They had captured the Boer laagers and set their ammunition dump alight.
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The commandants were at variance and there was indiscipline in the laagers.
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We could see the town of Colesberg, and all the Boer laagers around it.
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The trekkers then rounded up all the cattle in sight and returned triumphantly to their laagers.
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The second notion emphasises the traits that split America into hostile ethnic laagers and deny its essential multiculturalism.
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His armies were infantry and dragoon based, using wagon laagers mounted with light cannons to protect against cavalry charges.
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There are at least two large laagers that are able to hold battalions, and an unknown number of dugouts.
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You truly represent everything that the West loathes about white South Africans who live extravagant lives in their expensive laagers.
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In this he was helped by the fact that, when elections loom, many unionists and nationalists retreat to their laagers, voting primarily to keep the other side out.
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Every morning my brother and I had our horses fetched from the grazing-ground and rode out to visit neighbouring camps and laagers, eager to see all that we could.
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Later in the campaign he was put in charge of the British Garrison and Boer Laagers at Kaapsehoop. While in South Africa, Balfour contracted typhoid and returned to England before the end of 1901.
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In the dry summer, the grazing on the veld became parched, weakening the Boers' horses and draught oxen, and many Boer families joined their menfolk in the siege lines and laagers (encampments), fatally encumbering Cronjé's army.
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Neither wagon laagers nor trenches would be used, to convince both the Zulus and critics that a British square could "beat them fairly in the open". At 6 a.m. Buller led out an advance guard of mounted troops and South African irregulars, which after Buller had secured an upper drift (river crossing at a ford), was followed by the infantry, led by the experienced Flying Column battalions. By 7:30 a.m.
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Learning of the planned deployment, the Baster guards advised the Council they would not go. Although negotiations were in process, they learned the trains were due to leave the next day, and the night of April 18, numerous Basters defected from German service, taking arms with them that they intended to turn in at Rehoboth. About 300 men set up defenses in two laagers. Learning of this, the Germans disarmed other Baster soldiers in other posts; in the process, one unarmed Baster was killed.
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Retief's household departed in two wagons from his farm in the Winterberg District in early February 1837 and joined a party of 30 other wagons. The pioneers crossed the Orange River into independent territory. When several parties on the Great Trek converged at the Vet River, Retief was elected "Governor of the United Laagers" and head of "The Free Province of New Holland in South East Africa." This coalition was very short-lived, and Retief became the lone leader of the group moving east.
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Retief's chest was sawn open and his heart and liver removed and brought to Dingane in a cloth. Their bodies were left on the KwaMatiwane hillside to be eaten by vultures and scavengers, as was Dingane's custom with his enemies. Dingane then directed the attack against the Voortrekker laagers, which plunged the migrant movement into temporary disarray and in total 534 men, women and children were killed. Following the Voortrekker victory at Blood River, Andries Pretorius and his "victory commando" recovered the remains of the Retief party.
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Pursued by the Zulus, the surviving inhabitants of Durban took refuge on a ship then in harbour. After the Zulus retired, fewer than a dozen Englishmen returned to live at the port; the missionaries, hunters and other traders returned to Cape Colony. The Boers had repelled the Zulu attacks on their laagers; joined by others from the Drakensberg, about 400 men under Hendrik Potgieter and Piet Uys advanced to attack Dingane. On 11 April, they were attacked and with difficulty cut their way out.
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However, after the massacare of Retief and his men by Dingane and the subsequent Zulu attacks on the Voortrekker laagers in Natal, commandos led by Uys and Potgieter rode to their aid. During the subsequent Battle of Italeni both Uys and his second son, Dirkie, were killed. The part of Uys' commando that remained behind (under the command of Field Cornet Potgieter), were surrounded and had to fight their way out. Due to the outcome of the battle, the Voortrekker forces involved in the fighting subsequently became known as the Vlugkommando(Flight Commando).
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The Zulus killed the entire party by clubbing them and killed Retief last, so as to witness the deaths of his comrades. Their bodies were left on the hillside to be eaten by wild animals, as was Dingane's custom with his enemies. Dingane immediately directed the attack on the Voortrekker laagers, which plunged the migrant movement into serious disarray. Following the decisive Voortrekker victory at Blood River, Andries Pretorius and his "victory commando" recovered the remains of the Retief party, and buried them in a mass grave on 21 December 1838.
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Operations were dictated by the amount of fuel, ammunition, water and ration that could be carried per vehicle. The Eland's easy maintenance allowed them to operate on makeshift repairs in the field for up to seven days, hunting SWAPO cadres by day and forming open laagers by night. One of the first major breakthroughs of the late 1970s was the development of the Ratel. Three years after Springfield-Bussing built the first prototype in 1974, Magnus Malan reported to Parliament that the Ratel was "successfully industrialised". Ratels replaced Buffels in support troops and by 1982 all armoured car regiments had been retrained to depend on mechanised infantry during conventional operations.
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Nightfall found the Americans in two laagers. On the west, where the fight had taken place, Major Guy S. Meloy, commander of the 1/27th Infantry who had arrived during the battle, had five companies: his western blocking company, the two reserve companies, and the two companies from the attack column. De Saussure ordered the rest of the committed units, the four remaining attack companies and the eastern blocking company, to assemble and form a perimeter several kilometers to the east. Placing the senior Lieutenant Colonel, Hugh H. Lynch, commanding officer of the 4/31st Infantry, in command, de Saussure began to plan how he would unscramble his units on the following day.
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However, on the evening of 18 March the Libyans were surround by multiple FANT units near B'ir Kora. When the Chadian attack began at dawn on the 19th, the Libyans (who had arranged their tanks and other vehicles to form makeshift laagers) were unable to hold their camp's perimeter when faced with the highly mobile Chadians. To draw the Libyans out of their defensive positions, the Chadians launched a diversionary attack against one segment of the Libyan defenses, while also preparing a much larger attack aimed at the opposite side of the Libyan line. The diversion worked, and when the Libyans committed their reserves to meet the Chadian feint, the main Chadian force was able to penetrate the Libyan rear and cause havoc.
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A romanticized depiction of the Great Trek The English word laager comes from the obsolete Afrikaans word lager (now laer), which comes from the German word Lager ("camp" or "lair"). The word refers to the ancient defensive formation used by travelers throughout the world in dangerous situations in which they would draw wagons into a circle and place cattle and horses on the inside to protect them from raiders or nocturnal animals. Laagers were extensively used by the Voortrekkers of the Great Trek during the 1830s. The laager was put to the ultimate test on 16 December 1838, when an army of 25,000 Zulu Impis besieged and were defeated by approximately 470 Voortrekkers in the aptly named Battle of Blood River.
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Various locals (including Paul Kruger) who from personal experience had great respect for the military capabilities of the Zulus, stressed the need for caution, and in particular strongly advocated defensive tactics such as concentrating firepower from fortified strongpoints such as wagons drawn into a circle (laagers) as the Boers had done at The Battle of Blood River in 1838. However, the advice was disregarded and on 22 January 1879 the British lost more than 1,600 soldiers when a Zulu attack caught them in the open at the Battle of Isandlwana. Shortly after the main battle, a British outpost at Rorke's Drift on the Zululand-Natal border, withstood a second Zulu attack with great losses to the Zulus with the British fighting defensively in and around the stone buildings of a small trading store which had been hastily fortified. After reinforcements arrived, the British won a series of skirmishes and eventually conquered the Zulu capital at Ulundi on 4 July 1879.
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After checking the 6-pounders to make sure they were incapable of firing, the last unwounded troops prepared for the relief but no sign of a relief party or the battalion transport appeared and at the survivors of A and C companies withdrew with one 6-pounder, which was carried out on a damaged Chevrolet ; as both sides were out rescuing wounded and the party was not fired on. British artillery opened fire soon after the retirement began and bombarded accurately the area around Outpost Snipe for the first time, which led to German tanks moving from their laagers straight towards the outpost, at which, the battalion HQ with the remaining men retired for on foot and under fire. A relief force of the 5th Royal Sussex from the fresh 133rd Lorried Infantry Brigade (Brigadier A. W. Lee) had set out when the brigade began to take over from the 7th Motor Brigade and the British bombardment had been fired as the 5th Royal Sussex advanced. As the 2nd Rifle Brigade had retired they had passed unseen by the relieving battalion, which dug in before dawn about south-east of Outpost Snipe.
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