Early in September 1917, a soldier of the Transvaal Scottish sent his younger game-hunting brother in Vryheid a mock invitation from a billet along the Canal du Nord: "You really should stop shooting those poor springboks. Rather come across here and die yourself.It is such a thrill to mix your ashes into the soil of our country’s Flaamsche Forefathers."
Background
In early 1916, the South African Brigade, given its many men with desert experience from South West Africa, was sent to Egypt to help suppress the Senussi rebellion on the western frontier. In mid-April the brigade was shipped to France for the anticipated Somme offensive. Attached to Britain’s 9th (Scottish) Division where they emphasized a frontier fighting spirit by imitating Zulu war songs and dances, the South Africans occupied trench lines in May but were held in reserve until mid-July.
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| After the Battle: A Treeless (Less 1) Delville Wood |
After 1 July, the disastrous Somme offensive degenerated into a war of attrition and British attacks were concentrated on an arc of woods north of Montauban. On 12 July, Lukin was ordered to take Delville Wood from the Germans and hold it at all costs. At dawn on 15 July, 3,000 men of the South African brigade, led by Lieutenant Colonel William Tanner (1875–1943), captured most of Delville Wood. Almost surrounded by German positions, the South Africans were subjected to several days of determined German counterattacks and intense bombardment. Assaults by British units failed to relieve the pressure and British artillery support was ineffective, and sometimes shelled the South Africans. British troops finally broke through on 20 July, and the South Africans were withdrawn.
It was at Delville Wood that Private William Frederick Faulds (1895–1950), who twice exposed himself to shellfire to rescue wounded comrades, became the first South African to earn the Victoria Cross. There were 750 South Africans dead and 1,500 wounded, captured or missing. Of 3,150 members of the brigade who had fought, only twenty-nine officers and 750 other ranks answered roll call on 21 July.
Ongoing Decimation
Some 2,900 newly arrived South African troops reconstituted the brigade which spent the next year in and out of action at places such as Vimy, Butte de Warlencourt, Arras, Fampoux, and Menin Road. In May 1917, at Fampoux, the brigade suffered heavy casualties for a gain of just 200 metres: and dubbed themselves “suicide Springboks.”
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| South African Scottish Relaxing a Few Days Before the Disastrous Attack at Fampoux |
In September 1917, the South African Brigade joined the British offensive in Flanders, eventually known as the Third Battle of Ypres or Passchendaele, which envisioned a push to the coast to drive the Germans out of Belgium. Instead of the massed shoulder-to-shoulder advance of the Somme, British infantry formed small and fast attack parties to eliminate specific German positions. During the early morning of 20 September, the 3rd and 4th South African battalions, preceded by a creeping artillery barrage, advanced over muddy and cratered ground and took a series of objectives from surprised German defenders. In this operation, 1,250 South Africans were killed, wounded or missing out of an original 2,600.
Another destabilising element for morale was the increased use of South African infantry companies in mass burial parties, prompting this reflection from a distressed officer in Flanders. For his men to have to endure a further battle round, "with the reek of death still in their nostrils … these memories would be distressing to even the hardest … this misuse of fighting troops was cruel and useless."
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| Spring 1918: A Stretcher Team with South African Dead |
No less telling by August and September [1917] was a distinct dip in the tone of popular soldiering songs and doggerel verse: biting, sombre, homesick, yearning with desire for normal life. Thus, a Poperinghe training camp for the Ypres offensive was lit by a new chant, "Now where will my favourite girl be/To hell with France, Flaamsch and Blighty/They aren’t so mighty/ Africa’s the place for me."
At the beginning of 1918, the South African Brigade, now only 1,700 strong, was assigned to hold a defensive position at Gouzeaucourt, near Cambrai, in anticipation of a German spring offensive. On the morning of 21 March, artillery hammered the South Africans and German assaults overwhelmed their strongpoint at Gauche Wood. Over the next few days the brigade suffered 900 casualties, and the remaining 700 men were withdrawn north to escape encirclement. When the war ended, the South Africans were on the eastern point of a general Allied advance with each of the three battalions having only 300 men.
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| A Lone South African Soldier Manning a Gas Alarm Post, Winter 1916–17 |
Returning to South Africa by August 1919, veterans of the Western Front were demobilized at camps in Durban, Cape Town, Pretoria, and Potchefstroom. A Demobilization Board and 50 “Returned Soldier Committees” in various towns were established to reintegrate white servicemen into civilian life, and many returned to jobs reserved by patriotic employers.
Sources: "From Vryheid to Flanders: The Mixed Fortunes of the South African Brigade," by Bill Nasson: "Union of South Africa," 1914-1918 Online
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