Whatever Criticism May Be Directed Against
Some Episodes In The Natal Campaign, It Must Never Be Forgotten
That To Buller And To His Men Have Fallen Some Of The Hardest Tasks
Of The War, And That These Tasks Have Always In The End Been
Successfully Carried Out.
The controversy about the unfortunate
message to White, and the memory of the abandoned guns at Colenso,
must not lead us to the injustice of ignoring all that is to be set
to the credit account.
On September 3rd Lord Roberts, finding how strong a position faced
Buller, despatched Ian Hamilton with a force to turn it upon the
right. Brocklehurst's brigade of cavalry joined Hamilton in his
advance. On the 4th he was within signalling distance of Buller,
and on the right rear of the Boer position. The occupation of a
mountain called Zwaggenhoek would establish Hamilton firmly, and
the difficult task of seizing it at night was committed to Colonel
Douglas and his fine regiment of Royal Scots. It was Spion Kop over
again, but with a happier ending. At break of day the Boers
discovered that their position had been rendered untenable and
withdrew, leaving the road to Lydenburg clear to Buller. Hamilton
and he occupied the town upon the 6th. The Boers had split into two
parties, the larger one with the guns falling back upon Kruger's
Post, and the others retiring to Pilgrim's Rest. Amid cloud-girt
peaks and hardly passable ravines the two long-enduring armies
still wrestled for the final mastery.
To the north-east of Lydenburg, between that town and Spitzkop,
there is a formidable ridge called the Mauchberg, and here again
the enemy were found to be standing at bay. They were even better
than their word, for they had always said that they would make
their last stand at Lydenburg, and now they were making one beyond
it. But the resistance was weakening. Even this fine position could
not be held against the rush of the three regiments, the Devons,
the Royal Irish, and the Royal Scots, who were let loose upon it.
The artillery supported the attack admirably. 'They did nobly,'
said one who led the advance. 'It is impossible to overrate the
value of their support. They ceased also exactly at the right
moment. One more shell would have hit us.' Mountain mists saved the
defeated burghers from a close pursuit, but the hills were carried.
The British losses on this day, September 8th, were thirteen killed
and twenty-five wounded; but of these thirty-eight no less than
half were accounted for by one of those strange malignant freaks
which can neither be foreseen nor prevented. A shrapnel shell,
fired at an incredible distance, burst right over the Volunteer
Company of the Gordons who were marching in column. Nineteen men
fell, but it is worth recording that, smitten so suddenly and so
terribly, the gallant Volunteers continued to advance as steadily
as before this misfortune befell them. On the 9th Buller was still
pushing forward to Spitzkop, his guns and the 1st Rifles
overpowering a weak rearguard resistance of the Boers.
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