Qualla: Second Battle of Colenso

Second Battle of Colenso: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sidney Paget, Public domain. Lieutenant Frederick Roberts was twenty-seven years old and the only son of Field Marshal Lord Roberts, the most decorated soldier in the British Empire. On 15 December 1899, at Colenso in Natal, he volunteered to ride into open ground swept by Boer rifle fire and hook a team to one of twelve abandoned field guns. He managed to help recover two of them. Two days later he died of his wounds. His father, already en route to South Africa to take overall command of the war, learned the news at sea. The younger Roberts received the Victoria Cross, one of four awarded that day. The guns he tried to save became the battle's most enduring symbol -- not of heroism, but of how badly things had gone wrong.

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Image: Sidney Paget | Public domain

Second Battle of Colenso: A Map That Lied

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. General Sir Redvers Buller had arrived in South Africa at the head of an army corps, only to find British garrisons besieged on three widely separated fronts. He sent Lord Methuen west to relieve Kimberley and Gatacre to the central front, then led his largest force -- 20,000 men...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Second Battle of Colenso: Three Fronts, Three Failures

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. RAM assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Botha deployed nine commandos with elegant simplicity: his main force along the river's northern bank, a flanking force on Hlangwane hill south of the river to enfilade any crossing attempt, and a reserve to attack from upstream. He ordered his men to hold fire until the British ...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. RAM assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Second Battle of Colenso: Saving the Guns

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Illustated London News, Public domain. By midmorning, Buller took personal command from General Clery. The situation was clear: Hart's brigade was shattered, Long's guns were stranded in the open, and the mounted troops on the right were going nowhere. Buller called the battle off -- even though Hildyard's 2nd Brigade...

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Image: Illustated London News | Public domain

Second Battle of Colenso: The Arithmetic of Black Week

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Taddy and Co, 'VC Heroes - Boer War', No 51 of 125 cards, Public domain. The final accounting was stark. British casualties: 143 killed, 756 wounded, 220 captured. Boer casualties: eight killed, 30 wounded. The disparity was extraordinary even by the lopsided standards of the Second Boer War, and it closed out the worst week in recent British military...

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Image: Taddy and Co, 'VC Heroes - Boer War', No 51 of 125 cards | Public domain

Second Battle of Colenso: Back to the River

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Colenso was not the end but the beginning of Buller's ordeal. Over the next ten weeks, he tried to outflank the Boer positions by crossing the Tugela upstream -- first at Spion Kop, where British soldiers seized a hilltop they could not hold, then at Vaal Krantz, where they were ...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain