Our Sailors Part 19

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

WARS IN SOUTH AFRICA.

In 1879 Great Britain became involved in war with Cetewayo, chief of a powerful race of savages on the north-eastern border of the colony of Natal in South Africa, and two years after in a short conflict with the Boers, or Dutch farmers, in the Transvaal; and in both of these wars a Naval Brigade took part. From this time onward, South Africa has held a position of increasing importance in our colonial history, and is likely to continue to do so for many years to come; it will be well therefore before considering the wars referred to, to give a general view of the position of the British, the Dutch, and the Zulu at the date of their commencement.

Cape Colony was originally founded by the Dutch about the middle of the seventeenth century; it was seized by Great Britain during the wars with France in 1806, and finally annexed to the British Empire by virtue of the Treaty of Vienna in 1815.

A great proportion of the colonists, and especially of the farmers in the districts farthest from the coast and from civilisation, did not take kindly to British rule; and in 1835 and succeeding years a great number crossed the Orange River--at that time the boundary of the colony on the north--with the intention of setting up independent Dutch communities. To this movement, known as the Great Trek, the occupation by the Dutch Boers (i.e. farmers) of the territories, since known as the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, or South African Republic, is due.

At that time the limits of the British colony were, on the north, the Orange River; and, on the east, the Fish River. Beyond this, on the east, was territory occupied by hostile Kaffir tribes, afterwards called British Kaffraria, and now annexed to Cape Colony, and still farther to the east of these lay the fertile land of Natal.

A large section of the trekking Boers, after pa.s.sing the Orange and going north, crossed the mountains, and descended upon Natal. There were a few English hunters and traders settled upon the coast, but the country had been depopulated of its original inhabitants by a ferocious and warlike race of superior physique, whom we call the Zulu. These had been trained to a high state of military and athletic perfection by a succession of sanguinary chiefs, and had broken and ma.s.sacred every tribe with whom they had come in contact, so that in this district of Natal alone it is computed that over a million had perished, and but five or six thousand of the original inhabitants remained lurking in caverns and amid the dense bush.

The first leader of the Boers, Retief, and some 70 persons, were treacherously murdered by Dingaan, the chief or king of the Zulus, at his kraal, which they had visited at his request in February 1838; and the chief made a sudden attack with his armies upon the isolated bands of farmers, and killed a great many of them. After many b.l.o.o.d.y fights, in which large numbers of Zulus were killed, the Boers drove Dingaan and his armies across the Tugela, and occupied the country.

The British Government, however, declined to recognise the right of its colonists to leave the colony, wage war upon the native tribes, and set up as independent republics, and therefore, after overcoming the resistance of the Boers, occupied Natal, and eventually made it into a separate colony. After some trial of British rule, the bulk of the Dutch recrossed the mountains, and joined their fellow-countrymen in the Orange Free State, or in the land beyond the Vaal.

At length in 1852 the British Government, having enough to do with native wars on the Cape frontier, found it expedient to concede independence to the Transvaal Boers; and two years afterwards abandoned the territory between the Orange and Vaal Rivers to its inhabitants, the Dutch farmers, who thus founded the Orange Free State.

The Dutch of the Free State were of much the same type and education as the Cape Dutch, and soon settled down and arranged their affairs, and evolved an almost ideal form of republican government, under which, after having at great sacrifice and courage overcome the native difficulties on their borders, they lived a happy and contented existence, with increasing prosperity, no public enemy, perfect civil and religious equality, and, except for railways and public works, no public debt, until in 1899 that wonderful loyalty to race which is so remarkable a trait in the Dutch African involved them in the ambitions and the ruin of the South African Republic.

With the Transvaal Boer it was far otherwise. Amongst the leaders of the Voor-trekkers, as the original emigrants from Cape Colony are called, were leaders of whom colonists of any race might be proud, such as Pretorius, Potgieter, Uys, and Retief, and, no doubt, among their followers were many like them; but it was the most discontented and the most uncivilised and turbulent, as a rule, that crossed the Vaal originally; and there they lived isolated lives, far away from any white being but those of their own family, without books, without intercourse with the outer world, surrounded only by their wives and children and Kaffir servants, or rather slaves; and thus the Transvaal Boer, to whom alone we ought to apply the name, became more sullen, obstinate, bigoted, and ignorant than his cousins farther south.

Very little good could such people, with few exceptions little above the average of an English farm-labourer, do with independence. Many years were wasted in quarrelling and even fighting among themselves, every leader of a district with a few scattered farms claiming independence, before all were united under one government. There was constant war with natives on the border, no means of collecting taxes or providing for public works, and by the year 1877 it seemed as though the State must collapse and the Transvaal be overrun by its enemies. The Boers were defeated by Sekukuni, chief of the Bapedi; they had an open dispute with Cetewayo about territory which they had annexed from his country, and he was preparing for war; the tribes in the north had driven back the farmers; the State was bankrupt, and all was confusion. The more settled members of the community in the towns called for firm government, but the president had no power at his back to enforce it.

Such a state of things encouraged a general native rising, and was a menace to the safety of all the whites in South Africa. The Cape Government watched the situation with anxiety, and at length the British Government intervened, and on 12th April 1877 proclaimed the Transvaal to be annexed to the British dominions.

At the time it was believed that the majority of the burghers were in favour of this step, which met with no serious opposition. Subsequent events, however, proved that this belief was not well founded. It is, however, tolerably certain that it saved the Transvaal an attack from the thirty or forty thousand Zulus collected by Cetewayo on its frontier.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE ZULU WAR.

Cetewayo had for many years been training a large army of warriors, and had intended, unquestionably, to use them for an attack upon his neighbours the Boers of the Transvaal, who, indeed, had given him more than sufficient cause, by constantly violating the frontier, squatting upon Zulu territory, and committing raids upon Zulu cattle. Upon our taking over the Transvaal, however, the prospect of great plunder and acquisition of territory vanished, and the king and his warriors remained in a state of extreme discontent. So large and threatening was his army, that Sir Bartle Frere, the Governor of the Cape, considered it absolutely necessary to bring matters to a crisis. A commission sat upon the disputed frontier question between the Zulus and the Boers.

They had also to investigate charges of a raid into Natal territory by some Zulu chiefs. Their decision was in favour of the Zulus against the Boers; and, in respect of the raids, they ordered that a fine should be paid and the offenders given up.

At the time that this decision was announced to the Zulus, Sir Bartle Frere called upon Cetewayo to disband his army, to abandon the custom of universal conscription, and of the refusal of marriage to the young men until they had proved their prowess in battle. To this demand Cetewayo returned an evasive answer, and an ultimatum was then sent to him.

Preparations were made to enforce the British demands, and, as the British force in Natal was not large, the s.h.i.+ps of war on the coast were asked to furnish a contingent. Sailors being always ready for an expedition afloat or ash.o.r.e, the demand was gladly complied with, and a brigade with rockets and gatling guns was at once organised. This brigade was attached to the column which, under the command of Colonel Pearson, was to advance by the road nearest to the coast.

On the 12th of January, no answer having been received to the ultimatum, the column crossed the Tugela. The sailors had been at work at this point for some time. They had established a ferry-boat worked by ropes, and by this they transported across the river the stores and ammunition needed for the expedition. The column advanced slowly and carefully, and upon the 23rd they were attacked at the Ebroi River by the enemy.

These had placed themselves upon high ground, and opened a heavy fire.

The sailors at once got the gatlings and rockets to work, and so great was their effect that the rush of the Zulus was checked, and they were unable to carry out their favourite tactics of coming to close quarters.

Three hundred of them were killed, and the rest retired.

The column now marched on to Ekowe, and upon reaching that place a messenger from the rear brought the news of the terrible disaster which had befallen Lord Chelmsford's column at Isandhlwana. The British camp at that place had on the advance of the main body been rushed by a large Zulu force, and the whole of the British and native troops, numbering over 1000, were killed, only a few, scarce 50 escaping. It was a hand-to-hand combat against thousands, and from the Zulus themselves, for no white man saw the end, come the accounts of how firmly the soldiers stood. The Zulus, who had a keen appreciation of gallantry, tell many tales of how our men stood fighting till the last. "How few they were and how hard they fought," they said; "they fell like stones, each man in his place."

There was only one sailor in the camp. He belonged to HMS _Active_, and throughout the terrible fight displayed the utmost courage. At last, when all was nearly over, he was seen in a corner of the laager, leaning against a waggon wheel, keeping the Zulus at bay. One after another fell as he stabbed them with his cutla.s.s. The savages themselves were lost in admiration at his stern resistance. At last a Zulu crept round at the back of the waggon, and stabbed him through the spokes of the wheel.

It would have been the height of rashness to have advanced farther, as the column would now have been exposed to the whole force of the Zulus.

Colonel Pearson determined, therefore, to fortify Ekowe, and to maintain himself there until reinforcements came up. The cavalry and the native contingents who had accompanied the column were therefore sent back, the sailors being retained to a.s.sist the regular troops in holding the place.

The first step was to erect fortifications, and, as the enemy attempted no attack, these were made strongly and ma.s.sively. Here for many weeks the little garrison held out. The Zulus surrounded the place closely, but never ventured upon any sustained attack upon it. The garrison, however, suffered severely from fever, heat, and the effects of bad food and water. For some time they were cut off entirely from all communication with Natal; but at length an officer, upon the top of the church, observed one day, far among the hills to the south, a twinkling light. From the regularity with which it shone and disappeared, he came to the conclusion that it was caused by signallers endeavouring to open communications. The flashes were watched, and were found to be in accordance with the Morse alphabet; and the joyful news was spread that their friends were telegraphing to them.

After some trouble, a mirror was fixed and signals returned, and from that time, until relief, regular communication was kept up by this means. There was disappointment at first when it was found that some time must elapse before a relieving column could advance; but as the news came of the arrival of s.h.i.+p after s.h.i.+p, laden with troops from England, confidence was felt that relief would arrive before the exhaustion of the stock of provisions. The garrison on their part were enabled to send to their friends accurate information of the state of their stores, and the time which they would be able to hold out.

At length, on the 28th of March, the news arrived that the column would advance upon the following day. The relieving force was attacked at Gingihlovo, near the river Inyanzi, and there the Zulus were defeated with great loss. With this relieving column was another Naval Brigade, consisting of men of the _Shah_ and _Tenedos_. The _Shah_ was on her way to England when, upon arriving at Saint Helena, the news of the ma.s.sacre at Isandhlwana reached her. Captain Bradshaw, who commanded, at once determined to take upon himself the responsibility of returning to Natal, where his arrival caused the liveliest satisfaction, as at that time none of the reinforcements from England had reached the spot, and strong fears were still felt of the invasion of the colony by the Zulus. The Naval Brigade bore their part in the fight at Gingihlovo, and were with the relieving force when it entered Ekowe. The garrison of this place, small as they were, had been prepared upon the following day to sally out to effect a diversion in favour of the column, should it again be attacked in its advance to Ekowe.

The garrison was now relieved. Few of those who had formed part of it were fit for further service. Ekowe was abandoned, and the Naval Brigade returned to Natal. The brigade took part in the further advance after the arrival of Sir Garnet Wolseley; but the defeat of the Zulus at Ulundi occurring a few days after the start had been made, hostilities ceased, and the Naval Brigade were not called upon for further exertions.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

THE BOER WAR--1881.

Two years after the conclusion of the Zulu war, when the troops who had been hurried from England to take part in that campaign had for the most part returned, and the country was almost deserted of troops, the Boers, saved by our arms from all danger of a native rising, longed again for independence, and they determined to have it. They had, in fact, never acquiesced in the act of annexation. At the time, the residents in the towns had desired it for the sake of law and order, and in the general helplessness of the State many of the country Boers acquiesced, and to many it seemed the only way to save the country from the Zulu. But it was expected and promised that some form of self-government would be left to the Dutch community. As time went on, the discontent grew, and it was fomented by the speeches of party leaders in England, where the Liberal party were violently attacking the colonial policy of Lord Beaconsfield; and Mr Gladstone, referring to the Boers' country, actually said, that if the acquisition was as valuable as it was valueless, nevertheless he would repudiate it. When Mr Gladstone came into office, the Boers, who did not understand the ethics of election campaigns, expected him to reverse an act which he repudiated; and when they found that though he disapproved the act he did not intend to revoke it, they saw that they must take up arms, thinking that their cause would have many supporters among the English, who would put pressure upon the Government to give way,--a view which subsequent events proved to be correct.

The burghers have always objected to paying taxes even to their own republic, and naturally the opposition to our rule presented itself, in the first place, by a resistance to the payment of taxes. Meetings a.s.sembled, at which rebellious speeches were uttered; and the rising commenced by an attack upon the English at Potchefstroom, the investment of the garrisons of Pretoria, Leydenburg, Standerton, and other positions, and by an attack upon a column of the 94th on their way from Leydenburg to Pretoria, ending with the slaughter or captivity of the whole force. The instant the news arrived at Pietermaritzburg, the capital, Sir George Colley, the governor, commenced preparations for marching to the frontier, and the s.h.i.+ps in harbour were called upon to furnish a naval contingent. A hundred and fifty bluejackets and marines were landed and marched rapidly to Newcastle, an English town within a few miles of the frontier of Natal.

At the attack upon the Dutch lines at Laing's Nek, the Naval Brigade were in reserve, and took no active part in the engagement. But on the 26th of February a portion of them accompanied General Colley on his night march to Majuba Hill. This mountain was situate on the flank of the Boer position. The Dutch were in the habit of occupying it during the daytime with their videttes, but these at night fell back, leaving the place open to the British a.s.sault.

All through the night the troops, who with the bluejackets numbered between 500 and 600 men, laboured across an extremely difficult country; but, after encountering immense fatigue and difficulty, they reached the top of Majuba Hill before sunrise. It was not until two hours later that the Boer videttes, advancing to occupy their usual look-out, found the English in position. The Boers at once perceived the danger, as their position was made untenable by the possession of Majuba Hill by the English. Had the force left in camp been sufficiently strong to threaten a direct attack at this moment, the Boers would doubtless have fled: but the paucity of numbers there prevented any demonstration being made in favour of the defenders of Majuba Hill, and the Dutch were able to use their whole force against these.

Surrounding the hill, and climbing upwards towards the precipitous summit, they kept up for some hours a heavy fire upon the defenders.

Presently this lulled, and the garrison thought that the attack had ceased. The Dutch were, however, strongly reinforcing their fighting line, creeping among the bushes and gathering a strong force on the side of the hill, unseen by the British. Suddenly these made an attack, and this in such force that the defenders at the threatened point fell back in haste before they could be reinforced from the main body, who were lying in a hollow on the top of the small plateau which formed the summit of the mountain.

The first to gain the summit were rapidly reinforced by large numbers of their countrymen, and these, covering their advance with a tremendous fire of musketry, rushed upon the British position. The defence was feeble. Taken by surprise, shot down in numbers by the accurate firing of the Boers, attacked on all sides at once, the garrison failed to defend their position, and in a moment the Boers were among them. At this point a bayonet charge would have turned defeat into a victory, but there were no officers left to command, all had been picked off by the accurate shooting of the Boers, and the soldiers were panic-stricken.

All cohesion became lost, and in a few minutes the whole of the defenders of the position were either shot down or taken prisoners, with the exception of a few who managed to make their escape down the side of the hill and to lie concealed among the bushes, making their way back to camp during the night. Sir George Colley stood still, and was shot down at close range as the men ran down the hill.

This was the only affair in which the Naval Brigade were engaged during the war, as, shortly afterwards, just as they were hoping to retrieve the disasters which had befallen the force,--the reinforcements from England having now come up to the spot,--peace was made, the Transvaal was surrendered to the Boers, and the sacrifices made and the blood which had been shed were shown to have been spent in vain. The intense disappointment of the troops at this summary and unexpected termination of the campaign was fully shared by the bluejackets and marines.

The defeat at Majuba Hill was a great blow to British prestige, but it was one that, in the course of the war which all the world expected to follow, could have been speedily retrieved, but the effect upon the Dutch must have remained. It seemed, indeed, as if in fighting for freedom they were truly invincible, and as if they could withstand the power of Great Britain, and defeat it, just as their fathers, a few hundred in number, had withstood Dingaan and defeated his thousands of warriors. This impression was greatly strengthened by the action of the British Government.

The Liberal party in England had undertaken the war with very little fervour, to many the cause of the Boer was the cause of freedom, and the sight of a small peasant nation, armed as it then was only with rifles, rising against the power of Great Britain, appealed to the sentiment of many people, to whom the great popular orator had repeatedly declared that the act of annexation was an act of tyranny.

Still the war was the act of their great leader, and had therefore been supported; moreover, regarded as a military matter only, the defeat was of no importance; the various British garrisons in the country were manfully holding their own; Sir Evelyn Wood was gathering sufficient force to take action; he held, he said, the Boers in the hollow of his hand,--so the war must go on, and Sir F (now Lord) Roberts was sent out to take command.

Mr Gladstone now suddenly changed his mind; further prosecution of the war, he said, would be "sheer blood-guiltiness."

He gave the Boers their independence, but they and all the world noted that he did not discover the blood-guiltiness of the war before the defeat, and they drew their inferences; and to their dislike of British rule, added a contempt for British courage, which led their leaders into a course of action which culminated in an ambition to subst.i.tute Dutch for British throughout South Africa, and thus brought down upon the two republics the ruin and disasters of the great war of 1899-1901.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

THE BOER WAR IN 1900.