Ten Months In The Field With The Boers Part 14

Colonel Kekewich at Kimberley is surrounded by the troops of Du Toit, Kolby, Delarey, and Ferreira.

General Cronje, to the south of Kimberley, is well informed as to Lord Roberts' preparations, but he pays no heed to them, and meets all Villebois' far-seeing counsels with the stock phrase: 'I was a general when you were still a child.'

Schoeman is near Colesberg, facing General French.

Olivier, to the north of Burghersdorp, confronts Gatacre.

Botha and Schalk Burgher, on the north bank of the Tugela, hold in check Buller and Warren on the south bank, near Colenso.

Finally, Joubert, Prinsloo, and Lucas Meyer are round Ladysmith, where General White is still imprisoned.

On February 5 Buller, after deploying his troops as if for a frontal attack in the direction of Potgieter, at last crossed the Tugela at the foot of Dorn Kop. If perseverance deserves a reward, he has certainly earned one.

But the period of sieges draws to a close. The war is entering on another phase. Lord Roberts has completed his concentration, his orders are given, the invasion begins.

VIII

On February 10 the Field Marshal concentrated three divisions on the Modder River: Kelly-Kenny (6th), Tucker (7th), and Colvile (9th). Then he secretly a.s.sembled the cavalry, grouped into three brigades (those of Broadwood, Porter, and Gordon), under General French. The latter, supported by seven mounted batteries and six field batteries, started in the night of the 11th-12th, reached Rooidam, continued by way of Potgieter's Farm, brushed aside General Ferreira, and entered Kimberley on Thursday, February 15, at half-past five in the evening.

The surprise was complete, as we know!

Meanwhile, Lord Roberts had not been idle. On the 15th, Maxwell's Brigade occupied Jacobsdal, and Lord Kitchener was pressing Cronje, who was retiring upon Paardeburg.

French, his raid accomplished, joined Kitchener by way of Koodoesrand, and on the 17th the whole of Roberts' force surrounded the Boer General.

After a ten days' defence, more heroic than reasonable--for he might have broken through with De Wet's help--Cronje, crushed by the terrible fire of 90 cannon,[#] bore out Colonel de Villebois' prediction, being forced to surrender unconditionally on February 27, at 7.30 a.m.

[#] Lord Roberts had 6 field batteries, 1 howitzer battery, 7 horse batteries, and 5 naval guns--90 pieces in all, to be exact.

Lord Roberts telegraphed as follows to the War Office:

'PAARDEBURG, 7.45 a.m.

'General Cronje is now a prisoner in my camp. The strength of his force will be communicated later. I hope Her Majesty's Government will consider this event satisfactory, occurring as it does on the anniversary of Majuba.'

It was afterwards announced by the War Office that the General had surrendered two Krupp guns, one belonging to the Orange Free State, and two Maxims, one of these also belonging to the Orange Free State, 4,000 men, of whom 1,150 were Free Staters, and 47 officers, 18 of them Free Staters. Among the officers was the artillery commandant Albrecht, formerly an Austrian officer.

In Natal, on the 28th, Lord Dundonald entered Ladysmith, the siege of which had been raised at six in the evening, preceding a convoy of provisions which arrived on the morning of March 2.

Lord Roberts did not linger long on the banks of the Modder River.

After giving his troops a short rest while he went with Kitchener to visit Kimberley, where he was the guest of Cecil Rhodes, he continued his march upon Bloemfontein. On the 7th he was at Poplar Grove, on the 10th at Abraham's Kraal--he called the battle fought here Driefontein--and on the 13th he entered the capital of the Orange Free State.

'BLOEMFONTEIN, '_March_ 13, 8 p.m.

'By G.o.d's help, and thanks to the bravery of Her Majesty's soldiers, the troops under my command have taken possession of Bloemfontein. The British flag is now flying over the President's house, which was last night abandoned by Mr. Steyn, the late President of the Orange Free State.

'Mr. Fraser, a member of the former executive, the mayor, the secretary of the late Government, the Landdrost and other functionaries, came to meet me two miles out of the town, and handed me the keys of the Government offices.

'The enemy has retired from the neighbourhood, and all seems calm. The inhabitants of Bloemfontein gave our troops a hearty reception.

'ROBERTS.'

Lord Roberts's first operation was accomplished; he established a solid base at Bloemfontein, acc.u.mulating a great quant.i.ty of provisions there, a very wise measure to take before throwing his troops into a hostile country, impoverished by five months of warfare, the resources of which had already been heavily laid under contribution by the Boers. At the same time his troops radiated round the former capital to drive off the little commandos that were still hovering about in the neighbourhood.

The 9th Division, under General Colvile, was broken up to keep communications open, and its chief returned to England.

Such was the situation when, on Monday, April 23, we received orders to saddle at seven in the morning. We started at 8.30, with two days'

rations.

The direction is the same as before, towards the south. But after the counter-order of last Monday, we feel no great confidence as to the object of this new manoeuvre. We have christened these starts 'the Monday morning exercises.'

This time, it seems, that while De Wet is busy at Wepener with Brabant's Horse, which he is still surrounding, a strong column is to attempt to cut him off from the north, by establis.h.i.+ng a line between Bloemfontein and the frontier of Basutoland. We are to oppose this movement and enable De Wet to pa.s.s.

We arrive in the plain watered by the Onspruit about five in the evening. We bivouac there with Lorentz's Germans, with whom we are still grouped. The nights begin to be cold. During the evening 1,000 men and two 75 millimetre Creusot guns arrive.

In Botha's camp, close by, there are still from 300 to 400 men, a Krupp gun, an Armstrong, and a Nordenfeldt.

On the morning of the 24th a reinforcement of from 200 to 300 men arrives. Our total strength is from 1,500 to 1,800 men.

We remain in bivouac, but on the 25th our provisions are exhausted, and they re-victual us by driving a flock of sheep across the plain. Each group of five or six men takes one. Part of the flesh is grilled over a fire of cow-dung--the only fuel available in the Veldt--and the rest, cut into quarters, is slung on the saddles for next day.

For the last two days the luminous balloon of the English has been visible all the evening till midnight.

In the afternoon we get orders to start for the Waterworks, to the east of Bloemfontein, which the English have recaptured from General Lemmer.

We are to take provisions for several days; but the English, it seems, are close behind us. They have come down into the plain, and the road from here to Brandfort is very insecure.

At three o'clock in the afternoon Wrangel, two former officers in the German army, Couves, De Loth, and I, set out to fetch a trolley loaded with necessaries for the two corps.

We arrive at Brandfort towards midnight. Captain D----, whom we meet here, gives us the news from France. The Theatre Francais was burnt down on March 9, and Mdlle. Henriot was one of the victims of the catastrophe. We also hear of the explosion at Johannesburg. A telegram says that the fort blew up on the 24th. But we learn later that it was Begbie's factory and not the fort that exploded. Another telegram, relating to the fight at Boshof, says that Prince Bagration is not dead, but wounded only. A lieutenant of marines named Gilles was killed.

This is all we have in the way of details, for the official list of the losses of April 5 has not yet appeared.

As regards the explosion, the following information may be of interest.

The citadel of Johannesburg was not constructed with a view to defending the town, but, on the contrary, with the idea of bombarding it. This curious arrangement calls for some explanation.

On January 1, 1896, Dr. Jameson, coming from the east, was checked at Krugersdorp with his contingent, which prevented the execution of his _coup de main_. But at the news of his arrival a number of Uitlanders, for the most part English, had armed. Forming themselves into commandos, and reinforced by a battery of Maxims smuggled in among machines for use in the mines, they bivouacked on the heights of Yeoville, commanding Johannesburg, to await and join the men of the Chartered Company.

After this escapade the Transvaal Government, in order to work upon the loyal sentiments of its good city of Johannesburg, presented it with a fort, which, situated in a prominent position in the town, would have been capable in a very few minutes of correcting any ill-timed manifestations of sympathy to which its inhabitants might be inclined to give way in the future.

The Begbie factory was used for the manufacture of projectiles. With comparatively primitive methods and absolutely inexperienced workmen, the making and charging of sh.e.l.ls of all the patterns in use in our own artillery had been carried on here. Every evening from 700 to 800 were despatched in every direction.

For a long time past, directly after war was declared, the English who had been expelled had publicly predicted an explosion at this factory.

On February 2 a telegram from Durban announced that this explosion had taken place. The manager, Mr. Grunberg, had even vainly called the attention of the police to a house close to the powder magazine.