2nd Cameronians.
3rd King's Royal Rifles.
1st Durham Light Infantry.
1st Rifle Brigade.
Woodgate's Brigade.
2nd Royal Lancaster.
2nd Lancashire Fusiliers.
1st South Lancashire.
York and Lancasters.
Field Artillery, three batteries, 7th, 78th, 73rd; one squadron
13th Hussars.
Corps Troops.
Coke's Brigade.
Imperial Light Infantry.
2nd Somersets.
2nd Dorsets.
2nd Middlesex.
61st Howitzer Battery; two 4.7 naval guns; eight naval 12-pounder guns;
one squadron 13th Hussars; Royal Engineers.
Cavalry.
1st Royal Dragoons.
14th Hussars.
Four squadrons South African Horse.
One squadron Imperial Light Horse.
Bethune's Mounted Infantry.
Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry.
One squadron Natal Carabineers.
One squadron Natal Police.
One company King's Royal Rifles Mounted Infantry.
Six machine guns.
This is the force whose operations I shall attempt to describe.
About sixteen miles to the westward of Colenso there is a ford over
the Tugela River which is called Potgieter's Drift. General
Buller's apparent plan was to seize this, together with the ferry
which runs at this point, and so to throw himself upon the right
flank of the Colenso Boers. Once over the river there is one
formidable line of hills to cross, but if this were passed there
would be comparatively easy ground until the Ladysmith hills were
reached. With high hopes Buller and his men sallied out upon their
adventure.
Dundonald's cavalry force pushed rapidly forwards, crossed the
Little Tugela, a tributary of the main river, at Springfield, and
established themselves upon the hills which command the drift.
Dundonald largely exceeded his instructions in going so far, and
while we applaud his courage and judgment in doing so, we must
remember and be charitable to those less fortunate officers whose
private enterprise has ended in disaster and reproof. There can be
no doubt that the enemy intended to hold all this tract, and that
it was only the quickness of our initial movements which
forestalled them. Early in the morning a small party of the South
African Horse, under Lieutenant Carlisle, swam the broad river
under fire and brought back the ferry boat, an enterprise which was
fortunately bloodless, but which was most coolly planned and
gallantly carried out. The way was now open to our advance, and
could it have been carried out as rapidly as it had begun the Boers
might conceivably have been scattered before they could
concentrate. It was not the fault of the infantry that it was not
so. They were trudging, mud-spattered and jovial, at the very heels
of the horses, after a forced march which was one of the most
trying of the whole campaign. But an army of 20,000 men cannot be
conveyed over a river twenty miles from any base without elaborate
preparations being made to feed them. The roads were in such a
state that the wagons could hardly move, heavy rain had just
fallen, and every stream was swollen into a river; bullocks might
strain, and traction engines pant, and horses die, but by no human
means could the stores be kept up if the advance guard were allowed
to go at their own pace.
