Battles
The Relief of Mafeking
17 May 1900
On 13 October 1899, only two days after the outbreak of war, Boer
forces began to besiege the hamlet of Mafeking, located in northern Cape
Colony only 13 kilometres from the Transvaal frontier. Under the command
of Robert Baden-Powell, a charismatic cavalry officer, the tiny British
garrison managed to hold out for the next eight months. Their resistance
became a powerful symbol of British resolve during the bleak early
months of the war.
In April 1900, with the Boers at last in retreat and on the
defensive, the British began a major effort to relieve Mafeking. Two
columns would converge on the town: one would march northwards from the
British lines on the Modder River, while a second would strike south
from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), in conjunction with the Rhodesian Field
Force commanded by Colonel Herbert Plumer.
The latter force required reinforcements, particularly in artillery,
before it could proceed. Fortunately, "C" Battery,
Royal Canadian Field
Artillery, had recently arrived from Canada and was in the Cape Town
area. Getting to Mafeking was no easy task. On 14 April, the battery,
along with a squadron of Australian mounted rifles, boarded a ship
bound for Beira in Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique). This was
followed by a five-hundred-kilometre journey by train westward to
Marandellas in Rhodesia and another five-hundred-kilometre trek to
Bulawayo. From there, the gunners, augmented by mules and with Black
South African drivers to draw the guns and ammunition wagons, set off
again by rail, arriving at Ootsi, only 100 kilometres north of Mafeking,
on 11 May. (The important contributions of these Black South African
drivers has gone largely unnoticed for nearly a century.)
The Canadians' column linked up with the one coming from the south
at Jan Massibi, about fifty kilometres west of Mafeking on the 15th.
The next day, there was a sharp engagement with the Boers in which the
four 12-pounders of "C" Battery won a
lengthy artillery duel. Despite being both outnumbered and outranged,
the Canadian gunners succeeded in driving the Boers from the road
leading into Mafeking.
At 4:00 a.m. the next morning, 17 May 1900, Mafeking was relieved.
The news set off an Empire-wide orgy of celebrations that added a new
word to the English language: Maff'ick, meaning to exult riotously. In
Mafeking, there was a special honour for "C" Battery. That night, the
reply to a sentry's challenge was “Canada.”.