Buller, like White, had to take the situation as he found it.  It is well known that his own belief was that the line of the Tugela was the true defence of Natal.  When he reached Africa, Ladysmith was already beleaguered, and he, with his troops, had to abandon the scheme of direct invasion and to hurry to extricate White’s division.  Whether they might not have been more rapidly extricated by keeping to the original plan is a question which will long furnish an excellent subject for military debate.  Had Buller in November known that Ladysmith was capable of holding out until March, is it conceivable that he, with his whole army corps and as many more troops as he cared to summon from England, would not have made such an advance in four months through the Free State as would necessitate the abandonment of the sieges both of Kimberley and of Ladysmith?  If the Boers persisted in these sieges they could not possibly place more than 20,000 men on the Orange River to face 60, 000 whom Buller could have had there by the first week in December.  Methuen’s force, French’s force, Gatacre’s force, and the Natal force, with the exception of garrisons for Pietermaritzburg and Durban, would have assembled, with a reserve of another sixty thousand men in the colony or on the sea ready to fill the gaps in his advance.  Moving over a flat country with plenty of flanking room, it is probable that he would have been in Bloemfontein by Christmas and at the Vaal River late in January.  What could the Boers do then?  They might remain before Ladysmith, and learn that their capital and their gold mines had been taken in their absence.  Or they might abandon the siege and trek back to defend their own homes.  This, as it appears to a civilian critic, would have been the least expensive means of fighting them; but after all the strain had to come somewhere, and the long struggle of Ladysmith may have meant a more certain and complete collapse in the future.  At least, by the plan actually adopted we saved Natal from total devastation, and that must count against a great deal.

Having taken his line, Buller set about his task in a slow, deliberate, but pertinacious fashion.  It cannot be denied, however, that the pertinacity was largely due to the stiffening counsel of Roberts and the soldierly firmness of White who refused to acquiesce in the suggestion of surrender.  Let it be acknowledged that Buller’s was the hardest problem of the war, and that he solved it.  The mere acknowledgment goes far to soften criticism.  But the singular thing is that in his proceedings he showed qualities which had not been generally attributed to him, and was wanting in those very points which the public had imagined to be characteristic of him.  He had gone out with the reputation of a downright John Bull fighter, who would take punishment or give it, but slog his way through without wincing.  There was no reason for attributing any particular strategical ability to him.  But as a matter of