The defects of a wedge as a mechanical power at once became apparent to
the British force which occupied Natal when war became inevitable. The
cutting edge was inaccessible and liable to injury which could not be
easily repaired; much trouble was anticipated from the presence of Boer
commandos in contact with the surfaces; the base did not appear to be
sufficiently well designed to receive the impact of the propelling
force; and there were grave doubts as to the soundness of the material
of which an important section of the wedge, namely Ladysmith, was
constructed.

It was therefore proposed by the military authorities that the Natal
wedge should not be used as an instrument in the war. To this the civil
government at Pietermaritzburg strongly objected on account of the evil
moral effect which the abandonment of a considerable proportion of the
Colony to the enemy would exercise upon the general situation in South
Africa, and of the loss of prestige which the evacuation would entail in
the minds of the natives, who numbered three-quarters of a million.
Under pressure from the Colonial Office, and against its own judgment,
the Army of Natal set itself to work upon the Wedge.

The mistake soon became manifest, although the artisans did their best.
The Wedge was not an effective instrument; its cutting edge was never in
operation; and in a very few weeks it was hewn into a mangled, cumbrous
and irregular mass, which could neither be advanced nor withdrawn and
which for nearly five months led a precarious and unhappy existence. Its
distress necessitated the recasting of the plan of the South African
campaign and a pernicious "moral effect" was not avoided. One British
Army besieged in an open town surrounded by heights, while another was
lying impotent upon the banks of the Tugela, eighteen miles distant, was