[Footnote 31: As the officer in command of the Naval Brigade neatly put it: "the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The cavalry soldiers did excellent service in the lines--and we ate their horses."]

[Footnote 32: The Boer name for Caesar's Camp--Wagon Hill Position.]

[Footnote 33: This instruction was not included in the original heliogram, but was annexed to it as an afterthought in a supplementary message.]

CHAPTER VIII

Deus ex Machina, No. II

On January 10, 1900, Lord Roberts reached Capetown in the _Dunottar Castle_, the ship which ten weeks previously had brought Buller to South Africa, and resumed the task which he was not allowed to finish in 1881.

The terms of peace imposed upon the British Government by the Boers after Majuba Hill resulted in an armistice of eighteen years, and he was still the soldier to whom the nation instinctively turned when it was again in trouble in South Africa.

With one unimportant exception all his war experience had been gained in India or near its frontiers; but India is a spacious arena where spacious ideas can be freely developed. His mind had not been scored into grooves by years of desk duties in Pall Mall, or subjected to the necessity of accommodating itself to obsolete methods and House of Commons' views. The Indian Army, of which he obtained the command after serving in it in each commissioned rank, more closely approaches in its training, organization, and readiness for active service, the military standard set up by the chief continental nations, than the British Army; of which a distinguished German officer said at the time of the Boer War that it was meant for detachment warfare only and not to win great battles.

With Lord Roberts came, as Chief of the Staff, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, a hard and ready man who for fifteen years had been scouring the Nile. All his war service had been in Egypt, where recently he had not only smashed the dervishes and secured the Soudan, but by his diplomatic tact in the Fashoda affair had relaxed the tension of a dangerous international situation. He belonged to the Royal Engineers, who are, like the Army Service Corps, a semi-combatant body engaged in technical duties that do not offer much opportunity of gaining experience in the art of war or of practice in handling troops, but who have, nevertheless, given to the nation not a few soldiers of distinction. It was, perhaps, for this reason that Lord Roberts generally employed Lord Kitchener as an expert military foreman, entrusted with the supervision of the work of others.

The situation in South Africa at the time of Lord Roberts' arrival was as follows:--

Methuen was established at Modder River; Mafeking and Kimberley were holding out, and the latter at least seemed to be in no immediate danger; French was in a good position before Colesberg; Gatacre was maintaining himself without difficulty at Sterkstroom; the garrison at Ladysmith, after sixteen hours' fighting, had recently warded off a determined attack; the disaffected districts in the Cape Colony had not risen; and the despondent Buller, quickened by reinforcements and stimulated by the approach of the _Dunottar Castle_, was about to make another attempt to relieve Ladysmith.

Schemes for a South African campaign had been for some time under consideration by the War Office, but as the attitude of the Free State could not be forecasted, they were more or less provisional. As late as the end of September the Premier and the War Minister scouted the idea of war with the Free State, and the official plan of a central advance on Bloemfontein by way of Bethulie and Norval's Pont, which held good until some little time after Lord Roberts' arrival, must therefore have been subterraneously drawn up without their knowledge. It was no doubt an excellent solution of a strategical problem studied by men in an office with a map of South Africa before them which showed several lines of communication converging on the Orange River; and Buller was about to carry it out when he was called aside to Natal.

[Sidenote: Map, p. 260.]

Lord Roberts had, however, two years before drawn up a scheme for an advance on the Transvaal by way of the Kimberley line as far as Mafeking and thence across country to Pretoria, and before leaving England he modified it so as to adapt it to action in the Free State. He proposed to leave the Kimberley line at some point between the Orange River and the Modder River, and to march in a S.E. direction on the Bloemfontein line. He was a firm believer in the indirect results of military movements, and he expected that his arrival at Springfontein or Edenburg and the menace to the Free State capital "must draw the Free Staters back from Kimberley and Natal," and that the occupation of it "would render the Boer positions south of the Orange River untenable." The official plan of an advance from the centre would force back the Free Staters engaged in the Cape Colony, and instead of isolating them would enable them to reinforce Cronje.

After his arrival at Capetown, circumstances however compelled Lord Roberts to modify his plan of campaign. The news of the Spion Kop affair, anxiety on account of Kimberley, the presence of Cronje at Magersfontein and other considerations, determined him to march through the Free State by a more northerly route which would enable him to relieve Kimberley _en passant_ and to give battle to Cronje.

The secret of the plan, which was known only to Lord Roberts' personal staff, was well kept, and operations were continued without reference to it. The earlier orders issued by him seemed to indicate that the central advance was still to be carried out. The VIth Division under Kelly-Kenny was sent to Naauwpoort; French was instructed to make a demonstration against Norval's Pont; and Methuen was warned that it might be necessary to withdraw part of the Modder River force.

The Boers, who had captured at Dundee some intelligence papers which disclosed the original plan of campaign, were now more than ever convinced that the British Army must advance by way of Norval's Pont and Bethulie, and did not discover their error until it was too late to rectify it.[34] When Lord Roberts had made all his preparations, which involved the entire reorganization of the transport, and the raising of a considerable force of mounted troops, for his march of 100 miles across the veld eastward from the railway, the secret was disclosed to Kelly-Kenny and French on February 1. This plan of a flank march had also suggested itself to Buller, who proposed it in a memorandum which Lord Roberts found on his arrival in Capetown; but as Buller's scheme included the construction of a railway across the veld, and limited the advance of the Army to the rate at which the line could be pushed forward, it did not fall in with Lord Roberts' ideas.

Meanwhile Cronje was not perturbed by the reports of troops coming up the Western line, and was confident that they only indicated a renewed but isolated attack on Magersfontein. He had no doubt that if necessary he could always fall back upon Kimberley and retreat towards the Transvaal; and the demonstrations made by Methuen westwards in the direction of Koedoesberg Drift served the double purpose of warning a disaffected region and of diverting Cronje's attention from the flank on which he was to be attacked and which he believed to be secure.

The two months following the arrival of Lord Roberts in South Africa were the only brilliant period of a dreary war which lasted nearly three years, and will perhaps save it from being quoted in military history as the most sluggish campaign of recent times. In each of the two objects of strategy, namely to avoid fighting the enemy on ground of his own choosing, and to compel him to fight under unfavourable conditions, Lord Roberts was extraordinarily successful. There was a light touch, an ingenuity, in his swift and silent strategy which contrasted strongly with the heavy and dull methods which had hitherto controlled the action. While Buller was talking about his tedious railway across the veld, and Milner at Capetown was dismalling the situation and discouraging the advance, Lord Roberts had in effect entered the capital of the Free State and seemed to have completed half his task. The Boers were hypnotized and deceived not only by signs from which they drew wrong inferences, but also by bogus orders which it was arranged should come under their notice and which were simultaneously cancelled in cipher: and when too late they awoke from the bewilderment, they began to scuttle to and fro like rabbits in a warren. There is good reason to believe that if the strategic ability of Lord Roberts could have been united in one mind to the determination of Lord Kitchener the war would have been over in a year.

On February 8 Lord Roberts arrived at Modder River, where he found bad news awaiting him. Buller had failed at Vaalkrantz, and the diamond men of Kimberley were threatening to capitulate. By February 13 30,000 combatants, some of whom in order to preserve the illusion had been kept in the centre until the last moment, were in readiness at various points between the Orange and the Modder. The immediate problem before Lord Roberts was the relief of Kimberley in combination with the cornering of Cronje. In the background was the Natal trouble. Buller was again helplessly wringing his hands and reaching round to find excuses for his misadventures. Lord Roberts wisely left him alone and went on with his own work. He saw what Buller refused to see, that the Tugela could be crossed at Magersfontein and Ladysmith relieved at a drift of the Modder River.

[Illustration: Sketch map of the Riet and Modder Drifts.]

On February 11 Lord Roberts set his army in motion; and the operations of the next few days may be summarised with sufficient accuracy as a cavalry raid northwards, but avoiding Cronje's left flank at Brown's Drift, to relieve Kimberley; combined with an infantry advance to cut him off. It was not possible to make the initial movements in the direction of the eventual advance, as the Magersfontein-Brown's Drift quadrant N.E. of Modder River was strongly held by the enemy, and disallowed a cavalry advance from below the junction of the Riet and the Modder in the direction of Kimberley except by a westerly detour which could not be accommodated to the general scheme. In order to strike the practicable drifts on the two rivers above their confluence, it was necessary for the advance to be made along the curve of a parabola which issued from Modder River Station in a S.E. direction, and in a sixty-mile circuit crossed the rivers and finally approached Kimberley, only twenty miles distant from the starting point, almost in the opposite direction.

At midday on February 11 the Cavalry Division under French reached Ramdam, a farm east of Graspan and fronting the drifts of the Riet, where the Army was being concentrated for the advance. Some hours elapsed before Cronje became aware that French had trekked away to the S.E., and to his slow and sullen spirit the movement did not appear to have much significance. He was persuaded that the British never trusted themselves much more than a day's march away from a railway. It was only a demonstration, a reconnaissance. He did, however, take certain precautions which, if they had been devised with a true appreciation of the situation and intelligently carried out, might have seriously checked French.

He assumed that the initial direction of French's march would be continued indefinitely towards Koffyfontein, possibly even that it was a retirement from the Modder River position caused by bad news from the centre, and he sent a commando of observation, under C. de Wet, up the right bank of the Riet. The most adroit and skilful movement of the war had now begun without Cronje's comprehending its object.

But French did not complete his first day's work very auspiciously. His supply column was far behind when he reached Ramdam, and owing to a misunderstanding Hannay's Brigade of Mounted Infantry from Orange River, which was instructed to join him, did not turn up: conflicting orders had resulted as usual, _ordre_, _contr'ordre_, _desordre_. French, however, felt himself strong enough to continue his march without Hannay, who, on his delayed march to Ramdam, engaged a detached body of Boers and thereby strengthened the enemy's conviction that Koffyfontein was the objective.

As French approached the river, Waterval Drift, the lower of the two drifts across the Riet, was found to be occupied by De Wet, and the Division was diverted to De Kiel's Drift, which was reached without much difficulty at midday, February 12. On the right bank were the commando of the Jacobsdaal garrison under Lubbe, and the commando under De Wet and A.P.J. Cronje which had been sent to observe the cavalry movement; about 1,000 men in all. But De Wet could not get the Koffyfontein idea out of his head, and its influence removed many obstructions from the path of the advance. He boldly rode across French's front at De Kiel's Drift, and made S.E. for Winterhoek, closely followed by A.P.J. Cronje; and all French's horses could not find out where they had gone. Next day it was given out in Divisional Orders that the commandos had gone to the Modder River, and four weeks passed by before the Army ceased to suffer from the error.

There was still "one more river to cross" before the diamond men of Kimberley could be relieved; and ere the thirst of the South African summer could be slaked on the banks of the Modder, a tract of twenty-five miles of veld, in which the absence of any homestead having "_fontein_" for its suffix declared the scarcity of water, must be traversed under the sun.

In the forenoon of February 13 the Cavalry Division started northwards from De Kiel's Drift; and at last De Wet, who, unknown to French, was watching the trek from its right flank, partially relieved himself of the Koffyfontein idea. The effort weakened him, and he displayed none of that readiness of resource and promptitude of action with which he subsequently worried the British Army for the space of two years. He withdrew his own commando towards Koffyfontein, and having ordered Lubbe to follow French, reported to Cronje at Magersfontein that the cavalry was making for the Modder.

French's objective points were now Rondeval and Klip River Drifts on the Modder, but in order to deceive Lubbe, who was hanging on to his right flank, and to elbow him away from the drifts, French changed direction with two brigades and headed for Klip Kraal Drift, some eight miles above Klip Drift, reverting suddenly to his original line as soon as the river came in sight. The drifts were held by small parties of the enemy, who offered no resistance, and on the evening of February 13 the Division took possession of the kopjes on the north bank.

The occupation of the drifts was soon made known to Cronje, but the news revealed little to his dull and uninstructed nature, permeated with the idea that a British force and a railway were indissoluble entities.

Though his communications eastward were now seriously threatened, it did not occur to him that there might be an alternative to fighting him out of Magersfontein, namely manoeuvring him out of it; and he persuaded himself that French's movement was a trap to entice him away pending an attack on Magersfontein from the south, and he was probably unaware that the relief of Kimberley was an urgent matter. He moved his own camp from Brown's Drift to a less exposed position at Bosjespan, and while retaining his hold on Magersfontein with his main body, sent out two commandos to watch French, and these accidentally occupied a line through which the cavalry must pass on its way to Kimberley.

The arrival of the VIth Division on the morning of February 15 set French free to resume his march on Kimberley. The two commandos had on the previous day joined hands with Lubbe, who, after he was pushed out of French's way, crossed the Modder at Klip Kraal Drift and worked round to a position north of Klip Drift. The relieving force was now obstructed in the line of its advance by ridges on its right and left fronts and by the nek connecting them, all occupied by the enemy; while on its left flank was Cronje's new camp at Bosjespan, of the existence of which it was unaware. The situation seemed awkward, as the only way out of it was the shallow valley leading up to the nek, and exposed to a converging fire from the ridges on which two guns were posted.

But French was not long in doubt, and like a bridge player who in order to win the game is sometimes compelled to assume the position of certain cards, with rare intuition correctly assumed that the nek was weakly held. Like a ship going down the ways to the water, the Division was launched to the front; cleaving the opposing waves and gaining momentum as it advanced, then righting itself, rose to the slope of the nek and carried it with resistless energy.

After a short midday halt at Abon's Dam, French raised the siege of Kimberley before sunset; the besiegers under Ferreira did not wait to be attacked, but withdrew towards Boshof.

The relief of Kimberley was perhaps the most brilliant feat of arms in the campaign. It was well-conceived and, considered by itself alone, well carried out, but the merit of it has been obscured by the fact that it cost less than half a hundred human casualties. When, on the morning of February 15, the VIth Division took over the outposts, and the Cavalry Division fell in on the banks of the Modder, there was the terrain of a Balaklava charge before it.

It may well be doubted whether the price paid for the relief of the diamond men was not too high. Uninstructed public opinion at home called for the movement, and forced Lord Roberts' hand, but it was never an imperative military necessity. The horse casualties,[35] due to want of water, forced marches, and ignorance of horsemastership on the part of all ranks, who were inclined to regard cavalry work in the light of a steeplechase, were so heavy that when on February 17 French, after an attempt on the previous day to pursue a body of retreating Boers with his exhausted horses, was suddenly called upon to march thirty miles to head off Cronje, he could in all his Division mount less than the strength of two regiments. Nor was this all, for the rush to Kimberley was the indirect cause of the loss of the supply column at Waterval Drift on February 15; and thus in a few hours the mounted force and the supply column and transport which Lord Roberts and his staff had assembled with so much difficulty were, the former partially and the latter entirely, sacrificed.

The VIth, VIIth, and IXth Infantry Divisions, under Kelly-Kenny, Tucker, and Colvile respectively, were withdrawn from Modder River and the stations south of it, and concentrated at Ramdam on February 11 and the two following days. Owing to the steepness of its banks the Riet River could only be crossed at Waterval and De Kiel's Drifts, and on these the Army converged, and trickled through them like the sands in the neck of an hour-glass. Men, horses, guns, supply and ammunition wagons were slowly and painfully transferred to the right bank, and the VIth Division, which followed the cavalry to De Kiel's Drift, though the first infantry to get through by more than twenty-four hours, was delayed by the block of transport and lost its start in the race to the Modder River.

Meanwhile to Waterval Drift came Kelly-Kenny and Colvile in succession, and were soon pushed on to Wegdraai Drift, to which Tucker also hastened as soon as he could shake himself clear of De Kiel's Drift. The latter was now out of the running, for although Kelly-Kenny had already had a nine hours' march from Waterval Drift beginning soon after midnight, by 5 in the afternoon of February 14 the VIth Division was ready to resume its march to support French at Klip Drift, some hours before Tucker came in. Kitchener had been ordered by Lord Roberts to attach himself to the VIth Division as assessor to Kelly-Kenny, and marched out with it.

When Colvile, whose division was detailed as a reserve, arrived at Waterval Drift, he found the passage congested by transport of all kinds; and although after half a day's delay he was able to proceed to Wegdraai Drift, a large convoy on which the Army depended for the greater part of its supplies for the march to Bloemfontein, had to be left behind. A small escort remained with it, the wagons were laagered, and the oxen outspanned and sent out upon the veld to graze. No danger was anticipated.

De Wet had not been lurking on the banks of the Riet for nothing.

Hitherto he had not greatly distinguished himself. On the outbreak of the war he and his three sons were commandeered as private burghers, and when he reached the Natal border he was appointed vice-commandant. He served under A.P. Cronje and witnessed Carleton's surrender at Nicholson's Nek. In December he joined P. Cronje at Magersfontein, and was sent early in February to Koedoesberg Drift to check the British demonstrations on the Riet below Modder River Station, and later on to observe French. It is probable that the military deficiencies of his leaders made him sullen. Erasmus at Dundee stood idly in the background while Symons and Yule were on the slopes of Talana Hill, and Cronje was deaf to his remonstrances against a mere passive defence on the Modder River and the presence of women and children in the laager.

But De Wet with a free hand quickly recovered himself when the fortune of war threw him a casual chance after French had despatched him in imagination to a destination where he could do no harm. The convoy was ordered to follow Colvile to Wegdraai at 5 p.m. on February 15, and at 8 that morning, while the oxen were still grazing on the veld, De Wet, who was hovering near Winterhoek, swooped down upon the laager. The slender escort made a good resistance and the attack was reported to Lord Roberts at Wegdraai, who at first sent back a battalion with a battery and some mounted infantry, and when these were found insufficient the rest of the 14th Brigade were despatched under Tucker to endeavour to extricate the convoy. But when Tucker reached the Drift at sunset he found himself unable to bring it away. Most of the oxen had disappeared and De Wet had been reinforced. Lord Roberts was unwilling to delay his advance, and finding that the supplies were not absolutely indispensable to the success of his march, at midnight ordered Tucker to abandon the convoy and to return to Wegdraai. Next morning De Wet took possession of 176 wagon loads of supplies and 500 slaughter oxen--his first exploit in the war.

On February 16 Lord Roberts moved his Head Quarters to Jacobsdaal. It was his intention to advance on Kimberley and to make that town the base of his operations in the direction of Bloemfontein, when suddenly his plans were disarranged by an unexpected event. Cronje, who for two months had held stubbornly to Magersfontein, was reported to be trekking to the east. French's relief of Kimberley, the presence of an infantry division at Klip Drift, and the occupation of Jacobsdaal, were facts which even his obstinacy could not disregard. Like a wild creature startled in the night by a veld fire and suddenly dazzled by the glare, he rushed blindly towards the flames which were soon to consume him.

Almost any direction but that which he took, the line of the Modder River, would have given him a better chance of escape. French's maimed cavalry could not have stopped him if he had retreated on either side of Kimberley, and even a withdrawal westward down the right bank of the Riet would have probably saved him. Methuen at Modder River took twelve hours to discover that Magersfontein had been abandoned at midnight on February 15.

On the morning of the 16th Kelly-Kenny sent out from Klip Drift a force under C. Knox to cover the advance of the rest of the VIth Division on Kimberley. Soon a long column of dust was observed in the distance beyond the ridge on the right, and a closer examination showed that it was caused by Cronje's wagons. The discovery came not altogether as a surprise, for Boers had been noticed crossing the front on the previous day, and as what was now seen proved to be the rear of a column, the trek must have been some hours in progress.

Kelly-Kenny at once abandoned his march on Kimberley and faced eastwards. It was found that the enemy had taken up a rearguard position on the southern end of the ridge. The northern end was soon seized by mounted infantry, but an attempt in interpose between the river and the Boer position failed. The ridge was cleared at 9 a.m. by a frontal attack, but not before Cronje's convoy had retired without molestation to Klip Kraal, where a second rearguard position was taken up on either side of Klip Kraal Drift.

On the assumption that Cronje was endeavouring to effect a retreat on Bloemfontein, it was necessary to confine him to the right bank of the Modder. He was already in possession of Klip Kraal Drift, and although he could hardly hope to pass his wagons across it in sight of an active enemy, it was not his only chance. Within ten miles of his laager were Brandvallei, Paardeberg, and Vendutie Drifts, each of which would give him access to the southern bank.

The task before the pursuing army was therefore to drive in his rearguards from their successive positions and prevent him getting comfortably away to secure a passage across the river. At nightfall on February 16 it seemed likely that he would succeed. His convoy in the main laager at Klip Kraal had had twelve hours' rest, and his rearguard had maintained itself on the second position; in spite of a frontal attack on the right bank, and of a flank attack on the left bank made by a battery and a force of mounted infantry which had crossed the semicircle formed by a northward bend of the river between Klip Drift and Klip Kraal Drift. The guns even succeeded in throwing a few shells into the laager, but ran short of ammunition. Kitchener, who remained with Kelly-Kenny as military assessor, had early in the day advocated a raid up the river in order to head off Cronje at Paardeberg Drift, but the exhaustion of the troops prevented the enterprise.

Next day the chase began in earnest--to borrow for the occasion, as was done so frequently during the war, a metaphor from the sporting world--but only a few of the hounds were on the spot, and the rest of the pack were at Kimberley and Jacobsdaal.

When the report of Cronje's retreat from Magersfontein, which Lord Roberts received soon after he reached Jacobsdaal, was confirmed by a message from Kitchener, he ordered French, who at that time was engaged with the enemy some miles north of Kimberley and endeavouring to capture the Long Tom whose recent arrival from Ladysmith _via_ Pretoria had scared the Kimberley civilians into a threat of surrender, to hurry eastward and endeavour to place himself between Cronje and Bloemfontein; but owing to a break in the field telegraph cable the message was delayed. Kelly-Kenny was at the same time instructed to carry on the pursuit.