Chapter 26 - Page 2

to the north. On the 9th and 10th the convoys were passed
over the Pass, and on the 11th the main body of the army followed
them.

The operations were now being conducted in that extremely acute angle
of Natal which runs up between the Transvaal and the Orange Free
State. In crossing Botha's Pass the army had really entered what was
now the Orange River Colony. But it was only for a very short time, as
the object of the movement was to turn the Laing's Nek position, and
then come back into the Transvaal through Alleman's Pass. The gallant
South African Light Horse led the way, and fought hard at one point to
clear a path for the army, losing six killed and eight wounded in a
sharp skirmish. On the morning of the 12th the flanking movement was
far advanced, and it only remained for the army to force Alleman's
Nek, which would place it to the rear of Laing's Nek, and close to the
Transvaal town of Volksrust.

Had the Boers been the men of Colenso and of Spion Kop, this stonuing
of Alleman's Nek would have been a bloody business. The position was
strong, the cover was slight, and there was no way round. But the
infantry came on with the old dash without the old stubborn resolution
being opposed to them. The guns prepared the way, and then the
Dorsets, the Dublins, the Middlesex, the Queen's, and the East Surrey
did the rest. The door was open and the Transvaal lay before us. The
next day Volksrust was in our hands.

The whole series of operations were excellently conceived and carried
out. Putting Colenso on one side, it cannot be denied that General
Buller showed considerable power of manoeuvring large bodies of
troops. The withdrawal of the compromised army after Spion Kop, the
change of the line of attack at Pieter's Hill, and the flanking
marches in this campaign of Northern Natal, were all very workmanlike
achievements. In this case a position which the Boers had been
preparing for months, scored with trenches and topped by heavy
artillery, had been rendered untenable by a clever flank movement, the
total casualties in the whole affair being less than two hundred
killed and wounded. Natal was cleared of the invader, Buller's foot
was on the high plateau of the Transvaal, and Roberts could count on
twenty thousand good men coming up to him from the south-east. More
important than all, the Natal railway was being brought up, and soon
the central British Army would depend upon Durban instead of Cape Town
for its supplies -- a saving of nearly two-thirds of the distance.
The fugitive Boers made northwards in the Middelburg direction, while
Buller advanced to Standerton, which town he continued to occupy until
Lord Roberts could send a force down through Heidelberg to join hands
with him.