The Expedition Under Babington Consisted Of The Same
Regiments And The Same Battery Which Had Covered Pilcher's Advance.
The Line Taken Was A South-Easterly One, So As To Get Far Round The
Left Flank Of The Boer Position.
With the aid of a party of the
Victorian Mounted Rifles a considerable tract of country was
overrun, and some farmhouses destroyed.
The latter extreme measure
may have been taken as a warning to the Boers that such
depredations as they had carried out in parts of Natal could not
pass with impunity, but both the policy and the humanity of such a
course appear to be open to question, and there was some cause for
the remonstrance which President Kruger shortly after addressed to
us upon the subject. The expedition returned to Modder Camp at the
end of two days without having seen the enemy. Save for one or two
similar cavalry reconnaissances, an occasional interchange of
long-range shells, a little sniping, and one or two false alarms at
night, which broke the whole front of Magersfontein into yellow
lines of angry light, nothing happened to Methuen's force which is
worthy of record up to the time of that movement of General Hector
Macdonald to Koodoosberg which may be considered in connection with
Lord Roberts's decisive operations, of which it was really a part.
The doings of General Gatacre's force during the long interval
which passed between his disaster at Stormberg and the final
general advance may be rapidly chronicled. Although nominally in
command of a division, Gatacre's troops were continually drafted
off to east and to west, so that it was seldom that he had more
than a brigade under his orders. During the weeks of waiting, his
force consisted of three field batteries, the 74th, 77th, and 79th,
some mounted police and irregular horse, the remains of the Royal
Irish Rifles and the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers, the 1st Royal
Scots, the Derbyshire regiment, and the Berkshires, the whole
amounting to about 5500 men, who had to hold the whole district
from Sterkstroom to East London on the coast, with a victorious
enemy in front and a disaffected population around. Under these
circumstances he could not attempt to do more than to hold his
ground at Sterkstroom, and this he did unflinchingly until the line
of the Boer defence broke down. Scouting and raiding expeditions,
chiefly organised by Captain De Montmorency - whose early death cut
short the career of one who possessed every quality of a partisan
leader - broke the monotony of inaction. During the week which ended
the year a succession of small skirmishes, of which the town of
Dordrecht was the centre, exercised the troops in irregular
warfare.
On January 3rd the Boer forces advanced and attacked the camp of
the Cape Mounted Police, which was some eight miles in advance of
Gatacre's main position. The movement, however, was a half-hearted
one, and was beaten off with small loss upon their part and less
upon ours. From then onwards no movement of importance took place
in Gatacre's column until the general advance along the whole line
had cleared his difficulties from in front of him.
In the meantime General Buller had also been playing a waiting
game, and, secure in the knowledge that Ladysmith could still hold
out, he had been building up his strength for a second attempt to
relieve the hard-pressed and much-enduring garrison. After the
repulse at Colenso, Hildyard's and Barton's brigades had remained
at Chieveley with the mounted infantry, the naval guns, and two
field batteries. The rest of the force retired to Frere, some miles
in the rear. Emboldened by their success, the Boers sent raiding
parties over the Tugela on either flank, which were only checked by
our patrols being extended from Springfield on the west to Weenen
on the east. A few plundered farmhouses and a small list of killed
and wounded horsemen on either side were the sole result of these
spasmodic and half-hearted operations.
Time here as elsewhere was working for the British, for
reinforcements were steadily coming to Buller's army. By the new
year Sir Charles Warren's division (the 5th) was nearly complete at
Estcourt, whence it could reach the front at any moment. This
division included the 10th brigade, consisting of the Imperial
Light Infantry, 2nd Somersets, the 2nd Dorsets, and the 2nd
Middlesex; also the 11th, called the Lancashire Brigade, formed by
the 2nd Royal Lancaster, the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, the 1st
South Lancashire, and the York and Lancaster. The division also
included the 14th Hussars and the 19th, 20th, and 28th batteries of
Field Artillery. Other batteries of artillery, including one
howitzer battery, came to strengthen Buller's force, which amounted
now to more than 30,000 men. Immense transport preparations had to
be made, however, before the force could have the mobility
necessary for a flank march, and it was not until January 11th that
General Buller's new plans for advance could be set into action.
Before describing what these plans were and the disappointing fate
which awaited them, we will return to the story of the siege of
Ladysmith, and show how narrowly the relieving force escaped the
humiliation - some would say the disgrace - of seeing the town which
looked to them for help fall beneath their very eyes. That this did
not occur is entirely due to the fierce tenacity and savage
endurance of the disease-ridden and half-starved men who held on to
the frail lines which covered it.
CHAPTER 13.
THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH.
Monday, October 30th, 1899, is not a date which can be looked back
to with satisfaction by any Briton. In a scrambling and ill-managed
action we had lost our detached left wing almost to a man, while
our right had been hustled with no great loss but with some
ignominy into Ladysmith. Our guns had been outshot, our infantry
checked, and our cavalry paralysed. Eight hundred prisoners may
seem no great loss when compared with a Sedan, or even with an Ulm;
but such matters are comparative, and the force which laid down its
arms at Nicholson's Nek is the largest British force which has
surrendered since the days of our great grandfathers, when the
egregious Duke of York commanded in Flanders.
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