Читать книгу South Africa and the Transvaal War - Louis Creswicke - Страница 94

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By the end of November two British forces were advancing from East London by way of Queenstown to the Stormberg and Colesberg districts in the north of Cape Colony. With General French's advance we must deal anon: that of Major-General Sir W. F. Gatacre calls for immediate attention. The General had under his command what was by courtesy termed the 3rd Division, namely, 2nd Royal Irish Rifles, four companies of the 1st Royal Berkshire Regiment, a troop of the New South Wales Lancers, some companies of Army Medical Corps, Field Hospital, and Volunteer Mounted Infantry. The total was about 5000 men.

On the 28th of November he was reinforced by the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers. His force, as we see, was none too large, for he was proceeding through country where it may be said that every hand was either openly or stealthily turned against him. For strategical reasons, and for the purpose of reassuring the British population, however, General Gatacre had decided that some sort of advance must be made. He reconnoitred in and around Molteno, and visited the outposts of regulars, irregulars, and police, and ascertained to an almost pitiful degree the slenderness of his resources should any strain occur.

STORMBERG PASS—THE SCENE OF GENERAL GATACRE'S OPERATIONS.

Drawing by J. C. S. Wright.

On the 26th November the Boers occupied Stormberg, and on the 28th General Gatacre moved to Bushman's Hoek with a battalion of infantry and some mounted infantry, the main body being at Putter's Kraal. On the 29th he accomplished a smart piece of work, though any really decisive action could not be attempted till more troops arrived from the Cape. The General concentrated a force at Molteno, commandeered five trains, and secured 1000 bags of flour which were in danger of being captured by the Boers.

On the 5th December the headquarters of the 3rd Division were still at Putter's Kraal, and here reinforcements were arriving daily. Manifestations of disloyalty grew more and more prevalent throughout Cape Colony, and the spread of the spirit of rebellion around Stormberg pointed to the fact that there were deliberate designs to assist in the overthrow of British supremacy.

On the 5th of December it was decided that a forward movement must at last be made. The plan was for the column to start by train to Molteno, and from thence march to the Boer laager at Stormberg. A dash was to be attempted in the darkness preceding dawn, and the position was to be carried at the point of the bayonet.

The project was fraught with extreme risk, but General Gatacre, though fully aware that he was without the necessary reinforcements to make good a continuous advance, resolved to accept the hazard for the sake of the chance of success, and for the sake of the moral effect such success might make in a district weevilled with disaffection. The game of war is one where reputation, armies, and empires are the stakes, and needs to be played not only with science, but with bluff, and no committee of generals, not even one composed of Napoleon, the Archduke Charles, and Wellington, could have laid down any fixed theory on the art of war as practised in the Transvaal at that moment. So our officers had to watch which way the wind blew and trim their sails accordingly; and Sir William Gatacre judged that it would be perilous to delay an attack on Stormberg until circumstances seemed to be absolutely propitious. The Colonial Boers were daily joining the enemy in considerable numbers, British subjects were imploring aid to save their property from destruction, and it was imperative to make some strong move which, if successful, would immediately arrest the threatened tide of rebellion. The worst of it was that everything depended on the strength of the move, and it was exactly this strength that was wanting. The Third Division was broken up and distributed in various parts of the country, and General Gatacre was forced to make a hazardous venture with only such forces as he could muster. On all sides the same unfortunate tale of weakness could be told. Our force was so divided up that each general was crippled with the consciousness that he had no hope of getting reinforcements for some time to come. Lord Methuen, now on the extreme west, while struggling for the relief of Kimberley, had kept the Free Staters at bay with great loss to himself, and was suffering from the weakness consequent on violent strain to his resources. General French, his eye fixed on Colesberg, with a diminutive and totally inadequate force, had dodged about from town to town, keeping the enemy ever on the alert and allowing him no time to snore behind his intrenchments, and no opportunity to proceed farther in his invasion of the Colony; while General Gatacre was now about to do his best in the midst of a swarming enemy to capture Stormberg. Thus we see that at one and the same time four different battles, in the most trying circumstances, were taking place in the Transvaal, and that the flower of our army was being exposed on all sides to the murderous shells of an overwhelming foe powerfully posted in places of his own choosing—at Modder River, at Arundel, at Stormberg, at Colenso—in each of these regions the continuous thunder of guns, the gallant advance of heroes, the stubborn and courageous defence of a preponderating enemy. It is some satisfaction to think that, though from the first the British suffered from inferiority in numbers, though they were out-fought by sheer weight of the Boer commandoes and guns, still they displayed an undismayed front, and those superb fighting qualities which tradition has taught us to look for in the British race, and which the enemy, misled or self-deceived, had chosen to under-estimate. It was also a matter for congratulation that the foe, with all the natural advantages of the situation, his knowledge of every inch of the ground, his great mobility and advanced preparations, merely succeeded in repelling the British attack, and never took the initiative in attempting one single forward movement in the face of the British army. But it must be allowed our own forward moves were so stubbornly resisted, that General Sir William Gatacre, while attempting to advance, recognised that in some bold and well-conceived plan of action lay his only chance of success. Such a plan he attempted to carry out, but with deplorable results, as we shall see.