t, a
sufficient detachment should have been left to hold the garrison in
check, while considerations of more decisive military importance
elsewhere received concentrated attention.

Immediately after the arrival of Sir Redvers Buller he found the
investment of the three garrisons--Ladysmith, Kimberley, and
Mafeking--already accomplished. The question before him was
complicated by the introduction of these new factors. As has before
been said, it is generally understood that the expectation of the
British authorities had been to proceed at once to an invasion of the
Orange Free State, presumably by the line to Bloemfontein, with
flanking movements on either side of it, while the forces in Natal
were to stand simply on the defensive, until, by the advance of the
army of invasion within supporting distance, the time for co-operation
with it should arrive. In Natal, now, the tables were turned, the
defence had broken down, and the army charged with it was shut up by a
force so far superior as to enable it, not only to carry on the siege,
but {p.132} to make at least serious inroads upon the colony, if not
to advance permanently to positions of more extensive control, to
dislodge it from which greater effort would be needed. The question
now to be decided was whether relief would be best effected by
adhering to the original plan of moving in force upon Bloemfontein,
leaving Ladysmith to look out for itself, and only strengthening the
forces in Natal outside of the place sufficiently to check any further
advance of the enemy; or whether to attempt speedier succour by a
direct advance along the roads leading to one or both of the besieged
places.

The first, if successfully carried out, would eventually take in the
rear the assailants both of Kimberley and Ladysmith, threatening them
with the severance of their communications--concerning which the Boers
are exceptionally sensitive--and thus would raise the siege by
compelling the retreat of the besiegers. This plan, moreover, would be
faithful to general military principle, by keeping the great mass of
the British Army concentrated upon a single object, and under a single
hand.

The {p.133} alternative possessed the drawback of dividing the army
into two bodies virtually independent in their several movements, out
of mutual supporting distance, and each distinctly weaker than the
single mass intended for the great central operation of the former
plan. The second also labo