Private 24th Regt 1879
Meanwhile, reinforcements consisting of the 92nd, 2-60th, the 15th Hussars, a naval brigade, and the Natal Police under Sir Evelyn Wood, met Sir George at Newcastle. The additional cavalry had enabled the general to make more extended reconnaissances round the Boer left, which proved that they were still entrenching, and showed no signs of wishing to avoid battle. On the evening of the 26th February, General Colley played his last card, and lost his life as well. Contrary to usual custom, he formed, with the utmost secrecy, a force to occupy Majuba Hill, an isolated and precipitous koppie, which to a certain extent dominated the right flank of the Laing’s Nek position. It was made up of detachments of the Highlanders, the 58th, the 2-60th, and 65 bluejackets, in all some 545 bayonets. In the advance, made in the dark, a company of the 92nd and one of the 60th, with a dismounted troop of hussars, were left at a point about midway between the hill and the camp, and the remainder stumbled on, and after great exertion, about 5 a.m., reached the summit. This was a saucer-shaped plateau about 1000 yards round, and when day broke, the presence of British soldiers produced wild confusion in the Boer camp. But not for long. While one portion hastened to man the trenches at Laing’s Nek, the rest rode towards Majuba, and, dismounting, opened fire. It was said at the time that the “covering party” consisted of the married men, the storming column of the single men who could best be spared. Be that as it may, between twelve and one the fire suddenly increased in intensity and the assault was made. It was only too successful. The British were driven from it in the utmost disorder, and left behind them Sir George Colley and 18 other officers, with 218 men killed, wounded, or missing, of about 600 men who had left Prospect Camp the night before. One instance of devoted bravery marked the terrible day, and for it Corporal Joseph John Farmer got the Cross for Valour, for, “while the Boers closed with the British troops near the well, Corporal Farmer held a white flag over the wounded, and when the arm holding the flag was shot through, he called out that he had another. He then raised the flag with the other arm, and continued to do so until that also was pierced by a bullet.”
The Boer loss is stated, by themselves, to have been between 24 and 50, but the details are very conflicting. An armistice was soon agreed to between the belligerents, during which the army, now commanded by Sir Evelyn Wood, consisted of the 6th Dragoons, 15th Hussars, and a squadron of the King’s Dragoon Guards, 14 guns, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 60th, the relics of the 58th, the 83rd, 92nd, and 97th, together with a naval brigade and some mounted infantry. Finally peace was declared, and the beleaguered garrisons were relieved.
No war of such small magnitude, as far as the numbers engaged are concerned, has left more grave results. For long years after the peace was signed, the Boers showed the greatest arrogance towards all British subjects, whether civilians or soldiers, and in many cases it was accompanied with open and undisguised insult. The surrender of the Transvaal was ruin to many an Englishman who, “confiding in the public declaration of Sir Garnet Wolseley and Sir Bartle Frere that the annexation of the Transvaal was irrevocable, had invested capital in the country, and their property was now worthless and their capital lost, owing to their having put faith in the words of Her Majesty’s representative.” But the blame does not rest with him.
The disastrous war had cost in all 29 officers killed and 20 wounded, and 366 men killed, with 428 wounded.
One result of the British defeat in the Transvaal was to increase, not unnaturally, the restlessness of the Boers. Both Zululand and Bechuanaland suffered from unauthorised incursions of what were really filibusters, whose efforts at colonial expansion were too frequently attended with murder. In one of these, against Chief Montsoia, an Englishman named Bethel was barbarously murdered, and hence an expedition was despatched, under Sir Charles Warren, to Bechuanaland in 1884. An attempt had been made by the Boers to annex Montsoia’s territory, which, by the Convention of 1884, was under our Protectorate; there was no doubt, moreover, that the whole of the disturbances had been directed from the Transvaal, and if not distinctly fostered by that Government, met with its tacit approval. But hostilities were happily averted. President Kruger met Sir Charles Warren in conference, and the conflicting clauses were adjusted. But the operations, insignificant as they may seem militarily, were politically important. They, temporarily at least, restored the position of Great Britain as the paramount power in South Africa. The last collision in the Transvaal between Dr. Jameson’s troopers, led by British officers, and the Boers of Pretoria, etc., was decisive in another way; but it is not a part of the story of the regular army, and is of too recent occurrence to be commented on here.