Victoria's Generals

by Steven J Corvi

  In 1880, his battalion was ordered to Afghanistan, but Buller was sent to Scotland as Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General of the Northern British District. After just a few months he was transferred to Aldershot to take up the same post. His stay there was also brief. The First Anglo-Boer War had erupted and Buller was ordered to return to South Africa. He arrived in Cape Town on 27 February 1881, the same day that British forces were defeated at Majuba Hill and the British commanding officer, George Colley, was killed. Reuniting with Wood, the new commanding officer, Buller pressed for an immediate offensive against the Boers. The British government, however, wanted peace not a prolonged war and Wood and Buller were made negotiators. Buller was furious: ‘I like the Boers,’ he wrote, ‘and am glad to see them get their country back, but I do not think that either the time or manner of the settlement arrived at was fortunate.’28 He remained in South Africa for much of the rest of the year, taking up an administrative position in Natal.

  In 1882, after marrying Lady Audrey Howard, Buller had to cut his honeymoon short to take up an appointment as Chief of Intelligence in Wolseley’s expedition to Egypt to put down the Arabi revolt. Buller was the ‘brain of Wolseley’s little army’ and most notably carried out the reconnaissance of Tel-el-Kebir on the day before that decisive battle.29 Although British artillery could not locate Buller’s chosen point for the attack, Wolseley achieved victory nonetheless with little loss of British life.30 Wolseley’s expedition, thanks in part to his efficient staff, secured British objectives in Egypt. For his part in the campaign, Buller was given a KCMG and shortly after his return to Great Britain was made Assistant Adjutant General at the War Office.

  Once again, however, Buller’s administrative responsibilities at home were interrupted by conflict in Africa. The failure of an Anglo-Egyptian army under William Hicks (Hicks Pasha) to deal with Mahdist forces in the Sudan at the end of 1883 led to direct British army intervention. Buller was sent to Suakin as Chief of Staff and second in command to Major General Sir Gerald Graham. In addition to staff duties, Buller also commanded the 1st Infantry Brigade. After concentrating near the coast at Trinkitat, Graham led his forces into battle against Osman Digna’s followers at El Teb on 29 February 1884. Buller employed his brigade in a traditional square, and although the enemy was able to penetrate it, the formation held fast. At Tamai, two weeks later, Buller repeated the tactic. Although his square held once again, a second square, commanded by Colonel Davis, fell apart. Buller was able to support Davis and to overcome desperate hand-to-hand combat. After this more difficult victory, Graham’s force returned to Suakin where it was given instructions not to press further. In April, the force was withdrawn to Cairo and Buller was sent back to the War Office, where he was promoted Major General.

  A little over a month after the withdrawal, Mahdist forces seized the town of Berber, cutting off Khartoum, the Egyptian administrative capital of the Sudan, from all British support. In August, Parliament authorised and provided funds for a relief expedition. Well before that, Wolseley had already mounted his campaign to lead it. He proposed an advance up the Nile River rather than a desert march along the Suakin–Berber route. This plan was highly contested by most of the officers who had genuine experience in the region. But Wolseley wanted to repeat the successful strategy of the Red River campaign, relying on small boats to carry his force some 600 miles. Buller loyally supported his chief and wrote letters to the War Office asserting the feasibility of the strategy. When Wolseley was chosen to lead the expedition, Buller was appointed his Chief of Staff.

  Wolseley brought with him to Egypt almost his entire surviving ring. But these men were no longer eager junior officers willing to perform their tasks obediently. They were some of the leading minds and most ambitious men in the late Victorian army, and they clashed with one another and with their chief. Buller rarely saw Wolseley during the entire campaign and received messages from him that often alternated between support and scorn. Buller’s failure to acquire enough coal for the Nile steamers that caused a delay in the advance, in particular, upset Wolseley. ‘What an odd man is Buller,’ Wolseley wrote in his diary, ‘I should never again have him as Chief of Staff.’31 Buller never seems to have been too interested in the campaign. Perhaps this was a result of his indifference to the fate of Charles Gordon, the popular Victorian ‘hero’ who commanded the post in Khartoum. Buller even questioned whether Gordon was ‘worth the camels’.32

  As preparations were being made for the advance up the river, a desert column under Sir Herbert Stewart had repulsed the enemy at Abu Klea on 17 January 1885, and was moving towards Metemmeh. At Abu Kru, a few days later, Stewart was mortally wounded in a brief skirmish. Command of the column devolved to Sir Charles Wilson, an officer who inspired little confidence in his men, and more importantly, was an outsider to Wolseley’s Ring.33 As soon as he learned the news, a dejected Wolseley dispatched Buller to take command. ‘Above all,’ Wolseley wrote caringly, ‘don’t get wounded; I can’t afford to lose you.’34

  ‘The minds of all now turned to Redvers Buller, the fighting Buller’, the future Lord Dundonald wrote: ‘Let us have Buller here, every one said, and then reinforced we will march to Khartoum and smash the Mahdi. Alas! It was not to be. Buller came, not to avenge as we hoped, but to lead our retirement, the first step in the abandonment of the Soudan.’35 Dundonald was right. Buller could have pressed the enemy, but he doubted the capability of his troops to fend off further attacks from an enemy whose numbers were increasing daily and he worried about his sick and wounded and his growing lack of supplies. Wolseley sent Buller often contradictory orders, and Buller replied in kind. He considered attacking Metemma, then Berber, and then thought about a decisive strike at Abu Klea. But his actions were anything but decisive. Most likely, Buller had made his mind up after the fall of Khartoum. He complained to Wolseley that his troops were worn out both physically and morally and he was not going to risk an offensive. Wolseley was far from confident in his subordinate’s appraisal of the desert column’s situation, but the river column was experiencing troubles of its own.36 The British advance ground to a halt. When Prime Minister Gladstone ordered the expedition’s recall, Buller stayed behind to oversee the evacuation. He finally returned home in August with a KCB and was made Deputy Adjutant General of the forces, serving again under Wolseley. This appointment was followed in 1886 with a very controversial fourteen-month tenure spent in Ireland trying to restore order and ending up earning the wrath of both the government and the Irish landlords.

  After the Gordon relief expedition, Buller did not see battle again until he was sent to South Africa in 1899, but he remained very busy for the next decade and a half working to reform the British army. In 1887, Buller returned to the War Office first as Quartermaster General and then, in 1890, as Adjutant General. These were very productive years and he thrived as an administrator. Buller can be credited with accomplishing four major tasks during these years. First, he improved the service conditions for the enlisted as regards to food, quarters and uniforms. Secondly, he revised the Manual of Military Law. Thirdly, he drafted a new Drill Book. And fourthly, and most significantly, he created the Army Service Corps.37 The creation of a special corps, like the Royal Engineers, to deal with issues related to supply and transport, brought a high level of professionalism to these neglected areas of staff service, raised the importance of logistics and, at the same time, provided flexibility to deal with local concerns. Since every unit would be given Army Service Corps officers and its own allotment of transport and supply, commanders would have more control over their movement, making them less dependent on any central command. This system, which proved effective during the first months of the South African War, was dismantled by Lord Roberts upon his arrival.

  Buller developed a good working relationship with Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Secretary of War from 1892–95, and when the 76-year-old Commander in Chief of the British army, the Duke of Cambridge, was forced to resign i
n 1895, Campbell-Bannerman pushed for Buller over Wolseley as his replacement. Buller was very uncomfortable with this decision.38 He saw the move as an act of disloyalty to his old chief. But many Liberals were upset with Wolseley over his position on Home Rule, the Queen was pushing for her son, the Duke of Connaught, and Buller appeared to be a good compromise candidate. However, on the day of the appointment, 21 June 1895, the government fell over a vote on ammunition reserves. The new Conservative government appointed Wolseley as Cambridge’s successor.

  When Buller’s appointment ended as Adjutant General he was placed on half pay for a year and then was promoted to full general, succeeding the Duke of Connaught in the command at Aldershot. There, in 1898, Buller conducted six days of manoeuvres. He did a poor job. ‘I have been making a fool of myself all day,’ he was overheard saying.39 Buller had not handled men in many years and sitting behind a desk no doubt had taken away his edge. It was this older Buller, out of shape, with a strong penchant for good food and wine, who had come to doubt his abilities, who was appointed the Commander in Chief of the British army in South Africa a year later when hostilities broke out between the British and the Boers.

  As early as April 1899, many in Lord Salisbury’s Cabinet had come to accept that war with the Boers for the control of South Africa was likely. In that month, Lord Lansdowne, the Secretary of State for War, Lord Milner, the High Commissioner in South Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony, Lord Wolseley, Buller and others sat down to discuss strategy. The group was very divided and remained so into the summer. With the failure of direct negotiations between Milner and Paul Kruger, the President of the South African Republic, however, it became imperative to prepare for the inevitable. Despite reservations, Wolseley recommended the appointment of Buller as the commander of the expedition. Buller had his own reservations about accepting the offer. ‘I said that I always considered that I was better as second in a complex military affair then as the officer in chief command,’ Buller wrote.40 Nevertheless, he accepted the most difficult challenge of his military career.

  South Africa, 1899–1900

  Planning for the war was haphazard because the government was still reluctant to commit itself. According to Buller, during the summer and into the autumn, he had very little influence on some of the most basic yet crucial decisions that shaped the direction of the war. For example, Buller later claimed that he had no control over the appointment of his commanders and senior staff officers, he was not invited to attend meetings of the Army Mobilisation Board, his recommendations regarding the size and composition of the Field Force were ignored, and perhaps, most stunningly, he had little control over strategy.41 Buller had relied upon the advice and the information presented by his old friend, William Butler, who until July 1899 and his forced resignation had served as the Commander in Chief of British forces in South Africa. Butler had warned that the Cape Colony and Natal, in particular, were open to invasion and Britain did not have enough troops in South Africa to defend their frontiers adequately. Butler encouraged a defensive strategy until reinforcements could arrive, and this incorporated a retreat from any currently held forward positions, including the garrison town of Ladysmith.42 This strategy, which Buller endorsed, was rejected by politicians and subverted by officers in the field. Also, for the actual route of the British advance into the Boer Republics, Buller favoured a concentration of forces in the Cape Colony followed by a movement through the Orange Free State, a plan Lord Roberts later implemented. Buller promoted this plan of action even before the Orange Free State’s intentions were known. However, Lansdowne thought differently. Lansdowne did not want to do anything to upset the Free State and was also concerned about the political ramifications of a Boer occupation of the northern Natal, a sentiment that Natal politicians echoed.43 In the end, Buller was pressured to comply with political needs and popular demands and altered his original intentions. That Buller felt frustrated with the sometimes indifferent planning and political obstruction can be seen clearly by his decision to go directly to Salisbury in early September.44

  The Boer ultimatum and Britain’s refusal to comply with its demands led to the declaration of war on 11 October 1899. Buller sailed for Cape Town a few days later and arrived on 30 October. Assessing the situation, he was filled with immediate anxiety and pessimism as he wrote to his brother, Tremayne, on 3 November: ‘I am in the tightest place I have ever been in, and the worst of it is that it is I think none of my creating. I don’t know if I can … get out of it alright, and I think if I fail that [it] is fair my family should know afterwards what at any rate I had to say in my own defence.’45 There was certainly reason to despair. Despite Buller’s opposition, British forces had gone on the offensive in Natal, had pushed their way to Dundee and Talana Hill, and were now forced to abandon these forward positions because of the enemy’s advances. Similarly, Lieutenant General Sir George White had failed at Nicholson’s Nek and, despite Buller’s warnings, had allowed his troops to get entrapped in Ladysmith. Two other Boer sieges had been laid at Kimberley and Mafeking and there were not yet enough troops in the Cape Colony to stop a Boer advance at the frontier which only aggravated the general fear that a sizeable portion of the Cape’s Dutch population would rise up and join their Free State and Transvaal brethren. Buller may have had good reasons to be concerned but his letter gives credence to the comments later made by Leo Amery, one of Buller’s fiercest critics, that Buller was more than just concerned; he ‘had completely lost heart’.46

  Buller’s actions, however, did not betray his doubts. His decision to head to Natal and personally lead the operations to relieve Ladysmith, something for which he came under much attack, was decisive as was his order to break up the Army Corps.47 ‘I therefore decided upon every ground that the deliverance of South Natal must be my first object,’ Buller wrote, ‘But at the same time I felt it impossible to ignore Kimberley. That town represented to the Native the symbol of British power and property in South Africa; and I feared the effect of its fall.’48 If all went well, the Boers would be forced out of Natal, Ladysmith would be relieved, and Buller could then return to his original plan of moving on Bloemfontein via Kimberley. Things, however, did not go well.

  On 7 December, Major General William Gatacre’s force suffered a serious setback at Stormberg. Two days later, Lieutenant General Lord Methuen’s 1st Division was stopped at Magersfontein. To relieve Ladysmith, Buller had originally selected a route that crossed the Tugela River at Potgeiter’s Drift. From there, he hoped to move through open country across the enemy’s flank. The two failures, however, made him choose a new plan, one that he had initially ruled out because of the great risks posed by a massed enemy force well entrenched in extremely difficult terrain. ‘With an enemy disheartened by failure I thought myself justified, in the peculiar circumstance, in risking a flank march of fifty miles with an enormous wagon-train, even though it might involve the uncovering of my communications,’ Buller wrote. ‘With an enemy elated by success this was no longer justified. I therefore determined to try to force the direct road to Ladysmith.’49 After a two-day bombardment, Buller ordered a general assault of the enemy’s positions at Colenso.

  Buller was not optimistic on the morning of 15 December. Lansdowne had notified him that no reinforcements were forthcoming. White felt that he could not risk any attempt to break out and offer support. The mounted force he had, Buller believed, was insufficient to threaten the enemy’s flanks or its lines of communication. He had poor maps and little information on the Boer position. And, as many of his contemporaries have noted, Buller disliked losing life, and certainly a success at Colenso was going to require a heavy sacrifice of men.50

  The Boer position at Colenso was indeed strong but not impossible to breach. The capture of Hlangwane Hill would have dangerously exposed their flank to British artillery and rifle fire. Whether Buller recognised this and thought that the risks were too great to attempt to capture the position – Dundonald was sent there but was eventua
lly ordered to retreat – or whether he failed truly to appreciate Hlangwane’s importance is contested.51 The written orders of Clery, the general nominally in charge of the attack at Colenso, do suggest that Buller saw some importance in taking the position but his actions the day of the battle indicate that the movement against Hlangwane was nothing more than a sideshow.52

  Plan of the battle of Colenso, 1899. (From W. Baring Pembleton, Battles of the Boer War, London: Batsford, 1964)

  While Dundonald’s mounted troops on the right moved on Hlangwane Hill, on the left, Hart’s 5th Brigade was ordered to cross the Tugela at Bridle Drift. Buller hoped that if successful, the brigade could then support Hildyard’s 2nd Brigade, which would attempt to force the river at Iron Bridge in the centre. Hart, however, could not locate the drift and got caught in the salient loop of the river. He pressed his men on forward but, without any place to go, his units got terribly entangled. With daybreak almost upon him, Hart still refused to give the orders to extend. Buller quickly identified the danger and a rider was sent to tell Hart to get out of the loop. A second rider told him that the drift was further west.53 But it was too late. The Boers opened up a crossfire on the helpless, bunched up British soldiers. As one soldier recounted, ‘General Hart had his Irish Brigade well out towards the banks of the river, and as soon as they began to rise and make an advance the most awful rifle fire ever witnessed broke out form the dark and silent trenches across the river. Men fell like sheep.’54 Buller ordered Lyttelton’s 4th Brigade, which had been held in reserve, to support a retreat, but the damage was already done. Hart’s Brigade suffered the heaviest casualty rates of the day.