By my subterfuge of injury, of which I was not over-proud, I was away from Ladysmith and outside the Boer lines; but there was a moment of doubt whether this was a British colony or a military base. The Union Jack was fluttering everywhere and, by rough estimate, the "gentleman in khaki" on the street outnumbered all others by some ten-to-one.
Confirmation that this was, indeed, the capital city of the Cape Colony came from the title of a local newspaper, The Cape Town Press, within which I read an intriguing article describing how I had been captured by the Boer at Dundee and am presumed dead.
Cape Town now is practically the headquarters of the largest army ever sent across the sea, save Weyler’s horde so successfully outwitted by the Cuban "handful." After the Tampa fiasco, I was anxious to see the disembarkation of an army without a General Shafter. During October and November, England, awakened to the peril of her supremacy in South Africa at the hands of an army of herders, poured her soldiers into the colony in thousands. But transportation in the British army or I should say navy, since the control of the transports is vested in the Admiralty, has been reduced to a perfect system by lessons of long experience. Entire divisions were moved six and seven thousand miles without a hitch; the system proved capable of efficacious extension from the Indian drafts to an army corps.
In rapid succession great transports swung alongside the massive South Arm, the organisation of the Army Service Corps was called into play, and as the living freight marched down the pier and entrained to the front, tons of stores were hoisted from the holds, every box of supplies, case of equipment, or bale of forage designated and apportioned. No confusion and no shortage; the great base, divided into departments for every military detail, filled the requisitions for the advanced bases, where supply columns were, replenished, returns were sorted and checked with the dockets, by which every pound of food for horse or man, or stores from a traction engine to a head rope could be accounted for.
The first army corps, under General Buller, which left England as the battles of Dundee and Elandslaagte were being fought, comprised: First Division Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen.
First Brigade, Major-General Sir Henry Colville, KCMG
Second Brigade, Major-General Hildyard.
Second Division Lieutenant-General Sir C. F. Clery, KCB
Third Brigade, Major-General Andrew Wanchope.
Fourth Brigade, Major-General Lyttelton.
Third Division Lieutenant-General Sir W. Gatacre, KCB
Fifth Brigade, Major-General Fitzroy Hart.
Sixth Brigade, Major-General G. Barton.
Cavalry Division Lieutenant-General French.
First Brigade, Major-General Babington.
Second Brigade, Major-General Brabazon.
A complete army corps consists of three full infantry divisions. A division contains two infantry brigades, each of four complete battalions; a brigade division (three batteries) of field artillery; a squadron of cavalry; and attached units, Engineers, Army Service, and Medical Staff corps and ammunition column. The corps troops comprise two horse and six field batteries, the balloon and telegraph sections, a railroad company, a pontoon troop, a field park, and other units. The Royal Engineers are made up of: one battalion of infantry, with Army Service corps, field hospital, ammunition and supply reserves. The Cavalry Division consists of two cavalry brigades, a battalion of mounted infantry, and a mounted troop of Royal Engineers, together with Army Service, Medical Staff corps, and ammunition columns.
The full mobilisation comprised some 42,000 officers and men, 96 guns, 17,000 animals and 2,150 vehicles, in the fighting force alone. Add to these the men of the various departmental corps, the battalions necessary for sustaining and guarding the lines of communication, and the total runs toward 70,000 men. With the thousands of horses and vehicles required for the Army Service, supply and ammunition columns, hospital and cavalry remount service, and the bullocks and mules for the convoys necessary to feed this mighty host, yon will see that it was no mean feat to gather this body of men, animals, and material, six thousand miles from home, little more than five weeks after war was declared. Remember the difficulties faced at Tampa in sending Shafter’s small army to a neighbouring island; and since the British authorities have now triplicated this original force, you can obtain some idea of the stupendous task that has been so successfully accomplished during the past few months.
The army corps was due to reach Cape Town in the middle of November. The plan of campaign had been conceived at the War Office and elaborated on the voyage by General Buller and his staff; but great things had transpired in the meantime, and when he landed in Cape Town he would find an entirely different and far more difficult problem to solve. When he left England, White’s force was adjudged ample to keep Joubert occupied in Natal; the early British victories justified the belief. The army corps, mobilised on the Free State frontier, was to sweep upward through Bloemfontein to Pretoria. The boasts of the Boers had evoked contemptuous roars from the self-satisfied British public. The cry "To Pretoria!" was uttered as freely in London, as "A Berlin!" had been in Paris in 1870; the awakening, if not so serious, was hardly less bitter. The army had been equally sanguine.
Buller’s plans will, no doubt, reflect the will of the politicians and his own military response to the situation in the field. But how this might accommodate the flood of rumours circulating on the streets of Cape Town remains to be seen. Only today, we have heard reports from Ladysmith that: General White has lost 400 men killed and wounded, with 800 captured by the Boer and many hundreds missing; Joubert has left Ladysmith under siege and moved 4000 troops south of the Tugela threatening Colenso and on to Pietermaritzburg; and, in extremis, General White is dead, his troops slaughtered and Ladysmith is in flames.
Rumours aside, however, General Buller was to find Ladysmith invested, Natal practically at the mercy of the enemy, Kimberley isolated, Mafeking besieged, and the strategic points of Cape Colony occupied. Miles of railroad were in the hands of the enemy, thousands of civilians were driven from their homes, their cattle lifted, their stores looted and destroyed. The revenues of the colonies were rapidly declining, and the serious aspect of affairs, especially in Natal, necessitated an entire and rapid change of campaign.
The dominating British idea of battle is to get at the enemy by the shortest route and smash him. But if the foe has great recuperative powers and is not easily get-at-able, it is better to employ strategy that will enable you to draw him from the ground of his own choosing and inflict a blow that will be decisive. In the light of present knowledge the wisdom of the standard but soon-to-be abandoned plan of campaign is evident. The invasion of the Free State would have relieved Kimberley and lessened the pressure at Ladysmith by the rapid withdrawal of the Free Staters. The Transvaalers could not then have remained long in Natal, but would have moved northward to prepare the defence of their own country. With Buller at Bloemfontein, White would have been released in natural sequence, and the energy expended in futile attempts to relieve Ladysmith would have been reserved for more decisive campaigns to the north.
But the speedy relief of the beleaguered cities was decided upon for political reasons, the effect on the Cape Dutch overruling military plans. General Buller split his force into three divisions - Lord Methuen to Kimberley and Mafeking, General Gatacre to Stormberg, Buller himself to relieve Ladysmith. Methuen took part of his division to De Aar to prepare for the relief of Kimberley, but Hildyard was detached with his brigade from this division and sent to Durban; Barton’s brigade followed. French was despatched to Naaupoort to hold the important railway junction. Gatacre disembarked at East London to check disaffection in the Stormberg district, but Natal became the chief theatre of war. The stream of reinforcements was diverted to the Garden Colony, and General Clery was appointed in supreme command south of the Tugela.
Transports came and went, troops were landed and sent to the front or were ordered on to East London and Durban, but Cape Town, the quaint, went on its way, apparently not greatly disturbed by the presence of 60,000 refugees from the republics and border towns, and the stream of arms passing by sea and land, with the reflux of the early wounded of the war. The batches of Boer prisoners attracted sympathy and attention from their local friends, and, from what I could judge, the soiled, repulsive looking burghers found their prison quarters and prison rations anything but disagreeable. But there were others, too, survivors of the educated Johannesburg commando, interesting, intelligent men, many of Holland or colonial birth or educated Boers, who liked neither the companionship of their wretched compatriots nor the inaction, though these were loud in praise of their treatment, their gratitude being voiced aptly by Colonel Schiel, "First these British tried to kill us by bullets, and now by kindness."
The soldiers halted in or near the capital, whether volunteers from Fort Wynyard or the passing regulars detached, had a royal time. The best in the place was theirs; and wise indeed were the authorities to hold only necessary files at the base, rushing regiments right through, for the restraints of discipline were hardly proof against the excessive and often mistaken kindness of those who wished to show appreciation of the soldiers of their empire. More practical than these donors of strong drink, the black citizens formed a patriotic league to supply all the strawberries and other fruit that could be used in the base-hospitals during the war; and as their colour forbade their fighting for their Queen, they volunteered to take the place of railway patrols, without pay, so that the white guards could go forth to fight.
Refugees and wounded continue to flood into Cape Town and rumours of British atrocities are being spread everywhere by the Boer.
Doctor Versfeld called together the Dutch loyalists at Stellenbosch, and equipped a hospital with beds, doctors, and nurses for the wounded; and the moderator of the Synod called on the ministers to preach against the sin of disloyalty. Further yet, the Irish of Cape Town and environs held a mass meeting in their hundreds, and pledged their loyalty to the empire, adding that if British rule in the past had been hard for Ireland, there was the greater need for the Irish today to denounce like oppression in the Transvaal and further its suppression. Then the Americans in South Africa gathered at Cape Town and passed an almost unanimous resolution supporting the British policy, and a unanimous amendment advising the citizens of the United States to maintain individual neutrality in word and deed.
Doctor Versfeld called together the Dutch loyalists at Stellenbosch, and equipped a hospital with beds, doctors, and nurses for the wounded; and the moderator of the Synod called on the ministers to preach against the sin of disloyalty. Further yet, the Irish of Cape Town and environs held a mass meeting in their hundreds, and pledged their loyalty to the empire, adding that if British rule in the past had been hard for Ireland, there was the greater need for the Irish today to denounce like oppression in the Transvaal and further its suppression. Then the Americans in South Africa gathered at Cape Town and passed an almost unanimous resolution supporting the British policy, and a unanimous amendment advising the citizens of the United States to maintain individual neutrality in word and deed.
There was a touch of pathos when the local Mohammedans, the descendants of the East Indians shipped as slaves by the Dutch Company, had their meeting, and the patriarchs told the story of the horrors of the early days. They passed resolutions of gratitude to England for rescuing their fathers from slavery, and the imams formed committees to aid the British wounded. And so it was up-country in the native kraals, where the ignorant blacks, despite the overbearing conduct of colonists to "damned niggers," had learned the equality of British justice for black or white, and were full of loyalty to "our mother the Queen," even as they expressed terrible hatred of the Boers. But, to the war!
Confirmation that this was, indeed, the capital city of the Cape Colony came from the title of a local newspaper, The Cape Town Press, within which I read an intriguing article describing how I had been captured by the Boer at Dundee and am presumed dead.
Cape Town now is practically the headquarters of the largest army ever sent across the sea, save Weyler’s horde so successfully outwitted by the Cuban "handful." After the Tampa fiasco, I was anxious to see the disembarkation of an army without a General Shafter. During October and November, England, awakened to the peril of her supremacy in South Africa at the hands of an army of herders, poured her soldiers into the colony in thousands. But transportation in the British army or I should say navy, since the control of the transports is vested in the Admiralty, has been reduced to a perfect system by lessons of long experience. Entire divisions were moved six and seven thousand miles without a hitch; the system proved capable of efficacious extension from the Indian drafts to an army corps.
In rapid succession great transports swung alongside the massive South Arm, the organisation of the Army Service Corps was called into play, and as the living freight marched down the pier and entrained to the front, tons of stores were hoisted from the holds, every box of supplies, case of equipment, or bale of forage designated and apportioned. No confusion and no shortage; the great base, divided into departments for every military detail, filled the requisitions for the advanced bases, where supply columns were, replenished, returns were sorted and checked with the dockets, by which every pound of food for horse or man, or stores from a traction engine to a head rope could be accounted for.
The first army corps, under General Buller, which left England as the battles of Dundee and Elandslaagte were being fought, comprised: First Division Lieutenant-General Lord Methuen.
First Brigade, Major-General Sir Henry Colville, KCMG
Second Brigade, Major-General Hildyard.
Second Division Lieutenant-General Sir C. F. Clery, KCB
Third Brigade, Major-General Andrew Wanchope.
Fourth Brigade, Major-General Lyttelton.
Third Division Lieutenant-General Sir W. Gatacre, KCB
Fifth Brigade, Major-General Fitzroy Hart.
Sixth Brigade, Major-General G. Barton.
Cavalry Division Lieutenant-General French.
First Brigade, Major-General Babington.
Second Brigade, Major-General Brabazon.
A complete army corps consists of three full infantry divisions. A division contains two infantry brigades, each of four complete battalions; a brigade division (three batteries) of field artillery; a squadron of cavalry; and attached units, Engineers, Army Service, and Medical Staff corps and ammunition column. The corps troops comprise two horse and six field batteries, the balloon and telegraph sections, a railroad company, a pontoon troop, a field park, and other units. The Royal Engineers are made up of: one battalion of infantry, with Army Service corps, field hospital, ammunition and supply reserves. The Cavalry Division consists of two cavalry brigades, a battalion of mounted infantry, and a mounted troop of Royal Engineers, together with Army Service, Medical Staff corps, and ammunition columns.
The full mobilisation comprised some 42,000 officers and men, 96 guns, 17,000 animals and 2,150 vehicles, in the fighting force alone. Add to these the men of the various departmental corps, the battalions necessary for sustaining and guarding the lines of communication, and the total runs toward 70,000 men. With the thousands of horses and vehicles required for the Army Service, supply and ammunition columns, hospital and cavalry remount service, and the bullocks and mules for the convoys necessary to feed this mighty host, yon will see that it was no mean feat to gather this body of men, animals, and material, six thousand miles from home, little more than five weeks after war was declared. Remember the difficulties faced at Tampa in sending Shafter’s small army to a neighbouring island; and since the British authorities have now triplicated this original force, you can obtain some idea of the stupendous task that has been so successfully accomplished during the past few months.
The army corps was due to reach Cape Town in the middle of November. The plan of campaign had been conceived at the War Office and elaborated on the voyage by General Buller and his staff; but great things had transpired in the meantime, and when he landed in Cape Town he would find an entirely different and far more difficult problem to solve. When he left England, White’s force was adjudged ample to keep Joubert occupied in Natal; the early British victories justified the belief. The army corps, mobilised on the Free State frontier, was to sweep upward through Bloemfontein to Pretoria. The boasts of the Boers had evoked contemptuous roars from the self-satisfied British public. The cry "To Pretoria!" was uttered as freely in London, as "A Berlin!" had been in Paris in 1870; the awakening, if not so serious, was hardly less bitter. The army had been equally sanguine.
Buller’s plans will, no doubt, reflect the will of the politicians and his own military response to the situation in the field. But how this might accommodate the flood of rumours circulating on the streets of Cape Town remains to be seen. Only today, we have heard reports from Ladysmith that: General White has lost 400 men killed and wounded, with 800 captured by the Boer and many hundreds missing; Joubert has left Ladysmith under siege and moved 4000 troops south of the Tugela threatening Colenso and on to Pietermaritzburg; and, in extremis, General White is dead, his troops slaughtered and Ladysmith is in flames.
Rumours aside, however, General Buller was to find Ladysmith invested, Natal practically at the mercy of the enemy, Kimberley isolated, Mafeking besieged, and the strategic points of Cape Colony occupied. Miles of railroad were in the hands of the enemy, thousands of civilians were driven from their homes, their cattle lifted, their stores looted and destroyed. The revenues of the colonies were rapidly declining, and the serious aspect of affairs, especially in Natal, necessitated an entire and rapid change of campaign.
The dominating British idea of battle is to get at the enemy by the shortest route and smash him. But if the foe has great recuperative powers and is not easily get-at-able, it is better to employ strategy that will enable you to draw him from the ground of his own choosing and inflict a blow that will be decisive. In the light of present knowledge the wisdom of the standard but soon-to-be abandoned plan of campaign is evident. The invasion of the Free State would have relieved Kimberley and lessened the pressure at Ladysmith by the rapid withdrawal of the Free Staters. The Transvaalers could not then have remained long in Natal, but would have moved northward to prepare the defence of their own country. With Buller at Bloemfontein, White would have been released in natural sequence, and the energy expended in futile attempts to relieve Ladysmith would have been reserved for more decisive campaigns to the north.
But the speedy relief of the beleaguered cities was decided upon for political reasons, the effect on the Cape Dutch overruling military plans. General Buller split his force into three divisions - Lord Methuen to Kimberley and Mafeking, General Gatacre to Stormberg, Buller himself to relieve Ladysmith. Methuen took part of his division to De Aar to prepare for the relief of Kimberley, but Hildyard was detached with his brigade from this division and sent to Durban; Barton’s brigade followed. French was despatched to Naaupoort to hold the important railway junction. Gatacre disembarked at East London to check disaffection in the Stormberg district, but Natal became the chief theatre of war. The stream of reinforcements was diverted to the Garden Colony, and General Clery was appointed in supreme command south of the Tugela.
Transports came and went, troops were landed and sent to the front or were ordered on to East London and Durban, but Cape Town, the quaint, went on its way, apparently not greatly disturbed by the presence of 60,000 refugees from the republics and border towns, and the stream of arms passing by sea and land, with the reflux of the early wounded of the war. The batches of Boer prisoners attracted sympathy and attention from their local friends, and, from what I could judge, the soiled, repulsive looking burghers found their prison quarters and prison rations anything but disagreeable. But there were others, too, survivors of the educated Johannesburg commando, interesting, intelligent men, many of Holland or colonial birth or educated Boers, who liked neither the companionship of their wretched compatriots nor the inaction, though these were loud in praise of their treatment, their gratitude being voiced aptly by Colonel Schiel, "First these British tried to kill us by bullets, and now by kindness."
The soldiers halted in or near the capital, whether volunteers from Fort Wynyard or the passing regulars detached, had a royal time. The best in the place was theirs; and wise indeed were the authorities to hold only necessary files at the base, rushing regiments right through, for the restraints of discipline were hardly proof against the excessive and often mistaken kindness of those who wished to show appreciation of the soldiers of their empire. More practical than these donors of strong drink, the black citizens formed a patriotic league to supply all the strawberries and other fruit that could be used in the base-hospitals during the war; and as their colour forbade their fighting for their Queen, they volunteered to take the place of railway patrols, without pay, so that the white guards could go forth to fight.
Refugees and wounded continue to flood into Cape Town and rumours of British atrocities are being spread everywhere by the Boer.
Doctor Versfeld called together the Dutch loyalists at Stellenbosch, and equipped a hospital with beds, doctors, and nurses for the wounded; and the moderator of the Synod called on the ministers to preach against the sin of disloyalty. Further yet, the Irish of Cape Town and environs held a mass meeting in their hundreds, and pledged their loyalty to the empire, adding that if British rule in the past had been hard for Ireland, there was the greater need for the Irish today to denounce like oppression in the Transvaal and further its suppression. Then the Americans in South Africa gathered at Cape Town and passed an almost unanimous resolution supporting the British policy, and a unanimous amendment advising the citizens of the United States to maintain individual neutrality in word and deed.
Doctor Versfeld called together the Dutch loyalists at Stellenbosch, and equipped a hospital with beds, doctors, and nurses for the wounded; and the moderator of the Synod called on the ministers to preach against the sin of disloyalty. Further yet, the Irish of Cape Town and environs held a mass meeting in their hundreds, and pledged their loyalty to the empire, adding that if British rule in the past had been hard for Ireland, there was the greater need for the Irish today to denounce like oppression in the Transvaal and further its suppression. Then the Americans in South Africa gathered at Cape Town and passed an almost unanimous resolution supporting the British policy, and a unanimous amendment advising the citizens of the United States to maintain individual neutrality in word and deed.
There was a touch of pathos when the local Mohammedans, the descendants of the East Indians shipped as slaves by the Dutch Company, had their meeting, and the patriarchs told the story of the horrors of the early days. They passed resolutions of gratitude to England for rescuing their fathers from slavery, and the imams formed committees to aid the British wounded. And so it was up-country in the native kraals, where the ignorant blacks, despite the overbearing conduct of colonists to "damned niggers," had learned the equality of British justice for black or white, and were full of loyalty to "our mother the Queen," even as they expressed terrible hatred of the Boers. But, to the war!
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