It was on the morning of October 12th, amid cold and mist, that the Boer
camps at Sandspruit and Volksrust broke up, and the burghers rode to the
war. Some twelve thousand of them, all mounted, with two batteries of
eight Krupp guns each, were the invading force from the north, which
hoped later to be joined by the Freestaters and by a contingent of
Germans and Transvaalers who were to cross the Free State border. It
was an hour before dawn that the guns started, and the riflemen followed
close behind the last limber, so that the first light of day fell upon
the black sinuous line winding down between the hills. A spectator upon
the occasion says of them: 'Their faces were a study. For the most part
the expression worn was one of determination and bulldog pertinacity.
No sign of fear there, nor of wavering. Whatever else may be laid to the
charge of the Boer, it may never truthfully be said that he is a coward
or a man unworthy of the Briton's steel.' The words were written early
in the campaign, and the whole empire will endorse them to-day. Could we
have such men as willing fellow-citizens, they are worth more than all
the gold mines of their country.
This main Transvaal body consisted of the commando of Pretoria, which
comprised 1800 men, and those of Heidelberg, Middelburg, Krugersdorp,
Standerton, Wakkerstroom, and Ermelo, with the State Artillery, an
excellent and highly organised body who were provided with the best guns
that have ever been brought on to a battlefield. Besides their sixteen
Krupps, they dragged with them two heavy six-inch Creusot guns, which
were destined to have a very important effect in the earlier part of the
campaign. In addition to these native forces there were a certain number
of European auxiliaries. The greater part of the German corps were with
the Free State forces, but a few hundred came down from the north. There
was a Hollander corps of about two hundred and fifty and an Irish--or
perhaps more properly an Irish-American-corps of the same number, who
rode under the green flag and the harp.
The men might, by all accounts, be divided into two very different
types. There were the town Boers, smartened and perhaps a little
enervated by prosperity and civilisation, men of business and
professional men, more alert and quicker than their rustic comrades.
These men spoke English rather than Dutch, and indeed there were many
men of English descent among them. But the others, the most formidable
both in their numbers and in their primitive qualities, were the
back-veld Boers, the sunburned, tangle-haired, full-bearded farmers, the
men of the Bible and the rifle, imbued with the traditions of their own
guerrilla warfare. These were perhaps the finest natural warriors upon
earth, marksmen, hunters, accustomed to hard fare and a harder couch.
They were rough in their ways and speech, but, in spite of many
calumnies and some few unpleasant truths, they might compare with most
disciplined armies in their humanity and their desire to observe the
usages of war.
A few words here as to the man who led this singular host. Piet Joubert
was a Cape Colonist by birth--a fellow countryman, like Kruger himself,
of those whom the narrow laws of his new country persisted in regarding
as outside the pale. He came from that French Huguenot blood which has
strengthened and refined every race which it has touched, and from it
he derived a chivalry and generosity which made him respected and liked
even by his opponents. In many native broils and in the British campaign
of 1881 he had shown himself a capable leader. His record in standing
out for the independence of the Transvaal was a very consistent one, for
he had not accepted office under the British, as Kruger had done, but
had remained always an irreconcilable. Tall and burly, with hard grey
eyes and a grim mouth half hidden by his bushy beard, he was a fine type
of the men whom he led. He was now in his sixty-fifth year, and the fire
of his youth had, as some of the burghers urged, died down within him;
but he was experienced, crafty, and warwise, never dashing and never
brilliant, but slow, steady, solid, and inexorable.
Besides this northern army there were two other bodies of burghers
converging upon Natal. One, consisting of the commandoes from Utrecht
and the Swaziland districts, had gathered at Vryheid on the flank of the
British position at Dundee. The other, much larger, not less probably
than six or seven thousand men, were the contingent from the Free State
and a Transvaal corps, together with Schiel's Germans, who were making
their way through the various passes, the Tintwa Pass, and Van Reenen's
Pass, which lead through the grim range of the Drakensberg and open out
upon the more fertile plains of Western Natal. The total force may have
been something between twenty and thirty thousand men. By all accounts
they were of an astonishingly high heart, convinced that a path of easy
victory lay before them, and that nothing could bar their way to the
sea. If the British commanders underrated their opponents, there is
ample evidence that the mistake was reciprocal.
A few words now as to the disposition of the British forces, concerning
which it must be borne in mind that Sir George White, though in
actual command, had only been a few days in the country before war was
declared, so that the arrangements fell to General Penn Symons, aided
or hampered by the advice of the local political authorities. The main
position was at Ladysmith, but an advance post was strongly held at
Glencoe, which is five miles from the station of Dundee and forty from
Ladysmith. The reason for this dangerous division of force was to secure
each end of the Biggarsberg section of the railway, and also to cover
the important collieries of that district. The positions chosen seem in
each case to show that the British commander was not aware of the number
and power of the Boer guns, for each was equally defensible against
rifle fire and vulnerable to an artillery attack. In the case of Glencoe
it was particularly evident that guns upon the hills above would, as
they did, render the position untenable. This outlying post was held
by the 1st Leicester Regiment, the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, and the first
battalion of Rifles, with the 18th Hussars, three companies of mounted
infantry, and three batteries of field artillery, the 13th, 67th, and
69th. The 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers were on their way to reinforce
it, and arrived before the first action. Altogether the Glencoe camp
contained some four thousand men.
The main body of the army remained at Ladysmith. These consisted of the
1st Devons, the 1st Liverpools, and the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, with the
1st Gloucesters, the 2nd King's Royal Rifles, and the 2nd Rifle Brigade,
reinforced later by the Manchesters. The cavalry included the 5th
Dragoon Guards, the 5th Lancers, a detachment of 19th Hussars, the Natal
Carabineers, the Natal Mounted Police, and the Border Mounted Rifles,
reinforced later by the Imperial Light Horse, a fine body of men raised
principally among the refugees from the Rand. For artillery there
were the 21st, 42nd, and 53rd batteries of field artillery, and No. 10
Mountain Battery, with the Natal Field Artillery, the guns of which were
too light to be of service, and the 23rd Company of Royal Engineers. The
whole force, some eight or nine thousand strong, was under the immediate
command of Sir George White, with Sir Archibald Hunter, fresh from the
Soudan, General French, and General Ian Hamilton as his lieutenants.
The first shock of the Boers, then, must fall upon 4000 men. If these
could be overwhelmed, there were 8000 more to be defeated or masked.
Then what was there between them and the sea? Some detachments of local
volunteers, the Durban Light Infantry at Colenso, and the Natal Royal
Rifles, with some naval volunteers at Estcourt. With the power of the
Boers and their mobility it is inexplicable how the colony was saved. We
are of the same blood, the Boers and we, and we show it in our failings.
Over-confidence on our part gave them the chance, and over-confidence
on theirs prevented them from instantly availing themselves of it. It
passed, never to come again.
The outbreak of war was upon October 11th. On the 12th the Boer forces
crossed the frontier both on the north and on the west. On the 13th they
occupied Charlestown at the top angle of Natal. On the 15th they had
reached Newcastle, a larger town some fifteen miles inside the border.
Watchers from the houses saw six miles of canvas-tilted bullock wagons
winding down the passes, and learned that this was not a raid but an
invasion. At the same date news reached the British headquarters of
an advance from the western passes, and of a movement from the
Buffalo River on the east. On the 13th Sir George White had made a
reconnaissance in force, but had not come in touch with the enemy. On
the 15th six of the Natal Police were surrounded and captured at one of
the drifts of the Buffalo River. On the 18th our cavalry patrols came
into touch with the Boer scouts at Acton Homes and Besters Station,
these being the voortrekkers of the Orange Free State force. On the 18th
also a detachment was reported from Hadders Spruit, seven miles north of
Glencoe Camp. The cloud was drifting up, and it could not be long before
it would burst.
Two days later, on the early morning of October 20th, the forces came
at last into collision. At half-past three in the morning, well before
daylight, the mounted infantry picket at the junction of the roads from
Landmans and Vants Drifts was fired into by the Doornberg commando, and
retired upon its supports. Two companies of the Dublin Fusiliers were
sent out, and at five o'clock on a fine but misty morning the whole of
Symons's force was under arms with the knowledge that the Boers were
pushing boldly towards them. The khaki-clad lines of fighting men stood
in their long thin ranks staring up at the curves of the saddle-back
hills to the north and east of them, and straining their eyes to catch a
glimpse of the enemy. Why these same saddle-back hills were not occupied
by our own people is, it must be confessed, an insoluble mystery. In a
hollow on one flank were the 18th Hussars and the mounted infantry. On
the other were the eighteen motionless guns, limbered up and ready, the
horses fidgeting and stamping in the raw morning air.
And then suddenly--could that be they? An officer with a telescope
stared intently and pointed. Another and another turned a steady field
glass towards the same place. And then the men could see also, and a
little murmur of interest ran down the ranks.
A long sloping hill--Talana Hill--olive-green in hue, was stretching
away in front of them. At the summit it rose into a rounded crest. The
mist was clearing, and the curve was hard-outlined against the limpid
blue of the morning sky. On this, some two and a half miles or three
miles off, a little group of black dots had appeared. The clear edge of
the skyline had become serrated with moving figures. They clustered into
a knot, then opened again, and then--
There had been no smoke, but there came a long crescendo hoot, rising
into a shrill wail. The shell hummed over the soldiers like a great
bee, and sloshed into soft earth behind them. Then another--and yet
another--and yet another. But there was no time to heed them, for there
was the hillside and there the enemy. So at it again with the good old
murderous obsolete heroic tactics of the British tradition! There are
times when, in spite of science and book-lore, the best plan is the
boldest plan, and it is well to fly straight at your enemy's throat,
facing the chance that your strength may fail before you can grasp it.
The cavalry moved off round the enemy's left flank. The guns dashed to
the front, unlimbered, and opened fire. The infantry were moved round in
the direction of Sandspruit, passing through the little town of Dundee,
where the women and children came to the doors and windows to cheer
them. It was thought that the hill was more accessible from that side.
The Leicesters and one field battery--the 67th--were left behind to
protect the camp and to watch the Newcastle Road upon the west. At seven
in the morning all was ready for the assault.
Two military facts of importance had already been disclosed. One was
that the Boer percussion-shells were useless in soft ground, as hardly
any of them exploded; the other that the Boer guns could outrange our
ordinary fifteen-pounder field gun, which had been the one thing perhaps
in the whole British equipment upon which we were prepared to pin our
faith. The two batteries, the 13th and the 69th, were moved nearer,
first to 3000, and then at last to 2300 yards, at which range they
quickly dominated the guns upon the hill. Other guns had opened from
another crest to the east of Talana, but these also were mastered by the
fire of the 13th Battery. At 7.30 the infantry were ordered to advance,
which they did in open order, extended to ten paces. The Dublin
Fusiliers formed the first line, the Rifles the second, and the Irish
Fusiliers the third.
The first thousand yards of the advance were over open grassland, where
the range was long, and the yellow brown of the khaki blended with the
withered veld. There were few casualties until the wood was reached,
which lay halfway up the long slope of the hill. It was a plantation of
larches, some hundreds of yards across and nearly as many deep. On
the left side of this wood--that is, the left side to the advancing
troops--there stretched a long nullah or hollow, which ran
perpendicularly to the hill, and served rather as a conductor of bullets
than as a cover. So severe was the fire at this point that both in the
wood and in the nullah the troops lay down to avoid it. An officer of
Irish Fusiliers has narrated how in trying to cut the straps from a
fallen private a razor lent him for that purpose by a wounded sergeant
was instantly shot out of his hand. The gallant Symons, who had refused
to dismount, was shot through the stomach and fell from his horse
mortally wounded. With an excessive gallantry, he had not only attracted
the enemy's fire by retaining his horse, but he had been accompanied
throughout the action by an orderly bearing a red pennon. 'Have they got
the hill? Have they got the hill?' was his one eternal question as they
carried him dripping to the rear. It was at the edge of the wood that
Colonel Sherston met his end.
From now onwards it was as much a soldiers' battle as Inkermann. In the
shelter of the wood the more eager of the three battalions had pressed
to the front until the fringe of the trees was lined by men from all of
them. The difficulty of distinguishing particular regiments where all
were clad alike made it impossible in the heat of action to keep any
sort of formation. So hot was the fire that for the time the advance
was brought to a standstill, but the 69th battery, firing shrapnel at a
range of 1400 yards, subdued the rifle fire, and about half-past eleven
the infantry were able to push on once more.
Above the wood there was an open space some hundreds of yards across,
bounded by a rough stone wall built for herding cattle. A second wall
ran at right angles to this down towards the wood. An enfilading rifle
fire had been sweeping across this open space, but the wall in front
does not appear to have been occupied by the enemy, who held the kopje
above it. To avoid the cross fire the soldiers ran in single file under
the shelter of the wall, which covered them to the right, and so reached
the other wall across their front. Here there was a second long delay,
the men dribbling up from below, and firing over the top of the wall and
between the chinks of the stones. The Dublin Fusiliers, through being in
a more difficult position, had been unable to get up as quickly as the
others, and most of the hard-breathing excited men who crowded under the
wall were of the Rifles and of the Irish Fusiliers. The air was so full
of bullets that it seemed impossible to live upon the other side of this
shelter. Two hundred yards intervened between the wall and the crest of
the kopje. And yet the kopje had to be cleared if the battle were to be
won.
Out of the huddled line of crouching men an officer sprang shouting, and
a score of soldiers vaulted over the wall and followed at his heels. It
was Captain Connor, of the Irish Fusiliers, but his personal magnetism
carried up with him some of the Rifles as well as men of his own
command. He and half his little forlorn hope were struck down--he, alas!
to die the same night--but there were other leaders as brave to take his
place. 'Forrard away, men, forrard away!' cried Nugent, of the Rifles.
Three bullets struck him, but he continued to drag himself up the
boulder-studded hill. Others followed, and others, from all sides
they came running, the crouching, yelling, khaki-clad figures, and the
supports rushed up from the rear. For a time they were beaten down by
their own shrapnel striking into them from behind, which is an amazing
thing when one considers that the range was under 2000 yards. It was
here, between the wall and the summit, that Colonel Gunning, of the
Rifles, and many other brave men met their end, some by our own bullets
and some by those of the enemy; but the Boers thinned away in front
of them, and the anxious onlookers from the plain below saw the waving
helmets on the crest, and learned at last that all was well.
But it was, it must be confessed, a Pyrrhic victory. We had our hill,
but what else had we? The guns which had been silenced by our fire had
been removed from the kopje. The commando which seized the hill was that
of Lucas Meyer, and it is computed that he had with him about 4000
men. This figure includes those under the command of Erasmus, who made
halfhearted demonstrations against the British flank. If the shirkers
be eliminated, it is probable that there were not more than a thousand
actual combatants upon the hill. Of this number about fifty were killed
and a hundred wounded. The British loss at Talana Hill itself was 41
killed and 180 wounded, but among the killed were many whom the army
could ill spare. The gallant but optimistic Symons, Gunning of the
Rifles, Sherston, Connor, Hambro, and many other brave men died that
day. The loss of officers was out of all proportion to that of the men.
An incident which occurred immediately after the action did much to rob
the British of the fruits of the victory. Artillery had pushed up the
moment that the hill was carried, and had unlimbered on Smith's Nek
between the two hills, from which the enemy, in broken groups of 50
and 100, could be seen streaming away. A fairer chance for the use of
shrapnel has never been. But at this instant there ran from an old iron
church on the reverse side of the hill, which had been used all day as
a Boer hospital, a man with a white flag. It is probable that the action
was in good faith, and that it was simply intended to claim a protection
for the ambulance party which followed him. But the too confiding gunner
in command appears to have thought that an armistice had been declared,
and held his hand during those precious minutes which might have turned
a defeat into a rout. The chance passed, never to return. The double
error of firing into our own advance and of failing to fire into the
enemy's retreat makes the battle one which cannot be looked back to with
satisfaction by our gunners.
In the meantime some miles away another train of events had led to a
complete disaster to our small cavalry force--a disaster which robbed
our dearly bought infantry victory of much of its importance. That
action alone was undoubtedly a victorious one, but the net result of the
day's fighting cannot be said to have been certainly in our favour.
It was Wellington who asserted that his cavalry always got him into
scrapes, and the whole of British military history might furnish
examples of what he meant. Here again our cavalry got into trouble.
Suffice it for the civilian to chronicle the fact, and leave it to the
military critic to portion out the blame.
One company of mounted infantry (that of the Rifles) had been told off
to form an escort for the guns. The rest of the mounted infantry with
part of the 18th Hussars (Colonel Moller) had moved round the right
flank until they reached the right rear of the enemy. Such a movement,
had Lucas Meyer been the only opponent, would have been above criticism;
but knowing, as we did, that there were several commandoes converging
upon Glencoe it was obviously taking a very grave and certain risk
to allow the cavalry to wander too far from support. They were soon
entangled in broken country and attacked by superior numbers of the
Boers. There was a time when they might have exerted an important
influence upon the action by attacking the Boer ponies behind the hills,
but the opportunity was allowed to pass. An attempt was made to get back
to the army, and a series of defensive positions were held to cover
the retreat, but the enemy's fire became too hot to allow them to be
retained. Every route save one appeared to be blocked, so the horsemen
took this, which led them into the heart of a second commando of the
enemy. Finding no way through, the force took up a defensive position,
part of them in a farm and part on a kopje which overlooked it.
The party consisted of two troops of Hussars, one company of mounted
infantry of the Dublin Fusiliers, and one section of the mounted
infantry of the Rifles--about two hundred men in all. They were
subjected to a hot fire for some hours, many being killed and wounded.
Guns were brought up, and fired shell into the farmhouse. At 4.30 the
force, being in a perfectly hopeless position, laid down their arms.
Their ammunition was gone, many of their horses had stampeded, and they
were hemmed in by very superior numbers, so that no slightest slur can
rest upon the survivors for their decision to surrender, though the
movements which brought them to such a pass are more open to criticism.
They were the vanguard of that considerable body of humiliated and
bitter-hearted men who were to assemble at the capital of our brave and
crafty enemy. The remainder of the 18th Hussars, who under Major Knox
had been detached from the main force and sent across the Boer rear,
underwent a somewhat similar experience, but succeeded in extricating
themselves with a loss of six killed and ten wounded. Their efforts were
by no means lost, as they engaged the attention of a considerable body
of Boers during the day and were able to bring some prisoners back with
them.
The battle of Talana Hill was a tactical victory but a strategic defeat.
It was a crude frontal attack without any attempt at even a feint of
flanking, but the valour of the troops, from general to private, carried
it through. The force was in a position so radically false that the only
use which they could make of a victory was to cover their own retreat.
From all points Boer commandoes were converging upon it, and already
it was understood that the guns at their command were heavier than any
which could be placed against them. This was made more clear on October
21st, the day after the battle, when the force, having withdrawn
overnight from the useless hill which they had captured, moved across
to a fresh position on the far side of the railway. At four in the
afternoon a very heavy gun opened from a distant hill, altogether beyond
the extreme range of our artillery, and plumped shell after shell into
our camp. It was the first appearance of the great Creusot. An officer
with several men of the Leicesters, and some of our few remaining
cavalry, were bit. The position was clearly impossible, so at two in the
morning of the 22nd the whole force was moved to a point to the south
of the town of Dundee. On the same day a reconnaissance was made in the
direction of Glencoe Station, but the passes were found to be strongly
occupied, and the little army marched back again to its original
position. The command had fallen to Colonel Yule, who justly considered
that his men were dangerously and uselessly exposed, and that his
correct strategy was to fall back, if it were still possible, and join
the main body at Ladysmith, even at the cost of abandoning the two
hundred sick and wounded who lay with General Symons in the hospital at
Dundee. It was a painful necessity, but no one who studies the situation
can have any doubt of its wisdom. The retreat was no easy task, a march
by road of some sixty or seventy miles through a very rough country with
an enemy pressing on every side. Its successful completion without any
loss or any demoralisation of the troops is perhaps as fine a military
exploit as any of our early victories. Through the energetic and loyal
co-operation of Sir George White, who fought the actions of Elandslaagte
and of Rietfontein in order to keep the way open for them, and owing
mainly to the skillful guidance of Colonel Dartnell, of the Natal
Police, they succeeded in their critical manoeuvre. On October 23rd they
were at Beith, on the 24th at Waselibank Spruit, on the 25th at Sunday
River, and next morning they marched, sodden with rain, plastered with
mud, dog-tired, but in the best of spirits, into Ladysmith amid the
cheers of their comrades. A battle, six days without settled sleep, four
days without a proper meal, winding up with a single march of thirty-two
miles over heavy ground and through a pelting rain storm--that was the
record of the Dundee column. They had fought and won, they had striven
and toiled to the utmost capacity of manhood, and the end of it all was
that they had reached the spot which they should never have left. But
their endurance could not be lost--no worthy deed is ever lost. Like the
light division, when they marched their fifty odd unbroken miles to
be present at Talavera, they leave a memory and a standard behind them
which is more important than success. It is by the tradition of such
sufferings and such endurance that others in other days are nerved to do
the like.