’That is scarcely the prescribed proportion.  I would like to have occupied Bulwana, in which case we should have been quite comfortable, but I did not dare extend my lines any further.  It was better to endure the bombardment than to run the risk of being stormed.  Because my lines were so extended I was compelled to keep all the cavalry in Ladysmith.’

Until they began to eat instead of feed the horses this powerful mounted force, upwards of three thousand strong, had been his mobile, almost his only reserve.  Used in conjunction with an elaborate system of telephones the cavalry from their central position could powerfully reinforce any threatened section.

The value of this was proved on January 6.  The General thought that the fierce assault delivered by the enemy on that day vindicated his policy in not occupying Bulwana and in keeping his cavalry within the town, on both of which points he had been much criticised.

He spoke with some bitterness of the attacks which had been made on him in the newspapers.  He had always begged that the relieving operations should not be compromised by any hurry on his account, and he said, with earnestness, ’It is not fair to charge me with all the loss of life they have involved.’  He concluded by saying, deliberately:  ’I regret Nicholson’s Nek; perhaps I was rash then, but it was my only chance of striking a heavy blow.  I regret nothing else.  It may be that I am an obstinate man to say so, but if I had the last five months to live over again I would not—­with that exception—–­do otherwise than I have done.’

And then I came away and thought of the cheers of the relieving troops.  Never before had I heard soldiers cheer like that.  There was not much doubt about the verdict of the army on Sir George White’s conduct of the defence, and it is one which the nation may gracefully accept.

But I am anxious also to discuss the Ladysmith episode from Sir Redvers Buller’s point of view.  This officer reached Cape Town on the very day that White was driven back on Ladysmith.  His army, which would not arrive for several weeks, was calculated to be strong enough to overcome the utmost resistance the Boer Republics could offer.

To what extent he was responsible for the estimates of the number of troops necessary is not known.  It is certain, however, that everyone—­Ministers, generals, colonists, and intelligence officers—­concurred in making a most remarkable miscalculation.

It reminds me of Jules Verne’s story of the men who planned to shift the axis of the earth by the discharge of a great cannon.  Everything was arranged.  The calculations were exact to the most minute fraction.  The world stood aghast at the impending explosion.  But the men of science, whose figures were otherwise so accurate, had left out a nought, and their whole plan came to nothing.  So it was with the British.  Their original design of a containing division in Natal, and an invading army of three divisions in the Free State, would have been excellent if only they had written army corps instead of division.