Deus ex Machina, No. II
On January 10, 1900, Lord Roberts reached Capetown in the _Dunottar
Castle_, the ship which ten weeks previously had brought Buller to South
Africa, and resumed the task which he was not allowed to finish in 1881.
The terms of peace imposed upon the British Government by the Boers
after Majuba Hill resulted in an armistice of eighteen years, and he was
still the soldier to whom the nation instinctively turned when it was
again in trouble in South Africa.
With one unimportant exception all his war experience had been gained in
India or near its frontiers; but India is a spacious arena where
spacious ideas can be freely developed. His mind had not been scored
into grooves by years of desk duties in Pall Mall, or subjected to the
necessity of accommodating itself to obsolete methods and House of
Commons' views. The Indian Army, of which he obtained the command after
serving in it in each commissioned rank, more closely approaches in its
training, organization, and readiness for active service, the military
standard set up by the chief continental nations, than the British Army;
of which a distinguished German officer said at the time of the Boer War
that it was meant for detachment warfare only and not to win great
battles.
With Lord Roberts came, as Chief of the Staff, Lord Kitchener of
Khartoum, a hard and ready man who for fifteen years had been scouring
the Nile. All his war service had been in Egypt, where recently he had
not only smashed the dervishes and secured the Soudan, but by his
diplomatic tact in the Fashoda affair had relaxed the tension of a
dangerous international situation. He belonged to the Royal Engineers,
who are, like the Army Service Corps, a semi-combatant body engaged in
technical duties that do not offer much opportunity of gaining
experience in the art of war or of practice in handling troops, but who
have, nevertheless, given to the nation not a few soldiers of
distinction. It was, perhaps, for this reason that Lord Roberts
generally employed Lord Kitchener as an expert military foreman,
entrusted with the supervision of the work of others.
The situation in South Africa at the time of Lord Roberts' arrival was
as follows:--
Methuen was established at Modder River; Mafeking and Kimberley were
holding out, and the latter at least seemed to be in no immediate
danger; French was in a good position before Colesberg; Gatacre was
maintaining himself without difficulty at Sterkstroom; the garrison at
Ladysmith, after sixteen hours' fighting, had recently warded off a
determined attack; the disaffected districts in the Cape Colony had not
risen; and the despondent Buller, quickened by reinforcements and
stimulated by the approach of the _Dunottar Castle_, was about to make
another attempt to relieve Ladysmith.
Schemes for a South African campaign had been for some time under
consideration by the War Office, but as the attitude of the Free State
could not be forecasted, they were more or less provisional. As late as
the end of September the Premier and the War Minister scouted the idea
of war with the Free State, and the official plan of a central advance
on Bloemfontein by way of Bethulie and Norval's Pont, which held good
until some little time after Lord Roberts' arrival, must therefore have
been subterraneously drawn up without their knowledge. It was no doubt
an excellent solution of a strategical problem studied by men in an
office with a map of South Africa before them which showed several lines
of communication converging on the Orange River; and Buller was about to
carry it out when he was called aside to Natal.
[Sidenote: Map, p. 260.]
Lord Roberts had, however, two years before drawn up a scheme for an
advance on the Transvaal by way of the Kimberley line as far as Mafeking
and thence across country to Pretoria, and before leaving England he
modified it so as to adapt it to action in the Free State. He proposed
to leave the Kimberley line at some point between the Orange River and
the Modder River, and to march in a S.E. direction on the Bloemfontein
line. He was a firm believer in the indirect results of military
movements, and he expected that his arrival at Springfontein or Edenburg
and the menace to the Free State capital "must draw the Free Staters
back from Kimberley and Natal," and that the occupation of it "would
render the Boer positions south of the Orange River untenable." The
official plan of an advance from the centre would force back the Free
Staters engaged in the Cape Colony, and instead of isolating them would
enable them to reinforce Cronje.
After his arrival at Capetown, circumstances however compelled Lord
Roberts to modify his plan of campaign. The news of the Spion Kop
affair, anxiety on account of Kimberley, the presence of Cronje at
Magersfontein and other considerations, determined him to march through
the Free State by a more northerly route which would enable him to
relieve Kimberley _en passant_ and to give battle to Cronje.
The secret of the plan, which was known only to Lord Roberts' personal
staff, was well kept, and operations were continued without reference to
it. The earlier orders issued by him seemed to indicate that the central
advance was still to be carried out. The VIth Division under Kelly-Kenny
was sent to Naauwpoort; French was instructed to make a demonstration
against Norval's Pont; and Methuen was warned that it might be necessary
to withdraw part of the Modder River force.
The Boers, who had captured at Dundee some intelligence papers which
disclosed the original plan of campaign, were now more than ever
convinced that the British Army must advance by way of Norval's Pont and
Bethulie, and did not discover their error until it was too late to
rectify it.[34] When Lord Roberts had made all his preparations, which
involved the entire reorganization of the transport, and the raising of
a considerable force of mounted troops, for his march of 100 miles
across the veld eastward from the railway, the secret was disclosed to
Kelly-Kenny and French on February 1. This plan of a flank march had
also suggested itself to Buller, who proposed it in a memorandum which
Lord Roberts found on his arrival in Capetown; but as Buller's scheme
included the construction of a railway across the veld, and limited the
advance of the Army to the rate at which the line could be pushed
forward, it did not fall in with Lord Roberts' ideas.
Meanwhile Cronje was not perturbed by the reports of troops coming up
the Western line, and was confident that they only indicated a renewed
but isolated attack on Magersfontein. He had no doubt that if necessary
he could always fall back upon Kimberley and retreat towards the
Transvaal; and the demonstrations made by Methuen westwards in the
direction of Koedoesberg Drift served the double purpose of warning a
disaffected region and of diverting Cronje's attention from the flank on
which he was to be attacked and which he believed to be secure.
The two months following the arrival of Lord Roberts in South Africa
were the only brilliant period of a dreary war which lasted nearly three
years, and will perhaps save it from being quoted in military history as
the most sluggish campaign of recent times. In each of the two objects
of strategy, namely to avoid fighting the enemy on ground of his own
choosing, and to compel him to fight under unfavourable conditions, Lord
Roberts was extraordinarily successful. There was a light touch, an
ingenuity, in his swift and silent strategy which contrasted strongly
with the heavy and dull methods which had hitherto controlled the
action. While Buller was talking about his tedious railway across the
veld, and Milner at Capetown was dismalling the situation and
discouraging the advance, Lord Roberts had in effect entered the capital
of the Free State and seemed to have completed half his task. The Boers
were hypnotized and deceived not only by signs from which they drew
wrong inferences, but also by bogus orders which it was arranged should
come under their notice and which were simultaneously cancelled in
cipher: and when too late they awoke from the bewilderment, they began
to scuttle to and fro like rabbits in a warren. There is good reason to
believe that if the strategic ability of Lord Roberts could have been
united in one mind to the determination of Lord Kitchener the war would
have been over in a year.
On February 8 Lord Roberts arrived at Modder River, where he found bad
news awaiting him. Buller had failed at Vaalkrantz, and the diamond men
of Kimberley were threatening to capitulate. By February 13 30,000
combatants, some of whom in order to preserve the illusion had been kept
in the centre until the last moment, were in readiness at various points
between the Orange and the Modder. The immediate problem before Lord
Roberts was the relief of Kimberley in combination with the cornering of
Cronje. In the background was the Natal trouble. Buller was again
helplessly wringing his hands and reaching round to find excuses for his
misadventures. Lord Roberts wisely left him alone and went on with his
own work. He saw what Buller refused to see, that the Tugela could be
crossed at Magersfontein and Ladysmith relieved at a drift of the Modder
River.
[Illustration: Sketch map of the Riet and Modder Drifts.]
On February 11 Lord Roberts set his army in motion; and the operations
of the next few days may be summarised with sufficient accuracy as a
cavalry raid northwards, but avoiding Cronje's left flank at Brown's
Drift, to relieve Kimberley; combined with an infantry advance to cut
him off. It was not possible to make the initial movements in the
direction of the eventual advance, as the Magersfontein-Brown's Drift
quadrant N.E. of Modder River was strongly held by the enemy, and
disallowed a cavalry advance from below the junction of the Riet and the
Modder in the direction of Kimberley except by a westerly detour which
could not be accommodated to the general scheme. In order to strike the
practicable drifts on the two rivers above their confluence, it was
necessary for the advance to be made along the curve of a parabola which
issued from Modder River Station in a S.E. direction, and in a
sixty-mile circuit crossed the rivers and finally approached Kimberley,
only twenty miles distant from the starting point, almost in the
opposite direction.
At midday on February 11 the Cavalry Division under French reached
Ramdam, a farm east of Graspan and fronting the drifts of the Riet,
where the Army was being concentrated for the advance. Some hours
elapsed before Cronje became aware that French had trekked away to the
S.E., and to his slow and sullen spirit the movement did not appear to
have much significance. He was persuaded that the British never trusted
themselves much more than a day's march away from a railway. It was only
a demonstration, a reconnaissance. He did, however, take certain
precautions which, if they had been devised with a true appreciation of
the situation and intelligently carried out, might have seriously
checked French.
He assumed that the initial direction of French's march would be
continued indefinitely towards Koffyfontein, possibly even that it was a
retirement from the Modder River position caused by bad news from the
centre, and he sent a commando of observation, under C. de Wet, up the
right bank of the Riet. The most adroit and skilful movement of the war
had now begun without Cronje's comprehending its object.
But French did not complete his first day's work very auspiciously. His
supply column was far behind when he reached Ramdam, and owing to a
misunderstanding Hannay's Brigade of Mounted Infantry from Orange River,
which was instructed to join him, did not turn up: conflicting orders
had resulted as usual, _ordre_, _contr'ordre_, _désordre_. French,
however, felt himself strong enough to continue his march without
Hannay, who, on his delayed march to Ramdam, engaged a detached body of
Boers and thereby strengthened the enemy's conviction that Koffyfontein
was the objective.
As French approached the river, Waterval Drift, the lower of the two
drifts across the Riet, was found to be occupied by De Wet, and the
Division was diverted to De Kiel's Drift, which was reached without much
difficulty at midday, February 12. On the right bank were the commando
of the Jacobsdaal garrison under Lubbe, and the commando under De Wet
and A.P.J. Cronje which had been sent to observe the cavalry movement;
about 1,000 men in all. But De Wet could not get the Koffyfontein idea
out of his head, and its influence removed many obstructions from the
path of the advance. He boldly rode across French's front at De Kiel's
Drift, and made S.E. for Winterhoek, closely followed by A.P.J. Cronje;
and all French's horses could not find out where they had gone. Next day
it was given out in Divisional Orders that the commandos had gone to the
Modder River, and four weeks passed by before the Army ceased to suffer
from the error.
There was still "one more river to cross" before the diamond men of
Kimberley could be relieved; and ere the thirst of the South African
summer could be slaked on the banks of the Modder, a tract of
twenty-five miles of veld, in which the absence of any homestead having
"_fontein_" for its suffix declared the scarcity of water, must be
traversed under the sun.
In the forenoon of February 13 the Cavalry Division started northwards
from De Kiel's Drift; and at last De Wet, who, unknown to French, was
watching the trek from its right flank, partially relieved himself of
the Koffyfontein idea. The effort weakened him, and he displayed none of
that readiness of resource and promptitude of action with which he
subsequently worried the British Army for the space of two years. He
withdrew his own commando towards Koffyfontein, and having ordered Lubbe
to follow French, reported to Cronje at Magersfontein that the cavalry
was making for the Modder.
French's objective points were now Rondeval and Klip River Drifts on the
Modder, but in order to deceive Lubbe, who was hanging on to his right
flank, and to elbow him away from the drifts, French changed direction
with two brigades and headed for Klip Kraal Drift, some eight miles
above Klip Drift, reverting suddenly to his original line as soon as the
river came in sight. The drifts were held by small parties of the enemy,
who offered no resistance, and on the evening of February 13 the
Division took possession of the kopjes on the north bank.
The occupation of the drifts was soon made known to Cronje, but the news
revealed little to his dull and uninstructed nature, permeated with the
idea that a British force and a railway were indissoluble entities.
Though his communications eastward were now seriously threatened, it did
not occur to him that there might be an alternative to fighting him out
of Magersfontein, namely manoeuvring him out of it; and he persuaded
himself that French's movement was a trap to entice him away pending an
attack on Magersfontein from the south, and he was probably unaware that
the relief of Kimberley was an urgent matter. He moved his own camp from
Brown's Drift to a less exposed position at Bosjespan, and while
retaining his hold on Magersfontein with his main body, sent out two
commandos to watch French, and these accidentally occupied a line
through which the cavalry must pass on its way to Kimberley.
The arrival of the VIth Division on the morning of February 15 set
French free to resume his march on Kimberley. The two commandos had on
the previous day joined hands with Lubbe, who, after he was pushed out
of French's way, crossed the Modder at Klip Kraal Drift and worked round
to a position north of Klip Drift. The relieving force was now
obstructed in the line of its advance by ridges on its right and left
fronts and by the nek connecting them, all occupied by the enemy; while
on its left flank was Cronje's new camp at Bosjespan, of the existence
of which it was unaware. The situation seemed awkward, as the only way
out of it was the shallow valley leading up to the nek, and exposed to a
converging fire from the ridges on which two guns were posted.
But French was not long in doubt, and like a bridge player who in order
to win the game is sometimes compelled to assume the position of certain
cards, with rare intuition correctly assumed that the nek was weakly
held. Like a ship going down the ways to the water, the Division was
launched to the front; cleaving the opposing waves and gaining momentum
as it advanced, then righting itself, rose to the slope of the nek and
carried it with resistless energy.
After a short midday halt at Abon's Dam, French raised the siege of
Kimberley before sunset; the besiegers under Ferreira did not wait to be
attacked, but withdrew towards Boshof.
The relief of Kimberley was perhaps the most brilliant feat of arms in
the campaign. It was well-conceived and, considered by itself alone,
well carried out, but the merit of it has been obscured by the fact that
it cost less than half a hundred human casualties. When, on the morning
of February 15, the VIth Division took over the outposts, and the
Cavalry Division fell in on the banks of the Modder, there was the
terrain of a Balaklava charge before it.
It may well be doubted whether the price paid for the relief of the
diamond men was not too high. Uninstructed public opinion at home called
for the movement, and forced Lord Roberts' hand, but it was never an
imperative military necessity. The horse casualties,[35] due to want of
water, forced marches, and ignorance of horsemastership on the part of
all ranks, who were inclined to regard cavalry work in the light of a
steeplechase, were so heavy that when on February 17 French, after an
attempt on the previous day to pursue a body of retreating Boers with
his exhausted horses, was suddenly called upon to march thirty miles to
head off Cronje, he could in all his Division mount less than the
strength of two regiments. Nor was this all, for the rush to Kimberley
was the indirect cause of the loss of the supply column at Waterval
Drift on February 15; and thus in a few hours the mounted force and the
supply column and transport which Lord Roberts and his staff had
assembled with so much difficulty were, the former partially and the
latter entirely, sacrificed.
The VIth, VIIth, and IXth Infantry Divisions, under Kelly-Kenny, Tucker,
and Colvile respectively, were withdrawn from Modder River and the
stations south of it, and concentrated at Ramdam on February 11 and the
two following days. Owing to the steepness of its banks the Riet River
could only be crossed at Waterval and De Kiel's Drifts, and on these the
Army converged, and trickled through them like the sands in the neck of
an hour-glass. Men, horses, guns, supply and ammunition wagons were
slowly and painfully transferred to the right bank, and the VIth
Division, which followed the cavalry to De Kiel's Drift, though the
first infantry to get through by more than twenty-four hours, was
delayed by the block of transport and lost its start in the race to the
Modder River.
Meanwhile to Waterval Drift came Kelly-Kenny and Colvile in succession,
and were soon pushed on to Wegdraai Drift, to which Tucker also hastened
as soon as he could shake himself clear of De Kiel's Drift. The latter
was now out of the running, for although Kelly-Kenny had already had a
nine hours' march from Waterval Drift beginning soon after midnight, by
5 in the afternoon of February 14 the VIth Division was ready to resume
its march to support French at Klip Drift, some hours before Tucker came
in. Kitchener had been ordered by Lord Roberts to attach himself to the
VIth Division as assessor to Kelly-Kenny, and marched out with it.
When Colvile, whose division was detailed as a reserve, arrived at
Waterval Drift, he found the passage congested by transport of all
kinds; and although after half a day's delay he was able to proceed to
Wegdraai Drift, a large convoy on which the Army depended for the
greater part of its supplies for the march to Bloemfontein, had to be
left behind. A small escort remained with it, the wagons were laagered,
and the oxen outspanned and sent out upon the veld to graze. No danger
was anticipated.
De Wet had not been lurking on the banks of the Riet for nothing.
Hitherto he had not greatly distinguished himself. On the outbreak of
the war he and his three sons were commandeered as private burghers, and
when he reached the Natal border he was appointed vice-commandant. He
served under A.P. Cronje and witnessed Carleton's surrender at
Nicholson's Nek. In December he joined P. Cronje at Magersfontein, and
was sent early in February to Koedoesberg Drift to check the British
demonstrations on the Riet below Modder River Station, and later on to
observe French. It is probable that the military deficiencies of his
leaders made him sullen. Erasmus at Dundee stood idly in the background
while Symons and Yule were on the slopes of Talana Hill, and Cronje was
deaf to his remonstrances against a mere passive defence on the Modder
River and the presence of women and children in the laager.
But De Wet with a free hand quickly recovered himself when the fortune
of war threw him a casual chance after French had despatched him in
imagination to a destination where he could do no harm. The convoy was
ordered to follow Colvile to Wegdraai at 5 p.m. on February 15, and at 8
that morning, while the oxen were still grazing on the veld, De Wet, who
was hovering near Winterhoek, swooped down upon the laager. The slender
escort made a good resistance and the attack was reported to Lord
Roberts at Wegdraai, who at first sent back a battalion with a battery
and some mounted infantry, and when these were found insufficient the
rest of the 14th Brigade were despatched under Tucker to endeavour to
extricate the convoy. But when Tucker reached the Drift at sunset he
found himself unable to bring it away. Most of the oxen had disappeared
and De Wet had been reinforced. Lord Roberts was unwilling to delay his
advance, and finding that the supplies were not absolutely indispensable
to the success of his march, at midnight ordered Tucker to abandon the
convoy and to return to Wegdraai. Next morning De Wet took possession of
176 wagon loads of supplies and 500 slaughter oxen--his first exploit in
the war.
On February 16 Lord Roberts moved his Head Quarters to Jacobsdaal. It
was his intention to advance on Kimberley and to make that town the base
of his operations in the direction of Bloemfontein, when suddenly his
plans were disarranged by an unexpected event. Cronje, who for two
months had held stubbornly to Magersfontein, was reported to be trekking
to the east. French's relief of Kimberley, the presence of an infantry
division at Klip Drift, and the occupation of Jacobsdaal, were facts
which even his obstinacy could not disregard. Like a wild creature
startled in the night by a veld fire and suddenly dazzled by the glare,
he rushed blindly towards the flames which were soon to consume him.
Almost any direction but that which he took, the line of the Modder
River, would have given him a better chance of escape. French's maimed
cavalry could not have stopped him if he had retreated on either side of
Kimberley, and even a withdrawal westward down the right bank of the
Riet would have probably saved him. Methuen at Modder River took twelve
hours to discover that Magersfontein had been abandoned at midnight on
February 15.
On the morning of the 16th Kelly-Kenny sent out from Klip Drift a force
under C. Knox to cover the advance of the rest of the VIth Division on
Kimberley. Soon a long column of dust was observed in the distance
beyond the ridge on the right, and a closer examination showed that it
was caused by Cronje's wagons. The discovery came not altogether as a
surprise, for Boers had been noticed crossing the front on the previous
day, and as what was now seen proved to be the rear of a column, the
trek must have been some hours in progress.
Kelly-Kenny at once abandoned his march on Kimberley and faced
eastwards. It was found that the enemy had taken up a rearguard position
on the southern end of the ridge. The northern end was soon seized by
mounted infantry, but an attempt in interpose between the river and the
Boer position failed. The ridge was cleared at 9 a.m. by a frontal
attack, but not before Cronje's convoy had retired without molestation
to Klip Kraal, where a second rearguard position was taken up on either
side of Klip Kraal Drift.
On the assumption that Cronje was endeavouring to effect a retreat on
Bloemfontein, it was necessary to confine him to the right bank of the
Modder. He was already in possession of Klip Kraal Drift, and although
he could hardly hope to pass his wagons across it in sight of an active
enemy, it was not his only chance. Within ten miles of his laager were
Brandvallei, Paardeberg, and Vendutie Drifts, each of which would give
him access to the southern bank.
The task before the pursuing army was therefore to drive in his
rearguards from their successive positions and prevent him getting
comfortably away to secure a passage across the river. At nightfall on
February 16 it seemed likely that he would succeed. His convoy in the
main laager at Klip Kraal had had twelve hours' rest, and his rearguard
had maintained itself on the second position; in spite of a frontal
attack on the right bank, and of a flank attack on the left bank made by
a battery and a force of mounted infantry which had crossed the
semicircle formed by a northward bend of the river between Klip Drift
and Klip Kraal Drift. The guns even succeeded in throwing a few shells
into the laager, but ran short of ammunition. Kitchener, who remained
with Kelly-Kenny as military assessor, had early in the day advocated a
raid up the river in order to head off Cronje at Paardeberg Drift, but
the exhaustion of the troops prevented the enterprise.
Next day the chase began in earnest--to borrow for the occasion, as was
done so frequently during the war, a metaphor from the sporting
world--but only a few of the hounds were on the spot, and the rest of
the pack were at Kimberley and Jacobsdaal.
When the report of Cronje's retreat from Magersfontein, which Lord
Roberts received soon after he reached Jacobsdaal, was confirmed by a
message from Kitchener, he ordered French, who at that time was engaged
with the enemy some miles north of Kimberley and endeavouring to capture
the Long Tom whose recent arrival from Ladysmith _viâ_ Pretoria had
scared the Kimberley civilians into a threat of surrender, to hurry
eastward and endeavour to place himself between Cronje and Bloemfontein;
but owing to a break in the field telegraph cable the message was
delayed. Kelly-Kenny was at the same time instructed to carry on the
pursuit.
But the situation had not yet clearly disclosed itself, and Lord Roberts
did not abandon his intention of sending Colvile's and Tucker's
Divisions towards Kimberley; and their orders to march on the lower
drifts of the Modder held good. Cronje's retreat in an unexpected
direction was hard to explain. Was he going to meet the reinforcements
which Buller had just reported were on their way from Natal? De Wet had
just shown that there was a vigorous and enterprising body of the enemy
ready to raid the railway south of Kimberley, and it was possible that
he might have been reinforced from Colesberg.
Towards evening, however, a second message came from Kitchener at Klip
Drift. He summarised the situation on the Modder, which he was unable to
control with the troops at his disposal, and said that he was asking
French to proceed to Koodoos Drift to check Cronje from the east. Lord
Roberts was not the man to adhere stolidly to his own plan when a better
one was laid before him. The orders to the Divisions were cancelled, and
before midnight on February 16 Colvile was marching out to join
Kelly-Kenny in the chase. Tucker, whose Division had hardly recovered
from the Waterval Drift affair, remained at Jacobsdaal.
After sunset Cronje broke up his camp at Klip Kraal Drift and trekked
along the right bank. At midnight he passed half of his transport over
to the left bank at Paardeberg Drift, himself going on to Vendutie
Drift, where the remainder, with the women and children against whose
presence in camp De Wet had vainly protested, joined him next morning.
So far he had done well, and even when his rearguard at Paardeberg was
fired on by an advanced brigade of mounted infantry which had been
pushed on by Kitchener, he did not lose confidence; although he was
surprised that the British, "who could not march," had overtaken him.
To De Wet and especially to Ferreira, whom he knew to be not far off, he
looked for help, and even without them he believed that he would be able
to cross Vendutie Drift.
Ferreira was indeed not far off, but an obstacle suddenly sprang up
between him and Cronje, and the aspect of it was so alarming that he
withdrew in the opposite direction. The obstacle was French's attenuated
Cavalry Division which, in obedience to Kitchener's summons, had left
Kimberley before sunrise that morning, and after a march of twenty-six
miles had reached the spot indicated by Kitchener for the heading of
Cronje. As the Boer wagons were about to cross Vendutie Drift the shells
of French's Horse Artillery began to fall upon them. The convoy was
thrown into confusion, the oxen stampeded, Cronje was entangled and
bewildered, and but for the gallant exertions of some foreign officers
in the service of the Boers a fatal panic might have ensued. The advance
guard under De Beer was reinforced from the main laager, and a
demonstration made against the left flank of the cavalry; and although
French held on, his position remained insecure and even precarious until
the arrival of the infantry on the following morning. With a handful of
tired, hungry, and unsupported horsemen he not only frightened Ferreira,
whose force outnumbered his own, off the field, but also paralysed and
prepared for destruction the army which had beaten Methuen and had held
Magersfontein for two months.
[Illustration: Paardeberg.]
Next day, February 18, at 3 a.m. began the ten days' operations to which
the name of the Battle of Paardeberg has been somewhat inaccurately
given. Paardeberg is a prominent hill on the right bank of the Modder,
four miles W.S.W. of the battle centre, Cronje's laager at Vendutie
Drift, and lies on the extreme edge of the elliptical arena on which the
battle was fought. It seems to have been chosen as the official word
because the hill was the only distinctive physical feature shown on the
banks of the river in the incomplete surveys of the time, and because
the alternative would have been Stinkfontein, a farm near the field of
battle. The Battle of Vendutie Drift would have been a more correct
term.
The Modder forms the major axis of the ellipse, which it enters near
Koodoos Drift and leaves at Paardeberg Drift, and like most South
African rivers runs in a deep channel between banks intersected by the
tributary dongas which the rains have scored in the soft soil, and which
afford almost the only shelter from artillery fire. The whole area is
commanded by the surrounding kopjes and ridges.
Cronje, though urged to break out of his laager on the night of February
17, refused to move. It is probable that he might have effected his
escape if he had abandoned his transport. An active force led by a
determined man could have wriggled out under cover of the night, and
joined one or other of the commandos which were known to be hovering.
Cronje was in communication with Ferreira; he had sent to Bloemfontein
for help; and De Wet was known to be on his way from Koffyfontein. But
instead of making an effort to save himself he fatally trusted to relief
from outside. He did not realize that Vendutie Drift was not a
Magersfontein which he could hold indefinitely, or that during the last
few weeks the British Army had been greatly increased. One result of his
obstinacy was the desertion of several hundred Free Staters, who had not
served very willingly under the leadership of a Transvaaler. Most of
them returned to their homes.
In the absence of the Commander-in-Chief, who was detained at Jacobsdaal
by illness, Kelly-Kenny was the senior officer present with the force on
the Modder River; but for some reason which may have formed itself in
Lord Roberts' mind when they were fellow-passengers on the _Dunottar
Castle_, he was not entrusted with the management of the battle.
Kitchener had marched several hours with the VIth Division on February
14 before Kelly-Kenny was aware of his presence; and as Chief of the
Staff in direct communication with Head Quarters, he had much to say at
Klip Drift. At Paardeberg the status of Kelly-Kenny became still more
anomalous, Kitchener, though junior not only to him but also to two
other generals present, being empowered by Lord Roberts to issue orders
in his name so that there might be "no delay such as references to and
fro would entail." The difficulty of the situation was increased by the
fact that Kitchener was practically without a staff.
The reason which induced Cronje to remain in his laager, namely the
expected arrival of help from outside, also determined Kitchener to
attack it without delay. He confidently expected to carry it in less
than four hours, but Cronje held out for nine days.
Kitchener's plan might have been foreseen by any officer who had been
present at manoeuvres: a preliminary bombardment of the laager, followed
by a holding frontal attack, in combination with rolling-up flank
attacks. The strength of Cronje's position was supposed to be the laager
itself, whereas it was rather the river banks and tributary dongas which
he had occupied.
The frontal display was assigned to a portion of the VIth Division; the
Mounted Infantry under Hannay supported by an infantry brigade were to
work round upstream and fall upon Cronje's left flank; while the IXth
Division attacked his right flank from the west.
Kitchener, who had come on with Hannay in advance of the VIth Division,
began to issue his orders before he had seen the commanding officers of
the troops which were to carry them out. Hannay, who was at hand, was
despatched to his place in the east from which he never returned.
Kelly-Kenny's ambiguous and humiliating position; Kitchener's impatience
and impetuosity; his lack of a staff to carry out his plan; his omission
to explain it to the divisional and brigade commanders; and his habit of
"short-circuiting" orders to subordinates while their superior officers
stood passively in the background, made unity of action impossible and
February 18 a day of misunderstanding and ill-success. The battle was
fought by a Board of Directors, who, in the unavoidable absence of their
Chairman, were dominated by a headstrong General Manager, who was
doubtful of their capacity to carry on the business.
Kelly-Kenny and Colvile, whose Divisions came in during the night, had
begun to put their troops in motion before Kitchener's plan was made
known to them, and throughout the day the difficulty of co-ordinating
the whole force to it was increased by the incorrect transmission or
apprehension of oral orders. Kelly-Kenny proposed a preliminary
investment of Cronje, but Kitchener would not consent to any
postponement of his attack, for which no operation orders were issued.
In a few hours, however, the soundness of Kelly-Kenny's judgment was
shown; the attack became an investment, which was prolonged many days by
the moral and physical exhaustion of the troops, who after forced
marches by day and night on scanty rations were hustled without method
into a costly battle.
By 8 a.m. Kitchener was able to report to Head Quarters that Cronje was
hemmed in. The cavalry had occupied the ground in rear of the laager,
and he "thought that it must be a case of complete surrender." The
troops were now set to the assault, and were quickened by an encouraging
message from Lord Roberts. But they were almost immediately in trouble.
Hannay had placed himself into position for the flank attack from the
east, and his battery had already opened fire on the laager, when the
guns themselves were shelled. A commando with two guns, under Steyn of
Bethlehem, had arrived from Natal, and unobserved had seized a ridge
between Stinkfontein and the Modder, which Hannay was about to cross;
and although the Boer guns were silenced and the commando compelled to
retire, the diversion seriously disarranged the scheme of assault.
Stephenson's Brigade of the VIth Division, when on its way to cross to
the right bank at Paardeberg Drift under instructions from Kelly-Kenny,
had been recalled by Kitchener, whose orders were so vaguely expressed,
that while the Brigadier believed that he was to act in the frontal
attack from the south with the other brigade of the Division, he was
really intended by the Chief of the Staff to support Hannay's flank
movement. He was now compelled to change front to meet Steyn's threat,
and Hannay's attack was postponed. Stephenson was then ordered to resume
his advance, but apparently still in ignorance that he was expected to
act in co-operation with the mounted infantry, he so disposed his troops
that he gave little support to Hannay, who early in the afternoon
reported to Kitchener that he was too weak to advance with the flank
attack. A peremptory message was returned, in which he was ordered "to
rush the laager at all costs," even without Stephenson's support. Some
of the words of the order seemed to reflect upon his determination, so
he obeyed it literally and immediately. At the head of as many men as he
could bring to him on the spot, he charged towards the laager, and when
his horse was killed under him he marched on foot to meet his death.
As soon as it was seen that Hannay had thrown himself away, Stephenson
was ordered to renew the flank attack. With a portion of his troops and
some mounted infantry, he crossed to the right bank at Vanderberg's
Drift, and formed to the left. A small body of Hannay's force had won a
position near the Boer entrenchments, and it is probable that
Stephenson's assault would have succeeded but for a curious accident,
which could not have been foreseen, and by which he was deprived of part
of his firing line when it was most needed. The setting sun suddenly
appeared from beneath a bank of clouds in the west, directly in line
with the objective, and the dazzle of the light blotted out the laager,
at the same time illuminating the target on which the Boers were firing.
A further advance was impracticable, and the troops, which had already
fixed bayonets for the assault, were withdrawn when within 500 yards of
the enemy's position. Thus the second attempt to get at the laager from
the east failed, but Stephenson's action was not entirely without a
result, as he was able to put his men into entrenchments, where they
remained during the night.
Meanwhile, Colvile was pushing upstream from the west. On that side the
Boers had an advanced position in a big donga, which runs into the right
bank, about two miles below the laager, and upon which a few companies
of the Highland Brigade, having waded the river, had already made a
gallant but unsuccessful attack. Colvile, under orders from Kitchener,
placed himself astride the river, sending the Brigade under
Smith-Dorrien across to the north bank, while the Highland Brigade acted
on the left of the frontal attack; and when Gun Hill, which outflanked
the donga, was occupied, Kitchener ordered an assault on the donga, to
be carried out simultaneously with Hannay's attack on the left flank.
The order, however, was not communicated to Smith-Dorrien on Gun Hill,
and he was not aware of it until he saw some troops of his own Division,
supported by a few companies sent across by Kitchener from the left
bank, charging across the open. In a few minutes, the gradual
retardation of the rush, and then its extinction under a heavy fire,
showed that the attempt had failed. It is said that Smith-Dorrien had
been so imperfectly made acquainted with Kitchener's plan, that he was
under the impression that he had been sent to the north bank to prevent
the Boers breaking out of the laager, and not to attack them upstream.
The frontal attack was initiated by Kelly-Kenny with the 13th Brigade
under C. Knox, the 18th Brigade having been detached to support Hannay's
flank attack. The main body of the Boers was north of the river, but
strong detachments held the left-bank dongas. Colvile was dealing with a
demonstration against Paardeberg Drift when an oral message from
Kitchener reached him, which he interpreted as an order to go to Knox's
assistance with his Division, which was thus withdrawn from the flank
and lent to the frontal attack. He was doubtfully carrying out what he
believed to be his instructions when an order reached him to send the
19th Brigade, under Smith-Dorrien, across the river. A few companies of
his Highland Brigade succeeded in establishing themselves on the right
bank, and Knox drove the enemy out of the left-bank dongas, but was
forbidden by Kelly-Kenny to cross the river, as the enemy was too
strongly posted. The frontal attack was spent, but the troops remained
on their ground until the approach of night released them.
Two miles S.E. of Vendutie Drift, a hill, to which the name of
Kitchener's Kopje was afterwards given, rises out of the veld. In the
tactics of the assault on the laager, it was not a position of much
importance, but in the Paardeberg drama it was a striking scene. The
detachment of infantry which Kelly-Kenny sent early in the day to occupy
it had been withdrawn without his knowledge by some wandering staff
officer, who thought he had found a better use for the little garrison,
and replaced by a few mounted men. These, while watching the progress of
the fight, and perhaps regretting that they were not taking a more
active part in it, were suddenly called upon to defend themselves.
De Wet, with two guns and 600 men, had arrived from Koffyfontein at the
opportune moment of the crisis of the flank attacks. He soon carried the
kopje, and when at 4.30 p.m. he opened fire, the shells which he pitched
into the VIth Division baggage and artillery were the first intimation
of his intervention received by the Head Quarter Staff, absorbed in
their attack on the laager; and for the second time the troops were
called away from the work in hand, to deal with an unexpected attack
from the rear, and the dwindling hope of carrying Cronje's position
before nightfall passed away.
If, on the British side at Paardeberg, the commanders were not at their
best when acting _in partibus_ beyond the personal control of Lord
Roberts, on the other hand De Wet's release from immediate subordination
to Cronje seemed to make him a more dangerous foe. His capture of the
convoy at Waterval Drift on February 15 was followed in three days by a
daring raid on a British army with a handful of men. It was an impudent
and haphazard enterprise, which would hardly have been attempted if he
had been in possession of fuller information, but it was justified by
its success. De Wet had been reinforced at Koffyfontein, and if he had
brought all the commandos at his disposal with him to Paardeberg Cronje
would probably have been relieved. But he had not clearly discerned the
strategy of Lord Roberts, whose presence at Jacobsdaal deceived him, and
instead of striking with all his strength in one direction, he weakened
his force by expeditions eastward towards Edenburg and westward towards
Belmont.
His appreciation of the tactical situation at Paardeberg, based on the
rumours which drifted into Koffyfontein, was imperfect, and when he came
within sight of the Modder, and saw the British Army before him, he must
have regretted that he had not entirely abandoned the idea that the
advance would be made by way of Koffyfontein. But the time and the place
could not have been better arranged. The British Army was preoccupied
with Cronje; and Kitchener's Kopje in De Wet's hands gave a strong flank
protection to Steyn, and later on to De Beer, who, when driven out of
his position north of Koodoos Drift by a resuscitated cavalry brigade
under Gordon, crossed to the kopjes south of the river. Neither Steyn
nor De Beer had been effectually checked, and they were hovering for a
chance to swoop down.
At nightfall the situation was as follows:--
The laager was holding out, and the chief result of the day's work was a
contraction of the line held by the Boers on the river; an attempt by
Kelly-Kenny to recapture Kitchener's Kopje had failed; fully one quarter
of the perimeter commanding Vendutie Drift was in the possession of the
enemy; the troops were exhausted and the casualties exceeded 1,200.[36]
It does not necessarily follow from the failure of a tactical scheme
that it was unsuited to the occasion; but the failure of February 18 was
due to one of three causes: to the defects of the scheme, to the mode of
its execution, or to the Boer external attacks. It was not a scheme
which either Kelly-Kenny or Colvile would have devised if left to
himself, and it is very doubtful whether Kitchener had Lord Roberts'
direct authority for it. But assuming that it offered a better chance of
crippling the enemy at large than the alternative of an investment, it
was so hastily devised and so clumsily pursued that it became hourly
more difficult to carry through, until it was finally subverted by De
Wet. Many of the commanding officers had as little knowledge of
Kitchener's purpose as the pawns which are moved by the hands of the
chess player.
The conclusion seems to be that but for De Wet's intrusion the brute
force of the investors might possibly have prevailed. But the final
cause of the failure was Lord Roberts' error of judgment in putting
Kitchener into virtual command of the Vendutie Drift force, thereby
superseding senior officers of greater tactical ability. The
complications arising out of brevet rank and local rank, grades peculiar
to the British Army,[37] were already sufficiently disturbing, and yet
Kitchener was irregularly advanced by a few words in a private letter
from Lord Roberts to Kelly-Kenny.
In his report on the day's work to Lord Roberts at Jacobsdaal, Kitchener
could only say that he hoped to do something more definite on the
morrow. Lord Roberts at once ordered him to be reinforced, and being now
convalescent set out for Paardeberg, where he arrived during the
forenoon of February 19.
It is significant that Lord Roberts did not renew the assault on the
laager, and confined himself to operations against Kitchener's Kopje,
thus reverting to the scheme of investment proposed by Kelly-Kenny on
the previous day. The burghers evacuated the big donga during the night.
Lord Roberts was, from motives of humanity as well as from lack of
hospital accommodation, reluctant to inflict another loss of 8 per cent,
upon his troops. The inability to deal with a further accumulation of
wounded was perhaps a justification of his decision, but his hesitancy
to fight costly battles, which was characteristic of many general and
field officers of undoubted personal courage, is not so easy to excuse.
Even on the score of humanity, it is better to fight one decisive action
in which the casualties amount to 20 per cent., than to obtain the same
result by fighting three actions in each of which the casualties amount
to 8 per cent. The aggregate of human suffering caused to each side by
the war would have been less if the struggle had been fought out more
relentlessly, and without so much regard to the expenditure of life.
There seems to have been a theory that a percentage of casualties which
exceeded ten would demoralize the troops, although it had often been
greatly exceeded in the battles of former campaigns. In some of the
operation orders subsequently issued, the reservation, "if this be
possible without undue loss," appeared.
The presence of De Wet on Kitchener's Kopje gave Cronje a moral support
which was not of much use to him. According to De Wet's account, he
considered it a point of honour to remain with the women, children, and
wagons in the laager, which every hour was growing more unfit for
occupation.
The ejectment of De Wet, to be followed by an advance on Bloemfontein by
French's cavalry, was substituted by Lord Roberts for the assault on the
laager, which was to be left to starve itself out. But the removal of De
Wet from the kopje, which he had stolen from his opponents, was not an
easy task, and for three nights and two days the Ajax of the Boers
defied the lightnings which played upon the hill. On the 19th, a body of
cavalry was brought round from the north, but was found unequal to the
task. Towards evening an infantry brigade was thrown at the kopje, but
after it had obtained some success, and had partially entrenched itself
on the slopes, it was withdrawn by Lord Roberts. No action was taken on
the following day, but on the 21st a cavalry attack forced De Wet out of
his hold; but though squeezed like a sponge between the fingers, his
commando was incompressible, and oozed away towards the east; no
effective pursuit being possible, owing to the condition of the horses.
Meanwhile the investment continued, but the scarcity of ammunition
restrained the activity of the bombardment. An offer made by Lord
Roberts to take away the piteous women and children, praying for peace
in their time, was rejected by Cronje.
The departure of De Wet, who picked up De Beer and Steyn on his way,
enabled the gap in the circle of investment to be filled in, and the
agony of the laager was drawn out for six days. Nothing but a strenuous
attack from outside the circle could save it. De Wet indeed, who had
trekked in the direction of Poplar Grove, and who had received
reinforcements from Colesberg and Natal, which placed 5,000 burghers
under his orders, made an unsuccessful attempt to recover the kopje and
retreated hastily, though a gallant remnant of eighty-seven burghers
under Theunissen held on, and were not made prisoners until a brigade
had been launched against them. An envoy was sent by De Wet into the
laager to urge Cronje to break out. A half-hearted consent was given,
but at the appointed time the river was in flood and the attempt was
postponed.
The exhaustion of the cavalry, and the report of the arrival of
reinforcements at Poplar Grove, compelled Lord Roberts to abandon his
plan of sending on French to Bloemfontein; but as he confidently looked
to an early occupation of the Free State capital, he detached Kitchener
to Naauwpoort with instructions to see to the opening up of the railway
from the south, upon which the Army would depend for its supplies as
soon as it reached Bloemfontein. He was, perhaps, glad of an excuse to
employ his Chief of the Staff elsewhere for a time, for although the
Divisional Commanders had loyally accepted the situation, he could not
but feel that they had not been quite fairly treated, and that the
Kitchener dictatorship had not been a success.
The end came on February 27. Soon after sunrise on the anniversary of
Majuba Hill the white flag was raised in the laager. During the last
five days, Tucker, who with a portion of his Division had been ordered
up from Jacobsdaal when the news of the investment reached Lord Roberts,
closed gradually in on the west, and Stephenson on the east; and on the
26th the laager was severely bombarded by four newly arrived howitzers.
The final stroke was delivered by two companies of the Royal Canadians,
who, disregarding a false order to retire, held on, and by daybreak had
entrenched themselves within 100 yards of the flanking trench of the
laager; and though this feat was not the direct cause of the surrender,
which had been decided on the previous evening, it was not the less
meritorious. Cronje in vain endeavoured to persuade the burghers to
postpone the surrender over Majuba Day. In a few hours 4,000 men, the
majority of whom were Transvaalers, were under guard as prisoners of
war, and Cronje was on his way to St. Helena, there to commune with the
Shade of Napoleon.
It is said that when Kruger heard of the capitulation of Vendutie Drift
he exclaimed, "The real war will now begin." To the British public, the
surrender of Cronje, followed in a few hours by the relief of Ladysmith,
seemed to prove that the real war had now ended.
On the following day Lord Roberts transferred the bulk of the Army to a
fresh camping ground at Osfontein, and remained there for seven days.
The halt was rendered necessary by the exhaustion of the cavalry and
artillery horses, on whom the greater stress of the advance had fallen,
and whose rations had been docked even more than those of their riders;
and it gave Lord Roberts an opportunity of drawing supplies for the
advance from the Kimberley line, from which he was about to sever
himself. The halt also enabled the Army of the Modder to pull itself
together for a fresh effort, after a fortnight of harassing marches and
weary investment work on stinted rations.
What might almost be called a Select Committee of the House of Lords met
at Kimberley on March 1. Lord Roberts rode over from Osfontein to
consult Lord Methuen, and they were joined by Lord Kitchener, who
returned from his brief visit of inspection to Naauwpoort and De Aar.
Mafeking was in greater embarrassment than ever had come upon Kimberley,
and there was trouble in the spacious area of Cape Colony lying west of
the Capetown-Kimberley railway. Lord Roberts' hopes that a force raised
locally in Kimberley might be available for the relief of Mafeking were
disappointed; and after his return to Osfontein with Kitchener, he
instructed Methuen to see to it with a Yeomanry brigade, which would be
sent to him. To check the risings in Cape Colony, which for the time
being were confined to the Prieska district, Kitchener had already sent
out flying columns from De Aar.
The tenacity and resolution of De Wet were never more conspicuous than
during the disheartening days which followed his retirement from
Kitchener's Kopje. Neither Cronje's surrender, nor the news of the
relief of Ladysmith and of the British working steadily towards the
Orange River bridges, nor the despondency of his own men, diverted him
from his purpose of interposing between Lord Roberts and the Free State
capital. President Steyn came over from Bloemfontein to stimulate the
discouraged, and President Kruger was brought round from Joubert's Head
Quarters in Natal, where he had been successful in persuading the
burghers dismayed by the relief of Ladysmith to hold on to the
Biggarsberg positions. After a conference with Steyn, he went on to
Poplar Grove, arriving there in time to hear the opening shots of the
battle of March 7.
[Illustration: Map.]
De Wet's force at Poplar Grove was at first sufficient for the
occupation of a position on the left bank of the Modder only, but
subsequent reinforcements brought it up to a number which was estimated
by the British Intelligence not to exceed 14,000 and which was probably
much less. The position was then prolonged across the river, the front
being divided into two unequal portions by the Drift at Poplar Grove.
To drive away De Wet, and to entangle him as Cronje had been fatally
entangled in the Drifts of the Modder River, and cut off his retreat to
Bloemfontein, was the tactical scheme of Lord Roberts, who had twice as
many men, and at least five times as many guns, as his opponent.
In his method of communicating his plan to the officers concerned Lord
Roberts made an innovation. Instead of issuing written Battle Orders he
read a memorandum at a council of war, and afterwards circulated copies
of it. Thus he was able to explain the situation and expound his plan in
greater detail than is possible in the bald and sterilized paragraphs of
Orders; but he omitted to give in it definite times at which certain
movements were to be begun, or to be completed, and the oral
instructions on these points given subsequently were not clearly
understood.
In brief, Lord Roberts' plan for Poplar Grove was as follows. When
French's cavalry had made a wide circuit of seventeen miles south of the
Modder, out of reach of De Wet's left flank, and had placed itself in
rear of the Boer position, the VIth Division was to make a flank attack
on the Boer left on the Seven Kopjes, and endeavour to roll it up
towards the river, by way of Table Mountain. The enemy's centre was to
be threatened by the VIIth Division along the line of the Modder, and
his right on the north bank of the river by the IXth Division. With his
great superiority in men and guns, Lord Roberts might reasonably expect
to capture the whole Boer force, although he had no longer a Cronje but
a De Wet to deal with.
The day's operations began at 3 a.m., when the cavalry marched out of
Osfontein; but soon the absence of precise staff arrangements gave
trouble. The VIth Division, which was ordered to follow French, who it
was understood would leave camp at 2 a.m., was headed off by the
cavalry, and had to be halted until he was clear of the infantry front.
Neither Kelly-Kenny nor French seems to have mastered the scheme of
attack. At daylight, when the cavalry should have been well in rear of
the Boer position, it was in fact not far from the VIth Division, about
two miles south of the Boer left flank on Seven Kopjes and in full view
of the enemy.
As soon as the Boers perceived that an enveloping movement was in train,
they withdrew towards the river, and French reported that he had turned
their left flank, and was in pursuit, and that Seven Kopjes was open to
Kelly-Kenny's advance. The part assigned to him in the morning's work
was, however, the cutting off of the enemy's retreat, and he nullified
the tactical scheme by showing himself prematurely.
His next message to Lord Roberts, who was watching the battle from Le
Gallais Kopje, announced that he was shelling the wagons in retreat, but
that he could not get at them, as they were protected by flanking
positions on neighbouring kopjes. It was now evident that French instead
of cutting off the enemy was only pursuing him without much success.
The VIth Division advanced with great deliberation. Kelly-Kenny reported
to Head Quarters that Seven Kopjes had been reoccupied, and that a
detached hill to the east seemed to be strongly held, which was not the
impression given by French's message less than an hour previously.
However, Kelly-Kenny occupied Seven Kopjes without opposition, and it is
said that the infantry on the south bank were never in touch with the
enemy. On the north bank the IXth Division slowly, but without much
difficulty, pushed back the Boer right and captured a gun on Leeuw Kop,
the solitary trophy of the day.
Finally, the Divisions converged on Poplar Grove, but De Wet had shaken
himself free without the loss of a single burgher taken prisoner, and
with almost his full complement of wagons. He retired along the Modder
towards Abraham's Kraal, keeping French at arm's length with his
rearguards. He owed his escape to the hesitancy of his opponents and his
own mobility. The details of the fight show that some of the commanders
waited upon one another like Lord Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan at
Walcheren. Again the British cavalry was ineffective for pursuit.
It was not known at the time that had Lord Roberts' scheme been
successful in its entirety, a capture would have been made that might
have brought the war to a sudden close. President Kruger was present
during the greater part of the battle, and with bitter chagrin saw the
burghers streaming past him in retreat.
Whether the battle of Poplar Grove is to be considered a success or not
depends upon the view which is taken of its actual and potential
results. Lord Roberts did not capture another Boer army, as he fully
expected to do, but he expelled it from a good position, and put it on
the run; and the British Army was one stage nearer to Bloemfontein.
Next day Kitchener was again, in his capacity of military foreman, sent
away to superintend the carrying out of the arrangements he had already
made for dealing with the disaffected Prieska district. His
disengagement from Lord Roberts removed for the time a potential cause
of failure, namely, the uncertainty, to which perhaps the escape of De
Wet at Poplar Grove may be due, whether a battle was to be fought with
the Commander-in-Chiefs rapier or with the Chief-of-the-Staff's
bludgeon.
De Wet, undaunted by his defeat and by the defection of a large number
of his men, who disappeared after Poplar Grove, summoned a Krijgsraad,
which authorized further resistance. A position threatening the left
flank of the advance on Bloemfontein was taken up on the kopjes near
Abraham's Kraal.
Reinforcements of "Zarps" from the Transvaal, and of contingents under
Delarey and P. de Wet, came in, and a force of about 5,000 men was
rallied, to make one more rearguard stand against Lord Roberts. In the
absence of C. de Wet, who had been called away to Bloemfontein, Delarey
was in command.
Lord Roberts' scheme for the advance on Bloemfontein was based on
reports that the Boers would take up a strong position a few miles N.W.
of the capital. He divided his force into three columns, each having a
cavalry brigade attached to it, which, marching by different routes to a
point south of the city, would cut the railway and turn the Boer flank.
On March 10 the advance began, French being in command of the left
column, which alone was seriously engaged during the march.
The position taken up by the Boers at Abraham's Kraal at first only
included a group of kopjes near the river, and another group at
Damvallei, but eventually it was extended further south to Driefontein
and Boschrand, in order to command another road to Bloemfontein.
In accordance with Lord Roberts' instructions, and to the great
disappointment of Delarey, who hoped to commit the left column to a
frontal attack on the Abraham's Kraal and Damvallei Kopjes, which lay on
the direct road to Baberspan, where it was due to bivouac that night,
French avoided them, and changed direction towards Driefontein and
Boschrand. Delarey, finding that he was not to be attacked on his right,
reinforced Driefontein Hill, which, as it happened, had just been
evacuated by De Wet, who had returned from Bloemfontein. The occupation
of a detached spur of the Boschrand by a chance body of mounted infantry
from the centre column, and a threatening movement of that column's
cavalry brigade, had drawn him away from Driefontein on to the crest of
the Boschrand. French's change of direction caused the march of his
column to converge upon that of the centre column, and he was now
crossing the front of a sinuous line of ten miles occupied by the enemy,
and extending from the Boschrand, through Driefontein, Damvallei, and
the Abraham's Kraal Kopjes to Oertel's Drift on the Modder. The right of
the line had already diverted French from his march on the appointed
bivouac, which he now proposed to reach by turning the left.
Suddenly Delarey opened fire from Driefontein on the cavalry, and the
advance of the infantry had to be delayed while the situation was
examined. The result of the reconnaissance determined Kelly-Kenny, who
was in command of the left column's infantry, to attack the minor
features of Delarey's position. He was unable to communicate with
French, but the latter, as soon as he saw that Kelly-Kenny had achieved
his object, ordered a turning movement by the cavalry.
The cavalry of the centre column, which earlier in the day had been
informed that French was not in need of its assistance, co-operated
imperfectly. The afternoon was wearing away, and Kelly-Kenny, while
waiting impatiently for the turning movement to take effect, received a
message from Lord Roberts, instructing him to push on, as it was
believed that the enemy's position was not held in great strength.
Kelly-Kenny, for the first time able to fight a battle in his own way,
now set himself to clear the enemy out of the Driefontein ridge.
Reinforcements were ordered up to him from the centre column, but he won
his victory without their aid, and after a struggle which lasted till
sunset, Delarey was expelled from Driefontein. The Boers were still in
occupation of the other positions on the line, but De Wet, although
strongly urged by Delarey to hold on, found it advisable to withdraw
from them. The burghers drifted away in the darkness, after the
exhausted cavalry had made a formal attempt at pursuit.
Two of the field guns which had been taken three months before at
Colenso fought on the Boer side at the Battle of Driefontein, which
though but a passing incident in the war, has been favoured by the
German critics with their cordial approval. "Driefontein was fought
substantially on the principles evolved by the experiences of the
campaign of 1870-1871." Kelly-Kenny's wilful and successful "use of deep
formations, limited front, and of a wasting fire to obtain ascendancy
before crushing the enemy with a simultaneous charge" is considered to
uphold the correctness of the German theory of attack, which thirty
years of new conditions of warfare have not modified.[38]
Next day the advance on Bloemfontein was resumed, and French's column
was merged in the centre column under Lord Roberts. The column under
Tucker was marching on the Free State capital by way of Petrusburg,
twenty miles to the south, as there was a possibility that some of the
commandos in retreat from beyond the Orange might be approaching. De Wet
did his best to organize a final stand N.W. of the city, but it was soon
evident that Lord Roberts' movements could not be checked, and President
Steyn fled to Kroonstad.
The cavalry was pushed on, and on the afternoon of March 12 the railway
was cut at Ferreira's Siding, a few miles south of Bloemfontein. Some
resistance was offered at a ridge commanding the approach to the
capital, but the defenders withdrew during the night. Soon after
midnight, a small party of pioneers, under Hunter-Weston of the Royal
Engineers, started to circle eastwards round the city, and having with
much difficulty in the darkness found the railway on the north side,
destroyed a culvert on the line and thereby entrapped a considerable
amount of rolling stock.
Next morning Lord Roberts came to the line, and at midday the
municipality and leading citizens of Bloemfontein waited on him at
Ferreira's Siding, and tendered the submission of the city. It was a
notable episode in the military history of Great Britain, and there was
a touch of a vanished mediaevalism in the ceremony.
The march from Ramdam to Bloemfontein restored the British Army in the
eyes of the nation. It was no longer a machine which constantly broke
down whenever stress was laid upon it, but was working quietly and on
the whole successfully. It had acquired confidence in itself, and the
infantry especially had done well during the month's advance.
Notwithstanding long marches, which in the end were equally fatiguing
whether made by day or by night, on restricted rations in a trying
climate, the proportion of men who fell out was small.
The cavalry did not greatly distinguish itself. Two brilliant exploits,
the rush from Klip Drift to Kimberley, and the heading off of Cronje at
Vendutie Drift, practically exhausted it. Its reconnaissance work during
the advance was poorly executed, and after each fight came the same
report, that the horses were unable to pursue the retiring burghers.
Overloading, indifferent march discipline and horsemastership, night
marches without previously watering and feeding the horses, reduced Lord
Roberts' mounted troops to but a fraction of their nominal strength; and
raised a question whether French, whose military capacity was
undeniable, might not be more usefully employed in infantry operations.
There is more than a substratum of truth in the remark once made by a
caustic foreign critic, that an Englishman talks more and knows less
about horses and their management than any other man.
Notes:
[Footnote 34: In the Egyptian War of 1882 Arabi was similarly misled by
Sir Garnet Wolseley, who making as if to land his Army near Aboukir Bay,
suddenly took it into the Suez Canal, and threw it ashore at Ismailia.]
[Footnote 35: 350,000 horses were used up during the campaign, in other
words, the war strength of one cavalry regiment every other day. The
removal of a cavalry officer from his command after the battle of
Graspan, because he could not do with exhausted horses what was expected
of him by an infantry officer, will perhaps account for a considerable
portion of the wastage.]
[Footnote 36: It is stated on the authority of the United States
Military attaché that Kitchener said next day that if he had known the
power of the Mauser behind entrenchments, he would not have attempted to
assault the laager.]
[Footnote 37: They were originally granted as a counterpoise to the
irregularities of the system of promotion by purchase.]
[Footnote 38: See Colonel du Cane's translation of Vol. II. of the
German Official Account, p. 52.]