nsiderable reinforcements.

[Sidenote: New striking force necessary.]

The perception of this fact caused the Government to appoint (December
17th) Lord Roberts, with Lord Kitchener as his Chief-of-Staff, to the
South African command, and to prepare and despatch an entirely new
striking force. It was this new force and not the original Army Corps
that "marched to Pretoria," and struck the successive blows which
enabled Lord Roberts to report to the Secretary of State for War
(November 15th, 1900) that; "with the occupation of Komati Poort, and
the dispersal of Commandant-General Louis Botha's army, the organised
resistance of the two Republics might be said to have ceased." It was
not, therefore, until Lord Roberts was able to march from Modder River
Station (February 11th, 1900), after a month spent at the Cape in
reorganising the transport and other preparations essential to the
success of an army destined to advance for many hundreds of miles
through a hostile country, that the British Army in South Africa was
in the position in which the acceptance of Lord Wolseley's advice,
given in June and July, 1899, would have put it upon the outbreak of
war. Nor was the force with which Lord Roberts then advanced, 36,000
men, more numerous than the striking force which would have been
provided, by Lord Wolseley's scheme, had it been carried out in the
manner in which he desired. For the business with which the scattered
Army Corps was occupied when Lord Roberts arrived at Capetown (January
10th, 1900)--the relief of Ladysmith and Kimberley, and the defence of
the eastern districts of the Cape Colony from the Free State commandos
and the colonial rebels--was work directly caused by the absence of
the Army Corps from South Africa when the war broke out. It is not too
much to say that the whole of the serious losses incurred by the
British forces in South Africa from the commencement of the war up to
the date of Lord Roberts's advance into the Free State territory,
would have been avoided if the state of public opinion had permitted
the Salisbury Cabinet in June to make military preparations
commensurate with the gravity of the situation as disclosed by Lord
Milner.

[Sidenote: The regular army exhausted.]

In forming an estimate of the performance of the British Army in South
Africa, from a military point of view, it is necessary to remember the
grave initial disadvantage in which it was placed; and that this
initial disadv