THE SURRENDER OF CRONJE
Then all was activity. A note was borne to Lord Roberts stating that Cronje had given in, and General Pretyman thereupon rode out to take his surrender. The scene was highly impressive. Lord Roberts, in front of the cart in which he slept, walked up and down awaiting his prisoner, while a guard of the Seaforth Highlanders with drawn bayonets formed a line to either side. In the distance a small group of horsemen was seen approaching, a silhouette which gradually grew clearer in the golden light of the morning. It was General Pretyman with the redoubtable Cronje riding a white pony on his right and the escort of the 12th Lancers following. The subsequent scene was a study in reserve. After all the tumultuous passions, the ferocity of bloodshed, the diamond-cut-diamond activities of death-dealing lyddite and Vickers-Maxims, the two leaders met without the smallest sign of emotion. To Lord Roberts, who stood with his staff awaiting him, Colonel Pretyman said, “Commandant Cronje, sir!” The two great men looked at each other, the Dutchman touched his hat, the Englishman returned the salute. The group dismounted, and then, regretfully be it noted, Lord Roberts, the blameless upright British soldier gave his hand to the tyrant of Potchefstroom. “You have made a gallant defence, sir,” said the British Commander-in-Chief; “I am glad to see you. I am glad to get so brave a man!”
The picture of the redoubtable Cronje as he approached our great little Field-Marshal was remarkable in its contrast. On the one side you saw a burly square-jawed agriculturist, grizzly of beard, tanned and battered of complexion, portly and cumbrous of form. On the other, you had the lithe figured aristocratical British soldier, trim in his kharki uniform, and wearing his sword with the air of nameless distinction which belongs to the born ruler of men. Cronje’s aspect was that of a substantial farmer, his heavy cane, his slouch hat encircled by its orange leather band, his bottle-green overcoat and tan boots were distinctly bucolic, but his rigid implacable countenance, an utterly impenetrable façade, betrayed the masterly and indomitable character of the man.
There is no doubt that by his fierce, his masterly resistance to the British he won for himself the respect of all who trapped him. His undoubted pluck, a quality which has such unending fascination for the English, served in a great measure to wipe off the terrible remembrance of his atrocious deeds in other years. Cronje spoke scarcely a word. He said there were 3000 Boers in the laager—as a matter of fact, there were over 3700—and also requested that his wife, son, grandson, and secretary might be allowed to remain with him. This request was acceded to; arrangements were made that his relatives should accompany him into captivity. He then partook of refreshment in Lord Roberts’ quarters with the staff. Though he smoked, he said little and remained gloomy and preoccupied.
The prisoners trooped across the river like some patriarchal or gipsy horde, with trousers turned up so as not to damp them in the swollen drift. They splashed along, each armed with his household effects, pots and pans, blankets and rifles, some jesting and skipping in sheer exuberance of animal spirits that long had been subdued, some stolid and serious in the full comprehension of the grievous end of all their pluck and endurance. And they had endured! From the hundreds of wounded that were brought in the same tale of suspense, and misery, and horror was told in varying keys. Always they had awaited reinforcement; they had even invented a scheme for cutting a way out to meet the relieving force which never came. But volunteers for this deed of daring were few. About a hundred in all. This meagre array was not sufficient. Others had pressed on the relentless Cronje the philosophy of surrender. They urged that directly, if not annihilated by shell fire, they would be laid low by fever; already eighty-seven men were slain and a hundred and sixty wounded. These had no doctors even to attend them. The surgeons had been left behind on the Modder, and the offer of Lord Roberts of medicine and succour had been refused. The suffering had indeed been terrible and now was of no avail.
It was not pleasing to the vanity of the British army to find themselves confronted with such a rabble of tatterdemalions, and to remember how this nondescript mob had so long held them in check. But there was no denying that the ruffians had qualities, and that they, unkempt and undisciplined as they were, had proved themselves foemen worthy of our steel and tacticians meriting study.
“MAJUBA DAY”—CRONJE SURRENDERS TO LORD ROBERTS AT PAARDEBERG.
Drawing by R. Caton Woodville, from a Sketch by Frederic Villiers, War Artist.
It was curious how much our troops had learnt both from the undisciplined Boers and the inexperienced Colonials. From the latter they picked up the art of taking cover, and from the former the art of obtaining it. The Boer was not content merely to crouch behind a stone and show a head only when about to shoot. He cunningly arranged his sangar so that he should expose no head at all. He built up his small stones to the necessary height, taking care to leave a central loophole through which he could take aim and yet remain invisible. An officer, in giving his opinion of the Boer as a fighter, showed the lessons that had been taught by him. “As a defender of defensive positions in a mountainous country he is unequalled. He digs good trenches and chooses good defensive positions, and he lies there quietly and waits for his enemy to advance across the open. But he never, hardly ever, dares to attack in the open, and if his flank is turned or his rear threatened, he gets nervous, and retires to a better position if he can. If our positions could be reversed—that is, if Tommy Atkins had to defend the kopjes, and if the Boers had to attack them in the open, there can be no doubt as to the result. Tommy, perhaps, would not be quite so good as the Boer in defence, but, on the other hand, the Boer would fail in the attack; indeed, he could not be brought to attempt it. As a shooter the Boer is no better than our own men. The only difference is that he attempts to shoot at far longer ranges. The Boer has taught us to dig big trenches and to use big guns as mobile artillery.”
The mobility of the big guns was at the moment more of a puzzle than ever. The Boers were in possession of some Vickers-Maxims in laager, two 15-pounders, and some big guns. We captured the minor weapons, but the big ones were sedulously hidden, and how they had vanished became a problem that was never solved. It was supposed they were buried in the bed of the river, but search failed to unearth them.
Trophies innumerable were picked up. Sir Howard Vincent succeeded in securing a quaint seventeenth-century Bible, and Roberts’ Horse possessed themselves of Cronje’s green bell-tent and ox-waggon. One cavalry officer thought himself lucky to secure a new pair of stays marked “11¾, waist 28 inches,” evidently the property of a capacious vrow. Letters multifarious were found, among them Cronje’s commission, signed by President Steyn.
Most of the prisoners, when interrogated, declared they were sick of the war, and confessed that but for their fear of Cronje they would long ago have surrendered. His was the powerful, the guiding hand. Some of them expressed queer notions of the causes of the trouble, giving forth at second and even third hand—and in a very garbled condition—the sentiments poured into them by “sympathisers.”
Said one, “The war is got up by the capitalists. The generals arrange a victory or a reverse to suit their own interests on the Stock Exchange!”
A private remonstrated, “You don’t include Lord Roberts? You’ll admit that he is disinterested!”
“Not a bit of it! He is a shareholder along with Chamberlain and Rhodes and the other millionaires. They all look after number one.”
Against such prejudice and ignorance it was useless to argue.
Some of the Free Staters expressed their joy at being relieved of the company of the Boers. They had been on bad terms with them, and had scarcely dared to speak a word in English for fear of their lives. One declared that he was not permitted even to address his horse in the odious language!
There were great and astonishing contrasts in the groups of prisoners that were gathered together. Many of them were youths of sixteen to eighteen years of age. Some seemed in a hopeless stage of sickness and despair, others attenuated by the amount of vinegar consumed to cure the stupefying effects of our lyddite. Endurance, it was plainly to be seen, had been carried to the last pitch. Some, on the other hand, appeared as though already reviving with the relaxation of the strain to which they had been subjected; some even delighted to find themselves in British hands, no longer tormented by “hell-scrapers,” as they called the shrapnel, and already clamouring to partake of spirits and refreshment, for which they had longed in vain. The rapture at their deliverance overcame all other sentiments; they had no thought for the ups and downs of the war, and many, indeed, were still unaware of the causes that had led them to share in it. Cronje had evidently kept a tight hand on them, and but for his unique influence many would long before have surrendered. This peculiar despotism was marvellous when it is considered that none of the younger commanders could induce more than a portion of his commando to follow him from the Natal side to the scene of operations. Cronje had the privilege of being the most admired and well-detested person on the stage of the moment, and one Boer was seen clenching his fist in the direction of the vanquished tyrant and exclaiming, “You hard man! you deserve to be shot.” There were many who heard him who endorsed the opinion.
A great deal of undue attention seemed to be bestowed on the Dutch Commandant, and evidently it was his undisputed military genius that earned for him the admiration of his conquerors. Only to this final display of skill and pluck can be attributed the deference paid to a man whose Anglophobia had made itself prominent for many years, one who cut such a despicable figure in his relations with us at Potchefstroom, and who was responsible in particular for much of the brutality which has been accredited to the Boers in general. It was certainly a case of turning the other cheek to the smiter, for the captive was allowed to take with him his wife, and retain in his possession his favourite horse, Wolmarens!
Accompanied by Mrs. Cronje, he was sent to Cape Town in a covered waggon, guarded by a special convoy under the command of Colonel Pretyman. There was considerable pathos in the scene of departure, for many of the other prisoners had gone through the ordeal of the bombardment with their wives by their sides, and these, less fortunate than Mrs. Cronje, had to be left behind!
The majority of people, it must be owned, were horrorstruck at the consideration shown to one to whom the word consideration was an empty name. A Scottish Colonial, writing home, expressed his irritation at the mode in which warfare was conducted. He said: “Cronje is now a hero, housed in the Admiral’s cabin on board the Doris. He is probably saying, ‘What fools the British are.’ For, give him a chance, and he would commit again the treacherous murders for which he has been responsible in the past with as little compunction as he would feel at putting his heel on a scorpion. I wonder if we may take this bit of foolishness as an indication of the way in which England is going to settle up finally with the Republics. Her policy has so often before ended in weakness that one cannot help feeling nervous.”
He was merely one of a thousand who argued that it was impossible to go to war with kid-gloves on, and who regretted the terms of the proclamation which had been made on the entry of Lord Roberts to the Free State. This proclamation, which will be discussed anon, was another of the nineteenth-century humanitarian movements which were mistakenly applied to seventeenth-century comprehension. To return to the events of Majuba day.
Lord Roberts subsequently visited the Boer laager, and testified his admiration of the ingenuity and energy with which the position was made almost impregnable to assault. In spite of ten days’ bombardment by over fifty guns and howitzers, the number of Boer wounded was said to amount to only 160—a fact which went to prove that the power of artillery can be broken by the ingenious use of the spade. The entrenchments, when examined, proved to be most skilfully contrived, with narrow mouths some eighteen inches wide, and wide bases, some quite three feet broad, which rendered them almost impregnable to shell fire.
The effect of the bombardment was terrific. The laager presented an appearance of black chaos, varied only by streaks of yellow, which told of the gambols of lyddite. Waggons were wrecked with shrapnel; some had ceased to exist; rings and twists and girandoles of distorted metal were all that was left of them. Within the laager was a decaying, disordered mass of Boer belongings, saddles innumerable, karosses and panniers, coats and feminine apparel, fragments of old tin trunks, and 2,000,000 rounds of ammunition; wreckage of all sorts, united by the super-evident, unavoidable, and persistent bonds of stench, which permeated everything, weaving visible and invisible in one noxious nightmare of the senses.
Round this arena of pestilence sentries were posted. It was necessary to prevent loot, though little of value remained save munitions of war. Most of the Boer property had been left behind in the hurried rush from Majersfontein and Spyfontein. Still the locality had to be guarded, and the guards, as well as all who approached, had to pocket their sensibilities. Indeed, it was a marvel how the Boers had managed to exist in the pestilential atmosphere that pervaded the river-bed. Dotted everywhere, or collected in heaps, already rotting in the tropical heat, were the remains of horses, mules, and cattle, some of which had been driven to death, while others had been hurried there by the voice of our howitzers or the rain of our rifle fire. In the fringe of this atmosphere our troops had lived for some three days past, for nightly they had advanced some fifty to an hundred yards nearer the laager, and there dug trenches and located themselves, till, at the end, the last three nights were passed almost within pistol-shot of the enemy and in the thick of a stench whose opacity was well-nigh suffocating.
An interesting account of his enforced stay in the laager was given by a trooper in Kitchener’s Horse, who was taken prisoner on the day previous to the great battle which settled Cronje’s fate. He had become separated from the rest of his troop while scouting along the Modder River. When he looked round for his friends, he found himself surrounded by a party of Boers, who, jumping from the bushes, fired upon him. His horse was shot and rolled over upon the young trooper, carrying him with him into the river. The Boers rescued him, relieved him of his bandolier, and made him prisoner. Together they went to the laager. “There,” the trooper said, “I was taken before Commandant Cronje, who asked me our strength and movements. On my replying that I was only a trooper, and did not know, he said, ‘Oh, never mind; if you don’t want to tell me, I shall not try to make you.’ A guard was placed over me, and we stayed the night in the laager. I should say there were about 6000 Dutchmen all told, and forty women and children. A great many among them were Irishmen, a few Scotchmen; in short, almost every nation was more or less numerously represented. All that night they were busy entrenching themselves, employing a great deal of native labour to help them.” Through the whole of the 18th of February the young man endured the bombardment, which he described as so heavy that it was impossible to remain in the laager, and consequently all, even the women and children, took refuge in the trenches. The Boers’ mode of firing he specially made a note of: “The Boers did not in the least mind our attack, and laughed amongst themselves as they saw the men advancing. They allowed them to come up to about 600 yards from the trenches, and then opened a tremendous fire from their rifles. It did not seem to be aimed at any particular man, but more at a certain fixed distance. At that they fired as fast as they could. The range was obtained by a few fixed shots, who fired, watched the dust caused by the strike of the bullets, and then gave out the range. Our men came up to within 150 yards and then retired. They fired volleys at the longer distances, but all their fire seemed to me to be short.” Each day there were losses, but comparatively few, as the bottle-shaped trenches afforded excellent cover; those that fell, however, were buried where they lay. He went on to say that “The shelling of Monday night destroyed several waggons, two of which were on either side of Cronje’s own. No one could have been braver than he was. He stood upon the waggon-step, field-glasses in hand, and did not seem to care in the least how thickly the shells and bullets fell. Many of the Free Staters, however, were quite the reverse, and were in a great state of terror when the bombardment began. The ammunition waggons blew up, and several of the provision waggons were burned. The shrapnel killed the majority of the horses and cattle, which had no shelter but the banks of the river. Beyond that the fire did little real damage.” The prisoner declared his belief that “could they have kept their laager out of fire they would never have surrendered. The loss of the provision waggons was what caused them to give in. They had only four days’ food left. Their ammunition was still plentiful. After the explosion of the ammunition waggons by shell-fire on February 19, all the remaining cartridges were distributed throughout the trenches, and on the south side every trench was still full of unused ammunition. Everything was done in the trenches, even the cooking, each individual having with him a box of provisions sunk into the ground. These boxes were replenished at night as there was no possibility of reaching the laager during the day.”
Lord Roberts addressed the Canadians, and expressed his satisfaction and appreciation of the splendid work they had done and the courage they had shown. To them he attributed the greater share in the Boer surrender. All were delighted at the attention shown the heroic Colonials, who had done splendid work, and at the exhibition of Lord Roberts’ tact and kindliness in thus singling out the Canadians for the position of honour. In the Jubilee of 1897 the Field-Marshal had told the Colonial Bodyguard that he would like to have them with him if he were ever in another campaign, and now the Canadians felt that the Chief’s cherished words had been no mere formula, and that they had been given the chance to distinguish themselves that they had so eagerly desired.
To General Colvile was given the credit of inventing the order of attack which at last brought the Boers to their senses. He arranged that the first rank should advance, bayonets fixed, till the enemy opened fire. Then they were to lie down and continue to fire on the Boers, while Engineers and the second line dug a trench. The trench thus made was within eighty yards of those of the Boers, and owing to its trefoil shape, the troops were able to enfilade both the river and northern trenches of the enemy and make them untenable. From their point in the original trench the Gordon Highlanders kept up a brisk fire, while the Shropshire Light Infantry, who were posted over a thousand yards to the north-west of the position, co-operated.
In the very successful attack on the enemy’s trenches the Royal Canadian Contingent lost seven killed and twenty-nine wounded. Major Pelletier, who commanded the French company, foremost of the three companies, was wounded, and also Lieutenant Armstrong. It is interesting to note that few of this gallant company of Great Britain’s defenders could speak English!
Boer Trenches at Paardeberg.
Photo by Alf. S. Hosking, Cape Town.
Colonel Otter, in command of the Canadians, had distinguished himself on many occasions by rare coolness and display of great talent in the field, and he now took pleasure in reporting excellently of the various members of the battalion under his command who had especially distinguished themselves. Among these were:—
Captain H. B. Stairs, 66th P. L. Fusiliers, and Lieutenant and Captain A. H. Macdonell, Royal Canadian Regiment. E Company, No. 5130, Corporal T. E. Baugh, R.C.R. F Company, No. 7782, Private O. Matheson, 12th Newcastle Field Battery; No. 7803, Private A. Sutherland, D. of Y. R. C. Hrs.; No. 7868, Sergeant W. Peppeatt, Royal Canadian Artillery; No. 7871, Corporal R. D. M’Donald, Royal Canadian Artillery; No. 7822, Private C. Harrison, 2nd Montreal Regiment C.A.; No. 7841, Private A. Bagot, 65th Montreal Rifles; No. 7778, Private Sievert, 93rd Cumberland Infantry; No. 7615, Private A. T. Seriault, 9th Voltigeurs de Quebec.
But these were only a select few among the number who were engaged in incomparable things done incomparably well.