The general result of all the information is to make it clear that Spion Kop was the key of the position dominating the country, and that the holders of it opened the way to Ladysmith; that no one was more astonished at its unauthorised abandonment than Sir Charles Warren, except the Boers themselves, who refused to credit the evidence of their senses, and at first believed its forsaken condition to be a trap! No longer, indeed, is it possible to regard the unwarrantable surrender of this position as a fortunate accident preventing an actual and impending disaster on the morrow, or, as Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft is reported to have said, ‘a mop up in the morning.’ Rather its abandonment was the blundering relinquishment of a hardly won and well assured success, only to be compared with the fatuous withdrawal in the morning of the storming parties which made the brilliant night attack and surprised the fortress of Bergen op Zoom on 8th March 1814. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE PREFACE v BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 1 I. BEGINNING OF THE WAR--WARREN CROSSES THE TUGELA 55 II. POSITION OF AFFAIRS 75 III. ADVANCE TO VENTER’S LAAGER AND ATTACK OF THE RANGEWORTHY HILLS 92 IV. BOER DEMORALISATION--TACTICAL IMPORTANCE OF SPION KOP 119 V. CAPTURE OF SPION KOP AND ITS ABANDONMENT 135 VI. AFTER WITHDRAWAL--BOER COMMENTS 159 VII. SOME CRITICISMS 169 APPENDIX: EXTRACTS FROM DESPATCHES 203 SIR CHARLES WARREN AND SPION KOP BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH A short sketch of the career of Sir Charles Warren is an appropriate introduction to his appearance in South Africa as the leader of the 5th Division of the army in the Natal campaign, and as the Commander of the Field Force in the operations on the Tugela between 15th and 25th January 1900. PARENTAGE Lieut.-General Sir Charles Warren, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., F.R.S., is the son of the late Major-General Sir Charles Warren, K.C.B., Colonel of the 96th Foot, by his first wife, Mary Anne, daughter of William Hughes, Esq., of Dublin and Carlow, and grandson of the Very Rev. John Warren, Dean of Bangor, North Wales.