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
Mafeking Mooch in order to convey the impression that they had fought at Mafeking. The most popular of these simulated handicaps became known as the Mafeking Mooch, so called because the "veteran" performing the assumed affliction would walk with an exaggerated limp. The appellation "Mafeking Mooch" was first coined by the journalist Arthur P. Montague in a scathing article about degeneracy and fecklessness published in the "Pall Mall Gazette" in June 1905. Montague documented a notable distinction between men of different classes as to how the Mafeking Mooch was performed. He noted that working class men affected a limp with the toes