able as a field
army for offensive operations. When these estimates were
made, the large number of Uitlanders in Johannesburg made it
probable that a considerable Boer force would be detained to
watch that city.]

[Sidenote: June /99. Sir W. Butler's reply.]

Sir W. Butler, being occupied by other duties, did not reply to this
despatch until pressed by telegrams at the beginning of June of the
following year. He then reported by telegraph and in a letter to the
War Office, dated 12th June, 1899, that he intended, in the event of
war, to divide the troops in Natal into two; one part at
Dundee-Glencoe with orders to patrol to the Buffalo river on the east,
Ingagane on the north, and the Drakensberg Passes on the west, and the
other at Ladysmith, with instructions "to support Glencoe and maintain
the line of the Biggarsberg, or to operate against Van Reenen's Pass
should circumstances necessitate." In Cape Colony he proposed, with
the small number of troops then available (_i.e._, three battalions,
six guns and a R.E. company), to hold the important railway stations
of De Aar, Naauwpoort and Molteno (or Stormberg), with strong
detachments at Orange River station, and possibly Kimberley, and
outposts at Colesberg, Burghersdorp, and Philipstown. It will be seen,
therefore, that, while deprecating the actual occupation of the
Drakensberg Passes and of the Colesberg and Bethulie bridges over the
Orange river, which had been proposed by his predecessor and approved
by Lord Wolseley, Sir William Butler did not shrink from the forward
policy of endeavouring to bluff the enemy with weak detachments
stationed in close proximity to the frontier.

[Sidenote: Baden-Powell sent out.]

It was in conformity with this policy that, in July, 1899, the War
Office despatched Col. R. S. S. Baden-Powell, with a staff of special
service officers, to organise a force in southern Rhodesia. It was
hoped that, in the event of war, his column might detain a portion of
the Boer commandos in that quarter, since its position threatened the
northern Transvaal. To his task was subsequently added the
organisation of a mounted infantry corps which, based on Mafeking,
might similarly hold back the burghers of the western districts of the
South African Republic.

[Sidenote: Choice of Routes.]

The cloud of war rapidly spread over the whole of the South African
horizon, and the strategical situation became sharply de