3. Charges.—The only actual charge upon a position, to which I can find reference, is that of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles on May 24, at the passage of the Vaal (Times History, vol. iv., p. 136, footnote).
Two small cases occur of charges in the open with the arme blanche—namely, at Diamond Hill, on June 11, where, in some indecisive fighting on the right, sixty men of the 12th Lancers made a gallant charge against some Boers who were threatening two of our guns, and at the same time the Household Cavalry endeavoured to ride down another detachment. The lance disposed of a few Boers in the former case, but the enemy retaliated as successfully with fire. In the latter case the Cavalry drove the Boers away, but caught only one, and lost twenty-one horses from rifle-fire, many burghers dropping down among the mealies and shooting at the troopers as they passed, in the manner recommended in our own handbook, “Infantry Training.” The two incidents were momentary episodes in two days of fire-action, and serve merely to emphasize the inferiority of a weapon with a range of two yards to a long-range firearm.
4. Pursuits.—There were no really “general” pursuits. The best local pursuit was that of Hutton’s Australasians on May 30, at Klipfontein (“Official History,” vol. iii., p. 90), where a gun was captured. The Boer talent—not exactly for pursuit, but for pressing hard upon a rear-guard—was strikingly displayed in the course of Ian Hamilton’s evacuation of Lindley, whither he had been sent during the general halt at Kroonstad. We may call these guerilla tactics; but they have not a whit less real tactical interest on that account.
5. Horse-wastage.—With full allowance for the poor quality of remounts, this was too extravagant. It seems to have been greatest among the Cavalry, whose average waste between May 19 and June 9 was over 30 per cent., than among the mounted riflemen, whose average, for the same period, was 18 per cent.[[48]] Apart from that difficult question of overloading, and from defective horse-management, which seems to have been universal among our mounted troops, this difference in loss of horses was probably the result of longer distances ridden by the Cavalry. In the whole of this question we have to recognize, in the case of all mounted troops, the close relation between horse-wastage and deficiency in aggressive tactical power, a deficiency which, as I pointed out above, was the real, though, perhaps, not the consciously thought-out reason for the immense encircling movements which were so often being attempted. It will be the same in future wars. The higher the direct tackling power, the lower the average horse-wastage.
By the middle of June, when Pretoria had fallen to the central armies and Diamond Hill had been fought, every other column composing the grand advance had, to all appearances, successfully accomplished its object. Buller had traversed Natal and entered the Transvaal. Methuen had traversed the Western Free State. Hunter had relieved Mafeking, and had occupied towns in the Western Transvaal as far north as the meridian of Pretoria. Warren, too, had disposed of the rebels in Griqualand West. Both Cape Colony and Natal were cleared of the enemy. The Free State had been annexed.
Buller had scarcely made any use of his six regiments of regular Cavalry, and had even left them at Ladysmith during the first phase of his advance over the Biggarsberg. His action was partly due, no doubt, to that old fatalistic prejudice against pursuits, which, in his mind, we must assume, were associated so closely with the arme blanche that he did not think it worth while even to give the Cavalry a fair chance of developing other methods. The error was all the less justifiable in that the Natal army, nearly 45,000 strong, and the largest in the field of war, was disproportionately weak in mounted troops. The irregular mounted brigade, about 3,000 strong, under Dundonald, together with Bethune’s Mounted Infantry, about 600 strong, took a prominent part in all the actions, and did very well. Eight thousand Boers faced Buller originally on the Biggarsberg, but they must have dwindled to something like half that number in the later stages of the advance. No especial points of mounted interest, not alluded to already, arose in these operations, which, from a tactical standpoint, were often very cleverly and ably conducted, although from the strategical standpoint they were too slow and unenterprising. I need not enter into the long story of Buller’s two months’ inaction after the relief of Ladysmith, and of his repeated failures to rise to the height of the Commander-in-Chief’s conceptions for the strategic rôle of the powerful Natal army.
In the western sphere of advance, there are two principal points of interest:
1. The good behaviour of the new Yeomanry under both Methuen and Warren; for example, at Tweefontein (April 5), and, in defence, at Faber’s Put (May 29), though on the latter occasion we have to recognize an early instance of that lax and careless outpost work which so often characterized the Yeomanry and other irregular corps.
2. The relief of Mafeking. This, although not a dramatic, was none the less a very skilful and able performance, carried out by Colonel Mahon, with a small column of 900 mounted irregulars (Imperial Light Horse and Kimberley men), 100 picked Infantry, and 6 guns. Starting from Barkley West on May 4, Mahon marched 251 miles in 14 days (an average of 18 miles a day), through a badly-watered region, with two fairly hot engagements en route. Hunter, with his main body, rendered skilful support by distracting the attention of the Boers in the neighbourhood, and, in the final phase, Plumer, who for many months had been tirelessly worrying the besiegers, co-operated with Mahon. On the penultimate day of the march, May 16, De la Rey and Liebenberg managed to bar the road with 2,000 men, a force about equal to those of Mahon and Plumer together, but were driven off after a spirited action. In expense of horse-flesh, which was small, and in tackling power in proportion to numbers, the whole expedition compared favourably with the relief of Kimberley by the Cavalry. It must be remarked that, mobile as Mahon’s force was, it included 100 Infantry and 55 mule-waggons.
In the meantime the guerilla war—and by that expression I mean all hostilities which were not directly connected with the seizure on our side, and the defence on the Boers’ side, of railways, capitals, and large towns—had already begun in the Free State, and was eventually to spread to the Transvaal even before the final collapse of that State in September. Rundle, Colvile, and Brabant, acting on the right rear of the central armies, had had to cope with constant opposition in the Eastern Free State. Rundle met with a sharp check at the Biddulphsberg on May 29, and two days later a detached force of Yeomanry, 500 strong, surrendered to Piet de Wet near Lindley, after an investment of some days. This was the first serious reverse which befell a Yeomanry corps. The only moral we need draw from it is the vital importance of spirited leadership for mounted troops, especially for untried irregulars. On this occasion the true “Cavalry spirit” was lacking in the officer in command, who, with a substantial force of mounted men and travelling light, should never have allowed himself to be invested at all.