On 27 February 1881 Boer volunteers from the Transvaal stormed Majuba Hill, a flat-topped mountain on the border of Natal that British troops had climbed during the night. In a few hours of fighting the British force on the summit broke and fled, and its commander, Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley, Governor of Natal, was shot dead. The Boers lost one man killed. Majuba was the last battle of the First Boer War, and within weeks the British government agreed to a truce that gave the Transvaal back its self-government.
A revolt in the Transvaal
Britain had annexed the Transvaal, the South African Republic of the Boers, in 1877. In December 1880 the Boers rose in revolt. On 20 December 1880 they forced a British column to surrender at Bronkhorstspruit and then besieged the small British garrisons scattered across the Transvaal. The defeat came less than two years after the British disaster at Isandlwana in the Zulu War.1
Colley gathered a small field force in northern Natal and tried to break through to the garrisons. The Boers threw him back at Laing's Nek on 28 January 1881 and again at the Ingogo River, also called Schuinshoogte, on 8 February. Meanwhile London had opened talks with the Boer leaders. On 21 February Colley wrote to Paul Kruger offering a suspension of hostilities if the Boers accepted the British terms within 48 hours. The South African Military History Society historian G. R. Duxbury points out that the letter could hardly have reached Kruger before 27 February.2
A night march to the summit
On the night of 26 February Colley marched out of his camp at Mount Prospect with a mixed force drawn from the 58th Regiment, the 3rd Battalion of the 60th Rifles, the 92nd Gordon Highlanders and a Naval Brigade. Some companies were left behind on the way to guard the route. Colley's motive is still debated: the historian David Saks sees the march as a last attempt to save his reputation before the politicians settled the war, while Duxbury believed he hoped that the sight of British troops above them would make the Boers give up their positions at Laing's Nek without a fight.3
The troops reached the top before dawn. They had brought no artillery, and although picks and shovels had been carried up, almost no defenses were dug. At first light some of the Highlanders stood on the skyline, shouted and shook their fists at the Boer camps below, so the Boers knew at once where the British were.4
Fire and movement
The Boers did not wait to be attacked. Under Commandant Nicolaas Smit, parties of volunteers climbed the slopes while older marksmen at the foot of the hill kept up a steady fire on any soldier who showed himself against the sky. The terraced slopes gave the climbers dead ground that the defenders on the rim could not see or fire into. Lieutenant Ian Hamilton of the 92nd reported the growing Boer numbers several times and asked to lead a charge, but Colley chose to wait.5
Around midday the Boers took Gordon's Knoll on the north-western edge of the summit and began to fire into the British line from close range. The reserves were thrown forward, broke under the fire and fell back into the central hollow, and then the whole force ran. Many soldiers were shot as they fled down the rear slopes. Colley was killed at about 1 p.m. by a bullet through the head. Several Boers later claimed the shot, and Duxbury concluded that nobody can say for certain who fired it. Lance Corporal Joseph Farmer of the Army Hospital Corps won the Victoria Cross for protecting the wounded at the dressing station on the summit.6
Peace and memory
Sir Evelyn Wood took over the British command and, on instructions from London, met the Boer commandant general Piet Joubert at O'Neill's Cottage below Majuba on 6 March. The talks ended the war on terms close to what the Boers had asked for from the start: self-government for the Transvaal under the overall suzerainty of the British Crown, confirmed by the Pretoria Convention in August 1881. General Sir Frederick Roberts, sent out to replace Colley, never had to take the field.7
The defeat shocked Britain. “Remember Majuba” became a British battle cry when war with the Boers broke out again in 1899, and Duxbury saw the humiliation of Majuba as one of the causes of that second war. The size of the forces and the British losses are disputed: Duxbury gives 92 killed, 134 wounded and 59 captured, while BritishBattles.com counts 283 casualties. For other battle anniversaries, see our day-by-day calendar of military history.8
Also on this day
- 1942: Battle of the Java Sea. An Allied striking force under Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Doorman set out to stop a Japanese invasion convoy in the Java Sea and ran into its stronger escort.
