Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover]
[Illustration: IAN HAMILTON. _From the Picture by_ John S. Sargent,
R.A.]
IAN HAMILTON'S MARCH
BY
WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL
_WITH PORTRAIT, MAPS AND PLANS_
TORONTO
THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED
COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY
WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL
_All rights reserved_
THIS COLLECTION OF LETTERS
IS INSCRIBED TO
LIEUT-GENERAL IAN HAMILTON, C.B., D.S.O.
WITH WHOSE MILITARY ACHIEVEMENTS
IT IS LARGELY CONCERNED
PREFACE.
This book is a continuation of those letters to the _Morning Post_
newspaper on the South African war, which have been lately published
under the title 'London to Ladysmith _via_ Pretoria.' Although the
letters had been read to some extent in their serial form, their
reproduction in a book has been indulgently regarded by the public; and
I am encouraged to repeat the experiment.
The principal event with which the second series deals is the march of
Lieutenant-General Ian Hamilton's column on the flank of Lord Roberts's
main army from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. This force, which encountered
and overcame the brunt of the Boer resistance, which, far from the
railway, marched more than 400 miles through the most fertile parts of
the enemy's country, which fought ten general actions and fourteen
smaller affairs, and captured five towns, was, owing to the difficulties
of telegraphing, scarcely attended by a single newspaper correspondent,
and accompanied continuously by none. Little has therefore been heard
of its fortunes, nor do I know of anyone who is likely to write an
account.
The letters now submitted to the public find in these facts their chief
claim to be reprinted. While written in the style of personal narrative
I have hitherto found it convenient to follow, they form a complete
record of the operations of the flank column from the day when Ian
Hamilton left Bloemfontein to attack the Waterworks position, until he
returned to Pretoria after the successful engagement of Diamond Hill.
Although in an account written mainly in the field, and immediately
after the actual events, there must be mistakes, no care has been spared
in the work. The whole book has been diligently revised. Four letters,
which our long marches did not allow me to finish while with the troops,
have been added and are now published for the first time. The rest have
been lengthened or corrected by the light of after-knowledge and
reflection, and although the epistolary form remains, I hope the
narrative will be found to be fairly consecutive.
I do not want the reader to think that the personal incidents and
adventures described in this book are extraordinary, and beyond the
common lot of those who move unrestricted about the field of war. They
are included in the narrative, not on account of any peculiar or
historic interest, but because this method is the easiest, and, so far
as my wit serves me, the best way of telling the story with due regard
at once to detail and proportion.
In conclusion I must express my obligations to the proprietors of the
_Morning Post_ newspaper for the assistance they have given my
publishers in allowing them to set up the copy as each letter arrived
from the war; to the DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, to whom I am indebted for the
details of the strength and composition of the force which will be found
in the Appendix, and for much assistance in the attempt to attain
accuracy; and thirdly, to MR. FRANKLAND, whose manly record of the heavy
days he passed as a prisoner in Pretoria may help to make this book
acceptable to the public.
WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL.
LONDON:
_September_ 10, 1900.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. A Roving Commission
II. Exit General Gatacre
III. At Half-Way House
IV. Two Days with Brabazon
V. Two Days with Brabazon--*Continued*
VI. The Dewetsdorp Episode
VII. Ian Hamilton's March
VIII. Ian Hamilton
IX. The Action of Houtnek
X. The Army of the Right Flank
XI. Lindley
XII. Concerning a Boer Convoy
XIII. Action of Johannesburg
XIV. The Fall of Johannesburg
XV. The Capture Of Pretoria
XVI. "Held By The Enemy"
XVII. Action Of Diamond Hill
APPENDIX
Composition of Lieut.-General Ian Hamilton's Force
PORTRAIT.
IAN HAMILTON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
_From the Picture by_ JOHN S. SARGENT, R.A.
MAPS AND PLANS.
Operations in the Orange Free State, April, 1900
Diagram Explaining Hamilton's Action at Israel's Poorte, the 25th of
April
Diagram Explaining French's Operations Round Thabanchu, the 25th and
27th of April
Diagram Explaining the Action of Houtnek
Diagram to Explain the Passage of the Sand River, 10th of May, 1900
Ian Hamilton's Action at the Sand River, 10th of May, 1900
Ian Hamilton's Action before Johannesburg
Plan of the Operations of 11th and 12th of June, 1900
Diagram Explaining the Action of Diamond Hill
Map of March from Bloemfontein to Pretoria _At end of book_
IAN HAMILTON'S MARCH
CHAPTER I
A ROVING COMMISSION
In the train near Pieters, Natal: March 31.
Ladysmith, her garrison and her rescuers, were still recovering, the one
from the effects of long confinement, the other from over-exertion. All
was quiet along the Tugela except for the plashing of the waters, and
from Hunger's Poorte to Weenen no sound of rifle or cannon shot
disturbed the echoes.
The war had rolled northward: the floods of invasion that had
isolated--almost overwhelmed--Ladysmith and threatened to submerge the
whole country had abated and receded, so that the Army of Natal might
spread itself out to feed and strengthen at its leisure and convenience
on the reconquered territory.
Knox's (Ladysmith) Brigade went into camp at Arcadia, five miles west of
the town. Howard's (Ladysmith) Brigade retired to the breezy plains
south of Colenso. Clery's Division--for the gallant Clery, recovered
from his sickness, had displaced the gallant and successful
Lyttelton--moved north and encamped beyond Elandslaagte along the banks
of Sunday's River. Hunter's Division was disposed with one brigade at
Elandslaagte and one at Tinta Inyoni. Warren, whom it was no longer
necessary to send to the Cape Colony, established himself and his two
brigades north of Ladysmith, along the railway line to the Orange Free
State. Brocklehurst, with the remnants of what had once been almost a
Cavalry Division, and now could scarcely mount three squadrons, occupied
a neighbouring plain, sending his regiments one by one to Colenso, or
even Mooi River, to be re-horsed; and around all this great Army,
resting after its labours and preparing for fresh efforts, the Cavalry
brigades of Dundonald and Burn-Murdoch drew an immense curtain of
pickets and patrols which extended from Acton Homes in the east, through
Bester's Station right round to Wessels Nek and further still, and which
enabled the protected soldiers within to close their eyes by night and
stretch their legs by day.
Meanwhile, the burghers had all retreated to the Drakensburg and the
Biggarsburg and other refuges, from which elevated positions they defied
intrusion or attack, and their scattered line stretched in a vast
crescent even around our widely extended front from the Tintwa Pass,
through Waschbank to Pomeroy.
But with the exception of outpost skirmishes, wholly unimportant to
those not engaged in them, a strange peace brooded over Natal, and
tranquillity was intensified by the recollection of the struggle that
was over and the anticipation of the struggle that impended. It was a
lull in the storm.
All this might be war, but it was not journalism. The tempest for the
moment had passed, and above the army in Natal the sky was monotonously
blue. It was true that dark clouds hung near the northern horizon, but
who should say when they would break? Not, at any rate, for three weeks,
I thought, and so resolved to fill the interval by trying to catch a
little of the tempest elsewhere.
After the relief of Ladysmith four courses offered themselves to Sir
Redvers Buller. To stand strictly on the defensive in Natal and to send
Lord Roberts every gun and man who could be spared; to break into the
Free State by forcing Van Reenen's Pass or the Tintwa; to attack the
twelve thousand Boers in the Biggarsburg, clear Natal, and invade the
Transvaal through the Vryheid district; and, lastly, to unite and
reorganise and co-operate with Lord Roberts's main advance either by
striking west or north.
Which course would be adopted? I made inquiries. Staff officers, bland
and inscrutable--it is wonderful how well men can keep secrets they have
not been told--continued to smile and smile. Brigadiers frankly
confessed their ignorance. The general-in-chief observed pleasantly
that he would 'go for' the enemy as soon as he was ready, but was
scarcely precise about when and where.
It was necessary to go to more humble sources for truth, and after
diligent search I learned from a railway porter, or somebody like that,
that all attempts to repair the bridge across the Sunday's River had
been postponed indefinitely. This, on further inquiry, proved to be
true.
Now, what does this mean? It means, I take it, that no direct advance
against the Biggarsburg is intended for some time; and as the idea of
reducing the Natal Army to reinforce the Cape Colony forces has been
definitely abandoned the western line of advance suggests itself.
It would be absurd to force Van Reenen's Pass with heavy loss of life,
when by waiting until the main Army has reached, let us say, Kroonstad,
we could walk through without opposition; so that it looks very likely
that the Natal troops will do nothing until Lord Roberts's advance is
more developed, and that then they will enter the Free State and operate
in conjunction with him, all of which is strategy and common-sense
besides. At any rate there will be a long delay.
Therefore, I said to myself, I will go to Bloemfontein, see all that may
be seen there and on the way, and rejoin the Natal Army when it comes
through the passes. Such was the plan, and the reader shall be a
witness of its abandonment.
I left the camp of Dundonald's Brigade early in the morning of the 29th
of March, and riding through Ladysmith, round the hill on which stands
the battered convent, now serving as headquarters, and down the main
street, along which the relieving Army had entered the city, reached the
railway station and caught the 10 A.M. down train.
We were delayed for a few minutes by the departure for Elandslaagte of a
train load of Volunteers, the first to reach the Natal Army, and the
officers hastened to look at these citizen soldiers. There were five
companies in all, making nearly a thousand men, fine looking fellows,
with bright intelligent eyes, which they turned inquiringly on every
object in turn, pointing and laughing at the numerous shell holes in the
corrugated iron engine sheds and other buildings of the station.
A few regulars--sunburnt men, who had fought their way in with
Buller--sauntered up to the trucks, and began a conversation with the
reinforcement. I caught a fragment: 'Cattle trucks, are they? Well,
they didn't give us no blooming cattle trucks. No, no! We came into
Ladysmith in a first-class doubly extry Pullman car. 'Oo sent 'em?
Why, President ---- Kruger, of course,' whereat there was much laughter.
I must explain that the epithet which the average soldier uses so often
as to make it perfectly meaningless, and which we conveniently express
by a ----, is always placed immediately before the noun it is intended
to qualify. For instance, no soldier would under any circumstances say
'---- Mr. Kruger has pursued a ---- reactionary policy,' but 'Mr. ----
Kruger has pursued a reactionary ---- policy.' Having once voyaged for
five days down the Nile in a sailing boat with a company of Grenadiers,
I have had the best opportunities for being acquainted with these
idiomatic constructions, and I insert this little note in case it may be
useful to some of our national poets and minstrels.
The train started across the well-known ground, and how fast and easily
it ran. Already we were bounding through the scrub in which a month
before Dundonald's leading squadrons, galloping in with beating hearts,
had met the hungry picket line.
Intombi Spruit hospital camp was reached in a quarter of an hour.
Hospital camp no longer, thank goodness! Since the bridge had been
repaired the trains had been busy, and two days before I left the town
the last of the 2,500 sick had been moved down to the great hospital and
convalescent camps at Mooi River and Highlands, or on to the ships in
the Durban Harbour. Nothing remained behind but 100 tents and marquees,
a stack of iron cots, the cook houses, the drinking-water tanks, and 600
graves. Ghastly Intombi had faded into the past, as a nightmare flies
at the dawn of day.
We sped swiftly across the plain of Pieters, and I remembered how I had
toiled across it, some five months before, a miserable captive, casting
longing eyes at the Ladysmith balloon, and vigilantly guarded by the
Boer mounted escort. Then the train ran into the deep ravine between
Barton's Hill and Railway Hill, the ravine the Cavalry had 'fanned' on
the day of the battle, and, increasing its pace as we descended towards
the Tugela, carried us along the whole front of the Boer position. Signs
of the fighting appeared on every side. Biscuit tins flashed brightly
on the hill-side like heliographs. In places the slopes were
honey-combed with little stone walls and traverses, masking the
sheltering refuges of the Infantry battalions during the week they had
lain in the sun-blaze exposed to the cross-fire of gun and rifle. White
wooden crosses gleamed here and there among the thorn bushes. The dark
lines of the Boer trenches crowned the hills. The train swept by--and
that was all.
I knew every slope, every hillock and accident of ground, as one knows
men and women in the world. Here was good cover. There was a dangerous
space. Here it was wise to stoop, and there to run. Behind that steep
kopje a man might scorn the shrapnel. Those rocks gave sure protection
from the flanking rifle fire. Only a month ago how much these things
had meant. If we could carry that ridge it would command those
trenches, and that might mean the hill itself, and perhaps the hill
would lead to Ladysmith. Only a month ago these things meant honour or
shame, victory or defeat, life or death. An anxious Empire and a
waiting world wanted to know about every one of them--and now they were
precisely what I have said, dark jumbled mounds of stone and scrub, with
a few holes and crevices scratched in them, and a litter of tin-pots,
paper, and cartridge cases strewn about.
The train steamed cautiously over the temporary wooden bridge at Colenso
and ran into the open country beyond. On we hurried past the green
slope where poor Long's artillery had been shot to bits, past Gun Hill,
whence the great naval guns had fired so often, through Chieveley Camp,
or rather through the site of Chieveley Camp, past the wreck of the
armoured train--still lying where we had dragged it with such labour and
peril, just clear of the line--through Frere and Estcourt, and so, after
seven hours' journey, we came to Pietermaritzburg.
An officer who was travelling down with me pointed out the trenches on
the signal hill above the town.
'Seems queer,' he said, 'to think that the Boers might so easily have
taken this town. When we dug those trenches they were expected every
day, and the Governor, who refused to leave the capital and was going to
stick it out with us, had his kit packed ready to come up into the
entrenchments at an hour's notice.'
It was very pleasant to know that those dark and critical days were
gone, and that the armies in the field were strong enough to maintain
the Queen's dominions against any further invasion; yet one could not
but recall with annoyance that the northern part of Natal was still in
the hands of the enemy. Not for long, however, shall this endure.
After waiting in Pietermaritzburg long enough only to dine, I proceeded
by the night train to Durban, and was here so fortunate as to find a
Union boat, the _Guelph_, leaving almost immediately for East London.
The weather was fine, the sea comparatively smooth, and the passengers
few and unobtrusive, so that the voyage, being short, might almost be
considered pleasant.
The captain took the greatest interest in the war, which he had followed
with attention, and with the details and incidents of which he was
extraordinarily familiar. He had brought out a ship full of Volunteers,
new drafts, and had much to say concerning the British soldier and his
comrades in arms.
The good news which had delighted and relieved everyone had reached him
in the most dramatic and striking manner. When they left England
Roberts had just begun his welcome advance, and the public anxiety was
at its height. At Madeira there was an English cable to say that he was
engaging Cronje, and that no news had arrived for three days. This was
supplied, however, by the Spanish wire, which asserted with
circumstantial details that the British had been heavily defeated and
had fled south beyond the Orange River. With this to reflect on they
had to sail. Imagine the doubts and fears that flourished in ten days
of ignorance, idleness, and speculation. Imagine with what feelings
they approached St. Helena. He told me that when the tug-boat came off
no man dared hail them for news. Nor was it until the launch was
alongside that a soldier cried out nervously, 'The war, the war: what's
happened there!' and when they heard the answer, 'Cronje surrendered;
Ladysmith relieved,' he said that such a shout went up as he had never
heard before, and I believed him.
After twenty-four hours of breeze and tossing the good ship found
herself in the roads at East London, and having by this time had quite
enough of the sea I resolved to disembark forthwith.