Second Battle of Colenso

The Second Battle of Colenso, also known as the Battle of Colenso, was the third and final battle fought during the Black Week of the Second Boer War. It was fought between British and Boer forces from the independent South African Republic and Orange Free State in and around Colenso, Natal, South Africa on 15 December 1899.

Inadequate preparation, lack of reconnaissance and uninspired leadership led to a British defeat.

Shortly before the outbreak of the war, General Sir Redvers Buller VC was dispatched to South Africa at the head of an army corps, and appointed Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in South Africa. On arrival, he found British garrisons besieged on widely separated fronts, with limited communications between the fronts. Having detached forces under Generals Lord Methuen and Gatacre to the western and central fronts, Buller assumed command of his largest detachment and proposed to lead it to the relief of a besieged British force in Ladysmith, in Natal.

On this front, the Boers had conducted some raids and reconnaissances into the southern part of the province, but in the face of a large British army, they had retired north of the Tugela River at Colenso and dug in there, blocking the road and railway line to Ladysmith. Buller originally intended making a flank march to cross the Tugela at Potgieter's Drift 80 kilometres (50 mi) upstream of Colenso. On hearing that Gatacre and Methuen had been defeated at the battles of Stormberg and Magersfontein, Buller felt he needed to relieve Ladysmith as soon as possible and resume overall command of the forces in South Africa, and was worried that a move to Potgieter's would put him out of telegraph communications with the rest of South Africa. He also lacked wagons and draught animals, and feared that a defeat at Potgieter's Drift would leave his force isolated and trapped. He decided to make a frontal assault at Colenso after two days' artillery bombardment, beginning on 13 December.

Piet Joubert, Commandant-General of the Transvaal, had been incapacitated after falling from his horse. As a result, Louis Botha then assumed command of the Boers on this front. The basic Boer fighting unit was the commando, nominally consisting of all the available fighting men from a district, led by an elected Commandant and administered by a Feldcornet. Botha had nine such commandos and the Swaziland Police available. He deployed his main force north of the river, covering the drifts (fords). His plan was to open fire when the British were about to cross, or were crossing, the river, enfilade their right flank and rear with a force deployed on a hill known as Hlangwane south of the river, and attack their left with another force which would cross the river several miles upstream.

The preparatory British artillery fire missed the camouflaged Boer trenches, but the defenders of Hlangwane abandoned their positions and retreated across the river. After exhortations arrived by telegram from President Paul Kruger of the South African Republic, detachments selected by drawing lots reoccupied Hlangwane the day before Buller attacked.

Botha deployed the Middelburg and Johannesburg commandos, with a contingent from the Orange Free State, at Robinson's Drift, 13 kilometres (8 mi) upstream from Colenso; the Ermelo commando at the Bridle Drift 5 kilometres (3 mi) upstream from Colenso; the Zoutpansberg commando and the Swaziland police at the Punt Drift at the end of a loop in the river east of the Bridle Drift, the Heidelberg, Vryheid and Krugersdorp commandos in a range of low kopjes and the river bank at Colenso itself, and the Wakkerstroom and Standerton commandos on Hlangwane.

Buller was handicapped by a shortage of competent staff officers, as most of them had been dispersed from his corps, like the corps itself, to the various distant fronts throughout South Africa. He also lacked information on the geography of the area, and possessed only a sparsely detailed blueprint map based on railway and farm surveys, and a crude sketch map made by an artillery officer.