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Updated: June 29, 2025
It is one thing, however, to repulse the British soldier and it is another to rout him. Within a few hundred yards of their horrible ordeal at Magersfontein the Highlanders reformed into a military body. So now the Irishmen fell back no further than the nearest cover, and there held grimly on to the ground which they had won.
He could not, on the right, pass between Magersfontein and the Modder, for the bushy ground would prevent his artillery from helping him to its full power, and might even place it in danger of capture. If he deflected still more to the right, crossing the river, he would have to recross in the face of a force superior to his own in numbers and mobility.
How little is required to turn our troopers into excellent foot soldiers was shown at Magersfontein, where the 12th Lancers, dismounted by the command of their colonel, Lord Airlie, held back the threatened flank attack all the morning.
Lord Methuen, with a British column, was sent to the relief of Kimberley, and Sir Redvers Buller, with a strong army, set out to relieve Ladysmith; but both these generals sustained reverses, the former at Magersfontein, and the latter at the Tugela River. Towards the end of December, Lord Roberts, with Lord Kitchener as chief of his staff, was sent out to the Cape as Commander-in-Chief.
Here lies the body of the gallant Wauchope who perished in the disastrous attack on the Magersfontein trenches. The whole line north of this point was patrolled by colonial volunteers, amongst whom I noticed especially the Duke of Edinburgh's Rifles, with gay ribbons round their "smasher" hats. Nothing could be less exciting or interesting than their monotonous routine of work.
The reconnaissance had the further object of inspiriting the Highland Brigade which had been so badly damaged at Magersfontein, and of establishing good relations between these troops and their new commander, General Mac Donald. On their return to camp a short address from Lord Roberts had the effect upon them that Napoleon's proclamations used to produce on the French troops.
And how it lowered our vitality all that first winter to hear of Nicholson's Nek, and then presently close upon one another, to realise the bloody waste of Magersfontein, the shattering retreat from Stormberg, Colenso Colenso, that blundering battle, with White, as it seemed, in Ladysmith near the point of surrender! and so through the long unfolding catalogue of bleak disillusionments, of aching, unconcealed anxiety lest worse should follow.
The failure of Lord Methuen's attack at Magersfontein has brought home to every mind the extreme gravity of the situation in South Africa, and it seems most likely that in the western theatre of war the crisis has issued in a decision unfavourable to the British cause. It is well to keep the whole before our eyes even when examining a part, so I begin with a bird's-eye view.
It goes without saying that at Magersfontein especially, all alone, no one being allowed with me it was terribly trying work collecting, identifying, and burying our dead, so many of whom were my own personal friends; but I experienced more than I ever did before how the hour of one's conscious weakness may become the hour of one's greatest strength.
When we approached Modder River he exclaimed that we were now within range of the Boer guns, and accordingly pulled up the windows as a sort of protection against shells and bullets. As we steamed into Modder River station the 4.7 gun called "Joe Chamberlain" loosed off a Lyddite shell at the Magersfontein trenches.
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