The Two Together Made
A Complete Position, While Singly Each Was A Very Bad Neighbour To
The Other.
On the aide-de-camp riding up, however, to inquire from
General Buller whether the time had come for this advance, he
replied, 'We have done enough for the day,' and left out this
essential portion of his original scheme, with the result that all
miscarried.
Speed was the most essential quality for carrying out his plan
successfully. So it must always be with the attack. The defence
does not know where the blow is coming, and has to distribute men
and guns to cover miles of ground. The attacker knows where he will
hit, and behind a screen of outposts he can mass his force and
throw his whole strength against a mere fraction of that of his
enemy. But in order to do so he must be quick. One tiger spring
must tear the centre out of the line before the flanks can come to
its assistance. If time is given, if the long line can concentrate,
if the scattered guns can mass, if lines of defence can be
reduplicated behind, then the one great advantage which the attack
possesses is thrown away. Both at the second and at the third
attempts of Buller the British movements were so slow that had the
enemy been the slowest instead of the most mobile of armies, they
could still always have made any dispositions which they chose.
Warren's dawdling in the first days of the movement which ended at
Spion Kop might with an effort be condoned on account of possible
difficulties of supply, but it would strain the ingenuity of the
most charitable critic to find a sufficient reason for the lethargy
of Vaalkranz. Though daylight comes a little after four, the
operations were not commenced before seven. Lyttelton's Brigade had
stormed the hill at two, and nothing more was done during the long
evening, while officers chafed and soldiers swore, and the busy
Boers worked furiously to bring up their guns and to bar the path
which we must take. General Buller remarked a day or two later that
the way was not quite so easy as it had been. One might have
deduced the fact without the aid of a balloon.
The brigade then occupied Vaalkranz and erected sangars and dug
trenches. On the morning of the 6th, the position of the British
force was not dissimilar to that of Spion Kop. Again they had some
thousands of men upon a hill-top, exposed to shell fire from
several directions and without any guns upon the hill to support
them. In one or two points the situation was modified in their
favour, and hence their escape from loss and disaster. A more
extended position enabled the infantry to avoid bunching, but in
other respects the situation was parallel to that in which they had
found themselves a fortnight before.
The original plan was that the taking of Vaalkranz should be the
first step towards the outflanking of Brakfontein and the rolling
up of the whole Boer position.
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