The position taken up by De Wet was a very strong one. In its centre was a farmhouse called Poplars Grove. On both flanks rose hills connected by scattered kopjes. Guns were placed on all the hills, and along the front ran trenches, rifle-pits, and barbed wire; and a direct attack would probably have proved at least as costly as Magersfontein. But Lord Roberts possessed what Lord Methuen had not--three brigades of mounted men and a strong force of horse-artillery. He had a number of guns greatly superior in weight of metal to those of the enemy, and an army of over thirty thousand men. But even with such a force he was not a man to throw away a single life unnecessarily, and therefore determined to turn the Boers' position. The cavalry were sent off before morning broke on March 7th to make a wide sweep, and come down upon the Boer line of retreat. Tucker's Division were to follow and support them. Kelly-Kenny was to push straight along the southern bank of the river, but he was not intended to attack until the cavalry and Tucker were in their appointed places. The Highland Brigade were on the north side of the river with the Naval Brigade, and these were to make a turning movement. Had the plan been carried out as intended, the whole of the Boer force would probably have been annihilated and captured, and the war might have come to an abrupt end, for both Kruger and Steyn were with De Wet, and with the capture of the two originators of the war, all further resistance might have ceased at once. But for once in his brilliant career French failed. Thus, instead of sweeping quite clear of the Boer line, he ran against the extreme left of their position. Daylight broke before the cavalry were perceived, and the instant the Boer leaders saw that they were in danger of being outflanked, and their retreat cut off, they abandoned the position they had so laboriously fortified and retired hastily. But there was still ample time for the cavalry to have overtaken the guns and waggons, even if they could not have caught the flying horsemen. They allowed themselves, however, to be held in check by a handful of skirmishers, some fifty in number, who first held a farmhouse, and when, driven from this, kept up a stinging fire from a low kopje, until, knowing that the guns and waggons were out of reach, and that the two presidents must have escaped, they retired.