Excerpt from Battles of the Nineteenth Century, Vol. 6: The Boer War of 1899-1900, Down to the Occupation of Pretoria

The alliance of the Orange Free State with the Transvaal made it necessary to include a march across the Orange River in the plan of operations. An advance on this side would give the main British army three lines of rail way for bringing up supplies and reinforcements, and would open a way into the Transvaal on which there were none of the formidable mountain positions that barred the way of a march by Northern Natal. Moreover, by be ginning with the invasion of the Free State, the British general would be able to threaten in flank and rear the Boer forces holding the Drakensberg passes and the country about Laing's Nek. Accordingly, as soon as there was any serious prospect of war, it was decided that a complete army corps and a cavalry division should be sent to Cape Colony, and concentrated on the line of railway junctions south of the Orange River, ready to advance on Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, and Pretoria. A division of British troops, with a cavalry brigade, would meanwhile defend Natal from a Boer invasio'n for it was anticipated that on the outbreak of war the Transvaal Boers would repeat the plan of 1880-81, and invade Northern Natal by Laing's Nek, while their allies of the Free State advanced on the British left through the Drakensberg passes. Local levies, assisted by detachments of Imperial troops, were to hold Kimberley (the diamond city) and Mafeking, on the western border of the hostile republics, thus compelling the Boers to detach a certain number of men and guns from the force concentrated on their southern frontiers. In Rhodesia, the local troops and a corps of mounted rifles, raised by Special Service oflicers, were relied upon to deal with Boer raiders, and prevent a possible renewal of the Matabele rising. Such was the original British plan of campaign.

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