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