It’s been a brutal seven months but for the English, they are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or so it appears, because as the joke goes, the light at the end of the tunnel could be an oncoming train.

The Boers are falling back across a broad front, to the East in Natal, General Redvers Buller finally has found his military mojo and is approaching the Boer lines across the Biggarsberg to the north of Ladysmith. This is where the Highveld or the high plains of South Africa lie, and between him and the plains are Boers ensconsed in the three main passes.

In the centre, and about to cross the Vaal River, is Lord Roberts with his massive army of around 50 000 marching steadily towards Pretoria, and in the West, Lord Methuen’s unit under Mahon is moving up towards Mafeking and Plumer is north of the same town - they plan to join up there with the Canadians who approached via Beira in Portuguese East Africa.

Throughout South Africa, the British plan is finally falling into place.

It has taken seven months to subdue the Boers and now for the first time in this conflict, the British Empire appears just that. If you can cast your mind back to October 1899 when the Anglo-Boer war burst onto the global consciousness, the British really believed they’d crush these insolent burghers in the space of a few weeks.