especially if directed according to a sound though not always
perfectly-executed plan.




PLAYING WITH FIRE

_November 1st_, 1899

The first week's campaign, dimly seen through scanty information, gives
a peculiar impression of the two armies. The British force seems like an
athlete in fine training but without an idea except that of
self-preservation, while the Boer army resembles a burly labourer,
clumsy in his movements, but knowing very well what he wants. The
British force at first is divided upon a front of forty miles, each of
its halves looking away from the other, so that there is little
attention to the weak point of such a front, the communication between
its parts. The first event is the cutting of this communication (on the
19th), and not until the 21st is there an attempt to clear it, and that
attempt, though it leads to a severe blow against the interposing Boer
force (Elandslaagte), is not successful, for the communication has
eventually to be sought on another route behind the direct one. The Boer
idea is, after severing the connection between the British halves, to
crush the weaker Dundee portion; but the execution is imperfect, so that
Sir Penn Symons has the opportunity, which he seizes instantly, to
defeat and drive off one of the columns before the other can assist it.
His successor, General Yule, the heir to his design, is no sooner
convinced by this move to Glencoe that his line of junction with
Ladysmith is threatened with attack by a great superiority than he sets