in it, and peer between two small flaxen heads at hills I last saw alive
with bursting shell.
At Modder village I hired a horse and rode across the plain to
Magersfontein. I must often have described the place to you--the great
flat and the beak of hill, like a battleship's ram, thrust southward
into it. Do you know, I felt quite awestruck as I approached it. It
seemed quite impossible that I, alone on my pony, could be going to ride
up to and take single-handed that redoubtable hill, which had flung back
the Highlanders, and remained impregnable to all our shelling. I thought
some Boer, or ghost of a Boer, would pop up with his Mauser to defend
the familiar position once more. However, none did. I picked my way
through the trench, littered with scraps of clothing and sacks and
blankets, with tins and cooking things, and broken bottles and all sorts
of rags and debris littered about. The descriptions of the place sent
home after the battle are necessarily very inaccurate. Those I have seen
all introduce several lines of trenches and an elaborate system of
barbed wire entanglements. There is only one trench, however, and no
barbed wire, except one fence along a road. There are, however, a great
number of plain wire strands, about ten yards long perhaps, made fast
between bushes and trees, and left dangling, say, a foot from the
ground. They were not laid in line, but dotted about in every direction,
and, in anything like a dim light, would infallibly trip an advancing
enemy up in all directions. The single trench is about five feet deep,
the back of it undercut so as to allow the defenders to sleep in good
shelter, and the number of old blankets and shawls lying here showed it
had been used for this. It followed closely the contour of the hill,
about twenty yards from its base. Eastward it was continued across the
flat to the river.
The "disappearing guns," in the same way, were not disappearing at all.
They simply had strong redoubts of sandbags built round them, the
opening in front being partly concealed by bushes. On each side of the
gun, inside the redoubt, was a pit, with a little side passage or
tunnel, where two or three gunners could lie in perfect security, and
yet be ready at an instant's notice to serve their gun. As for the
kopjes themselves, every rock and stone there was split with shell and
starred with bullet marks. The reverse side of the slopes were steepened
with stone walls here and there, as a protection against shrapnel, and
sangars and lookout places were built at points of vantage. Altogether,
though not so elaborate as one had been led to believe, the defences
struck one as extremely practical and business-like.
I stayed there for two interesting hours. You can guess with what
feelings I looked down on the plain from Long Tom's redoubt, poor old
Joey's rival, and traced the long line of the river, with its fringe of
willows, and marked, up and down, a score of places where we had
skirmished or hidden, distinguishing the positions of our guns and
pickets, and all the movements and manoeuvres of our army. For the
first time one realised what a bird's-eye view the Boers had of it all,
and how our whole position and camp lay unrolled like a map almost at
their very feet.
I must add a word to tell you that the boxes have arrived! I only wish
you could have been here to see the contents distributed. First (this
was about a week ago) came a huge box full of good things to eat,
raisins, figs, a great many tins of cocoa and milk, chocolate, and other
things. We spread them all out on sheets in the verandah of the farm in
little heaps, and very pretty and tempting they looked, the white sheets
down the shady verandah, and little piles of sweetmeats and things
dotted all over them. Each man drew a ticket and chose his eatable, some
putting it carefully away, others bolting it immediately. One can get
absolutely nothing in Bloemfontein, and the men were as keen as school
children. It was an excellent idea sending such a lot of figs and
raisins. They are soon gone, but they are so immensely appreciated while
they last; they give the men the badly wanted holiday feeling. I almost
think that, in the way of provisions, delicacies are more liked by men
on service, and really do them more good than the more practically
useful things.
Then, a day or two ago, came another great box full of clothing. Flannel
shirts, socks, under-clothing, &c. There was, especially, in this box, a
packet of little handkerchiefs with a card, and on it written: "Worked
by Mrs. Hope and her little girls for the soldiers." The little present
touched us all very much. I have kept the card with the intention of
thanking "the little girls" if ever I get the chance.
We are only about a hundred strong now, and there were enough things to
go round several times. If you had foreseen and planned the date of
their arrival they could not have reached us at a more opportune moment.
The men have scarcely anything to wear, for all our kit and clothes,
everything we possess, was lost at the Sanna Post surprise party. I
assure you they are grateful. I read them the names of the subscribers,
and they all send their best thanks. Several came up to me and asked
that their thanks might be sent to you for your trouble in getting the
subscriptions, &c. No money that could have been expended in any charity
could have been better spent than this. The men have done fearfully hard
work, and were many of them literally in rags. It has been the greatest
help. The Major has sent you a few words of thanks, but has asked me to
write more particularly. You will let those know who have helped, will
you not, how this Colonial corps of ours has appreciated your English
present.
And now, farewell. They say we move forward in a week. I hope it may be
true. They also say we shall finish the campaign in a couple of months.
Fiddle-de-dee! is what I say. Tell H. to educate little S. as a scout
among the Devonshire hedges, and give him a bit of practical training
against the time he will be old enough to come out. There will be Boers
to take him on.
LETTER XVI
JUSTIFICATION OF THE WAR
BLOEMFONTEIN, _April_, 1900.
Yes, certainly, my own reason for fighting is plain and strong. I am
fighting for a united South Africa. A united South Africa will, in my
opinion, justify the war. The Boers are genuinely patriotic, I haven't a
doubt. They have every right and reason to fight to the last for their
freedom and independence. But the continued existence of independent
States on the pattern of the Dutch republics in the midst of South
Africa is bound to be a perpetual irritation. The development of the
resources of the country will be checked. The effort to remain separate
and apart has obliged, and will more and more oblige, these States to
build themselves round with a whole system of laws specially directed to
hamper immigration; and the richer are found to be the resources of the
country, the more harassing and stringent will this system of laws have
to become. In fact, in this great, free, and undivided country, to hedge
a State round with artificial barriers of this sort, in order that it
may enjoy a kind of obsolete, old-fashioned independence of its own,
soon becomes intolerable. It is unjust to all the rest of the continent.
The country, if it is to have its due weight and influence in the
affairs of the world, must be united and make itself felt as a whole.
It is not fair on such a country, young but rapidly developing, to take
two of the richest tracts of it right in its midst and to say, "You may
go ahead with the development of all the rest, but these two portions
are to be left on one side, to drop out of the running, to be withered
and useless members, and instead of contributing to the total, and
joining in with the progress of the rest, are to do all in their power
to impede the general advance."
It is bad enough when any naturally separate State shows the retrograde
temper and an inability to profit by its own resources, but when that
State is an integral part of one great and young continent, then its
action becomes intolerable. I think it is not only the people in a
country that have claims, but the country itself that has a claim. If
you want South Africa to ripen ultimately into a great first-class world
Power (and that is _its_ claim), instead of a bunch of fifth-rate
antagonistic States, the first thing to do is to range the country under
one Government, and as a British Government will be progressive, and a
Dutch one will certainly be retrograde, you must put it under a British
one. That is the first essential, and if any genuinely patriotic
instincts are overridden in the process, it is very sad, but it cannot
be helped. Better this than that the whole country should miss its
destiny.
As for the Uitlanders and their grievances, I would not ride a yard or
fire a shot to right all the grievances that were ever invented. The
mass of the Uitlanders (_i.e._, the miners and working-men of the Rand)
had no grievances. I know what I am talking about, for I have lived and
worked among them. I have seen English newspapers passed from one to
another, and roars of laughter roused by the _Times_ telegrams about
these precious grievances. We used to read the London papers to find out
_what our grievances were_; and very frequently they would be due to
causes of which we had never even heard. I never met one miner or
working-man who would have walked a mile to pick the vote up off the
road, and I have known and talked with scores and hundreds. And no man
who knows the Rand will deny the truth of what I tell you.
No; but the Uitlanders the world has heard of were not these, but the
Stock Exchange operators, manipulators of the money market, company
floaters and gamblers generally, a large percentage of them Jews. They
voiced Johannesburg, had the press in their hands, worked the wires, and
controlled and arranged what sort of information should reach England.
As for the grievances, they were a most useful invention, and have had a
hand in the making of many fortunes. It was by these that a feeling of
insecurity was introduced into the market which would otherwise have
remained always steady; it was by these that the necessary and periodic
slump was brought about. When the proper time came, "grievances," such
as would arrest England's attention and catch the ear of the people,
were _deliberately invented_; stories again were deliberately invented
of the excitement, panic, and incipient revolution of Johannesburg, and
by these means was introduced that feeling of insecurity I have spoken
of, which was necessary to lower prices.
Not a finger would I raise for these fellows. And another war-cry which
I profoundly disbelieve in, and which will probably turn out in the long
run to be a hoax, is the "Dutch South Africa" cry. How any one who knows
his South Africa, who knows the isolation of life among the farmers, and
the utter stagnation of all ideas that exists among the people, can
credit the Boers with vaulting ambitions of this sort, is always a
surprise to me. I fancy such theories are mostly manufactured for the
English market. Naturally I form my opinion more or less from the men in
our corps who seem best worth attending to. They, most of them, have an
intimate knowledge of the Colony and of one or both of the Republics,
and I do not find that they take the "Great Dutch Conspiracy" at all
seriously. Some people maintain that, though perhaps the Boer farmers
themselves were not in it, yet their leaders were. But the farmers form
the vast majority of the Boers. They are an independent and stiff-necked
type; and it is as absurd to suppose that their leaders could pledge
them to such vast and visionary schemes as it is to suppose that such
schemes could have the slightest interest for them. As a matter of fact,
what has given old Kruger his long ascendency is the way in which he
shares and embodies the one or two simple, dogged ideas of the mass of
the Burghers. "God bless the Boers and damn the British" are two of the
chief of these, but they only apply them within their own borders.
But it's a case of the proof of the pudding. If this scheme for a
general rising existed, why is not the Colony in arms now? What do you
think the answer to that is? Why, that the plot did indeed exist and had
been carefully matured, and that it would have come off all right if the
Boers had marched boldly south; but that, for some unknown reason, their
hearts failed them at the last moment, and they didn't dare go on and
reap what they had sown. "If only they had marched on Cape Town, the
whole Colony would have risen."
Doesn't it sometimes occur to you that, when his own interests are
concerned, the Boer is a tolerably wide-awake gentleman, and that he
knows how to look after those interests of his almost as well as we can
teach him? Are you prepared to believe of him: first, that he laid down
and organised this vast conspiracy; second, that he deliberately armed
himself to the teeth with a view of carrying it out; third, that he
chose his own time for war and declared it when he thought the moment
was ripe; fourth, that he gained advantages to begin with, and had the
Colony at his feet; and fifth, that he was seized with a sudden
paralysis at the last moment, and found himself unable to march ahead
and gather in the recruits who were on tip-toe to join him? No, no. If
the plot existed, why didn't the plot work? It had every chance.
I will tell you what there was. There were a number of appeals and
letters (some of them I have seen) from families in the north to their
relations in the Colony, praying for sympathy, and perhaps for active
help. But these were merely personal appeals. There is no hard and fast
line, so far as the people are concerned, between the Colony, Orange
Free State, and Transvaal. The same big families, or clans almost, have
their branches in all three, and probably there is not a family of any
consequence in either that has not a number of relations in the other
two. Consequently as war drew closer the excitement and anxiety it
caused spread southward from family to family. There was a good deal of
sympathy felt, no doubt, by the Dutch in the Colony for their relations
farther north, and there has been surreptitious help, information given,
and sympathy. But there the matter has usually ended. There have been
very few recruits, and there never was an organised conspiracy.
It is curious to notice how the several sections of the Dutch were
picked up just as they were laid down. The most determined spirits of
all, the most bitter against English rule, the irreconcilables, had
fought their way farthest north, and formed the Transvaal. South of them
came the Orange Free State, just across the Colony border--independent,
but not so bitter; while in the Colony itself remained all those weaker
brethren whose hearts had failed them in the Great Trek days, and who
had remained under our government.
The present war has revealed these strata just as they were deposited.
The northern State was the leader and aggressor. The southern one, drawn
in by its fiercer neighbour, was still true to the cause. And so, too,
the Dutch of the Colony were exactly to-day where they had been sixty
years ago. They could no more join the war than they could join the
trek. And, in spite of individual appeals to relations, &c., you may be
sure that the northerners knew pretty accurately how the land lay. Their
own action shows this.
Therefore, I put aside utterly, so far as I am concerned, the Uitlander
and Dutch conspiracy arguments, of which one hears so much, as things
which, though they may occupy the attention of leading article writers
in London, yet are not convincing, and have no smack of reality to any
one who knows something about the Uitlanders from personal observation,
and something about the Boers and Boer life from personal observation. I
put these aside and come back to the only argument that will really
wash, that has no clap-trap in it. And that is South Africa under one
Government, and under a strong and progressive Government. Human nature
is pretty much the same all the world over, and if the Boers have been
to blame in the past, no doubt the Britons have been just as much to
blame. Anyway, it is impossible and would be useless to strike a balance
between them now. The fact that stands out salient and that has to be
dealt with in the present is that South Africa is divided against
itself; that it never can and never will step up into its proper place
until it is united, and that, therefore, to fight for a united South
Africa is to fight on the right side and in a good cause.
And one thing I much like this plain reason for is, that it makes it
easy for one to do full justice to one's adversaries. I admire their
courage and patriotism very much. I acknowledge fully their dogged
obstinacy in defence and their dangerous coolness in retreat, and I am
sorry for them, too, and think it a sad thing that such brave men should
be identified with so impossible a cause. You must be careful how you
believe the reports sent home by war correspondents. I suppose people
like to hear harm of their enemies, and a daily paper's best business is
to give the public what the public wants rather than what is strictly
true. The consequence is that accounts of Boer fighting and of the Boers
themselves (traitors and cowards are the commonest words) are now
appearing which are neither more nor less than a disgrace to the papers
which publish them. I don't know since when it has become a British
fashion to slander a brave adversary, but I must say it seems to me a
singularly disgusting one, the more so when it is coupled with a gross
and indiscriminating praise of our own valour and performances.
LETTER XVII
THE MARCH NORTH
NEAR JOHANNESBURG, _May 31_, 1900.
"_May 1st_, 1900.--The long-looked, long-waited for moment has come at
last. We march from Bloemfontein on a glorious autumn morning, in fresh
cool air and the sky cloudless. Forty miles off Thaba Nchu, that hill of
ill omen, might be ten, so bold and clear it stands up above the lower
ranges. The level plain between the island hills is streaked with gauzy
mist.
"North of Bloemfontein we get into a pretty, uneven country with several
level-topped kopjes set end to end like dominoes, and thickets of grey
mimosas clustering in the hollows. The great column is moving forward on
our left. Big ambulance waggons, with huge white covers nodding one
behind the other, high above the press; the naval twelve-pounders, with
ten-oxen teams and sailors swinging merrily alongside; infantry marching
with the indescribable regular undulation of masses of drilled men,
reminding one of the ripple of a centipede's legs; field artillery,
horse artillery, transport waggons, more infantry, more guns--they
stretch in a long, dark river right across the plain.
"Now a halt is called. The men drop on one knee where they stand, or
hitch up their knapsacks to ease their tired shoulders. Then on again,
guns jolting, men sweating, marching at ease, with helmets on wrong side
first to shelter their eyes, and rifles with butt-ends over shoulders.
They have a rest after a few hours, and fall out by the wayside, fling
off the heavy accoutrements, light pipes, and fall a-yarning, stretched
on the grass, or pull out scraps of old newspapers to read."
That was written the day we left Bloemfontein, just a month ago, and 250
miles away. We have come along well, have we not?
Brandfort is a little town on the railway some forty miles north of
Bloemfontein, overlooked by a big rocky kopje on the north. Here we find
our dear friends once more assembled to meet us after this long
interval, and we have a little battle with them, of which I will spare
you the description. An incident of some interest was the appearance of
the "Irish Brigade" from the Natal side, who held the hill above the
town. Rimington got leave from Hutton to turn them out, which he did so
cleverly, and taking us at them at such a pace that we did the business
without loss, except, indeed, in horses, of which several were hit. I
don't know if the two or three prisoners we took (and that we had some
thought of shooting out of hand) were a fair sample of the brigade, but
fouler-mouthed scoundrels I think I never set eyes on.
Our plan of advance has been all along very simple and effective. Our
centre keeps the railway, while our wings, composed largely of mounted
troops, are spread wide on each side, and threaten by an enclosing
movement to envelop the enemy if he attempts to make a stand. These
tactics have been perfectly successful, and the Boers have been forced
again and again to abandon strong positions from a fear of being
surrounded. A bear's hug gives the notion of the strategy. No sooner do
our great arms come round than away slip the Boers while there is still
time. The Vet River was probably their strongest position, and here they
did make some attempt at a stand. This is how things looked that
morning:--
"_May_ 5_th_, 12.30.--We have just got to the big slopes overlooking Vet
River. The enemy is in a strong position along the river-bed, which is
thickly wooded, and in the hills beyond. Our left has touched them, and
as I write this our pompon on that side has a couple of goes. Kaffirs
tell us that the valley is full of Boers. Boers everywhere; in the
river-bed, in the sluits on the far side, in the hills; and that they
have plenty of guns. It is something like the Modder River position, but
stronger, inasmuch as there are ranges of hills on the far side of and
overlooking the river; so that they have two lines of defence, the
second commanding the first. An excellent arrangement. Walking forward
to the brow, a few of us had the whole panorama at our feet. We had no
idea it was so strong, and you might notice a thoughtful look on more
than one face as we walked back to our men behind the hill.
"We have now got the guns to a nearer rise, sloping to the river, and
are standing in extended order waiting for the next move. This will take
the form of artillery practice, and it is prophesied that we shall get
it pretty hot, as they will certainly have better guns than our
twelve-pounders. The sun is melting. Guns unlimber (1.15). Teams jingle
back, and the guns open fire from edge of slope, each one as it delivers
its shot starting back as if with surprise at its own performance.
"3 P.M.--Our guns are blazing away merrily now. The Boers, if they have
guns, are very reticent. They have sent us a few shells, which have done
no harm, mostly falling short. Hamilton is said to be at or near
Winburg. If this is so, he will be threatening the retreat of the Boers
here soon. Meantime a huge column, miles long, is crawling in the
distance across the flattish grass sweeps far to the east. This is the
main column, under Lord Roberts."
We thought, you see, that we were in for quite a big fight. We thought
the same often later. At this river or this range they will make their
stand. But always, as here at Vet River, we advanced on such a wide
front that the enemy had to retire betimes to avoid being outflanked,
and so the "stand" was never made. We joined Ian Hamilton at Kronstad,
and while we were out with him on the east side the enemy once or twice
attacked our flank or rearguard in the most determined manner. However,
we held on our way very composedly, our waggons rumbling along sleepily
indifferent, while the Boers with all their might would be hanging on to
our tail. Usually, after we had towed them for a day or two, they would
let go, and then another lot would come along and lay hold. The first
party would then retire to its own village and district, feeling, no
doubt, that it had barked us off the premises in great style, and lay in
wait for the next army of ten or twenty thousand men that should happen
to pass that way.