General Gatacre Part 24

[6] See _Official History_, vol. i. p. 288.

[Sidenote: Night attack suggested]

On the following day the message given below reached Gatacre through Sir F. Forestier-Walker:

"General Buller inquires whether you can safely leave your present position and advance to Henning's Station, or somewhere near where you can get a safe position, and also inst.i.tute a policy of worry. He thinks if you could occupy Henning's Station Boers would fall back on Burghersdorp, or if you could get near enough to Burghersdorp to make night attack, it would be the thing to stop anxiety (_sic_). He adds Hildyard with a battalion and half sent a column of seven thousand Boers under Joubert himself flying. The above was probably wired before Buller read notification of the enemy's occupation of Dordrecht.

He wired last night as follows: tell Gatacre he will have to take care of himself till 5th Division arrives. A telegram just received says he has given you a free hand."[7]

[7] From copy of telegram in A.D.C.'s handwriting.

Burghersdorp is about twenty-three miles north of Stormberg, and Henning is a station about ten miles west of Stormberg on the cross {228} line. This telegram, therefore, sketched a far more arduous and hazardous enterprise than that which Gatacre afterwards attempted.

Within the next few days the Third Division was strengthened by the arrival of the 74th and 77th Batteries Royal Field Artillery, the First Battalion Royal Scots, the 33rd Company Army Service Corps, and the 16th Field Hospital. All these units were only just arrived from England, so that, although the additional battalion of infantry was very valuable, Gatacre was unable to employ the men on the raid that he had been planning for some time past. They would serve, however, to protect the camp, and would thus set the other two battalions free for use as a striking force. Even these had only been two and three weeks in the country respectively, and the General had had no opportunity of getting them into the hard condition and fighting form that was reached by his Brigade on the Nile.

On December 8 he writes:

"I am frightfully busy and worried. The whole of this country is seething with rebels, and as they are all mounted, and I have only a few mounted infantry on half-fed ponies, it is very difficult to cope with them.

"I have now three regiments of infantry, but have a long railway line to guard, and every culvert has a couple of armed men in it. Fancy what an anxiety this is--their safety, their food, their overworked condition. If I had my Division I could really strike somewhere....

"I am hoping to move on a bit to-morrow or next day to recover some of the country given {229} up prior to my arrival, as I think occupation of a position in advance of this may tend to awe the Dutch behind me."

In the _Official History_ we read that--

"The General Officer Commanding considered that, in the existing strategic situation, any further prolongation of the defensive att.i.tude he had hitherto been obliged to maintain would be injurious. He determined, therefore, to take advantage of the free hand left to him by Sir Redvers Buller, and to follow the further suggestion that he should close with the enemy."[8]

[8] See _Official History_, vol. i. p. 289.

The first week in December was spent in reconnoitring the Stormberg position so far as wandering parties of Boers would permit. The general himself prepared a sketch of the hills surrounding it and the roads leading thereto, which he carried with him on the march. The only map available was on too small a scale (twelve and a half miles to the inch) to be useful for tactical purposes, but all possible information was extracted from every man acquainted with the locality.

Their accounts of the features and the distances were often inexact, and did not always agree, but eventually five local men, belonging to the Cape Mounted Police, under Sergeant Morgan of the same corps, were selected as guides.

The General's scheme was to attack the Boer laager on the Stormberg Nek; by a night march of nine miles from Molteno he hoped to reach a {230} position from which the enemy's camp could be a.s.saulted at daybreak.

The concentration was made at Molteno, on the afternoon of December 9, the troops being brought from Putters Kraal by train, about sixteen miles, and some from Bushman's Hoet, which was half the distance. The force consisted of the two field batteries, with an escort of Mounted Infantry and two Infantry Battalions. It should have been further augmented by the detachment from Penhoek of 235 Cape Mounted Rifles, but, owing to the miscarriage of a telegram, these men failed to appear.

Another circ.u.mstance that modified the original plan was a report that was brought in at the last minute that the enemy had fortified and entrenched the pa.s.s between the Kissieberg and Rooi Kop, over which runs the main road and the railway to the junction. The informant affirmed that the Boer main laager was placed on the heights of the Kissieberg, which could be easily ascended from the western side, where there were no artificial defences. The General was a.s.sured by all those who should have known that to reach this hill on its western flank would only add two miles to the projected march, and that they could lead him to a favourable spot for such an attempt.

[Sidenote: The start]

A council was held in the station-master's room at Molteno, and all the commanding officers were consulted as to their men's condition and fitness for the expedition. Although the train service had been most carefully timed, a {231} delay of two hours had somehow crept in; the railway was but a single line and the siding accommodation very limited. However, no one foresaw any difficulty, and so the start was made at nine o'clock that evening by moonlight. Indeed, so eager were the men that they set out at an unusually brisk pace.

In the General's official report we read:

"The force marched, with the usual halts, for about eight miles by moonlight, and halted near Roberts's farm at 12.30. The chief guide now reported that we were within one and a half miles of the enemy's position, and, after a rest of about three-quarters of an hour, we marched off again in the dark."[9]

[9] See _Despatches_ published March 17, 1900.

It was soon after this halt that the General realised that the guides had not brought him along the road that he had indicated, but, as he wrote, to turn back in consequence of this discovery did not commend itself to him. So the men tramped on, and at 4.20 a.m. found themselves under a face of the Kissieberg. A single shot from a Boer picket precipitated the attack, and before long the enemy had located the British column.

"Three companies of the Royal Irish Rifles formed to the left, and occupied a kopje; the remainder of this battalion and the Northumberland Fusiliers advanced up a steep hill against the enemy's position."[10]

[10] _Ibid._

"There was no good position for the British {232} guns, except the ridge 2,000 yards to the west of the Kissieberg. But the infantry's need of immediate support was too pressing to allow time for that ridge's occupation. Lieutenant-Colonel Jeffreys, by direction of General Gatacre, caused the 77th Battery to come into action near the kopje, the 74th unlimbering in the open veldt to the westward. The Mounted Infantry continued to escort the batteries....

[Sidenote: A fatal mischance]

"The Boers from the main laager had now manned the hill, but the British artillery was bursting sh.e.l.ls on the threatened crest, and a Boer gun, which had come into action, was for a time silenced.

"The attack had lasted half an hour, and progress up the hill was being slowly made by the British infantry, when five companies of the Northumberlands, on the right of the line, were ordered to retire by their commanding officer. He considered that his battalion must leave the hill. The three foremost companies, who were nearly on the summit, did not hear this order, and, under the command of Captain Wilmott, remained with the Irish Rifles, clinging on as they were. The fire of the enemy appeared to be slackening, and for the moment the groups of British officers were convinced that, if they were supported, they could gain the crest. But the withdrawal of a portion of the attacking line had made further success impossible. Nor was that all. Seeing the five companies of the Northumberland Fusiliers falling back to the west, the batteries conceived that all the a.s.sailants were retreating, and exerted themselves to the utmost to cover the movement by their fire. The sun was now rising behind the western face of the Kissieberg, so that all the upper part presented to the British guns a black target, on {233} which neither friend nor foe could be distinguished. Thus a fatal mischance came about. A sh.e.l.l fused for explosion just short of the Boer defensive line burst over the foremost group of the Irish Rifles, and struck down Lieutenant-Colonel Eager, Major H. J. Seton, the second-in-command, Major Welman, Captain Bell, and three men. A conference had a few moments before been held between Colonel Eager and Captain Wilmott, as to the steps which should be taken to protect the men from the sh.e.l.ls of their own gunners. The former officer had stated that as the situation of the infantry was evidently unknown to the batteries, and was masking their fire, it was necessary to fall back. Captain Wilmott, on the other hand, urged that if the men were once ordered to withdraw, it would be very difficult to get them up the hill again. Colonel Eager replied that there was no help for it. Therefore a general retirement now began."[11]

[11] See _Official History_, vol. i. pp. 297-8.

An officer of the Royal Irish Rifles writes in his official report:

"At this time I did not think there was more than a piquet in front, and a rush at the end of the kopje would have taken that part of the position and the Boer gun. Colonel Eager, Major Seton, Major Welman, and Captain Bell were knocked over at this point by one of our sh.e.l.ls, otherwise I think they would have taken this portion of the Boer position. From subsequent conversation with one Voss, Secretary to Swanepoel, Commandant Smithfield Laager there is no doubt that many of the Boers were leaving the position."

{234}

It seems, therefore, clear that the day was almost won, for had our sh.e.l.ls fallen a little farther forward, so that the infantry could have held on a quarter of an hour longer, they would doubtless have found the defences evacuated. If our victorious troops had been able to eat the enemy's breakfast, we should have heard nothing of the fatigues of the night march, nor of the missing telegram.

But, unfortunately, the morning ended differently. We will close the account with a quotation from a letter written by one of the aides-de-camp:

"The General, as soon as he realised the state of things, arranged for the retirement, quite cool under the hottest fire, encouraging the men and moving over the position in every direction, not recklessly, but with a fine courage, which did us all good to watch. The retirement was carried out in wonderful order, and, weary though the men were, they hastened to join their units, and marched home in fair order....

Throughout the retirement he was the last man of the column, beating up tired stragglers, and bringing in abandoned transport."

In all the accounts something is said about a secondary force of Boers that came on to the scene soon after the general retirement had begun, but according to the following extract from another officer's report, they refrained from doing us as much damage as might have been effected by a more experienced enemy.