COLESBERG AND KIMBERLEY
DECEMBER, 1899, TO FEBRUARY, 1900.
The immediate effects of these events may be put under four heads:
1. A national and Imperial awakening to the greatness of the emergency.
2. The appointment of Lord Roberts to the supreme command in South
Africa.
3. Large additional reinforcements of regular troops of all three arms,
and of militia.
4. The improvisation of large numbers of additional mounted troops.
These belonged to three categories:
(_a_) Three thousand additional regular Mounted Infantry, improvised by
abstraction from every Infantry battalion in South Africa, with
additions from Great Britain.
(_b_) The enlistment and gradual despatch of large bodies of volunteer
mounted riflemen; from Great Britain (in the shape of 10,000 Yeomanry),
and from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India.
(_c_) The enlistment in South Africa of a quantity of new irregular
corps of mounted riflemen, including a local militia for the defence of
Cape Colony, the latter force being backed by Town Guards partly
composed of Infantry.
No question ever arose of training the mounted irregulars to the use of
the steel weapon. The long postponed decision to raise Yeomanry, for
example, was directly inspired by a telegram from Buller after Colenso,
asking for “8,000 irregular Mounted Infantry.” This view of present
requirements did not represent any radical change of military theory.
There was a general impression abroad, first, that this was a “peculiar”
war demanding peculiar expedients; second, that it was a comparatively
simple and easy matter to improvise mounted riflemen. The first
proposition was a misleading half-truth, the second a profound fallacy,
but the net result, however arrived at, was good. Outside the Cavalry
itself, it was already generally recognized that the rifle must, in this
war at any rate, be the dominant arm for mounted troops. Even among the
Cavalry, reliance upon the carbine and upon the support of mounted
riflemen had intensified with every day of hostilities.
As I explained in the previous chapter, the Natal entanglement, with the
wholesale diversion of troops which it entailed, had left Cape Colony in
mid-November almost defenceless against invasion, slowly and timidly as
that invasion was proceeding. It came at two principal points: in the
north-east by way of Aliwal North and Burgersdorp to Stormberg; and in
the centre by way of Norval’s Pont to Colesberg, and on towards
Naauwpoort. The former advance threatened only the East London
railway-line. The latter advance was the more serious in that it
endangered, not only Methuen’s communications with the south, but the
whole of the railway system from our two major ports, Cape Town and Port
Elizabeth, with its three cardinal junctions—De Aar, Naauwpoort, and
Rosmead. The three serious defeats of mid-December, and especially that
of Gatacre at Stormberg, increased the danger. At least six weeks must
elapse before sufficient reinforcements could be gathered for the great
projected advance under Roberts. Torpid as the Boer strategy was,
pusillanimity on our part might encourage them at any moment to greater
efforts. Our one resource for the time being was “bluff.” Buller had
realized this from the first, and given instructions accordingly to
French, who had taken up the command at Naauwpoort on November 20, with
orders to “worry” the enemy, and make, if he could, a bold show of
operating towards Colesberg.
French performed the difficult rôle allotted to him with complete
success. His operations lasted ten weeks, and included a multitude of
small schemes and enterprises, which it is impossible for me to recount
in detail. I can only sketch his doings and methods in broad outline,
with a special view to their bearing on the question of weapons for
mounted men.
Aggression, perpetual but never rash, was the keynote of his action. As
the handful of troops with which he started work slowly grew, by
accretion from the base, to a substantial force, he steadily pushed
forward, first to Arundel, then to Rensburg, then to a line immediately
threatening Colesberg, all the time widening his protective net to right
and left over the adjacent country. His system was to harass, surprise,
impose upon the enemy constantly, with forays, reconnaissances, and
stratagems. Except for the unhappy failure of an infantry night attack,
no sensational fights occurred, but a great number of small engagements,
which would repay close study.
The troops employed were of all arms—Infantry, Horse Artillery, regular
Mounted Infantry, Australasian and South African mounted riflemen, and
regular Cavalry. Numbers and composition varied from time to time. The
total force at French’s disposal for active operations rose from about
1,200, mainly Infantry, on November 20, to 2,000, half of them mounted,
in the second week of December, and to 4,500 in the second week of
January, 1900, when all immediate danger to the Colony was at an end,
and he was firmly established in the positions round Colesberg, with his
rear quite secure. This force included four batteries of Artillery, and
no less than 2,000 mounted men (an unusually high proportion), of whom
some 1,200 were regular Cavalry.
The Boers, who were under the very poor leadership of D. Schoemann, were
also progressively reinforced. Their available fighting strength at any
given time is impossible to measure, since it varied from day to day,
and week to week, with the energy or indifference of the burghers. But
it is fairly safe to say that at the outset they outnumbered the British
force by nearly two to one, held a distinct though lessening superiority
for about three weeks—the really critical period of the operations—and
in the second week of January were approximately equal to French’s
forces. At a somewhat later stage they were considerably reinforced.
Because French was a cavalryman, and because more than half the mounted
troops engaged were regular Cavalry, it has often been too lightly
assumed that the Colesberg operations proved the value of the training
peculiar to Cavalry—that is, in the _arme blanche_. Mr. Goldman, for
example, in the course of a contrast between the types of Cavalry and
mounted riflemen, cites these operations as an example of the
“successful use of Cavalry when properly employed.”[19]
-----
Footnote 19:
“With French in South Africa,” p. 421.
-----
Observe the confusion caused by nomenclature. The _arme blanche_ was not
and could not have been used, though the terrain was perfect for it.[20]
I think I am right in saying that only on one occasion, the fight of
January 3 near Maeder’s farm, was there any question of sabres, even in
pursuit. The 10th Hussars and a squadron of Inniskilling Dragoons, with
two horse batteries, were engaging a force under Piet de Wet, which had
just failed in a surprise attack on an Infantry position. Suddenly the
Boers lost heart, and bolted across the plain; the Cavalry followed in
pursuit, but were checked by the fire of a small party who stopped to
take cover in some rocky ground. By the time these men had been turned
out their comrades were safe. This is a typical illustration of the
weakness of Cavalry in pursuit.
-----
Footnote 20:
Mr. Goldman complains that, although open, the country contained
ridges, which provided successive lines of resistance to a retreating
enemy. He does not see what ridicule he throws on Cavalry by such a
line of argument.
-----
The Cavalry, like the irregulars, acted throughout as mounted riflemen,
and though, like all the troops engaged, they did well, they would have
done much better if they had carried rifles instead of carbines, and had
spent their professional life in practising rifle-tactics. In the same
way the regular Mounted Infantry would have done better if in peace they
had been regarded, not as a cross between Infantry and Cavalry, but as
fully-fledged mounted troops, capable, with time and the proper
education, of being of as much general practical utility as Cavalry. The
400 New Zealand Mounted Rifles, who formed the majority of the
unprofessional mounted troops engaged, stood from the first on a footing
of equality with the regulars, because they had nothing to unlearn,
though, like everyone else, much to learn.
I must add three remarks upon the Colesberg operations:
1. Unlike the formal actions or battles we have hitherto been
considering, these operations presented a multitude of minor tactical
problems arising from the daily contact of small bodies of troops on a
wide front. In all these small encounters down to those of patrols, the
rifle, not the steel, governed tactics. If only those of our present
Yeomanry officers who are asking for the sword, not so much for shock
action on a big scale as for this very class of small encounters, would
take the trouble to study the work of their own countrymen in such
operations as those around Colesberg, they would, I believe, be
converted to implicit faith in their rifles.
2. The operations, so far from being abnormal, bear a strong resemblance
to the kind of work which, under our present system, Cavalry, unhelped
by Infantry or mounted riflemen, will have to do in any European war,
particularly during the initial stage of mobilization and concentration
for a united advance. During this stage it is the duty of the Cavalry to
form a screen, both protective and aggressive in character. This was
exactly what French, with his composite force, did. Besides assisting to
cover the rear of an existing force—Methuen’s—he was in the position of
covering the front of a hitherto partially mobilized and unconcentrated
army. At first most of the army he was screening was still in England,
his and its primary base. Gradually it collected in force behind him, at
the Cape Peninsula or secondary base, until it swelled into the force
which marched under Roberts to Bloemfontein. That an ocean intervened
between the primary and secondary bases does not affect the analogy. In
the light of the Colesberg operations, how grotesque seems the theory of
the great preliminary shock duel which, according to “Cavalry Training”
and the German theorists, is to be sought by the rival Cavalry screens!
3. The “spirit” which actuated our operations around Colesberg was not
the “Cavalry spirit,” which means essentially the spirit of fighting on
horseback with a steel weapon. It was the spirit which should actuate
all troops, but particularly mounted troops, simply because they possess
horses—the spirit of aggressive mobility, backed by resource, stratagem,
and dash. In French this _spirit_, not only now but throughout the war,
was admirably exemplified, and we can only regret profoundly that it did
not rest on a radical belief in the firearm as distinguished from the
steel weapon, and that the Cavalry he led was not trained upon that
principle.
4. That French’s personality as an able and vigorous officer was a
decisive factor in the success of the Colesberg operations is proved by
the narrative of other mounted work at the same period. The best mounted
enterprise done by Methuen’s troops during the long halt at the Modder
was Pilcher’s Sunnyside raid of January 1, 1900, by Queenslanders and
Mounted Infantry. The Cavalry work, both in the reconnaissance of
January 8, and at the Koedoesberg on February 7, was the reverse of
vigorous.
THE RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY.
We now approach the principal Cavalry achievements in the South African
War. To explain their origin I must refer to the general military
situation at the beginning of February, 1900. The only substantial
change which had occurred in the Boer dispositions since their successes
of mid-December, 1899, was the gradual reinforcement of the Colesberg
force, which French had been containing, from a strength of 2,000 to
7,000; elsewhere they had stood in an attitude of passive defence.
Cronje had sat in his trenches at Magersfontein facing Methuen at Modder
River. The Stormberg force, facing Gatacre, had been almost inactive,
and behind Cronje the sieges of Kimberley and Mafeking had been carried
on with no great vigour. In Natal the siege of Ladysmith had been
maintained with diminished energy and steadily diminishing numbers,
while Louis Botha held the line of the Tugela against the repeated
attacks in ever-increasing strength of Buller’s relieving force. At the
beginning of February the third of these attacks, that by way of Vaal
Krantz, had just failed.
Behind the screen so skilfully maintained by French the new army had
been steadily collected. At the beginning of February it was sufficient
for an advance.
By this time the last opportunity for aggressive Boer strategy on the
grand scale had completely passed away. For general, not merely local
aggression, brain and mobility combined could not have availed to
counteract the numerical superiority which we had now gained, and were
increasing daily. Our strength on paper in South Africa at that moment
(about 130,000 men on a conservative estimate) approximately trebled the
paper strength of the Boers, including their foreign and rebel
auxiliaries.
Our effective fighting strength—100,000 men and 270 guns—was between
double and treble the effective fighting strength of the Boers at the
same period. Our “effective fighting men” in Cape Colony alone, given by
Roberts in his despatch of February 4 as 51,900 (exclusive, as he said,
of the garrisons of Mafeking and Kimberley and of seven militia
battalions, and evidently exclusive also of all auxiliary non-combatant
units), considerably exceeded the enemy’s entire field-force, reckoned
on a gross, not on a net, basis.[21]
-----
Footnote 21:
I have tried, as usual, to follow the figures of the “Official
History,” although for this period they are inadequate. Sometimes the
considered estimate of the historian is given, sometimes the
Intelligence estimate on the spot, with or without a warning that it
was exaggerated, while in the case of particular operations the
estimate is occasionally altogether omitted. It is not stated how much
allowance is made for men detached on non-combatant duties, and for
that leakage from particular commandos of burghers “on leave” which
was such a grave source of weakness for the enemy.
On January 10, when Roberts landed, the historian’s estimate of “total
effective strength of Boers in the field” (vol. i., p. 409) is 46,500,
thus disposed:
Joubert in Natal 21,000
Schoemann at Colesberg 5,000
Grobelaar around Stormberg 4,000
Cronje at Scholtz Nek 8,000
Ferreira besieging Kimberley 3,000
Snyman besieging Mafeking 2,500
H. Botha on Rhodesian border 1,000
“Reinforcements” 2,000
—-—-
46,500
On February 16 (four days after Roberts began his move) an
Intelligence estimate (“somewhat exaggerated”) is given to this
effect:
Cronje (including Kimberley force) 12,000 20 guns
A. Cronje (detached by Cronje)[22] 1,300 2 guns
Near Goemansberg 300 1 gun
Reinforcements (_i.e._, to Cronje) (“uncertain”) 5,000
Colesberg 8,000 10 guns
Stormberg, etc 2,000
—-—-
28,600
The Natal estimate is omitted, but by reference to the chapters on
Natal at the same period the total Boer strength there cannot have
been more than 12,000. Add, therefore, 12,000 + the forces of Snyman
and H. Botha on January 10, _i.e._, 3,500, and we get
15,500
—-—-
Total 44,100
Footnote 22:
These figures are certainly wrong. Andries Cronje’s force should be
included in the 12,000 credited to Cronje.
-----
But, although it was distinctly our turn for aggressive strategy, the
problem which faced Roberts was one of extreme difficulty. The fall of
any one of the three besieged towns, especially that of Ladysmith, would
have involved a grave loss of prestige, and Ladysmith was hard pressed.
Kimberley, in a far from heroic spirit, was actually threatening
surrender, if not relieved immediately. Roberts had to operate on
exterior lines with a hastily improvised army, deficient in staff
arrangements, transport, commissariat, and, above all, trained and
experienced mounted troops. He rose to the height of a great occasion.
His scheme, briefly, was to leave a skeleton force under Clements in
front of Colesberg; to turn the left flank of the Stormberg commandos
with Brabant’s Corps of 3,000 Cape Colony mounted volunteers; and, with
the bulk of his own army, to march by the western flank on Bloemfontein,
smashing Cronje and relieving Kimberley in one stroke. This stroke, he
was well aware, would automatically lessen the pressure upon Natal.
All the Cavalry in Cape Colony, and, under the original scheme, nearly
all the regular Mounted Infantry, together with Colonial mounted
contingents, were to be formed into a semi-independent unit under French
for the relief of Kimberley.
The preliminary movements were consummated with extraordinary secrecy
and skill. By February 10 an army of 45,000 men and 118 guns[23] had
been collected behind the Modder, of whom 37,000, representing
approximately 30,000 combatant troops, afterwards took part in the
invasion of the Free State.
-----
Footnote 23:
These and the subsequent figures are taken from Roberts’s despatch of
February 16. No figures of strength (only of units) are given either
in the text or appendices of the “Official History.”
-----
The Infantry divisions, including that of Methuen, were four, with a
gross strength of nearly 30,000, and 76 guns. The Cavalry division,
which is our particular concern, with a gross strength of 8,000 men and
42 Horse Artillery guns, was divided into four brigades—three consisting
of regular Cavalry, one consisting of regular Mounted Infantry and
Colonial mounted riflemen. The regular Cavalry brigades contained
altogether seven regiments and portions of two others, a total of about
3,000 sabres. The brigade of mounted riflemen was 2,250 strong.
A word about the force of regular Mounted Infantry, totalling 3,500, now
under Roberts. Most of this force had been raised during the last two
months, and was very raw and crude, a large proportion of the men being
scarcely able to ride, while a few still wore trousers or kilts. The
horses, too, were ill-trained and in bad condition. But the force had at
last been given the outline of a regular organization, and was now
distributed in eight battalions of 450 each, grouped in three divisions,
under Colonels Alderson, Hannay, and Ridley. Roberts had intended all of
these to form part of the independent mounted force, but this plan,
through lack of time, proved not to be feasible. Alderson’s division
alone, 870 strong, went with French, brigaded, as I have shown, with
1,400 Colonials. The rest of the regular Mounted Infantry stayed with
the main army, in company with other volunteer mounted units (City
Imperial Volunteers and Colonials), making up a total mounted reserve
with Roberts of some 3,600 men.
Cronje’s forces, including the men investing Kimberley and a detachment
in the west under Liebenberg, numbered at the utmost 11,000, with 20
guns. Of these 7,500 were under his immediate control. Numerically,
therefore, he was barely a quarter as strong as Roberts, without
counting in the latter’s force (as it should properly be counted) part
at least of the Kimberley garrison. In respect of mounted men, if all
Cronje’s troops, including the Kimberley investing force, had been
mounted, and all available for purely combatant duties, they would have
been barely more than equal, numerically, to the mounted troops under
Roberts—that is to say, to the Cavalry division and the mounted reserve
reckoned together. Or, to put the case in another way, if we set off the
Kimberley garrison against the Boer investing force, the Cavalry
division, with its horse-gunners included, was equal to Cronje’s main
force. Behind the Cavalry division lay the mounted reserve, four
divisions of Infantry, and 76 guns.
In point of fact, Cronje’s main force was not all mounted, much less
well mounted. Sandy soil and burning heat had played havoc among his
horses during the last two months. Not more than a quarter of his
burghers were well enough mounted to perform long and rapid marches;
about half were poorly mounted, and the rest were actually on foot.
Regarded as a whole, moreover, his army was no more mobile than our own.
It was supplied, like ours, through the agency of heavy ox-transport, in
motion slow and cumbrous to the last degree.
I have to insist on these figures and facts because, obviously, they
have a close bearing on our inquiry into the relative merits of the
steel weapon and the firearm. On the whole the Cavalry division, when
the operations began, was approximately as well off in the matter of
horses as Cronje’s force. They were in as good condition, probably, as
the horses of an invading army coming 6,000 miles by sea to a different
hemisphere can expect to be. The division was given a laborious task,
though a strictly normal task, in the shape of a raid. The weather was
very hot, water scarce, and the conditions exceedingly trying. The
horses succumbed in hundreds, mainly from unpreventable causes. But we
have to recognize a preventable cause. We may pass over the vexed
question of overloading. Most contemporary critics seem to have agreed
that the horses of all our mounted troops were overloaded; but the light
load is a counsel of perfection exceedingly difficult to work out in
practice. I refer to faults under the heading of horse management, which
was admittedly not up to the war standard. The defect was common to all
our mounted troops, but in the case of the professionally trained
Cavalry we can trace the indirect influence of the shock theory, which
in time of peace had encouraged artificial manœuvre as opposed to
work under real field conditions. And yet, by perverse reasoning, the
destruction of horse-flesh has been twisted by some writers into a
negative argument for the _arme blanche_. As we shall see, steel weapons
at no period of the war had any combat-value, whatever the condition of
the horses.
It is depressing to reflect that the short raid now proposed under the
trying conditions described was not strategically necessary. Kimberley
stood in no material danger. Roberts, in overwhelming force, only twenty
miles away, and ready to strike at Cronje, would have been justified in
disregarding the demands made by the civil population for immediate
relief. Practically he could scarcely take this course. Facing the
situation boldly and generously, he included the immediate, physical
relief of the town in his scheme of attack on Cronje, asked the Cavalry
Division to perform the task, and was enthusiastically and energetically
obeyed. We must remember, however, that under normal conditions the
situation could scarcely have arisen. Faced by 45,000 men, of whom, guns
apart, a fifth were mounted, Cronje must have raised the siege, and, if
he risked a battle, have concentrated every man for it. Even as it was,
had our large mounted force been not only as mobile but as highly
trained in the rifle as the enemy, it would surely have been used to
secure the envelopment and defeat of Cronje where he stood, in the
Magersfontein position. But it was not so highly trained. That was the
governing factor and the true “abnormality.” Kimberley could be given
immediate relief only by a long, circuitous march which in the end
wrecked the mobility of the division.
The position was this: The Modder separated Cronje from Roberts. Twenty
miles north of the Modder, and behind Cronje, lay Kimberley; but
Cronje’s communications did not lie in this direction. Though the force
investing Kimberley was still supplied by rail from the Transvaal—that
is, from the north—Cronje himself was now based by road on Bloemfontein,
nearly 100 miles to the east—towards his left flank, that is—a
thoroughly false and dangerous strategical position for the Boer leader.
It lay with Roberts to cut this line of communication and envelop
Cronje. North he must have operated, for Cronje might decide at any
moment to cut adrift from Bloemfontein and retire north; but there was
nothing to be gained by operating as far north as Kimberley.
Cronje, stubborn in spirit, but slow in thought and action, and, on this
occasion, badly served by his scouts, was thoroughly mystified by the
secrecy and suddenness of his enemy’s stroke. Until the last moment he
clung to the belief that he was to be attacked in the Magersfontein
trenches, which he had defended so successfully two months earlier. When
threatening symptoms appeared to his left front, he did his best to
watch this quarter by despatching successively three small bodies of his
best-mounted burghers, under A. Cronje, Lubbe, and Christian de Wet,
some 1,200 in all; but he made no effort to set in motion his partly
dismounted main force of about 6,000 men, with its unwieldy laager.
Ramdam, twenty miles south of the Modder, and forty miles by air-line
from Kimberley, was the British point of concentration. French and the
Cavalry division left this point for the north early on February 12,
with the main army slowly following, less Methuen’s division, which
remained to confront Cronje. Two days’ march brought French to the
Modder, with his troops and gun-horses already much spent. According to
the “Official History,” forty horses were dead and 326 unfit to march.
There had been barely more than a show of opposition at the crossing of
the Riet and the Modder. De Wet, if he had chosen, might have done more
to delay the advance with the 800 men whom at one moment he had under
his hand, but he was daunted by the imposing array of horsemen and guns,
and left Lubbe with only 250 men to dispute the passage of the Modder.
He himself hung on the rear of the grand army, where he soon found his
opportunity for a formidable stroke.
From the Modder at Klip Drift to Kimberley is twenty miles. Cronje,
though he did not yet suspect French’s objective, was beginning to be
alarmed, and now detached another 800 men and 2 guns, under Froneman and
De Beer, who were joined by 100 men under Lubbe, to oppose him. French,
on the morning of the 15th, after a day’s rest, swept this little force
aside by one abrupt and vigorous stroke, which has become famous as the
“Klip Drift Charge.” A mountain of error has been heaped upon this
event. Let us examine the circumstances.
French, on the night of the 14th, had been joined, thanks to some
splendid forced marching, by the sixth Infantry division and by most of
Hannay’s brigade of Mounted Infantry—that is to say, by about 6,000
Infantry, 20 guns, and 1,500 mounted men—a force in itself numerically
superior to the whole of the main body now remaining with Cronje. With
the Cavalry division added there were now at Klip Drift some 13,000 men
and sixty-two guns. Cronje’s communications with the east were
definitely severed, the point of severance was held in force, and French
was free for his independent spring on Kimberley. As it happened, Cronje
on the same afternoon, dimly alarmed, had moved his headquarters and
main laager a little east, so that it actually lay only six and a half
miles west of Klip Drift, though the Cavalry, in spite of a day’s rest,
were too tired for the reconnaissance necessary to discover this fact.
If the fact had been discovered, it would have shed a curious light on
the proposal to relieve Kimberley.
However, the immediate problem was to open the road for French to that
town. Nine hundred Boers (with 100 of Lubbe’s men reckoned in) and two
guns faced the large force at Klip Drift. They were disposed in an arc,
concave from the British point of view, occupying two converging ridges,
between which ran an expanse of open ground about a mile in width at the
narrowest point, and gently rising to a “Nek.” Both valley and Nek were
good galloping ground, without wire or obstacles of any kind. Very few
Boers were on the Nek—perhaps a hundred; the majority were on the two
ridges. Instead of clearing them out in the manner usual at this period,
by a slow preliminary assault, French resolved to rush his whole
division through the valley and over the Nek, under cover of Artillery
fire.
It was a sensible resolve, promptly made and admirably executed. At the
moment when French formed it he was about a mile distant from the Modder
and about two miles from the Nek. His division, in column of brigade
masses, had been checked by the fire of the two Boer guns posted on the
western or left-hand ridge, about 3,000 yards away, and by rifle-fire
from the nearest part of the eastern ridge, about 1,500 yards away. All
seven batteries of Horse Artillery, supported by two batteries of the
Infantry division and two naval guns—fifty-six guns in all—had opened on
the two ridges and the devoted pair of Boer guns, and had temporary
silenced the latter. It was now that French ordered the charge, and
while it lasted, all but two horse batteries, which were kept in
reserve, continued to bombard the Boer positions. Gordon’s brigade, less
two squadrons, which were engaged on the flanks, led the way, deployed
in extended order—eight yards between files, twenty yards between front
and rear rank—pace, fourteen miles an hour. Broadwood’s brigade came
next, 800 yards behind, and the other two brigades (one of Cavalry, the
other of mounted riflemen) followed, though exactly at what interval and
in what formation we are not told precisely. But I think we may assume
that the fully deployed charge was made only by Gordon’s brigade, and
that, at any rate, this was enough to secure the object in view.[24]
-----
Footnote 24:
The _Times_ History describes Broadwood’s brigade as galloping after
Gordon’s, half a mile behind. The German critic, who appears to have
been an eyewitness, speaks of 6,000 horsemen charging as though in one
body. I base my account on our own “Official History.”
-----
It must be clearly understood that the objective of the charge was the
lightly-held Nek, to reach which the division had to run the gauntlet of
the flank fire from the two converging ridges. All went well. As the
official account says: “The squadrons of the leading brigade came at
once under a shower of bullets, both from front and flanks, yet few
fell. The extended formation, the pace of the charge, and thick clouds
of dust, puzzled the burghers, while the supporting fire of the
batteries shook their aim.” The Nek was reached and won, the burghers
who held it fled, only a few remaining to “be struck down or made
prisoners.” (The _Times_ History says about a score were “speared or
made prisoners.”) Their comrades on the flank ridges appear to have
ridden off before the charge was well over. With only fifteen
casualties, the whole division and its seven horse batteries passed the
danger-point, and went on that same day to Kimberley. Ferreira and the
investing force beat an immediate retreat, and the town was relieved.
Such was the charge at Klip Drift. What can we learn from it? In the
first place, let us try to grasp the realities that lie behind
conventional phraseology. The movement was not a “charge” in the
commonest sense of the word, as applied either to Cavalry, Infantry, or
any other troops. Though offensive in character, it was not even in
absolute strictness an attack; for upon the Nek, which was the objective
of the movement, there was nothing worth the attack of a division. Least
of all, as the _Times_ History truly points out, was it a “Cavalry
charge” in the sense of a shock charge with the steel weapon, for there
was nothing substantial upon which to exert shock. This was perfectly
realized by French, who was intentionally taking the line of least
resistance, in accordance with his primary object, which was to get to
Kimberley, not to defeat these Boers. With that end in view, he ran the
gauntlet of fire, pierced the Boer line, and proceeded. There was no
possibility or intention of producing shock, for the leading brigade
charged with files eight yards apart, a formation which excludes
anything approaching shock. Nor had the result anything to do with the
steel weapon: necessarily not, for shock is the only real _raison
d’être_ of the steel weapon. The threat of any weapon would have served
to drive the handful of Boers from the Nek in the face of such a deluge
of horsemen. Their actual losses were as insignificant as our own. There
was no pursuit of any part of the Boer force, for, as the Official
Historian dryly remarks, “The British troopers, riding _seventeen
stone_, and mounted on weak and blown horses, had no chance of catching
an enemy riding _fourteen stone_ on fresh animals.” That should surely
give cause for reflection. This was only the fourth day out from Ramdam:
it had been preceded by a day’s rest, and this was the first operation
of the morning. Difficulties apart, in order to have converted the
movement into such an attack as would have constituted a test of
weapons, it would have been necessary for French either to pursue as
best he could, or to use the position gained in order to turn upon
Cronje’s main laager, which now lay defenceless only six miles to his
rear, or even upon the rear of Cronje’s combatant force at
Magersfontein. But, even if he had known that Cronje’s transport was so
near, his orders were explicit—to relieve Kimberley instantly. By an
ironical coincidence, at this very moment De Wet was raiding the main
army’s transport at Waterval.
The direct result of neglecting the Boers who were driven away from Klip
Drift was that a number of them returned shortly after the repulse, and
took up an entrenched position north of the sixth division, where they
curtailed the reconnaissances of our Mounted Infantry, and enabled
Cronje’s main force to march across our front during a bright moonlight
night.
As far as weapons are concerned, the whole interest of the day centres
in the rifle—the Boer rifle. For the first time in the war a large body
of our mounted troops had deliberately entered and penetrated a
fire-zone on horseback. That was the new fact. How had they done it?
What were the conditions? What light is thrown on the age-old physical
problem of vulnerability and mobility as modified by the modern magazine
rifle? These are the questions of really serious interest to students of
mounted action. It must be admitted that Klip Drift by itself does not
afford much foundation for argument. With every Boer rifle on the field
reckoned as an effective factor, the disparity in the size of the forces
engaged was so abnormal as to preclude far-reaching conclusions. Of
course, every Boer rifle on the field was not effective. All the 900
burghers present cannot have been in the immediate firing-line, and the
firing-line by no means wholly commanded the masses of moving horsemen.
Unfortunately, none of the accounts are precise on these important
points—volume of fire and range. One can make only rough inferences from
a comparison of narratives and maps.
The official map represents the enemy’s arc-shaped firing-line as
covering five miles of ground. The _Times_ History makes it nearer
seven; while the German Official Historian calls it two and a half. At
any rate, it was a very thin, widely extended skirmishing-line, a part
of which must have been out of range of the charge. I should imagine
that half of the men on the western or left-hand ridge, which ran at
right angles to the line of our advance, could not have fired an
effective shot at the Cavalry. With the eastern or right-hand ridge it
was different. This was the more strongly held, and ran parallel to the
line of our advance; but here, too, the average range must have been
great, for the Boers (as on the western ridge) lined the summit, not the
slopes, and (according to the official map) only the northerly half of
the ridge directly overlooked the narrow part of the valley, or, rather,
the exit from the amphitheatre. What was the width of this valley or
amphitheatre? Again we are left in doubt. The contours of the official
map represent it roughly as diminishing from three miles to one and a
half; the narrative says that the Nek—that is, the narrowest point—was
from 1,200 to 1,500 yards broad. No estimate is anywhere given of the
average range and volume of the flank fire from the two converging
ridges. One thing only is certain, that the direct frontal fire—that is,
from the Nek—was insignificant. So few were the Boers at this point that
the official map does not mark them at all.
Out of these scanty and conflicting data we may perhaps conclude that,
allowing for the frontal extension of the Cavalry and for the position
of the Boers on the summits of the ridges, the range was at no point
less than 1,100 yards, and averaged about 1,300 from first to last,
while the number of rifles brought into more or less effective play for
a few minutes may be conjectured at 500 or 600. The ranges were long,
therefore, and the rifles few, in consideration of the short time
allowed for their use.
The next point to discover is: What were the physical and moral
conditions under which the Boer fire was delivered? Let us note three
main circumstances, all normal in character, but—in two cases, at any
rate—abnormal in degree.
1. _Artillery Fire._—Bombardment by fifty-six guns, although it appears
to have caused little or no loss to the Boer riflemen, must have
rendered accurate and steady shooting almost impossible. The German
historian quotes a Boer present as saying that “the fire from the
English guns was such that we were scarcely able to shoot at all at the
advancing Cavalry.”
2. _Dust._—This may be regarded as a normal circumstance, rightly to be
counted on by any leader of horse who plans a mounted movement under
fire. In later stages of the war the Boers used to fire the grass for a
similar purpose.
3. _Surprise._—This, everywhere and always, is the soul of offensive
mounted action. It baulks the aim and daunts the spirit of the defence.
French, by sure and rapid insight, obtained a tactical surprise here,
and gained his object. But surprise by an approximately equal force is
one thing, and surprise supported by the numbers at French’s command
another. Most of the Boers present seem to have taken to their horses
precipitately before the charge was over—and no wonder! The first
brigade was backed by three others; these were backed by a division of
Infantry and guns and a quantity of Mounted Infantry. Of the presence of
this large force the Boers were perfectly aware. In giving way before
the charge, they can scarcely be convicted of the “demoralization” with
which some writers charge them.
At Klip Drift, then, the conditions were abnormally favourable to the
offence, and when we are seeking evidence concerning the effect of
modern rifle-fire upon mounted troops in rapid movement, we must be
careful to have these conditions in mind. Still, the facts are there, to
be noted: complete success of the horsemen, practically no loss. If Klip
Drift stood alone, we should at least be justified in assuming that,
under certain circumstances, a large body of troops on horseback, boldly
and skilfully led, could face rifle-fire with impunity. But Klip Drift
does not stand alone. It is only one—and by no means the most
interesting—of a great number of episodes illustrating the same problem,
and proving that, under far less favourable conditions—whether of
numbers, ground, dust, or surprise, and without support from
Artillery—mounted men not only can pass a fire-zone unscathed, but make
genuine destructive assaults upon riflemen and guns. But—and upon this
reservation hangs the whole thesis I am upholding—the mounted men who do
these things must be mounted riflemen, trained to rely on rifle and
horse combined, and purged of all leanings towards shock. Otherwise they
will not get their opportunities, or, if they accidentally get them,
will not be able to use them.
This revolution in mounted tactics was not to come from the Cavalry. It
should have come from them. With the exception of our raw Mounted
Infantry, the Boer Police, and the small permanent corps maintained by
the South African Colonies, they were the only professional mounted
troops in the field of war. In them alone lay the tradition of the
mounted charge in any shape or form. They alone had, in fact, put the
mounted charge into practice. Theories apart, they alone were endowed by
years of training with the drill and discipline requisite for that
orderly deployment and swift united movement which were exhibited at
Klip Drift, and which are the essential characteristics of any charge,
under fire or not under fire, by whomsoever made, with whatsoever
weapon, and for whatsoever purpose. Unique as the conditions were at
Klip Drift, it seems strange that the true lesson did not enter the
minds of French and the other Cavalry officers present. They cannot have
imagined that shock had anything to do with success. The widely extended
formation deliberately adopted was not peculiar to Cavalry, nor was
speed peculiar to Cavalry: both were the natural attributes of all
mounted troops. They must have realized, one would have thought, that
the rifle was dominating the battle-field, causing those extended
formations on both sides, preventing shock, and—because it was united
with the horse—enabling the enemy to get away, alarmed, but without
pursuit or appreciable loss, and ready to return shortly afterwards and
to put up a good fight on the following day, again against superior
numbers.
The bewildering paradox is that at bottom they did realize these things,
though they did not reach the point of drawing the logical inference.
Otherwise it is impossible to explain either Cavalry action up to this
point or the general impression prevalent at the time of this charge,
that it was an extraordinarily perilous and daring performance. Why
perilous and daring if the Cavalry, with their steel weapon, are
superior to mounted riflemen? If these Boer mounted riflemen had been
represented by an equal or even a much greater number of Continental
Cavalry, armed with short carbines like our own Cavalry, and relying
mainly on the sword, would the performance have been then considered
extraordinarily perilous and daring?
Questions of this sort ought, I submit, to expose to any unprejudiced
mind the fallacies underlying the _arme blanche_ theory. But what does
the old school say? Let us turn to the German official critic’s remarks
on Klip Drift, remembering the praise which has been showered upon his
work, and that it is Germany which, even at this hour, inspires our
Cavalry ideas. I quote the paragraph in full, as an example of the
workings of the Cavalry mind and of its blindness to realities:
“This charge of French’s Cavalry division was one of the most remarkable
phenomena of the war; it was the first and last occasion during the
entire campaign that Infantry was attacked by so large a body of
Cavalry, and its staggering success shows that, in future wars, the
charge of great masses of Cavalry will be by no means a hopeless
undertaking, even against troops armed with modern rifles, although it
must not be forgotten that there is a difference between charging strong
Infantry in front and breaking through small and isolated groups of
skirmishers.”[25]
-----
Footnote 25:
German Official Account of the South African War, vol. i., p. 147.
-----
It will be seen that the writer’s method of evading the true moral is to
call the Boers “Infantry.” In other words, he shuts his eyes to the
whole point at issue. The Boers were not Infantry. They were mounted
riflemen corresponding to German Cavalry, but with many added functions,
and possessing the offensive and defensive power of Infantry. They had
reached the field on horses—it might well have been that they could not
have reached it in time without horses—they were acting in defence,
dismounted, against crushing odds; but their horses were not far behind
them, available for retreat, vulnerable also to attack. They left the
field safely on these horses, and a number of them soon returned on
these same horses to fulfil the vitally important function of masking
the flank march of their own main body. Meanwhile, few as they were,
they had compelled the Cavalry to conform to conditions imposed by the
rifle and to take the line of least, not of most, resistance. If they
had been German Cavalry of that date, trained primarily for shock, with
poor firearms and little practice in skirmishing, they would not, in the
first place, have had the confidence to take up the extended position
which these men took up, unsupported and facing an army. And if they had
taken it up, they could not possibly have rendered even a direct frontal
attack, however conducted, in any degree dangerous except to Cavalry of
exactly their own stamp. If, on the other hand, they had been Infantry,
nothing but a miracle could have saved them from complete destruction
without any charging at all. The most indifferent operations on their
rear and flanks, either by our Cavalry or Mounted Infantry or Colonials,
would have sufficed to pin them to their ground, while the Infantry, six
times their strength, disposed of them. But, of course, the whole
supposition is visionary. If they had been Infantry, they would not have
been there at all.
In any case, had they been either Infantry or Cavalry, no critic would
permit himself to speak of the “staggering success” of the day’s
operations. But what becomes of sanity when that unfashionable type, the
mounted rifleman, is in question, particularly if he is an “irregular”?
Let the reader only take the trouble to substitute the words “mounted
riflemen” for the word “Infantry” wherever it occurs in the German
paragraph, and note the disastrous effect upon the Cavalry theories of
the writer. It is like finding the key-word to a cipher.
But I may be misleading the reader by taking advantage of the German
writer’s unconsciously ambiguous use of the word “Cavalry.” To him, as
to all Germans, that word means mounted troops whose distinguishing
feature is a steel weapon and the capacity for shock. As I have already
explained, French’s troops were not acting as “Cavalry” in this sense.
If they had been, there might be some ground for the tameness and
caution of the German inference—namely, that in future wars such charges
will be “by no means a hopeless undertaking”; an inference further
qualified by the remark (perfectly true) that this was only a case of
“breaking through small and isolated groups of skirmishers,” by a whole
division, be it remembered. Surely a most damaging admission for an
upholder of shock! We may wonder what the critic would have thought if
he had stopped to the end of the war, and had seen the situation at Klip
Drift reversed—800 Boers making a direct frontal charge upon three
thousand stationary troops and several batteries of guns, and coming
within measurable distance of success.
Such is Cavalry comment on Cavalry action. It is typical and
authoritative, or I should not spend so much space on it. Mr.
Goldman[26] speaks of the “madness” of the charge “according to all
military rules,” of the “climax of daring” which prompted it, and of the
justification it gave to “the advocates of bold _Cavalry_ action.” Note
the implied syllogism: Cavalry carry the _arme blanche_; this was a
successful charge by Cavalry; therefore the _arme blanche_ is justified.
This is not to misinterpret Mr. Goldman, for in a special appendix
devoted to proving the superiority of Cavalry over mounted riflemen, and
under the heading “Shock Action,” he expressly instances this charge as
testimony. The “Official History” is scarcely less misleading.[27]
Without any instructional analysis of the physical and moral factors, it
describes the charge as the most “brilliant stroke of the whole war.”
Such indiscriminating extravagance of praise does a world of harm. The
critic, in his hazy enthusiasm, mixes up two distinct aspects of the
attack—its strategical and its tactical aspects. On the assumption, upon
which French acted and was compelled to act, that Kimberley needed
relief, and that it was worth while to wreck the Cavalry horses and
neglect Cronje’s main force in order to effect this relief, he may truly
be said to have carried out his strategical task brilliantly, even with
allowance for the numbers under his control and for the co-operation of
the Infantry. Tactically, too, upon the same assumption, he did the
right thing promptly and well, and deserves all the higher credit
because he was a pioneer in the experiment of subjecting horses to
modern rifle-fire. But in a serious history uncoloured by the emotions
of the day, to call the charge, regarded as a tactical feat, the most
brilliant stroke in the war is an abuse of language which would not be
tolerated for an instant if any other class of troops but Cavalry were
in question. Judged by a reasonable standard of risks, numbers, and
achievements, either set of combatants in any one of the bloody and
stubborn fights at this date just beginning in Natal for the final
relief of Ladysmith deserved more praise. Among mounted operations the
attack at Bothaville (October, 1900), many other British attacks, and
many Boer attacks, were more admirable.
-----
Footnote 26:
“With French in South Africa,” pp. 83, 84, and Appendix A., p. 411.
Footnote 27:
Vol. ii., p. 36.
-----
What must follow logically from such exaggerated laudation? That it
takes a division of Cavalry to pierce merely—not to roll up or shatter—a
thin skirmishing line, and even then it is a brilliant feat. What, then,
of future wars—Continental wars? At Klip Drift we can scarcely
dissociate the leading brigade from the three following brigades.
Practically the whole division was acting as a unit for one purpose. In
the whole of the Crimean, Franco-Prussian, and Austro-Prussian Wars of
the last century, there is not, so far as I am aware, a single instance
of a division of Cavalry charging as one homogeneous unit. Rare were the
charges of more than one regiment; rarer still those of more than one
brigade.[28] In these wars large armies, approximately equal, were
arrayed against one another. And the method was shock—exerted upon
substantial bodies of men—true physical shock, for which mass cannot be
too dense or coherence too close. Even if we cling to shock, and
persuade ourselves that Klip Drift was an example of it, where are our
standards?
-----
Footnote 28:
See Henderson’s “Science of War,” pp. 53, 54.
-----
What, we may ask lastly, is the explanation of all this confused
reasoning, and the strange conclusions to which it leads? Nothing but
the fascination of the _arme blanche_. While giving unstinted admiration
to the brave men who faced unknown dangers so steadily and resolutely in
this ride at Klip Drift, we must look here for the comparative failure
of their branch of the service during the war. They had felt what the
training-book calls the “magnetism of the charge,” the exhilaration of
swift, victorious onset under fire—sensations which they had always been
taught to associate solely with the steel weapon and solely with the arm
of the service to which they were proud to belong—the Cavalry. The old
tradition, somewhat shaken by months of bickering with firearms and for
the most part on foot, seemed at last to have been triumphantly
justified. It was an error. They mistook both the causes and the extent
of the triumph, and remained in the old groove of thought, which this
charge, properly construed, should have taught them to discard. In
reality the best part of their tradition lived in all its pristine
splendour; the rest was obsolete. Clinging to the obsolete, they missed
the vital part.
From this time onwards they were to do much hard and good work, not, in
the Cavalry sense, as Cavalry, save on a few insignificant occasions,
but as mounted carbineers, and, in the last phase, as fully developed
mounted riflemen. But their hearts were never wholly in it. There were
_arrières-pensées_; vain longings for situations which obstinately
refused to recur; a tendency to throw the blame on the horses, on the
higher command, on anything but their own inability to read the signs of
the times and vitalize their own traditions by recognizing the
uselessness of the steel weapon and the predominance of the rifle.