r cannot effectually engage
the Boers, it will not have been easy so to occupy the enemy along the
whole front as to prevent his massing guns and rifles--at any rate
rifles--to defend his centre.

So much for the initial difficulties, which seem by a combination of
feint and surprise to have been so far overcome on Monday that the
advanced British troops effected a lodgment in the centre of the Boer
position, from which a counter-attack failed to eject them. The next
thing is, as the British force is brought across the river, to attack
one of the Boer wings while containing or keeping back the other. Before
this, can be done the enemy's centre must really be pierced, so that
troops can be poured through the gap to turn the flank of one of the
enemy's divided halves. This piercing is most difficult in the
conditions of to-day, for the enemy by establishing a new firing line
behind the point carried by our troops may be able to enclose in a
semicircle of fire the party that has made its way into the position.
Against such an enveloping fire it is a hard task to make headway.

All these aspects of his problem a General thinks out before he starts;
he does not make his attempt unless and until he sees his way to meet
the various difficulties, both those inherent in the nature of the
operation and those that arise from the local conditions and from the
character of the particular enemy. The difficulties are therefore not
reasons why General Buller should not succeed, but their consideration
may help to show why with the best previous deliberation and with the
bravest of troops he may perhaps not be able to break the Boer
resistance.

There is one feature of his task that is perhaps not fully appreciated
by the public. In order to relieve Ladysmith he must thoroughly defeat
and drive away the Boer army--must, so to speak break its back. For,
supposing he could clear a road to Ladysmith and march there, leaving
the Boer army in position on one or both sides of his road, his position
on reaching the place would be that he would have to fight his way back
again, and that unless he could then defeat the Boers his Army would be
lost, for it would be cut off from its supplies. The relief of Ladysmith
and the complete defeat of the Boer army are therefore synonymous terms.
There is, however, a sense in which a partial defeat of the Boers would
be of use. If the Boer army, though not driven off, were yet fully
absorbed in its stru