t not to
be tolerated is what Lord Ernest Hamilton suggests, an attack upon the
generals at the front, to save the War Office or the Cabinet; and what
is needed is that the Ministers should choose a war adviser who can
convince them, even though to find him they have to pass over a hundred
generals and select a colonel, a captain, or a crammer.

THE STRATEGY OF THE WAR

_January 11th_, 1900

The arrival of Lord Roberts at Cape Town announces the approaching
beginning of a new chapter in the war, though the second chapter is not
yet quite finished.

The first chapter was the campaign of Sir George White with sixteen
thousand men against the principal Boer army. It ended with Sir George
White's being surrounded in Ladysmith and there locked up.

The second chapter began with the arrival of. Sir Redvers Buller at Cape
Town. It may be reviewed under two headings: the conception and the
execution of the operations. When Sir Redvers Buller reached the Cape,
the force which he was expecting, and of which he had the control,
consisted altogether of nearly sixty thousand regular troops, besides
Cape and colonial troops. There was an Army Corps, thirty-five thousand,
a cavalry division, five thousand, troops for the defence of
communications, ten thousand, and troops at the Cape amounting to eight
thousand, some of whom were at Mafeking and Kimberley. After deducting
fourteen thousand men for communications and garrisons at the Cape, the
commander had at his disposal for use in the field about forty-four
thousand regular troops arranged as a cavalry brigade, seven brigades of
infantry, and corps troops.

There were many tasks before the British general. Southern Natal was
being invaded and had to be cleared of the enemy; the Cape Colony, too,
had to be freed from its Boer visitors, and the rising of the Cape Dutch
stopped. Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking were all awaiting relief,
and last, but not least, the Boer armies had to be beaten, and the two
Republics conquered. The strategical problem was how to accomplish all
these tasks at once, if possible, and if that could not be done, to sort
them in order of importance and deal with them in that order. The
essential thing was not to violate any of those great principles which
the experience of a hundred wars and the practice of a dozen great
generals have proved to be fundamental. The leading principle is that
which enjoins concentration of effort in time, space,