From this trivial and futile criticism Sir Redvers jumps suddenly to 23rd January, on which day, he says, he went over to see Sir Charles Warren and pointed out that he had no further report, and no intimation of the special arrangements foreshadowed in a telegram from him on the 19th. It might from this be supposed that since the 19th Sir Redvers had had no communication with Sir Charles Warren, was getting anxious, and thought it time after four days’ silence to inquire what he was doing; it would hardly occur to any one that he was in constant telegraphic communication with Warren, and that he had been with him both on the 21st and the 22nd of the month.
What were the special arrangements referred to in Sir Charles Warren’s letter of the 19th, and why is it suggested that they were kept, so to speak, up his sleeve, until his Commander could stand it no longer?
‘On January 20th,’ said Sir Redvers Buller in his telegraphic despatch of 27th January, ‘Sir Charles Warren, as I have reported, drove back the enemy and obtained possession of the southern crests of the higher tableland, which extends from the line Acton Homes-Honger’s Poort to the Western Ladysmith Hills.’ We may conclude, therefore, that on the 20th Sir Charles Warren was too fully occupied to telegraph what were the special arrangements he had mentioned in his telegram of the night before. On the 21st Sir Redvers Buller saw him and was able to discuss the matter verbally with him, and if he did not do so surely it was his own fault, as he might very easily have asked him anything he wanted to know.
These special arrangements were apparently three:
(1) Continual bombardment; then
(2) To advance on both sides of an arête or gully, outflanking the enemy on either side as he advanced; and finally
(3) To proceed without wagons when he had driven the enemy out.
They resulted, as we have seen, from the reconnaissances of the 18th, which impressed Sir Charles Warren with the difficulties of any advance with fifteen miles of wagons. He therefore proposed to keep the wagons at Venter’s Laager until he was able to advance, and then send them back across the river. There was no great secret about these proposals. With the first and second Sir Redvers apparently concurred, and with the third he did not. If he thought Sir Charles had anything else in view, why did he not ask him?
Sir Redvers Buller, in his despatch of 30th January, then goes on to say that he further pointed out to Sir Charles Warren ‘that for four days he had kept his men continuously exposed to shell and rifle fire, perched on the edge of an almost precipitous hill, that the position admitted of no second line and the supports were massed close behind the firing line in indefensible formations, and that a panic or sudden charge might send the whole lot in disorder down the hill at any moment. I said it was too dangerous a situation to be prolonged, and that he must either attack, or I should withdraw his force. I advocated, as I had previously done, an advance from his left.’