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 On the 15th of December Buller made his effort and failed. Behind the Tugela at Colenso were Louis Botha’s forces covering the siege of Ladysmith, and, imperfectly acquainted with the topography, Buller sent a force to turn Botha’s left, in conjunction with a frontal attack. But the flank attack became entangled in mass in a loop of the river and suffered heavily, and two batteries that formed part of the frontal attack came into action within a few hundred yards of unsuspected Boer trenches, with the result that ten guns were lost, as well as in all some 1100 men. Buller then gave up the fight. The full nature of the failure was not realized by the British public, nor the spirit in which the general had received the finding of fortune. He lost heart, and actually suggested to White the surrender of Ladysmith, believing this to be inevitable and desiring to cover White’s responsibility in that event with his own authority; but White replied that he did not propose to surrender, and the cabinet at home, aware of Buller’s despondency, appointed Field Marshal Lord Roberts to the supreme command, with Major-General Lord Kitchener as his chief of staff. A wave of military enthusiasm arose throughout the empire, and as the formation of a seventh division practically drained the mother-country of trained men, a scheme for the employment of amateur soldiers was formulated, resulting in the despatch of Imperial Yeomanry and Volunteer contingents, which proved one of the most striking features of the South African campaign. Pending the arrival of Lord Roberts and reinforcements, the situation in South Africa remained at a deadlock: the three besieged towns—Mafeking, Kimberley and Ladysmith—still held their own, but no headway was made by the relief columns; all they could do was to stand on the defensive. The only bright spot, as far as the British were concerned, was to be found in northern Cape Colony, where General French, with two cavalry brigades and details, by his skilful tactics and wonderful activity kept at arm’s length a superior force of the enemy in the vicinity of Colesberg, an achievement the more noteworthy since he had pitted against him both De la Rey and De Wet, two of the three men of military genius produced by the war on the Boer side. On the 6th of January the Boers in Natal made a desperate attempt to storm Ladysmith. The garrison, though already weakened by privation and sickness, made a stubborn resistance, and after one of the fiercest engagements of the war, repulsed the attack at Caesar’s Camp and Wagon Hill with severe loss to the enemy, itself having 500 casualties.

When Lord Roberts arrived in Cape Town on the 10th of January 1900 the three garrisons were still invested, and the relieving forces were still maintaining their rôle of passive resistance, while at the same time restraining the Dutch in Cape Colony. The commander-in-chief’s first duty was to create a field army out of the tangle of units in Cape Colony. In the meantime, Sir Redvers Buller, who had been reinforced by Sir Charles Warren and the 5th division, essayed a second attempt to cross the Tugela, by turning the Boer left. But much time was consumed and the plan underwent several modifications before its execution began in earnest on the 16th of January. Warren was placed in command of the main body, which crossed the Tugela at Trichardt’s Drift on the 17th and 18th. The mounted troops engaged a Boer force north-west of the point of passage, but were brought back to take part in a general right wheel of the forces of the Tugela, pivoting on Trichardt’s Drift. But meantime the mobile enemy, whose original flank had been turned, had gathered at the new centre of gravity, and the upshot of several days’ fighting was the retreat of the British. They had penetrated the enemy’s right centre by the seizure of Spion Kop, but the force there became the target for the concentrated attacks of the Boers, and, after suffering heavily, was withdrawn (Jan. 24, 1900), with a loss of 1700 men.

By the 1st of February Lord Roberts had matured his plans and begun to prepare for their execution. On the 3rd of February he ordered a demonstration against the right of the Boer position at Spyffontein-Magersfontein to cover the withdrawal of General French and the cavalry from before Colesberg, and the concentration of his army at Modder River, disregarding another set-back in Natal to Sir Redvers Buller, who had against his advice made a third attempt to relieve Ladysmith on the 5th of February, and failed to make good the purchase which he secured across the Tugela. (Vaal Krantz).

Lord Roberts’s plan was first to concentrate to his left, taking every measure to induce the Boers to believe that the original scheme of invasion by the centre would now be resumed, and in this purpose he succeeded so well that his field army with the necessary transport for a cross-country march was assembled between the Orange and the Modder without serious mishap. Cronje at the new centre of gravity was not reinforced, all available Boers drawing down towards Colesberg. The concentration effected, Cronje still believed that the relief of Kimberley was the object of the gathering behind Modder River, and therefore held on to his Magersfontein kopje. The relief of Kimberley was indeed urgent, for dissensions between Rhodes and the military authorities had become acute. But to this part of the task only the cavalry division assembled under French was assigned. The army itself was to force Cronje into the open and then advance on Bloemfontein from the west. Roberts began his operations on the 11th of February. French started from Ramdam (near Graspan) eastward on that day, intending to make a wide sweep round Cronje’s immobile army. Skirmishing with De Wet in the first stages of their ride, the cavalry brigades crossed the Modder at Klip Drift on the 13th. Cronje sent only detachments to oppose them, but these detachments were broken through by a sword-in-hand charge of the whole division, and Kimberley was relieved on the 15th. The infantry, meeting with great difficulties in its crossing of the Riet at Waterval owing to the country and its own unwieldy transport, followed 1½ to 2 days later. But Cronje had now realized his danger, and slipped away westward behind French and in front of the leading infantry at Klip Drift. This was deflected by Kitchener westward to follow up the Boer rearguard, and after some delay the remainder of the infantry, at first fronting northwards, swerved westward likewise, while French from Kimberley, with such of his men as he could mount on serviceable horses, headed off Cronje in the north-west. The result, after one premature and costly assault on Cronje’s lines had been made by Kitchener, was the surrender of 4000 Boers at Paardeberg with their leader on the 29th of February, the anniversary of Majuba. At the same moment came in news at last of the relief of Ladysmith.

It was part of Roberts’s purpose to relieve the pressure in Natal by his own operations. Buller began his fourth advance on the 14th of February, and though this was checked the foothold gained was not abandoned, and a fifth and last attempt (Pieter’s Hill) was successful. Ladysmith was relieved on the 28th of February. It had fared worst of all the beleaguered garrisons, and its 22,000 inhabitants were almost at their last gasp when relief came. The casualties from shell-fire had been few, but those from sickness were very heavy. Buller’s operations, too, had cost at Colenso 1100 men, at Spion Kop 1700, at Vaalkrantz 400, and now in the last long-drawn effort 1600 more—over 5000 in all. But the tide of war had changed. The Natal invaders fell back to the mountains which enclose the north of the colony; Oliver and Schoeman retired from Cape Colony before the small forces of Gatacre and Clements; and the presidents of the republics, realizing that the British Empire was capable of more resistance than they had calculated upon, put forward feelers aiming at the restoration of the status quo before the war. These proposals were rejected by Lord Salisbury: there could be no end now but a complete destruction of the Boer power.

The surrender of Cronje and the relief of Ladysmith for the time being paralysed the Boer resistance. Two half-hearted attempts were made on the 7th and 10th of March, at Poplar Grove and Driefontein, to stem Lord Roberts’s advance upon