After his arrival at Capetown, circumstances however compelled Lord Roberts to modify his plan of campaign.  The news of the Spion Kop affair, anxiety on account of Kimberley, the presence of Cronje at Magersfontein and other considerations, determined him to march through the Free State by a more northerly route which would enable him to relieve Kimberley en passant and to give battle to Cronje.

The secret of the plan, which was known only to Lord Roberts’ personal staff, was well kept, and operations were continued without reference to it.  The earlier orders issued by him seemed to indicate that the central advance was still to be carried out.  The VIth Division under Kelly-Kenny was sent to Naauwpoort; French was instructed to make a demonstration against Norval’s Pont; and Methuen was warned that it might be necessary to withdraw part of the Modder River force.

The Boers, who had captured at Dundee some intelligence papers which disclosed the original plan of campaign, were now more than ever convinced that the British Army must advance by way of Norval’s Pont and Bethulie, and did not discover their error until it was too late to rectify it.[34] When Lord Roberts had made all his preparations, which involved the entire reorganization of the transport, and the raising of a considerable force of mounted troops, for his march of 100 miles across the veld eastward from the railway, the secret was disclosed to Kelly-Kenny and French on February 1.  This plan of a flank march had also suggested itself to Buller, who proposed it in a memorandum which Lord Roberts found on his arrival in Capetown; but as Buller’s scheme included the construction of a railway across the veld, and limited the advance of the Army to the rate at which the line could be pushed forward, it did not fall in with Lord Roberts’ ideas.

Meanwhile Cronje was not perturbed by the reports of troops coming up the Western line, and was confident that they only indicated a renewed but isolated attack on Magersfontein.  He had no doubt that if necessary he could always fall back upon Kimberley and retreat towards the Transvaal; and the demonstrations made by Methuen westwards in the direction of Koedoesberg Drift served the double purpose of warning a disaffected region and of diverting Cronje’s attention from the flank on which he was to be attacked and which he believed to be secure.

The two months following the arrival of Lord Roberts in South Africa were the only brilliant period of a dreary war which lasted nearly three years, and will perhaps save it from being quoted in military history as the most sluggish campaign of recent times.  In each of the two objects of strategy, namely to avoid fighting the enemy on ground of his own choosing, and to compel him to fight under unfavourable conditions, Lord Roberts was extraordinarily successful.  There was a light touch, an ingenuity, in his swift and silent strategy which contrasted strongly with