82 AWARDED FOR VALOUR
The South African War created two even more lasting changes in the
nature of the Victoria Cross: the institutional (but not statutory) elimination
of provisional bestowal of the Cross by the theatre commander and the
extension of the Cross as a posthumous decoration. Both of these devel-
opments were connected to Victorian Britain’s most beloved soldier, Lord
Roberts of Kandahar.
Sir Redvers Buller had been the initial Theatre Commander for South
Africa, but after a series of embarrassing defeats was replaced by Lord Roberts
late in 1899. While Roberts exhibited a better grasp of field operations
against the Boers than had Sir Redvers, he made some astonishingly bad
decisions concerning the Victoria Cross.
On the evening of 30 March 1900 a British column of some 1800 men
under the command of Brigadier General Robert George Broadwood bivou-
acked at Sanna’s Post, which guarded the waterworks supplying Bloemfon-
tein. As the force sent out no patrols, they were unaware that Christian
de Wet and a force of 1600 commandos with artillery support were in
the immediate area. De Wet had not made the same mistake, and was
well aware of the British presence; he resolved to drive them into an
ambush when they proceeded on toward Bloemfontein in the morning. The
spot he chose for the trap was the drift crossing a rivulet called the Korn
Spruit.^33
Despite a report by an early morning patrol that they had been fired on,
Broadwood ignored the possibility of a large Boer presence until the first
artillery round from across the Modder River landed in his midst at about
- As the men were getting their breakfast, considerable chaos ensued.
The logical course of action for the British was to move out of the enemy
field of fire toward the safety of Bloemfontein. As shells burst about them
drivers cursed their mules and horses into harness and began moving out,
directly into the ambush at the drift.^34
First in line were the vulnerable supply wagons; de Wet’s Boers captured
them without a shot. Scrub brush and the slope of the drift concealed their
capture from the rest of the force. Broadwood still had no idea of the
proximity of the Boers when he ordered ‘U’ and ‘Q’ batteries of the Royal
Horse Artillery to follow the supply train and take up positions on the other
side of the drift to cover the general retirement of the force.
‘U’ battery, in the lead, stumbled into the ambush as neatly as had the
supply train, but in the confusion of their capture Major Philip Taylor
managed to slip away and wave off ‘Q’ battery. Their sudden wheel about
prompted de Wet’s riflemen to open fire at last. Pandemonium reigned
in Korn Spruit as the now driver-less teams of ‘U’ battery bolted, some