Canadian mounted troops successfully used .303 M1895 guns in the Second Boer War (1899–1902). In one spectacular rear guard action at the Battle of Leliefontein on 7 November 1900, Sergeant Edward James Gibson Holland of The Royal Canadian Dragoons used a Colt gun mounted on a Dundonald galloping carriage to stop a rare mounted Boer charge, resulting in his being awarded the Victoria Cross, one of three awarded to Canadians in that action. Winston Churchill, then a young Lieutenant in the South African Light Horse and a war correspondent, was impressed by the effect of the fire of a whole battery of these guns. The Canadian success with the M1895 led to the further use of the gun by the Canadian Army in World War I.