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It was a dismal outlook; but Buller, after a few days' review of the situation, was able to report that in his opinion the opposition would probably collapse when Kimberley and Ladysmith were relieved. His optimism at Capetown was destined soon to be superseded by pessimism on the Tugela. He compared himself to a man who, having a busy day before him, has overslept himself.
Lord Methuen, with a British column, was sent to the relief of Kimberley, and Sir Redvers Buller, with a strong army, set out to relieve Ladysmith; but both these generals sustained reverses, the former at Magersfontein, and the latter at the Tugela River. Towards the end of December, Lord Roberts, with Lord Kitchener as chief of his staff, was sent out to the Cape as Commander-in-Chief.
The General who was inclined to despair was now stimulated by despatches from Lord Roberts, while his army, who were by no means inclined to despair, were immensely cheered by the good news from the Kimberley side. Both General and army prepared for a last supreme effort.
Therefore, when he got back to London, he meant to make all his arrangements and did so far settle his affairs as to take a berth on board one of the mail steamers. He had come over in company with a certain lawyer, who had gone out to Kimberley with a view to his profession, and had then, as is the case with all the world that goes to Kimberley, gone into diamonds.
They could not be left there, as they were needed for those great operations which were pending. It was on the 9th that the brigade returned; on the 10th they were congratulated by Lord Roberts in person; and on the 11th those new dispositions were made which were destined not only to relieve Kimberley, but to inflict a blow upon the Boer cause from which it was never able to recover.
Methuen, thinking that the enemy would as before select the good kopje position which offered itself on Spytfontein halfway to Kimberley, determined to diverge from the railway with the greater part of his army and circling through Jacobsdaal, Brown's Drift and Abon's Dam to attack Spytfontein in flank, where he had little doubt that he would find the Boers in position; but Modder River, which he was inclined to believe was only held as an advanced post, must first be taken.
Warfare is an art, not a science; it knows no unvarying laws, and possesses neither specifics nor panaceas. Whatever the reason, the decision was reached to attempt simultaneously the relief of Kimberley and of Ladysmith. It is with the former, which also was first in order of time, that we now have immediately to do.
The first contingent fought under Lord Roberts in the campaign for the relief of Kimberley; and it was two charges by Canadian troops, charges that cost heavily in killed and wounded, that forced the surrender of General Cronje, brought to bay at Paardeberg.
There was the small army of Sir George White in Natal, something more than fifteen thousand men, and there were the detached parties holding points on the colonial railway system, Naauwport, De Aar, Orange River, Kimberley and Mafeking. These detachments, however, are largely made up of local levies, and the total number of British troops among them can hardly amount to three thousand.
Personally, I am anxious to see the line over the ground which I have myself treked, pushed on as speedily as possible, from Kimberley to Vryburg, and thence through British Bechuanaland to Mafeking, and so on, northwards, into the Matabele country, with branches eastward into the Transvaal.
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