"Modder River" Topic

Have any of the TMP Intelligentsia wargamed Modder River? I have been reading a lot about it recently and would love to hear some thoughts.

The battle is held up as an example of de la Rey's brilliance and Lord Methuen's incompetetence, but is this fair?
It is certainly true that de la Rey's placement of his trenches was inspired and that Lord Methuen obliged by attacking them head on. But that seems to be about the only thing that went right for the Boers.
Due to faulty intelligence, it was thought the crossing was only protected by 500 Boers, which perhaps explains why Methuen went for them head on – afterall, it had worked at Belmont and Graspan.
The 9th Infantry were on the left and the Guards Brigade on the right and were moving forward in an advance to contact. The Boers – due to nervousness / indiscipline – opened fire far too early – meaning the British went to ground about 1000 yards from the Boer positions, instead of a couple of hundred as planned. This meant that, though the Guards were stuck in place all day, casualties were by no means horrendous and there was no pressing need to try and extracate them.
Also, as the Boers had sprung their ambush prematurely, Pole-Carew was able to push elements of his 9th Brigade off to their left, eventually crossing the Modder and driving the Boers from the village of Rosmead. General Colville's account (Colville commanded the Guards Brigade) states that the Boers on this flank were no covered by the bulk of the Boer artillery (which seems to have been placed well away on the other flank) – which seems to be a large oversight on the part of de la Rey / Cronje, especially given that the Boer's other flank was protected by an unfordable tributary of the Modder.
A local counter attack was launched (led personnally by de la Rey) but could not drive the British from Rosmead and it would seem that the Boers had no units held in reserve for such an eventuality. With the British over the river (albeit in very small numbers), some Boer units simply decided that they had had enough and started withdrawing. This led to a general retreat and British victory. The 'brilliance' of the Boer generals does not seem to have included an ability to stop their men simply runnning away when they'd had enough.

So how well did de la Rey / Cronje really fight the battle? It seems that there was no 'plan B' – once the British crossed the river, that was that. No attempt was made to redeploy artillery to cover this threat and there were no meaningful reserves on hand. It would appear to me that the thought had been that if the trenches were dug and hidden well enough, that the brilliant marksmanship of the Boers would win the day – and there was nothing in the way of an 'active' defence. The lack of a reserve is surely the most remarkable aspect of the battle – though this also highlights a weakness in the Boer way of fighting: an equivilent British force holding such a position would have sent reserve troops to drive back the small numbers of assaulting troops in Rosmead at the point of the bayonet – whereas the Boers quite simply lacked this dimension.

Thoughts?

BullDog,

Not Modder River but you might check out the TooFatLardies blog. Richard Clarke, the chief Lardie, has been working on a Boer War set of rules, which may interest you, for some time. The link below should take you to the relevant articles but, if not, a search on "Boer" should do the trick.

toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?s=boer

I Played it with some cobbled together rules some years ago. It was ok,the Brits often got pinned down but the Boer officers could not keep their men in place once the Brits got into close range, a British win but not without cost.

Thanks guys.

I think that Modder River inadvertantly showed how the British should have fought the war. Though it happened more by good luck than good management, the Guards effectively pinned the Boers in place, and the 9th was able to work round their flank. Had the British used a variation of this at (eg) Magersfontein and Colenso, things might have gone differently in those engagements.