Siege of Mafeking - Boer Attack

Boer Attack

On 12 May, at about 4 am, Field Cornet S. Eloff led a force of 240 Boers in a daring assault on Mafeking. Covered by a feint attack on the east side of the town, the attackers slipped between the Hidden Hollow and Limestone forts on the western face of the defences. Guided by a British deserter, they followed a path beside the Molopo River to where it enters the Stadt, the village where the native Africans lived. Eloff's party burst into the Stadt unopposed and set fire to the huts in order to signal the attack's progress to Snyman. By about 5:30 am, the Boers seized the police barracks on the outskirts of Mafeking, killing one and capturing the garrison's second-in-command, Colonel C. O. Hore and 29 others. Eloff picked up the telephone connected with British headquarters and boasted to Baden-Powell of his success.

The fire had, however, already alerted Mafeking's garrison, which responded rapidly to the crisis. The African police (of the Baralong tribe) had wisely stayed out of the way when Eloff's party roared through the Stadt. As soon as the Boers moved on, the 109 armed Baralongs cut off Eloff's escape route. Snyman, "the most stolid and supine of all the Boer generals in the war," failed to support Eloff. Meanwhile, Baden-Powell's elaborate telephone network provided him with timely and accurate information. From his headquarters, the British commander directed Major Alick Godley and B Squadron (Protectorate Regiment) to smother the attack and dispatched D Squadron, some armed railway employees and others to help. Eloff's men were soon isolated into three groups.

With two squadrons, Godley first surrounded a group of Boers holed up in a stone kraal in the Stadt. These men surrendered after a sharp fusillade. Godley drove the second group off a kopje and they mostly managed to escape. All day long, Eloff and the third group held out in the police barracks, finally capitulating in the night. The British lost 12 dead and 8 wounded, mostly Africans. Boer losses were 60 dead and wounded, plus a further 108 captured.