All Through The Campaign,
While The Machinery For Curing Disease Was Excellent, That For
Preventing It Was Elementary Or Absent.
If bad water can cost us
more than all the bullets of the enemy, then surely it is worth
Our
while to make the drinking of unboiled water a stringent military
offence, and to attach to every company and squadron the most rapid
and efficient means for boiling it - for filtering alone is useless.
An incessant trouble it would be, but it would have saved a
division for the army. It is heartrending for the medical man who
has emerged from a hospital full of water-born pestilence to see a
regimental watercart being filled, without protest, at some
polluted wayside pool. With precautions and with inoculation all
those lives might have been saved. The fever died down with the
advance of the troops and the coming of the colder weather.
To return to the military operations: these, although they were
stagnant so far as the main army was concerned, were exceedingly
and inconveniently active in other quarters. Three small actions,
two of which were disastrous to our arms, and one successful
defence marked the period of the pause at Bloemfontein.
To the north of the town, some twelve miles distant lies the
ubiquitous Modder River, which is crossed by a railway bridge at a
place named Glen. The saving of the bridge was of considerable
importance, and might by the universal testimony of the farmers of
that district have been effected any time within the first few days
of our occupation. We appear, however, to have imperfectly
appreciated how great was the demoralisation of the Boers. In a
week or so they took heart, returned, and blew up the bridge.
Roving parties of the enemy, composed mainly of the redoubtable
Johannesburg police, reappeared even to the south of the river.
Young Lygon was killed, and Colonels Crabbe and Codrington with
Captain Trotter, all of the Guards, were severely wounded by such a
body, whom they gallantly but injudiciously attempted to arrest
when armed only with revolvers.
These wandering patrols who kept the country unsettled, and
harassed the farmers who had taken advantage of Lord Roberts's
proclamation, were found to have their centre at a point some six
miles to the north of Glen, named Karee. At Karee a formidable line
of hills cut the British advance, and these had been occupied by a
strong body of the enemy with guns. Lord Roberts determined to
drive them off, and on March 28th Tucker's 7th Division, consisting
of Chermside's brigade (Lincolns, Norfolks, Hampshires, and
Scottish Borderers), and Wavell's brigade (Cheshires, East
Lancashires, North Staffords, and South Wales Borderers), were
assembled at Glen. The artillery consisted of the veteran 18th,
62nd, and 75th R.F.A. Three attenuated cavalry brigades with some
mounted infantry completed the force.
The movement was to be upon the old model, and in result it proved
to be only too truly so. French's cavalry were to get round one
flank, Le Gallais's mounted infantry round the other, and Tucker's
Division to attack in front.
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