South Africa and the Transvaal War Volume Ii Part 20

"7. The officer commanding the mounted brigade (the Earl of Dundonald) will move, at 4 A.M. with a force of 1000 men and one battery, No. 1 brigade division, in the direction of Hlangwane Hill. He will cover the right flank of the general movement, and will endeavour to take up a position on Hlangwane Hill, where he will enfilade the kopjes north of the iron bridge. The officer commanding the mounted troops will also detail two forces of 300 and 500 men, to cover the right and left flanks respectively and protect the baggage.

"8. The Second Brigade Division of the Royal Field Artillery will move, at 4.30 A.M., following the Fourth Brigade, and will take up a position whence it can enfilade the kopjes north of the iron bridge. The Sixth Brigade (Major-General Barton's) will act on any orders it receives from Major-General Hart. The six Naval guns, twelve-pounders, now in position north of the Fourth Brigade, will advance on the right of the Second Brigade Division Royal Field Artillery. No. 1 Division Royal Field Artillery, less one battery detached to the mounted brigade, will move at 3.30 A.M. east of the railway, and proceed, under cover of the Sixth Brigade, to a point from which it can prepare a crossing for the Second Brigade. The six Naval guns will accompany and act with the Brigade Division."

It must be remembered that the railway bridge had been blown up, but a footbridge still existed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SKETCH PLAN OF BATTLE OF COLENSO, MADE ON THE SPOT BY A MILITARY DRAUGHTSMAN.]

Before dawn Lord Dundonald with a mounted brigade and a battery of artillery moved to the east, while General Hart and his brigade started to try and cross Brindle Drift. The field-guns came next with cavalry--the 1st Royals and 13th Hussars--to protect either flank.

Major-General Hildyard's brigade advanced to occupy the post of honour in the centre of the theatre of war. On the right were the West Surrey with the West Yorks in support. On the left marched the Devons with the East Surrey in rear. At 6 A.M. the Naval Contingent opened the proceedings. Their 12-pounders began to snort and to roar, and lyddite whizzed and shrieked over to Grobler's Hill and in the neighbourhood of Fort Wylie. But it whizzed and shrieked in vain. The Boers were "mum."

They were "lying low," and had determined to keep their position masked as long as possible. They adopted the same tactics which had so confounded us at Majesfontein. The infantry now advanced, while Colonels Long and Hunt made haste--undue haste, as lamentable experience proved--to come into line with their field-batteries. At this moment, when all seemed to be going well, when Hart's, Hildyard's, and Barton's brigades were moving to their several positions, the sudden combined roar of Boer artillery and musketry was heard, coming not, as might have been supposed, from the distance, but _from the immediate front_, and apparently from all sides. A very cyclone of Mauser bullets swept all around, rattling and barking from the river bank, from trenches north and south of the Tugela, from Fort Wylie, and from every available point of vantage. Flame in tongues and forks belched out as from a crackling bush. The advancing infantry--the Devons and the West Surrey--found themselves almost carried off their feet; leaden hail beat the dust around, digging deep into the earth and sending up spurts of blinding dust, or whistling a warning of death to the heart of many an honest lad and true. So deadly, so awful was this fusillade, that it seemed impossible to do aught but flee. Yet the gunners stood tight to their guns, and the infantry with set faces like masks of bronze, regardless of the companions that dropped thick and fast around and upon them, stared Death straight in the face--stared at and recognised and knew him, and still maintained their ground! More--they advanced; nearer and ever nearer to the invisible enemy they came, afterwards lying down and returning the fire with interest, while the guns of Long's and Hunt's field-batteries boomed and bellowed and vomited fire like Inferno released. Fort Wylie and its neighbourhood were swept with shrapnel and almost silenced, but only for a moment. Disaster was in the air. The concealed sharpshooters of the enemy, who crowded the Boer lines, had applied themselves to making a concentrated attack on the guns, picking off horses and officers and men, and finally reducing the snorting weapons which had been galloped too quickly into action, and were within 700 yards of the enemy's trenches, to a condition of pitiable impotence.

Only the third field-battery and the Naval battery could move, and these were quickly drawn off to a place of safety. Amidst this scene of tragedy and uproar the Devons and West Surrey were steadily pursuing their way with a heroism that absolutely defies description. The enemy was driven out of the platelayers' and surrounding houses, and Colenso village was cleared. What the guns failed to do the bayonet accomplished, and before the glint of the steel--the cold, stern steel they so much dread--the Boers had bolted. But all around them Krupps and Maxims and Hotchkiss guns were still working hard, spouting and shrieking, and tearing earth and men and horses, and throwing them together in one horrible, hideous heap.

Certainly the advance of Hildyard's men was a n.o.ble achievement. Their effort to capture the road bridge and hold the village of Colenso in face of a scene of carnage was an act of splendid courage and determination; but they were a.s.sailed with so deadly a storm of shot and sh.e.l.l that they had no choice but to retire. Though they had imagined the village to be evacuated, the place had been swarming with Boers, they evidently having expected to be attacked in this quarter. Not only were they strongly intrenched, but the guns on the surrounding hills commanded the position, and when the Boers were temporarily routed the guns still continued to sweep the whole place with such unerring accuracy and fierceness that the ground was thickly strewn with the bodies of the mangled. Until those guns could be silenced, efforts of the infantry were so much waste of valiant flesh and blood; but our power to silence them was at an end. The guns of the 14th and 66th Batteries were doomed. They had, as before said, been approached too close to the river, and thus been exposed to the unerring rifle-fire of the Boer mercenaries. The attack was immediately returned, but before long the whole party, officers, gunners, and horses, were simply mown down. As fast as more horses were brought up they were annihilated. In addition to this the gunners ran short of ammunition. To await the arrival of this, such survivors as there were doubled back to the shelter of a donga twenty yards in their rear. At that time there was no intention of abandoning the guns. Superb were the efforts made to save them. Three officers rushed forward into the open, and, with some heroic drivers and such horses as they could get, made their way very deliberately towards the two field-batteries and into the mouth of a flaming h.e.l.l. These were Captain Schofield, R.A. (A.D.C. to General Buller), Captain the Hon. F. Roberts, 60th Rifles, and Captain Congreve, Rifle Brigade. This glorious bravery was almost an act of suicide, and in sheer amazement at the wondrous valour of these dauntless Britons, the Boer rifle-fire, for one instant, was suspended. In the next, shot and sh.e.l.l burst forth afresh and the scene became too harrowing for description. Roberts, the gallant and the beloved, dropped, wounded in five places, while his horse was blown to bits, and Congreve, his jacket riddled to ribbons, was. .h.i.t several times. Schofield, by a miracle, came whole from the ordeal, and succeeded in the almost impossible task of hauling off the two guns, for which all three and many others had risked their lives. The rest of the guns were captured by the enemy, but of this anon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BATTLE OF COLENSO--THE DUBLIN FUSILIERS ATTEMPT TO FORD THE TUGELA.

Drawing by Rene Bull and Enoch Ward, R.B.A.]

Major-General Hart's Brigade, consisting of the Dublins, Inniskillings, Borderers, and Connaughts, fulfilled in a measure what was expected of them. Some of them actually crossed the Tugela, but, alas! to no purpose. The position near the other side was untenable. A dam had been thrown across the water to deepen it. Cascades of artillery shrapnel were so liberally poured upon them, there was no holding up a head in such a fusillade. Yet they pushed on to the river, and the enemy fell back before them or dropped under their steady determined fire. The Dutchmen were driven to the north bank of the Tugela, and the Irish Brigade gallantly plunged in, thinking the water was knee-deep or at least fordable, and it was only then that they discovered that the wire entanglements that had been spread around the trenches were also under water, and that the flood itself was unexpectedly deep, owing to the ingenious dam that had been constructed by the "slim" adversary. There were now ten feet of water instead of two, and sad was the plight of many a poor fellow of the Dublins and Connaughts, who, weighted with ammunition and accoutrements, found it impossible to swim to sh.o.r.e or even to return. They were drowned in the flood, while others dropped in heaps under the enemy's fire, and even under volleys of our own men, who, unluckily, mistook them for the foe. But the Irishmen's blood was up, and some, at any cost, determined to reach the other side to get one grip of the enemy, but what many of them thought to be the other bank was merely the bank of a winding spruit, which took them no farther towards the foe. The disappointment and rage was intense. Boom, boom, went the cannons roaring their dirge of death; bang, bang, bellowed the Naval battery in reply; rattling and raking came the bullets above the heads of the plunging Irishmen; splash, splash, sang the cold muddy water in their ears as they scrambled from rock to stone or swam for dear life. All that gallantry could do was done, but there was no appreciable advance with them, or indeed anywhere--ill-luck or bad management frustrated the best efforts on every hand. Men fell in heaps; horses with half their bodies blown away littered the veldt; the guns were stuck fast--useless lumber, too valuable to leave, too heavy to get away. Some say that had it not been for the action of the artillery commander in taking a whole brigade division--three batteries--up at a gallop to within 700 yards of the enemy's trenches, the day might still have been ours. The valiant Irishmen would still have pursued their risky advance. Others declared that the want of proper scouting caused the whole fiasco, and that all the pluck of the Irish Brigade was so much heroism wasted. They had no information relative to the intrenchments of the place to be attacked by them, nor any conception of the strength of the opposition they were liable to meet. No scouts appear to have discovered the position of the ford by which they were ordered to cross, or the nearness of the enemy to that point, and consequently the brigade marched in quarter-column into the very jaws of death, only deploying when sh.e.l.ls had already begun to burst in their midst. Like the guns of the Royal Artillery, they found themselves before they were prepared in the midst of a close and deadly fusillade--the more deadly and unnerving because on the clearest of days not a whiff of smoke betrayed the quarters from whence the murderous a.s.saults were coming.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP SHOWING THE ATTEMPTED Pa.s.sAGE OF THE RIVER BY GENERAL BULLER ON DECEMBER 15.]

General Barton's brigade, like Hart's and Hildyard's, failed to effect its object. It was found impossible to obtain possession of Hlangwane Hill, which was much more strongly held than it was believed to be. The troops were a.s.sailed from thence by such galling sh.e.l.l and rifle fire that they were eventually forced to retire.

On the extreme right, the mounted troops, under Lord Dundonald, made a vigorous attack at the Hlangwane Hill, on which was posted the Boer pieces which had wrought such devastation among the British batteries.

However, in advancing up the valley, they were outflanked by the Boers, and had eventually to retire under a storm of bullets. The irregulars, for their part, worked splendidly. The South African Horse advanced on the front under a heavy sh.e.l.l fire. Thorneycroft's Horse, the Natal Carabineers, the Imperial Light Horse, and the Mounted Infantry at the same time attempted the flanking attack; but the Boer lines, which ran along some high ground to the right of the flanking party, defeated their best efforts. Owing to the bad light, and to the fact that the Boers used smokeless powder, their fire failed to reveal their position, and the discomfort of the attacking party was considerable.

Meanwhile the 7th Battery, which was with Lord Dundonald, kept sh.e.l.ling Hlangwane and Fort Wylie in turns, the latter being done in order to a.s.sist the general advance. About noon Lord Dundonald was ordered to retire. This, however, was immediately impossible. So soon as the men began to move they became targets for the foe. Many of the men were reluctant to retire at all, and were pressing in their desire to still "have a go" at the enemy. The retirement at last, after a two hours'

struggle, was accomplished without undue loss. The 7th Battery, under command of Major Henshaw, made splendid practice. During the engagement Lord Dundonald sent a team of gun and waggon horses, under Captain Reed, to a.s.sist the 14th and 66th Batteries to recover their guns. Captain Reed returned to the 7th Battery, and though he came back with a bullet in his leg, he insisted on remaining with it until he was ordered back to camp.

Generals Buller and Clery were ubiquitous, riding coolly about and directing where the hurricane of lead was thickest, and running risks which rendered all who saw them anxious for their safety. Indeed, as some one remarked, one would have thought they were lieutenants trying to make a name, and not generals with the responsibility of an army on their minds. The loss of either of these prominent officers would have been counted by the Boers as a sign of victory, and therefore, when one was. .h.i.t in the side and another in the arm by glancing bullets, there was considerable alarm among those who were near enough to observe what had taken place. Captain Hughes, R.A.M.C., was killed, and others of the Staff were wounded. Lord Gerard twice had narrow escapes, his horse being twice wounded.

A squadron of the Imperial Horse had an exciting experience. The men, who had dismounted to move in extended order across level country, were beginning to cross a ploughed field. Suddenly a rifle volley was opened upon them, and they were forced to lie down for cover. But the enemy, though on a kopje not 500 yards distant at this time, was quite invisible; and on this clear, hot day, though the song of the Mauser went on persistently, there was no smoke to betray the enemy's position.

The Imperial Horse lay quiet, and the enemy thinking they were perhaps annihilated ceased firing. Presently, however, when the troopers ventured out, the firing was renewed, and many were killed and wounded.

It is invidious to mention special regiments when all fought so resolutely. The behaviour of the irregular forces, however, was the subject of general remark. They held their position under a heavy cross-fire, refusing to retire without their wounded. And when they did retire, the movement was executed without flurry, with precision and composure, as if the battlefield were one vast manoeuvring ground.

Meanwhile the Boers still struggled to outflank our right, and the 13th Hussars had a lively time, Colonel Blagrove having his charger shot under him; but there were few serious calamities, only two of the troopers being killed.

Many instances of heroism were recorded on the part of men and officers belonging to all the regiments engaged in the battle. Lieutenant Ponsonby, of Thorneycroft's Horse, while endeavouring to save a wounded man, was fired at, the shot striking his unhappy burden and mortally wounding him. The young officer was slightly wounded himself, but managed to escape after shooting his a.s.sailant dead at very close quarters. The conduct of the Dublins was the subject of universal praise. They lost heavily; some 216 out of 900 men. When ordered to retire, although the crossing of the Tugela Drift was a sufficiently fearful experience, they were intensely disgusted. "Let us only see the beggars!" they asked. "Give us a chance with the bayonet!" said these gallant fellows, who had already pa.s.sed through a hurricane of shot and sh.e.l.l. The Scottish Fusiliers lost 75 out of 301, but they were still ready, still bent, if allowed, upon carrying the bridge at all costs.

Their enterprise was badly rewarded. They got left in an untenable position and were surrounded.

Captain Herbert, Staff Officer to Colonel Long, had his horse killed under him, while the Colonel himself was severely wounded by a bullet from a shrapnel sh.e.l.l. Captain White-Thomas, while on his way back to the limbers to get blankets for the injured, received a nasty wound.

Colonel Brook (Connaught Rangers) was shot, and while being carried off the field by some of his men, one of these was wounded. The Colonel insisted on being put down, but Pat also insisted that he was equal to carrying his burden to a place of safety, and did so, though a shot had pierced his neck and pa.s.sed clean out on the other side.

So many valiant deeds were performed that s.p.a.ce will not admit of all being recounted. The irregulars and regulars seemed determined to out-distance each other in feats of chivalry. Private Farmer, of the Carabineers, struggled to save a comrade at the risk of his own life.

Colour-Sergeant Byrne, in a storm of bullets, gallantly saved three of his comrades who were drowning, though he and they were heavily weighted with ammunition and equipment. Major Gordon, wounded as he was, fiercely and n.o.bly led on his men till he dropped from exhaustion. The conduct of some of the drivers was simply amazing, and their daring was repeated and reflected in the achievements of the infantry. Quite wonderful was the bearing of these men, mere private soldiers, in their magnificent n.o.bility of sacrifice, their utter regardlessness of self. Each strove to set an example to the other of steadfast, almost reckless devotion to duty.

The circ.u.mstances attending the capture of the guns were deeply tragic.

Late in the terrible afternoon, when the red sun was sending horizontal rays across the blood-dyed field, a strong party of Boers swam the river for the purpose of seizing the guns and forcing the wounded, who were huddled together in the donga, to surrender. It was a fearful moment.

Our worn-out, fainting, and dying men were lying about drenched in their own gore, helpless, and none could move to save the precious guns from falling into alien hands. Some raged, some wept with mortification at their powerlessness to stay the inevitable. Three Boers approached them for the purpose of demanding their instant surrender, and were shot at from the donga. A larger body then arrived, and though Colonel Bullock doggedly refused to surrender, and was struck down by their leader, they eventually forced the party to submit. It is said--let us hope it was mere report--that they threatened to shoot the wounded if they did not!

However, the fact was mentioned by Sir Redvers Buller, who doubtless had been well informed on the subject.

The following is the list of casualties in the engagement at Colenso:--

Royal Field Artillery--Killed: Captain A. H. Goldie, Lieutenant C. B. Schreiber. Royal Dublin Fusiliers--Killed: Captain A. H.

Bacon, Lieutenant P. C. Henry. Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers--Killed: Captain Frank C. Loftus. Devon Regiment--Wounded: Captain M. J. Goodwyn (b), Captain J. F.

Radcliffe (b), Captain P. U. W. Vigor (c), Lieutenant H. B. W.

Gardiner (c), Second Lieutenant H. J. Storey (c). Rifle Brigade--Wounded: Second Lieutenant R. G. Graham (b), Captain W. N. Congreve (c). Fifth Brigade Staff--Wounded: Captain Hon.

St. Leger Jervis (b). Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers--Died of wounds: Major G. F. W. Charley. Wounded: Captain A. G.

Hanc.o.c.ks (a), Captain W. F. Hessey (b), Captain E. J. Buckley (b), Lieutenant H. A. Leverson (b), Second Lieutenant T. W.

Whiffen (b), Lieutenant A. D. Best (b), Lieutenant W. W. Weldon (c), Lieutenant J. G. Devenish (b). Border Regiment--Wounded: Major K. H. G. Heygate (b), Captain J. E. S. Probyn (c), Lieutenant G. T. Marsh (b). Connaught Rangers--Wounded: Colonel L. G. Brooke (a), Lieutenant G. F. Brooke (a). Royal Dublin Fusiliers.--Wounded: Major A. W. Gordon (b), Captain H. M.

Stewan (b), Second Lieutenant M'Leod (b). Royal Irish Fusiliers--Wounded: Captain T. E. R. Brush (b). Royal Horse Artillery--Wounded: Colonel Long (a). Royal Field Artillery--Wounded: Lieut.-Colonel H. Hunt (c), Captain H. D.

White-Thomson (c), Captain H. L. Reed (c), Captain F. A. G.

Elton (b). Lieutenant Frank Goodson (c). Royal Army Medical Corps--Killed: Captain M. C. Hughes. Wounded: Major F. A.

Bracington (? Brannigan) (c). Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry--Killed: Lieutenant C. M. Jenkins. Wounded: Lieutenant W. Otto (b), Lieutenant Ponsonby (c), Second Lieutenant Holford, 19th Hussars (attached) (a). Natal Carabiniers--Wounded: D. W. Mackay (b), Lieutenant R. W. Wilson (c). South African Light Horse--Wounded: Lieutenant B. Banhurst (b), Lieutenant J. W. c.o.c.k (c). King's Royal Rifles--Wounded: Lieutenant Hon. F. H. S. Roberts (since died). Field Artillery--Prisoners: Second Lieutenant R. W. St. L. Gethin, Major A. L. Bailward, Lieutenant A. C. Birch, Second Lieutenant C. D. Holford, Major W. Y. Foster. Devon Regiment--Prisoners: Lieut.-Colonel G. Bullock, J. M'N. Walter, Lieutenant S. N. F.

Smyth-Osbourne. Ess.e.x Regiment--Prisoner: Lieutenant W. F.

Bonham. Royal Scots Fusiliers--Prisoners: Captain D. H. A.

d.i.c.k, Captain H. H. Northy, Lieutenant E. Christian, Lieutenant E. F. H. Rumbold, Lieutenant M. E. M'Conaghey, Second Lieutenant G. E. Briggs. Royal Artillery--Missing: Lieutenant S. T. Butler. Connaught Rangers--Missing: Captain G. H.

Ford-Hutchison, Second Lieutenant E. V. Jones.

(a) dangerously wounded; (b) seriously; (c) slightly.

Our losses were 1167 all told. Killed, 5 officers and 160 men; wounded, 36 officers and 634 men; missing and prisoners, 26 officers and 311 men--a terrible list for one day's work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BATTLE OF COLENSO--THE LAST DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO SAVE THE GUNS OF THE 14th and 66th BATTERIES.

Drawing by Sidney Paget.]

Sad to state, our ambulances were designedly fired upon. Five sh.e.l.ls fell in the neighbourhood of a waggon packed with wounded, and one party of ambulance men was forced twice to abandon their work of succour. The tents of the field-hospitals were no sooner erected than sh.e.l.ls fell all round them, and the men were forced to desist from their labours. The heroic conduct of the civilian stretcher-bearers was generally the subject of remark. These men, though fired at by the enemy and injured, continued zealously to carry on their humane work, and a.s.sisted in saving many lives which might otherwise have been sacrificed. The force of the enemy opposed to us was estimated at 12,000 to 14,000. From a tactical standpoint the Boers had overwhelming advantages. Their numbers were immense, and the dangerous high-banked river, which they themselves had carefully dammed and filled with wire entanglements, made a formidable shield for the defensive party. In addition to this, they had constructed long, highly scientifically-arranged trenches, along which their Nordenfeldt gun could quickly travel, and thus defy any attempt of our gunners to get the range. Still the Naval guns were wonderfully worked, and wrought considerable havoc among the Boers in the over-hanging kopjes. Though their loss could not be accurately estimated, it was declared to be about 2000. The trenches were said to be choked with dead Dutchmen.

On the 16th of December an armistice was agreed upon, to last from noon till midnight, to enable both sides to collect and bury their dead.

The following "recommendations to notice" illuminated the somewhat sad nature of the General's despatch:--

"From the General Commanding-in-Chief the Forces in South Africa to the Secretary of State for War.

"CHIEVELEY CAMP, _Dec. 16, 1899_.

"SIR,--I have the honour to bring the following cases of Distinguished Service in the Field to your notice.

"At Colenso, on December 15, the detachments serving the guns of the 14th and 66th Batteries, Royal Field Artillery, had all been either killed, wounded, or driven from their guns by infantry fire at close range, and the guns were deserted.

"About 500 yards behind the guns was a donga, in which some of the few horses and drivers left alive were sheltered. The intervening s.p.a.ce was swept with sh.e.l.l and rifle fire.

"Captain Congreve, Rifle Brigade, who was in the donga, a.s.sisted to hook a team into a limber, went out and a.s.sisted to limber up a gun; being wounded, he took shelter, but seeing Lieutenant Roberts fall badly wounded, he went out again and brought him in. Some idea of the nature of the fire may be gathered from the fact that Captain Congreve was shot through the leg, through the toe of his boot, grazed on the elbow and the shoulder, and his horse shot in three places.

"Lieutenant the Honourable F. Roberts, King's Royal Rifles, a.s.sisted Captain Congreve. He was wounded in three places.

"Corporal Nurse, Royal Field Artillery, 66th Battery, also a.s.sisted. I recommend the above three for the Victoria Cross.