To resume our historical survey, we find the Boers of the Eastern Transvaal charging again under Viljoen at Mooifontein (May 25, 1901), against a convoy column, very ably and steadily handled by Colonel Gallwey. Though Viljoen’s attacks failed, it is to be noted that he suffered little loss.
Then comes a long gap of four months, during which the drought of the South African winter compelled the Boers to remain for the most part on the defensive. At the end of September, 1901, with the first spring grass, Botha took the field for the raid on Natal to which I have already alluded. His first contact with British troops came at Blood River Poort (September 17), near the Natal frontier, and 100 miles from his starting-point in the Eastern Transvaal. Here by a skilful stratagem he decoyed into an exposed position[[54]] a body of 300 mounted riflemen, and then, charging down on their flank in one lightning stroke, put out of action nearly 50 men, captured 3 guns, and forced a general surrender within ten minutes. Curiously enough, our own force, when the calamity happened, had just attempted something in the nature of a charge, in order to overwhelm the small Boer detachment which was acting as decoy—not a charge “home,” but a rapid ride over open ground into close range. They had just dismounted to open fire when Botha fell on them. The incident shows how useless mere audacity and dash are, unless founded on careful reconnaissance.
We paid dearly for the hesitations and delays which marked our attempts to envelop Botha on his long and perilous return journey from Natal. He had held from the first, and maintained to the last, a moral ascendency which took effect at the end of October (a fortnight after his return), in one of the most remarkable Boer successes of the guerilla war, and in one of the chief examples of the charge. This was at Bakenlaagte on October 30, 1901.[[55]] At this time Colonel Benson was operating independently in the midst of the “high veld” of the Eastern Transvaal. His vigorous night raids upon laagers (alluded to in the previous chapter) had exasperated the burghers to the last degree. Long on the look-out for vengeance, they seized upon Botha’s return to make an appeal to him for co-operation. Botha, at the moment, was seventy miles away to the east. By forced marching, rapid and thoroughly screened, he appeared on the field of Bakenlaagte at exactly the right moment, bringing a reinforcement whose strength must be regarded as doubtful, but which, at the utmost, did not exceed 500.[[56]] Probably the whole Boer force on the field was about 1,000. Benson’s total strength was 1,600 riflemen, of whom 650 were Infantry, and 6 guns.
The tactical and topographical conditions were closely similar to those of Vlakfontein. At 2 p.m. a rear-guard of 380 mounted riflemen (this time seasoned soldiers of the regular Mounted Infantry, Scottish Horse, etc.), a company of Infantry, and 2 guns, were retiring towards camp. Other mounted detachments and guns were still out on the flanks. The main body of Infantry were either in camp or on their way to it. The weather was wet and misty, the terrain open and undulating. While demonstrating vigorously all round the perimeter of defence, Botha ordered a charge against the rear-guard. The Boers, shouting and firing from the saddle, swept over a mile and a half of ground, overwhelming the company of Infantry, catching and capturing the rearmost, or “covering” sections of mounted riflemen, and stopped just short of the crest of an elevation, afterwards known as Gun Hill, where the guns and the remainder of the mounted riflemen had hurriedly taken post. Here the Boers flung themselves from their ponies, and engaged our men at close quarters (barely thirty yards distance) on foot. The resistance they met with was magnificent. The defending force had to be almost literally exterminated before the hill was won and the guns captured.
This action reveals in a pointed way the gulf which divides arme blanche charges from rifle charges. In the former you must charge home, at all costs, and whatever the nature of the ground. There is no place in the arme blanche scheme for an assault like that at Bakenlaagte, where the Boers, with instinctive dexterity and rapidity, converted themselves in a flash from horsemen into footmen at the right place and moment, using the dead ground at the foot of Gun Hill for the protection of their horses during the fire-fight. When the charge began I do not suppose that one of them knew under what conditions of ground it would end. The ridge was of gentle gradient and of unobstructed surface, but, supposing that it had been of a sharp gradient and encumbered with boulders, these conditions would have made but little difference to the efficacy of the foot-attack, and might very well have assisted it. To an arme blanche charge they would have been fatal. (Cf. the Dronfield incident, p. 113.) The same principle will hold good in every sort of future war, and particularly in European wars, where open, undulating plains like those of the “high veld” are extremely rare. To one opportunity for an arme blanche charge there will be a hundred for rifle charges.
An intermediate example of charging, which illustrates this point about ground, was given at the small, but sad episode of Tafel Kop in the Free State (December 20, 1901), where the crest of the hill on which our troops (90 men and 3 guns) were posted, was in fact steep, boulder-strewn, and impracticable for horses.[[57]]
The Eastern Transvaalers are found charging again with damaging effect in the actions of Holland (December 19, 1901), and Bank Kop (January 4, 1902).[[58]] The latter was the case of a counter-charge under circumstances very similar to those of Blood River Poort. Their last exploit of this nature was on April 1, 1902, at Boschman’s Kop, the only occasion, I think, during the guerilla war where regular Cavalry (though unequipped with steel weapons) were concerned. The regiment, 312 strong, with 40 National Scouts, in the course of a night raid, stumbled upon a concentration of about 800 Boers (I cannot guarantee the numbers, but give the maximum estimate), who had gathered together to discuss the question of peace. The surprise for the moment was complete, and the Boers scattered in all directions; but rallied later in considerable force and engaged the Cavalry, who had retired to a position about a mile away. The attack was vehement, with frequent charges into close range, which were repelled with equal gallantry. At last the Cavalry flank was turned, and our men had to retire. As long as defensible positions were available the retreat was steady and methodical, but the last few miles to camp were a dead-level plain, over which pursuers and pursued rode as hard as they could, until reinforcements and Artillery fire from the British camp checked the Boers. In the whole affair, which was galling, but not in the least discreditable to the Cavalry, they had seventy-seven casualties, and there is no question that a considerable number of men succumbed to saddle-fire during the pursuit whom no steel weapon could have reached. The complaint, it is said, was raised by some of those present that they had been crippled by the removal of their swords, and that if they had carried them the result would have been different. The regiment had only recently arrived in South Africa: otherwise the mere hint of such a complaint would make one despair of reform. During something like a year and three-quarters of war the Cavalry had had countless opportunities—if they existed—of showing the superior value of the arme blanche in first producing and then taking advantage of circumstances tactically similar to these. The point is, that it was impossible to force the Boers to accept combat on the terms required by steel. It was the rifle which settled the nature of combats. The Boers had conducted the original fire-fight in loose formation, and they pursued in loose “swarm” formation. Consider the futility of our endeavouring, at any phase, to mass into shock formation, with nothing whatever upon which to exert shock, only to present a helplessly vulnerable target. If we did not form close shock formation, we abandoned, as I have repeatedly pointed out, the whole raison d’être of the steel weapon. Individual swordsmen, separated by wide intervals, are outmatched by capable riflemen, mounted or dismounted. It is a cruel injustice to our Cavalry to teach them otherwise.
De la Rey’s district, the Western Transvaal, may be considered as having been the true birthplace of the charge, and it was here, during the last period of the war, that it reached its highest development. At Kleinfontein[[59]] (October 24, 1901) Kemp galloped down upon the centre of a column on the march, threw the convoy into confusion, and captured a dozen waggons, then whirled down upon the rear-guard, and inflicted severe loss upon it, taking temporary possession of two guns, which, for lack of teams, the burghers were unable to remove. The remnants of our men made a splendid resistance, and reinforcements eventually drove the Boers off. In this action we find the first mention of the use of successive lines of horsemen for charging.
At Yzer Spruit (February 25, 1902) De la Rey ambuscaded and captured entire a convoy-column, using the mounted charge freely at the crisis of the action; and ten days later, at the sad disaster of Tweebosch (March 7, 1902), the same General (using three successive charging lines) routed Methuen’s mounted troops, who in this case were of a very heterogeneous and unstable kind, and forced a general surrender of the column. In the stirring action of Boschbult (March 31, 1902), the defeat of part of our flank screen by a determined Boer charge caused for a short time an exceedingly critical situation. Later in the day, when Cookson’s force was concentrated and entrenched, Liebenberg led a plucky charge against some farm-buildings adequately held by riflemen. This was a daring departure from the rules governing such attacks, and Liebenberg paid for it in a sharp repulse.[[60]]
But the most dramatic and interesting of the Boer charges was reserved for the last important action of the war, that of Roodewal (April 11, 1902). It failed, but the cause, manner, and results of its failure are full of instruction. I wish I had space to recount the episode in full; but I can only sketch what happened, and ask the reader to refer for a full account to chapter xix. (section iv.) of the fifth volume of the Times History.