SOME CRITICISMS

If we inquire what was thought at home of the failure at Spion Kop after the high hopes which the advent of Sir Charles Warren in Natal had raised, we must look back for a moment to the beginning of the operations and note the great interest with which the news from Natal was day by day eagerly read by the public. The excitement caused by the second attempt of Sir Redvers Buller to relieve Ladysmith by a turning movement to the left of Potgieter’s Drift was greatly increased when his telegram, dated 23rd January, 6.30 P.M., was received, stating that General Warren held the position he had gained two days before, and that ‘an attempt will be made to-night to seize Spion Kop, the Salient which forms the left of the enemy’s position facing Trichard’s Drift and divides it from the position facing Potgieter’s.’

The public remained in suspense until the announcement came that Spion Kop had been captured and that Warren considered it tenable. Then there were loud rejoicings everywhere, too soon, alas, disturbed by sinister rumours of failure, coming in some mysterious way from the Continental Press, and then the brief telegram of 25th January: ‘Warren’s garrison, I am sorry to say, I find this morning had in the night abandoned Spion Kop’; followed subsequently by another exonerating Colonel Thorneycroft from all blame.

The position in consequence thus presented itself to the public: The attack on Spion Kop had for some unknown reason proved a failure, and the relief of Ladysmith had been thereby indefinitely postponed. Somebody was to blame. Sir Redvers Buller said Warren’s garrison had abandoned Spion Kop, but he exonerated Thorneycroft. The natural inference was that Warren was the man to be hanged. Then came the reaction, and the fickle public turned to rend the unsuccessful Generals. This state of feeling was not improved by the publication, after many weeks’ delay, of the despatches in which Sir Redvers Buller throws the whole blame upon Sir Charles Warren, and not only exonerates Thorneycroft but considers that he saved the situation; in which also Lord Roberts is of opinion that Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft’s assumption of responsibility and authority was needless, unwarrantable, and wholly inexcusable; that Sir Charles Warren should have visited Spion Kop during the afternoon or evening; that ‘there was a want of organisation and system which acted most unfavourably on the defence’; and that the failure of the attempt to relieve Ladysmith was probably in part due to errors of judgment and want of administrative capacity on the part of Sir Charles Warren; but that it must also be ascribed to Sir Redvers Buller’s disinclination to assert his authority.

With the dismay felt at the folly of the Government in making such a wanton exhibition to the world of the shortcomings of our commanders in the field there was mingled a grim satisfaction that in censuring all concerned the public disappointment was avenged. Lord Roberts had administered a rough sort of justice. There had been a failure, and all the leading actors in the business were blamed; but the one who came off worst was Sir Charles Warren. Sir Redvers Buller had thrown the blame on Sir Charles Warren, but had supported Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft. No one spoke for Sir Charles Warren, who was not allowed to speak for himself. Consequently the critics took up the parable, and Sir Charles Warren was blamed for everything that occurred.

We doubt very much whether, if Spion Kop had been held and the relief of Ladysmith had followed, we should have heard much of the criticism that has been freely used; its seizure would have been regarded as a brilliant tactical success, as indeed it was regarded at the time, and it is only necessary to point to the English newspapers and the letters of the Press correspondents before the abandonment was known to show this.

Now a tactical operation cannot be right or wrong merely because some subsequent action makes it futile. We have the evidence of the Boers that they considered Spion Kop the key of the position and that, had it been held, Ladysmith would probably have been won. Surely, then, the blame of failure should not be thrown upon the General who ordered it to be taken, but on the officer who abandoned it without sufficient reason and without consulting him.

Mr. Oppenheim has written a defence of this officer in the ‘Nineteenth Century,’ in which he says that Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft had to come to some decision, and that he had held on all day hoping for the presence or intervention of a superior officer. But Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft was himself a brigadier-general commanding the colonels in command of two brigades, and the only use he made of this position was to force them to withdraw; while Major-General Coke, his superior officer, was on the summit from half-past three to half-past six, and Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft does not appear to have made any effort to get instructions from him or to refer to him before ordering a retirement at dark.

Mr. Oppenheim states that Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft did not know that stores of ammunition, water, food, &c., were on their way up; but this is no excuse, because, if he had gone to his proper post of command, he would have known it; but he stuck to his own corps, and never really exercised the command until he decided to retire. He also states that all agreed it was impossible to hold the hill. But Colonel Hill and Major-General Coke evidently did not agree. Colonel Hill had made preparations for intrenching, and knew where the tools and sandbags were, although Colonel Thorneycroft did not.

Two great faults were committed on the summit of Spion Kop, for neither of which can Sir Charles Warren be held responsible. The one was the position of the intrenchments, with regard to which Sir Charles Warren had given special instructions. There are two methods adopted for intrenching a hill when attacked by an advancing force. The usual method is to intrench the crest nearest to the enemy, but this involves moving across the top of the hill without cover. The other method is to intrench the crest farthest away from the enemy in the first place, as this gives complete security to the attack, neither rifle nor shell fire being able to touch it, and when opportunity offers, after artillery cannonading, or at night, to advance to the other crest nearest the enemy and intrench there; but at Spion Kop, owing perhaps to the fog, neither one nor the other method was adopted, the trenches were placed in the middle of the plateau, and, as made, were not of much use—too little earth was thrown up, and a little earth will not resist a Mauser bullet. If earth is used it must be in considerable quantity, and there was not much available. There were, however, plenty of stones, with which the Boers soon construct their cover. Badly-made trenches placed in an absolutely wrong and a most exposed position, contrary to Sir Charles Warren’s instructions, constituted the first fault.

The second fault committed on the summit was crowding line upon line to give the firing line moral support. The result was carnage. The officers commanding brigades and Colonel Thorneycroft clamoured for reinforcements to give this moral support. Major-General Coke several times checked the upward move of reinforcements, but in the end gave way to urgent messages and let them go on until by 3.30 P.M. the small summit was crowded with five battalions besides details. Sir Redvers Buller, Sir Charles Warren, Major-Generals Coke and Lyttelton, and Colonel ÀCourt all thought two battalions on the top sufficient.

Both these faults were due to want of proper training of both officers and men.

We shall now consider Sir Redvers Buller’s despatches and memorandum of 30th January 1900 in some detail, and make some very adverse criticisms. It is with reluctance that we do so, but it must be remembered that Sir Redvers has no one but himself to blame that these despatches are before the public. It was his own doing that they saw the light in the first instance, and it is equally his own doing that the portions omitted in the first instance have lately been published too. It is only, therefore, in justice to Sir Charles Warren, who has not been allowed to reply, that we examine these despatches critically.

It will not be forgotten that a despatch written a month earlier on the Zoutspan Drift action was perused by critics at home with amazement and perplexity. The easy insouciance with which the late Adjutant-General of the Forces, who for seven years had been primarily responsible for the training of the officers and men of the army, referred to their want of training when tried in the field, it was felt, could not easily be surpassed.

But his despatches of 30th January throw this one into the shade in their complete detachment from all responsibility, and recall, more than anything else, the reports of an umpire at peace manoeuvres, which praise this side and blame that, with the comfortable assurance that the writer is an independent observer, on whom no one can turn the tables.

In the first of the two despatches of 30th January Sir Redvers Buller gives no indication, as we have already pointed out, of what he intended Sir Charles Warren to do when he sent him across the Tugela. He merely regrets that an expedition, which he thinks should have succeeded, failed, and refers to Sir Charles Warren’s despatch for particulars. The only comment on Sir Charles Warren’s dispositions was that he had ‘mixed up all the brigades, and the positions he held were dangerously insecure.’

In the second despatch, while maintaining the same attitude of irresponsibility, he adopts the rÔle of the captious critic. He objects to Sir Charles Warren’s statement that three and a-half days’ supplies were insufficient to advance by the left through Acton Homes, because, he says, he had promised to keep—and was actually keeping—Sir Charles filled up. As if this in any way affected the amount of provisions he could carry with him when once he had cleared the position in front and moved forward and away from the Tugela.

From this trivial and futile criticism Sir Redvers jumps suddenly to 23rd January, on which day, he says, he went over to see Sir Charles Warren and pointed out that he had no further report, and no intimation of the special arrangements foreshadowed in a telegram from him on the 19th. It might from this be supposed that since the 19th Sir Redvers had had no communication with Sir Charles Warren, was getting anxious, and thought it time after four days’ silence to inquire what he was doing; it would hardly occur to any one that he was in constant telegraphic communication with Warren, and that he had been with him both on the 21st and the 22nd of the month.

What were the special arrangements referred to in Sir Charles Warren’s letter of the 19th, and why is it suggested that they were kept, so to speak, up his sleeve, until his Commander could stand it no longer?

‘On January 20th,’ said Sir Redvers Buller in his telegraphic despatch of 27th January, ‘Sir Charles Warren, as I have reported, drove back the enemy and obtained possession of the southern crests of the higher tableland, which extends from the line Acton Homes-Honger’s Poort to the Western Ladysmith Hills.’ We may conclude, therefore, that on the 20th Sir Charles Warren was too fully occupied to telegraph what were the special arrangements he had mentioned in his telegram of the night before. On the 21st Sir Redvers Buller saw him and was able to discuss the matter verbally with him, and if he did not do so surely it was his own fault, as he might very easily have asked him anything he wanted to know.

These special arrangements were apparently three:

(1) Continual bombardment; then

(2) To advance on both sides of an arÊte or gully, outflanking the enemy on either side as he advanced; and finally

(3) To proceed without wagons when he had driven the enemy out.

They resulted, as we have seen, from the reconnaissances of the 18th, which impressed Sir Charles Warren with the difficulties of any advance with fifteen miles of wagons. He therefore proposed to keep the wagons at Venter’s Laager until he was able to advance, and then send them back across the river. There was no great secret about these proposals. With the first and second Sir Redvers apparently concurred, and with the third he did not. If he thought Sir Charles had anything else in view, why did he not ask him?

Sir Redvers Buller, in his despatch of 30th January, then goes on to say that he further pointed out to Sir Charles Warren ‘that for four days he had kept his men continuously exposed to shell and rifle fire, perched on the edge of an almost precipitous hill, that the position admitted of no second line and the supports were massed close behind the firing line in indefensible formations, and that a panic or sudden charge might send the whole lot in disorder down the hill at any moment. I said it was too dangerous a situation to be prolonged, and that he must either attack, or I should withdraw his force. I advocated, as I had previously done, an advance from his left.’

One has really to call to mind that it is Sir Charles Warren’s commanding officer who gives utterance to these observations, that he personally saw the troops under Warren cross the Tugela, that he issued to them the ‘no turning back’ order, that he addressed General Woodgate’s Brigade when it had crossed and gave that General instructions as to his attack, that from day to day he telegraphed home encouraging accounts of the operations being carried out, that he made no sign of disapproval, that he was in telegraphic communication with Sir Charles Warren all the time and many messages passed to and fro, that on three days out of the four—viz. on the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd—he was personally present with the force and the dispositions of the troops were made subject to his approval, that he had himself given directions how the howitzers were to be disposed, and that in his telegraphic despatch of 27th January, when all was over, he had stated that ‘the actual position held was perfectly tenable but did not lend itself to advance.’ It was surely unfair to himself as well as to Sir Charles Warren to make out that for four days the troops remained in one position, and that a dangerous one.

But if the dispositions were those of Sir Charles Warren, and he alone was responsible for them, did they merit the disapproval with which his chief stigmatises them? Is not the attack of a hill, whose top is exposed to the enemy’s artillery fire and affords barely any cover, best undertaken by seizing and holding the near crest line—in other words, ‘perching on its edge’? If the attack intrench this near crest, their reserves can remain lower down under cover; any shell fire which does not hit the trench passes harmlessly over; reliefs, also, can be safely carried out, and supplies of ammunition, water, and food brought up to the firing line without exposure.

As we have already observed, and perhaps may be permitted to repeat in this connection, had Sir Charles Warren’s instructions been carried out at Spion Kop—and probably the fog made it difficult to do so—his firing line would have been on the outer edge of the hill, that farthest from the enemy, and not on the plateau, and what better position could it have had? A small body could have held it, which could have been relieved from time to time, and at nightfall the other crest nearest to the enemy could have been seized and intrenched. Then again reserves massed behind a hill are not in so bad a position as Sir Redvers Buller’s despatch would imply, and when he speaks of the danger of a possible sudden charge of the Boers driving the whole lot of our men in disorder down the hill, he does not appear to appreciate the distinctive qualities either of the foe or of our own men. What would Tommy Atkins have more warmly welcomed, or the Boers have more disliked, than a contest at close quarters with cold steel?

Unfortunately, the feeble intrenchments which were constructed on Spion Kop were too far advanced on the plateau of the hill, so that the approach to them from the edge of the hill was exposed to the shell and rifle fire of the enemy, and, equally unfortunately, neither mountain battery nor naval guns were sent over by Sir Redvers Buller in time to be of use in opposing the Boer fire.

In a previous chapter we noted that no sign of dissatisfaction with Sir Charles Warren’s conduct appeared in any of Sir Redvers Buller’s telegrams during the operations, and if these telegrams are compared with the despatches they will be found to be glaringly inconsistent.

We find, further, that while in large matters, such as the attack from the left, in which the strategy of the Commander-in-Chief might be involved, Sir Redvers Buller contented himself with advocating the course he preferred, and abstained from giving any order for its adoption, in comparatively small matters, which would more obviously lie within the province of the subordinate commander to determine, he, on several occasions, caused his own views to be carried out. Thus he substituted Major-General Woodgate for Major-General Coke in the command of the column for the assault of Spion Kop, because the one was able to climb better than the other; and he nominated over the heads of experienced colonels Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft, a young and inexperienced major of a year’s standing, holding the local rank of lieut.-colonel, to command on Spion Kop after Major-General Woodgate was wounded, because he was a good hard-fighting man. Neither physical strength and ability to climb nor the gallantry of a fighting man are, however, the main qualifications of a commander, and these efforts of the Commander-in-Chief to assert himself in minor matters had, it would seem, something to say to the failure of the enterprise.

That Sir Redvers Buller should endeavour to justify the retirement of Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft is not difficult to understand; that he should attempt to do so at the expense of his second-in-command is inexplicable. It was only human nature that he should wish to support the action of the gallant young officer, specially selected by himself to command over the head of his seniors, who had fought like a lion and had kept up the spirit of his men in depressing circumstances.

But had the same warm and generous sentiment animated him towards his second-in-command he could not have supported the retirement by disparaging the work done by Sir Charles Warren, and by belittling or ignoring altogether the efforts he had made to enable the garrison of Spion Kop to hold on to the position.

Probably the unkindest cut of all, though no doubt the result of thoughtlessness, was Sir Redvers Buller’s telegram of 25th January: ‘Warren’s garrison, I am sorry to say, I find this morning had in the night abandoned Spion Kop.’ He might have said ‘Thorneycroft’s garrison,’ and he could well have afforded to say ‘my garrison,’ but this would have been to abandon the rÔle of the irresponsible critic.

So also he declined to hold any investigation into the circumstances of the withdrawal as proposed by Sir Charles Warren. He says in his despatch:

Such a string of inconsistencies and erroneous statements only shows that not only did Sir Redvers Buller not think it necessary to order an official investigation, but that he did not even think it necessary before writing his despatch to take the trouble to ascertain the facts for himself.

At sundown, before any defence could be taken regularly in hand, the abandonment had not only been decided upon by Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft, but the preparations for retirement were actually commenced. This he might have gathered from Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft’s report, in which he says: ‘When night began to close in I determined to take some steps,’ &c., and there must have been other reports, which have not been published, before him from which he could have known the precise time when the retirement was arranged.

After categorically enumerating the various arrangements that should have been made at nightfall in order to hold the position on the following day, Sir Redvers Buller writes: ‘But no arrangements were made.’ He does not say who should have made them, or who should have carried them out, but the inference from what he says is that as ‘General Coke appears to have been ordered away just as he would have been useful,’ he considers that Major-General Coke should have made them.

But Major-General Coke did not receive the order to go and see Sir Charles Warren until 9.30 P.M., some three hours after nightfall, and after the order for withdrawal had been given.

In refutation of Sir Redvers Buller’s assertion that no arrangements were made, in face of all the reports he had before him, some of which have been published, showing what arrangements were made, let us see if it can be ascertained what actually was done.

PRECAUTIONS TAKEN AND ARRANGEMENTS MADE

Hospital and Ambulance Work.—A field hospital was established at Wright’s farm and all the available ambulance and stretcher bearers were assembled at the foot of Spion Kop ready for action. Mr. Winston Spencer Churchill says that in ascending Spion Kop on the afternoon of 24th January he passed through the ambulance village. Every available stretcher belonging to every brigade was in use on Spion Kop.

It may be here observed that the casualties of Spion Kop itself were not so great as at Colenso, although, if the whole week’s fighting is considered, they were greater.

Food.—The troops went up Spion Kop with one day’s rations in hand, and during the day the regimental wagons were collected at the foot, within 600 feet of the summit. So that the troops on Spion Kop were quite as near their food as they had been at Three Tree Hill.

Ammunition.—Mr. Winston S. Churchill relates how he found a man dragging down a box of ammunition all by himself. There was plenty of ammunition on the summit at sunset, and it was unfortunate that Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft did not ascertain this.

Sir Charles Warren, in his despatch of 1st February 1900 (Blue Book, p. 76), states that the Dorset Regiment carried down a large quantity of ammunition in the dark, which otherwise would have fallen into the hands of the enemy.

Water Supply.—Majors H. N. Sargent and E. J. Williams were in charge of the water supply, and their reports of 28th January have been published. The former says:

Major Williams states that he took twelve mules with water to the trees near the top of the hill, arriving there about noon, and established a water depÔt there; that the mules made a second trip, and were then taken for ammunition; that the Royal Engineers successfully dug for water at a place three quarters of the way up the hill, that it was thick but fairly plentiful; that from 3 P.M. to 8 P.M. he impressed more mules and continued to hurry up water to the water depÔt, while men were also sent up with filled water bottles for distribution to the fighting line. At 8 P.M. it was too dark for the mules to work, and although several fell over the cliff in getting up, there were at that time several full boxes of water at different spots on the hill. He also says that supplies of all kinds were plentiful at the foot of the hill.

Colonel A. W. Morris, Assistant Adjutant-General, who accompanied Major-General Coke up Spion Kop, saw the water depÔt supply by the trees—some twenty tins of water. He says in his report of 28th January:

It seems clear from the above that there was a larger supply of water on Spion Kop than there was at any other hill action in Natal.

Guns.—Major-General Coke attempted to take up a machine gun, but unfortunately it overturned. The mountain guns, the only guns that Sir Redvers Buller could spare for the summit of Spion Kop, were, it is believed, at Frere; at any rate, they were not in any way in Sir Charles Warren’s command and did not arrive at the foot of Spion Kop until 7.30 P.M. and then the men required rest. Shortly before noon on the 24th Sir Redvers Buller offered to send over two naval guns from Potgieter’s Drift, an offer which Sir Charles Warren accepted. They arrived at Spion Kop long after dark.

At 4 P.M. Sir Charles Warren sent Captain Hanwell, R.A., up Spion Kop to arrange about placing these naval guns, and had Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft been properly exercising command he should have learnt all about the guns from this officer. Slides were made in the morning in the hillside in case the naval guns should arrive, and 3-inch cable was got ready for hauling them up. These guns could have been got up, but even if they had been placed on the slopes they would have knocked out the pom-poms.

An Artillery officer, Lieutenant Dooner, was also on Spion Kop all day telegraphing information to the Officer Commanding Royal Artillery as to the effect of his fire.

Two guns of the 19th Battery Royal Field Artillery were ordered up the hill to the lower slopes, and had just started when they were met by the retiring force and turned back. Lord Dundonald also had orders to take his machine gun up.

Engineer Operations.—These seem to have been very complete. Lieut.-Colonel Wood and his Staff Officer, Lieut.-Colonel Sim and his Staff Officer, and the 17th Company of Royal Engineers were engaged about Spion Kop all the time, and the 37th Company, sent from Potgieter’s, arrived at midnight of 24th January.

During the 24th the whole of the picks, shovels, and sandbags in possession of the force were carried up to the summit of Spion Kop, and were there ready to be made use of at sundown. Colonel Hill knew where they were deposited; Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft apparently did not.

The 17th Company R.E. made the mule path and the gun slides, which were ready the one at noon, the others in the afternoon. This company and others were employed in developing the springs on the sides of Spion Kop, and also made a dam. In the afternoon a message was sent to the half of the 17th Company R.E. on the top of Spion Kop directing the officer in command to be ready to make entrenchments there at nightfall, and Colonel Sim was ordered to go up with a working party of the Somersetshire Regiment.

It is not too much, then, to say that so far as Sir Charles Warren was concerned everything was ready, and action would have been taken during the night in regard to all the points mentioned by Sir Redvers Buller had not the retirement prevented it.

Sir Redvers Buller was therefore mistaken when he wrote, ‘No arrangements were made.’ Arrangements were made, as stated in Sir Charles Warren’s despatch and corroborated from so many sources. It was known on the top of Spion Kop that the guns were to go up, but quite possibly Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft did not know it, as he did not place himself in a position to know anything but what was going on in the firing line, and at sundown, when everything should have been done and could have been done, he ordered the withdrawal.

And yet this is the one act which Sir Redvers Buller singles out for special commendation. Colonel Thorneycroft, he says, ‘saved the situation’ and ‘exercised a wise discretion.’

Now, no one will withhold from this officer the praise due to his gallantry, but his determination to retire from Spion Kop, in spite of the ‘No surrender’ order sent to Colonel Crofton, in spite of the protests of Colonel Hill, in spite of the remonstrances of other officers, and in spite of the explicit orders of Sir Charles Warren conveyed to him on the way down by Colonel Sim, was not so much an error of judgment as an assumption of responsibility which, had it been a determination to advance in spite of orders, might perhaps have been justified by success, but as a determination to retire was perfectly unjustifiable and led to the abrupt termination of an enterprise which had been boldly commenced by the seizure of the key of the position, and which, in the opinion of Lord Roberts, ought to have succeeded.

If, then, the chief blame for this failure must lie upon the officer who ordered and carried out the retirement from Spion Kop, the officer in chief command, who assumed so detached a position in his orders and despatches, and yet so constantly interfered when he should have given his second-in-command a free hand, seems to be rightly dealt with in the observations of Lord Roberts.

Had he furnished Sir Charles Warren with naval guns, with mountain guns, and with a balloon in time to be of use, and not on urgent request at the last moment; had he allowed Sir Charles Warren time to continue his bombardment and supplied him with longer-ranging guns, instead of urging him to attack on the threat of withdrawing the force; had he even, after the decision to attack Spion Kop, at once sent over the naval 12-prs. and another company of Royal Engineers to help to get them up at sundown, the story might have been different. But he did none of these things. He only appointed an inexperienced young officer to take command at the top of Spion Kop over all his seniors, and thinks that officer saved the situation by the wise discretion he exercised in abandoning the position he was chosen to defend.

If the memorandum ‘not necessarily for publication’ recently published does not, to our mind, add much to the blame Sir Redvers Buller had already thrown upon Sir Charles Warren, it certainly puts more definitely the opinion the senior had formed of his junior, and, in this light, should not have been concealed from the latter for two years; but, on the other hand, the memorandum tends to lessen our already waning confidence in Sir Redvers Buller.

The same sort of inconsistencies run through it that we have noticed in the despatches. Thus he says: ‘On the 19th he (Sir Charles Warren) attacked and gained a considerable advantage. On the 20th, instead of pursuing it, he divided his force and gave Clery a separate command.’ But there is no sort of agreement between this statement and the telegram he sent at 9.15 P.M. on the 20th, wherein he relates how Clery by judicious use of his artillery had fought his way up, capturing ridge after ridge for about three miles, and the troops were bivouacking on the ground he had gained.

So in the next sentence of the memorandum: ‘On the 21st I find that his (Warren’s) right was in advance of his left, and that the whole of his batteries, six, were crowded on one small position on his right, while his left was unprotected by artillery, and I had come out to tell him that the enemy on that flank had received a reinforcement of at least 2,500. I suggested a better distribution of his batteries, which he agreed to to some extent, but he would not advance his left.’ How is it possible to reconcile this statement with his telegram of 21st January, in which he said: ‘Warren has been engaged all day, chiefly on his left, which he has swung round about a couple of miles. The ground is very difficult, and, as the fighting is all the time up-hill, it is difficult exactly to say how much we gain, but I think we are making substantial progress’?

Finally his memorandum says: ‘On the 19th I ought to have assumed command myself; I saw that things were not going well—indeed, every one saw that. I blame myself now for not having done so.’ It was on the 19th that Warren made his flank march to Venter’s Laager, that he occupied the lower slopes of the Rangeworthy Hills, and that he reported the result of his reconnaissances. What was not going well? He had not been attacked, happily, in his flank march, he had decided that the road by Fair View to Groote Hoek must be the route—and, as we understand, Sir Redvers Buller says there can be no question that was the only route—and he had captured positions on the hills. Only a few paragraphs before in this same memorandum Sir Redvers Buller says that on the 19th Sir Charles Warren attacked and gained a considerable advantage. Is a considerable advantage indicative of things not going well? Instances of these apparent contradictions and inconsistencies in the actions, telegrams, and despatches of Sir Redvers Buller could be multiplied. What does it all mean? Why this sudden change of bearing towards his principal General? We cannot say; but there is the painful fact that after the abandonment of Spion Kop by the commander nominated by Sir Redvers Buller this change of attitude is evident on comparing the telegrams with the despatches.

In conclusion, whatever faults Sir Charles Warren may have exhibited, we can only say that the accusations made against him, and of which for months he was kept in ignorance, do not stand the investigation we have given them.

It has been stated in Parliament that in August 1900 Sir Charles Warren, on his return home, wrote his own answer to the accusations, of which he was then aware from the published despatches. Since then the Government has been worried by Sir Redvers Buller into publishing further accusations against Sir Charles Warren, who tells us, in his recent letter to the newspapers, that he has asked the Government in common justice to give his refutation the same publicity. At present the Government has decided not to publish it, in order that the personal controversy involved between two distinguished Generals may not be prolonged. But is this quite fair to Sir Charles Warren? Having made public all that is to be said against him, might he not be allowed to show that he can justify himself?