Buller’s final advance.

The heroic moment of the siege of Ladysmith was that which witnessed the repulse of the great attack.  The epic should have ended at that dramatic instant.  But instead of doing so the story falls back to an anticlimax of crowded hospitals, slaughtered horses, and sporadic shell fire.  For another six weeks of inactivity the brave garrison endured all the sordid evils which had steadily grown from inconvenience to misfortune and from misfortune to misery.  Away in the south they heard the thunder of Buller’s guns, and from the hills round the town they watched with pale faces and bated breath the tragedy of Spion Kop, preserving a firm conviction that a very little more would have transformed it into their salvation.  Their hearts sank with the sinking of the cannonade, and rose again with the roar of Vaalkranz.  But Vaalkranz also failed them, and they waited on in the majesty of their hunger and their weakness for the help which was to come.

It has been already narrated how General Buller had made his three attempts for the relief of the city.  The General who was inclined to despair was now stimulated by despatches from Lord Roberts, while his army, who were by no means inclined to despair, were immensely cheered by the good news from the Kimberley side.  Both General and army prepared for a last supreme effort.  This time, at least, the soldiers hoped that they would be permitted to burst their way to the help of their starving comrades or leave their bones among the hills which had faced them so long.  All they asked was a fight to a finish, and now they were about to have one.  General Buller had tried the Boers’ centre, he had tried their extreme right, and now he was about to try their extreme left.  There were some obvious advantages on this side which make it surprising that it was not the first to be attempted.  In the first place, the enemy’s main position upon that flank was at Hlangwane mountain, which is to the south of the Tugela, so that in case of defeat the river ran behind them.  In the second, Hlangwane mountain was the one point from which the Boer position at Colenso could be certainly enfiladed, and therefore the fruits of victory would be greater on that flank than on the other.  Finally, the operations could be conducted at no great distance from the railhead, and the force would be exposed to little danger of having its flank attacked or its communications cut, as was the case in the Spion Kop advance.  Against these potent considerations there is only to be put the single fact that the turning of the Boer right would threaten the Freestaters’ line of retreat.  On the whole, the balance of advantage lay entirely with the new attempt, and the whole army advanced to it with a premonition of success.  Of all the examples which the war has given of the enduring qualities of the British troops there is none more striking than the absolute confidence and whole hearted delight with which, after three bloody repulses, they set forth upon another venture.