CHAPTER IV {p.102}.
THE WESTERN FRONTIER TO MAGERSFONTEIN AND STORMBERG--OPERATIONS OF GENERAL FRENCH ABOUT COLESBERG As was the case a century ago, on the eve of the French Revolution, Great Britain last year indulged too long her dream of peace, and awaked from it too late for timely preparation.

Like a man who starts behindhand with his day, the catching up meant double worry, if not double work.

Hildyard's brigade, which sailed October 20, had, thirty days before, been preceded by two hospital ships, three batteries of field artillery and a thousand infantry;[7] the last-named getting away on the 19th, only one day before Hildyard.

No British field troops had then reached South Africa, save a couple of {p.103} battalions additional to Cape Colony, and the reinforcements to Sir George White drawn mainly from India, which, with most of his corps in Natal, and despite his well-directed energy, the Boers by their superior numbers were able to round up and corral in Ladysmith in three weeks after their ultimatum was issued.

There were then also on the way some fifteen hundred of the Army Service Corps, an organised body of men trained for the supply and transport service of the army, and of skilled mechanics, whose duties are to construct and maintain works of various kinds for the facilitation of army supply--transport and depot.