and object. Do one
thing at a time and do it with all your might. If the list of tasks be
examined it will be seen that there is a connection between them all,
and that the connecting link is the Boer army. Suppose the Boer army to
be removed from the scene every one of the other aims would be easy of
accomplishment. There would then be no invaders in either colony;
Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking would be safe, and the troops in
those places free to march where they pleased; the Cape rising could be
suppressed at leisure, and the British general could at his convenience
go to Pretoria and set up a fresh government. No other of the tasks had
this same quality of dominating the situation; any one of them might be
accomplished without great or immediate effect upon those that would
remain. For this reason wisdom prescribed as the simplest way of
accomplishing the seven or eight tasks the accomplishment of the first
or last, the destruction of the Boer army. That army was in three parts:
there was a fraction on the western border of the Free State, a fraction
south of the Orange River, and the great bulk of the whole force was in
northern Natal. Destroy the principal mass, and you could then at your
leisure deal with the two smaller pieces. Everything pointed to an
attempt to crush the Boer army then in Natal.

There were two ways of getting at that army which was holding Ladysmith
in its grip. One was along the railway from Durban, one hundred and
eighty-nine miles long; it was sure to bring the British Army face to
face with the Boers at the Tugela. That point reached, either the Boers
would stand to fight and, therefore, give the opportunity of crushing
them, or they would retreat, in which case Ladysmith would be relieved,
and the British force, strengthened by White's division, would be
within three hundred miles of Pretoria. A great victory in Natal would
save Natal, stop the Cape rising, and, if followed up, draw the Boer
forces away from Kimberley and the Cape Colony.

The other way was to follow the railway line or lines from the Cape
ports, to collect the Army on the Orange River and advance to
Bloemfontein, and thence towards Pretoria or towards the western exits
from the passes through the Drakensberg mountains. This plan, however,
gave no immediate certainty of an opportunity to attack the Boer army.
The British force could be assembled on the Orange River no sooner than
on the south bank of the Tugela. B