The naval 12-pounder accompanying Long having been rendered immobile for the day, and the two batteries sacrificed, Sir Redvers Buller decided that without their support it would {p.231} be impossible to force the passage. He therefore directed a general withdrawal to the camp. The abandoned batteries were left in the open, where, together with the wounded men and some of the supports sent in by Hildyard, they were taken by the Boers. The British loss in missing and prisoners was 21 officers and 207 men. There were killed 135, and wounded 762. The enemy remained unshaken in his positions. This mortifying reverse, following sharply upon the heels of Magersfontein and Stormberg, thoroughly aroused the British people, who neither at home nor on the field were prepared for it. The day after the receipt of the news, Saturday, December 16th, a Cabinet meeting was held, and the next evening it was announced that, as the campaign in Natal was likely to require the undivided attention of Sir Redvers Buller, Lord Roberts would be sent to South Africa as Commander-in-Chief, and would be accompanied by Lord Kitchener as Chief of Staff. At the same time the rest of the Army Reserve was called out, and further measures taken which carried the troops employed in South Africa to, and beyond, {p.232} the large numbers already quoted as despatched by the end of the following March. Lord Roberts sailed from England December 23rd. On the 26th, at Gibraltar, he picked up Kitchener, who had been brought there by a swift naval cruiser, and on the 10th of January, 1900, he landed at Cape Town. CHAPTER VI {p.233} THE NATAL CAMPAIGN. BRITISH PREPARE FOR A FLANKING ATTACK UPON THE BOERS' RIGHT AT THE TUGELA. THE BOER ASSAULT ON LADYSMITH, JANUARY 6TH. After the reverse at Colenso, nearly four weeks elapsed before Sir Redvers Buller was ready to move again for the relief of Ladysmith. The interval passed in receiving reinforcements, and in accumulating a transport service which should enable the army to perform a long flanking march, for, the frontal attack upon the Boer centre having failed, and its difficulties been not only recognised but demonstrated, the purpose was now to turn their right flank by way of Springfield, some twenty miles to the north-east of Frere, crossing thence the Tugela by a ford six miles distant, known as Trichardt's Drift, and following the Acton Homes road. The {p.234} army would thus pass round Spion Kop and gain the open plain north of the mountain thus named.