War Record of the York and Lancaster Regiment, 1900-1902 Book

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III "after Many Days" IT is easy to play a winning game, and nothing succeeds like success ; but to sustain defeat after defeat with courage and composure needs iron nerve and indomitable will. Looking back on those black days of the Natal Campaign, it seems little short of a miracle that the failure of three desperate attempts to relieve Ladysmith did not demoralize our troops. Few armies would have passed through such crushing experiences and maintained their discipline. Possibly the fact that ours did so was due to what " Linesman " calls " the system and composition of our anachronistic old army." Be that as it may, the men were still ardently longing to be led on to a fresh encounter with the mobile and hitherto impenetrable force contending with them for the ruin or rescue of one tormented town. After the abandonment of Vaal Krantz the troops had one day at Spearman's for a short rest, which was a great boon?we used it in making ourselves and our rifles as clean as wecould in the interval. On Saturday, February Advance on 1oth, the army marched to Springfield. Here a l eng t- force under the command of Brigadier-General Burn-Murdoch was left behind ; it consisted of a brigade of cavalry, two battalions of infantry, viz., York and Lancaster Regiment and Imperial Light Infantry, and two naval guns. The infantry brigade and guns were under Colonel Kirkpatrick. The main body proceeded to Chieveley to rest and recruit before the next Officers' Mess Tent. advance, which was this time to be an attempt to outflank the Boers' left. The enemy's defences on that side were to the south of the Tugela, their principal position being Hlang- wane Hill, and to the south and east of that important post were Hussar Hill, Green Hill, and Cingolo and Monte Cristo, the two ...Read More