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.
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