Great Boer War

by Farwell, Byron,,

  Like most of the Boer generals, De la Rey had little formal education —“a handful of wisdom is worth more than a head full of learning,” he said—but he was intelligent and had, said Deneys Reitz, “a fine gift of simple speech.”

  The Boer forces, consisting now of about 3,500 men with six Krupp guns and three or four pompoms—about half the size of Methuen’s division—decided to make their next stand where the Modder and Riet rivers meet, about 25 miles south of Kimberley. Here the rivers had cut into the soft soil of the veld and flowed in deep troughs some 30 feet below the surface of the plain, their steep banks lined with bushes and willows. It was De la Rey’s idea not to contest the crossing of the Modder in the usual fashion by posting men and guns to cover the riverbanks but to utilise the banks themselves as natural defences, posting men in their shelter as if in a giant trench.

  On Sunday, 26 November, they started work on their new positions, converting farm buildings and kraals in the area into improvised forts, making hidden gun emplacements and riflemen’s pits, and marking out ranges by positioning white stones and biscuit tins at measured distances in front of them. De la Rey supervised the work. Cronjé was supposed to be in charge, but by the time he arrived De la Rey’s plans were already being put into operation. Cronjé disliked De la Rey and had resented having him assigned as his “adviser,” but he made no change in the dispositions of the men or the plan of battle and gave no orders, choosing instead to stay aloof from all the preparations by withdrawing to the Island Hotel, a small inn located on the tongue of land that the configuration of the two rivers made almost an island.

  On Monday the British left Enslin and made a 14-mile march to within 6 miles of the Modder. Cavalry patrols ranging ahead were fired upon, and they reported to Methuen that the Boers were concentrating their forces near the now destroyed railway bridge across the river. Late in the day Methuen himself rode out to look. His glasses swept the landscape, but he could see nothing of note, only the dark green foliage that marked the course of the river, the rolling open veld beyond, and, in the distance, the blue hills of Magersfontein and Spytfontein, where he believed the Boers would make a final attempt to stop him and where he expected to fight his last battle before entering Kimberley, now only 25 miles away.

  Methuen’s map of the area was a hastily drawn affair ‘made a few weeks earlier by Captain Walter O’Meara, R.E., who had not used any instruments because he did not want to be seen “spying about.” Almost every detail in it was wrong. Most important of all, the peculiar wanderings of the Modder and Riet rivers were incorrectly shown. This would not have mattered if Methuen had stuck to his original plan, which was to provide his men with five days’ rations, cut himself off from the railway, and, swinging through Jacobsdal, 10 miles east of the railway, attack what he believed to be the enemy’s flank at Spytfontein. Such a manoeuvre, however mistaken in its objective, would certainly have taken the Boers by surprise, for he would probably have struck a long line of Cronjé’s supply wagons, which were leisurely moving across his flank not 10 miles away, and in that case the Boers would have quickly fallen back. However, Methuen made a last-minute change in plans and decided to do exactly what the Boers expected him to do: make another frontal attack.

  Methuen’s decision simply to butt his way through the Boers he encountered in his path requires some explanation. It was based in part upon his desire to defeat his enemies in open battle, to demoralise them by winning a decisive victory. Frontal attacks had succeeded at Talana and Elandslaagte, he knew, and he himself had been successful with the same tactic at Belmont and Rooilaagte; it would do equally well here without the risk of elaborate and possibly more dangerous manoeuvres. Perhaps the most decisive factor in Methuen’s thinking, however, was his fear of leaving the railway. Not only was it the source of all necessities and all comforts, but his orders included specific instructions to repair the line as he went along, and it was envisaged that it would probably be necessary to evacuate the noncombatants from Kimberley once it had been relieved. Deliberately to abandon, even temporarily, the single railway (there were no proper roads) stretching back to all bases and hospitals seemed a dangerous proceeding, for the Boers might then sweep down and destroy it, leaving him stranded on the vast, unknown veld. It appeared best to hug the railway, to try again the same simple tactic, to rely again upon the brave hearts and bright bayonets of his infantrymen.

  At four o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, 28 November, the infantry were turned out, including the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who had arrived by train only a few hours earlier. The men were not fed; they could breakfast after crossing the Modder. Cavalry patrols rode out ahead and again reported that they had drawn fire near the broken railway bridge, but Methuen thought the Boers were not there in any great force. The sun was well above the horizon by the time the infantry topped the last fold of ground south of the rivers. It was a crisp, clear summer morning, and not a Boer was in sight; before them stretched the picture of a peaceful South African countryside: the wide plain broken only by the lines of green bushes along the rivers, a few clusters of poplar trees, some white-walled farm buildings and kraals. Beyond the river was the Modder River railway station and a few houses surrounded by eucalyptus trees. Methuen scanned the scene with his glasses: there was not a sign of the more than 3,000 riflemen hidden along the riverbanks. Turning to General R. Pole-Carew, commanding the 9th Brigade, he remarked that there were “probably no Boers at all”; if there were, he thought there were not more than 400. He pointed out one of the houses near the railway station which he thought would be a good place to make his headquarters, and two of his staff officers trotted off towards it to make preparations for his arrival.

  From the Island Hotel Cronjé, who had just finished his breakfast, watched the advancing British infantry. He had just given his only order of the day: to De la Rey’s horror, he ordered two guns to be moved from their prepared positions in the centre to the left flank. This movement, at about seven o’clock in the morning, gave the British their first sight of the enemy. A battery of the Royal Horse Artillery detached itself and smartly galloped into position, the gunners swinging their guns into action and accurately shelling the Boer guns at a range of 4,000 yards. The Boer artillerymen withdrew their guns out of range and out of sight.

  Not even the appearance of the enemy guns ruffled Methuen and his staff. Several officers expressed the opinion that “they’ll never stand against us here.” Not here, not on open, level ground against regular British infantry.

  But snuggly hidden by the river’s banks the Boer marksmen silently watched the massed ranks of infantry march across that level, open ground, well aware that it offered the best shooting conditions they could ask for.

  “They are not there,” said Methuen to Sir Henry Colvile.

  “They are sitting uncommonly tight if they are, sir,” Colvile replied.

  At that moment the Boer line, nearly 4 miles long, opened fire. The range was 1,200 yards. The British had walked into what one man called “a three-mile jaw full of sunken teeth.” The soldiers threw themselves on the ground, trying their best to find cover behind the low, leafless bushes of the plain and the scattered anthills. Then the Boer artillery opened fire. One of the first shells killed Lieutenant Colonel Horace Stopford, commander of the 2nd Coldstream Guards, as he was trying to move his men forward. A string of pompom shells killed the entire crew of the Scots Guards’ Maxim, leaving the gun on its cart standing upright, unmanned and alone, for the rest of the day, the only object standing on a plain of prone men.

  On the right of the British line the Scots Guards attempted a flanking movement and to their surprise encountered the Riet River, wide, muddy, and at this point unfordable. The Boers had not tried to defend the banks here. Colvile ordered men to search for a place to cross, but they failed to find Besman’s Drift, an easy crossing for men and guns only a couple of miles downstream. A well-used path led to the drift; mounted patrols had skirmished near it; ye
t neither Colvile nor Methuen knew of its existence.

  The day grew hotter and then hotter. All along the centre of the line the soldiers lay flat on their stomachs in the scorching sun. The temperature climbed to 110 degrees, and the men were hungry and, above all, thirsty, but any movement provoked the fire of the deadly, unseen riflemen. This fighting against unseen foes was maddening. “It’s fighting against rocks. You have nobody to shoot at, damn it!” one soldier complained. Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Codrington wrote Lady Florence Poore that although he had been in three battles he had seen only three Boers. There was a feeling among the soldiers that Boer tactics were not quite cricket: “Why doesn’t the Boer come out in the open and fight us fair in the teeth?” asked one.

  Shortly after noon a herd of black and white goats wandered across the fire zone. The Boers used them to correct their range; their accuracy, already good, was improved. It became even more dangerous to move an arm or a leg. The men stretched motionless on the ground listened to what has been described as “the silky breath of the Mauser.”

  Boer bullets striking anthills disturbed the ants, who streamed out to take their revenge on the helpless men. Lying still on the sandy ground, the hot sun beating on their backs, ants and flies crawling over them, a deadly foe in front of them, some of the soldiers simply fell asleep. One who did wrote in a letter home: “I dropped off to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but I was rudely awakened by the scream of a shell from a Boer ‘Buck-up gun,’ which exploded about thirty yards from me, and took the right leg off one of our chaps. I didn’t go to sleep again.”4 The Highlanders suffered most from the sun, for the backs of their knees reddened and blistered.

  Methuen wandered about the battlefield and gave no orders of any importance; his commanders seldom knew where to find him. At one point he took over a subaltern’s command, leading a party of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders down a small gully. Later in the afternoon, when he was again where he ought not to have been, he was shot in the thigh. Methuen found it easier to be gallant than to be wise.

  Almost the only damage done to the Boers was inflicted by the British artillery, even though the gunners, too, suffered from the Boers’ musketry. An officer from the 62nd Battery wrote:

  We took up our position 800 yards from the Boer trenches, and, by Jove! the Boers let us have a fearful reception. Before I got my horses out they shot one of my drivers and two horses ... and brought down my own horse. We then got my gun around on the enemy, when one of my gunners was shot through the brain and fell at my feet. Another of my gunners was shot whilst bringing up a shell, and I began to feel queer.5

  In spite of their casualties the artillerymen continued to work their guns, and they had such a demoralising effect upon the Free Staters on the Boer right that late in the afternoon they fell back. The British infantry exploited the advantage and some troops actually managed to cross the Modder and capture a small village.

  When it grew too dark to see, the shooting stopped, both sides remaining where they were while their leaders debated their next move. Methuen made up his mind to sit tight and renew the attack in the morning; the Boers, ever sensitive about their flanks, were alarmed by the one British success on their right and the withdrawal of the Free Staters there, some of whom had fled the field for good. In spite of the bitter objections of De la Rey, the krygsraad decided to retreat during the night.

  That afternoon De la Rey had seen his nineteen-year-old son Adriaan (called “Adaan”) severely wounded in the abdomen by shrapnel. Now, even with the battle over, it was not possible to get back to him. Once the retreat was decided on, his men streamed away from the field in such haste that for a while it appeared that the guns would be abandoned and he had personally to see that they were got safely away. By the time he got back, at the end of the long day, the boy was dying.

  “Are your cannon safe?” Adaan asked as his father bent over him.

  There were no ambulances. De la Rey and some of his aides carried the boy on a blanket down the hill and set off down the road to Jacobsdal. Sick at the thought of retreating, sick at the thought of his dying son, De la Rey, himself slightly wounded in the right shoulder, trudged down the road in the dark. Cronjé and his staff came riding up behind.

  “Well, Vechtgeneraal, how did the battle go?” Cronjé called out.

  De la Rey swelled with rage. In a fury he accused Cronjé of shirking his duty and of leaving the burghers in the lurch. The dying boy was set down on the road while the generals wrangled.

  Cronjé put an end to it by riding off. De la Rey and his men took up the boy and resumed their sad and bitter march. Then from behind came a small wagon hitched to a mule. It was driven by Field Cornet Coetzee, and in the back was his son, Hansie, barely alive with a gaping wound where his throat should have been. Hansie Coetzee and Adaan de la Rey had been classmates at the Staatsmodel School in Pretoria. Adaan was lifted into the wagon beside his friend. It was nearly dawn before they reached Jacobsdal and found the hospital. All of the beds were occupied; the boys were laid on the floor. Someone brought De la Rey a cup of coffee as he sat on the floor beside his son; he offered some to Adaan, but the boy could only shake his head. Minutes later he died. De la Rey telegraphed his wife: “Today there slipped to death so softly in my arms our loved son Adaan.... Tomorrow the body will be committed to earth here in Jacobsdal. How hard it still is for us all. But God has so decided. . . .”6

  Men on both sides were beginning to understand some of war’s grim realities. A private in the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment wrote to his mother: “I wrote you a letter the night before the battle of Modder River, stating what fine sport war was in my idea, but tore it up as soon as I saw my poor old friend lying dead on the battlefield.”7 Another soldier wrote: “Most terrible of all was a tall red-bearded Boer who had been wounded fearfully by a shell, and walked to and fro, his whole face one mass of blood, his eyes torn out, calling frantically for his comrades.”8 Lieutenant Cornwallis-West wrote: “I am sick of this war, three big battles in six days is enough for any man, and I think most of us think the same.” The war had just begun.

  When the next morning the first light of dawn touched the silent battlefield on the Modder, the naval guns threw a few shells at what had been the Boer positions. There was no response. In the continuing silence the British realised that their enemy had left. Methuen sent off a dispatch to London announcing another victory. It was, he said, “one of the hardest and most trying fights in the annals of the British army.” It was not that. The British army in its long history had certainly fought fiercer battles, and in this one most of his men had simply lain out in the sun trying not to be seen by the enemy. Still, he had lost 70 officers and men killed and 413 wounded.

  13

  MAGERSFONTEIN

  For twelve days Methuen sat inactive by the Modder River, accumulating supplies and receiving reinforcements. Two more Highland battalions arrived, the Black Watch and the Seaforths, completing the complement of the Highland Brigade, and there were now almost as many kilts as trousers in his army, for in addition to the Highland Brigade there were the Gordons and (although trousered) a battalion of the Scots Guards.

  In command of the Highland Brigade was Major General Andrew Wauchope (1846-1899), called by his men “Andy” or “Red Mick”; he had a “strangely ascetic face” and was the only clean-shaven general officer in the British army. Like French, he began his service in the Royal Navy. He was fourteen at the time. After three years he left, spent two years in retirement, and, at the age of nineteen, obtained a commission in the Black Watch. He served in the Ashanti War of 1873 and was twice wounded, once severely. During the Egyptian Campaign of 1882 he was again severely wounded. Andy Wauchope was not lucky in battle. He took part in the Nile expedition of 1884-1885 and was wounded still again at the battle of Kirkeban. He then retired on half-pay for a time to devote himself to his family estates and business affairs, for on the death of his elder brother he had become one of the wealthiest
men in Scotland. In 1892 he stood for Parliament, contesting without success the seat held by Gladstone. Then he returned to active duty with the army, taking part in the 1898 campaign in the Sudan, where for the first and only time he fought a war without being wounded.

  In addition to the two new Highland battalions, Methuen also received as reinforcements the 12th Lancers, 100 mounted infantry, a battery of horse artillery, a howitzer battery, a 4.7-inch naval gun that was nicknamed “Joe Chamberlain,” and a “war balloon.” Other units, including contingents of newly arrived Canadian and Australian infantry, were brought up to hold his line of communication.

  Methuen was in communication with the forces inside Kimberley through searchlights, heliographs, and occasional messengers; he knew the besieged town was not in any immediate danger and he felt under no great pressure to hurry. Except to repair the railway bridge over the Modder, he did nothing to prepare for his advance, to interfere with the enemy’s preparations to meet him, or even to discover the nature of the Boer defences. In spite of his observation balloon and his light cavalry —in neither of which he reposed much confidence—he knew nothing of the enemy’s numbers or dispositions. He estimated their strength to be about equal to his own 15,000, although the Boer forces actually numbered only about 8,000, even with the reinforcements that had recently come up, and he assumed, this time correctly, that they would be waiting for him at a farm known as Magersfontein where a series of kopjes offered them good defensive positions. Ten miles away on his right flank was Jacobsdal, where the Boers kept their almost undefended laagers crammed with wagons, supplies, women, and children, but it seems not to have occurred to him that a raid in that direction might shake them and disrupt their preparations. Apparently it did not occur to the Boers either. They assumed that Methuen would continue his march straight up the railway line and would again launch another frontal attack. They were right.