as at Talana
+Hill, the heaviest losses falling upon the Gordon Highlanders and
+the Imperial Light Horse.
+
+In the hollow where the Boer tents had stood, amid the laagered
+wagons of the vanquished, under a murky sky and a constant drizzle
+of rain, the victors spent the night. Sleep was out of the
+question, for all night the fatigue parties were searching the
+hillside and the wounded were being carried in. Camp-fires were lit
+and soldiers and prisoners crowded round them, and it is pleasant
+to recall that the warmest corner and the best of their rude fare
+were always reserved for the downcast Dutchmen, while words of rude
+praise and sympathy softened the pain of defeat. It is the memory
+of such things which may in happier days be more potent than all
+the wisdom of statesmen in welding our two races into one.
+
+Having cleared the Boer force from the line of the railway, it is
+evident that General White could not continue to garrison the
+point, as he was aware that considerable forces were moving from
+the north, and his first duty was the security of Ladysmith. Early
+next morning (October 22nd), therefore, his weary but victorious
+troops returned to the town. Once there he learned, no doubt, that
+General Yule had no intention of using the broken railway for his
+retreat, but that he intended to come in a circuitous fashion by
+road. White's problem was to hold tight to the town and at the same
+time to strike hard at any northern force so as to prevent them
+from interfering with Yule's retreat. It was in the furtherance of
+this scheme that he fought upon October 24th the action of
+Rietfontein, an engagement slight in itself, but important on
+account of the clear road which was secured for the weary forces
+retiring from Dundee.
+
+The army from the Free State, of which the commando vanquished at
+Elandslaagte was the vanguard, had been slowly and steadily
+debouching from the passes, and working south and eastwards to cut
+the line between Dundee and Ladysmith. It was White's intention to
+prevent them from crossing the Newcastle Road, and for this purpose
+he sallied out of Ladysmith on Tuesday the 24th, having with him
+two regiments of cavalry, the 5th Lancers and the 19th Hussars, the
+42nd and 53rd field batteries with the 10th mountain battery, four
+infantry regiments, the Devons, Liverpools, Gloucesters, and 2nd
+King's Royal Rifles, the Imperial Light Horse, and the Natal
+Volunteers--some four thousand men in all.
+
+The enemy were found to be in possession of a line of hills within
+seven miles of Ladysmith, the most conspicuous of which is called
+Tinta Inyoni. It was no part of General White's plan to attempt to
+drive him from this position--it is not wise generalship to fight
+always upon ground of the enemy's choosing--but it was important to
+hold him where he was, and to engage his attention during this last
+day of the march of the retreating column. For this purpose, since
+no direct attack was intended, the guns were of more importance
+than the infantry--and indeed the infantry should, one might
+imagine, have been used solely as an escort for the artillery. A
+desultory and inconclusive action ensued which continued from nine
+in the morning until half-past one in the afternoon. A
+well-directed fire of the Boer guns from the hills was dominated
+and controlled by our field artillery, while the advance of their
+riflemen was restrained by shrapnel. The enemy's guns were more
+easily marked down than at Elandslaagte, as they used black powder.
+The ranges varied from three to four thousand yards. Our losses in
+the whole action would have been insignificant had it not happened
+that the Gloucester Regiment advanced somewhat incautiously into
+the open and was caught in a cross fire of musketry which struck
+down Colonel Wilford and fifty of his officers and men. Within four
+days Colonel Dick-Cunyngham, of the Gordons, Colonel Chisholm, of
+the Light Horse, Colonel Gunning, of the Rifles, and now Colonel
+Wilford, of the Gloucesters, had all fallen at the head of their
+regiments. In the afternoon General White, having accomplished his
+purpose and secured the safety of the Dundee column while
+traversing the dangerous Biggarsberg passes, withdrew his force to
+Ladysmith. We have no means of ascertaining the losses of the
+Boers, but they were probably slight. On our side we lost 109
+killed and wounded, of which only 13 cases were fatal. Of this
+total 64 belonged to the Gloucesters and 25 to the troops raised in
+Natal. Next day, as already narrated, the whole British army was
+re-assembled once more at Ladysmith, and the campaign was to enter
+upon a new phase.
+
+At the end of this first vigorous week of hostilities it is
+interesting to sum up the net result. The strategical advantage had
+lain with the Boers. They had made our position at Dundee untenable
+and had driven us back to Ladysmith. They had the country and the
+railway for the northern quarter of the colony in their possession.
+They had killed and wounded between six and seven hundred of our
+men, and they had captured some two hundred of our cavalry, while
+we had been compelled at Dundee to leave considerable stores and
+our wounded, including General Penn Symons, who actually died while
+a prisoner in their hands. On the other hand, the tactical
+advantages lay with us. We had twice driven them from their
+positions, and captured two of their guns. We had taken two hundred
+prisoners. and had probably killed and wounded as many as we had
+lost. On the whole, the honours of that week's fighting in Natal
+may be said to have been fairly equal--which is more than we could
+claim for many a weary week to come.
+
+CHAPTER 7.
+
+THE BATTLE OF LADYSMITH.
+
+Sir George White had now reunited his force, and found himself in
+command of a formidable little army some twelve thousand in number.
+His cavalry included the 5th Lancers, the 5th Dragoons, part of the
+18th and the whole of the 19th Hussars, the Natal Carabineers, the
+Border Rifles, some mounted infantry, and the Imperial Light Horse.
+Among his infantry were the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Dublin
+Fusiliers, and the King's Royal Rifles, fresh from the ascent of
+Talana Hill, the Gordons, the Manchesters, and the Devons who had
+been blooded at Elandslaagte, the Leicesters, the Liverpools, the
+2nd battalion of the King's Royal Rifles, the 2nd Rifle Brigade,
+and the Gloucesters, who had been so roughly treated at
+Rietfontein. He had six batteries of excellent field artillery--the
+13th, 21st, 42nd, 53rd, 67th, 69th, and No. 10 Mountain Battery of
+screw guns. No general could have asked for a more compact and
+workmanlike little force.
+
+It had been recognised by the British General from the beginning
+that his tactics must be defensive, since he was largely
+outnumbered and since also any considerable mishap to his force
+would expose the whole colony of Natal to destruction. The actions
+of Elandslaagte and Rietfontein were forced upon him in order to
+disengage his compromised detachment, but now there was no longer
+any reason why he should assume the offensive. He knew that away
+out on the Atlantic a trail of transports which already extended
+from the Channel to Cape de Verde were hourly drawing nearer to him
+with the army corps from England. In a fortnight or less the first
+of them would be at Durban. It was his game, therefore, to keep his
+army intact, and to let those throbbing engines and whirling
+propellers do the work of the empire. Had he entrenched himself up
+to his nose and waited, it would have paid him best in the end.
+
+But so tame and inglorious a policy is impossible to a fighting
+soldier. He could not with his splendid force permit himself to be
+shut in without an action. What policy demands honour may forbid.
+On October 27th there were already Boers and rumours of Boers on
+every side of him. Joubert with his main body was moving across
+from Dundee. The Freestaters were to the north and west. Their
+combined numbers were uncertain, but at least it was already proved
+that they were far more numerous and also more formidable than had
+been anticipated. We had had a taste of their artillery also, and
+the pleasant delusion that it would be a mere useless encumbrance
+to a Boer force had vanished for ever. It was a grave thing to
+leave the town in order to give battle, for the mobile enemy might
+swing round and seize it behind us. Nevertheless White determined
+to make the venture.
+
+On the 29th the enemy were visibly converging upon the town. From a
+high hill within rifleshot of the houses a watcher could see no
+fewer than six Boer camps to the east and north. French, with his
+cavalry, pushed out feelers, and coasted along the edge of the
+advancing host. His report warned White that if he would strike
+before all the scattered bands were united he must do so at once.
+The wounded were sent down to Pietermaritzburg, and it would bear
+explanation why the non-combatants did not accompany them. On the
+evening of the same day Joubert in person was said to be only six
+miles off, and a party of his men cut the water supply of the town.
+The Klip, however, a fair-sized river, runs through Ladysmith, so
+that there was no danger of thirst. The British had inflated and
+sent up a balloon, to the amazement of the back-veld Boers; its
+report confirmed the fact that the enemy was in force in front of
+and around them.
+
+On the night of the 29th General White detached two of his best
+regiments, the Irish Fusiliers and the Gloucesters, with No. 10
+Mountain Battery, to advance under cover of the darkness and to
+seize and hold a long ridge called Nicholson's Nek, which lay about
+six miles to the north of Ladysmith. Having determined to give
+battle on the next day, his object was to protect his left wing
+against those Freestaters who were still moving from the north and
+west, and also to keep a pass open by which his cavalry might
+pursue the Boer fugitives in case of a British victory. This small
+detached column numbered about a thousand men--whose fate will be
+afterwards narrated.
+
+At five o'clock on the morning of the 30th the Boers, who had
+already developed a perfect genius for hauling heavy cannon up the
+most difficult heights, opened fire from one of the hills which lie
+to the north of the town. Before the shot was fired, the forces of
+the British had already streamed out of Ladysmith to test the
+strength of the invaders.
+
+White's army was divided into three columns. On the extreme left,
+quite isolated from the others, was the small Nicholson's Nek
+detachment under the command of Colonel Carleton of the Fusiliers
+(one of three gallant brothers each of whom commands a British
+regiment). With him was Major Adye of the staff. On the right
+British flank Colonel Grimwood commanded a brigade composed of the
+1st and 2nd battalions of the King's Royal Rifles, the Leicesters,
+the Liverpools, and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. In the centre
+Colonel Ian Hamilton commanded the Devons, the Gordons, the
+Manchesters, and the 2nd battalion of the Rifle Brigade, which
+marched direct into the battle from the train which had brought
+them from Durban. Six batteries of artillery were massed in the
+centre under Colonel Downing. French with the cavalry and mounted
+infantry was on the extreme right, but found little opportunity for
+the use of the mounted arm that day.
+
+The Boer position, so far as it could be seen, was a formidable
+one. Their centre lay upon one of the spurs of Signal Hill, about
+three miles from the town. Here they had two forty-pounders and
+three other lighter guns, but their artillery strength developed
+both in numbers and in weight of metal as the day wore on. Of their
+dispositions little could be seen. An observer looking westward
+might discern with his glass sprays of mounted riflemen galloping
+here and there over the downs, and possibly small groups where the
+gunners stood by their guns, or the leaders gazed down at that town
+which they were destined to have in view for such a weary while. On
+the dun-coloured plains before the town, the long thin lines, with
+an occasional shifting sparkle of steel, showed where Hamilton's
+and Grimwood's infantry were advancing. In the clear cold air of an
+African morning every detail could be seen, down to the distant
+smoke of a train toiling up the heavy grades which lead from Frere
+over the Colenso Bridge to Ladysmith.
+
+The scrambling, inconsequential, unsatisfactory action which ensued
+is as difficult to describe as it must have been to direct. The
+Boer front covered some seven or eight miles, with kopjes, like
+chains of fortresses, between. They formed a huge semicircle of
+which our advance was the chord, and they were able from this
+position to pour in a converging artillery fire which grew steadily
+hotter as the day advanced. In the early part of the day our
+forty-two guns, working furiously, though with a want of accuracy
+which may be due to those errors of refraction which are said to be
+common in the limpid air of the veld, preserved their superiority.
+There appears to have been a want of concentration about our fire,
+and at some periods of the action each particular battery was
+firing at some different point of the Boer half-circle. Sometimes
+for an hour on end the Boer reply would die away altogether, only
+to break out with augmented violence, and with an accuracy which
+increased our respect for their training. Huge shells--the largest
+that ever burst upon a battlefield--hurled from distances which
+were unattainable by our fifteen-pounders, enveloped our batteries
+in smoke and flame. One enormous Creusot gun on Pepworth Hill threw
+a 96-pound shell a distance of four miles, and several 40-pound
+howitzers outweighted our field guns. And on the same day on which
+we were so roughly taught how large the guns were which labour and
+good will could haul on to the field of battle, we learned also
+that our enemy--to the disgrace of our Board of Ordnance be it
+recorded--was more in touch with modern invention than we were, and
+could show us not only the largest, but also the smallest, shell
+which had yet been used. Would that it had been our officials
+instead of our gunners who heard the devilish little one-pound
+shells of the Vickers-Maxim automatic gun, exploding with a
+continuous string of crackings and bangings, like a huge cracker,
+in their faces and about their ears!
+
+Up to seven o'clock our infantry had shown no disposition to press
+the attack, for with so huge a position in front of them, and so
+many hills which were held by the enemy, it was difficult to know
+what line of advance should be taken, or whether the attack should
+not be converted into a mere reconnaissance. Shortly after that
+hour, however, the Boers decided the question by themselves
+developing a vigorous movement upon Grimwood and the right flank.
+With field guns, Maxims, and rifle fire, they closed rapidly in
+upon him. The centre column was drafted off, regiment by regiment,
+to reinforce the right. The Gordons, Devons, Manchesters, and three
+batteries were sent over to Grimwood's relief, and the 5th Lancers,
+acting as infantry, assisted him to hold on.
+
+At nine o'clock there was a lull, but it was evident that fresh
+commandoes and fresh guns were continually streaming into the
+firing line. The engagement opened again with redoubled violence,
+and Grimwood's three advanced battalions fell back, abandoning the
+ridge which they had held for five hours. The reason for this
+withdrawal was not that they could not continue to hold their
+position, but it was that a message had just reached Sir George
+White from Colonel Knox, commanding in Ladysmith, to the effect
+that it looked as if the enemy was about to rush the town from the
+other side. Crossing the open in some disorder, they lost heavily,
+and would have done so more had not the 13th Field Battery,
+followed after an interval by the 53rd, dashed forward, firing
+shrapnel at short ranges, in order to cover the retreat of the
+infantry. Amid the bursting of the huge 96-pound shells, and the
+snapping of the vicious little automatic one-pounders, with a
+cross-fire of rifles as well, Abdy's and Dawkins' gallant batteries
+swung round their muzzles, and hit back right and left, flashing
+and blazing, amid their litter of dead horses and men. So severe
+was the fire that the guns were obscured by the dust knocked up by
+the little shells of the automatic gun. Then, when their work was
+done and the retiring infantry had straggled over the ridge, the
+covering guns whirled and bounded after them. So many horses had
+fallen that two pieces were left until the teams could be brought
+back for them, which was successfully done through the gallantry of
+Captain Thwaites. The action of these batteries was one of the few
+gleams of light in a not too brilliant day's work. With splendid
+coolness and courage they helped each other by alternate
+retirements after the retreating infantry had passed them. The 21st
+Battery (Blewitt's) also distinguished itself by its staunchness in
+covering the retirement of the cavalry, while the 42nd (Goulburn's)
+suffered the heaviest losses of any. On the whole, such honours as
+fell to our lot were mainly with the gunners.
+
+White must have been now uneasy for his position, and it had become
+apparent that his only course was to fall back and concentrate upon
+the town. His left flank was up in the air, and the sound of
+distant firing, wafted over five miles of broken country, was the
+only message which arrived from them. His right had been pushed
+back, and, most dangerous of all, his centre had ceased to exist,
+for only the 2nd Rifle Brigade remained there. What would happen if
+the enemy burst rudely through and pushed straight for the town? It
+was the more possible, as the Boer artillery had now proved itself
+to be far heavier than ours. That terrible 96-pounder, serenely
+safe and out of range, was plumping its great projectiles into the
+masses of retiring troops. The men had had little sleep and little
+food, and this unanswerable fire was an ordeal for a force which is
+retreating. A retirement may very rapidly become a rout under such
+circumstances. It was with some misgivings that the officers saw
+their men quicken their pace and glance back over their shoulders
+at the whine and screech of the shell. They were still some miles
+from home, and the plain was open. What could be done to give them
+some relief?
+
+And at that very moment there came the opportune and unexpected
+answer. That plume of engine smoke which the watcher had observed
+in the morning had drawn nearer and nearer, as the heavy train came
+puffing and creaking up the steep inclines. Then, almost before it
+had drawn up at the Ladysmith siding, there had sprung from it a
+crowd of merry bearded fellows, with ready hands and strange sea
+cries, pulling and hauling, with rope and purchase to get out the
+long slim guns which they had lashed on the trucks. Singular
+carriages were there, specially invented by Captain Percy Scott,
+and labouring and straining, they worked furiously to get the
+12-pounder quick-firers into action. Then at last it was done, and
+the long tubes swept upwards to the angle at which they might hope
+to reach that monster on the hill at the horizon. Two of them
+craned their long inquisitive necks up and exchanged repartees with
+the big Creusot. And so it was that the weary and dispirited
+British troops heard a crash which was louder and sharper than that
+of their field guns, and saw far away upon the distant hill a great
+spurt of smoke and flame to show where the shell had struck.
+Another and another and another--and then they were troubled no
+more. Captain Hedworth Lambton and his men had saved the situation.
+The masterful gun had met its own master and sank into silence,
+while the somewhat bedraggled field force came trailing back into
+Ladysmith, leaving three hundred of their number behind them. It
+was a high price to pay, but other misfortunes were in store for us
+which made the retirement of the morning seem insignificant.
+
+In the meantime we may follow the unhappy fortunes of the small
+column which had, as already described, been sent out by Sir George
+White in order, if possible, to prevent the junction of the two
+Boer armies, and at the same time to threaten the right wing of the
+main force, which was advancing from the direction of Dundee, Sir
+George White throughout the campaign consistently displayed one
+quality which is a charming one in an individual, but may be
+dangerous in a commander. He was a confirmed optimist. Perhaps his
+heart might have failed him in the dark days to come had he not
+been so. But whether one considers the non-destruction of the
+Newcastle Railway, the acquiescence in the occupation of Dundee,
+the retention of the non combatants in Ladysmith until it was too
+late to get rid of their useless mouths, or the failure to make any
+serious preparations for the defence of the town until his troops
+were beaten back into it, we see always the same evidence of a man
+who habitually hopes that all will go well, and is in consequence
+remiss in making preparations for their going ill. But unhappily in
+every one of these instances they did go ill, though the slowness
+of the Boers enabled us, both at Dundee and at Ladysmith, to escape
+what might have been disaster.
+
+Sir George White has so nobly and frankly taken upon himself the
+blame of Nicholson's Nek that an impartial historian must rather
+regard his self-condemnation as having been excessive. The
+immediate causes of the failure were undoubtedly the results of
+pure ill-fortune, and depended on things outside his control. But
+it is evident that the strategic plan which would justify the
+presence of this column at Nicholson's Nek was based upon the
+supposition that the main army won their action at Lombard's Kop.
+In that case White might swing round his right and pin the Boers
+between himself and Nicholson's Nek. In any case he could then
+re-unite with his isolated wing. But if he should lose his
+battle--what then? What was to become of this detachment five miles
+up in the air? How was it to be extricated? The gallant Irishman
+seems to have waved aside the very idea of defeat. An assurance
+was, it is reported, given to the leaders of the column that by
+eleven o'clock next morning they would be relieved. So they would
+if White had won his action. But--
+
+The force chosen to operate independently consisted of four and a
+half companies of the Gloucester regiment, six companies of the
+Royal Irish Fusiliers, and No. 10 Mountain Battery of six
+seven-pounder screw-guns. They were both old soldier regiments from
+India, and the Fusiliers had shown only ten days before at Talana
+Hill the stuff of which they were made. Colonel Carleton, of the
+Fusiliers, to whose exertions much of the success of the retreat
+from Dundee was due, commanded the column, with Major Adye as staff
+officer. On the night of Sunday, October 29th, they tramped out of
+Ladysmith, a thousand men, none better in the army. Little they
+thought, as they exchanged a jest or two with the outlying pickets,
+that they were seeing the last of their own armed countrymen for
+many a weary month.
+
+The road was irregular and the night was moonless. On either side
+the black loom of the hills bulked vaguely through the darkness.
+The column tramped stolidly along, the Fusiliers in front, the guns
+and Gloucesters behind. Several times a short halt was called to
+make sure of the bearings. At last, in the black cold hours which
+come between midnight and morning, the column swung to the left out
+of the road. In front of them, hardly visible, stretched a long
+black kopje. It was the very Nicholson's Nek which they had come to
+occupy. Carleton and Adye must have heaved a sigh of relief as they
+realised that they had actually struck it. The force was but two
+hundred yards from the position, and all had gone without a hitch.
+And yet in those two hundred yards there came an incident which
+decided the fate both of their enterprise and of themselves.
+
+Out of the darkness there blundered and rattled five horsemen,
+their horses galloping, the loose stones flying around them. In the
+dim light they were gone as soon as seen. Whence coming, whither
+going, no one knows, nor is it certain whether it was design or
+ignorance or panic which sent them riding so wildly through the
+darkness. Somebody fired. A sergeant of the Fusiliers took the
+bullet through his hand. Some one else shouted to fix bayonets. The
+mules which carried the spare ammunition kicked and reared. There
+was no question of treachery, for they were led by our own men, but
+to hold two frightened mules, one with either hand, is a feat for a
+Hercules. They lashed and tossed and bucked themselves loose, and
+an instant afterwards were flying helter skelter through the
+column. Nearly all the mules caught the panic. In vain the men held
+on to their heads. In the mad rush they were galloped over and
+knocked down by the torrent of frightened creatures. In the gloom
+of that early hour the men must have thought that they were charged
+by cavalry. The column was dashed out of all military order as
+effectively as if a regiment of dragoons had ridden over them. When
+the cyclone had passed, and the men had with many a muttered curse
+gathered themselves into their ranks once more, they realised how
+grave was the misfortune which had befallen them. There, where
+those mad hoofs still rattled in the distance, were their spare
+cartridges, their shells, and their cannon. A mountain gun is not
+drawn upon wheels, but is carried in adjustable parts upon
+mule-back. A wheel had gone south, a trail east, a chase west. Some
+of the cartridges were strewn upon the road. Most were on their way
+back to Ladysmith. There was nothing for it but to face this new
+situation and to determine what should be done.
+
+It has been often and naturally asked, why did not Colonel Carleton
+make his way back at once upon the loss of his guns and ammunition,
+while it was still dark? One or two considerations are evident. In
+the first place, it is natural to a good soldier to endeavour to
+retrieve a situation rather than to abandon his enterprise. His
+prudence, did he not do so, might become the subject of public
+commendation, but might also provoke some private comment. A
+soldier's training is to take chances, and to do the best he can
+with the material at his disposal. Again, Colonel Carleton and
+Major Adye knew the general plan of the battle which would be
+raging within a very few hours, and they quite understood that by
+withdrawing they would expose General White's left flank to attack
+from the forces (consisting, as we know now, of the Orange
+Freestaters and of the Johannesburg Police) who were coming from
+the north and west. He hoped to be relieved by eleven, and he
+believed that, come what might, he could hold out until then. These
+are the most obvious of the considerations which induced Colonel
+Carleton to determine to carry out so far as he could the programme
+which had been laid down for him and his command. He marched up the
+hill and occupied the position.
+
+His heart, however, must have sunk when he examined it. It was very
+large--too large to be effectively occupied by the force which he
+commanded. The length was about a mile and the breadth four hundred
+yards. Shaped roughly like the sole of a boot, it was only the heel
+end which he could hope to hold. Other hills all round offered
+cover for Boer riflemen. Nothing daunted, however, he set his men
+to work at once building sangars with the loose stones. With the
+full dawn and the first snapping of Boer Mausers from the hills
+around they had thrown up some sort of rude defences which they
+might hope to hold until help should come.
+
+But how could help come when there was no means by which they could
+let White know the plight in which they found themselves? They had
+brought a heliograph with them, but it was on the back of one of
+those accursed mules. The Boers were thick around them, and they
+could not send a messenger. An attempt was made to convert a
+polished biscuit tin into a heliograph, but with poor success. A
+Kaffir was dispatched with promises of a heavy bribe, but he passed
+out of history. And there in the clear cold morning air the balloon
+hung to the south of them where the first distant thunder of
+White's guns was beginning to sound. If only they could attract the
+attention of that balloon! Vainly they wagged flags at it. Serene
+and unresponsive it brooded over the distant battle.
+
+And now the Boers were thickening round them on every side.
+Christian de Wet, a name soon to be a household word, marshaled the
+Boer attack, which was soon strengthened by the arrival of Van Dam
+and his Police. At five o'clock the fire began, at six it was warm,
+at seven warmer still. Two companies of the Gloucesters lined a
+sangar on the tread of the sole, to prevent any one getting too
+near to the heel. A fresh detachment of Boers, firing from a range
+of nearly one thousand yards, took this defence in the rear.
+Bullets fell among the men, and smacked up against the stone
+breastwork. The two companies were withdrawn, and lost heavily in
+the open as they crossed it. An incessant rattle and crackle of
+rifle fire came from all round, drawing very slowly but steadily
+nearer. Now and then the whisk of a dark figure from one boulder to
+another was all that ever was seen of the attackers. The British
+fired slowly and steadily, for every cartridge counted, but the
+cover of the Boers was so cleverly taken that it was seldom that
+there was much to aim at. 'All you could ever see,' says one who
+was present, 'were the barrels of the rifles.' There was time for
+thought in that long morning, and to some of the men it may have
+occurred what preparation for such fighting had they ever had in
+the mechanical exercises of the parade ground, or the shooting of
+an annual bagful of cartridges at exposed targets at a measured
+range. It is the warfare of Nicholson's Nek, not that of Laffan's
+Plain, which has to be learned in the future.
+
+During those weary hours lying on the bullet-swept hill and
+listening to the eternal hissing in the air and clicking on the
+rocks, the British soldiers could see the fight which raged to the
+south of them. It was not a cheering sight, and Carleton and Adye
+with their gallant comrades must have felt their hearts grow
+heavier as they watched. The Boers' shells bursting among the
+British batteries, the British shells bursting short of their
+opponents. The Long Toms laid at an angle of forty-five plumped
+their huge shells into the British guns at a range where the latter
+would not dream of unlimbering. And then gradually the rifle fire
+died away also, crackling more faintly as White withdrew to
+Ladysmith. At eleven o'clock Carleton's column recognised that it
+had been left to its fate. As early as nine a heliogram had been
+sent to them to retire as the opportunity served, but to leave the
+hill was certainly to court annihilation.
+
+The men had then been under fire for six hours, and with their
+losses mounting and their cartridges dwindling, all hope had faded
+from their minds. But still for another hour, and yet another, and
+yet another, they held doggedly on. Nine and a half hours they
+clung to that pile of stones. The Fusiliers were still exhausted
+from the effect of their march from Glencoe and their incessant
+work since. Many fell asleep behind the boulders. Some sat doggedly
+with their useless rifles and empty pouches beside them. Some
+picked cartridges off their dead comrades. What were they fighting
+for? It was hopeless, and they knew it. But always there was the
+honour of the flag, the glory of the regiment, the hatred of a
+proud and brave man to acknowledge defeat. And yet it had to come.
+There were some in that force who were ready for the reputation of
+the British army, and for the sake of an example of military
+virtue, to die stolidly where they stood, or to lead the
+'Faugh-a-ballagh' boys, or the gallant 28th, in one last
+death-charge with empty rifles against the unseen enemy. They may
+have been right, these stalwarts. Leonidas and his three hundred
+did more for the Spartan cause by their memory than by their living
+valour. Man passes like the brown leaves, but the tradition of a
+nation lives on like the oak that sheds them--and the passing of
+the leaves is nothing if the bole be the sounder for it. But a
+counsel of perfection is easy at a study table. There are other
+things to be said--the responsibility of officers for the lives of
+their men, the hope that they may yet be of service to their
+country. All was weighed, all was thought of, and so at last the
+white flag went up. The officer who hoisted it could see no one
+unhurt save himself, for all in his sangar were hit, and the others
+were so placed that he was under the impression that they had
+withdrawn altogether. Whether this hoisting of the flag necessarily
+compromised the whole force is a difficult question, but the Boers
+instantly left their cover, and the men in the sangars behind, some
+of whom had not been so seriously engaged, were ordered by their
+officers to desist from firing. In an instant the victorious Boers
+were among them.
+
+It was not, as I have been told by those who were there, a sight
+which one would wish to have seen or care now to dwell upon.
+Haggard officers cracked their sword-blades and cursed the day that
+they had been born. Privates sobbed with their stained faces buried
+in their hands. Of all tests of discipline that ever they had
+stood, the hardest to many was to conform to all that the cursed
+flapping handkerchief meant to them. 'Father, father, we had rather
+have died,' cried the Fusiliers to their priest. Gallant hearts,
+ill paid, ill thanked, how poorly do the successful of the world
+compare with their unselfish loyalty and devotion!
+
+But the sting of contumely or insult was not added to their
+misfortunes. There is a fellowship of brave men which rises above
+the feuds of nations, and may at last go far, we hope, to heal
+them. From every rock there rose a Boer--strange, grotesque figures
+many of them--walnut-brown and shaggy-bearded, and swarmed on to
+the hill. No term of triumph or reproach came from their lips. 'You
+will not say now that the young Boer cannot shoot,' was the
+harshest word which the least restrained of them made use of.
+Between one and two hundred dead and wounded were scattered over
+the hill. Those who were within reach of human help received all
+that could be given. Captain Rice, of the Fusiliers, was carried
+wounded down the hill on the back of one giant, and he has narrated
+how the man refused the gold piece which was offered him. Some
+asked the soldiers for their embroidered waist-belts as souvenirs
+of the day. They will for generations remain as the most precious
+ornaments of some colonial farmhouse. Then the victors gathered
+together and sang psalms, not jubilant but sad and quavering. The
+prisoners, in a downcast column, weary, spent, and unkempt, filed
+off to the Boer laager at Waschbank, there to take train for
+Pretoria. And at Ladysmith a bugler of Fusiliers, his arm bound,
+the marks of battle on his dress and person, burst in upon the camp
+with the news that two veteran regiments had covered the flank of
+White's retreating army, but at the cost of their own annihilation.
+
+CHAPTER 8.
+
+LORD METHUEN'S ADVANCE.
+
+At the end of a fortnight of actual hostilities in Natal the
+situation of the Boer army was such as to seriously alarm the
+public at home, and to cause an almost universal chorus of
+ill-natured delight from the press of all European nations. Whether
+the reason was hatred of ourselves, or the sporting instinct which
+backs the smaller against the larger, or the influence of the
+ubiquitous Dr. Leyds and his secret service fund, it is certain
+that the continental papers have never been so unanimous as in
+their premature rejoicings over what, with an extraordinary want of
+proportion, and ignorance of our national character, they imagined
+to be a damaging blow to the British Empire. France, Russia,
+Austria, and Germany were equally venomous against us, nor can the
+visit of the German Emperor, though a courteous and timely action
+in itself, entirely atone for the senseless bitterness of the press
+of the Fatherland. Great Britain was roused out of her habitual
+apathy and disregard for foreign opinion by this chorus of
+execration, and braced herself for a greater effort in consequence.
+She was cheered by the sympathy of her friends in the United
+States, and by the good wishes of the smaller nations of Europe,
+notably of Italy, Denmark, Greece, Turkey, and Hungary.
+
+The exact position at the end of this fortnight of hard slogging
+was that a quarter of the colony of Natal and a hundred miles of
+railway were in the hands of the enemy. Five distinct actions had
+been fought, none of them perhaps coming within the fair meaning of
+a battle. Of these one had been a distinct British victory, two had
+been indecisive, one had been unfortunate, and one had been a
+positive disaster. We had lost about twelve hundred prisoners and a
+battery of small guns. The Boers had lost two fine guns and three
+hundred prisoners. Twelve thousand British troops had been shut up
+in Ladysmith, and there was no serious force between the invaders
+and the sea. Only in those distant transports, where the grimy
+stokers shoveled and strove, were there hopes for the safety of
+Natal and the honour of the Empire. In Cape Colony the loyalists
+waited with bated breath, knowing well that there was nothing to
+check a Free State invasion, and that if it came no bounds could be
+placed upon how far it might advance, or what effect it might have
+upon the Dutch population.
+
+Leaving Ladysmith now apparently within the grasp of the Boers, who
+had settled down deliberately to the work of throttling it, the
+narrative must pass to the western side of the seat of war, and
+give a consecutive account of the events which began with the siege
+of Kimberley and led to the ineffectual efforts of Lord Methuen's
+column to relieve it.
+
+On the declaration of war two important movements had been made by
+the Boers upon the west. One was the advance of a considerable body
+under the formidable Cronje to attack Mafeking, an enterprise which
+demands a chapter of its own. The other was the investment of
+Kimberley by a force which consisted principally of Freestaters
+under the command of Wessels and Botha. The place was defended by
+Colonel Kekewich, aided by the advice and help of Mr. Cecil Rhodes,
+who had gallantly thrown himself into the town by one of the last
+trains which reached it. As the founder and director of the great
+De Beers diamond mines he desired to be with his people in the hour
+of their need, and it was through his initiative that the town had
+been provided with the rifles and cannon with which to sustain the
+siege.
+
+The troops which Colonel Kekewich had at his disposal consisted of
+four companies of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment (his own
+regiment), with some Royal Engineers, a mountain battery, and two
+machine guns. In addition there were the extremely spirited and
+capable local forces, a hundred and twenty men of the Cape Police,
+two thousand Volunteers, a body of Kimberley Light Horse, and a
+battery of light seven-pounder guns. There were also eight Maxims
+which were mounted upon the huge mounds of debris which surrounded
+the mines and formed most efficient fortresses.
+
+A small reinforcement of police had, under tragic circumstances,
+reached the town. Vryburg, the capital of British Bechuanaland,
+lies 145 miles to the north of Kimberley. The town has strong Dutch
+sympathies, and on the news of the approach of a Boer force with
+artillery it was evident that it could not be held. Scott, the
+commandant of police, made some attempt to organise a defence, but
+having no artillery and finding little sympathy, he was compelled
+to abandon his charge to the invaders. The gallant Scott rode south
+with his troopers, and in his humiliation and grief at his
+inability to preserve his post he blew out his brains upon the
+journey. Vryburg was immediately occupied by the Boers, and British
+Bechuanaland was formally annexed to the South African Republic.
+This policy of the instant annexation of all territories invaded
+was habitually carried out by the enemy, with the idea that British
+subjects who joined them would in this way be shielded from the
+consequences of treason. Meanwhile several thousand Freestaters and
+Transvaalers with artillery had assembled round Kimberley, and all
+news of the town was cut off. Its relief was one of the first tasks
+which presented itself to the inpouring army corps. The obvious
+base of such a movement must be Orange River, and there and at De
+Aar the stores for the advance began to be accumulated. At the
+latter place especially, which is the chief railway junction in the
+north of the colony, enormous masses of provisions, ammunition, and
+fodder were collected, with thousands of mules which the long arm
+of the British Government had rounded up from many parts of the
+world. The guard over these costly and essential supplies seems to
+have been a dangerously weak one. Between Orange River and De Aar,
+which are sixty miles apart, there were the 9th Lancers, the Royal
+Munsters, the 2nd King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and the 1st
+Northumberland Fusiliers, under three thousand men in all, with two
+million pounds' worth of stores and the Free State frontier within
+a ride of them. Verily if we have something to deplore in this war
+we have much also to be thankful for.
+
+Up to the end of October the situation was so dangerous that it is
+really inexplicable that no advantage was taken of it by the enemy.
+Our main force was concentrated to defend the Orange River railway
+bridge, which was so essential for our advance upon Kimberley. This
+left only a single regiment without guns for the defence of De Aar
+and the valuable stores. A fairer mark for a dashing leader and a
+raid of mounted riflemen was never seen. The chance passed,
+however, as so many others of the Boers' had done. Early in
+November Colesberg and Naauwpoort were abandoned by our small
+detachments, who concentrated at De Aar. The Berkshires joined the
+Yorkshire Light Infantry, and nine field guns arrived also. General
+Wood worked hard at the fortifying of the surrounding kopjes, until
+within a week the place had been made tolerably secure.
+
+The first collision between the opposing forces at this part of the
+seat of war was upon November 10th, when Colonel Gough of the 9th
+Lancers made a reconnaissance from Orange River to the north with
+two squadrons of his own regiment, the mounted infantry of the
+Northumberland Fusiliers, the Royal Munsters, and the North
+Lancashires, with a battery of field artillery. To the east of
+Belmont, about fifteen miles off, he came on a detachment of the
+enemy with a gun. To make out the Boer position the mounted
+infantry galloped round one of their flanks, and in doing so passed
+close to a kopje which was occupied by sharpshooters. A deadly fire
+crackled suddenly out from among the boulders. Of six men hit four
+were officers, showing how cool were the marksmen and how dangerous
+those dress distinctions which will probably disappear hence
+forwards upon the field of battle. Colonel Keith-Falconer of the
+Northumberlands, who had earned distinction in the Soudan, was shot
+dead. So was Wood of the North Lancashires. Hall and Bevan of the
+Northumberlands were wounded. An advance by train of the troops in
+camp drove back the Boers and extricated our small force from what
+might have proved a serious position, for the enemy in superior
+numbers were working round their wings. The troops returned to camp
+without any good object having been attained, but that must be the
+necessary fate of many a cavalry reconnaissance.
+
+On November 12th Lord Methuen arrived at Orange River and proceeded
+to organise the column which was to advance to the relief of
+Kimberley. General Methuen had had some previous South African
+experience when in 1885 he had commanded a large body of irregular
+horse in Bechuanaland. His reputation was that of a gallant
+fearless soldier. He was not yet fifty-five years of age.
+
+The force which gradually assembled at Orange River was formidable
+rather from its quality than from its numbers. It included a
+brigade of Guards (the 1st Scots Guards, 3rd Grenadiers, and 1st
+and 2nd Coldstreams), the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, the 2nd
+Northamptons, the 1st Northumberlands, and a wing of the North
+Lancashires whose comrades were holding out at Kimberley, with a
+naval brigade of seamen gunners and marines. For cavalry he had the
+9th Lancers, with detachments of mounted infantry, and for
+artillery the 75th and 18th Batteries R.F.A.
+
+Extreme mobility was aimed at in the column, and neither tents nor
+comforts of any sort were permitted to officers or men--no light
+matter in a climate where a tropical day is followed by an arctic
+night. At daybreak on November 22nd the force, numbering about
+eight thousand men, set off upon its eventful journey. The distance
+to Kimberley was not more than sixty miles, and it is probable that
+there was not one man in the force who imagined how long that march
+would take or how grim the experiences would be which awaited them
+on the way. At the dawn of Wednesday, November 22nd, Lord Methuen
+moved forward until he came into touch with the Boer position at
+Belmont. It was surveyed that evening by Colonel Willoughby Verner,
+and every disposition made to attack it in the morning.
+
+The force of the Boers was much inferior to our own, some two or
+three thousand in all, but the natural strength of their position
+made it a difficult one to carry, while it could not be left behind
+us as a menace to our line of communications. A double row of steep
+hills lay across the road to Kimberley, and it was along the
+ridges, snuggling closely among the boulders, that our enemy was
+waiting for us. In their weeks of preparation they had constructed
+elaborate shelter pits in which they could lie in comparative
+safety while they swept all the level ground around with their
+rifle fire. Mr. Ralph, the American correspondent, whose letters
+were among the most vivid of the war, has described these lairs,
+littered with straw and the debris of food, isolated from each
+other, and each containing its grim and formidable occupant. 'The
+eyries of birds of prey' is the phrase with which he brings them
+home to us. In these, with nothing visible but their peering eyes
+and the barrels of their rifles, the Boer marksmen crouched, and
+munched their biltong and their mealies as the day broke upon the
+morning of the 23rd. With the light their enemy was upon them.
+
+It was a soldiers' battle in the good old primeval British style,
+an Alma on a small scale and against deadlier weapons. The troops
+advanced in grim silence against the savage-looking,
+rock-sprinkled, crag-topped position which confronted them. They
+were in a fierce humour, for they had not breakfasted, and military
+history from Agincourt to Talavera shows that want of food wakens a
+dangerous spirit among British troops. A Northumberland Fusilier
+exploded into words which expressed the gruffness of his comrades.
+As a too energetic staff officer pranced before their line he
+roared in his rough North-country tongue, 'Domn thee! Get thee to
+hell, and let's fire!' In the golden light of the rising sun the
+men set their teeth and dashed up the hills, scrambling, falling,
+cheering, swearing, gallant men, gallantly led, their one thought
+to close with that grim bristle of rifle-barrels which fringed the
+rocks above them.
+
+Lord Methuen's intention had been an attack from front and from
+flank, but whether from the Grenadiers losing their bearings, or
+from the mobility of the Boers, which made a flank attack an
+impossibility, it is certain that all became frontal. The battle
+resolved itself into a number of isolated actions in which the
+various kopjes were rushed by different British regiments, always
+with success and always with loss. The honours of the fight, as
+tested by the grim record of the casualty returns, lay with the
+Grenadiers, the Coldstreams, the Northumberlands, and the Scots
+Guards. The brave Guardsmen lay thickly on the slopes, but their
+comrades crowned the heights. The Boers held on desperately and
+fired their rifles in the very faces of the stormers. One young
+officer had his jaw blown to pieces by a rifle which almost touched
+him. Another, Blundell of the Guards, was shot dead by a wounded
+desperado to whom he was offering his water-bottle. At one point a
+white flag was waved by the defenders, on which the British left
+cover, only to be met by a volley. It was there that Mr. E. F.
+Knight, of the 'Morning Post,' became the victim of a double abuse
+of the usages of war, since his wound, from which he lost his right
+arm, was from an explosive bullet. The man who raised the flag was
+captured, and it says much for the humanity of British soldiers
+that he was not bayoneted upon the spot. Yet it is not fair to
+blame a whole people for the misdeeds of a few, and it is probable
+that the men who descended to such devices, or who deliberately
+fired upon our ambulances, were as much execrated by their own
+comrades as by ourselves.
+
+The victory was an expensive one, for fifty killed and two hundred
+wounded lay upon the hillside, and, like so many of our skirmishes
+with the Boers, it led to small material results. Their losses
+appear to have been much about the same as ours, and we captured
+some fifty prisoners, whom the soldiers regarded with the utmost
+interest. They were a sullen slouching crowd rudely clad, and they
+represented probably the poorest of the burghers, who now, as in
+the middle ages, suffer most in battle, since a long purse means a
+good horse. Most of the enemy galloped very comfortably away after
+the action, leaving a fringe of sharpshooters among the kopjes to
+hold back our pursuing cavalry. The want of horsemen and the want
+of horse artillery are the two reasons which Lord Methuen gives why
+the defeat was not converted into a rout. As it was, the feelings
+of the retreating Boers were exemplified by one of their number,
+who turned in his saddle in order to place his outstretched fingers
+to his nose in derision of the victors. He exposed himself to the
+fire of half a battalion while doing so, but he probably was aware
+that with our present musketry instruction the fire of a British
+half-battalion against an individual is not a very serious matter.
+
+The remainder of the 23rd was spent at Belmont Camp, and next
+morning an advance was made to Enslin, some ten miles further on.
+Here lay the plain of Enslin, bounded by a formidable line of
+kopjes as dangerous as those of Belmont. Lancers and Rimington's
+Scouts, the feeble but very capable cavalry of the Army, came in
+with the report that the hills were strongly held. Some more hard
+slogging was in front of the relievers of Kimberley.
+
+The advance had been on the line of the Cape Town to Kimberley
+Railway, and the damage done to it by the Boers had been repaired
+to the extent of permitting an armoured train with a naval gun to
+accompany the troops. It was six o' clock upon the morning of
+Saturday the 25th that this gun came into action against the
+kopjes, closely followed by the guns of the field artillery. One of
+the lessons of the war has been to disillusion us as to the effect
+of shrapnel fire. Positions which had been made theoretically
+untenable have again and again been found to be most inconveniently
+tenanted. Among the troops actually engaged the confidence in the
+effect of shrapnel fire has steadily declined with their
+experience. Some other method of artillery fire than the curving
+bullet from an exploding shrapnel shell must be devised for dealing
+with men who lie close among boulders and behind cover.
+
+These remarks upon shrapnel might be included in the account of
+half the battles of the war, but they are particularly apposite to
+the action at Enslin. Here a single large kopje formed the key to
+the position, and a considerable time was expended upon preparing
+it for the British assault, by directing upon it a fire which swept
+the face of it and searched, as was hoped, every corner in which a
+rifleman might lurk. One of the two batteries engaged fired no
+fewer than five hundred rounds. Then the infantry advance was
+ordered, the Guards being held in reserve on account of their
+exertions at Belmont. The Northumberlands, Northamptons, North
+Lancashires, and Yorkshires worked round upon the right, and, aided
+by the artillery fire, cleared the trenches in their front. The
+honours of the assault, however, must be awarded to the sailors and
+marines of the Naval Brigade, who underwent such an ordeal as men
+have seldom faced and yet come out as victors. To them fell the
+task of carrying that formidable hill which had been so scourged by
+our artillery. With a grand rush they swept up the slope, but were
+met by a horrible fire. Every rock spurted flame, and the front
+ranks withered away before the storm of the Mauser. An eye-witness
+has recorded that the brigade was hardly visible amid the sand
+knocked up by the bullets. For an instant they fell back into
+cover, and then, having taken their breath, up they went again,
+with a deep-chested sailor roar. There were but four hundred in
+all, two hundred seamen and two hundred marines, and the losses in
+that rapid rush were terrible. Yet they swarmed up, their gallant
+officers, some of them little boy-middies, cheering them on.
+Ethelston, the commander of the 'Powerful,' was struck down. Plumbe
+and Senior of the Marines were killed. Captain Prothero of the
+'Doris' dropped while still yelling to his seamen to 'take that
+kopje and be hanged to it!' Little Huddart, the middy, died a death
+which is worth many inglorious years. Jones of the Marines fell
+wounded, but rose again and rushed on with his men. It was on these
+gallant marines, the men who are ready to fight anywhere and
+anyhow, moist or dry, that the heaviest loss fell. When at last
+they made good their foothold upon the crest of that murderous hill
+they had left behind them three officers and eighty-eight men out
+of a total of 206--a loss within a few minutes of nearly 50 per
+cent. The bluejackets, helped by the curve of the hill, got off
+with a toll of eighteen of their number. Half the total British
+losses of the action fell upon this little body of men, who upheld
+most gloriously the honour and reputation of the service from which
+they were drawn. With such men under the white ensign we leave our
+island homes in safety behind us.
+
+The battle of Enslin had cost us some two hundred of killed and
+wounded, and beyond the mere fact that we had cleared our way by
+another stage towards Kimberley it is difficult to say what
+advantage we had from it. We won the kopjes, but we lost our men.
+The Boer killed and wounded were probably less than half of our
+own, and the exhaustion and weakness of our cavalry forbade us to
+pursue and prevented us from capturing their guns. In three days
+the men had fought two exhausting actions in a waterless country
+and under a tropical sun. Their exertions had been great and yet
+were barren of result. Why this should be so was naturally the
+subject of keen discussion both in the camp and among the public at
+home. It always came back to Lord Methuen's own complaint about the
+absence of cavalry and of horse artillery. Many very unjust charges
+have been hurled against our War Office--a department which in some
+matters has done extraordinarily and unexpectedly well--but in this
+question of the delay in the despatch of our cavalry and artillery,
+knowing as we did the extreme mobility of our enemy, there is
+certainly ground for an inquiry.
+
+The Boers who had fought these two actions had been drawn mainly
+from the Jacobsdal and Fauresmith commandoes, with some of the
+burghers from Boshof. The famous Cronje, however, had been
+descending from Mafeking with his old guard of Transvaalers, and
+keen disappointment was expressed by the prisoners at Belmont and
+at Enslin that he had not arrived in time to take command of them.
+There were evidences, however, at this latter action, that
+reinforcements for the enemy were coming up and that the labours of
+the Kimberley relief force were by no means at an end. In the
+height of the engagement the Lancer patrols thrown out upon our
+right flank reported the approach of a considerable body of Boer
+horsemen, who took up a position upon a hill on our right rear.
+Their position there was distinctly menacing, and Colonel
+Willoughby Verner was despatched by Lord Methuen to order up the
+brigade of Guards. The gallant officer had the misfortune in his
+return to injure himself seriously through a blunder of his horse.
+His mission, however, succeeded in its effect, for the Guards
+moving across the plain intervened in such a way that the
+reinforcements, without an open attack, which would have been
+opposed to all Boer traditions, could not help the defenders, and
+were compelled to witness their defeat. This body of horsemen
+returned north next day and were no doubt among those whom we
+encountered at the following action of the Modder River.
+
+The march from Orange River had begun on the Wednesday. On Thursday
+was fought the action of Belmont, on Saturday that of Enslin. There
+was no protection against the sun by day nor against the cold at
+night. Water was not plentiful, and the quality of it was
+occasionally vile. The troops were in need of a rest, so on
+Saturday night and Sunday they remained at Enslin. On the Monday
+morning (November 27th) the weary march to Kimberley was resumed.
+
+On Monday, November 27th, at early dawn, the little British army, a
+dust-coloured column upon the dusty veld, moved forwards again
+towards their objective. That night they halted at the pools of
+Klipfontein, having for once made a whole day's march without
+coming in touch with the enemy. Hopes rose that possibly the two
+successive defeats had taken the heart out of them and that there
+would be no further resistance to the advance. Some, however, who
+were aware of the presence of Cronje, and of his formidable
+character, took a juster view of the situation. And this perhaps is
+where a few words might be said about the celebrated leader who
+played upon the western side of the seat of war the same part which
+Joubert did upon the east.
+
+Commandant Cronje was at the time of the war sixty-five years of
+age, a hard, swarthy man, quiet of manner, fierce of soul, with a
+reputation among a nation of resolute men for unsurpassed
+resolution. His dark face was bearded and virile, but sedate and
+gentle in expression. He spoke little, but what he said was to the
+point, and he had the gift of those fire-words which brace and
+strengthen weaker men. In hunting expeditions and in native wars he
+had first won the admiration of his countrymen by his courage and
+his fertility of resource. In the war of 1880 he had led the Boers
+who besieged Potchefstroom, and he had pushed the attack with a
+relentless vigour which was not hampered by the chivalrous usages
+of war. Eventually he compelled the surrender of the place by
+concealing from the garrison that a general armistice had been
+signed, an act which was afterwards disowned by his own government.
+In the succeeding years he lived as an autocrat and a patriarch
+amid his farms and his herds, respected by many and feared by all.
+For a time he was Native Commissioner and left a reputation for
+hard dealing behind him. Called into the field again by the Jameson
+raid, he grimly herded his enemies into an impossible position and
+desired, as it is stated, that the hardest measure should be dealt
+out to the captives. This was the man, capable, crafty, iron-hard,
+magnetic, who lay with a reinforced and formidable army across the
+path of Lord Methuen's tired soldiers. It was a fair match. On the
+one side the hardy men, the trained shots, a good artillery, and
+the defensive; on the other the historical British infantry, duty,
+discipline, and a fiery courage. With a high heart the
+dust-coloured column moved on over the dusty veld.
+
+So entirely had hills and Boer fighting become associated in the
+minds of our leaders, that when it was known that Modder River
+wound over a plain, the idea of a resistance there appears to have
+passed away from their minds. So great was the confidence or so lax
+the scouting that a force equaling their own in numbers had
+assembled with many guns within seven miles of them, and yet the
+advance appears to have been conducted without any expectation of
+impending battle. The supposition, obvious even to a civilian, that
+a river would be a likely place to meet with an obstinate
+resistance, seems to have been ignored. It is perhaps not fair to
+blame the General for a fact which must have vexed his spirit more
+than ours--one's sympathies go out to the gentle and brave man, who
+was heard calling out in his sleep that he 'should have had those
+two guns'--but it is repugnant to common sense to suppose that no
+one, neither the cavalry nor the Intelligence Department, is at
+fault for so extraordinary a state of ignorance. [Footnote: Later
+information makes it certain that the cavalry did report the
+presence of the enemy to Lord Methuen.] On the morning of Tuesday,
+November 28th, the British troops were told that they would march
+at once, and have their breakfast when they reached the Modder
+River--a grim joke to those who lived to appreciate it.
+
+The army had been reinforced the night before by the welcome
+addition of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which made up
+for the losses of the week. It was a cloudless morning, and a
+dazzling sun rose in a deep blue sky. The men, though hungry,
+marched cheerily, the reek of their tobacco-pipes floating up from
+their ranks. It cheered them to see that the murderous kopjes had,
+for the time, been left behind, and that the great plain inclined
+slightly downwards to where a line of green showed the course of
+the river. On the further bank were a few scattered buildings, with
+one considerable hotel, used as a week-end resort by the
+businessmen of Kimberley. It lay now calm and innocent, with its
+open windows looking out upon a smiling garden; but death lurked at
+the windows and death in the garden, and the little dark man who
+stood by the door, peering through his glass at the approaching
+column, was the minister of death, the dangerous Cronje. In
+consultation with him was one who was to prove even more
+formidable, and for a longer time. Semitic in face, high-nosed,
+bushy-bearded, and eagle-eyed, with skin burned brown by a life of
+the veld--it was De la Rey, one of the trio of fighting chiefs
+whose name will always be associated with the gallant resistance of
+the Boers. He was there as adviser, but Cronje was in supreme
+command.
+
+His dispositions had been both masterly and original. Contrary to
+the usual military practice in the defence of rivers, he had
+concealed his men upon both banks, placing, as it is stated, those
+in whose staunchness he had least confidence upon the British side
+of the river, so that they could only retreat under the rifles of
+their inexorable companions. The trenches had been so dug with such
+a regard for the slopes of the ground that in some places a triple
+line of fire was secured. His artillery, consisting of several
+heavy pieces and a number of machine guns (including one of the
+diabolical 'pompoms'), was cleverly placed upon the further side of
+the stream, and was not only provided with shelter pits but had
+rows of reserve pits, so that the guns could be readily shifted
+when their range was found. Rows of trenches, a broadish river,
+fresh rows of trenches, fortified houses, and a good artillery well
+worked and well placed, it was a serious task which lay in front of
+the gallant little army. The whole position covered between four
+and five miles.
+
+An obvious question must here occur to the mind of every
+non-military reader--Why should this position be attacked at all?
+Why should we not cross higher up where there were no such
+formidable obstacles?' The answer, so far as one can answer it,
+must be that so little was known of the dispositions of our enemy
+that we were hopelessly involved in the action before we knew of
+it, and that then it was more dangerous to extricate the army than
+to push the attack. A retirement over that open plain at a range of
+under a thousand yards would have been a dangerous and disastrous
+movement. Having once got there, it was wisest and best to see it
+through.
+
+The dark Cronje still waited reflective in the hotel garden. Across
+the veld streamed the lines of infantry, the poor fellows eager,
+after seven miles of that upland air, for the breakfast which had
+been promised them. It was a quarter to seven when our patrols of
+Lancers were fired upon. There were Boers, then, between them and
+their meal! The artillery was ordered up, the Guards were sent
+forward on the right, the 9th Brigade under Pole-Carew on the left,
+including the newly arrived Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. They
+swept onwards into the fatal fire zone--and then, and only then,
+there blazed out upon them four miles of rifles, cannon, and
+machine guns, and they realised, from general to private, that they
+had walked unwittingly into the fiercest battle yet fought in the
+war.
+
+Before the position was understood the Guards were within seven
+hundred yards of the Boer trenches, and the other troops about nine
+hundred, on the side of a very gentle slope which made it most
+difficult to find any cover. In front of them lay a serene
+landscape, the river, the houses, the hotel, no movement of men, no
+smoke--everything peaceful and deserted save for an occasional
+quick flash and sparkle of flame. But the noise was horrible and
+appalling. Men whose nerves had been steeled to the crash of the
+big guns, or the monotonous roar of Maxims and the rattle of Mauser
+fire, found a new terror in the malignant 'ploop-plooping' of the
+automatic quick-firer. The Maxim of the Scots Guards was caught in
+the hell-blizzard from this thing--each shell no bigger than a
+large walnut, but flying in strings of a score--and men and gun
+were destroyed in an instant. As to the rifle bullets the air was
+humming and throbbing with them, and the sand was mottled like a
+pond in a shower. To advance was impossible, to retire was hateful.
+The men fell upon their faces and huddled close to the earth, too
+happy if some friendly ant-heap gave them a precarious shelter. And
+always, tier above tier, the lines of rifle fire rippled and
+palpitated in front of them. The infantry fired also, and fired,
+and fired--but what was there to fire at? An occasional eye and
+hand over the edge of a trench or behind a stone is no mark at
+seven hundred yards. It would be instructive to know how many
+British bullets found a billet that day.
+
+The cavalry was useless, the infantry was powerless--there only
+remained the guns. When any arm is helpless and harried it always
+casts an imploring eye upon the guns, and rarely indeed is it that
+the gallant guns do not respond. Now the 75th and 18th Field
+Batteries came rattling and dashing to the front, and unlimbered at
+one thousand yards. The naval guns were working at four thousand,
+but the two combined were insufficient to master the fire of the
+pieces of large calibre which were opposed to them. Lord Methuen
+must have prayed for guns as Wellington did for night, and never
+was a prayer answered more dramatically. A strange battery came
+lurching up from the British rear, unheralded, unknown, the weary
+gasping horses panting at the traces, the men, caked with sweat and
+dirt, urging them on into a last spasmodic trot. The bodies of
+horses which had died of pure fatigue marked their course, the
+sergeants' horses tugged in the gun-teams, and the sergeants
+staggered along by the limbers. It was the 62nd Field Battery,
+which had marched thirty-two miles in eight hours, and now, hearing
+the crash of battle in front of them, had with one last desperate
+effort thrown itself into the firing line. Great credit is due to
+Major Granet and his men. Not even those gallant German batteries
+who saved the infantry at Spicheren could boast of a finer feat.
+
+Now it was guns against guns, and let the best gunners win! We had
+eighteen field-guns and the naval pieces against the concealed
+cannon of the enemy. Back and forward flew the shells, howling past
+each other in mid-air. The weary men of the 62nd Battery forgot
+their labours and fatigues as they stooped and strained at their
+clay-coloured 15-pounders. Half of them were within rifle range,
+and the limber horses were the centre of a hot fire, as they were
+destined to be at a shorter range and with more disastrous effect
+at the Tugela. That the same tactics should have been adopted at
+two widely sundered points shows with what care the details of the
+war had been pre-arranged by the Boer leaders. 'Before I got my
+horses out,' says an officer, 'they shot one of my drivers and two
+horses and brought down my own horse. When we got the gun round one
+of the gunners was shot through the brain and fell at my feet.
+Another was shot while bringing up shell. Then we got a look in.'
+The roar of the cannon was deafening, but gradually the British
+were gaining the upper hand. Here and there the little knolls upon
+the further side which had erupted into constant flame lay cold and
+silent. One of the heavier guns was put out of action, and the
+other had been withdrawn for five hundred yards. But the infantry
+fire still crackled and rippled along the trenches, and the guns
+could come no nearer with living men and horses. It was long past
+midday, and that unhappy breakfast seemed further off than ever.
+
+As the afternoon wore on, a curious condition of things was
+established. The guns could not advance, and, indeed, it was found
+necessary to withdraw them from a 1200 to a 2800-yard range, so
+heavy were the losses. At the time of the change the 75th Battery
+had lost three officers out of five, nineteen men, and twenty-two
+horses. The infantry could not advance and would not retire. The
+Guards on the right were prevented from opening out on the flank
+and getting round the enemy's line, by the presence of the Riet
+River, which joins the Modder almost at a right angle. All day they
+lay under a blistering sun, the sleet of bullets whizzing over
+their heads. 'It came in solid streaks like telegraph wires,' said
+a graphic correspondent. The men gossiped, smoked, and many of them
+slept. They lay on the barrels of their rifles to keep them cool
+enough for use. Now and again there came the dull thud of a bullet
+which had found its mark, and a man gasped, or drummed with his
+feet; but the casualties at this point were not numerous, for there
+was some little cover, and the piping bullets passed for the most
+part overhead.
+
+But in the meantime there had been a development upon the left
+which was to turn the action into a British victory. At this side
+there was ample room to extend, and the 9th Brigade spread out,
+feeling its way down the enemy's line, until it came to a point
+where the fire was less murderous and the approach to the river
+more in favour of the attack. Here the Yorkshires, a party of whom
+under Lieutenant Fox had stormed a farmhouse, obtained the command
+of a drift, over which a mixed force of Highlanders and Fusiliers
+forced their way, led by their Brigadier in person. This body of
+infantry, which does not appear to have exceeded five hundred in
+number, were assailed both by the Boer riflemen and by the guns of
+both parties, our own gunners being unaware that the Modder had
+been successfully crossed. A small hamlet called Rosmead formed,
+however, a point d'appui, and to this the infantry clung
+tenaciously, while reinforcements dribbled across to them from the
+farther side. 'Now, boys, who's for otter hunting?' cried Major
+Coleridge, of the North Lancashires, as he sprang into the water.
+How gladly on that baking, scorching day did the men jump into the
+river and splash over, to climb the opposite bank with their wet
+khaki clinging to their figures! Some blundered into holes and were
+rescued by grasping the unwound putties of their comrades. And so
+between three and four o'clock a strong party of the British had
+established their position upon the right flank of the Boers, and
+were holding on like grim death with an intelligent appreciation
+that the fortunes of the day depended upon their retaining their
+grip.
+
+'Hollo, here is a river!' cried Codrington when he led his forlorn
+hope to the right and found that the Riet had to be crossed. 'I was
+given to understand that the Modder was fordable everywhere,' says
+Lord Methuen in his official despatch. One cannot read the account
+of the operations without being struck by the casual, sketchy
+knowledge which cost us so dearly. The soldiers slogged their way
+through, as they have slogged it before; but the task might have
+been made much lighter for them had we but clearly known what it
+was that we were trying to do. On the other hand, it is but fair to
+Lord Methuen to say that his own personal gallantry and unflinching
+resolution set the most stimulating example to his troops. No
+General could have done more to put heart into his men.
+
+And now, as the long weary scorching hungry day came to an end, the
+Boers began at last to flinch from their trenches. The shrapnel was
+finding them out and this force upon their flank filled them with
+vague alarm and with fears for their precious guns. And so as night
+fell they stole across the river, the cannon were withdrawn, the
+trenches evacuated, and next morning, when the weary British and
+their anxious General turned themselves to their grim task once
+more, they found a deserted village, a line of empty houses, and a
+litter of empty Mauser cartridge-cases to show where their
+tenacious enemy had stood.
+
+Lord Methuen, in congratulating the troops upon their achievement,
+spoke of 'the hardest-won victory in our annals of war,' and some
+such phrase was used in his official despatch. It is hypercritical,
+no doubt, to look too closely at a term used by a wounded man with
+the flush of battle still upon him, but still a student of military
+history must smile at such a comparison between this action and
+such others as Albuera or Inkerman, where the numbers of British
+engaged were not dissimilar. A fight in which five hundred men are
+killed and wounded cannot be classed in the same category as those
+stern and desperate encounters where more of the victors were
+carried than walked from the field of battle. And yet there were
+some special features which will differentiate the fight at Modder
+River from any of the hundred actions which adorn the standards of
+our regiments. It was the third battle which the troops had fought
+within the week, they were under fire for ten or twelve hours, were
+waterless under a tropical sun, and weak from want of food. For the
+first time they were called upon to face modern rifle fire and
+modern machine guns in the open. The result tends to prove that
+those who hold that it will from now onwards be impossible ever to
+make such frontal attacks as those which the English made at the
+Alma or the French at Waterloo, are justified in their belief. It
+is beyond human hardihood to face the pitiless beat of bullet and
+shell which comes from modern quick-firing weapons. Had our flank
+not made a lodgment across the river, it is impossible that we
+could have carried the position. Once more, too, it was
+demonstrated how powerless the best artillery is to disperse
+resolute and well-placed riflemen. Of the minor points of interest
+there will always remain the record of the forced march of the 62nd
+Battery, and artillerymen will note the use of gun-pits by the
+Boers, which ensured that the range of their positions should never
+be permanently obtained.
+
+The honours of the day upon the side of the British rested with the
+Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Yorkshire Light Infantry,
+the 2nd Coldstreams, and the artillery. Out of a total casualty
+list of about 450, no fewer than 112 came from the gallant Argylls
+and 69 from the Coldstreams. The loss of the Boers is exceedingly
+difficult to gauge, as they throughout the war took the utmost
+pains to conceal it. The number of desperate and long-drawn actions
+which have ended, according to the official Pretorian account, in a
+loss of one wounded burgher may in some way be better policy, but
+does not imply a higher standard of public virtue, than those long
+lists which have saddened our hearts in the halls of the War
+Office. What is certain is that the loss at Modder River could not
+have been far inferior to our own, and that it arose almost
+entirely from artillery fire, since at no time of the action were
+any large number of their riflemen visible. So it ended, this long
+pelting match, Cronje sullenly withdrawing under the cover of
+darkness with his resolute heart filled with fierce determination
+for the future, while the British soldiers threw themselves down on
+the ground which they occupied and slept the sleep of exhaustion.
+
+CHAPTER 9.
+
+BATTLE OF MAGERSFONTEIN.
+
+Lord Methuen's force had now fought three actions in the space of a
+single week, losing in killed and wounded about a thousand men, or
+rather more than one-tenth of its total numbers. Had there been
+evidence that the enemy were seriously demoralised, the General
+would no doubt have pushed on at once to Kimberley, which was some
+twenty miles distant. The information which reached him was,
+however, that the Boers had fallen back upon the very strong
+position of Spytfontein, that they were full of fight, and that
+they had been strongly reinforced by a commando from Mafeking.
+Under these circumstances Lord Methuen had no choice but to give
+his men a well-earned rest, and to await reinforcements. There was
+no use in reaching Kimberley unless he had completely defeated the
+investing force. With the history of the first relief of Lucknow in
+his memory he was on his guard against a repetition of such an
+experience.
+
+It was the more necessary that Methuen should strengthen his
+position, since with every mile which he advanced the more exposed
+did his line of communications become to a raid from Fauresmith and
+the southern districts of the Orange Free State. Any serious danger
+to the railway behind them would leave the British Army in a very
+critical position, and precautions were taken for the protection of
+the more vulnerable portions of the line. It was well that this was
+so, for on the 8th of December Commandant Prinsloo, of the Orange
+Free State, with a thousand horsemen and two light seven-pounder
+guns, appeared suddenly at Enslin and vigorously attacked the two
+companies of the Northampton Regiment who held the station. At the
+same time they destroyed a couple of culverts and tore up three
+hundred yards of the permanent way. For some hours the Northamptons
+under Captain Godley were closely pressed, but a telegram had been
+despatched to Modder Camp, and the 12th Lancers with the ubiquitous
+62nd Battery were sent to their assistance. The Boers retired with
+their usual mobility, and in ten hours the line was completely
+restored.
+
+Reinforcements were now reaching the Modder River force, which made
+it more formidable than when it had started. A very essential
+addition was that of the 12th Lancers and of G battery of Horse
+Artillery, which would increase the mobility of the force and make
+it possible for the General to follow up a blow after he had struck
+it. The magnificent regiments which formed the Highland
+Brigade--the 2nd Black Watch, the 1st Gordons, the 2nd Seaforths,
+and the 1st Highland Light Infantry had arrived under the gallant
+and ill-fated Wauchope. Four five-inch howitzers had also come to
+strengthen the artillery. At the same time the Canadians, the
+Australians, and several line regiments were moved up on the line
+from De Aar to Belmont. It appeared to the public at home that
+there was the material for an overwhelming advance; but the
+ordinary observer, and even perhaps the military critic, had not
+yet appreciated how great is the advantage which is given by modern
+weapons to the force which acts upon the defensive. With enormous
+pains Cronje and De la Rey were entrenching a most formidable
+position in front of our advance, with a confidence, which proved
+to be justified that it would be on their own ground and under
+their own conditions that in this, as in the three preceding
+actions, we should engage them.
+
+On the morning of Saturday, December 9th, the British General made
+an attempt to find out what lay in front of him amid that
+semicircle of forbidding hills. To this end he sent out a
+reconnaissance in the early morning, which included G Battery Horse
+Artillery, the 9th Lancers, and the ponderous 4.7 naval gun, which,
+preceded by the majestic march of thirty-two bullocks and attended
+by eighty seamen gunners, creaked forwards over the plain. What was
+there to shoot at in those sunlit boulder-strewn hills in front?
+They lay silent and untenanted in the glare of the African day. In
+vain the great gun exploded its huge shell with its fifty pounds of
+lyddite over the ridges, in vain the smaller pieces searched every
+cleft and hollow with their shrapnel. No answer came from the
+far-stretching hills. Not a flash or twinkle betrayed the fierce
+bands who lurked among the boulders. The force returned to camp no
+wiser than when it left.
+
+There was one sight visible every night to all men which might well
+nerve the rescuers in their enterprise. Over the northern horizon,
+behind those hills of danger, there quivered up in the darkness one
+long, flashing, quivering beam, which swung up and down, and up
+again like a seraphic sword-blade. It was Kimberley praying for
+help, Kimberley solicitous for news. Anxiously, distractedly, the
+great De Beers searchlight dipped and rose. And back across the
+twenty miles of darkness, over the hills where Cronje lurked, there
+came that other southern column of light which answered, and
+promised, and soothed. 'Be of good heart, Kimberley. We are here!
+The Empire is behind us. We have not forgotten you. It may be days,
+or it may be weeks, but rest assured that we are coming.'
+
+About three in the afternoon of Sunday, December 10th, the force
+which was intended to clear a path for the army through the lines
+of Magersfontein moved out upon what proved to be its desperate
+enterprise. The 3rd or Highland Brigade included the Black Watch,
+the Seaforths, the Argyll and Sutherlands, and the Highland Light
+Infantry. The Gordons had only arrived in camp that day, and did
+not advance until next morning. Besides the infantry, the 9th
+Lancers, the mounted infantry, and all the artillery moved to the
+front. It was raining hard, and the men with one blanket between
+two soldiers bivouacked upon the cold damp ground, about three
+miles from the enemy's position. At one o'clock, without food, and
+drenched, they moved forwards through the drizzle and the darkness
+to attack those terrible lines. Major Benson, R.A., with two of
+Rimington's scouts, led them on their difficult way.
+
+Clouds drifted low in the heavens, and the falling rain made the
+darkness more impenetrable. The Highland Brigade was formed into a
+column--the Black Watch in front, then the Seaforths, and the other
+two behind. To prevent the men from straggling in the night the
+four regiments were packed into a mass of quarter column as densely
+as was possible, and the left guides held a rope in order to
+preserve the formation. With many a trip and stumble the ill-fated
+detachment wandered on, uncertain where they were going and what it
+was that they were meant to do. Not only among the rank and file,
+but among the principal officers also, there was the same absolute
+ignorance. Brigadier Wauchope knew, no doubt, but his voice was
+soon to be stilled in death. The others were aware, of course, that
+they were advancing either to turn the enemy's trenches or to
+attack them, but they may well have argued from their own formation
+that they could not be near the riflemen yet. Why they should be
+still advancing in that dense clump we do not now know, nor can we
+surmise what thoughts were passing through the mind of the gallant
+and experienced chieftain who walked beside them. There are some
+who claim on the night before to have seen upon his strangely
+ascetic face that shadow of doom which is summed up in the one word
+'fey.' The hand of coming death may already have lain cold upon his
+soul. Out there, close beside him, stretched the long trench,
+fringed with its line of fierce, staring, eager faces, and its
+bristle of gun-barrels. They knew he was coming. They were ready.
+They were waiting. But still, with the dull murmur of many feet,
+the dense column, nearly four thousand strong, wandered onwards
+through the rain and the darkness, death and mutilation crouching
+upon their path.
+
+It matters not what gave the signal, whether it was the flashing of
+a lantern by a Boer scout, or the tripping of a soldier over wire,
+or the firing of a gun in the ranks. It may have been any, or it
+may have been none, of these things. As a matter of fact I have
+been assured by a Boer who was present that it was the sound of the
+tins attached to the alarm wires which disturbed them. However this
+may be, in an instant there crashed out of the darkness into their
+faces and ears a roar of point-blank fire, and the night was
+slashed across with the throbbing flame of the rifles. At the
+moment before this outflame some doubt as to their whereabouts
+seems to have flashed across the mind of their leaders. The order
+to extend had just been given, but the men had not had time to act
+upon it. The storm of lead burst upon the head and right flank of
+the column, which broke to pieces under the murderous volley.
+Wauchope was shot, struggled up, and fell once more for ever.
+Rumour has placed words of reproach upon his dying lips, but his
+nature, both gentle and soldierly, forbids the supposition. 'What a
+pity!' was the only utterance which a brother Highlander ascribes
+to him. Men went down in swathes, and a howl of rage and agony,
+heard afar over the veld, swelled up from the frantic and
+struggling crowd. By the hundred they dropped--some dead, some
+wounded, some knocked down by the rush and sway of the broken
+ranks. It was a horrible business. At such a range and in such a
+formation a single Mauser bullet may well pass through many men. A
+few dashed forwards, and were found dead at the very edges of the
+trench. The few survivors of companies A, B, and C of the Black
+Watch appear to have never actually retired, but to have clung on
+to the immediate front of the Boer trenches, while the remains of
+the other five companies tried to turn the Boer flank. Of the
+former body only six got away unhurt in the evening after lying all
+day within two hundred yards of the enemy. The rest of the brigade
+broke and, disentangling themselves with difficulty from the dead
+and the dying, fled back out of that accursed place. Some, the most
+unfortunate of all, became caught in the darkness in the wire
+defences, and were found in the morning hung up 'like crows,' as
+one spectator describes it, and riddled with bullets.
+
+Who shall blame the Highlanders for retiring when they did? Viewed,
+not by desperate and surprised men, but in all calmness and sanity,
+it may well seem to have been the very best thing which they could
+do. Dashed into chaos, separated from their officers, with no one
+who knew what was to be done, the first necessity was to gain
+shelter from this deadly fire, which had already stretched six
+hundred of their number upon the ground. The danger was that men so
+shaken would be stricken with panic, scatter in the darkness over
+the face of the country, and cease to exist as a military unit. But
+the Highlanders were true to their character and their traditions.
+There was shouting in the darkness, hoarse voices calling for the
+Seaforths, for the Argylls, for Company C, for Company H, and
+everywhere in the gloom there came the answer of the clansmen.
+Within half an hour with the break of day the Highland regiments
+had re-formed, and, shattered and weakened, but undaunted, prepared
+to renew the contest. Some attempt at an advance was made upon the
+right, ebbing and flowing, one little band even reaching the
+trenches and coming back with prisoners and reddened bayonets. For
+the most part the men lay upon their faces, and fired when they
+could at the enemy; but the cover which the latter kept was so
+excellent that an officer who expended 120 rounds has left it upon
+record that he never once had seen anything positive at which to
+aim. Lieutenant Lindsay brought the Seaforths' Maxim into the
+firing-line, and, though all her crew except two were hit, it
+continued to do good service during the day. The Lancers' Maxim was
+equally staunch, though it also was left finally with only the
+lieutenant in charge and one trooper to work it.
+
+Fortunately the guns were at hand, and, as usual, they were quick
+to come to the aid of the distressed. The sun was hardly up before
+the howitzers were throwing lyddite at 4000 yards, the three field
+batteries (18th, 62nd, 75th) were working with shrapnel at a mile,
+and the troop of Horse Artillery was up at the right front trying
+to enfilade the trenches. The guns kept down the rifle-fire, and
+gave the wearied Highlanders some respite from their troubles. The
+whole situation had resolved itself now into another Battle of
+Modder River. The infantry, under a fire at from six hundred to
+eight hundred paces, could not advance and would not retire. The
+artillery only kept the battle going, and the huge naval gun from
+behind was joining with its deep bark in the deafening uproar. But
+the Boers had already learned--and it is one of their most valuable
+military qualities that they assimilate their experience so
+quickly--that shell fire is less dangerous in a trench than among
+rocks. These trenches, very elaborate in character, had been dug
+some hundreds of yards from the foot of the hills, so that there
+was hardly any guide to our artillery fire. Yet it is to the
+artillery fire that all the losses of the Boers that day were due.
+The cleverness of Cronje's disposition of his trenches some hundred
+yards ahead of the kopjes is accentuated by the fascination which
+any rising object has for a gunner. Prince Kraft tells the story of
+how at Sadowa he unlimbered his guns two hundred yards in front of
+the church of Chlum, and how the Austrian reply fire almost
+invariably pitched upon the steeple. So our own gunners, even at a
+two thousand-yard mark, found it difficult to avoid overshooting
+the invisible line, and hitting the obvious mark behind.
+
+As the day wore on reinforcements of infantry came up from the
+force which had been left to guard the camp. The Gordons arrived
+with the first and second battalions of the Coldstream Guards, and
+all the artillery was moved nearer to the enemy's position. At the
+same time, as there were some indications of an attack upon our
+right flank, the Grenadier Guards with five companies of the
+Yorkshire Light Infantry were moved up in that direction, while the
+three remaining companies of Barter's Yorkshiremen secured a drift
+over which the enemy might cross the Modder. This threatening
+movement upon our right flank, which would have put the Highlanders
+into an impossible position had it succeeded, was most gallantly
+held back all morning, before the arrival of the Guards and the
+Yorkshires, by the mounted infantry and the 12th Lancers,
+skirmishing on foot. It was in this long and successful struggle to
+cover the flank of the 3rd Brigade that Major Milton, Major Ray,
+and many another brave man met his end. The Coldstreams and
+Grenadiers relieved the pressure upon this side, and the Lancers
+retired to their horses, having shown, not for the first time, that
+the cavalryman with a modern carbine can at a pinch very quickly
+turn himself into a useful infantry soldier. Lord Airlie deserves
+all praise for his unconventional use of his men, and for the
+gallantry with which he threw both himself and them into the most
+critical corner of the fight.
+
+While the Coldstreams, the Grenadiers, and the Yorkshire Light
+Infantry were holding back the Boer attack upon our right flank the
+indomitable Gordons, the men of Dargai, furious with the desire to
+avenge their comrades of the Highland Brigade, had advanced
+straight against the trenches and succeeded without any very great
+loss in getting within four hundred yards of them. But a single
+regiment could not carry the position, and anything like a general
+advance upon it was out of the question in broad daylight after the
+punishment which we had received. Any plans of the sort which may
+have passed through Lord Methuen's mind were driven away for ever
+by the sudden unordered retreat of the stricken brigade. They had
+been very roughly handled in this, which was to most of them their
+baptism of fire, and they had been without food and water under a
+burning sun all day. They fell back rapidly for a mile, and the
+guns were for a time left partially exposed. Fortunately the lack
+of initiative on the part of the Boers which has stood our friend
+so often came in to save us from disaster and humiliation. It is
+due to the brave unshaken face which the Guards presented to the
+enemy that our repulse did not deepen into something still more
+serious.
+
+The Gordons and the Scots Guards were still in attendance upon the
+guns, but they had been advanced very close to the enemy's
+trenches, and there were no other troops in support. Under these
+circumstances it was imperative that the Highlanders should rally,
+and Major Ewart with other surviving officers rushed among the
+scattered ranks and strove hard to gather and to stiffen them. The
+men were dazed by what they had undergone, and Nature shrank back
+from that deadly zone where the bullets fell so thickly. But the
+pipes blew, and the bugles sang, and the poor tired fellows, the
+backs of their legs so flayed and blistered by lying in the sun
+that they could hardly bend them, hobbled back to their duty. They
+worked up to the guns once more, and the moment of danger passed.
+
+But as the evening wore on it became evident that no attack could
+succeed, and that therefore there was no use in holding the men in
+front of the enemy's position. The dark Cronje, lurking among his
+ditches and his barbed wire, was not to be approached, far less
+defeated. There are some who think that, had we held on there as we
+did at the Modder River, the enemy would again have been
+accommodating enough to make way for us during the night, and the
+morning would have found the road clear to Kimberley. I know no
+grounds for such an opinion--but several against it. At Modder
+Cronje abandoned his lines, knowing that he had other and stronger
+ones behind him. At Magersfontein a level plain lay behind the Boer
+position, and to abandon it was to give up the game altogether.
+Besides, why should he abandon it? He knew that he had hit us hard.
+We had made absolutely no impression upon his defences. Is it
+likely that he would have tamely given up all his advantages and
+surrendered the fruits of his victory without a struggle? It is
+enough to mourn a defeat without the additional agony of thinking
+that a little more perseverance might have turned it into a
+victory. The Boer position could only be taken by outflanking it,
+and we were not numerous enough nor mobile enough to outflank it.
+There lay the whole secret of our troubles, and no conjectures as
+to what might under other circumstances have happened can alter it.
+
+About half-past five the Boer guns, which had for some unexplained
+reason been silent all day, opened upon the cavalry. Their
+appearance was a signal for the general falling back of the centre,
+and the last attempt to retrieve the day was abandoned. The
+Highlanders were dead-beat; the Coldstreams had had enough; the
+mounted infantry was badly mauled. There remained the Grenadiers,
+the Scots Guards, and two or three line regiments who were
+available for a new attack. There are occasions, such as Sadowa,
+where a General must play his last card. There are others where
+with reinforcements in his rear, he can do better by saving his
+force and trying once again. General Grant had an axiom that the
+best time for an advance was when you were utterly exhausted, for
+that was the moment when your enemy was probably utterly exhausted
+too, and of two such forces the attacker has the moral advantage.
+Lord Methuen determined--and no doubt wisely--that it was no
+occasion for counsels of desperation. His men were withdrawn--in
+some cases withdrew themselves--outside the range of the Boer guns,
+and next morning saw the whole force with bitter and humiliated
+hearts on their way back to their camp at Modder River.
+
+The repulse of Magersfontein cost the British nearly a thousand
+men, killed, wounded, and missing, of which over seven hundred
+belonged to the Highlanders. Fifty-seven officers had fallen in
+that brigade alone, including their Brigadier and Colonel Downman
+of the Gordons. Colonel Codrington of the Coldstreams was wounded
+early, fought through the action, and came back in the evening on a
+Maxim gun. Lord Winchester of the same battalion was killed, after
+injudiciously but heroically exposing himself all day. The Black
+Watch alone had lost nineteen officers and over three hundred men
+killed and wounded, a catastrophe which can only be matched in all
+the bloody and glorious annals of that splendid regiment by their
+slaughter at Ticonderoga in 1757, when no fewer than five hundred
+fell before Montcalm's muskets. Never has Scotland had a more
+grievous day than this of Magersfontein. She has always given her
+best blood with lavish generosity for the Empire, but it may be
+doubted if any single battle has ever put so many families of high
+and low into mourning from the Tweed to the Caithness shore. There
+is a legend that when sorrow comes upon Scotland the old Edinburgh
+Castle is lit by ghostly lights and gleams white at every window in
+the mirk of midnight. If ever the watcher could have seen so
+sinister a sight, it should have been on this, the fatal night of
+December 11, 1899. As to the Boer loss it is impossible to
+determine it. Their official returns stated it to be seventy killed
+and two hundred and fifty wounded, but the reports of prisoners and
+deserters placed it at a very much higher figure. One unit, the
+Scandinavian corps, was placed in an advanced position at
+Spytfontein, and was overwhelmed by the Seaforths, who killed,
+wounded, or took the eighty men of whom it was composed. The
+stories of prisoners and of deserters all speak of losses very much
+higher than those which have been officially acknowledged.
+
+In his comments upon the battle next day Lord Methuen was said to
+have given offence to the Highland Brigade, and the report was
+allowed to go uncontradicted until it became generally accepted. It
+arose, however, from a complete misunderstanding of the purport of
+Lord Methuen's remarks, in which he praised them, as he well might,
+for their bravery, and condoled with them over the wreck of their
+splendid regiments. The way in which officers and men hung on under
+conditions to which no troops have ever been exposed was worthy of
+the highest traditions of the British army. From the death of
+Wauchope in the early morning, until the assumption of the command
+of the brigade by Hughes-Hallett in the late afternoon, no one
+seems to have taken the direction. 'My lieutenant was wounded and
+my captain was killed,' says a private. 'The General was dead, but
+we stayed where we were, for there was no order to retire.' That
+was the story of the whole brigade, until the flanking movement of
+the Boers compelled them to fall back.
+
+The most striking lesson of the engagement is the extreme
+bloodiness of modern warfare under some conditions, and its
+bloodlessness under others. Here, out of a total of something under
+a thousand casualties seven hundred were incurred in about five
+minutes, and the whole day of shell, machine-gun, and rifle fire
+only furnished the odd three hundred. So also at Ladysmith the
+British forces (White's column) were under heavy fire from 5.30 to
+11.30, and the loss again was something under three hundred. With
+conservative generalship the losses of the battles of the future
+will be much less than those of the past, and as a consequence the
+battles themselves will last much longer, and it will be the most
+enduring rather than the most fiery which will win. The supply of
+food and water to the combatants will become of extreme importance
+to keep them up during the prolonged trials of endurance, which
+will last for weeks rather than days. On the other hand, when a
+General's force is badly compromised, it will be so punished that a
+quick surrender will be the only alternative to annihilation.
+
+On the subject of the quarter-column formation which proved so
+fatal to us, it must be remembered that any other form of advance
+is hardly possible during a night attack, though at Tel-el-Kebir
+the exceptional circumstance of the march being over an open desert
+allowed the troops to move for the last mile or two in a more
+extended formation. A line of battalion double-company columns is
+most difficult to preserve in the darkness, and any confusion may
+lead to disaster. The whole mistake lay in a miscalculation of a
+few hundred yards in the position of the trenches. Had the
+regiments deployed five minutes earlier it is probable (though by
+no means certain) that the position would have been carried.
+
+The action was not without those examples of military virtue which
+soften a disaster, and hold out a brighter promise for the future.
+The Guards withdrew from the field as if on parade, with the Boer
+shells bursting over their ranks. Fine, too, was the restraint of G
+Battery of Horse Artillery on the morning after the battle. An
+armistice was understood to exist, but the naval gun, in ignorance
+of it, opened on our extreme left. The Boers at once opened fire
+upon the Horse Artillery, who, recognising the mistake, remained
+motionless and unlimbered in a line, with every horse, and gunner
+and driver in his place, without taking any notice of the fire,
+which presently slackened and stopped as the enemy came to
+understand the situation. It is worthy of remark that in this
+battle the three field batteries engaged, as well as G Battery,
+R.H.A., each fired over 1000 rounds and remained for 30 consecutive
+hours within 1500 yards of the Boer position.
+
+But of all the corps who deserve praise, there was none more
+gallant than the brave surgeons and ambulance bearers, who
+encounter all the dangers and enjoy none of the thrills of warfare.
+All day under fire these men worked and toiled among the wounded.
+Beevor, Ensor, Douglas, Probyn--all were equally devoted. It is
+almost incredible, and yet it is true, that by ten o'clock on the
+morning after the battle, before the troops had returned to camp,
+no fewer than five hundred wounded were in the train and on their
+way to Cape Town.
+
+CHAPTER 10.
+
+THE BATTLE OF STORMBERG.
+
+Some attempt has now been made to sketch the succession of events
+which had ended in the investment of Ladysmith in northern Natal,
+and also to show the fortunes of the force which on the western
+side of the seat of war attempted to advance to the relief of
+Kimberley. The distance between these forces may be expressed in
+terms familiar to the European reader by saying that it was that
+which separates Paris from Frankfort, or to the American by
+suggesting that Ladysmith was at Boston and that Methuen was trying
+to relieve Philadelphia. Waterless deserts and rugged mountain
+ranges divided the two scenes of action. In the case of the British
+there could be no connection between the two movements, but the
+Boers by a land journey of something over a hundred miles had a
+double choice of a route by which Cronje and Joubert might join
+hands, either by the Bloemfontein-Johannesburg-Laing's Nek Railway,
+or by the direct line from Harrismith to Ladysmith. The possession
+of these internal lines should have been of enormous benefit to the
+Boers, enabling them to throw the weight of their forces
+unexpectedly from the one flank to the other.
+
+In a future chapter it will be recorded how the Army Corps arriving
+from England was largely diverted into Natal in order in the first
+instance to prevent the colony from being overrun, and in the
+second to rescue the beleaguered garrison. In the meantime it is
+necessary to deal with the military operations in the broad space
+between the eastern and western armies.
+
+After the declaration of war there was a period of some weeks
+during which the position of the British over the whole of the
+northern part of Cape Colony was full of danger. Immense supplies
+had been gathered at De Aar which were at the mercy of a Free State
+raid, and the burghers, had they possessed a cavalry leader with
+the dash of a Stuart or a Sheridan, might have dealt a blow which
+would have cost us a million pounds' worth of stores and dislocated
+the whole plan of campaign. However, the chance was allowed to
+pass, and when, on November 1st, the burghers at last in a
+leisurely fashion sauntered over the frontier, arrangements had
+been made by reinforcement and by concentration to guard the vital
+points. The objects of the British leaders, until the time for a
+general advance should come, were to hold the Orange River Bridge
+(which opened the way to Kimberley), to cover De Aar Junction,
+where the stores were, to protect at all costs the line of railway
+which led from Cape Town to Kimberley, and to hold on to as much as
+possible of those other two lines of railway which led, the one
+through Colesberg and the other through Stormberg, into the Free
+State. The two bodies of invaders who entered the colony moved
+along the line of these two railways, the one crossing the Orange
+River at Norval's Pont and the other at Bethulie. They enlisted
+many recruits among the Cape Colony Dutch as they advanced, and the
+scanty British forces fell back in front of them, abandoning
+Colesberg on the one line and Stormberg on the other. We have,
+then, to deal with the movements of two British detachments. The
+one which operated on the Colesberg line--which was the more vital
+of the two, as a rapid advance of the Boers upon that line would
+have threatened the precious Cape Town to Kimberley
+connection--consisted almost entirely of mounted troops, and was
+under the command of the same General French who had won the battle
+of Elandslaagte. By an act of foresight which was only too rare
+upon the British side in the earlier stages of this war, French,
+who had in the recent large manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain shown
+great ability as a cavalry leader, was sent out of Ladysmith in the
+very last train which made its way through. His operations, with
+his instructive use of cavalry and horse artillery, may be treated
+separately.
+
+The other British force which faced the Boers who were advancing
+through Stormberg was commanded by General Gatacre, a man who bore
+a high reputation for fearlessness and tireless energy, though he
+had been criticised, notably during the Soudan campaign, for having
+called upon his men for undue and unnecessary exertion. 'General
+Back-acher' they called him, with rough soldierly chaff. A glance
+at his long thin figure, his gaunt Don Quixote face, and his
+aggressive jaw would show his personal energy, but might not
+satisfy the observer that he possessed those intellectual gifts
+which qualify for high command. At the action of the Atbara he, the
+brigadier in command, was the first to reach and to tear down with
+his own hands the zareeba of the enemy--a gallant exploit of the
+soldier, but a questionable position for the General. The man's
+strength and his weakness lay in the incident.
+
+General Gatacre was nominally in command of a division, but so
+cruelly had his men been diverted from him, some to Buller in Natal
+and some to Methuen, that he could not assemble more than a
+brigade. Falling back before the Boer advance, he found himself
+early in December at Sterkstroom, while the Boers occupied the very
+strong position of Stormberg, some thirty miles to the north of
+him. With the enemy so near him it was Gatacre's nature to attack,
+and the moment that he thought himself strong enough he did so. No
+doubt he had private information as to the dangerous hold which the
+Boers were getting upon the colonial Dutch, and it is possible that
+while Buller and Methuen were attacking east and west they urged
+Gatacre to do something to hold the enemy in the centre. On the
+night of December 9th he advanced.
+
+The fact that he was about to do so, and even the hour of the
+start, appear to have been the common property of the camp some
+days before the actual move. The 'Times' correspondent under the
+date December 7th details all that it is intended to do. It is to
+the credit of our Generals as men, but to their detriment as
+soldiers, that they seem throughout the campaign to have shown
+extraordinarily little power of dissimulation. They did the
+obvious, and usually allowed it to be obvious what they were about
+to do. One thinks of Napoleon striking at Egypt; how he gave it
+abroad that the real object of the expedition was Ireland, but
+breathed into the ears of one or two intimates that in very truth
+it was bound for Genoa. The leading official at Toulon had no more
+idea where the fleet and army of France had gone than the humblest
+caulker in the yard. However, it is not fair to expect the subtlety
+of the Corsican from the downright Saxon, but it remains strange
+and deplorable that in a country filled with spies any one should
+have known in advance that a so-called 'surprise' was about to be
+attempted.
+
+The force with which General Gatacre advanced consisted of the 2nd
+Northumberland Fusiliers, 960 strong, with one Maxim; the 2nd Irish
+Rifles, 840 strong, with one Maxim, and 250 Mounted Infantry. There
+were two batteries of Field Artillery, the 74th and 77th. The total
+force was well under 3000 men. About three in the afternoon the men
+were entrained in open trucks under a burning sun, and for some
+reason, at which the impetuous spirit of the General must have
+chafed, were kept waiting for three hours. At eight o'clock they
+detrained at Molteno, and thence after a short rest and a meal they
+started upon the night march which was intended to end at the break
+of day at the Boer trenches. One feels as if one were describing
+the operations of Magersfontein once again and the parallel
+continues to be painfully exact.
+
+It was nine o'clock and pitch dark when the column moved out of
+Molteno and struck across the black gloom of the veld, the wheels
+of the guns being wrapped in hide to deaden the rattle. It was
+known that the distance was not more than ten miles, and so when
+hour followed hour and the guides were still unable to say that
+they had reached their point it must have become perfectly evident
+that they had missed their way. The men were dog-tired, a long
+day's work had been followed by a long night's march, and they
+plodded along drowsily through the darkness. The ground was broken
+and irregular. The weary soldiers stumbled as they marched.
+Daylight came and revealed the column still looking for its
+objective, the fiery General walking in front and leading his horse
+behind him. It was evident that his plans had miscarried, but his
+energetic and hardy temperament would not permit him to turn back
+without a blow being struck. However one may commend his energy,
+one cannot but stand aghast at his dispositions. The country was
+wild and rocky, the very places for those tactics of the surprise
+and the ambuscade in which the Boers excelled. And yet the column
+still plodded aimlessly on in its dense formation, and if there
+were any attempt at scouting ahead and on the flanks the result
+showed how ineffectively it was carried out. It was at a quarter
+past four in the clear light of a South African morning that a
+shot, and then another, and then a rolling crash of musketry, told
+that we were to have one more rough lesson of the result of
+neglecting the usual precautions of warfare. High up on the face of
+a steep line of hill the Boer riflemen lay hid, and from a short
+range their fire scourged our exposed flank. The men appear to have
+been chiefly colonial rebels, and not Boers of the backveld, and to
+that happy chance it may be that the comparative harmlessness of
+their fire was due. Even now, in spite of the surprise, the
+situation might have been saved had the bewildered troops and their
+harried officers known exactly what to do. It is easy to be wise
+after the event, but it appears now that the only course that could
+commend itself would be to extricate the troops from their
+position, and then, if thought feasible, to plan an attack. Instead
+of this a rush was made at the hillside, and the infantry made
+their way some distance up it only to find that there were positive
+ledges in front of them which could not be climbed. The advance was
+at a dead stop, and the men lay down under the boulders for cover
+from the hot fire which came from inaccessible marksmen above them.
+Meanwhile the artillery had opened behind them, and their fire (not
+for the first time in this campaign) was more deadly to their
+friends than to their foes. At least one prominent officer fell
+among his men, torn by British shrapnel bullets. Talana Hill and
+Modder River have shown also, though perhaps in a less tragic
+degree, that what with the long range of modern artillery fire, and
+what with the difficulty of locating infantry who are using
+smokeless powder, it is necessary that officers commanding
+batteries should be provided with the coolest heads and the most
+powerful glasses of any men in the service, for a responsibility
+which will become more and more terrific rests upon their judgment.
+
+The question now, since the assault had failed, was how to
+extricate the men from their position. Many withdrew down the hill,
+running the gauntlet of the enemy's fire as they emerged from the
+boulders on to the open ground, while others clung to their
+positions, some from a soldierly hope that victory might finally
+incline to them, others because it was clearly safer to lie among
+the rocks than to cross the bullet-swept spaces beyond. Those
+portions of the force who extricated themselves do not appear to
+have realised how many of their comrades had remained behind, and
+so as the gap gradually increased between the men who were
+stationary and the men who fell back all hope of the two bodies
+reuniting became impossible. All the infantry who remained upon the
+hillside were captured. The rest rallied at a point fifteen hundred
+yards from the scene of the surprise, and began an orderly retreat
+to Molteno.
+
+In the meanwhile three powerful Boer guns upon the ridge had opened
+fire with great accuracy, but fortunately with defective shells.
+Had the enemy's contractors been as trustworthy as their gunners in
+this campaign, our losses would have been very much heavier, and it
+is possible that here we catch a glimpse of some consequences of
+that corruption which was one of the curses of the country. The
+guns were moved with great smartness along the ridge, and opened
+fire again and again, but never with great result. Our own
+batteries, the 74th and 77th, with our handful of mounted men,
+worked hard in covering the retreat and holding back the enemy's
+pursuit.
+
+It is a sad subject to discuss, but it is the one instance in a
+campaign containing many reverses which amounts to demoralisation
+among the troops engaged. The Guards marching with the steadiness
+of Hyde Park off the field of Magersfontein, or the men of
+Nicholson's Nek chafing because they were not led in a last
+hopeless charge, are, even in defeat, object lessons of military
+virtue. But here fatigue and sleeplessness had taken all fire and
+spirit out of the men. They dropped asleep by the roadside and had
+to be prodded up by their exhausted officers. Many were taken
+prisoners in their slumber by the enemy who gleaned behind them.
+Units broke into small straggling bodies, and it was a sorry and
+bedraggled force which about ten o'clock came wandering into
+Molteno. The place of honour in the rear was kept throughout by the
+Irish Rifles, who preserved some military formation to the end. Our
+losses in killed and wounded were not severe--military honour would
+have been less sore had they been more so. Twenty-six killed,
+sixty-eight wounded--that is all. But between the men on the
+hillside and the somnambulists of the column, six hundred, about
+equally divided between the Irish Rifles and the Northumberland
+Fusiliers, had been left as prisoners. Two guns, too, had been lost
+in the hurried retreat.
+
+It is not for the historian--especially for a civilian
+historian--to say a word unnecessarily to aggravate the pain of
+that brave man who, having done all that personal courage could do,
+was seen afterwards sobbing on the table of the waiting-room at
+Molteno, and bewailing his 'poor men.' He had a disaster, but
+Nelson had one at Teneriffe and Napoleon at Acre, and built their
+great reputations in spite of it. But the one good thing of a
+disaster is that by examining it we may learn to do better in the
+future, and so it would indeed be a perilous thing if we agreed
+that our reverses were not a fit subject for open and frank
+discussion.
+
+It is not to the detriment of an enterprise that it should be
+daring and call for considerable physical effort on the part of
+those who are engaged in it. On the contrary, the conception of
+such plans is one of the signs of a great military mind. But in the
+arranging of the details the same military mind should assiduously
+occupy itself in foreseeing and preventing every unnecessary thing
+which may make the execution of such a plan more difficult. The
+idea of a swift sudden attack upon Stormberg was excellent--the
+details of the operation are continually open to criticism.
+
+How far the Boers suffered at Stormberg is unknown to us, but there
+seems in this instance no reason to doubt their own statement that
+their losses were very slight. At no time was any body of them
+exposed to our fire, while we, as usual, fought in the open. Their
+numbers were probably less than ours, and the quality of their
+shooting and want of energy in pursuit make the defeat the more
+galling. On the other hand, their guns were served with skill and
+audacity. They consisted of commandos from Bethulie, Rouxville, and
+Smithfield, under the orders of Olivier, with those colonials whom
+they had seduced from their allegiance.
+
+This defeat of General Gatacre's, occurring, as it did, in a
+disaffected district and one of great strategic importance, might
+have produced the worst consequences.
+
+Fortunately no very evil result followed. No doubt the recruiting
+of rebels was helped, but there was no forward movement and Molteno
+remained in our hands. In the meanwhile Gatacre's force was
+reinforced by a fresh battery, the 79th, and by a strong regiment,
+the Derbyshires, so that with the 1st Royal Scots and the wing of
+the Berkshires he was strong enough to hold his own until the time
+for a general advance should come. So in the Stormberg district, as
+at the Modder River, the same humiliating and absurd position of
+stalemate was established.
+
+CHAPTER 11.
+
+BATTLE OF COLENSO.
+
+Two serious defeats had within the week been inflicted upon the
+British forces in South Africa. Cronje, lurking behind his trenches
+and his barbed wire entanglements barred Methuen's road to
+Kimberley, while in the northern part of Cape Colony Gatacre's
+wearied troops had been defeated and driven by a force which
+consisted largely of British subjects. But the public at home
+steeled their hearts and fixed their eyes steadily upon Natal.
+There was their senior General and there the main body of their
+troops. As brigade after brigade and battery after battery touched
+at Cape Town, and were sent on instantly to Durban, it was evident
+that it was in this quarter that the supreme effort was to be made,
+and that there the light might at last break. In club, and dining
+room, and railway car--wherever men met and talked--the same words
+might be heard: 'Wait until Buller moves.' The hopes of a great
+empire lay in the phrase.
+
+It was upon October 30th that Sir George White had been thrust back
+into Ladysmith. On November 2nd telegraphic communication with the
+town was interrupted. On November 3rd the railway line was cut. On
+November 10th the Boers held Colenso and the line of the Tugela. On
+the 14th was the affair of the armoured train. On the 18th the
+enemy were near Estcourt. On the 21st they had reached the Mooi
+River. On the 23rd Hildyard attacked them at Willow Grange. All
+these actions will be treated elsewhere. This last one marks the
+turn of the tide. From then onwards Sir Redvers Buller was massing
+his troops at Chieveley in preparation for a great effort to cross
+the river and to relieve Ladysmith, the guns of which, calling from
+behind the line of northern hills, told their constant tale of
+restless attack and stubborn defence.
+
+But the task was as severe a one as the most fighting General could
+ask for. On the southern side the banks formed a long slope which
+could be shaved as with a razor by the rifle fire of the enemy. How
+to advance across that broad open zone was indeed a problem. It was
+one of many occasions in this war in which one wondered why, if a
+bullet-proof shield capable of sheltering a lying man could be
+constructed, a trial should not be given to it. Alternate rushes of
+companies with a safe rest after each rush would save the troops
+from the continued tension of that deadly never ending fire.
+However, it is idle to discuss what might have been done to
+mitigate their trials. The open ground had to be passed, and then
+they came to--not the enemy, but a broad and deep river, with a
+single bridge, probably undermined, and a single ford, which was
+found not to exist in practice. Beyond the river was tier after
+tier of hills, crowned with stone walls and seamed with trenches,
+defended by thousands of the best marksmen in the world, supported
+by an admirable artillery. If, in spite of the advance over the
+open and in spite of the passage of the river, a ridge could still
+be carried, it was only to be commanded by the next; and so, one
+behind the other, like the billows of the ocean, a series of hills
+and hollows rolled northwards to Ladysmith. All attacks must be in
+the open. All defence was from under cover. Add to this, that the
+young and energetic Louis Botha was in command of the Boers. It was
+a desperate task, and yet honour forbade that the garrison should
+be left to its fate. The venture must be made.
+
+The most obvious criticism upon the operation is that if the attack
+must be made it should not be made under the enemy's conditions. We
+seem almost to have gone out of our way to make every obstacle--the
+glacislike approach, the river, the trenches--as difficult as
+possible. Future operations were to prove that it was not so
+difficult to deceive Boer vigilance and by rapid movements to cross
+the Tugela. A military authority has stated, I know not with what
+truth, that there is no instance in history of a determined army
+being stopped by the line of a river, and from Wellington at the
+Douro to the Russians on the Danube many examples of the ease with
+which they may be passed will occur to the reader. But Buller had
+some exceptional difficulties with which to contend. He was weak in
+mounted troops, and was opposed to an enemy of exceptional mobility
+who might attack his flank and rear if he exposed them. He had not
+that great preponderance of numbers which came to him later, and
+which enabled him to attempt a wide turning movement. One advantage
+he had, the possession of a more powerful artillery, but his
+heaviest guns were naturally his least mobile, and the more direct
+his advance the more effective would his guns be. For these or
+other reasons he determined upon a frontal attack on the formidable
+Boer position, and he moved out of Chieveley Camp for that purpose
+at daybreak on Friday, December 15th.
+
+The force which General Buller led into action was the finest which
+any British general had handled since the battle of the Alma. Of
+infantry he had four strong brigades: the 2nd (Hildyard's)
+consisting of the 2nd Devons, the 2nd Queen's or West Surrey, the
+2nd West Yorkshire, and the 2nd East Surrey; the 4th Brigade
+(Lyttelton's) comprising the 2nd Cameronians, the 3rd Rifles, the
+1st Durhams, and the 1st Rifle Brigade; the 5th Brigade (Hart's)
+with the 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 1st Connaught Rangers, 2nd
+Dublin Fusiliers, and the Border Regiment, this last taking the
+place of the 2nd Irish Rifles, who were with Gatacre. There
+remained the 6th Brigade (Barton's), which included the 2nd Royal
+Fusiliers, the 2nd Scots Fusiliers, the 1st Welsh Fusiliers, and
+the 2nd Irish Fusiliers--in all about 16,000 infantry. The mounted
+men, who were commanded by Lord Dundonald, included the 13th
+Hussars, the 1st Royals, Bethune's Mounted Infantry, Thorneycroft's
+Mounted Infantry, three squadrons of South African Horse, with a
+composite regiment formed from the mounted infantry of the Rifles
+and of the Dublin Fusiliers with squadrons of the Natal Carabineers
+and the Imperial Light Horse. These irregular troops of horse might
+be criticised by martinets and pedants, but they contained some of
+the finest fighting material in the army, some urged on by personal
+hatred of the Boers and some by mere lust of adventure. As an
+example of the latter one squadron of the South African Horse was
+composed almost entirely of Texan muleteers, who, having come over
+with their animals, had been drawn by their own gallant spirit into
+the fighting line of their kinsmen.
+
+Cavalry was General Buller's weakest arm, but his artillery was
+strong both in its quality and its number of guns. There were five
+batteries (30 guns) of the Field Artillery, the 7th, 14th, 63rd,
+64th, and 66th. Besides these there were no fewer than sixteen
+naval guns from H.M.S. 'Terrible'--fourteen of which were
+12-pounders, and the other two of the 4.7 type which had done such
+good service both at Ladysmith and with Methuen. The whole force
+which moved out from Chieveley Camp numbered about 21,000 men.
+
+The work which was allotted to the army was simple in conception,
+however terrible it might prove in execution. There were two points
+at which the river might be crossed, one three miles off on the
+left, named Bridle Drift, the other straight ahead at the Bridge of
+Colenso. The 5th or Irish Brigade was to endeavour to cross at
+Bridle Drift, and then to work down the river bank on the far side
+so as to support the 2nd or English Brigade,--which was to cross at
+Colenso. The 4th Brigade was to advance between these, so as to
+help either which should be in difficulties. Meanwhile on the
+extreme right the mounted troops under Dundonald were to cover the
+flank and to attack Hlangwane Hill, a formidable position held
+strongly by the enemy upon the south bank of the Tugela. The
+remaining Fusilier brigade of infantry was to support this movement
+on the right. The guns were to cover the various attacks, and if
+possible gain a position from which the trenches might be
+enfiladed. This, simply stated, was the work which lay before the
+British army. In the bright clear morning sunshine, under a
+cloudless blue sky, they advanced with high hopes to the assault.
+Before them lay the long level plain, then the curve of the river,
+and beyond, silent and serene, like some peaceful dream landscape,
+stretched the lines and lines of gently curving hills. It was just
+five o'clock in the morning when the naval guns began to bay, and
+huge red dustclouds from the distant foothills showed where the
+lyddite was bursting. No answer came back, nor was there any
+movement upon the sunlit hills. It was almost brutal, this furious
+violence to so gentle and unresponsive a countryside. In no place
+could the keenest eye detect a sign of guns or men, and yet death
+lurked in every hollow and crouched by every rock.
+
+It is so difficult to make a modern battle intelligible when
+fought, as this was, over a front of seven or eight miles, that it
+is best perhaps to take the doings of each column in turn,
+beginning with the left flank, where Hart's Irish Brigade had
+advanced to the assault of Bridle Drift.
+
+Under an unanswered and therefore an unaimed fire from the heavy
+guns the Irish infantry moved forward upon the points which they
+had been ordered to attack. The Dublins led, then the Connaughts,
+the Inniskillings, and the Borderers. Incredible as it may appear
+after the recent experiences of Magersfontein and of Stormberg, the
+men in the two rear regiments appear to have been advanced in
+quarter column, and not to have deployed until after the enemy's
+fire had opened. Had shrapnel struck this close formation, as it
+was within an ace of doing, the loss of life must have been as
+severe as it was unnecessary.
+
+On approaching the Drift--the position or even the existence of
+which does not seem to have been very clearly defined--it was found
+that the troops had to advance into a loop formed by the river, so
+that they were exposed to a very heavy cross-fire upon their right
+flank, while they were rained on by shrapnel from in front. No sign
+of the enemy could be seen, though the men were dropping fast. It
+is a weird and soul-shaking experience to advance over a sunlit and
+apparently a lonely countryside, with no slightest movement upon
+its broad face, while the path which you take is marked behind you
+by sobbing, gasping, writhing men, who can only guess by the
+position of their wounds whence the shots came which struck them
+down. All round, like the hissing of fat in the pan, is the
+monotonous crackle and rattle of the Mausers; but the air is full
+of it, and no one can define exactly whence it comes. Far away on
+some hill upon the skyline there hangs the least gauzy veil of thin
+smoke to indicate whence the six men who have just all fallen
+together, as if it were some grim drill, met their death. Into such
+a hell-storm as this it was that the soldiers have again and again
+advanced in the course of this war, but it may be questioned
+whether they will not prove to be among the last of mortals to be
+asked to endure such an ordeal. Other methods of attack must be
+found or attacks must be abandoned, for smokeless powder,
+quick-firing guns, and modern rifles make it all odds on the
+defence!
+
+The gallant Irishmen pushed on, flushed with battle and careless
+for their losses, the four regiments clubbed into one, with all
+military organisation rapidly disappearing, and nothing left but
+their gallant spirit and their furious desire to come to hand-grips
+with the enemy. Rolling on in a broad wave of shouting angry men,
+they never winced from the fire until they had swept up to the bank
+of the river. Northern Inniskilling and Southern man of Connaught,
+orange and green, Protestant and Catholic, Celt and Saxon, their
+only rivalry now was who could shed his blood most freely for the
+common cause. How hateful seem those provincial politics and narrow
+sectarian creeds which can hold such men apart!
+
+The bank of the river had been gained, but where was the ford? The
+water swept broad and unruffled in front of them, with no
+indication of shallows. A few dashing fellows sprang in, but their
+cartridges and rifles dragged them to the bottom. One or two may
+even have struggled through to the further side, but on this there
+is a conflict of evidence. It may be, though it seems incredible,
+that the river had been partly dammed to deepen the Drift, or, as
+is more probable, that in the rapid advance and attack the position
+of the Drift was lost. However this may be, the troops could find
+no ford, and they lay down, as had been done in so many previous
+actions, unwilling to retreat and unable to advance, with the same
+merciless pelting from front and flank. In every fold and behind
+every anthill the Irishmen lay thick and waited for better times.
+There are many instances of their cheery and uncomplaining humour.
+Colonel Brooke, of the Connaughts, fell at the head of his men.
+Private Livingstone helped to carry him into safety, and then, his
+task done, he confessed to having 'a bit of a rap meself,' and sank
+fainting with a bullet through his throat. Another sat with a
+bullet through both legs. 'Bring me a tin whistle and I'll blow ye
+any tune ye like,' he cried, mindful of the Dargai piper. Another
+with his arm hanging by a tendon puffed morosely at his short black
+pipe. Every now and then, in face of the impossible, the fiery
+Celtic valour flamed furiously upwards. 'Fix bayonets, men, and let
+us make a name for ourselves,' cried a colour sergeant, and he
+never spoke again. For five hours, under the tropical sun, the
+grimy parched men held on to the ground they had occupied. British
+shells pitched short and fell among them. A regiment in support
+fired at them, not knowing that any of the line were so far
+advanced. Shot at from the front, the flank, and the rear, the 5th
+Brigade held grimly on.
+
+But fortunately their orders to retire were at hand, and it is
+certain that had they not reached them the regiments would have
+been uselessly destroyed where they lay. It seems to have been
+Buller himself, who showed extraordinary and ubiquitous personal
+energy during the day, that ordered them to fall back. As they
+retreated there was an entire absence of haste and panic, but
+officers and men were hopelessly jumbled up, and General
+Hart--whose judgment may occasionally be questioned, but whose cool
+courage was beyond praise--had hard work to reform the splendid
+brigade which six hours before had tramped out of Chieveley Camp.
+Between five and six hundred of them had fallen--a loss which
+approximates to that of the Highland Brigade at Magersfontein. The
+Dublins and the Connaughts were the heaviest sufferers.
+
+So much for the mishap of the 5th Brigade. It is superfluous to
+point out that the same old omissions were responsible for the same
+old results. Why were the men in quarter column when advancing
+against an unseen foe? Why had no scouts gone forward to be certain
+of the position of the ford? Where were the clouds of skirmishers
+which should precede such an advance? The recent examples in the
+field and the teachings of the text-books were equally set at
+naught, as they had been, and were to be, so often in this
+campaign. There may be a science of war in the lecture-rooms at
+Camberley, but very little of it found its way to the veld. The
+slogging valour of the private, the careless dash of the regimental
+officer--these were our military assets--but seldom the care and
+foresight of our commanders. It is a thankless task to make such
+comments, but the one great lesson of the war has been that the
+army is too vital a thing to fall into the hands of a caste, and
+that it is a national duty for every man to speak fearlessly and
+freely what he believes to be the truth.
+
+Passing from the misadventure of the 5th Brigade we come as we move
+from left to right upon the 4th, or Lyttelton's Brigade, which was
+instructed not to attack itself but to support the attack on either
+side of it. With the help of the naval guns it did what it could to
+extricate and cover the retreat of the Irishmen, but it could play
+no very important part in the action, and its losses were
+insignificant. On its right in turn Hildyard's English Brigade had
+developed its attack upon Colenso and the bridge. The regiments
+under Hildyard's lead were the 2nd West Surrey, the 2nd Devons
+(whose first battalion was doing so well with the Ladysmith force),
+the East Surreys, and the West Yorkshires. The enemy had evidently
+anticipated the main attack on this position, and not only were the
+trenches upon the other side exceptionally strong, but their
+artillery converged upon the bridge, at least a dozen heavy pieces,
+besides a number of quick-firers, bearing upon it. The Devons and
+the Queens, in open order (an extended line of khaki dots, blending
+so admirably with the plain that they were hardly visible when they
+halted), led the attack, being supported by the East Surrey and the
+West Yorkshires. Advancing under a very heavy fire the brigade
+experienced much the same ordeal as their comrades of Hart's
+brigade, which was mitigated by the fact that from the first they
+preserved their open order in columns of half-companies extended to
+six paces, and that the river in front of them did not permit that
+right flank fire which was so fatal to the Irishmen. With a loss of
+some two hundred men the leading regiments succeeded in reaching
+Colenso, and the West Surrey, advancing by rushes of fifty yards at
+a time, had established itself in the station, but a catastrophe
+had occurred at an earlier hour to the artillery which was
+supporting it which rendered all further advance impossible. For
+the reason of this we must follow the fortunes of the next unit
+upon their right.
+
+This consisted of the important body of artillery who had been told
+off to support the main attack. It comprised two field batteries,
+the 14th and the 66th, under the command of Colonel Long, and six
+naval guns (two of 4.7, and four 12-pounders) under Lieutenant
+Ogilvy of the 'Terrible.' Long has the record of being a most
+zealous and dashing officer, whose handling of the Egyptian
+artillery at the battle of the Atbara had much to do with the
+success of the action. Unfortunately, these barbarian campaigns, in
+which liberties may be taken with impunity, leave an evil
+tradition, as the French have found with their Algerians. Our own
+close formations, our adherence to volley firing, and in this
+instance the use of our artillery all seem to be legacies of our
+savage wars. Be the cause what it may, at an early stage of the
+action Long's guns whirled forwards, outstripped the infantry
+brigades upon their flanks, left the slow-moving naval guns with
+their ox-teams behind them, and unlimbered within a thousand yards
+of the enemy's trenches. From this position he opened fire upon
+Fort Wylie, which was the centre of that portion of the Boer
+position which faced him.
+
+But his two unhappy batteries were destined not to turn the tide of
+battle, as he had hoped, but rather to furnish the classic example
+of the helplessness of artillery against modern rifle fire. Not
+even Mercer's famous description of the effect of a flank fire upon
+his troop of horse artillery at Waterloo could do justice to the
+blizzard of lead which broke over the two doomed batteries. The
+teams fell in heaps, some dead, some mutilated, and mutilating
+others in their frantic struggles. One driver, crazed with horror,
+sprang on a leader, cut the traces and tore madly off the field.
+But a perfect discipline reigned among the vast majority of the
+gunners, and the words of command and the laying and working of the
+guns were all as methodical as at Okehampton. Not only was there a
+most deadly rifle fire, partly from the lines in front and partly
+from the village of Colenso upon their left flank, but the Boer
+automatic quick-firers found the range to a nicety, and the little
+shells were crackling and banging continually over the batteries.
+Already every gun had its litter of dead around it, but each was
+still fringed by its own group of furious officers and sweating
+desperate gunners. Poor Long was down, with a bullet through his
+arm and another through his liver. 'Abandon be damned! We don't
+abandon guns!' was his last cry as they dragged him into the
+shelter of a little donga hard by. Captain Goldie dropped dead. So
+did Lieutenant Schreiber. Colonel Hunt fell, shot in two places.
+Officers and men were falling fast. The guns could not be worked,
+and yet they could not be removed, for every effort to bring up
+teams from the shelter where the limbers lay ended in the death of
+the horses. The survivors took refuge from the murderous fire in
+that small hollow to which Long had been carried, a hundred yards
+or so from the line of bullet-splashed cannon. One gun on the right
+was still served by four men who refused to leave it. They seemed
+to bear charmed lives, these four, as they strained and wrestled
+with their beloved 15-pounder, amid the spurting sand and the blue
+wreaths of the bursting shells. Then one gasped and fell against
+the trail, and his comrade sank beside the wheel with his chin upon
+his breast. The third threw up his hands and pitched forward upon
+his face; while the survivor, a grim powder-stained figure, stood
+at attention looking death in the eyes until he too was struck
+down. A useless sacrifice, you may say; but while the men who saw
+them die can tell such a story round the camp fire the example of
+such deaths as these does more than clang of bugle or roll of drum
+to stir the warrior spirit of our race.
+
+For two hours the little knot of heart-sick humiliated officers and
+men lay in the precarious shelter of the donga and looked out at
+the bullet-swept plain and the line of silent guns. Many of them
+were wounded. Their chief lay among them, still calling out in his
+delirium for his guns. They had been joined by the gallant Baptie,
+a brave surgeon, who rode across to the donga amid a murderous
+fire, and did what he could for the injured men. Now and then a
+rush was made into the open, sometimes in the hope of firing
+another round, sometimes to bring a wounded comrade in from the
+pitiless pelt of the bullets. How fearful was that lead-storm may
+be gathered from the fact that one gunner was found with sixty-four
+wounds in his body. Several men dropped in these sorties, and the
+disheartened survivors settled down once more in the donga.
+
+The hope to which they clung was that their guns were not really
+lost, but that the arrival of infantry would enable them to work
+them once more. Infantry did at last arrive, but in such small
+numbers that it made the situation more difficult instead of easing
+it. Colonel Bullock had brought up two companies of the Devons to
+join the two companies (A and B) of Scots Fusiliers who had been
+the original escort of the guns, but such a handful could not turn
+the tide. They also took refuge in the donga, and waited for better
+times.
+
+In the meanwhile the attention of Generals Buller and Clery had
+been called to the desperate position of the guns, and they had
+made their way to that further nullah in the rear where the
+remaining limber horses and drivers were. This was some distance
+behind that other donga in which Long, Bullock, and their Devons
+and gunners were crouching. 'Will any of you volunteer to save the
+guns?' cried Buller. Corporal Nurse, Gunner Young, and a few others
+responded. The desperate venture was led by three aides-de-camp of
+the Generals, Congreve, Schofield, and Roberts, the only son of the
+famous soldier. Two gun teams were taken down; the horses galloping
+frantically through an infernal fire, and each team succeeded in
+getting back with a gun. But the loss was fearful. Roberts was
+mortally wounded. Congreve has left an account which shows what a
+modern rifle fire at a thousand yards is like. 'My first bullet
+went through my left sleeve and made the joint of my elbow bleed,
+next a clod of earth caught me smack on the right arm, then my
+horse got one, then my right leg one, then my horse another, and
+that settled us.' The gallant fellow managed to crawl to the group
+of castaways in the donga. Roberts insisted on being left where he
+fell, for fear he should hamper the others.
+
+In the meanwhile Captain Reed, of the 7th Battery, had arrived with
+two spare teams of horses, and another determined effort was made
+under his leadership to save some of the guns. But the fire was too
+murderous. Two-thirds of his horses and half his men, including
+himself, were struck down, and General Buller commanded that all
+further attempts to reach the abandoned batteries should be given
+up. Both he and General Clery had been slightly wounded, and there
+were many operations over the whole field of action to engage their
+attention. But making every allowance for the pressure of many
+duties and for the confusion and turmoil of a great action, it does
+seem one of the most inexplicable incidents in British military
+history that the guns should ever have been permitted to fall into
+the hands of the enemy. It is evident that if our gunners could not
+live under the fire of the enemy it would be equally impossible for
+the enemy to remove the guns under a fire from a couple of
+battalions of our infantry. There were many regiments which had
+hardly been engaged, and which could have been advanced for such a
+purpose. The men of the Mounted Infantry actually volunteered for
+this work, and none could have been more capable of carrying it
+out. There was plenty of time also, for the guns were abandoned
+about eleven and the Boers did not venture to seize them until
+four. Not only could the guns have been saved, but they might, one
+would think, have been transformed into an excellent bait for a
+trap to tempt the Boers out of their trenches. It must have been
+with fear and trembling that Cherry Emmett and his men first
+approached them, for how could they believe that such incredible
+good fortune had come to them? However, the fact, humiliating and
+inexplicable, is that the guns were so left, that the whole force
+was withdrawn, and that not only the ten cannon, but also the
+handful of Devons, with their Colonel, and the Fusiliers were taken
+prisoners in the donga which had sheltered them all day.
+
+We have now, working from left to right, considered the operations
+of Hart's Brigade at Bridle Drift, of Lyttelton's Brigade in
+support, of Hildyard's which attacked Colenso, and of the luckless
+batteries which were to have helped him. There remain two bodies of
+troops upon the right, the further consisting of Dundonald's
+mounted men who were to attack Hlangwane Hill, a fortified Boer
+position upon the south of the river, while Barton's Brigade was to
+support it and to connect this attack with the central operations.
+
+Dundonald's force was entirely too weak for such an operation as
+the capture of the formidable entrenched hill, and it is probable
+that the movement was meant rather as a reconnaissance than as an
+assault. He had not more than a thousand men in all, mostly
+irregulars, and the position which faced him was precipitous and
+entrenched, with barbed-wire entanglements and automatic guns. But
+the gallant colonials were out on their first action, and their
+fiery courage pushed the attack home. Leaving their horses, they
+advanced a mile and a half on foot before they came within easy
+range of the hidden riflemen, and learned the lesson which had been
+taught to their comrades all along the line, that given
+approximately equal numbers the attack in the open has no possible
+chance against the concealed defence, and that the more bravely it
+is pushed the more heavy is the repulse. The irregulars carried
+themselves like old soldiers, they did all that mortal man could
+do, and they retired coolly and slowly with the loss of 130 of the
+brave troopers. The 7th Field Battery did all that was possible to
+support the advance and cover the retirement. In no single place,
+on this day of disaster, did one least gleam of success come to
+warm the hearts and reward the exertions of our much-enduring men.
+
+Of Barton's Brigade there is nothing to be recorded, for they
+appear neither to have supported the attack upon Hlangwane Hill on
+the one side nor to have helped to cover the ill-fated guns on the
+other. Barton was applied to for help by Dundonald, but refused to
+detach any of his troops. If General Buller's real idea was a
+reconnaissance in force in order to determine the position and
+strength of the Boer lines, then of course his brigadiers must have
+felt a reluctance to entangle their brigades in a battle which was
+really the result of a misunderstanding. On the other hand, if, as
+the orders of the day seem to show, a serious engagement was always
+intended, it is strange that two brigades out of four should have
+played so insignificant a part. To Barton's Brigade was given the
+responsibility of seeing that no right flank attack was carried out
+by the Boers, and this held it back until it was clear that no such
+attack was contemplated. After that one would have thought that,
+had the situation been appreciated, at least two battalions might
+have been spared to cover the abandoned guns with their rifle fire.
+Two companies of the Scots Fusiliers did share the fortunes of the
+guns. Two others, and one of the Irish Fusiliers, acted in support,
+but the brigade as a whole, together with the 1st Royals and the
+13th Hussars, might as well have been at Aldershot for any bearing
+which their work had upon the fortunes of the day.
+
+And so the first attempt at the relief of Ladysmith came to an end.
+At twelve o'clock all the troops upon the ground were retreating
+for the camp. There was nothing in the shape of rout or panic, and
+the withdrawal was as orderly as the advance; but the fact remained
+that we had just 1200 men in killed, wounded, and missing, and had
+gained absolutely nothing. We had not even the satisfaction of
+knowing that we had inflicted as well as endured punishment, for
+the enemy remained throughout the day so cleverly concealed that it
+is doubtful whether more than a hundred casualties occurred in
+their ranks. Once more it was shown how weak an arm is artillery
+against an enemy who lies in shelter.
+
+Our wounded fortunately bore a high proportion to our killed, as
+they always will do when it is rifle fire rather than shell fire
+which is effective. Roughly we had 150 killed and about 720
+wounded. A more humiliating item is the 250 or so who were missing.
+These men were the gunners, the Devons, and the Scots Fusiliers,
+who were taken in the donga together with small bodies from the
+Connaughts, the Dublins, and other regiments who, having found some
+shelter, were unable to leave it, and clung on until the retirement
+of their regiments left them in a hopeless position. Some of these
+small knots of men were allowed to retire in the evening by the
+Boers, who seemed by no means anxious to increase the number of
+their prisoners. Colonel Thackeray, of the Inniskilling Fusiliers,
+found himself with a handful of his men surrounded by the enemy,
+but owing to their good humour and his own tact he succeeded in
+withdrawing them in safety. The losses fell chiefly on Hart's
+Brigade, Hildyard's Brigade, and the colonial irregulars, who bore
+off the honours of the fight.
+
+In his official report General Buller states that were it not for
+the action of Colonel Long and the subsequent disaster to the
+artillery he thought that the battle might have been a successful
+one. This is a hard saying, and throws perhaps too much
+responsibility upon the gallant but unfortunate gunner. There have
+been occasions in the war when greater dash upon the part of our
+artillery might have changed the fate of the day, and it is bad
+policy to be too severe upon the man who has taken a risk and
+failed. The whole operation, with its advance over the open against
+a concealed enemy with a river in his front, was so absolutely
+desperate that Long may have seen that only desperate measures
+could save the situation. To bring guns into action in front of the
+infantry without having clearly defined the position of the
+opposing infantry must always remain one of the most hazardous
+ventures of war. 'It would certainly be mere folly,' says Prince
+Kraft, 'to advance artillery to within 600 or 800 yards of a
+position held by infantry unless the latter were under the fire of
+infantry from an even shorter range.' This 'mere folly' is exactly
+what Colonel Long did, but it must be remembered in extenuation
+that he shared with others the idea that the Boers were up on the
+hills, and had no inkling that their front trenches were down at
+the river. With the imperfect means at his disposal he did such
+scouting as he could, and if his fiery and impetuous spirit led him
+into a position which cost him so dearly it is certainly more easy
+for the critic to extenuate his fault than that subsequent one
+which allowed the abandoned guns to fall into the hands of the
+enemy. Nor is there any evidence that the loss of these guns did
+seriously affect the fate of the action, for at those other parts
+of the field where the infantry had the full and unceasing support
+of the artillery the result was not more favourable than at the
+centre.
+
+So much for Colenso. A more unsatisfactory and in some ways
+inexplicable action is not to be found in the range of British
+military history. And the fuller the light which has been poured
+upon it, the more extraordinary does the battle appear. There are a
+preface and a sequel to the action which have put a severe strain
+upon the charity which the British public has always shown that it
+is prepared to extend to a defeated General. The preface is that
+General Buller sent word to General White that he proposed to
+attack upon the 17th, while the actual attack was delivered upon
+the 15th, so that the garrison was not prepared to make that
+demonstration which might have prevented the besiegers from sending
+important reinforcements to Botha, had he needed them. The sequel
+is more serious. Losing all heart at his defeat, General Buller,
+although he had been officially informed that White had provisions
+for seventy days, sent a heliogram advising the surrender of the
+garrison. White's first reply, which deserves to live with the
+anecdote of Nelson's telescope at his blind eye, was to the effect
+that he believed the enemy had been tampering with Buller's
+messages. To this Buller despatched an amended message, which with
+Sir George White's reply, is here appended:
+
+Message of December 16th, as altered by that of December 17th,
+1899.
+
+'I tried Colenso yesterday, but failed; the enemy is too strong for
+my force except with siege operations, and these will take one full
+month to prepare. Can you last so long?
+
+'How many days can you hold out? I suggest you firing away as much
+ammunition as you can, and making best terms you can. I can remain
+here if you have alternative suggestion, but unaided I cannot break
+in. I find my infantry cannot fight more than ten miles from camp,
+and then only if water can be got, and it is scarce here. Whatever
+happens, recollect to burn your cipher, decipher, and code books,
+and all deciphered messages.'
+
+From Sir G. White to Sir R. Buller. December 16th, 1899.
+
+'Yours of today received and understood. My suggestion is that you
+take up strongest available position that will enable you to keep
+touch of the enemy and harass him constantly with artillery fire,
+and in other ways as much as possible. I can make food last for
+much longer than a month, and will not think of making terms till I
+am forced to. You may have hit enemy harder than you think. All our
+native spies report that your artillery fire made considerable
+impression on enemy. Have your losses been very heavy? If you lose
+touch of enemy, it will immensely increase his opportunities of
+crushing me, and have worst effect elsewhere. While you are in
+touch with him and in communication with me, he has both of our
+forces to reckon with. Make every effort to get reinforcements as
+early as possible, including India, and enlist every man in both
+colonies who will serve and can ride. Things may look brighter. The
+loss of 12,000 men here would be a heavy blow to England. We must
+not yet think of it. I fear I could not cut my way to you. Enteric
+fever is increasing alarmingly here. There are now 180 cases, all
+within last month. Answer fully. I am keeping everything secret for
+the present till I know your plans.'
+
+Much allowance is to be made for a man who is staggering under the
+mental shock of defeat and the physical exertions which Buller had
+endured. That the Government made such allowance is clear from the
+fact that he was not instantly recalled. And yet the cold facts are
+that we have a British General, at the head of 25,000 men,
+recommending another General, at the head of 12,000 men only twelve
+miles off, to lay down his arms to an army which was certainly very
+inferior in numbers to the total British force; and this because he
+had once been defeated, although he knew that there was still time
+for the whole resources of the Empire to be poured into Natal in
+order to prevent so shocking a disaster. Such is a plain statement
+of the advice which Buller gave and which White rejected. For the
+instant the fate not only of South Africa but even, as I believe,
+of the Empire hung upon the decision of the old soldier in
+Ladysmith, who had to resist the proposals of his own General as
+sternly as the attacks of the enemy. He who sorely needed help and
+encouragement became, as his message shows, the helper and the
+encourager. It was a tremendous test, and Sir George White came
+through it with a staunchness and a loyalty which saved us not only
+from overwhelming present disaster, but from a hideous memory which
+must have haunted British military annals for centuries to come.
+
+CHAPTER 12.
+
+THE DARK HOUR.
+
+The week which extended from December 10th to December 17th, 1899,
+was the blackest one known during our generation, and the most
+disastrous for British arms during the century. We had in the short
+space of seven days lost, beyond all extenuation or excuse, three
+separate actions. No single defeat was of vital importance in
+itself, but the cumulative effect, occurring as they did to each of
+the main British forces in South Africa, was very great. The total
+loss amounted to about three thousand men and twelve guns, while
+the indirect effects in the way of loss of prestige to ourselves
+and increased confidence and more numerous recruits to our enemy
+were incalculable.
+
+It is singular to glance at the extracts from the European press at
+that time and to observe the delight and foolish exultation with
+which our reverses were received. That this should occur in the
+French journals is not unnatural, since our history has been
+largely a contest with that Power, and we can regard with
+complacency an enmity which is the tribute to our success. Russia,
+too, as the least progressive of European States, has a natural
+antagonism of thought, if not of interests, to the Power which
+stands most prominently for individual freedom and liberal
+institutions. The same poor excuse may be made for the organs of
+the Vatican. But what are we to say of the insensate railing of
+Germany, a country whose ally we have been for centuries? In the
+days of Marlborough, in the darkest hours of Frederick the Great,
+in the great world struggle of Napoleon, we have been the
+brothers-in-arms of these people. So with the Austrians also. If
+both these countries were not finally swept from the map by
+Napoleon, it is largely to British subsidies and British tenacity
+that they owe it. And yet these are the folk who turned most
+bitterly against us at the only time in modern history when we had
+a chance of distinguishing our friends from our foes. Never again,
+I trust, on any pretext will a British guinea be spent or a British
+soldier or sailor shed his blood for such allies. The political
+lesson of this writer has been that we should make ourselves strong
+within the empire, and let all outside it, save only our kinsmen of
+America, go their own way and meet their own fate without let or
+hindrance from us. It is amazing to find that even the Americans
+could understand the stock from which they are themselves sprung so
+little that such papers as the 'New York Herald' should imagine
+that our defeat at Colenso was a good opportunity for us to
+terminate the war. The other leading American journals, however,
+took a more sane view of the situation, and realised that ten years
+of such defeats would not find the end either of our resolution or
+of our resources.
+
+In the British Islands and in the empire at large our misfortunes
+were met by a sombre but unalterable determination to carry the war
+to a successful conclusion and to spare no sacrifices which could
+lead to that end. Amid the humiliation of our reverses there was a
+certain undercurrent of satisfaction that the deeds of our foemen
+should at least have made the contention that the strong was
+wantonly attacking the weak an absurd one. Under the stimulus of
+defeat the opposition to the war sensibly decreased. It had become
+too absurd even for the most unreasonable platform orator to
+contend that a struggle had been forced upon the Boers when every
+fresh detail showed how thoroughly they had prepared for such a
+contingency and how much we had to make up. Many who had opposed
+the war simply on that sporting instinct which backs the smaller
+against the larger began to realise that what with the geographical
+position of these people, what with the nature of their country,
+and what with the mobility, number, and hardihood of their forces,
+we had undertaken a task which would necessitate such a military
+effort as we had never before been called upon to make. When
+Kipling at the dawn of the war had sung of 'fifty thousand horse
+and foot going to Table Bay,' the statement had seemed extreme. Now
+it was growing upon the public mind that four times this number
+would not be an excessive estimate. But the nation rose grandly to
+the effort. Their only fear, often and loudly expressed, was that
+Parliament would deal too tamely with the situation and fail to
+demand sufficient sacrifices. Such was the wave of feeling over the
+country that it was impossible to hold a peace meeting anywhere
+without a certainty of riot. The only London daily which had
+opposed the war, though very ably edited, was overborne by the
+general sentiment and compelled to change its line. In the
+provinces also opposition was almost silent, and the great colonies
+were even more unanimous than the mother country. Misfortune had
+solidified us where success might have caused a sentimental
+opposition.
+
+On the whole, the energetic mood of the nation was reflected by the
+decided measures of the Government. Before the deep-sea cables had
+told us the lists of our dead, steps had been taken to prove to the
+world how great were our latent resources and how determined our
+spirit. On December 18th, two days after Colenso, the following
+provisions were made for carrying on the campaign.
+
+1. That as General Buller's hands were full in Natal the
+supervision and direction of the whole campaign should be placed in
+the hands of Lord Roberts, with Lord Kitchener as his chief of
+staff. Thus the famous old soldier and the famous young one were
+called together to the assistance of the country.
+
+2. That all the remaining army reserves should be called out.
+
+3. That the 7th Division (10,000 men) should be despatched to
+Africa, and that an 8th Division should be formed ready for
+service.
+
+4. That considerable artillery reinforcements, including a howitzer
+brigade, should go out.
+
+5. That eleven Militia battalions be sent abroad.
+
+6. That a strong contingent of Volunteers be sent out.
+
+7. That a Yeomanry mounted force be despatched.
+
+8. That mounted corps be raised at the discretion of the
+Commander-in-Chief in South Africa.
+
+9. That the patriotic offers of further contingents from the
+colonies be gratefully accepted.
+
+By these measures it was calculated that from seventy to a hundred
+thousand men would be added to our South African armies, the
+numbers of which were already not short of a hundred thousand.
+
+It is one thing, however, to draw up paper reinforcements, and it
+is another, in a free country where no compulsion would be
+tolerated, to turn these plans into actual regiments and squadrons.
+But if there were any who doubted that this ancient nation still
+glowed with the spirit of its youth his fears must soon have passed
+away. For this far-distant war, a war of the unseen foe and of the
+murderous ambuscade, there were so many volunteers that the
+authorities were embarrassed by their numbers and their
+pertinacity. It was a stimulating sight to see those long queues of
+top-hatted, frock-coated young men who waited their turn for the
+orderly room with as much desperate anxiety as if hard fare, a veld
+bed, and Boer bullets were all that life had that was worth the
+holding. Especially the Imperial Yeomanry, a corps of riders and
+shots, appealed to the sporting instincts of our race. Many could
+ride and not shoot, many could shoot and not ride, more candidates
+were rejected than were accepted, and yet in a very short time
+eight thousand men from every class were wearing the grey coats and
+bandoliers. This singular and formidable force was drawn from every
+part of England and Scotland, with a contingent of hard-riding
+Irish fox-hunters. Noblemen and grooms rode knee to knee in the
+ranks, and the officers included many well-known country gentlemen
+and masters of hounds. Well horsed and well armed, a better force
+for the work in hand could not be imagined. So high did the
+patriotism run that corps were formed in which the men not only
+found their own equipment but contributed their pay to the war
+fund. Many young men about town justified their existence for the
+first time. In a single club, which is peculiarly consecrated to
+the jeunesse doree, three hundred members rode to the wars.
+
+Without waiting for these distant but necessary reinforcements, the
+Generals in Africa had two divisions to look to, one of which was
+actually arriving while the other was on the sea. These formed the
+5th Division under Sir Charles Warren, and the 6th Division under
+General Kelly-Kenny. Until these forces should arrive it was
+obviously best that the three armies should wait, for, unless there
+should be pressing need of help on the part of the besieged
+garrisons or imminent prospects of European complications, every
+week which passed was in our favour. There was therefore a long
+lull in the war, during which Methuen strengthened his position at
+Modder River, Gatacre held his own at Sterkstroom, and Buller built
+up his strength for another attempt at the relief of Ladysmith. The
+only connected series of operations during that time were those of
+General French in the neighbourhood of Colesberg, an account of
+which will be found in their entirety elsewhere. A short narrative
+may be given here of the doings of each of these forces until the
+period of inaction came to an end.
+
+Methuen after the repulse at Magersfontein had fallen back upon the
+lines of Modder River, and had fortified them in such a way that he
+felt himself secure against assault. Cronje, on the other hand, had
+extended his position both to the right and to the left, and had
+strengthened the works which we had already found so formidable. In
+this way a condition of inaction was established which was really
+very much to our advantage, since Methuen retained his
+communications by rail, while all supplies to Cronje had to come a
+hundred miles by road. The British troops, and especially the
+Highland Brigade, were badly in need of a rest after the very
+severe ordeal which they had undergone. General Hector Macdonald,
+whose military record had earned the soldierly name of 'Fighting
+Mac,' was sent for from India to take the place of the ill-fated
+Wauchope. Pending his arrival and that of reinforcements, Methuen
+remained quiet, and the Boers fortunately followed his example.
+From over the northern horizon those silver flashes of light told
+that Kimberley was dauntless in the present and hopeful of the
+future. On January 1st the British post of Kuruman fell, by which
+twelve officers and 120 police were captured. The town was
+isolated, and its capture could have no effect upon the general
+operations, but it is remarkable as the only capture of a fortified
+post up to this point made by the Boers.
+
+The monotony of the long wait was broken by one dashing raid
+carried out by a detachment from Methuen's line of communications.
+This force consisted of 200 Queenslanders, 100 Canadians (Toronto
+Company), 40 mounted Munster Fusiliers, a New South Wales
+Ambulance, and 200 of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry with
+one horse battery. This singular force, so small in numbers and yet
+raked from the ends of the earth, was under the command of Colonel
+Pilcher. Moving out suddenly and rapidly from Belmont, it struck at
+the extreme right of the Boer line, which consisted of a laager
+occupied by the colonial rebels of that part of the country.
+Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm of the colonists at the
+prospect of action. 'At last!' was the cry which went up from the
+Canadians when they were ordered to advance. The result was an
+absolute success. The rebels broke and fled, their camp was taken,
+and forty of them fell into our hands. Our own loss was slight,
+three killed and a few wounded. The flying column occupied the town
+of Douglas and hoisted the British flag there; but it was decided
+that the time had not yet come when it could be held, and the force
+fell back upon Belmont. The rebel prisoners were sent down to Cape
+Town for trial. The movement was covered by the advance of a force
+under Babington from Methuen's force. This detachment, consisting
+of the 9th and 12th Lancers, with some mounted infantry and G troop
+of Horse Artillery, prevented any interference with Pilcher's force
+from the north. It is worthy of record that though the two bodies
+of troops were operating at a distance of thirty miles, they
+succeeded in preserving a telephonic connection, seventeen minutes
+being the average time taken over question and reply.
+
+Encouraged by this small success, Methuen's cavalry on January 9th
+made another raid over the Free State border, which is remarkable
+for the fact that, save in the case of Colonel Plumer's Rhodesian
+Force, it was the first time that the enemy's frontier had been
+violated. The expedition under Babington consisted of the same
+regiments and the same battery which had covered Pilcher's advance.
+The line taken was a south-easterly one, so as to get far round the
+left flank of the Boer position. With the aid of a party of the
+Victorian Mounted Rifles a considerable tract of country was
+overrun, and some farmhouses destroyed. The latter extreme measure
+may have been taken as a warning to the Boers that such
+depredations as they had carried out in parts of Natal could not
+pass with impunity, but both the policy and the humanity of such a
+course appear to be open to question, and there was some cause for
+the remonstrance which President Kruger shortly after addressed to
+us upon the subject. The expedition returned to Modder Camp at the
+end of two days without having seen the enemy. Save for one or two
+similar cavalry reconnaissances, an occasional interchange of
+long-range shells, a little sniping, and one or two false alarms at
+night, which broke the whole front of Magersfontein into yellow
+lines of angry light, nothing happened to Methuen's force which is
+worthy of record up to the time of that movement of General Hector
+Macdonald to Koodoosberg which may be considered in connection with
+Lord Roberts's decisive operations, of which it was really a part.
+
+The doings of General Gatacre's force during the long interval
+which passed between his disaster at Stormberg and the final
+general advance may be rapidly chronicled. Although nominally in
+command of a division, Gatacre's troops were continually drafted
+off to east and to west, so that it was seldom that he had more
+than a brigade under his orders. During the weeks of waiting, his
+force consisted of three field batteries, the 74th, 77th, and 79th,
+some mounted police and irregular horse, the remains of the Royal
+Irish Rifles and the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers, the 1st Royal
+Scots, the Derbyshire regiment, and the Berkshires, the whole
+amounting to about 5500 men, who had to hold the whole district
+from Sterkstroom to East London on the coast, with a victorious
+enemy in front and a disaffected population around. Under these
+circumstances he could not attempt to do more than to hold his
+ground at Sterkstroom, and this he did unflinchingly until the line
+of the Boer defence broke down. Scouting and raiding expeditions,
+chiefly organised by Captain De Montmorency--whose early death cut
+short the career of one who possessed every quality of a partisan
+leader--broke the monotony of inaction. During the week which ended
+the year a succession of small skirmishes, of which the town of
+Dordrecht was the centre, exercised the troops in irregular
+warfare.
+
+On January 3rd the Boer forces advanced and attacked the camp of
+the Cape Mounted Police, which was some eight miles in advance of
+Gatacre's main position. The movement, however, was a half-hearted
+one, and was beaten off with small loss upon their part and less
+upon ours. From then onwards no movement of importance took place
+in Gatacre's column until the general advance along the whole line
+had cleared his difficulties from in front of him.
+
+In the meantime General Buller had also been playing a waiting
+game, and, secure in the knowledge that Ladysmith could still hold
+out, he had been building up his strength for a second attempt to
+relieve the hard-pressed and much-enduring garrison. After the
+repulse at Colenso, Hildyard's and Barton's brigades had remained
+at Chieveley with the mounted infantry, the naval guns, and two
+field batteries. The rest of the force retired to Frere, some miles
+in the rear. Emboldened by their success, the Boers sent raiding
+parties over the Tugela on either flank, which were only checked by
+our patrols being extended from Springfield on the west to Weenen
+on the east. A few plundered farmhouses and a small list of killed
+and wounded horsemen on either side were the sole result of these
+spasmodic and half-hearted operations.
+
+Time here as elsewhere was working for the British, for
+reinforcements were steadily coming to Buller's army. By the new
+year Sir Charles Warren's division (the 5th) was nearly complete at
+Estcourt, whence it could reach the front at any moment. This
+division included the 10th brigade, consisting of the Imperial
+Light Infantry, 2nd Somersets, the 2nd Dorsets, and the 2nd
+Middlesex; also the 11th, called the Lancashire Brigade, formed by
+the 2nd Royal Lancaster, the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, the 1st
+South Lancashire, and the York and Lancaster. The division also
+included the 14th Hussars and the 19th, 20th, and 28th batteries of
+Field Artillery. Other batteries of artillery, including one
+howitzer battery, came to strengthen Buller's force, which amounted
+now to more than 30,000 men. Immense transport preparations had to
+be made, however, before the force could have the mobility
+necessary for a flank march, and it was not until January 11th that
+General Buller's new plans for advance could be set into action.
+Before describing what these plans were and the disappointing fate
+which awaited them, we will return to the story of the siege of
+Ladysmith, and show how narrowly the relieving force escaped the
+humiliation--some would say the disgrace--of seeing the town which
+looked to them for help fall beneath their very eyes. That this did
+not occur is entirely due to the fierce tenacity and savage
+endurance of the disease-ridden and half-starved men who held on to
+the frail lines which covered it.
+
+CHAPTER 13.
+
+THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH.
+
+Monday, October 30th, 1899, is not a date which can be looked back
+to with satisfaction by any Briton. In a scrambling and ill-managed
+action we had lost our detached left wing almost to a man, while
+our right had been hustled with no great loss but with some
+ignominy into Ladysmith. Our guns had been outshot, our infantry
+checked, and our cavalry paralysed. Eight hundred prisoners may
+seem no great loss when compared with a Sedan, or even with an Ulm;
+but such matters are comparative, and the force which laid down its
+arms at Nicholson's Nek is the largest British force which has
+surrendered since the days of our great grandfathers, when the
+egregious Duke of York commanded in Flanders.
+
+Sir George White was now confronted with the certainty of an
+investment, an event for which apparently no preparation had been
+made, since with an open railway behind him so many useless mouths
+had been permitted to remain in the town. Ladysmith lies in a
+hollow and is dominated by a ring of hills, some near and some
+distant. The near ones were in our hands, but no attempt had been
+made in the early days of the war to fortify and hold Bulwana,
+Lombard's Kop, and the other positions from which the town might be
+shelled. Whether these might or might not have been successfully
+held has been much disputed by military men, the balance of opinion
+being that Bulwana, at least, which has a water-supply of its own,
+might have been retained. This question, however, was already
+academic, as the outer hills were in the hands of the enemy. As it
+was, the inner line--Caesar's Camp, Wagon Hill, Rifleman's Post,
+and round to Helpmakaar Hill--made a perimeter of fourteen miles,
+and the difficulty of retaining so extensive a line goes far to
+exonerate General White, not only for abandoning the outer hills,
+but also for retaining his cavalry in the town.
+
+After the battle of Ladysmith and the retreat of the British, the
+Boers in their deliberate but effective fashion set about the
+investment of the town, while the British commander accepted the
+same as inevitable, content if he could stem and hold back from the
+colony the threatened flood of invasion. On Tuesday, Wednesday,
+Thursday, and Friday the commandoes gradually closed in upon the
+south and east, harassed by some cavalry operations and
+reconnaissances upon our part, the effect of which was much
+exaggerated by the press. On Thursday, November 2nd, the last train
+escaped under a brisk fire, the passengers upon the wrong side of
+the seats. At 2 P.M. on the same day the telegraph line was cut,
+and the lonely town settled herself somberly down to the task of
+holding off the exultant Boers until the day--supposed to be
+imminent--when the relieving army should appear from among the
+labyrinth of mountains which lay to the south of them. Some there
+were who, knowing both the enemy and the mountains, felt a cold
+chill within their hearts as they asked themselves how an army was
+to come through, but the greater number, from General to private,
+trusted implicitly in the valour of their comrades and in the luck
+of the British Army.
+
+One example of that historical luck was ever before their eyes in
+the shape of those invaluable naval guns which had arrived so
+dramatically at the very crisis of the fight, in time to check the
+monster on Pepworth Hill and to cover the retreat of the army. But
+for them the besieged must have lain impotent under the muzzles of
+the huge Creusots. But in spite of the naive claims put forward by
+the Boers to some special Providence--a process which a friendly
+German critic described as 'commandeering the Almighty'--it is
+certain that in a very peculiar degree, in the early months of this
+war there came again and again a happy chance, or a merciful
+interposition, which saved the British from disaster. Now in this
+first week of November, when every hill, north and south and east
+and west, flashed and smoked, and the great 96-pound shells groaned
+and screamed over the town, it was to the long thin 4.7's and to
+the hearty bearded men who worked them, that soldiers and townsfolk
+looked for help. These guns of Lambton's, supplemented by two
+old-fashioned 6.3 howitzers manned by survivors from No. 10
+Mountain Battery, did all that was possible to keep down the fire
+of the heavy Boer guns. If they could not save, they could at least
+hit back, and punishment is not so bad to bear when one is giving
+as well as receiving.
+
+By the end of the first week of November the Boers had established
+their circle of fire. On the east of the town, broken by the loops
+of the Klip River, is a broad green plain, some miles in extent,
+which furnished grazing ground for the horses and cattle of the
+besieged. Beyond it rises into a long flat-topped hill the famous
+Bulwana, upon which lay one great Creusot and several smaller guns.
+To the north, on Pepworth Hill, was another Creusot, and between
+the two were the Boer batteries upon Lombard's Kop. The British
+naval guns were placed upon this side, for, as the open loop formed
+by the river lies at this end, it is the part of the defences which
+is most liable to assault. From thence all round the west down to
+Besters in the south was a continuous series of hills, each crowned
+with Boer guns, which, if they could not harm the distant town,
+were at least effective in holding the garrison to its lines. So
+formidable were these positions that, amid much outspoken
+criticism, it has never been suggested that White would have been
+justified with a limited garrison in incurring the heavy loss of
+life which must have followed an attempt to force them.
+
+The first few days of the siege were clouded by the death of
+Lieutenant Egerton of the 'Powerful,' one of the most promising
+officers in the Navy. One leg and the other foot were carried off,
+as he lay upon the sandbag parapet watching the effect of our fire.
+'There's an end of my cricket,' said the gallant sportsman, and he
+was carried to the rear with a cigar between his clenched teeth.
+
+On November 3rd a strong cavalry reconnaissance was pushed down the
+Colenso road to ascertain the force which the enemy had in that
+direction. Colonel Brocklehurst took with him the 18th and 19th
+Hussars, the 5th Lancers and the 5th Dragoon Guards, with the Light
+Horse and the Natal Volunteers. Some desultory fighting ensued
+which achieved no end, and was chiefly remarkable for the excellent
+behaviour of the Colonials, who showed that they were the equals of
+the Regulars in gallantry and their superiors in the tactics which
+such a country requires. The death of Major Taunton, Captain Knapp,
+and young Brabant, the son of the General who did such good service
+at a later stage of the war, was a heavy price to pay for the
+knowledge that the Boers were in considerable strength to the
+south.
+
+By the end of this week the town had already settled down to the
+routine of the siege. General Joubert, with the chivalry which had
+always distinguished him, had permitted the garrison to send out
+the non-combatants to a place called Intombi Camp (promptly named
+Funkersdorp by the facetious) where they were safe from the shells,
+though the burden of their support still fell of course upon the
+much-tried commissariat. The hale and male of the townsfolk refused
+for the most part to avoid the common danger, and clung tenaciously
+to their shot-torn village. Fortunately the river has worn down its
+banks until it runs through a deep channel, in the sides of which
+it was found to be possible to hollow out caves which were
+practically bomb-proof. Here for some months the townsfolk led a
+troglodytic existence, returning to their homes upon that much
+appreciated seventh day of rest which was granted to them by their
+Sabbatarian besiegers.
+
+The perimeter of the defence had been divided off so that each
+corps might be responsible for its own section. To the south was
+the Manchester Regiment upon the hill called Caesar's Camp. Between
+Lombard's Kop and the town, on the north-east, were the Devons. To
+the north, at what seemed the vulnerable point, were the Rifle
+Brigade, the Rifles, and the remains of the 18th Hussars. To the
+west were the 5th Lancers, 19th Hussars, and 5th Dragoon Guards.
+The rest of the force was encamped round the outskirts of the town.
+
+There appears to have been some idea in the Boer mind that the mere
+fact that they held a dominant position over the town would soon
+necessitate the surrender of the army. At the end of a week they
+had realised, however, just as the British had, that a siege lay
+before both. Their fire upon the town was heavy but not deadly,
+though it became more effective as the weeks went on. Their
+practice at a range of five miles was exceedingly accurate. At the
+same time their riflemen became more venturesome, and on Tuesday,
+November 7th, they made a half-hearted attack upon the Manchesters'
+position on the south, which was driven back without difficulty. On
+the 9th, however, their attempt was of a more serious and sustained
+character. It began with a heavy shell-fire and with a
+demonstration of rifle-fire from every side, which had for its
+object the prevention of reinforcements for the true point of
+danger, which again was Caesar's Camp at the south. It is evident
+that the Boers had from the beginning made up their minds that here
+lay the key of the position, as the two serious attacks--that of
+November 9th and that of January 6th--were directed upon this
+point.
+
+The Manchesters at Caesar's Camp had been reinforced by the 1st
+battalion 60th Rifles, who held the prolongation of the same ridge,
+which is called Waggon Hill. With the dawn it was found that the
+Boer riflemen were within eight hundred yards, and from then till
+evening a constant fire was maintained upon the hill. The Boer,
+however, save when the odds are all in his favour, is not, in spite
+of his considerable personal bravery, at his best in attack. His
+racial traditions, depending upon the necessity for economy of
+human life, are all opposed to it. As a consequence two regiments
+well posted were able to hold them off all day with a loss which
+did not exceed thirty killed and wounded, while the enemy, exposed
+to the shrapnel of the 42nd battery, as well as the rifle-fire of
+the infantry, must have suffered very much more severely. The
+result of the action was a well-grounded belief that in daylight
+there was very little chance of the Boers being able to carry the
+lines. As the date was that of the Prince of Wales's birthday, a
+salute of twenty-one shotted naval guns wound up a successful day.
+
+The failure of the attempt upon Ladysmith seems to have convinced
+the enemy that a waiting game, in which hunger, shell-fire, and
+disease were their allies, would be surer and less expensive than
+an open assault. From their distant hilltops they continued to
+plague the town, while garrison and citizens sat grimly patient,
+and learned to endure if not to enjoy the crash of the 96-pound
+shells, and the patter of shrapnel upon their corrugated-iron
+roofs. The supplies were adequate, and the besieged were fortunate
+in the presence of a first-class organiser, Colonel Ward of
+Islington fame, who with the assistance of Colonel Stoneman
+systematised the collection and issue of all the food, civil and
+military, so as to stretch it to its utmost. With rain overhead and
+mud underfoot, chafing at their own idleness and humiliated by
+their own position, the soldiers waited through the weary weeks for
+the relief which never came. On some days there was more
+shell-fire, on some less; on some there was sniping, on some none;
+on some they sent a little feeler of cavalry and guns out of the
+town, on most they lay still--such were the ups and downs of life
+in Ladysmith. The inevitable siege paper, 'The Ladysmith Lyre,'
+appeared, and did something to relieve the monotony by the
+exasperation of its jokes. Night, morning, and noon the shells
+rained upon the town until the most timid learned fatalism if not
+bravery. The crash of the percussion, and the strange musical tang
+of the shrapnel sounded ever in their ears. With their glasses the
+garrison could see the gay frocks and parasols of the Boer ladies
+who had come down by train to see the torture of the doomed town.
+
+The Boers were sufficiently numerous, aided by their strong
+positions and excellent artillery, to mask the Ladysmith force and
+to sweep on at once to the conquest of Natal. Had they done so it
+is hard to see what could have prevented them from riding their
+horses down to salt water. A few odds and ends, half battalions and
+local volunteers, stood between them and Durban. But here, as on
+the Orange River, a singular paralysis seems to have struck them.
+When the road lay clear before them the first transports of the
+army corps were hardly past St. Vincent, but before they had made
+up their mind to take that road the harbour of Durban was packed
+with our shipping and ten thousand men had thrown themselves across
+their path.
+
+For a moment we may leave the fortunes of Ladysmith to follow this
+southerly movement of the Boers. Within two days of the investment
+of the town they had swung round their left flank and attacked
+Colenso, twelve miles south, shelling the Durban Light Infantry out
+of their post with a long-range fire. The British fell back
+twenty-seven miles and concentrated at Estcourt, leaving the
+all-important Colenso railway-bridge in the hands of the enemy.
+From this onwards they held the north of the Tugela, and many a
+widow wore crepe before we got our grip upon it once more. Never
+was there a more critical week in the war, but having got Colenso
+the Boers did little more. They formally annexed the whole of
+Northern Natal to the Orange Free State--a dangerous precedent when
+the tables should be turned. With amazing assurance the burghers
+pegged out farms for themselves and sent for their people to occupy
+these newly won estates.
+
+On November 5th the Boers had remained so inert that the British
+returned in small force to Colenso and removed some stores--which
+seems to suggest that the original retirement was premature. Four
+days passed in inactivity--four precious days for us--and on the
+evening of the fourth, November 9th, the watchers on the signal
+station at Table Mountain saw the smoke of a great steamer coming
+past Robben Island. It was the 'Roslin Castle' with the first of
+the reinforcements. Within the week the 'Moor,' 'Yorkshire,'
+'Aurania,' 'Hawarden Castle,' 'Gascon,' 'Armenian,' 'Oriental,' and
+a fleet of others had passed for Durban with 15,000 men. Once again
+the command of the sea had saved the Empire.
+
+But, now that it was too late, the Boers suddenly took the
+initiative, and in dramatic fashion. North of Estcourt, where
+General Hildyard was being daily reinforced from the sea, there are
+two small townlets, or at least geographical (and railway) points.
+Frere is about ten miles north of Estcourt, and Chieveley is five
+miles north of that and about as far to the south of Colenso. On
+November 15th an armoured train was despatched from Estcourt to see
+what was going on up the line. Already one disaster had befallen us
+in this campaign on account of these clumsy contrivances, and a
+heavier one was now to confirm the opinion that, acting alone, they
+are totally inadmissible. As a means of carrying artillery for a
+force operating upon either flank of them, with an assured retreat
+behind, there may be a place for them in modern war, but as a
+method of scouting they appear to be the most inefficient and also
+the most expensive that has ever been invented. An intelligent
+horseman would gather more information, be less visible, and retain
+some freedom as to route. After our experience the armoured train
+may steam out of military history.
+
+The train contained ninety Dublin Fusiliers, eighty Durban
+Volunteers, and ten sailors, with a naval 7-pounder gun. Captain
+Haldane of the Gordons, Lieutenant Frankland (Dublin Fusiliers),
+and Winston Churchill, the well-known correspondent, accompanied
+the expedition. What might have been foreseen occurred. The train
+steamed into the advancing Boer army, was fired upon, tried to
+escape, found the rails blocked behind it, and upset. Dublins and
+Durbans were shot helplessly out of their trucks, under a heavy
+fire. A railway accident is a nervous thing, and so is an
+ambuscade, but the combination of the two must be appalling. Yet
+there were brave hearts which rose to the occasion. Haldane and
+Frankland rallied the troops, and Churchill the engine-driver. The
+engine was disentangled and sent on with its cab full of wounded.
+Churchill, who had escaped upon it, came gallantly back to share
+the fate of his comrades. The dazed shaken soldiers continued a
+futile resistance for some time, but there was neither help nor
+escape and nothing for them but surrender. The most Spartan
+military critic cannot blame them. A few slipped away besides those
+who escaped upon the engine. Our losses were two killed, twenty
+wounded, and about eighty taken. It is remarkable that of the three
+leaders both Haldane and Churchill succeeded in escaping from
+Pretoria.
+
+A double tide of armed men was now pouring into Southern Natal.
+From below, trainload after trainload of British regulars were
+coming up to the danger point, feted and cheered at every station.
+Lonely farmhouses near the line hung out their Union Jacks, and the
+folk on the stoep heard the roar of the choruses as the great
+trains swung upon their way. From above the Boers were flooding
+down, as Churchill saw them, dour, resolute, riding silently
+through the rain, or chanting hymns round their camp fires--brave
+honest farmers, but standing unconsciously for mediaevalism and
+corruption, even as our rough-tongued Tommies stood for
+civilisation, progress, and equal rights for all men.
+
+The invading force, the numbers of which could not have exceeded
+some few thousands, formidable only for their mobility, lapped
+round the more powerful but less active force at Estcourt, and
+struck behind it at its communications. There was for a day or two
+some discussion as to a further retreat, but Hildyard, strengthened
+by the advice and presence of Colonel Long, determined to hold his
+ground. On November 21st the raiding Boers were as far south as
+Nottingham Road, a point thirty miles south of Estcourt and only
+forty miles north of the considerable city of Pietermaritzburg. The
+situation was serious. Either the invaders must be stopped, or the
+second largest town in the colony would be in their hands. From all
+sides came tales of plundered farms and broken households. Some at
+least of the raiders behaved with wanton brutality. Smashed pianos,
+shattered pictures, slaughtered stock, and vile inscriptions, all
+exhibit a predatory and violent side to the paradoxical Boer
+character. [Footnote: More than once I have heard the farmers in
+the Free State acknowledge that the ruin which had come upon them
+was a just retribution for the excesses of Natal.]
+
+The next British post behind Hildyard's at Estcourt was Barton's
+upon the Mooi River, thirty miles to the south. Upon this the Boers
+made a half-hearted attempt, but Joubert had begun to realise the
+strength of the British reinforcements and the impossibility with
+the numbers at his disposal of investing a succession of British
+posts. He ordered Botha to withdraw from Mooi River and begin his
+northerly trek.
+
+The turning-point of the Boer invasion of Natal was marked, though
+we cannot claim that it was caused, by the action of Willow Grange.
+This was fought by Hildyard and Walter Kitchener in command of the
+Estcourt garrison, against about 2000 of the invaders under Louis
+Botha. The troops engaged were the East and West Surreys (four
+companies of the latter), the West Yorkshires, the Durban Light
+Infantry, No. 7 battery R.F.A., two naval guns, and some hundreds
+of Colonial Horse.
+
+The enemy being observed to have a gun upon a hill within striking
+distance of Estcourt, this force set out on November 22nd to make a
+night attack and to endeavour to capture it. The hill was taken
+without difficulty, but it was found that the gun had been removed.
+A severe counter-attack was made at daylight by the Boers, and the
+troops were compelled with no great loss and less glory to return
+to the town. The Surreys and the Yorkshires behaved very well, but
+were placed in a difficult position and were badly supported by the
+artillery. Martyn's Mounted Infantry covered the retirement with
+great gallantry, but the skirmish ended in a British loss of
+fourteen killed and fifty wounded or missing, which was certainly
+more than that of the Boers. From this indecisive action of Willow
+Grange the Boer invasion receded until General Buller, coming to
+the front on November 27th, found that the enemy was once more
+occupying the line of the Tugela. He himself moved up to Frere,
+where he devoted his time and energies to the collection of that
+force with which he was destined, after three failures, to make his
+way into Ladysmith.
+
+One unexpected and little known result of the Boer expedition into
+Southern Natal was that their leader, the chivalrous Joubert,
+injured himself through his horse stumbling, and was physically
+incapacitated for the remainder of the campaign. He returned almost
+immediately to Pretoria, leaving the command of the Tugela in the
+hands of Louis Botha.
+
+Leaving Buller to organise his army at Frere, and the Boer
+commanders to draw their screen of formidable defences along the
+Tugela, we will return once more to the fortunes of the unhappy
+town round which the interest of the world, and possibly the
+destiny of the Empire, were centering. It is very certain that had
+Ladysmith fallen, and twelve thousand British soldiers with a
+million pounds' worth of stores fallen into the hands of the
+invaders, we should have been faced with the alternative of
+abandoning the struggle, or of reconquering South Africa from Cape
+Town northwards. South Africa is the keystone of the Empire, and
+for the instant Ladysmith was the keystone of South Africa. But the
+courage of the troops who held the shell-torn townlet, and the
+confidence of the public who watched them, never faltered for an
+instant.
+
+December 8th was marked by a gallant exploit on the part of the
+beleaguered garrison. Not a whisper had transpired of the coming
+sortie, and a quarter of an hour before the start officers engaged
+had no idea of it. O si sic omnia! At ten o'clock a band of men
+slipped out of the town. There were six hundred of them, all
+irregulars, drawn from the Imperial Light Horse, the Natal
+Carabineers, and the Border Mounted Rifles, under the command of
+Hunter, youngest and most dashing of British Generals. Edwardes and
+Boyston were the subcommanders. The men had no knowledge of where
+they were going or what they had to do, but they crept silently
+along under a drifting sky, with peeps of a quarter moon, over a
+mimosa-shadowed plain. At last in front of them there loomed a dark
+mass--it was Gun Hill, from which one of the great Creusots had
+plagued them. A strong support (four hundred men) was left at the
+base of the hill, and the others, one hundred Imperials, one
+hundred Borders and Carabineers, ten Sappers, crept upwards with
+Major Henderson as guide. A Dutch outpost challenged, but was
+satisfied by a Dutch-speaking Carabineer. Higher and higher the men
+crept, the silence broken only by the occasional slip of a stone or
+the rustle of their own breathing. Most of them had left their
+boots below. Even in the darkness they kept some formation, and the
+right wing curved forward to outflank the defence. Suddenly a
+Mauser crack and a spurt of flame--then another and another! 'Come
+on, boys! Fix bayonets!' yelled Karri Davies. There were no
+bayonets, but that was a detail. At the word the gunners were off,
+and there in the darkness in front of the storming party loomed the
+enormous gun, gigantic in that uncertain light. Out with the huge
+breech-block! Wrap the long lean muzzle round with a collar of
+gun-cotton! Keep the guard upon the run until the work is done!
+Hunter stood by with a night light in his hand until the charge was
+in position, and then, with a crash which brought both armies from
+their tents, the huge tube reared up on its mountings and toppled
+backwards into the pit. A howitzer lurked beside it, and this also
+was blown into ruin. The attendant Maxim was dragged back by the
+exultant captors, who reached the town amid shoutings and laughter
+with the first break of day. One man wounded, the gallant
+Henderson, is the cheap price for the best-planned and most dashing
+exploit of the war. Secrecy in conception, vigour in
+execution--they are the root ideas of the soldier's craft. So
+easily was the enterprise carried out, and so defective the Boer
+watch, that it is probable that if all the guns had been
+simultaneously attacked the Boers might have found themselves
+without a single piece of ordnance in the morning. [Footnote: The
+destruction of the Creusot was not as complete as was hoped. It was
+taken back to Pretoria, three feet were sawn off the muzzle, and a
+new breech-block provided. The gun was then sent to Kimberley, and
+it was the heavy cannon which arrived late in the history of that
+siege and caused considerable consternation among the inhabitants.]
+
+On the same morning (December 9th) a cavalry reconnaissance was
+pushed in the direction of Pepworth Hill. The object no doubt was
+to ascertain whether the enemy were still present in force, and the
+terrific roll of the Mausers answered it in the affirmative. Two
+killed and twenty wounded was the price which we paid for the
+information. There had been three such reconnaissances in the five
+weeks of the siege, and it is difficult to see what advantage they
+gave or how they are to be justified. Far be it for the civilian to
+dogmatise upon such matters, but one can repeat, and to the best of
+one's judgment endorse, the opinion of the vast majority of
+officers.
+
+There were heart burnings among the Regulars that the colonial
+troops should have gone in front of them, so their martial jealousy
+was allayed three nights later by the same task being given to
+them. Four companies of the 2nd Rifle Brigade were the troops
+chosen, with a few sappers and gunners, the whole under the command
+of Colonel Metcalfe of the same battalion. A single gun, the 4.7
+howitzer upon Surprise Hill, was the objective. Again there was the
+stealthy advance through the darkness, again the support was left
+at the bottom of the hill, again the two companies carefully
+ascended, again there was the challenge, the rush, the flight, and
+the gun was in the hands of the stormers.
+
+Here and only here the story varies. For some reason the fuse used
+for the guncotton was defective, and half an hour elapsed before
+the explosion destroyed the howitzer. When it came it came very
+thoroughly, but it was a weary time in coming. Then our men
+descended the hill, but the Boers were already crowding in upon
+them from either side. The English cries of the soldiers were
+answered in English by the Boers, and slouch hat or helmet dimly
+seen in the mirk was the only badge of friend or foe. A singular
+letter is extant from young Reitz (the son of the Transvaal
+secretary), who was present. According to his account there were
+but eight Boers present, but assertion or contradiction equally
+valueless in the darkness of such a night, and there are some
+obvious discrepancies in his statement. 'We fired among them,' says
+Reitz. 'They stopped and all cried out "Rifle Brigade." Then one of
+them said "Charge!" One officer, Captain Paley, advanced, though he
+had two bullet wounds already. Joubert gave him another shot and he
+fell on the top of us. Four Englishmen got hold of Jan Luttig and
+struck him on the head with their rifles and stabbed him in the
+stomach with a bayonet. He seized two of them by the throat and
+shouted "Help, boys!" His two nearest comrades shot two of them,
+and the other two bolted. Then the English came up in numbers,
+about eight hundred, along the footpath' (there were two hundred on
+the hill, but the exaggeration is pardonable in the darkness), 'and
+we lay as quiet as mice along the bank. Farther on the English
+killed three of our men with bayonets and wounded two. In the
+morning we found Captain Paley and twenty-two of them killed and
+wounded.' It seems evident that Reitz means that his own little
+party were eight men, and not that that represented the force which
+intercepted the retiring riflemen. Within his own knowledge five of
+his countrymen were killed in the scuffle, so the total loss was
+probably considerable. Our own casualties were eleven dead,
+forty-three wounded, and six prisoners, but the price was not
+excessive for the howitzer and for the morale which arises from
+such exploits. Had it not been for that unfortunate fuse, the
+second success might have been as bloodless as the first. 'I am
+sorry,' said a sympathetic correspondent to the stricken Paley.
+'But we got the gun,' Paley whispered, and he spoke for the
+Brigade.
+
+Amid the shell-fire, the scanty rations, the enteric and the
+dysentery, one ray of comfort had always brightened the garrison.
+Buller was only twelve miles away--they could hear his guns--and
+when his advance came in earnest their sufferings would be at an
+end. But now in an instant this single light was shut off and the
+true nature of their situation was revealed to them. Buller had
+indeed moved. . .but backwards. He had been defeated at Colenso,
+and the siege was not ending but beginning. With heavier hearts but
+undiminished resolution the army and the townsfolk settled down to
+the long, dour struggle. The exultant enemy replaced their
+shattered guns and drew their lines closer still round the stricken
+town.
+
+A record of the siege onwards until the break of the New Year
+centres upon the sordid details of the sick returns and of the
+price of food. Fifty on one day, seventy on the next, passed under
+the hands of the overworked and devoted doctors. Fifteen hundred,
+and later two thousand, of the garrison were down. The air was
+poisoned by foul sewage and dark with obscene flies. They speckled
+the scanty food. Eggs were already a shilling each, cigarettes
+sixpence, whisky five pounds a bottle: a city more free from
+gluttony and drunkenness has never been seen.
+
+Shell-fire has shown itself in this war to be an excellent ordeal
+for those who desire martial excitement with a minimum of danger.
+But now and again some black chance guides a bomb--one in five
+thousand perhaps--to a most tragic issue. Such a deadly missile
+falling among Boers near Kimberley is said to have slain nine and
+wounded seventeen. In Ladysmith too there are days to be marked in
+red when the gunner shot better than he knew. One shell on December
+17th killed six men (Natal Carabineers), wounded three, and
+destroyed fourteen horses. The grisly fact has been recorded that
+five separate human legs lay upon the ground. On December 22nd
+another tragic shot killed five and wounded twelve of the Devons.
+On the same day four officers of the 5th Lancers (including the
+Colonel) and one sergeant were wounded--a most disastrous day. A
+little later it was again the turn of the Devons, who lost one
+officer killed and ten wounded. Christmas set in amid misery,
+hunger, and disease, the more piteous for the grim attempts to
+amuse the children and live up to the joyous season, when the
+present of Santa Claus was too often a 96-pound shell. On the top
+of all other troubles it was now known that the heavy ammunition
+was running short and must be husbanded for emergencies. There was
+no surcease, however, in the constant hail which fell upon the
+town. Two or three hundred shells were a not unusual daily
+allowance. The monotonous bombardment with which the New Year had
+commenced was soon to be varied by a most gallant and
+spirit-stirring clash of arms. On January 6th the Boers delivered
+their great assault upon Ladysmith--an onfall so gallantly made and
+gallantly met that it deserves to rank among the classic fights of
+British military history. It is a tale which neither side need be
+ashamed to tell. Honour to the sturdy infantry who held their grip
+so long, and honour also to the rough men of the veld, who, led by
+untrained civilians, stretched us to the utmost capacity of our
+endurance.
+
+It may be that the Boers wished once for all to have done at all
+costs with the constant menace to their rear, or it may be that the
+deliberate preparations of Buller for his second advance had
+alarmed them, and that they realised that they must act quickly if
+they were to act at all. At any rate, early in the New Year a most
+determined attack was decided upon. The storming party consisted of
+some hundreds of picked volunteers from the Heidelberg (Transvaal)
+and Harrismith (Free State) contingents, led by de Villiers. They
+were supported by several thousand riflemen, who might secure their
+success or cover their retreat. Eighteen heavy guns had been
+trained upon the long ridge, one end of which has been called
+Caesar's Camp and the other Waggon Hill. This hill, three miles
+long, lay to the south of the town, and the Boers had early
+recognised it as being the most vulnerable point, for it was
+against it that their attack of November 9th had been directed.
+Now, after two months, they were about to renew the attempt with
+greater resolution against less robust opponents. At twelve o'clock
+our scouts heard the sounds of the chanting of hymns in the Boer
+camps. At two in the morning crowds of barefooted men were
+clustering round the base of the ridge, and threading their way,
+rifle in hand, among the mimosa-bushes and scattered boulders which
+cover the slope of the hill. Some working parties were moving guns
+into position, and the noise of their labour helped to drown the
+sound of the Boer advance. Both at Caesar's Camp, the east end of
+the ridge, and at Waggon Hill, the west end (the points being, I
+repeat, three miles apart), the attack came as a complete surprise.
+The outposts were shot or driven in, and the stormers were on the
+ridge almost as soon as their presence was detected. The line of
+rocks blazed with the flash of their guns.
+
+Caesar's Camp was garrisoned by one sturdy regiment, the
+Manchesters, aided by a Colt automatic gun. The defence had been
+arranged in the form of small sangars, each held by from ten to
+twenty men. Some few of these were rushed in the darkness, but the
+Lancashire men pulled themselves together and held on strenuously
+to those which remained. The crash of musketry woke the sleeping
+town, and the streets resounded with the shouting of the officers
+and the rattling of arms as the men mustered in the darkness and
+hurried to the points of danger.
+
+Three companies of the Gordons had been left near Caesar's Camp,
+and these, under Captain Carnegie, threw themselves into the
+struggle. Four other companies of Gordons came up in support from
+the town, losing upon the way their splendid colonel,
+Dick-Cunyngham, who was killed by a chance shot at three thousand
+yards, on this his first appearance since he had recovered from his
+wounds at Elandslaagte. Later four companies of the Rifle Brigade
+were thrown into the firing line, and a total of two and a half
+infantry battalions held that end of the position. It was not a man
+too much. With the dawn of day it could be seen that the Boers held
+the southern and we the northern slopes, while the narrow plateau
+between formed a bloody debatable ground. Along a front of a
+quarter of a mile fierce eyes glared and rifle barrels flashed from
+behind every rock, and the long fight swayed a little back or a
+little forward with each upward heave of the stormers or rally of
+the soldiers. For hours the combatants were so near that a stone or
+a taunt could be thrown from one to the other. Some scattered
+sangars still held their own, though the Boers had passed them. One
+such, manned by fourteen privates of the Manchester Regiment,
+remained untaken, but had only two defenders left at the end of the
+bloody day.
+
+With the coming of the light the 53rd Field Battery, the one which
+had already done so admirably at Lombard's Kop, again deserved well
+of its country. It was impossible to get behind the Boers and fire
+straight at their position, so every shell fired had to skim over
+the heads of our own men upon the ridge and so pitch upon the
+reverse slope. Yet so accurate was the fire, carried on under an
+incessant rain of shells from the big Dutch gun on Bulwana, that
+not one shot miscarried and that Major Abdy and his men succeeded
+in sweeping the further slope without loss to our own fighting
+line. Exactly the same feat was equally well performed at the other
+end of the position by Major Blewitt's 21st Battery, which was
+exposed to an even more searching fire than the 53rd. Any one who
+has seen the iron endurance of British gunners and marvelled at the
+answering shot which flashes out through the very dust of the
+enemy's exploding shell, will understand how fine must have been
+the spectacle of these two batteries working in the open, with the
+ground round them sharded with splinters. Eye-witnesses have left
+it upon record that the sight of Major Blewitt strolling up and
+down among his guns, and turning over with his toe the last fallen
+section of iron, was one of the most vivid and stirring impressions
+which they carried from the fight. Here also it was that the
+gallant Sergeant Bosley, his arm and his leg stricken off by a Boer
+shell, cried to his comrades to roll his body off the trail and go
+on working the gun.
+
+At the same time as--or rather earlier than--the onslaught upon
+Caesar's Camp a similar attack had been made with secrecy and
+determination upon the western end of the position called Waggon
+Hill. The barefooted Boers burst suddenly with a roll of rifle-fire
+into the little garrison of Imperial Light Horse and Sappers who
+held the position. Mathias of the former, Digby-Jones and Dennis of
+the latter, showed that 'two in the morning' courage which Napoleon
+rated as the highest of military virtues. They and their men were
+surprised but not disconcerted, and stood desperately to a slogging
+match at the closest quarters. Seventeen Sappers were down out of
+thirty, and more than half the little body of irregulars. This end
+of the position was feebly fortified, and it is surprising that so
+experienced and sound a soldier as Ian Hamilton should have left it
+so. The defence had no marked advantage as compared with the
+attack, neither trench, sangar, nor wire entanglement, and in
+numbers they were immensely inferior. Two companies of the 60th
+Rifles and a small body of the ubiquitous Gordons happened to be
+upon the hill and threw themselves into the fray, but they were
+unable to turn the tide. Of thirty-three Gordons under Lieutenant
+MacNaughten thirty were wounded. [Footnote: The Gordons and the
+Sappers were there that morning to re-escort one of Lambton's 4.7
+guns, which was to be mounted there. Ten seamen were with the gun,
+and lost three of their number in the defence.] As our men retired
+under the shelter of the northern slope they were reinforced by
+another hundred and fifty Gordons under the stalwart
+Miller-Wallnutt, a man cast in the mould of a Berserk Viking. To
+their aid also came two hundred of the Imperial Light Horse,
+burning to assist their comrades. Another half-battalion of Rifles
+came with them. At each end of the long ridge the situation at the
+dawn of day was almost identical. In each the stormers had seized
+one side, but were brought to a stand by the defenders upon the
+other, while the British guns fired over the heads of their own
+infantry to rake the further slope.
+
+It was on the Waggon Hill side, however, that the Boer exertions
+were most continuous and strenuous and our own resistance most
+desperate. There fought the gallant de Villiers, while Ian Hamilton
+rallied the defenders and led them in repeated rushes against the
+enemy's line. Continually reinforced from below, the Boers fought
+with extraordinary resolution. Never will any one who witnessed
+that Homeric contest question the valour of our foes. It was a
+murderous business on both sides. Edwardes of the Light Horse was
+struck down. In a gun-emplacement a strange encounter took place at
+point-blank range between a group of Boers and of Britons. De
+Villiers of the Free State shot Miller-Wallnut dead, Ian Hamilton
+fired at de Villiers with his revolver and missed him. Young
+Albrecht of the Light Horse shot de Villiers. A Boer named de
+Jaeger shot Albrecht. Digby-Jones of the Sappers shot de Jaeger.
+Only a few minutes later the gallant lad, who had already won fame
+enough for a veteran, was himself mortally wounded, and Dennis, his
+comrade in arms and in glory, fell by his side.
+
+There has been no better fighting in our time than that upon Waggon
+Hill on that January morning, and no better fighters than the
+Imperial Light Horsemen who formed the centre of the defence. Here,
+as at Elandslaagte, they proved themselves worthy to stand in line
+with the crack regiments of the British army.
+
+Through the long day the fight maintained its equilibrium along the
+summit of the ridge, swaying a little that way or this, but never
+amounting to a repulse of the stormers or to a rout of the
+defenders. So intermixed were the combatants that a wounded man
+more than once found himself a rest for the rifles of his enemies.
+One unfortunate soldier in this position received six more bullets
+from his own comrades in their efforts to reach the deadly rifleman
+behind him. At four o'clock a huge bank of clouds which had towered
+upwards unheeded by the struggling men burst suddenly into a
+terrific thunderstorm with vivid lightnings and lashing rain. It is
+curious that the British victory at Elandslaagte was heralded by
+just such another storm. Up on the bullet-swept hill the long
+fringes of fighting men took no more heed of the elements than
+would two bulldogs who have each other by the throat. Up the greasy
+hillside, foul with mud and with blood, came the Boer reserves, and
+up the northern slope came our own reserve, the Devon Regiment, fit
+representatives of that virile county. Admirably led by Park, their
+gallant Colonel, the Devons swept the Boers before them, and the
+Rifles, Gordons, and Light Horse joined in the wild charge which
+finally cleared the ridge.
+
+But the end was not yet. The Boer had taken a risk over this
+venture, and now he had to pay the stakes. Down the hill he passed,
+crouching, darting, but the spruits behind him were turned into
+swirling streams, and as he hesitated for an instant upon the brink
+the relentless sleet of bullets came from behind. Many were swept
+away down the gorges and into the Klip River, never again to be
+accounted for in the lists of their field-cornet. The majority
+splashed through, found their horses in their shelter, and galloped
+off across the great Bulwana Plain, as fairly beaten in as fair a
+fight as ever brave men were yet.
+
+The cheers of victory as the Devons swept the ridge had heartened
+the weary men upon Caesar's Camp to a similar effort. Manchesters,
+Gordons, and Rifles, aided by the fire of two batteries, cleared
+the long-debated position. Wet, cold, weary, and without food for
+twenty-six hours, the bedraggled Tommies stood yelling and waving,
+amid the litter of dead and of dying.
+
+It was a near thing. Had the ridge fallen the town must have
+followed, and history perhaps have been changed. In the old
+stiff-rank Majuba days we should have been swept in an hour from
+the position. But the wily man behind the rock was now to find an
+equally wily man in front of him. The soldier had at last learned
+something of the craft of the hunter. He clung to his shelter, he
+dwelled on his aim, he ignored his dressings, he laid aside the
+eighteenth-century traditions of his pigtailed ancestor, and he hit
+the Boers harder than they had been hit yet. No return may ever
+come to us of their losses on that occasion; 80 dead bodies were
+returned to them from the ridge alone, while the slopes, the
+dongas, and the river each had its own separate tale. No possible
+estimate can make it less than three hundred killed and wounded,
+while many place it at a much higher figure. Our own casualties
+were very serious and the proportion of dead to wounded unusually
+high, owing to the fact that the greater part of the wounds were
+necessarily of the head. In killed we lost 13 officers, 135 men. In
+wounded 28 officers, 244 men--a total of 420, Lord Ava, the
+honoured Son of an honoured father, the fiery Dick-Cunyngham,
+stalwart Miller-Wallnutt, the brave boy sappers Digby-Jones and
+Dennis, Adams and Packman of the Light Horse, the chivalrous
+Lafone--we had to mourn quality as well as numbers. The grim test
+of the casualty returns shows that it was to the Imperial Light
+Horse (ten officers down, and the regiment commanded by a junior
+captain), the Manchesters, the Gordons, the Devons, and the 2nd
+Rifle Brigade that the honours of the day are due.
+
+In the course of the day two attacks had been made upon other
+points of the British position, the one on Observation Hill on the
+north, the other on the Helpmakaar position on the east. Of these
+the latter was never pushed home and was an obvious feint, but in
+the case of the other it was not until Schutte, their commander,
+and forty or fifty men had been killed and wounded, that the
+stormers abandoned their attempt. At every point the assailants
+found the same scattered but impenetrable fringe of riflemen, and
+the same energetic batteries waiting for them.
+
+Throughout the Empire the course of this great struggle was watched
+with the keenest solicitude and with all that painful emotion which
+springs from impotent sympathy. By heliogram to Buller, and so to
+the farthest ends of that great body whose nerves are the
+telegraphic wires, there came the announcement of the attack. Then
+after an interval of hours came 'everywhere repulsed, but fighting
+continues.' Then, 'Attack continues. Enemy reinforced from the
+south.' Then 'Attack renewed. Very hard pressed.' There the
+messages ended for the day, leaving the Empire black with
+apprehension. The darkest forecasts and most dreary anticipations
+were indulged by the most temperate and best-informed London
+papers. For the first time the very suggestion that the campaign
+might be above our strength was made to the public. And then at
+last there came the official news of the repulse of the assault.
+Far away at Ladysmith, the weary men and their sorely tried
+officers gathered to return thanks to God for His manifold mercies,
+but in London also hearts were stricken solemn by the greatness of
+the crisis, and lips long unused to prayer joined in the devotions
+of the absent warriors.
+
+CHAPTER 14.
+
+THE COLESBERG OPERATIONS.
+
+Of the four British armies in the field I have attempted to tell
+the story of the western one which advanced to help Kimberley, of
+the eastern one which was repulsed at Colenso, and of the central
+one which was checked at Stormberg. There remains one other central
+one, some account of which must now be given.
+
+It was, as has already been pointed out, a long three weeks after
+the declaration of war before the forces of the Orange Free State
+began to invade Cape Colony. But for this most providential delay
+it is probable that the ultimate fighting would have been, not
+among the mountains and kopjes of Stormberg and Colesberg, but amid
+those formidable passes which lie in the Hex Valley, immediately to
+the north of Cape Town, and that the armies of the invader would
+have been doubled by their kinsmen of the Colony. The ultimate
+result of the war must have been the same, but the sight of all
+South Africa in flames might have brought about those Continental
+complications which have always been so grave a menace.
+
+The invasion of the Colony was at two points along the line of the
+two railways which connect the countries, the one passing over the
+Orange River at Norval's Pont and the other at Bethulie, about
+forty miles to the eastward. There were no British troops available
+(a fact to be considered by those, if any remain, who imagine that
+the British entertained any design against the Republics), and the
+Boers jogged slowly southward amid a Dutch population who hesitated
+between their unity of race and speech and their knowledge of just
+and generous treatment by the Empire. A large number were won over
+by the invaders, and, like all apostates, distinguished themselves
+by their virulence and harshness towards their loyal neighbours.
+Here and there in towns which were off the railway line, in Barkly
+East or Ladygrey, the farmers met together with rifle and
+bandolier, tied orange puggarees round their hats, and rode off to
+join the enemy. Possibly these ignorant and isolated men hardly
+recognised what it was that they were doing. They have found out
+since. In some of the border districts the rebels numbered ninety
+per cent of the Dutch population.
+
+In the meanwhile, the British leaders had been strenuously
+endeavouring to scrape together a few troops with which to make
+some stand against the enemy. For this purpose two small forces
+were necessary--the one to oppose the advance through Bethulie and
+Stormberg, the other to meet the invaders, who, having passed the
+river at Norval's Pont, had now occupied Colesberg. The former task
+was, as already shown, committed to General Gatacre. The latter was
+allotted to General French, the victor of Elandslaagte, who had
+escaped in the very last train from Ladysmith, and had taken over
+this new and important duty. French's force assembled at Arundel
+and Gatacre's at Sterkstroom. It is with the operations of the
+former that we have now to deal.
+
+General French, for whom South Africa has for once proved not the
+grave but the cradle of a reputation, had before the war gained
+some name as a smart and energetic cavalry officer. There were some
+who, watching his handling of a considerable body of horse at the
+great Salisbury manoeuvres in 1898, conceived the highest opinion
+of his capacity, and it was due to the strong support of General
+Buller, who had commanded in these peaceful operations, that French
+received his appointment for South Africa. In person he is short
+and thick, with a pugnacious jaw. In character he is a man of cold
+persistence and of fiery energy, cautious and yet audacious,
+weighing his actions well, but carrying them out with the dash
+which befits a mounted leader. He is remarkable for the quickness
+of his decision--'can think at a gallop,' as an admirer expressed
+it. Such was the man, alert, resourceful, and determined, to whom
+was entrusted the holding back of the Colesberg Boers.
+
+Although the main advance of the invaders was along the lines of
+the two railways, they ventured, as they realised how weak the
+forces were which opposed them, to break off both to the east and
+west, occupying Dordrecht on one side and Steynsberg on the other.
+Nothing of importance accrued from the possession of these points,
+and our attention may be concentrated upon the main line of action.
+
+French's original force was a mere handful of men, scraped together
+from anywhere. Naauwpoort was his base, and thence he made a
+reconnaissance by rail on November 23rd towards Arundel, the next
+hamlet along the line, taking with him a company of the Black
+Watch, forty mounted infantry, and a troop of the New South Wales
+Lancers. Nothing resulted from the expedition save that the two
+forces came into touch with each other, a touch which was sustained
+for months under many vicissitudes, until the invaders were driven
+back once more over Norval's Pont. Finding that Arundel was weakly
+held, French advanced up to it, and established his camp there
+towards the end of December, within six miles of the Boer lines at
+Rensburg, to the south of Colesberg. His mission--with his present
+forces--was to prevent the further advance of the enemy into the
+Colony, but he was not strong enough yet to make a serious attempt
+to drive them out.
+
+Before the move to Arundel on December 13th his detachment had
+increased in size, and consisted largely of mounted men, so that it
+attained a mobility very unusual for a British force. On December
+13th there was an attempt upon the part of the Boers to advance
+south, which was easily held by the British Cavalry and Horse
+Artillery. The country over which French was operating is dotted
+with those singular kopjes which the Boer loves--kopjes which are
+often so grotesque in shape that one feels as if they must be due
+to some error of refraction when one looks at them. But, on the
+other hand, between these hills there lie wide stretches of the
+green or russet savanna, the noblest field that a horseman or a
+horse gunner could wish. The riflemen clung to the hills, French's
+troopers circled warily upon the plain, gradually contracting the
+Boer position by threatening to cut off this or that outlying
+kopje, and so the enemy was slowly herded into Colesberg. The small
+but mobile British force covered a very large area, and hardly a
+day passed that one or other part of it did not come in contact
+with the enemy. With one regiment of infantry (the Berkshires) to
+hold the centre, his hard-riding Tasmanians, New Zealanders, and
+Australians, with the Scots Greys, the Inniskillings, and the
+Carabineers, formed an elastic but impenetrable screen to cover the
+Colony. They were aided by two batteries, O and R, of Horse
+Artillery. Every day General French rode out and made a close
+personal examination of the enemy's position, while his scouts and
+outposts were instructed to maintain the closest possible touch.
+
+On December 30th the enemy abandoned Rensburg, which had been their
+advanced post, and concentrated at Colesberg, upon which French
+moved his force up and seized Rensburg. The very next day, December
+31st, he began a vigorous and long-continued series of operations.
+At five o'clock on Sunday evening he moved out of Rensburg camp,
+with R and half of O batteries R.H.A., the 10th Hussars, the
+Inniskillings, and the Berkshires, to take up a position on the
+west of Colesberg. At the same time Colonel Porter, with the
+half-battery of O, his own regiment (the Carabineers), and the New
+Zealand Mounted Rifles, left camp at two on the Monday morning and
+took a position on the enemy's left flank. The Berkshires under
+Major McCracken seized the hill, driving a Boer picket off it, and
+the Horse enfiladed the enemy's right flank, and after a risky
+artillery duel succeeded in silencing his guns. Next morning,
+however (January 2nd, 1900), it was found that the Boers, strongly
+reinforced, were back near their old positions, and French had to
+be content to hold them and to wait for more troops.
+
+These were not long in coming, for the Suffolk Regiment had
+arrived, followed by the Composite Regiment (chosen from the
+Household Cavalry) and the 4th Battery R.F.A. The Boers, however,
+had also been reinforced, and showed great energy in their effort
+to break the cordon which was being drawn round them. Upon the 4th
+a determined effort was made by about a thousand of them under
+General Schoeman to turn the left flank of the British, and at dawn
+it was actually found that they had eluded the vigilance of the
+outposts and had established themselves upon a hill to the rear of
+the position. They were shelled off of it, however, by the guns of
+O Battery, and in their retreat across the plain they were pursued
+by the 10th Hussars and by one squadron of the Inniskillings, who
+cut off some of the fugitives. At the same time, De Lisle with his
+mounted infantry carried the position which they had originally
+held. In this successful and well-managed action the Boer loss was
+ninety, and we took in addition twenty-one prisoners. Our own
+casualties amounted only to six killed, including Major Harvey of
+the 10th, and to fifteen wounded.
+
+Encouraged by this success an attempt was made by the Suffolk
+Regiment to carry a hill which formed the key of the enemy's
+position. The town of Colesberg lies in a basin surrounded by a
+ring of kopjes, and the possession by us of any one of them would
+have made the place untenable. The plan has been ascribed to
+Colonel Watson of the Suffolks, but it is time that some protest
+should be raised against this devolution of responsibility upon
+subordinates in the event of failure. When success has crowned our
+arms we have been delighted to honour our general; but when our
+efforts end in failure our attention is called to Colonel Watson,
+Colonel Long, or Colonel Thorneycroft. It is fairer to state that
+in this instance General French ordered Colonel Watson to make a
+night attack upon the hill.
+
+The result was disastrous. At midnight four companies in canvas
+shoes or in their stocking feet set forth upon their venture, and
+just before dawn they found themselves upon the slope of the hill.
+They were in a formation of quarter column with files extended to
+two paces; H Company was leading. When half-way up a warm fire was
+opened upon them in the darkness. Colonel Watson gave the order to
+retire, intending, as it is believed, that the men should get under
+the shelter of the dead ground which they had just quitted, but his
+death immediately afterwards left matters in a confused condition.
+The night was black, the ground broken, a hail of bullets whizzing
+through the ranks. Companies got mixed in the darkness and
+contradictory orders were issued. The leading company held its
+ground, though each of the officers, Brett, Carey, and Butler, was
+struck down. The other companies had retired, however, and the dawn
+found this fringe of men, most of them wounded, lying under the
+very rifles of the Boers. Even then they held out for some time,
+but they could neither advance, retire, or stay where they were
+without losing lives to no purpose, so the survivors were compelled
+to surrender. There is better evidence here than at Magersfontein
+that the enemy were warned and ready. Every one of the officers
+engaged, from the Colonel to the boy subaltern, was killed,
+wounded, or taken. Eleven officers and one hundred and fifty men
+were our losses in this unfortunate but not discreditable affair,
+which proves once more how much accuracy and how much secrecy is
+necessary for a successful night attack. Four companies of the
+regiment were sent down to Port Elizabeth to re-officer, but the
+arrival of the 1st Essex enabled French to fill the gap which had
+been made in his force.
+
+In spite of this annoying check, French continued to pursue his
+original design of holding the enemy in front and working round him
+on the east. On January 9th, Porter, of the Carabineers, with his
+own regiment, two squadrons of Household Cavalry, the New
+Zealanders, the New South Wales Lancers, and four guns, took
+another step forward and, after a skirmish, occupied a position
+called Slingersfontein, still further to the north and east, so as
+to menace the main road of retreat to Norval's Pont. Some
+skirmishing followed, but the position was maintained. On the 15th
+the Boers, thinking that this long extension must have weakened us,
+made a spirited attack upon a position held by New Zealanders and a
+company of the 1st Yorkshires, this regiment having been sent up to
+reinforce French. The attempt was met by a volley and a bayonet
+charge. Captain Orr, of the Yorkshires, was struck down; but
+Captain Madocks, of the New Zealanders, who behaved with
+conspicuous gallantry at a critical instant, took command, and the
+enemy was heavily repulsed. Madocks engaged in a point-blank rifle
+duel with the frock-coated top-hatted Boer leader, and had the good
+fortune to kill his formidable opponent. Twenty-one Boer dead and
+many wounded left upon the field made a small set-off to the
+disaster of the Suffolks.
+
+The next day, however (January 16th), the scales of fortune, which
+swung alternately one way and the other, were again tipped against
+us. It is difficult to give an intelligible account of the details
+of these operations, because they were carried out by thin fringes
+of men covering on both sides a very large area, each kopje
+occupied as a fort, and the intervening plains patrolled by
+cavalry.
+
+As French extended to the east and north the Boers extended also to
+prevent him from outflanking them, and so the little armies
+stretched and stretched until they were two long mobile skirmishing
+lines. The actions therefore resolve themselves into the encounters
+of small bodies and the snapping up of exposed patrols--a game in
+which the Boer aptitude for guerrilla tactics gave them some
+advantage, though our own cavalry quickly adapted themselves to the
+new conditions. On this occasion a patrol of sixteen men from the
+South Australian Horse and New South Wales Lancers fell into an
+ambush, and eleven were captured. Of the remainder, three made
+their way back to camp, while one was killed and one was wounded.
+
+The duel between French on the one side and Schoeman and Lambert on
+the other was from this onwards one of maneuvering rather than of
+fighting. The dangerously extended line of the British at this
+period, over thirty miles long, was reinforced, as has been
+mentioned, by the 1st Yorkshire and later by the 2nd Wiltshire and
+a section of the 37th Howitzer Battery. There was probably no very
+great difference in numbers between the two little armies, but the
+Boers now, as always, were working upon internal lines. The
+monotony of the operations was broken by the remarkable feat of the
+Essex Regiment, which succeeded by hawsers and good-will in getting
+two 15-pounder guns of the 4th Field Battery on to the top of
+Coleskop, a hill which rises several hundred feet from the plain
+and is so precipitous that it is no small task for an unhampered
+man to climb it. From the summit a fire, which for some days could
+not be localised by the Boers, was opened upon their laagers, which
+had to be shifted in consequence. This energetic action upon the
+part of our gunners may be set off against those other examples
+where commanders of batteries have shown that they had not yet
+appreciated what strong tackle and stout arms can accomplish. The
+guns upon Coleskop not only dominated all the smaller kopjes for a
+range of 9000 yards, but completely commanded the town of
+Colesberg, which could not however, for humanitarian and political
+reasons, be shelled.
+
+By gradual reinforcements the force under French had by the end of
+January attained the respectable figure of ten thousand men, strung
+over a large extent of country. His infantry consisted of the 2nd
+Berkshires, 1st Royal Irish, 2nd Wiltshires, 2nd Worcesters, 1st
+Essex, and 1st Yorkshires; his cavalry, of the 10th Hussars, the
+6th Dragoon Guards, the Inniskillings, the New Zealanders, the N.S.
+W. Lancers, some Rimington Guides, and the composite Household
+Regiment; his artillery, the R and O batteries of R.H.A., the 4th
+R.F.A., and a section of the 37th Howitzer Battery. At the risk of
+tedium I have repeated the units of this force, because there are
+no operations during the war, with the exception perhaps of those
+of the Rhodesian Column, concerning which it is so difficult to get
+a clear impression. The fluctuating forces, the vast range of
+country covered, and the petty farms which give their names to
+positions, all tend to make the issue vague and the narrative
+obscure. The British still lay in a semicircle extending from
+Slingersfontein upon the right to Kloof Camp upon the left, and the
+general scheme of operations continued to be an enveloping movement
+upon the right. General Clements commanded this section of the
+forces, while the energetic Porter carried out the successive
+advances. The lines had gradually stretched until they were nearly
+fifty miles in length, and something of the obscurity in which the
+operations have been left is due to the impossibility of any single
+correspondent having a clear idea of what was occurring over so
+extended a front.
+
+On January 25th French sent Stephenson and Brabazon to push a
+reconnaissance to the north of Colesberg, and found that the Boers
+were making a fresh position at Rietfontein, nine miles nearer
+their own border. A small action ensued, in which we lost ten or
+twelve of the Wiltshire Regiment, and gained some knowledge of the
+enemy's dispositions. For the remainder of the month the two forces
+remained in a state of equilibrium, each keenly on its guard, and
+neither strong enough to penetrate the lines of the other. General
+French descended to Cape Town to aid General Roberts in the
+elaboration of that plan which was soon to change the whole
+military situation in South Africa.
+
+Reinforcements were still dribbling into the British force, Hoad's
+Australian Regiment, which had been changed from infantry to
+cavalry, and J battery R.H.A. from India, being the last arrivals.
+But very much stronger reinforcements had arrived for the Boers--so
+strong that they were able to take the offensive. De la Rey had
+left the Modder with three thousand men, and their presence infused
+new life into the defenders of Colesberg. At the moment, too, that
+the Modder Boers were coming to Colesberg, the British had begun to
+send cavalry reinforcements to the Modder in preparation for the
+march to Kimberley, so that Clements's Force (as it had now become)
+was depleted at the very instant when that of the enemy was largely
+increased. The result was that it was all they could do not merely
+to hold their own, but to avoid a very serious disaster.
+
+The movements of De la Rey were directed towards turning the right
+of the position. On February 9th and 10th the mounted patrols,
+principally the Tasmanians, the Australians, and the Inniskillings,
+came in contact with the Boers, and some skirmishing ensued, with
+no heavy loss upon either side. A British patrol was surrounded and
+lost eleven prisoners, Tasmanians and Guides. On the 12th the Boer
+turning movement developed itself, and our position on the right at
+Slingersfontein was strongly attacked.
+
+The key of the British position at this point was a kopje held by
+three companies of the 2nd Worcester Regiment. Upon this the Boers
+made a fierce onslaught, but were as fiercely repelled. They came
+up in the dark between the set of moon and rise of sun, as they had
+done at the great assault of Ladysmith, and the first dim light saw
+them in the advanced sangars. The Boer generals do not favour night
+attacks, but they are exceedingly fond of using darkness for taking
+up a good position and pushing onwards as soon as it is possible to
+see. This is what they did upon this occasion, and the first
+intimation which the outposts had of their presence was the rush of
+feet and loom of figures in the cold misty light of dawn. The
+occupants of the sangars were killed to a man, and the assailants
+rushed onwards. As the sun topped the line of the veld half the
+kopje was in their possession. Shouting and firing, they pressed
+onwards.
+
+But the Worcester men were steady old soldiers, and the battalion
+contained no less than four hundred and fifty marksmen in its
+ranks. Of these the companies upon the hill had their due
+proportion, and their fire was so accurate that the Boers found
+themselves unable to advance any further. Through the long day a
+desperate duel was maintained between the two lines of riflemen.
+Colonel Cuningham and Major Stubbs were killed while endeavouring
+to recover the ground which had been lost. Hovel and Bartholomew
+continued to encourage their men, and the British fire became so
+deadly that that of the Boers was dominated. Under the direction of
+Hacket Pain, who commanded the nearest post, guns of J battery were
+brought out into the open and shelled the portion of the kopje
+which was held by the Boers. The latter were reinforced, but could
+make no advance against the accurate rifle fire with which they
+were met. The Bisley champion of the battalion, with a bullet
+through his thigh, expended a hundred rounds before sinking from
+loss of blood. It was an excellent defence, and a pleasing
+exception to those too frequent cases where an isolated force has
+lost heart in face of a numerous and persistent foe. With the
+coming of darkness the Boers withdrew with a loss of over two
+hundred killed and wounded. Orders had come from Clements that the
+whole right wing should be drawn in, and in obedience to them the
+remains of the victorious companies were called in by Hacket Pain,
+who moved his force by night in the direction of Rensburg. The
+British loss in the action was twenty-eight killed and nearly a
+hundred wounded or missing, most of which was incurred when the
+sangars were rushed in the early morning.
+
+While this action was fought upon the extreme right of the British
+position another as severe had occurred with much the same result
+upon the extreme left, where the 2nd Wiltshire Regiment was
+stationed. Some companies of this regiment were isolated upon a
+kopje and surrounded by the Boer riflemen when the pressure upon
+them was relieved by a desperate attack by about a hundred of the
+Victorian Rifles. The gallant Australians lost Major Eddy and six
+officers out of seven, with a large proportion of their men, but
+they proved once for all that amid all the scattered nations who
+came from the same home there is not one with a more fiery courage
+and a higher sense of martial duty than the men from the great
+island continent. It is the misfortune of the historian when
+dealing with these contingents that, as a rule, by their very
+nature they were employed in detached parties in fulfilling the
+duties which fall to the lot of scouts and light cavalry--duties
+which fill the casualty lists but not the pages of the chronicler.
+Be it said, however, once for all that throughout the whole African
+army there was nothing but the utmost admiration for the dash and
+spirit of the hard-riding, straight-shooting sons of Australia and
+New Zealand. In a host which held many brave men there were none
+braver than they.
+
+It was evident from this time onwards that the turning movement had
+failed, and that the enemy had developed such strength that we were
+ourselves in imminent danger of being turned. The situation was a
+most serious one: for if Clements's force could be brushed aside
+there would be nothing to keep the enemy from cutting the
+communications of the army which Roberts had assembled for his
+march into the Free State. Clements drew in his wings hurriedly and
+concentrated his whole force at Rensburg. It was a difficult
+operation in the face of an aggressive enemy, but the movements
+were well timed and admirably carried out. There is always the
+possibility of a retreat degenerating into a panic, and a panic at
+that moment would have been a most serious matter. One misfortune
+occurred, through which two companies of the Wiltshire regiment
+were left without definite orders, and were cut off and captured
+after a resistance in which a third of their number was killed and
+wounded. No man in that trying time worked harder than Colonel
+Carter of the Wiltshires (the night of the retreat was the sixth
+which he had spent without sleep), and the loss of the two
+companies is to be set down to one of those accidents which may
+always occur in warfare. Some of the Inniskilling Dragoons and
+Victorian Mounted Rifles were also cut off in the retreat, but on
+the whole Clements was very fortunate in being able to concentrate
+his scattered army with so few mishaps. The withdrawal was
+heartbreaking to the soldiers who had worked so hard and so long in
+extending the lines, but it might be regarded with equanimity by
+the Generals, who understood that the greater strength the enemy
+developed at Colesberg the less they would have to oppose the
+critical movements which were about to be carried out in the west.
+Meanwhile Coleskop had also been abandoned, the guns removed, and
+the whole force on February 14th passed through Rensburg and fell
+back upon Arundel, the spot from which six weeks earlier French had
+started upon this stirring series of operations. It would not be
+fair, however, to suppose that they had failed because they ended
+where they began. Their primary object had been to prevent the
+further advance of the Freestaters into the colony, and, during the
+most critical period of the war, this had been accomplished with
+much success and little loss. At last the pressure had become so
+severe that the enemy had to weaken the most essential part of
+their general position in order to relieve it. The object of the
+operations had really been attained when Clements found himself
+back at Arundel once more. French, the stormy petrel of the war,
+had flitted on from Cape Town to Modder River, where a larger prize
+than Colesberg awaited him. Clements continued to cover Naauwport,
+the important railway junction, until the advance of Roberts's army
+caused a complete reversal of the whole military situation.
+
+CHAPTER 15.
+
+SPION KOP.
+
+Whilst Methuen and Gatacre were content to hold their own at the
+Modder and at Sterkstroom, and whilst the mobile and energetic
+French was herding the Boers into Colesberg, Sir Redvers Buller,
+the heavy, obdurate, inexplicable man, was gathering and organising
+his forces for another advance upon Ladysmith. Nearly a month had
+elapsed since the evil day when his infantry had retired, and his
+ten guns had not, from the frontal attack upon Colenso. Since then
+Sir Charles Warren's division of infantry and a considerable
+reinforcement of artillery had come to him. And yet in view of the
+terrible nature of the ground in front of him, of the fighting
+power of the Boers, and of the fact that they were always acting
+upon internal lines, his force even now was, in the opinion of
+competent judges, too weak for the matter in hand.
+
+There remained, however, several points in his favour. His
+excellent infantry were full of zeal and of confidence in their
+chief. It cannot be denied, however much we may criticise some
+incidents in his campaign, that he possessed the gift of impressing
+and encouraging his followers, and, in spite of Colenso, the sight
+of his square figure and heavy impassive face conveyed an assurance
+of ultimate victory to those around him. In artillery he was very
+much stronger than before, especially in weight of metal. His
+cavalry was still weak in proportion to his other arms. When at
+last he moved out on January 10th to attempt to outflank the Boers,
+he took with him nineteen thousand infantry, three thousand
+cavalry, and sixty guns, which included six howitzers capable of
+throwing a 50-pound lyddite shell, and ten long-range naval pieces.
+Barton's Brigade and other troops were left behind to hold the base
+and line of communications.
+
+An analysis of Buller's force shows that its details were as
+follows:--
+
+   Clery's Division.
+      Hildyard's Brigade.
+      2nd West Surrey.
+      2nd Devonshire.
+      2nd West Yorkshire.
+      2nd East Surrey.
+   Hart's Brigade. 
+      1st Inniskilling Fusiliers. 
+      1st Border Regiment. 
+      1st Connaught Rangers. 
+      2nd Dublin Fusiliers. 
+   Field Artillery, three batteries, 19th, 28th, 63rd; one squadron
+      13th Hussars; Royal Engineers.
+
+   Warren's Division. 
+      Lyttelton's Brigade. 
+      2nd Cameronians. 
+      3rd King's Royal Rifles. 
+      1st Durham Light Infantry. 
+      1st Rifle Brigade. 
+      Woodgate's Brigade. 
+      2nd Royal Lancaster. 
+      2nd Lancashire Fusiliers. 
+      1st South Lancashire. 
+      York and Lancasters. 
+   Field Artillery, three batteries, 7th, 78th, 73rd; one squadron
+      13th Hussars.
+
+   Corps Troops. 
+      Coke's Brigade. 
+      Imperial Light Infantry. 
+      2nd Somersets. 
+      2nd Dorsets. 
+      2nd Middlesex. 
+   61st Howitzer Battery; two 4.7 naval guns; eight naval 12-pounder guns;
+      one squadron 13th Hussars; Royal Engineers.
+
+   Cavalry. 
+      1st Royal Dragoons. 
+      14th Hussars. 
+      Four squadrons South African Horse. 
+      One squadron Imperial Light Horse. 
+      Bethune's Mounted Infantry. 
+      Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry. 
+      One squadron Natal Carabineers. 
+      One squadron Natal Police. 
+      One company King's Royal Rifles Mounted Infantry. 
+      Six machine guns.
+
+This is the force whose operations I shall attempt to describe.
+
+About sixteen miles to the westward of Colenso there is a ford over
+the Tugela River which is called Potgieter's Drift. General
+Buller's apparent plan was to seize this, together with the ferry
+which runs at this point, and so to throw himself upon the right
+flank of the Colenso Boers. Once over the river there is one
+formidable line of hills to cross, but if this were passed there
+would be comparatively easy ground until the Ladysmith hills were
+reached. With high hopes Buller and his men sallied out upon their
+adventure.
+
+Dundonald's cavalry force pushed rapidly forwards, crossed the
+Little Tugela, a tributary of the main river, at Springfield, and
+established themselves upon the hills which command the drift.
+Dundonald largely exceeded his instructions in going so far, and
+while we applaud his courage and judgment in doing so, we must
+remember and be charitable to those less fortunate officers whose
+private enterprise has ended in disaster and reproof. There can be
+no doubt that the enemy intended to hold all this tract, and that
+it was only the quickness of our initial movements which
+forestalled them. Early in the morning a small party of the South
+African Horse, under Lieutenant Carlisle, swam the broad river
+under fire and brought back the ferry boat, an enterprise which was
+fortunately bloodless, but which was most coolly planned and
+gallantly carried out. The way was now open to our advance, and
+could it have been carried out as rapidly as it had begun the Boers
+might conceivably have been scattered before they could
+concentrate. It was not the fault of the infantry that it was not
+so. They were trudging, mud-spattered and jovial, at the very heels
+of the horses, after a forced march which was one of the most
+trying of the whole campaign. But an army of 20,000 men cannot be
+conveyed over a river twenty miles from any base without elaborate
+preparations being made to feed them. The roads were in such a
+state that the wagons could hardly move, heavy rain had just
+fallen, and every stream was swollen into a river; bullocks might
+strain, and traction engines pant, and horses die, but by no human
+means could the stores be kept up if the advance guard were allowed
+to go at their own pace. And so, having ensured an ultimate
+crossing of the river by the seizure of Mount Alice, the high hill
+which commands the drift, the forces waited day after day, watching
+in the distance the swarms of strenuous dark figures who dug and
+hauled and worked upon the hillsides opposite, barring the road
+which they would have to take. Far away on the horizon a little
+shining point twinkled amid the purple haze, coming and going from
+morning to night. It was the heliograph of Ladysmith, explaining
+her troubles and calling for help, and from the heights of Mount
+Alice an answering star of hope glimmered and shone, soothing,
+encouraging, explaining, while the stern men of the veld dug
+furiously at their trenches in between. 'We are coming! We are
+coming!' cried Mount Alice. 'Over our bodies,' said the men with
+the spades and mattocks.
+
+On Thursday, January 12th, Dundonald seized the heights, on the
+13th the ferry was taken and Lyttelton's Brigade came up to secure
+that which the cavalry had gained. On the 14th the heavy naval guns
+were brought up to cover the crossing. On the 15th Coke's Brigade
+and other infantry concentrated at the drift. On the 16th the four
+regiments of Lyttelton's Brigade went across, and then, and only
+then, it began to be apparent that Buller's plan was a more deeply
+laid one than had been thought, and that all this business of
+Potgieter's Drift was really a demonstration in order to cover the
+actual crossing which was to be effected at a ford named Trichard's
+Drift, five miles to the westward. Thus, while Lyttelton's and
+Coke's Brigades were ostentatiously attacking Potgieter's from in
+front, three other brigades (Hart's, Woodgate's, and Hildyard's)
+were marched rapidly on the night of the 16th to the real place of
+crossing, to which Dundonald's cavalry had already ridden. There,
+on the 17th, a pontoon bridge had been erected, and a strong force
+was thrown over in such a way as to turn the right of the trenches
+in front of Potgieter's. It was admirably planned and excellently
+carried out, certainly the most strategic movement, if there could
+he said to have been any strategic movement upon the British side,
+in the campaign up to that date. On the 18th the infantry, the
+cavalry, and most of the guns were safely across without loss of
+life. The Boers, however, still retained their formidable internal
+lines, and the only result of a change of position seemed to be to
+put them to the trouble of building a new series of those terrible
+entrenchments at which they had become such experts. After all the
+combinations the British were, it is true, upon the right side of
+the river, but they were considerably further from Ladysmith than
+when they started. There are times, however, when twenty miles are
+less than fourteen, and it was hoped that this might prove to be
+among them. But the first step was the most serious one, for right
+across their front lay the Boer position upon the edge of a lofty
+plateau, with the high peak of Spion Kop forming the left corner of
+it. If once that main ridge could be captured or commanded, it
+would carry them halfway to the goal. It was for that essential
+line of hills that two of the most dogged races upon earth were
+about to contend. An immediate advance might have secured the
+position at once, but, for some reason which is inexplicable, an
+aimless march to the left was followed by a retirement to the
+original position of Warren's division, and so two invaluable days
+were wasted. We have the positive assurance of Commandant Edwards,
+who was Chief of Staff to General Botha, that a vigorous turning
+movement upon the left would at this time have completely
+outflanked the Boer position and opened a way to Ladysmith.
+
+A small success, the more welcome for its rarity, came to the
+British arms on this first day. Dundonald's men had been thrown out
+to cover the left of the infantry advance and to feel for the right
+of the Boer position. A strong Boer patrol, caught napping for
+once, rode into an ambuscade of the irregulars. Some escaped, some
+held out most gallantly in a kopje, but the final result was a
+surrender of twenty-four unwounded prisoners, and the finding of
+thirteen killed and wounded, including de Mentz, the field-cornet
+of Heilbron. Two killed and two wounded were the British losses in
+this well-managed affair. Dundonald's force then took its position
+upon the extreme left of Warren's advance.
+
+The British were now moving upon the Boers in two separate bodies,
+the one which included Lyttelton's and Coke's Brigades from
+Potgieter's Drift, making what was really a frontal attack, while
+the main body under Warren, who had crossed at Trichard's Drift,
+was swinging round upon the Boer right. Midway between the two
+movements the formidable bastion of Spion Kop stood clearly
+outlined against the blue Natal sky. The heavy naval guns on Mount
+Alice (two 4.7's and eight twelve-pounders) were so placed as to
+support either advance, and the howitzer battery was given to
+Lyttelton to help the frontal attack. For two days the British
+pressed slowly but steadily on to the Boers under the cover of an
+incessant rain of shells. Dour and long-suffering the Boers made no
+reply, save with sporadic rifle-fire, and refused until the crisis
+should come to expose their great guns to the chance of injury.
+
+On January 19th Warren's turning movement began to bring him into
+closer touch with the enemy, his thirty-six field guns and the six
+howitzers which had returned to him crushing down the opposition
+which faced him. The ground in front of him was pleated into long
+folds, and his advance meant the carrying of ridge after ridge. In
+the earlier stages of the war this would have entailed a murderous
+loss; but we had learned our lesson, and the infantry now, with
+intervals of ten paces, and every man choosing his own cover, went
+up in proper Boer form, carrying position after position, the enemy
+always retiring with dignity and decorum. There was no victory on
+one side or rout on the other--only a steady advance and an orderly
+retirement. That night the infantry slept in their fighting line,
+going on again at three in the morning, and light broke to find not
+only rifles, but the long-silent Boer guns all blazing at the
+British advance. Again, as at Colenso, the brunt of the fighting
+fell upon Hart's Irish Brigade, who upheld that immemorial
+tradition of valour with which that name, either in or out of the
+British service, has invariably been associated. Upon the
+Lancashire Fusiliers and the York and Lancasters came also a large
+share of the losses and the glory. Slowly but surely the inexorable
+line of the British lapped over the ground which the enemy had
+held. A gallant colonial, Tobin of the South African Horse, rode up
+one hill and signaled with his hat that it was clear. His comrades
+followed closely at his heels, and occupied the position with the
+loss of Childe, their Major. During this action Lyttelton had held
+the Boers in their trenches opposite to him by advancing to within
+1500 yards of them, but the attack was not pushed further. On the
+evening of this day, January 20th, the British had gained some
+miles of ground, and the total losses had been about three hundred
+killed and wounded. The troops were in good heart, and all promised
+well for the future. Again the men lay where they had fought, and
+again the dawn heard the crash of the great guns and the rattle of
+the musketry.
+
+The operations of this day began with a sustained cannonade from
+the field batteries and 61st Howitzer Battery, which was as
+fiercely answered by the enemy. About eleven the infantry began to
+go forward with an advance which would have astonished the
+martinets of Aldershot, an irregular fringe of crawlers, wrigglers,
+writhers, crouchers, all cool and deliberate, giving away no points
+in this grim game of death. Where now were the officers with their
+distinctive dresses and flashing swords, where the valiant rushes
+over the open, where the men who were too proud to lie down?--the
+tactics of three months ago seemed as obsolete as those of the
+Middle Ages. All day the line undulated forward, and by evening yet
+another strip of rock-strewn ground had been gained, and yet
+another train of ambulances was bearing a hundred of our wounded
+back to the base hospitals at Frere. It was on Hildyard's Brigade
+on the left that the fighting and the losses of this day
+principally fell. By the morning of January 22nd the regiments were
+clustering thickly all round the edges of the Boer main position,
+and the day was spent in resting the weary men, and in determining
+at what point the final assault should be delivered. On the right
+front, commanding the Boer lines on either side, towered the stark
+eminence of Spion Kop, so called because from its summit the Boer
+voortrekkers had first in 1835 gazed down upon the promised land of
+Natal. If that could only be seized and held! Buller and Warren
+swept its bald summit with their field-glasses. It was a venture.
+But all war is a venture; and the brave man is he who ventures
+most. One fiery rush and the master-key of all these locked doors
+might be in our keeping. That evening there came a telegram to
+London which left the whole Empire in a hush of anticipation. Spion
+Kop was to be attacked that night.
+
+The troops which were selected for the task were eight companies of
+the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, six of the 2nd Royal Lancasters, two
+of the 1st South Lancashires, 180 of Thorneycroft's, and half a
+company of Sappers. It was to be a North of England job.
+
+Under the friendly cover of a starless night the men, in Indian
+file, like a party of Iroquois braves upon the war trail, stole up
+the winding and ill-defined path which led to the summit. Woodgate,
+the Lancashire Brigadier, and Blomfield of the Fusiliers led the
+way. It was a severe climb of 2000 feet, coming after arduous work
+over broken ground, but the affair was well-timed, and it was at
+that blackest hour which precedes the dawn that the last steep
+ascent was reached. The Fusiliers crouched down among the rocks to
+recover their breath, and saw far down in the plain beneath them
+the placid lights which showed where their comrades were resting. A
+fine rain was falling, and rolling clouds hung low over their
+heads. The men with unloaded rifles and fixed bayonets stole on
+once more, their bodies bent, their eyes peering through the mirk
+for the first sign of the enemy--that enemy whose first sign has
+usually been a shattering volley. Thorneycroft's men with their
+gallant leader had threaded their way up into the advance. Then the
+leading files found that they were walking on the level. The crest
+had been gained.
+
+With slow steps and bated breath, the open line of skirmishers
+stole across it. Was it possible that it had been entirely
+abandoned? Suddenly a raucous shout of 'Wie da?' came out of the
+darkness, then a shot, then a splutter of musketry and a yell, as
+the Fusiliers sprang onwards with their bayonets. The Boer post of
+Vryheid burghers clattered and scrambled away into the darkness,
+and a cheer that roused both the sleeping armies told that the
+surprise had been complete and the position won.
+
+In the grey light of the breaking day the men advanced along the
+narrow undulating ridge, the prominent end of which they had
+captured. Another trench faced them, but it was weakly held and
+abandoned. Then the men, uncertain what remained beyond, halted and
+waited for full light to see where they were, and what the work was
+which lay before them--a fatal halt, as the result proved, and yet
+one so natural that it is hard to blame the officer who ordered it.
+Indeed, he might have seemed more culpable had he pushed blindly
+on, and so lost the advantage which had been already gained.
+
+About eight o'clock, with the clearing of the mist, General
+Woodgate saw how matters stood. The ridge, one end of which he
+held, extended away, rising and falling for some miles. Had he the
+whole of the end plateau, and had he guns, he might hope to command
+the rest of the position. But he held only half the plateau, and at
+the further end of it the Boers were strongly entrenched. The Spion
+Kop mountain was really the salient or sharp angle of the Boer
+position, so that the British were exposed to a cross fire both
+from the left and right. Beyond were other eminences which
+sheltered strings of riflemen and several guns. The plateau which
+the British held was very much narrower than was usually
+represented in the press. In many places the possible front was not
+much more than a hundred yards wide, and the troops were compelled
+to bunch together, as there was not room for a single company to
+take an extended formation. The cover upon this plateau was scanty,
+far too scanty for the force upon it, and the shell
+fire--especially the fire of the pom-poms--soon became very
+murderous. To mass the troops under the cover of the edge of the
+plateau might naturally suggest itself, but with great tactical
+skill the Boer advanced line from Commandant Prinsloo's Heidelberg
+and Carolina commandos kept so aggressive an attitude that the
+British could not weaken the lines opposed to them. Their
+skirmishers were creeping round too in such a way that the fire was
+really coming from three separate points, left, centre, and. right,
+and every corner of the position was searched by their bullets.
+Early in the action the gallant Woodgate and many of his Lancashire
+men were shot down. The others spread out and held on, firing
+occasionally at the whisk of a rifle-barrel or the glimpse of a
+broad-brimmed hat.
+
+From morning to midday, the shell, Maxim, and rifle fire swept
+across the kop in a continual driving shower. The British guns in
+the plain below failed to localise the position of the enemy's, and
+they were able to vent their concentrated spite upon the exposed
+infantry. No blame attaches to the gunners for this, as a hill
+intervened to screen the Boer artillery, which consisted of five
+big guns and two pom-poms.
+
+Upon the fall of Woodgate, Thorneycroft, who bore the reputation of
+a determined fighter, was placed at the suggestion of Buller in
+charge of the defence of the hill, and he was reinforced after noon
+by Coke's brigade, the Middlesex, the Dorsets, and the Somersets,
+together with the Imperial Light Infantry. The addition of this
+force to the defenders of the plateau tended to increase the
+casualty returns rather than the strength of the defence. Three
+thousand more rifles could do nothing to check the fire of the
+invisible cannon, and it was this which was the main source of the
+losses, while on the other hand the plateau had become so cumbered
+with troops that a shell could hardly fail to do damage. There was
+no cover to shelter them and no room for them to extend. The
+pressure was most severe upon the shallow trenches in the front,
+which had been abandoned by the Boers and were held by the
+Lancashire Fusiliers. They were enfiladed by rifle and cannon, and
+the dead and wounded outnumbered the hale. So close were the
+skirmishers that on at least one occasion Boer and Briton found
+themselves on each side of the same rock. Once a handful of men,
+tormented beyond endurance, sprang up as a sign that they had had
+enough, but Thorneycroft, a man of huge physique, rushed forward to
+the advancing Boers. 'You may go to hell!' he yelled. 'I command
+here, and allow no surrender. Go on with your firing.' Nothing
+could exceed the gallantry of Louis Botha's men in pushing the
+attack. Again and again they made their way up to the British
+firing line, exposing themselves with a recklessness which, with
+the exception of the grand attack upon Ladysmith, was unique in our
+experience of them. About two o'clock they rushed one trench
+occupied by the Fusiliers and secured the survivors of two
+companies as prisoners, but were subsequently driven out again. A
+detached group of the South Lancashires was summoned to surrender.
+'When I surrender,' cried Colour-Sergeant Nolan, 'it will be my
+dead body!' Hour after hour of the unintermitting crash of the
+shells among the rocks and of the groans and screams of men torn
+and burst by the most horrible of all wounds had shaken the troops
+badly. Spectators from below who saw the shells pitching at the
+rate of seven a minute on to the crowded plateau marvelled at the
+endurance which held the devoted men to their post. Men were
+wounded and wounded and wounded yet again, and still went on
+fighting. Never since Inkerman had we had so grim a soldier's
+battle. The company officers were superb. Captain Muriel of the
+Middlesex was shot through the check while giving a cigarette to a
+wounded man, continued to lead his company, and was shot again
+through the brain. Scott Moncrieff of the same regiment was only
+disabled by the fourth bullet which hit him. Grenfell of
+Thorneycroft's was shot, and exclaimed, 'That's all right. It's not
+much.' A second wound made him remark, 'I can get on all right.'
+The third killed him. Ross of the Lancasters, who had crawled from
+a sickbed, was found dead upon the furthest crest. Young Murray of
+the Scottish Rifles, dripping from five wounds, still staggered
+about among his men. And the men were worthy of such officers. 'No
+retreat! No retreat!' they yelled when some of the front line were
+driven in. In all regiments there are weaklings and hang-backs, and
+many a man was wandering down the reverse slopes when he should
+have been facing death upon the top, but as a body British troops
+have never stood firm through a more fiery ordeal than on that
+fatal hill. . .
+
+The position was so bad that no efforts of officers or men could do
+anything to mend it. They were in a murderous dilemma. If they fell
+back for cover the Boer riflemen would rush the position. If they
+held their ground this horrible shell fire must continue, which
+they had no means of answering. Down at Gun Hill in front of the
+Boer position we had no fewer than five batteries, the 78th, 7th,
+73rd, 63rd, and 61st howitzer, but a ridge intervened between them
+and the Boer guns which were shelling Spion Kop, and this ridge was
+strongly entrenched. The naval guns from distant Mount Alice did
+what they could, but the range was very long, and the position of
+the Boer guns uncertain. The artillery, situated as it was, could
+not save the infantry from the horrible scourging which they were
+enduring.
+
+There remains the debated question whether the British guns could
+have been taken to the top. Mr. Winston Churchill, the soundness of
+whose judgment has been frequently demonstrated during the war,
+asserts that it might have been done. Without venturing to
+contradict one who was personally present, I venture to think that
+there is strong evidence to show that it could not have been done
+without blasting and other measures, for which there was no
+possible time. Captain Hanwell of the 78th R.F.A., upon the day of
+the battle had the very utmost difficulty with the help of four
+horses in getting a light Maxim on to the top, and his opinion,
+with that of other artillery officers, is that the feat was an
+impossible one until the path had been prepared. When night fell
+Colonel Sim was despatched with a party of Sappers to clear the
+track and to prepare two emplacements upon the top, but in his
+advance he met the retiring infantry.
+
+Throughout the day reinforcements had pushed up the hill, until two
+full brigades had been drawn into the fight. From the other side of
+the ridge Lyttelton sent up the Scottish Rifles, who reached the
+summit, and added their share to the shambles upon the top. As the
+shades of night closed in, and the glare of the bursting shells
+became more lurid, the men lay extended upon the rocky ground,
+parched and exhausted. They were hopelessly jumbled together, with
+the exception of the Dorsets, whose cohesion may have been due to
+superior discipline, less exposure, or to the fact that their khaki
+differed somewhat in colour from that of the others. Twelve hours
+of so terrible an experience had had a strange effect upon many of
+the men. Some were dazed and battle-struck, incapable of clear
+understanding. Some were as incoherent as drunkards. Some lay in an
+overpowering drowsiness. The most were doggedly patient and
+long-suffering, with a mighty longing for water obliterating every
+other emotion.
+
+Before evening fell a most gallant and successful attempt had been
+made by the third battalion of the King's Royal Rifles from
+Lyttelton's Brigade to relieve the pressure upon their comrades on
+Spion Kop. In order to draw part of the Boer fire away they
+ascended from the northern side and carried the hills which formed
+a continuation of the same ridge. The movement was meant to be no
+more than a strong demonstration, but the riflemen pushed it until,
+breathless but victorious, they stood upon the very crest of the
+position, leaving nearly a hundred dead or dying to show the path
+which they had taken. Their advance being much further than was
+desired, they were recalled, and it was at the moment that Buchanan
+Riddell, their brave Colonel, stood up to read Lyttelton's note
+that he fell with a Boer bullet through his brain, making one more
+of those gallant leaders who died as they had lived, at the head of
+their regiments. Chisholm, Dick-Cunyngham, Downman, Wilford,
+Gunning, Sherston, Thackeray, Sitwell, MacCarthy O'Leary,
+Airlie--they have led their men up to and through the gates of
+death. It was a fine exploit of the 3rd Rifles. 'A finer bit of
+skirmishing, a finer bit of climbing, and a finer bit of fighting,
+I have never seen,' said their Brigadier. It is certain that if
+Lyttelton had not thrown his two regiments into the fight the
+pressure upon the hill-top might have become unendurable; and it
+seems also certain that if he had only held on to the position
+which the Rifles had gained, the Boers would never have reoccupied
+Spion Kop.
+
+And now, under the shadow of night, but with the shells bursting
+thickly over the plateau, the much-tried Thorneycroft had to make
+up his mind whether he should hold on for another such day as he
+had endured, or whether now, in the friendly darkness, he should
+remove his shattered force. Could he have seen the discouragement
+of the Boers and the preparations which they had made for
+retirement, he would have held his ground. But this was hidden from
+him, while the horror of his own losses was but too apparent. Forty
+per cent of his men were down. Thirteen hundred dead and dying are
+a grim sight upon a wide-spread battle-field, but when this number
+is heaped upon a confined space, where from a single high rock the
+whole litter of broken and shattered bodies can be seen, and the
+groans of the stricken rise in one long droning chorus to the ear,
+then it is an iron mind indeed which can resist such evidence of
+disaster. In a harder age Wellington was able to survey four
+thousand bodies piled in the narrow compass of the breach of
+Badajos, but his resolution was sustained by the knowledge that the
+military end for which they fell had been accomplished. Had his
+task been unfinished it is doubtful whether even his steadfast soul
+would not have flinched from its completion. Thorneycroft saw the
+frightful havoc of one day, and he shrank from the thought of such
+another. 'Better six battalions safely down the hill than a mop up
+in the morning,' said he, and he gave the word to retire. One who
+had met the troops as they staggered down has told me how far they
+were from being routed. In mixed array, but steadily and in order,
+the long thin line trudged through the darkness. Their parched lips
+would not articulate, but they whispered 'Water! Where is water?'
+as they toiled upon their way. At the bottom of the hill they
+formed into regiments once more, and marched back to the camp. In
+the morning the blood-spattered hill-top, with its piles of dead
+and of wounded, were in the hands of Botha and his men, whose
+valour and perseverance deserved the victory which they had won.
+There is no doubt now that at 3 A.M. of that morning Botha, knowing
+that the Rifles had carried Burger's position, regarded the affair
+as hopeless, and that no one was more astonished than he when he
+found, on the report of two scouts, that it was a victory and not a
+defeat which had come to him.
+
+How shall we sum up such an action save that it was a gallant
+attempt, gallantly carried out, and as gallantly met? On both sides
+the results of artillery fire during the war have been
+disappointing, but at Spion Kop beyond all question it was the Boer
+guns which won the action for them. So keen was the disappointment
+at home that there was a tendency to criticise the battle with some
+harshness, but it is difficult now, with the evidence at our
+command, to say what was left undone which could have altered the
+result. Had Thorneycroft known all that we know, he would have kept
+his grip upon the hill. On the face of it one finds it difficult to
+understand why so momentous a decision, upon which the whole
+operations depended, should have been left entirely to the judgment
+of one who in the morning had been a simple Lieutenant-Colonel.
+'Where are the bosses?' cried a Fusilier, and the historian can
+only repeat the question. General Warren was at the bottom of the
+hill. Had he ascended and determined that the place should still be
+held, he might have sent down the wearied troops, brought up
+smaller numbers of fresh ones, ordered the Sappers to deepen the
+trenches, and tried to bring up water and guns. It was for the
+divisional commander to lay his hand upon the reins at so critical
+an instant, to relieve the weary man who had struggled so hard all
+day.
+
+The subsequent publication of the official despatches has served
+little purpose, save to show that there was a want of harmony
+between Buller and Warren, and that the former lost all confidence
+in his subordinate during the course of the operations. In these
+papers General Buller expresses the opinion that had Warren's
+operations been more dashing, he would have found his turning
+movement upon the left a comparatively easy matter. In this
+judgment he would probably have the concurrence of most military
+critics. He adds, however, 'On the 19th, I ought to have assumed
+command myself. I saw that things were not going well--indeed,
+everyone saw that. I blame myself now for not having done so. I did
+not, because, if I did, I should discredit General Warren in the
+estimation of the troops, and, if I were shot, and he had to
+withdraw across the Tugela, and they had lost confidence in him,
+the consequences might be very serious. I must leave it to higher
+authority whether this argument was a sound one.' It needs no
+higher authority than common-sense to say that the argument is an
+absolutely unsound one. No consequences could be more serious than
+that the operations should miscarry and Ladysmith remain
+unrelieved, and such want of success must in any case discredit
+Warren in the eyes of his troops. Besides, a subordinate is not
+discredited because his chief steps in to conduct a critical
+operation. However, these personal controversies may be suffered to
+remain in that pigeon-hole from which they should never have been
+drawn.
+
+On account of the crowding of four thousand troops into a space
+which might have afforded tolerable cover for five hundred the
+losses in the action were very heavy, not fewer than fifteen
+hundred being killed, wounded, or missing, the proportion of killed
+being, on account of the shell fire, abnormally high. The
+Lancashire Fusiliers were the heaviest sufferers, and their Colonel
+Blomfield was wounded and fell into the hands of the enemy. The
+Royal Lancasters also lost heavily. Thorneycroft's had 80 men hit
+out of 180 engaged. The Imperial Light Infantry, a raw corps of
+Rand refugees who were enduring their baptism of fire, lost 130
+men. In officers the losses were particularly heavy, 60 being
+killed or wounded. The Boer returns show some 50 killed and 150
+wounded, which may not be far from the truth. Without the shell
+fire the British losses might not have been much more.
+
+General Buller had lost nearly two thousand men since he had
+crossed the Tugela, and his purpose was still unfulfilled. Should
+he risk the loss of a large part of his force in storming the
+ridges in front of him, or should he recross the river and try for
+an easier route elsewhere? To the surprise and disappointment both
+of the public and of the army, he chose the latter course, and by
+January 27th he had fallen back, unmolested by the Boers, to the
+other side of the Tugela. It must be confessed that his retreat was
+admirably conducted, and that it was a military feat to bring his
+men, his guns, and his stores in safety over a broad river in the
+face of a victorious enemy. Stolid and unmoved, his impenetrable
+demeanour restored serenity and confidence to the angry and
+disappointed troops. There might well be heavy hearts among both
+them and the public. After a fortnight's campaign, and the
+endurance of great losses and hardships, both Ladysmith and her
+relievers found themselves no better off than when they started.
+Buller still held the commanding position of Mount Alice, and this
+was all that he had to show for such sacrifices and such exertions.
+Once more there came a weary pause while Ladysmith, sick with hope
+deferred, waited gloomily upon half-rations of horse-flesh for the
+next movement from the South.
+
+CHAPTER 16.
+
+VAALKRANZ.
+
+Neither General Buller nor his troops appeared to be dismayed by
+the failure of their plans, or by the heavy losses which were
+entailed by the movement which culminated at Spion Kop. The
+soldiers grumbled, it is true, at not being let go, and swore that
+even if it cost them two-thirds of their number they could and
+would make their way through this labyrinth of hills with its
+fringe of death. So doubtless they might. But from first to last
+their General had shown a great--some said an exaggerated--respect
+for human life, and he had no intention of winning a path by mere
+slogging, if there were a chance of finding one by less bloody
+means. On the morrow of his return he astonished both his army and
+the Empire by announcing that he had found the key to the position
+and that he hoped to be in Ladysmith in a week. Some rejoiced in
+the assurance. Some shrugged their shoulders. Careless of friends
+or foes, the stolid Buller proceeded to work out his new
+combination.
+
+In the next few days reinforcements trickled in which more than
+made up for the losses of the preceding week. A battery of horse
+artillery, two heavy guns, two squadrons of the 14th Hussars, and
+infantry drafts to the number of twelve or fourteen hundred men
+came to share the impending glory or disaster. On the morning of
+February 5th the army sallied forth once more to have another try
+to win a way to Ladysmith. It was known that enteric was rife in
+the town, that shell and bullet and typhoid germ had struck down a
+terrible proportion of the garrison, and that the rations of
+starved horse and commissariat mule were running low. With their
+comrades--in many cases their linked battalions--in such straits
+within fifteen miles of them, Buller's soldiers had high motives to
+brace them for a supreme effort.
+
+The previous attempt had been upon the line immediately to the west
+of Spion Kop. If, however, one were to follow to the east of Spion
+Kop, one would come upon a high mountain called Doornkloof. Between
+these two peaks, there lies a low ridge, called Brakfontein, and a
+small detached hill named Vaalkranz. Buller's idea was that if he
+could seize this small Vaalkranz, it would enable him to avoid the
+high ground altogether and pass his troops through on to the
+plateau beyond. He still held the Ford at Potgieter's and commanded
+the country beyond with heavy guns on Mount Alice and at Swartz
+Kop, so that he could pass troops over at his will. He would make a
+noisy demonstration against Brakfontein, then suddenly seize
+Vaalkranz, and so, as he hoped, hold the outer door which opened on
+to the passage to Ladysmith.
+
+The getting of the guns up Swartz Kop was a preliminary which was
+as necessary as it was difficult. A road was cut, sailors,
+engineers, and gunners worked with a will under the general
+direction of Majors Findlay and Apsley Smith. A mountain battery,
+two field guns, and six naval 12-pounders were slung up by steel
+hawsers, the sailors yeo-hoing on the halliards. The ammunition was
+taken up by hand. At six o'clock on the morning of the 5th the
+other guns opened a furious and probably harmless fire upon
+Brakfontein, Spion Kop, and all the Boer positions opposite to
+them. Shortly afterwards the feigned attack upon Brakfontein was
+commenced and was sustained with much fuss and appearance of energy
+until all was ready for the development of the true one. Wynne's
+Brigade, which had been Woodgate's, recovered already from its
+Spion Kop experience, carried out this part of the plan, supported
+by six batteries of field artillery, one howitzer battery, and two
+4.7 naval guns. Three hours later a telegram was on its way to
+Pretoria to tell how triumphantly the burghers had driven back an
+attack which was never meant to go forward. The infantry retired
+first, then the artillery in alternate batteries, preserving a
+beautiful order and decorum. The last battery, the 78th, remained
+to receive the concentrated fire of the Boer guns, and was so
+enveloped in the dust of the exploding shells that spectators could
+only see a gun here or a limber there. Out of this whirl of death
+it quietly walked, without a bucket out of its place, the gunners
+drawing one wagon, the horses of which had perished, and so
+effected a leisurely and contemptuous withdrawal. The gallantry of
+the gunners has been one of the most striking features of the war,
+but it has never been more conspicuous than in this feint at
+Brakfontein.
+
+While the attention of the Boers was being concentrated upon the
+Lancashire men, a pontoon bridge was suddenly thrown across the
+river at a place called Munger's Drift, some miles to the eastward.
+Three infantry brigades, those of Hart, Lyttelton, and Hildyard,
+had been massed all ready to be let slip when the false attack was
+sufficiently absorbing. The artillery fire (the Swartz Kop guns,
+and also the batteries which had been withdrawn from the
+Brakfontein demonstration) was then turned suddenly, with the
+crashing effect of seventy pieces, upon the real object of attack,
+the isolated Vaalkranz. It is doubtful whether any position has
+ever been subjected to so terrific a bombardment, for the weight of
+metal thrown by single guns was greater than that of a whole German
+battery in the days of their last great war. The 4-pounders and
+6-pounders of which Prince Kraft discourses would have seemed toys
+beside these mighty howitzers and 4.7's. Yet though the hillside
+was sharded off in great flakes, it is doubtful if this terrific
+fire inflicted much injury upon the cunning and invisible riflemen
+with whom we had to contend.
+
+About midday the infantry began to stream across the bridge, which
+had been most gallantly and efficiently constructed under a warm
+fire, by a party of sappers, under the command of Major Irvine. The
+attack was led by the Durham Light Infantry of Lyttelton's Brigade,
+followed by the 1st Rifle Brigade, with the Scottish and 3rd Rifles
+in support. Never did the old Light Division of Peninsular fame go
+up a Spanish hillside with greater spirit and dash than these,
+their descendants, facing the slope of Vaalkranz. In open order
+they moved across the plain, with a superb disregard of the crash
+and patter of the shrapnel, and then up they went, the flitting
+figures, springing from cover to cover, stooping, darting,
+crouching, running, until with their glasses the spectators on
+Swartz Kop could see the gleam of the bayonets and the strain of
+furious rushing men upon the summit, as the last Boers were driven
+from their trenches. The position was gained, but little else.
+Seven officers and seventy men were lying killed and wounded among
+the boulders. A few stricken Boers, five unwounded prisoners, and a
+string of Basuto ponies were the poor fruits of victory--those and
+the arid hill from which so much had been hoped, and so little was
+to be gained.
+
+It was during this advance that an incident occurred of a more
+picturesque character than is usual in modern warfare. The
+invisibility of combatants and guns, and the absorption of the
+individual in the mass, have robbed the battle-field of those
+episodes which adorned, if they did not justify it. On this
+occasion, a Boer gun, cut off by the British advance, flew out
+suddenly from behind its cover, like a hare from its tussock, and
+raced for safety across the plain. Here and there it wound, the
+horses stretched to their utmost, the drivers stooping and lashing,
+the little gun bounding behind. To right to left, behind and
+before, the British shells burst, lyddite and shrapnel, crashing
+and riving. Over the lip of a hollow, the gallant gun vanished, and
+within a few minutes was banging away once more at the British
+advance. With cheers and shouts and laughter, the British
+infantrymen watched the race for shelter, their sporting spirit
+rising high above all racial hatred, and hailing with a 'gone to
+ground' whoop the final disappearance of the gun.
+
+The Durhams had cleared the path, but the other regiments of
+Lyttelton's Brigade followed hard at their heels, and before night
+they had firmly established themselves upon the hill. But the fatal
+slowness which had marred General Buller's previous operations
+again prevented him from completing his success. Twice at least in
+the course of these operations there is evidence of sudden impulse
+to drop his tools in the midst of his task and to do no more for
+the day. So it was at Colenso, where an order was given at an early
+hour for the whole force to retire, and the guns which might have
+been covered by infantry fire and withdrawn after nightfall were
+abandoned. So it was also at a critical moment at this action at
+Vaalkranz. In the original scheme of operations it had been planned
+that an adjoining hill, called the Green Hill, which partly
+commanded Vaalkranz, should be carried also. The two together made
+a complete position, while singly each was a very bad neighbour to
+the other. On the aide-de-camp riding up, however, to inquire from
+General Buller whether the time had come for this advance, he
+replied, 'We have done enough for the day,' and left out this
+essential portion of his original scheme, with the result that all
+miscarried.
+
+Speed was the most essential quality for carrying out his plan
+successfully. So it must always be with the attack. The defence
+does not know where the blow is coming, and has to distribute men
+and guns to cover miles of ground. The attacker knows where he will
+hit, and behind a screen of outposts he can mass his force and
+throw his whole strength against a mere fraction of that of his
+enemy. But in order to do so he must be quick. One tiger spring
+must tear the centre out of the line before the flanks can come to
+its assistance. If time is given, if the long line can concentrate,
+if the scattered guns can mass, if lines of defence can be
+reduplicated behind, then the one great advantage which the attack
+possesses is thrown away. Both at the second and at the third
+attempts of Buller the British movements were so slow that had the
+enemy been the slowest instead of the most mobile of armies, they
+could still always have made any dispositions which they chose.
+Warren's dawdling in the first days of the movement which ended at
+Spion Kop might with an effort be condoned on account of possible
+difficulties of supply, but it would strain the ingenuity of the
+most charitable critic to find a sufficient reason for the lethargy
+of Vaalkranz. Though daylight comes a little after four, the
+operations were not commenced before seven. Lyttelton's Brigade had
+stormed the hill at two, and nothing more was done during the long
+evening, while officers chafed and soldiers swore, and the busy
+Boers worked furiously to bring up their guns and to bar the path
+which we must take. General Buller remarked a day or two later that
+the way was not quite so easy as it had been. One might have
+deduced the fact without the aid of a balloon.
+
+The brigade then occupied Vaalkranz and erected sangars and dug
+trenches. On the morning of the 6th, the position of the British
+force was not dissimilar to that of Spion Kop. Again they had some
+thousands of men upon a hill-top, exposed to shell fire from
+several directions and without any guns upon the hill to support
+them. In one or two points the situation was modified in their
+favour, and hence their escape from loss and disaster. A more
+extended position enabled the infantry to avoid bunching, but in
+other respects the situation was parallel to that in which they had
+found themselves a fortnight before.
+
+The original plan was that the taking of Vaalkranz should be the
+first step towards the outflanking of Brakfontein and the rolling
+up of the whole Boer position. But after the first move the British
+attitude became one of defence rather than of attack. Whatever the
+general and ultimate effect of these operations may have been, it
+is beyond question that their contemplation was annoying and
+bewildering in the extreme to those who were present. The position
+on February 6th was this. Over the river upon the hill was a single
+British brigade, exposed to the fire of one enormous gun--a
+96-pound Creusot, the longest of all Long Toms--which was stationed
+upon Doornkloof, and of several smaller guns and pom-poms which
+spat at them from nooks and crevices of the hills. On our side were
+seventy-two guns, large and small, all very noisy and impotent. It
+is not too much to say, as it appears to me, that the Boers have in
+some ways revolutionised our ideas in regard to the use of
+artillery, by bringing a fresh and healthy common-sense to bear
+upon a subject which had been unduly fettered by pedantic rules.
+The Boer system is the single stealthy gun crouching where none can
+see it. The British system is the six brave guns coming into action
+in line of full interval, and spreading out into accurate dressing
+visible to all men. 'Always remember,' says one of our artillery
+maxims, 'that one gun is no gun.' Which is prettier on a field-day,
+is obvious, but which is business--let the many duels between six
+Boer guns and sixty British declare. With black powder it was
+useless to hide the gun, as its smoke must betray it. With
+smokeless powder the guns are so invisible that it was only by the
+detection with powerful glasses of the dust from the trail on the
+recoil that the officers were ever able to localise the guns
+against which they were fighting. But if the Boers had had six guns
+in line, instead of one behind that kopje, and another between
+those distant rocks, it would not have been so difficult to say
+where they were. Again, British traditions are all in favour of
+planting guns close together. At this very action of Vaalkranz the
+two largest guns were so placed that a single shell bursting
+between them would have disabled them both. The officer who placed
+them there, and so disregarded in a vital matter the most obvious
+dictates of common-sense, would probably have been shocked by any
+want of technical smartness, or irregularity in the routine drill.
+An over-elaboration of trifles, and a want of grip of common-sense,
+and of adaptation to new ideas, is the most serious and damaging
+criticism which can be levelled against our army. That the function
+of infantry is to shoot, and not to act like spearmen in the Middle
+Ages; that the first duty of artillery is so far as is possible to
+be invisible--these are two of the lessons which have been driven
+home so often during the war, that even our hidebound conservatism
+can hardly resist them.
+
+Lyttelton's Brigade, then, held Vaalkranz; and from three parts of
+the compass there came big shells and little shells, with a
+constant shower of long-range rifle bullets. Behind them, and as
+useful as if it had been on Woolwich Common, there was drawn up an
+imposing mass of men, two infantry divisions, and two brigades of
+cavalry, all straining at the leash, prepared to shed their blood
+until the spruits ran red with it, if only they could win their way
+to where their half-starved comrades waited for them. But nothing
+happened. Hours passed and nothing happened. An occasional shell
+from the big gun plumped among them. One, through some freak of
+gunnery, lobbed slowly through a division, and the men whooped and
+threw their caps at it as it passed. The guns on Swartz Kop, at a
+range of nearly five miles, tossed shells at the monster on
+Doornkloof, and finally blew up his powder magazine amid the
+applause of the infantry. For the army it was a picnic and a
+spectacle.
+
+But it was otherwise with the men up on Vaalkranz. In spite of
+sangar and trench, that cross fire was finding them out; and no
+feint or demonstration on either side came to draw the concentrated
+fire from their position. Once there was a sudden alarm at the
+western end of the hill, and stooping bearded figures with slouch
+hats and bandoliers were right up on the ridge before they could be
+stopped, so cleverly had their advance been conducted. But a fiery
+rush of Durhams and Rifles cleared the crest again, and it was
+proved once more how much stronger is the defence than the attack.
+Nightfall found the position unchanged, save that another pontoon
+bridge had been constructed during the day. Over this Hildyard's
+Brigade marched to relieve Lyttelton's, who came back for a rest
+under the cover of the Swartz Kop guns. Their losses in the two
+days had been under two hundred and fifty, a trifle if any aim were
+to be gained, but excessive for a mere demonstration.
+
+That night Hildyard's men supplemented the defences made by
+Lyttelton, and tightened their hold upon the hill. One futile night
+attack caused them for an instant to change the spade for the
+rifle. When in the morning it was found that the Boers had, as they
+naturally would, brought up their outlying guns, the tired soldiers
+did not regret their labours of the night. It was again
+demonstrated how innocuous a thing is a severe shell fire, if the
+position be an extended one with chances of cover. A total of forty
+killed and wounded out of a strong brigade was the result of a long
+day under an incessant cannonade. And then at nightfall came the
+conclusion that the guns were too many, that the way was too hard,
+and down came all their high hopes with the order to withdraw once
+more across that accursed river. Vaalkranz was abandoned, and
+Hildyard's Brigade, seething with indignation, was ordered back
+once more to its camp.
+
+CHAPTER 17.
+
+BULLER'S FINAL ADVANCE.
+
+The heroic moment of the siege of Ladysmith was that which
+witnessed the repulse of the great attack. The epic should have
+ended at that dramatic instant. But instead of doing so the story
+falls back to an anticlimax of crowded hospitals, slaughtered
+horses, and sporadic shell fire. For another six weeks of
+inactivity the brave garrison endured all the sordid evils which
+had steadily grown from inconvenience to misfortune and from
+misfortune to misery. Away in the south they heard the thunder of
+Buller's guns, and from the hills round the town they watched with
+pale faces and bated breath the tragedy of Spion Kop, preserving a
+firm conviction that a very little more would have transformed it
+into their salvation. Their hearts sank with the sinking of the
+cannonade, and rose again with the roar of Vaalkranz. But Vaalkranz
+also failed them, and they waited on in the majesty of their hunger
+and their weakness for the help which was to come.
+
+It has been already narrated how General Buller had made his three
+attempts for the relief of the city. The General who was inclined
+to despair was now stimulated by despatches from Lord Roberts,
+while his army, who were by no means inclined to despair, were
+immensely cheered by the good news from the Kimberley side. Both
+General and army prepared for a last supreme effort. This time, at
+least, the soldiers hoped that they would be permitted to burst
+their way to the help of their starving comrades or leave their
+bones among the hills which had faced them so long. All they asked
+was a fight to a finish, and now they were about to have one.
+General Buller had tried the Boers' centre, he had tried their
+extreme right, and now he was about to try their extreme left.
+There were some obvious advantages on this side which make it
+surprising that it was not the first to be attempted. In the first
+place, the enemy's main position upon that flank was at Hlangwane
+mountain, which is to the south of the Tugela, so that in case of
+defeat the river ran behind them. In the second, Hlangwane mountain
+was the one point from which the Boer position at Colenso could be
+certainly enfiladed, and therefore the fruits of victory would be
+greater on that flank than on the other. Finally, the operations
+could be conducted at no great distance from the railhead, and the
+force would be exposed to little danger of having its flank
+attacked or its communications cut, as was the case in the Spion
+Kop advance. Against these potent considerations there is only to
+be put the single fact that the turning of the Boer right would
+threaten the Freestaters' line of retreat. On the whole, the
+balance of advantage lay entirely with the new attempt, and the
+whole army advanced to it with a premonition of success. Of all the
+examples which the war has given of the enduring qualities of the
+British troops there is none more striking than the absolute
+confidence and whole hearted delight with which, after three bloody
+repulses, they set forth upon another venture.
+
+On February 9th the movements were started which transferred the
+greater part of the force from the extreme left to the centre and
+right. By the 11th Lyttelton's (formerly Clery's) second division
+and Warren's fifth division had come eastward, leaving Burn
+Murdoch's cavalry brigade to guard the Western side. On the 12th
+Lord Dundonald, with all the colonial cavalry, two battalions of
+infantry, and a battery, made a strong reconnaissance towards
+Hussar Hill, which is the nearest of the several hills which would
+have to be occupied in order to turn the position. The hill was
+taken, but was abandoned again by General Buller after he had used
+it for some hours as an observatory. A long-range action between
+the retiring cavalry and the Boers ended in a few losses upon each
+side.
+
+What Buller had seen during the hour or two which he had spent with
+his telescope upon Hussar Hill had evidently confirmed him in his
+views, for two days later (February 14th) the whole army set forth
+for this point. By the morning of the 15th twenty thousand men were
+concentrated upon the sides and spurs of this eminence. On the 16th
+the heavy guns were in position, and all was ready for the advance.
+
+Facing them now were the formidable Boer lines of Hlangwane Hill
+and Green Hill, which would certainly cost several thousands of men
+if they were to take them by direct storm. Beyond them, upon the
+Boer flank, were the hills of Monte Christo and Cingolo, which
+appeared to be the extreme outside of the Boer position. The plan
+was to engage the attention of the trenches in front by a terrific
+artillery fire and the threat of an assault, while at the same time
+sending the true flank attack far round to carry the Cingolo ridge,
+which must be taken before any other hill could be approached.
+
+On the 17th, in the early morning, with the first tinge of violet
+in the east, the irregular cavalry and the second division
+(Lyttelton's) with Wynne's Brigade started upon their widely
+curving flanking march. The country through which they passed was
+so broken that the troopers led their horses in single file, and
+would have found themselves helpless in face of any resistance.
+Fortunately, Cingolo Hill was very weakly held, and by evening both
+our horsemen and our infantry had a firm grip upon it, thus turning
+the extreme left flank of the Boer position. For once their
+mountainous fortresses were against them, for a mounted Boer force
+is so mobile that in an open position, such as faced Methuen, it is
+very hard and requires great celerity of movement ever to find a
+flank at all. On a succession of hills, however, it was evident
+that some one hill must mark the extreme end of their line, and
+Buller had found it at Cingolo. Their answer to this movement was
+to throw their flank back so as to face the new position.
+
+Even now, however, the Boer leaders had apparently not realised
+that this was the main attack, or it is possible that the
+intervention of the river made it difficult for them to send
+reinforcements. However that may be, it is certain that the task
+which the British found awaiting them on the 18th proved to be far
+easier than they had dared to hope. The honours of the day rested
+with Hildyard's English Brigade (East Surrey, West Surrey, West
+Yorkshires, and 2nd Devons). In open order and with a rapid
+advance, taking every advantage of the cover--which was better than
+is usual in South African warfare--they gained the edge of the
+Monte Christo ridge, and then swiftly cleared the crest. One at
+least of the regiments engaged, the Devons, was nerved by the
+thought that their own first battalion was waiting for them at
+Ladysmith. The capture of the hill made the line of trenches which
+faced Buller untenable, and he was at once able to advance with
+Barton's Fusilier Brigade and to take possession of the whole Boer
+position of Hlangwane and Green Hill. It was not a great tactical
+victory, for they had no trophies to show save the worthless debris
+of the Boer camps. But it was a very great strategical victory, for
+it not only gave them the whole south side of the Tugela, but also
+the means of commanding with their guns a great deal of the north
+side, including those Colenso trenches which had blocked the way so
+long. A hundred and seventy killed and wounded (of whom only
+fourteen were killed) was a trivial price for such a result. At
+last from the captured ridges the exultant troops could see far
+away the haze which lay over the roofs of Ladysmith, and the
+besieged, with hearts beating high with hope, turned their glasses
+upon the distant mottled patches which told them that their
+comrades were approaching.
+
+By February 20th the British had firmly established themselves
+along the whole south bank of the river, Hart's brigade had
+occupied Colenso, and the heavy guns had been pushed up to more
+advanced positions. The crossing of the river was the next
+operation, and the question arose where it should be crossed. The
+wisdom which comes with experience shows us now that it would have
+been infinitely better to have crossed on their extreme left flank,
+as by an advance upon this line we should have turned their strong
+Pieters position just as we had already turned their Colenso one.
+With an absolutely master card in our hand we refused to play it,
+and won the game by a more tedious and perilous process. The
+assumption seems to have been made (on no other hypothesis can one
+understand the facts) that the enemy were demoralised and that the
+positions would not be strongly held. Our flanking advantage was
+abandoned and a direct advance was ordered from Colenso, involving
+a frontal attack upon the Pieters position.
+
+On February 21st Buller threw his pontoon bridge over the river
+near Colenso, and the same evening his army began to cross. It was
+at once evident that the Boer resistance had by no means collapsed.
+Wynne's Lancashire Brigade were the first across, and found
+themselves hotly engaged before nightfall. The low kopjes in front
+of them were blazing with musketry fire. The brigade held its own,
+but lost the Brigadier (the second in a month) and 150 rank and
+file. Next morning the main body of the infantry was passed across,
+and the army was absolutely committed to the formidable and
+unnecessary enterprise of fighting its way straight to Ladysmith.
+
+The force in front had weakened, however, both in numbers and in
+morale. Some thousands of the Freestaters had left in order to
+defend their own country from the advance of Roberts, while the
+rest were depressed by as much of the news as was allowed by their
+leaders to reach them. But the Boer is a tenacious fighter, and
+many a brave man was still to fall before Buller and White should
+shake hands in the High Street of Ladysmith.
+
+The first obstacle which faced the army, after crossing the river,
+was a belt of low rolling ground, which was gradually cleared by
+the advance of our infantry. As night closed in the advance lines
+of Boers and British were so close to each other that incessant
+rifle fire was maintained until morning, and at more than one point
+small bodies of desperate riflemen charged right up to the bayonets
+of our infantry. The morning found us still holding our positions
+all along the line, and as more and more of our infantry came up
+and gun after gun roared into action we began to push our stubborn
+enemy northwards. On the 21st the Dorsets, Middlesex, and Somersets
+had borne the heat of the day. On the 22nd it was the Royal
+Lancasters, followed by the South Lancashires, who took up the
+running. It would take the patience and also the space of a
+Kinglake in this scrambling broken fight to trace the doings of
+those groups of men who strove and struggled through the rifle
+fire. All day a steady advance was maintained over the low kopjes,
+until by evening we were faced by the more serious line of the
+Pieter's Hills. The operations had been carried out with a monotony
+of gallantry. Always the same extended advance, always the same
+rattle of Mausers and clatter of pom-poms from a ridge, always the
+same victorious soldiers on the barren crest, with a few crippled
+Boers before them and many crippled comrades behind. They were
+expensive triumphs, and yet every one brought them nearer to their
+goal. And now, like an advancing tide, they lapped along the base
+of Pieter's Hill. Could they gather volume enough to carry
+themselves over? The issue of the long-drawn battle and the fate of
+Ladysmith hung upon the question.
+
+Brigadier Fitzroy Hart, to whom the assault was entrusted, is in
+some ways as singular and picturesque a type as has been evolved in
+the war. A dandy soldier, always the picture of neatness from the
+top of his helmet to the heels of his well-polished brown boots, he
+brings to military matters the same precision which he affects in
+dress. Pedantic in his accuracy, he actually at the battle of
+Colenso drilled the Irish Brigade for half an hour before leading
+them into action, and threw out markers under a deadly fire in
+order that his change from close to extended formation might be
+academically correct. The heavy loss of the Brigade at this action
+was to some extent ascribed to him and affected his popularity; but
+as his men came to know him better, his romantic bravery, his
+whimsical soldierly humour, their dislike changed into admiration.
+His personal disregard for danger was notorious and reprehensible.
+'Where is General Hart?' asked some one in action. 'I have not seen
+him, but I know where you will find him. Go ahead of the skirmish
+line and you will see him standing on a rock,' was the answer. He
+bore a charmed life. It was a danger to be near him. 'Whom are you
+going to?' 'General Hart,' said the aide-de-camp. 'Then good-bye!'
+cried his fellows. A grim humour ran through his nature. It is
+gravely recorded and widely believed that he lined up a regiment on
+a hill-top in order to teach them not to shrink from fire. Amid the
+laughter of his Irishmen, he walked through the open files of his
+firing line holding a laggard by the ear. This was the man who had
+put such a spirit into the Irish Brigade that amid that army of
+valiant men there were none who held such a record. 'Their rushes
+were the quickest, their rushes were the longest, and they stayed
+the shortest time under cover,' said a shrewd military observer. To
+Hart and his brigade was given the task of clearing the way to
+Ladysmith.
+
+The regiments which he took with him on his perilous enterprise
+were the 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, the
+1st Connaught Rangers, and the Imperial Light Infantry, the whole
+forming the famous 5th Brigade. They were already in the extreme
+British advance, and now, as they moved forwards, the Durham Light
+Infantry and the 1st Rifle Brigade from Lyttelton's Brigade came up
+to take their place. The hill to be taken lay on the right, and the
+soldiers were compelled to pass in single file under a heavy fire
+for more than a mile until they reached the spot which seemed best
+for their enterprise. There, short already of sixty of their
+comrades, they assembled and began a cautious advance upon the
+lines of trenches and sangars which seamed the brown slope above
+them.
+
+For a time they were able to keep some cover, and the casualties
+were comparatively few. But now at last, as the evening sun threw a
+long shadow from the hills, the leading regiment, the
+Inniskillings, found themselves at the utmost fringe of boulders
+with a clear slope between them and the main trench of the enemy.
+Up there where the shrapnel was spurting and the great lyddite
+shells crashing they could dimly see a line of bearded faces and
+the black dots of the slouch hats. With a yell the Inniskillings
+sprang out, carried with a rush the first trench, and charged
+desperately onwards for the second one. It was a supremely dashing
+attack against a supremely steady resistance, for among all their
+gallant deeds the Boers have never fought better than on that
+February evening. Amid such a smashing shell fire as living mortals
+have never yet endured they stood doggedly, these hardy men of the
+veld, and fired fast and true into the fiery ranks of the Irishmen.
+The yell of the stormers was answered by the remorseless roar of
+the Mausers and the deep-chested shouts of the farmers. Up and up
+surged the infantry, falling, rising, dashing bull-headed at the
+crackling line of the trench. But still the bearded faces glared at
+them over the edge, and still the sheet of lead pelted through
+their ranks. The regiment staggered, came on, staggered again, was
+overtaken by supporting companies of the Dublins and the
+Connaughts, came on, staggered once more, and finally dissolved
+into shreds, who ran swiftly back for cover, threading their way
+among their stricken comrades. Never on this earth was there a
+retreat of which the survivors had less reason to be ashamed. They
+had held on to the utmost capacity of human endurance. Their
+Colonel, ten officers, and more than half the regiment were lying
+on the fatal hill. Honour to them, and honour also to the gallant
+Dutchmen who, rooted in the trenches, had faced the rush and fury
+of such an onslaught! Today to them, tomorrow to us--but it is for
+a soldier to thank the God of battles for worthy foes.
+
+It is one thing, however, to repulse the British soldier and it is
+another to rout him. Within a few hundred yards of their horrible
+ordeal at Magersfontein the Highlanders reformed into a military
+body. So now the Irishmen fell back no further than the nearest
+cover, and there held grimly on to the ground which they had won.
+If you would know the advantage which the defence has over the
+attack, then do you come and assault this line of tenacious men,
+now in your hour of victory and exultation, friend Boer! Friend
+Boer did attempt it, and skilfully too, moving a flanking party to
+sweep the position with their fire. But the brigade, though sorely
+hurt, held them off without difficulty, and was found on the
+morning of the 24th to be still lying upon the ground which they
+had won.
+
+Our losses had been very heavy, Colonel Thackeray of the
+Inniskillings, Colonel Sitwell of the Dublins, three majors, twenty
+officers, and a total of about six hundred out of 1200 actually
+engaged. To take such punishment and to remain undemoralised is the
+supreme test to which troops can be put. Could the loss have been
+avoided? By following the original line of advance from Monte
+Christo, perhaps, when we should have turned the enemy's left. But
+otherwise no. The hill was in the way and had to be taken. In the
+war game you cannot play without a stake. You lose and you pay
+forfeit, and where the game is fair the best player is he who pays
+with the best grace. The attack was well prepared, well delivered,
+and only miscarried on account of the excellence of the defence. We
+proved once more what we had proved so often before, that all
+valour and all discipline will not avail in a frontal attack
+against brave coolheaded men armed with quick-firing rifles.
+
+While the Irish Brigade assaulted Railway Hill an attack had been
+made upon the left, which was probably meant as a demonstration to
+keep the Boers from reinforcing their comrades rather than as an
+actual attempt upon their lines. Such as it was, however, it cost
+the life of at least one brave soldier, for Colonel Thorold, of the
+Welsh Fusiliers, was among the fallen. Thorold, Thackeray, and
+Sitwell in one evening. Who can say that British colonels have not
+given their men a lead?
+
+The army was now at a deadlock. Railway Hill barred the way, and if
+Hart's men could not carry it by assault it was hard to say who
+could. The 24th found the two armies facing each other at this
+critical point, the Irishmen still clinging to the slopes of the
+hill and the Boers lining the top. Fierce rifle firing broke out
+between them during the day, but each side was well covered and lay
+low. The troops in support suffered somewhat, however, from a
+random shell fire. Mr. Winston Churchill has left it upon record
+that within his own observation three of their shrapnel shells
+fired at a venture on to the reverse slope of a hill accounted for
+nineteen men and four horses. The enemy can never have known how
+hard those three shells had hit us, and so we may also believe that
+our artillery fire has often been less futile than it appeared.
+
+General Buller had now realised that it was no mere rearguard
+action which the Boers were fighting, but that their army was
+standing doggedly at bay; so he reverted to that flanking movement
+which, as events showed, should never have been abandoned. Hart's
+Irish Brigade was at present almost the right of the army. His new
+plan--a masterly one--was to keep Hart pinning the Boers at that
+point, and to move his centre and left across the river, and then
+back to envelope the left wing of the enemy. By this manoeuvre Hart
+became the extreme left instead of the extreme right, and the Irish
+Brigade would be the hinge upon which the whole army should turn.
+It was a large conception, finely carried out. The 24th was a day
+of futile shell fire--and of plans for the future. The heavy guns
+were got across once more to the Monte Christo ridge and to
+Hlangwane, and preparations made to throw the army from the west to
+the east. The enemy still snarled and occasionally snapped in front
+of Hart's men, but with four companies of the 2nd Rifle Brigade to
+protect their flanks their position remained secure.
+
+In the meantime, through a contretemps between our outposts and the
+Boers, no leave had been given to us to withdraw our wounded, and
+the unfortunate fellows, some hundreds of them, had lain between
+the lines in agonies of thirst for thirty-six hours--one of the
+most painful incidents of the campaign. Now, upon the 25th, an
+armistice was proclaimed, and the crying needs of the survivors
+were attended to. On the same day the hearts of our soldiers sank
+within them as they saw the stream of our wagons and guns crossing
+the river once more. What, were they foiled again? Was the blood of
+these brave men to be shed in vain? They ground their teeth at the
+thought. The higher strategy was not for them, but back was back
+and forward was forward, and they knew which way their proud hearts
+wished to go.
+
+The 26th was occupied by the large movements of troops which so
+complete a reversal of tactics necessitated. Under the screen of a
+heavy artillery fire, the British right became the left and the
+left the right. A second pontoon bridge was thrown across near the
+old Boer bridge at Hlangwane, and over it was passed a large force
+of infantry, Barton's Fusilier Brigade, Kitchener's (vice Wynne's,
+vice Woodgate's) Lancashire Brigade, and two battalions of
+Norcott's (formerly Lyttelton's) Brigade. Coke's Brigade was left
+at Colenso to prevent a counter attack upon our left flank and
+communications. In this way, while Hart with the Durhams and the
+1st Rifle Brigade held the Boers in front, the main body of the
+army was rapidly swung round on to their left flank. By the morning
+of the 27th all were in place for the new attack.
+
+Opposite the point where the troops had been massed were three Boer
+hills; one, the nearest, may for convenience sake be called
+Barton's Hill. As the army had formerly been situated the assault
+upon this hill would have been a matter of extreme difficulty; but
+now, with the heavy guns restored to their commanding position,
+from which they could sweep its sides and summits, it had recovered
+its initial advantage. In the morning sunlight Barton's Fusiliers
+crossed the river, and advanced to the attack under a screaming
+canopy of shells. Up they went and up, darting and crouching, until
+their gleaming bayonets sparkled upon the summit. The masterful
+artillery had done its work, and the first long step taken in this
+last stage of the relief of Ladysmith. The loss had been slight and
+the advantage enormous. After they had gained the summit the
+Fusiliers were stung and stung again by clouds of skirmishers who
+clung to the flanks of the hill, but their grip was firm and grew
+firmer with every hour.
+
+Of the three Boer hills which had to be taken the nearest (or
+eastern one) was now in the hands of the British. The furthest (or
+western one) was that on which the Irish Brigade was still
+crouching, ready at any moment for a final spring which would take
+them over the few hundred yards which separated them from the
+trenches. Between the two intervened a central hill, as yet
+untouched. Could we carry this the whole position would be ours.
+Now for the final effort! Turn every gun upon it, the guns of Monte
+Christo, the guns of Hlangwane! Turn every rifle upon it--the
+rifles of Barton's men, the rifles of Hart's men, the carbines of
+the distant cavalry! Scalp its crown with the machine-gun fire! And
+now up with you, Lancashire men, Norcott's men! The summit or a
+glorious death, for beyond that hill your suffering comrades are
+awaiting you! Put every bullet and every man and all of fire and
+spirit that you are worth into this last hour; for if you fail now
+you have failed for ever, and if you win, then when your hairs are
+white your blood will still run warm when you think of that
+morning's work. The long drama had drawn to an end, and one short
+day's work is to show what that end was to be.
+
+But there was never a doubt of it. Hardly for one instant did the
+advance waver at any point of its extended line. It was the supreme
+instant of the Natal campaign, as, wave after wave, the long lines
+of infantry went shimmering up the hill. On the left the
+Lancasters, the Lancashire Fusiliers, the South Lancashires, the
+York and Lancasters, with a burr of north country oaths, went
+racing for the summit. Spion Kop and a thousand comrades were
+calling for vengeance. 'Remember, men, the eyes of Lancashire are
+watching you,' cried the gallant MacCarthy O'Leary. The old 40th
+swept on, but his dead body marked the way which they had taken. On
+the right the East Surrey, the, Cameronians, the 3rd Rifles, the
+1st Rifle Brigade, the Durhams, and the gallant Irishmen, so sorely
+stricken and yet so eager, were all pressing upwards and onwards.
+The Boer fire lulls, it ceases--they are running! Wild hat-waving
+men upon the Hlangwane uplands see the silhouette of the active
+figures of the stormers along the sky-line and know that the
+position is theirs. Exultant soldiers dance and cheer upon the
+ridge. The sun is setting in glory over the great Drakensberg
+mountains, and so also that night set for ever the hopes of the
+Boer invaders of Natal. Out of doubt and chaos, blood and labour,
+had come at last the judgment that the lower should not swallow the
+higher, that the world is for the man of the twentieth and not of
+the seventeenth century. After a fortnight of fighting the weary
+troops threw themselves down that night with the assurance that at
+last the door was ajar and the light breaking through. One more
+effort and it would be open before them.
+
+Behind the line of hills which had been taken there extended a
+great plain as far as Bulwana--that evil neighbour who had wrought
+such harm upon Ladysmith. More than half of the Pieters position
+had fallen into Buller's hands on the 27th, and the remainder had
+become untenable. The Boers had lost some five hundred in killed,
+wounded, and prisoners. [Footnote: Accurate figures will probably
+never be obtained, but a well-known Boer in Pretoria informed me
+that Pieters was the most expensive fight to them of the whole war.
+] It seemed to the British General and his men that one more action
+would bring them safely into Ladysmith.
+
+But here they miscalculated, and so often have we miscalculated on
+the optimistic side in this campaign that it is pleasing to find
+for once that our hopes were less than the reality. The Boers had
+been beaten--fairly beaten and disheartened. It will always be a
+subject for conjecture whether they were so entirely on the
+strength of the Natal campaign, or whether the news of the Cronje
+disaster from the western side had warned them that they must draw
+in upon the east. For my own part I believe that the honour lies
+with the gallant men of Natal, and that, moving on these lines,
+they would, Cronje or no Cronje, have forced their way in triumph
+to Ladysmith.
+
+And now the long-drawn story draws to a swift close. Cautiously
+feeling their way with a fringe of horse, the British pushed over
+the great plain, delayed here and there by the crackle of musketry,
+but finding always that the obstacle gave way and vanished as they
+approached it. At last it seemed clear to Dundonald that there
+really was no barrier between his horsemen and the beleaguered
+city. With a squadron of Imperial Light Horse and a squadron of
+Natal Carabineers he rode on until, in the gathering twilight, the
+Ladysmith picket challenged the approaching cavalry, and the
+gallant town was saved.
+
+It is hard to say which had shown the greater endurance, the
+rescued or their rescuers. The town, indefensible, lurking in a
+hollow under commanding hills, had held out for 118 days. They had
+endured two assaults and an incessant bombardment, to which,
+towards the end, owing to the failure of heavy ammunition, they
+were unable to make any adequate reply. It was calculated that 16,
+000 shells had fallen within the town. In two successful sorties
+they had destroyed three of the enemy's heavy guns. They had been
+pressed by hunger, horseflesh was already running short, and they
+had been decimated by disease. More than 2000 cases of enteric and
+dysentery had been in hospital at one time, and the total number of
+admissions had been nearly as great as the total number of the
+garrison. One-tenth of the men had actually died of wounds or
+disease. Ragged, bootless, and emaciated, there still lurked in the
+gaunt soldiers the martial spirit of warriors. On the day after
+their relief 2000 of them set forth to pursue the Boers. One who
+helped to lead them has left it on record that the most piteous
+sight that he has ever seen was these wasted men, stooping under
+their rifles and gasping with the pressure of their accoutrements,
+as they staggered after their retreating enemy. A Verestschagen
+might find a subject these 2000 indomitable men with their
+emaciated horses pursuing a formidable foe. It is God's mercy they
+failed to overtake them.
+
+If the record of the besieged force was great, that of the
+relieving army was no less so. Through the blackest depths of
+despondency and failure they had struggled to absolute success. At
+Colenso they had lost 1200 men, at Spion Kop 1700, at Vaalkranz
+400, and now, in this last long-drawn effort, 1600 more. Their
+total losses were over 5000 men, more than 20 per cent of the whole
+army. Some particular regiments had suffered horribly. The Dublin
+and Inniskilling Fusiliers headed the roll of honour with only five
+officers and 40 per cent of the men left standing. Next to them the
+Lancashire Fusiliers and the Royal Lancasters had been the hardest
+hit. It speaks well for Buller's power of winning and holding the
+confidence of his men that in the face of repulse after repulse the
+soldiers still went into battle as steadily as ever under his
+command.
+
+On March 3rd Buller's force entered Ladysmith in state between the
+lines of the defenders. For their heroism the Dublin Fusiliers were
+put in the van of the procession, and it is told how, as the
+soldiers who lined the streets saw the five officers and small
+clump of men, the remains of what had been a strong battalion,
+realising, for the first time perhaps, what their relief had cost,
+many sobbed like children. With cheer after cheer the stream of
+brave men flowed for hours between banks formed by men as brave.
+But for the purposes of war the garrison was useless. A month of
+rest and food would be necessary before they could be ready to take
+the field once more.
+
+So the riddle of the Tugela had at last been solved. Even now, with
+all the light which has been shed upon the matter, it is hard to
+apportion praise and blame. To the cheerful optimism of Symons must
+be laid some of the blame of the original entanglement; but man is
+mortal, and he laid down his life for his mistake. White, who had
+been but a week in the country, could not, if he would, alter the
+main facts of the military situation. He did his best, committed
+one or two errors, did brilliantly on one or two points, and
+finally conducted the defence with a tenacity and a gallantry which
+are above all praise. It did not, fortunately, develop into an
+absolutely desperate affair, like Massena's defence of Genoa, but a
+few more weeks would have made it a military tragedy. He was
+fortunate in the troops whom he commanded--half of them old
+soldiers from India--[Footnote: An officer in high command in
+Ladysmith has told me, as an illustration of the nerve and
+discipline of the troops, that though false alarms in the Boer
+trenches were matters of continual occurrence from the beginning to
+the end of the siege, there was not one single occasion when the
+British outposts made a mistake.]--and exceedingly fortunate in his
+officers, French (in the operations before the siege), Archibald
+Hunter, Ian Hamilton, Hedworth Lambton, Dick-Cunyngham, Knox, De
+Courcy Hamilton, and all the other good men and true who stood (as
+long as they could stand) by his side. Above all, he was fortunate
+in his commissariat officers, and it was in the offices of Colonels
+Ward and Stoneman as much as in the trenches and sangars of
+Caesar's Camp that the siege was won.
+
+Buller, like White, had to take the situation as he found it. It is
+well known that his own belief was that the line of the Tugela was
+the true defence of Natal. When he reached Africa, Ladysmith was
+already beleaguered, and he, with his troops, had to abandon the
+scheme of direct invasion and to hurry to extricate White's
+division. Whether they might not have been more rapidly extricated
+by keeping to the original plan is a question which will long
+furnish an excellent subject for military debate. Had Buller in
+November known that Ladysmith was capable of holding out until
+March, is it conceivable that he, with his whole army corps and as
+many more troops as he cared to summon from England, would not have
+made such an advance in four months through the Free State as would
+necessitate the abandonment of the sieges both of Kimberley and of
+Ladysmith? If the Boers persisted in these sieges they could not
+possibly place more than 20,000 men on the Orange River to face 60,
+000 whom Buller could have had there by the first week in December.
+Methuen's force, French's force, Gatacre's force, and the Natal
+force, with the exception of garrisons for Pietermaritzburg and
+Durban, would have assembled, with a reserve of another sixty
+thousand men in the colony or on the sea ready to fill the gaps in
+his advance. Moving over a flat country with plenty of flanking
+room, it is probable that he would have been in Bloemfontein by
+Christmas and at the Vaal River late in January. What could the
+Boers do then? They might remain before Ladysmith, and learn that
+their capital and their gold mines had been taken in their absence.
+Or they might abandon the siege and trek back to defend their own
+homes. This, as it appears to a civilian critic, would have been
+the least expensive means of fighting them; but after all the
+strain had to come somewhere, and the long struggle of Ladysmith
+may have meant a more certain and complete collapse in the future.
+At least, by the plan actually adopted we saved Natal from total
+devastation, and that must count against a great deal.
+
+Having taken his line, Buller set about his task in a slow,
+deliberate, but pertinacious fashion. It cannot be denied, however,
+that the pertinacity was largely due to the stiffening counsel of
+Roberts and the soldierly firmness of White who refused to
+acquiesce in the suggestion of surrender. Let it be acknowledged
+that Buller's was the hardest problem of the war, and that he
+solved it. The mere acknowledgment goes far to soften criticism.
+But the singular thing is that in his proceedings he showed
+qualities which had not been generally attributed to him, and was
+wanting in those very points which the public had imagined to be
+characteristic of him. He had gone out with the reputation of a
+downright John Bull fighter, who would take punishment or give it,
+but slog his way through without wincing. There was no reason for
+attributing any particular strategical ability to him. But as a
+matter of fact, setting the Colenso attempt aside, the crossing for
+the Spion Kop enterprise, the withdrawal of the compromised army,
+the Vaalkranz crossing with the clever feint upon Brakfontein, the
+final operations, and especially the complete change of front after
+the third day of Pieters, were strategical movements largely
+conceived and admirably carried out. On the other hand, a
+hesitation in pushing onwards, and a disinclination to take a risk
+or to endure heavy punishment, even in the case of temporary
+failure, were consistent characteristics of his generalship. The
+Vaalkranz operations are particularly difficult to defend from the
+charge of having been needlessly slow and half-hearted. This
+'saturnine fighter,' as he had been called, proved to be
+exceedingly sensitive about the lives of his men--an admirable
+quality in itself, but there are occasions when to spare them
+to-day is to needlessly imperil them tomorrow. The victory was his,
+and yet in the very moment of it he displayed the qualities which
+marred him. With two cavalry brigades in hand he did not push the
+pursuit of the routed Boers with their guns and endless streams of
+wagons. It is true that he might have lost heavily, but it is true
+also that a success might have ended the Boer invasion of Natal,
+and the lives of our troopers would be well spent in such a
+venture. If cavalry is not to be used in pursuing a retiring enemy
+encumbered with much baggage, then its day is indeed past.
+
+The relief of Ladysmith stirred the people of the Empire as
+nothing, save perhaps the subsequent relief of Mafeking, has done
+during our generation. Even sober unemotional London found its soul
+for once and fluttered with joy. Men, women, and children, rich and
+poor, clubman and cabman, joined in the universal delight. The
+thought of our garrison, of their privations, of our impotence to
+relieve them, of the impending humiliation to them and to us, had
+lain dark for many months across our spirits. It had weighed upon
+us, until the subject, though ever present in our thoughts, was too
+painful for general talk. And now, in an instant, the shadow was
+lifted. The outburst of rejoicing was not a triumph over the
+gallant Boers. But it was our own escape from humiliation, the
+knowledge that the blood of our sons had not been shed in vain,
+above all the conviction that the darkest hour had now passed and
+that the light of peace was dimly breaking far away--that was why
+London rang with joy bells that March morning, and why those bells
+echoed back from every town and hamlet, in tropical sun and in
+Arctic snow, over which the flag of Britain waved.
+
+CHAPTER 18.
+
+THE SIEGE AND RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY.
+
+It has already been narrated how, upon the arrival of the army
+corps from England, the greater part was drafted to Natal, while
+some went to the western side, and started under Lord Methuen upon
+the perilous enterprise of the relief of Kimberley. It has also
+been shown how, after three expensive victories, Lord Methuen's
+force met with a paralysing reverse, and was compelled to remain
+inactive within twenty miles of the town which they had come to
+succour. Before I describe how that succour did eventually arrive,
+some attention must be paid to the incidents which had occurred
+within the city.
+
+'I am directed to assure you that there is no reason for
+apprehending that Kimberley or any part of the colony either is, or
+in any contemplated event will be, in danger of attack. Mr.
+Schreiner is of opinion that your fears are groundless and your
+anticipations in the matter entirely without foundation.' Such is
+the official reply to the remonstrance of the inhabitants, when,
+with the shadow of war dark upon them, they appealed for help. It
+is fortunate, however, that a progressive British town has usually
+the capacity for doing things for itself without the intervention
+of officials. Kimberley was particularly lucky in being the centre
+of the wealthy and alert De Beers Company, which had laid in
+sufficient ammunition and supplies to prevent the town from being
+helpless in the presence of the enemy. But the cannon were popguns,
+firing a 7-pound shell for a short range, and the garrison
+contained only seven hundred regulars, while the remainder were
+mostly untrained miners and artisans. Among them, however, there
+was a sprinkling of dangerous men from the northern wars, and all
+were nerved by a knowledge that the ground which they defended was
+essential to the Empire. Ladysmith was no more than any other
+strategic position, but Kimberley was unique, the centre of the
+richest tract of ground for its size in the whole world. Its loss
+would have been a heavy blow to the British cause, and an enormous
+encouragement to the Boers.
+
+On October 12th, several hours after the expiration of Kruger's
+ultimatum, Cecil Rhodes threw himself into Kimberley. This
+remarkable man, who stood for the future of South Africa as clearly
+as the Dopper Boer stood for its past, had, both in features and in
+character, some traits which may, without extravagance, be called
+Napoleonic. The restless energy, the fertility of resource, the
+attention to detail, the wide sweep of mind, the power of terse
+comment--all these recall the great emperor. So did the simplicity
+of private life in the midst of excessive wealth. And so finally
+did a want of scruple where an ambition was to be furthered, shown,
+for example, in that enormous donation to the Irish party by which
+he made a bid for their parliamentary support, and in the story of
+the Jameson raid. A certain cynicism of mind and a grim humour
+complete the parallel. But Rhodes was a Napoleon of peace. The
+consolidation of South Africa under the freest and most progressive
+form of government was the large object on which he had expended
+his energies and his fortune but the development of the country in
+every conceivable respect, from the building of a railway to the
+importation of a pedigree bull, engaged his unremitting attention.
+
+It was on October 15th that the fifty thousand inhabitants of
+Kimberley first heard the voice of war. It rose and fell in a
+succession of horrible screams and groans which travelled far over
+the veld, and the outlying farmers marvelled at the dreadful
+clamour from the sirens and the hooters of the great mines. Those
+who have endured all--the rifle, the cannon, and the hunger--have
+said that those wild whoops from the sirens were what had tried
+their nerve the most.
+
+The Boers in scattered bands of horsemen were thick around the
+town, and had blocked the railroad. They raided cattle upon the
+outskirts, but made no attempt to rush the defence. The garrison,
+who, civilian and military, approached four thousand in number, lay
+close in rifle pit and redoubt waiting for an attack which never
+came. The perimeter to be defended was about eight miles, but the
+heaps of tailings made admirable fortifications, and the town had
+none of those inconvenient heights around it which had been such
+bad neighbours to Ladysmith. Picturesque surroundings are not
+favourable to defence.
+
+On October 24th the garrison, finding that no attack was made,
+determined upon a reconnaissance. The mounted force, upon which
+most of the work and of the loss fell, consisted of the Diamond
+Fields Horse, a small number of Cape Police, a company of Mounted
+Infantry, and a body called the Kimberley Light Horse. With two
+hundred and seventy volunteers from this force Major Scott-Turner,
+a redoubtable fighter, felt his way to the north until he came in
+touch with the Boers. The latter, who were much superior in
+numbers, manoeuvred to cut him off, but the arrival of two
+companies of the North Lancashire Regiment turned the scale in our
+favour. We lost three killed and twenty-one wounded in the
+skirmish. The Boer loss is unknown, but their commander Botha was
+slain.
+
+On November 4th Commandant Wessels formally summoned the town, and
+it is asserted that he gave Colonel Kekewich leave to send out the
+women and children. That officer has been blamed for not taking
+advantage of the permission--or at the least for not communicating
+it to the civil authorities. As a matter of fact the charge rests
+upon a misapprehension. In Wessels' letter a distinction is made
+between Africander and English women, the former being offered an
+asylum in his camp. This offer was made known, and half a dozen
+persons took advantage of it. The suggestion, however, in the case
+of the English carried with it no promise that they would be
+conveyed to Orange River, and a compliance with it would have put
+them as helpless hostages into the hands of the enemy. As to not
+publishing the message it is not usual to publish such official
+documents, but the offer was shown to Mr. Rhodes, who concurred in
+the impossibility of accepting it.
+
+It is difficult to allude to this subject without touching upon the
+painful but notorious fact that there existed during the siege
+considerable friction between the military authorities and a
+section of the civilians, of whom Mr. Rhodes was chief. Among other
+characteristics Rhodes bore any form of restraint very badly, and
+chafed mightily when unable to do a thing in the exact way which he
+considered best. He may have been a Napoleon of peace, but his
+warmest friends could never describe him as a Napoleon of war, for
+his military forecasts have been erroneous, and the management of
+the Jameson fiasco certainly inspired no confidence in the judgment
+of any one concerned. That his intentions were of the best, and
+that he had the good of the Empire at heart, may be freely granted;
+but that these motives should lead him to cabal against, and even
+to threaten, the military governor, or that he should attempt to
+force Lord Roberts's hand in a military operation, was most
+deplorable. Every credit may be given to him for all his aid to the
+military--he gave with a good grace what the garrison would
+otherwise have had to commandeer--but it is a fact that the town
+would have been more united, and therefore stronger, without his
+presence. Colonel Kekewich and his chief staff officer, Major
+O'Meara, were as much plagued by intrigue within as by the Boers
+without.
+
+On November 7th the bombardment of the town commenced from nine
+9-pounder guns to which the artillery of the garrison could give no
+adequate reply. The result, however, of a fortnight's fire, during
+which seven hundred shells were discharged, was the loss of two
+non-combatants. The question of food was recognised as being of
+more importance than the enemy's fire. An early relief appeared
+probable, however, as the advance of Methuen's force was already
+known. One pound of bread, two ounces of sugar, and half a pound of
+meat were allowed per head. It was only on the small children that
+the scarcity of milk told with tragic effect. At Ladysmith, at
+Mafeking, and at Kimberley hundreds of these innocents were
+sacrificed.
+
+November 25th was a red-letter day with the garrison, who made a
+sortie under the impression that Methuen was not far off, and that
+they were assisting his operations. The attack was made upon one of
+the Boer positions by a force consisting of a detachment of the
+Light Horse and of the Cape Police, and their work was brilliantly
+successful. The actual storming of the redoubt was carried out by
+some forty men, of whom but four were killed. They brought back
+thirty-three prisoners as a proof of their victory, but the Boer
+gun, as usual, escaped us. In this brilliant affair Scott-Turner
+was wounded, which did not prevent him, only three days later, from
+leading another sortie, which was as disastrous as the first had
+been successful. Save under very exceptional circumstances it is in
+modern warfare long odds always upon the defence, and the garrison
+would probably have been better advised had they refrained from
+attacking the fortifications of their enemy--a truth which
+Baden-Powell learned also at Game Tree Hill. As it was, after a
+temporary success the British were blown back by the fierce Mauser
+fire, and lost the indomitable Scott-Turner, with twenty-one of his
+brave companions killed and twenty-eight wounded, all belonging to
+the colonial corps. The Empire may reflect with pride that the
+people in whose cause mainly they fought showed themselves by their
+gallantry and their devotion worthy of any sacrifice which has been
+made.
+
+Again the siege settled down to a monotonous record of decreasing
+rations and of expectation. On December 10 there came a sign of
+hope from the outside world. Far on the southern horizon a little
+golden speck shimmered against the blue African sky. It was
+Methuen's balloon gleaming in the sunshine. Next morning the low
+grumble of distant cannon was the sweetest of music to the
+listening citizens. But days passed without further news, and it
+was not for more than a week that they learned of the bloody
+repulse of Magersfontein, and that help was once more indefinitely
+postponed. Heliographic communication had been opened with the
+relieving army, and it is on record that the first message flashed
+through from the south was a question about the number of a horse.
+With inconceivable stupidity this has been cited as an example of
+military levity and incapacity. Of course the object of the
+question was a test as to whether they were really in communication
+with the garrison. It must be confessed that the town seems to have
+contained some very querulous and unreasonable people.
+
+The New Year found the beleaguered city reduced to a quarter of a
+pound of meat per head, while the health of the inhabitants began
+to break down under their confinement. Their interest, however, was
+keenly aroused by the attempt made in the De Beers workshops to
+build a gun which might reach their opponents. This remarkable
+piece of ordnance, constructed by an American named Labram by the
+help of tools manufactured for the purpose and of books found in
+the town, took the shape eventually of a 28 lb. rifled gun, which
+proved to be a most efficient piece of artillery. With grim humour,
+Mr. Rhodes's compliments had been inscribed upon the shells--a fair
+retort in view of the openly expressed threat of the enemy that in
+case of his capture they would carry him in a cage to Pretoria.
+
+The Boers, though held off for a time by this unexpected piece of
+ordnance, prepared a terrible answer to it. On February 7th an
+enormous gun, throwing a 96 lb. shell, opened from Kamfersdam,
+which is four miles from the centre of the town. The shells,
+following the evil precedent of the Germans in 1870, were fired not
+at the forts, but into the thickly populated city. Day and night
+these huge missiles exploded, shattering the houses and
+occasionally killing or maiming the occupants. Some thousands of
+the women and children were conveyed down the mines, where, in the
+electric-lighted tunnels, they lay in comfort and safety. One
+surprising revenge the Boers had, for by an extraordinary chance
+one of the few men killed by their gun was the ingenious Labram who
+had constructed the 28-pounder. By an even more singular chance,
+Leon, who was responsible for bringing the big Boer gun, was struck
+immediately afterwards by a long-range rifle-shot from the
+garrison.
+
+The historian must be content to give a tame account of the siege
+of Kimberley, for the thing itself was tame. Indeed 'siege' is a
+misnomer, for it was rather an investment or a blockade. Such as it
+was, however, the inhabitants became very restless under it, and
+though there were never any prospects of surrender the utmost
+impatience began to be manifested at the protracted delay on the
+part of the relief force. It was not till later that it was
+understood how cunningly Kimberley had been used as a bait to hold
+the enemy until final preparations had been made for his
+destruction.
+
+And at last the great day came. It is on record how dramatic was
+the meeting between the mounted outposts of the defenders and the
+advance guard of the relievers, whose advent seems to have been
+equally unexpected by friend and foe. A skirmish was in progress on
+February 15th between a party of the Kimberley Light Horse and of
+the Boers, when a new body of horsemen, unrecognised by either
+side, appeared upon the plain and opened fire upon the enemy. One
+of the strangers rode up to the patrol. 'What the dickens does K.L.
+H. mean on your shoulder-strap?' he asked. 'It means Kimberley
+Light Horse. Who are you?' 'I am one of the New Zealanders.'
+Macaulay in his wildest dream of the future of the much-quoted New
+Zealander never pictured him as heading a rescue force for the
+relief of a British town in the heart of Africa.
+
+The population had assembled to watch the mighty cloud of dust
+which rolled along the south-eastern horizon. What was it which
+swept westwards within its reddish heart? Hopeful and yet fearful
+they saw the huge bank draw nearer and nearer. An assault from the
+whole of Cronje's army was the thought which passed through many a
+mind. And then the dust-cloud thinned, a mighty host of horsemen
+spurred out from it, and in the extended far-flung ranks the glint
+of spearheads and the gleam of scabbards told of the Hussars and
+Lancers, while denser banks on either flank marked the position of
+the whirling guns. Wearied and spent with a hundred miles' ride the
+dusty riders and the panting, dripping horses took fresh heart as
+they saw the broad city before them, and swept with martial rattle
+and jingle towards the cheering crowds. Amid shouts and tears
+French rode into Kimberley while his troopers encamped outside the
+town.
+
+To know how this bolt was prepared and how launched, the narrative
+must go back to the beginning of the month. At that period Methuen
+and his men were still faced by Cronje and his entrenched forces,
+who, in spite of occasional bombardments, held their position
+between Kimberley and the relieving army. French, having handed
+over the operations at Colesberg to Clements, had gone down to Cape
+Town to confer with Roberts and Kitchener. Thence they all three
+made their way to the Modder River, which was evidently about to be
+the base of a more largely conceived series of operations than any
+which had yet been undertaken.
+
+In order to draw the Boer attention away from the thunderbolt which
+was about to fall upon their left flank, a strong demonstration
+ending in a brisk action was made early in February upon the
+extreme right of Cronje's position. The force, consisting of the
+Highland Brigade, two squadrons of the 9th Lancers, No. 7 Co. Royal
+Engineers, and the 62nd Battery, was under the command of the
+famous Hector Macdonald. 'Fighting Mac' as he was called by his
+men, had joined his regiment as a private, and had worked through
+the grades of corporal, sergeant, captain, major, and colonel,
+until now, still in the prime of his manhood, he found himself
+riding at the head of a brigade. A bony, craggy Scotsman, with a
+square fighting head and a bulldog jaw, he had conquered the
+exclusiveness and routine of the British service by the same dogged
+qualities which made him formidable to Dervish and to Boer. With a
+cool brain, a steady nerve, and a proud heart, he is an ideal
+leader of infantry, and those who saw him manoeuvre his brigade in
+the crisis of the battle of Omdurman speak of it as the one great
+memory which they carried back from the engagement. On the field of
+battle he turns to the speech of his childhood, the jagged,
+rasping, homely words which brace the nerves of the northern
+soldier. This was the man who had come from India to take the place
+of poor Wauchope, and to put fresh heart into the gallant but
+sorely stricken brigade.
+
+The four regiments which composed the infantry of the force--the
+Black Watch, the Argyll and Sutherlands, the Seaforths, and the
+Highland Light Infantry--left Lord Methuen's camp on Saturday,
+February 3rd, and halted at Fraser's Drift, passing on next day to
+Koodoosberg. The day was very hot, and the going very heavy, and
+many men fell out, some never to return. The drift (or ford) was
+found, however, to be undefended, and was seized by Macdonald, who,
+after pitching camp on the south side of the river, sent out strong
+parties across the drift to seize and entrench the Koodoosberg and
+some adjacent kopjes which, lying some three-quarters of a mile to
+the north-west of the drift formed the key of the position. A few
+Boer scouts were seen hurrying with the news of his coming to the
+head laager.
+
+The effect of these messages was evident by Tuesday (February 6th),
+when the Boers were seen to be assembling upon the north bank. By
+next morning they were there in considerable numbers, and began an
+attack upon a crest held by the Seaforths. Macdonald threw two
+companies of the Black Watch and two of the Highland Light Infantry
+into the fight. The Boers made excellent practice with a 7-pounder
+mountain gun, and their rifle fire, considering the good cover
+which our men had, was very deadly. Poor Tait, of the Black Watch,
+good sportsman and gallant soldier, with one wound hardly healed
+upon his person, was hit again. 'They've got me this time,' were
+his dying words. Blair, of the Seaforths, had his carotid cut by a
+shrapnel bullet, and lay for hours while the men of his company
+took turns to squeeze the artery. But our artillery silenced the
+Boer gun, and our infantry easily held their riflemen. Babington
+with the cavalry brigade arrived from the camp about 1.30, moving
+along the north bank of the river. In spite of the fact that men
+and horses were weary from a tiring march, it was hoped by
+Macdonald's force that they would work round the Boers and make an
+attempt to capture either them or their gun. But the horsemen seem
+not to have realised the position of the parties, or that
+possibility of bringing off a considerable coup, so the action came
+to a tame conclusion, the Boers retiring unpursued from their
+attack. On Thursday, February 8th, they were found to have
+withdrawn, and on the same evening our own force was recalled, to
+the surprise and disappointment of the public at home, who had not
+realised that in directing their attention to their right flank the
+column had already produced the effect upon the enemy for which
+they had been sent. They could not be left there, as they were
+needed for those great operations which were pending. It was on the
+9th that the brigade returned; on the 10th they were congratulated
+by Lord Roberts in person; and on the 11th those new dispositions
+were made which were destined not only to relieve Kimberley, but to
+inflict a blow upon the Boer cause from which it was never able to
+recover.
+
+Small, brown, and wrinkled, with puckered eyes and alert manner,
+Lord Roberts in spite of his sixty-seven years preserves the figure
+and energy of youth. The active open-air life of India keeps men
+fit for the saddle when in England they would only sit their club
+armchairs, and it is hard for any one who sees the wiry figure and
+brisk step of Lord Roberts to realise that he has spent forty-one
+years of soldiering in what used to be regarded as an unhealthy
+climate. He had carried into late life the habit of martial
+exercise, and a Russian traveller has left it on record that the
+sight which surprised him most in India was to see the veteran
+commander of the army ride forth with his spear and carry off the
+peg with the skill of a practised trooper. In his early youth he
+had shown in the Mutiny that he possessed the fighting energy of
+the soldier to a remarkable degree, but it was only in the Afghan
+War of 1880 that he had an opportunity of proving that he had rarer
+and more valuable gifts, the power of swift resolution and
+determined execution. At the crisis of the war he and his army
+disappeared entirely from the public ken only to emerge
+dramatically as victors at a point three hundred miles distant from
+where they had vanished.
+
+It is not only as a soldier, but as a man, that Lord Roberts
+possesses some remarkable characteristics. He has in a supreme
+degree that magnetic quality which draws not merely the respect but
+the love of those who know him. In Chaucer's phrase, he is a very
+perfect gentle knight. Soldiers and regimental officers have for
+him a feeling of personal affection such as the unemotional British
+Army has never had for any leader in the course of our history. His
+chivalrous courtesy, his unerring tact, his kindly nature, his
+unselfish and untiring devotion to their interests have all
+endeared him to those rough loyal natures, who would follow him
+with as much confidence and devotion as the grognards of the Guard
+had in the case of the Great Emperor. There were some who feared
+that in Roberts's case, as in so many more, the donga and kopje of
+South Africa might form the grave and headstone of a military
+reputation, but far from this being so he consistently showed a
+wide sweep of strategy and a power of conceiving the effect of
+scattered movements over a great extent of country which have
+surprised his warmest admirers. In the second week of February his
+dispositions were ready, and there followed the swift series of
+blows which brought the Boers upon their knees. Of these we shall
+only describe here the exploits of the fine force of cavalry which,
+after a ride of a hundred miles, broke out of the heart of that
+reddish dustcloud and swept the Boer besiegers away from
+hard-pressed Kimberley.
+
+In order to strike unexpectedly, Lord Roberts had not only made a
+strong demonstration at Koodoosdrift, at the other end of the Boer
+line, but he had withdrawn his main force some forty miles south,
+taking them down by rail to Belmont and Enslin with such secrecy
+that even commanding officers had no idea whither the troops were
+going. The cavalry which had come from French's command at
+Colesberg had already reached the rendezvous, travelling by road to
+Naauwpoort, and thence by train. This force consisted of the
+Carabineers, New South Wales Lancers, Inniskillings, composite
+regiment of Household Cavalry, 10th Hussars, with some mounted
+infantry and two batteries of Horse Artillery, making a force of
+nearly three thousand sabres. To this were added the 9th and 12th
+Lancers from Modder River, the 16th Lancers from India, the Scots
+Greys, which had been patrolling Orange River from the beginning of
+the war, Rimington's Scouts, and two brigades of mounted infantry
+under Colonels Ridley and Hannay. The force under this latter
+officer had a severe skirmish on its way to the rendezvous and lost
+fifty or sixty in killed, wounded, and missing. Five other
+batteries of Horse Artillery were added to the force, making seven
+in all, with a pontoon section of Royal Engineers. The total number
+of men was about five thousand. By the night of Sunday, February
+11th, this formidable force had concentrated at Ramdam, twenty
+miles north-east of Belmont, and was ready to advance. At two in
+the morning of Monday, February 12th, the start was made, and the
+long sinuous line of night-riders moved off over the shadowy veld,
+the beat of twenty thousand hoofs, the clank of steel, and the
+rumble of gunwheels and tumbrils swelling into a deep low roar like
+the surge upon the shingle.
+
+Two rivers, the Riet and the Modder, intervened between French and
+Kimberley. By daylight on the 12th the head of his force had
+reached Waterval Drift, which was found to be defended by a body of
+Boers with a gun. Leaving a small detachment to hold them, French
+passed his men over Dekiel's Drift, higher up the stream, and swept
+the enemy out of his position. This considerable force of Boers had
+come from Jacobsdal, and were just too late to get into position to
+resist the crossing. Had we been ten minutes later, the matter
+would have been much more serious. At the cost of a very small loss
+he held both sides of the ford, but it was not until midnight that
+the whole long column was brought across, and bivouacked upon the
+northern bank. In the morning the strength of the force was
+enormously increased by the arrival of one more horseman. It was
+Roberts himself, who had ridden over to give the men a send-off,
+and the sight of his wiry erect figure and mahogany face sent them
+full of fire and confidence upon their way.
+
+But the march of this second day (February 13th) was a military
+operation of some difficulty. Thirty long waterless miles had to be
+done before they could reach the Modder, and it was possible that
+even then they might have to fight an action before winning the
+drift. The weather was very hot, and through the long day the sun
+beat down from an unclouded sky, while the soldiers were only
+shaded by the dust-bank in which they rode. A broad arid plain,
+swelling into stony hills, surrounded them on every side. Here and
+there in the extreme distance, mounted figures moved over the vast
+expanse--Boer scouts who marked in amazement the advance of this
+great array. Once or twice these men gathered together, and a
+sputter of rifle fire broke out upon our left flank, but the great
+tide swept on and carried them with it. Often in this desolate land
+the herds of mottled springbok and of grey rekbok could be seen
+sweeping over the plain, or stopping with that curiosity upon which
+the hunter trades, to stare at the unwonted spectacle.
+
+So all day they rode, hussars, dragoons, and lancers, over the
+withered veld, until men and horses drooped with the heat and the
+exertion. A front of nearly two miles was kept, the regiments
+moving two abreast in open order; and the sight of this magnificent
+cloud of horsemen sweeping over the great barren plain was a
+glorious one. The veld had caught fire upon the right, and a black
+cloud of smoke with a lurid heart to it covered the flank. The beat
+of the sun from above and the swelter of dust from below were
+overpowering. Gun horses fell in the traces and died of pure
+exhaustion. The men, parched and silent, but cheerful, strained
+their eyes to pierce the continual mirage which played over the
+horizon, and to catch the first glimpse of the Modder. At last, as
+the sun began to slope down to the west, a thin line of green was
+discerned, the bushes which skirt the banks of that ill-favoured
+stream. With renewed heart the cavalry pushed on and made for the
+drift, while Major Rimington, to whom the onerous duty of guiding
+the force had been entrusted, gave a sigh of relief as he saw that
+he had indeed struck the very point at which he had aimed.
+
+The essential thing in the movements had been speed--to reach each
+point before the enemy could concentrate to oppose them. Upon this
+it depended whether they would find five hundred or five thousand
+waiting on the further bank. It must have been with anxious eyes
+that French watched his first regiment ride down to Klip Drift. If
+the Boers should have had notice of his coming and have transferred
+some of their 40-pounders, he might lose heavily before he forced
+the stream. But this time, at last, he had completely outmanoeuvred
+them. He came with the news of his coming, and Broadwood with the
+12th Lancers rushed the drift. The small Boer force saved itself by
+flight, and the camp, the wagons, and the supplies remained with
+the victors. On the night of the 13th he had secured the passage of
+the Modder, and up to the early morning the horses and the guns
+were splashing through its coffee-coloured waters.
+
+French's force had now come level to the main position of the
+Boers, but had struck it upon the extreme left wing. The extreme
+right wing, thanks to the Koodoosdrift demonstration, was fifty
+miles off, and this line was naturally very thinly held, save only
+at the central position of Magersfontein. Cronje could not denude
+this central position, for he saw Methuen still waiting in front of
+him, and in any case Klip Drift is twenty-five miles from
+Magersfontein. But the Boer left wing, though scattered, gathered
+into some sort of cohesion on Wednesday (February 14th), and made
+an effort to check the victorious progress of the cavalry. It was
+necessary on this day to rest at Klip Drift, until Kelly-Kenny
+should come up with the infantry to hold what had been gained. All
+day the small bodies of Boers came riding in and taking up
+positions between the column and its objective.
+
+Next morning the advance was resumed, the column being still forty
+miles from Kimberley with the enemy in unknown force between. Some
+four miles out French came upon their position, two hills with a
+long low nek between, from which came a brisk rifle fire supported
+by artillery. But French was not only not to be stopped, but could
+not even be retarded. Disregarding the Boer fire completely the
+cavalry swept in wave after wave over the low nek, and so round the
+base of the hills. The Boer riflemen upon the kopjes must have seen
+a magnificent military spectacle as regiment after regiment, the
+9th Lancers leading, all in very open order, swept across the plain
+at a gallop, and so passed over the nek. A few score horses and
+half as many men were left behind them, but forty or fifty Boers
+were cut down in the pursuit. It appears to have been one of the
+very few occasions during the campaign when that obsolete and
+absurd weapon the sword was anything but a dead weight to its
+bearer.
+
+And now the force had a straight run in before it, for it had
+outpaced any further force of Boers which may have been advancing
+from the direction of Magersfontein. The horses, which had come a
+hundred miles in four days with insufficient food and water, were
+so done that it was no uncommon sight to see the trooper not only
+walking to ease his horse, but carrying part of his monstrous
+weight of saddle gear. But in spite of fatigue the force pressed on
+until in the afternoon a distant view was seen, across the reddish
+plain, of the brick houses and corrugated roofs of Kimberley. The
+Boer besiegers cleared off in front of it, and that night (February
+15th) the relieving column camped on the plain two miles away,
+while French and his staff rode in to the rescued city.
+
+The war was a cruel one for the cavalry, who were handicapped
+throughout by the nature of the country and by the tactics of the
+enemy. They are certainly the branch of the service which had least
+opportunity for distinction. The work of scouting and patrolling is
+the most dangerous which a soldier can undertake, and yet from its
+very nature it can find no chronicler. The war correspondent, like
+Providence, is always with the big battalions, and there never was
+a campaign in which there was more unrecorded heroism, the heroism
+of the picket and of the vedette which finds its way into no
+newspaper paragraph. But in the larger operations of the war it is
+difficult to say that cavalry, as cavalry, have justified their
+existence. In the opinion of many the tendency of the future will
+be to convert the whole force into mounted infantry. How little is
+required to turn our troopers into excellent foot soldiers was
+shown at Magersfontein, where the 12th Lancers, dismounted by the
+command of their colonel, Lord Airlie, held back the threatened
+flank attack all the morning. A little training in taking cover,
+leggings instead of boots, and a rifle instead of a carbine would
+give us a formidable force of twenty thousand men who could do all
+that our cavalry does, and a great deal more besides. It is
+undoubtedly possible on many occasions in this war, at Colesberg,
+at Diamond Hill, to say 'Here our cavalry did well.' They are brave
+men on good horses, and they may be expected to do well. But the
+champion of the cavalry cause must point out the occasions where
+the cavalry did something which could not have been done by the
+same number of equally brave and equally well-mounted infantry.
+Only then will the existence of the cavalry be justified. The
+lesson both of the South African and of the American civil war is
+that the light horseman who is trained to fight on foot is the type
+of the future.
+
+A few more words as a sequel to this short sketch of the siege and
+relief of Kimberley. Considerable surprise has been expressed that
+the great gun at Kamfersdam, a piece which must have weighed many
+tons and could not have been moved by bullock teams at a rate of
+more than two or three miles an hour, should have eluded our
+cavalry. It is indeed a surprising circumstance, and yet it was due
+to no inertia on the part of our leaders, but rather to one of the
+finest examples of Boer tenacity in the whole course of the war.
+The instant that Kekewich was sure of relief he mustered every
+available man and sent him out to endeavour to get the gun. It had
+already been removed, and its retreat was covered by the strong
+position of Dronfield, which was held both by riflemen and by light
+artillery. Finding himself unable to force it, Murray, the
+commander of the detachment, remained in front of it. Next morning
+(Friday) at three o'clock the weary men and horses of two of
+French's brigades were afoot with the same object. But still the
+Boers were obstinately holding on to Dronfield, and still their
+position was too strong to force, and too extended to get round
+with exhausted horses. It was not until the night after that the
+Boers abandoned their excellent rearguard action, leaving one light
+gun in the hands of the Cape Police, but having gained such a start
+for their heavy one that French, who had other and more important
+objects in view, could not attempt to follow it.
+
+CHAPTER 19.
+
+PAARDEBERG.
+
+Lord Roberts's operations, prepared with admirable secrecy and
+carried out with extreme energy, aimed at two different results,
+each of which he was fortunate enough to attain. The first was that
+an overpowering force of cavalry should ride round the Boer
+position and raise the siege of Kimberley: the fate of this
+expedition has already been described. The second was that the
+infantry, following hard on the heels of the cavalry, and holding
+all that they had gained, should establish itself upon Cronje's
+left flank and cut his connection with Bloemfontein. It is this
+portion of the operations which has now to be described.
+
+The infantry force which General Roberts had assembled was a very
+formidable one. The Guards he had left under Methuen in front of
+the lines of Magersfontein to contain the Boer force. With them he
+had also left those regiments which had fought in the 9th Brigade
+in all Methuen's actions. These, as will be remembered, were the
+1st Northumberland Fusiliers, the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, the
+2nd Northamptons, and one wing of the Loyal North Lancashire
+Regiment. These stayed to hold Cronje in his position.
+
+There remained three divisions of infantry, one of which, the
+ninth, was made up on the spot. These were constituted in this way:
+
+   Sixth Division (Kelly-Kenny). 
+      12th Brigade (Knox). 
+      Oxford Light Infantry. 
+      Gloucesters (2nd). 
+         West Riding. 
+      Buffs. 
+         18th Brigade (Stephenson). 
+      Essex. 
+         Welsh. 
+   Warwicks. 
+      Yorks Seventh Division (Tucker). 
+      14th Brigade (Chermside). 
+      Scots Borderers. 
+   Lincolns. 
+      Hampshires. 
+   Norfolks. 
+      15th Brigade (Wavell). 
+   North Staffords. 
+      Cheshires. 
+   S. Wales Borderers. 
+   East Lancashires Ninth Division (Colvile). 
+      Highland Brigade (Macdonald). 
+      Black Watch. 
+      Argyll and Sutherlands. 
+   Seaforths. 
+      Highland Light Infantry. 
+   19th Brigade (Smith-Dorrien). 
+      Gordons. 
+      Canadians. 
+      Shropshire Light Infantry. 
+      Cornwall Light Infantry.
+
+With these were two brigade divisions of artillery under General
+Marshall, the first containing the 18th, 62nd, and 75th batteries
+(Colonel Hall), the other the 76th, 81st, and 82nd (Colonel
+McDonnell). Besides these there were a howitzer battery, a naval
+contingent of four 4.7 guns and four 12-pounders under Captain
+Bearcroft of the 'Philomel.' The force was soon increased by the
+transfer of the Guards and the arrival of more artillery; but the
+numbers which started on Monday, February 12th, amounted roughly to
+twenty-five thousand foot and eight thousand horse with 98 guns--a
+considerable army to handle in a foodless and almost waterless
+country. Seven hundred wagons drawn by eleven thousand mules and
+oxen, all collected by the genius for preparation and organisation
+which characterises Lord Kitchener, groaned and creaked behind the
+columns.
+
+Both arms had concentrated at Ramdam, the cavalry going down by
+road, and the infantry by rail as far as Belmont or Enslin. On
+Monday, February 12th, the cavalry had started, and on Tuesday the
+infantry were pressing hard after them. The first thing was to
+secure a position upon Cronje's flank, and for that purpose the 6th
+Division and the 9th (Kelly-Kenny's and Colvile's) pushed swiftly
+on and arrived on Thursday, February 15th, at Klip Drift on the
+Modder, which had only been left by the cavalry that same morning.
+It was obviously impossible to leave Jacobsdal in the hands of the
+enemy on our left flank, so the 7th Division (Tucker's) turned
+aside to attack the town. Wavell's brigade carried the place after
+a sharp skirmish, chiefly remarkable for the fact that the City
+Imperial Volunteers found themselves under fire for the first time
+and bore themselves with the gallantry of the old train-bands whose
+descendants they are. Our loss was two killed and twenty wounded,
+and we found ourselves for the first time firmly established in one
+of the enemy's towns. In the excellent German hospital were thirty
+or forty of our wounded.
+
+On the afternoon of Thursday, February 15th, our cavalry, having
+left Klip Drift in the morning, were pushing hard for Kimberley. At
+Klip Drift was Kelly-Kenny's 6th Division. South of Klip Drift at
+Wegdraai was Colvile's 9th Division, while the 7th Division was
+approaching Jacobsdal. Altogether the British forces were extended
+over a line of forty miles. The same evening saw the relief of
+Kimberley and the taking of Jacobsdal, but it also saw the capture
+of one of our convoys by the Boers, a dashing exploit which struck
+us upon what was undoubtedly our vulnerable point.
+
+It has never been cleared up whence the force of Boers came which
+appeared upon our rear on that occasion. It seems to have been the
+same body which had already had a skirmish with Hannay's Mounted
+Infantry as they went up from Orange River to join the rendezvous
+at Ramdam. The balance of evidence is that they had not come from
+Colesberg or any distant point, but that they were a force under
+the command of Piet De Wet, the younger of two famous brothers.
+Descending to Waterval Drift, the ford over the Riet, they occupied
+a line of kopjes, which ought, one would have imagined, to have
+been carefully guarded by us, and opened a brisk fire from rifles
+and guns upon the convoy as it ascended the northern bank of the
+river. Numbers of bullocks were soon shot down, and the removal of
+the hundred and eighty wagons made impossible. The convoy, which
+contained forage and provisions, had no guard of its own, but the
+drift was held by Colonel Ridley with one company of Gordons and
+one hundred and fifty mounted infantry without artillery, which
+certainly seems an inadequate force to secure the most vital and
+vulnerable spot in the line of communications of an army of forty
+thousand men. The Boers numbered at the first some five or six
+hundred men, but their position was such that they could not be
+attacked. On the other hand they were not strong enough to leave
+their shelter in order to drive in the British guard, who, lying in
+extended order between the wagons and the assailants, were keeping
+up a steady and effective fire. Captain Head, of the East
+Lancashire Regiment, a fine natural soldier, commanded the British
+firing line, and neither he nor any of his men doubted that they
+could hold off the enemy for an indefinite time. In the course of
+the afternoon reinforcements arrived for the Boers, but Kitchener's
+Horse and a field battery came back and restored the balance of
+power. In the evening the latter swayed altogether in favour of the
+British, as Tucker appeared upon the scene with the whole of the
+14th Brigade; but as the question of an assault was being debated a
+positive order arrived from Lord Roberts that the convoy should be
+abandoned and the force return.
+
+If Lord Roberts needed justification for this decision, the future
+course of events will furnish it. One of Napoleon's maxims in war
+was to concentrate all one's energies upon one thing at one time.
+Roberts's aim was to outflank and possibly to capture Cronje's
+army. If he allowed a brigade to be involved in a rearguard action,
+his whole swift-moving plan of campaign might be dislocated. It was
+very annoying to lose a hundred and eighty wagons, but it only
+meant a temporary inconvenience. The plan of campaign was the
+essential thing. Therefore he sacrificed his convoy and hurried his
+troops upon their original mission. It was with heavy hearts and
+bitter words that those who had fought so long abandoned their
+charge, but now at least there are probably few of them who do not
+agree in the wisdom of the sacrifice. Our loss in this affair was
+between fifty and sixty killed and wounded. The Boers were unable
+to get rid of the stores, and they were eventually distributed
+among the local farmers and recovered again as the British forces
+flowed over the country. Another small disaster occurred to us on
+the preceding day in the loss of fifty men of E company of
+Kitchener's Horse, which had been left as a guard to a well in the
+desert.
+
+But great events were coming to obscure those small checks which
+are incidental to a war carried out over immense distances against
+a mobile and enterprising enemy. Cronje had suddenly become aware
+of the net which was closing round him. To the dark fierce man who
+had striven so hard to make his line of kopjes impregnable it must
+have been a bitter thing to abandon his trenches and his rifle
+pits. But he was crafty as well as tenacious, and he had the Boer
+horror of being cut off--an hereditary instinct from fathers who
+had fought on horseback against enemies on foot. If at any time
+during the last ten weeks Methuen had contained him in front with a
+thin line of riflemen with machine guns, and had thrown the rest of
+his force on Jacobsdal and the east, he would probably have
+attained the same result. Now at the rumour of English upon his
+flank Cronje instantly abandoned his position and his plans, in
+order to restore those communications with Bloemfontein upon which
+he depended for his supplies. With furious speed he drew in his
+right wing, and then, one huge mass of horsemen, guns, and wagons,
+he swept through the gap between the rear of the British cavalry
+bound for Kimberley and the head of the British infantry at Klip
+Drift. There was just room to pass, and at it he dashed with the
+furious energy of a wild beast rushing from a trap. A portion of
+his force with his heavy guns had gone north round Kimberley to
+Warrenton; many of the Freestaters also had slipped away and
+returned to their farms. The remainder, numbering about six
+thousand men, the majority of whom were Transvaalers, swept through
+between the British forces.
+
+This movement was carried out on the night of February 15th, and
+had it been a little quicker it might have been concluded before we
+were aware of it. But the lumbering wagons impeded it, and on the
+Friday morning, February 16th, a huge rolling cloud of dust on the
+northern veld, moving from west to east, told our outposts at Klip
+Drift that Cronje's army had almost slipped through our fingers.
+Lord Kitchener, who was in command at Klip Drift at the moment,
+instantly unleashed his mounted infantry in direct pursuit, while
+Knox's brigade sped along the northern bank of the river to cling
+on to the right haunch of the retreating column. Cronje's men had
+made a night march of thirty miles from Magersfontein, and the
+wagon bullocks were exhausted. It was impossible, without an
+absolute abandonment of his guns and stores, for him to get away
+from his pursuers.
+
+This was no deer which they were chasing, however, but rather a
+grim old Transvaal wolf, with his teeth flashing ever over his
+shoulder. The sight of those distant white-tilted wagons fired the
+blood of every mounted infantryman, and sent the Oxfords, the
+Buffs, the West Ridings, and the Gloucesters racing along the river
+bank in the glorious virile air of an African morning. But there
+were kopjes ahead, sown with fierce Dopper Boers, and those
+tempting wagons were only to be reached over their bodies. The
+broad plain across which the English were hurrying was suddenly
+swept with a storm of bullets. The long infantry line extended yet
+further and lapped round the flank of the Boer position, and once
+more the terrible duet of the Mauser and the Lee-Metford was sung
+while the 81st field battery hurried up in time to add its deep
+roar to their higher chorus. With fine judgment Cronje held on to
+the last moment of safety, and then with a swift movement to the
+rear seized a further line two miles off, and again snapped back at
+his eager pursuers. All day the grim and weary rearguard stalled
+off the fiery advance of the infantry, and at nightfall the wagons
+were still untaken. The pursuing force to the north of the river
+was, it must be remembered, numerically inferior to the pursued, so
+that in simply retarding the advance of the enemy and in giving
+other British troops time to come up, Knox's brigade was doing
+splendid work. Had Cronje been well advised or well informed, he
+would have left his guns and wagons in the hope that by a swift
+dash over the Modder he might still bring his army away in safety.
+He seems to have underrated both the British numbers and the
+British activity.
+
+On the night then of Friday, February 16th, Cronje lay upon the
+northern bank of the Modder, with his stores and guns still intact,
+and no enemy in front of him, though Knox's brigade and Hannay's
+Mounted Infantry were behind. It was necessary for Cronje to cross
+the river in order to be on the line for Bloemfontein. As the river
+tended to the north the sooner he could cross the better. On the
+south side of the river, however, were considerable British forces,
+and the obvious strategy was to hurry them forward and to block
+every drift at which he could get over. The river runs between very
+deep banks, so steep that one might almost describe them as small
+cliffs, and there was no chance of a horseman, far less a wagon,
+crossing at any point save those where the convenience of traffic
+and the use of years had worn sloping paths down to the shallows.
+The British knew exactly therefore what the places were which had
+to be blocked. On the use made of the next few hours the success or
+failure of the whole operation must depend.
+
+The nearest drift to Cronje was only a mile or two distant,
+Klipkraal the name; next to that the Paardeberg Drift; next to that
+the Wolveskraal Drift, each about seven miles from the other. Had
+Cronje pushed on instantly after the action, he might have got
+across at Klipkraal. But men, horses, and bullocks were equally
+exhausted after a long twenty-four hours' marching and fighting. He
+gave his weary soldiers some hours' rest, and then, abandoning
+seventy-eight of his wagons, he pushed on before daylight for the
+farthest off of the three fords (Wolveskraal Drift). Could he reach
+and cross it before his enemies, he was safe. The Klipkraal Drift
+had in the meanwhile been secured by the Buffs, the West Ridings,
+and the Oxfordshire Light Infantry after a spirited little action
+which, in the rapid rush of events, attracted less attention than
+it deserved. The brunt of the fighting fell upon the Oxfords, who
+lost ten killed and thirty-nine wounded. It was not a waste of
+life, however, for the action, though small and hardly recorded,
+was really a very essential one in the campaign.
+
+But Lord Roberts's energy had infused itself into his divisional
+commanders, his brigadiers, his colonels, and so down to the
+humblest Tommy who tramped and stumbled through the darkness with a
+devout faith that 'Bobs' was going to catch 'old Cronje' this time.
+The mounted infantry had galloped round from the north to the south
+of the river, crossing at Klip Drift and securing the southern end
+of Klipkraal. Thither also came Stephenson's brigade from
+Kelly-Kenny's Division, while Knox, finding in the morning that
+Cronje was gone, marched along the northern bank to the same spot.
+As Klipkraal was safe, the mounted infantry pushed on at once and
+secured the southern end of the Paardeberg Drift, whither they were
+followed the same evening by Stephenson and Knox. There remained
+only the Wolveskraal Drift to block, and this had already been done
+by as smart a piece of work as any in the war. Wherever French has
+gone he has done well, but his crowning glory was the movement from
+Kimberley to head off Cronje's retreat.
+
+The exertions which the mounted men had made in the relief of
+Kimberley have been already recorded. They arrived there on
+Thursday with their horses dead beat. They were afoot at three
+o'clock on Friday morning, and two brigades out of three were hard
+at work all day in an endeavour to capture the Dronfield position.
+Yet when on the same evening an order came that French should start
+again instantly from Kimberley and endeavour to head Cronje's army
+off, he did not plead inability, as many a commander might, but
+taking every man whose horse was still fit to carry him (something
+under two thousand out of a column which had been at least five
+thousand strong), he started within a few hours and pushed on
+through the whole night. Horses died under their riders, but still
+the column marched over the shadowy veld under the brilliant stars.
+By happy chance or splendid calculation they were heading straight
+for the one drift which was still open to Cronje. It was a close
+thing. At midday on Saturday the Boer advance guard was already
+near to the kopjes which command it. But French's men, still full
+of fight after their march of thirty miles, threw themselves in
+front and seized the position before their very eyes. The last of
+the drifts was closed. If Cronje was to get across now, he must
+crawl out of his trench and fight under Roberts's conditions, or he
+might remain under his own conditions until Roberts's forces closed
+round him. With him lay the alternative. In the meantime, still
+ignorant of the forces about him, but finding himself headed off by
+French, he made his way down to the river and occupied a long
+stretch of it between Paardeberg Drift and Wolveskraal Drift,
+hoping to force his way across. This was the situation on the night
+of Saturday, February 17th.
+
+In the course of that night the British brigades, staggering with
+fatigue but indomitably resolute to crush their evasive enemy, were
+converging upon Paardeberg. The Highland Brigade, exhausted by a
+heavy march over soft sand from Jacobsdal to Klip Drift, were
+nerved to fresh exertions by the word 'Magersfontein,' which flew
+from lip to lip along the ranks, and pushed on for another twelve
+miles to Paardeberg. Close at their heels came Smith-Dorrien's 19th
+Brigade, comprising the Shropshires, the Cornwalls, the Gordons,
+and the Canadians, probably the very finest brigade in the whole
+army. They pushed across the river and took up their position upon
+the north bank. The old wolf was now fairly surrounded. On the west
+the Highlanders were south of the river, and Smith-Dorrien on the
+north. On the east Kelly-Kenny's Division was to the south of the
+river, and French with his cavalry and mounted infantry were to the
+north of it. Never was a general in a more hopeless plight. Do what
+he would, there was no possible loophole for escape.
+
+There was only one thing which apparently should not have been
+done, and that was to attack him. His position was a formidable
+one. Not only were the banks of the river fringed with his riflemen
+under excellent cover, but from these banks there extended on each
+side a number of dongas, which made admirable natural trenches. The
+only possible attack from either side must be across a level plain
+at least a thousand or fifteen hundred yards in width, where our
+numbers would only swell our losses. It must be a bold soldier and
+a far bolder civilian, who would venture to question an operation
+carried out under the immediate personal direction of Lord
+Kitchener; but the general consensus of opinion among critics may
+justify that which might be temerity in the individual. Had Cronje
+not been tightly surrounded, the action with its heavy losses might
+have been justified as an attempt to hold him until his investment
+should be complete. There seems, however, to be no doubt that he
+was already entirely surrounded, and that, as experience proved, we
+had only to sit round him to insure his surrender. It is not given
+to the greatest man to have every soldierly gift equally developed,
+and it may be said without offence that Lord Kitchener's cool
+judgment upon the actual field of battle has not yet been proved as
+conclusively as his longheaded power of organisation and his iron
+determination.
+
+Putting aside the question of responsibility, what happened on the
+morning of Sunday, February 18th, was that from every quarter an
+assault was urged across the level plains, to the north and to the
+south, upon the lines of desperate and invisible men who lay in the
+dongas and behind the banks of the river. Everywhere there was a
+terrible monotony about the experiences of the various regiments
+which learned once again the grim lessons of Colenso and Modder
+River. We surely did not need to prove once more what had already
+been so amply proved, that bravery can be of no avail against
+concealed riflemen well entrenched, and that the more hardy is the
+attack the heavier must be the repulse. Over the long circle of our
+attack Knox's brigade, Stephenson's brigade, the Highland brigade,
+Smith-Dorrien's brigade all fared alike. In each case there was the
+advance until they were within the thousand-yard fire zone, then
+the resistless sleet of bullets which compelled them to get down
+and to keep down. Had they even then recognised that they were
+attempting the impossible, no great harm might have been done, but
+with generous emulation the men of the various regiments made
+little rushes, company by company, towards the river bed, and found
+themselves ever exposed to a more withering fire. On the northern
+bank Smith-Dorrien's brigade, and especially the Canadian regiment,
+distinguished themselves by the magnificent tenacity with which
+they persevered in their attack. The Cornwalls of the same brigade
+swept up almost to the river bank in a charge which was the
+admiration of all who saw it. If the miners of Johannesburg had
+given the impression that the Cornishman is not a fighter, the
+record of the county regiment in the war has for ever exploded the
+calumny. Men who were not fighters could have found no place in
+Smith-Dorrien's brigade or in the charge of Paardeberg.
+
+While the infantry had been severely handled by the Boer riflemen,
+our guns, the 76th, 81st, and 82nd field batteries, with the 65th
+howitzer battery, had been shelling the river bed, though our
+artillery fire proved as usual to have little effect against
+scattered and hidden riflemen. At least, however, it distracted
+their attention, and made their fire upon the exposed infantry in
+front of them less deadly. Now, as in Napoleon's time, the effect
+of the guns is moral rather than material. About midday French's
+horse-artillery guns came into action from the north. Smoke and
+flames from the dongas told that some of our shells had fallen
+among the wagons and their combustible stores.
+
+The Boer line had proved itself to be unshakable on each face, but
+at its ends the result of the action was to push them up, and to
+shorten the stretch of the river which was held by them. On the
+north bank Smith-Dorrien's brigade gained a considerable amount of
+ground. At the other end of the position the Welsh, Yorkshire, and
+Essex regiments of Stephenson's brigade did some splendid work, and
+pushed the Boers for some distance down the river bank. A most
+gallant but impossible charge was made by Colonel Hannay and a
+number of mounted infantry against the northern bank. He was shot
+with the majority of his followers. General Knox of the 12th
+Brigade and General Macdonald of the Highlanders were among the
+wounded. Colonel Aldworth of the Cornwalls died at the head of his
+men. A bullet struck him dead as he whooped his West Countrymen on
+to the charge. Eleven hundred killed and wounded testified to the
+fire of our attack and the grimness of the Boer resistance. The
+distribution of the losses among the various battalions--eighty
+among the Canadians, ninety in the West Riding Regiment, one
+hundred and twenty in the Seaforths, ninety in the Yorkshires,
+seventy-six in the Argyll and Sutherlands, ninety-six in the Black
+Watch, thirty-one in the Oxfordshires, fifty-six in the Cornwalls,
+forty-six in the Shropshires--shows how universal was the
+gallantry, and especially how well the Highland Brigade carried
+itself. It is to be feared that they had to face, not only the fire
+of the enemy, but also that of their own comrades on the further
+side of the river. A great military authority has stated that it
+takes many years for a regiment to recover its spirit and
+steadiness if it has been heavily punished, and yet within two
+months of Magersfontein we find the indomitable Highlanders taking
+without flinching the very bloodiest share of this bloody day--and
+this after a march of thirty miles with no pause before going into
+action. A repulse it may have been, but they hear no name of which
+they may be more proud upon the victory scroll of their colours.
+
+What had we got in return for our eleven hundred casualties? We had
+contracted the Boer position from about three miles to less than
+two. So much was to the good, as the closer they lay the more
+effective our artillery fire might be expected to be. But it is
+probable that our shrapnel alone, without any loss of life, might
+have effected the same thing. It is easy to be wise after the
+event, but it does certainly appear that with our present knowledge
+the action at Paardeberg was as unnecessary as it was expensive.
+The sun descended on Sunday, February 18th, upon a bloody field and
+crowded field hospitals, but also upon an unbroken circle of
+British troops still hemming in the desperate men who lurked among
+the willows and mimosas which drape the brown steep banks of the
+Modder.
+
+There was evidence during the action of the presence of an active
+Boer force to the south of us, probably the same well-handled and
+enterprising body which had captured our convoy at Waterval. A
+small party of Kitchener's Horse was surprised by this body, and
+thirty men with four officers were taken prisoners. Much has been
+said of the superiority of South African scouting to that of the
+British regulars, but it must be confessed that a good many
+instances might be quoted in which the colonials, though second to
+none in gallantry, have been defective in that very quality in
+which they were expected to excel.
+
+This surprise of our cavalry post had more serious consequences
+than can be measured by the loss of men, for by it the Boers
+obtained possession of a strong kopje called Kitchener's Hill,
+lying about two miles distant on the south-east of our position.
+The movement was an admirable one strategically upon their part,
+for it gave their beleaguered comrades a first station on the line
+of their retreat. Could they only win their way to that kopje, a
+rearguard action might be fought from there which would cover the
+escape of at least a portion of the force. De Wet, if he was indeed
+responsible for the manoeuvres of these Southern Boers, certainly
+handled his small force with a discreet audacity which marks him as
+the born leader which he afterwards proved himself to be.
+
+If the position of the Boers was desperate on Sunday, it was
+hopeless on Monday, for in the course of the morning Lord Roberts
+came up, closely followed by the whole of Tucker's Division (7th)
+from Jacobsdal. Our artillery also was strongly reinforced. The
+18th, 62nd, and 75th field batteries came up with three naval 4.7
+guns and two naval 12-pounders. Thirty-five thousand men with sixty
+guns were gathered round the little Boer army. It is a poor spirit
+which will not applaud the supreme resolution with which the
+gallant farmers held out, and award to Cronje the title of one of
+the most grimly resolute leaders of whom we have any record in
+modern history.
+
+For a moment it seemed as if his courage was giving way. On Monday
+morning a message was transmitted by him to Lord Kitchener asking
+for a twenty-four hours' armistice. The answer was of course a curt
+refusal. To this he replied that if we were so inhuman as to
+prevent him from burying his dead there was nothing for him save
+surrender. An answer was given that a messenger with power to treat
+should be sent out, but in the interval Cronje had changed his
+mind, and disappeared with a snarl of contempt into his burrows. It
+had become known that women and children were in the laager, and a
+message was sent offering them a place of safety, but even to this
+a refusal was given. The reasons for this last decision are
+inconceivable.
+
+Lord Roberts's dispositions were simple, efficacious, and above all
+bloodless. Smith-Dorrien's brigade, who were winning in the Western
+army something of the reputation which Hart's Irishmen had won in
+Natal, were placed astride of the river to the west, with orders to
+push gradually up, as occasion served, using trenches for their
+approach. Chermside's brigade occupied the same position on the
+east. Two other divisions and the cavalry stood round, alert and
+eager, like terriers round a rat-hole, while all day the pitiless
+guns crashed their common shell, their shrapnel, and their lyddite
+into the river-bed. Already down there, amid slaughtered oxen and
+dead horses under a burning sun, a horrible pest-hole had been
+formed which sent its mephitic vapours over the countryside.
+Occasionally the sentries down the river saw amid the brown eddies
+of the rushing water the floating body of a Boer which had been
+washed away from the Golgotha above. Dark Cronje, betrayer of
+Potchefstroom, iron-handed ruler of natives, reviler of the
+British, stern victor of Magersfontein, at last there has come a
+day of reckoning for you!
+
+On Wednesday, the 21st, the British, being now sure of their grip
+of Cronje, turned upon the Boer force which had occupied the hill
+to the south-east of the drift. It was clear that this force,
+unless driven away, would be the vanguard of the relieving army
+which might be expected to assemble from Ladysmith, Bloemfontein,
+Colesberg, or wherever else the Boers could detach men. Already it
+was known that reinforcements who had left Natal whenever they
+heard that the Free State was invaded were drawing near. It was
+necessary to crush the force upon the hill before it became too
+powerful. For this purpose the cavalry set forth, Broadwood with
+the 10th Hussars, 12th Lancers, and two batteries going round on
+one side, while French with the 9th and 16th Lancers, the Household
+Cavalry, and two other batteries skirted the other. A force of
+Boers was met and defeated, while the defenders of the hill were
+driven off with considerable loss. In this well-managed affair the
+enemy lost at least a hundred, of whom fifty were prisoners. On
+Friday, February 23rd, another attempt at rescue was made from the
+south, but again it ended disastrously for the Boers. A party
+attacked a kopje held by the Yorkshire regiment and were blown back
+by a volley, upon which they made for a second kopje, where the
+Buffs gave them an even rougher reception. Eighty prisoners were
+marched in. Meantime hardly a night passed that some of the Boers
+did not escape from their laager and give themselves up to our
+pickets. At the end of the week we had taken six hundred in all.
+
+In the meantime the cordon was being drawn ever tighter, and the
+fire became heavier and more deadly, while the conditions of life
+in that fearful place were such that the stench alone might have
+compelled surrender. Amid the crash of tropical thunderstorms, the
+glare of lightning, and the furious thrashing of rain there was no
+relaxation of British vigilance. A balloon floating overhead
+directed the fire, which from day to day became more furious,
+culminating on the 26th with the arrival of four 5-inch howitzers.
+But still there came no sign from the fierce Boer and his gallant
+followers. Buried deep within burrows in the river bank the greater
+part of them lay safe from the shells, but the rattle of their
+musketry when the outposts moved showed that the trenches were as
+alert as ever. The thing could only have one end, however, and Lord
+Roberts, with admirable judgment and patience, refused to hurry it
+at the expense of the lives of his soldiers.
+
+The two brigades at either end of the Boer lines had lost no chance
+of pushing in, and now they had come within striking distance. On
+the night of February 26th it was determined that Smith-Dorrien's
+men should try their luck. The front trenches of the British were
+at that time seven hundred yards from the Boer lines. They were
+held by the Gordons and by the Canadians, the latter being the
+nearer to the river. It is worth while entering into details as to
+the arrangement of the attack, as the success of the campaign was
+at least accelerated by it. The orders were that the Canadians were
+to advance, the Gordons to support, and the Shropshires to take
+such a position on the left as would outflank any counter attack
+upon the part of the Boers. The Canadians advanced in the darkness
+of the early morning before the rise of the moon. The front rank
+held their rifles in the left hand and each extended right hand
+grasped the sleeve of the man next it. The rear rank had their
+rifles slung and carried spades. Nearest the river bank were two
+companies (G and H.) who were followed by the 7th company of Royal
+Engineers carrying picks and empty sand bags. The long line stole
+through a pitchy darkness, knowing that at any instant a blaze of
+fire such as flamed before the Highlanders at Magersfontein might
+crash out in front of them. A hundred, two, three, four, five
+hundred paces were taken. They knew that they must be close upon
+the trenches. If they could only creep silently enough, they might
+spring upon the defenders unannounced. On and on they stole, step
+by step, praying for silence. Would the gentle shuffle of feet be
+heard by the men who lay within stone-throw of them? Their hopes
+had begun to rise when there broke upon the silence of the night a
+resonant metallic rattle, the thud of a falling man, an empty
+clatter! They had walked into a line of meat-cans slung upon a
+wire. By measurement it was only ninety yards from the trench. At
+that instant a single rifle sounded, and the Canadians hurled
+themselves down upon the ground. Their bodies had hardly touched it
+when from a line six hundred yards long there came one furious
+glare of rifle fire, with a hiss like water on a red-hot plate, of
+speeding bullets. In that terrible red light the men as they lay
+and scraped desperately for cover could see the heads of the Boers
+pop up and down, and the fringe of rifle barrels quiver and gleam.
+How the regiment, lying helpless under this fire, escaped
+destruction is extraordinary. To rush the trench in the face of
+such a continuous blast of lead seemed impossible, and it was
+equally impossible to remain where they were. In a short time the
+moon would be up, and they would be picked off to a man. The outer
+companies upon the plain were ordered to retire. Breaking up into
+loose order, they made their way back with surprisingly little
+loss; but a strange contretemps occurred, for, leaping suddenly
+into a trench held by the Gordons, they transfixed themselves upon
+the bayonets of the men. A subaltern and twelve men received
+bayonet thrusts--none of them fortunately of a very serious nature.
+
+While these events had been taking place upon the left of the line,
+the right was hardly in better plight. All firing had ceased for
+the moment--the Boers being evidently under the impression that the
+whole attack had recoiled. Uncertain whether the front of the small
+party on the right of the second line (now consisting of some
+sixty-five Sappers and Canadians lying in one mingled line) was
+clear for firing should the Boers leave their trenches, Captain
+Boileau, of the Sappers, crawled forward along the bank of the
+river, and discovered Captain Stairs and ten men of the Canadians,
+the survivors of the firing line, firmly ensconced in a crevice of
+the river bank overlooking the laager, quite happy on being
+reassured as to the proximity of support. This brought the total
+number of the daring band up to seventy-five rifles. Meanwhile, the
+Gordons, somewhat perplexed by the flying phantoms who had been
+flitting into and over their trenches for the past few minutes,
+sent a messenger along the river bank to ascertain, in their turn,
+if their own front was clear to fire, and if not, what state the
+survivors were in. To this message Colonel Kincaid, R.E., now in
+command of the remains of the assaulting party, replied that his
+men would be well entrenched by daylight. The little party had been
+distributed for digging as well as the darkness and their ignorance
+of their exact position to the Boers would permit. Twice the sound
+of the picks brought angry volleys from the darkness, but the work
+was never stopped, and in the early dawn the workers found not only
+that they were secure themselves, but that they were in a position
+to enfilade over half a mile of Boer trenches. Before daybreak the
+British crouched low in their shelter, so that with the morning
+light the Boers did not realise the change which the night had
+wrought. It was only when a burgher was shot as he filled his
+pannikin at the river that they understood how their position was
+overlooked. For half an hour a brisk fire was maintained, at the
+end of which time a white flag went up from the trench. Kincaid
+stood up on his parapet, and a single haggard figure emerged from
+the Boer warren. 'The burghers have had enough; what are they to
+do?' said he. As he spoke his comrades scrambled out behind him and
+came walking and running over to the British lines. It was not a
+moment likely to be forgotten by the parched and grimy warriors who
+stood up and cheered until the cry came crashing back to them again
+from the distant British camps. No doubt Cronje had already
+realised that the extreme limit of his resistance was come, but it
+was to that handful of Sappers and Canadians that the credit is
+immediately due for that white flag which fluttered on the morning
+of Majuba Day over the lines of Paardeberg.
+
+It was six o'clock in the morning when General Pretyman rode up to
+Lord Roberts's headquarters. Behind him upon a white horse was a
+dark-bearded man, with the quick, restless eyes of a hunter,
+middle-sized, thickly built, with grizzled hair flowing from under
+a tall brown felt hat. He wore the black broadcloth of the burgher
+with a green summer overcoat, and carried a small whip in his
+hands. His appearance was that of a respectable London vestryman
+rather than of a most redoubtable soldier with a particularly
+sinister career behind him.
+
+The Generals shook hands, and it was briefly intimated to Cronje
+that his surrender must be unconditional, to which, after a short
+silence, he agreed. His only stipulations were personal, that his
+wife, his grandson, his secretary, his adjutant, and his servant
+might accompany him. The same evening he was despatched to Cape
+Town, receiving those honourable attentions which were due to his
+valour rather than to his character. His men, a pallid ragged crew,
+emerged from their holes and burrows, and delivered up their
+rifles. It is pleasant to add that, with much in their memories to
+exasperate them, the British privates treated their enemies with as
+large-hearted a courtesy as Lord Roberts had shown to their leader.
+Our total capture numbered some three thousand of the Transvaal and
+eleven hundred of the Free State. That the latter were not far more
+numerous was due to the fact that many had already shredded off to
+their farms. Besides Cronje, Wolverans of the Transvaal, and the
+German artillerist Albrecht, with forty-four other field-cornets
+and commandants, fell into our hands. Six small guns were also
+secured. The same afternoon saw the long column of the prisoners on
+its way to Modder River, there to be entrained for Cape Town, the
+most singular lot of people to be seen at that moment upon
+earth--ragged, patched, grotesque, some with goloshes, some with
+umbrellas, coffee-pots, and Bibles, their favourite baggage. So
+they passed out of their ten days of glorious history.
+
+A visit to the laager showed that the horrible smells which had
+been carried across to the British lines, and the swollen carcasses
+which had swirled down the muddy river were true portents of its
+condition. Strong-nerved men came back white and sick from a
+contemplation of the place in which women and children had for ten
+days been living. From end to end it was a festering mass of
+corruption, overshadowed by incredible swarms of flies. Yet the
+engineer who could face evil sights and nauseous smells was repaid
+by an inspection of the deep narrow trenches in which a rifleman
+could crouch with the minimum danger from shells, and the caves in
+which the non-combatants remained in absolute safety. Of their dead
+we have no accurate knowledge, but two hundred wounded in a donga
+represented their losses, not only during a bombardment of ten
+days, but also in that Paardeberg engagement which had cost us
+eleven hundred casualties. No more convincing example could be
+adduced both of the advantage of the defence over the attack, and
+of the harmlessness of the fiercest shell fire if those who are
+exposed to it have space and time to make preparations.
+
+A fortnight had elapsed since Lord Roberts had launched his forces
+from Ramdam, and that fortnight had wrought a complete revolution
+in the campaign. It is hard to recall any instance in the history
+of war where a single movement has created such a change over so
+many different operations. On February 14th Kimberley was in danger
+of capture, a victorious Boer army was facing Methuen, the lines of
+Magersfontein appeared impregnable, Clements was being pressed at
+Colesberg, Gatacre was stopped at Stormberg, Buller could not pass
+the Tugela, and Ladysmith was in a perilous condition. On the 28th
+Kimberley had been relieved, the Boer army was scattered or taken,
+the lines of Magersfontein were in our possession, Clements found
+his assailants retiring before him, Gatacre was able to advance at
+Stormberg, Buller had a weakening army in front of him, and
+Ladysmith was on the eve of relief. And all this had been done at
+the cost of a very moderate loss of life, for most of which Lord
+Roberts was in no sense answerable. Here at last was a reputation
+so well founded that even South African warfare could only confirm
+and increase it. A single master hand had in an instant turned
+England's night to day, and had brought us out of that nightmare of
+miscalculation and disaster which had weighed so long upon our
+spirits. His was the master hand, but there were others at his side
+without whom that hand might have been paralysed: Kitchener the
+organiser, French the cavalry leader--to these two men, second only
+to their chief, are the results of the operations due. Henderson,
+the most capable head of Intelligence, and Richardson, who under
+all difficulties fed the army, may each claim his share in the
+success.
+
+CHAPTER 20.
+
+ROBERTS'S ADVANCE ON BLOEMFONTEIN.
+
+The surrender of Cronje had taken place on February 27th,
+obliterating for ever the triumphant memories which the Boers had
+for twenty years associated with that date. A halt was necessary to
+provide food for the hungry troops, and above all to enable the
+cavalry horses to pick up. The supply of forage had been most
+inadequate, and the beasts had not yet learned to find a living
+from the dry withered herbage of the veld. [Footnote: A battery
+which turned out its horses to graze found that the puzzled
+creatures simply galloped about the plain, and could only be
+reassembled by blowing the call which they associated with feeding,
+when they rushed back and waited in lines for their nosebags to be
+put on.] In addition to this, they had been worked most desperately
+during the fortnight which had elapsed. Lord Roberts waited
+therefore at Osfontein, which is a farmhouse close to Paardeberg,
+until his cavalry were fit for an advance. On March 6th he began
+his march for Bloemfontein.
+
+The force which had been hovering to the south and east of him
+during the Paardeberg operations had meanwhile been reinforced from
+Colesberg and from Ladysmith until it had attained considerable
+proportions. This army, under the leadership of De Wet, had taken
+up a strong position a few miles to the east, covering a
+considerable range of kopjes. On March 3rd a reconnaissance was
+made of it, in which some of our guns were engaged; but it was not
+until three days later that the army advanced with the intention of
+turning or forcing it. In the meantime reinforcements had been
+arriving in the British camp, derived partly from the regiments
+which had been employed at other points during these operations,
+and partly from newcomers from the outer Empire. The Guards came up
+from Klip Drift, the City Imperial Volunteers, the Australian
+Mounted Infantry, the Burmese Mounted Infantry and a detachment of
+light horse from Ceylon helped to form this strange invading army
+which was drawn from five continents and yet had no alien in its
+ranks.
+
+The position which the enemy had taken up at Poplars Grove (so
+called from a group of poplars round a farmhouse in the centre of
+their position) extended across the Modder River and was buttressed
+on either side by well-marked hills, with intermittent kopjes
+between. With guns, trenches, rifle pits, and barbed wire a
+bull-headed general might have found it another Magersfontein. But
+it is only just to Lord Roberts's predecessors in command to say
+that it is easy to do things with three cavalry brigades which it
+is difficult to do with two regiments. The ultimate blame does not
+rest with the man who failed with the two regiments, but with those
+who gave him inadequate means for the work which he had to do. And
+in this estimate of means our military authorities, our
+politicians, and our public were all in the first instance equally
+mistaken.
+
+Lord Roberts's plan was absolutely simple, and yet, had it been
+carried out as conceived, absolutely effective. It was not his
+intention to go near any of that entanglement of ditch and wire
+which had been so carefully erected for his undoing. The weaker
+party, if it be wise, atones for its weakness by entrenchments. The
+stronger party, if it be wise, leaves the entrenchments alone and
+uses its strength to go round them. Lord Roberts meant to go round.
+With his immense preponderance of men and guns the capture or
+dispersal of the enemy's army might be reduced to a certainty. Once
+surrounded, they must either come out into the open or they must
+surrender.
+
+On March 6th the cavalry were brought across the river, and in the
+early morning of March 7th they were sent off in the darkness to
+sweep round the left wing of the Boers and to establish themselves
+on the line of their retreat. Kelly-Kenny's Division (6th) had
+orders to follow and support this movement. Meanwhile Tucker was to
+push straight along the southern bank of the river, though we may
+surmise that his instructions were, in case of resistance, not to
+push his attack home. Colvile's 9th Division, with part of the
+naval brigade, were north of the river, the latter to shell the
+drifts in case the Boers tried to cross, and the infantry to
+execute a turning movement which would correspond with that of the
+cavalry on the other flank.
+
+The plan of action was based, however, upon one supposition which
+proved to be fallacious. It was that after having prepared so
+elaborate a position the enemy would stop at least a little time to
+defend it. Nothing of the sort occurred, however, and on the
+instant that they realised that the cavalry was on their flank they
+made off. The infantry did not fire a shot.
+
+The result of this very decisive flight was to derange all
+calculations entirely. The cavalry was not yet in its place when
+the Boer army streamed off between the kopjes. One would have
+thought, however, that they would have had a dash for the wagons
+and the guns, even if they were past them. It is unfair to
+criticise a movement until one is certain as to the positive orders
+which the leader may have received; but on the face of it it is
+clear that the sweep of our cavalry was not wide enough, and that
+they erred by edging to the left instead of to the right, so
+leaving the flying enemies always to the outside of them.
+
+As it was, however, there seemed every possibility of their getting
+the guns, but De Wet very cleverly covered them by his skirmishers.
+Taking possession of a farmhouse on the right flank they kept up a
+spirited fire upon the 16th Lancers and upon P battery R.H.A. When
+at last the latter drove them out of their shelter, they again
+formed upon a low kopje and poured so galling a fire upon the right
+wing that the whole movement was interrupted until we had driven
+this little body of fifty men from their position. When, after a
+delay of an hour, the cavalry at last succeeded in dislodging
+them--or possibly it may be fairer to say when, having accomplished
+their purpose, they retired--the guns and wagons were out of reach,
+and, what is more important, the two Presidents, both Steyn and
+Kruger, who had come to stiffen the resistance of the burghers, had
+escaped.
+
+Making every allowance for the weary state of the horses, it is
+impossible to say that our cavalry were handled with energy or
+judgment on this occasion. That such a force of men and guns should
+be held off from an object of such importance by so small a
+resistance reflects no credit upon us. It would have been better to
+repeat the Kimberley tactics and to sweep the regiments in extended
+order past the obstacle if we could not pass over it. At the other
+side of that little ill-defended kopje lay a possible termination
+of the war, and our crack cavalry regiments manoeuvred for hours
+and let it pass out of their reach. However, as Lord Roberts
+good-humouredly remarked at the end of the action, 'In war you
+can't expect everything to come out right.' General French can
+afford to shed one leaf from his laurel wreath. On the other hand,
+no words can be too high for the gallant little band of Boers who
+had the courage to face that overwhelming mass of horsemen, and to
+bluff them into regarding this handful as a force fighting a
+serious rearguard action. When the stories of the war are told
+round the fires in the lonely veld farmhouses, as they will be for
+a century to come, this one deserves an honoured place.
+
+The victory, if such a word can apply to such an action, had cost
+some fifty or sixty of the cavalry killed and wounded, while it is
+doubtful if the Boers lost as many. The finest military display on
+the British side had been the magnificent marching of Kelly-Kenny's
+6th Division, who had gone for ten hours with hardly a halt. One
+9-pound Krupp gun was the only trophy. On the other hand, Roberts
+had turned them out of their strong position, had gained twelve or
+fifteen miles on he road to Bloemfontein, and for the first time
+shown how helpless a Boer army was in country which gave our
+numbers a chance. From now onwards it was only in surprise and
+ambuscade that they could hope for a success. We had learned and
+they had learned that they could not stand in the open field.
+
+The action of Poplars Grove was fought on March 7th. On the 9th the
+army was again on its way, and on the 10th it attacked the new
+position which the Boers had occupied at a place called
+Driefontein, or Abram's Kraal. They covered a front of some seven
+miles in such a formation that their wings were protected, the
+northern by the river and the southern by flanking bastions of hill
+extending for some distance to the rear. If the position had been
+defended as well as it had been chosen, the task would have been a
+severe one.
+
+Since the Modder covered the enemy's right the turning movement
+could only be developed on their left, and Tucker's Division was
+thrown out very wide on that side for the purpose. But in the
+meanwhile a contretemps had occurred which threw out and seriously
+hampered the whole British line of battle. General French was in
+command of the left wing, which included Kelly-Kenny's Division,
+the first cavalry brigade, and Alderson's Mounted Infantry. His
+orders had been to keep in touch with the centre, and to avoid
+pushing his attack home. In endeavouring to carry out these
+instructions French moved his men more and more to the right, until
+he had really squeezed in between the Boers and Lord Roberts's
+central column, and so masked the latter. The essence of the whole
+operation was that the frontal attack should not be delivered until
+Tucker had worked round to the rear of the position. It is for
+military critics to decide whether it was that the flankers were
+too slow or the frontal assailants were too fast, but it is certain
+that Kelly-Kenny's Division attacked before the cavalry and the 7th
+Division were in their place. Kelly-Kenny was informed that the
+position in front of him had been abandoned, and four regiments,
+the Buffs, the Essex, the Welsh, and the Yorkshires, were advanced
+against it. They were passing over the open when the crash of the
+Mauser fire burst out in front of them, and the bullets hissed and
+thudded among the ranks. The ordeal was a very severe one. The
+Yorkshires were swung round wide upon the right, but the rest of
+the brigade, the Welsh Regiment leading, made a frontal attack upon
+the ridge. It was done coolly and deliberately, the men taking
+advantage of every possible cover. Boers could be seen leaving
+their position in small bodies as the crackling, swaying line of
+the British surged ever higher upon the hillside. At last, with a
+cheer, the Welshmen with their Kent and Essex comrades swept over
+the crest into the ranks of that cosmopolitan crew of sturdy
+adventurers who are known as the Johannesburg Police. For once the
+loss of the defence was greater than that of the attack. These
+mercenaries had not the instinct which teaches the Boer the right
+instant for flight, and they held their position too long to get
+away. The British had left four hundred men on the track of that
+gallant advance, but the vast majority of them were wounded--too
+often by those explosive or expansive missiles which make war more
+hideous. Of the Boers we actually buried over a hundred on the
+ridge, and their total casualties must have been considerably in
+excess of ours.
+
+The action was strategically well conceived; all that Lord Roberts
+could do for complete success had been done; but tactically it was
+a poor affair, considering his enormous preponderance in men and
+guns. There was no glory in it, save for the four regiments who set
+their faces against that sleet of lead. The artillery did not do
+well, and were browbeaten by guns which they should have smothered
+under their fire. The cavalry cannot be said to have done well
+either. And yet, when all is said, the action is an important one,
+for the enemy were badly shaken by the result. The Johannesburg
+Police, who had been among their corps d'elite, had been badly
+mauled, and the burghers were impressed by one more example of the
+impossibility of standing in anything approaching to open country
+against disciplined troops, Roberts had not captured the guns, but
+the road had been cleared for him to Bloemfontein and, what is more
+singular, to Pretoria; for though hundreds of miles intervene
+between the field of Driefontein and the Transvaal capital, he
+never again met a force which was willing to look his infantry in
+the eyes in a pitched battle. Surprises and skirmishes were many,
+but it was the last time, save only at Doornkop, that a chosen
+position was ever held for an effective rifle fire--to say nothing
+of the push of bayonet.
+
+And now the army flowed swiftly onwards to the capital. The
+indefatigable 6th Division, which had done march after march, one
+more brilliant than another, since they had crossed the Riet River,
+reached Asvogel Kop on the evening of Sunday, March 11th, the day
+after the battle. On Monday the army was still pressing onwards,
+disregarding all else and striking straight for the heart as
+Blucher struck at Paris in 1814. At midday they halted at the farm
+of Gregorowski, he who had tried the Reform prisoners after the
+Raid. The cavalry pushed on down Kaal Spruit, and in the evening
+crossed the Southern railway line which connects Bloemfontein with
+the colony, cutting it at a point some five miles from the town. In
+spite of some not very strenuous opposition from a Boer force a
+hill was seized by a squadron of Greys with some mounted infantry
+and Rimington's Guides, aided by U battery R.H.A., and was held by
+them all that night.
+
+On the same evening Major Hunter-Weston, an officer who had already
+performed at least one brilliant feat in the war, was sent with
+Lieutenant Charles and a handful of Mounted Sappers and Hussars to
+cut the line to the north. After a difficult journey on a very dark
+night he reached his object and succeeded in finding and blowing up
+a culvert. There is a Victoria Cross gallantry which leads to
+nothing save personal decoration, and there is another and far
+higher gallantry of calculation, which springs from a cool brain as
+well as a hot heart, and it is from the men who possess this rare
+quality that great warriors arise. Such feats as the cutting of
+this railway or the subsequent saving of the Bethulie Bridge by
+Grant and Popham are of more service to the country than any degree
+of mere valour untempered by judgment. Among other results the
+cutting of the line secured for us twenty-eight locomotives, two
+hundred and fifty trucks, and one thousand tons of coal, all of
+which were standing ready to leave Bloemfontein station. The
+gallant little band were nearly cut off on their return, but fought
+their way through with the loss of two horses, and so got back in
+triumph.
+
+The action of Driefontein was fought on the 10th. The advance began
+on the morning of the 11th. On the morning of the 13th the British
+were practically masters of Bloemfontein. The distance is forty
+miles. No one can say that Lord Roberts cannot follow a victory up
+as well as win it.
+
+Some trenches had been dug and sangars erected to the north-west of
+the town; but Lord Roberts, with his usual perverseness, took the
+wrong turning and appeared upon the broad open plain to the south,
+where resistance would have been absurd. Already Steyn and the
+irreconcilables had fled from the town, and the General was met by
+a deputation of the Mayor, the Landdrost, and Mr. Fraser to tender
+the submission of the capital. Fraser, a sturdy clear-headed
+Highlander, had been the one politician in the Free State who
+combined a perfect loyalty to his adopted country with a just
+appreciation of what a quarrel A l'outrance with the British Empire
+would mean. Had Fraser's views prevailed, the Orange Free State
+would still exist as a happy and independent State. As it is, he
+may help her to happiness and prosperity as the prime minister of
+the Orange River Colony.
+
+It was at half-past one on Tuesday, March 13th, that General
+Roberts and his troops entered Bloemfontein, amid the acclamations
+of many of the inhabitants, who, either to propitiate the victor,
+or as a sign of their real sympathies, had hoisted union jacks upon
+their houses. Spectators have left it upon record how from all that
+interminable column of yellow-clad weary men, worn with half
+rations and whole-day marches, there came never one jeer, never one
+taunting or exultant word, as they tramped into the capital of
+their enemies. The bearing of the troops was chivalrous in its
+gentleness, and not the least astonishing sight to the inhabitants
+was the passing of the Guards, the dandy troops of England, the
+body-servants of the great Queen. Black with sun and dust,
+staggering after a march of thirty-eight miles, gaunt and haggard,
+with their clothes in such a state that decency demanded that some
+of the men should be discreetly packed away in the heart of the
+dense column, they still swung into the town with the aspect of
+Kentish hop-pickers and the bearing of heroes. She, the venerable
+mother, could remember the bearded ranks who marched past her when
+they came with sadly thinned files back from the Crimean winter;
+even those gallant men could not have endured more sturdily, nor
+have served her more loyally, than these their worthy descendants.
+
+It was just a month after the start from Ramdam that Lord Roberts
+and his army rode into the enemy's capital. Up to that period we
+had in Africa Generals who were hampered for want of troops, and
+troops who were hampered for want of Generals. Only when the
+Commander-in-Chief took over the main army had we soldiers enough,
+and a man who knew how to handle them. The result was one which has
+not only solved the question of the future of South Africa, but has
+given an illustration of strategy which will become classical to
+the military student. How brisk was the course of events, how
+incessant the marching and fighting, may be shown by a brief
+recapitulation. On February 13th cavalry and infantry were marching
+to the utmost capacity of men and horses. On the 14th the cavalry
+were halted, but the infantry were marching hard. On the 15th the
+cavalry covered forty miles, fought an action, and relieved
+Kimberley. On the 16th the cavalry were in pursuit of the Boer guns
+all day, and were off on a thirty-mile march to the Modder at
+night, while the infantry were fighting Cronje's rearguard action,
+and closing up all day. On the 17th the infantry were marching
+hard. On the 18th was the battle of Paardeberg. From the 19th to
+the 27th was incessant fighting with Cronje inside the laager and
+with De Wet outside. From the 28th to March 6th was rest. On March
+7th was the action of Poplars Grove with heavy marching; on March
+10th the battle of Driefontein. On the 11th and 12th the infantry
+covered forty miles, and on the 13th were in Bloemfontein. All this
+was accomplished by men on half-rations, with horses which could
+hardly be urged beyond a walk, in a land where water is scarce and
+the sun semi-tropical, each infantryman carrying a weight of nearly
+forty pounds. There are few more brilliant achievements in the
+history of British arms. The tactics were occasionally faulty, and
+the battle of Paardeberg was a blot upon the operations; but the
+strategy of the General and the spirit of the soldier were alike
+admirable.
+
+CHAPTER 21.
+
+STRATEGIC EFFECTS OF LORD ROBERTS'S MARCH.
+
+From the moment that Lord Roberts with his army advanced from
+Ramdam all the other British forces in South Africa, the Colesberg
+force, the Stormberg force, Brabant's force, and the Natal force,
+had the pressure relieved in front of them, a tendency which
+increased with every fresh success of the main body. A short
+chapter must be devoted to following rapidly the fortunes of these
+various armies, and tracing the effect of Lord Roberts's strategy
+upon their movements. They may be taken in turn from west to east.
+
+The force under General Clements (formerly French's) had, as has
+already been told, been denuded of nearly all its cavalry and horse
+artillery, and so left in the presence of a very superior body of
+the enemy. Under these circumstances Clements had to withdraw his
+immensely extended line, and to concentrate at Arundel, closely
+followed by the elated enemy. The situation was a more critical one
+than has been appreciated by the public, for if the force had been
+defeated the Boers would have been in a position to cut Lord
+Roberts's line of communications, and the main army would have been
+in the air. Much credit is due, not only to General Clements, but
+to Carter of the Wiltshires, Hacket Pain of the Worcesters, Butcher
+of the 4th R.F.A., the admirable Australians, and all the other
+good men and true who did their best to hold the gap for the
+Empire.
+
+The Boer idea of a strong attack upon this point was strategically
+admirable, but tactically there was not sufficient energy in
+pushing home the advance. The British wings succeeded in
+withdrawing, and the concentrated force at Arundel was too strong
+for attack Yet there was a time of suspense, a time when every man
+had become of such importance that even fifty Indian syces were for
+the first and last time in the war, to their own supreme
+gratification, permitted for twenty-four hours to play their
+natural part as soldiers. [Footnote: There was something piteous in
+the chagrin of these fine Sikhs at being held back from their
+natural work as soldiers. A deputation of them waited upon Lord
+Roberts at Bloemfontein to ask, with many salaams, whether 'his
+children were not to see one little fight before they returned.']
+But then with the rapid strokes in front the hour of danger passed,
+and the Boer advance became first a halt and then a retreat.
+
+On February 27th, Major Butcher, supported by the Inniskillings and
+Australians, attacked Rensburg and shelled the enemy out of it.
+Next morning Clements's whole force had advanced from Arundel and
+took up its old position. The same afternoon it was clear that the
+Boers were retiring, and the British, following them up, marched
+into Colesberg, around which they had manoeuvred so long. A
+telegram from Steyn to De Wet found in the town told the whole
+story of the retirement: 'As long as you are able to hold the
+positions you are in with the men you have, do so. If not, come
+here as quickly as circumstances will allow, as matters here are
+taking a serious turn.' The whole force passed over the Orange
+River unimpeded, and blew up the Norval's Pont railway bridge
+behind it. Clements's brigade followed on March 4th, and succeeded
+in the course of a week in throwing a pontoon bridge over the river
+and crossing into the Orange Free State. Roberts having in the
+meanwhile seized Bloemfontein, communication was restored by
+railway between the forces, and Clements was despatched to
+Phillipolis, Fauresmith, and the other towns in the south-west to
+receive the submission of the inhabitants and to enforce their
+disarmament. In the meantime the Engineers worked furiously at the
+restoration of the railway bridge over the Orange River, which was
+not, however, accomplished until some weeks later.
+
+During the long period which had elapsed since the repulse at
+Stormberg, General Gatacre had held his own at Sterkstroom, under
+orders not to attack the enemy, repulsing them easily upon the only
+occasion when they ventured to attack him. Now it was his turn also
+to profit by the success which Lord Roberts had won. On February
+23rd he re-occupied Molteno, and on the same day sent out a force
+to reconnoitre the enemy's position at Stormberg. The incident is
+memorable as having been the cause of the death of Captain de
+Montmorency [Footnote: De Montmorency had established a remarkable
+influence over his rough followers. To the end of the war they
+could not speak of him without tears in their eyes. When I asked
+Sergeant Howe why his captain went almost alone up the hill, his
+answer was, 'Because the captain knew no fear.' Byrne, his soldier
+servant (an Omdurman V.C. like his master), galloped madly off next
+morning with a saddled horse to bring back his captain alive or
+dead, and had to be forcibly seized and restrained by our cavalry.
+], one of the most promising of the younger officers of the British
+army. He had formed a corps of scouts, consisting originally of
+four men, but soon expanding to seventy or eighty. At the head of
+these men he confirmed the reputation for desperate valour which he
+had won in the Soudan, and added to it proofs of the enterprise and
+judgment which go to make a leader of light cavalry. In the course
+of the reconnaissance he ascended a small kopje accompanied by
+three companions, Colonel Hoskier, a London Volunteer soldier,
+Vice, a civilian, and Sergeant Howe. 'They are right on the top of
+us,' he cried to his comrades, as he reached the summit, and
+dropped next instant with a bullet through his heart. Hoskier was
+shot in five places, and Vice was mortally wounded, only Howe
+escaping. The rest of the scouts, being farther back, were able to
+get cover and to keep up a fight until they were extricated by the
+remainder of the force. Altogether our loss was formidable rather
+in quality than in quantity, for not more than a dozen were hit,
+while the Boers suffered considerably from the fire of our guns.
+
+On March 5th General Gatacre found that the Boers were retreating
+in front of him--in response, no doubt, to messages similar to
+those which had already been received at Colesberg. Moving forward
+he occupied the position which had confronted him so long. Thence,
+having spent some days in drawing in his scattered detachments and
+in mending the railway, he pushed forward on March 12th to
+Burghersdorp, and thence on the 13th to Olive Siding, to the south
+of the Bethulie Bridge.
+
+There are two bridges which span the broad muddy Orange River,
+thick with the washings of the Basutoland mountains. One of these
+is the magnificent high railway bridge, already blown to ruins by
+the retreating Boers. Dead men or shattered horses do not give a
+more vivid impression of the unrelenting brutality of war than the
+sight of a structure, so graceful and so essential, blown into a
+huge heap of twisted girders and broken piers. Half a mile to the
+west is the road bridge, broad and old-fashioned. The only hope of
+preserving some mode of crossing the difficult river lay in the
+chance that the troops might anticipate the Boers who were about to
+destroy this bridge.
+
+In this they were singularly favoured by fortune. On the arrival of
+a small party of scouts and of the Cape Police under Major
+Nolan-Neylan at the end of the bridge it was found that all was
+ready to blow it up, the mine sunk, the detonator fixed, and the
+wire laid. Only the connection between the wire and the charge had
+not been made. To make sure, the Boers had also laid several boxes
+of dynamite under the last span, in case the mine should fail in
+its effect. The advance guard of the Police, only six in number,
+with Nolan-Neylan at their head, threw themselves into a building
+which commanded the approaches of the bridge, and this handful of
+men opened so spirited and well-aimed a fire that the Boers were
+unable to approach it. As fresh scouts and policemen came up they
+were thrown into the firing line, and for a whole long day they
+kept the destroyers from the bridge. Had the enemy known how weak
+they were and how far from supports, they could have easily
+destroyed them, but the game of bluff was admirably played, and a
+fire kept up which held the enemy to their rifle pits.
+
+The Boers were in a trench commanding the bridge, and their brisk
+fire made it impossible to cross. On the other hand, our rifle fire
+commanded the mine and prevented any one from exploding it. But at
+the approach of darkness it was certain that this would be done.
+The situation was saved by the gallantry of young Popham of the
+Derbyshires, who crept across with two men and removed the
+detonators. There still remained the dynamite under the further
+span, and this also they removed, carrying it off across the bridge
+under a heavy fire. The work was made absolutely complete a little
+later by the exploit of Captain Grant of the Sappers, who drew the
+charges from the holes in which they had been sunk, and dropped
+them into the river, thus avoiding the chance that they might be
+exploded next morning by shell fire. The feat of Popham and of
+Grant was not only most gallant but of extraordinary service to the
+country; but the highest credit belongs to Nolan-Neylan, of the
+Police, for the great promptitude and galantry of his attack, and
+to McNeill for his support. On that road bridge and on the pontoon
+bridge at Norval's Pont Lord Roberts's army was for a whole month
+dependent for their supplies.
+
+On March 15th Gatacre's force passed over into the Orange Free
+State, took possession of Bethulie, and sent on the cavalry to
+Springfontein, which is the junction where the railways from Cape
+Town and from East London meet. Here they came in contact with two
+battalions of Guards under Pole-Carew, who had been sent down by
+train from Lord Roberts's force in the north. With Roberts at
+Bloemfontein, Gatacre at Springfontein, Clements in the south-west,
+and Brabant at Aliwal, the pacification of the southern portion of
+the Free State appeared to be complete. Warlike operations seemed
+for the moment to be at an end, and scattered parties traversed the
+country, 'bill-sticking,' as the troops called it--that is,
+carrying Lord Roberts's proclamation to the lonely farmhouses and
+outlying villages.
+
+In the meantime the colonial division of that fine old African
+fighter, General Brabant, had begun to play its part in the
+campaign. Among the many judicious arrangements which Lord Roberts
+made immediately after his arrival at the Cape was the assembling
+of the greater part of the scattered colonial bands into one
+division, and placing over it a General of their own, a man who had
+defended the cause of the Empire both in the legislative assembly
+and the field. To this force was entrusted the defence of the
+country lying to the east of Gatacre's position, and on February
+15th they advanced from Penhoek upon Dordrecht. Their Imperial
+troops consisted of the Royal Scots and a section of the 79th
+R.F.A., the Colonial of Brabant's Horse, the Kaffrarian Mounted
+Rifles, the Cape Mounted Rifles and Cape Police, with Queenstown
+and East London Volunteers. The force moved upon Dordrecht, and on
+February 18th occupied the town after a spirited action, in which
+Brabant's Horse played a distinguished part. On March 4th the
+division advanced once more with the object of attacking the Boer
+position at Labuschagne's Nek, some miles to the north.
+
+Aided by the accurate fire of the 79th R.F.A., the colonials
+succeeded, after a long day of desultory fighting, in driving the
+enemy from his position. Leaving a garrison in Dordrecht Brabant
+followed up his victory and pushed forward with two thousand men
+and eight guns (six of them light 7-pounders) to occupy Jamestown,
+which was done without resistance. On March 10th the colonial force
+approached Aliwal, the frontier town, and so rapid was the advance
+of Major Henderson with Brabant's Horse that the bridge at Aliwal
+was seized before the enemy could blow it up. At the other side of
+the bridge there was a strong stand made by the enemy, who had
+several Krupp guns in position; but the light horse, in spite of a
+loss of some twenty-five men killed and wounded, held on to the
+heights which command the river. A week or ten days were spent in
+pacifying the large north-eastern portion of Cape Colony, to which
+Aliwal acts as a centre. Barkly East, Herschel, Lady Grey, and
+other villages were visited by small detachments of the colonial
+horsemen, who pushed forward also into the south-eastern portion of
+the Free State, passing through Rouxville, and so along the
+Basutoland border as far as Wepener. The rebellion in the Colony
+was now absolutely dead in the north-east, while in the north-west
+in the Prieska and Carnarvon districts it was only kept alive by
+the fact that the distances were so great and the rebel forces so
+scattered that it was very difficult for our flying columns to
+reach them. Lord Kitchener had returned from Paardeberg to attend
+to this danger upon our line of communications, and by his
+exertions all chance of its becoming serious soon passed. With a
+considerable force of Yeomanry and Cavalry he passed swiftly over
+the country, stamping out the smouldering embers.
+
+So much for the movements into the Free State of Clements, of
+Gatacre, and of Brabant. It only remains to trace the not very
+eventful history of the Natal campaign after the relief of
+Ladysmith.
+
+General Buller made no attempt to harass the retreat of the Boers,
+although in two days no fewer than two thousand wagons were counted
+upon the roads to Newcastle and Dundee. The guns had been removed
+by train, the railway being afterwards destroyed. Across the north
+of Natal lies the chain of the Biggarsberg mountains, and to this
+the Transvaal Boers had retired, while the Freestaters had hurried
+through the passes of the Drakensberg in time to make the fruitless
+opposition to Roberts's march upon their capital. No accurate
+information had come in as to the strength of the Transvaalers, the
+estimates ranging from five to ten thousand, but it was known that
+their position was formidable and their guns mounted in such a way
+as to command the Dundee and Newcastle roads.
+
+General Lyttelton's Division had camped as far out as Elandslaagte
+with Burn Murdoch's cavalry, while Dundonald's brigade covered the
+space between Burn Murdoch's western outposts and the Drakensberg
+passes. Few Boers were seen, hut it was known that the passes were
+held in some strength. Meanwhile the line was being restored in the
+rear, and on March 9th the gallant White was enabled to take train
+for Durban, though it was not until ten days later that the Colenso
+bridge was restored. The Ladysmith garrison had been sent down to
+Colenso to recruit their health. There they were formed into a new
+division, the 4th, the brigades being given to Howard and Knox, and
+the command to Lyttelton, who had returned his former division, the
+second, to Clery. The 5th and 6th brigades were also formed into
+one division, the 10th, which was placed under the capable command
+of Hunter, who had confirmed in the south the reputation which he
+had won in the north of Africa. In the first week of April Hunter's
+Division was sent down to Durban and transferred to the western
+side, where they were moved up to Kimberley, whence they advanced
+northwards. The man on the horse has had in this war an immense
+advantage over the man on foot, but there have been times when the
+man on the ship has restored the balance. Captain Mahan might find
+some fresh texts in the transference of Hunter's Division, or in
+the subsequent expedition to Beira.
+
+On April 10th the Boers descended from their mountains and woke up
+our sleepy army corps by a brisk artillery fire. Our own guns
+silenced it, and the troops instantly relapsed into their slumber.
+There was no movement for a fortnight afterwards upon either side,
+save that of Sir Charles Warren, who left the army in order to take
+up the governorship of British Bechuanaland, a district which was
+still in a disturbed state, and in which his presence had a
+peculiar significance, since he had rescued portions of it from
+Boer domination in the early days of the Transvaal Republic.
+Hildyard took over the command of the 5th Division. In this state
+of inertia the Natal force remained until Lord Roberts, after a six
+weeks' halt in Bloemfontein, necessitated by the insecurity of his
+railway communication and his want of every sort of military
+supply, more especially horses for his cavalry and boots for his
+infantry, was at last able on May 2nd to start upon his famous
+march to Pretoria. Before accompanying him, however, upon this
+victorious progress, it is necessary to devote a chapter to the
+series of incidents and operations which had taken place to the
+east and south-east of Bloemfontein during this period of
+compulsory inactivity.
+
+One incident must be recorded in this place, though it was
+political rather than military. This was the interchange of notes
+concerning peace between Paul Kruger and Lord Salisbury. There is
+an old English jingle about 'the fault of the Dutch, giving too
+little and asking too much,' but surely there was never a more
+singular example of it than this. The united Presidents prepare for
+war for years, spring an insulting ultimatum upon us, invade our
+unfortunate Colonies, solemnly annex all the portions invaded, and
+then, when at last driven back, propose a peace which shall secure
+for them the whole point originally at issue. It is difficult to
+believe that the proposals could have been seriously meant, but
+more probable that the plan may have been to strengthen the hands
+of the Peace deputation who were being sent to endeavour to secure
+European intervention. Could they point to a proposal from the
+Transvaal and a refusal from England, it might, if not too
+curiously examined, excite the sympathy of those who follow
+emotions rather than facts.
+
+The documents were as follow:--
+
+'The Presidents of the Orange Free State and of the South African
+Republic to the Marquess of Salisbury. Bloemfontein March 5th,
+1900.
+
+'The blood and the tears of the thousands who have suffered by this
+war, and the prospect of all the moral and economic ruin with which
+South Africa is now threatened, make it necessary for both
+belligerents to ask themselves dispassionately and as in the sight
+of the Triune God for what they are fighting and whether the aim of
+each justifies all this appalling misery and devastation.
+
+'With this object, and in view of the assertions of various British
+statesmen to the effect that this war was begun and is carried on
+with the set purpose of undermining Her Majesty's authority in
+South Africa, and of setting up an administration over all South
+Africa independent of Her Majesty's Government, we consider it our
+duty to solemnly declare that this war was undertaken solely as a
+defensive measure to safeguard the threatened independence of the
+South African Republic, and is only continued in order to secure
+and safeguard the incontestable independence of both Republics as
+sovereign international States, and to obtain the assurance that
+those of Her Majesty's subjects who have taken part with us in this
+war shall suffer no harm whatsoever in person or property.
+
+'On these conditions, but on these conditions alone, are we now as
+in the past desirous of seeing peace re-established in South
+Africa, and of putting an end to the evils now reigning over South
+Africa; while, if Her Majesty's Government is determined to destroy
+the independence of the Republics, there is nothing left to us and
+to our people but to persevere to the end in the course already
+begun, in spite of the overwhelming pre-eminence of the British
+Empire, conscious that that God who lighted the inextinguishable
+fire of the love of freedom in our hearts and those of our fathers
+will not forsake us, but will accomplish His work in us and in our
+descendants.
+
+'We hesitated to make this declaration earlier to your Excellency
+as we feared that, as long as the advantage was always on our side,
+and as long as our forces held defensive positions far in Her
+Majesty's Colonies, such a declaration might hurt the feelings of
+honour of the British people. But now that the prestige of the
+British Empire may be considered to be assured by the capture of
+one of our forces, and that we are thereby forced to evacuate other
+positions which we had occupied, that difficulty is over and we can
+no longer hesitate to inform your Government and people in the
+sight of the whole civilised world why we are fighting and on what
+conditions we are ready to restore peace.'
+
+Such was the message, deep in its simplicity and cunning in its
+candour, which was sent by the old President, for it is Kruger's
+style which we read in every line of it. One has to get back to
+facts after reading it, to the enormous war preparations of the
+Republics, to the unprepared state of the British Colonies, to the
+ultimatum, to the annexations, to the stirring up of rebellion, to
+the silence about peace in the days of success, to the fact that by
+'inextinguishable love of freedom' is meant inextinguishable
+determination to hold other white men as helots--only then can we
+form a just opinion of the worth of his message. One must remember
+also, behind the homely and pious phraseology, that one is dealing
+with a man who has been too cunning for us again and again--a man
+who is as wily as the savages with whom he has treated and fought.
+This Paul Kruger with the simple words of peace is the same Paul
+Kruger who with gentle sayings insured the disarmament of
+Johannesburg, and then instantly arrested his enemies--the man
+whose name was a by-word for 'slimness' [craftiness] throughout
+South Africa. With such a man the best weapon is absolute naked
+truth with which Lord Salisbury confronted him in his reply:--
+
+Foreign Office: March 11th.
+
+'I have the honour to acknowledge your Honours' telegram dated
+March 5th from Bloemfontein, of which the purport was principally
+to demand that Her Majesty's Government shall recognise the
+"incontestable independence" of the South African Republic and
+Orange Free State as "sovereign international States," and to offer
+on those terms to bring the war to a conclusion.
+
+'In the beginning of October last peace existed between Her Majesty
+and the two Republics under the conventions which then were in
+existence. A discussion had been proceeding for some months between
+Her Majesty's Government and the South African Republic, of which
+the object was to obtain redress for certain very serious
+grievances under which British residents in the. Republic were
+suffering. In the course of those negotiations the Republic had, to
+the knowledge of Her Majesty's Government, made considerable
+armaments, and the latter had consequently taken steps to provide
+corresponding reinforcements to the British garrisons of Cape Town
+and Natal. No infringement of the rights guaranteed by the
+conventions had up to that time taken place on the British side.
+Suddenly, at two days' notice, the South African Republic, after
+issuing an insulting ultimatum, declared war, and the Orange Free
+State with whom there had not even been any discussion, took a
+similar step. Her Majesty's dominions were immediately invaded by
+the two Republics, siege was laid to three towns within the British
+frontier, a large portion of the two Colonies was overrun with
+great destruction to property and life, and the Republics claimed
+to treat the inhabitants as if those dominions had been annexed to
+one or other of them. In anticipation of these operations the South
+African Republic had been accumulating for many years past military
+stores upon an enormous scale, which by their character could only
+have been intended for use against Great Britain.
+
+'Your Honours make some observations of a negative character upon
+the object with which these preparations were made. I do not think
+it necessary to discuss the questions which you have raised. But
+the result of these preparations, carried on with great secrecy,
+has been that the British Empire has been compelled to confront an
+invasion which has entailed a costly war and the loss of thousands
+of precious lives. This great calamity has been the penalty which
+Great Britain has suffered for having in recent years acquiesced in
+the existence of the two Republics.
+
+'In view of the use to which the two Republics have put the
+position which was given to them, and the calamities which their
+unprovoked attack has inflicted upon Her Majesty's dominions, Her
+Majesty's Government can only answer your Honours' telegram by
+saying that they are not prepared to assent to the independence
+either of the South African Republic or of the Orange Free State.'
+
+With this frank and uncompromising reply the Empire, with the
+exception of a small party of dupes and doctrinaires, heartily
+agreed. The pens were dropped, and the Mauser and the Lee-Metford
+once more took up the debate.
+
+CHAPTER 22.
+
+THE HALT AT BLOEMFONTEIN.
+
+On March 13th Lord Roberts occupied the capital of the Orange Free
+State. On May 1st, more than six weeks later, the advance was
+resumed. This long delay was absolutely necessary in order to
+supply the place of the ten thousand horses and mules which are
+said to have been used up in the severe work of the preceding
+month. It was not merely that a large number of the cavalry
+chargers had died or been abandoned, but it was that of those which
+remained the majority were in a state which made them useless for
+immediate service. How far this might have been avoided is open to
+question, for it is notorious that General French's reputation as a
+horsemaster does not stand so high as his fame as a cavalry leader.
+But besides the horses there was urgent need of every sort of
+supply, from boots to hospitals, and the only way by which they
+could come was by two single-line railways which unite into one
+single-line railway, with the alternative of passing over a
+precarious pontoon bridge at Norval's Pont, or truck by truck over
+the road bridge at Bethulie. To support an army of fifty thousand
+men under these circumstances, eight hundred miles from a base, is
+no light matter, and a premature advance which could not be thrust
+home would be the greatest of misfortunes. The public at home and
+the army in Africa became restless under the inaction, but it was
+one more example of the absolute soundness of Lord Roberts's
+judgment and the quiet resolution with which he adheres to it. He
+issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of the Free State
+promising protection to all who should bring in their arms and
+settle down upon their farms. The most stringent orders were issued
+against looting or personal violence, but nothing could exceed the
+gentleness and good humour of the troops. Indeed there seemed more
+need for an order which should protect them against the extortion
+of their conquered enemies. It is strange to think that we are
+separated by only ninety years from the savage soldiery of Badajoz
+and San Sebastian.
+
+The streets of the little Dutch town formed during this interval a
+curious object-lesson in the resources of the Empire. All the
+scattered Anglo-Celtic races had sent their best blood to fight for
+the common cause. Peace is the great solvent, as war is the
+powerful unifier. For the British as for the German Empire much
+virtue had come from the stress and strain of battle. To stand in
+the market square of Bloemfontein and to see the warrior types
+around you was to be assured of the future of the race. The
+middle-sized, square-set, weather-tanned, straw-bearded British
+regulars crowded the footpaths. There also one might see the
+hard-faced Canadians, the loose-limbed dashing Australians,
+fireblooded and keen, the dark New Zealanders, with a Maori touch
+here and there in their features, the gallant men of Tasmania, the
+gentlemen troopers of India and Ceylon, and everywhere the wild
+South African irregulars with their bandoliers and unkempt wiry
+horses, Rimington's men with the racoon bands, Roberts's Horse with
+the black plumes, some with pink puggarees, some with birdseye, but
+all of the same type, hard, rugged, and alert. The man who could
+look at these splendid soldiers, and, remembering the sacrifices of
+time, money, and comfort which most of them had made before they
+found themselves fighting in the heart of Africa, doubt that the
+spirit of the race burned now as brightly as ever, must be devoid
+of judgment and sympathy. The real glories of the British race lie
+in the future, not in the past. The Empire walks, and may still
+walk, with an uncertain step, but with every year its tread will be
+firmer, for its weakness is that of waxing youth and not of waning
+age.
+
+The greatest misfortune of the campaign, one which it was obviously
+impolitic to insist upon at the time, began with the occupation of
+Bloemfontein. This was the great outbreak of enteric among the
+troops. For more than two months the hospitals were choked with
+sick. One general hospital with five hundred beds held seventeen
+hundred sick, nearly all enterics. A half field hospital with fifty
+beds held three hundred and seventy cases. The total number of
+cases could not have been less than six or seven thousand--and this
+not of an evanescent and easily treated complaint, but of the most
+persistent and debilitating of continued fevers, the one too which
+requires the most assiduous attention and careful nursing. How
+great was the strain only those who had to meet it can tell. The
+exertions of the military hospitals and of those others which were
+fitted out by private benevolence sufficed, after a long struggle,
+to meet the crisis. At Bloemfontein alone, as many as fifty men
+died in one day, and more than 1000 new graves in the cemetery
+testify to the severity of the epidemic. No men in the campaign
+served their country more truly than the officers and men of the
+medical service, nor can any one who went through the epidemic
+forget the bravery and unselfishness of those admirable nursing
+sisters who set the men around them a higher standard of devotion
+to duty.
+
+Enteric fever is always endemic in the country, and especially at
+Bloemfontein, but there can be no doubt that this severe outbreak
+had its origin in the Paardeberg water. All through the campaign,
+while the machinery for curing disease was excellent, that for
+preventing it was elementary or absent. If bad water can cost us
+more than all the bullets of the enemy, then surely it is worth our
+while to make the drinking of unboiled water a stringent military
+offence, and to attach to every company and squadron the most rapid
+and efficient means for boiling it--for filtering alone is useless.
+An incessant trouble it would be, but it would have saved a
+division for the army. It is heartrending for the medical man who
+has emerged from a hospital full of water-born pestilence to see a
+regimental watercart being filled, without protest, at some
+polluted wayside pool. With precautions and with inoculation all
+those lives might have been saved. The fever died down with the
+advance of the troops and the coming of the colder weather.
+
+To return to the military operations: these, although they were
+stagnant so far as the main army was concerned, were exceedingly
+and inconveniently active in other quarters. Three small actions,
+two of which were disastrous to our arms, and one successful
+defence marked the period of the pause at Bloemfontein.
+
+To the north of the town, some twelve miles distant lies the
+ubiquitous Modder River, which is crossed by a railway bridge at a
+place named Glen. The saving of the bridge was of considerable
+importance, and might by the universal testimony of the farmers of
+that district have been effected any time within the first few days
+of our occupation. We appear, however, to have imperfectly
+appreciated how great was the demoralisation of the Boers. In a
+week or so they took heart, returned, and blew up the bridge.
+Roving parties of the enemy, composed mainly of the redoubtable
+Johannesburg police, reappeared even to the south of the river.
+Young Lygon was killed, and Colonels Crabbe and Codrington with
+Captain Trotter, all of the Guards, were severely wounded by such a
+body, whom they gallantly but injudiciously attempted to arrest
+when armed only with revolvers.
+
+These wandering patrols who kept the country unsettled, and
+harassed the farmers who had taken advantage of Lord Roberts's
+proclamation, were found to have their centre at a point some six
+miles to the north of Glen, named Karee. At Karee a formidable line
+of hills cut the British advance, and these had been occupied by a
+strong body of the enemy with guns. Lord Roberts determined to
+drive them off, and on March 28th Tucker's 7th Division, consisting
+of Chermside's brigade (Lincolns, Norfolks, Hampshires, and
+Scottish Borderers), and Wavell's brigade (Cheshires, East
+Lancashires, North Staffords, and South Wales Borderers), were
+assembled at Glen. The artillery consisted of the veteran 18th,
+62nd, and 75th R.F.A. Three attenuated cavalry brigades with some
+mounted infantry completed the force.
+
+The movement was to be upon the old model, and in result it proved
+to be only too truly so. French's cavalry were to get round one
+flank, Le Gallais's mounted infantry round the other, and Tucker's
+Division to attack in front. Nothing could be more perfect in
+theory and nothing apparently more defective in practice. Since on
+this as on other occasions the mere fact that the cavalry were
+demonstrating in the rear caused the complete abandonment of the
+position, it is difficult to see what the object of the infantry
+attack could be. The ground was irregular and unexplored, and it
+was late before the horsemen on their weary steeds found themselves
+behind the flank of the enemy. Some of them, Le Gallais's mounted
+infantry and Davidson's guns, had come from Bloemfontein during the
+night, and the horses were exhausted by the long march, and by the
+absurd weight which the British troop-horse is asked to carry.
+Tucker advanced his infantry exactly as Kelly-Kenny had done at
+Driefontein, and with a precisely similar result. The eight
+regiments going forward in echelon of battalions imagined from the
+silence of the enemy that the position had been abandoned. They
+were undeceived by a cruel fire which beat upon two companies of
+the Scottish Borderers from a range of two hundred yards. They were
+driven back, but reformed in a donga. About half-past two a Boer
+gun burst shrapnel over the Lincolnshires and Scottish Borderers
+with some effect, for a single shell killed five of the latter
+regiment. Chermside's brigade was now all involved in the fight,
+and Wavell's came up in support, but the ground was too open and
+the position too strong to push the attack home. Fortunately, about
+four o'clock, the horse batteries with French began to make their
+presence felt from behind, and the Boers instantly quitted their
+position and made off through the broad gap which still remained
+between French and Le Gallais. The Brandfort plain appears to be
+ideal ground for cavalry, but in spite of that the enemy with his
+guns got safely away. The loss of the infantry amounted to one
+hundred and sixty killed and wounded, the larger share of the
+casualties and of the honour falling to the Scottish Borderers and
+the East Lancashires. The infantry was not well handled, the
+cavalry was slow, and the guns were inefficient--altogether an
+inglorious day. Yet strategically it was of importance, for the
+ridge captured was the last before one came to the great plain
+which stretched, with a few intermissions, to the north. From March
+29th until May 2nd Karee remained the advanced post.
+
+In the meanwhile there had been a series of operations in the east
+which had ended in a serious disaster. Immediately after the
+occupation of Bloemfontein (on March 18th) Lord Roberts despatched
+to the east a small column consisting of the 10th Hussars, the
+composite regiment, two batteries (Q and U) of the Horse Artillery,
+some mounted infantry, Roberts's Horse, and Rimington's Guides. On
+the eastern horizon forty miles from the capital, but in that clear
+atmosphere looking only half the distance, there stands the
+impressive mountain named Thabanchu (the black mountain). To all
+Boers it is an historical spot, for it was at its base that the
+wagons of the Voortrekkers, coming by devious ways from various
+parts, assembled. On the further side of Thabanchu, to the north
+and east of it, lies the richest grain-growing portion of the Free
+State, the centre of which is Ladybrand. The forty miles which
+intervene between Bloemfontein and Thabanchu are intersected midway
+by the Modder River. At this point are the waterworks, erected
+recently with modern machinery, to take the place of the insanitary
+wells on which the town had been dependent. The force met with no
+resistance, and the small town of Thabanchu was occupied.
+
+Colonel Pilcher, the leader of the Douglas raid, was inclined to
+explore a little further, and with three squadrons of mounted men
+he rode on to the eastward. Two commandos, supposed to be Grobler's
+and Olivier's, were seen by them, moving on a line which suggested
+that they were going to join Steyn, who was known to be rallying
+his forces at Kroonstad, his new seat of government in the north of
+the Free State. Pilcher, with great daring, pushed onwards until
+with his little band on their tired horses he found himself in
+Ladybrand, thirty miles from his nearest supports. Entering the
+town he seized the landdrost and the field-cornet, but found that
+strong bodies of the enemy were moving upon him and that it was
+impossible for him to hold the place. He retired, therefore,
+holding grimly on to his prisoners, and got back with small loss to
+the place from which he started. It was a dashing piece of bluff,
+and, when taken with the Douglas exploit, leads one to hope that
+Pilcher may have a chance of showing what he can do with larger
+means at his disposal. Finding that the enemy was following him in
+force, he pushed on the same night for Thabanchu. His horsemen must
+have covered between fifty and sixty miles in the twenty-four
+hours.
+
+Apparently the effect of Pilcher's exploit was to halt the march of
+those commandos which had been seen trekking to the north-west, and
+to cause them to swing round upon Thabanchu. Broadwood, a young
+cavalry commander who had won a name in Egypt, considered that his
+position was unnecessarily exposed and fell back upon Bloemfontein.
+He halted on the first night near the waterworks, halfway upon his
+journey.
+
+The Boers are great masters in the ambuscade. Never has any race
+shown such aptitude for this form of warfare--a legacy from a long
+succession of contests with cunning savages. But never also have
+they done anything so clever and so audacious as De Wet's
+dispositions in this action. One cannot go over the ground without
+being amazed at the ingenuity of their attack, and also at the luck
+which favoured them, for the trap which they had laid for others
+might easily have proved an absolutely fatal one for themselves.
+
+The position beside the Modder at which the British camped had
+numerous broken hills to the north and east of it. A force of
+Boers, supposed to number about two thousand men, came down in the
+night, bringing with them several heavy guns, and with the early
+morning opened a brisk fire upon the camp. The surprise was
+complete. But the refinement of the Boer tactics lay in the fact
+that they had a surprise within a surprise--and it was the second
+which was the more deadly.
+
+The force which Broadwood had with him consisted of the 10th
+Hussars and the composite regiment, Rimington's Scouts, Roberts's
+Horse, the New Zealand and Burmah Mounted Infantry, with Q and U
+batteries of Horse Artillery. With such a force, consisting
+entirely of mounted men, he could not storm the hills upon which
+the Boer guns were placed, and his twelve-pounders were unable to
+reach the heavier cannon of the enemy. His best game was obviously
+to continue his march to Bloemfontein. He sent on the considerable
+convoy of wagons and the guns, while he with the cavalry covered
+the rear, upon which the long-range pieces of the enemy kept up the
+usual well-directed but harmless fire.
+
+Broadwood's retreating column now found itself on a huge plain
+which stretches all the way to Bloemfontein, broken only by two
+hills, both of which were known to be in our possession. The plain
+was one which was continually traversed from end to end by our
+troops and convoys, so that once out upon its surface all danger
+seemed at an end. Broadwood had additional reasons for feeling
+secure, for he knew that, in answer to his own wise request,
+Colvile's Division had been sent out before daybreak that morning
+from Bloemfontein to meet him. In a very few miles their vanguard
+and his must come together. There were obviously no Boers upon the
+plain, but if there were they would find themselves between two
+fires. He gave no thought to his front therefore, but rode behind,
+where the Boer guns were roaring, and whence the Boer riflemen
+might ride.
+
+But in spite of the obvious there WERE Boers upon the plain, so
+placed that they must either bring off a remarkable surprise or be
+themselves cut off to a man. Across the veld, some miles from the
+waterworks, there runs a deep donga or watercourse--one of many,
+but the largest. It cuts the rough road at right angles. Its depth
+and breadth are such that a wagon would dip down the incline, and
+disappear for about two minutes before it would become visible
+again at the crown of the other side. In appearance it was a huge
+curving ditch with a stagnant stream at the bottom. The sloping
+sides of the ditch were fringed with Boers, who had ridden thither
+before dawn and were now waiting for the unsuspecting column. There
+were not more than three hundred of them, and four times their
+number were approaching; but no odds can represent the difference
+between the concealed man with the magazine rifle and the man upon
+the plain.
+
+There were two dangers, however, which the Boers ran, and, skilful
+as their dispositions were, their luck was equally great, for the
+risks were enormous. One was that a force coming the other way
+(Colvile's was only a few miles off) would arrive, and that they
+would be ground between the upper and the lower millstone. The
+other was that for once the British scouts might give the alarm and
+that Broadwood's mounted men would wheel swiftly to right and left
+and secure the ends of the long donga. Should that happen, not a
+man of them could possibly escape. But they took their chances like
+brave men, and fortune was their friend. The wagons came on without
+any scouts. Behind them was U battery, then Q, with Roberts's Horse
+abreast of them and the rest of the cavalry behind.
+
+As the wagons, occupied for the most part only by unarmed sick
+soldiers and black transport drivers, came down into the drift, the
+Boers quickly but quietly took possession of them, and drove them
+on up the further slope. Thus the troops behind saw their wagons
+dip down, reappear, and continue on their course. The idea of an
+ambush could not suggest itself. Only one thing could avert an
+absolute catastrophe, and that was the appearance of a hero who
+would accept certain death in order to warn his comrades. Such a
+man rode by the wagons--though, unhappily, in the stress and rush
+of the moment there is no certainty as to his name or rank. We only
+know that one was found brave enough to fire his revolver in the
+face of certain death. The outburst of firing which answered his
+shot was the sequel which saved the column. Not often is it given
+to a man to die so choice a death as that of this nameless soldier.
+
+But the detachment was already so placed that nothing could save it
+from heavy loss. The wagons had all passed but nine, and the
+leading battery of artillery was at the very edge of the donga.
+Nothing is so helpless as a limbered-up battery. In an instant the
+teams were shot down and the gunners were made prisoners. A
+terrific fire burst at the same instant upon Roberts's Horse, who
+were abreast of the guns. 'Files a bout! gallop!' yelled Colonel
+Dawson, and by his exertions and those of Major Pack-Beresford the
+corps was extricated and reformed some hundreds of yards further
+off. But the loss of horses and men was heavy. Major Pack-Beresford
+and other officers were shot down, and every unhorsed man remained
+necessarily as a prisoner under the very muzzles of the riflemen in
+the donga.
+
+As Roberts's Horse turned and galloped for dear life across the
+flat, four out of the six guns [Footnote: Of the other two one
+overturned and could not be righted, the other had the wheelers
+shot and could not be extricated from the tumult. It was officially
+stated that the guns of Q battery were halted a thousand yards off
+the donga, but my impression was, from examining the ground, that
+it was not more than six hundred.] of Q battery and one gun (the
+rearmost) of U battery swung round and dashed frantically for a
+place of safety. At the same instant every Boer along the line of
+the donga sprang up and emptied his magazine into the mass of
+rushing, shouting soldiers, plunging horses, and screaming Kaffirs.
+It was for a few moments a sauve-qui-peut. Serjeant-Major Martin of
+U, with a single driver on a wheeler, got away the last gun of his
+battery. The four guns which were extricated of Q, under Major
+Phipps-Hornby, whirled across the plain, pulled up, unlimbered, and
+opened a brisk fire of shrapnel from about a thousand yards upon
+the donga. Had the battery gone on for double the distance, its
+action would have been more effective, for it would have been under
+a less deadly rifle fire, but in any case its sudden change from
+flight to discipline and order steadied the whole force. Roberts's
+men sprang from their horses, and with the Burmese and New
+Zealanders flung themselves down in a skirmish line. The cavalry
+moved to the left to find some drift by which the donga could be
+passed, and out of chaos there came in a few minutes calm and a
+settled purpose.
+
+It was for Q battery to cover the retreat of the force, and most
+nobly it did it. A fortnight later a pile of horses, visible many
+hundreds of yards off across the plain, showed where the guns had
+stood. It was the Colenso of the horse gunners. In a devilish sleet
+of lead they stood to their work, loading and firing while a man
+was left. Some of the guns were left with two men to work them, one
+was loaded and fired by a single officer. When at last the order
+for retirement came, only ten men, several of them wounded, were
+left upon their feet. With scratch teams from the limbers, driven
+by single gunners, the twelve-pounders staggered out of action, and
+the skirmish line of mounted infantry sprang to their feet amid the
+hail of bullets to cheer them as they passed.
+
+It was no slight task to extricate that sorely stricken force from
+the close contact of an exultant enemy, and to lead it across that
+terrible donga. Yet, thanks to the coolness of Broadwood and the
+steadiness of his rearguard, the thing was done. A practicable
+passage had been found two miles to the south by Captain
+Chester-Master of Rimington's. This corps, with Roberts's, the New
+Zealanders, and the 3rd Mounted Infantry, covered the withdrawal in
+turn. It was one of those actions in which the horseman who is
+trained to fight upon foot did very much better than the regular
+cavalry. In two hours' time the drift had been passed and the
+survivors of the force found themselves in safety.
+
+The losses in this disastrous but not dishonourable engagement were
+severe. About thirty officers and five hundred men were killed,
+wounded, or missing. The prisoners came to more than three hundred.
+They lost a hundred wagons, a considerable quantity of stores, and
+seven twelve-pounder guns--five from U battery and two from Q. Of U
+battery only Major Taylor and Sergeant-Major Martin seem to have
+escaped, the rest being captured en bloc. Of Q battery nearly every
+man was killed or wounded. Roberts's Horse, the New Zealanders, and
+the mounted infantry were the other corps which suffered most
+heavily. Among many brave men who died, none was a greater loss to
+the service than Major Booth of the Northumberland Fusiliers,
+serving in the mounted infantry. With four comrades he held a
+position to cover the retreat, and refused to leave it. Such men
+are inspired by the traditions of the past, and pass on the story
+of their own deaths to inspire fresh heroes in the future.
+
+Broadwood, the instant that he had disentangled himself, faced
+about, and brought his guns into action. He was not strong enough,
+however, nor were his men in a condition, to seriously attack the
+enemy. Martyr's mounted infantry had come up, led by the
+Queenslanders, and at the cost of some loss to themselves helped to
+extricate the disordered force. Colvile's Division was behind
+Bushman's Kop, only a few miles off, and there were hopes that it
+might push on and prevent the guns and wagons from being removed.
+Colvile did make an advance, but slowly and in a flanking direction
+instead of dashing swiftly forward to retrieve the situation. It
+must be acknowledged, however, that the problem which faced this
+General was one of great difficulty. It was almost certain that
+before he could throw his men into the action the captured guns
+would be beyond his reach, and it was possible that he might swell
+the disaster. With all charity, however, one cannot but feel that
+his return next morning, after a reinforcement during the night,
+without any attempt to force the Boer position, was lacking in
+enterprise. [Footnote: It may be urged in General Colvile's defence
+that his division had already done a long march from Bloemfontein.
+A division, however, which contains two such brigades as
+Macdonald's and Smith-Dorrien's may safely be called upon for any
+exertions. The gunner officers in Colvile's division heard their
+comrades' guns in 'section--fire' and knew it to be the sign of a
+desperate situation.] The victory left the Boers in possession of
+the waterworks, and Bloemfontein had to fall back upon her wells--a
+change which reacted most disastrously upon the enteric which was
+already decimating the troops.
+
+The effect of the Sanna's Post defeat was increased by the fact
+that only four days later (on April 4th) a second even more
+deplorable disaster befell our troops. This was the surrender of
+five companies of infantry, two of them mounted, at Reddersberg. So
+many surrenders of small bodies of troops had occurred during the
+course of the war that the public, remembering how seldom the word
+'surrender' had ever been heard in our endless succession of
+European wars, had become very restive upon the subject, and were
+sometimes inclined to question whether this new and humiliating
+fact did not imply some deterioration of our spirit. The fear was
+natural, and yet nothing could be more unjust to this the most
+splendid army which has ever marched under the red-crossed flag.
+The fact was new because the conditions were new, and it was
+inherent in those conditions. In that country of huge distances
+small bodies must be detached, for the amount of space covered by
+the large bodies was not sufficient for all military purposes. In
+reconnoitring, in distributing proclamations, in collecting arms,
+in overawing outlying districts, weak columns must be used. Very
+often these columns must contain infantry soldiers, as the demands
+upon the cavalry were excessive. Such bodies, moving through a
+hilly country with which they were unfamiliar, were always liable
+to be surrounded by a mobile enemy. Once surrounded the length of
+their resistance was limited by three things: their cartridges,
+their water, and their food. When they had all three, as at Wepener
+or Mafeking, they could hold out indefinitely. When one or other
+was wanting, as at Reddersberg or Nicholson's Nek, their position
+was impossible. They could not break away, for how can men on foot
+break away from horsemen? Hence those repeated humiliations, which
+did little or nothing to impede the course of the war, and which
+were really to be accepted as one of the inevitable prices which we
+had to pay for the conditions under which the war was fought.
+Numbers, discipline, and resources were with us. Mobility,
+distances, nature of the country, insecurity of supplies, were with
+them. We need not take it to heart therefore if it happened, with
+all these forces acting against them, that our soldiers found
+themselves sometimes in a position whence neither wisdom nor valour
+could rescue them. To travel through that country, fashioned above
+all others for defensive warfare, with trench and fort of
+superhuman size and strength, barring every path, one marvels how
+it was that such incidents were not more frequent and more serious.
+It is deplorable that the white flag should ever have waved over a
+company of British troops, but the man who is censorious upon the
+subject has never travelled in South Africa.
+
+In the disaster at Reddersberg three of the companies were of the
+Irish Rifles, and two of the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers--the same
+unfortunate regiments which had already been cut up at Stormberg.
+They had been detached from Gatacre's 3rd Division, the
+headquarters of which was at Springfontein. On the abandonment of
+Thabanchu and the disaster of Sanna's Post, it was obvious that we
+should draw in our detached parties to the east; so the five
+companies were ordered to leave Dewetsdorp, which they were
+garrisoning, and to get back to the railway line. Either the order
+was issued too late, or they were too slow in obeying it, for they
+were only halfway upon their journey, near the town of Reddersberg,
+when the enemy came down upon them with five guns. Without
+artillery they were powerless, but, having seized a kopje, they
+took such shelter as they could find, and waited in the hope of
+succour. Their assailants seem to have been detached from De Wet's
+force in the north, and contained among them many of the victors of
+Sanna's Post. The attack began at 11 A.M. of April 3rd, and all day
+the men lay among the stones, subjected to the pelt of shell and
+bullet. The cover was good, however, and the casualties were not
+heavy. The total losses were under fifty killed and wounded. More
+serious than the enemy's fire was the absence of water, save a very
+limited supply in a cart. A message was passed through of the dire
+straits in which they found themselves, and by the late afternoon
+the news had reached headquarters. Lord Roberts instantly
+despatched the Camerons, just arrived from Egypt, to Bethany, which
+is the nearest point upon the line, and telegraphed to Gatacre at
+Springfontein to take measures to save his compromised detachment.
+The telegram should have reached Gatacre early on the evening of
+the 3rd, and he had collected a force of fifteen hundred men,
+entrained it, journeyed forty miles up the line, detrained it, and
+reached Reddersberg, which is ten or twelve miles from the line, by
+10.30 next morning. Already, however, it was too late, and the
+besieged force, unable to face a second day without water under
+that burning sun, had laid down their arms. No doubt the stress of
+thirst was dreadful, and yet one cannot say that the defence rose
+to the highest point of resolution. Knowing that help could not be
+far off, the garrison should have held on while they could lift a
+rifle. If the ammunition was running low, it was bad management
+which caused it to be shot away too fast. Captain McWhinnie, who
+was in command, behaved with the utmost personal gallantry. Not
+only the troops but General Gatacre also was involved in the
+disaster. Blame may have attached to him for leaving a detachment
+at Dewetsdorp, and not having a supporting body at Reddersberg upon
+which it might fall back; but it must be remembered that his total
+force was small and that he had to cover a long stretch of the
+lines of communication. As to General Gatacre's energy and
+gallantry it is a by-word in the army; but coming after the
+Stormberg disaster this fresh mishap to his force made the
+continuance of his command impossible. Much sympathy was felt with
+him in the army, where he was universally liked and respected by
+officers and men. He returned to England, and his division was
+taken over by General Chermside.
+
+In a single week, at a time when the back of the war had seemed to
+be broken, we had lost nearly twelve hundred men with seven guns.
+The men of the Free State--for the fighting was mainly done by
+commandos from the Ladybrand, Winburg, Bethlehem, and Harrismith
+districts--deserve great credit for this fine effort, and their
+leader De Wet confirmed the reputation which he had already gained
+as a dashing and indefatigable leader. His force was so weak that
+when Lord Roberts was able to really direct his own against it, he
+brushed it away before him; but the manner in which De Wet took
+advantage of Roberts's enforced immobility, and dared to get behind
+so mighty an enemy, was a fine exhibition of courage and
+enterprise. The public at home chafed at this sudden and unexpected
+turn of affairs; but the General, constant to his own fixed
+purpose, did not permit his strength to be wasted, and his cavalry
+to be again disorganised, by flying excursions, but waited grimly
+until he should be strong enough to strike straight at Pretoria.
+
+In this short period of depression there came one gleam of light
+from the west. This was the capture of a commando of sixty Boers,
+or rather of sixty foreigners fighting for the Boers, and the death
+of the gallant Frenchman, De Villebois-Mareuil, who appears to have
+had the ambition of playing Lafayette in South Africa to Kruger's
+Washington. From the time that Kimberley had been reoccupied the
+British had been accumulating their force there so as to make a
+strong movement which should coincide with that of Roberts from
+Bloemfontein. Hunter's Division from Natal was being moved round to
+Kimberley, and Methuen already commanded a considerable body of
+troops, which included a number of the newly arrived Imperial
+Yeomanry. With these Methuen pacified the surrounding country, and
+extended his outposts to Barkly West on the one side, to Boshof on
+the other, and to Warrenton upon the Vaal River in the centre. On
+April 4th news reached Boshof that a Boer commando had been seen
+some ten miles to the east of the town, and a force, consisting of
+Yeomanry, Kimberley Light Horse, and half of Butcher's veteran 4th
+battery, was sent to attack them. They were found to have taken up
+their position upon a kopje which, contrary to all Boer custom, had
+no other kopjes to support it. French generalship was certainly not
+so astute as Boer cunning. The kopje was instantly surrounded, and
+the small force upon the summit being without artillery in the face
+of our guns found itself in exactly the same position which our men
+had been in twenty-four hours before at Reddersberg. Again was
+shown the advantage which the mounted rifleman has over the
+cavalry, for the Yeomanry and Light Horsemen left their horses and
+ascended the hill with the bayonet. In three hours all was over and
+the Boers had laid down their arms. Villebois was shot with seven
+of his companions, and there were nearly sixty prisoners. It speaks
+well for the skirmishing of the Yeomanry and the way in which they
+were handled by Lord Chesham that though they worked their way up
+the hill under fire they only lost four killed and a few wounded.
+The affair was a small one, but it was complete, and it came at a
+time when a success was very welcome. One bustling week had seen
+the expensive victory of Karee, the disasters of Sanna's Post and
+Reddersberg, and the successful skirmish of Boshof. Another chapter
+must be devoted to the movement towards the south of the Boer
+forces and the dispositions which Lord Roberts made to meet it.
+
+CHAPTER 23.
+
+THE CLEARING OF THE SOUTH-EAST.
+
+Lord Roberts never showed his self-command and fixed purpose more
+clearly than during his six weeks' halt at Bloemfontein. De Wet,
+the most enterprising and aggressive of the Boer commanders, was
+attacking his eastern posts and menacing his line of
+communications. A fussy or nervous general would have harassed his
+men and worn out his horses by endeavouring to pursue a number of
+will-of-the-wisp commandos. Roberts contented himself by building
+up his strength at the capital, and by spreading nearly twenty
+thousand men along his line of rail from Bloemfontein to Bethulie.
+When the time came he would strike, but until then he rested. His
+army was not only being rehorsed and reshod, but in some respects
+was being reorganised. One powerful weapon which was forged during
+those weeks was the collection of the mounted infantry of the
+central army into one division, which was placed under the command
+of Ian Hamilton, with Hutton and Ridley as brigadiers. Hutton's
+brigade contained the Canadians, New South Wales men, West
+Australians, Queenslanders, New Zealanders, Victorians, South
+Australians, and Tasmanians, with four battalions of Imperial
+Mounted Infantry, and several light batteries. Ridley's brigade
+contained the South African irregular regiments of cavalry, with
+some imperial troops. The strength of the whole division came to
+over ten thousand rifles, and in its ranks there rode the hardiest
+and best from every corner of the earth over which the old flag is
+flying.
+
+A word as to the general distribution of the troops at this instant
+while Roberts was gathering himself for his spring. Eleven
+divisions of infantry were in the field. Of these the 1st
+(Methuen's) and half the 10th (Hunter's) were at Kimberley, forming
+really the hundred-mile-distant left wing of Lord Roberts's army.
+On that side also was a considerable force of Yeomanry, as General
+Villebois discovered. In the centre with Roberts was the 6th
+division (Kelly-Kenny's) at Bloemfontein, the 7th (Tucker's) at
+Karee, twenty miles north, the 9th (Colvile's) and the 11th
+(Pole-Carew's) near Bloemfontein. French's cavalry division was
+also in the centre. As one descended the line towards the Cape one
+came on the 3rd division (Chermside's, late Gatacre's), which had
+now moved up to Reddersberg, and then, further south, the 8th
+(Rundle's), near Rouxville. To the south and east was the other
+half of Hunter's division (Hart's brigade), and Brabant's Colonial
+division, half of which was shut up in Wepener and the rest at
+Aliwal. These were the troops operating in the Free State, with the
+addition of the division of mounted infantry in process of
+formation.
+
+There remained the three divisions in Natal, the 2nd (Clery's), the
+4th (Lyttelton's), and the 5th (Hildyard's, late Warren's), with
+the cavalry brigades of Burn-Murdoch, Dundonald, and Brocklehurst.
+These, with numerous militia and unbrigaded regiments along the
+lines of communication, formed the British army in South Africa. At
+Mafeking some 900 irregulars stood at bay, with another force about
+as large under Plumer a little to the north, endeavouring to
+relieve them. At Beira, a Portuguese port through which we have
+treaty rights by which we may pass troops, a curious mixed force of
+Australians, New Zealanders and others was being disembarked and
+pushed through to Rhodesia, so as to cut off any trek which the
+Boers might make in that direction. Carrington, a fierce old
+soldier with a large experience of South African warfare, was in
+command of this picturesque force, which moved amid tropical
+forests over crocodile-haunted streams, while their comrades were
+shivering in the cold southerly winds of a Cape winter. Neither our
+Government, our people, nor the world understood at the beginning
+of this campaign how grave was the task which we had undertaken,
+but, having once realised it, it must be acknowledged that it was
+carried through in no half-hearted way. So vast was the scene of
+operations that the Canadian might almost find his native climate
+at one end of it and the Queenslander at the other.
+
+To follow in close detail the movements of the Boers and the
+counter movements of the British in the southeast portion of the
+Free State during this period would tax the industry of the
+historian and the patience of the reader. Let it be told with as
+much general truth and as little geographical detail as possible.
+The narrative which is interrupted by an eternal reference to the
+map is a narrative spoiled.
+
+The main force of the Freestaters had assembled in the
+north-eastern corner of their State, and from this they made their
+sally southwards, attacking or avoiding at their pleasure the
+eastern line of British outposts. Their first engagement, that of
+Sanna's Post, was a great and deserved success. Three days later
+they secured the five companies at Reddersberg. Warned in time, the
+other small British bodies closed in upon their supports, and the
+railway line, that nourishing artery which was necessary for the
+very existence of the army, was held too strongly for attack. The
+Bethulie Bridge was a particularly important point; but though the
+Boers approached it, and even went the length of announcing
+officially that they had destroyed it, it was not actually
+attacked. At Wepener, however, on the Basutoland border, they found
+an isolated force, and proceeded at once, according to their
+custom, to hem it in and to bombard it, until one of their three
+great allies, want of food, want of water, or want of cartridges,
+should compel a surrender.
+
+On this occasion, however, the Boers had undertaken a task which
+was beyond their strength. The troops at Wepener were one thousand
+seven hundred in number, and formidable in quality. The place had
+been occupied by part of Brabant's Colonial division, consisting of
+hardy irregulars, men of the stuff of the defenders of Mafeking.
+Such men are too shrewd to be herded into an untenable position and
+too valiant to surrender a tenable one. The force was commanded by
+a dashing soldier, Colonel Dalgety, of the Cape Mounted Rifles, as
+tough a fighter as his famous namesake. There were with him nearly
+a thousand men of Brabant's Horse, four hundred of the Cape Mounted
+Rifles, four hundred Kaffrarian Horse, with some scouts, and one
+hundred regulars, including twenty invaluable Sappers. They were
+strong in guns--two seven-pounders, two naval twelve-pounders, two
+fifteen-pounders and several machine guns. The position which they
+had taken up, Jammersberg, three miles north of Wepener, was a very
+strong one, and it would have taken a larger force than De Wet had
+at his disposal to turn them out of it. The defence had been
+arranged by Major Cedric Maxwell, of the Sappers; and though the
+huge perimeter, nearly eight miles, made its defence by so small a
+force a most difficult matter, the result proved how good his
+dispositions were.
+
+At the same time, the Boers came on with every confidence of
+victory, for they had a superiority in guns and an immense
+superiority in men. But after a day or two of fierce struggle their
+attack dwindled down into a mere blockade. On April 9th they
+attacked furiously, both by day and by night, and on the 10th the
+pressure was equally severe. In these two days occurred the vast
+majority of the casualties. But the defenders took cover in a way
+to which British regulars have not yet attained, and they outshot
+their opponents both with their rifles and their cannon. Captain
+Lukin's management of the artillery was particularly skilful. The
+weather was vile and the hastily dug trenches turned into ditches
+half full of water, but neither discomfort nor danger shook the
+courage of the gallant colonials. Assault after assault was
+repulsed, and the scourging of the cannon was met with stolid
+endurance. The Boers excelled all their previous feats in the
+handling of artillery by dragging two guns up to the summit of the
+lofty Jammersberg, whence they fired down upon the camp. Nearly all
+the horses were killed and three hundred of the troopers were hit,
+a number which is double that of the official return, for the
+simple reason that the spirit of the force was so high that only
+those who were very severely wounded reported themselves as wounded
+at all. None but the serious cases ever reached the hands of Dr.
+Faskally, who did admirable work with very slender resources. How
+many the enemy lost can never be certainly known, but as they
+pushed home several attacks it is impossible to imagine that their
+losses were less than those of the victorious defenders. At the end
+of seventeen days of mud and blood the brave irregulars saw an
+empty laager and abandoned trenches. Their own resistance and the
+advance of Brabant to their rescue had caused a hasty retreat of
+the enemy. Wepener, Mafeking, Kimberley, the taking of the first
+guns at Ladysmith, the deeds of the Imperial Light Horse--it cannot
+be denied that our irregular South African forces have a brilliant
+record for the war. They are associated with many successes and
+with few disasters. Their fine record cannot, I think, be fairly
+ascribed to any greater hardihood which one portion of our race has
+when compared with another, for a South African must admit that in
+the best colonial corps at least half the men were Britons of
+Britain. In the Imperial Light Horse the proportion was very much
+higher. But what may fairly be argued is that their exploits have
+proved, what the American war proved long ago, that the German
+conception of discipline is an obsolete fetish, and that the spirit
+of free men, whose individualism has been encouraged rather than
+crushed, is equal to any feat of arms. The clerks and miners and
+engineers who went up Elandslaagte Hill without bayonets, shoulder
+to shoulder with the Gordons, and who, according to Sir George
+White, saved Ladysmith on January 6th, have shown for ever that
+with men of our race it is the spirit within, and not the drill or
+the discipline, that makes a formidable soldier. An intelligent
+appreciation of the fact might in the course of the next few years
+save us as much money as would go far to pay for the war.
+
+It may well be asked how for so long a period as seventeen days the
+British could tolerate a force to the rear of them when with their
+great superiority of numbers they could have readily sent an army
+to drive it away. The answer must be that Lord Roberts had
+despatched his trusty lieutenant, Kitchener, to Aliwal, whence he
+had been in heliographic communication with Wepener, that he was
+sure that the place could hold out, and that he was using it, as he
+did Kimberley, to hold the enemy while he was making his plans for
+their destruction. This was the bait to tempt them to their ruin.
+Had the trap not been a little slow in closing, the war in the Free
+State might have ended then and there. From the 9th to the 25th the
+Boers were held in front of Wepener. Let us trace the movements of
+the other British detachments during that time.
+
+Brabant's force, with Hart's brigade, which had been diverted on
+its way to Kimberley, where it was to form part of Hunter's
+division, was moving on the south towards Wepener, advancing
+through Rouxville, but going slowly for fear of scaring the Boers
+away before they were sufficiently compromised. Chermside's 3rd
+division approached from the north-west, moving out from the
+railway at Bethany, and passing through Reddersberg towards
+Dewetsdorp, from which it would directly threaten the Boer line of
+retreat. The movement was made with reassuring slowness and
+gentleness, as when the curved hand approaches the unconscious fly.
+And then suddenly, on April 21st, Lord Roberts let everything go.
+Had the action of the agents been as swift and as energetic as the
+mind of the planner, De Wet could not have escaped us.
+
+What held Lord Roberts's hand for some few days after he was ready
+to strike was the abominable weather. Rain was falling in sheets,
+and those who know South African roads, South African mud, and
+South African drifts will understand how impossible swift military
+movements are under those circumstances. But with the first
+clearing of the clouds the hills to the south and east of
+Bloemfontein were dotted with our scouts. Rundle with his 8th
+division was brought swiftly up from the south, united with
+Chermside to the east of Reddersberg, and the whole force,
+numbering 13,000 rifles with thirty guns, advanced upon Dewetsdorp,
+Rundle, as senior officer, being in command. As they marched the
+blue hills of Wepener lined the sky some twenty miles to the south,
+eloquent to every man of the aim and object of their march.
+
+On April 20th, Rundle as he advanced found a force with artillery
+across his path to Dewetsdorp. It is always difficult to calculate
+the number of hidden men and lurking guns which go to make up a
+Boer army, but with some knowledge of their total at Wepener it was
+certain that the force opposed to him must be very inferior to his
+own. At Constantia Farm, where he found them in position, it is
+difficult to imagine that there were more than three thousand men.
+Their left flank was their weak point, as a movement on that side
+would cut them off from Wepener and drive them up towards our main
+force in the north. One would have thought that a containing force
+of three thousand men, and a flanking movement from eight thousand,
+would have turned them out, as it has turned them out so often
+before and since. Yet a long-range action began on Friday, April
+20th, and lasted the whole of the 21st, the 22nd, and the 23rd, in
+which we sustained few losses, but made no impression upon the
+enemy. Thirty of the 1st Worcesters wandered at night into the
+wrong line, and were made prisoners, but with this exception the
+four days of noisy fighting does not appear to have cost either
+side fifty casualties. It is probable that the deliberation with
+which the operations were conducted was due to Rundle's
+instructions to wait until the other forces were in position. His
+subsequent movements showed that he was not a General who feared to
+strike.
+
+On Sunday night (April 22nd) Pole-Carew sallied out from
+Bloemfontein on a line which would take him round the right flank
+of the Boers who were facing Rundle. The Boers had, however,
+occupied a strong position at Leeuw Kop, which barred his path, so
+that the Dewetsdorp Boers were covering the Wepener Boers, and
+being in turn covered by the Boers of Leeuw Kop. Before anything
+could be done, they must be swept out of the way. Pole-Carew is one
+of those finds which help to compensate us for the war. Handsome,
+dashing, debonnaire, he approaches a field of battle as a
+light-hearted schoolboy approaches a football field. On this
+occasion he acted with energy and discretion. His cavalry
+threatened the flanks of the enemy, and Stephenson's brigade
+carried the position in front at a small cost. On the same evening
+General French arrived and took over the force, which consisted now
+of Stephenson's and the Guards brigades (making up the 11th
+division), with two brigades of cavalry and one corps of mounted
+infantry. The next day, the 23rd, the advance was resumed, the
+cavalry bearing the brunt of the fighting. That gallant corps,
+Roberts's Horse, whose behaviour at Sanna's Post had been
+admirable, again distinguished itself, losing among others its
+Colonel, Brazier Creagh. On the 24th again it was to the horsemen
+that the honour and the casualties fell. The 9th Lancers, the
+regular cavalry regiment which bears away the honours of the war,
+lost several men and officers, and the 8th Hussars also suffered,
+but the Boers were driven from their position, and lost more
+heavily in this skirmish than in some of the larger battles of the
+campaign. The 'pom-poms,' which had been supplied to us by the
+belated energy of the Ordnance Department, were used with some
+effect in this engagement, and the Boers learned for the first time
+how unnerving are those noisy but not particularly deadly fireworks
+which they had so often crackled round the ears of our gunners.
+
+On the Wednesday morning Rundle, with the addition of Pole-Carew's
+division, was strong enough for any attack, while French was in a
+position upon the flank. Every requisite for a great victory was
+there except the presence of an enemy. The Wepener siege had been
+raised and the force in front of Rundle had disappeared as only
+Boer armies can disappear. The combined movement was an admirable
+piece of work on the part of the enemy. Finding no force in front
+of them, the combined troops of French, Rundle, and Chermside
+occupied Dewetsdorp, where the latter remained, while the others
+pushed on to Thabanchu, the storm centre from which all our
+troubles had begun nearly a month before. All the way they knew
+that De Wet's retreating army was just in front of them, and they
+knew also that a force had been sent out from Bloemfontein to
+Thabanchu to head off the Boers. Lord Roberts might naturally
+suppose, when he had formed two cordons through which De Wet must
+pass, that one or other must hold him. But with extraordinary skill
+and mobility De Wet, aided by the fact that every inhabitant was a
+member of his intelligence department, slipped through the double
+net which had been laid for him. The first net was not in its place
+in time, and the second was too small to hold him.
+
+While Rundle and French had advanced on Dewetsdorp as described,
+the other force which was intended to head off De Wet had gone
+direct to Thabanchu. The advance began by a movement of Ian
+Hamilton on April 22nd with eight hundred mounted infantry upon the
+waterworks. The enemy, who held the hills beyond, allowed
+Hamilton's force to come right down to the Modder before they
+opened fire from three guns. The mounted infantry fell back, and
+encamped for the night out of range. [Footnote: This was a
+remarkable exhibition of the harmlessness of shell-fire against
+troops in open formation. I myself saw at least forty shells, all
+of which burst, fall among the ranks of the mounted infantry, who
+retired at a contemptuous walk. There were no casualties.] Before
+morning they were reinforced by Smith-Dorrien's brigade (Gordons,
+Canadians, and Shropshires--the Cornwalls had been left behind) and
+some more mounted Infantry. With daylight a fine advance was begun,
+the brigade moving up in very extended order and the mounted men
+turning the right flank of the defence. By evening we had regained
+the waterworks, a most important point for Bloemfontein, and we
+held all the line of hills which command it. This strong position
+would not have been gained so easily if it had not been for
+Pole-Carew's and French's actions two days before, on their way to
+join Rundle, which enabled them to turn it from the south.
+
+Ian Hamilton, who had already done good service in the war, having
+commanded the infantry at Elandslaagte, and been one of the most
+prominent leaders in the defence of Ladysmith, takes from this time
+onwards a more important and a more independent position. A thin,
+aquiline man, of soft voice and gentle manners, he had already
+proved more than once during his adventurous career that he not
+only possessed in a high degree the courage of the soldier, but
+also the equanimity and decision of the born leader. A languid
+elegance in his bearing covered a shrewd brain and a soul of fire.
+A distorted and half-paralysed hand reminded the observer that
+Hamilton, as a young lieutenant, had known at Majuba what it was to
+face the Boer rifles. Now, in his forty-seventh year, he had
+returned, matured and formidable, to reverse the results of that
+first deplorable campaign. This was the man to whom Lord Roberts
+had entrusted the command of that powerful flanking column which
+was eventually to form the right wing of his main advance. Being
+reinforced upon the morning after the capture of the Waterworks by
+the Highland Brigade, the Cornwalls, and two heavy naval guns, his
+whole force amounted to not less than seven thousand men. From
+these he detached a garrison for the Waterworks, and with the rest
+he continued his march over the hilly country which lies between
+them and Thabanchu.
+
+One position, Israel's Poort, a nek between two hills, was held
+against them on April 25th, but was gained without much trouble,
+the Canadians losing one killed and two wounded. Colonel Otter,
+their gallant leader, was one of the latter, while Marshall's
+Horse, a colonial corps raised in Grahamstown, had no fewer than
+seven of their officers and several men killed or wounded. Next
+morning the town of Thabanchu was seized, and Hamilton found
+himself upon the direct line of the Boer retreat. He seized the
+pass which commands the road, and all next day he waited eagerly,
+and the hearts of his men beat high when at last they saw a long
+trail of dust winding up to them from the south. At last the wily
+De Wet had been headed off! Deep and earnest were the curses when
+out of the dust there emerged a khaki column of horsemen, and it
+was realised that this was French's pursuing force, closely
+followed by Rundle's infantry from Dewetsdorp. The Boers had
+slipped round and were already to the north of us.
+
+It is impossible to withhold our admiration for the way in which
+the Boer force was manoeuvred throughout this portion of the
+campaign. The mixture of circumspection and audacity, the way in
+which French and Rundle were hindered until the Wepener force had
+disengaged itself, the manner in which these covering forces were
+then withdrawn, and finally the clever way in which they all
+slipped past Hamilton, make a brilliant bit of strategy. Louis
+Botha, the generalissimo, held all the strings in his hand, and the
+way in which he pulled them showed that his countrymen had chosen
+the right man for that high office, and that his was a master
+spirit even among those fine natural warriors who led the separate
+commandos.
+
+Having got to the north of the British forces Botha made no effort
+to get away, and refused to be hustled by a reconnaissance
+developing into an attack, which French made upon April 27th. In a
+skirmish the night before Kitchener's Horse had lost fourteen men,
+and the action of the 27th cost us about as many casualties. It
+served to show that the Boer force was a compact body some six or
+seven thousand strong, which withdrew in a leisurely fashion, and
+took up a defensive position at Houtnek, some miles further on.
+French remained at Thabanchu, from which he afterwards joined Lord
+Roberts' advance, while Hamilton now assumed complete command of
+the flanking column, with which he proceeded to march north upon
+Winburg.
+
+The Houtnek position is dominated upon the left of the advancing
+British force by Thoba Mountain, and it was this point which was
+the centre of Hamilton's attack. It was most gallantly seized by
+Kitchener's Horse, who were quickly supported by Smith-Dorrien's
+men. The mountain became the scene of a brisk action, and night
+fell before the crest was cleared. At dawn upon May 1st the
+fighting was resumed, and the position was carried by a determined
+advance of the Shropshires, the Canadians, and the Gordons: the
+Boers escaping down the reverse slope of the hill came under a
+heavy fire of our infantry, and fifty of them were wounded or
+taken. It was in this action, during the fighting on the hill, that
+Captain Towse, of the Gordons, though shot through the eyes and
+totally blind, encouraged his men to charge through a group of the
+enemy who had gathered round them. After this victory Hamilton's
+men, who had fought for seven days out of ten, halted for a rest at
+Jacobsrust, where they were joined by Broadwood's cavalry and Bruce
+Hamilton's infantry brigade. Ian Hamilton's column now contained
+two infantry brigades (Smith-Dorrien's and Bruce Hamilton's),
+Ridley's Mounted Infantry, Broadwood's Cavalry Brigade, five
+batteries of artillery, two heavy guns, altogether 13,000 men. With
+this force in constant touch with Botha's rearguard, Ian Hamilton
+pushed on once more on May 4th. On May 5th he fought a brisk
+cavalry skirmish, in which Kitchener's Horse and the 12th Lancers
+distinguished themselves, and on the same day he took possession of
+Winburg, thus covering the right of Lord Roberts's great advance.
+
+The distribution of the troops on the eastern side of the Free
+State was, at the time of this the final advance of the main army,
+as follows--Ian Hamilton with his mounted infantry, Smith-Dorrien's
+brigade, Macdonald's brigade, Bruce Hamilton's brigade, and
+Broadwood's cavalry were at Winburg. Rundle was at Thabanchu, and
+Brabant's colonial division was moving up to the same point.
+Chermside was at Dewetsdorp, and had detached a force under Lord
+Castletown to garrison Wepener. Hart occupied Smithfield, whence he
+and his brigade were shortly to be transferred to the Kimberley
+force. Altogether there could not have been fewer than thirty
+thousand men engaged in clearing and holding down this part of the
+country. French's cavalry and Pole-Carew's division had returned to
+take part in the central advance.
+
+Before entering upon a description of that great and decisive
+movement, one small action calls for comment. This was the cutting
+off of twenty men of Lumsden's Horse in a reconnaissance at Karee.
+The small post under Lieutenant Crane found themselves by some
+misunderstanding isolated in the midst of the enemy. Refusing to
+hoist the flag of shame, they fought their way out, losing half
+their number, while of the other half it is said that there was not
+one who could not show bullet marks upon his clothes or person. The
+men of this corps, volunteer Anglo-Indians, had abandoned the ease
+and even luxury of Eastern life for the hard fare and rough
+fighting of this most trying campaign. In coming they had set the
+whole empire an object-lesson in spirit, and now on their first
+field they set the army an example of military virtue. The proud
+traditions of Outram's Volunteers have been upheld by the men of
+Lumsden's Horse. Another minor action which cannot be ignored is
+the defence of a convoy on April 29th by the Derbyshire Yeomanry
+(Major Dugdale) and a company of the Scots Guards. The wagons were
+on their way to Rundle when they were attacked at a point about ten
+miles west of Thabanchu. The small guard beat off their assailants
+in the most gallant fashion, and held their own until relieved by
+Brabazon upon the following morning.
+
+This phase of the war was marked by a certain change in the temper
+of the British. Nothing could have been milder than the original
+intentions and proclamations of Lord Roberts, and he was most ably
+seconded in his attempts at conciliation by General Pretyman, who
+had been made civil administrator of the State. There was evidence,
+however, that this kindness had been construed as weakness by some
+of the burghers, and during the Boer incursion to Wepener many who
+had surrendered a worthless firearm reappeared with the Mauser
+which had been concealed in some crafty hiding-place. Troops were
+fired at from farmhouses which flew the white flag, and the good
+housewife remained behind to charge the 'rooinek' extortionate
+prices for milk and fodder while her husband shot at him from the
+hills. It was felt that the burghers might have peace or might have
+war, but could not have both simultaneously. Some examples were
+made therefore of offending farmhouses, and stock was confiscated
+where there was evidence of double dealing upon the part of the
+owner. In a country where property is a more serious thing than
+life, these measures, together with more stringent rules about the
+possession of horses and arms, did much to stamp out the chances of
+an insurrection in our rear. The worst sort of peace is an enforced
+peace, but if that can be established time and justice may do the
+rest.
+
+The operations which have been here described may be finally summed
+up in one short paragraph. A Boer army came south of the British
+line and besieged a British garrison. Three British forces, those
+of French, Rundle, and Ian Hamilton, were despatched to cut it off.
+It successfully threaded its way among them and escaped. It was
+followed to the northward as far as the town of Winburg, which
+remained in the British possession. Lord Roberts had failed in his
+plan of cutting off De Wet's army, but, at the expense of many
+marches and skirmishes, the south-east of the State was cleared of
+the enemy.
+
+CHAPTER 24.
+
+THE SIEGE OF MAFEKING.
+
+This small place, which sprang in the course of a few weeks from
+obscurity to fame, is situated upon the long line of railway which
+connects Kimberley in the south with Rhodesia in the north. In
+character it resembles one of those western American townlets which
+possess small present assets but immense aspirations. In its litter
+of corrugated-iron roofs, and in the church and the racecourse,
+which are the first-fruits everywhere of Anglo-Celtic civilisation,
+one sees the seeds of the great city of the future. It is the
+obvious depot for the western Transvaal upon one side, and the
+starting-point for all attempts upon the Kalahari Desert upon the
+other. The Transvaal border runs within a few miles.
+
+It is not clear why the imperial authorities should desire to hold
+this place, since it has no natural advantages to help the defence,
+but lies exposed in a widespread plain. A glance at the map must
+show that the railway line would surely be cut both to the north
+and south of the town, and the garrison isolated at a point some
+two hundred and fifty miles from any reinforcements. Considering
+that the Boers could throw any strength of men or guns against the
+place, it seemed certain that if they seriously desired to take
+possession of it they could do so. Under ordinary circumstances any
+force shut up there was doomed to capture. But what may have seemed
+short-sighted policy became the highest wisdom, owing to the
+extraordinary tenacity and resource of Baden-Powell, the officer in
+command. Through his exertions the town acted as a bait to the
+Boers, and occupied a considerable force in a useless siege at a
+time when their presence at other seats of war might have proved
+disastrous to the British cause.
+
+Colonel Baden-Powell is a soldier of a type which is exceedingly
+popular with the British public. A skilled hunter and an expert at
+many games, there was always something of the sportsman in his keen
+appreciation of war. In the Matabele campaign he had out-scouted
+the savage scouts and found his pleasure in tracking them among
+their native mountains, often alone and at night, trusting to his
+skill in springing from rock to rock in his rubber-soled shoes to
+save him from their pursuit. There was a brain quality in his
+bravery which is rare among our officers. Full of veld craft and
+resource, it was as difficult to outwit as it was to outfight him.
+But there was another curious side to his complex nature. The
+French have said of one of their heroes, 'Il avait cette graine de
+folie dans sa bravoure que les Francais aiment,' and the words
+might have been written of Powell. An impish humour broke out in
+him, and the mischievous schoolboy alternated with the warrior and
+the administrator. He met the Boer commandos with chaff and jokes
+which were as disconcerting as his wire entanglements and his
+rifle-pits. The amazing variety of his personal accomplishments was
+one of his most striking characteristics. From drawing caricatures
+with both hands simultaneously, or skirt dancing to leading a
+forlorn hope, nothing came amiss to him; and he had that magnetic
+quality by which the leader imparts something of his virtues to his
+men. Such was the man who held Mafeking for the Queen.
+
+In a very early stage, before the formal declaration of war, the
+enemy had massed several commandos upon the western border, the men
+being drawn from Zeerust, Rustenburg, and Lichtenburg.
+Baden-Powell, with the aid of an excellent group of special
+officers, who included Colonel Gould Adams, Lord Edward Cecil, the
+soldier son of England's Premier, and Colonel Hore, had done all
+that was possible to put the place into a state of defence. In this
+he had immense assistance from Benjamin Weil, a well known South
+African contractor, who had shown great energy in provisioning the
+town. On the other hand, the South African Government displayed the
+same stupidity or treason which had been exhibited in the case of
+Kimberley, and had met all demands for guns and reinforcements with
+foolish doubts as to the need of such precautions. In the endeavour
+to supply these pressing wants the first small disaster of the
+campaign was encountered. On October 12th, the day after the
+declaration of war, an armoured train conveying two 7-pounders for
+the Mafeking defences was derailed and captured by a Boer raiding
+party at Kraaipan, a place forty miles south of their destination.
+The enemy shelled the shattered train until after five hours
+Captain Nesbitt, who was in command, and his men, some twenty in
+number, surrendered. It was a small affair, but it derived
+importance from being the first blood shed and the first tactical
+success of the war.
+
+The garrison of the town, whose fame will certainly live in the
+history of South Africa, contained no regular soldiers at all with
+the exception of the small group of excellent officers. They
+consisted of irregular troops, three hundred and forty of the
+Protectorate Regiment, one hundred and seventy Police, and two
+hundred volunteers, made up of that singular mixture of
+adventurers, younger sons, broken gentlemen, and irresponsible
+sportsmen who have always been the voortrekkers of the British
+Empire. These men were of the same stamp as those other admirable
+bodies of natural fighters who did so well in Rhodesia, in Natal,
+and in the Cape. With them there was associated in the defence the
+Town Guard, who included the able-bodied shopkeepers, businessmen,
+and residents, the whole amounting to about nine hundred men. Their
+artillery was feeble in the extreme, two 7-pounder toy guns and six
+machine guns, but the spirit of the men and the resource of their
+leaders made up for every disadvantage. Colonel Vyvyan and Major
+Panzera planned the defences, and the little trading town soon
+began to take on the appearance of a fortress.
+
+On October 13th the Boers appeared before Mafeking. On the same day
+Colonel Baden-Powell sent two truckloads of dynamite out of the
+place. They were fired into by the invaders, with the result that
+they exploded. On October 14th the pickets around the town were
+driven in by the Boers. On this the armoured train and a squadron
+of the Protectorate Regiment went out to support the pickets and
+drove the Boers before them. A body of the latter doubled back and
+interposed between the British and Mafeking, but two fresh troops
+with a 7-pounder throwing shrapnel drove them off. In this spirited
+little action the garrison lost two killed and fourteen wounded,
+but they inflicted considerable damage on the enemy. To Captain
+Williams, Captain FitzClarence, and Lord Charles Bentinck great
+credit is due for the way in which they handled their men; but the
+whole affair was ill advised, for if a disaster had occurred
+Mafeking must have fallen, being left without a garrison. No
+possible results which could come from such a sortie could justify
+the risk which was run.
+
+On October 16th the siege began in earnest. On that date the Boers
+brought up two 12-pounder guns, and the first of that interminable
+flight of shells fell into the town. The enemy got possession of
+the water supply, but the garrison had already dug wells. Before
+October 20th five thousand Boers, under the formidable Cronje, had
+gathered round the town. 'Surrender to avoid bloodshed' was his
+message. 'When is the bloodshed going to begin?' asked Powell. When
+the Boers had been shelling the town for some weeks the
+lighthearted Colonel sent out to say that if they went on any
+longer he should be compelled to regard it as equivalent to a
+declaration of war. It is to be hoped that Cronje also possessed
+some sense of humour, or else he must have been as sorely puzzled
+by his eccentric opponent as the Spanish generals were by the
+vagaries of Lord Peterborough.
+
+Among the many difficulties which had to be met by the defenders of
+the town the most serious was the fact that the position had a
+circumference of five or six miles to be held by about one thousand
+men against a force who at their own time and their own place could
+at any moment attempt to gain a footing. An ingenious system of
+small forts was devised to meet the situation. Each of these held
+from ten to forty riflemen, and was furnished with bomb-proofs and
+covered ways. The central bomb-proof was connected by telephone
+with all the outlying ones, so as to save the use of orderlies. A
+system of bells was arranged by which each quarter of the town was
+warned when a shell was coming in time to enable the inhabitants to
+scuttle off to shelter. Every detail showed the ingenuity of the
+controlling mind. The armoured train, painted green and tied round
+with scrub, stood unperceived among the clumps of bushes which
+surrounded the town.
+
+On October 24th a savage bombardment commenced, which lasted with
+intermissions for seven months. The Boers had brought an enormous
+gun across from Pretoria, throwing a 96-pound shell, and this, with
+many smaller pieces, played upon the town. The result was as futile
+as our own artillery fire has so often been when directed against
+the Boers.
+
+As the Mafeking guns were too weak to answer the enemy's fire, the
+only possible reply lay in a sortie, and upon this Colonel Powell
+decided. It was carried out with great gallantry on the evening of
+October 27th, when about a hundred men under Captain FitzClarence
+moved out against the Boer trenches with instructions to use the
+bayonet only. The position was carried with a rush, and many of the
+Boers bayoneted before they could disengage themselves from the
+tarpaulins which covered them. The trenches behind fired wildly in
+the darkness, and it is probable that as many of their own men as
+of ours were hit by their rifle fire. The total loss in this
+gallant affair was six killed, eleven wounded, and two prisoners.
+The loss of the enemy, though shrouded as usual in darkness, was
+certainly very much higher.
+
+On October 31st the Boers ventured upon an attack on Cannon Kopje,
+which is a small fort and eminence to the south of the town. It was
+defended by Colonel Walford, of the British South African Police,
+with fifty-seven of his men and three small guns. The attack was
+repelled with heavy loss to the Boers. The British casualties were
+six killed and five wounded.
+
+Their experience in this attack seems to have determined the Boers
+to make no further expensive attempts to rush the town, and for
+some weeks the siege degenerated into a blockade. Cronje had been
+recalled for more important work, and Commandant Snyman had taken
+over the uncompleted task. From time to time the great gun tossed
+its huge shells into the town, but boardwood walls and
+corrugated-iron roofs minimise the dangers of a bombardment. On
+November 3rd the garrison rushed the Brickfields, which had been
+held by the enemy's sharpshooters, and on the 7th another small
+sally kept the game going. On the 18th Powell sent a message to
+Snyman that he could not take the town by sitting and looking at
+it. At the same time he despatched a message to the Boer forces
+generally, advising them to return to their homes and their
+families. Some of the commandos had gone south to assist Cronje in
+his stand against Methuen, and the siege languished more and more,
+until it was woken up by a desperate sortie on December 26th, which
+caused the greatest loss which the garrison had sustained. Once
+more the lesson was to be enforced that with modern weapons and
+equality of forces it is always long odds on the defence.
+
+On this date a vigorous attack was made upon one of the Boer forts
+on the north. There seems to be little doubt that the enemy had
+some inkling of our intention, as the fort was found to have been
+so strengthened as to be impregnable without scaling ladders. The
+attacking force consisted of two squadrons of the Protectorate
+Regiment and one of the Bechuanaland Rifles, backed up by three
+guns. So desperate was the onslaught that of the actual attacking
+party--a forlorn hope, if ever there was one--fifty-three out of
+eighty were killed and wounded, twenty-five of the former and
+twenty-eight of the latter. Several of that gallant band of
+officers who had been the soul of the defence were among the
+injured. Captain FitzClarence was wounded, Vernon, Sandford, and
+Paton were killed, all at the very muzzles of the enemy's guns. It
+must have been one of the bitterest moments of Baden-Powell's life
+when he shut his field-glass and said, 'Let the ambulance go out!'
+
+Even this heavy blow did not damp the spirits nor diminish the
+energies of the defence, though it must have warned Baden-Powell
+that he could not afford to drain his small force by any more
+expensive attempts at the offensive, and that from then onwards he
+must content himself by holding grimly on until Plumer from the
+north or Methuen from the south should at last be able to stretch
+out to him a helping hand. Vigilant and indomitable, throwing away
+no possible point in the game which he was playing, the new year
+found him and his hardy garrison sternly determined to keep the
+flag flying.
+
+January and February offer in their records that monotony of
+excitement which is the fate of every besieged town. On one day the
+shelling was a little more, on another a little less. Sometimes
+they escaped scatheless, sometimes the garrison found itself the
+poorer by the loss of Captain Girdwood or Trooper Webb or some
+other gallant soldier. Occasionally they had their little triumph
+when a too curious Dutchman, peering for an instant from his cover
+to see the effect of his shot, was carried back in the ambulance to
+the laager. On Sunday a truce was usually observed, and the snipers
+who had exchanged rifle-shots all the week met occasionally on that
+day with good-humoured chaff. Snyman, the Boer General, showed none
+of that chivalry at Mafeking which distinguished the gallant old
+Joubert at Ladysmith. Not only was there no neutral camp for women
+or sick, but it is beyond all doubt or question that the Boer guns
+were deliberately turned upon the women's quarters inside Mafeking
+in order to bring pressure upon the inhabitants. Many women and
+children were sacrificed to this brutal policy, which must in
+fairness be set to the account of the savage leader, and not of the
+rough but kindly folk with whom we were fighting. In every race
+there are individual ruffians, and it would be a political mistake
+to allow our action to be influenced or our feelings permanently
+embittered by their crimes. It is from the man himself, and not
+from his country, that an account should be exacted.
+
+The garrison, in the face of increasing losses and decreasing food,
+lost none of the high spirits which it reflected from its
+commander. The programme of a single day of jubilee--Heaven only
+knows what they had to hold jubilee over--shows a cricket match in
+the morning, sports in the afternoon, a concert in the evening, and
+a dance, given by the bachelor officers, to wind up. Baden-Powell
+himself seems to have descended from the eyrie from which, like a
+captain on the bridge, he rang bells and telephoned orders, to
+bring the house down with a comic song and a humorous recitation.
+The ball went admirably, save that there was an interval to repel
+an attack which disarranged the programme. Sports were zealously
+cultivated, and the grimy inhabitants of casemates and trenches
+were pitted against each other at cricket or football. [Footnote:
+Sunday cricket so shocked Snyman that he threatened to fire upon it
+if it were continued.] The monotony was broken by the occasional
+visits of a postman, who appeared or vanished from the vast barren
+lands to the west of the town, which could not all be guarded by
+the besiegers. Sometimes a few words from home came to cheer the
+hearts of the exiles, and could be returned by the same uncertain
+and expensive means. The documents which found their way up were
+not always of an essential or even of a welcome character. At least
+one man received an unpaid bill from an angry tailor.
+
+In one particular Mafeking had, with much smaller resources,
+rivalled Kimberley. An ordnance factory had been started, formed in
+the railway workshops, and conducted by Connely and Cloughlan, of
+the Locomotive Department. Daniels, of the police, supplemented
+their efforts by making both powder and fuses. The factory turned
+out shells, and eventually constructed a 5.5-inch smooth-bore gun,
+which threw a round shell with great accuracy to a considerable
+range. April found the garrison, in spite of all losses, as
+efficient and as resolute as it had been in October. So close were
+the advanced trenches upon either side that both parties had
+recourse to the old-fashioned hand grenades, thrown by the Boers,
+and cast on a fishing-line by ingenious Sergeant Page, of the
+Protectorate Regiment. Sometimes the besiegers and the number of
+guns diminished, forces being detached to prevent the advance of
+Plumer's relieving column from the north; but as those who remained
+held their forts, which it was beyond the power of the British to
+storm, the garrison was now much the better for the alleviation.
+Putting Mafeking for Ladysmith and Plumer for Buller, the situation
+was not unlike that which had existed in Natal.
+
+At this point some account might be given of the doings of that
+northern force whose situation was so remote that even the
+ubiquitous correspondent hardly appears to have reached it. No
+doubt the book will eventually make up for the neglect of the
+journal, but some short facts may be given here of the Rhodesian
+column. Their action did not affect the course of the war, but they
+clung like bulldogs to a most difficult task, and eventually, when
+strengthened by the relieving column, made their way to Mafeking.
+
+The force was originally raised for the purpose of defending
+Rhodesia, and it consisted of fine material pioneers, farmers, and
+miners from the great new land which had been added through the
+energy of Mr. Rhodes to the British Empire. Many of the men were
+veterans of the native wars, and all were imbued with a hardy and
+adventurous spirit. On the other hand, the men of the northern and
+western Transvaal, whom they were called upon to face the burghers
+of Watersberg and Zoutpansberg, were tough frontiersmen living in a
+land where a dinner was shot, not bought. Shaggy, hairy,
+half-savage men, handling a rifle as a mediaeval Englishman handled
+a bow, and skilled in every wile of veld craft, they were as
+formidable opponents as the world could show.
+
+On the war breaking out the first thought of the leaders in
+Rhodesia was to save as much of the line which was their connection
+through Mafeking with the south as was possible. For this purpose
+an armoured train was despatched only three days after the
+expiration of the ultimatum to the point four hundred miles south
+of Bulawayo, where the frontiers of the Transvaal and of
+Bechuanaland join. Colonel Holdsworth commanded the small British
+force. The Boers, a thousand or so in number, had descended upon
+the railway, and an action followed in which the train appears to
+have had better luck than has usually attended these ill-fated
+contrivances. The Boer commando was driven back and a number were
+killed. It was probably news of this affair, and not anything which
+had occurred at Mafeking, which caused those rumours of gloom at
+Pretoria very shortly after the outbreak of hostilities. An agency
+telegraphed that women were weeping in the streets of the Boer
+capital. We had not then realised how soon and how often we should
+see the same sight in Pall Mall.
+
+The adventurous armoured train pressed on as far as Lobatsi, where
+it found the bridges destroyed; so it returned to its original
+position, having another brush with the Boer commandos, and again,
+in some marvellous way, escaping its obvious fate. From then until
+the new year the line was kept open by an admirable system of
+patrolling to within a hundred miles or so of Mafeking. An
+aggressive spirit and a power of dashing initiative were shown in
+the British operations at this side of the scene of war such as
+have too often been absent elsewhere. At Sekwani, on November 24th,
+a considerable success was gained by a surprise planned and carried
+out by Colonel Holdsworth. The Boer laager was approached and
+attacked in the early morning by a force of one hundred and twenty
+frontiersmen, and so effective was their fire that the Boers
+estimated their numbers at several thousand. Thirty Boers were
+killed or wounded, and the rest scattered.
+
+While the railway line was held in this way there had been some
+skirmishing also on the northern frontier of the Transvaal. Shortly
+after the outbreak of the war the gallant Blackburn, scouting with
+six comrades in thick bush, found himself in the presence of a
+considerable commando. The British concealed themselves by the
+path, but Blackburn's foot was seen by a keen-eyed Kaffir, who
+pointed it out to his masters. A sudden volley riddled Blackburn
+with bullets; but his men stayed by him and drove off the enemy.
+Blackburn dictated an official report of the action, and then died.
+
+In the same region a small force under Captain Hare was cut off by
+a body of Boers. Of the twenty men most got away, but the chaplain
+J.W. Leary, Lieutenant Haserick (who behaved with admirable
+gallantry), and six men were taken. [Footnote: Mr. Leary was
+wounded in the foot by a shell. The German artillerist entered the
+hut in which he lay. 'Here's a bit of your work!' said Leary
+good-humouredly. 'I wish it had been worse,' said the amiable
+German gunner.] The commando which attacked this party, and on the
+same day Colonel Spreckley's force, was a powerful one, with
+several guns. No doubt it was organised because there were fears
+among the Boers that they would be invaded from the north. When it
+was understood that the British intended no large aggressive
+movement in that quarter, these burghers joined other commandos.
+Sarel Eloff, who was one of the leaders of this northern force, was
+afterwards taken at Mafeking.
+
+Colonel Plumer had taken command of the small army which was now
+operating from the north along the railway line with Mafeking for
+its objective. Plumer is an officer of considerable experience in
+African warfare, a small, quiet, resolute man, with a knack of
+gently enforcing discipline upon the very rough material with which
+he had to deal. With his weak force--which never exceeded a
+thousand men, and was usually from six to seven hundred--he had to
+keep the long line behind him open, build up the ruined railway in
+front of him, and gradually creep onwards in face of a formidable
+and enterprising enemy. For a long time Gaberones, which is eighty
+miles north of Mafeking, remained his headquarters, and thence he
+kept up precarious communications with the besieged garrison. In
+the middle of March he advanced as far south as Lobatsi, which is
+less than fifty miles from Mafeking; but the enemy proved to be too
+strong, and Plumer had to drop back again with some loss to his
+original position at Gaberones. Sticking doggedly to his task,
+Plumer again came south, and this time made his way as far as
+Ramathlabama, within a day's march of Mafeking. He had with him,
+however, only three hundred and fifty men, and had he pushed
+through the effect might have been an addition of hungry men to the
+garrison. The relieving force was fiercely attacked, however, by
+the Boers and driven back on to their camp with a loss of twelve
+killed, twenty-six wounded, and fourteen missing. Some of the
+British were dismounted men, and it says much for Plumer's conduct
+of the fight that he was able to extricate these safely from the
+midst of an aggressive mounted enemy. Personally he set an
+admirable example, sending away his own horse, and walking with his
+rearmost soldiers. Captain Crewe Robertson and Lieutenant Milligan,
+the famous Yorkshire cricketer, were killed, and Rolt, Jarvis,
+Maclaren, and Plumer himself were wounded. The Rhodesian force
+withdrew again to near Lobatsi, and collected itself for yet
+another effort.
+
+In the meantime Mafeking--abandoned, as it seemed, to its fate--was
+still as formidable as a wounded lion. Far from weakening in its
+defence it became more aggressive, and so persistent and skilful
+were its riflemen that the big Boer gun had again and again to be
+moved further from the town. Six months of trenches and rifle-pits
+had turned every inhabitant into a veteran. Now and then words of
+praise and encouragement came to them from without. Once it was a
+special message from the Queen, once a promise of relief from Lord
+Roberts. But the rails which led to England were overgrown with
+grass, and their brave hearts yearned for the sight of their
+countrymen and for the sound of their voices. 'How long, O Lord,
+how long?' was the cry which was wrung from them in their solitude.
+But the flag was still held high.
+
+April was a trying month for the defence. They knew that Methuen,
+who had advanced as far as Fourteen Streams upon the Vaal River,
+had retired again upon Kimberley. They knew also that Plumer's
+force had been weakened by the repulse at Ramathlabama, and that
+many of his men were down with fever. Six weary months had this
+village withstood the pitiless pelt of rifle bullet and shell. Help
+seemed as far away from them as ever. But if troubles may be
+allayed by sympathy, then theirs should have lain lightly. The
+attention of the whole empire had centred upon them, and even the
+advance of Roberts's army became secondary to the fate of this
+gallant struggling handful of men who had upheld the flag so long.
+On the Continent also their resistance attracted the utmost
+interest, and the numerous journals there who find the imaginative
+writer cheaper than the war correspondent announced their capture
+periodically as they had once done that of Ladysmith. From a mere
+tin-roofed village Mafeking had become a prize of victory, a stake
+which should be the visible sign of the predominating manhood of
+one or other of the great white races of South Africa. Unconscious
+of the keenness of the emotions which they had aroused, the
+garrison manufactured brawn from horsehide, and captured locusts as
+a relish for their luncheons, while in the shot-torn billiard-room
+of the club an open tournament was started to fill in their hours
+off duty. But their vigilance, and that of the hawk-eyed man up in
+the Conning Tower, never relaxed. The besiegers had increased in
+number, and their guns were more numerous than before. A less acute
+man than Baden-Powell might have reasoned that at least one
+desperate effort would be made by them to carry the town before
+relief could come.
+
+On Saturday, May 12th, the attack was made at the favourite hour of
+the Boer--the first grey of the morning. It was gallantly delivered
+by about three hundred volunteers under the command of Eloff, who
+had crept round to the west of the town--the side furthest from the
+lines of the besiegers. At the first rush they penetrated into the
+native quarter, which was at once set on fire by them. The first
+building of any size upon that side is the barracks of the
+Protectorate Regiment, which was held by Colonel Hore and about
+twenty of his officers and men. This was carried by the enemy, who
+sent an exultant message along the telephone to Baden-Powell to
+tell him that they had got it. Two other positions within the
+lines, one a stone kraal and the other a hill, were held by the
+Boers, but their supports were slow in coming on, and the movements
+of the defenders were so prompt and energetic that all three found
+themselves isolated and cut off from their own lines. They had
+penetrated the town, but they were as far as ever from having taken
+it. All day the British forces drew their cordon closer and closer
+round the Boer positions, making no attempt to rush them, but
+ringing them round in such a way that there could be no escape for
+them. A few burghers slipped away in twos and threes, but the main
+body found that they had rushed into a prison from which the only
+egress was swept with rifle fire. At seven o'clock in the evening
+they recognised that their position was hopeless, and Eloff with
+117 men laid down their arms. Their losses had been ten killed and
+nineteen wounded. For some reason, either of lethargy, cowardice,
+or treachery, Snyman had not brought up the supports which might
+conceivably have altered the result. It was a gallant attack
+gallantly met, and for once the greater wiliness in fight was shown
+by the British. The end was characteristic. 'Good evening,
+Commandant,' said Powell to Eloff; 'won't you come in and have some
+dinner?' The prisoners--burghers, Hollanders, Germans, and
+Frenchmen--were treated to as good a supper as the destitute
+larders of the town could furnish.
+
+So in a small blaze of glory ended the historic siege of Mafeking,
+for Eloff's attack was the last, though by no means the worst of
+the trials which the garrison had to face. Six killed and ten
+wounded were the British losses in this admirably managed affair.
+On May 17th, five days after the fight, the relieving force
+arrived, the besiegers were scattered, and the long-imprisoned
+garrison were free men once more. Many who had looked at their maps
+and saw this post isolated in the very heart of Africa had
+despaired of ever reaching their heroic fellow-countrymen, and now
+one universal outbreak of joybells and bonfires from Toronto to
+Melbourne proclaimed that there is no spot so inaccessible that the
+long arm of the empire cannot reach it when her children are in
+peril.
+
+Colonel Mahon, a young Irish officer who had made his reputation as
+a cavalry leader in Egypt, had started early in May from Kimberley
+with a small but mobile force consisting of the Imperial Light
+Horse (brought round from Natal for the purpose), the Kimberley
+Mounted Corps, the Diamond Fields Horse, some Imperial Yeomanry, a
+detachment of the Cape Police, and 100 volunteers from the Fusilier
+brigade, with M battery R.H.A. and pom-poms, twelve hundred men in
+all. Whilst Hunter was fighting his action at Rooidam on May 4th,
+Mahon with his men struck round the western flank of the Boers and
+moved rapidly to the northwards. On May 11th they had left Vryburg,
+the halfway house, behind them, having done one hundred and twenty
+miles in five days. They pushed on, encountering no opposition save
+that of nature, though they knew that they were being closely
+watched by the enemy. At Koodoosrand it was found that a Boer force
+was in position in front, but Mahon avoided them by turning
+somewhat to the westward. His detour took him, however, into a
+bushy country, and here the enemy headed him off, opening fire at
+short range upon the ubiquitous Imperial Light Horse, who led the
+column. A short engagement ensued, in which the casualties amounted
+to thirty killed and wounded, but which ended in the defeat and
+dispersal of the Boers, whose force was certainly very much weaker
+than the British. On May 15th the relieving column arrived without
+further opposition at Masibi Stadt, twenty miles to the west of
+Mafeking.
+
+In the meantime Plumer's force upon the north had been strengthened
+by the addition of C battery of four 12-pounder guns of the
+Canadian Artillery under Major Eudon and a body of Queenslanders.
+These forces had been part of the small army which had come with
+General Carrington through Beira, and after a detour of thousands
+of miles, through their own wonderful energy they had arrived in
+time to form portion of the relieving column. Foreign military
+critics, whose experience of warfare is to move troops across a
+frontier, should think of what the Empire has to do before her men
+go into battle. These contingents had been assembled by long
+railway journeys, conveyed across thousands of miles of ocean to
+Cape Town, brought round another two thousand or so to Beira,
+transferred by a narrow-gauge railway to Bamboo Creek, changed to a
+broader gauge to Marandellas, sent on in coaches for hundreds of
+miles to Bulawayo, transferred to trains for another four or five
+hundred miles to Ootsi, and had finally a forced march of a hundred
+miles, which brought them up a few hours before their presence was
+urgently needed upon the field. Their advance, which averaged
+twenty-five miles a day on foot for four consecutive days over
+deplorable roads, was one of the finest performances of the war.
+With these high-spirited reinforcements and with his own hardy
+Rhodesians Plumer pushed on, and the two columns reached the hamlet
+of Masibi Stadt within an hour of each other. Their united strength
+was far superior to anything which Snyman's force could place
+against them.
+
+But the gallant and tenacious Boers would not abandon their prey
+without a last effort. As the little army advanced upon Mafeking
+they found the enemy waiting in a strong position. For some hours
+the Boers gallantly held their ground, and their artillery fire
+was, as usual, most accurate. But our own guns were more numerous
+and equally well served, and the position was soon made untenable.
+The Boers retired past Mafeking and took refuge in the trenches
+upon the eastern side, but Baden-Powell with his war-hardened
+garrison sallied out, and, supported by the artillery fire of the
+relieving column, drove them from their shelter. With their usual
+admirable tactics their larger guns had been removed, but one small
+cannon was secured as a souvenir by the townsfolk, together with a
+number of wagons and a considerable quantity of supplies. A long
+rolling trail of dust upon the eastern horizon told that the famous
+siege of Mafeking had at last come to an end.
+
+So ended a singular incident, the defence of an open town which
+contained no regular soldiers and a most inadequate artillery
+against a numerous and enterprising enemy with very heavy guns. All
+honour to the towns folk who bore their trial so long and so
+bravely--and to the indomitable men who lined the trenches for
+seven weary months. Their constancy was of enormous value to the
+empire. In the all-important early month at least four or five
+thousand Boers were detained by them when their presence elsewhere
+would have been fatal. During all the rest of the war, two thousand
+men and eight guns (including one of the four big Creusots) had
+been held there. It prevented the invasion of Rhodesia, and it gave
+a rallying-point for loyal whites and natives in the huge stretch
+of country from Kimberley to Bulawayo. All this had, at a cost of
+two hundred lives, been done by this one devoted band of men, who
+killed, wounded, or took no fewer than one thousand of their
+opponents. Critics may say that the enthusiasm in the empire was
+excessive, but at least it was expended over worthy men and a fine
+deed of arms.
+
+CHAPTER 25.
+
+THE MARCH ON PRETORIA.
+
+In the early days of May, when the season of the rains was past and
+the veld was green, Lord Roberts's six weeks of enforced inaction
+came to an end. He had gathered himself once more for one of those
+tiger springs which should be as sure and as irresistible as that
+which had brought him from Belmont to Bloemfontein, or that other
+in olden days which had carried him from Cabul to Candahar. His
+army had been decimated by sickness, and eight thousand men had
+passed into the hospitals; but those who were with the colours were
+of high heart, longing eagerly for action. Any change which would
+carry them away from the pest-ridden, evil-smelling capital which
+had revenged itself so terribly upon the invader must be a change
+for the better. Therefore it was with glad faces and brisk feet
+that the centre column left Bloemfontein on May 1st, and streamed,
+with bands playing, along the northern road.
+
+On May 3rd the main force was assembled at Karee, twenty miles upon
+their way. Two hundred and twenty separated them from Pretoria, but
+in little more than a month from the day of starting, in spite of
+broken railway, a succession of rivers, and the opposition of the
+enemy, this army was marching into the main street of the Transvaal
+capital. Had there been no enemy there at all, it would still have
+been a fine performance, the more so when one remembers that the
+army was moving upon a front of twenty miles or more, each part of
+which had to be co-ordinated to the rest. It is with the story of
+this great march that the present chapter deals.
+
+Roberts had prepared the way by clearing out the south-eastern
+corner of the State, and at the moment of his advance his forces
+covered a semicircular front of about forty miles, the right under
+Ian Hamilton near Thabanchu, and the left at Karee. This was the
+broad net which was to be swept from south to north across the Free
+State, gradually narrowing as it went. The conception was
+admirable, and appears to have been an adoption of the Boers' own
+strategy, which had in turn been borrowed from the Zulus. The solid
+centre could hold any force which faced it, while the mobile
+flanks, Hutton upon the left and Hamilton upon the right, could lap
+round and pin it, as Cronje was pinned at Paardeberg. It seems
+admirably simple when done upon a small scale. But when the scale
+is one of forty miles, since your front must be broad enough to
+envelop the front which is opposed to it, and when the scattered
+wings have to be fed with no railway line to help, it takes such a
+master of administrative detail as Lord Kitchener to bring the
+operations to complete success.
+
+On May 3rd, the day of the advance from our most northern post,
+Karee, the disposition of Lord Roberts's army was briefly as
+follows. On his left was Hutton, with his mixed force of mounted
+infantry drawn from every quarter of the empire. This formidable
+and mobile body, with some batteries of horse artillery and of
+pom-poms, kept a line a few miles to the west of the railroad,
+moving northwards parallel with it. Roberts's main column kept on
+the railroad, which was mended with extraordinary speed by the
+Railway Pioneer regiment and the Engineers, under Girouard and the
+ill-fated Seymour. It was amazing to note the shattered culverts as
+one passed, and yet to be overtaken by trains within a day. This
+main column consisted of Pole-Carew's 11th Division, which
+contained the Guards, and Stephenson's Brigade (Warwicks, Essex,
+Welsh, and Yorkshires). With them were the 83rd, 84th, and 85th
+R.F.A., with the heavy guns, and a small force of mounted infantry.
+Passing along the widespread British line one would then, after an
+interval of seven or eight miles, come upon Tucker's Division (the
+7th), which consisted of Maxwell's Brigade (formerly
+Chermside's--the Norfolks, Lincolns, Hampshires, and Scottish
+Borderers) and Wavell's Brigade (North Staffords, Cheshires, East
+Lancashires, South Wales Borderers). To the right of these was
+Ridley's mounted infantry. Beyond them, extending over very many
+miles of country and with considerable spaces between, there came
+Broadwood's cavalry, Bruce Hamilton's Brigade (Derbyshires, Sussex,
+Camerons, and C.I.V.), and finally on the extreme right of all Ian
+Hamilton's force of Highlanders, Canadians, Shropshires, and
+Cornwalls, with cavalry and mounted infantry, starting forty miles
+from Lord Roberts, but edging westwards all the way, to merge with
+the troops next to it, and to occupy Winburg in the way already
+described. This was the army, between forty and fifty thousand
+strong, with which Lord Roberts advanced upon the Transvaal.
+
+In the meantime he had anticipated that his mobile and enterprising
+opponents would work round and strike at our rear. Ample means had
+been provided for dealing with any attempt of the kind. Rundle with
+the 8th Division and Brabant's Colonial Division remained in rear
+of the right flank to confront any force which might turn it. At
+Bloemfontein were Kelly-Kenny's Division (the 6th) and Chermside's
+(the 3rd), with a force of cavalry and guns. Methuen, working from
+Kimberley towards Boshof, formed the extreme left wing of the main
+advance, though distant a hundred miles from it. With excellent
+judgment Lord Roberts saw that it was on our right flank that
+danger was to be feared, and here it was that every precaution had
+been taken to meet it.
+
+The objective of the first day's march was the little town of
+Brandfort, ten miles north of Karee. The head of the main column
+faced it, while the left arm swept round and drove the Boer force
+from their position. Tucker's Division upon the right encountered
+some opposition, but overbore it with artillery. May 4th was a day
+of rest for the infantry, but on the 5th they advanced, in the same
+order as before, for twenty miles, and found themselves to the
+south of the Vet River, where the enemy had prepared for an
+energetic resistance. A vigorous artillery duel ensued, the British
+guns in the open as usual against an invisible enemy. After three
+hours of a very hot fire the mounted infantry got across the river
+upon the left and turned the Boer flank, on which they hastily
+withdrew. The first lodgment was effected by two bodies of
+Canadians and New Zealanders, who were energetically supported by
+Captain Anley's 3rd Mounted Infantry. The rushing of a kopje by
+twenty-three West Australians was another gallant incident which
+marked this engagement, in which our losses were insignificant. A
+maxim and twenty or thirty prisoners were taken by Hutton's men.
+The next day (May 6th) the army moved across the difficult drift of
+the Vet River, and halted that night at Smaldeel, some five miles
+to the north of it. At the same time Ian Hamilton had been able to
+advance to Winburg, so that the army had contracted its front by
+about half, but had preserved its relative positions. Hamilton,
+after his junction with his reinforcements at Jacobsrust, had under
+him so powerful a force that he overbore all resistance. His
+actions between Thabanchu and Winburg had cost the Boers heavy
+loss, and in one action the German legion had been overthrown. The
+informal warfare which was made upon us by citizens of many nations
+without rebuke from their own Governments is a matter of which
+pride, and possibly policy, have forbidden us to complain, but it
+will be surprising if it does not prove that their laxity has
+established a very dangerous precedent, and they will find it
+difficult to object when, in the next little war in which either
+France or Germany is engaged, they find a few hundred British
+adventurers carrying a rifle against them.
+
+The record of the army's advance is now rather geographical than
+military, for it rolled northwards with never a check save that
+which was caused by the construction of the railway diversions
+which atoned for the destruction of the larger bridges. The
+infantry now, as always in the campaign, marched excellently; for
+though twenty miles in the day may seem a moderate allowance to a
+healthy man upon an English road, it is a considerable performance
+under an African sun with a weight of between thirty and forty
+pounds to be carried. The good humour of the men was admirable, and
+they eagerly longed to close with the elusive enemy who flitted
+ever in front of them. Huge clouds of smoke veiled the northern
+sky, for the Boers had set fire to the dry grass, partly to cover
+their own retreat, and partly to show up our khaki upon the
+blackened surface. Far on the flanks the twinkling heliographs
+revealed the position of the wide-spread wings.
+
+On May 10th Lord Roberts's force, which had halted for three days
+at Smaldeel, moved onwards to Welgelegen. French's cavalry had come
+up by road, and quickly strengthened the centre and left wing of
+the army. On the morning of the 10th the invaders found themselves
+confronted by a formidable position which the Boers had taken up on
+the northern bank of the Sand River. Their army extended over
+twenty miles of country, the two Bothas were in command, and
+everything pointed to a pitched battle. Had the position been
+rushed from the front, there was every material for a second
+Colenso, but the British had learned that it was by brains rather
+than by blood that such battles may be won. French's cavalry turned
+the Boers on one side, and Bruce Hamilton's infantry on the other.
+Theoretically we never passed the Boer flanks, but practically
+their line was so over-extended that we were able to pierce it at
+any point. There was never any severe fighting, but rather a steady
+advance upon the British side and a steady retirement upon that of
+the Boers. On the left the Sussex regiment distinguished itself by
+the dash with which it stormed an important kopje. The losses were
+slight, save among a detached body of cavalry which found itself
+suddenly cut off by a strong force of the enemy and lost Captain
+Elworthy killed, and Haig of the Inniskillings, Wilkinson of the
+Australian Horse, and twenty men prisoners. We also secured forty
+or fifty prisoners, and the enemy's casualties amounted to about as
+many more. The whole straggling action fought over a front as broad
+as from London to Woking cost the British at the most a couple of
+hundred casualties, and carried their army over the most formidable
+defensive position which they were to encounter. The war in its
+later phases certainly has the pleasing characteristic of being the
+most bloodless, considering the number of men engaged and the
+amount of powder burned, that has been known in history. It was at
+the expense of their boots and not of their lives that the infantry
+won their way.
+
+On May 11th Lord Roberts's army advanced twenty miles to Geneva
+Siding, and every preparation was made for a battle next day, as it
+was thought certain that the Boers would defend their new capital,
+Kroonstad. It proved, however, that even here they would not make a
+stand, and on May 12th, at one o'clock, Lord Roberts rode into the
+town. Steyn, Botha, and De Wet escaped, and it was announced that
+the village of Lindley had become the new seat of government. The
+British had now accomplished half their journey to Pretoria, and it
+was obvious that on the south side of the Vaal no serious
+resistance awaited them. Burghers were freely surrendering
+themselves with their arms, and returning to their farms. In the
+south-east Rundle and Brabant were slowly advancing, while the
+Boers who faced them fell back towards Lindley. On the west, Hunter
+had crossed the Vaal at Windsorton, and Barton's Fusilier Brigade
+had fought a sharp action at Rooidam, while Mahon's Mafeking relief
+column had slipped past their flank, escaping the observation of
+the British public, but certainly not that of the Boers. The
+casualties in the Rooidam action were nine killed and thirty
+wounded, but the advance of the Fusiliers was irresistible, and for
+once the Boer loss, as they were hustled from kopje to kopje,
+appears to have been greater than that of the British. The Yeomanry
+had an opportunity of showing once more that there are few more
+high-mettled troops in South Africa than these good sportsmen of
+the shires, who only showed a trace of their origin in their
+irresistible inclination to burst into a 'tally-ho!' when ordered
+to attack. The Boer forces fell back after the action along the
+line of the Vaal, making for Christiana and Bloemhof. Hunter
+entered into the Transvaal in pursuit of them, being the first to
+cross the border, with the exception of raiding Rhodesians early in
+the war. Methuen, in the meanwhile, was following a course parallel
+to Hunter but south of him, Hoopstad being his immediate objective.
+The little union jacks which were stuck in the war maps in so many
+British households were now moving swiftly upwards.
+
+Buller's force was also sweeping northwards, and the time had come
+when the Ladysmith garrison, restored at last to health and
+strength, should have a chance of striking back at those who had
+tormented them so long. Many of the best troops had been drafted
+away to other portions of the seat of war. Hart's Brigade and
+Barton's Fusilier Brigade had gone with Hunter to form the 10th
+Division upon the Kimberley side, and the Imperial Light Horse had
+been brought over for the relief of Mafeking. There remained,
+however, a formidable force, the regiments in which had been
+strengthened by the addition of drafts and volunteers from home.
+Not less than twenty thousand sabres and bayonets were ready and
+eager for the passage of the Biggarsberg mountains.
+
+This line of rugged hills is pierced by only three passes, each of
+which was held in strength by the enemy. Considerable losses must
+have ensued from any direct attempt to force them. Buller, however,
+with excellent judgment, demonstrated in front of them with
+Hildyard's men, while the rest of the army, marching round,
+outflanked the line of resistance, and on May 15th pounced upon
+Dundee. Much had happened since that October day when Penn Symons
+led his three gallant regiments up Talana Hill, but now at last,
+after seven weary months, the ground was reoccupied which he had
+gained. His old soldiers visited his grave, and the national flag
+was raised over the remains of as gallant a man as ever died for
+the sake of it.
+
+The Boers, whose force did not exceed a few thousands, were now
+rolled swiftly back through Northern Natal into their own country.
+The long strain at Ladysmith had told upon them, and the men whom
+we had to meet were very different from the warriors of Spion Kop
+and Nicholson's Nek. They had done magnificently, but there is a
+limit to human endurance, and no longer would these peasants face
+the bursting lyddite and the bayonets of angry soldiers. There is
+little enough for us to boast of in this. Some pride might be taken
+in the campaign when at a disadvantage we were facing superior
+numbers, but now we could but deplore the situation in which these
+poor valiant burghers found themselves, the victims of a rotten
+government and of their own delusions. Hofer's Tyrolese, Charette's
+Vendeans, or Bruce's Scotchmen never fought a finer fight than
+these children of the veld, but in each case they combated a real
+and not an imaginary tyrant. It is heart-sickening to think of the
+butchery, the misery, the irreparable losses, the blood of men, and
+the bitter tears of women, all of which might have been spared had
+one obstinate and ignorant man been persuaded to allow the State
+which he ruled to conform to the customs of every other civilised
+State upon the earth.
+
+Buller was now moving with a rapidity and decision which contrast
+pleasantly with some of his earlier operations. Although Dundee was
+only occupied on May 15th, on May 18th his vanguard was in
+Newcastle, fifty miles to the north. In nine days he had covered
+138 miles. On the 19th the army lay under the loom of that Majuba
+which had cast its sinister shadow for so long over South African
+politics. In front was the historical Laing's Nek, the pass which
+leads from Natal into the Transvaal, while through it runs the
+famous railway tunnel. Here the Boers had taken up that position
+which had proved nineteen years before to be too strong for British
+troops. The Rooineks had come back after many days to try again. A
+halt was called, for the ten days' supplies which had been taken
+with the troops were exhausted, and it was necessary to wait until
+the railway should be repaired. This gave time for Hildyard's 5th
+Division and Lyttelton's 4th Division to close up on Clery's 2nd
+Division, which with Dundonald's cavalry had formed our vanguard
+throughout. The only losses of any consequence during this fine
+march fell upon a single squadron of Bethune's mounted infantry,
+which being thrown out in the direction of Vryheid, in order to
+make sure that our flank was clear, fell into an ambuscade and was
+almost annihilated by a close-range fire. Sixty-six casualties, of
+which nearly half were killed, were the result of this action,
+which seems to have depended, like most of our reverses, upon
+defective scouting. Buller, having called up his two remaining
+divisions and having mended the railway behind him, proceeded now
+to manoeuvre the Boers out of Laing's Nek exactly as he had
+manoeuvred them out of the Biggarsberg. At the end of May Hildyard
+and Lyttelton were despatched in an eastern direction, as if there
+were an intention of turning the pass from Utrecht.
+
+It was on May 12th that Lord Roberts occupied Kroonstad, and he
+halted there for eight days before he resumed his advance. At the
+end of that time his railway had been repaired, and enough supplies
+brought up to enable him to advance again without anxiety. The
+country through which he passed swarmed with herds and flocks, but,
+with as scrupulous a regard for the rights of property as
+Wellington showed in the south of France, no hungry soldier was
+allowed to take so much as a chicken as he passed. The punishment
+for looting was prompt and stern. It is true that farms were burned
+occasionally and the stock confiscated, but this was as a
+punishment for some particular offence and not part of a system.
+The limping Tommy looked askance at the fat geese which covered the
+dam by the roadside, but it was as much as his life was worth to
+allow his fingers to close round those tempting white necks. On
+foul water and bully beef he tramped through a land of plenty.
+
+Lord Roberts's eight days' halt was spent in consolidating the
+general military situation. We have already shown how Buller had
+crept upwards to the Natal Border. On the west Methuen reached
+Hoopstad and Hunter Christiana, settling the country and collecting
+arms as they went. Rundle in the south-east took possession of the
+rich grain lands, and on May 21st entered Ladybrand. In front of
+him lay that difficult hilly country about Senekal, Ficksburg, and
+Bethlehem which was to delay him so long. Ian Hamilton was feeling
+his way northwards to the right of the railway line, and for the
+moment cleared the district between Lindley and Heilbron, passing
+through both towns and causing Steyn to again change his capital,
+which became Vrede, in the extreme north-east of the State. During
+these operations Hamilton had the two formidable De Wet brothers in
+front of him, and suffered nearly a hundred casualties in the
+continual skirmishing which accompanied his advance. His right
+flank and rear were continually attacked, and these signs of forces
+outside our direct line of advance were full of menace for the
+future.
+
+On May 22nd the main army resumed its advance, moving forward
+fifteen miles to Honing's Spruit. On the 23rd another march of
+twenty miles over a fine rolling prairie brought them to Rhenoster
+River. The enemy had made some preparations for a stand, but
+Hamilton was near Heilbron upon their left and French was upon
+their right flank. The river was crossed without opposition. On the
+24th the army was at Vredefort Road, and on the 26th the vanguard
+crossed the Vaal River at Viljoen's Drift, the whole army following
+on the 27th. Hamilton's force had been cleverly swung across from
+the right to the left flank of the British, so that the Boers were
+massed on the wrong side.
+
+Preparations for resistance had been made on the line of the
+railway, but the wide turning movements on the flanks by the
+indefatigable French and Hamilton rendered all opposition of no
+avail. The British columns flowed over and onwards without a pause,
+tramping steadily northwards to their destination. The bulk of the
+Free State forces refused to leave their own country, and moved
+away to the eastern and northern portion of the State, where the
+British Generals thought--incorrectly, as the future was to
+prove--that no further harm would come from them. The State which
+they were in arms to defend had really ceased to exist, for already
+it had been publicly proclaimed at Bloemfontein in the Queen's name
+that the country had been annexed to the Empire, and that its style
+henceforth was that of 'The Orange River Colony.' Those who think
+this measure unduly harsh must remember that every mile of land
+which the Freestaters had conquered in the early part of the war
+had been solemnly annexed by them. At the same time, those
+Englishmen who knew the history of this State, which had once been
+the model of all that a State should be, were saddened by the
+thought that it should have deliberately committed suicide for the
+sake of one of the most corrupt governments which have ever been
+known. Had the Transvaal been governed as the Orange Free State
+was, such an event as the second Boer war could never have
+occurred.
+
+Lord Roberts's tremendous march was now drawing to a close. On May
+28th the troops advanced twenty miles, and passed Klip River
+without fighting. It was observed with surprise that the
+Transvaalers were very much more careful of their own property than
+they had been of that of their allies, and that the railway was not
+damaged at all by the retreating forces. The country had become
+more populous, and far away upon the low curves of the hills were
+seen high chimneys and gaunt iron pumps which struck the north of
+England soldier with a pang of homesickness. This long distant hill
+was the famous Rand, and under its faded grasses lay such riches as
+Solomon never took from Ophir. It was the prize of victory; and yet
+the prize is not to the victor, for the dust-grimed officers and
+men looked with little personal interest at this treasure-house of
+the world. Not one penny the richer would they be for the fact that
+their blood and their energy had brought justice and freedom to the
+gold fields. They had opened up an industry for the world, men of
+all nations would be the better for their labours, the miner and
+the financier or the trader would equally profit by them, but the
+men in khaki would tramp on, unrewarded and uncomplaining, to
+India, to China, to any spot where the needs of their worldwide
+empire called them.
+
+The infantry, streaming up from the Vaal River to the famous ridge
+of gold, had met with no resistance upon the way, but great mist
+banks of cloud by day and huge twinkling areas of flame by night
+showed the handiwork of the enemy. Hamilton and French, moving upon
+the left flank, found Boers thick upon the hills, but cleared them
+off in a well-managed skirmish which cost us a dozen casualties. On
+May 29th, pushing swiftly along, French found the enemy posted very
+strongly with several guns at Doornkop, a point west of Klip River
+Berg. The cavalry leader had with him at this stage three horse
+batteries, four pom-poms, and 3000 mounted men. The position being
+too strong for him to force, Hamilton's infantry (19th and 21st
+Brigades) were called up, and the Boers were driven out. That
+splendid corps, the Gordons, lost nearly a hundred men in their
+advance over the open, and the C.I.V.s on the other flank fought
+like a regiment of veterans. There had been an inclination to smile
+at these citizen soldiers when they first came out, but no one
+smiled now save the General who felt that he had them at his back.
+Hamilton's attack was assisted by the menace rather than the
+pressure of French's turning movement on the Boer right, but the
+actual advance was as purely frontal as any of those which had been
+carried through at the beginning of the war. The open formation of
+the troops, the powerful artillery behind them, and perhaps also
+the lowered morale of the enemy combined to make such a movement
+less dangerous than of old. In any case it was inevitable, as the
+state of Hamilton's commisariat rendered it necessary that at all
+hazards he should force his way through.
+
+Whilst this action of Doornkop was fought by the British left
+flank, Henry's mounted infantry in the centre moved straight upon
+the important junction of Germiston, which lies amid the huge white
+heaps of tailings from the mines. At this point, or near it, the
+lines from Johannesburg and from Natal join the line to Pretoria.
+Colonel Henry's advance was an extremely daring one, for the
+infantry were some distance behind; but after an irregular
+scrambling skirmish, in which the Boer snipers had to be driven off
+the mine heaps and from among the houses, the 8th mounted infantry
+got their grip of the railway and held it. The exploit was a very
+fine one, and stands out the more brilliantly as the conduct of the
+campaign cannot be said to afford many examples of that
+well-considered audacity which deliberately runs the risk of the
+minor loss for the sake of the greater gain. Henry was much
+assisted by J battery R.H.A., which was handled with energy and
+judgment.
+
+French was now on the west of the town, Henry had cut the railway
+on the east, and Roberts was coming up from the south. His infantry
+had covered 130 miles in seven days, but the thought that every
+step brought them nearer to Pretoria was as exhilarating as their
+fifes and drums. On May 30th the victorious troops camped outside
+the city while Botha retired with his army, abandoning without a
+battle the treasure-house of his country. Inside the town were
+chaos and confusion. The richest mines in the world lay for a day
+or more at the mercy of a lawless rabble drawn from all nations.
+The Boer officials were themselves divided in opinion, Krause
+standing for law and order while Judge Koch advocated violence. A
+spark would have set the town blazing, and the worst was feared
+when a crowd of mercenaries assembled in front of the Robinson mine
+with threats of violence. By the firmness and tact of Mr. Tucker,
+the manager, and by the strong attitude of Commissioner Krause, the
+situation was saved and the danger passed. Upon May 31st, without
+violence to life or destruction to property, that great town which
+British hands have done so much to build found itself at last under
+the British flag. May it wave there so long as it covers just laws,
+honest officials, and clean-handed administrators--so long and no
+longer!
+
+And now the last stage of the great journey had been reached. Two
+days were spent at Johannesburg while supplies were brought up, and
+then a move was made upon Pretoria thirty miles to the north. Here
+was the Boer capital, the seat of government, the home of Kruger,
+the centre of all that was anti-British, crouching amid its hills,
+with costly forts guarding every face of it. Surely at last the
+place had been found where that great battle should be fought which
+should decide for all time whether it was with the Briton or with
+the Dutchman that the future of South Africa lay.
+
+On the last day of May two hundred Lancers under the command of
+Major Hunter Weston, with Charles of the Sappers and Burnham the
+scout, a man who has played the part of a hero throughout the
+campaign, struck off from the main army and endeavoured to descend
+upon the Pretoria to Delagoa railway line with the intention of
+blowing up a bridge and cutting the Boer line of retreat. It was a
+most dashing attempt; but the small party had the misfortune to
+come into contact with a strong Boer commando, who headed them off.
+After a skirmish they were compelled to make their way back with a
+loss of five killed and fourteen wounded.
+
+The cavalry under French had waited for the issue of this
+enterprise at a point nine miles north of Johannesburg. On June 2nd
+it began its advance with orders to make a wide sweep round to the
+westward, and so skirt the capital, cutting the Pietersburg railway
+to the north of it. The country in the direct line between
+Johannesburg and Pretoria consists of a series of rolling downs
+which are admirably adapted for cavalry work, but the detour which
+French had to make carried him into the wild and broken district
+which lies to the north of the Little Crocodile River. Here he was
+fiercely attacked on ground where his troops could not deploy, but
+with extreme coolness and judgment beat off the enemy. To cover
+thirty-two miles in a day and fight a way out of an ambuscade in
+the evening is an ordeal for any leader and for any troops. Two
+killed and seven wounded were our trivial losses in a situation
+which might have been a serious one. The Boers appear to have been
+the escort of a strong convoy which had passed along the road some
+miles in front. Next morning both convoy and opposition had
+disappeared. The cavalry rode on amid a country of orange groves,
+the troopers standing up in their stirrups to pluck the golden
+fruit. There was no further fighting, and on June 4th French had
+established himself upon the north of the town, where he learned
+that all resistance had ceased.
+
+Whilst the cavalry had performed this enveloping movement the main
+army had moved swiftly upon its objective, leaving one brigade
+behind to secure Johannesburg. Ian Hamilton advanced upon the left,
+while Lord Roberts's column kept the line of the railway, Colonel
+Henry's mounted infantry scouting in front. As the army topped the
+low curves of the veld they saw in front of them two well-marked
+hills, each crowned by a low squat building. They were the famous
+southern forts of Pretoria. Between the hills was a narrow neck,
+and beyond the Boer capital.
+
+For a time it appeared that the entry was to be an absolutely
+bloodless one, but the booming of cannon and the crash of Mauser
+fire soon showed that the enemy was in force upon the ridge. Botha
+had left a strong rearguard to hold off the British while his own
+stores and valuables were being withdrawn from the town. The
+silence of the forts showed that the guns had been removed and that
+no prolonged resistance was intended; but in the meanwhile fringes
+of determined riflemen, supported by cannon, held the approaches,
+and must be driven off before an entry could be effected. Each
+fresh corps as it came up reinforced the firing line. Henry's
+mounted infantrymen supported by the horse-guns of J battery and
+the guns of Tucker's division began the action. So hot was the
+answer, both from cannon and from rifle, that it seemed for a time
+as if a real battle were at last about to take place. The Guards'
+Brigade, Stephenson's Brigade, and Maxwell's Brigade streamed up
+and waited until Hamilton, who was on the enemy's right flank,
+should be able to make his presence felt. The heavy guns had also
+arrived, and a huge cloud of debris rising from the Pretorian forts
+told the accuracy of their fire.
+
+But either the burghers were half-hearted or there was no real
+intention to make a stand. About half-past two their fire slackened
+and Pole-Carew was directed to push on. That debonnaire soldier
+with his two veteran brigades obeyed the order with alacrity, and
+the infantry swept over the ridge, with some thirty or forty
+casualties, the majority of which fell to the Warwicks. The
+position was taken, and Hamilton, who came up late, was only able
+to send on De Lisle's mounted infantry, chiefly Australians, who
+ran down one of the Boer maxims in the open. The action had cost us
+altogether about seventy men. Among the injured was the Duke of
+Norfolk, who had shown a high sense of civic virtue in laying aside
+the duties and dignity of a Cabinet Minister in order to serve as a
+simple captain of volunteers. At the end of this one fight the
+capital lay at the mercy of Lord Roberts. Consider the fight which
+they made for their chief city, compare it with that which the
+British made for the village of Mafeking, and say on which side is
+that stern spirit of self-sacrifice and resolution which are the
+signs of the better cause.
+
+In the early morning of June 5th, the Coldstream Guards were
+mounting the hills which commanded the town. Beneath them in the
+clear African air lay the famous city, embowered in green, the fine
+central buildings rising grandly out of the wide circle of villas.
+Through the Nek part of the Guards' Brigade and Maxwell's Brigade
+had passed, and had taken over the station, from which at least one
+train laden with horses had steamed that morning. Two others, both
+ready to start, were only just stopped in time.
+
+The first thought was for the British prisoners, and a small party
+headed by the Duke of Marlborough rode to their rescue. Let it be
+said once for all that their treatment by the Boers was excellent
+and that their appearance would alone have proved it. One hundred
+and twenty-nine officers and thirty-nine soldiers were found in the
+Model Schools, which had been converted into a prison. A day later
+our cavalry arrived at Waterval, which is fourteen miles to the
+north of Pretoria. Here were confined three thousand soldiers,
+whose fare had certainly been of the scantiest, though in other
+respects they appear to have been well treated. [Footnote: Further
+information unfortunately shows that in the case of the sick and of
+the Colonial prisoners the treatment was by no means good.] Nine
+hundred of their comrades had been removed by the Boers, but
+Porter's cavalry was in time to release the others, under a brisk
+shell fire from a Boer gun upon the ridge. Many pieces of good luck
+we had in the campaign, but this recovery of our prisoners, which
+left the enemy without a dangerous lever for exacting conditions of
+peace, was the most fortunate of all.
+
+In the centre of the town there is a wide square decorated or
+disfigured by a bare pedestal upon which a statue of the President
+was to have been placed. Hard by is the bleak barnlike church in
+which he preached, and on either side are the Government offices
+and the Law Courts, buildings which would grace any European
+capital. Here, at two o'clock on the afternoon of June 5th, Lord
+Roberts sat his horse and saw pass in front of him the men who had
+followed him so far and so faithfully--the Guards, the Essex, the
+Welsh, the Yorks, the Warwicks, the guns, the mounted infantry, the
+dashing irregulars, the Gordons, the Canadians, the Shropshires,
+the Cornwalls, the Camerons, the Derbys, the Sussex, and the London
+Volunteers. For over two hours the khaki waves with their crests of
+steel went sweeping by. High above their heads from the summit of
+the Raad-saal the broad Union Jack streamed for the first time.
+Through months of darkness we had struggled onwards to the light.
+Now at last the strange drama seemed to be drawing to its close.
+The God of battles had given the long-withheld verdict. But of all
+the hearts which throbbed high at that supreme moment there were
+few who felt one touch of bitterness towards the brave men who had
+been overborne. They had fought and died for their ideal. We had
+fought and died for ours. The hope for the future of South Africa
+is that they or their descendants may learn that that banner which
+has come to wave above Pretoria means no racial intolerance, no
+greed for gold, no paltering with injustice or corruption, but that
+it means one law for all and one freedom for all, as it does in
+every other continent in the whole broad earth. When that is
+learned it may happen that even they will come to date a happier
+life and a wider liberty from that 5th of June which saw the symbol
+of their nation pass for ever from among the ensigns of the world.
+
+CHAPTER 26.
+
+DIAMOND HILL--RUNDLE'S OPERATIONS.
+
+The military situation at the time of the occupation of Pretoria
+was roughly as follows. Lord Roberts with some thirty thousand men
+was in possession of the capital, but had left his long line of
+communications very imperfectly guarded behind him. On the flank of
+this line of communications, in the eastern and north-eastern
+corner of the Free State, was an energetic force of unconquered
+Freestaters who had rallied round President Steyn. They were some
+eight or ten thousand in number, well horsed, with a fair number of
+guns, under the able leadership of De Wet, Prinsloo, and Olivier.
+Above all, they had a splendid position, mountainous and broken,
+from which, as from a fortress, they could make excursions to the
+south or west. This army included the commandos of Ficksburg,
+Senekal, and Harrismith, with all the broken and desperate men from
+other districts who had left their farms and fled to the mountains.
+It was held in check as a united force by Rundle's Division and the
+Colonial Division on the south, while Colvile, and afterwards
+Methuen, endeavoured to pen them in on the west. The task was a
+hard one, however, and though Rundle succeeded in holding his line
+intact, it appeared to be impossible in that wide country to coop
+up altogether an enemy so mobile. A strange game of hide-and-seek
+ensued, in which De Wet, who led the Boer raids, was able again and
+again to strike our line of rails and to get back without serious
+loss. The story of these instructive and humiliating episodes will
+be told in their order. The energy and skill of the guerilla chief
+challenge our admiration, and the score of his successes would be
+amusing were it not that the points of the game are marked by the
+lives of British soldiers.
+
+General Buller had spent the latter half of May in making his way
+from Ladysmith to Laing's Nek, and the beginning of June found him
+with twenty thousand men in front of that difficult position. Some
+talk of a surrender had arisen, and Christian Botha, who commanded
+the Boers, succeeded in gaining several days' armistice, which
+ended in nothing. The Transvaal forces at this point were not more
+than a few thousand in number, but their position was so formidable
+that it was a serious task to turn them out. Van Wyk's Hill,
+however, had been left unguarded, and as its possession would give
+the British the command of Botha's Pass, its unopposed capture by
+the South African Light Horse was an event of great importance.
+With guns upon this eminence the infantry were able, on June 8th,
+to attack and to carry with little loss the rest of the high
+ground, and so to get the Pass into their complete possession.
+Botha fired the grass behind him, and withdrew sullenly to the
+north. On the 9th and 10th the convoys were passed over the Pass,
+and on the 11th the main body of the army followed them.
+
+The operations were now being conducted in that extremely acute
+angle of Natal which runs up between the Transvaal and the Orange
+Free State. In crossing Botha's Pass the army had really entered
+what was now the Orange River Colony. But it was only for a very
+short time, as the object of the movement was to turn the Laing's
+Nek position, and then come back into the Transvaal through
+Alleman's Pass. The gallant South African Light Horse led the way,
+and fought hard at one point to clear a path for the army, losing
+six killed and eight wounded in a sharp skirmish. On the morning of
+the 12th the flanking movement was far advanced, and it only
+remained for the army to force Alleman's Nek, which would place it
+to the rear of Laing's Nek, and close to the Transvaal town of
+Volksrust.
+
+Had the Boers been the men of Colenso and of Spion Kop, this
+storming of Alleman's Nek would have been a bloody business. The
+position was strong, the cover was slight, and there was no way
+round. But the infantry came on with the old dash without the old
+stubborn resolution being opposed to them. The guns prepared the
+way, and then the Dorsets, the Dublins, the Middlesex, the Queen's,
+and the East Surrey did the rest. The door was open and the
+Transvaal lay before us. The next day Volksrust was in our hands.
+
+The whole series of operations were excellently conceived and
+carried out. Putting Colenso on one side, it cannot be denied that
+General Buller showed considerable power of manoeuvring large
+bodies of troops. The withdrawal of the compromised army after
+Spion Kop, the change of the line of attack at Pieter's Hill, and
+the flanking marches in this campaign of Northern Natal, were all
+very workmanlike achievements. In this case a position which the
+Boers had been preparing for months, scored with trenches and
+topped by heavy artillery, had been rendered untenable by a clever
+flank movement, the total casualties in the whole affair being less
+than two hundred killed and wounded. Natal was cleared of the
+invader, Buller's foot was on the high plateau of the Transvaal,
+and Roberts could count on twenty thousand good men coming up to
+him from the south-east. More important than all, the Natal railway
+was being brought up, and soon the central British Army would
+depend upon Durban instead of Cape Town for its supplies--a saving
+of nearly two-thirds of the distance. The fugitive Boers made
+northwards in the Middelburg direction, while Buller advanced to
+Standerton, which town he continued to occupy until Lord Roberts
+could send a force down through Heidelberg to join hands with him.
+Such was the position of the Natal Field Force at the end of June.
+From the west and the south-west British forces were also
+converging upon the capital. The indomitable Baden-Powell sought
+for rest and change of scene after his prolonged trial by harrying
+the Boers out of Zeerust and Rustenburg. The forces of Hunter and
+of Mahon converged upon Potchefstroom, from which, after settling
+that district, they could be conveyed by rail to Krugersdorp and
+Johannesburg.
+
+Before briefly recounting the series of events which took place
+upon the line of communications, the narrative must return to Lord
+Roberts at Pretoria, and describe the operations which followed his
+occupation of that city. In leaving the undefeated forces of the
+Free State behind him, the British General had unquestionably run a
+grave risk, and was well aware that his railway communication was
+in danger of being cut. By the rapidity of his movements he
+succeeded in gaining the enemy's capital before that which he had
+foreseen came to pass; but if Botha had held him at Pretoria while
+De Wet struck at him behind, the situation would have been a
+serious one. Having once attained his main object, Roberts could
+receive with equanimity the expected news that De Wet with a mobile
+force of less than two thousand men had, on June 7th, cut the line
+at Roodeval to the north of Kroonstad. Both rail and telegraph were
+destroyed, and for a few days the army was isolated. Fortunately
+there were enough supplies to go on with, and immediate steps were
+taken to drive away the intruder, though, like a mosquito, he was
+brushed from one place only to settle upon another.
+
+Leaving others to restore his broken communications, Lord Roberts
+turned his attention once more to Botha, who still retained ten or
+fifteen thousand men under his command. The President had fled from
+Pretoria with a large sum of money, estimated at over two millions
+sterling, and was known to be living in a saloon railway carriage,
+which had been transformed into a seat of government even more
+mobile than that of President Steyn. From Waterval-Boven, a point
+beyond Middelburg, he was in a position either to continue his
+journey to Delagoa Bay, and so escape out of the country, or to
+travel north into that wild Lydenburg country which had always been
+proclaimed as the last ditch of the defence. Here he remained with
+his gold-bags waiting the turn of events.
+
+Botha and his stalwarts had not gone far from the capital. Fifteen
+miles out to the east the railway line runs through a gap in the
+hills called Pienaars Poort, and here was such a position as the
+Boer loves to hold. It was very strong in front, and it had widely
+spread formidable flanking hills to hamper those turning movements
+which had so often been fatal to the Boer generals. Behind was the
+uncut railway line along which the guns could in case of need be
+removed. The whole position was over fifteen miles from wing to
+wing, and it was well known to the Boer general that Lord Roberts
+had no longer that preponderance of force which would enable him to
+execute wide turning movements, as he had done in his advance from
+the south. His army had decreased seriously in numbers. The mounted
+men, the most essential branch of all, were so ill horsed that
+brigades were not larger than regiments. One brigade of infantry
+(the 14th) had been left to garrison Johannesburg, and another (the
+18th) had been chosen for special duty in Pretoria. Smith-Dorrien's
+Brigade had been detached for duty upon the line of communications.
+With all these deductions and the wastage caused by wounds and
+disease, the force was in no state to assume a vigorous offensive.
+So hard pressed were they for men that the three thousand released
+prisoners from Waterval were hurriedly armed with Boer weapons and
+sent down the line to help to guard the more vital points.
+
+Had Botha withdrawn to a safe distance, Lord Roberts would
+certainly have halted, as he had done at Bloemfontein, and waited
+for remounts and reinforcements. But the war could not be allowed
+to languish when an active enemy lay only fifteen miles off, within
+striking distance of two cities and of the line of rail. Taking all
+the troops that he could muster, the British General moved out once
+more on Monday, June 11th, to drive Botha from his position. He had
+with him Pole-Carew's 11th Division, which numbered about six
+thousand men with twenty guns, Ian Hamilton's force, which included
+one infantry brigade (Bruce Hamilton's), one cavalry brigade, and a
+corps of mounted infantry, say, six thousand in all, with thirty
+guns. There remained French's Cavalry Division, with Hutton's
+Mounted Infantry, which could not have exceeded two thousand sabres
+and rifles. The total force was, therefore, not more than sixteen
+or seventeen thousand men, with about seventy guns. Their task was
+to carry a carefully prepared position held by at least ten
+thousand burghers with a strong artillery. Had the Boer of June
+been the Boer of December, the odds would have been against the
+British.
+
+There had been some negotiations for peace between Lord Roberts and
+Botha, but the news of De Wet's success from the south had hardened
+the Boer general's heart, and on June 9th the cavalry had their
+orders to advance. Hamilton was to work round the left wing of the
+Boers, and French round their right, while the infantry came up in
+the centre. So wide was the scene of action that the attack and the
+resistance in each flank and in the centre constituted, on June
+11th, three separate actions. Of these the latter was of least
+importance, as it merely entailed the advance of the infantry to a
+spot whence they could take advantage of the success of the
+flanking forces when they had made their presence felt. The centre
+did not on this as on several other occasions in the campaign make
+the mistake of advancing before the way had been prepared for it.
+
+French with his attenuated force found so vigorous a resistance on
+Monday and Tuesday that he was hard put to it to hold his own.
+Fortunately he had with him three excellent Horse Artillery
+batteries, G, O, and T, who worked until, at the end of the
+engagement, they had only twenty rounds in their limbers. The
+country was an impossible one for cavalry, and the troopers fought
+dismounted, with intervals of twenty or thirty paces between the
+men. Exposed all day to rifle and shell fire, unable to advance and
+unwilling to retreat, it was only owing to their open formation
+that they escaped with about thirty casualties. With Boers on his
+front, his flank, and even on his rear, French held grimly on,
+realising that a retreat upon his part would mean a greater
+pressure at all other points of the British advance. At night his
+weary men slept upon the ground which they had held. All Monday and
+all Tuesday French kept his grip at Kameelsdrift, stolidly
+indifferent to the attempt of the enemy to cut his line of
+communications. On Wednesday, Hamilton, upon the other flank, had
+gained the upper hand, and the pressure was relaxed. French then
+pushed forward, but the horses were so utterly beaten that no
+effective pursuit was possible.
+
+During the two days that French had been held up by the Boer right
+wing Hamilton had also been seriously engaged upon the left--so
+seriously that at one time the action appeared to have gone against
+him. The fight presented some distinctive features, which made it
+welcome to soldiers who were weary of the invisible man with his
+smokeless gun upon the eternal kopje. It is true that man, gun, and
+kopje were all present upon this occasion, but in the endeavours to
+drive him off some new developments took place, which formed for
+one brisk hour a reversion to picturesque warfare. Perceiving a gap
+in the enemy's line, Hamilton pushed up the famous Q battery--the
+guns which had plucked glory out of disaster at Sanna's Post. For
+the second time in one campaign they were exposed and in imminent
+danger of capture. A body of mounted Boers with great dash and
+hardihood galloped down within close range and opened fire.
+Instantly the 12th Lancers were let loose upon them. How they must
+have longed for their big-boned long-striding English troop horses
+as they strove to raise a gallop out of their spiritless overworked
+Argentines! For once, however, the lance meant more than five
+pounds dead weight and an encumbrance to the rider. The guns were
+saved, the Boers fled, and a dozen were left upon the ground. But a
+cavalry charge has to end in a re-formation, and that is the
+instant of danger if any unbroken enemy remains within range. Now a
+sleet of bullets hissed through their ranks as they retired, and
+the gallant Lord Airlie, as modest and brave a soldier as ever drew
+sword, was struck through the heart. 'Pray moderate your language!'
+was his last characteristic remark, made to a battle-drunken
+sergeant. Two officers, seventeen men, and thirty horses went down
+with their Colonel, the great majority only slightly injured. In
+the meantime the increasing pressure upon his right caused
+Broadwood to order a second charge, of the Life Guards this time,
+to drive off the assailants. The appearance rather than the swords
+of the Guards prevailed, and cavalry as cavalry had vindicated
+their existence more than they had ever done during the campaign.
+The guns were saved, the flank attack was rolled back, but one
+other danger had still to be met, for the Heidelberg commando--a
+corps d'elite of the Boers--had made its way outside Hamilton's
+flank and threatened to get past him. With cool judgment the
+British General detached a battalion and a section of a battery,
+which pushed the Boers back into a less menacing position. The rest
+of Bruce Hamilton's Brigade were ordered to advance upon the hills
+in front, and, aided by a heavy artillery fire, they had succeeded,
+before the closing in of the winter night, in getting possession of
+this first line of the enemy's defences. Night fell upon an
+undecided fight, which, after swaying this way and that, had
+finally inclined to the side of the British. The Sussex and the
+City Imperial Volunteers were clinging to the enemy's left flank,
+while the 11th Division were holding them in front. All promised
+well for the morrow.
+
+By order of Lord Roberts the Guards were sent round early on
+Tuesday, the 12th, to support the flank attack of Bruce Hamilton's
+infantry. It was afternoon before all was ready for the advance,
+and then the Sussex, the London Volunteers, and the Derbyshires won
+a position upon the ridge, followed later by the three regiments of
+Guards. But the ridge was the edge of a considerable plateau, swept
+by Boer fire, and no advance could be made over its bare expanse
+save at a considerable loss. The infantry clung in a long fringe to
+the edge of the position, but for two hours no guns could be
+brought up to their support, as the steepness of the slope was
+insurmountable. It was all that the stormers could do to hold their
+ground, as they were enfiladed by a Vickers-Maxim, and exposed to
+showers of shrapnel as well as to an incessant rifle fire. Never
+were guns so welcome as those of the 82nd battery, brought by Major
+Connolly into the firing line. The enemy's riflemen were only a
+thousand yards away, and the action of the artillery might have
+seemed as foolhardy as that of Long at Colenso. Ten horses went
+down on the instant, and a quarter of the gunners were hit; but the
+guns roared one by one into action, and their shrapnel soon decided
+the day. Undoubtedly it is with Connolly and his men that the
+honours lie.
+
+At four o'clock, as the sun sank towards the west, the tide of
+fight had set in favour of the attack. Two more batteries had come
+up, every rifle was thrown into the firing line, and the Boer reply
+was decreasing in volume. The temptation to an assault was great,
+but even now it might mean heavy loss of life, and Hamilton shrank
+from the sacrifice. In the morning his judgment was justified, for
+Botha had abandoned the position, and his army was in full retreat.
+The mounted men followed as far as Elands River Station, which is
+twenty-five miles from Pretoria, but the enemy was not overtaken,
+save by a small party of De Lisle's Australians and Regular Mounted
+Infantry. This force, less than a hundred in number, gained a kopje
+which overlooked a portion of the Boer army. Had they been more
+numerous, the effect would have been incalculable. As it was, the
+Australians fired every cartridge which they possessed into the
+throng, and killed many horses and men. It would bear examination
+why it was that only this small corps was present at so vital a
+point, and why, if they could push the pursuit to such purpose,
+others should not be able to do the same. Time was bringing some
+curious revenges. Already Paardeberg had come upon Majuba Day.
+Buller's victorious soldiers had taken Laing's Nek. Now, the Spruit
+at which the retreating Boers were so mishandled by the Australians
+was that same Bronkers Spruit at which, nineteen years before, a
+regiment had been shot down. Many might have prophesied that the
+deed would be avenged; but who could ever have guessed the men who
+would avenge it?
+
+Such was the battle of Diamond Hill, as it was called from the name
+of the ridge which was opposite to Hamilton's attack. The prolonged
+two days' struggle showed that there was still plenty of fight in
+the burghers. Lord Roberts had not routed them, nor had he captured
+their guns; but he had cleared the vicinity of the capital, he had
+inflicted a loss upon them which was certainly as great as his own,
+and he had again proved to them that it was vain for them to
+attempt to stand. A long pause followed at Pretoria, broken by
+occasional small alarms and excursions, which served no end save to
+keep the army from ennui. In spite of occasional breaks in his line
+of communications, horses and supplies were coming up rapidly, and,
+by the middle of July, Roberts was ready for the field again. At
+the same time Hunter had come up from Potchefstroom, and Hamilton
+had taken Heidelberg, and his force was about to join hands with
+Buller at Standerton. Sporadic warfare broke out here and there in
+the west, and in the course of it Snyman of Mafeking had
+reappeared, with two guns, which were promptly taken from him by
+the Canadian Mounted Rifles. On all sides it was felt that if the
+redoubtable De Wet could be captured there was every hope that the
+burghers might discontinue a struggle which was disagreeable to the
+British and fatal to themselves. As a point of honour it was
+impossible for Botha to give in while his ally held out. We will
+turn, therefore, to this famous guerilla chief, and give some
+account of his exploits. To understand them some description must
+be given of the general military situation in the Free State.
+
+When Lord Roberts had swept past to the north he had brushed aside
+the flower of the Orange Free State army, who occupied the
+considerable quadrilateral which is formed by the north-east of
+that State. The function of Rundle's 8th Division and of Brabant's
+Colonial Division was to separate the sheep from the goats by
+preventing the fighting burghers from coming south and disturbing
+those districts which had been settled. For this purpose Rundle
+formed a long line which should serve as a cordon. Moving up
+through Trommel and Clocolan, Ficksburg was occupied on May 25th by
+the Colonial Division, while Rundle seized Senekal, forty miles to
+the north-west. A small force of forty Yeomanry, who entered the
+town some time in advance of the main body, was suddenly attacked
+by the Boers, and the gallant Dalbiac, famous rider and sportsman,
+was killed, with four of his men. He was a victim, as so many have
+been in this campaign, to his own proud disregard of danger.
+
+The Boers were in full retreat, but now, as always, they were
+dangerous. One cannot take them for granted, for the very moment of
+defeat is that at which they are capable of some surprising effort.
+Rundle, following them up from Senekal, found them in strong
+possession of the kopjes at Biddulphsberg, and received a check in
+his endeavour to drive them off. It was an action fought amid great
+grass fires, where the possible fate of the wounded was horrible to
+contemplate. The 2nd Grenadiers, the Scots Guards, the East
+Yorkshires, and the West Kents were all engaged, with the 2nd and
+79th Field Batteries and a force of Yeomanry. Our losses incurred
+in the open from unseen rifles were thirty killed and 130 wounded,
+including Colonel Lloyd of the Grenadiers. Two days later Rundle,
+from Senekal, joined hands with Brabant from Ficksburg, and a
+defensive line was formed between those two places, which was held
+unbroken for two months, when the operations ended in the capture
+of the greater part of the force opposed to him. Clements's
+Brigade, consisting of the 1st Royal Irish, the 2nd Bedfords, the
+2nd Worcesters, and the 2nd Wiltshires, had come to strengthen
+Rundle, and altogether he may have had as many as twelve thousand
+men under his orders. It was not a large force with which to hold a
+mobile adversary at least eight thousand strong, who might attack
+him at any point of his extended line. So well, however, did he
+select his positions that every attempt of the enemy, and there
+were many, ended in failure. Badly supplied with food, he and his
+half-starved men held bravely to their task, and no soldiers in all
+that great host deserve better of their country.
+
+At the end of May, then, the Colonial Division, Rundle's Division,
+and Clements's Brigade held the Boers from Ficksburg on the Basuto
+border to Senekal. This prevented them from coming south. But what
+was there to prevent them from coming west, and falling upon the
+railway line? There was the weak point of the British position.
+Lord Methuen had been brought across from Boshof, and was available
+with six thousand men. Colvile was on that side also, with the
+Highland Brigade. A few details were scattered up and down the
+line, waiting to be gathered up by an enterprising enemy. Kroonstad
+was held by a single militia battalion; each separate force had to
+be nourished by convoys with weak escorts. Never was there such a
+field for a mobile and competent guerilla leader. And, as luck
+would have it, such a man was at hand, ready to take full advantage
+of his opportunities.
+
+CHAPTER 27.
+
+THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION.
+
+Christian de Wet, the elder of two brothers of that name, was at
+this time in the prime of life, a little over forty years of age.
+He was a burly middle-sized bearded man, poorly educated, but
+endowed with much energy and common-sense. His military experience
+dated back to Majuba Hill, and he had a large share of that curious
+race hatred which is intelligible in the case of the Transvaal, but
+inexplicable in a Freestater who has received no injury from the
+British Empire. Some weakness of his sight compels the use of
+tinted spectacles, and he had now turned these, with a pair of
+particularly observant eyes behind them, upon the scattered British
+forces and the long exposed line of railway.
+
+De Wet's force was an offshoot from the army of Freestaters under
+De Villiers, Olivier, and Prinsloo, which lay in the mountainous
+north-east of the State. To him were committed five guns, fifteen
+hundred men, and the best of the horses. Well armed, well mounted,
+and operating in a country which consisted of rolling plains with
+occasional fortress kopjes, his little force had everything in its
+favour. There were so many tempting objects of attack lying before
+him that he must have had some difficulty in knowing where to
+begin. The tinted spectacles were turned first upon the isolated
+town of Lindley.
+
+Colvile with the Highland Brigade had come up from Ventersburg with
+instructions to move onward to Heilbron, pacifying the country as
+he passed. The country, however, refused to be pacified, and his
+march from Ventersburg to Lindley was harassed by snipers every
+mile of the way. Finding that De Wet and his men were close upon
+him, he did not linger at Lindley, but passed on to his
+destination, his entire march of 126 miles costing him sixty-three
+casualties, of which nine were fatal. It was a difficult and
+dangerous march, especially for the handful of Eastern Province
+Horse, upon whom fell all the mounted work. By evil fortune a force
+of five hundred Yeomanry, the 18th battalion, including the Duke of
+Cambridge's Own and the Irish companies, had been sent from
+Kroonstad to join Colvile at Lindley. Colonel Spragge was in
+command. On May 27th this body of horsemen reached their
+destination only to find that Colvile had already abandoned it.
+They appear to have determined to halt for a day in Lindley, and
+then follow Colvile to Heilbron. Within a few hours of their
+entering the town they were fiercely attacked by De Wet.
+
+Colonel Spragge seems to have acted for the best. Under a heavy
+fire he caused his troopers to fall back upon his transport, which
+had been left at a point a few miles out upon the Kroonstad Road,
+where three defensible kopjes sheltered a valley in which the
+cattle and horses could be herded. A stream ran through it. There
+were all the materials there for a stand which would have brought
+glory to the British arms. The men were of peculiarly fine quality,
+many of them from the public schools and from the universities, and
+if any would fight to the death these with their sporting spirit
+and their high sense of honour might have been expected to do so.
+
+They had the stronger motive for holding out, as they had taken
+steps to convey word of their difficulty to Colvile and to Methuen.
+The former continued his march to Heilbron, and it is hard to blame
+him for doing so, but Methuen on hearing the message, which was
+conveyed to him at great personal peril by Corporal Hankey of the
+Yeomanry, pushed on instantly with the utmost energy, though he
+arrived too late to prevent, or even to repair, a disaster. It must
+be remembered that Colvile was under orders to reach Heilbron on a
+certain date, that he was himself fighting his way, and that the
+force which he was asked to relieve was much more mobile than his
+own. His cavalry at that date consisted of 100 men of the Eastern
+Province Horse.
+
+Colonel Spragge's men had held their own for the first three days
+of their investment, during which they had been simply exposed to a
+long-range rifle fire which inflicted no very serious loss upon
+them. Their principal defence consisted of a stone kraal about
+twenty yards square, which sheltered them from rifle bullets, but
+must obviously be a perfect death-trap in the not improbable event
+of the Boers sending for artillery. The spirit of the troopers was
+admirable. Several dashing sorties were carried out under the
+leadership of Captain Humby and Lord Longford. The latter was a
+particularly dashing business, ending in a bayonet charge which
+cleared a neighbouring ridge. Early in the siege the gallant Keith
+met his end. On the fourth day the Boers brought up five guns. One
+would have thought that during so long a time as three days it
+would have been possible for the officer in command to make such
+preparations against this obvious possibility as were so
+successfully taken at a later stage of the war by the handful who
+garrisoned Ladybrand. Surely in this period, even without
+engineers, it would not have been hard to construct such trenches
+as the Boers have again and again opposed to our own artillery. But
+the preparations which were made proved to be quite inadequate. One
+of the two smaller kopjes was carried, and the garrison fled to the
+other. This also was compelled to surrender, and finally the main
+kopje also hoisted the white flag. No blame can rest upon the men,
+for their presence there at all is a sufficient proof of their
+public spirit and their gallantry. But the lessons of the war seem
+to have been imperfectly learned, especially that very certain
+lesson that shell fire in a close formation is insupportable, while
+in an open formation with a little cover it can never compel
+surrender. The casualty lists (80 killed and wounded out of a force
+of 470) show that the Yeomanry took considerable punishment before
+surrendering, but do not permit us to call the defence desperate or
+heroic. It is only fair to add that Colonel Spragge was acquitted
+of all blame by a court of inquiry, which agreed, however, that the
+surrender was premature, and attributed it to the unauthorised
+hoisting of a white flag upon one of the detached kopjes. With
+regard to the subsequent controversy as to whether General Colvile
+might have returned to the relief of the Yeomanry, it is impossible
+to see how that General could have acted in any other way than he
+did.
+
+Some explanation is needed of Lord Methuen's appearance upon the
+central scene of warfare, his division having, when last described,
+been at Boshof, not far from Kimberley, where early in April he
+fought the successful action which led to the death of Villebois.
+Thence he proceeded along the Vaal and then south to Kroonstad,
+arriving there on May 28th. He had with him the 9th Brigade
+(Douglas's), which contained the troops which had started with him
+for the relief of Kimberley six months before. These were the
+Northumberland Fusiliers, Loyal North Lancashires, Northamptons,
+and Yorkshire Light Infantry. With him also were the Munsters, Lord
+Chesham's Yeomanry (five companies), with the 4th and 37th
+batteries, two howitzers and two pom-poms. His total force was
+about 6000 men. On arriving at Kroonstad he was given the task of
+relieving Heilbron, where Colvile, with the Highland Brigade, some
+Colonial horse, Lovat's Scouts, two naval guns, and the 5th
+battery, were short of food and ammunition. The more urgent message
+from the Yeomen at Lindley, however, took him on a fruitless
+journey to that town on June 1st. So vigorous was the pursuit of
+the Yeomanry that the leading squadrons, consisting of South Notts
+Hussars and Sherwood Rangers, actually cut into the Boer convoy and
+might have rescued the prisoners had they been supported. As it was
+they were recalled, and had to fight their way back to Lindley with
+some loss, including Colonel Rolleston, the commander, who was
+badly wounded. A garrison was left under Paget, and the rest of the
+force pursued its original mission to Heilbron, arriving there on
+June 7th, when the Highlanders had been reduced to quarter rations.
+'The Salvation Army' was the nickname by which they expressed their
+gratitude to the relieving force.
+
+A previous convoy sent to the same destination had less good
+fortune. On June 1st fifty-five wagons started from the railway
+line to reach Heilbron. The escort consisted of one hundred and
+sixty details belonging to Highland regiments without any guns,
+Captain Corballis in command. But the gentleman with the tinted
+glasses was waiting on the way. 'I have twelve hundred men and five
+guns. Surrender at once!' Such was the message which reached the
+escort, and in their defenceless condition there was nothing for it
+but to comply. Thus one disaster leads to another, for, had the
+Yeomanry held out at Lindley, De Wet would not on June 4th have
+laid hands upon our wagons; and had he not recruited his supplies
+from our wagons it is doubtful if he could have made his attack
+upon Roodeval. This was the next point upon which he turned his
+attention.
+
+Two miles beyond Roodeval station there is a well-marked kopje by
+the railway line, with other hills some distance to the right and
+the left. A militia regiment, the 4th Derbyshire, had been sent up
+to occupy this post. There were rumours of Boers on the line, and
+Major Haig, who with one thousand details of various regiments
+commanded at railhead, had been attacked on June 6th but had beaten
+off his assailants. De Wet, acting sometimes in company with, and
+sometimes independently of, his lieutenant Nel, passed down the
+line looking fur some easier prey, and on the night of June 7th
+came upon the militia regiment, which was encamped in a position
+which could be completely commanded by artillery. It is not true
+that they had neglected to occupy the kopje under which they lay,
+for two companies had been posted upon it. But there seems to have
+been no thought of imminent danger, and the regiment had pitched
+its tents and gone very comfortably to sleep without a thought of
+the gentleman in the tinted glasses. In the middle of the night he
+was upon them with a hissing sleet of bullets. At the first dawn
+the guns opened and the shells began to burst among them. It was a
+horrible ordeal for raw troops. The men were miners and
+agricultural labourers, who had never seen more bloodshed than a
+cut finger in their lives. They had been four months in the
+country, but their life had been a picnic, as the luxury of their
+baggage shows. Now in an instant the picnic was ended, and in the
+grey cold dawn war was upon them--grim war with the whine of
+bullets, the screams of pain, the crash of shell, the horrible
+rending and riving of body and limb. In desperate straits, which
+would have tried the oldest soldiers, the brave miners did well.
+They never from the beginning had a chance save to show how gamely
+they could take punishment, but that at least they did. Bullets
+were coming from all sides at once and yet no enemy was visible.
+They lined one side of the embankment, and they were shot in the
+back. They lined the other, and were again shot in the back.
+Baird-Douglas, the Colonel, vowed to shoot the man who should raise
+the white flag, and he fell dead himself before he saw the hated
+emblem. But it had to come. A hundred and forty of the men were
+down, many of them suffering from the horrible wounds which shell
+inflicts. The place was a shambles. Then the flag went up and the
+Boers at last became visible. Outnumbered, outgeneralled, and
+without guns, there is no shadow of stain upon the good name of the
+one militia regiment which was ever seriously engaged during the
+war. Their position was hopeless from the first, and they came out
+of it with death, mutilation, and honour.
+
+Two miles south of the Rhenoster kopje stands Roodeval station, in
+which, on that June morning, there stood a train containing the
+mails for the army, a supply of great-coats, and a truck full of
+enormous shells. A number of details of various sorts, a hundred or
+more, had alighted from the train, twenty of them Post-office
+volunteers, some of the Pioneer Railway corps, a few Shropshires,
+and other waifs and strays. To them in the early morning came the
+gentleman with the tinted glasses, his hands still red with the
+blood of the Derbies. 'I have fourteen hundred men and four guns.
+Surrender!' said the messenger. But it is not in nature for a
+postman to give up his postbag without a struggle. 'Never!' cried
+the valiant postmen. But shell after shell battered the
+corrugated-iron buildings about their ears, and it was not possible
+for them to answer the guns which were smashing the life out of
+them. There was no help for it but to surrender. De Wet added
+samples of the British volunteer and of the British regular to his
+bag of militia. The station and train were burned down, the
+great-coats looted, the big shells exploded, and the mails burned.
+The latter was the one unsportsmanlike action which can up to that
+date be laid to De Wet's charge. Forty thousand men to the north of
+him could forego their coats and their food, but they yearned
+greatly for those home letters, charred fragments of which are
+still blowing about the veld. [Footnote: Fragments continually met
+the eye which must have afforded curious reading for the victors.
+'I hope you have killed all those Boers by now,' was the beginning
+of one letter which I could not help observing.]
+
+For three days De Wet held the line, and during all that time he
+worked his wicked will upon it. For miles and miles it was wrecked
+with most scientific completeness. The Rhenoster bridge was
+destroyed. So, for the second time, was the Roodeval bridge. The
+rails were blown upwards with dynamite until they looked like an
+unfinished line to heaven. De Wet's heavy hand was everywhere. Not
+a telegraph-post remained standing within ten miles. His
+headquarters continued to be the kopje at Roodeval.
+
+On June 10th two British forces were converging upon the point of
+danger. One was Methuen's, from Heilbron. The other was a small
+force consisting of the Shropshires, the South Wales Borderers, and
+a battery which had come south with Lord Kitchener. The energetic
+Chief of the Staff was always sent by Lord Roberts to the point
+where a strong man was needed, and it was seldom that he failed to
+justify his mission. Lord Methuen, however, was the first to
+arrive, and at once attacked De Wet, who moved swiftly away to the
+eastward. With a tendency to exaggeration, which has been too
+common during the war, the affair was described as a victory. It
+was really a strategic and almost bloodless move upon the part of
+the Boers. It is not the business of guerillas to fight pitched
+battles. Methuen pushed for the south, having been informed that
+Kroonstad had been captured. Finding this to be untrue, he turned
+again to the eastward in search of De Wet.
+
+That wily and indefatigable man was not long out of our ken. On
+June 14th he appeared once more at Rhenoster, where the
+construction trains, under the famous Girouard, were working
+furiously at the repair of the damage which he had already done.
+This time the guard was sufficient to beat him off, and he vanished
+again to the eastward. He succeeded, however, in doing some harm,
+and very nearly captured Lord Kitchener himself. A permanent post
+had been established at Rhenoster under the charge of Colonel Spens
+of the Shropshires, with his own regiment and several guns.
+Smith-Dorrien, one of the youngest and most energetic of the
+divisional commanders, had at the same time undertaken the
+supervision and patrolling of the line.
+
+An attack had at this period been made by a commando of some
+hundred Boers at the Sand River to the south of Kroonstad, where
+there is a most important bridge. The attempt was frustrated by the
+Royal Lancaster regiment and the Railway Pioneer regiment, helped
+by some mounted infantry and Yeomanry. The fight was for a time a
+brisk one, and the Pioneers, upon whom the brunt of it fell,
+behaved with great steadiness. The skirmish is principally
+remarkable for the death of Major Seymour of the Pioneers, a noble
+American, who gave his services and at last his life for what, in
+the face of all slander and misrepresentation, he knew to be the
+cause of justice and of liberty.
+
+It was hoped now, after all these precautions, that the last had
+been seen of the gentleman with the tinted glasses, but on June
+21st he was back in his old haunts once more. Honing Spruit
+Station, about midway between Kroonstad and Roodeval, was the scene
+of his new raid. On that date his men appeared suddenly as a train
+waited in the station, and ripped up the rails on either side of
+it. There were no guns at this point, and the only available troops
+were three hundred of the prisoners from Pretoria, armed with
+Martini-Henry rifles and obsolete ammunition. A good man was in
+command, however--the same Colonel Bullock of the Devons who had
+distinguished himself at Colenso--and every tattered, half-starved
+wastrel was nerved by a recollection of the humiliations which he
+had already endured. For seven hours they lay helpless under the
+shell-fire, but their constancy was rewarded by the arrival of
+Colonel Brookfield with 300 Yeomanry and four guns of the 17th
+R.F.A., followed in the evening by a larger force from the south.
+The Boers fled, but left some of their number behind them; while
+of the British, Major Hobbs and four men were killed and nineteen
+wounded. This defence of three hundred half-armed men against seven
+hundred Boer riflemen, with three guns firing shell and shrapnel,
+was a very good performance. The same body of burghers immediately
+afterwards attacked a post held by Colonel Evans with two companies
+of the Shropshires and fifty Canadians. They were again beaten back
+with loss, the Canadians under Inglis especially distinguishing
+themselves by their desperate resistance in an exposed position.
+
+All these attacks, irritating and destructive as they were, were
+not able to hinder the general progress of the war. After the
+battle of Diamond Hill the captured position was occupied by the
+mounted infantry, while the rest of the forces returned to their
+camps round Pretoria, there to await the much-needed remounts. At
+other parts of the seat of war the British cordon was being drawn
+more tightly round the Boer forces. Buller had come as far as
+Standerton, and Ian Hamilton, in the last week of June, had
+occupied Heidelberg. A week afterwards the two forces were able to
+join hands, and so to completely cut off the Free State from the
+Transvaal armies. Hamilton in these operations had the misfortune
+to break his collar-bone, and for a time the command of his
+division passed to Hunter--the one man, perhaps, whom the army
+would regard as an adequate successor.
+
+It was evident now to the British commanders that there would be no
+peace and no safety for their communications while an undefeated
+army of seven or eight thousand men, under such leaders as De Wet
+and Olivier, was lurking amid the hills which flanked their
+railroad. A determined effort was made, therefore, to clear up that
+corner of the country. Having closed the only line of escape by the
+junction of Ian Hamilton and of Buller, the attention of six
+separate bodies of troops was concentrated upon the stalwart
+Freestaters. These were the divisions of Rundle and of Brabant from
+the south, the brigade of Clements on their extreme left, the
+garrison of Lindley under Paget, the garrison of Heilbron under
+Macdonald, and, most formidable of all, a detachment under Hunter
+which was moving from the north. A crisis was evidently
+approaching.
+
+The nearest Free State town of importance still untaken was
+Bethlehem--a singular name to connect with the operations of war.
+The country on the south of it forbade an advance by Rundle or
+Brabant, but it was more accessible from the west. The first
+operation of the British consisted, therefore, in massing
+sufficient troops to be able to advance from this side. This was
+done by effecting a junction between Clements from Senekal, and
+Paget who commanded at Lindley, which was carried out upon July 1st
+near the latter place. Clements encountered some opposition, but
+besides his excellent infantry regiments, the Royal Irish,
+Worcesters, Wiltshires, and Bedfords, he had with him the 2nd
+Brabant's Horse, with yeomanry, mounted infantry, two 5-inch guns,
+and the 38th R.F.A. Aided by a demonstration on the part of
+Grenfell and of Brabant, he pushed his way through after three days
+of continual skirmish.
+
+On getting into touch with Clements, Paget sallied out from
+Lindley, leaving the Buffs behind to garrison the town. He had with
+him Brookfield's mounted brigade one thousand strong, eight guns,
+and two fine battalions of infantry, the Munster Fusiliers and the
+Yorkshire Light Infantry. On July 3rd he found near Leeuw Kop a
+considerable force of Boers with three guns opposed to him,
+Clements being at that time too far off upon the flank to assist
+him. Four guns of the 38th R.F.A. (Major Oldfield) and two
+belonging to the City Volunteers came into action. The Royal
+Artillery guns appear to have been exposed to a very severe fire,
+and the losses were so heavy that for a time they could not be
+served. The escort was inadequate, insufficiently advanced, and
+badly handled, for the Boer riflemen were able, by creeping up a
+donga, to get right into the 38th battery, and the gallant major,
+with Lieutenant Belcher, was killed in the defence of the guns.
+Captain FitzGerald, the only other officer present, was wounded in
+two places, and twenty men were struck down, with nearly all the
+horses of one section. Captain Marks, who was brigade-major of
+Colonel Brookfield's Yeomanry, with the help of Lieutenant Keevil
+Davis and the 15th I.Y. came to the rescue of the disorganised and
+almost annihilated section. At the same time the C.I.V. guns were
+in imminent danger, but were energetically covered by Captain
+Budworth, adjutant of the battery. Soon, however, the infantry,
+Munster Fusiliers, and Yorkshire Light Infantry, which had been
+carrying out a turning movement, came into action, and the position
+was taken. The force moved onwards, and on July 6th they were in
+front of Bethlehem.
+
+The place is surrounded by hills, and the enemy was found strongly
+posted. Clements's force was now on the left and Paget's on the
+right. From both sides an attempt was made to turn the Boer flanks,
+but they were found to be very wide and strong. All day a
+long-range action was kept up while Clements felt his way in the
+hope of coming upon some weak spot in the position, but in the
+evening a direct attack was made by Paget's two infantry regiments
+upon the right, which gave the British a footing on the Boer
+position. The Munster Fusiliers and the Yorkshire Light Infantry
+lost forty killed and wounded, including four officers, in this
+gallant affair, the heavier loss and the greater honour going to
+the men of Munster.
+
+The centre of the position was still held, and on the morning of
+July 7th Clements gave instructions to the colonel of the Royal
+Irish to storm it if the occasion should seem favourable. Such an
+order to such a regiment means that the occasion will seem
+favourable. Up they went in three extended lines, dropping forty or
+fifty on the way, but arriving breathless and enthusiastic upon the
+crest of the ridge. Below them, upon the further side, lay the
+village of Bethlehem. On the slopes beyond hundreds of horsemen
+were retreating, and a gun was being hurriedly dragged into the
+town. For a moment it seemed as if nothing had been left as a
+trophy, but suddenly a keen-eyed sergeant raised a cheer, which was
+taken up again and again until it resounded over the veld. Under
+the crest, lying on its side with a broken wheel, was a gun--one of
+the 15-pounders of Stormberg which it was a point of honour to
+regain once more. Many a time had the gunners been friends in need
+to the infantry. Now it was the turn of the infantry to do
+something in exchange. That evening Clements had occupied
+Bethlehem, and one more of their towns had passed out of the hands
+of the Freestaters.
+
+A word now as to that force under General Hunter which was closing
+in from the north. The gallant and energetic Hamilton, lean,
+aquiline, and tireless, had, as already stated, broken his
+collar-bone at Heidelberg, and it was as his lieutenant that Hunter
+was leading these troops out of the Transvaal into the Orange River
+Colony. Most of his infantry was left behind at Heidelberg, but he
+took with him Broadwood's cavalry (two brigades) and Bruce
+Hamilton's 21st infantry brigade, with Ridley's mounted infantry,
+some seven thousand men in all. On the 2nd of July this force
+reached Frankfort in the north of the Free State without
+resistance, and on July 3rd they were joined there by Macdonald's
+force from Heilbron, so that Hunter found himself with over eleven
+thousand men under his command. Here was an instrument with which
+surely the coup de grace could be given to the dying State. Passing
+south, still without meeting serious resistance, Hunter occupied
+Reitz, and finally sent on Broadwood's cavalry to Bethlehem, where
+on July 8th they joined Paget and Clements.
+
+The net was now in position, and about to be drawn tight, but at
+this last moment the biggest fish of all dashed furiously out from
+it. Leaving the main Free State force in a hopeless position behind
+him, De Wet, with fifteen hundred well-mounted men and five guns,
+broke through Slabbert's Nek between Bethlehem and Ficksburg, and
+made swiftly for the north-west, closely followed by Paget's and
+Broadwood's cavalry. It was on July 16th that he made his dash for
+freedom. On the 19th Little, with the 3rd Cavalry Brigade, had come
+into touch with him near Lindley. De Wet shook himself clear, and
+with splendid audacity cut the railway once more to the north of
+Honing Spruit, gathering up a train as he passed, and taking two
+hundred details prisoners. On July 22nd De Wet was at Vredefort,
+still closely followed by Broadwood, Ridley, and Little, who
+gleaned his wagons and his stragglers. Thence he threw himself into
+the hilly country some miles to the south of the Vaal River, where
+he lurked for a week or more while Lord Kitchener came south to
+direct the operations which would, as it was hoped, lead to a
+surrender.
+
+Leaving the indomitable guerilla in his hiding-place, the narrative
+must return to that drawing of the net which still continued in
+spite of the escape of this one important fish. On all sides the
+British forces had drawn closer, and they were both more numerous
+and more formidable in quality. It was evident now that by a rapid
+advance from Bethlehem in the direction of the Basuto border all
+Boers to the north of Ficksburg would be hemmed in. On July 22nd
+the columns were moving. On that date Paget moved out of Bethlehem,
+and Rundle took a step forward from Ficksburg. Bruce Hamilton had
+already, at the cost of twenty Cameron Highlanders, got a grip upon
+a bastion of that rocky country in which the enemy lurked. On the
+23rd Hunter's force was held by the Boers at the strong pass of
+Retief's Nek, but on the 24th they were compelled to abandon it, as
+the capture of Slabbert's Nek by Clements threatened their rear.
+This latter pass was fortified most elaborately. It was attacked
+upon the 23rd by Brabant's Horse and the Royal Irish without
+success. Later in the day two companies of the Wiltshire Regiment
+were also brought to a standstill, but retained a position until
+nightfall within stone-throw of the Boer lines, though a single
+company had lost 17 killed and wounded. Part of the Royal Irish
+remained also close to the enemy's trenches. Under cover of
+darkness, Clements sent four companies of the Royal Irish and two
+of the Wiltshires under Colonel Guinness to make a flanking
+movement along the crest of the heights. These six companies
+completely surprised the enemy, and caused them to hurriedly
+evacuate the position. Their night march was performed under great
+difficulties, the men crawling on hands and knees along a rocky
+path with a drop of 400 feet upon one side. But their exertions
+were greatly rewarded. Upon the success of their turning movement
+depended the fall of Slabbert's Nek. Retief's Nek was untenable if
+we held Slabbert's Nek, and if both were in our hands the retreat
+of Prinsloo was cut off.
+
+At every opening of the hills the British guns were thundering, and
+the heads of British columns were appearing on every height. The
+Highland Brigade had fairly established themselves over the Boer
+position, though not without hard fighting, in which a hundred men
+of the Highland Light Infantry had been killed and wounded. The
+Seaforths and the Sussex had also gripped the positions in front of
+them, and taken some punishment in doing so. The outworks of the
+great mountain fortress were all taken, and on July 26th the
+British columns were converging on Fouriesburg, while Naauwpoort on
+the line of retreat was held by Macdonald. It was only a matter of
+time now with the Boers.
+
+On the 28th Clements was still advancing, and contracting still
+further the space which was occupied by our stubborn foe. He found
+himself faced by the stiff position of Slaapkrantz, and a hot
+little action was needed before the Boers could be dislodged. The
+fighting fell upon Brabant's Horse, the Royal Irish, and the
+Wiltshires. Three companies of the latter seized a farm upon the
+enemy's left, but lost ten men in doing so, while their gallant
+colonel, Carter, was severely wounded in two places. The
+Wiltshires, who were excellently handled by Captain Bolton, held on
+to the farm and were reinforced there by a handful of the Scots
+Guards. In the night the position was abandoned by the Boers, and
+the advance swept onwards. On all sides the pressure was becoming
+unendurable. The burghers in the valley below could see all day the
+twinkle of British heliographs from every hill, while at night the
+constant flash of signals told of the sleepless vigilance which
+hemmed them in. Upon July 29th, Prinsloo sent in a request for an
+armistice, which was refused. Later in the day he despatched a
+messenger with the white flag to Hunter, with an announcement of
+his unconditional surrender.
+
+On July 30th the motley army which had held the British off so long
+emerged from among the mountains. But it soon became evident that
+in speaking for all Prinsloo had gone beyond his powers. Discipline
+was low and individualism high in the Boer army. Every man might
+repudiate the decision of his commandant, as every man might
+repudiate the white flag of his comrade. On the first day no more
+than eleven hundred men of the Ficksburg and Ladybrand commandos,
+with fifteen hundred horses and two guns, were surrendered. next
+day seven hundred and fifty more men came in with eight hundred
+horses, and by August 6th the total of the prisoners had mounted to
+four thousand one hundred and fifty with three guns, two of which
+were our own. But Olivier, with fifteen hundred men and several
+guns, broke away from the captured force and escaped through the
+hills. Of this incident General Hunter, an honourable soldier,
+remarks in his official report: 'I regard it as a dishonourable
+breach of faith upon the part of General Olivier, for which I hold
+him personally responsible. He admitted that he knew that General
+Prinsloo had included him in the unconditional surrender.' It is
+strange that, on Olivier's capture shortly afterwards, he was not
+court-martialled for this breach of the rules of war, but that
+good-natured giant, the Empire, is quick--too quick, perhaps--to
+let byegones be byegones. On August 4th Harrismith surrendered to
+Macdonald, and thus was secured the opening of the Van Reenen's
+Pass and the end of the Natal system of railways. This was of the
+very first importance, as the utmost difficulty had been found in
+supplying so large a body of troops so far from the Cape base. In a
+day the base was shifted to Durban, and the distance shortened by
+two-thirds, while the army came to be on the railway instead of a
+hundred miles from it. This great success assured Lord Roberts's
+communications from serious attack, and was of the utmost
+importance in enabling him to consolidate his position at Pretoria.
+
+CHAPTER 28.
+
+THE HALT AT PRETORIA.
+
+Lord Roberts had now been six weeks in the capital, and British
+troops had overrun the greater part of the south and west of the
+Transvaal, but in spite of this there was continued Boer
+resistance, which flared suddenly up in places which had been
+nominally pacified and disarmed. It was found, as has often been
+shown in history, that it is easier to defeat a republican army
+than to conquer it. From Klerksdorp, from Ventersdorp, from
+Rustenburg, came news of risings against the newly imposed British
+authority. The concealed Mauser and the bandolier were dug up once
+more from the trampled corner of the cattle kraal, and the farmer
+was a warrior once again. Vague news of the exploits of De Wet
+stimulated the fighting burghers and shamed those who had
+submitted. A letter was intercepted from the guerilla chief to
+Cronje's son, who had surrendered near Rustenburg. De Wet stated
+that he had gained two great victories and had fifteen hundred
+captured rifles with which to replace those which the burghers had
+given up. Not only were the outlying districts in a state of
+revolt, but even round Pretoria the Boers were inclined to take the
+offensive, while both that town and Johannesburg were filled with
+malcontents who were ready to fly to their arms once more.
+
+Already at the end of June there were signs that the Boers realised
+how helpless Lord Roberts was until his remounts should arrive. The
+mosquitoes buzzed round the crippled lion. On June 29th there was
+an attack upon Springs near Johannesburg, which was easily beaten
+off by the Canadians. Early in July some of the cavalry and mounted
+infantry patrols were snapped up in the neighbourhood of the
+capital. Lord Roberts gave orders accordingly that Hutton and Mahon
+should sweep the Boers back upon his right, and push them as far as
+Bronkhorst Spruit. This was done on July 6th and 7th, the British
+advance meeting with considerable resistance from artillery as well
+as rifles. By this movement the pressure upon the right was
+relieved, which might have created a dangerous unrest in
+Johannesburg, and it was done at the moderate cost of thirty-four
+killed and wounded, half of whom belonged to the Imperial Light
+Horse. This famous corps, which had come across with Mahon from the
+relief of Mafeking, had, a few days before, ridden with mixed
+feelings through the streets of Johannesburg and past, in many
+instances, the deserted houses which had once been their homes.
+Many weary months were to pass before the survivors might occupy
+them. On July 9th the Boers again attacked, but were again pushed
+back to the eastward.
+
+It is probable that all these demonstrations of the enemy upon the
+right of Lord Roberts's extended position were really feints in
+order to cover the far-reaching plans which Botha had in his mind.
+The disposition of the Boer forces at this time appears to have
+been as follows: Botha with his army occupied a position along
+Delagoa railway line, further east than Diamond Hill, whence he
+detached the bodies which attacked Hutton upon the extreme right of
+the British position to the south-east of Pretoria. To the north of
+Pretoria a second force was acting under Grobler, while a third
+under De la Rey had been despatched secretly across to the left
+wing of the British, north-west of Pretoria. While Botha engaged
+the attention of Lord Roberts by energetic demonstrations on his
+right, Grobler and De la Rey were to make a sudden attack upon his
+centre and his left, each point being twelve or fifteen miles from
+the other. It was well devised and very well carried out; but the
+inherent defect of it was that, when subdivided in this way, the
+Boer force was no longer strong enough to gain more than a mere
+success of outposts.
+
+De la Rey's attack was delivered at break of day on July 11th at
+Uitval's Nek, a post some eighteen miles west of the capital. This
+position could not be said to be part of Lord Roberts's line, but
+rather to be a link to connect his army with Rustenburg. It was
+weakly held by three companies of the Lincolns with two others in
+support, one squadron of the Scots Greys, and two guns of O battery
+R.H.A. The attack came with the first grey light of dawn, and for
+many hours the small garrison bore up against a deadly fire,
+waiting for the help which never came. All day they held their
+assailants at bay, and it was not until evening that their
+ammunition ran short and they were forced to surrender. Nothing
+could have been better than the behaviour of the men, both
+infantry, cavalry, and gunners, but their position was a hopeless
+one. The casualties amounted to eighty killed and wounded. Nearly
+two hundred were made prisoners and the two guns were taken.
+
+On the same day that De la Rey made his coup at Uitval's Nek,
+Grobler had shown his presence on the north side of the town by
+treating very roughly a couple of squadrons of the 7th Dragoon
+Guards which had attacked him. By the help of a section of the
+ubiquitous O battery and of the 14th Hussars, Colonel Lowe was able
+to disengage his cavalry from the trap into which they had fallen,
+but it was at the cost of between thirty and forty officers and men
+killed, wounded, or taken. The old 'Black Horse' sustained their
+historical reputation, and fought their way bravely out of an
+almost desperate situation, where they were exposed to the fire of
+a thousand riflemen and four guns.
+
+On this same day of skirmishes, July 11th, the Gordons had seen
+some hot work twenty miles or so to the south of Uitval's Nek.
+Orders had been given to the 19th Brigade (Smith-Dorrien's) to
+proceed to Krugersdorp, and thence to make their way north. The
+Scottish Yeomanry and a section of the 78th R.F.A. accompanied
+them. The idea seems to have been that they would be able to drive
+north any Boers in that district, who would then find the garrison
+of Uitval's Nek at their rear. The advance was checked, however, at
+a place called Dolverkrantz, which was strongly held by Boer
+riflemen. The two guns were insufficiently protected, and the enemy
+got within short range of them, killing or wounding many of the
+gunners. The lieutenant in charge, Mr. A.J. Turner, the famous
+Essex cricketer, worked the gun with his own hands until he also
+fell wounded in three places. The situation was now very serious,
+and became more so when news was flashed of the disaster at
+Uitval's Nek, and they were ordered to retire. They could not
+retire and abandon the guns, yet the fire was so hot that it was
+impossible to remove them. Gallant attempts were made by volunteers
+from the Gordons--Captain Younger and other brave men throwing away
+their lives in the vain effort to reach and to limber up the guns.
+At last, under the cover of night, the teams were harnessed and the
+two field-pieces successfully removed, while the Boers who rushed
+in to seize them were scattered by a volley. The losses in the
+action were thirty-six and the gain nothing. Decidedly July 11th
+was not a lucky day for the British arms.
+
+It was well known to Botha that every train from the south was
+bringing horses for Lord Roberts's army, and that it had become
+increasingly difficult for De Wet and his men to hinder their
+arrival. The last horse must win, and the Empire had the world on
+which to draw. Any movement which the Boers would make must be made
+at once, for already both the cavalry and the mounted infantry were
+rapidly coming back to their full strength once more. This
+consideration must have urged Botha to deliver an attack on July
+16th, which had some success at first, but was afterwards beaten
+off with heavy loss to the enemy. The fighting fell principally
+upon Pole-Carew and Hutton, the corps chiefly engaged being the
+Royal Irish Fusiliers, the New Zealanders, the Shropshires, and the
+Canadian Mounted Infantry. The enemy tried repeatedly to assault
+the position, but were beaten back each time with a loss of nearly
+a hundred killed and wounded. The British loss was about sixty, and
+included two gallant young Canadian officers, Borden and Birch, the
+former being the only son of the minister of militia. So ended the
+last attempt made by Botha upon the British positions round
+Pretoria. The end of the war was not yet, but already its futility
+was abundantly evident. This had become more apparent since the
+junction of Hamilton and of Buller had cut off the Transvaal army
+from that of the Free State. Unable to send their prisoners away,
+and also unable to feed them, the Freestaters were compelled to
+deliver up in Natal the prisoners whom they had taken at Lindley
+and Roodeval. These men, a ragged and starving battalion, emerged
+at Ladysmith, having made their way through Van Reenen's Pass. It
+is a singular fact that no parole appears on these and similar
+occasions to have been exacted by the Boers.
+
+Lord Roberts, having remounted a large part of his cavalry, was
+ready now to advance eastward and give Botha battle. The first town
+of any consequence along the Delagoa Railway is Middelburg, some
+seventy miles from the capital. This became the British objective,
+and the forces of Mahon and Hamilton on the north, of Pole-Carew in
+the centre, and of French and Hutton to the south, all converged
+upon it. There was no serious resistance, though the weather was
+abominable, and on July 27th the town was in the hands of the
+invaders. From that date until the final advance to the eastward
+French held this advanced post, while Pole-Carew guarded the
+railway line. Rumours of trouble in the west had convinced Roberts
+that it was not yet time to push his advantage to the east, and he
+recalled Ian Hamilton's force to act for a time upon the other side
+of the seat of the war. This excellent little army, consisting of
+Mahon's and Pilcher's mounted infantry, M battery R.H.A., the
+Elswick battery, two 5-inch and two 4.7 guns, with the Berkshires,
+the Border Regiment, the Argyle and Sutherlands, and the Scottish
+Borderers, put in as much hard work in marching and in fighting as
+any body of troops in the whole campaign.
+
+The renewal of the war in the west had begun some weeks before, but
+was much accelerated by the transference of De la Rey and his
+burghers to that side. There is no district in the Transvaal which
+is better worth fighting for, for it is a fair country side,
+studded with farmhouses and green with orange-groves, with many
+clear streams running through it. The first sign of activity
+appears to have been on July 7th, when a commando with guns
+appeared upon the hills above Rustenburg. Hanbury Tracy, commandant
+of Rustenburg, was suddenly confronted with a summons to surrender.
+He had only 120 men and one gun, but he showed a bold front.
+Colonel Houldsworth, at the first whisper of danger, had started
+from Zeerust with a small force of Australian bushmen, and arrived
+at Rustenburg in time to drive the enemy away in a very spirited
+action. On the evening of July 8th Baden-Powell took over the
+command, the garrison being reinforced by Plumer's command.
+
+The Boer commando was still in existence, however, and it was
+reinforced and reinvigorated by De la Rey's success at Uitval's
+Nek. On July 18th they began to close in upon Rustenburg again, and
+a small skirmish took place between them and the Australians.
+Methuen's division, which had been doing very arduous service in
+the north of the Free State during the last six weeks, now received
+orders to proceed into the Transvaal and to pass northwards through
+the disturbed districts en route for Rustenburg, which appeared to
+be the storm centre. The division was transported by train from
+Kroonstad to Krugersdorp, and advanced on the evening of July 18th
+upon its mission, through a bare and fire-blackened country. On the
+19th Lord Methuen manoeuvred the Boers out of a strong position,
+with little loss to either side. On the 21st he forced his way
+through Olifant's Nek, in the Magaliesberg range, and so
+established communication with Baden-Powell, whose valiant bushmen,
+under Colonel Airey, had held their own in a severe conflict near
+Magato Pass, in which they lost six killed, nineteen wounded, and
+nearly two hundred horses. The fortunate arrival of Captain
+FitzClarence with the Protectorate Regiment helped on this occasion
+to avert a disaster. The force, only 300 strong, without guns, had
+walked into an ugly ambuscade, and only the tenacity and resource
+of the men enabled them ever to extricate themselves.
+
+Although Methuen came within reach of Rustenburg, he did not
+actually join hands with Baden-Powell. No doubt he saw and heard
+enough to convince him that that astute soldier was very well able
+to take care of himself. Learning of the existence of a Boer force
+in his rear, Methuen turned, and on July 29th he was back at
+Frederickstad on the Potchefstroom to Krugersdorp railway. The
+sudden change in his plans was caused doubtless by the desire to
+head off De Wet in case he should cross the Vaal River. Lord
+Roberts was still anxious to clear the neighbourhood of Rustenburg
+entirely of the enemy; and he therefore, since Methuen was needed
+to complete the cordon round De Wet, recalled Hamilton's force from
+the east and despatched it, as already described, to the west of
+Pretoria.
+
+Before going into the details of the great De Wet hunt, in which
+Methuen's force was to be engaged, I shall follow Hamilton's
+division across, and give some account of their services. On August
+1st he set out from Pretoria for Rustenburg. On that day and on the
+next he had brisk skirmishes which brought him successfully through
+the Magaliesberg range with a loss of forty wounded, mostly of the
+Berkshires. On the 5th of August he had made his way to Rustenburg
+and drove off the investing force. A smaller siege had been going
+on to westward, where at Elands River another Mafeking man, Colonel
+Hore, had been held up by the burghers. For some days it was
+feared, and even officially announced, that the garrison had
+surrendered. It was known that an attempt by Carrington to relieve
+the place on August 5th had been beaten back, and that the state of
+the country appeared so threatening that he had been compelled, or
+had imagined himself to be compelled, to retreat as far as
+Mafeking, evacuating Zeerust and Otto's Hoop, abandoning the
+considerable stores which were collected at those places. In spite
+of all these sinister indications the garrison was still holding
+its own, and on August 16th it was relieved by Lord Kitchener.
+
+This stand at Brakfontein on the Elands River appears to have been
+one of the very finest deeds of arms of the war. The Australians
+have been so split up during the campaign, that though their valour
+and efficiency were universally recognised, they had no single
+exploit which they could call their own. But now they can point to
+Elands River as proudly as the Canadians can to Paardeberg. They
+were 500 in number, Victorians, New South Welshmen, and
+Queenslanders, the latter the larger unit, with a corps of
+Rhodesians. Under Hore were Major Hopper of the Rhodesians, and
+Major Toubridge of the Queenslanders. Two thousand five hundred
+Boers surrounded them, and most favourable terms of surrender were
+offered and scouted. Six guns were trained upon them, and during 11
+days 1800 shells fell within their lines. The river was half a mile
+off, and every drop of water for man or beast had to come from
+there. Nearly all their horses and 75 of the men were killed or
+wounded. With extraordinary energy and ingenuity the little band
+dug shelters which are said to have exceeded in depth and
+efficiency any which the Boers have devised. Neither the repulse of
+Carrington, nor the jamming of their only gun, nor the death of the
+gallant Annett, was sufficient to dishearten them. They were sworn
+to die before the white flag should wave above them. And so fortune
+yielded, as fortune will when brave men set their teeth, and
+Broadwood's troopers, filled with wonder and admiration, rode into
+the lines of the reduced and emaciated but indomitable garrison.
+When the ballad-makers of Australia seek for a subject, let them
+turn to Elands River, for there was no finer resistance in the war.
+They will not grudge a place in their record to the 130 gallant
+Rhodesians who shared with them the honours and the dangers of the
+exploit.
+
+On August 7th Ian Hamilton abandoned Rustenburg, taking
+Baden-Powell and his men with him. It was obviously unwise to
+scatter the British forces too widely by attempting to garrison
+every single town. For the instant the whole interest of the war
+centred upon De Wet and his dash into the Transvaal. One or two
+minor events, however, which cannot be fitted into any continuous
+narrative may be here introduced.
+
+One of these was the action at Faber's Put, by which Sir Charles
+Warren crushed the rebellion in Griqualand. In that sparsely
+inhabited country of vast distances it was a most difficult task to
+bring the revolt to a decisive ending. This Sir Charles Warren,
+with his special local knowledge and interest, was able to do, and
+the success is doubly welcome as bringing additional honour to a
+man who, whatever view one may take of his action at Spion Kop, has
+grown grey in the service of the Empire. With a column consisting
+mainly of colonials and of yeomanry he had followed the rebels up
+to a point within twelve miles of Douglas. Here at the end of May
+they turned upon him and delivered a fierce night attack, so sudden
+and so strongly pressed that much credit is due both to General and
+to troops for having repelled it. The camp was attacked on all
+sides in the early dawn. The greater part of the horses were
+stampeded by the firing, and the enemy's riflemen were found to be
+at very close quarters. For an hour the action was warm, but at the
+end of that time the Boers fled, leaving a number of dead behind
+them. The troops engaged in this very creditable action, which
+might have tried the steadiness of veterans, were four hundred of
+the Duke of Edinburgh's volunteers, some of Paget's horse and of
+the 8th Regiment Imperial Yeomanry, four Canadian guns, and
+twenty-five of Warren's Scouts. Their losses were eighteen killed
+and thirty wounded. Colonel Spence, of the volunteers, died at the
+head of his regiment. A few days before, on May 27th, Colonel Adye
+had won a small engagement at Kheis, some distance to the westward,
+and the effect of the two actions was to put an end to open
+resistance. On June 20th De Villiers, the Boer leader, finally
+surrendered to Sir Charles Warren, handing over two hundred and
+twenty men with stores, rifles, and ammunition. The last sparks had
+for the time been stamped out in the colony.
+
+There remain to be mentioned those attacks upon trains and upon the
+railway which had spread from the Free State to the Transvaal. On
+July 19th a train was wrecked on the way from Potchefstroom to
+Krugersdorp without serious injury to the passengers. On July 31st,
+however, the same thing occurred with more murderous effect, the
+train running at full speed off the metals. Thirteen of the
+Shropshires were killed and thirty-seven injured in this deplorable
+affair, which cost us more than many an important engagement. On
+August 2nd a train coming up from Bloemfontein was derailed by
+Sarel Theron and his gang some miles south of Kroonstad.
+Thirty-five trucks of stores were burned, and six of the passengers
+(unarmed convalescent soldiers) were killed or wounded. A body of
+mounted infantry followed up the Boers, who numbered eighty, and
+succeeded in killing and wounding several of them.
+
+On July 21st the Boers made a determined attack upon the railhead
+at a point thirteen miles east of Heidelberg, where over a hundred
+Royal Engineers were engaged upon a bridge. They were protected by
+three hundred Dublin Fusiliers under Major English. For some hours
+the little party was hard pressed by the burghers, who had two
+field-pieces and a pom-pom. They could make no impression, however,
+upon the steady Irish infantry, and after some hours the arrival of
+General Hart with reinforcements scattered the assailants, who
+succeeded in getting their guns away in safety.
+
+At the beginning of August it must be confessed that the general
+situation in the Transvaal was not reassuring. Springs near
+Johannesburg had in some inexplicable way, without fighting, fallen
+into the hands of the enemy. Klerksdorp, an important place in the
+south-west, had also been reoccupied, and a handful of men who
+garrisoned it had been made prisoners without resistance.
+Rustenburg was about to be abandoned, and the British were known to
+be falling back from Zeerust and Otto's Hoop, concentrating upon
+Mafeking. The sequel proved however, that there was no cause for
+uneasiness in all this. Lord Roberts was concentrating his strength
+upon those objects which were vital, and letting the others drift
+for a time. At present the two obviously important things were to
+hunt down De Wet and to scatter the main Boer army under Botha. The
+latter enterprise must wait upon the former, so for a fortnight all
+operations were in abeyance while the flying columns of the British
+endeavoured to run down their extremely active and energetic
+antagonist.
+
+At the end of July De Wet had taken refuge in some exceedingly
+difficult country near Reitzburg, seven miles south of the Vaal
+River. The operations were proceeding vigorously at that time
+against the main army at Fouriesberg, and sufficient troops could
+not be spared to attack him, but he was closely observed by
+Kitchener and Broadwood with a force of cavalry and mounted
+infantry. With the surrender of Prinsloo a large army was
+disengaged, and it was obvious that if De Wet remained where he was
+he must soon be surrounded. On the other hand, there was no place
+of refuge to the south of him. With great audacity he determined to
+make a dash for the Transvaal, in the hope of joining hands with De
+la Rey's force, or else of making his way across the north of
+Pretoria, and so reaching Botha's army. President Steyn went with
+him, and a most singular experience it must have been for him to be
+harried like a mad dog through the country in which he had once
+been an honoured guest. De Wet's force was exceedingly mobile, each
+man having a led horse, and the ammunition being carried in light
+Cape carts.
+
+In the first week of August the British began to thicken round his
+lurking-place, and De Wet knew that it was time for him to go. He
+made a great show of fortifying a position, but it was only a ruse
+to deceive those who watched him. Travelling as lightly as
+possible, he made a dash on August 7th at the drift which bears his
+own name, and so won his way across the Vaal River, Kitchener
+thundering at his heels with his cavalry and mounted infantry.
+Methuen's force was at that time at Potchefstroom, and instant
+orders had been sent to him to block the drifts upon the northern
+side. It was found as he approached the river that the vanguard of
+the enemy was already across and that it was holding the spurs of
+the hills which would cover the crossing of their comrades. By the
+dash of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and the exertions of the
+artillery ridge after ridge was carried, but before evening De Wet
+with supreme skill had got his convoy across, and had broken away,
+first to the eastward and then to the north. On the 9th Methuen was
+in touch with him again, and the two savage little armies, Methuen
+worrying at the haunch, and De Wet snapping back over his shoulder,
+swept northward over the huge plains. Wherever there was ridge or
+kopje the Boer riflemen staved off the eager pursuers. Where the
+ground lay flat and clear the British guns thundered onwards and
+fired into the lines of wagons. Mile after mile the running fight
+was sustained, but the other British columns, Broadwood's men and
+Kitchener's men, had for some reason not come up. Methuen alone was
+numerically inferior to the men he was chasing, but he held on with
+admirable energy and spirit. The Boers were hustled off the kopjes
+from which they tried to cover their rear. Twenty men of the
+Yorkshire Yeomanry carried one hill with the bayonet, though only
+twelve of them were left to reach the top.
+
+De Wet trekked onwards during the night of the 9th, shedding wagons
+and stores as he went. He was able to replace some of his exhausted
+beasts from the farmhouses which he passed. Methuen on the morning
+of the 10th struck away to the west, sending messages back to
+Broadwood and Kitchener in the rear that they should bear to the
+east, and so nurse the Boer column between them. At the same time
+he sent on a messenger, who unfortunately never arrived, to warn
+Smith-Dorrien at Bank Station to throw himself across De Wet's
+path. On the 11th it was realised that De Wet had succeeded, in
+spite of great exertions upon the part of Smith-Dorrien's infantry,
+in crossing the railway line, and that he had left all his pursuers
+to the south of him. But across his front lay the Magaliesberg
+range. There are only three passes, the Magato Pass, Olifant's Nek,
+and Commando Nek. It was understood that all three were held by
+British troops. It was obvious, therefore, that if Methuen could
+advance in such a way as to cut De Wet off from slipping through to
+the west he would be unable to get away. Broadwood and Kitchener
+would be behind him, and Pretoria, with the main British army, to
+the east.
+
+Methuen continued to act with great energy and judgment. At three
+A.M. on the 12th be started from Fredericstadt, and by 5 P.M. on
+Tuesday he had done eighty miles in sixty hours. The force which
+accompanied him was all mounted, 1200 of the Colonial Division (1st
+Brabant's, Cape Mounted Rifles, Kaffrarian Rifles, and Border
+Horse), and the Yeomanry with ten guns. Douglas with the infantry
+was to follow behind, and these brave fellows covered sixty-six
+miles in seventy-six hours in their eagerness to be in time. No men
+could have made greater efforts than did those of Methuen, for
+there was not one who did not appreciate the importance of the
+issue and long to come to close quarters with the wily leader who
+had baffled us so long.
+
+On the 12th Methuen's van again overtook De Wet's rear, and the old
+game of rearguard riflemen on one side, and a pushing artillery on
+the other, was once more resumed. All day the Boers streamed over
+the veld with the guns and the horsemen at their heels. A shot from
+the 78th battery struck one of De Wet's guns, which was abandoned
+and captured. Many stores were taken and much more, with the wagons
+which contained them, burned by the Boers. Fighting incessantly,
+both armies traversed thirty-five miles of ground that day.
+
+It was fully understood that Olifant's Nek was held by the British,
+so Methuen felt that if he could block the Magato Pass all would be
+well. He therefore left De Wet's direct track, knowing that other
+British forces were behind him, and he continued his swift advance
+until he had reached the desired position. It really appeared that
+at last the elusive raider was in a corner. But, alas for fallen
+hopes, and alas for the wasted efforts of gallant men! Olifant's
+Nek had been abandoned and De Wet had passed safely through it into
+the plains beyond, where De la Rey's force was still in possession.
+In vain Methuen's weary column forced the Magato Pass and descended
+into Rustenburg. The enemy was in a safe country once more. Whose
+the fault, or whether there was a fault at all, it is for the
+future to determine. At least unalloyed praise can be given to the
+Boer leader for the admirable way in which he had extricated
+himself from so many dangers. On the 17th., moving along the
+northern side of the mountains, he appeared at Commando Nek on the
+Little Crocodile River, where he summoned Baden-Powell to
+surrender, and received some chaff in reply from that light-hearted
+commander. Then, swinging to the eastward, he endeavoured to cross
+to the north of Pretoria. On the 19th he was heard of at Hebron.
+Baden-Powell and Paget had, however, already barred this path, and
+De Wet, having sent Steyn on with a small escort, turned back to
+the Free State. On the 22nd it was reported that, with only a
+handful of his followers, he had crossed the Magaliesberg range by
+a bridlepath and was riding southwards. Lord Roberts was at last
+free to turn his undivided attention upon Botha.
+
+Two Boer plots had been discovered during the first half of August,
+the one in Pretoria and the other in Johannesburg, each having for
+its object a rising against the British in the town. Of these the
+former, which was the more serious, involving as it did the
+kidnapping of Lord Roberts, was broken up by the arrest of the
+deviser, Hans Cordua, a German lieutenant in the Transvaal
+Artillery. On its merits it is unlikely that the crime would have
+been met by the extreme penalty, especially as it was a question
+whether the agent provocateur had not played a part. But the
+repeated breaches of parole, by which our prisoners of one day were
+in the field against us on the next, called imperatively for an
+example, and it was probably rather for his broken faith than for
+his hare-brained scheme that Cordua died. At the same time it is
+impossible not to feel sorrow for this idealist of twenty-three who
+died for a cause which was not his own. He was shot in the garden
+of Pretoria Gaol upon August 24th. A fresh and more stringent
+proclamation from Lord Roberts showed that the British Commander
+was losing his patience in the face of the wholesale return of
+paroled men to the field, and announced that such perfidy would in
+future be severely punished. It was notorious that the same men had
+been taken and released more than once. One man killed in action
+was found to have nine signed passes in his pocket. It was against
+such abuses that the extra severity of the British was aimed.
+
+CHAPTER 29.
+
+THE ADVANCE TO KOMATIPOORT.
+
+The time had now come for the great combined movement which was to
+sweep the main Boer army off the line of the Delagoa railway, cut
+its source of supplies, and follow it into that remote and
+mountainous Lydenburg district which had always been proclaimed as
+the last refuge of the burghers. Before entering upon this most
+difficult of all his advances Lord Roberts waited until the cavalry
+and mounted infantry were well mounted again. Then, when all was
+ready, the first step in this last stage of the regular campaign
+was taken by General Buller, who moved his army of Natal veterans
+off the railway line and advanced to a position from which he could
+threaten the flank and rear of Botha if he held his ground against
+Lord Roberts. Buller's cavalry had been reinforced by the arrival
+of Strathcona's Horse, a fine body of Canadian troopers, whose
+services had been presented to the nation by the public-spirited
+nobleman whose name they bore. They were distinguished by their
+fine physique, and by the lassoes, cowboy stirrups, and large spurs
+of the North-Western plains.
+
+It was in the first week of July that Clery joined hands with the
+Heidelberg garrison, while Coke with the 10th Brigade cleared the
+right flank of the railway by an expedition as far as Amersfoort.
+On July 6th the Natal communications were restored, and on the 7th
+Buller was able to come through to Pretoria and confer with the
+Commander-in-Chief. A Boer force with heavy guns still hung about
+the line, and several small skirmishes were fought between
+Vlakfontein and Greylingstad in order to drive it away. By the
+middle of July the immediate vicinity of the railway was clear save
+for some small marauding parties who endeavoured to tamper with the
+rails and the bridges. Up to the end of the month the whole of the
+Natal army remained strung along the line of communications from
+Heidelberg to Standerton, waiting for the collection of forage and
+transport to enable them to march north against Botha's position.
+
+On August 8th Buller's troops advanced to the north-east from
+Paardekop, pushing a weak Boer force with five guns in front of
+them. At the cost of twenty-five wounded, principally of the 60th
+Rifles, the enemy was cleared off, and the town of Amersfoort was
+occupied. On the 13th, moving on the same line, and meeting with
+very slight opposition, Buller took possession of Ermelo. His
+advance was having a good effect upon the district, for on the 12th
+the Standerton commando, which numbered 182 men, surrendered to
+Clery. On the 15th, still skirmishing, Buller's men were at
+Twyfelaar, and had taken possession of Carolina. Here and there a
+distant horseman riding over the olive-coloured hills showed how
+closely and incessantly he was watched; but, save for a little
+sniping upon his flanks, there was no fighting. He was coming now
+within touch of French's cavalry, operating from Middelburg, and on
+the 14th heliographic communication was established with Gordon's
+Brigade.
+
+Buller's column had come nearer to its friends, but it was also
+nearer to the main body of Boers who were waiting in that very
+rugged piece of country which lies between Belfast in the west and
+Machadodorp in the east. From this rocky stronghold they had thrown
+out mobile bodies to harass the British advance from the south, and
+every day brought Buller into closer touch with these advance
+guards of the enemy. On August 21st he had moved eight miles nearer
+to Belfast, French operating upon his left flank. Here he found the
+Boers in considerable numbers, but he pushed them northward with
+his cavalry, mounted infantry, and artillery, losing between thirty
+and forty killed and wounded, the greater part from the ranks of
+the 18th Hussars and the Gordon Highlanders. This march brought him
+within fifteen miles of Belfast, which lay due north of him. At the
+same time Pole-Carew with the central column of Lord Roberts's
+force had advanced along the railway line, and on August 24th he
+occupied Belfast with little resistance. He found, however, that
+the enemy were holding the formidable ridges which lie between that
+place and Dalmanutha, and that they showed every sign of giving
+battle, presenting a firm front to Buller on the south as well as
+to Roberts's army on the west.
+
+On the 23rd some successes attended their efforts to check the
+advance from the south. During the day Buller had advanced
+steadily, though under incessant fire. The evening found him only
+six miles to the south of Dalmanutha, the centre of the Boer
+position. By some misfortune, however, after dark two companies of
+the Liverpool Regiment found themselves isolated from their
+comrades and exposed to a very heavy fire. They had pushed forward
+too far, and were very near to being surrounded and destroyed.
+There were fifty-six casualties in their ranks, and thirty-two,
+including their wounded captain, were taken. The total losses in
+the day were 121.
+
+On August 25th it was evident that important events were at hand,
+for on that date Lord Roberts arrived at Belfast and held a
+conference with Buller, French, and Pole-Carew. The general
+communicated his plans to his three lieutenants, and on the 26th
+and following days the fruits of the interview were seen in a
+succession of rapid manoeuvres which drove the Boers out of this,
+the strongest position which they had held since they left the
+banks of the Tugela.
+
+The advance of Lord Roberts was made, as his wont is, with two
+widespread wings, and a central body to connect them. Such a
+movement leaves the enemy in doubt as to which flank will really be
+attacked, while if he denudes his centre in order to strengthen
+both flanks there is the chance of a frontal advance which might
+cut him in two. French with two cavalry brigades formed the left
+advance, Pole-Carew the centre, and Buller the right, the whole
+operations extending over thirty miles of infamous country. It is
+probable that Lord Roberts had reckoned that the Boer right was
+likely to be their strongest position, since if it were turned it
+would cut off their retreat upon Lydenburg, so his own main attack
+was directed upon their left. This was carried out by General
+Buller on August 26th and 27th.
+
+On the first day the movement upon Buller's part consisted in a
+very deliberate reconnaissance of and closing in upon the enemy's
+position, his troops bivouacking upon the ground which they had
+won. On the second, finding that all further progress was barred by
+the strong ridge of Bergendal, he prepared his attack carefully
+with artillery and then let loose his infantry upon it. It was a
+gallant feat of arms upon either side. The Boer position was held
+by a detachment of the Johannesburg Police, who may have been
+bullies in peace, but were certainly heroes in war. The fire of
+sixty guns was concentrated for a couple of hours upon a position
+only a few hundred yards in diameter. In this infernal fire, which
+left the rocks yellow with lyddite, the survivors still waited
+grimly for the advance of the infantry. No finer defence was made
+in the war. The attack was carried out across an open glacis by the
+2nd Rifle Brigade and by the Inniskilling Fusiliers, the men of
+Pieter's Hill. Through a deadly fire the gallant infantry swept
+over the position, though Metcalfe, the brave colonel of the
+Rifles, with eight other officers, and seventy men were killed or
+wounded. Lysley, Steward, and Campbell were all killed in leading
+their companies, but they could not have met their deaths upon an
+occasion more honourable to their battalion. Great credit must also
+be given to A and B companies of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, who
+were actually the first over the Boer position. The cessation of
+the artillery fire was admirably timed. It was sustained up to the
+last possible instant. 'As it was,' said the captain of the leading
+company, 'a 94-pound shell burst about thirty yards in front of the
+right of our lot. The smell of the lyddite was awful.' A pom-pom
+and twenty prisoners, including the commander of the police, were
+the trophies of the day. An outwork of the Boer position had been
+carried, and the rumour of defeat and disaster had already spread
+through their ranks. Braver men than the burghers have never lived,
+but they had reached the limits of human endurance, and a long
+experience of defeat in the field had weakened their nerve and
+lessened their morale. They were no longer men of the same fibre as
+those who had crept up to the trenches of Spion Kop, or faced the
+lean warriors of Ladysmith on that grim January morning at Caesar's
+Camp. Dutch tenacity would not allow them to surrender, and yet
+they realised how hopeless was the fight in which they were
+engaged. Nearly fifteen thousand of their best men were prisoners,
+ten thousand at the least had returned to their farms and taken the
+oath. Another ten had been killed, wounded, or incapacitated. Most
+of the European mercenaries had left; they held only the ultimate
+corner of their own country, they had lost their grip upon the
+railway line, and their supply of stores and of ammunition was
+dwindling. To such a pass had eleven months of war reduced that
+formidable army who had so confidently advanced to the conquest of
+South Africa.
+
+While Buller had established himself firmly upon the left of the
+Boer position, Pole-Carew had moved forward to the north of the
+railway line, and French had advanced as far as Swart Kopjes upon
+the Boer right. These operations on August 26th and 27th were met
+with some resistance, and entailed a loss of forty or fifty killed
+and wounded; but it soon became evident that the punishment which
+they had received at Bergendal had taken the fight out of the
+Boers, and that this formidable position was to be abandoned as the
+others had been. On the 28th the burghers were retreating, and
+Machadodorp, where Kruger had sat so long in his railway carriage,
+protesting that he would eventually move west and not east, was
+occupied by Buller. French, moving on a more northerly route,
+entered Watervalonder with his cavalry upon the same date, driving
+a small Boer force before him. Amid rain and mist the British
+columns were pushing rapidly forwards, but still the burghers held
+together, and still their artillery was uncaptured. The retirement
+was swift, but it was not yet a rout.
+
+On the 30th the British cavalry were within touch of Nooitgedacht,
+and saw a glad sight in a long trail of ragged men who were
+hurrying in their direction along the railway line. They were the
+British prisoners, eighteen hundred in number, half of whom had
+been brought from Waterval when Pretoria was captured, while the
+other half represented the men who had been sent from the south by
+De Wet, or from the west by De la Rey. Much allowance must be made
+for the treatment of prisoners by a belligerent who is himself
+short of food, but nothing can excuse the harshness which the Boers
+showed to the Colonials who fell into their power, or the callous
+neglect of the sick prisoners at Waterval. It is a humiliating but
+an interesting fact that from first to last no fewer than seven
+thousand of our men passed into their power, all of whom were now
+recovered save some sixty officers, who had been carried off by
+them in their flight.
+
+On September 1st Lord Roberts showed his sense of the decisive
+nature of these recent operations by publishing the proclamation
+which had been issued as early as July 4th, by which the Transvaal
+became a portion of the British Empire. On the same day General
+Buller, who had ceased to advance to the east and retraced his
+steps as far as Helvetia, began his northerly movement in the
+direction of Lydenburg, which is nearly fifty miles to the north of
+the railway line. On that date his force made a march of fourteen
+miles, which brought them over the Crocodile River to Badfontein.
+Here, on September 2nd, Buller found that the indomitable Botha was
+still turning back upon him, for he was faced by so heavy a shell
+fire, coming from so formidable a position, that he had to be
+content to wait in front of it until some other column should
+outflank it. The days of unnecessary frontal attacks were for ever
+over, and his force, though ready for anything which might be asked
+of it, had gone through a good deal in the recent operations. Since
+August 21st they had been under fire almost every day, and their
+losses, though never great on any one occasion, amounted in the
+aggregate during that time to 365. They had crossed the Tugela,
+they had relieved Ladysmith, they had forced Laing's Nek, and now
+it was to them that the honour had fallen of following the enemy
+into this last fastness. Whatever criticism may be directed against
+some episodes in the Natal campaign, it must never be forgotten
+that to Buller and to his men have fallen some of the hardest tasks
+of the war, and that these tasks have always in the end been
+successfully carried out. The controversy about the unfortunate
+message to White, and the memory of the abandoned guns at Colenso,
+must not lead us to the injustice of ignoring all that is to be set
+to the credit account.
+
+On September 3rd Lord Roberts, finding how strong a position faced
+Buller, despatched Ian Hamilton with a force to turn it upon the
+right. Brocklehurst's brigade of cavalry joined Hamilton in his
+advance. On the 4th he was within signalling distance of Buller,
+and on the right rear of the Boer position. The occupation of a
+mountain called Zwaggenhoek would establish Hamilton firmly, and
+the difficult task of seizing it at night was committed to Colonel
+Douglas and his fine regiment of Royal Scots. It was Spion Kop over
+again, but with a happier ending. At break of day the Boers
+discovered that their position had been rendered untenable and
+withdrew, leaving the road to Lydenburg clear to Buller. Hamilton
+and he occupied the town upon the 6th. The Boers had split into two
+parties, the larger one with the guns falling back upon Kruger's
+Post, and the others retiring to Pilgrim's Rest. Amid cloud-girt
+peaks and hardly passable ravines the two long-enduring armies
+still wrestled for the final mastery.
+
+To the north-east of Lydenburg, between that town and Spitzkop,
+there is a formidable ridge called the Mauchberg, and here again
+the enemy were found to be standing at bay. They were even better
+than their word, for they had always said that they would make
+their last stand at Lydenburg, and now they were making one beyond
+it. But the resistance was weakening. Even this fine position could
+not be held against the rush of the three regiments, the Devons,
+the Royal Irish, and the Royal Scots, who were let loose upon it.
+The artillery supported the attack admirably. 'They did nobly,'
+said one who led the advance. 'It is impossible to overrate the
+value of their support. They ceased also exactly at the right
+moment. One more shell would have hit us.' Mountain mists saved the
+defeated burghers from a close pursuit, but the hills were carried.
+The British losses on this day, September 8th, were thirteen killed
+and twenty-five wounded; but of these thirty-eight no less than
+half were accounted for by one of those strange malignant freaks
+which can neither be foreseen nor prevented. A shrapnel shell,
+fired at an incredible distance, burst right over the Volunteer
+Company of the Gordons who were marching in column. Nineteen men
+fell, but it is worth recording that, smitten so suddenly and so
+terribly, the gallant Volunteers continued to advance as steadily
+as before this misfortune befell them. On the 9th Buller was still
+pushing forward to Spitzkop, his guns and the 1st Rifles
+overpowering a weak rearguard resistance of the Boers. On the 10th
+he had reached Klipgat, which is halfway between the Mauchberg and
+Spitzkop. So close was the pursuit that the Boers, as they streamed
+through the passes, flung thirteen of their ammunition wagons over
+the cliffs to prevent them from falling into the hands of the
+British horsemen. At one period it looked as if the gallant Boer
+guns had waited too long in covering the retreat of the burghers.
+Strathcona's Horse pressed closely upon them. The situation was
+saved by the extreme coolness and audacity of the Boer gunners.
+'When the cavalry were barely half a mile behind the rear gun' says
+an eye-witness 'and we regarded its capture as certain, the LEADING
+Long Tom deliberately turned to bay and opened with case shot at
+the pursuers streaming down the hill in single file over the head
+of his brother gun. It was a magnificent coup, and perfectly
+successful. The cavalry had to retire, leaving a few men wounded,
+and by the time our heavy guns had arrived both Long Toms had got
+clean away.' But the Boer riflemen would no longer stand.
+Demoralised after their magnificent struggle of eleven months the
+burghers were now a beaten and disorderly rabble flying wildly to
+the eastward, and only held together by the knowledge that in their
+desperate situation there was more comfort and safety in numbers.
+The war seemed to be swiftly approaching its close. On the 15th
+Buller occupied Spitzkop in the north, capturing a quantity of
+stores, while on the 14th French took Barberton in the south,
+releasing all the remaining British prisoners and taking possession
+of forty locomotives, which do not appear to have been injured by
+the enemy. Meanwhile Pole-Carew had worked along the railway line,
+and had occupied Kaapmuiden, which was the junction where the
+Barberton line joins that to Lourenco Marques. Ian Hamilton's
+force, after the taking of Lydenburg and the action which followed,
+turned back, leaving Buller to go his own way, and reached
+Komatipoort on September 24th, having marched since September 9th
+without a halt through a most difficult country.
+
+On September 11th an incident had occurred which must have shown
+the most credulous believer in Boer prowess that their cause was
+indeed lost. On that date Paul Kruger, a refugee from the country
+which he had ruined, arrived at Lourenco Marques, abandoning his
+beaten commandos and his deluded burghers. How much had happened
+since those distant days when as a little herdsboy he had walked
+behind the bullocks on the great northward trek. How piteous this
+ending to all his strivings and his plottings! A life which might
+have closed amid the reverence of a nation and the admiration of
+the world was destined to finish in exile, impotent and
+undignified. Strange thoughts must have come to him during those
+hours of flight, memories of his virile and turbulent youth, of the
+first settlement of those great lands, of wild wars where his hand
+was heavy upon the natives, of the triumphant days of the war of
+independence, when England seemed to recoil from the rifles of the
+burghers. And then the years of prosperity, the years when the
+simple farmer found himself among the great ones of the earth, his
+name a household word in Europe, his State rich and powerful, his
+coffers filled with the spoil of the poor drudges who worked so
+hard and paid taxes so readily. Those were his great days, the days
+when he hardened his heart against their appeals for justice and
+looked beyond his own borders to his kinsmen in the hope of a South
+Africa which should be all his own. And now what had come of it
+all? A handful of faithful attendants, and a fugitive old man,
+clutching in his flight at his papers and his moneybags. The last
+of the old-world Puritans, he departed poring over his well-thumbed
+Bible, and proclaiming that the troubles of his country arose, not
+from his own narrow and corrupt administration, but from some
+departure on the part of his fellow burghers from the stricter
+tenets of the dopper sect. So Paul Kruger passed away from the
+country which he had loved and ruined.
+
+Whilst the main army of Botha had been hustled out of their
+position at Machadodorp and scattered at Lydenburg and at
+Barberton, a number of other isolated events had occurred at
+different points of the seat of war, each of which deserves some
+mention. The chief of these was a sudden revival of the war in the
+Orange River Colony, where the band of Olivier was still wandering
+in the north-eastern districts. Hunter, moving northwards after the
+capitulation of Prinsloo at Fouriesburg, came into contact on
+August 15th with this force near Heilbron, and had forty
+casualties, mainly of the Highland Light Infantry, in a brisk
+engagement. For a time the British seemed to have completely lost
+touch with Olivier, who suddenly on August 24th struck at a small
+detachment consisting almost entirely of Queenstown Rifle
+Volunteers under Colonel Ridley, who were reconnoitring near
+Winburg. The Colonial troopers made a gallant defence. Throwing
+themselves into the farmhouse of Helpmakaar, and occupying every
+post of vantage around it, they held off more than a thousand
+assailants, in spite of the three guns which the latter brought to
+bear upon them. A hundred and thirty-two rounds were fired at the
+house, but the garrison still refused to surrender. Troopers who
+had been present at Wepener declared that the smaller action was
+the warmer of the two. Finally on the morning of the third day a
+relief force arrived upon the scene, and the enemy dispersed. The
+British losses were thirty-two killed and wounded. Nothing daunted
+by his failure, Olivier turned upon the town of Winburg and
+attempted to regain it, but was defeated again and scattered, he
+and his three sons being taken. The result was due to the gallantry
+and craft of a handful of the Queenstown Volunteers, who laid an
+ambuscade in a donga, and disarmed the Boers as they passed, after
+the pattern of Sanna's Post. By this action one of the most daring
+and resourceful of the Dutch leaders fell into the hands of the
+British. It is a pity that his record is stained by his
+dishonourable conduct in breaking the compact made on the occasion
+of the capture of Prinsloo. But for British magnanimity a drumhead
+court-martial should have taken the place of the hospitality of the
+Ceylon planters.
+
+On September 2nd another commando of Free State Boers under Fourie
+emerged from the mountain country on the Basuto border, and fell
+upon Ladybrand, which was held by a feeble garrison consisting of
+one company of the Worcester regiment and forty-three men of the
+Wiltshire Yeomanry. The Boers, who had several guns with them,
+appear to have been the same force which had been repulsed at
+Winburg. Major White, a gallant marine, whose fighting qualities do
+not seem to have deteriorated with his distance from salt water,
+had arranged his defences upon a hill, after the Wepener model, and
+held his own most stoutly. So great was the disparity of the forces
+that for days acute anxiety was felt lest another of those
+humiliating surrenders should interrupt the record of victories,
+and encourage the Boers to further resistance. The point was
+distant, and it was some time before relief could reach them. But
+the dusky chiefs, who from their native mountains looked down on
+the military drama which was played so close to their frontier,
+were again, as on the Jammersberg, to see the Boer attack beaten
+back by the constancy of the British defence. The thin line of
+soldiers, 150 of them covering a mile and a half of ground, endured
+a heavy shell and rifle fire with unshaken resolution, repulsed
+every attempt of the burghers, and held the flag flying until
+relieved by the forces under White and Bruce Hamilton. In this
+march to the relief Hamilton's infantry covered eighty miles in
+four and a half days. Lean and hard, inured to warfare, and far
+from every temptation of wine or women, the British troops at this
+stage of the campaign were in such training, and marched so
+splendidly, that the infantry was often very little slower than the
+cavalry. Methuen's fine performance in pursuit of De Wet, where
+Douglas's infantry did sixty-six miles in seventy-five hours, the
+City Imperial Volunteers covering 224 miles in fourteen days, with
+a single forced march of thirty miles in seventeen hours, the
+Shropshires forty-three miles in thirty-two hours, the forty-five
+miles in twenty-five hours of the Essex Regiment, Bruce Hamilton's
+march recorded above, and many other fine efforts serve to show the
+spirit and endurance of the troops.
+
+In spite of the defeat at Winburg and the repulse at Ladybrand,
+there still remained a fair number of broken and desperate men in
+the Free State who held out among the difficult country of the
+east. A party of these came across in the middle of September and
+endeavoured to cut the railway near Brandfort. They were pursued
+and broken up by Macdonald, who, much aided in his operations by
+the band of scouts which Lord Lovat had brought with him from
+Scotland, took several prisoners and a large number of wagons and
+of oxen. A party of these Boers attacked a small post of sixteen
+Yeomanry under Lieutenant Slater at Bultfontein, but were held at
+bay until relief came from Brandfort.
+
+At two other points the Boer and British forces were in contact
+during these operations. One was to the immediate north of
+Pretoria, where Grobler's commando was faced by Paget's brigade. On
+August 18th the Boers were forced with some loss out of Hornies
+Nek, which is ten miles to the north of the capital. On the 22nd a
+more important skirmish took place at Pienaar's River, in the same
+direction, between Baden-Powell's men, who had come thither in
+pursuit of De Wet, and Grobler's band. The advance guards of the
+two forces galloped into each other, and for once Boer and Briton
+looked down the muzzles of each other's rifles. The gallant
+Rhodesian Regiment, which had done such splendid service during the
+war, suffered most heavily. Colonel Spreckley and four others were
+killed, and six or seven wounded. The Boers were broken, however,
+and fled, leaving twenty-five prisoners to the victors.
+Baden-Powell and Paget pushed forwards as far as Nylstroom, but
+finding themselves in wild and profitless country they returned
+towards Pretoria, and established the British northern posts at a
+place called Warm Baths. Here Paget commanded, while Baden-Powell
+shortly afterwards went down to Cape Town to make arrangements for
+taking over the police force of the conquered countries, and to
+receive the enthusiastic welcome of his colonial fellow-countrymen.
+Plumer, with a small force operating from Warm Baths, scattered a
+Boer commando on September 1st, capturing a few prisoners and a
+considerable quantity of munitions of war. On the 5th there was
+another skirmish in the same neighbourhood, during which the enemy
+attacked a kopje held by a company of Munster Fusiliers, and was
+driven off with loss. Many thousands of cattle were captured by the
+British in this part of the field of operations, and were sent into
+Pretoria, whence they helped to supply the army in the east.
+
+There was still considerable effervescence in the western districts
+of the Transvaal, and a mounted detachment met with fierce
+opposition at the end of August on their journey from Zeerust to
+Krugersdorp. Methuen, after his unsuccessful chase of De Wet, had
+gone as far as Zeerust, and had then taken his force on to Mafeking
+to refit. Before leaving Zeerust, however, he had despatched
+Colonel Little to Pretoria with a column which consisted of his own
+third cavalry brigade, 1st Brabant's, the Kaffrarian Rifles, R
+battery of Horse Artillery, and four Colonial guns. They were
+acting as guard to a very large convoy of 'returned empties.' The
+district which they had to traverse is one of the most fertile in
+the Transvaal, a land of clear streams and of orange groves. But
+the farmers are numerous and aggressive, and the column, which was
+900 strong, could clear all resistance from its front, but found it
+impossible to brush off the snipers upon its flanks and rear.
+Shortly after their start the column was deprived of the services
+of its gallant leader, Colonel Little, who was shot while riding
+with his advance scouts. Colonel Dalgety took over the command.
+Numerous desultory attacks culminated in a fierce skirmish at
+Quaggafontein on August 31st, in which the column had sixty
+casualties. The event might have been serious, as De la Rey's main
+force appears to have been concentrated upon the British
+detachment, the brunt of the action falling upon the Kaffrarian
+Rifles. By a rapid movement the column was able to extricate itself
+and win its way safely to Krugersdorp, but it narrowly escaped out
+of the wolf's jaws, and as it emerged into the open country De la
+Rey's guns were seen galloping for the pass which they had just
+come through. This force was sent south to Kroonstad to refit.
+
+Lord Methuen's army, after its long marches and arduous work,
+arrived at Mafeking on August 28th for the purpose of refitting.
+Since his departure from Boshof on May 14th his men had been
+marching with hardly a rest, and he had during that time fought
+fourteen engagements. He was off upon the war-path once more, with
+fresh horses and renewed energy, on September 8th, and on the 9th,
+with the co-operation of General Douglas, he scattered a Boer force
+at Malopo, capturing thirty prisoners and a great quantity of
+stores. On the 14th he ran down a convoy and regained one of the
+Colenso guns and much ammunition. On the 20th he again made large
+captures. If in the early phases of the war the Boers had given
+Paul Methuen some evil hours, he was certainly getting his own back
+again. At the same time Clements was despatched from Pretoria with
+a small mobile force for the purpose of clearing the Rustenburg and
+Krugersdorp districts, which had always been storm centres. These
+two forces, of Methuen and of Clements, moved through the country,
+sweeping the scattered Boer bands before them, and hunting them
+down until they dispersed. At Kekepoort and at Hekspoort Clements
+fought successful skirmishes, losing at the latter action
+Lieutenant Stanley of the Yeomanry, the Somersetshire cricketer,
+who showed, as so many have done, how close is the connection
+between the good sportsman and the good soldier. On the 12th
+Douglas took thirty-nine prisoners near Lichtenburg. On the 18th
+Rundle captured a gun at Bronkhorstfontein. Hart at Potchefstroom,
+Hildyard in the Utrecht district, Macdonald in the Orange River
+Colony, everywhere the British Generals were busily stamping out
+the remaining embers of what had been so terrible a conflagration.
+
+Much trouble but no great damage was inflicted upon the British
+during this last stage of the war by the incessant attacks upon the
+lines of railway by roving bands of Boers. The actual interruption
+of traffic was of little consequence, for the assiduous Sappers
+with their gangs of Basuto labourers were always at hand to repair
+the break. But the loss of stores, and occasionally of lives, was
+more serious. Hardly a day passed that the stokers and drivers were
+not made targets of by snipers among the kopjes, and occasionally a
+train was entirely destroyed. [Footnote: It is to be earnestly
+hoped that those in authority will see that these men obtain the
+medal and any other reward which can mark our sense of their
+faithful service. One of them in the Orange River Colony, after
+narrating to me his many hairbreadth escapes, prophesied bitterly
+that the memory of his services would pass with the need for them.]
+Chief among these raiders was the wild Theron, who led a band which
+contained men of all nations--the same gang who had already, as
+narrated, held up a train in the Orange River Colony. On August
+31st he derailed another at Flip River to the south of
+Johannesburg, blowing up the engine and burning thirteen trucks.
+Almost at the same time a train was captured near Kroonstad, which
+appeared to indicate that the great De Wet was back in his old
+hunting-grounds. On the same day the line was cut at Standerton. A
+few days later, however, the impunity with which these feats had
+been performed was broken, for in a similar venture near
+Krugersdorp the dashing Theron and several of his associates lost
+their lives.
+
+Two other small actions performed at this period of the war demand
+a passing notice. One was a smart engagement near Kraai Railway
+Station, in which Major Broke of the Sappers with a hundred men
+attacked a superior Boer force upon a kopje and drove them off with
+loss--a feat which it is safe to say he could not have accomplished
+six months earlier. The other was the fine defence made by 125 of
+the Canadian Mounted Rifles, who, while guarding the railway, were
+attacked by a considerable Boer force with two guns. They proved
+once more, as Ladybrand and Elands River had shown, that with
+provisions, cartridges, and brains, the smallest force can
+successfully hold its own if it confines itself to the defensive.
+
+And now the Boer cause appeared to be visibly tottering to its
+fall. The flight of the President had accelerated that process of
+disintegration which had already set in. Schalk Burger had assumed
+the office of Vice-President, and the notorious Ben Viljoen had
+become first lieutenant of Louis Botha in maintaining the struggle.
+Lord Roberts had issued an extremely judicious proclamation, in
+which he pointed out the uselessness of further resistance,
+declared that guerilla warfare would be ruthlessly suppressed, and
+informed the burghers that no fewer than fifteen thousand of their
+fellow-countrymen were in his hands as prisoners, and that none of
+these could he released until the last rifle had been laid down.
+From all sides in the third week of September the British forces
+were converging on Komatipoort, the frontier town. Already wild
+figures, stained and tattered after nearly a year of warfare, were
+walking the streets of Lourenco Marques, gazed at with wonder and
+some distrust by the Portuguese inhabitants. The exiled burghers
+moodily pacing the streets saw their exiled President seated in his
+corner of the Governor's verandah, the well-known curved pipe still
+dangling from his mouth, the Bible by his chair. Day by day the
+number of these refugees increased. On September 17th special
+trains were arriving crammed with the homeless burghers, and with
+the mercenaries of many nations--French, German, Irish-American,
+and Russian--all anxious to make their way home. By the 19th no
+fewer than seven hundred had passed over.
+
+At dawn on September 22nd a half-hearted attempt was made by the
+commando of Erasmus to attack Elands River Station, but it was
+beaten back by the garrison. While it was going on Paget fell upon
+the camp which Erasmus had left behind him, and captured his
+stores. From all over the country, from Plumer's Bushmen, from
+Barton at Krugersdorp, from the Colonials at Heilbron, from
+Clements on the west, came the same reports of dwindling resistance
+and of the abandoning of cattle, arms, and ammunition.
+
+On September 24th came the last chapter in this phase of the
+campaign in the Eastern Transvaal, when at eight in the morning
+Pole-Carew and his Guardsmen occupied Komatipoort. They had made
+desperate marches, one of them through thick bush, where they went
+for nineteen miles without water, but nothing could shake the
+cheery gallantry of the men. To them fell the honour, an honour
+well deserved by their splendid work throughout the whole campaign,
+of entering and occupying the ultimate eastern point which the
+Boers could hold. Resistance had been threatened and prepared for,
+but the grim silent advance of that veteran infantry took the heart
+out of the defence. With hardly a shot fired the town was occupied.
+The bridge which would enable the troops to receive their supplies
+from Lourenco Marques was still intact. General Pienaar and the
+greater part of his force, amounting to over two thousand men, had
+crossed the frontier and had been taken down to Delagoa Bay, where
+they met the respect and attention which brave men in misfortune
+deserve. Small bands had slipped away to the north and the south,
+but they were insignificant in numbers and depressed in spirit. For
+the time it seemed that the campaign was over, but the result
+showed that there was greater vitality in the resistance of the
+burghers and less validity in their oaths than any one had
+imagined.
+
+One find of the utmost importance was made at Komatipoort, and at
+Hector Spruit on the Crocodile River. That excellent artillery
+which had fought so gallant a fight against our own more numerous
+guns, was found destroyed and abandoned. Pole-Carew at Komatipoort
+got one Long Tom (96-pound) Creusot, and one smaller gun. Ian
+Hamilton at Hector Spruit found the remains of many guns, which
+included two of our horse artillery twelve-pounders, two large
+Creusot guns, two Krupps, one Vickers-Maxim quick firer, two
+pompoms and four mountain guns.
+
+CHAPTER 30.
+
+THE CAMPAIGN OF DE WET.
+
+It had been hoped that the dispersal of the main Boer army, the
+capture of its guns and the expulsion of many both of the burghers
+and of the foreign mercenaries, would have marked the end of the
+war. These expectations were, however, disappointed, and South
+Africa was destined to be afflicted and the British Empire
+disturbed by a useless guerilla campaign. After the great and
+dramatic events which characterised the earlier phases of the
+struggle between the Briton and the Boer for the mastery of South
+Africa it is somewhat of the nature of an anticlimax to turn one's
+attention to those scattered operations which prolonged the
+resistance for a turbulent year at the expense of the lives of many
+brave men on either side. These raids and skirmishes, which had
+their origin rather in the hope of vengeance than of victory,
+inflicted much loss and misery upon the country, but, although we
+may deplore the desperate resolution which bids brave men prefer
+death to subjugation, it is not for us, the countrymen of Hereward
+or Wallace, to condemn it.
+
+In one important respect these numerous, though trivial, conflicts
+differed from the battles in the earlier stages of the war. The
+British had learned their lesson so thoroughly that they often
+turned the tables upon their instructors. Again and again the
+surprise was effected, not by the nation of hunters, but by those
+rooineks whose want of cunning and of veld-craft had for so long
+been a subject of derision and merriment. A year of the kopje and
+the donga had altered all that. And in the proportion of casualties
+another very marked change had occurred. Time was when in battle
+after battle a tenth would have been a liberal estimate for the
+losses of the Boers compared with those of the Briton. So it was at
+Stormberg; so it was at Colenso; so it may have been at
+Magersfontein. But in this last stage of the war the balance was
+rather in favour of the British. It may have been because they were
+now frequently acting on the defensive, or it may have been from an
+improvement in their fire, or it may have come from the more
+desperate mood of the burghers, but in any case the fact remains
+that every encounter diminished the small reserves of the Boers
+rather than the ample forces of their opponents.
+
+One other change had come over the war, which caused more distress
+and searchings of conscience among some of the people of Great
+Britain than the darkest hours of their misfortunes. This lay in
+the increased bitterness of the struggle, and in those more
+strenuous measures which the British commanders felt themselves
+entitled and compelled to adopt. Nothing could exceed the lenity of
+Lord Roberts's early proclamations in the Free State. But, as the
+months went on and the struggle still continued, the war assumed a
+harsher aspect. Every farmhouse represented a possible fort, and a
+probable depot for the enemy. The extreme measure of burning them
+down was only carried out after a definite offence, such as
+affording cover for snipers, or as a deterrent to railway wreckers,
+but in either case it is evident that the women or children who
+were usually the sole occupants of the farm could not by their own
+unaided exertions prevent the line from being cut or the riflemen
+from firing. It is even probable that the Boers may have committed
+these deeds in the vicinity of houses the destruction of which they
+would least regret. Thus, on humanitarian grounds there were strong
+arguments against this policy of destruction being pushed too far,
+and the political reasons were even stronger, since a homeless man
+is necessarily the last man to settle down, and a burned-out family
+the last to become contented British citizens. On the other hand,
+the impatience of the army towards what they regarded as the abuses
+of lenity was very great, and they argued that the war would be
+endless if the women in the farm were allowed always to supply the
+sniper on the kopje. The irregular and brigand-like fashion in
+which the struggle was carried out had exasperated the soldiers,
+and though there were few cases of individual outrage or
+unauthorised destruction, the general orders were applied with some
+harshness, and repressive measures were taken which warfare may
+justify but which civilisation must deplore.
+
+After the dispersal of the main army at Komatipoort there remained
+a considerable number of men in arms, some of them irreconcilable
+burghers, some of them foreign adventurers, and some of them Cape
+rebels, to whom British arms were less terrible than British law.
+These men, who were still well armed and well mounted, spread
+themselves over the country, and acted with such energy that they
+gave the impression of a large force. They made their way into the
+settled districts, and brought fresh hope and fresh disaster to
+many who had imagined that the war had passed for ever away from
+them. Under compulsion from their irreconcilable countrymen, a
+large number of the farmers broke their parole, mounted the horses
+which British leniency had left with them, and threw themselves
+once more into the struggle, adding their honour to the other
+sacrifices which they had made for their country. In any account of
+the continual brushes between these scattered bands and the British
+forces, there must be such a similarity in procedure and result,
+that it would be hard for the writer and intolerable for the reader
+if they were set forth in detail. As a general statement it may be
+said that during the months to come there was no British garrison
+in any one of the numerous posts in the Transvaal, and in that
+portion of the Orange River Colony which lies east of the railway,
+which was not surrounded by prowling riflemen, there was no convoy
+sent to supply those garrisons which was not liable to be attacked
+upon the road, and there was no train upon any one of the three
+lines which might not find a rail up and a hundred raiders covering
+it with their Mausers. With some two thousand miles of railroad to
+guard, so many garrisons to provide, and an escort to be furnished
+to every convoy, there remained out of the large body of British
+troops in the country only a moderate force who were available for
+actual operations. This force was distributed in different
+districts scattered over a wide extent of country, and it was
+evident that while each was strong enough to suppress local
+resistance, still at any moment a concentration of the Boer
+scattered forces upon a single British column might place the
+latter in a serious position. The distribution of the British in
+October and November was roughly as follows. Methuen was in the
+Rustenburg district, Barton at Krugersdorp and operating down the
+line to Klerksdorp, Settle was in the West, Paget at Pienaar's
+River, Clements in the Magaliesberg, Hart at Potchefstroom,
+Lyttelton at Middelburg, Smith-Dorrien at Belfast, W. Kitchener at
+Lydenburg, French in the Eastern Transvaal, Hunter, Rundle,
+Brabant, and Bruce Hamilton in the Orange River Colony. Each of
+these forces was occupied in the same sort of work, breaking up
+small bodies of the enemy, hunting for arms, bringing in refugees,
+collecting supplies, and rounding up cattle. Some, however, were
+confronted with organised resistance and some were not. A short
+account may be given in turn of each separate column.
+
+I would treat first the operations of General Barton, because they
+form the best introduction to that narrative of the doings of
+Christian De Wet to which this chapter will be devoted.
+
+The most severe operations during the month of October fell to the
+lot of this British General, who, with some of the faithful
+fusiliers whom he had led from the first days in Natal, was
+covering the line from Krugersdorp to Klerksdorp. It is a long
+stretch, and one which, as the result shows, is as much within
+striking distance of the Orange Free Staters as of the men of the
+Transvaal. Upon October 5th Barton left Krugersdorp with a force
+which consisted of the Scots and Welsh Fusiliers, five hundred
+mounted men, the 78th R.F.A., three pom-poms, and a 4.7 naval gun.
+For a fortnight, as the small army moved slowly down the line of
+the railroad, their progress was one continual skirmish. On October
+6th they brushed the enemy aside in an action in which the
+volunteer company of the Scots Fusiliers gained the applause of
+their veteran comrades. On the 8th and 9th there was sharp
+skirmishing, the brunt of which on the latter date fell upon the
+Welsh Fusiliers, who had three officers and eleven men injured. The
+commandos of Douthwaite, Liebenberg, and Van der Merwe seem to have
+been occupied in harassing the column during their progress through
+the Gatsrand range. On the 15th the desultory sniping freshened
+again into a skirmish in which the honours and the victory belonged
+mainly to the Welshmen and to that very keen and efficient body,
+the Scottish Yeomanry. Six Boers were left dead upon the ground. On
+October 17th the column reached Frederickstad, where it halted. On
+that date six of Marshall's Horse were cut off while collecting
+supplies. The same evening three hundred of the Imperial Light
+Horse came in from Krugersdorp.
+
+Up to this date the Boer forces which dogged the column had been
+annoying but not seriously aggressive. On the 19th, however,
+affairs took an unexpected turn. The British scouts rode in to
+report a huge dust cloud whirling swiftly northwards from the
+direction of the Vaal River--soon plainly visible to all, and
+showing as it drew nearer the hazy outline of a long column of
+mounted men. The dark coats of the riders, and possibly the speed
+of their advance, showed that they were Boers, and soon it was
+rumoured that it was no other than Christian De Wet with his merry
+men, who, with characteristic audacity, had ridden back into the
+Transvaal in the hope of overwhelming Barton's column.
+
+It is some time since we have seen anything of this energetic
+gentleman with the tinted glasses, but as the narrative will be
+much occupied with him in the future a few words are needed to
+connect him with the past. It has been already told how he escaped
+through the net which caught so many of his countrymen at the time
+of the surrender of Prinsloo, and how he was chased at furious
+speed from the Vaal River to the mountains of Magaliesberg. Here he
+eluded his pursuers, separated from Steyn, who desired to go east
+to confer with Kruger, and by the end of August was back again in
+his favourite recruiting ground in the north of the Orange River
+Colony. Here for nearly two months he had lain very quiet,
+refitting and reassembling his scattered force, until now, ready
+for action once more, and fired by the hope of cutting off an
+isolated British force, he rode swiftly northwards with two
+thousand men under that rolling cloud which had been spied by the
+watchers of Frederickstad.
+
+The problem before him was a more serious one, however, than any
+which he had ever undertaken, for this was no isolated regiment or
+ill-manned post, but a complete little field force very ready to do
+battle with him. De Wet's burghers, as they arrived, sprang from
+their ponies and went into action in their usual invisible but
+effective fashion, covered by the fire of several guns. The
+soldiers had thrown up lines of sangars, however, and were able,
+though exposed to a very heavy fire coming from several directions,
+to hold their own until nightfall, when the defences were made more
+secure. On the 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th the cordon of the
+attack was drawn gradually closer, the Boers entirely surrounding
+the British force, and it was evident that they were feeling round
+for a point at which an assault might be delivered.
+
+The position of the defenders upon the morning of October 25th was
+as follows. The Scots Fusiliers were holding a ridge to the south.
+General Barton with the rest of his forces occupied a hill some
+distance off. Between the two was a valley down which ran the line,
+and also the spruit upon which the British depended for their water
+supply. On each side of the line were ditches, and at dawn on this
+seventh day of the investment it was found that these had been
+occupied by snipers during the night, and that it was impossible to
+water the animals. One of two things must follow. Either the force
+must shift its position or it must drive these men out of their
+cover. No fire could do it, as they lay in perfect safety. They
+must be turned out at the point of the bayonet.
+
+About noon several companies of Scots and Welsh Fusiliers advanced
+from different directions in very extended order upon the ditches.
+Captain Baillie's company of the former regiment first attracted
+the fire of the burghers. Wounded twice the brave officer staggered
+on until a third bullet struck him dead. Six of his men were found
+lying beside him. The other companies were exposed in their turn to
+a severe fire, but rushing onwards they closed rapidly in upon the
+ditches. There have been few finer infantry advances during the
+war, for the veld was perfectly flat and the fire terrific. A mile
+of ground was crossed by the fusiliers. Three gallant
+officers--Dick, Elliot, and Best--went down; but the rush of the
+men was irresistible. At the edge of the ditches the supports
+overtook the firing line, and they all surged into the trenches
+together. Then it was seen how perilous was the situation of the
+Boer snipers. They had placed themselves between the upper and the
+nether millstone. There was no escape for them save across the
+open. It says much for their courage that they took that perilous
+choice rather than wave the white flag, which would have ensured
+their safety.
+
+The scene which followed has not often been paralleled. About a
+hundred and fifty burghers rushed out of the ditches, streaming
+across the veld upon foot to the spot where their horses had been
+secreted. Rifles, pom-poms, and shrapnel played upon them during
+this terrible race. 'A black running mob carrying coats, blankets,
+boots, rifles, &c., was seen to rise as if from nowhere and rush as
+fast as they could, dropping the various things they carried as
+they ran.' One of their survivors has described how awful was that
+wild blind flight, through a dust-cloud thrown up by the shells.
+For a mile the veld was dotted with those who had fallen.
+Thirty-six were found dead, thirty were wounded, and thirty more
+gave themselves up as prisoners. Some were so demoralised that they
+rushed into the hospital and surrendered to the British doctor. The
+Imperial Light Horse were for some reason slow to charge. Had they
+done so at once, many eye-witnesses agree that not a fugitive
+should have escaped. On the other hand, the officer in command may
+have feared that in doing so he might mask the fire of the British
+guns.
+
+One incident in the action caused some comment at the time. A small
+party of Imperial Light Horse, gallantly led by Captain Yockney of
+B Squadron, came to close quarters with a group of Boers. Five of
+the enemy having held up their hands Yockney passed them and pushed
+on against their comrades. On this the prisoners seized their
+rifles once more and fired upon their captors. A fierce fight
+ensued with only a few feet between the muzzles of the rifles.
+Three Boers were shot dead, five wounded, and eight taken. Of these
+eight three were shot next day by order of court-martial for having
+resumed their weapons after surrender, while two others were
+acquitted. The death of these men in cold blood is to be deplored,
+but it is difficult to see how any rules of civilised warfare can
+be maintained if a flagrant breach of them is not promptly and
+sternly punished.
+
+On receiving this severe blow De Wet promptly raised the investment
+and hastened to regain his favourite haunts. Considerable
+reinforcements had reached Barton upon the same day, including the
+Dublins, the Essex, Strathcona's Horse, and the Elswick Battery,
+with some very welcome supplies of ammunition. As Barton had now
+more than a thousand mounted men of most excellent quality it is
+difficult to imagine why he did not pursue his defeated enemy. He
+seems to have underrated the effect which he had produced, for
+instead of instantly assuming the offensive he busied himself in
+strengthening his defences. Yet the British losses in the whole
+operations had not exceeded one hundred, so that there does not
+appear to have been any reason why the force should be crippled. As
+Barton was in direct and constant telegraphic communication with
+Pretoria, it is possible that he was acting under superior orders
+in the course which he adopted.
+
+It was not destined, however, that De Wet should be allowed to
+escape with his usual impunity. On the 27th, two days after his
+retreat from Frederickstad he was overtaken--stumbled upon by pure
+chance apparently--by the mounted infantry and cavalry of Charles
+Knox and De Lisle. The Boers, a great disorganised cloud of
+horsemen, swept swiftly along the northern bank of the Vaal,
+seeking for a place to cross, while the British rode furiously
+after them, spraying them with shrapnel at every opportunity.
+Darkness and a violent storm gave De Wet his opportunity to cross,
+but the closeness of the pursuit compelled him to abandon two of
+his guns, one of them a Krupp and the other one of the British
+twelve-pounders of Sanna's Post, which, to the delight of the
+gunners, was regained by that very U battery to which it belonged.
+
+Once across the river and back in his own country De Wet, having
+placed seventy miles between himself and his pursuers, took it for
+granted that he was out of their reach, and halted near the village
+of Bothaville to refit. But the British were hard upon his track,
+and for once they were able to catch this indefatigable man
+unawares. Yet their knowledge of his position seems to have been
+most hazy, and on the very day before that on which they found him,
+General Charles Knox, with the main body of the force, turned
+north, and was out of the subsequent action. De Lisle's mounted
+troops also turned north, but fortunately not entirely out of call.
+To the third and smallest body of mounted men, that under Le
+Gallais, fell the honour of the action which I am about to
+describe.
+
+It is possible that the move northwards of Charles Knox and of De
+Lisle had the effect of a most elaborate stratagem, since it
+persuaded the Boer scouts that the British were retiring. So indeed
+they were, save only the small force of Le Gallais, which seems to
+have taken one last cast round to the south before giving up the
+pursuit. In the grey of the morning of November 6th, Major Lean
+with forty men of the 5th Mounted Infantry came upon three weary
+Boers sleeping upon the veld. Having secured the men, and realising
+that they were an outpost, Lean pushed on, and topping a rise some
+hundreds of yards further, he and his men saw a remarkable scene.
+There before them stretched the camp of the Boers, the men
+sleeping, the horses grazing, the guns parked, and the wagons
+outspanned.
+
+There was little time for consideration. The Kaffir drivers were
+already afoot and strolling out for their horses, or lighting the
+fires for their masters' coffee. With splendid decision, although
+he had but forty men to oppose to over a thousand, Lean sent back
+for reinforcements and opened fire upon the camp. In an instant it
+was buzzing like an overturned hive. Up sprang the sleepers, rushed
+for their horses, and galloped away across the veld, leaving their
+guns and wagons behind. A few stalwarts remained, however, and
+their numbers were increased by those whose horses had stampeded,
+and who were, therefore, unable to get away. They occupied an
+enclosed kraal and a farmhouse in front of the British, whence they
+opened a sharp fire. At the same time a number of the Boers who had
+ridden away came back again, having realised how weak their
+assailants were, and worked round the British flanks upon either
+side.
+
+Le Gallais, with his men, had come up, but the British force was
+still far inferior to that which it was attacking. A section of U
+battery was able to unlimber, and open fire at four hundred yards
+from the Boer position. The British made no attempt to attack, but
+contented themselves with holding on to the position from which
+they could prevent the Boer guns from being removed. The burghers
+tried desperately to drive off the stubborn fringe of riflemen. A
+small stone shed in the possession of the British was the centre of
+the Boer fire, and it was within its walls that Ross of the Durhams
+was horribly wounded by an explosive ball, and that the brave
+Jerseyman, Le Gallais, was killed. Before his fall he had
+despatched his staff officer, Major Hickie, to hurry up men from
+the rear.
+
+On the fall of Ross and Le Gallais the command fell upon Major
+Taylor of U battery. The position at that time was sufficiently
+alarming. The Boers were working round each flank in considerable
+numbers, and they maintained a heavy fire from a stone enclosure in
+the centre. The British forces actually engaged were insignificant,
+consisting of forty men of the 5th Mounted Infantry, and two guns
+in the centre, forty-six men of the 17th and 18th Imperial Yeomanry
+upon the right, and 105 of the 8th Mounted Infantry on the left or
+191 rifles in all. The flanks of this tiny force had to extend to
+half a mile to hold off the Boer flank attack, but they were
+heartened in their resistance by the knowledge that their comrades
+were hastening to their assistance. Taylor, realising that a great
+effort must be made to tide over the crisis, sent a messenger back
+with orders that the convoy should be parked, and every available
+man sent up to strengthen the right flank, which was the weakest.
+The enemy got close on to one of the guns, and swept down the whole
+detachment, but a handful of the Suffolk Mounted Infantry under
+Lieutenant Peebles most gallantly held them off from it. For an
+hour the pressure was extreme. Then two companies of the 7th
+Mounted Infantry came up, and were thrown on to each flank. Shortly
+afterwards Major Welch, with two more companies of the same corps,
+arrived, and the tide began slowly to turn. The Boers were
+themselves outflanked by the extension of the British line and were
+forced to fall back. At half-past eight De Lisle, whose force had
+trotted and galloped for twelve miles, arrived with several
+companies of Australians, and the success of the day was assured.
+The smoke of the Prussian guns at Waterloo was not a more welcome
+sight than the dust of De Lisle's horsemen. But the question now
+was whether the Boers, who were in the walled inclosure and farm
+which formed their centre, would manage to escape. The place was
+shelled, but here, as often before, it was found how useless a
+weapon is shrapnel against buildings. There was nothing for it but
+to storm it, and a grim little storming party of fifty men, half
+British, half Australian, was actually waiting with fixed bayonets
+for the whistle which was to be their signal, when the white flag
+flew out from the farm, and all was over. Warned by many a tragic
+experience the British still lay low in spite of the flag. 'Come
+out! come out!' they shouted. Eighty-two unwounded Boers filed out
+of the enclosure, and the total number of prisoners came to 114,
+while between twenty and thirty Boers were killed. Six guns, a
+pom-pom, and 1000 head of cattle were the prizes of the victors.
+
+This excellent little action showed that the British mounted
+infantry had reached a point of efficiency at which they were quite
+able to match the Boers at their own game. For hours they held them
+with an inferior force, and finally, when the numbers became equal,
+were able to drive them off and capture their guns. The credit is
+largely due to Major Lean for his prompt initiative on discovering
+their laager, and to Major Taylor for his handling of the force
+during a very critical time. Above all, it was due to the dead
+leader, Le Gallais, who had infected every man under him with his
+own spirit of reckless daring. 'If I die, tell my mother that I die
+happy, as we got the guns,' said he, with his failing breath. The
+British total losses were twelve killed (four officers) and
+thirty-three wounded (seven officers). Major Welch, a soldier of
+great promise, much beloved by his men, was one of the slain.
+Following closely after the repulse at Frederickstad this action
+was a heavy blow to De Wet. At last, the British were beginning to
+take something off the score which they owed the bold raider, but
+there was to be many an item on either side before the long
+reckoning should be closed. The Boers, with De Wet, fled south,
+where it was not long before they showed that they were still a
+military force with which we had to reckon.
+
+In defiance of chronology it may perhaps make a clearer narrative
+if I continue at once with the movements of De Wet from the time
+that he lost his guns at Bothaville, and then come back to the
+consideration of the campaign in the Transvaal, and to a short
+account of those scattered and disconnected actions which break the
+continuity of the story. Before following De Wet, however, it is
+necessary to say something of the general state of the Orange River
+Colony and of some military developments which had occurred there.
+Under the wise and conciliatory rule of General Pretyman the
+farmers in the south and west were settling down, and for the time
+it looked as if a large district was finally pacified. The mild
+taxation was cheerfully paid, schools were reopened, and a peace
+party made itself apparent, with Fraser and Piet de Wet, the
+brother of Christian, among its strongest advocates.
+
+Apart from the operations of De Wet there appeared to be no large
+force in the field in the Orange River Colony, but early in October
+of 1900 a small but very mobile and efficient Boer force skirted
+the eastern outposts of the British, struck the southern line of
+communications, and then came up the western flank, attacking,
+where an attack was possible, each of the isolated and weakly
+garrisoned townlets to which it came, and recruiting its strength
+from a district which had been hardly touched by the ravages of
+war, and which by its prosperity alone might have proved the
+amenity of British military rule. This force seems to have skirted
+Wepener without attacking a place of such evil omen to their cause.
+Their subsequent movements are readily traced by a sequence of
+military events.
+
+On October 1st Rouxville was threatened. On the 9th an outpost of
+the Cheshire Militia was taken and the railway cut for a few hours
+in the neighbourhood of Bethulie. A week later the Boer riders were
+dotting the country round Phillipolis, Springfontein and
+Jagersfontein, the latter town being occupied upon October 16th,
+while the garrison held out upon the nearest kopje. The town was
+retaken from the enemy by King Hall and his men, who were Seaforth
+Highlanders and police. There was fierce fighting in the streets,
+and from twenty to thirty of each side were killed or wounded.
+Fauresmith was attacked on October 19th, but was also in the very
+safe hands of the Seaforths, who held it against a severe assault.
+Phillipolis was continually attacked between the 18th and the 24th,
+but made a most notable defence, which was conducted by Gostling,
+the resident magistrate, with forty civilians. For a week this band
+of stalwarts held their own against 600 Boers, and were finally
+relieved by a force from the railway. All the operations were not,
+however, as successful as these three defences. On October 24th a
+party of cavalry details belonging to many regiments were snapped
+up in an ambuscade. On the next day Jacobsdal was attacked, with
+considerable loss to the British. The place was entered in the
+night, and the enemy occupied the houses which surrounded the
+square. The garrison, consisting of about sixty men of the Capetown
+Highlanders, had encamped in the square, and were helpless when
+fire was opened upon them in the morning. There was practically no
+resistance, and yet for hours a murderous fire was kept up upon the
+tents in which they cowered, so that the affair seems not to have
+been far removed from murder. Two-thirds of the little force were
+killed or wounded. The number of the assailants does not appear to
+have been great, and they vanished upon the appearance of a
+relieving force from Modder River.
+
+After the disaster at Jacobsdal the enemy appeared on November 1st
+near Kimberley and captured a small convoy. The country round was
+disturbed, and Settle was sent south with a column to pacify it. In
+this way we can trace this small cyclone from its origin in the old
+storm centre in the north-east of the Orange River Colony, sweeping
+round the whole country, striking one post after another, and
+finally blowing out at the corresponding point upon the other side
+of the seat of war.
+
+We have last seen De Wet upon November 6th, when he fled south from
+Bothaville, leaving his guns but not his courage behind him.
+Trekking across the line, and for a wonder gathering up no train as
+he passed, he made for that part of the eastern Orange River Colony
+which had been reoccupied by his countrymen. Here, in the
+neighbourhood of Thabanchu, he was able to join other forces,
+probably the commandos of Haasbroek and Fourie, which still
+retained some guns. At the head of a considerable force he attacked
+the British garrison of Dewetsdorp, a town some forty miles to the
+south-east of Bloemfontein.
+
+It was on November 18th that De Wet assailed the place, and it fell
+upon the 24th, after a defence which appears to have been a very
+creditable one. Several small British columns were moving in the
+south-east of the Colony, but none of them arrived in time to avert
+the disaster, which is the more inexplicable as the town is within
+one day's ride of Bloemfontein. The place is a village hemmed in
+upon its western side by a semicircle of steep rocky hills broken
+in the centre by a gully. The position was a very extended one, and
+had the fatal weakness that the loss of any portion of it meant the
+loss of it all. The garrison consisted of one company of Highland
+Light Infantry on the southern horn of the semicircle, three
+companies of the 2nd Gloucester Regiment on the northern and
+central part, with two guns of the 68th battery. Some of the Royal
+Irish Mounted Infantry and a handful of police made up the total of
+the defenders to something over four hundred, Major Massy in
+command.
+
+The attack developed at that end of the ridge which was held by the
+company of Highlanders. Every night the Boer riflemen drew in
+closer, and every morning found the position more desperate. On the
+20th the water supply of the garrison was cut, though a little was
+still brought up by volunteers during the night. The thirst in the
+sultry trenches was terrible, but the garrison still, with black
+lips and parched tongues, held on to their lines. On the 22nd the
+attack had made such progress that the post had by the Highlanders
+became untenable, and had to be withdrawn. It was occupied next
+morning by the Boers, and the whole ridge was at their mercy. Out
+of eighteen men who served one of the British guns sixteen were
+killed or wounded, and the last rounds were fired by the
+sergeant-farrier, who carried, loaded, and fired all by himself.
+All day the soldiers held out, but the thirst was in itself enough
+to justify if not to compel a surrender. At half-past five the
+garrison laid down their arms, having lost about sixty killed or
+wounded. There does not, as far as one can learn, seem to have been
+any attempt to injure the two guns which fell into the hands of the
+enemy. De Wet himself was one of the first to ride into the British
+trenches, and the prisoners gazed with interest at the short strong
+figure, with the dark tail coat and the square-topped bowler hat,
+of the most famous of the Boer leaders.
+
+British columns were converging, however, from several quarters,
+and De Wet had to be at once on the move. On the 26th Dewetsdorp
+was reoccupied by General Charles Knox with fifteen hundred men. De
+Wet had two days' start, but so swift was Knox that on the 27th he
+had run him down at Vaalbank, where he shelled his camp. De Wet
+broke away, however, and trekking south for eighteen hours without
+a halt, shook off the pursuit. He had with him at this time nearly
+8000 men with several guns under Haasbroek, Fourie, Philip Botha,
+and Steyn. It was his declared intention to invade Cape Colony with
+his train of weary footsore prisoners, and the laurels of
+Dewetsdorp still green upon him. He was much aided in all his plans
+by that mistaken leniency which had refused to recognise that a
+horse is in that country as much a weapon as a rifle, and had left
+great numbers upon the farms with which he could replace his
+useless animals. So numerous were they that many of the Boers had
+two or three for their own use. It is not too much to say that our
+weak treatment of the question of horses will come to be recognised
+as the one great blot upon the conduct of the war, and that our
+undue and fantastic scruples have prolonged hostilities for months,
+and cost the country many lives and many millions of pounds.
+
+De Wet's plan for the invasion of the Colony was not yet destined
+to be realised, for a tenacious man had set himself to frustrate
+it. Several small but mobile British columns, those of Pilcher, of
+Barker, and of Herbert, under the supreme direction of Charles
+Knox, were working desperately to head him off. In torrents of rain
+which turned every spruit into a river and every road into a
+quagmire, the British horsemen stuck manfully to their work. De Wet
+had hurried south, crossed the Caledon River, and made for
+Odendaal's Drift. But Knox, after the skirmish at Vaalbank, had
+trekked swiftly south to Bethulie, and was now ready with three
+mobile columns and a network of scouts and patrols to strike in any
+direction. For a few days he had lost touch, but his arrangements
+were such that he must recover it if the Boers either crossed the
+railroad or approached the river. On December 2nd he had authentic
+information that De Wet was crossing the Caledon, and in an instant
+the British columns were all off at full cry once more, sweeping
+over the country with a front of fifteen miles. On the 3rd and 4th,
+in spite of frightful weather, the two little armies of horsemen
+struggled on, fetlock-deep in mud, with the rain lashing their
+faces. At night without cover, drenched and bitterly cold, the
+troopers threw themselves down on the sodden veld to snatch a few
+hours' sleep before renewing the interminable pursuit. The drift
+over the Caledon flowed deep and strong, but the Boer had passed
+and the Briton must pass also. Thirty guns took to the water,
+diving completely under the coffee-coloured surface, to reappear
+glistening upon the southern bank. Everywhere there were signs of
+the passage of the enemy. A litter of crippled or dying horses
+marked their track, and a Krupp gun was found abandoned by the
+drift. The Dewetsdorp prisoners, too, had been set loose, and began
+to stumble and stagger back to their countrymen, their boots worn
+off, and their putties wrapped round their bleeding feet. It is
+painful to add that they had been treated with a personal violence
+and a brutality in marked contrast to the elaborate hospitality
+shown by the British Government to its involuntary guests.
+
+On December 6th De Wet had at last reached the Orange River a clear
+day in front of his pursuers. But it was only to find that his
+labours had been in vain. At Odendaal, where he had hoped to cross,
+the river was in spate, the British flag waved from a post upon the
+further side, and a strong force of expectant Guardsmen eagerly
+awaited him there. Instantly recognising that the game was up, the
+Boer leader doubled back for the north and safety. At Rouxville he
+hesitated as to whether he should snap up the small garrison, but
+the commandant, Rundle, showed a bold face, and De Wet passed on to
+the Coomassie Bridge over the Caledon. The small post there refused
+to be bluffed into a surrender, and the Boers, still dropping their
+horses fast, passed on, and got over the drift at Amsterdam, their
+rearguard being hardly across before Knox had also reached the
+river.
+
+On the 10th the British were in touch again near Helvetia, where
+there was a rearguard skirmish. On the 11th both parties rode
+through Reddersberg, a few hours separating them. The Boers in
+their cross-country trekking go, as one of their prisoners
+observed, 'slap-bang at everything,' and as they are past-masters
+in the art of ox and mule driving, and have such a knowledge of the
+country that they can trek as well by night as by day, it says much
+for the energy of Knox and his men that he was able for a fortnight
+to keep in close touch with them.
+
+It became evident now that there was not much chance of overtaking
+the main body of the burghers, and an attempt was therefore made to
+interpose a fresh force who might head them off. A line of posts
+existed between Thabanchu and Ladybrand, and Colonel Thorneycroft
+was stationed there with a movable column. It was Knox's plan
+therefore to prevent the Boers from breaking to the west and to
+head them towards the Basuto border. A small column under Parsons
+had been sent by Hunter from Bloemfontein, and pushed in upon the
+flank of De Wet, who had on the 12th got back to Dewetsdorp. Again
+the pursuit became warm, but De Wet's time was not yet come. He
+headed for Springhaan Nek, about fifteen miles east of Thabanchu.
+This pass is about four miles broad, with a British fort upon
+either side of it. There was only one way to safety, for Knox's
+mounted infantrymen and lancers were already dotting the southern
+skyline. Without hesitation the whole Boer force, now some 2500
+strong, galloped at full speed in open order through the Nek,
+braving the long range fire of riflemen and guns. The tactics were
+those of French in his ride to Kimberley, and the success was as
+complete. De Wet's force passed through the last barrier which had
+been held against him, and vanished into the mountainous country
+round Ficksburg, where it could safely rest and refit.
+
+The result then of these bustling operations had been that De Wet
+and his force survived, but that he had failed in his purpose of
+invading the Colony, and had dropped some five hundred horses, two
+guns, and about a hundred of his men. Haasbroek's commando had been
+detached by De Wet to make a feint at another pass while he made
+his way through the Springhaan. Parsons's force followed Haasbroek
+up and engaged him, but under cover of night he was able to get
+away and to join his leader to the north of Thabanchu. On December
+13th, this, the second great chase after De Wet, may be said to
+have closed.
+
+CHAPTER 31.
+
+THE GUERILLA WARFARE IN THE TRANSVAAL: NOOITGEDACHT.
+
+Leaving De Wet in the Ficksburg mountains, where he lurked until
+after the opening of the New Year, the story of the scattered
+operations in the Transvaal may now be carried down to the same
+point--a story comprising many skirmishes and one considerable
+engagement, but so devoid of any central thread that it is
+difficult to know how to approach it. From Lichtenburg to Komati, a
+distance of four hundred miles, there was sporadic warfare
+everywhere, attacks upon scattered posts, usually beaten off but
+occasionally successful, attacks upon convoys, attacks upon railway
+trains, attacks upon anything and everything which could harass the
+invaders. Each General in his own district had his own work of
+repression to perform, and so we had best trace the doings of each
+up to the end of the year 1900.
+
+Lord Methuen after his pursuit of De Wet in August had gone to
+Mafeking to refit. From that point, with a force which contained a
+large proportion of yeomanry and of Australian bushmen, he
+conducted a long series of operations in the difficult and
+important district which lies between Rustenburg, Lichtenburg, and
+Zeerust. Several strong and mobile Boer commandos with guns moved
+about in it, and an energetic though not very deadly warfare raged
+between Lemmer, Snyman, and De la Rey on the one side, and the
+troops of Methuen, Douglas, Broadwood, and Lord Errol upon the
+other. Methuen moved about incessantly through the broken country,
+winning small skirmishes and suffering the indignity of continual
+sniping. From time to time he captured stores, wagons, and small
+bodies of prisoners. Early in October he and Douglas had successes.
+On the 15th Broadwood was engaged. On the 20th there was a convoy
+action. On the 25th Methuen had a success and twenty-eight
+prisoners. On November 9th he surprised Snyman and took thirty
+prisoners. On the 10th he got a pom-pom. Early in this month
+Douglas separated from Methuen, and marched south from Zeerust
+through Ventersdorp to Klerksdorp, passing over a country which had
+been hardly touched before, and arriving at his goal with much
+cattle and some prisoners. Towards the end of the month a
+considerable stock of provisions were conveyed to Zeerust, and a
+garrison left to hold that town so as to release Methuen's column
+for service elsewhere.
+
+Hart's sphere of action was originally round Potchefstroom. On
+September 9th he made a fine forced march to surprise this town,
+which had been left some time before with an entirely inadequate
+garrison to fall into the hands of the enemy. His infantry covered
+thirty-six and his cavalry fifty-four miles in fifteen hours. The
+operation was a complete success, the town with eighty Boers
+falling into his hands with little opposition. On September 30th
+Hart returned to Krugersdorp, where, save for one skirmish upon the
+Gatsrand on November 22nd, he appears to have had no actual
+fighting to do during the remainder of the year.
+
+After the clearing of the eastern border of the Transvaal by the
+movement of Pole-Carew along the railway line, and of Buller aided
+by Ian Hamilton in the mountainous country to the north of it,
+there were no operations of importance in this district. A guard
+was kept upon the frontier to prevent the return of refugees and
+the smuggling of ammunition, while General Kitchener, the brother
+of the Sirdar, broke up a few small Boer laagers in the
+neighbourhood of Lydenburg. Smith-Dorrien guarded the line at
+Belfast, and on two occasions, November 1st and November 6th, he
+made aggressive movements against the enemy. The first, which was a
+surprise executed in concert with Colonel Spens of the Shropshires,
+was frustrated by a severe blizzard, which prevented the troops
+from pushing home their success. The second was a two days'
+expedition, which met with a spirited opposition, and demands a
+fuller notice.
+
+This was made from Belfast, and the force, which consisted of about
+fourteen hundred men, advanced south to the Komati River. The
+infantry were Suffolks and Shropshires, the cavalry Canadians and
+5th Lancers, with two Canadian guns and four of the 84th battery.
+All day the Boer snipers clung to the column, as they had done to
+French's cavalry in the same district. Mere route marches without a
+very definite and adequate objective appear to be rather
+exasperating than overawing, for so long as the column is moving
+onwards the most timid farmer may be tempted into long-range fire
+from the flanks or rear. The river was reached and the Boers driven
+from a position which they had taken up, but their signal fires
+brought mounted riflemen from every farm, and the retreat of the
+troops was pressed as they returned to Belfast. There was all the
+material for a South African Lexington. The most difficult of
+military operations, the covering of a detachment from a numerous
+and aggressive enemy, was admirably carried out by the Canadian
+gunners and dragoons under the command of Colonel Lessard. So
+severe was the pressure that sixteen of the latter were for a time
+in the hands of the enemy, who attempted something in the nature of
+a charge upon the steadfast rearguard. The movement was repulsed,
+and the total Boer loss would appear to have been considerable,
+since two of their leaders, Commandant Henry Prinsloo and General
+Joachim Fourie, were killed, while General Johann Grobler was
+wounded. If the rank and file suffered in proportion the losses
+must have been severe. The British casualties in the two days
+amounted to eight killed and thirty wounded, a small total when the
+arduous nature of the service is considered. The Canadians and the
+Shropshires seem to have borne off the honours of these trying
+operations.
+
+In the second week of October, General French, with three brigades
+of cavalry (Dickson's, Gordon's, and Mahon's), started for a
+cross-country ride from Machadodorp. Three brigades may seem an
+imposing force, but the actual numbers did not exceed two strong
+regiments, or about 1500 sabres in all. A wing of the Suffolk
+Regiment went with them. On October 13th Mahon's brigade met with a
+sharp resistance, and lost ten killed and twenty-nine wounded. On
+the 14th the force entered Carolina. On the 16th they lost six
+killed and twenty wounded, and from the day that they started until
+they reached Heidelberg on the 27th there was never a day that they
+could shake themselves clear of their attendant snipers. The total
+losses of the force were about ninety killed and wounded, but they
+brought in sixty prisoners and a large quantity of cattle and
+stores. The march had at least the effect of making it clear that
+the passage of a column of troops encumbered with baggage through a
+hostile country is an inefficient means for quelling a popular
+resistance. Light and mobile parties acting from a central depot
+were in future to be employed, with greater hopes of success.
+
+Some appreciable proportion of the British losses during this phase
+of the war arose from railway accidents caused by the persistent
+tampering with the lines. In the first ten days of October there
+were four such mishaps, in which two Sappers, twenty-three of the
+Guards (Coldstreams), and eighteen of the 66th battery were killed
+or wounded. On the last occasion, which occurred on October 10th
+near Vlakfontein, the reinforcements who came to aid the sufferers
+were themselves waylaid, and lost twenty, mostly of the Rifle
+Brigade, killed, wounded, or prisoners. Hardly a day elapsed that
+the line was not cut at some point. The bringing of supplies was
+complicated by the fact that the Boer women and children were
+coming more and more into refugee camps, where they had to be fed
+by the British, and the strange spectacle was frequently seen of
+Boer snipers killing or wounding the drivers and stokers of the
+very trains which were bringing up food upon which Boer families
+were dependent for their lives. Considering that these tactics were
+continued for over a year, and that they resulted in the death or
+mutilation of many hundreds of British officers and men, it is
+really inexplicable that the British authorities did not employ the
+means used by all armies under such circumstances--which is to
+place hostages upon the trains. A truckload of Boers behind every
+engine would have stopped the practice for ever. Again and again in
+this war the British have fought with the gloves when their
+opponents used their knuckles.
+
+We will pass now to a consideration of the doings of General Paget,
+who was operating to the north and north-east of Pretoria with a
+force which consisted of two regiments of infantry, about a
+thousand horsemen, and twelve guns. His mounted men were under the
+command of Plumer. In the early part of November this force had
+been withdrawn from Warm Baths and had fallen back upon Pienaar's
+River, where it had continual skirmishes with the enemy. Towards
+the end of November, news having reached Pretoria that the enemy
+under Erasmus and Viljoen were present in force at a place called
+Rhenoster Kop, which is about twenty miles north of the Delagoa
+Railway line and fifty miles north-east of the capital, it was
+arranged that Paget should attack them from the south, while
+Lyttelton from Middelburg should endeavour to get behind them. The
+force with which Paget started upon this enterprise was not a very
+formidable one. He had for mounted troops some Queensland, South
+Australian, New Zealand, and Tasmanian Bushmen, together with the
+York, Montgomery, and Warwick Yeomanry. His infantry were the 1st
+West Riding regiment and four companies of the Munsters. His guns
+were the 7th and 38th batteries, with two naval quick-firing
+twelve-pounders and some smaller pieces. The total could not have
+exceeded some two thousand men. Here, as at other times, it is
+noticeable that in spite of the two hundred thousand soldiers whom
+the British kept in the field, the lines of communication absorbed
+so many that at the actual point of contact they were seldom
+superior and often inferior in numbers to the enemy. The opening of
+the Natal and Delagoa lines though valuable in many ways, had been
+an additional drain. Where every culvert needs its picket and every
+bridge its company, the guardianship of many hundreds of miles of
+rail is no light matter.
+
+In the early morning of November 29th Paget's men came in contact
+with the enemy, who were in some force upon an admirable position.
+A ridge for their centre, a flanking kopje for their cross fire,
+and a grass glacis for the approach--it was an ideal Boer
+battlefield. The colonials and the yeomanry under Plumer on the
+left, and Hickman on the right, pushed in upon them, until it was
+evident that they meant to hold their ground. Their advance being
+checked by a very severe fire, the horsemen dismounted and took
+such cover as they could. Paget's original idea had been a turning
+movement, but the Boers were the more numerous body, and it was
+impossible for the smaller British force to find their flanks, for
+they extended over at least seven miles. The infantry were moved up
+into the centre, therefore, between the wings of dismounted
+horsemen, and the guns were brought up to cover the advance. The
+country was ill-suited, however, to the use of artillery, and it
+was only possible to use an indirect fire from under a curve of the
+grass land. The guns made good practice, however, one section of
+the 38th battery being in action all day within 800 yards of the
+Boer line, and putting themselves out of action after 300 rounds by
+the destruction of their own rifling. Once over the curve every
+yard of the veld was commanded by the hidden riflemen. The infantry
+advanced, but could make no headway against the deadly fire which
+met them. By short rushes the attack managed to get within 300
+yards of the enemy, and there it stuck. On the right the Munsters
+carried a detached kopje which was in front of them, but could do
+little to aid the main attack. Nothing could have exceeded the
+tenacity of the Yorkshiremen and the New Zealanders, who were
+immediately to their left. Though unable to advance they refused to
+retire, and indeed they were in a position from which a retirement
+would have been a serious operation. Colonel Lloyd of the West
+Ridings was hit in three places and killed. Five out of six
+officers of the New Zealand corps were struck down. There were no
+reserves to give a fresh impetus to the attack, and the thin
+scattered line, behind bullet-spotted stones or anthills, could but
+hold its own while the sun sank slowly upon a day which will not be
+forgotten by those who endured it. The Boers were reinforced in the
+afternoon, and the pressure became so severe that the field guns
+were retired with much difficulty. Many of the infantry had shot
+away all their cartridges and were helpless. Just one year before
+British soldiers had lain under similar circumstances on the plain
+which leads to Modder River, and now on a smaller scale the very
+same drama was being enacted. Gradually the violet haze of evening
+deepened into darkness, and the incessant rattle of the rifle fire
+died away on either side. Again, as at Modder River, the British
+infantry still lay in their position, determined to take no
+backward step, and again the Boers stole away in the night, leaving
+the ridge which they had defended so well. A hundred killed and
+wounded was the price paid by the British for that line of rock
+studded hills--a heavier proportion of losses than had befallen
+Lord Methuen in the corresponding action. Of the Boer losses there
+was as usual no means of judging, but several grave-mounds, newly
+dug, showed that they also had something to deplore. Their retreat,
+however, was not due to exhaustion, but to the demonstration which
+Lyttelton had been able to make in their rear. The gunners and the
+infantry had all done well in a most trying action, but by common
+consent it was with the men from New Zealand that the honours lay.
+It was no empty compliment when Sir Alfred Milner telegraphed to
+the Premier of New Zealand his congratulations upon the
+distinguished behaviour of his fellow countrymen.
+
+From this time onwards there was nothing of importance in this part
+of the seat of war.
+
+It is necessary now to turn from the north-east to the north-west
+of Pretoria, where the presence of De la Rey and the cover afforded
+by the Magaliesberg mountains had kept alive the Boer resistance.
+Very rugged lines of hill, alternating with fertile valleys,
+afforded a succession of forts and of granaries to the army which
+held them. To General Clements' column had been committed the task
+of clearing this difficult piece of country. His force fluctuated
+in numbers, but does not appear at any time to have consisted of
+more than three thousand men, which comprised the Border Regiment,
+the Yorkshire Light Infantry, the second Northumberland Fusiliers,
+mounted infantry, yeomanry, the 8th R.F.A., P battery R.H.A., and
+one heavy gun. With this small army he moved about the district,
+breaking up Boer bands, capturing supplies, and bringing in
+refugees. On November 13th he was at Krugersdorp, the southern
+extremity of his beat. On the 24th he was moving north again, and
+found himself as he approached the hills in the presence of a force
+of Boers with cannon. This was the redoubtable De la Rey, who
+sometimes operated in Methuen's country to the north of the
+Magaliesberg, and sometimes to the south. He had now apparently
+fixed upon Clements as his definite opponent. De la Rey was
+numerically inferior, and Clements had no difficulty in this first
+encounter in forcing him back with some loss. On November 26th
+Clements was back at Krugersdorp again with cattle and prisoners.
+In the early days of December he was moving northwards once more,
+where a serious disaster awaited him. Before narrating the
+circumstances connected with the Battle of Nooitgedacht there is
+one incident which occurred in this same region which should be
+recounted.
+
+This consists of the determined attack made by a party of De la
+Rey's men, upon December 3rd, on a convoy which was proceeding from
+Pretoria to Rustenburg, and had got as far as Buffel's Hoek. The
+convoy was a very large one, consisting of 150 wagons, which
+covered about three miles upon the march. It was guarded by two
+companies of the West Yorkshires, two guns of the 75th battery, and
+a handful of the Victoria Mounted Rifles. The escort appears
+entirely inadequate when it is remembered that these stores, which
+were of great value, were being taken through a country which was
+known to be infested by the enemy. What might have been foreseen
+occurred. Five hundred Boers suddenly rode down upon the helpless
+line of wagons and took possession of them. The escort rallied,
+however, upon a kopje, and, though attacked all day, succeeded in
+holding their own until help arrived. They prevented the Boers from
+destroying or carrying off as much of the convoy as was under their
+guns, but the rest was looted and burned. The incident was a most
+unfortunate one, as it supplied the enemy with a large quantity of
+stores, of which they were badly in need. It was the more
+irritating as it was freely rumoured that a Boer attack was
+pending; and there is evidence that a remonstrance was addressed
+from the convoy before it left Rietfontein to the General of the
+district, pointing out the danger to which it was exposed. The
+result was the loss of 120 wagons and of more than half the escort.
+The severity of the little action and the hardihood of the defence
+are indicated by the fact that the small body who held the kopje
+lost fifteen killed and twenty-two wounded, the gunners losing nine
+out of fifteen. A relieving force appeared at the close of the
+action, but no vigorous pursuit was attempted, although the weather
+was wet and the Boers had actually carried away sixty loaded
+wagons, which could only go very slowly. It must be confessed that
+from its feckless start to its spiritless finish the story of the
+Buffel's Hoek convoy is not a pleasant one to tell.
+
+Clements, having made his way once more to the Magaliesberg range,
+had pitched his camp at a place called Nooitgedacht--not to be
+confused with the post upon the Delagoa Railway at which the
+British prisoners had been confined. Here, in the very shadow of
+the mountain, he halted for five days, during which, with the usual
+insouciance of British commanders, he does not seem to have
+troubled himself with any entrenching. He knew, no doubt, that he
+was too strong for his opponent De la Rey, but what he did not
+know, but might have feared, was that a second Boer force might
+appear suddenly upon the scene and join with De la Rey in order to
+crush him. This second Boer force was that of Commandant Beyers
+from Warm Baths. By a sudden and skilful movement the two united,
+and fell like a thunderbolt upon the British column, which was
+weakened by the absence of the Border Regiment. The result was such
+a reverse as the British had not sustained since Sanna's Post--a
+reverse which showed that, though no regular Boer army might exist,
+still a sudden coalition of scattered bands could at any time
+produce a force which would be dangerous to any British column
+which might be taken at a disadvantage. We had thought that the
+days of battles in this war were over, but an action which showed a
+missing and casualty roll of 550 proved that in this, as in so many
+other things, we were mistaken.
+
+As already stated, the camp of Clements lay under a precipitous
+cliff, upon the summit of which he had placed four companies of the
+2nd Northumberland Fusiliers. This strong post was a thousand feet
+higher than the camp. Below lay the main body of the force, two
+more companies of fusiliers, four of Yorkshire Light Infantry, the
+2nd Mounted Infantry, Kitchener's Horse, yeomanry, and the
+artillery. The latter consisted of one heavy naval gun, four guns
+of the 8th R.F.A., and P battery R.H.A. The whole force amounted to
+about fifteen hundred men.
+
+It was just at the first break of dawn--the hour of fate in South
+African warfare--that the battle began. The mounted infantry post
+between the camp and the mountains were aware of moving figures in
+front of them. In the dim light they could discern that they were
+clothed in grey, and that they wore the broad-brimmed hats and
+feathers of some of our own irregular corps. They challenged, and
+the answer was a shattering volley, instantly returned by the
+survivors of the picket. So hot was the Boer attack that before
+help could come every man save one of the picket was on the ground.
+The sole survivor, Daley of the Dublins, took no backward step, but
+continued to steadily load and fire until help came from the
+awakened camp. There followed a savage conflict at point
+blank-range. The mounted infantry men, rushing half clad to the
+support of their comrades, were confronted by an ever-thickening
+swarm of Boer riflemen, who had already, by working round on the
+flank, established their favourite cross fire. Legge, the leader of
+the mounted infantry, a hard little Egyptian veteran, was shot
+through the head, and his men lay thick around him. For some
+minutes it was as hot a corner as any in the war. But Clements
+himself had appeared upon the scene, and his cool gallantry turned
+the tide of fight. An extension of the line checked the cross fire,
+and gave the British in turn a flanking position. Gradually the
+Boer riflemen were pushed back, until at last they broke and fled
+for their horses in the rear. A small body were cut off, many of
+whom were killed and wounded, while a few were taken prisoners.
+
+This stiff fight of an hour had ended in a complete repulse of the
+attack, though at a considerable cost. Both Boers and British had
+lost heavily. Nearly all the staff were killed or wounded, though
+General Clements had come through untouched. Fifty or sixty of both
+sides had fallen. But it was noted as an ominous fact that in spite
+of shell fire the Boers still lingered upon the western flank. Were
+they coming on again? They showed no signs of it. And yet they
+waited in groups, and looked up towards the beetling crags above
+them. What were they waiting for? The sudden crash of a murderous
+Mauser fire upon the summit, with the rolling volleys of the
+British infantry, supplied the answer.
+
+Only now must it have been clear to Clements that he was not
+dealing merely with some spasmodic attack from his old enemy De la
+Rey, but that this was a largely conceived movement, in which a
+force at least double the strength of his own had suddenly been
+concentrated upon him. His camp was still menaced by the men whom
+he had repulsed, and he could not weaken it by sending
+reinforcements up the hill. But the roar of the musketry was rising
+louder and louder. It was becoming clearer that there was the main
+attack. It was a Majuba Hill action up yonder, a thick swarm of
+skirmishers closing in from many sides upon a central band of
+soldiers. But the fusiliers were hopelessly outnumbered, and this
+rock fighting is that above all others in which the Boer has an
+advantage over the regular. A helio on the hill cried for help. The
+losses were heavy, it said, and the assailants numerous. The Boers
+closed swiftly in upon the flanks, and the fusiliers were no match
+for their assailants. Till the very climax the helio still cried
+that they were being overpowered, and it is said that even while
+working it the soldier in charge was hurled over the cliff by the
+onrush of the victorious Boers.
+
+The fight of the mounted infantry men had been at half-past four.
+At six the attack upon the hill had developed, and Clements in
+response to those frantic flashes of light had sent up a hundred
+men of the yeomanry, from the Fife and Devon squadrons, as a
+reinforcement. To climb a precipitous thousand feet with rifle,
+bandolier, and spurs, is no easy feat, yet that roar of battle
+above them heartened them upon their way. But in spite of all their
+efforts they were only in time to share the general disaster. The
+head of the line of hard-breathing yeomen reached the plateau just
+as the Boers, sweeping over the remnants of the Northumberland
+Fusiliers, reached the brink of the cliff. One by one the yeomen
+darted over the edge, and endeavoured to find some cover in the
+face of an infernal point-blank fire. Captain Mudie of the staff,
+who went first, was shot down. So was Purvis of the Fifes, who
+followed him. The others, springing over their bodies, rushed for a
+small trench, and tried to restore the fight. Lieutenant Campbell,
+a gallant young fellow, was shot dead as he rallied his men. Of
+twenty-seven of the Fifeshires upon the hill six were killed and
+eleven wounded. The statistics of the Devons are equally heroic.
+Those yeomen who had not yet reached the crest were in a perfectly
+impossible position, as the Boers were firing from complete cover
+right down upon them. There was no alternative for them but
+surrender. By seven o'clock every British soldier upon the hill,
+yeoman or fusilier, had been killed, wounded, or taken. It is not
+true that the supply of cartridges ran out, and the fusiliers, with
+the ill-luck which has pursued the 2nd battalion, were outnumbered
+and outfought by better skirmishers than themselves.
+
+Seldom has a General found himself in a more trying position than
+Clements, or extricated himself more honourably. Not only had he
+lost nearly half his force, but his camp was no longer tenable, and
+his whole army was commanded by the fringe of deadly rifles upon
+the cliff. From the berg to the camp was from 800 to 1000 yards,
+and a sleet of bullets whistled down upon it. How severe was the
+fire may be gauged from the fact that the little pet monkey
+belonging to the yeomanry--a small enough object--was hit three
+times, though he lived to survive as a battle-scarred veteran.
+Those wounded in the early action found themselves in a terrible
+position, laid out in the open under a withering fire, 'like
+helpless Aunt Sallies,' as one of them described it. 'We must get a
+red flag up, or we shall be blown off the face of the earth,' says
+the same correspondent, a corporal of the Ceylon Mounted Infantry.
+'We had a pillow-case, but no red paint. Then we saw what would do
+instead, so they made the upright with my blood, and the horizontal
+with Paul's.' It is pleasant to add that this grim flag was
+respected by the Boers. Bullocks and mules fell in heaps, and it
+was evident that the question was not whether the battle could be
+restored, but whether the guns could be saved. Leaving a fringe of
+yeomen, mounted infantry, and Kitchener's Horse to stave off the
+Boers, who were already descending by the same steep kloof up which
+the yeomen had climbed, the General bent all his efforts to getting
+the big naval gun out of danger. Only six oxen were left out of a
+team of forty, and so desperate did the situation appear that twice
+dynamite was placed beneath the gun to destroy it. Each time,
+however, the General intervened, and at last, under a stimulating
+rain of pom-pom shells, the great cannon lurched slowly forward,
+quickening its pace as the men pulled on the drag-ropes, and the
+six oxen broke into a wheezy canter. Its retreat was covered by the
+smaller guns which rained shrapnel upon the crest of the hill, and
+upon the Boers who were descending to the camp. Once the big gun
+was out of danger, the others limbered up and followed, their rear
+still covered by the staunch mounted infantry, with whom rest all
+the honours of the battle. Cookson and Brooks with 250 men stood
+for hours between Clements and absolute disaster. The camp was
+abandoned as it stood, and all the stores, four hundred picketed
+horses, and, most serious of all, two wagons of ammunition, fell
+into the hands of the victors. To have saved all his guns, however,
+after the destruction of half his force by an active enemy far
+superior to him in numbers and in mobility, was a feat which goes
+far to condone the disaster, and to increase rather than to impair
+the confidence which his troops feel in General Clements. Having
+retreated for a couple of miles he turned his big gun round upon
+the hill, which is called Yeomanry Hill, and opened fire upon the
+camp, which was being looted by swarms of Boers. So bold a face did
+he present that he was able to remain with his crippled force upon
+Yeomanry Hill from about nine until four in the afternoon, and no
+attack was pressed home, though he lay under both shell and rifle
+fire all day. At four in the afternoon he began his retreat, which
+did not cease till he had reached Rietfontein, twenty miles off, at
+six o'clock upon the following morning. His weary men had been
+working for twenty-six hours, and actually fighting for fourteen,
+but the bitterness of defeat was alleviated by the feeling that
+every man, from the General downwards, had done all that was
+possible, and that there was every prospect of their having a
+chance before long of getting their own back.
+
+The British losses at the battle of Nooitgedacht amounted to 60
+killed, 180 wounded, and 315 prisoners, all of whom were delivered
+up a few days later at Rustenburg. Of the Boer losses it is, as
+usual, impossible to speak with confidence, but all the evidence
+points to their actual casualties being as heavy as those of the
+British. There was the long struggle at the camp in which they were
+heavily punished, the fight on the mountain, where they exposed
+themselves with unusual recklessness, and the final shelling from
+shrapnel and from lyddite. All accounts agree that their attack was
+more open than usual. 'They were mowed down in twenties that day,
+but it had no effect. They stood like fanatics,' says one who
+fought against them. From first to last their conduct was most
+gallant, and great credit is due to their leaders for the skilful
+sudden concentration by which they threw their whole strength upon
+the exposed force. Some eighty miles separate Warm Baths from
+Nooitgedacht, and it seems strange that our Intelligence Department
+should have remained in ignorance of so large a movement.
+
+General Broadwood's 2nd Cavalry Brigade had been stationed to the
+north of Magaliesberg, some twelve miles westward of Clements, and
+formed the next link in the long chain of British forces. Broadwood
+does not appear, however, to have appreciated the importance of the
+engagement, and made no energetic movement to take part in it. If
+Colvile is open to the charge of having been slow to 'march upon
+the cannon' at Sanna's Post, it might be urged that Broadwood in
+turn showed some want of energy and judgment upon this occasion. On
+the morning of the 13th his force could hear the heavy firing to
+the eastward, and could even see the shells bursting on the top of
+the Magaliesberg. It was but ten or twelve miles distant, and, as
+his Elswick guns have a range of nearly five, a very small advance
+would have enabled him to make a demonstration against the flank of
+the Boers, and so to relieve the pressure upon Clements. It is true
+that his force was not large, but it was exceptionally mobile.
+Whatever the reasons, no effective advance was made by Broadwood.
+On hearing the result he fell back upon Rustenburg, the nearest
+British post, his small force being dangerously isolated.
+
+Those who expected that General Clements would get his own back had
+not long to wait. In a few days he was in the field again. The
+remains of his former force had, however, been sent into Pretoria
+to refit, and nothing remained of it save the 8th R.F.A. and the
+indomitable cow-gun still pocked with the bullets of Nooitgedacht.
+He had also F battery R.H.A., the Inniskillings, the Border
+regiment, and a force of mounted infantry under Alderson. More
+important than all, however, was the co-operation of General
+French, who came out from Pretoria to assist in the operations. On
+the 19th, only six days after his defeat, Clements found himself on
+the very same spot fighting some at least of the very same men.
+This time, however, there was no element of surprise, and the
+British were able to approach the task with deliberation and
+method. The result was that both upon the 19th and 20th the Boers
+were shelled out of successive positions with considerable loss,
+and driven altogether away from that part of the Magaliesberg.
+Shortly afterwards General Clements was recalled to Pretoria, to
+take over the command of the 7th Division, General Tucker having
+been appointed to the military command of Bloemfontein in the place
+of the gallant Hunter, who, to the regret of the whole army, was
+invalided home. General Cunningham henceforward commanded the
+column which Clements had led back to the Magaliesberg.
+
+Upon November 13th the first of a series of attacks was made upon
+the posts along the Delagoa Railway line. These were the work of
+Viljoen's commando, who, moving swiftly from the north, threw
+themselves upon the small garrisons of Balmoral and of Wilge River,
+stations which are about six miles apart. At the former was a
+detachment of the Buffs, and at the latter of the Royal Fusiliers.
+The attack was well delivered, but in each instance was beaten back
+with heavy loss to the assailants. A picket of the Buffs was
+captured at the first rush, and the detachment lost six killed and
+nine wounded. No impression was made upon the position, however,
+and the double attack seems to have cost the Boers a large number
+of casualties.
+
+Another incident calling for some mention was the determined attack
+made by the Boers upon the town of Vryheid, in the extreme
+south-east of the Transvaal near the Natal border. Throughout
+November this district had been much disturbed, and the small
+British garrison had evacuated the town and taken up a position on
+the adjacent hills. Upon December 11th the Boers attempted to carry
+the trenches. The garrison of the town appears to have consisted of
+the 2nd Royal Lancaster regiment, some five hundred strong, a party
+of the Lancashire Fusiliers, 150 strong, and fifty men of the Royal
+Garrison Artillery, with a small body of mounted infantry. They
+held a hill about half a mile north of the town, and commanding it.
+The attack, which was a surprise in the middle of the night, broke
+upon the pickets of the British, who held their own in a way which
+may have been injudicious but was certainly heroic. Instead of
+falling back when seriously attacked, the young officers in charge
+of these outposts refused to move, and were speedily under such a
+fire that it was impossible to reinforce them. There were four
+outposts, under Woodgate, Theobald, Lippert, and Mangles. The
+attack at 2.15 on a cold dark morning began at the post held by
+Woodgate, the Boers coming hand-to-hand before they were detected.
+Woodgate, who was unarmed at the instant, seized a hammer, and
+rushed at the nearest Boer, but was struck by two bullets and
+killed. His post was dispersed or taken. Theobald and Lippert,
+warned by the firing, held on behind their sangars, and were ready
+for the storm which burst over them. Lippert was unhappily killed,
+and his ten men all hit or taken, but young Theobald held his own
+under a heavy fire for twelve hours. Mangles also, the gallant son
+of a gallant father, held his post all day with the utmost
+tenacity. The troops in the trenches behind were never seriously
+pressed, thanks to the desperate resistance of the outposts, but
+Colonel Gawne of the Lancasters was unfortunately killed. Towards
+evening the Boers abandoned the attack, leaving fourteen of their
+number dead upon the ground, from which it may be guessed that
+their total casualties were not less than a hundred. The British
+losses were three officers and five men killed, twenty-two men
+wounded, and thirty men with one officer missing--the latter being
+the survivors of those outposts which were overwhelmed by the Boer
+advance.
+
+A few incidents stand out among the daily bulletins of snipings,
+skirmishes, and endless marchings which make the dull chronicle of
+these, the last months of the year 1900. These must be enumerated
+without any attempt at connecting them. The first is the
+long-drawn-out siege or investment of Schweizer-Renecke. This small
+village stands upon the Harts River, on the western border of the
+Transvaal. It is not easy to understand why the one party should
+desire to hold, or the other to attack, a position so
+insignificant. From August 19th onwards it was defended by a
+garrison of 250 men, under the very capable command of Colonel
+Chamier, who handled a small business in a way which marks him as a
+leader. The Boer force, which varied in numbers from five hundred
+to a thousand, never ventured to push home an attack, for Chamier,
+fresh from the experience of Kimberley, had taken such precautions
+that his defences were formidable, if not impregnable. Late in
+September a relieving force under Colonel Settle threw fresh
+supplies into the town, but when he passed on upon his endless
+march the enemy closed in once more, and the siege was renewed. It
+lasted for several months, until a column withdrew the garrison and
+abandoned the position.
+
+Of all the British detachments, the two which worked hardest and
+marched furthest during this period of the war was the 21st Brigade
+(Derbysbires, Sussex, and Camerons) under General Bruce Hamilton,
+and the column under Settle, which operated down the western border
+of the Orange River Colony, and worked round and round with such
+pertinacity that it was familiarly known as Settle's Imperial
+Circus. Much hard and disagreeable work, far more repugnant to the
+soldier than the actual dangers of war, fell to the lot of Bruce
+Hamilton and his men. With Kroonstad as their centre they were
+continually working through the dangerous Lindley and Heilbron
+districts, returning to the railway line only to start again
+immediately upon a fresh quest. It was work for mounted police, not
+for infantry soldiers, but what they were given to do they did to
+the best of their ability. Settle's men had a similar thankless
+task. From the neighbourhood of Kimberley he marched in November
+with his small column down the border of the Orange River Colony,
+capturing supplies and bringing in refugees. He fought one brisk
+action with Hertzog's commando at Kloof, and then, making his way
+across the colony, struck the railway line again at Edenburg on
+December 7th, with a train of prisoners and cattle.
+
+Rundle also had put in much hard work in his efforts to control the
+difficult district in the north-east of the Colony which had been
+committed to his care. He traversed in November from north to south
+the same country which he had already so painfully traversed from
+south to north. With occasional small actions he moved about from
+Vrede to Reitz, and so to Bethlehem and Harrismith. On him, as on
+all other commanders, the vicious system of placing small garrisons
+in the various towns imposed a constant responsibility lest they
+should be starved or overwhelmed.
+
+The year and the century ended by a small reverse to the British
+arms in the Transvaal. This consisted in the capture of a post at
+Helvetia defended by a detachment of the Liverpool Regiment and by
+a 4.7 gun. Lydenburg, being seventy miles off the railway line, had
+a chain of posts connecting it with the junction at Machadodorp.
+These posts were seven in number, ten miles apart, each defended by
+250 men. Of these Helvetia was the second. The key of the position
+was a strongly fortified hill about three-quarters of a mile from
+the headquarter camp, and commanding it. This post was held by
+Captain Kirke with forty garrison artillery to work the big gun,
+and seventy Liverpool infantry. In spite of the barbed-wire
+entanglements, the Boers most gallantly rushed this position, and
+their advance was so rapid, or the garrison so slow, that the place
+was carried with hardly a shot fired. Major Cotton, who commanded
+the main lines, found himself deprived in an instant of nearly half
+his force and fiercely attacked by a victorious and exultant enemy.
+His position was much too extended for the small force at his
+disposal, and the line of trenches was pierced and enfiladed at
+many points. It must be acknowledged that the defences were badly
+devised--little barbed wire, frail walls, large loopholes, and the
+outposts so near the trenches that the assailants could reach them
+as quickly as the supports. With the dawn Cotton's position was
+serious, if not desperate. He was not only surrounded, but was
+commanded from Gun Hill. Perhaps it would have been wiser if, after
+being wounded, he had handed over the command to Jones, his junior
+officer. A stricken man's judgement can never be so sound as that
+of the hale. However that may be, he came to the conclusion that
+the position was untenable, and that it was best to prevent further
+loss of life. Fifty of the Liverpools were killed and wounded, 200
+taken. No ammunition of the gun was captured, but the Boers were
+able to get safely away with this humiliating evidence of their
+victory. One post, under Captain Wilkinson with forty men, held out
+with success, and harassed the enemy in their retreat. As at
+Dewetsdorp and at Nooitgedacht. the Boers were unable to retain
+their prisoners, so that the substantial fruits of their enterprise
+were small, but it forms none the less one more of those incidents
+which may cause us to respect our enemy and to be critical towards
+ourselves. [Footnote: Considering that Major Stapelton Cotton was
+himself wounded in three places during the action (one of these
+wounds being in the head), he has had hard measure in being
+deprived of his commission by a court-martial which sat eight
+months after the event. It is to be earnestly hoped that there may
+be some revision of this severe sentence.]
+
+In the last few months of the year some of those corps which had
+served their time or which were needed elsewhere were allowed to
+leave the seat of war. By the middle of November the three
+different corps of the City Imperial Volunteers, the two Canadian
+contingents, Lumsden's Horse, the Composite Regiment of Guards, six
+hundred Australians, A battery R.H.A., and the volunteer companies
+of the regular regiments, were all homeward bound. This loss of
+several thousand veteran troops before the war was over was to be
+deplored, and though unavoidable in the case of volunteer
+contingents, it is difficult to explain where regular troops are
+concerned. Early in the new year the Government was compelled to
+send out strong reinforcements to take their place.
+
+Early in December Lord Roberts also left the country, to take over
+the duties of Commander-in-Chief. High as his reputation stood
+when, in January, he landed at Cape Town, it is safe to say that it
+had been immensely enhanced when, ten months later, he saw from the
+quarter-deck of the 'Canada' the Table Mountain growing dimmer in
+the distance. He found a series of disconnected operations, in
+which we were uniformly worsted. He speedily converted them into a
+series of connected operations in which we were almost uniformly
+successful. Proceeding to the front at the beginning of February,
+within a fortnight he had relieved Kimberley, within a month he had
+destroyed Cronje's force, and within six weeks he was in
+Bloemfontein. Then, after a six weeks' halt which could not
+possibly have been shortened, he made another of his tiger leaps,
+and within a month had occupied Johannesburg and Pretoria. From
+that moment the issue of the campaign was finally settled, and
+though a third leap was needed, which carried him to Komatipoort,
+and though brave and obstinate men might still struggle against
+their destiny, he had done what was essential, and the rest,
+however difficult, was only the detail of the campaign. A kindly
+gentleman, as well as a great soldier, his nature revolted from all
+harshness, and a worse man might have been a better leader in the
+last hopeless phases of the war. He remembered, no doubt, how Grant
+had given Lee's army their horses, but Lee at the time had been
+thoroughly beaten, and his men had laid down their arms. A similar
+boon to the partially conquered Boers led to very different
+results, and the prolongation of the war is largely due to this act
+of clemency. At the same time political and military considerations
+were opposed to each other upon the point, and his moral position
+in the use of harsher measures is the stronger since a policy of
+conciliation had been tried and failed. Lord Roberts returned to
+London with the respect and love of his soldiers and of his
+fellow-countrymen. A passage from his farewell address to his
+troops may show the qualities which endeared him to them.
+
+'The service which the South African Force has performed is, I
+venture to think, unique in the annals of war, inasmuch as it has
+been absolutely almost incessant for a whole year, in some cases
+for more than a year. There has been no rest, no days off to
+recruit, no going into winter quarters, as in other campaigns which
+have extended over a long period. For months together, in fierce
+heat, in biting cold, in pouring rain, you, my comrades, have
+marched and fought without halt, and bivouacked without shelter
+from the elements. You frequently have had to continue marching
+with your clothes in rags and your boots without soles, time being
+of such consequence that it was impossible for you to remain long
+enough in one place to refit. When not engaged in actual battle you
+have been continually shot at from behind kopjes by invisible
+enemies to whom every inch of the country was familiar, and who,
+from the peculiar nature of the country, were able to inflict
+severe punishment while perfectly safe themselves. You have forced
+your way through dense jungles, over precipitous mountains, through
+and over which with infinite manual labour you have had to drag
+heavy guns and ox-wagons. You have covered with almost incredible
+speed enormous distances, and that often on very short supplies of
+food. You have endured the sufferings inevitable in war to sick and
+wounded men far from the base, without a murmur and even with
+cheerfulness.'
+
+The words reflect honour both upon the troops addressed and upon
+the man who addressed them. From the middle of December 1900 Lord
+Kitchener took over the control of the campaign.
+
+CHAPTER 32.
+
+THE SECOND INVASION OF CAPE COLONY.
+
+(DECEMBER 1900 TO APRIL 1901.)
+
+During the whole war the task of the British had been made very
+much more difficult by the openly expressed sympathy with the Boers
+from the political association known as the Afrikander Bond, which
+either inspired or represented the views which prevailed among the
+great majority of the Dutch inhabitants of Cape Colony. How strong
+was this rebel impulse may be gauged by the fact that in some of
+the border districts no less than ninety per cent of the voters
+joined the Boer invaders upon the occasion of their first entrance
+into the Colony. It is not pretended that these men suffered from
+any political grievances whatever, and their action is to be
+ascribed partly to a natural sympathy with their northern kinsmen,
+and partly to racial ambition and to personal dislike to their
+British neighbours. The liberal British policy towards the natives
+had especially alienated the Dutch, and had made as well-marked a
+line of cleavage in South Africa as the slave question had done in
+the States of the Union.
+
+With the turn of the war the discontent in Cape Colony became less
+obtrusive, if not less acute, but in the later months of the year
+1900 it increased to a degree which became dangerous. The fact of
+the farm-burning in the conquered countries, and the fiction of
+outrages by the British troops, raised a storm of indignation. The
+annexation of the Republics, meaning the final disappearance of any
+Dutch flag from South Africa, was a racial humiliation which was
+bitterly resented. The Dutch papers became very violent, and the
+farmers much excited. The agitation culminated in a conference at
+Worcester upon December 6th, at which some thousands of delegates
+were present. It is suggestive of the Imperial nature of the
+struggle that the assembly of Dutch Afrikanders was carried out
+under the muzzles of Canadian artillery, and closely watched by
+Australian cavalry. Had violent words transformed themselves into
+deeds, all was ready for the crisis.
+
+Fortunately the good sense of the assembly prevailed, and the
+agitation, though bitter, remained within those wide limits which a
+British constitution permits. Three resolutions were passed, one
+asking that the war be ended, a second that the independence of the
+Republics be restored, and a third protesting against the actions
+of Sir Alfred Milner. A deputation which carried these to the
+Governor received a courteous but an uncompromising reply. Sir
+Alfred Milner pointed out that the Home Government, all the great
+Colonies, and half the Cape were unanimous in their policy, and
+that it was folly to imagine that it could be reversed on account
+of a local agitation. All were agreed in the desire to end the war,
+but the last way of bringing this about was by encouraging
+desperate men to go on fighting in a hopeless cause. Such was the
+general nature of the Governor's reply, which was, as might be
+expected, entirely endorsed by the British Government and people.
+
+Had De Wet, in the operations which have already been described,
+evaded Charles Knox and crossed the Orange River, his entrance into
+the Colony would have been synchronous with the congress at
+Worcester, and the situation would have become more acute. This
+peril was fortunately averted. The agitation in the Colony
+suggested to the Boer leaders, however, that here was an untouched
+recruiting ground, and that small mobile invading parties might
+gather strength and become formidable. It was obvious, also, that
+by enlarging the field of operations the difficulties of the
+British Commander-in-chief would be very much increased, and the
+pressure upon the Boer guerillas in the Republics relaxed.
+Therefore, in spite of De Wet's failure to penetrate the Colony,
+several smaller bands under less-known leaders were despatched over
+the Orange River. With the help of the information and the supplies
+furnished by the local farmers, these bands wandered for many
+months over the great expanse of the Colony, taking refuge, when
+hard pressed, among the mountain ranges. They moved swiftly about,
+obtaining remounts from their friends, and avoiding everything in
+the nature of an action, save when the odds were overwhelmingly in
+their favour. Numerous small posts or patrols cut off, many
+skirmishes, and one or two railway smashes were the fruits of this
+invasion, which lasted till the end of the war, and kept the Colony
+in an extreme state of unrest during that period. A short account
+must be given here of the movement and exploits of these hostile
+bands, avoiding, as far as possible, that catalogue of obscure
+'fonteins' and 'kops' which mark their progress.
+
+The invasion was conducted by two main bodies, which shed off
+numerous small raiding parties. Of these two, one operated on the
+western side of the Colony, reaching the sea-coast in the
+Clanwilliam district, and attaining a point which is less than a
+hundred miles from Cape Town. The other penetrated even more deeply
+down the centre of the Colony, reaching almost to the sea in the
+Mossel Bay direction. Yet the incursion, although so far-reaching,
+had small effect, since the invaders held nothing save the ground
+on which they stood, and won their way, not by victory, but by the
+avoidance of danger. Some recruits were won to their cause, but
+they do not seem at that time to have been more than a few hundreds
+in number, and to have been drawn for the most part from the
+classes of the community which had least to lose and least to
+offer.
+
+The Western Boers were commanded by Judge Hertzog of the Free
+State, having with him Brand, the son of the former president, and
+about twelve hundred well-mounted men. Crossing the Orange River at
+Sand Drift, north of Colesberg, upon December 16th, they paused at
+Kameelfontein to gather up a small post of thirty yeomen and
+guardsmen under Lieutenant Fletcher, the wellknown oar. Meeting
+with a stout resistance, and learning that British forces were
+already converging upon them, they abandoned the attack, and
+turning away from Colesberg they headed west, cutting the railway
+line twenty miles to the north of De Aar. On the 22nd they occupied
+Britstown, which is eighty miles inside the border, and on the same
+day they captured a small body of yeomanry who had been following
+them. These prisoners were released again some days later. Taking a
+sweep round towards Prieska and Strydenburg, they pushed south
+again. At the end of the year Hertzog's column was 150 miles deep
+in the Colony, sweeping through the barren and thinly-inhabited
+western lands, heading apparently for Fraserburg and Beaufort West.
+
+The second column was commanded by Kritzinger, a burgher of
+Zastron, in the Orange River Colony. His force was about 800
+strong. Crossing the border at Rhenoster Hoek upon December 16th,
+they pushed for Burghersdorp, but were headed off by a British
+column. Passing through Venterstad, they made for Steynsberg,
+fighting two indecisive skirmishes with small British forces. The
+end of the year saw them crossing the rail road at Sherburne, north
+of Rosmead Junction, where they captured a train as they passed,
+containing some Colonial troops. At this time they were a hundred
+miles inside the Colony, and nearly three hundred from Hertzog's
+western column.
+
+In the meantime Lord Kitchener, who had descended for a few days to
+De Aar, had shown great energy in organising small mobile columns
+which should follow and, if possible, destroy the invaders. Martial
+law was proclaimed in the parts of the Colony affected, and as the
+invaders came further south the utmost enthusiasm was shown by the
+loyalists, who formed themselves everywhere into town guards. The
+existing Colonial regiments, such as Brabant's, the Imperial and
+South African Light Horse--Thorneycroft's, Rimington's, and the
+others--had already been brought up to strength again, and now two
+new regiments were added, Kitchener's Bodyguard and Kitchener's
+Fighting Scouts, the latter being raised by Johann Colenbrander,
+who had made a name for himself in the Rhodesian wars. At this
+period of the war between twenty and thirty thousand Cape colonists
+were under arms. Many of these were untrained levies, but they
+possessed the martial spirit of the race, and they set free more
+seasoned troops for other duties.
+
+It will be most convenient and least obscure to follow the
+movements of the western force (Hertzog's), and afterwards to
+consider those of the eastern (Kritzinger's). The opening of the
+year saw the mobile column of Free Staters 150 miles over the
+border, pushing swiftly south over the barren surface of the Karoo.
+It is a country of scattered farms and scanty population; desolate
+plains curving upwards until they rise into still more desolate
+mountain ranges. Moving in a very loose formation over a wide
+front, the Boers swept southwards. On or about January 4th they
+took possession of the small town of Calvinia, which remained their
+headquarters for more than a month. From this point their roving
+bands made their way as far as the seacoast in the Clanwilliam
+direction, for they expected at Lambert's Bay to meet with a vessel
+with mercenaries and guns from Europe. They pushed their outposts
+also as far as Sutherland and Beaufort West in the south. On
+January 15th strange horsemen were seen hovering about the line at
+Touws River, and the citizens of Cape Town learned with amazement
+that the war had been carried to within a hundred miles of their
+own doors.
+
+Whilst the Boers were making this daring raid a force consisting of
+several mobile columns was being organised by General Settle to
+arrest and finally to repel the western invasion. The larger body
+was under the command of Colonel De Lisle, an officer who brought
+to the operations of war the same energy and thoroughness with
+which he had made the polo team of an infantry regiment the
+champions of the whole British Army. His troops consisted of the
+6th Mounted Infantry, the New South Wales Mounted Infantry, the
+Irish Yeomanry, a section of R battery R.H.A., and a pom-pom. With
+this small but mobile and hardy force he threw himself in front of
+Hertzog's line of advance. On January 13th he occupied Piquetburg,
+eighty miles south of the Boer headquarters. On the 23rd he was at
+Clanwilliam, fifty miles south-west of them. To his right were
+three other small British columns under Bethune, Thorneycroft, and
+Henniker, the latter resting upon the railway at Matjesfontein, and
+the whole line extending over 120 miles--barring the southern path
+to the invaders.
+
+Though Hertzog at Calvinia and De Lisle at Clanwilliam were only
+fifty miles apart, the intervening country is among the most broken
+and mountainous in South Africa. Between the two points, and nearer
+to De Lisle than to Hertzog, flows the Doorn River. The Boers
+advancing from Calvinia came into touch with the British scouts at
+this point, and drove them in upon January 21st. On the 28th De
+Lisle, having been reinforced by Bethune's column, was able at last
+to take the initiative. Bethune's force consisted mainly of
+Colonials, and included Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, the Cape
+Mounted Police, Cape Mounted Rifles, Brabant's Horse, and the
+Diamond Field Horse. At the end of January the united forces of
+Bethune and of De Lisle advanced upon Calvinia. The difficulties
+lay rather in the impassable country than in the resistance of an
+enemy who was determined to refuse battle. On February 6th, after a
+fine march, De Lisle and his men took possession of Calvinia, which
+had been abandoned by the Boers. It is painful to add that during
+the month that they had held the town they appear to have behaved
+with great harshness, especially to the kaffirs. The flogging and
+shooting of a coloured man named Esan forms one more incident in
+the dark story of the Boer and his relations to the native.
+
+The British were now sweeping north on a very extended front.
+Colenbrander had occupied Van Rhyns Dorp, to the east of Calvinia,
+while Bethune's force was operating to the west of it. De Lisle
+hardly halted at Calvinia, but pushed onwards to Williston,
+covering seventy-two miles of broken country in forty-eight hours,
+one of the most amazing performances of the war. Quick as he was,
+the Boers were quicker still, and during his northward march he
+does not appear to have actually come into contact with them. Their
+line of retreat lay through Carnarvon, and upon February 22nd they
+crossed the railway line to the north of De Aar, and joined upon
+February 26th the new invading force under De Wet, who had now
+crossed the Orange River. De Lisle, who had passed over five
+hundred miles of barren country since he advanced from Piquetburg,
+made for the railway at Victoria West, and was despatched from that
+place on February 22nd to the scene of action in the north. From
+all parts Boer and Briton were concentrating in their effort to aid
+or to repel the inroad of the famous guerilla.
+
+Before describing this attempt it would be well to trace the
+progress of the eastern invasion (Kritzinger's), a movement which
+may be treated rapidly, since it led to no particular military
+result at that time, though it lasted long after Hertzog's force
+had been finally dissipated. Several small columns, those of
+Williams, Byng, Grenfell, and Lowe, all under the direction of
+Haig, were organised to drive back these commandos; but so nimble
+were the invaders, so vast the distances and so broken the country,
+that it was seldom that the forces came into contact. The
+operations were conducted over a portion of the Colony which is
+strongly Dutch in sympathy, and the enemy, though they do not
+appear to have obtained any large number of recruits, were able to
+gather stores, horses, and information wherever they went.
+
+When last mentioned Kritzinger's men had crossed the railway north
+of Rosmead on December 30th, and held up a train containing some
+Colonial troops. From then onwards a part of them remained in the
+Middelburg and Graaf-Reinet districts, while part moved towards the
+south. On January 11th there was a sharp skirmish near Murraysburg,
+in which Byng's column was engaged, at the cost of twenty
+casualties, all of Brabant's or the South African Light Horse. On
+the 16th a very rapid movement towards the south began. On that
+date Boers appeared at Aberdeen, and on the 18th at Willowmore,
+having covered seventy miles in two days. Their long, thin line was
+shredded out over 150 miles, and from Maraisburg, in the north, to
+Uniondale, which is only thirty miles from the coast, there was
+rumour of their presence. In this wild district and in that of
+Oudtshoorn the Boer vanguard flitted in and out of the hills,
+Haig's column striving hard to bring them to an action. So
+well-informed were the invaders that they were always able to avoid
+the British concentrations, while if a British outpost or patrol
+was left exposed it was fortunate if it escaped disaster. On
+February 6th a small body of twenty-five of the 7th King's Dragoon
+Guards and of the West Australians, under Captain Oliver, were
+overwhelmed at Klipplaat, after a very fine defence, in which they
+held their own against 200 Boers for eight hours, and lost nearly
+fifty per cent of their number. On the 12th a patrol of yeomanry
+was surprised and taken near Willowmore.
+
+The coming of De Wet had evidently been the signal for all the Boer
+raiders to concentrate, for in the second week of February
+Kritzinger also began to fall back, as Hertzog had done in the
+west, followed closely by the British columns. He did not, however,
+actually join De Wet, and his evacuation of the country was never
+complete, as was the case with Hertzog's force. On the 19th
+Kritzinger was at Bethesda, with Gorringe and Lowe at his heels. On
+the 23rd an important railway bridge at Fish River, north of
+Cradock, was attacked, but the attempt was foiled by the resistance
+of a handful of Cape Police and Lancasters. On March 6th a party of
+Boers occupied the village of Pearston, capturing a few rifles and
+some ammunition. On the same date there was a skirmish between
+Colonel Parsons's column and a party of the enemy to the north of
+Aberdeen. The main body of the invading force appears to have been
+lurking in this neighbourhood, as they were able upon April 7th to
+cut off a strong British patrol, consisting of a hundred Lancers
+and Yeomanry, seventy-five of whom remained as temporary prisoners
+in the hands of the enemy. With this success we may for the time
+leave Kritzinger and his lieutenant, Scheepers, who commanded that
+portion of his force which had penetrated to the south of the
+Colony.
+
+The two invasions which have been here described, that of Hertzog
+in the west and of Kritzinger in the midlands, would appear in
+themselves to be unimportant military operations, since they were
+carried out by small bodies of men whose policy was rather to avoid
+than to overcome resistance. Their importance, however, is due to
+the fact that they were really the forerunners of a more important
+incursion upon the part of De Wet. The object of these two bands of
+raiders was to spy out the land, so that on the arrival of the main
+body all might be ready for that general rising of their kinsmen in
+the Colony which was the last chance, not of winning, but of
+prolonging the war. It must be confessed that, however much their
+reason might approve of the Government under which they lived, the
+sentiment of the Cape Dutch had been cruelly, though unavoidably,
+hurt in the course of the war. The appearance of so popular a
+leader as De Wet with a few thousand veterans in the very heart of
+their country might have stretched their patience to the
+breaking-point. Inflamed, as they were, by that racial hatred which
+had always smouldered, and had now been fanned into a blaze by the
+speeches of their leaders and by the fictions of their newspapers,
+they were ripe for mischief, while they had before their eyes an
+object-lesson of the impotence of our military system in those
+small bands who had kept the country in a ferment for so long. All
+was propitious, therefore, for the attempt which Steyn and De Wet
+were about to make to carry the war into the enemy's country.
+
+We last saw De Wet when, after a long chase, he had been headed
+back from the Orange River, and, winning clear from Knox's pursuit,
+had in the third week of December passed successfully through the
+British cordon between Thabanchu and Ladybrand. Thence he made his
+way to Senekal, and proceeded, in spite of the shaking which he had
+had, to recruit and recuperate in the amazing way which a Boer army
+has. There is no force so easy to drive and so difficult to
+destroy. The British columns still kept in touch with De Wet, but
+found it impossible to bring him to an action in the difficult
+district to which he had withdrawn. His force had split up into
+numerous smaller bodies, capable of reuniting at a signal from
+their leader. These scattered bodies, mobile as ever, vanished if
+seriously attacked, while keenly on the alert to pounce upon any
+British force which might be overpowered before assistance could
+arrive. Such an opportunity came to the commando led by Philip
+Botha, and the result was another petty reverse to the British
+arms.
+
+Upon January 3rd Colonel White's small column was pushing north, in
+co-operation with those of Knox, Pilcher, and the others. Upon that
+date it had reached a point just north of Lindley, a district which
+has never been a fortunate one for the invaders. A patrol of
+Kitchener' s newly raised bodyguard, under Colonel Laing, 120
+strong, was sent forward to reconnoitre upon the road from Lindley
+to Reitz.
+
+The scouting appears to have been negligently done, there being
+only two men out upon each flank. The little force walked into one
+of those horse-shoe positions which the Boers love, and learned by
+a sudden volley from a kraal upon their right that the enemy was
+present in strength. On attempting to withdraw it was instantly
+evident that the Boers were on all sides and in the rear with a
+force which numbered at least five to one. The camp of the main
+column was only four miles away, however, and the bodyguard, having
+sent messages of their precarious position, did all they could to
+make a defence until help could reach them. Colonel Laing had
+fallen, shot through the heart, but found a gallant successor in
+young Nairne, the adjutant. Part of the force had thrown
+themselves, under Nairne and Milne, into a donga, which gave some
+shelter from the sleet of bullets. The others, under Captain
+Butters, held on to a ruined kraal. The Boers pushed the attack
+very rapidly, however, and were soon able with their superior
+numbers to send a raking fire down the donga, which made it a
+perfect death-trap. Still hoping that the laggard reinforcements
+would come up, the survivors held desperately on; but both in the
+kraal and in the donga their numbers were from minute to minute
+diminishing. There was no formal surrender and no white flag, for,
+when fifty per cent of the British were down, the Boers closed in
+swiftly and rushed the position. Philip Botha, the brother of the
+commandant, who led the Boers, behaved with courtesy and humanity
+to the survivors; but many of the wounds were inflicted with those
+horrible explosive and expansive missiles, the use of which among
+civilised combatants should now and always be a capital offence. To
+disable one's adversary is a painful necessity of warfare, but
+nothing can excuse the wilful mutilation and torture which is
+inflicted by these brutal devices.
+
+'How many of you are there?' asked Botha. 'A hundred,' said an
+officer. 'It is not true. There are one hundred and twenty. I
+counted you as you came along.' The answer of the Boer leader shows
+how carefully the small force had been nursed until it was in an
+impossible position. The margin was a narrow one, however, for
+within fifteen minutes of the disaster White's guns were at work.
+There may be some question as to whether the rescuing force could
+have come sooner, but there can be none as to the resistance of the
+bodyguard. They held out to the last cartridge. Colonel Laing and
+three officers with sixteen men were killed, four officers and
+twenty-two men were wounded. The high proportion of fatal
+casualties can only be explained by the deadly character of the
+Boer bullets. Hardly a single horse of the bodyguard was left
+unwounded, and the profit to the victors, since they were unable to
+carry away their prisoners, lay entirely in the captured rifles. It
+is worthy of record that the British wounded were despatched to
+Heilbron without guard through the Boer forces. That they arrived
+there unmolested is due to the forbearance of the enemy and to the
+tact and energy of Surgeon-Captain Porter, who commanded the
+convoy.
+
+Encouraged by this small success, and stimulated by the news that
+Hertzog and Kritzinger had succeeded in penetrating the Colony
+without disaster, De Wet now prepared to follow them. British
+scouts to the north of Kroonstad reported horsemen riding south and
+east, sometimes alone, sometimes in small parties. They were
+recruits going to swell the forces of De Wet. On January 23rd five
+hundred men crossed the line, journeying in the same direction.
+Before the end of the month, having gathered together about 2500
+men with fresh horses at the Doornberg, twenty miles north of
+Winburg, the Boer leader was ready for one of his lightning treks
+once more. On January 28th he broke south through the British net,
+which appears to have had more meshes than cord. Passing the
+Bloemfontein-Ladybrand line at Israel Poort he swept southwards,
+with British columns still wearily trailing behind him, like honest
+bulldogs panting after a greyhound.
+
+Before following him upon this new venture it is necessary to say a
+few words about that peace movement in the Boer States to which
+some allusion has already been made. On December 20th Lord
+Kitchener had issued a proclamation which was intended to have the
+effect of affording protection to those burghers who desired to
+cease fighting, but who were unable to do so without incurring the
+enmity of their irreconcilable brethren. 'It is hereby notified,'
+said the document, 'to all burghers that if after this date they
+voluntarily surrender they will be allowed to live with their
+families in Government laagers until such time as the guerilla
+warfare now being carried on will admit of their returning safely
+to their homes. All stock and property brought in at the time of
+the surrender of such burghers will be respected and paid for if
+requisitioned.' This wise and liberal offer was sedulously
+concealed from their men by the leaders of the fighting commandos,
+but was largely taken advantage of by those Boers to whom it was
+conveyed. Boer refugee camps were formed at Pretoria, Johannesburg,
+Kroonstad, Bloemfontein, Warrenton; and other points, to which by
+degrees the whole civil population came to be transferred. It was
+the reconcentrado system of Cuba over again, with the essential
+difference that the guests of the British Government were well fed
+and well treated during their detention. Within a few months the
+camps had 50,000 inmates.
+
+It was natural that some of these people, having experienced the
+amenity of British rule, and being convinced of the hopelessness of
+the struggle, should desire to convey their feelings to their
+friends and relations in the field. Both in the Transvaal and in
+the Orange River Colony Peace Committees were formed, which
+endeavoured to persuade their countrymen to bow to the inevitable.
+A remarkable letter was published from Piet de Wet, a man who had
+fought bravely for the Boer cause, to his brother, the famous
+general. 'Which is better for the Republics,' he asked, 'to
+continue the struggle and run the risk of total ruin as a nation,
+or to submit? Could we for a moment think of taking back the
+country if it were offered to us, with thousands of people to be
+supported by a Government which has not a farthing?. . .Put
+passionate feeling aside for a moment and use common-sense, and you
+will then agree with me that the best thing for the people and the
+country is to give in, to be loyal to the new government, and to
+get responsible government. . .Should the war continue a few months
+longer the nation will become so poor that they will be the working
+class in the country, and disappear as a nation in the future. . .
+The British are convinced that they have conquered the land and its
+people, and consider the matter ended, and they only try to treat
+magnanimously those who are continuing the struggle in order to
+prevent unnecessary bloodshed.'
+
+Such were the sentiments of those of the burghers who were in
+favour of peace. Their eyes had been opened and their bitterness
+was transferred from the British Government to those individual
+Britons who, partly from idealism and partly from party passion,
+had encouraged them to their undoing. But their attempt to convey
+their feelings to their countrymen in the field ended in tragedy.
+Two of their number, Morgendaal and Wessels, who had journeyed to
+De Wet's camp, were condemned to death by order of that leader. In
+the case of Morgendaal the execution actually took place, and seems
+to have been attended by brutal circumstances, the man having been
+thrashed with a sjambok before being put to death. The
+circumstances are still surrounded by such obscurity that it is
+impossible to say whether the message of the peace envoys was to
+the General himself or to the men under his command. In the former
+case the man was murdered. In the latter the Boer leader was within
+his rights, though the rights may have been harshly construed and
+brutally enforced.
+
+On January 29th, in the act of breaking south, De Wet's force, or a
+portion of it, had a sharp brush with a small British column
+(Crewe's) at Tabaksberg, which lies about forty miles north-east of
+Bloemfontein; This small force, seven hundred strong, found itself
+suddenly in the presence of a very superior body of the enemy, and
+had some difficulty in extricating itself. A pom-pom was lost in
+this affair. Crewe fell back upon Knox, and the combined columns
+made for Bloemfontein, whence they could use the rails for their
+transport. De Wet meanwhile moved south as far as Smithfield, and
+then, detaching several small bodies to divert the attention of the
+British, he struck due west, and crossed the track between
+Springfontein and Jagersfontein road, capturing the usual supply
+train as he passed. On February 9th he had reached Phillipolis,
+well ahead of the British pursuit, and spent a day or two in making
+his final arrangements before carrying the war over the border. His
+force consisted at this time of nearly 8000 men, with two
+15-pounders, one pom-pom, and one maxim. The garrisons of all the
+towns in the south-west of the Orange River Colony had been removed
+in accordance with the policy of concentration, so De Wet found
+himself for the moment in a friendly country.
+
+The British, realising how serious a situation might arise should
+De Wet succeed in penetrating the Colony and in joining Hertzog and
+Kritzinger, made every effort both to head him off and to bar his
+return. General Lyttelton at Naauwpoort directed the operations,
+and the possession of the railway line enabled him to concentrate
+his columns rapidly at the point of danger. On February 11th De Wet
+forded the Orange River at Zand Drift, and found himself once more
+upon British territory. Lyttelton's plan of campaign appears to
+have been to allow De Wet to come some distance south, and then to
+hold him in front by De Lisle's force, while a number of small
+mobile columns under Plumer, Crabbe, Henniker, Bethune, Haig, and
+Thorneycroft should shepherd him behind. On crossing, De Wet at
+once moved westwards, where, upon February 12th, Plumer's column,
+consisting of the Queensland Mounted Infantry, the Imperial
+Bushmen, and part of the King's Dragoon Guards, came into touch
+with his rearguard. All day upon the 13th and 14th, amid terrific
+rain, Plumer's hardy troopers followed close upon the enemy,
+gleaning a few ammunition wagons, a maxim, and some prisoners. The
+invaders crossed the railway line near Houtnek, to the north of De
+Aar, in the early hours of the 15th, moving upon a front of six or
+eight miles. Two armoured trains from the north and the south
+closed in upon him as he passed, Plumer still thundered in his
+rear, and a small column under Crabbe came pressing from the south.
+This sturdy Colonel of Grenadiers had already been wounded four
+times in the war, so that he might be excused if he felt some
+personal as well as patriotic reasons for pushing a relentless
+pursuit. On crossing the railroad De Wet turned furiously upon his
+pursuers, and, taking an excellent position upon a line of kopjes
+rising out of the huge expanse of the Karoo, he fought a stubborn
+rearguard action in order to give time for his convoy to get ahead.
+He was hustled off the hills, however, the Australian Bushmen with
+great dash carrying the central kopje, and the guns driving the
+invaders to the westward. Leaving all his wagons and his reserve
+ammunition behind him, the guerilla chief struck north-west, moving
+with great swiftness, but never succeeding in shaking off Plumer's
+pursuit. The weather continued, however, to be atrocious, rain and
+hail falling with such violence that the horses could hardly be
+induced to face it. For a week the two sodden, sleepless,
+mud-splashed little armies swept onwards over the Karoo. De Wet
+passed northwards through Strydenburg, past Hopetown, and so to the
+Orange River, which was found to be too swollen with the rains to
+permit of his crossing. Here upon the 23rd, after a march of
+forty-five miles on end, Plumer ran into him once more, and
+captured with very little fighting a fifteen-pounder, a pom-pom,
+and close on to a hundred prisoners. Slipping away to the east, De
+Wet upon February 24th crossed the railroad again between Krankuil
+and Orange River Station, with Thorneycroft's column hard upon his
+heels. The Boer leader was now more anxious to escape from the
+Colony than ever he had been to enter it, and he rushed
+distractedly from point to point, endeavouring to find a ford over
+the great turbid river which cut him off from his own country. Here
+he was joined by Hertzog's commando with a number of invaluable
+spare horses. It is said also that he had been able to get remounts
+in the Hopetown district, which had not been cleared--an omission
+for which, it is to be hoped, someone has been held responsible.
+The Boer ponies, used to the succulent grasses of the veld, could
+make nothing of the rank Karoo, and had so fallen away that an
+enormous advantage should have rested with the pursuers had ill
+luck and bad management not combined to enable the invaders to
+renew their mobility at the very moment when Plumer's horses were
+dropping dead under their riders.
+
+The Boer force was now so scattered that, in spite of the advent of
+Hertzog, De Wet had fewer men with him than when he entered the
+Colony. Several hundreds had been taken prisoners, many had
+deserted, and a few had been killed. It was hoped now that the
+whole force might be captured, and Thorneycroft's, Crabbe's,
+Henniker's, and other columns were closing swiftly in upon him,
+while the swollen river still barred his retreat. There was a
+sudden drop in the flood, however; one ford became passable, and
+over it, upon the last day of February, De Wet and his bedraggled,
+dispirited commando escaped to their own country. There was still a
+sting in his tail, however; for upon that very day a portion of his
+force succeeded in capturing sixty and killing or wounding twenty
+of Colenbrander's new regiment, Kitchener's Fighting Scouts. On the
+other hand, De Wet was finally relieved upon the same day of all
+care upon the score of his guns, as the last of them was most
+gallantly captured by Captain Dallimore and fifteen Victorians, who
+at the same time brought in thirty-three Boer prisoners. The net
+result of De Wet's invasion was that he gained nothing, and that he
+lost about four thousand horses, all his guns, all his convoy, and
+some three hundred of his men.
+
+Once safely in his own country again, the guerilla chief pursued
+his way northwards with his usual celerity and success. The moment
+that it was certain that De Wet had escaped, the indefatigable
+Plumer, wiry, tenacious man, had been sent off by train to
+Springfontein, while Bethune's column followed direct. This latter
+force crossed the Orange River bridge and marched upon Luckhoff and
+Fauresmith. At the latter town they overtook Plumer, who was again
+hard upon the heels of De Wet. Together they ran him across the
+Riet River and north to Petrusburg, until they gave it up as
+hopeless upon finding that, with only fifty followers, he had
+crossed the Modder River at Abram's Kraal. There they abandoned the
+chase and fell back upon Bloemfontein to refit and prepare for a
+fresh effort to run down their elusive enemy.
+
+While Plumer and Bethune were following upon the track of De Wet
+until he left them behind at the Modder, Lyttelton was using the
+numerous columns which were ready to his hand in effecting a drive
+up the south-eastern section of the Orange River Colony. It was
+disheartening to remember that all this large stretch of country
+had from April to November been as peaceful and almost as
+prosperous as Kent or Yorkshire. Now the intrusion of the guerilla
+bands, and the pressure put by them upon the farmers, had raised
+the whole country once again, and the work of pacification had to
+be set about once more, with harsher measures than before. A
+continuous barrier of barbed-wire fencing had been erected from
+Bloemfontein to the Basuto border, a distance of eighty miles, and
+this was now strongly held by British posts. From the south Bruce
+Hamilton, Hickman, Thorneycroft, and Haig swept upwards, stripping
+the country as they went in the same way that French had done in
+the Eastern Transvaal, while Pilcher's column waited to the north
+of the barbed-wire barrier. It was known that Fourie, with a
+considerable commando, was lurking in this district, but he and his
+men slipped at night between the British columns and escaped.
+Pilcher, Bethune, and Byng were able, however, to send in 200
+prisoners and very great numbers of cattle. On April 10th Monro,
+with Bethune's Mounted Infantry, captured eighty fighting Boers
+near Dewetsdorp, and sixty more were taken by a night attack at
+Boschberg. There is no striking victory to record in these
+operations, but they were an important part of that process of
+attrition which was wearing the Boers out and helping to bring the
+war to an end. Terrible it is to see that barren countryside, and
+to think of the depths of misery to which the once flourishing and
+happy Orange Free State had fallen, through joining in a quarrel
+with a nation which bore it nothing but sincere friendship and
+goodwill. With nothing to gain and everything to lose, the part
+played by the Orange Free State in this South African drama is one
+of the most inconceivable things in history. Never has a nation so
+deliberately and so causelessly committed suicide.
+
+CHAPTER 33.
+
+THE NORTHERN OPERATIONS FROM JANUARY TO APRIL, 1901.
+
+Three consecutive chapters have now given some account of the
+campaign of De Wet, of the operations in the Transvaal up to the
+end of the year 1900, and of the invasion of Cape Colony up to
+April 1901. The present chapter will deal with the events in the
+Transvaal from the beginning of the new century. The military
+operations in that country, though extending over a very large
+area, may be roughly divided into two categories: the attacks by
+the Boers upon British posts, and the aggressive sweeping movements
+of British columns. Under the first heading come the attacks on
+Belfast, on Zuurfontein, on Kaalfontein, on Zeerust, on
+Modderfontein, and on Lichtenburg, besides many minor affairs. The
+latter comprises the operations of Babington and of Cunningham to
+the west and south-west of Pretoria, those of Methuen still further
+to the south-west, and the large movement of French in the
+south-east. In no direction did the British forces in the field
+meet with much active resistance. So long as they moved the gnats
+did not settle; it was only when quiet that they buzzed about and
+occasionally stung.
+
+The early days of January 1901 were not fortunate for the British
+arms, as the check in which Kitchener's Bodyguard was so roughly
+handled, near Lindley, was closely followed by a brisk action at
+Naauwpoort or Zandfontein, near the Magaliesberg, in which De la
+Rey left his mark upon the Imperial Light Horse. The Boer
+commandos, having been driven into the mountains by French and
+Clements in the latter part of December, were still on the look-out
+to strike a blow at any British force which might expose itself.
+Several mounted columns had been formed to scour the country, one
+under Kekewich, one under Gordon, and one under Babington. The two
+latter, meeting in a mist upon the morning of January 5th, actually
+turned their rifles upon each other, but fortunately without any
+casualties resulting. A more deadly rencontre was, however,
+awaiting them.
+
+A force of Boers were observed, as the mist cleared, making for a
+ridge which would command the road along which the convoy and guns
+were moving. Two squadrons (B and C) of the Light Horse were
+instantly detached to seize the point. They do not appear to have
+realised that they were in the immediate presence of the enemy, and
+they imagined that the ground over which they were passing had been
+already reconnoitred by a troop of the 14th Hussars. It is true
+that four scouts were thrown forward, but as both squadrons were
+cantering there was no time for these to get ahead. Presently C
+squadron, which was behind, was ordered to close up upon the left
+of B squadron, and the 150 horsemen in one long line swept over a
+low grassy ridge. Some hundreds of De la Rey's men were lying in
+the long grass upon the further side, and their first volley, fired
+at a fifty-yard range, emptied a score of saddles. It would have
+been wiser, if less gallant, to retire at once in the presence of a
+numerous and invisible enemy, but the survivors were ordered to
+dismount and return the fire. This was done, but the hail of
+bullets was terrific and the casualties were numerous. Captain
+Norman, of C squadron, then retired his men, who withdrew in good
+order. B squadron having lost Yockney, its brave leader, heard no
+order, so they held their ground until few of them had escaped the
+driving sleet of lead. Many of the men were struck three and four
+times. There was no surrender, and the extermination of B company
+added another laurel, even at a moment of defeat, to the regiment
+whose reputation was so grimly upheld. The Boer victors walked in
+among the litter of stricken men and horses. 'Practically all of
+them were dressed in khaki and had the water-bottles and haversacks
+of our soldiers. One of them snatched a bayonet from a dead man,
+and was about to despatch one of our wounded when he was stopped in
+the nick of time by a man in a black suit, who, I afterwards heard,
+was De la Rey himself. . .The feature of the action was the
+incomparable heroism of our dear old Colonel Wools-Sampson.' So
+wrote a survivor of B company, himself shot through the body. It
+was four hours before a fresh British advance reoccupied the ridge,
+and by that time the Boers had disappeared. Some seventy killed and
+wounded, many of them terribly mutilated, were found on the scene
+of the disaster. It is certainly a singular coincidence that at
+distant points of the seat of war two of the crack irregular corps
+should have suffered so severely within three days of each other.
+In each case, however, their prestige was enhanced rather than
+lowered by the result. These incidents tend, however, to shake the
+belief that scouting is better performed in the Colonial than in
+the regular forces.
+
+Of the Boer attacks upon British posts to which allusion has been
+made, that upon Belfast, in the early morning of January 7th,
+appears to have been very gallantly and even desperately pushed. On
+the same date a number of smaller attacks, which may have been
+meant simply as diversions, were made upon Wonderfontein,
+Nooitgedacht, Wildfontein, Pan, Dalmanutha, and Machadodorp. These
+seven separate attacks, occurring simultaneously over sixty miles,
+show that the Boer forces were still organised and under one
+effective control. The general object of the operations was
+undoubtedly to cut Lord Roberts's communications upon that side and
+to destroy a considerable section of the railway.
+
+The town of Belfast was strongly held by Smith-Dorrien, with 1750
+men, of which 1300 were infantry belonging to the Royal Irish, the
+Shropshires, and the Gordons. The perimeter of defence, however,
+was fifteen miles, and each little fort too far from its neighbour
+for mutual support, though connected with headquarters by
+telephone. It is probable that the leaders and burghers engaged in
+this very gallant attack were in part the same as those concerned
+in the successful attempt at Helvetia upon December 29th, for the
+assault was delivered in the same way, at the same hour, and
+apparently with the same primary object. This was to gain
+possession of the big 5-inch gun, which is as helpless by night as
+it is formidable by day. At Helvetia they attained their object and
+even succeeded not merely in destroying, but in removing their
+gigantic trophy. At Belfast they would have performed the same feat
+had it not been for the foresight of General Smith-Dorrien, who had
+the heavy gun trundled back into the town every night.
+
+The attack broke first upon Monument Hill, a post held by Captain
+Fosbery with eighty-three Royal Irish. Chance or treason guided the
+Boers to the weak point of the wire entanglement and they surged
+into the fort, where the garrison fought desperately to hold its
+own. There was thick mist and driving rain; and the rush of vague
+and shadowy figures amid the gloom was the first warning of the
+onslaught. The Irishmen were overborne by a swarm of assailants,
+but they nobly upheld their traditional reputation. Fosbery met his
+death like a gallant gentleman, but not more heroically than Barry,
+the humble private, who, surrounded by Boers, thought neither of
+himself nor of them, but smashed at the maxim gun with a pickaxe
+until he fell riddled with bullets. Half the garrison were on the
+ground before the post was carried.
+
+A second post upon the other side of the town was defended by
+Lieutenant Marshall with twenty men, mostly Shropshires. For an
+hour they held out until Marshall and nine out of his twelve
+Shropshires had been hit. Then this post also was carried.
+
+The Gordon Highlanders held two posts to the southeast and to the
+south-west of the town, and these also were vigorously attacked.
+Here, however, the advance spent itself without result. In vain the
+Ermelo and Carolina commandos stormed up to the Gordon pickets.
+They were blown back by the steady fire of the infantry. One small
+post manned by twelve Highlanders was taken, but the rest defied
+all attack. Seeing therefore that his attempt at a coup-de-main was
+a failure, Viljoen withdrew his men before daybreak. The Boer
+casualties have not been ascertained, but twenty-four of their dead
+were actually picked up within the British lines. The British lost
+sixty killed and wounded, while about as many were taken prisoners.
+Altogether the action was a brisk and a gallant one, of which
+neither side has cause to be ashamed. The simultaneous attacks upon
+six other stations were none of them pressed home, and were
+demonstrations rather than assaults.
+
+The attempts upon Kaalfontein and on Zuurfontein were both made in
+the early morning of January 12th. These two places are small
+stations upon the line between Johannesburg and Pretoria. It is
+clear that the Boers were very certain of their own superior
+mobility before they ventured to intrude into the very heart of the
+British position, and the result showed that they were right in
+supposing that even if their attempt were repulsed, they would
+still be able to make good their escape. Better horsed, better
+riders, with better intelligence and a better knowledge of the
+country, their ventures were always attended by a limited
+liability.
+
+The attacks seem to have been delivered by a strong commando, said
+to have been under the command of Beyers, upon its way to join the
+Boer concentration in the Eastern Transvaal. They had not the
+satisfaction, however, of carrying the garrison of a British post
+with them, for at each point they were met by a stout resistance
+and beaten off. Kaalfontein was garrisoned by 120 men of Cheshire
+under Williams-Freeman, Zuurfontein by as many Norfolks and a small
+body of Lincolns under Cordeaux and Atkinson. For six hours the
+pressure was considerable, the assailants of Kaalfontein keeping up
+a brisk shell and rifle fire, while those of Zuurfontein were
+without artillery. At the end of that time two armoured trains came
+up with reinforcements and the enemy continued his trek to the
+eastward. Knox 's 2nd cavalry brigade followed them up, but without
+any very marked result.
+
+Zeerust and Lichtenburg had each been garrisoned and provisioned by
+Lord Methuen before he carried his column away to the south-west,
+where much rough and useful work awaited him. The two towns were at
+once invested by the enemy, who made an attack upon each of them.
+That upon Zeerust, on January 7th, was a small matter and easily
+repulsed. A more formidable one was made on Lichtenburg, on March
+3rd. The attack was delivered by De la Rey, Smuts, and Celliers,
+with 1500 men, who galloped up to the pickets in the early morning.
+The defenders were 600 in number, consisting of Paget's Horse and
+three companies of the 1st battalion of the Northumberland
+Fusiliers, a veteran regiment with a long record of foreign
+service, not to be confused with that 2nd battalion which was so
+severely handled upon several occasions. It was well that it was
+so, for less sturdy material might have been overborne by the
+vigour of the attack. As it was, the garrison were driven to their
+last trench, but held out under a very heavy fire all day, and next
+morning the Boers abandoned the attack. Their losses appear to have
+been over fifty in number, and included Commandant Celliers, who
+was badly wounded and afterwards taken prisoner at Warm Baths. The
+brave garrison lost fourteen killed, including two officers of the
+Northumberlands, and twenty wounded.
+
+In each of these instances the attacks by the Boers upon British
+posts had ended in a repulse to themselves. They were more
+fortunate, however, in their attempt upon Modderfontein on the
+Gatsrand at the end of January. The post was held by 200 of the
+South Wales Borderers, reinforced by the 59th Imperial Yeomanry,
+who had come in as escort to a convoy from Krugersdorp. The attack,
+which lasted all day, was carried out by a commando of 2000 Boers
+under Smuts, who rushed the position upon the following morning. As
+usual, the Boers, who were unable to retain their prisoners, had
+little to show for their success. The British casualties, however,
+were between thirty and forty, mostly wounded.
+
+On January 22nd General Cunninghame left Oliphant's Nek with a
+small force consisting of the Border and Worcester Regiments, the
+6th Mounted Infantry, Kitchener's Horse, 7th Imperial Yeomanry, 8th
+R.F.A., and P battery R.H.A. It had instructions to move south upon
+the enemy known to be gathering there. By midday this force was
+warmly engaged, and found itself surrounded by considerable bodies
+of De la Rey's burghers. That night they camped at Middelfontein,
+and were strongly attacked in the early morning. So menacing was
+the Boer attitude, and so formidable the position, that the force
+was in some danger. Fortunately they were in heliographic
+communication with Oliphant's Nek, and learned upon the 23rd that
+Babington had been ordered to their relief. All day Cunninghame's
+men were under a long-range fire, but on the 24th Babington
+appeared, and the British force was successfully extricated, having
+seventy-five casualties. This action of Middelfontein is
+interesting as having been begun in Queen Victoria's reign, and
+ended in that of Edward VII.
+
+Cunninghame's force moved on to Krugersdorp, and there, having
+heard of the fall of the Modderfontein post as already described, a
+part of his command moved out to the Gatsrand in pursuit of Smuts.
+It was found, however, that the Boers had taken up a strong
+defensive position, and the British were not numerous enough to
+push the attack. On February 3rd Cunninghame endeavoured to
+outflank the enemy with his small cavalry force while pushing his
+infantry up in front, but in neither attempt did he succeed, the
+cavalry failing to find the flank, while the infantry were met with
+a fire which made further advance impossible. One company of the
+Border Regiment found itself in such a position that the greater
+part of it was killed, wounded, or taken. This check constituted
+the action of Modderfontein. On the 4th, however, Cunningham,
+assisted by some of the South African Constabulary, made his way
+round the flank, and dislodged the enemy, who retreated to the
+south. A few days later some of Smuts's men made an attempt upon
+the railway near Bank, but were driven off with twenty-six
+casualties. It was after this that Smuts moved west and joined De
+la Rey's commando to make the attack already described upon
+Lichtenburg. These six attempts represent the chief aggressive
+movements which the Boers made against British posts in the
+Transvaal during these months. Attacks upon trains were still
+common, and every variety of sniping appears to have been rife,
+from the legitimate ambuscade to something little removed from
+murder.
+
+It has been described in a previous chapter how Lord Kitchener made
+an offer to the burghers which amounted to an amnesty, and how a
+number of those Boers who had come under the influence of the
+British formed themselves into peace committees, and endeavoured to
+convey to the fighting commandos some information as to the
+hopelessness of the struggle, and the lenient mood of the British.
+Unfortunately these well-meant offers appear to have been mistaken
+for signs of weakness by the Boer leaders, and encouraged them to
+harden their hearts. Of the delegates who conveyed the terms to
+their fellow countrymen two at least were shot, several were
+condemned to death, and few returned without ill-usage. In no case
+did they bear back a favourable answer. The only result of the
+proclamation was to burden the British resources by an enormous
+crowd of women and children who were kept and fed in refugee camps,
+while their fathers and husbands continued in most cases to fight.
+
+This allusion to the peace movement among the burghers may serve as
+an introduction to the attempt made by Lord Kitchener, at the end
+of February 1901, to bring the war to a close by negotiation.
+Throughout its course the fortitude of Great Britain and of the
+Empire had never for an instant weakened, but her conscience had
+always been sensitive at the sight of the ruin which had befallen
+so large a portion of South Africa, and any settlement would have
+been eagerly hailed which would insure that the work done had not
+been wasted, and would not need to be done again. A peace on any
+other terms would simply shift upon the shoulders of our
+descendants those burdens which we were not manly enough to bear
+ourselves. There had arisen, as has been said, a considerable peace
+movement among the burghers of the refugee camps and also among the
+prisoners of war. It was hoped that some reflection of this might
+be found among the leaders of the people. To find out if this were
+so Lord Kitchener, at the end of February, sent a verbal message to
+Louis Botha, and on the 27th of that month the Boer general rode
+with an escort of Hussars into Middelburg. 'Sunburned, with a
+pleasant, fattish face of a German type, and wearing an imperial,'
+says one who rode beside him. Judging from the sounds of mirth
+heard by those without, the two leaders seem to have soon got upon
+amiable terms, and there was hope that a definite settlement might
+spring from their interview. From the beginning Lord Kitchener
+explained that the continued independence of the two republics was
+an impossibility. But on every other point the British Government
+was prepared to go great lengths in order to satisfy and conciliate
+the burghers.
+
+On March 7th Lord Kitchener wrote to Botha from Pretoria,
+recapitulating the points which he had advanced. The terms offered
+were certainly as far as, and indeed rather further than, the
+general sentiment of the Empire would have gone. If the Boers laid
+down their arms there was to be a complete amnesty, which was
+apparently to extend to rebels also so long as they did not return
+to Cape Colony or Natal. Self-government was promised after a
+necessary interval, during which the two States should be
+administered as Crown colonies. Law courts should be independent of
+the Executive from the beginning, and both languages be official. A
+million pounds of compensation would be paid to the burghers--a
+most remarkable example of a war indemnity being paid by the
+victors. Loans were promised to the farmers to restart them in
+business, and a pledge was made that farms should not be taxed. The
+Kaffirs were not to have the franchise, but were to have the
+protection of law. Such were the generous terms offered by the
+British Government. Public opinion at home, strongly supported by
+that of the colonies, and especially of the army, felt that the
+extreme step had been taken in the direction of conciliation, and
+that to do more would seem not to offer peace, but to implore it.
+Unfortunately, however, the one thing which the British could not
+offer was the one thing which the Boers would insist upon having,
+and the leniency of the proposals in all other directions may have
+suggested weakness to their minds. On March 15th an answer was
+returned by General Botha to the effect that nothing short of total
+independence would satisfy them, and the negotiations were
+accordingly broken off.
+
+There was a disposition, however, upon the Boer side to renew them,
+and upon May 10th General Botha applied to Lord Kitchener for
+permission to cable to President Kruger, and to take his advice as
+to the making of peace. The stern old man at The Hague was still,
+however, in an unbending mood. His reply was to the effect that
+there were great hopes of a successful issue of the war, and that
+he had taken steps to make proper provision for the Boer prisoners
+and for the refugee women. These steps, and very efficient ones
+too, were to leave them entirely to the generosity of that
+Government which he was so fond of reviling.
+
+On the same day upon which Botha applied for leave to use the
+British cable, a letter was written by Reitz, State Secretary of
+the Transvaal, to Steyn, in which the desperate condition of the
+Boers was clearly set forth. This document explained that the
+burghers were continually surrendering, that the ammunition was
+nearly exhausted, the food running low, and the nation in danger of
+extinction. 'The time has come to take the final step,' said the
+Secretary of State. Steyn wrote back a reply in which, like his
+brother president, he showed a dour resolution to continue the
+struggle, prompted by a fatalist conviction that some outside
+interference would reverse the result of his appeal to arms. His
+attitude and that of Kruger determined the Boer leaders to hold out
+for a few more months, a resolution which may have been
+injudicious, but was certainly heroic. 'It's a fight to a finish
+this time,' said the two combatants in the 'Punch' cartoon which
+marked the beginning of the war. It was indeed so, as far as the
+Boers were concerned. As the victors we can afford to acknowledge
+that no nation in history has ever made a more desperate and
+prolonged resistance against a vastly superior antagonist. A Briton
+may well pray that his own people may be as staunch when their hour
+of adversity comes round.
+
+The British position at this stage of the war was strengthened by a
+greater centralisation. Garrisons of outlying towns were withdrawn
+so that fewer convoys became necessary. The population was removed
+also and placed near the railway lines, where they could be more
+easily fed. In this way the scene of action was cleared and the
+Boer and British forces left face to face. Convinced of the failure
+of the peace policy, and morally strengthened by having tried it,
+Lord Kitchener set himself to finish the war by a series of
+vigorous operations which should sweep the country from end to end.
+For this purpose mounted troops were essential, and an appeal from
+him for reinforcements was most nobly answered. Five thousand
+horsemen were despatched from the colonies, and twenty thousand
+cavalry, mounted infantry, and Yeomanry were sent from home. Ten
+thousand mounted men had already been raised in Great Britain,
+South Africa, and Canada for the Constabulary force which was being
+organised by Baden-Powell. Altogether the reinforcements of
+horsemen amounted to more than thirty-five thousand men, all of
+whom had arrived in South Africa before the end of April. With the
+remains of his old regiments Lord Kitchener had under him at this
+final period of the war between fifty and sixty thousand
+cavalry--such a force as no British General in his happiest dream
+had ever thought of commanding, and no British war minister in his
+darkest nightmare had ever imagined himself called upon to supply.
+
+Long before his reinforcements had come to hand, while his Yeomanry
+was still gathering in long queues upon the London pavement to wait
+their turn at the recruiting office, Lord Kitchener had dealt the
+enemy several shrewd blows which materially weakened their
+resources in men and material. The chief of these was the great
+drive down the Eastern Transvaal undertaken by seven columns under
+the command of French. Before considering this, however, a few
+words must be devoted to the doings of Methuen in the south-west.
+
+This hard-working General, having garrisoned Zeerust and
+Lichtenburg, had left his old district and journeyed with a force
+which consisted largely of Bushmen and Yeomanry to the disturbed
+parts of Bechuanaland which had been invaded by De Villiers. Here
+he cleared the country as far as Vryburg, which he had reached in
+the middle of January, working round to Kuruman and thence to
+Taungs. From Taungs his force crossed the Transvaal border and made
+for Klerksdorp, working through an area which had never been
+traversed and which contained the difficult Masakani hills. He left
+Taungs upon February 2nd, fighting skirmishes at Uitval's Kop,
+Paardefontein and Lilliefontein, in each of which the enemy was
+brushed aside. Passing through Wolmaranstad, Methuen turned to the
+north, where at Haartebeestefontein, on February 19th, he fought a
+brisk engagement with a considerable force of Boers under De
+Villiers and Liebenberg. On the day before the fight he
+successfully outwitted the Boers, for, learning that they had left
+their laager in order to take up a position for battle, he pounced
+upon the laager and captured 10,000 head of cattle, forty-three
+wagons, and forty prisoners. Stimulated by this success, he
+attacked the Boers next day, and after five hours of hard fighting
+forced the pass which they were holding against him. As Methuen had
+but 1500 men, and was attacking a force which was as large as his
+own in a formidable position, the success was a very creditable
+one. The Yeomanry all did well, especially the 5th and 10th
+battalions. So also did the Australians and the Loyal North
+Lancashires. The British casualties amounted to sixteen killed and
+thirty-four wounded, while the Boers left eighteen of their dead
+upon the position which they had abandoned. Lord Methuen's little
+force returned to Klerksdorp, having deserved right well of their
+country. From Klerksdorp Methuen struck back westwards to the south
+of his former route, and on March 14th he was reported at
+Warrenton. Here also in April came Erroll's small column, bringing
+with it the garrison and inhabitants of Hoopstad, a post which it
+had been determined, in accordance with Lord Kitchener's policy of
+centralisation, to abandon.
+
+In the month of January, 1901, there had been a considerable
+concentration of the Transvaal Boers into that large triangle which
+is bounded by the Delagoa railway line upon the north, the Natal
+railway line upon the south, and the Swazi and Zulu frontiers upon
+the east. The bushveld is at this season of the year unhealthy both
+for man and beast, so that for the sake of their herds, their
+families, and themselves the burghers were constrained to descend
+into the open veld. There seemed the less objection to their doing
+so since this tract of country, though traversed once both by
+Buller and by French, had still remained a stronghold of the Boers
+and a storehouse of supplies. Within its borders are to be found
+Carolina, Ermelo, Vryheid, and other storm centres. Its possession
+offers peculiar strategical advantages, as a force lying there can
+always attack either railway, and might even make, as was indeed
+intended, a descent into Natal. For these mingled reasons of health
+and of strategy a considerable number of burghers united in this
+district under the command of the Bothas and of Smuts.
+
+Their concentration had not escaped the notice of the British
+military authorities, who welcomed any movement which might bring
+to a focus that resistance which had been so nebulous and elusive.
+Lord Kitchener having once seen the enemy fairly gathered into this
+huge cover, undertook the difficult task of driving it from end to
+end. For this enterprise General French was given the chief
+command, and had under his orders no fewer than seven columns,
+which started from different points of the Delagoa and of the Natal
+railway lines, keeping in touch with each other and all trending
+south and east. A glance at the map would show, however, that it
+was a very large field for seven guns, and that it would need all
+their alertness to prevent the driven game from breaking back.
+Three columns started from the Delagoa line, namely,
+Smith-Dorrien's from Wonderfontein (the most easterly), Campbell's
+from Middelburg, and Alderson's from Eerstefabrieken, close to
+Pretoria. Four columns came from the western railway line: General
+Knox's from Kaalfontein, Major Allenby's from Zuurfontein (both
+stations between Pretoria and Johannesburg), General Dartnell's
+from Springs, close to Johannesburg, and finally General Colville
+(not to be confused with Colvile) from Greylingstad in the south.
+The whole movement resembled a huge drag net, of which
+Wonderfontein and Greylingstad formed the ends, exactly one hundred
+miles apart. On January 27th the net began to be drawn. Some
+thousands of Boers with a considerable number of guns were known to
+be within the enclosure, and it was hoped that even if their own
+extreme mobility enabled them to escape it would be impossible for
+them to save their transport and their cannon.
+
+Each of the British columns was about 2000 strong, making a total
+of 14,000 men with about fifty guns engaged in the operations. A
+front of not less than ten miles was to be maintained by each
+force. The first decided move was on the part of the extreme left
+wing, Smith-Dorrien's column, which moved south on Carolina, and
+thence on Bothwell near Lake Chrissie. The arduous duty of passing
+supplies down from the line fell mainly upon him, and his force was
+in consequence larger than the others, consisting of 8500 men with
+thirteen guns. On the arrival of Smith-Dorrien at Carolina the
+other columns started, their centre of advance being Ermelo. Over
+seventy miles of veld the gleam of the helio by day and the flash
+of the signal lamps at night marked the steady flow of the British
+tide. Here and there the columns came in touch with the enemy and
+swept him before them. French had a skirmish at Wilge River at the
+end of January, and Campbell another south of Middelburg, in which
+he had twenty casualties. On February 4th Smith-Dorrien was at Lake
+Chrissie; French had passed through Bethel and the enemy was
+retiring on Amsterdam. The hundred-mile ends of the drag net were
+already contracted to a third of that distance, and the game was
+still known to be within it. On the 5th Ermelo was occupied, and
+the fresh deep ruts upon the veld told the British horsemen of the
+huge Boer convoy that was ahead of them. For days enormous herds,
+endless flocks, and lines of wagons which stretched from horizon to
+horizon had been trekking eastward. Cavalry and mounted infantry
+were all hot upon the scent.
+
+Botha, however, was a leader of spirit, not to be hustled with
+impunity. Having several thousand burghers with him, it was evident
+that if he threw himself suddenly upon any part of the British line
+he might hope for a time to make an equal fight, and possibly to
+overwhelm it. Were Smith-Dorrien out of the way there would be a
+clear road of escape for his whole convoy to the north, while a
+defeat of any of the other columns would not help him much. It was
+on Smith-Dorrien, therefore, that he threw himself with great
+impetuosity. That General's force was, however, formidable,
+consisting of the Suffolks, West Yorks and Camerons, 5th Lancers,
+2nd Imperial Light Horse, and 3rd Mounted Infantry, with eight
+field guns and three heavy pieces. Such a force could hardly be
+defeated in the open, but no one can foresee the effect of a night
+surprise well pushed home, and such was the attack delivered by
+Botha at 3 A.M. upon February 6th, when his opponent was encamped
+at Bothwell Farm.
+
+The night was favourable to the attempt, as it was dark and misty.
+Fortunately, however, the British commander had fortified himself
+and was ready for an assault. The Boer forlorn hope came on with a
+gallant dash, driving a troop of loose horses in upon the outposts,
+and charging forward into the camp. The West Yorkshires, however,
+who bore the brunt of the attack, were veterans of the Tugela, who
+were no more to be flurried at three in the morning than at three
+in the afternoon. The attack was blown backwards, and twenty dead
+Boers, with their brave leader Spruyt, were left within the British
+lines. The main body of the Boers contented themselves with a heavy
+fusillade out of the darkness, which was answered and crushed by
+the return fire of the infantry. In the morning no trace, save
+their dead, was to be seen of the enemy, but twenty killed and
+fifty wounded in Smith-Dorrien's column showed how heavy had been
+the fire which had swept through the sleeping camp. The Carolina
+attack, which was to have co-operated with that of the
+Heidelbergers, was never delivered, through difficulties of the
+ground, and considerable recriminations ensued among the Boers in
+consequence.
+
+Beyond a series of skirmishes and rearguard actions this attack of
+Botha's was the one effort made to stay the course of French's
+columns. It did not succeed, however, in arresting them for an
+hour. From that day began a record of captures of men, herds, guns,
+and wagons, as the fugitives were rounded up from the north, the
+west, and the south. The operation was a very thorough one, for the
+towns and districts occupied were denuded of their inhabitants, who
+were sent into the refugee camps while the country was laid waste
+to prevent its furnishing the commandos with supplies in the
+future. Still moving south-east, General French's columns made
+their way to Piet Retief upon the Swazi frontier, pushing a
+disorganised array which he computed at 5000 in front of them. A
+party of the enemy, including the Carolina commando, had broken
+back in the middle of February and Louis Botha had got away at the
+same time, but so successful were his main operations that French
+was able to report his total results at the end of the month as
+being 292 Boers killed or wounded, 500 surrendered, 3 guns and one
+maxim taken, with 600 rifles, 4000 horses, 4500 trek oxen, 1300
+wagons and carts, 24,000 cattle, and 165,000 sheep. The whole vast
+expanse of the eastern veld was dotted with the broken and charred
+wagons of the enemy.
+
+Tremendous rains were falling and the country was one huge
+quagmire, which crippled although it did not entirely prevent the
+further operations. All the columns continued to report captures.
+On March 3rd Dartnell got a maxim and 50 prisoners, while French
+reported 50 more, and Smith-Dorrien 80. On March 6th French
+captured two more guns, and on the 14th he reported 46 more Boer
+casualties and 146 surrenders, with 500 more wagons, and another
+great haul of sheep and oxen. By the end of March French had moved
+as far south as Vryheid, his troops having endured the greatest
+hardships from the continual heavy rains, and the difficulty of
+bringing up any supplies. On the 27th he reported seventeen more
+Boer casualties and 140 surrenders, while on the last day of the
+month he took another gun and two pom-poms. The enemy at that date
+were still retiring eastward, with Alderson and Dartnell pressing
+upon their rear. On April 4th French announced the capture of the
+last piece of artillery which the enemy possessed in that region.
+The rest of the Boer forces doubled back at night between the
+columns and escaped over the Zululand border, where 200 of them
+surrendered. The total trophies of French's drive down the Eastern
+Transvaal amounted to eleven hundred of the enemy killed, wounded,
+or taken, the largest number in any operation since the surrender
+of Prinsloo. There is no doubt that the movement would have been
+even more successful had the weather been less boisterous, but this
+considerable loss of men, together with the capture of all the guns
+in that region, and of such enormous quantities of wagons,
+munitions, and stock, inflicted a blow upon the Boers from which
+they never wholly recovered. On April 20th French was back in
+Johannesburg once more.
+
+While French had run to earth the last Boer gun in the
+south-eastern corner of the Transvaal, De la Rey, upon the western
+side, had still managed to preserve a considerable artillery with
+which he flitted about the passes of the Magaliesberg or took
+refuge in the safe districts to the south-west of it. This part of
+the country had been several times traversed, but had never been
+subdued by British columns. The Boers, like their own veld grass,
+need but a few sparks to be left behind to ensure a conflagration
+breaking out again. It was into this inflammable country that
+Babington moved in March with Klerksdorp for his base. On March
+21st he had reached Haartebeestefontein, the scene not long before
+of a successful action by Methuen. Here he was joined by
+Shekleton's Mounted Infantry, and his whole force consisted of
+these, with the 1st Imperial Light Horse, the 6th Imperial Bushmen,
+the New Zealanders, a squadron of the 14th Hussars, a wing each of
+the Somerset Light Infantry and of the Welsh Fusiliers, with
+Carter's guns and four pom-poms. With this mobile and formidable
+little force Babington pushed on in search of Smuts and De la Rey,
+who were known to be in the immediate neighbourhood.
+
+As a matter of fact the Boers were not only there, but were nearer
+and in greater force than had been anticipated. On the 22nd three
+squadrons of the Imperial Light Horse under Major Briggs rode into
+1500 of them, and it was only by virtue of their steadiness and
+gallantry that they succeeded in withdrawing themselves and their
+pom-pom without a disaster. With Boers in their front and Boers on
+either flank they fought an admirable rearguard action. So hot was
+the fire that A squadron alone had twenty-two casualties. They
+faced it out, however, until their gun had reached a place of
+safety, when they made an orderly retirement towards Babington's
+camp, having inflicted as heavy a loss as they had sustained. With
+Elandslaagte, Waggon Hill, the relief of Mafeking, Naauwpoort, and
+Haartebeestefontein upon their standards, the Imperial Light Horse,
+should they take a permanent place in the Army List, will start
+with a record of which many older regiments might be proud.
+
+If the Light Horse had a few bad hours on March 22nd at the hands
+of the Boers, they and their colonial comrades were soon able to
+return the same with interest. On March 23rd Babington moved
+forward through Kafir Kraal, the enemy falling back before him.
+Next morning the British again advanced, and as the New Zealanders
+and Bushmen, who formed the vanguard under Colonel Gray, emerged
+from a pass they saw upon the plain in front of them the Boer force
+with all its guns moving towards them. Whether this was done of set
+purpose or whether the Boers imagined that the British had turned
+and were intending to pursue them cannot now be determined, but
+whatever the cause it is certain that for almost the first time in
+the campaign a considerable force of each side found themselves in
+the open and face to face.
+
+It was a glorious moment. Setting spurs to their horses, officers
+and men with a yell dashed forward at the enemy. One of the Boer
+guns unlimbered and attempted to open fire, but was overwhelmed by
+the wave of horsemen. The Boer riders broke and fled, leaving their
+artillery to escape as best it might. The guns dashed over the veld
+in a mad gallop, but wilder still was the rush of the fiery cavalry
+behind them. For once the brave and cool-headed Dutchmen were
+fairly panic-stricken. Hardly a shot was fired at the pursuers, and
+the riflemen seem to have been only too happy to save their own
+skins. Two field guns, one pom-pom, six maxims, fifty-six wagons
+and 140 prisoners were the fruits of that one magnificent charge,
+while fifty-four stricken Boers were picked up after the action.
+The pursuit was reluctantly abandoned when the spent horses could
+go no farther.
+
+While the vanguard had thus scattered the main body of the enemy a
+detachment of riflemen had ridden round to attack the British rear
+and convoy. A few volleys from the escort drove them off, however,
+with some loss. Altogether, what with the loss of nine guns and of
+at least 200 men, the rout of Haartebeestefontein was a severe blow
+to the Boer cause. A week or two later Sir H. Rawlinson's column,
+acting with Babington, rushed Smuts's laager at daylight and
+effected a further capture of two guns and thirty prisoners. Taken
+in conjunction with French's successes in the east and Plumer's in
+the north, these successive blows might have seemed fatal to the
+Boer cause, but the weary struggle was still destined to go on
+until it seemed that it must be annihilation rather than
+incorporation which would at last bring a tragic peace to those
+unhappy lands.
+
+All over the country small British columns had been operating
+during these months--operations which were destined to increase in
+scope and energy as the cold weather drew in. The weekly tale of
+prisoners and captures, though small for any one column, gave the
+aggregate result of a considerable victory. In these scattered and
+obscure actions there was much good work which can have no reward
+save the knowledge of duty done. Among many successful raids and
+skirmishes may be mentioned two by Colonel Park from Lydenburg,
+which resulted between them in the capture of nearly 100 of the
+enemy, including Abel Erasmus of sinister reputation. Nor would any
+summary of these events be complete without a reference to the very
+gallant defence of Mahlabatini in Zululand, which was successfully
+held by a handful of police and civilians against an irruption of
+the Boers. With the advent of winter and of reinforcements the
+British operations became very energetic in every part of the
+country, and some account of them will now be added.
+
+CHAPTER 34.
+
+THE WINTER CAMPAIGN (APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 1901).
+
+The African winter extends roughly from April to September, and as
+the grass during that period would be withered on the veld, the
+mobility of the Boer commandos must be very much impaired. It was
+recognised therefore that if the British would avoid another year
+of war it could only be done by making good use of the months which
+lay before them. For this reason Lord Kitchener had called for the
+considerable reinforcements which have been already mentioned, but
+on the other hand he was forced to lose many thousands of his
+veteran Yeomanry, Australians, and Canadians, whose term of service
+was at an end. The volunteer companies of the infantry returned
+also to England, and so did nine militia battalions, whose place
+was taken however by an equal number of new-comers.
+
+The British position was very much strengthened during the winter
+by the adoption of the block-house system. These were small square
+or hexagonal buildings, made of stone up to nine feet with
+corrugated iron above it. They were loopholed for musketry fire and
+held from six to thirty men. These little forts were dotted along
+the railways at points not more than 2000 yards apart, and when
+supplemented by a system of armoured trains they made it no easy
+matter for the Boers to tamper with or to cross the lines. So
+effective did these prove that their use was extended to the more
+dangerous portions of the country, and lines were pushed through
+the Magaliesberg district to form a chain of posts between
+Krugersdorp and Rustenburg. In the Orange River Colony and on the
+northern lines of the Cape Colony the same system was extensively
+applied. I will now attempt to describe the more important
+operations of the winter, beginning with the incursion of Plumer
+into the untrodden ground to the north.
+
+At this period of the war the British forces had overrun, if they
+had not subdued, the whole of the Orange River Colony and every
+part of the Transvaal which is south of the
+Mafeking-Pretoria-Komati line. Through this great tract of country
+there was not a village and hardly a farmhouse which had not seen
+the invaders. But in the north there remained a vast district, two
+hundred miles long and three hundred broad, which had hardly been
+touched by the war. It is a wild country, scrub-covered,
+antelope-haunted plains rising into desolate hills, but there are
+many kloofs and valleys with rich water meadows and lush grazings,
+which formed natural granaries and depots for the enemy. Here the
+Boer government continued to exist, and here, screened by their
+mountains, they were able to organise the continuation of the
+struggle. It was evident that there could be no end to the war
+until these last centres of resistance had been broken up.
+
+The British forces had advanced as far north as Rustenburg in the
+west, Pienaar in the centre, and Lydenburg in the east, but here
+they had halted, unwilling to go farther until their conquests had
+been made good behind them. A General might well pause before
+plunging his troops into that vast and rugged district, when an
+active foe and an exposed line of communication lay for many
+hundreds of miles to the south of them. But Lord Kitchener with
+characteristic patience waited for the right hour to come, and then
+with equally characteristic audacity played swiftly and boldly for
+his stake. De Wet, impotent for the moment, had been hunted back
+over the Orange River. French had harried the burghers in the
+South-east Transvaal, and the main force of the enemy was known to
+be on that side of the seat of war. The north was exposed, and with
+one long, straight lunge to the heart, Pietersburg might be
+transfixed.
+
+There could only be one direction for the advance, and that must be
+along the Pretoria to Pietersburg railroad. This is the only line
+of rails which leads to the north, and as it was known to be in
+working order (the Boers were running a bi-weekly service from
+Pietersburg to Warm Baths), it was hoped that a swift advance might
+seize it before any extensive damage could be done. With this
+object a small but very mobile force rapidly assembled at the end
+of March at Pienaar River, which was the British rail-head forty
+miles north of Pretoria and a hundred and thirty from Pietersburg.
+This column consisted of the Bushveld Carbineers, the 4th Imperial
+Bushmen's Corps, and the 6th New Zealand contingent. With them were
+the 18th battery R.F.A., and three pom-poms. A detachment of the
+invaluable mounted Sappers rode with the force, and two infantry
+regiments, the 2nd Gordons and the Northamptons, were detached to
+garrison the more vulnerable places upon the line of advance.
+
+Upon March 29th the untiring Plumer, called off from the chase of
+De Wet, was loosed upon this fresh line, and broke swiftly away to
+the north. The complete success of his undertaking has obscured our
+estimate of its danger, but it was no light task to advance so
+great a distance into a bitterly hostile country with a fighting
+force of 2000 rifles. As an enterprise it was in many ways not
+unlike Mahon's dash on Mafeking, but without any friendly force
+with which to join hands at the end. However from the beginning all
+went well. On the 30th the force had reached Warm Baths, where a
+great isolated hotel already marks the site of what will be a rich
+and fashionable spa. On April 1st the Australian scouts rode into
+Nylstroom, fifty more miles upon their way. There had been
+sufficient sniping to enliven the journey, but nothing which could
+be called an action. Gleaning up prisoners and refugees as they
+went, with the railway engineers working like bees behind them, the
+force still swept unchecked upon its way. On April 5th Piet
+Potgietersrust was entered, another fifty-mile stage, and on the
+morning of the 8th the British vanguard rode into Pietersburg.
+Kitchener's judgment and Plumer's energy had met with their reward.
+
+The Boer commando had evacuated the town and no serious opposition
+was made to the British entry. The most effective resistance came
+from a single schoolmaster, who, in a moment of irrational frenzy
+or of patriotic exaltation, shot down three of the invaders before
+he met his own death. Some rolling stock, one small gun, and
+something under a hundred prisoners were the trophies of the
+capture, but the Boer arsenal and the printing press were
+destroyed, and the Government sped off in a couple of Cape carts in
+search of some new capital. Pietersburg was principally valuable as
+a base from which a sweeping movement might be made from the north
+at the same moment as one from the south-east. A glance at the map
+will show that a force moving from this point in conjunction with
+another from Lydenburg might form the two crooked claws of a crab
+to enclose a great space of country, in which smaller columns might
+collect whatever was to be found. Without an instant of unnecessary
+delay the dispositions were made, and no fewer than eight columns
+slipped upon the chase. It will be best to continue to follow the
+movements of Plumer's force, and then to give some account of the
+little armies which were operating from the south, with the results
+of their enterprise.
+
+It was known that Viljoen and a number of Boers were within the
+district which lies north of the line in the Middelburg district.
+An impenetrable bush-veld had offered them a shelter from which
+they made their constant sallies to wreck a train or to attack a
+post. This area was now to be systematically cleared up. The first
+thing was to stop the northern line of retreat. The Oliphant River
+forms a loop in that direction, and as it is a considerable stream,
+it would, if securely held, prevent any escape upon that side. With
+this object Plumer, on April 14th, the sixth day after his
+occupation of Pietersburg, struck east from that town and trekked
+over the veld, through the formidable Chunies Pass, and so to the
+north bank of the Oliphant, picking up thirty or forty Boer
+prisoners upon the way. His route lay through a fertile country
+dotted with native kraals. Having reached the river which marked
+the line which he was to hold, Plumer, upon April 17th, spread his
+force over many miles, so as to block the principal drifts. The
+flashes of his helio were answered by flash after flash from many
+points upon the southern horizon. What these other forces were, and
+whence they came, must now be made clear to the reader.
+
+General Bindon Blood, a successful soldier, had confirmed in the
+Transvaal a reputation which he had won on the northern frontier of
+India. He and General Elliot were two of the late comers who had
+been spared from the great Eastern dependency to take the places of
+some of those Generals who had returned to England for a
+well-earned rest. He had distinguished himself by his systematic
+and effective guardianship of the Delagoa railway line, and he was
+now selected for the supreme control of the columns which were to
+advance from the south and sweep the Roos-Senekal district. There
+were seven of them, which were arranged as follows:
+
+Two columns started from Middelburg under Beatson and Benson, which
+might be called the left wings of the movement. The object of
+Beatson's column was to hold the drifts of the Crocodile River,
+while Benson's was to seize the neighbouring hills called the
+Bothasberg. This it was hoped would pin the Boers from the west,
+while Kitchener from Lydenburg advanced from the east in three
+separate columns. Pulteney and Douglas would move up from Belfast
+in the centre, with Dulstoom for their objective. It was the
+familiar drag net of French, but facing north instead of south.
+
+On April 13th the southern columns were started, but already the
+British preparations had alarmed the Boers, and Botha, with his
+main commandos, had slipped south across the line into that very
+district from which he had been so recently driven. Viljoen's
+commando still remained to the north, and the British troops,
+pouring in from every side, converged rapidly upon it. The success
+of the operations was considerable, though not complete. The
+Tantesberg, which had been the rallying-point of the Boers, was
+occupied, and Roos-Senekal, their latest capital, was taken, with
+their State papers and treasure. Viljoen, with a number of
+followers, slipped through between the columns, but the greater
+part of the burghers, dashing furiously about like a shoal of fish
+when they become conscious of the net, were taken by one or other
+of the columns. A hundred of the Boksburg commando surrendered en
+masse, fifty more were taken at Roos-Senekal; forty-one of the
+formidable Zarps with Schroeder, their leader, were captured in the
+north by the gallantry and wit of a young Australian officer named
+Reid; sixty more were hunted down by the indefatigable Vialls,
+leader of the Bushmen. From all parts of the district came the same
+story of captures and surrenders.
+
+Knowing, however, that Botha and Viljoen had slipped through to the
+south of the railway line, Lord Kitchener determined to rapidly
+transfer the scene of the operations to that side. At the end of
+April, after a fortnight's work, during which this large district
+was cropped, but by no means shaved, the troops turned south again.
+The results of the operation had been eleven hundred prisoners,
+almost the same number as French had taken in the south-east,
+together with a broken Krupp, a pom-pom, and the remains of the big
+naval gun taken from us at Helvetia.
+
+It was determined that Plumer's advance upon Pietersburg should not
+be a mere raid, but that steps should be taken to secure all that
+he had gained, and to hold the lines of communication. With this
+object the 2nd Gordon Highlanders and the 2nd Wiltshires were
+pushed up along the railroad, followed by Kitchener's Fighting
+Scouts. These troops garrisoned Pietersburg and took possession of
+Chunies Poort, and other strategic positions. They also furnished
+escorts for the convoys which supplied Plumer on the Oliphant
+River, and they carried out some spirited operations themselves in
+the neighbourhood of Pietersburg. Grenfell, who commanded the
+force, broke up several laagers, and captured a number of
+prisoners, operations in which he was much assisted by Colenbrander
+and his men. Finally the last of the great Creusot guns, the
+formidable Long Toms, was found mounted near Haenertsburg. It was
+the same piece which had in succession scourged Mafeking and
+Kimberley. The huge gun, driven to bay, showed its powers by
+opening an effective fire at ten thousand yards. The British
+galloped in upon it, the Boer riflemen were driven off, and the gun
+was blown up by its faithful gunners. So by suicide died the last
+of that iron brood, the four sinister brothers who had wrought much
+mischief in South Africa. They and their lesson will live in the
+history of modern artillery.
+
+The sweeping of the Roos-Senekal district being over, Plumer left
+his post upon the River of the Elephants, a name which, like
+Rhenoster, Zeekoe, Kameelfontein, Leeuw Kop, Tigerfontein, Elands
+River, and so many more, serves as a memorial to the great mammals
+which once covered the land. On April 28th the force turned south,
+and on May 4th they had reached the railroad at Eerstefabrieken
+close to Pretoria. They had come in touch with a small Boer force
+upon the way, and the indefatigable Vialls hounded them for eighty
+miles, and tore away the tail of their convoy with thirty
+prisoners. The main force had left Pretoria on horseback on March
+28th, and found themselves back once again upon foot on May 5th.
+They had something to show, however, for the loss of their horses,
+since they had covered a circular march of 400 miles, had captured
+some hundreds of the enemy, and had broken up their last organised
+capital. From first to last it was a most useful and well-managed
+expedition.
+
+It is the more to be regretted that General Blood was recalled from
+his northern trek before it had attained its full results, because
+those operations to which he turned did not offer him any great
+opportunities for success. Withdrawing from the north of the
+railway with his columns, he at once started upon a sweep of that
+portion of the country which forms an angle between the Delagoa
+line and the Swazi frontier--the Barberton district. But again the
+two big fish, Viljoen and Botha, had slipped away, and the usual
+collection of sprats was left in the net. The sprats count also,
+however, and every week now telegrams were reaching England from
+Lord Kitchener which showed that from three to five hundred more
+burghers had fallen into our hands. Although the public might begin
+to look upon the war as interminable, it had become evident to the
+thoughtful observer that it was now a mathematical question, and
+that a date could already be predicted by which the whole Boer
+population would have passed into the power of the British.
+
+Among the numerous small British columns which were at work in
+different parts of the country, in the latter half of May, there
+was one under General Dixon which was operating in the
+neighbourhood of the Magaliesberg Range. This locality has never
+been a fortunate one for the British arms. The country is
+peculiarly mountainous and broken, and it was held by the veteran
+De la Rey and a numerous body of irreconcilable Boers. Here in July
+we had encountered a check at Uitval's Nek, in December Clements
+had met a more severe one at Nooitgedacht, while shortly afterwards
+Cunningham had been repulsed at Middelfontein, and the Light Horse
+cut up at Naauwpoort. After such experiences one would have thought
+that no column which was not of overmastering strength would have
+been sent into this dangerous region, but General Dixon had as a
+matter of fact by no means a strong force with him. With 1600 men
+and a battery he was despatched upon a quest after some hidden guns
+which were said to have been buried in those parts.
+
+On May 26th Dixon's force, consisting of Derbyshires, King's Own
+Scottish Borderers, Imperial Yeomanry, Scottish Horse, and six guns
+(four of 8th R.F.A. and two of 28th R.F.A.), broke camp at
+Naauwpoort and moved to the west. On the 28th they found themselves
+at a place called Vlakfontein, immediately south of Oliphant's Nek.
+On that day there were indications that there were a good many
+Boers in the neighbourhood. Dixon left a guard over his camp and
+then sallied out in search of the buried guns. His force was
+divided into three parts, the left column under Major Chance
+consisting of two guns of the 28th R.F.A., 230 of the Yeomanry, and
+one company of the Derbys. The centre comprised two guns (8th R.F.
+A.), one howitzer, two companies of the Scottish Borderers and one
+of the Derbys; while the right was made up of two guns (8th R.F.A.
+), 200 Scottish Horse, and two companies of Borderers. Having
+ascertained that the guns were not there, the force about midday
+was returning to the camp, when the storm broke suddenly and
+fiercely upon the rearguard.
+
+There had been some sniping during the whole morning, but no
+indications of the determined attack which was about to be
+delivered. The force in retiring upon the camp had become divided,
+and the rearguard consisted of the small column under Major Chance
+which had originally formed the left wing. A veld fire was raging
+on one flank of this rearguard, and through the veil of smoke a
+body of five hundred Boers charged suddenly home with magnificent
+gallantry upon the guns. We have few records of a more dashing or
+of a more successful action in the whole course of the war. So
+rapid was it that hardly any time elapsed between the glimpse of
+the first dark figures galloping through the haze and the thunder
+of their hoofs as they dashed in among the gunners. The Yeomanry
+were driven back and many of them shot down. The charge of the
+mounted Boers was supported by a very heavy fire from a covering
+party, and the gun-detachments were killed or wounded almost to a
+man. The lieutenant in charge and the sergeant were both upon the
+ground. So far as it is possible to reconstruct the action from the
+confused accounts of excited eye-witnesses and from the exceedingly
+obscure official report of General Dixon, there was no longer any
+resistance round the guns, which were at once turned by their
+captors upon the nearest British detachment.
+
+The company of infantry which had helped to escort the guns proved
+however to be worthy representatives of that historic branch of the
+British service. They were northerners, men of Derbyshire and
+Nottingham, the same counties which had furnished the brave militia
+who had taken their punishment so gamely at Roodeval. Though
+hustled and broken they re-formed and clung doggedly to their task,
+firing at the groups of Boers who surrounded the guns. At the same
+time word had been sent of their pressing need to the Scotch
+Borderers and the Scottish Horse, who came swarming across the
+valley to the succour of their comrades. Dixon had brought two guns
+and a howitzer into action, which subdued the fire of the two
+captured pieces, and the infantry, Derbys and Borderers, swept over
+the position, retaking the two guns and shooting down those of the
+enemy who tried to stand. The greater number vanished into the
+smoke, which veiled their retreat as it had their advance.
+Forty-one of them were left dead upon the ground. Six officers and
+fifty men killed with about a hundred and twenty wounded made up
+the British losses, to which two guns would certainly have been
+added but for the gallant counter-attack of the infantry. With
+Dargai and Vlakfontein to their credit the Derbys have green
+laurels upon their war-worn colours. They share them on this
+occasion with the Scottish Borderers, whose volunteer company
+carried itself as stoutly as the regulars.
+
+How is such an action to be summed up? To Kemp, the young Boer
+leader, and his men belongs the credit of the capture of the guns;
+to the British that of their recapture and of the final possession
+of the field. The British loss was probably somewhat higher than
+that of the Boers, but upon the other hand there could be no
+question as to which side could afford loss the better. The Briton
+could be replaced, but there were no reserves behind the fighting
+line of the Boers.
+
+There is one subject which cannot be ignored in discussing this
+battle, however repugnant it may be. That is the shooting of some
+of the British wounded who lay round the guns. There is no question
+at all about the fact, which is attested by many independent
+witnesses. There is reason to hope that some of the murderers paid
+for their crimes with their lives before the battle was over. It is
+pleasant to add that there is at least one witness to the fact that
+Boer officers interfered with threats to prevent some of these
+outrages. It is unfair to tarnish the whole Boer nation and cause
+on account of a few irresponsible villains, who would be disowned
+by their own decent comrades. Very many--too many--British soldiers
+have known by experience what it is to fall into the hands of the
+enemy, and it must be confessed that on the whole they have been
+dealt with in no ungenerous spirit, while the British treatment of
+the Boers has been unexampled in all military history for its
+generosity and humanity. That so fair a tale should be darkened by
+such ruffianly outrages is indeed deplorable, but the incident is
+too well authenticated to be left unrecorded in any detailed
+account of the campaign. General Dixon, finding the Boers very
+numerous all round him, and being hampered by his wounded, fell
+back upon Naauwpoort, which he reached on June 1st.
+
+In May, Sir Bindon Blood, having returned to the line to refit,
+made yet another cast through that thrice-harried belt of country
+which contains Ermelo, Bethel, and Carolina, in which Botha,
+Viljoen, and the fighting Boers had now concentrated. Working over
+the blackened veld he swung round in the Barberton direction, and
+afterwards made a westerly drive in conjunction with small columns
+commanded by Walter Kitchener, Douglas, and Campbell of the Rifles,
+while Colville, Garnett, and Bullock co-operated from the Natal
+line. Again the results were disappointing when compared with the
+power of the instrument employed. On July 5th he reached Springs,
+near Johannesburg, with a considerable amount of stock, but with no
+great number of prisoners. The elusive Botha had slipped away to
+the south and was reported upon the Zululand border, while Viljoen
+had succeeded in crossing the Delagoa line and winning back to his
+old lair in the district north of Middelburg, from which he had
+been evicted in April. The commandos were like those pertinacious
+flies which buzz upwards when a hand approaches them, but only to
+settle again in the same place. One could but try to make the place
+less attractive than before.
+
+Before Viljoen's force made its way over the line it had its
+revenge for the long harrying it had undergone by a well-managed
+night attack, in which it surprised and defeated a portion of
+Colonel Beatson's column at a place called Wilmansrust, due south
+of Middelburg, and between that town and Bethel. Beatson had
+divided his force, and this section consisted of 850 of the 5th
+Victorian Mounted Rifles, with thirty gunners and two pom-poms, the
+whole under the command of Major Morris. Viljoen's force trekking
+north towards the line came upon this detachment upon June 12th.
+The British were aware of the presence of the enemy, but do not
+appear to have posted any extra outposts or taken any special
+precautions. Long months of commando chasing had imbued them too
+much with the idea that these were fugitive sheep, and not fierce
+and wily wolves, whom they were endeavouring to catch. It is said
+that 700 yards separated the four pickets. With that fine eye for
+detail which the Boer leaders possess, they had started a veld fire
+upon the west of the camp and then attacked from the east, so that
+they were themselves invisible while their enemies were silhouetted
+against the light. Creeping up between the pickets, the Boers were
+not seen until they opened fire at point-blank range upon the
+sleeping men. The rifles were stacked--another noxious military
+tradition--and many of the troopers were shot down while they
+rushed for their weapons. Surprised out of their sleep and unable
+to distinguish their antagonists, the brave Australians did as well
+as any troops could have done who were placed in so impossible a
+position. Captain Watson, the officer in charge of the pom-poms,
+was shot down, and it proved to be impossible to bring the guns
+into action. Within five minutes the Victorians had lost twenty
+killed and forty wounded, when the survivors surrendered. It is
+pleasant to add that they were very well treated by the victors,
+but the high-spirited colonials felt their reverse most bitterly.
+'It is the worst thing that ever happened to Australia!' says one
+in the letter in which he describes it. The actual number of Boers
+who rushed the camp was only 180, but 400 more had formed a cordon
+round it. To Viljoen and his lieutenant Muller great credit must be
+given for this well-managed affair, which gave them a fresh supply
+of stores and clothing at a time when they were hard pressed for
+both. These same Boer officers had led the attack upon Helvetia
+where the 4.7 gun was taken. The victors succeeded in getting away
+with all their trophies, and having temporarily taken one of the
+blockhouses on the railway near Brugspruit, they crossed the line
+in safety and returned, as already said, to their old quarters in
+the north, which had been harried but not denuded by the operations
+of General Blood.
+
+It would take a volume to catalogue, and a library to entirely
+describe the movements and doings of the very large number of
+British columns which operated over the Transvaal and the Orange
+River Colony during this cold-weather campaign. If the same columns
+and the same leaders were consistently working in the same
+districts, some system of narrative might enable the reader to
+follow their fortunes, but they were, as a matter of fact, rapidly
+transferred from one side of the field of action to another in
+accordance with the concentrations of the enemy. The total number
+of columns amounted to at least sixty, which varied in number from
+two hundred to two thousand, and seldom hunted alone. Could their
+movements be marked in red upon a chart, the whole of that huge
+district would be criss-crossed, from Taungs to Komati and from
+Touws River to Pietersburg, with the track of our weary but
+indomitable soldiers.
+
+Without attempting to enter into details which would be unbecoming
+to the modesty of a single volume, one may indicate what the other
+more important groupings were during the course of these months,
+and which were the columns that took part in them. Of French's
+drive in the south-east, and of Blood's incursion into the
+Roos-Senekal district some account has been given, and of his
+subsequent sweeping of the south. At the same period Babington,
+Dixon, and Rawlinson were co-operating in the Klerksdorp district,
+though the former officer transferred his services suddenly to
+Blood's combination, and afterwards to Elliot's column in the north
+of Orange River Colony. Williams and Fetherstonhaugh came later to
+strengthen this Klerksdorp district, in which, after the clearing
+of the Magaliesberg, De la Rey had united his forces to those of
+Smuts. This very important work of getting a firm hold upon the
+Magaliesberg was accomplished in July by Barton, Allenby, Kekewich,
+and Lord Basing, who penetrated into the wild country and
+established blockhouses and small forts in very much the same way
+as Cumberland and Wade in 1746 held down the Highlands. The British
+position was much strengthened by the firm grip obtained of this
+formidable stronghold of the enemy, which was dangerous not only on
+account of its extreme strength, but also of its proximity to the
+centres of population and of wealth.
+
+De la Rey, as already stated, had gone down to the Klerksdorp
+district, whence, for a time at least, he seems to have passed over
+into the north of the Orange River Colony. The British pressure at
+Klerksdorp had become severe, and thither in May came the
+indefatigable Methuen, whom we last traced to Warrenton. From this
+point on May 1st he railed his troops to Mafeking, whence he
+trekked to Lichtenburg, and south as far as his old fighting ground
+of Haartebeestefontein, having one skirmish upon the way and
+capturing a Boer gun. Thence he returned to Mafeking, where he had
+to bid adieu to those veteran Yeomanry who had been his comrades on
+so many a weary march. It was not their fortune to be present at
+any of the larger battles of the war, but few bodies of troops have
+returned to England with a finer record of hard and useful service.
+
+No sooner, however, had Methuen laid down one weapon than he
+snatched up another. Having refitted his men and collected some of
+the more efficient of the new Yeomanry, he was off once more for a
+three weeks' circular tour in the direction of Zeerust. It is
+difficult to believe that the oldest inhabitant could have known
+more of the western side of the Transvaal, for there was hardly a
+track which he had not traversed or a kopje from which he had not
+been sniped. Early in August he had made a fresh start from
+Mafeking, dividing his force into two columns, the command of the
+second being given to Von Donop. Having joined hands with
+Fetherstonhaugh, he moved through the south-west and finally halted
+at Klerksdorp. The harried Boers moved a hundred miles north to
+Rustenburg, followed by Methuen, Fetherstonhaugh, Hamilton,
+Kekewich, and Allenby, who found the commandos of De la Rey and
+Kemp to be scattering in front of them and hiding in the kloofs and
+dongas, whence in the early days of September no less than two
+hundred were extracted. On September 6th and 8th Methuen engaged
+the main body of De la Rey in the valley of the Great Marico River
+which lies to the north-west of Rustenburg. In these two actions he
+pushed the Boers in front of him with a loss of eighteen killed and
+forty-one prisoners, but the fighting was severe, and fifteen of
+his men were killed and thirty wounded before the position had been
+carried. The losses were almost entirely among the newly raised
+Yeomanry, who had already shown on several occasions that, having
+shed their weaker members and had some experience of the field,
+they were now worthy to take their place beside their veteran
+comrades.
+
+The only other important operation undertaken by the British
+columns in the Transvaal during this period was in the north, where
+Beyers and his men were still harried by Grenfell, Colenbrander,
+and Wilson. A considerable proportion of the prisoners which
+figured in the weekly lists came from this quarter. On May 30th
+there was a notable action, the truth of which was much debated but
+finally established, in which Kitchener's Scouts under Wilson
+surprised and defeated a Boer force under Pretorius, killing and
+wounding several, and taking forty prisoners. On July 1st Grenfell
+took nearly a hundred of Beyers' men with a considerable convoy.
+North, south, east, and west the tale was ever the same, but so
+long as Botha, De la Rey, Steyn, and De Wet remained uncaptured,
+the embers might still at any instant leap into a flame.
+
+It only remains to complete this synopsis of the movements of
+columns within the Transvaal that I should add that after the
+conclusion of Blood's movement in July, several of his columns
+continued to clear the country and to harass Viljoen in the
+Lydenburg and Dulstroom districts. Park, Kitchener, Spens, Beatson,
+and Benson were all busy at this work, never succeeding in forcing
+more than a skirmish, but continually whittling away wagons,
+horses, and men from that nucleus of resistance which the Boer
+leaders still held together.
+
+Though much hampered by the want of forage for their horses, the
+Boers were ever watchful for an opportunity to strike back, and the
+long list of minor successes gained by the British was occasionally
+interrupted by a petty reverse. Such a one befell the small body of
+South African Constabulary stationed near Vereeniging, who
+encountered upon July 13th a strong force of Boers supposed to be
+the main commando of De Wet. The Constabulary behaved with great
+gallantry but were hopelessly outnumbered, and lost their
+seven-pounder gun, four killed, six wounded, and twenty-four
+prisoners. Another small reverse occurred at a far distant point of
+the seat of war, for the irregular corps known as Steinacker's
+Horse was driven from its position at Bremersdorp in Swaziland upon
+July 24th, and had to fall back sixteen miles, with a loss of ten
+casualties and thirty prisoners. Thus in the heart of a native
+state the two great white races of South Africa were to be seen
+locked in a desperate conflict. However unavoidable, the sight was
+certainly one to be deplored.
+
+To the Boer credit, or discredit, are also to be placed those
+repeated train wreckings, which cost the British during this
+campaign the lives and limbs of many brave soldiers who were worthy
+of some less ignoble fate. It is true that the laws of war sanction
+such enterprises, but there is something indiscriminate in the
+results which is repellent to humanity, and which appears to
+justify the most energetic measures to prevent them. Women,
+children, and sick must all travel by these trains and are exposed
+to a common danger, while the assailants enjoy a safety which
+renders their exploit a peculiarly inglorious one. Two Boers,
+Trichardt and Hindon, the one a youth of twenty-two, the other a
+man of British birth, distinguished, or disgraced, themselves by
+this unsavoury work upon the Delagoa line, but with the extension
+of the blockhouse system the attempts became less successful. There
+was one, however, upon the northern line near Naboomspruit which
+cost the lives of Lieutenant Best and eight Gordon Highlanders,
+while ten were wounded. The party of Gordons continued to resist
+after the smash, and were killed or wounded to a man. The painful
+incident is brightened by such an example of military virtue, and
+by the naive reply of the last survivor, who on being questioned
+why he continued to fight until he was shot down, answered with
+fine simplicity, 'Because I am a Gordon Highlander.'
+
+Another train disaster of an even more tragic character occurred
+near Waterval, fifteen miles north of Pretoria, upon the last day
+of August. The explosion of a mine wrecked the train, and a hundred
+Boers who lined the banks of the cutting opened fire upon the
+derailed carriages. Colonel Vandeleur, an officer of great promise,
+was killed and twenty men, chiefly of the West Riding regiment,
+were shot. Nurse Page was also among the wounded. It was after this
+fatal affair that the regulation of carrying Boer hostages upon the
+trains was at last carried out.
+
+It has been already stated that part of Lord Kitchener's policy of
+concentration lay in his scheme for gathering the civil population
+into camps along the lines of communication. The reasons for this,
+both military and humanitarian, were overwhelming. Experience had
+proved that the men if left at liberty were liable to be persuaded
+or coerced by the fighting Boers into breaking their parole and
+rejoining the commandos. As to the women and children, they could
+not be left upon the farms in a denuded country. That the Boers in
+the field had no doubts as to the good treatment of these people
+was shown by the fact that they repeatedly left their families in
+the way of the columns so that they might be conveyed to the camps.
+Some consternation was caused in England by a report of Miss
+Hobhouse, which called public attention to the very high rate of
+mortality in some of these camps, but examination showed that this
+was not due to anything insanitary in their situation or
+arrangement, but to a severe epidemic of measles which had swept
+away a large number of the children. A fund was started in London
+to give additional comforts to these people, though there is reason
+to believe that their general condition was superior to that of the
+Uitlander refugees, who still waited permission to return to their
+homes. By the end of July there were no fewer than sixty thousand
+inmates of the camps in the Transvaal alone, and half as many in
+the Orange River Colony. So great was the difficulty in providing
+the supplies for so large a number that it became more and more
+evident that some at least of the camps must be moved down to the
+sea coast.
+
+Passing to the Orange River Colony we find that during this winter
+period the same British tactics had been met by the same constant
+evasions on the part of the dwindling commandos. The Colony had
+been divided into four military districts: that of Bloemfontein,
+which was given to Charles Knox, that of Lyttelton at
+Springfontein, that of Rundle at Harrismith, and that of Elliot in
+the north. The latter was infinitely the most important, and
+Elliot, the warden of the northern marches, had under him during
+the greater part of the winter a mobile force of about 6000 men,
+commanded by such experienced officers as Broadwood, De Lisle, and
+Bethune. Later in the year Spens, Bullock, Plumer, and Rimington
+were all sent into the Orange River Colony to help to stamp out the
+resistance. Numerous skirmishes and snipings were reported from all
+parts of the country, but a constant stream of prisoners and of
+surrenders assured the soldiers that, in spite of the difficulty of
+the country and the obstinacy of the enemy, the term of their
+labours was rapidly approaching.
+
+In all the petty and yet necessary operations of these columns, two
+incidents demand more than a mere mention. The first was a
+hard-fought skirmish in which some of Elliot's horsemen were
+engaged upon June 6th. His column had trekked during the month of
+May from Kroonstad to Harrismith, and then turning north found
+itself upon that date near the hamlet of Reitz. Major Sladen with
+200 Mounted Infantry, when detached from the main body, came upon
+the track of a Boer convoy and ran it down. Over a hundred vehicles
+with forty-five prisoners were the fruits of their enterprise. Well
+satisfied with his morning's work, the British leader despatched a
+party of his men to convey the news to De Lisle, who was behind,
+while he established himself with his loot and his prisoners in a
+convenient kraal. Thence they had an excellent view of a large body
+of horsemen approaching them with scouts, flankers, and all
+military precautions. One warm-hearted officer seems actually to
+have sallied out to meet his comrades, and it was not till his
+greeting of them took the extreme form of handing over his rifle
+that the suspicion of danger entered the heads of his companions.
+But if there was some lack of wit there was none of heart in Sladen
+and his men. With forty-five Boers to hold down, and 500 under
+Fourie, De Wet, and De la Rey around them, the little band made
+rapid preparation for a desperate resistance: the prisoners were
+laid upon their faces, the men knocked loopholes in the mud walls
+of the kraal, and a blunt soldierly answer was returned to the
+demand for surrender.
+
+But it was a desperate business. The attackers were five to one,
+and the five were soldiers of De Wet, the hard-bitten veterans of a
+hundred encounters. The captured wagons in a long double row
+stretched out over the plain, and under this cover the Dutchmen
+swarmed up to the kraal. But the men who faced them were veterans
+also, and the defence made up for the disparity of numbers. With
+fine courage the Boers made their way up to the village, and
+established themselves in the outlying huts, but the Mounted
+Infantry clung desperately to their position. Out of the few
+officers present Findlay was shot through the head, Moir and
+Cameron through the heart, and Strong through the stomach. It was a
+Waggon Hill upon a small scale, two dour lines of skirmishers
+emptying their rifles into each other at point-blank range. Once
+more, as at Bothaville, the British Mounted Infantry proved that
+when it came to a dogged pelting match they could stand punishment
+longer than their enemy. They suffered terribly. Fifty-one out of
+the little force were on the ground, and the survivors were not
+much more numerous than their prisoners. To the 1st Gordons, the
+2nd Bedfords, the South Australians, and the New South Welsh men
+belongs the honour of this magnificent defence. For four hours the
+fierce battle raged, until at last the parched and powder-stained
+survivors breathed a prayer of thanks as they saw on the southern
+horizon the vanguard of De Lisle riding furiously to the rescue.
+For the last hour, since they had despaired of carrying the kraal,
+the Boers had busied themselves in removing their convoy; but now,
+for the second time in one day, the drivers found British rifles
+pointed at their heads, and the oxen were turned once more and
+brought back to those who had fought so hard to hold them.
+Twenty-eight killed and twenty-six wounded were the losses in this
+desperate affair. Of the Boers seventeen were left dead in front of
+the kraal, and the forty-five had not escaped from the bulldog grip
+which held them. There seems for some reason to have been no
+effective pursuit of the Boers, and the British column held on its
+way to Kroonstad.
+
+The second incident which stands out amid the dreary chronicle of
+hustlings and snipings is the surprise visit paid by Broadwood with
+a small British column to the town of Reitz upon July 11th, which
+resulted in the capture of nearly every member of the late
+government of the Free State, save only the one man whom they
+particularly wanted. The column consisted of 200 yeomen, 200 of the
+7th Dragoon Guards, and two guns. Starting at 11 P.M., the raiders
+rode hard all night and broke with the dawn upon the sleeping
+village. Racing into the main street, they secured the startled
+Boers as they rushed from the houses. It is easy to criticise such
+an operation from a distance, and to overlook the practical
+difficulties in the way, but on the face of it it seems a pity that
+the holes had not been stopped before the ferret was sent in. A
+picket at the farther end of the street would have barred Steyn's
+escape. As it was, he flung himself upon his horse and galloped
+half-clad out of the town. Sergeant Cobb of the Dragoons snapped a
+rifle at close quarters upon him, but the cold of the night had
+frozen the oil on the striker and the cartridge hung fire. On such
+trifles do the large events of history turn! Two Boer generals, two
+commandants, Steyn's brother, his secretary, and several other
+officials were among the nine-and-twenty prisoners. The treasury
+was also captured, but it is feared that the Yeomen and Dragoons
+will not be much the richer from their share of the contents.
+
+Save these two incidents, the fight at Reitz and the capture of a
+portion of Steyn's government at the same place, the winter's
+campaign furnished little which was of importance, though a great
+deal of very hard and very useful work was done by the various
+columns under the direction of the governors of the four military
+districts. In the south General Bruce Hamilton made two sweeps, one
+from the railway line to the western frontier, and the second from
+the south and east in the direction of Petrusburg. The result of
+the two operations was about 300 prisoners. At the same time Monro
+and Hickman re-cleared the already twice-cleared districts of
+Rouxville and Smithfield. The country in the east of the Colony was
+verging now upon the state which Grant described in the Shenandoah
+Valley: 'A crow,' said he, 'must carry his own rations when he
+flies across it.'
+
+In the middle district General Charles Knox, with the columns of
+Pine-Coffin, Thorneycroft, Pilcher, and Henry, were engaged in the
+same sort of work with the same sort of results.
+
+The most vigorous operations fell to the lot of General Elliot, who
+worked over the northern and north-eastern district, which still
+contained a large number of fighting burghers. In May and June
+Elliot moved across to Vrede and afterwards down the eastern
+frontier of the Colony, joining hands at last with Rundle at
+Harrismith. He then worked his way back to Kroonstad through Reitz
+and Lindley. It was on this journey that Sladen's Mounted Infantry
+had the sharp experience which has been already narrated. Western's
+column, working independently, co-operated with Elliot in this
+clearing of the north-east. In August there were very large
+captures by Broadwood's force, which had attained considerable
+mobility, ninety miles being covered by it on one occasion in two
+days.
+
+Of General Rundle there is little to be said, as he was kept busy
+in exploring the rough country in his own district--the same
+district which had been the scene of the operations against
+Prinsloo and the Fouriesburg surrender. Into this district
+Kritzinger and his men trekked after they were driven from the
+Colony in July, and many small skirmishes and snipings among the
+mountains showed that the Boer resistance was still alive.
+
+July and August were occupied in the Orange River Colony by
+energetic operations of Spens' and Rimington's columns in the
+midland districts, and by a considerable drive to the north-eastern
+corner, which was shared by three columns under Elliot and two
+under Plumer, with one under Henry and several smaller bodies. A
+considerable number of prisoners and a large amount of stock were
+the result of the movement, but it was very evident that there was
+a waste of energy in the employment of such forces for such an end.
+The time appeared to be approaching when a strong force of military
+police stationed permanently in each district might prove a more
+efficient instrument. One interesting development of this phase of
+the war was the enrolment of a burgher police among the Boers who
+had surrendered. These men--well paid, well mounted, and well
+armed--were an efficient addition to the British forces. The
+movement spread until before the end of the war there were several
+thousand burghers under such well-known officers as Celliers,
+Villonel, and young Cronje, fighting against their own guerilla
+countrymen. Who, in 1899, could have prophesied such a phenomenon
+as that!
+
+Lord Kitchener's proclamation issued upon August 9th marked one
+more turn in the screw upon the part of the British authorities. By
+it the burghers were warned that those who had not laid down their
+arms by September 15th would in the case of the leaders be
+banished, and in the case of the burghers be compelled to support
+their families in the refugee camps. As many of the fighting
+burghers were men of no substance, the latter threat did not affect
+them much, but the other, though it had little result at the time,
+may be useful for the exclusion of firebrands during the period of
+reconstruction. Some increase was noticeable in the number of
+surrenders after the proclamation, but on the whole it had not the
+result which was expected, and its expediency is very open to
+question. This date may be said to mark the conclusion of the
+winter campaign and the opening of a new phase in the struggle.
+
+CHAPTER 35.
+
+THE GUERILLA OPERATIONS IN CAPE COLONY.
+
+In the account which has been given in a preceding chapter of the
+invasion of Cape Colony by the Boer forces, it was shown that the
+Western bands were almost entirely expelled, or at least that they
+withdrew, at the time when De Wet was driven across the Orange
+River. This was at the beginning of March 1901. It was also
+mentioned that though the Boers evacuated the barren and
+unprofitable desert of the Karoo, the Eastern bands which had come
+with Kritzinger did not follow the same course, but continued to
+infest the mountainous districts of the Central Colony, whence they
+struck again and again at the railway lines, the small towns,
+British patrols, or any other quarry which was within their reach
+and strength. From the surrounding country they gathered a fair
+number of recruits, and they were able through the sympathy and
+help of the Dutch farmers to keep themselves well mounted and
+supplied. In small wandering bands they spread themselves over a
+vast extent of country, and there were few isolated farmhouses from
+the Orange River to the Oudtshoorn Mountains, and from the Cape
+Town railroad in the west to the Fish River in the east, which were
+not visited by their active and enterprising scouts. The object of
+the whole movement was, no doubt, to stimulate a general revolt in
+the Colony; and it must be acknowledged that if the powder did not
+all explode it was not for want of the match being thoroughly
+applied.
+
+It might at first sight seem the simplest of military operations to
+hunt down these scattered and insignificant bands; but as a matter
+of fact nothing could be more difficult. Operating in a country
+which was both vast and difficult, with excellent horses, the best
+of information and supplies ready for them everywhere, it was
+impossible for the slow-moving British columns with their guns and
+their wagons to overtake them. Formidable even in flight, the Boers
+were always ready to turn upon any force which exposed itself too
+rashly to retaliation, and so amid the mountain passes the British
+chiefs had to use an amount of caution which was incompatible with
+extreme speed. Only when a commando was exactly localised so that
+two or three converging British forces could be brought to bear
+upon it, was there a reasonable chance of forcing a fight. Still,
+with all these heavy odds against them, the various little columns
+continued month after month to play hide-and-seek with the
+commandos, and the game was by no means always on the one side. The
+varied fortunes of this scrambling campaign can only be briefly
+indicated in these pages.
+
+It has already been shown that Kritzinger's original force broke
+into many bands, which were recruited partly from the Cape rebels
+and partly from fresh bodies which passed over from the Orange
+River Colony. The more severe the pressure in the north, the
+greater reason was there for a trek to this land of plenty. The
+total number of Boers who were wandering over the eastern and
+midland districts may have been about two thousand, who were
+divided into bands which varied from fifty to three hundred. The
+chief leaders of separate commandos were Kritzinger, Scheepers,
+Malan, Myburgh, Fouche, Lotter, Smuts, Van Reenen, Lategan, Maritz,
+and Conroy, the two latter operating on the western side of the
+country. To hunt down these numerous and active bodies the British
+were compelled to put many similar detachments into the field,
+known as the columns of Gorringe, Crabbe, Henniker, Scobell, Doran,
+Kavanagh, Alexander, and others. These two sets of miniature armies
+performed an intricate devil's dance over the Colony, the main
+lines of which are indicated by the red lines upon the map. The
+Zuurberg mountains to the north of Steynsburg, the Sneeuwberg range
+to the south of Middelburg, the Oudtshoorn Mountains in the south,
+the Cradock district, the Murraysburg district, and the
+Graaf-Reinet district--these were the chief centres of Boer
+activity.
+
+In April Kritzinger made his way north to the Orange River Colony,
+for the purpose of consulting with De Wet, but he returned with a
+following of 200 men about the end of May. Continual brushes
+occurred during this month between the various columns, and much
+hard marching was done upon either side, but there was nothing
+which could be claimed as a positive success.
+
+Early in May two passengers sailed for Europe, the journey of each
+being in its way historical. The first was the weary and overworked
+Pro-Consul who had the foresight to distinguish the danger and the
+courage to meet it. Milner's worn face and prematurely grizzled
+hair told of the crushing weight which had rested upon him during
+three eventful years. A gentle scholar, he might have seemed more
+fitted for a life of academic calm than for the stormy part which
+the discernment of Mr. Chamberlain had assigned to him. The fine
+flower of an English university, low-voiced and urbane, it was
+difficult to imagine what impression he would produce upon those
+rugged types of which South Africa is so peculiarly prolific. But
+behind the reserve of a gentleman there lay within him a lofty
+sense of duty, a singular clearness of vision, and a moral courage
+which would brace him to follow whither his reason pointed. His
+visit to England for three months' rest was the occasion for a
+striking manifestation of loyalty and regard from his
+fellow-countrymen. He returned in August as Lord Milner to the
+scene of his labours, with the construction of a united and loyal
+commonwealth of South Africa as the task of his life.
+
+The second traveller who sailed within a few days of the Governor
+was Mrs. Botha, the wife of the Boer General, who visited Europe
+for private as well as political reasons. She bore to Kruger an
+exact account of the state of the country and of the desperate
+condition of the burghers. Her mission had no immediate or visible
+effect, and the weary war, exhausting for the British but fatal for
+the Boers, went steadily on.
+
+To continue the survey of the operations in the Cape, the first
+point scored was by the invaders, for Malan's commando succeeded
+upon May 13th in overwhelming a strong patrol of the Midland
+Mounted Rifles, the local colonial corps, to the south of
+Maraisburg. Six killed, eleven wounded, and forty-one prisoners
+were the fruits of his little victory, which furnished him also
+with a fresh supply of rifles and ammunition. On May 21st Crabbe's
+column was in touch with Lotter and with Lategan, but no very
+positive result came from the skirmish.
+
+The end of May showed considerable Boer activity in the Cape
+Colony, that date corresponding with the return of Kritzinger from
+the north. Haig had for the moment driven Scheepers back from the
+extreme southerly point which he had reached, and he was now in the
+Graaf-Reinet district; but on the other side of the colony Conroy
+had appeared near Kenhart, and upon May 23rd he fought a sharp
+skirmish with a party of Border Scouts. The main Boer force under
+Kritzinger was in the midlands, however, and had concentrated to
+such an extent in the Cradock district that it was clear that some
+larger enterprise was on foot. This soon took shape, for on June
+2nd, after a long and rapid march, the Boer leader threw himself
+upon Jamestown, overwhelmed the sixty townsmen who formed the
+guard, and looted the town, from which he drew some welcome
+supplies and 100 horses. British columns were full cry upon his
+heels, however, and the Boers after a few hours left the gutted
+town and vanished into the hills once more. On June 6th the British
+had a little luck at last, for on that date Scobell and Lukin in
+the Barkly East district surprised a laager and took twenty
+prisoners, 166 horses, and much of the Jamestown loot. On the same
+day Windham treated Van Reenen in a similar rough fashion near
+Steynsburg, and took twenty-two prisoners.
+
+On June 8th the supreme command of the operations in Cape Colony
+was undertaken by General French, who from this time forward
+manoeuvred his numerous columns upon a connected plan with the main
+idea of pushing the enemy northwards. It was some time, however,
+before his disposition bore fruit, for the commandos were still
+better mounted and lighter than their pursuers. On June 13th the
+youthful and dashing Scheepers, who commanded his own little force
+at an age when he would have been a junior lieutenant of the
+British army, raided Murraysburg and captured a patrol. On June
+17th Monro with Lovat's Scouts and Bethune's Mounted Infantry had
+some slight success near Tarkastad, but three days later the
+ill-fated Midland Mounted Rifles were surprised in the early
+morning by Kritzinger at Waterkloof, which is thirty miles west of
+Cradock, and were badly mauled by him. They lost ten killed, eleven
+wounded, and sixty-six prisoners in this unfortunate affair. Again
+the myth that colonial alertness is greater than that of regular
+troops seems to have been exposed.
+
+At the end of June, Fouche, one of the most enterprising of the
+guerilla chiefs, made a dash from Barkly East into the native
+reserves of the Transkei in order to obtain horses and supplies. It
+was a desperate measure, as it was vain to suppose that the warlike
+Kaffirs would permit their property to be looted without
+resistance, and if once the assegais were reddened no man could say
+how far the mischief might go. With great loyalty the British
+Government, even in the darkest days, had held back those martial
+races--Zulus, Swazis, and Basutos--who all had old grudges against
+the Amaboon. Fouche's raid was stopped, however, before it led to
+serious trouble. A handful of Griqualand Mounted Rifles held it in
+front, while Dalgety and his colonial veterans moving very swiftly
+drove him back northwards.
+
+Though baulked, Fouche was still formidable, and on July 14th he
+made a strong attack in the neighbourhood of Jamestown upon a
+column of Connaught Rangers who were escorting a convoy. Major
+Moore offered a determined resistance, and eventually after some
+hours of fighting drove the enemy away and captured their laager.
+Seven killed and seventeen wounded were the British losses in this
+spirited engagement.
+
+On July 10th General French, surveying from a lofty mountain peak
+the vast expanse of the field of operations, with his heliograph
+calling up responsive twinkles over one hundred miles of country,
+gave the order for the convergence of four columns upon the valley
+in which he knew Scheepers to be lurking. We have it from one of
+his own letters that his commando at the time consisted of 240 men,
+of whom forty were Free Staters and the rest colonial rebels.
+Crewe, Windham, Doran, and Scobell each answered to the call, but
+the young leader was a man of resource, and a long kloof up the
+precipitous side of the hill gave him a road to safety. Yet the
+operations showed a new mobility in the British columns, which shed
+their guns and their baggage in order to travel faster. The main
+commando escaped, but twenty-five laggards were taken. The action
+took place among the hills thirty miles to the west of
+Graaf-Reinet.
+
+On July 21st Crabbe and Kritzinger had a skirmish in the mountains
+near Cradock, in which the Boers were strong enough to hold their
+own; but on the same date near Murraysburg, Lukin, the gallant
+colonial gunner, with ninety men rode into 150 of Lategan's band
+and captured ten of them, with a hundred horses. On July 27th a
+small party of twenty-one Imperial Yeomanry was captured, after a
+gallant resistance, by a large force of Boers at the Doorn River on
+the other side of the Colony. The Kaffir scouts of the British were
+shot dead in cold blood by their captors after the action. There
+seems to be no possible excuse for the repeated murders of coloured
+men by the Boers, as they had themselves from the beginning of the
+war used their Kaffirs for every purpose short of actually
+fighting. The war had lost much of the good humour which marked its
+outset. A fiercer feeling had been engendered on both sides by the
+long strain, but the execution of rebels by the British, though
+much to be deplored, is still recognised as one of the rights of a
+belligerent. When one remembers the condonation upon the part of
+the British of the use of their own uniforms by the Boers, of the
+wholesale breaking of paroles, of the continual use of expansive
+bullets, of the abuse of the pass system and of the red cross, it
+is impossible to blame them for showing some severity in the
+stamping out of armed rebellion within their own Colony. If stern
+measures were eventually adopted it was only after extreme leniency
+had been tried and failed. The loss of five years' franchise as a
+penalty for firing upon their own flag is surely the most gentle
+correction which an Empire ever laid upon a rebellious people.
+
+At the beginning of August the connected systematic work of
+French's columns began to tell. In a huge semicircle the British
+were pushing north, driving the guerillas in front of them.
+Scheepers in his usual wayward fashion had broken away to the
+south, but the others had been unable to penetrate the cordon and
+were herded over the Stormberg to Naauwport line. The main body of
+the Boers was hustled swiftly along from August 7th to August 10th,
+from Graaf-Reinet to Thebus, and thrust over the railway line at
+that point with some loss of men and a great shedding of horses. It
+was hoped that the blockhouses on the railroad would have held the
+enemy, but they slipped across by night and got into the Steynsburg
+district, where Gorringe's colonials took up the running. On August
+18th he followed the commandos from Steynsburg to Venterstad,
+killing twenty of them and taking several prisoners. On the 15th,
+Kritzinger with the main body of the invaders passed the Orange
+River near Bethulie, and made his way to the Wepener district of
+the Orange River Colony. Scheepers, Lotter, Lategan, and a few
+small wandering bands were the only Boers left in the Colony, and
+to these the British columns now turned their attention, with the
+result that Lategan, towards the end of the month, was also driven
+over the river. For the time, at least, the situation seemed to
+have very much improved, but there was a drift of Boers over the
+north-western frontier, and the long-continued warfare at their own
+doors was undoubtedly having a dangerous effect upon the Dutch
+farmers. Small successes from time to time, such as the taking of
+sixty of French's Scouts by Theron's commando on August 10th,
+served to keep them from despair. Of the guerilla bands which
+remained, the most important was that of Scheepers, which now
+numbered 300 men, well mounted and supplied. He had broken back
+through the cordon, and made for his old haunts in the south-west.
+Theron, with a smaller band, was also in the Uniondale and
+Willowmore district, approaching close to the sea in the Mossel Bay
+direction, but being headed off by Kavanagh. Scheepers turned in
+the direction of Cape Town, but swerved aside at Montagu, and moved
+northwards towards Touws River.
+
+So far the British had succeeded in driving and injuring, but never
+in destroying, the Boer bands. It was a new departure therefore
+when, upon September 4th, the commando of Lotter was entirely
+destroyed by the column of Scobell. This column consisted of some
+of the Cape Mounted Rifles and of the indefatigable 9th Lancers. It
+marked the enemy down in a valley to the west of Cradock and
+attacked them in the morning, after having secured all the
+approaches. The result was a complete success. The Boers threw
+themselves into a building and held out valiantly, but their
+position was impossible, and after enduring considerable punishment
+they were forced to hoist the white flag. Eleven had been killed,
+forty-six wounded, and fifty-six surrendered--figures which are in
+themselves a proof of the tenacity of their defence. Lotter was
+among the prisoners, 260 horses were taken, and a good supply of
+ammunition, with some dynamite. A few days later, on September
+10th, a similar blow, less final in its character, was dealt by
+Colonel Crabbe to the commando of Van der Merve, which was an
+offshoot of that of Scheepers. The action was fought near
+Laingsburg, which is on the main line, just north of Matjesfontein,
+and it ended in the scattering of the Boer band, the death of their
+boy leader (he was only eighteen years of age), and the capture of
+thirty-seven prisoners. Seventy of the Beers escaped by a hidden
+road. To Colonials and Yeomanry belongs the honour of the action,
+which cost the British force seven casualties. Colonel Crabbe
+pushed on after the success, and on September 14th he was in touch
+with Scheepers's commando near Ladismith (not to be confused with
+the historical town of Natal), and endured and inflicted some
+losses. On the 17th a patrol of Grenadier Guards was captured in
+the north of the Colony, Rebow, the young lieutenant in charge of
+them, meeting with a soldier's death.
+
+On the same day a more serious engagement occurred near Tarkastad,
+a place which lies to the east of Cradock, a notorious centre of
+disaffection in the midland district. Smuts's commando, some
+hundreds strong, was marked down in this part, and several forces
+converged upon it. One of the outlets, Elands River Poort, was
+guarded by a single squadron of the 17th Lancers. Upon this the
+Boers made a sudden and very fierce attack, their approach being
+facilitated partly by the mist and partly by the use of khaki, a
+trick which seems never to have grown too stale for successful use.
+The result was that they were able to ride up to the British camp
+before any preparations had been made for resistance, and to shoot
+down a number of the Lancers before they could reach their horses.
+So terrible was the fire that the single squadron lost thirty-four
+killed and thirty-six wounded. But the regiment may console itself
+for the disaster by the fact that the sorely stricken detachment
+remained true to the spirited motto of the corps, and that no
+prisoners appear to have been lost.
+
+After this one sharp engagement there ensued several weeks during
+which the absence of historical events, or the presence of the
+military censor, caused a singular lull in the account of the
+operations. With so many small commandos and so many pursuing
+columns it is extraordinary that there should not have been a
+constant succession of actions. That there was not must indicate a
+sluggishness upon the part of the pursuers, and this sluggishness
+can only be explained by the condition of their horses. Every train
+of thought brings the critic back always to the great horse
+question, and encourages the conclusion that there, at all seasons
+of the war and in all scenes of it, is to be found the most damning
+indictment against British foresight, common-sense, and power of
+organisation. That the third year of the war should dawn without
+the British forces having yet got the legs of the Boers, after
+having penetrated every portion of their country and having the
+horses of the world on which to draw, is the most amazingly
+inexplicable point in the whole of this strange campaign. From the
+telegram 'Infantry preferred' addressed to a nation of
+rough-riders, down to the failure to secure the excellent horses on
+the spot, while importing them unfit for use from the ends of the
+earth, there has been nothing but one long series of blunders in
+this, the most vital question of all. Even up to the end, in the
+Colony the obvious lesson had not yet been learnt that it is better
+to give 1000 men two horses each, and to let them reach the enemy,
+than give 2000 men one horse each, with which they can never attain
+their object. The chase during two years of the man with two horses
+by the man with one horse, has been a sight painful to ourselves
+and ludicrous to others.
+
+In connection with this account of operations within the Colony,
+there is one episode which occurred in the extreme north-west which
+will not fit in with this connected narrative, but which will
+justify the distraction of the reader's intelligence, for few finer
+deeds of arms are recorded in the war. This was the heroic defence
+of a convoy by the 14th Company of Irish Imperial Yeomanry. The
+convoy was taking food to Griquatown, on the Kimberley side of the
+seat of war. The town had been long invested by Conroy, and the
+inhabitants were in such straits that it was highly necessary to
+relieve them. To this end a convoy, two miles long, was despatched
+under Major Humby of the Irish Yeomanry. The escort consisted of
+seventy-five Northumberland Fusiliers, twenty-four local troops,
+and 100 of the 74th Irish Yeomanry. Fifteen miles from Griquatown,
+at a place called Rooikopjes, the convoy was attacked by the enemy
+several hundred in number. Two companies of the Irishmen seized the
+ridge, however, which commanded the wagons, and held it until they
+were almost exterminated. The position was covered with bush, and
+the two parties came to the closest of quarters, the Yeomen
+refusing to take a backward step, though it was clear that they
+were vastly outnumbered. Encouraged by the example of Madan and
+Ford, their gallant young leaders, they deliberately sacrificed
+their lives in order to give time for the guns to come up and for
+the convoy to pass. Oliffe, Bonynge, and Maclean, who had been
+children together, were shot side by side on the ridge, and
+afterwards buried in one grave. Of forty-three men in action,
+fourteen were killed and twenty severely wounded. Their sacrifice
+was not in vain, however. The Boers were beaten back, and the
+convoy, as well as Griquatown, was saved. Some thirty or forty
+Boers were killed or wounded in the skirmish, and Conroy, their
+leader, declared that it was the stiffest fight of his life.
+
+In the autumn and winter of 1901 General French had steadily
+pursued the system of clearing certain districts, one at a time,
+and endeavouring by his blockhouses and by the arrangement of his
+forces to hold in strict quarantine those sections of the country
+which were still infested by the commandos. In this manner he
+succeeded by the November of this year in confining the active
+forces of the enemy to the extreme north-east and to the south-west
+of the peninsula. It is doubtful if the whole Boer force,
+three-quarters of whom were colonial rebels, amounted to more than
+fifteen hundred men. When we learn that at this period of the war
+they were indifferently armed, and that many of them were mounted
+upon donkeys, it is impossible, after making every allowance for
+the passive assistance of the farmers, and the difficulties of the
+country, to believe that the pursuit was always pushed with the
+spirit and vigour which was needful.
+
+In the north-east, Myburgh, Wessels, and the truculent Fouche were
+allowed almost a free hand for some months, while the roving bands
+were rounded up in the midlands and driven along until they were
+west of the main railroad. Here, in the Calvinia district, several
+commandos united in October 1901 under Maritz, Louw, Smit, and
+Theron. Their united bands rode down into the rich grain-growing
+country round Piquetberg and Malmesbury, pushing south until it
+seemed as if their academic supporters at Paarl were actually to
+have a sight of the rebellion which they had fanned to a flame. At
+one period their patrols were within forty miles of Cape Town. The
+movement was checked, however, by a small force of Lancers and
+district troops, and towards the end of October, Maritz, who was
+chief in this quarter, turned northwards, and on the 29th captured
+a small British convoy which crossed his line of march. Early in
+November he doubled back and attacked Piquetberg, but was beaten
+off with some loss. From that time a steady pressure from the south
+and east drove these bands farther and farther into the great
+barren lands of the west, until, in the following April, they had
+got as far as Namaqualand, many hundred miles away.
+
+Upon October 9th, the second anniversary of the Ultimatum, the
+hands of the military were strengthened by the proclamation of Cape
+Town and all the seaport towns as being in a state of martial law.
+By this means a possible source of supplies and recruits for the
+enemy was effectually blocked. That it had not been done two years
+before is a proof of how far local political considerations can be
+allowed to over-ride the essentials of Imperial policy. Meanwhile
+treason courts were sitting, and sentences, increasing rapidly from
+the most trivial to the most tragic, were teaching the rebel that
+his danger did not end upon the field of battle. The execution of
+Lotter and his lieutenants was a sign that the patience of a
+long-suffering Empire had at last reached an end.
+
+The young Boer leader, Scheepers, had long been a thorn in the side
+of the British. He had infested the southern districts for some
+months, and he had distinguished himself both by the activity of
+his movements and by the ruthless vigour of some of his actions.
+Early in October a serious illness and consequent confinement to
+his bed brought him at last within the range of British mobility.
+On his recovery he was tried for repeated breaches of the laws of
+war, including the murder of several natives. He was condemned to
+death, and was executed in December. Much sympathy was excited by
+his gallantry and his youth--he was only twenty-three. On the other
+hand, our word was pledged to protect the natives, and if he whose
+hand had been so heavy upon them escaped, all confidence would have
+been lost in our promises and our justice. That British vengeance
+was not indiscriminate was shown soon afterwards in the case of a
+more important commander, Kritzinger, who was the chief leader of
+the Boers within Cape Colony. Kritzinger was wounded and captured
+while endeavouring to cross the line near Hanover Road upon
+December 15th. He was put upon his trial, and his fate turned upon
+how far he was responsible for the misdeeds of some of his
+subordinates. It was clearly shown that he had endeavoured to hold
+them within the bounds of civilised warfare, and with
+congratulations and handshakings he was acquitted by the military
+court.
+
+In the last two months of the year 1901, a new system was
+introduced into the Cape Colony campaign by placing the Colonial
+and district troops immediately under the command of Colonial
+officers and of the Colonial Government. It had long been felt that
+some devolution was necessary, and the change was justified by the
+result. Without any dramatic incident, an inexorable process of
+attrition, caused by continual pursuit and hardship, wore out the
+commandos. Large bands had become small ones, and small ones had
+vanished. Only by the union of several bodies could any enterprise
+higher than the looting of a farmhouse be successfully attempted.
+
+Such a union occurred, however, in the early days of February 1902,
+when Smuts, Malan, and several other Boer leaders showed great
+activity in the country round Calvinia. Their commandos seem to
+have included a proportion of veteran Republicans from the north,
+who were more formidable fighting material than the raw Colonial
+rebels. It happened that several dangerously weak British columns
+were operating within reach at that time, and it was only owing to
+the really admirable conduct of the troops that a serious disaster
+was averted. Two separate actions, each of them severe, were fought
+on the same date, and in each case the Boers were able to bring
+very superior numbers into the field.
+
+The first of these was the fight in which Colonel Doran's column
+extricated itself with severe loss from a most perilous plight. The
+whole force under Doran consisted of 350 men with two guns, and
+this handful was divided by an expedition which he, with 150 men,
+undertook in order to search a distant farm. The remaining two
+hundred men, under Captain Saunders, were left upon February 5th
+with the guns and the convoy at a place called Middlepost, which
+lies about fifty miles south-west of Calvinia. These men were of
+the 11th, 23rd, and 24th Imperial Yeomanry, with a troop of Cape
+Police. The Boer Intelligence was excellent, as might be expected
+in a country which is dotted with farms. The weakened force at
+Middlepost was instantly attacked by Smuts's commando. Saunders
+evacuated the camp and abandoned the convoy, which was the only
+thing he could do, but he concentrated all his efforts upon
+preserving his guns. The night was illuminated by the blazing
+wagons, and made hideous by the whoops of the drunken rebels who
+caroused among the captured stores. With the first light of dawn
+the small British force was fiercely assailed on all sides, but
+held its own in a manner which would have done credit to any
+troops. The much criticised Yeomen fought like veterans. A
+considerable position had to be covered, and only a handful of men
+were available at the most important points. One ridge, from which
+the guns would be enfiladed, was committed to the charge of
+Lieutenants Tabor and Chichester with eleven men of the 11th
+Imperial Yeomanry, their instructions being 'to hold it to the
+death.' The order was obeyed with the utmost heroism. After a
+desperate defence the ridge was only taken by the Boers when both
+officers had been killed and nine out of eleven men were on the
+ground. In spite of the loss of this position the fight was still
+sustained until shortly after midday, when Doran with the patrol
+returned. The position was still most dangerous, the losses had
+been severe, and the Boers were increasing in strength. An
+immediate retreat was ordered, and the small column, after ten days
+of hardship and anxiety, reached the railway line in safety. The
+wounded were left to the care of Smuts, who behaved with chivalry
+and humanity.
+
+At about the same date a convoy proceeding from Beaufort West to
+Fraserburg was attacked by Malan's commando. The escort, which
+consisted of sixty Colonial Mounted Rifles and 100 of the West
+Yorkshire militia, was overwhelmed after a good defence, in which
+Major Crofton, their commander, was killed. The wagons were
+destroyed, but the Boers were driven off by the arrival of Crabbe's
+column, followed by those of Capper and Lund. The total losses of
+the British in these two actions amounted to twenty-three killed
+and sixty-five wounded.
+
+The re-establishment of settled law and order was becoming more
+marked every week in those south-western districts, which had long
+been most disturbed. Colonel Crewe in this region, and Colonel
+Lukin upon the other side of the line, acting entirely with
+Colonial troops, were pushing back the rebels, and holding, by a
+well-devised system of district defence, all that they had gained.
+By the end of February there were none of the enemy south of the
+Beaufort West and Clanwilliam line. These results were not obtained
+without much hard marching and a little hard fighting. Small
+columns under Crabbe, Capper, Wyndham, Nickall, and Lund, were
+continually on the move, with little to show for it save an
+ever-widening area of settled country in their rear. In a skirmish
+on February 20th Judge Hugo, a well-known Boer leader, was killed,
+and Vanheerden, a notorious rebel, was captured. At the end of this
+month Fouche's tranquil occupation of the north-east was at last
+disturbed, and he was driven out of it into the midlands, where he
+took refuge with the remains of his commando in the Camdeboo
+Mountains. Malan's men had already sought shelter in the same
+natural fortress. Malan was wounded and taken in a skirmish near
+Somerset East a few days before the general Boer surrender. Fouche
+gave himself up at Cradock on June 2nd.
+
+The last incident of this scattered, scrambling, unsatisfactory
+campaign in the Cape peninsula was the raid made by Smuts, the
+Transvaal leader, into the Port Nolloth district of Namaqualand,
+best known for its copper mines. A small railroad has been
+constructed from the coast at this point, the terminus being the
+township of Ookiep. The length of the line is about seventy miles.
+It is difficult to imagine what the Boers expected to gain in this
+remote corner of the seat of war, unless they had conceived the
+idea that they might actually obtain possession of Port Nolloth
+itself, and so restore the communications with their sympathisers
+and allies. At the end of March the Boer horsemen appeared suddenly
+out of the desert, drove in the British outposts, and summoned
+Ookiep to surrender. Colonel Shelton, who commanded the small
+garrison, sent an uncompromising reply, but he was unable to
+protect the railway in his rear, which was wrecked, together with
+some of the blockhouses which had been erected to guard it. The
+loyal population of the surrounding country had flocked into
+Ookiep, and the Commandant found himself burdened with the care of
+six thousand people. The enemy had succeeded in taking the small
+post of Springbok, and Concordia, the mining centre, was
+surrendered into their hands without resistance, giving them
+welcome supplies of arms, ammunition, and dynamite. The latter was
+used by the Boers in the shape of hand-bombs, and proved to be a
+very efficient weapon when employed against blockhouses. Several of
+the British defences were wrecked by them, with considerable loss
+to the garrison; but in the course of a month's siege, in spite of
+several attacks, the Boers were never able to carry the frail works
+which guarded the town. Once more, at the end of the war as at the
+beginning of it, there was shown the impotence of the Dutch
+riflemen against a British defence. A relief column, under Colonel
+Cooper, was quickly organised at Port Nolloth, and advanced along
+the railway line, forcing Smuts to raise the siege in the first
+week of May. Immediately afterwards came the news of the
+negotiations for peace, and the Boer general presented himself at
+Port Nolloth, whence he was conveyed by ship to Cape Town, and so
+north again to take part in the deliberations of his
+fellow-countrymen. Throughout the war he had played a manly and
+honourable part. It may be hoped that with youth and remarkable
+experience, both of diplomacy and of war, he may now find a long
+and brilliant career awaiting him in a wider arena than that for
+which he strove.
+
+CHAPTER 36.
+
+THE SPRING CAMPAIGN (SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER, 1901).
+
+The history of the war during the African winter of 1901 has now
+been sketched, and some account given of the course of events in
+the Transvaal, the Orange River Colony, and the Cape Colony. The
+hope of the British that they might stamp out resistance before the
+grass should restore mobility to the larger bodies of Boers was
+destined to be disappointed. By the middle of September the veld
+had turned from drab to green, and the great drama was fated to
+last for one more act, however anxious all the British and the
+majority of the Boers might be to ring down the curtain.
+Exasperating as this senseless prolongation of a hopeless struggle
+might be, there was still some consolation in the reflection that
+those who drank this bitter cup to the very lees would be less
+likely to thirst for it again.
+
+September 15th was the date which brought into force the British
+Proclamation announcing the banishment of those Boer leaders who
+continued in arms. It must be confessed that this step may appear
+harsh and unchivalrous to the impartial observer, so long as those
+leaders were guilty of no practices which are foreign to the laws
+of civilised warfare. The imposition of personal penalties upon the
+officers of an opposing army is a step for which it is difficult to
+quote a precedent, nor is it wise to officially rule your enemy
+outside the pale of ordinary warfare, since it is equally open to
+him to take the same step against you. The only justification for
+such a course would be its complete success, as this would suggest
+that the Intelligence Department were aware that the leaders
+desired some strong excuse for coming in--such an excuse as the
+Proclamation would afford. The result proved that nothing of the
+kind was needed, and the whole proceeding must appear to be
+injudicious and high-handed. In honourable war you conquer your
+adversary by superior courage, strength, or wit, but you do not
+terrorise him by particular penalties aimed at individuals. The
+burghers of the Transvaal and of the late Orange Free State were
+legitimate belligerents, and to be treated as such--a statement
+which does not, of course, extend to the Afrikander rebels who were
+their allies.
+
+The tendency of the British had been to treat their antagonists as
+a broken and disorganised banditti, but with the breaking of the
+spring they were sharply reminded that the burghers were still
+capable of a formidable and coherent effort. The very date which
+put them beyond the pale as belligerents was that which they seem
+to have chosen in order to prove what active and valiant soldiers
+they still remained. A quick succession of encounters occurred at
+various parts of the seat of war, the general tendency of which was
+not entirely in favour of the British arms, though the weekly
+export of prisoners reassured all who noted it as to the sapping
+and decay of the Boer strength. These incidents must now be set
+down in the order of their occurrence, with their relation to each
+other so far as it is possible to trace it.
+
+General Louis Botha, with the double intention of making an
+offensive move and of distracting the wavering burghers from a
+close examination of Lord Kitchener's proclamation, assembled his
+forces in the second week of September in the Ermelo district.
+Thence he moved them rapidly towards Natal, with the result that
+the volunteers of that colony had once more to grasp their rifles
+and hasten to the frontier. The whole situation bore for an instant
+an absurd resemblance to that of two years before--Botha playing
+the part of Joubert, and Lyttelton, who commanded on the frontier,
+that of White. It only remained, to make the parallel complete,
+that some one should represent Penn Symons, and this perilous role
+fell to a gallant officer, Major Gough, commanding a detached force
+which thought itself strong enough to hold its own, and only
+learned by actual experiment that it was not.
+
+This officer, with a small force consisting of three companies of
+Mounted Infantry with two guns of the 69th R.F.A., was operating in
+the neighbourhood of Utrecht in the south-eastern corner of the
+Transvaal, on the very path along which Botha must descend. On
+September 17th he had crossed De Jagers Drift on the Blood River,
+not very far from Dundee, when he found himself in touch with the
+enemy. His mission was to open a path for an empty convoy returning
+from Vryheid, and in order to do so it was necessary that Blood
+River Poort, where the Boers were now seen, should be cleared. With
+admirable zeal Gough pushed rapidly forward, supported by a force
+of 350 Johannesburg Mounted Rifles under Stewart. Such a proceeding
+must have seemed natural to any British officer at this stage of
+the war, when a swift advance was the only chance of closing with
+the small bodies of Boers; but it is strange that the Intelligence
+Department had not warned the patrols upon the frontier that a
+considerable force was coming down upon them, and that they should
+be careful to avoid action against impossible odds. If Gough had
+known that Botha's main commando was coming down upon him, it is
+inconceivable that he would have pushed his advance until he could
+neither extricate his men nor his guns. A small body of the enemy,
+said to have been the personal escort of Louis Botha, led him on,
+until a large force was able to ride down upon him from the flank
+and rear. Surrounded at Scheepers Nek by many hundreds of riflemen
+in a difficult country, there was no alternative but a surrender,
+and so sharp and sudden was the Boer advance that the whole action
+was over in a very short time. The new tactics of the Boers,
+already used at Vlakfontein, and afterwards to be successful at
+Brakenlaagte and at Tweebosch, were put in force. A large body of
+mounted men, galloping swiftly in open order and firing from the
+saddle, rode into and over the British. Such temerity should in
+theory have met with severe punishment, but as a matter of fact the
+losses of the enemy seem to have been very small. The soldiers were
+not able to return an effective fire from their horses, and had no
+time to dismount. The sights and breech-blocks of the two guns are
+said to have been destroyed, but the former statement seems more
+credible than the latter. A Colt gun was also captured. Of the
+small force twenty were killed, forty wounded, and over two hundred
+taken. Stewart's force was able to extricate itself with some
+difficulty, and to fall back on the Drift. Gough managed to escape
+that night and to report that it was Botha himself, with over a
+thousand men, who had eaten up his detachment. The prisoners and
+wounded were sent in a few days later to Vryheid, a town which
+appeared to be in some danger of capture had not Walter Kitchener
+hastened to carry reinforcements to the garrison. Bruce Hamilton
+was at the same time despatched to head Botha off, and every step
+taken to prevent his southern advance. So many columns from all
+parts converged upon the danger spot that Lyttelton, who commanded
+upon the Natal frontier, had over 20,000 men under his orders.
+
+Botha's plans appear to have been to work through Zululand and then
+strike at Natal, an operation which would be the more easy as it
+would be conducted a considerable distance from the railway line.
+Pushing on a few days after his successful action with Gough, he
+crossed the Zulu frontier, and had in front of him an almost
+unimpeded march as far as the Tugela. Crossing this far from the
+British base of power, his force could raid the Greytown district
+and raise recruits among the Dutch farmers, laying waste one of the
+few spots in South Africa which had been untouched by the blight of
+war. All this lay before him, and in his path nothing save only two
+small British posts which might be either disregarded or gathered
+up as he passed. In an evil moment for himself, tempted by the
+thought of the supplies which they might contain, he stopped to
+gather them up, and the force of the wave of invasion broke itself
+as upon two granite rocks.
+
+These two so-called forts were posts of very modest strength, a
+chain of which had been erected at the time of the old Zulu war.
+Fort Itala, the larger, was garrisoned by 300 men of the 5th
+Mounted Infantry, drawn from the Dublin Fusiliers, Middlesex,
+Dorsets, South Lancashires, and Lancashire Fusiliers--most of them
+old soldiers of many battles. They had two guns of the 69th R.F.A.,
+the same battery which had lost a section the week before. Major
+Chapman, of the Dublins, was in command.
+
+Upon September 25th the small garrison heard that the main force of
+the Boers was sweeping towards them, and prepared to give them a
+soldiers' welcome. The fort is situated upon the flank of a hill,
+on the summit of which, a mile from the main trenches, a strong
+outpost was stationed. It was upon this that the first force of the
+attack broke at midnight of September 25th. The garrison, eighty
+strong, was fiercely beset by several hundred Boers, and the post
+was eventually carried after a sharp and bloody contest. Kane, of
+the South Lancashires, died with the words 'No surrender' upon his
+lips, and Potgieter, a Boer leader, was pistolled by Kane's fellow
+officer, Lefroy. Twenty of the small garrison fell, and the
+remainder were overpowered and taken.
+
+With this vantage-ground in their possession the Boers settled down
+to the task of overwhelming the main position. They attacked upon
+three sides, and until morning the force was raked from end to end
+by unseen riflemen. The two British guns were put out of action and
+the maxim was made unserviceable by a bullet. At dawn there was a
+pause in the attack, but it recommenced and continued without
+intermission until sunset. The span betwixt the rising of the sun
+and its last red glow in the west is a long one for the man who
+spends it at his ease, but how never-ending must have seemed the
+hours to this handful of men, outnumbered, surrounded, pelted by
+bullets, parched with thirst, torn with anxiety, holding
+desperately on with dwindling numbers to their frail defences! To
+them it may have seemed a hard thing to endure so much for a tiny
+fort in a savage land. The larger view of its vital importance
+could have scarcely come to console the regimental officer, far
+less the private. But duty carried them through, and they wrought
+better than they knew, for the brave Dutchmen, exasperated by so
+disproportionate a resistance, stormed up to the very trenches and
+suffered as they had not suffered for many a long month. There have
+been battles with 10,000 British troops hotly engaged in which the
+Boer losses have not been so great as in this obscure conflict
+against an isolated post. When at last, baffled and disheartened,
+they drew off with the waning light, it is said that no fewer than
+a hundred of their dead and two hundred of their wounded attested
+the severity of the fight. So strange are the conditions of South
+African warfare that this loss, which would have hardly made a
+skirmish memorable in the slogging days of the Peninsula, was one
+of the most severe blows which the burghers had sustained in the
+course of a two years' warfare against a large and aggressive army.
+There is a conflict of evidence as to the exact figures, but at
+least they were sufficient to beat the Boer army back and to change
+their plan of campaign.
+
+Whilst this prolonged contest had raged round Fort Itala, a similar
+attack upon a smaller scale was being made upon Fort Prospect, some
+fifteen miles to the eastward. This small post was held by a
+handful of Durham Artillery Militia and of Dorsets. The attack was
+delivered by Grobler with several hundred burghers, but it made no
+advance although it was pushed with great vigour, and repeated many
+times in the course of the day. Captain Rowley, who was in command,
+handled his men with such judgment that one killed and eight
+wounded represented his casualties during a long day's fighting.
+Here again the Boer losses were in proportion to the resolution of
+their attack, and are said to have amounted to sixty killed and
+wounded. Considering the impossibility of replacing the men, and
+the fruitless waste of valuable ammunition, September 26th was an
+evil day for the Boer cause. The British casualties amounted to
+seventy-three.
+
+The water of the garrison of Fort Itala had been cut off early in
+the attack, and their ammunition had run low by evening. Chapman
+withdrew his men and his guns therefore to Nkandhla, where the
+survivors of his gallant garrison received the special thanks of
+Lord Kitchener. The country around was still swarming with Boers,
+and on the last day of September a convoy from Melmoth fell into
+their hands and provided them with some badly needed supplies.
+
+But the check which he had received was sufficient to prevent any
+important advance upon the part of Botha, while the swollen state
+of the rivers put an additional obstacle in his way. Already the
+British commanders, delighted to have at last discovered a definite
+objective, were hurrying to the scene of action. Bruce Hamilton had
+reached Fort Itala upon September 28th and Walter Kitchener had
+been despatched to Vryheid. Two British forces, aided by smaller
+columns, were endeavouring to surround the Boer leader. On October
+6th Botha had fallen back to the north-east of Vryheid, whither the
+British forces had followed him. Like De Wet's invasion of the
+Cape, Botha's advance upon Natal had ended in placing himself and
+his army in a critical position. On October 9th he had succeeded in
+crossing the Privaan River, a branch of the Pongolo, and was
+pushing north in the direction of Piet Retief, much helped by misty
+weather and incessant rain. Some of his force escaped between the
+British columns, and some remained in the kloofs and forests of
+that difficult country.
+
+Walter Kitchener, who had followed up the Boer retreat, had a brisk
+engagement with the rearguard upon October 6th. The Boers shook
+themselves clear with some loss, both to themselves and to their
+pursuers. On the 10th those of the burghers who held together had
+reached Luneburg, and shortly afterwards they had got completely
+away from the British columns. The weather was atrocious, and the
+lumbering wagons, axle-deep in mud, made it impossible for troops
+who were attached to them to keep in touch with the light riders
+who sped before them. For some weeks there was no word of the main
+Boer force, but at the end of that time they reappeared in a manner
+which showed that both in numbers and in spirit they were still a
+formidable body.
+
+Of all the sixty odd British columns which were traversing the Boer
+states there was not one which had a better record than that
+commanded by Colonel Benson. During seven months of continuous
+service this small force, consisting at that time of the Argyle and
+Sutherland Highlanders, the 2nd Scottish Horse, the 18th and 19th
+Mounted Infantry, and two guns, had acted with great energy, and
+had reduced its work to a complete and highly effective system.
+Leaving the infantry as a camp guard, Benson operated with mounted
+troops alone, and no Boer laager within fifty miles was safe from
+his nocturnal visits. So skilful had he and his men become at these
+night attacks in a strange, and often difficult country, that out
+of twenty-eight attempts twenty-one resulted in complete success.
+In each case the rule was simply to gallop headlong into the Boer
+laager, and to go on chasing as far as the horses could go. The
+furious and reckless pace may be judged by the fact that the
+casualties of the force were far greater from falls than from
+bullets. In seven months forty-seven Boers were killed and six
+hundred captured, to say nothing of enormous quantities of
+munitions and stock. The success of these operations was due, not
+only to the energy of Benson and his men, but to the untiring
+exertions of Colonel Wools-Sampson, who acted as intelligence
+officer. If, during his long persecution by President Kruger,
+Wools-Sampson in the bitterness of his heart had vowed a feud
+against the Boer cause, it must be acknowledged that he has most
+amply fulfilled it, for it would be difficult to point to any
+single man who has from first to last done them greater harm.
+
+In October Colonel Benson's force was reorganised, and it then
+consisted of the 2nd Buffs, the 2nd Scottish Horse, the 3rd and
+25th Mounted Infantry, and four guns of the 84th battery. With this
+force, numbering nineteen hundred men, he left Middelburg upon the
+Delagoa line on October 20th and proceeded south, crossing the
+course along which the Boers, who were retiring from their abortive
+raid into Natal, might be expected to come. For several days the
+column performed its familiar work, and gathered up forty or fifty
+prisoners. On the 26th came news that the Boer commandos under
+Grobler were concentrating against it, and that an attack in force
+might be expected. For two days there was continuous sniping, and
+the column as it moved through the country saw Boer horsemen
+keeping pace with it on the far flanks and in the rear. The weather
+had been very bad, and it was in a deluge of cold driving rain that
+the British set forth upon October 30th, moving towards
+Brakenlaagte, which is a point about forty miles due south of
+Middelburg. It was Benson's intention to return to his base.
+
+About midday the column, still escorted by large bodies of
+aggressive Boers, came to a difficult spruit swollen by the rain.
+Here the wagons stuck, and it took some hours to get them all
+across. The Boer fire was continually becoming more severe, and had
+broken out at the head of the column as well as the rear. The
+situation was rendered more difficult by the violence of the rain,
+which raised a thick steam from the ground and made it impossible
+to see for any distance. Major Anley, in command of the rearguard,
+peering back, saw through a rift of the clouds a large body of
+horsemen in extended order sweeping after them. 'There's miles of
+them, begob!' cried an excited Irish trooper. Next instant the
+curtain had closed once more, but all who had caught a glimpse of
+that vision knew that a stern struggle was at hand.
+
+At this moment two guns of the 84th battery under Major Guinness
+were in action against Boer riflemen. As a rear screen on the
+farther side of the guns was a body of the Scottish Horse and of
+the Yorkshire Mounted Infantry. Near the guns themselves were
+thirty men of the Buffs. The rest of the Buffs and of the Mounted
+Infantry were out upon the flanks or else were with the advance
+guard, which was now engaged, under the direction of Colonel
+Wools-Sampson, in parking the convoy and in forming the camp. These
+troops played a small part in the day's fighting, the whole force
+of which broke with irresistible violence upon the few hundred men
+who were in front of or around the rear guns. Colonel Benson seems
+to have just ridden back to the danger point when the Boers
+delivered their furious attack.
+
+Louis Botha with his commando is said to have ridden sixty miles in
+order to join the forces of Grobler and Oppermann, and overwhelm
+the British column. It may have been the presence of their
+commander or a desire to have vengeance for the harrying which they
+had undergone upon the Natal border, but whatever the reason, the
+Boer attack was made with a spirit and dash which earned the
+enthusiastic applause of every soldier who survived to describe it.
+With the low roar of a great torrent, several hundred horsemen
+burst through the curtain of mist, riding at a furious pace for the
+British guns. The rear screen of Mounted Infantry fell back before
+this terrific rush, and the two bodies of horsemen came pell-mell
+down upon the handful of Buffs and the guns. The infantry were
+ridden into and surrounded by the Boers, who found nothing to stop
+them from galloping on to the low ridge upon which the guns were
+stationed. This ridge was held by eighty of the Scottish Horse and
+forty of the Yorkshire M.I., with a few riflemen from the 25th
+Mounted Infantry. The latter were the escort of the guns, but the
+former were the rear screen who had fallen back rapidly because it
+was the game to do so, but who were in no way shaken, and who
+instantly dismounted and formed when they reached a defensive
+position.
+
+These men had hardly time to take up their ground when the Boers
+were on them. With that extraordinary quickness to adapt their
+tactics to circumstances which is the chief military virtue of the
+Boers, the horsemen did not gallop over the crest, but lined the
+edge of it, and poured a withering fire on to the guns and the men
+beside them. The heroic nature of the defence can be best shown by
+the plain figures of the casualties. No rhetoric is needed to adorn
+that simple record. There were thirty-two gunners round the guns,
+and twenty-nine fell where they stood. Major Guinness was mortally
+wounded while endeavouring with his own hands to fire a round of
+case. There were sixty-two casualties out of eighty among the
+Scottish Horse, and the Yorkshires were practically annihilated.
+Altogether 123 men fell, out of about 160 on the ridge. 'Hard
+pounding, gentlemen,' as Wellington remarked at Waterloo, and
+British troops seemed as ready as ever to endure it.
+
+The gunners were, as usual, magnificent. Of the two little
+bullet-pelted groups of men around the guns there was not one who
+did not stand to his duty without flinching. Corporal Atkin was
+shot down with all his comrades, but still endeavoured with his
+failing strength to twist the breech-block out of the gun. Another
+bullet passed through his upraised hands as he did it. Sergeant
+Hayes, badly wounded, and the last survivor of the crew, seized the
+lanyard, crawled up the trail, and fired a last round before he
+fainted. Sergeant Mathews, with three bullets through him, kept
+steadily to his duty. Five drivers tried to bring up a limber and
+remove the gun, but all of them, with all the horses, were hit.
+There have been incidents in this war which have not increased our
+military reputation, but you might search the classical records of
+valour and fail to find anything finer than the consistent conduct
+of the British artillery.
+
+Colonel Benson was hit in the knee and again in the stomach, but
+wounded as he was he despatched a message back to Wools-Sampson,
+asking him to burst shrapnel over the ridge so as to prevent the
+Boers from carrying off the guns. The burghers had ridden in among
+the litter of dead and wounded men which marked the British
+position, and some of the baser of them, much against the will of
+their commanders, handled the injured soldiers with great
+brutality. The shell-fire drove them back, however, and the two
+guns were left standing alone, with no one near them save their
+prostrate gunners and escort.
+
+There has been some misunderstanding as to the part played by the
+Buffs in this action, and words have been used which seem to imply
+that they had in some way failed their mounted companions. It is
+due to the honour of one of the finest regiments in the British
+army to clear this up. As a matter of fact, the greater part of the
+regiment under Major Dauglish was engaged in defending the camp.
+Near the guns there were four separate small bodies of Buffs, none
+of which appears to have been detailed as an escort. One of these
+parties, consisting of thirty men under Lieutenant Greatwood, was
+ridden over by the horsemen, and the same fate befell a party of
+twenty who were far out upon the flank. Another small body under
+Lieutenant Lynch was over taken by the same charge, and was
+practically destroyed, losing nineteen killed and wounded out of
+thirty. In the rear of the guns was a larger body of Buffs, 130 in
+number, under Major Eales. When the guns were taken this handful
+attempted a counter-attack, but Eales soon saw that it was a
+hopeless effort, and he lost thirty of his men before he could
+extricate himself. Had these men been with the others on the gun
+ridge they might have restored the fight, but they had not reached
+it when the position was taken, and to persevere in the attempt to
+retake it would have led to certain disaster. The only just
+criticism to which the regiment is open is that, having just come
+off blockhouse duty, they were much out of condition, which caused
+the men to straggle and the movements to be unduly slow.
+
+It was fortunate that the command of the column devolved upon so
+experienced and cool-headed a soldier as Wools-Sampson. To attempt
+a counter-attack for the purpose of recapturing the guns would, in
+case of disaster, have risked the camp and the convoy. The latter
+was the prize which the Boers had particularly in view, and to
+expose it would be to play their game. Very wisely, therefore,
+Wools-Sampson held the attacking Boers off with his guns and his
+riflemen, while every spare pair of hands was set to work
+entrenching the position and making it impregnable against attack.
+Outposts were stationed upon all those surrounding points which
+might command the camp, and a summons to surrender from the Boer
+leader was treated with contempt. All day a long-range fire,
+occasionally very severe, rained upon the camp. Colonel Benson was
+brought in by the ambulance, and used his dying breath in exhorting
+his subordinate to hold out. 'No more night marches' are said to
+have been the last words spoken by this gallant soldier as he
+passed away in the early morning after the action. On October 31st
+the force remained on the defensive, but early on November 1st the
+gleaming of two heliographs, one to the north-east and one to the
+south-west, told that two British columns, those of De Lisle and of
+Barter, were hastening to the rescue. But the Boers had passed as
+the storm does, and nothing but their swathe of destruction was
+left to show where they had been. They had taken away the guns
+during the night, and were already beyond the reach of pursuit.
+
+Such was the action at Brakenlaagte, which cost the British sixty
+men killed and 170 wounded, together with two guns. Colonel Benson,
+Colonel Guinness, Captain Eyre Lloyd of the Guards, Major Murray
+and Captain Lindsay of the Scottish Horse, with seven other
+officers were among the dead, while sixteen officers were wounded.
+The net result of the action was that the British rear-guard had
+been annihilated, but that the main body and the convoy, which was
+the chief object of the attack, was saved. The Boer loss was
+considerable, being about one hundred and fifty. In spite of the
+Boer success nothing could suit the British better than hard
+fighting of the sort, since whatever the immediate result of it
+might be, it must necessarily cause a wastage among the enemy which
+could never be replaced. The gallantry of the Boer charge was only
+equalled by that of the resistance offered round the guns, and it
+is an action to which both sides can look back without shame or
+regret. It was feared that the captured guns would soon be used to
+break the blockhouse line, but nothing of the kind was attempted,
+and within a few weeks they were both recovered by British columns.
+
+In order to make a consecutive and intelligible narrative, I will
+continue with an account of the operations in this south-eastern
+portion of the Transvaal from the action of Brakenlaagte down to
+the end of the year 1901. These were placed in the early part of
+November, under the supreme command of General Bruce Hamilton, and
+that energetic commander set in motion a number of small columns,
+which effected numerous captures. He was much helped in his work by
+the new lines of blockhouses, one of which extended from Standerton
+to Ermelo, while another connected Brugspruit with Greylingstad.
+The huge country was thus cut into manageable districts, and the
+fruits were soon seen by the large returns of prisoners which came
+from this part of the seat of war.
+
+Upon December 3rd Bruce Hamilton, who had the valuable assistance
+of Wools-Sampson to direct his intelligence, struck swiftly out
+from Ermelo and fell upon a Boer laager in the early morning,
+capturing ninety-six prisoners. On the 10th he overwhelmed the
+Bethel commando by a similar march, killing seven and capturing
+131. Williams and Wing commanded separate columns in this
+operation, and their energy may be judged from the fact that they
+covered fifty-one miles during the twenty-four hours. On the 12th
+Hamilton's columns were on the war-path once more, and another
+commando was wiped out. Sixteen killed and seventy prisoners were
+the fruits of this expedition. For the second time in a week the
+columns had done their fifty miles a day, and it was no surprise to
+hear from their commander that they were in need of a rest. Nearly
+four hundred prisoners had been taken from the most warlike portion
+of the Transvaal in ten days by one energetic commander, with a
+list of twenty-five casualties to ourselves. The thanks of the
+Secretary of War were specially sent to him for his brilliant work.
+From then until the end of the year 1901, numbers of smaller
+captures continued to be reported from the same region, where
+Plumer, Spens, Mackenzie, Rawlinson, and others were working. On
+the other hand there was one small setback which occurred to a body
+of two hundred Mounted Infantry under Major Bridgford, who had been
+detached from Spens's column to search some farmhouses at a place
+called Holland, to the south of Ermelo. The expedition set forth
+upon the night of December 19th, and next morning surrounded and
+examined the farms.
+
+The British force became divided in doing this work, and were
+suddenly attacked by several hundred of Britz's commando, who came
+to close quarters through their khaki dress, which enabled them to
+pass as Plumer's vanguard. The brunt of the fight fell upon an
+outlying body of fifty men, nearly all of whom were killed, wounded
+or taken. A second body of fifty men were overpowered in the same
+way, after a creditable defence. Fifteen of the British were killed
+and thirty wounded, while Bridgford the commander was also taken.
+Spens came up shortly afterwards with the column, and the Boers
+were driven off. There seems every reason to think that upon this
+occasion the plans of the British had leaked out, and that a
+deliberate ambush had been laid for them round the farms, but in
+such operations these are chances against which it is not always
+possible to guard. Considering the number of the Boers, and the
+cleverness of their dispositions, the British were fortunate in
+being able to extricate their force without greater loss, a feat
+which was largely due to the leading of Lieutenant Sterling.
+
+Leaving the Eastern Transvaal, the narrative must now return to
+several incidents of importance which had occurred at various
+points of the seat of war during the latter months of 1901.
+
+On September 19th, two days after Gough's disaster, a misfortune
+occurred near Bloemfontein by which two guns and a hundred and
+forty men fell temporarily into the hands of the enemy. These guns,
+belonging to U battery, were moving south under an escort of
+Mounted Infantry, from that very Sanna's Post which had been so
+fatal to the same battery eighteen months before. When fifteen
+miles south of the Waterworks, at a place called Vlakfontein
+(another Vlakfontein from that of General Dixon's engagement), the
+small force was surrounded and captured by Ackermann's commando.
+The gunner officer, Lieutenant Barry, died beside his guns in the
+way that gunner officers have. Guns and men were taken, however,
+the latter to be released, and the former to be recovered a week or
+two later by the British columns. It is certainly a credit to the
+Boers that the spring campaign should have opened by four British
+guns falling into their hands, and it is impossible to withhold our
+admiration for those gallant farmers who, after two years of
+exhausting warfare, were still able to turn upon a formidable and
+victorious enemy, and to renovate their supplies at his expense.
+
+Two days later, hard on the heels of Gough's mishap, of the
+Vlakfontein incident, and of the annihilation of the squadron of
+Lancers in the Cape, there was a serious affair at Elands Kloof,
+near Zastron, in the extreme south of the Orange River Colony. In
+this a detachment of the Highland Scouts raised by the public
+spirit of Lord Lovat was surprised at night and very severely
+handled by Kritzinger's commando. The loss of Colonel Murray, their
+commander, of the adjutant of the same name, and of forty-two out
+of eighty of the Scouts, shows how fell was the attack, which broke
+as sudden and as strong as a South African thunderstorm upon the
+unconscious camp. The Boers appear to have eluded the outposts and
+crept right among the sleeping troops, as they did in the case of
+the Victorians at Wilmansrust. Twelve gunners were also hit, and
+the only field gun taken. The retiring Boers were swiftly followed
+up by Thorneycroft's column, however, and the gun was retaken,
+together with twenty of Kritzinger's men. It must be confessed that
+there seems some irony in the fact that, within five days of the
+British ruling by which the Boers were no longer a military force,
+these non-belligerents had inflicted a loss of nearly six hundred
+men killed, wounded, or taken. Two small commandos, that of Koch in
+the Orange River Colony, and that of Carolina, had been captured by
+Williams and Benson. Combined they only numbered a hundred and nine
+men, but here, as always, they were men who could never be
+replaced.
+
+Those who had followed the war with care, and had speculated upon
+the future, were prepared on hearing of Botha's movement upon Natal
+to learn that De la Rey had also made some energetic attack in the
+western quarter of the Transvaal. Those who had formed this
+expectation were not disappointed, for upon the last day of
+September the Boer chief struck fiercely at Kekewich's column in a
+vigorous night attack, which led to as stern an encounter as any in
+the campaign. This was the action at Moedwill, near Magato Nek, in
+the Magaliesberg.
+
+When last mentioned De la Rey was in the Marico district, near
+Zeerust, where he fought two actions with Methuen in the early part
+of September. Thence he made his way to Rustenburg and into the
+Magaliesberg country, where he joined Kemp. The Boer force was
+followed up by two British columns under Kekewich and
+Fetherstonhaugh. The former commander had camped upon the night of
+Sunday, September 30th, at the farm of Moedwill, in a strong
+position within a triangle formed by the Selous River on the west,
+a donga on the east, and the Zeerust-Rustenburg road as a base. The
+apex of the triangle pointed north, with a ridge on the farther
+side of the river.
+
+The men with Kekewich were for the most part the same as those who
+had fought in the Vlakfontein engagement--the Derbys, the 1st
+Scottish Horse, the Yeomanry, and the 28th R.F.A. Every precaution
+appears to have been taken by the leader, and his pickets were
+thrown out so far that ample warning was assured of an attack. The
+Boer onslaught came so suddenly and fiercely, however, in the early
+morning, that the posts upon the river bank were driven in or
+destroyed and the riflemen from the ridge on the farther side were
+able to sweep the camp with their fire. In numbers the two forces
+were not unequal, but the Boers had already obtained the tactical
+advantage, and were playing a game in which they are the
+schoolmasters of the world. Never has the British spirit flamed up
+more fiercely, and from the commander to the latest yeoman recruit
+there was not a man who flinched from a difficult and almost a
+desperate task. The Boers must at all hazard be driven from the
+position which enabled them to command the camp. No retreat was
+possible without such an abandonment of stores as would amount to a
+disaster. In the confusion and the uncertain light of early dawn
+there was no chance of a concerted movement, though Kekewich made
+such dispositions as were possible with admirable coolness and
+promptness. Squadrons and companies closed in upon the river bank
+with the one thought of coming to close quarters and driving the
+enemy from their commanding position. Already more than half the
+horses and a very large number of officers and men had gone down
+before the pelting bullets. Scottish Horse, Yeomanry, and Derbys
+pushed on, the young soldiers of the two former corps keeping pace
+with the veteran regiment. 'All the men behaved simply splendidly,'
+said a spectator, 'taking what little cover there was and advancing
+yard by yard. An order was given to try and saddle up a squadron,
+with the idea of getting round their flank. I had the saddle almost
+on one of my ponies when he was hit in two places. Two men trying
+to saddle alongside of me were both shot dead, and Lieutenant
+Wortley was shot through the knee. I ran back to where I had been
+firing from and found the Colonel slightly hit, the Adjutant
+wounded and dying, and men dead and wounded all round.' But the
+counter-attack soon began to make way. At first the advance was
+slow, but soon it quickened into a magnificent rush, the wounded
+Kekewich whooping on his men, and the guns coming into action as
+the enemy began to fall back before the fierce charge of the
+British riflemen. At six o'clock De la Rey's burghers had seen that
+their attempt was hopeless, and were in full retreat--a retreat
+which could not be harassed by the victors, whose cavalry had been
+converted by that hail of bullets into footmen. The repulse had
+been absolute and complete, for not a man or a cartridge had been
+taken from the British, but the price paid in killed and wounded
+was a heavy one. No fewer than 161 had been hit, including the
+gallant leader, whose hurt did not prevent him from resuming his
+duties within a few days. The heaviest losses fell upon the
+Scottish Horse, and upon the Derbys; but the Yeomanry also proved
+on this, as on some other occasions, how ungenerous were the
+criticisms to which they had been exposed. There are few actions in
+the war which appear to have been more creditable to the troops
+engaged.
+
+Though repulsed at Moedwill, De la Rey, the grim, long-bearded
+fighting man, was by no means discouraged. From the earliest days
+of the campaign, when he first faced Methuen upon the road to
+Kimberley, he had shown that he was a most dangerous antagonist,
+tenacious, ingenious, and indomitable. With him were a body of
+irreconcilable burghers, who were the veterans of many engagements,
+and in Kemp he had an excellent fighting subordinate. His command
+extended over a wide stretch of populous country, and at any time
+he could bring considerable reinforcements to his aid, who would
+separate again to their farms and hiding-places when their venture
+was accomplished. For some weeks after the fight at Moedwill the
+Boer forces remained quiet in that district. Two British columns
+had left Zeerust on October 17th, under Methuen and Von Donop, in
+order to sweep the surrounding country, the one working in the
+direction of Elands River and the other in that of Rustenburg. They
+returned to Zeerust twelve days later, after a successful foray,
+which had been attended with much sniping and skirmishing, but only
+one action which is worthy of record.
+
+This was fought on October 24th at a spot near Kleinfontein, upon
+the Great Marico River, which runs to the north-east of Zeerust.
+Von Donop's column was straggling through very broken and
+bush-covered country when it was furiously charged in the flank and
+rear by two separate bodies of burghers. Kemp, who commanded the
+flank attack, cut into the line of wagons and destroyed eight of
+them, killing many of the Kaffir drivers, before he could be driven
+off. De la Rey and Steenkamp, who rushed the rear-guard, had a more
+desperate contest. The Boer horsemen got among the two guns of the
+4th R.F.A., and held temporary possession of them, but the small
+escort were veterans of the 'Fighting Fifth,' who lived up to the
+traditions of their famous north-country regiment. Of the gun crews
+of the section, amounting to about twenty-six men, the young
+officer, Hill, and sixteen men were hit. Of the escort of
+Northumberland Fusiliers hardly a man was left standing, and
+forty-one of the supporting Yeomanry were killed and wounded. It
+was for some little time a fierce and concentrated struggle at the
+shortest of ranges. The British horsemen came galloping to the
+rescue, however, and the attack was finally driven back into that
+broken country from which it had come. Forty dead Boers upon the
+ground, with their brave chieftain, Ouisterhuisen, amongst them,
+showed how manfully the attack had been driven home. The British
+losses were twenty-eight killed and fifty-six wounded. Somewhat
+mauled, and with eight missing wagons, the small column made its
+way back to Zeerust.
+
+From this incident until the end of the year nothing of importance
+occurred in this part of the seat of war, save for a sharp and
+well-managed action at Beestekraal upon October 29th, in which
+seventy-nine Boers were surrounded and captured by Kekewich's
+horsemen. The process of attrition went very steadily forwards, and
+each of the British columns returned its constant tale of
+prisoners. The blockhouse system had now been extended to such an
+extent that the Magaliesberg was securely held, and a line had been
+pushed through from Klerksdorp and Fredericstad to Ventersdorp. One
+of Colonel Hickie's Yeomanry patrols was roughly handled near
+Brakspruit upon November 13th, but with this exception the points
+scored were all upon one side. Methuen and Kekewich came across
+early in November from Zeerust to Klerksdorp, and operated from the
+railway line. The end of the year saw them both in the Wolmaranstad
+district, where they were gathering up prisoners and clearing the
+country.
+
+Of the events in the other parts of the Transvaal, during the last
+three months of the year 1901, there is not much to be said. In all
+parts the lines of blockhouses and of constabulary posts were
+neutralising the Boer mobility, and bringing them more and more
+within reach of the British. The only fighting forces left in the
+Transvaal were those under Botha in the south-east and those under
+De la Rey in the west. The others attempted nothing save to escape
+from their pursuers, and when overtaken they usually gave in
+without serious opposition. Among the larger hauls may be mentioned
+that of Dawkins in the Nylstrom district (seventy-six prisoners),
+Kekewich (seventy-eight), Colenbrander in the north (fifty-seven),
+Dawkins and Colenbrander (104), Colenbrander (sixty-two); but the
+great majority of the captures were in smaller bodies, gleaned from
+the caves, the kloofs, and the farmhouses.
+
+Only two small actions during these months appear to call for any
+separate notice. The first was an attack made by Buys' commando,
+upon November 20th, on the Railway Pioneers when at work near
+Villiersdorp, in the extreme north-east of the Orange River Colony.
+This corps, consisting mainly of miners from Johannesburg, had done
+invaluable service during the war. On this occasion a working party
+of them was suddenly attacked, and most of them taken prisoners.
+Major Fisher, who commanded the pioneers, was killed, and three
+other officers with several men were wounded. Colonel Rimington's
+column appeared upon the scene, however, and drove off the Boers,
+who left their leader, Buys, a wounded prisoner in our hands.
+
+The second action was a sharp attack delivered by Muller's Boers
+upon Colonel Park's column on the night of December 19th, at
+Elandspruit. The fight was sharp while it lasted, but it ended in
+the repulse of the assailants. The British casualties were six
+killed and twenty-four wounded. The Boers, who left eight dead
+behind them, suffered probably to about the same extent.
+
+Already the most striking and pleasing feature in the Transvaal was
+the tranquillity of its central provinces, and the way in which the
+population was settling down to its old avocations. Pretoria had
+resumed its normal quiet life, while its larger and more energetic
+neighbour was rapidly recovering from its two years of paralysis.
+Every week more stamps were dropped in the mines, and from month to
+month a steady increase in the output showed that the great staple
+industry of the place would soon be as vigorous as ever. Most
+pleasing of all was the restoration of safety upon the railway
+lines, which, save for some precautions at night, had resumed their
+normal traffic. When the observer took his eyes from the dark
+clouds which shadowed every horizon, he could not but rejoice at
+the ever-widening central stretch of peaceful blue which told that
+the storm was nearing its end.
+
+Having now dealt with the campaign in the Transvaal down to the end
+of 1901, it only remains to bring the chronicle of the events in
+the Orange River Colony down to the same date. Reference has
+already been made to two small British reverses which occurred in
+September, the loss of two guns to the south of the Waterworks near
+Bloemfontein, and the surprise of the camp of Lord Lovat's Scouts.
+There were some indications at this time that a movement had been
+planned through the passes of the Drakensberg by a small Free State
+force which should aid Louis Botha's invasion of Natal. The main
+movement was checked, however, and the demonstration in aid of it
+came to nothing.
+
+The blockhouse system had been developed to a very complete extent
+in the Orange River Colony, and the small bands of Boers found it
+increasingly difficult to escape from the British columns who were
+for ever at their heels. The southern portion of the country had
+been cut off from the northern by a line which extended through
+Bloemfontein on the east to the Basuto frontier, and on the west to
+Jacobsdal. To the south of this line the Boer resistance had
+practically ceased, although several columns moved continually
+through it, and gleaned up the broken fragments of the commandos.
+The north-west had also settled down to a large extent, and during
+the last three months of 1901 no action of importance occurred in
+that region. Even in the turbulent north-east, which had always
+been the centre of resistance, there was little opposition to the
+British columns, which continued every week to send in their tale
+of prisoners. Of the column commanders, Williams, Damant, Du
+Moulin, Lowry Cole, and Wilson were the most successful. In their
+operations they were much aided by the South African Constabulary.
+One young officer of this force, Major Pack-Beresford, especially
+distinguished himself by his gallantry and ability. His premature
+death from enteric was a grave loss to the British army. Save for
+one skirmish of Colonel Wilson's early in October, and another of
+Byng's on November 14th, there can hardly be said to have been any
+actual fighting until the events late in December which I am about
+to describe.
+
+In the meanwhile the peaceful organisation of the country was being
+pushed forward as rapidly as in the Transvaal, although here the
+problems presented were of a different order, and the population an
+exclusively Dutch one. The schools already showed a higher
+attendance than in the days before the war, while a continual
+stream of burghers presented themselves to take the oath of
+allegiance, and even to join the ranks against their own
+irreconcilable countrymen, whom they looked upon with justice as
+the real authors of their troubles.
+
+Towards the end of November there were signs that the word had gone
+forth for a fresh concentration of the fighting Boers in their old
+haunts in the Heilbron district, and early in December it was known
+that the indefatigable De Wet was again in the field. He had
+remained quiet so long that there had been persistent rumours of
+his injury and even of his death, but he was soon to show that he
+was as alive as ever. President Steyn was ill of a most serious
+complaint, caused possibly by the mental and physical sufferings
+which he had undergone; but with an indomitable resolution which
+makes one forget and forgive the fatuous policy which brought him
+and his State to such a pass, he still appeared in his Cape cart at
+the laager of the faithful remnant of his commandos. To those who
+remembered how widespread was our conviction of the
+half-heartedness of the Free Staters at the outbreak of the war, it
+was indeed a revelation to see them after two years still making a
+stand against the forces which had crushed them.
+
+It had been long evident that the present British tactics of
+scouring the country and capturing the isolated burghers must in
+time bring the war to a conclusion. From the Boer point of view the
+only hope, or at least the only glory, lay in reassembling once
+more in larger bodies and trying conclusions with some of the
+British columns. It was with this purpose that De Wet early in
+December assembled Wessels, Manie Botha, and others of his
+lieutenants, together with a force of about two thousand men, in
+the Heilbron district. Small as this force was, it was admirably
+mobile, and every man in it was a veteran, toughened and seasoned
+by two years of constant fighting. De Wet's first operations were
+directed against an isolated column of Colonel Wilson's, which was
+surrounded within twenty miles of Heilbron. Rimington, in response
+to a heliographic call for assistance, hurried with admirable
+promptitude to the scene of action, and joined hands with Wilson.
+De Wet's men were as numerous, however, as the two columns
+combined, and they harassed the return march into Heilbron. A
+determined attack was made on the convoy and on the rearguard, but
+it was beaten off. That night Rimington's camp was fired into by a
+large body of Boers, but he had cleverly moved his men away from
+the fires, so that no harm was done. The losses in these operations
+were small, but with troops which had not been trained in this
+method of fighting the situation would have been a serious one. For
+a fortnight or more after this the burghers contented themselves by
+skirmishing with British columns and avoiding a drive which
+Elliot's forces made against them. On December 18th they took the
+offensive, however, and within a week fought three actions, two of
+which ended in their favour.
+
+News had come to British headquarters that Kaffir's Kop, to the
+north-west of Bethlehem, was a centre of Boer activity. Three
+columns were therefore turned in that direction, Elliot's,
+Barker's, and Dartnell's. Some desultory skirmishing ensued, which
+was only remarkable for the death of Haasbroek, a well-known Boer
+leader. As the columns separated again, unable to find an
+objective, De Wet suddenly showed one of them that their failure
+was not due to his absence. Dartnell had retraced his steps nearly
+as far as Eland's River Bridge, when the Boer leader sprang out of
+his lair in the Langberg and threw himself upon him. The burghers
+attempted to ride in, as they had successfully done at
+Brakenlaagte, but they were opposed by the steady old troopers of
+the two regiments of Imperial Horse, and by a General who was
+familiar with every Boer ruse. The horsemen never got nearer than
+150 yards to the British line, and were beaten back by the steady
+fire which met them. Finding that he made no headway, and learning
+that Campbell's column was coming up from Bethlehem, De Wet
+withdrew his men after four hours' fighting. Fifteen were hit upon
+the British side, and the Boer loss seems to have been certainly as
+great or greater.
+
+De Wet's general aim in his operations seems to have been to check
+the British blockhouse building. With his main force in the
+Langberg he could threaten the line which was now being erected
+between Bethlehem and Harrismith, a line against which his main
+commando was destined, only two months later, to beat itself in
+vain. Sixty miles to the north a second line was being run across
+country from Frankfort to Standerton, and had reached a place
+called Tafelkop. A covering party of East Lancashires and Yeomanry
+watched over the workers, but De Wet had left a portion of his
+force in that neighbourhood, and they harassed the blockhouse
+builders to such an extent that General Hamilton, who was in
+command, found it necessary to send in to Frankfort for support.
+The British columns there had just returned exhausted from a drive,
+but three bodies under Damant, Rimington, and Wilson were at once
+despatched to clear away the enemy.
+
+The weather was so atrocious that the veld resembled an inland sea,
+with the kopjes as islands rising out of it. By this stage of the
+war the troops were hardened to all weathers, and they pushed
+swiftly on to the scene of action. As they approached the spot
+where the Boers had been reported, the line had been extended over
+many miles, with the result that it had become very attenuated and
+dangerously weak in the centre. At this point Colonel Damant and
+his small staff were alone with the two guns and the maxim, save
+for a handful of Imperial Yeomanry (91st), who acted as escort to
+the guns. Across the face of this small force there rode a body of
+men in khaki uniforms, keeping British formation, and actually
+firing bogus volleys from time to time in the direction of some
+distant Boers. Damant and his staff seem to have taken it for
+granted that these were Rimington's men, and the clever ruse
+succeeded to perfection. Nearer and nearer came the strangers, and
+suddenly throwing off all disguise, they made a dash for the guns.
+Four rounds of case failed to stop them, and in a few minutes they
+were over the kopje on which the guns stood and had ridden among
+the gunners, supported in their attack by a flank fire from a
+number of dismounted riflemen.
+
+The instant that the danger was realised Damant, his staff, and the
+forty Yeomen who formed the escort dashed for the crest in the hope
+of anticipating the Boers. So rapid was the charge of the others
+that they had overwhelmed the gunners before the supports could
+reach the hill, and the latter found themselves under the deadly
+fire of the Boer rifles from above. Damant was hit in four places,
+all of his staff were wounded, and hardly a man of the small body
+of Yeomanry was left standing. Nothing could exceed their
+gallantry. Gaussen their captain fell at their head. On the ridge
+the men about the guns were nearly all killed or wounded. Of the
+gun detachment only two men remained, both of them hit, and
+Jeffcoat their dying captain bequeathed them fifty pounds each in a
+will drawn upon the spot. In half an hour the centre of the British
+line had been absolutely annihilated. Modern warfare is on the
+whole much less bloody than of old, but when one party has gained
+the tactical mastery it is a choice between speedy surrender and
+total destruction.
+
+The wide-spread British wings had begun to understand that there
+was something amiss, and to ride in towards the centre. An officer
+on the far right peering through his glasses saw those tell-tale
+puffs at the very muzzles of the British guns, which showed that
+they were firing case at close quarters. He turned his squadron
+inwards and soon gathered up Scott's squadron of Damant's Horse,
+and both rode for the kopje. Rimington's men were appearing on the
+other side, and the Boers rode off. They were unable to remove the
+guns which they had taken, because all the horses had perished. 'I
+actually thought,' says one officer who saw them ride away, 'that I
+had made a mistake and been fighting our own men. They were dressed
+in our uniforms and some of them wore the tiger-skin, the badge of
+Damant's Horse, round their hats.' The same officer gives an
+account of the scene on the gun-kopje. 'The result when we got to
+the guns was this, gunners all killed except two (both wounded),
+pom-pom officers and men all killed, maxim all killed, 91st (the
+gun escort) one officer and one man not hit, all the rest killed or
+wounded; staff, every officer hit.' That is what it means to those
+who are caught in the vortex of the cyclone. The total loss was
+about seventy-five.
+
+In this action the Boers, who were under the command of Wessels,
+delivered their attack with a cleverness and dash which deserved
+success. Their stratagem, however, depending as it did upon the use
+of British uniforms and methods, was illegitimate by all the laws
+of war, and one can but marvel at the long-suffering patience of
+officers and men who endured such things without any attempt at
+retaliation. There is too much reason to believe also, that
+considerable brutality was shown by those Boers who carried the
+kopje, and the very high proportion of killed to wounded among the
+British who lay there corroborates the statement of the survivors
+that several were shot at close quarters after all resistance had
+ceased.
+
+This rough encounter of Tafelkop was followed only four days later
+by a very much more serious one at Tweefontein, which proved that
+even after two years of experience we had not yet sufficiently
+understood the courage and the cunning of our antagonist. The
+blockhouse line was being gradually extended from Harrismith to
+Bethlehem, so as to hold down this turbulent portion of the
+country. The Harrismith section had been pushed as far as
+Tweefontein, which is nine miles west of Elands River Bridge, and
+here a small force was stationed to cover the workers. This column
+consisted of four squadrons of the 4th Imperial Yeomanry, one gun
+of the 79th battery, and one pom-pom, the whole under the temporary
+command of Major Williams of the South Staffords, Colonel Firmin
+being absent.
+
+Knowing that De Wet and his men were in the neighbourhood, the camp
+of the Yeomen had been pitched in a position which seemed to secure
+it against attack. A solitary kopje presented a long slope to the
+north, while the southern end was precipitous. The outposts were
+pushed well out upon the plain, and a line of sentries was placed
+along the crest. The only precaution which seems to have been
+neglected was to have other outposts at the base of the southern
+declivity. It appears to have been taken for granted, however, that
+no attack was to be apprehended from that side, and that in any
+case it would be impossible to evade the vigilance of the sentries
+upon the top.
+
+Of all the daring and skilful attacks delivered by the Boers during
+the war there is certainly none more remarkable than this one. At
+two o'clock in the morning of a moonlight night De Wet's forlorn
+hope assembled at the base of the hill and clambered up to the
+summit. The fact that it was Christmas Eve may conceivably have had
+something to do with the want of vigilance upon the part of the
+sentries. In a season of good will and conviviality the rigour of
+military discipline may insensibly relax. Little did the sleeping
+Yeomen in the tents, or the drowsy outposts upon the crest, think
+of the terrible Christmas visitors who were creeping on to them, or
+of the grim morning gift which Santa Claus was bearing.
+
+The Boers, stealing up in their stockinged feet, poured under the
+crest until they were numerous enough to make a rush. It is almost
+inconceivable how they could have got so far without their presence
+being suspected by the sentries--but so it was. At last, feeling
+strong enough to advance, they sprang over the crest and fired into
+the pickets, and past them into the sleeping camp. The top of the
+hill being once gained, there was nothing to prevent their comrades
+from swarming up, and in a very few minutes nearly a thousand Boers
+were in a position to command the camp. The British were not only
+completely outnumbered, but were hurried from their sleep into the
+fight without any clear idea as to the danger or how to meet it,
+while the hissing sleet of bullets struck many of them down as they
+rushed out of their tents. Considering how terrible the ordeal was
+to which they were exposed, these untried Yeomen seem to have
+behaved very well. 'Some brave gentlemen ran away at the first
+shot, but I am thankful to say they were not many,' says one of
+their number. The most veteran troops would have been tried very
+high had they been placed in such a position. 'The noise and the
+clamour,' says one spectator, 'were awful. The yells of the Dutch,
+the screams and shrieks of dying men and horses, the cries of
+natives, howls of dogs, the firing, the galloping of horses, the
+whistling of bullets, and the whirr volleys make in the air, made
+up such a compound of awful and diabolical sounds as I never heard
+before nor hope to hear again. In the confusion some of the men
+killed each other and some killed themselves. Two Boers who put on
+helmets were killed by their own people. The men were given no time
+to rally or to collect their thoughts, for the gallant Boers barged
+right into them, shooting them down, and occasionally being shot
+down, at a range of a few yards. Harwich and Watney, who had charge
+of the maxim, died nobly with all the men of their gun section
+round them. Reed, the sergeant-major, rushed at the enemy with his
+clubbed rifle, but was riddled with bullets. Major Williams, the
+commander, was shot through the stomach as he rallied his men. The
+gunners had time to fire two rounds before they were overpowered
+and shot down to a man. For half an hour the resistance was
+maintained, but at the end of that time the Boers had the whole
+camp in their possession, and were already hastening to get their
+prisoners away before the morning should bring a rescue.
+
+The casualties are in themselves enough to show how creditable was
+the resistance of the Yeomanry. Out of a force of under four
+hundred men they had six officers and fifty-one men killed, eight
+officers and eighty men wounded. There have been very few
+surrenders during the war in which there has been such evidence as
+this of a determined stand. Nor was it a bloodless victory upon the
+part of the Boers, for there was evidence that their losses, though
+less than those of the British, were still severe.
+
+The prisoners, over two hundred in number, were hurried away by the
+Boers, who seemed under the immediate eye of De Wet to have behaved
+with exemplary humanity to the wounded. The captives were taken by
+forced marches to the Basuto border, where they were turned adrift,
+half clad and without food. By devious ways and after many
+adventures, they all made their way back again to the British
+lines. It was well for De Wet that he had shown such promptness in
+getting away, for within three hours of the end of the action the
+two regiments of Imperial Horse appeared upon the scene, having
+travelled seventeen miles in the time. Already, however, the
+rearguard of the Boers was disappearing into the fastness of the
+Langberg, where all pursuit was vain.
+
+Such was the short but vigorous campaign of De Wet in the last part
+of December of the year 1901. It had been a brilliant one, but none
+the less his bolt was shot, and Tweefontein was the last encounter
+in which British troops should feel his heavy hand. His operations,
+bold as they had been, had not delayed by a day the building of
+that iron cage which was gradually enclosing him. Already it was
+nearly completed, and in a few more weeks he was destined to find
+himself and his commando struggling against bars.
+
+CHAPTER 37.
+
+THE CAMPAIGN OF JANUARY TO APRIL, 1902.
+
+At the opening of the year 1902 it was evident to every observer
+that the Boer resistance, spirited as it was, must be nearing its
+close. By a long succession of captures their forces were much
+reduced in numbers. They were isolated from the world, and had no
+means save precarious smuggling of renewing their supplies of
+ammunition. It was known also that their mobility, which had been
+their great strength, was decreasing, and that in spite of their
+admirable horsemastership their supply of remounts was becoming
+exhausted. An increasing number of the burghers were volunteering
+for service against their own people, and it was found that all
+fears as to this delicate experiment were misplaced, and that in
+the whole army there were no keener and more loyal soldiers.
+
+The chief factor, however, in bringing the Boers to their knees was
+the elaborate and wonderful blockhouse system, which had been
+strung across the whole of the enemy's country. The original
+blockhouses had been far apart, and were a hindrance and an
+annoyance rather than an absolute barrier to the burghers. The new
+models, however, were only six hundred yards apart, and were
+connected by such impenetrable strands of wire that a Boer pithily
+described it by saying that if one's hat blew over the line
+anywhere between Ermelo and Standerton one had to walk round Ermelo
+to fetch it. Use was made of such barriers by the Spaniards in
+Cuba, but an application of them on such a scale over such an
+enormous tract of country is one of the curiosities of warfare, and
+will remain one of several novelties which will make the South
+African campaign for ever interesting to students of military
+history.
+
+The spines of this great system were always the railway lines,
+which were guarded on either side, and down which, as down a road,
+went flocks, herds, pedestrians, and everything which wished to
+travel in safety. From these long central cords the lines branched
+out to right and left, cutting up the great country into manageable
+districts. A category of them would but weary the reader, but
+suffice it that by the beginning of the year the south-east of the
+Transvaal and the north-east of the Orange River Colony, the haunts
+of Botha and De Wet, had been so intersected that it was obvious
+that the situation must soon be impossible for both of them. Only
+on the west of the Transvaal was there a clear run for De la Rey
+and Kemp. Hence it was expected, as actually occurred, that in this
+quarter the most stirring events of the close of the campaign would
+happen.
+
+General Bruce Hamilton in the Eastern Transvaal had continued the
+energetic tactics which had given such good results in the past.
+With the new year his number of prisoners fell, but he had taken so
+many, and had hustled the remainder to such an extent, that the
+fight seemed to have gone out of the Boers in this district. On
+January 1st be presented the first-fruits of the year in the shape
+of twenty-two of Grobler's burghers. On the 3rd he captured
+forty-nine, while Wing, co-operating with him, took twenty more.
+Among these was General Erasmus, who had helped, or failed to help,
+General Lucas Meyer at Talana Hill. On the 10th Colonel Wing's
+column, which was part of Hamilton's force, struck out again and
+took forty-two prisoners, including the two Wolmarans. Only two
+days later Hamilton returned to the same spot, and was rewarded
+with thirty-two more captures. On the 18th he took twenty-seven, on
+the 24th twelve, and on the 26th no fewer than ninety. So severe
+were these blows, and so difficult was it for the Boers to know how
+to get away from an antagonist who was ready to ride thirty miles
+in a night in order to fall upon their laager, that the enemy
+became much scattered and too demoralised for offensive operations.
+Finding that they had grown too shy in this much shot over
+district, Hamilton moved farther south, and early in March took a
+cast round the Vryheid district, where he made some captures,
+notably General Cherry Emmett, a descendant of the famous Irish
+rebel, and brother-in-law of Louis Botha. For all these repeated
+successes it was to the Intelligence Department, so admirably
+controlled by Colonel Wools-Sampson, that thanks are mainly due.
+
+Whilst Bruce Hamilton was operating so successfully in the Ermelo
+district, several British columns under Plumer, Spens, and Colville
+were stationed some fifty miles south to prevent the fugitives from
+getting away into the mountainous country which lies to the north
+of Wakkerstroom. On January 3rd a small force of Plumer's New
+Zealanders had a brisk skirmish with a party of Boers, whose cattle
+they captured, though at some loss to themselves. These Boers were
+strongly reinforced, however, and when on the following day Major
+Vallentin pursued them with fifty men he found himself at
+Onverwacht in the presence of several hundred of the enemy, led by
+Oppermann and Christian Botha. Vallentin was killed and almost all
+of his small force were hit before British reinforcements, under
+Colonel Pulteney, drove the Boers off. Nineteen killed and
+twenty-three wounded were our losses in this most sanguinary little
+skirmish. Nine dead Boers, with Oppermann himself, were left upon
+the field of battle. His loss was a serious one to the enemy, as he
+was one of their most experienced Generals.
+
+From that time until the end these columns, together with
+Mackenzie's column to the north of Ermelo, continued to break up
+all combinations, and to send in their share of prisoners to swell
+Lord Kitchener's weekly list. A final drive, organised on April
+11th against the Standerton line, resulted in 134 prisoners.
+
+In spite of the very large army in South Africa, so many men were
+absorbed by the huge lines of communications and the blockhouse
+system that the number available for active operations was never
+more than forty or fifty thousand men. With another fifty thousand
+there is no doubt that at least six months would have been taken
+from the duration of the war. On account of this shorthandedness
+Lord Kitchener had to leave certain districts alone, while he
+directed his attention to those which were more essential. Thus to
+the north of the Delagoa Railway line there was only one town,
+Lydenburg, which was occupied by the British. They had, however, an
+energetic commander in Park of the Devons. This leader, striking
+out from his stronghold among the mountains, and aided by Urmston
+from Belfast, kept the commando of Ben Viljoen and the peripatetic
+Government of Schalk Burger continually upon the move. As already
+narrated, Park fought a sharp night action upon December 19th,
+after which, in combination with Urmston, he occupied Dulstroom,
+only missing the government by a few hours. In January Park and
+Urmston were again upon the war-path, though the incessant winds,
+fogs, and rains of that most inclement portion of the Transvaal
+seriously hampered their operations. Several skirmishes with the
+commandos of Muller and Trichardt gave no very decisive result, but
+a piece of luck befell the British on January 25th in the capture
+of General Viljoen by an ambuscade cleverly arranged by Major Orr
+in the neighbourhood of Lydenburg. Though a great firebrand before
+the war, Viljoen had fought bravely and honourably throughout the
+contest, and he had won the respect and esteem of his enemy.
+
+Colonel Park had had no great success in his last two expeditions,
+but on February 20th he made an admirable march, and fell upon a
+Boer laager which lay in placid security in the heart of the hills.
+One hundred and sixty-four prisoners, including many Boer officers,
+were the fruits of this success, in which the National Scouts, or
+'tame Boers,' as they were familiarly called, played a prominent
+part. This commando was that of Middelburg, which was acting as
+escort to the government, who again escaped dissolution. Early in
+March Park was again out on trek, upon one occasion covering
+seventy miles in a single day. Nothing further of importance came
+from this portion of the seat of war until March 23rd, when the
+news reached England that Schalk Burger, Reitz, Lucas Meyer, and
+others of the Transvaal Government had come into Middelburg, and
+that they were anxious to proceed to Pretoria to treat. On the
+Eastern horizon had appeared the first golden gleam of the dawning
+peace.
+
+Having indicated the course of events in the Eastern Transvaal,
+north and south of the railway line, I will now treat one or two
+incidents which occurred in the more central and northern portions
+of the country. I will then give some account of De Wet's doings in
+the Orange River Colony, and finally describe that brilliant effort
+of De la Rey's in the west which shed a last glory upon the Boer
+arms.
+
+In the latter days of December, Colenbrander and Dawkins operating
+together had put in a great deal of useful work in the northern
+district, and from Nylstrom to Pietersburg the burghers were
+continually harried by the activity of these leaders. Late in the
+month Dawkins was sent down into the Orange River Colony in order
+to reinforce the troops who were opposed to De Wet. Colenbrander
+alone, with his hardy colonial forces, swept through the
+Magaliesburg, and had the double satisfaction of capturing a number
+of the enemy and of heading off and sending back a war party of
+Linchwe's Kaffirs who, incensed by a cattle raid of Kemp's, were
+moving down in a direction which would have brought them
+dangerously near to the Dutch women and children. This instance and
+several similar ones in the campaign show how vile are the lies
+which have been told of the use, save under certain well-defined
+conditions, of armed natives by the British during the war. It
+would have been a perfectly easy thing at any time for the
+Government to have raised all the fighting native races of South
+Africa, but it is not probable that we, who held back our admirable
+and highly disciplined Sikhs and Ghoorkas, would break our
+self-imposed restrictions in order to enrol the inferior but more
+savage races of Africa. Yet no charge has been more often repeated
+and has caused more piteous protests among the soft-hearted and
+soft-headed editors of Continental journals.
+
+The absence of Colenbrander in the Rustenburg country gave Beyers a
+chance of which he was not slow to avail himself. On January 24th,
+in the early morning, he delivered an attack upon Pietersburg
+itself, but he was easily driven off by the small garrison. It is
+probable, however, that the attack was a mere feint in order to
+enable a number of the inmates of the refugee camp to escape. About
+a hundred and fifty made off, and rejoined the commandos. There
+were three thousand Boers in all in this camp, which was shortly
+afterwards moved down to Natal in order to avoid the recurrence of
+such an incident.
+
+Colenbrander, having returned to Pietersburg once more, determined
+to return Beyers's visit, and upon April 8th he moved out with a
+small force to surprise the Boer laager. The Inniskilling Fusiliers
+seized the ground which commanded the enemy's position. The latter
+retreated, but were followed up, and altogether about one hundred
+and fifty were killed, wounded, and taken. On May 3rd a fresh
+operation against Beyers was undertaken, and resulted in about the
+same loss to the Boers. On the other hand, the Boers had a small
+success against Kitchener's Scouts, killing eighteen and taking
+thirty prisoners.
+
+There is one incident, however, in connection with the war in this
+region which one would desire to pass over in silence if such a
+course were permissible. Some eighty miles to the east of
+Pietersburg is a wild part of the country called the Spelonken. In
+this region an irregular corps, named the Bushveld Carbineers, had
+been operating. It was raised in South Africa, but contained both
+Colonials and British in its ranks. Its wild duties, its mixed
+composition, and its isolated situation must have all militated
+against discipline and restraint, and it appears to have
+degenerated into a band not unlike those Southern 'bush-whackers'
+in the American war to whom the Federals showed little mercy. They
+had given short shrift to the Boer prisoners who had fallen into
+their hands, the excuse offered for their barbarous conduct being
+that an officer who had served in the corps had himself been
+murdered by the Boers. Such a reason, even if it were true, could
+of course offer no justification for indiscriminate revenge. The
+crimes were committed in July and August 1901, but it was not until
+January 1902 that five of the officers were put upon their trial
+and were found to be guilty as principals or accessories of twelve
+murders. The corps was disbanded, and three of the accused
+officers, Handcock, Wilton, and Morant, were sentenced to death,
+while another, Picton, was cashiered. Handcock and Morant were
+actually executed. This stern measure shows more clearly than
+volumes of argument could do how high was the standard of
+discipline in the British Army, and how heavy was the punishment,
+and how vain all excuses, where it had been infringed. In the face
+of this actual outrage and its prompt punishment how absurd becomes
+that crusade against imaginary outrages preached by an ignorant
+press abroad, and by renegade Englishmen at home.
+
+To the south of Johannesburg, half-way between that town and the
+frontier, there is a range of hills called the Zuikerboschrand,
+which extends across from one railway system to the other. A number
+of Boers were known to have sought refuge in this country, so upon
+February 12th a small British force left Klip River Post in order
+to clear them out. There were 320 men in all, composing the 28th
+Mounted Infantry, drawn from the Lancashire Fusiliers, Warwicks,
+and Derbys, most of whom had just arrived from Malta, which one
+would certainly imagine to be the last place where mounted infantry
+could be effectively trained. Major Dowell was in command. An
+advance was made into the hilly country, but it was found that the
+enemy was in much greater force than had been imagined. The
+familiar Boer tactics were used with the customary success. The
+British line was held by a sharp fire in front, while strong
+flanking parties galloped round each of the wings. It was with
+great difficulty that any of the British extricated themselves from
+their perilous position, and the safety of a portion of the force
+was only secured by the devotion of a handful of officers and men,
+who gave their lives in order to gain time for their comrades to
+get away. Twelve killed and fifty wounded were our losses in this
+unfortunate skirmish, and about one hundred prisoners supplied the
+victors with a useful addition to their rifles and ammunition. A
+stronger British force came up next day, and the enemy were driven
+out of the hills.
+
+A week later, upon February 18th, there occurred another skirmish
+at Klippan, near Springs, between a squadron of the Scots Greys and
+a party of Boers who had broken into this central reserve which
+Lord Kitchener had long kept clear of the enemy. In this action the
+cavalry were treated as roughly as the mounted infantry had been
+the week before, losing three officers killed, eight men killed or
+wounded, and forty-six taken. They had formed a flanking party to
+General Gilbert Hamilton's column, but were attacked and
+overwhelmed so rapidly that the blow had fallen before their
+comrades could come to their assistance.
+
+One of the consequences of the successful drives about to be
+described in the Orange River Colony was that a number of the Free
+Staters came north of the Vaal in order to get away from the
+extreme pressure upon the south. At the end of March a considerable
+number had reinforced the local commandos in that district to the
+east of Springs, no very great distance from Johannesburg, which
+had always been a storm centre. A cavalry force was stationed at
+this spot which consisted at that time of the 2nd Queen's Bays, the
+7th Hussars, and some National Scouts, all under Colonel Lawley of
+the Hussars. After a series of minor engagements east of Springs,
+Lawley had possessed himself of Boschman's Kop, eighteen miles from
+that town, close to the district which was the chief scene of Boer
+activity. From this base he despatched upon the morning of April
+1st three squadrons of the Bays under Colonel Fanshawe, for the
+purpose of surprising a small force of the enemy which was reported
+at one of the farms. Fanshawe's strength was about three hundred
+men.
+
+The British cavalry found themselves, however, in the position of
+the hunter who, when he is out for a snipe, puts up a tiger. All
+went well with the expedition as far as Holspruit, the farm which
+they had started to search. Commandant Pretorius, to whom it
+belonged, was taken by the energy of Major Vaughan, who pursued and
+overtook his Cape cart. It was found, however, that Alberts's
+commando was camped at the farm, and that the Bays were in the
+presence of a very superior force of the enemy. The night was dark,
+and when firing began it was almost muzzle to muzzle, with the
+greatest possible difficulty in telling friend from foe. The three
+squadrons fell back upon some rising ground, keeping admirable
+order under most difficult circumstances. In spite of the darkness
+the attack was pressed fiercely home, and with their favourite
+tactics the burghers rapidly outflanked the position taken up by
+the cavalry. The British moved by alternate squadrons on to a
+higher rocky kopje on the east, which could be vaguely
+distinguished looming in the darkness against the skyline. B
+squadron, the last to retire, was actually charged and ridden
+through by the brave assailants, firing from their saddles as they
+broke through the ranks. The British had hardly time to reach the
+kopje and to dismount and line its edge when the Boers, yelling
+loudly, charged with their horses up the steep flanks. Twice they
+were beaten back, but the third time they seized one corner of the
+hill and opened a hot fire upon the rear of the line of men who
+were defending the other side. Dawn was now breaking, and the
+situation most serious, for the Boers were in very superior numbers
+and were pushing their pursuit with the utmost vigour and
+determination. A small party of officers and men whose horses had
+been shot covered the retreat of their comrades, and continued to
+fire until all of them, two officers and twenty-three men, were
+killed or wounded, the whole of their desperate defence being
+conducted within from thirty to fifty yards of the enemy. The
+remainder of the regiment was now retired to successive ridges,
+each of which was rapidly outflanked by the Boers, whose whole
+method of conducting their attack was extraordinarily skilful.
+Nothing but the excellent discipline of the overmatched troopers
+prevented the retreat from becoming a rout. Fortunately, before the
+pressure became intolerable the 7th Hussars with some artillery
+came to the rescue, and turned the tide. The Hussars galloped in
+with such dash that some of them actually got among the Boers with
+their swords, but the enemy rapidly fell back and disappeared.
+
+In this very sharp and sanguinary cavalry skirmish the Bays lost
+eighty killed and wounded out of a total force of 270. To stand
+such losses under such circumstances, and to preserve absolute
+discipline and order, is a fine test of soldierly virtue. The
+adjutant, the squadron leaders, and six out of ten officers were
+killed or wounded. The Boers lost equally heavily. Two Prinsloos,
+one of them a commandant, and three field-cornets were among the
+slain, with seventy other casualties. The force under General
+Alberts was a considerable one, not fewer than six hundred rifles,
+so that the action at Holspruit is one which adds another name of
+honour to the battle-roll of the Bays. It is pleasing to add that
+in this and the other actions which were fought at the end of the
+war our wounded met with kindness and consideration from the enemy.
+
+We may now descend to the Orange River Colony and trace the course
+of those operations which were destined to break the power of De
+Wet's commando. On these we may concentrate our attention, for the
+marchings and gleanings and snipings of the numerous small columns
+in the other portions of the colony, although they involved much
+arduous and useful work, do not claim a particular account.
+
+After the heavy blow which he dealt Firmin's Yeomanry, De Wet
+retired, as has been told, into the Langberg, whence he afterwards
+retreated towards Reitz. There he was energetically pushed by
+Elliot's columns, which had attained such mobility that 150 miles
+were performed in three days within a single week. Our rough
+schoolmasters had taught us our lesson, and the soldiering which
+accomplished the marches of Bruce Hamilton, Elliot, Rimington, and
+the other leaders of the end of the war was very far removed from
+that which is associated with ox-wagons and harmoniums.
+
+Moving rapidly, and covering himself by a succession of rearguard
+skirmishes, De Wet danced like a will-o'the-wisp in front of and
+round the British columns. De Lisle, Fanshawe, Byng, Rimington,
+Dawkins, and Rawlinson were all snatching at him and finding him
+just beyond their finger-tips. The master-mind at Pretoria had,
+however, thought out a scheme which was worthy of De Wet himself in
+its ingenuity. A glance at the map will show that the little branch
+from Heilbron to Wolvehoek forms an acute angle with the main line.
+Both these railways were strongly blockhoused and barbed-wired, so
+that any force which was driven into the angle, and held in it by a
+force behind it, would be in a perilous position. To attempt to
+round De Wet's mobile burghers into this obvious pen would have
+been to show one's hand too clearly. In vain is the net laid in
+sight of the bird. The drive was therefore made away from this
+point, with the confident expectation that the guerilla chief would
+break back through the columns, and that they might then pivot
+round upon him and hustle him so rapidly into the desired position
+that he would not realise his danger until it was too late. Byng's
+column was left behind the driving line to be ready for the
+expected backward break. All came off exactly as expected. De Wet
+doubled back through the columns, and one of his commandos stumbled
+upon Byng's men, who were waiting on the Vlei River to the west of
+Reitz. The Boers seem to have taken it for granted that, having
+passed the British driving line, they were out of danger, and for
+once it was they who were surprised. The South African Light Horse,
+the New Zealanders, and the Queensland Bushmen all rode in upon
+them. A fifteen-pounder, the one taken at Tweefontein, and two
+pom-poms were captured, with thirty prisoners and a considerable
+quantity of stores.
+
+This successful skirmish was a small matter, however, compared to
+the importance of being in close touch with De Wet and having a
+definite objective for the drive. The columns behind expanded
+suddenly into a spray of mounted men forming a continuous line for
+over sixty miles. On February 5th the line was advancing, and on
+the 6th it was known that De Wet was actually within the angle, the
+mouth of which was spanned by the British line. Hope ran high in
+Pretoria. The space into which the burgher chief had been driven
+was bounded by sixty-six miles of blockhouse and wire on one side
+and thirty on the other, while the third side of the triangle was
+crossed by fifty-five miles of British horsemen, flanked by a
+blockhouse line between Kroonstad and Lindley. The tension along
+the lines of defence was extreme. Infantry guarded every yard of
+them, and armoured trains patrolled them, while at night
+searchlights at regular intervals shed their vivid rays over the
+black expanse of the veld and illuminated the mounted figures who
+flitted from time to time across their narrow belts of light.
+
+On the 6th De Wet realised his position, and with characteristic
+audacity and promptness he took means to clear the formidable toils
+which had been woven round him. The greater part of his command
+scattered, with orders to make their way as best they might out of
+the danger. Working in their own country, where every crease and
+fold of the ground was familiar to them, it is not surprising that
+most of them managed to make their way through gaps in the
+attenuated line of horsemen behind them. A few were killed, and a
+considerable number taken, 270 being the respectable total of the
+prisoners. Three or four slipped through, however, for every one
+who stuck in the meshes. De Wet himself was reported to have made
+his escape by driving cattle against the wire fences which enclosed
+him. It seems, however, to have been nothing more romantic than a
+wire-cutter which cleared his path, though cattle no doubt made
+their way through the gap which he left. With a loss of only three
+of his immediate followers be Wet won his way out of the most
+dangerous position which even his adventurous career had ever
+known. Lord Kitchener had descended to Wolvehoek to be present at
+the climax of the operations, but it was not fated that he was to
+receive the submission of the most energetic of his opponents, and
+he returned to Pretoria to weave a fresh mesh around him.
+
+This was not hard to do, as the Boer General had simply escaped
+from one pen into another, though a larger one. After a short rest
+to restore the columns, the whole pack were full cry upon his heels
+once more. An acute angle is formed by the Wilge River on one side
+and the line of blockhouses between Harrismith and Van Reenen upon
+the other. This was strongly manned by troops and five columns;
+those of Rawlinson, Nixon, Byng, Rimington, and Keir herded the
+broken commandos into the trap. From February 20th the troops swept
+in an enormous skirmish line across the country, ascending hills,
+exploring kloofs, searching river banks, and always keeping the
+enemy in front of them. At last, when the pressure was severely
+felt, there came the usual breakback, which took the form of a most
+determined night attack upon the British line. This was delivered
+shortly after midnight on February 23rd. It struck the British
+cordon at the point of juncture between Byng's column and that of
+Rimington. So huge were the distances which had to be covered, and
+so attenuated was the force which covered them, that the historical
+thin red line was a massive formation compared to its khaki
+equivalent. The chain was frail and the links were not all
+carefully joined, but each particular link was good metal, and the
+Boer impact came upon one of the best. This was the 7th New Zealand
+Contingent, who proved themselves to be worthy comrades to their
+six gallant predecessors. Their patrols were broken by the rush of
+wild, yelling, firing horsemen, but the troopers made a most
+gallant resistance. Having pierced the line the Boers, who were led
+in their fiery rush by Manie Botha, turned to their flank, and,
+charging down the line of weak patrols, overwhelmed one after
+another and threatened to roll up the whole line. They had cleared
+a gap of half a mile, and it seemed as if the whole Boer force
+would certainly escape through so long a gap in the defences. The
+desperate defence of the New Zealanders gave time, however, for the
+further patrols, which consisted of Cox's New South Wales Mounted
+Infantry, to fall back almost at right angles so as to present a
+fresh face to the attack. The pivot of the resistance was a maxim
+gun, most gallantly handled by Captain Begbie and his men. The
+fight at this point was almost muzzle to muzzle, fifty or sixty New
+Zealanders and Australians with the British gunners holding off a
+force of several hundred of the best fighting men of the Boer
+forces. In this desperate duel many dropped on both sides. Begbie
+died beside his gun, which fired eighty rounds before it jammed. It
+was run back by its crew in order to save it from capture. But
+reinforcements were coming up, and the Boer attack was beaten back.
+A number of them had escaped, however, through the opening which
+they had cleared, and it was conjectured that the wonderful De Wet
+was among them. How fierce was the storm which had broken on the
+New Zealanders may be shown by their roll of twenty killed and
+forty wounded, while thirty dead Boers were picked up in front of
+their picket line. Of eight New Zealand officers seven are reported
+to have been hit, an even higher proportion than that which the
+same gallant race endured at the battle of Rhenoster Kop more than
+a year before.
+
+It was feared at first that the greater part of the Boers might
+have escaped upon this night of the 23rd, when Manie Botha's
+storming party burst through the ranks of the New Zealanders. It
+was soon discovered that this was not so, and the columns as they
+closed in had evidence from the numerous horsemen who scampered
+aimlessly over the hills in front of them that the main body of the
+enemy was still in the toils. The advance was in tempestuous
+weather and over rugged country, but the men were filled with
+eagerness, and no precaution was neglected to keep the line intact.
+
+This time their efforts were crowned with considerable success. A
+second attempt was made by the corraled burghers to break out on
+the night of February 26th, but it was easily repulsed by Nixon.
+The task of the troopers as the cordon drew south was more and more
+difficult, and there were places traversed upon the Natal border
+where an alpen stock would have been a more useful adjunct than a
+horse. At six o'clock on the morning of the 27th came the end. Two
+Boers appeared in front of the advancing line of the Imperial Light
+Horse and held up a flag. They proved to be Truter and De Jager,
+ready to make terms for their commando. The only terms offered were
+absolute surrender within the hour. The Boers had been swept into a
+very confined space, which was closely hemmed in by troops, so that
+any resistance must have ended in a tragedy. Fortunately there was
+no reason for desperate councils in their case, since they did not
+fight as Lotter had done, with the shadow of judgment hanging over
+him. The burghers piled arms, and all was over.
+
+The total number captured in this important drive was 780 men,
+including several leaders, one of whom was De Wet's own son. It was
+found that De Wet himself had been among those who had got away
+through the picket lines on the night of the 23rd. Most of the
+commando were Transvaalers, and it was typical of the wide sweep of
+the net that many of them were the men who had been engaged against
+the 28th Mounted Infantry in the district south of Johannesburg
+upon the 12th of the same month. The loss of 2000 horses and 50,000
+cartridges meant as much as that of the men to the Boer army. It
+was evident that a few more such blows would clear the Orange River
+Colony altogether.
+
+The wearied troopers were allowed little rest, for in a couple of
+days after their rendezvous at Harrismith they were sweeping back
+again to pick up all that they had missed. This drive, which was
+over the same ground, but sweeping backwards towards the Heilbron
+to Wolvehoek line, ended in the total capture of 147 of the enemy,
+who were picked out of holes, retrieved from amid the reeds of the
+river, called down out of trees, or otherwise collected. So
+thorough were the operations that it is recorded that the angle
+which formed the apex of the drive was one drove of game upon the
+last day, all the many types of antelope, which form one of the
+characteristics and charms of the country, having been herded into
+it.
+
+More important even than the results of the drive was the discovery
+of one of De Wet's arsenals in a cave in the Vrede district.
+Half-way down a precipitous krantz, with its mouth covered by
+creepers, no writer of romance could have imagined a more fitting
+headquarters for a guerilla chief. The find was made by Ross's
+Canadian Scouts, who celebrated Dominion Day by this most useful
+achievement. Forty wagon-loads of ammunition and supplies were
+taken out of the cave. De Wet was known to have left the north-east
+district, and to have got across the railway, travelling towards
+the Vaal as if it were his intention to join De la Rey in the
+Transvaal. The Boer resistance had suddenly become exceedingly
+energetic in that part, and several important actions had been
+fought, to which we will presently turn.
+
+Before doing so it would be as well to bring the chronicle of
+events in the Orange River Colony down to the conclusion of peace.
+There were still a great number of wandering Boers in the northern
+districts and in the frontier mountains, who were assiduously, but
+not always successfully, hunted down by the British troops. Much
+arduous and useful work was done by several small columns, the
+Colonial Horse and the Artillery Mounted Rifles especially
+distinguishing themselves. The latter corps, formed from the
+gunners whose field-pieces were no longer needed, proved themselves
+to be a most useful body of men; and the British gunner, when he
+took to carrying his gun, vindicated the reputation which he had
+won when his gun had carried him.
+
+From the 1st to the 4th of May a successful drive was conducted by
+many columns in the often harried but never deserted Lindley to
+Kroonstad district. The result was propitious, as no fewer than 321
+prisoners were brought in. Of these, 150 under Mentz were captured
+in one body as they attempted to break through the encircling
+cordon.
+
+Amid many small drives and many skirmishes, one stands out for its
+severity. It is remarkable as being the last action of any
+importance in the campaign. This was the fight at Moolman's Spruit,
+near Ficksburg, upon April 20th, 1902. A force of about one hundred
+Yeomanry and forty Mounted Infantry (South Staffords) was
+despatched by night to attack an isolated farm in which a small
+body of Boers was supposed to be sleeping. Colonel Perceval was in
+command. The farm was reached after a difficult march, but the
+enemy were found to have been forewarned, and to be in much greater
+strength than was anticipated. A furious fire was opened on the
+advancing troops, who were clearly visible in the light of a full
+moon. Sir Thomas Fowler was killed and several men of the Yeomanry
+were hit. The British charged up to the very walls, but were unable
+to effect an entrance, as the place was barricaded and loopholed.
+Captain Blackwood, of the Staffords, was killed in the attack.
+Finding that the place was impregnable, and that the enemy
+outnumbered him, Colonel Perceval gave the order to retire, a
+movement which was only successfully carried out because the
+greater part of the Boer horses had been shot. By morning the small
+British force had extricated itself, from its perilous position
+with a total loss of six killed, nineteen wounded, and six missing.
+The whole affair was undoubtedly a cleverly planned Boer ambush,
+and the small force was most fortunate in escaping destruction.
+
+One other isolated incident may be mentioned here, though it
+occurred far away in the Vryheid district of the Transvaal. This
+was the unfortunate encounter between Zulus and Boers by which the
+latter lost over fifty of their numbers under deplorable
+circumstances. This portion of the Transvaal has only recently been
+annexed, and is inhabited by warlike Zulus, who are very different
+from the debased Kaffirs of the rest of the country. These men had
+a blood-feud against the Boers, which was embittered by the fact
+that they had lost heavily through Boer depredations. Knowing that
+a party of fifty-nine men were sleeping in a farmhouse, the Zulus
+crept on to it and slaughtered every man of the inmates. Such an
+incident is much to be regretted, and yet, looking back upon the
+long course of the war, and remembering the turbulent tribes who
+surrounded the combatants--Swazis, Basutos, and Zulus--we may well
+congratulate ourselves that we have been able to restrain those
+black warriors, and to escape the brutalities and the bitter
+memories of a barbarian invasion.
+
+CHAPTER 38.
+
+DE LA REY'S CAMPAIGN OF 1902.
+
+IT will be remembered that at the close of 1901 Lord Methuen and
+Colonel Kekewich had both come across to the eastern side of their
+district and made their base at the railway line in the Klerksdorp
+section. Their position was strengthened by the fact that a
+blockhouse cordon now ran from Klerksdorp to Ventersdorp, and from
+Ventersdorp to Potchefstroom, so that this triangle could be
+effectively controlled. There remained, however, a huge tract of
+difficult country which was practically in the occupation of the
+enemy. Several thousand stalwarts were known to be riding with De
+la Rey and his energetic lieutenant Kemp. The strenuous operations
+of the British in the Eastern Transvaal and in the Orange River
+Colony had caused this district to be comparatively neglected, and
+so everything was in favour of an aggressive movement of the Boers.
+There was a long lull after the unsuccessful attack upon Kekewich's
+camp at Moedwill, but close observers of the war distrusted this
+ominous calm and expected a storm to follow.
+
+The new year found the British connecting Ventersdorp with Tafelkop
+by a blockhouse line. The latter place had been a centre of Boer
+activity. Colonel Hickie's column covered this operation. Meanwhile
+Methuen had struck across through Wolmaranstad as far as Vryburg.
+In these operations, which resulted in constant small captures, he
+was assisted by a column under Major Paris working from Kimberley.
+From Vryburg Lord Methuen made his way in the middle of January to
+Lichtenburg, meeting with a small rebuff in the neighbourhood of
+that town, for a detachment of Yeomanry was overwhelmed by General
+Celliers, who killed eight, wounded fifteen, and captured forty.
+From Lichtenburg Lord Methuen continued his enormous trek, and
+arrived on February 1st at Klerksdorp once more. Little rest was
+given to his hard-worked troops, and they were sent off again
+within the week under the command of Von Donop, with the result
+that on February 8th, near Wolmaranstad, they captured Potgieter's
+laager with forty Boer prisoners. Von Donop remained at
+Wolmaranstad until late in February; On the 23rd he despatched an
+empty convoy back to Klerksdorp, the fate of which will be
+afterwards narrated.
+
+Kekewich and Hickie had combined their forces at the beginning of
+February. On February 4th an attempt was made by them to surprise
+General De la Rey. The mounted troops who were despatched under
+Major Leader failed in this enterprise, but they found and
+overwhelmed the laager of Sarel Alberts, capturing 132 prisoners.
+By stampeding the horses the Boer retreat was cut off, and the
+attack was so furiously driven home, especially by the admirable
+Scottish Horse, that few of the enemy got away. Alberts himself
+with all his officers were among the prisoners. From this time
+until the end of February this column was not seriously engaged.
+
+It has been stated above that on February 23rd Von Donop sent in an
+empty convoy from Wolmaranstad to Klerksdorp, a distance of about
+fifty miles. Nothing had been heard for some time of De la Rey, but
+he had called together his men and was waiting to bring off some
+coup. The convoy gave him the very opportunity for which he sought.
+
+The escort of the convoy consisted of the 5th Imperial Yeomanry,
+sixty of Paget's Horse, three companies of the ubiquitous
+Northumberland Fusiliers, two guns of the 4th R.F.A., and a
+pom-pom, amounting in all to 630 men. Colonel Anderson was in
+command. On the morning of Tuesday, February 25th, the convoy was
+within ten miles of its destination, and the sentries on the kopjes
+round the town could see the gleam of the long line of white-tilted
+wagons. Their hazardous voyage was nearly over, and yet they were
+destined to most complete and fatal wreck within sight of port. So
+confident were they that the detachment of Paget's Horse was
+permitted to ride on the night before into the town. It was as
+well, for such a handful would have shared and could not have
+averted the disaster.
+
+The night had been dark and wet, and the Boers under cover of it
+had crept between the sleeping convoy and the town. Some bushes
+which afford excellent cover lie within a few hundred yards of the
+road, and here the main ambush was laid. In the first grey of the
+morning the long line of the convoy, 130 wagons in all, came
+trailing past--guns and Yeomanry in front, Fusiliers upon the
+flanks and rear. Suddenly the black bank of scrub was outlined in
+flame, and a furious rifle fire was opened upon the head of the
+column. The troops behaved admirably under most difficult
+circumstances. A counter-attack by the Fusiliers and some of the
+Yeomanry, under cover of shrapnel from the guns, drove the enemy
+out of the scrub and silenced his fire at this point. It was
+evident, however, that he was present in force, for firing soon
+broke out along the whole left flank, and the rearguard found
+itself as warmly attacked as the van. Again, however, the
+assailants were driven off. It was now broad daylight, and the
+wagons, which had got into great confusion in the first turmoil of
+battle, had been remarshalled and arranged. It was Colonel
+Anderson's hope that he might be able to send them on into safety
+while he with the escort covered their retreat. His plan was
+certainly the best one, and if it did not succeed it was due to
+nothing which he could avert, but to the nature of the ground and
+the gallantry of the enemy.
+
+The physical obstacle consisted in a very deep and difficult
+spruit, the Jagd Spruit, which forms an ugly passage in times of
+peace, but which when crowded and choked with stampeding mules and
+splintering wagons, under their terrified conductors, soon became
+impassable. Here the head of the column was clubbed and the whole
+line came to a stand. Meanwhile the enemy, adopting their new
+tactics, came galloping in on the left flank and on the rear. The
+first attack was repelled by the steady fire of the Fusiliers, but
+on the second occasion the horsemen got up to the wagons, and
+galloping down them were able to overwhelm in detail the little
+knots of soldiers who were scattered along the flank. The British,
+who were outnumbered by at least three to one, made a stout
+resistance, and it was not until seven o'clock that the last shot
+was fired. The result was a complete success to the burghers, but
+one which leaves no shadow of discredit on any officer or man among
+those who were engaged. Eleven officers and 176 men fell out of
+about 550 actually engaged. The two guns were taken. The convoy was
+no use to the Boers, so the teams were shot and the wagons burned
+before they withdrew. The prisoners too, they were unable to
+retain, and their sole permanent trophies consisted of the two
+guns, the rifles, and the ammunition. Their own losses amounted to
+about fifty killed and wounded.
+
+A small force sallied out from Klerksdorp in the hope of helping
+Anderson, but on reaching the Jagd Drift it was found that the
+fighting was over and that the field was in possession of the
+Boers. De la Rey was seen in person among the burghers, and it is
+pleasant to add that he made himself conspicuous by his humanity to
+the wounded. His force drew off in the course of the morning, and
+was soon out of reach of immediate pursuit, though this was
+attempted by Kekewich, Von Donop, and Grenfell. It was important to
+regain the guns if possible, as they were always a menace to the
+blockhouse system, and for this purpose Grenfell with sixteen
+hundred horsemen was despatched to a point south of Lichtenburg,
+which was conjectured to be upon the Boer line of retreat. At the
+same time Lord Methuen was ordered up from Vryburg in order to
+cooperate in this movement, and to join his forces to those of
+Grenfell. It was obvious that with an energetic and resolute
+adversary like De la Rey there was great danger of these two forces
+being taken in detail, but it was hoped that each was strong enough
+to hold its own until the other could come to its aid. The result
+was to show that the danger was real and the hope fallacious.
+
+It was on March 2nd that Methuen left Vryburg. The column was not
+his old one, consisting of veterans of the trek, but was the
+Kimberley column under Major Paris, a body of men who had seen much
+less service and were in every way less reliable. It included a
+curious mixture of units, the most solid of which were four guns
+(two of the 4th, and two of the 38th R.F.A.), 200 Northumberland
+Fusiliers, and 100 Loyal North Lancashires. The mounted men
+included 5th Imperial Yeomanry (184), Cape Police (233), Cullinan's
+Horse (64), 86th Imperial Yeomanry (110), Diamond Fields Horse
+(92), Dennison' s Scouts (58), Ashburner's Horse (126), and British
+South African Police (24). Such a collection of samples would be
+more in place, one would imagine, in a London procession than in an
+operation which called for discipline and cohesion. In warfare the
+half is often greater than the whole, and the presence of a
+proportion of halfhearted and inexperienced men may be a positive
+danger to their more capable companions.
+
+Upon March 6th Methuen, marching east towards Lichtenburg, came in
+touch near Leeuwspruit with Van Zyl's commando, and learned in the
+small skirmish which ensued that some of his Yeomanry were
+unreliable and ill-instructed. Having driven the enemy off by his
+artillery fire, Methuen moved to Tweebosch, where he laagered until
+next morning. At 3 A.M. of the 7th the ox-convoy was sent on, under
+escort of half of his little force. The other half followed at 4.
+20, so as to give the slow-moving oxen a chance of keeping ahead.
+It was evident, however, immediately after the column had got
+started that the enemy were all round in great numbers, and that an
+attack in force was to be expected. Lord Methuen gave orders
+therefore that the ox-wagons should be halted and that the
+mule-transport should close upon them so as to form one solid
+block, instead of a straggling line. At the same time he reinforced
+his rearguard with mounted men and with two guns, for it was in
+that quarter that the enemy appeared to be most numerous and
+aggressive. An attack was also developing upon the right flank,
+which was held off by the infantry and by the second section of the
+guns.
+
+It has been said that Methuen's horsemen were for the most part
+inexperienced irregulars. Such men become in time excellent
+soldiers, as all this campaign bears witness, but it is too much to
+expose them to a severe ordeal in the open field when they are
+still raw and untrained. As it happened, this particular ordeal was
+exceedingly severe, but nothing can excuse the absolute failure of
+the troops concerned to rise to the occasion. Had Methuen's
+rearguard consisted of Imperial Light Horse, or Scottish Horse, it
+is safe to say that the battle of Tweebosch would have had a very
+different ending.
+
+What happened was that a large body of Boers formed up in five
+lines and charged straight home at the rear screen and rearguard,
+firing from their saddles as they had done at Brakenlaagte. The
+sight of those wide-flung lines of determined men galloping over
+the plain seems to have been too much for the nerves of the
+unseasoned troopers. A panic spread through their ranks, and in an
+instant they had turned their horses' heads and were thundering to
+their rear, leaving the two guns uncovered and streaming in wild
+confusion past the left flank of the jeering infantry who were
+lying round the wagons. The limit of their flight seems to have
+been the wind of their horses, and most of them never drew rein
+until they had placed many miles between themselves and the
+comrades whom they had deserted. 'It was pitiable,' says an
+eye-witness, 'to see the grand old General begging them to stop,
+but they would not; a large body of them arrived in Kraaipan
+without firing a shot,' It was a South African 'Battle of the
+Spurs.'
+
+By this defection of the greater portion of the force the handful
+of brave men who remained were left in a hopeless position. The two
+guns of the 38th battery were overwhelmed and ridden over by the
+Boer horsemen, every man being killed or wounded, including
+Lieutenant Nesham, who acted up to the highest traditions of his
+corps.
+
+The battle, however, was not yet over. The infantry were few in
+number, but they were experienced troops, and they maintained the
+struggle for some hours in the face of overwhelming numbers. Two
+hundred of the Northumberland Fusiliers lay round the wagons and
+held the Boers off from their prey. With them were the two
+remaining guns, which were a mark for a thousand Boer riflemen. It
+was while encouraging by his presence and example the much-tried
+gunners of this section that the gallant Methuen was wounded by a
+bullet which broke the bone of his thigh. Lieutenant Venning and
+all the detachment fell with their General round the guns.
+
+An attempt had been made to rally some of the flying troopers at a
+neighbouring kraal, and a small body of Cape Police and Yeomanry
+under the command of Major Paris held out there for some hours. A
+hundred of the Lancashire Infantry aided them in their stout
+defence. But the guns taken by the Boers from Von Donop's convoy
+had free play now that the British guns were out of action, and
+they were brought to bear with crushing effect upon both the kraal
+and the wagons. Further resistance meant a useless slaughter, and
+orders were given for a surrender. Convoy, ammunition, guns,
+horses--nothing was saved except the honour of the infantry and the
+gunners. The losses, 68 killed and 121 wounded, fell chiefly upon
+these two branches of the service. There were 205 unwounded
+prisoners.
+
+This, the last Boer victory in the war, reflected equal credit upon
+their valour and humanity, qualities which had not always gone hand
+in hand in our experience of them. Courtesy and attention were
+extended to the British wounded, and Lord Methuen was sent under
+charge of his chief medical officer, Colonel Townsend (the doctor
+as severely wounded as the patient), into Klerksdorp. In De la Rey
+we have always found an opponent who was as chivalrous as he was
+formidable. The remainder of the force reached the Kimberley to
+Mafeking railway line in the direction of Kraaipan, the spot where
+the first bloodshed of the war had occurred some twenty-nine months
+before.
+
+On Lord Methuen himself no blame can rest for this unsuccessful
+action. If the workman's tool snaps in his hand he cannot be held
+responsible for the failure of his task. The troops who misbehaved
+were none of his training. 'If you hear anyone slang him,' says one
+of his men, 'you are to tell them that he is the finest General and
+the truest gentleman that ever fought in this war.' Such was the
+tone of his own troopers, and such also that of the spokesmen of
+the nation when they commented upon the disaster in the Houses of
+Parliament. It was a fine example of British justice and sense of
+fair play, even in that bitter moment, that to hear his eulogy one
+would have thought that the occasion had been one when thanks were
+being returned for a victory. It is a generous public with fine
+instincts, and Paul Methuen, wounded and broken, still remained in
+their eyes the heroic soldier and the chivalrous man of honour.
+
+The De Wet country had been pretty well cleared by the series of
+drives which have already been described, and Louis Botha's force
+in the Eastern Transvaal had been much diminished by the tactics of
+Bruce Hamilton and Wools-Sampson. Lord Kitchener was able,
+therefore, to concentrate his troops and his attention upon that
+wide-spread western area in which General De la Rey had dealt two
+such shrewd blows within a few weeks of each other. Troops were
+rapidly concentrated at Klerksdorp. Kekewich, Walter Kitchener,
+Rawlinson, and Rochfort, with a number of small columns, were ready
+in the third week of March to endeavour to avenge Lord Methuen.
+
+The problem with which Lord Kitchener was confronted was a very
+difficult one, and he has never shown more originality and audacity
+than in the fashion in which he handled it. De la Rey's force was
+scattered over a long tract of country, capable of rapidly
+concentrating for a blow, but otherwise as intangible and elusive
+as a phantom army. Were Lord Kitchener simply to launch ten
+thousand horsemen at him, the result would be a weary ride over
+illimitable plains without sight of a Boer, unless it were a
+distant scout upon the extreme horizon. De la Rey and his men would
+have slipped away to his northern hiding-places beyond the Marico
+River. There was no solid obstacle here, as in the Orange River
+Colony, against which the flying enemy could be rounded up. One
+line of blockhouses there was, it is true--the one called the
+Schoonspruit cordon, which flanked the De la Rey country. It
+flanked it, however, upon the same side as that on which the troops
+were assembled. If the troops were only on the other side, and De
+la Rey was between them and the blockhouse line, then, indeed,
+something might be done. But to place the troops there, and then
+bring them instantly back again, was to put such a strain upon men
+and horses as had never yet been done upon a large scale in the
+course of the war. Yet Lord Kitchener knew the mettle of the men
+whom he commanded, and he was aware that there were no exertions of
+which the human frame is capable which he might not confidently
+demand.
+
+The precise location of the Boer laagers does not appear to have
+been known, but it was certain that a considerable number of them
+were scattered about thirty miles or so to the west of Klerksdorp
+and the Schoonspruit line. The plan was to march a British force
+right through them, then spread out into a wide line and come
+straight back, driving the burghers on to the cordon of
+blockhouses, which had been strengthened by the arrival of three
+regiments of Highlanders. But to get to the other side of the Boers
+it was necessary to march the columns through by night. It was a
+hazardous operation, but the secret was well kept, and the movement
+was so well carried out that the enemy had no time to check it. On
+the night of Sunday, March 23rd, the British horsemen passed
+stealthily in column through the De la Rey country, and then,
+spreading out into a line, which from the left wing at Lichtenburg
+to the right wing at Commando Drift measured a good eighty miles,
+they proceeded to sweep back upon their traces. In order to reach
+their positions the columns had, of course, started at different
+points of the British blockhouse line, and some had a good deal
+farther to go than others, while the southern extension of the line
+was formed by Rochfort's troops, who had moved up from the Vaal.
+Above him from south to north came Walter Kitchener, Rawlinson, and
+Kekewich in the order named.
+
+On the morning of Monday, March 24th, a line of eighty miles of
+horsemen, without guns or transport, was sweeping back towards the
+blockhouses, while the country between was filled with scattered
+parties of Boers who were seeking for gaps by which to escape. It
+was soon learned from the first prisoners that De la Rey was not
+within the cordon. His laager had been some distance farther west.
+But the sight of fugitive horsemen rising and dipping over the
+rolling veld assured the British that they had something within
+their net. The catch was, however, by no means as complete as might
+have been desired. Three hundred men in khaki slipped through
+between the two columns in the early morning. Another large party
+escaped to the southwards. Some of the Boers adopted extraordinary
+devices in order to escape from the ever-narrowing cordon. 'Three,
+in charge of some cattle, buried themselves, and left a small hole
+to breathe through with a tube. Some men began to probe with
+bayonets in the new-turned earth and got immediate and vociferous
+subterranean yells. Another man tried the same game and a horse
+stepped on him. He writhed and reared the horse, and practically
+the horse found the prisoner for us.' But the operations achieved
+one result, which must have lifted a load of anxiety from Lord
+Kitchener's mind. Three fifteen-pounders, two pom-poms, and a large
+amount of ammunition were taken. To Kekewich and the Scottish Horse
+fell the honour of the capture, Colonel Wools-Sampson and Captain
+Rice heading the charge and pursuit. By this means the constant
+menace to the blockhouses was lessened, if not entirely removed.
+One hundred and seventy-five Boers were disposed of, nearly all as
+prisoners, and a considerable quantity of transport was captured.
+In this operation the troops had averaged from seventy to eighty
+miles in twenty-six hours without change of horses. To such a point
+had the slow-moving ponderous British Army attained after two
+years' training of that stern drill-master, necessity.
+
+The operations had attained some success, but nothing commensurate
+with the daring of the plan or the exertions of the soldiers.
+Without an instant's delay, however, Lord Kitchener struck a second
+blow at his enemy. Before the end of March Kekewich, Rawlinson, and
+Walter Kitchener were all upon the trek once more. Their operations
+were pushed farther to the west than in the last drive, since it
+was known that on that occasion De la Rey and his main commando had
+been outside the cordon.
+
+It was to one of Walter Kitchener's lieutenants that the honour
+fell to come in direct contact with the main force of the burghers.
+This General had moved out to a point about forty miles west of
+Klerksdorp. Forming his laager there, he despatched Cookson on
+March 30th with seventeen hundred men to work further westward in
+the direction of the Harts River. Under Cookson's immediate command
+were the 2nd Canadian Mounted Infantry, Damant's Horse, and four
+guns of the 7th R.F.A. His lieutenant, Keir, commanded the 28th
+Mounted Infantry, the Artillery Mounted Rifles, and 2nd Kitchener's
+Fighting Scouts. The force was well mounted, and carried the
+minimum of baggage.
+
+It was not long before this mobile force found itself within touch
+of the enemy. The broad weal made by the passing of a convoy set
+them off at full cry, and they were soon encouraged by the distant
+cloud of dust which shrouded the Boer wagons. The advance guard of
+the column galloped at the top of their speed for eight miles, and
+closed in upon the convoy, but found themselves faced by an escort
+of five hundred Boers, who fought a clever rearguard action, and
+covered their charge with great skill. At the same time Cookson
+closed in upon his mounted infantry, while on the other side De la
+Rey's main force fell back in order to reinforce the escort.
+British and Boers were both riding furiously to help their own
+comrades. The two forces were fairly face to face.
+
+Perceiving that he was in front of the whole Boer army, and knowing
+that he might expect reinforcements, Cookson decided to act upon
+the defensive. A position was rapidly taken up along the
+Brakspruit, and preparations made to resist the impending attack.
+The line of defence was roughly the line of the spruit, but for
+some reason, probably to establish a cross fire, one advanced
+position was occupied upon either flank. On the left flank was a
+farmhouse, which was held by two hundred men of the Artillery
+Rifles. On the extreme right was another outpost of twenty-four
+Canadians and forty-five Mounted Infantry. They occupied no
+defensible position, and their situation was evidently a most
+dangerous one, only to be justified by some strong military reason
+which is not explained by any account of the action.
+
+The Boer guns had opened fire, and considerable bodies of the enemy
+appeared upon the flanks and in front. Their first efforts were
+devoted towards getting possession of the farmhouse, which would
+give them a point d'appui from which they could turn the whole
+line. Some five hundred of them charged on horseback, but were met
+by a very steady fire from the Artillery Rifles, while the guns
+raked them with shrapnel. They reached a point within five hundred
+yards of the building, but the fire was too hot, and they wheeled
+round in rapid retreat. Dismounting in a mealie-patch they
+skirmished up towards the farmhouse once more, but they were again
+checked by the fire of the defenders and by a pompom which Colonel
+Keir had brought up. No progress whatever was made by the attack in
+this quarter.
+
+In the meantime the fate which might have been foretold had
+befallen the isolated detachment of Canadians and 28th Mounted
+Infantry upon the extreme right. Bruce Carruthers, the Canadian
+officer in command, behaved with the utmost gallantry, and was
+splendidly seconded by his men. Overwhelmed by vastly superior
+numbers, amid a perfect hail of bullets they fought like heroes to
+the end. 'There have been few finer instances of heroism in the
+course of the campaign,' says the reticent Kitchener in his
+official despatch. Of the Canadians eighteen were hit out of
+twenty-one, and the Mounted Infantry hard by lost thirty out of
+forty-five before they surrendered.
+
+This advantage gained upon the right flank was of no assistance to
+the Boers in breaking the British line. The fact that it was so
+makes it the more difficult to understand why this outpost was so
+exposed. The burghers had practically surrounded Cookson's force,
+and De la Rey and Kemp urged on the attack; but their artillery
+fire was dominated by the British guns, and no weak point could be
+found in the defence. At 1 o'clock the attack had been begun, and
+at 5.30 it was finally abandoned, and De la Rey was in full
+retreat. That he was in no sense routed is shown by the fact that
+Cookson did not attempt to follow him up or to capture his guns;
+but at least he had failed in his purpose, and had lost more
+heavily than in any engagement which he had yet fought. The moral
+effect of his previous victories had also been weakened, and his
+burghers had learned, if they had illusions upon the subject, that
+the men who fled at Tweebosch were not typical troopers of the
+British Army. Altogether, it was a well-fought and useful action,
+though it cost the British force some two hundred casualties, of
+which thirty-five were fatal. Cookson's force stood to arms all
+night until the arrival of Walter Kitchener's men in the morning.
+
+General Ian Hamilton, who had acted for some time as Chief of the
+Staff to Lord Kitchener, had arrived on April 8th at Klerksdorp to
+take supreme command of the whole operations against De la Rey.
+Early in April the three main British columns had made a rapid cast
+round without success. To the very end the better intelligence and
+the higher mobility seem to have remained upon the side of the
+Boers, who could always force a fight when they wished and escape
+when they wished. Occasionally, however, they forced one at the
+wrong time, as in the instance which I am about to describe.
+
+Hamilton had planned a drive to cover the southern portion of De la
+Rey's country, and for this purpose, with Hartebeestefontein for
+his centre, he was manoeuvring his columns so as to swing them into
+line and then sweep back towards Klerksdorp. Kekewich, Rawlinson,
+and Walter Kitchener were all manoeuvring for this purpose. The
+Boers, however, game to the last, although they were aware that
+their leaders had gone in to treat, and that peace was probably due
+within a few days, determined to have one last gallant fall with a
+British column. The forces of Kekewich were the farthest to the
+westward, and also, as the burghers thought, the most isolated, and
+it was upon them, accordingly, that the attack was made. In the
+morning of April 11th, at a place called Rooiwal, the enemy, who
+had moved up from Wolmaranstad, nineteen hundred strong, under Kemp
+and Vermaas, fell with the utmost impetuosity upon the British
+column. There was no preliminary skirmishing, and a single gallant
+charge by 1500 Boers both opened and ended the engagement. 'I was
+just saying to the staff officer that there were no Boers within
+twenty miles,' says one who was present, 'when we heard a roar of
+musketry and saw a lot of men galloping down on us.' The British
+were surprised but not shaken by this unexpected apparition. 'I
+never saw a more splendid attack. They kept a distinct line,' says
+the eye-witness. Another spectator says, 'They came on in one long
+line four deep and knee to knee.' It was an old-fashioned cavalry
+charge, and the fact that it got as far as it did shows that we
+have over rated the stopping power of modern rifles. They came for
+a good five hundred yards under direct fire, and were only turned
+within a hundred of the British line. The Yeomanry, the Scottish
+Horse, and the Constabulary poured a steady fire upon the advancing
+wave of horsemen, and the guns opened with case at two hundred
+yards. The Boers were stopped, staggered, and turned. Their fire,
+or rather the covering fire of those who had not joined in the
+charge, had caused some fifty casualties, but their own losses were
+very much more severe. The fierce Potgieter fell just in front of
+the British guns. 'Thank goodness he is dead!' cried one of his
+wounded burghers, 'for he sjamboked me into the firing line this
+morning.' Fifty dead and a great number of wounded were left upon
+the field of battle. Rawlinson's column came up on Kekewich's left,
+and the Boer flight became a rout, for they were chased for twenty
+miles, and their two guns were captured. It was a brisk and
+decisive little engagement, and it closed the Western campaign,
+leaving the last trick, as well as the game, to the credit of the
+British. From this time until the end there was a gleaning of
+prisoners but little fighting in De la Rey's country, the most
+noteworthy event being a surprise visit to Schweizer-Renecke by
+Rochfort, by which some sixty prisoners were taken, and afterwards
+the drive of Ian Hamilton's forces against the Mafeking railway
+line by which no fewer than 364 prisoners were secured. In this
+difficult and well-managed operation the gaps between the British
+columns were concealed by the lighting of long veld-fires and the
+discharge of rifles by scattered scouts. The newly arrived
+Australian Commonwealth Regiments gave a brilliant start to the
+military history of their united country by the energy of their
+marching and the thoroughness of their entrenching.
+
+Upon May 29th, only two days before the final declaration of peace,
+a raid was made by a few Boers upon the native cattle reserves near
+Fredericstad. A handful of horsemen pursued them, and were ambushed
+by a considerable body of the enemy in some hilly country ten miles
+from the British lines. Most of the pursuers got away in safety,
+but young Sutherland, second lieutenant of the Seaforths, and only
+a few months from Eton, found himself separated from his horse and
+in a hopeless position. Scorning to surrender, the lad actually
+fought his way upon foot for over a mile before he was shot down by
+the horsemen who circled round him. Well might the Boer commander
+declare that in the whole course of the war he had seen no finer
+example of British courage. It is indeed sad that at this last
+instant a young life should be thrown away, but Sutherland died in
+a noble fashion for a noble cause, and many inglorious years would
+be a poor substitute for the example and tradition which such a
+death will leave behind.
+
+CHAPTER 39.
+
+THE END.
+
+It only remains in one short chapter to narrate the progress of the
+peace negotiations, the ultimate settlement, and the final
+consequences of this long-drawn war. However disheartening the
+successive incidents may have been in which the Boers were able to
+inflict heavy losses upon us and to renew their supplies of arms
+and ammunition, it was none the less certain that their numbers
+were waning and that the inevitable end was steadily approaching.
+With mathematical precision the scientific soldier in Pretoria,
+with his web of barbed wire radiating out over the whole country,
+was week by week wearing them steadily down. And yet after the
+recent victory of De la Rey and various braggadocio pronouncements
+from the refugees at The Hague, it was somewhat of a surprise to
+the British public when it was announced upon March 22nd that the
+acting Government of the Transvaal, consisting of Messrs. Schalk
+Burger, Lucas Meyer, Reitz, Jacoby, Krogh, and Van Velden had come
+into Middelburg and requested to be forwarded by train to Pretoria
+for the purpose of discussing terms of peace with Lord Kitchener. A
+thrill of hope ran through the Empire at the news, but so doubtful
+did the issue seem that none of the preparations were relaxed which
+would ensure a vigorous campaign in the immediate future. In the
+South African as in the Peninsular and in the Crimean wars, it may
+truly be said that Great Britain was never so ready to fight as at
+the dawning of peace. At least two years of failure and experience
+are needed to turn a civilian and commercial nation into a military
+power.
+
+In spite of the optimistic pronouncements of Mr. Fischer and the
+absurd forecasts of Dr. Leyds the power of the Boers was really
+broken, and they had come in with the genuine intention of
+surrender. In a race with such individuality it was not enough that
+the government should form its conclusion. It was necessary for
+them to persuade their burghers that the game was really up, and
+that they had no choice but to throw down their well-worn rifles
+and their ill-filled bandoliers. For this purpose a long series of
+negotiations had to be entered into which put a strain upon the
+complacency of the authorities in South Africa and upon the
+patience of the attentive public at home. Their ultimate success
+shows that this complacency and this patience were eminently the
+right attitude to adopt.
+
+On March 23rd the Transvaal representatives were despatched to
+Kroonstad for the purpose of opening up the matter with Steyn and
+De Wet. Messengers were sent to communicate with these two leaders,
+but had they been British columns instead of fellow-countrymen they
+could not have found greater difficulty in running them to earth.
+At last, however, at the end of the month the message was conveyed,
+and resulted in the appearance of De Wet, De la Rey, and Steyn at
+the British outposts at Klerksdorp. The other delegates had come
+north again from Kroonstad, and all were united in the same small
+town, which, by a whimsical fate, had suddenly become the centre
+both for the making of peace and for the prosecution of the war,
+with the eyes of the whole world fixed upon its insignificant
+litter of houses. On April 11th, after repeated conferences, both
+parties moved on to Pretoria, and the most sceptical observers
+began to confess that there was something in the negotiations after
+all. After conferring with Lord Kitchener the Boer leaders upon
+April 18th left Pretoria again and rode out to the commandos to
+explain the situation to them. The result of this mission was that
+two delegates were chosen from each body in the field, who
+assembled at Vereeniging upon May 15th for the purpose of settling
+the question by vote. Never was a high matter of state decided in
+so democratic a fashion.
+
+Up to that period the Boer leaders had made a succession of
+tentative suggestions, each of which had been put aside by the
+British Government. Their first had been that they should merely
+concede those points which had been at issue at the beginning of
+the war. This was set aside. The second was that they should be
+allowed to consult their friends in Europe. This also was refused.
+The next was that an armistice should be granted, but again Lord
+Kitchener was obdurate. A definite period was suggested within
+which the burghers should make their final choice between surrender
+and a war which must finally exterminate them as a people. It was
+tacitly understood, if not definitely promised, that the conditions
+which the British Government would be prepared to grant would not
+differ much in essentials from those which had been refused by the
+Boers a twelvemonth before, after the Middelburg interview.
+
+On May 15th the Boer conference opened at Vereeniging. Sixty-four
+delegates from the commandos met with the military and political
+chiefs of the late republics, the whole amounting to 150 persons. A
+more singular gathering has not met in our time. There was Botha,
+the young lawyer, who had found himself by a strange turn of fate
+commanding a victorious army in a great war. De Wet was there, with
+his grim mouth and sun-browned face; De la Rey, also, with the
+grizzled beard and the strong aquiline features. There, too, were
+the politicians, the grey-bearded, genial Reitz, a little graver
+than when he looked upon 'the whole matter as an immense joke,' and
+the unfortunate Steyn, stumbling and groping, a broken and ruined
+man. The burly Lucas Meyer, smart young Smuts fresh from the siege
+of Ookiep, Beyers from the north, Kemp the dashing cavalry leader,
+Muller the hero of many fights--all these with many others of their
+sun-blackened, gaunt, hard-featured comrades were grouped within
+the great tent of Vereeniging. The discussions were heated and
+prolonged. But the logic of facts was inexorable, and the cold
+still voice of common-sense had more power than all the ravings of
+enthusiasts. The vote showed that the great majority of the
+delegates were in favour of surrender upon the terms offered by the
+British Government. On May 31st this resolution was notified to
+Lord Kitchener, and at half-past ten of the same night the
+delegates arrived at Pretoria and set their names to the treaty of
+peace. After two years seven and a half months of hostilities the
+Dutch republics had acquiesced in their own destruction, and the
+whole of South Africa, from Cape Town to the Zambesi, had been
+added to the British Empire. The great struggle had cost us twenty
+thousand lives and a hundred thousand stricken men, with two
+hundred millions of money; but, apart from a peaceful South Africa,
+it had won for us a national resuscitation of spirit and a closer
+union with our great Colonies which could in no other way have been
+attained. We had hoped that we were a solid empire when we engaged
+in the struggle, hut we knew that we were when we emerged from it.
+In that change lies an ample recompense for all the blood and
+treasure spent.
+
+The following were in brief the terms of surrender:--
+
+   1. That the burghers lay down their arms and acknowledge themselves
+         subjects of Edward VII.
+   2. That all prisoners taking the oath of allegiance be returned.
+   3. That their liberty and property be inviolate.
+   4. That an amnesty be granted--save in special cases.
+   5. That the Dutch language be allowed in schools and law-courts.
+   6. That rifles be allowed if registered.
+   7. That self-government be granted as soon as possible.
+   8. That no franchise be granted for natives until after
+         self-government.
+   9. That no special land tax be levied.
+  10. That the people be helped to reoccupy the farms.
+  11. That 3,000,000 pounds be given to help the farmers.
+  12. That the rebels be disfranchised and their leaders tried, on
+         condition that no death penalty be inflicted.
+
+These terms were practically the same as those which had been
+refused by Botha in March 1901. Thirteen months of useless warfare
+had left the situation as it was.
+
+It had been a war of surprises, but the surprises have unhappily
+been hitherto invariably unpleasant ones. Now at last the balance
+swung the other way, for in all the long paradoxical history of
+South African strife there is nothing more wonderful than the way
+in which these two sturdy and unemotional races clasped hands the
+instant that the fight was done. The fact is in itself a final
+answer to the ill-natured critics of the Continent. Men do not so
+easily grasp a hand which is reddened with the blood of women and
+children. From all parts as the commandos came in there was welcome
+news of the fraternisation between them and the soldiers; while the
+Boer leaders, as loyal to their new ties as they had been to their
+old ones, exerted themselves to promote good feeling among their
+people. A few weeks seemed to do more to lessen racial bitterness
+than some of us had hoped for in as many years. One can but pray
+that it will last.
+
+The surrenders amounted in all to twenty thousand men, and showed
+that in all parts of the seat of war the enemy had more men in the
+field than we had imagined, a fact which may take the sting out of
+several of our later mishaps. About twelve thousand surrendered in
+the Transvaal, six thousand in the Orange River Colony, and about
+two thousand in the Cape Colony, showing that the movement in the
+rebel districts had always been more vexatious than formidable. A
+computation of the prisoners of war, the surrenders, the
+mercenaries, and the casualties, shows that the total forces to
+which we were opposed were certainly not fewer than seventy-five
+thousand well-armed mounted men, while they may have considerably
+exceeded that number. No wonder that the Boer leaders showed great
+confidence at the outset of the war.
+
+That the heavy losses caused us by the war were borne without a
+murmur is surely evidence enough how deep was the conviction of the
+nation that the war was not only just but essential--that the
+possession of South Africa and the unity of the Empire were at
+stake. Could it be shown, or were it even remotely possible, that
+ministers had incurred so immense a responsibility and entailed
+such tremendous sacrifices upon their people without adequate
+cause, is it not certain that, the task once done, an explosion of
+rage from the deceived and the bereaved would have driven them for
+ever from public life? Among high and low, in England, in Scotland,
+in Ireland, in the great Colonies, how many high hopes had been
+crushed, how often the soldier son had gone forth and never
+returned, or come back maimed and stricken in the pride of his
+youth. Everywhere was the voice of pity and sorrow, but nowhere
+that of reproach. The deepest instincts of the nation told it that
+it must fight and win, or for ever abdicate its position in the
+world. Through dark days which brought out the virtues of our race
+as nothing has done in our generation, we struggled grimly on until
+the light had fully broken once again. And of all gifts that God
+has given to Britain there is none to compare with those days of
+sorrow, for it was in them that the nation was assured of its
+unity, and learned for all time that blood is stronger to bind than
+salt water is to part. The only difference in the point of view of
+the Briton from Britain and the Briton from the ends of the earth,
+was that the latter with the energy of youth was more whole-souled
+in the Imperial cause. Who has seen that Army and can forget
+it--its spirit, its picturesqueness--above all, what it stands for
+in the future history of the world? Cowboys from the vast plains of
+the North-West, gentlemen who ride hard with the Quorn or the
+Belvoir, gillies from the Sutherland deer-forests, bushmen from the
+back blocks of Australia, exquisites of the Raleigh Club or the
+Bachelor's, hard men from Ontario, dandy sportsmen from India and
+Ceylon, the horsemen of New Zealand, the wiry South African
+irregulars--these are the Reserves whose existence was chronicled
+in no Blue-book, and whose appearance came as a shock to the pedant
+soldiers of the Continent who had sneered so long at our little
+Army, since long years of peace have caused them to forget its
+exploits. On the plains of South Africa, in common danger and in
+common privation, the blood brotherhood of the Empire was sealed.
+
+So much for the Empire. But what of South Africa? There in the end
+we must reap as we sow. If we are worthy of the trust, it will be
+left to us. If we are unworthy of it, it will be taken away.
+Kruger's downfall should teach us that it is not rifles but Justice
+which is the title-deed of a nation. The British flag under our
+best administrators will mean clean government, honest laws,
+liberty and equality to all men. So long as it continues to do so,
+we shall hold South Africa. When, out of fear or out or greed, we
+fall from that ideal, we may know that we are stricken with that
+disease which has killed every great empire before us.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE GREAT BOER WAR ***
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