Eric Moore Ritchie

“ The marvellous series of changes as one advances constitutes the most striking feature of the advance to Windhuk from the coast. By rail it is not so striking; but taking the marching route via the Swakop River water-holes--Swakopmund, Nonidas, Haigamkhab, Husab, Riet, Salem, Wilhelmsfeste (Tsaobis) , Otjimbingwe, Windhuk--the changes in the country and the stages that show them are as palpable as if marked by a system of parallel walls. ”

“ All who started on the South-West Campaign will remember their Cape Peninsula experience after the heat and burden of the Rebellion. The authorities might have chosen most of our camping grounds about Cape Town with the genial purpose of providing a kind of military holiday as a preliminary canter to the campaign proper. The unit to which I was attached had its temporary resting place on the slopes of Table Mountain at Groote Schuur, on the Rhodes Estate. And I fancy the world has on its vast surface few spots more alluring and more bracing to the spirit. ”

“ Whilst awaiting orders for an advance, life at Swakopmund was in some ways quite good. There were two attractions: regimental concerts, when sanctioned, and the shore. South Africa at war differs in great degree from other parts of the world. The country has the germ in its blood. Men who have campaigned before felt the stirring in them when the South-West campaign started. The call for volunteers acted like a magnet. All sorts and conditions of men were found with the Forces in the South-West. ”

“ Looking out of my window in the heart of civilisation at the evening sun that glorifies the Pretoria green kopjes, the scene dissolves. In its place comes the picture of the first gaunt daylight on the 26th of March last at fifteen kilometres, just going into Swakopmund. The mist from the coast had rolled inland; through it after dawn came miles of horsemen and wagons, guns, limbers, lorries, ambulances. Every human unit in that column was covered in white dust, and every horse was weary. ”

“ Hour after hour the processions of weary riders passed each other in a cloud of dust that rose five hundred yards and filled the choking canyon. The invariable question from him going wearily to water to him coming refreshed and smothered in water-bottles and with a livelier horse from it: "Is it far, boy?" And the stereotyped answer of encouragement was as always: "No, no; just round the corner." All these water-holes are almost duplicates of each other. I suppose not the echo of a bird now hurts their pristine and awful quietude.
A Beauty Spot passed during the last Trek
The Last Phase. ”

“ General Botha's forces had crossed a desert through which it was the open boast of the enemy that it was strewn with mines and with every well poisoned. Was a single defenceless citizen of Windhuk or Karibib the worse for it after the occupation? Not one. The greater part of General Botha's forces were on a half--a quarter-- an eighth rations when they made Karibib, Okahandja, Okasise, Waldau and the capital; they lived until all supplies could come up on less than one biscuit a day, a pinch or two of meal, and fresh meat. ”

“ Then there are days when the winds blow from the desert--an indescribable experience. They bring moths and flies with them, and great clouds of sand; it is a genuine labour to breathe, and at noon and for two hours after the temperature in the sun runs up into the "hundred-and-sixties." Swakopmund is not a health resort ”

“ I have never seen this feature of the veld so marked elsewhere in South Africa.
Swakopmund is the limit in the down-grade-- deep sand; brak water; a treacherous, dreary climate, with visitations of furnace-heat desert winds; a huge cemetery; moths and flies. From Nonidas to Haigamkhab and Husab the sand lightens and hardens, the atmosphere improves, rocks, barren kopjes begin to appear; the little water you get is fairly good. Riet comes; the barren kopjes are more frequent; the atmosphere, hot in the day, is beautiful by night; the water is perfect. Salem is a duplicate Riet ”

“ The vital consideration to the advance of any army across the Namib Desert is to secure the water- holes on the Swakop River. The Swakop is by no means the usual prepossessing kind of stream that flows efficiently between wide banks. It flowed actually for a day just after General Botha landed at Swakopmund-- the first and last time, apparently, within the memory of man. But it has water in it nevertheless; and at fixed and charted spots are to be found bore-holes and wells for the convenience of dwellers in the profitless wilderness. ”

“ So neat and swift had been the scheme prepared by the Commander-in- Chief that the German was incredulous--until his scouts kept coming in and telling him what the real state of affairs was. For Brits, after a two hundred mile detour through the wildest country had swept right north to Namutoni on the Great Etoscha Pan, had released more prisoners and was swerving further out. ”

“ Meantime the Southern and Central Armies had approached the German capital on the southern flank.
This account of the advance through the desert of General Botha's Northern Force is purposely bald. The process of a vast flooding of water over a country is in essence bald and direct. And that is as near as I can get for comparison. General Botha's advance was like a well- ordered flood: which, I take it, was exactly the idea. At a fixed time organised bodies of men, mounted, dismounted and with artillery, were systematically poured over the German territory. ”

“ Existence was just a dateless alternation of light and darkness, of saddle-up and off- saddle, of cossack-post, of thinking about water--and of yearning with every fibre of one's being for the ineffable boon of a long sleep. ”

“ Late in the afternoon our scouts returned to the column and reported having located the enemy three miles ahead, entrenched in a donga, or dried-up stony river course, on the farm Nooitgedacht No. 4. We prepared for action, and encountered the rebels in the next half hour. This, the first true action I had been in, was an extremely dirty affair; a man who had gone through some of the worst fights in the South African War afterwards assured me it was the hottest corner he had ever been in. Bush-country fighting is detestable chiefly because you cannot see your enemy until you are on top of him. ”

“ Though my knowledge of organisation for a campaign is not great, I would suggest that for campaign work the only kind of ship used should be a vessel absolutely and completely fitted up as a troopship. ”

“ The worst of rifle fire is that you can hear bullets whizzing and spitting in trees, but it takes an experienced hand to divine direction. It was only afterwards I found out that a party of rebels were firing on our horses in rear. The horses knew it, though, and shewed it in their eyes. The sun came watery through the clouds just before sunset; I remember during the lulls in the wicked coughs of rifle fire hearing doves cooing gently in the sun-pierced trees.
Leaving Pretoria. General Botha's Bodyguard departing
Kits aboard. ”

“ It is probable that a town occupied by enemy troops does not look at its best; but the fact that it was under such conditions when I first knew Swakopmund makes no important difference. The place in its essentials must always be the same. If ever there was a work of bluff Swakopmund is that thing. One fancies the German commercial expert, a Government official, or, maybe, a representative of the ubiquitous Woermann, Brock & Co., looking along this ferocious and awful coast for a spot to found a town that should appear on the maps and be esteemed a seaport. The Swakop River? ”

“ Rebels rounded up after the capture of De Wet] [missing]
General Botha is celebrated amongst fighting men for many things, and his night-marching is one of them. He appears to believe to the fullest extent in night-marching. He had located De Wet at a place called Mushroom Valley, and parts of the Commander-in-Chief's forces had been sent to make a surrounding movement. During the all-night trek from Winburg to Mushroom Valley I had a first thorough experience of the true horrors of sleep-fighting. It was bitterly cold--cold as the Free State night on the veld knows how to be. ”

“ Many of the houses are thoroughly built into the sides of the surrounding kopjes--perched like great red- roofed cages on the hillsides. The place doesn't seem to have a single industry of its own; but then, as I said elsewhere, there is hardly an established industry in the Protectorate.
There is one thing about Windhuk that grips your attention--and holds it in no uncertain manner, too. One of the great objectives of the South-West campaign was to secure the Windhuk wireless station. ”

“ The clear stars danced fantastically in the sky ahead of us, and the ground seemed to be falling away from us into vast hollows, then rising to our horses' noses ready to smash into us like an impalpable wall. ”

“ That is to say, the columns, after a twenty mile trek in the sand and sun had another quarter of the distance to go--_to water_. And to water usually means across the yard to the troughs, so to speak. We shall remember the water-holes of South-West Africa. There is many a fellow now back in civilisation who can recall vividly the tramp over stony, loose gravel through those great echoing rocks down to the water-holes at Haigamkhab, Husab and Gawieb. ”

“ Near the end of his terrific trek through from the North-Western Transvaal to the German outpost for which he was making, Kemp was hotly pursued by the loyalist troops. His men were exhausted. Half of them were dismounted. All his horses were spent. In these conditions he was forced to the most trying form of fight--the rearguard and flank action. With his goal practically right ahead, he reached three of the parallel large sand dunes with which the veld around Upington is scattered. They were on his left flank. ”

“ The only photo of the meeting of General Botha and General Smuts in the field just before Windhuk was taken FOREWORD
The ungentle reader (upon whom a malediction) will discover that this little book is not by any means exhaustive. But the gentle reader may find it to be what I hope it is. For him I wrote it.
Europe at the present time is lacerated in the greatest war of which man has knowledge. Compared with the doings in the Eastern and Western Fronts, in the Austro-Italian Theatre, or in the Dardanelles, the campaign of South Africa must take a modest place. ”

“ It was at Kimberley that news came through that Kemp was making a desperate cross-country trek to get into German territory in the Upington neighbourhood. A reference to a map will show that Upington, on the Orange River, is on the extreme western borders of the Union; and it must be said that the trek which Kemp and the remnant of his moderate force, poorly mounted and equipped, had made since being routed by General Botha on the 27th of October (a month before) stands as a remarkable piece of work. ”

“ General Botha emphasises
With the interests of the civilised world fixed on the vast slaughter- grounds of Europe, I shall not spend much time describing Windhuk. It is a pretty, picturesque little town, built amongst brown and purple hills. In most ways it is highly finished; reflects the spirit of German thoroughness that is an admitted attribute of the race. As usual in South-West Africa, it has nothing of the _colonial_ town about it ”

“ To lie exposed to this for a day is an awful experience; the fine dust will penetrate anywhere. I am sure it must lead to positive blindness in time.
I mentioned the water-holes of the Swakop River for the particular reason that their situation in most cases adds immensely to the merit of the Northern Army's great trek. The trek-road from Swakopmund follows the river only in a broad sense; the Haigamkhab, Husab and Gawieb water-holes are really three to four and five miles from the road and the camping grounds. ”

“ Besides, the man whose trade is writing has always, when events are stirring, the itch to go, look and note.
In the branch of the Union Service to which I belong--the South African Police--none but Reservists could then proceed to Europe; but when General Botha announced that he himself would take command of the Expeditionary Force to German South-West Africa, a Bodyguard from the South African Police was decided upon, volunteers came forward, and on this unit I had the honour to serve. ”

“ The Police of the Protectorate shall be treated, as far as have been mobilised, as active troops. Those members of the Police who are on duty on distant stations shall remain at their posts until relieved by the Union troops, in order that the lives and property of non- combatants may be protected.
(9) Civil officials in the employment of the German Government of the Protectorate shall be allowed to remain in their homes provided they sign the parole above mentioned in paragraph (4) . ”

“ In the technical sense it is not a true plan; but accuracy is not sacrificed to clearness. The veld around the Riet water-holes is just a mass of small kopjes and rocks; it narrows to a small defile that opens suddenly on to the coverless Husab Road. ”