shortly after the advance into
the Free State had begun, was carried out by the transfer of
Major-General Sir W. G. Nicholson from the appointment of Military
Secretary to that of Director of Transport. Colonel Richardson still
continued to have charge of supplies.

[Sidenote: Increase of heavy artillery.]

Meantime, steps were taken to improve the artillery equipment of the
army in South Africa. Prior to the war it had been ascertained by the
Intelligence department that the Boers had in their possession several
150 m/m Creusots and a battery of 120 m/m howitzers, but the
cumbersome carriages on which the former weapons were mounted had led
to the belief that they were intended solely for use in the forts and
positions near Pretoria and Johannesburg. The howitzers had been
classified in the intelligence reports as field artillery armament,
because in the year before the war the French, Austrian, and German
armies had added howitzers to their field equipment. The enterprise of
the Boers in bringing 150 m/m (6-in.) guns into the field at the
outset of the campaign formed in a sense a new departure in modern
warfare, although in 1870 fortress guns had been taken from Belfort
and used in the fighting on the Lisaine. On the receipt of Sir George
White's report that one of these guns had been employed against the
troops at Dundee, telegraphic orders, at the suggestion of
Major-General Sir John Ardagh, were sent out by the War Office to Cape
Colony to insure the immediate despatch to Natal of two 6.3-in. R.M.L.
howitzers, lying at King William's Town, the property of the Cape
Government.[304] The arrangements made by the Naval Commander-in-Chief
for the despatch to the front of Naval contingents, placed at the
disposal of the military authorities, both in the western and eastern
theatres of war, a number of long-range guns which, in the skilled
hands of the officers and men of the Royal Navy and Marines who
accompanied them, rendered valuable service. The War Office also took
immediate action to reinforce the arm. On the 9th of December a
battery of four 4.7-in. Q.F. guns, manned by a company of R.G.A., was
despatched from England to South Africa, together with eight 6-in.
B.L. howitzers, which formed part of the approved siege train of the
army. On the 22nd two companies with eight 5-in. B.L. followed. On the
22nd January two more companies with eight 4.7-in. Q.F., mounted on
6-in. howitzer carriages, were embarked for th