No
Possible Results Which Could Come From Such A Sortie Could Justify
The Risk Which Was Run.
On October 16th the siege began in earnest.
On that date the Boers
brought up two 12-pounder guns, and the first of that interminable
flight of shells fell into the town. The enemy got possession of
the water supply, but the garrison had already dug wells. Before
October 20th five thousand Boers, under the formidable Cronje, had
gathered round the town. 'Surrender to avoid bloodshed' was his
message. 'When is the bloodshed going to begin?' asked Powell. When
the Boers had been shelling the town for some weeks the
lighthearted Colonel sent out to say that if they went on any
longer he should be compelled to regard it as equivalent to a
declaration of war. It is to be hoped that Cronje also possessed
some sense of humour, or else he must have been as sorely puzzled
by his eccentric opponent as the Spanish generals were by the
vagaries of Lord Peterborough.
Among the many difficulties which had to be met by the defenders of
the town the most serious was the fact that the position had a
circumference of five or six miles to be held by about one thousand
men against a force who at their own time and their own place could
at any moment attempt to gain a footing. An ingenious system of
small forts was devised to meet the situation. Each of these held
from ten to forty riflemen, and was furnished with bomb-proofs and
covered ways.
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