apex in a difficult pass, the ill-omened Laing's Nek, dominated by
the even more sinister bulk of Majuba. Each side of this angle is
open to invasion, the one from the Transvaal and the other from the
Orange Free State. A force up at the apex is in a perfect trap, for
the mobile enemy can flood into the country to the south of them,
cut the line of supplies, and throw up a series of entrenchments
which would make retreat a very difficult matter. Further down the
country, at such positions as Ladysmith or Dundee, the danger,
though not so imminent, is still an obvious one, unless the
defending force is strong enough to hold its own in the open field
and mobile enough to prevent a mounted enemy from getting round its
flanks. To us, who are endowed with that profound military wisdom
which only comes with a knowledge of the event, it is obvious that
with a defending force which could not place more than 12,000 men
in the fighting line, the true defensible frontier was the line of
the Tugela. As a matter of fact, Ladysmith was chosen, a place
almost indefensible itself, as it is dominated by high hills in at
least two directions.

Such an event as the siege of the town appears never to have been
contemplated, as no guns of position were asked for or sent. In
spite of this, an amount of stores, which is said to have been
valued at more than a million of pounds, was dumped down at this
small railway junction, so that the position could not be evacuated
without a crippling loss. The place was the point of bifurcation of
the main line, which divides at this little town into one branch
running to Harrismith in the Orange Free State, and the other
leading through the Dundee coal fields and Newcastle to the Laing's
Nek tunnel and the Transvaal. An importance, which appears now to
have been an exaggerated one, was attached by the Government of