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Battle of the Tugela Heights

The Battle of Tugela (or Thukela) Heights, also known as the Battle of Pieters Hill, Battle of the Pieters, or the Battle of the Tugela River, consisted of a series of military actions lasting from 14 February through to 27 February 1900 in which General Sir Redvers Buller's British army forced Louis Botha's Boer army to lift the Siege of Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.

Background[edit]

Buller's army had made three earlier attempts to raise the Boer siege of Ladysmith. The battles of Colenso, Spion Kop and Vaal Krantz each resulted in embarrassing British defeats at the hands of Botha's army of Boer irregulars. In three months, British casualties rose to 3,400 men while Boer losses were much lower. On 12 February, Buller ordered a fourth attempt to relieve Ladysmith. He hoped to exploit his ten-to-one superiority in artillery and four-to-one advantage in numbers.[1]


The direct route to Ladysmith lay along the railroad, which ran mostly north and south. The railroad crossed the Tugela River at Colenso, ran along the north bank of the river, snaked between Railway Hill and Pieters Hill and continued to Ladysmith. While their main defences were north of the river, the Boers also held a number of ridges south of the river and east of Colenso. The Tugela runs generally east to Colenso, but near the railroad bridge the river turns north, then northeast. Along the northeasterly stretch, the river and railroad are commanded by a series of hills which represented the Boer main line of defence.


A 500 feet (150 m) high ridge named Hlangwane rose northeast of Colenso on the south bank and overlooked the railroad. During the Battle of Colenso, a British attack on Hlangwane was repulsed. Since that time, the Boers had greatly strengthened the ridge. With Hlangwane in his possession, Buller could dominate the Boer positions at Colenso, and safely cross there. To capture Hlangwane, Buller realised that he would first have to rout the Boers from all their positions south of the river, but even with the south bank in his possession, Buller would still have to fight through the Boer-held hills to the north on the river.

Battle[edit]

South bank[edit]

On 12 February, Lieutenant-Colonel Julian Byng led a reconnaissance in force to Hussar Hill, a position southeast of Colenso. The position fell on 14 February to Colonel the Earl of Dundonald's mounted brigade, and 34 artillery pieces soon crowned Hussar Hill. With the support of the guns, Major-General Neville Lyttelton's 4th Infantry Division struck to the northeast on 15 February. Cingolo Hill, to the northeast of Hussar Hill, fell next. On 18 February, while, hundreds of miles to the west, General Kitchener's army was fruitlessly attacking Piet Cronjé's surrounded army, an event known as Bloody Sunday, Major-General Henry J. T. Hildyard's 2nd Brigade (2nd Division) captured the 1,000 feet (300 m) height of Monte Cristo, and Major-General Geoffrey Barton's 6th Brigade (3rd Division) cleared Green Hill. The outflanked Boers abandoned Hlangwane and the south bank entirely on 19 February. Immediately, the British installed heavy artillery on the summit of Hlangwane.[2]

Aftermath[edit]

On 28 February, the besieged defenders of Ladysmith observed a great column of Boer horsemen and wagons moving rapidly north, just outside artillery range. Some time after 5:00pm, two squadrons of British mounted infantry commanded by Major Hubert Gough from Buller's army rode into Ladysmith and ended the siege. Botha retreated to a new defensive line 60 miles to the north.

Siege of Ladysmith

Relief of Ladysmith

inter-command Field gun competition

Royal Navy

Norris, Stephen Leslie (1900). The South African War, 1899–1900 : a military retrospect up to the relief of Ladysmith. John Murray. Available as at the Internet Archive

The South African War, 1899–1900 : a military retrospect up to the relief of Ladysmith

Wilkinson, Spenser (1900). Lessons of the War: Being Comments from Week to Week, to the Relief of Ladysmith. Constable. Available as at the Internet Archive

Lessons of the War: Being Comments from Week to Week, to the Relief of Ladysmith

Atkins, John Black (1900). The relief of Ladysmith. Methuen. Available as at the Internet Archive

The relief of Ladysmith

Dupuy, R. E.; Dupuy, T. N. (1977). The Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: Harper & Row.  0-06-011139-9.

ISBN

Gillings, Ken (1999). The Battle of the Thukela Heights. Randburg: Raven Press.  0-86975-518-8.

ISBN

(1979). The Boer War. New York: Avon Books. ISBN 0-380-72001-9.

Pakenham, Thomas