In the two months before the outbreak of the Second Boer War, 10,000 British soldiers arrived in Durban to reinforce the 2,000 already there. They were deployed by train to Ladysmith and Dundee. The war broke out on 12 October 1899, and on 30 October (after the Battle of Nicholson's Nek, half the British forces retreated south of the Tugela while the other half were besieged in Ladysmith. During October, November, and December 1899, the NGR sent 43,296 soldiers, 11,479 animals, 96 cannons, and 377 vehicles together with 19,499 tons of supplies from the coast to the battlefields.