And now, as the long weary scorching hungry day came to an end, the Boers began at last to flinch from their trenches.  The shrapnel was finding them out and this force upon their flank filled them with vague alarm and with fears for their precious guns.  And so as night fell they stole across the river, the cannon were withdrawn, the trenches evacuated, and next morning, when the weary British and their anxious General turned themselves to their grim task once more, they found a deserted village, a line of empty houses, and a litter of empty Mauser cartridge-cases to show where their tenacious enemy had stood.

Lord Methuen, in congratulating the troops upon their achievement, spoke of ‘the hardest-won victory in our annals of war,’ and some such phrase was used in his official despatch.  It is hypercritical, no doubt, to look too closely at a term used by a wounded man with the flush of battle still upon him, but still a student of military history must smile at such a comparison between this action and such others as Albuera or Inkerman, where the numbers of British engaged were not dissimilar.  A fight in which five hundred men are killed and wounded cannot be classed in the same category as those stern and desperate encounters where more of the victors were carried than walked from the field of battle.  And yet there were some special features which will differentiate the fight at Modder River from any of the hundred actions which adorn the standards of our regiments.  It was the third battle which the troops had fought within the week, they were under fire for ten or twelve hours, were waterless under a tropical sun, and weak from want of food.  For the first time they were called upon to face modern rifle fire and modern machine guns in the open.  The result tends to prove that those who hold that it will from now onwards be impossible ever to make such frontal attacks as those which the English made at the Alma or the French at Waterloo, are justified in their belief.  It is beyond human hardihood to face the pitiless beat of bullet and shell which comes from modern quick-firing weapons.  Had our flank not made a lodgment across the river, it is impossible that we could have carried the position.  Once more, too, it was demonstrated how powerless the best artillery is to disperse resolute and well-placed riflemen.  Of the minor points of interest there will always remain the record of the forced march of the 62nd Battery, and artillerymen will note the use of gun-pits by the Boers, which ensured that the range of their positions should never be permanently obtained.