More Tugela Troubles
By a process of elimination Buller hoped in time to find the road to
Ladysmith. He had tried in succession, but without success, Colenso,
Potgieter's Drift, and Trickhardt's Drift. He now informed White that he
intended to make another attempt, but Lord Roberts advised him to
postpone it until his own advance should draw off the Free Staters and
weaken the barrier on the line of the Tugela.
The situation in the besieged town was growing worse every day, but a
proposal made by White as well as by the War Office that the garrison
should endeavour to break out, was not sanctioned by Lord Roberts. White
also was opposed to Buller's making another attempt to cross the Tugela,
as he considered that the force would be more usefully employed in
preventing the enemy from concentrating on Ladysmith.
[Sidenote: Map, p. 98.]
Buller's new plan was an advance by way of Vaalkrantz. Here the river
winds in two salient loops towards the north, with a re-entrant loop
between them, and there is a slight break in the heights on the left
bank. The Brakfontein ridge slopes down towards Vaalkrantz Hill, between
which and Green Hill there is a dip through which a road passes on to
the open ground towards Ladysmith, eleven miles distant.
Buller proposed to occupy the ridge of Vaalkrantz with artillery, and
after a feint attack on the Boer position on Brakfontein, to push
through under cover of the guns. It was believed that the enemy's
extreme left lay on Vaalkrantz, which was commanded by Mount Alice and
Zwart Kop. Lord Roberts when informed of the project was not hopeful of
its success, but did not veto it, although he thought that Buller would
be better advised to abstain from offensive tactics.
The feint attack on Brakfontein was to be made by seven Field Batteries
and a Brigade of Infantry, and was to be continued long enough to
convince the enemy that it was "meant". It was then to be withdrawn and
the real attack set in motion. The advance of the feint would be covered
by heavy guns posted on Mount Alice, and concealed batteries on Zwart
Kop would open on Vaalkrantz in support of the real attack.
The bulk of the infantry was posted in the east loop, so as to appear
ready to cross the river and support the feint attack between the loops.
As soon as the guns had driven the enemy into their trenches on
Brakfontein, a pontoon bridge was to be thrown across the river south of
Hunger's Drift, and the guns on Zwart Kop were to open on Vaalkrantz,
and when this had been sufficiently bombarded, it would be carried by
the infantry, and guns would be brought up to enfilade the Boer line;
while the cavalry "when feasible" would push through under the ridge and
threaten it from the rear.
It was a pretty tactical scheme, with much of the War-Game about it, and
it depended for its success upon the practicability of using Vaalkrantz
as an artillery position, and upon the correctness of the assumption
that the enemy was not in force eastward of it.
Buller was not successful in placing his guns on Zwart Kop unnoticed by
the enemy, who was warned in time. After Spion Kop, Botha went to
Pretoria, and Schalk Burger took furlough. B. Viljoen was now in
command. He saw the danger and applied to Joubert at Ladysmith for help,
who thought he was over-anxious but sent him a heavy gun. Little however
would have been done but for the intervention of the two civilian
Presidents. Steyn appealed to Kruger who, having tried without success
to induce Joubert to take command on the Upper Tugela, fell in with
Steyn's suggestion that Martin Prinsloo, a Free Stater, should go there;
and Botha was ordered back from Pretoria. Prinsloo took command of the
Brakfontein position, Viljoen remaining on Vaalkrantz.
At sunrise on February 5 began Buller's third attempt to relieve
Ladysmith. Wynne, who had succeeded Woodgate in command of the 11th
Brigade, advanced in two lines up the slope towards Brakfontein,
supported by the fire of forty-four guns. Nearly six hours passed before
any reply was vouchsafed by the enemy. At mid-day some guns on Wynne's
left front opened on the batteries, but not a shot was fired by the
Boers in the trenches.
Already one field battery had been detached from the left of the line of
guns, the first movement in the real attack, and had taken up a position
to cover the pontoon troop which was throwing a bridge across the Tugela
near Hunger's Drift. At noon the completion of the bridge was signalled
to the feint attack. The batteries fronting the Brakfontein ridge were
withdrawn, and Wynne's brigade which, having been marched up the slope,
was now marched down again, came under a heavy but almost innocuous
infantry fire, which at last broke out on Brakfontein.
To the Boers it appeared that another attack, determined while it
lasted, but devoid of backbone, had been kept at bay. The guns on Zwart
Kop opened on Vaalkrantz as soon as the detached battery was seen to be
in motion; and the other batteries came into action as they arrived from
the Brakfontein demonstration. There was some annoyance from casual
rifle fire and a Maxim posted on the heights S.E. of the loop, but it
did not seriously interfere with the work of the bridge-builders.
The rules of the game were strictly obeyed, and there was "a thorough
preparation by artillery" before the infantry was allowed to advance.
The movement was delayed until half a hundred guns were playing upon
Vaalkrantz and the chance of a _celer et audax_ exploit was lost. At 2
p.m. Lyttelton with two battalions of the 4th Brigade was permitted to
cross the pontoon and with these he worked up under the protection of
the left bank, and emerging upon Munger's Farm, rose thence to the
southern edge of Vaalkrantz, and took hold of the ridge. Here he was
joined by a battalion of Hildyard's Brigade, whose original orders to
occupy Green Hill were cancelled, and later on by the remaining
battalions of his own brigade; which Buller, wavering for a time, had
held back, as the pontoon and the open ground were under fire from the
right flank. At 4 p.m. Lyttelton was established on the main hill of
Vaalkrantz, and during the night the position was entrenched. The
occupation, however, brought two facts to light. Half a mile to the
north of the main hill was another hill, only a few feet lower,
unapproachable and in the enemy's possession; and it was not
practicable, as Buller had hoped, to bring up artillery on to the
position seized by Lyttelton.
At daylight on February 6, the situation was favourable to the Boers.
Botha had arrived and had taken over the command from Prinsloo. The
heavy gun sent from Ladysmith had been mounted on Doom Kop, which was
now held by reinforcements under L. Meyer; other good positions east of
Vaalkrantz had been strengthened; and some of the guns on the
Brakfontein position had been moved round. Vaalkrantz standing between
Doorn Kop and the Twin Peaks, was shelled simultaneously from the left
front, and the right rear, as well as from Green Hill;[28] it seemed as
if Spion Kop were about to be repeated.
Buller opened on Green Hill with artillery, and on the hill north of the
main hill of Vaalkrantz, in the hope of making the North Hill
assailable. In view of a retirement, a pontoon bridge was, at
Lyttelton's request, thrown across the river under the main ridge. He
discouraged a proposal made by Buller to attack the North Hill by a
force creeping along the foot of the westward slope of Vaalkrantz,
covered by fire from the ridge.
Buller was now stalemated. The artillery fire had not cleared the way to
the North Hill, and Lyttelton was unable to move on it, but he said that
he could hold on for the rest of the day if no more artillery were
brought to bear on him from the S.E.
Finally Buller determined to shift the responsibility. He reported the
capture of Vaalkrantz to Lord Roberts, and in effect asked what he
should do with the white elephant. To carry out his plan would "cost
from 2,000 to 3,000 men," and he was "not confident of success." Was
Ladysmith worth it? Yes, replied Lord Roberts without hesitation,
Ladysmith was worth it and it must be done.
In the evening Lyttelton, having thwarted an attempt by the enemy to
recover Vaalkrantz, was relieved by Hildyard. On the following
afternoon, Buller, in spite of Lord Roberts' message, made up his mind
to withdraw. Further reconnaissances had shown that the North Hill, even
if taken, could hardly be held. A council of war was summoned, at which,
as might have been anticipated, Hart alone was for persevering, and at
which Warren again put forward the scheme rejected by Buller at Frere,
but now gladly adopted by him, of advancing on Ladysmith by way of
Hlangwhane.
Orders were issued for the withdrawal of the force from Vaalkrantz
during the night. It was skilfully carried out, and Buller was once more
ferrying his men across the Tugela, having for the third time failed to
reach Ladysmith.
On February 8 the Army was retracing its steps on the road by which four
weeks before it had marched from Springfield to Potgieter's Drift; and
on the 11th it was concentrated at Chieveley, from which eight weeks
before it had been thrown at the Colenso heights. All the Tugela
operations had been conducted in a rarified medium. Want of
determination, want of system, the absence of maps, the lack of a
sufficient staff, were responsible for two months of misadventure.
Buller, like the Boers, was easily discouraged by failure, but unlike
them was unable to quicken himself readily for a renewed effort. He lost
confidence in himself, and then in his subordinates. Like a nervous
child, he opened the door of a dark chamber, but was afraid to enter.
The terror of the unknown drove him back in a panic. When his plans,
which were usually well thought out, miscarried, he became peevish, and
scarcely made an attempt to reconstruct them. Only an Army of which the
backbone was the stolid, unimaginative Englishman of the lower classes,
and which believed that its leader was doing his best, could have
remained undemoralized by the campaign on the Tugela.
Buller possessed one quality which to a great extent outweighed his
shortcomings as a military commander: namely the power of inspiring
confidence. His men believed in him, and would do anything for him. They
liked him for his bluff, John-Bullish, and rampant manner. The enlisted
man is a curious differentiation from the class to which he belongs. His
democratic instincts become less acute when he shoulders the
Lee-Metford, and he readily accommodates himself to the will of a
benevolent despot of robust appearance, and blunt and somewhat
contemptuous address; whom in fact he prefers to the ascetic,
dispassionate General Officer of quiet habit and speech.
The criticisms passed upon Buller were far more friendly in the men's
than in the officers' bivouacs. Possibly the men's opinions, as being
the more natural and spontaneous, were also the more correct. The enemy
conducted the war upon principles which were strange to the British
Army, and to which it had to adapt itself painfully; and the men seem to
have recognized sooner than the professors the difficulties of the
situation, and to have been less intolerant of ill-success.
Few general officers have ever revealed in their official communications
more of the workings and the moods of their minds than did Buller in
Natal. His telegrams and despatches always reflected the thoughts of the
moment. After the Colenso fight, he candidly referred to it as my
"unfortunate undertaking of to-day." Six days before the Vaalkrantz
affair he told Lord Roberts that "this time I feel fairly confident of
success"; and on the eve of the attack he said that "while I have every
hope of success, I am not quite certain of it."
After the retirement, it was, "wherever I turn I come upon the enemy in
superior force to my own." He subjected his personal and individual
ideas and feelings to no restraint, and they incontinently leavened all
his messages which were now confident, now diffident, and now querulous,
and which read as if they were quotations from his private diary. From
Vaalkrantz he heliographed to White that the enemy was too strong for
him, and that the "Bulwana big gun is here"; and could White suggest
anything better than an advance by way of Hlangwhane? In his telegrams
from Chieveley to Lord Roberts, he complained of want of support, and of
the feebleness of the resistance made by the Ladysmith garrison, which
he professed to believe did not detain more than 2,000 men. Yet in
recording his weakness, it must in justice be said that he gained and
never lost the confidence of the rank and file of the relieving force,
and that under any other leader it would probably have succumbed to its
misfortunes.
On February 12 the re-concentration of Buller's Army at Chieveley was
complete. The enemy's front had been greatly strengthened since the
attack on Colenso. The Boers saw what Buller could not be persuaded to
believe, that Hlangwhane was the key of the position, and extended their
line thence in a curve through Green Hill and Monte Cristo, with a
detached post outside it on Cingolo. These four hills and the ground
between them Buller proposed to occupy, and then pass between Cingolo
and Monte Cristo to a drift of the Tugela N.E. of Monte Cristo, cross
the river and advance by the Klip Riyer on Bulwana. The two "iron
bridges" at Colenso were impassable, but the Boers had thrown a bridge
across near Naval Hill by which, and also by a ferry higher up,
communication was kept up with their left flank.
The initial movement on February 12 was made appropriately enough by
Dundonald, who two months before had seen the value of the Hlangwhane
position, and who now perhaps as he marched out, realized the truth of
the proverb _tout vient à ce qui sait attendre_. He occupied Hussar Hill
temporarily as a reconnaissance to give Buller an opportunity of
surveying the ground over which he was about to operate. The
Intelligence officers reported that the enemy was strongly posted at
several points within the area and unmasked some of his slim tricks. In
order to conceal the line of the trenches, the excavated earth was piled
up some distance towards the front, and tents not intended for
occupation were pitched to divert fire from the positions in which he
lay. The war-craft which comes by instinct to nationalities not in an
advanced state of civilization and leading simple lives face to face
with wild animals and native tribes, and which the conventionally
trained European soldier only learns by experience, strengthened the
Boer commandos without an augmentation of individuals liable to be
killed or wounded. The veld trenches which kept Methuen at arm's length
at Magersfontein and the Boer devices on the Tugela seem to show that
War is not a Science, but an Art, easily acquired by unprofessional
soldiers.
On February 14 the movement began and a front at Hussar Hill was taken
up, but owing to the heat and the scarcity of water, little was done
during the next two days, except a bombardment of the Boer trenches and
gun positions. The advance of the relieving force has been likened to
the deliberate progression of a steam roller.
Clery having been invalided, the IInd Division was temporarily under the
command of Lyttelton, whose orders for February 17 were to move upon
Cingolo Nek and Green Hill. Dundonald was instructed to work in rear of
the infantry and outflank any detachment of the enemy that might appear
on the Nek. But Dundonald was not a military pedant devoid of initiative
and tied to the letter of his instructions, and when the difficulties of
the ground broke the touch between him and Lyttelton he was perhaps not
sorry to find himself disengaged; and when he saw that the Boers were
entrenched on Cingolo Ridge, he attacked instead of outflanking it.
While the commando on the ridge was occupied with the infantry, it was
suddenly surprised from the flank by Dundonald's men, and was driven out
of the trenches. Meanwhile one of Lyttelton's battalions, which in
ignorance of Dundonald's movement, had been sent to clear Cingolo of
some Boers who were firing on the advance and checking it, found when it
reached the ridge that it had been forestalled in the capture.
When Lyttelton became aware that the enemy had been expelled, he
proposed to avail himself of the success without delay, and push on to
the Nek and Monte Cristo, while Warren's Vth Division attacked Green
Hill; but Buller objected to an advance which could not be completed
before nightfall. Lyttelton bivouacked S.W. of the ridge and Dundonald
on the detached hill at its northern end. During the night, field guns
were brought up the slopes and with much difficulty emplaced in a
position from which shell fire could be directed on Monte Cristo.
If the movement of the day was not remarkable for speed and enterprise,
it was at least directed with skill and without excessive caution; and
Dundonald showed that his military spirit had not been chilled by
previous rebuffs, one of them administered almost on the spot where he
was now in activity.
At daylight on February 18, the movement was resumed, the immediate
objective being the capture of Monte Cristo and Green Hill. One brigade
was sent through the Nek on to the eastward slopes of Monte Cristo,
while the other attacked the hill from the south. With the help of the
ever-ready Dundonald the IInd Division established itself on the main
hill of the ridge early in the afternoon. The Fusilier Brigade of the
Vth Division was meanwhile acting in support; and advancing as soon as
Monte Cristo was seen to be occupied, easily took hold of Green Hill.
The enemy was now expelled from all the positions commanding the
proposed line of advance over the Nek, and was retreating westward
towards the positions near the right bank of the Tugela, but no attempt
was made to pursue him. The motto of Buller's Army was _festina lente_
and its track towards Ladysmith was in zigzag.
On the following day Hlangwhane was occupied by the British troops, and
before noon on February 20, all the Boers had withdrawn to the left bank
of the Tugela, and Buller was favourably placed for the advance by way
of the Klip River on Bulwana. A reconnaissance, however, caused him to
change his mind and to resume the movement at an acute angle by doubling
back towards Hlangwhane and crossing the river by a pontoon bridge west
of the hill.
His new plan was to capture a position between the Onderbroek and
Langewacht Spruits, which appeared from a distance to be one hill, but
which in reality was two, Wynne's Hill and Horseshoe Hill, which were
separated by a donga. On the morning of February 21 he signalled his
intentions to White, saying that he thought he had "only a rearguard
before him"[29] and that he hoped to be in Ladysmith next day.
After the capture of Monte Cristo and the Hlangwhane position, some of
the commandos seem to have trekked away towards the north, and even
Botha for a time appears to have lost heart and to have suggested to
Joubert that the siege of Ladysmith should be raised. The Boer leaders
had already, like King Arthur,
Heard the steps of Modred in the west,
and their army in Natal had been weakened, before Buller's final
advance, by the departure of commandos going to succour their brethren
not only on the Modder, but also in the Cape Colony.
The situation on the Tugela was reported to Pretoria almost
simultaneously with the news that Cronje was hemmed in at Paardeberg.
But owing it may be to the distance which intervened between Kruger and
the scene of action, the dour old _voortrekker_ of Colesberg would not
hear of any voluntary retirement before the enemy who had driven him out
of the Cape Colony sixty years before. He sent an appeal to the Boers of
the Tugela which, in an intense human document, displayed his steadfast
and touching faith, and which might have been addressed by his prototype
Cromwell to the Ironsides.
He rebuked the burghers for their cowardice, which he attributed to the
waning of their trust in the power of the Almighty to help them in their
distress, and with many instances and quotations from Holy Writ, he
adjured them to stand fast in faith. He was confident that the cause
which he in all sincerity believed to be the cause of the Church of
Christ would prevail in the end, and justifiably encouraged by successes
in the field against superior numbers he exhorted the commandos to
endure without flinching the purification by fire. Kruger's passionate
appeal availed, and the waverers returned to their posts. The incident
disclosed the power of the factor of moral force, wherein the Boer
strength lay; and it will in a great measure account for the
prolongation of the war. When their cause seemed hopeless, they
comforted themselves with the honest and irradicable belief that its
righteousness was the assurance of final success. Though most of their
leaders were incompetent, though they themselves were easily
discouraged; disobeyed orders; often malingered and mutinied; quitted
the field with their wagons which they were reluctant to abandon, under
such frivolous pretexts that the _verlafpest_ or leave-plague became a
bye-word; though time after time their power of resistance seemed to be
exhausted; though in their thousands they were distributed over the
British Empire as prisoners of war; though their confident expectation
of European intervention was not realized; though they were always
greatly outnumbered; they continued stubbornly to defy for the space of
two years and seven months the most numerous and the most efficient Army
which has ever left the shores of Great Britain, until at last they were
worn down by mechanical friction and attrition, and not by the stroke of
war. When the Boers were driven out of the Hlangwhane positions, they
took up a new position facing S.E. on the left bank of the Tugela. Their
right was near the head of Hart's loop, and their centre came within a
few hundred yards of the river at Wynne's Hill, whence the line was
carried on towards Pieter's Hill.
At noon on February 21 Buller began once more to send his men across the
Tugela, intending to content himself that day with establishing his
force "comfortably" on the position north of the railway bridge enclosed
by the bend of the river, which was now free of the enemy. He ordered
Talbot Coke with the 10th Brigade of Warren's Division to pass over the
Colenso Kopjes on to the open ground beyond, from which the Onderbroek
valley could be enfiladed by artillery. He had received information that
the enemy were there in force, and in the belief that "what Boers there
were, were hiding in that kloof," he changed his plan of moving
northwards at once on Wynne's Hill.
On February 21 Coke advanced in three lines, but soon after he had
cleared the hilly ground, his scouting line came under fire from the
Grobelaar slopes, and his right flank was also involved from the
direction of Wynne's Hill. His Brigade was pinned to the ground by rifle
and shell fire until nightfall, when it was retired to the Colenso
Kopjes, where Wynne's Brigade of Warren's Division had arrived during
the afternoon.
[Illustration: Map of the Final Advance on Ladysmith.]
The route march to Ladysmith was checked. Instead of a mere rearguard to
be driven in, as Buller had fondly believed, a strongly posted line,
extending nearly four miles S.W. from Wynne's Hill, had to be attacked.
The enemy had been so much encouraged by the failure of Coke's movement,
that Botha telegraphed to Kruger that he had hopes of a "great reverse."
Warren thought that it would be necessary to diverge from the advance
and take the Grobelaar slopes, and White reported that Boer
reinforcements were coming in from the north. Towards evening on
February 21, it seemed not unlikely that another Colenso, Spion Kop, or
Vaalkrantz would soon be debited to Buller. The line of approach to
Ladysmith was held by the enemy, and the British Army of relief, the
greater part of which had crossed to the left bank of the Tugela, was
entangled in the Colenso Kopjes, and the river loop.
Warren's general idea for the 22nd, of which Buller approved, was to
attack Wynne's Hill with the 11th Brigade, leaving Horseshoe Hill to be
dealt with by the artillery. Although the Boers on the Grobelaar slopes
had been well pounded for some hours by the field batteries, Wynne
considered that it would be unsafe to advance unless these slopes were
actually taken, but he was overruled. He had also been promised support
on his left rear, but only two of the battalions detailed for the
purpose were at hand and these were fully occupied in offering a front
to the Boers on Grobelaar, while the movement was in progress; and he
advanced against the enemy's centre unsupported except by the long range
fire of a brigade on Naval Hill across the river.
He had expected that the promised supports would secure his left flank
by seizing Horseshoe Hill, and in default he was compelled to detach a
portion of his own scanty force against it. At sunset the cutting edge
of the advancing wedge was touching the enemy, but was unable to break
into him, and Briton and Boer were face to face on Wynne's Hill and on
Horseshoe Hill.
Reinforcements were brought up and defences were constructed during the
night, while the Boers continually fired upon the confused units
labouring in the darkness. The enemy had an entrenched position on
Hart's Hill which enfiladed Wynne's Hill, and which Warren had not been
able to take, as Buller hoped, with the 11th Brigade.
Next morning the 5th Brigade under Hart, which was in reserve near the
river loop, was sent against Hart's Hill. He advanced, wherever
possible, under cover of the steep left bank of the river along a trail
so narrow that the men were compelled often to move in single file; and
at one place, where the Langewacht Spruit enters the Tugela, it was
necessary to make a detour and cross the spruit by the railway bridge,
and to quit the dead ground and emerge on to a defile under heavy fire.
The advance of the Brigade was retarded by the stringing out of the
battalions, and from time to time Hart's Hill was shelled without
seriously harming the enemy, who as usual was not posted on the apparent
crest, but some distance in rear of it.
Two battalions of the 4th Brigade, which had been lent to Hart, were so
far behind that as only two or three hours of daylight remained, he
decided to attack without them. For impetuous gallantry the advance of
the Irish regiments was not surpassed by any other exploit in the War.
Working up on difficult ground to the sound of the Regimental calls, and
then almost brought to a standstill by the barbed wire fences of the
railway, which became a trap of death, they rushed the slope, pushing
the enemy's outposts before them, and won the crest: and then in the
failing light which compelled the supporting artillery to discontinue
the bombardment and relieve the enemy from the pressure of shrapnel,
they saw the Boer positions still above them. The crest was false.
It was a cruel disappointment to brave men who had struggled so well,
but they did not flinch. A charge was made across the plateau, but it
soon was withered by fire and few of the men reached the Boer trenches.
Two more battalions of the 4th Brigade arrived at dawn, but the
reinforcement came too late. The troops were reorganized, as far as
possible, on the slope leading down from the crest, but were eventually
compelled to retire across the railway to the lower ground by flanking
fire, which Hart succeeded in silencing, and was able to reoccupy the
dead ground below the false crest with fresh troops.
The failure of the attack did not deter Buller from pursuing his plan,
and on February 24 he proposed to renew it and to operate against
Railway Hill, which stands fourth in the line of hills running in a N.E.
direction from Horseshoe Hill to Pieter's Hill; but by Hart's suggestion
the movement was postponed, and in the end, abandoned. The greater part
of his Brigade was dangerously and densely posted on the lower ground,
and when during the night a surprise party of Boers opened fire, there
was some fear of a general panic. The situation was precarious. The Boer
line had not been pierced: on each side it outflanked Buller and fronted
the Tugela loops in which the greater portion of his force was huddled.
It was fortunate for him that DeWet had gone to the Modder.
On the night of February 24 began the third movement in zigzag. The
general direction of the first was N.E.; of the second W.S.W.; of the
third East. It was discovered that there was a path by which troops
could pass east of Naval Hill down to the right bank out of the enemy's
reach, and that they could cross the Tugela by pontoon. Buller then
determined to transfer the bulk of his force back to the Hlangwhane side
of the river over the pontoon bridge by which he had crossed to the left
bank three days before. The plan involved not only the concentration of
a clubbed and unwieldy force on the right bank, but also the necessity
of keeping it there until the passage of the last detail allowed the
pontoon bridge to be taken up and moved to the new place of crossing,
three miles below.
An armistice, restricted to the arena of the recent fighting, was
granted by the Boers on February 25, for the purpose of bringing away
the wounded and burying the dead; and during the barter of news on the
very narrow strip which separated the British fallen from the enemy's
positions, the burghers refused to believe that Cronje was surrounded at
Paardeberg, and retorted that Lord Roberts had lost all his transport
and supplies at Waterval Drift, and was helpless.
The cessation of the music of war during the armistice dismayed the
garrison of Ladysmith, which feared that it must indicate another
failure; for owing to spies and the leakage of plans, Buller was afraid
of informing White fully of his position and intentions, and during the
final advance he usually restricted himself in his heliograms to the
expression of his hopes or to the reasons for their non-fulfilment.
On the enemy's side, in spite of a strong line held in sufficient
numbers, the moral position was weak. Botha, who commanded the Boer
right, distrusted Meyer, who was in charge of the threatened left. The
war-sick burghers skulked in their laagers, and it is said that even
necessary movements within the line were not ordered, from a fear lest
the burgher, when once on his feet, would march in the direction which
soonest took him out of his enemy's reach. To Botha, Buller's retirement
across the Tugela came as a gleam of hope. If it did not signify a
retreat, as he suggested to Joubert, it at least indicated that the
attack on the line of hills would not be immediately renewed.
On February 26, the preparations for the fifth attempt to relieve
Ladysmith were completed. Horse, Field, Howitzer, Mountain, and Naval
Guns, to the number of nearly three score and ten, were in position on
the northern features of Hlangwhane, Naval Hill and Fuzzy Hill, and also
on Clump Hill, N.W. of Monte Cristo. The relieving force was arranged in
two commands; the troops west of the Langewacht Spruit being placed
under Lyttelton, the rest being assigned to Warren. On Hlangwhane was
Barton with the 6th Fusilier Brigade; and W. Kitchener, now in command
of the 11th Brigade, was also on the right bank. On the left bank near
Hart's Hill were Norcott and Hart with the 4th and 5th Brigades. Under
Lyttelton was the 2nd Brigade, the 10th Brigade, though in his section,
being placed under Warren's orders.
On the previous day, a mounted brigade had been sent to the east to deal
with an expedition under Erasmus against the British lines of
communication south of Colenso. He led it timidly, and it was easily
checked, and the brigade was brought back to the river.
Buller's scheme for the operations of February 27, was an attack on
Pieter's Hill by Barton, followed in succession by attacks on Railway
Hill by Kitchener, and on Hart's Hill by Norcott, supported by artillery
fire from the positions on the right bank. By the evening of February 26
the troops for the main attack had recrossed the Tugela, and the pontoon
bridge west of Hlangwhane could now be removed. Early in the forenoon of
February 27, it was thrown over the river S.E. of Hart's Hill, where the
left bank afforded a covered way of approach to Pieter's Hill, and the
fourth and final member of the zigzag advance was traced, on this
occasion towards the north. For the seventh time Buller ferried the
Tugela with his men, who impelled alternately by the impulse of his
initiative and by the resilience of the enemy, had been tossed like a
tennis ball from bank to bank at Trickhardt's Drift, Vaalkrantz, and
Hlangwhane, yet whom nothing could dishearten. As they heard the news of
Cronje's surrender at Paardeberg, they were crossing the newly placed
pontoon bridge, and on it they set up a signpost bearing the legend "To
Ladysmith."
Barton led the way across the bridge, then turning to the right, crept
down the left bank of the river for two miles, and mounted the slopes of
Pieter's Hill, when he became aware of the great strength of the Boer
position. It was hedged in by a river, a wooded donga, and a valley;
along its westward face ran a line of kopjes, ending in a detached rocky
hill; and it was supported by fire from Railway Hill. The nearer kopjes
were carried without much difficulty, but a sweeping movement to clear
the plateau as with the swing of a scythe, was checked by heavy fire
from the east, and failed to gather in the rocky hill which commanded
the outlying kopjes, and which the enemy succeeded in reinforcing during
the fight, and in holding for several hours.
Until the development of the attack on Railway Hill by Kitchener,
Barton's Fusiliers were able to do little more than maintain themselves,
as their reserves had been absorbed and their ammunition was running
short. A final attempt was made, with partial success, at the close of
the day, to occupy the rocky hill, but at the cost of many casualties.
The enemy was not entirely expelled, but those who remained disappeared
during the night.
Kitchener followed in Barton's track as far as the gorge which separates
Pieter's from Railway Hill. In spite of the Boer rifles and of the
shrapnel of the British gunners on the right bank playing upon the Hill,
whose attention was eventually drawn to the situation by the bold
advance of two companies to a position from which they could be seen and
recognized through the gunners' telescopes, the eastward edge of Railway
Hill was won. But a portion of Kitchener's command in rear was
magnetically attracted away from the direction of the advance by a
flanking fire from Hart's Hill and, by diverging towards it, broke the
continuity of the line facing the position entrenched by the Boers.
Kitchener was, however, able to fill the gap, and he expelled the
burghers, most of whom fled before the charge got home; and Railway Hill
was won.
Norcott's Brigade was nearer to its objective than either of the
brigades which had preceded it, as it was lying south of Hart's Hill
between the railway and the river; and although deprived of a
considerable portion of his command by a demand for help which purported
to have come from Railway Hill, he finished his task in three hours. He
toiled up the dead ground to the apparent crest of Hart's Hill, and then
came face to face with the higher position, which three days before had
so cruelly baffled the Irish Brigade. But the Boers were not now in a
mood to stay. The shrapnel from the right bank, which they had not to
meet when Hart charged across from the crest in the failing light, was
now hailing on them. All but a few stalwarts took to flight, and Hart's
Hill was taken before sunset on February 27.
The capture of the hills supervening on the bad news from Paardeberg
shattered the Boer Armies in Natal. Botha's left had been defeated; and
although his right had not been seriously attacked by Lyttelton, but
only prevented from effectively reinforcing the hill positions, it fell
away towards the north. He was not able to stay the general retreat, but
he hoped at least to join Joubert and cover it with the aid of the
besieging force. Joubert, however, had already raised the Siege and was
retreating towards Elandslaagte.
Next morning Barton on Pieter's Hill vainly appealed for permission to
press forward, but Buller would only put the two mounted Brigades under
Dundonald and Burn-Murdoch on to the enemy's trail. Dundonald made for
Ladysmith, and Burn-Murdoch was instructed to act on the right front
towards Bulwana, but was soon called upon to assist Dundonald in driving
in a Boer rearguard. He then resumed his advance, and from the east
covered Dundonald, who being fired on from Bulwana thought it advisable
to send his Brigade to a safer position in rear, and having done so,
rode on at the head of a body of colonial troops, and as the sun was
setting on February 28, marched into Ladysmith and ended the four
months' Siege. It was a fitting exploit to be performed by the grandson
of that Lord Cochrane who at Aix Roads nearly a century before had
similarly chafed and strained at the leash of a superior officer's
reluctance.[30] Burn-Murdoch came into action with a rearguard covering
Bulwana, which was evacuated during the night. He bivouacked near the
Klip River, and next morning proposed to pursue the enemy, but Buller
whistled him to heel. The relieving force advanced with deliberation,
and on March 3, entered Ladysmith, and unravelled the Natal entanglement
which at one time seemed likely to wreck the South African Campaign.
The flight of the Boers continued for three days. Ladysmith, which lay
directly in the line of the retreat, divided it into two streams, one of
which flowed towards the Drakensberg, while the other went in the
direction of Elandslaagte and Glencoe, some of the fugitives not
outspanning until they reached Newcastle. So great was the
demoralization that Kruger hurried down from Pretoria to Glencoe in the
hope of staying it. He succeeded in persuading the burghers to hold the
line of the Biggarsberg, but was almost immediately summoned away to the
arena in the west; and only a few hours after he was upbraiding the
fugitives from Ladysmith and the Tugela for their irresolution and want
of faith, the fugitives of the Modder were streaming past him at Poplar
Grove.
Buller has been severely criticized for allowing the Boers to retreat
unpursued, taking with them all but two of their guns. Assuming however
that his appreciation of the situation was correct, he probably acted
wisely. He thought that his first duty was to put food into Ladysmith.
All his guns, except one Field Battery at Colenso and one Horse
Artillery Battery with Burn-Murdoch, as well as all his supply and
regimental transport, were still on the right bank of the Tugela, for
the crossing of which he had but one pontoon bridge. He therefore
decided that the wagons must have precedence, and that the army must
wait.
He was misled by his recollections and by his experience of the Parthian
tactics of the burghers whom he commanded during the Zulu War of 1879,
and from whom he says he learnt "all that he knew" about rearguards. He
believed "that an attempt to force a Boer rearguard is merely a waste of
men." Yet only a week had passed since he told White that he thought
there was "only a rearguard" between him and Ladysmith.
Thus in the glamour of an ancient rearguard reputation the enemy
disappeared.
Notes:
[Footnote 28: Not the Green Hill near Spion Kop. There were several
Green Hills on the left bank of the Tugela.]
[Footnote 29: White, however, said that he saw no signs of a general
retreat.]
[Footnote 30: The Cochrane daring and resourcefulness were not confined
to the men of the clan. During the Jacobite troubles Grizel Cochrane,
when her father was sentenced to death for treason, turned
highway-woman, and held up the coach which was bringing his death
warrant from London, and abstracted it from the mail-bag.]