Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/241

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1899.] Important Military Measures. [233

the Government with a view to dealing with the grave situation in South Africa. The Cabinet had met on December 16, and arrived at a series of decisions of the utmost importance : (1) Lord Eoberts (whose only son had been mortally wounded in the attempt to save one of the guns at Colenso, with a conspicuous gallantry for which before his death he was recom- mended for the Victoria Cross) was appointed to take over the command-in-chief in South Africa. This measure, it was intimated, was not to be regarded as a supersession of Sir E. Buller, but as taken in view of the fact that the Natal operations required the undivided attention of that general. To act as chief of the staff to Lord Eoberts, Lord Kitchener was summoned from Khartoum. (2) All the remaining portions of the Army Eeserve were to be called up. (3) The Seventh Division, already being mobilised, and special reinforcements of artillery to make good the losses in that arm on the Tugela, were to be sent out forthwith. (4) Twelve battalions of Mi- litia were to be allowed to volunteer for service abroad, and twelve more to be embodied. (5) To form out of volunteers from the Yeomanry a strong mounted body for service in South Africa. (6) To select from members of the Volunteer forces offering their services enough men to add a company to every regular battalion in the field. (7) To accept, as far as possible, the offers of help made by the great colonies, especially as regards mounted contingents ; and (8) to autho- rise the commander-in-chief in South Africa to raise as many local mounted troops as he thought fit.

Alike in England and in the colonies, the "call to arms" met with a response of unbounded enthusiasm. With the assent of the War Office, the City of London formed for service in the South African campaign a regiment of 1,000 men, between twenty and thirty years of age, all chosen from marksmen in metropolitan Volunteer corps. The entire equipment and cost of sending the regiment were to be borne by the corporation of the City and the City livery companies. Before the year was out, the applications to serve had been so numerous that it was understood that the strength of the corps would be raised to 1,400, including 600 equipped as mounted infantry. And of the cost, estimated at about 100,0002., more than three-quarters had been subscribed in the same brief period. All over Great Britain a like spirit was displayed. Everywhere large numbers of Volunteers and Yeomanry offered themselves for service. It was speedily made known, moreover, that to serve in the new mounted force of Imperial Yeomanry for South Africa volunteers would be received not only from existing Yeomanry corps but from healthy young men generally who could shoot and ride well, and the result was a flood of eager applications for enrolment. On the initiative of Mr. Balfour, conveyed in a letter to Lord Haddington, honorary colonel of the East Lothian and Berwickshire Yeomanry, and Lord Lieutenant of East