Boer War : Medical treatment

[EagerNoSkill]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treatment_ ... d_Boer_War

During the Boer war, 22,000 troops were treated for wounds inflicted during battle.[1] The surgical facilities provided by the British army were vastly more effective than in previous campaigns.[2] The Medical Department of the army mobilized 151 staff and regimental units.[3] Twenty eight field ambulances, five stationary hospitals and 16 general hospitals were established to deal with casualties.[3] Numerous voluntary organizations set up additional hospitals, medical units and first aid posts. Around one thousand Indians from Natal were shipped to South Africa to help in the recovery effort by transporting the wounded off the battlefields.[3] Even Mahatma Gandhi, who was practising as a lawyer at the time in Durban, was a volunteer, helping recovery efforts in the Battles of Colenso and Spionkop.[4] A second unit was established by Johannesburg and Cape Town Jews and aided both armies.

My wife booked us into a lodge that had an extensive museum of Boer War artifacts and farming equipment - including a Boer War Ambulance

This ambulance was NOT used at The Battle of Silkaatsnek - but the lodge owners had gone to great lengths and costs to recover and restore it.

It was reckoned that if you were prepared to face the cliffs and rocks and snakes you could still find cartridges and battle residue.
it was however a very very rough mountain and very bushy

[EagerNoSkill]

The lodge was on the farm that had the Boer War Battle site : The Battle of Silkaatsnek

Date: 11 July, 1900
There is a pass in the Magaliesberg known as Silkaatsnek It was here that the two 12-pounder guns of 'O' Battery, Royal Horse Artillery (RHA), were placed and ultimately captured in the first battle of Silkaatsnek on 11 July 1900.
After the fall of Pretoria on 5 June 1900, the British forces found themselves in command of most strategic points, but with enormously extended lines of communication. In the then 'Western Transvaal', communications were maintained through huge tracts of inhospitable country, which were difficult to fight in; rough hills, tenacious bushes and hard stony ground with infrequent sources of water, especially in the southern winter.
Conditions were ideal for guerrilla warfare conducted by tough, unsophisticated fighters who were brought up as horsemen and marksmen, who knew the country intimately and who could adapt themselves to harsh conditions using the topography to their advantage.
11 July 1900 marked the beginning of this type of war with four Boer actions, of which the action of Silkaatsnek was but one of three successes, with resultant timely encouragement to Boer morale in the Western Transvaal, and dismay amongst English garrisons and outposts.
General De la Rey had commanded the northern sector of the Boer forces at Diamond Hill. After this battle, De la Rey, who also commanded the Western Transvalers, fell back to the Bronkhorstspruit-Balmoral area. On lO July, De la Rey was travelling north of Silkaatsnek towards Rustenburg with some 200 men, when his scouts brought information that the Nek was lightly held and that the commanding shoulders of the Nek had been ignored. He decided to attack.
De la Rey launched a three-pronged attack on the small British force commanded by Colonel HR Roberts. De la Rey personally lead the frontal assault from the north and sent two groups of 200 men to scale both shoulders of the pass, where the British had placed small pick­ets. The burghers surrounded and captured two British field-guns, but the British put up a gallant fight that lasted the entire day. Colonel Roberts surrendered the next morning. 23 British troops were killed,
Colonel Roberts and 44 others were wounded and 189 (including the wounded) were captured. The Boers casualties are unknown, but De la Rey's nephew and his adjutant were both killed, and a known 8 men were wounded. The Boers captured two field-guns, a machine gun, a num­ber of rifles ammunition. De la Rey used these weapons to rearm several burghers who returned to duty .