that marked the opening of the campaign
by the Boers; and there can be also little question that the wholesome
respect for their fighting qualities, thus established at the
beginning of hostilities, had a most beneficial effect for them, in
discouraging attack by an enemy, who, though brave and active,
constitutionally prefers a waiting game to an assault. Thus the
ultimate fate of Ladysmith was settled in the fortnight of operations
that preceded the investment.

CHAPTER II {p.028}

THE OPENING CAMPAIGN IN NATAL TO THE INVESTMENT OF LADYSMITH
(OCTOBER 11-NOVEMBER 2)

The evident exposure of Natal to the first and heaviest attack of the
enemy, and the necessity so to provide for its defence as to gain the
time necessary for reinforcements to arrive, engaged very early the
anxious attention of the Imperial and local authorities. The latter
especially felt the greater solicitude, which is natural to those
whose interests are immediately threatened. As early as May 25, before
the Bloemfontein Conference between Sir Alfred Milner and President
Kruger, the Natal Ministry notified Mr. Chamberlain that, owing to
Boer preparations across the border, the scattered British in the neck
of Natal were getting uneasy, and the Ministry itself nervous, at the
prospect of war. These representations were {p.029} repeated more
urgently in the middle of June, and a month later a request was made
to be confidentially informed of the proposed plan for defence. When
this was communicated, it appeared that General Sir Penn Symons,
commanding the Imperial troops in Natal (who afterward was the first
general officer killed in the war), considered that with the force
then at his disposal--something over 5,000 men of all arms--he could
do no more than hold the railroad as far as Hattingh Spruit, some five
miles north of Dundee, thereby protecting the collieries. To advance
as far as Newcastle he estimated would require 2,000 more, while to
hold Laing's Nek an addition of 5,600 would be needed.

These calculations, as is now known, fell far short of the necessities
of the case, but they sufficiently alarmed the Colonial Government,
and upon its remonstrance the British Cabinet, on August 3, decided to
send a reinforcement of 2,000 men.

On the 6th of September the Governor of Natal telegraphed at length to
London many menacing symptoms observable among the Boers, {p.030}
from which war was believed to be inevitable, and urged the imm