Featured battle : Magersfontein

Part of The 2nd Boer War (or Three Years War)

Date : 10 December 1899 - 11 December 1899

The second of the 'Black Week' battles. The Boers under Koos de la Rey dug 20km of thin, deep trenches in front of Magersfontein in the path of Lord Methuen, fronting them with barbed wire entanglements and camouflaging their positions with bushes and branches. Methuen thought he had found their trenches so began the fight with a heavy bombardment of high-explosive artillery on the 10th. This however had almost no effect on the Boers in their dugout positions. When the Highland Brigade under Maj.Gen Andrew Wauchope advanced against these positions the following day at dawn they marched into a hail of Mauser rounds. The Black Watch and Seaforth Highlanders fell back to cover but were pinned down and lay under the blazing sun most of the rest of the day. Gen Wauchope led a column through a gap in the Boer lines but was shot dead before he broke through. About 100 highlanders did reach the hill though but Cronje and only 7 men on the hill itself made enough noise to suggest a much larger party and the Highlanders fell back. A party of Gordon Highlanders also charged the lines but too were cut down. Later in the afternoon a temporary cease-fire was negotiated to collect the wounded and dead.

The Royal Navy 1800-1815

Mark Jessop
This book follows Mark Jessop’s The Royal Navy 1793-1800 [ reviewed elsewhere on this site] There have been many books written about the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic period these books are different. The difference is due to two main factors one the presentation and two the sources. The author has confined himself to primary source material mostly written within a decade of the events. This, in itself, is not so uncommon but it is the presentation of the information that makes this book almost unique and imparts a special liveliness to the ‘facts’. The author has created about twenty people who report, discuss and reflect upon events as they understand them from their stations in life in the times in which they lived. It is to the author’s credit that the voices ring true.
We warmly recommend this book to ‘beginner’ and ‘old-hand’ alike. The beginner because it makes the information so accessible and real. The old-hand because it enriches the wealth of information with a flavour of the times.

Pen & Sword History, 2019