non-commissioned
officers hitherto employed on that duty were regained by their corps,
but were lost to the transport department. The personnel of the Army
Service Corps was not equal to the demands thus made upon it, and it was
found necessary to allot two transport companies to one company of Army
Service Corps, and to attach to these so-formed companies officers of
other branches as they happened to be available. Moreover, to ensure the
requisite amount of mule-transport for the combatant portion of the
troops that of bearer companies and of field hospitals was cut down. In
the former the number of ambulances was reduced from ten to two, and for
the latter only two wagons could be allowed in place of four. On the
other hand, owing to fear of a scarcity of water on the intended march,
the number of water-carts with the medical units was doubled. The
mule-transport was speedily assembled at the places ordered. The
concentration of the ox-transport for convoy purposes took a longer
time, but partly by rail and partly by march route it was completed soon
enough to enable the Field-Marshal to carry out his plan of operations.

[Sidenote: Supplies on the coast ample. The difficulty of getting them
forward and distributing them.]

Owing to the efforts of the Quartermaster-General's department of the
War Office, a steady stream of supplies had, since the beginning of
the war, been poured into the country, and had removed all anxiety as
to the possibility of food or forage running short at the coast. The
difficulty was the transmission of these up country simultaneously
with the troops and their equipment. Arrangements were made by the
railway staff which enabled sufficient quantities to be forwarded from
the sea bases and to be accumulated at Orange River, De Aar, and at
depots between the Orange and Modder rivers. For the forward move into
the Orange Free State two days' supplies were to be carried by the men
and two days' in the mule-transport allotted to brigades; the brigade
supplies were to be filled up from convoys moving in rear of the
troops, and for this purpose some five hundred ox-wagons, carrying ten
days' rations and forage, were assembled.[303]

[Footnote 303: The cavalry division was accompanied by a
supply park on the old system.]

[Sidenote: Separation of supply and transport.]

These changes foreshadowed the separation of supply and transport into
two departments, a separation which,