Tall And
Burly, With Hard Grey Eyes And A Grim Mouth Half Hidden By His
Bushy Beard, He Was A Fine Type Of The Men Whom He Led.
He was now
in his sixty-fifth year, and the fire of his youth had, as some of
the burghers urged, died down within him; but he was experienced,
crafty, and warwise, never dashing and never brilliant, but slow,
steady, solid, and inexorable.
Besides this northern army there were two other bodies of burghers
converging upon Natal. One, consisting of the commandoes from
Utrecht and the Swaziland districts, had gathered at Vryheid on the
flank of the British position at Dundee. The other, much larger,
not less probably than six or seven thousand men, were the
contingent from the Free State and a Transvaal corps, together with
Schiel's Germans, who were making their way through the various
passes, the Tintwa Pass, and Van Reenen's Pass, which lead through
the grim range of the Drakensberg and open out upon the more
fertile plains of Western Natal. The total force may have been
something between twenty and thirty thousand men. By all accounts
they were of an astonishingly high heart, convinced that a path of
easy victory lay before them, and that nothing could bar their way
to the sea. If the British commanders underrated their opponents,
there is ample evidence that the mistake was reciprocal.
A few words now as to the disposition of the British forces,
concerning which it must be borne in mind that Sir George White,
though in actual command, had only been a few days in the country
before war was declared, so that the arrangements fell to General
Penn Symons, aided or hampered by the advice of the local political
authorities. The main position was at Ladysmith, but an advance
post was strongly held at Glencoe, which is five miles from the
station of Dundee and forty from Ladysmith. The reason for this
dangerous division of force was to secure each end of the
Biggarsberg section of the railway, and also to cover the important
collieries of that district. The positions chosen seem in each case
to show that the British commander was not aware of the number and
power of the Boer guns, for each was equally defensible against
rifle fire and vulnerable to an artillery attack. In the case of
Glencoe it was particularly evident that guns upon the hills above
would, as they did, render the position untenable. This outlying
post was held by the 1st Leicester Regiment, the 2nd Dublin
Fusiliers, and the first battalion of Rifles, with the 18th
Hussars, three companies of mounted infantry, and three batteries
of field artillery, the 13th, 67th, and 69th. The 1st Royal Irish
Fusiliers were on their way to reinforce it, and arrived before the
first action. Altogether the Glencoe camp contained some four
thousand men.
The main body of the army remained at Ladysmith. These consisted of
the 1st Devons, the 1st Liverpools, and the 2nd Gordon Highlanders,
with the 1st Gloucesters, the 2nd King's Royal Rifles, and the 2nd
Rifle Brigade, reinforced later by the Manchesters.
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