It is no secret that wargamers are highly acquisitive creatures who find it hard to resist the temptation of new lines of figures put out by enterprising manufacturers. However, most of them try to channel their purchases along realistic lines by not attempting to amass large 'major' armies, but by getting together a 'favourite period - usually Napoleonic - and then building-up much smaller mini-armies in other periods for smaller-scale battles.
The Boer Wars of 1881 and 1898-1902 are ideally suited fox this purpose, as the small numbers involved in the battles make scaling-down a practical proposition - in fact the small action described here is realistic in that, without being an individual skirmish, it can be fought with one figure on the table representing a single man in real-life. It is easy to assemble as the figures can be painted very much to choice with both Boer officers and men supplying their own clothing, arms, and horses; the British opposing them wore khaki, not difficult to splash on!
When the Wessex Military Society returned from their South African tour of 1979, ostensibly for the Zulu War Centenary but equally taking-in such immortal fields as Majuba Hill, Laings Nek, Spion Kop, Colenso, Ladysmith, and others, we were all highly inspired and encouraged to refight these conflicts on the table-top. It was not long before I had built-up a small 25mm Boer force that allowed a mounted figure for each foot man, so that the essential mobility of the Boers could be reproduced on the wargames table.
Memorable Encounter
One memorable encounter required the entire tabletop to represent the plateau-summit of a hill such as Majuba or Spion Kop, with five or so steep paths to the top graded in difficulty and not known to the ascenders until they had chosen and begun their climb. I believe this battle was described at some length in one of the last issues of 'Wargamers Newsletter' - my memory of it as a milestone in our wargaming is better: Here is another one, based on a real-life occurrence at Koorn Spruit in March 1900 - it is called:
The Stand at Vogel's Nek.
From a military historical viewpoint the Boer War was unique, both in the area in which it was fought and the state of technology that provided its weapons. Lacking adequate artillery and automatic weapons the Boers would have stood no chance in an earlier era of smoke-enshrouded short-range musketry; ten years later immense improvement in field communication, aerial reconnaissance, and armoured cars would make such a war impossible.
Every Boer from 16 to 60 years of age was a member of the local militia grouped by the crude Boer Organisation into vari-sized commando units formed of two or more field cornetcies each of about 150/266 men, sub-divided into corporalships normally of 25 men. There was no fixed rule on this and a popular field cornet or corporal might have twice as many men under his command as an unpopular one. The army thus formed consisted entirely of mounted infantry capable of bewildering mobility. Farmers and hunters, all Boers were skilful with the rifle, and from boyhood a knowledge of terrain and cover bestowed upon them a firepower capability from concealed positions that caused devastating casualties to close-order formations.
Developed in 1898, their modern and efficient Mauser rifle became the most extensively produced firearm of all time and was still being used by the German army in World War Two. From Europe the Boers had purchased about a hundred of the latest Krupp guns, and four French Creusot 6-inch guns capable of firing a 96-lbs shell four miles; known to British soldiers as 'Long Toms' they were handled by the Transvaal Staats artillery with accuracy and efficiency.
The Boers were an organised, skilled, and determined enemy armed with modern weapons, impossible to defeat with the tactics that were successful against ill-armed and undisciplined natives. Yet the British army entered the war with a complacent conviction shared by all ranks that these undrilled and quaintly dressed farmers would soon take to their heels when they came up against the disciplined Regular regiments. But the cherished and hallowed traditions of the British Army came to nought in South Africa where there was no inspiration to be gained from the hissing, well-aimed bullet fired by an invisible foe.
As constituted in 1899 the British Army, attempting to fight a major war with outdated, outmoded tactics and weapons, was singularly ill-suited in almost every respect to cope with the Boers. In particular, the British Regular cavalry completely failed to adapt themselves to conditions of modern warfare, although South Africa was perhaps the last great theatre of war where imaginatively bonded, adequately trained and equipped cavalry possessed the ability to make a decisive mark on the course of the campaign. But the top-booted and accoutred British trooper, burdened with heavy saddlery, carbines, ammunition, sabre or lance plus a mass of other impediments, was prevented from moving much faster than a marching infantryman. This was unfortunate because the Boer tactic of digging themselves in on features of great natural strength which were invulnerable to frontal positively invited out-flanking movement by cavalry and horse artillery.
But the Boers, aware that such a position once developed was doomed, were very alert to flanking movements that might turn their main position and on the slightest suspicion of such an occurrence would slip away to another equally strong defensive site. This was a simple matter for the Boer farmer and his hardy little horse, with its well worn saddle and bridle, carrying a blanket, a pair of bags for rations and spare cartridges, rifle and bandolier around his shoulders. On the half-dozen or so occasions in the three years that the war lasted, when British cavalry could use their lances and sabres chasing small bodies of Boers who were forced to gallop to safety, they usually took more casualties than they inflicted.
Glory of the Charge
Regular cavalry officers extolled the glory of the charge, horror-stricken at the thought of using their squadrons as mounted infantry, dismounting and engaging the enemy with fire instead of galloping wildly at them and being picked off one-by-one. In part, this was because everyone realised that the short carbine carried by British cavalry regiments was perfectly useless for such a war; in fact, when the British trooper sought to rid himself of some of his excess baggage his carbine and bandolier of ammunition was frequently the first thing to go!
The South African campaign had not progressed very far before the Lee-Enfield rifles of the infantry were hastily issued to troopers and after that all cavalry units that left England went out armed only with that rifle and the sword. On those rare occasions when regular cavalry fought dismounted, by sheer courage and doggedness they performed well despite being quite inadequately equipped with field boots too heavy for dismounted work and initially using an inferior performance weapon.
Among the few cavalry regiments who were 'sufficiently far-sighted to train themselves for dismounted actions, perhaps the best was Lord Airlie's 12th Lancers who, with detachments of mounted infantry, possibly saved the day at Magersfontein. Ironically, Lord Airlie was later killed whilst chasing Boers in a conventional cavalry action.
If the Boers had a fault it was that both individually and collectively, they lacked discipline and control, and except for a gifted few the majority of their leaders had little concept of tactics or strategy - perhaps the incident related here represents the exception to that statement. It occurred on 30/31st March 1900 as British General Robert Broadwood with 2,000 men was withdrawing to Bloemfontein, having been operating in the area of Thaba N'chu.
Unknown to Broadwood, General De Wet with 1000 burghers and four guns had ridden south under cover of night to Sanna's Post and positioned themselves across the road along which the British were retreating where it crossed the rivulet known as Koorn Spruit. Like all South African rivers, the Spruit flowed in a wide bed with high banks and, to allow vehicles to cross had a track cut down through the banks to drop steeply on one side and rise equally steeply on the other. In a position made for ambush that could conceal hundreds of men and horses, the Boers dismounted in the bed of the river and lined its banks, concealed by brushwood.
The Pretoria Commando, about 200 strong followed Broadwood westwards from Thaba N'chu and positioned themselves on the Nachtmaal Berg, a small mountain overlooking Broadwood's camp when the British force made camp in the late afternoon. Strengthened with a Creusot 'Long Tom', left by De Wet when he took off to ride to Kroon Spruit, they were to prevent the British moving away from the ambush that De Wet would mount at the spruit at dawn on the following morning. Then their role was to pour fusillades of artillery and small arms fire into the British camp and drive the startled Rooneks down to the drift and into the ambush. Willing hands had dragged the Creusot 'Long Tom' into position in a natural emplacement formed by rocks on the edge of the berg, and lithe teenagers laboured alongside their bearded fathers and grandfathers digging shallow pits and piling rocks to rest the barrels of their Mausers.
Hidden
Hidden among the rocks, Field-Cornet Commandant van Deventer and his Field Corporal Ben de Groot watched the unsuspecting Rooneks moving among their wagons as they impatiently waited for the meal cooking on fires that sent columns of smoke straight upwards in the still evening air. A few minutes later, the Field Corporal heard the clatter of fast moving hooves on the narrow, winding rocky track that led to the summit and waved-down two riders lashing foam-flecked horses up the steep path. They reined-in, hooves skidding on the rocks, and leapt from the saddle, breathing hard.
"Ben.' thank God we've found you ... there's a regiment of those damned men with long spiked sticks coming up the track behind us!" His comrade nodded his head: "Yes, I ran from them last year at Elandslaagte when they came galloping at us and picked men up on the spikes like bundles of hay!" De Groot was well aware of the Boer's terror of English lancers, first encountered at Elandslaagte where the wounds inflicted by the sharp pointed lances so shocked them that, instead of burying the dead, they took the bodies back as proof that the British were transgressing the laws of war.
Ben's two cousins, fleeing on a single horse, had both been killed by a single lance thrust that pierced both their bodies. Listening to the tumbling sentences that poured from the men, he estimated that it was a squadron of about 150 men coming up on their rear - luckily they were some five to seven miles back and moving at the walk. It was not as bad as it seemed as 50 men positioned behind rocks at the rear of the berg could pick off enough of the horsemen to prevent their raising the alarm. But Commandant van Deventer, refused point blank to allow a single man to leave the firing line, De Wet had given him strict instructions as to his role and with his commando down to just under 200 men he had none to spare for anything else.
"Ben, get on your horse and go back to that dorp, (village) Witzrand we passed through - rake out every man you can find and position them along the rand (ridge) where the climb starts from below .... then hold those damned lancers back until we have done our job here."
Back at Witzrand, the Field Corporal realised that all the fighting men were away with their commandos, all that remained were beardless boys under 14 and a few decrepit old men, crippled by age or past wars. Standing in the dusty square with Nicholas Dunker, the white-bearded schoolmaster, an ancient one-legged man called Swart and a handful of boys, Ben explained the position. The schoolmaster nodded his head vigorously:- "I will come ...I can still shoot as straight as I did at Laing's Nek in '81!
Old Swart balanced himself on his rough wooden, crutch, quavered: "Those God damned Britishers took my leg at Boomplatz in 1848 when I was only 17.... I'll come too!" Ben had six old men, hands and eyes less steady than of old but still capable of making their mark with the rifles they had been using since first they walked. A small boy tugged at the schoolmaster's coat-tails, who bent to listen to him before turning to Ben:
"Corporal, how about my boys? There are a dozen of them... all have been hunting since they could walk!"
"How old are they? I can't bring children into the war!" Two belligerent small boys glared up at him:
"Sir, we're not children ... and we can shoot as good as our fathers and brothers... please let us come." Then an older boy said- "Sir if we hide in the rocks at Vogel's Nek, who is to know whether we are boys or men? We will be perfectly safe and it will be like firing at rabbits ... rabbits on horseback!"
Soon, Corporal Ben de Groot had his new command positioned amid rocks and bush that commanded the track leading up from the plain below. It was a strangely mixed force of 7 old men, 2 with limbs missing, and 12 boys of ages ranging from 10 years to the eldest not a day over 14. Carefully, Ben instructed them to hold their fire until he brought down the officer and then they were to fire and load carefully, picking their men as though shooting in a contest for prizes. If the cavalry charged and reached them, they were to stand up, throw down their weapons and hold arms high in the air - the British were not the sort of soldiers to shoot old men and boys.
Dust Cloud
The dust cloud on the plain below came nearer and individual riders could be detected. With an overwhelming sense of relief Ben de Groot saw that in their excitement the scouts had over estimated numbers and that they were facing a patrol, a single troop of thirty six men. According to plan, Ben de Groot carefully lined his sights on the officer at their head and at 400 yards the stillness was abruptly broken by the crack of his Mauser, followed by a khaki figure sagging in the saddle and then slowly toppling from his horse.
Now, if they acted like British cavalry usually did, at the first shot the horsemen would couch their lances, lower their heads and charge wildly forward, being picked-off like partridges as they approached. But it did not go like that - as the hidden Boers began to fire the horsemen slid from their mounts into cover, hugging the ground while some gathered up loose reins, sheltering among the horses. Ben's small force were unlucky in that of all the cavalry they could encounter, these were the 21st Lancers whose commander, Lord Airlie, had trained and drilled them relentlessly to fight in the way of the Boers. Taking cover and moving stealthily forward in groups, covered by fire from their hidden comrades, the lancers engaged in a fierce fire-fight with the Boers.
As he fired and loaded steadily, Ben prayed that the bulk of the mountain behind them and the confines of this rocky saddle called Vogel's Nek was deadening the sound of firing so that it did not alarm the British in their camp some five miles away. His Makeshift force were performing stoutly and so far not one of them appeared to be hurt - he was sure that at least five of the horsemen had been hit. Nevertheless they were brave and well trained professional regular soldiers, slowly but surely coming up towards them.
The cavalry horses were out of sight behind a large clump of rocks, making it difficult for the Field Corporal to know just how many men were keeping his force occupied. He had a nagging fear that part of the patrol had re-mounted and were coming round on his flank with those dreadful lances held ready to pierce the soft young or wizened old bodies of his makeshift force.
Was that what happened - or did the sergeant now commanding the Troop fail to seize such an opportunity? No one will know, perhaps because few remained alive to tell; seemingly the makeshift Boer force succeeded in holding back the British cavalry because it is a matter of history that at the Koorn Spruit on 31 March 1900, a British force, took heavy casualties and had many men captured, besides losing 90 wagons and seven 12 pdr RHA guns despite a brave covering action of the troopers of Robert's Horse, Remington's Scouts, the New Zealand Mounted Infantry and the 3rd Regular Mounted Infantry, and numerous acts of bravery that won four VC's.
Why not reconstruct the affair at Vogel's Nek as a wargame - with suitable morale rules for brave old men and gallant young boys?
Compiling Rules
When compiling rules for wargames between Britain and the Boers, consideration must be given to the marked disparity between them. The Boers were better marksmen and should be allowed a greater casualty-causing potential plus the ability to pick-off officers and leaders. Although they had fewer guns, their artillery was more accurate and could out-range the British guns. Moving everywhere on horseback, the Boers were highly mobile and excelled in taking up defensive positions, their horses concealed close at hand. With a few notable exceptions, British cavalry were slow and relatively useless except when they caught dismounted Boers in the open. Until the later stages of the war, British infantry attacked and generally operated in close formation presenting ideal targets for the sharp-shooting Boers.
In all wargaming periods, morale is important because it brings life into inanimate metal or plastic figures. The British, trained regulars, should be classified so as to remain first-class until their casualties axe relatively high; then there can be a short second-class period when they will remain motionless, holding their ground but incapable of going forward; finally after heavy casualties they will go quickly (probably in rout) and will not return. Although stolid men of Dutch descent, the Boer morale qualities fluctuated from the peaks to the depths and should be represented by rules that allow them to be unaffected until they have received high casualties or are threatened by outflanking movements, when their morale rating will immediately drop and they will run for their horses and be off. Perhaps their greatest fear was to be caught in the open by British lancers - which should be reflected in morale rules.
Recommended reading:
Deneys Reitz - 'Commando'W. Wilson - 'With the Flag to Pretoria, Vol. II'
D. Featherstone - 'Wargames Through the Ages, Vol. IV'
Rayne Kruger - 'Goodbye Dolly Grey'
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