On 15 December 1899 General Sir Redvers Buller’s army attacked Louis Botha’s Boers along the Tugela River at Colenso, on the way to besieged Ladysmith. An Irish brigade was trapped in a loop of the river and two field batteries were shot to pieces. Buller withdrew, leaving ten guns behind: the third British defeat of Black Week.
Second Battle of Colenso
15 December 1899 · 126 years ago
The line of the Tugela
Buller had some 20,000 men by C. J. Barnard’s count in the South African Military History Society’s journal, about 21,000 by Arthur Conan Doyle’s, with a strong artillery that included naval guns. Botha’s Boers held the far bank of the Tugela on a front of seven miles or more, so well hidden that the British could see no sign of them.1
Buller planned to attack in three places. Hart’s Irish Brigade was to cross at a drift on the left, Hildyard’s brigade was to attack Colenso and the bridge in the center, and Dundonald’s mounted brigade was to take Hlangwane Hill on the right, with Lyttelton’s and Barton’s brigades in support.2
The loop and the guns
Hart’s brigade was led into a loop of the river, where it came under fire from the front and the flank and could not find the ford; it lost some 550 men. In the center Colonel Charles Long took his two field batteries far ahead of the infantry and unlimbered close to the Boer trenches, within about a thousand yards by Doyle’s account, 1,300 by Barnard’s. Under heavy rifle fire the gunners kept firing until their ammunition ran low, then took cover and left the guns in the open.3
Buller called for volunteers to bring the guns back, and they saved two of the twelve. Among them was Lieutenant Frederick Roberts, the only son of Field Marshal Lord Roberts; he was mortally wounded and was awarded the Victoria Cross after his death, as was Corporal George Nurse for the same rescue. A second attempt failed, and Buller ordered the remaining ten guns to be abandoned.4
Black Week
The British lost about 1,140 to 1,200 men: Barnard gives the official figure of 1,139 with 143 killed, Doyle about 150 killed, and both about 250 missing. Many of the missing were the gunners and infantry sheltering near the guns, who were taken prisoner. Boer losses were small: Barnard gives 38, eight of them killed, and Doyle doubted that they reached a hundred.5
Colenso followed the defeats at Stormberg on 10 December and Magersfontein on 11 December, in what became known as Black Week. Buller suggested to General White in Ladysmith that he fire off his ammunition and make the best terms he could, but White held on. On 18 December the government gave the supreme command in South Africa to Lord Roberts, with Kitchener as his chief of staff. A telegram of 17 December had told Roberts that his son was dead.6
Battle of Kesselsdorf, 1745: the Old Dessauer's last victory
15 December 1745 · 280 years ago
A Prussian army under Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau attacked the Saxon army of Field Marshal Rutowsky at Kesselsdorf near Dresden in the Second Silesian War. The Prussians won, defeating Austria's Saxon allies on their own soil.
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