mber of dongas,
which made admirable natural trenches. The only possible attack from
either side must be across a level plain at least a thousand or fifteen
hundred yards in width, where our numbers would only swell our losses.
It must be a bold soldier and a far bolder civilian, who would venture
to question an operation carried out under the immediate personal
direction of Lord Kitchener; but the general consensus of opinion among
critics may justify that which might be temerity in the individual. Had
Cronje not been tightly surrounded, the action with its heavy losses
might have been justified as an attempt to hold him until his investment
should be complete. There seems, however, to be no doubt that he was
already entirely surrounded, and that, as experience proved, we had
only to sit round him to insure his surrender. It is not given to the
greatest man to have every soldierly gift equally developed, and it may
be said without offence that Lord Kitchener's cool judgment upon the
actual field of battle has not yet been proved as conclusively as his
longheaded power of organisation and his iron determination.

Putting aside the question of responsibility, what happened on the
morning of Sunday, February 18th, was that from every quarter an assault
was urged across the level plains, to the north and to the south, upon
the lines of desperate and invisible men who lay in the dongas and
behind the banks of the river. Everywhere there was a terrible monotony
about the experiences of the various regiments which learned once again
the grim lessons of Colenso and Modder River. We surely did not need to
prove once more what had already been so amply proved, that bravery can
be of no avail against concealed riflemen well entrenched, and that the
more hardy is the attack the heavier must be the repulse. Over the long
circle of our attack Knox's brigade, Stephenson's brigade, the Highland
brigade, Smith-Dorrien's brigade all fared alike. In each case there was
the advance until they were within the thousand-yard fire zone, then the
resistless sleet of bullets which compelled them to get down and to
keep down. Had they even then recognised that they were attempting
the impossible, no great harm might have been done, but with generous
emulation the men of the various regiments made little rushes, company
by company, towards the river bed, and found themselves ever exposed to
a more withering fire. On the northern bank Smith-Dorrien