The change was not suddenly effected. It was an instinctive, almost an imperceptible, development rendered necessary by circumstances. The reverses on the Modder, the failure at Ladysmith, the ill success which attended the attempts to raise the fiery cross in the northern districts of Cape Colony, indicated to the burghers the cause of the instability of their military machine. They discovered, in time, that its centre of gravity was too highly pitched and must be brought nearer the earth. For five months the war had been carried on under the orders of a federal syndicate composed of the two Presidents sitting with casual military assessors, scarcely one of whom was a strategist or capable of viewing the Boer cause synoptically. Cronje was gone into captivity; Joubert was suspected to be half-hearted; and Botha, who had begun so well in Natal, was a disappointment. The Boers recognized that the British strategy had been astonishingly successful, and that they could not hope to compete with it. But they believed, not without justification, that in minor tactics and the smaller operations of war they were the equals of their enemy and in war-craft his superior. The power of a slender, well-led, and resolute force was shown at Nicholson's Nek, Waterval Drift, and elsewhere, and it began to dawn upon their lethargic minds that the individual efforts of handy commandos acting to a great extent independently offered them the best chance of resisting the invader.[39] The new method was almost immediately put on trial and, with certain notable exceptions, continued throughout the war, which mainly by its use was prolonged for twenty-six months against an enemy daily increasing in numbers. Not that the Boers were not at first greatly discouraged by the victories on the Modder, which admitted Lord Roberts to Bloemfontein, and by the tranquillity which suddenly brooded upon the arena of war. Even the Prieska rebellion, from which so much was hoped owing to its proximity to the line of communication with Capetown, was dying away under the vigorous hands of Kitchener, who had been detached from Head Quarters to deal with it. Many of the burghers availed themselves of a proclamation issued by Lord Roberts on March 15, under which, after taking an oath of neutrality, they were allowed to return to their farms, and there remain during good behaviour. Others took furlough, with or without permission, or fled to Kroonstad. When Joubert remonstrated with De Wet for acquiescing in the exodus, the latter replied that he could not help it. The burghers were not accustomed to discipline and could not be coerced, but they would return with renewed courage by and by.