The force which had been hovering to the south and east of him during the Paardeberg operations had meanwhile been reinforced from Colesberg and from Ladysmith until it had attained considerable proportions.  This army, under the leadership of De Wet, had taken up a strong position a few miles to the east, covering a considerable range of kopjes.  On March 3rd a reconnaissance was made of it, in which some of our guns were engaged; but it was not until three days later that the army advanced with the intention of turning or forcing it.  In the meantime reinforcements had been arriving in the British camp, derived partly from the regiments which had been employed at other points during these operations, and partly from newcomers from the outer Empire.  The Guards came up from Klip Drift, the City Imperial Volunteers, the Australian Mounted Infantry, the Burmese Mounted Infantry and a detachment of light horse from Ceylon helped to form this strange invading army which was drawn from five continents and yet had no alien in its ranks.

The position which the enemy had taken up at Poplars Grove (so called from a group of poplars round a farmhouse in the centre of their position) extended across the Modder River and was buttressed on either side by well-marked hills, with intermittent kopjes between.  With guns, trenches, rifle pits, and barbed wire a bull-headed general might have found it another Magersfontein.  But it is only just to Lord Roberts’s predecessors in command to say that it is easy to do things with three cavalry brigades which it is difficult to do with two regiments.  The ultimate blame does not rest with the man who failed with the two regiments, but with those who gave him inadequate means for the work which he had to do.  And in this estimate of means our military authorities, our politicians, and our public were all in the first instance equally mistaken.

Lord Roberts’s plan was absolutely simple, and yet, had it been carried out as conceived, absolutely effective.  It was not his intention to go near any of that entanglement of ditch and wire which had been so carefully erected for his undoing.  The weaker party, if it be wise, atones for its weakness by entrenchments.  The stronger party, if it be wise, leaves the entrenchments alone and uses its strength to go round them.  Lord Roberts meant to go round.  With his immense preponderance of men and guns the capture or dispersal of the enemy’s army might be reduced to a certainty.  Once surrounded, they must either come out into the open or they must surrender.

On March 6th the cavalry were brought across the river, and in the early morning of March 7th they were sent off in the darkness to sweep round the left wing of the Boers and to establish themselves on the line of their retreat.  Kelly-Kenny’s Division (6th) had orders to follow and support this movement.  Meanwhile Tucker was to push straight along the southern bank of the river, though we may surmise that his instructions were, in case of resistance, not to push his attack home.  Colvile’s 9th Division, with part of the naval brigade, were north of the river, the latter to shell the drifts in case the Boers tried to cross, and the infantry to execute a turning movement which would correspond with that of the cavalry on the other flank.