So far French had justified the tradition which called him lucky.  Any competent and experienced general might, with luck, have won the battle of Elandslaagte.  That victory did not mark French out as a commander of genius.  But what followed in the campaign round Colesberg did.

It is very much to be regretted that the circumstances of the case forced this campaign to be fought amid an unusually dense variety of “the fog of war.”  Owing to the difficulty and danger of the operations and the extended front on which they were carried out, any newspaper correspondent present could hope to chronicle only a sub-section of the action.  The public, therefore, was without any complete record of what happened.[11] To the man in the street the British general and his forces seemed to spend three months in perpetual dodging in and about some thirty square miles of kopjed veldt.

[Page Heading:  THE “INEFFICIENT” GENERAL]

Yet French’s column was the pivot on which the whole British plan turned.  This campaign in miniature gave French his chance finally to disprove the fallacies of the critics at home.  Before his appointment in October, he had actually been described by some of his opponents as “inefficient to command in the field.”  This is the tragedy of many a brilliant cavalry leader—­it is impossible for him to demonstrate his ability save in actual warfare.

When French went down to Cape Town to consult with General Buller, he found his Chief oppressed by serious misgivings.  Sir George White and his force were surrounded in Ladysmith; Mafeking and Kimberley were both invested by the enemy; and a great invasion was threatened along the whole northern boundary of Cape Colony.  To deal with all these difficulties Buller had only one army corps.  One column, under Lord Methuen, was advancing to the relief of Kimberley; another, under General Gatacre, was attempting to stem the Boer invasion of Cape Colony; while a third, to be led by Buller himself, was massing at Chieveley, prior to advancing to the relief of Ladysmith.  French was given command of a fourth column with which he was to harass the Boers around Colesberg.  A Boer commando under Schoeman had seized a passage on the Orange River at Norval’s Pont on November 1.  On the 14th the Boers entered Colesberg; and a proclamation was issued declaring the district to be a Free State territory.

[Page Heading:  WORRYING TACTICS]

From the first no striking victories were anticipated for French’s little force.  It was to act as a dam, rather than as a weapon of destruction.  It was a rather flimsy dam at that.  Buller’s instructions, which at first spoke of a “flying column,” soon declined to suggestions of “a policy of worry without risking men.”  In particular it was to stop raids on the railway line which might impede Methuen’s advance on Kimberley.