The first battle of the war was fought October 20th, eleven days after

the ultimatum of the South African Republic. General White was at

Ladysmith, where there was a large accumulation of stores, and General

Symons at Dundee and Glencoe Junction. A Boer force under Lucas Meyers

were in position on Talana Hill. General Symons attacked them. He was

mortally wounded, 10 officers and 33 men killed and 200 wounded, but

the Hill was carried, and though there has been much disputation as to

the possession of the ground immediately after the conflict, and the

comparative lists of casualties, British pride in the courage of their

troops was justified, and the Boers realized they were confronted by

soldiers who would not be satisfied for a day to act strictly on the

defensive. The outlying position of General Symons was perhaps not

worth the sacrifice of so many men to storm a hill that could not be

held at the utmost more than a few days. It was necessary for the

British to retire from the field of their dearly bought victory, and

General Symons died in the hands of his enemies, while the wounded

soldiers who could not be removed were captured. It is creditable to

the Boers that they treated the dying General and the mangled men, with

respect and kindness.

[Sidenote: Battle of Elandslaagte]

On the 21st of October, the day after the fight at Glencoe--Symon's

fight--General French, second in command at Ladysmith, defeated the

Boers, many from the Orange State, at Elandslaagte, a few miles north

of Ladysmith. The losses were heavy, and a retreat from Glencoe, which

was soon found to be inevitable, was made comparatively easy. The

English forces that fought at Glencoe and Elandslaagte, united October

26th with the garrison at Ladysmith, and a week later were surrounded

by a largely superior force under General Joubert, the better known of

the Boer officers, whose movements were slowed down by the hard

fighting he had found it necessary to do. It was the unity of the

detachments that gained, in severe encounters, the first successes of

the British, that justified the bloodshed where Generals Symons and

French were conspicuously heroic. The garrison of Ladysmith was

strengthened by the naval brigade that got in during the sortie of the

30th of October, and manned the guns of long range transported by

railroad from the British cruiser, the "Powerful," which was at Durban.

Lieutenant Edgerton, of that cruiser, at first handled the guns, and

wounded by a shell died after a few days.

[Sidenote: Hard Work on Both Sides]

The hard work the Boers had to do in the first days of their appearance

before completing the investment of Ladysmith, obstructed their plan of

campaign, which was to beat back the British at all points in Natal and

lock them up in Durban and Pietermaritzburg. The storm centers in the

latest days of October, after three weeks of war, were Ladysmith,

Kimberley and Mafeking; and the mobile masses of the Boers were held in

check as the transports loaded with soldiers from England drew nigh.

But the British were not the men to defend themselves in trenches only.

They were too fond of going out to find and develop their enemies, and

had to pay dearly repeatedly for the spirit of adventure with which

they made themselves acquainted with the country occupied by those who

knew it well.

[Sidenote: General Buller Arrives]

News that was distressing reached England from the seat of war on the

last day of October. A squadron of the 18th Hussars was "cut off" and

taken prisoners when in pursuit of apparently fugitive Boers. This was

near Dundee. There was a sortie from Ladysmith under Colonel Carlton,

who was also "cut off" and forced to surrender. He had been sent out

in the night to "flank the enemy," a phrase of wide construction, and a

broad road leading to destruction, unless one is certain of the

location of the flanks and the main body too, of the enemy. On this

occasion there was a stampede of mules with "practically the whole of

the gun equipment, and the greater part of the small arm ammunition."

This affair is known as the disaster of Nicholson's Nek. These 870

officers and men, after fighting nearly an entire day and exhausting

ammunition, were surrendered, and their presence in Pretoria attested a

great victory by the Boers, and increased Afrikander expectations and

enthusiasm. The organizations involved were four and a half companies

of the Gloucesters, six companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, and the

10th Mountain Battery. The British successes at Glencoe and

Elandslaagte were due to the excellence of the soldiers and the

devotion of the officers. The successes of the Boers that speedily

followed were results of what the London _Times_ calls "the humiliating

truth--that in that difficult country of kopjes, our enemy more

numerous, better informed and immeasurably more mobile, is able to act

more swiftly than our forces in isolated attacks, as he is habitually

able to choose better positions to defend."

General Buller arrived at Cape Town on the day of the Dundee disaster

October 31st, and his conception of his first duty was the relief of

Ladysmith. For that and collateral purposes there were three columns

prepared for the advance. About 16,000 men were sent to Durban, where

General Cleary soon had two whole divisions. General Gatacre was sent

to Queenstown November 18th, to check a Free State incursion

threatening Cape Colony, and Lord Methuen with the Guards and a Brigade

of the line, and the Highland Brigade, moved on the way direct for

Kimberley. It does not take scientific attainment in looking upon a

map of the country to understand that the advantages of the position

were remarkably with the Boers, and no one had any reason for surprise

that all the British relief columns had "serious reverses."

[Sidenote: The Strategy of the Boers]

An English correspondent, evidently a trained observer, says of the

strategy of the Boers: "Their plan has been simplicity itself.

Establish a laager in a convenient position, detach a sufficient force

to hold and strengthen a kopje, and await a British attack coming from

a given direction. If the attack succeeds the detachment falls back on

the main laager, and the game is repeated. Such are the tactics of the

Boers. Their acquaintance with lyddite shell is said to have induced

them to place less confidence in the rocky crests of the kopjes and to

resort to trenches on lower ground, but the principle remains the same.

So long as the campaign is waged in a country that provides an

interminable series of defensible positions which are attacked in the

way the Boers most ardently desire, while our troops are tethered to a

railway, the game must apparently continue to be in the hands of the

enemy."

[Sidenote: Confronted by Clouds and Darkness]

Sir Redvers Buller found clouds and darkness when he landed at Cape

Town a week before his birthday, having made up his own staff

irrespective of all suggestion of favoritism, and accepted all the

responsibilities. There was before him the two Boer States, whose

Presidents, and sympathizers in Natal, Cape Town and throughout

Southern Africa, caused by the uncertainties of the British policy for

many years, had made hopeful the schemes for the foundation of an

Afrikander Nation. This would mean that all South Africa should be

subjected to the mastery of the Boers, whose specific and especial

policy would be to drive out Englishmen with all their capital,

influences and improvements. The meaning of a great Boer nation could

not fail to be a confederacy of inferior civilization, and to end the

grand work the British have carried on, brightening the Dark Continent

from the days of Moffat and Livingstone to those of Stanley and Rhodes.

Sir Redvers Buller found the Afrikander movement held in suspense by

the Mafeking, Ladysmith and Kimberley defenders, who were fighting

fiercely to stand their ground until the relief columns could be

gathered, formed, put in motion and strike. On all sides there were

embarrassments of the gravest nature for the English.

[Sidenote: Difficulties in Mobilizing the Troops]

The public at large were occupied considerably in counting the number

of soldiers that had sailed from England, computing the speed of the

ships and fixing the dates of their arrival at the ports for which they

were destined, and the concern was not great as to the mobility of the

troops, the confinement of the columns to railroad lines easily

interrupted, and the immense impediment in the indispensable stores

heaped at the points of debarkation, as in our attack upon the

Spaniards in Cuba we were overwhelmed at the point of embarkation. The

army with which the British Commander-in-Chief moved in the direction

of Ladysmith was about the same size as that under Major-General

Shafter that scrambled aboard ship at Tampa and landed at Santiago.

As Sir Redvers Buller marched to attempt the passage of the Tugela

River, he had to encounter the discouragements of the bloody repulses

of both columns co-operating with him, and especially the depressing

experience of Lord Methuen on the Modder River; and he had also at last

to report as the others had done, a "serious reverse."

[Illustration: A NATIVE DISPATCH CARRIER OVERTAKEN BY THE BOERS]

[Illustration: GENERAL LORD METHUEN, British Commander, Battle of

Modder River. GENERAL SIR GEORGE WHITE, V.C., Commander British

Forces, Battle of Ladysmith.]

[Sidenote: The Boers Selected Their Time Judiciously]

There is to be remarked a strong family likeness in all the combats

unfortunate for the British--the desperate storming of fortified hills,

the half blind flank movements, seemingly seeking to get into

ambuscades--the columns by companies charging into zones of rifle fire,

Mausers in the hands of marksmen; the vain hammering with artillery not

all of the latest pattern and longest range--the certain, fatal,

frontal advance, because there was no other way, as the ground lay, for

the work required to be done; and there were, more than all, rivers

booming between rugged banks, rocks serving the Boers for shelter and

rests for their rifles, and a perfect exposure of the masses of the

British to the searching fire of the expert riflemen. The Boers had

selected their time for beginning the war, and judiciously placed it

when the open country was green with grass for their ponies, and their

forces were wafted about almost as swiftly as the winds,--while the

British were fettered to lines of rails readily obstructed, and

repeated misfortunes taught the limits of usefulness of armored trains,

perils from the mad panic of green drivers with greener mules; the fact

slowly learned by old soldiers that the rifles in hand often outranged

the artillery, the next to impossible fording of rivers in the face of

rifle fire, making the attempts an invitation to slaughter, no matter

what the merits of the troops even if the best the world ever saw; and

all the while the pressure of the bitter necessity of groping gallantly

along the gloomy paths that, as we read in Gray's Elegy, "lead but to

the grave," though they shine with glory.

CHAPTER VII

The Magersfontein Battle.

[Sidenote: Heavy Losses on Both Sides]

Lord Methuen moved from the Orange River, November 23d. The objective

point of his undertaking was the relief of Kimberley, the city of

diamond mines. He had at the start a success that was described in

glowing terms. Though the result has appeared in the study of the

course of the combat, which gave him so much distinction, and caused an

amount of applause that was at least disproportionate to that which was

accomplished, was that the British lost 225 men, killed and wounded--a

casualty list that would have meant a bloody skirmish in a war of very

considerable proportions. The fighting was fierce on both sides, and

heavy losses were considered matters of course. Napoleon's observation

that one had to break eggs to make an omelette was much quoted as the

correct philosophy of warfare.

The second stroke by his Lordship, in the course of this campaign, was

at Graspan, and the sobering effect of it, though the claim of the

British was that they had won a victory, did not pass away upon reading

this telegram, dated at Cape Town, December 15th, giving mature

information: "A visit to Simons Town hospital confirms the reports of

the extraordinary gallantry of the marines at Graspan. They have 92

casualties out of a total of 183 in the fight. Many have three wounds

and some four. Sixty per cent. of the officers and sargeants were

hit." All the officers of the naval detachment but two were wounded.

The correspondents wrote that they were on the way to Kimberley

"fighting invisible foes," but moving on slowly and surely. It was

plain that though the foe was invisible, they made themselves felt.

The number of Boers in action at Graspan was estimated at 3,000, and by

the time the slow movement reached Modder River the force of Boers was

believed to be 8,000, showing the mobility of the fighters against the

relief of Kimberley. They hastened from place to place and knew how

and where to concentrate to be of efficiency in obstructing the British

advance. The following week the numbers of the Boers at Magersfontein

was believed to be possibly 16,000.

[Sidenote: The Hottest Fight of the British Army]

The British General described the fight of November 28th as one of the

hottest and most trying in the annals of the British Army. He was

careful not to claim a decisive victory, and his moderate language was

the more impressive for the absence of reassuring assertion overdone.

He said: "After Desperate hard fighting, lasting ten hours, the men

without water or food under a burning sun, made the enemy quit their

position." The London _Times_ correspondent wrote: "The fire was the

hottest recorded, and the results would revolutionize existing

theories. It was effective up to 1,600 yards, but the casualties among

the troops lying down were trifling, their losses being only thirty,

though they were in an exposed position. It was found impossible to

bring the ammunition reserve to the firing line." Much in these words

is significant, and they should have conveyed a warning as to what

revolutionary experience ought to teach; but the commander of the

column did not seem to be teachable. He held on to existing theories.

If it was impossible to bring the ammunition reserve to the firing

line, it was an acknowledgment that no matter what the attacking force

might be in front of an enemy armed with long range rifles, the attack

must utterly fail upon the consumption of the cartridges the men were

able to carry into action. This, of course, if an established

proposition, would limit rigidly the force of an assault.

However, the Boers, on this occasion, withdrew in the night, and the

British occupied the whole of the battlefield, and the column was said

to be encouraged, and moved on according to the fashionable formula of

the special dispatches, "slowly but surely to Kimberley." There was

nothing in the advantage gained to awaken enthusiasm, and confidence

began to fail. There was an atmosphere of misfortune in which the

English armies were moving.

General Gatacre, December 10th, mentioned a "serious reverse" in attack

that morning at Stormberg, where he had penetrated resisting the

invasion of the north of Cape Colony by Orange State forces. The

general had merely been "misled to the enemy's position by guides, and

found impracticable ground." Also he had taken the precaution of

marching all night to surprise the enemy, and was misguided by spies,

so morning broke on him in the presence of the enemy, who were posted

on "an unscalable hill." The British Empire owes his Lordship a

memorable debt of gratitude because he did not immediately order an

impossible charge! The troops that were exhausted in a long night's

march to enter a trap at daylight should, according to prevalent

tactics, have been rushed upon any hill that was crowned by the enemy,

and "unscalable." How could General Gatacre have found out that the

hill could not be scaled without attempting it with his men? He varied

the strategy by retreating nine miles immediately, and complimented the

enemy's gunners for the punishment they gave him, saying, "their guns

were remarkably well served, and carried accurately 5,000 yards." This

was disagreeable intelligence, but the general is reported to have had

the satisfaction of shooting his false guide, and rested from his

labors.

[Sidenote: Lord Methuen's Failure]

He had not the perseverance of Lord Methuen, who was enabled to wire

truthfully that he had failed, December 12th, in assaulting the enemy's

position at Magersfontein. It was there his Lordship met in full force

General Cronje, who had been spending a few days intrenching himself

after the fight on the Modder River. There was no effort on the part

of the British officers to claim Magersfontein as a victory, though

they did insist that the loss of the Boers was something frightful.

The Highland Brigade was marched after the fashion of General Gatacre

at Stormberg, so as to come right on the enemy just at the time and in

the formation that they wanted to see him. It was, of course, during

the darkness of early morning, after a very hard night for the men,

that they entered the trap. The Boers had been waiting patiently and

exercising their mobility in getting together so as to have a force of

about 12,000 men. In that which immediately followed, the emergence of

the troops from the strain of the march, General Wauchope seemed to

believe his orders meant a massacre of his men, and it is the story of

the battle whether strictly true or not, that will give it endless

fame, that he called to the men not to hold him responsible, as he was

obeying Lord Methuen's orders. He died on the field, and his son, near

him, was wounded.

[Sidenote: The Losses]

The Highlanders composing his brigade were, it is told with a dreadful

simplicity, in "formation of quarter column," with no time to deploy,

and they could not, by anything known in military maneuvers, have been

placed in better form for the enemy. The loss of the brigade was their

brave and capable commander Wauchope, with about 700 men killed and

wounded, fifty of them officers, seven-tenths of them Highlanders.

This was the overture. There came after it a great deal of bombarding

by the British of the Boer trenches, and the result was Lord Methuen

retired to the Modder River, the retreat having been conducted in the

official reports in an "orderly" manner. It will be noted that a

considerable number of the Highlanders escaped, and that is accounted

for by the fact that they were just a few minutes too early on the

ground. They were quicker than expected according to the time table,

and "bad light" saved those whose names were not found in the casualty

lists. It was said that General Gatacre personally executed the false

guides; but the trap for Lord Methuen immediately succeeding the affair

at Stormberg was a case bearing such a close resemblance to the

Magersfontein incident, where the guides were not accused of wilfully

going on, that there rests a suspicion as to the criminality of the

error that General Gatacre avenged. [Sidenote: What the Dispatches

Say] The dispatches say in the case of the experience of Lord Methuen,

"six miles had to be covered before the Highland Brigade could reach

the Boer stronghold. It is not yet clear through what mischance the

force which was led by guides came upon the Boer trenches so

unexpectedly and so suddenly. Beyond question the Boers were aware of

the approach of the British and had prepared to receive them." There

were persistent reports that the Boers suffered heavy losses in the

combat that opened with the fall of 700 Highlanders. Whatever were the

casualties of the Boers, they must have been inflicted by the British

Artillery which fired lyddite shells for several hours, and as nothing

could be seen to positively show what the effect of the shelling was,

there are evident exaggerations in the fancies about it. Reuter's

Special Agency telegraphed from Modder River December 12th: "Twelve

ambulances started early this morning under a flag of truce to collect

the wounded and bury the dead. General Wauchope's body was found near

a trench. He had been shot through the chest and in the thigh." The

Boer General Cronje telegraphed that he estimated his losses in this

engagement at 100 killed and wounded, and the British at 2,000. Rumors

in the camp of the British placed the Boer loss at 700 at least. The

Queen sent to the widow of General Wauchope a touching message

expressing her deep sympathy, and paid a warm tribute to the general's

qualities as a soldier and his services to the nation. Her Majesty

referred to the fact that with a single exception, that of the Soudan,

in every campaign in which he had taken part he had been wounded.

[Sidenote: Sudden Change of Public Sentiment]

The most hopeful of British military movements in South Africa, for a

time, was that of the column of Lord Methuen, which was terminated by

the decimation of the Highland Brigade. He was reported as steadily

advancing, winning his way with dashing marches without heavy losses.

His high qualities were mentioned with emphasis in all the

newspapers--his stalwart physique, his cleverness, his kindliness, his

courage, his intelligence; there was no praise too effusive for the

adulation to which he was subjected. The fact that the Highlanders

were put into a trap under his orders changed all this, and he is

accused of madness. The orders that he gave on the field are described

as those of a maniac; but his misfortune was quite like that which

preceded it at Stormberg, and succeeded it at Colenso. Whatever is to

be said of the disaster of Magersfontein, it must be recognized as

typical and to signify either that the Boers were invincible or the

methods of war as conducted by the British just at that period

defective to helplessness. Four days later came the repulse of

Buller's army, and the malady of disaster was manifest there also; so

that it would almost warrant characterizing as a disease, a contagion,

or a plague.

[Illustration: BOERS FIRING ON GENERAL FRENCH'S TRAIN EN ROUTE TO

DURBAN. The excellent marksmanship of the Dutch of South Africa

enables them to hit a man at the distance of a mile or more with their

accurate aim.]

[Illustration: TWO SIDES TO THE QUESTION. Boer or Briton? A heated

discussion on the crisis.]

The general destruction of the Boers by bombarding and the courage

displayed by the British soldiers under trying circumstances, could not

aid the British Empire to assert complacency, and there was a passing

consternation that reflection over the monotony of misfortunes

converted to indignation, and then the spirit of the people rose to the

occasion. There was a general rally and hardening of resolution.

This sort of thing was, however, wired from the Modder Riveras late as

December 13th: "Our lyddite shells fell always where the enemy was

thickest; most awful havoc was inflicted by the Royal Horse Artillery,

who under a hot fire of a raid by the Boer firing line are said to have

filled the trenches with dead."

[Sidenote: The Official Boer Account]

Much has been said of the Boers on the Modder River blazing away

several times in the night, shelling imaginary foes, and there is

evidence that the continued use of the British Artillery, shelling Boer

lines, and an apprehension of desperate sorties (because after the

various storming parties of the British there was no calculating what

they might undertake), did for several nights disturb the nerves of the

Boers in their intrenchments, and caused them to open fire and continue

to blaze with their Mausers and artillery into darkness until they

expended a great amount of ammunition; and the British found

considerable relief in the enjoyment of this evidence that they were

still held in great respect by their enemies. The official Boer

account, telegraphed from Pretoria, was this:

"Despatch riders from the field report that the Boers have taken a

large quantity of booty, including 200 Lee-Metford rifles. two cases

of cartridges, some quantities of filled bandoliers, and hundreds of

bayonets. A large number of British retired from Tweerivieren, in the

direction of Belmont. The loss of the British is very great. Heaps of

dead are lying on the field. The wounded are attended to temporarily

at Bisset's Farm. The Boers lost a considerable number of horses. The

sappers and miners must have suffered severely, as many implements were

found on the field. The slaughter on the battlefield yesterday cannot

be described otherwise than sad and terrible. It was for us a

brilliant victory, and has infused new spirit into our men to enable

them to achieve greater deeds."

[Sidenote: What the Battle Meant for Kimberley]

The Magersfontein battle was of intense interest to the people of

Kimberley, and a special service dispatch gives this account of what

was seen and heard by the anxious inhabitants of that city:

"This morning the ceaseless roar of cannon and Maxims was heard here

from 4.25 till 10.30. Riding out at 5.30 A.M. to a ridge beyond the

racecourse, I saw shell after shell burst on the side of a

sugar-loaf-shaped kopje standing alone to the left of Spitzkop.

"Great puffs of white smoke rose every now and them, appearing like the

spray of breakers on a rocky shore. Presently a captive balloon

ascended and descended out of sight. The roar of the guns as heard

here was most impressive, and told plainly of a great engagement."

The British casualties at Magersfontein are--official total:

Officers and men killed ...... 82

Wounded ...................... 667

Missing ...................... 348

-----

1,097

A Mafeking dispatch, January 3d, states "The Boers, despite repeated

warnings, concentrated their fire during the last two days upon the

women's laager and hospital. Children have been killed and women

mutilated by the bursting of shells.

It was at this time reported in their towns that the Boers used

explosive bullets. Surgeon Major Anderson authorized the statements

that the wounds inflicted at Gambier fight were altogether different to

previous experience in Egypt and in India, and that it was impossible

they could have been produced by Martini or Mauser bullets, though,

perhaps, they might have been caused by Snider ones, but from a

scrutiny of the wounds made while dressing them in hospital here he has

no doubt in his own mind that bullets of an explosive character were

used by the Boers.

Captain Baden Powell deposed Wessels, chief of the tribe of the

Baralongs, who had quarters at Mafeking. Wessels has lately been

intractable. He spread false reports among the tribes that the

military authorities were endeavoring to make the natives slaves.

CHAPTER VIII

Battle of Colenso--Defeat of General Buller.

[Sidenote: "Tied by the Leg"]

South Africa has several lines of railroads scoring the country with

outline improvements, and there are many bridges easily broken, and

then the iron lines are lost and the armies dependent upon them are, to

employ a phrase common in England to describe immobility without

imprisonment, "tied by the leg." South Africa is of enormous extent.

It is, for example, 641 miles by railroad from Cape Town to Kimberley,

and the country is diversified and divided by mountain ranges and

rivers, and yet it is extraordinarily open but rugged, giving

sharpshooters with long range rifles concealment and shelter, while the

columns of an army on the march can hardly be missed by the eye or the

rifle. The Boer wagons with oxen for motors are phenomenally slow, but

the Boer on his pony with rifles and a supply of cartridges gallops

fifty miles in a few hours, while Europeans with indispensable

impediments, have hard work to cover one quarter of the distance in the

same time. The war was rushed just in the season for the grass to feed

the ponies. While the English statesmen were debating with the Boer

President the details of fractional representation based upon

restricted constituencies, the Transvaal Government used the money

extracted from disarmed and unprotected Englishmen in preparing for

war, and it was held that a British subject unwilling to be of a

servile class and have the people speaking his language in the great

city enslaved to the burghers, was in a sense irrational, a disturber,

and one who would be a usurper, sordidly seeking to plunge the world

into war. [Sidenote: American and Boer revolutions Compared] Our

revolutionary fathers fought for representation, or rather against

taxation without representation, but the Boers regarded it as an insult

that the majority paying nine-tenths of the taxes should claim that it

would be no more than fair to have one-sixteenth of the law-making

power of the Transvaal Congress and none at all of the executive. The

British did not prepare for war, but the Boers accused them of it, as

the wolf accused a sheep of muddying the water when it was taking a

drink down stream; and when the Boers were ready to fight they went at

it and took the British unawares, at the same time charging them with

responsibility for the conflict.

[Sidenote: Buller's Difficult Position]

If Sir Redvers Buller comprehended the full extent of the dangers of

the duties of his assignment, he made no sign. He might have had

apprehensions that a pushing advance would mean, at best, delays for an

indefinite period, but it seemed preposterous to sit down on a river

with 18,000 men and watch the water glide away with the days and get

news, perhaps, of the fall of Ladysmith, the place of the trial of

strength of the combatants. He did wait long enough to cause comment

in the press of his country to the effect that there was no break in

the monotony of his camp beside the Tugela. This was equivalent to the

old sarcasm in the American war, during the time that McClellan was

making ready to move; "All is quiet on the Potomac." It was not the

first appearance of General Buller in South Africa. He was with Sir

Evelyn Wood after Majuba, and it was assumed his knowledge of the

country would be valuable. The resources of the English Empire were at

his command, but he was made to feel the want of time. He was where he

could hear the thunder of cannon at Ladysmith day after day, but there

was a river before him and beyond it the enemy in unknown numbers

digging trenches, and they also occupied a position on the British side

of the river, as was soon ascertained when the attempt was made in full

force to pass it. The Boers were engaged in constructing rifle pits in

the shape of the letter S, a double curve that gives occupants

facilities for keeping out of raking shell fire, but making drainage

difficult in rainy weather, and as the ground to cover was rough and

the time to turn the tide that had been running against the British had

come, if it was to be done before the fall of the besieged places, the

General-in-Chief attempted to force the river and the first line of his

report, after stating that he had moved in "full force" in the morning

was to regret a "serious reverse."

[Sidenote: A Possible Preliminary Demonstration]

It was indeed serious. If there had been a chance to flank the

position of the enemy, General Buller had not discovered it. The

presumption is he had a force much stronger than the enemy would be in

the open field, and one would think a violent cannonade at the bend of

the river where there were two fords might have commanded attention in

that quarter, and that there were British troops enough to make a

demonstration that could be converted into a real attack at another

point. In the report there is nothing about a pontoon train to put

promptly two or three bridges across the Tugela, and no flanking

operation seemed to be possible; but that movement should always be at

the command of a superior force. Napoleon crossed the Alps to get

behind the Austrians, who were furiously besieging Genoa, drew them out

and defeated them. General Sherman flanked the Confederate army out of

strong positions from Resaca to Atlanta, and his method was as simple

as effective. Having the superior force, thirty per cent., probably

more, he occupied the whole front of his antagonist and extended one of

his flanks so as to overlap the line of the enemy; then swung a

division or corps like a gate to strike the tip of the Confederate wing

and crumple it up. When Joe Johnston, who had a great faculty for the

business of war, was pressed by this flanking operation, he fell back

to another position. The flanking compelled him to retire or to

advance, and it was not his game to challenge a general battle with an

army greatly stronger than his command. Rivers were not found an

insurmountable obstacle in the American war at any time or place. At

Fredericksburg the Americans laid pontoons across the Rappahannock in

the face of the fire of Mississippi riflemen admirably posted in the

cellars whose ventilating windows served as port-holes overlooking the

river and the landing. [Sidenote: New Conditions of Warfare] It is to

be said, however, that the firearms a generation ago did not have a

range of a mile, even of half a mile, but the Confederate rifles were

effective the whole breadth of the river. The material difference is

that the Mausers of to-day have combined four times the range of our

old "Springfields" with magazines of four metal cartridges in a "clip";

and one of the problems of the Boer and British war is as to the change

made in and by the improvement of the small arms. It must affect the

conditions of combats radically; and all the nations are going to the

war school in South Africa.

[Sidenote: Plan of the Fight]

General Buller's report of the action in which he was discomfited is as

noticeable for what it does not contain consecutively as for its

communicativeness in some respects. He "moved in full strength,"

starting at four A.M. The first attack was at the left-hand ford, and

a failure. The selection of that point for an assault is a curious

one, as it was on ground two-thirds surrounded by a curve of the river,

and exposed to fire on the front and both flanks. The general says the

work could not be done there, but he does not say how soon he became

convinced of that; and there was a second attack made on what may be

best described as the right center. The British succeeded in occupying

Colenso Station and the houses near the bridge. How great the

expectations of the British general were to force a passage of the

second ford, then assailed, we have to conjecture, for no two accounts

agree, except--and this is between the lines--that the British army at

last lost hope and heart. The plan was first to strike with the left

wing, and when that had failed, with the right, supporting right and

left with the center. The turn of the day was soon to be determined,

and "at that moment" the general truly says--he means the crisis of the

affair--he "heard" that two field batteries and also six naval guns,

twelve pounders, quick fire, were "out of action," _Hors du combat_.

The general adds that Colonel Long, who commanded the artillery, "in

his desire to be within effective range, advanced close to the river.

It proved to be full of the enemy, who suddenly opened a galling fire

at close range."

[Sidenote: Mistaken but Heroic Advantage]

The general commanding does not appear to have been well informed. He

must have been exceedingly ill supplied with intelligence that should

have been commonplace, if he didn't expect to find the ground near the

river full of the enemy, and there is a peculiarity in announcing the

sudden opening of a galling fire at close range that one feels it to be

needful to account for. The location of the battery was 800 yards from

the bank of the river. This is stated by the correspondent of the

_Times_, who adds the action of Colonel Long in advancing his guns was

"mistaken but heroic," and this writer imparts definiteness to the

situation when he tells that Long took his batteries into action

"within 800 yards of the river to the left of the railway, and 1250

yards from his objective--a ridge situated beyond Fort Wylie." It was,

therefore, "heroic" to go with artillery within three quarters of a

mile of the "objective!" The consequence, the correspondent says, was

"the guns were exposed to a perfect inferno of rifle and shell fire;

officers, men and horses fell in rapid succession, but, nevertheless,

the guns went on, unlimbered and opened a steady fire, causing that of

the enemy to abate to an appreciable degree. In this position the

batteries remained for an hour and a half."

[Sidenote: Attack Fruitless]

The specific statements appear to show that the correspondent had a

better comprehension of the situation than the general. The

correspondent says that the guns were fired upon with rifle and shell

fire, but went on and opened a steady fire and remained there an hour

and a half. What point of time of this hour and a half General Buller

refers to in stating that at this "moment" he heard that the batteries

were "out of action," is for investigation. Later on, we ascertain

that the general had sent these guns "back." They must, therefore,

have been turned from the fruitless attack on the left to help the one

that seemed more hopeful on the right, but this couldn't happen in a

moment. The artillery fire caused that of the enemy to abate, but at

the distance of 1,250 yards from the objective the horses of the

batteries were killed and so many of the men fell that the guns could

not be served, and more than that, the ammunition could not be

replenished.

This is the most striking example given in active service of the

efficacy of the modern rifle. It overpowered the well-served artillery

rapid-fire twelve-pounders. The exhaustion of the ammunition may be in

part attributed to the activity of the batteries in the attack on the

left. As the men were disabled, so that the guns could not be served,

it was not worth while to forward ammunition, and dispatches state that

at the time when the guns ceased firing, "twenty carts went to the rear

with the wounded." This, of course, by grace of the Boers.

[Sidenote: Boers Capture the Guns]

A further statement is that the artillery detachment "doubled back,"

which means retreated without order and into a depression--a donga or

ravine--where they "found they were protected from the enemy's fire,

but exposed to the burning heat of the sun." General Buller and staff

rode in that direction. Two of the staff were hit, and the General

himself touched, when heroic efforts were made in which the only son of

Lord Roberts fell in the act of rescuing the two guns that were

restored to the British army. The presence of the Commander-in-Chief

at the scene of the greatest danger is noted, but his resources must

have been at the time exhausted. The correspondent we have just quoted

covers a considerable lapse of time in these words: "At a late hour in

the afternoon, while the men were lying without hope of succor under

the rays of the still blazing sun, a strong party of Boers crossed the

river.[1] Firing was stopped, and they surrounded the guns which had

been taken to the donga for shelter, and captured the whole of them.

This is positive, and appears to be at least as authentic as anything

official. There is a great gap in the story of the battle that still

is to be credited to the censor. A correspondent's letter, early

wired, says the Boers crossed the river, and it would appear at this

place, but other accounts say that they were intrenched on the British

side of the river a little further to the right so extensively they

could not be flanked, and they were so numerous they had been offensive

and caused the Commander-in-Chief to refer to them as "oppressing his

right flank," which was to threaten his retreat. General Buller and

his staff are not referred to further than in their appearance in

attempting to save the guns. Whether the British artillery and small

arms were of as long range as those of the enemy, is one of the

questions that rises up and will not down in this connection. The

extent of the disaster to the British is emphasized by the knowledge

that the guns captured and carried off by the Boers were not only 800

yards distant from the river, but had been, after the batteries had

ceased firing, taken into the ravine which was used for shelter

only--at least, that is one of the assertions that are made. Colonel

Bullock, who attempted to reinforce the artillery and was driven into

the ravine, and forced to surrender, but at the same time the men with

him "managed to make good their escape in the confusion."

[1] They had a bridge behind a hill over the Tugela, bearing on

Buller's right.

[Sidenote: Why Were the Guns Lost]

Another question forces itself upon the student of the situation as it

existed at this time: Why could not the guns on the British side of the

river, more than a furlong from the bank, be put under the fire of

British marksmen and saved? Why were the Boers, who came over and

swarmed around them safe, while the British had been crushed on that

very spot by an "inferno" fire? The Boers could hardly have been in

superior force and position on both sides of the river. Early in the

action the British had captured Colenso and the houses near the bridge.

That position should have offered advantages for those who could

consider the propriety of remaining upon the defensive. General Buller

certainly was wise in not sacrificing lives in attempts that he saw

would for some cause be vain to bring off the guns; indeed, he should

have desisted when beaten on the left. The life of Captain Roberts had

been sacrificed in the attempt to recover the guns, but the long-range

rifle in the hands of marksmen could have detained them on the ground

where they were abandoned. If the position of the enemy was

impregnable from the beginning, as is the conclusion in England, the

commanding general should have known it and had the courage of his

conviction to accept the defeat on the left as the end of the day's

experiment. It was according to his reputation, however, to repeat the

effort to force the river with increase of energy. But all depended

upon the distance from the river that was to be passed--a battery could

be in range of the Boer's position and not stricken with their rifle

fire and put out of action. There was no eye that made and applied

this measurement. It is another form of the question: At what distance

is a self-cocking revolver a better weapon than a magazine rifle?

[Sidenote: Buller's Explanation]

The key to the intelligence of the further proceedings is that the

Boers were strongly posted on the south side of the river and pressing

at close quarters the right wing of the British army. General Buller

explains his refusal to continue the effort to gain possession of the

abandoned artillery and the men sheltered in the ravine of retreat,

saying, "Of the eighteen horses thirteen were killed, and, as several

of the drivers were wounded, I would not allow another attempt, as it

seemed they would be a shell mark." This is definite, but not

conclusive. The wounding of several drivers does not seem to have been

important enough to change the fortunes of the fight; but the fact

that, the general adds, he could not sacrifice life in a gallant

attempt to force a passage, "unsupported by artillery," gives the

reason, and a good one, for not attempting to "force a passage." The

language implies that Buller was at the moment the battery was put out

of action attempting to cross at the second ford--the one on the right.

Of course, it was not possible to do that without the support of

artillery, and it might be very difficult with the support of

artillery. [Sidenote: Conduct of the Men] The general in one sentence

refers to the intense heat, and adds that the conduct of the troops was

"excellent," and says, in conclusion, "We abandoned ten guns." Right

after saying he would not try to force a passage without artillery he

remarked, "I directed the troops to withdraw, which they did in good

order. Throughout the day a considerable force of the enemy was

pressing on my right flank, but was kept back by the mounted men under

Lord Dundonald." Though they were kept back, they were making

themselves very disagreeable on General Buller's side of the river; and

this happened, as exactly stated, under "the still blazing sun." One

company of riflemen, half a mile away, with plenty of ammunition, if

marksmen, could have made the abandoned guns too hot for the Boers to

take away. The last line of the official report is, "We have retired

to our camp at Chieveley." There was nothing else to do. The day was

lost, and full particulars show the Boer position was impregnable.

Buller had to make the attacks, and it was good generalship that gave

up the assaults with a loss less than eight per cent. of troops engaged.

[Sidenote: Fuller Accounts Needed]

There is a great deal in General Buller's report that some day will

have to be made more intelligible--if not to himself, in justice to the

world at large. If the Boer position was impregnable, he ought not to

have assaulted it, and he should have known the fact when he ceased

fighting on the left. There are many indications that the first attack

was more disastrous than has been reported, certainly more so than the

official reports represent it, and the second effort, that on the

right, according to the facts that have emerged from the turbid

dispatches, was a palpable mistake; for the loss of the guns and the

retreat five miles to the camp from which the army had moved in the

morning, was in consequence of the second failure of the day, and the

pressure, which General Buller noticed with grave concern, of the Boers

on the right flank of the British. The mystery of that "pressure" is

partially cleared through Laffan's Agency in these words: "The cavalry

brigade had a very hot engagement. Lord Dundonal, who was in command,

tried to take Lhangwana Hill on our extreme right. He found the hill

occupied, by a strong force of Boers." This, of course, was on the

British side of the river. [Sidenote: Pressed All Along the Line] A

flanking attack was made on the Boers, but their lines "ran along some

high ground to the right of the flanking party," and that prevented the

capture of the hill. Lord Dundonald had a battery which shelled the

Boers "until at mid-day" an order to retire was received. The battle

was, therefore, going on on the right flank at the same time that it

was taking place at the left hand, and, therefore, when the central

movement was made by bringing up the artillery to the point where it

was put out of action and the guns were captured, the British had been

hard pressed all along the line, for Dundonald--we quote the

correspondent--"was unable to carry out the order (given out

immediately to retire) for another two hours, because as soon as the

men began to move they became a target for the enemy's fire, and it was

only under a continuous shell fire that the retirement was eventually

effected." Here we have Dundonald, with his battery and his mounted

men, attempting to carry the extreme Boer left and getting into the

same shape that Colonel Long got the battery, which was to put

themselves forward as a target of the Boer rifle fire, so that they

could not get away for hours, if at all. The Boers dominated the whole

field of battle. At this point, on the right wing the British losses

were not very heavy, and the men were not discouraged, but fell back

reluctantly. [Sidenote: Bad Light and No Smoke] The failures in other

parts of the contested ground could not be remedied there, for, "owing

to the bad light, it was impossible to see the Boers, and as they used

smokeless powder, firing did not reveal their position." This "bad

light" on the right flank comes in as a last and lamentable resort,

when there was so much complaint of the intensity of the sunshine in

other parts of the field; and it is a strain to try to understand the

strange story that the Boers were obscure at all times and places and

the British everywhere conspicuous. The loss of the cavalry brigade

was "something more than 100 killed and wounded," but, as a writer on

the spot says, this was not "tremendous."

[Sidenote: Defeat Admitted]

The soldierly character of General Buller is that of a man in full

command of his faculties in extra hazardous situations. This has been

shown in the Ashantee, Egyptian, Soudan and Indian fighting in which he

has participated with great distinction. No other British officer has

seen as much war in Africa as General Buller before his recent

experience, and as his report of the reverse on the Tugela is read and

examined line by line, it is seen the general felt he could afford

better to take the blame on himself in full, with the exception of the

placing of the batteries, than to make criticisms upon the conduct of

any of the officers and men of his command; and he tells that he

"heard," did not see, that "the whole of the artillery I had sent

back," etc. The guns must have been used in the first attack on the

left, and sending "back" was moving to the right. It is not in

evidence that the batteries were exceptionally hurt until then, and

there are accounts to show that they were not quickly put out of

action, and so situated that they could not be helped to ammunition,

nearly all the horses killed and the men wounded. The guns were not

abandoned until after "continuous heavy firing we ran short of

ammunition," and the men were "ordered under cover," but with

"absolutely no thought of abandoning the guns, which were in no way

disabled." There could be no more expressive admission of defeat.

[Sidenote: Dazed by Defeat]

As the case is critically examined, the magnitude of the British

disappointment on the left, in the hook of the river, clearly amounted

to a serious reverse. The general commanded the guns "back," and

Colonel Long got with them too close to the river. The circumstances

do not indicate that this movement was absolutely aggressive. The

judgment of the general that nothing more could be done on the left was

correct, but we can hardly appreciate the extreme surprise that he

showed when the failure on the left was repeated with on the right; and

it strikes one who strives to follow the changes of the engagement that

the "pressure" from the Boers on the British right was the factor that

determined General Buller to give the order to retreat. The

explanation of this is that in the afternoon the situation of the

British army was more critical than has been admitted, and yet General

Buller had more than 15,000 neither killed, disabled nor captured. It

must be true that the defeat added to the series of serious reverses of

which it was the culmination, affected the army, so that the general

was impressed there might be in the conditions the elements of a far

greater disaster, and he took on himself more blame than was his share

of the responsibility for the issue. If this is controverted, he must

himself have been profoundly affected and awed, if not dazed, by the

immense disappointment of the day, during which the three British

attacks were successive demonstrations of an impracticable undertaking;

and late in the day, the four o'clock march in the morning, the intense

heat, the extreme exertion, and the discouraging results of all

encounters with the enemy "took it out" of the British army for the

day, until it was the belief of the general, whose fame has been that

of coming out under desperate circumstances with striking achievements,

that there would be more certainly risked than possibly gained in

further efforts to save the guns and hold the field, and hence the

order to return to camp.

[Sidenote: Startled and Disturbed but Haughty]

The call for Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener to save the campaign, the

refusal of risks until Lord Roberts arrived, is based upon information

that the War Office and the Commander-in-Chief have not shared with the

world at large. The defeat of the army of General Buller in attempting

to cross the Tugela River for the relief of the strenuously besieged

city of Ladysmith was in the positive likeness of the preceding

reverses of the British arms on three other lines and, therefore, more

startling and disturbing to the people of Great Britain and the Greater

Britain, but they met the renewed and increased demands upon them with

a gloom that was haughty, and a resolution that did not falter, for

they knew it was in the issue to lose or gain an empire. The official

figures of British casualties in the Battle of Colenso were, officers

killed 5, wounded 36; men killed, 145, wounded 751; missing, officers

21; men 332. Total, 1,290--about eight per cent.

[Sidenote: Buller Attacks]

The Boer account of the battle dated Colenso, December 15, 1899, said:

"At dawn to-day the long-expected attack by the British was made.

Commandant Pretorius, with the artillery, gave the alarm that General

Buller's Ladysmith relief column was advancing on the Boer positions

close to the Tugela and Colenso, and was in full battle array.

"The centre consisted of an immense body of infantry, while the flank

was formed by two batteries of artillery. On each side were strong

bodies of cavalry supporting the troops.

"The Boer artillery preserved absolute silence and did nothing to

disclose their position. Two batteries of British artillery came up

within rifle range of our foremost position, and the Boers then opened

fire with deadly effect. Our artillery next commenced operations, and,

apparently, absolutely confused the enemy, who were allowed to think

the bridge open for them to cross the river.

"The British right flank meanwhile attacked the southernmost position

held by the Boers, but our Mauser rifle fire was so tremendous that

they rolled back like a spent wave, leaving ridges and ridges of dead

and dying humanity behind them.

"Again the British advanced to attack, and again they fell back,

swelling the heaps of dead. The cavalry charged up to the river, where

the Ermelo commando delivered such a murderous fire that two batteries

of cannon had to be abandoned. So tremendous a cannonade has seldom

been heard. The veldt for miles round was covered with dead and

wounded.

"The result of the engagement was a crushing British defeat. Nine

cannon were captured and brought across the river.

"The official returns of the Boer losses were thirty killed and

wounded."

[Sidenote: "A Crushing British Defeat."]

All this about a combat in which the British losses, the names of the

killed, wounded and missing given, assuring accuracy were one per cent.

of Buller's men in action were killed. One wonders what words the

Boers will have left to use if they do win a great battle. The British

account is in some respects less florid than that of the Boers. We

quote the account least picturesque of the correspondents:

[Sidenote: A British Account]

"The Dublins and Connaughts advanced magnificently against the almost

overwhelming fire, men falling at every step. As they approached the

river the enemy's fire seemed to redouble. Every time a company rose

to its feet to advance there was a perfect crash of musketry, and the

plain all round them became a cloud of dust spurts. It seemed

wonderful that any man could survive it. And yet there was nothing to

tell where the enemy lay concealed. Not a single head even was

visible; nothing but a long line of smoke, scarcely visible, and the

incessant crackling roar. The batteries sent shell after shell

wherever they could distinguish the line of the trenches, but they

failed to silence the terrible fire. At last our men reached the

river, but where there should have been a ford there was seven feet of

water. The few who tried to cross it, overcome by the weight of rifle

and ammunition, were drowned. The rest lined the bank, and poured in a

tremendous fire on the still almost invisible enemy. Then came the

general's order to retire."

A letter from General Buller's camp, showing that the British army, on

the way presumably to relieve Ladysmith, consisted of twenty-three

battalions (23,000 men), says, "It is not to be expected that a single

battalion had 600 men in the firing line. Many barely had 400. I am

making a generous calculation by allowing 500 men per battalion."

The press states Buller had 30,000 men, including the sick, camp

guards, camp duties, lines of communication troops, standing pickets

and standing posts, permanent signallers, clerks, orderlies, cooks,

bakers, butchers.

[Sidenote: A Foredoomed Failure]

Then come the deductions made on the field escorts, flag signallers,

orderlies, detached flankers, ammunition bearers, stretcher bearers,

fall-outs, and Buller's attacking force was 10,000 infantry, 700 sabers

and 48 guns. It requires infantry to take a position, and it is the

drill book defined principle that an attack to have a chance of success

must be four assailants to one defender. The Boers could put as many

in the trenches as the British could send against them, and, therefore,

the assault was a foredoomed failure.

CHAPTER IX

The Siege of Ladysmith.

[Sidenote: Location of Ladysmith]

The siege of Ladysmith began November 2, 1899, the third day after the

British disaster at Nicolson's Nek, that is, the affair in which six

companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers marched out with four companies

of the Gloucestershire regiment to seize the Nek, seven miles northwest

of Ladysmith, and they were caught, the mules stampeded with artillery

and ammunition, and the Fusiliers and supports were penned, and there

were next day empty camps and the British Empire was shaken. The town

of Ladysmith is 169 miles from Durban, 3,285 feet above the level of

the sea, and is the chief town of the Klip River division of the Klip

River country in Natal; it is on a tongue of land formed by the Klip

River. There is a sheltering semi-circle of hills. The position of

General White, the British commander, is out of town on the hill tops

that overlook Ladysmith. The town hall in this place is of the Doric

style, and cost $30,000. It is of blue whinstone and white freestone.

The town is an important railway center, and has shops for railway

repairs. The distance from Colenso where Buller was checked is only

sixteen miles. Dundee is distant forty-seven and a half miles; Glencoe

forty-two miles; Estcort fifty-three miles. When General Symons won

the fight at Dundee and was mortally wounded, he ordered that he and

other wounded be placed in hospitals and his column marched to

Ladysmith. General Symons had won the field, carried a very strong

position brilliantly but with heavy loss, and retreated before the

rushing reinforcements of the Boers. General Yule set out with the

able-bodied troops--four battalions of infantry, three batteries, and a

small body of the 13th Hussars. By daybreak they were nine miles away

in the hills. At 2 P.M. they had reached Beith, subsequently passing

unmolested through the rocky defiles of Waschbank, emerging safely on

the third day into the open country. General White, finding a Boer

attempt would be made to cut off Yule, sallied forth and drove the

Boers from their position on a hill 8,000 feet high. [Sidenote: Timely

Arrival of Naval Brigade] While General White was out fighting, the

Naval Brigade, that has done so much to assist the British defence of

Ladysmith, arrived. General White reported 3 P.M., October 30th:

"I sent No. 10 Mountain Battery with Royal Irish Fusiliers and

Gloucester Regiment to take up a position on the hills to clear my left

flank. The force moved at 11 P.M. last night, and during some night

firing the battery mules stampeded with some of the guns, which,

however, I hope to recover. The two battalions have not yet returned,

but are expected this evening."

[Sidenote: First Serious Reverse]

This was the first notice of the disaster. At 11.35 P.M., October

30th, General White sent his announcement of the first "serious

reverse," in these terms:

"I have to report a disaster to a column sent by me to take a position

on hill to guard the left flank of the troops in these operations

to-day.

"The Royal Irish Fusiliers, No. 10 Mountain Battery, and the Gloucester

Regiment were surrounded in the hills, and, after losing heavily, had

to capitulate.

"I formed the plan in carrying out which the disaster occurred, and am

alone responsible for the plan.

"No blame whatever attaches to the troops, as the position was

untenable."

[Sidenote: The Excitement in London]

The excitement and depression in London about this news was

representative of that throughout the empire, and it was astonishing in

its degree. The Boers hastened to close around Ladysmith and cut off

railroad and telegraphic communication, and very soon had connected

railway tracks giving themselves free run into Natal and communication

with Pretoria. In the gloom of these inauspicious incidents the siege

of Ladysmith began, forcing the policy of relief of places in the most

difficult country to prevail, and making costly combats certain, and

scattered operations, according to ordinary judgment, necessary. It is

a question that will long be discussed whether it would have been

better to destroy the stores at Ladysmith and withdraw the troops to

Colenso, or even further, for concentration and movement with one

irresistible column, but this is all speculation. The siege of

Ladysmith is a stirring chapter of history forever.

[Sidenote: Distribution of Forces]

Sir George White's official report was forwarded by Sir Redvers Buller

from Cape Town, under date of November 9th. Sir George took command of

Natal forces October 7th, and he says:

"The information available regarding the positions occupied by the

armies of the two Dutch Republics showed the great bulk of the forces

of the Orange Free State were massed near the passes of the Drakensberg

mountains, west of Ladysmith. The troops of the South African Republic

were concentrated at various points west, north, and east of the

northern angle of Natal."

[Illustration: THE TREACHERY OF A WOUNDED DERVISH. An incident in the

Soudan War 1898.]

[Illustration: THE LAST STAND OF THE KHALIFA'S STANDARD BEARER. A

thrilling incident in the late Soudan war. "That one man, alone, was

standing alive, holding his flag upright a storm of lead sweeping past

him--his comrades dead around him."]

October 10th, the Boer war ultimatum was received. Sir George desired

to withdraw the troops from Glencoe, but the Governor of Natal said,

"Such a step would involve great political results and possibilities of

so serious a nature that I determined to accept the military risk of

holding Dundee as the lesser of two evils. I proceeded in person to

Ladysmith on October 11th, sending on Lieutenant-General Sir William

Penn Symons to take command at Glencoe.

"The Boers crossed the frontier both on the north and west on October

12th, and next day the Transvaal flag was hoisted at Charlestown. My

great inferiority in numbers necessarily confined me strategically to

the defensive, but tactically my intention was and is to strike

vigorously whenever opportunity offers."

Sir George states that it was Sir W. P. Symons' intention to make a

direct attack on the enemy's position under cover of a small wood and

of some buildings, and continues:

[Sidenote: Symons' Death and Victory]

"At 8.50 A.M. the Infantry Brigade were ordered to advance. The ground

was open and intersected by nullahs, which, running generally

perpendicular to the enemy's position, gave very little cover. At 9

A.M. Sir W. P. Symons ordered up his reserves, and advanced with them

through the wood at 9.15 A.M. At 9.30 A.M. the Lieutenant-General was,

I regret to report, mortally wounded in the stomach, and the command

devolved upon Brigadier-General Yule.

"About 11.30 A.M. the enemy's guns were silenced and the artillery

moved into a range of 1,400 yards and opened a very rapid fire on the

ridge over the heads of our infantry. This temporarily brought under

the enemy's rifle fire, and enabled our infantry to push on. The

ground in places was so steep and difficult that the men had to climb

it on hands and knees; but by 1 A.M. the crest was reached, and the

enemy, not waiting to come to close quarters, retired."

The loss of a detachment followed, and Sir George says:

"The Boer force engaged in this action is computed at 4,000 men, of

whom about 500 were killed or wounded. Three of their guns were left

dismounted on Talana Hill, but there was no opportunity of bringing

them away."

[Sidenote: Elandslaagte and Engagements]

In his account of the Elandslaagte engagement, Sir George details the

fight and closes:

"Our men worked forward in short rushes of about fifty yards. Many of

the Boers remained lying down, shooting from behind stones until our

men were within twenty or thirty yards of them, then sometimes ran for

it and sometimes stood up and surrendered. These latter individuals

were never harmed, although just previous to surrendering they had

probably shot down several of our officers and men.

"At length the guns were reached and captured, and the end of the ridge

was gained, from which the whole of the enemy's camp, full of tents,

horses and men, was fully exposed to view at fixed sight range. A

white flag was shown from the centre of the camp, and Colonel Hamilton

ordered the 'cease fire' to be sounded. The men obeyed, and some of

them moved a short distance down the hill towards the camp. For a few

moments there was a complete lull in the action, and then a shot was

heard, which was followed by a deadly fire from the small conical copje

to the east of the camp, and by a determined charge up hill by some

thirty or forty Boers, who effected a lodgment near the crest line

within fifteen or twenty paces of our men, who fell back for a moment

before the fierce suddenness of this attack. Only for a moment,

however, for our fire was at once reopened, and, reinforced by a timely

detachment of the 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment, they charged back,

cheering, to the crest line, when the remnant of the Boer force fled in

confusion towards the north.

"The 1st Devonshire Regiment charged with fixed bayonets, and the

cavalry squadrons went through and through the retreating enemy. Sir

George White estimates the Boer losses at over 100 killed, 108 wounded

and 188 prisoners."

[Sidenote: Closing in of Ladysmith]

The close of the General's report is full of significance:

"Reverting to my action at Rietfontein on October 24th, I may mention

in general terms that my object was not to drive the enemy out of any

positions, but simply to prevent him crossing the Newcastle road from

west to east and so falling on General Yule's flank. This object was

attained with entire success, the enemy suffering severely from our

shrapnel fire, which was very successful in searching the reverse

slopes of the hills on which he was posted. Our own loss amounted to

one officer and eleven men killed; six officers and ninety-seven men

wounded, and two missing. The details of this action, as well as the

various plans and returns, which should accompany a despatch, will be

forwarded later; but I am anxious that this report should be sent off

at once, as it is very doubtful whether any communications by rail with

Pietermaritzburg will remain open after to-day."

[Sidenote: Defences of Ladysmith]

The story of constructing the fortifications of Ladysmith is very

handsomely told in a letter dated November 21st:

"The defences were incomplete, and it was felt that the enemy, if

determined, could make an impression upon every section. Probably the

civilian population had not realized this, but it was obvious to those

concerned in their construction; and if it had not been for the moral

effect of the naval guns it is doubtful if the defences would have been

finished in time to meet the assault when it was made. The devotion

with which the sailors drew and returned the enemy's fire while all

other troops were engaged in building breastworks stands unprecedented.

The first three days their guns had little or no parapets, and the men

had to stand to in the open. The luck of the British service was with

them, for, though the ground round the guns was furrowed and plowed in

every direction, no appreciable damage was done to any group. With the

naval gunners drawing the fire it was possible for the men to work at

day on some of the posts. But on others nothing could be done except

at night, and the men, as soon as they were relieved from holding the

crest lines, were forced to exchange rifle for pick and shovel and to

spend the night intrenching. But each twenty-four hours that the Boers

delayed the assault saw the safety of Ladysmith increase, until, by

November 7th, those responsible for the line of defences were confident

that we could hold our own. But after the experience of November 9th,

the Boers have made no further attempt to reduce Ladysmith by storm.

[Sidenote: A Narrow Escape]

There were eleven miles of defences. This early incident of the siege

is told:

"Colonel Ian Hamilton and staff, including Lord Ava and Colonel F.

Rhodes, escaped a serious burst by a few moments. They were about to

have breakfast when a shell from the Peppworth battery entered the

plinth of the house and, passing into the cellar, burst under the

breakfast table. The force of this explosion drove the floor planks of

the room through the ceiling and roof."

The famous war correspondent, G. W. Stevens, who died of fever in

Ladysmith during the siege, gave at a dash a diagram and picture of the

city that will be memorable for British valor and the tenacity of the

Boers, and the proof that the former are as fierce on the offensive as

they are firm on the defensive, and Ladysmith will be fixed in history

as a spot that was for months the pivot upon which events that effected

the destiny of nations turned. This paragraph is an outline drawing of

the correspondent whose reputation was won in adventures of hardihood,

personal bravery in going to the fire lines where history is made, and

a rare talent for rapid and vivid pencillings by the way:

[Sidenote: Surroundings of Ladysmith]

"If the reader will bear in mind what a horse's hoof inverted looks

like, he may get a mental picture of Ladysmith and its

surroundings--the heels of the horseshoe pointing eastward, where, five

miles off, is the long, flat top of steep Bulwaan, like the huge bar of

a gigantic horseshoe magnet, The horse's frog approximately represents

a ridge, behind which, and facing Bulwaan, but separated from it by

broad stretches of meadow, with the Klip River winding a serpentine

course through them, between high banks is Ladysmith town. Between the

frog and the horseshoe lie our various camps, mostly in radiating

hollows, open either to the east or west, but sheltered from cross

fires by rough kopjes of porphyritic boulders that have turned brown on

the surface by exposure to sunshine. Bushy tangles of wild, white

jasmine spring from among those boulders with denser growth of thriving

shrubs, bearing waxen flowers that blaze in brilliant scarlet and

orange."

[Sidenote: Preparations for the Siege]

_The Natal Witness_ has contained striking accounts of the situation in

Ladysmith. "The people cut off in the town, having been notified that

Joubert would begin the bombardment in a day or two, sought places of

safety. The Royal Hotel people flitted to the deep, rocky ravine

through which the Port road runs towards the camp. In the bottom of

the ravine, with precipitous banks on each side of the high stone

viaduct, used once for the conveyance of water to the town, towards the

mouth of the ravine, a well-protected little camp was formed, and here

the Royal continued to cater for such of its guests as thither went.

The Railway Hotel closed. Mr. and Mrs. Chisnall, of the Crown Hotel,

did better than the others. They kept their hotel open, and, not too

much afraid of shells, which never came, continued to do their best for

their clients, despite shrinkage of supplies. Along the bottom of the

ravine, already referred to, were numerous tents, people--men and

women--took up their abode amongst the trees and rocks, and several

individuals found holes amongst the rocks on the sides of the ravine

into which they could stow a few of their possessions, and crawl into,

themselves, when the shells began to whistle overhead.

[Sidenote: Caves Excavated for Families]

"In the clay banks of the ravine caves were excavated. Many of these

places showed there had been no lack of energy and ingenuity employed

in their preparation. Narrow entrances opened into cavities large

enough, some of them, for a dozen people to stand upright in at one

time, and into these interiors had been brought bedding, seats, food

and cooking appliances. Some folks, less energetic or less

apprehensive, contented themselves by scooping out the banks so as to

have a few feet of covering over their heads. Into one of these

scooped-out terraces were set two long garden seats, and on these the

father and mother and a big family of little children intended to sit

in a row when the shells began, with their backs firm against the

earthen wall behind, and their eyes upon the Klip River below. Within

a distances of less than half a mile between twenty and thirty such

places had been prepared.

"Monday, November 7th, the bombardment began. Early in the morning

Boer shells were whistling overhead, banging and crashing as they

reached the earth, from end to end of the town. There is a glorious

uncertainty about Boer shells. Whether their erratic course is due to

deliberation or merely the result of poor gunnery, I cannot pretend to

decide. But the fact remains that the shells from the Dutch positions

fell in the most unexpected places.

"Some fell near the camps by the river, and some caused considerable

alarm to the cave-dwellers by alighting near their cool retreats.

Others, again, went far over Ladysmith, striking the bare hills,

causing a loud report and a cloud of dust, and that was about all.

About 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the shelling was heavy. Shrapnel

came from Umbulwan, and the shells bursting over the town; the bullets,

iron segments and shot rattled on the housetops at times like hail.

From 4 o'clock to 4.20 twenty-two shells came from the Boer guns, but

taking the entire day the number of shells would not average one every

two minutes."

[Sidenote: Town Hall Struck]

"Shelling by the enemy's smaller guns started before 8 o'clock

(November 22d), but the backyards of houses in the vicinity of Port

road west, was the designation of the missiles. "Slim Piet" chimed in

after breakfast, with no respect for the Red Cross. After sending a

few into the centre of the town, he succeeded in striking the right

wing of the Town Hall, which has all along been the office of the town

clerk. The bomb--a 94-pounder--entered the roof, crashed through the

ceiling, and thence against the back wall of the wing. Here it

encountered a well-constructed stone wall about two and a half feet

thick. The resistance was tremendous, but a portion of the wall gave

way with the explosion, which wrecked the inside of the office, smashed

every pane of glass, and threw splinters in every direction. The most

remarkable thing about this was that at the moment several soldiers

belonging to the Hospital Corps were engaged at breakfast under what

was considered the friendly shelter of the wall. When the partition

wall gave way they were literally covered with the falling debris, and

many received bruises and scratches, but not one was severely wounded.

[Sidenote: Patients Removed]

"A huge cloud of dust rose high above the building, intermingled with

the smoke, which issued forth from the windows. About fifty patients

were inside the Town Hall at the time, and these were immediately

removed into a large excavation adjacent to the building. A stone

weighing about seventy pounds was thrust from the wall a distance of

about 100 yards. The "Powerful" men's reply to this bomb of "Slim

Piet's" was a plugged shell, which had the desired effect of silencing

him for a few hours. The other Boer guns kept taking hot shots. One

of these from Lombard's Kop struck and exploded on the top of a

partially built house, which was being used as the kitchen for the

Natal Police Field Force. Trooper Duncanson, who was at work there,

was hit on the right side by portions of the shell, and died almost

immediately. Then there was a cessation until dusk, when "Long Tom"

sent half a dozen shells into Ladysmith very close to the Town Hall.

"Night cometh on apace," and soon all was wrapped in darkness. The

elements went to war; thunder and lightning, rain, and a half gale

prevailing. Heaven's artillery seemed to mock the puny thunders of

man's more deadly weapons. The Boers started firing at 10.40 P.M., and

our guns, which must have been trimmed and ready, responded with

alacrity.

"To date (25th November), the Boers have on three occasions shelled the

town and camp at night. In the quietness of the night the noise of the

shelling--the firing of the guns and the bursting of the shells--was

awful in its volume and intensity."

[Sidenote: Midnight Bombardment]

A Ladysmith letter gives a thrilling account of a midnight bombardment:

"To be awakened at midnight by a shower of ninety-four pound shells was

a painful shock to the opinion we had formed of the good nature of the

Boer Commander. Many people would not believe it, and concluded that

they were victims of nightmare. But steel shells, with a bursting

charge of melinite, do not encourage delusions.

"By the time half a dozen had rent the sky with terrific crash the town

was awake, and silent figures in undress were flitting like uneasy

ghosts about gardens and verandas. This was a new and unpleasant

experience, very trying to the nerves. It had taken several days to

get accustomed to shell fire between dawn and dusk. At first the

flight of a shell turned one's thoughts to the caves in the river bank.

But, after a time, when one began to realize how little damage was

done, the instinct of Fate--more common among men of the East than of

the West--asserted itself. The light of the sun and the presence of a

crowd gave a sense of security. Everybody, unconsciously it may be,

puts the question, "Why should a shell hit me rather than another?" In

the solitude and shadows of the night this confidence in destiny is a

sorry support. Each man thinks himself the sole target of the enemy,

and feels that every shell is aimed at the pit of his stomach.

[Sidenote: An Awe-Inspiring Cannonade]

"The night was dark, and a solemn stillness was in the air, when

suddenly the hills burst into intense and lurid life. The long black

ridges kindled under a bright red flame. Then come the fateful

moments. Scorching the deep blue sky, the shell rushes onward in

seemingly interminable flight. During the day, amid the stir of life,

this invisible, death-laden progress sounds short and sharp, like an

arrow from a bow. The suspense is brief. But at night it sweeps alone

like a meteor from horizon to zenith, and descends in a hissing curve

like a white-hot bolt plunging into a fathomless sea. A second later

and earth and air and sky are rent with the crash of bursting steel; a

tongue of flame leaps upward, and the great amphitheatre of hills

seethes with steel bullets and fragments of shell. For several nights

the enemy kept up this awe-inspiring cannonade. The only result was to

disturb one's slumber, and to drive women, children and a few nervous

men to the caves."

[Sidenote: Ladysmith Hard Pressed]

January 6th the Boers made a desperate rush to storm Ladysmith, and the

last heliographic message received at 3.15 P.M. by Sir Redvers Buller

consisted only of the words, "Attack renewed. Very hard pressed." The

sunlight then failed, and only a "camp rumour" that the Boers were

defeated at 5 P.M., with a loss of 400 prisoners was forthcoming. At 2

P.M. on Sunday, another message reached Frere Camp with the news that

the attack had been "repulsed everywhere with very heavy loss."

[Sidenote: Attack in Force Repulsed]

On the 6th "from 3 to 8 the Boers bombarded Ladysmith more heavily than

at any time previously during the siege," the main attack was directed

against Cæsar's Camp and Wagon Hill, a partially detached spur of the

same feature about three-quarters of a mile west. The total extent of

front assaulted was about three miles, and the Boer guns on Bulwana

Hill and Lombard's Kop co-operated as soon as there was sufficient

light. The attack commenced at 2.45 A.M. The first assault was

repulsed before 9 A.M., although fighting was still going on when Sir

George White's earliest message was dispatched--"The enemy were in

great strength, and pushed their attack with the greatest courage and

energy." How severe the struggle was is evident from the statement

that "some of our intrenchments on Wagon Hill were three times taken by

the enemy and retaken by us." At this point, specially exposed,

Colonel Ian Hamilton commanded, and "rendered valuable services." Sir

George White further reports that "one point in our position was

occupied by the enemy the whole of the day; but at dusk, in a very

heavy rainstorm," the Boers were driven out "at the point of the

bayonet" by the 1st Devonshire Regiment. "The attack continued until

7.30 P.M."

[Illustration: THE GORDON'S CHARGING THE BOERS, GROBLERS KLOOF]

[Illustration: GOOD-BYE, DADDIE. The little son of Piper-Major Lang of

the Scots Guards bidding his father farewell]

PIETERMARITZBURG, January 11th.

Correct casualty return, Ladysmith, January 6th:

KILLED.

Officers as reported ......... 13

Rank and file ................ 135

Killed ................... --- 148

WOUNDED.

Officers as reported ......... 28

Rank and file ................ 244

Wounded .................. --- 272

---

Total killed and wounded ..... 420

[Sidenote: Boer Version of Storming Ladysmith]

The Boer version of their attempt to storm Ladysmith, January 6th, is

as follows:

"HOOFDLAAGER, LADYSMITH, Jan. 7th.

"A bold attack was made yesterday morning by the commandoes investing

Ladysmith on the British fortifications on the Platrand Ridge. The

operations that ensued were most exciting in their character. The

storming parties were greeted, on reaching the edge of the rugged

plateau, by a tremendous hail of shot and shell from the British

artillery. No attempt was made, however, to hold the first line of

schanzes, or stone breastworks, at the top of the hill, and these were

promptly occupied by the Boer sharpshooters. At the next row, however,

an exceedingly stubborn resistance was made, and with good effect,

every inch of ground being most stubbornly contested. Conspicuous

bravery was displayed on both sides.

"After ten o'clock the British artillery fire slackened perceptibly,

but then ensued a most terrific individual contest among the riflemen

for the possession of the ridge. At noon a heavy thunderstorm broke

over the position, interrupting the battle for two hours. It seemed as

though the heavenly batteries were using their best endeavors to create

an even more terrific noise than the cannon and the rifles of the

contending armies. Though the Burghers succeeded ultimately in gaining

possession of most of the British positions on the western side of the

Platrand they were finally obliged to retire from most of the ground

they had occupied. The British losses were apparently severe, their

ambulances being busy for many hours. The Boer losses were about 100

killed and wounded, the Free State contingents being the heaviest

sufferers. Simultaneous attacks were made from the different outposts

on all the British positions round Ladysmith.

[Sidenote: Thrilling Arm's Length Encounters]

"Operations are continued to-day on a smaller scale, but it is reported

that as a result of one of the forlorn hopes one gun and two ammunition

waggons have been captured."

"HOOFDLAAGAR, MODDERSPRUIT, LADYSMITH, Jan 9th,

(via Lourenzo Marques, January 14th).

"Further details of the assault of Cæsar's Camp, on the Platrand, are

most thrilling in their character. It is clear that the attack was

most determined and the defence equally tenacious. The British were

most strongly entrenched, and the walls of their redoubts were

skillfully loopholed. The combat was so close that the rifles were

frequently fired at arm's length between the opposing forces. It was,

in fact, a hand to hand encounter in the grey dawn. The men on both

sides are reported to have fought like demons, the horror and

bewilderment of the scene presenting a picture without parallel in the

experience of those who took part in the encounter."

PRETORIA, January 10th,

(via Lourenzo Marques, January 14th).

"An official announcement has just been placarded to the effect that

the Federal losses in Saturday's engagement were fifty-four killed

(including three Free State and one Transvaal Field-Cornet) and

ninety-six wounded.

Lord Duefferin's son, the Earl of Ava, was mortally wounded in the

repulse of the Boers, and died January 11th.

The monotony of the siege was varied by several brilliant sorties, in

one of which the Boers testified the British did "fine work." On two

occasions Boer siege guns were captured and destroyed. A letter

dispatched by a Kaffir, dated Ladysmith, January 21st, mentioned that

"Buller's guns are eagerly watched shelling the Boer position with

lyddite. As each shot strikes, dense volumes of brown smoke arise, the

lyddite shells being thus quite distinguishable from ordinary shrapnel

shells.

[Sidenote: Fortifications Strengthened; Fever Abating]

"Six Boer camps are visible between Ladysmith and Potgeiter's Drift,

and bodies of the enemy have been observed riding towards the Tugela.

They are evidently determined to offer a stubborn resistance to the

advance of the relief column. They have given no indication of any

intention to remove their guns, but have put new ones up recently and

are still continually working at their fortifications.

"Since the 6th inst. our fortifications on Wagon Hill and Cæsar's Camp

have been greatly strengthened, and Ladysmith is now practically

impregnable.

"Doubtless owing to the dry weather, fever has abated in the garrison.

The number of convalescents returning from Intombi camp exceeds that of

the patients sent out.

"Our commissariat has been most ably managed during the siege, and our

supplies are lasting splendidly. All the troops have a sufficiency of

wholesome food. The heat is terrific, being 107 degrees in the shade

at the present moment.

[Sidenote: Insurmountable Obstacles]

The surroundings of the now forever famous city of Ladysmith have been

described as a crescent a horse shoe, and a soup plate with a big piece

chipped out. It was named after the Spanish wife of General Sir Harry

Smith in 1840. Before the Britain and Boer War it was a noted railway

station on the great line to Pretoria and beyond. The siege lasted

within two days of four months. Relief came on the last night in

February. The besiegers held on after they knew Lord Roberts was

successfully invading the Orange Free State, hoping that he might be

repulsed, and they resisted with their accustomed energy the fourth

attack by the army under Sir Redvers Buller, whose first advance and

reverse was December 15th. His second general advance to force the

Boer lines on the Tugela pivoted on Spion Kop, gallantly carried and

held for some time, but evacuated January 26th. General Buller's third

advance was on February 5th, but his attack was not pressed, for the

obstacles were manifestly insurmountable except by a sacrifice too

great to be considered.

[Sidenote: Success at Last]

February 20th, the fourth advance was made and a severe struggle

occurred. The Irish troops distinguished themselves, especially, and

the Welsh Fusiliers suffered the loss 252 men killed and wounded.

General Buller recalled his battalions from the first position

assailed, and put them in again in force on his extreme right and

carried by storm Pieters Hill. Buller's artillery was very effectively

used on this occasion. On the afternoon of February 28th the British

commander ascertained that the ridges toward Ladysmith were unoccupied.

Lord Dundonald dashed forward with two squadrons and galloped until

there was a challenge. "Who goes there?" The reply was, "The

Ladysmith relieving army;" and the cavalry had a great welcome from the

thin and pale faced men of the garrison, whose cheers of joy were

through physical weakness feeble. The Boers had been observed from

Ladysmith hastening away in a continuous stream, trekking North.

The crisis of the siege was when General Joubert ordered that the town

should be taken before January 10th. The supreme effort was made at 2

o'clock the morning of the 6th, and directed upon three positions--the

one most exposed, the flat topped Hill, Cæsar's camp, crescent shaped,

the interior facing the Boers' position--height of crest above the town

near 800 feet. The Boers advanced on the two horns of the crescent and

gained an advantageous position, which they held for seventeen hours.

The fight on both sides was a soldiers battle; and the British success

finally was credited correctly to the leadership of the company

officers.

A party of sappers, with half a company of Gordon Highlanders, were

placing a gun on the critical position, Wagon Hill, and made so much

noise the Boers, stealthily approaching, thought for a time their

movement was discovered. The British working party added sixty rifles

to the defense, and so even was the balance in the combat, the repulse

of the assailants was apparently due to the accident of this force

having a special service at the point of danger.

[Sidenote: An Extraordinary Hard Struggle]

The Boer assailing party was 300 strong, led by de Villiers, and as

they were creeping silently up the hillside, Lieutenant Mathias, of the

British Light Horse, going down to visit his post, met them and had the

presence of mind to turn back with them, and when a few yards from his

own picket he rushed forward and gave the alarm. This was at 2.30 A.M.

It was pitch dark and the defenders after a spell of indiscriminate

firing were driven back. There ensued a struggle of extraordinary

character, the flashing of the rifles giving the only light. Colonel

Hamilton, in command of the defenders at the ragged edge, telephoned

for re-inforcements. The first to arrive were two companies of Gordon

Highlanders. At 4 o'clock four other companies were ordered and in the

advance Colonel Dick Conyngham was mortally wounded by a bullet that

had traveled over 3,000 yards. The re-inforcements did not get up a

moment too soon. At daybreak the Boers were pushing more men up the

water-way by which the first assailants had advanced and their

augmented firing line sorely pressed the handful of Light Horsemen who

were re-inforced at the most opportune moment by Colonel Edwards. The

Boers displayed their deadly marksmanship, and the Colonel, two Majors

and four other officers of the Light Horse were hit within a few'

minutes. Lord Ava, Colonel Hamilton's orderly officer, was in this

place mortally wounded. The British infantry fire could not dislodge

the Boers. It was scarcely possible to see the assailants and to live.

[Sidenote: Desperate Efforts]

To effect a rush necessitated the passage of sixty yards of open.

Major Mackworth, attached to the 60th Rifles, attempted to make the

rush. He fell shot through the head. Captain Codrington, 11th

Hussars, commanding a squadron of the Light Horse, went forward to find

cover for his men. Thirty yards away he fell, and just had strength

enough to wave the Light Horse back. Lieutenant Tod, with twelve men,

attempted to rush the open. He was shot dead three yards from cover.

A terrible rain storm arose, something extraordinary even for Africa.

At its height the indomitable Boers increased their efforts. Colonel

Hamilton called for Colonel Park, who led three companies to clear the

plateau. They were commanded by Lieutenant Field, leading, Captain

Lafone's and Lieutenant Masterson's companies following in order.

There were sixty yards of plateau to cross; a hundred Boer magazines

waiting to sweep it. Three lines of naked bayonets scintillated

against the hillside. Then the Colonel rose to his feet, and the three

companies rose with him as one man. With a cheer that foretold success

the Devons dashed forward. Colonel Hamilton, who was just below when

this sudden attack was delivered, ordered up a dismounted squadron of

the 18th Hussars, and the plateau was reoccupied.

[Illustration: TRANSVAAL STATE ARTILLERY IN GUN PRACTICE. ARTILLERY

CROSSING A DRIFT NEAR LADYSMITH]

[Illustration: DUTCH FARMER RECEIVING ORDERS TO GO TO WAR. GENERAL

JOUBERT AT THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH]

A handful of Boers with desperate valor, appeared on the crest line

suddenly and unexpectedly. They were commanded by de Villiers, who

dashed for the emplacement of gun.

Major Miller-Wallnutt, the only regimental officer there, and a sapper

were shot dead at the gun-pit. Fortunately the sappers who, with fixed

bayonets, were stationed near the emplacement, stood firm. Lieutenant

Digby Jones, who had commanded them with great gallantry since the

night attack, led them forward, and shot de Villiers, falling himself a

moment later with a rifle bullet through his brain. Lieutenant

Denniss, R.E., went on to the crest-line to search for Digby Jones. He

likewise was shot dead and fell beside his brother officer.

While the rain storm was raging and the Boers were advancing through

the sluicing waters, there were shouts of "retire." Major Rice pushed

forward his sappers again. A subaltern rallied the broken Rifles, and

the Highlanders faced round. Then they swung back again with levelled

bayonets, and the Boers went headlong down the slopes.

[Sidenote: Great Suffering in the City]

Ladysmith saved from assault, the besieged force endured great

privations with heroic devotion, suffering from insufficient and in

part loathsome rations, a bombardment that was steadily maintained and

above all, fevers arising from hideously unsanitary conditions.

General Buller's telegram, dated March 2d, and announcing the success

of his fourth advance, was in these terms: "I find the defeat of the

Boers more complete than I had dared to anticipate." While the

casualty lists during his operations assumed very grave proportions,

exceeding 20 per cent. of his effective force, nothing but generalship

that was at once adventurous as against the enemy and conservative of

his army, would have brought triumph without a far greater expenditure

of blood.

CHAPTER X

The Relief of Kimberley---The Turn of the Tide of War Against the Boers.

[Sidenote: The Difference in Positions of Roberts and Buller]

The first intelligence from South Africa that plainly promised the

success of Lord Roberts was that, after his arrival at the Cape, there

was no news of what became of the British troops disembarked there, and

the newspapers had to be content with the story of embarkations and the

thunderous attrition of Buller on the Tugela. He was crossing and

recrossing fords, storming kops and retiring from them, and the sound

of the pounding of his guns stimulated the garrison of Ladysmith to

hopefulness that the hand of help was night. There was no affectation

of the solemnities of secrecy and mystery about Roberts. He gave out

letters and dispatches occasionally that foretold nothing, and was

busy. The transports from England stopped at the Cape instead of

Dunbar, and the troops appeared and disappeared. Lord Roberts and

Kitchener had maps, and were keeping books.

Sir Redvers Buller found himself committed to attack the invaders of

Natal for the relief of Ladysmith and to fight an invisible foe. There

has been no account that a British soldier not taken prisoner saw an

enemy at the Battle of Colenso. Sir Redvers had no opportunity for

maneuvers, the immediate demand upon him was the achievement of the

impossible. The Boers were in a fortified enchanted castle, built of

mountains, safeguarded by a river, itself an immense intrenchment. The

situation of Lord Roberts was different. He was in command of the

British Empire and before him was Africa and he was at liberty to

choose the road by which to invade the Boer states. There was but one

limitation upon his freedom to exercise his power. That was that he

should conduct a White Man's War. The _London Mail_ stated the case

precisely in these words:

[Sidenote: A White Man's War]

"At the beginning of our campaign we firmly refused to allow men of

color to help our arms. Powerful and well-equipped tribes on the

border of the Free State clamored for an opportunity to pay off old

scores on their hereditary foes, but Sir Godfrey Lagden kept them back.

Native Indian rulers begged to be permitted to shed their blood and

that of their armies for the Empress; but while gladly recognizing

their generous loyalty, England declined their offers. Our splendid

Indian soldiers, among the best mountain troops in the world, only

waited a signal to do their utmost for us. But England felt that this

was a white man's war, to be fought out solely between white men."

The use of the black man would have raised the black flag, and that was

the reason why the Asiatic troops of England were not poured into

Africa and the natives of Africa invited to get even with the most

cruel of the master races. The weapon of race hate by which the Boers

might have been exterminated was not drawn by the British whose

preference of alternatives was to shed their own blood.

[Sidenote: The Utmost Secrecy Preserved]

A railway map of South Africa pointed out to intelligent people plainly

the railway line upon which Lord Roberts could advantageously muster

his men to strike the enemy in their homes. Some of the bridges were

blown up, some of the rails removed, but the surveys remained. The

engineers had marked out the eligible pathway. The Modder River, the

scene of the early successes and final fatality of Lord Methuen,

reappeared in the war correspondence. A letter from Modder River camp,

February 18th, said all the soldiers worked like slaves and the

generals of divisions carried out the campaign planned, without

faltering or blundering and there was "the utmost secrecy," so that the

common people, regimental commanders, and newspaper correspondents did

not obtain the slightest inkling of what the immediate future was to

bring forth. Even the senior officers, who were assigned the important

duty of taking the Sixth Division from Modder River, had but a hazy

idea of what they would have to do after the railway had landed their

troops at Enslin siding. Consequently, the spies, with which this camp

undeniably has been infested, were not only unable to help their

paymasters, but, even by the absence of news of our movements, lulled

the Boer commanders into fancied security.

[Sidenote: Each Step Carefully Considered]

The time when General Lord Roberts was ready to move was one of

critical conditions. The second attempt to relieve Ladysmith by direct

movements had just failed like the first, but with greater losses. The

total cost of the second effort counted in men was 1,800. The plan of

operations had been carefully concealed, and executed with energy, and

as one of the expert writers put it, "there was no undue haste, and the

troops were not brought under the enemy's rifle fire in close

formation, or forced to attempt the passage of a river, of which the

water level was not known, in face of a strongly intrenched position

held by an unshaken enemy. Each step was carefully considered, and no

unnecessary risk was run."

The fighting quality of the British troops was well illustrated, but

the lines of the Boers remained unbroken and unshaken, and the

strategic consequences of this failure were more serious than when the

first experiment was tried. Still, Ladysmith heliographed January

27th, "We can hold on here." The initial move of Roberts in force was

successful. The invisible and invincible foe in inaccessible trenches

did not rise to the occasion. The blow that was struck had not been

foreseen and the spot selected fortified by the enemy. There was a

change described as magical. The magic was that of a free hand and a

clear head, and the magician a general capable of generalship. All at

once the British columns, cavalry, infantry and artillery were

"mobile". The horses "got a move on". The wagons did not stall and

tangle--the field guns, big and little, trundled along merrily. The

long complained of cavalry materialized under General French, going out

and seeking the enemy aggressively and rushing him wherever they found

him. There was something new about this. Speaking of the brilliant

promise of the advance of Roberts, a military correspondent said:

[Sidenote: A Remarkable Cavalry Movement]

"What is particularly interesting is the presence of General

Kelly-Kenny's Division--the Sixth--in this quarter. It was beginning

to be understood that General French had brought with him a number of

his cavalry from the neighborhood of Colesberg, but the fact that the

whole of the Cavalry Division is now under Lord Roberts' control,

together with an Infantry Division, the headquarters of which were only

a few days ago at Thebus, near Steynsburg, is distinctly surprising and

gratifying. The movement must have been carried out with extreme

secrecy, and is calculated to greatly disconcert Boer calculations."

[Sidenote: Kimberley Relieved]

The Cavalry Division of General French described as "a magnificent

force of regular and irregular horsemen and mounted infantry, whose

goal was Kimberley," covered twenty-six miles in twenty-four hours

through a fearful heat, and few fell out even when the burning sun was

succeeded by terrific tropical rain, accompanied by the continuous and

blinding lightning. The road was soon like a morass, but French

plodded doggedly on and reached the Modder River at Klip Drift just

before midnight. That was business, and Lord Roberts entered

Jacobsdal, February 15th. Kimberley was entered February 16th. This

telegram was dispatched from that town while French was still invisible.

"At 2 o'clock this afternoon a heliograph message from a range of

kopjes to the left of Alexandersfontein announced that General French's

column was approaching. The enemy were immediately observed to be

fleeing with their guns."

On the day before, the bombardment of Kimberley had been heavy, the

Boers firing 100-pound shrapnel shells. Then they fled from their

laagers for the first time. February 18th, the country all around the

diamond city was cleared of them and Roberts telegraphed: "The

engineers have started laying the rails on the line between Kimberley

and Modder River. Several herds of cattle have been captured."

The movement of French was so rapid and had such important consequences

that it produced an impression that it was a peaceable procession.

This extract of a summary report will correct the misapprehension:

"The New South Wales Ambulance Corps, under Lieutenant Edwards, drawn

by Australian horses, kept pace with the column and picked up many

wounded. They were complimented by the brigadier as being the first

ambulance to cross the Modder River.

"Between the Riet and Modder Rivers the enemy attacked our flanks. Our

guns promptly opened from a hillside. While our gunners were driving

the Boers back with heavy shell-fire, the column pressed on at full

speed. Many horses died on the march from exhaustion.

"When we reached the Modder the enemy were found to be intrenched on

the opposite side. The Horse Artillery opened fire with shrapnel and

the Boers ran. We captured their tents, guns, oxen, wagons, and large

quantities of ammunition. The ammunition was in boxes labelled

'Biscuits, Delagoa Bay'."

In this telegram from Roberts there is a trumpet-note of triumph:

"PAARDEBERG, February 19, 7.05 P.M.

(Thirty miles east of Jacobsdal Camp).

"Railway to Kimberley will be ready to-day.

"Methuen proceeds with reinforcements at once, and a large amount of

supplies will be forwarded by rail."

A London cable to Canada said:

"A very distinguished officer said to me last night, 'It is regarded as

a suspicious thing to prophecy after an event, but 'Johnny' French was

under me years ago in India, and when he was only a chubby lieutenant

in the 19th Hussars I saw enough of him to know that there was in him

the making of such a cavalry officer as would have delighted the soul

of 'Stonewall' Jackson."

London fairly rang with praises of General French for days after

Kimberley's relief.

Lord Roberts found time as he was gathering his force on the Modder

River to transfer the fighting to the Boer States, to address, February

9th, this letter to Presidents Kruger and Steyn:

"In continuation of my telegram of Feb. 5th, I call your Honors'

attention to the wanton destruction of property by the Boer forces in

Natal. They have not only helped themselves freely to the cattle and

property of the farmers without payment, but also have utterly wrecked

the contents of many farmhouses. As an instance I would specify Wood's

Farm, near Springfield. I would point out how very different has been

the conduct of the British troops. It is reported to me from Modder

River that farms within the actual area of the British camp have never

been entered, nor have their occupants been molested. The houses and

gardens have been left absolutely untouched."

The following from the other side of the world shows the cordial

reciprocity of appreciation between Lord Roberts and the most remote

colonies:

"SYDNEY, Feb. 8.

"Lord Roberts has sent the following telegram to the Governor of New

South Wales:

"I had the great pleasure of personally welcoming the New South Wales

battery of field artillery and wish to express to your Excellency my

high appreciation of the patriotic spirit which led our fellow-subjects

in Australia to send such a useful and workman-like body of men to

assist in the work of restoring peace, order, and freedom in South

Africa."

The Lieutenant-Governor has replied:

"MELBOURNE, Feb. 8.

"Ministers fully appreciate your telegram, and concur in the earnest

hope that peace, order and freedom may shortly be restored in South

Africa under the British flag."

Lord Roberts has telegraphed to the Governor of Victoria a similar

message to that which he has sent to the Governor of New South Wales.

[Illustration: GENERAL GATACRE ORDERING "CEASE FIRING"]

[Illustration: BOER TACTICS. Alluring the English to death with a flag

of truce.]

[Sidenote: National Qualifications for Fighters]

The Boer States maintained their invasion of the British Colony of

Natal for 100 days, and made for themselves a military reputation that

has astonished and instructed the armed nations of the earth. We of

the United States have less to learn from them than others have,

because we are mobile as they are, and their horsemanship and

marksmanship with rifles are among our accomplishments. The Americans,

also, are as individuals self-reliant, and that makes men competent to

take good care of themselves and keep their heads clear and their hands

steady when there is a life and death business to do. Our traditions

of Indian warfare have informed our people that among the military arts

and qualifications must be ranked the preservation of the lives of

soldiers, that they may not by carelessness on their own part or

wantonness of superiors be wasted--though the commanding officers must

be sure that orders are obeyed, when the reason why is not stated. Our

volunteers have in great measure and likeness the same capacities that

have distinguished the Boers in the wonderful fight they made against

the British. The fact is that as fighting men the Boers closely

resemble in many respects the Confederate soldiers who in the great

state and sectional conflict in this country, fought with surprising

address and displayed such activities--that the infantry under

Stonewall Jackson were jocosely, but with justice in the compliment

implied, called the "Southern Cavalry." They covered the ground nearly

as fast on foot as the Boers have on horseback, and they were men whose

rifles were always to be respected. There have been no bloodier wars

since the days of Napoleon than that which occurred among the people of

the United States when they were construing their Constitution and

having a trial of battle over it; and it is a subject of speculation

very curious and of interest to people of inquiring minds, what effect

upon our war it would have had if at the beginning both sides had been

provided with the long range rifles and artillery that are now the

necessary equipments of an army. Certainly the combats would have been

radically changed, and what might have been the result is left to

constructive imagination.

[Sidenote: Roberts and Buller in Co-operation]

The combination of movements with which Lord Roberts opened his

campaign of invasion of the Orange Free State began by massing an army

of nearly 50,000 men in a place where it was expected, and this

happened to be where the enemy were comparatively weak. At the same

time, Sir Redvers Buller's army was hammering hard on the Tugela and

the thunder of his guns continued to be heard at Ladysmith, from the

outer-guarding trenches of which, the explosion of British shells could

be seen, announcing that the work of relief, if not progressing, was at

least continued. It had long been known by the British officers that

the Boers were constantly signalled of the arrival of troops at Durban,

and able to correctly gauge the army under Buller's command. They were

not so well informed promptly of the movements of troops from Cape

Town, and had not believed in the speedy and eagerly swift advance of

Roberts, whose reputation might have been known to them, of ability to

make his men "keen," which was not the state of the troops whose fine

edge had been removed by the "reverses" under Methuen, Gatacre and

Buller. The first blow Roberts struck furnishes a fine military study

on a large scale. Of course, it materially assisted in raising the

siege of Ladysmith as well as that of Kimberley. The presence of the

main body of the British army in the Orange Free State, the dispersion

of the besiegers of Kimberley, and the capture of Cronje's army, made

sure that the only hope of the Boers was in a rushing concentration of

their forces, and the lines before Buller in Natal weakened at once.

[Sidenote: Roberts' Public Utterances]

An element in the character of Lord Roberts not generally familiarly

known has been developed in his public utterances since he was

commanded to save his country in South Africa. Before he sailed he

consented to say something for the interviewer, which shows that he is

abreast of the methods of talking to the people, and he said he had

"entire confidence in the British soldier." He made a few terse

remarks on meeting the Highlanders in Africa after they had suffered so

severely in action, and said he had been with them in India and he was

glad to see them around him, always wanted to see them when there was

hard work to be done. He has repeatedly taken occasion to recognize

the high spirit of the Colonial contingents, putting them in places

that conveyed a compliment to their courage and effectiveness as

soldiers, and he has ministered to their pride in his efficient

reports. In announcing the surrender of Cronje, he hoped it was

"satisfactory" to Her Majesty's Government, as it was on the

anniversary of Majuba Hill. He especially and handsomely acknowledged

the obligations of the army in that celebration of the anniversary to

the Canadian contingent, "took a day off" to visit Kimberley and

address the sickly and half-starved garrison in fitting terms, and

dined with Mr. Cecil Rhodes, the strong man who represents British

enterprise and ambition in South Africa.

In his correspondence with the Presidents of the Boer States which they

opened, Lord Roberts has been courteous in form, but in substance

aggressive and incisive. Born at Cawmpore, India, of Irish parents, he

has the vivacity of his blood and a talent for saying as well as doing

things. There is a statue of him at Calcutta which was decorated with

flowers March 1st, and a cable was sent him from Cawmpore, "Your

birthplace salutes you."