South Africa and the Boer-British War Part 28

However, the Boers, on this occasion, withdrew in the night, and the British occupied the whole of the battlefield, and the column was said to be encouraged, and moved on according to the fashionable formula of the special dispatches, "slowly but surely to Kimberley." There was nothing in the advantage gained to awaken enthusiasm, and confidence began to fail. There was an atmosphere of misfortune in which the English armies were moving.

General Gatacre, December 10th, mentioned a "serious reverse" in attack that morning at Stormberg, where he had penetrated resisting the invasion of the north of Cape Colony by Orange State forces. The general had merely been "misled to the enemy's position by guides, and found impracticable ground." Also he had taken the precaution of marching all night to surprise the enemy, and was misguided by spies, so morning broke on him in the presence of the enemy, who were posted on "an unscalable hill." The British Empire owes his Lordship a memorable debt of grat.i.tude because he did not immediately order an impossible charge! The troops that were exhausted in a long night's march to enter a trap at daylight should, according to prevalent tactics, have been rushed upon any hill that was crowned by the enemy, and "unscalable." How could General Gatacre have found out that the hill could not be scaled without attempting it with his men? He varied the strategy by retreating nine miles immediately, and complimented the enemy's gunners for the punishment they gave him, saying, "their guns were remarkably well served, and carried accurately 5,000 yards." This was disagreeable intelligence, but the general is reported to have had the satisfaction of shooting his false guide, and rested from his labors.

[Sidenote: Lord Methuen's Failure]

He had not the perseverance of Lord Methuen, who was enabled to wire truthfully that he had failed, December 12th, in a.s.saulting the enemy's position at Magersfontein. It was there his Lordship met in full force General Cronje, who had been spending a few days intrenching himself after the fight on the Modder River. There was no effort on the part of the British officers to claim Magersfontein as a victory, though they did insist that the loss of the Boers was something frightful.

The Highland Brigade was marched after the fashion of General Gatacre at Stormberg, so as to come right on the enemy just at the time and in the formation that they wanted to see him. It was, of course, during the darkness of early morning, after a very hard night for the men, that they entered the trap. The Boers had been waiting patiently and exercising their mobility in getting together so as to have a force of about 12,000 men. In that which immediately followed, the emergence of the troops from the strain of the march, General Wauchope seemed to believe his orders meant a ma.s.sacre of his men, and it is the story of the battle whether strictly true or not, that will give it endless fame, that he called to the men not to hold him responsible, as he was obeying Lord Methuen's orders. He died on the field, and his son, near him, was wounded.

[Sidenote: The Losses]

The Highlanders composing his brigade were, it is told with a dreadful simplicity, in "formation of quarter column," with no time to deploy, and they could not, by anything known in military maneuvers, have been placed in better form for the enemy. The loss of the brigade was their brave and capable commander Wauchope, with about 700 men killed and wounded, fifty of them officers, seven-tenths of them Highlanders.

This was the overture. There came after it a great deal of bombarding by the British of the Boer trenches, and the result was Lord Methuen retired to the Modder River, the retreat having been conducted in the official reports in an "orderly" manner. It will be noted that a considerable number of the Highlanders escaped, and that is accounted for by the fact that they were just a few minutes too early on the ground. They were quicker than expected according to the time table, and "bad light" saved those whose names were not found in the casualty lists. It was said that General Gatacre personally executed the false guides; but the trap for Lord Methuen immediately succeeding the affair at Stormberg was a case bearing such a close resemblance to the Magersfontein incident, where the guides were not accused of wilfully going on, that there rests a suspicion as to the criminality of the error that General Gatacre avenged. [Sidenote: What the Dispatches Say] The dispatches say in the case of the experience of Lord Methuen, "six miles had to be covered before the Highland Brigade could reach the Boer stronghold. It is not yet clear through what mischance the force which was led by guides came upon the Boer trenches so unexpectedly and so suddenly. Beyond question the Boers were aware of the approach of the British and had prepared to receive them." There were persistent reports that the Boers suffered heavy losses in the combat that opened with the fall of 700 Highlanders. Whatever were the casualties of the Boers, they must have been inflicted by the British Artillery which fired lyddite sh.e.l.ls for several hours, and as nothing could be seen to positively show what the effect of the sh.e.l.ling was, there are evident exaggerations in the fancies about it. Reuter's Special Agency telegraphed from Modder River December 12th: "Twelve ambulances started early this morning under a flag of truce to collect the wounded and bury the dead. General Wauchope's body was found near a trench. He had been shot through the chest and in the thigh." The Boer General Cronje telegraphed that he estimated his losses in this engagement at 100 killed and wounded, and the British at 2,000. Rumors in the camp of the British placed the Boer loss at 700 at least. The Queen sent to the widow of General Wauchope a touching message expressing her deep sympathy, and paid a warm tribute to the general's qualities as a soldier and his services to the nation. Her Majesty referred to the fact that with a single exception, that of the Soudan, in every campaign in which he had taken part he had been wounded.

[Sidenote: Sudden Change of Public Sentiment]

The most hopeful of British military movements in South Africa, for a time, was that of the column of Lord Methuen, which was terminated by the decimation of the Highland Brigade. He was reported as steadily advancing, winning his way with dashing marches without heavy losses.

His high qualities were mentioned with emphasis in all the newspapers--his stalwart physique, his cleverness, his kindliness, his courage, his intelligence; there was no praise too effusive for the adulation to which he was subjected. The fact that the Highlanders were put into a trap under his orders changed all this, and he is accused of madness. The orders that he gave on the field are described as those of a maniac; but his misfortune was quite like that which preceded it at Stormberg, and succeeded it at Colenso. Whatever is to be said of the disaster of Magersfontein, it must be recognized as typical and to signify either that the Boers were invincible or the methods of war as conducted by the British just at that period defective to helplessness. Four days later came the repulse of Buller's army, and the malady of disaster was manifest there also; so that it would almost warrant characterizing as a disease, a contagion, or a plague.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOERS FIRING ON GENERAL FRENCH'S TRAIN EN ROUTE TO DURBAN. The excellent marksmanship of the Dutch of South Africa enables them to hit a man at the distance of a mile or more with their accurate aim.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWO SIDES TO THE QUESTION. Boer or Briton? A heated discussion on the crisis.]

The general destruction of the Boers by bombarding and the courage displayed by the British soldiers under trying circ.u.mstances, could not aid the British Empire to a.s.sert complacency, and there was a pa.s.sing consternation that reflection over the monotony of misfortunes converted to indignation, and then the spirit of the people rose to the occasion. There was a general rally and hardening of resolution.

This sort of thing was, however, wired from the Modder Riveras late as December 13th: "Our lyddite sh.e.l.ls fell always where the enemy was thickest; most awful havoc was inflicted by the Royal Horse Artillery, who under a hot fire of a raid by the Boer firing line are said to have filled the trenches with dead."

[Sidenote: The Official Boer Account]

Much has been said of the Boers on the Modder River blazing away several times in the night, sh.e.l.ling imaginary foes, and there is evidence that the continued use of the British Artillery, sh.e.l.ling Boer lines, and an apprehension of desperate sorties (because after the various storming parties of the British there was no calculating what they might undertake), did for several nights disturb the nerves of the Boers in their intrenchments, and caused them to open fire and continue to blaze with their Mausers and artillery into darkness until they expended a great amount of ammunition; and the British found considerable relief in the enjoyment of this evidence that they were still held in great respect by their enemies. The official Boer account, telegraphed from Pretoria, was this:

"Despatch riders from the field report that the Boers have taken a large quant.i.ty of booty, including 200 Lee-Metford rifles. two cases of cartridges, some quant.i.ties of filled bandoliers, and hundreds of bayonets. A large number of British retired from Tweerivieren, in the direction of Belmont. The loss of the British is very great. Heaps of dead are lying on the field. The wounded are attended to temporarily at Bisset's Farm. The Boers lost a considerable number of horses. The sappers and miners must have suffered severely, as many implements were found on the field. The slaughter on the battlefield yesterday cannot be described otherwise than sad and terrible. It was for us a brilliant victory, and has infused new spirit into our men to enable them to achieve greater deeds."

[Sidenote: What the Battle Meant for Kimberley]

The Magersfontein battle was of intense interest to the people of Kimberley, and a special service dispatch gives this account of what was seen and heard by the anxious inhabitants of that city:

"This morning the ceaseless roar of cannon and Maxims was heard here from 4.25 till 10.30. Riding out at 5.30 A.M. to a ridge beyond the racecourse, I saw sh.e.l.l after sh.e.l.l burst on the side of a sugar-loaf-shaped kopje standing alone to the left of Spitzkop.

"Great puffs of white smoke rose every now and them, appearing like the spray of breakers on a rocky sh.o.r.e. Presently a captive balloon ascended and descended out of sight. The roar of the guns as heard here was most impressive, and told plainly of a great engagement."

The British casualties at Magersfontein are--official total:

Officers and men killed ...... 82 Wounded ...................... 667 Missing ...................... 348 ----- 1,097

A Mafeking dispatch, January 3d, states "The Boers, despite repeated warnings, concentrated their fire during the last two days upon the women's laager and hospital. Children have been killed and women mutilated by the bursting of sh.e.l.ls.

It was at this time reported in their towns that the Boers used explosive bullets. Surgeon Major Anderson authorized the statements that the wounds inflicted at Gambier fight were altogether different to previous experience in Egypt and in India, and that it was impossible they could have been produced by Martini or Mauser bullets, though, perhaps, they might have been caused by Snider ones, but from a scrutiny of the wounds made while dressing them in hospital here he has no doubt in his own mind that bullets of an explosive character were used by the Boers.

Captain Baden Powell deposed Wessels, chief of the tribe of the Baralongs, who had quarters at Mafeking. Wessels has lately been intractable. He spread false reports among the tribes that the military authorities were endeavoring to make the natives slaves.

CHAPTER VIII

Battle of Colenso--Defeat of General Buller.

[Sidenote: "Tied by the Leg"]

South Africa has several lines of railroads scoring the country with outline improvements, and there are many bridges easily broken, and then the iron lines are lost and the armies dependent upon them are, to employ a phrase common in England to describe immobility without imprisonment, "tied by the leg." South Africa is of enormous extent.

It is, for example, 641 miles by railroad from Cape Town to Kimberley, and the country is diversified and divided by mountain ranges and rivers, and yet it is extraordinarily open but rugged, giving sharpshooters with long range rifles concealment and shelter, while the columns of an army on the march can hardly be missed by the eye or the rifle. The Boer wagons with oxen for motors are phenomenally slow, but the Boer on his pony with rifles and a supply of cartridges gallops fifty miles in a few hours, while Europeans with indispensable impediments, have hard work to cover one quarter of the distance in the same time. The war was rushed just in the season for the gra.s.s to feed the ponies. While the English statesmen were debating with the Boer President the details of fractional representation based upon restricted const.i.tuencies, the Transvaal Government used the money extracted from disarmed and unprotected Englishmen in preparing for war, and it was held that a British subject unwilling to be of a servile cla.s.s and have the people speaking his language in the great city enslaved to the burghers, was in a sense irrational, a disturber, and one who would be a usurper, sordidly seeking to plunge the world into war. [Sidenote: American and Boer revolutions Compared] Our revolutionary fathers fought for representation, or rather against taxation without representation, but the Boers regarded it as an insult that the majority paying nine-tenths of the taxes should claim that it would be no more than fair to have one-sixteenth of the law-making power of the Transvaal Congress and none at all of the executive. The British did not prepare for war, but the Boers accused them of it, as the wolf accused a sheep of muddying the water when it was taking a drink down stream; and when the Boers were ready to fight they went at it and took the British unawares, at the same time charging them with responsibility for the conflict.

[Sidenote: Buller's Difficult Position]

If Sir Redvers Buller comprehended the full extent of the dangers of the duties of his a.s.signment, he made no sign. He might have had apprehensions that a pushing advance would mean, at best, delays for an indefinite period, but it seemed preposterous to sit down on a river with 18,000 men and watch the water glide away with the days and get news, perhaps, of the fall of Ladysmith, the place of the trial of strength of the combatants. He did wait long enough to cause comment in the press of his country to the effect that there was no break in the monotony of his camp beside the Tugela. This was equivalent to the old sarcasm in the American war, during the time that McClellan was making ready to move; "All is quiet on the Potomac." It was not the first appearance of General Buller in South Africa. He was with Sir Evelyn Wood after Majuba, and it was a.s.sumed his knowledge of the country would be valuable. The resources of the English Empire were at his command, but he was made to feel the want of time. He was where he could hear the thunder of cannon at Ladysmith day after day, but there was a river before him and beyond it the enemy in unknown numbers digging trenches, and they also occupied a position on the British side of the river, as was soon ascertained when the attempt was made in full force to pa.s.s it. The Boers were engaged in constructing rifle pits in the shape of the letter S, a double curve that gives occupants facilities for keeping out of raking sh.e.l.l fire, but making drainage difficult in rainy weather, and as the ground to cover was rough and the time to turn the tide that had been running against the British had come, if it was to be done before the fall of the besieged places, the General-in-Chief attempted to force the river and the first line of his report, after stating that he had moved in "full force" in the morning was to regret a "serious reverse."

[Sidenote: A Possible Preliminary Demonstration]

It was indeed serious. If there had been a chance to flank the position of the enemy, General Buller had not discovered it. The presumption is he had a force much stronger than the enemy would be in the open field, and one would think a violent cannonade at the bend of the river where there were two fords might have commanded attention in that quarter, and that there were British troops enough to make a demonstration that could be converted into a real attack at another point. In the report there is nothing about a pontoon train to put promptly two or three bridges across the Tugela, and no flanking operation seemed to be possible; but that movement should always be at the command of a superior force. Napoleon crossed the Alps to get behind the Austrians, who were furiously besieging Genoa, drew them out and defeated them. General Sherman flanked the Confederate army out of strong positions from Resaca to Atlanta, and his method was as simple as effective. Having the superior force, thirty per cent., probably more, he occupied the whole front of his antagonist and extended one of his flanks so as to overlap the line of the enemy; then swung a division or corps like a gate to strike the tip of the Confederate wing and crumple it up. When Joe Johnston, who had a great faculty for the business of war, was pressed by this flanking operation, he fell back to another position. The flanking compelled him to retire or to advance, and it was not his game to challenge a general battle with an army greatly stronger than his command. Rivers were not found an insurmountable obstacle in the American war at any time or place. At Fredericksburg the Americans laid pontoons across the Rappahannock in the face of the fire of Mississippi riflemen admirably posted in the cellars whose ventilating windows served as port-holes overlooking the river and the landing. [Sidenote: New Conditions of Warfare] It is to be said, however, that the firearms a generation ago did not have a range of a mile, even of half a mile, but the Confederate rifles were effective the whole breadth of the river. The material difference is that the Mausers of to-day have combined four times the range of our old "Springfields" with magazines of four metal cartridges in a "clip"; and one of the problems of the Boer and British war is as to the change made in and by the improvement of the small arms. It must affect the conditions of combats radically; and all the nations are going to the war school in South Africa.

[Sidenote: Plan of the Fight]

General Buller's report of the action in which he was discomfited is as noticeable for what it does not contain consecutively as for its communicativeness in some respects. He "moved in full strength,"

starting at four A.M. The first attack was at the left-hand ford, and a failure. The selection of that point for an a.s.sault is a curious one, as it was on ground two-thirds surrounded by a curve of the river, and exposed to fire on the front and both flanks. The general says the work could not be done there, but he does not say how soon he became convinced of that; and there was a second attack made on what may be best described as the right center. The British succeeded in occupying Colenso Station and the houses near the bridge. How great the expectations of the British general were to force a pa.s.sage of the second ford, then a.s.sailed, we have to conjecture, for no two accounts agree, except--and this is between the lines--that the British army at last lost hope and heart. The plan was first to strike with the left wing, and when that had failed, with the right, supporting right and left with the center. The turn of the day was soon to be determined, and "at that moment" the general truly says--he means the crisis of the affair--he "heard" that two field batteries and also six naval guns, twelve pounders, quick fire, were "out of action," _Hors du combat_.

The general adds that Colonel Long, who commanded the artillery, "in his desire to be within effective range, advanced close to the river.

It proved to be full of the enemy, who suddenly opened a galling fire at close range."

[Sidenote: Mistaken but Heroic Advantage]

The general commanding does not appear to have been well informed. He must have been exceedingly ill supplied with intelligence that should have been commonplace, if he didn't expect to find the ground near the river full of the enemy, and there is a peculiarity in announcing the sudden opening of a galling fire at close range that one feels it to be needful to account for. The location of the battery was 800 yards from the bank of the river. This is stated by the correspondent of the _Times_, who adds the action of Colonel Long in advancing his guns was "mistaken but heroic," and this writer imparts definiteness to the situation when he tells that Long took his batteries into action "within 800 yards of the river to the left of the railway, and 1250 yards from his objective--a ridge situated beyond Fort Wylie." It was, therefore, "heroic" to go with artillery within three quarters of a mile of the "objective!" The consequence, the correspondent says, was "the guns were exposed to a perfect inferno of rifle and sh.e.l.l fire; officers, men and horses fell in rapid succession, but, nevertheless, the guns went on, unlimbered and opened a steady fire, causing that of the enemy to abate to an appreciable degree. In this position the batteries remained for an hour and a half."

[Sidenote: Attack Fruitless]

The specific statements appear to show that the correspondent had a better comprehension of the situation than the general. The correspondent says that the guns were fired upon with rifle and sh.e.l.l fire, but went on and opened a steady fire and remained there an hour and a half. What point of time of this hour and a half General Buller refers to in stating that at this "moment" he heard that the batteries were "out of action," is for investigation. Later on, we ascertain that the general had sent these guns "back." They must, therefore, have been turned from the fruitless attack on the left to help the one that seemed more hopeful on the right, but this couldn't happen in a moment. The artillery fire caused that of the enemy to abate, but at the distance of 1,250 yards from the objective the horses of the batteries were killed and so many of the men fell that the guns could not be served, and more than that, the ammunition could not be replenished.

This is the most striking example given in active service of the efficacy of the modern rifle. It overpowered the well-served artillery rapid-fire twelve-pounders. The exhaustion of the ammunition may be in part attributed to the activity of the batteries in the attack on the left. As the men were disabled, so that the guns could not be served, it was not worth while to forward ammunition, and dispatches state that at the time when the guns ceased firing, "twenty carts went to the rear with the wounded." This, of course, by grace of the Boers.

[Sidenote: Boers Capture the Guns]

A further statement is that the artillery detachment "doubled back,"

which means retreated without order and into a depression--a donga or ravine--where they "found they were protected from the enemy's fire, but exposed to the burning heat of the sun." General Buller and staff rode in that direction. Two of the staff were hit, and the General himself touched, when heroic efforts were made in which the only son of Lord Roberts fell in the act of rescuing the two guns that were restored to the British army. The presence of the Commander-in-Chief at the scene of the greatest danger is noted, but his resources must have been at the time exhausted. The correspondent we have just quoted covers a considerable lapse of time in these words: "At a late hour in the afternoon, while the men were lying without hope of succor under the rays of the still blazing sun, a strong party of Boers crossed the river.[1] Firing was stopped, and they surrounded the guns which had been taken to the donga for shelter, and captured the whole of them.

This is positive, and appears to be at least as authentic as anything official. There is a great gap in the story of the battle that still is to be credited to the censor. A correspondent's letter, early wired, says the Boers crossed the river, and it would appear at this place, but other accounts say that they were intrenched on the British side of the river a little further to the right so extensively they could not be flanked, and they were so numerous they had been offensive and caused the Commander-in-Chief to refer to them as "oppressing his right flank," which was to threaten his retreat. General Buller and his staff are not referred to further than in their appearance in attempting to save the guns. Whether the British artillery and small arms were of as long range as those of the enemy, is one of the questions that rises up and will not down in this connection. The extent of the disaster to the British is emphasized by the knowledge that the guns captured and carried off by the Boers were not only 800 yards distant from the river, but had been, after the batteries had ceased firing, taken into the ravine which was used for shelter only--at least, that is one of the a.s.sertions that are made. Colonel Bullock, who attempted to reinforce the artillery and was driven into the ravine, and forced to surrender, but at the same time the men with him "managed to make good their escape in the confusion."

[1] They had a bridge behind a hill over the Tugela, bearing on Buller's right.