If, then, the chief blame for this failure must lie upon the officer who ordered and carried out the retirement from Spion Kop, the officer in chief command, who assumed so detached a position in his orders and despatches, and yet so constantly interfered when he should have given his second-in-command a free hand, seems to be rightly dealt with in the observations of Lord Roberts. Had he furnished Sir Charles Warren with naval guns, with mountain guns, and with a balloon in time to be of use, and not on urgent request at the last moment; had he allowed Sir Charles Warren time to continue his bombardment and supplied him with longer-ranging guns, instead of urging him to attack on the threat of withdrawing the force; had he even, after the decision to attack Spion Kop, at once sent over the naval 12-prs. and another company of Royal Engineers to help to get them up at sundown, the story might have been different. But he did none of these things. He only appointed an inexperienced young officer to take command at the top of Spion Kop over all his seniors, and thinks that officer saved the situation by the wise discretion he exercised in abandoning the position he was chosen to defend. If the memorandum ‘not necessarily for publication’ recently published does not, to our mind, add much to the blame Sir Redvers Buller had already thrown upon Sir Charles Warren, it certainly puts more definitely the opinion the senior had formed of his junior, and, in this light, should not have been concealed from the latter for two years; but, on the other hand, the memorandum tends to lessen our already waning confidence in Sir Redvers Buller. The same sort of inconsistencies run through it that we have noticed in the despatches. Thus he says: ‘On the 19th he (Sir Charles Warren) attacked and gained a considerable advantage. On the 20th, instead of pursuing it, he divided his force and gave Clery a separate command.’ But there is no sort of agreement between this statement and the telegram he sent at 9.15 P.M. on the 20th, wherein he relates how Clery by judicious use of his artillery had fought his way up, capturing ridge after ridge for about three miles, and the troops were bivouacking on the ground he had gained.