CHAPTER 22.
THE HALT AT BLOEMFONTEIN.
On March 13th Lord Roberts occupied the capital of the Orange Free
State. On May 1st, more than six weeks later, the advance was
resumed. This long delay was absolutely necessary in order to
supply the place of the ten thousand horses and mules which are
said to have been used up in the severe work of the preceding
month. It was not merely that a large number of the cavalry
chargers had died or been abandoned, but it was that of those which
remained the majority were in a state which made them useless for
immediate service. How far this might have been avoided is open to
question, for it is notorious that General French's reputation as a
horsemaster does not stand so high as his fame as a cavalry leader.
But besides the horses there was urgent need of every sort of
supply, from boots to hospitals, and the only way by which they
could come was by two single-line railways which unite into one
single-line railway, with the alternative of passing over a
precarious pontoon bridge at Norval's Pont, or truck by truck over
the road bridge at Bethulie. To support an army of fifty thousand
men under these circumstances, eight hundred miles from a base, is
no light matter, and a premature advance which could not be thrust
home would be the greatest of misfortunes. The public at home and
the army in Africa became restless under the inaction, but it was
one more example of the absolute soundness of Lord Roberts's
judgment and the quiet resolution with which he adheres to it. He
issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of the Free State
promising protection to all who should bring in their arms and
settle down upon their farms. The most stringent orders were issued
against looting or personal violence, but nothing could exceed the
gentleness and good humour of the troops. Indeed there seemed more
need for an order which should protect them against the extortion
of their conquered enemies. It is strange to think that we are
separated by only ninety years from the savage soldiery of Badajoz
and San Sebastian.
The streets of the little Dutch town formed during this interval a
curious object-lesson in the resources of the Empire. All the
scattered Anglo-Celtic races had sent their best blood to fight for
the common cause. Peace is the great solvent, as war is the
powerful unifier. For the British as for the German Empire much
virtue had come from the stress and strain of battle. To stand in
the market square of Bloemfontein and to see the warrior types
around you was to be assured of the future of the race. The
middle-sized, square-set, weather-tanned, straw-bearded British
regulars crowded the footpaths. There also one might see the
hard-faced Canadians, the loose-limbed dashing Australians,
fireblooded and keen, the dark New Zealanders, with a Maori touch
here and there in their features, the gallant men of Tasmania, the
gentlemen troopers of India and Ceylon, and everywhere the wild
South African irregulars with their bandoliers and unkempt wiry
horses, Rimington's men with the racoon bands, Roberts's Horse with
the black plumes, some with pink puggarees, some with birdseye, but
all of the same type, hard, rugged, and alert. The man who could
look at these splendid soldiers, and, remembering the sacrifices of
time, money, and comfort which most of them had made before they
found themselves fighting in the heart of Africa, doubt that the
spirit of the race burned now as brightly as ever, must be devoid
of judgment and sympathy. The real glories of the British race lie
in the future, not in the past. The Empire walks, and may still
walk, with an uncertain step, but with every year its tread will be
firmer, for its weakness is that of waxing youth and not of waning
age.
The greatest misfortune of the campaign, one which it was obviously
impolitic to insist upon at the time, began with the occupation of
Bloemfontein. This was the great outbreak of enteric among the
troops. For more than two months the hospitals were choked with
sick. One general hospital with five hundred beds held seventeen
hundred sick, nearly all enterics. A half field hospital with fifty
beds held three hundred and seventy cases. The total number of
cases could not have been less than six or seven thousand--and this
not of an evanescent and easily treated complaint, but of the most
persistent and debilitating of continued fevers, the one too which
requires the most assiduous attention and careful nursing. How
great was the strain only those who had to meet it can tell. The
exertions of the military hospitals and of those others which were
fitted out by private benevolence sufficed, after a long struggle,
to meet the crisis. At Bloemfontein alone, as many as fifty men
died in one day, and more than 1000 new graves in the cemetery
testify to the severity of the epidemic. No men in the campaign
served their country more truly than the officers and men of the
medical service, nor can any one who went through the epidemic
forget the bravery and unselfishness of those admirable nursing
sisters who set the men around them a higher standard of devotion
to duty.
Enteric fever is always endemic in the country, and especially at
Bloemfontein, but there can be no doubt that this severe outbreak
had its origin in the Paardeberg water. All through the campaign,
while the machinery for curing disease was excellent, that for
preventing it was elementary or absent. If bad water can cost us
more than all the bullets of the enemy, then surely it is worth our
while to make the drinking of unboiled water a stringent military
offence, and to attach to every company and squadron the most rapid
and efficient means for boiling it--for filtering alone is useless.
An incessant trouble it would be, but it would have saved a
division for the army. It is heartrending for the medical man who
has emerged from a hospital full of water-born pestilence to see a
regimental watercart being filled, without protest, at some
polluted wayside pool. With precautions and with inoculation all
those lives might have been saved. The fever died down with the
advance of the troops and the coming of the colder weather.
To return to the military operations: these, although they were
stagnant so far as the main army was concerned, were exceedingly
and inconveniently active in other quarters. Three small actions,
two of which were disastrous to our arms, and one successful
defence marked the period of the pause at Bloemfontein.
To the north of the town, some twelve miles distant lies the
ubiquitous Modder River, which is crossed by a railway bridge at a
place named Glen. The saving of the bridge was of considerable
importance, and might by the universal testimony of the farmers of
that district have been effected any time within the first few days
of our occupation. We appear, however, to have imperfectly
appreciated how great was the demoralisation of the Boers. In a
week or so they took heart, returned, and blew up the bridge.
Roving parties of the enemy, composed mainly of the redoubtable
Johannesburg police, reappeared even to the south of the river.
Young Lygon was killed, and Colonels Crabbe and Codrington with
Captain Trotter, all of the Guards, were severely wounded by such a
body, whom they gallantly but injudiciously attempted to arrest
when armed only with revolvers.
These wandering patrols who kept the country unsettled, and
harassed the farmers who had taken advantage of Lord Roberts's
proclamation, were found to have their centre at a point some six
miles to the north of Glen, named Karee. At Karee a formidable line
of hills cut the British advance, and these had been occupied by a
strong body of the enemy with guns. Lord Roberts determined to
drive them off, and on March 28th Tucker's 7th Division, consisting
of Chermside's brigade (Lincolns, Norfolks, Hampshires, and
Scottish Borderers), and Wavell's brigade (Cheshires, East
Lancashires, North Staffords, and South Wales Borderers), were
assembled at Glen. The artillery consisted of the veteran 18th,
62nd, and 75th R.F.A. Three attenuated cavalry brigades with some
mounted infantry completed the force.
The movement was to be upon the old model, and in result it proved
to be only too truly so. French's cavalry were to get round one
flank, Le Gallais's mounted infantry round the other, and Tucker's
Division to attack in front. Nothing could be more perfect in
theory and nothing apparently more defective in practice. Since on
this as on other occasions the mere fact that the cavalry were
demonstrating in the rear caused the complete abandonment of the
position, it is difficult to see what the object of the infantry
attack could be. The ground was irregular and unexplored, and it
was late before the horsemen on their weary steeds found themselves
behind the flank of the enemy. Some of them, Le Gallais's mounted
infantry and Davidson's guns, had come from Bloemfontein during the
night, and the horses were exhausted by the long march, and by the
absurd weight which the British troop-horse is asked to carry.
Tucker advanced his infantry exactly as Kelly-Kenny had done at
Driefontein, and with a precisely similar result. The eight
regiments going forward in echelon of battalions imagined from the
silence of the enemy that the position had been abandoned. They
were undeceived by a cruel fire which beat upon two companies of
the Scottish Borderers from a range of two hundred yards. They were
driven back, but reformed in a donga. About half-past two a Boer
gun burst shrapnel over the Lincolnshires and Scottish Borderers
with some effect, for a single shell killed five of the latter
regiment. Chermside's brigade was now all involved in the fight,
and Wavell's came up in support, but the ground was too open and
the position too strong to push the attack home. Fortunately, about
four o'clock, the horse batteries with French began to make their
presence felt from behind, and the Boers instantly quitted their
position and made off through the broad gap which still remained
between French and Le Gallais. The Brandfort plain appears to be
ideal ground for cavalry, but in spite of that the enemy with his
guns got safely away. The loss of the infantry amounted to one
hundred and sixty killed and wounded, the larger share of the
casualties and of the honour falling to the Scottish Borderers and
the East Lancashires. The infantry was not well handled, the
cavalry was slow, and the guns were inefficient--altogether an
inglorious day. Yet strategically it was of importance, for the
ridge captured was the last before one came to the great plain
which stretched, with a few intermissions, to the north. From March
29th until May 2nd Karee remained the advanced post.
In the meanwhile there had been a series of operations in the east
which had ended in a serious disaster. Immediately after the
occupation of Bloemfontein (on March 18th) Lord Roberts despatched
to the east a small column consisting of the 10th Hussars, the
composite regiment, two batteries (Q and U) of the Horse Artillery,
some mounted infantry, Roberts's Horse, and Rimington's Guides. On
the eastern horizon forty miles from the capital, but in that clear
atmosphere looking only half the distance, there stands the
impressive mountain named Thabanchu (the black mountain). To all
Boers it is an historical spot, for it was at its base that the
wagons of the Voortrekkers, coming by devious ways from various
parts, assembled. On the further side of Thabanchu, to the north
and east of it, lies the richest grain-growing portion of the Free
State, the centre of which is Ladybrand. The forty miles which
intervene between Bloemfontein and Thabanchu are intersected midway
by the Modder River. At this point are the waterworks, erected
recently with modern machinery, to take the place of the insanitary
wells on which the town had been dependent. The force met with no
resistance, and the small town of Thabanchu was occupied.
Colonel Pilcher, the leader of the Douglas raid, was inclined to
explore a little further, and with three squadrons of mounted men
he rode on to the eastward. Two commandos, supposed to be Grobler's
and Olivier's, were seen by them, moving on a line which suggested
that they were going to join Steyn, who was known to be rallying
his forces at Kroonstad, his new seat of government in the north of
the Free State. Pilcher, with great daring, pushed onwards until
with his little band on their tired horses he found himself in
Ladybrand, thirty miles from his nearest supports. Entering the
town he seized the landdrost and the field-cornet, but found that
strong bodies of the enemy were moving upon him and that it was
impossible for him to hold the place. He retired, therefore,
holding grimly on to his prisoners, and got back with small loss to
the place from which he started. It was a dashing piece of bluff,
and, when taken with the Douglas exploit, leads one to hope that
Pilcher may have a chance of showing what he can do with larger
means at his disposal. Finding that the enemy was following him in
force, he pushed on the same night for Thabanchu. His horsemen must
have covered between fifty and sixty miles in the twenty-four
hours.
Apparently the effect of Pilcher's exploit was to halt the march of
those commandos which had been seen trekking to the north-west, and
to cause them to swing round upon Thabanchu. Broadwood, a young
cavalry commander who had won a name in Egypt, considered that his
position was unnecessarily exposed and fell back upon Bloemfontein.
He halted on the first night near the waterworks, halfway upon his
journey.
The Boers are great masters in the ambuscade. Never has any race
shown such aptitude for this form of warfare--a legacy from a long
succession of contests with cunning savages. But never also have
they done anything so clever and so audacious as De Wet's
dispositions in this action. One cannot go over the ground without
being amazed at the ingenuity of their attack, and also at the luck
which favoured them, for the trap which they had laid for others
might easily have proved an absolutely fatal one for themselves.
The position beside the Modder at which the British camped had
numerous broken hills to the north and east of it. A force of
Boers, supposed to number about two thousand men, came down in the
night, bringing with them several heavy guns, and with the early
morning opened a brisk fire upon the camp. The surprise was
complete. But the refinement of the Boer tactics lay in the fact
that they had a surprise within a surprise--and it was the second
which was the more deadly.
The force which Broadwood had with him consisted of the 10th
Hussars and the composite regiment, Rimington's Scouts, Roberts's
Horse, the New Zealand and Burmah Mounted Infantry, with Q and U
batteries of Horse Artillery. With such a force, consisting
entirely of mounted men, he could not storm the hills upon which
the Boer guns were placed, and his twelve-pounders were unable to
reach the heavier cannon of the enemy. His best game was obviously
to continue his march to Bloemfontein. He sent on the considerable
convoy of wagons and the guns, while he with the cavalry covered
the rear, upon which the long-range pieces of the enemy kept up the
usual well-directed but harmless fire.
Broadwood's retreating column now found itself on a huge plain
which stretches all the way to Bloemfontein, broken only by two
hills, both of which were known to be in our possession. The plain
was one which was continually traversed from end to end by our
troops and convoys, so that once out upon its surface all danger
seemed at an end. Broadwood had additional reasons for feeling
secure, for he knew that, in answer to his own wise request,
Colvile's Division had been sent out before daybreak that morning
from Bloemfontein to meet him. In a very few miles their vanguard
and his must come together. There were obviously no Boers upon the
plain, but if there were they would find themselves between two
fires. He gave no thought to his front therefore, but rode behind,
where the Boer guns were roaring, and whence the Boer riflemen
might ride.
But in spite of the obvious there WERE Boers upon the plain, so
placed that they must either bring off a remarkable surprise or be
themselves cut off to a man. Across the veld, some miles from the
waterworks, there runs a deep donga or watercourse--one of many,
but the largest. It cuts the rough road at right angles. Its depth
and breadth are such that a wagon would dip down the incline, and
disappear for about two minutes before it would become visible
again at the crown of the other side. In appearance it was a huge
curving ditch with a stagnant stream at the bottom. The sloping
sides of the ditch were fringed with Boers, who had ridden thither
before dawn and were now waiting for the unsuspecting column. There
were not more than three hundred of them, and four times their
number were approaching; but no odds can represent the difference
between the concealed man with the magazine rifle and the man upon
the plain.
There were two dangers, however, which the Boers ran, and, skilful
as their dispositions were, their luck was equally great, for the
risks were enormous. One was that a force coming the other way
(Colvile's was only a few miles off) would arrive, and that they
would be ground between the upper and the lower millstone. The
other was that for once the British scouts might give the alarm and
that Broadwood's mounted men would wheel swiftly to right and left
and secure the ends of the long donga. Should that happen, not a
man of them could possibly escape. But they took their chances like
brave men, and fortune was their friend. The wagons came on without
any scouts. Behind them was U battery, then Q, with Roberts's Horse
abreast of them and the rest of the cavalry behind.
As the wagons, occupied for the most part only by unarmed sick
soldiers and black transport drivers, came down into the drift, the
Boers quickly but quietly took possession of them, and drove them
on up the further slope. Thus the troops behind saw their wagons
dip down, reappear, and continue on their course. The idea of an
ambush could not suggest itself. Only one thing could avert an
absolute catastrophe, and that was the appearance of a hero who
would accept certain death in order to warn his comrades. Such a
man rode by the wagons--though, unhappily, in the stress and rush
of the moment there is no certainty as to his name or rank. We only
know that one was found brave enough to fire his revolver in the
face of certain death. The outburst of firing which answered his
shot was the sequel which saved the column. Not often is it given
to a man to die so choice a death as that of this nameless soldier.
But the detachment was already so placed that nothing could save it
from heavy loss. The wagons had all passed but nine, and the
leading battery of artillery was at the very edge of the donga.
Nothing is so helpless as a limbered-up battery. In an instant the
teams were shot down and the gunners were made prisoners. A
terrific fire burst at the same instant upon Roberts's Horse, who
were abreast of the guns. 'Files a bout! gallop!' yelled Colonel
Dawson, and by his exertions and those of Major Pack-Beresford the
corps was extricated and reformed some hundreds of yards further
off. But the loss of horses and men was heavy. Major Pack-Beresford
and other officers were shot down, and every unhorsed man remained
necessarily as a prisoner under the very muzzles of the riflemen in
the donga.
As Roberts's Horse turned and galloped for dear life across the
flat, four out of the six guns [Footnote: Of the other two one
overturned and could not be righted, the other had the wheelers
shot and could not be extricated from the tumult. It was officially
stated that the guns of Q battery were halted a thousand yards off
the donga, but my impression was, from examining the ground, that
it was not more than six hundred.] of Q battery and one gun (the
rearmost) of U battery swung round and dashed frantically for a
place of safety. At the same instant every Boer along the line of
the donga sprang up and emptied his magazine into the mass of
rushing, shouting soldiers, plunging horses, and screaming Kaffirs.
It was for a few moments a sauve-qui-peut. Serjeant-Major Martin of
U, with a single driver on a wheeler, got away the last gun of his
battery. The four guns which were extricated of Q, under Major
Phipps-Hornby, whirled across the plain, pulled up, unlimbered, and
opened a brisk fire of shrapnel from about a thousand yards upon
the donga. Had the battery gone on for double the distance, its
action would have been more effective, for it would have been under
a less deadly rifle fire, but in any case its sudden change from
flight to discipline and order steadied the whole force. Roberts's
men sprang from their horses, and with the Burmese and New
Zealanders flung themselves down in a skirmish line. The cavalry
moved to the left to find some drift by which the donga could be
passed, and out of chaos there came in a few minutes calm and a
settled purpose.
It was for Q battery to cover the retreat of the force, and most
nobly it did it. A fortnight later a pile of horses, visible many
hundreds of yards off across the plain, showed where the guns had
stood. It was the Colenso of the horse gunners. In a devilish sleet
of lead they stood to their work, loading and firing while a man
was left. Some of the guns were left with two men to work them, one
was loaded and fired by a single officer. When at last the order
for retirement came, only ten men, several of them wounded, were
left upon their feet. With scratch teams from the limbers, driven
by single gunners, the twelve-pounders staggered out of action, and
the skirmish line of mounted infantry sprang to their feet amid the
hail of bullets to cheer them as they passed.
It was no slight task to extricate that sorely stricken force from
the close contact of an exultant enemy, and to lead it across that
terrible donga. Yet, thanks to the coolness of Broadwood and the
steadiness of his rearguard, the thing was done. A practicable
passage had been found two miles to the south by Captain
Chester-Master of Rimington's. This corps, with Roberts's, the New
Zealanders, and the 3rd Mounted Infantry, covered the withdrawal in
turn. It was one of those actions in which the horseman who is
trained to fight upon foot did very much better than the regular
cavalry. In two hours' time the drift had been passed and the
survivors of the force found themselves in safety.
The losses in this disastrous but not dishonourable engagement were
severe. About thirty officers and five hundred men were killed,
wounded, or missing. The prisoners came to more than three hundred.
They lost a hundred wagons, a considerable quantity of stores, and
seven twelve-pounder guns--five from U battery and two from Q. Of U
battery only Major Taylor and Sergeant-Major Martin seem to have
escaped, the rest being captured en bloc. Of Q battery nearly every
man was killed or wounded. Roberts's Horse, the New Zealanders, and
the mounted infantry were the other corps which suffered most
heavily. Among many brave men who died, none was a greater loss to
the service than Major Booth of the Northumberland Fusiliers,
serving in the mounted infantry. With four comrades he held a
position to cover the retreat, and refused to leave it. Such men
are inspired by the traditions of the past, and pass on the story
of their own deaths to inspire fresh heroes in the future.
Broadwood, the instant that he had disentangled himself, faced
about, and brought his guns into action. He was not strong enough,
however, nor were his men in a condition, to seriously attack the
enemy. Martyr's mounted infantry had come up, led by the
Queenslanders, and at the cost of some loss to themselves helped to
extricate the disordered force. Colvile's Division was behind
Bushman's Kop, only a few miles off, and there were hopes that it
might push on and prevent the guns and wagons from being removed.
Colvile did make an advance, but slowly and in a flanking direction
instead of dashing swiftly forward to retrieve the situation. It
must be acknowledged, however, that the problem which faced this
General was one of great difficulty. It was almost certain that
before he could throw his men into the action the captured guns
would be beyond his reach, and it was possible that he might swell
the disaster. With all charity, however, one cannot but feel that
his return next morning, after a reinforcement during the night,
without any attempt to force the Boer position, was lacking in
enterprise. [Footnote: It may be urged in General Colvile's defence
that his division had already done a long march from Bloemfontein.
A division, however, which contains two such brigades as
Macdonald's and Smith-Dorrien's may safely be called upon for any
exertions. The gunner officers in Colvile's division heard their
comrades' guns in 'section--fire' and knew it to be the sign of a
desperate situation.] The victory left the Boers in possession of
the waterworks, and Bloemfontein had to fall back upon her wells--a
change which reacted most disastrously upon the enteric which was
already decimating the troops.
The effect of the Sanna's Post defeat was increased by the fact
that only four days later (on April 4th) a second even more
deplorable disaster befell our troops. This was the surrender of
five companies of infantry, two of them mounted, at Reddersberg. So
many surrenders of small bodies of troops had occurred during the
course of the war that the public, remembering how seldom the word
'surrender' had ever been heard in our endless succession of
European wars, had become very restive upon the subject, and were
sometimes inclined to question whether this new and humiliating
fact did not imply some deterioration of our spirit. The fear was
natural, and yet nothing could be more unjust to this the most
splendid army which has ever marched under the red-crossed flag.
The fact was new because the conditions were new, and it was
inherent in those conditions. In that country of huge distances
small bodies must be detached, for the amount of space covered by
the large bodies was not sufficient for all military purposes. In
reconnoitring, in distributing proclamations, in collecting arms,
in overawing outlying districts, weak columns must be used. Very
often these columns must contain infantry soldiers, as the demands
upon the cavalry were excessive. Such bodies, moving through a
hilly country with which they were unfamiliar, were always liable
to be surrounded by a mobile enemy. Once surrounded the length of
their resistance was limited by three things: their cartridges,
their water, and their food. When they had all three, as at Wepener
or Mafeking, they could hold out indefinitely. When one or other
was wanting, as at Reddersberg or Nicholson's Nek, their position
was impossible. They could not break away, for how can men on foot
break away from horsemen? Hence those repeated humiliations, which
did little or nothing to impede the course of the war, and which
were really to be accepted as one of the inevitable prices which we
had to pay for the conditions under which the war was fought.
Numbers, discipline, and resources were with us. Mobility,
distances, nature of the country, insecurity of supplies, were with
them. We need not take it to heart therefore if it happened, with
all these forces acting against them, that our soldiers found
themselves sometimes in a position whence neither wisdom nor valour
could rescue them. To travel through that country, fashioned above
all others for defensive warfare, with trench and fort of
superhuman size and strength, barring every path, one marvels how
it was that such incidents were not more frequent and more serious.
It is deplorable that the white flag should ever have waved over a
company of British troops, but the man who is censorious upon the
subject has never travelled in South Africa.
In the disaster at Reddersberg three of the companies were of the
Irish Rifles, and two of the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers--the same
unfortunate regiments which had already been cut up at Stormberg.
They had been detached from Gatacre's 3rd Division, the
headquarters of which was at Springfontein. On the abandonment of
Thabanchu and the disaster of Sanna's Post, it was obvious that we
should draw in our detached parties to the east; so the five
companies were ordered to leave Dewetsdorp, which they were
garrisoning, and to get back to the railway line. Either the order
was issued too late, or they were too slow in obeying it, for they
were only halfway upon their journey, near the town of Reddersberg,
when the enemy came down upon them with five guns. Without
artillery they were powerless, but, having seized a kopje, they
took such shelter as they could find, and waited in the hope of
succour. Their assailants seem to have been detached from De Wet's
force in the north, and contained among them many of the victors of
Sanna's Post. The attack began at 11 A.M. of April 3rd, and all day
the men lay among the stones, subjected to the pelt of shell and
bullet. The cover was good, however, and the casualties were not
heavy. The total losses were under fifty killed and wounded. More
serious than the enemy's fire was the absence of water, save a very
limited supply in a cart. A message was passed through of the dire
straits in which they found themselves, and by the late afternoon
the news had reached headquarters. Lord Roberts instantly
despatched the Camerons, just arrived from Egypt, to Bethany, which
is the nearest point upon the line, and telegraphed to Gatacre at
Springfontein to take measures to save his compromised detachment.
The telegram should have reached Gatacre early on the evening of
the 3rd, and he had collected a force of fifteen hundred men,
entrained it, journeyed forty miles up the line, detrained it, and
reached Reddersberg, which is ten or twelve miles from the line, by
10.30 next morning. Already, however, it was too late, and the
besieged force, unable to face a second day without water under
that burning sun, had laid down their arms. No doubt the stress of
thirst was dreadful, and yet one cannot say that the defence rose
to the highest point of resolution. Knowing that help could not be
far off, the garrison should have held on while they could lift a
rifle. If the ammunition was running low, it was bad management
which caused it to be shot away too fast. Captain McWhinnie, who
was in command, behaved with the utmost personal gallantry. Not
only the troops but General Gatacre also was involved in the
disaster. Blame may have attached to him for leaving a detachment
at Dewetsdorp, and not having a supporting body at Reddersberg upon
which it might fall back; but it must be remembered that his total
force was small and that he had to cover a long stretch of the
lines of communication. As to General Gatacre's energy and
gallantry it is a by-word in the army; but coming after the
Stormberg disaster this fresh mishap to his force made the
continuance of his command impossible. Much sympathy was felt with
him in the army, where he was universally liked and respected by
officers and men. He returned to England, and his division was
taken over by General Chermside.
In a single week, at a time when the back of the war had seemed to
be broken, we had lost nearly twelve hundred men with seven guns.
The men of the Free State--for the fighting was mainly done by
commandos from the Ladybrand, Winburg, Bethlehem, and Harrismith
districts--deserve great credit for this fine effort, and their
leader De Wet confirmed the reputation which he had already gained
as a dashing and indefatigable leader. His force was so weak that
when Lord Roberts was able to really direct his own against it, he
brushed it away before him; but the manner in which De Wet took
advantage of Roberts's enforced immobility, and dared to get behind
so mighty an enemy, was a fine exhibition of courage and
enterprise. The public at home chafed at this sudden and unexpected
turn of affairs; but the General, constant to his own fixed
purpose, did not permit his strength to be wasted, and his cavalry
to be again disorganised, by flying excursions, but waited grimly
until he should be strong enough to strike straight at Pretoria.
In this short period of depression there came one gleam of light
from the west. This was the capture of a commando of sixty Boers,
or rather of sixty foreigners fighting for the Boers, and the death
of the gallant Frenchman, De Villebois-Mareuil, who appears to have
had the ambition of playing Lafayette in South Africa to Kruger's
Washington. From the time that Kimberley had been reoccupied the
British had been accumulating their force there so as to make a
strong movement which should coincide with that of Roberts from
Bloemfontein. Hunter's Division from Natal was being moved round to
Kimberley, and Methuen already commanded a considerable body of
troops, which included a number of the newly arrived Imperial
Yeomanry. With these Methuen pacified the surrounding country, and
extended his outposts to Barkly West on the one side, to Boshof on
the other, and to Warrenton upon the Vaal River in the centre. On
April 4th news reached Boshof that a Boer commando had been seen
some ten miles to the east of the town, and a force, consisting of
Yeomanry, Kimberley Light Horse, and half of Butcher's veteran 4th
battery, was sent to attack them. They were found to have taken up
their position upon a kopje which, contrary to all Boer custom, had
no other kopjes to support it. French generalship was certainly not
so astute as Boer cunning. The kopje was instantly surrounded, and
the small force upon the summit being without artillery in the face
of our guns found itself in exactly the same position which our men
had been in twenty-four hours before at Reddersberg. Again was
shown the advantage which the mounted rifleman has over the
cavalry, for the Yeomanry and Light Horsemen left their horses and
ascended the hill with the bayonet. In three hours all was over and
the Boers had laid down their arms. Villebois was shot with seven
of his companions, and there were nearly sixty prisoners. It speaks
well for the skirmishing of the Yeomanry and the way in which they
were handled by Lord Chesham that though they worked their way up
the hill under fire they only lost four killed and a few wounded.
The affair was a small one, but it was complete, and it came at a
time when a success was very welcome. One bustling week had seen
the expensive victory of Karee, the disasters of Sanna's Post and
Reddersberg, and the successful skirmish of Boshof. Another chapter
must be devoted to the movement towards the south of the Boer
forces and the dispositions which Lord Roberts made to meet it.
