Lord Methuen's force had now fought three actions in the space of a
single week, losing in killed and wounded about a thousand men, or
rather more than one-tenth of its total numbers. Had there been evidence
that the enemy were seriously demoralised, the General would no doubt
have pushed on at once to Kimberley, which was some twenty miles
distant. The information which reached him was, however, that the Boers
had fallen back upon the very strong position of Spytfontein, that they
were full of fight, and that they had been strongly reinforced by a
commando from Mafeking. Under these circumstances Lord Methuen had
no choice but to give his men a well-earned rest, and to await
reinforcements. There was no use in reaching Kimberley unless he had
completely defeated the investing force. With the history of the first
relief of Lucknow in his memory he was on his guard against a repetition
of such an experience.
It was the more necessary that Methuen should strengthen his position,
since with every mile which he advanced the more exposed did his line
of communications become to a raid from Fauresmith and the southern
districts of the Orange Free State. Any serious danger to the railway
behind them would leave the British Army in a very critical position,
and precautions were taken for the protection of the more vulnerable
portions of the line. It was well that this was so, for on the 8th of
December Commandant Prinsloo, of the Orange Free State, with a thousand
horsemen and two light seven-pounder guns, appeared suddenly at Enslin
and vigorously attacked the two companies of the Northampton Regiment
who held the station. At the same time they destroyed a couple of
culverts and tore up three hundred yards of the permanent way. For some
hours the Northamptons under Captain Godley were closely pressed, but a
telegram had been despatched to Modder Camp, and the 12th Lancers with
the ubiquitous 62nd Battery were sent to their assistance. The Boers
retired with their usual mobility, and in ten hours the line was
completely restored.
Reinforcements were now reaching the Modder River force, which made it
more formidable than when it had started. A very essential addition
was that of the 12th Lancers and of G battery of Horse Artillery, which
would increase the mobility of the force and make it possible for the
General to follow up a blow after he had struck it. The magnificent
regiments which formed the Highland Brigade--the 2nd Black Watch, the
1st Gordons, the 2nd Seaforths, and the 1st Highland Light Infantry
had arrived under the gallant and ill-fated Wauchope. Four five-inch
howitzers had also come to strengthen the artillery. At the same time
the Canadians, the Australians, and several line regiments were moved
up on the line from De Aar to Belmont. It appeared to the public at
home that there was the material for an overwhelming advance; but the
ordinary observer, and even perhaps the military critic, had not yet
appreciated how great is the advantage which is given by modern weapons
to the force which acts upon the defensive. With enormous pains Cronje
and De la Rey were entrenching a most formidable position in front of
our advance, with a confidence, which proved to be justified that it
would be on their own ground and under their own conditions that in
this, as in the three preceding actions, we should engage them.
On the morning of Saturday, December 9th, the British General made an
attempt to find out what lay in front of him amid that semicircle of
forbidding hills. To this end he sent out a reconnaissance in the early
morning, which included G Battery Horse Artillery, the 9th Lancers, and
the ponderous 4.7 naval gun, which, preceded by the majestic march
of thirty-two bullocks and attended by eighty seamen gunners, creaked
forwards over the plain. What was there to shoot at in those sunlit
boulder-strewn hills in front? They lay silent and untenanted in the
glare of the African day. In vain the great gun exploded its huge shell
with its fifty pounds of lyddite over the ridges, in vain the smaller
pieces searched every cleft and hollow with their shrapnel. No answer
came from the far-stretching hills. Not a flash or twinkle betrayed the
fierce bands who lurked among the boulders. The force returned to camp
no wiser than when it left.
There was one sight visible every night to all men which might well
nerve the rescuers in their enterprise. Over the northern horizon,
behind those hills of danger, there quivered up in the darkness one
long, flashing, quivering beam, which swung up and down, and up
again like a seraphic sword-blade. It was Kimberley praying for help,
Kimberley solicitous for news. Anxiously, distractedly, the great De
Beers searchlight dipped and rose. And back across the twenty miles
of darkness, over the hills where Cronje lurked, there came that other
southern column of light which answered, and promised, and soothed. 'Be
of good heart, Kimberley. We are here! The Empire is behind us. We have
not forgotten you. It may be days, or it may be weeks, but rest assured
that we are coming.'
About three in the afternoon of Sunday, December 10th, the force
which was intended to clear a path for the army through the lines of
Magersfontein moved out upon what proved to be its desperate enterprise.
The 3rd or Highland Brigade included the Black Watch, the Seaforths, the
Argyll and Sutherlands, and the Highland Light Infantry. The Gordons had
only arrived in camp that day, and did not advance until next morning.
Besides the infantry, the 9th Lancers, the mounted infantry, and all the
artillery moved to the front. It was raining hard, and the men with one
blanket between two soldiers bivouacked upon the cold damp ground, about
three miles from the enemy's position. At one o'clock, without food, and
drenched, they moved forwards through the drizzle and the darkness to
attack those terrible lines. Major Benson, R.A., with two of Rimington's
scouts, led them on their difficult way.
Clouds drifted low in the heavens, and the falling rain made the
darkness more impenetrable. The Highland Brigade was formed into a
column--the Black Watch in front, then the Seaforths, and the other
two behind. To prevent the men from straggling in the night the four
regiments were packed into a mass of quarter column as densely as was
possible, and the left guides held a rope in order to preserve the
formation. With many a trip and stumble the ill-fated detachment
wandered on, uncertain where they were going and what it was that
they were meant to do. Not only among the rank and file, but among
the principal officers also, there was the same absolute ignorance.
Brigadier Wauchope knew, no doubt, but his voice was soon to be stilled
in death. The others were aware, of course, that they were advancing
either to turn the enemy's trenches or to attack them, but they may well
have argued from their own formation that they could not be near the
riflemen yet. Why they should be still advancing in that dense clump we
do not now know, nor can we surmise what thoughts were passing through
the mind of the gallant and experienced chieftain who walked beside
them. There are some who claim on the night before to have seen upon his
strangely ascetic face that shadow of doom which is summed up in the one
word 'fey.' The hand of coming death may already have lain cold upon his
soul. Out there, close beside him, stretched the long trench, fringed
with its line of fierce, staring, eager faces, and its bristle of
gun-barrels. They knew he was coming. They were ready. They were
waiting. But still, with the dull murmur of many feet, the dense column,
nearly four thousand strong, wandered onwards through the rain and the
darkness, death and mutilation crouching upon their path.
It matters not what gave the signal, whether it was the flashing of a
lantern by a Boer scout, or the tripping of a soldier over wire, or the
firing of a gun in the ranks. It may have been any, or it may have been
none, of these things. As a matter of fact I have been assured by a Boer
who was present that it was the sound of the tins attached to the alarm
wires which disturbed them. However this may be, in an instant there
crashed out of the darkness into their faces and ears a roar of
point-blank fire, and the night was slashed across with the throbbing
flame of the rifles. At the moment before this outflame some doubt as
to their whereabouts seems to have flashed across the mind of their
leaders. The order to extend had just been given, but the men had not
had time to act upon it. The storm of lead burst upon the head and right
flank of the column, which broke to pieces under the murderous volley.
Wauchope was shot, struggled up, and fell once more for ever. Rumour
has placed words of reproach upon his dying lips, but his nature, both
gentle and soldierly, forbids the supposition. 'What a pity!' was the
only utterance which a brother Highlander ascribes to him. Men went
down in swathes, and a howl of rage and agony, heard afar over the veld,
swelled up from the frantic and struggling crowd. By the hundred they
dropped--some dead, some wounded, some knocked down by the rush and sway
of the broken ranks. It was a horrible business. At such a range and in
such a formation a single Mauser bullet may well pass through many men.
A few dashed forwards, and were found dead at the very edges of the
trench. The few survivors of companies A, B, and C of the Black Watch
appear to have never actually retired, but to have clung on to the
immediate front of the Boer trenches, while the remains of the other
five companies tried to turn the Boer flank. Of the former body only six
got away unhurt in the evening after lying all day within two hundred
yards of the enemy. The rest of the brigade broke and, disentangling
themselves with difficulty from the dead and the dying, fled back out of
that accursed place. Some, the most unfortunate of all, became caught in
the darkness in the wire defences, and were found in the morning hung up
'like crows,' as one spectator describes it, and riddled with bullets.
Who shall blame the Highlanders for retiring when they did? Viewed, not
by desperate and surprised men, but in all calmness and sanity, it may
well seem to have been the very best thing which they could do. Dashed
into chaos, separated from their officers, with no one who knew what
was to be done, the first necessity was to gain shelter from this deadly
fire, which had already stretched six hundred of their number upon the
ground. The danger was that men so shaken would be stricken with panic,
scatter in the darkness over the face of the country, and cease to exist
as a military unit. But the Highlanders were true to their character
and their traditions. There was shouting in the darkness, hoarse voices
calling for the Seaforths, for the Argylls, for Company C, for Company
H, and everywhere in the gloom there came the answer of the clansmen.
Within half an hour with the break of day the Highland regiments had
re-formed, and, shattered and weakened, but undaunted, prepared to renew
the contest. Some attempt at an advance was made upon the right, ebbing
and flowing, one little band even reaching the trenches and coming back
with prisoners and reddened bayonets. For the most part the men lay upon
their faces, and fired when they could at the enemy; but the cover which
the latter kept was so excellent that an officer who expended 120 rounds
has left it upon record that he never once had seen anything positive at
which to aim. Lieutenant Lindsay brought the Seaforths' Maxim into the
firing-line, and, though all her crew except two were hit, it continued
to do good service during the day. The Lancers' Maxim was equally
staunch, though it also was left finally with only the lieutenant in
charge and one trooper to work it.
Fortunately the guns were at hand, and, as usual, they were quick to
come to the aid of the distressed. The sun was hardly up before the
howitzers were throwing lyddite at 4000 yards, the three field batteries
(18th, 62nd, 75th) were working with shrapnel at a mile, and the troop
of Horse Artillery was up at the right front trying to enfilade the
trenches. The guns kept down the rifle-fire, and gave the wearied
Highlanders some respite from their troubles. The whole situation had
resolved itself now into another Battle of Modder River. The infantry,
under a fire at from six hundred to eight hundred paces, could not
advance and would not retire. The artillery only kept the battle going,
and the huge naval gun from behind was joining with its deep bark in the
deafening uproar. But the Boers had already learned--and it is one
of their most valuable military qualities that they assimilate their
experience so quickly--that shell fire is less dangerous in a trench
than among rocks. These trenches, very elaborate in character, had been
dug some hundreds of yards from the foot of the hills, so that there was
hardly any guide to our artillery fire. Yet it is to the artillery fire
that all the losses of the Boers that day were due. The cleverness of
Cronje's disposition of his trenches some hundred yards ahead of the
kopjes is accentuated by the fascination which any rising object has for
a gunner. Prince Kraft tells the story of how at Sadowa he unlimbered
his guns two hundred yards in front of the church of Chlum, and how the
Austrian reply fire almost invariably pitched upon the steeple. So our
own gunners, even at a two thousand-yard mark, found it difficult to
avoid overshooting the invisible line, and hitting the obvious mark
behind.
As the day wore on reinforcements of infantry came up from the force
which had been left to guard the camp. The Gordons arrived with the
first and second battalions of the Coldstream Guards, and all the
artillery was moved nearer to the enemy's position. At the same time,
as there were some indications of an attack upon our right flank, the
Grenadier Guards with five companies of the Yorkshire Light Infantry
were moved up in that direction, while the three remaining companies of
Barter's Yorkshiremen secured a drift over which the enemy might cross
the Modder. This threatening movement upon our right flank, which would
have put the Highlanders into an impossible position had it succeeded,
was most gallantly held back all morning, before the arrival of the
Guards and the Yorkshires, by the mounted infantry and the 12th Lancers,
skirmishing on foot. It was in this long and successful struggle to
cover the flank of the 3rd Brigade that Major Milton, Major Ray, and
many another brave man met his end. The Coldstreams and Grenadiers
relieved the pressure upon this side, and the Lancers retired to their
horses, having shown, not for the first time, that the cavalryman with
a modern carbine can at a pinch very quickly turn himself into a useful
infantry soldier. Lord Airlie deserves all praise for his unconventional
use of his men, and for the gallantry with which he threw both himself
and them into the most critical corner of the fight.
While the Coldstreams, the Grenadiers, and the Yorkshire Light Infantry
were holding back the Boer attack upon our right flank the indomitable
Gordons, the men of Dargai, furious with the desire to avenge their
comrades of the Highland Brigade, had advanced straight against the
trenches and succeeded without any very great loss in getting within
four hundred yards of them. But a single regiment could not carry the
position, and anything like a general advance upon it was out of the
question in broad daylight after the punishment which we had received.
Any plans of the sort which may have passed through Lord Methuen's
mind were driven away for ever by the sudden unordered retreat of the
stricken brigade. They had been very roughly handled in this, which was
to most of them their baptism of fire, and they had been without food
and water under a burning sun all day. They fell back rapidly for a
mile, and the guns were for a time left partially exposed. Fortunately
the lack of initiative on the part of the Boers which has stood our
friend so often came in to save us from disaster and humiliation. It is
due to the brave unshaken face which the Guards presented to the enemy
that our repulse did not deepen into something still more serious.
The Gordons and the Scots Guards were still in attendance upon the guns,
but they had been advanced very close to the enemy's trenches, and
there were no other troops in support. Under these circumstances it was
imperative that the Highlanders should rally, and Major Ewart with other
surviving officers rushed among the scattered ranks and strove hard
to gather and to stiffen them. The men were dazed by what they had
undergone, and Nature shrank back from that deadly zone where the
bullets fell so thickly. But the pipes blew, and the bugles sang, and
the poor tired fellows, the backs of their legs so flayed and blistered
by lying in the sun that they could hardly bend them, hobbled back to
their duty. They worked up to the guns once more, and the moment of
danger passed.
But as the evening wore on it became evident that no attack could
succeed, and that therefore there was no use in holding the men in front
of the enemy's position. The dark Cronje, lurking among his ditches and
his barbed wire, was not to be approached, far less defeated. There are
some who think that, had we held on there as we did at the Modder River,
the enemy would again have been accommodating enough to make way for
us during the night, and the morning would have found the road clear to
Kimberley. I know no grounds for such an opinion--but several against
it. At Modder Cronje abandoned his lines, knowing that he had other and
stronger ones behind him. At Magersfontein a level plain lay behind the
Boer position, and to abandon it was to give up the game altogether.
Besides, why should he abandon it? He knew that he had hit us hard. We
had made absolutely no impression upon his defences. Is it likely that
he would have tamely given up all his advantages and surrendered the
fruits of his victory without a struggle? It is enough to mourn a defeat
without the additional agony of thinking that a little more perseverance
might have turned it into a victory. The Boer position could only be
taken by outflanking it, and we were not numerous enough nor mobile
enough to outflank it. There lay the whole secret of our troubles, and
no conjectures as to what might under other circumstances have happened
can alter it.
About half-past five the Boer guns, which had for some unexplained
reason been silent all day, opened upon the cavalry. Their appearance
was a signal for the general falling back of the centre, and the
last attempt to retrieve the day was abandoned. The Highlanders were
dead-beat; the Coldstreams had had enough; the mounted infantry was
badly mauled. There remained the Grenadiers, the Scots Guards, and two
or three line regiments who were available for a new attack. There are
occasions, such as Sadowa, where a General must play his last card.
There are others where with reinforcements in his rear, he can do better
by saving his force and trying once again. General Grant had an axiom
that the best time for an advance was when you were utterly exhausted,
for that was the moment when your enemy was probably utterly exhausted
too, and of two such forces the attacker has the moral advantage. Lord
Methuen determined--and no doubt wisely--that it was no occasion for
counsels of desperation. His men were withdrawn--in some cases withdrew
themselves--outside the range of the Boer guns, and next morning saw the
whole force with bitter and humiliated hearts on their way back to their
camp at Modder River.
The repulse of Magersfontein cost the British nearly a thousand men,
killed, wounded, and missing, of which over seven hundred belonged to
the Highlanders. Fifty-seven officers had fallen in that brigade alone,
including their Brigadier and Colonel Downman of the Gordons. Colonel
Codrington of the Coldstreams was wounded early, fought through the
action, and came back in the evening on a Maxim gun. Lord Winchester
of the same battalion was killed, after injudiciously but heroically
exposing himself all day. The Black Watch alone had lost nineteen
officers and over three hundred men killed and wounded, a catastrophe
which can only be matched in all the bloody and glorious annals of that
splendid regiment by their slaughter at Ticonderoga in 1757, when
no fewer than five hundred fell before Montcalm's muskets. Never has
Scotland had a more grievous day than this of Magersfontein. She has
always given her best blood with lavish generosity for the Empire, but
it may be doubted if any single battle has ever put so many families of
high and low into mourning from the Tweed to the Caithness shore. There
is a legend that when sorrow comes upon Scotland the old Edinburgh
Castle is lit by ghostly lights and gleams white at every window in
the mirk of midnight. If ever the watcher could have seen so sinister
a sight, it should have been on this, the fatal night of December
11, 1899. As to the Boer loss it is impossible to determine it. Their
official returns stated it to be seventy killed and two hundred and
fifty wounded, but the reports of prisoners and deserters placed it at a
very much higher figure. One unit, the Scandinavian corps, was placed
in an advanced position at Spytfontein, and was overwhelmed by the
Seaforths, who killed, wounded, or took the eighty men of whom it was
composed. The stories of prisoners and of deserters all speak of losses
very much higher than those which have been officially acknowledged.
In his comments upon the battle next day Lord Methuen was said to have
given offence to the Highland Brigade, and the report was allowed to go
uncontradicted until it became generally accepted. It arose, however,
from a complete misunderstanding of the purport of Lord Methuen's
remarks, in which he praised them, as he well might, for their bravery,
and condoled with them over the wreck of their splendid regiments.
The way in which officers and men hung on under conditions to which no
troops have ever been exposed was worthy of the highest traditions of
the British army. From the death of Wauchope in the early morning, until
the assumption of the command of the brigade by Hughes-Hallett in the
late afternoon, no one seems to have taken the direction. 'My lieutenant
was wounded and my captain was killed,' says a private. 'The General was
dead, but we stayed where we were, for there was no order to retire.'
That was the story of the whole brigade, until the flanking movement of
the Boers compelled them to fall back.
The most striking lesson of the engagement is the extreme bloodiness
of modern warfare under some conditions, and its bloodlessness under
others. Here, out of a total of something under a thousand casualties
seven hundred were incurred in about five minutes, and the whole day of
shell, machine-gun, and rifle fire only furnished the odd three hundred.
So also at Ladysmith the British forces (White's column) were under
heavy fire from 5.30 to 11.30, and the loss again was something under
three hundred. With conservative generalship the losses of the battles
of the future will be much less than those of the past, and as a
consequence the battles themselves will last much longer, and it will be
the most enduring rather than the most fiery which will win. The supply
of food and water to the combatants will become of extreme importance to
keep them up during the prolonged trials of endurance, which will last
for weeks rather than days. On the other hand, when a General's force is
badly compromised, it will be so punished that a quick surrender will be
the only alternative to annihilation.
On the subject of the quarter-column formation which proved so fatal
to us, it must be remembered that any other form of advance is hardly
possible during a night attack, though at Tel-el-Kebir the exceptional
circumstance of the march being over an open desert allowed the troops
to move for the last mile or two in a more extended formation. A line
of battalion double-company columns is most difficult to preserve in the
darkness, and any confusion may lead to disaster. The whole mistake
lay in a miscalculation of a few hundred yards in the position of the
trenches. Had the regiments deployed five minutes earlier it is probable
(though by no means certain) that the position would have been carried.
The action was not without those examples of military virtue which
soften a disaster, and hold out a brighter promise for the future. The
Guards withdrew from the field as if on parade, with the Boer shells
bursting over their ranks. Fine, too, was the restraint of G Battery
of Horse Artillery on the morning after the battle. An armistice was
understood to exist, but the naval gun, in ignorance of it, opened
on our extreme left. The Boers at once opened fire upon the Horse
Artillery, who, recognising the mistake, remained motionless and
unlimbered in a line, with every horse, and gunner and driver in his
place, without taking any notice of the fire, which presently slackened
and stopped as the enemy came to understand the situation. It is worthy
of remark that in this battle the three field batteries engaged, as well
as G Battery, R.H.A., each fired over 1000 rounds and remained for 30
consecutive hours within 1500 yards of the Boer position.
But of all the corps who deserve praise, there was none more gallant
than the brave surgeons and ambulance bearers, who encounter all the
dangers and enjoy none of the thrills of warfare. All day under fire
these men worked and toiled among the wounded. Beevor, Ensor, Douglas,
Probyn--all were equally devoted. It is almost incredible, and yet it
is true, that by ten o'clock on the morning after the battle, before the
troops had returned to camp, no fewer than five hundred wounded were in
the train and on their way to Cape Town.