Battle of Majuba Hill

Illustration of the "Battle of Majuba Hill" in the Illustrated London News

date	February 27, 1881
place	Majuba Hill , near Volksrust , South Africa
output	Decisive victory for the Boers

Parties to the conflict
Transvaal Transvaal	United Kingdom 1801 United Kingdom
Commander
Transvaal Piet Joubert	United Kingdom 1801 George Colley †
Troop strength
405 men	around 600 men
losses
1 dead 5 wounded	92 dead 134 wounded 59 prisoners

The Battle of Majuba Hill ( Afrikaans Slag van Majuba ; English Battle of Majuba Hill ) was fought on February 27, 1881 between British and Boer forces in the Drakensberg in the Transvaal . The heavy defeat suffered by the armed forces led by the British Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley against the Boers commanded by General Petrus Jacobus Joubert ended the First Boer War , from which the Boer Republic of the Transvaal emerged victorious over the British Empire .

Prehistory of the battle

The British troops had marched as planned from Durban on the Indian Ocean through Natal to the northwest to the borders of the Transvaal. Natal had only been British since the Zulu Wars and therefore still had no roads or railways. The supply of supplies was extremely difficult and was done with ox carts . The British armed forces were subordinate to Sir George Pomeroy Colley , the governor of Natal. After the defeat at Laing's Nek on January 28, 1881 and after a British supply trek fell into the hands of the Boers at Ingogo in mid-February , Colley had his armed forces on the night of February 27, 1881 on the summit of Majuba Hill, an extinct volcano , guided.

From a British point of view, the occupation of Majuba Hill, which remained unoccupied because of its height of almost 2100 meters above sea level, offered the opportunity to force the Boers, entrenched around two and a half kilometers away at Laing's Nek, to retreat. The elevation towered over the positions of the Boers.

Course of the battle

The peak position of the British was superior to the Boer. But the British were exhausted from the strenuous march on Majuba Hill and rested instead of digging into the hill . In addition, it was very hot in the South African summer and the mountain top was without water. The British commander did not see an entrenchment as necessary either. General Petrus Jacobus Joubert , the commander of the Boers, considered it impossible to storm the summit, and - although promising - did not consider a siege. After he had given the order to move in the morning, scouting troops reported that the British had not set up any outposts or expanded any positions. The Boers then opened the attack on Majuba Hill. Colley felt so safe that he took a good rest before giving his first instructions. The usual British way of fighting, firing in volleys , had little effect, as the Boers did not proceed as one, but instead worked their way up one by one, jumping from cover to cover. In addition, the sights of the British Martini Henry rifles were probably incorrectly adjusted. Their white helmets proved to be fatal to the British and made an excellent target against the sky. Numerous British were shot in the head, including Colley. After he fell around noon, panic broke out among the British. Many fell to their death over cliffs while trying to escape.

consequences

With the Pretoria Agreement, the Transvaal gained independence, with the exception of external affairs (see also suzerainty ).

literature

Ian Castle: Majuba 1881: the hill of destiny . Osprey, London 1996.
John Laband : The Transvaal Rebellion. The First Boer War 1880-1881. Pearson Longman, London a. a. 2005, ISBN 978-0-582-77261-8 .
Oliver Ransford: The Battle of Majuba Hill: the First Boer War . Murray, London 1967.
Geoffrey Regan: Military duds and their biggest battles , Komet Verlag, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-89836-538-7 , pp. 120–123.
Wilhelm Vallentin: The Boers' struggle for freedom: the battle on Majuba Hill . H. Walther, Berlin 1899.

Web links

GR Duxbury: "The Battle of Majuba, February 27, 1881". In: Military History Journal , Vol. 5, No. December 2, 1980 ( memento of January 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).

References and comments

↑ See Laband (2005), pp. 198ff. - This number also includes those units that were detached en route and did not take part in the battle. Their number was last around a third of the total British forces deployed.
↑ ^a ^b According to Duxbury (1980). According to this information, a few of the wounded British died in the following weeks; one of the injured Boers also died. - Slightly different information can be found in Laband (2005), p. 210. According to this, the number of British wounded was 131 (including 8 officers) and the number of prisoners on the British side was 57 men (including seven officers). Two men were missing. These were possibly added to the number of British prisoners at Duxbury, since there is talk of a total of 59 British prisoners. On the Boer side, according to Laband, one man had died and six others were wounded, one of whom later died from his injuries.

[1] See Laband (2005), pp. 198ff. - This number also includes those units that were detached en route and did not take part in the battle. Their number was last around a third of the total British forces deployed.

[Duxbury-2] According to Duxbury (1980). According to this information, a few of the wounded British died in the following weeks; one of the injured Boers also died. - Slightly different information can be found in Laband (2005), p. 210. According to this, the number of British wounded was 131 (including 8 officers) and the number of prisoners on the British side was 57 men (including seven officers). Two men were missing. These were possibly added to the number of British prisoners at Duxbury, since there is talk of a total of 59 British prisoners. On the Boer side, according to Laband, one man had died and six others were wounded, one of whom later died from his injuries.