WITH SIR IAN HAMILTON TO PRETORIA
(1900)
To you who know the face of war,
You, that for England wander far,
You that have seen the Ghazis fly
From English lads not sworn to die,
You that have lain, where, deadly chill,
The mist crept o’er the Shameful Hill,
You that have conquered, mile by mile,
The currents of unfriendly Nile,
And cheered the march, and eased the strain
When Politics made valour vain,
Ian, to you from banks of Ken,
We send our lays of Englishmen!
ANDREW LANG.
It was during the halt at Bloemfontein that the Highland Brigade
received reinforcements from home, and no praise could be too high for
the volunteers who formed additional companies to the regiments of the
regular forces. To-day, when thousands and hundreds of thousands are
trained soldiers who a year ago had never held a rifle in their hands,
it would be futile to belaud the qualities of the amateur soldier. But
until the Boer War no one had taken unprofessional soldiers very
seriously. Just as the Territorials won the esteem of the Regulars in
Flanders, so the companies of Volunteers earned the admiration and
gratitude of the country in the Boer War.
The great need at this time was still for mounted troops and more
mounted troops, and it is interesting to note that the Gordons were to a
large extent mounted to prove more effective. Our soldiers have always
been able to fit themselves for whatever was required of them. The
infantry were mounted in the South African War, and the cavalry in the
German War were placed in the trenches.
It was on May 3 that the British Army left Bloemfontein and set out upon
the road to Pretoria. De Wet, who was now to take the ascendance in Boer
generalship, and to lead the British troops in wearisome pursuit for
many months, was in command of a mobile force moving swiftly across
country, gathering food where it could. With the utmost patience our
Highlanders covered over twenty miles a day, “winning their way,” as
some one has said, “at the expense of their boots and not of their
lives.”
Lord Roberts was in command of the main division and General Ian
Hamilton was over the right column. With him were the Highland Brigade,
including the Camerons, new come from Egypt. The Brigade, as a body,
never reached Pretoria, though the Gordons and the Seaforths entered the
Boer capital. It is the march on Pretoria with General Hamilton that we
must first follow.
The Commander of the Highland Brigade was an old Gordon officer, by
training and heredity a soldier. Born in 1853, he first saw service in
the Afghan War. He was wounded at Majuba, losing the use of one hand. He
received the D.S.O. for gallantry in the Soudan, fought in the Chitral
and Tirah campaigns; and in this chapter we will accompany him on the
march to Pretoria, in which he covered four hundred miles, fought ten
engagements, and took five towns. After the Boer War he accompanied the
Japanese army to Manchuria, and upon his return was made General Officer
Commanding-in-Chief Mediterranean and Inspector-General Overseas Forces
in 1910.
No finer, more experienced, more brilliant soldier could have been
placed in command of our forces in the Dardanelles.
It was at Thabanchu Mountain that the Gordons brought additional
distinction to their name, linked with that of Captain Towse. The
British troops were having it all their own way when the Boers were
reinforced by a party of the foreign legion commanded by a Russian, the
majority of them being Germans. The situation was a very curious one.
The German troops advanced in their customary close formation, and with
their usual deliberateness, and for some time it was not realised that
they were part of the enemy’s forces. At the same time Captain Towse,
with a party of the Gordon Highlanders, was moving in their direction,
but concealed from view behind the shoulder of the hill. The Gordons
could not see the enemy any more than the enemy could see the Gordons,
and it was seen that the two forces would confront each other at the
brow of the hill. “At last,” says Winston Churchill, “with suddenness,
both parties came face to face at fifty yards’ distance. The Germans,
who had already made six prisoners, called loudly on Captain Towse and
his little band to surrender. What verbal answer was returned is not
recorded, but a furious splutter of musketry broke out at once, and in
less than a minute the long lines of the enemy recoiled in confusion,
and the top of the hill was secured to the British.”
Unhappily, however, a chance shot deprived the gallant Captain Towse of
the sight of both his eyes. For this action he received the Victoria
Cross he so richly deserved.
The advance now proceeded on the road to Pretoria. The town was stated
to be heavily defended, and regarded as practically impregnable.
President Kruger had established himself there, and it was thought that
a very long siege would await the British. On May 29 the Gordons
encountered the Boers at Crow’s Nest Hill, very close to the place where
the Jameson raiders had surrendered to Cronje, and here the Gordon
Volunteers had their chance. The Highlanders, “in perfect discipline and
with disdainful silence,” drove the Boers out of their position, and it
is worth while recording, in the words of an eye-witness, the manner of
the attack. “It was not without a thrill that I watched this famous
regiment move against the enemy. Their extension and advance was
conducted with machine regularity. The officers explained what was
required to the men. They were to advance rapidly until under rifle
fire, and then to push or not as they might be instructed. With
impassive unconcern the veterans of Chitral, Dargai, the Bara Valley,
Magersfontein, Paardeberg, and Houtnek walked leisurely forward.”
At eight hundred yards they came in for a heavy fire from the Boer
rifles. “But the advance neither checked nor quickened. With remorseless
stride, undisturbed by peril or enthusiasm, the Gordons swept steadily
onward.”
The Boers were never able to tolerate that kind of advance, and finding
that rifles would not stop the Highlanders, they hastily retreated, and
soon afterwards General Ian Hamilton rode over to congratulate the
battalion on their exploit. Lord Roberts was not long in sending his
praise. “Tell the Gordons,” he wrote, “that I am proud to think that I
have a Highlander as one of the supporters of my coat-of-arms.”
During this action the fourth Victoria Cross was given to the Gordons,
being awarded to Corporal Mackay, who “repeatedly rushed forward under a
withering fire at short range to attend to wounded comrades, dressing
the wounds, while he himself was without shelter, and in one instance
carrying a wounded man from the open under a heavy fire to the shelter
of a boulder.”
On May 31 the Union Jack flew over Johannesburg. At this point General
French arrived, and as senior officer took command. General Sir Ian
Hamilton then thanked the Gordons, “the, regiment my father commanded
and I was born in,” for their support. On June 3 the army set out for
Pretoria, when suddenly the whole contemplated resistance of the Boers
faded away like smoke. President Kruger, not forgetting two millions of
money, but leaving his wife instead, hurried to Delagoa Bay, and with
his departure came the unconditional surrender of Pretoria. It had been
a long and arduous march, covering forty-five days and some four hundred
miles of country. The Highlanders engaged in nine actions, and occupied
five towns. It must have been a dramatic and inspiring spectacle to see
the Gordons and the Camerons, gaunt and lean with all the fatigue
through which they had passed, in tattered clothes and soleless boots,
marching into the Boer capital. It might have been thought that the fall
of Pretoria would have brought with it the conclusion of the Boer War.
But the fall of Pretoria held no special significance to the Boers. Many
of them had probably never seen the town, and took no interest in it.
They resorted to a manner of warfare peculiarly suited to their habits
of life, and which, developing over an extensive country, threatened a
hopeless stalemate. They hoped by a guerilla warfare to weary the
British forces into a favourable peace. From this point to the end of
the war that agile leader De Wet was to make his name familiar as a kind
of military will-o’-the-wisp.
Every week brought with it news of some minor engagement in some
isolated part of the country. Here a position had been attacked or there
a convoy had been seized. Often it was a raid on the long line of
railway running from Capetown to Pretoria, but always De Wet, despite
the efforts of the British, would manage to elude capture and fling his
burghers upon another part of our lines.
On July 11, 1900, the Gordons won their fifth Victoria Cross, and
established a record in the history of the Army. An officer who was
present has recorded the incident. “The enemy’s position,” he says,
“consisted of two long hills, with a ‘nek’ between them about five
hundred yards long. In front of, and about six hundred yards away from
the nek were two small kopjes. The guns galloped up between these
kopjes, which were one hundred and fifty yards apart, and opened fire on
the big hill on the right. The Gordons were advancing behind the guns in
open order. The guns fired a few shots, and then suddenly the enemy
opened fire from the hill on the left, which was only eight hundred and
fifty yards away. Very soon fifteen out of the seventeen British gunners
were wounded, so that the guns could no longer be worked. The Gordons by
this time had reached the kopjes, and were about one hundred yards from
the guns, the intervening space being in the enemy’s line of fire. At
this moment orders were signalled by the General in the rear, from Lord
Roberts at Pretoria, telling General Smith-Dorrien to retire. The
Colonel of the Gordons, reluctant to leave the guns to fall into the
enemy’s hands, sent up the teams of horses to fetch them, but the Boer
bullets were raining around, and two of the horses were shot. Colonel
Macbean then shouted for volunteers to fetch in the guns. Captains
Younger, Gordon the Adjutant, and Allan called on the few men around.
They ran out under heavy fire, and with the greatest difficulty they
dragged back the gun along seventy yards of the way, but it would not
even then have been saved if three more men had not run out and helped
for the remaining thirty yards to the kopje. As it was, one of the men
was hit only ten yards from the kopje, but he was got in all right.
Captain Allan was now ordered away with his company to the left flank,
where they were kept for the rest of the day, but Captain Younger, with
several men, ran out to try and save the second gun. It was got in, but
not before Captain Younger was shot dead.”[12]
This incident is interesting, not only as a record of a gallant feat of
arms, but also because this Captain Gordon who won the Victoria Cross
was later on to command the Gordons in the present war, and unhappily to
fall a prisoner with many of his men.
At the end of August Lord Roberts met Buller and French at Belfast.
Botha, a very able general, and the future conqueror of German
South-West Africa, was beaten at Middelburg, and this defeat added the
Transvaal to the British Empire. The news that Kruger had fled to the
Portuguese was another disappointment to the enemy, but their
determination to resist the British was so strong that they refused to
surrender, for a long time carrying on the unequal contest.
To return to the history of the Gordons in South Africa, the Volunteer
companies assisted Buller against the Boers in Natal, and came into
action against Botha. Throughout their engagements they acted up to the
highest traditions of the Highland regiments. Early in September there
was a dramatic and picturesque scene, when the two battalions of the
Gordons came face to face. “The old 75th, with their Dargai laurels
scarcely faded, were meeting the 92nd on a scene of victory amid
mountains such as rear their heads in Aberdeen. For a few moments
discipline was thrown to the winds, and questions were eagerly asked.”
In due course the Highlanders were placed in block-houses throughout the
country, and the pursuit of the Boers was mainly carried on by the
mounted troops.
We must now turn very briefly to the fortunes of the other regiments of
the Highland Brigade who, while the Gordons were at Thabanchu and
elsewhere, were under the command of General Macdonald, and employed in
driving the Boers out of the Orange River Colony. The months that
followed were marked by ceaseless marching, interrupted by occasional
conflict. De Wet was a constant menace, convoys must be escorted, bodies
of Boers must be kept on the move, and occasionally—as on June 3, 1900,
when De Wet captured 150 of the Black Watch—minor disasters occurred. At
the same time, though their work was inglorious, it was invaluable, and
every now and then some incident, such as the capture of Prinsloo with
5000 men and 5 guns, would break the monotony of their heavy tramping.
“With half rations,” says Cromb, “and muddy water as food and drink,
they marched and fought and fought and marched through scorching hot
days and bitter cold nights.”
The concluding features of the war lay in the hands of Lord Kitchener,
who, with his genius for organisation, set about building block-houses
to link up great sections of the country and co-operate with the work of
his mounted troops.
At last, in the beginning of June 1902, the long-looked-for peace came
to Britain and Boer in South Africa. The Highland regiments had one and
all suffered very hardly during the campaign, while none in the whole
army had given more lavishly than the Gordons, who both in losses and
honours attained a distinction as sad as it was honourable. They
received five Victoria Crosses, losing 141 killed, 431 wounded, 12
captured, and 101 dead from disease.
It should be unnecessary, after a narrative recording the actions in
which the Highland Brigade took part, to emphasise their gallantry and
their untarnished prestige, but if any support for such a statement were
required it would be in the tribute of Lord Roberts: “No words of mine
can adequately describe their magnificent conduct during this long and
trying campaign. We have only to look at the gallantry displayed by the
Gordons at Elandslaagte, at the unflinching bravery of the Highland
Brigade at Magersfontein, and at Paardeberg, to realise that the
traditions of these regiments are nobly maintained.”
Footnote 12:
See Cromb’s _Highland Brigade_, p. 389.