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  6 JANUARY 1900 - LADYSMITH (WAGON HILL / PLATRAND)

  By archie777 · Posted 30 minutes ago

  After a long-range attack on Wagon Hill on 7 November 1899 it was permanently garrisoned by three companies of the 1 st King’s Royal Rifle Corps and two squadrons of the Imperial Light Horse.   Early on the morning of 6 January 1900 some 1000 burghers from the Heidelberg and Harrismith Commandos with a number of foreign volunteers launched a determined attack on the Wagon Hill end of the Platrand. At that time, in addition to the normal garrison, there was also a working party building a gun emplacement and positioning a 4.7 in naval gun comprising Royal Engineers, sailors from the Naval Brigade, some 170 men of the 2nd Gordon Highlanders as escort as well as 50 men from the 1st Manchester Regt.  The burghers gained the hill and a confused battle took place in which attackers and defenders became intermingled. At daylight the Imperial Light Horse arrived soon followed by eight companies of the 1st and 2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps and later by the 18th Hussars. About midday another Boer attack led by acting Veg-Gen C J de Villiers and Field Cornet Z de Jager charged over the crest, but a determined defence forced the burghers back.   The situation on Wagon Hill was now critical for the defenders and three squadrons of the 5th Lancers and two of the 19th Hussars were also sent to Wagon Hill. Later in the afternoon, three companies of the 1st Devonshire Regt under Lt-Col C W Park arrived to make a bayonet charge through a raging storm over open ground and eventually forced the burghers to retire. Lt J E I Masterson, 1st Devonshire Regt, Lt R J T Digby Jones, RE, and Tpr H Albrecht, ILH, were each awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry on this section of the Platrand.    WAGON HILL In the middle of the Platrand overlooking Ladysmith is the Burgher Memorial, unveiled in 1979 in honour of 781 Burghers who died during battles in Natal during the Anglo Boer War. The group of massive hands, six reaching up in faith and the seventh pointing downwards to symbolise “here” (see illustration attached).  The communal crypt in the centre contains the remains of 310 re-interred Burghers.
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  1-6 JANUARY 1900 - COLESBERG

  By archie777 · Posted 39 minutes ago

  On 1 January 1900 General French attacks the Boer forces at Colesberg, attempting to work around their right flank and threatening both their rear and their line of retreat to the Colesberg bridge.   Simultaneous attacks on Jasfontein and Skietberg are launched to keep Schoeman’s forces occupied and to divert their attention from the flanking move. The attack is only partially successful and the British lose 6 killed and 22 wounded compared to nine Boers wounded. The Boers, however, do not follow up their success. The next day French again attacks the Colesberg position, keeping the defenders pinned down with shelling and rifle fire while an 800-strong column cuts the telegraph line to the Colesberg road bridge. French also succeeds in pushing his positions and outposts closer to Colesberg.   On 4 January General Piet de Wet launches a counterattack against French’s troops threatening Colesberg. A group of his men surrounds a British detachment but due to a lack of support by General Schoeman and effective countermeasures by French, a group of burghers is cut off and forced to surrender after fighting a rearguard action. De Wet loses five killed, ten wounded and 21 captured while the French lose seven killed and 15 wounded.   On 5 January, while personally reconnoitring positions west of Colesberg in preparation for an attack on Graskop, General French and his bodyguard are fiercely attacked by a group of Johannesburg Police. French loses three seriously wounded and five taken prisoner.   Trying to force the Boers to abandon Colesberg, General French attempts outflanking their positions by sending some 300 men of the Suffolk Regiment under Lt-Col Watson to occupy Graskop (Grassy Hill). Setting out in the early hours of 6 January the troops scale the supposedly unoccupied hill but clash unexpectedly with 100 men of the Heilbron Commando near the summit. The Boers are joined soon afterwards by some 15 crack shots of the Johannesburg Police.  The Suffolks fight on gamely, but, at 4:30 when they come under “friendly fire” from their own artillery, a number of the British retire and those left behind surrender at sunrise, losing 37 killed and 52 wounded with 99 taken prisoner. The Boer casualties are 7 killed and 15 wounded.   “The attack [on 1 January] was carried out in every detail as ordered. The four companies of the Berkshire Regiment rushed the hill most gallantly, driving off a strong picquet of the enemy, who retired  in great disorder and with loud shouts. They were completely surprised.    The hill to the east of this, immediately overlooking Colesberg town, was strongly occupied by the enemy, and a hot fire was for some minutes poured on the column in the darkness. The Berkshire Regiment commenced their assault at 3.45am, and the dawn of day found our troops in possession of this important outwork of Colesberg.” Lt Gen French’s Despatch. (LG 4 May 1900, p2839).
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  1 JANUARY 1900 - KURUMAN “SIEGE” ENDS

  By archie777 · Posted 48 minutes ago

  On the outbreak of war, the garrison (35 Cape Police under Capt Bates) at Kuruman, a mission station in British Bechuanaland, was unable to retire on Kimberley.   Preparing the station’s defences, Bates recruited 33 civilians as special police and 60 locals for military and other duties.  Field Cornet J.H. Visser, with 200 (burghers from the South African Republic and rebels from Vryburg district) arrived on 12 November 1899, and unsuccessfully demanded the garrison’s surrender. After a week of investment, the Boers retired to Phokwane.    Returning on 5 December with some 500 burghers, the siege restarted and Visser was joined by Field Cornet Wessels with some 130 rebels from Griqualand; the latter left on 26 December.   Eventually, shelling from a 7 pdr muzzle-loader, which had arrived on 30 December, destroyed the garrison’s defences and it was forced to surrender on 1 January 1900. Cape rebels then held the station, but it was reoccupied on 24 June 1900. Source: Gazetteer of the Second Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902, HM Jones & MGM Jones 1999.
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  1 JANUARY 1900 - SUNNYSIDE

  By archie777 · Posted 1 hour ago

  Early on 1st January, LtCol Pilcher’s Flying Column (1st Queensland Mtd Infy with its machine guns, 100 Canadians, 2 guns of the Royal Field Artillery and a Maxim gun) set out to find a Boer Commando on the farm Sunnyside near the small town of Douglas. The Commando, consisting of Cape Rebels under Commandant Scholtz, was tasked with preventing the British re-occupation of Douglas, which marked the extreme of Gen Piet Cronje’s right flank.   However, most men had left the previous day to celebrate the New Year with their  families and the remainder left in the camp were not expecting an attack.At dawn, the Column was approaching some low hills at Sunnyside and two QMI patrols went ahead to establish the enemy camp’s location. One patrol was ambushed (resulting in the first Australian casualties of the Boer War) but with the enemy’s location fixed, Pilcher sent the remainder of the QMI onto the hills to block any Cape Rebel retreat whilst directly assaulting the camp.   At short range across a ditch the QMI and  retreating Rebels collided. The QMI hardly hesitated: with fixed bayonets and “yelling like Indians”, they swept forward and the outnumbered and outgunned rebels gave way.  In the skirmish the Boers lost 6 killed, 12 wounded, and 40 captured, while 2 men of the attacking force (Tprs V S Jones and D McLeod of the QMI) were killed: the first Australian casualties of the Boer War. There was talk that some rebels had fired in a “white flag incident” and some indignant QMI men had to be restrained from taking action. The skirmish at Sunnyside, whilst a small affair, did have some noteworthy consequences.  The Times History saw it as having strategic importance by helping to check rebellion in the area, securing Methuen’s line of communications and lifting British morale after a series of reverses. It was also noted that Lt. Col..Pilcher had given the QMI a key role in the attack when he had a trained Company of Regular MI in  reserve. Clearly, he had placed his trust in his “confident and dashing irregulars”. Bombr G E G Wieck, 1st QMI, writing to his father on 14 January 1900, said: “We left here on 31st December, to attack rebels at Sunnyside. We were told that there were about 500 of them, and as we were only about three hundred, we anticipated a lively time. We went about twenty miles and camped nine miles from the enemy.   On New Year’s Day we started out through prickly bushes, to surprise them. We stopped about three miles from their camp, and sent the R.H.A. round some hills, so as to take their attention from us. We were anxiously waiting to advance, when we heard the first shot from the twelve-pounders. It struck the Boers’ laager when  they were getting their dinner ready, and caused a great commotion, as they were taken completely by surprise.  They started running up the Kopje, and the next shell drove them down again. The third one burst in among their tents, killing a few, and clearing them out on the hills, where we met them. The M.I. were then ordered to  advance. After climbing over places with the guns where a goat could hardly walk, we met them, and a hot fire  started on both sides. We got a good line on some of them with the Maxims, and when we looked afterwards to see what damage we had done, we found one man with nine holes in him, and another with six holes in him, and a lot of blood leading from the spot.   After firing at them for about half-an-hour, they raised the white flag and laid down their arms, and we got forty-one of them alive. The next thing was the wounded. We found McLeod was dead, shot through the spine. He was in the battery with me, and I was sorry for him. The Boers lost twenty odd killed and wounded, whilst our loss was two dead and two wounded.”   Sunnyside was the first British success after the “Black Week” earlier in December 1899, when the Boers defeated the British at Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Colenso. The action received accolades from around the Empire. Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, sent a message to the Lieutenant-Governor of Queensland congratulating the Colony on the gallant behaviour of the Queensland troops in the engagement.
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  30-31 DECEMBER 1899 - LABUSCHAGNE’S NEK

  By archie777 · Posted 1 hour ago

  30-31 DECEMBER 1899 LABUSCHAGNE’S NEK   On 24 Dec 1899 Dordrecht, which had been in Cape Rebel hands for some time, was occupied by a British force under Col Dalgety.“But on the 29th Gatacre came to the conclusion that Dordrecht, forty miles from Sterkstroom, was too far out to be permanently tenable, and ordered Dalgety to draw in to Bird’s Siding, seventeen miles nearer and within supporting distance from Penhoek.   Before retreating, however, Montmorency with the Dordrecht force successfully engaged some 500 Boers with a gun at Labuschagne’s Nek, north of Dordrecht, on the 30th, renewing the fight before daybreak next morning in order to rescue a  party of 35 men who had been left behind in a donga” (Times History, Vol III, p119/120) This note about the action is in contrast with the detailed descriptions in Cassell’s History of the Boer War (Vol 1, p 531-7) and in “With Seven Generals in the Boer War” by Major A W A Pollock (p99-107) of the gallant conduct of Lt Milford (FMR) and his party who retreated with the severely wounded Lt Warren (CMP) and refused to leave him although under attack.    Pollock stated, “The defence of their post in the donga by Milford and his thirty-five men against some 800 Boers with two guns was a fine performance, and contrasts somewhat sharply with many cases in which parties that had been “cut off’ have surrendered without much ado.”   DSO (VR), complete with top riband bar;  QSA, one clasp CC: Lieut A Milford, D.S.O. Frontier M.R.  Alfred Milford served as a Trooper in the Frontier Mounted Rifles in the early 1890’s and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant on 12 June 1894. In a Divisional After Order (2 January 1900), the General Officer Commanding 3rd Division placed on record his appreciation of the conduct of the party of 2 Cape Mounted Rifles, 22 Frontier Mounted Rifles and 13 Cape Mounted Police under Lt Milford.  The Order concludes with: “Lieut.General Gatacre congratulates Lieutenant Milford, F.M.R. and his party on the courage displayed and the work done.” Milford was Mentioned in Despatches in the London Gazette of 16 April 1901 and created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order in the London Gazette of 19 April, 1901.