These events, together with De Wet’s escape from the Brandwater Basin, further delayed the eastward British advance, which was eventually begun on July 23. Middelburg was captured with little difficulty on July 27, and then there was a halt of another three weeks, rendered necessary by the hunt of De Wet and many other minor elements of disturbance. During this period French, with several thousand mounted troops (his own Cavalry and Hutton’s mounted riflemen), held a semicircular outpost line fifty miles in extent to the eastward of Middelburg, and showed the same kind of skill and activity as he had exhibited at Colesberg in sparring with the Boer forces in front of him.
Buller, in the meantime, was marching northward from the Natal border with 9,000 men (including two mounted brigades) and 42 guns, and effected a junction with French on August 15. Belfast fell to the joint forces a few days later, and on the 27th, reinforced by an Infantry division to a total strength of nearly 19,000 men (of whom 4,800 were mounted), Roberts fought the last pitched battle of the regular war at Bergendal. Strange and characteristic climax it was! Exceeding all previous records in extension, Botha, with about 7,000 men, on an extreme estimate, and 20 guns, held a line of difficult mountainous country no less than fifty miles in extent from end to end, reaching from the approaches to Lydenburg on the north to the approaches to Barberton on the south. No more than twenty miles of this front, however, held at the most by 5,000 men, was concerned in the action.
Upon the extreme right of this position French, with two Cavalry brigades, together about 1,600 strong, made the normal wide turning movement against strong but lightly-held positions, and made it very vigorously and successfully; but it took him all day, so that he could not make the further projected sweep round the Boer rear.[[49]] Buller meanwhile assaulted the key to the Boer position—Bergendal Hill, on the left centre. This was a truly extraordinary episode in its proof of the terrific power of the modern rifle in the hands of disciplined men. The summit of the hill, about 200 yards by 100 yards in extent, was crowned with boulders, which made it a natural fort. It was bombarded with lyddite and shrapnel for three hours by thirty-eight guns, including heavy naval pieces and howitzers, until, as an historian puts it, it looked like Vesuvius in eruption. Then it was assaulted in the most intrepid style by a brigade of Infantry (1st Inniskilling Fusiliers and 2nd Rifle Brigade), who, before storming the crest, lost 120 officers and men, mainly, but not wholly, from the fire of the Bergendal burghers; for two or three other small detachments co-operated at long-range from neighbouring hill-tops. When all was over, it was found that the hill had been held by seventy-four men of the Johannesburg Police—mounted riflemen, be it noted. Thirty got away on their horses, twenty were captured alive, and the rest were killed or wounded. As an example of the truth that defensive and offensive power are correlatives of one another, it may be remarked that these same “Zarps,” under at least one of the same leaders (Pohlmann), had taken a leading part in the assault and capture of Nicholson’s Nek ten months earlier. The Police, we must remember, were the only regular disciplined force (gunners excepted) which the Boers possessed.
This cardinal success in the centre brought the battle—if battle it may be called—to an end. French could not pursue, and the pursuit of Buller’s Cavalry was ineffective.
This was Botha’s last resolute stand. His own and Steyn’s efforts together could not prevent the subsequent disintegration. Indeed, it is a remarkable proof of their ability and moral courage that during the next fortnight, with the help of some minor leaders like Kemp and Viljoen, and with the support of the most sturdy and patriotic burghers, they were able to present a decent show of resistance on the immense front from Lydenburg to Barberton and onwards; to avert anything in the nature of a decisive defeat in the field; and finally, when the crash came on the Portuguese frontier, to concentrate, and by perilous and exhausting flank marches to save from the wreckage, not only the acting executive Governments of both Republics, but substantial bodies of resolute men—the nucleus, in short, for nearly two more years of strenuous resistance.
It was here that the now inveterate habit on our part of overrating the importance of winning positions and of underrating the importance of defeating the Boers in person led to its most unfortunate results. The Portuguese frontier was the “touch-line.” Short of incarceration (and a large number of horseless and destitute men chose this course), there was no alternative but a wide flank march to the north across the British front, at first over the fever-stricken “low veld,” then over precipitous mountains whose spurs for a long distance were already held by our troops. Steyn, travelling light with 250 men, and starting on September 11, got through with ease. Botha and Viljoen, with 2,500 men, starting on the 17th, only just rounded Buller’s extreme left flank at a point thirty miles from the railway on September 26. All eventually arrived at Pietersburg, which became henceforth a workshop, a recruiting-ground, and an administrative centre whence plans for future hostilities were hatched. One of the young leaders present—Kemp of Krugersdorp—was in later days the first to put in systematic use those formidable charging tactics which did so much to prolong the war.
It is one of the ironies of the campaign that, with all the elaborate and extensive flank movements of mounted troops—often far too extensive and elaborate—which had characterized our operations in the past, we had not ready at this crisis, when its presence was of vital consequence, a compact, independent mounted force for the interception of these important Boer detachments.
But, in truth, in spite of a week’s explicit warning of Botha’s intended march, his escape and that of Steyn passed almost unnoticed. All eyes were fixed on a spectacle of seemingly irreparable ruin; of abandoned guns, stores, and rolling-stock; of burghers flying into foreign territory; of Kruger and his officials flying to Europe. The army, from Roberts downwards, and the whole outside world, seems to have interpreted these phenomena as signs that the war was practically over. At the time this was very natural, and this we should not forget when criticizing the error of judgment by the light of after-events.
Nor would it have been easy, even had the warning of our political agents received full attention, to arrange for the interception of Botha in addition to the other pre-occupations of the time. Buller had two Cavalry brigades on the northern flank, but they were scattered over a long series of posts. A few hundred mounted riflemen were with the central Infantry column on the railway; but most of the remaining mounted troops, in two columns composed of 1,000 mounted riflemen under Hutton, and 3,000 Cavalry and mounted riflemen under French, both well supplied with guns and auxiliary troops, had been employed since the 8th in marching on parallel routes through the mountains on the southern flank in order to clear this side for the central advance of the Infantry up the railway. On September 13 both arrived at their respective goals—Hutton at Kaapsche Hoop, French at Barberton, the terminus of a small branch railway. Both these marches, but especially the southernmost—that of French—though they met with slight opposition, merit high praise, and were a worthy culmination of the efforts of the mounted troops during the regular war. It is true that they scarcely raise our special issue, or raise it only to afford us new evidence against the arme blanche, for the terrain—steep, wild, and intricate mountains—was as unsuitable for the exercise of that weapon as the hedge-bound plains of England. But we can afford for a moment to forget our immediate issue in admiring the staunch endurance of all the troops alike, the nerve, energy, and self-reliance of French, and the admirable staff-work which, by assuring supplies and communications, enabled him to give full rein to his soldierly instincts.