As To The Disposition Of These Troops A Difference Of Opinion Broke
Out Between The Ruling Powers In Natal And The Military Chiefs At
The Spot.
Prince Kraft has said, 'Both strategy and tactics may
have to yield to politics '; but the political necessity should be
very grave and very clear when it is the blood of soldiers which
has to pay for it.
Whether it arose from our defective
intelligence, or from that caste feeling which makes it hard for
the professional soldier to recognise (in spite of deplorable past
experiences) a serious adversary in the mounted farmer, it is
certain that even while our papers were proclaiming that this time,
at least, we would not underrate our enemy, we were most seriously
underrating him. The northern third of Natal is as vulnerable a
military position as a player of kriegspiel could wish to have
submitted to him. It runs up into a thin angle, culminating at the
apex in a difficult pass, the ill-omened Laing's Nek, dominated by
the even more sinister bulk of Majuba. Each side of this angle is
open to invasion, the one from the Transvaal and the other from the
Orange Free State. A force up at the apex is in a perfect trap, for
the mobile enemy can flood into the country to the south of them,
cut the line of supplies, and throw up a series of entrenchments
which would make retreat a very difficult matter. Further down the
country, at such positions as Ladysmith or Dundee, the danger,
though not so imminent, is still an obvious one, unless the
defending force is strong enough to hold its own in the open field
and mobile enough to prevent a mounted enemy from getting round its
flanks.
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