4. The improvisation of large numbers of additional mounted troops. These belonged to three categories:
(a) Three thousand additional regular Mounted Infantry, improvised by abstraction from every Infantry battalion in South Africa, with additions from Great Britain.
(b) The enlistment and gradual despatch of large bodies of volunteer mounted riflemen; from Great Britain (in the shape of 10,000 Yeomanry), and from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India.
(c) The enlistment in South Africa of a quantity of new irregular corps of mounted riflemen, including a local militia for the defence of Cape Colony, the latter force being backed by Town Guards partly composed of Infantry.
No question ever arose of training the mounted irregulars to the use of the steel weapon. The long postponed decision to raise Yeomanry, for example, was directly inspired by a telegram from Buller after Colenso, asking for “8,000 irregular Mounted Infantry.” This view of present requirements did not represent any radical change of military theory. There was a general impression abroad, first, that this was a “peculiar” war demanding peculiar expedients; second, that it was a comparatively simple and easy matter to improvise mounted riflemen. The first proposition was a misleading half-truth, the second a profound fallacy, but the net result, however arrived at, was good. Outside the Cavalry itself, it was already generally recognized that the rifle must, in this war at any rate, be the dominant arm for mounted troops. Even among the Cavalry, reliance upon the carbine and upon the support of mounted riflemen had intensified with every day of hostilities.
As I explained in the previous chapter, the Natal entanglement, with the wholesale diversion of troops which it entailed, had left Cape Colony in mid-November almost defenceless against invasion, slowly and timidly as that invasion was proceeding. It came at two principal points: in the north-east by way of Aliwal North and Burgersdorp to Stormberg; and in the centre by way of Norval’s Pont to Colesberg, and on towards Naauwpoort. The former advance threatened only the East London railway-line. The latter advance was the more serious in that it endangered, not only Methuen’s communications with the south, but the whole of the railway system from our two major ports, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, with its three cardinal junctions—De Aar, Naauwpoort, and Rosmead. The three serious defeats of mid-December, and especially that of Gatacre at Stormberg, increased the danger. At least six weeks must elapse before sufficient reinforcements could be gathered for the great projected advance under Roberts. Torpid as the Boer strategy was, pusillanimity on our part might encourage them at any moment to greater efforts. Our one resource for the time being was “bluff.” Buller had realized this from the first, and given instructions accordingly to French, who had taken up the command at Naauwpoort on November 20, with orders to “worry” the enemy, and make, if he could, a bold show of operating towards Colesberg.
French performed the difficult rôle allotted to him with complete success. His operations lasted ten weeks, and included a multitude of small schemes and enterprises, which it is impossible for me to recount in detail. I can only sketch his doings and methods in broad outline, with a special view to their bearing on the question of weapons for mounted men.
Aggression, perpetual but never rash, was the keynote of his action. As the handful of troops with which he started work slowly grew, by accretion from the base, to a substantial force, he steadily pushed forward, first to Arundel, then to Rensburg, then to a line immediately threatening Colesberg, all the time widening his protective net to right and left over the adjacent country. His system was to harass, surprise, impose upon the enemy constantly, with forays, reconnaissances, and stratagems. Except for the unhappy failure of an infantry night attack, no sensational fights occurred, but a great number of small engagements, which would repay close study.
The troops employed were of all arms—Infantry, Horse Artillery, regular Mounted Infantry, Australasian and South African mounted riflemen, and regular Cavalry. Numbers and composition varied from time to time. The total force at French’s disposal for active operations rose from about 1,200, mainly Infantry, on November 20, to 2,000, half of them mounted, in the second week of December, and to 4,500 in the second week of January, 1900, when all immediate danger to the Colony was at an end, and he was firmly established in the positions round Colesberg, with his rear quite secure. This force included four batteries of Artillery, and no less than 2,000 mounted men (an unusually high proportion), of whom some 1,200 were regular Cavalry.
The Boers, who were under the very poor leadership of D. Schoemann, were also progressively reinforced. Their available fighting strength at any given time is impossible to measure, since it varied from day to day, and week to week, with the energy or indifference of the burghers. But it is fairly safe to say that at the outset they outnumbered the British force by nearly two to one, held a distinct though lessening superiority for about three weeks—the really critical period of the operations—and in the second week of January were approximately equal to French’s forces. At a somewhat later stage they were considerably reinforced.