With Roberts to Pretoria: A Tale of The South African War

by G. A. Henty

Yorke bowed and retired. He had no doubt that Lord Roberts would, as before, turn the Boers out of their positions by flanking movements, and that if a great battle were fought, it would be close to Pretoria, and he felt delighted at the thought of being with an expedition which the general evidently believed was likely to effect the relief of Mafeking.

That town had, since the day of the declaration of war by the Boers, been a cause of no little anxiety. As time went on, and the garrison continued to defend themselves heroically, the feeling at home heightened, until every scrap of news that came through was regarded with as much interest as the more important operations of the army.

Mafeking was a small town, and was chiefly known in Britain as the place from which the Jameson raid had started. It was the nearest point of the western railway to Pretoria, and was within a few miles of the Transvaal frontier. Unlike Kimberley, it contained no garrison of regular troops, the force consisting only of three hundred and forty men of the Protectorate Regiment, one hundred and seventy Police, and two hundred Volunteers. But fortunately, early in July, the military authorities at Cape Town had appointed Colonel Baden-Powell to organize a force of irregulars, both for the purpose of preventing any native rising in case of war, and as far as possible to defend the eastern border. The difficulty of such a task, owing to the extreme length of the frontier, had been recognized at once; and a better man could not have been chosen for the task. Baden-Powell had, a year before, taken a conspicuous part in the campaign against the Matabele; and before the outbreak began, had organized the Protectorate Regiment; while, under his orders, Colonel Plumer had raised a regiment in Rhodesia.

He saw that Mafeking was certain to be the first point of attack. It was but a hundred and fifty miles from Pretoria, and was the route through which the Boers would naturally pour into the colony, where the population was largely Dutch. He had chosen as his chief of staff Major Lord Edward Cecil, who arrived at the town on October 1, 1899, and set to work to prepare the town for defence, with Captain Williams and Captain Fitz-Clarence, Lord Charles Bentinck, and other officers.

The military authorities had sent up a certain amount of stores. These were quite inadequate for the purpose, and Baden-Powell and Lord Cecil took upon themselves the responsibility of ordering far larger supplies to be forwarded. They might have failed in obtaining these had it not been for the patriotism of Messrs. Weil & Co., one of the largest firms in South Africa. These accepted the order, although quite aware that the prices of all goods were advancing enormously, and furnished the supplies asked for. And thus the store of provisions was accumulated that enabled Mafeking to hold out for so many months.

But the requisitions for guns was not so promptly complied with. The Africander government of Cape Colony, whose sympathies were wholly with the Transvaal, pretended to doubt that there was any probability of war, and refused to send up the guns, and when at the last moment half a dozen small pieces of artillery were forwarded, they arrived too late and were unable to enter the place.

On Baden-Powell's arrival he organized the town guard, consisting of all white inhabitants capable of carrying guns, and even boys of from fourteen to sixteen were formed into a cadet corps for orderly duty. An armoured train was constructed and armed with a Maxim and Nordenfeldt, and mines were laid in a circle round the town.

Already several large commandos of Boers had appeared on the frontier, and whatever might be the opinion elsewhere, at Mafeking there was no question whatever that these men were only waiting for the declaration of war by Kruger to attack the town. On the day after the expiration of the time named in Kruger's ultimatum the railway was torn up forty miles south of the town, and an armoured train, bringing two seven-pounders for Mafeking, was thrown off the rails, and an artillery fire opened upon it. The officer who, with twenty men, was escorting the train, defended himself valiantly for five hours, but was then obliged to surrender. This was the first blood shed in the war.

The Boers had doubtless expected to enter the town with scarce any resistance. They were five thousand in number, and knew from their sympathizers in the place that, including the town guard, its defenders amounted to only nine hundred men, with two seven-pounder guns and six machine-guns. The difficulties of the besieged lay chiefly in the fact that Mafeking, though but a small town, was scattered over a very large area, and that the defences were naturally erected some distance outside the circuit. These defences were planned by Colonel Vyvyan and Major Panzera.