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GENERAL
FRENCH
The distinguished cavalry leader, whose rank in the
British Army was Colonel, was promoted (April, 1901)
to the substantive rank of Major-General (while still
holding the local rank of Lieut.-General) for
distinguished service in the field; the promotion
dating from October, 1899.
From: H. W. Wilson, After Pretoria, 1902 |
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Arthur Conan
Doyle,
The Great Boer War
London, Smith, Elder &
Co., 1902
CHAPTER XXIX
The Advance to Komitipoort
The time had now come for
the great combined movement which was to sweep the main Boer army off the
line of the Delagoa railway, Cut its source of supplies, and fllow it into
that remote and mountainous Lydenburg district which had always been
proclaimed as the last refuge of the burghers. Before entering upon this
most difficult of all his advances Lord Roberts waited until the cavalry and
mounted infantry were well mounted again. Then, when all was ready, the
first step in this last stage of the regular campaign was taken by General
Buller, who moved his army of Natal veterans off the railway line and
advanced to a position from which he could threaten the flank and rear of
Botha if he held his ground against Lord Roberts. Buller's cavalry had been
reinforced by the arrival of Strathcona's Horse, a fine body of Canadian
troopers, whose services had been presented to the nation by the
public-spirited nobleman whose name they bore. They were distinguished by
their fine physique, and by the lassoes, cowboy stirrups, and large spurs of
the North-Western plains.
It was in the first week of July that Clery joined hands with the Heidelberg
garrison, while Coke with the 10th Brigade cleared the right flank of the
railway by an expedition as far as Amersfoort. On July 6th the Natal
communications were restored, and on the 7th Buller was able to come through
to Pretoria and confer with the Commander-in-Chief. A Boer force with heavy
guns still hung about the line, and several small skirmishes were fought
between Vlakfontein and Greylingstad in order to drive it away. By the
middle of July the immediate vicinity of the railway was clear save for some
small marauding parties who endeavoured to tamper with the rails and the
bridges. Up to the end of the month the whole of the Natal army remained
strung along the line of communications from Heidelberg to Standerton,
waiting for the collection of forage and transport to enable them to march
north against Botha's position.
On August 8th Buller's troops advanced to the northeast from Paardekop,
pushing a weak Boer force with five guns in front of them. At the cost of
twenty-five wounded, principally of the 60th Rifles, the enemy was cleared
off, and the town of Amersfoort was occupied. On the 13th, moving on the
same line, and meeting with very slight opposition, Buller took possession
of Ermelo. His advance was having a good effect upon the district, for on
the 12th the Standerton commando, which numbered 182 men, surrendered to
Clery. On the 15th, st~l skirmishing, Buller's men were at Twyfelaar, and
had taken possession of Carolina. Here and there a distant horseman riding
over the olive-coloured hills showed how closely and incessan~y be was
watched; but, save for a little sniping upon his flanks, there was no
fighting. He was coming now within touch of French's cavalry, operating from
Middelburg, and on the 14th heliographic communication was established with
Gordon's Brigade.
Buller's column had come nearer to its friends, but it was also nearer to
the main body of Boers who were waiting in that very rugged piece of country
which lies between Belfast in the west and Machadodorp in the east. From
this rocky stronghold they had thrown out mobile bodies to harass the
British advance from the south, and every day brought Buller into closer
touch with these advance guards of the enemy. On August 21st he had moved
eight miles nearer to Belfast, French operating upon his left flank. Here he
found the Boers in considerable numbers, but he pushed them northward with
his cavalry, mounted infantry, and artillery, losing between thirty and
forty killed and wounded, the greater part from the ranks of the 18th
Hussars and the Gordon Highlanders. This march brought him within fifteen
miles of Belfast, which lay due north of him. At the same time Pole-Carew
with the central column of Lord Roberts's force had advanced along the
railway line, and on August 24th he occupied Belfast with little resistance.
He found, however, that the enemy were holding the formidable ridges which
lie between that place and Dalmanutha, and that they showed every sign of
giving battle, presenting a firm front to Buller on the south as well as to
Roberts's army on the west.
On the 23rd some successes attended their efforts to check the advance from
the south. During the day Buller had advanced steadily, though under
incessant fire. The evening found him only six miles to the south of
Dalmanutha, the centre of the Boer position. By some misfortune, however,
after dark two companies of the Liverpool Regiment found themselves isolated
from their comrades and exposed to a very heavy fire. They had pushed
forward too far, and were very near to being surrounded and destroyed. There
were fifty-six casualties in their ranks, and thirty-two, including their
wounded captain, were taken. The total losses in the day were 121.
On August 25th it was evident that important events were at hand, for on
that date Lord Roberts arrived at Belfast and held a conference with Buller,
French, and Pole-Carew. The general communicated his plans to his three
lieutenants, and on the 26th and following days the fruits of the interview
were seen in a succession of rapid manoeuvres which drove the Boers out of
this, the strongest position which they had held since they left the banks
of the Tugela.
The advance of Lord Roberts was made, as his wont is, with two widespread
wings, and a central body to connect them. Such a movement leaves the enemy
in doubt as to which flank will really be attacked, while if he denudes his
centre in order to strengthen both flanks there is the chance of a frontal
advance which might cut him in two. French with two cavalry brigades formed
the left advance, Pole-Carew the centre, and Buller the right, the whole
operations extending over thirty miles of infamous country. It is probable
that Lord Roberts had reckoned that the Boer right was likely to be their
strongest position, since if it were turned it would cut off their retreat
upon Lydenburg, so his own main attack was directed upon their left. This
was carried out by General Buller on August 26th and 27th.
On the first day the movement upon Buller's part consisted in a very
deliberate reconnaissance of and closing in upon the enemy's position, his
troops bivouacking upon the ground which they had won. On the second,
finding that all further progress was barred by the strong ridge of
Bergendal, he prepared his attack carefully with artillery and then let
loose his infantry upon it. It was a gallant feat of arms upon either side.
The Boer position was held by a detachment of the Johannesburg Police, who
may have been bullies in peace, but were certainly heroes in war. The fire
of sixty guns was concentrated for a couple of hours upon a position only a
few hundred yards in diameter. In this infernal fire, which left the rocks
yellow with lyddite, the survivors still waited grimly for the advance of
the infantry. No finer defence was made in the war. The attack was carried
out across an open glacis by the 2nd Rifle Brigade and by the Inniskilling
Fusiliers, the men of Pieter's Hill. Through a deadly fire the gallant
infantry swept over the position, though Metcalfe, the brave colonel of the
Rifles, with eight other officers, and seventy men were killed or wounded.
Lysley, Steward, and Campbell were all killed in leading their companies,
but they could not have met their deaths upon an occasion more honourable to
their battalion. Great credit must also be given to A and B companies of the
Inniskilling Fusiliers, who were actually the first over the Boer position.
The cessation of the artillery fire was admirably timed. It was sustained up
to the last possible instant. 'As it was,' said the captain of the leading
company, 'a 94-lb. shell burst about thirty yards in front of the right of
our lot. The smell of the lyddite was awful.' A pom-pom and twenty
prisoners, including the commander of the police, were the trophies of the
day. An outwork of the Boer position had been carried, and the rumour of
defeat and disaster had already spread through their ranks. Braver men than
the burghers have never lived, but they had reached the limits of human
endurance, and a long experience of defeat in the field had weakened their
nerve and lessened their morale. They were no longer men of the same fibre
as those who had crept up to the trenches of Spion Kop, or faced the lean
warriors of Ladysmith on that grim January morning at Caesar's Camp. Dutch
tenacity would not allow them to surrender, and yet they realised how
hopeless was the fight in which they were engaged. Nearly fifteen thousand
of their best men were prisoners, ten thousand at the least had returned to
their farms and taken the oath. Another ten had been killed, wounded, or
incapacitated. Most of the European mercenaries had left; they held only the
ultimate corner of their own country, they had lost their grip upon the
railway line, and their supply of stores and of ammunition was dwindling. To
such a pass had eleven months of war reduced that formidable army who had so
confidently advanced to the conquest of South Africa.
While Buller had established himself firmly upon the left of the Boer
position, Pole-Carew had moved forward to the north of the railway line, and
French had advanced as far as Swart Kopjes upon the Boer right. These
operations on August 26th and 27th were met with some resistance, and
entailed a loss of forty or fifty killed and wounded; but it soon became
evident that the punishment which they had received at Bergendal had taken
the fight out of the Boers, and that this formidable position was to be
abandoned as the others had been. On the 28th the burghers were retreating,
and Machadodorp, where Kruger had sat so long in his railway carriage,
protesting that he would eventually move west and not east, was occupied by
Buller. French, moving on a more northerly route, entered Watervalonder with
his cavalry upon the same date, driving a small Boer force before him. Amid
rain and mist the British columns were pushing rapidly forwards, but still
the burghers held together, and still their artillery was uncaptured. The
retirement was swift, but it was not yet a rout.
On the 30th the British cavalry were within touch of Nooitgedacht, and saw a
glad sight in a long trail of ragged men who were hurrying in their
direction along the railway line. They were the British prisoners, eighteen
hundred in number, half of whom had been brought from Waterval when Pretoria
was captured, while the other half represented the men who had been sent
from the south by De Wet, or from the west by De la Rey. Much allowance must
be made for the treatment of prisoners by a belligerent who is himself short
of food, but nothing can excuse the harshness which the Boers showed to the
Colonials who fell into their power, or the callous neglect of the sick
prisoners at Waterval. It is a humiliating but an interesting fact that from
first to last no fewer than seven thousand of our men passed into their
power, all of whom were now recovered save some sixty officers, who had been
carried off by them in their flight.
On September 1st Lord Roberts showed his sense of the decisive nature of
these recent operations by publishing the proclamation which had been issued
as early as July 4th, by which the Transvaal became a portion of the British
Empire. On the same day General Buller, who had ceased to advance to the
east and retraced his steps as far as Helvetia, began his northerly movement
in the direction of Lydenburg, which is nearly fifty miles to the north of
the railway line. On that date his force made a march of fourteen miles,
which brought them over the Crocodile River to Badfontein. Here, on
September 2nd, Buller found that the indomitable Botha was still turning
back upon him, for he was faced by so heavy a shell fire, coming from so
formidable a position, that he had to be content to wait in front of it
until some other column should outflank it. The days of unnecessary frontal
attacks were for ever over, and his force, though ready for anything which
might be asked of it, had gone through a good deal in the recent operations.
Since August 21st they had been under fire almost every day, and their
losses, though never great on any one occasion, amounted in the aggregate
during that time to 365. They had crossed the Tugela, they had relieved
Ladysmith, they had forced Laing's Nek, and now it was to them that the
honour had fallen of following the enemy into this last fastness. Whatever
criticism may be directed against some episodes in the Natal campaign, it
must never be forgotten that to Buller and to his men have fallen some of
the hardest tasks of the war, and that these tasks have always in the end
been successfully carried out. The controversy about the unfortunate message
to White, and the memory of the abandoned guns at Colenso, must not lead us
to the injustice of ignoring all that is to be set to the credit account.
On September 3rd Lord Roberts, finding how strong a position faced Buller,
despatched Ian Hamilton with a force to turn it upon the right.
Brocklehurst's brigade of cavalry joined Hamilton in his advance. On the 4th
he was within signalling distance of Buller, and on the right rear of the
Boer position. The occupation of a mountain called Zwaggenhoek would
establish Hamilton firmly, and the difficult task of seizing it at night was
committed to Colonel Douglas and his fine regiment of Royal Scots. It was
Spion Kop over again, but with a happier ending. At break of day the Boers
discovered that their position had been rendered untenable and withdrew,
leaving the road to Lydenburg clear to Buller. Hamilton and he occupied the
town upon the 6th. The Boers had split into two parties, the larger one with
the guns falling back upon Kruger's Post, and the others retiring to
Pilgrim's Rest. Amid cloud-girt peaks and hardly passable ravines the two
long-enduring armies still wrestled for the final mastery.
To the north-east of Lydenburg, between that town and Spitzkop, there is a
formidable ridge called the Mauchberg, and here again the enemy were found
to be standing at bay. They were even better than their word, for they had
always said that they would make their last stand at Lydenburg, and now they
were making one beyond it. But the resistance was weakening. Even this fine
position could not be held against the rush of the three regiments, the
Devons, the Royal Irisb, and the Royal Scots, who were let loose upon it.
The artillery supported the attack admirably. 'They did nobly,' said one who
led the advance. 'It is impossible to overrate the value of their support.
They ceased also exactly at the right moment. One more shell would have hit
us.' Mountain mists saved the defeated burghers from a close pursuit, but
the hills were carried. The British losses on this day, September 8th, were
thirteen killed and twenty-five wounded; but of these thirty-eight no less
than half were accounted for by one of those strange malignant freaks which
can neither be foreseen nor prevented. A shrapnel shell, fired at an
incredible distance, burst right over the Volunteer Company of the Gordons
who were marching in column. Nineteen men fell, but it is worth recording
that, smitten so suddenly and so terribly, the gallant Volunteers continued
to advance as steadily as before this misfortune befell them. On the 9th
Buller was still pushing forward to Spitzkop, his guns and the 1st Rifles
overpowering a weak rearguard resistance of the Boers. On the 10th he had
reached Klipgat, which is halfway between the Mauchberg and Spitzkop. So
close was the pursuit that the Boers, as they streamed through the passes,
flung thirteen of their ammunition wagons over the cliffs to prevent them
from falling into the hands of the British horsemen. At one period it looked
as if the gallant Boer guns had waited too long in covering the retreat of
the burghers. Strathcona's Horse pressed closely upon them. The situation
was saved by the extreme coolness and audacity of the Boer gunners. 'When
the cavalry were barely half a mile behind the rear gun' says an eye-witness
'and we regarded its capture as certain, the LEADING Long Tom deliberately
turned to bay and opened with case shot at the pursuers streaming down the
hill in single file over the head of his brother gun. It was a magnificent
coup, and perfectly successful. The cavalry had to retire, leaving a few men
wounded, and by the time our heavy guns had arrived both Long Toms had got
clean away.' But the Boer riflemen would no longer stand. Demoralised after
their magnificent struggle of eleven months the burghers were now a beaten
and disorderly rabble flying wildly to the eastward, and only held together
by the knowledge that in their desperate situation there was more comfort
and safety in numbers. The war seemed to be swiftly approaching its close.
On the 15th Buller occupied Spitzkop in the north, capturing a quantity of
stores, while on the 14th French took Barberton in the south, releasing all
the remaining British prisoners and taking possession of forty locomotives,
which do not appear to have been injured by the enemy. Meanwhile Pole-Carew
had worked along the railway line, and had occupied Kaapmuiden, which was
the junction where the Barberton line joins that to Lourenco Marques. Ian
Hamilton's force, after the taking of Lydenburg and the action which
followed, turned back, leaving Buller to go his own way, and reached
Komatipoort on September 24th, having marched since September 9th without a
halt through a most difficult country.
On September 11th an incident had occurred which must have shown the most
credulous believer in Boer prowess that their cause was indeed lost. On that
date Paul Kruger, a refugee from the country which he had ruined, arrived at
Lourenco Marques, abandoning his beaten commandos and his deluded burghers.
How much had happened since those distant days when as a little herdsboy he
had walked behind the bullocks on the great northward trek. How piteous this
ending to all his strivings and his plottings! A life which might have
closed amid the reverence of a nation and the admiration of the world was
destined to finish in exile, impotent and undignified. Strange thoughts must
have come to him during those hours of flight, memories of his virile and
turbulent youth, of the first settlement of those great lands, of wild wars
where his hand was heavy upon the natives, of the triumphant days of the war
of independence, when England seemed to recoil from the rifles of the
burghers. And then the years of prosperity, the years when the simple farmer
found himself among the great ones of the earth, his name a household word
in Europe, his State rich and powerful, his coffers filled with the spoil of
the poor drudges who worked so hard and paid taxes so readily. Those were
his great days, the days when he hardened his heart against their appeals
for justice and looked beyond his own borders to his kinsmen in the hope of
a South Africa which should be all his own. And now what had come of it all?
A handful of faithful attendants, and a fugitive old man, clutching in his
flight at his papers and his moneybags. The last of the old-world Puritans,
he departed poring over his well-thumbed Bible, and proclaiming that the
troubles of his country arose, not from his own narrow and corrupt
administration, but from some departure on the part of his fellow burghers
from the stricter tenets of the dopper sect. So Paul Kruger passed away from
the country which he had loved and ruined.
Whilst the main army of Botha had been hustled out of their position at
Machadodorp and scattered at Lydenburg and at Barberton, a number of other
isolated events had occurred at different points of the seat of war, each of
which deserves some mention. The chief of these was a sudden revival of the
war in the Orange River Colony, where the band of Olivier was still
wandering in the north-eastern districts. Hunter, moving northwards after
the capitulation of Prinsloo at Fouriesburg, came into contact on August
15th with this force near Heilbron, and had forty casualties, mainly of the
Highland Light Infantry, in a brisk engagement. For a time the British
seemed to have completely lost touch with Olivier, who suddenly on August
24th struck at a small detachment consisting almost entirely of Queenstown
Rifle Volunteers under Colonel Ridley, who were reconnoitring near Winburg.
The Colonial troopers made a gallant defence. Throwing themselves into the
farmhouse of Helpmakaar, and occupying every post of vantage around it, they
held off more than a thousand assailants, in spite of the three guns which
the latter brought to bear upon them. A hundred and thirty-two rounds were
fired at the house, but the garrison still refused to surrender. Troopers
who had been present at Wepener declared that the smaller action was the
warmer of the two. Finally on the morning of the third day a relief force
arrived upon the scene, and the enemy dispersed. The British losses were
thirty-two killed and wounded. Nothing daunted by his failure, Olivier
turned upon the town of Winburg and attempted to regain it, but was defeated
again and scattered, he and his three sons being taken. The result was due
to the gallantry and craft of a handful of the Queenstown Volunteers, who
laid an ambuscade in a donga, and disarmed the Boers as they passed, after
the pattern of Sanna's Post. By this action one of the most daring and
resourceful of the Dutch leaders fell into the hands of the British. It is a
pity that his record is stained by his dishonourable conduct in breaking the
compact made on the occasion of the capture of Prinsloo. But for British
magnanimity a drumhead court-martial should have taken the place of the
hospitality of the Ceylon planters.
On September 2nd another commando of Free State Boers under Fourie emerged
from the mountain country on the Basuto border, and fell upon Ladybrand,
which was held by a feeble garrison consisting of one company of the
Worcester regiment and forty-three men of the Wiltshire Yeomanry. The Boers,
who had several guns with them, appear to have been the same force which had
been repulsed at Winburg. Major White, a gallant marine, whose fighting
qualities do not seem to have deteriorated with his distance from salt
water, had arranged his defences upon a hill, after the Wepener model, and
held his own most stoutly. So great was the disparity of the forces that for
days acute anxiety was felt lest another of those humiliating surrenders
should interrupt the record of victories, and encourage the Boers to further
resistance. The point was distant, and it was some time before relief could
reach them. But the dusky chiefs, who from their native mountains looked
down on the military drama which was played so close to their frontier, were
again, as on the Jammersberg, to see the Boer attack beaten back by the
constancy of the British defence. The thin line of soldiers, 150 of them
covering a mile and a half of ground, endured a heavy shell and rifle fire
with unshaken resolution, repulsed every attempt of the burghers, and held
the flag flying until relieved by the forces under White and Bruce Hamilton.
In this march to the relief Hamilton's infantry covered eighty miles in four
and a half days. Lean and hard, inured to warfare, and far from every
temptation of wine or women, the British troops at this stage of the
campaign were in such training, and marched so splendidly, that the infantry
was often very little slower than the cavalry. Methuen's fine performance in
pursuit of De Wet, where Douglas's infantry did sixty-six miles in
seventy-five hours, the City Imperial Volunteers covering 224 miles in
fourteen days, with a single forced march of thirty miles in seventeen
hours, the Shropshires forty-three miles in thirty-two hours, the forty-five
miles in twenty-five hours of the Essex Regiment, Bruce Hamilton's march
recorded above, and many other fine efforts serve to show the spirit and
endurance of the troops.
In spite of the defeat at Winburg and the repulse at Ladybrand, there still
remained a fair number of broken and desperate men in the Free State who
held out among the difficult country of the east. A party of these came
across in the middle of September and endeavoured to cut the railway near
Brandfort. They were pursued and broken up by Macdonald, who, much aided in
his operations by the band of scouts which Lord Lovat had brought with him
from Scotland, took several prisoners and a large number of wagons and of
oxen. A party of these Boers attacked a small post of sixteen Yeomanry under
Lieutenant Slater at Buitfontein, but were held at bay until relief came
from Brandfort.
At two other points the Boer and British forces were in contact during these
operations. One was to the immediate north of Pretoria1 where Grobler's
commando was faced by Paget's brigade. On August 18th the Boers were forced
with some loss out of Hornies Nek, which is ten miles to the north of the
capital. On the 22nd a more important skirmish took place at Pienaar's
River, in the same direction, between Baden-Powell's men, who had come
thither in pursuit of De Wet, and Grobler's band. The advance guards of the
two forces galloped into each other, and for once Boer and Briton looked
down the muzzles of each other's rifles. The gallant Rhodesian Regiment,
which had done such splendid service during the war, suffered most heavily.
Colonel Spreckley and four others were killed, and six or seven wounded. The
Boers were broken, however, and fled, leaving twenty-five prisoners to the
victors. Baden-Powell and Paget pushed forwards as far as Nylstroom, but
finding themselves in wild and profitless country they returned towards
Pretoria, and established the British northern posts at a place called Warm
Baths. Here Paget commanded, while Baden-Powell shortly afterwards went down
to Cape Town to make arrangements for taking over the police force of the
conquered countries, and to receive the enthusiastic welcome of his colonial
fellow-countrymen. Plumer, with a small force operating from Warm Baths,
scattered a Boer cornmando on September 1st, capturing a few prisoners and a
considerable quantity of munitions of war. On the 5th there was another
skirmish in the same neighbourhood, during which the enemy attacked a kopje
held by a company of Munster Fusiliers, and was driven off with loss. Many
thousands of cattle were captured by the British in this part of the field
of operations, and were sent into Pretoria, whence they helped to supply the
army in the east.
There was still considerable effervescence in the western districts of the
Transvaal, and a mounted detachment met with fierce opposition at the end of
August on their journey from Zeerust to Krugersdorp. Methuen, after his
unsuccessful chase of De Wet, had gone as far as Zeerust, and had then taken
his force on to Mafeking to refit. Before leaving Zeerust, however, he had
despatched Colonel Little to Pretoria with a column which consisted of his
own third cavalry brigade, 1st Brabant's, the Kaffrarian Rifles, R battery
of Horse Artillery, and four Colonial guns. They were acting as guard to a
very large convoy of 'returned empties.' The district which they had to
traverse is one of the most fertile in the Transvaal, a land of clear
streams and of orange groves. But the farmers are numerous and aggressive,
and the column, which was 900 strong, could clear all resistance from its
front, but found it impossible to brush off the snipers upon its flanks and
rear. Shortly after their start the column was deprived of the services of
its gallant leader, Colonel Little, who was shot while riding with his
advance scouts. Colonel Dalgety took over the command. Numerous desultory
attacks culminated in a fierce skirmish at Quaggafontein on August 31st, in
which the column had sixty casualties. The event might have been serious, as
De la Rey's main force appears to have been concentrated upon the British
detachment, the brunt of the action falling upon the Kaffrarian Rifles. By a
rapid movement the column was able to extricate itself and win its way
safely to Krugersdorp, but it narrowly escaped out of the wolf's jaws, and
as it emerged into the open country De la Rey's guns were seen galloping for
the pass which they had just come through. This force was sent south to
Kroonstad to refit.
Lord Methuen's army, after its long marches and arduous work, arrived at
Mafeking on August 28th for the purpose of refitting. Since his departure
from Boshof on May 14th his men had been marching with hardly a rest, and he
had during that time fought fourteen engagements. He was off upon the
war-path once more, with fresh horses and renewed energy, on September 8th,
and on the 9th, with the co-operation of General Douglas, he scattered a
Boer force at Malopo, capturing thirty prisoners and a great. quantity of
stores. On the 14th he ran down a convoy and regained one of the Colenso
guns and much ammunition. On the 20th he again made large captures. If in
the early phases of the war the Boers had given Paul Methuen some evil
hours, he was certainly getting his own back again. At the same time
Clements was despatched from Pretoria with a small mobile force for the
purpose of clearing the Rustenburg and Krugersdorp districts, which had
always been storm centres. These two forces, of Methuen and of Clements,
moved through the country, sweeping the scattered Boer bands before them,
and hunting them down until they dispersed. At Kekepoort and at Hekspoort
Clements fought successful skirmishes, losing at the latter action
Lieutenant Stanley of the Yeomanry, the Somersetshire cricketer, who showed,
as so many have done, how close is the connection between the good sportsman
and the good soldier. On the 12th Douglas took thirty-nine prisoners near
Lichtenburg. On the 18th Rundle captured a gun at Bronkhorstfontein. Hart at
Potchefstroom, Hildyard in the Utrecht district, Macdonald in the Orange
River Colony, everywhere the British Generals were busily stamping out the
remaining embers of what had been so terrible a conflagration.
Much trouble but no great damage was inflicted upon the British during this
last stage of the war by the incessant attacks upon the lines of railway by
roving bands of Boers. The actual interruption of traffic was of little
consequence, for the assiduous Sappers with their gangs of Basuto labourers
were always at hand to repair the break. But the loss of stores, and
occasionally of lives, was more serious. Hardly a day passed that the
stokers and drivers were not made targets of by snipers among the
kopjes,[Footnote: It is to be earnestly hoped that those in authority will
see that these men obtain the medal and any other reward which can mark our
sense of their faithful service. One of them in the Orange River Colony,
after narrating to me his many hairbreadth escapes, prophesied bitterly that
the memory of his services would pass with the need for them.] and
occasionally a train was entirely destroyed. Chief among these raiders was
the wild Theron, who led a band which contained men of all nations - the
same gang who had already, as narrated, held up a train in the Orange River
Colony. On August 31st he derailed another at Flip River to the south of
Johannesburg, blowing up the engine and burning thirteen trucks. Almost at
the same time a train was captured near Kroonstad, which appeared to
indicate that the great De Wet was back in his old hunting-grounds. On the
same day the line was cut at Standerton. A few days later, however, the
impunity with which these feats had been performed was broken, for in a
similar venture near Krugersdorp the dashing Theron and several of his
associates lost their lives.
Two other small actions performed at this period of the war demand a passing
notice. One was a smart engagement near Kraai Railway Station, in which
Major Broke of the Sappers with a hundred men attacked a superior Boer force
upon a kopje and drove them off with loss - a feat which it is safe to say
he could not have accomplished six months earlier. The other was the fine
defence made by 125 of the Canadian Mounted Rifles, who, while guarding the
railway, were attacked by a considerable Boer force with two guns. They
proved once more, as Ladybrand and Elands River had shown, that with
provisions, cartridges, and brains, the smallest force can successfully hold
its own if it confines itself to the defensive.
And now the Boer cause appeared to be visibly tottering to its fall. The
flight of the President had accelerated that process of disintegration which
had already set in. Schalk Burger had assumed the office of Vice-President,
and the notorious Ben Viljoen bad become first lieutenant of Louis Botha in
maintaining the struggle. Lord Roberts had issued an extremely judicious
proclamation, in which he pointed out the uselessness of further resistance,
declared that guerilla warfare would be ruthlessly suppressed, and informed
the burghers that no fewer than fifteen thousand of their fellow-countrymen
were in his hands as prisoners, and that none of these could he released
until the last rifle had been laid down. From all sides in the third week of
September the British forces were converging on Komatipoort, the frontier
town. Already wild figures, stained and tattered after nearly a year of
warfare, were walking the streets of Lourenco Marques, gazed at with wonder
and some distrust by the Portuguese inhabitants. The exiled burghers moodily
pacing the streets saw their exiled President seated in his corner of the
Governor's verandah, the well-known curved pipe still dangling from his
mouth, the Bible by his chair. Day by day the number of these refugees
increased. On September 17th special trains were arriving crammed with the
homeless burghers, and with the mercenaries of many nations - French,
German, Irish-American, and Russian - all anxious to make their way home. By
the 19th no fewer than seven hundred had passed over.
At dawn on September 22nd a half-hearted attempt was made by the commando of
Erasmus to attack Elands River Station, but it was beaten back by the
garrison. While it was going on Paget fell upon the camp which Erasmus had
left behind him, and captured his stores. From all over the country, from
Plumer's Bushmen, from Barton at Krugersdorp, from the Colonials at Heilbron,
from Clements on the west, came the same reports of dwindling resistance and
of the abandoning of cattle, arms, and ammunition.
On September 24th came the last chapter in this phase of the campaign in the
Eastern Transvaal, when at eight in the morning Pole-Carew and his Guardsmen
occupied Komatipoort. They had made desperate marches, one of them through
thick bush, where they went for nineteen miles without water, but nothing
could shake the cheery gallantry of the men. To them fell the honour, an
honour well deserved by their splendid work throughout the whole campaign,
of entering and occupying the ultimate eastern point which the Boers could
hold. Resistance had been threatened and prepared for, but the grim silent
advance of that veteran infantry took the heart out of the defence. With
hardly a shot fired the town was occupied. The bridge which would enable the
troops to receive their supplies from Lourenco Marques was still intact.
General Pienaar and the greater part of his force, amounting to over two
thousand men, had crossed the frontier and had been taken down to Delagoa
Bay, where they met the respect and attention which brave men in misfortune
deserve. Small bands had slipped away to the north and the south, but they
were insignificant in numbers and depressed in spirit. For the time it
seemed that the campaign was over, but the result showed that there was
greater vitality in the resistance of the burghers and less validity in
their oaths than any one had imagined.
One find of the utmost importance was made at Komatipoort, and at Hector
Spruit on the Crocodile River. That excellent artillery which had fought so
gallant a fight against our own more numerous guns, was found destroyed and
abandoned. Pole-Carew at Komatipoort got one Long Tom (96 lb.) Creusot, and
one smaller gun. Ian Hamilton at Hector Spruit found the remains of many
guns, which included two of our horse artillery twelve-pounders, two large
Creusot guns, two Krupps, one Vickers-Maxim quick firer, two pompoms and
four mountain guns.
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