Note (return) — Chapter VIII

The Boers, who had captured at Dundee some intelligence papers which disclosed the original plan of campaign, were now more than ever convinced that the British Army must advance by way of Norval's Pont and Bethulie, and did not discover their error until it was too late to rectify it.34 When Lord Roberts had made all his preparations, which involved the entire reorganization of the transport, and the raising of a considerable force of mounted troops, for his march of 100 miles across the veld eastward from the railway, the secret was disclosed to Kelly-Kenny and French on February 1. This plan of a flank march had also suggested itself to Buller, who proposed it in a memorandum which Lord Roberts found on his arrival in Capetown; but as Buller's scheme included the construction of a railway across the veld, and limited the advance of the Army to the rate at which the line could be pushed forward, it did not fall in with Lord Roberts' ideas.