Chapter 10

THE BATTLE OF STORMBERG

Some attempt has now been made to sketch the succession of events
which had ended in the investment of Ladysmith in northern Natal, and
also to show the fortunes of the force which on the western side of
the seat of war attempted to advance to the relief of Kimberley. The
distance between these forces may be expressed in terms familiar to
the European reader by saying that it was that which separates Paris
from Frankfort, or to the American by suggesting that Ladysmith was at
Boston and that Methuen was trying to relieve Philadelphia. Waterless
deserts and rugged mountain ranges divided the two scenes of action.
In the case of the British there could be no connection between the
two movements, but the Boers by a land journey of something over a
hundred miles had a double choice of a route by which Cronje and
Joubert might join hands, either by the
Bloemfontein-Johannesburg-Laing's-Nek Railway, or by the direct line
from Harrismith to Ladysmith. The possession of these internal lines
should have been of enormous benefit to the Boers, enabling them to
throw the weight of their forces unexpectedly from the one flank to
the other.

In a future chapter it will be recorded how the Army Corps arriving
from England was largely diverted into Natal in order in the first
instance to prevent the colony from being overrun, and in the second
to rescue the beleaguered garrison. In the meantime it is necessary
to deal with the military operations in the broad space between the
eastern and western armies.

After the declaration of war there was a period of some weeks during
which the position of the British over the whole of the northern part
of Cape Colony was full of danger. Immense supplies had been gathered
at De Aar which were at the mercy of a Free State raid, and the
burghers, had they possessed a cavalry leader with the dash of a
Stuart or a Sheridan, might have dealt a blow which would have cost us
a million pounds' worth of stores and dislocated the whole plan of
campaign. However, the chance was allowed to pass, and when, on
November 1st, the burghers at last in a leisurely fashion sauntered
over the frontier, arrangements had been made by reinforcement and by
concentration to guard the vital points. The objects of the British
leaders, until the time for a general advance should come, were to
hold the Orange River Bridge (which opened the way to Kimberley), to
cover De Aar Junction, where the stores were, to protect at all costs
the line of railway which led from Cape Town to Kimberley, and to hold
on to as much as possible of those other two lines of railway which
led, the one through Colesberg and the other through Stormberg, into
the Free State. The two bodies of