One Ridge, From Which
The Guns Would Be Enfiladed, Was Committed To The Charge Of
Lieutenants Tabor And Chichester With Eleven Men Of The 11th
Imperial Yeomanry, Their Instructions Being 'to Hold It To The
Death.' The Order Was Obeyed With The Utmost Heroism.
After a
desperate defence the ridge was only taken by the Boers when both
officers had been killed and nine out of eleven men were on the
ground.
In spite of the loss of this position the fight was still
sustained until shortly after midday, when Doran with the patrol
returned. The position was still most dangerous, the losses had
been severe, and the Boers were increasing in strength. An
immediate retreat was ordered, and the small column, after ten days
of hardship and anxiety, reached the railway line in safety. The
wounded were left to the care of Smuts, who behaved with chivalry
and humanity.
At about the same date a convoy proceeding from Beaufort West to
Fraserburg was attacked by Malan's commando. The escort, which
consisted of sixty Colonial Mounted Rifles and 100 of the West
Yorkshire militia, was overwhelmed after a good defence, in which
Major Crofton, their commander, was killed. The wagons were
destroyed, but the Boers were driven off by the arrival of Crabbe's
column, followed by those of Capper and Lund. The total losses of
the British in these two actions amounted to twenty-three killed
and sixty-five wounded.
The re-establishment of settled law and order was becoming more
marked every week in those south-western districts, which had long
been most disturbed. Colonel Crewe in this region, and Colonel
Lukin upon the other side of the line, acting entirely with
Colonial troops, were pushing back the rebels, and holding, by a
well-devised system of district defence, all that they had gained.
By the end of February there were none of the enemy south of the
Beaufort West and Clanwilliam line. These results were not obtained
without much hard marching and a little hard fighting. Small
columns under Crabbe, Capper, Wyndham, Nickall, and Lund, were
continually on the move, with little to show for it save an
ever-widening area of settled country in their rear. In a skirmish
on February 20th Judge Hugo, a well-known Boer leader, was killed,
and Vanheerden, a notorious rebel, was captured. At the end of this
month Fouche's tranquil occupation of the north-east was at last
disturbed, and he was driven out of it into the midlands, where he
took refuge with the remains of his commando in the Camdeboo
Mountains. Malan's men had already sought shelter in the same
natural fortress. Malan was wounded and taken in a skirmish near
Somerset East a few days before the general Boer surrender. Fouche
gave himself up at Cradock on June 2nd.
The last incident of this scattered, scrambling, unsatisfactory
campaign in the Cape peninsula was the raid made by Smuts, the
Transvaal leader, into the Port Nolloth district of Namaqualand,
best known for its copper mines. A small railroad has been
constructed from the coast at this point, the terminus being the
township of Ookiep. The length of the line is about seventy miles.
It is difficult to imagine what the Boers expected to gain in this
remote corner of the seat of war, unless they had conceived the
idea that they might actually obtain possession of Port Nolloth
itself, and so restore the communications with their sympathisers
and allies. At the end of March the Boer horsemen appeared suddenly
out of the desert, drove in the British outposts, and summoned
Ookiep to surrender. Colonel Shelton, who commanded the small
garrison, sent an uncompromising reply, but he was unable to
protect the railway in his rear, which was wrecked, together with
some of the blockhouses which had been erected to guard it. The
loyal population of the surrounding country had flocked into
Ookiep, and the Commandant found himself burdened with the care of
six thousand people. The enemy had succeeded in taking the small
post of Springbok, and Concordia, the mining centre, was
surrendered into their hands without resistance, giving them
welcome supplies of arms, ammunition, and dynamite. The latter was
used by the Boers in the shape of hand-bombs, and proved to be a
very efficient weapon when employed against blockhouses. Several of
the British defences were wrecked by them, with considerable loss
to the garrison; but in the course of a month's siege, in spite of
several attacks, the Boers were never able to carry the frail works
which guarded the town. Once more, at the end of the war as at the
beginning of it, there was shown the impotence of the Dutch
riflemen against a British defence. A relief column, under Colonel
Cooper, was quickly organised at Port Nolloth, and advanced along
the railway line, forcing Smuts to raise the siege in the first
week of May. Immediately afterwards came the news of the
negotiations for peace, and the Boer general presented himself at
Port Nolloth, whence he was conveyed by ship to Cape Town, and so
north again to take part in the deliberations of his
fellow-countrymen. Throughout the war he had played a manly and
honourable part. It may be hoped that with youth and remarkable
experience, both of diplomacy and of war, he may now find a long
and brilliant career awaiting him in a wider arena than that for
which he strove.
CHAPTER 36.
THE SPRING CAMPAIGN (SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER, 1901).
The history of the war during the African winter of 1901 has now
been sketched, and some account given of the course of events in
the Transvaal, the Orange River Colony, and the Cape Colony. The
hope of the British that they might stamp out resistance before the
grass should restore mobility to the larger bodies of Boers was
destined to be disappointed. By the middle of September the veld
had turned from drab to green, and the great drama was fated to
last for one more act, however anxious all the British and the
majority of the Boers might be to ring down the curtain.
Exasperating as this senseless prolongation of a hopeless struggle
might be, there was still some consolation in the reflection that
those who drank this bitter cup to the very lees would be less
likely to thirst for it again.
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