Battles of the nineteenth century . a the wounded, a considerable number ofsick had to be removed, and the ambulancespassed backwards and forwards across the bridges,over which, besides the guns and their ammuni-tion-waggons, nearly five hundred transport-waggons had to be moved. All the waggonswere not over until the afternoon of the troops returned to the camps on Zwart Kopand near Springfield. As the last of them werecrossing the river, the enemy fired a few long-range shots. In his despatch General Bullermentions, as showing the difficulty of the opera-tion, that
Battles of the nineteenth century . a the wounded, a considerable number ofsick had to be removed, and the ambulancespassed backwards and forwards across the bridges,over which, besides the guns and their ammuni-tion-waggons, nearly five hundred transport-waggons had to be moved. All the waggonswere not over until the afternoon of the troops returned to the camps on Zwart Kopand near Springfield. As the last of them werecrossing the river, the enemy fired a few long-range shots. In his despatch General Bullermentions, as showing the difficulty of the opera-tion, that when the last of the men were over,the planks of the bridge at Trichardts Driftwere so worn by the traffic that it was thoughtthey would not have lasted another half-hour. His final comment on the operations reads. THE BOER WAR. somewhat strangely. Thus, he says, endedan expedition which I think ought to have suc-ceeded. We have suffered very heavy losses andlost many whom we can ill spare ; but, on theother hand, we have inilicted as great or greaterlosses upon the enemy than they have on us, andthey are by all accounts thoroughly disheartened ;whilst our troops are, I am glad and jiroud to say,in excellent fettle. In an earlier message he had claimed creditfor having effected the retreat across the Tugela of the failure, which was not fully known until afew da)-s later, was a terrible blow. Earlj- onThursday morning the anxious watchers hadgone to the hills and turned their telescopes onto Spion Kop. They heard the reports of guns,and saw some of Warrens shells bursting on theBlack Mountain. On Spion Kop itself they sawa crowd of men, but they clung to the hope thatthey were British—and the fact that trains ofBoer waggons were moving back across theplain, and some of them heading towards the
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1901
