Note (return) — Chapter VIII

It may well be doubted whether the price paid for the relief of the diamond men was not too high. Uninstructed public opinion at home called for the movement, and forced Lord Roberts' hand, but it was never an imperative military necessity. The horse casualties,35 due to want of water, forced marches, and ignorance of horsemastership on the part of all ranks, who were inclined to regard cavalry work in the light of a steeplechase, were so heavy that when on February 17 French, after an attempt on the previous day to pursue a body of retreating Boers with his exhausted horses, was suddenly called upon to march thirty miles to head off Cronje, he could in all his Division mount less than the strength of two regiments. Nor was this all, for the rush to Kimberley was the indirect cause of the loss of the supply column at Waterval Drift on February 15; and thus in a few hours the mounted force and the supply column and transport which Lord Roberts and his staff had assembled with so much difficulty were, the former partially and the latter entirely, sacrificed.