Chapter 13

THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH

Monday, October 30th, 1899, is not a date which can be looked back to
with satisfaction by any Briton. In a scrambling and ill-managed
action we had lost our detached left wing almost to a man, while our
right had been hustled with no great loss but with some ignominy into
Ladysmith. Our guns had been outshot, our infantry checked, and our
cavalry paralysed. Eight hundred prisoners may seem no great loss when
compared with a Sedan, or even with an Ulm; but such matters are
comparative, and the force which laid down its arms at Nicholson's Nek
is the largest British force which has surrendered since the days of
our great grandfathers, when the egregious Duke of York commanded in
Flanders.

Sir George White was now confronted with the certainty of an
investment, an event for which apparently no preparation had been
made, since with an open railway behind him so many useless mouths had
been permitted to remain in the town. Ladysmith lies in a hollow and
is dominated by a ring of hills, some near and some distant. The near
ones were in our hands, but no attempt had been made in the early days
of the war to fortify and hold Bulwana, Lombard's Kop, and the other
positions from which the town might be shelled. Whether these might or
might not have been successfully held has been much disputed by
military men, the balance of opinion being that Bulwana, at least,
which has a water-supply of its own, might have been retained. This
question, however, was already academic, as the outer hills were in
the hands of the enemy. As it was, the inner line -- Caesar's Camp,
Wagon Hill, Rifleman's Post, and round to Helpmakaar Hill -- made a
perimeter of fourteen miles, and the difficulty of retaining so
extensive a line goes far to exonerate General White, not only for
abandoning the outer hills, but also for retaining his cavalry in the
town.

After the battle of Ladysmith and the retreat of the British, the
Boers in their deliberate but effective fashion set about the
investment of the town, while the British commander accepted the same
as inevitable, content if he could stem and hold back from the colony
the threatened flood of invasion. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
and Friday the commandoes gradually closed in upon the south and east,
harassed by some cavalry operations and reconnaissances upon our part,
the effect of which was much exaggerated by the press. On Thursday,
November 2nd, the last train escaped under a brisk fire, the
passengers upon the wrong side of the seats. At 2 P.M. on the same day
the telegraph line was cut, and the lonely town settled herself
somberly down to the task of holding off the exultant Boers until the
day-supposed to be imminent -- when the