Great Boer War

by Farwell, Byron,,

  The Boers were busily digging trenches and making breastworks on the crests of the Magersfontein kopjes when De la Rey conceived what The Times History called “one of the boldest and most original conceptions in the history of war.” So original did it seem that one officer claimed that “if it had been displayed by a young British officer in an examination for promotion, it would probably have injured that officer’s prospects.” De la Rey’s scheme was to dig the main line of trenches on ground level in front of the hill instead of on the crests. It would deceive the British and would give the Boer riflemen a sweeping fire range. Piet Cronjé disagreed. At this point President Steyn arrived and settled the quarrel; he agreed with De la Rey’s plan and forced Cronjé to accept it. The trenches, deep, narrow, and well camouflaged, were dug at the bottom of the hills.

  After the battle much was made of what seemed to be another novelty in warfare: barbed wire. An American, Joseph Glidden, had invented this twenty-five years earlier, but it had never been used in a defensive manner by soldiers. At Magersfontein it appears that by chance some barbed wire that had been strung by farmers stood in front of parts of the Boer position, but at this time it was not used deliberately.

  Methuen also had a plan for the battle, and he called together his senior officers to explain it. There was nothing remarkable about it: he intended to bombard the Boers, then move the Highland Brigade up close to the Boer positions during the night and attack at dawn. Although night marches in the face of the enemy, even for short distances, were regarded as complicated maneuvers involving some risk, it was the same plan Wolseley had used to win his victory over Arabi in Egypt seventeen years earlier, and in spite of miscalculations, it had worked successfully for Methuen himself at Belmont. He was confident it would work again. He left all the details to his brigade commanders, and later he was to say of the Highland Brigade, “No detailed orders as to the formation to be adopted were given by me.” Wauchope listened glumly while Methuen explained his battle plan. As he left Methuen’s tent he said to Colonel Charles Douglas, the chief staff officer, “I don’t like the idea of this night march.”

  At three o’clock on Sunday afternoon, 10 December, in a pouring rain the Black Watch, screened by the 9th Lancers, moved out of camp and advanced in extended order “like a well-oiled piece of machinery towards the hills of Magersfontein. They stopped while still out of range of the enemy’s rifles and, on order, lay down in the mud. The purpose of this manoeuvre is obscure, but probably Methuen thought it a safeguard in case the Boers should attack his guns, which, as soon as the Highlanders were in position, began a two-hour bombardment of the crests, using a powerful new explosive called lyddite. ”Shells tore through the air with precisely the noise of an express train rushing at full speed,” reported one correspondent. They exploded with a force that tossed huge rocks into the air and covered the crest with great clouds of greenish yellow smoke. Everyone was impressed. The Black Watch lay on the veld and watched. A sharp-eyed sergeant noticed that when shells fell short of the hill, near the base, the earth thrown up was of a different colour. ”There must be trenches there,” he said. But no one paid any attention.

  Methuen was delighted by the artillery display, confident that he was inflicting severe losses and shaking the enemy’s morale considerably. In fact, the total result of the bombardment was three burghers wounded. If anything, it reinforced, even raised, the morale of the Boers, who, as they lay snugly in their trenches, safe from all but direct hits, had time to realise the full beauty of De la Rey’s plan.

  The war balloon was to have made its ascent this day, but the pelting rain prevented it, and it did not occur to Methuen to delay his attack until he could see where the enemy was and the real effect of his bombardment.

  The Black Watch, having lain in the mud throughout the bombardment, now rose and moved back. As Captain Charles Stewart, commanding Company B, said, “Thus having given the Boers warning that we were likely to attack first thing in the morning, we retired and bivouacked together, one Highland regiment behind the other.”

  After the bombardment Methuen met again with his staff and brigade commanders. As the meeting broke up, Colvile remarked to Wauchope that since his Guards Brigade were to be in the reserve he would not see much action. “Things don’t always go as they are expected. You may not be in reserve long,” Wauchope said glumly. It was, however, to be a Scottish battle; even the farm on which the battle took place was owned by John Bisset, a Scot.

  Shortly after midnight the Highland Brigade was roused from its sleep on the damp, rocky ground and put into close formation of quarter columns, a dense rectangle of 4,000 men in ninety-six successive lines, the Black Watch in front followed by the Seaforths, the Argylls, and the Highland Light Infantry. Then they marched off in the rain and dark towards the Magersfontein kopjes. Wauchope carried his sword, his old claymore. Thunder rolled across the veld, and lightning flashed from time to time above them as they marched. In the distance ahead of them the blinking violet-white light of the Kimberley searchlight could be seen; it was at about this time that messages were being sent by some of the town’s wealthier citizens to their bankers in Cape Town.

  To keep the Highlanders in their close formation and marching in the right direction, officers holding ropes were on both ends of the marching column. An artillery officer, Major George Elliot Benson, led the way. They had marched about far enough; the rain had stopped; dawn was near; the outline of the kopjes could be dimly seen. Major Benson twice suggested that it was time to deploy, but Wauchope wanted to be close in by first light, and he knew that his men could move faster in their closed formation. He was about to give the command to change from quarter column to extended order (five-pace interval between men) when they encountered a patch of prickly thorn bushes and he decided to wait until they had passed through it. The leading elements of his brigade were about 700 yards from the kopjes, and although neither he nor anyone else suspected it, he was only 400 yards from the Boer trenches when he was at last ready to deploy. At that moment disaster struck.

  Battle of MAGERSFONTEIN

  11 December 1899

  There exist a variety of versions of how the Boers knew the British were upon them and who gave the signal to fire. Among the British there were stories told after the battle of spies and traitors, lantern signals from farmhouses, that sort of thing, but nothing better than the previous afternoon’s bombardment could have been found to alert the Boers. They were obviously waiting expectantly. One burgher, O. van Oostrun, said that trip wires with tin cans tied to them had been strung in front of their positions and they simply listened for them to be touched. Perhaps he was right. He was there. In any case, the massacre of the Highland lads now began.

  The Boer musketry was rapid and, at such close range, deadly indeed for the massed brigade. When the firing began Wauchope stepped forward to see how far the Boer trenches extended and sent his cousin and aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Arthur Wauchope, running along the lines to find Lieutenant Colonel John Coode of the Black Watch and tell him and other officers to move out to the right. Coode valiantly tried to move his men but was killed in the attempt. So too was Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Goff of the Argylls. Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Hughes-Hallett of the Seaforths was the only battalion commander left untouched. When Lieutenant Wauchope made his way back, he found Andy Wauchope dead. Shortly after, he himself was seriously wounded.

  Caught in a dense formation so close to the enemy’s lines the Scots did not have a chance. Colour Sergeant McInnes of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders tried to describe what happened:

  The brigade seemed to stagger under the awful fire, but yet held their ground and did not break. The order was given to lie down, but in that close formation we were getting shot like sheep.

  I remember distinctly the 91st [Argylls] getting the order to move to the right, and we started moving in that direction when several contradictory orders rang out, some calling to “fix bayonets and charge” etc. Then, this see
med to me what happened—the Black Watch, who were in front, could stand it no longer, and were driven back on the Seaforths, who likewise started to shout “retire” and the next minute the brigade had lost all shape and were converted into a dismayed mob, running to seek cover anywhere and getting shot by the score as they did so.1

  Another Highlander said, “When we started to extend they opened fire on us, and such a hailstorm of bullets I don’t want to experience again. It was seen that someone had blundered.” A soldier in the Highland Light Infantry said, “What could we do? It was dark. The men did not know where they were. Somebody shouted ‘Retire!’ and we did—well, not a retire, but a stampede; 4,000 men like a flock of sheep running for dear life.” His commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Kelham, who was only slightly wounded, was knocked down and trampled on by his own men.

  Not everyone panicked; there were brave men and brave actions. Jimmy McKay, corporal piper of the Argylls, stood up and began to play “The Campbells Are Coming.” Several other pipers followed his example. Corporal John Shaul won a Victoria Cross by turning a group of men around and leading them in an advance. William MacFarlan, adjutant of the 2nd Black Watch, led a small group of men straight up the southeastern point of the hill, but the British artillery came into action and shells from their own guns drove them down again. Lieutenant Ernest Cox of the Seaforths also broke through with three or four men. All were killed. Lieutenant H. E. M. Douglas and Lieutenant E. T. Inkson of the Royal Army Medical Corps crawled about the battlefield administering aid to the wounded, their valour earning them Victoria Crosses. Major William Lambton, wounded, refused to allow himself to be carried from the field for fear of attracting fire and endangering the bearers; he lay on the ground for thirty-seven hours without food or water.

  In addition to the frightened and the brave, there were the foolish. A soldier of the Highland Light Infantry blundered about among his prone and cursing comrades pursued by a blizzard of bullets bawling, “Anyone seen my mess tin?”

  Had he not in a crucial moment hesitated, Lieutenant Robert Wilson of the Seaforths might have changed the outcome of the battle and indeed the entire course of the war. He had found a hole in the Boer lines and led some hundred Highlanders through it and around to the reverse slope of the hill. He was headed for the crest, and if he had gained it, the plunging fire he could have poured into the Boers’ rear would almost certainly have turned the tide of battle. But he and his soldiers were not the only men on the slope.

  The Boers had had a wet and uncomfortable night. Cronjé had tried to sleep in the damp without success; in the dark of the early morning, shortly after the Highlanders had begun their march, he had given up the attempt and set off with six of his staff on a tour of inspection. Stumbling around in the dark, they had lost their way so thoroughly that they were still wandering about in the early dawn when they saw Lieutenant Wilson’s Highlanders. Cronjé did not hesitate. “Schiet, kerels! Schiet!” (Shoot, boys! Shoot!), he shouted. Throwing themselves behind rocks, the seven opened a hot fire. Glory and victory sometimes hang by a slender thread indeed. Had Wilson charged he would have gained the crest (there were no other Boers on this side of the hill) and killed or captured Piet (Cronjé, a prize indeed. There were only seven Mausers against a hundred Lee-Metfords, but so furiously did Cronjé and his aides fire that the Highlanders, when a charge would have gained them everything, stopped and sought cover. They returned the fire, but they had lost their chance. Several hundred yards back other troops, Seaforths and Black Watch, were hurriedly trying to join Wilson, but the Boers rushed to close the gap in their lines and give support to Cronjé and his band. Then British artillery opened up on the area. Assaulted on all sides, Wilson and his men fought gallantly until their ranks were reduced to thirty or forty survivors and they were forced to surrender.

  Day broke bright, clear, and fresh after the night’s storm, revealing the broken remains of the Highland Brigade strewn over the veld in front of the Boer positions. From time to time parties of men led by officers attempted to charge the trenches. One group of Black Watch managed to get within 150 yards before they were halted.

  Over their kilts the Highlanders wore khaki aprons, but parts of their dark tartans showed up on the brown veld, often revealing their position. Again, as at the Modder River, the backs of their legs blistered as they lay in the sun. Not, however, the legs of Lieutenant Bertram Lang. Now twenty-one years old, he was destined not only to live through this battle but others as well and to be one of the very last surviving veterans of the war. Lang showed an early talent for survival: before the battle he pulled on a pair of long black woman’s stockings with the feet cut off.

  All attempts to rally the demoralised Highlanders, to get them off their stomachs, to get them moving forward, failed. As one Argyll said: “The men’s hearts were broken at the start, and they were like children all day.” Throughout the morning men who could not see the point of lying in the sun to be shot at all day crept back. Wauchope’s cousin lay seriously wounded behind an anthill which only partially concealed him; he was wearing a bright new pair of gaiters which attracted the attention of the Boer marksmen, and he was several times hit in both legs, suffering injuries from which he never recovered.

  At eleven o’clock in the morning the Gordons were thrown into the battle and charged through the prone Highland Brigade. They got as close to the Boer trenches as any, but in the end they joined the Black Watch on the ground, their gallantry wasted.

  The Boers did not escape unscathed. One group of 50 Scandinavian volunteers, occupying an advanced outpost, was relentlessly pounded by Battery G, Royal Horse Artillery (which in this battle fired 1,250 rounds —the greatest expenditure of ammunition by one battery in the war). Then a charge by a group of Seaforths overwhelmed them. Forty-three were killed or seriously wounded in this action; only seven escaped.

  On both sides the gunners took casualties, both from the enemy’s guns and from musketry. Willie du Plessis of the staatsartillerie, visiting the battlefield sixty-four years later, still remembered: “If my gun position could talk it would tell you what I had to endure here.” British gunners, too, had much to endure; at Magersfontein, as in other battles in the war, British artillerymen, fighting with inferior weapons but with splendid discipline and great gallantry, added to the laurels of their arm. Captain Henry Farrell, a gunner who had been shot through the left leg at Belmont and in the right leg at the Modder River, was still fighting his guns at Magersfontein.

  It had not occurred to Methuen that the attack of the Highland Brigade would fail. Although he had the Guards in reserve, they were 3 miles back and he had no alternative plan. He simply left the Highlanders stretched out on the veld in front of the Boer lines and sent word that they were to hang on where they were for the rest of the day, hoping that the Boers would quietly go away when night fell as they had done on the Modder River. The balloon was sent aloft, now that it was too late, and the Boer positions, already discovered the hard way, were revealed.

  By midday the battle appeared to be a stalemate all along the length of the battlefield. About 1:30 P. M. on the right of the line the commando from Fricksburg made a gallant effort to secure a position from which they could enfilade the Highlanders. Lieutenant Colonel Hughes-Hallett ordered two companies to pull back and swing around to meet the attack. Officers, seeing the retrograde movement and unaware of Methuen’s order to hang on until dark, assumed that a general retirement had been ordered. The movement communicated itself from one end of the line to the other, and soon the whole front of the brigade rose up and made for the rear. Lieutenant Colonel Henry Kelham said later: “I saw the whole extended line rise up and slowly retire, so deliberately that I felt sure it was the result of an order.”

  The retreat began in an orderly fashion. Lieutenant Colonel Forbes Macbean, now in command of the 1st Gordons, walked leisurely back, turning now and then to look at the enemy while adjusting his monocle. At least one of the soldiers with him wa
s impressed by his imperturbability: “A shell burst just behind us and the base went hurtling along the ground between him and me, and I tried to look as if I didn’t mind.”2 But the coolness of their officers could not hold the troops steady in the ferocious fire poured into them by the Boers, who stood up in their trenches the better to shoot as the Highlanders rose and turned their backs. What began as an orderly retreat soon turned into a rout.

  On a hill in the rear the correspondent from the Morning Post watched: “Back they came in a wave that no officer could stop.... One could see them swarming like bees over the veldt till they were almost out of range, and the guns left out in the open with no one to support them. It was, perhaps, the most unpleasant sight that a British soldier of today has ever beheld.”3

  More Highlanders were killed and wounded in this retreat than had been shot down in the attack.

  As soon as the officers discovered that no retirement had been ordered, they tried desperately to rally their men. Just out of rifle range rallying points were established; water carts were ordered up and the parched men clustered around them. It was then that the Boer field guns, three Krupps which had been strangely silent all day, opened fire, their targets the men swarming about the water carts. The Highlanders fled in a second retreat still further to the rear. Scotland’s pride, the flower of British infantry, was a demoralized mob.

  Of the 4,000 men who had been on the field, only a portion remained, and most of these were stretched flat on the ground; some, as at the Modder River, had fallen asleep, and there were isolated groups of men who had rightly reasoned that it was more dangerous to leave than to stay. One small group of the Black Watch in an advanced position, with only three men unwounded, fought on until the Boers, impressed with their fortitude, called out to them that if they would cease firing they would not be fired on and, finally, at sunset, called out again that if they left behind their arms and ammunition they could walk back to their lines in safety.