The Magnificent Regiments Which Formed The Highland
Brigade - The 2nd Black Watch, The 1st Gordons, The 2nd Seaforths,
And The 1st Highland Light Infantry Had Arrived Under The Gallant
And Ill-Fated Wauchope.
Four five-inch howitzers had also come to
strengthen the artillery.
At the same time the Canadians, the
Australians, and several line regiments were moved up on the line
from De Aar to Belmont. It appeared to the public at home that
there was the material for an overwhelming advance; but the
ordinary observer, and even perhaps the military critic, had not
yet appreciated how great is the advantage which is given by modern
weapons to the force which acts upon the defensive. With enormous
pains Cronje and De la Rey were entrenching a most formidable
position in front of our advance, with a confidence, which proved
to be justified that it would be on their own ground and under
their own conditions that in this, as in the three preceding
actions, we should engage them.
On the morning of Saturday, December 9th, the British General made
an attempt to find out what lay in front of him amid that
semicircle of forbidding hills. To this end he sent out a
reconnaissance in the early morning, which included G Battery Horse
Artillery, the 9th Lancers, and the ponderous 4.7 naval gun, which,
preceded by the majestic march of thirty-two bullocks and attended
by eighty seamen gunners, creaked forwards over the plain. What was
there to shoot at in those sunlit boulder-strewn hills in front?
They lay silent and untenanted in the glare of the African day.
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