A Few Plundered Farmhouses And A Small List Of Killed
And Wounded Horsemen On Either Side Were The Sole Result Of These
Spasmodic And Half-Hearted Operations.
Time here as elsewhere was working for the British, for
reinforcements were steadily coming to Buller's army.
By the new
year Sir Charles Warren's division (the 5th) was nearly complete at
Estcourt, whence it could reach the front at any moment. This
division included the 10th brigade, consisting of the Imperial
Light Infantry, 2nd Somersets, the 2nd Dorsets, and the 2nd
Middlesex; also the 11th, called the Lancashire Brigade, formed by
the 2nd Royal Lancaster, the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, the 1st
South Lancashire, and the York and Lancaster. The division also
included the 14th Hussars and the 19th, 20th, and 28th batteries of
Field Artillery. Other batteries of artillery, including one
howitzer battery, came to strengthen Buller's force, which amounted
now to more than 30,000 men. Immense transport preparations had to
be made, however, before the force could have the mobility
necessary for a flank march, and it was not until January 11th that
General Buller's new plans for advance could be set into action.
Before describing what these plans were and the disappointing fate
which awaited them, we will return to the story of the siege of
Ladysmith, and show how narrowly the relieving force escaped the
humiliation - some would say the disgrace - of seeing the town which
looked to them for help fall beneath their very eyes. That this did
not occur is entirely due to the fierce tenacity and savage
endurance of the disease-ridden and half-starved men who held on to
the frail lines which covered it.
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.
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