Battle of the Tugela Heights Battle of the Tugela Heights The Battle of Tugela (or Thukela) Heights, consisted of a series of military actions lasting from 14 February through 27 February 1900 in which General Sir Redvers Buller's British army forced Louis Botha's Boer army to lift the Siege of Ladysmith during the Second Boer War. Buller's army had made three earlier attempts to raise the Boer siege of Ladysmith. The battles of Colenso, Spion Kop and Vaal Krantz each resulted in embarrassing British defeats at the hands of Botha's army of Boer irregulars. In three months, British casualties rose to 3,400 men while Boer
Battle of Ladysmith (He sent the wounded south to Pietermaritzburg but left the civilians and other non-combatants in the town.) As the British troops concentrated in Ladysmith now constituted a balanced "field force" of all arms, White also rejected the option of leaving an infantry garrison in Ladysmith while sending the bulk of the mounted troops and artillery south of the river. He gambled on being able to strike a knock-out blow against the Boer armies in a "set-piece" action. This was despite the disadvantages of the terrain, with Ladysmith being on low ground surrounded by hills rising to above the town, which