TOPIC:

Andries Stephanus Eloff

Artilleris, Transvaal Staats Artillerie – Anglo Boer War

- Anglo Boere Oorlog Medal to Artilleris A.S. Eloff

Andries Eloff was born in Rustenberg in the Western Transvaal on 30 January 1875, the son of Emmanuel Andries Eloff, a Farmer, and his wife Johanna Hendrina Du Plessis. Eloff senior and his wife were married in Rustenberg on 27 July 1868 and almost immediately set about the makings of a family. Over a 24 year period first Ernst Hendrik Eloff was born, followed by Jan Hendrik, Emmanuel Andries, Andries Stephanus (the subject of this paper), Johanna Hendrina, Joachima Elizabeth Catharina and Frederik Christoffel. Andries, as can be seen, did not lack for companionship in his formative years.


Eloff is the chap on the left of the photo

Rustenberg was part of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek (otherwise known as the Transvaal), a territory that was fiercely proud of its Dutch heritage and hard-won freedom from Great Britain. It was presided over, in the late 1890’s by the fatherly figure of the revered Boer leader Paul Kruger – “Oom Paul”, as he was affectionately known by the populace, would sit on his “stoep” (front verandah) smoking his pipe and sipping his coffee as he greeted the passers-by in the street in Pretoria where he lived.

He was also a stubborn and ascerbic old man who wasn’t about to concede to the demands being made by “Uitlanders” (Foreigners) who had flocked to his country on the discovery of gold in the late 1880’s. These “Uitlanders” – primarily British subjects – were the financial life-blood of an almost bankrupt Transvaal. It was into this cauldron that Andries and his brother Sarel gravitated – moving to Pretoria, the Transvaal capital, in late 1897.

Prior to the move, Andries had, at the age of 21, wed his sweetheart, Neeltje Christina Groenewald, born Bester, in Rustenberg on 19 February 1895. Although only 23, she was already a widow. Andries’ address was Oliveboom District, Rustenberg whilst his wife hailed from the Wysfontein District of the same town. Ten months later they had a daughter born on the 5th December 1895. Like so many Boer families, she was named after her mother.

Tragedy was to strike the young family when, on 4 May 1897, Neeltje passed away at the age of 25 at Lindleyspoort in the Elands River Ward of the Rustenberg District. Only 23 years old, Eloff was scarcely more than a child himself and it would have been difficult for him to raise a baby daughter. Perhaps it was this that made him move to Pretoria where he enlisted with the Staats Artillerie in late 1897 with no. 540.

Now in uniform, Eloff set about his business but a further blow struck the Eloff family when younger brothers Sarel Johannes Eloff died at Louis Trichardt at the age of 22 on the 6th July 1899 - the cause of his death was due to an explosion at Fort Schutte near Louis Trichardt, during the War with Magato, a local African Chief in the area.

Three months later the animosity brewing between the Transvaal and Great Britain erupted into a declaration of war – the Orange Free State, the Transvaal’s ally was also dragged into the conflict which commenced on 11 October 1899.

Based in the state capital of Pretoria the TSA had, initially, been a small-scale operation with a handful of antiquated guns and fewer than 100 men to man them. This all changed after the abortive Jameson Raid took place in 1896 where, it was felt, the sovereignty of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek was being threatened.

A massive rearmament programme was undertaken and the TSA was a major beneficiary of this with the acquisition of both Krupp (from Germany) and Creusot guns (from France) being added to the arsenal. Along with this came a recruitment drive to swell the numbers of Artillerymen.

The main armament of the Staatsartillerie consisted of C96 Krupp 77 mm Field guns, 75mm Creusot field guns, 37mm Vickers Maxim "Pom-Pom", 120mm Krupp Howitzers and the famous 4 x 155mm Creusot Fortress guns or "Long Toms". These guns were augmented, as the war dragged on, by guns captured from the British forces. Eloff’s battery was armed with 75 mm Krupp quick-firing field gulls, the 55 mm siege guns known as 'Long Toms', 37 mm Maxim Nordenfeldt 'pom-poms' and various other assorted weapons.

Discipline in the Staatsartillerie was similar to that of the Prussian Army, where a number of the Boer officers had attended courses, and European instructors had been seconded to mould the force into an efficient fighting unit. Daily drill and inspection parades were carried out and the garrisoning of the recently completed Fort Schanskop formed part of their duties.

Almost immediately after war was declared one half of the Staats Artillerie was sent to Zandspruit, while the other half was despatched to serve under General Cronje at Mafeking and Kimberley – it was with the former half that Eloff was to serve, the Boer forces losing no time in resolving to meet the enemy after war had been declared.

The fortunate thing about researching Boer participants in the war is the fact that, in order to claim their medal, they were required to complete “Vorm B”, a form which requires the combatant to list all the places and battles in which he participated. In Eloff’s case, his daughter, Neeltje, applied for his medal after he had passed away. Under the section listing the battles and actions in which he participated, she lists Dundee (Talana), Colenso and Donkerhoek (Diamond Hill).

And it is to Dundee in Natal we must turn to see where it was that Eloff underwent his baptism of fire. Dundee on the morning of 20 October 1899 was a bitterly cold place to be. Soft rain made everything clammy and miserable and most people, who had a choice, would have been abed.


Talana from the top looking down

Throughout most of the preceding night, Boers from the Utrecht and Wakkerstroom Commandos had been stealthily occupying Talana Hill, a prominent landmark some two miles east of Dundee, making their way up as quietly as possible until the summit was reached. The opening shots of the first major battle of the Anglo Boer War were about to be fired in anger.

The British garrison under General Penn-Symons camped in the town below, was blissfully unaware of the impending battle that was to take place against the Boer column under General Lukas Meyer and his 4000 burghers, which included Eloff and the Staats Artillerie.

At 2:30 am on Friday morning, in the inky wet darkness some 4km beyond Smith's Nek (along the present road to Vryheid), Meyer's advancing burghers came into contact with a British look out post. A message to Penn Symon's did not cause any alarm. He believed this was a raiding party, despite a warning the previous morning that an attack was imminent.

By first light on the morning of 20 October the Boer forces had taken up their positions.

On Talana the commandos from Utrecht (under Commandant Joshua Joubert), Wakkerstroom (under Commandant Hattingh) and Krugersdorp (under General Potgieter), and a portion of the Ermelo commando, together with 3 guns (two 75mm Krupp field guns and one 75mm Creusot, under Major Wolmarans of the Transvaal Staats Artillerie) were ready and waiting.

At daybreak the tops of the hills were covered in swirling mist. In the British camp life started as usual with the troops standing to at 5:00am. At 5:20 they were dismissed to get breakfast, water the horses and start the usual camp duties. As the mist slowly cleared away from Talana, the troops in camp could clearly see the figures silhouetted on the skyline.

Just after 5:25 am the first shells landed in the British camp. An anxious Lukas Meyer had waited for movement on Mpati, whose instructions were to support him in the attack. The position on Mpati was some 335 metres higher than Talana and was encased in mist for much of the early morning. Eventually at the urging of his men "to say good morning to the British", Meyer gave permission to start firing. The Boer range was good, their second shell landed near the entrance to Penn Symon's tent - where it buried itself in the wet ground. The fact that the ground was sodden saved many a British life that day as the shells wouldn’t explode.

Penn Symon's issued orders for a frontal assault on Talana hill. Although confusion reigned briefly in the British camp, discipline and training soon prevailed. The 67 Artillery Battery started to fire on Talana hill, but was slightly out of range. Within 15 minutes the 69 and 13 Batteries had limbered up, moved to the 3450 metre range, and commenced firing on the hill.

The British shelling of the hilltop was accurate and heavy. Major Wolmarans withdrew his guns to safety from the forward slopes of the hill, and they took no further part in the battle. Eloff had survived to fight another day.

Meyer had, meanwhile, started moving his troops off the hill to regroup at the Doornberg Mountain.

The resistance had thus diminished as the British troops made the final dash up the hill. By 2:00 pm the entire position was in British hands. The artillery had been brought up into Smith's Nek - but did not fire on the retreating Boers. Thus the Boers rode off northwards under the eyes of the British, unmolested and unchallenged.

The British then decided to abandon Dundee. Their abandoned stores and ammunition were looted by the Boers, who occupied the town for the next seven months - renaming it Meyersdorp in honour of Lukas Meyer.

Many years later an interview was conducted with the grandson of Lt. Mike Du Toit of the Staats Artillerie – he was quoted thus: -

‘On 20 October, over 100 years ago, my grandfather, Lt. Mike Du Toit of the Transvaal Staatsartillerie, was wounded during the first battle of the war at Dundee in Natal.

On Talana they hauled four guns to the summit but only positioned three before dawn. Two Krupp 75mm under Major Wolmarans and Capt. Pretorius, and a Creusot 75 mm under Mike. The British camp was in plain sight below them and the first few rounds caused consternation. General Penn-Symons remarked that it was “damned impudence to start shelling before breakfast!

This particular incident with the artillery led to the coining of the well-known Afrikaans idiom “Skote Petoors”, literally “good shot, Pretorius”. As already mentioned by Du Toit, Johannes Lodewicus (Lood) Pretorius was in charge of the third gun of the Staatsartillerie at Talana. As the mist rose that fateful morning, crowds of burghers stood around their artillery pieces, encouraging the gunners to open the fight. Without taking the customary two sighting shots, Lood Pretorius put his second shot smack into the British camp. The Boers were delighted – “Skote Petoors” one Boer shouted, and a new idiom entered the Afrikaans language’.

Eloff might not have suffered any injury but others were not so lucky. Dr George Moorhouse, in the aftermath of the battle, was quoted as saying: -

‘I stepped into the house. Right opposite me, crumpled up in the passage, lay the body of Field Cornet Joubert of the Middleburgers, a little round hole in the centre of his four- coloured hatband. A room to the left was full of sopping wet and wounded Boers lying about in every attitude. In a room to the right the little German Artillery Doctor welcomed us warmly … on a large bed lay Lt. Du Toit with whom I had ridden a couple of days previously – his leg shattered by shrapnel. Beside lay an Artillery Private shot through both lungs – the floor was covered with wounded – pools of water and blood lay everywhere.

Lt. Du Toit told me that he and an artilleryman named Schultz had alone worked a Krupp and a Pom until they were both struck down at the same time”.

It is highly likely that Eloff went on to serve with the Staats Artillerie in the Siege of Ladysmith, manning one of the many guns the Boers mounted on the hills surrounding the town, which peppered the populace with shells on every day of the 3-month long siege bar Sundays, which the religious Boers strictly observed as a day of rest.


A Boer Long Tom

Unfortunately, we must confine ourselves to the details on Vorm B where Neeltje places Eloff at Colenso on 15 December 1899. Eloff was one of those whose battery was moved away from Ladysmith and sent down the twenty of so miles to the small town of Colenso. For an account of what transpired there we turn to the report compiled by General Louis Botha which details the role the Staats Artillerie played in what was yet another reverse for the Imperial forces. He wrote (abridged) as follows:

The enemy marched under the protection of a full battery to a distance of about 2 000 yards from our positions where the battery unlimbered, and then, under cover of a heavy shell-fire from this battery, the infantry began the attack. In addition to the guns mentioned, the attack was supported by two other batteries of four pieces each, placed approximately a thousand yards ahead of the enemy's big naval guns. The latter - four in number - mounted on the koppie immediately in front of the camp, also maintained a brisk fire on all our positions.

Our burghers as well as our artillery allowed the enemy to advance unmolested to a range of about 1 500 yards with their guns, and having allowed the infantry to approach to approximately 500 yards, they suddenly unleashed a heavy fire. The enemy had orders to cross the river at this point, and although they stormed repeatedly, the fire of our burghers and artillery was so well directed and had such good effect that only a captain, two lieutenants and a few men were able to reach the river bank. Here the enemy suffered a tremendous loss in dead and wounded.

The leading battery had meanwhile been transferred in a westerly direction to a cluster of trees approximately 1 500 yards from the Ermelo positions in the ditch. On the mountain right behind these positions stood our two Creusot guns, and on these pieces the enemy battery directed its fire - however without any effect. Our burghers soon perceived that this most forward English battery was within range of the Mausers. It was thereupon subjected to such a severe and accurate fire with Mauser and Creusot that it had to withdraw precipitately, leaving one gun behind in the agaves, as we discovered later - although unfortunately too late - when the enemy suddenly dragged the piece away again with a team of horses. The two Creusots, one of which was sited rather more behind the Soutpansberg positions, were of very great assistance to our burghers with their Mausers and inflicted awfully heavy losses upon the enemy, hurling their shells upon the advancing troops rather than engaging the hostile batteries.

If our burghers, as I have said, fought bravely and well, the Staatsartillerie, too, deserve a word of praise. Whereas our burghers sent away their horses or left them behind in their laagers, firmly resolved to fight unto death, so our artillery, too, were determined to do their utmost.

Under the heaviest fire, Captain Pretorius rode calmly from his one gun to the other so as to satisfy himself that everything was in order, that nothing was lacking and that the guns were working well. And our artillery did work well; the shots were fired accurately and only where and when necessary - no waste but also no misconceived parsimony. While the enemy had found the correct ranges by their bombardment of the previous two days, and our artillery still had to estimate theirs not having responded with a single shot, I was glad to see that they were immediately effective - right from the first shots of our guns.

A small force of not quite 3 000 men with five guns not only to resist, but to defeat - even with great loss - a strong and powerful enemy of 23 000 men with 36 guns, including some of the largest calibre, and armed with lyddite and dum-dum.

Whereas Talana had been a tactical victory for the British, Colenso was an outright victory for the Boers. The gaps in Eloff’s service from Colenso onwards can’t be accounted for although it can be speculated that he might have been returned to Pretoria to man Fort Schanskop, one of the four forts built to defend and protect the Boer Capital. This supposition is based on the fact that Phillipus J. Du Plessis, a Sergeant Major (Wachtmeester) at this Fort signed Eloff’s Vorm B as a witness.

We now turn our attention to the battle of Donkerhoek (Diamond Hill) which took place on the 11th and 12th June 1900. Boer General Ben Viljoen, of Elandslaagte fame, in his book “My Reminiscences of the Boer War” wrote about the action thus: -

‘Our first and best positions were now obviously the kopjes which stretched from Donkerhoek past Waterval and Wonderboompoort. This chain of mountains runs for about 12 miles E. and N.E. of Pretoria, and our positions here would cut off all the roads of any importance to Pietersburg, Middelburg, as well as the Delagoa Bay railway. We therefore posted ourselves along this range, General De la Rey forming the right flank, some of our other fighting generals occupying the centre, whilst Commandant-General Botha himself took command of the left flank.

On the 11th of June, 1900, Lord Roberts approached with a force of 28,000 to 30,000 men and about 100 guns, in order, as the official despatches had it, "to clear the Boers from the neighbourhood of Pretoria." Their right and left flanks were composed of cavalry, whilst the centre was formed of infantry regiments; their big guns were placed in good positions and their field pieces were evenly distributed amongst the different army divisions.

Towards sunset they began booming away at our whole 13 miles of defence. Our artillery answered their fire from all points with excellent results, and when night fell the enemy retired a little with considerable losses.

The battle was renewed again next day, the enemy attempting to turn our right with a strong flanking movement, but was completely repulsed. It was fiercest on our left flank, where General French and his cavalry charged the positions of the Ermelo and Bethel burghers again and again, each time to be repulsed with heavy losses.

On our right General De la Rey had an equally awkward position; the British here also made several determined attempts to turn his flank, but were repulsed each time. Once during an attack on our right, their convoy came so close to our position that our artillery and our Mausers were enabled to pour such a fire into them that the mules drawing the carts careered about the veldt at random, and the greatest confusion ensued.

About two o clock in the afternoon Smuts applied urgently for reinforcements, and I was ordered by the Commandant-General to go to his position. A ride of a mile and a half brought us near Smuts; our horses were put behind a "randje," the enemy's bullets and shells meantime flying over their heads without doing much harm. We then hurried up on foot to the fighting line, but before we could reach the position General Smuts and his burghers had left it. At first I was rather in the dark as to what it all meant until we discovered that the British had won Smuts' position, and from it were firing upon us. We fell down flat behind the nearest "klips" and returned the fire, but were at a disadvantage, since the British were above us. I never heard where General Smuts and his burghers finally got to. On our left we had Commandant Kemp with the Krugersdorpers; on the right Field-Cornet Koen Brits. The British tried alternately to get through between one of my neighbours and myself, but we succeeded, notwithstanding their fierce onslaught, in turning them back each time. All we could do, however, was to hold our own till dark. Then orders were given to "inspan" all our carts and other conveyances as the commandos would all have to retire.

Thus ended the battle of Donkerhoek, and next day our commandos were falling back to the north’.

This was to be the last named action in which Eloff participated. The capital city, Pretoria, had fallen to Lord Roberts on 5 June, a week before the Diamond Hill battle and this meant that there were no Forts to fall back on for the Staats Artillerie. Nevertheless, Eloff must have returned home to Potgieter Street which is where, on 9 August 1900 he was made Prisoner of War – his father, Emmanuel Andries Eloff, aged 51 and a member of the ZARP’s (the Republican Police) was arrested two days later, on 11 August.

Less than a month after being captured he was shipped off to Ceylon on the ship City of Vienna. Departing South Africa on the 3rd September 1900 they arrived in Ceylon on the 25th September 1900. Eloff was assigned to Ragama Camp whilst a POW. Ragama Camp besides being the camp where the Foreign Boer Fighters were interned was also the camp where “Boer dissidents and irreconcilables were kept”.

A Jewish Boer by the name of Weinberg described the foreign Boer Volunteers at Ragama as follows 'The Germans, Hollanders, Irish Americans are, with a few exceptions, a most disreputable lot. They are without exaggeration the scum of the scum'.

Having been repatriated to South Africa, Eloff obtained a certificate allowing him to remarry. His nuptials to 22-year-old Marie Elizabeth Putter of Pretorius Street, Pretoria took place on 2 December 1902. At 29 years of age he had experienced so much.

Thank You again Rory for the research...…

This will help add a lot of information to the following, you learn something every day and I hope that I will continue to...….

www.angloboerwar.com/forum/surname-s/208...org-sers-major#53951

Mike

Thanks to a very helpful chap in the form of Johann Wolfaardt I have been able to add a photo of Eloff. I have amended my story above to include the photo.

Regards

Rory