'Surrender to avoid bloodshed' was his
message. 'When is the bloodshed going to begin?' asked Powell. When
the Boers had been shelling the town for some weeks the
lighthearted Colonel sent out to say that if they went on any
longer he should be compelled to regard it as equivalent to a
declaration of war. It is to be hoped that Cronje also possessed
some sense of humour, or else he must have been as sorely puzzled
by his eccentric opponent as the Spanish generals were by the
vagaries of Lord Peterborough.
Among the many difficulties which had to be met by the defenders of
the town the most serious was the fact that the position had a
circumference of five or six miles to be held by about one thousand
men against a force who at their own time and their own place could
at any moment attempt to gain a footing. An ingenious system of
small forts was devised to meet the situation. Each of these held
from ten to forty riflemen, and was furnished with bomb-proofs and
covered ways. The central bomb-proof was connected by telephone
with all the outlying ones, so as to save the use of orderlies. A
system of bells was arranged by which each quarter of the town was
warned when a shell was coming in time to enable the inhabitants to
scuttle off to shelter. Every detail showed the ingenuity of the
controlling mind. The armoured train, painted green and tied round
with scrub, stood unperceived among the clumps of bushes which
surrounded the town.
On October 24th a savage bombardment commenced, which lasted with
intermissions for seven months. The Boers had brought an enormous
gun across from Pretoria, throwing a 96-pound shell, and this, with
many smaller pieces, played upon the town. The result was as futile
as our own artillery fire has so often been when directed against
the Boers.
As the Mafeking guns were too weak to answer the enemy's fire, the
only possible reply lay in a sortie, and upon this Colonel Powell
decided. It was carried out with great gallantry on the evening of
October 27th, when about a hundred men under Captain FitzClarence
moved out against the Boer trenches with instructions to use the
bayonet only. The position was carried with a rush, and many of the
Boers bayoneted before they could disengage themselves from the
tarpaulins which covered them. The trenches behind fired wildly in
the darkness, and it is probable that as many of their own men as
of ours were hit by their rifle fire. The total loss in this
gallant affair was six killed, eleven wounded, and two prisoners.
The loss of the enemy, though shrouded as usual in darkness, was
certainly very much higher.
On October 31st the Boers ventured upon an attack on Cannon Kopje,
which is a small fort and eminence to the south of the town. It was
defended by Colonel Walford, of the British South African Police,
with fifty-seven of his men and three small guns. The attack was
repelled with heavy loss to the Boers. The British casualties were
six killed and five wounded.
Their experience in this attack seems to have determined the Boers
to make no further expensive attempts to rush the town, and for
some weeks the siege degenerated into a blockade. Cronje had been
recalled for more important work, and Commandant Snyman had taken
over the uncompleted task. From time to time the great gun tossed
its huge shells into the town, but boardwood walls and
corrugated-iron roofs minimise the dangers of a bombardment. On
November 3rd the garrison rushed the Brickfields, which had been
held by the enemy's sharpshooters, and on the 7th another small
sally kept the game going. On the 18th Powell sent a message to
Snyman that he could not take the town by sitting and looking at
it. At the same time he despatched a message to the Boer forces
generally, advising them to return to their homes and their
families. Some of the commandos had gone south to assist Cronje in
his stand against Methuen, and the siege languished more and more,
until it was woken up by a desperate sortie on December 26th, which
caused the greatest loss which the garrison had sustained. Once
more the lesson was to be enforced that with modern weapons and
equality of forces it is always long odds on the defence.
On this date a vigorous attack was made upon one of the Boer forts
on the north. There seems to be little doubt that the enemy had
some inkling of our intention, as the fort was found to have been
so strengthened as to be impregnable without scaling ladders. The
attacking force consisted of two squadrons of the Protectorate
Regiment and one of the Bechuanaland Rifles, backed up by three
guns. So desperate was the onslaught that of the actual attacking
party - a forlorn hope, if ever there was one - fifty-three out of
eighty were killed and wounded, twenty-five of the former and
twenty-eight of the latter. Several of that gallant band of
officers who had been the soul of the defence were among the
injured. Captain FitzClarence was wounded, Vernon, Sandford, and
Paton were killed, all at the very muzzles of the enemy's guns. It
must have been one of the bitterest moments of Baden-Powell's life
when he shut his field-glass and said, 'Let the ambulance go out!'
Even this heavy blow did not damp the spirits nor diminish the
energies of the defence, though it must have warned Baden-Powell
that he could not afford to drain his small force by any more
expensive attempts at the offensive, and that from then onwards he
must content himself by holding grimly on until Plumer from the
north or Methuen from the south should at last be able to stretch
out to him a helping hand.
