CHAPTER IX

BLOEMFONTEIN TO KOMATI POORT

I.—THE TRANSITION.

From the capture of Bloemfontein onwards, the nomenclature of mounted

troops in South Africa, except as a clue to their race, origin, and

professional or unprofessional character, ceases to possess practical

significance. There emerges a single military type—the mounted

rifleman—the man, that is, who can ride and shoot. Whether in

reconnaissance, tactics, or strategy, in defence or offence, in any

combination from a patrol to a commando, squadron, brigade, or division,

or as a single scout; be he Boer or Briton, the better he can ride, and

the better he can shoot, the better soldier he is.

In the British Army this unity of type soon becomes definitely

recognized in practice. Textbook regulations as to the duties

appropriate to different categories of mounted troops vanish like smoke

under the irresistible logic of experience. There soon ceases to be any

practical field distinction between regular Cavalry and regular Mounted

Infantry. Both alike must do the same duties, alike relying on the union

of firearm and the horse, and judged invariably by the same inexorable

and unvarying tests. So with the numerous other categories of mounted

corps, Home and Colonial, which from this time forward begin to exceed

in number the horsemen drawn from professional sources. Wide

distinctions, indeed, are constantly visible, and are constantly

recognized between the capacities of different corps according to their

country of origin, social class, length of experience, and physical and

moral characteristics, and, above all, according to the stamp of officer

they possess. But these are distinctions of degree, not of kind. The

ideal type never varies—that of the mounted rifleman.

But the practical recognition of an ideal is one thing, and its

whole-hearted assimilation another. For the bulk of the mounted troops,

given the will, the way was now plain. They had nothing positively to

unlearn if they had an infinite amount to learn. The regular Mounted

Infantry, indeed, and to a certain extent other classes, had still to

rid their minds of an idea that they were a tactical appanage of

Cavalry, but the possession of a firearm superior to that of Cavalry,

and the absence of any other weapon to confuse their tactical ideas,

made the path easy. The regular Cavalry, on the other hand, had still

something very substantial to unlearn, and that something was the

immemorial tradition of their branch of the service, the theory and

practice of the _arme blanche_. It would be idle to underrate the

magnitude of the requisite revolution, which primarily was one of

thought, rather than of action. Still, five months of fighting had

taught a lesson which could scarcely be mistaken, a lesson which at this

period of the war would have amply justified, if it did not render

imperative, the systematic and universal re-arming of the Cavalry with

the magazine rifle, and the return of all steel weapons to store. These

changes could not have been imposed upon the Cavalry from without, they

must have proceeded from within by the initiative of Cavalry leaders.

French alone, perhaps, had the authority and prestige to secure their

general adoption at this time; but in French the revolution of thought

had not taken place, indeed, never wholly took place, even at a later

period, when the necessary changes had been carried through. His very

strength and vitality tend, as always, to obscure the issue. He

continues to do much valuable and responsible work, and is always the

keenest of the keen for ambitious enterprises. But he cannot impress the

true Cavalry stamp upon the British operations, in the broadest sense of

the word “Cavalry.” Big strategical conceptions are useless without high

combative capacity in the troops employed, and that treasured tradition

of the arm had been weakened because it was not founded on the right

weapon.

Without any strong new lead from above, conservatism naturally exerted

its full sway over the minds of the elder Brigadiers and regimental

officers. It was among some of the younger men, where habit was weaker

and enthusiasm stronger, that the new régime was warmly and sincerely

welcomed. These men were now finding their most fruitful sphere in the

leadership of irregular corps, where there was no tradition to combat,

and no weapon but the rifle.

The Cavalry, in spite of their unsuitable armament, continued to conform

to the new type—no other course was possible—but as a body they

conformed reluctantly and with a lack of imaginative zeal, thereby

gravely imperilling their chance of guiding and inspiring progressive

mounted action. In common with all other corps they improved greatly as

time went on, and always, as befitted their standing in the professional

army, set a good example of the prime soldierly virtues. Their staff

work, too, was a model to the rest of the army. But when we consider the

unique initial advantage they possessed in building on a broad and solid

foundation of drill, discipline, and _esprit de corps_, we are bound to

admit that the results are disappointing.

The need for vigorous mounted action, always urgent, was becoming daily

more urgent. With the relief of Ladysmith and the capture of

Bloemfontein, the march of conquest definitely begins. With it the

elements of strength and weakness in the Boer character and organization

begin to assume clearer shape. Two contrary streams of tendency declare

themselves: on the one hand, a progressive decline in corporate

strength; on the other, new and marked symptoms of individual vitality,

erratic, spasmodic, ephemeral, but of incalculable significance in

determining the nature and length of the struggle, the character of the

conquest, and the future political relations of the two belligerent

races.

Of these two streams of tendency, the former, now and for six months to

come, was the stronger and more rapid. It was hastened naturally by the

overwhelming numerical superiority of the invaders at every threatened

point. What to defend? where concentrate? was the distracted cry. Under

this strain the old national fabric crumbled visibly, and although, by a

process which was scarcely perceptible to the superficial view, the

corrupt and diseased elements of the old body politic perished with it,

the immediate military results were fatal. It became increasingly

difficult for the Boers to maintain organized forces of any size in the

field. Only one so considerable even as Cronje’s at Magersfontein ever

appeared again. The opposition to our central march up the railway to

Pretoria, to Buller’s advance through Natal, and to the other parallel

movements, was made with miserably small forces. In the centre, before

Pretoria was reached, the Free Staters had parted from their comrades of

the sister State, and taken to local warfare. In June the Transvaalers

rallied well at the battle of Diamond Hill outside Pretoria; then there

was a reaction; then a revival, ending, after a creditable display of

resistance along the line of the Delagoa Railway, in the sudden and

apparently compete dissolution of the organized burgher forces on the

Portuguese border in mid-September.

Such, in a few words, is the main course of events. But in the vast and

thinly-peopled rural areas which constitute the great bulk of the

republican territories periodical disturbances delay the main British

advance. Amid the general wreck one Boer institution survives in its

integrity, the territorial military system, based on the obligation of

every individual citizen to serve in arms when called upon as a member

of his ward and commando. Centralized forces melt, only to reappear as

local bands inspired by a local patriotism, and summoned into sudden

activity at the call of some trusted leader. Through the chequered drama

flits the restless figure of Christian de Wet, the first Boer leader to

teach his countrymen the real meaning and potency of aggressive

mobility. Behind him is the sombre, passionate Steyn, and together these

two men are the incarnation of that stubborn national purpose which

often seemed to sleep, but which never died. All their efforts,

nevertheless, are apparently unavailing. Wherever bands, by accretion or

coalition, exceed a certain size, they succumb to the law of decay. The

great machine of invasion and occupation rolls slowly but irresistibly

forward.

Plainly, each fresh exhibition of weakness, and, _a fortiori_, each

fresh spasm of activity, on the part of the defence, should have been an

incentive to redoubled efforts on the part of the attack. I do not refer

so much to our national efforts in the shape of reinforcements, horses,

and the material of war; these flowed uninterruptedly and in enormous

volume from the home country and the Empire at large. I refer to field

efforts, and here again not so much to the higher strategy, which was

uniformly worthy of the great soldier who conceived and directed it, as

to that tactical fire and energy which alone could give us really

substantial victories over the men opposed to us, instead of such

limited successes as resulted in the occupation of towns, positions, and

railways, but left the heart and will of the foe daunted, indeed, and

depressed, but unsubdued. These crushing blows we never succeeded in

attaining. Paardeberg, the nearest approach to such a victory, was

robbed by the nine days’ investment of much of its moral value.

Prinsloo’s surrender in the Brandwater basin in July of the same year

produced as many prisoners as Paardeberg, but was marred by the escape

of De Wet and Steyn, with the most resolute elements of the Boer forces

present. Reviewing the combats of the period, we see one pattern of

action recurring again and again with monotonous regularity, although

with innumerable variations of local circumstance and personal

performance. A very inferior Boer force defends an immensely extensive

position; there are proportionately wide turning movements by our

mounted troops, which fall short in vigour and completeness; frontal

attacks by our Infantry; an action more or less prolonged; a Boer

retreat covered by a small, but extraordinarily efficient, rear-guard;

an ineffectual pursuit. The position is won, but the enemy has suffered

physically very little. A time comes later when positions count for

nothing, and men count for everything. Then earlier shortcomings bear

bitter fruit.

If I were to enter deeply into the psychological causes of this

instinctive relaxation of effort—for it was not a conscious process

traceable in orders and despatches—I should travel far beyond the limits

of my subject. In absolute strictness the psychology of the war is not

relevant to that subject. If the student were to observe an ideal sense

of mental proportion, distinguishing between the ardour inspired by a

particular weapon and the ardour inspired by racial and national

ambitions, there would be no need to stray beyond the purely technical

aspects of the subject with which I am dealing. I have recognized from

the beginning, however, that there are three objections to taking this

course: first, that the line in question is often exceedingly difficult

to draw; second, that in tracing and illustrating the development of

mounted tactics some reference to the deeper moral causes at work tends

greatly to elucidation; third, and most decisive reason, that one of the

most subtle and insidious methods of discrediting the rifle and

investing the _arme blanche_ with a kind of posthumous distinction, has

been to smother plain technical issues under hazy moralization. “Thought

waves” are in fashion. Now, let us insist by all means on the old

Napoleonic axiom that the moral forces in war count in the proportion of

three to one to the physical; but when we see one weapon palpably

outmatched by another let us recognize the fact as a fact. When we call

the war “peculiar,” from the peculiar moral factors underlying it, let

us not erase its technical lessons from our memory on the same ground. I

remarked an example of this perverse tendency in the official comments

on Poplar Grove, but Mr. Goldman is its most outspoken and sincere

exponent. He has honestly convinced himself that the Cavalry never had

any real chance of grappling with the enemy, and, consequently, no

chance of proving the pre-eminent value of the _arme blanche_.[42] The

picture he suggests is one of the Boers continually on the run, and

running so fast that the exhausted troopers can never catch them. Their

oxen, it would seem, run equally fast, or else take the most

unsportsmanlike course of beginning to retreat prematurely. These are

rear-guard actions, it is true, but these do not count. In some

mysterious way they “make pursuit all but impracticable.” The Boers, in

short, who “had no Cavalry in the proper and technical sense of the

word,” by their aggravating pusillanimity did not supply the “primary

conditions” for the “discharge (that is, on our side) of Cavalry

duties.” That we had an enormous preponderance of force, and that it is

the business of Cavalry to take advantage both of numerical and moral

weakness in the enemy, Mr. Goldman does not recognize. He altogether

ignores, too, that counter-current of offensive Boer activity which,

throughout the war, supplies us with the most interesting and

instructive examples of mounted tactics. But for the moment I need dwell

no longer on this version of a war which lasted for two and a half

years, cost us a heavy list of casualties and prisoners, and not a few

very sad disasters. It is an unconscious insult, not merely to the army

as a whole, but to the Cavalry, who did much excellent work as mounted

riflemen, and to the great body of irregular mounted troops, whose

existence Mr. Goldman appears to forget, and the best of whom surpassed

the Cavalry in aggressive action. That a serious writer can commit to

print, without qualification or reservation, the statement that the

Boers “invariably beat a hasty retreat when confronted by Cavalry that

could fight on horseback with carbine, lance, and sabre,” shows the

fantastic lengths to which the _arme blanche_ bias can carry those who

submit to it.

-----

Footnote 42:

See “With French in South Africa,” pp. 420–423, and 426, 427.

-----

Faced, however, with the fact that such travesties are extant, a writer

on the _arme blanche_ is compelled to take at least a passing account of

moral factors. I need not spend any more words in proving that there

was, in fact, on our side a general mildness of effort. Nearly all

critics have agreed upon the fact. What were the causes?

1. About the deepest of all there is no dispute. Long years of peace and

civil prosperity had softened the national fibre. We were not only

unprepared for war, but forgetful of the grim meaning of war. In a

general reluctance to incur heavy losses the commanders only reflected

the national and social sentiment behind them.

2. Unfamiliar with wars in general, we were blind, above all, to the

meaning of this particular war, whose object was not only to defeat, but

to conquer, annex, and absorb a free white race. Since we became a

nation, we had never before attempted to achieve such an object, and we

did not realize its inherent difficulties. Signs of weakness in the

enemy encouraged the delusion that the war was an ordinary war, whose

events were to be estimated by ordinary standards. Signs of strength

were undervalued and misinterpreted. Lord Roberts, the soul of

generosity and humanity, after the fall of Bloemfontein, initiates an

exceedingly indulgent civil policy which defeats its own end. He is

compelled as time goes on to pass from the extreme of indulgence to the

extreme of severity. But in spite of this disagreeable necessity he is

always inclined to believe—and the whole army shares the feeling—that a

collapse is imminent, and that no absolutely supreme and sustained

efforts are required to hasten the end and seal the definitive triumph.

And what sort of triumph? The philosophic historian will discern that

momentous problem already formulating itself, not merely in the minds of

statesmen, but, dimly and inarticulately, in the minds of the army,

which embodied in an extraordinarily representative manner the civic

instincts of the British race. Did we really in our hearts desire such

crushing victories as would shatter the spirit of our opponents and lay

the foundation for a racial ascendancy, as opposed to a racial fusion,

in South Africa? The question becomes of absorbing practical interest in

later phases of the war, when the antagonistic schools of thought find

expression in two equally able and determined men. For the present it is

only a matter of conjecture how far a latent instinct of fraternity with

our foes and future fellow-citizens, now that Majuba was at last avenged

by Paardeberg and Pieter’s Hill, reacted on the vigour with which

hostilities were pressed.

3. A more simple and prosaic motive for caution was the very

well-founded respect entertained for the military capacity of the Boers.

The sense of some absolutely overwhelming necessity for decisive blows

would, doubtless, have gone far to neutralize caution, but this

conviction was not present. The reverses of the early months had left an

impression both on the popular mind and on the leaders in the field

which subsequent successes could not wholly obliterate. Fresh reverses,

on a smaller scale, were soon to mar the onward progress of success.

From this time forward every action, however feebly or strongly

contested, shows the Boers still highly formidable. Until the actual

_débâcle_ on the Portuguese frontier, there are no panics. Retreats are

orderly, transport and guns are preserved almost intact. However

dispirited the majority, there invariably reappears that manful minority

of stalwarts upon whose conduct, at one or another point, the difference

between repulse and defeat hangs. Numbers, indeed, almost cease to

count; quality is everything.

This resisting power, with its offensive counterpart, was derived, on

its military side, solely from skill and audacity in practice of the

mounted rifleman’s art. And here we return again to the solid ground of

our inquiry. Giving their due weight and proportion to the broader moral

factors which affected both sets of belligerents and, in our own army,

all branches of the service alike, we can see our technical issue

sharply and vividly defined in every phase and detail of hostilities.

Against a mounted enemy, even if his strategical mobility is conditioned

by heavy transport, in the last resort it is always to vigorous mounted

action that we must look both for the power to give effect to the

attacks of Infantry and Artillery and for retaliation against those

stinging little raids and counter-strokes which so often at critical

times turned the scale in the higher Boer counsels. Foot-riflemen will

never develop their full aggressive power against mounted riflemen

unless they are conscious that their efforts will lead to a decisive

issue through the correspondingly indispensable agency of mounted

riflemen.

II.—THE HALT AT BLOEMFONTEIN.

There was a pause of seven weeks in the British advance after the

capture of Bloemfontein. Reinforcements of all arms, remounts,

transport, supplies, were collected in great volume. The supply system

and hospital system were reformed, communications strengthened,

garrisons organized. During a large part of this period the mounted

troops in the central theatre were at little more than half their

effective strength from lack of horses.

One small forward movement only was made: that to Karee Siding,

twenty-seven miles north of Bloemfontein, a movement deemed necessary

for the purpose of safe-guarding the passage over the Modder at Glen.

Three thousand five hundred or 4,000 Boers with 8 guns held a line of

low hills astride of the railway, with a level plain behind them. French

and Tucker, who seem to have held a joint command, attacked with 9,000

men and 32 guns. Of the mounted troops present, 650 were regular

Cavalry, 880 regular Mounted Infantry and Colonials, numbers which

should have been sufficient to turn and hold the enemy effectually

enough to give the Infantry their full chance. In principle the Poplar

Grove tactics were employed, with variations of detail. The mounted

troops, riding well in advance, were to turn both hostile flanks, and,

when the Infantry attacks had been driven home, cut in upon the retreat.

The engagement was a dull example of the now too common type. Both

flanks were duly turned without opposition, and in good time (10 a.m.),

by the mounted troops, but then a sort of paralysis set in. The Cavalry

brigade, which was now somewhat behind the Boer right flank and within

eight miles of the railway, was inactive from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., though

still unopposed, while the Mounted Infantry on the Boer left were held

up by a small outlying detachment. Meanwhile the Infantry attacks,

spirited enough, though not very well directed, ran their course, the

Boers making a fairly steady stand, and yielding only between 3 p.m. and

4 p.m. to threats of the bayonet. But there was nothing to intercept or

hamper their retreat. Both mounted corps had eventually begun to move

on, but were checked by slight flank guards. Our casualties were 189,

almost entirely in the Infantry; those of the enemy 34.

This was emphatically a case where the professional mounted arm, which

was separately brigaded, should have set an example of vigour to the

younger and improvised corps. There seems, from the official and other

narratives, to have been no valid reason against attempting an

interception, though we must make allowance for the division in the

higher command which may have had ill-effects. Such inaction was very

unlike either French or Tucker. The poor condition of the horses is no

explanation.

From Karee Siding (March 29) we turn to its anti-type, Sannah’s Post

(March 30). With the exception of De Wet’s raid on the main army’s

transport at Waterval, this was the first genuine feat of independent

aggression on the part of the Boers which the war had as yet produced.

The same leader was again the guiding spirit, and he began a career of

aggression just when most of his countrymen were thinking more of

surrender than resistance, and in several districts were actually

handing in their arms.

De Wet, with 1,500 men and 7 guns, made a swift and secret expedition

against the Waterworks, twenty-one miles due east of Bloemfontein, and

then in British hands. Arriving within striking distance on the evening

of March 29, he learnt that there was bigger game afoot, in the shape of

an independent British force under Broadwood, who was retiring westward

before a greatly superior force of Free Staters under Olivier and

others. Broadwood was safely ahead, however, and his pursuers do not

come into the story. De Wet resolved to ambush him and to that end

posted 400 men in the bed of the Korn Spruit, which Broadwood would have

to cross, and the rest, under his brother Piet, three miles away behind

the British camp, on the high ground bordering the Modder River.

Broadwood’s was an exclusively mounted force, numbering 1,700, with 12

Horse Artillery guns. There were two regiments of regular Cavalry,

together only 330 strong, and Alderson’s brigade of mounted riflemen,

850 strong, and composed of regular Mounted Infantry and Colonial

riflemen. In fact, it was a typical mixed force of all the various

classes of mounted troops then in the field. The gist of the story is

well known. Breaking camp early on the 30th, without prior

reconnaissance of the ground before them, the head of the transport and

one of the two batteries marched into the ambush, and were captured. “Q”

battery managed to escape, with the loss of a gun and many men. Piet de

Wet meanwhile began his attack upon the rear, though as yet only with

stationary fire upon the troops holding the Modder drifts. Broadwood

acted with coolness and resolution. While the greater part of Alderson’s

brigade kept Piet de Wet in check, the regular Cavalry and two companies

of Mounted Infantry were sent across the Korn Spruit to take the 400

Boers who lined it in reverse. Dangerous as Broadwood’s own position

was, the position of those Boers was for some little time almost equally

dangerous. They were separated by three miles and by the Modder River

from their main body, which, moreover, was being briskly engaged by the

Mounted Infantry. Cramped in their narrow gully, they were being

attacked in front by the five guns of “Q” battery, and threatened in

flank and rear from rising ground which overlooked the spruit by the

superior force of Cavalry and Mounted Infantry. They had no guns, and

were much weakened in numbers by the detachment of the necessary guards

for the captured British guns and waggons.

As the Official Historian remarks, everything depended on the execution

of the Cavalry turning movement. But again the paralysis sets in, as at

Dronfield, Poplar Grove, and Karee Siding—a paralysis not due in the

remotest degree to moral weakness, and certainly not in this case to

weak horseflesh. There is nothing that we need talk about with bated

breath or tactful reticence: neither our men nor their officers were to

blame—only the habits and disabilities imposed by an obsolete weapon. A

party of riflemen thrown out by De Wet from the spruit brought the

attack to a standstill.

Disappointed on this side, Broadwood had no other course than to order a

retreat of Alderson’s Mounted Infantry and the guns from the other side

of the spruit (10.30 a.m.). As in so many similar actions in South

Africa, everything hinged on the extrication of a badly crippled

battery. The rescue of “Q” by the heroism of its own gunners and its

mounted escort forms a brilliant little episode by itself. When the guns

were out of immediate danger, the general retreat began. Piet de Wet’s

men instantly poured across the Modder drifts and pursued hotly. The

behaviour of Alderson’s brigade—Colonials and Englishmen alike—in this

their first defensive engagement was very steady, though they suffered

greatly from inexperience in manœuvre and fire. The retirement,

conducted by successive movements of units, was orderly and cool, New

Zealanders and Englishmen in combination having the honour of

constituting the ultimate rear-guard. Eventually Broadwood’s force was

concentrated safely on the farther side of the Spruit, having lost seven

guns, most of its transport, and a third of its strength in casualties

and prisoners.

Broadwood should have received help from other forces in the

neighbourhood, including some Mounted Infantry, who were very feebly

handled; but there is no need to enter into that lengthy and

controversial topic.

We have to note certain points of interest:

1. _The Boer Pursuit._—Except for the Stormberg case three months back,

this was the first example of a Boer mounted pursuit. All narratives

agree in saying that it frequently took the form of charging on

horseback up to close quarters, accompanied in some instances by a

wholly new practice—_fire from the saddle_. Sometimes the burghers

dismounted, and, with the rein over the arm, fired. Here we see the germ

of important later developments. A year afterwards De la Rey or Kemp in

similar circumstances would have used the same methods with more system

and audacity.

2. Conversely, and again with the exception of Stormberg, this was the

first example of a really critical rear-guard action for British mounted

troops. We note remarkable proofs of improvement in general efficiency,

together with several faults: indifferent marksmanship; lack of

adroitness in the handling of led horses; lack of judgment in deciding

upon the right moment to retire (several detachments were cut off

through holding on too long); and a general insufficiency of that

individual skirmishing capacity which enabled the Boers in similar

predicaments to make one skilled man go as far as five unskilled men.

3. The contrast between the _arme blanche_ and the rifle is unusually

marked. Nomenclature is immaterial. All the work on the field was

Cavalry work, not only in the broad sense of the term, but by the

regular Cavalry’s standards. In essence, De Wet’s intercepting ambush in

the Korn Spruit was the same kind of work as that done by the Cavalry

themselves on the day before Paardeberg, and the same as that which they

should have tried to do at Karee Siding. The projected, but abortive,

counter-stroke upon the ambuscaders was Cavalry work. Piet de Wet’s rear

attack and pursuit, and Alderson’s resistance to them, were both Cavalry

work. The terrain was open.

We may add that De Wet’s whole enterprise and the rapidity, secrecy, and

nerve with which he carried it out were a good example of the true

Cavalry spirit. Whether we call De Wet a “partisan” or not makes no

difference. If his good qualities constitute partisanship, every Cavalry

officer, from the highest to the lowest, should be a partisan.

4. The absence of reconnaissance on the morning of the battle needs no

comment. There were some exceptional reasons, which I need not go into,

for a relaxation of normal precautions, but no valid excuse.

De Wet, in his characteristically impulsive style, wasted no time after

his victory, but dashed off south, and on April 4 snapped up a post of

600 men at Reddersburg. Then, instead of raiding the communications of

the main army, which would undoubtedly have been his best course, he

succumbed to the Boer craving for sieges, and wasted more than a

fortnight in investing Wepener with a force which increased to more than

7,000 men. Wepener, defended by 1,900 men, who were mainly mounted

troops belonging to Brabant’s Colonial Force, made an excellent and

successful defence until relieved by Hart and Brabant himself.

De Wet’s activity, however, had changed the whole military situation.

The south-eastern Free Staters were up in arms to the estimated number

of 10,000, and Roberts was compelled before proceeding farther to clear

this flank. His design, however, was not merely to clear it, but to make

the relief of Wepener the starting-point for an enveloping movement of

great magnitude, and with overwhelming force. Three Infantry divisions

joined directly or indirectly in the operations and large numbers of

mounted men of all classes. First came some ill-knit and overcautious

preliminary operations, which I need not describe; then French, with an

Infantry division and two Cavalry brigades immediately under his hand,

assumed general control over the British forces from April 22 onwards.

The critical day was April 24, when he endeavoured to surround and crush

a force of 6,000 Boers posted near Dewetsdorp. The scheme on that day,

as French planned it, was in general form a repetition of the Poplar

Grove and Karee Siding schemes, and was made to hinge on the

intercepting action of the two Cavalry brigades upon the Boer line of

retreat. Inevitably, and from the same unvarying cause, the intercepting

movement came to nothing, the Cavalry being easily checked by small Boer

parties. Again and again, in reading of such incidents, we feel how

unfair it was to brave men to have given them an armament and training

which prevented them from showing their best qualities.

In the course of the earlier operations detachments of the newly-raised

Yeomanry, brigaded under Rundle, were for the first time in action. They

did tolerably well, considering their rawness and inexperience, and I

think it is generally agreed that Rundle, in his original attack upon

Dewetsdorp on April 20, with a greatly superior force, might have relied

somewhat more on their aid, in association with his other mounted

troops.

De Wet now ordered a general retreat north of all the south-eastern Free

Staters. By the end of April that portion of the country was wholly in

British hands, and on May 3 Roberts was able to begin the grand advance

for which he had been so long preparing.

III.—THE ADVANCE TO PRETORIA.

When that advance began there were in round numbers 200,000 British

troops in South Africa, of whom 50,000 were on the lines of

communications. With a moderate allowance for absenteeism, there were

30,000 Boers in the field, including the 2,000 besiegers of Mafeking.

Our particular concern is with the British mounted troops, which had

been remounted, reorganized, and largely increased in number. An

additional regular Cavalry brigade joined the central army under

Roberts; fresh battalions of regular Mounted Infantry, suffering from a

serious scarcity of officers, were hastily formed, and fresh contingents

of Colonial troops, both from overseas and within South Africa,

continued to come into line. Half the Imperial Yeomanry—between 4,000

and 5,000 men, that is—were available at the beginning of May, and the

whole force of 10,000 was before very long in the field.

For administrative purposes, Cavalry and mounted riflemen, hitherto

associated together, were now separated. For the central army a division

of four brigades of regular Cavalry, about 5,000 sabres strong (without

counting Horse Artillery) was formed;[43] and at the same time the

mounted riflemen were organized anew in one big division, 11,000 strong,

divided into two brigades of four corps each, each corps being composed

jointly of regular Mounted Infantry and Colonial mounted riflemen.

Neither of these organizations proved to be permanent. The latter was

from the first little more than nominal. In order to supply the mounted

needs of the army at large, as time went on units had to be broken up

and distributed where they were most required. The Yeomanry, similarly,

were never employed as a divisional unit, but only in detachments.

-----

Footnote 43:

Two Australian detachments were included in one of the brigades.

-----

Brabant’s Colonial Defence Force was now at its full strength of 3,000,

and Buller, in Natal, though he had had to part with the Imperial Light

Horse, who were sent round with Hunter’s Division to Kimberley,

possessed, owing to the union of the Tugela and Ladysmith armies,

between 5,000 and 6,000 mounted men, divided into three brigades, two of

them homogeneous Cavalry units of three regiments apiece, the third

composed of South African mounted riflemen.

In the far west of the theatre of war the Kimberley mounted troops were

now available for active work, and in the north-west Plumer, with some

750 mounted Colonials, was still conducting his clever and plucky

operations for the assistance of Mafeking and the security of the

Rhodesian border. In the far north the Rhodesian Field Force, some 4,000

strong, mainly consisting of Australasian mounted riflemen and partly of

Yeomanry, was on its way westward from Beira, under Carrington.

Strathcona’s Horse, a new Canadian corps, 500 strong, had been detached

on an abortive scheme for raiding the Delagoa Bay Railway via Lourenço

Marques.

To sum up, if we compute the Yeomanry at their full strength, but

exclude from the calculation the garrison of Mafeking and various small

detachments doing duty on the communications or in process of formation

into regiments, there were at this period in the field nearly 40,000

mounted men, of whom about 8,300 were Cavalry, still armed with carbine

and lance or sword, and the rest, in the generic sense, mounted

riflemen. Numerically, therefore, our mounted strength, viewed apart

from the great masses of Infantry and Artillery, was greater by several

thousand than the Boer strength actually in the field, even if we deduct

half the Yeomanry as not yet fully available. But I need scarcely again

warn the reader that such comparisons, for many obvious reasons, must be

used with caution. In one quarter, however—the centre—our preponderance

in mounted strength alone over the Boers opposed to us was very

remarkable.

The Commander-in-Chief’s strategical scheme was of great simplicity and

enormous magnitude. On a front of 300 miles, 109,000 men (I am using

round numbers), with 350 guns, were to execute converging marches

northward, with Pretoria as the central objective. On the extreme right,

Buller, with 45,000 men, was to march through Natal; on the extreme

left, Hunter, starting from Kimberley with 10,000 men, was to penetrate

the Western Transvaal, and, incidentally, to relieve Mafeking. Methuen,

starting with another 10,000 from the same point, was to march through

the Western Free State. Lord Roberts, in the centre, with 25,000 men,

was to move directly up the railway from Bloemfontein; while immediately

on his right flank Ian Hamilton, with 14,500 men, supported by Colvile

with 4,000 men, moved through the Eastern Free State.

Such was the plan of the grand advance. The principal subsidiary

field-force was that of Rundle and Brabant, who were to follow slowly

through the Eastern Free State, which was the most formidable region of

all, sweeping up arrears, and making good the ground won. Warren, with

2,000 men, was to quell the rebellion in Bechuanaland; and Carrington

was designed to co-operate from the far north, moving through Rhodesia

upon the Northern Transvaal.

The distribution of mounted troops was as follows: Exclusive of

Artillery corps, troops, etc., there were with Roberts and the central

army four and a half corps, in all 3,600 strong, of mounted riflemen,

and three brigades of Cavalry under French, also 3,600 strong. These

three brigades, however, did not come into line until May 8, five days

after the beginning of the advance. Having been employed almost

continuously since the capture of Bloemfontein, and having received only

small instalments of fresh horses, they had to spend the first days of

May in a thorough refit. Their Horse Artillery had been wisely reduced

to one battery for each brigade. The remaining brigade of Cavalry, under

Broadwood, and the four remaining corps of mounted riflemen—1,400 and

4,300 strong respectively—were with Ian Hamilton. Buller’s mounted

troops I have mentioned. Hunter’s were the Imperial Light Horse and the

Kimberley corps. The Yeomanry were distributed between Methuen, Warren,

Carrington, and Rundle, with the latter of whom Brabant’s Colonial

division was acting.

There is no need, even if my space permitted, to follow with any

closeness the fortunes of the grand advance. I have now reached a point

in the war where it is necessary only to summarize events, to select

from a vast number of operations conducted over a vast expanse of

territory, typically interesting examples of mounted action, and along

with the process of selection to trace the growth of principles.

The most interesting, naturally, of all the operations of that period

were those of the two central columns under Roberts and Ian Hamilton,

which from May 3 onwards[44] worked in close combination, and may be

regarded as one force, nearly 40,000 strong, with 119 guns, exclusive of

Colvile’s supporting column. It will have been noticed that they were

far stronger in mounted troops than any other portion of the army.

Indeed, at the lowest computation of their effective mounted strengths,

and at the highest estimate of the Boer effectives from time to time

opposed to them, it appears that Roberts and Hamilton together must at

every stage in the advance have had a decisive superiority in mounted

troops alone over the whole force of their opponents. Until May 8, when

French’s three brigades of Cavalry came up, not more than 5,500 Boers in

all opposed both columns, which at that time had 9,200 mounted men

between them. At the Zand River fight on May 9 and 10 the Boers,

reinforced by 3,000 Transvaalers under Botha, who thenceforth took over

the supreme control from De la Rey, reached their highest numerical

fighting strength of about 8,000. At the same moment, reinforced by

French’s Cavalry, our own mounted strength also reached its highest

point of nearly 13,000.[45] After this, and until the fall of Pretoria,

the enemy never appear to have mustered more than 5,000 men in

opposition to the combined columns; for the Free State forces withdrew

altogether before crossing the Vaal, and betook themselves to local

warfare. At Diamond Hill four fresh Transvaal commandos from Natal

counterbalanced other defections, and enabled Botha to put 6,000 men

into the field. Here, for the first time, our mounted strength in action

(a little below 5,000) was below the total Boer strength. This was

partly the result of wastage in horses. All along our mounted troops

suffered heavily from this cause, and the same cause affected the Boers

also, though not in anything like an equal degree. Botha, in his

despatches at this time, used habitually to refer to his “Infantry,”

meaning the burghers who had lost their mounts.[46]

-----

Footnote 44:

Hamilton had begun his fighting on April 30, at Houtnek, where he

dislodged Philip Botha from a strong position, though without

inflicting any appreciable loss.

Footnote 45:

I am reckoning French’s three brigades at the figure of 3,600 given in

the Appendix to the “Official History.” In the text they are said to

have numbered 4,500 “sabres,” plus Artillery. This would make the

total nearly 14,000.

Footnote 46:

“Official History,” vol. iii., p. 72.

-----

I need not dwell on the significance of these figures. If we dismiss

from our minds the existence of an irresistible backing of Infantry and

Artillery on our side, it is quite possible, and from an instructional

standpoint very interesting, to contemplate _in vacuo_ the conflict of

the two opposed mounted forces, supposing them, if we will, to have been

the mounted screens of two great European armies. Even on that

restricted plane the inquiry teems with absorbing practical interest for

future wars, and abounds in illustration of the functions of the mounted

arm. But I need not remind the reader that in actual fact here was no

matter of screens. The Boer troops were small armies in themselves,

depending on and limited strategically by the speed of heavy transport,

for which they were the sole protection. Our own mounted troops—or, at

least, the bulk of them—cannot be regarded otherwise than as an

independent mobile weapon of high general utility, whose mission it was

in concert with the other arms to secure the destruction, not merely the

repulse, of the enemy.

This is how Lord Roberts had always regarded his mounted troops. Ever

since the middle of February he had called upon them, and particularly

upon the Cavalry, for decisive efforts, but only once with decisive

results. Disillusioned gradually, he continued, nevertheless, to pursue

the same policy wherever, during the long march to Pretoria, opportunity

offered. He inculcated the right spirit. So did Ian Hamilton, so did

French; and both these Generals were endowed with a large measure of

independence. The trouble was that in actual contact on the field the

superiority in fighting power of the individual Boer to the individual

Britisher invariably caused the best-laid plans to fall short of the

desired achievement. A continual instigation of more dashing, if more

costly, tactics might have schooled the troops rapidly to higher

efficiency, but, as I indicated in dealing with the moral issue, the

supreme stimulus to such a policy was wanting. Victory in the medium

degree was only too easy, thanks to weight of numbers. Roberts himself

appears gradually to have expected less and asked less of his mounted

force.

Let us first of all summarize what happened. Starting on May 3, Roberts

took Pretoria on June 5. He had marched 300 miles in thirty-four days,

sixteen of which (for the central column) were marching days. Hamilton,

who midway made a détour to the east, marched a good deal farther. Let

us not forget that, whatever its shortcomings, this march, regarded as a

military feat, was a very remarkable and memorable performance,

especially for the Infantry. At Brandfort and the Vet River (May 3 to 5)

the Boers made but a very slight stand; at Zand River (May 9 to 10) they

offered battle, and were out-manœuvred into retreat. At Kroonstad,

which was not defended, Roberts halted for ten days (May 12 to 22). The

Vaal was crossed without opposition on the 24th, and from May 27 to 29

Botha made his most resolute stand on the hills covering

Johannesburg—namely, the Klipriviersberg and Doornkop. Here on the 29th

there was something in the nature of a pitched battle, Doornkop being

finally stormed by Infantry. Hitherto this arm had come into action only

at Zand River. On the 30th Johannesburg fell, and Pretoria, which was

not seriously defended, shared the same fate on June 5.

To this record we must add the battle of Diamond Hill, fought sixteen

miles from Pretoria on June 11 and 12, with the object of finally

driving Botha away from the neighbourhood of the capital. It was a

genuine pitched battle, in which Roberts achieved his object, though he

inflicted no loss of any consequence upon the enemy, and suffered little

himself.

The Boers had lost their capital and railway, but their losses in men

and material were negligible.

Now let us look for mounted lessons.

The first and clearest is that it is useless for a superior force to

confine itself to combating the wide extensions of an inferior force by

still wider extensions. This is what was constantly happening. The Boer

fronts, in proportion to the numbers employed to defend them, were, as

usual, enormously extensive. At Brandfort, for example, De la Rey

occupied a front of some fifteen miles with 2,500 men; at Zand River

Botha stood on a front of twenty-five miles—half the distance from

London to Brighton—with 8,000 men; at the fighting outside Johannesburg

he held eighteen miles of hilly country with about 4,000 men. Outside

Pretoria an equally extensive front was held, though very weakly.

Finally, at Diamond Hill, Botha held thirty miles with only 6,000 men

during two days of continuous fighting. Here, however, the position was

unusually strong. Let us note in passing:

(1) The proof afforded by these greatly extended positions of the

revolutionary effect of the modern rifle upon mounted tactics, for it

was only by the close union of the rifle and the horse that such

dispositions were possible.

(2) That, given this close union, no ordinary skill is required to

choose the cardinal points of defence, and maintain the field discipline

and field intelligence requisite for the elastic and orderly handling of

detachments so widely dispersed. No narrative that I have seen does full

justice to the Boers for their efficiency in these particulars. In the

whole course of these operations, and in the whole course of the

subsequent advance from Pretoria to Komati Poort, only one small

detachment was cut off and overwhelmed.

(3) That the Boer system admitted of no reserves. Practically every man

was in the front fighting-line.

Now, how were these tactics to be met? Roberts nearly always endeavoured

to meet them by still wider extensions, designed to overlap the enemy’s

front. He planned to throw substantial bodies of mounted troops right

round one or both of the hostile flanks, with the view (as at Poplar

Grove) of intercepting the enemy’s retreat. These movements never led to

interception, though they were generally successful as turning movements

which led to the enemy’s retreat—a very minor object. On the other hand,

they were exhausting to horses and men alike, reducing offensive power

when, after long riding, it was at last called for, to a point below the

normal, and the normal was not nearly high enough.

Zand River (May 9 and 10) illustrates this class of action. There, 4,000

mounted men under French and Hutton on the left, and 3,000 under

Broadwood and De Lisle on the right, were deputed to get round both

flanks of a front of twenty-five miles, held by 8,000 Boers. French,

having passed six miles outside the last Boer post on the 9th, got well

round to the rear on the 10th, with his Cavalry leading and his mounted

riflemen in support, but was then held up for several hours by small

detachments, and suffered considerable loss. He covered thirty miles on

the 10th, and could not, owing to the condition of his horses, respond

on the same night to a suggestion by Roberts for raiding Kroonstad.

Broadwood’s turning movement was abortive, partly through an accidental

withdrawal of his horse battery, but mainly through the circumstance

that the Boer left (wide as Hamilton’s extension was) still overlapped

our right, and that the overlapping portion, not content to remain on

the defensive, endeavoured during the morning to envelop our extreme

right. Botha effected an orderly retreat, his centre maintaining a good

show of resistance against the Infantry and Artillery attacks. With our

main body there was a brigade of Cavalry and considerable numbers of

mounted riflemen.

Diamond Hill, where Botha defended thirty miles of hills, was a still

more extreme instance of the same method. French, with 1,400 Cavalry and

mounted riflemen, was designed to ride right round the enemy’s right,

and cut the railway in his rear—a ride of at least thirty-five miles,

without any allowance for interruptions or détours. Broadwood, with

3,000 men, was to turn the enemy’s left and support our right attack.

The centre was to be withheld until one or both of these movements

should succeed. Botha had anticipated these tactics and had strengthened

his flanks accordingly. Both mounted columns were held up, and stood for

a time in considerable danger of envelopment. On the second day the

centre was forced by Infantry, aided, and very effectively aided, by

mounted riflemen.

It must be remarked that our total strength at Diamond Hill was

unusually small—14,000 men in all, of whom 4,800 were mounted, and 64

guns. The Boers had 6,000 men and 20 guns.

Now, there is but one way of looking at situations of this sort. If we

are seeking instruction for further wars, we must recognize that the

only sound method of combating such prodigiously wide extensions of a

numerically weak enemy is to force his line instead of turning it. To

devote the major effort to turning it is to play into his hands, to

permit him by sheer bluff to impose exhausting tactics which neutralize

your own numerical superiority.[47] The difficulty was to apply forcing

tactics against so formidable a foe as the Boers. Our crying need all

along was tackling power with the horse and rifle combined—high, mobile

tackling power, based on surprise and speed, and taking the form, where

need be, of mounted charges into or through the enemy, on the lines

afterwards taught us by the Boers, and already exhibited by them at

Sannah’s Post. Again and again, in reviewing the South African combats,

we look back to the Klip Drift charge of February 15, 1900, with

profound regret that its true lessons were not laid to heart and its

false lessons discarded. There was the germ of success. Add operative

tackling power to the nerve required to ride through fire, eliminate the

_arme blanche_ and every last vestige of tactical theory connected with

it; eliminate as far as possible Artillery preparation and support; be

content with a reasonable superiority of strength, and there you have

for future wars the true tactics of mounted offence.

-----

Footnote 47:

Bernhardi utters a wholesome warning on this subject in his “Cavalry

in Future Wars” (p. 54), and advocates direct fire-action. “Cavalry

Training,” if it could reach the point of regarding mounted riflemen

as “Cavalry,” would, of course, do the same, and thereby refute the

theory of the inevitable “shock duel” between opposing Cavalries.

-----

It is impossible to blame Roberts for over-reliance on wide turning

tactics. In the last resort, whatever the scheme employed, whether we

rode wide or rode through, success depended on sheer fighting capacity

in the ultimate fire-fight. Nothing could replace that. Roberts could

only endeavour to make the best of the material to hand. His frequent

attempts to encircle far-flung fronts were an instinctive recognition of

inadequate aggressive power in his mounted troops. The prejudice, so

general in South Africa, against “frontal attacks” by Infantry was often

a reflection of the same instinct, that is, of an instinct to avoid

heavy losses which could not, unaided, lead to a decisive result. In

point of fact, all attacks eventually become frontal, in the local

sense. And, in the case of mounted troops, it was of no avail to send

round a large body of men to take the enemy in flank or rear, unless

they were able to burst through frontally the detachments sent against

them.

Still less tenable is the suggestion that the right course for Roberts

was to have projected still vaster and more circuitous mounted

operations, designed to cut the enemy’s communications far in rear of

the zone of immediate hostilities. French is said to have favoured this

course more than once, but did he realize what it involved? If the

requisite speed were sustained, the horses, already tried to the limit

of endurance, would have suffered from that very over-exhaustion of

which there had been so much complaint in the past. But, in fact, such

raids, on the scale of those made by Stuart, Wilson, and the Civil War

leaders, entailed complete independence of the main army, an object

never attained in South Africa without transport arrangements which

reduced speed to too low a level. The question, of course, was not

peculiarly a “Cavalry” question—for raids, American, South African, or

Manchurian, turned exclusively on fire-action. I shall be compelled,

nevertheless, to argue the matter again, in Chapter XII., on a “Cavalry”

basis, taking Zand River once more as an illustration.

2. It must not be supposed that frontal or semi-frontal attacks were not

tried by the mounted troops. Local circumstances often brought them

about. Generally, however, they tended, even locally, to take a too

circuitous form, the tendency, inevitably, being more noticeable among

the Cavalry, with their inferior firearm, than among the mounted

riflemen.

These latter troops, now possessing an acknowledged and independent

status of their own, and led by some able men like Hutton, Alderson, and

De Lisle, did remarkably well in some instances, though poorly in

others. The Australians and New Zealanders seem always to have shown the

most tactical vigour. Hutton’s fight on May 5 to secure the passage of

the Vet on the left of the main army was a good performance. The mounted

riflemen did well also in the pursuit north of Johannesburg on May 30,

in the fighting outside Pretoria on June 5, at Diamond Hill on June 12,

and on several other occasions.

French’s operations outside Johannesburg on May 28 and 29, when, prior

to the arrival of the Infantry, both classes of mounted troops were

employed in unison, are interesting. French was in his best mood. There

was no lack of vigorous will on the spot, but the turning movements by

the Cavalry (except the last, which followed the Infantry assaults), and

the frontal attacks by both classes, alike failed. There would seem on

this occasion to have been a good opportunity for a rush through the

centre on the lines of Klip Drift.

3. _Charges._—The only actual charge _upon a position_, to which I can

find reference, is that of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles on May 24, at

the passage of the Vaal (_Times_ History, vol. iv., p. 136, footnote).

Two small cases occur of charges in the open with the _arme

blanche_—namely, at Diamond Hill, on June 11, where, in some indecisive

fighting on the right, sixty men of the 12th Lancers made a gallant

charge against some Boers who were threatening two of our guns, and at

the same time the Household Cavalry endeavoured to ride down another

detachment. The lance disposed of a few Boers in the former case, but

the enemy retaliated as successfully with fire. In the latter case the

Cavalry drove the Boers away, but caught only one, and lost twenty-one

horses from rifle-fire, many burghers dropping down among the mealies

and shooting at the troopers as they passed, in the manner recommended

in our own handbook, “Infantry Training.” The two incidents were

momentary episodes in two days of fire-action, and serve merely to

emphasize the inferiority of a weapon with a range of two yards to a

long-range firearm.

4. _Pursuits._—There were no really “general” pursuits. The best local

pursuit was that of Hutton’s Australasians on May 30, at Klipfontein

(“Official History,” vol. iii., p. 90), where a gun was captured. The

Boer talent—not exactly for pursuit, but for pressing hard upon a

rear-guard—was strikingly displayed in the course of Ian Hamilton’s

evacuation of Lindley, whither he had been sent during the general halt

at Kroonstad. We may call these guerilla tactics; but they have not a

whit less real tactical interest on that account.

5. _Horse-wastage._—With full allowance for the poor quality of

remounts, this was too extravagant. It seems to have been greatest among

the Cavalry, whose average waste between May 19 and June 9 was over 30

per cent., than among the mounted riflemen, whose average, for the same

period, was 18 per cent.[48] Apart from that difficult question of

overloading, and from defective horse-management, which seems to have

been universal among our mounted troops, this difference in loss of

horses was probably the result of longer distances ridden by the

Cavalry. In the whole of this question we have to recognize, in the case

of all mounted troops, the close relation between horse-wastage and

deficiency in aggressive tactical power, a deficiency which, as I

pointed out above, was the real, though, perhaps, not the consciously

thought-out reason for the immense encircling movements which were so

often being attempted. It will be the same in future wars. The higher

the direct tackling power, the lower the average horse-wastage.

-----

Footnote 48:

No complete figures exist. The “Official History” ignores the subject.

I take these figures from the _Times_ historian, who quotes from

calculations made by one of Roberts’s staff (see vol. iv., p. 162).

-----

By the middle of June, when Pretoria had fallen to the central armies

and Diamond Hill had been fought, every other column composing the grand

advance had, to all appearances, successfully accomplished its object.

Buller had traversed Natal and entered the Transvaal. Methuen had

traversed the Western Free State. Hunter had relieved Mafeking, and had

occupied towns in the Western Transvaal as far north as the meridian of

Pretoria. Warren, too, had disposed of the rebels in Griqualand West.

Both Cape Colony and Natal were cleared of the enemy. The Free State had

been annexed.

Buller had scarcely made any use of his six regiments of regular

Cavalry, and had even left them at Ladysmith during the first phase of

his advance over the Biggarsberg. His action was partly due, no doubt,

to that old fatalistic prejudice against pursuits, which, in his mind,

we must assume, were associated so closely with the _arme blanche_ that

he did not think it worth while even to give the Cavalry a fair chance

of developing other methods. The error was all the less justifiable in

that the Natal army, nearly 45,000 strong, and the largest in the field

of war, was disproportionately weak in mounted troops. The irregular

mounted brigade, about 3,000 strong, under Dundonald, together with

Bethune’s Mounted Infantry, about 600 strong, took a prominent part in

all the actions, and did very well. Eight thousand Boers faced Buller

originally on the Biggarsberg, but they must have dwindled to something

like half that number in the later stages of the advance. No especial

points of mounted interest, not alluded to already, arose in these

operations, which, from a tactical standpoint, were often very cleverly

and ably conducted, although from the strategical standpoint they were

too slow and unenterprising. I need not enter into the long story of

Buller’s two months’ inaction after the relief of Ladysmith, and of his

repeated failures to rise to the height of the Commander-in-Chief’s

conceptions for the strategic rôle of the powerful Natal army.

In the western sphere of advance, there are two principal points of

interest:

1. The good behaviour of the new Yeomanry under both Methuen and Warren;

for example, at Tweefontein (April 5), and, in defence, at Faber’s Put

(May 29), though on the latter occasion we have to recognize an early

instance of that lax and careless outpost work which so often

characterized the Yeomanry and other irregular corps.

2. The relief of Mafeking. This, although not a dramatic, was none the

less a very skilful and able performance, carried out by Colonel Mahon,

with a small column of 900 mounted irregulars (Imperial Light Horse and

Kimberley men), 100 picked Infantry, and 6 guns. Starting from Barkley

West on May 4, Mahon marched 251 miles in 14 days (an average of 18

miles a day), through a badly-watered region, with two fairly hot

engagements _en route_. Hunter, with his main body, rendered skilful

support by distracting the attention of the Boers in the neighbourhood,

and, in the final phase, Plumer, who for many months had been tirelessly

worrying the besiegers, co-operated with Mahon. On the penultimate day

of the march, May 16, De la Rey and Liebenberg managed to bar the road

with 2,000 men, a force about equal to those of Mahon and Plumer

together, but were driven off after a spirited action. In expense of

horse-flesh, which was small, and in tackling power in proportion to

numbers, the whole expedition compared favourably with the relief of

Kimberley by the Cavalry. It must be remarked that, mobile as Mahon’s

force was, it included 100 Infantry and 55 mule-waggons.

In the meantime the guerilla war—and by that expression I mean all

hostilities which were not directly connected with the seizure on our

side, and the defence on the Boers’ side, of railways, capitals, and

large towns—had already begun in the Free State, and was eventually to

spread to the Transvaal even before the final collapse of that State in

September. Rundle, Colvile, and Brabant, acting on the right rear of the

central armies, had had to cope with constant opposition in the Eastern

Free State. Rundle met with a sharp check at the Biddulphsberg on May

29, and two days later a detached force of Yeomanry, 500 strong,

surrendered to Piet de Wet near Lindley, after an investment of some

days. This was the first serious reverse which befell a Yeomanry corps.

The only moral we need draw from it is the vital importance of spirited

leadership for mounted troops, especially for untried irregulars. On

this occasion the true “Cavalry spirit” was lacking in the officer in

command, who, with a substantial force of mounted men and travelling

light, should never have allowed himself to be invested at all.

A few days later, Christian de Wet, with 1,200 men and 5 guns, again

took the field, and continued the series of raids which he had initiated

at Sannah’s Post and Reddersburg. This time he directed his efforts

mainly against the weakest British point—the enormously lengthy line of

railway communications which linked Roberts to his base. After snapping

up a convoy near Heilbron on June 4, he attacked and captured

simultaneously three posts on the railway between Kroonstad and Pretoria

at daybreak on June 7, and a fortnight later, with varying success,

carried out other raids upon the railway or upon convoys. Trivial as the

direct military results of these exploits were, their moral effect was

enormous, not only in awakening De Wet’s compatriots to a lasting sense

of their own capacity, but in strengthening the higher Boer counsels at

a very critical moment. Roberts and Botha had opened tentative

negotiations for peace between June 5 and 11, after the capture of

Pretoria. There can be no question that De Wet’s successes on June 4 and

7 inclined the scale in favour of war.

The firebrand next appears in July, midway in the drama of the

Brandwater Basin. Hunter’s envelopment of this, the great mountain

fastness of the Eastern Free State, and his capture of over 4,000 men

under Prinsloo on July 29, was the most extensive and the most ably

conducted of all the subsidiary operations during the year 1900.

“Subsidiary,” indeed, is the wrong term. It was capital, in the sense

that it actually removed from the field a large body of fighting

burghers, a result which no other operations, those of Paardeberg alone

excepted, had achieved. The mounted interest, however, in the

manœuvres which led to the surrender, is small. For us the chief

interest lies in the eruption from the death-trap, on July 15, just

before it closed, of De Wet, Steyn, and 2,600 of the best Boer troops,

with 5 guns and an immense convoy.

Dashing away to the north, flinging off two Cavalry brigades, and

capturing a train _en route_, De Wet reached the neighbourhood of

Reitzburg, and lay there for twelve days (July 25 to August 6),

occupying himself with little raids upon the railway. Roberts, who had

just completed his eastward advance to Middelburg, determined to run to

earth the irrepressible Boer leader, and for nine days all eyes in South

Africa were turned upon the extraordinary spectacle presented by the

first of the three great “hunts” with which De Wet’s name is associated.

Ten mobile columns, including large numbers of mounted men, took part,

at one time or another, in the chase, and in all nearly 30,000 men were

engaged directly or indirectly in the enveloping operations. Thrice the

net was drawn so closely around the quarry that there seemed to be no

hope of escape. But De Wet got through, dodging and doubling over the

Vaal, across the Western Transvaal, and through the Magaliesberg Range

to the district north of Pretoria, having achieved—with a loss of a gun

and some waggons—the only specific object of all this desperate

marching; that, namely, of escorting President Steyn to a point whence

he could reach the Transvaal leaders, and concert fresh measures of

defence with them.

Perhaps the most striking feature of this and many another similar feat

of evasion was that it was performed throughout at the “net” speed of

ox-waggons, of which a large number accompanied the Boer column,

together with herds of cattle and sheep, an increasing number of

dismounted burghers, and, until near the end, a considerable number of

British prisoners. De Wet himself, from the beginning to the end of his

career, was always dead against taking heavy convoys on independent

expeditions of this sort, but his power over his burghers rarely reached

the point of persuading them to adopt his view. With our vastly superior

resources for forming advanced bases we should have been able to make

our mounted troops far more independent, but we never succeeded in

overcoming the transport difficulty. Our “net” speed was less than De

Wet’s on this occasion. Mounted interest from the Boer standpoint is

confined: (_a_) To their customary skill in handling small protective

screens, so as to check pursuit, and compel us to waste time in the

preparatory shelling of positions; (_b_) to the brilliant scouting of

Theron’s corps of 200 picked scouts. Knowledge of the country had very

little to do with the success of these scouts, a considerable proportion

of whom were foreigners from Europe. Reconnaissance was our own weakest

point. Touch was rarely kept for twenty-four hours together, and we find

already growing up that insidious tendency to rely more on centralized

intelligence for the blocking of all supposed outlets of escape to the

pursued force than on local scouting, backed by universal co-operation

in strenuous tackling energy, for running that force to earth wherever

and whenever it could be found.

There was plenty of individual British energy displayed in the chase,

but very little co-operative energy. Methuen’s column, which originally

was a mixed force of all arms, bore almost the whole brunt of the direct

pursuit, and performed marvels of endurance. During the last three days

Methuen dropped his Infantry, and followed the trail with 600 Yeomanry,

600 Colonials, and 11 guns, and with these men on the 12th made the only

effective attack in the course of the hunt, capturing a gun and sixteen

waggons. The purely mounted columns, of which there were three, two of

Cavalry and one of mounted riflemen, never gained fighting contact with

the enemy at all.

For the rest, De Wet’s own native audacity and ingenuity were his

salvation. We deceive ourselves if we imagine that we European peoples,

with our “regular” armies and our authorized textbook regulations for

“regular” war, can afford to ignore the very least of the elements of

success in these feats of evasion. If they seem to be wholly defensive

in character, we must remember that they could not have been otherwise.

To stand and fight it out meant envelopment by overwhelming numbers, and

the loss of men who could never be replaced. And defensive power is only

the correlative of offensive power. I need scarcely add that the whole

of the work done by both sides in this hunt, and in all similar hunts,

was essentially Cavalry work. Every good quality shown by either party

was a Cavalry quality.

IV.—THE ADVANCE TO KOMATI POORT.

President Steyn’s safe arrival in the north about the middle of August,

after this perilous series of adventures, brings us somewhat prematurely

to the last scene in the first great phase of the war. He came too late

to be of use in averting the final dissolution of the Transvaal forces

before the advance of Lord Roberts up the Delagoa Railway to the

Portuguese frontier. But we must retrace our steps a little before we

reach that point.

Since Diamond Hill (June 12) the Transvaal leaders had gradually

abandoned all serious intention of defending the Delagoa line to

extremities. Botha soon seems to have resigned himself to the eventual

necessity of guerilla warfare, and during June sent off most of his

commandos to their own districts, there to fight for their own homes,

reserving for the defence of the Delagoa Railway only those burghers

through whose districts it passed, together with the Police and most of

his Artillery. For a month he held the Tigerpoort range of hills,

fifteen to twenty miles east of Pretoria. Meanwhile the south-eastern

men opposed Buller’s advance from the Natal border to Heidelberg, the

northern men prepared to defend the Pietersburg Railway, and De la Rey

organized the first of many formidable offensive revivals in his own

district, the Western Transvaal, culminating on July 11 in the capture

of the post at Zilikat’s Nek, in other small attacks, and in a general

threat to Pretoria from the west. Botha, who had just been driven off

the Tigerpoort range by a well-managed movement of mounted troops under

Hutton and French (July 5 to 11), now saw a chance of an effective

combination with De la Rey by a counter-attack upon the position just

lost. Viljoen, with 2,000 men (against about 4,000 on our side), carried

out this enterprise with considerable spirit on July 16, and came

dangerously near success on our left at Witpoort. The situation was

saved in this quarter by what the Official and _Times_ narratives call a

“charge” of the Canadian Mounted Rifles, though how near it came to

being a mounted charge I am unable to discover.

These events, together with De Wet’s escape from the Brandwater Basin,

further delayed the eastward British advance, which was eventually begun

on July 23. Middelburg was captured with little difficulty on July 27,

and then there was a halt of another three weeks, rendered necessary by

the hunt of De Wet and many other minor elements of disturbance. During

this period French, with several thousand mounted troops (his own

Cavalry and Hutton’s mounted riflemen), held a semicircular outpost line

fifty miles in extent to the eastward of Middelburg, and showed the same

kind of skill and activity as he had exhibited at Colesberg in sparring

with the Boer forces in front of him.

Buller, in the meantime, was marching northward from the Natal border

with 9,000 men (including two mounted brigades) and 42 guns, and

effected a junction with French on August 15. Belfast fell to the joint

forces a few days later, and on the 27th, reinforced by an Infantry

division to a total strength of nearly 19,000 men (of whom 4,800 were

mounted), Roberts fought the last pitched battle of the regular war at

Bergendal. Strange and characteristic climax it was! Exceeding all

previous records in extension, Botha, with about 7,000 men, on an

extreme estimate, and 20 guns, held a line of difficult mountainous

country no less than fifty miles in extent from end to end, reaching

from the approaches to Lydenburg on the north to the approaches to

Barberton on the south. No more than twenty miles of this front,

however, held at the most by 5,000 men, was concerned in the action.

Upon the extreme right of this position French, with two Cavalry

brigades, together about 1,600 strong, made the normal wide turning

movement against strong but lightly-held positions, and made it very

vigorously and successfully; but it took him all day, so that he could

not make the further projected sweep round the Boer rear.[49] Buller

meanwhile assaulted the key to the Boer position—Bergendal Hill, on the

left centre. This was a truly extraordinary episode in its proof of the

terrific power of the modern rifle in the hands of disciplined men. The

summit of the hill, about 200 yards by 100 yards in extent, was crowned

with boulders, which made it a natural fort. It was bombarded with

lyddite and shrapnel for three hours by thirty-eight guns, including

heavy naval pieces and howitzers, until, as an historian puts it, it

looked like Vesuvius in eruption. Then it was assaulted in the most

intrepid style by a brigade of Infantry (1st Inniskilling Fusiliers and

2nd Rifle Brigade), who, before storming the crest, lost 120 officers

and men, mainly, but not wholly, from the fire of the Bergendal

burghers; for two or three other small detachments co-operated at

long-range from neighbouring hill-tops. When all was over, it was found

that the hill had been held by seventy-four men of the Johannesburg

Police—mounted riflemen, be it noted. Thirty got away on their horses,

twenty were captured alive, and the rest were killed or wounded. As an

example of the truth that defensive and offensive power are correlatives

of one another, it may be remarked that these same “Zarps,” under at

least one of the same leaders (Pohlmann), had taken a leading part in

the assault and capture of Nicholson’s Nek ten months earlier. The

Police, we must remember, were the only regular disciplined force

(gunners excepted) which the Boers possessed.

-----

Footnote 49:

I have no space for details, but I ask the reader to study either the

_Times_ or the Official narratives; and I suggest that it was not

worth while to make so great a circuit in order to turn out 500 Boers

from distant flank posts. If French, leaving a small containing force,

had advanced direct upon Lakenvlei by the road the Infantry took, he

would have been in a position to act upon the Boer rear at an early

hour.

-----

This cardinal success in the centre brought the battle—if battle it may

be called—to an end. French could not pursue, and the pursuit of

Buller’s Cavalry was ineffective.

This was Botha’s last resolute stand. His own and Steyn’s efforts

together could not prevent the subsequent disintegration. Indeed, it is

a remarkable proof of their ability and moral courage that during the

next fortnight, with the help of some minor leaders like Kemp and

Viljoen, and with the support of the most sturdy and patriotic burghers,

they were able to present a decent show of resistance on the immense

front from Lydenburg to Barberton and onwards; to avert anything in the

nature of a decisive defeat in the field; and finally, when the crash

came on the Portuguese frontier, to concentrate, and by perilous and

exhausting flank marches to save from the wreckage, not only the acting

executive Governments of both Republics, but substantial bodies of

resolute men—the nucleus, in short, for nearly two more years of

strenuous resistance.

It was here that the now inveterate habit on our part of overrating the

importance of winning positions and of underrating the importance of

defeating the Boers in person led to its most unfortunate results. The

Portuguese frontier was the “touch-line.” Short of incarceration (and a

large number of horseless and destitute men chose this course), there

was no alternative but a wide flank march to the north across the

British front, at first over the fever-stricken “low veld,” then over

precipitous mountains whose spurs for a long distance were already held

by our troops. Steyn, travelling light with 250 men, and starting on

September 11, got through with ease. Botha and Viljoen, with 2,500 men,

starting on the 17th, only just rounded Buller’s extreme left flank at a

point thirty miles from the railway on September 26. All eventually

arrived at Pietersburg, which became henceforth a workshop, a

recruiting-ground, and an administrative centre whence plans for future

hostilities were hatched. One of the young leaders present—Kemp of

Krugersdorp—was in later days the first to put in systematic use those

formidable charging tactics which did so much to prolong the war.

It is one of the ironies of the campaign that, with all the elaborate

and extensive flank movements of mounted troops—often far too extensive

and elaborate—which had characterized our operations in the past, we had

not ready at this crisis, when its presence was of vital consequence, a

compact, independent mounted force for the interception of these

important Boer detachments.

But, in truth, in spite of a week’s explicit warning of Botha’s intended

march, his escape and that of Steyn passed almost unnoticed. All eyes

were fixed on a spectacle of seemingly irreparable ruin; of abandoned

guns, stores, and rolling-stock; of burghers flying into foreign

territory; of Kruger and his officials flying to Europe. The army, from

Roberts downwards, and the whole outside world, seems to have

interpreted these phenomena as signs that the war was practically over.

At the time this was very natural, and this we should not forget when

criticizing the error of judgment by the light of after-events.

Nor would it have been easy, even had the warning of our political

agents received full attention, to arrange for the interception of Botha

in addition to the other pre-occupations of the time. Buller had two

Cavalry brigades on the northern flank, but they were scattered over a

long series of posts. A few hundred mounted riflemen were with the

central Infantry column on the railway; but most of the remaining

mounted troops, in two columns composed of 1,000 mounted riflemen under

Hutton, and 3,000 Cavalry and mounted riflemen under French, both well

supplied with guns and auxiliary troops, had been employed since the 8th

in marching on parallel routes through the mountains on the southern

flank in order to clear this side for the central advance of the

Infantry up the railway. On September 13 both arrived at their

respective goals—Hutton at Kaapsche Hoop, French at Barberton, the

terminus of a small branch railway. Both these marches, but especially

the southernmost—that of French—though they met with slight opposition,

merit high praise, and were a worthy culmination of the efforts of the

mounted troops during the regular war. It is true that they scarcely

raise our special issue, or raise it only to afford us new evidence

against the _arme blanche_, for the terrain—steep, wild, and intricate

mountains—was as unsuitable for the exercise of that weapon as the

hedge-bound plains of England. But we can afford for a moment to forget

our immediate issue in admiring the staunch endurance of all the troops

alike, the nerve, energy, and self-reliance of French, and the admirable

staff-work which, by assuring supplies and communications, enabled him

to give full rein to his soldierly instincts.