Episode 25 - Hlangwane, Monte Christo and a key to unlock Ladysmith

Episode 25 - Hlangwane, Monte Christo and a key to unlock Ladysmith

After spending some time in the West where Kimberley has been relieved and Free State Boer General Cronje had surrendered with 4000 Burghers after a fortnight of retreat, entrenching and then being bombarded at Paadeberg Drift our gaze shifts back to Natal in the north east. Twenty six Kilometers outside Ladysmith, along the main railway line from the port of Durban to Johannesburg and then the prize, Pretoria, General Buller was fulminating. The garrison at Ladysmith was weakening daily as a result of bombardment, indequate food and disease. Buller resolved once more to make an attempt to reach the beleaguered town. He spent hours viewing the heights across the Tugela River that had thwarted his every attempt at crossing and marching onto Ladysmith for 3 months. However, things were looking up. Buller had a strange bond with his men. We have seen with the benefit of hindsight, what a disastrous leader he really was. But at the time, his men thought he’d been given an almost impossible task with a force too small, while Lord Roberts lorded it up in the west of the country with 40 000 men. And Buller had also had an epiphany. He realised the key to Ladysmith was a new kind of mobile warfare, an offensive counterpart to the Boer defensive tactics. The old three-part act, artillery, men charging with bayonets, cavalry chopping up the fleeing enemy all in a day - was over.

Episoder(143)

Episode 87 - The sad story of Gert Bezuidenhout (12)& Deneys Reitz starts his Quixotic Cape Quest

Episode 87 - The sad story of Gert Bezuidenhout (12)& Deneys Reitz starts his Quixotic Cape Quest

This week we spend some time with Johanna van Warmelo and Deneys Reitz, the former who starts a new position as a nurse in a Concentration Camp at Irene outside Pretoria, and the the latter who has ju...

19 Mai 201916min

Episode 86 - General Louis Botha grows despondent while Reitz plays cat and mouse with the English

Episode 86 - General Louis Botha grows despondent while Reitz plays cat and mouse with the English

We’ve reached May 1901 and surprisingly, General Louis Botha is trying to reach out to Lord Kitchener who is the British Army commander of the over 240 000 troops in South Africa. Botha wants specia...

12 Mai 201918min

Episode 85 - Emily Hobhouse mobilises against the "gigantic blunder" of the Concentration Camps

Episode 85 - Emily Hobhouse mobilises against the "gigantic blunder" of the Concentration Camps

It’s the first week of May 1901, and winter has come early in South Africa. As I mentioned last week, at this point social activist Emily Hobhouse was on board a ship heading for England after exper...

5 Mai 201919min

Episode 84 - Captain Phillipps frets about Tommy Atkins & New Zealanders learn a Maori War Cry

Episode 84 - Captain Phillipps frets about Tommy Atkins & New Zealanders learn a Maori War Cry

This week, we’ll track a Londoner who rode with Rimington’s Tigers then there’ll be a quick story about a Maori who arrived in South Africa during the war to fight, but also carried a Violin. At the ...

28 Apr 201920min

Episode 83 - Boer Secret Service Spy Johanna van Warmelo and the Petticoat Commando

Episode 83 - Boer Secret Service Spy Johanna van Warmelo and the Petticoat Commando

In this episode Easter Sunday had come and gone on the 7th April and for most combatants stretched across the vastness of the South African veld, it was characterised by fear and loathing. The concent...

21 Apr 201920min

Episode 82 - Aborigine trackers, the Great Comet Viscara and the case of Gideon Scheepers

Episode 82 - Aborigine trackers, the Great Comet Viscara and the case of Gideon Scheepers

Deneys Reitz had broken his own leg in a freak accident and was still hobbling about, his compound fracture causing some pain. General de la Rey ordered him to a small medical camp behind the lines ne...

14 Apr 201917min

Episode 81 - Black participation in the Boer War and Reitz breaks a leg

Episode 81 - Black participation in the Boer War and Reitz breaks a leg

Deneys Reitz will experience a terrible wound to his leg and we will probe an issue that caused much gnashing of teeth - the role of Black South Africans in the war. A quick note for my American list...

7 Apr 201920min

Episode 80- A Boer Rodeo near Swart Ruggens & General Bindon Blood makes his dashing appearance

Episode 80- A Boer Rodeo near Swart Ruggens & General Bindon Blood makes his dashing appearance

When we ended last week, Deneys Reitz had rejoined General de la Rey along with his Dopper companions, and had been regaled by the prophet, van Rensburg in late March 1901. The General was aware tha...

31 Mar 201917min

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