The Want Of Horsemen And The Want
Of Horse Artillery Are The Two Reasons Which Lord Methuen Gives Why
The Defeat Was Not Converted Into A Rout.
As it was, the feelings
of the retreating Boers were exemplified by one of their number,
who turned in his saddle in order to place his outstretched fingers
to his nose in derision of the victors.
He exposed himself to the
fire of half a battalion while doing so, but he probably was aware
that with our present musketry instruction the fire of a British
half-battalion against an individual is not a very serious matter.
The remainder of the 23rd was spent at Belmont Camp, and next
morning an advance was made to Enslin, some ten miles further on.
Here lay the plain of Enslin, bounded by a formidable line of
kopjes as dangerous as those of Belmont. Lancers and Rimington's
Scouts, the feeble but very capable cavalry of the Army, came in
with the report that the hills were strongly held. Some more hard
slogging was in front of the relievers of Kimberley.
The advance had been on the line of the Cape Town to Kimberley
Railway, and the damage done to it by the Boers had been repaired
to the extent of permitting an armoured train with a naval gun to
accompany the troops. It was six o' clock upon the morning of
Saturday the 25th that this gun came into action against the
kopjes, closely followed by the guns of the field artillery. One of
the lessons of the war has been to disillusion us as to the effect
of shrapnel fire. Positions which had been made theoretically
untenable have again and again been found to be most inconveniently
tenanted. Among the troops actually engaged the confidence in the
effect of shrapnel fire has steadily declined with their
experience. Some other method of artillery fire than the curving
bullet from an exploding shrapnel shell must be devised for dealing
with men who lie close among boulders and behind cover.
These remarks upon shrapnel might be included in the account of
half the battles of the war, but they are particularly apposite to
the action at Enslin. Here a single large kopje formed the key to
the position, and a considerable time was expended upon preparing
it for the British assault, by directing upon it a fire which swept
the face of it and searched, as was hoped, every corner in which a
rifleman might lurk. One of the two batteries engaged fired no
fewer than five hundred rounds. Then the infantry advance was
ordered, the Guards being held in reserve on account of their
exertions at Belmont. The Northumberlands, Northamptons, North
Lancashires, and Yorkshires worked round upon the right, and, aided
by the artillery fire, cleared the trenches in their front. The
honours of the assault, however, must be awarded to the sailors and
marines of the Naval Brigade, who underwent such an ordeal as men
have seldom faced and yet come out as victors. To them fell the
task of carrying that formidable hill which had been so scourged by
our artillery. With a grand rush they swept up the slope, but were
met by a horrible fire. Every rock spurted flame, and the front
ranks withered away before the storm of the Mauser. An eye-witness
has recorded that the brigade was hardly visible amid the sand
knocked up by the bullets. For an instant they fell back into
cover, and then, having taken their breath, up they went again,
with a deep-chested sailor roar. There were but four hundred in
all, two hundred seamen and two hundred marines, and the losses in
that rapid rush were terrible. Yet they swarmed up, their gallant
officers, some of them little boy-middies, cheering them on.
Ethelston, the commander of the 'Powerful,' was struck down. Plumbe
and Senior of the Marines were killed. Captain Prothero of the
'Doris' dropped while still yelling to his seamen to 'take that
kopje and be hanged to it!' Little Huddart, the middy, died a death
which is worth many inglorious years. Jones of the Marines fell
wounded, but rose again and rushed on with his men. It was on these
gallant marines, the men who are ready to fight anywhere and
anyhow, moist or dry, that the heaviest loss fell. When at last
they made good their foothold upon the crest of that murderous hill
they had left behind them three officers and eighty-eight men out
of a total of 206 - a loss within a few minutes of nearly 50 per
cent. The bluejackets, helped by the curve of the hill, got off
with a toll of eighteen of their number. Half the total British
losses of the action fell upon this little body of men, who upheld
most gloriously the honour and reputation of the service from which
they were drawn. With such men under the white ensign we leave our
island homes in safety behind us.
The battle of Enslin had cost us some two hundred of killed and
wounded, and beyond the mere fact that we had cleared our way by
another stage towards Kimberley it is difficult to say what
advantage we had from it. We won the kopjes, but we lost our men.
The Boer killed and wounded were probably less than half of our
own, and the exhaustion and weakness of our cavalry forbade us to
pursue and prevented us from capturing their guns. In three days
the men had fought two exhausting actions in a waterless country
and under a tropical sun. Their exertions had been great and yet
were barren of result. Why this should be so was naturally the
subject of keen discussion both in the camp and among the public at
home. It always came back to Lord Methuen's own complaint about the
absence of cavalry and of horse artillery. Many very unjust charges
have been hurled against our War Office - a department which in some
matters has done extraordinarily and unexpectedly well - but in this
question of the delay in the despatch of our cavalry and artillery,
knowing as we did the extreme mobility of our enemy, there is
certainly ground for an inquiry.
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