Episode 15 - Ladysmith and the Music of the Guns

The last six weeks have been a short sharp shock for our British friends who’ve visited the veld and the semi-desert in the Northern Cape and the green hills of Natal. Things have moved apace since war was declared on October 10th. It’s Christmas 1899 and across South Africa, few people are feeling festive. In the South West, Methuen has been held up as he tried to race to Kimberley to relieve the siege and where the arch imperialist Cecil John Rhodes is residing, demanding a saviour rescue him. In Natal, a disaster befell the British at Colenso with over 1 thousand 130 casualties as Sir Redvers Buller tried to reach Ladysmith where 13 000 British soldiers were holed up - besieged. That led to Buller being fired as the commander in chief of forces in South Africa. Lord Roberts who was in Ireland was assigned the job of leading the Army Corps after Buller’s shambolic record and strategic blunders. Roberts, however, is still preparing to depart for Cape Town and there’s still time for Buller to create mischief and so he does as we’ll see next week with the terrible battle of Spion kop. If ever the word “carnage” summed up a singular event, its Spion Kop. But before we hear about Spion Kop our focus must shift this week into Ladysmith itself, where the small town on a railway line between the port of Durban and Johannesburg has become a strategic imperative. General Piet Joubert the Boer commander had surrounded the town and then betted on General White eventually surrendering without too deadly a clash. He was wrong. The British were not going to make the same mistake they made in 1881 after they were defeated at Majuba. This time they wanted the Boers to surrender in utter defeat whatever the human cost to both sides.