The Boer War

by Martin Bossenbroek

  Starving the population was, however, still an option. In the meantime, the town’s defence works had been improved and were in excellent condition. With generous help from De Beers there were now forts equipped with searchlights and linked by telephone lines, and a 50-metre watchtower, as good as could be. Kimberley’s weak spot was its relatively large population. At the outbreak of war it totalled 50,000, comprising 13,000 whites, 7000 coloureds and 30,000 Africans. On the one hand, this provided Kekewich with large reserves of labour and reinforcements for his regular troops—which he doubled to a total of more than 4500. The downside was the many mouths to feed. Malnutrition was a growing problem and, as in Mafeking, Africans and coloureds bore the brunt of it. They received less of the available—and steadily dwindling—supplies. Attempts were made to reduce their numbers by force. Rhodes took the lead—on his own initiative, so as to undermine the commanding officer, Kekewich. On the night of 6 November he drove 3000 black mine workers out of town, but to no avail: the Boers sent them straight back. Bids to flee—some forced, some voluntary—were more successful. Around 8000 Africans managed to escape from the besieged town. Their departure eased the pressure on the town’s food supply, but for many this came too late. By mid-November diseases like typhoid, dysentery and scurvy had become rampant. Hundreds perished, the vast majority of them Africans and coloureds.50

  The third siege, at Ladysmith, was the largest and most crucial showdown. The railway lines to Durban, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State intersected here, making the town a strategic junction. With a peacetime population of 5500 whites, Ladysmith had initially been the starting point for White’s foolhardy expeditions in northern Natal. After Mournful Monday it became a refuge for his 13,500 defeated troops. Added to this was the influx of 2500 African and Indian refugees from the coal-mining district in Natal. By the time it was besieged the town had a total population of 21,500. White had 50 artillery pieces and 18 machine guns to defend them.

  At the start of the siege the Boers in the surrounding hills had 10,000 men and 22 guns, including three Long Toms, and five machine guns. Besides Ladysmith’s strategic position—it was the key to the Boers’ further advance in Natal and their chance to eliminate an entire British army—there was also the lure of spectacular spoils: guns, personal arms and equipment, munitions, food and other supplies. An enterprising Boer leader would have done everything in his power to take the demoralised and disorganised British troops by surprise as quickly as possible. But Piet Joubert wasn’t that kind of leader. On that legendary Monday 30 October he had prevented his men from pursuing the fleeing British soldiers, to the frustration of young commanders like De Wet and Botha. In the days that followed, he did nothing to put pressure on the beleaguered troops in Ladysmith. His inertia gave White a chance to recover and organise the town’s defence, for example by deploying Africans and Indian refugees to dig foundations for fortifications. In the course of November the Boers launched two half-hearted attacks, but that was all. Joubert rejected a proposal to dig trenches in a zigzag configuration, which would have brought his marksmen to the edge of the town. He considered starvation and grenades the best means of forcing a surrender.

  When poor health compelled Joubert to resign as commander on the Natal front in late November, the Boers saw these as the only options. In a council of war held on 2 December their commanders concluded that the opportunity to storm the town had passed. There was also the fact that Buller was approaching with a detachment of the 1st British Army Corps. They had to be stopped at the Tugela. The force around Ladysmith, already diminished by the many Boers who had left of their own accord, was reduced to 3500 men. A few British officers in Ladysmith took the opportunity to organise two breakouts, on the nights of 8 and 9 December, when they managed to put one of the Long Toms out of commission. This did much to boost the morale of the soldiers and townspeople in Ladysmith. Besides the ordeals of bombardments and food shortages, they were also short of clean drinking water. Here, too, they fell prey to typhoid and dysentery. Thousands ended up in the hospital encampment that had been set up on neutral territory, with Joubert’s consent, in Intombi, to the south-east of the town. Hundreds of them died.

  On 15 December it turned out that help, so close at hand in the form of Buller’s army, would take a while longer to arrive. The unfortunate British defeat at Colenso had destroyed all hope that Ladysmith would be liberated any time soon. This was underlined by the disheartening tone of Buller’s message. A few days after the fiasco he sent White a heliogram saying he still needed about a month to prepare another attack on the Boer lines. Would he manage to hold out? If not, Buller advised him to use up as much ammunition as possible and then try to negotiate the best deal he could. In other words, he was to surrender. And above all, he shouldn’t forget to burn his secret codebook. There were other messages that betrayed Buller’s desperation. It was also evident from the telegram he had sent the war secretary, Lord Lansdowne, the evening after the battle. ‘I believe I ought to let Ladysmith go, and occupy good positions for the defence of South Natal, and let time help us.’

  This wasn’t the kind of attitude that won respect for a commander-in-chief. Nor did White follow Buller’s advice. He never had. He steeled himself for the long, hot summer ahead. The Cabinet in London decided it was time to bring out the big guns. Buller was relieved of his duties, and only remained in command of the troops in Natal. Lord Roberts of Kandahar replaced him as commander-in-chief, with Lord Kitchener of Khartoum as chief of staff.51

  It wasn’t fair. Churchill realised that, too. The general who had repeatedly warned them not to go ‘north of the Tugela’ had been forced to rush to the assistance of another general who had done precisely that, and now he was being made to pay the price. But White wasn’t the only one to blame. In Churchill’s opinion, Buller had also slipped up a couple of times and they weren’t just occasional gaffes. By the looks of it, Sir Redvers was physically and mentally burned out. He wasn’t his old self or, rather, he was no longer the dynamic young Buller who had won a Victoria Cross for bravery. In Churchill’s view, at 60 he was too old for the job and he lacked the resilience to cope with adversity. He made a revealing remark to his friend Pamela Plowden: ‘I cannot begin to criticise—for I should never stop.’

  Churchill wisely refrained from sharing these thoughts with readers of the Morning Post. He must also have been watching his words when he reported to the British camp on 24 December 1899, after his train journey from Durban and the overnight stop in Pietermaritzburg. The camp was in an area he knew well, the valley between Frere and Chieveley, where the Boers had ambushed the armoured train just over five weeks earlier. His own tent was there too, strangely enough, less than five metres from the spot where he had been captured. ‘I came home safely again to the wars,’ he noted with satisfaction.

  Now it was time to fight. This too went smoothly, thanks to the much-maligned Buller, who sent for him soon after he arrived. The roles in which the two men found themselves had changed dramatically since the last time they had seen each other on the Dunottar Castle less than two months earlier. The ageing general had fallen from grace, while the young reporter had emerged as a folk hero. Buller was quick to compliment Churchill on his valiant feat. He listened with interest to his experiences in prison and after his escape. Finally he asked whether there was anything he could do for Churchill. The answer came in a flash: an appointment in one of the many units that were now being formed. That would be perfect. But what about the Morning Post? Buller asked. Well, he couldn’t get out of the contract, Churchill replied, but he could combine the two—war correspondent and soldier—as he had done in British India and Sudan.

  Buller needed time to think it over. The War Office had recently clamped down on people holding more than one job—mainly because of the critical articles a certain Winston Churchill had written about Kitchener’s campaign in Sudan. Buller paced wordlessly around his room before reaching a decision. Eventually he made up his mind an
d offered Churchill an appointment as lieutenant in the South African Light Horse, a cavalry regiment of 700 men led by Colonel Julian Byng. He wouldn’t be remunerated but he could continue to work for the newspaper. Churchill accepted the offer without a moment’s hesitation. The regiment he was assigned to was known as the Cockyolibirds on account of the plume cockades they wore on their hats. Churchill was to report for duty on 2 January 1900. He was a soldier again—and now a soldier with feathers in his cap.52

  Blind spot

  Spion Kop, 24 January 1900

  It must have been absolute hell up there. But from a distance it looked idyllic: puffs of white smoke every ten seconds, swirls of brown dust and, in the intervals, small dark figures bustling back and forth. It was like a huge anthill, hazy in the summer heat. Churchill raised his field glasses again. He shivered. Those were people he knew up there on the hill, under a torrent of shells. Not personally, but he knew they were from the Lancashire Brigade, along with 200 men of the Mounted Infantry from Natal. Altogether, there were close on 2000 men, or at least there had been when they climbed up the previous evening. Who knows how many were left? They were being buffeted from all sides—the roar of artillery, the crack of machine-gun fire, Mauser bullets raining down. The Boers were swarming over the heights around them. But where exactly? The artillerymen here on Three Tree Hill, the British base, weren’t able to locate them.

  Churchill looked at his watch. The fight had been going on all day, nearly nine hours without a moment’s respite. When the mist lifted that morning, around seven o’clock, the Boers had opened a barrage of fire. The capture of Spion Kop in the night threatened to breach their defence line north of the Tugela. Their commander, Louis Botha, had obviously seen the danger and was doing all he could to drive the British off the hilltop. He set up a fire-spitting shield all the way from the Tabanyama hills in the north-west, past Green Hill, Conical Hill and Aloe Knoll, to Twin Peaks in the north-east. The Boers had also launched a counterattack from the northern, unprotected slope of Spion Kop. Their front-line riflemen were lying along the edge of the ridge, 20 or 30 metres from the first line of British infantrymen.

  It was a man-to-man fight to the death. From his vantage point Churchill saw sparks of light reflecting from bayonets in the bright sunshine. Why didn’t Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Warren intervene? He was the commander in charge and he could summon all the reserve battalions he needed. Over the past few hours he could have sent reinforcements to Spion Kop, but why didn’t he mount an all-out assault on the Boer lines to ease the pressure on the hilltop? After all, he had requested and obtained reinforcements from Major-General Neville Lyttelton, who was standing by with his battalions a few kilometres to the east. And why didn’t Buller do anything? He and his troops were still on Mount Alice, on the south bank of the Tugela. From there they could see the disaster unfolding on Spion Kop. Why didn’t he insist that Warren take action? Or do something himself? The theatre of war along the Tugela was surreal. An overwhelming force of British soldiers stood by idly and from a distance watched their comrades fight to the death on a battlefield hardly bigger than a polo ground.

  Churchill couldn’t bear it any longer. He had to go and see what was happening. Captain R. Brooke of the 7th Hussars accompanied him. They galloped to Spion Kop as fast as they could. It was Wednesday 24 January, the fifth anniversary of his father’s death. And he was convinced that he wouldn’t see the day out either.53

  Churchill’s premonition about his death came true but only 65 years later. Nevertheless, 24 January 1900 was a day overshadowed by death. After what he had seen on Spion Kop, the horrors of war in British India, Sudan and Cuba paled into insignificance. Until then, his exposure to war in South Africa had been more exciting than disturbing. The armoured train, his capture and escape, and the extraordinary reception in Durban were all incidents he had experienced and written about as one big adventure. Although he was a war correspondent, he hadn’t actually been present on Mournful Monday or during Black Week. He had only read about them in the newspapers.

  Nothing changed when he returned to active service. The Christmas of 1899 had gone by quietly in Natal and on the other fronts. The only skirmishes had occurred on the western front, one just before and one just after Christmas. On 22 December the Boers had retaliated for the raid against Segale and his Kgatla warriors at Derdepoort just under a month earlier, destroying three settlements and killing scores of Kgatla. On 26 December the British in besieged Mafeking had stormed one of the Boer positions on Game Tree Hill. They were defeated, incurring 25 dead and as many wounded.

  In Natal, the lull in hostilities ended on 6 January 1900, interestingly enough because of a Boer raid on Ladysmith. The attack was remarkable on two counts. A real offensive was unusual in itself. But it was also carried out on the orders of the commandant-general, Joubert, who had meanwhile returned to the front. What he did took everyone by surprise. Exhilarated by Botha’s victory over Buller at Colenso, just for once he threw caution to the wind. In a war council meeting on 3 January the Boer commandants had planned a diversionary attack on the British positions north of Ladysmith, to be followed up with a real offensive from the south. It would be carried out by Transvaal commandos from Heidelberg, Utrecht, Pretoria and other districts, led by General Schalk Burger, together with forces from various parts of the Free State including Harrismith, Heilbron and Kroonstad, under Commandant-General Marthinus Prinsloo. They would target the Caesar’s Camp and Wagon Hill strongholds, both located on a massif the Boers called Platrand. The British commander there was Churchill’s old friend, General Ian Hamilton. Shortly after one o’clock on the morning of 6 January the Boers started climbing the two hills. At half past two they were detected. A chaotic exchange of gunfire broke out in the dark of night, and only at daybreak were they able to see what they were doing. Both sides engaged their artillery and the confrontation escalated. It turned into a man-to-man struggle. The Transvaal forces gained ground at Caesar’s Camp, the Free State commandos on Wagon Hill, but in neither case was it enough to force a breakthrough. Hamilton organised an efficient defence and deployed his men where they were most needed. In Ladysmith, White soon realised that the offensive in the north was a diversionary tactic and that the real threat came from the south. All day long he sent reinforcements to Platrand. The Boer force was uncoordinated and they lacked an overview of the situation. Burger and Prinsloo failed to give them direction. Left to decide for themselves, many of the commandos chose not to risk the climb uphill, and simply fired over a large distance from safe cover.

  The climax came in the middle of a torrential downpour at the end of the afternoon. The Boers made one last, unsuccessful attempt to break through. The British launched a counterattack and towards nightfall, around seven o’clock, they drove the Boers from Wagon Hill and Caesar’s Camp. As on several occasions before, the British incurred far higher casualties than the Boers—150 dead and 275 wounded as compared with 65 dead and 125 wounded—but at least they had managed to repel the assault on Ladysmith. The outcome shattered the Boers’ morale. They had taken the offensive, but once again failed to follow through. However, it restored the confidence of the British defenders of Ladysmith, in spite of their heavy losses, and strengthened their resolve to fight on.54

  Twenty-five kilometres further south, between Frere and Chieveley, the men in Buller’s camp had no idea what was happening. Churchill had woken up early on that 6 January to the sound of artillery fire in the distance. For hours, they could only speculate. Was it an offensive from the garrison or the overwhelming Boer onslaught they had long been dreading? Around midday a heliogram came through from Ladysmith. ‘General attack all sides by Boers—everywhere repulsed—but fight still going on.’

  Buller leapt into action. He prepared his entire army as quickly as possible and marched on Colenso in battle formation. Churchill soon realised it wouldn’t be a real attack, just a show of force to take the pressure off Ladysmith. If the Boers had diverted troo
ps from the Tugela line for their attack, they would probably send them back at once. His reasoning was correct. It only made a difference of 300 men, but they were men under the command of Louis Botha. Moreover, the show of strength gave the British troops confidence. According to Churchill, it was an aweinspiring sight, especially at the end of the afternoon, when the naval and field guns opened fire on the Boer positions. Right at that moment, the violent thunderstorm that was raging over Wagon Hill and Caesar’s Camp broke here too, creating a magnificent spectacle for the British troops massed on the south bank of the Tugela. As they stood watching in bright sunshine, the north bank of the Tugela was transformed into an eerie tableau. Black clouds gathered over the hill to the roar of thunder and guns, flashes of blue lightning, red muzzle-fire, clouds of yellowgrey smoke and columns of dark brown dust. In Churchill’s words, ‘We watched the impressive spectacle in safety and the sunlight.’

  The only disappointment was that the Boers sat through it all without budging an inch. One of the reasons for the attack on them was to find out where they were, but there was no reaction from across the river. When evening fell, the British returned to their encampment. The retaliation came after dark and took the form of a strange air fight. When the British telegraphist tried to communicate with Ladysmith by using a searchlight to beam a Morse code message onto the clouds, the Boers disrupted it, using the same means.55