Elandslaagte battle

  

“… this is a funny world we live in”.

Veld Kornet Frans Pienaar during the smoking concert

held @ the Traveller’s Rest Hotel two days before the battle.

 

When the second Anglo – Boer war was declared, the main body of Transvaal Boers under Commandant General Piet Joubert with some 8 000 men of the Pretoria, Krugersdorp, Boksburg, Middleburg, Heidelberg, Standerton Carolina and Bethal Commandos left their base at Sandspruit near Laing’s Nek on 12 October 1899 to commence their invasion into Natal.

 

The force split into two wings, with Generals “Maroola” Erasmus and Lukas Meyer sweeping eastwards to capture the rich coal-mining town of Dundee and thus choke off the supply of bunker coal being sent to Durban for use by British troopships. The western force under Vecht Generaal Kock was to hold a defensive line on the Mkhupe Pass over the Biggarsberg between Newcastle and Ladysmith in case the British counter attacked.

 

However, a forward reconnaissance party under Veld Kornets Frans Pienaar of the Fordsburg Commando and C. Potgieter from Jeppestown exceeded their orders and advanced into the Sunday’s River Valley. Having observed a supply train at the Elandslaagte Station, they determined to capture it.

 

Unfortunately for the Boer raiding party, they first made a turn at the Elandslaagte Colliery Mine Manager’s House, giving the acting Stationmaster, G.P. Atkinson and his clerk, D. Christie, an opportunity to warn Ladysmith via the telegraph. Atkinson also managed to persuade the engine driver, H.W. Cutbush, that a hurried departure might be in order. The train chuffed out of the station, with the Boers now in hot pursuit. The train guards, an officer and 9 men of the 18^th. Hussars, opened fire and wounded one Boer in the leg. The Boers were unable to keep up, and the train made good its escape.

 

Pienaar was incensed with this failure, and threatened to shoot Atkinson. His rifle was confiscated and he was confined to house arrest, but not before Pienaar had apologised for his bad temper!

 

All the activity at the station allowed the Mine Manager, David Harris, to conceal the Rifle Association weapons, his blasting explosives and his blacksmith underground so that the Boers could not use them.

 

At this point a second train steamed into the station and was promptly captured. The telegraph wires were torn down; some mine labourers were commandeered to pull up the railway tracks and the serious business of looting the wagons began. As luck would have it, one of them contained dozens of cases of whiskey, destined for the Officer’s Mess in Dundee. Impressed with their good fortune, the Boers invited everyone in the village to attend a smoking concert at the Traveller’s Rest Hotel that evening. From all accounts, it turned out to be a very convivial gathering with some 12 nationalities represented.

20 OCTOBER 1899.

 

“We were sadly aware of the disorder and complete lack of discipline

amongst the burgher commandos”.

Colonel Schiel of the German Corps.

 

General Kock, the remainder of his men, with two guns, rode into Elandslaagte early that morning to find out what had happened to Pienaar and Potgieter. He was not amused at what he found! He chose to site his laager behind a horseshoe-shaped ridge, some two kilometres east of the station, rather than in the village itself. The Boer forces then occupied the ridge, and dragged up their two guns onto the summit and dug them in..

 

Colonel Schiel, a professional soldier who commanded the German Contingent, was horrified by the sight of the drunken orgy still in progress, and gave orders for the destruction of the remaining liquor. However, he was too wily a soldier not to first commandeer some for himself, for medicinal purposes only! He then had a stormy interview with Kock, pointing out that the new position could easily be outflanked at either end and therefore was untenable. Kock would not listen.

 

By now a thoroughly frustrated Schiel sent out a patrol under Count Zeppelin to Woodcote Farm overlooking the Modderspruit road from Ladysmith to observe any movement by British forces, who would have to have known by then that something was amiss at Elandslaagte. Zeppelin indeed spotted a British force and shadowed it for a while, but the force soon turned around and retired towards Ladysmith.

 

21 OCTOBER 1899.

 

“We’ll do it, Sir, we’ll do it”!

Infantry cheer in response to Colonel Hamilton’s pep talk before the battle.

 

On 21 October a small British force under the overall command of Major General John Denton Pinkstone French were sent forward from Ladysmith to re-open direct communication with Dundee and to “… clear the neighbourhood of Elandslaagte of the enemy, and to cover the construction of the railway and telegraph lines.”

His force consisted of Imperial Light Horse, Naval Volunteer Field Battery, Manchester Regiment, railway and telegraph construction companies and 14 men of the Newcastle Troop of the Natal Carbineers.

 

While the Manchesters were still en route by train, the ILH and Volunteer Battery reached a vantage point on a ridge south of the Indian compound and west of Elandslaagte station.

 

At about 09:30 the Battery commenced firing at the Boers who could clearly be seen wandering around the station area. One shell destroyed the carriage carrying new furniture for the Mine Manager, David Harris, while another fell near the Boer ambulance.

 

“The next shot struck one of our mules, and took half its head away. The third shell burst close by, and part of it went bang through the wagon in which I was dressing, and was within a foot of finishing my little career. A few more shots came near us, when the Boers began to fire from the kopjes, revealing their position, so the battery turned their fire on them. After half an hour’s firing, which the Boers returned with interest, the British retired over the hillside” Walter Herald, acting as ambulance assistant for the Boers.

 

The British were surprised to find that the Boers had two guns (some accounts mention three) on the horseshoe ridge.  These guns quickly found their range (approximately 5 000 yards), with two missiles exploding around the NFA Battery. One of these badly damaged the team and gear of the ammunition wagon, so much so that it had to be abandoned. The shells fell for about 10 minutes on the ridge occupied by the NFA, but many of the shells were incorrectly fused and buried themselves in the soft earth before bursting.

 

The NFA Battery attempted to engage the Boer artillery on the Elandslaagte ridge, but their guns did not have the range to come anywhere near the Boer gun positions.

“… the six little guns lay back at their extreme angle, and all barked together in impotent fury”. Arthur Conan Doyle

 

Sir John French therefore ordered the battery to withdraw and cover the armoured train at Modderspruit Station and at the same time requested reinforcements from Ladysmith. The  following units were despatched, 5 Lancers, 5 Dragoon Guards, Natal Mounted Rifles, 21 and 42. Batteries, Royal Field Artillery, 1 Battalion, Devonshire Regiment, 2 Battalion Gordon Highlanders and the Natal Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

 

The British force eventually numbered some 1 630 infantry, 1 314 cavalry and 552 gunners with 18 guns. Against them were approximately 1 000 Boers, with 2 x 75 mm field guns.

 

The battle itself was straight out of the Field Manual, with an outflanking attack to the south of the horseshoe ridge by the Gordon Highlanders and the ILH, to be followed by a frontal infantry assault once the position had been turned with the Manchesters in the middle and the Devonshires to the north. The artillery, were to provide covering fire while the cavalry was to wait in the vicinity of a culvert near the station and charge when the inevitable Boer retreat took place.

 

One or two unforeseen obstacles had to be overcome, however. Firstly the Gordons and the ILH stuck fast in a barbed wire farmer’s fence. While this was being cut or torn down by brute force, the Boer marksmen shot them like the proverbial fish in a barrel. They were only saved by a late afternoon downpour that provided cover for the troops to approach close enough to the Boer positions to attack them with the bayonet. This would not be the first time that a typical Natal afternoon thunderstorm would save the day in future battles.

 

The other problem occurred when the British troops relaxed once the position had been taken. They were under the impression that the Boers had surrendered. Not so, and a counter attack led by General Kock himself came desperately close to routing the British soldiers. However, they were rallied and regrouped under the leadership of men such as Lieutenant Mathew Meiklejohn and Sergeant Major William Robertson of the Gordon Highlanders, and Captains Charles Mullins and Herbert Johnson of the Imperial Light Horse, all of whom who were subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross. Pipe Corporal McLeod earned a Distinguished Conduct Medal for playing until his bagpipes were shot to pieces in his arms.

 

On the left flank, the Devonshire Regiment advanced in open order but only reached positions about 800 metres from the Boer positions. Consequently, none of them were killed, although Melton Prior, the celebrated war correspondent, made an excellent target with his bald head gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. His colleague, Bennett Burleigh, managed to persuade him to cover his head with a raincoat, and the Boer fire immediately slackened.

 

As the Boers streamed away across the veldt to the northeast, they presented a chance for the cavalry to justify their existence for another decade. The Dragoons and Lancers pursued the retreating Boers and subjected them to three charges with the lance before calling the battle off. There is nothing quite so terrifying as a full out cavalry charge when one happens to be in the way of it, especially if one has brought his family along to war, which was not unusual for the Boer forces at the time. Trooper Kelly is said to have dispatched three Boers with one lance thrust – the Boer, together with his pregnant wife who was mounted behind her husband.

 

Once the excitement of battle was over, it was time to seek out and bring in the wounded, which took most of the night. Many died from exposure in the drizzle that fell most of the night. Surgeon Lieutenant Hornabrook, unarmed and alone, captured a party of over 20 fully armed Boers who meekly surrendered to him and allowed themselves to be led them into captivity. Their ordeal would not last long, however. The following morning a message was received from Ladysmith that Boers from the Orange Free State were expected to attack the town and all troops were recalled.

 

In summary then, a text book battle that accomplished very little and where few casualties were sustained. However, it was a lesson for the future. Open order marching, marksmanship, command and control and artillery support fire were lessons learnt that stood the British in good stead 15 years later.

 

British casualties: 55 killed, 205 wounded and 10 missing. Ref.5 Lancers

Boer casualties: 38 killed, 105 wounded, 8 died of wounds including General Kock, Doctor H.J. Coster (the former State Attorney), Lieutenant C.G. De Jonge

and Van Leggelo (a former State Prosecutor and. 185 Boers were taken prisoner.

 

The prisoners were returned to Ladysmith where they had to suffer the humiliation of taunts from the Zulus crying “Upi pass? Upi pass?” meaning “where’s your pass”. This was question frequently asked of the Zulus by their employers on the mines.

 

 ”Upi Pass”