To live laborious days and shun delights,
he rarely fails to do his duty.
At mid-day the situation on Spion Kop was hazardous but not hopeless. Reinforcements had arrived and were quickly absorbed in the works which they quickened with patches of new vigour, but the terrible hail of bullet and shrapnel was not abated. No definite orders had been given to Clery, who was on the southern crest of the Rangeworthy Heights, except that he was to "use his discretion about opening fire against the enemy to his front, with a view to creating a diversion," a discretion which he exercised by doing nothing.
Shortly before noon a step was taken by Buller, who was four miles away on Mount Alice, which enlarged the area of the Fog of War and brought Spion Kop within its chilling grasp. Thorneycroft was ordered to take command on the summit with the local rank of Brigadier-General, although there were several officers present senior to him: but many hours elapsed before the appointment was made known to all of those whom it most concerned. Coke, who was now on the S.W. spur, was unaware of it, and without communicating with Thorneycroft, sent at 12.50 p.m. to Warren a message which was not delivered till 2.20 p.m., that as the summit was crowded and the defence was maintaining itself, he had stopped further reinforcements.
Almost simultaneously with the despatch of this not unfavourable report, and long before it was received by Warren, two companies posted in a detached trench on the right threw up their hands, but not before they had lost all their officers. Out of the crest line sprang the Boers, who having made them prisoners, endeavoured to impose the surrender upon the men in the main trench.27 Thorneycroft saw that if these wavered, as they seemed inclined to do, all was lost; and rallying the details within reach, he succeeded in thrusting back the intruders, who, however, had already sent their prisoners below the hill. His prompt action stayed the wave of doubt which threatened to flood the position, and compelled it to break before it could do much harm.
At 3.50 p.m. Coke, who was still on the S.W. spur, and therefore not in direct touch with Thorneycroft, informed Warren that the enemy was being gradually cleared from the summit, and that he had been reinforced with the Scottish Rifles from Potgieter's Drift by Lyttelton, whom Warren, after receiving Crofton's mis-transmitted message, had ordered to co-operate. He had already forwarded a letter written at 2.30 p.m. by Thorneycroft, stating that the force on Spion Kop was being badly punished by artillery, was in want of water, and was insufficient to hold the position. To this letter he had added a note of his own which showed that he did not attach much importance to it, saying that he had ordered more troops on to the plateau, where "we appear to be holding our own." This letter, with Coke's covering note, did not reach Warren until after he had received Coke's message sent nearly an hour later, and he assumed that the latter indicated the existing hopeful situation with which he had to deal. Of the physical features of the Spion Kop position he knew little more than what his telescope told him, and he read optimistically the meagre, inconsistent, and misleading reports which reached him occasionally from the summit. He hoped during the night to place some naval guns on the plateau: he was informed that an accessible spring of water had been discovered: reinforcements were at hand: there was nothing more to be done.
Lyttelton, when ordered to "assist from his side," acted with intelligence and discernment. Noticing that Spion Kop, whither he had already dispatched the Scottish Rifles, was full of men, he sent the King's Royal Rifles towards the flanking position on the Twin Peaks, and the battalion supported by the naval guns, and ignoring messages of recall prompted by Buller, who was watching the advance with anxiety, worked its way up and expelled a Transvaal contingent and a small body commanded by an Irish renegade, all of whom were hurled by the impact into a flight of eight miles. The position was at once entrenched and at 5 p.m. the right flank of Spion Kop was secured, but only for a time. Again, as after Lord Dundonald's movement on Acton Holmes, a promising enterprise was thrown away. Buller had from the first disapproved of Lyttelton's action, which still more widely distributed his already scattered command. He was too far away to see its bearing upon the situation, and now ordered him to recall the King's Royal Rifles, who after sunset were withdrawn from the position, which they had so gallantly captured in spite of warnings signalled from Spion Kop that it was strongly held by the enemy.
On Spion Kop the Fog of War hung more densely than ever. Coke, who was lame and unable to move freely about the position, believed that Hill, who had come up with a reinforcement soon after noon, and who was next in seniority to Crofton, was in command on the summit. He thought that Crofton had been wounded, and neither saw Thorneycroft nor knew until the following day that Warren had given him the local rank of Brigadier-General at Buller's suggestion. Thorneycroft was a junior major in the Army, having the local rank of Lieutenant-Colonel: and with two colonels senior to him present as well as a major-general, he was doubtful as to his status. No instructions reached him from Coke; he was unaware that the Twin Peaks had been taken by one of Lyttelton's battalions, and he was without means of signalling to Warren. He had no information of the measures which were being taken, such as the dispatch of guns, to make the retention of Spion Kop possible.
The men on the summit were utterly exhausted by fatigue, hunger, thirst, want of sleep, and exposure to the summer sun beating down upon the rocky surface, and their ammunition was running short. At 5.50 p.m. Coke reported "that the situation is extremely critical" and that the men "would not stand another day's shelling," but it was two hours before the message reached Warren. He ordered Coke to come down to consult him. Coke endeavoured to obtain permission by flash signal to stay where he was, but no oil could be obtained for the lamp, so regarding the order as imperative, he quitted Spion Kop at 9.30 p.m., leaving, as he thought, Hill in command. For four hours he strayed in the Fog of War before he found Warren's Head Quarters, which had come under shell fire, and which, unknown to him, had been moved from their original position.
Between 8 and 9, Warren received a letter written at 6.30 p.m. by Thorneycroft, who reported that the enemy's shell fire rendered the permanent occupation of Spion Kop impossible, and asked for instructions.
Coke's departure left the position without a clearly recognized commander, although he had done little more than attend to and distribute the supports and reinforcements on the S.W. spur. After the dispatch of Thorneycroft's letter at 6.30 p.m., the situation grew more hopeless every minute. The enemy's artillery was out of reach, the nature of the ground and the want of tools made it impossible to cut properly designed trenches, rations and water were exhausted, and nothing was known of assistance to be brought up during the night except that a mountain battery, which would be of little use against the enemy's guns, was at the foot of the slope.
For these reasons Thorneycroft justified in his official report his decision to retire from Spion Kop. With the acquiescence of all the senior officers, except Hill, who could not be found, he ordered a withdrawal at 10 p.m. The alternative seemed to be a Majuba surrender next morning. At 10.30 p.m. as the troops were beginning to move off the hill, he received a letter from Warren, asking for his views on the situation, and as to the measures to be adopted. It was now unnecessary to give these, and he sent a brief reply that he was obliged to abandon Spion Kop as the position was untenable.
The retirement was not made without protests from Hill and from Coke's staff officer who was still on the plateau. The former, eleven hours after Thorneycroft's appointment as Brigadier-General, believed, as he had every right to do, that he was in command, and halted the men; the latter sent round a memorandum to the commanding officers, asserting that there was no authority for the withdrawal. But the force of Thorneycroft's local rank prevailed, and the retreat was not stayed. Near the foot of the slope he found the mountain battery, and met a fatigue party on its way to prepare emplacements for two naval guns which were coming up, and received a message from Warren urging him to hold on to the position. It was too late. Ordering back the party and the battery, he went on to report himself to Warren, and arrived at Head Quarters almost simultaneously with Coke.
The Boers meanwhile were greatly discouraged by their expulsion from the Twin Peaks, and their failure to occupy the main position on Spion Kop. The guns which had tormented Thorneycroft for so many hours, and which were the chief cause of his retirement, were withdrawn, and Schalk Burger's commandos oozed away towards Ladysmith. But there was, however, a stalwart and not inconsiderable remnant of burghers who responded to Botha's expostulations, and stood fast as a forlorn hope determined to win back Spion Kop and the Twin Peaks. Their constancy was rewarded, and when at sunrise on January 25 they once more climbed the hill, they found to their astonishment and relief that it was still held—by more than 300 bodies of their fallen foes.
Such in brief is the tale of Spion Kop so far as it can be disentangled from the accumulation of messages, orders, reports, dispatches, and personal accounts, which obscure the subject. Many of these are inconsistent, not a few contradictory, and sufficient evidence might be found to support plausibly half a dozen conflicting theories of the cause of the disaster, and as many variants of the narrative.
At 2 a.m. Warren heard from Thorneycroft's lips—the latter's written message sent off at 10.30 p.m. on the previous evening not having reached him—of the evacuation of Spion Kop. At sunrise he was joined by Buller, who viewed the situation in a spirit of philosophic detachment. He had never cordially approved of the Spion Kop adventure, and was not surprised to hear that it had failed. Warren was inclined to persevere, but Buller decided to retire south of the Tugela and assumed the direct command of the Army, which on January 27 was once more drawn up on the right bank after an absence of ten days; with most of its superior officers discredited, with Ladysmith unrelieved, and the nation at home aghast at the disaster.
The lonely figure of Thorneycroft, the only man of action on the summit energizing and quickening the defence, stands out prominently in the confusion, gloom, and half lights of Spion Kop. Buller's impulsive intervention made him responsible for the position, and he tried to do his best. If the final act was an error of judgment, there is little doubt that but for Thorneycroft, the Boers would have rushed the plateau on the afternoon of January 24. He received no effective support from Clery and little from Warren, and was out of touch with Coke and the Colonels. His uncertainty as to his authority caused him to refrain from exercising it fully until the last moment. For the pain which the decision to withdraw must have given him, he deserves much sympathy. But although it was approved of by Buller, who probably felt bound to support his nominee, it was at least premature. He might reasonably have expected that an effort would be made during the night to relieve him, and might have postponed it for a few hours. It is unjust to judge a man in the light of eventualities which he could not reasonably be expected to foresee, but subsequent accounts from the Boer side show that the attack would not have been renewed the next morning if the enemy had found the Twin Peaks, for the evacuation of which Buller and not Thorneycroft was responsible, and Spion Kop still occupied.
Not only the inconvenience, but also the danger of suddenly conferred local rank were illustrated on January 24. Buller, hastily concluding from a garbled message that Crofton was incompetent, asked Warren to put Thorneycroft in charge. Thorneycroft heard of his appointment orally through an officer who had chanced to be at the signalling station, and the written message which never reached him was, it is said, picked up next day by a Boer! If the exigencies of war should ever require the sudden promotion of a junior officer to a position of great responsibility, it should not take effect until all concerned are notified. The defence of Spion Kop was, during the greater part of the day, conducted by a syndicate of officers acting severally.
The curtain had fallen, the drama was over, and the critics took up their pens. With Thorneycroft's report on the retirement from Spion Kop began a controversy which lasted for more than two years. Warren enclosed it in his own report to Buller, with the suggestion that a Court of Enquiry should be held to investigate the circumstances of the unauthorized withdrawal, and in succession each grade of the military hierarchy passed censure on the grades below. In Buller's covering despatch of January 31 with which he forwarded to the War Office, through Lord Roberts, Warren's Spion Kop report, he commented very unfavourably on Warren's arrangements and disposition of troops; and said that Thorneycroft had "exercised a wise discretion, and that no investigation was necessary": while to Warren's general report on the whole operations of January 17-27, he attached a memorandum to the Secretary of State for War, "not necessarily for publication," in which he not only blamed himself for not having taken command on the 19th, when he saw "that things were not going well," but also said that he could "never employ Warren again in an independent command"; as his slowness had allowed the enemy to concentrate and to increase the force opposed to him more than twenty-fold.
With this accumulation of censure Lord Roberts dealt in his despatch to Lord Lansdowne of February 13, written at a drift on the Riet River during the advance on Kimberley. The Commander-in-Chief confirmed all the censures passed by his subordinates and added some of his own. Buller was rebuked for not having intervened when he saw that a most important enterprise was not being "conducted in the manner which in his opinion would lead to the attainment of the object in view with the least possible loss of life on our side"; Warren was reproved because he did not visit Spion Kop during the crisis, and had instead ordered Coke to come to him; and while Thorneycroft's gallantry and exertions, without which the troops would probably have been driven off the hill during the day, were acknowledged, his action in ordering the retirement without endeavouring to communicate with Coke or Warren was pronounced to be a "wholly inexcusable assumption of responsibility and authority."
Never before had such an inconvenient batch of despatches been laid upon the desks of Pall Mall. To publish them and to proclaim to the world that the Natal Generals, when they were beaten by the enemy, had began to fight among themselves, was impossible. If they were withheld from publication, many awkward questions would be asked. The War Office temporized, and endeavoured to steer a middle course. Would Buller kindly substitute a simple narrative for his despatch? This Buller refused to do, and in April, 1900, the War Office published the despatches, imperfectly sterilized. As they now appeared, they were neither a simple narrative, nor a full revelation. Lord Roberts' criticisms on Buller were cut out. The memorandum, "not necessarily for publication," in which Buller reflected severely on Warren's incapacity was withheld. Only the censure passed upon Thorneycroft was allowed to appear. The junior officer was made the scapegoat of his superiors' mistakes. Of all the officers concerned, he alone had failed. The War Office had taken a politic but not straightforward course. The blame must be laid upon some one, and if it were laid upon Thorneycroft alone it would affect public opinion less mischievously.
It soon became suspected, however, that certain things were being kept back, and the controversy dragged on for two years; Buller to the end maintaining that as he was not present at, nor in command of, the Spion Kop operations, it was not incumbent on him to write a simple narrative of them; and that his duty was to write a critical account of the affair, such as would be sent in by an Umpire in Chief during peace manoeuvres.
Not until April, 1902, did the Epilogue of the Tragedy of Errors appear. The despatches, with the memorandum "not necessarily for publication," were published in full, as well as the "Secret Orders" given to Warren at Springfield, which were its Prologue.
Footnote 27:(return)In the Fog of War some of the British soldiers thought that the Boers were coming up to surrender themselves, and acted in this belief for a brief period.
By a process of elimination Buller hoped in time to find the road to Ladysmith. He had tried in succession, but without success, Colenso, Potgieter's Drift, and Trickhardt's Drift. He now informed White that he intended to make another attempt, but Lord Roberts advised him to postpone it until his own advance should draw off the Free Staters and weaken the barrier on the line of the Tugela.
The situation in the besieged town was growing worse every day, but a proposal made by White as well as by the War Office that the garrison should endeavour to break out, was not sanctioned by Lord Roberts. White also was opposed to Buller's making another attempt to cross the Tugela, as he considered that the force would be more usefully employed in preventing the enemy from concentrating on Ladysmith.
Buller's new plan was an advance by way of Vaalkrantz. Here the river winds in two salient loops towards the north, with a re-entrant loop between them, and there is a slight break in the heights on the left bank. The Brakfontein ridge slopes down towards Vaalkrantz Hill, between which and Green Hill there is a dip through which a road passes on to the open ground towards Ladysmith, eleven miles distant.
Buller proposed to occupy the ridge of Vaalkrantz with artillery, and after a feint attack on the Boer position on Brakfontein, to push through under cover of the guns. It was believed that the enemy's extreme left lay on Vaalkrantz, which was commanded by Mount Alice and Zwart Kop. Lord Roberts when informed of the project was not hopeful of its success, but did not veto it, although he thought that Buller would be better advised to abstain from offensive tactics.
The feint attack on Brakfontein was to be made by seven Field Batteries and a Brigade of Infantry, and was to be continued long enough to convince the enemy that it was "meant". It was then to be withdrawn and the real attack set in motion. The advance of the feint would be covered by heavy guns posted on Mount Alice, and concealed batteries on Zwart Kop would open on Vaalkrantz in support of the real attack.
The bulk of the infantry was posted in the east loop, so as to appear ready to cross the river and support the feint attack between the loops. As soon as the guns had driven the enemy into their trenches on Brakfontein, a pontoon bridge was to be thrown across the river south of Hunger's Drift, and the guns on Zwart Kop were to open on Vaalkrantz, and when this had been sufficiently bombarded, it would be carried by the infantry, and guns would be brought up to enfilade the Boer line; while the cavalry "when feasible" would push through under the ridge and threaten it from the rear.
It was a pretty tactical scheme, with much of the War-Game about it, and it depended for its success upon the practicability of using Vaalkrantz as an artillery position, and upon the correctness of the assumption that the enemy was not in force eastward of it.
Buller was not successful in placing his guns on Zwart Kop unnoticed by the enemy, who was warned in time. After Spion Kop, Botha went to Pretoria, and Schalk Burger took furlough. B. Viljoen was now in command. He saw the danger and applied to Joubert at Ladysmith for help, who thought he was over-anxious but sent him a heavy gun. Little however would have been done but for the intervention of the two civilian Presidents. Steyn appealed to Kruger who, having tried without success to induce Joubert to take command on the Upper Tugela, fell in with Steyn's suggestion that Martin Prinsloo, a Free Stater, should go there; and Botha was ordered back from Pretoria. Prinsloo took command of the Brakfontein position, Viljoen remaining on Vaalkrantz.
At sunrise on February 5 began Buller's third attempt to relieve Ladysmith. Wynne, who had succeeded Woodgate in command of the 11th Brigade, advanced in two lines up the slope towards Brakfontein, supported by the fire of forty-four guns. Nearly six hours passed before any reply was vouchsafed by the enemy. At mid-day some guns on Wynne's left front opened on the batteries, but not a shot was fired by the Boers in the trenches.
Already one field battery had been detached from the left of the line of guns, the first movement in the real attack, and had taken up a position to cover the pontoon troop which was throwing a bridge across the Tugela near Hunger's Drift. At noon the completion of the bridge was signalled to the feint attack. The batteries fronting the Brakfontein ridge were withdrawn, and Wynne's brigade which, having been marched up the slope, was now marched down again, came under a heavy but almost innocuous infantry fire, which at last broke out on Brakfontein.
To the Boers it appeared that another attack, determined while it lasted, but devoid of backbone, had been kept at bay. The guns on Zwart Kop opened on Vaalkrantz as soon as the detached battery was seen to be in motion; and the other batteries came into action as they arrived from the Brakfontein demonstration. There was some annoyance from casual rifle fire and a Maxim posted on the heights S.E. of the loop, but it did not seriously interfere with the work of the bridge-builders.
The rules of the game were strictly obeyed, and there was "a thorough preparation by artillery" before the infantry was allowed to advance. The movement was delayed until half a hundred guns were playing upon Vaalkrantz and the chance of a celer et audax exploit was lost. At 2 p.m. Lyttelton with two battalions of the 4th Brigade was permitted to cross the pontoon and with these he worked up under the protection of the left bank, and emerging upon Munger's Farm, rose thence to the southern edge of Vaalkrantz, and took hold of the ridge. Here he was joined by a battalion of Hildyard's Brigade, whose original orders to occupy Green Hill were cancelled, and later on by the remaining battalions of his own brigade; which Buller, wavering for a time, had held back, as the pontoon and the open ground were under fire from the right flank. At 4 p.m. Lyttelton was established on the main hill of Vaalkrantz, and during the night the position was entrenched. The occupation, however, brought two facts to light. Half a mile to the north of the main hill was another hill, only a few feet lower, unapproachable and in the enemy's possession; and it was not practicable, as Buller had hoped, to bring up artillery on to the position seized by Lyttelton.
At daylight on February 6, the situation was favourable to the Boers. Botha had arrived and had taken over the command from Prinsloo. The heavy gun sent from Ladysmith had been mounted on Doom Kop, which was now held by reinforcements under L. Meyer; other good positions east of Vaalkrantz had been strengthened; and some of the guns on the Brakfontein position had been moved round. Vaalkrantz standing between Doorn Kop and the Twin Peaks, was shelled simultaneously from the left front, and the right rear, as well as from Green Hill;28 it seemed as if Spion Kop were about to be repeated.
Buller opened on Green Hill with artillery, and on the hill north of the main hill of Vaalkrantz, in the hope of making the North Hill assailable. In view of a retirement, a pontoon bridge was, at Lyttelton's request, thrown across the river under the main ridge. He discouraged a proposal made by Buller to attack the North Hill by a force creeping along the foot of the westward slope of Vaalkrantz, covered by fire from the ridge.
Buller was now stalemated. The artillery fire had not cleared the way to the North Hill, and Lyttelton was unable to move on it, but he said that he could hold on for the rest of the day if no more artillery were brought to bear on him from the S.E.
Finally Buller determined to shift the responsibility. He reported the capture of Vaalkrantz to Lord Roberts, and in effect asked what he should do with the white elephant. To carry out his plan would "cost from 2,000 to 3,000 men," and he was "not confident of success." Was Ladysmith worth it? Yes, replied Lord Roberts without hesitation, Ladysmith was worth it and it must be done.
In the evening Lyttelton, having thwarted an attempt by the enemy to recover Vaalkrantz, was relieved by Hildyard. On the following afternoon, Buller, in spite of Lord Roberts' message, made up his mind to withdraw. Further reconnaissances had shown that the North Hill, even if taken, could hardly be held. A council of war was summoned, at which, as might have been anticipated, Hart alone was for persevering, and at which Warren again put forward the scheme rejected by Buller at Frere, but now gladly adopted by him, of advancing on Ladysmith by way of Hlangwhane.
Orders were issued for the withdrawal of the force from Vaalkrantz during the night. It was skilfully carried out, and Buller was once more ferrying his men across the Tugela, having for the third time failed to reach Ladysmith.
On February 8 the Army was retracing its steps on the road by which four weeks before it had marched from Springfield to Potgieter's Drift; and on the 11th it was concentrated at Chieveley, from which eight weeks before it had been thrown at the Colenso heights. All the Tugela operations had been conducted in a rarified medium. Want of determination, want of system, the absence of maps, the lack of a sufficient staff, were responsible for two months of misadventure. Buller, like the Boers, was easily discouraged by failure, but unlike them was unable to quicken himself readily for a renewed effort. He lost confidence in himself, and then in his subordinates. Like a nervous child, he opened the door of a dark chamber, but was afraid to enter. The terror of the unknown drove him back in a panic. When his plans, which were usually well thought out, miscarried, he became peevish, and scarcely made an attempt to reconstruct them. Only an Army of which the backbone was the stolid, unimaginative Englishman of the lower classes, and which believed that its leader was doing his best, could have remained undemoralized by the campaign on the Tugela.
Buller possessed one quality which to a great extent outweighed his shortcomings as a military commander: namely the power of inspiring confidence. His men believed in him, and would do anything for him. They liked him for his bluff, John-Bullish, and rampant manner. The enlisted man is a curious differentiation from the class to which he belongs. His democratic instincts become less acute when he shoulders the Lee-Metford, and he readily accommodates himself to the will of a benevolent despot of robust appearance, and blunt and somewhat contemptuous address; whom in fact he prefers to the ascetic, dispassionate General Officer of quiet habit and speech.
The criticisms passed upon Buller were far more friendly in the men's than in the officers' bivouacs. Possibly the men's opinions, as being the more natural and spontaneous, were also the more correct. The enemy conducted the war upon principles which were strange to the British Army, and to which it had to adapt itself painfully; and the men seem to have recognized sooner than the professors the difficulties of the situation, and to have been less intolerant of ill-success.
Few general officers have ever revealed in their official communications more of the workings and the moods of their minds than did Buller in Natal. His telegrams and despatches always reflected the thoughts of the moment. After the Colenso fight, he candidly referred to it as my "unfortunate undertaking of to-day." Six days before the Vaalkrantz affair he told Lord Roberts that "this time I feel fairly confident of success"; and on the eve of the attack he said that "while I have every hope of success, I am not quite certain of it."
After the retirement, it was, "wherever I turn I come upon the enemy in superior force to my own." He subjected his personal and individual ideas and feelings to no restraint, and they incontinently leavened all his messages which were now confident, now diffident, and now querulous, and which read as if they were quotations from his private diary. From Vaalkrantz he heliographed to White that the enemy was too strong for him, and that the "Bulwana big gun is here"; and could White suggest anything better than an advance by way of Hlangwhane? In his telegrams from Chieveley to Lord Roberts, he complained of want of support, and of the feebleness of the resistance made by the Ladysmith garrison, which he professed to believe did not detain more than 2,000 men. Yet in recording his weakness, it must in justice be said that he gained and never lost the confidence of the rank and file of the relieving force, and that under any other leader it would probably have succumbed to its misfortunes.
On February 12 the re-concentration of Buller's Army at Chieveley was complete. The enemy's front had been greatly strengthened since the attack on Colenso. The Boers saw what Buller could not be persuaded to believe, that Hlangwhane was the key of the position, and extended their line thence in a curve through Green Hill and Monte Cristo, with a detached post outside it on Cingolo. These four hills and the ground between them Buller proposed to occupy, and then pass between Cingolo and Monte Cristo to a drift of the Tugela N.E. of Monte Cristo, cross the river and advance by the Klip Riyer on Bulwana. The two "iron bridges" at Colenso were impassable, but the Boers had thrown a bridge across near Naval Hill by which, and also by a ferry higher up, communication was kept up with their left flank.
The initial movement on February 12 was made appropriately enough by Dundonald, who two months before had seen the value of the Hlangwhane position, and who now perhaps as he marched out, realized the truth of the proverb tout vient à ce qui sait attendre. He occupied Hussar Hill temporarily as a reconnaissance to give Buller an opportunity of surveying the ground over which he was about to operate. The Intelligence officers reported that the enemy was strongly posted at several points within the area and unmasked some of his slim tricks. In order to conceal the line of the trenches, the excavated earth was piled up some distance towards the front, and tents not intended for occupation were pitched to divert fire from the positions in which he lay. The war-craft which comes by instinct to nationalities not in an advanced state of civilization and leading simple lives face to face with wild animals and native tribes, and which the conventionally trained European soldier only learns by experience, strengthened the Boer commandos without an augmentation of individuals liable to be killed or wounded. The veld trenches which kept Methuen at arm's length at Magersfontein and the Boer devices on the Tugela seem to show that War is not a Science, but an Art, easily acquired by unprofessional soldiers.
On February 14 the movement began and a front at Hussar Hill was taken up, but owing to the heat and the scarcity of water, little was done during the next two days, except a bombardment of the Boer trenches and gun positions. The advance of the relieving force has been likened to the deliberate progression of a steam roller.
Clery having been invalided, the IInd Division was temporarily under the command of Lyttelton, whose orders for February 17 were to move upon Cingolo Nek and Green Hill. Dundonald was instructed to work in rear of the infantry and outflank any detachment of the enemy that might appear on the Nek. But Dundonald was not a military pedant devoid of initiative and tied to the letter of his instructions, and when the difficulties of the ground broke the touch between him and Lyttelton he was perhaps not sorry to find himself disengaged; and when he saw that the Boers were entrenched on Cingolo Ridge, he attacked instead of outflanking it.
While the commando on the ridge was occupied with the infantry, it was suddenly surprised from the flank by Dundonald's men, and was driven out of the trenches. Meanwhile one of Lyttelton's battalions, which in ignorance of Dundonald's movement, had been sent to clear Cingolo of some Boers who were firing on the advance and checking it, found when it reached the ridge that it had been forestalled in the capture.
When Lyttelton became aware that the enemy had been expelled, he proposed to avail himself of the success without delay, and push on to the Nek and Monte Cristo, while Warren's Vth Division attacked Green Hill; but Buller objected to an advance which could not be completed before nightfall. Lyttelton bivouacked S.W. of the ridge and Dundonald on the detached hill at its northern end. During the night, field guns were brought up the slopes and with much difficulty emplaced in a position from which shell fire could be directed on Monte Cristo.
If the movement of the day was not remarkable for speed and enterprise, it was at least directed with skill and without excessive caution; and Dundonald showed that his military spirit had not been chilled by previous rebuffs, one of them administered almost on the spot where he was now in activity.
At daylight on February 18, the movement was resumed, the immediate objective being the capture of Monte Cristo and Green Hill. One brigade was sent through the Nek on to the eastward slopes of Monte Cristo, while the other attacked the hill from the south. With the help of the ever-ready Dundonald the IInd Division established itself on the main hill of the ridge early in the afternoon. The Fusilier Brigade of the Vth Division was meanwhile acting in support; and advancing as soon as Monte Cristo was seen to be occupied, easily took hold of Green Hill. The enemy was now expelled from all the positions commanding the proposed line of advance over the Nek, and was retreating westward towards the positions near the right bank of the Tugela, but no attempt was made to pursue him. The motto of Buller's Army was festina lente and its track towards Ladysmith was in zigzag.
On the following day Hlangwhane was occupied by the British troops, and before noon on February 20, all the Boers had withdrawn to the left bank of the Tugela, and Buller was favourably placed for the advance by way of the Klip River on Bulwana. A reconnaissance, however, caused him to change his mind and to resume the movement at an acute angle by doubling back towards Hlangwhane and crossing the river by a pontoon bridge west of the hill.
His new plan was to capture a position between the Onderbroek and Langewacht Spruits, which appeared from a distance to be one hill, but which in reality was two, Wynne's Hill and Horseshoe Hill, which were separated by a donga. On the morning of February 21 he signalled his intentions to White, saying that he thought he had "only a rearguard before him"29 and that he hoped to be in Ladysmith next day.
After the capture of Monte Cristo and the Hlangwhane position, some of the commandos seem to have trekked away towards the north, and even Botha for a time appears to have lost heart and to have suggested to Joubert that the siege of Ladysmith should be raised. The Boer leaders had already, like King Arthur,
Heard the steps of Modred in the west,
and their army in Natal had been weakened, before Buller's final advance, by the departure of commandos going to succour their brethren not only on the Modder, but also in the Cape Colony.
The situation on the Tugela was reported to Pretoria almost simultaneously with the news that Cronje was hemmed in at Paardeberg. But owing it may be to the distance which intervened between Kruger and the scene of action, the dour old voortrekker of Colesberg would not hear of any voluntary retirement before the enemy who had driven him out of the Cape Colony sixty years before. He sent an appeal to the Boers of the Tugela which, in an intense human document, displayed his steadfast and touching faith, and which might have been addressed by his prototype Cromwell to the Ironsides.
He rebuked the burghers for their cowardice, which he attributed to the waning of their trust in the power of the Almighty to help them in their distress, and with many instances and quotations from Holy Writ, he adjured them to stand fast in faith. He was confident that the cause which he in all sincerity believed to be the cause of the Church of Christ would prevail in the end, and justifiably encouraged by successes in the field against superior numbers he exhorted the commandos to endure without flinching the purification by fire. Kruger's passionate appeal availed, and the waverers returned to their posts. The incident disclosed the power of the factor of moral force, wherein the Boer strength lay; and it will in a great measure account for the prolongation of the war. When their cause seemed hopeless, they comforted themselves with the honest and irradicable belief that its righteousness was the assurance of final success. Though most of their leaders were incompetent, though they themselves were easily discouraged; disobeyed orders; often malingered and mutinied; quitted the field with their wagons which they were reluctant to abandon, under such frivolous pretexts that the verlafpest or leave-plague became a bye-word; though time after time their power of resistance seemed to be exhausted; though in their thousands they were distributed over the British Empire as prisoners of war; though their confident expectation of European intervention was not realized; though they were always greatly outnumbered; they continued stubbornly to defy for the space of two years and seven months the most numerous and the most efficient Army which has ever left the shores of Great Britain, until at last they were worn down by mechanical friction and attrition, and not by the stroke of war. When the Boers were driven out of the Hlangwhane positions, they took up a new position facing S.E. on the left bank of the Tugela. Their right was near the head of Hart's loop, and their centre came within a few hundred yards of the river at Wynne's Hill, whence the line was carried on towards Pieter's Hill.
At noon on February 21 Buller began once more to send his men across the Tugela, intending to content himself that day with establishing his force "comfortably" on the position north of the railway bridge enclosed by the bend of the river, which was now free of the enemy. He ordered Talbot Coke with the 10th Brigade of Warren's Division to pass over the Colenso Kopjes on to the open ground beyond, from which the Onderbroek valley could be enfiladed by artillery. He had received information that the enemy were there in force, and in the belief that "what Boers there were, were hiding in that kloof," he changed his plan of moving northwards at once on Wynne's Hill.
On February 21 Coke advanced in three lines, but soon after he had cleared the hilly ground, his scouting line came under fire from the Grobelaar slopes, and his right flank was also involved from the direction of Wynne's Hill. His Brigade was pinned to the ground by rifle and shell fire until nightfall, when it was retired to the Colenso Kopjes, where Wynne's Brigade of Warren's Division had arrived during the afternoon.
The route march to Ladysmith was checked. Instead of a mere rearguard to be driven in, as Buller had fondly believed, a strongly posted line, extending nearly four miles S.W. from Wynne's Hill, had to be attacked. The enemy had been so much encouraged by the failure of Coke's movement, that Botha telegraphed to Kruger that he had hopes of a "great reverse."
Warren thought that it would be necessary to diverge from the advance and take the Grobelaar slopes, and White reported that Boer reinforcements were coming in from the north. Towards evening on February 21, it seemed not unlikely that another Colenso, Spion Kop, or Vaalkrantz would soon be debited to Buller. The line of approach to Ladysmith was held by the enemy, and the British Army of relief, the greater part of which had crossed to the left bank of the Tugela, was entangled in the Colenso Kopjes, and the river loop.
Warren's general idea for the 22nd, of which Buller approved, was to attack Wynne's Hill with the 11th Brigade, leaving Horseshoe Hill to be dealt with by the artillery. Although the Boers on the Grobelaar slopes had been well pounded for some hours by the field batteries, Wynne considered that it would be unsafe to advance unless these slopes were actually taken, but he was overruled. He had also been promised support on his left rear, but only two of the battalions detailed for the purpose were at hand and these were fully occupied in offering a front to the Boers on Grobelaar, while the movement was in progress; and he advanced against the enemy's centre unsupported except by the long range fire of a brigade on Naval Hill across the river.
He had expected that the promised supports would secure his left flank by seizing Horseshoe Hill, and in default he was compelled to detach a portion of his own scanty force against it. At sunset the cutting edge of the advancing wedge was touching the enemy, but was unable to break into him, and Briton and Boer were face to face on Wynne's Hill and on Horseshoe Hill.
Reinforcements were brought up and defences were constructed during the night, while the Boers continually fired upon the confused units labouring in the darkness. The enemy had an entrenched position on Hart's Hill which enfiladed Wynne's Hill, and which Warren had not been able to take, as Buller hoped, with the 11th Brigade.
Next morning the 5th Brigade under Hart, which was in reserve near the river loop, was sent against Hart's Hill. He advanced, wherever possible, under cover of the steep left bank of the river along a trail so narrow that the men were compelled often to move in single file; and at one place, where the Langewacht Spruit enters the Tugela, it was necessary to make a detour and cross the spruit by the railway bridge, and to quit the dead ground and emerge on to a defile under heavy fire. The advance of the Brigade was retarded by the stringing out of the battalions, and from time to time Hart's Hill was shelled without seriously harming the enemy, who as usual was not posted on the apparent crest, but some distance in rear of it.
Two battalions of the 4th Brigade, which had been lent to Hart, were so far behind that as only two or three hours of daylight remained, he decided to attack without them. For impetuous gallantry the advance of the Irish regiments was not surpassed by any other exploit in the War. Working up on difficult ground to the sound of the Regimental calls, and then almost brought to a standstill by the barbed wire fences of the railway, which became a trap of death, they rushed the slope, pushing the enemy's outposts before them, and won the crest: and then in the failing light which compelled the supporting artillery to discontinue the bombardment and relieve the enemy from the pressure of shrapnel, they saw the Boer positions still above them. The crest was false.
It was a cruel disappointment to brave men who had struggled so well, but they did not flinch. A charge was made across the plateau, but it soon was withered by fire and few of the men reached the Boer trenches. Two more battalions of the 4th Brigade arrived at dawn, but the reinforcement came too late. The troops were reorganized, as far as possible, on the slope leading down from the crest, but were eventually compelled to retire across the railway to the lower ground by flanking fire, which Hart succeeded in silencing, and was able to reoccupy the dead ground below the false crest with fresh troops.