1885-1900.
THE FIRST BATTALION.
MOUNTED INFANTRY IN MASHONALAND: THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA: COLESBERG
AND BETHLEHEM.
For nearly four years after the return of the first battalion
to England in 1885 it was quartered alternately at Plymouth and
Devonport. During this time only three events of importance occurred
in its history. In February, 1886, General Sir Richard Dennis Kelly,
K.C.B.,[277] from the Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment (Royal
Canadians), was appointed Colonel of the Royal Irish regiment, _vice_
Lieutenant-General and Honorary General Sir Alexander MacDonell,
K.C.B., transferred to the Rifle Brigade. New Colours were presented
to the battalion on September 7, 1886, at Devonport, by the Lady
Albertha Edgcumbe, daughter of the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, at a
ceremony marked by a departure from precedent; hitherto the Colours
of the Royal Irish had always been consecrated by a clergyman of the
Church of England, but on this occasion the service was performed by
a Roman Catholic priest in recognition of the fact that the large
majority of the rank and file were members of the Church of Rome.
In the Gazette of March 9, 1889, Sir Richard Kelly was transferred
to the command of the Border regiment, and was succeeded by
Lieutenant-General and Honorary General George Frederick Stephenson
Call, C.B.[278] From Plymouth the battalion, six hundred and
ninety-nine of all ranks, under Lieutenant-Colonel A. J. A. Jackson,
was ordered in May, 1889, to Colchester, where it was inspected by
its new Colonel, General Call, who after serving in the XVIIIth in
China, Burma, and the Crimea, had commanded it in India. While at
Colchester two serious misfortunes happened. In the autumn of 1889
the sergeants’ mess was burned down, and in it were lost several
cups and trophies, and worse than all, the two engravings given by
the late King Edward VII. to the non-commissioned officers during
his visit to India while he was Prince of Wales. Nearly two years
later, on July 31, 1891, the officers’ mess hut met with a similar
fate. A little past midnight, after the mess had been closed, an
officer discovered that the building was on fire. The alarm was at
once given; not only the Royal Irish, but the whole of the garrison
turned out, but their united efforts, coupled with those of the town
fire-brigade, failed to master the flames, and the hut and nearly all
it contained was destroyed. There were several gallant but fruitless
attempts to save the Colours; and it was only at great personal risk
that Private W. O’Neill succeeded in bringing away the silver model
of a whale-boat, the trophy commemorating the battalion’s success in
the race up the Nile. Among the few things rescued was the snuff-box,
which, as already mentioned on page 146, was the only piece of
regimental plate saved from the wreck of the _Buckinghamshire_ in
1851.
Late in the autumn of 1891 the battalion was ordered to Ireland,
and arrived at the Curragh in November under Lieutenant-Colonel J.
D. Edge, whose marching-in state showed a strength of 697 officers
and men. Next year, on November 14, new Colours were presented by
Lady Wolseley, to replace those lost in the fire at Colchester. At
the end of the ceremony Lord Wolseley addressed the Royal Irish, and
after reminding his audience that throughout his military career he
had been intimately associated with the regiment, he continued as
follows:--
“I served side by side with it in Burma when I was very young. I
met it again in the Crimea, and I can well remember what pride
I felt as an Irishman in its gallant conduct on the 18th June,
1855. It also served in India whilst I was there during the
Mutiny, and it must be in the remembrance of many of those who
are now on parade that we were comrades together during the war
in Egypt in 1882. I remember well, in the first streak of dawn
on the desert of Tel-el-Kebir, seeing the Royal Irish among the
first to cross the entrenchments, and again, two years later, we
met on the Nile, in which expedition they played a distinguished
part. I felt proud that they should have been the winners of a
prize which was offered to the battalion which made the journey
up the river in the shortest time. I have a very much prized
trophy of the expedition which was given me by one for whom I
have the greatest respect--one of the very best men and best
soldiers I ever knew--I refer to Father Brindle, your former
chaplain, who accompanied you from Cairo up the river, and then
across the Desert to Gubat. The trophy is the flag of the boat in
which he made the voyage up the Nile; it is marked ‘H Company,
Royal Irish.’ Yours is one of the oldest regiments in the army.
When first raised it was named ‘The regiment of Ireland.’ That
name was changed by William III. to the Royal Irish regiment,
as a reward, a distinction for your gallant services at the
taking of Namur. If I were to enter into detailed history of the
regiment it would be to give a history of the British army, for
the history of one may be said to be the history of the other. I
chanced to read an old book the other day, describing the wars
of the early part of the last century, in which it was stated
that the discipline, system of drill, and fighting, training of
the army then had been copied from the discipline and military
system long established in the Royal Irish regiment. As you know
from the names of the battles on your Colours you shared in all
the glories of the Duke of Marlborough, and although hereafter I
have no doubt you will add many names to these Colours--for we
shall have wars as long as the world lasts--no greater victory
than that of Blenheim or Ramillies can ever be shared in by any
regiment. Now, what is the value of all this glory to a regiment,
or to the army of which it is a part? It is this, it intensifies
the pride of the regiment, and the pride of that Empire to
which we all belong; it is an incentive to those who come after
us to imitate, and, if possible, to excel the deeds of their
forefathers. May God bless these Colours and prosper this fine
old distinguished regiment.”
After three years at the Curragh the battalion was ordered to
Limerick, where it arrived early in November, 1894. The Royal Irish
had hardly settled down in their new quarters when they lost their
Lieutenant-Colonel, J. D. Edge, who died in Dublin on the 15th of
December, and less than a month later General Call followed him to
the grave. Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. A. Spyer succeeded to the command
of the battalion: General Call was replaced by Lieutenant-General
and Honorary General R. W. M‘L. Fraser, on whose transfer to the
Royal Warwickshire regiment less than a year later, Major-General and
Honorary Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Havelock-Allan, V.C., a former
officer of the XVIIIth, was appointed to fill the vacancy on November
22, 1895.
In the spring of 1896 news reached England of a dangerous native
rising in Rhodesia, a huge territory lately added to the possessions
of Britain, and bounded to the north by the Zambesi river, to the
east by Portuguese East Africa, and to the south by the Transvaal.
The distances in the theatre of war were so enormous, and the
mobility of the enemy so great, that the War Office determined
to reinforce the troops in South Africa with foot soldiers who
could ride, and the battalions at home were called upon to furnish
detachments of officers and men who had been trained to act as
mounted infantry. Lieutenant S. G. French was selected to command the
contingent from the Royal Irish, and with thirty non-commissioned
officers and men, formed part of a composite unit known as the Irish
Company, mounted infantry. They embarked on May 2, 1896; landed at
Cape Town, and after remaining some time encamped at Wynberg, sailed
to Beira, the harbour in Portuguese territory from which Rhodesia
could be approached most easily by sea. Thanks to the courtesy of
the Government at Lisbon, our troops were allowed to make use of
the port, and to pass through the belt of coast land between the
ocean and the frontier of Rhodesia. Once arrived at Salisbury, the
principal British settlement in our new territory, the handful of
Royal Irish were allotted to a column under Lieutenant-Colonel E.
A. H. Alderson, and were employed in pacifying northern Mashonaland.
This is not the place to describe the expedition: it is enough to say
that the representatives of the regiment did well on every occasion
when they were engaged.[279] In Colonel Alderson’s report of November
25, 1897, he stated that “the detachment under Lieutenant French
did their work excellently in every way, especially when on active
service in Mashonaland. After the action at Makia’s Kraal on August
30, 1896, I had much pleasure in reporting them to Sir Frederick
Carrington, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., commanding the forces in Rhodesia,
as follows: ‘I should like to mention the ready way in which the
Royal Irish section of the Irish Company, Mounted Infantry, followed
Lieutenant French across a considerable piece of open ground under a
brisk fire.’” When Lieutenant French and his detachment returned to
England they rejoined headquarters where the medal, issued to all who
took part in the campaign, was presented to them in due course.
The Royal Irish were so popular in Limerick that, when it became
known that the first battalion was to move to Dublin in the autumn,
the townspeople petitioned the Government to allow it to remain for
another year. When the request was granted the Corporation took the
opportunity of presenting the commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel
Spyer, with a very complimentary address, containing many references
to the uniformly good conduct of the regiment, and to the high
esteem with which it was regarded by all creeds and classes of the
population. The Royal Irish were still quartered in Limerick at
the time of the Jubilee celebrating the completion of the sixtieth
year of Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s reign. Certain disloyalists
attempted to mar the rejoicings by hoisting a black flag upon one of
the islands of the Shannon; the local authorities were most anxious
to remove this emblem of treason, but the owners of the river boats,
intimidated by the rabble, refused the large sum of money offered for
the use of their craft, and there appeared no means of reaching the
obnoxious flag, when Private ---- Cullen, Royal Irish regiment, came
to the rescue, and, to quote from the account of his gallant feat
which appeared in the London ‘Globe’ of July 5, 1897,
“lowering himself by a rope from the barracks, which overhang
the river, he plunged in, and struck out for the rock. Crowds
congregated on the opposite bank, and some at least--for there
are many in Limerick too loyal and too sensible to be the
playthings of vindictive agitators--watched his progress through
the fierce current in mental trepidation. He reached the rock,
tore up the pole and flag, and not daring to return in the teeth
of the stream, swam with his capture to the bank. It was only
after a long and hard struggle that he was able to make land,
where a strong body of police met and escorted him back to
barracks. Had it not been for the police, serious if not fatal
injuries would have been done him, as a great crowd of women were
prepared to stone him as he approached.”
At the end of 1897, the Royal Irish regiment heard with deep regret
of the death of their Colonel, Sir Henry Havelock-Allan, V.C., who,
while in India to disprove the charges brought against the second
battalion, was killed in the Khyber Pass on December 31, 1897. He
was succeeded by Major-General C. F. Gregorie, C.B.,[280] who had
commanded the second battalion at Tel-el-Kebir. In the summer of
1898, as has been already mentioned, Her Majesty Queen Victoria paid
the regiment the very high honour of directing that Field-Marshal the
Right Honourable Garnet, Viscount Wolseley, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.M.G.,
Colonel Royal Horse Guards, Commander-in-Chief, should be appointed
Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Irish regiment.[281]
In August, 1898, the first battalion moved to Buttevant with many
regrets, for officers and men alike had found Limerick an ideal
station. The racing was good, the hunting excellent,[282] the
inhabitants were hospitable and thoroughly appreciated the good
qualities of the Royal Irish, whom they had grown to look upon as
personal friends. In the autumn of 1898, the bronze medal of the
Royal Humane Society was presented to Lieutenant E. M. Panter-Downes
by Colonel W. W. Lawrence, commanding the XVIIIth regimental
district; the circumstances in which this decoration was won are
set out in the following extract from Colonel Lawrence’s speech on
parade, when he pinned the medal on to the recipient’s breast:--
“I have a very pleasing duty to perform this morning, and that is
to present to Mr Panter-Downes, of the 1st battalion, the Royal
Humane Society’s medal for risking his life to save that of a
gentleman at Kilkee, Co. Clare, in August last. Captain Vigors
and Mr Panter-Downes went to bathe that morning. There was a very
heavy sea running, and the waves were breaking over the rocks.
They noticed a man’s clothes on the cliff, but saw nothing of him
at the time. Shortly after they saw him in the water, in a very
exhausted condition, almost at the last gasp. Mr Panter-Downes at
once jumped in and swam thirty or forty yards through the surf
to the drowning man. He secured him, and with him swam back to
the iron ladder used by bathers, where Captain Vigors met him,
and between the two of them they got the man in safely. When they
were on the ladder the waves were washing over them, and they
were in danger of being carried away.”
On Colonel W. W. Lawrence’s retirement from the service he was
succeeded in command of the 18th regimental district by Colonel
J. H. A. Spyer, who was promoted Colonel on the 16th of January,
1899. In the same Gazette Major H. W. N. Guinness was promoted
to be Lieutenant-Colonel. The autumn of 1899 found the battalion
still quartered in Ireland, with the eyes of all ranks turned upon
South Africa, where the course of political events showed with
ever-increasing clearness that the South African republics were
determined to force a war upon Great Britain. The causes of the
quarrel are too complex to be discussed in a regimental history;
from the soldier’s point of view the all-important question was
whether England was to continue the paramount power in South Africa
or to be ousted by the Dutch republics, and the earnest hope of
every man in the regiment was that the XVIIIth would be allowed to
take part in the struggle in which this great question was to be
decided. For a time this hope seemed destined not to be fulfilled,
for though Captain S. E. St Leger was appointed to command a company
of mounted infantry, of which a section was provided by the Royal
Irish,[283] the first battalion was not among the troops selected
for the “Expeditionary Force” despatched to the seat of war in
October and November. The officers made every effort to induce the
War Office to send the battalion to South Africa, but failed to
obtain anything more definite than a promise that if more troops were
required, every attention would be paid to the desire of the Royal
Irish to be actively employed. When it was decided to strengthen the
expeditionary force with another division, the 5th, the battalion
hoped to find a place in one of its brigades, but it was not included
in General Warren’s command, and until the beginning of December
there seemed no prospect that it would take part in the Boer war.
The Royal Irish were then at Aldershot, where they had arrived on
November 24, to join the second battalions of the Bedfordshire,
Worcestershire, and Wiltshire regiments in the 12th infantry brigade,
commanded by Colonel, afterwards Major-General R. A. P. Clements.
They had not yet thoroughly settled down in their new quarters when
they were roused to the highest pitch of enthusiasm by the news that
the 12th brigade was to mobilise forthwith, and to start in a few
days for South Africa as part of Lieutenant-General Kelly-Kenny’s
newly formed division, the 6th. Then began a rush so tremendous
that those who went through it now look back on the time between
the 2nd of December, when the orders were received, and the 16th,
when the battalion sailed, as a nightmare; there was an enormous
amount of work to be done; the days were very short; the barracks
were badly lighted; everyone was at fever heat with excitement;
and the strain upon the officers and non-commissioned officers
was quite indescribable. All men over twenty years of age had to
be medically examined to see if they were fit for active service;
clothing and equipment for the field had to be drawn and fitted, and
arrangements made for the well-being of the women and children of the
battalion, whether “on” or “off” the strength; the reserve men had
to be brought over from Clonmel, armed, clothed, and fitted out in
every way.[284] Lectures on the value of inoculation against enteric
were given to induce men to submit themselves voluntarily to the
operation; soldiers whose marksmanship was below the average received
additional instruction in musketry, and preparations were made for
the disposal of those men who were too young or not physically fit
for the campaign. In the midst of all this bustle, three officers and
sixty-seven of the other ranks were sent off to the mounted infantry
at Shorncliffe,[285] and the reservists--three sergeants, seven
corporals, and two hundred and seventy privates--arrived, who, from
their age, their long service, and the experience which many of them
had gained on the north-west frontier of India, proved invaluable in
the South African war.
The Royal Irish, who shared the s.s. _Gascon_ with the Wiltshire
regiment, embarked at Southampton with thirteen officers, one warrant
officer, and 672 non-commissioned officers and men, or a total of
686 of all ranks, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel W. H.
N. Guinness.[286] To understand why so small a number of officers
started with headquarters for South Africa, the reader must remember
that before the battalion left Ireland it had furnished a draft of
men trained to mounted infantry work, who were accompanied by three
officers; during the weary weeks when it seemed probable that the
Royal Irish would remain at home as part of the garrison of the
United Kingdom, several officers had obtained staff appointments in
South Africa, or had been attached to regiments already at the seat
of war, and, as has been already mentioned, three more joined the
mounted infantry while the battalion was at Aldershot.
The XVIIIth sailed from England under all the depressing influences
of the “Black Week”--the disastrous seven days in which three
considerable bodies of British troops sustained severe reverses at
the hands of the Boers. General Sir Redvers Buller, then in supreme
command in South Africa, had been defeated at Colenso in his attempt
to extricate the defenders of Ladysmith from the grip of the burghers
whose commandos hemmed them in on every side. Lieutenant-General
Gatacre had been heavily repulsed at Stormberg in his attack upon
one of the columns that had invaded the north-east of Cape Colony.
Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen, after three successes in his march
from the Orange river towards Kimberley, had failed with heavy loss
to dislodge Cronje from the kopjes of Magersfontein. But though the
country was profoundly depressed at the news of these successive
defeats, the spirits of the Royal Irish were as high as ever, and
even had their buoyant temperaments been influenced by the national
gloom at the time of their departure, life on board the _Gascon_
was too full of occupation to allow time for thinking of unpleasant
things. As the reservists had not joined in time to be equipped
fully before they left Aldershot, their field service kit was issued
to them on the voyage; and as many of them had not been trained to
the use of the Lee-Metford rifle, they were put through a course of
musketry at sea. All hands were daily exercised in physical drill;
ammunition carriers and company scouts were selected and given
theoretical instruction in their duties; identity cards were prepared
and sewn into the men’s clothing, and wire cutters served out. To
provide healthy amusement for the troops the officers organised
“tugs-of-war” and other forms of athletics in the afternoons, while
concerts and “sing-songs” filled up the evening hours.
* * * * *
When the _Gascon_ reached Cape Town on the 6th of January, 1900, the
Royal Irish and the Wiltshire were ordered not to disembark, as the
destination of Clements’ brigade was still uncertain. For three days
the battalion remained inactive, with little to do but to gaze on the
lovely scenery of Table Bay; to admire the great fleet of transports
and store-ships floating on its waters, and to form some idea of the
general situation at the front. This was no easy matter, for the
censorship over the South African press was severe, and the papers
in Cape Town gave much less news of the war than those published
in the United Kingdom. Gradually the Royal Irish ascertained that
the Boer leaders had not known how to profit by their victories.
The state of affairs had not altered materially since the _Gascon_
left England, and the Union Jack still waved over the three towns to
which the burghers were laying siege. The reports from Mafeking were
satisfactory, and showed a spirit of hopeful resolution, contrasting
favourably with the attitude of part of the civilian population of
Kimberley. This great mining centre was held by a force of improvised
volunteers, stiffened by half a battalion of regular infantry and
a few gunners. Its townspeople had been greatly discouraged by
Methuen’s defeat at Magersfontein; they were now beginning to feel
the privations of the siege, or rather of the investment, for in
the true sense of the word Kimberley was not besieged; and every
native runner who made his way through the enemy’s lines brought
urgent appeals for immediate relief, not only from politicians and
merchants, but also from Mr Rhodes, whose influence at the diamond
fields was so commanding that he was virtually dictator of Kimberley.
In Natal the garrison of Ladysmith had just repulsed a vigorous
assault upon their southern defences; but supplies were beginning to
run short, enteric and dysentery were rampant, and privations and
overwork were beginning to tell heavily upon the _physique_ of Sir
George White’s troops, whose _morale_, however, hardship and fatigue
had in no wise impaired. In the field the enemy had made no more
progress than in his siege operations. No Boer commando had crossed
the Tugela to harass Sir Redvers Buller as he lay echeloned along the
railway from Chieveley to the coast, and thus he had been unmolested
while preparing for his second attempt to relieve Ladysmith--the
effort which beginning on the 10th of January, 1900, ended in failure
twenty-eight days later at Vaal Kranz. In Cape Colony the Boers
had been as slothful as in Natal. Gatacre’s opponents were still
concentrated round Stormberg; the commandos which had raided across
the Orange river by the Norval’s Pont bridge were so stoutly opposed
by Lieutenant-General French that they could advance no farther than
Colesberg: Cronje, who since his victory on December 11, 1899, had
remained inactive at Magersfontein, was confronted by Methuen’s
entrenchments at the junction of the Riet and Modder rivers, and the
railway between Methuen’s camp to the bridge over the Orange river
was adequately guarded. Thus the invaders had not gained ground,
and as even the most disaffected of the Cape Dutch had no intention
of breaking into open rebellion until commandos of Transvaalers or
Free Staters appeared among them, no general rising throughout the
colony had taken place; and the safety of the railways running from
the coast to our various advanced posts was not seriously imperilled,
though the protection of those lines of communication immobilised a
large number of troops.
Four days after the _Gascon_ steamed into Table Bay, Field-Marshal
Lord Roberts arrived at Cape Town to take command of the army in
South Africa. For political reasons the disembarkation of the
headquarter staff was made the occasion for a military display;
troops lined the streets, and a company of the Royal Irish was sent
on shore to form a guard of honour at the landing-stage. A few hours
later the _Gascon_ sailed for Port Elizabeth, where on January 12,
1900, the battalion landed, and was ordered to a camp three miles
from the harbour. It was so long since the XVIIIth had been on
active service that among the rank and file only the reservists,
and indeed not all of them, knew how varied and how arduous are
the fatigue duties which troops are called upon to perform in a
campaign, and the first day’s work in South Africa proved very trying
to men just out from England: in burning heat they had first to
take their part in unloading the ship, then to pack the stores and
baggage on a train which stopped a mile short of their destination;
next to “off-load” the goods, and finally to carry them by hand
into the camp and there arrange them in proper order. Before many
weeks were over the young soldiers, partly by experience and partly
by the teaching of their older comrades, had learned that in war
for every day spent in fighting fifty are occupied in marching, in
making entrenchments or breast-works, in mending roads, in building
bridges, in digging waggons out of deep mud-holes, and in dragging
guns up the sides of precipitous mountains. Early on the 13th, the
battalion was ordered up country to reinforce General French, who
with a column of all arms was defending the western portion of the
De Aar-Naauwpoort-Stormberg railway which, running roughly parallel
with the Orange river, links together the various lines from the
coast to the interior of the sub-continent. The eastern part of
this cross-country railway was in the hands of the enemy, and one
of the most important points left to us was Naauwpoort junction,
only thirty-three miles south of Colesberg, the little town where
Schoeman, the leader of the invaders, had taken up his quarters. He
had intended to drive the British garrison out of Naauwpoort, break
up the line connecting Cape Town with Kimberley, and then raise the
standard of revolt in the central provinces of Cape Colony; but by
a series of brilliant and audacious manœuvres French had gradually
edged him back into the network of kopjes encircling Colesberg. Now,
in the middle of January, our infantry watched the southern and
western faces of this natural fortress, while our mounted troops,
widely thrust out on either flank, sought opportunities to harass
Schoeman’s communications with the Orange Free State. The railway
from Port Elizabeth to Bloemfontein, the capital of the Free State,
had been recovered to within ten miles of Colesberg; and railhead was
at Rensberg siding, where the battalion arrived on the 15th after a
journey full of novel experiences. Owing to want of rolling stock
the soldiers were conveyed, not in ordinary passenger carriages,
but in open goods trucks. If a company was lucky it travelled in
empty trucks, but if there were no “empties” available, the men had
to perch on the top of loads of coal or stores, and to cling on for
dear life as the train swayed violently in rounding sharp turnings
in the line. Every bridge and every important culvert was held by
detachments of local volunteers, who as the train approached their
post emerged from their improvised shelters to beg for newspapers,
and to report that all was well. Every station was guarded by
irregular troops, and on the platforms were loyalist ladies, who
enthusiastically greeted the Royal Irish, pressing fruit, flowers,
and tobacco upon them, and begging for regimental buttons or badges
as mementos of the meeting. At every siding stood long trains,
shunted to give passage to the troops--some composed of “empties”
going back to the base to refill, others laden with supplies of every
kind for the front. At long intervals there were halts at stations to
give the men time to eat the meals, for which preparations had been
made in advance by the Railway staff officers in charge of the line;
and as the troop-train gradually neared railhead it passed several
villages where French had met and beaten back the enemy while the
battalion was still upon the sea.
When the Royal Irish reached Rensberg they heard that they were to
reinforce the extreme right of French’s main line, then resting
on Slingersfontein, a farm ten miles south-east of Colesberg. The
burghers, discovering that this post was weakly manned, were becoming
aggressive; and only a few hours before, a detachment of New Zealand
Mounted Rifles under Captain Madock, R.A., with a handful of the
Yorkshire regiment, had found very great difficulty in beating back
a determined attack upon two hills, which, rising about four hundred
feet above the plain between Slingersfontein and the Boer positions
round Colesberg, were held as outworks to the farm. General Clements
was placed in command of the Slingersfontein area, and when on the
16th the battalion, now provided with transport waggons and mules,
arrived at his headquarters, he ordered Colonel Guinness to occupy
these kopjes as permanent detached posts. Three companies marched off
to “Madock’s” and “New Zealand hills,” as the scenes of the previous
day’s fighting were now called; the rest of the Royal Irish went on
picket; and though the strain of work slightly diminished as the
remainder of the 12th brigade successively joined its headquarters,
for the next few weeks the battalion was on outpost for two nights
out of three. As soon as Slingersfontein was fairly safe, French used
it as a pivot for the mounted troops with whom he was trying to find
and turn the enemy’s left flank, but as to the east and south-east
of Colesberg he was checked by commandos in superior and apparently
ever-increasing strength, he sought at the other end of his line for
opportunities to manœuvre the enemy still farther backwards towards
the Orange river. Before he was able to profit by the information
gained in his reconnaissances to the north of the village, he was
summoned to Cape Town by Lord Roberts, who desired to explain to him
personally the part allotted to the cavalry division in the plan of
campaign, elaborated by the Commander-in-Chief and three or four of
his most trusted advisers since their arrival in South Africa. In a
regimental history it would be out of place to describe how the main
army was assembled within striking distance of the western frontier
of the Orange Free State: it is enough to say that, thanks to the
absolute secrecy maintained by the few officers who were in Lord
Roberts’ confidence, the long and difficult process was effected with
remarkable success. The troops were entrained without an idea where
they were going; the military railway officials despatched the trains
in obedience to orders they did not understand; contradictory and
misleading reports were spread broadcast over the colony in order to
deceive the enemy’s spies and sympathisers. This policy produced the
desired result. The burghers, completely puzzled by the information
that reached them, failed to penetrate the object of Lord Roberts’
movements, and beyond reinforcing the commandos at Colesberg, made no
important changes in their dispositions.
As the cavalry division was now required to cover the concentration
of the main army, French returned to Rensberg to superintend its
transfer to the Orange-River-Kimberley line; and on the 6th of
February, after seeing the last of his own troops quietly disappear
from the neighbourhood of Colesberg, he made over the command of the
district to Clements, whom Lord Roberts had appointed to continue the
work hitherto performed by the cavalry commander. The duty entrusted
to Clements was no easy one. The detachment left with him was weak
in numbers, weaker still in mobility; it consisted of two squadrons
of regular cavalry; about 650 Australian volunteers, many of whom
had arrived in South Africa as foot soldiers; 450 regular infantry,
of whom a considerable proportion were by no means good riders; one
battery of Horse, one of Field artillery, and two howitzers; the
12th brigade of infantry and half a battalion of the Royal Berkshire
regiment. With this small force he had to maintain himself on a
front twenty-five miles in length against a foe whose numbers were
now estimated to be between 11,000 and 12,000 men, well armed and
mounted, and whose artillery, a 40-pr., five field-guns, and five
pom-poms, was by no means to be despised. Clements carried on the
system of defence devised by French. Companies or larger detachments
of infantry were posted on important points, a mile or more apart,
in rough forts built of the stones and boulders with which the hills
were strewn. Every opportunity was taken to make these works more
secure, and as the Royal Irish plied pick and shovel and crowbar to
improve their defences, careful observation was kept on the enemy’s
big gun, and whenever the 40-pr. was turned in their direction a
signal warned them to take cover instantly. Thanks to the vigilance
of their look-out men, the Royal Irish, though frequently shelled,
were able always “to go to earth” in time, and suffered no losses
from the cannonade. The front and flanks of the positions were
watched by groups of sentries, concealed from the enemy’s view and
fire by sangars--the dry-stone breastworks, of which constant use was
made throughout the war. Very soon after French’s troops had been
withdrawn, the burghers discovered that the British facing them had
perceptibly diminished in strength, and at once began a series of
attempts to turn Clements’ flanks and cut off his communications with
the rest of the army. Between the 6th and the 11th there was fighting
on various parts of the line, and so many shells fell among the tents
of the Royal Irish and the Worcester that the camps were removed to
less exposed positions.[287] On the 12th, both flanks were severely
bombarded and then attacked by riflemen, who succeeded in ousting the
defenders of Hobkirk’s farm, the post marking our extreme left. At
the other end of the line the half battalion of the Worcestershire,
which was holding a group of kopjes to the east of Slingersfontein,
was hotly shelled, and then exposed to a rifle-fire so heavy that
after considerable loss it was unable to retain the whole of the
ground entrusted to it, though the greater part was stubbornly and
successfully defended till nightfall.
Clements had been obliged to throw every available man into his
fighting line, and thus, when his left was turned and his right in
serious danger, he had no reserves in hand with which to recapture
the lost positions. He decided therefore to retire, and while the
troops on the flanks were still able to hold the Boers in some degree
in check, he made his preparations to fall back on Rensberg. From
details which have been preserved of the way in which the troops
were withdrawn from the right of the line, we learn that each of the
detachments, scattered over the many miles of country comprised in
the Slingersfontein area, received orders to leave its post at an
hour timed to bring it into camp thirty minutes before the column
was to march. At about 8 P.M., after all the Kaffirs employed as
bullock-drivers had been “rounded up and placed under guard to
prevent their bolting,” the oxen were inspanned with as little noise
as possible, and as each waggon was ready it was sent off to the
unit to which it was allotted. The tents were then struck, each
corps leaving a few standing to deceive the enemy, and finally the
telegraph and signalling stations were dismantled and packed up.[288]
While the carts and waggons were returning to the rendezvous of
the baggage, a company of the Royal Irish was sent to reinforce a
detachment of the battalion in guarding a defile through which the
column was about to retire, and when the troops were assembled the
march began. Part of the XVIIIth, preceded by a few mounted scouts,
formed the advance-guard; then came two guns of the Royal Horse
artillery, followed by the whole of the transport vehicles and the
remainder of the guns, under escort of dismounted troops. The convoy
was flanked by infantry, with supports distributed at intervals
throughout its length. The rear-guard was composed of the rest of
the foot soldiers in column of half companies at column distance,
followed by a company in extended order, and covered by the whole of
the mounted troops, widely extended. Thanks to the brilliancy of the
moonlight and to the fact that the burghers made no attempt to harass
the retreat, Clements arrived early on the 13th at Rensberg, where to
his annoyance he found that the Boers had anticipated his movements
by occupying a range of kopjes, which from the east commanded the
railway from Rensberg to Arundel, the next station southward on the
line towards Naauwpoort Junction. As the presence of the enemy among
these kopjes made it impossible for him to remain at Rensberg, the
General determined to fall back on Arundel, which he reached at 5
A.M. on the 14th of February.
Here for a few days he stood on the defensive, his infantry holding
positions on the hills, his mounted men demonstrating vigorously on
either flank. During this time the _rôle_ of the Royal Irish was much
the same as that assigned to them at Slingersfontein: four companies
held a large kopje to the left rear of the village, and the remainder
of the battalion was constantly employed on outpost and on fatigues
of every kind. The enemy was by no means inactive, and on the 20th
attacked Clements in front and on both flanks, but without success;
and the good fortune which had attended the XVIIIth throughout the
operations at Colesberg continued at Arundel, for though at both
places it was frequently shelled and often exposed to the fire of
long-range snipers, no casualties occurred while it was serving south
of the Orange river. In a short time Clements was reinforced by two
field-batteries, two 5-in. guns, a battalion of British militia,
and a considerable number of mounted volunteers, chiefly from Cape
Colony and Australia; and after driving away the detachment of the
enemy which was threatening his left rear, he gradually recovered
the ground he had abandoned, shelling the Boers out of successive
positions, the flanks of which he threatened with his mounted troops.
At that moment it was not part of the Commander-in-Chief’s plan to
strike hard for the Norval’s Pont bridge, so Clements’ movements
were comparatively slow, but on the 28th of February he re-occupied
Colesberg without opposition, for as the Boers had heard of Cronje’s
surrender at Paardeberg,[289] they were now falling back on the
Orange river, doing as much damage as possible to the railway in
their retreat. Clements followed them, repairing the line as he
advanced; and on the 8th of March the head of his column stood on the
left bank of the river, facing a considerable number of burghers,
who from the other side of the stream exulted in the destruction
of the Norval’s Pont bridge, the three central spans of which they
had blown up. It was impossible to attempt to force the passage of
the Orange, as floods rendered it impassable for several days; the
pontoon troop did not arrive as soon as it was expected; when it did
come up several of the pontoons proved unserviceable, and it was
not until the 15th that the river was bridged by a structure, 260
yards in length, supported partly on pontoons and partly on piers
extemporised from casks. Large numbers of the labourers employed in
its construction were supplied from the ranks of the Royal Irish. As
soon as the bridge was practicable, a considerable body of troops
crossed at once and established themselves unmolested on the soil of
the Free State.
To those who judge of the importance of a military operation by
the length of the casualty lists, the work done by the Royal Irish
and the other units of the 12th brigade since they landed in South
Africa will appear insignificant, as between the 6th of February and
the 15th of March the total losses in Clements’ whole command only
amounted to 327 killed, wounded, and missing. Soldiers, however,
will appreciate the value of the part played in this stage of the
campaign by General Clements, who, in the words of the official
historian, “had to detain the Boers at Colesberg and prevent them
from swooping upon the lines of communication south of the Orange--a
movement which, if successful, would have caused an outbreak of
active disloyalty in large districts of Cape Colony hitherto sullenly
quiescent. By maintaining himself between Rensberg and Arundel he
fulfilled his chief function, as well as the hardly less important
duties of guarding the right rear of the main army, of securing
the safety of the important railway junction of Naauwpoort, and
incidentally of keeping under his fire a body of the enemy who might
otherwise have joined in the opposition to Lord Roberts’ march.”[290]
The history of the battalion for the next two months is almost
devoid of interest. The Royal Irish formed part of the column which
Clements led from the Orange river to Bloemfontein, over a vast and
gently undulating plain, dotted at rare intervals with villages whose
inhabitants, professing to be tired of the war, readily handed over
to the troops a few hundred rifles, some of modern pattern, others
so obsolete as to be fit for nothing but a museum of antiquities. On
the 4th of April, the 12th brigade reached the capital of the Free
State, where it remained stationary for several weeks, fully, though
by no means agreeably, occupied in the drudgery which fell to the
lot of every soldier fated to garrison any of the towns wrested from
the enemy. There was much wood cutting: many fatigues at the railway
station: heavy guards and outposts, and frequent route marches.
For men whose drill was not perfect there were parades; and when
drafts began to arrive from home, courses of musketry and judging
distance were carried out for the benefit of the new-comers. The use
of the rifle was not the only part of a soldier’s trade in which
the youngsters required training. As they were ignorant of the art
of making themselves comfortable on active service their comrades,
who had learned much since they landed at Port Elizabeth, took this
branch of their education in hand, and taught the recruits to live
together in groups of three men, dividing the work among them: one
collected fuel--_e.g._, cow-dung or scraps of wood; the second looked
after the fire and cooked; while the third pitched the bivouac and
acted as orderly man to the little mess.
In May the battalion was in great strength, for although exposure,
hardships, and enteric fever had begun to take toll, the drafts
had more than made good the waste of the campaign. The deficiency
of officers was a thing of the past, for many had found their way
out to South Africa within two or three weeks of the landing of
the battalion at Port Elizabeth, and others had brought out drafts
from home. In March six officers and a hundred and ninety-six other
ranks joined near Arundel; in April two officers and ninety six men
(chiefly from the militia reserve) reached Bloemfontein; and on May
8, two large parties reported themselves to Colonel Guinness: the
first consisted of two officers and ninety-six men from the depôt;
the second was a company of volunteers--three officers and a hundred
and nine other ranks from the 5th (Irish) battalion of the King’s
(Liverpool regiment). In no war ever waged by Britain has the stream
of reinforcements been so abundant, so evenly distributed, and so
well maintained as in the long struggle with the Boer republics. The
Royal Irish were not more favoured than other corps, yet from the
time the battalion landed until peace was declared no less than 1180
non-commissioned officers and men joined headquarters. The second
battalion provided 150 seasoned men from India, and eight drafts, 443
in all, were sent out from home by the officer commanding details:
the militia battalions of the Royal Irish territorial regiment
contributed 423 (exclusive of three officers),[291] and the Irish
volunteers in Liverpool furnished a contingent of 164 (also exclusive
of five officers).
In years to come, when the nation has realised that for its own
safety every male citizen must be trained to arms, students of
regimental history will wonder how so many partially instructed
troops found their way into the ranks of the Royal Irish. Neither the
militia nor the volunteers were liable to serve abroad in case of
war, but as has been said in Chapter x., in the militia a reserve of
men had been established, picked for physique and character, who in
return for a small annual retaining fee had assumed the liability to
serve in time of war as regular soldiers in any part of the world.
As soon as the reserve of the regular army was called out, these
men were summoned to the depôt of their territorial regiments, and
gradually sent out to the battalions in South Africa. The militia
reservists joining the Royal Irish were for the most part hardy,
though not highly trained peasants who after a short experience in
the field became very valuable soldiers. When the United Kingdom
began to understand that the campaign in South Africa was developing
into the most difficult and arduous war she had waged for nearly a
century, all branches of the Auxiliary Forces volunteered for active
service. The regiments of Yeomanry became the nucleus of the mounted
force sent to South Africa under the name of Imperial Yeomanry:
many militia battalions went out as complete units, and volunteer
battalions were permitted to form from their ranks companies of
picked officers and men, whose function it was to reinforce the
infantry of the line at the seat of war. The Royal Irish were
fortunate in their volunteer company, which was well officered and
composed of men mostly Irish by descent, whose trades as engineers,
boilermakers, fitters, carpenters, and bricklayers had developed both
their muscles and their brains. The company landed on March 11, but
on its way up country, to use the slang of the South African war,
it was “snaffled on the L. of C.,” or in other words, detained at
various posts on the lines of communication, where all ranks learned
so much of their duty in the field that a week after they joined
at Bloemfontein they were considered fit to take their turn at the
outposts: and in the forcing-house of active service they speedily
developed into a very useful body of men.
When the militia reservists and the volunteers reached Bloemfontein
it was anything but a cheerful place, for enteric still raged in
the hospitals, and the road to the cemetery was daily trodden by
long processions of soldiers, bearing on their shoulders stretchers
whereon rested the bodies of the comrades whom they were carrying to
the grave. To counteract these depressing influences the officers
organised rifle meetings, inter-company football matches, and
athletic sports of various kinds. The effect of these amusements was
good, but better still was the news that the brigade was once more to
take the field, when on the 17th of May General Clements was ordered
to entrain his command to Winburg, a little town about sixty-five
miles north-east of Bloemfontein.
Since the battalion had landed at Port Elizabeth the military
situation had improved marvellously. Ladysmith, Kimberley, and
Mafeking had been relieved. Lord Roberts had forced his way across
the south-east of the Free State, captured Cronje with 4000 burgers
at Paardeberg on February 27, and entered Bloemfontein on March 13,
to find that the enemy had scattered northwards before him in panic.
When the burghers who faced Gatacre and Clements in the north of Cape
Colony heard of Cronje’s surrender, they fell back into the east
of the Free State, leaving rear-guards to watch the Orange river,
and if possible prevent the British from crossing it at Bethulie
and Norval’s Pont. Lord Roberts’ first care on reaching the capital
of the Free State was to join hands with Gatacre and Clements; to
make himself master of the railway from Bloemfontein to the Orange,
and to secure the waterworks on which the troops were dependent for
pure water. From the country west of the railway no serious attack
was anticipated, but as there was danger that the large number of
Boers who had betaken themselves to the mountainous regions in the
east of the Free State might rally, destroy the waterworks, and
cut the railway--the line of communication with the coast--the
Commander-in-Chief sent a strong mounted flank-guard into the hills
east of the waterworks, while with smaller detachments he covered
the right or eastern side of the railway. At the end of March and
beginning of April these flank-guards were overtaken by a series of
misfortunes: the largest and most important was defeated with heavy
loss at the waterworks in an engagement known as Sannah’s Post;
the second was captured at Reddersberg; a third narrowly escaped
a similar fate by a hasty and exhausting retreat;[292] at Wepener
only did we still hold our ground. Yet, though these reverses were
annoying, their effect was very transitory, for the Boers failed to
seize the opportunity of falling upon the railway, and by frittering
away their strength in an unsuccessful siege of Wepener allowed an
uninterrupted stream of supplies to reach the army at Bloemfontein.
Strengthened by large reinforcements from England and from Natal,
Lord Roberts then began a series of manœuvres by which he succeeded
in pushing the enemy backwards towards their eastern fastnesses, and
at the end of April the danger to the line of communication was so
greatly diminished that he was free to resume the main object of the
campaign.
The Commander-in-Chief’s plan was as vast as it was simple. Upon
Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal, were to converge several
columns working on a front nearly three hundred miles in length. On
the extreme right of the line, General Buller was to sweep the Boers
out of the mountains of northern Natal, where they had established
themselves after they had been obliged to abandon the siege of
Ladysmith. Far away on the extreme left, a force, based on Kimberley
and commanded by Lieutenant-General Hunter, was to relieve Mafeking
and invade the Transvaal from the west. Lord Roberts was to lead the
main army along the railway from Bloemfontein to Pretoria, with his
left covered to some extent by Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen, who
was to move northwards through the west of the Free State; his right
was to be guarded by two strong columns under Lieutenant-Generals
Ian Hamilton and Colvile,[293] while to Lieutenant-General Rundle,
who commanded the recently landed 8th division and the body of South
Africans styled the Colonial division, was entrusted the duty of
preventing raids upon the railway between Bloemfontein and the Orange
river by commandos from the hilly country east of the line. The area
which Rundle had to watch has been described as “the granary and the
manœuvre ground of the Orange Free State, a region dotted with towns
and villages, wealthy in crops, and abounding in the water-courses,
ridges, and kopjes on which the Boers had fashioned their favourite
tactics. Here men could both hide in safety and subsist in ease;
the harvest of the past year had been too rich for its owners to
be willing to desert their stores. The region, in short, formed an
irresistible attraction both to farmers and fighting men; and it
flanked the British communications from end to end.”[294] In a series
of successful skirmishes Rundle gradually pushed the enemy before
him, and by the middle of May his line stretched from Clocolan to
Winburg. Lord Roberts had entered Kroonstad on the 12th, and so
satisfactory did the situation in the south-east of the Free State
then appear that a redistribution of the forces was sanctioned, in
the course of which the 12th brigade was ordered from Bloemfontein to
Winburg.
For a few days after its arrival the battalion was employed in
building sangars at various points round the town, and as no enemy
appeared to test these works many a young soldier thought that his
labour had been wasted; but this was not the case, for when at the
end of August the place was suddenly attacked, the fortifications
thrown up by Clements proved of great value in the defence, in which
some of the mounted infantry of the regiment took part. On May 26,
the battalion started for the town of Senekal, now the advance
base in the eastern Free State, and during a three days’ “trek”
realised the truth of the camp saying that the march of a British
column in South Africa could be traced by “bully-beef” tins and dead
animals, for the dreary, dusty, khaki-coloured plain was littered
with empty rations cases, and with the carcases of mules and oxen
abandoned by the troops as they pressed forward to the front. With
this very uninviting piece of country the Royal Irish were destined
to make further acquaintance, as during the month of June they
furnished several strong escorts to convoys over the forty miles of
road between Senekal and the railhead at Winburg. The 12th brigade
remained nearly a month at Senekal, where the Royal Irish, who spent
two nights a-week shivering in the works round the town, became
painfully aware that though the winter days on the veld are glorious
the nights are abominably cold.
While the battalion was at Senekal the Free State burghers under
Christian De Wet had taken the initiative in the eastern part of
their republic: they had made prisoners of considerable detachments,
captured large and valuable convoys, and by breaking up the railway
at several points to the north of Bloemfontein had interrupted the
line of communication with Pretoria, where Lord Roberts, after
occupying Johannesburg, had hoisted the British flag on the 5th of
June. Among the measures at once taken by the Commander-in-Chief
for the pacification of the Orange Free State was the formation of
strong flying columns to penetrate into the districts in which the
burghers were still in arms. One of these columns was to be commanded
by Clements, who, with his own brigade and that of Major-General A.
H. Paget (the 20th), was to march upon Bethlehem where a considerable
number of the enemy were known to be assembled. With nearly 5000
men[295] Clements left Senekal on June 28, bound in the first place
for Lindley, a village forty miles to the north-east, where he was
to join hands with Paget before moving towards Bethlehem. The column
marched in what the troops called “the picture-frame formation”: half
battalions in very extended order formed the front, sides, and rear
of a vast hollow square, covering two or three miles of ground, while
the mounted troops scouted widely in every direction. At Klipplaat
Drift, three miles from Senekal, the Boers opened fire upon the
advance-guard with four guns, a pom-pom, and a maxim, and made so
stout an opposition that Clements had only gained seven miles when
the approach of night obliged him to bivouac, with the enemy still
in strength on his front and flanks. Though most of the work fell
on the mounted troops, part of the Royal Irish regiment was engaged
during the afternoon. A young officer who had recently brought out a
number of recruits to the battalion thus describes his experiences in
this, his first engagement: “The regiment was the left flank-guard.
It was the first time that many of us had been in action, and we
realised the truth of the saying that ‘it takes a ton of lead to
kill a man,’ for though for several hours we were under a hot rifle
fire from invisible enemies at more or less effective range, with
shells falling among us, I don’t think we lost more than one man
killed.[296] Our militia reservists were splendid in their ignorance
of danger. As the bullets were whistling over their heads one of them
was heard to ask his comrade whether ‘it was the birds making that
noise!’ He must have been brother to the man who, when ordered to set
his sights at a prescribed range, explained his failure to do so by
saying that he ‘didn’t know figures.’”
Before daylight next morning the mounted troops dashed upon a ridge
about a mile and a half from the bivouac, forestalling the burghers
in its occupation. The Boers thereupon fell back in the direction
of Bethlehem, leaving a rear-guard who first harassed the troops by
long-range “sniping,” and then disputed the passage of a drift at
the Zand river. In the course of this day’s skirmishing a private
in the battalion was wounded.[297] After Paget and Clements joined
hands they turned towards Bethlehem, thirty miles to the south-east
of Lindley, and pushed through bodies of the enemy who, though they
appeared unwilling to commit themselves to anything but a feeble
skirmish, watched every movement with the eyes of a lynx, determined
to lose no opportunity of punishing any carelessness on our part.
Thanks to Clements’ vigilance, his column was very little harassed on
the march, but a strong flank-guard on Paget’s left was very roughly
handled: a battery was rushed, and for several minutes the guns
passed into the hands of the burghers, from whom they were rescued
only after a sharp fight.
Clements bivouacked on the 5th of July at Bontjeskraal, about eight
miles north-west of Bethlehem, and with a column greatly reduced in
numbers by the absence of the Malta mounted infantry[298] and the
Bedfordshire, who by the order of the Commander-in-Chief had been
sent back to garrison the village of Lindley, he advanced early next
morning through scenery thoroughly characteristic of this part of
South Africa. A broad valley, bounded by flat-topped, square-sided
kopjes bare of vegetation and forbidding of aspect, descended by a
gentle slope towards the belt of rolling downs by which Bethlehem is
encircled and commanded on every side. As the Royal Irish, who were
in advance-guard, cautiously made their way down this valley, they
caught distant glimpses of the trees and scattered houses of the
settlement, standing like an oasis of civilisation in a wilderness of
veld, while far to the south the horizon was bounded by the mountains
of the Brandwater Basin--range upon range of fantastically-shaped
peaks white with freshly fallen snow, as yet unmelted by the morning
sun. The troops had little time, however, to admire the weird
beauty of the scene, for the burghers had revealed their presence
by shelling the outposts at dawn, and as the advance-guard began to
debouch it came under fire from the position, strong by nature and
improved by fortification, where five thousand men with seven pieces
of artillery awaited our attack. From Vogelsfontein, a farm three
miles north-east of the town, their line curved outwards along the
western rim of the depression in which Bethlehem stands, and then
turning sharply to the east ended at Volhuter’s Kop, a grim pile of
rocks dominating all the approaches from the south. Before Clements
allowed the advance-guard to become seriously engaged, he sent a flag
of truce to the officer in command of the burghers to demand the
instant surrender of the town, but after receiving a laconic refusal
from Christian De Wet[299] he began to carry out the scheme already
concerted with General Paget. The enemy’s flanks were first to be
turned by the mounted troops and then assaulted by the infantry; the
20th brigade was to carry Volhuter’s Kop on the south; the 12th
brigade to make itself master of Vogelsfontein farm on the north.
The plan was a simple one, but it miscarried, as owing to the great
length of De Wet’s position, the difficulties of the ground, and the
failure of the mounted men on our extreme left to make their way
over a rocky watercourse, the movements of the infantry were greatly
delayed, and though late in the afternoon Paget won a little ground,
the 12th brigade made no material progress, and when night put an end
to the engagement neither of the enemy’s flanks had been turned, or
even threatened seriously.
When the 12th brigade deployed, the Royal Irish were on the
right, the Worcestershire on the left, the Wiltshire in support.
About 1 P.M. the XVIIIth advanced in column of double companies,
widely extended, the leading companies each formed in two lines of
skirmishers with ten paces interval between the men and two hundred
yards’ distance between the lines. Very soon shells from guns
scattered along a ridge about five thousand yards to the eastward
began to fall among them, and for a time our artillery gave no great
help, until a field-battery dashed through the ranks, caught up half
a company to serve as escort, and pushed on to a ridge where it
came into action. The burghers at once turned their pieces against
the audacious battery, and thanks to this diversion the battalion
had been able to move forward to within rifle-shot of the enemy’s
trenches, when an order brought it to a halt. For the rest of the day
the Royal Irish remained stationary, skirmishing with the enemy in
their front, annoyed by marksmen concealed in the houses of the town,
and enfiladed by rifle and maxim fire from a hill upon their right.
So biting indeed was the musketry from this hill that to escape it
one of the companies was forced to take cover in a donga, where it
remained till nightfall, when the XVIIIth was ordered to withdraw and
bivouac at a farm out of range of the enemy’s rifles. In the opinion
of the rank and file the only good point in this weary day’s work
was that though the battalion had been engaged for several hours it
had only two men wounded, but the General knew that the time had not
been wasted, for he had seen so much of De Wet’s position that he was
able to recast his plans, and had now determined, while not relaxing
his efforts to turn the flanks, to deliver a crushing blow at the
centre of the Boer line, where it rested on a hill half a mile to the
north-west of Bethlehem.
Long before daybreak on the 7th the troops began to take their
places for the renewed attack; and the Royal Irish stumbled over the
uneven surface of the veld until they were halted at daybreak by
Colonel Guinness, who pointed out to his officers the dim outline of
a kopje, just visible in the uncertain light. This hill, he said,
General Clements considered the key of the position: it was to be
taken at all cost; the Royal Irish had been selected to deliver
the assault, and three companies of the Wiltshire regiment were to
support them in second line. As the mists of dawn gradually cleared
away the officers realised that their objective was the very hill
from which their right had been harassed by musketry on the afternoon
of the 6th; they knew that it was strongly held, for a patrol from
one of their outposts, reconnoitring it during the night, had heard
the voices of many burghers talking in the trenches; and they could
see that a long slope, bare of cover and exposed throughout to the
enemy’s fire, led up to its crest, where two guns had been posted
within the last few hours. If our gunners succeeded in beating down
the defence, the hill would be comparatively easy to carry; but if
the stress of battle compelled them to turn their projectiles in
another direction, many a good soldier would fall before the day
was won. As soon as it was light enough for the artillerymen to
see, the field and 5-in. guns opened a slow, well-aimed cross-fire
upon the hill, and the Royal Irish prepared for the attack. Colonel
Guinness formed his battalion in three lines: the first consisted of
B company; the second (the supports) was composed of H, G, and C, in
the order named from right to left; in the third (the reserve) were
F, E, and D companies. One company, A, which had been on outpost
all night, did not rejoin till the position was nearly won. The
supports and reserve were in lines of columns of half companies,
whose extensions were not to exceed three paces. Before 7 A.M. the
scouts of B company became warmly engaged with the burghers, who
could be seen in strength upon the hill; Captain Daniell reinforced
them with half his company (H), and then for a long time a fierce
fire-fight raged, the Boers trying to crush B company with musketry
and shrapnel, while Daniell’s men kept up a vigorous fusilade to
cover the supporting companies, which were gradually making their way
into the front line. D company ranged up on the left, the volunteers
on the right; while still farther to the right G company came into
action, firing heavy volleys. The expenditure of cartridges was
great, and during this phase of the combat the pouches of D company
were replenished at least four times by the ammunition carriers, who,
to quote from Captain Daniell’s diary, “walked about, backwards and
forwards, up and down the firing line without the slightest fear. I
specially noticed a lad named Hanrehan and Lance-Corporal Ryan, the
company tailor.” Whenever the officer commanding a company considered
it was possible to push on, the subaltern or sergeant in charge of
each section selected two soldiers, who dashed forward for about
thirty yards, and then dropping on the ground covered the advance
of their comrades with their shots. Then followed another pair, and
yet another, until the whole of the section was in its new position,
when its commander, who had superintended the movement, in his turn
dashed over the bullet-swept ground. Troops less highly trained, less
perfectly disciplined than the Royal Irish, would have required an
officer to head them in these rushes, but the men of the XVIIIth
could be trusted to advance and to carry out their orders without
such leading; the difficulty was not to get them to go on, but to
prevent their going on too fast and too far. Whenever the ground was
favourable the companies were “pulled together” and steadied, to
prepare them for the next rush. A sergeant in the Royal Irish thus
describes his impressions of
“the first fair stand-up fight the regiment had been in during
the war. We advanced to a real attack such as you read about in
textbooks, over comparatively level ground affording scarcely any
cover, and with due attention to intervals between individuals
and firing line, supports, and so forth. A very frosty morning,
bright and bracing; a steady controlled fire to greet us as we
deployed for attack; a G.O.C. implicitly believed in by every man
in the battalion; a C.O. who possessed every one’s confidence;
and officers in front (too much so indeed) to lead the way--such
were our surroundings. In the ranks one cannot see much in a
general engagement, but I have a distinct recollection of there
being a total lack of confusion during the action: signals, words
of command, were quickly responded to; the passing of orders was
rapidly carried out; volunteers for every purpose were numerous;
wounded men were instantly cared for and taken back to the
dressing-station by the stretcher-bearers.”
The battalion gained ground, but not rapidly, for the opposition
was considerable and the firing line had been again reinforced,
when just as the leading men had reached a belt of burned grass, on
which their khaki clothing was unpleasantly conspicuous, they were
brought to a sudden halt by a donga--a natural moat protecting the
part of the hill on which the enemy’s guns were posted. As this
donga was impassable, the only thing to do was to turn it; and each
company successively moved off to the right in perfect order, circled
round the head of the obstacle, and then re-formed in the required
direction as steadily as though on parade in a barrack square. At
this moment our bombardment swelled into a violent cannonade. Our
musketry had already made itself felt among the defenders of the
hill, and when the shells began to rain upon them, the burghers, who,
in the words of an artillery officer, “had hitherto stuck to their
work like men,” lost heart, and gradually quitted their trenches,
leaving to a few of their gunners the task of saving the guns. These
gallant fellows succeeded in getting one away in safety, and did not
cease their efforts to remove the other until a mass of Royal Irish,
yelling like demons and with bayonets fixed, were within a couple of
hundred yards of them. Then they turned and fled for their lives, and
the gun, one of the 15-prs. lost by the 77th battery at Stormberg,
once more passed into the hands of its lawful owners. While part of
the battalion established itself on the crest of the hill, where a
long line of trenches, cut deep into the rock, showed how diligently
the Boers had fortified this part of the position, the remainder
was held in readiness to push forward into the town. But with the
capture of the hill the engagement virtually ended; Paget, with
the help of two companies of the Royal Irish, made himself master
of Volhuter’s Kop almost without loss: Vogelsfontein was occupied
without resistance, and the burghers streamed away in full retreat,
followed only by the shells of the artillery, for the mounted troops
(chiefly Imperial Yeomen and Australian Rifles) were still too new
to their work to be launched in pursuit of an enemy who never proved
more formidable than in a rear-guard action. The comparative ease
with which the Boers were driven out of Bethlehem was owing to the
fact that De Wet had learned that a column of British under General
Hunter was moving down on him from the north;[300] as he felt unable
to make head against this reinforcement, he had only fought to gain
time for his main body to join the large number of Free Staters, who
from behind the Wittebergen range faced General Rundle and the 8th
division. To this is due the small number of casualties on the 6th
and 7th of July, together amounting only to a hundred and six killed
and wounded--a total to which the Royal Irish contributed almost
half. Among the officers Captain J. B. S. Alderson was mortally, and
Captain T. Warwick-Williams (volunteer company) slightly, wounded; of
the other ranks, two were killed, four died of their injuries, and
forty-seven were wounded.[301]
As soon as the engagement was over the troops were allowed to fall
out and cook their food; fires sprang up everywhere, and while some
of the men made porridge from meal found in a neighbouring farm,
others tried to convert the burghers’ pigs into pork. An officer
thus describes the scene: “One of the volunteers pursued a very old
beast with a field-telegraph pole poised above his head; when he
got within striking distance he brought it down with a crash, but
of course by the time it reached the ground the pig was well away.
Then up galloped one of Brabant’s Horse, who with bayonet fixed
tried to use his rifle as a hog-spear; he lunged at the pig, missed
it, buried his bayonet in the ground, and came a lovely cropper off
his horse. This old pig was a wary brute, and after running many
risks, escaped unhurt.” In the course of the afternoon some of the
officers of the battalion were allowed to visit Bethlehem, which
they found no better and no worse than the other towns in the Free
State. In this part of South Africa every settlement had the same
general characteristics. In the middle of an unpaved, undrained, and
evil-smelling market square was a large church, built at the expense
of the congregation by an architect who apparently took a barn as his
model of ecclesiastical architecture. The square was fringed with
the most important buildings in the place--the government offices,
the bank, the stores, and the hotels--not standing side by side,
but apparently dropped down from the sky at random, with great gaps
between them, where loose cattle roamed at will. The dwelling-houses
were scattered along the roads leading from the church to the open
veld. Those belonging to British traders and to burghers who had
acquired a veneer of European civilisation stood in pretty gardens,
gay with flowers and planted with trees, and looked like small “villa
residences” transported from a London suburb to the wilds of South
Africa. The abodes of the old-fashioned Boers, on the other hand,
were nothing but cottages built of sun-dried bricks, without a tree,
a flower, or a blade of grass to mitigate their hideousness.
A few hours after the occupation of Bethlehem General Clements issued
this general order:--
“The G.O.C. wishes to congratulate the force under his command
on the way in which it has acquitted itself during a trying
time since it marched from Senekal. The mounted troops had very
hard work, and have seen a good deal of fighting. The artillery
have performed most excellent work and made excellent practice.
The infantry have had hard work, continuous marching, and done
excellently while in contact with the enemy. The Royal Irish
regiment particularly distinguished itself to-day. To one and
all the thanks of the G.O.C. are due, and he has the utmost
confidence that the 12th brigade force as now constituted will
continue to maintain the high reputation it has already won.”