These reinforcements numbered about 7,000 combatants. In addition, one extra field battery, the 73rd, and a single howitzer battery, the 61st, were sent to Natal, bringing up the total of batteries to ten, of which, however, two, from the losses in guns, horses, and men at Colenso, had virtually ceased to exist. Even at full strength ten batteries, or sixty field guns, would have been a miserable proportion for an army of 30,000 infantry and cavalry, and there were deep and well-founded complaints among the correspondents—who, perhaps, accurately reflected the feeling of the younger officers—as to the paucity of howitzers, after the proved efficiency of these weapons at Omdurman. "Here they are simply clamouring for guns, guns, guns," wrote an officer of the Fifth Division, "and guns we send them, undrilled, unready, outclassed in range, and with raw horses and raw reservists.... To cross the river and face the Boer position with only 30,000 and no heavy artillery to speak of must mean heavy loss, and we feel very bitter." All these complaints were fully justified by events, yet British Ministers were, at the very hour when this was written, professing that the British artillery was all that could be desired and more than ample in strength, and British "experts" were explaining at home that the folly and wickedness of the Boers in arming themselves with "guns of position" were the causes of all the evil. Unhappily, it turned out that the enemy's "guns of position" could be moved and handled just as readily as our short-range field pieces.
[Facsimile of a sketch on the spot by F. A. Stewart.
Arrival of a balloon and traction engines.
With the additional guns came a tardy balloon. Even here there had been some miscalculation, as the balloon had been constructed for work at the altitude of Aldershot, and not for the high plateaux and rarified air of mountainous Natal. It was, in consequence, deficient in lifting power, though even with this defect it was able to render valuable service. Other adjuncts were a dozen powerful traction engines for use with the transport. They performed splendidly, climbing mountain sides and fording spruits with an agility not to be expected from their ponderous nature. "They require few attendants, don't gibe, and each can easily haul twelve tons," wrote Mr. Burleigh. The ox-waggon of South Africa carried only a quarter of a ton, so that one traction engine was equivalent to forty waggons.
[Sketched by a correspondent with the Boers.
Dec. 25-30, 1899.] Christmas at the Front.
Christmas in camp.