Thieves quarry, p.24
A History of the Regular Mounted Infantry, page 24
Major Dyne’s two months’ command had not proved a success. An unfortunate incident in which he withheld fire till too late, when a party of Boers had been driven against a strong position held by the 6th MI, had led to great discontent and, unknown to their officers, a deputation of sergeants interviewed De Lisle and told him of the occurrences. Dyne, who was far from fit, was told on reaching Bethlehem, he must go for a rest into the line. The rank and file, of course, did not know this. On reaching the line a thorough rifle inspection had been ordered and during the afternoon a burst of firing broke out. On going to enquire the cause the adjutant was told the men were firing to clean their rifles. Ordering it to stop at once the adjutant went back to his tent when another burst broke out. This time the names of some half a dozen offenders were taken.
Next day being Sunday, Dyne was told he could not hold orderly room and after lunch he said goodbye and went into the line. Forthwith, in spite of the day, orderly room was held. Each delinquent was offered a court martial, which was promptly refused lest they should cause any trouble to the man they hoped would be their new permanent CO. Instead, his command was ushered in by the award to each of fourteen days’ Field Punishment No.1 and discipline once more restored. Dyne very generously made a present of Souters saddlery to his successor, as well as any kit he thought would be useful to other members of the Mess. Major Craufurd continued to command the battalion till the following August when a reorganisation of mounted infantry units took place after peace and he went on leave.
By the end of January, the two great blockhouse lines of the Eastern Free State, namely from Heilbron through Frankfort and Vrede to Bothas Pass and that from Kroonstadt through Lindley and Bethlehem to Harrismith and the Natal Border, had been completed.
A further line along the Transvaal Natal railway completed the system and Kitchener was ready for his ‘New Model Drives’. Elliot’s two columns, with others, were consequently moved down to Bethlehem Harrismith sector to take up their jumping-off position for the new move.
With the network blockhouse lines now gradually nearing completion throughout the two republics and indeed, though to a far more limited extent, in Cape Colony itself, the long struggle was within measurable distance of reaching its inevitable conclusion.
There was to be a flicker in the Western Transvaal, where gallant de la Rey was to win two brilliant victories at Yzer Spruit on 26 February and again at Tweebosch on 7 March. The Boers, with the stubbornness of a kindred race to ourselves, were still to hold out against overwhelming odds and hopeless conditions for another three months or more before peace was finally arranged. But the new weapon – the drive in one continuous line of mounted men between blockhouse lines, strengthened by scattered infantry detachments, was, in the end, to prove irresistible.
The first great drive was planned for the first week in February. Four groups of columns co-operated under Elliot, Remington, Byng and Rawlinson respectively. Each group was roughly 2,000 strong and was subdivided into two or more, totalling fourteen small columns in all, for facility of command. In addition, there were two small groups of columns in support, namely one under Barker in support at a kop on the Lindley – Bethlehem road, with Holmes and Marshall again in support on the left flank. The actual scope of the drive was to be a 54-mile line drawn from Frankfort to the aforementioned kop, with an ultimate pocket enclosed by Kroonstadt, Wolverhoek Junction and Heilbron railway lines. This was patrolled, in addition to the blockhouse garrisons, by armoured trains with search lights and stop columns. In order to make sure de Wet was within the drive, Byng was left within the threatened area to keep in touch, while the other three columns were placed along Harrismith - Bethlehem blockhouse line in position to wheel into line on the Liebenburg vlei and, if need be, face about and drive east to the Drakensberg with de Wet himself being the main object. All were in position by 1 February.
On 2 February, Byng’s force came into touch with de Wet near Armstrong Drift and, in the ensuing action, recaptured the gun and pompom lost at Tweefontein on Christmas Day. Byng was now able to report de Wet within the western area of the drive and the columns were consequently kept deployed onto their line by 5 February. Shortly after daylight the great movement began, covered by a screen of scouts in one thin line from blockhouse line to blockhouse line. Then came the main body of the advanced guard of each small column; guns and transport followed a mile in the rear. The combined strength of the driving line worked out to an average of one man to 10yds frontage. At night there was to be a continuous line of picquets, practically the whole force being on outpost duty. The distance to the butts on the railway, 50 miles or so, was to be covered in three days.
Inside the area were known to be some 1,800 Boers in scattered commandos. The total forces employed in this first great drive consisted of 17,000 troops, exclusive of town garrisons, 300 blockhouses and seven armoured trains. Even so, with all this great preparation, owing to the immense distances covered, it was obvious that determined bodies of men not only could but would eventually break through but at a cost to nerves almost as severe as actual casualty lists. It was the first time in history that an advance in line had been tried on so magnificent a scale. Fortunately, the country was a comparatively easy one to manoeuvre over. If there was no hard riding or night riding, the three days’ work was to prove arduous enough for all concerned and rest had to be snatched chiefly at the long midday halts. Nonetheless, for those engaged it was a thrilling experience.
Night fell on the evening of the first day with no harder work than keeping the long line intact and the long outposts stretched continuously from Doornkloof, on the south, to Holland, on the north, without a break. De Wet, once he grasped the full nature of the trap which had been set, realised that the only hope for the burghers lay in a breakout from the kraal in force at some point or another. Ordering a full concentration at Slangfontaine, 15 miles south of Heilbron, at midday on 7 February de Wet determined to break out the blockhouse line to the south. Only 700 burghers responded to his call, driving great herds of cattle with them. At midnight, aided by the black darkness, he struck the line at a point midway between Lindley and Kroonstadt, and a little to the West of Doornkloof, and quietly cut the fence without being detected. Shortly afterwards the cattle and their escort arrived and rushed the line by main force. Once safely through de Wet and his burghers marched on without pause for another 40 miles to the Doornberg Hills, west of Senekal, to await further news. Marshall, not far from the crossing line, with his stop column, receiving no news from the blockhouses, proved of no avail.
All through the drive on the 7th, scattered commandos had been trying at one point or another to find a gap in the driving line. Suddenly, on topping in a long sloping rise, some fifty burghers waiting and watching with their scouts on the crestline, charged through as the column came into full view. The dragoons on the right of the 6th MI were taken by surprise and the Boers were through them before they had time to shoot. The men of the 6th meantime excitedly shouting to them to draw swords and cut. Alas, from long disuse and the wet weather of winter, the swords had rusted in and would not draw, and a great opportunity was lost. The Boers got away scatheless except with one or two of their horses hit as they galloped into the blue.
The same night that de Wet broke through to the south, a combined commando under Van Collier and Van der Merwe also broke through Rawlinson’s line, eventually crossing the Heilbron Frankfort blockhouse line with the loss of thirty men in each adventure. The final day of the drive was in the contracted triangle between Heilbron and Koonstadt railway and by nightfall Elliot had reached America Siding. All night long search lights of the armoured trains played on the veld from the railway lines. All through the night bursts of fire broke out from one end to another of the triangle - the line of picquets in the driving line being almost stronger than that of the railway blockhouses. All were on the alert and there was no rest for anyone, excitement being at too high a pitch. A few Boers cut their way through while many were shot, but most, abandoning hope, lay down to hide until daylight when they could safely surrender. By the evening of the 8th, 286 Boers had been accounted for in killed, wounded and prisoners, besides the many unrecorded casualties of those who broke back. Of the prisoners many had been found hiding in caves or holes or even in the reed beds of the Rhenoster, buried up to their necks in water. That five-sixths of the total numbers of Boers within the trap did eventually manage to break through to liberty is a fine tribute to their pluck and determination.
No time was lost by Kitchener in organising a second drive on a still greater scale and with a more elaborate complication of moves. The new drive, which was to be carried out in three phases, was to include the whole area of the North East Free State with the Natal railway in the Transvaal as its northern boundary, the line Winburg, Bethlehem, Harrismith as its limits to the south and the Drakensberg to the east. The three phases of the operations were in all to occupy fourteen days - but not of continuous driving for all columns concerned. For this purpose, the columns were divided into two wings, starting respectively from the northern and southern flanges of the net and gradually wheeling inwards. The third and final phase was to be down a funnel formed by the Wilge and Klip Rivers with the Harrismith blockhouse line as ultimate barrier. The southern wing, mainly under Elliot’s direction, consisted of six columns: De Lisle, Fanshawe, Holmes, Marshall, Lawly and DuCane. On the north were Rawlinson, Remington and Byng.
After a short four days’ rest at Kroonstadt, Elliot started first on a line from Kroonstadt to Doornberg from which place de Wet had moved back into the Elands Kop area as soon as the last attempted envelopment was over. Starting on 13 February Elliot’s six columns moved east to the Lindley, Bethlehem blockhouse line, which was reached on 16 February without much tangible result. On arrival at Lindley, Elliot heard that de Wet was at Elands Kop and sent Fanshawe and De Lisle on a night raid to the farm he was reported to be hiding in on 17 February. Owing to a mistake in farms given, de Wet got clear and only ten prisoners and his helio were captured. De Wet himself had, however, an unexpected escape, for ‘B’ Company foraying wide on the return journey saw a Boer in shirt sleeves leaving an outlying farm. A patrol of Colour Sergeant Shannon and two men went down to the farm and found only women but brought back the Boer’s coat with documents inside. It proved to be that of de Wet with, among other papers, the correspondence between him and Kitchener at Paardeberg. In it was a reply to a helio message to the invested Boer laager from de Wet quoting the verse, ‘They hemmed me in on every side I say, but in the name of the Lord I will defy them.’
Kitchener had sent, ‘Those that take up the Sword shall perish by the sword.’ This correspondence is now one of the treasures of a Welsh County Museum.
At Lindley a four-day halt was made for the northern or left wing to get into position. On 16 February the left wing moved from a 50-mile frontage stretching from Heidelberg to the Transvaal to Gottenburg, a small station on the Heilbron railway midway between Heilbron and Wolverhoek Junction, and drove eastward. Two days later, on 18 February, the 65 miles had been covered and the new line stretching between Standerton and Tafel Kop on the Frankfort blockhouse line reached. Two of the stop columns, those of Kier and Damant, had been drawn into the northern wing to thicken it. After a twenty-four hours’ halt, the northern wing, wheeling right with Tefal Kop as pivot, faced southwards on the new alignment between Tefal Kop and the Verzamelberg by Volkerust where the frontiers of Natal, the Transvaal and the Free State met. Elliott’s column in conformity had, meanwhile, wheeled eastwards and took up the line of Wilge from Majoors Drift, on the Harrismith blockhouse line, to Bachante in touch with the Frankfort line. All was now ready for the final phase: the drive between the two rivers, which was carried out by the troops of the northern wing.
By the evening of 21 February all was in readiness for a final move on the 22nd. The driving line, 60 miles long, moved forwards. Inside the corral were Steyn, de Wet and the Free State government with 3,000 fighting burghers, including 300 Transvaalers under General Alberts, whilst 30,000 men, just ten times their number, formed the troops of an ever-contracting ring. Only one point was in their favour - the scene of operations was in the most rugged and broken area of all the Free State. Before the week was out would come Majuba day, now ominous as the anniversary of the first great surrender at Paardeberg two years before. Desperate situations demand desperate measures and on 23 February de Wet, finding himself at the head of 900 burghers, albeit encumbered with a great mob of frightened refugees, decided to try to break through. The British driving line had reached the line of the Hol Spruit and a full moon made easy the location of the picquet lines to enterprising scouts. A weak spot at the junction between Byng and Remington was chosen and the attack launched at 11.00 pm. Garrett’s New Zealanders put up a desperate resistance but the thinly held line had no reserves. In the end, de Wet with 600 stalwarts broke through, carrying some of the horde of refugees with them. In doing so he left fourteen dead on the field and twenty wounded who got through with him. The New Zealanders had twenty-three killed and forty-three wounded in the vain attempt to hold the gap. Other small commandos managed to dribble through, either by crossing away from the known drifts on the Wilge or in the wild foothold hills of the Drakensberg. Foiled in two attempts to break through Elliot’s line, on the morning of 27 February, Meyer and his commando of 570 men surrendered to Rawlinson. The total captures in the drive resulted in 778 prisoners, fifty Boers killed, 25,000 head of cattle, 2,000 horses and 250 vehicles. This was the biggest single coup since Prinsloo’s surrender in July 1900. The drive had, however, far more effect than mere numbers of capture. Shortly after this date the wives and mothers who had so far cheered their men to resistance through every change of fortune now tentatively, and for the first time, talked of peace to their acquaintances within the columns.
De la Rey might still snatch victory in the Transvaal and resistance and negotiations be prolonged another three months but, with the home front pierced, the end was now definitely in sight. The fight at Langverwacht was thus to usher in the peace, so long awaited.
Little rest was allowed by Kitchener either to his weary troops or to their still more weary quarry. On 4 March the columns moved out again to take up their position for the third drive. Like its predecessor it was to consist of three phases. The opening moves were to be carried out by two wings moving out first independently as before. The actual drive itself was to cover the same ground as in the first drive: from Liebenberg vlei to the Kroonstadt railway; but first the great quadrilateral Lindley, Frankfort, Tafel Kop, Harrismith was to be swept so as to drive the Boers as far as possible into the corral. Twelve columns were to take part, a slight reorganisation having taken place during the halt, including Byng’s return home to England. This time Elliot’s group was to form the northern wing. This moved first, marching northward on a 50-mile front from the Harrismith to the Frankfort blockhouse line. Nine columns, amounting in all to 10,000 men, took part in the manoeuvre. As soon as Elliott had departed, three columns under Rawlinson, consisting in all of 5,500 men operating in rear of Elliot’s march, swept northwest on a 30-mile front between Majoors Drift at the junction of the Molen and Wilge and a point on the Lindley blockhouse line south of a kop on the Lindley – Bethlehem road. On reaching the northern blockhouse line Elliot’s line from Tafel Kop to Bothas Pass was to turn about and, pivoting on Tafel Kop, wheel on to the new line of Liebenberg vlei. This Elliot did on 9 March, but the day following the driving line was weakened by the withdrawal of four columns to the Transvaal in consequence of Methuen’s disaster at Tweebosch. The attenuated line was no longer equal to its task and many Boers broke through in the dark.
Mentz, with 400 men of the Heilbron commando, was, however, still within the net. The driving line now reduced, pressed forward on the 60-mile frontage between Lindley and Frankfort and, in two rapid marches, reached the railway on 13 March with a total result of some 100 Boers killed, wounded and prisoners. On the last night Mentz galloped the line north of Heilbron and broke the wire for a distance of 60yds by sheer weight of impetus and passed out within 100yds of a blockhouse. Another lot had similarly burst through the Kroonstadt Lindley line the same night.
It was on the last night of this drive that a lieutenant of the Wiltshires, but recently joined, whilst visiting his outposts from in front was unfortunately challenged and shot dead through the heart, not having apparently heard the challenge in the pouring rain. Only one shot had been fired and it was only when he was missed and a search made, that the tragedy was discovered, his body lying only a few yards from the sentry post.
For fully a month the troops of the North East Free State had been driving backwards and forwards between the blockhouses with only the briefest halts for supplies, and the constant work, day and night, was beginning to tell. A week’s halt was consequently given at Kroonstadt before the next drive started during which many changes were made in Elliot’s own two columns. De Lisle was transferred to the Klerksdorp District to take over charge of a newly formed Australian column and Little of the 9th Lancers took over the cavalry column De Lisle had been commanding for the past three months. With the departure of their column commander, the 6th MI, De Lisle’s own regiment which had always been under his command since its first formation two years before were now transferred from their cavalry brigade to Fanshawe’s column of Yeomanry and colonials, in place of the South Australians, who in turn were being transferred to one of the new Australian columns.
