The telegraph was now restored as far as Reddersberg Railway, communication had been restored with Bethulie, and the railway at Norval’s Pont had been completed. In south and west peace reigned. There were even signs that the Transvaalers were thinking of abandoning the defence of the Free State. Friction between the Federals was reported on all sides. Even Mr. Steyn and Mr. Kruger were scarcely at one. Mr. Steyn’s last remark to the grand old man of Pretoria when they parted at Bloemfontein was, “Mind the British don’t catch you, or you will get better quarters in St. Helena than I.” Both Presidents were aware that the Commander-in-Chief was a person to be reckoned with, and that, if they wished to make a last wild effort, they must put their shoulder to the wheel. So on the 21st of March President Steyn and General Joubert went on a tour of inspection for the purpose of encouraging the troops. With them was a foreigner who described their movements. “The troops who are in laager at Venterburg, Roodstation, Zand River Bridge, and Smaldeel (Winburgroodstation), number only some 700 men, with a battery and six machine guns, all Transvaal Boers. The feeling was everywhere buoyant, and all were determined to hold out. To-day the Orange Boers begin to return after their leave. It looks as if they are recovering their breath after the Bloemfontein débâcle, and if the English wait much before they advance, the men will have time to reorganise themselves. Colonel De Villebois-Mareuil is now occupied with the scheme of organising a flying column of foreigners, to be called the ‘European Corps,’ of 600 men, two guns, and a waggon with dynamite and tools, with which he intends to operate on the English lines of communication, if possible in conjunction with Major Stenekamp, who has collected some 2000 men to the west, who are furnished with ammunition, stores, and money by General du Toit at Fourteen Streams. The English have indeed lost much valuable time; the next few weeks should show if the Boers have understood to take advantage of it. But there seems to be too little plan and too little organisation among them.”
The loss of time was deplored on all hands, but Lord Roberts, rather than do things imperfectly, was content to wait. There was no use in attempting to hammer at the demoralised Boers till, rail, horses, and constitutions being in working order, his tools should be equal to the task required of them.
But the Chief, though stationary, was not allowing the grass to grow under his feet. It must be remembered that prior to his entry into Bloemfontein he had been marching and fighting for a month away from the railway, and that his primary duties had been, first, to capture and secure the railroad; second, to repair it and get it, together with bridges, &c., in working order; and thirdly, to shift his base from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, a distance of 750 miles, by a single line of rails with a rise of 4500 feet. Much time had also been spent in defeating detached forces of the enemy which threatened his communications with Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, and blocked them from East London.
The question of horses, too, was a most important one, one which could not be settled without much delay, because, do what it might, the Government could scarcely send them off with sufficient haste to meet the demand. During the first four months of the new year there had been shipped, as remounts, in addition to those sent with the troops, 27,041 horses and 17,143 mules. A further supply was expected in May, consisting of 7500 horses and 4500 mules, and after that date another batch of 7500 horses and 20,000 mules was to be forwarded. The total of remounts bought since the opening of 1900 was about 42,000 horses and 23,000 mules! But, until the steady flow of these into the country commenced, the great final move could not be more than planned out.
STRATHCONA’S HORSE.
Photo by Pittaway, Ottawa.
The art of battle had resolved itself into a question of pace. The Boers had taught us that to be successful we must be slim, swift, and sudden. Lord Roberts decided that there must be no breathing-time, that their cunning commandos must not be permitted to collect, and that mounted troops must be met by mounted troops. It began to be evident that the army of the future would need to gallop—machine guns with the Horse Artillery, Royal Engineers with the cavalry, while guns of position and traction engines would have to follow a corresponding process of activity! With flying cavalry and mounted infantry must also go flying engineers, ready to take their share in schemes of scientific demolition, effective destruction of lines and culverts and bridges, which cannot be remedied under the loss of days—days which will mean the success or the failure of the enterprise in hand. In fact, hereafter a vast and wonderful military dictionary will be comprised in the word “mobility.”
To the ordinary mind the question of mobility resolves itself into a mere matter of mounted men. It is almost impossible to follow the extraordinary ramifications strategically and tactically connected with the term. To increase the mobility of the army—the problem which had to be faced by Lord Roberts on his arrival at the Cape and again at Bloemfontein—it was, above all things, imperative to have quicker moving transport; strategically, a leader would be hand-tied without it. After this it was necessary to provide for perpetual relays of mounts for the cavalry with far less weight on the saddle, and to feed up the infantry, and thus restore to the men their mental and muscular elasticity. Tactical mobility was dependent on these considerations, and they had to be faced equally with the great difficulty of how to deal with the daily increasing number of sick. The Boers had been given too much breathing-time at first, and the delay had to be made up for by the hurried and costly swoop on Cronje, which turned the tide of British fortune. It was now important that another rush should be made—a rush without the “intervals for refreshments” which had served the Boers so conveniently, and enabled their recuperative courage to assert itself—and to organise this a somewhat long halt was obligatory.
The Chief now intended to make the capital the advanced base for the invasion of the Transvaal, and decided to attempt no further move till sixty days’ supplies should have arrived from the Cape. The heterogeneous units of Imperial and Colonial troops now called for redistribution. Gaps had to be filled in and “inefficients” weeded out. General Warren was put into civil charge of Griqualand West; General Nicholson was given charge of the transport—a thankless and onerous post; General Chermside took over the Third Division from General Gatacre; General Hunter was drawn with Barton’s Brigade from Natal to the Free State side; Generals Pole-Carew and Rundle got Divisions; and General Ian Hamilton was appointed to the command of a Division of Mounted Infantry, 11,000 men in all, composed of two Brigades, each of four corps, with batteries of artillery attached. The remounting of the cavalry and Mounted Infantry was an undertaking needing time and help from all parts of the British world. Activities were not all serious, however.