ubordinates which in past
campaigns has often caused the commanders more anxiety than all the
enemy's doings.

Yet at every point the Boers appear to outnumber our troops. The
question arises how this came about; either the Government has not sent
troops enough, or the force given to the Commander-in-Chief has been
wrongly distributed. Sir Redvers Buller has done the best he could in
difficult conditions. Ladysmith had to be relieved, and he has taken
more than half of his force for the purpose. He might have wished to
take a third division, but if he had done so Kimberley might have
fallen, and the rising at the Cape have spread so fast and so far that
the defeat of Joubert would not have restored the balance. Accordingly
the smaller half of the force was left in the Cape Colony. Here also
there were two tasks. To push back the invasion was a slow business, and
if meantime Kimberley had fallen, the insurrection would have become
general. Accordingly a minimum force was set to stem the invasion and a
maximum force devoted to the relief of Kimberley. The difficulties,
therefore, arose not merely from the strategy in South Africa but from
the delay of the Government to send enough troops in time. The fact that
Sir George White with a small force was left for two months unsupported
produced the rising at the Cape, and compelled the division of the
British Army Corps, in, consequence of which the whole force is reduced
to a perilous numerical weakness at each of four points. But the Army
Corps, the cavalry division, and the force for the line of
communications, have now to wait three weeks before they can be
strengthened. It was known to the Government before the end of October
that Ladysmith would be invested and need relief, that the Cape Dutch
would rise, and that unless Kimberley were helped the rising would
become dangerous. Yet the despatch of the first transport of the fifth
division was delayed until November 24th. Has the Government even now
begun to take the war seriously? Do the members of the Cabinet at this
eleventh hour understand that failure to crush the Boers means
breakdown for the Empire, and that a prolonged struggle with them
carries with it grave danger of the intervention of other Powers? Does
Lord Lansdowne continue to direct the movement of reinforcements
according to his own unmilitary judgment modified by that of one or more
of his unmilitary colleagues? I decline to believe that Lord Wolseley
ha