Among the slain was General Wauchope.
From the day of this battle until February 11, the opposing forces continued in the positions occupied by them before the engagement, Methuen upon the north bank of the Modder, Cronje holding the ranges at Magersfontein and Spytfontein.

The great comparative mobility of the Boers, with their more numerous and seasoned horses, enabled them to maintain the investment of Kimberley, and yet retain the power to concentrate betimes at any threatened point from this interior position.

Here between the two bodies of the enemy, between Methuen and Kekewich, was the bulk of their army.

Kimberley was never assaulted, nor did the inhabitants often see their enemy in any force.
During the same calendar week as Magersfontein, there occurred two other reverses--at Stormberg, December 10, and at Colenso, December 15--which made this the black week of the war for the British arms.
These misfortunes, though chargeable in {p.169} part to faulty dispositions upon the ground, and in part to the chapter of those accidents which have always to be allowed for in war, serve more especially to illustrate the embarrassments attendant upon the division of a force into two or more parts out of reach for mutual support, and neither one in decisively preponderant strength to the enemy to whom it is opposed.

This disadvantage is greatest to the offensive, because to the defensive falls the privilege of increasing power by choice of position and by fortifying.