Pop concerts and bush telegraphs: a new telling of the Battle of Spioenkop
Having recently returned from a visit to one of the KwaZulu-Natal battlefields, David Alston went through some family papers and found there is another side to this oft-told story
After an exhaustive (and exhausting) perusal of some newspaper cuttings found in possession of my late great-grandfather Scoop Schoombie, the then editor of the now defunct Bergville Bugle, the real reason why General Redvers Buller failed to send support to Alexander Thorneycroft at the height of the Battle of Spioenkop can now be revealed (Thomas Packenham seems to suggest it was actually Charles Warren who was the villain of the piece, but why let facts get in the way of a good story.) In documenting the history of the battle, that well-known historian Anon (who managed to reduce the story to about four pages in both the official languages of the time), has this to say op cit, et seq, and possibly even ad lib: “At this crucial moment Buller, for some obscure reason ordered the King’s Royal Rifles to withdraw.” This decision, which was crucial to the outcome of the battle, can now be explained in context. What is not generally known is that among his other talents (dodgy though ...
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