e British.

V

(M17) In this interval a calamity, destined to be historic, occurred,
trivial in a military sense, but formidable for many years to come in the
issues moral and political that it raised, and in the passions for which
it became a burning watchword. On the night of Feb. 26, Colley with a
force of 359 men all told, made up of three different corps, marched out
of his camp and occupied Majuba Hill. The general's motives for this
precipitancy are obscure. The best explanation seems to be that he
observed the Boers to be pushing gradually forward on to advanced ground,
and thought it well, without waiting for Kruger's reply, to seize a height
lying between the Nek and his own little camp, the possession of which
would make Laing's Nek untenable. He probably did not expect that his move
would necessarily lead to fighting, and in fact when they saw the height
occupied, the Boers did at first for a little time actually begin to
retire from the Nek, though they soon changed their minds.(26) The British
operation is held by military experts to have been rash; proper steps were
not taken by the general to protect himself upon Majuba, the men were not
well handled, and the Boers showed determined intrepidity as they climbed
steadily up the hill from platform to platform, taking from seven in the
morning (Feb. 27) up to half-past eleven to advance some three thousand
yards and not losing a man, until at last they scaled the crest and poured
a deadly fire upon the small British force, driving them headlong from the
summit, seasoned soldiers though most of them were. The general who was
responsible for the disaster paid the penalty with his life. Some ninety
others fell and sixty were taken prisoners.

At home the sensation was profound. The hysterical complaints about our
men and officers, General Wood wrote to Childers, "are more like French
character than English used to be." Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues had a
political question to consider. Colley could not be technically accused of
want of good faith in moving forward on the 26th, as the time that he had
appointed had expired. But though Majuba is just inside Natal--some four
miles over the border--his advance was, under the circumstances of the
moment, essentially an aggressive movement. Could his defeat justify us in
withdrawing our previous proposals to the Boers? Was a military
miscarriage, of no magnitude in itself, to be turned into a plea for
aban