Part 43 (1/2)
In pursuance of this policy Sir R. Buller sent Sir G. White, next morning, a cipher message, which, with the reply, will be recorded in another chapter.[246] He also directed the Natal line of communication staff to select, on the route Eshowe-Greytown-Estcourt, positions for camps, which the Natal army could occupy ”until the weather is cooler.” As regards the western theatre of war, he was more sanguine.
On receiving the news of the repulse at Magersfontein he had, it is true, at first considered that, if the British troops remained on the Riet, they might be enveloped by Cronje's force, with disastrous results. He sent instructions, therefore, to Forestier-Walker that Lord Methuen must be told either to attack Cronje again or to fall back at once on the Orange river. This order was received with dismay by Lord Methuen, for, after consultation with his brigadiers, he was convinced that, until reinforcements arrived, his force was not in a fit state to resume the offensive. He prepared to fall back. But in a telegram, dated 14th December, Sir F. Forestier-Walker urged Sir Redvers to support Methuen with the 5th division[247] and with a brigade of cavalry from Naauwpoort, so as to enable him promptly to relieve Kimberley. He added: ”Methuen reports his force in safe position, and well supplied. His communications are held by detachments posted at no great distance apart, and can be further protected by mounted troops. The effect of retirement upon the spirit of Methuen's force after such hard fighting, and upon the general military and political situation, appears to me to justify my placing this alternative before you.” Forestier-Walker's proposal was immediately accepted by Sir Redvers, with the exception that he forbad the reduction of French's strength at Naauwpoort. A telegram to that effect had been despatched from Headquarters at Chieveley to the General Officer Commanding Cape Colony the evening before the day of Colenso.
[Footnote 246: See Vol. II. Siege of Ladysmith.]
[Footnote 247: Sir R. Buller had directed, on 9th December, that a brigade and a battery of this division should be sent to East London to reinforce General Gatacre, and that the remainder should disembark at Port Elizabeth and proceed to Rosmead junction.]
[Sidenote: The Cabinet answers Sir Redvers' proposal to give up Ladysmith, Dec. 16th, 1896.]
Meantime the Cabinet had received and considered General Buller's suggestion that Ladysmith should be abandoned. They felt that to leave the invested troops to their fate would be equally injurious in its strategical, political, and moral effect on South Africa; a blow to British prestige throughout the world. Sir R. Buller was therefore informed by a cipher telegram, dated 16th December, that ”Her Majesty's Government regard the abandonment of White's force and its consequent surrender as a national disaster of the greatest magnitude.
We would urge you to devise another attempt to carry out its relief, not necessarily via Colenso, making use of the additional men now arriving, if you think fit.” A War Office telegram of the same date advised Sir Redvers that the embarkation of the 6th division for South Africa had already begun, that the 7th division would begin to embark on the 4th January, that another cavalry brigade would be sent out as soon as s.h.i.+ps could be provided, and that additional field artillery would replace the guns lost at Colenso. In reply to a request made by him that morning by telegram that 8,000 irregulars ”able to ride decently, but shoot as well as possible,” should be raised in England, the General Commanding-in-Chief was told that ”a considerable force of militia and of picked yeomanry and volunteers will also be sent.”
[Sidenote: Sir Redvers, being promised reinforcements, prepares for new effort.]
These promises, and the a.s.surance that the 5th division was at his free disposal, though that had always been the home view, greatly strengthened Sir Redvers Buller's hands. He decided to make another effort to break through the barriers round Ladysmith. He therefore ordered Warren's division to Natal. Warren himself, with two battalions of the 10th brigade, had disembarked at Cape Town, and been despatched by train up country. These battalions, the 1st Yorks.h.i.+re and 2nd Warwick, were subsequently, at Forestier-Walker's request, left in Cape Colony for duty on the line of communication at De Aar.
The rest of the 5th division, together with Sir C. Warren and his staff, went to Durban.
[Sidenote: The nation roused.]
The immediate response made by the Cabinet to Sir R. Buller's request for reinforcements, and their instant rejection of the proposal to abandon Ladysmith, expressed the spirit in which the nation received the news of ”the black week”[248] in South Africa. The experiences of such contests as had been waged by Great Britain since the great Indian mutiny had led public opinion to expect, in time of war, no strain on the national resources, no call for national effort. War was regarded as a matter for which the War Office and the army should make preparation, but not the nation. The despatch of the largest British Army ever sent across the seas had been regarded as ensuring rapid success. A decisive termination of the campaign before the end of the year was antic.i.p.ated. The disappointment of these hopes at first caused dismay; but this was quickly replaced by a stern determination to carry through the South African undertaking, and, at all costs, not to s.h.i.+rk troublesome responsibilities in that sub-continent. It was realised that the task to be faced was serious, and that the time had come to devote to it the best resources of the Empire. The manhood of the country was eager to a.s.sist by any possible means, and therefore learnt with satisfaction that not only would the 6th and 7th divisions be sent out at once, but that nine militia battalions had been asked to volunteer for foreign service, and that yeomanry and select companies of volunteers had had their eager demands to be allowed to help gladly granted. With even greater pleasure was the announcement received, two days after the battle of Colenso, that the General in command in South Africa had been given _carte blanche_ to raise mounted troops locally; that the self-governing Colonies, again with true patriotism rallying round the mother country, had proposed to send further military contingents, and that these also were to join in the struggle.
[Footnote 248: The popular name for the week in which occurred the defeats of Stormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso.]
[Sidenote: Lord Roberts is appointed to command, Dec. 16.]
The action of the Cabinet in dealing with the difficult question of the command, in South Africa was prompt. The size of the army which would in a few weeks be a.s.sembled at the seat of war, and the nature of the work which lay before it, made it necessary that an officer of the highest standing and experience should be selected for the supreme control. It was apparent that the direction of the operations for the relief of Ladysmith would absorb all the attention and energies of Sir R. Buller. Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, V.C., then commanding the forces in Ireland, was therefore asked to undertake the duty of Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, a responsibility which he instantly accepted. As Lord Roberts' Chief of the Staff the Cabinet, with the Field-Marshal's approval, recommended to the Queen the appointment of Major-General Lord Kitchener, who was still serving as Sirdar of that Egyptian army with which, stiffened by British troops, he had destroyed the power of the Mahdi little more than a twelve month earlier. The decision to make these appointments was notified to Sir R. Buller, in the telegram quoted below.[249] Sir Redvers, to use his own words, had ”for some time been convinced that it is impossible for any one man to direct active military operations in two places distant 1,500 miles from each other.”[250]
[Footnote 249: ”In Natal and in Cape Colony distinct operations of very great importance are now in progress. The prosecution of the campaign in Natal is being carried on under quite unexpected difficulties, and in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government it will require your presence and whole attention. It has been decided by Her Majesty's Government, under these circ.u.mstances, to appoint Field-Marshal Lord Roberts as Commanding-in-Chief, South Africa, his Chief of Staff being Lord Kitchener.”]
[Footnote 250: See letter from Sir Redvers Buller to Under-Secretary of State for War, dated 20th December, 1899.]
[Sidenote: Lord Roberts embarks Dec. 23/99.]
Within a few days Lord Roberts nominated the rest of his staff,[251]
and, accompanied by the majority of them, embarked for South Africa on 23rd December, arrangements being made for Lord Kitchener to join him at Gibraltar.
[Footnote 251: In a telegram dated 21st December, Sir R.
Buller recommended that Lord Roberts should bring out a fresh Headquarter staff, reporting that there was already a lack of senior staff officers throughout the theatre of war. His own Headquarter staff left Cape Town to join him in Natal at the end of December.]
[Sidenote: Weakness of defence in Cape Colony.]
The fact that it had been decided to send the 5th division to Natal involved in Cape Colony the resumption of the policy of bluff which had proved so successful earlier in the war. It was now attended with greater risk, owing to the spread of disaffection amongst the sympathisers with the Boer Republics. Three distinct areas in the ”old colony” were already in the actual occupation of the enemy, and had been annexed by Boer proclamations. The first of these areas included Griqualand West, Barkly West, Taungs, Vryburg, and Mafeking districts, in fact, with the exception of the besieged towns of Kimberley, Kuruman,[252] and Mafeking, the whole of the colony north of the Riet river and of the Orange river below its junction with the Riet. East of this came the Boer enclave round Colesberg, the extent of which was being much diminished by General French's operations. Further east again, the north-east angle of the colony, including the districts of Herschel, Aliwal North, Barkly East, Wodehouse, and Albert, had for the time being become _de facto_ Free State territory. Kruger telegraphed to Steyn on the 20th of December: ”I and the rest of the War Commission decide that every person in the districts proclaimed, so far as the annexed portions shall extend, shall be commandeered, and those who refuse be punished. So say to all the officials south of Orange river and in Griqualand West, that while we are already standing in the fire they cannot expect to sit at home in peace and safety.” In all these areas, therefore, extraordinary pressure was placed on the colonists to renounce their allegiance and take up arms against their Sovereign. Indeed, but six weeks later the whole of the inhabitants of the Barkly West district who refused to be commandeered were, irrespective of nationality, removed from their homes by the Boers' Landrosts and thrust across the Orange river in a state of absolute dest.i.tution.[253] The number of recruits which had accrued to the enemy's commandos by these means was already, by the end of December, considerable; it was a.s.sessed at the time by the British authorities as high as ten thousand. But the danger for the moment was not so much the numerical strength of the actively disloyal as the att.i.tude of the disaffected in the districts which the enemy had not reached. Here, again, the areas which caused special anxiety fell into three groups. In the eastern province certain of the farmers of the Stockenstroom and adjacent districts had gathered together in a laager on the Katberg Pa.s.s across the Winterberg Mountains, a strong position some forty miles in rear of General Gatacre at Queenstown. In the thinly-populated and backward regions bordered by the Orange river on the north, the Roggeveld and Nieuwveld Mountains on the south, and the main line from Cape Town to De Aar on the east, racial feeling was known to be greatly inflamed, and it was reported that, if a few recruiters crossed the Orange river from the districts occupied by the enemy to the north of the river, a rising would probably take place.
Even nearer to Cape Town, in the fertile and wine-producing districts of Stellenbosch, Paarl, Ceres, Tulbagh, and Worcester, all most difficult to deal with, owing to the broken character of the ground and its intersection by rough mountain ranges, a portion of the inhabitants had shown signs of great restlessness. If even small bands of insurgents had taken up arms in these parts, the British lines of communication would have been imperilled. A very large force would be required for their protection.
[Footnote 252: A detachment of thirty-five Cape police and thirty-three civilians made a gallant defence of Kuruman, under Capt. A. Bates, against a Boer commando much superior in strength. The garrison held out from 12th November until their last redoubt was destroyed by artillery fire on 1st January (see General map of South Africa and map No. 17).]
[Footnote 253: For the details of this wholesale eviction see article in _Cape Times_, dated 16th February, 1900, enclosed in High Commissioner's despatch No. 85, dated 21st February, 1900 (p. 194-195 of C.O. White Book Africa 629).]
[Sidenote: The enthusiasm of the loyal furnishes large numbers of Volunteers.]
On the other hand, although the loyalty of a portion of the population was shaken, there were large numbers not only steadfast in their allegiance, but anxious to fulfil the duty of good citizens.