Whilst Methuen and Gatacre were content to hold their own at the Modder
and at Sterkstroom, and whilst the mobile and energetic French was
herding the Boers into Colesberg, Sir Redvers Buller, the heavy,
obdurate, inexplicable man, was gathering and organising his forces for
another advance upon Ladysmith. Nearly a month had elapsed since the
evil day when his infantry had retired, and his ten guns had not,
from the frontal attack upon Colenso. Since then Sir Charles Warren's
division of infantry and a considerable reinforcement of artillery had
come to him. And yet in view of the terrible nature of the ground in
front of him, of the fighting power of the Boers, and of the fact that
they were always acting upon internal lines, his force even now was, in
the opinion of competent judges, too weak for the matter in hand.
There remained, however, several points in his favour. His excellent
infantry were full of zeal and of confidence in their chief. It cannot
be denied, however much we may criticise some incidents in his campaign,
that he possessed the gift of impressing and encouraging his followers,
and, in spite of Colenso, the sight of his square figure and heavy
impassive face conveyed an assurance of ultimate victory to those around
him. In artillery he was very much stronger than before, especially in
weight of metal. His cavalry was still weak in proportion to his other
arms. When at last he moved out on January 10th to attempt to outflank
the Boers, he took with him nineteen thousand infantry, three thousand
cavalry, and sixty guns, which included six howitzers capable of
throwing a 50-pound lyddite shell, and ten long-range naval pieces.
Barton's Brigade and other troops were left behind to hold the base and
line of communications.
An analysis of Buller's force shows that its details were as follows:--
Clery's Division.
Hildyard's Brigade.
2nd West Surrey.
2nd Devonshire.
2nd West Yorkshire.
2nd East Surrey.
Hart's Brigade.
1st Inniskilling Fusiliers.
1st Border Regiment.
1st Connaught Rangers.
2nd Dublin Fusiliers.
Field Artillery, three batteries, 19th, 28th, 63rd; one squadron
13th Hussars; Royal Engineers.
Warren's Division.
Lyttelton's Brigade.
2nd Cameronians.
3rd King's Royal Rifles.
1st Durham Light Infantry.
1st Rifle Brigade.
Woodgate's Brigade.
2nd Royal Lancaster.
2nd Lancashire Fusiliers.
1st South Lancashire.
York and Lancasters.
Field Artillery, three batteries, 7th, 78th, 73rd; one squadron
13th Hussars.
Corps Troops.
Coke's Brigade.
Imperial Light Infantry.
2nd Somersets.
2nd Dorsets.
2nd Middlesex.
61st Howitzer Battery; two 4.7 naval guns; eight naval 12-pounder guns;
one squadron 13th Hussars; Royal Engineers.
Cavalry.
1st Royal Dragoons.
14th Hussars.
Four squadrons South African Horse.
One squadron Imperial Light Horse.
Bethune's Mounted Infantry.
Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry.
One squadron Natal Carabineers.
One squadron Natal Police.
One company King's Royal Rifles Mounted Infantry.
Six machine guns.
This is the force whose operations I shall attempt to describe.
About sixteen miles to the westward of Colenso there is a ford over
the Tugela River which is called Potgieter's Drift. General Buller's
apparent plan was to seize this, together with the ferry which runs at
this point, and so to throw himself upon the right flank of the Colenso
Boers. Once over the river there is one formidable line of hills to
cross, but if this were passed there would be comparatively easy ground
until the Ladysmith hills were reached. With high hopes Buller and his
men sallied out upon their adventure.
Dundonald's cavalry force pushed rapidly forwards, crossed the Little
Tugela, a tributary of the main river, at Springfield, and established
themselves upon the hills which command the drift. Dundonald largely
exceeded his instructions in going so far, and while we applaud his
courage and judgment in doing so, we must remember and be charitable
to those less fortunate officers whose private enterprise has ended in
disaster and reproof. There can be no doubt that the enemy intended to
hold all this tract, and that it was only the quickness of our initial
movements which forestalled them. Early in the morning a small party of
the South African Horse, under Lieutenant Carlisle, swam the broad river
under fire and brought back the ferry boat, an enterprise which was
fortunately bloodless, but which was most coolly planned and gallantly
carried out. The way was now open to our advance, and could it have been
carried out as rapidly as it had begun the Boers might conceivably have
been scattered before they could concentrate. It was not the fault of
the infantry that it was not so. They were trudging, mud-spattered and
jovial, at the very heels of the horses, after a forced march which was
one of the most trying of the whole campaign. But an army of 20,000
men cannot be conveyed over a river twenty miles from any base without
elaborate preparations being made to feed them. The roads were in such a
state that the wagons could hardly move, heavy rain had just fallen,
and every stream was swollen into a river; bullocks might strain, and
traction engines pant, and horses die, but by no human means could the
stores be kept up if the advance guard were allowed to go at their own
pace. And so, having ensured an ultimate crossing of the river by the
seizure of Mount Alice, the high hill which commands the drift, the
forces waited day after day, watching in the distance the swarms of
strenuous dark figures who dug and hauled and worked upon the hillsides
opposite, barring the road which they would have to take. Far away on
the horizon a little shining point twinkled amid the purple haze, coming
and going from morning to night. It was the heliograph of Ladysmith,
explaining her troubles and calling for help, and from the heights of
Mount Alice an answering star of hope glimmered and shone, soothing,
encouraging, explaining, while the stern men of the veld dug furiously
at their trenches in between. 'We are coming! We are coming!' cried
Mount Alice. 'Over our bodies,' said the men with the spades and
mattocks.
On Thursday, January 12th, Dundonald seized the heights, on the 13th the
ferry was taken and Lyttelton's Brigade came up to secure that which the
cavalry had gained. On the 14th the heavy naval guns were brought up
to cover the crossing. On the 15th Coke's Brigade and other infantry
concentrated at the drift. On the 16th the four regiments of Lyttelton's
Brigade went across, and then, and only then, it began to be apparent
that Buller's plan was a more deeply laid one than had been thought, and
that all this business of Potgieter's Drift was really a demonstration
in order to cover the actual crossing which was to be effected at a
ford named Trichard's Drift, five miles to the westward. Thus,
while Lyttelton's and Coke's Brigades were ostentatiously attacking
Potgieter's from in front, three other brigades (Hart's, Woodgate's, and
Hildyard's) were marched rapidly on the night of the 16th to the real
place of crossing, to which Dundonald's cavalry had already ridden.
There, on the 17th, a pontoon bridge had been erected, and a strong
force was thrown over in such a way as to turn the right of the trenches
in front of Potgieter's. It was admirably planned and excellently
carried out, certainly the most strategic movement, if there could be
said to have been any strategic movement upon the British side, in the
campaign up to that date. On the 18th the infantry, the cavalry, and
most of the guns were safely across without loss of life. The Boers,
however, still retained their formidable internal lines, and the only
result of a change of position seemed to be to put them to the trouble
of building a new series of those terrible entrenchments at which they
had become such experts. After all the combinations the British were,
it is true, upon the right side of the river, but they were considerably
further from Ladysmith than when they started. There are times, however,
when twenty miles are less than fourteen, and it was hoped that this
might prove to be among them. But the first step was the most serious
one, for right across their front lay the Boer position upon the edge of
a lofty plateau, with the high peak of Spion Kop forming the left corner
of it. If once that main ridge could be captured or commanded, it would
carry them halfway to the goal. It was for that essential line of hills
that two of the most dogged races upon earth were about to contend. An
immediate advance might have secured the position at once, but, for some
reason which is inexplicable, an aimless march to the left was followed
by a retirement to the original position of Warren's division, and
so two invaluable days were wasted. We have the positive assurance of
Commandant Edwards, who was Chief of Staff to General Botha, that
a vigorous turning movement upon the left would at this time have
completely outflanked the Boer position and opened a way to Ladysmith.
A small success, the more welcome for its rarity, came to the British
arms on this first day. Dundonald's men had been thrown out to cover
the left of the infantry advance and to feel for the right of the Boer
position. A strong Boer patrol, caught napping for once, rode into an
ambuscade of the irregulars. Some escaped, some held out most gallantly
in a kopje, but the final result was a surrender of twenty-four
unwounded prisoners, and the finding of thirteen killed and wounded,
including de Mentz, the field-cornet of Heilbron. Two killed and two
wounded were the British losses in this well-managed affair. Dundonald's
force then took its position upon the extreme left of Warren's advance.
The British were now moving upon the Boers in two separate bodies, the
one which included Lyttelton's and Coke's Brigades from Potgieter's
Drift, making what was really a frontal attack, while the main body
under Warren, who had crossed at Trichard's Drift, was swinging round
upon the Boer right. Midway between the two movements the formidable
bastion of Spion Kop stood clearly outlined against the blue Natal
sky. The heavy naval guns on Mount Alice (two 4.7's and eight
twelve-pounders) were so placed as to support either advance, and the
howitzer battery was given to Lyttelton to help the frontal attack. For
two days the British pressed slowly but steadily on to the Boers under
the cover of an incessant rain of shells. Dour and long-suffering the
Boers made no reply, save with sporadic rifle-fire, and refused until
the crisis should come to expose their great guns to the chance of
injury.
On January 19th Warren's turning movement began to bring him into closer
touch with the enemy, his thirty-six field guns and the six howitzers
which had returned to him crushing down the opposition which faced him.
The ground in front of him was pleated into long folds, and his advance
meant the carrying of ridge after ridge. In the earlier stages of the
war this would have entailed a murderous loss; but we had learned our
lesson, and the infantry now, with intervals of ten paces, and every man
choosing his own cover, went up in proper Boer form, carrying position
after position, the enemy always retiring with dignity and decorum.
There was no victory on one side or rout on the other--only a steady
advance and an orderly retirement. That night the infantry slept in
their fighting line, going on again at three in the morning, and light
broke to find not only rifles, but the long-silent Boer guns all blazing
at the British advance. Again, as at Colenso, the brunt of the fighting
fell upon Hart's Irish Brigade, who upheld that immemorial tradition of
valour with which that name, either in or out of the British service,
has invariably been associated. Upon the Lancashire Fusiliers and the
York and Lancasters came also a large share of the losses and the glory.
Slowly but surely the inexorable line of the British lapped over the
ground which the enemy had held. A gallant colonial, Tobin of the South
African Horse, rode up one hill and signaled with his hat that it was
clear. His comrades followed closely at his heels, and occupied the
position with the loss of Childe, their Major. During this action
Lyttelton had held the Boers in their trenches opposite to him by
advancing to within 1500 yards of them, but the attack was not pushed
further. On the evening of this day, January 20th, the British had
gained some miles of ground, and the total losses had been about three
hundred killed and wounded. The troops were in good heart, and all
promised well for the future. Again the men lay where they had fought,
and again the dawn heard the crash of the great guns and the rattle of
the musketry.
The operations of this day began with a sustained cannonade from
the field batteries and 61st Howitzer Battery, which was as fiercely
answered by the enemy. About eleven the infantry began to go forward
with an advance which would have astonished the martinets of Aldershot,
an irregular fringe of crawlers, wrigglers, writhers, crouchers, all
cool and deliberate, giving away no points in this grim game of death.
Where now were the officers with their distinctive dresses and flashing
swords, where the valiant rushes over the open, where the men who
were too proud to lie down?--the tactics of three months ago seemed
as obsolete as those of the Middle Ages. All day the line undulated
forward, and by evening yet another strip of rock-strewn ground had been
gained, and yet another train of ambulances was bearing a hundred of
our wounded back to the base hospitals at Frere. It was on Hildyard's
Brigade on the left that the fighting and the losses of this day
principally fell. By the morning of January 22nd the regiments were
clustering thickly all round the edges of the Boer main position, and
the day was spent in resting the weary men, and in determining at
what point the final assault should be delivered. On the right front,
commanding the Boer lines on either side, towered the stark eminence of
Spion Kop, so called because from its summit the Boer voortrekkers had
first in 1835 gazed down upon the promised land of Natal. If that could
only be seized and held! Buller and Warren swept its bald summit with
their field-glasses. It was a venture. But all war is a venture; and the
brave man is he who ventures most. One fiery rush and the master-key of
all these locked doors might be in our keeping. That evening there
came a telegram to London which left the whole Empire in a hush of
anticipation. Spion Kop was to be attacked that night.
The troops which were selected for the task were eight companies of the
2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, six of the 2nd Royal Lancasters, two of the
1st South Lancashires, 180 of Thorneycroft's, and half a company of
Sappers. It was to be a North of England job.
Under the friendly cover of a starless night the men, in Indian file,
like a party of Iroquois braves upon the war trail, stole up the winding
and ill-defined path which led to the summit. Woodgate, the Lancashire
Brigadier, and Blomfield of the Fusiliers led the way. It was a severe
climb of 2000 feet, coming after arduous work over broken ground,
but the affair was well-timed, and it was at that blackest hour which
precedes the dawn that the last steep ascent was reached. The Fusiliers
crouched down among the rocks to recover their breath, and saw far down
in the plain beneath them the placid lights which showed where their
comrades were resting. A fine rain was falling, and rolling clouds hung
low over their heads. The men with unloaded rifles and fixed bayonets
stole on once more, their bodies bent, their eyes peering through the
mirk for the first sign of the enemy--that enemy whose first sign has
usually been a shattering volley. Thorneycroft's men with their gallant
leader had threaded their way up into the advance. Then the leading
files found that they were walking on the level. The crest had been
gained.
With slow steps and bated breath, the open line of skirmishers stole
across it. Was it possible that it had been entirely abandoned? Suddenly
a raucous shout of 'Wie da?' came out of the darkness, then a shot, then
a splutter of musketry and a yell, as the Fusiliers sprang onwards
with their bayonets. The Boer post of Vryheid burghers clattered and
scrambled away into the darkness, and a cheer that roused both the
sleeping armies told that the surprise had been complete and the
position won.
In the grey light of the breaking day the men advanced along the narrow
undulating ridge, the prominent end of which they had captured. Another
trench faced them, but it was weakly held and abandoned. Then the men,
uncertain what remained beyond, halted and waited for full light to see
where they were, and what the work was which lay before them--a fatal
halt, as the result proved, and yet one so natural that it is hard to
blame the officer who ordered it. Indeed, he might have seemed more
culpable had he pushed blindly on, and so lost the advantage which had
been already gained.
About eight o'clock, with the clearing of the mist, General Woodgate saw
how matters stood. The ridge, one end of which he held, extended away,
rising and falling for some miles. Had he the whole of the end plateau,
and had he guns, he might hope to command the rest of the position. But
he held only half the plateau, and at the further end of it the Boers
were strongly entrenched. The Spion Kop mountain was really the salient
or sharp angle of the Boer position, so that the British were exposed to
a cross fire both from the left and right. Beyond were other eminences
which sheltered strings of riflemen and several guns. The plateau which
the British held was very much narrower than was usually represented in
the press. In many places the possible front was not much more than a
hundred yards wide, and the troops were compelled to bunch together, as
there was not room for a single company to take an extended formation.
The cover upon this plateau was scanty, far too scanty for the force
upon it, and the shell fire--especially the fire of the pom-poms--soon
became very murderous. To mass the troops under the cover of the edge
of the plateau might naturally suggest itself, but with great tactical
skill the Boer advanced line from Commandant Prinsloo's Heidelberg and
Carolina commandos kept so aggressive an attitude that the British could
not weaken the lines opposed to them. Their skirmishers were creeping
round too in such a way that the fire was really coming from three
separate points, left, centre, and right, and every corner of the
position was searched by their bullets. Early in the action the gallant
Woodgate and many of his Lancashire men were shot down. The others
spread out and held on, firing occasionally at the whisk of a
rifle-barrel or the glimpse of a broad-brimmed hat.
From morning to midday, the shell, Maxim, and rifle fire swept across
the kop in a continual driving shower. The British guns in the plain
below failed to localise the position of the enemy's, and they were able
to vent their concentrated spite upon the exposed infantry. No blame
attaches to the gunners for this, as a hill intervened to screen the
Boer artillery, which consisted of five big guns and two pom-poms.
Upon the fall of Woodgate, Thorneycroft, who bore the reputation of a
determined fighter, was placed at the suggestion of Buller in charge
of the defence of the hill, and he was reinforced after noon by Coke's
brigade, the Middlesex, the Dorsets, and the Somersets, together with
the Imperial Light Infantry. The addition of this force to the defenders
of the plateau tended to increase the casualty returns rather than the
strength of the defence. Three thousand more rifles could do nothing to
check the fire of the invisible cannon, and it was this which was the
main source of the losses, while on the other hand the plateau had
become so cumbered with troops that a shell could hardly fail to do
damage. There was no cover to shelter them and no room for them to
extend. The pressure was most severe upon the shallow trenches in
the front, which had been abandoned by the Boers and were held by the
Lancashire Fusiliers. They were enfiladed by rifle and cannon, and the
dead and wounded outnumbered the hale. So close were the skirmishers
that on at least one occasion Boer and Briton found themselves on
each side of the same rock. Once a handful of men, tormented
beyond endurance, sprang up as a sign that they had had enough, but
Thorneycroft, a man of huge physique, rushed forward to the advancing
Boers. 'You may go to hell!' he yelled. 'I command here, and allow no
surrender. Go on with your firing.' Nothing could exceed the gallantry
of Louis Botha's men in pushing the attack. Again and again they made
their way up to the British firing line, exposing themselves with
a recklessness which, with the exception of the grand attack upon
Ladysmith, was unique in our experience of them. About two o'clock they
rushed one trench occupied by the Fusiliers and secured the survivors
of two companies as prisoners, but were subsequently driven out again. A
detached group of the South Lancashires was summoned to surrender. 'When
I surrender,' cried Colour-Sergeant Nolan, 'it will be my dead body!'
Hour after hour of the unintermitting crash of the shells among the
rocks and of the groans and screams of men torn and burst by the most
horrible of all wounds had shaken the troops badly. Spectators from
below who saw the shells pitching at the rate of seven a minute on to
the crowded plateau marvelled at the endurance which held the devoted
men to their post. Men were wounded and wounded and wounded yet again,
and still went on fighting. Never since Inkerman had we had so grim a
soldier's battle. The company officers were superb. Captain Muriel of
the Middlesex was shot through the check while giving a cigarette to a
wounded man, continued to lead his company, and was shot again through
the brain. Scott Moncrieff of the same regiment was only disabled by the
fourth bullet which hit him. Grenfell of Thorneycroft's was shot, and
exclaimed, 'That's all right. It's not much.' A second wound made him
remark, 'I can get on all right.' The third killed him. Ross of the
Lancasters, who had crawled from a sickbed, was found dead upon the
furthest crest. Young Murray of the Scottish Rifles, dripping from five
wounds, still staggered about among his men. And the men were worthy of
such officers. 'No retreat! No retreat!' they yelled when some of the
front line were driven in. In all regiments there are weaklings and
hang-backs, and many a man was wandering down the reverse slopes when he
should have been facing death upon the top, but as a body British troops
have never stood firm through a more fiery ordeal than on that fatal
hill...
The position was so bad that no efforts of officers or men could do
anything to mend it. They were in a murderous dilemma. If they fell back
for cover the Boer riflemen would rush the position. If they held their
ground this horrible shell fire must continue, which they had no means
of answering. Down at Gun Hill in front of the Boer position we had no
fewer than five batteries, the 78th, 7th, 73rd, 63rd, and 61st howitzer,
but a ridge intervened between them and the Boer guns which were
shelling Spion Kop, and this ridge was strongly entrenched. The naval
guns from distant Mount Alice did what they could, but the range was
very long, and the position of the Boer guns uncertain. The artillery,
situated as it was, could not save the infantry from the horrible
scourging which they were enduring.
There remains the debated question whether the British guns could have
been taken to the top. Mr. Winston Churchill, the soundness of whose
judgment has been frequently demonstrated during the war, asserts that
it might have been done. Without venturing to contradict one who was
personally present, I venture to think that there is strong evidence
to show that it could not have been done without blasting and other
measures, for which there was no possible time. Captain Hanwell of the
78th R.F.A., upon the day of the battle had the very utmost difficulty
with the help of four horses in getting a light Maxim on to the top, and
his opinion, with that of other artillery officers, is that the feat
was an impossible one until the path had been prepared. When night fell
Colonel Sim was despatched with a party of Sappers to clear the track
and to prepare two emplacements upon the top, but in his advance he met
the retiring infantry.
Throughout the day reinforcements had pushed up the hill, until two full
brigades had been drawn into the fight. From the other side of the ridge
Lyttelton sent up the Scottish Rifles, who reached the summit, and added
their share to the shambles upon the top. As the shades of night closed
in, and the glare of the bursting shells became more lurid, the men
lay extended upon the rocky ground, parched and exhausted. They were
hopelessly jumbled together, with the exception of the Dorsets, whose
cohesion may have been due to superior discipline, less exposure, or to
the fact that their khaki differed somewhat in colour from that of the
others. Twelve hours of so terrible an experience had had a strange
effect upon many of the men. Some were dazed and battle-struck,
incapable of clear understanding. Some were as incoherent as drunkards.
Some lay in an overpowering drowsiness. The most were doggedly patient
and long-suffering, with a mighty longing for water obliterating every
other emotion.
Before evening fell a most gallant and successful attempt had been
made by the third battalion of the King's Royal Rifles from Lyttelton's
Brigade to relieve the pressure upon their comrades on Spion Kop. In
order to draw part of the Boer fire away they ascended from the northern
side and carried the hills which formed a continuation of the same
ridge. The movement was meant to be no more than a strong demonstration,
but the riflemen pushed it until, breathless but victorious, they stood
upon the very crest of the position, leaving nearly a hundred dead or
dying to show the path which they had taken. Their advance being much
further than was desired, they were recalled, and it was at the moment
that Buchanan Riddell, their brave Colonel, stood up to read Lyttelton's
note that he fell with a Boer bullet through his brain, making one more
of those gallant leaders who died as they had lived, at the head of
their regiments. Chisholm, Dick-Cunyngham, Downman, Wilford, Gunning,
Sherston, Thackeray, Sitwell, MacCarthy O'Leary, Airlie--they have led
their men up to and through the gates of death. It was a fine exploit
of the 3rd Rifles. 'A finer bit of skirmishing, a finer bit of climbing,
and a finer bit of fighting, I have never seen,' said their Brigadier.
It is certain that if Lyttelton had not thrown his two regiments into
the fight the pressure upon the hill-top might have become unendurable;
and it seems also certain that if he had only held on to the position
which the Rifles had gained, the Boers would never have reoccupied Spion
Kop.
And now, under the shadow of night, but with the shells bursting thickly
over the plateau, the much-tried Thorneycroft had to make up his mind
whether he should hold on for another such day as he had endured, or
whether now, in the friendly darkness, he should remove his shattered
force. Could he have seen the discouragement of the Boers and the
preparations which they had made for retirement, he would have held his
ground. But this was hidden from him, while the horror of his own losses
was but too apparent. Forty per cent of his men were down. Thirteen
hundred dead and dying are a grim sight upon a wide-spread battle-field,
but when this number is heaped upon a confined space, where from a
single high rock the whole litter of broken and shattered bodies can be
seen, and the groans of the stricken rise in one long droning chorus to
the ear, then it is an iron mind indeed which can resist such evidence
of disaster. In a harder age Wellington was able to survey four thousand
bodies piled in the narrow compass of the breach of Badajos, but his
resolution was sustained by the knowledge that the military end for
which they fell had been accomplished. Had his task been unfinished it
is doubtful whether even his steadfast soul would not have flinched from
its completion. Thorneycroft saw the frightful havoc of one day, and he
shrank from the thought of such another. 'Better six battalions safely
down the hill than a mop up in the morning,' said he, and he gave the
word to retire. One who had met the troops as they staggered down
has told me how far they were from being routed. In mixed array, but
steadily and in order, the long thin line trudged through the darkness.
Their parched lips would not articulate, but they whispered 'Water!
Where is water?' as they toiled upon their way. At the bottom of the
hill they formed into regiments once more, and marched back to the camp.
In the morning the blood-spattered hill-top, with its piles of dead and
of wounded, were in the hands of Botha and his men, whose valour and
perseverance deserved the victory which they had won. There is no doubt
now that at 3 A.M. of that morning Botha, knowing that the Rifles had
carried Burger's position, regarded the affair as hopeless, and that
no one was more astonished than he when he found, on the report of two
scouts, that it was a victory and not a defeat which had come to him.
How shall we sum up such an action save that it was a gallant attempt,
gallantly carried out, and as gallantly met? On both sides the results
of artillery fire during the war have been disappointing, but at Spion
Kop beyond all question it was the Boer guns which won the action for
them. So keen was the disappointment at home that there was a tendency
to criticise the battle with some harshness, but it is difficult now,
with the evidence at our command, to say what was left undone which
could have altered the result. Had Thorneycroft known all that we know,
he would have kept his grip upon the hill. On the face of it one finds
it difficult to understand why so momentous a decision, upon which
the whole operations depended, should have been left entirely to the
judgment of one who in the morning had been a simple Lieutenant-Colonel.
'Where are the bosses?' cried a Fusilier, and the historian can only
repeat the question. General Warren was at the bottom of the hill. Had
he ascended and determined that the place should still be held, he might
have sent down the wearied troops, brought up smaller numbers of fresh
ones, ordered the Sappers to deepen the trenches, and tried to bring up
water and guns. It was for the divisional commander to lay his hand upon
the reins at so critical an instant, to relieve the weary man who had
struggled so hard all day.
The subsequent publication of the official despatches has served little
purpose, save to show that there was a want of harmony between Buller
and Warren, and that the former lost all confidence in his subordinate
during the course of the operations. In these papers General Buller
expresses the opinion that had Warren's operations been more dashing, he
would have found his turning movement upon the left a comparatively easy
matter. In this judgment he would probably have the concurrence of
most military critics. He adds, however, 'On the 19th, I ought to have
assumed command myself. I saw that things were not going well--indeed,
everyone saw that. I blame myself now for not having done so. I did not,
because, if I did, I should discredit General Warren in the estimation
of the troops, and, if I were shot, and he had to withdraw across the
Tugela, and they had lost confidence in him, the consequences might be
very serious. I must leave it to higher authority whether this argument
was a sound one.' It needs no higher authority than common-sense to say
that the argument is an absolutely unsound one. No consequences could
be more serious than that the operations should miscarry and Ladysmith
remain unrelieved, and such want of success must in any case discredit
Warren in the eyes of his troops. Besides, a subordinate is not
discredited because his chief steps in to conduct a critical operation.
However, these personal controversies may be suffered to remain in that
pigeon-hole from which they should never have been drawn.
On account of the crowding of four thousand troops into a space which
might have afforded tolerable cover for five hundred the losses in the
action were very heavy, not fewer than fifteen hundred being killed,
wounded, or missing, the proportion of killed being, on account of the
shell fire, abnormally high. The Lancashire Fusiliers were the heaviest
sufferers, and their Colonel Blomfield was wounded and fell into
the hands of the enemy. The Royal Lancasters also lost heavily.
Thorneycroft's had 80 men hit out of 180 engaged. The Imperial Light
Infantry, a raw corps of Rand refugees who were enduring their baptism
of fire, lost 130 men. In officers the losses were particularly heavy,
60 being killed or wounded. The Boer returns show some 50 killed and 150
wounded, which may not be far from the truth. Without the shell fire the
British losses might not have been much more.
General Buller had lost nearly two thousand men since he had crossed the
Tugela, and his purpose was still unfulfilled. Should he risk the loss
of a large part of his force in storming the ridges in front of him, or
should he recross the river and try for an easier route elsewhere? To
the surprise and disappointment both of the public and of the army,
he chose the latter course, and by January 27th he had fallen back,
unmolested by the Boers, to the other side of the Tugela. It must be
confessed that his retreat was admirably conducted, and that it was a
military feat to bring his men, his guns, and his stores in safety over
a broad river in the face of a victorious enemy. Stolid and unmoved, his
impenetrable demeanour restored serenity and confidence to the angry and
disappointed troops. There might well be heavy hearts among both them
and the public. After a fortnight's campaign, and the endurance of great
losses and hardships, both Ladysmith and her relievers found themselves
no better off than when they started. Buller still held the commanding
position of Mount Alice, and this was all that he had to show for such
sacrifices and such exertions. Once more there came a weary pause while
Ladysmith, sick with hope deferred, waited gloomily upon half-rations of
horse-flesh for the next movement from the South.