TOPIC:

Frank
Am I right in believing that the Caesar's Camp battle was largely won by the Manchester's, with only a little help from some Colonials and the Artillery? What, if any of the reinforcements that arrived on Wagon Hill during the day moved east to help the Manchester's?
Regards
Brett

Evening Brett,
My comment on Miss Craw's last line in that particular entry, was really only a reference to the fact Curran and his men had been stuck at that awful place since the 31st of October and had endured a level of privation which had resulted in their appearance, certainly as far as she was concerned, many of them were actually quite ill, under normal conditions of Foreign Service, many would not have been fit for duty.
Notwithstanding, that was case within other regiments and corps too, but, quite frankly, I certainly was not trying to single them out, although, I would say that, certainly from memory, at least, Section C of the perimeter, from Range Post up to Caesar's Camp, was indeed, the hardest to defend, simply because of the distance involved and the number of men available to actually attempt it.

To be quite honest, I very much doubt that there had been even a single man on the whole of the Platrand who shirked duty on the day in question.

However, if I was pressed, I would single out the Gunners and Drivers of the 42nd Battery who actually switched over to canister, in order to deal more effectively with the enemy at close range.
Kind regards Frank


Regards Frank

Thank you, Frank. The reason I asked was because most of the reinforcements that arrived during the day seem to have come via the Wagon Hill access to Platrand. Excluding Cavalry, they were the ILH, Gordon Highlanders, 1st & 2nd KRRC, and Devons. None seem to move eastwards towards the Manchesters. The Boers were focussed at either end of the hill, so movement from west to east should have been relatively safe. Again excluding the Cavalry, the only units to reinforce the Manchesters were the Rifle Brigade and some Gordon Highlanders.

Regards
Brett

Hello Brett,
As far as I am aware the game was in play from about 03.00am on the day in question and apart from the single company of Gordon Highlanders that joined them, some two hours later, at 05.00am, the 1st Manchester's fought on for some eight and a half hours, until 11.30, at which point, they were joined by four more companies of Gordon Highlanders, the Rifle Brigade arrived sometime later on, members of the Devonshire Regiment managed to get there by dusk.
A most interesting day.

The battalion, in particular, C Company, incurred the majority of it's casualties within the first hour, interestingly, the enemy subsequently claimed to have actually killed more Manchester's than the battalion actually had on duty on the 6th of January.
Regards Frank

1900 - Diary of the siege of Mafeking by Edward Ross

Wednesday, 7 March

At 6.30 [the] bell rang warning us they were messing about [with] their big gun, but although they again elevated her two or three times during the day, they did not let her go. The bewildering way they hang about that big human being killer of theirs is hard to understand. What in tire name of goodness they think they are doing it is impossible to say. They must know the shell, comparatively speaking, does no damage to life, and what good will it do them to injure property? My lay mind once conceived tire idea that artillery had been reduced to a tolerably exact science but the enemy’s bombardment of Mafeking has altered that, at least as far as the Boer artillery is concerned, as I really believe with all their twelve hundred shots (about) they have not above half a dozen times hit the object they aimed at, although some of their marks have been good-sized forts. At a distance of say three miles it is almost an accident for them to hit our mile and a half square town. Time after time they have aimed shell after shell at troops of cattle and with very few exceptions, always with the one result, viz., that of missing everything except the open veldt or the heavens.

Runners are expected in tonight, and everybody is very anxious.