The brief, exciting, and brilliant prelude to the war was concluded, and a great and controlling centre of national and military interest had been established by the isolation of some 13,000 British in the midst of foes whose numbers are not even yet accurately known, but of whose great superiority in that respect there can be no doubt.

For a hundred and eighteen weary days the blockade lasted, until, on February 28, 1900, the advance of the relieving force entered the place.
Almost simultaneously with the beginning of the investment, on the 31st of October, General Sir Redvers Buller arrived from England at Cape Town to take chief command of the British forces in South Africa.
The second period of the war now opened, before recounting which it will be necessary to summarize the general situation at date, as constituted by many preliminary occurrences in different, and {p.069} even remote, quarters of the world.

Up to the present, success had seemed to lie with the Boers, but the appearance was only superficial.
Their plan had been well designed, but in execution it had failed; and while the failure is to be laid in part to a certain tardiness and lack of synchronism in their own movements, it was due yet more to the well-judged, energetic, and brilliantly executed movements of Sir George White and Sir Penn Symons, which utilised and completed the dislocation in the enemy's action, and so insured the time necessary for organising defence upon an adequately competent scale.
"Sir George White's force," wrote Spencer Wilkinson, on the 18th October, "is the centre of gravity of the situation.

If the Boers cannot defeat it their case is hopeless; if they can crush it they may have hopes of ultimate success."[4] The summary was true then, and is now.

In the preliminary trial of skill and strength the Boers had been worsted.
[Footnote 4: "Lessons of the War," p.