We Won The Kopjes, But We Lost Our Men.
The Boer Killed And Wounded Were Probably Less Than Half Of Our
Own, And The Exhaustion And Weakness Of Our Cavalry Forbade Us To
Pursue And Prevented Us From Capturing Their Guns.
In three days
the men had fought two exhausting actions in a waterless country
and under a tropical sun.
Their exertions had been great and yet
were barren of result. Why this should be so was naturally the
subject of keen discussion both in the camp and among the public at
home. It always came back to Lord Methuen's own complaint about the
absence of cavalry and of horse artillery. Many very unjust charges
have been hurled against our War Office - a department which in some
matters has done extraordinarily and unexpectedly well - but in this
question of the delay in the despatch of our cavalry and artillery,
knowing as we did the extreme mobility of our enemy, there is
certainly ground for an inquiry.
The Boers who had fought these two actions had been drawn mainly
from the Jacobsdal and Fauresmith commandoes, with some of the
burghers from Boshof. The famous Cronje, however, had been
descending from Mafeking with his old guard of Transvaalers, and
keen disappointment was expressed by the prisoners at Belmont and
at Enslin that he had not arrived in time to take command of them.
There were evidences, however, at this latter action, that
reinforcements for the enemy were coming up and that the labours of
the Kimberley relief force were by no means at an end.
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