Battle of Majuba Hill
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| Battle of Majuba | |||||||
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| Part of First Boer War | |||||||
 The Battle of Majuba, from the Illustrated London News |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Transvaal Boers |
 Great Britain |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Stephanus Roos, Danie Malan, Joachim Ferreira |
Major-General Sir George Pomeroy Colley † | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 400-500 men | 405 infantry | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 1 dead 5 wounded |
92 dead 134 wounded 59 captured |
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The skirmish at Majuba Hill (near Volksrust, South Africa) on 27 February 1881 was a resounding victory for the Boers. Major-General Sir George Colley occupied the summit of the hill on the night of February 26-27, 1881. His motive for occupying the hill remains unclear. The Boers believed that he may have been attempting to outflank their positions at Laing's Nek and formed a group of attack parties to drive the British off the hill.
The bulk of the 405 British soldiers occupying the hill were 171 men of the 58th Regiment with 141 men of the 92nd (Gordon) Highlanders. General Colley had brought no artillery up to the summit, nor did he order his men to dig in. The Boers quickly formed a group of storming parties, led by Nicolas Smit, from an assortment of volunteers from various commandos, totaling at least 450 men, maybe more, to attack the hill.
By daybreak at 4:30, the 92nd Highlanders covered a wide perimeter of the summit, while a handful occupied Gordon's Knoll on the right side of the summit. Three Boer storming groups of 100-200 men each began a slow advance up the hill. The groups were led by Field Cornet Stephanus Roos, Commandant D.J.K. Malan and Commandant Joachim Ferreira. The Boers, being the better marksmen, kept their enemy on the slopes at bay while groups crossed the open ground to attack Gordon's Knoll, where at 12:45 Ferreira's men opened up a tremendous fire on the exposed knoll and captured it. Over the next hour, the Boers poured over the top of the British line and engaged the enemy at long range, refusing hand-to-hand combat action and picking off the British one by one. Amidst great confusion and with caualties amongst his men rising, Colley ordered a retreat just before he was gunned down himself by Boer marksmen. The rest of the British force fled down the rear slopes of Majuba, where more were hit by the Boer marksmen, who had lined the summit in order to shoot at the retreating foe. Two hundred and eighty Britons were killed, captured or wounded.
Although small in scope, the battle is historically significant for three reasons:
- It led to the signing of a peace treaty and later the Pretoria Convention, between the British and the newly created South African Republic, ending the First Anglo-Boer War.
- The fire and movement ("vuur en bewug" in Afrikaans) tactics employed by the Boers, especially Commandant Smit in his final assault on the hill, were years ahead of their time.
- Coupled with the defeats at Laing's Nek and Schuinshoogte, this third crushing defeat at the hands of the Boers ratified the strength of the Boers in the minds of the British, arguably to have consequences in the Second Anglo-Boer War. "Remember Majuba" became a rallying cry.
The South African Military History Society Journal link below gives a detailed account of all phases of the battle.
[edit] References
- Volksrust Municipality. Includes a picture.
- The South African Military History Society Journal vol 5 no 2. Details the battle.
- The battle of Majuba Hill
- Jan Morris, Heaven's Command, Faber and Faber, London, 1998, pp 442-445.
[edit] Further reading
- Majuba 1881, The Hill of Destiny; Osprey Campaign Series #45, Ian Castle, Osprey Publishing 1996.
[edit] External links
- Majuba Day Celebration. The Right Perspective interviews Dr. Lets Pretorius, Maj. Henry Pinkham (ret.) of the SADF, Gerhard Combrinck, and 92-year old Oom Harhetz van Blerk, about Majuba Day, the day commemorating the battle.
