the Fifth Division of the British Army,
which, under Lieut.-General Sir Charles Warren, had been assembling at
Estcourt, marched out for Frere, where General Buller's headquarters
had been established after the battle of Colenso. Arriving the same
evening, it started the next day for Springfield, the movement being
followed by the whole army, except the 6th Brigade, left at Chieveley,
and such other troops as were needed to protect the railroad to Durban
against raids. To control the action of the mass of the Boers,
dependence could be placed upon the operation in progress for turning
their right flank, to resist which {p.250} and to maintain the siege
of Ladysmith would require all the force at their disposal.

The abortive issue of this British undertaking, and of its sequent
operation against Vaal Krantz in the same quarter, removes the
necessity of giving minute details in a narrative which does not
profess to be a critical military study, but merely seeks to present a
clear analytical account of the various transactions.

It is necessary first to understand the principal features of the
country. In general directions, as far as effective, the movement
followed the valley of the Tugela. In this, ten miles west of Colenso,
there is a sharp bend at nearly right angles. There the stream for a
stretch of six miles has run south by east, while above it the river
bed again, as below, lies east and west, but is excessively tortuous,
winding back and forth among hills which on one side or the other come
down close to the water's edge. It was at Trichardt's Drift, about
seven miles above--west of--this north and south stretch, that the
British army was to make, and did make, its crossing; purposing
thereby to turn the {p.251} flanks of the Boer positions, which in a
general sense followed the north bank of the Tugela.

The conditions leading to the choice of this point appear to have been
as follows. Eastward of the north and south stretch just specified,
and as far as to the Ladysmith railroad, the mountain ranges north of
the river are not only high, but wide, broken, and intricate, ending
in Grobler's Kloof and the other kopjes mentioned in describing the
positions at Colenso. The reverse slopes of this broken region are
full six miles north of the river's course. The map shows the district
almost wholly bare of roads, an indication that it is unsuited to
large military operations. Upstream of the stretch, the ranges, t