[citation needed] White knew that large reinforcements were arriving, and could communicate with British units south of the Tugela River by searchlight and heliograph.

[citation needed] Louis Botha commanded the Boer detachment which first raided Southern Natal, and then dug in north of the Tugela to hold off the relief force.

[citation needed] Temporarily unnerved, the relief force commander, General Redvers Buller, suggested that White either break out, or surrender after destroying his stores and ammunition.

[5] Under Colonel Ian Hamilton, they had constructed a line of forts, sangars and entrenchments on the reverse slope of the Platrand, of which the Boers were unaware.

[citation needed] In the early hours of 6 January 1900, Boer storming parties under General C. J. de Villiers began climbing Wagon Hill and Caesar's Camp.

[citation needed] While Buller made repeated attempts to fight his way across the Tugela, the defenders of Ladysmith suffered increasingly from shortage of food and other supplies, and from disease, mainly enteric fever (typhoid), which claimed many lives.

[citation needed] Towards the end of the siege, the garrison and townsfolk were living largely on their remaining draught oxen and horses (mainly in the form of "chevril", a meat paste named after the commercial beef extract "Bovril").

[citation needed] The first party of the relief column under Major Hubert Gough, who was accompanied by war correspondent Winston Churchill, rode in on the evening of 28 February.

[6] Soon afterwards, as the townspeople celebrated, White made a speech at the town's post office to thank them for their fortitude, and reportedly said: "but, thank God, we kept the flag flying".

[7] Four Victoria Crosses (two posthumous) were awarded following the siege: Sir George White had no doubts about the need to hold Ladysmith, describing it as "a place of primary importance" because of its railway junction, which would have enabled the Free State and Transvaal armies to unite.

[11] Churchill commented that Ladysmith was an essential component of the Boer campaign strategy because "they scarcely reckoned on a fortnight's resistance; nor in their wildest nightmares did they conceive a four months' siege terminating in the furious inroad of a relieving army".

[11] The British artist John Henry Frederick Bacon depicted The Relief of Ladysmith in a painting which shows people celebrating on 28 February 1900, as White shakes hands with Colonel Dundonald (representing Buller) at Pieter's Hill, just outside the town.

Bacon's work became known as the Bovril War Picture after its photogravure was sponsored by the company, and offered free to anyone who collected a sufficient number of coupons from each jar of the product.

[12] Early in the siege, an agreement between White and Joubert led to the creation of the neutral Intombi Military Hospital some 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) outside Ladysmith.