ELANDSLAAGTE AND RIETFONTEIN
The Unknown Commander of Cavalry--Who is General
French?--Advancing without Reinforcements--"This is your
Show, French"--The White Flag--The Chess-Player--The Victor
in Anecdote.
From the end of the South African War until the outbreak of the
European War the British nation had never taken its army seriously. At
best it had shown very tepid interest in its work. Some brief Indian
skirmishing might momentarily flash the names of a few regiments or a
stray general upon the public mind. But for the most part we were
content to take the army very much for granted, forgetful of Mr.
Dooley's sage pronouncement that "Standing armies are useful in time
of war." Prior to the Boer War the public ignorance on the subject was
even more appalling.
[Page Heading: A NEW STAR]
At the opening of the South African campaign there was a good deal of
vague discussion as to who should have the cavalry command in Natal.
But General French was not one of the officers prominently mentioned.
Yet, he had already risen to a position analogous to that which
General von Bernhardi then occupied in the German army. In any other
European country his name would have been practically a household
word. Even to the English newspaper writer it was a paradox and a
problem.
"Who is this General French?" people asked one another, when news of
his first victories came to hand. Scarcely anyone was able to answer
the question. One finds curious corroboration of the prevailing
ignorance of French's career in a society journal of that date. In
January of 1900, a then most popular social medium was almost
pathetically confessing its perturbation on the point. After giving a
description of General French, the writer goes on rather in wrath than
in apology--"Since I wrote the above paragraph, I have found a letter
in an Irish paper, which declares that the French of whom I have just
spoken is not the hero of Colesberg. The French of whom I have spoken
is George Arthur (_sic_), while the Colesberg French is John Denton
Pinkstone French. Of John Denton Pinkstone French I have found no
details in any of the ordinary books of reference. Probably some
correspondent will supply me with the details." There was a lapse or
six weeks before any further information was forthcoming.
But there was one man who knew his French. General Sir Redvers Buller
had found his worth on the Nile Expedition, in repeated autumn
manoeuvres at home, and in many a long discussion on military topics.
His casting vote, therefore, made French Commander of Cavalry in
Natal.
Major Arthur Griffiths has supplied an admirable little sketch of
French's appearance at this time. "He is short and thick, and of
rather ungainly figure. Although he can stick on a horse as well as
anyone, rides with a strong seat, and is indefatigable in the saddle,
he is not at all a pretty horseman. His mind is more set on
essentials, on effective leadership with all it means, rather than
what soldiers call 'Spit and polish': he is sound in judgment,
clear-headed, patient, taking everything quietly, the rough with the
smooth; but he is always on the spot, willing to wait, and still more
ready to act, when the opportunity comes, with tremendous effect."
That description is true in general, if not in detail. For patience is
certainly not one of French's personal, if it be one of his military
virtues. A close friend of his agreed to the word "tempestuous," as
most nicely describing his temperament. Like every good soldier, in
fact, French has a temper, for which he is none the worse. If apt to
flame out suddenly, it quickly burns itself out, leaving no touch of
resentment in the scorched.
[Page Heading: RECALLED TO LADYSMITH]
Ten days after the Boer ultimatum had been delivered to the British
agent at Pretoria, French was in Ladysmith. He arrived there, to be
pedantically accurate, on October 20, 1899, at 5 a.m. At 11 a.m. he
was in the saddle, leading a column out to recapture the railway
station at Elandslaagte, which, with a newly-arrived train of troops,
the Boers had seized overnight. No sooner had his men begun to locate
the enemy, than French was recalled to Ladysmith. Reluctantly the men
turned back to reinforce Sir George White's small garrison, for what
he feared might prove a night attack. Soon afterwards, however, news
of General Symons' victory at Talana came in to cheer the men after
their fruitless sortie.
At once Sir George White saw his opportunity. It was the Boers, and
not the British, who now stood in peril of a sudden attack. There was
little sleep for French's men that night. At 4 a.m. next morning they
were again on the march for Elandslaagte.
About eight o'clock on one of those perfect mist-steeped summer
mornings that presage a day of burning heat, French's force came in
sight of the Boer laagers. As the mist cleared the enemy could be
spied in large numbers about the station and the colliery buildings
and over the yellow veldt. French ordered the Natal Battery to turn
its little seven-pounder on the station. One of the first shots told;
and the Boers came tumbling out of their shelter, leaving the
trainload of British soldiers, captured the previous night, free to
join their comrades. Soon afterwards the station was in the hands of
the British, as the result of a dashing cavalry charge.
But the Boers were only temporarily dislodged. Their long range guns
very soon shelled the station from the neighbouring kopjes with deadly
effect. French was compelled to withdraw. The stupidity of the enemy,
in leaving the telegraph wires uncut, enabled him immediately to
acquaint Sir George White with the peril of his situation. White's
orders were emphatic: "The enemy must be beaten and driven off. Time
of great importance." The necessary reinforcements were hurried to the
spot.
[Page Heading: IN HIS ELEMENT]
French did not wait for their arrival before striking at the enemy.
The Light Horse, under Colonel Scott Chisholme, quickly took
possession of a low ridge near the railway station, which fronted the
main line of the enemy's kopjes. While he held this ridge French had
the satisfaction of seeing infantry, cavalry and artillery coming up
the railway line to his assistance. In the late afternoon his force
numbered something like three thousand five hundred men, outnumbering
the enemy by more than two to one.
Those who ask why so many men were required, do not understand the
position in which the British force found itself. The enemy were
entrenched on a series of high, boulder-strewn tablelands, which
offered almost perfect cover. Between these tablelands and French's
force lay a wide and partly scrubless stretch of veldt. Over that
terrible exposed slope his men must go, before they could come within
useful range of the enemy. French was faced with a most perilous and
difficult enterprise. However, that is precisely what French likes. He
rose to the situation with ready resource. It was not easy to locate
the exact position of the enemy ensconced amid these covering hills.
So in the afternoon he ordered a simultaneous frontal and flank
attack. Just which was front and which was flank it was for his
lieutenants to discover. Sir Ian Hamilton's instructions to the
infantry were brief but decisive. "The enemy are there," he said, "and
I hope you will shift them out before sunset--in fact, I know you
will."
When the action had fairly commenced, Sir George White and his staff
galloped over from Ladysmith. French approached, saluted, and asked
for instructions. The chivalrous White's only reply was, "Go on,
French; this is your show." All the afternoon he stayed on the field,
watching the progress of events, and approving French's dispositions.
The battle proved to be, in many ways, one of the most spectacular in
history. For as the infantry advanced, under a steady hail of shell
and bullets, the sky began to darken. The Boer positions stood
silhouetted by stray puffs of white smoke against a lowering cumulus
of clouds. While the artillery on both sides shook the ground with an
inferno of sound, the storm burst. The thunder of the heavens became a
spasmodic chorus to the roar of the guns. One correspondent has
described how he found himself mechanically humming the "Ride of the
Valkyries" that was being played on such a dread orchestra. Slipping
and stumbling, cursing and cheering, the Devons crept forward across
the sodden grass. Many of the bravest, among them Chisholme, went down
on that plain of death. Far beyond the level veldt there were
something like 800 feet to climb in the face of Mauser and shrapnel.
At length, however, the top of the ridge was reached. There stood the
three guns that had wrought such havoc, now silent among the corpses
of the frock-coated burghers who had served them.
[Page Heading: THE WHITE FLAG TRICK]
The Boers still kept up the fight, however, on the further side of the
plateau. The cheering Gordons, the Manchesters and the Devons now
flung themselves at the remnant of the foe. Suddenly a white flag was
seen to flutter defeat from a kopje beyond the laager. On the instant
the soldiers paused at the surprising notes of the "Cease fire,"
followed by the "Retire." For a moment they wavered between discipline
and dismay. At that instant from a small kopje east of the nek came a
violent burst of firing as some fifty of the enemy made a last effort
to regain their position.
There was a momentary panic in the British lines. But a little bugler
shouted "Retire be damned," and sounded the "Advance." Gradually the
infantry recovered, and the Gordons and Devons, rushing on the enemy,
took a fearful revenge for the dastardly trick.
French had scored his first victory within a day of his arrival. What
wonder if men called him "French the lucky?" From now onwards that
tradition was to cling to his name. But a great deal more than luck
went to the winning of Elandslaagte. Had French not advanced his men
throughout in open formation, the day might never have been his. It
has been said that he was our only general to master the Boer methods.
He was certainly the first and the most able imitator of those
methods. But he was prepared to meet them before he ever stepped on
South African soil. For his whole theory of cavalry tactics is based
on the realisation that massive formations are now hopelessly out of
date.
[Page Heading: LUCK OR BRAINS]
One of the newspaper correspondents[8] happened to run across French
twice during the battle. He tells how at the end of the engagement he
met the General, who had come along the ridge in the fighting line of
the Manchesters and Gordons, and offered him his congratulations on
the day. He adds: "Last time I had met him was when the artillery on
both sides were hard at it; he appeared then more like a man playing a
game of chess than a game of war, and was not too busy to sympathise
with me on the badness of the light when he saw me trying to take
snap-shots of the Boer shells bursting amid the Imperial Light Horse
near us."
French's luck lay in his ability to see his opportunities and grasp
them. But the soldier will never be convinced on that point, even if
French himself attempt his conversion. For him the British leader has
remained "The luckiest man in the army" ever since Elandslaagte. Yet
in a letter to Lady French after the engagement he had written, "I
never thought I would come out alive."
As frequently happened in the South African campaign, success could
not be followed up. Having cleared the railway line, French was unable
to garrison his position, and returned next morning to Ladysmith. A
couple of days later he was again in action, and again he was
successful. It had become necessary to keep the way open for General
Yule and his jaded forces now in retreat from Dundee. White determined
to sally out and distract the enemy. Once again the heavy share of the
work fell on French and his cavalry.
Marching out from the town towards Modder Spruit they found the enemy
holding a range of hills about seven miles from Ladysmith.
Flanked by the artillery, and supported from the rear by rifle fire,
the infantry advanced to a convenient ridge from which the Boer
position might be shelled. There they were joined by the field and
mountain batteries, whose well-directed fire played great havoc among
the enemy.
During the engagement one costly mistake was made. The Gloucesters on
reaching the summit of the slope, attempted to descend on the other
side. Their advancing lines were ploughed down by a deadly fire. "In
the first three minutes," said an eye-witness, "Colonel Wilford, who
was commanding the regiment, had fallen shot through the head, and a
number of the men lay dead and dying about him. So fierce was the
attack that no living thing could have remained upon the exposed
slope, which boasted not even a shred of cover of any kind." Slowly
and silently the Gloucesters retired.
By two o'clock the infantry fire had ceased, and White had received
news that Yule was nearing Ladysmith in safety. He therefore decided
to withdraw his troops. This was no easy matter, for the Boers,
instead of relinquishing their position, had merely retired for a
short distance. The retreat, however, was safely carried out, thanks
largely to the masterly fashion in which French's cavalry covered the
retirement.
From a military point of view the engagement would scarcely be called
important. But from a strategic point of view it was invaluable. It
certainly saved General Yule's force, which the Boers would otherwise
have cut off on its way to Ladysmith. This would scarcely have been
difficult, for the column was in no condition to fight. That it
covered twenty-three miles without food, water, or rest before
nightfall in its exhausted condition was in itself remarkable.
[Page Heading: THE ONLY GENERAL]
This was the last successful engagement that the British forces were
to fight for many a day. But that was not French's fault. In the first
week after his arrival he had scored two distinct successes and won
for himself a reputation among the Boers. He was indeed the only
British general for whom they at that time expressed the very
slightest respect. In a week his name became a by-word among them. A
soldier[9] has recorded how, when towns or railway stations were
captured, our men would find allusions to French chalked on the wall.
Thus: "We are not fighting the English--they don't count--we are only
fighting the 'French.'" Quite early in the campaign this inscription
was found on the wall of a Boer farm house: "Why are we bound to win?
Because although we have only 90,000 burghers, that means 90,000
generals--but the English, though they have 200,000 soldiers, have
only one General--and he is French." That was in the days before
Roberts and Kitchener were on the scene.
But the Boers were not alone in their appreciation of French. One of
the authorities of the German General Staff wrote of him "His
(French's) name was one of those most dreaded by the enemy," and "he
impressed his personality on the troops." Perhaps the best description
of the man ever penned, however, came from the brilliant American
journalist, Julian Ralph. "As to his personality, the phrase 'The
square little General' would serve to describe him in army circles
without a mention of his name.
"He is quiet, undemonstrative, easy, and gentle. When you are under
his command you don't notice him, you don't think about him--unless
you are a soldier, and then you are glad you are there."[10]
FOOTNOTES:
[8] The correspondent referred to is Mr. George Lynch.
[9] "A.D.C." _The Regiment_.
[10] In the _Daily Mail_.