Behind the screen so skilfully maintained by French the new army had been steadily collected. At the beginning of February it was sufficient for an advance.
By this time the last opportunity for aggressive Boer strategy on the grand scale had completely passed away. For general, not merely local aggression, brain and mobility combined could not have availed to counteract the numerical superiority which we had now gained, and were increasing daily. Our strength on paper in South Africa at that moment (about 130,000 men on a conservative estimate) approximately trebled the paper strength of the Boers, including their foreign and rebel auxiliaries.
Our effective fighting strength—100,000 men and 270 guns—was between double and treble the effective fighting strength of the Boers at the same period. Our “effective fighting men” in Cape Colony alone, given by Roberts in his despatch of February 4 as 51,900 (exclusive, as he said, of the garrisons of Mafeking and Kimberley and of seven militia battalions, and evidently exclusive also of all auxiliary non-combatant units), considerably exceeded the enemy’s entire field-force, reckoned on a gross, not on a net, basis.[[21]]
But, although it was distinctly our turn for aggressive strategy, the problem which faced Roberts was one of extreme difficulty. The fall of any one of the three besieged towns, especially that of Ladysmith, would have involved a grave loss of prestige, and Ladysmith was hard pressed. Kimberley, in a far from heroic spirit, was actually threatening surrender, if not relieved immediately. Roberts had to operate on exterior lines with a hastily improvised army, deficient in staff arrangements, transport, commissariat, and, above all, trained and experienced mounted troops. He rose to the height of a great occasion.
His scheme, briefly, was to leave a skeleton force under Clements in front of Colesberg; to turn the left flank of the Stormberg commandos with Brabant’s Corps of 3,000 Cape Colony mounted volunteers; and, with the bulk of his own army, to march by the western flank on Bloemfontein, smashing Cronje and relieving Kimberley in one stroke. This stroke, he was well aware, would automatically lessen the pressure upon Natal.
All the Cavalry in Cape Colony, and, under the original scheme, nearly all the regular Mounted Infantry, together with Colonial mounted contingents, were to be formed into a semi-independent unit under French for the relief of Kimberley.
The preliminary movements were consummated with extraordinary secrecy and skill. By February 10 an army of 45,000 men and 118 guns[[23]] had been collected behind the Modder, of whom 37,000, representing approximately 30,000 combatant troops, afterwards took part in the invasion of the Free State.
The Infantry divisions, including that of Methuen, were four, with a gross strength of nearly 30,000, and 76 guns. The Cavalry division, which is our particular concern, with a gross strength of 8,000 men and 42 Horse Artillery guns, was divided into four brigades—three consisting of regular Cavalry, one consisting of regular Mounted Infantry and Colonial mounted riflemen. The regular Cavalry brigades contained altogether seven regiments and portions of two others, a total of about 3,000 sabres. The brigade of mounted riflemen was 2,250 strong.
A word about the force of regular Mounted Infantry, totalling 3,500, now under Roberts. Most of this force had been raised during the last two months, and was very raw and crude, a large proportion of the men being scarcely able to ride, while a few still wore trousers or kilts. The horses, too, were ill-trained and in bad condition. But the force had at last been given the outline of a regular organization, and was now distributed in eight battalions of 450 each, grouped in three divisions, under Colonels Alderson, Hannay, and Ridley. Roberts had intended all of these to form part of the independent mounted force, but this plan, through lack of time, proved not to be feasible. Alderson’s division alone, 870 strong, went with French, brigaded, as I have shown, with 1,400 Colonials. The rest of the regular Mounted Infantry stayed with the main army, in company with other volunteer mounted units (City Imperial Volunteers and Colonials), making up a total mounted reserve with Roberts of some 3,600 men.
Cronje’s forces, including the men investing Kimberley and a detachment in the west under Liebenberg, numbered at the utmost 11,000, with 20 guns. Of these 7,500 were under his immediate control. Numerically, therefore, he was barely a quarter as strong as Roberts, without counting in the latter’s force (as it should properly be counted) part at least of the Kimberley garrison. In respect of mounted men, if all Cronje’s troops, including the Kimberley investing force, had been mounted, and all available for purely combatant duties, they would have been barely more than equal, numerically, to the mounted troops under Roberts—that is to say, to the Cavalry division and the mounted reserve reckoned together. Or, to put the case in another way, if we set off the Kimberley garrison against the Boer investing force, the Cavalry division, with its horse-gunners included, was equal to Cronje’s main force. Behind the Cavalry division lay the mounted reserve, four divisions of Infantry, and 76 guns.