CHAPTER 16.
VAALKRANZ.
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.
