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GUNNERS
UNDER FIRE AT VAALKRANZ
From: H. W. Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, 1902 |
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Arthur Conan
Doyle,
The Great Boer War
London, Smith, Elder &
Co., 1902
CHAPTER XVI
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
heir 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 47'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 Jast
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 commg, 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 singgle 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.
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