SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC. 



791 



relief of Ladysmith. The first of the transports 

 conveying the army corps arrived at Cape Town 

 on Nov. 9, and proceeded forthwith to Durban. 

 Another division, under Lord Methuen, proceeded 

 .along the line of the Kimberley Railroad for the 

 purpose of raising the siege of that town, and the 

 third, under Sir William Gatacre, went to the 

 northern part of the old colony to oppose the 

 Free State commandos that had found a lodg- 

 ment south of Orange river and were comman- 

 deering Cape Colony Dutch. Sir Francis Clery 

 commanded the forces in Natal except those 

 locked up in Ladysmith until Gen. Buller assumed 

 the command. Gen. Hildyard and Gen. Barton 

 took their brigades to relieve Estcourt, and 

 stopped the Boer raids south of the Tugela. The 

 British under Gen. Barton encamped first on 

 Mooi river, where they were attacked by a strong 

 force of Boers, but held their position, by artil- 

 lery fire. The Boers, who were raiding Natal far 

 and wide, were not alarmed when the first British 

 troops arrived at Mooi river and Estcourt. They 

 even attempted to confine these camps as well as 

 Ladysmith, while threatening to attack Pieter- 

 maritzburg. 



The British force in Natal, besides the Lady- 

 smith garrison of 9,800 men, was 24,000 in the 

 third week of November. After a fight at Wil- 

 low Grange, in which Gen. Hildyard, with a loss 

 of 15 killed and 72 wounded, drove the Boers from 

 the high ground dominating the place, he was 

 compelled to abandon it and retreat to Estcourt. 

 Considerable bodies of Boers were still raiding 

 the central districts of Natal. A strong division 

 had entered Natal from the Utrecht district on 

 the east and taken up a position at High- 

 lands, while the Boers that crossed the Tugela 

 and destroyed an armored train near Frere on 

 Nov. 15 concentrated at Ennersdale. They began 

 to pass northward as the newly landed troops 

 concentrated at Estcourt and on the Mooi river. 

 Even between these two camps communication 

 could not be established without a struggle. The 

 Boers held the ridges between them and shelled 

 both camps. Gen. Hildyard made a second at- 

 tack on the Boers who besieged Estcourt and 

 gained a position on the high ground. Afterward 

 the Boers retired to Tugela river, and the British 

 columns united at Frere. 



Sir Redvers Buller landed in Durban on Nov. 

 25, and at once began to press re-enforcements to 

 the front. 



The situation in Ladysmith was becoming 

 graver. Rations were reduced, and enteric and 

 typhoid fevers were prevalent. The Boers had 

 placed two more heavy guns in position, and were 

 firing at a range of 5,000 yards, instead of 8,000 

 yards as before. Johannesburg miners built un- 

 der the banks of the river a subterranean town 

 with chambers and connecting galleries, and into 

 these the people hurried whenever a shell entered 

 the town. After the besiegers began to bombard 

 at irregular intervals by night as well as by day 

 the citizens remained most of the time in these 

 unwholesome shelters. On Dec. 8 Major-Gen. Sir 

 A. Hunter led a force of 600 Natal volunteers 

 against Lombard's Kop, surprised the Boers, and 

 destroyed two of their guns. Another sortie, 

 made by Col. Metcalfe with 500 men, had for its 

 result the destruction of another gun, but was 

 attended with the loss of 12 killed, 43 wounded, 

 and G prisoners. 



On Dec. 15 Gen. Buller advanced with all his 

 force (20,000 strong) from his camp at Chieveley 

 for a general attack on the Boer position on the 

 Tugela at Colenso, with the intention of forcing 

 a passage by one of the two fords. All the time 



that the English wore waiting for the forces, 

 stores, and transport to be brought up the Boers 

 toiled incessantly to convert the "naturally strong 

 position on the Tugela into a fortress. They had 

 trenches on both sides of the river, protecting 

 each other, and all protected by cannon on the 

 elevations back of them. Barbed-wire entangle- 

 ments were stretched in front of the intrench- 

 ments and even in the bed of the river, which had 

 been cunningly dammed in such a way as to 

 form a deep current where the fords had been. 

 Buller's plan was for one brigade to advance upon 

 one of the fords, one upon the other, and a 

 stronger one to attack in the center and support 

 either of the others. Gen. Hart's brigade on the 

 left, attacking valiantly and suffering great 

 losses, was compelled to retire. Gen. Hildyard's 

 brigade went forward to cover its retreat and 

 seized the railroad station and other buildings. 

 The Irish soldiers in the leading battalion, in at- 

 tempting to ford the river, found themselves in 

 deep water, and a few swam across. The artillery of 

 the Boers was believed to outclass the British field 

 pieces, but the gunnery of the Boers was supposed 

 to be bad. Col. Long, the officer who commanded 

 the artillery, advanced close to the river, as the 

 range was too far for his guns from the place 

 where they stood. The guns in the forts did not 

 disclose their positions when the naval 12-pound- 

 ers began shelling with lyddite, and the Boer in- 

 fantry in Colenso village held their fire till the 

 British battalions and field batteries got into 

 close range. Sharpshooters in unseen trenches 

 700 yards away then killed the horses, so that 

 only 2 of the guns could be brought off. Twelve 

 guns were captured by the Boers after Lieut. 

 Roberts and other officers had been shot in at- 

 tempting to rescue them. The attack of Gen. 

 Barton's brigade on the right, supported by Lord 

 Dundonald's cavalry, was met by a flank attack 

 of the Boers from Hlangwane hill. The cavalry 

 and mounted infantry had been ordered to occupy 

 this hill, which was unexpectedly found to be a 

 strong Boer fort. It had not been discovered 

 previous to the battle that the Boers had guns 

 mounted on Hlangwane or any trenches south of 

 the Tugela. After Gen. Buller had lost all his 

 artillery he could do nothing but order a re- 

 treat. His losses in killed, wounded, and cap- 

 tured were 1,114. The Boer losses in killed and 

 wounded were reported to be only 30. The Boers 

 held back their fire until the British were within 

 close range, although they themselves were all the 

 time under shell fire. Their position was well 

 planned, and both their intrenchments and their 

 gun emplacements were completely hidden. As in 

 all their attacks, the British were in front of 

 an invisible enemy \vhose position could not even 

 be fixed by the smoke of the rifles. The shell 

 fire of the Boers was accurate and the projectiles 

 exploded, yet they did little damage. The naval 

 battery was unable to silence any of the Boer 

 guns, as the gunners had made bomb-proof shel- 

 ters for themselves. It was the rifle fire that 

 caused nearly all the casualties. The magazine 

 rifles with smokeless powder, when properly 

 handled, render a direct assault on an intrenched 

 position an almost impossible manoeuvre. It is 

 necessary to rush through a series of zones of fire 

 about 20 yards broad, beginning more than 2 

 miles from the position, when advancing over 

 open ground. The British commanders who at- 

 tempted to carry these intrenched positions by 

 storm exaggerated in every instance the number 

 of the enemy, because not only could the Boers 

 stop a charge of ten times their number, but by 

 their sheltered galleries leading to the trenches 



