They had at this stage of the war one of the most magnificent opportunities imaginable. Full of confidence, flushed with success, well equipped, and more numerous than they would ever be again, they might have reckoned on the co-operation of the Cape Boers, who, believing in the possible success of their brethren, were preparing to throw in their lot with them. Against them they had some 40,000 English, half of them only just disembarked, unacclimatized, untried in warfare, the other half discouraged by recent events and scattered over a vast area. Order and effort prolonged for one week only would have overwhelmed and annihilated the English army. Cape Colony and Natal would have thrown off the yoke, associating themselves with the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, and the United States of South Africa would have been a power to reckon with. But no! Nothing was attempted. Joubert seemed to be hypnotized before Ladysmith, Du Toit before Kimberley. And, quietly and undisturbedly, England gradually disembarked the 200,000 men Lord Kitchener thought necessary for the work in hand. Nevertheless, for two months more the incapacity of the English generals all along the line thrust the flower of the Queen’s battalions under the deadly fire of the Mausers, without a chance of fighting for their lives, so to speak. On November 10, at Belmont, Lord Methuen was repulsed with heavy loss. A month later, at Stormberg, General Gatacre ventured an advance without scouts, without a map, blindly following a guide whose course he did not even verify by a compass. The advance took place in the utmost disorder, though it had been arranged forty-eight hours, previously. The ambulance lost touch with the detachment, and went its own way. The 2nd Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers lost its ammunition-waggon. The column advanced in close order to within 100 yards of the Boer entrenchments without any warning, and was decimated. Gatacre lost 100 men killed and 700 prisoners. On December 11, at Magersfontein, Lord Methuen had a second disaster to deplore. Half an hour after midnight, after twenty-four hours of artillery preparations and bombardment of the Boer entrenchments, five Highland regiments advanced in line of quarter-column. The night was dark, and rain was falling in torrents. At half-past three in the morning the English halted, not very sure of their route. In an instant a deadly fire poured out from the rocks. They were less than 200 yards from the trenches occupied by Cronje’s men. The Black Watch was decimated. General Wauchope fell, crying: ’My poor fellows! ’twas not I who brought you here!’ The Marquis of Winchester was also killed. The whole body was demoralized, and it was not possible to make the fugitives lie down till they had reached a distance of several hundreds of yards. ’It was,’ says an eye-witness, ’one of the saddest sights that could wring the heart of an English soldier of our times.’