At five o’clock, in a dull drizzling rain, the brigade paraded as usual. Penn Symons, unconcerned about the attack on his picket by what he imagined to be a Boer raiding party, did not even inform his senior officers, nor did it occur to him to give his men an early breakfast in anticipation of a battle. The brigade was dismissed without any special orders or any indication that they were in danger. The guns and limbers of the artillery were unhitched, and the horses were led towards their watering place about a mile away. One battalion moved out to drill on the plain; others were dismissed and the men removed their accoutrements to prepare for the routine fatigues of camp life.
Battle of Talana Hill
20 October 1899
During the night the Utrect and Wakkerstroom commandos with some artillery under Major J. F. Wolmarans of the staatsartitlerie—in all about 1,500 men—had climbed to the top of Talana, while Lucas Meyer led the Middleburg, Vryheid, and Pietretief commandos to occupy Lennox and other hills to the southeast, and Erasmus with the vanguard of Joubert’s forces climbed Impati. The Boers now occupied the heights to the north and east of the valley where Dundee and Penn Symons’s brigade rested in unsuspecting confidence. Their plan of action was typical of Boer tactics: their guns would stir up the British beehive and then they would wait for the British to attack their entrenched positions.
Wolmarans positioned his guns in the centre of Talana and began constructing protective emplacements while the impatient burghers (most of whom had never heard a cannon fired) crowded around, urging the gunners to open fire: “Why don’t you say good morning to the English?” Lucas Meyer was also impatient and sent word for Wolmarans to stop wasting time and to get his guns into action.
In the valley a British soldier looked up from his work towards Talana, standing black and well defined against the pale eastern sky, and saw the hill covered with men. He cried out and others looked where he pointed. Excitement swept through the camp. Thousands of heads turned towards Talana. Officers took out their field glasses for a first look at their enemy. Then a shell, the first of the thousands that were to fall on Natal, arced through the air and exploded on the outskirts of Dundee. A second buried itself in the mud a few feet from General Penn Symons’s tent but failed to explode. The British camp jumped to life; officers and noncommissioned officers barked orders, and men ran for their rifles, buckling on their equipment as they ran.
The British artillerymen were particularly quick in swinging into action. Horses were recalled, teams speedily hitched, and two batteries at a gallop went thundering through little Dundee; just beyond the town they whirled smartly around and took up positions on a small knoll. Knots of the town’s citizens, excited and curious, gathered to watch. Whips cracking, teams were hustled to the rear; at a range of 3,650 yards the British guns, loaded with shrapnel, opened fire on the Boers.
After a few trial rounds white puffs of smoke could be seen directly over the Boers’ position on the crest and their artillery was silenced as Wolmarans was forced to withdraw his exposed guns. The effect of the British shelling on the Boers was profound. As the shells burst overhead and the shrapnel rattled on the rocks around them, the brave took cover behind boulders; those less brave retreated to the foot of the hill; some went further, running to their ponies and ignominiously fleeing the field.
Although negligent of the precautions he should have taken against attack and slow to recognize danger, William Penn Symons knew how to conduct a battle. Leaving a battery and one battalion to defend his camp, he launched the rest of his brigade at the enemy on Talana. As the troops surged down the road through Dundee, men, women, and children stood by the wayside and cheered; an inspired town guard seized their rifles and joined the infantry.
The Dublin Fusiliers and the Irish Fusiliers were ordered to advance on Talana in extended order while a battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps gave them support. The troops advanced in waves, the Dublin Fusiliers leading. They were delayed by a stream bed, into which they tumbled, one line on top of the other, the units becoming hopelessly jumbled. Finally the officers sorted them out and at about seven thirty they scrambled out and raced for a wood of blue gum trees.
In the open space before the wood they came under an intense fire from the Boer rifles above them, but with the haven of the trees before their eyes they pressed on without faltering, the artillery moving closer to support them. Once in the shelter of the wood the infantry showed some reluctance to move out, and Penn Symons dispatched two staff officers to his second-in-command, Brigadier General James Yule, with an order: “Assault!” Yule replied that he would as soon as he was able. Fiery Penn Symons, dissatisfied with this answer, decided to go to the wood himself.
Spurring his horse, he jumped a fence and at a gallop crossed the open ground. Inside the wood he dismounted and gave orders for everyone, even the reserve, to move on through the wood. On the far side the forward troops came up against a low stone wall, and Penn Symons rashly stepped through a gap to look at the position. He was barely through when he turned to a staff officer and said quietly, “I am severely—mortally—wounded in the stomach.”
Soldiers carried him down through the wood and then, at his order, put him on his horse. Supported by officers, he made the agonizing ride back as far as the guns; here he was eased from his horse and carried back to camp, there to die a slow, painful death.
Yule, now in command, carried on. With difficulty he collected his men and led them in a charge out of the wood and up the slope to another stone wall on the hillside through the fierce and accurate fire of the Boers’ rifles. It was the first time that British troops had ever faced modern musketry, and it was a sobering experience. One officer described it:
I don’t suppose I am ever likely to go through a more awful fire than broke out from the Boer line as we dashed forward. The ground in front of me was literally rising in dust from the bullets.... Half way over the terrace I looked round over my shoulder.... At that moment I was hit for the first time, just as I reached the foot of the hill beyond the terrace. I was hit through the knee. The actual shock was as if someone had hit me with their whole strength with a club. I spun round and fell, my pistol flying one way and helmet another.... I felt numbed at first but no actual pain. I gathered up my property and hopped to the foot of the rise from the terrace to the top. There I began to pull myself up by holding on to the rocks and bushes and long grass with which the hillside was covered.... About 15 to 20 yards up the hill I was hit a second time by a shot from above; the bullet hit me in the back above my right hip and came out in front of my thigh. After a short rest I got up and began to crawl to the top. I had reached the crest line and was leaning against a rock when a Boer stood up twenty yards in front of me and faced me. We both looked at one another for a moment and then almost simultaneously he threw up his rifle and covered me and I took a step forward and covered him with my Mauser pistol. My first wound saved me, for in stepping forward I forgot my wounded leg, and as I pulled the trigger the leg gave way and I fell flat on my face. Whether the Boer fired or not I cannot say, there was too much din to distinguish one rifle from another even at that short range. After falling, I drew back under cover of the rock and raised myself carefully, ready to shoot if I spotted my man again. He was gone, however, and, as I was looking, I was hit a third time, this time in the back, the bullet coming out just by my spine.... The fire was gradually dying down, only to bring to our ears what was infinitely more painful to hear, the moaning of wounded men from the terrace below and the hillside round us.... I had just taken off my accoutrements and was beginning to bandage my leg when a shrapnel shell burst overhead.... We could see our artillery on the plain below us.... It seemed impossible that they should not have seen our advance from the wall, especially as they had ceased firing for over half an hour previously. I sat anxiously watching, and presently I saw another flash from a gun, and then, with a scream and a crash, a shrapnel shell burst just behind us. There was no room for error this time; the a
rtillery was shelling us.... I felt rather beat then. I didn’t feel as if I could do anything to help myself, and a feeling of despair came over me for a while. It seemed so hard, after escaping the Boers so far, to be killed by our own people. ... below me on the terrace I watched the wretched fellows who were wounded trying to drag themselves to the wall for shelter. Presently a shrapnel burst right over our heads, and the bullets struck the ground all round us. Our men were now flying off the top of the hill for shelter below, and the Boers from both flanks, seeing their chance, began firing again as hard as they could load.1
A signaller of the Royal Irish Fusiliers leaped onto a boulder and tried to signal to the guns below, only 1,500 yards away. The firing stopped, then began again, and effectively cleared the crest of friend and foe alike.
Satisfied at last that its work was done, the artillery stopped. The British infantry then painfully regrouped itself and occupied Talana. The Boers were now streaming eastward in flight.
The British had been fortunate that Lucas Meyer’s men on neighboring Lennox Hill had not reinforced their comrades on Talana but had contented themselves with providing only a long-range flanking fire, and that Erasmus, with his force of 4,000 on Impati, had made no move to attack the British camp and threaten their rear.
As soon as Talana was captured and it was evident that the Boers were fleeing, Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Pickwoad, who was in charge of the two batteries which had shelled their own men, was ordered to take his guns to Smith’s Nek, the saddle between Talana and Lennox hills. It was now two o’clock in the afternoon and raining steadily, but from Smith’s Nek Pickwoad could see almost the entire Boer force in full flight across the plain only a thousand yards from the muzzles of his guns. Here was an opportunity to turn the Boers’ leisurely retreat into a rout, for as The Times History said, “Rarely has such a mark fallen to the portion of artillery in war.” Pickwoad’s twelve guns could have created havoc among the long lines of horsemen, wagons, and artillery. His guns were unlimbered and he was in an excellent position. He had only to open fire. Instead, he sent a messenger back to Yule asking what he ought to do.
It is not clear, either from his own report or from other accounts, why Pickwoad failed to seize this opportunity. He had already blundered badly this day; undoubtedly he was shaken by what he had done and was perhaps fearful of repeating his mistake, for British cavalry and mounted infantry had worked their way around to the Boer rear. Perhaps he feared he would hit Boer ambulances; some of the retreating Boers may have raised a white flag. We will never know for sure. There is also a possibility that Pickwoad thought a truce had been declared.
An hour and a half earlier he had talked with an officer who was looking for General Yule. A Boer messenger had given him a note (addressed to Penn Symons) from Lucas Meyer who, according to L. S. Amery, “was suddenly seized with the strange inspiration to ask for a temporary suspension of hostilities to enable the wounded to be safely removed to the field hospitals.”2 Pickwoad had urged the officer to advise Yule against granting the request, but he had no way of knowing the outcome of the affair. It is difficult to know exactly what did happen. The officer with the message was unable to find the Boer messenger who had given him Meyer’s note. Lucas Meyer later claimed that Penn Symons had granted the truce, but this seems unlikely. In any case, the Boers suffered no further harm that day from the British artillery.
The British infantry also failed to follow the retreating Boers. Having struggled all day and at such cost to reach the top of Talana, they marched back down again and returned to their camp, reaching it at about five thirty in the afternoon. There was some excuse for this. The men had not eaten since the previous day and they had been marching and fighting in the mud and rain since early morning; besides, Yule was fearful of the Boers on Impati, who might yet attack his camp.
The action of the cavalry this day forms a separate story. The 18th Hussars and some mounted infantry, all under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Bernhard Drysdale Möller, had been ordered by Penn Symons to sweep around the north end of Talana and harass the Boer rear. The 18th Hussars had not been in action since Waterloo, more than eighty years before, and their commanding officer had never seen an enemy in all his twenty-six years of service. On that morning of 20 October he rode off at the head of his regiment to fight his first and last battle. He first took up an excellent position north ofTalana and then sent Major Eustace Knox with two squadrons of hussars to roam behind the enemy’s positions. Knox’s squadrons trotted about in the drizzling rain and came upon several isolated groups of Boers. These were charged, boot to boot with flashing sabres, in the approved cavalry style. But the sabres of British cavalry (except in India) were, in accordance with regulations, kept sheathed in steel scabbards; as a result, they were so dull that the hussars could not even cut through their enemies’ homespun clothing. Nevertheless, some uncut but battered and bruised Boers were taken prisoner and tied together in a file behind a Scotch cart.
As Möller with the rest of the mounted men came up to join Knox, the Boers could be seen streaming down the slopes of Talana and Lennox. Möller now sent Knox off to the south while he took up a position directly across the path of the retreating Boers, his mounted infantry and the Maxim detachment of the 18th Hussars in front and he himself with his two remaining squadrons positioned behind them. It is difficult to conceive how Möller could have imagined that 120 rifles and one machine gun would stop the entire Boer army, which, although discouraged, was not demoralized. Pressed by overwhelming numbers, he was, of course, unable to maintain his position and slowly retreated northward in a series of retirements. The Maxim machine gun, mounted on a cart, bogged down in the thick mud and its crew were all killed or wounded valiantly trying to save it. Möller, instead of leading his force back to Dundee by the way it had come, appears to have lost his way in the mist and blindly galloped on until he came up behind Impati. There two or three hundred of Erasmus’s men under Commandant Piet Trichardt found him. Möller threw his force into a group of farm buildings and prepared to defend himself, but Trichardt brought up a couple of guns and after firing only half a dozen rounds forced him to surrender. Knox managed to return safely.
The British counted Talana a victory, but many more such victories would destroy them. Conan Doyle called it “a tactical victory but a strategic defeat.” They lost 41 killed, of whom 10 were officers, and 185 wounded; 9 officers and 211 other ranks were prisoners or missing. Boer losses were considerably less: 23 killed, 66 wounded, and 20 missing. Nevertheless, the Natal Witness put out a special edition to announce this victory to British arms in the first real battle of the war. Back in England they were soon singing:
Bravo the Dublin Fusiliers! Bravo the Dublin Fusiliers!
Crossed the ocean for the Boers to fight,
Put ten thousand of the Boers to Hight,
Bravo the Dublin Fusiliers!
9
ELANDSLAAGTE
On 18 October 1899, two days before the battle of Talana Hill, a Boer patrol rode into Elanslaagte, a village of tin houses surrounded by a few trees on the railway line about 14 miles north by east of Ladysmith and about the same distance south of Dundee. The town was undefended, but they caught an army supply train in the station and made prisoners of the few soldiers they found there. At ten thirty the following morning General Johannes Kock arrived, after a 20-mile march, with 1,200 men and two guns. His force consisted of town Boers from Johannesburg, a Free State contingent, and a number of foreign volunteers. They slept and rested most of the day, and that evening some of them organized a “smoking concert” at the Elandslaagte inn; the British prisoners were invited to join them, and they lustily sang songs in English and Afrikaans, including both the “Volkslied” and “God Save the Queen.” The war was young and exciting and so far bloodless; they had not yet experienced its grimmer meaning. Within forty-eight hours some of the singers would be dead, some would be suffering untended wounds, and all would have a greater understand
ing of the nature of the enterprise upon which they had embarked.
Johannes Hermanus Kock was a sixty-three-year-old white-bearded patriarch who, like many other burghers, brought his wife along to the war to look after him. As an infant he had been taken on the Great Trek, and as a twelve-year-old boy he had taken part in the battle of Boomplaats. He had served as landdrost of Potchefstroom, was a member of the Transvaal volksraad, and since 1891 had been a member of the Executive Council.
On the day Kock arrived at Elandslaagte, Major General John French (1852-1925), the man who in fifteen years’ time would lead the British Expeditionary Force to France, arrived in Ladysmith to take temporary command of the British cavalry in Natal. Short, chunky, and sitting hunched in his saddle, he looked not at all like a dashing cavalry commander—yet this was the reputation he was to acquire in South Africa. He had a hot temper and he was moody; he was a man eager for responsibility and—a rare quality in a British general in this era—he was willing to take risks.
The son of a captain in the Royal Navy, French was entered as a cadet in HMS Britannia when he was fourteen, but his career in high-masted ships was short: he suffered from vertigo. After serving briefly in the militia, he obtained a commission in the 8th Hussars at the age of twenty-two. Until he arrived in South Africa his only active service had been in Egypt during the Nile expedition of 1884-1885, where he had taken part in two engagements. French had no personal fortune of any size—an embarrassing situation for a British cavalry officer, whose mess bill alone usually exceeded his salary—and he had expensive tastes. He loved beautiful women and was said to be as gallant in the bedroom as on the battlefield; it was whispered that he had once seduced his colonel’s wife. Financial problems plagued him. He had engaged in some unwise speculations—including some highly speculative Transvaal gold shares—and he was heavily in debt.
Great Boer War Page 10
