On 27 February 1881 Boer fighters from the Transvaal stormed Majuba Hill, a mountain on the Natal border that British troops had occupied during the night. The British force broke and fled, and its commander, Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley, was killed. Within days the British agreed to an armistice that ended the First Boer War.
Battle of Majuba Hill
27 February 1881 · 145 years ago
A revolt in the Transvaal
Britain had annexed the Transvaal, the South African Republic of the Boers, in 1877. In December 1880 the Boers rose in revolt and besieged the small British garrisons scattered across the country. On 20 December 1880 they forced a British column to surrender at Bronkhorstspruit.1
Colley gathered a small field force in northern Natal and tried to break through to the garrisons. The Boers threw him back at Laing's Nek on 28 January 1881 and again at the Ingogo River, also called Schuinshoogte, on 8 February.2
A night march to the summit
On the night of 26 February Colley led a force of more than 400 men, among them men of the 92nd Gordon Highlanders, up Majuba Hill, which overlooked the Boer positions at Laing's Nek. Colley's motive is still debated: the historian David Saks sees the march as an attempt to redeem himself after his earlier defeats, while G. R. Duxbury believed he hoped that the sight of British troops above them would make the Boers give up and go home.3
The troops reached the top before dawn. They had brought no artillery, and they dug almost no defenses on the summit. At first light the Boers saw them there.4
The Boers storm the hill
The Boers did not wait to be attacked. Parties of them climbed the slopes under the cover of accurate rifle fire from below, which cut down the defenders on the rim. In the end the British line broke and many soldiers fled over the edge of the summit.5
Colley was shot dead on the summit at the end of the fight. Several Boers later claimed the shot, and Duxbury concluded that nobody can say for certain who fired it.6
Peace and memory
British casualties came to 285: by Duxbury's count 92 killed, 134 wounded and 59 taken prisoner. The Boers lost two men dead and a handful wounded.7
Major General Sir Evelyn Wood, who took over Colley's command, agreed an armistice with the Boers on 6 March. General Sir Frederick Roberts was sent out with reinforcements but never took the field. The war ended on terms close to what the Boers had asked for: the Pretoria Convention of August 1881 gave the Transvaal self-government under the suzerainty of the British Crown.8
The humiliating defeat was a heavy blow to British prestige. Duxbury saw it as one of the causes of the much larger war of 1899 to 1902. For other battle anniversaries, see our day-by-day calendar of military history.9
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27 February 1942 · 84 years ago
An Allied striking force under Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Doorman set out to stop a Japanese invasion convoy in the Java Sea and ran into its stronger escort. The Japanese won decisively, destroying the core of the Allied naval force defending the Dutch East Indies.
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