Neither General Buller nor his troops appeared to be dismayed by the
failure of their plans, or by the heavy losses which were entailed by
the movement which culminated at Spion Kop. The soldiers grumbled, it
is true, at not being let go, and swore that even if it cost them
two-thirds of their number they could and would make their way through
this labyrinth of hills with its fringe of death. So doubtless they
might. But from first to last their General had shown a great--some
said an exaggerated--respect for human life, and he had no intention of
winning a path by mere slogging, if there were a chance of finding one
by less bloody means. On the morrow of his return he astonished both
his army and the Empire by announcing that he had found the key to the
position and that he hoped to be in Ladysmith in a week. Some rejoiced
in the assurance. Some shrugged their shoulders. Careless of friends or
foes, the stolid Buller proceeded to work out his new combination.
In the next few days reinforcements trickled in which more than made up
for the losses of the preceding week. A battery of horse artillery, two
heavy guns, two squadrons of the 14th Hussars, and infantry drafts to
the number of twelve or fourteen hundred men came to share the impending
glory or disaster. On the morning of February 5th the army sallied forth
once more to have another try to win a way to Ladysmith. It was known
that enteric was rife in the town, that shell and bullet and typhoid
germ had struck down a terrible proportion of the garrison, and that the
rations of starved horse and commissariat mule were running low. With
their comrades--in many cases their linked battalions--in such straits
within fifteen miles of them, Buller's soldiers had high motives to
brace them for a supreme effort.
The previous attempt had been upon the line immediately to the west of
Spion Kop. If, however, one were to follow to the east of Spion Kop,
one would come upon a high mountain called Doornkloof. Between these two
peaks, there lies a low ridge, called Brakfontein, and a small detached
hill named Vaalkranz. Buller's idea was that if he could seize this
small Vaalkranz, it would enable him to avoid the high ground altogether
and pass his troops through on to the plateau beyond. He still held the
Ford at Potgieter's and commanded the country beyond with heavy guns on
Mount Alice and at Swartz Kop, so that he could pass troops over at
his will. He would make a noisy demonstration against Brakfontein, then
suddenly seize Vaalkranz, and so, as he hoped, hold the outer door which
opened on to the passage to Ladysmith.
The getting of the guns up Swartz Kop was a preliminary which was as
necessary as it was difficult. A road was cut, sailors, engineers, and
gunners worked with a will under the general direction of Majors Findlay
and Apsley Smith. A mountain battery, two field guns, and six naval
12-pounders were slung up by steel hawsers, the sailors yeo-hoing on the
halliards. The ammunition was taken up by hand. At six o'clock on the
morning of the 5th the other guns opened a furious and probably harmless
fire upon Brakfontein, Spion Kop, and all the Boer positions opposite
to them. Shortly afterwards the feigned attack upon Brakfontein was
commenced and was sustained with much fuss and appearance of energy
until all was ready for the development of the true one. Wynne's
Brigade, which had been Woodgate's, recovered already from its Spion
Kop experience, carried out this part of the plan, supported by six
batteries of field artillery, one howitzer battery, and two 4.7 naval
guns. Three hours later a telegram was on its way to Pretoria to tell
how triumphantly the burghers had driven back an attack which was never
meant to go forward. The infantry retired first, then the artillery in
alternate batteries, preserving a beautiful order and decorum. The last
battery, the 78th, remained to receive the concentrated fire of the
Boer guns, and was so enveloped in the dust of the exploding shells
that spectators could only see a gun here or a limber there. Out of this
whirl of death it quietly walked, without a bucket out of its place,
the gunners drawing one wagon, the horses of which had perished, and so
effected a leisurely and contemptuous withdrawal. The gallantry of the
gunners has been one of the most striking features of the war, but it
has never been more conspicuous than in this feint at Brakfontein.
While the attention of the Boers was being concentrated upon the
Lancashire men, a pontoon bridge was suddenly thrown across the river
at a place called Munger's Drift, some miles to the eastward. Three
infantry brigades, those of Hart, Lyttelton, and Hildyard, had been
massed all ready to be let slip when the false attack was sufficiently
absorbing. The artillery fire (the Swartz Kop guns, and also the
batteries which had been withdrawn from the Brakfontein demonstration)
was then turned suddenly, with the crashing effect of seventy pieces,
upon the real object of attack, the isolated Vaalkranz. It is
doubtful whether any position has ever been subjected to so terrific a
bombardment, for the weight of metal thrown by single guns was greater
than that of a whole German battery in the days of their last great war.
The 4-pounders and 6-pounders of which Prince Kraft discourses would
have seemed toys beside these mighty howitzers and 4.7's. Yet though
the hillside was sharded off in great flakes, it is doubtful if this
terrific fire inflicted much injury upon the cunning and invisible
riflemen with whom we had to contend.
About midday the infantry began to stream across the bridge, which had
been most gallantly and efficiently constructed under a warm fire, by a
party of sappers, under the command of Major Irvine. The attack was led
by the Durham Light Infantry of Lyttelton's Brigade, followed by the 1st
Rifle Brigade, with the Scottish and 3rd Rifles in support. Never did
the old Light Division of Peninsular fame go up a Spanish hillside with
greater spirit and dash than these, their descendants, facing the slope
of Vaalkranz. In open order they moved across the plain, with a superb
disregard of the crash and patter of the shrapnel, and then up they
went, the flitting figures, springing from cover to cover, stooping,
darting, crouching, running, until with their glasses the spectators on
Swartz Kop could see the gleam of the bayonets and the strain of furious
rushing men upon the summit, as the last Boers were driven from their
trenches. The position was gained, but little else. Seven officers and
seventy men were lying killed and wounded among the boulders. A few
stricken Boers, five unwounded prisoners, and a string of Basuto ponies
were the poor fruits of victory--those and the arid hill from which so
much had been hoped, and so little was to be gained.
It was during this advance that an incident occurred of a more
picturesque character than is usual in modern warfare. The invisibility
of combatants and guns, and the absorption of the individual in the
mass, have robbed the battle-field of those episodes which adorned, if
they did not justify it. On this occasion, a Boer gun, cut off by the
British advance, flew out suddenly from behind its cover, like a hare
from its tussock, and raced for safety across the plain. Here and there
it wound, the horses stretched to their utmost, the drivers stooping and
lashing, the little gun bounding behind. To right to left, behind and
before, the British shells burst, lyddite and shrapnel, crashing and
riving. Over the lip of a hollow, the gallant gun vanished, and within
a few minutes was banging away once more at the British advance. With
cheers and shouts and laughter, the British infantrymen watched the race
for shelter, their sporting spirit rising high above all racial hatred,
and hailing with a 'gone to ground' whoop the final disappearance of the
gun.
The Durhams had cleared the path, but the other regiments of Lyttelton's
Brigade followed hard at their heels, and before night they had firmly
established themselves upon the hill. But the fatal slowness which had
marred General Buller's previous operations again prevented him from
completing his success. Twice at least in the course of these operations
there is evidence of sudden impulse to drop his tools in the midst of
his task and to do no more for the day. So it was at Colenso, where an
order was given at an early hour for the whole force to retire, and the
guns which might have been covered by infantry fire and withdrawn after
nightfall were abandoned. So it was also at a critical moment at this
action at Vaalkranz. In the original scheme of operations it had been
planned that an adjoining hill, called the Green Hill, which partly
commanded Vaalkranz, should be carried also. The two together made a
complete position, while singly each was a very bad neighbour to the
other. On the aide-de-camp riding up, however, to inquire from General
Buller whether the time had come for this advance, he replied, 'We have
done enough for the day,' and left out this essential portion of his
original scheme, with the result that all miscarried.
Speed was the most essential quality for carrying out his plan
successfully. So it must always be with the attack. The defence does
not know where the blow is coming, and has to distribute men and guns to
cover miles of ground. The attacker knows where he will hit, and behind
a screen of outposts he can mass his force and throw his whole strength
against a mere fraction of that of his enemy. But in order to do so he
must be quick. One tiger spring must tear the centre out of the line
before the flanks can come to its assistance. If time is given, if the
long line can concentrate, if the scattered guns can mass, if lines of
defence can be reduplicated behind, then the one great advantage which
the attack possesses is thrown away. Both at the second and at the third
attempts of Buller the British movements were so slow that had the enemy
been the slowest instead of the most mobile of armies, they could still
always have made any dispositions which they chose. Warren's dawdling
in the first days of the movement which ended at Spion Kop might with an
effort be condoned on account of possible difficulties of supply, but
it would strain the ingenuity of the most charitable critic to find a
sufficient reason for the lethargy of Vaalkranz. Though daylight comes
a little after four, the operations were not commenced before seven.
Lyttelton's Brigade had stormed the hill at two, and nothing more was
done during the long evening, while officers chafed and soldiers swore,
and the busy Boers worked furiously to bring up their guns and to bar
the path which we must take. General Buller remarked a day or two
later that the way was not quite so easy as it had been. One might have
deduced the fact without the aid of a balloon.
The brigade then occupied Vaalkranz and erected sangars and dug
trenches. On the morning of the 6th, the position of the British force
was not dissimilar to that of Spion Kop. Again they had some thousands
of men upon a hill-top, exposed to shell fire from several directions
and without any guns upon the hill to support them. In one or two points
the situation was modified in their favour, and hence their escape from
loss and disaster. A more extended position enabled the infantry to
avoid bunching, but in other respects the situation was parallel to that
in which they had found themselves a fortnight before.
The original plan was that the taking of Vaalkranz should be the first
step towards the outflanking of Brakfontein and the rolling up of the
whole Boer position. But after the first move the British attitude
became one of defence rather than of attack. Whatever the general and
ultimate effect of these operations may have been, it is beyond question
that their contemplation was annoying and bewildering in the extreme to
those who were present. The position on February 6th was this. Over the
river upon the hill was a single British brigade, exposed to the fire
of one enormous gun--a 96-pound Creusot, the longest of all Long
Toms--which was stationed upon Doornkloof, and of several smaller guns
and pom-poms which spat at them from nooks and crevices of the hills.
On our side were seventy-two guns, large and small, all very noisy and
impotent. It is not too much to say, as it appears to me, that the
Boers have in some ways revolutionised our ideas in regard to the use of
artillery, by bringing a fresh and healthy common-sense to bear upon
a subject which had been unduly fettered by pedantic rules. The Boer
system is the single stealthy gun crouching where none can see it. The
British system is the six brave guns coming into action in line of full
interval, and spreading out into accurate dressing visible to all men.
'Always remember,' says one of our artillery maxims, 'that one gun is
no gun.' Which is prettier on a field-day, is obvious, but which is
business--let the many duels between six Boer guns and sixty British
declare. With black powder it was useless to hide the gun, as its smoke
must betray it. With smokeless powder the guns are so invisible that
it was only by the detection with powerful glasses of the dust from the
trail on the recoil that the officers were ever able to localise the
guns against which they were fighting. But if the Boers had had six guns
in line, instead of one behind that kopje, and another between those
distant rocks, it would not have been so difficult to say where they
were. Again, British traditions are all in favour of planting guns close
together. At this very action of Vaalkranz the two largest guns were
so placed that a single shell bursting between them would have disabled
them both. The officer who placed them there, and so disregarded in a
vital matter the most obvious dictates of common-sense, would probably
have been shocked by any want of technical smartness, or irregularity in
the routine drill. An over-elaboration of trifles, and a want of grip
of common-sense, and of adaptation to new ideas, is the most serious
and damaging criticism which can be levelled against our army. That the
function of infantry is to shoot, and not to act like spearmen in the
Middle Ages; that the first duty of artillery is so far as is possible
to be invisible--these are two of the lessons which have been driven
home so often during the war, that even our hidebound conservatism can
hardly resist them.
Lyttelton's Brigade, then, held Vaalkranz; and from three parts of the
compass there came big shells and little shells, with a constant shower
of long-range rifle bullets. Behind them, and as useful as if it had
been on Woolwich Common, there was drawn up an imposing mass of men, two
infantry divisions, and two brigades of cavalry, all straining at the
leash, prepared to shed their blood until the spruits ran red with it,
if only they could win their way to where their half-starved comrades
waited for them. But nothing happened. Hours passed and nothing
happened. An occasional shell from the big gun plumped among them. One,
through some freak of gunnery, lobbed slowly through a division, and the
men whooped and threw their caps at it as it passed. The guns on Swartz
Kop, at a range of nearly five miles, tossed shells at the monster on
Doornkloof, and finally blew up his powder magazine amid the applause of
the infantry. For the army it was a picnic and a spectacle.
But it was otherwise with the men up on Vaalkranz. In spite of sangar
and trench, that cross fire was finding them out; and no feint or
demonstration on either side came to draw the concentrated fire from
their position. Once there was a sudden alarm at the western end of the
hill, and stooping bearded figures with slouch hats and bandoliers were
right up on the ridge before they could be stopped, so cleverly had
their advance been conducted. But a fiery rush of Durhams and Rifles
cleared the crest again, and it was proved once more how much stronger
is the defence than the attack. Nightfall found the position unchanged,
save that another pontoon bridge had been constructed during the day.
Over this Hildyard's Brigade marched to relieve Lyttelton's, who came
back for a rest under the cover of the Swartz Kop guns. Their losses in
the two days had been under two hundred and fifty, a trifle if any aim
were to be gained, but excessive for a mere demonstration.
That night Hildyard's men supplemented the defences made by Lyttelton,
and tightened their hold upon the hill. One futile night attack caused
them for an instant to change the spade for the rifle. When in the
morning it was found that the Boers had, as they naturally would,
brought up their outlying guns, the tired soldiers did not regret their
labours of the night. It was again demonstrated how innocuous a thing is
a severe shell fire, if the position be an extended one with chances of
cover. A total of forty killed and wounded out of a strong brigade
was the result of a long day under an incessant cannonade. And then at
nightfall came the conclusion that the guns were too many, that the
way was too hard, and down came all their high hopes with the order to
withdraw once more across that accursed river. Vaalkranz was abandoned,
and Hildyard's Brigade, seething with indignation, was ordered back once
more to its camp.