nstructed by telegram to embark with the least possible delay
for Durban a cavalry brigade, an infantry brigade, and a brigade
division of field artillery. Another brigade division and the 1st
Northumberland Fusiliers were also ordered out from home. The 1st
battn. Border regiment was despatched from Malta, the 1st battn. Royal
Irish Fusiliers from Egypt, the 2nd battn. Rifle Brigade from Crete,
and a half-battn. 2nd King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry from
Mauritius. The total strength of these reinforcements, ordered on
September 8th, amounted to 10,662 men of all ranks. On the same day,
the 8th September, the General Officer Commanding in South Africa, Sir
F. Forestier-Walker, was directed by telegram to provide land
transport for these troops. For details see Appendix I.

[Sidenote: Total forces.]

The whole of these reinforcements, with the exceptions of the 9th
Lancers and two squadrons of the 5th Dragoon Guards, whose departure
from India was somewhat delayed by an attack of anthrax, a brigade
division of artillery, the 1st Border regiment and the 2nd battalion
Rifle Brigade, were landed in South Africa before the actual outbreak
of war. Including 2,781 local troops, the British force in Natal was
thus raised to 15,811 men of all ranks. In Cape Colony there were,
either under arms or immediately available at the outbreak of war,
5,221 regular and 4,574 colonial troops. In southern Rhodesia 1,448
men, raised locally, had been organised under Colonel Baden-Powell,
who had been sent out on the 3rd July to provide for the defence of
that region. Thus the British total in South Africa, 27,054, was at
least 20,000 smaller than the number of the burghers whom the two
republics could place in the field, irrespective of any contingent
that they might obtain from the disaffected in the two colonies. Early
in June Sir Redvers Buller had been privately informed that, in the
event of its becoming necessary to despatch an army corps to South
Africa, he would be the officer to command it. On June 8th, the
Commander-in-Chief had recommended that as a precautionary measure an
army corps and cavalry division should be organised and concentrated
on Salisbury Plain. He had proposed that one complete army corps, one
cavalry division, one battalion of mounted infantry, and four
infantry battalions to guard the lines of communication, should be
sent out to South Africa, and he was most anxious that the
expeditionary force should be a