To Us, Who Are Endowed With That Profound Military Wisdom
Which Only Comes With A Knowledge Of The Event, It Is Obvious That
With A Defending Force Which Could Not Place More Than 12,000 Men
In The Fighting Line, The True Defensible Frontier Was The Line Of
The Tugela.
As a matter of fact, Ladysmith was chosen, a place
almost indefensible itself, as it is dominated by high hills in at
least two directions.
Such an event as the siege of the town appears never to have been
contemplated, as no guns of position were asked for or sent. In
spite of this, an amount of stores, which is said to have been
valued at more than a million of pounds, was dumped down at this
small railway junction, so that the position could not be evacuated
without a crippling loss. The place was the point of bifurcation of
the main line, which divides at this little town into one branch
running to Harrismith in the Orange Free State, and the other
leading through the Dundee coal fields and Newcastle to the Laing's
Nek tunnel and the Transvaal. An importance, which appears now to
have been an exaggerated one, was attached by the Government of
Natal to the possession of the coal fields, and it was at their
strong suggestion, but with the concurrence of General Penn Symons,
that the defending force was divided, and a detachment of between
three and four thousand sent to Dundee, about forty miles from the
main body, which remained under General Sir George White at
Ladysmith.
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