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Updated: June 13, 2025
The Black Week had just ended; but the humiliation of it lay, as a dead weight, upon the heart of London. Three crushing reverses in eight days Stormberg, Magersfontein, and finally Colenso! There was no getting rid of the facts, or the meaning of them in respect of incapacity, blundering, and reckless waste of personal valour. It was a sorry tale, and one over which Europe at large chuckled.
If the former, he would soon be able to join Kritzinger, who after the Willowmore raid had returned to the Zuurberg, between Stormberg and Naauwpoort; if the latter, he would be able to call up Hertzog, who had returned from the shores of the Atlantic and was hovering in the Carnarvon district west of De Aar.
To their dismay General Grobler now made his appearance with reinforcements. He had encamped that night some nine miles from Stormberg, and on hearing the report of the guns, returned with Commandant du Plooy of Bethulie to assist the Stormberg defenders. On his arrival the enemy, exposed to a cross-fire, ran the risk of being surrounded and captured.
Now he owned a little fleet of good steamships of respectable burthen, and was an esteemed owner. He did not press the Stormberg on Captain Price. The two old men understood each other. "I don't want her," Captain Price told him. "There's a time for nursin' tender engines and a time for scrappin' them. I'm for the scrap heap, David. I'm not the man I was. I don't put faith in myself no more.
Mafeking and Kimberley are fairly well garrisoned, with auxiliary volunteers, and may hold their own: at any rate, I have not been there and can say nothing about them. But along the southern border of the Free State the three railway junctions of De Aar, Naauwpoort, and Stormberg our position is very dangerous indeed.
The British were at Putter's Kraal and Sterkstrom, some twenty odd miles distant by the railroad, which they controlled up to Molteno, nine miles from Stormberg. The troops, 2,500 in number, had been marching, or in open railroad trucks, since early morning of Saturday, December 9, when at 9 P.M. they detrained at Molteno.
It was not till an hour later that he went to his cabin to shed his shore-going gear for ordinary apparel; and as soon as this was done he reached down the register from the book-shelf over his bunk to look up the Stormberg. "H'm," he growled, standing over the book at his desk. "Built in 1889 on the Clyde. I know her style. Five thousand tons, and touch the steam steering-gear if you dare!
From the moment that Lord Roberts with his army advanced from Ramdam all the other British forces in South Africa, the Colesberg force, the Stormberg force, Brabant's force, and the Natal force, had the pressure relieved in front of them, a tendency which increased with every fresh success of the main body.
The attack on the Stormberg positions, if it was boldly conceived, was badly carried out. The English general should have postponed the attack when it dawned upon him that he would not reach the enemy's positions before daybreak; and he should have used the knowledge, common to most soldiers, that it is best to attack a foe's weakest side. This was not done at Stormberg.
I am writing this from Stormberg, a tremendously important military position, which was taken on Monday, the 5th, by General Gatacre, without a blow, the enemy falling back cowed by the British general's tactics. Had they remained here another twenty-four hours Gatacre would have had them in a ring of iron, but the Boer general is no fool. He saw his danger, and, like a wise man, he dodged it.
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