(1) There are decided advantages in the occupation of a hill in line of the advance to attack, if it be not abnormally high. (2) The advantage was practically shown by the occupation of hills in similar positions to Spion Kop all through the war. (3) Spion Kop was advantageously placed for occupation. (4) It was not abnormally high. (5) A passive occupation of it was sufficient at first, and in itself caused the Boers to shift their camp and turned their positions. (6) The passive occupation would have given place to an active one on the following day, when the Boers could not have held their trenches. (7) The position was one that should have been held. CHAPTER V CAPTURE OF SPION KOP AND ITS ABANDONMENT On 23rd January the command at the front was divided into two attacks under Sir Charles Warren; the left attack under Lieutenant-General Clery, with his two brigades, the 2nd and 5th; and the right attack under Major-General Talbot Coke with the 10th and 11th Brigades. Thus Major-General Coke had the command of the attack on Spion Kop and orders were issued by him and made to him in reference to the column of attack. Major-General Woodgate having been selected for the command of this column, it devolved upon Major-General Coke as commander of the 5th Division and of the right attack to make all the arrangements in connection with it in consultation with Sir Charles Warren. He gave orders that the column should consist of two and a half battalions of Major-General Woodgate’s Brigade, the 2nd Royal Lancaster, 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, and two companies South Lancashire, to which Sir Charles Warren added 200 of Thorneycroft’s Mounted Infantry, half the 17th Company Royal Engineers, and two companies of the Connaught Rangers to intrench half-way up in case of a check during the assault. All the arrangements for the water supply, food, ammunition, Artillery and Engineers’ services and for the wounded were arranged between Sir Charles Warren and Major-General Coke, with the aid of the officers commanding the Army Service Corps and the Royal Artillery, the Commanding Royal Engineer and the Principal Medical Officer. Sir Redvers Buller was asked by telegram to send over the mountain guns and also the East Indian water-carriers who were said to be in his camp. Sir Charles Warren had a long interview with Major-Generals Talbot Coke and Woodgate, in which, it is understood, the subjects of the attack and the intrenchments were discussed, and the orders to Major-General Woodgate for the attack, founded on those of the previous day, were issued by Major-General Talbot Coke. At seven o’clock in the evening of 23rd January Major-General Woodgate started with the column for the attack, the troops carrying rations for the following day with them. Mr. Bennet Burleigh in ‘The Natal Campaign’ gives the following graphic account of the march: