But though the first attack may be on Captain Baden.
Powell, the most serious movement is, of course, that directed against Natal. It is obvious that on this side there is to be an invasion in force. Even on Friday morning news had como in that General Joubert had occupied Laing's Nek, and that the Free State Boers were swarming into Natal, not by Van Reenen's Pass and the railway line, as was expected, but by Tintwa Pass, which would take them into our territory by the valley of the Tugela River, and so considerably to the south of Ladysmith. No doubt a similar advance is taking place from the eastern frontier by Rorke's Drift, the forces being designed to join hands behind our Ladysmith-Dundee line of defence. This junction accomplished, the Boers will presumably move to attack the Ladysmith and Dundee position, while simultane- ously there will be another attack from Laing's Nek, in order to take us between two fires. We do not think that this piece of very obvious strategy will in any way take our soldiers by surprise, for they long ago prepared for it. That it will prove as advantageous to the Boers as they imagine, we are by no means sure. Such movements are not easily carried out by undisciplined troops. and are always open to be met by the very military artifice on which they rely,—i.e., the placing of your enemy between two fires.
