Note 151 — Chapter XIV · RORKE’S DRIFT—HELPMAKAAR—COURT OF INQUIRY, ETC.

With respect to this, Lord Chelmsford lays down a principle (relative to the border raids, but even more strongly applicable here) that if a force remains “on the passive defensive, without endeavouring by means of scouting in small bodies or by raiding in large ones, to discover what the enemy is doing in its immediate front, it deserves to be surprised and overpowered.”—(P. P. [C. 2318] p. 80).