odder River,
the enemy would again have been accommodating enough to make way for
us during the night, and the morning would have found the road clear to
Kimberley. I know no grounds for such an opinion--but several against
it. At Modder Cronje abandoned his lines, knowing that he had other and
stronger ones behind him. At Magersfontein a level plain lay behind the
Boer position, and to abandon it was to give up the game altogether.
Besides, why should he abandon it? He knew that he had hit us hard. We
had made absolutely no impression upon his defences. Is it likely that
he would have tamely given up all his advantages and surrendered the
fruits of his victory without a struggle? It is enough to mourn a defeat
without the additional agony of thinking that a little more perseverance
might have turned it into a victory. The Boer position could only be
taken by outflanking it, and we were not numerous enough nor mobile
enough to outflank it. There lay the whole secret of our troubles, and
no conjectures as to what might under other circumstances have happened
can alter it.

About half-past five the Boer guns, which had for some unexplained
reason been silent all day, opened upon the cavalry. Their appearance
was a signal for the general falling back of the centre, and the
last attempt to retrieve the day was abandoned. The Highlanders were
dead-beat; the Coldstreams had had enough; the mounted infantry was
badly mauled. There remained the Grenadiers, the Scots Guards, and two
or three line regiments who were available for a new attack. There are
occasions, such as Sadowa, where a General must play his last card.
There are others where with reinforcements in his rear, he can do better
by saving his force and trying once again. General Grant had an axiom
that the best time for an advance was when you were utterly exhausted,
for that was the moment when your enemy was probably utterly exhausted
too, and of two such forces the attacker has the moral advantage. Lord
Methuen determined--and no doubt wisely--that it was no occasion for
counsels of desperation. His men were withdrawn--in some cases withdrew
themselves--outside the range of the Boer guns, and next morning saw the
whole force with bitter and humiliated hearts on their way back to their
camp at Modder River.

The repulse of Magersfontein cost the British nearly a thousand men,
killed, wounded, and missing, of which over seven hundred belonged to
the Highlanders. F