TOPIC:

Herbert Saunders

Killed in Action – Fort Itala – 26 September 1901

Private, 2nd Battalion, Royal Lancashire Regiment (The King’s Own)

- Queens South Africa Medal (Transvaal/South Africa 1901) to 4578 PTE J. SAUNDERS. RL: LANC: REGT

Herbert Saunders was one of the unlucky few who fell in action in what has been described as the Anglo Boer War’s “Rorke’s Drift”, where a small band of British regulars were confronted by an overwhelmingly superior number of Boers hell-bent on making General Louis Botha’s second foray into Natal an unmitigated success. It was largely due to men like Saunders that Botha was forced to abandon his invasion plans and hightail it over the border back to the safety of the Transvaal.

Saunders was born in Ulverston, Lancashire on or about September 1874 the son of Herbert Saunders (after whom he was named), an Iron Works Labourer by trade and his wife Mary Jane. At the time of the 1891 England census the family were living at 32 Maple Street, Barrow in Furness. The house must have been a noisy one with a 13 year old Herbert joined by siblings Mary Anne (18), Joseph (15) and already out to work alongside his father as an Iron Worker. Next came Alice (11); Georgina (9), Mary Jane (6), John (4) and Albert (3).

On 9 October 1894, after he had attained his 18th birthday the preceding month, Herbert enlisted for service with the Royal Lancashire Regiment, completing the Short Service (7 Years with the Colours and 5 Years with the Reserve) attestation forms. He was a Labourer by trade and unmarried. Physically he was 5 feet 5 inches in height, weighed 125 lbs and had a fresh complexion, hazel eyes and dark brown hair. A Presbyterian by way of religious affiliation, he had no distinguishing marks about his person.

Having been found Fit by the Doctor he was assigned no. 4578 and the rank of Private with the 1st Battalion, Royal Lancs. His first year of service was spent stationed in and around Portsmouth before embarking for Malta on 25 September 1895. Arriving at Malta on 4 October 1895 he set about what duties were required of him in what was not a combat setting, passing an Ambulance Course in May 1896.

Distractions for men in uniform were plentiful and it wasn’t long before the pleasures of the flesh got Saunders into trouble – he was hospitalised on 20 August 1896 with “Ulcer of the Penis”, which required a good deal of treatment. He was only discharged from hospital after 19 days – on 7 September 1896.

Readmitted the next day, he was discharged two days later, on 9 September, but his indiscretions had got the better of his health – on 5 November 1896 he was admitted to hospital once more – this time for Gonorrhoea which incapacitated him for 19 days before being discharged to duty on 23 November 1896. He was to spend 2 years and 61 days on Malta – until 24 November 1897.

Boxing Day 1897 saw him in Hong Kong preparatory to him embarking aboard the S.S. Avoca. On 23 January 1899 he was at Singapore whereafter he boarded a ship home for England, arriving at Aldershot on 26 March 1900 by which time the Anglo Boer War was in full swing.

The Anglo Boer War, which broke out on 11 October 1899, was fought between Imperial Britain and the two Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in South Africa. After an initial period where the Boers gained the upper hand, ostensibly because of a lack of British troops to stem the tide of their multi-pronged invasion of the Northern Cape and Natal. A number of regiments had been diverted to South Africa and more were to follow as the war progressed and the British forces started to gain the ascendency.

Languishing in Aldershot, Saunders and his comrades were sent out to the war with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Lancashires, sailing aboard the S.S. Canada on 31 August 1900. By this time the pitched battle stage of the conflict had come to an end, the Boer capitals of Bloemfontein and Pretoria had been occupied and the remaining Boer Commandos had been fragmented and reorganised into small, highly mobile smaller bands. These groupings would swoop down on unsuspecting and poorly escorted patrols and lines of communication and, after plundering what there was to be plundered in the way of ammunition, clothing and foodstuffs, would gallop away before anyone came to the rescue.


Map of Fort Itala

These mini-Commandos were operational in the Transvaal and Orange Free State in the main but, early in September of 1901, Louis Botha, Commandant General of the Boer Republican Forces, started gathering together the biggest raiding Commando of the guerilla war. With the arrival of the Spring rains, he made ready to move South with his Commando of picked, tough, fighting men from Bethal and South Middelburg; from Ermelo, Carolina and Standerton - almost numbering a thousand men. They silently set out from Blaaukop, near Ermelo in the Eastern Transvaal, to begin the second Boer invasion of the Colony of Natal.

They rode south-east, through Piet-Retief, avoiding the few British outposts and columns along their route, all the time gathering more men. Commandos from Wakkerstroom Piet Retief, Utrecht and Vryheid eventually swelled their ranks to over 2000 mounted men. Botha's plan was to invade Northern Natal, disrupt British control to the limit, then cut south to enter the Cape Colony and ultimately join forces with Smuts. An ambitious, but not impossible plan.

British columns sent to catch him got bogged down in the quagmires that passed for roads. Botha with no wheeled transport, was much better off. Using pack animals for carrying supplies, he averaged 10 miles a day with ease, the British barely three. By September 17th he had reached the Blood River Poort, also known as Spieshoek, about 15 miles west of Vryheid, there to await the Vryheid Commando under his brother-in-law, Cherry Emmett.

Meanwhile the foul weather continued to hamper British columns, while swollen rivers delayed Botha. His horses were in poor condition and the sodden ground made heavy going. Unable to force the pace, British garrisons were able to thwart his attempts to cross the Buffalo River into Natal at both Vant's Drift and Rorke's Drift. Moving further and further south in what was then still the Transvaal, Botha reached Babanango Kop on the 24th. From here his path was guarded by two small fortified posts at Itala and Fort Prospect. Beyond these lay Melmoth, Eshowe and the Indian Ocean.

By now the weather had cleared. From his look-out on the top of Babanango, the rolling green hills of Zululand stretched south to the horizon. In front lay Itala, a commanding height, eight miles to the South. Through his field glasses he could see the British camp at the base. Further to the left, atop a smooth green dome of a hill, he could make out Fort Prospect. The distance between these two points was 14 miles. He could easily slip through.

But Botha needed time to revive his horses who were quite worn out. His spies reported that the two outposts were weak and undermanned, and that they should fall to him without difficulty, so he made ready to attack. Since the battle of Allemansnek, 15 months earlier, Natal had been out of the conflict zone. Six months earlier a detachment from the 5th Mounted Infantry Division had been posted to Nkandla as a frontier guard. They also provided the garrison at Fort Prospect, a strong point half-way to Melmoth right on the border road. The sum total of their forces was about 400 men.

Their Commanding Officer was an Irishman, Major A. J. Chapman, of the Dublin Fusiliers. Early in September he decided to move his Nkandla garrison forward to a new post at the foot of Itala almost at the apex of the Transvaal's southern enclave. The treeless summit of Itala, over 4800 feet high, slopes gently down to its base in the east, 1400 feet below, along a ridge over a mile in length. This ridge terminates in a narrow, steep spur at the bottom, concealing the outpost site below from the summit. Possession of this spur was the key to the British position. From a cursory examination it appeared a weak position, but in fact it was not so.

On the 23rd September, news first reached Chapman, indicating that he was in the path of Botha's southern thrust, and from then on his able corps of scouts, under Mr. Gordon Collins, kept him acquainted with his ever-increasing danger. He must fight if attacked, but only great skill and courage could save his small garrison of 220 if they were to prevail. Fort Prospect, under Capt. Rowley of the Dorset Regiment, had 148 men manning a strong barbed-wire enclosed position.



No Surrender

On the morning of Wednesday, the 25th, Chapman drew 80 men from Prospect to bolster the defences at Itala, for his scouts informed him to expect an attack that night. The men worked feverishly with spades and picks, digging trenches about 4.5 feet deep, skilfully laid in the trees at the wooded outpost site. Each trench was to cover those adjacent to it with flank fire. On the north side, a natural rock wall put the defenders on a platform overlooking all approaching ground. The Achilles heel of the position, the rock spur above the camp, was sangared (stone walled) right across, and a machine-gun set up to fire upwards to Itala. Two 15-pounder field guns firing shrapnel were also positioned below the spur.

At dusk Chapman despatched Lieuts. Lefroy and Kane to the summit with 80 men. Chapman, however, was not going to fall into the trap of defending a mountain top as the British had done so tragically before. Lefroy's party was to be merely a warming reception. Furthermore in the dusk their move had gone unnoticed from Babanango Kop.

At the same time Botha despatched 1800 of his men, keeping back only about 200. These divided into three groups. 600 under Chris Botha made for the summit of Itala; 800 under Opperman, Potgieter and Scholtz went by a different route to encircle the base camp and 400 under Emmett and Grobbelaar were to attack Fort Prospect. Full moon was two nights away and the clear night was lit from dusk to near dawn.

Crouching cold and stiff amongst the rocks at the summit, the small British detachment watched and silently waited. Towards midnight the approaching sounds of the Boers could be heard. Soon a large body of men, about 600 in all, could clearly be seen approaching in the moonlight. At 100 yards the first British volley crashed out. Though caught, stunned and shattered the Boers recovered quickly. Scurrying forward from rock to rock, Chris Botha's men soon worked their way in and around their adversaries. Fighting was hard and bloody and soon weight of numbers began to tell. The small British force was too small to contain the attack. Kane died shouting that there would be no surrender and with him fell many others including Lefroy shot through the stomach, arm, leg and chin.

In half-an-hour the summit was in Boer hands. Those British who still survived uncaptured retreated down the way they had ascended, fighting all the way until they were safe behind the sangared spur. They numbered a pathetic 14.

In the meantime the outpost had been surrounded and very heavy rifle fire was poured in from all sides. The Boers charged right up to the trenches, firing as they ran, only to be driven back at bayonet point. These veteran British troops had not experienced such ferocious attacking on such a scale at any time throughout the war. The Boers seemed possessed of a heroic madness which, but for the remarkably stubborn defence, would have carried all before it. The rifle fire from the trenches was like a curtain of lead beating down everything in its path.


Map of Operations

The full fury of the first attack lasted five hours, the defences of the outpost being strained to the limit. Casualties on both sides were high, but Chapman could least afford them for he had already lost 66 of the 80 men in his summit reception party - over 20 per cent of the garrison.

By first light around 6 a.m., all firing had ceased and the attack seemed to have spent itself. Dr. Fielding, the British Medical Officer, decided that he must go to the summit to attend to the wounded there. He, an orderly and two bearers left the sangars on the spur with a truce flag, but to his surprise, as he reached a wide hollow 600 yards up the ridge, he found a large body of Boers about to resume the attack. Fielding was immediately made prisoner but released and allowed to go on as soon as Commandant Opperman appeared.

Almost immediately the attack was resumed more violently than before. The gunners, who had gallantly manned the two 15-pounders during the night, were too exposed now and were soon shot down. The guns ceased firing. The machine gun on the spur became hopelessly jammed and the battle now resolved into Lee-Metford against Lee-Metford, for the Boers were by now nearly all equipped with captured rifles. The Burghers, with the edge on marksmanship, were technically at an advantage.

A tornado of lead enveloped the post. Bullets screamed and howled, the ground rapidly became covered with a shower of broken branches and chopped leaves, the screams and groans of stricken men and of the pathetic unprotected horses filled the air; dust and earth flew in all directions and the constant ear-shattering crash of hundreds of rifles made a sound to match all the thunderbolts of hell, as the Boers tried to batter the defences to pieces with rifle fire. No cover could withstand this inferno, and men fell thick and fast, yet each attack melted away under the galling return cross-fire of the defenders.

The position was reaching a stalemate and a battle of attrition developed. By now, Louis Botha, realising the importance of the sangared spur ordered that it be taken at all costs. This was an almost impossible task, for 600 yards of absolutely coverless ground had to be crossed. The troops behind the sangars were no mean shots themselves and blew each new attack to pieces before it got far. Meanwhile ammunition was getting very scarce on the spur and every effort to get boxes of cartridges up by man or mule failed, all being shot down from behind on that exposed suicidal face.

By late afternoon, after 17 hours of heavy, unrelenting, attack, both sides were exhausted. Chapman's force had taken a fearful toll of the attacking Commando, but they had suffered 81 killed and wounded and lost a further 40 as prisoners. This was nearly half his total strength. The troops, bleary-eyed, with hands burned, shoulders raw and faces scorched, their ammunition nearly exhausted, could hardly be expected to withstand another concerted attack. They were ready but hardly able.

Chapman himself, shot through the right leg, waited and listened as the Boer fire slackened and died away. After an hour he sent out scouts who returned with the heartening news that Botha's men were drawing off. Gathering his stores onto wagons, Chapman decided to fall back on Nkandla. Leaving a small unarmed party to assist with the wounded, he pulled out at 9 p.m. and, completely exhausted, he and his men limped into Nkandla at 4 a.m. on the 27th September. Soon after this Fielding returned to the camp and took charge.

At Itala the British losses were 22 killed and 59 wounded. In addition six native servants died and four were wounded.

Herbert Saunders was one of the 22 – Killed in Action in what must rank as one of the most outstanding and resilient defences of any war. With Privates Smallwood and Kelly, one of only 3 from his battalion to pay the supreme price.

The Boer losses, as might be expected were much heavier. Early tallies stated that 332 bodies had been buried, but this figure was later corrected to 128. In addition 21 others were buried at the laager site at Gelykwater, making a total of 149 dead. These included two of Botha's best Commandants, Scholtz and Potgieter. Opperman too was wounded. At Prospect 40 Burghers were buried. There were estimated to be about 280 wounded.

By nightfall on the 27th, Botha's advance had been checked. His frontal attacks against fortified positions had failed. His casualties were severe and his ammunition stocks almost done. He beat a hasty retreat back across the border to the Transvaal. Part of a diary kept by a British officer was published in the St. James Gazette of 15 April 1903 – it read as follows for the 29th September 1901: -

“Itala, Zululand – Reveille 6 a.m. I went over and had a look at Major Chapman’s camp. It was a very bad sight. Tents were cut up by our men; a whole company line of horses shot down by expanding bullets; the whole place smelt of blood, and all around were bloodstained bandages and uniforms, besides thousands upon thousands of empty cartridge cases. The Carbineers picked up several of our dead and buried them. About fifteen or twenty Boers (dead) were found in a kraal and buried. Once again I say a splendid and heroic defence.”

Today, Saunders grave lies in rocky terrain close to where he fell. The Record of Deceased Soldiers’ Effects shows that he was attached to the 5th Mounted Infantry at Itala. His pension and arrear pay were sent to his grieving father – money would be no substitute for the loss of a son.

Acknowledgements:
- M.C. Carter’s article on Fort Itala (abridged)
- Various newspapers credited in the body of the above work.