The siege of Elands River

Today, 4 August 2020, marks 120 years since the beginning of the siege at Elands River during the South African (Boer) War.

In the months before the siege, British forces had occupied the capitals of the two Boer republics. Boer commandants decided to continue their fight in the form of a guerrilla war, but without their capitals, Boer forces faced a constant struggle to keep themselves supplied.

The Elands River post was a British outpost on a rocky ridge in the western Transvaal surrounded on three sides by Elands River and two tributary creeks. As well as a telegraph station, the outpost contained a large amount of supplies: tinned meat, jam, preserved food, and ammunition. A British column was ordered to collect the supplies and convey them to a better defended position. Ahead of this column, a fast-moving force of 500 mounted British colonial troops had been guarding the supplies for a number of weeks.

Consisting of roughly 300 soldiers from the Australian colonies, 200 from the British colony of Rhodesia, and a number of native African porters, troops from all the Australian colonies except South Australia were present, as well as a handful of British regulars and two Canadians. The force was under the command of British officer Colonel Charles Hore, who had been second-in-command to Colonel Robert Baden Powell during the siege of Mafeking, but was now recovering from malaria.

On 3 August, Captain David Ham ordered some of the Victorians under his command to dig in, warning that an attack could take place at any time. Faced with hard and stony soil, and with unsuitable shovels, the men only managed a trench of six inches (15 cm) depth. One wag scratched some words on a piece of slate at the site: “Erected to the memory of the Victorians who were compelled to dig this trench. Fort Funk, 3 August 1900”.

There was no sign of Boers. Expecting the larger column to relieve them the next day, that night the garrison held a singing concert around campfires. During this concert, a Boer force of more than 2,000 men under the command of General Koos de la Rey silently moved into position surrounding the outpost. Using the light of the campfires, the Boers took the range for their nine artillery pieces.

De la Rey’s men opened fire on the outpost at dawn on 4 August. The second shell destroyed the telegraph wires, removing that means of communication.

The Methodist Reverend James Green from New South Wales was the only chaplain present. In his 1902 book, he provided an eye-witness account of the siege. He experienced the full horror of being pinned down under superior firepower, and wrote:

“It is easy to generalize, and also to throw a glamour over an engagement, but the truth should be told. One has to be in an engagement to see what ‘the glorious death of the soldier’ really is in these times of modern artillery. One man was lying with an arm blown away, and a great hole in his side such as is made in the earth with a shovel. As I lay by his side, the shells flying over us, he rocked from side to side in his agony. The other wounded man was lying with a leg completely shattered.”

The first man mentioned by Green, Corporal Charles Norton, 3rd Victorian Bushmen, died shortly afterwards. His story will be read at the Last Post Ceremony on 4 August 2020. The second man, Trooper Frank Bird, had his right leg amputated and survived. His leg was buried, before being quickly dug up when Trooper Bird remembered that there was £4 in the pocket.

When Australian servicemen spoke about their time in the South African War, one weapon dominated their recollections: the Vickers Maxim one-pounder quick-firing gun. Known universally as the “pom-pom gun” due to the sound it made when firing, this formidable anti-personnel weapon allowed the Boers to maintain their principal advantage of mobility. The Boer forces at Elands River used three pom-pom guns and six field artillery pieces to great effect, killing almost all of the 1,500 transport animals in the garrison over the duration of the siege.

Reverend Green remembered the pom-pom guns with horror.

“Within the first half-hour the three pom-poms began to play upon us. What a horrid noise they make! It is something like a locomotive struggling up a hill and emitting great gusts of steam to the accompaniment of a steam-hammer.”

Over the next 13 days, two British relief columns were turned back by Boer artillery and marksmanship. After a few days, General de la Rey sent a messenger under a white flag with an offer of safe passage if the colonial troops surrendered and left the supplies intact. Colonel Hore sent a reply, the exact wording of which has been variously remembered. Captain Ham reported that the message read: “[This outpost] is held by colonial troops of Her Majesty, and we refuse to surrender.” The siege continued.

Finally, on 16 August, with the approach of a relief column of 10,000 British troops under Lord Kitchener, the Boer forces gave up their hopes of capturing the stores. The siege had been lifted. Eight Australians died during the siege or from wounds, along with six Rhodesians and seven African porters.

Historian Craig Wilcox remarks, “Australia had lost eight men defending a mountain of beef, jam and rum.” Indeed, the stores are central to the story of Elands River. Denying them to the Boers was a major tactical blow to Boer forces in the Western Transvaal region.