The War Office, however, was to a certain extent on the alert and distrusted the optimism of Schreiner and of a high military official who had been for some years in South Africa.  Officers were sent to Kimberley to organize a scheme of defence, but having regard to the susceptibility of the Capetown Government it was done secretly and confidentially and Schreiner was outwitted.  By October 7 the town, which was under the command of Colonel Kekewich, was secure against a coup de main though not against a vigorous and sustained siege.  Little more than an eighth of the garrison was composed of regular troops; the artillery was out of date; rifles and ammunition were deficient.  On October 13 Rhodes threw himself into Kimberley and became for better or worse a power in the town.  As soon as the siege began the relative value of the chief products of the mines was inverted:  water, the most generous gift of nature and hitherto an embarrassment in the workings, became for the time being more valuable than the diamonds.

On October 12 the curtain of the great drama was raised and the first scene presented.  It showed the capture of an armoured train on the railway between Kimberley and Mafeking.  Kimberley under any circumstances was a prize worth winning.  But Kimberley taken with Rhodes as a prisoner of war, the man who had curbed and checked on every side the expansion of the Republics, who had taken Matabeleland on the north and Bechuanaland on the west into the fold of the British Empire, would be more than a prize, would be a triumph.  Rhodes metaphorically in chains, and actually paraded as a captive in the streets of Bloemfontein and Pretoria was an alluring prospect.

Great, however, as were the advantages to be gained by the early capture of Kimberley, the object was not pursued with energy and determination.  When the siege began on November 6 the situation was in favour of the attack.  The Boers were in possession of the railway from Orange River Station to Mafeking:  Kimberley was ill-supplied with the munitions and weapons of war and was defended by a force mainly composed of irregulars; it was encumbered with a large native population; and the civil and military authorities were not working in harmony.

The defence throughout was more active than the attack.  Reconnaissances and raids against the enemy’s positions were made with effect; and the bombardment which followed a rejected summons to surrender did little harm.  Communication with the outer world was not seriously impeded.  Cattle grazed almost with impunity inside the line of investment and several thousands of the natives escaped.