The Battle of Majuba Hill: The First Boer War by Oliver Ransford
The Battle of Majuba Hill: The First Boer War by Oliver Ransford
Hardcover
Publisher: John Murray, 1970
Condition: Very Good+. The original boards with a DJ is slightly shelf rubbed and edge worn. Slight Tanning/Browning of pages. Previous owner name neatly inscribed on first page. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover.
The Battle of Majuba Hill in 1881 may be accounted the most humiliating defeat in British military history. The Transvaal Boers (an army of deerstalkers) stormed an apparently impregnable position, inflicting heavy casualties on the regular British troops with little damage to themselves.
Dr Ransford describes the events, both political and military, that led up to the engagement including the last use of redcoats in action, and makes a fascinating study of General Colley’s extraordinary handling of the battle.
The Majuba campaign, revealing as it does the ineptitude of contemporary military thinking, is carefully fitted into the context of nineteenth century southern Africa and the battle itself is shown to have influenced history out of all proportion to the numbers engaged.
The author’s familiarity with the “Hill of Destiny” and the surrounding country enables him to recreate and analyze the campaign in a remarkable way.
