Change of plan.
Jan. 19, 1900.] Frontal Attack to be Made.
"In war," says the great Prussian organiser of victory, Scharnhorst, "what the general does matters little. Everything depends upon the unity of action and vigour with which he does it." And so it was no very reassuring symptom when, after reaching Venter's Laager, Sir Charles Warren assembled the generals, the staff, and the commanders of the artillery and engineers, and pointed out to them that there were two lines of advance—the one devious and round-about, by way of Acton Homes, the other passing up by Fair View and the centre of the Boer position to the western side of Spion Kop, at a point where the summit of the ridge dropped considerably. To move by Acton Homes, he urged, was impossible, as his food and provisions would not permit of it. To take waggons up the Fair View road would necessitate sending all the transport back to the south of the Tugela and capturing the enemy's positions by a frontal attack, the men marching with three or four days' provisions in their haversacks. The assembled generals acquiesced; and thus, in spite of a general order, which is said to have been issued by General Buller at the beginning of the flank movement, to the effect that there would be "no turning back from the relief of Ladysmith," the original flank movement was abandoned. A message was sent to General Buller couched in the following terms:—
"Sent 7·54 p.m. Received 8·15 p.m.
"Left Flank, 19th January.
"To the Chief of the Staff,
"I find there are only two roads by which we could possibly get from Trichardt's Drift to Potgieter's, on the north of the Tugela, one by Acton Homes, the other by Fair View and Rosalie; the first I reject as too long, the second is a very difficult road for a large number of waggons, unless the enemy is thoroughly cleared out. I am, therefore, going to adopt some special arrangements which will involve my stay at Venter's Laager for two or three days. I will send in for further supplies and report progress.—Warren."
It will be observed that it did not in clear language state that a frontal assault was to be substituted for the flanking movement, yet it contained enough to tell the Commander-in-Chief in Natal that a radical change of policy was purposed. Sir Redvers Buller appears to have offered no objection. He answered to the effect that further supplies would be sent.
OFFICERS OF THE GERMAN CORPS UNDER GENERAL LOUIS BOTHA.
[Jan. 19-20, 1900.
It would be supposed that this discovery might have been made by a personal reconnaissance two days earlier, as soon as General Warren's troops had effected their passage at Trichardt's Drift. The saving of these two days might well have meant the difference between victory and defeat. Even if the maps were bad—and General Buller described the march as a march "into an unknown country," while it is a fact that Spion Kop was not shown in the sketch of the country round Ladysmith, issued by the Intelligence Department—an examination of the lie of the land by the generals must have disclosed on the 17th what does not appear to have been realised till the evening of the 19th. The desperate straits of Ladysmith rendered prompt and rapid action of the most vital importance. Yet two days were spent in bringing the transport across, and then in making the discovery that it was the most dangerous encumbrance and had better have been left on the south side of the Tugela.