Chapter 10 - Page 2

invaders who entered the colony
moved along the line of these two railways, the one crossing the
Orange River at Norval's Pont and the other at Bethulie. They
enlisted many recruits among the Cape Colony Dutch as they advanced,
and the scanty British forces fell back in front of them, abandoning
Colesberg on the one line and Stormberg on the other. We have, then,
to deal with the movements of two British detachments. The one which
operated on the Colesberg line -- which was the more vital of the two, as
a rapid advance of the Boers upon that line would have threatened the
precious Capetown-Kimberley connection -- consisted almost entirely of
mounted troops, and was under the command of the same General French
who had won the battle of Elandslaagte. By an act of foresight which
was only too rare upon the British side in the earlier stages of this
war, French, who had in the recent large manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain
shown great ability as a cavalry leader, was sent out of Ladysmith
in the very last train which made its way through. His operations,
with his instructive use of cavalry and horse artillery, may be
treated separately.

The other British force which faced the Boers who were advancing
through Stormberg was commanded by General Gatacre, a man who bore a
high reputation for fearlessness and tireless energy, though he had
been criticised, notably during the Soudan campaign, for having called
upon his men for undue and unnecessary exertion. 'General Back-acher'
they called him, with rough soldierly chaff. A glance at his long
thin figure, his gaunt Don-Quixote face, and his aggressive jaw would
show his personal energy, but might not satisfy the observer that he
possessed those intellectual gifts which qualify for high command. At
the action of the Atbara he, the brigadier in command, was the first
to reach and to tear down with his own hands the zareeba of the enemy
-- a gallant exploit of the soldier, but a questionable position for
the General. The man's strength and his weakness lay in the incident.

General Gatacre was nominally in command of a division, but so cruelly
had his men been diverted from him, some to Buller in Natal and some
to Methuen, that he could not assemble more than a brigade. Falling
back before the Boer advance, he found himself early in December at
Sterkstroom, while the Boers occupied the very strong position of
Stormberg, some thirty miles to the north of him. With the enemy so
near him it was Gatacre's nature to attack, and the moment that he
thought himself strong enough he did so. No doubt he had private
information as to the dangerous hold which the Boers were getting upon
the colonial Dutch, and it is possible that while Buller and Methuen
were attacking east