CHAPTER 8.
LORD METHUEN'S ADVANCE.
At the end of a fortnight of actual hostilities in Natal the
situation of the Boer army was such as to seriously alarm the
public at home, and to cause an almost universal chorus of
ill-natured delight from the press of all European nations. Whether
the reason was hatred of ourselves, or the sporting instinct which
backs the smaller against the larger, or the influence of the
ubiquitous Dr. Leyds and his secret service fund, it is certain
that the continental papers have never been so unanimous as in
their premature rejoicings over what, with an extraordinary want of
proportion, and ignorance of our national character, they imagined
to be a damaging blow to the British Empire. France, Russia,
Austria, and Germany were equally venomous against us, nor can the
visit of the German Emperor, though a courteous and timely action
in itself, entirely atone for the senseless bitterness of the press
of the Fatherland. Great Britain was roused out of her habitual
apathy and disregard for foreign opinion by this chorus of
execration, and braced herself for a greater effort in consequence.
She was cheered by the sympathy of her friends in the United
States, and by the good wishes of the smaller nations of Europe,
notably of Italy, Denmark, Greece, Turkey, and Hungary.
The exact position at the end of this fortnight of hard slogging
was that a quarter of the colony of Natal and a hundred miles of
railway were in the hands of the enemy. Five distinct actions had
been fought, none of them perhaps coming within the fair meaning of
a battle. Of these one had been a distinct British victory, two had
been indecisive, one had been unfortunate, and one had been a
positive disaster. We had lost about twelve hundred prisoners and a
battery of small guns. The Boers had lost two fine guns and three
hundred prisoners. Twelve thousand British troops had been shut up
in Ladysmith, and there was no serious force between the invaders
and the sea. Only in those distant transports, where the grimy
stokers shoveled and strove, were there hopes for the safety of
Natal and the honour of the Empire. In Cape Colony the loyalists
waited with bated breath, knowing well that there was nothing to
check a Free State invasion, and that if it came no bounds could be
placed upon how far it might advance, or what effect it might have
upon the Dutch population.
Leaving Ladysmith now apparently within the grasp of the Boers, who
had settled down deliberately to the work of throttling it, the
narrative must pass to the western side of the seat of war, and
give a consecutive account of the events which began with the siege
of Kimberley and led to the ineffectual efforts of Lord Methuen's
column to relieve it.
On the declaration of war two important movements had been made by
the Boers upon the west. One was the advance of a considerable body
under the formidable Cronje to attack Mafeking, an enterprise which
demands a chapter of its own. The other was the investment of
Kimberley by a force which consisted principally of Freestaters
under the command of Wessels and Botha. The place was defended by
Colonel Kekewich, aided by the advice and help of Mr. Cecil Rhodes,
who had gallantly thrown himself into the town by one of the last
trains which reached it. As the founder and director of the great
De Beers diamond mines he desired to be with his people in the hour
of their need, and it was through his initiative that the town had
been provided with the rifles and cannon with which to sustain the
siege.
The troops which Colonel Kekewich had at his disposal consisted of
four companies of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment (his own
regiment), with some Royal Engineers, a mountain battery, and two
machine guns. In addition there were the extremely spirited and
capable local forces, a hundred and twenty men of the Cape Police,
two thousand Volunteers, a body of Kimberley Light Horse, and a
battery of light seven-pounder guns. There were also eight Maxims
which were mounted upon the huge mounds of debris which surrounded
the mines and formed most efficient fortresses.
A small reinforcement of police had, under tragic circumstances,
reached the town. Vryburg, the capital of British Bechuanaland,
lies 145 miles to the north of Kimberley. The town has strong Dutch
sympathies, and on the news of the approach of a Boer force with
artillery it was evident that it could not be held. Scott, the
commandant of police, made some attempt to organise a defence, but
having no artillery and finding little sympathy, he was compelled
to abandon his charge to the invaders. The gallant Scott rode south
with his troopers, and in his humiliation and grief at his
inability to preserve his post he blew out his brains upon the
journey. Vryburg was immediately occupied by the Boers, and British
Bechuanaland was formally annexed to the South African Republic.
This policy of the instant annexation of all territories invaded
was habitually carried out by the enemy, with the idea that British
subjects who joined them would in this way be shielded from the
consequences of treason. Meanwhile several thousand Freestaters and
Transvaalers with artillery had assembled round Kimberley, and all
news of the town was cut off. Its relief was one of the first tasks
which presented itself to the inpouring army corps. The obvious
base of such a movement must be Orange River, and there and at De
Aar the stores for the advance began to be accumulated. At the
latter place especially, which is the chief railway junction in the
north of the colony, enormous masses of provisions, ammunition, and
fodder were collected, with thousands of mules which the long arm
of the British Government had rounded up from many parts of the
world. The guard over these costly and essential supplies seems to
have been a dangerously weak one. Between Orange River and De Aar,
which are sixty miles apart, there were the 9th Lancers, the Royal
Munsters, the 2nd King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and the 1st
Northumberland Fusiliers, under three thousand men in all, with two
million pounds' worth of stores and the Free State frontier within
a ride of them. Verily if we have something to deplore in this war
we have much also to be thankful for.
Up to the end of October the situation was so dangerous that it is
really inexplicable that no advantage was taken of it by the enemy.
Our main force was concentrated to defend the Orange River railway
bridge, which was so essential for our advance upon Kimberley. This
left only a single regiment without guns for the defence of De Aar
and the valuable stores. A fairer mark for a dashing leader and a
raid of mounted riflemen was never seen. The chance passed,
however, as so many others of the Boers' had done. Early in
November Colesberg and Naauwpoort were abandoned by our small
detachments, who concentrated at De Aar. The Berkshires joined the
Yorkshire Light Infantry, and nine field guns arrived also. General
Wood worked hard at the fortifying of the surrounding kopjes, until
within a week the place had been made tolerably secure.
The first collision between the opposing forces at this part of the
seat of war was upon November 10th, when Colonel Gough of the 9th
Lancers made a reconnaissance from Orange River to the north with
two squadrons of his own regiment, the mounted infantry of the
Northumberland Fusiliers, the Royal Munsters, and the North
Lancashires, with a battery of field artillery. To the east of
Belmont, about fifteen miles off, he came on a detachment of the
enemy with a gun. To make out the Boer position the mounted
infantry galloped round one of their flanks, and in doing so passed
close to a kopje which was occupied by sharpshooters. A deadly fire
crackled suddenly out from among the boulders. Of six men hit four
were officers, showing how cool were the marksmen and how dangerous
those dress distinctions which will probably disappear hence
forwards upon the field of battle. Colonel Keith-Falconer of the
Northumberlands, who had earned distinction in the Soudan, was shot
dead. So was Wood of the North Lancashires. Hall and Bevan of the
Northumberlands were wounded. An advance by train of the troops in
camp drove back the Boers and extricated our small force from what
might have proved a serious position, for the enemy in superior
numbers were working round their wings. The troops returned to camp
without any good object having been attained, but that must be the
necessary fate of many a cavalry reconnaissance.
On November 12th Lord Methuen arrived at Orange River and proceeded
to organise the column which was to advance to the relief of
Kimberley. General Methuen had had some previous South African
experience when in 1885 he had commanded a large body of irregular
horse in Bechuanaland. His reputation was that of a gallant
fearless soldier. He was not yet fifty-five years of age.
The force which gradually assembled at Orange River was formidable
rather from its quality than from its numbers. It included a
brigade of Guards (the 1st Scots Guards, 3rd Grenadiers, and 1st
and 2nd Coldstreams), the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, the 2nd
Northamptons, the 1st Northumberlands, and a wing of the North
Lancashires whose comrades were holding out at Kimberley, with a
naval brigade of seamen gunners and marines. For cavalry he had the
9th Lancers, with detachments of mounted infantry, and for
artillery the 75th and 18th Batteries R.F.A.
Extreme mobility was aimed at in the column, and neither tents nor
comforts of any sort were permitted to officers or men--no light
matter in a climate where a tropical day is followed by an arctic
night. At daybreak on November 22nd the force, numbering about
eight thousand men, set off upon its eventful journey. The distance
to Kimberley was not more than sixty miles, and it is probable that
there was not one man in the force who imagined how long that march
would take or how grim the experiences would be which awaited them
on the way. At the dawn of Wednesday, November 22nd, Lord Methuen
moved forward until he came into touch with the Boer position at
Belmont. It was surveyed that evening by Colonel Willoughby Verner,
and every disposition made to attack it in the morning.
The force of the Boers was much inferior to our own, some two or
three thousand in all, but the natural strength of their position
made it a difficult one to carry, while it could not be left behind
us as a menace to our line of communications. A double row of steep
hills lay across the road to Kimberley, and it was along the
ridges, snuggling closely among the boulders, that our enemy was
waiting for us. In their weeks of preparation they had constructed
elaborate shelter pits in which they could lie in comparative
safety while they swept all the level ground around with their
rifle fire. Mr. Ralph, the American correspondent, whose letters
were among the most vivid of the war, has described these lairs,
littered with straw and the debris of food, isolated from each
other, and each containing its grim and formidable occupant. 'The
eyries of birds of prey' is the phrase with which he brings them
home to us. In these, with nothing visible but their peering eyes
and the barrels of their rifles, the Boer marksmen crouched, and
munched their biltong and their mealies as the day broke upon the
morning of the 23rd. With the light their enemy was upon them.
It was a soldiers' battle in the good old primeval British style,
an Alma on a small scale and against deadlier weapons. The troops
advanced in grim silence against the savage-looking,
rock-sprinkled, crag-topped position which confronted them. They
were in a fierce humour, for they had not breakfasted, and military
history from Agincourt to Talavera shows that want of food wakens a
dangerous spirit among British troops. A Northumberland Fusilier
exploded into words which expressed the gruffness of his comrades.
As a too energetic staff officer pranced before their line he
roared in his rough North-country tongue, 'Domn thee! Get thee to
hell, and let's fire!' In the golden light of the rising sun the
men set their teeth and dashed up the hills, scrambling, falling,
cheering, swearing, gallant men, gallantly led, their one thought
to close with that grim bristle of rifle-barrels which fringed the
rocks above them.
Lord Methuen's intention had been an attack from front and from
flank, but whether from the Grenadiers losing their bearings, or
from the mobility of the Boers, which made a flank attack an
impossibility, it is certain that all became frontal. The battle
resolved itself into a number of isolated actions in which the
various kopjes were rushed by different British regiments, always
with success and always with loss. The honours of the fight, as
tested by the grim record of the casualty returns, lay with the
Grenadiers, the Coldstreams, the Northumberlands, and the Scots
Guards. The brave Guardsmen lay thickly on the slopes, but their
comrades crowned the heights. The Boers held on desperately and
fired their rifles in the very faces of the stormers. One young
officer had his jaw blown to pieces by a rifle which almost touched
him. Another, Blundell of the Guards, was shot dead by a wounded
desperado to whom he was offering his water-bottle. At one point a
white flag was waved by the defenders, on which the British left
cover, only to be met by a volley. It was there that Mr. E. F.
Knight, of the 'Morning Post,' became the victim of a double abuse
of the usages of war, since his wound, from which he lost his right
arm, was from an explosive bullet. The man who raised the flag was
captured, and it says much for the humanity of British soldiers
that he was not bayoneted upon the spot. Yet it is not fair to
blame a whole people for the misdeeds of a few, and it is probable
that the men who descended to such devices, or who deliberately
fired upon our ambulances, were as much execrated by their own
comrades as by ourselves.
The victory was an expensive one, for fifty killed and two hundred
wounded lay upon the hillside, and, like so many of our skirmishes
with the Boers, it led to small material results. Their losses
appear to have been much about the same as ours, and we captured
some fifty prisoners, whom the soldiers regarded with the utmost
interest. They were a sullen slouching crowd rudely clad, and they
represented probably the poorest of the burghers, who now, as in
the middle ages, suffer most in battle, since a long purse means a
good horse. Most of the enemy galloped very comfortably away after
the action, leaving a fringe of sharpshooters among the kopjes to
hold back our pursuing cavalry. The want of horsemen and the want
of horse artillery are the two reasons which Lord Methuen gives why
the defeat was not converted into a rout. As it was, the feelings
of the retreating Boers were exemplified by one of their number,
who turned in his saddle in order to place his outstretched fingers
to his nose in derision of the victors. He exposed himself to the
fire of half a battalion while doing so, but he probably was aware
that with our present musketry instruction the fire of a British
half-battalion against an individual is not a very serious matter.
The remainder of the 23rd was spent at Belmont Camp, and next
morning an advance was made to Enslin, some ten miles further on.
Here lay the plain of Enslin, bounded by a formidable line of
kopjes as dangerous as those of Belmont. Lancers and Rimington's
Scouts, the feeble but very capable cavalry of the Army, came in
with the report that the hills were strongly held. Some more hard
slogging was in front of the relievers of Kimberley.
The advance had been on the line of the Cape Town to Kimberley
Railway, and the damage done to it by the Boers had been repaired
to the extent of permitting an armoured train with a naval gun to
accompany the troops. It was six o' clock upon the morning of
Saturday the 25th that this gun came into action against the
kopjes, closely followed by the guns of the field artillery. One of
the lessons of the war has been to disillusion us as to the effect
of shrapnel fire. Positions which had been made theoretically
untenable have again and again been found to be most inconveniently
tenanted. Among the troops actually engaged the confidence in the
effect of shrapnel fire has steadily declined with their
experience. Some other method of artillery fire than the curving
bullet from an exploding shrapnel shell must be devised for dealing
with men who lie close among boulders and behind cover.
These remarks upon shrapnel might be included in the account of
half the battles of the war, but they are particularly apposite to
the action at Enslin. Here a single large kopje formed the key to
the position, and a considerable time was expended upon preparing
it for the British assault, by directing upon it a fire which swept
the face of it and searched, as was hoped, every corner in which a
rifleman might lurk. One of the two batteries engaged fired no
fewer than five hundred rounds. Then the infantry advance was
ordered, the Guards being held in reserve on account of their
exertions at Belmont. The Northumberlands, Northamptons, North
Lancashires, and Yorkshires worked round upon the right, and, aided
by the artillery fire, cleared the trenches in their front. The
honours of the assault, however, must be awarded to the sailors and
marines of the Naval Brigade, who underwent such an ordeal as men
have seldom faced and yet come out as victors. To them fell the
task of carrying that formidable hill which had been so scourged by
our artillery. With a grand rush they swept up the slope, but were
met by a horrible fire. Every rock spurted flame, and the front
ranks withered away before the storm of the Mauser. An eye-witness
has recorded that the brigade was hardly visible amid the sand
knocked up by the bullets. For an instant they fell back into
cover, and then, having taken their breath, up they went again,
with a deep-chested sailor roar. There were but four hundred in
all, two hundred seamen and two hundred marines, and the losses in
that rapid rush were terrible. Yet they swarmed up, their gallant
officers, some of them little boy-middies, cheering them on.
Ethelston, the commander of the 'Powerful,' was struck down. Plumbe
and Senior of the Marines were killed. Captain Prothero of the
'Doris' dropped while still yelling to his seamen to 'take that
kopje and be hanged to it!' Little Huddart, the middy, died a death
which is worth many inglorious years. Jones of the Marines fell
wounded, but rose again and rushed on with his men. It was on these
gallant marines, the men who are ready to fight anywhere and
anyhow, moist or dry, that the heaviest loss fell. When at last
they made good their foothold upon the crest of that murderous hill
they had left behind them three officers and eighty-eight men out
of a total of 206--a loss within a few minutes of nearly 50 per
cent. The bluejackets, helped by the curve of the hill, got off
with a toll of eighteen of their number. Half the total British
losses of the action fell upon this little body of men, who upheld
most gloriously the honour and reputation of the service from which
they were drawn. With such men under the white ensign we leave our
island homes in safety behind us.
The battle of Enslin had cost us some two hundred of killed and
wounded, and beyond the mere fact that we had cleared our way by
another stage towards Kimberley it is difficult to say what
advantage we had from it. We won the kopjes, but we lost our men.
The Boer killed and wounded were probably less than half of our
own, and the exhaustion and weakness of our cavalry forbade us to
pursue and prevented us from capturing their guns. In three days
the men had fought two exhausting actions in a waterless country
and under a tropical sun. Their exertions had been great and yet
were barren of result. Why this should be so was naturally the
subject of keen discussion both in the camp and among the public at
home. It always came back to Lord Methuen's own complaint about the
absence of cavalry and of horse artillery. Many very unjust charges
have been hurled against our War Office--a department which in some
matters has done extraordinarily and unexpectedly well--but in this
question of the delay in the despatch of our cavalry and artillery,
knowing as we did the extreme mobility of our enemy, there is
certainly ground for an inquiry.
The Boers who had fought these two actions had been drawn mainly
from the Jacobsdal and Fauresmith commandoes, with some of the
burghers from Boshof. The famous Cronje, however, had been
descending from Mafeking with his old guard of Transvaalers, and
keen disappointment was expressed by the prisoners at Belmont and
at Enslin that he had not arrived in time to take command of them.
There were evidences, however, at this latter action, that
reinforcements for the enemy were coming up and that the labours of
the Kimberley relief force were by no means at an end. In the
height of the engagement the Lancer patrols thrown out upon our
right flank reported the approach of a considerable body of Boer
horsemen, who took up a position upon a hill on our right rear.
Their position there was distinctly menacing, and Colonel
Willoughby Verner was despatched by Lord Methuen to order up the
brigade of Guards. The gallant officer had the misfortune in his
return to injure himself seriously through a blunder of his horse.
His mission, however, succeeded in its effect, for the Guards
moving across the plain intervened in such a way that the
reinforcements, without an open attack, which would have been
opposed to all Boer traditions, could not help the defenders, and
were compelled to witness their defeat. This body of horsemen
returned north next day and were no doubt among those whom we
encountered at the following action of the Modder River.
The march from Orange River had begun on the Wednesday. On Thursday
was fought the action of Belmont, on Saturday that of Enslin. There
was no protection against the sun by day nor against the cold at
night. Water was not plentiful, and the quality of it was
occasionally vile. The troops were in need of a rest, so on
Saturday night and Sunday they remained at Enslin. On the Monday
morning (November 27th) the weary march to Kimberley was resumed.
On Monday, November 27th, at early dawn, the little British army, a
dust-coloured column upon the dusty veld, moved forwards again
towards their objective. That night they halted at the pools of
Klipfontein, having for once made a whole day's march without
coming in touch with the enemy. Hopes rose that possibly the two
successive defeats had taken the heart out of them and that there
would be no further resistance to the advance. Some, however, who
were aware of the presence of Cronje, and of his formidable
character, took a juster view of the situation. And this perhaps is
where a few words might be said about the celebrated leader who
played upon the western side of the seat of war the same part which
Joubert did upon the east.
Commandant Cronje was at the time of the war sixty-five years of
age, a hard, swarthy man, quiet of manner, fierce of soul, with a
reputation among a nation of resolute men for unsurpassed
resolution. His dark face was bearded and virile, but sedate and
gentle in expression. He spoke little, but what he said was to the
point, and he had the gift of those fire-words which brace and
strengthen weaker men. In hunting expeditions and in native wars he
had first won the admiration of his countrymen by his courage and
his fertility of resource. In the war of 1880 he had led the Boers
who besieged Potchefstroom, and he had pushed the attack with a
relentless vigour which was not hampered by the chivalrous usages
of war. Eventually he compelled the surrender of the place by
concealing from the garrison that a general armistice had been
signed, an act which was afterwards disowned by his own government.
In the succeeding years he lived as an autocrat and a patriarch
amid his farms and his herds, respected by many and feared by all.
For a time he was Native Commissioner and left a reputation for
hard dealing behind him. Called into the field again by the Jameson
raid, he grimly herded his enemies into an impossible position and
desired, as it is stated, that the hardest measure should be dealt
out to the captives. This was the man, capable, crafty, iron-hard,
magnetic, who lay with a reinforced and formidable army across the
path of Lord Methuen's tired soldiers. It was a fair match. On the
one side the hardy men, the trained shots, a good artillery, and
the defensive; on the other the historical British infantry, duty,
discipline, and a fiery courage. With a high heart the
dust-coloured column moved on over the dusty veld.
So entirely had hills and Boer fighting become associated in the
minds of our leaders, that when it was known that Modder River
wound over a plain, the idea of a resistance there appears to have
passed away from their minds. So great was the confidence or so lax
the scouting that a force equaling their own in numbers had
assembled with many guns within seven miles of them, and yet the
advance appears to have been conducted without any expectation of
impending battle. The supposition, obvious even to a civilian, that
a river would be a likely place to meet with an obstinate
resistance, seems to have been ignored. It is perhaps not fair to
blame the General for a fact which must have vexed his spirit more
than ours--one's sympathies go out to the gentle and brave man, who
was heard calling out in his sleep that he 'should have had those
two guns'--but it is repugnant to common sense to suppose that no
one, neither the cavalry nor the Intelligence Department, is at
fault for so extraordinary a state of ignorance. [Footnote: Later
information makes it certain that the cavalry did report the
presence of the enemy to Lord Methuen.] On the morning of Tuesday,
November 28th, the British troops were told that they would march
at once, and have their breakfast when they reached the Modder
River--a grim joke to those who lived to appreciate it.
The army had been reinforced the night before by the welcome
addition of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, which made up
for the losses of the week. It was a cloudless morning, and a
dazzling sun rose in a deep blue sky. The men, though hungry,
marched cheerily, the reek of their tobacco-pipes floating up from
their ranks. It cheered them to see that the murderous kopjes had,
for the time, been left behind, and that the great plain inclined
slightly downwards to where a line of green showed the course of
the river. On the further bank were a few scattered buildings, with
one considerable hotel, used as a week-end resort by the
businessmen of Kimberley. It lay now calm and innocent, with its
open windows looking out upon a smiling garden; but death lurked at
the windows and death in the garden, and the little dark man who
stood by the door, peering through his glass at the approaching
column, was the minister of death, the dangerous Cronje. In
consultation with him was one who was to prove even more
formidable, and for a longer time. Semitic in face, high-nosed,
bushy-bearded, and eagle-eyed, with skin burned brown by a life of
the veld--it was De la Rey, one of the trio of fighting chiefs
whose name will always be associated with the gallant resistance of
the Boers. He was there as adviser, but Cronje was in supreme
command.
His dispositions had been both masterly and original. Contrary to
the usual military practice in the defence of rivers, he had
concealed his men upon both banks, placing, as it is stated, those
in whose staunchness he had least confidence upon the British side
of the river, so that they could only retreat under the rifles of
their inexorable companions. The trenches had been so dug with such
a regard for the slopes of the ground that in some places a triple
line of fire was secured. His artillery, consisting of several
heavy pieces and a number of machine guns (including one of the
diabolical 'pompoms'), was cleverly placed upon the further side of
the stream, and was not only provided with shelter pits but had
rows of reserve pits, so that the guns could be readily shifted
when their range was found. Rows of trenches, a broadish river,
fresh rows of trenches, fortified houses, and a good artillery well
worked and well placed, it was a serious task which lay in front of
the gallant little army. The whole position covered between four
and five miles.
An obvious question must here occur to the mind of every
non-military reader--Why should this position be attacked at all?
Why should we not cross higher up where there were no such
formidable obstacles?' The answer, so far as one can answer it,
must be that so little was known of the dispositions of our enemy
that we were hopelessly involved in the action before we knew of
it, and that then it was more dangerous to extricate the army than
to push the attack. A retirement over that open plain at a range of
under a thousand yards would have been a dangerous and disastrous
movement. Having once got there, it was wisest and best to see it
through.
The dark Cronje still waited reflective in the hotel garden. Across
the veld streamed the lines of infantry, the poor fellows eager,
after seven miles of that upland air, for the breakfast which had
been promised them. It was a quarter to seven when our patrols of
Lancers were fired upon. There were Boers, then, between them and
their meal! The artillery was ordered up, the Guards were sent
forward on the right, the 9th Brigade under Pole-Carew on the left,
including the newly arrived Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. They
swept onwards into the fatal fire zone--and then, and only then,
there blazed out upon them four miles of rifles, cannon, and
machine guns, and they realised, from general to private, that they
had walked unwittingly into the fiercest battle yet fought in the
war.
Before the position was understood the Guards were within seven
hundred yards of the Boer trenches, and the other troops about nine
hundred, on the side of a very gentle slope which made it most
difficult to find any cover. In front of them lay a serene
landscape, the river, the houses, the hotel, no movement of men, no
smoke--everything peaceful and deserted save for an occasional
quick flash and sparkle of flame. But the noise was horrible and
appalling. Men whose nerves had been steeled to the crash of the
big guns, or the monotonous roar of Maxims and the rattle of Mauser
fire, found a new terror in the malignant 'ploop-plooping' of the
automatic quick-firer. The Maxim of the Scots Guards was caught in
the hell-blizzard from this thing--each shell no bigger than a
large walnut, but flying in strings of a score--and men and gun
were destroyed in an instant. As to the rifle bullets the air was
humming and throbbing with them, and the sand was mottled like a
pond in a shower. To advance was impossible, to retire was hateful.
The men fell upon their faces and huddled close to the earth, too
happy if some friendly ant-heap gave them a precarious shelter. And
always, tier above tier, the lines of rifle fire rippled and
palpitated in front of them. The infantry fired also, and fired,
and fired--but what was there to fire at? An occasional eye and
hand over the edge of a trench or behind a stone is no mark at
seven hundred yards. It would be instructive to know how many
British bullets found a billet that day.
The cavalry was useless, the infantry was powerless--there only
remained the guns. When any arm is helpless and harried it always
casts an imploring eye upon the guns, and rarely indeed is it that
the gallant guns do not respond. Now the 75th and 18th Field
Batteries came rattling and dashing to the front, and unlimbered at
one thousand yards. The naval guns were working at four thousand,
but the two combined were insufficient to master the fire of the
pieces of large calibre which were opposed to them. Lord Methuen
must have prayed for guns as Wellington did for night, and never
was a prayer answered more dramatically. A strange battery came
lurching up from the British rear, unheralded, unknown, the weary
gasping horses panting at the traces, the men, caked with sweat and
dirt, urging them on into a last spasmodic trot. The bodies of
horses which had died of pure fatigue marked their course, the
sergeants' horses tugged in the gun-teams, and the sergeants
staggered along by the limbers. It was the 62nd Field Battery,
which had marched thirty-two miles in eight hours, and now, hearing
the crash of battle in front of them, had with one last desperate
effort thrown itself into the firing line. Great credit is due to
Major Granet and his men. Not even those gallant German batteries
who saved the infantry at Spicheren could boast of a finer feat.
Now it was guns against guns, and let the best gunners win! We had
eighteen field-guns and the naval pieces against the concealed
cannon of the enemy. Back and forward flew the shells, howling past
each other in mid-air. The weary men of the 62nd Battery forgot
their labours and fatigues as they stooped and strained at their
clay-coloured 15-pounders. Half of them were within rifle range,
and the limber horses were the centre of a hot fire, as they were
destined to be at a shorter range and with more disastrous effect
at the Tugela. That the same tactics should have been adopted at
two widely sundered points shows with what care the details of the
war had been pre-arranged by the Boer leaders. 'Before I got my
horses out,' says an officer, 'they shot one of my drivers and two
horses and brought down my own horse. When we got the gun round one
of the gunners was shot through the brain and fell at my feet.
Another was shot while bringing up shell. Then we got a look in.'
The roar of the cannon was deafening, but gradually the British
were gaining the upper hand. Here and there the little knolls upon
the further side which had erupted into constant flame lay cold and
silent. One of the heavier guns was put out of action, and the
other had been withdrawn for five hundred yards. But the infantry
fire still crackled and rippled along the trenches, and the guns
could come no nearer with living men and horses. It was long past
midday, and that unhappy breakfast seemed further off than ever.
As the afternoon wore on, a curious condition of things was
established. The guns could not advance, and, indeed, it was found
necessary to withdraw them from a 1200 to a 2800-yard range, so
heavy were the losses. At the time of the change the 75th Battery
had lost three officers out of five, nineteen men, and twenty-two
horses. The infantry could not advance and would not retire. The
Guards on the right were prevented from opening out on the flank
and getting round the enemy's line, by the presence of the Riet
River, which joins the Modder almost at a right angle. All day they
lay under a blistering sun, the sleet of bullets whizzing over
their heads. 'It came in solid streaks like telegraph wires,' said
a graphic correspondent. The men gossiped, smoked, and many of them
slept. They lay on the barrels of their rifles to keep them cool
enough for use. Now and again there came the dull thud of a bullet
which had found its mark, and a man gasped, or drummed with his
feet; but the casualties at this point were not numerous, for there
was some little cover, and the piping bullets passed for the most
part overhead.
But in the meantime there had been a development upon the left
which was to turn the action into a British victory. At this side
there was ample room to extend, and the 9th Brigade spread out,
feeling its way down the enemy's line, until it came to a point
where the fire was less murderous and the approach to the river
more in favour of the attack. Here the Yorkshires, a party of whom
under Lieutenant Fox had stormed a farmhouse, obtained the command
of a drift, over which a mixed force of Highlanders and Fusiliers
forced their way, led by their Brigadier in person. This body of
infantry, which does not appear to have exceeded five hundred in
number, were assailed both by the Boer riflemen and by the guns of
both parties, our own gunners being unaware that the Modder had
been successfully crossed. A small hamlet called Rosmead formed,
however, a point d'appui, and to this the infantry clung
tenaciously, while reinforcements dribbled across to them from the
farther side. 'Now, boys, who's for otter hunting?' cried Major
Coleridge, of the North Lancashires, as he sprang into the water.
How gladly on that baking, scorching day did the men jump into the
river and splash over, to climb the opposite bank with their wet
khaki clinging to their figures! Some blundered into holes and were
rescued by grasping the unwound putties of their comrades. And so
between three and four o'clock a strong party of the British had
established their position upon the right flank of the Boers, and
were holding on like grim death with an intelligent appreciation
that the fortunes of the day depended upon their retaining their
grip.
'Hollo, here is a river!' cried Codrington when he led his forlorn
hope to the right and found that the Riet had to be crossed. 'I was
given to understand that the Modder was fordable everywhere,' says
Lord Methuen in his official despatch. One cannot read the account
of the operations without being struck by the casual, sketchy
knowledge which cost us so dearly. The soldiers slogged their way
through, as they have slogged it before; but the task might have
been made much lighter for them had we but clearly known what it
was that we were trying to do. On the other hand, it is but fair to
Lord Methuen to say that his own personal gallantry and unflinching
resolution set the most stimulating example to his troops. No
General could have done more to put heart into his men.
And now, as the long weary scorching hungry day came to an end, the
Boers began at last to flinch from their trenches. The shrapnel was
finding them out and this force upon their flank filled them with
vague alarm and with fears for their precious guns. And so as night
fell they stole across the river, the cannon were withdrawn, the
trenches evacuated, and next morning, when the weary British and
their anxious General turned themselves to their grim task once
more, they found a deserted village, a line of empty houses, and a
litter of empty Mauser cartridge-cases to show where their
tenacious enemy had stood.
Lord Methuen, in congratulating the troops upon their achievement,
spoke of 'the hardest-won victory in our annals of war,' and some
such phrase was used in his official despatch. It is hypercritical,
no doubt, to look too closely at a term used by a wounded man with
the flush of battle still upon him, but still a student of military
history must smile at such a comparison between this action and
such others as Albuera or Inkerman, where the numbers of British
engaged were not dissimilar. A fight in which five hundred men are
killed and wounded cannot be classed in the same category as those
stern and desperate encounters where more of the victors were
carried than walked from the field of battle. And yet there were
some special features which will differentiate the fight at Modder
River from any of the hundred actions which adorn the standards of
our regiments. It was the third battle which the troops had fought
within the week, they were under fire for ten or twelve hours, were
waterless under a tropical sun, and weak from want of food. For the
first time they were called upon to face modern rifle fire and
modern machine guns in the open. The result tends to prove that
those who hold that it will from now onwards be impossible ever to
make such frontal attacks as those which the English made at the
Alma or the French at Waterloo, are justified in their belief. It
is beyond human hardihood to face the pitiless beat of bullet and
shell which comes from modern quick-firing weapons. Had our flank
not made a lodgment across the river, it is impossible that we
could have carried the position. Once more, too, it was
demonstrated how powerless the best artillery is to disperse
resolute and well-placed riflemen. Of the minor points of interest
there will always remain the record of the forced march of the 62nd
Battery, and artillerymen will note the use of gun-pits by the
Boers, which ensured that the range of their positions should never
be permanently obtained.
The honours of the day upon the side of the British rested with the
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Yorkshire Light Infantry,
the 2nd Coldstreams, and the artillery. Out of a total casualty
list of about 450, no fewer than 112 came from the gallant Argylls
and 69 from the Coldstreams. The loss of the Boers is exceedingly
difficult to gauge, as they throughout the war took the utmost
pains to conceal it. The number of desperate and long-drawn actions
which have ended, according to the official Pretorian account, in a
loss of one wounded burgher may in some way be better policy, but
does not imply a higher standard of public virtue, than those long
lists which have saddened our hearts in the halls of the War
Office. What is certain is that the loss at Modder River could not
have been far inferior to our own, and that it arose almost
entirely from artillery fire, since at no time of the action were
any large number of their riflemen visible. So it ended, this long
pelting match, Cronje sullenly withdrawing under the cover of
darkness with his resolute heart filled with fierce determination
for the future, while the British soldiers threw themselves down on
the ground which they occupied and slept the sleep of exhaustion.
