Battle of Spion Kop, 1900

The Battle of Spion Kop was fought along the Tugela River, in Natal, South Africa from 23rd to 24th January, 1900. It was part of the campaign to relieve Ladysmith during the Second Boer War and resulted in a British defeat.

General Sir Redvers Buller VC, commander of British forces in Natal, was attempting to relieve the British garrison at Ladysmith. Opposing him, in carefully entrenched positions along the Tugela River, was General Louis Botha with a numerically inferior force of Boers. However, a frontal assault at Colenso in late December had already resulted in a British defeat.

After receiving reinforcements, Buller devised a new plan of attack designed to cross the river at two points to create a bridgehead. The main force under General Sir Charles Warren (who, as Commissioner of the Metrpolitan Police, had investigated the "Jack the Ripper" murders) was to cross at Trikhardt's Drfift. A smaller force, under Major General Neville Lyttelton, would then attack further east at Potgieter's Drift.

On 23rd, Warren's force marched westward to cross the Tugela. An initial assault on the Boer right flank on Tabanyama Plateau made no progress against the entrenched Boers. The largest hill in the area, Spion Kop, lay almost exactly at the centre of the Boer line. If this feature could be captured, artillery could command the surrounding Boer positions.

On the night of 23rd January, Warren sent the larger part of his force to secure Spion Kop. In dense mist and darkness, the British surprised the small Boer piquet and drove them off the Kop at bayonet point. A half-company of British sappers began to entrench the position while General Warren was notified of the successful capture of the hill.

As dawn broke, the British discovered that they held only the lower part of the hilltop, while the Boers occupied higher ground on three sides, from where artillery and rifle fire could be brought to bear. However, the Boers understood that, if the British immediately established positions on currently unoccupied Conical Hill and Aloe Knoll, they could bring their artillery to bear on Tabanyama. More importantly, there was a risk that the British would storm Twin Peaks from which they would be able to turn the Boers' left flank and annihilate the main Boer encampment.

The Boers began to bombard the British position, and captured Aloe Knoll and Conical Hill, while around 300 Burghers of the Pretoria Commando launched a frontal assault on the British position. Hendrik Prinsloo told his men: "Burghers, we're now going in to attack the enemy and we shan't all be coming back. Do your duty and trust in the Lord." After suffering serious losses from brutal hand-to-hand combat, the Boer assault carried the crest line but could advance no further.

A kind of stalemate now settled over the Kop, and morale sagged as extreme heat, exhaustion and thirst took hold. The bombardment began to take its toll on the British. At 8.30am, their commander, Major General Woodgate, was mortally wounded by a shell splinter. More officers were killed and wounded, leaving the British leaderless, confused, and pinned down by heavy fire. 

Winston Churchill, as a lieutenant in the South African Light Horse, acted as a courier between Spion Kop and General Buller's HQ. He wrote, "Corpses lay here and there. Many of the wounds were of a horrible nature. The splinters and fragments of the shells had torn and mutilated them. The shallow trenches were choked with dead and wounded."

As darkness fell, the Boers began to withdraw, but General Botha persuaded them to stay. Unknown to Lt-Col Alexander Thorneycroft, now in command of the Kop, the battle was as good as won. However, his men had no water and ammunition was running short, so he ordered the brigade to withdraw. When morning came, the only British on the Kop were the dead and the dying.

The British suffered 243 dead and 1250 wounded or captured. The Boers suffered 335 casualties of which 68 were dead. Of the 88 men in Pretoria Commando, 55 were killed or wounded. Mohatma Gandhi was a stretcher bearer at the battle, in the Indian Ambulance Corps that he had organised.

Ladysmith would be relieved by the British four weeks later.

Legacy

Many football grounds have one stand named "Spion Kop" or "Kop" because of the steepness of the terracing. The most famous is at Anfield. And the village of Spion Kop near Mansfield is named after the battle.