Hospitals, where so many virtues too tender for the airs of the outside world have time to bloom, are generally attractive rather than repulsive places, and I was on that account the more surprised to find myself repelled by these field-hospitals. To see men lying about distorted, impotent, disfigured by all kinds of fantastic deformities, their wounds still new, themselves lying near the spot where they fell; and to remember the cause of it all, and how vague that cause really was to the men who were suffering for it; the grossness and brutality of mutilation—here a man with lead in his bowels, there a man with his face obliterated, one man groaning and spitting from bleeding lungs, another, struck by a great piece of flying iron, silent under the shock of news that his sight was gone for ever; the feeling that these men were suffering on our account, and the realisation that every one of us has had his share in the responsibility for the whole, makes a load that one cannot, or should not, slough away in a moment.
VII
MAGERSFONTEIN AND KIMBERLEY
There was a train going to Kimberley with cattle and forage on the afternoon of Thursday, February 22nd, and the stagnation of everything except dust at Modder being complete, I jumped on the twenty-ninth truck as the engine was taking up the slack of the couplings and was immediately jerked forward on the newly-mended road to the north. I had nothing with me except what I stood in and a waterproof; but as the journey of twenty-four miles occupied four hours, and as the heavens poured down a deluge during three hours and twenty-five minutes of the time I was glad to have even that. The line passes beside Magersfontein and through gaps in six ridges behind it, affording an excellent view of the whole position. That position seemed to me practically impregnable. To have won a way to Kimberley upon this road would probably have meant six bloody battles, always with the likelihood of a reverse after each for the attacking army. Imagine a wide and perfectly level plain with a ridge standing straight across it like a great railway embankment, but with arms at each end curving towards the front as the arms of a trench are curved; behind the ridge, and higher, two or three kopjes which command it; behind the kopjes another ridge like the first, with more kopjes to command it; the same thing repeated half a dozen times, without another eminence within fifteen miles. Imagine this, and you see the country between Modder River and Kimberley. And throughout the position every piece of open ground was slashed and seamed by trenches and works, constructed as though for the inspection of an examiner in engineering—beautiful, artistic, formidable work that filled the mind of every British officer who saw it with envy and admiration. Behind the hills were little huts and hiding-places contrived within the shadow of the low, thick trees that grow there, so that not a soul lived out of cover. Captain Austin, R.A., who shared the humidity of my truck, and who had been in charge of a 6-inch field-gun trained on Magersfontein at eight thousand yards, told me that he could see through his glasses the whole working of the enemy's admirable system. They had a look-out man sitting at the far end of a long tunnel of rock and stone; when we fired he gave the signal, and the Boers got into cover; and twenty seconds afterwards, when our shell, beautifully aimed and timed, arrived on the hill, it spent itself upon the flinty rock. Then the Boers showed their heads and fired; and their shell swept through its arc and exploded, generally finding its mark.
The battle of Magersfontein has been the subject of more prolonged discussion than any other single event in the war. Coming on the day after our reverse at Stormberg, it completed the momentary demoralisation of a great mass of people at home who had expected the campaign to resolve itself into a sweeping march on Pretoria. Like the affair of Majuba, it has been sentimentally magnified out of all proportion to its military importance. On the strength of the emotions roused by our disaster, thousands graduated as military critics and cried aloud for the recall of Lord Methuen. Private soldiers with shattered nerves wrote home hysterical narratives and criticisms which were published and commented upon, and treated as valuable evidence. We lost our heads for the moment; there is no doubt of that; but people who are thus betrayed into panic will not be appeased until they have made a scapegoat of someone. Lord Methuen was, of course, the obvious sacrifice. Why did he make a frontal attack? Why did he fail?
It is well to remember that Lord Methuen was being pressed to relieve Kimberley, which represented its case as extreme. He must do something. Naturally he designed the kind of attack which the forces at his disposal were best suited to deliver. A long turning movement was out of the question since he had not the mounted men for it. As for the "frontal attack" at Magersfontein, of which we have heard so much, Lord Methuen never designed and did not deliver a direct frontal attack. His plan was to surprise the extreme left of Cronje's position, and at the same time contain the whole of his front with a strong force. And no competent critic has ventured to suggest any better disposal of the forces then available for the purposes of attack. No, Lord Methuen has not been criticised and abused because he used his force in one way rather than in another, but simply because he failed.
There is very often more to be learned from a failure than a success, and this particular failure is worthy of a little study. Everyone knows that the reason why the attack on Magersfontein failed was, first, because the Highland Brigade lost its way and came unexpectedly into contact with the enemy's position, and, secondly, because they failed to rally after the first confusion, when (in the opinion of many experts who were present) a little confidence would probably have saved the day. If any single precaution was neglected, if any pains were spared in the reconnoitring of the position or in securing the proper conduct of the troops towards the place from which their attack was to be delivered, then Lord Methuen was absolutely to blame. But the more that is known about this unfortunate affair the more clearly it will be seen that Lord Methuen neglected no precaution and spared no pains. The rain and pitch darkness were the act of God, and no general in the world can prevail when Nature is so completely in league with the enemy as she was on the night of Magersfontein.
I do not care to dwell on the malice and cruel unfairness of many of the attacks on Lord Methuen, because, for my country's sake, I hope they will soon be forgotten; but if anyone should still suppose that these great hysterical waves of public feeling select their victims impartially, I would ask him to compare the battle of Magersfontein with the fruitless attack delivered by Lord Kitchener on the Paardeberg laager on February 18th. In one case time was working against Lord Methuen, and threatening to exhaust the endurance of Kimberley; in the other case time was working with Lord Kitchener, limiting the resistance of Cronje to a calculable number of days and hours. In one case there was a small force which, owing to the nature of its composition, could only be used in one way; in the other case there was a large and splendidly-assorted force, which gave opportunity for an infinite variety of combinations. In one case the attack was turned by circumstances which no human being could have prevented into a frontal contact; in the other case that form of attack was deliberately chosen. In one case the casualties were about nine hundred; in the other, about sixteen hundred. And in one case the general officer commanding has been insulted and attacked and defamed, while the officer responsible for the second affair is still regarded by the masses as a consummate master of field operations.