2nd of November telegraphic communication {p.068} between
Ladysmith and the outer world was broken, and the same day railroad
communication was intercepted; the last train out carrying General
French to take a cavalry command at Cape Town. The brief, exciting,
and brilliant prelude to the war was concluded, and a great and
controlling centre of national and military interest had been
established by the isolation of some 13,000 British in the midst of
foes whose numbers are not even yet accurately known, but of whose
great superiority in that respect there can be no doubt. For a hundred
and eighteen weary days the blockade lasted, until, on February 28,
1900, the advance of the relieving force entered the place.

Almost simultaneously with the beginning of the investment, on the
31st of October, General Sir Redvers Buller arrived from England at
Cape Town to take chief command of the British forces in South Africa.
The second period of the war now opened, before recounting which it
will be necessary to summarize the general situation at date, as
constituted by many preliminary occurrences in different, and {p.069}
even remote, quarters of the world. Up to the present, success had
seemed to lie with the Boers, but the appearance was only superficial.
Their plan had been well designed, but in execution it had failed; and
while the failure is to be laid in part to a certain tardiness and
lack of synchronism in their own movements, it was due yet more to the
well-judged, energetic, and brilliantly executed movements of Sir
George White and Sir Penn Symons, which utilised and completed the
dislocation in the enemy's action, and so insured the time necessary
for organising defence upon an adequately competent scale.

"Sir George White's force," wrote Spencer Wilkinson, on the 18th
October, "is the centre of gravity of the situation. If the Boers
cannot defeat it their case is hopeless; if they can crush it they may
have hopes of ultimate success."[4] The summary was true then, and is
now. In the preliminary trial of skill and strength the Boers had been
worsted.

[Footnote 4: "Lessons of the War," p. 13.]

NOTE.--The effective British force shut up in Ladysmith on
November 2 was 13,496, besides which there were 249 sick {p.070}
and wounded; total, 13,745. The Boer force in Natal is not
accurately known, but is roughly reckoned at double the British;
say 30,000. This estimate is p