lso the 1st Essex and 1st
Yorkshire regiments, the half-battalion 1st Welsh regiment, and O. and
R. batteries, R.H.A. Major-General Clements was left at Rensburg with
the remainder.[283]

[Footnote 282: Despatch, February 2nd, 1900.]

[Footnote 283: General Clements' command was as follows:--

Two squadrons 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons.
J. battery, R.H.A.
4th battery, R.F.A.
A section, 37th Howitzer battery, Royal Field Artillery.
The Australian M.I. (490 men).
The Victorian M.I. (175 men).
Mounted infantry (450 men).
2nd Bedfordshire regiment.
1st Royal Irish regiment.
2nd Worcester regiment.
Half battalion 2nd Royal Berkshire regiment.
2nd Wiltshire regiment.]

CHAPTER XXV.

LORD ROBERTS AT CAPE TOWN; REORGANISES.[284]

[Footnote 284: See maps Nos. 9 and 17.]

[Sidenote: 10th Jan. 1900. Lord Roberts lands. Situation at that
date.]

Field-Marshal Lord Roberts landed at Cape Town on the 10th January,
1900, and assumed the supreme command.

The situation with which he was confronted will be more easily
realised if a brief summary be here given of the facts as they now
presented themselves at each of the several widely separated points of
contact between the opposed forces.

[Sidenote: French before Colesberg.]

[Sidenote: Gatacre at Sterkstroom.]

[Sidenote: Boers in front of him.]

[Sidenote: Mafeking and Kimberley.]

[Sidenote: Natal.]

[Sidenote: Ladysmith.]

As described in detail in the last chapter, the Boer commandos in
front of General French having fallen back on Colesberg at the end of
December, he had, on the 1st January, seized a group of hills on the
south-western edge of the plain in which the town lies, and was
continuing his tactics of active defence with constant success, save
that a night attack made by the Suffolk regiment on 6th January had
been repulsed with somewhat heavy loss. The Cavalry Lieut.-General's
never-ceasing energy had not only foiled the enemy in his attempt to
advance into the central districts of Cape Colony, but had appreciably
diminished the pressure in other portions of the theatre of war.
Gatacre was firmly established at Sterkstroom, with an advanced post
at Cypher Gat, the main body of those fronting him remaining passively
at Stormberg. A Boer commando had made a demonstration towards Molt