TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=. Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the book. A superscript is denoted by ^x or ^{xx}, for example Estab^t. The Appendix had several passages marked with a vertical bar in the margin, indicating that the passages so marked were omitted from the published dispatches in 1900. In this etext these passages are enclosed in double parentheses {{ ... }} and are also indented if the passage is in a separate paragraph. Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. [Illustration: _From a photograph by A. Bassano_] [Illustration: Signature of Sir Charles Warren] 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] PREFACE It is now more than two years since the operation took place on the Tugela River in Natal, that ended in the capture and the unwarrantable abandonment the same day of the position of Spion Kop. The lapse of time since these events occurred naturally caused a loss of interest in this chapter of the history of the war in South Africa; but the recent publication of portions of the despatches omitted in the ‘Gazette’ of 1900, and also of other documents received at the time by the War Office but not disclosed, has again brought the subject into prominence, revived public interest in it, and offered an opportunity which we gladly seize to vindicate the conduct of an officer who has been condemned without being heard. Whether Sir Charles Warren will be allowed any opportunity of defending himself against the strictures passed upon him by Sir Redvers Buller, either now or when the war is over, is doubtful; but at length, having before us all the documents received at the War Office, it is proposed to show in the following pages that, in spite of the difficult circumstances in which he found himself, Sir Charles Warren did his duty, and that, had Spion Kop not been recklessly abandoned by a subordinate, there is every reason to suppose that he would have gained a great success. The publication of the despatches on Spion Kop in the parliamentary Easter recess of 1900 took the world by surprise--so much so, indeed, that a story was current that it was due to the mistake of a War Office clerk. It did not commend itself as either a useful or a desirable proceeding to publish to the whole world the strictures passed by the General in command in Natal upon his second-in-command, and those of the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa upon both, especially as those officers were still serving their country in the field.