South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 5 (of 8) / From the Disaster at Koorn Spruit to Lord Roberts's Entry into Pretoria

by Louis Creswicke

FOOTNOTES:

[5] See Vol. III. p. 39.

[6] The hero of Mafeking at Charterhouse was nicknamed “Bathing Towel.”

CHAPTER VI
FROM KROONSTAD TO JOHANNESBURG

From the 12th to the 22nd of May was spent by the main army, at Kroonstad, where, owing to sickness and other causes, a halt was obligatory. It was necessary that supplies should be collected, an advanced depôt formed, the railway repaired, and the safety of both flanks secured. Meanwhile, efforts were made to protect the farmers who had surrendered from the revengeful tactics of the Boers. Lord Lovat’s gillies arrived at Kroonstad and met with the approval of the Commander-in-Chief. General Hutton, with a force of mounted infantry, had reported an attack on Bothaville and the capture of three commandants and about a score of Zarps, from their hiding-place near Smaldeel. On the 20th, the 1st Cavalry Brigade marched out from their camp near Kroonstad, to open up the country on the left of Lord Roberts’s main advance along the western fringe of the railway. They were accompanied by the 4th Cavalry Brigade (7th Dragoon Guards and 8th and 14th Hussars), and supported by General Hutton’s Brigade of Mounted Infantry (Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders). On the 21st, the cavalry seized the drift at the confluence of the Honing Spruit and the Rhenoster; and on the 22nd, Lord Roberts and the main army, leaving only the 1st Suffolks behind, marched from Kroonstad to Honing Spruit, the third station to the north, and some eighteen or twenty miles off. General Ian Hamilton, after a series of engagements with De Wet’s hordes, from Lindley, onwards, had secured an advanced position at Heilbron, while the cavalry division had moved up, crossed the Rhenoster River, and threatening the right rear of the enemy had forced the Dutchmen to leave a strongly-entrenched position on the north bank of the river. The presence of French and Hamilton to west and east of them had served to unnerve the hostile hordes, who now had our cavalry within twenty miles of either flank. They spent their bellicose ardour by destroying some miles of railway, the bridge over the Rhenoster, and some culverts, and then flying in hot haste before the vast machinery of the advancing army, to a new point of defence some twenty miles in front, a point which promised shortly to become equally untenable.

THE GREAT ADVANCE: ROYAL HORSE ARTILLERY (CAVALRY DIVISION) CROSSING THE VAAL
Drawing by R. Caton Woodville

The following casualties took place in the Winburg Column, May 21st:—New South Wales Mounted Infantry—Wounded severely, Lieutenant A. J. M. Onslow, 1st Royal Irish—Lieutenant M. H. E. Welch.

On the 23rd, Lord Roberts and his majestical and magnificent apparatus of war, its thousands of gallant souls, its multiplicity of vehicles, its endless supplies and zoological train, encamped on the south bank of the Rhenoster River. The Boers, apparently demoralised in their preparations for resistance, and having had their left flank turned by Hamilton at Heilbron, were now continuously “on the run.” Meanwhile burghers hourly came in to surrender arms and ammunition, the last vestige of truculence having evaporated. The Boer Government telegraphed to Lord Roberts offering to exchange an equal number of prisoners on parole, and threatening if the offer should be refused to remove from Pretoria to some other district the 4000 prisoners now confined there. As to the fate of the Johannesburg mines there was considerable uncertainty; reports declared they would be destroyed in the event of entry to the Transvaal by the British, and also that the town itself would be defended, as defence works were being rapidly pushed forward, guns got into position, and trenches and defences constructed.

On the other hand it was stated that, on hearing of the threat to destroy the mines and possibly the town, Commandant Louis Botha had hastened to the President, and in a stormy interview had asserted his intention, if such a thing were contemplated, himself to defend Johannesburg from such an act of vandalism. He concluded by denouncing the diabolical intention and saying, “We are not barbarians.” Mr. Kruger did not argue the subject—possibly his conscience tweaked him on the subject of barbarity—but gave in. Terrible altercations were daily taking place between the Boers, the Free Staters, and their mercenaries, and the burghers were inclined to throw all the blame of defeat on the Hollanders who had brought about the war and left the Boers to bear the brunt of the loss to life and property that hostilities entailed. These were merely reports, but they served, as the passage to the north proceeded, to show which way the wind blew.

On the Queen’s birthday the 4th Brigade of cavalry crossed the Vaal near Pary’s Drift, and the 1st Brigade at a drift farther east of Pary’s, while General Ian Hamilton’s column was ordered to move towards Boschbank still higher up. They arrived just in time to save the coal-mines from being destroyed. The operation of crossing the Vaal was one of the most risky that has been undertaken in the campaign, as the road down to the drifts led through about six miles of mountainous country forming a narrow pass, well suited to Boer tactics. Fortunately, although the Boers were seen hovering in the vicinity, the arrival of the cavalry was unexpected, and they made no effective resistance.

It will be seen that here the distribution of the advance underwent a change. General French adhered to his original course on the left, but General Hamilton, screened by Gordon’s Cavalry, crossed in front of the main army, and concentrated near Vredefort on the west, thus preparing a little surprise for the Boers, who were collected in their thousands opposite Engelbrecht Drift in the expectation that the British General would continue to proceed towards the north. Meanwhile, the cavalry, to a desultory accompaniment of musketry, was engaged in securing the approaches to Lindique Drift, over which the baggage had to pass. On the 26th, Colonel Henry’s Mounted Infantry, and the Bedfordshires, crossed at Viljoen’s Drift and there encountered an Irish-American rabble in act of injuring the coal-mines and bridge; and the wreckers—an alcoholically-valiant gang of hirelings—speedily made off, leaving behind them three days’ supplies, which came in most handy for the benefit of the troops. By this time General Hamilton had reached Boschbank, and Lord Roberts had arrived at Wolve Hoek.

The Cavalry Division, finding the force of Mounted Infantry had moved to Vereeniging—and thus opened up communication with Lord Roberts’s main advance—flew on. On the evening of the 27th they seized the head of the horse-shoe of hills wherein the Boers in large numbers had ensconced themselves. This dashing exploit was attended with the loss of only one Scots Grey and one Carabineer wounded. The position thus gained overlooked the Boers’ main position at Klips Wersberg, defending Johannesburg.

While this was going on (on the 27th) Lord Roberts, with the 7th and 11th Divisions, crossed the Vaal facing Vereeniging, and encamped on the north bank, and found vacated several intricately prepared positions whence the Boers had intended to offer opposition. They had abandoned position after position at the approach of one or other of the great feelers of the big British machine that threatened to surround them.

The fact was, this enormous army was moving as an avalanche—stupendous and strong—an avalanche that swept all things before it. Horses and men were in splendid fettle, their spirits were rising, their confidence intense, and all endeavoured to emulate the example in activity set them by the Field-Marshal, who, like a young man of thirty, was up before dawn and working hard till sundown. In spite of the cold nights—especially trying after the heat of midday—the Commander-in-Chief looked healthy and well, while his troops, who had marched magnificently in trying circumstances, needed no finer eulogy than to be described as worthy of him.

A grand march of twenty miles brought the main army on the 28th, to Klip River, within eighteen miles of Johannesburg—a march so rapid and so well organised that the Boers, who had prepared a delicate salute of five guns with which to welcome the troops, had barely time to hustle their weapons into the train and steam off as some of the West Australian Mounted Infantry dashed into the station! These smart Colonials were very much to the fore all day and showed a vast amount of dash and dexterity. Major Pilkington and a patrol of some thirty of them were moving in advance of the 11th Division in hope to find a suitable drift for the passage of troops and guns across the Klip River. The drift was discovered, but also the Boers—a posse of them hovering among the kopjes that flanked the road. Without ado, the little party prepared themselves for the worst, spreading themselves, rifles in hand, to protect the position they had gained, a position of some importance, since it commanded bridges about a mile and a half to east and west of the road. The party divided into two groups, arranged themselves at each bridge, and endeavoured to make a line—a very thin line—as a uniting link between the groups. It was somewhat like the fable of the frog that tried to blow himself out to the size of a bull—but in this case the minute object’s pretence was successful; the thirty isolated men deluded the Boers, and caused them to believe that these sturdy defenders of the drifts were supported by a huge force in reserve. Blazing away with their rifles, the Dutchmen attacked the small party, and an uneven contest commenced and proceeded till dusk. Lieutenant Porter, while directing some operations, was wounded, but fortunately at this juncture there came to his rescue some guardsmen, who were escorting a convoy, and these, owing to the gallant manner in which the drifts had been held, managed in the darkness to get their convoy into safety, and enable the Westralians, whose work was accomplished, to “silently steal away.” Meanwhile, during the whole day, some ten miles to the left—on the west of the railway—sounds of animated knocking portended much activity on the part of Generals French and Hamilton in the neighbourhood of Syferfontein and Klip River. General French was engaged in a reconnaissance in force of the enemy’s position. After drawing the fire of all the Dutch guns, and consuming a good deal of powder, the casualties on the part of the cavalry were small—about five—mostly Inniskillings.

On the 29th of May, part of the Cavalry Division, General Ian Hamilton’s Mounted Infantry, the 19th and 21st Brigades, and some Colonials who had moved parallel to the main advance since it left the Vaal, found themselves about twelve miles south of Johannesburg. East of Doornkop some 4000 Boers, with six guns, had taken up a menacing position, strengthened with various natural obstacles, while the ground had been blackened with grass fires to afford an effective background to approaching kharki. The troops, supported by the guns, at once steadily advanced to attack the Boer centre, while Generals French and Hutton operated on the west to turn the right flank of the position. After an hour’s smart fighting the infantry were able to push on, Porter’s brigade having ridden five miles to the west, and turned the enemy’s right, while the infantry, with fixed bayonets, had driven the enemy from every cherished kopje. In the attack, the Gordons in the centre of the right, the City Imperial Volunteers in the centre on the left, advanced gradually on the Boer position. The gallant nature of the advance over the burnt and blackened ground, which made the infantry into targets for the foe, excited the admiration of all. Grandly the Gordons flung themselves upon the enemy, in spite of the Boer guns and “pom-pom,” that dealt death and destruction among their numbers. Seventy of the dashing fellows dropped, and the only consolation for so great a loss was, that by nightfall 6000 Dutchmen were scudding away in the darkness, while General Hamilton was bivouacking on the ground seized from them, and Generals French and Hutton, who had turned the right flank of the position, were threatening Krugersdorp. The conduct of the City Imperial Volunteers was magnificent, and to them, as well as to the Gordons, much of the credit of the day’s work was due. They behaved as skilled troops, taking cover with great ingenuity, and returning the attacks of the enemy with amazing coolness and precision. Their sustained volleys succeeded in clearing out the Boers immediately in front of Roodepoorte. Commandant Botha—not Louis Botha, but a kinsman—with a hundred foreign and Irish subsidised sympathisers, was captured, and, in addition to these, a Creusot gun and twelve waggons of stores and ammunition were secured.

The losses among officers in this engagement were comparatively few. Captain St. J. Meyrick, 1st Gordon Highlanders, was killed. Among the wounded were:—

City Imperial Volunteers—Capt. G. W. Barkley. 1st Gordon Highlanders—Capt. G. E. E. G. Cameron, Lieut.-Col. H. H. Burney, Capt. P. S. Allen, second Lieut. A. Cameron, Surg.-Lieut. A. H. Benson, Dr. R. Hunter. Vol. Co. Gordon Highlanders—Capt. J. B. Buchanan, Lieut. J. Mackinnon, Lieut. H. Forbes. Royal Army Medical Corps—Lieut. A. H. Benson. 2nd Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry—Lieut. H. W. Fife (since dead). 10th Hussars—Lieut. T. Lister.

During General French’s operations near Klip River, on the 27th, 28th, and 29th, the wounded officers were:—

New Zealand Rifles—Captain Palmer. 7th Dragoon Guards—Major W. J. Mackeson, second Lieut. G. Dunne. Capt. D. L. MacEwen, Cameron Highlanders, attached to Intelligence Department, was taken prisoner.

GENERAL IAN HAMILTON THANKING THE GORDONS FOR THEIR ATTACK AT THE BATTLE OF DOORNKOP
Drawing by S. Begg

To return to the main advance on this day (29th). While Generals French and Hamilton were engaging Botha and his hordes outside Johannesburg, turning their flank wherever they posted themselves, Lord Roberts decided to pursue boldly the programme of his main advance upon the enemy’s East Rand and Pretoria communications, a programme which was as faultlessly and rapidly carried out as it was skilfully conceived.

From the neighbourhood of the Klip River the troops pushed on rapidly to Germiston without meeting with serious opposition. So swiftly were the movements executed that the nimble Boers were beaten at their own game, and had to turn tail without removing the whole of the rolling-stock. Thus, the Commander-in-Chief came at once into possession of the Junction connecting Johannesburg with Natal, Pretoria, and Klerksdorp by railway, and through a piece of splendid strategy Boer resistance was paralysed, and the railway system of the State was brought completely under his control. Any concentration of forces in Pretoria or on the fringes was now practically impossible.

The history of the hurried capture of this vital strategical position was inspiriting. Colonel Henry, with the 8th Mounted Infantry, started at dawn with orders to seize Elandsfontein at all costs. The 3rd Cavalry Brigade in support made a detour to the east towards Boksburg, in a direct line to Pretoria, followed rapidly along the line by Pole-Carew’s and Tucker’s Divisions. The object of the somewhat wide easterly move was to outflank the enemy’s defensible positions and secure the communications to Pretoria, and thus cut off and isolate the force prepared to check the advance of the British. Just as the advance guard neared the Natal line, a train was seen conveying half of the Heidelberg Commando from Volksrust to the north. It was impossible to arrest it, but after firing on the departing machine, the troops proceeded to demolish the line and secure the Natal communications. The Mounted Infantry which, owing to the uselessness of the Klip River Bridge, were without artillery, were now assailed by a party of Boers with guns, who had ensconced themselves in the ridges which menaced the southern road, but nevertheless they pressed forward bent on obeying orders and gaining Elandsfontein. They pushed ever on and on till the great city, the monstrous hive of gold-getters, the scene of Boer despotism and Uitlander servility, became visible from the rolling hills. Momentarily they expected to hear a roar, to see a flare and an upheaval, and to know the worst had come—the mines had been destroyed! But all was silence. The huge town, surrounded in places by a blanket of smoke, seemed slumbering on the bosom of the undulating downs. In the distance, however, the station showed active. Trains were steaming off to Pretoria. Others with their steam up were preparing to follow. These trains must be arrested, and their freight captured. It was a case, unfortunately, of horse-flesh versus steam. But still it was worth the venture! Off went a section of the Yorkshire Mounted Infantry, galloping like fury to the station, while the main body made for Boksburg; and the Australians, toolless, tore to Knight’s Station, and there piling up trollies, boulders—anything, in fact, that came to hand—blocked the line. They were pelted by hidden Boers, but fled carefully to cover after accomplishing their object.

Meanwhile, some of the Yorkshire Mounted Infantry had seized the station, and, with it, three locomotives whose steam was up ready for departure. But the enemy were in strength there—they were at least strong in proportion to the twenty dashing Yorkshire men who had plunged into the mêlée, and these gallant fellows found themselves in a critical position, fighting like demons for their hardly-earned prize with desperate men, whose sole source of salvation lay in the locomotives that stolidly panted and wheezed in utter disregard of the fierce fight raging for their possession. Then, with almost theatrical precision, a vast procession was seen to be approaching: a river of kharki flowing down the southern slopes into the Rand. It was the Mounted Infantry from Boksburg and the Infantry Division—the goodly Grenadiers leading—pouring in their numbers to the rescue of the gallant little band! Thus by nightfall one of the most fateful of the operations of the war was concluded, and Johannesburg was virtually seized without the wrecking of a mine and with little loss of life. During the operations Captain MacEwan, Cameron Highlanders, and Lord Cecil Manners (correspondent to the Morning Post) were taken prisoners. Lieutenants Pepper, West Australian Mounted Infantry, Beddington, Imperial Yeomanry, and Forrest, 1st Oxford Light Infantry, were wounded. Immense crowds, surprised to find that the struggle was a matter of hours and not of days, watched the fighting from west and east corners of the town, and the shock of the fall of Elandsfontein disorganised their plans and demoralised themselves.

While this was going on, the Cavalry Division had advanced through the gold mines, having Johannesburg on their right, and was encamped on the west of the town, keeping a wary eye on the Boers, who were fleeing hot-foot to Pretoria.

Within the City of Gold, all was turmoil. On the discovery of the situation there followed a violent up-rising. The Kaffirs, on seeing the Boers repulsed, rushed to the Jews’ houses to loot them, and the foreign contingents immediately set out on a species of internal invasion, breaking open shops and stores and houses, and throwing out of doors and windows goods collected for the benefit of needy burgher families. The uproar, however, was speedily suppressed by the firm measures of Dr. Krause. In answer to the flag of truce sent in by the Field-Marshal, this official went out to meet him. There being still many armed burghers in the place, the Transvaal Commandant requested Lord Roberts to postpone his entry for six hours. To avert disturbance this arrangement was agreed to, and Lord Roberts decided to postpone till the 31st his entry into the conquered town.

So Johannesburg was ours! The advance, which appeared to be so rapid, straightforward, and simple, owed these qualities to Lord Roberts’s splendid, almost prophetic, instinct for gauging the enemy’s expectations with a view to disappointing them; to his strategic manipulation of his cavalry and mounted infantry, and to the magnificent marching capability of the infantry. Everywhere, the Boers had fenced themselves across the route, sometimes extending their line of defence for twenty miles or more, and everywhere, in dread of having one flank or the other turned, they had been kept oscillating between stubborn resistance and rapid flight till their nerves had given way, and they had scuttled back and back to their undoing. At the Vet, the Zand, the Valsch, the Rhenoster, and the Klip Rivers, they had cunningly prepared themselves, till, with the infantry menacing them in front and the cavalry and infantry threatening both flanks, they had realised that retreat was inevitable. Their last hope had been set on the city of mines; and now from thence, a routed, raging rabble, they were fleeing in despair.

The splendid progress of the infantry was a remarkable achievement, of which enough cannot be said. It was no mere feat of pedestrianism. It was a march in face of an enterprising enemy, and harassed with discomforts sufficiently multifarious to try the endurance of a Socrates. A scorching sun by day and a frigid temperature by night, occasional sand blasts rendering drier than ever parched throats already dry as husk from the tramp through a sand-clogged and almost waterless country, were but items in the programme. If water there chanced to be, it was ochreous and fouled by the passage of many quadrupeds, and such food as there was—bully beef and adamantine biscuit—demanded the jaws and digestion of an alligator. Yet these sturdy fellows plodded along, lumbering through sand drifts and squelching in mire and morass, or laid themselves to rest on the hard or soggy ground with a philosophy so devil-may-care as almost to fringe on the sublime. With unquenchable gaiety, they had accomplished a march of 254 miles (the distance from Bloemfontein to Elandsfontein) in eighteen days, giving as an average fourteen miles a day. (This calculation naturally excludes the ten days’ halt at Kroonstad.) From Kroonstad to Elandsfontein, a distance of some 126 miles—covered in seven days (22nd to 29th)—marching had gone forward at the rate of eighteen miles a day. Napoleon’s much vaunted march from the Channel to the Rhine in 1805 showed an average of sixteen miles a day, when the distance traversed was 400 miles, and the time taken twenty-five days. But that march, unopposed throughout, was comparatively plain sailing. Quicker forced marches have been known,[7] but in the present case the march was continuous, and may be said to beat all records of rapid marching under equally inconvenient conditions.

The twenty-four hours were allowed to pass. Then, at the entrance of the town Dr. Krause met the Commander-in-Chief, and rode with him to the government offices, and introduced to him the heads of the various departments, all of whom were requested to continue their respective duties till they should be relieved of them.

To those who had never seen Johannesburg the first glimpse was a surprise. Strangely incongruous did it seem to move from the isolation and rugged simplicity of the open veldt to the centre of a large and peculiarly civilised town. The note of modernity was sounded on every side. Buildings more than magnificent greeted the eye accustomed only to homely farms and mushroom staadts. Tramways ribbed the streets, electric lights gleamed a whiter glare than moonbeams, and nineteenth-century luxury, and in some cases refinement, were in evidence at every turn. But the public buildings were closed, and the handsome shops boarded up for precaution’s sake, while the streets were thinly populated, owing to the fact that many of the British sympathisers had been expelled, and the Boer community was on commando.

THE CITY OF LONDON IMPERIAL VOLUNTEERS SUPPORTING GENERAL HAMILTON’S LEFT FLANK IN THE ACTION AT DOORNKOP ON THE 29TH OF MAY
Drawing by C. E. Fripp, R.W.S., War Artist

But though at first the place was deserted, by degrees people began to trickle in, and by the time the square in front of the government buildings was reached there was a goodly throng. The Vierkleur was still flying when Lord Roberts, at the head of General Pole-Carew’s division, marched into the town; but presently the keys were formally surrendered, the flag was hauled down, and a small Union Jack, worked by Lady Roberts, was hoisted in its place.

At the conclusion of the ceremony the rousing strains of the Guards’ band were heard, and the 11th and 7th Divisions marched past, with the Naval Brigade, the heavy artillery, and two Brigade Divisions of Royal Horse Artillery. General Ian Hamilton’s column and the Cavalry Division and Mounted Infantry were too far away to take part in the proceedings.

Vaal River Deviation Bridge at Vereeniging, nearly completed. (Photo by W. H. Gill, London.)

It was an impressive spectacle; one ever to be remembered. From afternoon till night, troops—great, brawny, bronzed, and workmanlike Britons—came clanking in procession through the town, while from balconies and windows banners and flags were waved, and gay ladies, many of them Englishwomen, wild with excitement and enthusiasm, threw down flowers and sweets and cigarettes to give vent to their unrestrained joy. Far into the evening the stream of kharki continued ceaselessly to flow under the magnesian rays of the electric lights till the infantry had passed to their camp, three miles to the north, and Lord Roberts had settled himself at Orange Grove.