The personnel of the corps was in keeping with everything else. Colonel Lumsden, though not an experienced campaigner when he first arrived on active service, was a capable organiser, and had the natural gift of commanding the respect and cheerful obedience of all who served under him, and he soon qualified as a competent leader under fire. He was ably supported by a well-selected body of officers and non-commissioned officers; and there was an evident determination among all ranks that the representatives of the Indian Auxiliary Forces should justify their selection by the Indian public. The ‘rank-and-file’ was composed of gentlemen who had been used to the comparative luxury of an Indian planter’s life, and who were untrained in cooking for themselves and attending to their horses. But they soon adapted themselves to the situation, and cheerfully took their share of all the work of Regular soldiers, and with such success that an experienced officer like General Hutton expressed his admiration of the manner in which they did it.
The ‘fighting’ capacity of Lumsden’s Horse cannot be entirely estimated from the gaps in their ranks. They were, as a result of their training in civil life, more ‘self-reliant’ than the rank-and-file of our Regular Army, and the looser formations they were consequently able to adopt account in a great measure for their comparatively small losses. The opinion formed of the corps by the Commander-in-Chief can be gathered from the great number of distinctions, promotions, and commissions in the Regular Army which were conferred on those who remained. The time-honoured maxim, ‘Blood will tell,’ was never better exemplified than in this corps, and, should it be my lot ever again to command troops in the field, I ask for no better fortune than to have a similar body to Lumsden’s Horse.
W. Ross,
Late Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding 8th Corps M.I.
CHAPTER XV
A MARCH UNDER MAHON OF MAFEKING TO RUSTENBURG AND WARMBATHS—IN PURSUIT OF DE WET
To have served under two leaders of high reputation for ability in handling Irregular troops was a stroke of good fortune that did not fall to the lot of many Volunteer Corps in South Africa. Lumsden’s Horse had every reason to be thankful that the lot was theirs, and they appreciated it fully. In exchanging from the 8th Mounted Infantry Regiment to another column, of which Colonel Bryan Mahon was Brigadier, they did not forget the commander under whom they had served so long; but affection for him was happily consistent with out-and-out admiration for the officer to whose force they were transferred after leaving Irene. Both were thorough soldiers, having strong sympathies with Volunteers and a complete understanding of the peculiarities that distinguish them from Regulars. In other words, both were born leaders of men. Colonel Mahon, or General as he then was by local rank, had proved himself to be a commander of great dash and resourcefulness in his conduct of operations by which he won not only the affectionate confidence of his own troops, but also the respect of enemies who still speak with admiration of the young Cavalry officer who beat them at their own game by rapid flank movements on the way to Mafeking, and effected the relief of that beleaguered garrison in spite of all De la Rey could do to prevent him. In ten days he marched a distance of 230 miles through country destitute of supplies, where no other forces had disputed possession with the Boers since war began. He outwitted the cleverest of De la Rey’s lieutenants at Kraaipan by a night march which won his adversary’s admiration, and he took a great convoy of Cape carts and heavier transport full of provisions into Mafeking without having lost a single waggon. Describing that surprise at Kraaipan, when, after waiting in expectation of an attack by which Mahon should fall into the trap laid for him, the Boers suddenly realised that the British column had disappeared, one of their scouts said, ‘We did not get much rest, as somebody had to be on the look-out all night. Your laager was quite near to us, but we did not see or hear anything move. In the morning, however, the whole had vanished, and when it was too late to stop them we heard they were trekking away north-west towards a desert where nobody but Boers or natives would expect to find water. Your General must have had somebody with him who knew that country well or he would never have ventured there.’ The ‘somebody’ in this case may have been Colonel Frank Rhodes, the bearer of a name which is one to conjure with still among the native tribes of Bechuanaland. He was Mahon’s Intelligence officer, and information gleaned by him made the night march possible; but it was the young Brigadier who planned and carried it into execution at a time when his enemies thought they had him surely trapped. When a complete history of the campaign comes to be written, that march of Mahon’s for the relief of Mafeking will rank high among the most daring and successful operations. All this story was known weeks before the General himself arrived at Pretoria with the Imperial Light Horse, who had won fresh honours in that enterprise under a leader whose praises they never tired of singing. No expectation of being brigaded with such a famous corps under such a brigadier had occurred to Lumsden’s Horse when they left Irene. Indeed, they seem to have regarded themselves as an integral unit of the 8th Mounted Infantry up to the day when Colonel Ross, receiving orders for a movement southwards, went off with other corps of his command, leaving Lumsden’s Horse behind. Meanwhile, however, they had been placed for a time at the disposal of Colonel Hickman, under whom they took part in the brief operations already described towards Crocodile River, which were merely a reconnaissance for the more important enterprise to follow.
It will be remembered that Lord Roberts, about this time, had both hands fully occupied in keeping Botha at arm’s length in the east and stretching out his left with considerable force westward to ward off attacks by De la Rey and others who were causing General Baden-Powell much anxiety for the safety of Rustenburg, which he held with a very small number of troops. It would never have done to let the newly emancipated hero of Mafeking be subjected to another siege. Therefore, when he reported that a strong force was again threatening Rustenburg Lord Roberts determined to withdraw that garrison to Commando Nek, while the small force holding Lichtenburg was to retire upon Zeerust. Accordingly, General Ian Hamilton received orders to march to Rustenburg and bring Baden-Powell’s force back with him. At the same time Sir Frederick Carrington was directed to advance from Mafeking with his mounted troops to the assistance of Colonel Hore, who, with 140 Bushmen, 80 men of the Rhodesian Regiment, and 80 Rhodesian Volunteers, was at Eland’s River with a convoy of supplies for the Rustenburg garrison, and held up there by an intercepting body of Boers. This brief summary of the general situation is necessary to a clear understanding of the exigencies that necessitated General Ian Hamilton’s movement eastward along the Magaliesberg, and the reconnaissance immediately preceding it, in all of which important operations Lumsden’s Horse were actively engaged from start to finish. The force marched in three columns, Colonel Hickman’s being on the left, General Ian Hamilton’s in the centre, and Brigadier[Brigadier]-General Mahon’s on the right, each being separated from the other by a rough range of hills which in places became quite mountainous.
All this range, sweeping round the hollow in which Pretoria lies, and then stretching away westward by irregular curves past Rustenburg to Eland’s River, is known as the Magaliesberg, and famed for the fertility of valleys that broaden out at its feet from many rugged kloofs. In peace-time it is the great tobacco-producing district of the Transvaal—a veritable garden, where orange groves, flourishing in wild luxuriance, sweeten the air with their fragrance, and brighten the landscape with the richness of their golden fruit. In war-time its commanding crests and narrow defiles formed a series of strongholds for the commandos that rallied round General De la Rey and by their daring raids gained a reputation as the best fighters of all Boers then in the field. Every Kaffir path by which scouts could move unseen was familiar to them. They knew every point from which wide views could be obtained in all directions, and every nook in which men might hide secure from observation, ready for a sudden attack if occasion should serve, yet having more than one way open for escape from any danger that might threaten them. General Baden-Powell with the relieved garrison from Mafeking had marched through a mountainous country and crossed the Magaliesberg to Rustenburg, meeting no opposition. The Boer forces belonging to that district had then more serious affairs to occupy them elsewhere. But after the fight at Diamond Hill, when General Botha retired to the Eastern Transvaal, De la Rey came back to his old haunts on the Magaliesberg, surprised a British post near Zilikat’s Nek, and began a series of operations by which he threatened to cut off all supplies from Rustenburg.
Colonel Lumsden continues his diary:
Two days after our return to Pretoria from the reconnaissance under Colonel Hickman the 8th Mounted Infantry received orders to entrain at 4 A.M. for Wolve Hoek, the station next south of Vereeniging; but at the station the order as far as we were concerned was countermanded, and we were told to return and report to General Mahon. His instructions were that we should remain in our present camp and fall in as rearguard when his column marched off for Rustenburg on August 1. The morning of that day, therefore, found us in rear of the baggage of his column, which was moving to Rustenburg, north of the Magaliesberg Range, to the relief of Baden-Powell, while General Hamilton proceeded up the valley south of the Magaliesberg. Mahon’s brigade was unique in its composition, consisting almost entirely of Volunteer Mounted Infantry—viz., Imperial Light Horse, Lumsden’s Horse, New Zealand Mounted Infantry, Queensland Mounted Infantry, a regiment of Yeomanry, two squadrons 18th Hussars (the squadrons that were captured after the battle of Talana), and the M Battery R.H.A.—in all about 1,500 strong.