War and the Arme Blanche. Erskine Childers
IV
ELANDSLAAGTE
Note on Nomenclature.—Throughout the chapters dealing with the Boer War I use the expression “Cavalry” to mean British regular Cavalry. I use the expression “Mounted Infantry” to mean regular British Mounted Infantry (i.e., drawn from Infantry battalions). I use the general expression “mounted riflemen” to cover all mounted troops, Boer or British, armed only with the rifle.
The campaign opened in Natal with the attempt of General Sir W. Penn Symons, with 4,000 men and 18 guns, to hold the untenable Northern position at Dundee against a greatly superior converging force of Joubert’s Transvaalers. Sir George White, who only with reluctance had consented to this attempt, was concentrating at Ladysmith, and facing the Free Staters; while midway between White and Symons a detached Boer force, 900 strong, under Koch, war about to plant itself upon the railway connecting Dundee and Ladysmith. Symons’s mounted troops were one regiment of Cavalry, three companies of Mounted Infantry drawn from the three battalions which formed his Infantry brigade, a squadron of Natal Carbineers, and a few picked Guides. Joubert’s southward advance from the frontier was excessively slow—seventy miles in a week. Watched and reported by Cavalry and other patrols, it nevertheless culminated in a complete surprise of the British camp at dawn on October 20, 1899, by Meyer’s force of some 4,000 men and 8 guns. The General’s overconfidence was the principal cause of this surprise, and it is interesting to note that his reason for not establishing more Cavalry pickets to supplement the inadequate system of defence in the heights above the Dundee valley was that he wished to keep the Cavalry fresh—fresh, that is, for shock action. The battle of Talana was, from our point of view, an Infantry fight, fought with splendid spirit and tenacity, and, for the moment, a victory. From the Boer point of view, in this case, as in all others, it was a mounted rifleman’s fight. Our own mounted troops were employed with an aggressive purpose, that of turning the Boer right and intercepting the Boer retreat. They consisted of Cavalry and Mounted Infantry acting in concert, the latter, according to the regulations of that period, being regarded as a “valuable auxiliary to the former.” The movement began well. An admirable, but also a somewhat dangerous position, was gained well behind the main Boer force, within range of its led horses and commanding its line of retreat, at a moment when retreat was just setting in. Stratagem and fire-action combined might have produced great results. Shock was preferred. A few Boers were sabred, some thirty prisoners were taken, and then the movement collapsed. The Boers took the offence. The commanding officer on our side lost his head, and, after much difficulty, half the Cavalry got back without their prisoners to the British lines; the rest of the force, after a running fight, in which the rifles of the Mounted Infantry were the only effective means of defence, was surrounded and forced to surrender. It would be unjust and undiscerning to make too much of this opening episode. Nevertheless, in so far as the value of the arme blanche was concerned, not merely as a weapon, but as an inspiration of resourceful and effective manœuvre, the incident was of bad augury.
The next day, October 21, came Elandslaagte, fought on the line of communication connecting Dundee and Ladysmith between Koch’s force of 900 men and 2 guns, planted astride the railway, and a mixed force of 3,500 men and 18 guns sent out by White from Ladysmith under command of General French. Our mounted troops were three squadrons of Cavalry, five of the Imperial Light Horse, and a few Natal volunteers. The fighting, which ended brilliantly for ourselves, was highly honourable to both sides. From the Boer point of view, it consisted in a magnificently stubborn defence of a strong position by an inferior force of mounted riflemen, fighting on foot up to the moment of actual contact, and under crushingly superior Artillery fire. From our point of view, with one interesting novelty, to which I shall refer later, it was a plain, hard, straightforward fight with the three arms co-operating on thoroughly conventional lines: the Infantry carrying through a well-planned frontal attack with remarkable dash; the Artillery shelling the main position; the Cavalry watching both flanks during the progress of the action, and, just at dusk, after the final repulse of the enemy from the main position, pursuing with the lance and sword. The pursuit, carried on for about a mile and a half with vigour and enthusiasm, touched only a portion of the retreating burghers, but, so far as it went, it was effective: it struck the “terror of cold steel” into the pursued with scarcely any loss to the two squadrons engaged; it caused casualties and surrenders, though precisely to what extent is difficult to say. No figures exist. In short, the Cavalry had performed with considerable success the peculiar function traditionally assigned to their arm.
Now let us turn to the unconventional feature of this fight. The Imperial Light Horse, early on the same morning, had made the reconnaissance on which the battle scheme was founded, and had seized and held necessary tactical points. They had rushed the railway-station by a gallop in open order. Together with the Cavalry (who came out later with the main force from Ladysmith) they had prepared the way for the Infantry advance, and had helped to clear a flank during the early part of the action. But in addition to these duties they dismounted and joined with the Infantry in the assault of the main position, took a prominent and, at one critical moment, a decisive share in the desperate fighting which wrested it from the Boers, and suffered losses (including that of their brave Colonel) heavier than most of the units engaged.
Mr. Goldman, in remarking on Elandslaagte, makes the strange comment that the Imperial Light Horse were “trained as Cavalry,” and adduces their exploits on this occasion as an example of the value of that arm in South Africa.[17] This is the first of many misinterpretations upon which I shall have to comment. For all practical purposes the Imperial Light Horse were mounted riflemen, who used rifles, not carbines, and, as far as I know, never in all their history made or attempted to make an arme blanche charge, yet were very effective in action, and were very fair scouts. Used for the bloody assault at Elandslaagte, they could not also be used for the pursuit. If they had not joined in the assault, could they, or troops of their type, have been used in an equally effective way for the pursuit? The inquiry compels us to look back a little more closely at the conditions of the charge.
The following points should be noted:
1. For the troops engaged on both sides this was the first day of hostilities. Steel-armed Cavalry was a new fact to the Boers. The steel had the best chance it ever was to have of inspiring “terror.”
2. There were no Boer reserves left to cover the retreat.
3. The light was failing, a circumstance favourable to the steel, unfavourable to fire. (Contrast the broad daylight at Talana, when the Boers rallied and outmanœuvred the cavalry.) Some light is necessary, of course, but, within obvious limits, the poorer the better.
4. The ground was as open and smooth as Cavalry on the average can expect. Dongas and rocks during the initial advance only; from within 300 yards of the enemy and onwards (according to the “Official History”) not a lawn, but fair galloping ground.
5. Horses and men fresh, not hitherto seriously engaged. Why? Because there had been no opportunity for the use of steel.
6. The enemy, already shaken and spent by a hard fire-fight on foot, were retreating at their usual ambling trot, in loose, formless groups; “raggedly streaming,” as the Official Historian correctly puts it. He adds that this objective, “a crowd in the loose disorder of defeat, seemed to offer an indefinite object for a charge,” but “that there was no likelihood of a better whilst sufficient light remained.” I must digress for a moment on that illuminating obiter dictum, because it gives a clue to the Cavalry view of Cavalry work. The historian is regretting the absence of a chance for “shock,” in its literal and in its only accurate meaning, of the collision of two massed bodies; two, and both massed. The Boers were not massed; clearly, therefore, it was of no use for the Cavalry to adopt mass, and in point of fact they charged with “extended files.” There could be no “shock,” therefore—that is, violent physical impact—and there was in fact none. The Boers were ridden down individually. What the official commentator does not apprehend is that this absence of mass, in his view an unfortunate drawback, was in fact one of the very conditions which made the charge possible. It was a corollary