ured under the other disadvantages that a
direct advance naturally has as compared to a turning movement. The
enemy would be met always in front--thus covering his communications
and with retreat open--in positions assumed tactically with a view to
prevent flank attacks and to compel assault in front, the most
dangerous to make.

In choosing their ground for their objects, the Boers have shown
remarkable aptitude. If overpowered and dislodged, unless routed and
dispersed, the defender falls back continually upon the bases in his
rear, recuperating his losses by reinforcements from them, while the
victorious assailant must either press on with diminished numbers or
must wait for reinforcements to come up, a delay that enables the
defence still more to improve the next position, which, in a campaign
of this sort, {p.134} has commonly been selected long before. It may
be said here that this was precisely the character of the advance on
Kimberley about to be narrated. In such a direct operation, by its
very nature, the defence gains strength and shortens his line of
communications to be defended, while the reverse conditions
unremittingly drain the powers of the assailant.

As an abstract military question there need be no hesitation in saying
that the advance through the Orange Free State was in principle the
correct plan, even under the existing conditions, as far as these are
accurately known. But conditions are never accurately known to
outsiders so immediately after a war. Even the hard bottom facts which
ultimately appear, the residuum left after full publicity, and
discussion, and side lights from all sources have done their work, do
not correctly reproduce the circumstances as present to the mind of
the general officer who decides. What is known now was doubtful then;
what now is past and certain, was then future and contingent; what
this and that subordinate, this force and that force could {p.135}
endure and would endure we now know, but who could surely tell six
months ago? Who, whatever his faith in the heroism and patience of the
garrisons, believed in December, 1899, that Ladysmith and Kimberley
and Mafeking could hold out, without relief, as long as they did? What
therefore, between the known uncertainties of the past and the
certainly imperfect information of the present, we, who had not the
responsibilities of decision, may modestly refrain from positively
judging the particular decision, even by the gene