Chapter 11 - Page 2

walls and seamed with trenches, defended by thousands of the
best marksmen in the world, supported by an admirable artillery. If,
in spite of the advance over the open and in spite of the passage of
the river, a ridge could still be carried, it was only to be commanded
by the next; and so, one behind the other, like the billows of the
ocean, a series of hills and hollows rolled northwards to Ladysmith.
All attacks must be in the open. All defence was from under cover.
Add to this, that the young and energetic Louis Botha was in command
of the Boers. It was a desperate task, and yet honour forbade that
the garrison should be left to its fate. The venture must be made.

The most obvious criticism upon the operation is that if the attack
must be made it should not be made under the enemy's conditions. We
seem almost to have gone out of our way to make every obstacle -- the
glacislike approach, the river, the trenches -- as difficult as
possible. Future operations were to prove that it was not so difficult
to deceive Boer vigilance and by rapid movements to cross the
Tugela. A military authority has stated, I know not with what truth,
that there is no instance in history of a determined army being
stopped by the line of a river, and from Wellington at the Douro to
the Russians on the Danube many examples of the ease with which they
may be passed will occur to the reader. But Buller had some
exceptional difficulties with which to contend. He was weak in mounted
troops, and was opposed to an enemy of exceptional mobility who might
attack his flank and rear if he exposed them. He had not that great
preponderance of numbers which came to him later, and which enabled
him to attempt a wide turning movement. One advantage he had, the
possession of a more powerful artillery, but his heaviest guns were
naturally his least mobile, and the more direct his advance the more
effective would his guns be. For these or other reasons he determined
upon a frontal attack on the formidable Boer position, and he moved
out of Chieveley Camp for that purpose at daybreak on Friday, December
15th.

The force which General Buller led into action was the finest which
any British general had handled since the battle of the Alma. Of
infantry he had four strong brigades: the 2nd (Hildyard's) consisting
of the 2nd Devons, the 2nd Queen's or West Surrey, the 2nd West
Yorkshire, and the 2nd East Surrey; the 4th Brigade (Lyttelton's)
comprising the 2nd Cameronians, the 3rd Rifles, the 1st Durhams, and
the 1st Rifle Brigade; the 5th Brigade (Hart's) with the 1st
Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 1st Connaught Rangers, 2nd Dublin
Fusiliers, and the Border Regiment, this last taking the place of the
2nd Irish Rifles, who were with Gatacre.