He Himself Moved Up To Frere,
Where He Devoted His Time And Energies To The Collection Of That
Force With Which He Was Destined, After Three Failures, To Make His
Way Into Ladysmith.
One unexpected and little known result of the Boer expedition into
Southern Natal was that their leader, the chivalrous Joubert,
injured himself through his horse stumbling, and was physically
incapacitated for the remainder of the campaign.
He returned almost
immediately to Pretoria, leaving the command of the Tugela in the
hands of Louis Botha.
Leaving Buller to organise his army at Frere, and the Boer
commanders to draw their screen of formidable defences along the
Tugela, we will return once more to the fortunes of the unhappy
town round which the interest of the world, and possibly the
destiny of the Empire, were centering. It is very certain that had
Ladysmith fallen, and twelve thousand British soldiers with a
million pounds' worth of stores fallen into the hands of the
invaders, we should have been faced with the alternative of
abandoning the struggle, or of reconquering South Africa from Cape
Town northwards. South Africa is the keystone of the Empire, and
for the instant Ladysmith was the keystone of South Africa. But the
courage of the troops who held the shell-torn townlet, and the
confidence of the public who watched them, never faltered for an
instant.
December 8th was marked by a gallant exploit on the part of the
beleaguered garrison. Not a whisper had transpired of the coming
sortie, and a quarter of an hour before the start officers engaged
had no idea of it.
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