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HISTORY OF THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA
1899-1902
[Illustration: Editor's arm.]
COMPILED BY DIRECTION OF HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
BY
MAJOR-GENERAL SIR FREDERICK MAURICE, K.C.B
WITH A STAFF OF OFFICERS
VOLUME I
LONDON
HURST AND BLACKETT LIMITED
1906
_All rights reserved_
[Illustration: The Chapel River Press Kingston Surrey.]
PREFACE.
The decision of His Majesty's late Government, mentioned on the first
page of this history, was not finally given till November, 1905. It
was, therefore, not till December 12th, 1905, that I was able to
obtain approval for the form in which the political facts connected
with the war are mentioned in the first chapter. Since then the whole
volume has necessarily been recast, and it was not possible to go to
page proof till the first chapter had been approved. Hence the delay
in the appearance of the volume. I took over the work from Colonel
Henderson in July, 1903. He had not then written either narrative of,
or comments on, the military operations.
F. MAURICE.
_May 22nd, 1906, London._
CONTENTS.
VOLUME I.
CHAP. PAGE
I.--Preparation for War 1
II.--The Outbreak of the War 35
III.--The Theatre of War 54
IV.--The Boer Army 68
V.--The British Army 87
VI.--The Navy in the Boer War 96
VII.--Talana Hill 123
VIII.--The Retreat from Dundee, and the action of Rietfontein 142
IX.--Elandslaagte 157
X.--Lombards Kop 172
XI.--The Arrival of Sir Redvers Buller 196
XII.--Advance from the Orange River 211
XIII.--Belmont 218
XIV.--Graspan 229
XV.--The Battle of the Modder River 243
XVI.--The Raid on Southern Natal 261
XVII.--Operations round Colesberg up to the 16th December 275
XVIII.--Stormberg 285
XIX.--Halt on the Modder River before Magersfontein 304
XX.--The Battle of Magersfontein 316
XXI.--Sir Redvers Buller in Face of Colenso 332
XXII.--Colenso, December 15th, 1899 351
XXIII.--Lord Roberts' Appointment to the Command in South
Africa 376
XXIV.--Operations Round Colesberg--December 16th, 1899, to
February 6th, 1900 389
XXV.--Lord Roberts at Capetown; reorganises 408
XXVI.--The Army Moves Forward 428
APPENDICES.
No. PAGE
1. Reinforcements sanctioned on 8th September, 1899 453
2. Distribution of British Forces on 11th October, 1899,
in Cape Colony 455
3. Distribution of British Forces on 11th October, 1899,
in Natal 456
4. Strengths of the Forces of the Transvaal and Orange Free
State 457
5. List of H.M. Ships and Vessels serving on the Cape Station,
October 11th, 1899, to June 1st, 1902 460
6. Approximate Strength and Casualties at Various Engagements
described in Volume I 462
7. The Expeditionary Force as originally organised and
sent to South Africa 471
8. The Composition and Distribution of British Troops
in Southern Natal, 23rd November, 1899 477
9. Reinforcements Landed in South Africa up to the
13th February, 1900, other than those given in
Appendices 1 and 7 478
10. Distribution of Troops in South Africa on 11th
February, 1900, when the March from Ramdam began 485
Glossary 492
Index 497
LIST OF MAPS AND FREEHAND SKETCHES.
(_In separate case._)
MAPS.
General Map:--South Africa.
Special Maps:--
No. 1. INDEX MAP.
No. 2. RELIEF MAP OF SOUTH AFRICA, to show Topographical
Features and Theatre of War.
No. 3. NORTHERN NATAL.
No. 4. SOUTHERN NATAL.
No. 5. TALANA. October 20th, 1899.
No. 6. ELANDSLAAGTE. October 21st, 1899.
No. 7. RIETFONTEIN. October 24th, 1899.
No. 8. LOMBARDS KOP. October 30th, 1899. _Situation before
7 a.m._
No. 8 (A). LOMBARDS KOP. October 30th, 1899. _Situation
from 7 a.m. to Close of Action._
No. 9. NORTH CAPE COLONY and PART of the ORANGE FREE STATE.
No. 10. BELMONT. November 23rd, 1899. _Situation prior to
Capture of Gun Hill._
No. 10 (A). BELMONT. November 23rd, 1899. _Situation prior
to Capture of Mont Blanc._
No. 11. GRASPAN. November 25th, 1899. _Situation at 9 a.m._
No. 12. MODDER RIVER. November 28th, 1899. _Situation at
about 3.30 p.m._
No. 13. MAGERSFONTEIN. December 11th 1899. _Situation
at 4.30 a.m._
No. 13 (A). MAGERSFONTEIN. December 11th 1899. _Situation
at 8 a.m._
No. 13 (B). MAGERSFONTEIN. December 11th, 1899. _Situation
at 3.30 p.m._
No. 14. STORMBERG. December 10th, 1899.
No. 15. COLENSO. December 15th, 1899. _Situation at 8 a.m._
No. 15 (A). COLENSO. December 15th, 1899. _Situation at
11 a.m._
No. 16. OPERATIONS AROUND COLESBERG.
No. 17. SOUTH AFRICA. Map showing the approximate situation
on the 31st December, 1899.
FREEHAND SKETCHES.
Talana.
Rietfontein.
Modder River.
Magersfontein.
Stormberg.
Colenso.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED ON THE MAPS.
A. & S. Highrs. Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
Art. Artillery.
Art. Pos. Artillery position.
B.M.I. Bethune's Mounted Infantry.
Bn. Battalion.
Border. Border Regiment.
Br. Brigade.
Car. Carabineers.
Cav. Cavalry.
Cold. Gds. Coldstream Guards.
Co. Company.
Devon. Devonshire Regiment.
D.G. Dragoon Guards.
Dns. Dragoons.
Durh. L.I. Durham Light Infantry.
E. Surr. East Surrey Regiment.
Fus. Fusiliers.
Glouc. Gloucester Regiment.
Gordon., or
Gordon Highrs. Gordon Highlanders.
Gren. Gds. Grenadier Guards.
Gds. Guards.
Highrs. Highlanders.
Hosp. Hospital.
How. Howitzers.
Hrs. Hussars.
I.L.H. Imperial Light Horse.
King's King's Liverpool Regiment.
K.O.Y.L.I. King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.
K.R. Rif. King's Royal Rifle Corps.
Lrs. Lancers.
L.I. Light Infantry.
Liv'rp'ls King's Liverpool Regiment.
Manch. Manchester Regiment.
M.B. Mountain Battery.
M.I. Mounted Infantry.
N. Car. Natal Carabineers.
N.F.A. Natal Field Artillery.
N.M.R. Natal Mounted Rifles.
North'd Fus. Northumberland Fusiliers.
North'n. Northamptonshire Regiment.
N. Lan. Loyal North Lancashire Regiment.
Prs. Pounders (_e.g._, Naval 12-prs.).
Queen's Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment.
R.E. Royal Engineers.
R.F.A. Royal Field Artillery.
R.H.A. Royal Horse Artillery.
Rif. Brig. Rifle Brigade.
R.I. Rif. Royal Irish Rifles.
R. Irish Fus. Royal Irish Fusiliers.
R. Innis. Fus. Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
R. Fus. Royal Fusiliers.
R. Muns. Fus. Royal Munster Fusiliers.
R. Sc. Fus. Royal Scots Fusiliers.
R. Welsh Fus. Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
S.A.L.H. South African Light Horse.
S. Gds. Scots Guards.
Sco. Rif. Scottish Rifles.
T.M.I. Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry.
W. Yorks Prince of Wales's Own West Yorkshire Regiment.
MAPS TO VOLUME I.
Pains have been taken to embody in the maps all topographical
information existing up to date. A very considerable amount of
valuable triangulation has been executed over portions of South
Africa, but no systematic detailed survey has ever been made by any of
the South African colonies or states. Maps have, however, been
compiled by both Cape Colony and Natal. The former has prepared and
published a map extending north as far as Lat. 26° 30'; this includes
the Bechuanaland Protectorate and the Orange River Colony, but the
topographical detail shown over these two areas is exceedingly scanty.
The scale of the map is one inch to 12.62 miles.
The Natal Government have a map similarly prepared and drawn in the
office of the Inspector of Schools, and published on a scale of one
inch to five miles. Both these maps are very fair general maps, and
show with rough accuracy the railways, main roads and large rivers,
but the delineation of hills is little more than suggestive.
Of the Orange Free State and Transvaal the only general maps published
are based on the farm surveys. As these surveys show only those
topographical features which serve to fix the farm boundary, omitting
all other features, the map resulting from their compilation is not of
much use, especially for military purposes.
Of the north of Natal there exists a series of one inch reconnaissance
surveys of the communications from Ladysmith to the Orange Free State
and Transvaal frontiers, with sketches of the whole of the Biggarsberg
and Laing's Nek positions, made in 1896 by Major S. C. N. Grant, Royal
Engineers, assisted by Captain W. S. Melville, Leicestershire
regiment, and Captain H. R. Gale, Royal Engineers.
It is from these sources, as modified here and there by special
surveys made during or since the war, that the general maps 1, 3, 4,
and 9 have been compiled.
Of the site of the battle of Talana no special survey has been made
since the war, and map 5 is a reproduction of a portion of Major
Grant's reconnaissance sketch before referred to.
Maps 6, 7, and 8, of the battles of Elandslaagte, Rietfontein and
Lombards Kop, are prepared from surveys made since the events
occurred, by No. 4 Survey section, Royal Engineers, working under
Captain H. W. Gordon, R.E., and maps 14 and 16, of Stormberg and
Colesberg, have been prepared also from sketches made by the same
section.
Maps 10, 11, 12 and 13, of Belmont, Graspan, Modder River and
Magersfontein, are from sketches made by Nos. 2 and 3 Survey sections,
under Captain P. H. Casgrain, R.E. The two sections on map 12 are from
drawings by Lieut. J. Cuthbert, Scots Guards.
Map No. 15, of Colenso, is from a sketch made immediately after the
relief of Ladysmith by Major S. C. N. Grant, R.E., assisted by Captain
P. McClear, Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and Lieut. S. A. Wilkinson, The
King's (Liverpool) regiment, and the sections from a sketch by Lieut.
M. G. Pollock, R.E.
In most instances the special survey of the site of the battle has had
to be extended by enlarging portions of the general maps on smaller
scales. This sometimes causes a difference in the amount of detail
shown in different areas of the same map, but this is unavoidable if
the map be made to illustrate, not only the action itself, but also
the preceding and subsequent movements.
The six panoramic sketches embodied in this Volume are facsimile
reproductions of a selection made from a number executed by the late
Captain W. C. C. Erskine, Bethune's Mounted Infantry.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS IN THE TEXT
A.A.G. Assistant Adjutant-General.
A.D.C. Aide-de-Camp.
A.S.C. Army Service Corps.
B.L. Breech-loading.
Battn. Battalion.
Brig. divn. Brigade division=2 batteries of horse, or 3 of
field artillery, commanded by a Lieut.-Colonel.
(The term has since been changed to "brigade.")
Captn. Captain.
C.B. Companion of the Order of the Bath.
C.I.F. Cost, Insurance, Freight: _i.e._, under the contract
so designated the price paid included the cost
of the article, its insurance while on the voyage,
and freight.
C.M.G. Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.
Col. Colonel.
C.O. Commanding Officer.
Comder. Commander.
Cos. Companies.
Coy. Company.
C.R.A. Commanding Royal Artillery.
C.R.E. Commanding Royal Engineers.
C.S.O. Chief Staff Officer.
Cwt. Hundred-weight.
D.A.A.G. Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General.
D.A.A.G.I. Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General for Intelligence.
Det. Detachment.
D.C.L.I. Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry.
D.G.O. Director General of Ordnance.
G.O.C. General Officer Commanding.
Govt. Government.
H.L.I. Highland Light Infantry.
H.M.S. His (or Her) Majesty's Ship.
I.L.H. Imperial Light Horse.
in. inch.
I.S.C. Indian Staff Corps.
K.C.B. Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.
K.C.M.G. Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and
St. George.
K.O.Y.L.I. King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.
K.R.R. King's Royal Rifle Corps.
Lieut. or Lt. Lieutenant.
Lt.-Col. Lieutenant-Colonel.
L. of C. Lines of communication.
L.I. Light Infantry.
Maritzburg Pietermaritzburg.
M.B. Mountain battery.
m/m millimetre.
M.I. Mounted Infantry.
M.L. Muzzle-loading.
N.N.V. Natal Naval Volunteers.
N.S.W. New South Wales.
N.S.W.L. New South Wales Lancers.
N.Z. New Zealand.
N.C.O. Non-commissioned officer.
O.F.S. Orange Free State.
pr. pounder.
P.T.O. Principal Transport Officer.
Q.F. Quick-firing.
Q.M.G. Quartermaster-general.
Regt. Regiment.
R.M.L. Rifle-muzzle-loading.
R.A.M.C. Royal Army Medical Corps.
R.A. " Artillery.
R.B. Rifle Brigade.
Royal Commission. Royal Commission on the War in South Africa (1903).
R.E. Royal Engineers.
R.F.A. " Field Artillery.
R.G.A. " Garrison "
R.H.A. " Horse "
R.M.A. " Marine "
R.M.L.I. " " Light Infantry.
R.N. " Navy.
R. S. Fusiliers Royal Scots Fusiliers.
Sec. Section.
S.A. South Africa.
S.A.R. South African Republic.
Scots Greys 2nd Dragoons.
Sqdn. or Squadn. Squadron.
Tel. Telegram.
T.B. Telegraph battalion.
V.C. Victoria Cross.
W.O. War Office.
LIST OF ERRATA.
Page 2, line 13 from top, omit "(Arabic)".
" 14, " 2 " bottom, for "Sir H. Escombe" read "the Right
Hon. H. Escombe."
" 78, first marginal note, for "of" read "in."
" 128, second marginal note, for "comma" read "full stop."
" 144, line 3 from top, for "The troops a Ladysmith" read "The
troops at Ladysmith."
" 144, last marginal note, omit "full stop" and read on.
" 160, bottom marginal note, for "full stop" read "comma."
" 256, line 6 from bottom, for "Major T. Irvine" read "Captain
T. Irvine."
" 337, line 12 from bottom, for "semi-colon" read "comma."
THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA.
CHAPTER I.
PREPARATION FOR WAR.
[Sidenote: Scope of history.]
The war in South Africa which began on October 9th, 1899, ended so far
happily on the 31st May, 1902, that, chiefly in consequence of the
tactful management of the negotiations with the leaders who then
guided them, those who had till then fought gallantly against the
British Empire agreed to enter it as subjects of King Edward. Under
the circumstances, His Majesty's late Government considered it
undesirable to discuss here any questions that had been at issue
between them and the rulers of the two republics, or any points that
had been in dispute at home, and to confine this history to the
military contest. The earlier period is mentioned only so far as it
concerns those incidents which affected the preparation for war on the
part of Great Britain, and the necessary modifications in the plan of
campaign which were influenced by the unwillingness of Her Majesty's
Government to believe in the necessity for war.
[Sidenote: Situation Oct. 9th, /99.]
When, on October 9th, 1899, Mr. Kruger's ultimatum was placed in the
hands of the British Agent at Pretoria the military situation was as
follows. It was known that the Boer Governments could summon to arms
over 50,000 burghers. British reinforcements of 2,000 men had been
sanctioned on the 2nd of August for a garrison, at that date not
exceeding 9,940 men; and on the 8th September the Viceroy of India had
been instructed by telegram to embark with the least possible delay
for Durban a cavalry brigade, an infantry brigade, and a brigade
division of field artillery. Another brigade division and the 1st
Northumberland Fusiliers were also ordered out from home. The 1st
battn. Border regiment was despatched from Malta, the 1st battn. Royal
Irish Fusiliers from Egypt, the 2nd battn. Rifle Brigade from Crete,
and a half-battn. 2nd King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry from
Mauritius. The total strength of these reinforcements, ordered on
September 8th, amounted to 10,662 men of all ranks. On the same day,
the 8th September, the General Officer Commanding in South Africa, Sir
F. Forestier-Walker, was directed by telegram to provide land
transport for these troops. For details see Appendix I.
[Sidenote: Total forces.]
The whole of these reinforcements, with the exceptions of the 9th
Lancers and two squadrons of the 5th Dragoon Guards, whose departure
from India was somewhat delayed by an attack of anthrax, a brigade
division of artillery, the 1st Border regiment and the 2nd battalion
Rifle Brigade, were landed in South Africa before the actual outbreak
of war. Including 2,781 local troops, the British force in Natal was
thus raised to 15,811 men of all ranks. In Cape Colony there were,
either under arms or immediately available at the outbreak of war,
5,221 regular and 4,574 colonial troops. In southern Rhodesia 1,448
men, raised locally, had been organised under Colonel Baden-Powell,
who had been sent out on the 3rd July to provide for the defence of
that region. Thus the British total in South Africa, 27,054, was at
least 20,000 smaller than the number of the burghers whom the two
republics could place in the field, irrespective of any contingent
that they might obtain from the disaffected in the two colonies. Early
in June Sir Redvers Buller had been privately informed that, in the
event of its becoming necessary to despatch an army corps to South
Africa, he would be the officer to command it. On June 8th, the
Commander-in-Chief had recommended that as a precautionary measure an
army corps and cavalry division should be organised and concentrated
on Salisbury Plain. He had proposed that one complete army corps, one
cavalry division, one battalion of mounted infantry, and four
infantry battalions to guard the lines of communication, should be
sent out to South Africa, and he was most anxious that the
expeditionary force should be assembled beforehand, so as to render it
more effective for war purposes. The course of the negotiations which
were then being carried on convinced Her Majesty's Government that any
such step would tend to precipitate war, and, the weakness of our
troops at the time in South Africa being such as it was, that it would
be impossible to reinforce them before serious attack might be made
upon them. Moreover, there was this further difficulty, that adequate
attention had not been directed publicly to the circumstances in South
Africa which caused anxiety to the Government.
[Sidenote: Causes of delay.]
It was always possible to think that the preparations for war on a
large scale, which were undoubtedly being made both by the Transvaal
and by the Orange Free State, were the result of the anxiety which had
been caused to the rulers of those republics by the circumstances of
the Jameson raid. Every attempt by any statesman at home to bring the
facts, as they presented themselves to those behind the scenes, before
the world, was open to the imputation of being deliberately designed
to lead up to a war which it was intended to bring about. Thus it was
the very weakness of our position at that time in South Africa which
made it difficult to relieve the military danger. Any premature effort
to place our power there in a condition of adequate security tended to
suggest to foreign states that the movements made were directed
against the independence of the two republics; tended to shake public
confidence at home, and even to excite jealousy in our own colonies.
All through the long negotiations which were carried on during the
summer and autumn months of 1899 it seemed better, therefore, to incur
even some serious risk of military disadvantage rather than to lose
that general support of the nation, whether at home or in the
colonies, which would be secured by a more cautious policy, and to
hope against hope that a peaceful solution might be reached.
[Sidenote: "Adequate strength."]
In one respect there would appear to have been a misunderstanding
between the Government and their military advisers as to the sense in
which the reinforcements sent to South Africa were sufficient for the
temporary protection of our interests on the sub-continent. It is
remarkable that in the evidence subsequently given by the soldiers,
not only do they admit that they anticipated beforehand that for this
purpose the strength would be adequate, but that they assume, at the
end of the war, that it had as a matter of fact proved so. This can
obviously only be understood in the sense that the numbers then in
South Africa were able to retard the Boer operations until a large
army was thrown into the country. On the other hand, Lord Lansdowne,
describing what was evidently the meaning in which this language was
understood by himself and his colleagues, says: "I am not a soldier,
but I never heard of sending out reinforcements to a country which
might become the theatre of war merely in order that the
reinforcements might successfully defend themselves against attack;
they are sent there, I imagine, for the purpose of securing something
or somebody." And again: "I should say not sufficient to prevent raids
and incursions, but sufficient to prevent the colonies from being
overrun." It appears necessary, under its historical aspect, to draw
attention to this discrepancy of view, because it is one that may be
liable to repeat itself.
[Sidenote: Plans delayed.]
Another point influenced by the unwillingness of Her Majesty's
Government to believe in the possibility of the Orange Free State,
with which we had had for many years relations of the greatest
friendliness, appearing in arms against us, was this: that it delayed
for a very considerable time the determination of the general plan of
campaign on which the war was to be carried on. Practically, supposing
it became necessary to conduct an offensive war against the Transvaal,
the choice of operations lay between a movement by way of Natal and
one by way of the Orange Free State. Any advance by Natal had these
serious disadvantages. In the first place, the mountain region through
which it would be necessary to penetrate was one that gave very great
advantages to the Boer riflemen. In the second place, it lay exposed,
as soon as Northern Natal was entered, to attack throughout its
entire length from the Orange Free State. On the other hand, the march
by Bloemfontein opened up a country much more favourable for the
operations of a regular army, whether that march, as was originally
proposed, followed the direct line of railway through Bloemfontein,
or, as it did ultimately, the railway to Kimberley and thence struck
for Bloemfontein.[1] There remained, indeed, a third alternative,
which had at one time been proposed by Lord Roberts, of a movement
outside the Orange Free State through the north-western portion of
Cape Colony, but this had ceased to be applicable at the time when war
was declared. As a consequence of the uncertainties as to the ultimate
attitude of the Orange Free State, and the extreme hope that that
State would not prove hostile, it was not till the 3rd October that
Lord Lansdowne was in a position to say: "We have now definitely
decided to adopt the Cape Colony--Orange Free State route. It is
intended that a force of 10,000 men should remain in Natal, on which
side it will make a valuable diversion; that about 3,000 should be
detailed for service on the west side (Kimberley, etc.), and that the
main force should enter the Orange Free State from the south."
[Footnote 1: See Chapters II. and III. for full discussion on
the Theatre of War.]
[Sidenote: Limit of force.]
In all schemes for possible offensive war by Great Britain, subsequent
to a memorandum by Mr. Stanhope, of 1st June, 1888,[2] it had been
contemplated that the utmost strength which it would be necessary for
us to embark from our shores would be that of two army corps with a
cavalry division. Those army corps and the cavalry division were,
however, neither actually, nor were they supposed to be, immediately
ready to be sent out. To begin with, for their despatch shipping must
be available, and this, as will be shown more in detail in a
subsequent chapter, was a matter which would involve considerable
delay and much preparation. During the time that the ships were being
provided it would be essential that the successive portions of the
army for which shipping could be obtained should be prepared for war
by the return to the depôts of those soldiers who were not immediately
fit for service, and by their replacement by men called in from the
reserve to complete the ranks. None of these preparations could be
made without attracting public attention to what was done. The
reserves could not be summoned to the colours without an announcement
in Parliament, nor, therefore, without debates, which must necessarily
involve discussions which might be irritating to Boer susceptibilities
at the very time when it was most hoped that a peaceful solution would
be reached. It was not, therefore, till the 20th September that the
details of the expeditionary force were communicated to the Admiralty
by the War Office, nor till the 30th that the Admiralty was authorised
to take up shipping. Meantime on September 22nd, a grant of £645,000
was made for immediate emergencies. On the 7th October the order for
the mobilisation of the cavalry division, one army corps, and eight
battalions of lines of communication troops was issued, and a Royal
proclamation calling out the army reserve was published. Of the
excellent arrangements made by the Admiralty a full account will be
found hereafter.
[Footnote 2: "Her Majesty's Government have carefully
considered the question of the general objects for which our
army is maintained. It has been considered in connection with
the programme of the Admiralty, and with knowledge of the
assistance which the navy is capable of rendering in the
various contingencies which appear to be reasonably probable;
and they decide that the general basis of the requirements
from our army may be correctly laid down by stating that the
objects of our military organisation are:--
(_a_) The effective support of the civil power in all parts
of the United Kingdom.
(_b_) To find the number of men for India, which has been
fixed by arrangement with the Government of India.
(_c_) To find the garrisons for all our fortresses and
coaling stations, at home and abroad, according to a scale
now laid down, and to maintain these garrisons at all times
at the strength fixed for a peace or war footing.
(_d_) After providing for these requirements, to be able to
mobilise rapidly for home defence two army corps of regular
troops, and one partly composed of regulars and partly of
militia; and to organise the auxiliary forces, not allotted
to army corps or garrisons, for the defence of London and for
the defensible positions in advance, and for the defence of
mercantile ports.
(_e_) Subject to the foregoing considerations, and to their
financial obligations, to aim at being able, in case of
necessity, to send abroad two complete army corps, with
cavalry division and line of communication. But it will be
distinctly understood that the probability of the employment
of an army corps in the field in any European war is
sufficiently improbable to make it the primary duty of the
military authorities to organise our forces efficiently for
the defence of this country."--(_Report of Royal Commission
on the War in South Africa_, p. 225.)]
[Sidenote: The scheme of mobilisation.]
The scheme for mobilisation had been gradually developed during many
years. The earliest stage was the appearance in the Army List of an
organisation of the army in various army corps. This was chiefly
useful in showing the deficiencies which existed. It had been drawn up
by the late Colonel Home, R.E. In August, 1881, it was removed from
the Army List.
[Sidenote: Various stages of scheme.]
Practically no mobilisation scheme really took shape until 1886, when
Major-General H. Brackenbury,[3] on assuming office as head of the
Intelligence branch, turned his attention to the question. The
unorganised condition of our army and the deficiency of any system for
either home defence or action abroad formed the subjects of three
papers,[4] in which he showed that, at the time they were written, not
even one army corps with its proper proportion of the different
departmental branches, could have been placed in the field, either at
home or abroad, while for a second army corps there would have been
large deficiencies of artillery and engineers, and no departments. For
horses there was no approach to an adequate provision. The urgent
representations contained in these papers were strongly taken up by
Lord Wolseley, then Adjutant-General, and pressed by him on the
Secretary of State for War,[5] with the result that a committee of
two, Sir Ralph Thompson[6] and Major-General H. Brackenbury, was
appointed to investigate the matter.
[Footnote 3: Now General the Right Honourable Sir Henry
Brackenbury, G.C.B.]
[Footnote 4: Mobilisation reports, Numbers I., II. and III.]
[Footnote 5: The Right Honourable W. H. Smith.]
[Footnote 6: Then Permanent Under-Secretary of State.]
[Sidenote: Sub-division to carry out.]
Their enquiry was entirely confined to the question of obtaining the
maximum development from the existing cadres. Their report was divided
under three headings, the first of which dealt with the "Field Army,"
and laid down that two army corps and lines of communication troops
was the field army which the regular troops, as they then stood, were
capable of producing. The subjects of "Garrisons" and "Mobilisation
for Foreign Service" were dealt with under the other two headings.
Ultimately a Mobilisation sub-division, which was transferred from the
Intelligence department to the Adjutant-General's department in 1889
and to the Commander-in-Chief's office, in 1897, was created.
[Sidenote: 1890 to 1898.]
Working on the lines laid down, the mobilisation section first
produced a complete scheme in 1890. Mobilisation regulations were
issued in 1892. Further revised editions followed in 1894, and again
in 1898. All were worked out on the basis of using what was available,
and not what was needed.
[Sidenote: Scheme in 1899.]
In the spring of 1899, in anticipation of possible events, the
mobilisation section turned their attention to the requirements of a
force for South Africa. Seeing that the regulations of 1898 dealt
principally with the mobilisation of the field army for service at
home or in a temperate climate, considerable modifications, relating
to such points as regimental transport, clothing, equipment, and
regimental supplies, were necessary to meet the case of operations
carried on in South Africa. Special "Regulations for the Mobilisation
of a Field Force for Service in South Africa" were accordingly drawn
up, with the object, not of superseding the Mobilisation regulations
of 1898, but "in order to bring together, in a convenient form, the
modifications necessary in those regulations." These regulations were
completed, printed, and ready for issue in June, 1899. In their
general application they provided for the preparation in time of peace
of all that machinery which, on the advent of war, would be set in
motion by the issue of the one word--"Mobilise."
[Sidenote: Success in practice.]
The mobilisation, thus carefully prepared in all its details
beforehand, proved a complete success. Ninety-nine per cent. of the
reservists when called out presented themselves for service, and 91
per cent, were found physically fit. The first units, twenty companies
of the Army Service Corps, were embarked on the 6th of October. The
embarkation of the remainder of the expeditionary force was begun on
the 20th of October, and, with the exception of one cavalry regiment,
delayed by horse-sickness, completed on the 17th November.
[Sidenote: Fresh units needed.]
At an early stage in the war it became very plain that mere drafts of
details to replenish units would not suffice, but that organised
reinforcements would have to be sent. Even before the embarkation of
the field force was completed, orders were given for reinforcements to
be despatched; and within three months from that time the mobilisation
of four more divisions, fifteen extra batteries of artillery and a
fourth cavalry brigade, was ordered.[7]
[Footnote 7: The following extract from the Statement of the
Mobilisation division gives the details and dates:--
"21. While the embarkation of the field force was proceeding,
news of the loss of the greater part of two battalions of
infantry and a mountain battery at Nicholson's Nek reached
England. Orders were accordingly given on 31st October for
the despatch of one mountain battery and three battalions of
infantry, to make good this loss. All this reinforcement went
from England, except one battalion. The embarkation from
England was finished on 16th November.
"22. On 3rd November it was decided to organise and send out
a siege train. It embarked on 9th December.
"23. Orders for the mobilisation of a 5th infantry division
(the troops under Sir G. White, in Ladysmith, being counted
as the 4th division) were issued on 11th November. An extra
brigade division of artillery (three batteries horse
artillery) was added on 20th November.
"The embarkation of this 5th division began on 24th November,
and was completed on 13th December. That of the three
batteries horse artillery took place between 19th and 21st
December.
"24. Orders were given for the mobilisation of a 6th infantry
division on 2nd December, _i.e._, as soon as the embarkation
of the 5th division was well under way. Mobilisation began on
4th December, and was completed by 11th December. All
combatant units were embarked between 16th December and 1st
January, 1900.
"25. The order to mobilise the 7th infantry division was
issued on 16th December. Mobilisation began on the 18th, and
was completed on 27th December.
"Embarkation began on 3rd January, and was completed on 18th
January.
"26. Meanwhile, on 16th and 22nd December, it had been
decided to mobilise and prepare for embarkation four
additional brigade divisions (twelve batteries) of field
artillery, one brigade division being armed with howitzers.
These were all embarked between 21st January and 27th
January, 1900.
"28. The order to mobilise an additional brigade of cavalry
(the 4th cavalry brigade) was issued on 26th December.
Mobilisation began on 28th December, and was completed on 2nd
January, 1900.
"The embarkation of this brigade was held back pending the
arrival of Lord Roberts in South Africa, and the receipt of a
communication from him.
"Embarkation began on 8th February, and was completed on 17th
February.
"29. Orders were issued for the mobilisation of the 8th
infantry division on 19th January, 1900. Mobilisation began
on 20th January. Embarkation began on 12th March, and the
last unit embarked on 18th April, 1900.
"30. With the despatch of the 8th division, the last
organised and mobilised regular formation left this country,
and the work of the Mobilisation sub-division, in connection
with the despatch of reinforcements to South Africa, came to
an end."
The executive work of organising, equipping, and despatching
drafts of Militia, Volunteers, and Imperial Yeomanry was
carried out entirely by the Adjutant-General,
Quartermaster-General, and Director-General of Ordnance.]
[Sidenote: Smooth working.]
[Sidenote: Inadequate reserve.]
The machinery of the Mobilisation sub-division was equal to the task
and continued to work smoothly, while the Adjutant-General's
department was enabled, with little difficulty, to find men to
complete units on mobilisation.[8] All these units were brought up to
their establishment from their own regimental reserves. In order to
keep them up to their strength it was estimated that it would be
necessary to send out a series of drafts, calculated on a basis of 10
per cent. for every three months.[9] This was the system which was put
into operation from the first, and subsequently adhered to as far as
possible, drafts being detailed from regimental reserves. It was,
however, soon found necessary to introduce modifications in accordance
with the wastage which varied in the different arms, as well as in the
different units.[10] In addition to the regular stream of drafts,
special drafts had occasionally to be sent out to make good instances
of abnormal loss. Especially was this the case with infantry
battalions.[11] Consequently, the regimental reserves of some units
were exhausted before those of others, and it became necessary to draw
on the reserves of other corps which had more than they required,
their militia reserves being selected for the purpose. By the time
the war had lasted a year the equivalents of five drafts on the 10 per
cent. basis had left England. But a limit had been reached. "By the
end of a year's campaigning our infantry reserves proper, including
the now non-existent militia reserve, were exhausted, a point which
was emphasised by Lord Lansdowne in the following words in his minute
of 2nd June, 1900....:
"'Two points stand out clearly: (1) That in future campaigns we must
expect demands on a vast scale for infantry drafts; (2) that our
reserve is not large enough and must be increased.'"[12]
[Footnote 8: Some difficulty was experienced in finding
certain specialists, such as farriers, &c.]
[Footnote 9: Of this original force from England, all cavalry
and artillery units and eleven infantry battalions went out
with a "war establishment, plus excess numbers," which were
calculated at 10 per cent. to make good casualties for the
first three months. It was decided to adopt this standard in
all cases.]
[Footnote 10: The reserve of the artillery fell short almost
at once, whereas the entire reserves of the cavalry were not
called out until the end of February, 1901.]
[Footnote 11: For one battalion alone, the 2nd battalion
Royal Irish Rifles, 1,831 duly qualified soldiers left
England in six months, without having to draw on any reserves
outside its own corps.]
[Footnote 12: Memorandum on Drafts prepared in the
Adjutant-General's department, 30th September, 1902. See
Appendix volume, Royal Commission, p. 86.]
Short service had made it possible to build up a reserve substantial
enough to minister to the unprecedented requirements of the regular
army for a year. Without it, the end of our resources in trained men
would have been reached at a very early stage.
[Sidenote: Borrowing, with results.]
One difficulty arose. Staffs of many formations, such as those of
mounted infantry, ammunition columns and medical field units, did not
exist. The completion of these new creations for the original field
force necessitated the borrowing of officers and men from other
bodies, which, as was supposed at that time, would not be mobilised.
As the strain continually grew more severe it was found necessary to
mobilise successive divisions and additional batteries. Then, not only
had the loans to be made good to those depleted, but nearly the whole
of the personnel had to be found for the further number of fresh
organisms which were called into existence. This could only be done by
yet more borrowing. The difficulty, therefore, progressively
increased. More particularly was this the case with the ammunition
columns, the creation of which, together with the additional batteries
of artillery, caused a drain on artillery reservists, which resulted
in their being absorbed more quickly than those of the other branches
of the service.[13] All these special bodies, though essential for
war, were outside the peace establishment of the army. It became,
therefore, necessary to call out "the whole of the remainder of the
Army Reserve, in order to be able to utilise the services of
reservists belonging to Section D., none of whom could, by law, be
called out until all the reservists of all arms, in Sections A. B. and
C. had been called up."[14] This was done by special Army Order on
December 20th, 1899.[15]
[Footnote 13: The experiences of a particular battery, Royal
Field artillery, afford an illustration of the consequences
detailed above. From this battery, by the end of November,
1899, there had been drafted off to staff, service batteries,
ammunition columns, or excess numbers, the captain, the
senior subaltern (the only one who had had four months'
service in field artillery), five sergeants, one corporal,
one bombardier, four shoeing smiths, two trumpeters, the
wheeler, six gunners and five drivers. In December, 1899, the
battery commander, with the whole of one sub-division, was
taken away as the nucleus of a new battery to be formed. Ten
days after this the mobilisation of the battery was ordered.
Rather more than 50 per cent. of the battery when mobilised
were men of Section D. of the Reserve, of whom about half had
seen the gun which they were to work, while none had seen it
fired.]
[Footnote 14: Statement of the Mobilisation sub-division.]
[Footnote 15: The effect of this, as regards the cavalry, was
that some 2,000 reservists, over and above immediate
requirements, were prematurely placed at the disposal of the
department.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Stanhope's two corps exceeded.]
There was little breathing time between the successive embarkations of
the mobilised divisions from the commencement on 20th October, 1899,
to the completion on 18th April, 1900, with the result that in the
space of six months more than the equivalent of the two army corps and
the cavalry division, laid down in Mr. Stanhope's memorandum as that
which we should be prepared to send abroad in case of necessity, had
left our shores. By the despatch of these troops, followed by later
demands for reinforcements, our organised field army was practically
exhausted, and home defence, "the primary duty" of the whole army, was
enfeebled to a dangerous degree. In place of the army corps, "partly
composed of regulars and partly of Militia," required by the
memorandum, there remained for home service a few regular troops, some
hastily formed "Reserve Battalions," and such of the embodied Militia,
the Yeomanry, and the Volunteers, as had not already gone abroad--all
being for the most part unorganised, partially trained, and not fully
equipped.
[Sidenote: Demand exceeds supply of units.]
Mr. Stanhope's view of the "improbable probability"[16] of the
employment of "an army corps in the field in any European war"--and if
not in Europe, then where else?--certainly not in South Africa--had
had its effect. In respect of numbers, it imposed a limit on the
powers of preparation; and the condition of affairs was precisely
expressed by the following sentence: "The war conclusively proved,
therefore, that Mr. Stanhope's memorandum did not make sufficient
allowance for the general needs of the Empire."[17]
[Footnote 16: "... But it will be distinctly understood that
the probability of employment of an army corps in the field
in any European war is sufficiently improbable to make it the
primary duty of the military authorities to organise our
forces efficiently for the defence of their country."--Mr.
Stanhope's memorandum. See pp. 5, 6.]
[Footnote 17: Extract from note placed before the Royal
Commission by Lieutenant-General Sir William Nicholson. A.
18,245.]
_Intelligence and Maps._
Whatever interpretation might be placed as between the Governments on
the accumulation of warlike stores in the Transvaal and Free State, it
had been obviously the duty of the Intelligence department of the War
Office to watch these as closely as the prevailing conditions
permitted. This had been done ever since 1896, when the
Commander-in-Chief had directed the department to undertake the
investigation. The material thus obtained was collated in June, 1898,
in the form of a handbook, entitled, "Military Notes on the Dutch
Republics of South Africa," which set forth in a concise form the
military strength, armament, organisation and tactics of the Boer
army. A revised edition of this book was issued in June, 1899. Other
handbooks, containing special reconnaissances executed in the more
important strategical localities of South Africa, and summaries of
information as to the various states and colonies, were also prepared
with a view to the possibility of active operations. The Royal
Commission on the South African War was able to pronounce in its
Report (paragraph 257) that the information contained in these
handbooks, as well as in a "valuable" series of memoranda extending
over several years, was in many respects remarkably accurate.
[Sidenote: Maps--Transvaal and Free State.]
Adequate military maps of the vast theatre over which the operations
of the 1899-1902 war subsequently spread could only have been produced
by the employment for many years of a large survey staff. The
production of correct maps of the Transvaal and Free State on a scale
of four miles to the inch would alone have taken five years to
complete, and would have cost £100,000. The state of tension existing
between Great Britain and the two republics in the years immediately
preceding the war rendered it impossible to undertake any serious work
of this description within those States.
[Sidenote: Maps--Cape and Natal.]
As regards the Cape Colony and Natal, the survey of all self-governing
colonies has been, and still is, regarded by the Imperial Government
as a matter for the Colonial Governments. The survey of Cape Colony
alone on a scale large enough for tactical purposes would have cost
£150,000, and it would have been perfectly useless to ask the Treasury
to sanction the provision of any such sum. A map, on a scale of twelve
and a half miles to an inch, had been produced by the Survey
department of the Cape Government, covering Cape Colony, Natal, Orange
Free State, and part of the Transvaal, and arrangements were made with
the Colonial Government for supplies of this for issue to the troops
on the outbreak of war. Of the northern parts of Natal two military
maps, produced during the previous wars on a scale of four miles and
one mile to an inch were available. But, though copies of one of these
maps were subsequently reproduced by the Boers and used by them in
their operations on the Tugela, it was well known that they were not
accurate and had not been corrected up to date. By arrangement,
therefore, with the Natal Government and at their expense, the
Director of Military Intelligence sent Major S. C. N. Grant, R.E.,
from England, in 1896, to execute a more careful reconnaissance of the
portion of Natal north of Ladysmith. Recognising that the map thus
produced might prove insufficient, Sir J. Ardagh, in 1897, urged
personally on the Right Hon. H. Escombe, the Prime Minister of Natal,
the importance of continuing this survey, and the latter promised to
endeavour to make such arrangements as he could, although he stated
that political considerations rendered it difficult for him to ask the
Natal Parliament to provide funds for a survey of the colony avowedly
for military purposes. Sir H. Escombe's Ministry subsequently went out
of office, and the only map of Natal existing at the outbreak of war,
besides those above referred to, was one on a scale of five miles to
an inch prepared locally for educational purposes.
[Sidenote: Intelligence map and Jeppe's.]
For the Transvaal and Orange Free State the compilation, from all the
material available, of a map on a scale 1-250,000 was commenced in
January, 1899, by the Intelligence division; twelve sheets were
completed and issued before October, 1899, and the remainder shortly
afterwards. In the same year a map of the Transvaal, compiled by C.
Jeppe from farm surveys, was produced under the auspices of the
Government of that State. A limited number of copies of this map were
obtained by the Intelligence division and issued on the outbreak of
war to the higher staffs. Subsequently in January, 1900, Colonel G. F.
R. Henderson, Lord Roberts' Director of Military Intelligence, was
fortunate enough to seize at Capetown a thousand copies of this
survey, and maps were compiled from them by the Field Intelligence
department. These proved of great service in the advance northward.
[Sidenote: A large question.]
The provision of maps for the many possible theatres of war in which
British troops may be employed is a difficult question. In the present
case the above statement will account for the fact that the maps
provided by the War Office at the outbreak of the South African war
were pronounced by the Royal Commission on that war to have been,
"with perhaps one exception, very incomplete and unreliable"
(paragraph 261).
* * * * *
These matters preparatory to the war were not, in the ordinary work of
the departments, separated by any distinct break from the routine
necessary after hostilities had begun.
_The Distribution of responsibility_ between the several offices in
regard to the despatch of an army to the field was as follows. The
Adjutant-General's department was charged with all that affected the
actual personnel--the flesh and blood--in such matters as the necessary
qualifications of age or service, the completion of cadres with
specialists, and the maintenance of recruiting. It was the province of
the Military Secretary's department of the Commander-in-Chief's office
to select the staffs and allot the commands. The provision of equipment,
clothing, and ordnance supplies was the duty of the Director-General of
Ordnance; with the Quartermaster-General rested the provision of animals
to complete the war establishment, supplies of food, and, in conjunction
with the Admiralty, arrangements for sea transport. The two departments
of the Director-General and Quartermaster-General, long before the final
sanction was given, had worked out on paper the details of future
requirements.
[Sidenote: Personal action at War Office.]
Apart from those proposals of the Commander-in-Chief to which it had not
been possible for Her Majesty's Government to accede, for the reason
already given, the several officers at Headquarters had done what they
could to make for possible future events such preparation as did not
involve expenditure. Sir Evelyn Wood, both as Quartermaster-General and
as Adjutant-General, carried on a vigorous private correspondence with
the several General Officers Commanding at the Cape, and it was at his
instance that as early as the autumn of 1896 contracts were made with
Messrs. Weil, who had complete command of the Cape market, for the
supply of horses, mules, and wagons at short notice when called for. He
sent for one of the firm to come to England, but a decision was given in
the spring of 1897 against immediate action. In April, 1898, he again
asked that the whole subject, both of transport and of the despatch of
cavalry and artillery to South Africa, should be taken up. Moreover, in
1897, he had pressed for horse-fittings for shipping, fearing the
trouble in this matter, which subsequently actually occurred. On taking
over the duties of Adjutant-General on October 1st, 1897, he, in view of
the extensive territory lately acquired in Rhodesia, proposed the
addition of 9,000 infantry to the army. The Commander-in-Chief, in
forwarding this memorandum, added to his request an additional 4,000
men beyond what Sir E. Wood had recommended. As late as February, 1898,
the transport, necessary to make the troops in South Africa fit to take
the field, was refused, though pressed for by the Commander-in-Chief, in
consequence of a private letter to Sir E. Wood, which showed Sir A.
Milner's anxiety on the subject. To suppress a small rebel Basuto chief
it would have required a month to get transport ready. At a time when a
man so intimate with South African affairs as Mr. Rhodes was deriding
all fears of Boer power, war was not believed to be imminent, and the
long habit of saving the public purse during peace time was operative
against expenditure, which would not be needed if there were no war and
no need for suppressing Basuto rebels. The same cause had delayed till
April, 1897, the necessary supply of horses to infantry regiments, at
which date £36,000 was granted for this purpose. Both these horses and
the training of mounted infantry at home had been repeatedly asked for
by Sir Evelyn Wood as Quartermaster-General, by Sir Redvers Buller as
Adjutant-General, and by Lord Wolseley as Commander-in-Chief.
_Equipment and Transport._
From the great variety of countries and climates, in which it has been
the fate of the British army to be engaged for the last hundred years
or more, it has always been impossible to foresee what the particular
equipment required for any given expedition would be.[18] To keep up
permanently all the transport animals and the large reserves of food
supplies needed for both animals and men would have been wasteful
extravagance. In one campaign, only human porterage had been possible;
in another, only transport by river boats; in another, it had been
necessary to rely chiefly on camels; in another, on the development of
canal and railway communication. Therefore, much time is always needed
before it is possible so to prepare a British army that it is ready to
wage war. An army is as little able to march till it is supplied with
the necessary transport as a man would be without proper shoes, or a
cavalryman without his horse. For such a war as was in prospect in
South Africa, ranging possibly over tens of thousands of square miles,
immense quantities, both of animals and vehicles, would be needed. A
considerable proportion of these could no doubt be procured in the
country itself, but from the numbers required it was necessary to
extend our purchases over almost all the civilised world. This was
another of the cases in which the necessity not to provoke war tended
to prevent preparations for war.
[Footnote 18: See also Chapter V.]
[Sidenote: Land transport S.A.]
The question of land transport, on which so much of the conduct of a
campaign must depend, was one of the highest importance. The nature of
the South African country, and the absence of roads, rendered it
necessary that transport vehicles, intended for horse-draught, should
be adapted for draught by animals suitable to the country and likely
to be obtainable--namely, oxen and mules. The form of the wagons in
use had been settled twenty years before on South African experience,
by a committee consisting of Sir Redvers Buller and Colonel H. S. E.
Reeves, but the South African brake, not being convenient for home
service, was no longer used, so that this had to be supplied.
Moreover, it was necessary to convert the carriages to pole draught
for mule traction. The Director-General of Ordnance[19] asked, on July
26th, 1899, for authority to carry out this change, involving an
outlay of £17,650, but at this time, for reasons already given,
sanction was refused to any expenditure on preparations for
despatching an army to South Africa.
[Footnote 19: General Sir H. Brackenbury.]
"On the 1st September the Director-General of Ordnance again asked for
authority. On the 5th September, in putting forward a schedule of
requirements, he pointed out that this service would take ten weeks,
and said the sanction of those items should be given at once, on
account of the time required to manufacture and obtain them, and that
if put off till the force is ordered to mobilise it would be
impossible to guarantee their being ready in time."[20]
[Footnote 20: Extract from Minute by the Director-General of
Ordnance to the Commander-in-Chief, dated October 10th. See
Vol. I. Minutes of Evidence, Royal Commission, p. 76.]
[Sidenote: Delay.]
In the still existing circumstances, neither the importance of the
demand, nor the smallness of the sum asked, saved the requisition from
sharing the fate of others, and authority for the expenditure was not
received until the partial grant of September 22nd.[21] Once begun,
the work was actually carried out in sixteen days less than the
estimated time, but the delay was sufficient to prevent sixteen or
more units from being accompanied by the vehicles of their regimental
transport.[22]
[Footnote 21: See p. 6.]
[Footnote 22: Water carts and ammunition carts.]
[Sidenote: Q.M.G. provides vehicles.]
Early in September an arrangement had been come to between the
Director-General of Ordnance (who, under normal conditions, was
responsible for the provision of all transport vehicles and harness)
and the Quartermaster-General, whereby the latter undertook the
furnishing of transport wagons and harness for supply trains and
parks. This in fact was carried out in South Africa.
[Sidenote: Q.M.G. and supplies.]
The Quartermaster-General, in response to demands from the General
Officer Commanding in South Africa, had sent two months' reserve
supplies from time to time since the beginning of June for the troops
already there. On receipt of the authority of September 22nd, one
month's reserves for 50,000 men, 12,000 horses and 15,000 mules were
ordered, and these were shipped by October 30th. Further expenditure
was sanctioned on September 29th. Another month's supplies for the
same numbers were therefore ordered to be despatched about November
18th. The provision of such quantities took time and, in consequence
of the delay in obtaining sanction for expenditure, the
Quartermaster-General was hard pressed in furnishing the supplies
early enough, but succeeded in doing so.
_Remount Department._
The provision of horses and mules to complete the war establishment
for mounted units was one function of the Quartermaster-General. The
Inspector-General of Remounts was charged, under him, with the detail
work connected therewith. As far back as 1887 a system of registration
of horses had been established in order to form a reserve to meet a
national emergency. With the aid of this reserve, it was calculated
that horses could be provided in sufficient numbers to complete the
mobilisation of the force laid down in Mr. Stanhope's memorandum and
to make good the wastage of the first six months. The number estimated
for these purposes was 25,000.[23] No difficulty, it was thought,
would be experienced in obtaining this number and, with the supply for
six months' wastage in hand, time would be available to arrange for
meeting further demands if they arose.
[Footnote 23: "On mobilisation being ordered, horses to the
number of 3,682 were bought from the registered reserve, the
remainder required being obtained in the open market, and all
units received their full complement with 10 per cent. of
spare horses. No units were delayed for want of horses."
(Court of Inquiry, Remount department, 5,344-5).
The number of horses actually purchased from the registered
reserve, and in the open market at home, amounted to 73,000
by the end of 1901.]
[Sidenote: Purchase of mules and horses.]
Transport mules would in any case have to be purchased abroad and
records were preserved of the resources of different mule-producing
countries; but there had been no expectation of having to supplement,
to any extent, the home supply of horses. The Inspector-General of
Remounts had personal experience of horse purchase in Argentina, and
the success which had attended his transactions there, coupled with
his knowledge of the market, led him to believe that there would be no
difficulty in obtaining from that country a supply of good and
suitable horses, sufficient to meet any demand that might be
reasonably expected.[24] Information regarding the horse markets of
other countries did not go beyond such personal knowledge as a few
individuals in the department happened to possess. So enormous did
demands eventually become, that it is open to question whether, had
all possible information been at command, there existed for sale
anywhere a sufficient number of horses of the right age and stamp,
trained to saddle and in condition, to furnish the numbers
required.[25] Purchases of horses were, indeed, made in South Africa
before the war, under the orders of the General Officer Commanding in
that country. This was done as a mere matter of local convenience, not
as a preparation for war. Furthermore, in the middle of September
financial approval was given for the purchase "of 260 Australian
horses to replace the next year's casualties."[26] Illusions as to the
sufficiency of the home supply were speedily dispelled by the
unforeseen conditions accompanying the transition from peace to war.
Not only was the Remount department required to provide horses and
mules for a far larger British army than had ever before taken the
field, but that army was operating at an immense distance from its
base over a larger extent of country than any over which a British
army had ever before been called upon to act. Besides this, no force
previously sent into the field by any nation has included in its
composition such a large proportion of mounted men. Consequently, the
demands on the Remount department were of unprecedented magnitude.[27]
[Footnote 24: A proposal to send 700 Argentine horses and
mules "to acclimatise, anticipating next year's casualties,"
was sent to the General Officer Commanding S. Africa, in
April, 1899.--Tel. Q.M.G. to G.O.C., S.A., 28th April. (S.A.
Series No. 3.)]
[Footnote 25: The total number of animals furnished by the
Remount department up to August, 1902, was as follows:--
+-----------------------+-------------------+----------+
| Horses. | | |
+------------+----------+ Mules and Donkeys.| Total. |
| With units.| Remounts.| | |
+------------+----------+-------------------+----------+
| 20,251 | 450,223 | 149,648 | 620,122 |
+------------+----------+-------------------+----------+]
[Footnote 26: Court of Enquiry on Army Remounts. Q. 8,
Minutes of Evidence.]
[Footnote 27: Court of Enquiry on Army Remounts. Report,
Para. 234.]
[Sidenote: Absence of depôts.]
What contributed not a little to these demands was the absence of
preparation in South Africa in establishing beforehand depôts from
which a regular supply could be maintained, and in which imported
animals could rest after the voyage and become to a certain extent
acclimatised before they were used in the field.
[Sidenote: Partial provision of depôts.]
In June, 1899, the Inspector-General had represented the necessity of
sending out a proper remount establishment to receive animals, and a
supervising staff. This proposal was only adopted to the extent that,
on June 22nd, sanction was given for an Assistant-Inspector of
Remounts, accompanied by a small staff, to go to South Africa. In
August, 1899, approval was given for the retention of the existing
depôt at Stellenbosch as a temporary measure, while on the Natal side
"the present depôt" was reported by the Officer Commanding troops as
being "sufficient for all that the War Office had sanctioned."[28]
[Footnote 28: Telegram General Officer Commanding South
Africa, to Secretary of State, 3rd September. (South African
Series, No. 200.)]
[Sidenote: Mules and oxen.]
Estimates of the number of mules which would be required to be
purchased abroad for regimental transport had been worked out in June.
A limited number had already been obtained in South Africa, and before
the war broke out the General Officer Commanding there had entered
into contracts for the supply of 1,470 additional animals. This met
the immediate necessity, and the subsequent purchases from all parts
of the world enabled every unit landing in Cape Colony to be
completely equipped with regimental transport when it reached its
concentration station.[29] In Natal ox-transport was principally used
as being more suitable for the country.
[Footnote 29: There were three concentration stations in the
Cape Colony, viz.: De Aar, Naauwpoort and Queenstown.]
[Sidenote: Animals from abroad.]
In order to supplement this supply and "with a view to possible
contingencies, about the middle of July, 1899, commissions of
officers, to make preliminary enquiries, were sent to the United
States of America, to Spain and to Italy."[30] In order that these
preparations, indispensable if war was declared, should not tend to
excite war, the Secretary of State had given instructions that these
officers should not attract attention to their mission. They were not
allowed to make any purchases until they received instructions. These
were telegraphed on 23rd September, 1899, authorising the buying of
1,000 in Spain, 3,000 in Italy, and 4,000 at New Orleans.
[Footnote 30: Report, Court of Inquiry, Remount department,
p. 3, para. 12.]
[Sidenote: Ships for mules.]
The conveyance of mules (but not horses) from ports abroad was carried
out by the Admiralty, and some difficulty was experienced at first in
chartering ships suitable for the purpose. The first ship-load did not
arrive in South Africa until 8th November. Mules for troops from India
were shipped under arrangements made by the Indian Government in
conjunction with the Admiralty Transport Officer.
[Sidenote: Demands fully met.]
The department succeeded in furnishing, and even in exceeding, the
numbers demanded from time to time. It had undertaken the transport of
horses purchased abroad, an arrangement which, while relieving the
Admiralty, caused no competition, as a different class of ship was
required. Horses and mules purchased in various countries were poured
into South Africa. They were used up almost as soon as they arrived.
[Sidenote: Difficulties of Remount department.]
There was no arrangement made for easy and rapid expansion. "The
Inspector-General of Remounts could do no more with the organisation
with which he was furnished; his functions were strictly limited, and
his staff even more so. It was inevitable that when a department so
equipped, and with no provision for expansion, was called upon to
extend its operations largely, there must be some lack of system."[31]
In addition to these difficulties, the department had to face others.
It was from the first made the object of attacks in the Press and in
Parliament. It was scarcely possible that the circumstances as here
recorded should be understood. To the labours of the officials,
already worked to breaking strain, was added the duty of preparing
constant written explanations of their actions, and this to an extent
that seriously interfered with the despatch of their current business.
[Footnote 31: Report of Royal Commission, Para. 187.]
_Army Service Corps._
There was no difficulty in bringing the personnel of the transport
companies and supply detachments of the Army Service Corps up to the
war establishment laid down for them. Yet the total strength of the
corps, with its reserves called up, was far below what was required to
meet the calls which were eventually made on it. "After withdrawing
nearly every officer of the corps from England and stations abroad it
was necessary to employ in South Africa 126 additional officers of
other corps up to June, 1900, which number was increased to nearly 250
later on in the war. To replace officers in England and stations
abroad, 98 retired and reserve officers were employed. The transport
personnel (non-commissioned officers and artificers) of the companies
in South Africa, when they were subsequently divided into two, was
hardly sufficient to carry on the work, but a large number of
promotions were made to fill up the deficiencies. With the supply
branch in South Africa, 364 civilians were engaged as clerks, bakers,
and issuers, and civilians were employed at every station at home to
take the place of Army Service Corps clerks."[32]
[Footnote 32: Statement of Quartermaster-General, 23rd
September, 1902.]
[Sidenote: Local Drivers relieve A.S.C.]
On the other hand, the nature of the transport in South Africa
rendered the employment of native mule and ox drivers almost
imperative. A surplus of Army Service Corps drivers was thus created
sufficient to enable 600 to be lent to the Royal artillery, leaving
enough to be retained for duty at home and abroad. The duties of four
remount depôts in Cape Colony and one in Natal were also carried out
by the Army Service Corps during the first part of the war until
relieved by remount depôts from England and India.
[Sidenote: Early despatch of A.S.C.]
A notable feature in connection with the Army Service Corps was its
employment, before the outbreak of hostilities, in a rôle that was
essentially preparatory. For the first time in the history of the
corps, transport companies and supply detachments were sent in advance
of the troops whom they were to serve, and prepared the way for them.
With the despatch of two companies in July to make good the transport
of the existing force in South Africa, five officers also proceeded to
South Africa to assist in organising the supply and transport duties
in the event of a large force being sent out.[33] Further embarkations
took place in September and October, and the remainder of the Army
Service Corps units, detailed for duty with the army corps, embarked
before war had actually been declared, and before any of the troops of
the army corps had sailed. The advantages attending these measures
were that not only did all units on arriving at their concentration
stations in South Africa find their transport ready for them, but the
transport and supply services generally were organised and in working
order for their share of the operations.
[Footnote 33: The General Officer Commanding South Africa had
applied for special service officers acquainted with "B."
duties.]
_Royal Army Medical Corps._
In respect of preparations, even up to the two army corps standard,
the Royal Army Medical Corps was weak in numbers. Barely sufficient in
its personnel even for peace requirements, it possessed no
organisation for expansion in war. The establishment of officers was
designed to provide for the bearer companies and field hospitals of
two army corps and a cavalry division, with seven stationary and three
general hospitals on the lines of communication. This only allowed for
under 3 per cent. of the troops having beds in general and stationary
hospitals. Without withdrawing officers from the colonies,[34] the aid
of 99 civil surgeons would be required. These gentlemen were to be
selected when their services were needed, but as there was no
registered list, no claim on the service of anyone could be exacted.
When the field army was provided for, the home hospitals were entirely
denuded of personnel. The work was carried on by retired officers and
civil surgeons. The establishment of non-commissioned officers and men
was designed only for peace purposes, and beyond the reserve there was
no estimate for additions in case of war. A state of war was to be met
by civilian assistance, increased employment of women nurses, and
active recruiting. An increase of establishment which had been
proposed for the estimates of 1893-4 and successive years had
gradually obtained complete sanction by 1898.[35] The increase of the
army as a whole and the known weakness in South Africa caused demands
for yet larger numbers in the estimates of 1899-1900. The Army Board
were not disposed to recommend more than a portion of these
additions.[36] The difficulty of obtaining sanction for expenditure on
measures of greater urgency required that that which was considered of
less importance should be dispensed with, so the hospital orderly had
to be rejected in favour of the soldier to fill the ranks. To provide
the general and stationary hospitals that accompanied the First Army
Corps with complete personnel, it became necessary to denude the
bearer companies and field hospitals of the Second Army Corps. It is
not surprising, therefore, that "war having been declared, and
practically the whole available personnel having been swept off to
South Africa with the first demands, it became necessary to seek for
other means of supply."[37] Hospital equipment was dealt with by the
Director-General of Ordnance, but with surgical and medical stores the
Army Medical Department was itself concerned. Funds to replace the
old-fashioned instruments then in use were asked for in 1896, and
between that date and the outbreak of war great improvements had been
made. The change, however, had not been universally completed, and on
the outbreak of war a few instruments of comparatively antiquated type
were still to be found in South Africa. A similar argument to that
which prevailed against the increase of personnel met the several
requests for storage room. It was represented that the indifferent
storage available deteriorated the instruments and made the drugs
worthless. On the other hand, the perishable nature of drugs renders
it inadvisable to keep a large amount in store, besides which, ample
supplies can always be purchased in the market. The subsequent
experience went to prove that there was no difficulty in this matter.
Throughout the war the department was wonderfully well equipped as
regards drugs and instruments, and no branch was more successful than
that concerned with medical supplies.
[Footnote 34: The establishment for India is distinct.]
[Footnote 35: An increase of 212 was asked for, and was
obtained by successive grants of 54, 53, 52 and 55--total,
214.]
[Footnote 36: The estimate was for 400 of all ranks, and 150
were granted. The balance was granted in November, 1899, and
the men were of course untrained.]
[Footnote 37: Statement by Surgeon-General Jameson, Royal
Commission on South African Hospitals.]
_Army Veterinary Department._
On the outbreak of war the Director-General of the Army Veterinary
department was responsible to the Adjutant-General for the efficiency of
his department and the maintenance of veterinary supplies. The superior
control was subsequently transferred to the Quartermaster-General. The
proportion of the veterinary service which should accompany a force on
active service was not laid down. Not only was there no organisation to
admit of expansion but, owing to the unattractive conditions attaching
to service in the department, the number of officers was actually below
the authorised establishment. In addition to the discharge of ordinary
duty, heavy demands were made by the Remount department for veterinary
officers to assist in the purchase and transport of horses and mules. It
was necessary, therefore, almost from the first, to engage civilian
veterinary surgeons.[38] The personnel of the department did not include
any subordinate staff. The Director-General[39] of the department was in
process of adopting, with improvements, the Indian system of equipment,
for which he had himself been responsible. The amount of this equipment
which it had been possible to prepare before the outbreak of war was
insufficient, but the deficiency was remedied by indenting on India for
four field veterinary hospitals and 100 field chests, which enabled the
supply to be kept up to the subsequent demands.
[Footnote 38: The home establishment of the department was
63; 121 civilian veterinary surgeons were employed in South
Africa, besides those engaged by local Volunteers.]
[Footnote 39: Veterinary Colonel F. Duck, C.B., F.R.C.V.S.]
_Inspector-General of Fortifications._
This officer was responsible for engineer stores. The nature of those
required depends largely on the country in which the campaign is to be
carried on; therefore, practically no reserve was maintained of such
ordinary items as can easily be bought in the market. Of manufactured
goods, such as railway plant, telegraph material and pontoons, which
require time for production, there was an insufficient reserve,
notably of the last named. In order to send out a number sufficient to
meet the probable requirements in South Africa, all reserve pontoons,
including some of questionable value, were collected, and the country
was denuded. This deficiency had been represented on different
occasions, but for want of funds nothing could be done towards the
provision of new pontoons until October, 1899.
_Ordnance._
Of all the departments, this was subjected to the greatest strain and
was the least prepared to meet it. The reasons were as follows. For
some years previous to 1897 the system in force was that, although the
Director-General of Ordnance was charged with the supply of stores to
the army, the financial control and the entire direction of the
ordnance factories rested with the Financial Secretary to the War
Office, who belonged to the Ministry of the day. No supplies could be
obtained by the former unless with the permission and by the order of
the latter. The system conduced to a lack of sympathy of motive, which
caused a disinclination on the one part to ask for what on the other
there would be more than a disinclination to give. This tended to
crystallise the national proneness to defer until the emergency arose
the measures necessary to meet it. It followed, then, that while
attention was given to the needs of the moment, practically all
provision for the requirements of the future was relegated to the
background. A further defect in the system was that it resulted in
there being no proper understanding between those who had intimate
knowledge of what was required by the army and those who were
responsible for manufacture.
[Sidenote: Sir Henry Brackenbury's appointment.]
During the three years that Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Brackenbury
had been President of the Ordnance Committee at Woolwich he had been
impressed by the unsatisfactory working of the system and, on being
offered the appointment of Director-General of Ordnance, in November,
1898, he urged that the direction of the ordnance factories should be
transferred to the holder of that appointment. The matter was
discussed by the Cabinet and, on its being decided to make the
transfer, Sir H. Brackenbury took up the appointment in February,
1899. The transfer was effected by the Order in Council of March 7th,
1899, which enumerated the duties with which the Director-General of
Ordnance was charged,[40] and included in them that of the direction
of the manufacturing departments of the army. The financial control of
the factories still remained with the Financial Secretary.
[Footnote 40: The duties are detailed in Sir Henry
Brackenbury's reply to the Royal Commission, A. 1,555.]
[Sidenote: State of ordnance stores.]
The Secretary of State himself had felt some concern as to the
condition of affairs in the Ordnance department and it was on his
initiative that Sir Henry Brackenbury was selected to set matters
right. On taking up the duties of Director-General of Ordnance, the
new chief commenced an enquiry into the condition of the armament and
the state of reserves of all ordnance stores. In the early months of
the year the greater part of his time and attention was taken up by
the important question of replacing the obsolete armament of our sea
defences. From June onwards the whole energies of the department were
directed towards meeting the requirements of the force which might
possibly have to take the field. It was not until the despatch of this
force that the true barrenness of the land came to be revealed, and
melancholy was the outlook it presented.
[Sidenote: Warning to G.Os.C.]
Early in 1899 the Director-General of Ordnance issued confidential
instructions to General Officers Commanding districts regarding
special scales of clothing and equipment for the field force
contemplated for service in South Africa. These instructions enabled
demands to be prepared, so that they could be put forward without
delay on the order to mobilise.
[Sidenote: Method of keeping equipment.]
Wherever storage buildings were available the war equipment of units
was kept on their charge. In other cases it was apportioned to units
but held in store for them by the Ordnance department. When
mobilisation was ordered, there was war equipment practically complete
to enable two army corps, a cavalry division, and lines of
communication troops to take the field.
[Sidenote: Clothing.]
The special clothing prescribed for South Africa entailed an entire
change of dress--helmet, body-clothing, and boots. Sanction had been
given in April, 1899, for the storage of a reserve of khaki drill
suits,[41] of which the amount authorised would have been insufficient,
but fortunately the Clothing department had a surplus which enabled a
complete issue to be made on mobilisation. It had been represented from
South Africa, with the support of the Director-General of the Army
Medical Service at home, that serge was more appropriate to the climate
than cotton drill, and the substitution had been approved by the
Commander-in-Chief on August 18th. No steps towards effecting the change
could be taken until the grant of September 22nd, and the first three
divisions embarked with cotton drill clothing.[42] It is probable,
however, that even had the money been forthcoming when the change was
first approved, not more than half the amount required could have been
obtained in the time. One difficulty experienced in connection with the
issue of clothing was that of providing each unit with the right number
of suits of particular sizes. Many of the reservists who presented
themselves on mobilisation were found to have increased considerably in
figure, and consequently much fitting and alteration was necessary. This
caused delay. At that time the boot for foreign service differed in
pattern from that for home service, and an issue of the former was made.
The supply on hand was only sufficient to allow a complete issue to men
of the mounted services, while dismounted soldiers had one pair of each
pattern, reservists having home service pattern entirely. The sudden
demand on the market for the materials necessary for these articles of
clothing entailed a considerable increase of cost, without, at the
outset at least, ensuring provision of the best quality.
[Footnote 41: This reserve consisted of 40,000 suits; the
number actually issued was sufficient to equip the force
completely.]
[Footnote 42: At the time of year this was suitable, and
serge clothing was eventually sent out. Troops subsequently,
up to May, 1900, took one suit of drill and one suit of
serge. Later each man took two suits of serge.]
[Sidenote: War equipment.]
At the outbreak of war the authorised war equipment was practically
complete, and there remained the equipment for a third army corps,
but suitable only for service at home. Beyond this, there was no
provision of special reserves to meet the continual drain by service
in the field abroad. Such reserve material as there was for batteries
of both horse and field artillery was speedily exhausted; while to
provide heavier ordnance it was necessary to draw upon the movable
armament for home defence. More speedy still was the exhaustion of gun
ammunition, and not even the suspension of Naval orders in the
factories, with loans from the Navy and from India, could enable
demands to be complied with quickly enough. Similarly, the
deficiencies in other stores, such as camp equipment, vehicles,
harness, saddlery and horse-shoes, made themselves apparent at a very
early date in the war.[43]
[Footnote 43: In the matter of hospital equipment previous to
mobilisation there had been stores for field hospitals of
three army corps; but there was no reserve of equipment for
stationary hospitals or general hospitals, except for one
general hospital and two stationary hospitals, which were not
included in the army corps organisation.]
[Sidenote: Purchases abroad.]
[Sidenote: Mark IV.]
Any idea that may have existed that the ordnance factories and the
trade would be able to meet all demands from week to week was quickly
dispelled. The supply could not keep pace with the need, and in some
cases the exhaustion of the home market necessitated large purchases
in Europe, Canada, and the United States. Of rifles and other weapons
at this time the store was ample, except in the case of sabres, of
which, owing to a contemplated change in pattern, the reserve had been
allowed to fall very low. There was a complete reserve of ball
ammunition of the kinds approved for use in the earlier part of 1899,
viz.: Mark II. and Mark IV., the latter having an expanding bullet.
During the summer of 1899 it was found that under certain conditions
the Mark IV. ammunition developed such serious defects that, apart
from the inexpediency of using a bullet which the signatories to the
Hague Convention[44] had condemned, it was deemed advisable to
withdraw this particular kind of ammunition as unsuitable for war
purposes. This meant that two-fifths of the reserve was unserviceable.
[Footnote 44: The British Government was not a party to this
clause.]
[Sidenote: Alarming minute from D.G.O.]
On 15th December, 1899, as the result of his enquiry, Sir Henry
Brackenbury put forward his report to the Commander-in-Chief, in which
he enumerated in detail the various deficiencies of stores brought to
light by the war in South Africa. The condition of affairs was such as
to cause grave apprehension. To use his own words: "That war has now
disclosed a situation as regards armaments, and reserves of guns,
ammunition, stores and clothing, and as regards the power of output of
material of war in emergency which is, in my opinion, full of peril to
the Empire; and I, therefore, think it my duty, without waiting to
elaborate details, to lay before you at once the state of affairs, and
to make proposals, to which I invite, through you, the earnest and
immediate attention of the Secretary of State." These proposals dealt
with the provision of armaments, reserves of ammunition, stores and
clothing, and the improvement of factories and storage-buildings, with
the object of putting the country in a condition of safety and
preventing the possibility of the recurrence of the state of affairs
disclosed.[45]
[Footnote 45: Sir H. Brackenbury's representation was laid
before the Cabinet and resulted, on the recommendations of
the Mowatt and Grant Committees, in a grant of £10,500,900 to
be distributed over a period of three years.]
[Sidenote: A free hand.]
In his minute Sir Henry Brackenbury also insisted on the necessity of
a free hand being given in time of war to the Inspector-General of
Fortifications as regards works and buildings, and to the
Director-General of Ordnance as regards armaments, stores and
clothing. He had, through the Army Board, on the 22nd September,
brought to the notice of the Secretary of State the difficulties and
delays inseparable from the financial system which obtained in peace
time, and had been granted practically what he asked in his
expenditure for the supply of the army during the war. On this point
Sir Henry Brackenbury remarked in his report:--
"It is only by such a free hand having been given to us since the
outbreak of war in October that it has been possible to supply the
army in the field, and even so, owing to the want of reserves, we have
been too late with many of the most important articles."
The tale of deficiencies was thus summed up by the Secretary of
State:--
[Sidenote: Lord Lansdowne's note.]
"It is, I think, abundantly clear from Sir H. Brackenbury's Report,
that we were not sufficiently prepared even for the equipment of the
comparatively small force which we had always contemplated might be
employed beyond the limits of this country in the initial stages of a
campaign. For the much larger force which we have actually found it
necessary to employ our resources were absolutely and miserably
inadequate. The result has been that the department, even by working
under conditions which have nearly led to a breakdown, has been barely
able to keep pace with the requirements of the army."[46]
[Footnote 46: Extract from memorandum of May 21st, 1900, by
the Marquess of Lansdowne.]
_Colonies._
Offers of assistance had poured in from Greater Britain from the
moment that the imminence of war in South Africa was realised. It was
not the first time that our kinsmen had sent their sons for the
general service of the Empire. In 1881, within twenty-four hours of
the receipt of the news of the action at Laing's Nek, two thousand men
of the Australian local forces had volunteered for employment in South
Africa, but were not accepted. Four years later, eight hundred
colonists from New South Wales were welcomed for service at Suakim,
while a special corps of Canadian voyageurs was enlisted for the
advance up the Nile. But on neither of these occasions was the tender
of patriotic help so welcome to the Mother Country as in the present
instance, for it was felt that the whole Empire was concerned in the
contest for the establishment in South Africa of equal rights for all
white men independent of race, and that it was, therefore, peculiarly
fitting that the younger States of the great Imperial Commonwealth
should make the quarrel their own. As early as July, 1899, Queensland,
Victoria, New South Wales, the Malay States and Lagos, had tendered
their services, and Her Majesty's Government, though not then able to
accept the offers made, had gratefully acknowledged them. In
September, Queensland and Victoria renewed their proposals, and
further offers of assistance were received from Canada, New Zealand,
Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, and Hong Kong. The
majority of a squadron of the New South Wales Lancers, which had been
sent to England to undergo a special course of training at Aldershot,
also volunteered for South Africa. As regards Natal and Cape Colony,
it was assumed as a matter of course, both by the Colonial troops
themselves and by the Imperial and Colonial Governments, that they
would cheerfully do their duty if called out for local defence. The
whole of the Natal local forces were mobilised for active service on
29th September,[47] the day after President Kruger commandeered his
burghers. A portion of the Cape Volunteers were called out on 5th
October, and the remainder during the first month of the war.[48] On
the 3rd October the Secretary of State for the Colonies telegraphed to
various Colonial Governments a grateful acceptance by Her Majesty's
Government of the services of their contingents, indicating in each
case the units considered desirable. It was not found possible to take
advantage of the offers of some of the Crown Colonies, but from the
self-governing Colonies, troops numbering about 2,500 of all ranks
were accepted.[49] These proved but the advance guard to the total
force of nearly 30,000 men from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India
and Ceylon, who at various times represented Greater Britain in the
army of South Africa.
[Footnote 47: The corps mobilised were Natal Naval
Volunteers, Natal Field Artillery, Natal Royal Rifles, Durban
Light Infantry, Natal Mounted Rifles, Natal Carbineers,
Umvoti Mounted Rifles, Border Mounted Rifles.]
[Footnote 48: For the local forces called out in Cape Colony,
see Chapter II., p. 53.]
[Footnote 49: For arrivals of "Oversea Colonials," see
Appendix 9. The whole subject is treated more fully in Vol.
II. in a chapter on the Colonial Corps.]
CHAPTER II.
THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR.[50]
[Footnote 50: See general map of South Africa, Relief map No.
2, and map No. 3.]
[Sidenote: Defence plans of local authorities.]
[Sidenote: Genl. Goodenough.]
It has been convenient to carry the statement of the measures adopted
for preparation at home in certain matters beyond the actual date of
the declaration of war. It is now necessary to view the state of
affairs in South Africa at that time. Although British preparations
for war had been retarded by the hope of the Queen's Government that
the grave issues with the Dutch Republics might be determined by
diplomatic action, yet the weakness of our military position in South
Africa had long been felt as keenly by the local military authorities
as it had been by the Headquarter staff at the War Office. In schemes
for the defence of the British colonies, submitted in 1896 and 1897 by
Lieut.-General Sir W. H. Goodenough, who was then commanding in South
Africa, the extraordinary extent of the frontiers to be defended, the
disadvantages entailed by their shape, and the overwhelming numerical
superiority of the Boers over the handful of British troops then in
South Africa, made it necessary to base the protection even of the
most important strategical points on sheer audacity.
[Sidenote: War Office to Gen. Butler Dec. /98.]
[Sidenote: Dec. /98, from W.O.]
A letter addressed by the War Office to General Goodenough's
successor, Lieut.-General Sir W. Butler, on 21st December, 1898, had
requested him to reconsider his predecessor's proposals, and to report
at an early date the distribution of troops he would make in the event
of war with the two Dutch Republics. In a review of the strategical
situation, that despatch drew attention to the fact that the troops
then stationed in the command "would be inadequate for any other than
a defensive attitude, pending the arrival of reinforcements from
England." In the same paper the effect of the frontiers on the
questions, both of defence in the earlier stages of the war, and of
the ultimate form of offence, is so fully treated that it will be
convenient to quote here the official statement of the case. It must
be premised that it is assumed in it, as in fact proved to be the
case, that both sides would tacitly agree, for the sake of not raising
the native difficulty, to treat Basuto territory as neutral. That
mountain region was therefore throughout considered as an impassable
obstacle:--
"The frontiers of the Transvaal and the Free State are conterminous
with English territory for over 1,000 miles, but the defence of this
enormous frontier by Her Majesty's troops is impossible to
contemplate. Southern Rhodesia, although a possible objective for a
Boer raid, must rely entirely for its defence upon its own local
forces, and, although the line from Kimberley to Buluwayo is of some
strategic importance, yet its protection north of the Vaal river would
be altogether out of our power during the earlier stages of the war.
Basutoland may also be eliminated from defensive calculations, as its
invasion by the Boers would be improbable; moreover, the Basutos, if
invaded, would be able for some time to maintain an effective
resistance.
"The frontier, therefore, the observation and defence of which appears
to need definite consideration, may be held to extend in Cape Colony
from Fourteen Streams bridge in the north to the south-west corner of
Basutoland, and to include in Natal the triangle, of which Charlestown
is the apex, and a line drawn from Mont Aux Sources to the
Intonganeni[51] district of Zululand the base.
[Footnote 51: Now spelt Emtonjaneni on the general map.]
"The mountains and broken country of Basutoland and Griqualand East,
which lie between Natal and the Cape Colony, are unpierced by railways
and ill-supplied by roads. It must be accepted, therefore, that a
force acting on the defensive in Natal will be out of touch with a
force in Cape Colony, and the two can only operate from separate
bases.
[Sidenote: Dec. /98 from W.O.]
"As regards the Cape frontier, for the portion lying between
Basutoland and Hopetown railway bridge,[52] the Orange river forms a
military obstacle of some importance, impassable, as a rule, during
the first three months of the year, except at the bridges, and even at
other times difficult to cross, owing to its quicksands, and liability
to sudden flood. Between Hopetown railway bridge and the Vaal the
frontier is, however, protected by no physical features and lies open
to invasion.
[Footnote 52: The railway bridge at Orange River station.]
"As regards the Natal frontier its salient confers on the enemy
facilities for cutting our line of communications, and for outflanking
at pleasure the positions of Laing's Nek and the Biggarsberg. This
facility is accentuated by the influence of the Drakensberg, which
forms a screen, behind which an enemy can assemble unobserved and
debouch on our flanks through its numerous passes. These passes,
however, have been recently examined and found to be for the most part
but rough mountain tracks available for raids, but unsuitable for the
advance of any large force accompanied by transport. To this Van
Reenen's Pass, through which the railway and main road issue from
Natal into the Free State, and Laing's Nek (across and under which the
main road and railway pass into the Transvaal) are notable exceptions,
and the possession of these two passes necessarily carry with them
great strategical advantages.
"An appreciation of the relative importance of the defence of the two
frontiers of Cape Colony and Natal would, no doubt, be assisted if the
line by which the main advance on the Transvaal will ultimately be
undertaken were determined; but I am to say that in the
Commander-in-Chief's opinion the plan for offensive operations must
depend upon the political and military situation of the moment, and
cannot now be definitely fixed. The fact, however, that an offensive
advance will ultimately be undertaken, as soon as sufficient forces
have arrived, must be especially borne in mind in considering
arrangements for the first or defensive stage of the campaign."
The despatch then stated that the following should be taken as the
basis of Sir William Butler's arrangements for frontier defence: "The
latest information in the possession of the War Office as to the
military strength of the two States will be found in the recent
pamphlet entitled 'Military Notes on the Dutch Republics of South
Africa,' copies of which are in your possession. You will observe that
in that publication it is estimated that the total forces of the two
republics amount to over 40,000 men, and that of these some 27,000[53]
would be available for offensive operations beyond their frontiers. It
is known that projects for such offensive operations have actually
been under the consideration of the War department of Pretoria, but
although an attempt may be made on Kimberley and the northern strip of
Natal may be occupied by the Boers, yet it is considered to be
unlikely that any further serious advance into the heart of either
colony would be undertaken. Raids, however, of 2,000 to 3,000 men may
be expected, and it is against such raids that careful preparation on
your part is necessary."
[Footnote 53: A later edition of the Military Notes (June,
1899) estimated the total strength of the burgher and
permanent levies to be 53,743, and further that these would
be joined at the outbreak of war by 4,000 Colonial rebels. It
was calculated that of this total, and exclusive of those
detached for frontier defence and to hold in check Kimberley
and Mafeking, 27,000 effectives would be available as a field
army for offensive operations. When these estimates were
made, the large number of Uitlanders in Johannesburg made it
probable that a considerable Boer force would be detained to
watch that city.]
[Sidenote: June /99. Sir W. Butler's reply.]
Sir W. Butler, being occupied by other duties, did not reply to this
despatch until pressed by telegrams at the beginning of June of the
following year. He then reported by telegraph and in a letter to the
War Office, dated 12th June, 1899, that he intended, in the event of
war, to divide the troops in Natal into two; one part at
Dundee-Glencoe with orders to patrol to the Buffalo river on the east,
Ingagane on the north, and the Drakensberg Passes on the west, and the
other at Ladysmith, with instructions "to support Glencoe and maintain
the line of the Biggarsberg, or to operate against Van Reenen's Pass
should circumstances necessitate." In Cape Colony he proposed, with
the small number of troops then available (_i.e._, three battalions,
six guns and a R.E. company), to hold the important railway stations
of De Aar, Naauwpoort and Molteno (or Stormberg), with strong
detachments at Orange River station, and possibly Kimberley, and
outposts at Colesberg, Burghersdorp, and Philipstown. It will be seen,
therefore, that, while deprecating the actual occupation of the
Drakensberg Passes and of the Colesberg and Bethulie bridges over the
Orange river, which had been proposed by his predecessor and approved
by Lord Wolseley, Sir William Butler did not shrink from the forward
policy of endeavouring to bluff the enemy with weak detachments
stationed in close proximity to the frontier.
[Sidenote: Baden-Powell sent out.]
It was in conformity with this policy that, in July, 1899, the War
Office despatched Col. R. S. S. Baden-Powell, with a staff of special
service officers, to organise a force in southern Rhodesia. It was
hoped that, in the event of war, his column might detain a portion of
the Boer commandos in that quarter, since its position threatened the
northern Transvaal. To his task was subsequently added the
organisation of a mounted infantry corps which, based on Mafeking,
might similarly hold back the burghers of the western districts of the
South African Republic.
[Sidenote: Choice of Routes.]
The cloud of war rapidly spread over the whole of the South African
horizon, and the strategical situation became sharply defined. As
regards the determination of the plan of offence referred to in the
above War Office despatch, the difficulty was due to the hope
entertained by the Cabinet that, in the event of war between this
country and the Transvaal, the Orange Free State would remain neutral.
The choice in that case would have lain between an advance based on
Warrenton, _i.e._, on the Kimberley-to-Mafeking railway, or a movement
parallel to the Natal-to-Johannesburg railway. By the middle of 1899,
however, the Headquarter staff at the War Office were convinced that,
if war should supervene, the two republics would make common cause. A
memorandum, entitled, "The Direction of a Line of Advance Against the
Transvaal," was prepared by the Intelligence division on that basis
and submitted on 3rd June, 1899. It was contended in this memorandum
that the lack of any railway between Fourteen Streams and the
Transvaal capital eliminated that route from consideration, and that
the choice now lay between the line running up through the centre of
the Free State and the Natal route.
[Sidenote: The better line.]
In comparing the relative merits of these two routes it was shown that
strategically the Natal line would, owing to the shape of the frontier
and the parallel screen of the Drakensberg, be constantly exposed to
dangerous flank attacks, while the flanks of the Free State route
would be comparatively safe. "The Basutos' sympathies will be entirely
with us, while on the west the garrison of Kimberley will hold the
approaches."
[Sidenote: Reasons.]
Tactically, it was pointed out, the Natal route traversed "an ideal
terrain for the Boers," and crossed the "immensely strong" position of
Laing's Nek. On the other hand, a force advancing by the Free State
route, once over the Orange river, would have only to deal with the
Bethulie position, and would then reach open plains, which "afford the
freest scope for the manoeuvres of all three arms."
[Sidenote: Conclusion.]
Furthermore, the Free State route could be fed by three distinct lines
of railway from three ports, while the Natal route would be dependent
on a single line and one port. The memorandum, therefore, submitted
the conclusion that "the main line of advance against the Transvaal
should be based on the Cape Colony, and should follow generally the
line of railway through the Orange Free State to Johannesburg and
Pretoria."
[Sidenote: Natal threatened.]
In June it became evident that the vague designs of the Boer
Governments against Natal, of which the British Intelligence
department had had cognizance in the previous year, were taking
definite shape, and that, at any rate, so far as the Transvaal forces
were concerned, the eastern colony would probably become the main
object of their attack. The only British reinforcements immediately
available were therefore assigned to that colony. On the Cape side it
was manifest that the determining factor was the attitude of restless
elements within the colony itself. It was known that secret agents
from the Transvaal had, during the past two years, visited many parts
of the colony, and that arms had been distributed by those agents. The
investigations of the Intelligence department had, however, failed to
discover proofs of the establishment of such organisations as would
enable any formidable rising in the colony to coincide with a
declaration of war by the republics. It was fully realised that it
could not but be the case that there would be among many of the Dutch
colonial farmers some natural sympathy with their kinsmen, and that a
certain number of the younger and wilder would possibly slip across
the border to join the enemy's forces; but it was believed that,
provided this class of the community was not encouraged by any sign of
weakness to enter into relations with the republics, they would be, as
a whole, loath to throw off their allegiance to a State to which they
and their forefathers had for many generations been loyal, and under
whose rule they had enjoyed equal liberties, self-government and much
prosperity.
[Sidenote: Protective Posts.]
If these conclusions were sound--and the course of events during the
first month of the war was to prove their general correctness--it was
highly desirable that detachments of British troops should remain in
the northern districts of the colony, and thus carry out the double
function of encouraging the loyal while checking lawless spirits, and
of retaining possession of those lines of railways, the use of which
would be a matter of vital importance to the field army in its
subsequent advance from the coast. It was obvious that these isolated
posts of a few hundred men would run serious risks. Thrust forward in
close proximity to the enemy's frontier, they were separated from
their base on the coast by some four to five hundred miles of country,
throughout which there might be possible enemies; thus their
communications might at any moment be cut. Furthermore, until troops
arrived from England or India, no reinforcements would be available
for their assistance. But the alternative of abandoning the whole of
the northern districts of Cape Colony to the enemy, and thus allowing
them to enforce recruitments from colonists who might otherwise live
in peaceful security under the British flag, involved dangers far
graver, and was, in fact, never contemplated by the military
authorities either in London or at the Cape, except in the remote
contingency of war with some maritime Power coinciding with the
outbreak of hostilities with the Boer Republics. Moreover, by the
middle of September, 1899, the organisation and training of Colonel
Baden-Powell's two newly-raised corps, the one at Tuli and the other
near Mafeking, were already sufficiently advanced to afford good hope
of their being able to sustain effectively the rôle which had been
assigned to them, while arrangements were being taken in hand to
secure Kimberley from being captured by any _coup de main_.[54]
[Footnote 54: See Vol. II.]
[Sidenote: Forestier-Walker adopts Butler's plan.]
Although, therefore, at that moment the only regular troops in Cape
Colony were three and a half battalions of infantry, two companies
Royal engineers, and two companies of Royal Garrison artillery,
General Sir F. Forestier-Walker, who, on September 6th, 1899, arrived
at Cape Town, replacing Sir William Butler, decided to adhere to his
forward defence policy, and to carry out unchanged the arrangements
contemplated by him. Thus, by the end of September, a series of
military posts had been formed encircling the western and southern
frontiers of the Free State at Kimberley, Orange River station, De
Aar, Naauwpoort, and Stormberg, each post including a half-battalion
of regular infantry, and a section of engineers. To Kimberley were
also sent six 7-pr. R.M.L. screw guns, and to Orange River station,
Naauwpoort and Stormberg, two 9-pr. R.M.L. guns each. Each of these
three-named had also a company of mounted infantry. The guns were
manned by garrison artillerymen from the naval base at Cape Town. By
arrangement with the Colonial authorities the Cape Police furnished
various posts of observation in advanced positions. Behind the weak
line thus boldly pushed out in the face of the enemy there were no
regular troops whatever in the Colony, except half a battalion and a
handful of garrison gunners in the Cape peninsula.
[Sidenote: Sir Redvers approves.]
Sir F. Forestier-Walker had, however, the satisfaction to find that
these dispositions, which he had carried out on his own initiative
after consulting the High Commissioner, fitted in well with the plans
of Sir Redvers Buller, and were acceptable to that officer. A
telegram from Sir Redvers, dated London, 29th September, 1899,
informed Forestier-Walker that an expedition made up of an army corps,
a cavalry division, and seven battalions for the lines of
communication would be sent out to South Africa and would advance on
Pretoria through the Free State. That general was therefore directed
to make, so far as was compatible with secrecy, preliminary
arrangements for the disembarkation of this army at the three ports,
Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London. In acknowledging these
orders on the following day, Sir F. Forestier-Walker accordingly
reported by telegram that he would arrange for the disembarkation
bases and that he was establishing advanced depôts at De Aar,
Naauwpoort, and Stormberg;[55] Sir Redvers Buller, in a message
despatched from London on 2nd October, replied:--
[Footnote 55: These places had been suggested as suitable for
advanced depôts in "Notes on the Lines of Communication in
Cape Colony," issued by the Intelligence Division, W.O., in
June, 1899.]
"Your proposals are just what I wish, but I feared suggesting
depôts at Naauwpoort and Stormberg, as I did not then know if you
had sufficient troops to guard them. It will not do to risk loss.
I leave this to your local knowledge."
[Sidenote: Further Steps of Defence.]
On the 7th of October, 1899, the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers landed
at Cape Town from England and were sent on the 10th to De Aar; a wing
of the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers left Stellenbosch by train for the
same destination on the 9th. Stores were already accumulating at De
Aar but, having regard to Dutch restlessness in the vicinity of
Naauwpoort and Stormberg, Sir F. Forestier-Walker, after personal
inspection, considered it inadvisable to risk any large amount of
material at either until more troops could be spared to hold them. For
the moment it appeared to him desirable to concentrate all available
mobile troops at the Orange River station, where he retained command
of both banks of the river, and thus, as soon as adequate strength was
organised, could operate thence towards Kimberley or on some point in
the Free State. The energy of Lieut.-Colonel R. G. Kekewich, Loyal
North Lancashire regiment, who had been despatched to Kimberley to
take command, assisted by Mr. Cecil Rhodes and the officials of the De
Beers Company, had placed that town in a fair state of defence. At
Mafeking it was realised that Colonel Baden-Powell's troops would be
unable to do more than protect the large quantities of stores
accumulated by merchants at that station against the formidable Boer
force which was concentrating for attack upon it. Nevertheless, by so
doing, Baden-Powell would fulfil the rôle assigned to him, since he
would prevent large numbers of the enemy from engaging in the serious
invasion of the exposed frontier territories of Cape Colony. The
actual distribution of troops in the Colony at the outbreak of war is
shown in Appendix 2.
[Sidenote: Natal defence--Generals Cox and Goodenough, 96/97.]
Reports on the frontier defence of Natal had been submitted during the
years 1896-7, by Major-General G. Cox, who was then holding the
sub-command of that colony, and by Lieut.-General Goodenough. After a
careful examination of the question whether the tunnel under Laing's
Nek, the Dundee coalfields to the south, and Van Reenen's Pass could
be protected with the troops available, General Goodenough decided
that none of these could be guarded. Having then only one regiment of
cavalry, one mountain battery, and one infantry battalion, he thought
it better to concentrate nearly all of them at Ladysmith, the point of
junction of the branch railway to Harrismith with the main line to the
Transvaal, sending only small detachments to Colenso and Estcourt. On
the despatch to Natal, in the second quarter of 1897, of
reinforcements, consisting of another cavalry regiment, a second
battalion of infantry, and a brigade division of artillery, temporary
quarters were erected at Ladysmith for this increase to the garrison
of the colony, and Sir William Goodenough informed the War Office that
in case of emergency he proposed to watch the whole frontier with the
Natal Police, to hold Newcastle with colonial troops and to despatch
most of the cavalry, one field battery, and half a battalion of
infantry to Glencoe to cover the Dundee coalfields. The remainder of
the regular troops, consisting of a battalion and a half, a few
cavalry, and two batteries, would be placed at Ladysmith, where a
detachment of a battalion and the mountain battery would be kept ready
to occupy and entrench itself at Van Reenen's Pass. These proposals
were approved for execution on an emergency "so far as the exigencies
of the occasion may admit."[56]
[Footnote 56: W.O. letter, September 3rd, 1897.]
[Sidenote: Natal defence--Sir W. Butler, /99.]
Sir W. Butler's report of 12th June, 1899, adopted practically the
same plan of defence. To a suggestion as to a possible occupation of
Laing's Nek,[57] General Butler had replied that he did not think the
immediate possession of that place of great importance and that its
occupation by a weak force would be a dangerous operation. The regular
troops in Natal had at this date been only reinforced by one more
battalion, and consisted of but two cavalry regiments, one brigade
division field artillery, one mountain battery, and three infantry
battalions. To these must be added the Natal Police, a corps about 400
strong, admirably trained as mounted infantry, and nearly 2,000
Colonial Volunteers of the best type.
[Footnote 57: W.O. letter, February 23rd, 1899.]
[Sidenote: Protest of Natal Government, July /99.]
The communication of this scheme of defence to the Natal Ministry in
July, 1899, led them to prefer an urgent request that sufficient
reinforcements should be sent out to defend the whole colony. In the
long telegraphic despatch addressed on 6th September, 1899, by the
Governor, Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson, to the Colonial Office, it was
urged that: "In the opinion of the Ministers, such a catastrophe as
the seizure of Laing's Nek, and the destruction of the northern
portion of the railway ... would have a most demoralising effect on
the natives and the loyal Europeans in the colony, and would afford
great encouragement to the Boers and their sympathisers." The
announcement from home of the early despatch of reinforcements from
India which was received by Sir W. Hely-Hutchinson in reply to this
telegram, did not, in the opinion of Sir F. Forestier-Walker, or of
Major-General Sir W. Penn Symons, who had succeeded General Cox in the
local command of Natal, justify a deviation from the scheme of
defence put forward by their predecessors. Apart from the difficulty
of a water supply for a force occupying Laing's Nek, it was felt that
such a forward position would be strategically unsafe, and would
impose on the troops in Natal a task beyond their powers. On the other
hand, the decision to give the coalfields at Dundee the protection
contemplated by Sir W. Butler was adopted.
[Sidenote: Sept. 25th, /99. Glencoe held.]
By the 24th September the Governor told General Symons that the
gravity of the political situation was such that the dispositions of
the troops previously agreed on for the defence of the colony must at
once be carried out. The necessary permission to act having been
obtained by telegram from the General Officer Commanding South Africa,
the 1st Leicester and 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, with a squadron of
the 18th Hussars were entrained at Ladysmith for Glencoe on the
morning of the 25th September, the remainder of the 18th Hussars, with
a mounted infantry company and two field batteries reaching Glencoe by
march route on the 26th. The gaps these changes made in the Ladysmith
garrison were filled up, the 5th Lancers, 1st King's Royal Rifles, and
1st Manchester being ordered to move to that place from Maritzburg.
[Sidenote: Sir George White, Oct. 7th, wishes to withdraw from
Glencoe.]
Sir George White had been despatched early in September from England
to command the troops in Natal. When, on October 7th, he arrived and
assumed command, he found that the forces at his disposal were divided
into two bodies, the one at Glencoe and the other at Ladysmith. On
leaving England he had been given no instructions on the subject, nor
had the previous correspondence with the local military authorities as
to the defence of Natal been seen by him, but he held that from a
military point of view the only sound policy was to concentrate the
whole of the British troops in such a position that he would be able
to strike with his full strength at the enemy the moment an
opportunity offered. He determined, therefore, to withdraw the Glencoe
detachment and assemble the whole at Ladysmith, the importance of
which was increased by the preliminary dispositions of the Boer
commandos, to be described later. The Governor, on being informed of
this intention, remonstrated against the withdrawal from Glencoe in
terms which are thus recorded in his subsequent report of the
interview to the Secretary of State for the Colonies:--
[Sidenote: Protest by Governor.]
"Now that we were there, withdrawal would, in my opinion, involve
grave political results, loyalists would be disgusted and
discouraged; the results as regards the Dutch would be grave,
many, if not most, would very likely rise, believing us to be
afraid, and the evil might very likely spread to the Dutch in
Cape Colony; and the effect on our natives, of whom there were
750,000 in Natal and Zululand, might be disastrous. They as yet
believe in our power--they look to us--but if we withdraw from
Glencoe they will look on it in the light of a defeat, and I
could not answer for what they, or at all events a large
proportion of them, might do."
[Sidenote: Sir G. White yields and retains Glencoe.]
Influenced by these strong representations and especially by the
suggestion that the evacuation of Glencoe might lead to a general
rising of the natives--a very grave consideration in the eyes of an
officer with long Indian experience--the British commander decided to
acquiesce for the moment in the separation of his troops which had
been arranged by Major-General Symons. Sir George conceived, however,
from the Intelligence reports before him that the bulk of the Boer
commandos were assembling behind the screen of the Drakensberg, and
that the northern portion of Natal would be their primary and
principal object. He retained his own belief that the safety of the
colony could only be fully secured by decisive strokes at the enemy's
columns as they emerged from the mountain passes and, in pursuance of
this policy, General White impressed on his staff the necessity for
making such preparations as would set free the maximum number of
troops for active operations in the field. Under these circumstances
Sir W. Penn Symons started for Dundee on October 10th and on October
11th Sir George White went by train from Maritzburg to Ladysmith. The
distribution of the forces in Natal on the outbreak of war will be
found in Appendix 3.
[Sidenote: Boer plans.]
The exertions of ten special service officers despatched to South
Africa three months earlier had ensured the acquisition of accurate
information as to the enemy's mobilisation, strength, and points of
concentration. Sir George White's appreciation of the situation was,
therefore, in conformity with the actual facts. The main strength of
the enemy had been concentrated for an invasion of Natal. The
President hoped that it would sweep that colony clear of British
troops down to the sea, and would hoist the Vierkleur over the port of
Durban. Small detachments had been told off to guard the Colesberg,
Bethulie, and Aliwal North bridges and to watch Basutoland. On the
western frontiers of the Transvaal and the Free State strong commandos
were assembling for the destruction of Baden-Powell's retaining force
at Mafeking and for the capture of Kimberley. Both Kruger and Steyn
aimed at results other than those achieved by the initiatory victories
of 1880-1. They cherished the hope that the time had come for the
establishment of a Boer Republic reaching from the Zambesi to Table
Mountain; but, for the accomplishment of so great an enterprise,
external assistance was necessary, the aid of their kinsmen in the
south, and ultimately, as they hoped, an alliance with other Powers
across the seas. The authorities at Pretoria and Bloemfontein realised
fully that, though they might expect to have sympathisers in the
colonies, active co-operation on any large scale was not to be counted
on until successes in the field should persuade the waverers that, in
casting in their lot definitely with the republican forces, they would
be supporting the winning side. The conquest of Natal and the capture
of Kimberley would, it was thought, suffice to convince the most
doubtful and timid. As soon, therefore, as the British troops in Natal
had been overwhelmed and Kimberley occupied, the Boer commandos in the
western theatre of war were to move south across the Cape frontier to
excite a rising in that colony. A situation would thus be created
which, as they calculated, would lead to the intervention of one or
more European Powers, and terminate in the permanent expulsion of all
British authority from South Africa.
[Sidenote: Boer Distribution Oct. 11th, /99.]
[Sidenote: For Natal.]
It was with these designs and based on this far-reaching plan of
campaign that the mobilisation of the burghers in both the republics
was ordered during the last week of September, and by the 11th of
October the following was approximately the constitution, strength and
distribution of the field forces.[58] The army for the invasion of
Natal was made up of three distinct bodies; the principal and most
important of these remained under the personal orders of General P.
Joubert, the Commandant-General of the Boer forces, and was
concentrated at Zandspruit and Wakkerstroom Nek, in immediate
proximity to the northern apex of Natal. It included the Krugersdorp,
Bethel, Heidelberg, Johannesburg, Boksburg and Germiston, Standerton,
Pretoria, Middelburg, and Ermelo commandos, the Transvaal Staats
Artillerie, and small Irish, Hollander and German corps of
adventurers; the total strength of this force was about 11,300 men.
Its armament included 16 field guns and three 6-inch Creusots. On the
eastern border of Natal, facing the British force at Dundee, lay the
Utrecht, Vryheid, Piet Retief and Wakkerstroom commandos, under the
leadership of General Lukas Meyer; this detachment numbered about
2,870 men. Westward, a Free State contingent, amounting to some 9,500
burghers, and consisting of the Vrede, Heilbron, Kroonstad, Winburg,
Bethlehem and Harrismith commandos, occupied Botha's, Bezuidenhout,
Tintwa, Van Reenen's, and Olivier's Hoek passes. The republican
forces, to whom the task of conquering Natal had been assigned,
amounted therefore at the outset of war to about 23,500 men.[59]
[Footnote 58: This statement is based on information obtained
from Boer sources during and since the war, but the numbers
must only be taken as approximately accurate.]
[Footnote 59: Reinforcements, amounting in all to about 3,240
men, joined the Boer Natal army during the months
November-December; these were made up of 1,300 Johannesburg
police and burghers, 290 Swaziland police and burghers and
the Lydenburg and Carolina commandos. These reinforcements
were, however, counterbalanced by the transfer of detachments
of the Free State commandos to the western theatre of war.]
[Sidenote: For Mafeking.]
For the attack on Colonel Baden-Powell's small garrison at Mafeking, a
body, in strength about 7,000, consisting of the Potchefstroom,
Lichtenburg, Marico, Wolmaranstad and Rustenburg commandos, with a
company of Scandinavian adventurers, had been concentrated close to
the western border. General Piet Cronje was in supreme command on this
side, his two principal subordinates being Generals Snyman and J. H.
De la Rey.
[Sidenote: For Kimberley.]
The capture of Kimberley and the duty of holding in check the British
troops at the Orange River station were assigned to Free State levies
composed of the Fauresmith, Jacobsdal, Bloemfontein, Ladybrand, Boshof
and Hoopstad commandos, the first two of these corps being assembled
at Boshof and the remainder at Jacobsdal. Their total strength was
probably about 7,500; a Transvaal detachment, about 1,700 strong,
composed of the Fordsburg and Bloemhof commandos, was concentrated at
Fourteen Streams, ready to join hands with the Free Staters.
[Sidenote: For other points.]
The Philippolis, Bethulie, Rouxville, and Caledon commandos, under the
orders of Commandants Grobelaar, Olivier and Swanepoel, were
assembling at Donkerpoort, Bethulie, and a little to the north of
Aliwal North for the protection, or possibly destruction, of the
Norval's Pont, Bethulie, and Aliwal bridges. These four commandos had
an approximate strength of 2,500 burghers. Detachments, amounting in
all to about 1,000 men, were watching the Basuto border; on the
extreme north of the Transvaal about 2,000 Waterberg and Zoutpansberg
burghers were piqueting the drifts across the Limpopo river. A small
guard had been placed at Komati Poort to protect the vulnerable
portion of the railway to Delagoa Bay, while the Lydenburg and
Carolina commandos, about 1,600 strong, under Schalk Burger, watched
the native population of Swaziland. Thus, including the police and a
few other detachments left to guard Johannesburg, about 48,000
burghers were under arms at the outbreak of war.
[Sidenote: Large influence of Baden-Powell on them.]
The most remarkable feature of the Boer dispositions is the influence
on them of Baden-Powell's contingent. His two little corps, each
numbering barely 500 men, had drawn away nearly 8,000 of the best
burghers. Mafeking was in itself a place of no strategic value, and,
had the enemy been content to watch, and hold with equal numbers,
Lt.-Cols. H.C.O. Plumer's and C.O. Hore's regiments and the police and
volunteers assisting them, a contingent of 5,000 Transvaalers might
have been added to the army invading Natal, thus adding greatly to the
difficulties of Sir George White's defence. Alternatively it might
have ensured the capture of Kimberley, or might have marched as a
recruiting column from the Orange river through the disaffected
districts and have gradually occupied the whole of the British lines
of communication down to the coast.
[Sidenote: Anxiety of British Situation.]
The general distribution, therefore, of the Queen's troops in South
Africa at the outbreak of war appears, with the exception of the
division of the field force in Natal, to have been the best that could
have been devised, having due regard to the advantage of the
initiative possessed by the enemy, and to the supreme importance of
preventing, or at any rate retarding, any rising of the disloyal in
Cape Colony. Nevertheless, the situation was one of grave anxiety. The
reinforcements which would form the field army were not due for some
weeks. Meanwhile, in the eastern theatre of operations, the Boers
would have made their supreme effort with all the advantages of
superior numbers, greater mobility, and a _terrain_ admirably suited
to their methods of fighting. A considerable portion of the British
troops under Sir G. White were, moreover, mere units, lacking war
organisation except on paper, unknown to their leaders and staff,
unacquainted with the country, and with both horses and men out of
condition after their sea voyage. In the western theatre, the safety
of Kimberley and Mafeking mainly depended on the untried fighting
qualities of recently enlisted colonial corps, volunteers, and hastily
organised town-guards; detachments of regular troops dotted along the
northern frontier of Cape Colony were without hope of support either
from the coast or each other, and would be cut off and crushed in
detail in the case of serious attack or of a rising in their rear.
Thus, the initiative lay absolutely with the enemy, and, so far as
could be foreseen, must remain in his hands until the British army
corps and cavalry division should be ready to take the field about the
middle of December.
[Sidenote: Actual movement of Boers begins.]
According to the terms of the ultimatum of October 9th, a state of war
ensued at 5 p.m. on the 11th. The advance of the Boer forces destined
for the attack of Mafeking and Kimberley began on the following day,
and by the 14th both places were cut off from Cape Colony. On the 17th
the enemy occupied Belmont railway station. To meet these movements
the 9th Lancers, the squadrons of which disembarked at Cape Town from
India on the 14th, 15th, and 18th, were sent up to Orange River
station immediately on their arrival. The 1st battalion Northumberland
Fusiliers were also moved by train on the 15th from De Aar to Orange
River, being replaced at the former station by a half-battalion of the
2nd battalion King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, which reached Cape
Town on the 14th, having been brought with extraordinary swiftness
from Mauritius by H.M.S. _Powerful_. The Orange River bridge garrison
was further strengthened by two 12-pr. B.L. guns manned by Prince
Alfred's Own Cape artillery. The first field artillery to land in Cape
Colony, the 62nd and half 75th batteries, were, on the evening of
their disembarkation, the 25th, entrained at once for Orange River.
The 1st Border regiment, which arrived from Malta on the 22nd, was
despatched immediately to De Aar, but subsequently, at the urgent
request of Sir George White, was sent by train to East London and
re-embarked for Natal. Steps were taken to make the Orange River
railway bridge passable by artillery and cavalry, by planking the
space between the rails. Meanwhile, on the advice of the local
magistrate, Colonel Money, who was in command at Orange River,
destroyed Hopetown road bridge, eleven miles to the westward, as it
was feared the enemy's guns might cross the river at that point.
Raiding parties of the Boers had overrun Bechuanaland and Griqualand
West and spread proclamations annexing the former district to the
Transvaal and the latter to the Free State. On the eastern side of the
colony the enemy made no move, but still hung back on the north bank
of the Orange River. The British garrison of Stormberg was reinforced
by two naval 12-pr. 8-cwt. guns, accompanied by 357 officers and men
of the Royal Navy and Marines, lent from Simon's Town by the Naval
commander-in-chief. In the opinion of General Forestier-Walker, this
reinforcement made this important railway junction, for the moment,
reasonably secure. Three months' supplies had been stored at all the
advanced posts.
[Sidenote: Cape volunteers called out.]
Two thousand of the Cape volunteer forces[60] were called out by the
Governor on the 16th October and placed at the disposal of the General
Officer Commanding the regular troops, on the understanding that they
were to be paid and rationed from Imperial funds. These corps were at
first employed as garrisons for Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East
London, Queenstown, and King William's Town; detachments of the
Kaffrarian Rifles being also stationed at Barkly East, Cathcart,
Molteno, and Indwe; but by the end of October the Colonial volunteers
were drawn upon to furnish military posts on the three lines of
railway from the coast, viz.: Touw's River, Fraserburg Road, and
Beaufort West, on the western system; at Cookhouse and Witmoss on the
central, and at Molteno and Sterkstroom, on the eastern. Arrangements
were made for patrolling the line between these posts by railway
employés. Having regard, however, to the great length of these lines,
it was obvious that protection of this description, although useful in
checking individual attempts to obstruct trains, or destroy bridges
and culverts, would be of no value against any armed bodies of the
enemy or of rebels.
[Footnote 60: The corps mobilised were Prince Alfred's Own
Cape Field artillery, the Cape Garrison Artillery, the
Kaffrarian Mounted Rifles, Prince Alfred's Volunteer Guard,
the Duke of Edinburgh's Volunteer Rifles, and the Cape Town
Highlanders. The Kimberley and Mafeking corps had been called
out before the commencement of the war. Subsequently the
Uitenhage Rifles and the Komgha Mounted Rifles were called
out on the 10th of November, the Cape Medical Staff Corps was
mobilised on the 16th of November, and the Frontier Mounted
Rifles on the 24th of November, 1899.]
[Sidenote: General success of policy of bluff.]
Thus, in the western theatre of war, although the investment of
Kimberley, and, in a lesser degree, the attack on Mafeking, were
causes of grave alarm to the loyalists of Cape Colony, yet, from a
larger point of view, the forward policy of frontier defence
successfully tided over the dangerous weeks previous to the arrival of
the first units of the army corps from home.
CHAPTER III.
THE THEATRE OF WAR.[61]
[Footnote 61: See general map of South Africa, Relief map,
No. 2, and map, No. 3.]
[Sidenote: Three chapters dealing with the ground and the two armies
engaged.]
When the challenge to war, recorded in the first chapter, startled the
British people, it met with an immediate response alike in the home
islands, and in the Colonies, in India, or elsewhere, wherever they
happened to be. In order to understand the problems of no small
complexity confronting the statesmen at home and the generals who in
the field had to carry out the will of the nation by taking up the
gauntlet so thrown down, it is necessary, first, that the
characteristics of the vast area which was about to become the scene
of operations should be realised; secondly, that the strength of the
forces on which the challenger relied for making good his words should
be estimated; and, thirdly, that certain peculiarities in the
constitution of our own army, which materially affected the nature of
the task which lay before both Ministers and soldiers, whether in
London or in South Africa, should be recognised. The next three
chapters will deal in succession with each of these subjects. The
attempt which is here made to portray in a few pages the mountains,
the rolling prairies, and the rivers of the sub-continent must be
aided by an examination of the map which has been specially prepared
in order to make the description intelligible.
[Sidenote: General aspect of area.]
The tableland of South Africa is some 1,360,000 square miles in
extent, and of a mean altitude of 3,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level.
To the Indian Ocean on the east it shows a face of scarped mountains.
Following the coast-line at a distance inland of from 70 to 100
miles, these sweep round from north to south: then stretch straight
across the extreme south-west of the continent through Cape Colony,
dwindling as they once more turn northward into the sand-hills of
Namaqualand, and rising again to the eminences above Mossamedes in
Portuguese territory. The rampart, however, though continuous for a
distance of more than 1,200 miles, scarcely anywhere presents an
abrupt wall to the seaboard, but on the contrary descends to it in
some parts in one gigantic step, in others in a series of steps, or
terraces.
[Sidenote: Cape Colony: the Karroos.]
Of the States within it, Cape Colony first claims consideration. In
the central section the step or terrace formation is so marked, and
the flats, which intervene between the rises, are of such extent, and
of a nature so curious, that they form one of the most remarkable
features of South Africa. They are known as "the Karroos," vast plains
stretching northward, firstly as the Little Karroo from the lower
coast ranges to the more elevated Zwarte Bergen, thence as the Great
Karroo to the still loftier Nieuwveld Mountains. In the rainless
season they present an aspect indescribably desolate, and at the same
time a formidable military obstacle to any invasion of Cape Colony on
a large scale from the north. They are then mere wastes of sand and
dead scrub, lifeless and waterless. The first fall of rain produces a
transformation as rapid as any effected by nature. The vegetable life
of the Karroos, which has only been suspended, not extinguished, is
then released; the arid watercourses are filled in a few hours, and
the great desert tract becomes within that brief time a garden of
flowers. Even then, from the scarcity of buildings and inhabitants,
and hence of supplies, the Karroos still form a barrier not to be
lightly attempted, unless by an army fully equipped, and carrying its
own magazines; or, on the other hand, by a band of partisans so
insignificant as to be able to subsist on the scanty resources
available, and to disappear when these are exhausted, or the enemy
approaches in strength.
[Sidenote: Hills above Karroos.]
The first noticeable feature of the hill systems which bind these
steppes is their regularity of disposition, and the second, their
steadily increasing altitude northwards to that mountain group which,
running roughly along the 32nd parallel of latitude, culminates in the
Sneeuw Bergen, where the Compass Peak (8,500 feet) stands above the
plains of Graaf Reinet. North of these heights, only the low Karree
Bergen, about 150 miles distant, and the slightly higher Hartzogsrand,
occur to break the monotonous fall of the ground towards the bed of
the Orange. All the geographical and strategical interest lies to the
north and east of the Compass Peak, where with the Zuurbergen
commences the great range, known to the natives as Quathlamba,[62] but
to the Voortrekkers, peopling its mysterious fastnesses with monsters
of their imagination, as the Drakensberg.[63] Throwing out spurs over
the length and breadth of Basutoland, this granite series, here rising
to lofty mountains, there dwindling to rounded downs, runs northward
to the Limpopo river, still clinging to the coast, that is to say, for
a distance of over 1,250 miles. The Zuurbergen, the western extremity,
are of no great elevation. They form a downward step from the Compass
and the Great Winterberg to the Orange river, whose waters they part
from those of the Great Fish and Great Kei rivers. The Stormbergen, on
the other hand, which sweep in a bold curve round to the north-east
until, on the borders of Basutoland, they merge into the central mass,
are high, rugged, and pierced by exceedingly few roads, forming a
strong line of defence.
[Footnote 62: "Piled up and rugged."]
[Footnote 63: "Mountains of the Dragons."]
[Sidenote: Passes.]
It may be said generally of the Cape highlands that the only passes
really practicable for armies are those through which, in 1899, the
railways wound upwards to the greater altitudes. These lines of
approach to the Free State frontier were as follows:--
1.--THE CAPE COLONY--DE AAR line.
2.--THE PORT ELIZABETH--NORVAL'S PONT line.
3.--THE EAST LONDON--BETHULIE AND ALIWAL NORTH lines.
These were connected by two transverse branches; elsewhere throughout
their length they were not only almost completely isolated, but divided
by great tracts of pathless mountains and barren plains, rendering,
except at the points mentioned, or by way of the sea, the transfer of
troops from one to the other a difficult process. Therefore the branch
lines (I. De Aar--Naauwpoort; 2. Stormberg--Rosmead) had a significance
hardly inferior to that of the three ports, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth,
and East London. These varied greatly in the facilities they afforded.
Table Bay, with its docks, wharves and store-houses, took rank among the
great commercial harbours of the world. Port Elizabeth, 430 miles
eastward, had no true harbour. Its open roadstead, although frequented
by the mercantile marine, was exposed to the dangerous south-east gales
prevalent on that coast. At East London, 140 miles yet further
eastwards, there was a small although excellent harbour. Its deep basin
allowed ocean steamers to moor alongside the railway wharf, but the
water area was limited and a sandbank at the mouth of the river Buffalo,
which flows in here, barred the approach of vessels exceeding 4,000 tons
in burden. On the east coast, Durban, at a distance of 300 miles from
East London and 830 miles from Cape Town, formed a satisfactory base.
The difficulties of a bar at the entrance to the harbour, similar to
that at East London, had been overcome by the energy and enterprise of
the colonial authorities. There was no direct communication by land
between these four ports, but this was of little consequence to a power
holding command at sea.
[Sidenote: The northern Drakensberg.]
North of the Stormbergen the Drakensberg range maintains its
north-easterly trend continuously until it breaks up in the valley of
the Limpopo. Along the eastern Basuto border, from the Natal to the
Free State frontiers, its characteristics, which have been always
grand, become magnificent. Here it is joined by the Maluti Mountains,
a range which, bisecting the domains of the Basuto, and traversing
them with its great spurs, has earned for the little state the title
of the South African Switzerland. At the junction of the Basutoland,
Free State, and Natal frontiers stands Potong, an imposing
table-shaped mass, called by the French missionaries Mont Aux Sources,
from the fact that it forms the chief water parting between the
numerous streams flowing west and east. Further south tower Cathkin
(or Champagne Castle), Giants Castle, and Mount Hamilton, the latter
within the Basuto border. All these and many lesser peaks are joined
by ridge after ridge of rugged grandeur.
[Sidenote: Drakensberg passes.]
Between the Basuto border and Laing's Nek lies the chief strategic
interest of the Drakensberg. Of less elevation than the lofty giants
which lie behind it to the southward, this portion still preserves,
with a mean altitude of 8,000 feet, the peculiar scenic beauty of the
system. From the Basuto border northwards the mountains formed the
frontier between Natal and the Orange Free State. They are pierced by
a number of passes of which none are easy, with the exception of
Laing's Nek, leading into the Transvaal. The best known, starting from
the southern extremity of this frontier section, are Olivier's Hoek,
Bezuidenhout, and Tintwa Passes at the head-stream of the Tugela
river; Van Reenen's, a steep tortuous gap over which the railway from
Ladysmith to Harrismith, and a broad highway, wind upwards through a
strange profusion of sudden peaks and flat-topped heights; De Beers,
Cundycleugh, and Sunday's River Passes giving access by rough bridle
paths from the Free State into Natal, abreast of the Dundee
coalfields; Müller's and Botha's Passes debouching on Newcastle and
Ingogo; and finally Laing's Nek, the widest and most important of all,
by which a fair road over a rounded saddle crosses the Drakensberg,
the Transvaal frontier lying four miles to the north of its summit.
Some of the eastern spurs thrown off from this section of the
Drakensberg completely traverse, and form formidable barriers across,
Natal. Such are the Biggarsberg, a range of lofty downs running from
Cundycleugh Pass across the apex of Natal to Dundee, and pierced by
the railway from Waschbank to Glencoe. Further to the south, Mount
Tintwa throws south-eastward down to the river Tugela a long,
irregular spur, of which the chief features are the eminences of
Tabanyama and Spion Kop. This spur, indeed, after a brief subsidence
below the last-named Kop, continues to flank the whole of the northern
bank of the Tugela as far as the railway, culminating there in the
heights of Pieters, and the lofty downs of Grobelaars Kloof, both of
which overhang the river. East of the railway another series of
heights prolongs the barrier, and joins hands with the lower slopes of
the Biggarsberg, which descends to the Tugela between Sunday's and
Buffalo rivers. Further south still, broad spurs from Cathkin and
Giants Castle strike out through Estcourt and Highlands, and connect
the Drakensberg with Zululand.
[Sidenote: Spurs of Drakensberg.]
North of Basutoland, the western spurs of the Drakensberg, jutting out
on to the Orange Free State uplands, are far less numerous and
pronounced than those in Natal, where the mountains dip steeply down
towards the sea; but the Versamelberg, the Witteberg, and the
Koranaberg further south, although of no great height, are strategical
features of importance.
[Sidenote: Drakensberg and Lobombo ranges.]
Beyond Laing's Nek, the Drakensberg, no longer a watershed, and losing
much both of its continuity and splendour, still preserves its
north-easterly trend, dropping still further to a mean altitude of
between 5,000 and 6,000 feet, and passing under many local
appellations, through the eastern Transvaal, until near Lydenburg, it
again rises in the Mauch Berg. Along its eastern edge the Drakensberg
here descends in the ruggedest slopes and precipices to the plains
which divide it from the Lobombo Mountains, a range which, commencing
at the Pongola river opposite Lake St. Lucia, runs parallel to the
Drakensberg, the two systems inclining inward to coalesce at the
Limpopo. South of that river the Lobombo formed throughout its length
the eastern frontier of the Transvaal State.
[Sidenote: The rands.]
North of the Oliphant river, which pierces both the Drakensberg and
Lobombo, the character of the Drakensberg becomes still more
fragmentary. Here its most important features are the transverse
ridges, or _rands_, thrown off from it in a direction generally
south-westerly. Chief amongst these are the Murchison and Zoutpansberg
Mountains, which, covering more than 350 miles of the country, unite
in the Witfontein Berg in the Rustenburg district. These ridges,
though of an elevation of over 4,000 feet above the sea level, rise
nowhere more than, and seldom as much as, 1,500 feet above the
terrain, and do little to relieve the monotony of the great prairies
they traverse and surround. The same type is preserved by the various
low ridges running parallel to and south of them towards the Orange
Free State border. One of these is the famous Witwaters Rand,
extending from Krugersdorp to Springs, and another the Magaliesberg, a
chain of more imposing character, connecting Pretoria and Rustenburg
to the north-east, and disappearing in the fertile Marico valley.
North of the Limpopo the Drakensberg, though becoming more broken and
complicated, still presents a bold front where the great
sub-continental plateau descends suddenly northwards to the Zambesi,
and eastwards to Portuguese territory, _i.e._, on the northern and
eastern frontiers of Mashonaland. Almost at the junction of these
boundaries it is joined by the Matoppo Hills, which rise from the
north-eastern limits of Khama's Country, bisect obliquely the region
between the Zambesi and the Limpopo, and culminate in Mount Hampden
(5,000 feet), near Salisbury.
[Sidenote: Rivers Limpopo and Orange.]
[Sidenote: The water-parting.]
Passing from the mountains to the great plateau they enclose, the
first point to be noted is that its surface is set at two opposite
"tilts," the portion north of the Witwaters Rand inclining downward to
the east, the other, south of that ridge, to the west. The drainage,
therefore, runs respectively east and west, and it is effected by the
two great streams of the Limpopo and the Orange, with their many
affluents. The general river system of the central plains is thus of
the simplest; the Indian Ocean receives their northern waters, the
Atlantic their southern; the remarkable factor of the arrangement
being that a physical feature so insignificant as the Witwaters Rand
should perform the function of water-parting for a region so
gigantic.[64]
[Footnote 64: There are, of course, in South Africa numerous
minor and local watersheds (_e.g._, the Drakensberg, where
they initiate the drainage of Natal in an easterly direction,
and the mountains of southern Cape Colony, which send some of
her rivers southward to the Indian Ocean). These have been
necessarily almost disregarded in so general a survey of the
sub-continent as that aimed at in the present chapter.]
[Sidenote: Course of Limpopo.]
The Limpopo, or Crocodile river, rises as a paltry stream in the
Witwaters Rand between Johannesburg and Pretoria, and flows into the
Indian Ocean, 80 miles north of Delagoa Bay, covering in its course
fully 1,350 miles.
[Sidenote: Course of Orange.]
The Orange has three distinct sets of headstreams from the western
flank of the Drakensberg, and a total length of 1,300 miles. From the
Basuto border to Ramah, on the Kimberley railway, about 220 miles, it
divided the Orange Free State from Cape Colony. The Orange receives on
its right bank its greatest affluent, the Vaal, which is between 500
and 600 miles in length. Commercially, both the Orange and the Vaal
are as useless as their smallest tributary, being entirely unnavigable
at all times of the year. Raging floods in the wet season, and mere
driblets in the dry, they are at present denied to the most powerful
or shallowest of river steamboats. The prospects of the Orange river
as a potential waterway are in any case practically destroyed by a
great bar which blocks approach to the estuary from the sea.
[Sidenote: Military character of streams of S.A.]
The streams of the South African plateau, whether river, spruit,
sluit, or donga, have, in addition to their extreme variability,
another marked and almost universal peculiarity. Running in deep beds,
of which the banks are usually level with the surrounding country, and
the sides terraced from the highest to the lowest water-mark, they
constitute natural entrenchments which are generally invisible, except
where rarely defined by a line of bushes, and, owing to the dead
uniformity of the surrounding country, are almost impossible to
reconnoitre. Nor, in 1899, were their defensive capabilities lessened
by the dearth of bridges, by the dangers of the drifts, and by the
absence of defined approaches to all crossing-places away from the
main roads. The "drifts," or fords, especially rendered the laying out
of a line of operations in South Africa a complex problem. Their depth
varied with the weather of the day; they were known by many names even
to local residents, and were of many types; but all alike were so
liable to sudden change or even destruction, that any information
concerning them, except the most recent, was practically useless.
[Sidenote: Effect of winds on climate.]
[Sidenote: The velds.]
To comprehend broadly the salient physiological features of a region
so enormous as South Africa, the causes of the climatic influences
which affect them must be understood. These causes on are simplicity
itself. The warm winds blow from the east, and the cold from the west;
the former, from the warm Mozambique current, skirting the eastern
seaboard, the latter, from the frigid Antarctic stream, setting from
south to north, and striking the western coast about Cape St. Martin.
It follows, therefore, that the climate and country become more genial
and fertile the further they are removed from the desiccating
influence emanating from the western seaboard. The dreariness of the
solitudes between Little Namaqualand and Griqualand West, the latter
slightly more smiling than the former, attests this fact. But the
comparative inhospitality of the Boer States--comparative, that is, to
what might be expected from their proximity to the warm Indian
Ocean--demands further explanation. From the Atlantic to the eastern
frontiers of these States no mountain ranges of any elevation
intervene to break the progress of the dry, cold breezes; from the
mouth of the Orange river to the Drakensberg the country is subject
almost uninterruptedly to their influence. But it is not so with the
milder winds from the east. The great screen of the Drakensberg meets
and turns them from end to end of South Africa; no country west of
this range profits by their moisture, whereas the regions east of it
receive it to the full. Hence the almost tropical fertility of Natal
and eastern Cape Colony, with their high rainfall, their luxuriance of
vegetation, indigo, figs, and coffee, and the jungles of cactus and
mimosa which choke their torrid kloofs. Hence, equally, the more
austere veld of the central tableland, the great grass wildernesses,
which are as characteristic of South Africa as the prairies and the
pampas of America, and, like them, became the home and hunting-ground
of a race of martial horsemen. Agriculture, following nature, divides
the veld into three parts, the "High," "Bush," and "Low" Velds; but it
is the first and greatest of these which stamps the central tableland
with its peculiar military characteristics. Almost the whole of the
Orange Free State, and the Transvaal east of the Natal railway, are
High Veld, which may be taken to mean any grassland lying at an
elevation of about 4,000 feet, upon which all vegetation withers in
the dry season, while in spring and summer it is covered with
nutritious herbage. The Low Veld lies properly between longitude 31°
and the tropical eastern coast; while the Bush Veld is usually
understood to mean the country lying between the Pretoria-Delagoa
railway and the Limpopo river. The terms, however, are very loosely
used. The Low Veld differs widely from the High Veld. Upon the former
is rich--almost rank--vegetation and pasture flourishing throughout
the year. But the climate is hot, moist, and unhealthy; and the Boer
farmers, forced by the course of the seasons to drive their flocks
from the sparkling, invigorating air of the uplands to the steamy
lowlands, were wont to take the task in turn amongst themselves, as an
unpleasant one to be performed as seldom as possible.
[Sidenote: Transvaal High Veld.]
The High Veld of the Transvaal differs slightly from that of the Free
State in appearance. It is more broken and undulating; the range of
vision, at times apparently boundless in the southern state, is rarely
extensive, except from the summit of a kopje, being usually bounded by
the low ridge-lines of one of those great, gentle, almost
imperceptible, rolls of the ground which are a feature of the
Transvaal veld, and with its hidden watercourses, its peculiar
tactical danger. A mountain range is seldom out of sight; and,
speaking generally, the Transvaal may be said to be less sombre than
the southern or western districts of the great plateau.
[Sidenote: The kopjes.]
If the veld can only be compared with the sea, the kopjes which
accentuate, rather than relieve, its monotony resemble in as marked a
degree the isolated islands which rise abruptly from the waters of
some tropic archipelago. Sometimes, indeed, the kopjes form a rough
series of broken knolls, extending over a space of several miles, as,
for instance, the ridges of Magersfontein and Spytfontein, between
Kimberley and the Modder; sometimes a group of three or four, disposed
irregularly in all directions, become a conspicuous landmark, as at
the positions of Belmont and Graspan; and it is not uncommon to find
larger masses, not less irregular, enclosing the river reaches which
their drainage has created, among which may be enumerated the heights
south-east of Jacobsdal, and by the river Riet, and those about
Koffyfontein and Jagersfontein on the same stream.
[Sidenote: Better for view than defence.]
But, as a rule, the kopje of the veld is a lonely hill, a mass of
igneous rock--flat-topped or sharp-pointed. From 200 to 800 feet in
height, without spur or underfeature, accessible only by winding paths
among gigantic boulders, sheer of face and narrow of crest, it is more
useful as a post of observation than as a natural fortress; for it can
almost always be surrounded, and the line of retreat, as a general
rule, is naked to view and fire.
[Sidenote: Boer States as defensive terrain.]
So far as tactical positions are concerned, any force on the defensive
upon the veld of the Boer States must be mainly dependent on the
rivers. Yet the spurs of the Drakensberg, blending in a range of
ridges, form a mountain stronghold admirably adapted for guerilla
warfare; and all along the Basuto border, at a distance of from 10 to
20 miles west of the Caledon, stands out a series of high, detached
hills, which form a covered way along the eastern boundary of the Free
State, crossing the Orange, and leading into the recesses of the
Stormberg Mountains.
[Sidenote: Natal features.]
For every wavelet of land upon the surface of the Boer States, a
hundred great billows stand up in Natal. Kopje succeeds kopje, all
steep, and many precipitous, yet not the bare, stony cairns of the
transmontane regions, but moist green masses of verdure, seldom
parched even in the dry season, and in the wet, glistening with a
thousand cascades; not severely conical or rectangular, like the
bizarre eminences which cover Cape Colony with the models of a school
of geometry, but nobly outlined. Many of the foothills, it is true,
are mere heaps of rock and stone; but even these are rarely such naked
and uncompromising piles as are found on the higher levels. Even where
northern Natal occasionally widens and subsides to a savannah, as it
does below the Biggarsberg, and again south of Colenso, the expanse,
compared with the tremendous stretches of the Boer veld, is but a
meadow.
[Sidenote: Healthy theatre sole favour for invader.]
As a theatre of war South Africa had one advantage, that it was for
the most part eminently healthy. Enteric fever, the scourge of armies,
was bound to be prevalent amongst thousands exposed to hardships in a
country where the water supply was indifferent, where sanitation was
usually primitive amongst the inhabitants, and impossible to improvise
hurriedly. But the purity of the air, the geniality of the
temperature, the cool nights, the brilliant sunshine, and the hard dry
soil were palliatives of evils inseparable from all campaigning.
Otherwise, for regular armies of invasion, South Africa was
unfavourable. The railways were so few that the business of supply and
movement was always arduous; spaces so vast that large forces were
swallowed up; the enormous distances from one strategical point to
another, intensified, in difficulty by the almost entire absence of
good roads, the scarcity of substantial bridges, of well-built towns,
of commodious harbours, and of even such ordinary necessaries as flour
or fuel, all these complicated every military problem to a degree not
readily intelligible to the student of European warfare alone.
[Sidenote: The central plateau.]
It is not easy to sum up briefly the typical qualities as a fighting
area of a region so vast and diversified as South Africa; but its
dominant feature is undoubtedly the great central plateau comprising
southern Rhodesia, all the Transvaal, except a narrow fringe on the
eastward, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, the Orange Free State, and
the northern and central portions of Cape Colony. Westward this
tableland slopes gradually and imperceptibly to sea level; to the
south it reaches the Atlantic in the series of terraces and
escarpments already described. Eastward it is shut in by the
Drakensberg, whose spurs, projecting to the Indian Ocean, traverse at
right angles Natal, Zululand, Swaziland, and Portuguese East Africa.
[Sidenote: Effect on operations of plateau.]
Upon the central South African plateau tactical and strategical
success is dependent upon rapid manoeuvring. Positions are so readily
turned that they can seldom be resolutely held. It is difficult,
therefore, to bring an evasive enemy to decisive action, and the
fruits of victory must chiefly be plucked by pursuit. The horse is as
important as the man, and the infantry arm is reduced to the position
of a first reserve, or to the _rôle_ of piquets on the lines of
communication, which remain always open to attack. Superior numbers
and, above all, superior speed, are irresistible. There are no
first-class physical obstacles; the rivers, excepting only the Orange
and the Vaal, are, as a rule, fordable; the hill features for the most
part insignificant or easy to mask. Mobility is thus at once the
chief enemy and aid to military success.
[Sidenote: and of lower spurs.]
But on the stairway descending from the south of this plateau, and on
the spurs reaching up from the coast on the east, all this is
reversed. The approach of an army acting on the offensive, uphill or
across the series of ridges, is commanded by so many points, that a
small number of defenders can readily arrest its advance. Position
leads but to position, and these, prolonged almost indefinitely on
either flank, are not readily turned, or, if turned, still offer
locally a strong frontal defence, should the enemy be sufficiently
mobile to reach them in time. Streamlets, which would be negligible on
the plateau, become formidable obstacles in their deep beds. The
horseman's occupation is greatly limited, for he can neither
reconnoitre nor gallop. Marches must, therefore, be made painfully in
battle formation, for every advance may entail an action. Thus
strategy is grievously cramped by the constant necessity for caution,
and still more by the tedious movements of the mass of transport,
without which no army can continue to operate in a country sparsely
inhabited, and as sparsely cultivated.
[Sidenote: Variety of rainfall.]
In South Africa even the rainfall militates against concurrent
operations on a wide scale, for, at the same season of the year, the
conditions prevalent upon one side of the sub-continent are exactly
the opposite to those obtaining on the other. In the western
provinces, the rainy season occurs in the winter months
(May--October), in the eastern, including the Boer States, the rain
falls chiefly in the summer (October--March). Yet so capricious are
these phenomena that a commander, who counted absolutely upon them for
his schemes, might easily find them in abeyance, or even for a period
reversed.
[Sidenote: Variety of S.A. climate.]
Beyond the broad facts stated above, the extent of South Africa
renders it as impossible to specify any typical climatic or scenic
peculiarities common to the whole of it, as to fix upon any
strategical or tactical character that is universal. Cape Colony alone
exhibits such antitheses of landscape as the moist verdure of the
Stormberg and the parched dreariness of Bushman and Little Namaqua
Lands, and a rainfall ranging from two to seventy-two inches per
annum. The variations in other parts are little less striking. The
temperature of the High Veld, for instance, is wont to rise or fall no
less than sixty degrees in twelve hours, or less. Thus, whilst one
portion of an army on a wide front might be operating in the tropics,
another might be in the snows, whilst a third was sheltering from the
sun by day, from the frost by night, conditions which actually
obtained during the contest about to be described. What effect such
divergencies must exercise on plans of campaign, on supplies of
clothing, shelter, food, forage, and on military animals themselves,
may be readily imagined.
CHAPTER IV.
THE BOER ARMY.
[Sidenote: Many previous cases compare with Boer resistance.]
[Sidenote: Inherited faculties.]
Any force of irregulars which offers a prolonged resistance, not
unmarked by tactical successes, to a regular army of superior strength
is apt to be regarded as a phenomenon. Yet, from the earliest times,
history has shown how seasoned troops may be checked by an enemy who
is inferior in numbers, discipline and armament, but possessed of
certain counterbalancing resources, due either to the nature of his
country, to his own natural characteristics, or to a combination of
both.[65] Of such resources the Boers at the close of the nineteenth
century possessed, largely by inheritance, a full share. With their
forefathers, the early Afrikanders, loneliness had been a passion to
which their very presence north of the Orange river was due. Flying
from society, from burdens and responsibilities which they considered
intolerable, from pleasures which seemed to them godless, from a stir
which bewildered them, and from regularity which wearied them, they
had penetrated the wilds northward in bands as small as possible, each
man of which was wrapped in a dream of solitude, careless whither he
went so long as he went unseen. It troubled these pioneers little that
they were plunging into a sea of enemies. Society, with its
conventions and trammels, and most of all, perhaps, with its taxes,
was the only enemy whom they feared, the only one they could never
escape. But before it caught them up, their combats with corporeal
foes were incessant and deadly. Wild beasts prowled round their
herds; savages swooped upon their homesteads; all animated nature was
in arms against them; every farmhouse was a fortress, usually in a
state of siege. In the great spaces of the wilderness the cry for help
was but seldom heard, or if heard, only by one who had his own safety
to look to. The Boer farmer of the forties, therefore, had to work out
his rescue, as he worked out every other problem of his existence, for
himself, acquiring thereby, a supreme individuality and self-reliance
in the presence of danger. He acquired also other characteristics. The
fighting men of his nation were few in number; every mature life was
little less valuable to the State than it was to the homestead whose
existence depended upon it. The burgher's hope of injuring his enemy
was therefore subordinated to solicitude for his own preservation, and
he studied only safe methods of being dangerous. Even when in later
days the Boer expeditionary bands, reclaiming to the full from the
blacks the toll of blood and cruelty which had been levied on
themselves, were more often the attackers than the attacked, their
aggression was always tempered by the caution of the individual Boers,
who would still forego a chance of striking a blow should it contain
an undue element of hazard. The republican warriors relied, indeed,
less on attack than on defence. They trusted yet more to that weapon,
perfected by many small races which have been compelled to work out
their own methods of warfare, the weapon of evasion. Nearly always
outnumbered, never sure of victory, the burghers always provided, then
kept their eyes continually upon, a loophole of escape, for if that
were closed they felt themselves to be lost. These characteristics,
with many more which will be noted, the early Boer bequeathed to his
sons and grandsons; a legacy so strangely composed that many of the
very qualities which brought temporary victory to the campaigners of
1899 foredoomed them to ultimate defeat.
[Footnote 65: _E.G._, the revolt of La Vendée, the resistance
of the Maories, the Red Indians, the Achinese, the
Montenegrins, of the Trans-Indus Highlanders, of Andreas
Hofer's Tyrolese, of Shamyl's Caucasians.]
[Sidenote: Value of these in present warfare.]
Self-reliance and individuality are factors of extraordinary military
importance under any conditions, but especially under circumstances
involving such dispersion of combatants, such distances between
commanders and commanded, as were brought about by the conjunction of
long-range arms, an open terrain and the clearest atmosphere in the
world. South Africa was a country which gave the freest play to the
deadly properties of small-bore rifles. The new weapons fitted into
the Boer's inherited conceptions of warfare as if they were a part for
which his military organisers had long been hoping and waiting. He had
an antipathy to fighting at close quarters, but he knew the value and
necessity of striking; the Mauser enabled him to strike at the extreme
limit of vision, multiplying tenfold the losses and difficulties of
the enemy who attempted to close with him. The portability of the
ammunition, the accuracy of the sighting, the absence of betraying
smoke, all these increased the Boer's already great trust in himself,
and he took the field against the British regular infantryman with
more confidence than his sires had felt when they held their laagers
against the Zulu and the Matabele. The modern rifle, moreover, still
further increased his self-reliance by rendering avoidance of close
combat, which alone he feared, a much simpler matter than hitherto.
His father had escaped the bayonets of the British at Boomplaats; he
himself was no more willing or likely to be caught by the steel fifty
years later, when he could kill at two thousand yards instead of two
hundred, or failing to kill, had hours instead of minutes in which to
gain his pony and disappear. Yet the long-range rifle had improved his
weapon of retreat until it had become a danger instead of an aid to
his cause. Failing so completely to understand the military value of
self-sacrifice, that he actually pitied, and slightly despised it,
when he saw it resorted to by his enemies, his refusal to risk his
life often proved disastrous to his side at times when more resolution
might have turned the scale of battle in his favour.
There was much to be admired in the Boer defensive; up to a certain
point it was stubborn and dangerous. The musketry from a position,
poured upon zones of ground over which the British troops must pass
rather than upon the troops themselves, was heavy and effective, and
not easily quelled by bombardment. In battle, artillery may do its
work without causing a casualty; but so long as he had cover for his
body, the soul of the Boer rifleman was little shaken by the bursting
of projectiles; fierce firing came often from portions of a position
which appeared to be smothered by shrapnel, and invisible in the reek
of exploding lyddite.
[Sidenote: Special habits of fighting.]
Nor did the Boer armies, as regular armies have done, cling to strong
positions simply because they were strong. They considered a position
as a means to an end, and if it ceased to be the best, they discarded
it without hesitation, no matter with what toil it had been prepared.
Nevertheless, on ground of their own choosing, the abandonment without
a shot of strong, laboriously entrenched, positions by no means always
meant retirement. Much as they dreaded being enveloped, their flanks,
or what would have been the flanks of an European army, might be
threatened again and again only to be converted each time into new and
formidable fronts. The nature of the country, and the comparative
mobility of the opposing forces rendered these rapid changes of front
easy of execution, but they demanded promptness, and a genius for the
appreciation of the value of ground, not only on the part of the Boer
leaders, but also on that of the rank and file. In the ranks of the
commandos persuasion had to take the place of word of command; the
Boer soldier, before he quitted one position for another, had to be
convinced of the necessity for a repetition of the severe toil of
entrenching which had apparently been wasted. But his eye was as
quick, his tactical and topographical instinct as keen as those of his
commander, and if the new dispositions were not selected for him, he
often selected them himself.
[Sidenote: Their defences: strong points.]
Once on the ground the burghers' first care was to conceal themselves
quickly and cunningly, cutting deep and narrow entrenchments, if
possible upon the rearward crest, leaving the forward crest, of which
they carefully took the range, to the outposts. Upon the naked slope
between, which was often obstructed with barbed wire, they relied to
deny approach to their schanzes. A not uncommon device was the placing
of the main trench, not at the top, but along the base of the
position. Here the riflemen, secure and invisible, lay while the
hostile artillery bombarded the untenanted ridge lines behind them.
Such traps presented an enhanced danger from the fact that the Boers
would rarely open fire from them until the front of the attack was
well committed, though, on the other hand, they seldom had nerve or
patience to withhold their musketry until the moment when it might be
completely decisive. As regards the Boer artillery, its concealment
was usually perfect, its location original and independent, its
service accurate and intelligent. Dotted thinly over a wide front, the
few guns were nevertheless often turned upon a common target, and were
as difficult to detect from their invisibility, as to silence from the
strength of the defences, in the case of the heavy ordnance, and in
the case of the lighter pieces, from their instant change of position
when discovered.
[Sidenote: A weakness in defence.]
Nevertheless, with all these virtues, the Boer defensive, by reason of
the above-mentioned characteristics of the individual soldiers, was no
insurmountable barrier, but only an obstacle to a determined attack.
Many of the positions occupied by the Republicans during the campaigns
seemed impregnable. Prepared as skilfully as they had been selected,
in them some troops would have been unconquerable. But at the moment
when they must be lost without a serried front, the reverse slopes
would be covered with flying horsemen, whilst but a handful of the
defenders remained in the trenches. Nor, except on the feeblest and
most local scale, would the defenders at any time venture anything in
the nature of a counter stroke, though the attack staggered, or even
recoiled, upon the bullet-swept glacis, and victory trembled in the
balance.
[Sidenote: A weakness in attack.]
If the Boer defensive was force passive, their general attack became
force dissipated as soon as it entered the medium rifle zone.
Excessive individuality marked its every stage, the thought of victory
seldom held the first place. In the old days, when an assault had to
be attempted, as at Thaba Bosigo and Amajuba, it had been the custom
to call for volunteers. But when President Kruger pitted his burghers
against large armies, this expedient was no longer available; instead
of a few score such affairs required thousands, and they were not
forthcoming. The desire to close, the only spirit which can compel
decisive victory, entered into the Boer fighting philosophy even less
than the desire to be closed with; the non-provision of bayonets was
no careless omission on the part of their War department. During an
assault the Commandants might set, as they often did, a splendid
example of courage, but they could never rely on being followed to the
end by more than a fraction of their men. The attack, therefore, of
the Boers differed from that of a force of regulars in that it was
never made in full strength, and was never pushed home; and from that
of the Afghans, Afridis or Soudanese in that there was no strong body
of spectators to rush forward and assure the victory half won by the
bolder spirits in front. Their attack was, in consequence, little to
be feared, so long as the defence was well covered from the incessant
rifle fire which supported and accompanied it; for none but a few
gallant individuals would ever venture to close upon a trench or
sangar whose defenders yet remained alive behind it. Both in attack
and defence, therefore, the Boer army lacked the last essentials to
victory.
[Sidenote: As partisans.]
It was in the warfare of the partisan that the Boer excelled, in the
raid on a post or convoy, the surprise and surrounding of a
detachment, the harassing of the flanks and the rear of a column, and
the dash upon a railway. Their scouting has not often been excelled;
their adversaries seldom pitched or struck a camp unwatched, or
marched undogged by distant horsemen. How little the Boer generals and
Intelligence department knew how to utilise the fruits of this
constant watchfulness will be fully shown elsewhere, but the lack of
deductive power on the part of the leaders detracts nothing from the
unwearied cunning of their men.
[Sidenote: Use of ground.]
The combinations of scattered bands at a given rendezvous for a common
purpose were not seldom marvellous, effected as they often were by
rides of extraordinary speed and directness by night, when the men had
to feel with their hands for the goat and Kaffir tracks if astray, but
rarely astray, even in the most tangled maze of kopjes, or, still more
wonderful, on the broadest savannah of featureless grass. With the
Boer, direction had become a sense; not only were topographical
features, once seen, engraved indelibly on his memory, but many which
would be utterly invisible to untrained eyes were often detected at
once by inference so unconscious as to verge on instinct. He knew
"ground" and its secrets as intimately as the seaman knows the sea,
and his memory for locality was that of the Red Indian scout.
[Sidenote: Mixed qualities.]
Thus the Boer riflemen possessed many of the characteristics of the
same formidable type of irregular soldier as the backwoodsmen of
America or the picked warriors of the Hindustan border. Yet an exact
prototype of qualities so contradictory as those which composed this
military temperament is not to be recalled. No fighting men have been
more ready for war, yet so indifferent to military glory, more imbued
with patriotism, yet so prone to fight for themselves alone, more
courageous, yet so careful of their lives, more lethargic, or even
languid by nature, and yet so capable of the most strenuous activity.
Such were the Boers of the veld. In one particular they had never been
surpassed by any troops. No Boer but was a bold horseman and a skilled
horsemaster, who kept his mount ready at any moment for the longest
march or the swiftest gallop, in darkness, or over the roughest
ground. In camp the ponies grazed each one within reach of its master;
in action every burgher took care that his perfectly trained animal
stood, saddled and bridled, under cover within a short run to the
rear. In remote valleys great herds of ponies, some fresh, some
recouping their strength after the fatigues of a campaign, roamed at
pasture until they should be driven to the front as remounts.
[Sidenote: Mobility.]
The unrivalled mobility of the Boer armies, therefore, and the
vastness of its theatre of action, gave to them strength out of all
proportion to their numbers. A muster roll is little indication of the
fighting power of a force which can march three or four times as fast
as its opponent, can anticipate him at every point, dictating the hour
and place of the conflict, can keep him under constant surveillance,
can leave its communications without misgivings, and finally, which
can dispense with reserves in action, so quickly can it reinforce from
the furthest portions of its line of battle. Yet in this particular
again, the Boers' constitutional antipathy to the offensive robbed
them of half their power. They employed their mobility, their peculiar
strength, chiefly on the defensive and on tactics of evasion, often,
indeed, resigning it altogether, to undertake a prolonged and
half-hearted investment of some place of arms. Amongst their leaders
there appeared some who did all that was possible, and much more than
had seemed possible, with a few hundreds of devoted followers. But the
Republics possessed no Sheridan. Men who foresaw that in this mobility
might lie the making of a successful campaign, that the feats of the
raider might be achieved tenfold by large well-mounted armies, were
missing from their councils.
[Sidenote: Organisation.]
The Boer forces which took the field in 1899 were composed of two
divisions:--
(I.) The Burgher Commandos.
(II.) The Regular Forces.
Of the former the whole male population, black and white, between the
ages of sixteen and sixty, formed the material,[66] the "Wyk" or Ward,
the lowest electoral unit, the recruiting basis. Upon the Field
Cornet, the chief officer of a Ward, elected by its votes for a term
of three years, devolved many responsibilities besides the civil
duties of collecting the taxes, administering the law, and maintaining
order in his small satrapy. He was also the sole representative of
Army Headquarters. One of the most important of his functions was that
of compiling the registers of burghers liable to war service.[67]
[Footnote 66: Exemptions similar to those which obtain in
European schemes of universal service were sanctioned by the
military law of the Boer Republics.]
[Footnote 67: These lists were of three kinds, comprising:--
(I.) Youths under 18 and men over 50.
(II.) Men between 18 and 34.
(III.) Men between 34 and 50.
In the event of war, Class II. was first liable to service,
then Class III., and, as a last resort, Class I.]
[Sidenote: Field cornet.]
It was his business, moreover, to see that each man of his levy took
the field with clothing, rifle, horse and ammunition in good and
serviceable order; and if, as was rarely the case, means of transport
were insufficiently contributed by the burghers themselves, to provide
them by commandeering from the most convenient source. The whole
military responsibility, in short, of his Ward fell on him; and though
the men he inspected annually were rather his neighbours than his
subordinates, their habitual readiness for emergencies smoothed what,
in most other communities, would have been the thorniest of official
paths, and rendered seldom necessary even the mild law he could
invoke.
[Sidenote: Ward levy.]
The first acts of the Ward levy at the rendezvous were to elect an
Assistant Field Cornet and two or more Corporals, the former to serve
their commander during the campaign, the latter to serve themselves by
distributing rations and ammunition, and supervising generally their
comfort in laager, by performing, in fact, all the duties performed by
a section commander in the British infantry except that of command.
[Sidenote: The commando and commandant.]
The Field Cornet then rode with his burghers to the meeting-place of
the commando, usually the market town of the District. There a
Commandant, elected by the votes of the District, as the Field Cornet
had been by those of the Ward, assumed command of the levies of all
the Wards, and forthwith led them out to war, a Boer commando.
[Sidenote: A nation in arms.]
Thus, at the order to mobilise, the manhood of the Boer Republics
sprang to arms as quickly, as well prepared, and with incomparably
more zeal than the best trained conscripts of Europe. Not urged to the
front like slaves by the whips of innumerable penalties, their needs
not considered to the provision of a button, or a ration of salt,
shabby even to squalor in their appointments, they gathered in
response to a call which it was easy for the laggard to disobey, and
almost uncared for by the forethought of anyone but themselves.
[Sidenote: Defects of system.]
[Sidenote: In Boer army doubly dangerous.]
In so far, therefore, as it applied to the actual enrolment and
mobilisation of the commandos, the military system of the Boer
Republics appeared well-nigh perfect. Yet it had radical and grievous
defects, and these, being in its most vital parts, robbed it of half
its efficiency. The election of military officers by the votes of the
men they were destined to command would be a hazardous expedient in
the most Utopian of communities; it was doubly dangerous with a people
trained in habits formed by the accustomed life of the Boers in the
nineteenth century. Its evil effects were felt throughout their
armies. Officers of all grades had been selected for any other
qualities than those purely military. Property, family interest, and
politics had often weighed more heavily in the balance than aptitude
for command. In the field the results were disastrous. Few of the
officers had sufficient strength of character to let it be seen that
they did not intend to remain subject to the favour which had created
them. The burghers were not slow to profit by the humility of their
superiors. Jealous of their democratic rights, conscious of their own
individual value in a community so small, the rank and file were too
ignorant of war to perceive the necessity of subordination. Especially
were these failings of leaders and led harmful in the Krijgsraads, or
Councils of War, which, attended by every officer from corporal
upwards, preceded any military movement of importance. Since most of
the members owed their presence to social and civic popularity, sound
military decisions were in any case not to be expected. Moreover, as
the majority of the officers truckled to the electorate which had
conferred upon them their rank, it followed that the decisions of a
Krijgsraad were often purely those of the Boer soldiers, who hung on
its outskirts, and did not scruple, when their predilections were in
danger of being disregarded, to buttonhole their representatives and
dictate their votes. Finally, there were not wanting instances of
unauthorised Krijgsraads being assembled at critical junctures,
avowedly in mutinous opposition to a lawful assembly, and actually
overriding the latter's decision.
[Sidenote: Forms of discipline.]
[Sidenote: Uncertain number in units.]
There was, however, discipline of a theoretical kind in the commandos.
Two authorised forms of Courts-Martial existed to deal with offences
committed on active service. But Courts-Martial were an empty terror
to evil-doers. They were rarely convened, and when they were, the
burgher of the close of the nineteenth century knew as many methods of
evading the stroke of justice as did his father of escaping the stalk
of a lion or the rush of a Zulu spearman.
A serious defect inherent in this military system was the inequality
of the strength of the units created by it. A commando was a commando,
of whatever numbers it consisted; and these, contributed by districts
greatly varying in population, ranged from 300 to 3,000 men. Thus the
generals, placed in command of forces composed of many commandos of
which they knew nothing but the names, were ever in doubt as to the
numbers of men at their disposal, a difficulty increased tenfold by
the constantly shifting strength of the commandos themselves.
Straggling and absenteeism are evils incident to all irregular or
hastily enrolled armies, however drastic their codes of discipline, or
however fervent their enthusiasm; with the Boers these maladies were
prevalent to an incredible degree. Many and stringent circulars were
promulgated by the Boer Presidents to cope with this disastrous source
of weakness. But one and all failed in their object, from the
impotence of the officers whose duty it was to enforce them, and at
every stage of the campaign many more than the authorised 10 per cent.
of the fighting line were absent from their posts.
[Sidenote: Untrained staff.]
If such were the faults of the machine, those of the motive power were
not less glaring. No provision had been made in peace for the training
of men for the duties of the Staff. At Pretoria, the Commandant-General,
forced to reign alone over the twin kingdoms of administration and
command, had not unnaturally failed to govern either. The chain of
authority between Commander-in-Chief and private soldier, a chain whose
every link must be tempered and tested in time of peace, was with the
Boers not forged until war was upon them, and then so hurriedly that it
could not bear the strain. When prompt orders were most needed, there
was often no one to issue them, no one to carry them, or, even if issued
and delivered, no one present who could enforce them. Nor were the
ramifications of departmental duty, which, like arteries, should carry
vitality to every portion of the army, of any more tried material. In
most existing departments there was chaos; many that are indispensable
did not exist at all.
[Sidenote: Arms.]
The service arms of the burgher forces were the Mauser ·276 rifle and
carbine.
The exact number of Mauser rifles brought into the Boer States is, and
will probably be always, uncertain. At least 53,375 can be accounted
for, of which 43,000 were imported by the Transvaal and the remainder
by the Orange Free State, the latter drawing a further 5,000 from the
stores of the sister Republic. These, with approximately 50,000
Martini-Henry and other rifles known to have been in the arsenals and
in possession of the burghers before the commencement of hostilities,
made up over 100,000 serviceable weapons at the disposal of the two
countries.[68] Ammunition was ample, though, again, it is idle to
discuss actual figures. Neither the stock in the magazines, nor that
in the possession of the farmers, was for certain known to any man.
The most moderate of the Republican officials in a position to form a
credible estimate placed it at seventy millions of rounds; it was more
probably nearer one hundred millions. The Boer farmer, still uncertain
of security in the outlying solitudes of the veld, still unaccustomed
to it in the more frequented districts, never wasted ammunition even
though a use for it seemed remote. He hoarded it as other men hoard
gold; for deeply rooted in him was the thought, sown in the perilous
days of the past, that cartridges, with which to preserve the lives of
himself and his family, might at any moment become of more value than
gold pieces, which could only give to life the comfort he somewhat
despised. Thus the arsenals of the larger towns were not the only, or
even the chief, repositories of small-arm ammunition. Every farm was a
magazine; lonely caves hid packets and boxes of cartridges; they lay
covered beneath the roots of many a solitary tree, beneath conspicuous
stones, often beneath the surface of the bare veld itself. Whatever
were the actual amounts of arms and ammunition at the disposal of the
Republican riflemen, it was plain they were not only adequate but
extravagant. There was significance in the excess. The Boers possessed
sufficient munitions of war to arm and equip 30,000 or 40,000 men over
and above their own greatest available strength. It will be seen in
due course for whose hands this over-plus was designed.
[Footnote 68: The following is a fairly accurate estimate in
detail:--
Mausers 53,375
Martini-Henry 35,875
Westley-Richards 9,780
Guedes 6,049
Lee-Metfords 2,850
Krag-Jörgensen 200
-------
108,129
Besides the above, there were about 6,000 Webley pistols in
store.]
[Sidenote: Rifle practice.]
The Republican Governments had not been satisfied with the mere issue
of arms. As early as 1892 in the Transvaal, and 1895 in the Orange
Free State, rifle practice, at the periodical inspections of arms and
equipment, called Wapenschouws, had been made compulsory for the
burghers. For these exercises ammunition was provided free, and money
appropriated from the State funds for prizes. Every effort, in short,
was made to preserve the old skill and interest in rifle-shooting,
which it was feared would vanish with the vanishing elands and
gemsbok. If the skill had diminished, the interest had not. A rifle
had at all times an irresistible fascination for a Boer. The Bedouin
Arab did not expend more care upon his steed of pure Kehailan blood,
nor the medieval British archer upon his bow, than did the veld farmer
upon his weapon. Even he who kept clean no other possession, allowed
no speck of dirt on barrel or stock. On the introduction of the new
rifles, not only had shooting clubs sprung up in all quarters, but, in
aiding them with funds, ammunition, and prizes, the Republican
authorities, before they disappeared, had given at least one lesson to
Governments, that of fostering to the utmost any national predilection
which may be of service to the State.
THE REGULAR FORCE.
Regular forces of similar, if not identical, composition were
authorised by the constitutions of both Republics, consisting in the
Transvaal of artillery and police, and in the Free State of artillery
only. These differed in no respects from similar units of any European
organisation, being raised, equipped, officered, instructed, and paid
in the ordinary manner, and quartered in barracks or forts.
[Sidenote: Regulars.]
The regular forces of the Transvaal consisted of:--
(a) The State Artillery.
(b) The South African Republic Police.
(c) The Swaziland Police.
[Sidenote: Artillery.]
The State Artillery of the South African Republic was as complete and
efficient a unit as any of its kind in existence. Originally
incorporated with the Police at the inception of both in 1881, it was
reorganised on a separate footing in 1894, in which year it also first
saw active service against Malaboch in the Blue Mountains. At this time
the strength of the Corps was but 100 gunners, 12 non-commissioned
officers and 7 officers. After the Jameson Raid, however, the force was
quadrupled and reorganised; the field and fortress departments were
differentiated, larger barracks built, and steps taken generally to
ensure the greatest possible efficiency and readiness for instant
service, the avowed object of the Government being to make the Corps
"the nucleus of the military forces of the Republic."[69] The only
qualifications necessary for the 300 additional men required by the
scheme were citizenship, either by birth or naturalisation, age not to
be less than 16, and the possession of a certificate of good conduct
from the Field Cornet. Service was for three years, with the option of
prolongation to six years, after which followed a period of service in
the reserve until the age of 35 was reached.[70]
[Footnote 69: Law of Reorganisation, 1896.]
[Footnote 70: Pay of Officers of the State Artillery:--
Commandant £700 per annum.
Major 600 "
Captain 500 "
First Lieutenant 350 "
Second Lieutenant 275 "
All ranks received a horse from the Government, a special
board supervising the purchase and issue of remounts. Rations
and uniforms were also free issues, and on a most generous
scale to officers and men alike.
The pay of non-commissioned officers and men was as
follows:--
Warrant Officers £180 and £150 per annum.
Farriers and Sergeants 6s. 6d. a day.
Corporals 5s. 6d. "
Gunners 5s. 0d. "]
[Sidenote: Military courts.]
For the maintenance of discipline the Corps had three Military Courts
of its own, whose powers extended from detention to death. They
differed in no way from similar tribunals in the British army save in
one respect, that convicted prisoners had a right of appeal from a
lower Court to that above it. Drill was on the German model, but the
language was Dutch. The Boer gunners were ready pupils, having much
the same natural aptitude for the handling of ordnance as is
observable in British recruits. Only 20 rounds per gun were allowed
for the yearly target practice.
[Sidenote: Artillery divisions.]
The State Artillery was divided into the following principal
departments:--[71]
(a) Field Artillery.
(b) Fortress Artillery.
(c) Field Telegraph.
[Footnote 71: There were in addition an Intendance Service,
Medical, Educational, Farriery, and Artificer staffs, and a
band of 20 performers; all maintained in a high state of
efficiency.]
[Sidenote: Artillery weapons.]
At the date of the outbreak of hostilities the modern armament of the
field artillery was as follows:--
6 Creusot Q.F. 75 m/m (about 3 inches), supplied with 11,009[72] rounds.
4 Krupp Howitzers 120 m/m (4·7-in.), supplied with 3,978 rounds.
8 Krupp Guns Q.F. 75 m/m, supplied with 5,600 rounds.
21 Vickers-Maxim (pom-pom) 37·5 m/m (about 1-1/2 inches),
supplied with 72,000 rounds (14,000 pointed steel, 58,000
common).
4 Vickers Mountain Guns 75 m/m. Ammunition not known.
4 Nordenfeldts 75 m/m, supplied with 2,483 rounds,
1 Armstrong 15-pr. Ammunition not known.
1 Armstrong 12-pr. Ammunition not known.
[Footnote 72: During the war about 26,000 projectiles of
various patterns were manufactured in Johannesburg. Both at
that place and at Pretoria an immense amount of manufacturing
and repairing of war material was effected, including the
making of a new 120 m/m Howitzer and the shortening of a
6-in. Creusot.]
In addition to this the field artillery possessed 12 Maxims for ·303
rifle ammunition, and 10 for the ·450 Martini-Henry. For the latter
1,871,176 rounds of nickel-covered ammunition were in store. The total
modern armament of the field artillery, therefore, capable of service
in the field, was--excluding the 22 Maxims--49 pieces. The following
more or less obsolete weapons were also in charge of the Corps:--
4 Krupp Mountain Guns, 65 m/m.
6 7-pr. Mountain Guns.
3 5-pr. Armstrong Guns.
[Sidenote: Manning of artillery.]
The personnel of the field artillery was, on a peace footing, 12
officers and 394 N.C.O.s and men, but in the field this was found to
be very inadequate, and was eked out by the incorporation of
volunteers from the commandos.[73]
[Footnote 73: As many as thirty-nine ordinary burghers were
noticed doing duty with a battery in action.]
The fortress artillery had 9 officers and 151 N.C.O.s and men, but,
like the field artillery, drew many willing helpers from the burgher
ranks. Its armament consisted of:--
4 Creusot 155 m/m (about 6 inches),[74] supplied with 8,745 rounds.
6 Hotchkiss 37 m/m on parapet mounting, supplied with 3,663 rounds.
1 Mortar 150 m/m. Ammunition not known,
1 Howitzer 64-pr. Ammunition not known.
[Footnote 74: The 6-in. Creusots were of somewhat peculiar
construction, having narrow iron wheels, not at all promising
the mobility which the Boers attained from them. The shell
weighed 94 lbs., charge 20 lbs. black powder, bursting charge
for shrapnel 5 lbs. melinite. Recoil was absorbed
pneumatically.]
Besides these, a few guns of odd and mostly obsolete patterns,
including three Krupp, were on the books of the Fortress department.
The third division of the State Artillery, the field telegraph
section, comprised 2 officers and 65 N.C.O.s and men.
The State Artillery of the Transvaal, to sum up, was (excluding
Maxims) armed with 61 effective and about 20 semi-effective weapons,
manned by a personnel of about 800 men (including reservists).
THE POLICE.
[Sidenote: The Police, Transvaal.]
The Transvaal Police consisted of two bodies:--
(a) The South African Republic Police.
(b) The Swaziland Police.
The former, whose _sobriquet_ of "Zarps" war made more famous with the
British than peace had rendered it infamous, numbered some 1,200
whites and 200 blacks under 13 officers and 64 non-commissioned
officers. In peace time they were stationed chiefly in Johannesburg,
with detachments at Pretoria, Krugersdorp, and a few outlying
stations. Qualifications for service were an age of 21 years, with
burgher rights by birth, and the term for three years, with subsequent
yearly renewals.
The S.A.R. Police, who were a purely regular force, were divided into
foot and mounted organisations of about 800 and 500 respectively. They
were thoroughly drilled, their fire discipline being on the most
approved German model. Their rigid training, however, had apparently
robbed them of much of the individual initiative which safeguarded the
persons and lost the battles of their less educated compatriots in the
ranks of the commandos.
[Sidenote: Police, Swaziland.]
The Swaziland Police were a small body of some 300 white and black
men, commanded by eight officers and 27 of non-commissioned rank.
Their formation was much more that of an ordinary commando than that
of the Europeanised "Zarps," and, in fact, from the commencement of
the war, they operated as a wing of the local commando.
REGULAR FORCES OF THE FREE STATE.
[Sidenote: Free State Regulars.]
These consisted of artillery only, numbering some 375 men (including
200 reservists), and possessed of the following armament:--[75]
[Footnote 75: Three Krupp and three Maxims were on order in
Europe, but were not delivered in time to reach the Free
State capital.]
14 Krupp Guns 75 m/m, with 9,008 rounds.
5 Armstrong Guns 9-pr., with 1,300 rounds,
1 Krupp Q.F. 37 m/m. Ammunition not known.
3 Armstrong Mountain Guns 3-pr., with 786 rounds.
3 Maxim Guns.
With all furniture and wagons complete.
[Sidenote: Inferior organisation.]
The Corps was by no means so thoroughly organised as the artillery of
the Transvaal. There was no division into batteries, the guns being
entrusted to the care of any commando which "liked to have a gun with
it."[76] Yet there was considerable _esprit de corps_ amongst the
gunners, who maintained their material, as well as their discipline,
in surprisingly good order considering the lack of officers, and the
general slovenliness of their surroundings. The conditions of service
for the men were the same as those which obtained in the Transvaal
Corps.
[Footnote 76: Boer Account.]
The Corps also possessed a small but efficient telegraph section. The
barracks, at Bloemfontein, compared most unfavourably with the fine
buildings which housed the Transvaal artillery at Pretoria.
NUMBERS OF THE BOER FORCES.
[Sidenote: Uncertainty of Boer figures.]
Figures of exact accuracy are, and must be for ever, unobtainable, for
none of the data from which they could be compiled were either
precisely recorded, or can be remembered. The Field Cornets' books,
and consequently the State lists, of those liable to service were all
alike full of errors and discrepancies. The statistical machinery of
the Republics, too primitively, and it may be added too loosely,
managed to be equal to the work of even a complete census in time of
peace, made no attempt to cope with the levy which crowded around the
Field Cornets in every market place at the issue of the Ultimatum in
October, 1899. Muster rolls of even those actually and officially
present in the field do not exist. Only one leader in either
Republican army ventured to call a roll of his command, and the loud
discontent of the burghers, scandalised at the militarism of the
proceeding, did not encourage other officers to follow his example.
[Sidenote: Total engaged.]
The estimate, however, of 87,365, has been arrived at after the
collation of so much independent testimony, that it may be taken as
fairly accurate.[77]
[Footnote 77: See Appendix 4.]
The grand total does not, of course, represent the number of men in
the field at any one time. It is an estimate of the numbers of all who
bore arms against the British troops at any time whatever during the
campaign. The Boer army numerically was the most unstable known to
history,[78] varying in strength as it varied in fortune in the field,
varying even with the weather, or with that mercurial mental condition
of which, in irregular forces, the numbers present at the front best
mark the barometer. Those numbers, even in the heroic stages of the
campaign, ranged from about 55,000 men to 15,000, with every
intermediate graduation. It is impossible to trace the vicissitudes of
an army which lost, regained, then lost again fifty per cent. of its
strength within a week. Nor is a periodic enumeration of vital
military interest. With the Boers the numbers actually present in the
fighting line were not, as with European troops, the measure of their
effective force. For the Boer, whether as absentee at his farm, or
wandering demoralised over the veld, was often little less a portion
of the strength of his side than his comrade who happened to be lying
alert in a shelter trench at the same moment. He intended to fight
again; and instances were not wanting of parties of burghers, thus
deserting their proper front, being attracted by the sound or the news
of fighting in a totally different direction, and riding thither to
form a reinforcement, as little expected upon the new battle ground by
their friends as by their enemies.
[Footnote 78: The armies during the war between North and
South in America ran it close in this respect.]
CHAPTER V.
THE BRITISH ARMY.
[Sidenote: Various employments of British Army.]
Every army necessarily grows up according to the traditions of its
past history. Those of the Continent having only to cross a frontier,
marked by Royal, Imperial or Republican stones, have, in their rare
but terrible campaigns, to pursue definite objects that can be
anticipated in nearly all their details years beforehand. The British
army, on the contrary, throughout the nineteenth century, since the
great war came to an end in 1815, has had to carry out a series of
expeditions in every variety of climate, in all quarters of the globe,
amidst the deserts of North Africa, the hills, plains and tropical
forests of South Africa, the mountains of India, the swamps of Burma,
or the vast regions of Canada. Such expeditions have been more
numerous than the years of the century; each of them has differed from
the other in almost all its conditions. Amongst its employments this
army has had to face, also, the forces of a great Empire and troops
armed and trained by Britain herself. Accordingly, it has happened
that the experience of one campaign has almost invariably been
reversed in the next. To take only recent illustrations, the fighting
which was suitable for dealing with Zulu warriors, moving in compact
formations, heroic savages armed with spears or assegais, was not the
best for meeting a great body of skilled riflemen, mounted on
well-managed horses. Moreover, the necessary accessories of an army,
without which it cannot make war, such as its transport and its
equipment, have had to be changed with the circumstances of each
incident. Just as it has been impossible to preserve throughout all
its parts one uniform pattern, such as is established everywhere by
the nations of the Continent, so it has not been possible to have
ready either the suitable clothing, the most convenient equipment, or
the transport best adapted for the particular campaign which it
happened to be at the moment necessary to undertake. More serious than
this, and more vital in its effect on the contest about to be
described, was the fact that the services thus required continually of
British troops prevented the formation of larger bodies of definite
organisation in which the whole staff, needed to give vitality and
unity to anything more than a battalion or a brigade, was trained
together. For such wars as those in Egypt, or for the earlier wars in
South Africa, in Canada, or in many other countries, it was much more
practical to select for each enterprise the men whose experience
suited them for the particular circumstances, and form staffs as well
as corps of the kind that were needed, both in strength and
composition, for that especial work. This was a very serious
disadvantage, when it came to be necessary to make up a great host, in
which not a certain number of battalions, batteries, and cavalry
regiments had to be employed, but in which ultimately a vast
organisation of 300,000 men, many of whom were entirely new to army
life, had to be brought into the field. It is one thing for the army
corps of a great Continental State, in which everyone has been
practising his own special part precisely as he will be engaged in
war, to march straight upon its enemy in its then existing formation,
and it is quite another to draw together a staff formed of men, each
of them experienced both in war and peace, none of whom have worked
together, while few have fulfilled the identical functions which they
have to discharge for the first time when bullets are flying and
shells are bursting. It will so often appear in the course of this
history that the operations seriously suffered, because the necessary
links between a general in command and the units which he has to
direct were inadequate, that it is only fair to the many officers of
excellent quality who were employed on the staff that the nature of
this comparison should be clearly appreciated. It was no fault of
theirs, but a consequence of that past history which had built up the
British Empire, that they had neither previously worked together, nor
practised in peace time their special part in an organisation which
had, in fact, to be created anew for the immediate task in hand.
[Sidenote: The total forces of Empire.]
[Sidenote: Short service.]
When the war began, and when there were in South Africa, as already
narrated, 27,054 troops,[79] there nominally stood behind them, if all
those who were armed and equipped throughout the British Empire be
included, more than a million men. These were of every religion, of
many colours, types and classes. On the 28th July, 1899, the Prime
Minister had made for the kingdom a self-denying declaration by which
one vast body of these forces was eliminated from the campaign. He
announced that none but white soldiers would be employed by us. Of
white men, 67,921 were in India, 3,699 in Egypt, 7,496 in Malta, 5,104
in Gibraltar, 738 in Barbados, 570 in Jamaica, 1,599 in Canada, 1,896
in Bermuda, 962 in Mauritius, 1,689 in China and Hong Kong, and 1,407
in the Straits Settlements. Even these are only examples of the nature
of the duties on which the great mass of the British army was
employed. They are chiefly interesting, because the proportion between
the 67,921 men and the millions of the subject races of India, between
the 3,699 men and the vast regions throughout which they maintained
order under the sway of the Khedive, suggests to how fine a point had
been carried the doing of much with mere representatives bearing the
flag and little more. The extent of territory, the numbers of possible
enemies, the vastness of the interests which the 1,689 men in China
and the 1,407 men in the Straits Settlements had to watch, are
perhaps, to those who realise the geography, almost as significant.
Always it had been assumed that, if at any time some addition was
necessary to reinforce these far extended outposts of Empire, it was
to be provided from the regular army stationed at home. Up to the year
1888 no official declaration had ever been made of the purposes for
which the home army was to be used. In that year Mr. Stanhope issued
the necessarily often mentioned memorandum, which declared that,
though it was highly improbable that so large a force would ever be
required, yet two army corps, with a cavalry division, or a total of
81,952 men, were to be available for the purposes of action beyond the
seas. As will be seen from the chapter on the work of the Navy, it was
only in the year 1899 that the Admiralty, who necessarily would have
to transport whatever strength was thus employed, became aware for the
first time that the War Office would need shipping for more than one
army corps. The British army has had more, and more varied, service
during the nineteenth century than any other in the world. It
undoubtedly included more officers and men, who had experienced what
it meant to be under fire, than any other. But these experiences had
all been gained in comparatively small detachments, and each was so
unlike that of any other, that it was practically impossible that
those trainings by service, which are much more efficient in their
influence on the practical action of an army than any prescriptions,
should be uniform throughout it. At the same time, this had given both
to officers and men a habit of adapting themselves to unexpected
incidents which may perhaps, without national immodesty, be said to be
unique. In the year 1870 what is known as the short service system had
been introduced. Under that system there were, in 1899, in the British
Islands, 81,134 reservists available to be called up when required for
war, retained only by a small fee. The principle on which the scheme
was worked at the time was this: that as soon as the army was ordered
to be mobilised all those men who had not completed their training in
the ranks, or had not yet reached the age for service abroad, were
relegated to depôts; their places were taken by the trained men from
the reserve, and out of the excess numbers of the reservists and the
men who gradually each month in succession completed their training, a
supplementary reserve to maintain the cadres of the army in the field
was created. Inevitably, as the numbers ultimately employed in this
case far exceeded the two army corps for which alone provision had
been made, these supplies of men only lasted for the first twelve
months; but as long as they did so, the waste of war was compensated
to an extent such as never has been known in our campaigns before, and
hardly in those of any other Power except Japan, who appears to have
borrowed our methods exactly for her great struggle with Russia.
[Footnote 79: See Chap. I., p. 2.]
At the time of Kruger's ultimatum of October 9, 1899, the British
regular army was composed as follows:--
[Sidenote: Regular White troops.]
Warrant,
Officers. Non-Commissioned
Officers, and
men.
Cavalry 780 18,853
Royal Horse and Royal Field Artillery 660 18,855
Royal Garrison Artillery[80] 775 20,103
Royal Engineers 962 7,323
Infantry 4,362 144,103
Army Service Corps 240 3,858
Army Ordnance Department and Corps 227 1,433
Royal Army Medical Corps 831 2,876
Army Pay Department and Corps 205 582
Army Veterinary Department 131 --
9,173 217,986
TOTAL, all ranks 227,159.
[Footnote 80: Not including Royal Malta Artillery, 833 of all
ranks.]
[Sidenote: Their dispersion.]
These were all white troops; but it is essential that their
distribution over the surface of the globe should be realised. The
remarks which have been made as to the special cases quoted could
easily, with slight modification, be shown to apply in practically
every instance.
There were, including troops on the seas, on 1st October, 1899:--
Aden (Naval base) 1,092
South Africa (Naval base at Simon's Bay) 22,179
West Africa (Naval base at Sierra Leone) 38
Barbados 738
Bermuda (Naval base) 1,896
Canada (Naval bases at Esquimault and Halifax) 1,599
Ceylon (Naval base at Trincomalee) 1,402
China (Naval base at Hong Kong) 1,689
Crete 1,628
Cyprus 116
Egypt 3,699
Gibraltar (Naval base) 5,104
Jamaica 570
Malta[81] (Naval base) 7,496
Mauritius (Naval base) 962
St. Helena (Coaling station) 211
Straits Settlements (Naval base at Singapore). 1,407
Particular Service 47
India (less garrison of Aden) 67,921
United Kingdom (exclusive of Reserves) 108,098
227,992
[Footnote 81: Includes Royal Malta Artillery.]
[Sidenote: White Officers with natives.]
This total does not include the white officers employed with native
troops, who numbered in all 1,814. The functions of these, however,
will be best understood when the figures which follow have been
considered, and the yet greater area of the earth's surface covered by
those who served under the British flag has been taken into account.
They are not matters for an appendix, but for the close study with a
map of every adult and every child in the realm.
[Sidenote: Total strength and dispersion.]
The effective strength of the armed land forces of the British Empire
(exclusive of the Royal Marines, but inclusive of local colonial naval
contingents for harbour defence), in September-October, 1899, was:--
Other All
Officers. ranks. ranks.
_Regular Army (European) on
Oct. 1st, 1899._
With Colours 9,173 217,986 227,159
Reserves 1,803 81,134 82,937
Royal Malta Artillery 31 802 833
_Regular Army_ (Colonial Corps,
European Officers, Native
Troops) 233 7,798 8,031
318,960
_Regular Army of India._
With Colours (European Officers,
Native Troops) 1,460 171,216 172,676
Reserves -- 18,644 18,644
191,320
_Hyderabad Contingent._
(Officered by Europeans) 121 7,386 7,507 7,507
_Imperial Service Troops._
(A few European Officers) -- 18,289 18,289 18,289
_Auxiliary Troops of the United Kingdom._
Militia 3,036 106,515 109,551
Yeomanry 654 9,460 10,114
Volunteers 8,020 215,901 223,921
Honourable Artillery Company 39 497 536
344,122
_Indian Volunteers_ -- -- 29,219 29,219
_Indian Military Police_ -- -- 30,284 30,284
_Channel Isles Militia_ 150 3,278 3,428 3,428
_Malta Militia_ 60 1,755 1,815 1,815
_Cyprus Police_ 26 731 757 757
_Canada:_
Local regular troops 91 936 1,027
Militia 2,398 28,463 30,861
Police (including 92 Newfoundland) 105 1,191 1,296
Naval Forces 50 472 522
33,706
_Australasia:
New South Wales._
Local regular troops 49 876 925
Militia 228 3,815 4,043
Volunteers 97 2,724 2,821
Reserves 111 1,535 1,646
Police -- -- 1,977
Naval Forces 39 576 615
12,027
_Queensland._
Local regular troops 22 265 287
Militia 198 2,801 2,999
Volunteers 50 758 808
Cadets -- -- 875
Police -- -- 869
Rifle Clubs -- -- 2,520
Naval Forces -- -- 584
8,942
_South Australia._
Local regular troops 3 31 34
Militia 72 625 697
Reserves 40 529 569
Police -- -- 349
Rifle Clubs -- -- 1,003
Naval Forces -- -- 120
2,772
_Tasmania._
Local regular troops 2 20 22
Volunteers 88 1,696 1,784
Cadets 8 250 258
Police -- -- 60
2,124
_Victoria._
Local regular troops 24 349 373
Militia 158 2,867 3,025
Volunteers 110 1,598 1,708
Naval Forces -- -- 286
5,392
_West Australia._
Local regular troops 15 261 276
Volunteers 46 883 929
1,205
_New Zealand._
Local regular troops 11 277 288
Volunteers 330 6,368 6,698
Naval Forces 30 682 712
7,698
_Fiji._
Volunteers 19 189 208
Police 16 143 159
367
_Cape Colony._
Local regular troops 38 1,028 1,066
Volunteers 186 3,486 3,672
Cadets -- -- 2,000
Police -- -- 1,401
Mounted Rifle Clubs 64 997 1,061
9,200
_Natal._
Volunteers 112 1,489 1,601
Cadets -- -- 1,062
Police -- -- 659
Naval Forces 6 116 122
3,444
_Rhodesia._
Protectorate Regt. raised by Col.
Rhodesian Regt. Baden-Powell 92 2,387 2,479 2,479
British South Africa Police
_Zululand._
Police -- -- 500 500
_Basutoland._
Police -- -- 260 260
_Bechuanaland Protectorate._
Police 14 190 204 204
_West Indies._
Militia 23 574 597
Volunteers 122 1,845 1,967
Police 54 2,924 2,978
5,542
_Falkland Isles._
Volunteers 3 78 81 81
_Colonies in Asia._
Local regular troops (Malay State
Guides) 9 623 632
Volunteers 93 1,556 1,649
Police 47 2,881 2,928
5,209
_St. Helena._
Volunteers 4 51 55 55
_West Africa._
Local regular troops 219 4,196 4,415
Volunteers 11 187 198
Police 40 2,202 2,242
Naval Forces 15 87 102
6,957
GRAND TOTAL 1,053,865
EAST AND CENTRAL AFRICA.
The local troops serving in Uganda, British East Africa, British
Central Africa, and Somaliland, are not given. The aggregate area of
these Protectorates is nearly four times that of Great Britain. The
majority of their inhabitants were, and still are, but semi-civilised
or wholly savage, and internal order has often to be maintained by
serious fighting. In 1899 the force included three and a half
battalions, but as it was then in process of reorganisation into one
corps, the "King's African Rifles," its precise strength at that time
cannot now be ascertained.
CHAPTER VI.
THE NAVY IN THE BOER WAR.[82]
[Footnote 82: For vessels serving on the Cape station during
the war, see Appendix 5.]
SECTION I. THE GENERAL WORK OF THE NAVY.
The duty of the Navy in this, as in all war was:--
(1) To acquire and keep the command of the sea.
(2) To undertake, by full use of our great mercantile marine, all sea
transport.
(3) To carry out the instructions of Government for stopping the enemy's
supplies by sea.
(4) To render any local or temporary assistance to the Army that
circumstances might require.
[Sidenote: Command of Sea.]
[Sidenote: Transport.]
[Sidenote: Stopping supplies.]
During the Boer War the command of the sea was never disputed, so that
it gave rise to no anxiety after the first few months. The second
duty, that of transport, at once assumed extreme importance owing to
the 6,000 miles distance of the base of operations (Cape Town) from
England, the large number of men and animals, and the great quantity
of stores to be dealt with. The third duty, involving the much
disputed matter of contraband, etc., was, and is always likely to be,
a difficult one, owing to the rather nebulous state of International
Law on questions which were likely to, and did arise, and to the many
interests, belligerent and neutral, which might be involved. It was
further complicated by the fact that the enemy possessed no seaport
and no carrying trade of his own, so that all goods for him from over
sea had to be landed either at a neutral port or in a British colonial
port. The fourth duty, that of local assistance, was a simpler
matter. Owing to causes recorded elsewhere, the armed forces of Great
Britain in South Africa were not anything like adequate for the task
before them when the war broke out on October 9th, 1899. The grave
differences that existed between England and the Dutch Republics, and
the absolutely vital British interests involved, had, as the year 1899
wore on, been realised not only by the Government, but by all the
world. It was inevitable that the delay in strengthening the garrison,
due to extreme unwillingness to present even the appearance of forcing
on the quarrel, should throw an exceptional responsibility on the
Navy. It became necessary to develop to the utmost limit the strength
that could be spared for work on shore in order to gain time for the
arrival of reinforcements. Happily our public services, both civil and
military, have grown up in the traditions that each branch and
department, while it has special grooves in which its own particular
duty runs, is at all times on the look-out to help any other
department. The Navy and Army are no strangers to this practice of
mutual aid. Their special duties have in times past so often led to
each helping the other in some way, that perhaps there exists between
them in a rather special degree that feeling of comradeship which is
engendered by sharing the same duties and the same perils and
hardships; just as boys who have gone through the same mill at school,
and got into and out of the same scrapes together, are undoubtedly
imbued with an _esprit de corps_ which is often a valuable possession
in after-life.