Chapter 6

There has been no substantial, visible change in the military situation since the battle of Colenso on December 15th. The actions of General French at Colesberg and of Colonel Pilcher at Sunnyside are valuable mainly as evidence that with sound tactics the Boers are by no means invincible, and that British troops only require intelligent leading to be as capable of the best work as any troops in the world. General French, however, until the hour at which I write had not finished his wrestle with the Boers at Colesberg, and until it is over no military action can be classed either as success or failure. Colonel Pilcher's opponents were colonial rebels, probably not as good as Transvaal Boers, who have had in peace more rifle practice. The losses were small, proving that the resistance of the enemy was by no means desperate, and as the retreating force was not pursued the defeat was not crushing. Colonel Pilcher by the temporary occupation of Douglas reaped the fruits of his victory, but the whole small campaign is of no very great importance, as the possession of the triangle between the railway and the Riet and Orange Rivers depends in the ultimate issue not upon the event of local skirmishes, but on the issue of the decisive fighting between the British Army and the forces of the Republics. Lord Methuen's communications appear to be now well organized and guarded, so that his position need cause no special anxiety. A good deal depends on the outcome of the struggle between General French and the Colesberg Boers, for, while a Boer defeat would render the line from the Cape to Orange River quite safe, a Boer victory would endanger not only Naauwpoort but De Aar. General Gatacre's cue should be to risk nothing. If he waits where he is and merely holds his own until the sixth division is ready for use no harm will have been done; if he makes any mistakes the consequences may be more than the sixth division can remedy. The centre of interest still lies between Ladysmith and Frere. The tone of the telegrams from Ladysmith, which declare that though the bombardment has been more effective since Christmas, and through dysentary and enteric fever are busy, "all is yet well," proves that the situation of Sir George White's force is critical, and may at any moment become desperate. The Boers by occupying and fortifying positions south of the Tugela have taken the best means of making sure that Sir Redvers Buller's advance, even if successful, shall be delayed and the time taken over it prolonged. The Boer commander sees clearly that his present object is to delay Sir Redvers Buller, so as to gain the time needed to bring about the fall of Ladysmith. If that can be secured the next question will be how to damage Sir Redvers Buller. Of the prospects of Sir Redvers Buller's attack no estimate can be made. He is stronger than he was by the greater part of Sir Charles Warren's division, and it is to be hoped, by plenty of heavy artillery and by an organised transport; but the Boers are stronger than they were by a new position, by three weeks of fortification, and by the consciousness of their last victory. Upon Sir Redvers Buller's fate depends more than anyone cares to say. If he wins and relieves Ladysmith the success of Great Britain in the war will be assured, though the operations may be prolonged for months; but if he should again fail there is no prospect of success except by exertions of which the Government as yet has not shown the faintest conception. His action can hardly be completed in a single battle or in a day; the first telegrams, therefore, need not necessarily be taken as giving the result; more probably his operations, except in the most unfavourable case, will be continuous for something like a week.

For the Nation there is a question even more vital than the fate of Sir Redvers Buller, and more practical. Nothing that was at home can do can affect the impending battle by the Tugela. The issue of that battle, as of the war, though it is not yet known and can be revealed only by the event, is in reality already settled, for it depends on the proportion of the forces of the two sides, which has been determined by British strategy and cannot now be modified, upon the qualities, armament, and training of the troops, which are the results of the conditions of their enlistment, organisation, and education, and upon the judgment and will of Sir Redvers Buller, also the outcome of his training and of the Army system. But whatever happens on the Tugela the British Nation has its to-morrow, a very black one in case of a defeat, and a very difficult one even in case of victory, for all the great Powers are for ever competitors for the possession and government of the world, and Great Britain having shown a weakness, expected by others though unsuspected by her own people, will in future be hard beset. The Russians have just moved a division from the Caucasus towards the Afghan frontier, which portends trouble for India. The Austrians, as well as the Germans are setting out to build an extra fleet--what for? Because the Austrian Government, like the German and Italian Governments, know, what our recent Governments have never known, that Great Britain has for two or three centuries been the balance weight or fly-wheel of the European machine, by reason of the prescience with which her Navy was handled. Those Governments now see that statesmanship has gone from us; they divine that the great Navy we now possess cannot be used by a timid and ignorant Government, and that no reliance can be placed upon Great Britain to play her own true game. Accordingly, they see that they must strengthen their own navies with a view to the possible collapse of the British Power. In the near future the maintenance of the British Empire depends upon the Nation's having a Government at once far-seeing and resolute, capable of great resolves and prompt action. Of such a Government there is, however, no immediate prospect. The present Cabinet has given its testimonials: a challenge sent to the Boers by a Government that did not know it was challenging anyone, that did not know the adversary's strength, nor his determination to fight; and a war begun in military ignorance displayed by the Cabinet, and carried on by half measures until the popular determination compelled three-quarter measures. Does anyone suppose that this Cabinet, that did not know its mind till the Boers declared war, knows or will know its mind about the conflict with Russia in Asia, or about any other of the troubles, foreseen and unforeseen, which await us? A victory in Natal would save the Cabinet and drown the voices of its critics; and in that case the present leaders will infallibly go halting and irresolute into the greater contests that are coming. A defeat in Natal would destroy the Government at once if there were before the public a single man in whose judgment and character there was confidence; but there is no such man, and, as the Opposition leaders are discredited by their conduct in regard to the quarrel with the Boers, the present set will remain at their posts to continue the traditional policy of waiting to be driven by public opinion. The Nation, therefore, has before it a necessary task as urgent as that of reinforcing the Army in the field, which is to find the man in whose judgment as to war and policy as well as in whose character it can place confidence.

The man to be trusted is, unfortunately, not Lord Wolseley. I have for years fought his battle by urging that the Government ought to follow the advice of its military adviser, a theory of which the corollary is that the adviser must resign the moment he is overruled. I have never meant that the adviser is to be a dictator, nor that the Cabinet should follow advice of the soundness of which it is not convinced. The Cabinet has the responsibility and ought never to act without full conviction. The expert who cannot convince a group of intelligent non-experts that a necessary measure is necessary is not as expert as he should be; and if he still retains his post after he has been overruled on a measure which he regards as necessary he has not the strength of character which is indispensable for great responsibility. Now, though the relation between a Cabinet and its advisers ought to be secret, in the present case each side has let the cat out of the bag. Lord Wolseley's friends defend him by declaring that he has been overruled. But that defence kills him. If he has been overruled on a trifle it does not matter, and the defence is a quibble; if he has been overruled on an essential point why is he still Commander-in-Chief? No answer can be devised that is not fatal to his case. Lord Lansdowne's friend, for such Lord Ernest Hamilton may be presumed to be, says: "Supposing, for the sake of argument, that the short-comings of the War Office in and before the present war were due not to neglect of military counsels, but to the adoption of such counsels, contrary to the more far-seeing judgment of the civil side." That is a condemnation of the civilian Minister and of the Cabinet, for no man in charge of the Nation's affairs ought to take the responsibility for a decision of the soundness of which he is not convinced. If Lord Lansdowne disagreed with Lord Wolseley and was not prepared to ask for that officer's retirement, why did he not himself retire rather than make himself responsible for measures which he thought wrong or mistaken? These are not personal criticisms or attacks. Lord Wolseley and Lord Lansdowne have both of them in the past rendered splendid services to the Nation. But the Empire is at stake, and a writer's duty is to set forth and apply the principles which he believes to be sound, without being a respecter of persons yet with that respect for every man, especially for every public man, which is the best tradition of our National life. What at the present moment ought not to be tolerated is what Lord Ernest Hamilton suggests, an attack upon the generals at the front, to save the War Office or the Cabinet; and what is needed is that the Ministers should choose a war adviser who can convince them, even though to find him they have to pass over a hundred generals and select a colonel, a captain, or a crammer.

THE STRATEGY OF THE WAR

_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.

THE DECISIVE BATTLE

_January 18th_, 1900

Yesterday began the action upon which in all probability depends the future course of the war. By the time these lines are in the reader's hands more will be known of the battle that can be guessed to-day by the wisest, though several days may pass before the result is fully known.

Sir Redvers Buller on Wednesday, the 10th, had under his command three infantry divisions, a cavalry brigade, some two thousand mounted infantry, and probably altogether about eighty guns. Clery's division consists of Hildyard's and Lyttelton's brigades; the third division, comprising Hart's and Barton's brigades, is not known to have had a commander appointed; Warren's division is composed of Woodgate's brigade and of half of Coke's brigade, to which another half may have been added by taking two battalions which have been some time in Natal, and belong neither to Clery's nor to the third division. The whole force ought to be thirty thousand strong for a fight, taking the division at nine thousand instead of ten thousand, for though there have been losses there have also been drafts to fill up gaps. A party of mounted troops probably one thousand strong is reported to have been detached a few days ago by rail to Stanger on the coast near the mouth of the Tugela, and thence to have disappeared on a mission of which the purpose is as yet unknown, though it looks like a raid upon the railway between Dundee and Newcastle. The strength of the Boers in Natal has never been accurately known, and the estimates differ widely, ranging from thirty-five thousand to more than double that number. Sir George White may have nine thousand effectives at Ladysmith and might be contained by fifteen thousand Boers, perhaps by a smaller number. There will, therefore, be available against Sir Redvers Buller a force on the lowest estimate about equal to his own, and possibly outnumbering it by two to one.