the impediments
to movement, the overcoming of which gave success. The larger force,
to compass its object, had to reach secretly and rapidly positions
which interposed decisively between the inferior and its line of
communications and retreat. To do this secretly, a large circuit must
be made; that is, a road must be taken far beyond the enemy's ken,
therefore much longer than that he himself would traverse to pass the
same decisive points {p.292} and thereby evade interception. The
question is one of exterior and interior lines, and therefore of
speed. Speed in a country without resources, and especially when
opposed to an enemy notoriously mobile, means not only hard legging
and much privation, but very high organisation of transport, to insure
even a bare sufficiency of support.

By virtue of the interior line, notwithstanding the rapidity with
which Roberts' men and horses moved, Cronje got past the decisive
points; but for French he might have escaped. His success in this
changed instantly the whole direction of the British operation. Trains
directed upon one expectation had to be diverted elsewhere, which
means not the mere turning round of waggons, but the reversal of a
complicated machinery working at high pressure; perhaps rather the
redistribution of parts in an engine while in actual operation. That
the transport system under this extreme test stood the strain without
dislocation, though with necessarily lessened output, is as creditable
as the patient fortitude of the hosts, who lacking full food and
water, toiled uncomplainingly in pursuit, under the burning {p.293}
sun, not knowing but that after all their labour would be in vain.

The final, and successful, operations of Sir Redvers Buller for the
relief of Ladysmith were almost exactly coincident, in beginning and
in duration, with those of Lord Roberts which ended in the surrender
of Cronje. There was even a certain close approach to synchronism in
dates of the more conspicuous incidents in each.

On the 11th of February, when the departure of French began Roberts'
turning movement, Buller's force was again assembled at Chieveley. The
following day the direction of his next effort was indicated by the
occupation of Hussar Hill, south of Hlangwane Hill, which it will be
remembered lies near the Tugela, its crest about three-fourths of a
mile east of the bend which the river makes just below Colenso, and
after which it holds a northerly course for two