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London to Ladysmith via Pretoria by Winston Spencer Churchill

W >> Winston Spencer Churchill >> London to Ladysmith via Pretoria




He spoke with some bitterness of the attacks which had been made on him
in the newspapers. He had always begged that the relieving operations
should not be compromised by any hurry on his account, and he said,
with earnestness, 'It is not fair to charge me with all the loss of life
they have involved.' He concluded by saying, deliberately: 'I regret
Nicholson's Nek; perhaps I was rash then, but it was my only chance of
striking a heavy blow. I regret nothing else. It may be that I am an
obstinate man to say so, but if I had the last five months to live over
again I would not--with that exception---do otherwise than I have done.'

And then I came away and thought of the cheers of the relieving troops.
Never before had I heard soldiers cheer like that. There was not much
doubt about the verdict of the army on Sir George White's conduct of the
defence, and it is one which the nation may gracefully accept.

But I am anxious also to discuss the Ladysmith episode from Sir Redvers
Buller's point of view. This officer reached Cape Town on the very day
that White was driven back on Ladysmith. His army, which would not
arrive for several weeks, was calculated to be strong enough to overcome
the utmost resistance the Boer Republics could offer.

To what extent he was responsible for the estimates of the number of
troops necessary is not known. It is certain, however, that
everyone--Ministers, generals, colonists, and intelligence
officers--concurred in making a most remarkable miscalculation.

It reminds me of Jules Verne's story of the men who planned to shift the
axis of the earth by the discharge of a great cannon. Everything was
arranged. The calculations were exact to the most minute fraction. The
world stood aghast at the impending explosion. But the men of science,
whose figures were otherwise so accurate, had left out a nought, and
their whole plan came to nothing. So it was with the British. Their
original design of a containing division in Natal, and an invading army
of three divisions in the Free State, would have been excellent if only
they had written army corps instead of division.

Buller found himself confronted with an alarming and critical situation
in Natal. Practically the whole force which had been deemed sufficient
to protect the Colony was locked up in Ladysmith, and only a few line of
communication troops stood between the enemy and the capital or even the
seaport. Plainly, therefore, strong reinforcements--at least a
division--must be hurried to Natal without an hour's unnecessary delay.

When these troops were subtracted from the forces in the Cape Colony all
prospect of pursuing the original plan of invading the Free State was
destroyed. It was evident that the war would assume dimensions which no
one had ever contemplated.

The first thing to be done therefore was to grapple with the immediate
emergencies, and await the arrival of the necessary troops to carry on
the war on an altogether larger scale. Natal was the most acute
situation. But there were others scarcely less serious and critical. The
Cape Colony was quivering with rebellion. The Republican forces were
everywhere advancing. Kimberley and Mafeking were isolated. A small
British garrison held a dangerous position at Orange River bridge.
Nearly all the other bridges had been seized or destroyed by rebels or
invaders.

From every quarter came clamourings for troops. Soldiers were wanted
with vital need at Stormberg, at Rosmead Junction, at Colesberg, at De
Aar, but most of all they were wanted in Natal--Natal, which had been
promised protection 'with the whole force of the Empire,' and which was
already half overrun and the rest almost defenceless. So the army corps,
which was to have marched irresistibly to Bloemfontein and Pretoria, had
to be hurled into the country--each unit as it arrived--wherever the
need was greatest where all were great.

Sir Redvers Buller, thus assailed by the unforeseen and pressed on every
side, had to make up his mind quickly. He looked to Natal. It was there
that the fiercest fighting was in progress and that the strength and
vigour of the enemy was apparently most formidable. He had always
regarded the line of the Tugela as the only defensive line which British
forces would be strong enough to hold, and had recorded his opinion
against placing any troops north of that river.

In spite of this warning Ladysmith had been made a great military depot,
and had consequently come to be considered a place of primary
importance. It was again a question of balancing drawbacks. Buller
therefore telegraphed to White asking him whether he could entrench and
maintain himself pending the arrival of reinforcements. White replied
that he was prepared to make a prolonged defence of Ladysmith. To this
proposal the General-in-chief assented, observing only 'but the line of
the Tugela is very tempting.'

General Buller's plan now seems to have been briefly as follows: First,
to establish a _modus vivendi_ in the Cape Colony, with sufficient
troops to stand strictly on the defensive; secondly, to send a strong
force to Natal, and either restore the situation there, or, failing
that, extricate Sir George White so that his troops would be again
available for the defence of the Southern portion of the Colony;
thirdly, with what was left of the army corps--no longer strong enough
to invade the Free State--to relieve Kimberley; fourthly, after settling
Natal to return with such troops as could be spared and form with
reinforcements from home a fresh army to carry out the original scheme
of invading the Free State.

The defect in this plan was that there were not enough troops to carry
it out. As we had underestimated the offensive vigour which the enemy
was able to develop before the army could reach South Africa, so now we
altogether miscalculated his extraordinary strength on the defensive.
But it is impossible to see what else could have been done, and at any
rate no one appreciated the magnitude of the difficulties more correctly
than Sir Redvers Buller. He knew Northern Natal and understood the
advantages that the Boers enjoyed among its mountains and kopjes.

On one occasion he even went so far as to describe the operation he had
proposed as a 'forlorn hope,' so dark and gloomy was the situation in
South Africa during the first fortnight in November. It was stated that
the General was ordered by the War Office to go to Natal, and went there
against his own will and judgment. This, however, was not true; and when
I asked him he replied: 'It was the most difficult business of all. I
knew what it meant, and that it was doubtful whether we should get
through to Ladysmith. I had not the nerve to order a subordinate to do
it. I was the big man. I had to go myself.'

What followed, with the exception of the battle of Colenso, our first
experience of the Boer behind entrenchments, has been to some extent
described in these letters. Viewed in the light of after knowledge it
does not appear that the holding of Ladysmith was an unfortunate act.

The flower of the Boer army was occupied and exhausted in futile efforts
to take the town and stave off the relieving forces. Four precious
months were wasted by the enemy in a vain enterprise. Fierce and bloody
fighting raged for several weeks with heavy loss to both sides, but
without shame to either. In the end the British were completely
victorious. Not only did their garrison endure famine, disease, and
bombardment with constancy and composure and repel all assaults, but the
soldiers of the relief column sustained undismayed repeated
disappointments and reverses, and finally triumphed because through
thick and thin they were loyal to their commander and more stubborn even
than the stubborn Dutch.

In spite of, perhaps because of, some mistakes and many misfortunes the
defence and relief of Ladysmith will not make a bad page in British
history. Indeed it seems to me very likely that in future times our
countrymen will think that we were most fortunate to find after a
prolonged peace leaders of quality and courage, who were moreover
honourable gentlemen, to carry our military affairs through all kinds of
difficulties to a prosperous issue; and whatever may be said of the
generals it is certain that all will praise the enduring courage of the
regimental officer and the private soldier.

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We do not know the women's names, but their voices are quite distinct. All are pregnant. But while the first woman awaits the birth of her baby with a moon-like serenity, the other two are not so lucky. One, whose previous pregnancies have failed to go to term, is experiencing a heartbreaking late miscarriage; the other is a young student whose accidental pregnancy will end in her child being put up for adoption.

Sylvia Plath's only play was never intended for the stage, being broadcast instead on BBC radio in August 1962. Less than six months later, Plath killed herself, but not before the burst of astonishing creative energy that produced her extraordinary, terrifying Ariel poems.

Anyone who knows Plath's poetry will see the connection between Three Women and Plath's subsequent poems, particularly in the way she talks about the agony of childbirth, the rush of love for this tiny alien being, and both the wonder and wounded rawness of motherhood. It is a beautiful piece, full of startling imagery that draws you in through the sheer intensity of its femaleness, and because it so precisely articulates the emotions that are often thought but seldom voiced by women - certainly not in the early 1960s - about men, motherhood and our relationship to our bodies.

It's been 20 years since there has been an attempt at a professional stage version and - in a theatre world that happily accepts the poetic offerings of Sarah Kane and Debbie Tucker Green, or the staged possibilities of The Waves, one of Plath's own inspirations for the piece, I see no reason why it shouldn't be brought to life. Sadly, it doesn't breathe here, in a production by Robert Shaw that is clearly a labour of love, but which never finds a way to give the internal a physical reality. Plath's poetry, like most babies, is more robust than it appears - and won't break if treated with a little less reverence and considerably more grit.

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