s to be put on.]
In addition to this, they had been worked most desperately during the
fortnight which had elapsed. Lord Roberts waited therefore at Osfontein,
which is a farmhouse close to Paardeberg, until his cavalry were fit for
an advance. On March 6th he began his march for Bloemfontein.

The force which had been hovering to the south and east of him during
the Paardeberg operations had meanwhile been reinforced from Colesberg
and from Ladysmith until it had attained considerable proportions. This
army, under the leadership of De Wet, had taken up a strong position a
few miles to the east, covering a considerable range of kopjes. On March
3rd a reconnaissance was made of it, in which some of our guns were
engaged; but it was not until three days later that the army
advanced with the intention of turning or forcing it. In the meantime
reinforcements had been arriving in the British camp, derived partly
from the regiments which had been employed at other points during these
operations, and partly from newcomers from the outer Empire. The Guards
came up from Klip Drift, the City Imperial Volunteers, the Australian
Mounted Infantry, the Burmese Mounted Infantry and a detachment of light
horse from Ceylon helped to form this strange invading army which was
drawn from five continents and yet had no alien in its ranks.

The position which the enemy had taken up at Poplars Grove (so called
from a group of poplars round a farmhouse in the centre of their
position) extended across the Modder River and was buttressed on either
side by well-marked hills, with intermittent kopjes between. With guns,
trenches, rifle pits, and barbed wire a bull-headed general might have
found it another Magersfontein. But it is only just to Lord Roberts's
predecessors in command to say that it is easy to do things with three
cavalry brigades which it is difficult to do with two regiments. The
ultimate blame does not rest with the man who failed with the two
regiments, but with those who gave him inadequate means for the
work which he had to do. And in this estimate of means our military
authorities, our politicians, and our public were all in the first
instance equally mistaken.

Lord Roberts's plan was absolutely simple, and yet, had it been carried
out as conceived, absolutely effective. It was not his intention to
go near any of that entanglement of ditch and wire which had been so
carefully erected for his undoing. The weaker party, if it