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CHAPTER XI.

THE ARRIVAL OF SIR REDVERS BULLER.

Hopes

of

Sir George White’s strength felt at home.

Situation

when

Sir R. Buller arrived.

Reports of the concentration of large commandos of Transvaal and Free State burghers on the Natal border had been tele­graphed home by the High Commissioner and the Governor of Natal on the 28th of September, and reached the Colonial Office during the night of the 28th-2C)th.. The plan, therefore, of an advance through the Orange Free State, which was adopted by the Cabinet on the following day, by implication assumed that the force assigned to Sir George White for the defence of Natal would be sufficient to check the threatened invasion until a forward movement of the army corps in the western theatre of war should draw away from the republican host the Free State men for the protection of their own territory.

The events of the first three weeks of the war showed that Sir George White, without assistance, would not be able to protect Natal, and the situation which met General Buller on his disembarkation in South Africa on the morning of the 31st October could not but cause him grave anxiety. The Natal Field Force, after three strenuous efforts at Talana, Elandslaagte and Lombards Kop to repel the enemy’s columns of invasion, lay concentrated at Ladysmith, and to the north, east, and west was already closely watched by the enemy in superior strength. General Buller was convinced that the troops needed rest, and could for a time only act on the defensive. He there­fore telegraphed to General White, on ist November, suggesting that he should entrench and await events either at Ladysmith