Actually the steps taken were these: All the Reserves not yet embodied were called out. The Fifth Division was already on its way out, and a Sixth Division had been offered General Buller upon November 30. Now it was definitely announced that both a Sixth and a Seventh Division would as soon as possible proceed to the front, and be followed, probably, by an Eighth Division. Strong reinforcements of artillery, including five batteries of horse artillery, nine of field artillery, and three batteries of the invaluable 5-inch howitzers were to be despatched as fast as they could be mobilised, thus almost doubling our strength of guns in the field, and adding 102 more field-guns to the 114 pieces sent out with the Army Corps. Besides these, it was intimated that more siege guns, including huge 6-inch howitzers and heavy weapons of position, would be provided when they could be supplied by the manufacturers and the Royal Arsenal. The Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, whose action had hitherto, if report could be believed, been restricted by the Treasury and financial considerations, was to be given a free hand to raise as many colonial volunteers as possible in the Cape and Natal. Of the Militia, two battalions had already volunteered for service outside the British Isles, and were about to embark for Malta, whilst a third was destined for service in the Channel Islands; nine more battalions were to be asked to tender their help for garrison purposes in our coaling stations and imperial fortresses, and an additional number of battalions was to be called up for home service to supply the places of those who, under this arrangement, would be sent abroad. A corresponding number of regular troops would thus be released for service in the field. And now at last the Volunteers, whose patriotic self-sacrifice had hitherto received such scant acknowledgment at the hands of the War Office, were to be called upon to show what stuff they were made of. They were to be asked to furnish contingents for more serious work than Easter "reviews" or Hyde Park parades. Two distinct volunteer forces were to be raised in England for work in South Africa: the first, to be known as Imperial Yeomanry, was to provide 8,000 mounted infantry. It was to be organised in battalions 464 strong, each composed of four companies of 116 officers and men. The second force, recruited from the ranks of the Volunteers, was to supply an infantry company for each regular battalion in the field, or, in all, a total of about 9,000 men. The City of London was itself to organise and equip a small force of four guns of the Honourable Artillery Company, two companies of mounted infantry, and a battalion of infantry. Finally it was announced that the patriotic offers of our great colonies would no longer be declined.
[Photo by Bassano.
Born 1840; entered the army in 1857; conducted excavations in Palestine, 1867-70; Commissioner for delimiting Griqualand West, 1876-7; commanded the Diamond Fields Horse in the Kaffir war of 1877-8; served also in Griqualand, 1878; commanded an expedition into Arabia Petræa for the punishment of the murderers of Professor Palmer, 1882, and the Bechuanaland Expedition in 1884-5; Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, 1886-8; commanded Straits Settlements, 1889-94, and Thames District, 1895-8; appointed to the command of the Fifth Division of the South Africa Field Force, November 13, 1899.
Change of Generals.
But even more important than these additions to the material strength of our forces in South Africa was the change in generals. Sir Redvers Buller himself is believed to have suggested to the Home Government after his Colenso defeat that it would be well to place Lord Roberts in supreme command, and this step was now taken by the Committee of Defence. If such advice were given, it was a fine, magnanimous and disinterested action to General Buller's credit, and one for which the nation may well honour him. As Lord Roberts' chief of the staff, the ablest and the greatest of our younger generals was selected, the Sirdar, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. He was in the Sudan, but, when asked by telegraph whether he would take this anxious and difficult post under the new commander-in-chief, he replied, with alacrity: "Delighted to serve in any capacity under Lord Roberts."
[Photo by Art Repro. Co.
[Photo by Gregory.