t out
of Ladysmith in the very last train which made its way through. His
operations, with his instructive use of cavalry and horse artillery, may
be treated separately.

The other British force which faced the Boers who were advancing through
Stormberg was commanded by General Gatacre, a man who bore a high
reputation for fearlessness and tireless energy, though he had been
criticised, notably during the Soudan campaign, for having called upon
his men for undue and unnecessary exertion. 'General Back-acher' they
called him, with rough soldierly chaff. A glance at his long thin
figure, his gaunt Don Quixote face, and his aggressive jaw would
show his personal energy, but might not satisfy the observer that he
possessed those intellectual gifts which qualify for high command. At
the action of the Atbara he, the brigadier in command, was the first to
reach and to tear down with his own hands the zareeba of the enemy--a
gallant exploit of the soldier, but a questionable position for the
General. The man's strength and his weakness lay in the incident.

General Gatacre was nominally in command of a division, but so cruelly
had his men been diverted from him, some to Buller in Natal and some to
Methuen, that he could not assemble more than a brigade. Falling
back before the Boer advance, he found himself early in December at
Sterkstroom, while the Boers occupied the very strong position of
Stormberg, some thirty miles to the north of him. With the enemy so near
him it was Gatacre's nature to attack, and the moment that he thought
himself strong enough he did so. No doubt he had private information
as to the dangerous hold which the Boers were getting upon the colonial
Dutch, and it is possible that while Buller and Methuen were attacking
east and west they urged Gatacre to do something to hold the enemy in
the centre. On the night of December 9th he advanced.

The fact that he was about to do so, and even the hour of the start,
appear to have been the common property of the camp some days before
the actual move. The 'Times' correspondent under the date December
7th details all that it is intended to do. It is to the credit of our
Generals as men, but to their detriment as soldiers, that they seem
throughout the campaign to have shown extraordinarily little power
of dissimulation. They did the obvious, and usually allowed it to be
obvious what they were about to do. One thinks of Napoleon striking at
Egypt; how he gave it