Battle of Paardeberg

Battle of Paardeberg
Part of Second Boer War
Date 18 February- 27 February, 1900 Location 28°58′57.08″S 25°5′35.33″E Paardeberg Drift, Orange Free State Result British victory
Belligerents
The British Empire	Transvaal Republic Orange Free State
Commanders and leaders
Field Marshal Roberts General Kitchener Sir John French Lieutenant General Thomas Kelly-Kenny	Piet Cronje Christiaan De Wet
Strength
15,000 men	7,000 men
Casualties and losses
1,270	350 4,500 captured

The Battle of Paardeberg ("Mountain of the horses") was a major battle during the Second Anglo-Boer War. It was fought near Paardeberg Drift on the banks of the Modderrivier ("Mud River") in the Orange Free State near Kimberley.

The battle was the culmination of a move by British forces to relieve the besieged city of Kimberley. The retreating Boer army under Piet Cronje were intercepted at Paardeberg, and surrendered after a prolonged siege, having fought off an attempted direct assault by Lieutenant General Horatio Kitchener.

Situation in February, 1900

Field Marshal Roberts had been appointed to command the British forces in South Africa in December, 1899, succeeding General Buller. (Roberts had just learned that his son Freddy had been mortally wounded at the Battle of Colenso.)

Like Buller, Roberts at first intended to make a direct thrust on the Boer capitals of Bloemfontein and Pretoria, using the central railway line from Cape Town to these two capital cities as his line of communication. Also like Buller, he found on arrival in South Africa that public opinion both in Britain and South Africa was clamouring for the relief of British forces besieged at Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking and was forced to modify his plans.

An earlier British attempt to relieve Kimberley, commanded by Lord Methuen, had been opposed by Boers under Cronje. Although Cronje had failed to halt the British crossing of the Modder River on November 28, he had fought them to a standstill at Magersfontein 10 days later, inflicting heavy casualties.

Over the next month, the front south of Kimberley stagnated. Cronje's forces were weakened by lack of grazing for their horses. Also, large numbers of the Boer fighters' families joined his main encampment at Jacobsdal. The presence of large numbers of non-combatants with their slow-moving ox-drawn wagons would prove a fatal handicap to Cronje.

British plans

Roberts had collected large numbers of reinforcements along the railway line between the Orange River and Modder River. He intended to outflank the Boer left and pass his cavalry around them to relieve Kimberley, while his infantry secured vital fords behind them. Roberts had two infantry divisions (the 6th and the 7th) each of two infantry brigades, and a mounted division of three brigades, under Major General John French. Another infantry division (the 9th, under Colvile) was formed during the campaign.

Relief of Kimberley

While the Highland Brigade under Major General Hector MacDonald demonstrated against the Boers at Magersfontein and fixed the Boer attention to their right flank, Roberts's large force began marching east in secret late on February 11. By the evening of February 12, his leading horsemen had secured fords across the first obstacle, the Riet River. The next day, February 13, the British mounted force made a gruelling 30-mile march under a blazing sun to capture fords across the Modder. The effect of the heat was made worse when the dry grass of the veld caught fire from a carelessly discarded match. French's division had to wait at the fords during the next day until the leading infantry, who were making an equally exhausting march, to reach them. Luckily, the move had taken the Boers by surprise and they did not move in strength to defend the fords and the hills nearby.

Early on February 15, French's division began the final march to relieve Kimberley. Only scattered and disorganised Boers opposed them, and the enormous mass of British horsemen broke through their thin line, concealed in the dust cloud they created. Late that evening they reached Kimberley, where they were greeted with cheering crowds. French should by rights have gone to the military commander of the besieged garrison, Lieutenant Colonel Kekewich. Instead he called first on Cecil Rhodes, the former Prime Minister of Cape Colony and foremost Imperialist, at the town's chief hotel.

The final day's ride had crippled most of French's division. Most of his British regular cavalry carried too much equipment in addition to their lances or sabres, and their unacclimatised horses (and those of the seven batteries of horse artillery) were exhausted. His effective force was reduced to two regiments of New Zealand and Cape light horse, and two "brigades" (actually battalions) of mounted infantry. French was to further tire his men on February 16 by futile attempts to intercept one of the Boers' Creusot 40-pounder siege guns (nicknamed "Long Tom") which was withdrawing to the north.

Cronje's move to Paardeberg

Paardeberg

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Battle of Paardeberg

Also on February 15, Cronje's men, some 5,000 Transvaalers and Freestaters, finally evacuated their laager at Jacobsdal. Their position was redundant and they were in danger of being outflanked. On the night of the 15th, his large convoy passed between the rear of French's division and the outposts of Lieutenant General Thomas Kelly-Kenny's 6th Division at the Modder fords. Throughout the next day, their mounted rearguards managed to prevent the British 6th Division (with only one understrength mounted infantry unit) overtaking them. On the 17th, the large convoy of Boer wagons reached the crossing of the Modder at Paardeberg Drift. They were starting to cross the river when a force of British mounted troops, almost all of French's fit men (who had covered the 40 miles from Kimberley in another desperately tiring march), opened fire on them unexpectedly from the north, causing confusion.

Cronje then inadvisedly decided to form a laager and dig in on the banks of the Modder river. His reason for doing so are unclear. The British now outnumbered his force significantly and enjoyed overwhelming superiority in artillery. All the British would have to do was lay siege to the Boer position and bombard them at their leisure. On the other hand, the British had insufficient cavalry and it would have been an easy matter for Cronje to brush them aside and link up other Boers east of the Modder; noted commander Christiaan De Wet's who were only 30 miles away to the southeast and other forces under Commandant J.C. Ferreira a similar distance to the north.

Bloody Sunday

Lieutenant General Thomas Kelly-Kenny of the British 6th Division had a sound plan to lay siege to Cronje and bombard his force into surrender. This would almost certainly have proved successful and cost the British very few casualties. However, Roberts was ill, and his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Herbert Kitchener, was now in overall command of the British force. He had different plans, and overruled Kelly-Kenny.

It is likely that Kitchener was alarmed by the news that Free State Boers under De Wet were advancing on Paardeberg to rescue Cronje. Possibly as a result, he decided that Cronje's position must be taken by storm immediately, before De Wet could intervene. Kitchener then proceeded to throw his infantry and his precious mounted troops into a series of uncoordinated frontal assaults against the Boer laager.

This was despite the fact that the cost of frontal assaults against entrenched Boers had been demonstrated time and again the preceding months. It was no different this time. The British were shot down in their droves. It is thought that not a single British soldier got within 200 yards of the Boer lines. By nightfall some 24 officers and 279 men were killed and 59 officers and 847 men wounded. Judged by British casualties it was the most severe reverse of the war and became known as Bloody Sunday.

Kitchener had not only squandered the lives of his soldiers, he had also squandered his strategic position. Kelly-Kelly had warned him not to leave "Kitchener's Kopje" undefended. Possession of the kopje was essential to guard the south-east of the British position and prevent Cronje's escape. But Kitchener, in his zeal for an all-out attack, had left the kopje defended by only a handful of "Kitchener's Horse" (volunteer British colonists). De Wet was therefore able to take the kopje with minimal resistance. The strategic picture had now changed dramatically. De Wet could now make the British position on the south east bank of the Modder untenable, the Boers now commanded a swathe of front stretching from the north east right through to the south east. As darkness fell, Kitchener ordered his troops to dig in where they were. Few received these orders and fewer still obeyed them. Desperately thirsty and exhausted, the surviving British trickled back into camp. Rescue for Cronje now seemed the likely outcome.

But seen from the Boer side, things were also bad. Cronje and his men had been in headlong retreat for several days with the British snapping at their heels. While casualties from the bombardment had been reduced to around 100 dead and 250 wounded by the soft bank of the Modder, the horses, oxen and wagons had no trenches in which to shelter. Many wagons were destroyed. Ammunition exploded and stores were ruined. For many of the Burghers, these wagons carried the sum total of their worldly possessions. The loss of their horses was even worse, for the horse was almost as important to the fighting ability of a Boer as his Mauser. The morale in Cronje's laager was desperate.

The siege

The sun came up and General Roberts now arrived on the scene. He initially urged a resumption of the frontal assaults but fortunately for the British, Cronje requested a cease-fire to bury the dead. The British refused (to their shame, as the Boers has allowed such truces in the past) and Cronje replied "If you are so uncharitable as to refuse me a truce as requested, then you may do as you please. I shall not surrender alive. Bombard as you will" The truce communications had taken up the rest of the day and there was no time for any more assaults.

The following day Roberts and Kitchener again planned to launch more assaults but were firmly resisted by the rest of the British senior officers. By the Wednesday, Roberts had lost his nerve and was intent on withdrawing. To do so would have allowed Cronje to escape and would thus have been one of the great blunders in a war made famous by its sheer scale of military idiocy. Fortunately for Roberts, it was De Wet whose nerve failed first. Faced with an entire British division who might be reinforced at any time, and fearing for his men's safety, he withdrew his Commando from the south east. Ferreira's forces, which might have supported De Wet, had been left without direction after Ferreira was accidentally shot dead by one of his own sentries. Cronje had inexplicably refused to abandon his laager. Now De Wet would abandon Cronje.

The Boer surrender

Cronje's encampment was subjected to an increasingly heavy artillery bombardment, as more guns (including a battery of 5-inch medium howitzers and another of 1-pounder "pom-poms") joined the besieging British forces. Almost every horse, mule and ox was killed, and the stench and flies became unbearable. On the final day of the battle, the Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry, having lost more than 70 soldiers in an earlier charge against sheltered Boer positions, were again called to take the lead in the routine daily battalion rotation. Instead of another charge the next morning as was expected, the Canadians, with the help of Royal Engineers, advanced at night towards the Boer camp, then set about digging trenches on high ground 65 yards from the Boer lines. On February 27, 1900, the Boers woke up staring into the muzzles of Canadian rifles and surrendered, thus removing the commando blocking the way to the first Boer capital, Bloemfontein, Orange Free State. Cronje surrendered with some 4,019 men and 50 women. It was the first (and some would argue only) great victory of the war; around 10% of the Boers' entire army were now prisoners. Cronje had done something extraordinary - he had out-blundered the British. If his initial decision to form a defensive enclave from which he could not hope to escape seems strange, then his refusal to extract himself from this position when the option was handed to him is even more bizarre.

The British commanders should also be judged harshly. Roberts allowed himself to be swayed by quite unmilitary arguments over the safety of Kimberley and Cecil Rhodes. Having successfully achieved surprise and outflanked the Boer army, he then diverted almost his entire mobile force to what was effectively a publicity stunt. Kitchener at least had in view the enemy army as his main objective, but quite recklessly squandered the lives of his men and his strategic and territorial advantage. Kitchener, who had once been hailed as the hero of Khartoum and nicknamed 'Kitchener of Khartoum' or 'K of K', was thereafter referred to by some as 'K of C' for "Kitchener of Chaos". Kelly-Kenny, who was senior to Kitchener but forced to defer to him by Roberts, eventually resigned rather than be continually overruled.

Although the British would soon resume their advance, their exhaustion and precarious supply state (aggravated when De Wet captured a large convoy of wagons and oxen) would lead to their troops succumbing in large numbers to disease, in particular to enteric fever.

The Boer War marked the first ever overseas deployment of the Canadian Army. The Toronto company of the Royal Canadian Regiment had joined the Queensland Mounted Infantry in dispersing a Boer commando at Sunnyside and Belmont in the Western Cape in January.

See also

• Military history of South Africa

Sources

• Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur The Great Boer War Chapter 19
• Kruger, Rayne Goodbye Dolly Grey: Story of the Boer War New English Library Ltd. 1964; ISBN 0-7126-6285-5
• Pakenham, Thomas The Boer War Cardinal, 1979; ISBN 0-7474-0976-5

External links

• War Battle Maps