Three Years' War Part 3

At Bloemfontein we found everything ready for us, and at once started on our journey of sixty or seventy miles to Magersfontein, where we arrived on December the 16th.

During the time I had spent in travelling, three important engagements had taken place, namely those of Colenso, Magersfontein and Stormberg.

At Colenso, the English had suffered heavy losses, and ten guns had fallen into our hands. Magersfontein also had cost them dear, and there General Wauchope had met his fate; while at Stormberg seven hundred of them had been taken prisoners, and three of their big guns had been captured by us.

At Magersfontein were six or seven thousand Transvaal burghers under General Piet Cronje, with General De la Rey as second in command. Thus it fell to my lot to take over the command of the Free-Staters. The Commander-in-Chief of these Free State burghers, as well as of those who were camped round Kimberley, was Mr. C.J. Wessels; Mr. E.R. Grobler commanded at Colesberg, and Mr. J.H. Olivier at Stormberg.

I spent my first few days at Magersfontein in organizing the Free State burghers. When this task had been accomplished, General De la Rey and I asked General Cronje's permission to take fifteen hundred men, and carry on operations in the direction of Hopetown and De Aar with the intention of breaking Lord Methuen's railway communications. But Cronje would hear nothing of the scheme. Say what we would, there was no moving him.

He absolutely refused to allow fifteen hundred of his men to leave their positions at Magersfontein, unless the Government found it impossible to procure that number of burghers from elsewhere. Thus our plan came to nothing.

Shortly afterwards De la Rey was sent to the commandos at Colesberg, and I succeeded him in the command of the Transvaalers at Magersfontein. The Government then put General Wessels in sole command at Kimberley, and gave General Cronje the chief command over the Free State burghers at Magersfontein. Thus it was that I, as Vechtgeneraal, had to receive my orders from Cronje. I had the following Commandants under me: Du Preez, of Hoopstad; Grobler, of Fauresmith; D. Lubbe, of Jacobsdal; Piet Fourie, of Bloemfontein; J. Kok and Jordaan, of Winburg; Ignatius Ferreira, of Ladybrand; Paul De Villiers, of Ficksburg; Du Plessis, and, subsequently, Commandant Diederiks, of Boshof.

The English had entrenched themselves at the Modder River, we at Magersfontein. There was little or nothing for us to do, and yet I never had a more troublesome time in my life. I had all the Transvaalers under my orders, in addition to the burghers of the Free State, and the positions which I had to inspect every day extended over a distance of fifteen miles from end to end. I had to listen to constant complaints; one of the officers would say that he could not hold out against an attack if it were delivered at such and such a point; another, that he had not sufficient troops with him, not to mention other remarks which were nonsensical in the extreme.

In the meantime, the enemy was sh.e.l.ling our positions unceasingly. Not a day pa.s.sed but two of their Lyddite guns dropped sh.e.l.ls amongst us.

Sometimes not more than four or five reached us in the twenty-four hours; at other times from fifty to two hundred, and once as many as four hundred and thirty-six.

In spite of this, we had but few mishaps. Indeed, I can only remember three instances of any one being hurt by the sh.e.l.ls. A young burgher, while riding behind a ridge and thus quite hidden from the enemy, was. .h.i.t by a bomb, and both he and his horse were blown to atoms. This youth was a son of Mr. Gideon van Tonder, a member of the Executive Council.

Another Lyddite sh.e.l.l so severely wounded two brothers, named Wolfaard, Potchefstroom burghers, that we almost despaired of their lives.

Nevertheless, they recovered. I do not want to imply that the British Artillery were poor shots. Far from it. Their range was very good, and, as they had plenty of practice every day, shot after shot went home. I ascribe our comparative immunity to a Higher Power, which averted misfortune from us.

I had not been long at Magersfontein before I became convinced that Lord Methuen was most unlikely to make another attack on our extensive positions. I said nothing of this to any of the burghers, but on more than one occasion, I told General Cronje what I thought about the matter.

"The enemy," I repeated to him over and over again, "will not attack us here. He will flank us." But Cronje would not listen to me.

The presence of women in our laager was a great hindrance to me in my work. Indeed, I opened a correspondence with the Government on the matter, and begged them to forbid it. But here again my efforts were unavailing. Later on, we shall see in what a predicament the Republican laagers were placed through the toleration of this irregularity.

Meanwhile, the inevitable results of Cronje's policy became more and more apparent to me, and before long we had to suffer for his obstinacy in keeping us to our trenches and _schanzes_.[16]

[Footnote 16: A shelter-mound of earth and boulders.]

CHAPTER V

The Overwhelming Forces of Lord Roberts

I speedily discovered the object which the English had in view in taking such advanced positions and in bombarding Magersfontein. They wished to give us the impression that they were able to attack us at any moment and so to keep us tied to our positions. In the meantime they were making preparations in another direction, for the movement which was really intended--namely, the advance of Lord Roberts with his overwhelming force.

The Commander-in-Chief, Piet de Wet (and before him Commandant H.

Schorman), had plenty of work given them by the English. But General De la Rey had been so successful that he had prevented Lord Roberts, notwithstanding the enormous numbers he commanded, from crossing the Orange River at Norvalspont, and had thus forced him to take the Modder River route.

Lord Roberts would have found it more convenient to have crossed the Orange River, for the railway runs through Norvalspont. Yet had he attempted it, he would have fared as badly as Sir Redvers Buller did in Natal. Our positions at Colesberg, and to the north of the river, were exceedingly strong. He was wise, therefore, in his decision to march over the unbroken plains.

It was now, as I had foreseen, that the English renewed their flanking tactics.

On the 11th of February, 1900, a strong contingent of mounted troops, under General French, issued from the camps at Modder River and Koedoesberg. This latter was a kop on the Riet River, about twelve miles to the east of their main camp.

At ten o'clock in the morning, General French started. Immediately I received orders from General Cronje to proceed with three hundred and fifty men to check the advancing troops. As I stood on the ridges of Magersfontein, I was able to look down upon the English camps, and I saw that it would be sheer madness to pit three hundred and fifty men against General French's large force. Accordingly I asked that one hundred and fifty more burghers and two guns might be placed at my disposal. This request, however, was refused, and so I had to proceed without them.

When we arrived at Koedoesberg that afternoon, we found that the English had already taken possession of the hill. They were stationed at its southern end, and had nearly completed a stone wall across the hill from east to west. Their camp was situated on the Riet River, which flows beside the southern slopes of the _berg_. The enemy also held strong positions on hillocks to the east of the mountain, whilst on the west they occupied a ravine, which descended from the mountain to the river.

Commandant Froneman and I determined to storm the _berg_ without a moment's delay. We reached the foot of the mountain in safety, and here we were out of sight of the English. But it was impossible to remain in this situation, and I gave orders that my men should climb the mountain.

We succeeded in reaching the summit, but were unable to get within seven hundred paces of the enemy, owing to the severity of their fire from behind the stone wall. And so we remained where we were until it became quite dark, and then very quietly went back to the spot where we had left our horses.

As General French was in possession of the river, we had to ride about four miles before we could obtain any water.

Early the following morning we again occupied the positions we had held on the previous evening. Although under a severe rifle fire, we then rushed from position to position, and at last were only three hundred paces from the enemy. And now I was forced to rest content with the ground we had gained, for with only three hundred and fifty men I dare not risk a further advance, owing to the strength of the enemy's position.

The previous day I had asked General Cronje to send me reinforcements, and I had to delay the advance until their arrival. In a very short time a small party of burghers made their appearance. They had two field-pieces with them, and were under the command of Major Albrecht. We placed the guns in position and trained them on the English.

With the second shot we had found our range, while the third found its mark in the wall, so that it was not long before the enemy had to abandon that shelter. To find safe cover they were forced to retreat some hundred paces. But we gained little by this, for the new positions of the English were quite as good as those from which we had driven them, and, moreover, were almost out of range of our guns. And we were unable to bring our field-pieces any nearer because our gunners would have been exposed to the enemy's rifle fire.

Our Krupps made good practice on the four English guns which had been stationed on the river bank to the south. Up till now these had kept up a terrific fire on our guns, but we soon drove them across the river, to seek protection behind the mountain. I despatched General Froneman to hold the river bank, and the _sluit_[17] which descended to the river from the north. While carrying out this order he was exposed to a heavy fire from the enemy's western wing, which was located in the above-mentioned ravine, but he succeeded in reaching the river under cover of the guns. Once there, the enemy's artillery made it impossible for him to move.

And now a curious incident occurred! A falcon, hovering over the heads of our burghers in the _sluit_, was. .h.i.t by a bullet from one of the shrapnel sh.e.l.ls and fell dead to the ground in the midst of the men. It was already half-past four, and we began to ask ourselves how the affair would end. At this juncture I received a report from a burgher, whom I had placed on the eastern side of the mountain to watch the movements of the English at the Modder River. He told me that a mountain corps, eight hundred to a thousand men strong, was approaching us with two guns, with the intention, as it appeared, of outflanking us. I also learnt that eighty of my men had retreated. I had stationed them that morning on a hillock three miles to the east of the mountain, my object being to prevent General French from surrounding us.

It now became necessary to check the advance of this mountain corps. But how? There were only thirty-six men at my disposal. The other burghers were in positions closer to the enemy, and I could not withdraw them without exposing them too seriously to the bullets of the English. There was nothing for it, but that I with my thirty-six burghers should attack the force which threatened us.

We rushed down the mountain and jumping on our horses, galloped against the enemy. When we arrived at the precipice which falls sheer from the mountain, the English were already so near that our only course was to charge them.

In front of us there was a plain which extended for some twelve hundred paces to the foot of an abrupt rise in the ground. This we fortunately reached before the English, although we were exposed all the way to the fire of their guns. But even when we gained the rise we were little better off, as it was too low to give us cover. The English were scarcely more than four hundred paces from us. They dismounted and opened a heavy fire. For ten or fifteen minutes we successfully kept them back. Then the sun went down! and to my great relief the enemy moved away in the direction of their comrades on the mountain. I ordered all my men from their positions, and withdrew to the spot where we had encamped the previous night. The burghers were exhausted by hunger and thirst, for they had had nothing to eat except the provisions which they had brought in their saddle-bags from the laager.

That evening Andreas Cronje--- the General's brother--joined us with two hundred and fifty men and a Maxim-Nordenfeldt.

When the sun rose on the following day, the veldt was clear of the enemy. General French had during the night retreated to headquarters.

What losses he had suffered I am unable to say; ours amounted to seven wounded and two killed.

Our task here was now ended, and so we returned to Magersfontein.

The following morning a large force again left the English camp and took the direction of the Koffiefontein diamond mine. General Cronje immediately ordered me to take a force of four hundred and fifty men with a Krupp and a Maxim-Nordenfeldt, and to drive back the enemy. At my request, Commandants Andreas Cronje, Piet Fourie, Scholten and Lubbe joined me, and that evening we camped quite close to the spot where the English force was stationed!

Early the next day, before the enemy had made any movement, we started for Blauwbank,[18] and, having arrived there, we took up our positions.

Shortly afterwards the fight began; it was confined entirely to the artillery.

We soon saw that we should have to deal with the whole of Lord Roberts'

force, for there it was, advancing in the direction of Paardenberg's Drift. It was thus clear that Lord Roberts had not sent his troops to Koffiefontein with the intention of proceeding by that route to Bloemfontein, but that his object had been to divide our forces, so as to march via Paardenberg's Drift to the Capital.

I accordingly withdrew with three hundred and fifty of the burghers in the direction of Koffiefontein, and then hid my commando as best I could. The remainder of the men--about a hundred in number--I placed under Commandant Lubbe, giving him orders to proceed in a direction parallel to the advance of the English, who now were nearing Paardenberg's Drift, and to keep a keen eye on their movements. It was a large force that Lubbe had to watch. It consisted chiefly of mounted troops; but there were also nine or ten batteries and a convoy of light mule waggons.

I thought that as General Cronje was opposing them in front, my duty was to keep myself in hiding and to reconnoitre.

I wished to communicate with General Cronje before the English troops came up to him, and with this object I sent out a despatch rider. The man I chose for the mission was Commandant G.J. Scheepers--whose name later in the war was on every man's lips for his exploits in Cape Colony, but who then was only the head of our heliograph corps. I informed General Cronje in my message that the English, who had been stationed at Blauwbank, had made a move in the direction of Paardenberg's Drift; and I advised him to get out of their road as quickly as he could, for they numbered, according to my computation, forty or fifty thousand men.

I thought it wise to give Cronje this advice, on account of the women and children in our camps, who might easily prove the cause of disaster.

When Scheepers returned he told me what reply General Cronje had made.