At last the blow has fallen which has shattered the Boer cause in the Free
State. There will be skirmishes with scattered bands in the mountain gorges
beyond Harrismith, but the backbone of the Republic has been broken beyond
redemption. Sunday, the 30th of July, was big with fate, though we who sat
almost within the shadow of the snow enshrouded hills of savage Basutoland
at the dawning of that day knew it not. It was a joyful day for us, though
pregnant with sorrow for the veldtsmen who had fought so long and well for
their doomed cause, for on that day our generals reaped the harvest which
they had sown with infinite patience and undaunted courage. General Hunter,
to whom the chief command had just been given, was there, surrounded by his
staff, a soldierly figure worthy of a nation's trust; Clements, keen faced,
sharp voiced, with alertness written in each lineament; Paget, whose fiery
spirit spoke from his mobile face, his blood, hot as an Afghan sun,
flashing the workings of his mind into his face as sunlight flashes from
steel; and Rundle, hawk-eyed and stern, no friend to Pressmen, but a
soldier every inch, one of those men whose hands build empires. Had he been
stripped of modern gear that day, and placed in Roman trappings, one would
have looked behind him to see if Cæsar meant to grace the show; but Cæsar
was not there.
One of the greatest soldiers since the world began was missing from our
ranks, the hero Roberts, whose great intellect had planned the _coup_
which his generals had carried to maturity. Yet, though Lord Roberts
planned each general move, an immense amount of actual work was left to the
generals. The country they had to pass through was rugged and inhospitable.
The foe they had to fight was brave, resourceful, and well supplied with
all munitions of war; a single mistake on the part of any one of them would
have wrecked the magnificent plan of the Commander-in-Chief. But no
mistakes were made; each general worked as if his soul's salvation depended
upon his individual efforts. Where all are good, as a rule it is hard to
make a distinction; but in this instance one man stands out above his
fellows, and that man is General Sir Leslie Rundle, the commander of the
Eighth Division. His task from the first was herculean. He had to hold a
line fully one hundred miles in length; day after day, week after week, the
enemy tried to break that line and pour their forces into the territory we
had conquered. Had they succeeded, they would have shaken the whole of
South Africa to its very centre. This task kept Sir Leslie Rundle busy
night and day. Wherever he camped, spies dogged his footsteps; black men
and white men constantly upon his track. His every move was rapidly
reported to our ever-watchful enemies. But, quick as the enemy undoubtedly
were in all their movements, General Rundle nullified their efforts by his
rapidity. So terribly hard did he work his men that they nicknamed him
"Rundle, the Tramp." How the men stood it I cannot understand. I know of no
other men in all the world who would have gone on as they did, obeying
orders without a murmur or a whimper. They were savage at times over the
food they got, and small blame to them, but they never blamed their
general. They knew that he gave them plenty of the class of food that he
could lay hands upon. Had the general's supplies been in this part of the
country, instead of being tied up in red-tape packages on the railway line,
General Rundle would have kept his Division fully supplied. The only food
which he could command, beef and mutton, he gave without stint. Had the War
Office authorities attended to their end of the work with the same
commendable zeal, half the hardships of the campaign would have been
averted.
If ever war was reduced to an absolute science, it was upon this occasion.
On the one hand, some six thousand Boers on the defensive, armed with the
handiest quick-firing rifle known to modern times, with from eight to ten
guns, well supplied with food and ammunition, and backed by some of the
most awful country the eye of man ever rested upon--a country which they
knew as a child knows its mother's face. On the other hand, an attacking
force of 30,000 men and guns. To read the number of the opposing forces one
would think the Boer task the effort of madmen, bent upon national
extinction; but one glance at the country would upset those calculations
entirely. Every kopje was a natural fortress, every sluit a perfect line of
trenches, and every donga a nursery for death.
To attempt to go into every move made by our troops during the months of
May, June, and the early parts of July would only prove wearisome to the
average reader; suffice it to say that finally we got the burgher forces
into the Caledon Valley. This valley is about twenty-eight miles in length,
and from fourteen to fifteen miles across its widest part. Properly
speaking, it was not a valley at all, but a series of valleys interspersed
by great kopjes, nearly all of which presented an almost impregnable
appearance. The valley had a number of outlets, which the Boers fondly
believed our people to be unacquainted with. These outlets were known as
"neks," and were, without exception, terribly rough places for a hostile
force to attack. Commando Nek was upon the south-east, facing towards
Basutoland. This was merely a narrow pass, running up over a jagged kopje,
with two greater kopjes on each side of it. The hills all round it were so
placed that a number of good marksmen, hidden in the rocks, could easily
sweep off thousands of an enemy who attempted to take it by storm. But that
pass had to be taken before we could claim to hold the Free State in the
hollow of our hand. Slabbert's Nek was merely a huge gash in the face of a
cliff. It was the Boers' causeway towards the north, their highway to
safety. Retief's Nek lay to the westward, and formed a grinning death trap
for any general who might try the foolish hazard of a single-handed attack
Naauwpoort Nek, ugly and uninviting, faced south-east towards Harrismith.
Golden Gate, named by a satirist--or a satyr--was merely a narrow chasm
worn by wind and weather through the girdle of mountains. It looked towards
the east, and was a mere pathway, which none but desperate soldiers, driven
to their last extremity, would think of using.
The Boers never dreamed that it was possible for our troops to move with
such machine-like precision as to hold every nek at our mercy. But whilst
Rundle held the ground to the south, and kept the Boers for ever on the
move by his restless activity, Clements and Paget moved on Slabbert's Nek,
Hunter swept down on Retief's Nek, Naauwpoort Nek was invested by Hector
Macdonald, Bruce Hamilton closed in upon Golden Gate, and the great net was
almost perfect in its meshes. The enemy did not realise their danger until
it was too late for the great bulk of their force to escape. Commandant De
Wet saw the impending peril at the eleventh hour, and tried hard to get his
countrymen to follow him in a dash through Slabbert's Nek; but very few of
the burghers would believe that the sword of fate was hanging by so slim a
thread over their heads. In vain this able soldier of the Republic
harangued them. Vain all his threats and protestations. They could not and
would not believe him. Sullenly they sat in their strongholds and watched
Rundle--they could see him, and that danger which was present to their eyes
was the only danger they would believe in; and day by day, hour by hour,
the cordon of Britain's might drew closer and closer, until every link in
the vast chain was practically flawless. Then Commandant De Wet gathered
around him about 1,800 of his most devoted followers, and with Ex-President
Steyn in their ranks they passed like ghosts of a fallen people through
Slabbert's Nek on towards the Transvaal. How they managed to elude the
incoming khaki wave some other pen must tell. It was a splendid piece of
work on the Republican Commandant's part, and history will not begrudge him
the full measure of praise due to him. Had General Prinsloo and his
burghers been guided by him, these pages had never been written, for where
De Wet took his 1,800 burghers he could as easily have taken 6,000.
Scarcely had De Wet made his escape ere the truth was borne in upon the
burghers with an iron hand that their doom was sealed. General Rundle's
force, which all along had been essentially a blocking force, and not a
striking force, made a move on the 23rd of July. All day the cannons spoke
to the burghers from Willow Grange, all day long the rifles rippled their
leaden waves of death. We could see but little of the enemy; they lay
concealed behind the loose rocks, and our men had little else to do but
lift their rifles and pull the trigger, trusting to the powers that rule
the destinies of war to speed the bullets to some foeman's resting place.
But we knew they were there if we could not see them, for the snap and
snarl of the Mauser rifles came readily to our ears, and the booming of
their guns answered ours, as hound answers hound when the scent grows
hottest. We pounded them with shrapnel and pelted them with common shell
until the air around them rained iron. Our guns were six to one, yet those
brave veldtsmen held their own with a stubborn courage worthy of the
noblest traditions in all the red pages of war. They gave us a parting shot
at sundown, and at night, when the thick mists from the snow-draped
mountains behind us came down upon the land and added to the darkness of
the winter's night, they moved their gun and fell back with it to a place
where they could renew the battle on the morrow. And at the dawning they
testified their vitality by dropping a couple of shells right into the
midst of the Imperial Yeomanry camp.
Whilst we were busy at Julies Kraal, drawing the Boers' attention from
other points, feinting as if we intended to push right on into Commando
Nek, General Sir Archibald Hunter made a dash at Relief's Nek with his
force, and our cannon were busy at almost every point around the valley
where the Boers were stationed. General Prinsloo, who was in supreme
command of the enemy's forces, had no means of knowing where the British
really meant to strike. In vain he pushed men to anticipate Rundle's
threatened move, vainly he turned like a trapped tiger towards Hunter's
marching men. Turn where he would, the khaki wave met him, rolling
resistlessly inward and onward. Hunter broke through with small loss, for
the force which should have checked him at Retief's Nek was waiting at
Commando Nek for Rundle and the Eighth Division. It was a master stroke,
for when once Hunter was upon the inside of the valley he was in a position
to threaten the rear of the Boer forces at Commando Nek, and that was a
state of affairs which the enemy could not stand upon any terms. A number
of them, under clever Commandant Olivier, slipped away through Golden Gate.
They did not face the more open country even inside the big valley, but
made their way through a piece of ground known as Witzies Hoek, and thence
through a ravine which almost beggars description. Later on I went with
Driscoll's Scouts in search of the tracks of these men, and followed along
the same road they had taken. The ravine was a long, narrow gap between
mountain ranges of immense height. The sides of the mountains were covered
with loose boulders, sufficient to protect the whole Boer army from our
artillery fire. The only track which a horseman could possibly follow wound
in and out alongside the face of the cliffs, so narrow that even the horses
bred in the country found it difficult to keep their feet upon it, and
could only proceed, at funeral pace, in single file. A handful of men could
have held that place against an army. With De Wet and Olivier gone, half
our task was over. The Boers made a blind rush, first to one nek, then to
the next, only to find that Britain's sons guarded them all. Small bodies
of men might escape, but the vast supplies of mealies, waggons, guns, and
all the cumbrous appliances of war, without which an army is useless, were
penned in. The hand of the Field-Marshal was on them. The blocking forces
held the neks, and now those forces which had to strike were ordered to
move. No sooner did General Rundle receive his orders to advance than he
rolled forward with the impetuosity of a storm breaking upon a southern
coast. They on the spot knew that all the enemy's hopes lay centred round a
town in the middle of the valley. This town was Fouriesburg. The general
who could strike that town first would deal the death blow to the Boer
forces in the Free State. Rundle was furthest from the town; the pathway
his troops would have to pursue was rougher and more rugged than that which
lay open to the rest of the forces.
But Rundle knew his men; he knew their mettle; he had tried them with long,
weary marching, and he knew that they were worthy of his trust. He gave his
orders. The Leinsters and the Scots Guards, tall, gaunt, hunger-stricken
warriors, whose ribs could be counted through their ragged khaki coats,
swung out as cheerily as if they had never known the absence of a meal or
the fatigue of a dreary march. The Irishmen chaffed the Scots, and the
Scots yelled badinage back to the sons of Erin, and onward they went,
onward and upward, over the rock-strewn ground, through the narrow passes,
fixing their bayonets where the ground looked likely to hold a hidden foe,
ready at a moment's notice to charge into the blackness that lay engulfed
in those dreary passes. But the enemy did not wait for them. As the Eighth
Division advanced, making the rocky headlands ring with the rhythm of their
martial tread, the Boers fell back like driven deer, and the bugle spoke to
the Scottish bagpipe until the silent hills gave tongue, and echo answered
echo until the wearied ear sickened for silence. Onward we swept, until
Commando Nek lay like a grinning gash in the face of nature far in our
rear. When we did halt the men threw themselves down on the freezing earth,
and wolfed a biscuit; then, stretching themselves face downwards on the
grass, they slept with their rifles ready to their hands, their greatcoats
around them, and above only the stars, that seemed to freeze in the
boundless billows of eternal blue. Onward again, before the silver
sentinels above us had faded before the blushing face of the dawning. With
faces begrimed with dirt, with feet blistered by contact with flinty
boulders, with tattered garments flapping around them like feathers on
wounded waterfowl, officers and men faced the unknown, as their fathers
faced it before them. Meanwhile Hunter was pressing towards Fouriesburg
from Relief's Nek, his scouts--the well-known "Tigers," under Major
Remington--well in advance of his main column.
Rundle gave an order to Driscoll, Captain of the Scouts, who had done such
good service to the Eighth Division. What passed between the general and
the Irish captain no man knows, probably no man will ever know. But when
Driscoll rode up at the mad gallop so characteristic of the man there was
that in his hard, ugly, wind-tanned face which spoke of stern deeds to be
done. He did not ride alone, this Irish-Indian Volunteer captain--Rundle's
own _aide_, Lord Kensington, of the 15th Hussars, was on his right
hand, and on his left Lieutenant Roger Tempest, of the Scots Guards, for a
squad of the Scots Guards who had been learning scouting under Driscoll
were to accompany Driscoll's Scouts. That little group was characteristic
of the future of the British Empire. Two aristocrats riding shoulder to
shoulder with a wild dare-devil, whose rifle had cracked over half the
earth. England, Ireland, and Scotland rode alone in front of the
adventurous band that day. It was a reckless ride; the captain, on his grey
stallion, half a length in front. They darted through gullies, drew rein
and unslung rifles up hill, now standing in the stirrups to ease their
cattle, now sitting tight in the saddle to drive them over the open veldt,
taking every chance that a dare-devil crew could take, pausing for nothing,
staying for nothing. Right into the town of Fouriesburg they galloped, down
from their saddles they leaped, up went the rifles; the foe poured in a few
shots, and, appalled by the devilish audacity of the deed, fled before a
handful. It was a proud moment then, when, in the last stronghold of the
foe in all the Free State, Kensington, the _aide_ of the General of
the Eighth Division, with a little band of officers grouped around him,
with the Scouts and Scots Guards lying behind cover, rifle in hand, pulled
down the Orange Free State flag in the very teeth of the foe. Only a little
band of officers--Kensington, Driscoll, Davies, and Tempest. May their
names be remembered when the wine cups flow!
On the night of the 28th of July Colonel Harley, Chief Staff Officer Eighth
Division, led two companies of the Leinsters and the full strength of the
Scots Guards in a night attack on De Villier's Drift, which was to clear
the way for the whole of the Eighth Division towards Fouriesburg. The
movement had been well and carefully planned, and was neatly and
expeditiously carried out. The following day we advanced in open order over
the rolling veldt; now and again a man paused, lurched a little to one
side, staggered and fell, as shot and shell dropped amongst us, but the
march forward never ceased, never paused Paget and Hunter were with us now,
and the lyddite guns seemed to drive all the fight out of the foe. They
would not stand. Paget's artillerymen dashed forward, unlimbered, and
loosed on the enemy with a recklessness of personal safety that was almost
wanton.
Every branch of the Service was vying with its neighbour to see who could
take the most chances in the game of war, and the very recklessness of the
men was their safeguard, for their dash whipped the foe, who now seemed to
realise that their evil hour had at last dawned. They sent in a flag of
truce, asking for the terms on which they might surrender.
On the evening of the 29th July we knew that the enemy were negotiating for
terms of peace, though things were kept as secret as possible until the
following day. Then we saw General Prinsloo ride in with his _aide_
and surrender. He met General Rundle first, and a few minutes later General
Hunter, and the three leaders rode through the lines together. They were
closeted closely for some hours before the final agreement could be arrived
at. Prinsloo wanted terms for his men which the British generals would not
concede, the final agreement being that the burghers were to ride in and
throw down their arms under our flag. They were to be allowed a riding hack
to convey them to the railway station, and each man was to remain in
possession of his private effects. More than this General Hunter would not
concede upon any terms. At one period of the negotiations things became so
strained that hostilities were almost renewed, but the Hoof Commandant was
wise enough to realise that destiny had decided against him and his burgher
band. He came from the conclave at last, and gave an order in Dutch to his
_aide_, and in a moment the horseman was flying towards the Boer
laager with the news that, so far as they were concerned, the great war of
1899 and 1900 was at an end.
Our troops had been drawn up in long parallel lines, up over the slopes,
over the crest, and along the edge of "Victory Hill." They formed a lane of
blood and steel, down which the conquered veldtsmen had to march. Their
guns were on their flanks, the generals grouped in the centre. Everything
was hushed and still; there was no sign of braggart triumph, no unseemly
mirth, no swagger in the demeanour of the troops. They had worked like men;
they carried their laurels with conscious power and pride, but with no
offensive show. It was a sight which few men ever behold, and none ever
forget. The glory of the skies, where everything that met the eye was
brightest blue, edged with stainless whiteness, was above us; and beneath
our feet, and to right and left, were great valleys--not smiling like our
English vales, where sunlight runs through shadows like laughter through
tears, but vast uncultivated gaps that grinned in sardonic silence at
conqueror and conquered, as though to remind us that we were but puppets in
a passing show. Kopjes and valleys may have looked upon many a grim page in
war's history. Savage chiefs, backed by savage hordes, have swept across
them many a time and oft. Possibly, if the rocks had tongues, they could
tell us much of ancient armies, for this land of Africa is old in blood and
warlike doings. But few more remarkable sights than this upon which my eyes
rested upon the 30th July, 1900, have ever graced even this land of many
wonders.
I looked along our lines, and saw our soldiers standing patiently waiting
for the curtain to fall. I was proud of them, and of the men who led them,
for they had won without one cruel stroke. No single human life had
wantonly been wasted, no dishonourable deed had smirched their arms, no
smoking ruins cried aloud to God for retribution, no outraged women sobbed
dry-eyed behind us, no starving children fled before the khaki wave; and in
this last hour, an hour pregnant with humiliation and pain to our enemies,
there was the steady manliness which spoke of the great dignity of a great
nation. Out from the stillness a bugle spoke from the lines of the
Leinsters; the Scottish bagpipes, far away down the hillside, took up the
note with a shrill scream of triumph, like the challenge of an eagle in its
eyrie. A rustle ran along the lines. We caught the hum of many voices, then
the tramp of horses' hoofs. A soldier slipped towards the spot where our
country's flag was furled and ready; a moment later the Union Jack spread
out and hugged the breezes. Our foemen rode towards the flag between the
lines of those whose hands had placed it there, and when they came abreast
of it they dropped their rifles and their bandoliers, and with bent heads
passed onwards.
Some were boys, so young that rifles looked unholy things in hands so
childlike; others were old men, grey and grizzled, grim old tillers of the
soil, who looked as hard as the rocky boulders against which they leant,
many were in the pride of manhood; but old or young, grey beard or no
beard, all of them seemed to realise that they were a beaten people. All
day, and for many days, they came to us and laid their arms aside, until
fully 4,000 men had owned themselves our prisoners. We gathered in the
flocks and herds which had been held by them as army stores, and then we
set to work to give the Free State peace and peaceful laws. Our next step
was to march upon Harrismith, which was merely an armed promenade, for the
real work of the campaign had been completed when, on Victory Hill, near
Slap Kranz, Commandant Prinsloo surrendered with all his forces, excepting
the few who fled with De Wet and Olivier. Our flag is the symbol of victory
in every village and town. May it always be the symbol of even-handed
justice, for no power in all the world, unless backed by wise and pure
laws, will hold Africa for twenty years.
I have never before attempted to express an opinion upon the future of
Africa, yet now, when I have been nine months at the front, when I have
marched through the Free State from border to border, noting carefully the
demeanour of the people we have conquered, and the conduct of our troops
towards those people, I may be allowed by the more tolerant of the British
public to express an opinion. I do not see "white winged peace" brooding
over this country. I see a people beaten, broken, out-generalled, and
out-fought. I see a people who, even when whipped, maintain that the war
has been an unholy war, brewed and bred by a few adventurers for sordid
motives; and in my poor opinion there is little in front of us in South
Africa but trouble and storm, unless someone with a cleaner soul than the
ordinary politician remains in Africa to represent our nation. Only one man
seems to me to stand out as fitted by God and nature with the high
qualities which the ruler of Africa should possess. He is a man who has the
gift of leadership as few men--ancient or modern--ever possessed it, a man
whose word is known to be unbreakable, whose hands are clean, whose record
is stainless--the Field-Marshal, Lord Roberts. The man who is to rule South
Africa must be a great soldier, not a tyrant, not a martinet, not a bundle
of red tape tied up with a Downing Street bow and adorned with frills. The
negro trouble is looming large on the African borders, and the negro chiefs
know that in Lord Roberts they have their master. We must not pander to
them to the injury of the Dutch, or how are we to weld Dutch and British
into a national whole? Our generals have so conducted this campaign,
especially this latter part of it, that not only does the Dutchman know
that we can fight, but he knows that we can be generous with the splendid
generosity of a truly great people. Our generals, with few exceptions, have
left that record behind them, for which a nation's thanks are due; and few
have done more than the commander of the Eighth Division, Sir Leslie
Rundle, who can say that not only did he never lose an English gun, but
that never did the enemy of his country succeed in breaking through his
lines. Few men, placed as he was, week after week, month after month, would
have been able to make so proud a boast.
These are possibly the last lines I shall ever write in connection with the
Eighth Division. Their work is practically over here. My own is done, for
my health is badly broken, and I shall follow this to England. But if I
cannot march home with them, when they come back in triumph to receive from
a grateful country the praise they have won, I can at least have the
satisfaction of knowing that for many months I shared their vicissitudes,
if not their glory.