Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 12, 2025
We only know that he has gone back, and the work accomplished at much sacrifice of life must be done over again from some other point. January 30. In spite of all we know, there are still persistent rumours rosy-hued but all equally improbable. According to these Kimberley has been relieved, and Lord Roberts is marching on Bloemfontein. Sir Redvers Buller has retaken Spion Kop.
An officer, evidently of high rank, entered the room. He looked at me in a manner which I resented. With a sneering grin he enquired, "Englander? Ha! Ha! Spion? What are you doing here?" "I have come at the pressing invitation of four gentlemen with four points!" I suavely replied. This sly allusion to the four soldiers with their bayonets lashed the interrupting officer to fury.
On the concave north-eastern side Spion Kop is about at the centre, and is four miles north of Wagon Drift. The plateau is three or four hundred feet above the river and Spion Kop about the same height above the plateau.
Vaalkrantz standing between Doorn Kop and the Twin Peaks, was shelled simultaneously from the left front, and the right rear, as well as from Green Hill; it seemed as if Spion Kop were about to be repeated. Buller opened on Green Hill with artillery, and on the hill north of the main hill of Vaalkrantz, in the hope of making the North Hill assailable.
The position when won was found to be unsatisfactory, for it was dominated by a hill beyond, which could not be seen from the British look-out stations, and the cannon of Spion Kop were able to sweep the plateau.
As neither General Buller nor Warren had come up to see the state of things on the all-important position of Spion Kop, General Coke went down in the evening to explain the situation. He stated that unless the artillery could silence the enemy's guns the troops could not support another day's shelling.
The General told me next day that he thought it as strong as anything he had seen on the Natal side, and Winston Churchill set the matter at rest by pronouncing it stronger in point of formation than Spion Kop.
It took our party ten days to reach Kalomo, then the capital of North-Western Rhodesia. This included a six days' halt in quest of game on a rocky kopje eight miles off the road a veritable Spion Kop, rising from a flat country and commanding views for miles round. As regards travelling, I can only say it was very comfortable as we did it.
Later the same wound was displayed as having been received at Magersfontein, Colenso, and Spion Kop. This industrious youth became adjutant to Colonel Blake, and assisted that picturesque Irish-American in securing the services of the half-hundred Red Cross men who entered the country in April. He afterwards became an American citizen, and was with General Miles' army in the Porto-Rico campaign.
By ten o'clock the whole were across, the firing soon after ceased, and Warren's troops bivouacked quietly. It was all over for the day, and the lads returned to their camp. The next day passed quietly, except that in the afternoon the Boer entrenchments near Spion Kop and Brakfontein, a hill facing the position occupied by Lyttleton's brigade, were pounded by the naval guns and howitzers.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking