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. Whether these might or might not have been successfully
held has been much disputed by military men, the balance of opinion
being that Bulwana, at least, which has a water-supply of its own,
might have been retained.
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