Sir Charles Warren And Spion Kop: A Vindication

SIR CHARLES WARREN AND SPION KOP

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PREFACE

It is now more than two years since the operation took place on the Tugela River in Natal, that ended in the capture and the unwarrantable abandonment the same day of the position of Spion Kop. The lapse of time since these events occurred naturally caused a loss of interest in this chapter of the history of the war in South Africa; but the recent publication of portions of the despatches omitted in the ‘Gazette’ of 1900, and also of other documents received at the time by the War Office but not

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PARENTAGE

Lieut.-General Sir Charles Warren, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., F.R.S., is the son of the late Major-General Sir Charles Warren, K.C.B., Colonel of the 96th Foot, by his first wife, Mary Anne, daughter of William Hughes, Esq., of Dublin and Carlow, and grandson of the Very Rev. John Warren, Dean of Bangor, North Wales. His father served under the Duke of Wellington in the march to Paris after the battle of Waterloo, in India, and in South Africa, and the notes and sketches he there made upon expeditions in

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EARLY SERVICE—GIBRALTAR AND CHATHAM

Lieut.-General Sir Charles Warren was born at Bangor, North Wales, on 7th February 1840. His early education took place at the Grammar Schools of Bridgnorth and Wem, and at Cheltenham College. He then entered the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and from that passed through the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and received a commission as lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on 23rd December 1857. After the usual course of professional instruction at Chatham, Warren went to Gibraltar, where h

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JERUSALEM, 1867 TO 1870

The object of the Palestine Exploration Fund was the illustration of the Bible, and it originated mainly through the exertions of Sir George Grove, who formed an influential committee, of which for a long time Sir Walter Besant was secretary. Captain (afterwards Sir) Charles Wilson and Lieut. Anderson, R.E., had already been at work on the survey of Palestine, and, in 1867, it was decided to undertake excavations at Jerusalem to elucidate, if possible, many doubtful questions of Biblical archæol

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DOVER, SHOEBURYNESS, AND THE ORDNANCE FACTORIES, 1871 TO 1876

In 1871 Warren returned to military duty, and was posted to Dover in command of the 10th Company of Royal Engineers, and for the next year was employed on the fortifications of the fortress, principally at Dover Castle and Castle Hill and Fort (Fort Burgoyne). He was then transferred, in 1872, to the School of Gunnery at Shoeburyness, where he remained for three years, and was very successful in his administration of the Engineer duties in regard both to the barracks and the experiments with big

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SOUTH AFRICA, 1876 TO 1879

The necessity for laying down a boundary line between Griqualand West and the Orange Free State had arisen from the rival claims of the Chief Waterboer of the Griquas and of President Brand of the Orange Free State to the Diamond Fields. The British Government acquired the rights of the Waterboer, and, after some protracted negotiations, it was arranged that the Orange Free State should abandon its claim on receiving from Griqualand West the sum of 90,000 l. Mr. de Villiers was the expert nomina

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CHATHAM, 1880 TO 1882

The voyage home from South Africa was very beneficial to Warren’s health, and early in 1880 he was able to take up the duties of the post of Instructor of Surveying at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, to which he had been appointed. It would be too little to say he entered with his usual zest into his new duties, because he delighted in surveying, and nothing pleased him better than to have a number of young officers to train in all its branches, and to instruct in practical astron

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EGYPT AND ARABIA PETRÆA, 1882 TO 1883

But the even tenor of his way was broken in upon suddenly in the summer of 1882. It may, perhaps, be remembered that when events in Egypt in 1882 made it likely that we should have to undertake military operations in that country, Professor Palmer, Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, who was well acquainted with Syria and Arabia, and Captain Gill, R.E., a distinguished traveller, were sent in June to win over the chiefs of the Bedouin tribes in the South of Syria and on the borders of the Suez Can

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CHATHAM, 1883–4

On his return home he resumed his duties at Chatham as the head of the Surveying School. In 1884, when General Gordon was shut up in Khartoum and completely cut off by the Mahdi, Warren volunteered to go through Abyssinia and open communication with his old friend. He was for some time in correspondence with Mr. W. E. Forster on the subject, and Lieut.-General Sir Andrew Clarke highly approved of the proposal, and wrote a minute in favour of it. In the end, however, the idea was abandoned when i

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BECHUANALAND EXPEDITION, 1884–5

In that part of Bechuanaland lying to the north of Griqualand West, the white man had been rapidly encroaching upon native territory since the days when Warren commanded the Field Force of Griqualand West and prevented the Bechuanas invading the province. Two republics had been established in Bechuanaland; one, called Stellaland, in which English and Dutch adventurers had already taken possession of the land, ‘eaten up’ the native tribes, and become to some extent a settled people; the other, na

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CANDIDATE FOR PARLIAMENT, 1885

At the General Election of the autumn of 1885 Sir Charles Warren was invited to stand as a candidate for Parliament to represent the Hallam division of Sheffield in the Liberal interest, and in his address he took an independent position, making no mention of any party leader. The principal points he laid stress on were: (1) The Empire could not stand still. ‘Forward’ must be the motto. (2) The prosperity of the nation depended on the moral tone of the people continuing at a high standard, which

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SUAKIN, 1886

In January 1886 Sir Charles Warren was appointed to command the troops at Suakin, with the rank of Major-General on the Staff, and to be Governor of the Red Sea Littoral. On arrival at his headquarters, Suakin, he was greeted by a telegram from Simla containing congratulations on his appointment from Lord Dufferin, under whom he had served diplomatically when he was engaged in the Palmer Search Expedition. Warren found that the Suakin garrison was composed of three nationalities—British, Indian,

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CHIEF COMMISSIONERSHIP OF POLICE, 1886 TO 1888

In his new position Warren had several difficult and complicated problems to deal with. During the very first year of office the Trafalgar Square demonstrations, permitted by a weak Government, tested the powers of the police under their new chief to preserve public order. The Liberal party abused their own nominee, but he was firm. Then there were all the arrangements for the preservation of order at the Queen’s Jubilee in 1887, which were so ably carried out. He received many complimentary let

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STRAITS SETTLEMENTS, 1889 TO 1894

After some months of leisure Warren was appointed to command the troops in the Straits Settlements in April 1889, as a Colonel on the Staff with the rank of Major-General. Hitherto this command had been one with that of Hong-Kong, where the Headquarters were; but, owing to friction arising in 1888 between the civil and military authorities in the Straits Settlements, it was decided to send out an officer to Singapore in independent command to endeavour to make things work smoothly. The difficult

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THAMES DISTRICT, 1895 TO 1898

In 1895 Sir Charles Warren was appointed Major-General commanding the Thames District, and was told that he was to organise the mobilisation of the Thames District for defence on the same model he had so successfully established at Singapore. He took it in hand at once, and in two years had so perfected the system that all troops coming into the district were enabled on sudden mobilisation to find their places and take up their duties immediately. He was busily engaged, during his term of comman

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THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR

The last year of the nineteenth century opened at a period of intense gloom for the British nation. The war in South Africa had found us, as most wars do, quite unprepared. The little force in Natal, under Sir George White, had been speedily surrounded by the mobile Boers, its line of communication had been cut, and it was itself shut up in an unfavourable position for defence at Ladysmith, and blockaded by a Boer force. Large reinforcements were pouring into South Africa from England, and Sir R

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WARREN CROSSES THE TUGELA

On the disembarkation of the 5th Division at Durban at the beginning of 1900 it at once entrained for Estcourt, where it arrived on 3rd January, adding to the strength of the Natal Field Force about 50 per cent. of both field artillery and infantry. Three days later Sir Charles Warren went to Frere to report to Sir Redvers Buller that his division was mobilised and ready to march. Sir Redvers Buller had now decided to make another attempt to relieve Ladysmith, and this time he proposed to cross

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POSITION OF AFFAIRS

Leaving Sir Charles Warren on the north side of the Tugela in advance of Trichard’s Drift and Sir Redvers Buller at Spearman’s Hill, with Major-General Lyttelton at Potgieter’s, let us pause to consider the general position of affairs. In order to understand it we must know the features of the country between the Tugela and Ladysmith, the relief of which was the object of the operations; the numbers of the forces employed on each side; the positions occupied by the enemy, and the ways in which t

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ADVANCE TO VENTER’S LAAGER AND ATTACK OF THE RANGEWORTHY HILLS

At the end of Chapter II we left Sir Charles Warren across the Tugela with all his force, including his wagons, on the night of 18th January and ready to march to Venter’s Laager on the following morning. As the wagons marched on the morning of the 19th in four or five parallel columns, in length about three miles or so, the brigades commanded by Major-Generals Hart and Woodgate also kept pace with them until opposite Fair View, where the right of the line was to rest in the attack of the Rangew

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ATTACK OF THE RANGEWORTHY HILLS

Sir Charles Warren had assured himself by his reconnaissance that no wide outflanking movement was possible, and he had come to the conclusion that the only way to carry out his instructions was to capture the positions in front of him, creeping up the dongas and long arêtes, alluded to by Mr. Winston Spencer Churchill, and getting his artillery to work so as to bring an effective fire on the Boer trenches, and, after a complete artillery preparation, to make an infantry attack—certainly in the

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BOER DEMORALISATION—TACTICAL IMPORTANCE OF SPION KOP

Before relating the capture of Spion Kop and the events of 24th January, it will not be amiss to see how the other side regarded the British operations up to this time, and what importance they attached to the position of Spion Kop; and, further, how far it was tactically sound to occupy the hill in the circumstances. In the diary of Mr. Raymond Maxwell, published in the ‘Contemporary Review’ of March 1901, we have the daily notes of a busy doctor in the Boer ambulance, who jots down shortly any

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CAPTURE OF SPION KOP AND ITS ABANDONMENT

On 23rd January the command at the front was divided into two attacks under Sir Charles Warren; the left attack under Lieutenant-General Clery, with his two brigades, the 2nd and 5th; and the right attack under Major-General Talbot Coke with the 10th and 11th Brigades. Thus Major-General Coke had the command of the attack on Spion Kop and orders were issued by him and made to him in reference to the column of attack. Major-General Woodgate having been selected for the command of this column, it

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AFTER WITHDRAWAL—BOER COMMENTS

On the morning of 25th January Sir Redvers Buller went over to see Sir Charles Warren and decided to assume command and to withdraw to the south side of the Tugela. Then General Warren ‘made his retirement memorable for speed and orderliness,’ and by 8 A.M. on 27th January ‘the force was concentrated south of the Tugela, without the loss of a man or a pound of stores.’ That the retirement was effected without molestation by the Boers is evidence that the capture of Spion Kop had surprised them a

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SOME CRITICISMS

If we inquire what was thought at home of the failure at Spion Kop after the high hopes which the advent of Sir Charles Warren in Natal had raised, we must look back for a moment to the beginning of the operations and note the great interest with which the news from Natal was day by day eagerly read by the public. The excitement caused by the second attempt of Sir Redvers Buller to relieve Ladysmith by a turning movement to the left of Potgieter’s Drift was greatly increased when his telegram, d

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PRECAUTIONS TAKEN AND ARRANGEMENTS MADE

Hospital and Ambulance Work. —A field hospital was established at Wright’s farm and all the available ambulance and stretcher bearers were assembled at the foot of Spion Kop ready for action. Mr. Winston Spencer Churchill says that in ascending Spion Kop on the afternoon of 24th January he passed through the ambulance village. Every available stretcher belonging to every brigade was in use on Spion Kop. It may be here observed that the casualties of Spion Kop itself were not so great as at Colen

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EXTRACTS FROM DESPATCHES[8]

From Field-Marshal Lord Roberts to the Secretary of State for War Army Headquarters, South Africa, Camp, Dekiel Drift, Riet River: 13th February, 1900. My Lord,—I have the honour to submit, for your Lordship’s information, despatches from General Sir Redvers Buller, describing the advance across the Tugela River on the 17th and 18th January, 1900, and the capture and evacuation of the Spion Kop position on the 23rd and 24th January, as well as certain minor operations between the 19th and 24th J

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