AUG 1 1900

CAMBRIDGE, MASS

DEFENCE by a siege is one means

by which a weak force can withstand a stronger enemy with some hope of success. It is a method of warfare long ago resorted to, and it seems to breed as many glorious inciIdents in the wars of the nineteenth century as it did in the days of Troy. The sieges of Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking, and the pluck and generalship of Sir George White, Colonel Kekewich and General Baden-Powell redound to the glory of the Empire, because the success of the British arms rested in a great measure upon the gallant action of the bold and undaunted defenders. Had the Boers been able by dint of superior forces to carry out their policy of crushing speedily the British forces in South Africa when they brought on the war, there is no telling what trouble would have been in store for us in the Dark Continent. Much depended upon the holding of the mobile Boers in check. There were many subjects of the Queen in Cape Colony, and many native Africans who were sitting astride the fence waiting to see in which direction the tide of victory should turn before they would engage in the melee. The besieged in these towns did as much as human energy could do to hold this tide in check. The regular forces sat in trenches day and night, wet or dry, and defended, as best their inferior weapons permitted them, their posi

tions against a wily enemy. Yet all difficulties were surmounted, and the names of three more heroes are inscribed in British annals.

On the 7th of October, 1899, the British reserves were called out. This was a practical intimation to the Governments of the South African Republic and of the Orange Free State that the British authorities began to despair of arriving at a satisfactory amelioration of the Uitlander grievances through diplomacy, and that a resort to arms was to be prepared for-perhaps intended. It was received by the South African Governments as an intention, and on the 9th of October an ultimatum was handed to the British agent at Pretoria demanding the removal of the forces from the Natal and Cape Colony borders, and an engagement that the troops then on the way out should not be landed in South Africa, failure of compliance before the evening of the 11th to be regarded as a declaration of war. The object of the Boers was to bring on the inevitable hostilities as soon as possible. This indicated, what circumstances later revealed more plainly, that the Boers were ready for battle and Britain was While the British nation prepared for the struggle, the enemy was kept busy with sieges of Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking.

not.

During the early part of the war Great Britain was on the defensive, a

defence which rested almost entirely upon the garrison of these three towns. The British then in South Africa were entirely unable to cope with the forces and armaments that the Boers were able to place in the field.

Against a formidable and mobile force of 70,000 or 80,000 men when war was declared, Great Britain had in Cape Colony an irregular force of mounted infantry at Mafeking, the North Lancashire Regiment at Kimberley, the Munster Fusiliers at De Aar, half the Yorkshire Light Infantry at Naauwpoort and the other half at Stormberg, and the Northumberlands -the famous Fighting Fifth-at De Aar. The total was, say, 4, 100 infantry, of whom 600 were mounted-no cavalry and no field guns. In Natal, scattered along the railway line from Newcastle to Durban, were close on to 15,000 infantry, the bulk of the British army in South Africa. No wonder was it, then, that the British forces were on the defensive, even though they represented the strongest power

in the world, no wonder was it that the people of Kimberley and Mafeking complained to the Imperial authorities on account of the defenceless state of their homes, and no wonder was it that after some disastrous offensive ventures like the armed train sortie at Mafeking or the excursion at Nicholson's Nek, the British settled down behind trenches and schanzes and awaited the arrival of the army corps from England! Six policemen defended the bridge at Alliwal North, and 350 Boers were reported in the neighbourhood. We see

some reasons to warrant the belief of the Boers that they would drive the British into the sea. But they had not reckoned on the pluck and endurance displayed by these garrisons. The opposition at Mafeking, Kimberley and Ladysmith saved the prestige of British

arms.

Mafeking and Kimberly were invested on the 15th of October. In Natal the British had already evacuated Newcastle, and were preparing to hold the line from Dundee to Ladysmith.

But Dundee became untenable, so, protected by the Ladysmith garrison at Elandslaagte, General Yule retreated. in a masterly fashion and joined forces with General White in Ladysmith. The Boers thought the British on the run. Ladysmith was invested on the 2nd of November, and the Boers openly boasted that it would be entered before the 9th. From that time the attention of the whole world was centered upon the garrisons of these three places of suddenly acquired celebrity.

Immediately upon the arrival of the army corps from England, General Buller set out to relieve Ladysmith and General Methuen to free Kimberley and Mafeking. Both leaders failed to attain their ends, and it was not till Lord Roberts made his masterly stroke which raised the siege of Kimberley on February 15th, that of Ladysmith on March 1st, and that of Mafeking on May 17th, that the days of investment, famine and fever ended for the belea

guered but well defended towns.

This

Kimberley was the first town relieved, and it was in most respects the least dangerous siege of the trio. The land around Kimberley is on the whole favourable for defence, as the nearest extensive system of kopjes lies ten miles away, and the cover on the intervening ground is very slight. may explain why no assault was made on the town. The defences of the diamond city were about eleven miles in circumference. The town is almost surrounded by a series of "tailing heaps "-hillocks formed of the refuse earth after the diamond washing. On these tailing heaps were placed the sandbag forts which were manned by the town guard.

The force which defended the besieged area, with the exception of 600 regular troops, was made up entirely of citizen soldiers, literally fighting for their hearths and homes. When war broke out about twelve hundred civil

guards had been enlisted, and altogether the citizen force at its maximum strength numbered some forty-five hundred. Of these some few were Cape Mounted Police, who had come into the town when it was no longer safe for them to remain in isolated twos and threes about the country. The artillery of the defence consisted of six seven-pounder mountain guns and six seven-pounder field guns, described by one correspondent as "pop-guns.' There were also some Maxims which had been stored in the mines by the foresight of the De Beers Company, which is said to be only another way of spelling Rhodes. Mr. Labram's long range home-made 4.1 gun later materially strengthed the artillery of the place.

The place was of course under martial law, and Colonel Kekewich was in supreme command of everything, though there is no doubt that Cecil Rhodes for the four months of the siege was Kimberley's actual king. The non-combatants consisted of some 5,000 white women and children, and

10,000 natives in the mine compounds. After the check was received by Methuen at Maagersfontein, and the city for the first time settled down to a long siege, about 8,000 of these natives were sent through the Boer lines. In the early days of the siege there was no alarm, everyone thinking that it would last, at the longest, not more than three or four weeks, but it was not until December 1st that Kimberley even got into communication with the relieving force. Three sorties were made by the garrison up to November 20th, when Scott-Turner and twenty-one men were killed; after that the garrison contented itself with keeping clear a sufficient space of ground for grazing purposes for the rapidly diminishing cattle.

Although the shelling went on continuously, and at times unexpectedly, beyond putting an end to business it was not extremely troublesome. A source of far greater discomfort, sickness and death, was the scantiness of the food supply. Fortunately a variety

of circumstances placed the town in a better position than might very well have been the case. For some months previous to the declaration of war the De Beers Company, who appear to have anticipated the possibility of a siege, laid in large supplies of foodstuffs, coal, fuel, and other mining requisites. The new crop of mealies and Kaffir corn had just been secured, and the former were used during the siege for horses, while the Kaffir corn was converted into meal and sold to the natives. The Kimberley railway station furnished a considerable supply of stores, stopped in transit, for Kimberley is what is known as a tranship depot for the northern system of railways. Moreover, the town was not entirely cut off from supplies of fresh meat from outside until nearly a month after the beginning of the siege. However, about January 3rd Colonel Kekewich and his staff proceeded to take over the supplies and regulate prices. Horseflesh was first served out on January 8th, and from that date on it became almost

the staple food of the population. Towards the end a few mules and donkeys were thrown in, but cats and dogs were not resorted to. Mr. Rhodes also started a soup kitchen, selling vegetable soup at 3d a pint.

Needless to say, typhoid and scurvy were prevalent. The heat was terrible. Towards the latter part of the siege, the deaths from different causes averaged about 200 a week. In February the daily supply for whites was limited to an order for ten and a half ounces of bread, two ounces of mealie meal, one ounce of dried mealie split, two ounces of sugar, and four ounces of horse flesh. The cadaverous look on the faces of the inhabitants, and the amount of illness which was everywhere prevalent when French's 20,000 cavalry rode into the town on the 15th of February, proved how hardly the prolonged state of affairs told on the people. Men in health who lost but a dozen or fifteen pounds in weight were not plentiful, while to have decreased twenty-five to thirty pounds was con