War and the Arme Blanche

by Erskine Childers

The Boers occupied a crescent of heights no less than twenty-five miles in extent astride of the Modder River. The ford at Poplar Grove Drift formed the communicating link between the commandos on the left or southern bank, which were the most numerous, and the commandos on the right or northern bank. The natural line of retreat to Bloemfontein lay by roads on the left bank, and in particular by the road crossing the river at Poplar Grove Drift, and thence following its course closely eastward. The only alternative, or rather additional route, on this side of the river, that via Petrusberg, took a much more southerly sweep, and, since it skirted the extreme Boer left, which rested on the hills known as the Seven Kopjes, could only be regarded as a perilous flank line of retreat, which any threat of envelopment on the left would suffice instantly to close.

The plan of Lord Roberts was that French, with all the Cavalry, half the Mounted Infantry, and six batteries, should sweep round the Boer left by a détour of some seventeen miles, get in rear of their centre, and block their line of retreat by the Poplar Grove Road. To this road, and somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Drift, he foresaw that the greater part of the Boer force, threatened in front by three divisions of Infantry and 70 guns, and in rear by the mounted troops and 42 guns, must converge. Here, then, he hoped to bring about a second Paardeberg, once more in the bed of the Modder River.

The scheme in general character was what the situation demanded. After what had happened, and in view of the disparity of forces, there could have been no question here of manœuvring De Wet from his positions. The marvel was that he dared to risk (and there is no doubt that he intended to risk) a battle against such odds and in the existing moral condition of the burghers. To aim at his complete destruction was the only course worthy of Lord Roberts and his army. The tactical method proposed, that of using the bulk of the mounted troops as a distinct tactical unit, was equally sound. Numerically, our mounted troops exceeded the whole Boer army as estimated by the Intelligence. The force allotted to French—approximately 5,000 troopers and 42 guns—was five times superior in Artillery to the whole Boer force, not far short of equality in horsemen, and was certainly superior to the commandos on the south bank, with which he was specially concerned. This force, moreover, had the immense advantage of possessing complete independent mobility, whereas the Boers, if they wished to maintain the semblance of an organized army, had to preserve their heavy transport and conform their speed to it. I have often alluded to the importance of this governing factor, and at Poplar Grove, in particular, it must be borne in mind if we are to gain any instruction from what happened. For the rest, the function designed by Roberts for French was the same as that performed by him so admirably, albeit with a weak force, at the Drifts on February 17—that is, to contain the Boer force until the rest of our army should have time to come up and crush it.

I have only sketched the plan of operations, and I can only sketch what actually happened. I must assume that the reader has before him the map and the narratives of the Official and Times Histories.

There is no dispute as to the facts, and both accounts in this respect are substantially the same, but that of the Times, for a reason to which I shall have to refer later, is more lucid. There has been much controversy over the day’s work and over the cause which led to an almost painful fiasco. Some of this controversy is not strictly relevant to our inquiry, and I shall refer to it as briefly as possible. The point I have to make is absolutely simple and unmistakable.

Let the reader first read the Instructions issued by Roberts on March 6, and grasp their spirit. Their details are not, and could not have been, cut and dried. Battles never follow the course of cut-and-dried instructions. One point needs special notice, that Roberts expected the Cavalry to be well behind the Boer positions and somewhere near the Modder before the Infantry began direct attacks, and before the enemy began any general retreat. The sixth division, which was to follow the track of the Cavalry for several miles, and was then to capture Seven Kopjes, on which the Boer left rested, would find the enemy “shaken by the knowledge that the Cavalry had passed their rear.” The movements of the other three Infantry divisions were, it is implied, to conform to the course of events in this quarter. On the other hand, the Cavalry division is regarded as wholly independent of the other arms. It was to set the pace, so to speak, and govern the course of events.

Now, it is quite clear from the narrative that from the very first there was no chance of realizing the Commander-in-Chief’s idea in its fulness. To have done that it would have been necessary for French either to make so wide a détour as to pass outside the range of vision of the Boers on Seven Kopjes, or, describing a shorter curve, to circle unobserved round Seven Kopjes before daylight, and thence to make for the Modder. To be seen was to precipitate the Boer retreat. Roberts seems scarcely to have realized this, and I think he is fairly open to the criticism that he might have rested his whole plan more boldly on the specific Intelligence report that there were only 6,000 Boers opposed to him, who must, however good or bad their morale, begin an immediate retreat directly they realized that the road to Bloemfontein was threatened by so large and mobile a force as that of French. On this basis he would have altered the tone of his instructions to the Infantry, omitted references to preliminary bombardments, and enjoined speed as the all-important requisite.

French appears from the first to have treated the conception of getting round the Boer rear unobserved as hopeless, on the ground of time and the condition of his horses. He himself, with good reason, suggested starting overnight. Roberts rejected this proposal, and named the hour of 2 a.m. Owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding, French did not start till 3 a.m. He marched very slowly, halted at 5 a.m. expressly in order to “wait for daylight,” which came at 5.45, and reached the farm Kalkfontein, three miles south-east of Seven Kopjes, at about 6.45 a.m., having covered twelve miles in three and three-quarter hours. He had been observed and, at 6.30, fired at from Seven Kopjes, and so far from circling north-east round that hill in order to make for the Modder, he had inclined, after passing it, slightly to the south, and now, as the official map shows, could not be said to be thoroughly “in rear” even of Seven Kopjes. This inclination was made partly with the object of watering his horses at Kalkfontein dam, a step which he considered essential. The halt at the dam seems to have lasted about three-quarters of an hour for the bulk of the division, though detachments continued to push on north and north-east. In the meantime French rode out to reconnoitre.

Let us pause here for a minute. It must be clear that, whatever the justification, French’s action was altogether inconsistent with the idea of a rapid sweep of an independent mounted force round the enemy’s rear. He has been criticized for not furthering that idea, and the Official Historian, in the course of his rather rambling and obscure comments upon the day’s work, meets the point by replying that if French, owing to the condition of his horses, thought the task impossible, “it is safe to say that there is in the world no living authority who can pronounce a decision against him.” Let us accept that conclusion unreservedly, adding, however, that French, under the circumstances, should have frankly told his Chief that he could not attempt to carry out the full design, instead of leaving him and the whole army to understand that an effort, at any rate, would be made. Roberts would certainly have altered his plan, on the assumption that French, although he could turn the Boer left, could not within the time allotted him compass the complete half-circle which would bring him to the Modder before the enemy fully realized the threat to their communications.

Apart from that criticism, let us agree that French was free from blame in not being in a position to move in force from Kalkfontein before 7.30 a.m. or thereabouts. Was the game up? It had scarcely begun. The Cavalry advance had been a complete surprise to the Boers. Their gun-fire from Seven Kopjes at 6.30 appears to have coincided with their first discovery of the turning movement. At seven they realized that their position was turned, though not enveloped, and between seven and eight they began the only course open to them—a retreat, both from the Seven Kopjes and from Table Mountain, the next position northward, towards the Poplar Grove Road, just as Roberts had foreseen. French in person witnessed the beginning of this retreat, and reported it to Roberts in two successive messages, at 7.30 and 8 a.m., noting in the second instance the presence of a long line of waggons, and adding in both cases that he was “following the pursuit with Artillery fire.” But how was he to use his 5,000 horsemen? There were two alternatives: one, to make a direct pursuit; the other, to resume the thread of Roberts’s original idea, and endeavour to intercept the Boer retreat at the river. The first meant less distance for his horses and a strong offensive rôle over an ideal terrain on the lines traditionally reserved for Cavalry; the second meant a détour involving more strain to his horses, though on equally good terrain, and culminating in a semi-defensive containing rôle like that which he had played on February 17. French rejected the first alternative, because, in the words of his second message, the enemy were “too well protected by riflemen on neighbouring kopjes and positions to enable me to attack them, mounted or dismounted.” But, while rejecting this aim, he did not resolutely embrace the other,[^[30]] which was still undoubtedly practicable, in view of the fact that the Boer retreat, though it was covered by mounted skirmishers, was maintained throughout at the rate of ox-waggons not of unhampered horsemen. The division was sent to the low ridge of Middlepunt, some five miles north-east of Kalkfontein, where one brigade at least was actually nearer to the river than a considerable part of the Boer retreating forces; but here, again, it was brought to a standstill by “small groups” of Boer riflemen. From this time (8.30 a.m.) until the evening, the story is one of impotence on the part of the division, in the face of mere handfuls, relatively, of these riflemen, who represented the only stout-hearted element in a thoroughly disorganized force. It was the story of Dronfield over again: the failure of Cavalry, armed and equipped as the Cavalry were, to develop offensive power against mounted riflemen.