Africa

By August 1900, ten months after the outbreak of hostilities between British forces and those of the Transvaal and Orange Free State Boer republics in South Africa, Her Majesty’s troops were starting to gain the ascendency across the subcontinent in what became known as the Second Boer War.

From 1941 to 1980, ‘C’ (Rhodesia) Squadron was an integral and highly esteemed member of the Special Air Service (SAS) family. Inspired by the rapid Long Range Desert Group’s (LRDG) vehicle-borne rescue of elements of the SAS, whose first mission into German-held territory ended in failure as a result of severe sandstorms, No. 8 (Guards) Commando officer David Sterling developed the extremely successful SAS operational tactic that centred on small, heavily armed and mobile strike units.

As long ago as 1847—and again in 1849—James Anderson, of Edinburgh, prepared and patented a series of plans, and further submitted a working model of his defensive rolling stock for the inspection of British engineers and artillery officers. The British Government, though, could not see its way clear to adopt the invention, so Anderson went abroad with his idea, with the result that these ‘ironclad trains’ were used in Europe on the field of battle for the first time in the Franco-Prussian War (1870).

As commander of one of the three self-contained columns constituting Lord Chelmsford’s invasion force into Zululand in January 1879, Colonel Charles Pearson diligently studied his commander’s instructions. Notwithstanding the ominous and very real possibility of having “the whole Zulu force” descend on his Eshowe garrison, the quintessential Victorian army officer’s response was unequivocal.