Ladysmith saved from assault, the besieged force endured great privations with heroic devotion, suffering from insufficient and in part loathsome rations, a bombardment that was steadily maintained and above all, fevers arising from hideously unsanitary conditions. General Buller's telegram, dated March 2d, and announcing the success of his fourth advance, was in these terms: "I find the defeat of the Boers more complete than I had dared to anticipate." While the casualty lists during his operations assumed very grave proportions, exceeding 20 per cent. of his effective force, nothing but generalship that was at once adventurous as against the enemy and conservative of his army, would have brought triumph without a far greater expenditure of blood.
CHAPTER X
The Relief of Kimberley—-The Turn of the
Tide of War Against the Boers.
The Difference in Positions of Roberts and Buller
The first intelligence from South Africa that plainly promised the success of Lord Roberts was that, after his arrival at the Cape, there was no news of what became of the British troops disembarked there, and the newspapers had to be content with the story of embarkations and the thunderous attrition of Buller on the Tugela. He was crossing and recrossing fords, storming kops and retiring from them, and the sound of the pounding of his guns stimulated the garrison of Ladysmith to hopefulness that the hand of help was night. There was no affectation of the solemnities of secrecy and mystery about Roberts. He gave out letters and dispatches occasionally that foretold nothing, and was busy. The transports from England stopped at the Cape instead of Dunbar, and the troops appeared and disappeared. Lord Roberts and Kitchener had maps, and were keeping books.
Sir Redvers Buller found himself committed to attack the invaders of Natal for the relief of Ladysmith and to fight an invisible foe. There has been no account that a British soldier not taken prisoner saw an enemy at the Battle of Colenso. Sir Redvers had no opportunity for maneuvers, the immediate demand upon him was the achievement of the impossible. The Boers were in a fortified enchanted castle, built of mountains, safeguarded by a river, itself an immense intrenchment. The situation of Lord Roberts was different. He was in command of the British Empire and before him was Africa and he was at liberty to choose the road by which to invade the Boer states. There was but one limitation upon his freedom to exercise his power. That was that he should conduct a White Man's War. The London Mail stated the case precisely in these words:
A White Man's War
"At the beginning of our campaign we firmly refused to allow men of color to help our arms. Powerful and well-equipped tribes on the border of the Free State clamored for an opportunity to pay off old scores on their hereditary foes, but Sir Godfrey Lagden kept them back. Native Indian rulers begged to be permitted to shed their blood and that of their armies for the Empress; but while gladly recognizing their generous loyalty, England declined their offers. Our splendid Indian soldiers, among the best mountain troops in the world, only waited a signal to do their utmost for us. But England felt that this was a white man's war, to be fought out solely between white men."
The use of the black man would have raised the black flag, and that was the reason why the Asiatic troops of England were not poured into Africa and the natives of Africa invited to get even with the most cruel of the master races. The weapon of race hate by which the Boers might have been exterminated was not drawn by the British whose preference of alternatives was to shed their own blood.