page_title: Battle of Colenso
section_title: British plans
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Colenso / British plans
caption_attribution_description: Photograph showing British QF 4.7 inch gun on the improvised wooden field carriage designed by Captain Percy Scott. In action at the Battle of Colenso, South Africa, 15 December 1899. Ropes connect the carriage to a stake in front of the gun to limit recoil.
context_page_description: The battle of Colenso was the third and final battle fought during the Black Week of the Second Boer War. It was fought between British and Boer forces from the independent South African Republic and Orange Free State in and around Colenso, Natal, South Africa on 15 December 1899.
  Inadequate preparation and reconnaissance and uninspired leadership led to a British defeat.
context_section_description: Buller was handicapped by a shortage of competent staff officers, as most of them had been dispersed from his Corps, like the Corps itself, to the various distant fronts throughout South Africa. He also lacked information on the geography of the area, and possessed only a sparsely detailed blueprint map based on railway and farm surveys, and a crude sketch map made by an artillery officer.
  Buller intended the 5th (Irish) Brigade, to cross the Bridle Drift. The brigade consisted of the 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 1st Connaught Rangers, 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and the 1st Border Regiment, and was commanded by the confident Major General Arthur Fitzroy Hart. Meanwhile, the 2nd Brigade under Major-General Henry J. T. Hildyard would occupy the village itself (where there was another ford and two bridges across the Tugela, although one bridge had already been demolished). Hildyard's brigade consisted of the 2nd Devonshire Regiment, the 2nd Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey), the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment, and the 2nd East Surrey Regiment. Its attack was to be supported by artillery (the 14th and 66th Field Batteries of the Royal Artillery and a battery of six naval 12-pounder guns) under Colonel C.J. Long.
  A regiment of regular cavalry, the 1st Royal Dragoons, under Colonel J.F. Burn-Murdoch, protected the left flank. On the right flank, Buller intended that a brigade of colonial light horse and mounted infantry under Lord Dundonald, would capture Hlangwane. (Although Buller recognised that Hlangwane was a difficult position to assault, he anticipated that once Hart's and Hildyard's troops had established bridgeheads on the north bank of the Tugela, the Boers would abandon the hill for fear of being isolated.)  Dundonald's brigade consisted of Bethune's Mounted Infantry (three companies), Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry (three companies), the South African Light Horse (three squadrons) and a composite regiment made of one squadron of the Imperial Light Horse, one squadron of the Natal Carbineers and two companies of mounted infantry detached from British infantry units.
  Two more infantry brigades were in reserve: they were the 4th (Light) Brigade under Major General Neville Lyttelton (consisting of 2nd Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), 1st Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort's Own), 3rd King's Royal Rifle Corps and the 1st Durham Light Infantry). The second formation was the 6th (Fusilier) Brigade under Major General Geoffrey Barton (with the 2nd Royal Fusiliers, the 2nd Scots Fusiliers, the 1st Royal Welch Fusiliers, and the 2nd Royal Irish Fusiliers under command).
  Buller also had another three batteries of field artillery (7th, 63rd and 64th), and another battery of eight naval 12-pounder guns and two 4.7-inch naval guns to support the flanking mounted troops or in reserve.
caption: Quick firing 4.7 inch gun in action at Colenso
exif: {}