George Barnett
He wears the Queen's India Medal, The Queen's and the King's South Africa Medals
and the Long Service and Good Conduct Medals
It is always reassuring to receive feedback on the articles in Despatches. Knowing that someone, somewhere in cyberspace, is actually reading this stuff is a reward in itself. Since I wrote Parts I and II of this series I had done some more work on my Grandfather’s military life and had visited the South African battlefields in 2000. I was thinking about going into print again, when I received a nice email from Mrs Sheelagh le Cocq of Jersey, the Channel Islands. Like me, Mrs le Cocq never knew her grandfather but she had researched his life through family histories and newspapers. Like my grandfather, his name was also George and the two men had the same medal groups for their military service, although Mrs le Cocq’s grandfather George Barnett served in the Royal Inniskilling (although the town is Enniskillen) Fusiliers, whilst mine, George Hunt, served in the Devons. In Part II I related how George Hunt had been besieged in Ladysmith. George Barnett was one of the men trying to relieve Ladysmith. Both Georges then went on to fight the Boers on their own ground. Although neither Mrs le Cocq nor I have any evidence that the two Georges ever met it is clear that their paths crossed several times. This, as they say, is their story . . .
For a well spent 25 pounds sterling in 1997 I had a researcher get me copies of my Grandfather’s service record and the Devon ’s medal rolls. These filled in many of the gaps in my knowledge of him, telling me where he was born, what he did before he joined the army, and where and when he served. Oddly enough on not one of the forms is his birthday recorded. Clearly the army had no intention of throwing him a little party once a year. But, since George H was listed as 19 years and 10 months old when he signed up in November 1891, that means he was born in January 1872, in the village of Northam, Devon. George B was born three months later in Islington, London.
Whilst George Hunt lived with his father, became a groom and also served in the part-time Militia until he joined the Devons when he was nearly 20, George Barnett had a much rougher start to life. Mrs le Cocq suspects that George may have been born out of wedlock because his father is described as a “bachelor” in a later marriage certificate. No doubt, since he rose to be a Senior NCO in the British Army, some of the privates that he was responsible for keeping in discipline would have thought that this background was an essential prerequisite for the job! George’s mother died when he was very young and his father took a new wife who George didn’t get on with. George later claimed that he had joined the army to escape a “wicked stepmother,” but Mrs le Cocq charitably points out that the poor lady had seven children in as many years, one of whom had died, and raising this brood on a cab driver’s pay would have left Mrs Barnett harassed and exhausted. When he was 11 George was sent to the Middlesex Industrial School, for continually running away from home. The Industrial Schools were intended for unruly, but not delinquent or criminal boys, and most lads from these schools entered the army. Mrs le Cocq doubts if they had much choice. So, at the age of 14 years and 11 months in 1887, young George Barnett signed on with the 2nd Battalion Inniskillings at Aldershot, committing himself to 12 years’ service. It is an interesting insight into the physical condition of working class boys in Victorian London that George’s medical record shows the nearly 15 year old to have been 4feet, 6 ½ inches tall and weighed only 77 pounds.
At his age George Barnett would have been a band boy, playing the bugle, drums and, because this was an Irish Regiment, especially the fife. We know that George could play the trombone before he entered the army so it is highly probable that he was in the Regiment’s band when they marched past Queen Victoria at her Jubilee Review in July 1887. This was the easy sort of soldiering that Kipling alluded to when he wrote:
“You may talk o’ gin and beer
when you’re quartered safe out ’ere,
An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it,”
t
but by the end of the following year George was on a troopship bound for India where he would have plenty of opportunity to practice the band boys’ secondary duty ~ they were stretcher bearers.
On a personal note I thought that the Orient was amazing when I arrived in Hong Kong at the ripe old age of 22. You really have to wonder what the 16-year-old George Barnett thought of it all when he stepped ashore in Bombay in January 1889. He probably didn’t have much time to think. The battalion quickly moved to its station at Secunderabad and, after nearly three years there, moved on to the even more exotic Burma where it spent the next four years. By this time Private George Hunt of the Devons was catching up. He arrived in India in December 1892, two months after his namesake had moved to Burma. By this time George Barnett would also have become a fully-fledged infantryman.
The two George’s first campaign together came in 1897 in the Tirah, which is related in Part I of this series. The Devons were in the main assault force under General Lockhart, whilst the Inniskillings covered the flanks as part of the “Peshawar Mobile Column,” based on Fort Bara. Here, according to their historian, they longed “to be more actively employed than in the necessary but uninteresting duties of road making and fortifying the camp.” Their chance came when Lockhart’s regiments withdrew and the Peshawar Column had to advance to save the hard-pressed rearguard. This operation was a classic example of mountain warfare. The Inniskillings and their sister battalions from the Peshawar Column entered the hills and, passing through each other in succession secured the heights for the rearguard to pass through to safety. After being pursued by fanatic Afridis for five days and nights the Scots, Sikhs and Gurkhas of the rearguard must have been rather pleased to see the Irishmen, and Londoners, of the Inniskillings. The interesting thing of course is that probably none of the English, Irish, Scottish, Indian or Nepali brothers-in-arms who bivouacked at Barkai on 14th December 1897 gave a moment’s thought to what an amazingly diverse, but perhaps wonderful, Imperial army they composed.
George Hunt’s enlistment papers are full of small print. Whilst, theoretically, he signed on for seven years active duty, “with the colours”, and five in the reserve, the sub-clauses provided that, if the active service was overseas it could be extended by one year. And if a state of war existed then, by yet another year. And if “by a proclamation from Her Majesty in case of imminent national danger” then all the service could be active, and it could be extended for yet another year! My Grandfather fell foul of every one of these clauses. In December 1898 he was overseas in India and in December 1899 definitely at war in South Africa. I don’t know if this bothered him unduly, but as an old soldier he had a right to grumble and I’m sure his contractual obligations gave him lots to grumble about. George Barnett probably wasn’t grumbling about conditions of service. At some point he had decided that the Army was the life for him. He had signed on again and by 1899 had been promoted to Sergeant.
The Devons and George Hunt arrived in South Africa on 21st September 1899 and in Part II I have related how they soon found themselves besieged in Ladysmith. George Barnett had been back in England on leave when war broke out. He was drafted into the 1st Battalion Inniskillings and arrived in Cape Town on 30th November 1899 as part of Buller’s Army Corps which was charged with breaking the Boer line on the Tugela River and relieving Ladysmith, and my Grandfather.
Buller’s first attempt at breaking through was at the Battle of Colenso on 15th December 1899. The Boers, 4,500 strong under probably their best commander, Louis Botha, were dug in on the north bank of the Tugela. Unfortunately for the British, Buller had no real idea where they were. His maps were wrong and this had not been revealed by careful reconnaissance. Buller had 15,000 men in five brigades. Two, (which included the 2nd Battalion of the Devons, trying to relieve their 1st Battalion in Ladysmith) were to remain in reserve, one was to attack on the right and one was to make a frontal attack on the bridge across the river. The other, the Irish Brigade under the command of Major General Arthur Fitzroy Hart, including the Inniskillings, was the left prong of the attack. Hart was ordered to cross the Tugela where it made a 300-degree loop at “Bridle Drift [ford], immediately west of the junction of Doornkoop Spruit [stream], and the Tugela.” The maps showed the junction to be upstream of the loop whereas in reality it was downstream of it. Thus the British thought that they would be crossing a drift at the outside of the 7 o’clock position on the loop when the drift they really wanted was at the inside of the 4 o’clock position. Matters were made worse because their African guide thought that they wanted to cross a drift at the 12 o’clock position, and because the approach march was conducted in the pre-dawn darkness.
Hart’s nickname was “General No-Bobs” a direct and simple reference to the fact that he never ducked when bullets and shells passed overhead, but also perhaps an indirect and cleverer reference to the fact that he was certainly not a thinking general like Lord Roberts, the other “Bobs”. He had a fondness for foot drill and kept his brigade in close formation. Even when obliged to put them in extended order he sent out markers first to ensure that the extended order was nice and neat too! Personally he was absolutely fearless, almost to the exclusion of common sense. But his main problem as a commander was that he expected everybody in his brigade to be absolutely fearless almost to the exclusion of common sense too.
The ground in the "Loop". The trees roughly mark the river. The Boers were in the kopjes behind.
During the approach Hart was informed three times by his cavalry scouts that there were enemy on his left, where they shouldn’t have been, but he chose to ignore the scouts. When he hit the western base of the loop he realized that the map had misled him but, since his guide insisted that the drift was straight ahead, he ordered the Brigade forward. Dawn found them tightly packed inside the loop. The ground is dead flat and since the river cuts deeply into the plain its exact position cannot be determined until you are almost right on top of the banks. Hart, the Inniskillings and George Barnett had the river on three sides and Boer marksmen and artillery concealed in the kopjes beyond the river to their left and front. The result was a massacre. A soldier in one of the Inniskillings’ sister regiments in the brigade, the Dublin Fusiliers, described it thus:
“For hours, around these gallant lads, the shot like hailstones fell,
And many a bullet found its mark in that infernal hell;
With sad downcast face we heard the order to retire,
The position was too strong to take beneath that falling fire . . .
Then here’s to the gallant Dublins, and the brave old Connaughts too,
The Border lads undaunted, and the Inniskillings true,
Side by side, they fought and died, each man beside his “pal”,
Fighting for England ’s honour on the border of Natal.”
The rest of the battle was little better from the British point of view. The attack on the bridge was suicidal and when two batteries of British guns advanced to support it they came into easy rifle range of the Boers, were devastated by Mauser fire, ran out of ammunition and had 10 guns captured. To add further insult to the injury of the British Army that day, two companies of the 2nd Battalion of the Devons did not receive the order to retreat and were overwhelmed, taking 102 casualties and losing 36 prisoners, including the battalion’s colonel.
In total 1,139 of Buller’s men were killed, wounded or captured at Colenso, and 553 of those casualties were from Hart’s Irish Brigade. Today the dead lie in a well-tended cemetery inside the loop. The fatal kopjes look down in the distance, and across the billiard table flat ground of the loop you still can’t see the river. This is a site that should be visited by every army officer to drum home the maxim: “Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted”.
Uncharacteristically Buller tried to shift the blame for the defeat. “I was sold by a gunner”, he complained, although the gunners certainly had no responsibility for Hart’s disaster. Buller anguished for three days about sacking Hart but eventually decided against this. Hart could not understand what all the fuss was about. He put his failure down to his soldiers going the ground but he himself “took a cheerful view of it, ascribed it to first experiences under fire, and said they would do much better next time”. Botha’s view of George Barnett and his comrades was higher than their own general’s: “I must say that I never saw anything more magnificent than their charges at this point . . . no less than five times they charged, and I never want to see finer bravery than I saw there” he wrote. And, characteristically, Botha made no attempt to take great credit for his opponent’s mistakes. He simply wrote to President Kruger: “The Lord of our fathers has today given us a brilliant victory”.
On 11th January 1900 Buller moved west to attempt to outflank the Boer line. The promising chance of a cavalry breakthrough was thrown away and by January 20th it was decided that another infantry assault was necessary. The attack was directed at a hill called Taba Nyama and once again Hart’s Irish Brigade, reinforced this time by two Lancashire battalions, led the attack. Hart thought that his brigade had done well because it reached the crest of the hill, only to discover that it was a false crest and that the ridge of the hill was still 1,000 yards away, where the Boers were waiting with a clear field of fire. Writing after the war, under a pseudonym because he was still a serving officer and he didn’t pull his punches about what he saw, a Lieutenant-Colonel Grant described Hart’s response:
“There is nothing apologetic or doubtful about General Hart to start with, [a] gallant fiery Irishman, too hot with the ignis sacer [holy fire] of fighting to see anything ridiculous in a sword angrily brandished at an enemy a thousand yards away . . . Where will British privates not rush at the word of command? [A]nd, in the name of pity, why are such commands given?”
Certainly the likes of George Barnett and his comrades did not question Hart’s ridiculous gesturing. Grant relates what happens next:
“The artillery preparation was mere form. There was a hasty bang, bang, bang from the artillery . . . and up from the shadows burst the Irish and North-Countymen with a typhoon of yells and a momentum that nothing but death could stop. But death was there: a tremendous fire broke out from the ridge . . . The foremost men fell in heaps, the rearmost were stopped, as all should have been stopped, at the crestline. ‘Thus far, and no further,’ sang the Mausers.”
Hart’s brigade had lost 365 casualties, mostly, noted Winston Churchill, from the Lancashire Regiments and the Dublin Fusiliers. By this time the “Dubs” were down to 50% strength. But the Inniskillings couldn’t have been much better off. The battle was renewed the next day and the British made some gains, but by the evening of the 22nd, by which time another 195 casualties had been suffered, it was clear that they could not break through. At a council-of-war the British commanders considered three possibilities: a night assault on the ridge, which Churchill considered “would involve great slaughter and a terrible risk”, an ignominious retreat, or to outflank Taba Nyama by taking the higher hill next to it . . . Spion Kop.
The Battle of Spion Kop on 23rd/24th January 1900 centred on attempts to take and hold the 1,460 metre high kop. The Inniskillings remained on Taba Nyama, so I will not go into great detail. But it is important to note that this was a battle of wills. Both sides thought they had lost. Both sides were right. Both sides retreated from the top of the kop. Only Louis Botha wouldn’t give up and, throwing in his last reserve on the morning of the 25th, the Boers found only British stretcher bearers collecting wounded and dead on top of the hill. The Boer will had triumphed.
Two weeks later Buller tried, and failed, again at the Battle of Vaalkrans, just east of Spion Kop. Again the Inniskillings were not heavily engaged so I will not go into details but the important thing to note is that what a fine instrument of war men like Sergeant Barnett made for General Buller. They took their setbacks on the chin; didn’t lose faith in their commanders, (although Buller must have sorely tested this faith when it came to his tactical ability, but I believe that the troops really appreciated his genuine care for them and they repaid this) and kept going forward. Three significant defeats in six weeks would have knocked the stuffing out of most armies.
Whilst George Barnett was suffering south of the Tugela what of George Hunt in Ladysmith? The main events of the Siege have been related in Part II, but in 2004 the Naval and Military Press republished the “Regimental History of the 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment during the Boer War” by Colonel M. Jacson which contains many little sidelights on the siege life of George and his comrades. For instance:
9th November 1899: First Boer attack beaten off. “This lasted until about 2 p.m., when the action was concluded with a royal salute from the naval batteries and three hearty cheers which, started by the Naval Brigade, were taken up all round the defences in Honour of the birthday of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. A curious ending to a battle.” Curious indeed. I hope that Bertie appreciated what splendid chaps he had fighting for him.
One of the Boer 'Long Toms' that usually made Private Hunt's life a misery,
but occasionally fired liquorice
1st January 1900: In addition to firing 1½ tons of real shells into the town the Boers fired one “engraved on it 'Compliments of the Season', . . . [containing] a busting charge of liquorice in place of melanite . . . [a]nother blind shell picked up was full of sweetmeats.”
Ladysmith Townhall Private Hunt sat outside whilst Sgt Barnett marched past
1st January, 1900: “Messages of good wishes to the garrison were received from Her Majesty, from Sir Redvers Buller, and from the soldiers, sailors and civilians of Hong Kong .” That was nice of us, wasn’t it?
9th-10th January 1900: The British use star shell to illuminate a night attack. The Boers had never seen them before and were: ". . . hugely elated at the sight . . . They turned their searchlight on to the stars . . . and cheered lustily. They evidently considered that it was a special performance got up for their entertainment . . .”
31st January 1900: “horse-flesh was issued for the first time as a ration.”
3rd February1900: “a decoction called 'chervil' [a pun on the popular beef essence 'Bovril'] was issued to the men. It was supplied by the 18th Hussars’ horses, whose bodies were boiled down for the purpose. It was nourishing and the men liked it, which was a good thing. There was nothing else by which to recommend it. The men were also allowed to go down to the chervil factory . . . and buy the horseflesh after it had passed through the boiling process. This did not appear appetizing, but again the men liked it . . .” My emphasis.
Another odd thing about the siege was that both side’s signalers chatted with each other. A sort of fraternization with the enemy by heliograph. When news of the new diet got out the Boers signaled: “How do you like horse-meat?” The British flashed back: “Fine. When the horses are finished we are going to eat Boer.”
Lest all this sound too jolly, by the end of February starvation was a real threat for the garrison and disease was knocking them down. There were 13,500 men in Ladysmith and over 10,500 admissions to hospital over the three months of the siege. Despite the 'stiff upper lip' the strain was telling and 'reading between the lines' of Jacson’s account we find that even strongly held fundamentals that had probably never even been thought about before, were being questioned:
4th February 1900: News received that Buller “was to be expected shortly, and . . . that . . . Ladysmith was to be attacked again next morning by 10,000 Boers. Arrangements were made to meet the latter, the arrival of the former being considered hypothetical.” My emphasis.
13th February 1900: “Divine Service … The usual 'extermination' service and prayers for the 'Right' were said, the hymns chosen being:
There is a blessed home
Beyond this land of woe;
And
There is a greenhill far away,
Sung sadly to the accompaniment of Buller’s guns.”
The reason why the Devons could hear Buller’s guns was because on 12th February 1900 he tried again to break through to Ladysmith. Although George Hunt in the garnison, and George Barnett in the relieving force had suffered so much, so far, both still had more dark hours to go through before the dawn.
TRIUMPH AND SAFE RETURN
Having tried, and failed, to break through to Ladysmith by his attacks on the Boer lines west of Colenso, Buller attacked the Boer positions east on the town on 12 February 1900.
Downstream of the town the Tugela curves through a steep valley with high ground on both sides of the river. The Boers had approximately 3,000 men north of the river and 1,500 south of it. Against these Buller could bring 28,000 men and 78 guns. Despite their recent victories Boer morale was beginning to crack, especially amongst the Orange Free Staters as news of Lord Roberts’ invasion of their homeland came through. Also their commanders in the eastern sector, Lucas Meyer and Christiaan Fourie were nowhere near Botha’s ability. The British attack was relentless and well coordinated, whilst the Boers made several elementary mistakes. Within a week the hills south of the Tugela had been cleared and the British artillery moved up to pound the Boer positions on the other side, which were in a series of hills known as the Tugela Heights .
On 21st February 1900 the British crossed the river again. The Boers had been reorganized by Botha and were well dug in and concealed in the heights above them so progress was slow and bloody. By the 23rd they had dented the Boer position by taking Wynne’s Hill, (the British named the hills after their brigade commanders,) but not cracked it. Wynne’s Hill was fiercely contested by the Boers and the situation was beginning to look like a re-run of Spion Kop. Wynne’s Hill was dominated by Terrace Hill, which in turn was flanked by Railway Hill and Pieter’s Hill. So, Buller directed Hart’s Irish Brigade to take Terrace Hill, which thereafter became known as “Hart’s Hill”.
Hart’s reputation for reckless determination had spread throughout the army. Churchill regarded him as “one of the bravest officers in the army, and it was widely felt that such a leader and such troops could carry the business through if success lay within the scope of human efforts.” Conan-Doyle, without disparaging the General himself, noted that he was a dangerous man to be around, although this was taken in good, but grim, humour: “Whom are you going to?” “General Hart,” said the aide-de-camp. “Then good-bye!” cried his fellows.” However Conan-Doyle also believed that Hart’s treatment of his brigade had turned them into experts at facing fire and storming positions. He reported “a shrewd military observer” as saying that the brigade’s “rushes were the quickest, their rushes were the longest, and they stayed the shortest time under cover.” In short, it was known that the assault on Hart’s Hill would be difficult and dangerous, but, if any men in the British Army could pull it off, it was men like SGT Barnett and his comrades in the Irish Brigade who would do it.
The Inniskillings led the brigade and started at 12:30 p.m. Much of the approach march had to be made in single file and things got worse when a stream had to be crossed over a bridge dominated by a Boer ‘pom-pom’, (a 2-lber., Maxim-Nordenfelt, belt fed artillery piece,) which inflicted 60 casualties. So it wasn’t until 5 p.m. that the Inniskillings and the regiments straggling behind them were assembled at the bottom of the hill in an area of dead ground that became known as ‘Hart’s Hollow’. With less than half his brigade available and with night coming on Hart, true to form, decided not to wait. He ordered the hill to be taken within two hours. As the Inniskillings set off up the slope 60 British guns fired on the Boer position and Hart ordered his bugler to sound the “double” and “charge” again and again to spur them on.
As the brigade advanced they came under fire from the adjacent hills and companies were told off to suppress this fire, leaving the brigade in an “arrow head” formation with the Inniskillings being the point. The bombardment, and the determination of the likes of SGT Barnett, seemed to do the trick. The Boers could be seen leaving their positions ~ this was to be no re-run of Spion Kop. But then the truth dawned . . . ‘Terrace Hill’ was aptly named because it is a series of terraces and the position that the Inniskillings were assaulting was only the Boer forward line. Their main position, 300 metres further up the steep slope, was strongly held, and untouched. The artillery fire had lifted and, with the lack of communication, failing light and confusion of the attack, could not be effectively brought down on the new position. This was not a re-run of Spion Kop, it was a re-run of Taba Nyama.
George Barnett’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. T.M.G. Thackeray, was renowned for his personal bravery. At Colenso he had been cut off by the Boers, surrounded and called upon to surrender. He refused. The Boers would not take him alive. However the Boers saw no point in taking him dead and adding another brave man to the butcher’s bill that day. They had already won their battle so they let Thackeray go. Now, two months later, as night was falling on Hart’s Hill, Thackeray’s courage, in all senses, was tested again. Perhaps a man with less personal courage would not have gone on. Perhaps a man with more morale courage might have assessed the situation in a more sanguine manner and refused to go on, accepting Hart’s ire and the opprobrium of the army and even his own men. But Thackeray was not such a man, and there was no ‘perhaps’ about his own attitude. So, perhaps inevitably, he led his regiment forward.
From a hill on the other side of the river Churchill had a grandstand view, and probably a much better idea of what was really happening than either General Hart, Colonel Thackeray or Sergeant Barnett did. Churchill could see the Boers rise in their trenches to be able to fire better, and described what happened next:
“The terrible power of the Mauser rifle was displayed. As the charging companies met the storm of bullets they were swept away. Officers and men fell by scores . . .It was a frantic scene of blood and fury . . . Thus confronted, the Irish perished rather than retire. A few men indeed ran back down the slope to the nearest cover, and there, savagely turned to bay, but the greater part of the front line was shot down.”
Companies from other regiments of the brigade advanced to support the Inniskillings but this just added to the slaughter. This time the Boers did not give Thackeray a chance and he paid the ultimate price. The Colonel of the Dublin Fusiliers died on the same slope and the Colonel of the Welsh Fusiliers was killed whilst leading a diversionary attack on their left. Three colonels dead in one evening speaks volumes about the men who led Sergeant Barnett and Private Hunt. If they can be criticized for regarding their men as expendable parts in the Empire’s war machine it must be accepted that they regarded themselves in the same way ~ and they didn’t ask their men to do anything that they were not prepared to do themselves.
What was left of the Inniskillings and the rest of the brigade clung on to the lower terrace throughout the night, and all through the day after too. The next day a truce was called to remove the dead and wounded. During the attacks of the 23rd out of 1,200 men engaged the Irish Brigade had lost over half as casualties. As well as being known as “Terrace Hill” or “Hart’s Hill” the height would now be known as “Inniskilling Hill.” Today a simple monument stands there which is inscribed:
“Near this spot were killed, or mortally wounded on Feb 23rd – 24th 1900 Lient-Col T.M.G. Thackeray, Commanding. Major. F.A. Sanders, 2nd-in-command, Lient W.O. Stuart and 65 NCO and men of the 27th, Inniskillings whilst advancing to the relief of Ladysmith.”
After days of continuous fighting, hopelessly outnumbered, and with nothing but bad news from the Orange Free State , the morale of the Boers on the Tugela was at breaking point. But, just like at Spion Kop and Valkrans, the British were pulling back south of the River. On 26th February Botha reported to Joubert that:
“It is quite possible the enemy is retiring again. Their wagons . . . tents . . . [and] big guns have already recrossed the River . . . [s]ome of [their infantry] have already left. It is evident that their losses are heavy. By tomorrow, we shall know for certain what the enemy’s intention really is.”
Inside Ladysmith the hunger, the war and the anxiety continued. “It was the anxiety which killed” said Jacson. “There is nothing more conducive to the deterioration of men’s minds than false alarms on an empty stomach.”
Although Buller’s guns could be heard every day, and occasionally even seen hitting the southernmost positions of the Boer siege ring, and although Boers could be seen trekking north, this was not necessarily an indication of British success to the south. Lord Roberts was pushing into the Orange Free State and the Boer movements could just be re-deployments to meet this threat. Unable to storm Ladysmith the Boers tried to flood it out by damming the Klip River . The British shelled the dam and this sparked fierce artillery exchanges. On 22nd February the Devons were ordered to probe the Boer siege positions to see if they had been weakened. An early morning attack found the Boers still in place and as determined as ever.
On 25th February the garrison was put on full rations. What a relief this must have been for Private Hunt and his fellow rankers for, without money, they had no access to what remained of the town’s commercial stocks where one egg would cost the equivalent of four days of a private’s pay. Then, on 28th February, the blow fell. Rations were cut to their previous level: one biscuit, three ounces of mealies, and one pound of horse per man per day.
“This,” recorded Jacson, “was perhaps the most distressing circumstance connected with the siege, and it had a most distressing effect. It was not so much the reduction of the ration that was of consequence as the reason . . . that Buller had again failed, and could not get through.” With no news from Buller, General White had calculated that on the reduced, starvation rations the garrison could eke out another fortnight, by which time there would not be a horse, ox or mule left. Sir George White was giving Sir Redvers Buller his last chance.
This time both Botha and White were wrong. The sacrifices on Wynne’s Hill and Hart’s Hill were not to count for nothing as the sacrifices at Colenso, Taba Nyama, Spion Kop and Valkrans had. Buller was moving his big guns south of the river so that he could concentrate them on the fourth hill of the Tugela Heights position, which was known as Pieters Hill, and, from 27th February 1900, as ‘Barton’s Hill’, after the British brigade commander who took it under a massive artillery bombardment. This attack unhinged the Boer positions on Railway Hill and Hart’s Hill. SGT Barnett and his comrades in the Inniskillings, indeed in the whole army, could move forward again. The way to Ladysmith was open.
At 6:30 p.m. on 28th February, whilst Private Hunt was probably listening to his tummy rumbling, a mounted column was seen in the distance to the south of Ladysmith. Nothing unusual here, the Boers had been moving for days. But then it was realised that this column was riding in formation and Boers didn’t ride like that . . . the column must be British: Ladysmith had been relieved!
On 3rd March Buller’s army marched in review through Ladysmith. “A pagent,” said Jacson, “which those who took part in the siege will never forget.” The Devons were given pride of place outside the town hall, next to Sir George White. Buller and his army “received an immense ovation [from] the lines of the weedy, sickly-looking garrison. These with their thin, pale faces cheered to the full bent of their power.”
Private Hunt sat outside whilst Sgt Barnett marched past
Buller, showing his usual consideration for the men, bade the exhausted defenders sit whilst the relievers marched past. Jacson described SGT Barnett and his comrades as:
“these men . . . to the weakly garrison appeared as veritable giants . . . They were . . . well covered, hard and well set up. They were filthy, their clothes were mended and patched, and most of them had scrubby beards . . . But how well they looked – the picture of vigour, health and strength, as they “tramp, tramp” – “tramp, tramp” through town.”
So Sergeant George Barnett and Private George Hunt had probably come face-to-face that day. Although they did not know each other, (and couldn’t possibly have known, or comprehended, that a century later their descendents would come to know each other through something called ‘the Internet’) I am prepared to bet that they were both very pleased to see each other.
Ireland Ward
The word ‘probably’ is used advisably because, as you can see from the faded photograph above, at some point in South Africa George Barnett was hospitalised. When, where and why, from a wound or disease, we do not know. All we can say is that, given what the Inniskillings had been through between Colenso and Tugela Heights , it is more likely that SGT Barnett was hospitalised at this time rather than later. Take a close look at the picture and you will get a clue why the two Georges could survive the hard times they went through: George Barnett is in ‘Ireland Ward’, which indicates that even in hospital the ‘regimental’ system was maintained as far as possible. Private Hunt and Sergeant Barnett fought harder, better and longer because they did so alongside their pals in the regiment, and even when injured they were kept amongst their pals where the common experience and mutual understanding and support would result in a better and quicker recovery.
Happily whatever put SGT Barnett in hospital it was not a permanent disability and for George Barnett, and George Hunt, the war continued. The Inniskillings and the main body of Buller’s army moved north to liberate the rest of Natal and to take the war into the Boer homelands. Meanwhile the Devons were placed under the Command of Brigadier Walter Kitchener, (Lord Kitchener of Khartoum ’s brother) and given ‘line of communication’ duties so that they could recover from the debilitating effects of the siege. Even these duties were no soft option. Having been starved for so long the men ate too much and suffered from jaundice; and, still clothed in their Indian summer kit, were not equipped to face the austral winter on the high veldt. This was no mere inconvenience, for instance on the night of 9th August 1900 two men from the Devons’ sister battalion, the Rifle Brigade, died of exposure in sub-zero temperatures.
Lord Roberts’ army cleared the Orange Free State and met up with Buller’s army from Natal outside the Transvaal capital of Pretoria . What was left of the Boer armies fell back along the railway line towards Mozambique with Lord Roberts, General Buller, Sergeant Barnett and Private Hunt all in hot pursuit. The Boers made their last major stand on the hills between Belfast and Machadodorp on 27th August 1900. The key to their position was the Bergendal Kopje held by the Johannesburg Police. The British brigades had become intermingled during the pursuit and Kitchener took over temporary command of the Inniskillings. These, along with the Rifle Brigade, led the assault, with one company of Devons directly attached to the leading company of Inniskillings and the rest of the Devons in close support. Both Georges have medal bars for this battle, they were truly ‘brothers in arms’ that day.
For three hours the British brought 39 guns to bear on the Boer position which measured only 80 yards by 40 yards. So intense was the bombardment that the hill was stained yellow by the chemicals from the Lydite shells. Unlike the situation at Hart’s Hill the artillery kept up the fire until the assault lines were almost on top of the Boer sangars. The Boers fought with their usual tenacity, Conan-Doyle says the Jo’ Burg Coppers “may have been bullies in peace, but were certainly heroes in war . . . No finer defence was made in the war” and they punished the Rifle Brigade badly. But companies A and B of the Inniskilling Fusiliers were the first into the Boer position and as a result of this penetration the whole Boer line fell back, although still in good order.
In the hills beyond Machadodorp men like George Hunt and George Barnett were in their element. Accounts of the pursuit read more like the North West Frontier than South Africa . The mountains were steep, (over 8,000 feet high,) the valleys deep, but there was always a way through or around for men who knew their mountain warfare. The Devons and the Inniskillings had studied in a hard school under the wily Pathans and they had learned their lessons well. Organised Boer resistance finally ended when, on 26th September 1900, the Devons stormed the aptly named Burgher’s Nek. Two days earlier British cavalry had reached the Mozambique border at Komatipoort. President Kruger had fled through here a week before. The war appeared over.
The previously indomitable Botha summed it up thus:
“I shall give it up. I have taken up position after position which I considered impregnable; I have always been turned off by your infantry, who come along in great lines in their dirty clothes with bags on their backs. Nothing can stop them. I shall give it up.”
At Spion Kop it had been Botha, and the Boer will, which had triumphed over the British will. But it had been the will of unstoppable men like Sergeant Barnett and Private Hunt, in their dirty clothes with bags on their backs, that had eventually triumphed.
But, alas for the British, although the Boer armies had been broken in the field the Boer will to resist had not been broken. The war now entered its guerilla stage as Boer Commandos under men like Fourie, De Wet, Erasmus, De la Ray and others took the war to the British lines of communication, to show the British that they might have conquered the Boer territory but they had not conquered the Boers.
The guerilla war can be roughly divided into two stages. For the first eight months or so the Boer commandos tended to be larger groupings, often with families and cattle on the hoof accompanying them. These at least gave the British a target for formal operations against them. Large ‘sweeps’ were mounted to pin down the Boer laagers. Jacson tells of the Devons performing 20 mile night marches over difficult ground to attack Boer laagers at dawn. It was in one of these sweeps in May 1901 that Private Hunt did something wrong and lost his good conduct pay for a year as a result. His service record is silent on the actual offence and I have often wondered what it was. The fact that he was not a clockwork paragon of military discipline makes me like the Grandfather I never knew even more.
The Devons were mostly deployed in the eastern Transvaal whilst the Inniskillings went further afield, to the western Transvaal and Cape Colony as well. The Devons were the luckier regiment for they shipped out of Africa, bound for India again, on January 3rd 1902 and thus missed the worst part of the guerilla war against the Boer ‘bitter-enders’. This constituted the second stage of the guerilla war with the Boers breaking down into smaller groupings of combatants only, highly mobile and living off the land by way of what they could gather from their supporters or pillage from their opponents. Against these highly mobile groups even infantry which could make 20 mile night marches were not much use, and the Inniskillings found themselves manning some of the thousands of blockhouses that were erected to protect the British lines of communication, a thankless, tedious and dangerous task with the monotony of endless guard duty occasionally relieved by the terror of a Boer attack. Sergeant Barnett and his platoon spent the last three months of the war in the blockhouse line around Kaffir Kop. Their feelings when peace was finally declared on 31st May 1902 can only be imagined.
The two George’s paths probably did not cross after Machadodorp. Private Hunt and the Devons left South Africa early with their reputation enhanced. Their general, Walter Kitchener said of them:
“a more determined crew I never wish to see, and a better regiment to back his orders a General can never hope to have.”
But even this high praise was not enough to keep my Grandfather in the army. He had seen enough soldiering and took his discharge in January 1904 with 12 years and 70 days of service.
For George Barnett however the army was his life. He continued to rise through the ranks, transferred to Jersey Militia in 1903, represented his regiment at shooting at Bisley, (perhaps he had learned a thing or two about sniping from the Pathans and the Boers,) and, as Regimental Sergeant Major spent his last years in service training the recruits for a new war that was to end all wars. I can think of no better type of man to prepare younger men for the horrors of the Western Front than one, like George Barnett, who had been through the horrors of Colenso, Taba Nyama and Inniskilling Hill and lived to tell of it, and to learn from it. When he retired with 30 years’ service in 1917 the local paper noted that Regimental Sergeant Major Barnett was “popular with all ranks, he is a veritable type of British soldier of the old army . . .”.
The old army that George Hunt and George Barnett represented died at Ypres . The great wars of the 20th Century would be fought mainly by short service volunteers and conscripts, not by long service men. Oddly enough, the Pathans and Boers probably had more in common with the new soldiers of the 20th Century than they had with the old soldiers of the 19th Century. They too were part time citizen soldiers, who fought on the offensive because they believed they had a cause, and on the defensive for their hearths and homes. On the other side Private Hunt, Sergeant Barnett, Captain Jacson and Colonels Park and Thackeray fought because that is what they did, as soldiers of the Queen. This was summed up on Sunday, 25th February, 1900 during the truce to remove the dead and wounded after the slaughter on Inniskilling Hill, when British officers fraternized with Boer farmers. Over shared tobacco the Boers made it clear that they would rather be back on their farms but would stick out the war for however long it took. The Boers could not understand how the British could accept such heavy casualties, and suggested to a British Major-General that the British were having a rough time.
“A rough time?” Replied the British soldier. “Yes I suppose so. But for us, of course, it is nothing. We are used to it, and we are well paid for it.” [Private Hunt received one shilling and three pence a day before stoppages!] “This is the life we lead always, you understand?”
The Boers looked at the British dead around them and realized the type of men they were up against . . . “Great God!” they said.
The ground in the "Loop". The trees roughly mark the river. The Boers were in the kopjes behind.
During the approach Hart was informed three times by his cavalry scouts that there were enemy on his left, where they shouldn’t have been, but he chose to ignore the scouts. When he hit the western base of the loop he realized that the map had misled him but, since his guide insisted that the drift was straight ahead, he ordered the Brigade forward. Dawn found them tightly packed inside the loop. The ground is dead flat and since the river cuts deeply into the plain its exact position cannot be determined until you are almost right on top of the banks. Hart, the Inniskillings and George Barnett had the river on three sides and Boer marksmen and artillery concealed in the kopjes beyond the river to their left and front. The result was a massacre. A soldier in one of the Inniskillings’ sister regiments in the brigade, the Dublin Fusiliers, described it thus:
“For hours, around these gallant lads, the shot like hailstones fell,
And many a bullet found its mark in that infernal hell;
With sad downcast face we heard the order to retire,
The position was too strong to take beneath that falling fire . . .
Then here’s to the gallant Dublins, and the brave old Connaughts too,
The Border lads undaunted, and the Inniskillings true,
Side by side, they fought and died, each man beside his “pal”,
Fighting for England ’s honour on the border of Natal.”
The rest of the battle was little better from the British point of view. The attack on the bridge was suicidal and when two batteries of British guns advanced to support it they came into easy rifle range of the Boers, were devastated by Mauser fire, ran out of ammunition and had 10 guns captured. To add further insult to the injury of the British Army that day, two companies of the 2nd Battalion of the Devons did not receive the order to retreat and were overwhelmed, taking 102 casualties and losing 36 prisoners, including the battalion’s colonel.
In total 1,139 of Buller’s men were killed, wounded or captured at Colenso, and 553 of those casualties were from Hart’s Irish Brigade. Today the dead lie in a well-tended cemetery inside the loop. The fatal kopjes look down in the distance, and across the billiard table flat ground of the loop you still can’t see the river. This is a site that should be visited by every army officer to drum home the maxim: “Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted”.
One of the Boer 'Long Toms' that usually made Private Hunt's life a misery,
but occasionally fired liquorice
1st January 1900: In addition to firing 1½ tons of real shells into the town the Boers fired one “engraved on it 'Compliments of the Season', . . . [containing] a busting charge of liquorice in place of melanite . . . [a]nother blind shell picked up was full of sweetmeats.”
Ladysmith Townhall Private Hunt sat outside whilst Sgt Barnett marched past
1st January, 1900: “Messages of good wishes to the garrison were received from Her Majesty, from Sir Redvers Buller, and from the soldiers, sailors and civilians of Hong Kong .” That was nice of us, wasn’t it?
9th-10th January 1900: The British use star shell to illuminate a night attack. The Boers had never seen them before and were: ". . . hugely elated at the sight . . . They turned their searchlight on to the stars . . . and cheered lustily. They evidently considered that it was a special performance got up for their entertainment . . .”
31st January 1900: “horse-flesh was issued for the first time as a ration.”
3rd February1900: “a decoction called 'chervil' [a pun on the popular beef essence 'Bovril'] was issued to the men. It was supplied by the 18th Hussars’ horses, whose bodies were boiled down for the purpose. It was nourishing and the men liked it, which was a good thing. There was nothing else by which to recommend it. The men were also allowed to go down to the chervil factory . . . and buy the horseflesh after it had passed through the boiling process. This did not appear appetizing, but again the men liked it . . .” My emphasis.
Another odd thing about the siege was that both side’s signalers chatted with each other. A sort of fraternization with the enemy by heliograph. When news of the new diet got out the Boers signaled: “How do you like horse-meat?” The British flashed back: “Fine. When the horses are finished we are going to eat Boer.”
Lest all this sound too jolly, by the end of February starvation was a real threat for the garrison and disease was knocking them down. There were 13,500 men in Ladysmith and over 10,500 admissions to hospital over the three months of the siege. Despite the 'stiff upper lip' the strain was telling and 'reading between the lines' of Jacson’s account we find that even strongly held fundamentals that had probably never even been thought about before, were being questioned:
4th February 1900: News received that Buller “was to be expected shortly, and . . . that . . . Ladysmith was to be attacked again next morning by 10,000 Boers. Arrangements were made to meet the latter, the arrival of the former being considered hypothetical.” My emphasis.
13th February 1900: “Divine Service … The usual 'extermination' service and prayers for the 'Right' were said, the hymns chosen being:
There is a blessed home
Beyond this land of woe;
And
There is a greenhill far away,
Sung sadly to the accompaniment of Buller’s guns.”
The reason why the Devons could hear Buller’s guns was because on 12th February 1900 he tried again to break through to Ladysmith. Although George Hunt in the garnison, and George Barnett in the relieving force had suffered so much, so far, both still had more dark hours to go through before the dawn.
TRIUMPH AND SAFE RETURN
Having tried, and failed, to break through to Ladysmith by his attacks on the Boer lines west of Colenso, Buller attacked the Boer positions east on the town on 12 February 1900.
Downstream of the town the Tugela curves through a steep valley with high ground on both sides of the river. The Boers had approximately 3,000 men north of the river and 1,500 south of it. Against these Buller could bring 28,000 men and 78 guns. Despite their recent victories Boer morale was beginning to crack, especially amongst the Orange Free Staters as news of Lord Roberts’ invasion of their homeland came through. Also their commanders in the eastern sector, Lucas Meyer and Christiaan Fourie were nowhere near Botha’s ability. The British attack was relentless and well coordinated, whilst the Boers made several elementary mistakes. Within a week the hills south of the Tugela had been cleared and the British artillery moved up to pound the Boer positions on the other side, which were in a series of hills known as the Tugela Heights .
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