ACTION OF JOHANNESBURG
Johannesburg: June 1.
On the 24th of May, Ian Hamilton's force, marching west from Heilbron,
struck the railway and joined Lord Roberts's main column. The long
marches, unbroken by a day's rest, the short rations to which the troops
had been restricted, and the increasing exhaustion of horses and
transport animals seemed to demand a halt. But a more imperious voice
cried 'Forward!' and at daylight the travel-stained brigades set forth,
boots worn to tatters, gun horses dying at the wheel, and convoys
struggling after in vain pursuit--'Forward to the Vaal.'
And now the Army of the Right Flank became the Army of the Left; for
Hamilton was directed to move across the railway line and march on the
drift of the river near Boschbank. Thus, for the first time it was
possible to see the greater part of the invading force at once.
French, indeed, was already at Parys, but the Seventh and Eleventh
Divisions, the Lancer brigade, the corps troops, the heavy artillery,
and Hamilton's four brigades were all spread about the spacious plain,
and made a strange picture; long brown columns of Infantry, black
squares of batteries, sprays of Cavalry flung out far to the front and
flanks, 30,000 fighting men together, behind them interminable streams
of waggons, and, in their midst, like the pillar of cloud that led the
hosts of Israel, the war balloon, full blown, on its travelling car.
We crossed the Vaal on the 26th prosperously and peacefully. Broadwood,
with his Cavalry, had secured the passage during the previous night, and
the Infantry arriving found the opposite slopes in British hands.
Moreover, the Engineers, under the indefatigable Boileau, assisted by
the strong arms of the Blues and Life Guards, had cut a fine broad road
up and down the steep river banks.
Once across we looked again for the halt. Twenty-four hours' rest meant
convoys with full rations and forage for the horses. But in the morning
there came a swift messenger from the Field-Marshal: main army crossing
at Vereeniging, demoralisation of the enemy increasing, only one span of
the railway bridge blown up, perhaps Johannesburg within three days--at
any rate, 'try,' never mind the strain of nerve and muscle or the
scarcity of food.
Forward again. That day Hamilton marched his men eighteen miles--('ten
miles,' say the text-books on war, 'is a good march for a division with
baggage,' and our force, carrying its own supplies, had ten times the
baggage of a European division!)--and succeeded besides in dragging his
weary transport with him. By good fortune the Cavalry discovered a
little forage--small stacks of curious fluffy grass called manna, and
certainly heaven-sent--on which the horses subsisted and did not
actually starve. All day the soldiers pressed on, and the sun was low
before the bivouac was reached. Nothing untoward disturbed the march,
and only a splutter of musketry along the western flank guard relieved
its dulness.
At first, after we had crossed the Vaal, the surface of the country was
smooth and grassy, like the Orange River Colony, but as the column
advanced northwards the ground became broken--at once more dangerous and
more picturesque. Dim blue hills rose up on the horizon, the rolling
swells of pasture grew sharper and less even, patches of wood or scrub
interrupted the level lines of the plain, and polished rocks of
conglomerate or auriferous quartz showed through the grass, like the
bones beneath the skin of the cavalry horses. We were approaching the
Rand.
On the evening of the 27th, Hamilton's advance guard came in touch with
French, who, with one Mounted Infantry and two Cavalry brigades, was
moving echeloned forward on our left in the same relation to us as were
we to the main army.
The information about the enemy was that, encouraged by the defensive
promise of the ground, he was holding a strong position either on the
Klip Riviersburg, or along the line of the gold mines crowning the main
Rand reef. On the 28th, in expectation of an action next day, Hamilton
made but a short march. French, on the other hand, pushed on to
reconnoitre, and if possible--for the Cavalry were very ambitious--to
pierce the lines that lay ahead.
I rode with General Broadwood, whose brigade covered the advance of
Hamilton's column. The troops had now entered a region of hills which
on every side threatened the march and limited the view.
At nine o'clock we reached a regular pass between two steep rocky
ridges. From the summit of one of these ridges a wide landscape was
revealed. Northwards across our path lay the black line of the Klip
Riviersburg, stretching to the east as far as I could sec, and
presenting everywhere formidable positions to the advancing force. To
the west these frowning features fell away in more grassy slopes, from
among which, its approach obstructed by several rugged underfeatures,
rose the long smooth ridge of the Witwatersrand reef. The numerous
grass fires which attend the march of an army in dry weather--the
results of our carelessness, or, perhaps, of the enemy's design--veiled
the whole prospect with smoke, and made the air glitter and deceive like
the mirages in the Soudan. But one thing showed with sufficient
distinctness to attract and astonish all eyes. The whole crest of the
Rand ridge was fringed with factory chimneys. We had marched nearly 500
miles through a country which, though full of promise, seemed to
European eyes desolate and wild, and now we turned a corner suddenly,
and there before us sprang the evidences of wealth, manufacture, and
bustling civilisation. I might have been looking from a distance at
Oldham.
The impression was destroyed by the booming of shotted guns, unheard, by
God's grace, these many years in peaceful Lancashire. French was at
work. The haze and the distance prevented us from watching closely the
operations of the Cavalry. The dark patches of British horsemen and the
white smoke of the Dutch artillery were the beginning and the end of our
observations. But, even so, it was easy to see that French was not
making much progress.
As the afternoon wore on the loud reverberations of heavy cannon told
that the Boers had disclosed their real position, and we knew that
something more substantial than Cavalry would be required to drive them
from it. In the evening French's brigades were seen to be retiring
across the Klip River, and the night closed in amid the rapid drumming
of the Vickers-Maxims covering his movement, bringing with it the
certainty of an Infantry action on the morrow.
At twelve o'clock a despatch from the Cavalry division reached Hamilton.
French's messenger said that the cavalry were having a hot fight and
were confronted by several 40-pounder guns, but the stout-hearted
commander himself merely acquainted Hamilton with his orders from
headquarters, to march via Florida to Driefontein, and made no allusion
to his fortunes nor asked for assistance. Indeed, as we found out
later, his operations on the 28th had been practically confined to an
artillery duel, in which, though the expenditure of ammunition was very
great and the noise alarming, the casualties--one officer and eight
men--were fortunately small.
But the Boers, seeing the Cavalry retire at dusk, claimed that they had
repulsed the first attack; their confidence in the strength of the Rand
position was increased; their resistance on the next day was
consequently more stubborn; and the 'Standard and Diggers' News' was
enabled to terminate a long career of exaggeration and falsehood by
describing one more 'bloody British defeat with appalling slaughter.'
The event of the next day admitted of no such misinterpretation.
The orders from headquarters for the 29th were such as to involve
certain fighting should the enemy stand. French, with the Cavalry
Division, was to march around Johannesburg to Driefontein; Ian Hamilton
was directed on Florida; the main army, under the Field-Marshal, would
occupy Germiston and seize the junctions of the Natal, Cape Colony, and
Potchefstroom lines. These movements, which the chief had indicated by
flags on the map, were now to be executed--so far as possible--by
soldiers on the actual field.
The operations of the main army are not my concern in this letter; but
it is necessary to state the result, lest the reader fail to grasp the
general idea, and, while studying the detail, forget their scale and
meaning.
Advancing with great speed and suddenness through Elandsfontein, Lord
Roberts surprised the Boers in Germiston, and after a brief skirmish
drove them in disorder from the town, which he then occupied. So
precipitate was the flight of the enemy, or so rapid the British
advance, that nine locomotives and much other rolling stock were
captured, and the line from Germiston southward to Vereeniging was found
to be undamaged. The importance of these advantages on the success of
the operations can scarcely be over-estimated. The problem of supply
was at once modified, and though the troops still suffered privations
from scarcity of food, the anxieties of their commanders as to the
immediate future were removed.
French had camped for the night south of the Klip River, just out of
cannon shot of the enemy's position, and at eight o'clock on the morning
of the 29th he moved off westward, intending to try to penetrate, or,
better still, circumvent, the barrier that lay before him.
Such ground as he had won on the previous day he held with Mounted
Infantry, and thus masking the enemy's front he attempted to pierce if
he could not turn his right. For these purposes the force at his
disposal--three horse batteries, four 'pom-poms,' and about 3,000
mounted men--was inadequate and unsuited. But he knew that Ian
Hamilton, with siege guns, field guns, and two Infantry brigades, was
close behind him, and on this he reckoned.
Firing began about seven o'clock, when the Boers attacked the Mounted
Infantry Corps holding the positions captured on the 28th, and who were
practically covering the flank movement of the rest of the Cavalry
Division and the march of Hamilton's column. The Mounted Infantry, who
were very weak, were gradually compelled to fall back, being at one time
enfiladed by two Vickers-Maxims and heavily pressed in front.
But their resistance was sufficiently prolonged to secure the
transference of force from right to left. By ten o'clock French had
gone far enough west to please him, and passing round the edge of a deep
swamp turned the heads of his regiments sharply to their right (north),
and moved towards the Rand ridge and its under features.
By the vigorous use of his Horse Artillery he cleared several of the
advanced kopjes, and had made nearly two miles progress north of the
drainage line of the Klip River, when he was abruptly checked. A
squadron sent forward against a low fringe of rocks, clumping up at the
end of a long grass glacis, encountered a sudden burst of musketry fire,
and returned, pursued by shell, with the information that mounted men
could work no further northwards.
Meanwhile Hamilton, who had determined to lay his line of march across
the Doornkop ridges (of inglorious memory), and whose Infantry, baggage,
and guns were spread all along the flat plain south of the Klip, was
drawing near. French halted his brigades and awaited him. The
instructions from headquarters defined very carefully the relations
which were to be observed between the two Generals. They were to
co-operate, yet their commands were entirely separate. Should they
attack the same hill at once, French, as a lieutenant-general and long
senior to Hamilton, would automatically assume command. But this
contingency was not likely to arise from the military situation, and the
good feeling and mutual confidence which existed between these two able
soldiers, and which had already produced golden results at Elandslaagte,
made the possibility of any misunderstanding still more remote.
French was joined by Hamilton at one o'clock, and they discussed the
situation together. French explained the difficulty of further direct
advance. He must move still more to the west. On the other hand,
Hamilton, whose force was eating its last day's rations, could make no
longer _detour_, and must break through there and then--frontal attack,
if necessary. So all fitted in happily. The Cavalry division moved to
the left to co-operate with the Infantry attack by threatening the Boer
right, and, in order that this pressure might be effective, Hamilton
lent Broadwood's Brigade and two corps of Mounted Infantry to French for
the day. He himself prepared to attack what stood before him with his
whole remaining force.
By two o'clock the Cavalry in brown swarms had disappeared to the
westward, both Infantry brigades were massed under cover on the
approaches of the Rand ridge, and the transport of the army lay
accumulated in a vast pool near the passage of the Klip--here only a
swamp, but further east a river. The artillery duel of the morning had
died away. The firing on the right, where the Mounted Infantry still
maintained themselves, was intermittent. The reconnaissance was over.
The action was about to begin, and in the interval there was a short,
quiet lull--the calm before the storm. The soldiers munched their
biscuits silently under the sun blaze. The officers and staff ate a
frugal luncheon. Ian Hamilton with his aide-de-camp, the Duke of
Marlborough, shared the contents of my wallets. I watched the General
closely. He knew better than the sanguine people who declared the Boers
had run away already. No one understood better than he what a terrible
foe is the rock-sheltered Mauser-armed Dutchman. In spite of its cavalry
turning movement, and other embellishments, the impending attack must be
practically frontal. Supply did not allow a wider circle: to stop was
to starve; and the position before us--half-a-dozen clusters of rock,
breaking from the smooth grass upward slopes, except in colour like foam
on the crest of waves, natural parapet and glacis combined, and, beyond
all, the long bare ridge of the Rand lined with who should say what
entrenchments or how many defenders--a prospect which filled all men who
knew with the most solemn thoughts.
For my part, having seen the Infantry come reeling back in bloody ruin
two or three times from such a place and such a foe, though I risked no
repute on the event--scarcely my life--I confess to a beating heart.
But the man who bore all the responsibility, and to whom the result
meant everything, appeared utterly unmoved. Indeed, I could almost
imagine myself the General and the General the Press Correspondent,
though perhaps this arrangement would scarcely have worked so well.
At three o'clock precisely the Infantry advanced to the attack.
Major-General Bruce-Hamilton directed the left attack with the
Twenty-first Brigade, and Colonel Spens the right with the Nineteenth
Brigade. The whole division was commanded by General Smith-Dorrien.
The lateness of the hour gave scarcely any time for the artillery
preparation, and the artillery came into action only a few minutes
before the infantry were exposed to fire.
It must be noticed that the combination of the batteries and the support
which they afforded to the attack was scarcely so effective as might
have been expected from the number of guns available. But the General
commanding a mixed force is bound to trust the various specialists under
him, at least until experience has shown them to be deficient in energy
or ability.
The Infantry advance was developed on the most modern principles. Each
brigade occupied a front of more than a mile and three quarters, and the
files of the first line of skirmishers were extended no less than thirty
paces. Bruce-Hamilton, with the left attack, started a little earlier
than the right brigade, and, with the City Imperial Volunteers in the
first line, soon had his whole command extended on the open grass.
A few minutes after three, French's guns were heard on the extreme left,
and about the same time the firing on the right swelled up again, so
that by the half-hour the action was general along the whole front of
battle--an extent of a little over six miles.
[Illustration: IAN HAMILTON'S ACTION BEFORE JOHANNESBURG]
The left attack, pressed with vigour, and directed with skill by General
Bruce-Hamilton, led along a low spur, and was designed to be a kind of
inside turning movement to assist the right in conformity with the
Cavalry action now in full swing. The City Imperial Volunteers moved
forward with great dash and spirit, and in spite of a worrying fire from
their left rear, which increased in proportion as they moved inwards
towards the right, drove the Boers from position after position. While
there is no doubt that French's pressure beyond them materially assisted
their advance, the rapid progress of this Twenty-first Brigade entitled
them and their leader to the highest credit. The Cameron Highlanders
and the Sherwood Foresters supported the attack. The Boers resisted
well with artillery, and their shells caused several casualties among
the advancing lines; but it was on the right that the fighting was most
severe.
The leading battalion of the Nineteenth Brigade chanced--for there was
no selection--to be the Gordon Highlanders; nor was it without a thrill
that I watched this famous regiment move against the enemy. Their
extension and advance were conducted with machine-like regularity. The
officers explained what was required to the men. They were to advance
rapidly until under rifle fire, and then to push on or not as they might
be instructed.
With impassive unconcern the veterans of Chitral, Dargai, the Bara
Valley, Magersfontein, Paardeburg, and Houtnek walked leisurely forward,
and the only comment recorded was the observation of a private: 'Bill,
this looks like being a kopje day.' Gradually the whole battalion drew
out clear of the covering ridge, and long dotted lines of brown figures
filled the plain. At this moment two batteries and the two 5-in. guns
opened from the right of the line, and what with the artillery of French
and Bruce-Hamilton there was soon a loud cannonade.
The Dutch replied at once with three or four guns, one of which seemed a
very heavy piece of ordnance on the main Rand ridge, and another fired
from the kopje against which the Gordons were marching. But the Boer
riflemen, crouching among the rocks, reserved their fire for a near
target. While the troops were thus approaching the enemy's position,
the two brigades began unconsciously to draw apart. Colonel Spens'
battalions had extended further to the right than either Ian Hamilton or
Smith-Dorrien had intended. Bruce-Hamilton, pressing forward on the
left, found himself more and more tempted to face the harassing attack
on his left rear. Both these tendencies had to be corrected. The
Gordons were deflected to their left by an officer, Captain Higginson,
who galloped most pluckily into the firing line in spite of a hail of
bullets. Bruce-Hamilton was ordered to bear in to his right and
disregard the growing pressure behind his left shoulder. Nevertheless a
wide gap remained. But by this mischance Ian Hamilton contrived to
profit. Smith-Dorrien had already directed the only remaining
battalion--the Sussex--to fill up the interval, and the General-in-Chief
now thrust a battery forward through the gap, almost flush with the
skirmish line of the Infantry on its left and right.
The fire of these guns, combined with the increasing pressure from the
turning movements both of Bruce-Hamilton and French, who was now working
very far forward in the west, weakened the enemy's position on the kopje
which the Gordons were attacking. Yet, when every allowance has been
made for skilful direction and bold leading, the honours, equally with
the cost of the victory, belong more to the Gordon Highlanders than to
all the other troops put together.
The rocks against which they advanced proved in the event to be the very
heart of the enemy's position. The grass in front of them was burnt and
burning, and against this dark background the khaki figures showed
distinctly. The Dutch held their fire until the attack was within 800
yards, and then, louder than the cannonade, the ominous rattle of
concentrated rifle fire burst forth. The black slope was spotted as
thickly with grey puffs of dust where the bullets struck as with
advancing soldiers, and tiny figures falling by the way told of heavy
loss. But the advance neither checked nor quickened.
With remorseless stride, undisturbed by peril or enthusiasm, the Gordons
swept steadily onward, changed direction half left to avoid, as far as
possible, an enfilade fire, changed again to the right to effect a
lodgment on the end of the ridge most suitable to attack, and at last
rose up together to charge. The black slope twinkled like jet with the
unexpected glitter of bayonets. The rugged sky-line bristled with kilted
figures, as, in perfect discipline and disdainful silence, those
splendid soldiers closed on their foe.
The Boers shrank from the contact. Discharging their magazines
furiously, and firing their guns at point-blank range, they fled in
confusion to the main ridge, and the issue of the action was no longer
undecided.
Still the fight continued. Along the whole Infantry front a tremendous
rifle fire blazed. Far away to the left French's artillery pursued the
retreating Boers with shells. The advanced batteries of Hamilton's
force fired incessantly. The action did not cease with the daylight.
The long lines of burning grass cast a strange, baleful glare on the
field, and by this light the stubborn adversaries maintained their
debate for nearly an hour.
At length, however, the cannonade slackened and ceased, and the rifles
soon imitated the merciful example of the guns. The chill and silence
of the night succeeded the hot tumult of the day. Regiments assembled
and reformed their ranks, ambulances and baggage waggons crowded forward
from the rear, the burning veldt was beaten out, and hundreds of cooking
fires gleamed with more kindly meaning through the darkness.
The General rode forward, to find the Gordons massed among the rocks
they had won. The gallant Burney, who commanded the firing line, was
severely wounded. St. John Meyrick was killed. Nine officers and
eighty-eight soldiers had fallen in the attack; but those that remained
were proud and happy in the knowledge that they had added to the many
feats of arms which adorn the annals of the regiment--one that was at
least the equal of Elandslaagte or Dargai; and, besides all this, they
may have reflected that by their devotion they had carried forward the
British cause a long stride to victory, and, better than victory, to
honorable peace. Ian Hamilton spoke a few brief words of thanks and
praise to them--'the regiment my father commanded and I was born
in'--and told them that in a few hours all Scotland would ring with the
tale of their deeds. And well Scotland may, for no men of any race
could have shown more soldier-like behaviour.
Then we rode back to our bivouac, while the lanterns of searching
parties moved hither and thither among the rocks, and voices cried
'Bearer party this way!' 'Are there any more wounded here?' with
occasional feeble responses.
Owing to the skilful conduct of the attack, the losses, except among the
Gordons, were not severe--in all about 150 killed and wounded. The
result of the fight--the action of Johannesburg, as we called it--was
the general retreat of all the enemy west of the town under Delarey and
Viljoen northwards towards Pretoria, and, in conjunction with the
Field-Marshal's movements, the surrender of the whole of the
Witwatersrand.
French, continuing his march at dawn to Driefontein, captured one gun
and several prisoners. Ian Hamilton entered Florida, and found there
and at Maraisburg sufficient stores to enable him to subsist until his
convoys arrived.