THE BOER WAR – The Battle
of Spion Kop
See
Photo in ‘Related Photos’ section.
Newspaper article from the Ottawa Observer - 31 January 1900. Article was found
in Alice Sweezey’s family bible in the 70’s.
During the Boer War, which broke out in
1899, the sympathies of the Irish were on the side of the Boers. No attempt was
made to dissemble the delight in Ireland when the Boers scored a victory over
the English. Major John MacBride held command of an Irish Brigade fighting with
the Boer forces. This was also the beginning of the fight for ‘Home Rule’ in
Ireland.
WORLD LEADERS IN THE BOER
WAR
Sir
Winston Churchill – war correspondent
Mohandas
K. Gandhi – Lieutenant, British Medical Services
Boer
General Louis Botha – South Africa’s 1st Prime Minister
‘COMMANDO’ by Denneys Reitz – 16th
August 1929
Index:
-
On
the brink
-
To
the frontier (Winston Churchill taken prisoner)
-
Battle
of Spion Kop
-
Mohandas K. Gandhi
-
MacBrides Brigade
-
Lord
Horatio Kitchener – war criminal?
ON THE BRINK
We lived
in Orange Free State. My father was Chief Justice in Sir Brand’s time and
subsequently, in 1887, was elected President of the Republic. Our small country
was a model one. There were no political parties, nor until after the Jameson
Raid of 1895, was there any bad blood between the Dutch and the English. I
myself had no hatred of the British people; from my fathers side I come of Dutch
and French Huguenot blood, whilst my mother (dead for many years) was a
pure-bred Norwegian from the North Cape, so one race was much like another to
me. Yet, as a South African, one had to fight for one’s country, and for the
rest I did not concern myself overmuch with the merits or demerits of the
quarrel. I looked on the prospect of war and adventure with the eyes of youth,
seeing only the glamour, but knowing nothing of the horror and the misery.
I was
seventeen years old and thus too young to be enrolled as a burgher. President
Kruger himself solved this problem for me. One morning when I was at the
Government buildings, I met him and my father in the corridor and I told the
President that the Field-Cornet’s office had refused to enrol me for active
service. The old man looked me up and down for a moment and growled: ‘Piet
Joubert says the English are three to one-‘Sal jij mij drie rooinekke lever?’
(Will you stand me good for three of them?) I answered boldly: ‘President, if I
get close enough I’m good for three with one shot’. He gave a hoarse chuckle at
my youthful conceit and, turning to my father, asked how old I was. When he
heard my age he said: ‘Well then, Mr. State Secretary, the boy must go – I
started fighting earlier than that’, and he took me straight to the
Commandant-General’s room close by, where Piet Joubert in person handed me a
new Mauser carbine, and a bandolier of ammunition, with which I returned home
pleased and proud.
I saw a
good deal of the President in these days as I used to go with my father to his
house on the outskirts of town, where they discussed State matters while I sat
listening. The President had an uncouth, surly manner, and he was the ugliest
man I have ever seen, but he had a strong, rugged personality, which impressed
all with whom he came in contact. He was religious to a degree, and on Sundays
he preached in the queer Dopper church he had built across the street, where I
sometimes heard him.
TO THE FRONTIER
Our
officer, or Field-Cornet, as he was called, was Mr. Zeederberg, a coach
contractor, and the rank and file were mostly young fellows from the Civil
Service and the legal offices and shops in the town. Few of them had ever seen
war, or undergone military training, but they were full of ardour, and in spite
of cramped quarters and rough fare, we were like schoolboys as we clanked
along.
At this
time I was sent for to give evidence in Pretoria against a man who had stolen
money and clothing, which my father had given him to take down to my brother
and myself. I travelled up by goods train and the man was put in gaol. I was in
Pretoria for only two days. Before returning to Natal, I walked with my father
from his office in the morning and we touched at the State School where a number
of captured British Officers were confined, one of whom had asked for an
interview. We passed through the sentries into a large classroom where he was
playing games with his fellow prisoners. His name was Winston Churchill, a son
of Lord Randolph Churchill, of whom I had often heard. He said he was not a
combatant but a war-correspondent, and asked to be released on that account. My
father, however, replied that he was carrying a Mauser pistol when taken, and
so must remain where he was. Winston Churchill said that all war-correspondents
in the Sudan had carried weapons for self-protection, and the comparison
annoyed my father, who told him that the Boers were not in the habit of killing
non-combatants. In the end the young man asked my father to take with him some
articles which he had written for a newspaper in England and if there was
nothing wrong with them to send them on via Delagoa Bay. My father read
portions of the articles to us at home that evening, and said that Churchill
was a clever young man, in which, he was not far wrong, for soon after the
prisoner climbed over a wall and escaped out of the Transvaal – how, I never
heard. For Boer War photo’s click: http://abw.netfirms.com/index.html
THE BATTLE of SPION KOP
I reached
our camp at Ladysmith on January 23rd (1900) to find that volunteers
were being called for to go to the Tugela, and I now heard that General Buller
had moved the English army twenty-five miles upstream from Colenso in
preparation for another big-scale attack in the vicinity of Spion Kop, a
Prominent hill forming part of the Boer line on the north bank of the Tugela.
Already they were hammering away at different points, seeking a weak spot at
which to thrust; so my father had been right, and, indeed, the situation was so
critical that reinforcements were being sent from every commando lying around
Ladysmith.
From
the Pretoria laager fifty volunteers were asked for, and more then three times
that number immediately offered themselves. The Field-Cornet made a selection
which included Isaac Malherbe, my brother and myself and our three remaining
tent-mates, Charles Jeppe, de Vos and Heinecke, as well as several more of our
corporalship.
We set out
within an hour of my arrival from Pretoria, and crossed the Klip River after
dark, riding all night round by the west until we reached the rear of Spion Kop
at daybreak. As we rode, we could hear the sound of heavy gunfire from the
forward hills, and it never ceased for any length of time although we were
still too far back to be in it, danger.
After a
short halt to rest our horses and cook breakfast, we were ordered to the top of
a steep ridge lying about a mile to the right, were we had to dig a reserve
trench. A mule-wagon had accompanied us
from Ladysmith carrying provisions, ammunition and a supply of pick-axes and
shovels, with which unaccustomed tools we started up the slope, horses and all.
When we
had dug for some time, Field-Cornet Zeederberg, who was always very kind to me,
said that as I was the youngest I need not dig any more and could go down to
where the wagon had been left for a rest.
Nothing loath, I made haste to reach the halting-place, and, leaving my
horse in charge of the mule-drivers, I started out to see what was going on in
the front positions, which were out of sight from where we had been digging.
Ever since
sunrise there had come the unbroken boom of guns and the rattle of small arms,
and now that I was free I decided to walk across the intervening hills to the
firing-line. As I went, the
gun-and-rifle fire grew louder, and before long I reached a point from which I
could see the Boer front strung out along the top of the next rise.
Black
mushrooms of earth and smoke hung along the course of the positions from the
heavy shells flung across the Tugela, and puffs of shrapnel flecked the air
above. From the noise I judged that a
battle was in full progress and, after some hesitation, I hurried on and
reached the line in safety. The
spectacle from here was a fine one. Far
below on the plain the Tugela River wound shining in the sun, and the bank
beyond was alive with English foot and horse.
From the wooded hills farther back came the flashes of the British guns,
and in the din I asked myself more than once why I had been foolish enough to
come.
During the
preceding days the English had effected a lodgement at numerous points on our
side of the river, and their troops were occupying such spurs and ridges
running up from the water’s edge as they had been able to seize. The Boers, on being pushed back, had
reformed along the crest of the height, where they were now holding a series of
hastily dug trenches and whatever natural cover they could find, and were
stoutly resisting any further encroachments of the enemy, who in places were
lying within a few hundred yards of us.
The
positions here were held by Free State commandos, while downstream, lay the
Transvaalers. There were probably ten or twelve thousand burghers in all on
these hills, with the bastion of Spion Kop standing like a pivot in the
centre. For the most part the men made
slight reply to the fire in order to husband their ammunition, and our
artillery kept silent for the same reason, although it was estimated that there
were over two hundred guns firing at us, and I have heard that this was the
heaviest concentration of gun fire that has been seen in any war up to the
present.
The
casualties were considerable and I saw some men fearfully mutilated, including
a father and son of the Frankfort commando who were torn to pieces by a
howitzer shell, their rifles being sent spinning down the incline at the back
of us.
It was a
day of strain. Not only was there the
horror of seeing men killed and maimed, there was the long-drawn tension and
fear of the approaching shells.
This
tremendous volume of fire indicated an early attack, and throughout the day, we
looked to see the storm break at any moment, but, as it turned out, the
bombardment was a feint, the real blow being delivered after midnight at a
different point.
I was
entitled to quit the line as my unit lay in the rear, but I did not like to go,
and remained until things died down towards sunset, when I could return without
loss of face. I found the Pretoria volunteers where I had left them digging
that morning. They must have worked well, for they had completed quite a long
trench.
I joined
Isaac Malherbe and others sitting round the fire cooking their supper and
watching the light fade away over the distant Drakensbergen, I chatted for a
quiet hour with men who were mostly dead next morning.
Field-Cornet
Zeederberg now ordered me down with him to the supple wagon. He said he was going to spend the night
there, and, as he might require to send a message up to the trench, I was to
come with him for I had good climbing legs.
When we
got below, a tent had been pitched for him, which I was allowed to share, and I
was soon fast asleep. It rained at intervals during the night, and towards
three in the morning we were waked by an angry stutter of rifle-fire coming
from Spion Kop. We sat up listening,
but as there was nothing we could do in the rain and darkness, and as after a
while the firing died down, we fell asleep again.
At sunrise
loud gun-and-rifle fire broke out along the front on which I had been the day
before; but, as it was no worse then it had been, Mr Zeederberg and I were not
unduly perturbed and sat sipping our morning coffee in the lee of the wagon out
of the way of the spent bullets that whined over our heads.
As we
breakfasted one of our Pretoria men galloped up with a message from Isaac
Malherbe to say that the British had made a night attack and had captured Spion
Kop. This was most serious, for if the
hill went the entire Tugela line would go with it, and we could hardly bring
ourselves to believe the news. The man,
however, assured us that it was true, but he said that a strong force of
burghers was assembling below the hill and that Isaac Malherbe had ridden down
by a shortcut with all the men who were with him, so we shouted to the
mule-drivers to saddle our horses, and filling up with ammunition from a box on
the wagon we followed on the heels of our guide.
Heavy
shells were lobbing over as we went but we had not far to go and in less then
fifteen minutes reached the bottom of Spion Kop. Here stood hundreds of saddled horses in long rows, and we looked
up at an arresting sight.
The Boer
counter-attack had started shortly before.
Eight or nine hundred riflemen were climbing up the steep side of the
hill in face of a close-range fire from the English troops who had established
themselves on the flat summit overnight.
Many of our men dropped, but already the foremost were within a few
yards of the rocky edge, which marked the crest, and soldiers were rising from
behind their cover to meet the final rush.
For a moment or two there was confused hand-to-hand fighting, then the
combatants surged over the rim on to the plateau beyond, where we could no
longer see them. Spellbound, we watched
until our men passed out of view, and then, recovering ourselves, dismounted,
and tying our horses with the rest, hurried up in the wake of the attack.
Dead and
dying men lay all along the way, and there was proof that the Pretoria men had
gone by, for I soon came on the body of John Malherbe, our Corporal’s brother,
with a bullet between his eyes; a few paces farther lay two more dead men of
our commando. Farther on I found my
tent-mate, poor Robert Reinecke, shot through the head, and not far off L. de
Villiers of our corporalship lay ahead.
Yet higher up was Krige, another of Isaac’s men, with a bullet through
both lungs, still alive, and beyond him Walter de Vos of my tent, shot through
the chest, but smiling cheerfully as we passed. Apart from the Pretoria men there were many other dead and
wounded, mostly Carolina burghers from the eastern Transvaal, who formed the
bulk of the assaulting column. Spion
Kop, although steep, is not very high on the northern slope where we went up,
and it did not take us long to reach the top.
Here we found that the advance had got no farther then the fringe of
loose rocks that runs like a girdle around the upper tableland. For the rest of the flat stretch beyond was
still wholly in the hands of the British, who lay in a shallow trench behind a
rifle-fire that made further progress impossible. It was marvellous that the Boers had got even thus far, for they
had swarmed up the bare hillside in the face of a devastating fire, and they
had pushed home the attack with such vigour that the marrow belt of rocks was
thickly strewn with their dead.
I met my
brother coming down in charge of captured soldiers and did not see him again as
he had orders to escort them to Ladysmith, and he took no further part in the
battle.
Giving him
a hurried handshake, I went forward to the firing line a few yards farther on.
During the short delay, I lost touch with Mr Zeederberg, and when I inquired
from the men crouching behind the rocks for Isaac Malherbe, I was told by Red
Daniel Opperman, the officer in command, that he had sent the Pretorians round
to the ledge a few minutes earlier to rake the English flank. Working my way in
that direction, I reached a spot where the out-crop of rocks came to a dead
end. From here spread a patch of open ground until the ledge reappeared a
hundred yards beyond.
One of the
men holding this point told me that the Pretoria men had doubled across the gap
shortly before and were lying among the rocks on the far side, so I decided to
follow; but the moment I left cover I drew so hot a fire that I was thankful to
dive back for shelter and give up the attempt.
Halfway across lay the huddled body of a dead man, and now that I had
time to look more carefully at him I recognized Charles Jeppe, the last of my
tent-mates. His death affected me
keenly, for we had been particularly good friends. Outwardly he was a surly
man, but he had shown me many a kindness since first we messed together on the
Natal border. As I was unable to find my Corporal, I now returned to where I
had first reached the top and took my place in the firing line.
During my
absence about fifty soldiers had run forward to surrender, but otherwise things
were going none too well. We were sustaining heavy casualties from the English
‘schans’ immediately in front of us, and the men grew restive under the galling
point-blank fire, a thing not to be wondered at, for the moral effect of
Lee-Metford volleys at twenty yards must be experienced to be appreciated. The
English troops lay so near that one could have tossed a biscuit among them, and
whilst the losses, which they were causing us were only too evident, we on our
side did not know that we were inflicting even greater damage upon them. Our
own casualties lay hideously among us, but theirs were screened from view
behind the breastwork, so that the comfort of knowing that we were giving worse
than we received was denied us.
Fortunately, towards nine o’clock the situation eased, for the Transvaal
artillerists got their guns into action on a commanding spur a mile away, and
they began to fire over our heads into the troops crowded on the restricted
space on the plateau before us. As the guns searched the hilltop, the English
fire slackened, and from then onward our losses were less. The position, however,
remained unsatisfactory. The sun became hotter and hotter, and we had neither
food nor water. Around us lay scores of dead and wounded men, a depressing
sight, and by midday a feeling of discouragement had gained ground that was
only kept in check by Commandant Opperman’s forceful personality and vigorous
language to any man who seemed to be wavering. Had it not been for him the
majority would have gone far sooner than we did, for the belief spread that we
were being left in the lurch. We could see large numbers of horsemen collecting
at the laagers on the plain behind, but no reinforcements reached us throughout
the day. I repeatedly heard old Red Daniel assure the men that help would be
forthcoming, but from the way he kept scanning the country below I could see
that he was getting uneasy himself.
As the
hours dragged on a trickle of men slipped down the hill, and in spite of his
watchful eye this gradual wastage so depleted our strength that long before
nightfall we were holding the blood-spattered ledge with a mere handful of
rifles. I wanted to go to, but the thought of Isaac and my other friends saved
me from deserting. No further attempt was made to press forward, and for the
rest of this terrible day both sides stubbornly held their ground, and, although
the battle remained stationary, the heavy close-range rifle-fire continued
hours after hour, and the tale of losses mounted while we lay in the blazing
heat.
The hours
went by; we kept watch, peering over and firing whenever a helmet showed itself,
and in reply the soldiers volleyed unremittingly. We were hungry, thirsty and
tired; around us were the dead men covered with swarms of flies attracted by
the smell of blood. We did not know the cruel losses that the English were
suffering, and we believed that they were easily holding their own, so
discouragement spread as the shadows lengthened. Batches of men left the line,
openly defying Red Daniel, who was impotent in the face of this wholesale
defection, and when at last the sun set I do not think there were sixty men
left on the ledge.
Darkness
fell swiftly; the firing died away, and there was silence, save for a rare shot
and the moans of the wounded. For a long time I remained at my post, staring
into the night to where the enemy lay, so close that I could hear the cries of
their wounded and the murmur of voices from behind their breastwork. Afterwards
my nerve began to go, and I thought I saw figures with bayonets stealing
forward. When I tried to find the men who earlier in the evening had been
beside me, they were gone. Almost in a panic I left my place and hastened along
the fringe of rocks in search of company, and to my immense relief heard a
gruff ‘Wer da?’ It was Commandant Opperman still in his place with about two-
dozen men. He told me to stay beside him, and we remained here until after ten
o’clock, listening to the enemy who were talking and stumbling about in the
darkness beyond.
At last
Opperman decided to retreat, and we descended the hill by the way which he had
climbed up, nearly sixteen hours before, our feet striking sickeningly at times
against the dead bodies in our path. When we reached the bottom most of the
horses were gone, the men who had retired having taken their mounts and ridden
away, but our own animals, and those belonging to the dead or wounded were
still standing without food or water where they had been left at daybreak.
The first
thing to do was to quench our raging thirst and that of our horses at a spring
near by. We then consulted as to our next move. Most of the wounded had been
taken off in the course of the day, but we found a few serious cases that would
not bear transport. Collected in charge of an old man, who, by the dim light of
a lantern, was attending to their wants. We could get no coherent information
and stood discussing what to do next, for we did not know that the English had
also been fought to a standstill, and that they in turn were at that very
moment retreating down their own side of Spion Kop. We fully believed that the
morning would see them streaming through the breach to the relief of Ladysmith,
and the rolling up of all our Tugela line.
While we
were talking, Mr. Zeederberg came out of the dark. I had lost sight of him
during most of the day, but he had been on the hill all the time, and had only
come down shortly before us. He had seen nothing of Isaac Malherbe and the rest
of our Pretoria men, and had no idea of what had become of them. A few more
stragglers joined us and we agreed to lead our horses to the Carolina wagon-laager
that, as we knew, lay not far off. We foraged for food in the saddlebags of
such horses as were left, and then went off. The wagons were being hurriedly
packed, and the entire Carolina commando was making ready to retire. They had
borne the brunt of the day’s battle and had fought bravely, but now that the
struggle was over, a reaction had set in and there was panic in the camp.
Fortunately, just as the foremost wagons moved away and the horsemen were
getting ready to follow, there came the sound of galloping hoofs, and a man
rode into our midst who shouted to them to halt. I could not see his face in
the dark, but word went round that it was Louis Botha, the new
Commandant-General, appointed in place of Piet Joubert who was seriously ill.
He addressed the men from the saddle, telling them of the shame that would be
theirs if they deserted their posts in this hour of danger; and so eloquent was
his appeal that in a few minutes the men were filing off into the dark to
reoccupy their positions on either side of the Spion Kop gap. I believe that he
spent the rest of the night riding from commando to commando exhorting and
threatening, until he persuaded the men to return to the line, thus averting a
great disaster. As for Commandant Opperman and our party, now that the Carolina
burghers were returning we led our horses back to the foot of Spion Kop, to
wait there.
We woke
with the falling of the dew and, as the sky lightened, gazed eagerly at the dim
outline of the hill above, but could make out no sign of life. Gradually the
dawn came and still there was no movement. Then to our utter surprise we saw
two men on top triumphantly waving their hats and holding their rifles aloft.
They were Boers, and their presence there was proof that, almost unbelievably,
defeat had turned to victory – the English were gone and the hill was still
ours.
Leaving
our horses to fend for them selves, we soon were hastening up the slope past
the dead until we reached yesterday’s bloody ledge. On our side of the
fighting-line there had been many casualties, but a worse sight met our eyes
behind the English schanses. In the shallow trenches where they had fought the
soldiers lay dead in swathes, and in places they were piled three deep. The
Boer guns in particular had wrought terrible havoc and some of the bodies were
shockingly mutilated. There must have been six hundred dead men on this strip
of earth, and there cannot have been many battlefields where there was such an
accumulation of horrors within so small a compass.
Shortly after
I reached the top, Isaac Malherbe and the remaining Pretoria men came up. They
had spent the night somewhere below the Kop, and like ourselves had come up the
moment they realized that the English were gone. Isaac looked grim and worn,
grieved at the death of his brother and our other companions, but he was full
of courage, and so were we all, for from where we stood we could look down on
the Tugela River, and we were now able to grasp the full significance of our
unexpected success.
Long
columns of troops and long convoys of transport were recrossing to the south
bank, and everywhere the British were in full retreat from the positions which
they had captured on this side of the streams and the clouds of dust rising on
the Colenso road told us that General Buller’s second great attempt to pierce
the Tugela defences had failed. We spent the next hour or two helping the
English Red Cross doctors and bearer parties that came up to bury their dead
and carry away their wounded. By now hundreds of other burghers had arrived,
mostly men who had retreated the day before, but like ourselves had loitered in
neighbouring kloofs and gullies to see if they could renew the fight.
Towards
midday Isaac Malherbe ordered us to collect our Pretoria dead. We carried them
down in blankets, and when the commando wagon came up we placed the bodies on
board and escorted them to Ladysmith, whence they were sent to Pretoria for
burial. So we rode behind the wagon, which carried all that was left of our
friends and companions, their horses trotting alongside with empty saddles.
I
personally came home to a deserted tent, for within a few weeks four good
friends had gone from it to their death, and our fifth messmate, de Vos, was
lying dangerously wounded at some laager below Spion Kop. Only my brother and I
were left, and he had been sent to Pretoria with the prisoners, so I was all-
alone.
By
Mohandas K. Gandhi
I must skip many other
experiences of the period between 1897 and 1899 and come straight to the Boer
War. When the war was declared, my personal sympathies were all with the Boers,
but I believed then that I had no right, in such cases, to enforce my
individual convictions. I have minutely dealt with the inner struggle regarding
this in my history of the Satyagraha in South Africa, and I must not repeat the
argument here. Suffice it to say that my loyalty to the British rule drove me
to participation with the British in that war. I felt that, if I demanded
rights as a British citizen, it was also my duty, as such, to participate in
the defence of the British Empire. So I collected to gather as many comrades as
possible, and with great difficulty got their services accepted as an ambulance
corps.
The average Englishman believed that the
Indian was a coward, incapable of taking risks or looking beyond his immediate
self interest. Many English friends, therefore, threw cold water on my plan.
But Dr. Booth supported it whole-heartedly. He trained us in ambulance work and
we secured medical certificates of fitness for service. Mr. Laughton and the
late Mr. Escombe enthusiastically supported the plan, and we applied for
service at the front. The government thankfully acknowledged our application,
but said our services were not then needed.
I would not rest satisfied, however with
this refusal. Through the introduction of Dr. Booth, I called on the Bishop of
Natal. There were many Christian Indians in our corps. The Bishop was delighted
with my proposal and promised to help us in getting our services accepted. Time
to was working with us. The Boer had shown more pluck, determination and
bravery than had been expected; and our services were ultimately needed. Our
corps was about 1,100 strong, with nearly 40 leaders, about three hundred were
free Indians and the rest indentured. Dr. Booth was also with us, and the corps
acquitted itself well. Though our work was to be outside the firing line, and
though we had the protection of the Red Cross, we were asked at a critical
moment to serve within the firing line. The reservation had not been our
seeking. The authorities did not want us to be within the range of fire. The
situation, however, was changed after the repulse at Spion Kop, and General
Buller sent the message that, though we were not bound to take the risk,
Government would be thankful if we would do so and fetch the wounded from the
field. We had no hesitation, and so the action at Spion Kop found us working
within the firing line. During these days we had to march from twenty to
twenty-five miles a day, bearing the wounded on stretchers. Amongst the wounded
we had the honour of carrying soldiers like General Woodgate.
The corps was disbanded after six weeks
service. After the reverses at Spion Kop and Vaalkranz, the British
Commander-in-Chief abandoned the attempt to relieve Ladysmith and other places
by summary procedure, and decided to proceed slowly, awaiting reinforcements
from England and India. Our humble work was at the moment much applauded, and
the Indians prestige was enhanced. The newspapers published laudatory rhymes
with the refrain, ‘We are sons of the Empire after all’. General Buller
mentioned with appreciation the work of the corps in his dispatch, and the
leaders were awarded the War Medal.
The Indian community became better
organized. I got into closer touch with the indentured Indians. There came a
greater awakening amongst them, and the feeling that Hindus, Musalmans,
Christians, Tamilians, Gujaratis and Sindhis were all Indians and children of
the same motherland took deep root amongst them. Everyone believed that the
Indians grievances were now sure to be redressed.
At the moment the white man’s attitude
seemed to be distinctly changed. The relations formed with the whites during
the war were of the sweetest. We had come in contact with thousands of tummies.
They were friendly with us and thankful for being there to serve them. I cannot
forbear from recording a sweet reminiscence of how human nature shows itself at
its best in moments of trial. We were marching towards Chievely Camp where
Lieutenant Roberts, the son of Lord Roberts, had received a mortal wound. Our
corps had the honour of carrying the body from the field. It was a sultry day –
the day of our march. Everyone was thirsting for water. There was a tiny brook
on the way where we could slake our thirst. But who was to drink first? We had
proposed to come in after the tommies had finished. But they would not begin
first and urged us to do so, and for a while a pleasant competition went on for
giving precedence to one another.
MACBRIDE’S
BRIGADE
Irish
Commandos in the Anglo-Boer War
Donal P. McCracken’s MacBrides Brigade is a
labour of love, which tidies up one of the minor but none the less interesting
escapades of early twentieth century Irish history. It is, of course, an even
more minor footnote to South Africa’s story, but it can now be said firmly that
those Irishmen who turned out to support the Boer cause, either because they
were already on the spot or because they felt compelled to journey out to take
a swipe at the dastardly British Empire, did more good than harm. They fought
courageously and effectively in support of their Boer superiors and, if their
discipline was not outstanding, their worst fault was a reluctance to disengage
rather than any tendency to break off too soon. Occasional unofficial
requisition of food and drink, and some resulting mayhem, may also have
characterized their off-duty activities, but the Boers were right, at the
conclusion of hostilities, to pay tribute to their Irish allies. That the
principal Brigade was led by the Irish-American, Colonel Blake, with Major
MacBride as his second-in-command, may seem to be anomalous, given the book’s
title, but MacBride, who has his wider place in Irish memory as the husband of
Maude Gonne and as one of the few to be executed for participation in the 1916
Dublin Rising, ended up in command, and the Brigade is always referred to as
his.
Other Irishmen fought briefly in a second
Brigade, under command of Arthur Lynch, and others again joined various Boer
outfits, and McCracken gives account of them all. He also puts their
contribution in the context of Irish nationalist despair at a time when the
centenary of the ’98 Rebellion and the humiliation of their Home Rule cause
pointed up the subservience of their own land. More importantly, he sets it in
the context of what was to come. Arthur Griffith, after all, had just returned
from South Africa, and his pro-Boer activities were to provide a solid basis
for future Irish separatism. It was the Irish Transvaal Committee, as the
author points out, that formed the nucleus of Cumann na Gaedheal in 1901. By
1905 it had become Sinn Fein. So McCracken’s determination to scour the
archives of Ireland and Britain, South Africa, America and France to put
together as complete as possible an account of this minor military phenomenon
pays dividends. It is a scholarly and readable military history, with some
excellent photographs and some poems and ballads, not least ‘The Battle of
Dundee’ which describes one of the many occasions when Irish pro-Boer found
themselves fighting their fellow countrymen in British regiments (‘That’s how
the “English” fought the ”Dutch” at the Battle of Dundee’). It also evokes well
the mood of that formative era of anti-imperial endeavour. Donal P. McCracken’s MacBride’s
Brigade : Irish Commandos in the Anglo-Boer War(Dublin : Four Courts
P., 1999 pp.208. 19.95 [pounds
sterling] ).
LORD HORATIO
HERBERT KITCHENER
Kitchener Plaque: Irish put their foot down
Lord Kitchener, commander of the British forces during the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa, has been condemned as a war criminal in his Irish birthplace. An Irish community angrily rejected plans to honour, denouncing him as a “war criminal, on par with Hitler”, because of the atrocities committed during his South African campaign. The widespread opposition has prompted councillors to veto proposals to erect memorial plaques to mark his birthplace. Kitchener, whose face and pointing finger were featured in the celebrated World War 1 recruitment poster “Your Country Needs You”, was born on June 24 1850, at Gunsboro, Listowel, County Kerry.
According to local councillor Tim Buckley,
British tourists visiting the area often inquired about Kitchener’s birthplace
and the absence of commemorative signs. To remedy this, Buckley, a candidate
for the Irish Senate, proposed that special plaques be erected at the
birthplace and at the site of the church where Kitchener was baptized. Buckley
claimed to have the support of the County’s most influential political figure:
former Irish Foreign Minister, Dick Spring. But many locals have objected to
the idea, saying that tourism in County Kerry should not have to depend on “the
dubious merit of having a megalomaniac war criminal born in the area.”
Leader of the opposition campaign, Padraig
O’Cuanachain said: “Kitchener was a war criminal on par with Hitler. He was the
man who invented concentration camps and who put 100,000 women and children in
them during the Boer War. They deprived of proper food and medical attention
and some 27,000 Boer women and children died. Instead of considering plaques,
the councillors should be pressing for a war crimes tribunal for Kitchener, so
that the world can learn the truth of what was done and some reparation can be
made to his victims.” In the face of the controversy the council’s Historic
Monuments Committee voted unanimously to reject the plaques proposal. And Buckley
admitted: I have to accept now that the idea is dead and will never be
resurrected. It was not intended to honour Kitchener, but simply to say he came
from here. – The telegraph, London.
Battle of Omdurman-Sudan, led by Lord
Kitchener.
-
48
British killed
-
15,000
Sudanese killed
-
16,000
wounded killed
At the battles conclusion Winston Churchill
wept. He wrote to his mother on the 26th January 1899 “Our victory
was disgraced by the inhuman slaughter of the wounded and Lord Kitchener was
responsible for this”