[Footnote 189: Nor was the Intelligence Department less urgent than Lord Milner. "In July of last year [1899], earlier warnings being disregarded, a formal communication was made for the consideration of the Cabinet, advising the despatch of a large force fully equipped, estimated to be sufficient to safeguard Natal and Cape Colony from the first onrush of the Boers."--Sir John Ardagh, in _The Balfourian Parliament_, 1900-1905. By Henry W. Lucy, p. 10. See also the evidence of the War Commission, and the "Military Notes" issued by the D. M. I. in June (1899).]
[Footnote 190: In a memorandum of November 20th (furnished to Gen. Forestier-Walker) Gen. Buller, on the eve of starting for Natal, gives as a first paragraph in his "appreciation of the situation" the following remark: "1. Ever since I have been here we have been like the man, who, with a long day's work before him, overslept himself and so was late for everything all day." (_Official History_, p. 209.)]
The War Office scheme was designed to provide a defensive force to hold the colonies, and an offensive force to invade the Republics. In the three months that elapsed before this scheme was put into effect, the conditions upon which it was based had changed completely. On the day that Buller reached Capetown (October 31st) White, with almost the whole of the Natal defensive force, was shut up in Ladysmith by Joubert. When at length the last units of the Army Corps were landed (December 4th) in South Africa, Buller was at Maritzburg, organising a force for the relief of White; and practically the entire offensive force had been broken up to disengage the defensive forces, or save them from destruction. Buller himself had 14,000 of the Army Corps in Natal, and more were to follow; Methuen was taking 8,000 men for the relief of Kimberley; and the balance were being pushed up to strengthen the original defensive forces that were holding the railways immediately South of the Orange Free State border, and checking the rebellion in the eastern districts of the Cape Colony. Gatacre's defeat at Stormberg (December 10th), Methuen's defeat at Magersfontein (December 11th), and Buller's defeat at Colenso (December 15th) together provided ample evidence of the fact that, however desirable it might be to assume the offensive, a purely defensive _rôle_ must for the time be assigned to the troops then in South Africa; and that this state of affairs must continue until the arrival of very considerable reinforcements.