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Ian Hamilton, who had already done good service in the war, having commanded the infantry at Elandslaagte, and been one of the most prominent leaders in the defence of Ladysmith, takes from this time onwards a more important and a more independent position.
And how it lowered our vitality all that first winter to hear of Nicholson's Nek, and then presently close upon one another, to realise the bloody waste of Magersfontein, the shattering retreat from Stormberg, Colenso Colenso, that blundering battle, with White, as it seemed, in Ladysmith near the point of surrender! and so through the long unfolding catalogue of bleak disillusionments, of aching, unconcealed anxiety lest worse should follow.
'Ladysmith will never be relieved, said a Boer to one of our chaplains. 'No troops in the world will ever be able to get through Colenso to Ladysmith. It is absolutely impregnable. But they did, and one hardly knows which to admire most the dogged persistence of General Buller and his men or the heroic defence, the patient, confident waiting of the beleaguered troops.
War immediately followed, and armed Boers, previously assembled on the frontier, poured in thousands into Natal, crossing the frontier both on the north and on the west on the 12th of October, and gradually overran the north of the colony, converging upon Ladysmith.
Davitt, in a letter from Kroonstad to the Dublin Freeman's Journal, declares that the Boers were not at all dismayed by the death of General Joubert, which they agreed was in no sense a misfortune. He was too merciful in his notions of warfare. Ladysmith could easily have been taken on more than one occasion had Joubert not vetoed the proposed assaults."
Discussion has been thus long because, in the author's judgment, White's action in shutting himself up in the place, and the admirable tenacity of himself and of the garrison in their resistance, were the shaping factors in a contest the ultimate result of which was probably certain in any event, but which in feature and occurrence would have been very different had Ladysmith either not been occupied or proved incapable of protracted resistance.
It will be strange to see the old place deserted and to ride near the hills without being shot at. Buller is peacefully sleeping at or near Ladysmith; the sound of his snoring faintly reaches us along the wires. Gatacre slumbers at Colesberg.
The idea of going to the doctor is very distasteful, so he struggles on, hoping to work it off, until one day he comes very near a collapse, with head swimming and knees groggy, and then some comrade makes the doctor have a look at him, and his temperature is perhaps 102 to 104. In Ladysmith it was then a question of being sent out to Intombi Camp.
These men whom he had known in the greatness of their strength at Aldershot were little more than skeletons, hardly able to show their appreciation of his splendid efforts, so weak were they. 'You should have seen the general cry, said a group of men from Ladysmith at the Cambridge Hospital the other day. It was their way of putting the case.
A poster in all the paraphernalia of Official authority, proclaiming the relief of Mafeking four months too soon! adorned the walls of the Town House. General Buller, we were informed, was about to unlock the door of Ladysmith "the key had been found." But evidently the lock had not, as was proven by the subsequent disastrous retreat across the Tugela.
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