24/25 January 1900 - The Battle of Spion Kop.

The last in the mournful series of defeats suffered by the British in the first three months of the 2nd Boer War and a lesson in poor tactics and communication.

The town of Ladysmith in the South African colony of Natal had been besieged by the Boers since early November 1899. A relief attempt in December failed as did a Boer assault in early January. 

A second relief column of 13,200 and 36 guns under Gen. Sir Redvers Buller set out on 11 January. On the 23rd it reached Spion Kop a hill 1410 ft high, the tallest in the area, lightly garrisoned by a Boer contingent which was driven off with little effort under cover of darkness. The British infantry occupied the summit (or so they thought) but were unable to haul their artillery up the steep incline. Daybreak revealed their true position, they had not taken the summit but merely a lower peak, above them loomed the actual summit on which the Boers had placed their artillery weeks before. 

With the advantage of height and gunnery the Boers pounded the British positions, nevertheless they held on throughout the day and following evening and as reinforcements made their way up the hill other British forces cleared the Boers from one of the surrounding peaks. 

Then an extraordinary thing happened. Both sides gave up the fight in the belief that the other had prevailed. The British with mounting casualties and the men suffering in the heat abandoned the hill and retreated, the Boers too pulled back and were on the point of retreat themselves when they noticed that firing from the Kop had ceased. Two fighters ran up the hill to claim it for the Boers, the only British that remained were the dead and dying.

The British lost 243 dead to the Boers 68.

Named after Juana, Lady Smith the Spanish wife of Sir Henry Smith, Governor of Cape Colony 1847-52. It was established after the British annexed the former Boer territory in 1850. 

Last year South Africa renamed it, hold on to your seats, uMnambithi. 

Named after Juana, Lady Smith the Spanish wife of Sir Henry Smith, Governor of Cape Colony 1847-52. It was established after the British annexed the former Boer territory in 1850. 

Last year South Africa renamed it, hold on to your seats, uMnambithi. 

Bunch of savages. Ladysmith sounds so much better. 

It will always be so for me, mainly because I have no idea how to pronounce the alternative. They renamed a number of places, all with local equally tongue-twisting words.

I stall refer to Bombay and Madras etc in India even though their names were changed 30 years ago. 

Not Mumbai then Mark? I know British soldiers who served there called Calcutta the black hole of Calcutta

The Black Hole of Calcutta was a dungeon in Fort William, Calcutta, measuring 14 by 18 feet (4.3 m × 5.5 m), in which troops of Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, held British prisoners of war on the night of 20 June 1756.^[1][2]: 58 John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the British prisoners and an employee of the East India Company said that, after the fall of Fort William, the surviving British soldiers, Indian sepoys, and Indian civilians were imprisoned overnight in conditions so cramped that many people died from suffocation and heat exhaustion, and that 123 of 146 prisoners of war imprisoned there died.^[3]

Some modern historians believe that 64 prisoners were sent into the Hole, and that 43 died there.^[4] Some historians put the figure even lower, to about 18 dead, while questioning the veracity of Holwell's account itself.^[5][6]

25 January 1644 - The Battle of Nantwich.

A battle fought during the English Civil War.

Most of the County of Cheshire was loyal to the King with the County town of Chester considered vitally important as a landing point for troops from Ireland expected in the King's cause. However a little over 20 miles to the south east lay the town of Nantwich which had been taken by the Parliamentarians.

To eliminate this threat the Royalists placed the town under siege, or rather containment as very little siege action took place. In reply a Parliamentarian army marched to relieve the town. In surrounding Nantwich the Royalists under John, Lord Byron were spread out on either side of the river Weaver and it was the portion of the army north of the river that first encountered the Parliamentarians on 24 January. It was brushed aside allowing Sir Thomas Fairfax's men to continue.

Realizing that the attack would come on the northern side of the Weaver Lord Byron hastened to the crossing at Beam Bridge only to find it had been swept away by a sudden thaw and resulting flood. So when Fairfax gave battle the following day Byron was still on the wrong side of the river with half his army seeking a ford or undamaged bridge. By the time they arrived it was almost over, the Royalists were defeated, largely due to the garrison at Nantwich sallying forth to join the Fairfax's ranks as Byron's arrival threatened to tip the balance.  

As Art says every town has a story to tell from the Civil War. Mine was host to King Charles for two nights in May 1645.  

26 January 1885 - The Fall of Khartoum.

For the background see the Battle of Abu Klea 17 January.

The lengthy siege of Khartoum was not a conventional affair, Gen. Gordon was able to get messages in and out and several gunboats made their escape down the Nile. The Mahdists did not have any boats and although they could fire from the riverbank gunboats were able to get through. Once Gordon heard that a relief column was making its way up the Nile he sent four steamboats out to await the arrival of the British troops with the aim of carrying them back to Khartoum by water.

After the hard fought victory at Abu Klea a second battle was fought two days later at Abu Kru near Metemma in which the British commander Stewart was mortally wounded. Command fell to Col Wilson who pushed on to Metemma where on 21 January the four gunboats appeared. After a delay of three days to tend the wounded and fortify Metemma in case of a Dervish attack Wilson and a small party of soldiers set off south towards Khartoum in the hope that the mere sight of their arrival would drive the Dervishes away. 

News of the British advance reached the Mahdi who ordered a full scale assault around midnight on 25 January. The starved and demoralised defenders were quickly overwhelmed and the city taken. Almost every man was killed including Gen. Gordon and his head paraded through the streets on a pole.

Two days later Wilson's little flotilla arrived and finding Khartoum in enemy hands it withdrew. It would be another 13 years before it was retaken.

26 January 1885 - The Fall of Khartoum.

For the background see the Battle of Abu Klea 17 January.

The lengthy siege of Khartoum was not a conventional affair, Gen. Gordon was able to get messages in and out and several gunboats made their escape down the Nile. The Mahdists did not have any boats and although they could fire from the riverbank gunboats were able to get through. Once Gordon heard that a relief column was making its way up the Nile he sent four steamboats out to await the arrival of the British troops with the aim of carrying them back to Khartoum by water.

After the hard fought victory at Abu Klea a second battle was fought two days later at Abu Kru near Metemma in which the British commander Stewart was mortally wounded. Command fell to Col Wilson who pushed on to Metemma where on 21 January the four gunboats appeared. After a delay of three days to tend the wounded and fortify Metemma in case of a Dervish attack Wilson and a small party of soldiers set off south towards Khartoum in the hope that the mere sight of their arrival would drive the Dervishes away. 

News of the British advance reached the Mahdi who ordered a full scale assault around midnight on 25Thiead paraded through the streets on a pole.

Two days later Wilson's little flotilla arrived and finding Khartoum in enemy hands it withdrew. It would be another 13 years before it was retaken.

Thirteen years later? What a persistent lot the Brits were. 

It wasn't an immediate priority, the only reason they were there in 1884/85 was firstly Gordon's refusal to evacuate the city then the relief effort to save him, had it not been for his obstinacy Khartoum would have been a mere footnote in the history of the Empire rather than a crisis spawning books and Hollywood films.

Although we gave up the hinterland of the Sudan we kept hold of the Red Sea port of Suakin and Wadi Halfa on the Nile on the border of Egypt and Sudan. There were sporadic clashes with the Mahdist state over the years around these two locations. It wasn't until 1896 that a decision was taken to attempt the reconquest of Sudan, mainly due to interest from other European powers in the area and even from Abyssinia.    

France and Italy had colonies bordering Sudan and Germany, a late comer to the race, was looking for unclaimed territory pretty much anywhere.  

President Trump tear this wall down. Where have you heard this before?

27 January 1918 - The Finnish Civil War began.

In December 1917 within a month of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the resulting chaos the Grand Duchy of Finland, part of the Russian Empire, took advantage of the situation to proclaim independence with Pehr Svinhufvud as interim leader.

Sovereignty however was tenuous prospect with pro-Russian Reds and the if not precisely but sympathetic pro-German Whites both eager to assert themselves in the fledgling state. With the Whites in early command the Red faction set up an alternative government and began arming for a Revolution of their own. 

On 27 January a train crossed the border from Russia laden with arms for the Red uprising. The Whites planned to halt it at the station at Kämärä only to find the building in Red hands. After a short gun battle the Whites secured the site and broke up the tracks. The Russian train arrived and was partially derailed. In the gunfight that followed the Reds were victorious driving the occupiers from the site. The tracks were fixed, the train recovered and continued its journey. 

The battle for the future of Finland had begun.

28 January 1881 - The Battle of Laing's Nek.

The second of the four battles between the British and the Boers in the 1st Boer War. This short conflict of just three months is one of the most interesting of the 19th century, one which has been described as the war Britain chose to lose.

The Boer Republic of Transvaal had been annexed by the British with little opposition in 1877. However the Boers quickly chaffed under British rule, in December 1880 they rose in revolt and proclaimed an independent Republic. 

The British had few troops in the colony and after a defeat in which a column of 250 were either killed or captured the Boers crossed the border into British Natal and occupied the heights of Laing's Nek which loomed over the route into Transvaal. Under the command of Maj-Gen Sir George Colley around 1200 men and six guns marched on the Boer positions. On 28 January they attempted to storm the heights with predictable results. They succeeded in taking a lower spur of the hill but none reached the true summit. The retreat became a panicked rout losing 84 dead 113 wounded and two captured, the Boers lost 14 killed and 27 wounded.  

I don't understand why it is Trump's responsibility to tear down that fence if he wasn't the one who put it up.  The Canadians put it up before Trump was even elected, but it is still his fault?  I think you Canuckians are a shifty bunch.

Your right Trump wouldn't know how to build a fence. He did try once and made it out of steel and very high but he never managed to finish the fence and now the locals have named it the fence to no where. ;-)

29 January 1814 - The Battle of Brienne.

At the end of 1813 Napoleon was on the defensive after the Allied combined armies finally gained the initiative against the French with a two-pronged invasion. Napoleon himself led an army of 36,000 out of Paris to prevent the junction of the Austrians and Prussians/Russians, his target was the Prussian/Russian army of 30,000 under von Blücher. After a skirmish on 27 January the French located the bulk of the allied army at Brienne and attacked on the 29th. By nightfall Napoleon was victorious, driving the enemy from the field. Blücher himself was almost captured when a French patrol found him sheltering in a farmhouse.

Casualties were roughly equal, but ultimately the advantage lay with the Allies because Napoleon was unable to prevent the union of the Prussis/Russians with the Austrians.    

I don't understand why it is Trump's responsibility to tear down that fence if he wasn't the one who put it up.  The Canadians put it up before Trump was even elected, but it is still his fault?  I think you Canuckians are a shifty bunch.

Your right Trump wouldn't know how to build a fence. He did try once and made it out of steel and very high but he never managed to finish the fence and now the locals have named it the fence to no where. ;-)

That's because the Mexicans reneged on paying for it.............the stiffs what they are. 

I don't understand why it is Trump's responsibility to tear down that fence if he wasn't the one who put it up.  The Canadians put it up before Trump was even elected, but it is still his fault?  I think you Canuckians are a shifty bunch.

Your right Trump wouldn't know how to build a fence. He did try once and made it out of steel and very high but he never managed to finish the fence and now the locals have named it the fence to to where. ;-)

That's because the Mexicans reneged on paying for it.............the stiffs what they are. 

I look for Trump to restart building the wall.