They Enlisted
Many Recruits Among The Cape Colony Dutch As They Advanced, And The
Scanty British Forces Fell Back In Front Of Them, Abandoning
Colesberg On The One Line And Stormberg On The Other.
We have,
then, to deal with the movements of two British detachments.
The
one which operated on the Colesberg line - which was the more vital
of the two, as a rapid advance of the Boers upon that line would
have threatened the precious Cape Town to Kimberley
connection - consisted almost entirely of mounted troops, and was
under the command of the same General French who had won the battle
of Elandslaagte. By an act of foresight which was only too rare
upon the British side in the earlier stages of this war, French,
who had in the recent large manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain shown
great ability as a cavalry leader, was sent out of Ladysmith in the
very last train which made its way through. His operations, with
his instructive use of cavalry and horse artillery, may be treated
separately.
The other British force which faced the Boers who were advancing
through Stormberg was commanded by General Gatacre, a man who bore
a high reputation for fearlessness and tireless energy, though he
had been criticised, notably during the Soudan campaign, for having
called upon his men for undue and unnecessary exertion. 'General
Back-acher' they called him, with rough soldierly chaff. A glance
at his long thin figure, his gaunt Don Quixote face, and his
aggressive jaw would show his personal energy, but might not
satisfy the observer that he possessed those intellectual gifts
which qualify for high command. At the action of the Atbara he, the
brigadier in command, was the first to reach and to tear down with
his own hands the zareeba of the enemy - a gallant exploit of the
soldier, but a questionable position for the General. The man's
strength and his weakness lay in the incident.
General Gatacre was nominally in command of a division, but so
cruelly had his men been diverted from him, some to Buller in Natal
and some to Methuen, that he could not assemble more than a
brigade. Falling back before the Boer advance, he found himself
early in December at Sterkstroom, while the Boers occupied the very
strong position of Stormberg, some thirty miles to the north of
him. With the enemy so near him it was Gatacre's nature to attack,
and the moment that he thought himself strong enough he did so. No
doubt he had private information as to the dangerous hold which the
Boers were getting upon the colonial Dutch, and it is possible that
while Buller and Methuen were attacking east and west they urged
Gatacre to do something to hold the enemy in the centre. On the
night of December 9th he advanced.
The fact that he was about to do so, and even the hour of the
start, appear to have been the common property of the camp some
days before the actual move.
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