TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number],and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the book.
The Appendix had several passages marked with a vertical bar in themargin, indicating that the passages so marked were omitted from thepublished dispatches in 1900. In this etext these passages areenclosed in double parentheses {{ ... }} with a light gray backgroundcolor.
The cover image was created by the transcriberand is placed in the public domain.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
SIR CHARLES WARREN
AND
SPION KOP
SIR CHARLES WARREN
AND
SPION KOP
A VINDICATION
BY
‘DEFENDER’
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, PORTRAIT
AND MAP
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1902
[All rights reserved]
It is now more than two years since the operationtook place on the Tugela River in Natal,that ended in the capture and the unwarrantableabandonment the same day of the position ofSpion Kop. The lapse of time since these eventsoccurred naturally caused a loss of interest inthis chapter of the history of the war in SouthAfrica; but the recent publication of portions ofthe despatches omitted in the ‘Gazette’ of 1900,and also of other documents received at the timeby the War Office but not disclosed, has againbrought the subject into prominence, revivedpublic interest in it, and offered an opportunitywhich we gladly seize to vindicate the conduct ofan officer who has been condemned without beingheard.
Whether Sir Charles Warren will be allowedany opportunity of defending himself against[vi]the strictures passed upon him by Sir RedversBuller, either now or when the war is over,is doubtful; but at length, having before usall the documents received at the War Office, itis proposed to show in the following pages that,in spite of the difficult circumstances in whichhe found himself, Sir Charles Warren did hisduty, and that, had Spion Kop not been recklesslyabandoned by a subordinate, there is every reasonto suppose that he would have gained a greatsuccess.
The publication of the despatches on SpionKop in the parliamentary Easter recess of 1900took the world by surprise—so much so, indeed,that a story was current that it was due to themistake of a War Office clerk. It did not commenditself as either a useful or a desirable proceedingto publish to the whole world th