forces are thus employed could Sir Redvers Buller,
by taking thought, have added anything to Sir C.F. Clery's force on the
Mooi River? The answer is that a commander's decision must usually be a
choice of risks. To have sent on to Natal a part of the troops now in
Cape Colony would have been to have increased the danger of the Cape
Dutch going over to the Boers. Which was the less of two possible
evils--the spread of disaffection in the Cape Colony or the loss of Sir
George White's force? No one at home can decide with confidence because
the knowledge here available of the situation in either colony is very
limited. Subject to this reserve, I should be disposed to think the
danger in Natal the more serious, and the chance of losing Colonel
Kekewich's force a mere trifle in comparison with the defeat of General
Joubert, for the effect of Joubert's defeat would be felt on the Orange
River, whereas the relief of Kimberley can hardly produce an appreciable
effect on the situation in Natal.

The difficult problem of which General Buller is now giving his solution
has been created for him by the Government, which from June to October
was playing with a war which according to its own admissions it did not
seriously mean. "Mistakes in the original assembling of armies can
hardly be repaired during the whole course of the campaigns, but all
arrangements of this sort can be considered long beforehand and--if the
troops are ready for war and the transport service is organised--must
lead to the result intended." So wrote Moltke in 1874 in one of the most
famous passages ever published. If last spring the Government or even
the Secretary of State for War alone had been in earnest, had been doing
what plain duty required, the nature and conditions of the South African
war would have been thought out, and the military judgment which was to
conduct it would have been set to devise the proper opening. That would
have consisted in landing simultaneously, thirty thousand men at Durban
and forty thousand at the Cape. These forces would not have moved
forward until they were complete and ready, and though the Boers might
meantime have overrun their borders, the British advance when it came
would have been continuous, irresistible, and decisive. Instead of that
the Government gave the Boers notice in June that there might be war, so
that the Boers had the whole summer to get ready.

When in September the Government began to think of action t