January 11th, 1900
The arrival of Lord Roberts at Cape Town announces the approaching beginning
of a new chapter in the war, though the second chapter is not yet quite
finished.
The first chapter was the campaign of Sir George White with sixteen thousand
men against the principal Boer army. It ended with Sir George White's being
surrounded in Ladysmith and there locked up.
The second chapter began with the arrival of. Sir Redvers Buller at Cape
Town. It may be reviewed under two headings: the conception and the
execution of the operations. When Sir Redvers Buller reached the Cape, the
force which he was expecting, and of which he had the control, consisted
altogether of nearly sixty thousand regular troops, besides Cape and
colonial troops. There was an Army Corps, thirty-five thousand, a cavalry
division, five thousand, troops for the defence of communications, ten
thousand, and troops at the Cape amounting to eight thousand, some of whom
were at Mafeking and Kimberley. After deducting fourteen thousand men for
communications and garrisons at the Cape, the commander had at his disposal
for use in the field about forty-four thousand regular troops arranged as a
cavalry brigade, seven brigades of infantry, and corps troops.
There were many tasks before the British general. Southern Natal was being
invaded and had to be cleared of the enemy; the Cape Colony, too, had to be
freed from its Boer visitors, and the rising of the Cape Dutch stopped.
Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking were all awaiting relief, and last, but
not least, the Boer armies had to be beaten, and the two Republics
conquered. The strategical problem was how to accomplish all these tasks at
once, if possible, and if that could not be done, to sort them in order of
importance and deal with them in that order. The essential thing was not to
violate any of those great principles which the experience of a hundred wars
and the practice of a dozen great generals have proved to be fundamental.
The leading principle is that which enjoins concentration of effort in time,
space, and object. Do one thing at a time and do it with all your might. If
the list of tasks be examined it will be seen that there is a connection
between them all, and that the connecting link is the Boer army. Suppose the
Boer army to be removed from the scene every one of the other aims would be
easy of accomplishment. There would then be no invaders in either colony;
Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking would be safe, and the troops in those
places free to march where they pleased; the Cape rising could be suppressed
at leisure, and the British general could at his convenience go to Pretoria
and set up a fresh government. No other of the tasks had this same quality
of dominating the situation; any one of them might be accomplished without
great or immediate effect upon those that would remain. For this reason
wisdom prescribed as the simplest way of accomplishing the seven or eight
tasks the accomplishment of the first or last, the destruction of the Boer
army. That army was in three parts: there was a fraction on the western
border of the Free State, a fraction south of the Orange River, and the
great bulk of the whole force was in northern Natal. Destroy the principal
mass, and you could then at your leisure deal with the two smaller pieces.
Everything pointed to an attempt to crush the Boer army then in Natal.
There were two ways of getting at that army which was holding Ladysmith in
its grip. One was along the railway from Durban, one hundred and eighty-nine
miles long; it was sure to bring the British Army face to face with the
Boers at the Tugela. That point reached, either the Boers would stand to
fight and, therefore, give the opportunity of crushing them, or they would
retreat, in which case Ladysmith would be relieved, and the British force,
strengthened by White's division, would be within three hundred miles of
Pretoria. A great victory in Natal would save Natal, stop the Cape rising,
and, if followed up, draw the Boer forces away from Kimberley and the Cape
Colony.
The other way was to follow the railway line or lines from the Cape ports,
to collect the Army on the Orange River and advance to Bloemfontein, and
thence towards Pretoria or towards the western exits from the passes through
the Drakensberg mountains. This plan, however, gave no immediate certainty
of an opportunity to attack the Boer army. The British force could be
assembled on the Orange River no sooner than on the south bank of the
Tugela. But from the Orange River to Bloemfontein there would be a march of
one hundred and twenty miles, and the Boer army was not at Bloemfontein.
There was a probability that when the British force reached Bloemfontein the
Boer army might leave Natal, but the probability did not amount to
certainty; it rested upon a guess or hypothesis of what the Boer general or
the Free State Government and its troops would think. Supposing, however,
that these persons did not think as was expected; that they determined to
complete the conquest of Natal (except Durban, which was protected by the
fleet), and to keep their grip upon Ladysmith, at any rate until the British
force was nearing the passes of the Drakensberg or crossing the Vaal, and
then, but not till then, to retreat to Middleburg? In that case the purpose
of the advance, the crushing of the Boer army, might be deferred for a very
long time, and meanwhile every one of the minor tasks, except the relief of
Kimberley and the repulse of the Free State invaders of the Cape, would be
left over. Ladysmith might fall, and its fall stimulate the Cape rising and
endanger the communications of the British force advancing north of the
Orange River.
These were the two plans, and I confess that my own judgment at the
beginning of November inclined to the former, though, as I am aware that
most of those whose strategical judgment I respect hold a decided opinion
the other way, I cannot be dogmatic. The prevalent opinion attaches more
importance than I can persuade myself to do to the difficulties of the hilly
and mountainous country of northern Natal. There is, moreover, a reserve
imposed upon observers at home by our ignorance of the state of the
transport services of the British forces. No concentration of troops is
profitable if the troops when collected cannot be fed.
Subject to these reserves it may be said that Sir Redvers Buller at the
beginning of November had to choose between two lines of operations, that by
Natal and that by the Cape. The cardinal principle is that you must never
divide your force between two lines of operations unless it is large enough
to give you on each of the two lines an assured superiority to the enemy's
whole force. Sir Redvers Buller's design, however, violated this principle.
He neither determined upon action with all his might through the Cape Colony
nor upon action with all his might through Natal, but divided his effort,
directing four of his seven brigades to Natal and the other three towards
the Orange River; half his cavalry brigade going to Colesberg, and a mixed
force of the communication troops to Sterkstrom on the East London line.
This design gave no promise of effecting the dominant task, the crushing of
the Boer army, though it aimed at grappling in detail with several of the
subordinate tasks; but its execution proved as indecisive as its conception.
In Natal the main force under Sir Redvers Buller himself completely failed
in the attack on the Boer army at Colenso on December 15th; Lord Methuen's
advance for the relief of Kimberley came to a standstill at the Modder
River, and met with a serious repulse at Magersfontein; while the smaller
parties of Gatacre and French have made little headway against the Free
State troops and the rebellious Cape farmers.
The fifth division, the bulk of which was directed to Natal, has been added
to Sir Redvers Buller's force, without having enabled him as yet to strike
the decisive blow or even to prevent a determined assault upon Ladysmith by
the Boer army. That assault is believed to be now impending, and its
delivery will close the second chapter of the war. If Sir Redvers Buller can
win his battle in Natal while Sir George White is still unconquered, the
military power of the Boers will receive a great shock, and the issue of the
war will no longer be doubtful, though its end may be distant. But if Sir
Redvers Buller should again fail the result must be to leave Sir George
White's force in extreme peril, to give the Boer forces the spirit of a
veteran and victorious army, and to encourage the Dutch element at the Cape
to take an active part against the British.
This is the situation which confronts Lord Roberts on his arrival at the
Cape. The problem bears a general resemblance to that which Sir Redvers
Buller had to solve at the beginning of November, but there are important
differences. Lord Roberts has in hand only a brigade, the twelfth or first
of the sixth division, which has just reached Cape Town; he has to expect
the rest of the sixth division, the seventh, a possible eighth, and a
considerable extra force of mounted troops and of artillery; but the arrival
of these forces will be gradual, and he will have no mass of fresh troops
until the beginning of next month. Even then he may not have the means of
feeding on the march the newly-arrived divisions. Meantime a British victory
in Natal would be more valuable, a British defeat there more disastrous than
ever. The effort ought to be made if there is a reasonable probability of
success, for though failure would have disastrous consequences, material and
moral, the admission of helplessness involved in making no attempt would
depress the hearts of the British troops perhaps as fatally as a lost
battle.
The first decision required is whether Sir Redvers Buller's force is to try
its fate once more. In all probability that decision has been made while
Lord Roberts was at sea, and according to the event will be the situation
with which the new Commander-in-Chief will have to deal. A victory in Natal
will make his task easy; a failure will put before him a problem the
fortunate solution of which would be a triumph for any commander.
