On this day, 125 years ago: Lord Ava mortally wounded at Wagon Hill
‘If he could have recovered the doctors say he would have been paralysed or would have lost his memory. He was the best type of Englishman’. After their first attempt to storm Ladysmith on 9 November 1899 was defeated, the invading Boers lingered about for some weeks, licking their wounds. It was finally agreed that
On this day in 1885 – the Battle of Ginnis
True Believers love to claim that the Boers ‘taught’ the British army pretty much everything, including the wearing of khaki, rather than red. Like pretty much everything else they say, this is nonsense: not only did the Boers themselves not even wear khaki, but it had started to be adopted by Imperial troops as early
The seven VCs of Colenso
Ultimately, seven VCs were awarded for heroism at Colenso, all in recognition of extreme valour connected to the attempts to recover the guns of the 14th and 66th Batteries. The citation of Captain Reed (Later, Major General Hamilton Lyster Reed, VC, CB, CMG, (1869–1931). Born in Dublin, Reed joined the Royal Field Artillery in 1888.
125 years ago today… the Battle of Colenso
125 years ago today, Buller attempted to break through the Boer positions at Colenso, and raise the Siege of Ladysmith. Pretty much everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, and Buller called off the attempt after just a few hours. Most remarkably, however, is that Buller would later assure the Royal Commission into the