On the subject of holding Ladysmith Sir George White was quite clear.  ’I never wanted to abandon Ladysmith; I considered it a place of primary importance to hold.  It was on Ladysmith that both Republics concentrated their first efforts.  Here, where the railways join, the armies of the Free State and the Transvaal were to unite, and the capture of the town was to seal their union.’

It is now certain that Ladysmith was an essential to the carefully thought out Boer plan of campaign.  To make quite sure of victory they directed twenty-five thousand of their best men on it under the Commandant-General himself.  Flushed with the spirit of invasion, they scarcely reckoned on a fortnight’s resistance; nor in their wildest nightmares did they conceive a four months’ siege terminating in the furious inroad of a relieving army.

Exasperated at unexpected opposition—­for they underrated us even more than we underrated them—­they sacrificed around Ladysmith their chances of taking Pietermaritzburg and raiding all Natal; and it is moreover incontestable that in their resolve to take the town, on which they had set their hearts, they were provoked into close fighting with Sir Redvers Buller’s army, and even to make an actual assault on the defences of Ladysmith, and so suffered far heavier losses than could otherwise have been inflicted on so elusive an enemy in such broken country.

‘Besides,’ said the General, ’I had no choice in the matter.  I did not want to leave Ladysmith, but even if I had wanted, it would have been impossible.’

He then explained how not only the moral value, the political significance of Ladysmith, and the great magazines accumulated there rendered it desirable to hold the town, but that the shortness of time, the necessity of evacuating the civil population, and of helping in the Dundee garrison, made its retention actually obligatory.

Passing to the actual siege of the town, Sir George White said that he had decided to make an active defence in order to keep the enemy’s attention fixed on his force, and so prevent them from invading South Natal before the reinforcements could arrive.  With that object he had fought the action of October 30, which had turned out so disastrously.  After that he fell back on his entrenchments, and the blockade began.

’The experience we had gained of the long-range guns possessed by the enemy,’ said Sir George, ’made it necessary for me to occupy a very large area of ground, and I had to extend my lines accordingly.  My lines are now nearly fourteen miles in circumference.  If I had taken up a smaller position we should have been pounded to death.’

He said that the fact that they had plenty of room alone enabled them to live, for the shell fire was thus spread over a large area, and, as it were, diluted.  Besides this the cattle were enabled to find grazing, but these extended lines were also a source of weakness.  At one time on several sections of the defences the garrison could only provide two hundred men to the mile.