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 devolved upon Major-General Coke as commander of the 5th Division and of the right attack to make all the arrangements in connection with it in consultation with Sir Charles Warren. He gave orders that the column should consist of two and a half battalions of Major-General Woodgate’s Brigade, the 2nd Royal Lancaster, 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, and two companies South Lancashire, to which Sir Charles Warren added 200 of Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry, half the 17th Company Royal Engineers, and two companies of the Connaught Rangers to intrench half-way up in case of a check during the assault.

All the arrangements for the water supply, food, ammunition, Artillery and Engineers’ services and for the wounded were arranged between Sir Charles Warren and Major-General Coke, with the aid of the officers commanding the Army Service Corps and the Royal Artillery, the Commanding Royal Engineer and the Principal Medical Officer. Sir Redvers Buller was asked by telegram to send over the mountain guns and also the East Indian water-carriers who were said to be in his camp. Sir Charles Warren had a long interview with Major-Generals Talbot Coke and Woodgate, in which, it is understood, the subjects of the attack and the intrenchments were discussed, and the orders to Major-General Woodgate for the attack, founded on those of the previous day, were issued by Major-General Talbot Coke.

At seven o’clock in the evening of 23rd January Major-General Woodgate started with the column for the attack, the troops carrying rations for the following day with them. Mr. Bennet Burleigh in ‘The Natal Campaign’ gives the following graphic account of the march:

The column arrived half-way up at half-past one o’clock in the morning of the 24th, and carried the summit at half-past three, some of Thorneycroft’s men and of the Royal Engineers and South Lancashires rushing the position with fixed bayonets with a loss of only three men wounded. The cheers of the successful assailants were heard at the bivouac at Three Tree Hill, and when day broke the summit of Spion Kop was seen to be enveloped in thick mist, which no doubt had assisted the assaulting column to arrive at the top undiscovered.

Early in the morning the troops intrenched themselves as well as the darkness would admit, and from the bottom of the hill the Sappers commenced making a zigzag path to the summit for the water mules and the mountain battery to ascend, and later straight slides at the steep places for the naval 12-pr. guns which Sir Redvers Buller was to send over.

About half-past five o’clock in the morning the Boers, who had fled at the first assault, returned with strong reinforcements, and, as the mist lifted from time to time, commenced firing at our troops from a kopje to the north, some 400 or 500 yards away. Our trenches, owing to the rocky nature of the plateau on the top, were very shallow, and, owing probably to the darkness and fog, were wrongly placed in the middle of the plateau.

At 7 A.M. Sir Charles Warren rode over from Three Tree Hill to the foot of Spion Kop, whence the ascent of the column had taken place, examined the approaches, and gave the Imperial Light Infantry instructions how they should advance to the support of the column without attracting the fire of the enemy. He then returned to Three Tree Hill, but the mist still prevented any signalling from the top of Spion Kop, and it was not until after nine o’clock that Sir Charles Warren received by the hands of Lieut.-Colonel ÀCourt, who had returned from the top, the following letter from Major-General Woodgate, written about two hours before:

Lieut.-Colonel ÀCourt expressed himself as quite satisfied that the summit could be held—‘held till doomsday against all comers,’ he said to Mr. Bennet Burleigh.

Not long after General Woodgate had written his letter to Sir Charles Warren the Boer fire grew very hot, and he fell mortally wounded. Colonel Blomfield of the Lancashire Fusiliers was also wounded soon after, and Colonel Crofton of the Royal Lancasters, as senior officer, then assumed the command.

As the mist cleared, it became evident to those below and on Three Tree Hill that the schanzes held by our men on the top were exposed to both frontal rifle fire and to shell fire from the left front, and that a good deal of fighting was going on. Sir Charles Warren therefore directed Major-General Coke to send up the Imperial Light Infantry, who were posted at the foot of the hill, to reinforce Colonel Crofton, the Dorset Regiment taking their place at the foot.

A little before ten o’clock a message was received by Sir Charles Warren from Colonel Crofton which ran as follows:

‘Reinforce at once or all lost. General dead.’

Sir Charles Warren replied:

‘I am sending two battalions, and the Imperial Light Infantry are on their way up. You must hold on to the last. No surrender.’

It is due to Colonel Crofton to state that the message he ordered to be sent was, he says:

‘General Woodgate dead; reinforcements urgently required.’

The message was not written down by him, or by the signalling officer, and it is impossible to trace how the alteration occurred.

The Dorset Regiment was then sent up, and subsequently the Middlesex Regiment. Sir Charles Warren went over to see Major-General Coke and directed him to go up himself to Spion Kop and, as Commander of the 5th Division and of the right attack, take command of the troops there—some 5,500 men. Major-General Coke left for Spion Kop about 11 A.M., and arrived on the slopes, some 600 feet below the summit, at noon.

At noon a message arrived from Sir Redvers Buller ordering Sir Charles Warren to place Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft in command on the summit. Sir Redvers Buller says he telegraphed to Sir Charles Warren: ‘Unless you put some really good hard-fighting man in command on the top you will lose the hill. I suggest Thorneycroft.’ Sir Charles Warren, though so much nearer the scene of operations than Sir Redvers Buller, was in a much inferior position for seeing what was going on at the top of Spion Kop, and, astonished though he may have been at the selection of this gallant young officer to supersede the colonels commanding brigades and regiments, he regarded the intimation as an order—in fact, he says in his despatch it was an order—and he at once signalled to Colonel Crofton: ‘With approval of the Commander-in-Chief I place Lieutenant-Colonel Thorneycroft in command of the summit with the local rank of Brigadier-General.’

The confusion consequent upon this order will be considered further on.

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At the same time Major-General Lyttelton, who had been bombarding all the morning with his artillery at Potgieter’s, apprised by Sir Charles Warren of Colonel Crofton’s telegram and asked to give assistance on his side of Spion Kop, demonstrated strongly by sending two squadrons of Bethune’s Horse and the Scottish Rifles to reinforce the extreme right on the top of the hill, while later the King’s Royal Rifles crossed the river and moved against a high point of Spion Kop. These troops did very good work, and in the afternoon Sir Charles Warren wired to Major-General Lyttelton: ‘The assistance you are giving most valuable. We shall try to remain in statu quo during to-morrow. Balloon would be of incalculable value.’

In the meantime all available sandbags and tools for intrenching were sent by the hands of the troops going up, each man carrying something. Two hundred gallons of water were well on their way, some springs near the top were developed by the Engineers, the zigzag pathway was completed, and coils of 3-inch cable got ready for hauling up the naval guns.

Then followed an anxious time for Sir Charles Warren. The rifle and shell fire of the Boers was extremely hot on the top, the signallers had been hit and some of their apparatus destroyed, and for some two or three hours he was unable to get any replies to repeated inquiries. There was no news of the mountain guns or the naval 12-pr. guns, which Sir Redvers Buller was to send across the river to him—in fact, the former only left Springfield at eleven o’clock that morning.

A little after two o’clock in the afternoon news of the situation was received, sent an hour or so earlier by Major-General Coke, who was then on the plateau of the slopes below Spion Kop. The report was that the top of the hill was crowded with men exposed to shell fire, but holding on well, that General Coke had stopped further reinforcements beyond the point where he was, at the same time letting the troops on the top know that help was close at hand, and ammunition being pushed up. From the report of Major-General Coke, recently published, it appears that on his way up he found the track very much congested with men, and, on hearing that the troops were crowded together on the top in a small space exposed to shell fire, very judiciously stopped the reinforcements that had not passed him; unfortunately he received urgent requests from the top soon after for more men, and allowed them to proceed.

Major-General Coke seems to have started from the plateau for the summit about three o’clock and to have reached it half an hour later, and was then de facto in command there over every one. For some time he was unable to find any one in command on the summit, or in touch with the signalling station at the Hospital Sangar. He was unaware that Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft had been placed in command on the summit with the rank of Brigadier-General, although on his way up he had received a report from that officer which he forwarded with remarks to Sir Charles Warren, and which will be referred to later. Failing to find any one in command he passed over to the right and met Colonel Hill, who with the leading companies of the Middlesex Regiment got to the summit about noon, and, understanding that Colonel Crofton had been wounded, told Colonel Hill that the command devolved upon him as the next senior officer, and gave him detailed instructions as to intrenching at sundown. An hour later, while still on the top, but separated from Colonel Hill, he received the following message from him, sent at 5.5 P.M.:

The selection of Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft to take command over his seniors in the heat of action was a signal example of the danger of a serious departure from precedent at such a time. The difficulty of making a selection known and understood by all concerned was enormous, and the risks of mistakes most serious. Lieut.-Colonel A. W. Thorneycroft was only a major of six months’ standing in the Royal Scots Fusiliers, who held the local rank of Lieut.-Colonel while in command of a special corps. Brave and active to a degree, he was selected by Sir Redvers Buller because he was known as ‘a good hard-fighting man,’ and right well had he maintained his reputation during that morning; but, just because he was such a man, he was at the front in the thick of the fight. ‘The fight was too hot, too close, too interlaced for him to attend to anything but to support this company, clear those rocks, or line that trench.’[7] But the commander on the top should have been out of the thick of it, able to direct the general conduct of matters and to keep in touch with his General below, leaving the actual fighting to his many able subordinates; this meant a man of some experience in command, and this Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft, whatever else he was, certainly was not. Thus, although both the Officers Commanding Artillery and Engineers at the top of Spion Kop knew about the arrangements for bringing up guns and intrenching at night, he seems to have heard nothing about it, and so also about water, food, ammunition, &c.

After General Coke’s arrival on the summit many of the troops who had formed the storming party were allowed to go down the hill to get water and food.

About half-past four o’clock in the afternoon Sir Charles Warren received Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft’s message, sent from the top two hours before, in which the situation was described as follows:

Major-General Coke saw this message at his position at the signal station about three o’clock, just before leaving for the summit, and added the following observation:

At six o’clock, before it got dark, Major-General Coke on the summit wrote an account of the situation (received by Sir Charles Warren at half-past seven), and having personally handed over command on the summit to Colonel Hill, and assured himself that he understood his duties and responsibilities, went back to the reserves half-way down the hill which he chose for the command post. There he remained until half-past nine in the evening, when, in obedience to an order from Sir Charles Warren, he went down to see him, leaving his deputy-assistant adjutant-general at the post to carry on the routine duties of the command in his name during his absence. Some hours before he started down the hill, water and provisions were arriving regularly at the signal station and being passed to the top.

Down below Sir Charles Warren had been busy with arrangements for sending up at night all that was necessary to enable the position to be held next day. The mountain battery and naval 12-pr. guns, however, only arrived at Trichard’s Drift between five and six o’clock in the afternoon.

Colonel Wood, R.E., who was on the top during the day, was fully informed of all that was to be done at sundown, although, of course, it was not possible to know precisely when the guns would reach the top until they actually came in from Trichard’s Drift.

The mountain battery arrived at the foot of Spion Kop about half-past seven in the evening, completely tired out with their long march, and it was arranged that they should rest there until midnight, when the moon rose, and there would be plenty of time for them to ascend and get their guns into position on the top before daybreak. Notice of this was sent to Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft by the hand of a scout.

Major-General Coke could hardly have left the summit at 6.30 P.M. when Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft, as night was closing in, made up his mind that the hill was untenable. He sent the following message to Sir Charles Warren, which was not received that night:

But he did not wait for a reply. At the time he despatched this message the intention to abandon the position had already been taken, for at half-past six o’clock the companies of the Royal Lancaster Regiment were ordered to form up near the dressing station preparatory to retirement and Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft himself says in his report:

By seven o’clock orders were issued for the troops to retire on the Hospital Sangar, and the collecting of the men and bringing in of the wounded commenced. It is said that Colonel Hill had a warm discussion with Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft, who, however, asserted his right as brigadier-general commanding on the summit to order a retirement. He neither sent word to Major-General Coke nor to Sir Charles Warren. Why Colonel Hill did not tell Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft that the former had only just left the hill remains unexplained.

At the time that Major-General Coke left his post in charge of his Staff Officer the preparations for retirement had been in full swing for three hours.

The first intimation that Captain Phillips, Major-General Coke’s Staff Officer, had of the retirement was being awakened at the command post by the sound of men moving at 11.30 P.M. He then found a general retirement proceeding. He at once stopped the flow of men down the hill—the Scottish Rifles and a large number of stragglers of the Dorset, Middlesex, and Imperial Light Infantry, whom he collected. The reserves—Bethune’s Mounted Infantry and the bulk of the Dorsets—remained in position as posted in support of the front line. The other corps had gone down the hill, and Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft with them. Captain Phillips promulgated the following memorandum to all commanders, but they did not act on it, urging that they had distinct orders from Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft:

At that time, 11.30 P.M., the spur was still held to within about 300 yards of the summit, but the summit itself was evacuated. Signalling communication could not be established because the oil had run out.

In the meantime, at nine o’clock, Colonel Sim, R.E., with 200 men of the Somersetshire Regiment, carrying tools, started to construct the emplacements for the naval guns. Sir Charles Warren gave him a letter to Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft explaining the work Colonel Sim had to do and telling him it was of vital importance that the summit should be held.

When the troops were being marched off to go down the hill by Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft about 10 P.M., Mr. Winston Spencer Churchill arrived with the information that the mountain guns and a naval 12-pr. gun were coming up during the night. As Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft was going down the hill about midnight he met Lieut.-Colonel Sim, who gave him Sir Charles Warren’s letter. He said it was too late, as the men, unsupported by guns, could not stay. He ordered Lieut.-Colonel Sim to take his party back. Lieut.-Colonel Sim sent them back and himself went on to ascertain if the retirement was general, and, finding it was so, he walked up the valley to warn the officer in command of the naval gun of the altered situation, and prevent him risking his gun by moving it to the evacuated hill-top.

Half-past two on the morning of 25th January was an hour to be remembered by many of the actors in this abortive enterprise. Captain Phillips at the Commanding General’s post had managed to get the signals to work and sent the following message:

About 2.30 A.M. the following message from Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft reached Sir Charles Warren:

No messenger was sent down to acquaint Sir Charles Warren of the intention to retire taken as early as 6.30 P.M.; no heed was paid to the vigorous protests of either Colonel Hill or Captain Phillips, and Sir Charles Warren’s positive instructions received on the way down by the hand of Colonel Sim were treated with scant respect—in fact, were ignored; and so it came to pass that Major-General Coke, summoned by Sir Charles Warren at nine o’clock, and Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft, unsummoned, arrived together at Sir Charles Warren’s headquarters about 2.30 A.M. on the 25th, and for the first time he heard of the abandonment of the hill after the retirement had been completed, and found all his plans at once swept away.

Mr. Bennet Burleigh says in ‘The Natal Campaign’:

After a careful consideration of all the circumstances who can wonder that Lord Roberts stated in his despatch of 13th February 1900 that he was unable to concur with Sir Redvers Buller in thinking that Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft exercised a wise discretion in ordering the troops to retire, or can fail to agree with Lord Roberts that his assumption of responsibility and authority was wholly inexcusable?

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