out by the nearest way still open to him to rejoin the main body. The
Ladysmith force covers this march by a shielding movement (Reitfontein)
and the junction of the two British halves is effected. From Dundee to
Ladysmith is forty miles, and General Joubert unopposed would have
covered the distance in three days. He was before Dundee on Saturday,
the 21st, and there was no sign of him before Ladysmith until Saturday,
the 28th, or Sunday, the 29th. The original division of the British
force and the Battle of Glencoe thus produced a delay of several days in
the Boer advance: more could not have been expected from it. This first
impression ought to be supplemented by a consideration of Sir George
White's peculiarly difficult position, on which I will venture a word or
two.

The Government, by its action in the first half of September, decided
that Sir George White must defend Natal for about five weeks[A] with
sixteen thousand men against the bulk of the Boer army, which was
likely to be double his own force. It was evidently expected that he
should hold his ground near Ladysmith and thereby cover Natal to the
south of the Tugela. This double task was quite disproportionate to his
force. If Ladysmith had been a fortress, secure for a month or two
against assault, and able to take care of itself, the field force using
it as a base could no doubt have covered Natal. But in the absence of a
strong place there were only two ways by which a small force could delay
the Boer invasion. The force might let itself be invested and thereby
hold a proportion of the Boer army, leaving the balance to raid where it
could, or the campaign must be conducted as a retreat from position to
position. For a general with ten thousand men and only two hundred miles
of ground behind him to carry on a retreat in the face of a force double
his own so as to make it last five, weeks and to incur no disaster would
be a creditable achievement. Sir John Moore is thought to have shown