force was strategically unsound, and the position of Ladysmith a bad one
because it lent itself to investment. It is now known that the division
of forces and the decision to hold Ladysmith, even until it should be
turned and surrounded, was due not to strategical but to what are called
political considerations. The Government of Natal thought that if the
troops were withdrawn from Glencoe--Dundee, or the whole force
collected, say at Colenso instead of Ladysmith, the appearance of
retreat would have a bad effect on the natives, the Kaffirs, and perhaps
the Dutch farmers. Accordingly, out of deference to the view of the
local Government, the General consented to do his work in what he knew
to be the wrong way. This is a perfect specimen of the way in which wars
are "muddled"--I borrow the expression from Lord Rosebery--and it
deserves thinking over.

No popular delusion is more extraordinary and none more widespread than
the notion that there are two ways of looking at a war, one the military
aspect and the other the governmental or civil aspect, that both are
legitimate, and that, as the Government is above the general, in case of
a clash the military view must fall into the background. This notion is
quite wrong, and the more important the position of the men who have got
it into their heads, the more harm it does. There is only one right way
of looking at war, and that consists in seeing it as it is. If two men
both take a true view of an operation of war, they will agree, whether
they are both soldiers, both civilians, or one a soldier and the other a
civilian. It does not matter what you call their view, but, as a soldier
who knows his business ought to have true views about it, the proper
name for the true view is the military view. If the civil view is a
different one it must be wrong. In this case the belief that a retreat
from a position to which troops had been sent would have a bad effect
was no doubt founded on fact. But for that reason the troops ought not