The Boer War

by Martin Bossenbroek

  The ship’s arrival in Cape Town was as festive as its departure from Southampton. An excited crowd had come to welcome the new commander-in-chief in spite of the driving rain early that Tuesday morning. The boom of a gun salute filled the air, the film cameras were running, the streets were gaily decorated. But here, too, Buller concealed his thoughts as he waved cheerily from an open landau at the well-wishers lining the streets on his way to Government House. He had an appointment with the high commissioner at ten o’clock.

  The first confidential telegrams had been delivered to him as soon as the Dunottar Castle docked the previous evening. They confirmed his fears. The news was up-to-the-minute and grim. He heard the tragic details later, from Milner. Boer commandos had swarmed in all directions, to the north towards Rhodesia, and to the west, where they had attacked and surrounded the main British border towns, Mafeking and Kimberley. In the south-east they had invaded Natal, from the Transvaal as well as the Orange Free State. What had happened there was exactly what Buller had feared. White had been unable to hold his positions north of the Tugela.

  The British had been victorious at Talana—where Symons was fatally wounded—and Elandslaagte, as Buller knew from the message on the passing ship. But after that, things had gone badly wrong at Modderspruit and Nicholson’s Nek. On the very day of Buller’s arrival, Monday 30 October, they had suffered two crushing defeats. White and his remaining troops had been forced to retreat to Ladysmith and were in danger of being surrounded. The British press later called it Mournful Monday.

  The high commissioner had more bad news. An even greater disaster was looming, far closer than Natal, here in the Cape Colony, right under his nose. Milner was afraid that the Afrikaners, encouraged by their clansmen’s successes, would rebel in support. Commandos were also said to be massing on the southern border of the Orange Free State, preparing to invade the Cape. The consequences were too frightful to contemplate.

  Buller couldn’t imagine a worse start. He would obviously have to change his strategy. The original idea had been straightforward: as soon as possible the whole of the 1st Army Corps would mount a frontal attack at the heart of the Boer republics. They would simply charge straight through the centre. In the present circumstances, that would be dangerous, at least for the British soldiers in the towns under siege. Cecil Rhodes had already sent a furious telegram from Kimberley, complaining about the lack of reinforcements. White had blundered, but did everyone in Ladysmith, and probably the whole of Natal, have to suffer for it? Then there was the uprising in the Cape Colony that Milner was so worried about. What was Buller to do? Should he back just one horse, and, if so, which one? Or hedge his bets? He needed more time to decide.8

  Winston Churchill had no trouble reaching a decision, but then his options were relatively simple. A war correspondent’s place was on the front and it was clear that the main action would be in Natal—Ladysmith to be more precise. Even without confidential telegrams he soon realised just how serious the situation was. Late on Monday evening, as soon as the Dunottar Castle docked, he read all the local newspapers and spoke to everyone he could think of. The following day he was received by the high commissioner, again thanks to Chamberlain’s and Wyndham’s letters of recommendation. Milner discussed his concerns with the fledgling reporter almost as frankly as with the famous general, withholding only the shocking details of Modderspruit and Nicholson’s Nek. As a result of the meeting, Churchill was able to write—and dispatch—a lengthy report for the Morning Post.

  The article was up to the minute and peppered with the kind of lively detail that characterised Churchill’s style. He wrote at length about the high casualty rate among British officers in the first weeks of the war. Besides Symons, there were several others he knew, men he had met during his military adventures in British India, Sudan or—a few, like Lieutenant Reggie Barnes—in Cuba. He was scathing about the Liberal Opposition in his own country. He felt it was dangerous to have postponed sending reinforcements because of the Peace Party’s anti-war campaign, and held ‘these humanitarian gentlemen’ personally responsible for the huge loss of human life. He expressed equally strong views on the future course of the war, predicting ‘a fierce, certainly bloody, possibly prolonged struggle’. Churchill was determined to be in the forefront, with his eye on an award for journalism, but, no less importantly, in pursuit of his imperialistic ideals. ‘We are at war with the pen as well as the sword.’

  There was no time to lose. He could have returned to the Dunottar Castle before it sailed on to Durban, but he decided this would take too long. There was a quicker way that would save him a couple of days. He could take the train to East London, from there an overnight boat to Durban, and cover the last stretch again by train. He left Cape Town that evening, accompanied by his retainer, Thomas Walden, and two other reporters, John Atkins of the Manchester Guardian and Alister Campbell of Laffan’s News Agency. It was still Tuesday 31 October. Churchill set off for Ladysmith.9

  And to think the news could have been even worse. If the Boers had carried out the daring raid that Jan Smuts had proposed, Natal would probably have been lost and the uprising in the Cape Colony a fact. The Transvaal’s young state attorney had given a graphic description of the plan of campaign in his memorandum of early September 1899. He felt that the military leaders of the two Boer republics should work out a joint plan as quickly as possible for ‘a combined attack on Natal’. The key was to push through to Durban before British reinforcements arrived, and seize the munitions and supplies they found there. A successful raid would boost morale. It would spur the Afrikaners in the Cape Colony to action, and Great Britain would then have a third Boer republic to deal with. The European powers would be only too happy to take advantage of Britain’s predicament. He hinted broadly at the possibility of ‘instigating a widespread rebellion in India with Russia’s help’.10

  In retrospect, it is easy to dismiss Smuts’s enthusiasm for the ‘offensive method’ as science fiction, particularly the political consequences he expected. But at the time, the scenario was not unrealistic. And from a strategic point of view it made sense. Before the arrival of their first 10,000 reinforcements, the British in South Africa had far fewer troops than the Boers. So the question is, why wasn’t Smuts’s plan carried out? There are four closely linked reasons. The first two had to do with specific individuals, the last two were more fundamental in nature.

  The first and simplest reason is that Smuts’s plan depended on a joint war plan, and no such thing existed. This was mainly due to President Steyn of the Orange Free State. He too had a young lawyer on his side, Barry Hertzog, who also favoured a surprise attack on Natal. Steyn, however, was against it, still hoping for a peaceful solution. By the time he was ready to mobilise the Free State troops, on 2 October, the 10,000 British servicemen had already arrived in Durban.

  Even then, with a sound war plan, they would have stood a good chance of occupying Natal. But there was no plan at all, not even in Pretoria. According to those in the know, one must have existed, but if it did, it was so secret that even a century of archive research has brought nothing to light. No plan, perhaps, but they did have an objective: the British troops massed just over the border had to be defeated, repulsed or isolated. Exactly how they would do that depended on the progress of the war. The Transvaal military leaders hadn’t arranged anything with their counterparts in Bloemfontein either. By 11 October Marthinus Prinsloo, the leader of the Free State forces on the Natal border, still had little idea of what was expected of him. At five past two—barely three hours before the British ultimatum expired—he sent a revealing telegram to the Transvaal commandant-general, Piet Joubert: ‘The men have taken up position; awaiting instructions.’11

  Prinsloo’s attitude exemplifies the second reason: the military leaders in the Boer republics were unwilling and unable to plan and carry out a coordinated assault on Durban. This was true in particular of the commander-in-chief. Joubert, at 68, had been resting on the laurels
he had won in the past, in clashes with African chieftains but mainly during the Boers’ first encounter with the British, 18 years earlier. Since then he had been more involved in politics, as Paul Kruger’s vice-president—and four times his rival for the presidency. This was evident in his strategy, which was political rather than military. He pictured the new confrontation against the British as a replay of Majuba, perhaps on a bigger scale: deal a few good blows just over the borders, break through their defences, and wait and see what happened, in the hope that the British would be sufficiently intimidated to negotiate. This was why he had taken command of the troops in Natal. Piet Joubert was a cautious man, who believed that defence was the best form of attack.

  He wasn’t the only Boer leader to hold this view. Defensive warfare—a third and more structural reason why the Boers failed to attack—was in their blood, particularly for the older generation. It sounds strange for a nation of pioneers, descendants of the Voortrekkers, who had fought for every inch of their territory, but it isn’t hard to understand. In their many confrontations with African adversaries they had always preferred to operate from a laager, a circular formation of wagons which provided a primitive but effective form of forward defence. Their first military conflict with the British (1880–81) had also been a defensive war, with a primarily political objective. They were thus accustomed to defensive warfare, which was in any event more compatible with their moral values. Pretoria’s argument was that this war had been forced on them by Britain’s expansionist aspirations. The Boers were simply defending themselves; they weren’t out to conquer anyone else’s land; at least, not land belonging to whites.

  But even if the military leaders of the Boer republics had decided to carry out Smuts’s plan and attack Durban, they would still have had a serious handicap. This is the fourth and last reason. The forces the Boers raised were very different from a professional standing army trained and equipped to execute a long-range strategy. Except for the artillery, it was a civilian militia made up of men aged 16 to 60, comprising a force of around 60,000 in the Transvaal and Orange Free State combined. To avoid disrupting the economy, they were called up only when they were needed, in varying strengths but rarely all of them simultaneously.

  As a result it was difficult to organise a coordinated and therefore logistically complex offensive. There was also the fact that the Boers weren’t comfortable with hierarchical structures and discipline. There was a commandant-general in the Transvaal but no equivalent rank in the Orange Free State, where President Steyn effectively fulfilled that role. There were Transvaal adjutant-generals, Piet Cronjé and Jan Kock, and a Free State commander-in-chief, the Marthinus Prinsloo mentioned earlier. Next in rank were combat generals, who led two or more regional commandos. The military units, varying in strength from 300 to 3000 men, were headed by commandants, and were subdivided into smaller sections led by field cornets and adjutant field cornets.

  Although the force ostensibly had a command structure, it was riddled with religious and political differences, between ‘Kruger men’ and ‘Joubert men’, for instance. Moreover, most burghers had difficulty reconciling a system of military rank with their view of themselves as equals. There was good reason why no one except the artillery wore a uniform, or why officers all the way up to the commandant-general were elected by their ‘subordinates’. It was the rule rather than the exception for decisions taken by superiors to be debated and sometimes overturned or ignored. Even in combat, every Boer was first and foremost his own man.12

  All this explains why the Boer flags weren’t flying over the Indian Ocean by the time the British commander, Buller, landed in Cape Town. It is also why he was rightly concerned about British prospects. At the same time, in the first two weeks of the war the strategic weakness of the Boers’ mode of combat—their defensive strategies and their freedom to act independently—turned out to be their tactical strength. In direct combat, after a faltering start, their armed civilians proved superior to Britain’s professional soldiers. And this seemed to be more than just a matter of luck.

  Firstly, the Boers still were numerically superior. At the start of the war the Transvaal and the Orange Free State had 35,000 men active on the four fronts, against 25,000 British troops. They were more evenly matched in Natal—17,500 Boers to 16,000 Britons—but Natal was also where the British suffered their worst defeats. The only logical conclusion was that a Brit was no match for a Boer.

  What it came down to was the Boer’s horse and rifle. Every man owned a horse. He was an infantryman and a cavalryman in one, and therefore infinitely more mobile. Not in actual combat, when the horses were out of range in the care of agterryers—the 7000 to 9000 African and coloured servants who accompanied the Boer troops—but before, after and in the intervals between exchanges of fire, the Boers were able to move rapidly and surprise the enemy from unexpected positions. In these situations their independence was an asset.

  So too was the fact that every Boer possessed a rifle—and not just any rifle, but the most advanced rapid-firing weapon the European arms industry had to offer at the end of the nineteenth century. After the Jameson Raid the Transvaal government had imported huge consignments of weapons—through the efforts of Willem Leyds, who was recuperating in Germany at the time—and Bloemfontein had followed their example. As a result, the Boer republics now had an arsenal of 45,000 Martini-Henry rifles and, far more importantly, the same number of Mausers—more than enough to arm all their mobilised civilians. The Mausers in particular suited the Boers’ style of combat. They were relatively light, easy to use and accurate over a long range. The bullets were small, light, fast and quick to load. Even a small number of marksmen could sustain a barrage of fire, while their smokeless gunpowder ensured that the Boers, entrenched or sheltered behind rocks one or two kilometres away, remained undetected. The British soldiers complained that they were fighting ‘an invisible enemy’ and literally didn’t know which way to turn.

  Not only were the Boers’ personal weapons the most modern in the world, but their artillery was also the best that gold could buy. Most of it was new and in perfect condition. They had small Lee-Metford and large Vickers-Maxim machine guns, known as pom-poms because of the sound they made, Krupp field artillery, and, to crown it all, four 155-mm Creusot guns. These formidable Long Toms were actually fortress guns, but the Boers used them on the battlefield as well, this being another example of their forward defence. The railway network, which had been nationalised at the outbreak of war, came in useful for transporting their matériel. To install their artillery in the field, ideally on a hilltop, they used oxwagons. All this effort paid off, as the Long Toms had a reach of ten kilometres, twice that of the British Howitzer and Armstrong field guns.

  The Boers were thus superior in number, mobility and firing power. They were also familiar with the terrain and accustomed to the climate. Both were important advantages, as the land was rugged and hilly, at any rate in Natal, while the spring brought heavy downpours, chilly nights and, on clear days, blistering sun, from which there was little shelter.13

  The differences between the Boers and their British adversaries couldn’t have been greater, strategically, tactically, operationally and in culture. One was a professional army, hierarchical, disciplined and organised, sticklers for traditions. Their biggest concession to modern times was a change of uniform, from bull’s-eye red to camouflage khaki. Their officers were class-conscious aristocrats, polo fans, warhorses, who had earned their spurs in colonial campaigns against indigenous adversaries. In battle they were self-assured, their strategic reflex was the classical offensive, which had been drummed into them at Aldershot: first, the artillery bombardment, then the infantry charge in close formation, bayonets fixed on rifles, and finally the cavalry charge to round up the fleeing enemy. The rank and file were expected to obey commands—fire salvos, attack, withdraw—not to think or act on their own initiative.14

  All this was food for thought for anyone who was passionatel
y concerned about the fortunes of the British troops. Churchill had all the time he needed to absorb his impressions. The train journey from Cape Town to East London would take at least three days, perhaps longer because of the war. The first stretch, to De Aar, crossed the same barren, hill-studded Karoo landscape that Willem and Louise Leyds had found so tedious 15 years earlier.15 Churchill wasn’t impressed either. ‘The scenery would depress the most buoyant spirits... Wherefore was this miserable land of stone and scrub created?’ The news he picked up in Beaufort West on the way did little to improve his mood. On Mournful Monday the Boers had taken 1200 British prisoners.

  His own experiences made matters even worse. The railway line from De Aar to Stormberg, the next sizeable station on the way to East London, ran along the Orange Free State border. It was the only front where the Boers hadn’t yet mounted a large-scale assault, but everyone believed an attack was imminent. Rumours about advancing Boer commandos were confirmed when Churchill and his fellow passengers arrived in Stormberg. For the time being, their train would be the last to come from De Aar. Stormberg had been hurriedly evacuated, like every other village in the area. Churchill thought this was sensible, but it made him uneasy. Even the train sounded different. All the way to East London, he kept hearing the wheels on the tracks saying ‘retreat, retreat, retreat’.

  He wrote a gloomy but resolute letter to his mother. ‘We have greatly underestimated the military strength and spirit of the Boers.’ He doubted that a single army corps would be enough. It would certainly be a tough, bloody struggle, he said, with at least 10,000 to 12,000 casualties. But Britain would win in the end, he was sure, just as he was sure about his own destiny. ‘I shall believe I am to be preserved for future things.’ These words were prophetic in every way.

  There was another shock to come, but even that left him undaunted. In East London they found a ship bound for Durban. Storms and seasickness turned the voyage into an ordeal for Churchill but he recovered soon after landing in Durban at midnight on Saturday 4 November. Early on Sunday morning he went to the hospital ship Sumatra, hoping to find some old friends. There were a few, among them Reggie Barnes, his travel companion in Cuba, and, at a later stage, a member of his prize-winning polo team from the 4th Hussars in India. Churchill flinched at the sight of him. Barnes had been wounded in the thigh and his leg was ‘absolutely coal black from hip to toe’. Churchill feared the worst. But it wasn’t gangrene, the doctor assured him, just a massive bruise.