Hlangwhane, the eastern horn of that amphitheatre, which, with its included area, formed the Boer position, lies on the southern bank of the river; and, as soon as the occupation of Chieveley by Barton's brigade denied the use of the Colenso bridges to the enemy, was for the time only accessible to the Boers by two bridle drifts near the rapids. It was not until after the Colenso fight that a bridge was thrown across the river near its junction with the Langewacht Spruit. The northern portion of the hollow of the amphitheatre is crossed from west to east by the Onderbrook Spruit. The Colenso kopjes. To the south of this spruit stand the Colenso kopjes, described by Sir Redvers as "four lozenge-shaped, steep-sided, hog-backed hills, each, as it is further from the river, being higher and longer than the next inner one."[221] The southernmost of these kopjes, Fort Wylie. Fort Wylie, had been used as a bridge-head by the British troops prior to their retirement from the Tugela. The Onderbrook road to Ladysmith runs north-west from the bridge across the arena of the amphitheatre and then ascends through the steep gorge of Grobelaar's Kloof, a defile of forbidding appearance. The other road and railway run north, following at first the general trend of the great bend of the Tugela, then penetrating the mass of hills and making their way eventually into the Klip valley.
The river as known, and unknown to the staff.
In this section of the Tugela, the only crossings which seem to have been known to Sir Redvers Buller's staff, before the battle, were the two bridges, the drifts immediately above and below that over which the road passes, and the "Bridle Drift" four miles up stream to the south-east of E. Robinson's farm. There were other fords which will be mentioned later; but the river, in consequence of the difficulty of approaching it, had not been systematically reconnoitred, nor had the known drifts been tested, although, as elsewhere in South Africa, they are subject to sudden variations, here dependent on the rainfall in the Drakensberg. The Tugela is, as a rule, fordable at this season of the year at the regular passages, and has an average breadth of some 120 to 150 yards. The banks, fringed in places with low bushes, are near Colenso twenty feet above the summer level of water. Immediately to the south and to the south-west of the bridges the ground runs down to the bank in gentle glacis-like slopes, which, except where the Doornkop Spruit and a few dongas traverse them, afford no cover to troops advancing towards the river. East of the railway the terrain is more broken, and the fringe of bush country is soon reached. For this reason, but still more on account of its isolation on the south bank of the river, Hlangwhane Hill, which looked down on the Colenso kopjes, was tactically weak and has generally been regarded as the true key of the whole position. Nevertheless, even if Hlangwhane and the crossings close to Colenso had been captured, only one stage of the task would have been accomplished. Further severe fighting would have been necessary before the defiles and the very difficult country to the north-west or north could have been forced.
The Boer defences.
The whole of the mountain redoubt had been elaborately fortified under the personal direction of General Louis Botha. A special commission, consisting of Generals Erasmus and Prinsloo, had been nominated by a Krijgsraad, held on 2nd December, to supervise the defence arrangements on the Tugela, but the commission made but one inspection and Louis Botha was given practically a free hand. Three weeks of incessant labour had been spent on this task, the work being continued up to the very eve of the battle. The trenches had been constructed with remarkable ingenuity, so as to be almost invisible from the south bank. They ran for the most part along the lower slopes of the great hills on the west and across the flats round which circled the amphitheatre. The only part of these defences which caught the eye from the far side of the river were the tiers of entrenchments covering the Colenso kopjes, and especially Fort Wylie. Emplacements had been constructed in many more places than there were guns available to fill them, and, in order to ensure that the exact positions from which shells would be actually thrown should be unknown to the British commander, the guns were shifted from gun-pit to gun-pit the night before the battle. The artillery at the disposal of General Botha was far less numerous than that of his opponent. On the day of the fight a 120 m/m howitzer was mounted on the crest of Vertnek (or Red Hill) on the right, a field gun being posted lower down on its south-eastern slope. Two field guns were placed in pits in proximity to the western Ladysmith road. This group of four guns was intended to command the crossings in, and near, the western salient loop of the river, including the Bridle Drift, a mile to the west of that loop. Four or five 75 m/m field guns and one or two pom-poms, posted on the Colenso kopjes, swept the bridges and drifts in front. The whole of these guns were under the command of Captain Pretorius, Transvaal Staats Artillerie. Their occupation. General Botha had placed his riflemen as follows:—on his right, which extended to the west of H. Robinson's farm, was stationed the Winburg commando of Free Staters under van der Merwe, supported by detachments of Ben Viljoen's Johannesburgers, and of the Middelburg commando; east of these, men of the Zoutpansberg, Swaziland, and Ermelo commandos, under the orders of Christian Botha, continued the line to the head of the western loop of the Tugela, where a donga enters the river on its left bank. The eastern face of this loop was also manned by portions of the Ermelo, Standerton, and Middelburg corps. The ground intervening between the two re-entrants was considered to be sufficiently protected by the unfordable river in its front, save that a small detachment was posted in the building shown as "Barn" on map No. [15], thus acting as a connecting link. The centre, facing the Colenso crossings, was very strongly held. Here lay the Boksburg and Heidelberg commandos, the Johannesburg Police, and the burghers of Vryheid and Krugersdorp districts, the two last-named units being placed in the trenches along the flats immediately in front of Fort Wylie. Neither on the centre nor on the right were there any men posted to the south of the river. The story of the Boers on Hlangwhane. 1st stage. The story of the successive changes in the garrison of the eastern extremity of the crescent of hills, across the river on the left of the Boer position, is a curious one, and shows forcibly how much the element of chance at times influences the operations of war. From the 30th November to the 13th December, Hlangwhane, which was known to the Boers as "the Boschkop," had been occupied by part of the Wakkerstroom commando under a commandant named Dirksen. A Boer deserter informed Sir Redvers' Field Intelligence department on the 9th December that the strength of this detachment was then about 700; but the real numbers were not more than 400 to 500. The arrival of Barton's brigade at Chieveley intimidated the commando, and on the night of the 13th the burghers, against Dirksen's orders, withdrew across the river. Botha at first acquiesced in this abandonment, but Dirksen himself telegraphed to Kruger what had happened. "If we give this Kop over to the enemy," he added, "then will the battle expected at Colenso end in disaster."
2nd stage.
The acting commandant-general, Schalk Burger, supported Dirksen's appeal,[222] and, as a result, a Krijgsraad was held the same evening, at which, with the concurrence of General Botha, it was unanimously resolved that Hlangwhane should be re-occupied. A fresh garrison about 800 strong, chosen by lot from the Middelburg, Ermelo, Standerton, Wakkerstroom and Zoutpansberg commandos, was therefore placed under the orders of Commandant J. J. Joubert, and moved to the hill during the night of the 14th. The burghers, on whom this duty fell, accepted it with much reluctance as they feared that they would be cut off from their main body. In a Boer official telegram dispatched during the battle of the 15th, Hlangwhane was referred to as "the dangerous position."
The Boers hide themselves and reserve their fire.
The details of the Boers' line of battle would have been difficult to discover even by the fullest reconnaissance and by the best trained Intelligence department. General Louis Botha was so sanguine of success that he had even proposed at a Krijgsraad, on 9th December, that a detachment of burghers should be sent again across the river to entice the British troops to advance against the prepared positions; but the Council held that this device was unnecessary, as the British commander was "bound to attack, and it was thought better to await the attack." The Boer commander so fully realised the advantage of reserved fire, that, giving effect to a telegram from General Piet Joubert,[223] he had issued stringent orders to ensure that his men indulged in no casual shots. He made no reply whatever to a heavy bombardment maintained by the British Naval guns during the 13th and 14th December, intended to compel him to disclose his dispositions. The same system of silence was to be adopted when the real attack was delivered. Not a shot was to be fired against the British advance until he himself had given the signal by firing the great howitzer. He even hoped to be able to allow portions of the attacking columns to cross the river, and there to overwhelm them utterly by well-sustained fire at close range. The use of the Naval guns on the 13th and 14th and the accumulation at Chieveley, had convinced General Botha that a frontal attack was about to be made. Although his burghers were anxious, and even inclined to be despondent, Botha himself hoped not only to repulse the British troops, but also to envelop them with counter-attacks, from Hlangwhane on the east and the Wagon Drift on the west.
The army, in full view of the Boers, gathers for the fray.