e which the nation may gracefully accept.

But I am anxious also to discuss the Ladysmith episode from Sir Redvers
Buller's point of view. This officer reached Cape Town on the very day
that White was driven back on Ladysmith. His army, which would not
arrive for several weeks, was calculated to be strong enough to overcome
the utmost resistance the Boer Republics could offer.

To what extent he was responsible for the estimates of the number of
troops necessary is not known. It is certain, however, that
everyone--Ministers, generals, colonists, and intelligence
officers--concurred in making a most remarkable miscalculation.

It reminds me of Jules Verne's story of the men who planned to shift the
axis of the earth by the discharge of a great cannon. Everything was
arranged. The calculations were exact to the most minute fraction. The
world stood aghast at the impending explosion. But the men of science,
whose figures were otherwise so accurate, had left out a nought, and
their whole plan came to nothing. So it was with the British. Their
original design of a containing division in Natal, and an invading army
of three divisions in the Free State, would have been excellent if only
they had written army corps instead of division.

Buller found himself confronted with an alarming and critical situation
in Natal. Practically the whole force which had been deemed sufficient
to protect the Colony was locked up in Ladysmith, and only a few line of
communication troops stood between the enemy and the capital or even the
seaport. Plainly, therefore, strong reinforcements--at least a
division--must be hurried to Natal without an hour's unnecessary delay.

When these troops were subtracted from the forces in the Cape Colony all
prospect of pursuing the original plan of invading the Free State was
destroyed. It was evident that the war would assume dimensions which no
one had ever contemplated.

The first thing to be done therefore was to grapple with the immediate
emergencies, and await the arrival of the necessary troops to carry on
the war on an altogether larger scale. Natal was the most acute
situation. But there were others scarcely less serious and critical. The
Cape Colony was quivering with rebellion. The Republican forces were
everywhere advancing. Kimberley and Mafeking were isolated. A small
British garrison held a dangerous position at Orange River bridge.
Nearly all the other bridges had been seized or destroyed