The news of this affair was received with horror, and the feelings roused by the details of it have never been allayed. Race-hatred may have its origin in a hundred little incidents, but in the Transvaal there were two which undoubtedly, whether justly or otherwise, gave a character to the Boers that has embittered feeling against them more than any which had occurred in generations previous. The second affair followed very closely on the Bronkhorst Spruit engagement—i.e., the infamous murder of Captain Elliott, the only surviving unwounded officer from Bronkhorst Spruit. Captains Elliott and Lambert were taken prisoners, and were offered the choice of two alternatives—either to remain prisoners of war during the hostilities in the Transvaal, or to be released on parole d'honneur on condition that they should leave the Transvaal at once, cross into the Free State under escort, and not bear arms against the Republican Government during the war. The second alternative was chosen. They received an escort and free pass from Commandant-General Piet Joubert. The following is extracted from Captain Lambert's Report to Sir George Colley on January 5:
We started about 1 p.m. from the Boer camp, passing through the town of Heidelberg. After going about six to eight miles, I noticed we were not going the right road, and mentioned the fact to the escort, who said it was all right. Having been 'look-out' officer in the Transvaal, I knew the district well. I was certain we were going wrong, but we had to obey orders. At nightfall we found ourselves nowhere near the river drift, and were ordered to outspan for the night, and next morning the escort told us they would look for the drift. Inspanning at daybreak, we again started, but after driving about for some hours across country, I told the escort we would stop where we were while they went to search for the drift. Shortly after they returned and said they had found it, and we must come, which we did, eventually arriving at the junction of two rivers (Vaal and Klip), where we found the Vaal impassable, but a small punt, capable of holding only two passengers at most, by which they said we must cross. I pointed out that it was impossible to get my carriage or horses over by it, and that it was not the punt the General said we were to cross. The escort replied it was Pretorius's punt that the General told them to take us, and we must cross; that we must leave the carriage behind and swim the horses, which we refused to do, as we then should have had no means of getting on. I asked them to show me their written instructions, which they did (written in Dutch), and I pointed out that the name of Pretorius was not in it. I then told them they must either take us back to the Boer camp again or on to the proper drift. We turned back, and after going a few miles the escort disappeared. Not knowing where we were, I proposed to Captain Elliott we should go to the banks of the Vaal, and follow the river till we came to the proper punt. After travelling all Monday, Tuesday, and up till Wednesday about 1 p.m., when we found ourselves four hours, or twenty-five miles, from Spencer's punt, we were suddenly stopped by two armed Boers, who handed us an official letter, which was opened, and found to be from the Secretary to the Republican Government, stating that the members were surprised that, as officers and gentlemen, we had broken our parole d'honneur, and refused to leave the Transvaal; that if we did not do so immediately by the nearest drift, which the bearers would show us, we must return as prisoners of war; that as through our ignorance of the language of the country there might be some misunderstanding, they were loth to think we had willingly broken our promise. We explained that we should reply to the letter, and request them to take it to their Government, and were prepared to go with them at once. They took us back to a farmhouse, where we were told to wait until they fetched their commandant, who arrived about 6 p.m., and repeated to us the same that was contained in our letter of that day. We told him we were ready to explain matters, and requested him to take our answer back to camp. He then ordered us to start at once for the drift. I asked him, as it was then getting dark, if we could start early next morning, but he refused. So we started, he having said we should cross at Spencer's, being closest. As we left the farmhouse, I pointed out to him that we were going in the wrong direction; but he said, 'Never mind; come on across a drift close at hand.' When we got opposite it, he kept straight on; I called to him, and said that this was where we were to cross. His reply was, 'Come on!' I then said to Captain Elliott, 'They intend taking us back to Pretoria,' distant some forty miles. Suddenly the escort (which had all at once increased from two to eight men, which Captain Elliott pointed out to me; and I replied, 'I suppose they are determined we shall not escape, which they need not be afraid of, as we are too keen to get over the border') wheeled sharp down to the river, stopped, and, pointing to the banks, said, 'There is the drift—cross!' I drove my horses into the river, when they immediately fell; lifted them, and drove on about five or six yards, when we fell into a hole. Got them out with difficulty, and advanced another yard, when we got stuck against a rock. The current was now so strong and drift deep, my cart was turned over on to its side, and water rushed over the seat. I called out to the commandant on the bank that we were stuck and to send assistance, or might we return, to which he replied, 'If you do, we will shoot you.' I then tried, but failed, to get the horses to move. Turning to Captain Elliott, who was sitting beside me, I said, 'We must swim for it'; and asked could he swim, to which he replied, 'Yes.' I said, 'If you can't, I will stick to you, for I can.' While we were holding this conversation, a volley from the bank, ten or fifteen yards off, was fired into us, the bullets passing through the tent of my cart, one of which must have mortally wounded poor Elliott, who only uttered the single word 'Oh!' and fell headlong into the river from the carriage. I immediately sprang in after him, but was swept down the river under the current some yards. On gaining the surface of the water, I could see nothing of Elliott, but I called out his name twice, but received no reply. Immediately another volley was fired at me, making the water hiss around where the bullets struck. I now struck out for the opposite bank, which I reached with difficulty in about ten minutes; but as it was deep, black mud, on landing I stuck fast, but eventually reached the top of the bank, and ran for about two hundred yards under a heavy fire the whole while.
The Boers then invaded Natal and took up a position on Laing's Nek, four miles inside the Natal border, from which, on January 28, Sir George Colley endeavoured to oust them with a mounted force of 70 men and some 500 men of the 58th Regiment. The position is one difficult enough to climb unencumbered by military accoutrements, but the disposition of the little mounted force covered the approach. By some unexplained mistake, however, half of the mounted infantry charged and carried the Boer position before the 58th had climbed the hill, but were too weak to hold it and retired, leaving the 58th uncovered in a terrible ascent. But few of the exhausted men reached the top of the hill, and those, led by Colonel Deane, only to be shot down. Of the mounted men, 17 were killed and wounded; of the 58th, 73 were killed and 100 wounded. The result was absolute defeat of the British forces. The number of Boers engaged is not known, but the force behind the Nek consisted of several thousands, and no doubt a fair proportion engaged in the fight.
On February 8 General Colley made a demonstration in force on the Ingogo Heights. The force consisted of under 300 men, with 4 guns and 38 mounted men. On the Boer side there were about 1,000 men, and the fight lasted from morning until after dark. It was a drawn fight, in which both parties left the battlefield at night. There cannot be any doubt, however, that the balance of advantage was with the Boers, since the loss on the British side was very severe: 76 men were killed and 69 wounded.
On February 27 came Majuba, when Sir George Colley designed to retrieve his fortunes and strike an effective blow without the aid of his second-in-command, Sir Evelyn Wood, whom he had sent to hurry up reinforcements. The scaling of the mountain at night was a fine performance. The neglect to take the rocket apparatus or mountain guns, or to fortify the position in any way, or even to acquaint the members of the force with the nature of the position which they had taken up in the dark, and the failure to use the bayonets, were the principal causes of disaster. The Boers attacked in force a position which should have been absolutely impregnable, held as it was by a force of 554 soldiers. The Boer force is not known, but probably consisted of upwards of 1,000 men, since Christian Joubert after the fight offered to take a portion of the men, numbering, as he said, some 500, to attack a small British laager on one of the spurs of the mountain. The splendid feat of taking the hill-top, however, was accomplished by a small storming party of less than 200 men, the balance of the Boer forces covering the approach of their comrades by an accurate and incessant long-range fire. The result, as is known, was terrible disaster: 92 killed and 134 wounded, and a number taken prisoners, represented the British loss, whilst the Boers lost 1 killed and 5 wounded. No attempt had been made to occupy positions below the crown of the hill which commanded the approaches, and the Boers were able to creep up under good cover from place to place by the exercise of their admirable tactics. It is impossible to detract from the performance of the Boers, and a glance at the position leaves one more astonished than ever that a successful attack could ever have been made upon it. The Boers displayed on this day the finest fighting qualities. The generalship of their fighting Commandant, Nikolas Smit, was of the highest order. The cleverness of the attack, and the personal bravery and audacity of the storming party are beyond praise.
By the time Sir Evelyn Wood had ranged his forces for an effective and extended attack on the Boers, and by the time Sir Frederick Roberts with the command of about 10,000 men had reached South Africa, the administration of Mr. Gladstone had awakened to the fact that the war was an unjust—not to say costly—one. An armistice was arranged and peace made without another blow.
The terms of the settlement proposed by the Liberal Government fitly illustrate the generosity of their motives. They proposed doing 'simple justice' to the Boers, but at the same time retaining the districts of Lydenburg, Middelburg, Wakkerstroom, and Utrecht, not to mention handing back Zoutpansberg to the original native occupants. So anxious were the Boer leaders to effect a peaceful settlement, so fearful were they of the actions of their followers, that when they arranged the long armistice they did not announce to their party the intentions of the British Government regarding the above districts. General Joubert did not communicate to his army the terms of peace, but simply stated that a Royal Commission was to settle everything. A month later, when some inkling of the terms reached the Boers, a solemn protest and warning was issued, and when the Royal Commission actually sat, the British representatives were informed that any such curtailment of the territories would be followed by a resumption of hostilities. Needless to say the proposals were abandoned and the Boers got their way. So ended the war.
Ingogo has been called a drawn battle. Bronkhorst Spruit was—such as it was. At Laing's Nek and Majuba the Boers beat us, as Mr. Carter fairly puts it, 'when they were on the top of the hill and we were at the bottom, and when we were on the top of the hill and they were at the bottom.' The narrative of these events is about as humiliating a one as an Englishman can read. Here and there it is redeemed by the heroic conduct of individuals in the midst of general disaster. In the smaller affairs, such as the particularly gallant defences of Standerton, Potchefstroom, and Rustenberg, where little garrisons held their own with conspicuous ability and courage, there is something to cheer the disheartened reader. The defence of Potchefstroom by Colonel Winslow should be read in full for several reasons. The siege of Standerton witnessed several acts of valour, but, above all, that of Hall the volunteer, who single handed deliberately engaged a force of over 300 Boers, drawing their fire on himself in order to warn his comrades of the danger of being cut off and to give them a chance of escape—a noble act in which the gallant fellow achieved his object but lost his life. It was in Rustenberg where Captain Auchinleck, with about seventy men armed only with rifles, held his laager against hundreds of the enemy, fighting day and night for weeks; and eventually drove off the Boers who were trenching towards his position by charging at night with from nine to fourteen of his men and clearing the enemy out of the trenches with the bayonet. This performance he repeated three times, himself badly wounded on each occasion. The impression created on the enemy by these tactics was such that they overcame their desire to get at close quarters with him, and left him severely alone.
It is not necessary to refer in great detail to the settlement In effect it was that the Boers gained nearly all that they required, but not until the haggling and threatening had robbed concessions of all appearance of grace and justice. The natives were referred to in the conventional spirit. The unfortunate loyalists were left to take care of themselves. The men who had entered the Transvaal, and invested their capital and expended their energies there upon the most positive and sacred assurances of the British Government that the Queen's authority would never be withdrawn,—assurances given in public by the Conservative Government and confirmed by Mr. Gladstone's Government, assurances published by Sir Bartle Frere and Sir Garnet Wolseley, who said that 'as long as the sun would shine the British flag would fly over the Transvaal,'—were heartlessly abandoned, their protests were unheeded, the compensation allotted to them, namely, £1,400,000, was amended by the elimination of the million, their representations to Mr. Gladstone's Government were finally left unanswered—unless it be that the sneering reference made by that right honourable gentleman in the House of Commons to 'interested contractors and landjobbers' may be considered an adequate answer to a protest as moderate, as able, as truthful, and as necessary as Mr. Gladstone's remark was the reverse. In very truth, the position in which the British Premier had placed himself through his intemperate speeches in the Midlothian campaign, and his subsequent 'explaining away,' was an extremely unpleasant one. In Opposition Mr. Gladstone had denounced the annexation and demanded a repeal. On accession to power he adopted the policy of his predecessors, and affirmed that the annexation could never be revoked. On June 8, 1880, he had written to this effect to Messrs. Kruger and Joubert, the Transvaal deputation. Later on, in answer to an appeal that he should allay the apprehensions of the loyalists, who feared the results of the Boer agitation, he referred them to this very letter as a final expression of opinion, and authorized the publication of this message. When, however, peace had been concluded, and the loyalists, amazed and heartbroken at their threatened desertion, reminded him of his pledges and implored him to respect them, he answered them in a letter which is surely without parallel in the record of self-respecting Governments. The wriggling, the equivocation, the distortion of phrases, the shameless 'explaining away,' are of a character that would again justify the remark of Lord Salisbury (then Lord Robert Cecil) in another matter many years before, that they were 'tactics worthy of a pettifogging attorney,' and even the subsequent apology—to the attorney. But what answer could be made to a protest which reminded the right honourable gentlemen of the following deliberate and official expression of his Government's policy?—
In your letter to me (wrote Mr. White for the loyalists) you claim that the language of your letter does not justify the description given. With the greatest respect I submit that it does, and I will quote the words on which I and also my colleagues base the opinion that it does unequivocally pledge the Government to the non-relinquishment of the Transvaal.