n fussy interference and reasonable superintendence; yet more
difficult to determine the moment when a subordinate must be subjected
to the mortification of virtual supersession in the control of a
matter that has been committed to him. But these are, after all, only
instances of embarrassments common {p.263} to life, which increase in
degree and in number as one mounts the ladder. Whatever may be said in
favour of the fullest discretion to a subordinate out of signal
distance--and very much indeed must be said for this--nothing can
relieve a commander-in-chief only four miles distant of the
responsibility, not for his own reputation--a small matter--but for
his country's interests, in directing according to his own judgment
the great operations of a campaign. However honourable to generosity,
it is certainly carrying self-abnegation to an indefensible extreme to
leave the decision of attack or withdrawal, of movement by direct
attack or by flanking--"by the left"--to a junior, when one's self is
on the spot, in actual conversation.

The action of Colonel Thorneycroft in withdrawing raises also the
mooted question of when and how the assumption of responsibility in
disobeying orders--express or implied, general or particular--is to be
justified; a matter on which much unenlightened nonsense has lately
been spoken and written in the United States. No general rule,
{p.264} indeed, can be laid down, but this much may surely be
re-affirmed--that the justification of so serious a step must ever
rest, not on the officer's _opinion_ that he was doing right, but upon
the fact, demonstrated to military judgment by the existing
conditions, that he _was_ right. Colonel Thorneycroft's intentions
were doubtless of the best; the writer cannot but believe that Lord
Roberts's sentence will be endorsed by the professions, for the
reasons he himself gives.

After the withdrawal across Trichardt's Drift, a week was allowed for
repose after the seven days' fighting just undergone. The attempt to
reach Ladysmith was then renewed, taking the road by Potgieter's Drift
to Brakfontein. It was decided first to get possession of Vaal Krantz,
a height three or four miles east of Spion Kop, to the right of the
road. The movement began on February 5th, under the immediate
direction of Sir Redvers Buller. The same day Vaal Krantz was carried
and occupied; but Buller was disappointed in the advantage he hoped
from it. He reported that "it was necess