old ed's club newsletter 2007

7/30/2019 Old Ed's Club Newsletter 2007

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The Old Edwardian Wargames Newsletter

EDITORIAL & COMMENTS

Dear Member,

I wish you all a verysuccessful 2007!

Hindsight is a perfectscience and the beginning of ayear is the perfect opportunityto reflect back on the previousyears to appreciate theaccomplishments andspeculate on the missedopportunities. For most of us;the missed opportunities tendto always be a cause of

irritation. The million Dollarsquestion is Knowing what weknow now, Should the sameopportunity present itselfwould you treat it in a similarfashion. We obviously all liketo think that we would tacklethe situation in a moreadequate way and that wewould seize the opportunity.

Fortunately for us within the

wargaming realm, the NewYear brings new challenges toour door. The wargamingcalendar for 2007 sees theWorld event taking place in ourvery own country. Wargamersfrom across the country arerallying to take place in this.Once again Old Eds is hopingto send one of the bigger

contingents to the world event

in PE. One can never tell whensuch an event will take placeagain in our country! With thisin mind all those interested, Iwould recommend you startmaking arrangements for it.

Richard Ligault

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AGM News

Once again we had thepleasure of everyonescompany at the AGM. The club

joke was told with renewedenthusiasm!

1/ The committee wasreelected except for IngoHaferung whom stepped downfrom his position.

2/ Marc Marais won the 2006ancient club ladder.

3/ Richard Ligault won the2006 DBR club ladder

4/Colin Webster won the2006 old eds club trophy.

5/ Old eds wargaming clubwon for the 9th year in a rowthe national wargaming clubtrophy award.

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Tournament essentials

Are you thinking of takingpart in a provincialtournament? Do you knowwhich wargamer you will shareaccommodation with? Avoidthose heartaches, earlybooking essential!!!

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Blue Room

The blue room is open fobattle!! Since the beginning ofthe 2007, an incredibleamount of activity has beentaking place in the blue roomBattling is thriving.

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Valentines day

There has been a rumor thatus wargamers are insensitiveto valentines day. Let us

prove our partners wrong andoffer them those figuresyouve always wanted.

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Painting Competition

Every club day doesinclude a paintingcompetition for figures andterrain. So come-on folkstime to bring out those

painted figures and terrain.----------------------------

Upcoming tournaments

Remember for all upcomingevent to try give an indicationof attendance at least a monthin advance in order to helpwith the logistic. Those are thelast tournaments beforeworlds, last chance topractice.

Old edss summer champwill be on us on the 17th and18th of February. Take theopportunity to come to a goodfun club tournament.

North West champ will be onus on the 3rd and 4th ofFebruary.

January 2007

VOLUME 3

NUMBER 1


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Gauteng champ will be onthe 3rd and 4th of March..

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Campaign

Old edss campaign hasstarted on a high note.

Alliances, invasions,negotiations and betrayal havealready started. There is plentyspace left., come and join inthe fun.

The players so far:David V=> EgyptDominic => RomeGarry => AssyriaIngo => MacedonJohannes => UrKurt => PoeniMatthew => GreeceMarc => SarmatiaRichard => Levant.

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World Tournament DBRtraining

Matthew Strachan is lookingfor DBR opponents to up hisgames in preparation forworld. Anyone interestedplease drop Matthew a mail.

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Wargaming HistoryBattle of Spion Kop: 23-

24 Jan 1900

The Battle of Spion Kop(Afrikaans: Slag van

Spioenkop) was fought about38 km west-south-west ofLadysmith on the hilltop ofSpioenkop along the TugelaRiver, Natal in South Africa.

The battle was fought betweenBoer and British forces from23-24 January 1900 as part ofthe Second Boer War, and

resulted in a famous Britishdefeat during the Boer War.

General Sir Redvers Buller,VC, commander of the Britishforces in Natal, was at the timestill overshadowed byLieutenant-General LouisBotha and the fate of Ladysmith undecided. Bullergave control of his main forceto General Sir Charles Warren,who decided to attack theBoers along two fronts.General Warren had commandof 11,000 infantry, 2,200cavalry, and 36 field guns.After ten days' travel andpreparation to reach

Trichardt's Drift on the Tugela

river the battle for Spion Kopbegan. Spion Kop, as thelargest hill in the region atover 1,400 feet, was occupiedby the Boers, who were armedwith modern German Mauserrifles.

The kopSpion Kop formed a major

bastion of the Boers' defensive

line that blocked Buller'sadvance to Ladysmith, wheresome 13,000 British troopswere besieged. The Kop wasonly 10 miles from Ladysmithand possession of the hillwould allow the British artilleryto dominate the surroundingarea. Spion Kop was thereforeseen as the "Key toLadysmith". The Boers sitedtheir defensive positions not

on the crests of hills butinstead on the rear slope, outof sight of enemy forces, atactic unfamiliar to Britishmilitary orthodoxy. This tacticallowed the Boers to observethe British forces whilekeeping hidden their ownforces' numbers anddispositions.

The British assaultOn the night of 23 January,

Warren sent a force undeMajor General EdwardWoodgate to secure Spion KopLieutenant Colonel Alexande

Thorneycroft was selected tospearhead the initial assault.

The British climbed up thehill at night and in dense mist

They effectively surprised thesmaller Boer piquet around100 men and drove them offthe Kop at bayonet point. Asmall number of BritishSappers began to entrench theposition (whilst almost 1,000

soldiers stood around idle) andMajor General Woodgatecommunicated with GeneraWarren of the success oftaking the hilltop, but the goodcheer only lasted until the foglifted.

With the dawn of the new

day the British discovered thatthey had the smaller and lower

part of the hilltop of Spion Kopwhile the Boers occupiedhigher ground on three sidesof the British position. To makematters worse, the Britishtrenches were totallyinadequate. The British had nodirect knowledge of thetopography of the summit andthe darkness and fog hadcompounded the problem. Atmost the trenches were 40cm

deep and provided anexceptionally poor defensiveposition - the British infantry inthe trenches could not seeover the crest of the plateauand the Boers were able to firedown the length of thecrescent-shaped trench fromthe adjacent peaks.


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The Boer Generals were notunduly concerned by the newsthat the British had taken theKop. They knew that theirartillery on Tabanyama couldbe brought to bear on theBritish position and that riflefire could be brought to bearfrom parts of the Kop not yetoccuped by the British.However, the Boer Generalsalso knew that sniping andartillery alone would not besufficient to dislodge theBritish - and the Boer positionwas desperately vulnerable. Ifthe British immediatelyestablished positions onConical Hill and Aloe Knoll (thetwo unoccupied kojes on the

kop itself) they could bringtheir artillery to bear onTabanyama, threatening thekey Boer positions there. Moreimportantly, there was a riskthat the British would storm

Twin Peaks (Drielingkoppe) tothe eastern end of Spion Kop.And if Twin Peaks fell, theBritish would be able to turnthe Boers' left flank andannihilate the main Boer

encampment. The BoerGenerals realised that SpionKop would have to be stormed,and stormed soon, if disasterwere to be averted.

The Boers began tobombard the British position,dropping shells from theadjacent plateau of

Tabanyama at a rate of tenrounds per minute. Meanwhile,

Commandant Henrik Prinslooof the Carolina Commandorose to the challenge of takingAloe Knoll and Conical Hill withsome 88 men while around300 Burghers, mainly of thePretoria Commando, climbedthe Kop to launch a frontalassault on the British position.

The British Lee-Metford and

Lee-Enfield Rifles were no lessdeadly that the Boer Mausershowever, and the frontalassault ended in a bloodyrepulse.

A kind of stalemate nowsettled over the Kop. TheBoers had failed to drive theBritish off the Kop but thesurviving men of the Pretoriaand Carolina Commando nowheld a firing line on Aloe Knollfrom where they could enfiladethe British position and theBritish were now undersustained bombardment fromthe Boer artillery. The Britishhad failed to exploit their initialsuccess and the initiative now

passed to the Boers.

Morale began to sag on bothsides as the extreme heat,exhaustion and thirst tookhold. On one hand the Boerson the Kop could see largenumbers of Burghers on theplains below who refused to

join the fight. The sense ofbetrayal, the bloody failure ofthe frontal assault, the

indiscipline inherent in acivilian army and the apparentsecurity of the British positionproved too much for some.

They began to abandon theirhard-won positions. On theother hand the bombardmentbegan to take its toll on theBritish. Major GeneralWoodgate fell mortallywounded. Three more seniorBritish Officers fell in quick

succession. Officers and menfrom different units wereintermingled, and the Britishwere now leaderless, confusedand pinned down.

By mid-morning, for bothsides the question was: Couldthe Officers rally the troops

and prevent a whole-salesurrender?

Colonel Malby Crofton tookcharge and asked forreinforcements. Warren hadalready dispatched two furtherregular battalions and theImperial Light Infantry were ontheir way up to the firing lineWarren refused to launch anattack on Tabanyama andbarred his guns from firing onAloe Knoll, believing this to bepart of the British position

Thornycroft now replaced Croftas commander on the Kop.

Winston Churchill was a

journalist stationed in SouthAfrica and he wascommissioned an officer at therank of Lieutenant in the SouthAfrican Light Horse by GeneraBuller during the Boer Waafter his prisoner-of-war prisonescape. Churchill acted as acourier to and from Spion Kopand General Buller's HQ andmade a statement about thescene: "Corpses lay here and

there. Many of the woundswere of a horrible nature. Thesplinters and fragments of theshells had torn and mutilatedthem. The shallow trencheswere choked with dead andwounded."

At this point the situationproved too much for theLancashire Fusiliers whoattempted to surrender to the

Boers. Thornycroft personallyintervened and ordered hismen back. A vicious point-blank firefight ensued but theBritish line had been saved. Atthis crucial point, the reinforcements arrived, attackedand took Twin Peaks.

The aftermath


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The Boers were shattered bythe loss of Twin Peaks andabandoned the Kop asdarkness fell. Unbeknownst to

Thornycroft, the battle was asgood as won. But Thornycroft'snerve was also shattered. Aftersixteen hours on the Kop doingthe job of a Brigadier General,he ordered a retreat afterreporting that the soldiers hadno water, and ammunition wasrunning short. It is hard to fault

Thornycroft for this error.Warren did nothing tointervene and it is he whomust shoulder the blame fromsnatching disastrous defeatfrom the jaws of an assuredvictory.

When morning came, theBoer Generals were astonishedto see two Burghers on the topof Spion Kop, waving theirslouch-hats in triumph. Theonly British on the Kop werethe dead and the dying.

The British suffered 243British fatalities during thebattle, many were buried in

the trenches were they fell.Approximately 1,250 Britishwere either wounded orcaptured. The Boers suffered335 casualties of which 68were dead. CommandantPrinsloo Commando suffered aloss of 55 out of his 88 men.

The British retreated backover the Tugela but the Boerswere too weak to follow up

their success.

Somehow, Buller managedto rally his troops. The moraleof the British was miraculouslyrestored.

Ladysmith would be takenby the British on another day.

This day in wargaminghistory

THE END

old ed's club newsletter 2007

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