The History of Lumsden's Horse. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to attempt any enterprise that might bring them an advantage by embarrassing their adversaries, and every day’s delay on our side was an opportunity given to them for more complete concentration. This last word must not be misunderstood. When applied to Boer strategy or tactics it does not necessarily mean,a gathering of units into one great force, but rather a concentration of efforts on one object which they often secure while seeming to aim at something entirely different by a distribution of their commandos in many directions. Necessarily such distracting operations can never bring about decisive results, but they served the Boer purpose admirably then, and De Wet got the opportunity he wanted to prove himself an ideal leader for work of that kind.

      From some points of view this may be regarded as the most important phase of the whole campaign; it taught the Boers how to harass our forces with the greatest effect while exposing themselves to comparatively little danger. First of all, however, they set themselves to the task of showing that there was life and power for mischief in them yet, their object evidently being to effect surprises that might create panic among our troops and so render raids less difficult of accomplishment. In the development of that idea we recognise the peculiar craft of Christian De Wet, who at that time had less respect for the courage of ‘rooineks’ than he began to entertain soon afterwards. Sanna’s Post was a lesson to him not less than to us. With the exaggeration which characterised a great deal that was written in those days some critics at home described this affair as a ‘black disaster,’ thereby meaning apparently that it was something rather disgraceful and a stain on our military reputation. A disaster it was in the literal sense, for the stars in their courses seemed to be turned against us; but they were certainly not blotted out, and they never shone on soldiers whose deeds could better bear the light. The story of Sanna’s Post or Koorn Spruit is worth telling again, not only because it marks emphatically the revival of Boer hopes, after Ladysmith and Paardeberg and Kimberley had done much to shatter their self-confidence, but because it furnishes a splendid example of British valour, defiant in the moment of defeat, and all the brighter by contrast with the gloom through which it shines. In details the following version of what happened may not be more accurate than others, and it lacks the completeness that subsequent access to official documents might have given; but at least it has the merit of having been written at the time, and of showing what was the impression conveyed to the minds of people who were in the midst of those stirring events and could gauge their significance without exaggeration. This description by the Editor, who, as War Correspondent of ‘The Daily News,’ was then at Bloemfontein, may be given almost in its original form.

      We knew that Colonel Pilcher, in attacking Ladybrand, had roused a hornet’s nest, and that Brigadier-General Broadwood, in command of a small mixed column, was retiring along that road from Thaba ’Nchu, hard pressed by Boers, whom he could only keep at a distance by the skilful disposition of his forces in successive rearguard actions. His movements were hampered by the slow progressprogress of a convoy. He was falling back on a post at Sauna’s near the waterworks from which Bloemfontein draws its main supply, and expected to be there some time during the night of Friday. He had made application for reinforcements when the Boers, gathering strength as they came, began to overlap him on each flank, in spite of anything that his men could do to check every move of that kind. Thereupon Lord Roberts sent General Colvile’s Division, with artillery, and Colonel Martyr’s brigade of Mounted Infantry and Irregular Horse eastward by a forced march. They left Bloemfontein hours before daybreak on Friday, but even then it was too late. Colonel Martyr, pushing on as fast as the condition of over-worked horses would permit, only reached Boesman’s (or Bushman’s) Kop with his leading troops about 7 o’clock. There was still six miles of veldt between him and the scene of disaster. Before he could cross that in force sufficient to be of any use, the worst had happened, and nothing remained for him but to cover the retreat of detachments that had already got through the Boer lines before going to help those who were still beset.

      What were the causes leading to disaster we did not know then—we do not know with absolute certainty even now. No special correspondents were with General Broadwood’s column when sudden misfortune fell upon it. All details had to be gathered at second hand, and many of the combatants who were best qualified to give an impartial account of the trap in which our troops were caught were either dead or prisoners in the hands of the enemy. In the excitement following that swift surprise those who had to fight hard for their lives could not see much on either side of their immediate front. They were mainly concerned with the necessity for shooting quick and straight. It is therefore not surprising that stories of the fight, as seen from many different points of view, should vary so that it becomes a little difficult to follow the exact sequence of events.

      Two or three points, however, seem tolerably clear. When Brigadier-General Broadwood halted his troops to bivouac at 4 o’clock on Saturday morning, March 31, after crossing the Modder River, they were worn out by a long night march that had entailed incessant watchfulness. He was then in touch with the small force of Mounted Infantry holding the waterworks, and, naturally supposing that their commander had taken all precautions to safeguard the drift across Koorn Spruit, he did not call upon his weary column to furnish additional patrols for duty in that direction, but formed a chain of outposts along ridges in rear towards the known enemy, who had been harassing his march all the way from Thaba ’Nchu.

      It is known that the officer who was in command at Sanna’s Post did take more than ordinary precautions before dawn that morning by sending a company of Mounted Infantry westward across the drift near Pretorius’s Farm, and, if a Boer prisoner may be trusted, that very precaution contributed to the disaster. According to his story, a party of three hundred Boers, who had been cut off from the main Brandfort body by General French’s Cavalry, on Thursday, were making their way across country to join Grobelaar’sGrobelaar’s (or, rather, as it had then become, De Wet’s) command on the Ladybrand side. Hearing Koorn Spruit, this party saw the Mounted Infantry patrol, and, the first principle of Boers in warfare being to hide themselves from the enemy, they at once took shelter between the high banks of a water-course which is, in places, nearly as dry as a khor in the Soudan. Then they began to plan an ambush, with the object of cutting off that isolated Mounted Infantry company. Until that moment they had not thought of laying a trap for the convoy, about which, indeed, they knew nothing. Such is the story told by a Boer prisoner. If true, it proves that the capture of Broadwood’s convoy was by a force entirely independent of the one against which he had been fighting his rearguard actions, and therefore unpremeditated, or, at any rate, not the calculated result of skilful tactics.

      At first it was hastily assumed that one of the ablest scouts in the British Army had been out-manœuvred, and allowed himself to be surrounded by Boers. That the officer who gained distinction for boldness, dash, and caution when reconnoitring successive Dervish positions in the Soudan, should allow himself to be caught in a trap by Boer farmers was almost inconceivable. It now seems as if the enemy had merely stumbled on an opportunity, of which they took advantage, not quite realising what it meant.

      Against this, however, was the evidence of a civilian refugee who declared that there were many more than three hundred Boers concealed in Koorn Spruit, and believed that secret information must have been given to them of the fact that no force had been posted to guard the drift by which Broadwood’s column must cross. On Pretorius’s Farm he met a burgher who had given up his arms, and received a pass from our military authorities permitting him to return to his home and settle down in peace, secure from all fear of molestation at the hands of British troops. This disarmed burgher, who had been fighting against us up to the occupation of Bloemfontein by Lord Roberts, showed such an accurate knowledge of the Boer movements that he must have watched them very closely. He could tell the exact position from which every gun would open fire on the English, column before it came into action. This knowledge he imparted without reserve, and yet, apparently, he had no apprehensions of ill-treatment from his former comrades as the penalty for deserting them. The incident, whatever interpretation may be put upon it, is curious, and will, perhaps, help to explain many things that happened when submissions were accepted and passes granted with too lavish leniency.

      It is more than probable that a Boer attack on the waterworks in order to destroy СКАЧАТЬ