scheme of
reorganization recommended by Lord Hartington's commission. On the eve of
this change, however, the government was defeated, and its successors
appointed Lord Wolseley to the command under the old title of
commander-in-chief. In 1896 he was made a full general.

In 1898 he took command of the troops at Aldershot, and when the Boer War
broke out in 1899 he was selected to command the South African Field Force
(see TRANSVAAL), and landed [v.04 p.0789] at Cape Town on the 31st of
October. Owing to the Boer investment of Ladysmith and the consequent
gravity of the military situation in Natal, he unexpectedly hurried thither
in order to supervise personally the operations, but on the 15th of
December his first attempt to cross the Tugela at Colenso (see LADYSMITH)
was repulsed. The government, alarmed at the situation and the pessimistic
tone of Buller's messages, sent out Lord Roberts to supersede him in the
chief command, Sir Redvers being left in subordinate command of the Natal
force. His second attempt to relieve Ladysmith (January 10-27) proved
another failure, the result of the operations at Spion Kop (January 24)
causing consternation in England. A third attempt (Vaalkrantz, February
5-7) was unsuccessful, but the Natal army finally accomplished its task in
the series of actions which culminated in the victory of Pieter's Hill and
the relief of Ladysmith on the 27th of February. Sir Redvers Buller
remained in command of the Natal army till October 1900, when he returned
to England (being created G.C.M.G.), having in the meanwhile slowly done a
great deal of hard work in driving the Boers from the Biggarsberg (May 15),
forcing Lang's Nek (June 12), and occupying Lydenburg (September 6). But
though these latter operations had done much to re-establish his reputation
for dogged determination, and he had never lost the confidence of his own
men, his capacity for an important command in delicate and difficult
operations was now seriously questioned. The continuance, therefore, in
1901 of his appointment to the important Aldershot command met with a
vigorous press criticism, in which the detailed objections taken to his
conduct of the operations before Ladysmith (and particularly to a message
to Sir George White in which he seriously contemplated and provided for the
contingency of surrender) were given new prominence. On the 10th of October
1901, at a luncheon in London, Sir Redvers Buller made a speech in answer