Siege of Ladysmith

“ Since the road by which Dundonald's squadrons had entered the town was never again closed by the enemy, the siege of Ladysmith may be said to have ended on the last day of February. During the night the heavy guns fired at intervals, using up the carefully husbanded ammunition in order to prevent the Boers from removing their artillery. ”

“ As the date was that of the Prince of Wales's birthday, a salute of twenty-one shotted naval guns wound up a successful day.
The failure of the attempt upon Ladysmith seems to have convinced the enemy that a waiting game, in which hunger, shell-fire, and disease were their allies, would be surer and less expensive than an open assault. From their distant hilltops they continued to plague the town, while garrison and citizens sat grimly patient, and learned to endure if not to enjoy the crash of the 96-pound shells, and the patter of shrapnel upon their corrugated-iron roofs. ”

“ As night closes in there are cheers rolling towards us from the plain beyond Klip River, where our volunteers are on patrol. Ladysmith, so quiet and undemonstrative in its patient endurance of a long siege, goes wild at the sound. Everybody divines its meaning. Our friends from the victorious army of the south are coming! All the town rushes out to meet them, where they must cross a drift. ”

“ It is very certain that had Ladysmith fallen, and twelve thousand British soldiers with a million pounds' worth of stores fallen into the hands of the invaders, we should have been faced with the alternative of abandoning the struggle, or of reconquering South Africa from Cape Town northwards. South Africa is the keystone of the Empire, and for the instant Ladysmith was the keystone of South Africa. But the courage of the troops who held the shell-torn townlet, and the confidence of the public who watched them, never faltered for an instant. ”

“ Galloping under fire is only a means to an end. Stalking under fire requires nearly as much dash to be effective.
The long siege of Ladysmith now virtually began. By an error of judgment all the mounted troops, including the Cavalry regiments, were retained within the lines, and were thus practically demobilized for five months. Happily for our arms, however, French and his staff just succeeded in leaving the town for the south before investment was complete. Happily, too, the strenuous efforts to raise more volunteer mounted troops within South Africa were now bearing fruit. ”

“ SuchPg 138 is the etiquette of a service which, while firmly believing in the efficacy of its own fire, is trained to ignore that of an enemy's guns. Nevertheless gunners, like less stoical mortals, appreciate the value of bomb-proof shelters when shells are flying about; and experience, during this siege of Ladysmith, should have taught us all the dangers of carelessness when by timely discretion many calamities might have been averted. ”

“ In a scrambling and ill-managed action we had lost our detached left wing almost to a man, while our right had been hustled with no great loss but with some ignominy into Ladysmith. Our guns had been outshot, our infantry checked, and our cavalry paralysed. Eight hundred prisoners may seem no great loss when compared with a Sedan, or even with an Ulm; but such matters are comparative, and the force which laid down its arms at Nicholson's Nek is the largest British force which has surrendered since the days of our great grandfathers, when the egregious Duke of York commanded in Flanders. ”

“ The defence of Ladysmith by Sir George White and his heroic band of soldiers will rank as one of the finest feats in British history. It is not for us to tell the story of the siege. Historians of the war will do that. We need only remind our readers that from October 30, 1899, when the bombardment began, to February 28, 1900, when General Buller's advance guard marched into the town, our troops were closely besieged—besieged so closely that the Boers thought there was no possible chance of relief. 'Ladysmith will never be relieved,' said a Boer to one of our chaplains. ”

“ From the 14th of February until the 23d he sacrificed great numbers of men in assaults which failed to break a passage through the kopjes defended by Boer guns. But Lord Roberts's invasion of the Free State had, by this time, caused large withdrawals of Boers from the line of the Tugela, and they were preparing to raise the siege of Ladysmith. ”

“ The various companies get into their sangars at 3 a.m., and stay there till it is dark again. Two companies were to-day thrown out along the further edge of their hill in extended order as firing line, and soon after dawn the Boers began to creep down the opposite steep by two or three at a time into one of the many farms owned by Bester, a notorious traitor, now kept safe in Ladysmith. All morning the firing was very heavy, many of the bullets coming right over the hill and dropping near the town. Our men kept very still, only firing when they saw their mark. ”

“ Communications might have been kept open for days longer by an energetic use of artillery and mounted troops, but now it is too late to reopen them without incurring risk of serious losses. We must be content to wait the development of events in other quarters, for the Boers are all round us now, and, blink the fact as we may, it must be admitted that Ladysmith is under siege. ”

“ Amid the shell-fire, the scanty rations, the enteric and the dysentery, one ray of comfort had always brightened the garrison. Buller was only twelve miles away--they could hear his guns--and when his advance came in earnest their sufferings would be at an end. But now in an instant this single light was shut off and the true nature of their situation was revealed to them. Buller had indeed moved. . .but backwards. He had been defeated at Colenso, and the siege was not ending but beginning. ”

“ The rumour also went that the wounded Dublins, taken to Intombi Spruit, from the unfortunate armoured train, had heard an official report of Buller's arrival at Bloemfontein after heavy losses. Another rumour told that many Boer wives and daughters werePg 112 arriving in the laagers. They were seen, especially on Sunday, parading quite prettily in white frocks. This report has roused the liveliest indignation, which I can only attribute to envy. In our own vulgar land, companies would be running cheap excursions to witness the siege of Ladysmith—one shilling extra to see "Long Tom" in action. ”

“ Eggs were already a shilling each, cigarettes sixpence, whisky five pounds a bottle: a city more free from gluttony and drunkenness has never been seen.
Shell-fire has shown itself in this war to be an excellent ordeal for those who desire martial excitement with a minimum of danger. But now and again some black chance guides a bomb--one in five thousand perhaps--to a most tragic issue. Such a deadly missile falling among Boers near Kimberley is said to have slain nine and wounded seventeen. In Ladysmith too there are days to be marked in red when the gunner shot better than he knew. ”

“ Ladysmith breathes freely to-day, but a week ago she seemed likely to become another Lucknow. Of line battalions only the Liverpools were here, besides two batteries of field artillery, some of the 18th Hussars, and the 5th Lancers. If Kruger or Joubert had then allowed the Boers encamped on the Free State border to have their own way, no one can say what might have happened. Our force would have been outnumbered at least four to one, and probably more. In event of disaster the Boers would have seized an immense quantity of military stores accumulated in the camp, and at the railway station. ”

“ His difficulties show that though a soldier may get through the Boer lines, they are now tightening round us, and unless a British force strong enough to break through can be assembled quickly, we are in for a long siege here. Nobody gave the Boers credit for so much enterprise, and if Sir George White made a mistake, as I think he did, in not sending all the women and children away from Ladysmith when Dundee was abandoned, this error probably arose from faulty information, for which those who thought they knew the Boers and their resources were in the first instance responsible. ”

“ MY DEAR SISTER,—It is a month and seven days since we besieged Ladysmith, and I don't know what will happen further. We see the English every day walking about the town, and we are bombarding the place with our cannon. They have built breastworks outside the town. ToPg 150 attack would be very dangerous. Near the town they have set up two naval guns, from which we receive a very heavy fire we cannot stand. I think there will be much blood spilt before they surrender, as Mr. Englishman fights hard, and our burghers are a bit frightened. ”

“ Buller's guns were heard firing incessantly all day and every day. His shells were now seen bursting on a southern spur of Bulwana and near Intombi Camp.
During the siege the Boers conceived the idea of flooding the Ladysmith plain and the {94} town by damming the Klip River below Intombi Camp. This dam was commenced towards the end of the siege, but was not completed when Ladysmith was relieved. It was a good target for the naval 12-pounder guns on Cæsar's Camp, which frequently fired at it. ”

“ We have forgotten when the siege began; and now we are beginning not to care when it ends.
For my part, I feel it will never end.
It will go on just as now, languid fighting, languid cessation, for ever and ever. We shall drop off one by one, and listlessly die of old age.
And in the year 2099 the New Zealander antiquarian, digging among the buried cities of Natal, will come upon the forgotten townPg 126 of Ladysmith. And he will find a handful of Rip Van Winkle Boers with white beards down to their knees, behind quaint, antique guns shelling a cactus-grown ruin. ”

“ The British soldier is a class apart. One of the privates in the Liverpools showed me a diary he is keeping of the war. It is a colourless record of getting up, going to bed, sleeping in the rain with one blanket (a grievance he always mentions, though without complaint) , of fighting, cutting brushwood, and building what he calls "sangers and travises." From first to last he makes but one comment, and that is: "There is no peace for the wicked." The Boers were engaged in putting up a new 6 in. gun on the hills beyond Range Post, and the first number of the Ladysmith Lyre was published. ”

“ The bayonet is the most powerful weapon we possess out here. Firearms kill many of the enemy, but it is the white weapon that makes them run away. Rifles can inflict the loss, but victory depends, for us at least, on the bayonets.
Of the losses we as yet know nothing, except that Lord Ava is seriously wounded, a sad item for which the only consolation is that the Empire is worth the blood of its noblest citizens. But for the general result we rejoice. Ladysmith, too, is proud and happy. Only ten thousand of us, and look what we do! ”

“ On the rocky ridges of Waggon Hill and Cæsar's Camp, when the burghers in one supreme effort dashed against them the pick and pride of the commandos, they fought through the hours of night till dawn gave place to day, and the daylight waxed and waned, with a dogged, half-despairing courage that laughed to scorn even the regardless valour of a worthy foeman. Who shall do justice to soldiers like these? Wherever, and as long as, the fame of the British arms is cherished, so long, and as widely, will the story of the defence of Ladysmith be held in glorious memory. ”

“ But half an hour later the booming of big guns on Bulwana was renewed, and away to the west arose a fierce rifle fire. “Attack renewed; enemy reinforced,” winked the helio from the top of Convent Hill, and again a dumb despair fell on the watchers. “Very hard pressed,” came the third message, firing our soldiers with indignant rage, as they thought of the poor part they had hitherto taken in relieving Ladysmith. But at length the heroism of the Devons, the Imperial Light Horse, and others of the Ladysmith garrison beat back the Boers’ desperate assault. ”

“ All through the morning and on into the afternoon the long stream of men and guns flowed through the streets of Ladysmith, and all marvelled to see what manner of men these were—dirty, war-worn, travel-stained, tanned, their uniforms in tatters, their boots falling to pieces, their helmets dinted and broken, but nevertheless magnificent soldiers, striding along, deep-chested and broad-shouldered, with the light of triumph in their eyes and the blood of fighting ancestors in their veins. ”

“ Tactically Ladysmith may be strongly defensible, politically it has become invested with much importance, but for strategic purposes it is absolutely worthless. It is worse. It is a regular trap. The town and cantonment stand in a huge circle of hills which enclasp it on all sides like the arms of a giant, and though so great is the circle that only guns of the heavier class can reach the town from the heights, once an enemy has established himself on these heights it is beyond the power of the garrison to dislodge him, or perhaps even to break out. ”

“ By that time the sun was rising above Bulwaan in a halo of orange, crimson, and purple, and men could count the grim faces of their enemies. Ladysmith was aroused at dawn by the rattle of incessant rifle fire rolling along Bester's Ridge from end to end. Up to that time no big guns had spoken on either side, and people came out of their houses slowly, in sulky humour at having their rest disturbed before the conventional hour for shelling to begin. ”