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Updated: May 12, 2025
We must be content to wait the development of events in other quarters, for the Boers are all round us now, and, blink the fact as we may, it must be admitted that Ladysmith is under siege.
During the fighting to relieve Ladysmith, with General Buller's force, Churchill and I had again been together, and later when I joined the Boer army, at the Zand River Battle, the army with which he was a correspondent had chased the army with which I was a correspondent, forty miles.
It was one of the best experiences altogether we ever had and I shall certainly put Madeira on my silver cup. After their arrival at Cape Town, where Richard arranged for his wife to stay during his absence at the British front, he started for Ladysmith, sailing on the same vessel on which he had left England. February 18th, 1900 board Scot.
He also learned that the safety of the line beyond Ladysmith was already threatened, but whether Sir George White would decide upon falling back towards Pietermaritzburg or would hold Ladysmith no one knew. Certainly nothing could be determined upon until General Yule rejoined with the division from Dundee. The position there was indeed growing worse every hour.
All these mistakes, made before Sir George White arrived, were evident to that general when he first reached Ladysmith, but they could not then be remedied, and he had to do, and has done, the best he could in the circumstances.
In the Boer War the usefulness of the balloon was frequently tested, more particularly during the siege of Ladysmith, when it was deemed of great value in directing the fire of the British artillery, and again in Buller's advance, where the balloon is credited with having located a "death-trap" of the enemy at Spion Kop. Other all-important service was rendered at Magersfontein.
At last from the captured ridges the exultant troops could see far away the haze which lay over the roofs of Ladysmith, and the besieged, with hearts beating high with hope, turned their glasses upon the distant mottled patches which told them that their comrades were approaching.
I fancy all the military men think that a grave mistake has been made, and that General White should not have exposed half his force to disaster. Besides, the position of Ladysmith is no more defensible than that of Dundee.
We have the positive assurance of Commandant Edwards, who was Chief of Staff to General Botha, that a vigorous turning movement upon the left would at this time have completely outflanked the Boer position and opened a way to Ladysmith. A small success, the more welcome for its rarity, came to the British arms on this first day.
If we had only reached our destination a little sooner we should have cut off their retreating troops and given them a very warm time. But now that they had joined their comrades at Ladysmith, we had to be prepared for an attack from their combined forces, and that before the Transvaalers, who were still at Dundee, could reinforce us. The British did not keep us long in anxiety.
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