ome past
history.

Unless the author has greatly misconceived the general utterances, the
occupation of Ladysmith has been in popular estimation merely an
unfortunate accident forced upon the British as a result of the
original faulty dispositions of the campaign. This view is scarcely
correct; and even if it were in part well founded, the natural
inference, that the investment was a misfortune, pure and simple,
would not follow. Probably no single incident of the war has been more
determinative of final issues than the tenure of Ladysmith. Therefore,
an examination of the relation borne by this single factor to the
whole, of which it was a part, may very fitly precede immediately the
narrative of the particular occurrences which locally centred around
it.

The considerations of any and every nature which made Ladysmith a
railroad junction, a cross-roads, at which met three important
{p.179} lines of communication--one with Durban, one with the
Transvaal, and one with the Orange Free State--constituted it at the
same time, necessarily and consequently, a position of strategic
importance. Even had a mistake been made in selecting it as a railroad
centre--which I have never seen asserted--the decision alone would
have given it value; but, if the choice was sound, all the
considerations which dictated it go to increase that value. It does
not follow, of course, that such a position must under no
circumstances be abandoned, that something better than its tenure
might not have been done for the British campaign; still less is it to
be concluded that the only, or the best, way to hold the place was by
occupying the town itself, or the particular lines ultimately
established around it by Sir George White.

These are questions of detail, which, however important, are separable
in thought and in decision from the general fact stated--that
Ladysmith, being a railroad crossing, the only very important one on
the Natal theatre of operations, was necessarily a strategic point not
lightly to be surrendered.

Nor {p.180} was Sir George White, in deciding to hold the place,
constrained only by the demands of an immediate emergency. The
thoughts and reasonings of that gallant and distinguished officer have
been sequestrated from public knowledge by the same causes that
obscure most of the early happenings of the siege; but, from speeches
made by him shortly after his return to England, it is clearly
apparent that not only a prese