Accompanied by Mrs. Cronje, he was sent to Cape Town in a covered waggon, guarded by a special convoy under the command of Colonel Pretyman. There was considerable pathos in the scene of departure, for many of the other prisoners had gone through the ordeal of the bombardment with their wives by their sides, and these, less fortunate than Mrs. Cronje, had to be left behind!
The majority of people, it must be owned, were horrorstruck at the consideration shown to one to whom the word consideration was an empty name. A Scottish Colonial, writing home, expressed his irritation at the mode in which warfare was conducted. He said: “Cronje is now a hero, housed in the Admiral’s cabin on board the Doris. He is probably saying, ‘What fools the British are.’ For, give him a chance, and he would commit again the treacherous murders for which he has been responsible in the past with as little compunction as he would feel at putting his heel on a scorpion. I wonder if we may take this bit of foolishness as an indication of the way in which England is going to settle up finally with the Republics. Her policy has so often before ended in weakness that one cannot help feeling nervous.”
He was merely one of a thousand who argued that it was impossible to go to war with kid-gloves on, and who regretted the terms of the proclamation which had been made on the entry of Lord Roberts to the Free State. This proclamation, which will be discussed anon, was another of the nineteenth-century humanitarian movements which were mistakenly applied to seventeenth-century comprehension. To return to the events of Majuba day.
Lord Roberts subsequently visited the Boer laager, and testified his admiration of the ingenuity and energy with which the position was made almost impregnable to assault. In spite of ten days’ bombardment by over fifty guns and howitzers, the number of Boer wounded was said to amount to only 160—a fact which went to prove that the power of artillery can be broken by the ingenious use of the spade. The entrenchments, when examined, proved to be most skilfully contrived, with narrow mouths some eighteen inches wide, and wide bases, some quite three feet broad, which rendered them almost impregnable to shell fire.
The effect of the bombardment was terrific. The laager presented an appearance of black chaos, varied only by streaks of yellow, which told of the gambols of lyddite. Waggons were wrecked with shrapnel; some had ceased to exist; rings and twists and girandoles of distorted metal were all that was left of them. Within the laager was a decaying, disordered mass of Boer belongings, saddles innumerable, karosses and panniers, coats and feminine apparel, fragments of old tin trunks, and 2,000,000 rounds of ammunition; wreckage of all sorts, united by the super-evident, unavoidable, and persistent bonds of stench, which permeated everything, weaving visible and invisible in one noxious nightmare of the senses.
Round this arena of pestilence sentries were posted. It was necessary to prevent loot, though little of value remained save munitions of war. Most of the Boer property had been left behind in the hurried rush from Majersfontein and Spyfontein. Still the locality had to be guarded, and the guards, as well as all who approached, had to pocket their sensibilities. Indeed, it was a marvel how the Boers had managed to exist in the pestilential atmosphere that pervaded the river-bed. Dotted everywhere, or collected in heaps, already rotting in the tropical heat, were the remains of horses, mules, and cattle, some of which had been driven to death, while others had been hurried there by the voice of our howitzers or the rain of our rifle fire. In the fringe of this atmosphere our troops had lived for some three days past, for nightly they had advanced some fifty to an hundred yards nearer the laager, and there dug trenches and located themselves, till, at the end, the last three nights were passed almost within pistol-shot of the enemy and in the thick of a stench whose opacity was well-nigh suffocating.
An interesting account of his enforced stay in the laager was given by a trooper in Kitchener’s Horse, who was taken prisoner on the day previous to the great battle which settled Cronje’s fate. He had become separated from the rest of his troop while scouting along the Modder River. When he looked round for his friends, he found himself surrounded by a party of Boers, who, jumping from the bushes, fired upon him. His horse was shot and rolled over upon the young trooper, carrying him with him into the river. The Boers rescued him, relieved him of his bandolier, and made him prisoner. Together they went to the laager. “There,” the trooper said, “I was taken before Commandant Cronje, who asked me our strength and movements. On my replying that I was only a trooper, and did not know, he said, ‘Oh, never mind; if you don’t want to tell me, I shall not try to make you.’ A guard was placed over me, and we stayed the night in the laager. I should say there were about 6000 Dutchmen all told, and forty women and children. A great many among them were Irishmen, a few Scotchmen; in short, almost every nation was more or less numerously represented. All that night they were busy entrenching themselves, employing a great deal of native labour to help them.” Through the whole of the 18th of February the young man endured the bombardment, which he described as so heavy that it was impossible to remain in the laager, and consequently all, even the women and children, took refuge in the trenches. The Boers’ mode of firing he specially made a note of: “The Boers did not in the least mind our attack, and laughed amongst themselves as they saw the men advancing. They allowed them to come up to about 600 yards from the trenches, and then opened a tremendous fire from their rifles. It did not seem to be aimed at any particular man, but more at a certain fixed distance. At that they fired as fast as they could. The range was obtained by a few fixed shots, who fired, watched the dust caused by the strike of the bullets, and then gave out the range. Our men came up to within 150 yards and then retired. They fired volleys at the longer distances, but all their fire seemed to me to be short.” Each day there were losses, but comparatively few, as the bottle-shaped trenches afforded excellent cover; those that fell, however, were buried where they lay. He went on to say that “The shelling of Monday night destroyed several waggons, two of which were on either side of Cronje’s own. No one could have been braver than he was. He stood upon the waggon-step, field-glasses in hand, and did not seem to care in the least how thickly the shells and bullets fell. Many of the Free Staters, however, were quite the reverse, and were in a great state of terror when the bombardment began. The ammunition waggons blew up, and several of the provision waggons were burned. The shrapnel killed the majority of the horses and cattle, which had no shelter but the banks of the river. Beyond that the fire did little real damage.” The prisoner declared his belief that “could they have kept their laager out of fire they would never have surrendered. The loss of the provision waggons was what caused them to give in. They had only four days’ food left. Their ammunition was still plentiful. After the explosion of the ammunition waggons by shell-fire on February 19, all the remaining cartridges were distributed throughout the trenches, and on the south side every trench was still full of unused ammunition. Everything was done in the trenches, even the cooking, each individual having with him a box of provisions sunk into the ground. These boxes were replenished at night as there was no possibility of reaching the laager during the day.”
Lord Roberts addressed the Canadians, and expressed his satisfaction and appreciation of the splendid work they had done and the courage they had shown. To them he attributed the greater share in the Boer surrender. All were delighted at the attention shown the heroic Colonials, who had done splendid work, and at the exhibition of Lord Roberts’ tact and kindliness in thus singling out the Canadians for the position of honour. In the Jubilee of 1897 the Field-Marshal had told the Colonial Bodyguard that he would like to have them with him if he were ever in another campaign, and now the Canadians felt that the Chief’s cherished words had been no mere formula, and that they had been given the chance to distinguish themselves that they had so eagerly desired.
To General Colvile was given the credit of inventing the order of attack which at last brought the Boers to their senses. He arranged that the first rank should advance, bayonets fixed, till the enemy opened fire. Then they were to lie down and continue to fire on the Boers, while Engineers and the second line dug a trench. The trench thus made was within eighty yards of those of the Boers, and owing to its trefoil shape, the troops were able to enfilade both the river and northern trenches of the enemy and make them untenable. From their point in the original trench the Gordon Highlanders kept up a brisk fire, while the Shropshire Light Infantry, who were posted over a thousand yards to the north-west of the position, co-operated.
In the very successful attack on the enemy’s trenches the Royal Canadian Contingent lost seven killed and twenty-nine wounded. Major Pelletier, who commanded the French company, foremost of the three companies, was wounded, and also Lieutenant Armstrong. It is interesting to note that few of this gallant company of Great Britain’s defenders could speak English!