While these subalterns were distinguishing themselves at Zuurfontein, another—Williams-Freeman of the Cheshires—was having a warm time at Kaalfontein; but he, with the small garrison of 120, after fighting for six hours in a blizzard from the Mausers of the foe, succeeded in driving them off without sustaining a single casualty.
About this period Sir A. Milner was appointed Governor of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, retaining the High Commissionership; Sir W. Hely-Hutchinson, Governor of the Cape Colony; Sir Henry McCallum, Governor of Natal; and Major Goold Adams, Lieutenant-Governor of the Orange River Colony. The Secretary of State for War now authorised the enlistment of 5000 Imperial Yeomen to make up for the wastage which had occurred in that force at the front, and further contributions of troops were also invited from the colonies. The invitations, it is almost needless to say, were accepted with alacrity bordering on enthusiasm.
A few words must now be said on what may be called the Hospitals question. In consequence of grave allegations made by Mr. Burdett-Coutts (M.P. for Westminster) regarding the treatment of the sick and wounded in South Africa, the Government, on the 5th of July, decided to appoint a small Commission of three persons, afterwards increased to five, to report on the arrangements for the care and treatment of the sick and wounded during the campaign. The Commission, which consisted of Dr. Church, President of the College of Physicians; President Cunningham, of Trinity College, Dublin; Sir David Richmond (ex-Lord Provost of Glasgow); and Mr. Harrison, General Manager of the London and North-Western Railway, with Lord Justice Romer, went to South Africa, returned late in October, and concluded taking its evidence on the 5th of November.
Into the particulars of the inquiry it is impossible to enter; the sorry state of the mass of sufferers in Bloemfontein at the time of the epidemic has been described.[18] The utter impossibility of instantly remedying the evils and relieving the distress, while the bare life of the force depended on the supplies coming by train along a railway some 900 miles long, of which every bridge for the last 128 miles had been destroyed, was recognised by all who gave the matter practical thought. Still, in view of the charges made, which unrefuted, may live after those concerned have passed away and the good they have done has been “interred with their bones,” it may be as well to state that after pointing out defects, &c., in the care of the sick and wounded, the commissioners came to the following conclusion:—“Reviewing the campaign as a whole,” they said, “it has not been one where it can properly be said that the medical and hospital arrangements have broken down. There has been nothing in the nature of a scandal with regard to the care of the sick and wounded; no general or widespread neglect of patients, or indifference to their suffering.” All witnesses of experience in other wars were, the commissioners declared, “practically unanimous in the view that, taking it all in all, in no campaign have the sick and wounded been so well looked after as they have been in this.”
The report of the commissioners merely corroborated the views of all experienced men. The military and medical authorities could not have anticipated that the war would attain the proportions it did, and the Royal Army Medical Corps was insufficient in staff and equipment for the magnitude of the conflict. It was so constituted that the staff could not be suddenly enlarged or deficiencies instantly rectified. The deficiency in the staff of the corps before the war was, it was pointed out, not the fault of the Director-General and the staff of officers associated with him. They had, it is said, for a considerable time before the outbreak “urged on the military authorities the necessity for an increase of the corps, but for the most part without avail.”
RETURN OF THE CITY IMPERIAL VOLUNTEERS: ARRIVAL AT ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL
Drawing by Frank Dadd, R.I., and S. T. Dadd
The commissioners, while suggesting for future guidance various improvements and the correction of defects, declared in regard to the officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps that, as a whole, their “conduct and capacity deserve great praise”; while the civil surgeons as a body did their duty “extremely well.”
Taking in special consideration the state of affairs in hospital in Bloemfontein, respecting which most of the serious charges had been made, the commissioners, in stating where the conditions were unsatisfactory, pointed out that “there is nothing in them to justify any charge of inhumanity or of gross or wilful neglect, or of disregard for the sufferings of sick and wounded.” They went on to state:—
“There were some special allegations made by certain witnesses which we ought to refer to before we leave the subject of Bloemfontein. It is said that on one occasion twenty typhoid patients were improperly removed to the Portland Hospital. We have inquired into this allegation, and as a result we have to state that in our own opinion the removal was necessary in the interests of the patients. A gruesome story of a corpse being stuffed into a lavatory was mentioned by Mr. Burdett-Coutts, M.P., but he states that he only spoke of the matter from information given to him. Inquiry has been made in all quarters to find out whether there is any foundation for this allegation. No such case can be found to have occurred, either at Bloemfontein or elsewhere in South Africa, and we are satisfied that Mr. Burdett-Coutts was misled by his informant. Some observations have also been made with reference to the dead at Bloemfontein, as if the corpses, owing to their great number, were dealt with in a hurried or neglectful way. This is not the fact. In the first place the numbers of men dying in Bloemfontein have been overstated by some witnesses. There were not fifty deaths a day, the maximum was forty, and that only for one day. Each body was buried separately and with every respect and care, and each grave was numbered, and the number and name of the dead man registered.”