e of sheltering a lying man could be constructed, a trial
should not be given to it. Alternate rushes of companies with a safe
rest after each rush would save the troops from the continued tension of
that deadly never ending fire. However, it is idle to discuss what
might have been done to mitigate their trials. The open ground had to
be passed, and then they came to--not the enemy, but a broad and deep
river, with a single bridge, probably undermined, and a single ford,
which was found not to exist in practice. Beyond the river was tier
after tier of hills, crowned with stone walls and seamed with trenches,
defended by thousands of the best marksmen in the world, supported by
an admirable artillery. If, in spite of the advance over the open and
in spite of the passage of the river, a ridge could still be carried, it
was only to be commanded by the next; and so, one behind the other,
like the billows of the ocean, a series of hills and hollows rolled
northwards to Ladysmith. All attacks must be in the open. All defence
was from under cover. Add to this, that the young and energetic Louis
Botha was in command of the Boers. It was a desperate task, and yet
honour forbade that the garrison should be left to its fate. The venture
must be made.

The most obvious criticism upon the operation is that if the attack
must be made it should not be made under the enemy's conditions. We
seem almost to have gone out of our way to make every obstacle--the
glacislike approach, the river, the trenches--as difficult as possible.
Future operations were to prove that it was not so difficult to deceive
Boer vigilance and by rapid movements to cross the Tugela. A military
authority has stated, I know not with what truth, that there is no
instance in history of a determined army being stopped by the line of
a river, and from Wellington at the Douro to the Russians on the Danube
many examples of the ease with which they may be passed will occur to
the reader. But Buller had some exceptional difficulties with which to
contend. He was weak in mounted troops, and was opposed to an enemy of
exceptional mobility who might attack his flank and rear if he exposed
them. He had not that great preponderance of numbers which came to him
later, and which enabled him to attempt a wide turning movement. One
advantage he had, the possession of a more powerful artillery, but his
heaviest guns were naturally his least mobile, and the more direct his
advance th