With the map before us there is but one solution to Sir Redvers Buller’s directions. He assumed that the Boer right rested in the vicinity of Bastion Hill, a spur of the Rangeworthy hills, and he wished Sir Charles Warren, pivoting on Spion Kop, to sweep round his left to overlap that position.
Sir Charles was given no long-range guns with which to reply to those of the Boers. He had to deal with an enemy already confident with the victory gained at Colenso, and he was doomed to failure if he attempted to advance before he had demoralised the enemy by a continuous and effective artillery fire.
Had Sir Charles Warren been so ill-advised as to try to advance by the Acton Homes road to Ladysmith, it is not difficult to prophesy what would most probably have occurred. The Boers had strongly fortified the hills all round the Acton Homes basin, pom-poms and guns were in position along the western slopes of the Rangeworthy hills, and guns and rifles on the road to the Harrismith pass. Any force attempting to proceed by that route would no doubt have been allowed by the Boers to enter the basin, and then would have been cut off from Trichard’s Drift by the closing of the road below Bastion Hill. The column, thus hemmed in and caught in a trap, would have been compelled either to fight its way down to the Middle Drift or to surrender. In either case Natal would have been at the mercy of the Boers.
ATTACK OF THE RANGEWORTHY HILLS
Sir Charles Warren had assured himself by his reconnaissance that no wide outflanking movement was possible, and he had come to the conclusion that the only way to carry out his instructions was to capture the positions in front of him, creeping up the dongas and long arêtes, alluded to by Mr. Winston Spencer Churchill, and getting his artillery to work so as to bring an effective fire on the Boer trenches, and, after a complete artillery preparation, to make an infantry attack—certainly in the first instance a frontal attack, because it always must be a frontal attack when an enemy defending a position and acting on interior lines is more mobile than the attacking force—to break through the Boer lines, rolling them up from each flank, and, having cleared the front, and opened the road from Fair View to Rosalie, to send the wagons back, and, with supplies for four days in the haversacks, to march round Spion Kop to the appointed position. These were the ‘special arrangements’ to which he referred in his telegram to the Chief of the Staff on 19th January.
Looking at matters as we now know them, it seems a foolhardy proceeding to send a general with 12,000 infantry and guns inferior in range to those of the enemy to attack a large force strongly intrenched on commanding positions, flanked by infantry fire and long-range guns, and at the same time to issue an order that there must be no turning back.
Sir Charles Warren believed that by adopting a plan which he employed later successfully at Pieters—a continuous fire of artillery for some days in order to demoralise the enemy, and an attack with a long line, with very weak supports, because the Boers have none, every man being in the fighting line—he might be successful. At Pieters the artillery fire on the Boer lines was continuous from 22nd to 27th February—that is, five or six days—and with as long a period of artillery fire on the Rangeworthy hills, it is probable that the Boers would have retired, as it is known they were getting demoralised on 23rd January and had begun to move their wagons to the west.
Sir Charles Warren lost no time after his reconnaissances in making his dispositions for attack, and issued the following instructions to Lieut.-General Sir C. F. Clery dated 19th January:
‘General Officer Commanding 2nd Division
‘I shall be glad if you will arrange to clear the Boers out of the ground above that at present occupied by the 11th Brigade, by a series of outflanking movements. In the early morning an advance should be made as far as the Hussars reconnoitred to-day, and a shelter-trench there made across the slope of the hill. A portion of the slopes of the adjoining hill to the west can then be occupied, the Artillery assisting, if necessary, in clearing the western side and upper slopes. When this is done I think that a battery can be placed on the slopes of the western hill in such a position that it could shell the schanzes of the Boers on Spion Kop and the upper portion of the eastern hill. When this is done a further advance can be made on the eastern hill, and artillery can be brought to bear upon the upper slopes of the western hill. It appears to me that this might be done with comparatively little loss of life, as the Boers can in each turn be outflanked. The following Cavalry are at your disposal: two squadrons Royal Dragoons and 5th Divisional Squadron.’